Four!

Wyatt's Birthday Click pic to see more

It was fun.

My nephew Chase was the best dressed superhero, but he dashed off before I could get a picture which is unusual because you know I'm a picture freak. Tony and the kids gave me that digital camera for Mothers Day 2005 and the counter is up to 4661!

In case you're wondering about the toilet paper picture...we played a very silly game called "tie up the bad guy" with the Dads as bad guys. Yes, it was dorky, but the kids had a blast!

He's really four, now I'm going to use the biggest parental cliche there is--they grow up so fast.

I figured out when Eva was born that I would always have the right to tell him that he was my best and favorite BOY in the whole world. He is such an amazing kid. Some of his usual questions...

"I'm big now, right Mom?"

"I'm the fastest boy in the world, right Mom?" {Always followed by a demonstration}

"I'm the best boy in the world, right Mom?"

My answer always--"Yes Wyatt, YOU ARE!"

Paint & Party Planning

Well, it's done. The living room is painted, save for that mini angled wall that edges into the hallway. I am very happy with the way it looks; it feels much more warm and comfortable now. It turned out really good, I just have to do some touch up where my color meets the ceiling (darn that wall texture). The hallway is next on my list so that we can put baseboards back on the walls.

Our theme for Wyatt's party is Superheroes. He is totally excited. We'll have a bouncer and I have invited the guests to dress as their favorite superhero. I was pushed for time (what else is new) and instead of the traditional party invite by mail, and I did the invitations online with Evite. What a hoot. Because of the theme, everyone who has responded is using superhero secret mission lingo with their RSVP's. I love it, I am laughing at every one! I'm going to print it up when it's all over and save it along with the invite.

Tony has a REALLY big family and we almost always do the big backyard party. Our four kids all have sunny weather birthdays, oh great...now that I have said that it will surely rain! As far as the party goes, I am NOT the mom who is always perfectly prepared for these things, but I have a few things planned and it always works out fine. Some of the themes I have attempted in the past:

• Wiggles
• Princesses
• Cowboy-with real live horses walking kids up and down our street
• Thomas the train
• Mickey & Minnie
• Cats
• Luau
• Sesame Street x2
• Elmo
• Butterflies

Wow, my oldest is only 8 and it was hard remembering them for a list! I had to go through the mental pictures to do it and I may have forgotten a few. It seems like a lot of work and a lot of clean up, but it's always worth it. Tony and I do a post mortem on the event as we are cleaning up and we always come out glad that we put in the effort.

It makes for really great memories.

Wyatt vs. Bathtub Faucet...

Bathtub faucet won. I took these pictures the morning after. My poor little guy. Friday night
around 7:30, after the bath with no water left in the tub, my little guy jumped right into that faucet. It bled a lot and he was just terrified. He had blood on his hands and he would look at it and wail. Right away we realized that it was bad enough to get ourselves over to the ER. It was almost an inch long, pretty deep and wide open. We tried urgent care but they gave us a 2 a.m. appointment 25 minutes from home. Tony took him to the close by ER instead where he was treated promptly at 1:40 a.m.

He ended up with skin glue and only because he was squirming so much he also got taped up. Thank God for that skin glue. What an innovation, I was worried about stitches and scarring on his face, just the thought him getting stitches in the middle of the night...ouch. No idea know what lasting effect he will have as far as a scar goes but I guess we'll see.

Tony said Wyatt fell asleep around 10:30 while they were waiting to be seen. I waited up 'til midnight, then got up to see when they got home at 2. Wyatt had already forgotten about the whole thing by that time and has barely mentioned it since. That's my boy.

TV

Growing up and much of my adult life I was always a TV person. With 4 kids and an anti-TV kind of a husband, I am no longer a TV person. Now it's merely a guilty pleasure. Seven years ago my cable bill was $8 a month and when our visitors would look for other channels I would tell them "I have the $8 cable, I only have 13 channels...seriously. "

I am not ashamed to tell you that I do watch Grey's Anatomy, although last nights episode was definitely thumbs down. It's so nice to have the kids in bed and be able to watch it. If I ask him, Tony will actually watch it with me...and I think he secretly likes it too. He does like to watch movies, but realistically how often does that happen? A good guess would be... um, never. PBS rules in our house, but most of the time you'll find us watching an old Wiggles video or something Disney.

Anyway, I've also been a Survivor fan since the first episode but last season I missed more than half of them and this one is much the same. The only other show that I actually look for is The Office, that show is unbelievably funny. If you have ever worked in an office, you so get it.

By the way, my $8 cable is now my $17 cable and I still only have 13 channels.

My Brownie Girl and Updates.

Last night Emily and a few other girls from her troop performed a formal flag ceremony for the city council meeting. It's Girl Scout week and the GS organization is celebrating it's 95th anniversary. Tony took her and I watched it live on TV. The girls each received a pin from the mayor with the city's logo. How cool is that?

Today I am painting the other wall in the living room that I mentioned before, it's a lot harder then the first one I painted! We finally layed the last piece of floor on Sunday, we still have all of the baseboards and the trim pieces for the floor left to do. Not to mention painting almost the whole house. Sigh. I am up for it though, keeping good spirits in this busy time.

One very good note, Sarah is doing really good this week. Her mouth is almost healed and her eyes are much less red than they have been for months. Her hair is about the same and she is also calmer than she has been, surely it's because she is not so bothered by the inflammation. We also have that appointment with the dermatologist in Oakland next week. Keep her in your prayers.

We're all lovin' this weather!

Spring!

I love spring. The first sign around here that it's soon to arrive are the almond blossoms. They begin on every edge of town and they seem endless...orchards everywhere. They're this lovely powdery pink and they're beautiful. They're hopeful and promising. Mmmmm, can't wait for spring.

Snow Weekend!

Our third annual snow trip with our dear friends Victor and Nena was both great fun and completely exhausting! It was our second year staying in the cabin. Our friends have a four year old daughter who is 99% of the time pure angel. As for our four rowdy, sometimes (or more times) whiny little kiddos, well it's almost hard for me to understand why they would put themselves through an entire weekend with us! They must love us as much as we love them!

We drove up to the cabin Friday afternoon, it wasn't snowing so it was a smooth drive and it took us under 2 hours. The area is near Pinecrest lake and the snow was beautiful and fresh. We let the kids, and the husbands, play in the snow for a few hours and then had dinner. We fed the kids first and sat down together the four of us adults. Then maybe after ten minutes of grown-up talk we cleaned up and got ready for bed. I lost my voice somewhere between Friday and Saturday and couldn't even yell at the kids to quiet down, so I just went with it. They went to sleep late the first night. We wore them out on Saturday so they didn't have that option our second night in the cabin!

We took them to the lake to play in the snow, the shoreline was off in the distance. It was so deep, in one spot I sank down to my hip. It's a wonder we didn't loose a kid since four of the five of them aren't even as tall as my hip. They had a blast trying to make snowmen and throwing snow. It was mostly us all against Victor...he got pretty wet! I left my camera in the cabin so I don't have any pictures of that area, it was so beautiful and it was warm and sunny too.

Later that day we went to a nearby hill to sled. When I said we wore the kids out this is what I meant. We let them drag their sleds up and slide them down as much as they could stand. I discovered that Wyatt is absolutely fearless which is beginning to scare me. I think the words "extreme sports someday" were mentioned way too many times that afternoon for this mother. Yikes! He's not even four yet!

The little ones were all fast asleep before 7. We had the best dinner that night. Tony and Victor grilled rib eye steaks. It was dreamy. We actually got to sit down and talk to our friends, and eat, and laugh, and drink wine. For a few hours we actually felt like those other people we see in restaurants who get to talk to each other without having to block kids into the booths.

My voice is coming back now. Can't wait to do it again next year!

On My Blogging...

I think I'm a blogger in training. I don't have any blog experience, I've only read about six different blogs in my whole life. What I've done so far is mostly copy people I find interesting--see the blogs I read. Anyway, if you have any advice for me, bring it. What I want to say today is that I hear funny things all the time and if I don't write them down I forget. Do most people do that? This is what I heard today.

"we couldn't cut a break if someone handed us the break and a knife." (Good one)

...and me to my son:

"shame on you Wyatt"

my wonderful little nearly four year old son to me:

"there's no shame on me."

He's right.