Bag of Treasures

We were doing some more sorting and unpacking last week, or more accurately Jeff was doing more sorting and unpacking last weekend, and came across a bag of treasures.  He tossed me a bag of what he thought were princess dresses.  I opened it and was so excited to find a collection of important dresses of my early childhood.  My baptism blanket was in there, along with my First Communion dress.  I also found my baton twirling uniform and my favorite dress ever, one covered with ruffles and strawberries that we found at a garage sale.  I was so into that dress that I brought it to school to change into for my first grade pictures.  I remember my excitement changing clothes in the bathroom stall and coming out in my floor length dress.  I guess my Mom must have found it inappropriate for all day wearing, but OK for pictures.  Anyhow, it was fun to find this bag of treasures and remember when I wore them all...so many years ago.

The strawberry dress!

Iris saw my baton outfit and snatched it right up.  She was so excited to wear it around and twirl the skirt.  It's hard to believe I was ever tiny enough to wear it.  I remember my poor Mom making sure I didn't run off to play in the woods wearing it since she'd worked so hard to sew the sequins on and it can't be washed.  Love you Mom!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Jeff hit the big 3-8 today!  We had a nice relaxing day.  His parents came down so we all got to celebrate together.  The kids get so excited about birthdays now.  They sang Happy Birthday all day long.  Jeff joked he was going to hear it at least as many times as he is years old and I think we came close. 

Helping out!

Feel the love...

Guess who loves chocolate icing?!

Heartbroken

Bella got hit and killed by a car last night.  We are devastated.  Heartbroken.  Beyond sad.  We said our goodbyes and buried her in the backyard earlier today.  Now the even harder part starts.  Imagining I see her all over the house.  Imagining I hear her collar jangling.  Imagining I'm hearing her scratching at the back door.  We crawled into bed to try and rest while the kids napped, but it just wasn't happening.  We were recalling so many of our memories of her.  Seriously, she was the coolest, smartest, most loving cat.
A few of our fondest memories:
How she would follow us on our family walks.  People always commented that she was like a dog.
Her little nose nips, which of course were her kisses for us.
Her insane ability to jump places no cat should ever jump.
Her love of running through the snow, which I don't think is typical cat behavior.  
How she would chase Jeff's car down Brookhill Drive when he got home.
How she would sit in front of our neighbor Mary's windows and make her dogs inside go crazy.
How she was incredibly patient with the kids.  She took a beating the past few years as they were learning to play nicely with her.  Miles was getting so great at giving her love and attention, something I feel like I didn't do such a great job of these last few years.  Life is crazy, you know, and it's hard to find the time for everything, so unfortunately she got pushed away a lot.  I am feeling super guilty that I didn't take just a little more time to pet her or let her sit on my lap or let her sleep with Miles even if that meant he might wake in the night.  Now I wish I had just one more chance to give her some love, scratch her chin and let her know just how awesome a cat she was.
I hope it was quick and painless.  I hope it's a bold lesson to the kids to stay out of the road.  I hope from now on I can spare just a few extra seconds of time to show everyone around me...human and pet...just how much I love them.
The kids took it surprisingly well considering Jeff and I have pretty much been off the deep end since we found her.  They gave her a little pat on the back and said goodbye.  Before Miles went down for a nap he said,"I should have made a spaceship with bright lights on it that Bella could have used to cross the street.  Then no cars would have hit her."
We just laughed and cried as we picked a few of our favorite Bella pictures through the years.  We also realized just how much she was always there, always a part of our day to day happenings.  Sometimes she was very much front and center, sometimes she was on the fringe of the action, but she was always there.   

Rest in peace Bella.  I'm a beyond positive there will never again be a cat as cool as you in our life. We miss you little girl.

Sick day

You know it's bad when they start to cry at 9:30 PM, you comfort them and get them back to sleep, then repeat at 10:30, then 11:30, etc.  It was a rough night.  The doctor said my poor little man has a bad ear infection.  She said his ear drum looked ready to rupture, which explained his inability to sleep for more than 20 consecutive minutes.  Jeff dropped Iris at school so I could roll solo with Miles.  Taking two kids to the doctor alone is just setting yourself up for a really bad morning.  After we hit the pharmacy for some ear drops and antibiotics we had a great day.  We made pancakes, ran some errands, watched some good TV and took much needed lengthy naps.  Not too bad for a sick day.

The patient with his bubble gum flavored medicine. 

Spring is in the air

Spring is definitely on it's way!  I always love this time of year.  It's nice to be able to get outside and hit the playground and pull out the bikes and wonder what mystery plants will pop up in the yard.  Not that I don't enjoy playing in the snow and seeing the mountains covered in white, but I think everyone gets good energy when the next season rolls around. 

Iris has reached the scary phase where she is fearless but clueless.  She is eager to climb all the ladders and rock walls and slides, but is still figuring out exactly how.  It makes me proud and very nervous at the same time!

Blue skies, 60 degrees and lots of 4 year old energy!

The fruits of her successful climbing.

Posing with a soccer ball we borrowed from some fellow playgrounders.  She is very into throwing and kicking.  I think we might have more luck with her loving soccer than we did with Miles. 

The kids "helping" Jeff grout the tile he just put in last weekend.  I am so proud of him for figuring it out. It looks great and in the next week or two the walls should be done, vanity and toilet installed and we can check that big project off the list.  Thanks Virginia!

We were wandering Target last weekend looking for curtains for the bedrooms.  I admit I bribed the kids.  I told them if they stayed mellow in the cart for 20 minutes while I shopped they could pick a small toy.  I don't like them to think they get something each time we enter that store, but sometimes it's worth it.  While cruising the toy section we came across the games.  I saw Candy Land and had a serious flashback to when I was young.  I loved this game so much.  I added it to the cart, as well as Chutes and Ladders, another of my favorites as a kid.  We played it as soon as we got home and Miles was so excited.  I realized I should have game shopped a long time ago.  Next on the list...Operation!

Weekend fun

I got home from the gym Saturday morning to find the posse downstairs playing.  What were they playing?  See if you can guess...

  Angry Birds!  I was pretty impressed with the creativity.

And this girl...all attitude, all weekend long!  Not sure if she has teeth coming in or if she was overtired or what, but we saw a lot of this look.  She picked the afternoon attire.  We are officially moving into that phase where she has opinions about what she wants to wear and I figured, why not?

California

We had a really great weekend in California.  The weather was perfect.  I completely understand why people want to live there.  Blue skies and 70 degrees in February gets no complaints from me. 

Iris was ready for her day at the beach.  We had to make a stop at Ross for some sandals for her.  She was obsessed with this Dora pair we found and threw fits when it was time to take them off.  They aren't too adventure friendly, but what 4 year old girl cares about that when she's got pink sparkle flowers on her feet?!

Miles working on his castle.  He was brave and actually held the sand crabs he kept digging up.

Happy day!

Thanks Aunt Meg and cousin Ally for the super cute bathing suit.  I wish dimply thighs were still considered cute when you're 38.

On the run with his seaweed.  He would have stayed at the beach the entire weekend if he had his way.  

The most important part of the visit was spending some time with Jeff's Grandma Margaret. I hope she wasn't too overwhelmed by my little maniacs running wild in her room.  I think it's great that they get the chance to spend time with her. Jeff's aunt Deanne also came down to hang out for the weekend.  

Jeff's cousin Jen and her husband Eric came down too, so all the mini cousins got some hang out time.  Miles, CeCe, Will and Iris.

I found Disneyland a little overwhelming (costs, crowd, lines, where was Mickey and the gang??), but Miles had a blast.  We waited 45 minutes in line to see the beautiful (and freakishly fake looking) Rapunzel from the movie Tangled.  Miles loves that movie and spent the whole time in line telling us all the things he was going to say to her.  When he actually saw her he was speechless, truly speechless, just staring at her.  She tried hard to have a little conversation with him, but finally just ended with the photo op.  Miles is in love!

Miles' favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster.  You ride around for 5 minutes seeing how many bad guys you can blast.  When you get off the ride you have the option to purchase a picture they snapped while you were on the ride.  We were cheap and simply took a picture of the screen with our own camera.  I laughed so hard when I saw this.  Seriously...look how focused Jeff is!  And Miles' technique was to just hold the gun over his head the entire ride.  So much fun!

A trip out of state wouldn't be complete without scratching a few bingo lotto cards.  A girl can dream, right?!

A trip to California also wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Donut Hut, which is not the best when you are counting Weight Watchers points, but man, they are so good.  Miles walked in, sniffed the air and hollered,"Everyone, smell the air.  It's the most delicious air!"