Happy Birthday, Papa!

This weekend was my dad's birthday.  He would have turned 65.  So young!  On his actual birthday we went to the cemetery, our first time back to it since his funeral in January.  I was a little bit disappointed that his headstone wasn't done yet; there was just a little temporary plaque marking his grave.  The flowers were from my sister, who had visited his grave earlier in the day.

The day after his birthday my whole family got together to celebrate and eat some of his favorite dessert, spice cake with penuche frosting.  I hope we make it a tradition.


I haven't written much at all about my dad's passing on this blog, I guess because it is so personal to me and this is a public blog.  On one hand, we feel so lucky to have had him for as long as we did with his terminal illness and I'm grateful his death wasn't sudden, but on the other hand I feel like my family and I are getting cheated out of 20+ more years we should have had with him.  Jared will have some permanent memories of him, but I know Maggie's memories of him will fade within a few years.  That is so sad to me.  Although the last few weeks of his life were especially awful for him, my siblings and I had the chance to help give round-the-clock care for him, something that hospice couldn't do, especially over the Christmas break.  It wasn't the kind of Christmas break I had anticipated having, but I was able to have some good one-on-one conversations with him.  That time with him was a gift.

Here are a couple videos of my dad.  The first was with Jared almost 3 years ago.  My dad is telling him one of his famous "mousie stories."  The second video is my dad getting Maggie to giggle when she was still a baby.

St. Patrick's Day

Green shamrock cake I made

Sometimes I "accidentally" start traditions in our family.  Last year, a leprechaun came and left some gold treats on St. Patrick's Day, which is something I completely forgot about until Jared mentioned it a couple weeks ago.  He was hoping to catch a leprechaun this year, and so he collected a whole bunch of green toys and things and left them in our living room to lure him in (Jared's idea).  He said, "Mommy, the only way to know if leprechauns are real is to see if HE hides some gold, and not you and daddy, ok?"  Well, apparently leprechauns are real because he left some gold Reese's peanut butter cups in Jared's traps and also some green juice that we drank for breakfast.  Jared was sad that we didn't actually catch the leprechaun and is already hoping to do so next year.

Trail of "gold" candy leading into the doll house, where one of Jared's traps was.  He knew the doll house would be the perfect size for a leprechaun.

Jared already owned this bear (thanks Shawna!), but he is sitting on the green juice the leprechaun left

I went "all out" (ha ha) and made green blueberry  and choc. chip pancakes, green eggs, and  (not green) bacon for dinner.  We also drank a green smoothie (green grapes, banana, kiwi, lime yogurt, spinach, etc.) that Jared really loves.  

Hope your day was as great as ours!

Zoo Time!

There is a spider monkey right at the window, but of course you can't really see it

At then end of February I bundled up my kids and took to the free day at the zoo.  Grandma Stout came, as well as Aunt Rachel (who somehow weaseled her way out of school) and Aunt Mimi, who was visiting from NY for Laura's wedding the previous week. We had such a fun time!  We got there right when it opened (in order to make it back in time for Jared's pm kindergarten) and enjoyed pretty nice weather (for February) and hardly any crowds. It did get quite a bit busier just as we were leaving.

In front of the lemurs

Jared and Aunt Mimi in front of the bald eagles

We really enjoyed the new Rocky Shores Exhibit, with grizzly bears, a polar bear, sea lions, otters, and seals.  Jared and Maggie loved seeing the animals swim under the water.

Maggie still likes to talk about how stinky the giraffes were

Jared by a huge tortoise in the stinky reptile house

Maggie in front of a snake.  We did get to watch a snake eat a dead rat (it was not this snake), which Jared was pretty excited about.

Jared and Mimi in front of the elephants

We can't wait until the next free day at the zoo and are hoping for good weather again!

Kissing (and Dancing) Cousins

Several weeks ago Alan's sister Laura got married.  It was such an awesome day with family!  I remembered my camera that day, but my batteries were dead so, unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures.

The following pictures were stolen from my two sis-in-laws Courtney and Alana.

I was resting in a chair during the reception and looked over to see Jared dancing with Alan's cousin's little girl (Jared's second cousin?) whom he had never met.  I don't know who prompted this dancing, but I think it is so cute how they were slow dancing with the correct positioning!

And here is Maggie kissing her cute cousin, who is just 5 or 6 weeks younger than she is.  I'm sure this was prompted.  Ha ha!

Tums

We go through a lot of Tums in our house. I take them because it seems like I have chronic heartburn (thanks to my unborn baby), and Jared takes one daily to supposedly help his chronic barfing problem.

Well, today he tried a new flavor and said, "Yuck! That tastes like the smell of a pit toilet!"

I laughed pretty hard at that, although personally I think there are much grosser things than Tums out there. He's a funny kid.

So Proud of my Kids

First, an accomplishment of Jared's:

The past three weeks Jared's Elementary School was having a reading competition to see if all the students in the school could read at least 555,555 minutes combined or something like that.  So Jared came home with little reading logs each week where we would write down how many minutes each day he read.  Well, a couple days ago I found out that he read the most minutes out of anyone in his class, so he was invited to a special lunch at Chick-Fil-A with the principal and other "top readers" from each grade!  (He didn't really read an extraordinary amount, I thought.  It was usually just 25-30 minutes a day, but sometimes more.)  Jared was soooooooooooooo excited when he brought home the invitation.  He got to go to school earlier than usual today (because he has pm kindergarten), then he got to ride a bus for the first time, and the school bought each child not only a kid's meal but also a hot fudge sundae!  He was in heaven and knew it was special.  He was also a good sport because I talked with him about not mentioning this special lunch to other kids in his class so they wouldn't feel bad that they didn't get to go.  Today when he was giving me the report he told me that he didn't tell anyone about his special field trip except his teacher, who specifically asked him how it went.  

(By the way, a quick brag on Jared: Last week was parent/teacher conferences and his teacher told me that when they tested Jared's reading skills he was at a "level 10" and that they like the kindergartners to be at a "level 3" by the end of the school year. He is one smart cookie!  But, we do have our own challenges at school, lest you think everything is easygoing.  Jared still has a long way to go with writing skills and also things like responding to authority. Jared likes to follow his own rules.  Ha ha.)

An accomplishment of Maggie's:

She is doing so well with potty training!  I like to just "rip off the bandaid" and take away diapers completely.   Today was day 7 of wearing underwear.  The first couple of days were pretty rough, but then she hasn't peed in her underwear at all since day 2 or pooped in her underwear since day 3!  Not a single accident! (OK, she wet the bed during her nap today, but I think it's because she took an extra long nap.  She is also still in a pull-up--"nighttime underwear"--at night. I think I'm a failure at nighttime potty training my kids.)  The best is that she initiates going potty herself; I don't have to ask her every 30 minutes to go like I feel like I had to do with Jared.  Sometimes she can go 2 hours or more before she tells me she needs to go.  The only place she has gone this past week was church, but I still don't feel ready to take her shopping with me or anything because sometimes she sounds pretty urgent.  Hopefully we'll be able to leave the house again soon.  

This is Maggie watching "Elmo's Potty Time" in our kitchen during the initial phase of potty training.  What an incredibly cheesy movie with cheesy songs, but both my kids have ADORED it, and I've even had a couple of neighbors borrow it from me to use with their kids.  Here is Maggie dancing to one of the songs.  

30 Weeks and Counting

I'm not one of those women that takes a week-by-week belly shot during my pregnancies, but here is at least one photo of me to prove to my  unborn child that I once was really pregnant with her.

I feel so HUGE already, although I can tell from this photo that I guess I don't look as big as I feel.