Memorial Day Activities

Maddox starts his morning with a caramel macchiato and some funnies.

                                                                                              Look what Garfield did, ha ha ha.

                                             Then Maddox had a nice long chat with Uncle Teo.  Actually Uncle Teo was on speaker phone and the moms had a nice ling chat.  But he laid on the bed the whole time with the phone to his ear and laughed and tried to contribute to the conversation.

Then we ran some errands around town and found a some great deals on plants at Lowe's for our front yard.  We have a a flower bed that is in front of the house that is full of bark but has no plants.  It used to have big pieces of driftwood or something.  What ever it was the people that lived here before like it I guess, but I hated it!  The front yard is already landscaped with rock so it needed something ALIVE, not more dead stuff.  So we found some cool shrubs that were a deal and could not pass them up.  Some are red with cute little flowers and some green ones with more cute little flowers.  And yesterday we put in some edging around our trees in the front and filled them in with the pile of bark chips that used to reside in our driveway.  I could not take that pile anymore.  Crazy that it sat in the driveway for 2 months and it took an hour to make the bed to put around the trees.  Another time that procrastination did not pay off. 

But I would like to thank Julie for putting in the shrubs.  Maddox and I took a nice long nap and I woke up to shrubs in the ground, a picked up house and dinner in progress.  She is so good to me!
Here is what we had for dinner. Pork chops on the grill seasoned with "mom's seasoning" (which is a special seasoning that Julie's mom makes that is freaking delicious on anything),  rice pilaf with mushrooms and strawberry salad.  It was very tasty!

                                                Very tasty chops.  On a side note, Baxter also thought they were delicious, or they at least they smelled delicious.  While I was in the living room and before the chops found a home in the fridge I heard the sound of Baxter's collar clinking in a curious way and a "plop" sound.  Yes, that naughty little pooch climbed on the table and grabbed a chop.  I yelled at her and she tried to escape what she thought was surly going to be a beating.  But alas, I don't beat my pets and so I merely yelled at here in the "mean voice" and threw her outside to think about what she had done.  I asked Julie what I should do with the chop.  Her answer, "give it to the dogs".  Um, no, I can't reward that kind of behavior.  So I put it in a baggie in the fridge - they can be rewarded tomorrow when Baxter forget how bad she was.  Poor Gucci, she had to suffer for Baxter's bad behavior.

Here is the salad.  It was fantastic!  Here is the recipe - we find most of our recipes online. Strawberry Salad .  We did some subbing due to lack of ingredients and of course my desire to not go to the store.  We were out of feta so we used mozzarella, we used pecans instead of almonds and I added a little red wine vinegar.  Oh and if you look really carefully you can see some lettuce from our garden.  There are a few spinach leaves from the garden too.  Oh wait lettuce looks like lettuce.  Trust me, some is from our garden.
If I have tome tomorrow I will put some pics of our outdoor handy work.
night

Photographic Evidence of the Portland Trip

Maddox and Audrey under the protection of the wagon roof.

Maddox can have fun in any weather!

Julie didn't read the sign that says don't feed the animals.

I found a new friend.

Julie was a poor planner and wore the wrong shoes for the rain.  Fortunately after a few hours of scrubbing her little piggies were back to normal color.

The kids getting drug through the sand to get to the water on the beach.

Does anyone else see a future in sports for this kid???

After Maddox fell in the water - and Mommy laughing at his expense.

                               Poor little guy, he was so distraught.

Riding on the carousel after the "swim in the ocean" incident.  He is obviously over his anguish and having a good time.  Notice the Mis(ter) America wave.

Maddox enjoying a VooDoo doughnut.

Maddox with evidence of a delicious doughnut all over his face.

Going in for kisses....

That's right son, girls have cooties.

Happy baby on Mommy's back.

Written on Monday - Posted on Friday

As usual life has been busy. I was in OK last week without Maddox and DAMN was that hard. I missed that little tyke. How crazy is it that as a mom you talk about how great it would be to get some alone time or have an adult vacation and then you get it and miss your kids like crazy when you get it. Not that I was vacation or anything but still, I had a mean case of the “have my cake and eat it too”s. My flight on Friday night got in at 11pm so Maddox was of course asleep. When I laid him down on the hotel bed he started to stir and whine so I gave him Mama kisses on the back of the neck like I do at bed time. I would like to think he knew they were from me and that was why he settled down immediately. Of course at 5am he realized I was there so he would have no part in going back to sleep and instead used me as an exhausted human jungle gym for the next 2 hours. Ah the comforts of home. (Really a hotel but as long as Maddox and Julie and around that is home enough for me.)

So I flew into Portland so we could meet Jeff, MiSuk and Audrey (18 months and Maddox’s betrothed) Yost on their family vacation and go do fun things. And fun things we did - rain and all! Saturday we went to the zoo. The kids had a great time, of course. They had a nice cush, covered wagon and snacks galore while we pulled them around in the sometimes pouring rain. Sunday we went out to Seaside and braved the beach. It was again, rainy and quite cold. But dang it, we were at the beach, we were going to have fun. So we let the kids run around a little and Maddox even took his shoes off and waded in the water. Clumsy little man that he is, tripped and fell and wound up with a face full of sand and dripping wet. We took off all the wet clothes we could and bundled him up like a cocoon in his stroller. He was happy again and we meandered through the shops of Seaside and even found a carousel (which was quote fast) for the kids to ride. They both had a great time and I was dizzy from trying to take pictures of that super fast (for a carousel) carousel.

The Yost’s will be leaving tomorrow morning and the house will be quiet (quiet for us is still a dull roar). Thanks for coming and spending some of your vacation with us. We love having guests and we had a great time with you.

Our next notable event is Maddox’s birthday party. His actual birthday is on May 29th but his party is on June 6th. I am so excited about it! It will be fun for adults and kids alike and everyone we have invited except 1 person has RSVP’d as attending. Woo-hoo!

Oh and another highlight of the weekend is that I got a new computer. A Mac Book Pro. All I can say is - I’m in love!

Oh, side note, I suck at getting pics and words together where I want them on a post so I’m going to try to post pics separately.

Survival

I know I have been a bad blogger as of late but boy o boy have we been busy.  As I time this I am MWC watching good ole Gary England warn the state of dangerous tornadic activity.  I don't miss going throught this.  Now that we have Maddox this danger is terrifying to me.  Weird bc when I was young I thought it was so exciting and was never scared.  So I am in OK and Maddox and Julie are in WA.  When I get back I will have been away from Maddox for 4 nights.  We have been apart for 2 nights so far in his life so I am missing him terribly!  Leaving him was so hard, I guess I'm getting soft in my old age.
So yesterday I got to sleep in with no interruptions for the first time in over 2 years.  It was FANTASTIC!  I slept till after 12pm.  I was at Jamie's house for this luxurious sleep.  When I got up I got a little breakfast, started some quinoa in the rice cooker and went to the garage to grab a tool I needed.  After I found what I needed in the garage I headed back inside.  Well, I tried to head inside.  The door was locked.  Oh, poo, this is not good.  "Don't panic, try another door." I went around to the front door- locked.  Back door - locked.  Ok, now I'm stressed, and I need to pee something fierce. Thank goodness I have such a severe attachment to my phone that I can't leave walk out of a room without it.  So I sent a text to Jamie and Tommy to see if there is a key somewhere.  Then I wait - no return texts.  I then call Julie and have a quick, "I'm effing locked out" freak out moment.  I calm down again and make my way to the back yard.  Fortunately she has a little wooded area so I peed.  I'm not proud of this but desperate times call for desperate measures.  I call Tommy, no answer.  I call Jamie's grandma to see if she knows where a key is, I get another no answer.  I assessed all the windows and searched for a key again or some sort of Macgruber tools that I could break in with.  Again nothing.  I did make sure I would not starve.  There was beer, wine and Gatorade in the garage fridge and MRE's, crackers and granola bars in the tornado shelter.  Phew, I would not die of hunger.  Because anyone that knows me knows that I eat every few hours.  The idea of no available food freaks me out.  I would LOSE big time on survivor for sure.  Now it was possible I would die from a lack of communication because my phone was only half charged.  I could not Facebook or listen to Pandora, aaaahhhhhhhh.  With Joey and Charlie (the Caves family doggies) by my side I went to relax in the hammock.  After what seemed like an eternity, Jamie called.  She said she would come home and save me and I told her not to since she was in her 2nd day of real estate school and needed to stay in class.  Of course being the wonderful friend she is she would have nothing of it and said she was coming to my rescue.  Plus it was a good excuse to get out of class for her and let's face it, I was scary looking.  She didn't want me running around bra-less and unshowered around her house - what would the neighbors think???  So when it was all said and done I think I was only locked out for like an hour and a half but geez, it was definitely more of an adventure than I wanted for the day.

This morning Julie called me and said she was the worst mom ever - which of course is not true but I was a little scared to hear what was to follow.  Here is what went down this morning.  Maddox woke up and wanted milk, as usual and she gave him some Cheerios as well.  He dropped them out of his bowl and they cleaned them up together.  Then she started putting them in his mouth for him and she missed with one and it wound up in his nose.  Oops.  She tried to get it out with her finger, that was a no go.  Maddox stuck his finger up there, obviously that made it worse.  So she found some tweezers and tried with that, Maddox did NOT like that and started protesting.  Her last attempt was going to be the Neti Pot but success hit before she was ready with it and he was able to blow it out!  Although I'm sure it would have eventually dissolved since it was just a Cheerio, which is far better than the green pepper I stuck in my nose as a youngster and the rock my brother stuck in his.  Way to carry on the family tradition Maddox.

So I have 2 more days in OK and then I will meet up with Julie, Maddox, Jeff, MiSuk and Audrey in Portland for a fun filled and exciting weekend.  Pics and details to follow.

oohh, and I just found out that my good buddy Bree just had baby McCoy just after 3pm.  He was 7 lb 9 oz and absolutely perfect!  I can't wait to get home and see him!  Congrats to the Gerkens and big bro Wyatt!

Time to go eat some beef salad (don't be jealous Julie).  We are at Aunt Malai's waiting out the storm.  If I have to deal with tornadoes, they are much more bearable with a big plate of homemade Thai food in front of my face.  Bon a petite.