Wearing Gramma Jean’s lobster hat!
Year: 2015
Zonked. Finally.
We waited all day for them to fall asleep since they were up early (we had to wake them up) and of course, they fell asleep about an hour before we had to stop.
Burger King Katie
Unfortunately we’re not going home for a fun visit.
For about three weeks now, we’ve known that Tom’s mom’s cancer had spread to her liver…but she was dealing with it…and the prognosis, while not great, still gave us hope. Unfortunately, I just don’t think her heart was in it. She didn’t want to deal with chemo the last time around and was glad when she didn’t have to do it. So when she learned that was in her future this time…
Tom got a call from his brother last night that she had fallen and was taken to the ER. The doctors seemed to think that she would rebound once they re-hydrated her but Tom wanted to head up anyway so he left Saturday morning. Unfortunately, about four hours in to the drive he got the call that she had died. So he turned around to come get us and we will all leave for Michigan tomorrow morning.
Last T-ball game of the fall season!
I love that his tongue is out the entire time. Click photo for larger image:
He was in the pitcher position for an inning and he did REALLY well getting the ball and throwing it to first base! Click photo for larger image:
And this is what Katie is busy doing during the game…sitting on the sidewalk by the parking lot, co-opting someone’s mitt and running around, and playing with someone’s dog. 🙂
Stay tuned for the team photos! The fall season didn’t have official photos but the coaches wife took some!
Halloween starts tonight!
Owen’s school Fall Festival was tonight and we wanted some one-on-one time with him so asked friends to watch Katie. They were going to a Trunk or Treat event so she was excited! She was Rapunzel—with Pascal on her shoulder!
And then we had Harry Potter—SO stinkin’ cute!
With his fresh scar:
Getting his new shoes tied. I bought these shoes on clearance about four years ago and they’re finally the right size…and worked well with his costume!
Couldn’t you just eat him up?
We kept bouncing back and forth between the games in the gym and the music in the cafeteria. He didn’t want to dance but loved playing with the hula hoops! He was very shy because he didn’t know many of the kids.
And you’ll notice he’s missing the glasses. Yeah. He decided about 15 minutes in that he didn’t want to wear them. Or carry his broom. Kids. :/
Back to games!
And then since it was crazy crowded and he was pretty much done, we suggested frozen yogurt—and he wanted to leave immediately. 🙂
Katie actually got home later than us! They said she qas very well-behaved and had a BLAST! And she came home with a TON of candy!
The vampire teeth were the favorite thing.
And, lastly, pics from Katie’s night. Her friend Ainsley is Tinkerbell.
Why are girls such drama queens?
I’ve already gotten more drama from Katie at age 3 than I’ve gotten over Owen’s whole life.
I get “I hate you” and “I’m mad at you” on a loop most every day. Just now I got both because I told her not to eat such a big bite (she was literally shoving a sandwich in her mouth and couldn’t even chew her mouth was so full).
Or maybe I told her to try to go potty and she didn’t want to.
Or maybe I told her to step smashing a tomato on the counter.
Or maybe I sad we couldn’t go to the park now but we could after lunch.
It’s exhausting.
Katie as big sister
She loves our friends’ baby and likes playing with him. We were at the park and Cheyenne had to take Cayenne to the potty so we watched Hami…and Katie kept him occupied so he would t cry. 🙂
Katie’s first text!
So I look over and Katie had the Messages app open on their iPad and she was enjoying looking at and touching all the emojis.
I heard stuff like “Cupcake…heart…pumpkin…flower giggle giggle cat…dog…bunny!”
I couldn’t figure out how she managed to find and open that app since I’ve buried it inside a folder. Then I realized that Tom had texted me and I obviously have the settings configured badly so that my texts appear on their iPad as well…so when he texted me, it popped up on the screen while she was playing her game, she touched it, and it opened the app. Of course, it was all her own curiosity that figured out how to then open the keyboard and emoji screens. 🙂
Anyway, I just sat and watched her…and then watched as she managed to hit send. 🙂
I love this face.
He was just so cute when getting ready for bed I had to take a picture.
Surprise! Katie cat nap!
So she was watching a show on the couch and I was doing my own thing…when I looked over and saw this:
I had to get a closer look at the cuteness.
And then an hour or so in, this happened:
Fortunately…she slept through me watching TV, the phone ringing, Owen coming home, and Maggie jumping up next to her.
Unfortunately…once she did wake up shortly after daddy got home, she was a hot mess for about an hour and spent almost the entire time cuddled on Tom’s lap whining and whimpering.
Katie and the shovel
So we sold our deck box this past week so all of the stuff that had been in it was just sitting outside. Well…Katie saw the stuff out there and took it upon herself to go get it and play with it. This is where I found her when she wasn’t inside:
And then after I made her come inside (and let her bring he shovel because it wasn’t too dirty), I looked up to see this:
And then post-shoveling:
Owen’s classroom tour
I had to drop off the table signs for the fall festival and a bag of odds and ends containers to the STEAM class…so just took Owen to school. Since we had extra time before school actually started, I had him show me around his classroom. I learned more about his days in that 15 minutes than I have all year. 🙂
Hallway art:
Color: Blue
Food: Pizza
Animal: Cat
Book: Stop the Bot
- I will look for [I can’t tell and he couldn’t remember]
- I will look for ink for writing
- I will build a house for living
- I will discover Spain
- I will discover America
- I will find fresh water
- I will find gold and food
I joked with him, asking if that was really his handwriting because it was SO much better than what I get from him at home. 🙂
In his classroom:
I had him walk me through what happens when he comes in every morning.
First, the coat gets stuffed in the box (behind his knees), the lunch box goes across the room to the big lunch bin (the teacher carries it down at lunchtime because they go straight from recess to lunch), the Book Baggie goes in a specific numbered basket (each kid has their own number), and the homework folder goes in a bin.
Some of the book bins:
Owen’s hopes and dreams: to learn to write. 🙂
Some of their daily schedule:
Work centers—he had to point to each column and read all the names and activities:
This picture was sitting on the teacher’s desk and he pointed it out saying “Look! I’m wearing my Minecraft shirt!” Not what the picture was for or when it was taken, LOL. I asked and he said “just because.” I’m guessing maybe it was the first say of school because I know that’s what he wore that day. (The teacher wasn’t in the room so I couldn’t ask her.)
Then he told me about a bunch of other stuff in his room…poetry center where you grab a sheet from the basket and read it, how when they read to self they grab a book and a pillow and can sit “anywhere in this section,” etc. He was so proud and so full of information! I told him THAT’S the stuff we wanted to know when we asked him about his day. 🙂
Lastly, when his teacher came back, I spoke with her separately for a few minutes to update her on his GI issues. We told her he had a change of clothes in his bag and we just recently put his underwear in a separate ziploc bag in case he had to change them during class and didn’t want to be obvious about it. We also let her know that it’s okay to tell him to go change if she notices anything, and maybe she can take special care to let him deal with it after everyone has left for recess or lunch or whatever so that the other kids don’t know. She was very nice about everything.
This is about as close as I get to Pinteresty things.
I volunteered to do the posterboard table signs for Owen’s school’s Fall Festival this coming Friday (these are for tables with games and activities). I may have gone a tiny bit overboard (EVERYTHING was designed and printed then cut and glued!), but it felt great to do something creative for once!
Sunday walk with my protector.
It was COLD this morning—in the high 40s, I think—when we set out. We were in multi-layers, Owen had gloves, and we both had our hoods up. 🙂
Today’s weapon was a lightsaber. 🙂
As we were walking along, I was getting the usual commentary about weapons and which bad guys are in the forest and why the minotaurs are no longer there…and then suddenly he stops, turns around, and says “Shhh! We’re in skeleton forest!”
I love this boy. :heart:
The results of hard core week?
Holy shit.
A loss of 7.2# and I’m just past 75# lost overall.
Wow.
And I’m wearing Tom’s old XL jogging pants. My matching ones were donated in the last go-round and he was going to give his away but I snagged them! They were a bit tight, but they’re perfect now! 🙂
Picking dresses…
Well, I was able to get into the old bridesmaid dress and it wouldn’t need altering…but I just love the red dress so much (and it looks more like a ball gown) so now I have a few weeks to get it altered.
Last of the basil…
We had frost and freeze warnings so I picked ALL of the remaining basil—which ended up to be about eight cups! I made two double batches of pesto for the freezer…then wondered what the hell to do with the rest of it!
I searched my recipes in Evernote…and ended up with Basil Salt! It’s just equal parts basil and kosher salt, ground and then dried in the oven.
The kitchen smelled wonderful!!!
Practice and game at-bats
Most of the videos I post I edit down so we only see Owen’s actual hit. But today I left in the whole thing—sometimes he whiffs it, but mostly he smacks it the first time!
Let’s get this game over so we can get home and watch Sparty!
I ran out of time at home before the t-ball game to set up the tripod to take our picture, so we grabbed an MSU-alum (a dad!) at the game. 🙂
I’m wearing Tom’s jersey…because mine is way too big! 🙂
Katie loves giving cuddles.
Playground and goose-feeding!
She loves hanging upside down…for about six seconds. She doesn’t do it alone, though—you can see me holding her legs.
This is what happened after the first handful of food was thrown:
Throwback Thursday—In Owen’s jogging suit
This is a 2T outfit—he was in it under 2 and she’s in it over 3! I’ve been meaning to put her in it for quite some time now and finally did it today; the pants are slightly too short but the jacket is almost too big.
Edited to add: Whoops! Those aren’t the right pants! Now I remember why I haven’t put her in that outfit before now… I couldn’t find the pants that go with that outfit!
Kidisms 17
Tom just came home early and threw Katie in the air a few times then put her down.
Katie: Do it again!
Tom: Daddy’s back hurts. I just had a major back cracking.
Katie: OHHH NOOOO!! Are you okay?
We asked Alexa to play some Christmas music. She started playing O Little Town of Bethlehem.
Katie: That’s not Christmas music. It’s not jingle jingle.
Katie was playing with my pill container.
Katie: Mama, when I want a pill can I have a pill?
Me: You don’t need any pills.
Katie: I KNOW THAT!
My phone alarm rang at 7:45 signaling Owen’s bedtime.
Me: Owen, it’s time for bed.
Owen: I don’t want to go to bed. I’m not tired. He wastes some time whining. I want to go to bed at 7:50.
Me: That’s four minutes.
Owen: Okay! Daaaad! I’m staying up late tonight! 7:50!
Tom: Laughs.
Whoopsie Daisy
So after the big boohoo I had this weekend about my .4 weight gain…I finally opened my spreadsheet today to input the info (I skipped it because I wasn’t ready to input hard proof of a gain) and…WHAT IS THIS? I lost .4 pounds?! That’s what you get for weighing more than once a week and you look at the wrong date it Fitbit to calculate your weekly loss.
So, it was still a sucky week and I still needed to get back on track, but at least I don’t have that small upward blip anymore! And it made me look back at previous weeks…and I had one other week where I only lost .2 so this wasn’t even my worst week. 🙂
Here’s my chart thus far on my Excel spreadsheet:
And with the same data at Naturally Slim:
I love it. 🙂
Ghoulish Princess
We happened upon Rapunzel, Snow White, and ghoul costumes at the thrift store Sunday. Today Katie put two of them together.
I don’t like being reminded thankyouverymuch.
I know there are creepy crawlies found in nature…I just don’t want to run across evidence of such things while I’m waking through nature.
/shudder
A day late…but it’s 70.
So my weigh-in day came yesterday and I didn’t lose anything. In fact, I gained weight. It was only .4 pounds, but that’s disheartening after consistently losing 2-4# a week for 20 weeks.
You may think that’s a bit of craziness after gaining less than half a pound…but gaining is not an option.
Oh yes, there will be times I gain weight during the rest of my life (think a vacation or special event), but the program has ways to deal with it: When you catch it immediately, you go hard core and within a few days, the “fluff” weight should fall right off. If you let it go and let the .4 turn into 1.4 turn into 3.2 turn into 5.6 then you have a problem and it takes more work to drop the extra pounds.
Sooo…I knew I hadn’t been following the principles as closely as I should have been for still being in weight loss mode (vs maintenance) and it was my own fault. So, true to my word—I said as soon as I stopped losing I was going back to the hard core principles—I did.
I went on a double walk (I did our 2-mile hiking trail instead of my usual 1-mile treadmill), drank my H2OJ religiously, skipped lunch because I wasn’t hungry, then ate my small dinner S…L…O…W…L…Y (and when I say small dinner, I mean 1/4 of a grilled hamburger, two bites of avocado, and about four chips—and I honestly wasn’t even hungry but you should eat at least once a day).
And this morning I had lost 1.6—which officially dropped me into the 23X category (my next goal!) and upped my overall loss to 70#!
That said, it annoys me to no end that I have that tiny upward blip on my weight loss line. I keep vacillating on just switching my Sunday weight to today’s weight but then I don’t. 🙂
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this week will be a banner weight loss week to keep up my average 3.3# loss per week.
Katie’s swim lesson and play time
My protector!
Protecting me from zombies, minotaurs, and poop-ball-throwing purple dragons. 🙂
