Kenna on the Mend

Kenna is officially on the mend. We started antibiotics yesterday and she's much better this morning. Our trip to Target was a nightmare. I had two kids running away from me up and down the aisles and a sick one clinging to me. It was Laney's turn to be a troublemaker on that trip. On the up side, they have all been much better about playing together and sharing lately. We haven't had a major biting incident in a while. This may be because K has been to sick to be feisty. I'm not sure.
I'm heading out tomorrow for Idaho. Charles comes home tonight. I think we're going to have tag team parenting for the next week or so. Once I get back, we'll really need to start rockin' and rollin' on the preparation to go to Idaho at the end of the month.
Time to get my kiddos dressed and head to dance class. No swimming today. I think we still need to arrange to finish Kenna's lessons and do another couple days with the G-man. I wish my camera took little videos too. It's pretty cool to see them swim.

Mondays

What a Monday. Charles left at 4ish this morning. Kenna woke up screaming at 5. She and I "slept" in my bed for a few hours. She's had a fever for about 4 days. We were supposed to do their clothed swim tests today and since K had a fever she had to skip it. Griffin still won't roll. Little bugger. We all went to Costco after swimming and had lunch afterwards. Griffin has been feeling his two-ness coming on lately, so he was cute and sweet until he wasn't. He stuffed his mouth with pizza and chewed it in to a glutinous mass then drank some pink lemonade to make a slurry and started spitting it out. I was not amused. I took away his drink. So he spit everything in his mouth all over me. So I took away the pizza and he had a massive hissy hissy fit in the middle of the Costco cafeteria wherein he tried to fish his pizza plate out of the garbage can and snagged a finger and a lady came and freed him. I carried him bodily to the car since he refused to walk. He fought getting in to the car seat and screamed for the first 10 minutes of the trip home. Then he passed out. They all took a nice long nap, but when I got the twins up Kenna was burning up. I took her temp and my thermometer read 104. So I freaked out. Then we all went to the dr in a frenzy and Kenna of course was about 100 by then. They hooked this weird bag to her to catch her pee. Their initial testing indicated that there might be a urinary tract infection but they are sending the specimin out to the lab tomorrow. So we may or may not make a trip to the pharmacy tomorrow. I'm going to go have a glass of wine now.

Picts of the House

I think I'm going to need to give the Idaho house a name so that we can refer to it easily. Any ideas? I received pictures courtesy of Michelle (as neighborhood stalker I hear).

Isn't the tree pretty? Sadly, we'll probably never live there while it is in bloom, but others can enjoy it. I hadn't seen detailed photos of the front yard (or really anything else) yet, so these were sort of a suprise. Not sure I'm completely on board with the green trim detail on the house.

Ok. I need to put the camera battery in and take some pictures of the kids. They've made a nest of my couch cushions and are playing with a singing letter thing. So cute. I love it when they are sweet and play nicely together. They aren't always the spawn of the devil. I've been a slacker on the picture taking for a while now. Time to get back in gear.

Swimmin' and Stuff

We're in week three of swim lessons and I'm getting a little tired of it. I'd hoped to complete the refresher in two weeks but Griffin won't do his roll. It's cute to watch them though. The twins started out with the attitude that we were definitely trying to kill them and now they take a running jump into Pam's arms. They also tell her that they want to go swim to the bar a lot. I got in and swam with all of them last week and it was fun. I'm not completely sure how I'll manage to swim with the twins though. Laney did her swim test fully clothed last week and I went all out this time (I didn't want to bother with wet shoes and the like last year). She wore jeans, long sleeves and heavy tennis shoes. It was hard work but she did it. Over the weekend we were working in the yard and in and out of the house. I left the kids inside, went outside quickly, came back in and noticed Kenna was missing. I found her outside by the pool! She must have slipped out behind me when I went back inside. I had that little heart attack moment mom's get but then I was really glad that we've invested in the lessons. Hopefully the pool will heat up and we'll be able to swim in it before we go to Idaho. I'm determined that next year we'll invest in a pool heater. If we don't, we'll never swim in the pool since we'll be gone over the summer.
Charles went to school with Laney yesterday to do their Donuts with Dad day. Sounds like he had fun. Oddly Laney didn't seem to have a lot to say about it. Then again, she never really has much to say about school. I try to get her to tell me about it, but nope.
I met with a landscaper again today to get a bid to remove our rocks from the back yard. We're replacing it all with rock that matches the front. It was a little awkward since he didn't speak English. I felt sort of bad that I didn't know Spanish.

Home Sweet Homes

We had our offer accepted on a completely different house. Wednesday I sent my parents out to see a house about 4 blocks from their house. It's a little rancher with a big yard, a separate building for an office and even a hot tub (that leaks). Our offer was a go by Friday afternoon. So now I'm buying a house and I'm sort of freaked out by it all. You know how you have ideas and then the reality is sort of scary? I hope this whole idea of spending summers in Idaho works out...Yeah. But anyway, we're excited about it. I'm looking forward to seeing it! Yes, I bought a house I haven't seen. I'm making plans to go up to Idaho for the inspection.
The kids are doing fine. We're spending lots of time in the backyard playing in the dirt piles and generally hanging out. The weather has been beautiful. It's really too bad that I'm so utterly miserable with allergies. I have to go do the shots this fall I think. I don't want to waste another gorgeous spring. All the kids are finishing up their refresher swim lessons so we'll be able to swim this summer. I'm really wishing that our pool is heated. Maybe next year.
The big news of the day is that Kenna has joined the potty crowd. She went on the potty twice this morning. Due to taking off her diaper and running naked through the house.
Laney is swearing lately and part of me wants to laugh, part of me is horrified. Especially because I know exactly where each little phrase originates and I can't blame her father for all of them. Griffin is going to be 2 soon and you can certainly tell. He's been throwing the occasional hissy fit. Most of the time he's a sweet bean though.

I hate buying houses

I'm liking the paint...and you can see it so well now that the house is naked and treeless. I'm feeling peevish this afternoon because, as somewhat suspected, the realtor selling the house we want to buy was ignoring us as long as possible so that he could fish for additional offers. I'm not inclined to change our offer and I now have a number at the bank so that I can call and complain about him. What a jerk. So who knows if we will end up with this house or not. The good part is that I'm not emotionally tied to the house, so it's still just a transaction to me. The downside is that we're getting closer to summer and I'd like to have things resolved.

Home Improvement?

We are experiencing a whirlwind of spending activity. Somehow I managed to schedule a house painting, a landscaping tree removal and pruning, and a patio removal all into the same week. We removed the enormous tree in front of our house and I'm not sure that it was the best idea. It's so bare and bright out there now. Sadness. However, I will not get a call in August that monsoon has caused our enormous mesquite to crash over into our house. And I will not be picking up the 7 thousand pods it drops in August (by hand because you can't rake or blow them effectively). So there you go. So long shade tree. On the other hand, removing the tree means that you can see the house now and it will have a brand new spankin' paint job by the end of the week. We're living inside the masked window bubble right now and I hear them spraying, but have no idea how it looks. And I'm afraid to open a door and get sprayed. So a big suprise waits at the end of the day.
We also put in an offer on a house in Idaho this week and that has added to the chaos. It's a little strange to be buying a house that I've never seen, but hopefully all will go well.
We had a really nice Easter. Went to church with Olive and Don at St. Pius across town, then we had everyone over for dinner at our house. The lamb was good, but a little too done for my taste. The coconut cake was AWESOME. A nice time was had by all.

Bunny Butt Cupcakes

Yes, that's right. Bunny butts. I made cupcakes with a little white icing in the center and then piped green grass around it, then I placed mini marshmallows covered in nonpareils and flattened marshmallows with pieces of cut jelly beans on them for feet. So the overall effect is the business end of the bunny going down the bunny hole in the grass. My camera battery is done and the cupcakes are history, so visualize it in your head.
We had a very successful play date at the park today. Hunted easter eggs and ate treats, played in the sand, etc. It was particularly fun because we had three dads in attendance today. Eric had the day off (weird. who gets good friday anymore?), Curtis is home while Earlee takes care of their new baby and Tony is staying at home while Talia is in school until he goes back to Iraq. Because he is a "military security contractor" or some bs title when he's working. We know it as "mercenary". He guards people and convoys in Iraq. So basically, he's a stay at home dad and then he goes to work and shoots people. Which seems sort of funny (except for the shooting people part). Kids had a blast and I ran in to a nanny who we've met various places.
Audrey is super super nice and the kids she watches are really cute--just a bit younger than mine. We've met casually several times. She thinks my name is Lisa. When I realized that is what she thought, she'd called me Lisa a couple of times and then I felt bad about correcting her. So there you are. I have her email address, so I'm thinking of sending her an email to invite her to a playdate and hoping she'll figure out the name thing without my pointing it out. I just feel weird about it. I just personally have a major nerosis about names and am always afraid I'm going to get it wrong (because I do. All the time. I have a really really hard time remembering people and names). I hate to tell others that they are. My own personal brand of crazy.
Two posts. One day. April is a new month.

Where did March Go?

So I seem to have completely skipped March blogging. What can I say? We spent the first two weeks of March in Idaho for Grandma's funeral. It was great to see Amanda and her family and Josh, even though it was a sad way to do it. The night of Grandma's funeral we all really had a party and there were a lot of puking men the next day. Which makes you wonder, doesn't it? Either the girls were more moderate in their consumption (hello motherhood) or we just hold our drink better (hello motherhood ha ha). While in Idaho we started our house search in earnest and missed out on two great potentials. I was all set to buy one and was waiting for Charles to get back from Colorado to show it to him and they accepted an offer. We're looking in the hottest part of the market I guess--homes that are affordable to first time buyers. Right now we're waiting to hear about a how that went into foreclosure on Mom's street. It would be great, but only if we can get it for our price range. It's large and has a big lot but otherwise doesn't have a tremendous amount to recommend it. It's got potential. Crossing fingers.
Back in Tucson, I've been working on refinancing our house, getting financing for a second house, getting our house painted, hiring landscapers to prune and remove trees, going to the rheumatologist, and our general life living stuff like school and playgroups. We're going to cook Easter dinner this weekend so I have lots to do there. I also made bunny butt cupcakes last night for playgroup and I'll post about them tomorrow. I think my camera needs to be charged. I should go do that now so that I'm ready for playgroup picts. My kids are fiends for the egg hunt.