Hallelujah! Holy Crap! Where's the Tylenol?

Saturday night Brian finished putting up the back splash in our kitchen! Hooray! I just wanted to show off a little of our hard work in transforming the heart of our home from this:














to this!




























Pretty amazing if I do say so myself. And of course I need to recognize all the family and friends without whom our kitchen would probably still be green and stuck in the 60's! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! We are so happy with our home and we couldn't have done it without you.

Calgon, Take Me Away!!!!

What is that saying about it never rains but it pours? That sums up our life right now. If you've been in touch with us in last two week you know that we are single-handedly supporting the medical profession. Finally, we've gone about 5 days with no one throwing up. Yea! So Thursday night we decided to turn our attention to finishing some of the stuff around the house, like unpacking the bathrooms and putting up the kitchen backsplash. So we went to the home improvement stores to get all the little bits and pieces we needed. When we got home I went downstairs to change the laundry and was greeted with water all over the floor. Yikes!! Was is the hot water heater, the washing machine? Nope, it was the main drain from our house out to the city line backing up into the house! Ah, the joys of being a homeowner, right? Well, two plumbers and too much money later we find that this was the mother of I-told-you-so's... I have been telling Brian for years that you cannot flush baby wipes. (Believe you me, he knows that now.) The plumber had to snake the drain 4 times to get them all out, he told me in 15 years he's never seen anyone have a bigger clog of baby wipes. And we've only lived here for a month! Then after he left, I spent the next 2 hours on my hands and knees scrubbing I-don't-even-want-to-know-what off every surface of my downstairs bathroom. Then wiping every thing down with bleach. I really need a little good luck to come my way for a change.

My Valentines!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I just wanted to show everyone what my sweet little boy got me for my birthday. He and his dad were out running errands yesterday, and when they passed the flowers he said, "Dad! We should get those for Mom, she would really like them." That's right, we are raising a romantic little heart-breaker. Let's hope for his future girl-friends and wife, he never changes.

Happy Valentine's Day

So this is how our Valentine's Day (and Brian's birthday) started, with Evie in the hospital at 4 in the morning. Wednesday both kids were doing well, Jake was feeling much better. We were going to go out to lunch the next day for Brian's birthday, so I put Evie's hair up in curlers and got her to bed early. Then about an hour later she woke up screaming, covered in vomit. And she continued to throw-up about every ten minutes for the next six hours. But fortunately once we got her in the e.r. they were able to give her something to calm down her stomache and she could keep down some pedialyte so we didn't have to go the route of an i.v. for her. So Brian and I spent all Valentine's Day taking turns sleeping and holding Evie. Jake went to my parents for the day and made me a really sweet card, and Brian got a bag of Andes mints for his birthday, and that is as much as we celebrated. We have opted for a do-over holiday in a week or two when everyone is well again. If that ever happens, Brian has it now and so does my dad. Word to the wise, stay far, far away from us right now....

no...No...NOOOO!

Evie's throwing up now. Here we go again....

Poor Kid!

This weekend has pretty much sucked. Poor Jake has been sick since Friday with a nasty viral bug that turned into gastroenteritis (for us laymen out there that means puking your guts up...) that ended up with us at the hospital Monday for some iv fluids. He was very brave when it took three tries to get the iv in his hand because he was so dehydrated. They gave him a teddy bear to cuddle after getting poked and stuck, which was very comforting. So he watched Pooh Bear while his body got a "big drink". He had to have some sugar through the iv also, then they ended up keeping him overnight because he wasn't tolerating food or drink by mouth. He perked up after a few hours on the iv and even managed some crackers and sprite around 10 p.m., which was his first food in almost three days. Poor kid, felt like he was starving to death. It is really hard to explain to a four year old why he can't have food when he is hungry. They let us come home in the morning after he managed to eat about half of his breakfast. And he was feeling better until this evening when he started to throw-up again. He wanted to go back to the hospital because he felt so bad, but he felt better when I promised to take as good of care of him as the nurses. I'm hoping he sleeps through the night, I haven't slept in my own bed since Thursday.

Update your nursery rhymes!

I just had to share this. Brian just walked in the door from work and we were sitting on the couch talking about our days, when Jake skipped in the room singing under his breath. He came up to me, put his face about 6 inches away from my face and sang, "Jack and Jill went up the hill to grab some bottles of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after." I guess that makes more sense to a child raised in the suburbs.

Hi! My name is Charles...

I know I disappeared there for awhile, we have been crazy busy these last two weeks! We moved the last Sat. in January (thank you, thank you, thank you!!! to all the family and friends who helped us fix up our house, pack and move, we couldn't have done it without you.) and then we went to Disneyland last week with all of Brian's family! I know the timing was crazy, but when your in-laws say, "We want to take you to Disneyland," you say, "I'll be there!" I will be putting a slide show on when I can find the camera with all the pictures in this chaos, but we had the best time. Evie stayed home with Mima Kim and Pa Dave, so it was some quaility time with Jake. He really loved it, hanging out with all his cousins all day and the excitement of being in Disneyland.
I hadn't spent so much one-on-one time with him in awhile, I had forgotten how funny his observations on everything around him are. One of my favorites was when we were taking a potty break, after a three minute argument about why he wasn't old enough to go by himself and why he had to come in the ladies room with me instead of me going into the men's room with him. The stalls had a sort of confetti pattern on them and Jake was looking at them with a very concerned look on his face. He turned to me and said, "Mom... I can see the germs on these walls!"
His cousin made up a joke while we were in A Bug's Land in Disney's California Adventure. What do bugs drive? Buggies! Jake thought that was very funny, because he kept telling it to me. Later that night as we were leaving he said, "Hey mom, I made up a joke too! What do frogs like to play?" I guessed, "Hopscotch?" "Nope, poker!" Well, I guess if dogs can play poker frogs can too.
When we at the airport to come home, out of the blue Jake turned to me and said, "Mom, did I come with a name or did you pick it out?" I said, "no, Daddy and I named you."
Jake, "Yeah, but what was my name before?"
Me, "Before what?"
Jake, "Before Jacob."
Me, "What you think you were born with a name tag that said "Hi, My name is Charles" or something like that?"
Jake, "Charles!? (giggle) that is a funny name...."
So if Jake introduces himself to you as Charles, you'll know why.