Removing Juniper Shrubs

In preparation for the new fence and other landscaping projects this spring, we needed to pull out some seriously overgrown juniper shrubs. We're talking at least 30 years old and taking up a good 1/4 of our modest backyard. Last Thursday, a guy named Jack showed up with his skid loader tractor and went to town. About 1.5 hours later, the bushes were gone, piled in heaps awaiting a burn day. Matt had made an attempt one weekend of doing it himself. After a few hours of prickly sweaty labor and not much to show for it but a busted chainsaw blade he determined that anyone that would do it for under $500 bucks would be worth it. Fortunately it only cost a little over $300. Money well spent.

A New Baby, A Move and An Accident

None of these things happened to me this past weekend, but I was involved in each to a certain degree. The original plan for this past weekend was for our whole family to have a visit up in Salem to see everyone, especially my little sister April's brand new baby girl, Savannah Faye, born March 22nd. Midweek though, plans changed when we learned it would be a much fuller house with the addition of my older sister Heather's family who would also be staying at my parents house until their new housing was available. Also, my mom would be completely wrapped up with a big donation/exchange event at the church until Saturday evening.

Matt's solution: "One adult with no kids would be a better help than two adults with three kids. You go and I'll stay while you help your sisters." Not only that, but he suggested I take the minivan because it's safer and gets better gas mileage than our truck. I was torn between that more comfortable option and the seemingly more responsible one of driving the '94 Ford Pickup so Matt at least had transportation. But he assured me that he didn't need it. Taking three young kids anywhere is hard! Staying at home is much easier. What a wonderful husband to make such an offer.

So it was decided. I left early Friday, drove 4.5 hours and spent the afternoon holding a dainty little 7 pound one week old Savannah. A treat in many ways. One, my babies are never that tiny. Another, holding a newborn is simply precious. I got to be the proud auntie and accompany April to Savannah's one week check-up. It was fun to catch up with my sister in person, who is doing amazingly well considering this is her third child.

In the early evening I drove the 40 minutes to Heather's apartment and helped pack her kitchen before crashing on a mattress there. The next day I helped pack and vacuumed before taking Katy, my 2yo niece, shopping with me. We stopped at Babies R Us, ate lunch at Baja Fresh then spent awhile trying out strollers at Segals, a local baby outfitter type store. The purpose of the trip was to choose a sit and stand style strollers (another post entirely) but I soon grew distracted by all the cool (and expensive!) baby gear: super maneuverable double jogging strollers, one even has an extra seat so you can push three! Nevermind that they all started at $400++. The Valco for 3 kids was almost the same price as a year's gym membership!

Although Katy was having almost as much fun as me trying out different strollers (she kept directing where to go once she got all buckled in), I could tell she was getting tired and I still wanted to stop at Trader Joe's. She fell asleep on the way there and I took a wrong turn. While turning the car around I decided to pull over in a parking lot and let her sleep while I made some phone calls.

I called Heather to see how things were going with unloading the moving truck. When she answered her response was, "I just totaled our new minivan." What I heard first was that she was driving down Liberty Road where it goes down a steep hill and "this guy dumped marbles all over the road" and she lost control and went in a ditch. Later we had a laugh when I told them how confused I was about why some guy in a pickup truck would dump marbles on the road and why that would make her go off the road. Of course what she'd said was "the sky dumped marbles all over the road". It had been hailing/snowing on and off all weekend in sudden bursts.

She was okay and was with my dad, but could I go pick up Oswaldo from the truck rental place since I was only 20 minutes from there? No problem. I knew there was a reason I was just sitting there waiting to decide where to go next. We all met back at their apartment a little while later and finished things up so they could do their final walk through with the manager. What a day!

Needless to say I drove back down I-5 much more carefully on Sunday afternoon than I did coming up. It wasn't exactly a relaxing weekend away, but it felt good to help my sisters out and spend some time with my nieces and nephews. And it made me miss my kids just the right amount so that I was an energized mommmy on Monday morning. And that is always a good thing. Thank you Matt for making it all possible. You are wonderful.

I didn't have the camera with me, but you can see pics of Heather's totaled car on her blog.

Easter Sunday

The kids woke up to Easter baskets in the window. They had fun with the playdoh and ate some candy. Later we got dressed and went to church, but the kids were still runny nosed so Matt came home with them while I stayed to do my Primary Sharing Time lesson. By the time I got home Matt had our whole dinner heated, cooked and almost ready to sit down to. What a man! (He should've been napping though since the youngest two were.) I had fun taking some pictures: the lighting and colors and contrast with our new table were irresistible.





We'd dyed the eggs Saturday late afternoon. That was a riot! Within the first few minutes Henry fished a BLUE dye tab out of a cup and put it in his mouth, thinking it was candy. I freaked out, scrambling for the package to make sure we didn't need to call poison control or something. (Of course we didn't) He looked so funny with this bright bright blue mouth! To add to the fun, after successfully coloring an egg, he pulled it in half and commenced eating it, only somewhat avoiding the shell. Meanwhile Evalyn was in color heaven, dropping in eggs, checking their status and having a blast. She is a pro at this since she's done it with Grammum every Easter since she was big enough to hold an egg. Plus she's at that age where every week she has new favorite colors. (Pink-Yellow-Green is the latest triumvirate.)



Back to Sunday: After eating our early dinner the kids waited impatiently by the door for the all clear. We kept talking about having to wait until the Easter Bunny hid the eggs. Evalyn would counter in return, "Daddy, I think you should help the Easter Egg Bunny!" Ah, she gets the game already....

Of course it was fun watching them dive into the yard and discover the somewhat hidden eggs. Henry was having a hard time at first (see his crying face in one shot), some unknown 2yo drama. I had to hold his hand for a bit before he ran off on his own. I just love the bright colors of the eggs and the zaniness of it all. Treasure hunts are such fun!



I'm glad I was able to teach the Easter lesson at church. It was the same one I did last year in Maryland with a larger group of kids: The Clues of the Resurrection. I liked it better this time, even though the visual aids were all the same, (pictures, walking stick, coins, linen cloth, large nails, jar of ointment) I really felt the message more because I was familiar with the process. Instead I was able to really share my feelings at the end. And I think the children felt it to. That made the spirit of Easter more meaningful to me. That hope in the Resurrection, the newness of life.

The Great Easter Egg Grab

The plan was to visit my parents and sisters in Salem for Easter, but since we were still getting over the virusey stuff we opted to stay home instead. We started the weekend off by going to the Yreka Egg Hunt at the city park in the little downtown area. I'd read in the paper that you need to get there early, but despite our best efforts we made it there barely on time. We didn't realize how many cars and people would show up for the event and had to park a few blocks away. There were two large areas (baseball diamond size) that were "roped off" with tape/streamers on the ground and hundreds of candy filled plastic eggs scattered in the middle. Lining the two rectangles were hordes of kids and parents with buckets awaiting. We approached a small opening along the tape just as the police sirens went off to signal the start of "the hunt". What followed was an interesting study in social behavior. Parents and kids, toddlers on up, began scooping up eggs as fast as they could, like some money grab. Evalyn and Henry were pretty confused by it all. I was helping Evalyn, pointing out an egg and encouraging her to pick it up. She was too distracted watching everyone else to try it herself. She'd see one and walk to get it just as somebody else nabbed it. I think she managed to get 2 total in her little bucket. It was kinda sad.



I was taken aback by how fast it all happened. Barely 3 minutes into it, the crowd magically inhaled all those eggs. Very strange. Those kids with parents scooping up handfuls of eggs alongside easily had a dozen eggs or more in their buckets. Matt and I had picked up a couple for Henry so he had 4 or 5 . It was our first public type of easter egg hunt. I'm still not sure what to make of it. I'd call it more of a grab than a hunt! Maybe if we'd gotten there a bit earlier so the kids had time to take it all in and realize what was going to happen it would've been more fun. As it was we stood around in a daze for a few minutes. We took a few pictures (of course) to mark the occasion and were glad we still had our real egg hunt at home to look forward to. And there was a pretty patch of spring flowers to explore on the way back to the car, so that made it a fun outing after all.

A Full House

So, last weekend we had a full house of friends and family. Friday was spent in last minute cleaning and decluttering to have space to host Kellie (dear friend from Maryland) and her family of five travelers and Heather (big sis from Oregon) and her family of four. 14 people is the most this house has held since we've been here! In preparation we finally bought a new dining table to replace my old Salvation Army one that'd been doing the job for way to long. Now we can seat more than 4 adults!


Kellie did a fabulous recap of the weekend and took some great pictures, so I could just point you to her blog post and call it good. But that would be kinda lame on my part, so I will continue (though I will borrow her picts. : ) Our little ones were all in bed (with fevers no less!) by the time Kellie and her family pulled in around 9PM (after landing in SFO earlier that day and driving 5 hours). A friend from church had dropped off a pumpkin pie with an air mattress we were borrowing, so we grownups enjoyed this after their three road weary kids were tucked in. Heather and Oswlado were delayed with needs of their youngest having to stop often along the way, so their 4.5 hour trip down I-5 turned into almost 8, but they finally made it around midnight.

In the morning we whipped up some hot cocoa while the french toast, sausage and eggs were cooking. After everyone was fed and dressed for the day, our caravan of three minivans stopped to get fixings for a deli sandwich lunch before heading up the mountains towards Tulelake Wildlife Refuge. The weather was a bit cold and threatening to snow with scattered sun breaks now and then, so we weren't sure if we'd make it the whole way to the refuge, about 1 1/2 hours drive. About halfway, we stopped at a war memorial sculpture garden and decided to break for lunch since the sun was out, we were hungry and there were tables to sit at.



Just as we'd gotten the table spread with the sandwich bar, the sun was covered by clouds, the wind picked up and snow pellets came down in bursts. After realizing it wasn't going to let up we hurriedly threw the remnants of the feast back in the cooler and piled in the warm cars. We almost decided to keep driving, but the prospect of more snow and no wildlife to be seen made us turn around and head back to the comfort of a warm house and a lazy afternoon. And that suited our jet lagged, road weary and under the weather little ones just fine.

Click here for a slideshow

Heather and Kellie and I watched the Kiera Knightley Pride and Prejudice (it was the shortest "bonnet movie" I had) while most everyone else napped or played video games or read. Sara had fun playing with baby Linnea. Matt got some rod building time in the garage. By the time dinner rolled around pizza sounded good, so we introduced the Nuss's to the novelty of Take N Bake pizza which I hadn't realized was a west coast thing. I always figured they were scarce rather than non-existent back east.

We ended the evening with a game of Scrabble by cozy firelight. Halfway into the game I was sure Evan would beat us all, but somehow I managed to come out on top. Heather claims she kept setting up good plays for me. I'm definitely not the strongest Scrabble player, but it is always fun to play. Oh yeah, and I made some frothy Vermont Steamers (2 c milk, 2 T real maple syrup, 1 tsp butter, top with cinnamon) in our Cocoa Latte machine. A microwave and blender would do the same thing I suppose, but it's much easier to just pour it in and push a button. I almost love this drink more than hot cocoa. It has to be frothy to get the full flavor, IMO.



Sunday everyone went to church except our little family. I'd lost my voice at the end of the night, plus my pink eye was only slightly better. Our kids were still feverish and we were pretty beat from kids being awake and/or in our bed at various times during the night. This allowed the little ones to nap and us to summon some energy and get a nice lunch buffet spread so everyone could eat when they returned. After a leisure lunch, packing commenced and everyone was ready to take off. We posed for a picture in the yard with Mt. Shasta barely breaking through the clouds. Group shots are always fun, especially when they involve little kids and an auto timer. ;) I was just glad the impressive mountain finally came out of the clouds and that the Nuss's didn't drive all the way without getting a glimpse.




It was so so wonderful to see Kellie again. And that she and my sister could meet in person. The time went way too fast, and before I knew it we had to tearfully hug and wave goodbye. It made me so happy that they were able to squeeze us into their California vacation. It also made me very homesick for Maryland and left me wanting to fly back next week for a visit, to swing by Tuesday playgroup, hang out with everyone there, take a jaunt up to PA. sniff.

I'm so grateful for my "online friends" who keep blogs and read books together on the Nook (our online bookgroup). It has made moving far away a lot less hard as I'm still settling in with new friends out here. But to end on an upbeat note, it is good to be closer to my family. As Heather and Oswaldo left a couple hours later, it was a nice feeling knowing that I would get to see my sister again in a few weeks, not sometime next year. Okay, I didn't mean to make this so emotional at the end here. I better quit while I'm ahead! It as a great weekend. The End.

The Many Adventures of Henry James

Henry had a couple of accidents in the bathroom lately. That room is seriously his favorite in the house! During bath time, he climbed out of the tub to get a toothbrush or who knows what from the counter. Then he slid/dove back in the tub head first, his customary tub approach when it's full of water. No stepping in for this fella! He's done it this way forever without incident. It's very hard to teach a slippery wet boy who loves the water that he is not invincible. Anyone see The Secret of Roan Inish? Henry reminds me of the little boy Jamie in this film, loving to run around wet and naked!

Anyway, on this particular tub entry he somehow banged his mouth and chipped his front tooth. I was actually not around during the whole episode, Daddy was doing bed and bath while icky sick mommy was sleeping. I was quite sad in the morning when I heard the whole story. No more perfect little smile til he gets his permanent tooth! [Matt wants me to mention the Star Wars connection: he has a chipped front tooth, too (even though it's not the same side as Henry's)]



The other adventure was getting the potty seat insert stuck on his head, or neck. That's what I woke up to Thursday. Daddy rushing to get out the door and me very bleary eyed trying to process Henry's crying and running down the hallway with the potty seat around his neck. I must've remembered to grab my glasses before assessing how stuck it was. Mind you Henry has a larger than average head for a 2 year old. Somehow he forced it over but when we tried to pull it off at various angles it would painfully squish his ears or forehead. My brain hadn't fully wakened so this is all very puzzling: crying boy, stuck object, confused mama, Matt handing me a bottle of baby oil...

After a couple of tries I stumbled to the kitchen for a screwdriver to at least take the plastic ring-part off to allow for a better grip. This helped a little. (Though Henry started crying a bit louder when I first approached his head with a pointed tool!) After several other angles and twists and yelps from Henry, I finally figured out that I needed to tip the seat at an angle while alternately folding his ears down so the pressure was mainly on his scalp. Once I got to that position my only option was to pull really hard, which wasn't pleasant for either of us. But it came off and I hugged and rubbed and kissed his poor little head. Sadly no pictures, as interesting as they would've been!



One last adventure was Henry ending up in the middle of the street in front of our house. That was a heart stopping moment. Thankfully it was the middle of the day so not very much traffic. The kids were playing outside while I stepped in for a moment, I can't even remember what it was for, checking on the baby probably. I always have my eyes and ears cocked to what they're doing of course. The yard is fenced, but it can be scaled without trouble. I noticed some deer were wandering through and went outside to shoo them off in case they bit or kicked or something. In that one minute that Evalyn ran toward the house to tell me about the deer, Henry must have climbed the fence to chase them or something. As I came out and didn't see him at first, I called and looked in the obvious places, even over the fence in the adjacent field. Then I panicked and I ran around the house to see him walking in the middle of the street crying like he was lost! Oh that was terrifying. Of course he wasn't hurt but just the thought that he was in such danger made me feel like a very bad mommy. They are so fast! I feel embarrassed even posting this, but needless to say it's made us that much more attentive.

The House is Very Quiet

I've given up on ever being able to hear out of my left ear again, so I might as well pretend I'm "all better". It is quite disconcerting. Since my intense earache Monday night, I've had this constant ringing/white noise sound in my ear, making sounds all echo-y and distorted. Also making me tone out everything except the essential cries of pain, etc. Add to this that I lost my voice for a few days and can still only talk hoarsely.

I went to the docs yesterday in the vain hope something was infected and not just viral. But it WAS all in vain. My ear infection was clearing up on its own, my throat was not strep, and my eye was not bacterial pink eye. Curses. I've been a very miserable mommy this past week. I've been counting my blessings that Matt has stayed well for the most part (thanks to Airborne perhaps?) and has been wonderful at picking up my slack in the evening and letting me crash.

The only good thing was that I was prescribed some nasal spray for my allergies. I'm still in denial that I'm actually allergic to something in the air. I've had on and off stuffiness since we moved into our house in Maryland. Since I was pregnant twice while living there, it was hard to figure out if it was that whole pregnancy congestion or something else. Now that we've moved and I'm not pregnant but still congested I have to accept the fact. I have an allergy.

The good news is that hopefully it will respond to the nasal spray and I won't have to be on daily pills or anything. I hate that prospect. So we'll see how this goes once this current virus is gone for good. I hate being sick.

If you're still reading, sorry for the whiny post. Since I can't hear the TV very well, this is my only distraction. Until naptime is over that is....

Waiting for my head to clear up

This past weekend we had a much anticipated visit from my good friend Kellie and her family. My sister Heather con familia also drove down to meet Kellie and so it was a fun full weekend. The only drawback was that our little household has been struggling through very icky cold/flu stuff for a week. Everything from goopy pink eye, fever, earache, runny nose, vomiting, body aches, coughing, you name it we've got it.

So rather than trying to write a summary of our lovely little weekend while having a brain full of cotton, I decided to catch up on some of my many drafts. Thus the old dates of the past few posts. Plus Kellie has all the good pics on her camera, so by the time they are done gallivanting around the lovely Golden State, I should have my brain back enough to write something decent! :)