Vance's Christmas Day surgery

This could have been much worse . . . .

Ty, Paul, Zoie and I were watching The Chronicles of Narnia -- Prince Caspian while Vance was running around playing, mostly with the cash register in the other room. After dozing off, I got up and went into the kitchen. When I came out, Vance is picking his nose. Zoie does this all the time, but not Vance. So I took him in the bathroom and told him to blow. Nothing, but I had seen a big white booger in there. So I looked in his nose to try to get it out. And much to my surprise -- something was in there. "Ty, Vance has something up his nose" I shout. Ty calmly lays Vance on the floor and needs tweezers. So begins the operation on Vance. Vance laid there calm and quiet. Paul held his hand and I hid in the hall. No cries. He would just breathe in as Ty would also get the mystery item out. Soon enough, out came a large white bead . . . Where did it come from? It looked like it had come from a necklace of Zoie's. Nope. It was the end of a beaded headband that Zoie had been wearing and Paul had put on the back of the couch. No one knows how Vance got it or how it got up his nose or why. Oh well, he is fine and now it is just a good laugh.

Christmas Day

Zoie woke up on Christmas Day at 8:30am and we woke up Vance so they could see the tree and gifts before Ty left to get his gramma for breakfast. It was a great morning with our parents, my brother, and our family friend Dave. Santa used photo name tags so the kids could easily determine which present belonged to whom. It worked great. Vance loved opening the presents.

Playing with the Playmobil Horse arena.
Thomas the Train table and too many trains. (Notice the open computer as I have been working and working to get ready for my sub and the rest of the school year, should something bad happen and I need to stay home)

Ty had to only assemble one toy -- Handy Manny's Fix It tool truck.

Paul spent all of Christmas day with us -- opening gifts, playing the Wii, watching movie and doing surgery on Vance. Vance loves to call Paul, as he language is finally developing!!!!

My mom made this great Hockey quilt for Paul. She started it in March.

Vance and the trains.

Zoie looks in her own arts and crafts Hannah Montana box.

Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve, my family gathers at my mom's house in Burlington. Despite being home all day, we did not arrive for dinner until 5:30pm and we were the first ones. We enjoyed lasagna and homemade french bread, presents, and a game of Cranium -- boys vs. girls. Despite the late night (11pm), the kids were great.

Vance sits with me during game time.
My brother Paul and my cousin's husband David use the scuplting clay to create a dimple.

My Mom :)

Paul and Vance play a mini game of air hockey. Vance is indicating that he scored.

My cousin Amy won the rigged game of guess the number of jelly beans in the jar to win a pair of maxi pad slippers. She was so excited so had to call her friend afterwards.

The official "how big is Carrie" photo. I am talking to my cousin James.

Zoie plays with a wooden doll set with magnetic clothes.

I wanted to take the kids pictures before we went to my mom's and before they were dirty. After Vance made his funny face, I told him to put his hands in his pockets. Only one had found the pocket.

Zoie -- my mom made the beautiful Christmas dress.

Snow

I have had no interest in bundling up to go out in the snow (since I don't really know what I could put on to bundle up). So the kids have enjoyed playing outside with Ty, Nana, and Oma and Papa. These are taken from Nana at her house.

Change your vote!

I am now at the point in my pregnancy that I go every 2 weeks to see the doctor. Well, much to my surprise, I gained 5 lbs in those 2 weeks!!!! I about freaked! So now I have 6 more weeks and am nearing Vance's end weight already. At this rate, I will blow past it! Maybe we are having a baby whale, instead of a baby human. And I think I will definitely need to take off the rest of March and return to school after spring break so I can play with the kids more and loose a few extra pounds.

Gotta love growing a little person inside of you and all the wonder things it does to your body.

Celebration ... . . and just the beginning

To celebrate Vance's binkie separation, we went to Big Scoop. Vance had blue bubblegum ice cream and Zoie had cotton candy. I could just smell the sugar from the cotton candy ice cream as she eat it next to me. Ty got the giant banana split, in which he insisted I help finish eating even though I ate my own cone.

On the way home, Zoie and Vance are wacking each other in the back. Then I heard, the MOST famous line of them all,

"Mom, he started it."

I just looked at Ty and laughed. I said to him, "Do you think this will be the only time we ever hear that line?"

And so the adventure of "Who started it?" begins.

A second chance

On Monday, my mom "lost" Vance's binkie. They looked everywhere but nothing. Sad Vance just put his head down and with a very sad face said "B all gone" with his arms out, as if to motion "I don't know where it is". So I took them home and figured it would be a difficult night going to sleep and there would need to be an emergency trip to the store to buy a binkie. Well, it was TOO easy. He fused for a while about going to sleep, but I don't think he was ready for bed. He slept all night in his own bed. And didn't even wake up requesting that I help find the lost binkie. Tuesday night he came into our room about 2am. I just scooped him up and he went right back to sleep on my pillow. Big me was smashed between Vance and Ty. (How many kids do you need for a king or Cal. King ? :) ) Wednesday and Thursday nights he fused but went to sleep without it.

This is the 2nd removal of the annoying binkie. I am just tired of trying to find it in the house or car when we do something. But it's gone. Now, he just carries his blanket around everywhere, even on the bus this morning and to the freshman girls basketball game at the high school. At least it's easier to find the blanket.

Poop Strike

Vance is starting to recognize when he has to pee (not potty) and poop. For the past 3 days, I have heard "poop, poop". Usually the poop is getting ready to exit. Well, I have dealt with so much poop since Wednesday that I am going crazy. I had to change him & the poop twice after coming home from Bill & Jean's for dinner, within an hour. Then I went shopping with my mom and was gone about an 1 1/2 hours. When I get home, I walk in their room & STINKY!
I ask Ty when Vance went to bed and said that he smelled like poop. He just looked at me like "Oh poop, too bad for you" and keep playing his video games. Of course Vance had on footed zip up pj's which are the WORST to change diapers. He was all snuggled. I had wipes out, clean diaper and even a change of pj's if I had a hard time changing him. Got all the poop cleaned up once again, the boy never woke up, got the pj's back on, zipped up, rolled him over and he continued to sleep.
No more poop. Please. Hey Vance, Mom is on a poop strike. (And I don't like washing the cloth diapers every day due to poop. My plan is every other day.)

Bowling Videos

Bowling

What else do you do on a rainy Saturday morning with 2 little ones than go bowling. I had them ready by 8:30am to go, but Ty says the lanes don't open till 10am. Of course I had my doubts but kept quiet. We get there and had to wait for 1 of 4 open laps because Sat. morning is kids league. After patiently waiting 45 minutes, we got an end lane. Zoie was so excited for bowling shoes, Vance did not want them on. But they enjoyed bowling the 2 games. Vance knew you got 2 turns so he would say 2 and turn to show 2 with his fingers. Ty helped both of the get the idea of swinging the ball, but Zoie quickly said she did not need help. Vance, like Zoie, wanted to do it himself. But he resorted to drop kicking the ball. Thus his ball got stuck on the lane twice cause it was going sooooooooooooooooooo slow. Zoie had to go up to the worker, who happened to be former student, and say "my brother's ball is stuck". He was very kind to help. With the help of bumpers, Zoie and Vance scored more than 70 points in each game. I just sat back and held kids when it was not there turn. I am not sure if bowling is on the "do not do" list at 8 months in a pregnancy. I'll stick to bowling on the Wii.

Zoie's pants were too loose. After every throw she had to pull them up. Here, you can kinda see her butt. We just laughed.

Thanksgiving Lunch at my school

The day before Thanksgiving, we had a half day of school. We received 3 full turkey dinners from Fred Meyer's to serve to our students. So we cooked a few other things and had a "family" lunch. There are about 40 kids that attend my school, so it was not a huge inconvience. I also took the kids cause I wasn't doing any teaching and figured it would be huge. Zoie was disappointed that she didn't get to teach the school kids, but she helped set the tables and, as always, makes new friends. Vance, on the other hand, was more difficult to deal with. I thought him getting water from the water cooler was a good distraction until there was water everywhere. Then they colored until he put marker on the wall. He enjoyed running down the ramp in the cold weather as we read our thankful notes and ate. He only ate a multi-grain roll, which at first he spit out at me. But then we went back to get a roll and did not want the plain buttermilk one. Weirdo!

Vance and the train

Ready to Fly

I bought this slide at a yard sale for $2 when Zoie was about 1. She just slide down it. Vance, on the other hand, decide it needed to be flipped over to be played with. And the 2 of them together like to think it is a launch pad. While these pictures only capture them jumping individually, earlier she was jumping over him as he lay at the end of the slide. Then dad came into the room and said it wasn't safe and someone was going to get hurt. Nice jinx. Then there were a few tears and it was over for that night. I am sure more will come later.

Dancing Zoie

At the end of each month, Zoie's dance school has a "watch" day. Thursday was the "watch" day. It was wonder to watch her learning her things. Ballet takes ALOT of concentration and paying attention to details. Zoie is not quite at that stage. But she has learned to skip, a task I could not do in 1st grade. Zoie was better at tap and shuffling her feet. All in all, she is 4 and sure acts like it. The dance teacher does a great job keeping the 11+ girls on task and moving through the class.

This is "new" ballet technique. Lazy arms, wiggly body, and limp legs.

Zoie shows me her stretching routine before all the girls go there.

Zoie and her partner held hands and twirled through each other arms. They enjoyed this activity together.

Stacked up!

I made the decision on Friday night to stack up the bunk beds. The kids were thrilled. They have played together with all Zoie's stuffed dogs no stop sense the beds were stacked up. The first night was not ideal though. Vance slept all night without moving on the bottom bunk -- I was alittle worried he might roll out since he had been sleeping in the rail. Zoie, on the other hand, punked about 40 minutes after going to bed. So my large self had to climb up there, get her, clean her up as she kept puking, take off the sheets that I just put on there, wash them, calm her down, remake her bed (remember it is on the top so I have to climb the ladder), & put her back in bed. Some how about 3am, she made her way back into her room. (I had the baby monitor on but never heard he make a sound coming down the ladder). About 6am, I had had enough of her tossing and turning and got her back up in the top bunk, laid with her for a while and then went to bed for about an hour before Vance woke up. Nonetheless, I took a 2 hour nap on Saturday afternoon.

Here is half of their room, 3 dressers and a doll house.

In the bunk bed fort, Vance sits in 1 of the 3 toy boxes that fits under the bed. He is playing with an alligater.

Zoie hands Vance stuffed dogs to put on her bed up top.

Zoie saves Penny from the "swamp".

Just playing together in make believe land.