Zoie's Gingerbread Person Project

Zoie's family homework was to decorate the plain gingerbread person. Here is what we made.

Trying to Decorate with 3 kids

I did not think this one through first . . . we brought in the tree and the holiday decorations up from the basement. As soon as the boxes were open, Zoie have everything out and kept asking "Can I put this here? And there?" Ugh! I didn't even know what was in the boxes. Vance was not interested till I started to decorate the tree. They were taking ornaments out of the boxes faster than I could look up. Like a typical kid tree, there are many ornaments clumped together. Oh well. I just hope Arya doesn't grab for them or we will have to move some.

About Santa -- Zoie told me tonight that we will have to remove the glass panel from our new fireplace cause Santa won't be able to get through. And that we will need to turn off the fire. I said, "Can't he just use the front door?" "I will write him a note". Ha ha!

Vance and Zoie -- 2 peas in a pod

Zoie and Vance are glued together. As soon as she gets off the bus, "Where's Vance?" If he can not find her, even if she is in the other room, he'll ask "Wear Wooie?" She has to outdo him. They play together till they get mad at each. But they will step away and within a minute or 2, they are playing something else together. I love them so much. I hope they make room for Arya to join their playtime.

A new house ?

No we are not moving. But here are some pictures of our new gas insert and the spectic escapade.

Instant fire is great. I just need to paint the rest of the brick that used to be covered by a panel.

Dismantling the swing set.

Keep digging.

This is the last step of the project -- covering the 46' by 10' hole in my yard taken from the bathroom window since it was raining and winding.

Arya

I was try to photograph Arya in this shirt. It says "Property of Mom" followed by a 3 on the right. It's funny since she is #3. Of course, it was Vance's shirt.

If you look closely, you can see the deep blue in both of their eyes.

What else now?

After about 2 weeks of Vance and Zoie being sick, Arya has gotten a bug. Besides the flu, she also has a top tooth trying to pop through.

Since June, we have been dealing with the kid who stole our money to do the roof. He is in jail and has a trial date in December. We will see what happens with that.

On Friday, we got a beautiful new gas insert in our living room, replacing an old wood stove that we may have used once in the past 10 years.

Then, we had the septic guy come to pump our septic tank since it was backing up. Well, it was not that easy. And I am glad Ty was home too. First, the company shows up and the probing and beep out back to find the septic tank. Low and behold, it is UNDER the wooden swing set. So Ty comes in and gets the saws-all. Apart comes the swing set and the 2 workers help Ty lift up the heavy swing set. Then they dig. And dig. And dig. Two giant holes in the yard. So I open the window to try to listen to the conversation.

I hear . . . "If I pump this, then I will have to report it to the health department." WHAT!!!!!!

At first glance, it does not appear the previous owners ever replaced the tank as agreed prior to the sale. But they did. It was illegally installed, then a permit was applied for and issued.

Once Ty went into down to deal with the county about our issues, we found out some more. The location of the drain field is under our circular driveway that we have been driving on for 18 years. Not good at all!

Conclusion: We need a new drain field, which is 10' by 46'. That is a huge hole that needs to be dug in our yard. Once we have the money, hopefully the monstorous project can begin. Until then, we are on a limited water supply (kinda like being in Mexico). No laundry. Limited shower/bath use. (Kids and I have been showering at my mom's). No dishwasher. Converse toilet flushing.

Ugh. . . what else could go wrong?

Arya's pasta adventure

Arya loves to eat big people food. I could barely cut the angel hair pasta before her little grabby hands were reaching for it. She was covered head to toes and required a shower afterwards.

Bowling in the Buff

OK, this is probably one of the funniest things Vance has done. Zoie decided they should have a beach party in their room. They had the umbrellas open, a brown blanket for sand, she had on a dress cause her swimsuit was in the dryer, and Vance was naked. When the beach party idea fizzled for Vance, he took up bowling in the back hall -- in the nude. The lighting for the back door gave me a chance to photograph him without "seeing everything".

After each strike, he would carefully put the pins back up for another round.

Zoie and Vance are masters at the Ipod Touch.

The video game King. The massive headphones are so he is the only lucky one who can hear the video games while he is playing. He hears nothing else. No me, no kids, no nothing.

Poor sick Vance :(

Halloween 2009

The Wednesday before Halloween, the Youngren was has been plagued with illness. Zoie was sent home from school that Wednesday and told not to come the next day due to a high fever. She did not go back to school until a week later. Halloween night, Vance started running a high fever too. He was ill for the next 6 days and still has a cough. Now baby Arya has new teeth popping through in addition to feeling yucky. Ty has been also feeling down for several days. I, too, have a stuffy nose now. Ugh. No better feeling that being a mom and having 3 sick kids, each who wants you to hold them and lay with them.

Fairy Zoie . . despite the high fever. . she got on her costume with sweats and a coat and we went to 2 friends houses. Then back home for bed.

Halloween 2004

Since I did not have to work today, I took advantage of the time alone to start some holiday projects I have planned for each kid. In my search for photos, I came across these of Zoie. In October of 2004, I thought I could make Zoie a simple bumblebee halloween costume. Yeah right. It was cut crooked and it was so skinny to get her in. Now, I know that fleece does not stretch. I love the first picture . . .it is so "Yo Yo, What's up". Enjoy . . .

Vance's health

At some point in time, moms will have a 2, then a 3, year old boy. Now I hope others can learn from my parenting difficulties so you can avoid them.

#1 -- Choose a different battle than the one about your child not eating.
#2 -- Don't muddle in their pooping business.

Vance has not had a serious poop for more than 2 weeks. So I took him into the doctor after trying what I thought was everything. She just said more Miralax & mineral oil. She pushed on the boy's tummy and sure enough she could feel a clogged system. We will see how the next several days ago and if he is able to get cleaned out. She even spoke off a clinic in Seattle that specializes in kids pooping cause of the stress if causes families. (Oh I'll tell you about the stress if you need me to.)

Vance likes familiar places. We had visited the doctor's office about 6 weeks ago (he seriously bumped his fingers on the trampoline). Today, though, we patiencely waited 50 minutes before being called by the nurse. I was very irritated. Vance played, then we played fishing with a measuring tape in my purse, and found other things to pass the time. He was a difficult fish to catch. Then after 50 minutes, we waited longer in the room. We were in there for 2 hours!!! Thank goodness my mom was able to help me by taking Zoie to dance and taking Arya home otherwise I would have had to leave.

It was stressful. All in all, my stress did not get to Vance. He did such a wonderful job for a 3 year old who just desperately wants to get the poop out. Poor thing.

Skagit Valley Farm

Of course we live in the best farm land. . . here is proof. Check out these 2 HUGE carrots Ty brought home from work.

The carrot is nearly twice as big as a can of soup.

And bigger than Zoie's head!

(Check out Arya in the back reaching from something on the table.)

Star of the Week

Last week, Zoie was the "Star of the Week". She was the teacher helper, line leader and was able to bring a snack and a show-n-tell item (a stuffed dog named Penny & a stuffed cat). When I came to school to take a photo of her star of the week board, I surprised her in the cafeteria while she was eating breakfast with her "big kid" friend.

Lunchtime . . . so everyday when Zoie comes home from school, I check her lunch box to see what she eat in her lunch. Lately, she has been eating nothing. So as we confronted her daily, she finally admitted that all she does for the 20 minutes at lunch is TALK!

Support your local fire station

The first weekend of October is always the local fire stations "all you can eat" meals. Burlington, where I grew up, has a pancake feed from 6am to noon. Pancakes, ham, & drink. And our local fire station, McLean Road, has their annual spaghetti feed from noon to 8pm. So I took advantage of their cooking and attended both. It is fun to see community members supporting the fire stations and it is good food.

October Pictures

We have a plentiful squash and pumpkin crop this year in our garden. The kids loved collecting the squash & pumpkins and driving them to the front door in the "monster" truck.