February Recovery

I got home from Hawaii and was a hermit.  It was so sad.  I felt like I was just out of the loop for almost a month.  But I was pretty miserable.  I was so relieved when I finally started to feel better!  I was able to enjoy my kids a bit more.  Brizzy's basketball season has been a fun one.  And this is one of her latest games.  Wembley is so wild at her games, but she does love cheering for her sister and her Dad (Brizzy's coach).  

We started doing some crafts.  Here we are make a fruit loop rainbow, starting to celebrate St Patricks Day.

Briz has been reading a lot as well.  Must be contagious.  I love seeing her get lost in a book.  This particular day, she was excited about her new books from the school library.  She read for probably a good 2 hours.  First outside, and then came in, grabbed a blanket, laid on the couch and read.

And I started working out again!!!  I can't explain how happy this makes me.  It's been a long few months without really being able to do much.  I'm trying to ease myself into it, which is hard for me.  But I've been doing shorter circuit training workouts at home and then some yoga.  I am excited to start running when my lungs have fully recovered.  But regardless, just happy to move a little bit.  

Wembley has been a challenge lately.  She is extremely vocal and extremely stubborn.  She is starting to get independent and wants to do everything herself.  Her tantrums and meltdowns don't last too long, but man she is loud.  And its really embarrassing in public places because she does sound like she's being tortured.  On this day, I finally had to make her put the basket back because she kept pulling everything off of the shelves and putting them in her basket.  She then walked like 2 feet every 15 minutes.  Taking the basket away resulted in a full fledge tantrum in the grocery store, which then of course resulted in a timeout (even louder screaming).  I love this firey girl, but she makes me tired.  A lot.

I wanted to take advantage of being able to exercise so I forced my girls to go on a long walk.  Brizzy loves being the oldest and pretending she is the mom.

Some silly girls with their sunglasses.

Worst Hawaii Trip Ever

If I sound like a Debbie Downer, its because I totally was.  Before I left for Hawaii, I was a basketcase.  I was so anxious that I would start randomly crying and the night before I left I had a mini panic attack.  I had only left Wembley for one night.  One time with my sister and husband.  And another night with my parents.  So 8 nights gone from her, while a young couple was watching her was freaking me out.  Not to mention the week before we left we all got sick.  Nick started a bad cough.  And both my girls had a stomach flu.  What was even more awesome is that I got the stomach flu a couple days before we left.  So I was trying to get everything ready, cram in some last minute work while I felt horrible.  I had originally been excited for the plane ride over.  A direct flight, no kids.  I could read and work and study and nap.  Glorious!  Nope.  Our flight was delayed for about 5 hours.  And I was puking and other things which I will not go into the whole time at the airport and on the flight.  I was in a lot of pain, and nothing helped.   I felt pretty crappy the next day, but then my second day there I started to feel kind of normal.  It was amazing!

I woke up in the morning, went for a long jog/walk along the beach while I listened to music and looked for whales and sea turtles.  Then I joined Nick and his family and went surfing.

After surfing we introduced Nicks fam to the amazing fish taco truck.  Seriously so good.  And I ate it.  And it tasted good.  And i didn't puke.  

That night we hung out at the pool and enjoyed the sunset.

The next day Nicks family did the Road to Hana.  Nick and I have done it and weren't interested, so I forced him to go on a long bike ride that I've always wanted to go on.  The road ends up right on the beach and its breathtaking.  It was really hot and hilly but it was a great workout.  And so fun doing it with Nick.

On the way back, we saw a for sale sign on a huge house along the coast. We let ourselves onto the property and pretended like we were looking for our parents.  The house was a mere 21.5 million, so it seemed plausible.  It was kind of fun to pretend like anyone we know could ever afford something like that and cool to see the house.  The groundskeeper took us on a tour.

My friend Krissy who knew I was freaking out, texted me some sweet pictures of my little girl from her Valentines class party.  Sad I missed it.  

On Saturday, I started to cough.  And it hit me hard.  I felt horrible pretty immediately.  I developed a cough, and soon started coughing so hard that I was coughing up blood and consistently vomiting from coughing so hard.  From that point on, I hung out in my room for a good portion of the rest of the trip.  I was so sad and mad.

Nick tried to cheer me up on Valentines Day and it worked for about an hour.  When I got home I was sick for about 2 more weeks.  I had bronchitis, a sinus infection and an ear infection.  I have been trying really hard to build up my immune system and get healthy so I was reluctant to get on antibiotics.  But eventually I had to.  Between that and some extremely intense natural remedies (some really nasty drinks), I started getting better.  Hallelujah!  I wish my vacation was better, but at least I got a few good days.  And I got a little tan, which is always nice.  

February

It was a mixed bag kind of month.  Our house was sort of inundated with sickness.  But the beginning of the month was actually not too shabby.  Nick took Briz to her daddy daughter school dance.  So sweet.  He bought her a corsage and she got all dressed up.  Nick said that she took after me on the dance floor and was a total animal.  I'm a proud Mom.

I have been reading a lot.  And loving it.  It's both a good and bad thing, because it's pretty much all I want to do at night.  And I have way too much stuff I need to get done.  I have always enjoyed reading, but I have found that I relax in a totally different way than when watching TV.  I feel way more fulfilled when I escape through reading.  Anyways, in February, my genre of choice was mystery and freaky books about murder.  Couldn't get enough of it.  Not normally what I would choose, but I found some books I could not put down.  

I was able to volunteer at the school again.  I don't normally go out to recess with Brizzy because I'm normally trying to get stuff done for her teacher.  But I got it done earlier than normal, and it was fun to see her.  Briz is such a little show off.

We had a few playdates.  And now that its getting slightly less rainy and slightly more sunny we've started using our tramp more. It's always a big hit.  

We had a day off of school and had a blast going to pump it up.  I get a little nervous with my outings with both girls because they are at such different ages, so I love it when I find something they both really enjoy.  Not only that, but they actually played together and laughed and giggled for like 10 minutes!  

Wembley can be kind of a chicken and she was afraid of going down the slide at first, but soon discovered she loved it.  The hardest part was that she couldn't really climb up by herself.  So Brizzy tried to help her.

But this is what generally happened.  So I was hoping to be able to just sit on my lazy bum and watch my girls, I was sweating most of the time carrying Dubs up the ladder.

Brizzy was pretty worn out.  She is such a deep sleeper.  Like father like daughter.

Girls Weekend . . . Sort of

My good friend Kristi, from when I lived in Salem, found out, after about 10 years of infertility that she was pregnant.  I was so excited for her.  She was having a baby shower, so I asked our friend, Julia, who lives in Reno to come and surprise her.  Really it was a great excuse to see my friend Julia and hang out with her.  

She came and brought beautiful baby girl Tess, whom I had never met.  And Tess is the perfect baby.  She honestly hardly cried and smiles and giggles at everyone.  I want a baby like this.

We hung out with Megan for most of the weekend.  And as it usually goes, we sat around and talked mostly.  Julia and Megan always force me to shop with them, but the older I get, the more I enjoy it :)  On Saturday, we went to Kristi (and Kyle's) baby shower.  Kristi was so excited to see Julia that she started crying.  It was the most amazing baby shower I've ever been to.  And Kristi deserved it.  She has always been the most generous person with others who are having babies.  It was so great to see her have her turn.  She has also happened to have the pregnancy from hell.

It was fun to see not only Kristi, but Kyle for just a little bit.  We spent so much time together with them in Salem.  We had a lot of fun laughing and joking about old memories.  Kyle was a great sport being there and tried to say the word nipple as many times as possible while "participating" in the shower.

We also got to see some old friends from Salem.  Made me remember how much I loved living there.  I felt so loved and accepted.  It was a great place to be.

Brizzy was very sad about being left out of girls night.  So after going out with my friends I decided to let her come join us.  When I went to go pick her up to have her join us for some shopping and ice cream, she was dressed up in a fancy dress with her fancy jacket and lipstick.  It was adorable.  She just wants to be a big girl all of the time.

I feel so grateful for such wonderful friends and women in my life, all over.  There's just never enough time with them!!!!

The rest of January

It started to finally stop raining, so we tried to take advantage.  We had our friend Waverly over to play.  We went on for a little walk outside and then had fun jumping on the trampoline.  I feel like I need to do a playdate with Wembley every day I'm home because she gets so bored with me.  Little toddler friends are so cute.

They then had some fun on the trampoline.

I took this picture after Nick came home one night when Nick came home with pizza.  Briz and Wembley LOVE when Dad comes home.  They scream and run to him and give him big hugs.  This night, in particular, Wembley wouldn't let Nick put her down.  I love their sweet relationship with him.

Briz continued to be a dancing machine.  She dances and sings all the time around the house.  Not a few days go by without Brizzy wanting to put on some kind of show for us.  

And Wembley really started to talk a lot in January.  She is a crazy little girl, but her happy personality makes us all laugh and smile a lot.

I took Wembley's friends, Cate and Connor with us to the zoo one day.  It was a beautiful sunny day.  It was probably my favorite day at the zoo because there was hardly anyone there and we saw the animals being so active.

Winter Cabin

Martin Luther King Weekend, we went to our family cabin in Central Oregon.  We went with our friends the Downs.  It's a bit of extra work to get there because the road is closed in the winter and you have to snowmobile in all of your stuff.  But it was a fun adventure.

We left Friday after Nick and Trevor got off work.  We stopped at Chipotle in Eugene and had some dinner.  The girls were pretty excited for our weekend away.

We then stopped at our uncle James and hooked up his trailer with his snowmobiles.  

The kids loved riding on the snowmobiles and particularly being pulled in the tube behind the snowmobile.  

We spent Saturday playing in the snow, snowmobiling, sledding, etc.  

And on Sunday, Nick and Trevor took the older three skiing at the ski resort up the road.  It was Brizzy's second time and she did great!  She had her first lesson and I think trying to keep up with Blair really pushed her.  I was proud of her.  Krissy and I hung around and talked and read.  We attempted to snowshoe and pull the little girls in the tube, but there was pretty much constant crying.

It was so beautiful there!  And being cozied up by the fire after playing outside felt so good.

We had some fun times sledding.  There is a hill from the cabin going down to the lake, and our cousins had built sort of a luge last time they were there that still existed.  We had fun sledding.  Trevor was a bit crazy and sled straight into the water.  It was really funny.  After changing his clothes, he then took Cate down the hill.  He came close to the water and planted his feet in the snow to stop himself from going into the water again, but forgot to hold onto Cate and she flew into the freezing lake.  We were all laughing so hard it took us longer than it probably should have to get her.  It was my favorite parent fail of all time.  

One of my favorite things about the snow is the fact that Wembley actually sat still.  She was so puffy it was hard for her to move.

Krissy and I went for our own snowmobile ride.  Luckily, this time I didn't get stuck in the snow  (I'm not the best at driving snowmobiles!)

It was such a fun weekend, we all were reluctant to return to reality.  Can't wait to go again next year!