Bees and Butter

Well history repeated itself yesterday when Kohen got stung after "petting a bee" a little too enthusiastically in our backyard. There is an infamous story in our family from when I was 5 and my sister was 7 and we were at my grandparents house and Natalie encouraged me to pick up bees and pet them. Always looking for ways to gain favor in her eyes I gladly picked up the bees and the 3rd one didn't appreciate it so much and gave me a sting. The story takes a turn for the worse when a high class friend of my G-parents spit some of his chewing tobacco onto my finger to draw out the sting (and no, I didn't get away with typing that w/o gagging). As gross as it was it did take the sting away.   
Fast forward 23 years and Kohen comes crying into the house with a stinger in his finger. My mom whipped up some baking soda paste which did the trick for making the pain go away, a much cleaner, more civilized version of a bee sting remedy I have to say. In the bee's defense Kohen had this coming. I knew he played with the bees from time to time and he wouldn't listen to my words of wisdom and had to learn the hard way. Not sure actually, if even the sting will be enough to keep him away. The bees really fascinate him. But still Kohen, no touch-y.

 
And check out this little number Kennedy came up with. She has been dressing up less and less over the last few months (sad!) but I was pleased to see this. She made the skirt out of several small blankets which according to her were to cover her underwear which were showing out the bottom of the leotard which is a size 2. I like where her head was on this.

****Favorite Aly quote of the day:

Tonight at dinner my ever Butter loving Aly got super upset when I stirred the butter into her beans (rather than leave it in a dollop that can be easily ingested in one scoop) and so when she asked for butter on her Beef Stroganoff (???) she commanded me, "don't tuck it in!"

A Reader Post

Not to bore anyone but I want to gab at you for a minute. There are a few of you out there who read my blog like real champs. Every redundant, 'how cute are my kids, please!?' and 'my husband is the best!' and 'can I please vent a bit here?' you read and some of you (bless you, bless you, bless you!) even leave comments to make my effort feel worthwhile- hey you were doing a service and you didn't even know it! I wanted to thank all of you who actually read what I write. By now I have probably lost all of those who just look at the pictures anyway which is just as well. I wanted to reward my blog readers by sharing something here first with you. Really, I can count on one hand the people who know the news you are about to hear. First a little tutorial.

Erin Might Be Pregnant If:

*She has her lowest # of postings in a month ever, and is likely to break that record this month

*Her nose has developed super powers. (Now I understand how those Super Heroes are blessed/burdened by their powers, lol.)

*She acts like an irritated Kate (from Jon & Kate Plus 8) once in a while

*She gets teary watching the children's show Charlie and Lola

*She smells that Nathan had onions for lunch before he has come within a 20ft radius of her

*She gags every time she opens the fridge, changes a diaper, smells left over food, smells someone had onions for lunch, or pretty much anytime.

*She is negative-imprinting on things she is over-exposed to: Nathan's cologne, over-played songs, the background on my blog. No, I'm not even kidding. Eventually these things make me want to barf.

*she is so tired she can barely make it until quiet time to crash.

*She smells an unsavory smell in the kitchen and 'tosses her cookies' in the sink.

*She won't commit to anything and starts cheezing everything.

***Nathan is doing ALL of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, dishes, and putting the children to bed by himself each night.

So umm, yeah, as you might have gathered we are expecting number four sometime mid-September and though we are excited, both Nathan and I are just trying to survive right now. When it comes to my pregnancies I have learned a lot and with the help of Zofran I have been able to keep the throwing up to a minimum -if you can call it that. Down side is that it does nothing for the persistent nausea that hounds me 24/7. Anyway, I promise I won't turn the blog into a nausea journal, but in order to keep that promise the posts will likely be sparse for the next few months. 

In spite of the above, I assure you we are excited, or rather will be in due time. Until then, a sincere thanks for reading. 

A Wicked Girls Weekend

I had been looking forward to this last weekend for a while, I think we all had been. My MIL, Bonnie and 4 SIL's, Trevi, Kysa, Tara, and Amber (bringing her sweet 2 1/2 mo. old baby, Davis too!) all flew in from Boise for a Girl's Weekend!!!!!!! No seriously. We were all so excited. I picked them up from the airport and we headed straight (if by straight I mean turning around twice to find my way) to In & Out Burger before heading home and settling in.

Friday Nathan took work off so he could do all of my usual work and routine (he did it with a smile on top of it all, love that guy) and we loaded up and headed towards San Fran. Unfortunately it started raining so we detoured to IKEA which was new for all my guests except Kysa who I had taken once before. 3 hours later (don't judge, IKEA is ginormous and there were 6 women involved!) after a nice Swedish IKEA lunch we emerged to find the rain had stopped so we continued toward S.F.

It was all of our first time going to Chinatown. It was pretty crazy how you turn onto Grant street and you basically feel like you are in China. Everyone had fun exploring and Hi-Chew! candy was the find of the day, we stalked several more stores and then wiped them out (it is a yummy chewy candy). There was a lot to see (yay!) and a lot to smell (blech.) and I think everyone came away having found the perfect little something for their kiddies.

We went to our favorite Crepe Vine for dinner and sat there talking until my tush fell asleep, it was awesome. Tush falling asleep = too enraptured in conversation to change position and allow blood flow to lower half. It was so nice to have a good chat with a bunch of girls...I've been missing that.

(Tara, Amber, Kysa, Me, Bonnie, Trevi....and Aly)

Saturday morning we took it easy, headed into Walnut Creek for some CPK and to do a little window shopping in the boutiques downtown before coming home and getting ready for the pinnacle of the trip. First I have to point out this picture below. Can you tell who shouted, "okay, funny one!" and how far the message got down the line before the picture clicked? I was mid-funny face, I think Bonnie to my right was working on something and poor Trevi had no idea what wild child Tara had started on the other end, lol.

Okay, before you look at the picture below, I SWEAR to you we did not plan the whole black and white thing. We must've just been on the same wave length. Ladies?! I think we clean up real nice :) Where were we going after a nice dinner at the Waterfront you may ask?.......

Wicked!

That's right! It was it's opening weekend in San Francisco and we were pretty much giddy to see it. As we were driving to the show the huge Chinese New Year parade had just ended and we got to see several block long Dragons and floats which was great. The show was, well, pick any awesome adjective and that was pretty much it. It is an amazing production and to see everyone's reactions to watching the story unfold was so much fun as well.

The weekend flew by so quickly but thank you to all of our husbands who made this possible for us to do- we love you guys!!! Come again any time girls! Love you guys!

Eclectic

Who wouldn't love my eclectic little crew? Seriously.

Today Kohen asked "Mom? How many days till I grow up?" - it kinda gave me a lump in my throat...

A Sign By Kennedy

We found this little sign posted on Kennedy's door more than a week after they celebrated Chinese New Year at school:

It didn't take us long to realize she had sounded out Chinese phrases phonetically, I think Nathan and I were just surprised she remembered a phrase she heard one day at school.

Translation: 

*Gong Xi Fa Cai- "Happy New Year"

*Ni Hao - "Hello" 

Then "Uncle Justin" and a picture of Kennedy with her Uncle Justin who is serving his mission in Taiwan.  

Oh To "Shabe"

Kohen loves every manly thing he gets to do to be like dad. Many times I have walked in our bathroom to find Kohen, post-shower, wrapped in a towel just like his dad, sitting on the counter next to where Nathan is shaving, patiently waiting for his turn to "shabe". Nathan slathers him up then turns his razor around to the non-sharp side and gives Kohen a shabe. If I'm not right there Kohen will run around the house until he finds us girls so we can touch his cheeks and feel how smooth they are.
Well he finally earned a pretend razor and shaving cream of his own tonight and he was giddy to try it himself. He is typically hilarious so the whole fam had gathered to watch his maiden "shabe". He didn't disappoint and had all of us laughing. Tonight he is of course sleeping with his new razor...a sentence I never thought I would find myself writing. P.s.- don't worry, he has had many lessons about the dangers of a real razor, so far they seem to have worked.

Massacre of the Poe's

There are lot's of things you may do as a parent that cause you to be judged by others. Letting your child have a pacifier too long is one of them, no? Don't tell me you haven't seen a 5 year old with a pacifier in their mouth at the grocery store and not wondered why the parents hadn't intervened. I refuse to believe I'm the only guilty party.

So at two and a half Ms. Aly was rapidly and obliviously approaching the end of a long love affair with her "Poe". Long story why but Aly (and therefore the rest of us) calls her pacifier a Poe or Poey. Aly sleeps with a specific blanket and Poe and it has been a year or more now since she only has it at night. She has never given us a lick of trouble about it so I was loathe to change up a routine that worked so well for everyone. Then Aly decided to take matters into her own hands.

The other day when I came in to get my youngest up in the morning there was a massacre of Poey's scattered around her bed on the floor. I picked one up only to find grisly bite marks that had broken through the latex and 'killed' the poe. Surprised, I explained to Aly that all of her Poe's were broken, she was hilariously unrepentant telling me, "Poe's ah fo babies." True enough, I agreed.

Well, it has been a rough couple of bedtimes the last 5 days. What used to take 10 seconds (hand Aly Poe and blanket, kiss her and tell her goodnight) now has turned into the better part of an hour where she stalls, cries and begs for water, kisses, "I'm stared!" (with pretend scary shakes) and on and on. I feel bad for her...and for Nathan who tries to address her superficial needs. Sometimes growing up sucks. Poey pun intended.