Sloane wonders why the waves are so loud. Bill is annoyed too. 

Life...it's happening right now

Sloane can sit up now. She's still adorable. We had a treasure hunt this week for playgroup. Everyone buried all their crappy toys from McD's and such and the kids went on a digging hunt to replenish their supply of crappy little toys. It was a lot of fun....especially because it was NOT raining!
In other news Bill is TOTALLY grumpy from jet-lag and stress and moving and he's not working a bit so he's home and around all the time and we are constantly getting on each other's nerves. It is SO annoying that i'm just looking forward to moving. Sometimes I think it would be nice to move into the hotel right now but mostly I think it would be nice if Bill would just move into the hotel right now. ha! I'm sort of kidding.
So, that's my rant. Here's some pictures where i'm annoyed and saying "take the picture RIGHT NOW through my teeth".

Daddy is home

After Toys R Us we had some Anpanman bread to replenish our energy supplies. Daddy is home and we're all feeling good about that. Sloane had to sit in one of those crazy kid seats while I used the bathroom in the airport. Then Billie was really happy with her loot from Nanna that Dad brought back from his trip.


 

raising Nerdlings

First, I just put the kiddos to bed and i have to mention this. As they go to sleep they listen to CDs with stories, some recorded by grandparents, some professional storybooks and some history of the world CDs which are super cool and interesting. So they usually have a request. Tonight Billie wants "Cincinattus" and I don't even know what that's about so I have to check the indexes on the CD booklet things and I'm asking "Do you mean Constantine? Or Stilicho? Siddartha?" "no, Mom...it's when Caesar...Julius, not Augustus, Caesar gave the power back to the Senate. I want THAT one." She's FIVE.
So, mostly I just wanted to blog that it's SO HARD being a single Mom. I didn't think it would be such a big deal but now that Bill is going i have to give him such major props because i'm so grumpy and not as good of a mom as i am when he's here. And how on earth do people even do this without two parents?!
Today I'm out in the rain with 3 kiddies (we picked up an extra) ages 5, 3, and 3. And Sloane, in the sling (as always). We go to Toys R' Us and it's RAINING. What a day!
But let me back up because we don't usually go to Toys R Us. Tragedy brought us there. Jackson's most beloved mouse, Rizzo was no where to be found! After days of searching through the house and van clutter there was still no sign of him and my sweet boy was SO sad. Here I was at a COMPLETE loss. Usually I'm clever and come up with interesting fantasies (some people call them lies but I prefer the term fantasies because it's an excercise in imagination) to distract kids when there's a problem. "Maybe Rizzo went to visit his Rizzo family and he's there in the meadow with all the Rizzos having a picnic" but Jackson wanted his Rizzo and he was weeping. I had nothing to offer! me: "Why don't you just watch a video and snuggle up with this replacement toy?" Here's a first it's 9pm- an hour past bedtime and I just let a kid get up and watch a video!!! I was desperate. I called Bill. Jackson talked to Bill who, it 'turns out', Rizzo had decided to visit. Rizzo and Jackson talked on the phone with Jackson giggling and telling Rizzo to come home and eventually telling Rizzo to put Daddy back on the phone. He was still sad that Rizzo was not here but happy to know where he was. Bill went out and made a purchase the next day and we got to Skype Rizzo today and see that he really is there at Nanna's with Daddy so that all worked out well. In the meantime it's still hard to go to sleep at night so I told Jackson he could pick out any toy in the store. He came home with a new light-saber today.
We can't wait for Rizzo and Daddy to get back here!

Review

Since Bill is gone and I'm in blogging mode (And because I just sent out an email to everyone so people might actually start reading this) I thought I'd put up some old pictures. Obviously Sloane is ADORABLE and the kids are pretty cute too. I think there's some pictures of me in the early blogs but mostly it's bill, since I'm behind the camera...I'm even the photographer in this shot of me holding Sloane- I wouldn't normally want anyone to get a shot of my face this close...
i'm expecting some comments people...
in ADDITION to those from Nanna Pat ;)


 

Friday

Billie taught Jackson how to make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches (she, like myself, has grown tired of making PB&Js for others and has decided to delegate). Sloane loves playing with her feet. More hermit crab fun

oura wan- the alone trip

This morning we woke up to our beautiful view at Oura Wan. Practically getting sunburns while we slept; there was so much sunshine in our room so the kids were up and about at 6:30 AM!!!!! Yikes! That makes for a pretty LONG day. Especially since we planned to be with friends but wound up going it alone so it's me, 3 kids and wherever we go I'm packing Sloane in the sling so no long walks are on the agenda. Pictures include view from a sling, picking flowers, and pretending to be fishermen. we caught hermit crabs, brought them home and played with them. billie made a little house for hers and was all about setting it up (like a dollhouse or something) she had the carrot right next to the 'water bowl' a bottlecap filled with water, a sandpit and some rock-climbing areas. jackson named his "Cort and Jackson" and made coencentric circles to have races between them. it was very entertaining until it started to rain again!

Missing Bill

Okay, we made it through day one. Billie was so upset that first day I didn't know how she could keep that up for 7 days....luckily, she didn't. But as we were driving home from our friend's house Jackson did take a minute to cry and wished that daddy would be home when we got there. awwww.
I stay up late because i don't want to go to sleep without him. At least i've got Sloane in there with me to keep me company. I so love bonding with our babe for 9 hours each night! She is especially sweet at night because she's so squirmy and spazzy during the day- night is the only time I really get to just snuggle her and be at total peace.
Today we're going to Oura Wan- the kids are excited about that! I double-blogged, so check the one below too. I won't be blogging for a couple days. Love you Bill and everyone (all 3 of you) reading this!

Sloane's baptism

A few darling shots of Sloane's baptism last week. Just to help you get over the sadness of Daddy's travel.
 

blog-mania

okay, get ready for me to start blogging all the time because bill left so we'll keep it up and he can check in on us. billie was totally devastated when we parted and has weepy spells every couple hours. jackson is the sensitive one and he's not too worried- mostly telling billie "it's okay billie, daddy will be back in seven days. " Sloane doesn't seem to notice- possibly because he's only been gone less than a day.

 

 

okay, still don't really have time to be clever but i'll write a little something just to get back into the groove of it. we made slings the other day because i bought one for billie and used it as a pattern to make jackson an Ultraman sling for his favorite toy- white rat Rizzo.
part of the school lesson that day was learning how to thread the needle and how the sewing machine works. how cute did THAT turn out?!
Right now Billie and Jackson are outside digging in the dirt with buckets- it's HOTTER than ever and I don't know how they stand it. I keep bringing them water and occasionally jackson comes in, as Billie's servant saying "Mom, Billie needs the blue bucket with the smaller yellow handle because she needs that for her rock collection so I'm going to find it for her."
Love!

more photos

crazy life

life is a bit too insane to write right now. i'll just throw up some pictures so you know we're still here.

Happy Mother's Day

It's been a while. Let me try to recall what we've been up to. Today we went out for Chinese with friends: get this 8 kids 5 adults...table reservation is so funny when you're in this parenting part of life. That was fun. Billie and Jackson will only eat white rice now when we're out...they're done with being adventurous. Here they are having ice cream post rice. While we're on the topic of food- Sloane has tried it. I know, she's only 5 months and still nursing like a champ but she is so FASCINATED by the food we are eating and so GRABBY when I'm trying to eat and somehow keep her contained on my lap. She seemed really interested so she had a couple spoonfulls of her own oatmeal yesterday. I think she liked it.
Our FISH school has come to an end and for our end-of-the-year-finale we got to watch Jackson's preschool class perform songs about the days of the week and the months of the year. Jackson knows all the words and wasn't intimidated a bit by performing in a group. He's a tall, skinny almost four year old and he's SO great.
Billie's Kinder/1st grade class did a performance about the water cycle (Percipitate!) and played accuratly pitched bells to the tune of baa baa black sheep, reading color-coded musical notes well enough to earn the approval of their super-seriously-strict music teacher. Whew! What a show it was!
We had excavators all over the backyard for several days working on the 'water line' and then a yard full of sand to fill in the hole that was dug. Now it's sprayed with bright green powder grass seed and i don't know how good that is for kids to play around and inhale- so, we've been spending even more time at playgrounds than usual...if that's possible.
bill is getting psycyhed for hiking up mt. ranier in July and currently getting ready for his job hunting trip back to VA in just a couple weeks. Time is flying here.