Happy Third Birthday, Isaac!

Isaac is 37 inches tall, 36.2 pounds and 3 years old!  In true 3 year old style, his original cake that actually said Happy Birthday Isaac on it landed upside down on the floor in the kitchen.  It was not his fault at all, but it was a bit devistating for him, but nothing that an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates couldn't fix.  Luckily we had a second cake (for Brian's birthday tomorrow) so we quickly frosted it and put all of the extra candy letters on added candles and voila, Happy Birthday Isaac!

Raising a Horder

I am raising a horder.  I will admit that I watched "My Extreme Affliction" recently about horders and they mentioned children of horders.  They showed a child having a meltdowm because his parents were trying to get rid of a broken down play house that he was too big for.  Mackenzie has always had a hard time giving things up.  We seem to finally have her convinced to donate clothes that don't fit her.  However, a couple of weeks ago she had a total meltdown when I threw out a toothbrush after giving her a replacement that was nearly identical.  She fished it out of the trash can and tried to use it.  Last week she broke a yo-yo and when I told her to throw it out, that we had other yo-yos, she had a complete breakdown and refused to throw it away.  I have no idea whether this is normal or not, but I actually looked up therapists this week.

On a lighter note, I took the kids fishing on Sunday with some co-workers and their kids.  Everyone had a ball (except maybe a couple of the fathers) despite that fact that we didn't catch a single fish.  Mackenzie and Isaac wore out their fishing poles practicing their casting.  I lost two bobbers and hooks in bushes/logs.  We all got a bit of a sunburn. 

Escorted out by Security with the Kids

So, the User Acceptance Test for my latest project starts tomorrow and I had some work to do this weekend to get ready for it.  My parents came down to help with the kids yesterday and they brought Lexie, which was fantastic!  The kids loved having both their grandparents and their cousin here.  So, I went to work yesterday morning and the kids were here with Grandma and Grandpa.  Today my parents had to leave in the morning and Brian went into work, so it was me and the kids.  I wanted to go into work and get the room set up for the testing and work with the system a bit, so I packed up some snacks and the kids pick a couple of activities and we went to the office.  I knew that the building that has the plant in it did not allow children, but we moved to a new building in October and the plant is not connected to our building, so I thought it might be okay.

So the kids and I get there and we get into the room and Isaac tells me that he has to go potty.  As we head out of the room we ran into a security guard.  He quickly informed me that kids were not allowed in the building.  He was very nice though and let Isaac go potty (he escorted us there) and then escorted us back to the room and waited as we packed everything up and then escorted us to the car. 

The kids were super good and we got into the car with no issues, and I think a lesson was learned by us all : )  Hopefully I won't hear anything more about it at work.

We have a Purple and Pink Bathroom

Okay, so I used to be totally anti-pink.  I never wanted to be a girly girl, I never liked wearing dresses, I didn't own nail polish or nail polish remover for a very long time.  Then I had a daughter.  She wears a dress nearly every day.  She loves pink and purple.  I now own nail polish because she loves to have her nails painted.  And now I have a pink and purple bathroom, and I chose the color.

To be totally honest, I chose a darker plum color, but in their adds, Lowe's lies about being able to "match anything".  Evidently they can only match things if there are of a particular size and the purple that I wanted on the tissue box (which you can see in the picture) was not big enough for them to match.  Anyway, I like the bathroom and Mackenzie loves it.  The wall space is small enough that if I get sick of it in a few years, I can repaint it pretty easily.

Mackenzie made a new friend this week.  Aubry lives across the street and is number 4 of 5 kids.  She is actually Isaac's age and has a younger brother, James.  They have a swingset, a trampoline and a sand table, which Mackenzie and Isaac both throught were great.  While we were in their yard, Aubry called her older sister over to "meet my new friend, Mackenzie", which was super cute and tonight Mackenzie asked if she could go outside to play with her new friend (although she couldn't remember her new friend's name).  Proof yet again that sex trumps age, but I am really glad that the kids are making friends in the neighborhood.

Doctors, Doctors Everywhere

Last week I managed to spend everyday except Sunday sitting in at least one doctor's office.  I had a bit of a health scare myself, having found a lump in my breast, and the kids managed to get 2 different illnesses that involved their bottoms.  The breast lump was very scary for me at the time and it made me think alot about how the kids and Brian would be affected if I was sick, particularly if it was something terminal.  Although I don't want to go through it again, I think that the week was good for me.  I think that I am a better mom, and maybe even a better wife for having reflected a bit on myself and having questioned what I would change if I had a limited lifespan.  Speaking of which I need to get off the computer and go watch Word World with my kids.

By the way, I am fine.  I have a mysterious disappearing breast lump at this time.  The doctors are blaming it on hormones, which I think is Latin for "baffling female problem", but as long as it stays away I guess I can deal with it.

The kids bottoms are also fine.  Mackenzie had a week of ointment and Isaac is on a round of amoxycillin.

New Skates!

About a month ago I wrote about Grandpa Mike buying the kids ice skates, which they loved.  However, we haven't had a very cold winter and we haven't taken them ice skating since.  With the 40 degree weather we have been having, I am thinking that we missed our chances to go ice skating this winter, at least outside, where I think it is the most fun to ice skate.  My niece informed me that there is a mall here that has a plastic ice skate rink where we could go ice skating, but (and I know that I am being selfish here) I am not going ice skating on plastic or in a mall.  Bowling Green University has skating lessons, so perhaps I will get up the energy to call them and see if I can get the kids signed up for classes there.  However, I feel like all I have been doing lately is making doctor's and dentist's appointments in my free time and Isaac's birthday is coming up, so I think it will be awhile before I get around to that.  So instead, I bought the kids roller skates.  Meijer had a pair in Mackenzie's size on clearance, and a pair of Cars roller skates for toddlers that clamp onto shoes, so I decided God was trying to tell me it was time to move on to spring activities and I bought them.  Well, I probably don't need to even type this, the kids loved them.  Luckily we have a huge flat driveway, so we didn't have to go far to try them out:

We also registered to register Mackenzie for kindergarten, which was very exciting.  You would have thought we were registering her for a college where only the first 20 kids registered get in.  Anyway, we have an appointment on March 5 to actually register her.  We are going to send her to all-day kindergarten since she will turn 6 the second week of school and all.  Luckily the day care they are at now has before and after-school care and the bus will take her the block and a half between day care and school, so that is easy.  She is really excited to ride the school bus.  Every morning when I see the teenagers standing by the street in the dark at 7:15 am, I wonder how long she will like riding the bus, but for now it works.

Family Fun

It has been a while since I posted on here.  I have had a busy few weeks.  I had a number of things "go live" at work, I took a trip to North Carolina in order to take a trip back to Ohio with Tina, Thoman and Nicholas.  I got a chance to go through West Virginia for the first time and stop at Tamarack with Tina and the boys.  Mackenzie and Isaac got to spend a day with their cousins here in Perrysburg, and to take the boys to the 577 Foundation (see photo above) on a muddy January day.  Then the following weekend we drove up to Michigan to spend time with them and my parents.  We stayed in a hotel that night and the kids got to go swimming with all of their cousins at the hotel and had a blast.  I wish I had remembered to take my camera down to the pool so I could have gotten a shot of Lexie, Thomas, Nicholas, Mackenzie and Isaac at the pool together, but I did not. 

We have been trying to have a calm week this week after all of the excitement and I am hoping we can get some work done on the house this weekend after a break.  I am going to try and get the wallpaper down in the guest bathroom so that Brian can then fix the hole in the wall and the tile that got knocked down during a recent plumbing repair.  I am also hoping that Brian will patch up the damage to the wall in the living room in preparation for our next big painting job.  I am hoping that by putting this plan in writing I will stick to it.  We are also having a play date this weekend so some house cleaning is also necessary.  Perhaps I am once again over-planning our weekend . . .