rachel's continued ramblings

it's not every day that an activity arises that invokes the cooperation of ALL of my kids. today we had one! layla asked if i could bring the yellow table inside so she could set up a restaurant in her room. I said sure, but I would have to clean it up first. *sigh* that’s easier said than done. back in the spring, we took the table outside so she and micah could have their lunch outside on it, and with all the wet, nasty weather and such, I just kinda left it out there, instead of bringing it back in right away so it would stay clean... which means it was dirty. gross, nasty, spiders, snails, etc. plus, because it’s an ikea snap-together set, it had various parts which had filled up with rainwater. which meant that it had to be all taken apart and dried out and cleaned and yada yada yada… all more reasons it just continued to stay outside because I didn’t want to deal with it. but I knew it needed to be done. so I went outside with my bottle of simple green, a few cleaning rags...

sunday:     layla FINALLY decided she was brave enough to change her earrings. she got these earrings from my parents for her birthday, and conceded that it would be okay to wear them to church on sunday to show them. so she did. it was slightly traumatic as I had a heck of a time getting the backings off her studs, but then my parents didn’t even come to church that day! monday:     this is SO typical of shane. I was doing the laundry and, as usually, zipping zippers and checking pockets. shane has this crazy mindless habit of shredding whatever it is that happens to be in his pocket. like seriously SHREDDING. this time we had kleenex in the right pocket and starburst wrappers in the left. tuesday:      this is what layla’s ankle looked like on tuesday when I took her to the dr. the first time. a tad swollen, you think? wednesday:     here’s dave being burly. when he mows the back yard, he has to move the climber so he...

on Monday morning, layla got out of bed and complained about her ankle hurting. I looked at it, and not seeing anything or figuring how she could have injured it in her sleep, I dismissed it. she didn’t complain about it the rest of that day, even through walking to a friend’s house for a playdate, playing all afternoon, and walking home again. that evening, during dinner, she started complaining again. I thought she was being dramatic and trying to get shane in trouble, because the two of them had been horsing around. when she didn’t want to finish her dinner and crawled down the hall to get her jammies on, I went to look at it. lo and behold, it was crazy swollen! the first picture is the bad ankle, the second is the good ankle, just for comparison… so we put some ice on it and chilled out for awhile. I wrapped it in an ace bandage and put her to bed. she did not sleep. she whined and whimpered and moaned and cried. dave got her up and had a look. we put some more ice on it. we dis...

sunday:     dave, crossing the finish line of the STP. monday:     this is layla’s (and noah’s) actual birthday, and kat made a cake for them and shane so we could celebrate while we were down there. we took a little break from playing in the water at GWL to go have lunch and a little celebration with them. tuesday:      shane’s birthday! flashing 12 with the help of the 9 candled birthday crown. wednesday: ??? no pic. thursday:      layla and micah playing in our pop-up fire truck. (yes, we wear turtlenecks in july here.) friday:      shane was off on an overnight ‘fern hike’ in cle elum with our neighbors, so I took the little kids bowling with a bunch of friends. it was a HOOT! micah had never been bowling before and LOVED it. I had to keep a close eye on him because he kept pushing the buttons on the computer that controls the score screen, and, he was not very good at waiting his turn. se...

here’s a little glimpse into my daughter’s psyche: of course, this has to do with dogs… there has been discussion lately about the prospect of dogs riding the bus. we recently read all of the henry huggins books by beverly cleary. (aside, if you or your children are between the ages of 5 and 100 and you have never read these books, go get them now! fabulous, wholesome, whole family entertainment. they precede the ramona books, which more people might be familiar with and are just delightful. I read them all to shane a few years ago and have just finished them with layla. we are now onto the second ramona book and loving it as much as I did when I read them as a kid. go read them. now.) at any rate, at the beginning of the first henry huggins book, when henry first gets ribsy, he tries to bring him home on the bus, which he’s told he cannot do, unless the dog is tied in a box. so in layla’s mind, dogs are not allowed on busses. then, the other day, we drove past a bus stop near our h...

sunday: dave and layla had a ‘date’ and went to the mariners game. her choice. she lasted about 4 innings… monday: happy 4th of july! the POTD is shane w/ his ‘roman armpits’! (inside joke.) tuesday: after a late night the day before, and a long day in the sun, riding buses and watching gramma and papa’s lions club parade, micah PASSED OUT on the way home and didn’t wake up until about 3 hours later. wednesday: yes, mary, this picture is for you! I went to warm something up and found THIS in my microwave… I plead the 5th. thursday: shane has never been a big fan of chocolate, and had this idea that he wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies, but without the chocolate chips. odd, but whatever. I found the recipe for him and helped him here and there, but, for the most part, he made them all on his own. they were pretty good, too. even w/out the chocolate chips. friday: best night of the MOMS club year! the end of the year party. so much fun, and LOTS of yummy food, thanks ...

it’s birthday time around here, and this year, we celebrated with a family stay at great wolf lodge . an indoor water park is a relatively new (and much needed) addition to western washington and the kids have been begging to go every time we pass it (which is with surprising frequency), so we decided to surprise them with an overnight stop there on our way back up from portland. everyone was very excited and it took forEVer to get everyone to sleep that night. (side note: I’m convinced that putting kids to bed in a hotel room is a new level of hell.) in the morning (layla’s 6th birthday!), we opened a few presents, helped her with her new puzzle (a gift from gramma and papa that she’d been dying to get at), and then got our suits on and headed to breakfast. looking through the lobby window at the water park: after breakfast we headed in to the water park and had a BLAST!!! this place is really family friendly and has stuff for kids (and adults) of all ages. layla was about half an ...

this past weekend, dave and his friend, cole, participated in the STP bike ride. that’s seattle-to-portland. they rode their BICYCLES from seattle , all the way to portland – roughly 200 miles over 2 days. WOW!!! this is them on sunday afternoon, just after finishing. dave, crossing the finish line (blue helmet). shane was standing right in front of me and was, appropriately, cheering as I snapped the picture. that’s his hat and arm in the shot. cole crossed just in front of dave. dave’s parents were in town for the lion’s club convention so they joined us for the drive down (basically to meet them at the end). we spent the night in rochester (centralia area, which is the half-way point) on saturday, and then drove to portland the next day. I was VERY happy that we got there at just about the right time so we could see them finish. it was very exciting! about 10,000 riders participated. and I had to include this one (sorry, dave): this is how we found him when we arrived in roche...

okay, this is a little ghetto, but since I did layla’s yesterday, I figured I had better do shane’s as well. one problem, half of shane’s birthdays did not get captured in digital form. so, lacking a scanner, I took pictures of pictures. LOL. whatever. It’s a blog. crappy photos can suffice. oh my, this is a lot of birthdays to try and remember! here goes… july 12, 1999: shane edward was born at 3:13 pm at swedish hospital. he weighed only 6 pounds and half an ounce!   this picture isn’t actually from shane’s first birthday, but it’s from around that time. I don’t actually have any pictures from his first birthday, 1) because he was sick that day, and 2) my camera was broken. boo. at any rate, due to illness, there was obviously no major celebration that occurred.   july 12, 2001: shane’s 2nd birthday went much smoother than his first. he celebrated with grandma, grandpa, mom, and uncle joel!   july 12, 2002: shane’s 3rd birthday. he had a big party at marymoor pa...