Walking With Dinosaurs

We saw Walking With Dinosaurs on Monday, and WOW!  Very cool!  If you've never heard of it check out http://www.dinosaurlive.com

If it comes to your area, you should see it.  

Don't take your kids unless they are at least 4 though.  Matthew had moments of sheer terror on his face during parts of it.  Seriously, I've never seen the kid quite so scared.  He almost got sick from fright.  We had to "take a break" outside the arena doors and have a long talk about how the mechanics of how the dinosaurs were made, and how people are controlling them from inside the dinosaurs.  I recommend seeing the "how it was made" special before you go to take away some of the fear for your kids.  

Very cool show!

Stressful vacation?

So, I just poured myself a glass of wine here at 8:15 pm.  The kids are finally in bed, and I just took a shower.  Tonight is all about relaxation.  The Duraflame is lit in the fireplace - yes that's right, the Welshes are all about the Duraflame log.  So, why am I so excited about some relaxation?  Because this "vacation" has been anything but!  

I guess I thought, no...I guess I hoped that this 2 week vacation that I am on would be relaxing.  A time to unwind and spend fun time with the family.  But, the Holidays are a crazy time and it took a few days to get ready for those.  Then after Christmas, it took a few days to get the toys put away and get the house organized.  Now it is almost New Year's and my vacation is coming to a close, and I'm totally and completely exhausted!  

Our kids are great, but my God I'm sick of being their referee.  I swear they are growing because they are constantly asking for food (even though they both just out-ate me at breakfast, and it's only been one hour since).  I tried to read today and I was bombarded by questions and requests and the need to break up fights.  Uggggh!  I might be going a little bit crazy.  

And to top it off, I decided to get a free 7-day trial at 24-hour fitness because I thought this would be the perfect week to get some free workout time in.  But I haven't gone yet because there is no time, and they call us every day to ask us when we are going to come in and activate our free pass.  Leave me alone already!  I wish I could come in, believe me!

So anyway, enough of the pity party.  Life is great and I'm happy to be here.  Perhaps the wine is starting to kick in?

Christmas was great fun.  The kids got way too much stuff as usual.  Santa brought Matthew a train and he was just thrilled (even though it was a steam engine and not a diesel, it was still "just what he wanted").  Kayla got a tricycle from Santa.  Andrew and I got a new MacBook, which I am typing on as we speak, and we finally went wireless in our house.  I also got a new iPod nano - red, of course.  We spent Christmas at my parents house, and the Kansas relatives were here.  We've been to the zoo.  Lots of fun.

I managed to sell my rug on Craigslist today - see previous post for some background.

We're gearing up for 2009, which promises a ton of fun vacations already planned.  Can't wait for those!  Disneyland, Phoenix, the Outer Banks, and Mexico.  Perhaps they will provide some relaxation....  Who am I kidding?  Travel with kids is never relaxing.  But at least one of them will be with dear friends who I dearly miss.

The wine is definitely helping...I've decided that I need to schedule a massage and facial for Friday.  

Happy New Year to you all.  I hope you have a wonderful, safe, and healthy 2009!

An interesting morning...

Kayla is going through a major independent streak lately. She is almost two and a half, and wants to do everything herself. You can't touch her when she's getting dressed, because she wants to do it herself. It has progressed this week to us not even being allowed to watch her get dressed. As a side note, she is actually doing quite well dressing herself, although she occasionally needs help with getting a shirt off or finding an arm hole.

This morning was no different, she practically yelled at me to get out of her room (a preview of the teenage years to come?) so she could dress herself, and she shut the door behind me. A few minutes pass, and I start to hear some whining coming from the room. This is usually followed by, "Mommy, I need help," but this morning the whining just continued. I thought, "good, she's going to keep trying and not give up - an admirable trait." I decide I'll poke my head into her room to see how she's doing.

I open the door and see Kayla struggling to get her shirt off, with no pants and no diaper on ... and I smell poop. Getting nervous now, I ask Kayla, "did you poop?" and she says yes. My next question is, "where is the poop?" She tells me it is on her diaper, which is sitting over on the floor. I take a closer look, and sure enough there is a log of poop on top of her diaper - not IN the diaper mind you. A pit starts to form in my stomach as I realize this can only end badly. "Kayla, how did the poop get there?" She replies, "I poop my hand." Dear God no.

A major clean up effort ensues, including a ton of questions to try and determine where to focus my cleaning efforts. Did she poop on top of the diaper? Did she poop on the rug that I'm trying to sell this week on Craigslist and then pick it up? Or, did she poop on the hardwood floor and then carry it over to the diaper? Or, did she simply use her hands like a catcher's mitt? The answer to all of these questions was "yes," so it remains a mystery. A horrible disgusting mystery. I did the best I could cleaning the entire room, but only Kayla knows how things really went down in there with the poop.

An unexpected visit

This weekend we had a wonderful surprise! We got a text message late Friday night from our very good friends in Colorado asking if we had plans on Saturday and if we wanted visitors. We've known Nikki and Mike Zeman since college. Nikki and I were sorority sisters at CU, and Mike went to the Air Force Academy. Mike is now a pilot with Southwest Airlines, and had a long stop over in San Jose Saturday night. He convinced Nikki and their two boys to come out for a visit as well. We get to see them once or twice a year if we are lucky, so we were thrilled at the idea of having them come for a visit.

We had so much fun! Matthew was so excited to have two boys to play with, and they all slept on the floor in his room (until Cooper woke up screaming, but that's another story). Kayla was very excited to see Mr. Mike again (who she latched onto at our last get together at Disneyland). The adults stayed up very late enjoying beverages and several rounds of Catch Phrase. And wouldn't you know it, the kids got up VERY early. One of the Zeman boys thought he was still on Colorado time and decided to wake up at 4:45am, and the rest of the kids followed shortly thereafter. Yikes! Four hours of sleep was not nearly enough for me.

It often feels like our lives are so rushed, and our weekends can be filled with mundane chores and activities just to try and catch up. It was such a breath of fresh air to have those things thrown out and replaced with great friends and laughter. Life is short and we have to take advantage of those opportunities whenever we can. I'm looking at my to do list today thinking, "my God, I got nothing done this weekend." But I wouldn't trade it for the world...good times spent with great friends is priceless.

Visit to Santa

Matthew has been obsessed with gifts this year. He has been tearing pages out of catalogs and showing us what he wants for Christmas now for several weeks. He will show us the pages and ask us what we like best on the page, and then proceed to tell us all about the things that he wants. This happens multiple times a day. It's gotten so bad that we had to hide the torn-out catalog pages from him this weekend! He has changed his mind 6 times already about what he wants Santa to bring him. First it was a train, then an aircraft carrier, then a track for his cars, then the aircraft carrier again, then the train, and so on...

So, we went to see Santa yesterday at the mall. Matthew and Kayla were excited to tell Santa what they want for Christmas. I was excited that Matthew was finally going to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. In the car we realized that Matthew had brought along one of his catalog pages to show Santa. Yikes! I'm thinking that it probably is not cool to show Santa a catalog page, but figured that other kids had probably done worse, and Matthew wouldn't be the rudest kid to ever sit on Santa's lap with his silly catalog page. But Andrew was not going to have any part of it. "No showing catalog pages to Santa!" Matthew threw a small fit, saying that Santa would bring him the wrong thing if he didn't show him the catalog page. I told Matthew that Santa would know what to bring him, but that didn't seem to calm him down. Andrew told Matthew he was acting like a little brat and Santa would bring him a lump of coal. That didn't help. Finally, we reminded him that Santa was watching him right now, and he finally decided that he should stop. We all got out of the car and headed into the mall...

The actual visit with Santa went off without a hitch. Last year, when Kayla caught a glimpse of Santa, she climbed up Andrew like a monkey escaping a lion attack. This year she actually sat on Santa's lap and told him that she wanted a "tricycle, a pink tricycle." Matthew told Santa he wanted a "diesel train." Santa told the kids to look up at the mall skylights to see if they could see the reindeer, and there were actually antlers up there! Very cute. The pictures were not great, though...the kids had that fake, uncomfortable smile on their faces. Oh well, we didn't want that $40 picture package of wallets and a key chain anyway!

When we got back to the car ready to head home, Matthew says, "if Santa brings me a Thomas train instead of a diesel train set, I'm going to be very upset." This of course prompted a stern lecture from both parents about being thankful for getting anything, and how some kids don't get toys at Christmas, and some kids are starving in Africa. My lectures always seem to come back to the starving children. Oh well, you've gotta love kids and Christmas!