Posted on

A Long Strange Trip

So a funny thing happened on the way to the airport. Well I guess technically it was the days leading up to our flight. Matt’s stepmom mentioned something about our flight being at 10AM. I knew it was a morning flight and this seemed about right to me, though I thought it was a smidge earlier. But when we checked in online and printed our boarding passes the night before both Matt and I looked at our flight times and sure enough … right there it said 10:49am.

Upon arriving at the airport, we tried to log in and check our bags and got errors. The clerk informed us after some back-and-forth that our flight was actually at 9 AM and we had just missed (by minutes, I swear!!) our cutoff for putting our luggage on the flight, and ourselves as well it seems. No amount of cajoling, crying, etc. mattered. We could NOT get on that flight. Since we’d already checked in and it was just a matter of our bags, it was pretty irritating, especially since, as I noted later, they’re happy for your bags to be on a different flight if it suits them, but if you make the mistake, you are screwed.

Quadrupling our mistake was the fact that we were 1) a family of four 2) flying on a holiday weekend. Standby was not much of an option since they predicted they could get us on basically one at a time, maybe two. And the idea of hanging out in the airport all weekend to see who stupidly missed their flight (like us) with two little kids already at the end of their vacation rope was not much appealing. We could also pay fare-difference and fly as a family on Monday for around $600, but as we were already packed up and ready to go, heading back to Matt’s parents’ house, unpacking, etc. etc. was pretty depressing, especially since we’d miss the whole weekend and all the time we needed to get ready to go back to work.

We checked out other airlines which were either entirely unavailable or ridiculous (thousands for us to fly on such short notice, one-way). So we hit on a slightly crazy idea … rent a car and drive back. For around $400 (though I think once all fees, etc. were paid, it was closer to $500) we could rent a car, drive back and be home the next day. It wasn’t a cheaper option, but it was in many ways a more palatable option. We’ve done the trip many times before and it’s all easy-interstate. Everything was packed and we could just go from the airport and head out.

So … we did. We did a long stop-over in Paducah, KY for lunch at a Chick-fil-A with a play center and a stop at Walmart for various other provisions. $90 netted us a portable DVD player with two screens and that plus the $10 copy of Scooby Doo, Where are You?? we picked up, plus some various other bribes, kept the kids happy for MANY hours. We grabbed some road-trip food and an insulated bag so we had snacks. We made stops here and there for traffic and gas and … POTTY/diaper breaks.

We made our best time after rush hour and when the kids were sleeping, so we pushed through to Hays, KS and stayed at the dubious Days Inn, home of the worst shower I’ve ever had. The next day after our continental breakfast and another 5 hours in the car, we finally made it to the Denver International Airport and returned our car.

Matt and I are both still FLOORED at how amazing the kids were. Of course possibly watching mommy lose her sh*t in the Nashville Airport impressed upon them the gravity of the situation. Or maybe they were so engrossed in Scooby Doo they just didn’t care. But they were amazingly good. The road trip overall was kind of fun in a weird way. It felt sort of like we were back in college again and someone had dropped two unsuspecting children into our back seat.

Of course it’s much easier to be Zen about all this now, but we definitely made some lemonade and dealt with the situation pretty well. As we kept saying, it could have been much worse. We decided there were four people on standby who needed to get to Denver for whatever reason much more urgently than us. And we’ve got 4 flight credits on Frontier for our next trip. That said, not something I’m keen to do again in a big hurry.

Posted on

Val-deri, Val-dera!

It was a busy weekend (duh – aren’t they all?). One thing we did was spend our Saturday morning in the mountains (foothills). We went on one of our favorite local hikes, Corwina Park.

I am particularly fond of this hike because it’s beautiful and very shady. There’s a lovely little stream running by the side of the trail for the first half of the trek and then when you get to the top, you get a beautiful view. As an added bonus, the parking lot has access to a river, so we can toss Loki in and get him clean(er).

Tabby and Ben both love to hike. Ben got so excited when Matt pulled out the backpack I thought he’d explode before we could get him in the car. Tabby hikes all on her own now and is an incredibly good hiker for the most part. The rest can be coaxed along with a snack here and there. I packed the applesauce in the tube I got from Costco this go-around and that was a major hit.

A couple of Tabby’s comments from hiking today:

“I wish Ben was big enough to walk and I could ride in the backpack.”

“I think Loki might go feral!” (We had just had a lengthy discussion on the difference between “wild” and “feral.”)

As as an added incentive/reward for good hiking, Matt purchased her her very own CamelBak.

Posted on

Tabby at 4.25

June 4th ticked off a quarter year of the way through Tabby’s fourth year. I’m still shocked and dismayed as these milestones fly by. Wonder if it will ever slow down a bit?

I’m really loving this little girl. I know she’s not 100% perfect, but the small battles we have over this and that (she’s a bit prone to drama and sometimes she doesn’t mind) are so small that it’s almost not worth mentioning. Sometimes this freaks me out a little. She’s too good. Too easy going. What am I in for with the teen years? Major payback? Oh well I won’t ruin this by borrowing trouble.

I notice the changes more slowly with Tabby these days, but she still does change. Just recently, she’s stretched out a bunch and seems to be all legs and arms. I’m sure that’s where all the food she’s been packing away is going to. She’s been eating like a horse and still hovering right around 35 lbs. She wears everything from 2T to 4T and I need to measure her again soon because I’m sure she must be inches above her last mark on the kitchen wall.

She seems to have abandoned some of her picky eating ways. We’re having more success with not gagging on “no thank you bites.” She’s also succumbed to my marketing campaigns for this and that. Quiche is gross but egg pie is tasty and delightful. Seaweed? Repellent!! But nori? SO YUMMY!! She will pretty reliably eat meat and cheese (but not string cheese – prefers bleu cheese or sharp cheddar or some of that delightful Wensley-Dale) and most carbs. She just recently discovered grits and I think Matt about burst with pride.

She is becoming a master at the art of negotiation. Some of her favorite phrases these days are, “but Mommy …” and “actually, Mommy …” It’s quite killing to hear her talk in her little girl voice with her adult-like vocabulary. She says almost all words perfectly, though ‘R’s give her some trouble still. Three=”fwee” for example.

Her newest interest is video games. She and Ben have a computer in their playroom. He loves it because it plays his beloved “Buzz!!” but Tabby loves it because she can play all the latest Dora and Kai-Lan games and draw and Skype with her family in Nashville. She also acquired a Dora Gameboy game (you take care of Dora’s puppy) that she is much in love with. We have to strictly limit access or she would play nonstop.

She has also recently overcome her fear of the waterslide at our rec center pool. This is huge for her and wonderful for us. You can only sit in the shallows of the kiddie pool guarding against disaster for so long before you want to scream. Now we can make the long trip up the stairs eleventy million times which is a vast improvement, believe it or not. I think we’ll get to take the kids to Waterworld this summer!

In many ways I am so sad at how fast her childhood is going by, but I dearly love the incredible little person she’s become. She is my little buddy and we both love doing things together … reading, cooking, making things … and the older she gets, the more stuff we can do together. Definitely a silver lining.

Posted on

Tabby’s Dinner Party

This kid of mine … she is the definition of social. She wants to be going and doing or having someone come visit her. ALL. The.Time. Whenever she makes  a new friend at the park or the gym, she will ask her friend to have her mommy talk to my mommy about setting up a playdate. The more the better. She is friendly with everyone from the grumpy-looking old lady at the grocery store to the cute young guy at Target and especially any kid even near her own age. She remembers people too. “There’s Emily. She went to swim lessons with me. Hi Emily!!!”

So she was a bit disappointed last Friday when I told her we didn’t really have any plans when she asked what we were doing that evening. “I think Grammy should come over. And Papa. And Gaga. And Gigi.” I said that was fine by me and suggested she call her guests and invite them. I really had nothing on hand for dinner, but I guessed we could figure something out. So Tabby called Grammy and invited her to dinner.

Grammy asked what we were having for dinner and Tabby asked me. As Ben had just coughed so hard he’d thrown up, I responded with, “I don’t know … at this point, probably pizza from down the block!” Then she asked Tabby if she could bring anything.

“No,” says Tabby, “Just bring yourself. No wait. How about a salad?” Gaga, Papa and Gigi were likewise invited.

Nicely Set TablePapa's Place

After nap, we talked a bit more about her dinner party. She was happy with pizza but she wanted to set the table. So I helped her get out the paint chip placemats and some cloth napkins. She very carefully paired placemats with complimentary napkins and told me who each combo was for. I suggested she make place cards to set at each place so people would know who she had set the place for. I lightly penciled the names and she traced over them and then decorated them with stickers.

Around five, we talked about ordering the pizza. What kind should we get? Tabby rattled off everyone’s favorite type of pizza and Daddy placed the order and Tabby delegated pickup him and Ben and Papa. The pizza paired with Grammy’s salad was very nice and Tabby helped me pull some chocolate chip cookie dough (homemade) out of the freezer to give everyone a nice dessert.

I think it’s fair to say a good time was had by all.

Posted on

Our Little Ski Bum

My poor hubby. His birthday is jammed in with Mother’s Day. And it’s not that anyone thinks Mother’s Day is necessarily any more important than his b’day, it’s just that there’s a LOT of mothers between my mom, myself and our extended family and friends. It’s a numbers thing. So frequently his b’day kind of gets the short end of the stick. And his b’day is also in pretty close proximity with Ben’s which means two years ago I was exhausted from having just had a baby (and a bunch of relatives in from out-of-town for my brother-in-law’s graduation) and last year we were doing the first birthday thing. So like I said, not much birthday love for Matt. But this year, I swear I redeemed myself. I DID!!

Last summer at the Vail Farmer’s Market, we saw an awesome artist, Sara Melzer. She does gorgeous India ink portraits of ski bums! They’re super colorful and kind of wild and splashy and Matt and I both loved them. We thought at the time about commissioning her to do a portrait from one of our favorite photos of Tabby in her ski gear but we couldn’t really swing or justify the price at the time. So I filed it away in my brain.

This past winter, seeing Matt skiing with his baby girl I knew I had to have the portrait made for him. He just loves sharing his favorite sport with her and takes such pride in her enjoyment and emerging proficiency. So this March I emailed Sara about getting it going and she was wonderful to work with. I sent a few photos, including this one, my fave and she agreed, that was the one. So she took a couple of weeks, worked up a proof and emailed it to me. I was thrilled!! Since Vail is a couple of hours away, I could either have it mailed to me or pick it up … shipping was steepish so I bribed my awesome cousin and his girlfriend with Indian food and he picked it up for me when he was in Vail over spring break.

I made a few slip-ups and I was scared to death he’d figure it out before the big day, but he didn’t! He was totally surprised and he LOVES it. We don’t know where we’ll hang it just yet. But we do know we’ll need a second one featuring Ben … now I just have to find the perfect ski suit.

Posted on

Tabby and Me

The last couple of days it’s just been Tabby and me. We’ve had two evening social engagements and since they have been more with my friends than Matt’s and Ben hasn’t been feeling well, Tabby has been my date. Or maybe I was her date last night to her friends’ birthday party.Whatever.

I love both of my kids equally dearly and I love them together. Their interactions are one of the best things about being a parent. But it is also a very nice treat to get to hang out with my kids one-on-one. I get to hear their thoughts and only their thoughts, without interference from others. I get to focus all my attention on just one kid instead of having it split between two. It is a very relaxing change of pace.

So after two days of hanging out with my sweet FOUR year old. I realized a few things.

1. She remembers EVERYTHING. She repeated back to me all the details of our planned visit to NYC pretty much verbatim. She correctly identified three types of birds and four different flowers. She remembered the correct names (not just the silly lyric names) for the songs on her Beethoven’s wig CD.

2. She is super sociable. Both parties put her in close proximity with people she did not know very well if at all. With very little prodding if any she was able to politely ask the hosts for things she needed (a cup of lemonade, directions to the bathroom). And at the first party she gamely played photographer, taking my mom’s point and shoot around and capturing loads of images of people.

Granted these are things I knew on many levels but spending these evenings with her have crystallized these parts of her being for me. I really really enjoy hanging out with her. She is fun and funny. She is smart and silly. She’s pretty dang wonderful. I’m so proud.

Posted on

Big Birthday Bash Recap

Saturday was THE DAY – the kid’s big birthday bash. It was incredibly fun, terribly exhausting and also probably way too expensive, but as I have promised myself, we do not (WILL NOT) do this every year. And it was a great time and overall SO WORTH IT.

I will do a recap Tonia style here …

The Good

  • The AMAZING HELP Our family was so instrumental in getting all of this done you can’t even imagine. My mom hung with me all day Friday buying food and then prepping it and my sister joined in on that action as well and BOTH helped out at the party (my mom hardly left the kitchen). My dad did balloon and ice pickup and helped with the whole party. Our best friends, M&H and their boys were there for the long haul and helped out hugely from setup to cleanup. And my aunt and uncle did tons in the way of help during and afterward. We seriously could not have pulled it off without everyone’s help!
  • The Photo Booth The photo booth Matt and I built was awesome. EVERYONE loved it. It performed just as it should and everyone got some really great souvenirs from the party. It was a huge hit and folks want to rent it from us! Ha! Here’s the jist of it: we built a surround out of standard 1×1 boards for frame and thin sanded plywood in between – including a bench which my mom and sister upholstered and a shelf on the opposite side. We put a laptop running Sparkbooth inside and a printer printing the results outside. We used a couple of gooseneck lamps for light and had a curtain (stolen from Ben’s room) on the outside to keep out interference. We went through some ink and paper, but otherwise, it ran so smoothly and we barely did anything.
  • Costumes As I mentioned before, the theme was pirates and mermaids. Both kids had costumes that I just loved. Tabby’s came from a local costume shop and was around $35 (she wanted it badly and she has promised she’ll want it for Halloween too). Ben’s came from Amazon and cost me under $7. Hehe. I really loved it and he wore it all day after a pack of fruit snack bribery. Quite a few of the kids came in costume too which was SO MUCH FUN.
  • The WeatherIt was a beautiful day and so the porch on the back of the space was much utilized and loved. My brilliant sister even took the kids outside to eat their cupcakes (probably singlehandedly saving our cleaning deposit). We also got to do the treasure hunt game out there.
  • Treasure Hunt We filled a small (3′) kiddie pool with sand and hid stuff in there (pirate spy glasses, pirate finger puppets, candy, pirate girl bracelets) and then lined up the kids and let them hunt for 3 things each. We probably could have done five.
  • The Food (type) We did KID food for the party: cheese & crackers, fruit, M&Ms, Pirate Booty, hummus & veggie and of course … Pigs in a Blanket. We cut hotdogs into fourths and made 8 trays of mini pigs-in-a-blanket. They went over quite well.
  • The Venue I loved using the HOA common space. It was close and so easy to run back and grab candles (which we forgot/lost) and it was large (including the kitchen) and felt homey and comfortable. It was also really priced well at $40/hour.
  • Presents We made the decision to request no presents for a variety of reasons, but besides the obvious,  the number of people we wanted to invite would have made presents fill up the playroom and also we invited a lot of common friends but then a bunch of friends from Tabby’s school who are solely hers and I didn’t want them in the position of feeling like they needed to bring Ben a gift as well to keep things fair. Mostly, people honored our request and those that didn’t were very low key and respectful about it. The kids received mostly cards and a few gift cards (they LOVED $5 giftcards to the ice cream shop in our neighborhood) and one of Tabby’s classmates brought her an especially pretty balloon with his card. They also got just a few toys, plenty to make them feel like they had a birthday.

The Bad

  • Food (quantity) I am LOUSY at guessing food quantities for something like this and Matt is worse. ;)We had WAY too much except for the pigs-in-a-blanket. We will be noshing on leftover party food all week.
  • The Cucpakes I made a chocolate version of the strawberry milk cupcakes and they were good, just not GREAT in the same way the strawberry milk cupcakes were. But everyone liked them well enough. I also didn’t have to decorate them … just stuck some little plastic guys on top.
  • Crafts I had quite a few crafty things for the kids to do … picture frames ($2.50/doz @ Oriental Trading), necklaces, art station, etc. and they hardly got used. Some kids towards the end when they’d expended most of their energy did do some, but overall it was kind of wasted. As my mom pointed out though, if the weather had been crappy it might have been a different story.
  • Decorations This is just not my thing. I would always rather spend $$ on food and fun than decorations that don’t last. The room is also so large that any decorations kind of get lost in it. We did balloons and a huge pirate flag over the fireplace. They were fun but didn’t really change the character of the room.

The Ugly

  • Photos I was terrible about photos!! I didn’t even get a picture of the completed photo booth (I can’t believe it!!). I did OK with a few snippets here and there, but overall awful. I’m still quite mad at myself about this.
  • Cost I will not go into what everything cost, but I know we spent a bundle. It could have been way worse, but it was bad enough. Still, we can afford it and I wouldn’t change it. It was worth it.

Yesterday was 90% about relaxing and we definitely needed it. Tabby’s birthday is officially over. Ben will be our Easter Birthday Boy this weekend. Then, I think, we really are done.

Posted on

Weekend Update

We had a really really nice (though typically busy) weekend. It was a pretty good mix of go and chill and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Friday we had a nice “day off.” It always amazes me how fast our Fridays go. A little workout here, some meals, a nap, a single activity and done. We dropped the kids off with my parents in the evening so we could have a nice evening out with Andrew who leaves this week. Matt, Andrew, Kelly and I went to dinner at Ted’s (hello giant burger!) and then did some “Cosmic Bowling.” I love that we can really enjoy bowling since all the venues are now SMOKE FREE. Sorry smokers, but this makes me ecstatic. We played 3 or 4 games. I actually got above 100 on one of them. I also got to dedicate a song to Uncle Buck.

Saturday Tabby had her mini gymnastics meet that ends this session of “gymnastics.” Then my parents kept Ben while we had our Tabby Date. We took her to Target so she could spend some of her b’day money. She purchased a hot pink sequined Hello Kitty purse and Guess Who. Then we went to Into the Fire so she could paint her very own “box” turtle. Its body is brown, its shell is green and it has camo-colored dots EVERYWHERE (inspired, I think by the salt and pepper shakers I painted). There was a small meltdown when she realized she’d have to wait a week for her turtle to be baked but she got over it and enjoyed lunch at her requested spot “SWEET TOMATOES!” After naps, we got to finish out the evening by joining my parents for pizza and playing several games of Guess Who (which I am apparently very bad at … ha!).

Matt and I started out Sunday with our 7.5 mile run and followed it up with the usual montage of laundry, errands, house cleaning, cooking. Since the sun is now going down later, we were able to take the kids to the park after dinner which was nice. Though unfortunately, the wind was blowing hard and making it pretty chilly so we only stayed for about 30 minutes. I will be excited to get home and enjoy the dinner I started yesterday, Pork Ragu … it smells so so good.

Posted on

Party Time!

Since the kids’ birthdays are relatively close together and they still share many of the same friends, I have decided they will have a joint b’day party. I figure it’s a good way to cut down on the number of events our friends have to attend (they do suck the weekend time).

So I am in the midst of the planning stages. We will have it some time in mid April (in other words AFTER our first half marathon) … hopefully the weather will be nice. I think we’ll hold it either at our local community party space or at the “arbor house” at a park. I’m super excited about the theme Matt came up with, PIRATES and MERMAIDS. I spilled the beans to Lisanne and she sent me a terribly cute treasure map “cake” from Family Fun. I have serious doubts about my abilities to recreate it on my own, but I think I might be able to do the concept and stick some pirates and mermaids on top … right? I was also thinking of making placemats for the kids as party favors … some 11×17″ paper, some laminating sheets and you’re good to go.

I am going to be “grinchy” and request that folks not bring presents for the kids. Honestly, the kids have way more toys than they can play with anyhow and our house can’t hold any more!! Ben is way too little to get this, but I still need to talk it over with Tabby so she understands. She has already received many lovely presents from our close friends and family and that is wonderful, but like I said … more than enough. I hope people won’t be offended.

I found a bunch of really great party stuff from Oriental Trading, including a treasure chest  cooler. I was thinking of doing a craft station where kids could decorate some sun-catcher frames. I thought a “treasure hunt” for chocolate coins in a small kiddie pool all decorated up with sand, etc. might be fun too. And I was also thinking of setting up a photo booth … I quoted one from The Traveling Photo Booth, but they wanted almost $900 for a three hour rental so umm… yea, not going to happen!! Too bad. But I figure with a computer and a little bit of action with a nail gun, some plywood and some black fabric we might be in business. We’ll see.

Posted on

Happy B’day Baby Girl!!

My most darling Tabby turned 4 years old today. I have hardly any words to describe my feelings about her going from the pink cherubic little baby to this big, sweet, funny, amazingly capable little person.

[flickr size=”small” float=”left”]462291713[/flickr]

 

 

 

 

 

We talked at dinner tonight about all the things she couldn’t do when she was Ben’s age (almost two) that she can do now. She is skiing like a champ (spent about 4 hours today doing just that). She knows all her letters and can write her name and read quite a few words. She is getting good at simple addition. She goes potty all on her own. She dresses herself. She helps with little chores around the house. She is an amazing big sister to Ben. She plays computer games. She rides her bike. She “skins the cat” (a gymnastics move). And the list goes on and on. It was neat to see how for the first time this year, she really seems to grasp what having a birthday is all about. She seems to understand that quite a bit of time has gone by since her last one and what that means. It’s pretty cool.

She had a wonderful day (she even said so). She requested baked french toast for her b’day breakfast, complete with bacon and Papa’s custom smoothies to drink. Then we hit the slopes for a few hours of fun in the sun. She got to have hot chocolate at the lodge and then ski down and take the bus home. I was happy it worked out for her to get a nap … she needed it! After her nap we opened presents from Mommy and Daddy so Tabby could see and wear her b’day t’shirt. I’m extremely happy to report she loves it!! We went and had dinner at a restaurant in town. She requested STEAK and received a kiddo sized portion of prime rib and mashed potatoes plus a Shirley Temple – extra cherries. Then it was back to the condo for a grandma-made birthday cake, heavy on the funfetti and some more presents. It was a tired girl who crawled into bed way past her bedtime.

It has been oh-so incredible to watch her grow and change these past four years. She is becoming a little person who I’m incredibly proud of and oh so thankful to have in my life. She’s a gem through and through.