turkey day wrap-up/bday time!

so! hope everyone had a festive thanksgiving weekend and are sufficiently sated with thanksgiving-y goodness. i'm partial to stuffing. :)

our thanksgiving was mostly good. we headed up to my parents' on thursday morning for a midday meal. we had turkey (of course), stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry relish, cranberry fluff (?), rolls, and pumpkin and chocolate tofu pies (made by yours truly). it was a lot of food. the afternoon passed in a food coma, and everyone else headed out late afternoon-ish. that evening after the kids went to bed, i started feeling kind of achy. yes, this has happened before, not so long ago (see christmas 2007). i took tylenol and felt kind of better. slept in the next day and felt okay till mid-afternoon when i started coughing and getting achy again. long story short, i'm still achy and coughing, with a low-grade fever. woo! it doesn't feel like a cold, so we might be looking at bronchitis. we'll see what the next couple of days bring.

anyway, other than that, the weekend was great. abby had a blast with grandparents, as usual. ian was a little grumpy, thanks to some evil teeth, but he did okay.

4 years ago today, at 3:26pm, abigail beckwith entered the world. she took a long time in coming (43-hour labor), but is totally worth it. i'm having a hard time believing it...4 seems so grown-up. :) she had a good birthday...we went to church (where everyone sang to her), then came home, lunch/rest time, then went out on some errands which included stopping at cold stone creamery for her bday treat. she chose chocolate ice cream with strawberries mixed in. looked pretty good to me. she also chose pancakes for supper, so i think we all know her loyalties lie with carbs. :) i spent part of the afternoon reading old blog entries and reminiscing to myself about how much she's grown. tonight when i was feeling sick, i laid on the couch and she came over and told me a story (transcribed verbatim):

"once upon a time. there was a cupcake! named......CAR. one day. he walked, and bashed into a BOX! then he jumped OVER the box! then he jumped onto the train table! and that was the end."

there were other stories that seemed to be in a similar vein (walking, jumping over things). she's just so smart and funny, and as much as she and i have problems sometimes, i wouldn't change a thing about her.

happy birthday, princess peanuthead.

whoa.

so ian has decided to celebrate his first week of being 1 year old with that major milestone: walking! he's not really walking, but he's definitely starting to take a step or two on his own. he really likes to walk holding people's fingers, so he's motivated. i'm betting by this time next week, he'll be up to taking 5 or 6 steps, and then there'll be no stopping him after that.

sniff.

let the river run

yep, that song's in my head. nope, i don't know why.

sunday is abby and ian's joint birthday party. i'm stressing quite a bit about it. tomorrow's the big prep day because brian's home all day, so we'll be trying to get as much done as possible. saturday is for making the cake and mopping the floor.

then we have thanksgiving, and then decorating for christmas...argh. at least we don't have to move this year! woohoo!!

i'm having trouble with the slideshow, so expect it in the sidebar when you see it.

quote from abby: "this poop seemingly doesn't want to come out!"

happy birthday (a day late), ian dale!

yes, ian turned 1 year old yesterday. i, being a delinquent mommyblogger, neglected to update the blog.

we had a very low-key day, since the main birthday celebration is next sunday, a joint party for both abby and ian. we did church in the morning, as usual, and then came home for lunch and nap, then went and did some errands, and picked up pizza for birthday dinner. ian had a very good day, and enjoyed learning how to deal with stairs at borders, where he crawled up and down the 3 little risers in the children's area.

current skills: crawling very fast, standing alone, walking with assistance, pointing. still not saying any recognizable words, or even any recognizable consonants 99% of the time.

current likes: most any food (especially hamburger), books books books, any of abby's toys, baths, screeching like a pterodactyl.

current dislikes: being in his carseat with a winter coat on, having his face and hands wiped, having his nose wiped.

he and abby have their joint checkup tomorrow morning, so i'll update after that with weight/height/etc. meanwhile, enjoy pictures from ian's first year in the sidebar slideshow that i'll be working on today.

day 10, or worst day ever

so! we had a simply FANTASTIC day today. i'm going to cut and paste from brian's myspace about the events of today, mostly to save time:

***
So this morning at work I started getting a pain in my side. After a couple o' trips to the restrooms I decided it probably wasn't gas as the pain increased. I called Maggie at home and begged her to come and get me. Both Serena and Sara offered to drive me to a clinic or call 911, but I just wanted to lay on the couch for a bit. The pain subsided, and by the time Maggie got there - having frantically packed the kids - it was mostly gone. On the way to the hospital we called our doc and set up an appointment for the earliest we could: 1:30pm.

So we decided to drive home. But then the pain started to grow again. It was bad...we're talking 9 out of 10 on the painness scale (Ed: "painness" is not a word. just sayin'). Back to the hospital we head. Because of the construction there, we could not locate the emergency entrance. We pull into the valet parking area, and as Maggie deals with the attendant I shuffle in. It's kinda neat to see how fast they scramble if you walk into a hospital almost keeling over clutching yourself in pain. So it's into a wheelchair and they take my quite a ways to the ER.

Now admitting of course could care less about the pain you are in. It is MUCH more important -even though you are in the system- to get your address and cell phone number. Then park you in a waiting room so they can prepare a room. Um....this is an ER....aren't the rooms prepared for an emergency? Because of my huffing thru the pain my mouth is pretty dry at this point. Hey, there's a bubbler. And before I get to it I'm pounced on with a speciman cup....little did I know the restroom was right next to the bubbler. I tell them I'm just getting some water so they back off. Now my room's ready. I follow the ER person down some long corridors - which doesn't make sense to me - to my room where Maggie, Abby, and Ian are waiting for me. (? Yep. They got to my room before me....because I was the one in the waiting room.

To make the whole drama short...I had tests run, bloodwork, and an ultrasound and was put on narcotics for the pain. They don't know what it was. They DO know it wasn't my gall bladder, kidney, stomach, liver, or appendix. Sign here....here's your painkiller prescription....see you later.

Back in college at Oshkosh something like this happened....my dad drove from Menasha to Oshkosh and then took me to Neenah to the hospital. They kept me overnight back then....I don't remember an ultrasound being an option...for observation and never figured it out.

I'm feeling fine now. Hopefully it's gone..and won't reappear in another 18 years.

***
sounds like a super-fun time, eh?

day 7, or: well, that's that

it didn't even occur to me until just now that i didn't blog yesterday, thus ruining my nablopomo hopes. sigh. well, did any of us really think i would actually do it? :)

our trip north went well. both kids are still snot-factories, but are acting fine anyway. the party last night was good too. we got to see lots of people we hadn't seen in at least 2 years, and some we hadn't seen in closer to 5 or 6 years. it was a fun time.

the kids got some good grandparent time in too, despite the colds.

yep, i'm boring.

day 6

good evening! 3/4 of us are sick here! it started with ian, which is strange. his nose-faucet was apparently left on, starting on tuesday night (happy election night! here's some SNOT!), abby's started this morning, and my throat is suspiciously sore now. not cool, since we have big plans this weekend.

tomorrow morning abby'll go to school, then we'll leave straight from there for the fox valley, for reasons i can't go into until after tomorrow night (just in case). anyway, we're hoping to have koreana tomorrow night for supper since abby's been requesting chicken katsu. then saturday we'll spend time with grandparents, then head back here late in the day. a quick trip, but should be pretty fun.

i'll probably blog tomorrow morning, just so i don't have to worry about it. :)

day 5

oh HELL yeah.

day 4

day 3

well, the open gym thing didn't pan out. we went there and were there a little before 10, but nothing was set up, and there was one other kid there with her grandma. there seems to be some sort of scheduling miscommunication with the whole thing, so i don't know what's going on. needless to say, i'll be calling the woman in charge of it tomorrow or wednesday and finding out what's going on.

tomorrow we are extra super special excited to go vote! all 4 of us are headed down to the village hall tomorrow morning and casting our votes and getting our stickers. we are also happy to know that we probably won't have to wait in any sort of line, unlike 95% of other people out there. then possibly a lunch at the chinese buffet, then brian goes to work. then i'll be sitting here election night drinking cava and celebrating (hopefully).

day 2

made it with 2 hours to spare. :)

today was insane...i played in a concert at church celebrating the newly-restored steinway piano. it went very well, and i've been surfing the adrenaline high for a couple of hours now. i'm starting to crash so this will be a short entry.

tomorrow starts open gym in deforest. they have it mondays, wednesdays and fridays. monday is the only day we can make it, but you can be sure we'll go every monday. i need to doublecheck what time it starts though...make sure it won't interfere with ian's nap.

ian drank an entire sippy cup of whole milk today. i think he likes it. :)

day 1

welcome to nablopomo! this is the lazy person's way of saying national blog posting month. every november, bloggers challenge themselves to post every day for the month. some succeed, some do not. i will succeed.

halloween 2008 was a huge success. abby dressed up as wordgirl (of course) and ian was a packer fan. we trick-or-treated for much longer than we thought we would, and abby came away with a huge haul of candy. brian and i will doubtlessly be raiding it ourselves. :) abby was a bit scared of some of the houses with the more elaborate (and scary) decorations, and i was sure we'd have nightmares to deal with last night, but not so. she told me this morning that she wants to be superman next halloween...i'm not ready to deal with this again.

in other news, ian tried whole milk for the first time at lunch today, as part of weaning-fest 2008. he was fine with it at first, but then started making weird faces and letting it drip out of his mouth. he's not sure what he thinks, but i know he'll learn to like it.

today we headed to ward-brodt to pick up a score to mozart's requiem for a presbyterian church good friday celebration. unfortunately, they were completely out of any and all editions. then we hit target to raid the clearance halloween candy and picked up some good deals there. brian has inventory tonight, so will be working very late.

shall we all lay odds on whether i'll remember to change the clocks before i go to bed tonight? i think i'll write a note to myself now...