Funny

We have this picture on our wall and C was looking at it and said "that baby has a bald head like Daddy!" I told her that it was her, and she said "no, that's just a little baby."

Silly girl.

Maple Syrup

This morning we went to check out how maple syrup is made. This maple farm was less than 30 minutes from our house.

It's pretty "high tech" these days, they've come a long way from buckets hanging on the tree.

The sap runs through all of the blue tubes into bigger tubes towards the bottom and then into the sugar house.

The sugar house is where they boil the sap a lot. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

Lots of steam. They were actually boiling water today for the "tourists" because the warm weather cut their season short. They got about 1/2 of the sap this year that they would during a "normal" winter.

There was a hay-ride.

There was a kids play area.

There were a couple of camps with these guys who were doing metal work ...

... and other guys with old guns to look at.

And then this camp with the "mountain men." How cool is this guy?!? He was also as nice as could be!

He was making Indian arrow heads. K and Matt were very interested and M asked if he could buy one and he said "absolutely not, you can have one." So K got to pick one out and we are going to frame it to put in his room.

They were cooking their lunch. K thought it was a turtle.

This guy was firing muskets.

K was fascinated by these guys. I didn't know it at the time but he kept telling Matt that they were "pretty cool pirates."

We bought 1/2 a gallon of real maple syrup (C is demonstrating how heavy it is), some maple sugar, and some maple cotton candy (YUM!!). I may never be able to buy Aunt Jamima again.

To try our maple syrup I made these German Pancakes for dinner. YUM!! (The picture is not mine, we didn't have any fruit, but I will be more prepared next time.)

A Sleeping Angel

It's Starting to Look Like Spring!

Sunday and Monday with Family

I tell ya, a banged up head did not slow down my boy at all. In the morning we went to church and K showed off his war wound. Afterwards we napped and then immediately went outside to do some serious playing.

C got some good one-on-one time with Great Aunt Mary.

While the adults checked out some old photo albums.

Great-Great Aunt Mary and Great-Great Uncle Bruce came over for dinner.

C and Great Uncle Bob have a good side show going on.

Monday, Bob & Mary got a tour of Matt's plant and then we all went to C's gymnastics class.

After naps we went out to our favorite Olde Bryan Inn for dinner. C & Bob were stylin'.

Today everybody left. Sad. I have to admit I love having people here! Whose next?!?!

St. Patrick's Day

We were so lucky to have family here this weekend. My Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary drove my Grandma out from Minnesota to spend the weekend with us. They got in late on Friday night so Saturday was our first day with them.

Our leprechaun:

We went to Congress park to get out and enjoy the spring day.

C got along famously with her Great Aunt Mary.

Isn't my Grandma adorable?

The kids spent a lot of time running around with their Dad and Great Uncle Bob.

K climbed some trees.

We tried for a family shot, but C wouldn't participate so this is what we got. This picture actually makes me kind of sad because it was literally minutes after this picture was taken that K had his big bonk. Little did I know at this time that our day was going to change drastically.

  At McDonalds after the hospital.

Giving big brother some love.

We had plans to go out to dinner Saturday evening, but with the long visit to the hospital and the thousands of St. Patrick's Day revelers in Saratoga we decided late in the day to make corned beef and cabbage. We stopped at the store and literally got the last 2 corned beef roasts. It didn't go in the oven until 5pm and it took several hours to cook. But at 7:30 at night Mary had made us a delicious St. Patrick's Day dinner.

The timing actually couldn't have been any better. The kids were in bed at 7:00, since they didn't have naps, and we were able to eat dinner as just adults, and it was GREAT! We stayed up late telling stories and laughing. All things considered, it was a good day.

K's Ordeal (warning: yucky picture)

On Saturday we went out to our community park to enjoy a beautiful St. Patrick's day. We spent over an hour running around, climbing hills, playing hide-and-seek, and more. Just when we were starting to think about heading home for lunch K started screaming and was instantly covered in blood! He wasn't looking where he was running (we think) and ran into the corner of a wall that was at the right (wrong) height.

We immediately applied pressure, scooped him up and zoomed to the hospital, which luckily was not too far away. This is what he had done:

After the initial 5ish minutes of crying he calmed down pretty quickly and just went with the flow. We got to the ER and they checked us in and put us in a room. Everyone was really great and told him exactly what was going on, and he never really freaked out or anything. The nurse recommended that we have a plastic surgeon stitch up up since it was so deep and it was on his face. We agreed, but because of that we had to wait a good hour and a half for him to get there. We just watched cartoons and hung out till he did.

When the surgeon got there the nurses started preparing us for the worst case hysterics situation. They said that they needed to wrap K up and hold him down, and that he was going to kick and scream and cry and hate every minute of the whole procedure and that it was going to be worse for us than it was for him. I heard everything they were saying, but I didn't think K was going to have any problems, but I didn't dare say anything because I didn't want to jinx it.

They told him they were going to wrap him in a sheet and he started to get a little excited. It was exactly how we wrap up his and C's baby dolls. Then they taped the sheet around him, and he thought it was funny that he looked like a mummy. We all kept talking to him to distract him and the surgeon started injecting the numbing stuff. He didn't even flinch. He asked if it hurt and K nonchalantly said "no." So as soon as that kicked in it was smooth sailing from there. So smooth that he was telling jokes while being stitched up. Video below, only slightly graphic:

Another funny thing he said was, we were talking to him just to distract him and it came to the topic of Matt's hair. The nurse asked if he had any hair, and of course K said "no." Then she asked where it went, and K thought for a few seconds and then said "to his armpits!" We were all dying of laughter! The surgeon and nurses were SO impressed at how well he did and they said that they have never seen a kid, of any age, do as well as he did!

Here he is all fixed up, and wrapped up!

While in the ER he got a stuffed animal, lots of superhero stickers, juice and a handful of suckers, and while he was skipping out of the hospital he said "that was fun!" Oh dear.

We promised him that once it was all done he could have a milkshake, so we went to McDonalds and got one.

The bonk on the head barely slowed him down. After getting home he played outside until dinner time and then slept all night and got up and started playing again. We kept checking in to see if he was in any pain and he never said yes. I think he felt it for the first time today (3 days later) when he tried to put on his bike helmet. Ouch!

Beautiful Spring Day

We had a beautiful spring day today, with a high of 70 degrees, so we took full advantage of the outdoors.

 

K did some playing in the birdbath ...

... and of course lots of sticks ...

... C did some fashionable sliding.

K thought it was warm enough to go without shoes ...

... while C thought she needed a coat.

Our backyard is MUD, but that didn't stop my boy at all.

He thought he was in trouble when he fell in the mud, but not at all, that's what happens when you play in the mud!

She's ready for her close up!

The other day C said that she want's to be a daddy when she grows up. I told her that she couldn't be a daddy but she could be a mommy and she started crying saying "I don't wanna be a mommy! I want to be a daddy!" Then tonight at dinner she told us that she is going to have a bald head like Daddy when she grows up. Silly daddy's girl.