Rough Week

This week was an interesting week. It had its ups and downs. I feel that we are blessed, though, because although there were some trials this week, I am sure some people would look at our week and wished theirs was as good as ours. We have great family and friends that helped us out through the ups and downs.

Tuesday started out great. We had Kindermusik with Lisa and Dominic, and a new friend, Nakia and Gabby (we met them at last week's Kindermusik).


Afterwards, Lisa and I took the kids to the neighboring post office, which had a huge ramp (ramps are one of Keira's favorite things to play on). Keira and Dominic had blast playing on the ramp together, even though inside they fought over Soren, both exclaiming, "my brother". Dominic will have a new little brother in May.

We decided to all head over to the mall to let Keira and Dominic play together. They had a great time at the play area and in the food court area.


Wednesday was a pretty low key day. We didn't have a storytime at the library, so we just did a few errands. Nothing exciting.


Thursday was where things began to get interesting. I decided to take the dry cleaning in, which is not the easiest with both children, and then meet up with some friends at the mall (because there is not a lot else to do in the winter here that is free). I got the clothes in the car, and then Soren in the car, and then, I went to put Keira in the car and WHAM! The next thing I know is Keira and I are both laying flat on the ground next to the car. I was carrying her, and she was on my stomach and I was flat on my back. Wow! I had slipped on some ice. My left arm hurt a bit, and I was checking out Keira. She seemed fine- just scared and mad that her tights were wet (a knee went down of hers). We got to the dry cleaners OK, and I was a little sore lifting Keira and Soren and the clothes into the store, and as I went to leave, I could barely open the door! My left arm didn't want to push. Since we were close to the mall and planning on meeting people, I figured we could still head up there, I couldn't be hurt to bad. Well, I got everyone into the mall and to the play area and was just sitting and resting, and felt ok, and then I needed to nurse Soren. This was excruciating to position him properly, but once positioned, I was OK, but then I decided something was very very wrong. I called Ryan who advised me to call our family Dr, which is about 4 miles south of where we were. I couldn't see an orthopaedic until I saw my PCP, they told me, however, they were able to see me immediately. My arm didn't appear to be broken, but she still ordered X-rays, which of course were at the building down the street from the mall where I was already at today. The good news, is that my arm was not broken, and I have super friends who offered to give me a hand if I needed it. The whole Dr's office process took so long, though, that by the time we got done it was naptime for Keira and Ryan got home not long after she woke up, so I was OK on my own. It is amazing what mothers can do because they have to do it. Once Ryan got home I put an ice pack on my arm and fell asleep on the couch with Soren and felt a ton better once I got up. I continued to improve. The bad thing was that we had gotten the word that we would have a showing this weekend on our home, so not only was the whole day spent not cleaning, I was not even capable of cleaning. This whole week has been a hard lesson for me on procastination (it gets better/worse as the week progresses).


Friday was pretty low key. I felt a ton better, but I was still missing range of motion from my arm. I could lift Keira and Soren with only a small amount of pain. I did make it out of the house for a little bit as an effort to prevent Keira from making any more messes and to let her burn off some energy to take a better nap for me to be able to clean a bit. We had plans to meet up with Nakia and Gabby from earlier, and decided to keep those plans them for a little bit. Keira had a good time playing and we also ran into Sharonlea and her youngest two while there. I got things picked up a bit Friday afternoon during naptime, but the house was still dirty/dusty and all surfaces needed a good washing.


Keira was helping Soren read. She propped up the "I am a Child of God" book for him to see. So cute!

Keira was trying to comfort Soren. He had been crying a lot today, and she wanted to try holding him to help. It didn't, but she was really sweet with him. She is a great big sister.
Ryan came home, we had a great dinner at On the Border, one of our favorites. When we returned home, I decided to look for some photos in my Kodak Gallery. I was horrified to learn that my photos were gone. They had been deleted on purpose because I had not made a purchase in the past year. Apparently I had been notified a while back via email (which I don't recall getting). Had I logged in as recently as a week earlier, they would have been able to put them back for me. I was pretty upset. I was up super late not cleaning but tearing though our office searching for photo CDs and prints. We are missing about 6 months worth of pictures from when I had gotten lazy about backing up the pictures. I had also gotten lazy about my Kodak account and just assumed it would always be there. I was totally wrong. Had I looked for the photo I mentioned in the last post when I posted last, I probably would have gotten my picture back. It was the most sickening feeling. Ryan really put it into perspective, though, when he mentioned that we have so many pictures of Keira and Soren already, and we have way more pictures of them than we do either of our entire childhood. We are both sad that we don't have our Utah trip from Oct 2007 or a lot of the photos from our NYC trip in 2007. We are thankful that even though our pictures are gone, we have found photos online from Tyler and Minde, my parents, and Ryan's parents that fill many of the gaps and the major holidays. I would still like to give our old hard drive another try or two at being read, but we aren't sure it will do any good. If anyone has any photos from our Utah Joe's Valley/Bryce Canyon trip PLEASE send them to us. I am not sure if we emailed them out at all or if any were taken with any other cameras. It was just us for a while, so I fear a lot may be lost.


My mom drove up on Saturday to help us clean. Even though my arm was doing a lot better, it is still so much easier to have an extra person around to get the place in showing condition. We worked all day Saturday and took a break for the evening to get some dinner. Kris and Linda are on vacation, and they offered up their home to us to stay so that we could get it all done on Saturday and not worry about it. After dinner, we put the kids to bed over there, and my mom and I drove back to finish up. We got it all cleaned up and ready to go and headed back. I love a super clean house but it is so much work! Thanks so much Mom for all your help. We were so busy, I only took 1 picture blog worthy.

Today was a fairly usual Sunday except we were at Kris and Linda's house before church. We don't know how the showing went. Hopefully we will get some good feedback. It didn't look like anyone had come, so hopefully the snowy weather didn't scare them away.


Soren is having a good time playing with toys now. He likes to chew on everything and I think he looks so cute investigating them. Keira usually trys to take his toys away, so we are working on that.


This week will hopefully be better than last. My arm is continuing to feel better every day. I am also planning on trying to organize our digital photos that we have, so I can get a better idea of what is missing and do something with them. We have a huge backup hard drive now, so I need to take advantage of it.

Happy Valentine's Day

This was a fun filled week. We had some unexpectedly great weather, a visit to Nana's, a week of Valentine's Day activities, and a visit from Grandma.

On Monday, we had excellent weather. It was super warm, in the high 50s, and I was able to take Keira and Soren on a run with the jogging stroller around the neighborhood for the first time. Although the stroller had been used at Maybury last fall, I can't really call that running. Boy, I cannot say that it was easy to push a double stroller while running, but I don't really know that it was any fault of the stroller. I made it one mile and decided I had better head back if I wanted to make sure I ran the whole way. Not too shabby, considering my pace was fairly uneffected by the addition of pushing the 70lbs or so!

Soren fell asleep during the run, so Keira and I played outside with bubbles while he slept. This lasted until she fell into a pile of melting snow and got cold and wet. I don't know which was more upsetting, being cold and wet or needing to come inside to change!
Soren is doing great with his cereal. It has helped his sleeping somewhat.


Tuesday was another day with great weather. We had made plans to do something with Valerie, Katie, and Luke. After our experience playing outside in the soggy yard on Monday, we opted to stay inside and we hit the mall playarea, grabbed lunch, and then played in the food court as well. Keira and Katie were very happy to get to play together. It had been a little while. This was the first time I saw Luke with his helmet, it is to correct a flat spot on his head. We also went out on another run this evening. By taking Keira and Soren with me, it allowed Ryan to prepare for scouts without distraction. It was nice to be able to watch them and run at the same time. I made it my full 3.4 mile route today, and it wasn't bad at all.





Wednesday was a special day for Keira. She got to play with Lizzie and Elise in the morning during my presidency meeting, and then, in the afternoon, she went to Nana's to bake Valentine cookies! She had a great time rolling, decorating, and eating the cookies. Nana said that she refused to taste any dough or frosting until it was time to eat the finished product! What willpower it would take me to not taste. Actually, I think she was probably just confused by the batter and frosting not in their usual cookie form. It is sad, but I usually do not have her help me bake, but do it while she is asleep or watching a movie. Nana took some fabulous photos documenting the afternoon.





Other cute pictures from Wednesday:
We had some rain. Keira's coat is a bit short, but still managed to fit around her for the 3rd year!
Keira is trying to get into Soren's pockets!
Keira likes holding Soren, but he is pretty heavy for her.

On Thursday, we went to Kindermusik first thing in the morning. We didn't meet up with anyone for this class. Soren woke towards the end, so we just headed home right afterwards. Both Keira and Soren started wearing Valentine outfits again today (they wore them in the begining of the week, but took a couple days off for laundry).

Keira was very excited about her bee paper she received at the end of class, and wanted this picture taken.

We have a picture of me holding Keira wearing the outfit Soren has on while sitting on the steps. It was on the old computer, but on Kodak still, I think.

Friday was a busy day. After getting everyone ready, I made red velvet heart shaped cupcakes for Valentine's day. I was able to get them in and out of the oven before leaving for the libary Storytime. Keira had a good time as usual. After we got back, I got the cupcakes iced and the kitchen cleaned before Ryan got home. He brought me a dozen roses, which are beautiful and opening nicely. We gave Keira and Soren their Valentine's cards and treats a day early. We went out to dinner at Chili's, and then on our way to REI, we hit a HUGE pothole, and ended up with a bent rim and flat tire. We were able to drive it home because it wasn't totally flat just yet, but became flat by the next day. The roads here are terrible with potholes from all the freezing and thawing we have been experiencing.





On Saturday, Ryan and Keira had hair appts first thing, so we didn't have time to worry about the car just yet. We drove the truck out to Ann Arbor in the snow to go to Salon Vox and have Brittany cut their hair. The nice thing for Keira is that she is familiar with going to the salon with us and is not nervous at all. The price is also not too bad either- about in line with the kids only salons in the malls.




Once we returned home, the frustration about the tire situation came to a head. I volunteered to change the tire because I like taking things apart and putting them back together, and I haven't done much of that since leaving Ford. I have also changed several tires and do not find it terribly difficult anymore when you have everything you need. When I went to get everything ready, I realized we had no jack! Apparently, when we had our last flat, about 4 years ago, the dealership didn't put it back in the stowage area when the put the spare back because I know we didn't leave it on the side of the road! Everything was just heaped in the trunk. We have AAA and free roadside assistance through our car warranty, but I really didn't want to spend a ton of time waiting for them. We tried to use the jack from the truck, but it was too tall to fit under the car in its lowest position. So, we called the Mazda people since it was essentially their fault we couldn't do it ourselves, and had to wait an hour for someone to come out and change it. Why do we always get flats on Friday night when we have to wait all weekend do fix it properly? The car would need to sit idle all weekend until Monday because we had to take it to the dealership to be fixed for free. That evening, for Valentine's Day, Nana came over to watch Keira and Soren for a couple hours so that Ryan and I could go out to dinner at Pei Wei. It was a great ending to a crazy day.


Keira was past being ready for bed, and didn't want her picture taken. She wanted a hug from me.

On Sunday, we went to church, and Kris and Linda were both there for our ward conference. My mom also came up that afternoon once we got back from church. She had Monday off for President's day, and it was great to see her. She brought Graeter's ice cream in a cooler with dry ice and waffle bowls. We drove those down to Kris and Linda's and had soup followed by our FAVORITE ice cream. We try to make a point to make it to Graeters when we are in Westerville because their ice cream is so good. They are a Cinncinati based company, so they have limited locations in southern/central Ohio and Kentucky.

Linda showed Keira this really amazing pop up book about Strega Nona's family.
Keira loves the puzzles at Nana's.

It was actually great timing to have my mom around for Monday. She was able to help me with the car situation. She brought their Explorer, so we could all fit in it easily. I brought Soren with me to the dealership while she stayed home with Keira. I stayed at the dealership just long enough for them to locate a new tire and wheel for me (yes, we needed a new wheel too) to make sure they could get it done today, and then took the shuttle home. Having Soren in the infant carrier makes it easy to shuttle him around from vehicle to vehicle. While we waited for the car to be finished up, we went to the mall for some play time and food. While we were there, we ran into Rebecca with Asheley and Alex. Keira had a great time, but it was pretty crowded with school being out today. We did a bit of shopping, and then grabbed some lunch. While we were finishing up lunch, the dealership called and we were able to pick up the car on the way back. They could not give me a free jack, and are ordering one for me. They want me to pay their cost for it, but I guess we will see once I go to pick it up how much I actually do pay. The tire and wheel were totally free to us due to the expensive warranty we bought. It was pricey, but it has already paid for itself with the two tires and wheels we have had replaced alone. It expires next fall, so hopefully we have better luck with the potholes. My mom headed back shortly after Ryan got home from work. Here is Keira laying flat in the play area. She apparently requested this picture.

Keira and Asheley were playing peek a boo over the wall.

Soren is sporting a new outfit after making his earlier one messy! He has really taken an interest in toys lately.
The rest of this week should be pretty fun. We have another free Kindermusik, and will see about setting up more playdates. Hopefully I can get out again with the jogging stroller.