hey hey were the monkeys...

and people say we monkey around...


for maxes b-day we went to ikea and got some stuff for his room.... a new table and stools, (that the boys insist on sitting in upside down) and a really cute little rug. i got max a new duvet cover and curtains for the boys room... now if i would just take the time to actually put it together...

november blues...

so we have spent almost the entire month sick. we seem to be passing a bug around the house. I have gone through and disinfected everything.....

I knew as soon as we walked into rachels house and saw jason chugging nyquil the beginning of the month that our turn was coming next. Ollie has this awesome ability to catch anything and everything he comes into contact with. i guess that is one of the joys of being a preemie.... it actually started with max, poor guy got croup, we got to go to the hospital and everything... than ollie came down with a horrible throat bug. he would just point into his mouth and say "ohwee....." it was so sad, and lasted for days.... on the third day of sleepless nights a house full of humidifiers and crying kids we took him into the doc... who said just keep doing what your doing... which i wanted to reply... can i have my money back please.. the advice nurse could have told me the same thing and saved me the trouble...

one thing that worked really well for sleeping is i put some lavender oil in the cool mist vaporizer, the kids actually slept much better... and i was happier too...

in the midst of all the sickness turmoil, i had a show on Nov. 17th at milagros for a grow a cure fundraiser. it was really fun despite the rain, and the slow trickle of shoppers, but i met some people, and made some cash, so it was not a total loss, but i knew my turn to be sick was on the way... i don't think standing in the rain for a couple of hours helped me much.

stayton calling our name...

so we headed back down to stayton at the beginning of the month to watch joey for a couple of days... while there we played, and played, and played....... we finger painted, made cookies and even got a date night snuck in for rachel and jason, i am a big believer in doing good to have good things come to you, and not more than two weeks later jo and mom relieved me and b of our parental duties for a whole night of no kid bliss... more on that later....

Here are some shots from our time with cousin joey....

sweet new craigslist find...

i just could'nt load max into the backpack one more time... our walks are much more enjoyable now.

the only thing that sucks is i have no cup holder (good God you want me to carry my latte), and the basket under the seat is smaller, but i also do not have to lug a 22 lb one year old around on my back, while pushing a 26 lb almost 3 year old...thanks craigslist... also i think the boys really like being able to hang out together..

what my dad taught me...

the last couple of weeks our bathtub drain has been getting slower and slower... i hate draino, but tried it... it did'nt do a thing, except make me worry about the toxic sludge residue i was now bathing my kids in....

then i found the culprit, my lovely boys had been biting off pieces of there bathtub foam toys and shoving it down the drain.... by the way i do watch my kids while they take a bath, but i do things like tweeze my eyebrows, contemplate my wrinkles, and read up on really great mags like US weekly and life and style... haaa (thanks jo, i am addicted) so you could say i don't pay attention that well... but I am in the same room....

anyway, so what do you do short of calling the plumber? My dad taught me this... you buy a drain snake...9.99 at freddys, a long snakey piece of metal that you crank into the plumbing until you move the clog along... This is one of the ingenious little tips i picked up from my dad... i also can fix almost anything with duct tape... and wd-40 is great to have around the house... alcohol is great for cleaning and fixing the inside of electronics (used this when i had burned a ton of incense on top of my vcr... all the little dust went right into the vent) I have also taken apart the inside of my own toilet, and taken all the plumbing apart under my bathroom sink... and successfully put it back together... My dad was a fixer, and passed on alittle bit to me... i miss him...

Happy birthday Maximos...

Happy Birthday baby boy... I can't believe he is one.... he seems like he is still my baby and such a big kid at the same time.

the monkey and the chicken, or the chicken and the monkey..

we got ollie a chicken suit last year, that he never really wore... i was pregnant and huge, and had worked all day, and b had to work late last halloween... so me and the bean had stayed in last year and he never debuted his lovely outfit...





so this year i grabbed a hilarious monkey outfit for max... we came home and put it on him... he thought he was pretty funny... ollie than decided that he would make a much better monkey than max.

Yesterday i spent half the day prepping ollie that he was going to be a chicken, and max was going to be a monkey. He threw a fit when i first got them dressed, i ignored him and eventually he calmed downed.




We met up with annie and the kids to do some trick or treating in the good ol O.C.... and gavin had professed ollie the super chicken.. i think ollie was okay with his outfit since gavin and chloe had thought it was cool.....we had a good night, ate some yummy potatoe soup and hit maybe 2 houses and headed home... my kids are'nt old enough to really be into the halloween thing... next year we might skip the trick or treating, but it was fun night....

the big 3..0....

so on the 28th i turned 30.... crap.... not that i am really that concerned, but 30 was always the some day number... never really comprehended that i would actually make it there... and i don't feel 30, not that 30 is really that old... but i can't believe i am not in my 20's anymore...

so in celebration of the big 3.0.... we headed to the coast, this time we got our favorite little cabin house.... i love cannon beach... i love the size... not to big, and not to small.... i hate seaside... anyway we were at Wendy's wedding the night before, the kids had totally crashed so they slept in a little on my b-day morning... i got up with max and went and got coffee... than ollie and b got up and gave me my presents... fun stuff... Ollie and max got me the new stars album... (dad must have had something to do with that), dad got me tickets to the tegan and sarah show coming up in December, and a necklace... i am not a huge jewelry person, i don't like anything i have to change so i need something i can keep on all the time... B did a great job of picking out a great piece of jewelry i can wear for years.... i also got a sweet new hat... which i am super stoked on.... thanks b...

so we got to the beach, i had made plans to go to this little Italian place and get a really good dinner, and than get dessert from a little french place and bring it back to the cabin for my b-day night... well ollie did not sleep all day and crashed out at 5pm (in a weird little nook, that is against a floor to ceiling window... he was watching the sea wind blow the trees)... no way was i going to wake this kid to go out to dinner, talk about a nightmare... so we let him sleep... and ordered in from mo's since we knew what they had there... i was bummed my plans got ruined, but that is what having kids is... you can't really plan anything.... they don't understand my time schedules... so i conform to theirs.....

later max and i bundled up and walked up to the little french place and got dessert to go... an awesome chocolate torte... it was good... and didn't look to bad with the 30 candle on it....b had bought party hats, noise makers, poppers and glow in the dark rings... we woke ollie up and had a little party time.... it was fun, and i can't think of a better way to ring in my 30's.... we got the kids to bed and were able to spend some alone time, so the weekend wasn't totally lost to my kids demands....

the next morning we bundled in our jammies to walk up and get coffee... the freakin coffee place is closed for the season, and there is one other coffee place that sucks.. so i refused to go there, instead we headed into a nice oceanfront restaurant to get breakfast... in our jammies, well b had actually gotten dressed, but me and the kids were pretty much in our jammies... it was 8 am on a monday morning, the place was deserted when we got there, but was packed by the time we left... haaa... everyone else looked like they had showered and dressed that morning... haaa

it was a great birthday can't wait to do it again next year... haaaaa