Ellie's 2nd birthday

Our baby girl is 2!!  As usual , it went too fast, but since it happened, we thought we should celebrate.  So off to the lake we went where we were joined by the rest of the Quast gang.  There was lots of playing, running, and screaming (screams of joy, nothing bad), and of course presents, cake, and birthday songs.  Ellie ate it up! She absolutely loved her Dora cake (to the point where she would cry when she didn't get to see it and the minute she did, the tears stopped and her favorite phrase for the weekend came out  . . . "birthday").  She received lots of great gifts (thanks again to everyone), and I would say had an overall great birthday.  Here some pictures from the weekend.  Hard to believe our youngest is 2 already - looking forward to many more birthdays for this little girl in the future!

Mr. Positive

Ryan came home yesterday after school all pumped and really excited (which is not the norm - usually he's tired or crabby and needs some time to relax).  He walks in the door, drops his backpack, and says, "Mom, I didn't get last place today."  I respond with, "that's good."  He continues on . . . "yeah, the girl in front of me tripped over the last hurdle so I beat her."  He was so, so happy!  What it came down to was this, he was in dead last (let's just say he has some work to do if he is going to turn into a super athlete anytime soon), the last girl in front of him tripped and fell, and because of this, he got 9th place out of 10 - life could not get any better!  It's the simple things that make Ryan happy and the best part about it, he did make sure the girl was okay when the race was done - god I love that kid!

(I already posted this on my facebook page, but I just love the story so much so I had to share it again).

Spring cleaning

Apparently I was a tad crabby this week (according to Trav), and if he has learned anything in the almost 10 years that we've been married, he has learned this . . . when I'm crabby, the one sure thing to make me feel better is a clean house!  And the easiest way for me to accomplish that is for Trav to take the kids and run (not literally, but you get my point).  So that is what he did on Friday . . . everyone but me and the dog loaded up the mini and headed off to the lake.  That left me with lots of time to do lots of projects - how exciting.  But before the cleaning could start, I had to have myself a little "baby time" with the cutest little twins in town (and big brother Colton too).  It was great to be able to just sit and hold the babies.  Usually when I see them, all of our kids are with, and when they see babies, they do most of the holding while I do a lot of supervising.  This time, it was just me and the babes - so fun, yet so exhausting - kudos to Aaron and Ann for still being sane a whole month into it!  With my "baby fix" complete, I spent the rest of the night catching up on some tv shows and relaxing in a nice hot bath - not too shabby for a Friday night.  By 8:15am (yes, I slept in!), I was ready to get things going.  First up, stripping all the bedding (it seems like all I do is wash the sheets lately) and getting the laundry going.  With that done, I headed outside to mow before all the rain came in.  An hour later, I was done with that chore and there was still no rain so I took the dog for a nice long walk and just as we were finishing up, the first raindrops started to fall.  At that point I didn't care because all of my outside work was done.  With the dog out cold (he seriously doesn't move for about 4 hours after a walk), I changed out some more laundry, and got started on the "real" cleaning . . . dusting, scrubbing, and washing.  I did every room top to bottom, scrubbed the tub/showers and toilets, you name it, I did it.  And as usual, I was amazed at how quickly our house gets so dirty.  It's not like I just clean once I month and call it good enough.  No, I do little things everyday to keep the house clean, but no matter how much, or how fast I clean it up, things always end up getting dirty way too soon again - oh well, I guess that's life.  To finish up, I washed all the solid floors, and vacuumed all the carpet.  When it was done, it was beautiful!!  Like I said before, nothing makes me happier than a clean house.  With that, I lit some candles to get the place smelling good, opened a beer, and relaxed with another hot bath (did I ever mention how much I absolutely love our bath tub?) - it was a perfect day already, and it was only 2:30pm.  After my bath I laid around, watched tv, and read my new book, "Fifty Shades of Grey."  I'll put it out there right now, this is NOT a book you want to pass onto to your mothers.  Holy buckets is it an eye opener!  But after hearing about it all over the tv and Internet, I had to give it a shot, and so far, I'll say it is "interesting."  By 7:30pm, I was off to have dinner and drinks with a friend, and by 10:00pm, I was back home with Trav and the kids (they got home shortly after I had left).  It was a wonderfully busy, yet lazy Saturday - thanks Trav (and Grandpa and Grandma Quast) for taking the kids and bringing me back to my normal "happy" self.  With Saturday in the books, I thought Sunday would be a pretty lazy day, but it took just one comment from me . . . "Trav, I think we should get Ellie a new dresser", and one reply from Trav, "why don't we just put it in the closet?" (a little back story on the dresser . . . it's Trav's old one from college.  We painted it white and all three of the kids have used it so it's old and wobbly and makes me nervous because I am always thinking it will topple over on Ellie) to get me started on my next project - moving the dresser into the closet (why didn't I think of this before, it's so obvious).  So with Trav off at work (he had to run into the office for a few hours), and the kids all playing nicely downstairs, I got started.  Not wanting to put a lot of money into the closet, I had to work with what we had, and after tweaking a few things, moving some stuff here and there, and spending just $8.46 on supplies, I came up with this . . .

As you can tell, Ellie's closet isn't just for her, there is the suitcase, the vaporizer, my sweaters, and various other things that we stash in there, but after this little remodel, the dresser, plus everything else still fits and it's organized - what a nice little Sunday project!  When I finished up (I did the dresser and moved Ellie's bed and chair all while Trav was at work - I think he was a little surprised when he got home), I told Trav I think that I found my new passion . . . closet organization!  With everything clean and organized at the house, we fell back into our normal Sunday routine of BodyPump, dinner, and bed.  What a great weekend! 

Looking ahead . . . can you believe our baby is turning 2 next Saturday!  It seems like it happened so fast.  One day she was born, the next she was walking, and now she is going to be 2 - crazy!!!

And here are a couple of pictures of the girls.  They were in the room when I took the closet pictures and whenever they see a camera, they insist on having their pictures taken - enjoy.

47

47 . . . that's the number of times someone in this house has been sick this winter - ugh!  Alright, 47 might be a stretch, but seriously, the illnesses need to STOP right now!  I'll get back to this, but first, let's highlight all the fun we had this weekend . . .

It all started on Friday night when Ryan had his first "school dance."  Luckily for me, the school dance was actually more like a "family dance" since parents, siblings, and even friends were invited (I am not ready for him to go to dances on his own yet - could you imagine?).  So at his request (even though the dress theme was "Mardi Gras" and I assumed most kids would be wearing the clothes they wore to school), he put on his brown pin-striped suit, blue shirt, and penny loafers.  With Ry looking so fly (nice little rhyme there for everyone), Lauren also had to get all gussied up so she opted for her favorite dress . . . her "wedding" dress (or the dress she wore to Ash's wedding).  And as any mom would, I thought they looked both handsome and cute.  So I threw on my jeans and "mom" tank top and sweater (Ryan would later ask me, "is that what you are wearing?" - clearly I did not meet his high requirements for "dance" attire), picked up the neighbor girl (so Lauren would have a friend to play with), and headed out to our first school dance.  The minute we walked in, all eyes were on the kid in the suit.  More than one of Ryan's friends asked him, "why are you wearing that", and Ryan would simply say, "because I want to."  Then some parents started talking to Ryan and commenting on how handsome he looked and man, if you could have seen his face . . . sheer happiness!  The kid likes dressing up and knowing he looks good, but he LOVES it when someone else tells him he looks good - I'd say that boy has a little bit of his dad in him for sure!  Anyway, by the end of the night, the kids were sweaty (Ryan and some of his buddies even got in on some line dancing and the "Thriller" dance - I tried to tape it, but it was too dark), everyone had at least three or four beaded necklaces (and just for all of you out there with your heads in the gutter, no, they did not need to show any body parts to earn those beads), and their bellies were full of pizza and cookies - not a shabby night for a couple of youngsters!  Here are a couple of pre-dance pictures.

We spent most of Saturday outside enjoying the gorgeous weather.  The kids played, we went for a walk, Trav cleaned up the cars, it was just nice and relaxing - then I had to leave.  I had committed to helping coach a 9th grade girl's basketball team and Saturday was the start of the first tournament.  Lucky for me, our first game wasn't until 5:20pm so I did get to spend most of the day with Trav and the kids, but, it still sucked having to leave with everyone outside having fun.  Anyway, with me off at the tournament, Trav had invited his brother and his family over for the night so when I returned, Troy, Nicole, and EJ were all over (and if anyone cares, we went 1 and 1 for the day, one big win, one huge loss).  It was close to 10pm before I got home so the kids were in bed which left time for the four adults to hang out and catch up.  But by 11:30pm, I was done though.  The long day both indoors and out left me ready to climb into bed and sleep the night away.  When Sunday rolled around, I helped out with one more game in the morning (we won big again), then returned home to just bum around for the rest of the day.  And then, just like clockwork, as I was finishing the last load of laundry that evening (of course it was the clean bedding I had just washed), Trav walks into the laundry room and tells me that Ryan just threw up - of course he did!  The one positive though was that he made it to the toilet instead of on the carpet or bed like his sisters like to do.  With that, we did a little rearranging of rooms (Lauren and Ellie slept together in Ellie's room so Ryan could have Lauren's room which is across the hall from the bathroom), then we all headed off to bed not knowing what the night would hold.  Luckily, there were no more incidents during the night, although Ellie did wake up once (maybe twice, I really can't remember, but I'll get to her in a bit), and Ryan seemed better in the morning.  Ellie on the other hand didn't.  She was running a 100-102 temp all day Saturday and Sunday, and was super whiny, and really restless (which is very unlike her because if there is one thing she excels at, it is sleeping).  Thinking there might be something else (possibly an ear infection) going on, I called to get her into see the doctor in the morning.  By this time, we decided Ryan was good enough to go to school (even though he told us otherwise) so Trav took him and I got the girls ready.  By 9:00am, Lauren was off at school, and I was holding down the fort with Ellie and Coltonmeds.  Ryan looked like death at this point, but sucked it up and laid in the car with his barf bag while we got what we needed and got out of there (it should be noted that Ryan never had to use the bag so that was another small positive in our crappy day).  With Ryan in bed and Ellie full of her medicine, I had just enough time to sit down for two seconds before I went next door and got Lauren from our neighbor's nanny (who was nice enough to pick her up from school for me when it became clear that I wasn't going to get there in time).  In the five minutes it took me to get Lauren from the neighbor's house and back into our house, this is what happened . . . 

Think the poor kid was tired?  I actually asked Ryan what happened to her because I was a little concerned that she fell asleep so fast, but it had been a rough couple of days/nights with little sleep so once she got her medicine to make her feel better, she was out cold for over four hours (after I took this picture I moved her into her room and she literally did not move until almost 4pm - another small positive in this crappy day).  With Ellie out most of the day, that left Ryan (who threw up two more times and spent some other quality time in the bathroom with stuff coming out the other end), and Lauren, who bless her little heart, was on top of her game today - she was an angel (which she pointed out to me many times throughout the day by the way, but I couldn't have agreed more).  We had lunch together, but other than that, she was pretty much on her own.  She watched a Barbie movie, then kept herself entertained with Barbies and her play food all afternoon while I attended to Ryan and his needs.  By 3:30pm she needed some "mom" time so we had a snack together than played some more Barbies before Ellie and Ryan both started to move around upstairs.  When Trav got home around 6pm, I made a point to spend a little extra time with Lauren so the two of us went out for a bike ride and some play time at the park - it was short, but she needed some kind of reward for being such a good kid all day for me.  And now it's 9:30pm, all the kids are in their "rearranged" beds again and so far, things are looking good (Ryan did have to get up and use the bathroom once after he was in bed for the night, but at least it was poo and not throw up), so I'm hoping for a better tomorrow and if possible, no more sicknesses for this family.  The word at the clinic though was that this vomit/diarrhea thing is going around like crazy and most people are getting it twice about 3-4 weeks apart.  If this happens, I might just start throwing up myself (although I don't want to curse myself so maybe I take that back).  I seriously can't take any more vomit or feces on the carpet, in the bed, or even in the toilet - we've done it more than enough this year - time to get over it and wait for next winter . . . keeping my fingers crossed and hoping everyone else out there is staying healthy.

Happy Easter

Here is what we had planned for our simple Easter 2012 . . . Easter egg hunt Saturday morning out by Aaron and Ann's place, the guys were going to golf, then we would all meet up for a late lunch/early dinner.  Wake up Sunday, find Easter baskets/eggs, go to church, then head back out to Aaron and Ann's place to have an Easter meal with the whole family (Grandpa, Grandma, Ash, Mike, Aaron, Ann, Colt, and the babes), then head back home to spend the rest of the day playing with our new Easter "stuff".  A nice, simple plan.  Here's what really happened . . .

Got up Saturday morning to sort of unpleasant weather.  By 9:30am, it was drizzling rain constantly.  Made it out to Aaron and Ann's place at 11:00am - still raining, no Easter egg hunt.  The guys still went golfing, it ended up taking them about 6 hours because there was rain and wind (and they spent an hour in the club house waiting out the rain), ate dinner with everyone, then headed back to our place.  The kids were crabby, Trav was cold and still a little damp from being in the rain all day, and I was ready for bed considering we had had a late night on Friday.  Trav gives the kids showers, everyone is in bed by 7:45pm.  I run over to Dairy Queen to pick up an ice cream cake for my contribution to the Easter meal we would be having the following day.  When I get home, I'm sitting on the couch eating my strawberry shake (I can't go to DQ and not get myself a little treat), when I hear Lauren start crying.  I run back to her room just in time to see her throwing up all over herself - super!  Less than one hour after getting out of the shower, she is back in the bath crying and screaming while I wash all the vomit out of her hair (it should also be noted that I had just washed her bedding that morning, so I really should have expected someone to throw up, or have a bloody nose because that's just how things work in this house - and by the way, Ellie woke up covered in blood on Sunday morning, but I'll get to that later).  So I get Lauren cleaned up, throw all of her bedding in the wash, and put her in our bed where she'll sleep so I can keep an eye on her during the night.  Things were good until about 11:30pm, that's when I'm laying next to her and start to hear her gag a little.  I grab the bucket by the bed with  my go-go gadget arms (I was quick and somehow I think my arms grew because the bucket was way on the floor and somehow I managed to grab it, grab Lauren, and put them together all while barely moving from my spot on the bed), just in time to have her throw up again.  When it was all done, I laid her back down, and asked if she was okay . . . she didn't move or respond, she just slept so I'm not really sure she even woke up in the first place.  That was 11:30pm, and for the next 4 hours, Lauren would throw up, or dry heave (by the end) into the bucket every 30-45minutes.  And with the last two rounds, we also had another surprise . . . poop in the pants!  I had just washed out the bucket and was crawling back into bed with her when I smelled a bad scent.  I laid there for a second, then asked Lauren if she might have pooped, in her sleep, she says, "no, just fart."  So I lay back down and try to sleep, but the smell doesn't go away.  So I ask again, and this time take a little feel of Lauren's backside, and that's when the shit literally hit the fan, or in this case, my hand - the night just keeps getting better.  So I take her into the bathroom, strip her clothes off, throw her back in the tub, get her in new jammies, and lay her on the floor while I take off all of my bedding (thank god for waterproofTrav come upstairs, and because it is Easter after all, the kids find their baskets and eggs and all seems right in the world again - that is until Ryan tries out his new skateboard.  Let's just put it this way, Ryan's skateboarding career started at 8:47am on Sunday morning, it ended about 15 minutes later when he rolled over his fingers with the skateboard and came in the house crying - onto the next thing.  Maybe he should just take up painting or acting - anything that doesn't require much physical activity because it seems like the kid is always getting himself hurt.  Oh, and I forgot about the dog in all of this writing.  So last night Trav comes upstairs around 12:30am and says to me, "I put Scrappy out around 10:00pm and fell asleep, I just went out to get him and he isn't coming in."  Super, my kid is in the bed with me throwing up and pooing all over, and now the dog is missing in the night - could this get any better.  So part of me was like, "fine, stupid dog wants to run away and get himself killed in the middle of the night, fine by me, my wishes have finally come true."  And then there's the other part of me that knows the kids will be devastated if they wake up in the morning and find out their dog is gone.  So the nice part of me jumps in the van to go search for the dog all the while the "hate" side of me is saying, "god damn dog."  My search comes up empty, and I am certain that tomorrow I'll tell the kids "Happy Easter", and "oh by the way, the dog is gone", when my cell phone rings.  Someone else in the world is still up and they found our stupid dog - thanks, and "great, now I have to get dressed and go get the damn thing."  I get him, put him in the kennel, and curse a lot, and then go to bed (I think it was close to 1:00am at this point).  So nothing happened as planned, Easter will be spent at home, no good meal with family, no more Easter egg hunts, just laying around.  So this year, we've missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter due to the flu - great.  Trav has the kids downstairs watching "Hop" now so I'm going to wrap up, switch the laundry, and get some sleep.  Hope everyone else has a Happy Easter!!  The top two pictures are from a couple of days ago when we dyed eggs, the middle two are Ryan riding before he rolled over his finger, and the bottom two are of the girls on Easter morning - Ellie still has a spot of dried blood on her face and looks super happy!

Birthday, babies, teeth, and hair

Going back to last Thursday . . . Trav was out with some friends after work so the kids and I headed over to Aaron and Ann's to have some dinner, hold some babies, and help celebrate Ann's birthday a couple of days early.  Here are a couple of pictures of kids and babies - I'm so happy there are two babies, this way Ryan and Lauren have no need to fight over who gets to hold the baby first - thanks Aaron and Ann for helping out with that situation!

On Friday we had big plans to travel south to get our annual "family teeth cleaning" - talk about fun!  So we packed up early Friday morning and off we went.  The big kids did great, Trav and I did great, Ellie was another story.  She was supposed to stay with Trav and the other kids while I grabbed a cab and went and got my hair done, but in her typical Ellie fashion (something she has been perfecting in the last month or so), she screamed at the top of her lungs when I tried to leave.  So with a quick change of plans, I took Ellie with me to the salon, and left Trav with the two older kids at the dentist office to finish up.  Luckily Ellie is a great "buddy" when she is with me so having her at the salon wasn't a big deal.  She just laid back in my lap, crossed her legs and sucked her thumb the whole time (she was only there about 20 minutes than Trav and the big kids came to get her when they had finished up at the dental office).  In fact, my stylist said she almost forgot Ellie was even there considering she never made a peep.  With Trav and the kids off to the mall, I finally got my 30 minutes of "me" time and when I left the salon, I was looking fresh and clean with much lighter (in weight, not color) hair, and some nicely shaped eyebrows - thanks Hilary!  When I met up with Trav and the kids, we had just enough time to grab some lunch and then head out to check out Katie's (wife of dentist) gymnastics building (K&G Gymnastics in Mankato) and let the kids run wild!  The place was amazing, and huge!  The kids had a blast trying out all the equipment and Ryan's dream of doing a front flip came true when Katie "assisted" him and he managed to stick the landing - maybe the kid could be a gymnast after all (or maybe not considering he would be the tallest, skinniest gymnast ever) - we'll see.  After letting the kids go crazy for a couple of hours, we all packed up and headed to the Olson house.  When we got there, the kids still had endless energy so they all ran off and played so nice together which meant the four adults had a lot of "adult" time with no screaming kids - a real treat in my book!  As the day was coming to and end, and the kids were starting to get hungry, Trav and I lucked out and Grandpa Doug and Grandma Connie agreed to take the kids for the evening so we could spend a little more "adult" time together with Brent and Katie.  So with all the kiddos at grandparent's houses, the four of us went out to dinner then back to the cabin for some cards and a heated (literally, we were on fire, think scores all in the upper 200's and low 300's) game of Yahtzee.  It was great to be able to spend time with some good friends (especially those who have kids roughly the same ages as ours and who play together so good) - hopefully we'll be back again before our next teeth cleaning, but if not, we'll be down in October again for sure!

After a crazy busy Friday, we took it easy on Saturday with everyone just bumming around the house.  At night, the kids all had baths, and by 7:30pm, everyone was sound asleep.  I used the free time to finish up my second book in as many weeks (I'm in a "reading" mode right now), and then went to bed myself.  It was great going to sleep that night and knowing that we still had a whole day left of the weekend - if only Trav could have every Friday off!  Tomorrow we check back into the real world - Spring Break is over and school is on for everyone - the morning should be interesting!!