Go Hoosiers!

Trav bought this sweatshirt for his nephew, Tyler, almost 10 years ago when his good friend, Luke Jiminez played basketball at Indiana when Bobby Knight was the coach. Trav's sister, Dawn, hung onto it all these years, and Ryan is finally big enough to wear it. This morning when I put it on him, I told him that his daddy bought it for him and had his friend sign the sleeve so it was a really important sweatshirt. Once he was dressed, Ryan walked out into the kitchen and told Trav he was the best dad ever and gave him a hug. Trav looked at me and I said,"he really likes the sweatshirt you got him." Trav gave a little smile and hugged Ryan back. When you are telling a 3 year old a story, sometimes it is better to give only parts of the truth, especially if it makes him really happy!

9-Month Well-Child Exam

Lauren had her 9-month check-up today even though she is actually 10-months. Getting a physical for a kid in the month of September is nearly impossible as everyone is heading back to school and needs to have to have one so today was the earliest I could get her in. There are no immunizations given at a 9-month check-up so it wasn't a big deal to be a little late. Anyway, Lauren is a happy, healthy little (big) girl. Here are her stats:

Weight: 22lbs 15 and 3/4 oz - 93%
Height: 31 and 3/4 inches - 97%
Head: 18 inches - 85%

When I look back at Ryan's 9-month check-up, he weighed only 20 lbs 15 oz and was 30 and 3/4 inches long so Lauren actually is bigger than him on paper, but she has an extra month on him so it isn't really accurate. I've already scheduled her 1-year appointment so I'll do a better comparison between the two of them then - not that it even matters, but it is fun to do.

Both Ryan and Lauren got their flu vaccines. Lauren's was given in the form of a shot, Ryan lucked out and got to have his sprayed in his nose - let's just say Ryan was overjoyed when he found out he didn't have to get a shot. On the other hand, he didn't want Lauren to cry so he kept telling her, "don't be scared - it doesn't hurt." Funny how reassuring he can be when he knows he won't be suffering the same pain she will. When it was all said and done, Lauren gave her one or two screams and was back to normal, Ryan was happy, and very proud of himself for not crying, and I walked out without any screaming kids - not a bad visit to the clinic if you ask me.

Trav leaves for a business trip to Vegas tonight so Auntie is coming up to help out with the kids for a couple of days while I work - should be good times.

Minor accident

Trav had a minor car accident this morning on the way to work. As Trav tells the story, he had just made a left turn at a four way stoplight (he turned on the green arrow) and the other guy who was coming from the opposite direction was making a right turn and for some reason, he decided to veer right into Trav's lane without even looking what was going on. Trav said he could tell the guy was going to hit him, but his only other option was to go over the center median and into oncoming traffic - I think he made the right decision. Anyway, after many calls to insurance companies, auto body shops, and the local police, everything seems to be getting taken care of. The "minor" accident resulted in about $2,200 worth of damage to Trav's car that will hopefully (if the other guy sticks to his story and admits it was his fault as he did right after the accident to both Trav and the police officer) be fully paid by insurance, and I don't mean our insurance. The good thing is that Trav can still drive the car so we won't have to try to manage with one car, or rent one until his is repaired.

Other news for the day . . . today, I realized that Lauren is either a hard-core bottle addict, or a short-fused, temperamental little girl, or worse yet, both. We did our usual Tuesday morning routine today and dropped Ryan off at school right around 9:00am. It usually takes me about 10 minutes to drop him off, get back in the car, and get back home, which leaves me about a five minute cushion before Lauren demands her bottle. Well, the drop off took a little longer today because Ryan was having a hard time deciding which locker to put his coat in so by the time we were half way home, Lauren started freaking out. I knew what she wanted, but unfortunately I do not carry a bottle making set-up in my car so she was just going to have to wait. The more driving I did, the more red lights we hit so at the final light, I decided to give her some things from the car that might entertain her. The keys entertained her to about two seconds, my crumpled up piece of paper worked for about thirty seconds, but she still wasn't happy. Then I saw a half empty bottle of water which I was sure would keep her happy for the last minute of the trip. I tried to give it to her but she was too busy screaming to notice so I gave it a little shake to get her attention - BIG mistake. The minute she heard the shaking sound, the crying stopped, her eyes went straight to the bottle and she started grabbing for it - you would think this is exactly what I wanted, but I knew better. Whenever she hears that sound, she knows she is getting a bottle which she grabs for until it is in her mouth. Well, when she did that today, it obviously wasn't the bottle she was expecting so she grabbed it with two hands and did a whole body convulsion which resulted in her throwing the water bottle over the seat and screaming at the top of her lungs - not only did I not make her stop crying, I actually made things worse by accidentally teasing her with a bottle. What else could I do but laugh at her. She was almost beside herself by the time we got home. Her face was bright red, tears were falling everywhere, and I could barely get her out of her car seat because she kept arching her back and throwing her head - how could our smiling, happy baby turn into such a little terror? I did eventually get her a real bottle and she managed to settle down and take a nap. Luckily when she woke up, she was back to her normal, happy self. Let's hope that bad side doesn't come back too soon.

Here is a picture of Lauren working on her phone skills and one of Ryan showing off his Halloween pajamas.

Girl's Night

We had another "girl's night" this past Saturday so I was on my own for the entire weekend - no husband, no kids, just me. Trav and the kids left late Friday afternoon for a weekend at the lake with Grandpa and Grandma Quast. After they were gone, I used my free time to catch up on some reading, pick up the house a little, and get ready for work. Yes, some of us have to work on Friday night - bummer. Anyway, work was work, I got home around 11pm, read some more, and finally feel asleep around 1:00am. The next morning I was up early to head back home to get my hair done and spend a day back in St. Pete with Mom, Dad, and Ashley. It was weird to be home without the kids - so much time to do nothing. Ash, Mom, and myself used the time to watch some movies and have a few drinks - not something I could do very easily with two kids running around. By the time our movies were over, we had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat, and get ready for our girl's night out. Girl's night started out like most - lots of conversation catching up on each other's lives, lots of food and drink, and most of all, lots of fun! Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending how you look at it, I had started my girl's night at about noon that day so I was probably having a little more fun than everyone else and that is when I did a few things you probably shouldn't do, such as . . .

1) calling your college basketball coach (which I didn't even remember until Monday morning when I got an email from him asking if I had called his office phone). Let me check on that real quick, um, yup, that was me. Sure enough, my call history had it listed right there - a call made at 11:59pm - was I shocked that he didn't answer at that time on a Saturday night - at the time, probably. Anyway, the details started coming back to me and I recall a conversation we were having about an Alumni gathering so I apparently thought it best to call him that evening and find out the date so I could start making arrangements - pretty sure that is not going to happen.
2) when you see an old classmate you haven't seen in like ten years at the local bar, that does not mean you should run up to him and tell him your life story - pretty sure he doesn't care and neither does his wife who is staring at you because you are all up in her husband's face - whoops! Let's hope I don't run into him again for another ten years especially because I can't remember what his wife's name was or his kid's names which I'm pretty sure he rattled off a couple of times for me.
3) you should not dance on the bar no matter how much fun you think it will be - it is not only dangerous once you are up there, but getting up and down is pretty hard too and I think I might have pulled a muscle or two - ouch!
4) having to call your mom and dad to come get you at 2 in the morning seems a little weird when you have two kids of your own and know that someday you will be getting that exact call - gotta love them for coming to get us though - such nice parents.
5) recovery time after a long night takes way too long. It is now Monday morning and I am just starting to feel normal again after spending most of the day in bed yesterday, and drinking more water than I ever thought my body could handle - I wish I had drank that much water on Saturday night instead of that much wine - what was I thinking.

Anyway, another successful girl's night is done. Trav and the kids are back home, I'm feeling better, and life is back to normal. Until next girl's weekend . . .

Cruisin' for chicks

Ryan's mouth never stops, and while usually it is just his constant "small talk", it never seems to fail that when you least expect it, he comes up with something totally new and unexpected. A couple examples . . .

The other day we were out for a bike ride and Ryan really started to go fast. I actually had to jog a little to keep up with him so I said, "Wow Ryan, you are really cruising." His response, "I know Mom, cruising for chicks." As usual, my next question is, "who taught you that?" Ryan's answer, "Grandpa Doug." I give a little smile and ask him if he knows what chicks are and he replies with, "Yeah Mom, you know, like chickens." That's right buddy, jut like chickens - let's just keep it that way.

Another good one . . about two weeks ago, Ryan comes out of his room with his hand in his pants and asks, "what are these?" I see that he is holding his nuts so I do some quick thinking - do I tell him that they are his testicles, or do I keep it simple and call them his nuts. I go with the simple answer, and even give him an option, he can call them his nuts, or his balls. So for about the next fifteen minutes all he can talk about are his nuts - he is just like his daddy. Anyway, after that, he sort of forgets about them and I don't hear anything more until last night when he is getting in the bath. I put him in the tub and he just stands there so I ask what he is doing, and he says, "just fixing my nuts." I of course laugh. Trav happens to be walking by and he asks what I am laughing about so I tell Ryan to tell him what he is doing and he repeats, "just fixing my nuts" which makes Trav laugh as well. Obviously we are horrible parents because as we are laughing, Ryan is telling us to "stop laughing, my balls (apparently he is comfortable with both terms, nuts and balls) hurt so I just had to fix them, it is not funny guys." He is right, we shouldn't laugh, but it is just too funny to hear him saying that sort of stuff.

And finally, we are outside yesterday eating popsicles when part of his falls on the ground. I go over and pick it up and throw it in the bushes and Ryan immediately turns to me and says, "Dog nammit Mom, I was going to eat that." For anyone who has read this blog before, you know that Trav always says "Dog nammit" instead of "God damn it", so obviously Ryan has picked up on this and is now using it in his vocabulary - super, at least it is better then the alternative.

Here are a couple of pictures of our little chatter box playing/wrestling in the backyard with Trav.

Happy baby

I just had to put these up as Lauren was in a super good mood this day and I apparently took a thousand or so pictures of her to prove it. She was laughing, giggling, crawling, and doing her "so big" pose. Did you notice the little curls on her head - love them! Watch, she'll turn out to be a blond haired, blue eyed little girl with curly hair - the exact opposite of the rest of us!

Last weekend of summer

We decided to enjoy the last official weekend of summer by taking the kids to the Como Zoo/Como Town for one last time before the weather turns ugly and cold. So Saturday morning, we packed into the mini and headed off for some fun. Both kids fell asleep on the way there so by the time we arrived, they were in good moods and ready for some action. We hit the zoo first where Ryan showed Daddy all of his favorite animals, which happened to be the lions when we were looking at lions, monkeys when we were looking at monkeys, you get the idea, let's just say all the animals were his favorites. Trav's favorite animal was the buffalo. He said if there were just a couple of guys running around in cowboy hats, it would be just like old times when he used to visit me in South Dakota -whatever, he is just jealous he wasn't one of those cowboys instead of him!. After the zoo, we headed over to Como Town to have some fun on the rides. We let Ryan pick out 3 rides he wanted to go on and bought just enough tickets for these rides. The first ride of choice, the roller coaster. Trav had to go on this with him as he was too little to ride by himself so the boys got on the ride, and Lauren and I found a place to watch. The minutes the ride started up, Lauren started freaking out. Every time the roller coaster went around a corner, it got super loud, and she got super scared. Before I know it, my hand feels warm and I look to see what is going on and sure enough, she got so scared, she peed herself a lot. So off we went to find a secluded area to change outfits. By the time I finished up, the boys had found us and Trav seemed really excited about something so I asked him what. He pulls out a handful of tickets (the ones they had for the roller coaster) and says the guy never took them form him, and he didn't think about it until half way through the ride so now Ryan had an extra 8 tickets to use - talk about fun! With this good news, we headed back towards the rides to find a few more to try out. By the end of the day, I think Ryan got to go on about 6 rides for the price of 3 - not a bad deal. After all of our tickets were gone, we packed the van back up and headed home for some much needed rest. That evening, we went to the neighbors for one last summer cookout, and some adult time as the kids both went to bed very early. Although, Trav and I only lasted until 10:30pm so it wasn't exactly what I would call a crazy night, but fun none the less.Today we have no big plans, just hang out and maybe watch the Vikes win a game - if that is even possible. So now we say goodbye to Summer and hello to the best time of the year (in my opinion) - Fall, when the leaves change colors, the apple farms and pumpkin patches are in full swing, and it is the perfect time to cuddle up together during the chilly (but not freezing) cold nights.