Blogging vs reading

This has been my battle the last few weeks  . . . . do I blog, or do I read?  Lately, reading has won.  I plan on finishing up the last few books I borrowed, and then I'll give reading a break and get back to more regular blogging - I'm sure you'll all (all could be 1 or 20 people) be very happy!

So, onto the good stuff . . . we've been busy lately with various outings, but all in all, we've just been relaxing.  This past weekend we started the Mother's Day celebration early when the doorbell rang on Friday and to my surprise, a delivery man was at the door with a wonderful fruit bouquet for me and a card that said, (and I quote) - "Happy Mother's Day to the #1 Mom,  love, Ryan, Lauren, and Ellie."  Those darn kids, always coming up with something!  And to think they all pooled their money together to get me something so nice (or maybe Trav helped out, either way, it was much appreciated).  So thanks to  my #1 kids and my #1 husband for making this, and every Mother's Day, special!

The rest of Friday was spent watching, "We Bought a Zoo" - great movie, intended for the family, but Trav and I ended up watching most of it on our own and we both enjoyed it.  It is a real "feel good" kind of movie.

On Saturday, we packed up and headed south to St. Pete for Ash's "gender reveal" party.  It was fun to spend some time outside enjoying the gorgeous weather with the fam, and even more fun to find out that Ash is having a baby ****** - just kidding, she hasn't revealed the sex to everyone yet so I'm not going to ruin the surprise.  Either way, it is exciting to be thinking about another new family member.  The Loken/Quast/Kleist clan is geting bigger everyday it seems.  After the stop in St. Peter, we packed up again and this time headed to Waconia for another get together.  This time it was with friends and all of their kids so the house was crazy, busy, and most importantly, FUN!  The kids had plenty of room to run around outside, and plenty of other kids to play with so Trav and I both had a chance to catch up with some old friends.  On a side note . . . a sure sign that we are indeed getting older (and maybe wiser) - in the past this gathering has included drinks, bonfires, and late nights, on this particular Saturday, every guest but one had at least one kid/baby with them, and Trav and I were the last to leave with our kids . . . it was only 8:30pm! Could this indeed mean we have grown-up and really figured things out?  The upside to this early night and light drinking . . . no headaches on Sunday - not a bad trade off!

After our good night on Saturday, we spent Sunday (Mother's Day) doing lots of things I "wanted" to do, such as . . . patch the yard where the dog dug a huge hole, sharpen the lawn mower blade, and run to Menards - doesn't this sound like every Mom's dream day?  It may be hard to believe, but doing these things did indeed make me happy, and once we were done, we spent the rest of the day outside playing badminton (Trav did this with the kids), having a nice 2-on-2 soccer match, and just enjoying the gorgeous day, and each other.  And to end this nearly perfect day, Trav and the kids took me to the best restaurant on earth . . . The Buffalo Tap, for my Mother's Day dinner.  Like I said, the perfect day!

 Thanks again to these four for making me the happiest Mom around - love you all!

Pretty in pink

It is happening again . . . another daughter who loves pink - how did this happen to me?  Everyone knows Lauren would wear pink anything and everything every day if she could, and it seems her passion for pink might be wearing off onto her little sister.  Today Lauren picked out her outfit for preschool . . . it consisted of pink leggings, a pink skirt, a lighter pink t-shirt, Hello Kitty socks with pink ribbing, a pink hoodie, and her pink shoes - she looked fabulous if you really like pink, others might say it was a touch too much - the jury is still out on that.  Anyway, after she finished dressing, she took one look at Ellie in her capris and white polo (which I had picked out) and declared, "Ellie needs some other clothes."  With that she went into Ellie's closet, and pulled out one of her new birthday outfits (thanks again Grandma Connie) which was full of the color pink . . . pink polo, striped pink leggings, a jean skirt (which luckily was not pink), and some pink sandals.  Once Lauren convinced me to change Ellie, she was so happy because as she said it, "we both look pretty in pink."  Check out the pink divas working the camera before school . . .

In other "non-pink" related news, Ryan told me last Friday that Breanne (a classmate) likes him.  I said, "that's nice."  He said, "no Mom, she really likes me.  Like she wants to kiss me on the lips."  At that point I turned away from whatever it was that I was doing and said, "well, you tell Breanne that no one kisses you except your mom."  His reply, "ok, but she is fabulous and nice sometimes" and walked away.  With that, our conversation was over, but I really hope Ryan doesn't give into this "fab, sometimes nice girl."  He is far too young to be talking about girls and kissing and just a month or so ago he was saying this same girl treats other girls like, to quote his exact words, "a slave" - no need to be getting involved with a girl like that!

Runt of the litter

Ellie had her 2-Year Well-Child Exam today and as we suspected, she is the, "runt of the litter."  While Ryan and Lauren were still at, or above the 90% for height, Ellie came in at just (and yes, I know that she is still tall, but not in comparison to her siblings) the 83rd percentile with a height of 2 feet, 11 and 1/4 inches (Ryan was 3 feet and 1/4 inch, Lauren was the giant at 3 feet, 1 and 1/2 inches).  She also joined her brother in the weight rankings, Ryan was 29.2 lbs putting him at 65% while Ellie was a mere 28lbs, but did rank higher in the percentiles with 66%.  Lauren was again the biggest of the bunch with a weight of 32 lbs and a 95% ranking - she was large and in charge!  The head circumference was the only spot Lauren didn't completely dominant in.  She was 19 and 1/2 inches, Ellie was 19 and 1/4 inches, and Ryan had a head so big, he could hardly hold it up straight (just kidding, but he did come in the biggest at 19.9 inches).  So just as Trav predicted, Ellie is not only taking after Ashley in all of her personality traits (Trav is convinced our kids are a mirror images of me and my siblings growing up), but she is also following in her Auntie's footsteps when it comes to being the "little one" of the family (in all senses).  Not sure if this is something we should be happy about, or something we should be fearing!

All in all, Ellie did great at the appointment.  There were no shots so that always makes things easier, and just to ensure that no tears would fall, Dr.Gears gave Ellie her Dora sticker first, then did the exam second - nice work doctor!

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.