first trip to the beach

Today was supposed to be Evie's first time at a water park, but when we got there, they were closed, so we went to the beach instead. The beach isn't my favorite place, but the girls really love it, and that makes it more fun. But the beach combined with a fussy 7 week old, and no good place for nursing or diaper changes, was not so fun. the girls still enjoyed themselves, so I guess that's what really matters, right? Ben played with the girls in the water, and they walked all along the beach together, while I sat with the baby in the shade. I walked around a little, and while I was away from our stuff, someone stole the girls' leftover lunches. I'm glad that is what was taken, since we had a lot of other stuff sitting there that I would be a lot more worried about losing. but we thought it was weird. I looked in the trash can, thinking maybe the sack fell on the ground, and someone tossed it. the brown bag was in there, and the sandwich bags were in there, empty, as well as the cheetos bags, aslo empty. I was wondering if some hungry bum was wandering the beach, looking for food. If someone wanted a half eaten sandwich and some cheetos that badly, I guess I'm glad we could help them out.

Evie's first trip to the beach. I tried to make Ben hold her for the picture, to avoid a bathing suit picture myself, but he made me hold her instead. that's why I have that idiotic look on my face.

since we were planning on going to the water park, we didn't bring any sand toys. But they managed to make a sand castle anyway.

I'm glad they could have a fun day, and we could all get out of the house for a few hours. Last weekend, Ben took the girls to a movie, and school clothes shopping. it was nice to spend the day alone with the baby, but it was also nice today, to get to come along for the fun.

We were going to take them to baskin robins for ice cream, but kiersten got carsick, and puked all over herself. So after stopping to clean her up, we decided just to go through the dairy queen drive through and take the ice cream home. Kiersten is naked, due to the puking.

After we got home, Ben took Kara to get her hair cut. She looks super cute, but I think it makes her look older, which is kinda sad for me. She starts school again on the 13th. She is so excited.

03/04/10

Life has seemed to be so busy lately, and time is just flying by. Why does that always happen during my 2nd trimester of pregnancy? I wish that it was the 3rd trimester that went by fast! Kiersten is getting so big. I am going to try potty training her pretty soon. But I want to wait til I think she's definitely ready. This is how she looks after eating a sucker, and getting upset when I take what's left of it away. Occasionally, Kara will request her picture taken right before school. I think it's from her first week of preschool, when I was taking her picture every morning. Anyway, here is one of the days she wanted her picture taken. But she is always so serious for these pictures. She will not smile in them anymore.

Kara has started getting invited to birthday parties lately. A few weeks ago, she had one at build-a-bear, which was pretty fun. Last saturday, she had one to go to at a place called, Pump it up. Ben took her, and said it was fun too.

Here are the partiers., She only knew a few of the kids, but that never stops her from having fun and making new friends.

We were organizing our guest room, and took out 2 diaper boxes full of old bills and papers we don't need to keep any longer. Ben thought it would be a good idea to take it all up to lake alder and use it for a campfire. Of course, Kara loved the idea, and would hardly let Ben watch his hockey game, because she was so excited to go.

Here are some old bills going up in flames. We ended up having to use 2 different fire pits to burn it all, and it took a lot longer than we thought it would. We roasted hotdogs for dinner, and made chocolate-marshmallow banana boats. They weren't as good as i remember them being.

Best friend sisters. Kiersten always wants to hold hands with Kara lately.

We noticed a playground area, that we hadn't seen up there before. This tire swing was fun until Ben made it spin, and I quickly got sick.

The girls having fun.

When we were walking back to the car, Kara stopped and refused to keep walking until Kiersten hugged her.

cute family picture.

my sweet Kiersten yesterday. I can't believe she's almost 2!

Kara teaching Kiersten to play checkers. 2 nights ago, I noticed a good sized piece of Kara's hair on the floor. I asked her about it, and she said Kiersten pulled it out. I thought that was strange she hadn't cried or tattled, but Kiersten got a lecture about pulling hair. When Ben was getting her ready for bed, he noticed more of her hair in the bathroom trash can. He told me about it, and upon inspection, we noticed she had cut her hair. She cut a good amount from the left side of her head. She showed us the scizzors, and they are ones I don't even recognize, so who knows where she got them. Because I had emptied that trash can while the power was out earlier in the day, I can narrow down when she must have done it. She had a long nap right before Ben got home, so she has to have done it when I sent her to put the swiffer away in her bathroom. I am really surprised, because she loves her hair, and got really upset when we wanted to get it cut. So I have to think of hairstyles to camoflage the shorter hair. I don't think it would look good with layers because of how short she cut it. We'll have to go a few days and decide if she needs to get it fixed or not. Yesterday I just put braids in her hair, and that seemed to work out well.

10/6/09

Friday night, we went to the halloween store to get costumes for the girls. We didn't end up with one for Kiersten, but we got Kara's, and mine. Kara had to pee while we were there, but they don't have a public restroom. Ben was asking one of the employees where the nearest place was that would have one, and she took one look at Kara, and said we could use their employee bathroom. On the way back there, a zombie was crawling across the floor and lunging at Kara. I don't think I've ever seen her so terrified. It was hard to catch her, but I did. She calmed down after I picked her up, but after that she just wanted out of the store. I have to say, I can see why they don't usually let customers use that bathroom. It was a pretty scary experience as well. Then we went to dinner at Ruby tuesday, and had barely any leftovers for once.
Saturday, I made Ben clean out the garage, while I packed away all of Kiersten's 12 month clothing, and Kara's 3T clothing. I also packed up more than half of their baby blankets. They still have around 15 that I left out for them, but we were getting sick of having blankets strewn everywhere, so hopefully it will be easier to contain them now. Then I had to go to the post office, and I had a load of things to donate to goodwill, then I stopped at the store for some things. I came home and made some banana bread, and got some items cleaned up to get posted on craigslist. The garage is looking really great now.
Sunday, Ben and Kiersten stayed home to watch football and cartoons, while I took Kara out and about. I haven't had much one on one time with her since she started preschool. First we went to lunch, and then we went shopping at the mall. I needed new pants, since I'm getting sick of wearing skirts and shorts all the time. I only had one pair of pants that fit, because I had given away all my "skinny pants" to good will after I had Kiersten, thinking I'd never get that small again. I found some great deals, and was happy with what I got, while actually sticking to a budget for once. Kara wanted to get something too, so I let her get one dress. I was tempted to let her get more stuff, but I was determined not to overspend. After we left the mall, I talked Kara into getting her hair trimmed. When she heard me mention it to Ben earlier that morning, I called it a haircut, and she freaked out. She started crying and saying she didn't want to get her hair cut off. After changing the term to "hair trim", and explaining to her how little would actually be coming off, she agreed, and actually got excited about it. She did become a bit hesitant when we got there and she saw scissors, but I reminded her that she was just getting a trim. It was a 20 minute wait, and she had to go to the bathroom, so I took her over to fred meyer to go. I also let her pick out a treat, and told her we would open it after her hair was done. When I told the stylist it was her first haircut, she wanted me to stand right next to the chair. After she got started, she realized Kara was not going to melt down, and said I could go sit. I heard parts of their conversation, and I could tell Kara was driving it. They talked about her bee sting, her school, and the upcoming trip to the pumpkin patch, and Kiersten. The stylist was very impressed with Kara for doing so well. Kara is thrilled about her trim. She doesn't realize it basically looks the same as before, just a little cleaner and straighter. Afterward, we went to wal-mart to get a movie that ben called and requested I buy, then we headed home. I got dinner made and cleaned out my car before we put the girls to bed. We watched the movie Changeling. Ben didn't think I would like it, and he was right. I was up all night thinking of the different oppurtunities someone might have to kidnap one of my kids.
Yesterday I took Kara to school, then came home and played with Kiersten until it was time to go to the gym. I was working out with one of the trainers, so of course I was late. I got stuck on the way there, waiting for a train. I've never once seen a train on those tracks before, and even wondered if they were still used. So I was a few minutes late, but I still had a little time for a warm up. I decided only to stay for the training session, and not work out another hour since I was there later than usual, and I didn't want Kiersten to be getting hungry. After lunch and nap time, we picked Kara up from school. She started crying and said she never wanted to go back. So I called the teacher to see if she knew what had happened, because I couldn't get an answer out of Kara. Mrs. Wright said the only thing she could think of, was when they were supposed to be practicing marching in line, Kara kept stopping up the line and then running forward and pushing the girl in front of her, so she had to sit out the rest of the time. But that had happened earlier in the day, and she said Kara had seemed to get over it. I couldn't get Kara to talk right then, and we needed to hurry to pick Ben up from his Dr.'s office. Of course Kara had to go potty, so I had to pull off the freeway for that. It took forever to get back on, but we got there around the time his surgery was to be finished. As I walked in the door, my phone rang, and I was trying to answer it while holding a thrashing Kiersten, and trying to hold Kara's hand, who also wanted to be held, and was whining about it. I dropped my phone and had to call ben back. I told him I was there, and would be up in a minute. I dragged the kids upstairs, and by the time I got there, he was calling me again. I guess he was anxious to leave, but we still ended up waiting for the doctor to come speak to us for another 15 minutes. They took 4 biopsies from his throat. They confirmed again that he has eosinophilic esophagitis, and also a hiatus hernia. He has a new prescription that he will be on indefinitely, and to make sure he actually remembers to take it, I am supposed to get him one of those grandpa pill cases with the days of the week. We'll have the biopsy results in about a week or so. He still needs to follow up with the allergy doctor as well. The Dr. dilated his throat again, but said if he starts having any trouble swallowing, they'll need to do it again. The only problem is that he never notices he has trouble swallowing until food is stuck in his throat. Hopefully the new prescription will help. We finally got Kara to talk about getting in trouble at school. She also told us how much fun she had, so she decided she does want to go to school. We reminded her that she needs to listen to the teacher, and when she gets in trouble, it's because she needs to learn. She said she will not push the other kids again. We stopped and got dinner, and then went home. Ben and Kiersten both crashed on the couch, so I just cleaned up the house, and let Kara play. A lady came to buy my diaper genie I put on craigslist. She actually paid me with 4 dollar bills and 10 dimes. I was glad she got it for such a great deal. she had 2 boys the same ages as my girls, and they were an obvioius handful for her, just trying to get from her car to my door. She said she thought her little boy was potty trained and gave hers away. but it turns out, he isn't quite potty trained and her hubby didn't want her buying another one brand new. After a while, Kara got bored and asked to make cookies, so I figured that was a good thing to do. She picked chocolate chip, and I was glad she picked an easy cookie. I clipped coupons while she watched the cookies bake through the little window on the oven door. By the time all the batches were done, it was time for bed, so I woke up Ben and sent him upstairs, and brought the girls up to bed too.
This morning I had to wake up early to take Ben to get his car from the Dr.'s office parking lot. His throat is still hurting, but he felt fine to drive to work. The girls both took early naps, and I'm just working on laundry. I am really sore from my workout yesterday. I can barely get up and down the stairs. But it's a good kind of sore, like the soreness of fat being burned away, ha!