The Weekend

Wow, it's March 1st. We had a fun weekend. The Fur Rondy Festival started and we were able to enjoy some of the conviviality. If anyone told me that someday I'd be "enjoying" a carnival and corn dogs in 12 degree weather, I'd have slapped them. But since we live in AK it's not too crazy for people up here to enjoy the Fair in the dead of winter. If you are curious about what Fur Rondy is, check out this link: www.furrondy.net. It's a crazy winter fest heralding the bygone days of the Fur Rendezvous auctions and the Classic start of the Iditarod. Basically it's an excuse to throw a huge party in Anchorage.

I've got a couple pics up of Cannon's finished dresser and night stand. We are still shopping around for hardware. Didn't he do a beautiful job on that furniture?

We got to Skype with the grandparents and that was the highlight of our weekend. It really does bridge a huge distance between our family. Viva la modern technology!

I have loads of laundry to fold while Caleb is napping so gotta run! Happy Monday to you all.

We got fresh snow today. It's just beautiful and white and bright. I think we'll try making a snow man today. It has been a good week.

That green stuff is called grass...

...and it will get green again in a matter of months. I keep reminding myself of this fact.

It's sloppy and dreary outside but life is good up here in the arctic north. Just because it's not possible to play outside doesn't mean we can't have fun inside. We've continued to take Caleb swimming and he continues to be fearless. We also play ball with him in the house and he is a spot on kicker with both right and left feet. If we throw the ball at him, he either kicks it right back at us with great aim or he hits it with either his right or left hand. He's not afraid of it and if it bonks him on the head he just says "Uups, bonk on da noggin" and we go again. He's also enjoying the "Library Lapsit" program. He sings the songs, does all the actions and listens (somewhat restlessly) to the stories. Then he claps the loudest and jumps up and down the loudest at the conclusion of each song or story. He's getting quite big--literally, just big. But there isn't an ounce of fat on him. I'm working on teaching him to share and be gentle because he was trying to give his tiny friend Eden a hug today and made her squawk because he was squeezing her. He's not very prompt about saying "I so sorry" but he'll give a kiss to the "injured" party when he understands that he was the cause of their discomfort. I should have named him Brutus. He's flying through flash cards and getting better about his pronunciation, sadly. I don't ever want him to grow up. His sweet voice and his stumbling sentences and lisps are heart melters everyday. The best is when he wakes from a nap and looks at you with sleepy eyes and while patting the pillow next to him says "Snuggabug?!"

I've learned the hard way that I really need to take it easy with my neck. I was trying to carry on with life as usual. I couldn't figure out why my neck, shoulder and back were so achy, sore and stiff 24/7. It turns out that laundry, dishes, picking up clutter, keeping up with a busy toddler, grocery shopping, exercising and making meals are tasks that I have to scale back on. Way back. I need to ask Cannon for help more often -- it's just a matter of pride and what I feel is shirking my duty. Weird, I know. And how I sleep at night is a huge factor too. Apparently wearing my neck collar at night is okay but during the day I'm supposed to allow the spine to heal and grow stronger by keeping the collar off. So I need to get out of this very un-ergonomic chair and get to bed. I really depend on other people's blogs to keep me from feeling so distant. I shouldn't expect others to keep me updated without giving an update myself.

Cannon is working on refinishing a beautiful dresser and night stand that our neighbor was getting rid of. He's making it look like a deep cherry wood set of furniture. I'll take some pics and post them. It is a labor of love and he's spending a lot of time sanding, treating, staining, sanding...should be finished by the end of this week. Our house really stinks. I'm glad none of you live close enough to visit. With the pipes breaking in November and subsequent mold, there's a bit of a cabin smell. Couple that with wood stain smells and you've got a whopper of a stench. I can't wait until we can open the windows and doors and bring fresh arctic breezes through the house.

My friends and I are planning our 2nd year of participating in the "Pink Cheeks Triathlon" the first weekend in May. I can't do the whole thing because of my neck but I've got a team. Ruthie will swim, I'll bike and Jess will run. It will be great fun! There are some new girls in the ward who want to join this year so we should have a good gaggle of girls. We just have to come up with a team name. Any ideas?

One of the best things to look forward to is that Cannon is going to Hawaii again on business at the end of March. Actually he's going on Caleb's birthday. I remember spending Caleb's birthday without Cannon last year. We've got an option to go with Cannon this year and I think we're going to take it. Cannon will be at work during the day but we'll be able to celebrate Caleb's birthday together as a family, take in some sand and sun...just relax...so I think we're going to do it. I'm going to look up local museums or kid friendly places that I can take Caleb during the day. We are for sure going to ride the trolley and hunt down as many aquariums as we can find. Mostly we'll go swimming, but not in the ocean. It scares me. We'll stick with the pool.

That is the update: fun almost-3-year-old, stinky house, cool project, cluttery house, triathlon training and Hawaii on the Horizon.

p.s. For any of you Phoenix dwellers I checked out Hawaiian Airlines and you can get a roundtrip ticket from Phoenix to Honolulu Dep 3/31, Ret 4/5 for $400. That is so cheap!

Another day in paradise

Shoveling the drive and brushing teeth. Doesn't get more exciting than that!

T is for Truck and Tuesday

We went to Sally's today to find some books for Caleb. We came home with books and a "Grave Digger" monster truck that he couldn't part with...well, not peacefully anyway. And I can't exactly wrestle a yelling, flopping 40lb almost-3-year-old with a busted neck. Besides, I was happy to have found some excellent books for him and he was happy to have found the truck.

Our morning was busy with the gym, Great Harvest to pick up some Popeye Bread (it's out of this world), the hospital to pick up some pamphlets on neck/shoulder stretching exercises, gas station and then Sallys. What a productive morning. Now it's off to take a nap.

What's your Tuesday been like?

eager anticipation

The delicious dough has been taste tested and approved...

It is currently chilling in the refrigerator...

The heart and train cookie cutters are patiently waiting to slice and shape...

We are so excited to make and bake Grandma Stoddard's Sugar Cookies.
They are the best cookies in the universe!
I'm sharing the recipe with you so that you have something to look forward to, just like we do!

* * * * *
Okay, the cookies are done and oh, so delicious. Caleb was quite the helper and after cutting out the cookies he wanted to play in the flour. So I didn't ask for his help with frosting the cookies. We delivered a few plates of green trains and pink hearts to our friends tonight. Valentines Day is around the corner!

Not Phoenix Weather

Cannon is in Phoenix. He left yesterday. Caleb has been asking "Where's daddy?" every 30 min or so. He also says "Daddy's in da sky, in da airpane!" And then there's the "Call daddy?" request every 45 min or so. Caleb misses his hero. He adores his daddy. They have so much fun together. No one is going to be more excited to see Cannon than me but Caleb is going to be showing his enthusiasm much more exuberantly, as only an almost 3 year old can when we pick daddy up this weekend. Fortunately, the sun is shining here. I have a hard time living here but Cannon's absence doesn't impact me quite as deeply when the sun is shining.

Before he left we played indoors and did some work on the house.

Generally my routine is to hit the gym first thing but today I gave myself a break. My neck and shoulders have been sore for a full week so I've got my neck brace on, trying to let my muscles rest a bit. We made valentines for the grandparents/g-grandparents, made dutch macaroni, ran an errand at Walgreens and found the perfect ball for swimming at the pool, played trains and went outside to build a snow man. The snow is too dry to build one. But we had a great time anyway.

We'll see if we can keep ourselves distracted this week while Cannon is gone. This is Cannon's first business trip of many to come this Spring and Summer...

Fix a tire

The other day I took our car to the mechanic to get the tire fixed. Turned out that a couple of studs had caused a couple major air leaks. Caleb wanted to watch the mechanic the entire time and was big eyed and speechless. When we got home, he promptly gathered his cars and jets and would bring each one to me, saying "Fix a tire"? I would say "Yes, fix the tire!" After a little while, he came and grabbed my hand and walked me into the living room. He had gathered a bunch of cars and propped each one up on a "jack" (the jacks were game pieces) so that he could fix the tires. He is very observant and I have a feeling that he'll be getting some sort of engineering and applied science degree since he clearly has the "applied science" thing down. Or maybe he'll be a mechanic. Whatever he does, he'll be good at it--just like his dad. They are both into mechanical things and fixing stuff...

Here's Caleb the happy swimmer. We are so glad to be able to go swimming indoors when it's 4 degrees outside. The last few days have been warmer--in the 20's. It was a balmy 26 yesterday.

I've got the flu. Caleb had it a few days ago. A 24 hour flu bug. It's not as bad as other bugs I've had in years past. Thank goodness. I do wish that I were sick and upchucking because I was pregnant, but it's just the flu. Darn it!

Cannon is in the attic right now. He finished putting a bunch of foam board, plastic and "black death" down in the crawl space. Now the attic is getting a makeover. I sure appreciate his willingness to fix this stuff. He said he enjoys it. Again, thank goodness. In the short few years that we've been married I'm sure he has saved us thousands of dollars by fixing the car and house himself. He's the best.

Speaking of the house, we had a knock on the door a few days ago. We answered the door and a fellow said "Hi, I'm here to look at the house!" After a couple seconds of puzzlement, he explained that his wife saw that it was for rent. We assured him that it was NOT for rent and told him that he'd been a victim of a scam. I asked if his wife sent any money to the "landlords" and he didn't know. We wished him luck looking for a rental property and sent him on his way. Hopefully they didn't lose any money. Bizarro.

Caleb went in for an EEG (a brain scan). He did wonderfully well. We are still waiting for the results. When he had the flu, he did have another febrile seizure. It was very short and not nearly as dramatic as past episodes. I think that because they are purely febrile (happening when he's got a fever), he'll grow out of them. He is such a great kiddo.
Happy Tuesday to you all.

p.s. I'm using a Mac version of Wordpress, called Flock. I'm trying it for the first time today.

just barely january

january is here, beautiful snow is here. i'd love to post pics but they still aren't uploading. we've been exploring other sites to use so that i can continue to post pics and text without any trouble. obviously it hasn't been a huge priority since i've struggled for the last 3 months or so and still am using 'blogger'.

still getting busted pipe ramifications taken care of around the house. still. that and normal everyday life. dishes, laundry, meals, exercise, play dates. i keep promising cannon that i'll update our budget and i haven't done it yet. it's just a matter of plugging numbers into our excel spreadsheet and yet...and yet, it might as well be eating cooked broccoli. i hate it. and for whatever reason, laundry piles seem to crop up in the house. i don't mind doing laundry but other things get in the way of sitting down and folding it. i guess i need to improve my dvd selection so that i'll actually want to sit down and watch a movie while i fold. it would also help if caleb wouldn't dump the entire basket of folded laundry over, quickly burrowing under the pile and saying "where's caleb, where's caleb?"

speaking of movies, we've started watching the "national parks" dvd series by ken burns. they are so well done. the stories that accompany the photography are just captivating. and our national parks are spectacular, so all of the visual imagery is inspiring. highly recommend this series to anyone.

what else. oh, we went swimming again last night. there is a big water slide and cannon and i time each other on who can go down the fastest. cannon has me beat by 2 seconds. we have different techniques and his sheer weight and size probably have more to do with how fast he bombs down the slide than the technique. but he swears by the technique. caleb is TOTALLY fearless. we strap the life jacket on and let him go! the water slide isn't enough of a thrill for him. he would rather go off the diving board. yes, THE diving board. thank goodness there is no high dive. in the pool he will tug on us and say "go on the diving board!" we have to hold the back of his strap while he tries to run to the board. one of us climbs up with him and the other treads water in the deep end. he gets out to the very edge of the board, grabs our hands and then starts jumping up and down on the very edge of the board. after a few seconds of jumping and yelling like a triumphant viking he counts to 3 and then we drop him into the deep end. fortunately, he's so buoyant that his head never goes under the water. the rest of the time, he is chasing a ball. and he is relentless about getting it and if it starts to sink, he'll yell and kick himself into circles waiting for one of us to retrieve the ball. he is so fun to watch. a plastic surgeon couldn't remove the smile on his face. he kicks and yells and chases and jumps for 2 hours straight, smiling the whole time. it's a blast to take him swimming. i'm going to get him in some swimming classes this spring, after he turns 3.

one thing i have been doing is planning out meals and using the crock pot more. made some sweet and sour salmon in the crock that was awesome and some moose vegetable stew that was very tasty. will be using those recipes a lot in the future. my next attempt will be a pf changs lettuce wrap recipe for the crock pot. mmm,mmmm....

so that's about it. my neck and shoulders are healing well. i'm stiff and a little sore most days but not in pain and not achy. this is the 4th week i've been able to exercise consistently throughout the whole week without any bad physical pain in my back. i'm VERY happy about that. and like most americans, i have a new year's resolution to get this pesky fat off my body. i've been very happy while eating healthy. this is a marked change from last year. last year i had a sense of "all or nothing" and felt deprived, angry and obsessive about what i was (and wasn't) eating. i've abandoned the notion of eating super strict just to get the weight off. and i'm not planning on eating differently or having binge days once i do get the fat off. no fad diets. i'm truly changing my lifestyle. that means that i can have chocolate everyday, but in moderation. lean meat in moderation. tons of veggies, fruits, grains...and h20. it's stuff i've known since i was a kid, stuff i taught as a trainer but somehow, it has taken me a while to apply it to myself personally. super hypocritical of me, i know--but i was truly blinded thinking that i needed to do severe things to my diet or that i needed to work even harder physically than i had been...

now i'm truly taking care of myself. i feel liberated. i feel motivated. i feel happy. i feel blessed.

well, off to fold laundry and *cringe* update our monthly budget.