The Norman Clan

Its been a long time

2010-11-21T13:43:00.009-06:00

Yes, it has been a VERY long time since we last posted, but we have been VERY busy. I think Patrick and I could sleep for a weekend straight if we were able to. Unfortunately we don't have that sort of leisure time. Sarah has been finishing up her last semester of school. Yup, 3.5 years later and she will finally have her MSW. It is crazy thinking that we she started the MSW program Elle was just 16 months old and Jay wasn't even born. Now Elle is almost 5 and Jay will soon turn 3. Sarah can't wait to read books (other than school books) again and do some crafts. Speaking of crafts, she couldn't wait to get her feet wet and made a crochet cowl.

What else is new? Well, Sarah will be ending her part-time GRA job and will begin full-time work again on December 1st. She will be working for the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department providing care management to older adults. One of her practicum placements was there, so it will be nice returning to an agency with which she is familiar. It is also nice that she was able to find a social work and aging job in Lawrence as they don't open up every day.

Patrick's team is doing really well. He has ~70 (yup!) swimmers on his team only after about 6 months of the team existing! Pretty amazing. His swimmers are in Columbia this weekend and have been doing really well. Patrick has also been juggling a few design projects.

Elle has been attending two preschools this year and loves them both. She is really coming out of her shell this year. Last year she was quiet and didn't do a lot of talking. Now when I pick her up she willingly says by to her teachers and her classmates. For Elle's snack the other day we made a fun turkey (see below). After putting on the "feathers" we realized that this was not going to be able to fit back into our fridge as we had just gone to the grocery store. So, Patrick had to make an extra run to Elle's preschool to drop off the snack because she doesn't attend that preschool until the afternoon. The week before we also made a snack of homemade cinnamon rolls for Elle's preschool. When Sarah printed the instructions the second page didn't print so she thought the recipe would be easy. It wasn't until after starting that she realized how time consuming the recipe was. They turned out great, though!

Jay is also attending "school" two mornings a week. It is like a pre-preschool program. He loves going and playing! Most of the other kids had separation issues at first, but not Jay, who's Mr. Happy. Every day when Patrick would pick him up his teachers would say, "Jay had another good day today." Jay also has a big boy bed, which he calls his dinosaur bed because he has a dinosaur quilt. There is storage space underneath the bed, but right now we have it set up so the kids can play under there.

Art Show

2010-07-18T09:26:00.009-05:00

Well, we are way behind on posts. We have been so busy the past few months! I'll try to do a brief update as to some of things we've been up to.

Near the end of the school year Elle's school (the Lawrence Arts Center) had an art show for the preschoolers. Each student picked out one piece of art they had made during the year and then all of the pieces of art were displayed (at preschool kid height) in the gallery. Elle was excited to show us her art piece. She also knew where the art was for Levi, a friend in her class. Elle's art piece is the one to her right and the other picture is a self portrait she painted.

On Earth Day we went to the Earth Day festival downtown and kids painted birdhouses. A bird has made its home in one of the birdhouses! This bird is quite little but has the loudest cheep. When we water near the birdhouse he'll come out and cheep at us as if to say, "what are you doing here?"

Every once in a while the kids ask to have a sleepover. This picture is from the first attempt at a sleepover, which didn't work out too well. Being that Jay is still in a crib, to not be enclosed and to be in a different room (Elle's room) was too exciting and he wouldn't stay put. So, the sleepovers have taken place in Jay's room from that point with Jay in his crib and Elle's mattress on the floor. Elle likes to tell nighttime stories, as she's doing in this picture.

We planted a few things for a garden this year and have had a few successes. Our lettuce, which was a flop last year, did quite well. Now that lettuce season is over we have peppers where the lettuce was.

Up a Tree

2010-05-23T08:26:00.003-05:00

I had started a running list of things I wanted to write about on our blog, but it seems to have disappeared, so I'm sure there are some events that I will miss writing about. I'll write about a few now and some more soon.

First and foremost, I want to say that Patrick has started a new swim team in Lawrence. It is a long and crazy story- one that would take me much too long to write about. His team is called Ad Astra Area Aquatics. Ad Astra Per Aspera is the Kansas state motto and it means To the Stars Through Difficulties. Starting this team was no easy undertaking, so the name fits. We are really excited about Patrick's team and its potential. He has four great assistant coaches, an excellent business manager, supportive parents, and awesome swimmers. Tonight we are having the team over to our house for a BBQ!

Elle recently had a birthday. It's hard to believe she is already 4 years old! We had a nice day on her birthday, despite it being rainy. We went to the movies and saw How to Tame Your Dragon, which was a cute movie. We had KFC for dinner followed by a Princess and the Frog cake. Elle took snack for her preschool class on her birthday. We made mini hamburger cookies, which were a big hit.

What else has happened recently? Well, last month as we were playing in the front yard, guess who we found in our huge front tree? Colby! I don't know how he got out, but we're glad he didn't go far. We had to get out the ladder, but Colby was still fearful to come down. So, we put some canned cat food in a bowl, which tempted him, but he still needed help getting down. Now he's safely inside and hopefully won't have any more outdoor adventures!

St. Patrick's Day & Easter

2010-04-17T18:47:00.007-05:00

Let's see what else we've been up to lately...

On St. Patrick's Day the kids found green milk in the fridge. Elle wouldn't drink it, though, as she said it didn't taste good. We also went to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. It was a bit chilly this year and absolutely mobbed. I've never seen the St. Patrick's Day Parade so crowded. Luckily, the Honda Element is quite short and Patrick was able to maneuver an amazing parallel parking job. One of the floats passed out flowers. When we got home we had to plant it or else the cats would've eaten it. Three days later Lawrence was slammed with a good 5" of snow (yuck). However, our little flower from the parade survived and is doing quite well!

The kids have had some fun painting on the back porch. So much fun that they decided to paint Jay- hair and all. This paint is not washable so it was impossible trying to get the paint out of their clothes and quite difficult getting it out of Jay's hair. Don't you just love these pics of Jay painting, though?

Last month Patrick participated in a couple of design contests and won one! This contest was for a hubcap company. The winning design wasn't Sarah and Patrick's favorite design of the one's that he did, but it was still cool that he won.

We had an absolutely beautiful Easter day. We never quite got around to dyeing Easter eggs. However, the kids received a visit from the Easter Bunny. We spent a great deal of time outside (including hunting for Easter eggs) on Easter as the weather was so nice. We put up the horse tire swing the kids received for Christmas. We went over to a friend's house for dinner where we played washers and grilled pizzas.

Catching up on part of March

2010-04-11T21:00:00.006-05:00

As you can tell, we haven't been much into blogging lately-- sorry! We'll try to catch you up on the past month or so. First of all, Jay has started potty training. This is how it's going...

He's actually doing okay. We're not pushing the potty training too strongly right now, but try to have him go at times. He's had a few successes, too!

Some time in March Sarah looked out the window only to see a huge batch of black birds in the front yard (they were in the back yard, too). It was quite odd because they were only in our front yard and didn't seem to want to venture into the neighboring yards. Kinda creepy!

Last month Sarah's mom visited for a week, which helped us out a lot. Sarah had the grand idea of taking an old dance dress and having it made into a dress-up outfit for Elle. We snapped some photos of Elle in the dress prior to it being altered. I need to take a picture of Elle wearing the altered dress, which turned out pretty neat.

Jay's Second Birthday

2010-03-08T16:25:00.006-06:00

Our little man turned two years old a couple weeks ago. He's growing up so quickly. Patrick's mom came into town for Jay's birthday. She and the kids made cupcakes, which Jay took to daycare to celebrate his birthday. At home, the dining room was decorated with streamers and Sponge Bob party supplies. The Sponge Bob and Patrick Starfish balloons still have some air in them and have been in Jay's birthday since his big day.

After a yummy dinner we had a delicious Sponge Bob ice cream cake, which was eaten on Sponge Bob plates. We all had blue tongues from the frosting. Jay did an awesome job blowing out his candles. He blew out both of them, although he did them one at a time. After dessert came present time. Elle was a big helper, aiding Jay unwrap his gifts. Jay had a blast and it was definitely a better birthday than his first (he was sick last year on his birthday).

Luckily, and at long last, it looks like winter is ending. This has been one of the longest Kansas winters we've ever experienced. Lots of snow, ice, and cold, cold weather. This weekend we were able to spend time in the backyard doing some yard work and enjoying the sun. We opened the windows to the house and let in some fresh air. We're crossing our fingers that this weather lasts. We also were able to hang out with some friends this weekend. We went to Wonderscope Children's Museum with friends and their kids and then cheered on the Jayhawks while they beat Missouri! Always a fun time.

A Busy February

2010-02-23T22:13:00.005-06:00

Sorry it's been so long since we last wrote. The past month has been really busy. We are quite disappointed the Colts didn't win the Super Bowl, but not many teams have such great track records as the Colts. They definitely had a season to be proud of.

A couple weeks ago Sarah and Elle travelled to New Mexico. Flights were booked at midnight on Thursday night for a flight that left at 6am Friday morning. Needless to say we were tired. Or at least Sarah was. Elle somehow tapped into extra energy she must've been storing. On the flight into Albuquerque, Elle, who was sitting next to the window, said "there's a dirty bath down there" upon seeing the Rio Grande.... The reason for our quick and unplanned visit was because Sarah's 96 year-old grandma was in the hospital with aspiration pneumonia and a bowel obstruction. Amazingly enough, she pulled through. It was so good to see her, talk with her, and read books to her. We also had the opportunity to see Sarah's other grandma (see picture) and take a trip to the Disney Store. We returned to Kansas with a Buzz Lightyear for Jay and as soon as he saw Buzz he said, "Buzth!"

Speaking of Jay, he turned two this past week so we'll write a post soon about his birthday!

This Air Doesn't Look Good

2010-01-25T17:30:00.005-06:00

Well, what a busy sports month this has been! Lots of good Jayhawk games. Tonight the Jayhawks are gearing up for the Border Showdown- Kansas vs. Missouri. As many say, "Muck Fizzou!" We also were pretty excited yesterday to celebrate the Colts victory, which means they are going to the Super Bowl. Can't wait for the big game in a couple weeks! Last weekend we took the kids to a women's basketball game. The tickets were really cheap and the stadium is never full for women's games, so we thought it would be a fun excursion. Unfortunately, Jay napped for basically the entire game. Elle enjoyed pointing the Jayhawk mascots out. During half-time there was an awesome performance of gymnasts from South Dakota. It was amazing to see them leaping around and doing tons of twists off of trampolines. It was one of the best half-time performances we've ever seen.

Since our last blog post we had six days straight of pure fog. I think it was due to the warmer temps + abundance of snow left on the ground. The first time Elle saw the fog she said, "this air doesn't look good." She also said, "it looks soggy out." The fog is gone as it all of the snow except for the piles left by the snow removal vehicles. Elle is also very pleased to announce that Oreo, the classroom guinea pig, is back from being on "holiday."

Patrick has been really busy with design work lately. He is working on the logo and branding the CSA (Community Sustainable Agriculture), which we were a part of this past year. They just started the CSA this past year and are hoping to expand this year. Patrick is excited to help them out in their business venture.

This last photo is a picture of a lion drawn by Elle. We are quite amazed by this drawing. She did it by following a step-by-step drawing book, but it still seems quite good in our opinion.

We're Tired of Single Digit Temperatures

2010-01-10T17:42:00.006-06:00

Since the New Year started, Lawrence has continued to be covered in a blanket of snow. We received more snow this week. During those days the temperature hovered in the single digits. Brrr!! When Sarah woke up this morning the thermostat read that it was -4 degrees out. One must keep in mind that our thermostat is tucked into a corner so it doesn't even get the brunt of the cold. Usually when we compare our outside thermostat temperature to temperatures around town, our thermostat is higher. Needless to say, it's been cold! We're looking forward to the coming week of having temperatures in the 30's. Here's a picture of our thermostat noting the -4 degrees outside:

We rang in the New Year in a quiet fashion. We did puzzles with the kids and made pudding covered with whipped cream (which the kids loved). The kids ran around the house with glow sticks for a while, too. Everyone was sound asleep before midnight. How boring we are?

We have been finishing up the last of the zillions of Christmas cookies we received. We keep them high above one of the cabinets (out of the reach of hungry dogs). Jay is quite familiar with where the cookies are kept and he is constantly pointing up and requesting cookies. He, however, can't quite say cookies and it sounds like he is saying, "tooties, tooties...."

Elle started back to preschool this week although she didn't have class on Friday due to the cold temperatures. She came back from school on Monday quite distressed that Oreo, the classroom guinea pig, was gone. "Oreo is gone" she announced to us. When asked where Oreo was she said, "He's on holiday. He'll be back on tomorrow day." We'll see if Oreo is back in the classroom this next week. One other thing to note about Elle from this week- one day during a dinner in which we had stir-fried tofu she said, "I love toe food."

A White Christmas

2010-01-01T21:29:00.009-06:00

What a busy last few weeks we have had. In the time since our last post we put up and took down our Christmas tree. Jay was counter-productive when we were taking off the ornaments and he kept trying to put up ornaments that we had already taken down. He cried when we boxed up the tree. It was so sad!

Christmas came and went much too quickly. The day before Christmas we started to get sleet in the late morning. It then turned to snow and before we knew it, the roads were a mess and the city was blanketed in snow. Although it was Christmas Eve, those University employees who were working were allowed to leave at noon because of the poor weather. Christmas Day Sarah went out and shoveled but because of the amount of snow we got and the underlying layer of ice, it was tiring. Patrick and Sarah's step-dad helped clear the driveway, as well. The kids came out for a short time and were pulled around the yard in the sled. The following day we attempted to take the kids sledding at a small nearby hill, but the snow drifts were too deep- in some places the drifts went up to Patrick's knees!

On Christmas Eve we sprinkled a treat outside to tempt the reindeer to our house. The kids helped Patrick make a plate of cookies for Santa as well as some carrots for the reindeer. Christmas Day was full of lots of good surprises from Santa! Jay received a big boy booster seat so he no longer has to use the high chair. Elle received a spread of Barbies as well as a number of new outfits for them. It was a lovely day and we ended it with a yummy steak dinner. Over the holidays, Guinness also wanted a part of the Christmas cheer and decided he'd eat an entire batch of fudge made by Sarah's mom. Here is a picture of Patrick displaying a present from Elle. In class she painted and decorated a light switch with jewels, which was wrapped up and brought home to go under the tree.

The other big news for us is that we have a new vehicle. We parted with Sarah's 1997 Subaru Legacy, Lyle, and acquired a 2006 Honda Element, which we are considering naming Legolas, which is a name from the Lord of the Rings. Incredibly enough, it's shorter than Patrick's Honda Civic even though there is so much more room. It has been really nice having a vehicle with 4 wheel drive with all of this snow! When we were looking at cars, Elle said she wanted to pick out a purple one! Leave it to Elle to want a purple car. I'm actually kind of surprised she didn't say she wanted a pink one.

New Year's Eve was a taxing day on us. After more snow, the city came down the street overnight and it seemed like they plowed a pile of ice onto the end of our driveway. Patrick left for practice in his Honda Civic, unaware there was a pile of ice at the end of the driveway, and promptly got stuck. Patrick then left in the Element so he could make it to practice while Sarah was left digging out the pile of ice from under the Civic. It was exhausting!

We wish everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year and new decade!

Ups and Downs

2009-12-13T15:53:00.009-06:00

What a roller coaster ride this week has been! Elle had her last session of tumbling and her dance class called "Boogie Woogie." Elle's favorite part of her dance class was the animal dance where the kids did movements similar to a monkey, elephant, and tiger. When Elle started tumbling she wouldn't walk across the balance beam without holding the teacher's hand and walking sideways on it. Now she walks forward all by herself! The next session of classes through the Parks & Rec Dept. doesn't start until next year so we have some time to decide what classes she'll take. She really enjoys the tumbling and dance classes, so we'll probably continue them. There's also a Spanish class for 3-5 year olds which we've considered enrolling her in. Any suggestions as to if a Spanish class would be a good idea or not?

Last weekend we attended the Old Fashioned Horse and Buggy parade. It was really, really cold out, so we only stayed for about half of the parade. Also, Jay tried to eat gum off of the ground twice, so Sarah's hands were a bit full. Elle and Sarah also made two batches of cookies. One batch had a plethora of chips- chocolate, peanut butter, and butterscotch. We used Christmas cookie cutters on the other batch and covered them in icing and sprinkles. Sarah bought one of the sprinkle containers that has 6 type of sprinkles and Elle pretty much depleted the whole thing! We enjoyed just a few of the cookies before Guinness got a hold of them and ate every single one of them. What are we going to do with that dog?

On Friday we attended some festivities at Elle's school. It was open to members of the Arts Center and to families who have their children at school there. On Saturday it was open to the general public. The flier said the had some small gifts for children to purchase. It was really neat how they had it arranged- Sarah had to fill out a list of who Elle should buy gifts for and then hand over some money. Then, Elle went back through a miniature door with a helper and she picked out gifts for everyone on the list. Sarah met up with Elle downstairs where she came out with a bag full of wrapped gifts. So, she truly went Christmas shopping without any of us and what is under the tree will be a surprise! I think it's such a cute idea and it allows the kids some independence. We also supported the preschool by buying some cookies (which was good since ours were already eaten by Guinness) and we entered some raffles.

Patrick spent last weekend in Newton for a swim meet and is currently in Wichita for a 3 day meet. Elle woke up around 6:30 yesterday morning, crying. Sarah thought maybe she had a bad dream, but when she went to Elle's room Elle said, "I throwed up." Poor little thing. So, we put her sheets in the washing machine, brushed her teeth, and she laid in bed with Sarah (although she never went back to sleep). Meanwhile, Sarah's stomach started to feel a biz queazy and it just grew worse from there. Sarah grew much sicker whereas the kids were okay most of the day. That is until Elle threw up right before bed time. She's still feeling pretty pathetic today :( Hopefully we'll all be better by Monday.

Winter was here in full effect this week. We had very cold temperatures (one day the high was 13) and some snow. Schools in many nearby areas were cancelled, but Lawrence still had school. The roads were quite icy and unfortunately Sarah's car, Lyle, was in a little fender bender. Later Elle said, "Mommy, watch out for cars 'cause you bumped into one."

Thanksgiving in Indiana

2009-12-01T16:11:00.008-06:00

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone. Things have been quite busy for us. Sarah finished up her semester today, although she'll still be going to her practicum without a true holiday break. Patrick has been bogged down with coaching, swim meets, and lots of design work projects. It's been challenging for us to stay on top of things lately (like our blog), but we're trying.

For Elle's last preschool class prior to the Thanksgiving break all of the kids had to bring in a piece of fruit. During class the kids made fruit salad together. Then, parents came early to pick up the kids and everyone shared some fruit salad. Isn't that quite festive for Thanksgiving? A nice way to show teamwork and sharing.

For Thanksgiving we went to Indiana and had a lovely meal with Patrick's family. Everyone worked really hard on making the meal. Meanwhile, Sarah ended up clogging the garbage disposal and it took Patrick's dad about an hour to fix the problem. Thank goodness he was able to fix it and a plumber wasn't required. Sarah may go back to just using the trash can instead of the garbage disposal.... Elle played Bingo on Thanksgiving with one of the little girls of Patrick's cousin. She was so sad to leave Elle and nearly started crying when she found out that Elle was lying down and wasn't available for a goodbye hug.

While in Indiana we spent some time shopping in the quaint town in Nashville and were able to find some good Christmas presents for the kids! One of the days Santa rode into town on a fire truck and met the kids at the "North Pole." As usual, Elle gets really excited to see Santa, but then won't actually get near him. She didn't mind getting close to Mrs. Claus, though. Patrick, Grant (Patrick's brother), and Sarah also visited a brewery in Bloomington.

Another reason we went to Indiana was for Patrick's high school reunion. We saw a number of his friends, many of whom we hadn't seen since our wedding! It was really good to catch up with them and take some photos. It was also quite exciting to learn that some of Patrick's high school classmates read our blog (thanks!). Our drive home from Indiana was not very fun. Everyone else was on the road so we were in stop-go traffic and were much delayed in our return. Here is Patrick with some of his high school friends:

The Stickwork Project

2009-11-08T19:30:00.008-06:00

What a beautiful weekend we have had here in Kansas. The temperature has been in the 70's and we've had the windows open. It's been great. Unfortunately, Patrick has missed out on the warm weather since he was coaching all weekend at a meet.

On Friday Sarah and the kids went for a nature hike around Clinton Lake. It was fun, but it was quite a long distance for the kids. Both were quite tired on the way back to the car. On Saturday Sarah and the kids went to the Stickwork Project (a huge hut made of intertwined sticks; see http://www.stickwork.net/news.php) and the History Museum on campus. Lots of fun! And today we went to the park and made pine cone bird feeders. I'm not sure if now is the time to really put out pine cone bird feeders, but it was fun.

Patrick's been a bit under the weather this weekend. He won't have a lot of time to recuperate as he had a meet this weekend, will have morning practices this week, followed by another meet next weekend.

Last weekend Sarah rearranged Elle's room a bit. Elle walked in and after gasping she said, "thank you, mommy, for making my room so... happy!" It is funny how kids describe things. We have had lots of adventures with Guinness lately. He recently ate through our fence so he could go visit the neighbor's dog, so the fence had to be replaced. Last weekend when we were doing yardwork, Elle held the front door open so he could sail right out and down the street. Today, Sarah must not have latched the side gate well as both dogs got out and trotted down the street. After Sarah retrieved the dogs, Elle suggested that Guinness go to time-out. Never a dull moment with Guinness around!

Halloween!

2009-11-01T17:31:00.005-06:00

It is hard to believe that it is already November! October sure did fly by. It will be a new year before we know it. We've had a lot of house projects going on lately. We had to fix a leaky kitchen faucet recently. As you can see in the picture, the kids were trying to be quite helpful when working on the faucet! We also replaced Jay's ceiling fan. The light on it still worked, but the fan didn't, so we replaced it.

We had a fun Halloween. Elle dressed up as a bat and Jay was a dinosaur. Jay was funny when trick-or-treating. When people opened their doors, he would try to walk right into their houses! The kids definitely had fun trick-or-treating and indulging in some candy. They also were able to dress up for trunk-or-treat, which was put on one evening by the Aquahawks. Elle wore her costume to class on Friday and the preschool kids paraded around downtown a bit. It was extremely cold that day, so I don't think they were gone from the class too long.

Patrick celebrated his birthday this past week. His parents came into town to help celebrate. On Friday they all went to a concert- Yonder Mountain String Band. The band actually played two evenings in Lawrence and recorded both sessions. Apparently they were very good and they played for quite a long time.

A Cold October

2009-10-11T18:16:00.002-05:00

Lawrence has gone from a nice, warm September to a freezing cold October. The high this weekend has been in the upper 40's--burr!! What happened to fall? Patrick and Elle went to part of the KU football game yesterday. Elle was dressed in her snowsuit and a winter hat, but was still cold! Sarah and Jay tailgated inside the warm house of some friends of ours who live close to the stadium. We were also over at their house a few weeks earlier during the football game and the weather was nice and warm so the kids were able to play outside a lot.

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch. It's good we went when we did since it is so cold this weekend. We had a nice time at the pumpkin patch and had a good choice of pumpkins. Jay was very excited to see all the pumpkins, which he calls "bum bums." That is his version of pumpkins. Elle is also going to the pumpkin patch tomorrow with her preschool class. Sarah won't be at her practicum as VA employees don't work on Columbus Day, so she's going to help out with the preschool class. It should be fun!

Elle Starts Preschool

2009-09-20T18:33:00.007-05:00

Well, we've had a busy 2 weeks. Elle officially started preschool and she's been loving it! The first day of school was only a half day to allow the kids a chance to better acclimate without overwhelming them, I suppose. She comes home most days with art projects- drawings, paintings, and artwork involving stickers and even sugar. Elle came home from class one day with an invitation to a birthday party for one of her classmates. The party was today and it turns out that Elle and the little girl took tumbling together over the summer. And speaking of tumbling, Elle started another tumbling class this week. She enjoyed her summer class so much that we decided to enroll her in the fall. Now that Elle is in preschool she is no longer going to daycare. Instead, we are sending Jay to daycare during the time Elle is in school so Patrick can go to the office and get some work done. Jay has been coming home each day from day care utterly exhausted from playing hard with the other kids. Going to daycare sure does wear him out for the rest of the day.

Here is a picture of Elle on her first day of school:

This weekend was K-Club weekend, which means that there were event for former student athletes. Sarah and Patrick's friends, Julie and Andy, flew in from New York and stayed with them over the weekend. We also saw a bunch of other swimmer friends from college, which was great! On Friday night there was a get-together at one of the restaurant/bars in town. Saturday morning we went to the K-Club tailgate on the hill and then attended the football game. Although the high temperature was only supposed to be around 80 degrees, sitting in the sun made it feel as if it was quite a bit warmer and we all walked away from there with a pink tint. On the down side, Patrick apparently parked where he wasn't supposed to- within 20 feet of a crosswalk- and received a parking ticket. Did anyone else know you aren't supposed to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk? Anyhow, it was good seeing old friends and we wish we could see them all more often.

On a sad note, Sarah found out that her mom has to put one of their dogs to sleep on Monday. Simba is 15 years old and has lived such a great life. He has fluid in his lungs and has a massive tumor in his lungs- so large, in fact, that the vet could not see his heart on the X-ray. It is hard to receive such unhappy news but it has been wonderful having Simba in our lives.

Our Butterflies

2009-09-07T21:05:00.011-05:00

I wanted to provide an update about our butterfly garden. We have added to our garden throughout the summer and it is doing quite well. Hopefully most of the plants come back next year. We were all excited when we noticed some caterpillars crawling up the side of our house and settling in on the overhand right over the butterfly garden. It was even more exciting, though, to come back a couple hours later and see that the caterpillars had become cocoons! Cocoons are quite intricate and beautiful with the little gold colored specks on them. We have had a total of 4 cocoons in our butterfly garden thus far. Unfortunately, nature takes its course. One of the cocoons fell down for reasons we don't know. We think a spider may have attacked a cocoon that is currently hanging up. The other 2 cocoons, though, have become beautiful monarch butterflies.

We noticed each of the cocoons turning from a bright green to a dark, blackish color. If you looked closely at the cocoon you could see the details on the butterfly's wings through the cocoon. Shortly thereafter each of the butterflies came out and were seen flying amongst our butterfly bushes. I know I have spent a lot of time writing about this, but it has been neat to watch and exciting to share with the kids.

Sarah has started the new semester as well as her practicum at the VA in Topeka. Her schedule is a bit crazy and Tuesdays are the worst day with her starting work at 6am and finishing at 9:15pm. Patrick has had some respite from coaching, but starts back tomorrow. We are hoping this will be a great swim season!

Elle will be spending her last days at daycare this week. Starting next week, Jay will be going to daycare. He will be going during the hours that Elle is at preschool. I think he will have a blast playing with all of the other kids. This past week we took Elle to the Arts Center, where she'll be going for preschool, and she saw her classroom and met her teachers. There are two teachers and one aide in the class. On Wednesday this week she will go to preschool for a half day and then finally get to go for a full day on Friday. There is an open house for parents this week, so I suppose we'll get to learn more about the teachers and their plans for the school year. Elle is very excited to go to school. Whenever Sarah talks about having to go to school, Elle says, "just like I go to school." If only Sarah could color and go out on the playground still!

What else have we been up to? Last weekend Sarah had to work on Saturday. Patrick took the kids to Pendleton's, which is right outside Lawrence. They have a gigantic butterfly garden with caterpillars, cocoons, and butterflies everywhere. They also picked some apples and purchased some wine grapes that are from a nearby winery. The next day we all went up to campus and had a lovely picnic near Potter's Lake and the Outdoor Dance pavillion. We took kites and flew them with the kids.

Lots of Petting Zoos

2009-08-23T08:24:00.008-05:00

As you can see we haven't been as diligent about updating our blog as regularly as we used to. I think that will continue through this busy school year. Patrick finished up the swim season with a three weekend run of meets. During his last meet in North Dakota, Sarah and the kids went to the Topeka Zoo one day. Another day they went to the Douglas County Fair petting zoo. One of the llamas at the fair was named "Joe Llama" which is pretty clever. They also went to Deanna Rose Farmstead one day and fed more animals there. So, there were a lot of petting zoos involved while Patrick was out of town.

Following his return from North Dakota, he and the kids headed to Indiana for a little break. Patrick hadn't been on a vacation in a long time, so this was much overdo. He was able to spend time with his parents, brother, and graphic design business partner. While in Indiana, Patrick took the kids to Norman, IN and the kids were able to meet Terry's parents for the first time. They also went shopping in Nashville, IN and to the Indianapolis Zoo. The drive back to Kansas was extended by a few hours due to traffic, weather, and a potty accident in the car. Unfortunately, Sarah wasn't able to go because she had to attend orientation for her practicum as well as work some extra hours as she had missed some work days while Patrick was in North Dakota.

While everyone was out of town Sarah was able to work on a few things around the house that she doesn't normally have a chance to work on- she put pictures on albums and finished our wedding scrapbook (only almost 5 years after getting married)! Because of the long days in Topeka without anyone at home to let out the dogs, Sarah asked a friend to stop over and let the dogs out during the middle of the day. On the last day of orientation Sarah got let out early and when she arrived home, she saw our friend's car at the house. After not hearing the dogs outside or being greeted by them as she came in the house, Sarah became concerned. It turns out that the dogs had broken through the fence and were over in the neighbor's yard having a grand time. Our friend had been reading a book on the couch and fallen asleep, so was unaware that the dogs were in the neighbor's yard. We retrieved the dogs and luckily the neighbors were really nice about the incident. Sarah and Patrick nailed boards of wood on the broken part of the fence so the dogs can't go over again!

Yesterday we participated in a garage sale with a couple of other families. The back room off of our garage had turned into a storage/clutter room, so it was nice to get rid of a lot of it. We still have quite a bit left over, but overall, we sold quite a bit of stuff. We may still participate in another garage sale in a few weeks and hopefully get rid of a few more things.

Elle's Mishap in the Pool

2009-08-06T08:01:00.011-05:00

Well, the summer is quickly slipping away. KU starts school in 2 weeks- on August 20th. Sarah only has class on Tuesday, so she begins on August 25th. Sarah also finally has a practicum placement. She will be at the Topeka VA in the hematology and oncology unit. Although commuting is definitely ideal, it didn't look as though a placement in Lawrence was going to be an option, especially this late in the placement process. Sarah will commute to Topeka 3 days a week. She is supposed to be at practicum for 24 hours per week, but that's not feasible with all of the other demands our family has. So, Sarah will be at practicum for roughly 19.5 hours and will have to continue her practicum for much, much longer than usual. Sarah has to go to the VA for orientation all day next week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. She will then officially start her practicum on August 24th. Things at work will begin to get busy at the end of the month as we have a new cohort of participants starting on August 29th. This is our largest cohort thus far (30 participants), so things will be more hectic there, too.

Patrick is wrapping up his 3rd weekend of meets. This time he is in North Dakota for six days. Last weekend Sarah and the kids kept busy by going to the Lawrence Nature Center and to Potter's Lake on KU's campus. The kids enjoyed seeing all of the different animals at the Nature Center. The had bearded dragons, a huge iguana, eagles, owls, turtles, snakes, and more. Elle's favorite were the "mouses." I think she liked watching them running on their wheel! We went to the pet store the next day to pick up dog food. We usually walk around the store and look at their array of animals, and again she was excited to see the mice.

Our walk around Potter's Lake was very pleasant. It seems like it would be a great place for a picnic. It's always interesting to come across things around town or on campus that we didn't know about even though we've been here for years and have possibly walked quite close to the spot. Well, when we were walking around Potter's Lake we saw the class gift from 1943- an outdoor dance pavillion. There was a filled in fire pit and some stone grills. It looked like it would be a fun place to hang out, but I'm guessing it's never really used any more, which is too bad.

This week Sarah and Patrick took the kids swimming at the outdoor pool. It has been a couple of weeks since Elle finished her lessons and since she's been in the pool. None the less, she got right in and was swimming like a fish and was hardly taking a break. Perhaps she was a bit too enthusiastic. I'm guessing she swallowed a bunch of water becasue all of a sudden Patrick asked her if she was okay. Sarah looked over when he said this. Elle's cheeks puffed up and she threw up. Everyone in the pool (perhaps between 100 & 200 people) had to exit the pool while the cleaned it. I'm not sure how long everyone had to stay out of the pool because we left.

Before Patrick left for Zones he wanted to do something fun with the kids so he bought them a slip and slide, or as Elle calls it- a slippering slide. Patrick demonstrated how to use the slip and slide and even helped the kids slide down! We also had a large storm one night during the week. We woke up to find that one of the branches of one of the trees in our backyard had been knocked down. It snapped our clothes line, which we were able to fix easily. Now we just have to take care of the branch. During one of the recent nighttime storms Elle woke up. As Sarah went to get Elle back into bed Elle said, "I better have to get new boots in the morning." This was followed with,"When the rain goes away, there will be sun." This also reminded me of Elle's recent book reading. She wanted to read a book to Sarah and picked out her Bible. This is how her story went: "In the beginning, there was a girl and a boy. They was small. And it was about once upon a dream. Amen."

Princess Elle

2009-07-29T07:46:00.012-05:00

I think our theme as of the past week and a half has been: so much to do, no time to do it! Patrick began his 3 week string of meets this past weekend. Meanwhile, he has been working on entries for the meet this coming weekend, registering swimmers for the meet in 2 weeks, and preparing for end-of-season tasks among other things. For Wildernorm he and his business partner are working on finishing up a brochure for an art center in Ohio. Sarah had her last class of the semester on Monday. Fall semester will start in just a few weeks and then it will be her time to be crazy busy between class, practicum, work, and finishing all of that by 3:30 every day so that she can pick up the kids before Patrick has practice. We are already preparing ourselves for this being a very, very hectic year.

Elle had her final tumbling session last week. It was parent observation day, but with two tumbling classes going on simultaneously, there were so many parents that we could only observe from outside the room. At the end of the class certificates were handed out. Elle was so excited to stand up and receive her certificate. Also, Elle made a funny comment during her tumbling class. Each time she's there, the teacher gives the class a break half-way through the class time and lets the kids go get a drink of water. While standing in line I heard one little kid say, "I love ... (I can't remember what now)." Another little kid said, "I love my mommy." Elle chimed in and said, "I love princess hair!" Oh good grief.

I don't know how Elle became so infatuated with the Disney princesses. Over the weekend when I offered to do Elle's hair and said I could curl it, put it in a pony tail, or braid it, she said she wanted "mermaid hair." I think I ended up curling it for her. And last night Elle said at the dinner table, "I'm not Elle, I'm Princess Elle." I think Patrick said something to the effect that she probably wouldn't want to be known as "Princess Elle."

There isn't much new to report on Jay. His hair has been getting long and falling over his ears, so Sarah trimmed the spots above his ears. It's not perfect, but now he doesn't have wings any more. We have arranged for Jay to go to daycare where Elle has been going for the past year. He will go during the time that Elle is in preschool starting in September. I think he'll be excited to go as whenever I take him in the house and he sees all the kids and toys, he always wants to join in the fun and play.

I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago Patrick and the Aquahawk team participated in the World's Largest Community Workout. There is a person (who I believe is a former high school coach) who used to lead dog-day workouts for his football team in the summers (starting in the early 80's) for those athletes who wanted to stay in shape. It later changed into a community workout (called the Red Dog Days) and for quite some time now he has been leading summer workouts for Lawrence residents twice a day M-Th during the summer. There is always a good number of people who attend, so they decided to see if they could break the Guinness Book of World Records for how many people participated in a community workout. I think they were hoping that 1,500 - 2,000 people would attend, but it turns out that over 2,750 people worked out that day.

One last thing to note- I saw a butterfly visiting our butterfly garden the other day, and snapped a few pictures, which I will include. We also found a caterpillar and put it near our butterfly garden.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009-07-19T16:21:00.006-05:00

This week marked the last week of Elle's swimming lessons and I must say she has come such a long way since starting her lessons this summer with Betsy in NM. At that time she didn't want to put her face in the water or even let go of Betsy. Now she is swimming a good 5 yards on her own and is even getting her freestyle arms out of the water while kicking. She loves being in the water and getting her face wet. It has been wonderful watching her develop her swimming skills.

This weekend included Sarah's birthday. It's hard to belive that another year has passed. After Patrick finished his morning practice he brought home some lovely Gladyolas. We then had a yummy breakfast of fruit, eggs, turkey bacon, and bagels. Afterwards we spent time outdoors as the weather was beautiful with a high hovering at no more than 80. Can you believe we had such great weather in the middle of the summer? It was nice enough for us to turn off the air conditioner and open our windows for a couple of days?

We went to Home Depot and purchased some materials to hang up a clothes line outside. Now when the weather is so nice we don't have to use the dryer. After Jay napped we took the kids over to the babysitter and Patrick and Sarah went to go see the new Harry Potter movie- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This was Sarah's favorite Harry Potter book and we both agreed that movie was quite good. Following the movie we picked up the kids and headed to Old Chicago for dinner for some pizza and beer. All in all, it was a lovely birthday.

Unfortunately, it seems as though summer is already starting to wind down. Sarah only has two more class sessions to attend. Patrick has a string of meets coming up and then will be done for the summer. It always go by much too quickly! We did spend quite a bit of the day today outside. Both of the dogs had baths and we cleaned the porch. Our lawnmower broke, so we had to borrow the neighbor's mower to finish mowing. Either that or the kids would get lost out in the tall grass!

One other thing to note for the week is that both Jay and Guinness had check-ups this week. Guinness is doing well. He lost 8 lbs, which was good as last summer the vet said he needed to trim down a bit. At Jay's appointment he was 32 inches (63rd percentile) and 26.4 lbs (53rd percentile). He loved the flavored stick the doctor used to she could see into his mouth. Jay had to get a couple of immunizations while he was there. He is a healthy boy, though, and there aren't any problems to report.

4th of July Weekend

2009-07-10T16:33:00.009-05:00

This summer seems to just be flying by, leaving us little time to post to our blog. Patrick is coaching at Wave the Wheat meet in Lawrence this weekend. Patrick actually renamed the meet to Wave the Wheat a couple of years ago.

Last weekend- the 4th of July weekend- Patrick's mom came to visit. On the 4th of July we went to our friends' Heidi and Josh's house in Lenexa. We were able to see their brand new baby, Britta. We had a yummy barbeque at their house. We brought along some pesto pasta salad and a fruit pizza fashioned to look like a star. The kids had fun playing with bubbles and on the swing set. On our way back to Lawrence, we decided to go downtown to see some fireworks. The fireworks were being set off near the river. We decided not to go into the throngs of people, and instead staked out a spot a bit further away where we had lots of room. Some people sat down next to us, and they just so happened to be our neighbors, so we enjoyed watching the fireworks with them.

The following day we went to Deanna Rose Farmstead in Overland Park. This is a wonderful place for kids. They have so much to do- a nature walk, a petting zoo, pony rides, fishing, crafts, etc. We didn't do nearly everything possible while we were there, but petted and fed lots of animals. Elle also rode on the pony twice! The weather was beautiful over the weekend, as well, with the high being around 80 degrees! It was wonderful and I can't remember the last time the temperature has been so cool on the 4th of July.

Elle started her third session of swim lessons at Lawrence Swim School this week. She has been working with the same teacher at all of her lessons. Her teacher is a girl who swims for KU. Elle has been jumping off the side of the pool and swimming to her teacher, though her arms aren't really coming out of the water yet.

That Lioness is Hungry

2009-06-28T09:24:00.011-05:00

It has been sweltering hot here this week. With the heat index, it has felt like it has been over 100 degrees on multiple days. Today is actually a cooler day and it was nice to have a slight relief from the heat. The water at the outdoor pool went from being somewhat chilly to feeling like bath water in a matter of 2 weeks. The water feels good when we go to play, but I'm glad we aren't training in the pool, because that would be miserable.

Patrick has been at a swim meet in Wichita since early Friday morning and will be home late tonight. Sarah took the kids to the pool on both Friday and Saturday. Elle is quite the fish now. I think Jay wishes he was bigger and could swim on his own because he tries to wiggle out of my arms in the deep water. Today we went to the Topeka Zoo and then out to lunch at Arby's. Elle fell and scraped her knees near the end of our trip at the zoo. She cried the rest of the way through the zoo, which was exasperating.

Here is a picture of an orangutang playing peek-a-boo:

While at the zoo, we went into the rainforest building. For some reason we had missed going into it the last number of times that we have been the the zoo. They had such an array of critters in the rainforest, including bats! The Topeka Zoo recently became the home of a new hippo, so we were able to see him. The two hippos weren't in the same cage; I don't know if they will be at some point. We also saw a baby orangutang there.

The most interesting part of our trip was when we saw the lions. We were standing there and saw the male and one of the female lions resting on a big rock. As we started to move on towards some windows that give a different view of the lion exhibit, we saw the other female lion going towards the window. She was right up against the window pacing back and forth, looking in, and even pawing at the plexi-glass. It turns out that another patron had a rolling cooler, which the lion wanted very, very badly. The zoo workers must bring out the lions' food in coolers. I, quite honestly, felt a bit uncomfortable with the lion being so close and obviously hungry. I imagined the plexi-glass somehow coming down the lion coming after all the kids there. I know, the likelihood of that is very slim, but I decided to move the kids along to the elephants.

Here is a picture of the lioness pawing at the window. If you look at the bottom right of the picture, you can see the blue cooler on wheels.

Happy Father's Day

2009-06-21T21:03:00.008-05:00

Happy Father's Day!! We had quite a nice Father's Day. Patrick didn't have a swim meet this weekend- the only weekend in June that he doesn't have a meet- so it was nice to spend time as a family. We took the kids to the park this morning and then headed out to Vinland Valley nursery, our favorite place to buy flowers and plants. We had a flower in one of our planters that had died, and Vinland was having a sale on many of their flowers, so we decided to get a replacement.

While we were there, we picked up some pepper and pumpkin plants. A month or so ago we planted a small garden of tomatoes, squash, and lettuce. Our tomato plants have grown so much and we have about 4 or 5 squash plants that have grown. However, our lettuce hasn't done as well. We've had one lettuce grow, but it hasn't gotten any bigger than the size of a small leaf. I'm not sure it will survive. So, we put the peppers and pumpkins where the other vegetables hadn't grown. Hopefully the peppers and pumpkins will be successful!

Here is a picture of our small little lettuce (no, it is not a weed):

Yesterday (Saturday) we had a rainy day. We decided to do a fun project of painting our porch chairs. We got our porch chairs for free two years ago. We had sanded off a lot of the paint, but hadn't yet painted them. So, we used fun colors and just had a little craft project. One chair is flourescent, one has chalkboard paint and a pattern for a tic-tac-toe game, one is a green base, and the other is our ladybug chair. Elle had lots of fun helping and she has claimed the ladybug chair as hers.

Here are a couple of pictures from our butterfly garden in the front yard:

Elle has continued to take swimming lessons and she has come such a long way since her first lesson in NM in May. She loves going under water now and has been doing a good job kicking her feet. She takes lessons Monday through Thursday and then we try to take the kids a couple times during the week to the outdoor pool for some fun.

June

2009-06-11T14:10:00.004-05:00

When Patrick, Sarah, and Jay left New Mexico a few weeks ago, Elle stayed there for a week with Sarah's mom and step-dad. Elle took swim lessons throughout the week with her godmother, Betsy. She went to the Albuquerque Zoo and loved seeing the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. While she was gone, we were able to get a few things done around the house in Kansas, including painting the master bathroom, the only room in the house that we hadn't painted (other than the laundry room). We also attended a Sugarland concert, which was pretty darn awesome. They are very talented and I think we both wouldn't mind seeing them again in the future.

Elle drove out with Sarah's mom and step-dad, who then spent a week in Kansas. We had a pretty low-key week. We did a lot of yard work, especially pulling weeds. We went to the Topeka Zoo one day and out to eat a few times. Last Monday Elle started swim lessons with the Lawrence Swim School, which she will participate in for six weeks. It is a good opportunity for her to feel more comfortable in the water. She has also started a tumbling class through the Lawrence Parks & Rec Dept. The class meets once a week and the kids get to jump on a trampoline, use the balance beam, swing on the bars, etc. It looks like a fun little class.

Patrick has been pretty busy working. He has a bunch of swim meets this summer, so doing entries for them has required many hours. Sarah's summer has been more low-key since she doesn't have a practicum. She started her summer class, Loss & Grief, on Monday. It looks like it is going to be a great class, jam packed full of information.

Ralph's Memorial

2009-05-25T17:44:00.010-05:00

For the first time since moving to Kansas, we all traveled away together. We went to New Mexico for Sarah's grandfather's memorial service. We had indirect flights and were separated for the first leg to Denver, but then were able to sit together to Albuquerque. Both kids were very well behaved on the flights.

On Thursday we arrived in Albuquerque. We saw lots of family right away, including Sarah's Uncle John and his girlfriend, Kathy, and Sarah's cousins Ann and Dennis from Atlanta. Every day during our stay we visited Sarah's grandmother, who is doing pretty well. The memorial service was Friday morning. It was very nice and the church was filled with caring folks. Attending a memorial is never an easy thing. Sarah's grandfather's remains are being kept in the columbarium at St. Michael and All Angel's Church. I think one of the hardest parts of the memorial service was when we went into the columbarium and the rector put the urn on Sarah's grandmother's lap so she could place her hands on it for a prayer. It is just so hard to imagine them apart. We sure miss do miss him.

While in New Mexico, Sarah was also able to see a couple of old friends- Jennifer and Marissa, which was fun. It is always good to catch up with friends you don't get to see very often. We had breakfast with Elle's godmother, Betsy, and we went shopping in Old Town with Sarah's family. Patrick kept wanting to take Elle up the mountain on the tram, but the weather did not permit.

Patrick, Sarah, and Jay returned to Kansas yesterday. Due to lightning storms in Denver, we had to see on the runway after landing for an hour and a half. Then, after boarding the next flight we had to sit on the runway for another hour and a half before taking off. It was the pits, but Jay was a trooper and we finally made it back home. Elle is staying in NM for the week and will be coming back to Kansas next weekend.

Memorial Day has been pretty low key for us. We mowed the lawn and did some other yard work. Dunkin had an appointment to be shaved. Last year when he was shaved the groomer kept all of the hair on his tail, but this time he only has a little puff at the end of his tail. He always looks so different after being shaved. I think Jay thought Dunkin looked funny because right after Dunkin returned home Jay chased around the house after him with a giggle.

The Busy Month of May

2009-05-17T08:45:00.008-05:00

Well, let's see, it's been a couple of weeks since last posting and we have been fairly busy during that time. Last Thursday - Sunday Sarah and the kids went to New Mexico. It was Elle's first time on an airplane. She did really well, although did get slightly nervous on the way down, saying "we're going to hit the ground." Jay did pretty well, but the flights there and back ran into his naptime, so he was a bit crabby/tired near the end. Luckily, neither flight was full so we had three seats to ourselves and could spread out. On the return trip, there were only 26 people on the flight so we went to the back of the plane and didn't have anyone around us. It was great! I don't remember the last time I have been on such an empty flight.

We had a nice time in New Mexico, although it was a quick visit. We visited Sarah's grandmother everyday. Elle went to preschool with Sarah's mom and she also went swimming with her godmother, Betsy. We went out to eat with Sarah's dad's side of the family, went shopping and got some fun light-up sandals for Jay, and visited the Corrales Winery. This little winery is tucked back in Corrales and the views are simply amazing. We highly recommend going there for a visit. We also took the kids to the Albuquerque Aquarium. Jay loves looking at fish. I think Elle's favorite may have been octopus. Sarah's mom bought the kids some souvenirs including a "princess mermaid" for Elle.

Upon returning from New Mexico, it was Mother's Day, so we went and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants in Lawrence, Ingredient, and spent some nice time together as a family. Patrick has been busy working this week. He won another design competition- this time for a software company logo and webpage design. He is also working with his design partner on a book project for the band, the Beatles.

This week the cardinals who had built their nest in the spokes of Sarah's bike had their baby. It was cute watching the baby bird try to learn how to fly. The cardinal parents have been so doting on their little one. Hopefully now that the baby is here Sarah can ride her bike again soon.

On Friday morning we went for a walk down Mass St. Jay went nuts walking by the toy store (it was pretty cute). We stopped by Einstein's for a bagel and ran into a good portion of the KU girl's swim team. We also dropped off Elle's enrollment paperwork at the Lawrence Art's Center confirming her spot for preschool next year. Starting Friday afternoon we had some major thunderstorms, rain, and hail. Out front we have a light that has a sensor that detects when it is dark out, so it turns on by itself. Well, it was so dark out that the light was on by 4:30 in the afternoon! Sarah noticed that there was a pool in the driveway, so she put on some sneakers and attempted to go see if the drain was clogged. The water was so high up that it covered all of Sarah's sneakers!

Yesterday there was a car parade on Mass St. We caught the tail end of the parade. However, some of the streets were blocked off and the cars participating in the parade were parked there following the parade, so we checked them out. Elle received a princess balloon animal while we were on Mass St. When we returned home we had a picnic in the backyard.

Good-bye Grandpa Carrington

2009-05-03T15:19:00.006-05:00

On Tuesday of this past week, Sarah's grandfather passed away. He was 94 and went very peacefully. Oh how he will be missed, though! We will have a memorial for him on May 22nd in Albuquerque. We have been reflecting about him quite a bit and are all very thankful for the time we had with him. Grandpa was always very creative and good at using his hands. When Sarah was 6, he made her a cute little heart photo book with a page for each year of her life. His words in the book were quite clever. The heart book is quite tattered as it has been read many times and it is something that Sarah cherishes. Although Grandpa was very quiet, you could often tell how he was feeling by the expression on his face. When he would see the kids or animals, the ends of his mouth would curl up in a little smile. He was quite stubborn, but looking back, I'm so glad he had this quality. He was going to do what he liked when he liked and people were not going to tell him otherwise. His loss makes me think of Grandma and how odd it must be to have spent roughly 74 years with someone and no longer have that person by your side. It has always surprised me how resilient and strong spouses are when they have lost their loved one after being married for such a long time. Grandma is exhibiting these qualities, as well. As they have always been very religious people, I am sure that she trusts God and knows that Grandpa is in a good place. There is so much I could say about Grandpa, but all I'll say is that he will be deeply missed.

We have been trying to carry on with our other duties as normal. May 4th marks Sarah's last class for the semester. She gave a presentation last week and just has to turn in a paper this coming Monday. Since finishing her practicum a week ago, time has been spent catching up on other tasks, such as taking the car in to be fixed. Both cars need a trip to the shop, but we took Patrick's car in for new timing belts. When explaining to Elle that Patrick's car had to be fixed, she said, "I'll help. I'll go get some tape." If only it was that easy!

Last weekend Patrick had a swim meet in Topeka. On Saturday he only had to be present for the morning session, so Sarah brought the kids up in the afternoon and we went to the Topeka zoo. We were there while the giraffes were being fed. It was fun, but we ended up getting caught in quite a storm. We made it back to the car and were completely drenched. Upon arriving back home we heard the tornado sirens and we soon went from being in a tornado watch to a tornado warning. We all headed downstairs and waited out the storm. One of the coaches in KC saw a funnel cloud on his drive back from the meet.

That evening we went chair shopping for Jay. Back when Elle was his age we bought her a toddler size chair, which she loves. Jay recently also discovered how much he enjoyed the chair, so to keep peace in our hose, we picked out a chair for him. It's navy courderoy and Jay looks so cute when he sits in it.

Yesterday we drove to Kansas City and went back to Wonderscope. Elle received a membership there for her birthday and yesterday seemed like a good day to go. Since last going, Jay started walking and he can play with some of the more advanced toys. They have a water room and Jay had a blast. He was soaked when we left the room. As of now, he absolutely adores water. When he hears us start the bath water, he comes running. Elle had a good time in Wonderscope, although I'm not sure what room was her favorite during this trip.

Another thing to note this week is that Patrick won a design competition. He's been entering a few designs lately and has been runner-up a couple of times, but this time he won! He created a pretty cool logo for a home remodeling company.

Jay had a tick

2009-04-25T07:44:00.007-05:00

It is hard to believe that we have already had our blog going for a year! The kids sure have grown and changed a lot since our first post.

We had a very low-key Easter. The kids had Easter baskets and some gifts. Elle made a gingerbread bunny house, which was fun. She definitely snuck a few pieces of candy instead of putting them on the house. Later that evening we went to Hastings and rented a couple of movies. It was raining quite a bit on Easter day, so we decided to stay inside that evening and watch the movies.

Over the past few weekends we have been planting shrubs and flowers. We put up the hanging flower baskets in the backyard. In the front, we removed the red rocks near the front door and put in some flowers that are supposed to attract butterflies. We had dumped the soil into a big tub so it was easier to work with. Jay enjoyed crawling in and out of the tub. He was a mess later, so Sarah went put him in the bath and guess what she found on him-- a tick! Yuck! Elle told Jay that she would keep him safe, which was sweet. One day Patrick bought some small pots, seeds, and soil. He took them over to Elle's daycare so the kids could all make one. The lady in charge of the daycare had the kids paint the pots first. A few days we saw something sprouting in Elle's pot, so we'll see how it continues to grow.

Sarah had her last day of practicum on April 24th! It was a great experience being at Project LIVELY and Douglas County Senior Services, but it will be nice having a little more time with Patrick and the kids over the next couple of months. Sarah found out that the Douglas County Senior Services building used to be the jail back in the day. The building where the Aquahawk office is located used to be the Health Department. It's so neat learning about the history of the buildings. We may have to take a walking history tour, although I'm sure it won't be as interesting as the walking ghost tour we went on in Charleston, SC. Sarah also attended a scholar banquet on Thursday recognizing student scholars and scholarship recipients. The school of social welfare hired a new director of field education and she was at the banquet as were other professors.

Crazy Blog

2009-04-13T23:17:00.001-05:00

I just want to say that I don't know what the heck is going on with uploading pictures onto the blog lately. Last week I messed around with trying to fix the pictures for a good 2 hours with no success. I'm not even going to try to fix them for this week. I'm sorry, but please enjoy the pictures!

Elle's Third Birthday

2009-04-13T22:35:00.005-05:00

Sarah wanted to begin this week by writing one more thing about her trip to NY. Patrick and the kids came inside the airport to greet Sarah near the baggage claim area. Sarah figured that Elle would be excited with all of the planes and activity to really say hello and that Jay would be so happy to snuggle up next to mommy. When Sarah came within view of the kids, Jay smiled, but then just wanted to get down on the ground to walk and explore. Elle, on the other hand, gave Sarah the longest hug that Sarah has ever received from her. It was just such a sweet and touching moment that we had to share.

Speaking of Elle, this week she celebrated her third birthday! She's becoming quite the little lady, or shall we say princess. She had quite a princess-filled birthday with lots of wonderful cards and gifts from everyone--thank you! We started the birthday celebration by taking Elle out to dinner last Sunday at T-Rex because you know how much she loves the dinosaurs. Both kids had a blast watching all of the animation in the restaurant. Because Elle was going to be at daycare on her birthday, we wanted to make a treat for her to share with her friends. All of us pitched in and made cupcakes. We filled up a tupperware container of cupcakes and packaged up those that didn't fit. After Patrick dropped off Elle at daycare he returned to the house to find that Guinness had decided he wanted to celebrate Elle's birthday, too-- he had polished off every last one of the remaining cupcakes!

On Elle's birthday we had a grand dinner of non other than fried chicken. It was mmm-mmm-good. Both kids gobbled up the fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese from KFC. For us, KFC is a splurge- something we love, but very rarely have. I think the last time we had it was on one of Sarah's birthdays. Because the rest of the cupcakes were in Guinness' tummy, we picked up a Jayhawk ice cream cake from DQ. Then, Elle opened all of her fun presents. It was quite a fun birthday!

This Saturday we attended the helmet fair, which was held in the parking lot of Memorial Stadium. Our intention was to get a helmet for Jay that he can wear when in the bike trailer. Unfortunately, they didn't have any that small, so we got one for Elle and I guess Jay will have to wear her smaller, flower-covered helmet. As Patrick said, real men wear flowers. The Hamburgerler from McDonalds was at the helmet fair, as was the State Farm bear. Jay just loved the State Farm bear, chasing after it and shreaking happily.

Because it was so nice on Saturday, we headed out to Vinland Valley Nursery that afternoon to purchase some plants. We picked out a number of plants that butterflies like in an attempt to eventually create a butterfly garden. We weren't able to finish planting everything on Saturday, so the planting had to continue into rainy Easter Sunday.

New York, New York

2009-04-05T12:53:00.027-05:00

As mentioned on the last entry, Sarah recently went to NY for a girls' weekend. She flew out early Thursday morning and was picked up at the LaGuardia airport by her Cousin Allyn who lives in Islip. Allyn gave Sarah a grand tour of Islip! Here are some of the things she saw:

-Fire Island

-Some of the yacht clubs and marinas

-Sagtikos Manor- an old Thompson estate and a place where George Washington

stayed

-Roughing House- where Cousin Allyn and Ann lived

-The first house Sarah's grandparents owned, which was on Marvin Lane

-The Bayard Cutting Arboretum

-St. Mark's Church- where Sarah's mom and dad were

married

-Emmanuel Church- where Sarah's grandparents and great-grandparents were married

-66 South Bay- the house where Sarah’s mom grew up

Allyn, Sarah, a friend of Allyn's, and the Reverend at St. Mark's had lunch at a local diner.

This diner hires people to do over the top decorations for

each holiday, so the diner was quite festively decorated for

Easter.

After lunch Allyn arranged for Sarah to tour St. Mark's.

It was neat learning about their Tiffany stained glass windows and why there are pew numbers.

Allyn also arranged for Sarah to tour the inside of 66 South Bay, which was really neat. It was a wonderful day and Sarah can’t thank Allyn enough for being such a wonderful tour guide.

After seeing Islip, Sarah was picked up by

one of her dad's friends and driven all the way to

Brooklyn, where she met up with her friends, Julie and Kristi- both college roommates.

On Friday, Sarah, Julie, and Kristi got up really early to go to the Today Show.

Unfortunately, it

was very crowded and there were more people than there had been in a long time.

So, we went to Rockafeller Center, Central, Park, and Times Square.

At around 8:30- 9:00 in the morning, someone tried to mug Sarah near Rockafeller Center! It was very bizarre. This man in a big, opened zip sweatshirt got caught on Sarah’s bag, which was over on

the other side of her neck so it couldn’t easily slide off of her shoulder.

This man had a hook with a clasp at the end that got caught on the mesh part of Sarah’s bag. It wasn’t until we were

untangled that Sarah, Julie, and Kristi thought how weird the

situation was and that the guy must have been trying to hook her bag.

We also rode the Staten Island Ferry and saw the

Statue of Liberty.

Following the boat

ride, we had a lunch of pizza in the Wall Street area.

We were quite tired after doing so much sightseeing, so we headed back to Julie’s apartment for a nap.

On Friday night we went to the KU bar- the Pour House- to cheer on the Jayhawks. The Pour House was a mad house and there was barely room to move. Luckily, Julie had made

reservations, so we had a table during the game.

Unfortunately, the Jayhawks lost.

During the game someone asked Sarah what a Jayhawk was, and her brilliant reply was, “a bird.” She completely blanked on what combination of birds makes up the Jayhawk. Apparently she needs to brush up on her Lawrence history before she goes out of town!

On Saturday, we went to Broadway and saw Chicago. We had excellent seats in the third row! The performers were excellent singers and dancers.

I think we were all a little embarrassed, though, being so close to such scantily

clothed performers. Broadway was a great experience, though.

That night we went out with a group of girls to celebrate on of their birthdays.

The bar we went to had bottle service and beers cost a mere $9.00…. It was fun, though.

We spent Sunday being lazy. Unfortunately, on Saturday afternoon Sarah began feeling motion sick- perhaps from the subway?

This motion sickness did not subside and it wasn’t until Sunday night that Sarah thought to take a Dramamine.

She has been motion sick all week as well, which is so weird because she’s never had motion sickness before in her life.

Sarah and Kristi were supposed to fly back to Kansas City on Sunday night. Originally their flight was delayed by 2 hours, but it was then cancelled and rescheduled for Monday.

They weren’t able to find any flights out of any of the nearby airports, but

did change their return flight so it was a direct flight.

So,

Sarah had to miss work and class on Monday due to the change in flight.

She had a wonderful time in New York, though, and other than the motion sickness, is ready to go back any time!

Meanwhile, Patrick was with the kids in Lawrence.

Patrick got together with some friends to watch some of the basketball games.

Unfortunately, Elle had some bathroom woes during the weekend, which wasn’t fun for either of them.

Jay has been increasing the amount of time he’s been walking and over the course of the 4 days that

Sarah was gone, he started walking even more. He still crawls at times, but probably not for much longer.

Elle’s birthday is this coming Tuesday. We are planning to celebrate a little bit this weekend and then on her actual birthday!

Sarah's Trip to the Eye Doctor

2009-03-31T20:41:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since we last posted, but we've been quite busy. Patrick's parents came to visit the weekend after St. Patrick's day. We spent a lot of time with them watching basketball and cheering on the Jayhawks! The Normans took the kids to the park to fly kites while Sarah and Patrick cleaned out the gutters on our house. Terry and Janet noticed that the front tires on Sarah's car were pretty worn down, so Sarah had to take her car in to have them replaced. On the Sunday that we were in town we went and walked around on campus and enjoyed the nice weather. Although it was a quick visit, it was nice of them to come.

Sarah recently has been having headaches after staring for long periods of time at the computer, so she scheduled an eye appointment. The eye exam involved lots of components. The result was that Sarah is slightly near-sighted, but not it is not bad enough for her to need glasses when she drives or looks in the distance. The eye doctor said that Sarah could go somewhere like Walgreens or Wal-Mart and purchase a pair of +1.0 glasses if it would make looking at the computer screen more manageable. It was good news that a pair of prescription glasses weren't needed at this time.

This past weekend Sarah went to New York to spend time with two of her college roommate, so she'll write a post about that soon!

St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-18T21:35:00.009-05:00

This is a picture of Elle's hair creation, which she did on her own.

Whew, we are all tired in our house! Patrick finished up a 3 weekend run of swim meets. The last meet was in Wichita. The season ended well and now he has a break for a few weeks. It is nice having him home in the evening so we can do some activities as a family. On Friday before Patrick went out of town we took the kids to open gym at Lawrence Gymnastics Academy. Patrick has taken the kids regularly, but this is the first time Sarah has been able to go. The kids get to play on all of the equipment, including a foam pit, the rings, the balance beams, etc. It's a good place for the kids to let out some energy!Later that day Sarah and the kids went to Lenexa and got together with Sarah's former roommate, Heidi, and her little girl, Adelaide (Addie). Heidi belongs to Sam's Club, so she took as her guest so we could stock up on diapers. Then, we headed back to Heidi's house so the kids could play. We finished off the evening with pizza! The kids crashed in the car on the way home.

On Monday Patrick rode his bike with the kids in the trailer to the park near the Senior Center (in downtown Lawrence) to meet Sarah. Toting the kids in the bike trailer sure is a good workout!Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day. Sarah only worked for half of the day. She started the morning with a trip to the dentist. No cavities to report! It was also Elle's first trip to the dentist. She was originally just going for a "friendly visit" where kids sit down in the chair and see the different contraptions so they are more comfortable with their first cleaning. Elle did very well and was able to have her teeth cleaned and inspected by the dentist during the first visit. She is still getting her last molars in the back of her mouth. Elle left the dentist with a toothbrush, sticker, balloon, and wand. Later that evening when we asked Elle if she had a good day, she said she had fun at the dentist! We'll see how many trips that lasts for.

On St. Patrick's Day we also attended the annual parade on Mass St. We went last year, but because it was raining then, there wasn't a very big turn-out. This year, however, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so there were swarms of people. Elle was excited to see "leopards" (aka leprechauns). We stayed for about 45 minutes of the parade, which was plenty for Jay. He wanted to get down and crawl around, and the street/ side walk was not where we wanted him crawling. Later that evening we all went for a bike ride to the park and back. Patrick pulled the kids, of course! A little leprechaun visited our house and left some edible gold, shamrock cookies, and green milk. It was definitely a fun day! The concept of St. Patrick's Day was very confusing to Elle. Because it has "Patrick" in the name of the holiday, Elle called it "Daddy's Day" and also thought there should be "Elle's Day."

Speaking of milk, it is crazy how much milk the kids drink now that they are getting older. Patrick went to the grocery store on Monday and the gallon of whole milk was gone within around 48 hours! We need a shelf in our fridge just for milk.

The Caterpillar Had a Bad Day

2009-03-06T07:29:00.009-06:00

On Thursday night, Sarah was awoken to Elle doing a fake cry. She let it go for a couple of minutes, but when she didn't stop, Sarah went in Elle's room to see what was the matter. Elle was shaking. She had also been buried under all of her covers and being that it was very warm out that day and evening, she was probably very hot. Sarah asked if Elle had had a bad dream and Elle said yes. Sarah asked what Elle had seen in her dream and she said, "a caterpillar." Elle then said, "he had a bad day," which was, quite honestly, pretty cute. Elle said the caterpillar had been big and very hungry. It reminded Sarah of the Eric Carle book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In the book, the caterpillar eats more and more food throughout the course of the week and gets very big. At the end of the book he turns into a butterfly. We hadn't read the book recently, though.

Getting back to that night- Elle came into bed with Sarah and had to have an arm or a leg touching Sarah in order to "feel safe." In the morning, Elle said the caterpillar had been on her hair. She said that daddy would catch the caterpillar. When Elle got some milk that morning, her cup just so happened to have a caterpillar on it, which she pointed out. Elle did note, though, that this was a small caterpillar. Since the bad dream, Elle has been talking about caterpillars quite a bit.

Patrick left for Oklahoma City early Thursday morning. He is expected to return in the wee hours of the morning on Monday. Then, he'll be back for four days and on Friday will go to Wichita. We miss him when he is out of town. We've been going to the park a lot and running a number of errands while he has been out of town. Since we had thunderstorms and lots of rain last night, we probably won't go to the park today since everything is wet.

We put the bike trailer to use again this week. Somehow, Sarah managed to pull the kids. It was quite a work-out. They went for a 30-35 minute bike ride. Each slight incline felt like a mountain. If you think about it, the trailer plus the two kids is probably a good 75+ pounds! Needless to say, when they returned from the bike trip, Sarah felt like she was going to die. She put on a movie so she could recuperate! I guess it's true when people say, "If you don't like the weather in Kansas, wait 5 minutes." Last weekend we went from snow to warm, open-window, biking weather this weekend.

On another note, Jay took around 8 steps on his own yesterday! We are looking forward to having him walk because as it gets warmer, it's hard to have him outside. He crawls around and gets absolutely filthy and sticks all kinds of nasty things in his mouth. So, it will be nice for him to be up on feet instead of crawling around in the dirt! He's been walking a lot with the scooter we have, but his 8 steps was the most he's taken by himself by far!

Yesterday we also went to Einstein's for breakfast. They already have out their green bagels for St. Patrick's Day, which is fun for the kids. We may have to get some more before St. Patty's Day. Also, for anyone who is a fan- the new U2 cd came out this week. Sarah bought it on the release date, and we've been trying to listen it when we can. It seems pretty good so far.

Those are Funny Chickens

2009-03-01T11:20:00.007-06:00

I am going to start this week's blog by saying I sure am tired of the inconsistent temperatures in Kansas. During the course of this week we went from warm, sunny weather with our heater off and windows open to cold, snowy weather. Yuck! On Wednesday, the warmest day of the week, we had a little time to take the kids on a bike ride and try out our new bike trailer. Elle loved it, while Jay is still warming up to it. He wasn't a big fan of wearing a bike helmet, so he wore it as little as possible. As you can see, he's not wearing it for the pictures. Jay did doze off during the bike ride, so he must have been fairly content. We talked about riding down to the farmer's market when it starts back up. That will be fun. Of course the bike trailer is hooked up to Patrick's bike because Sarah has enough trouble on her bike by herself, none the less with toting two others!

Patrick has been working a lot this week to prepare for the Division I swim meet taking place this weekend in Lawrence. During the day yesterday, Sarah's former roommate, Kristi, stopped by and they were able to catch up. Sarah and Kristi are going to New York at the end of March to visit their other former roommate, Julie!

This picture is of Elle looking outside at the snow

On Saturday we awoke to snow. When Elle looked outside and saw the snow she said, "can we go sliding?" Sarah thought there was no way that she would take the kids sledding because it would be difficult to do so on her own. However, a short while later she changed her mind and took the kids sledding. We haven't had many chances for sledding this winter, and as this is hopefully the last snow of the winter, she wanted the kids to have the opportunity to go sledding. This was a mistake. A big mistake. Although they went to a small hill very close to the house, Jay fell asleep on the way there. He woke up when the car stopped and started screaming. Sarah got Elle out of the car and helped her bundle up in her snow jacket, gloves, and hat. Then, she got Jay out and bundled him up. He screamed the entire time. Then, they started walking to the hill. It was still snowing and the wind was blowing. Sarah was hoping Elle would walk with her, but she was having trouble walking in the snow, so Sarah had her get in the sled. So, Sarah walked to the hill, pulling Elle in her sled and holding a screaming Jay. They finally made it to the bottom of the hill and Elle said she had dropped her hat. Sarah decided to leave the hat, put up Elle's hood, and get the hat on the way back. Unfortunately, trying to pull Elle up the hill while holding a screaming Jay was not easy. They must have a been quite a sight. Sarah nearly bit it a couple of times on the way up the hill. Finally, they made it up the hill. Sarah turned the sled around and pushed Elle, but she didn't go anywhere. So, Sarah essentially pushed Elle the entire way down the hill. Of course, Jay was continuing to scream. They didn't try to go up or down the hill again. Instead, they retrieved the hat and headed back to the car. Jay fell asleep on the way home. He was just tired and it was probably a bad time to take them. Here is a picture of the kids in the car right after our sledding disaster:

Later that evening Sarah took the kids to the pet store to get dog and cat food. When we go to the pet store, the routine is normally to look at all of the animals and then pick up the food. We started by looking at the fish. Elle pointed out the fish that looked like Nemo. We then saw the ferrets, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, and rats. We finished at the birds. Elle had a great time looking at the cockatiels. The cockatiels were playing with each other and jumping on a hanging ball in their cage. Elle laughed and them and said, "those are funny chickens!" It was really cute.

This morning Sarah took the kids to Dillons for a treat of donuts. They have so many fancy donuts now a days. Donuts with gummy worms, donuts with m&m's, and donuts with crushed oreos. Elle wanted the m&m donut, but settled on a sprinkle star donut with a basketball on top. Perhaps the donuts were decorated special for the KU vs. MU basketball game today (KU creamed MU by the way)!!!

Jay's first birthday

2009-02-22T10:14:00.010-06:00

Here's a picture of Jay not wanting to wear his birthday hat/crown

Our little man is already a year old! He had his first birthday on Tuesday. We didn't do anything big, like have a party. We just had a small celebration with the four of us. The dining room was decorated with balloons and streamers. Patrick made a two tier cake, which was decorated with sprinkle frosting. Patrick and Sarah bought Jay clothes for his birthday- some shorts for this summer and some heavier clothes for next fall/winter. Jay was very lucky and received lots of thoughtful gifts from everyone, including cards, money, a bike trailer, cd's, Little Tyke toys, and plush dinosaurs to name a few things. Unfortunately Jay had a temperature on his big day. You can see how rosy his cheeks are in the pictures. He's feeling better now, though.

Our quest to pick a preschool continued this week. It's weird that there is so much thought into picking a type of preschool. It just seems like we have spent a lot of time and consideration on this matter. There aren't this many options available for elementary, middle or high school. Why are there so many choices for picking a place where essentially your child is just going to play and learn social skills?

On Friday night both kids slept very poorly. They kept waking each other up, so of course Patrick and Sarah didn't get much sleep. It was definitely not a normal night in our house. WE were all tired and crabby the following day. On Saturday we started to feel pretty bored and housebound, so we decided to go "antiquing" and went to the antique shops in North Lawrence. I think we are all ready to be done with the cool weather. We are looking forward to warm weather and lots of outdoor activities.

For the next 3 weekends Patrick has swim meets, so we won't be seeing a lot of him unfortunately. This coming weekend is Division II's in Lawrence. Then, he'll leave the first Thursday in March for Sectionals in Oklahoma City. Then, he'll finish the trio with Division I's in Wichita.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T15:15:00.008-06:00

This is a picture of Elle down on Mass. St. We went meandering down Mass St. last Sunday and there was a balloon artist. Elle got a grey can and he made a small mouse to go with the cat. We stopped by Penny Annie's and split a chocolate milkshake and a lemonade (per Elle's request).

Well, Happy Valentine's Day weekend! Patrick has been at a swim meet in town this weekend, so we haven't done anything exceptionally exciting. Elle colored some Valentines for Patrick, so we took them by the pool. For Valentine's Day we gave the kids some small gifts. Jay received a soccer ball and a bouncy ball. Elle got some clothes items, including a new pair of jellys. She not only loves shoes, but she particularly loves jellys! Since the year we were engaged on Valentine's Day (2004), Patrick and Sarah have had seafood pasta each year. We had linguini with shrimp and scallops this year. Patrick also made a tomato/mozzerella cheese/basil side. Patrick gave Sarah a pig charm for her Pandora bracelet and Sarah surprised Patrick with concert tickets to see Keith Urban in August. Should be fun!!

We have continued looking at preschools this week in preparation for the fall for Elle. We have pretty much narrowed our choice down to three. We looked at two of the three this past week and have a tour scheduled at the last preschool this week. I think we know which one we are going to send her to, but we want to see them all first. I can't believe that enrollment for some preschools begins next weekend. Sarah thought she was on the ball by looking at various preschools only to find out that it is a good thing she's been looking since enrollment is so early in the year.

Sarah has become more involved in the School of Social Welfare by joining the Practicum Planning Committee and attending the MSW Mutual Aid Society group meetings. The Mutual Aid Society was just formed this year, so it is exciting to be a part of this effort to bring about change in the school.

Our little man Jay will be celebrating his first birthday this coming Tuesday. We can't believe that it's been a year since he was born. He has been cruising around the furniture. He also stands in the middle of the room and smiles. We've been encouraging him to walk on his own. He's taken one step twice, but usually he just smiles and then plops down so he can speed crawl. Hopefully he'll be walking soon because he's a heavy guy!

Some of these pictures are from us out at the park. We had some beautiful, spring-like days, and we miss them! We wish spring would come back and stay! We had our windows open and heat off, but unfortunately that had to come to an end for now.

Not Much News

2009-02-08T10:19:00.005-06:00

We didn't post last week because there really wasn't much to write about. I can't say that there is much more this week either. Sarah recently started back to school. She's only taking one class- social work practice. It's a continuation of her class last semester. Sarah recently applied for a scholarship through AmeriCorps. It is actually a pretty good deal. Individuals have to complete 300 hours (like volunteer hours) at a non-for-profit agency by July 31st and write process recordings. Sarah can use her practicum hours to count towards the 300 hours, so she can pretty much use what she's already doing to get the scholarship.

Kona went to the vet on Saturday for her annual check-up. She's healthy and doing well, except for she lost a little weight. We are supposed to monitor how much the cats are eating and recheck Kona's weight in 3 months to see if she's had any further weight changes.

Last weekend before the Super Bowl we took a couple of pictures around town in some of our Old Chicago tee-shirts with one of our friends. We still want to take pictures at a few other places and then we'll send them in to Old Chicago's site.

We were recently talking about the differences in the personalities of the kids. Elle is generally pretty sweet, but she has her 2 year old moments. When we compare Jay's personality with how Elle was at his age, we can definitely see differences. Jay is very demanding. When he wants something, he pretty much demands it. We don't remember Elle being so demanding. Jay is also much more of a snuggler. When he snuggles he wants to be so close to whomever he is snuggling with.

Wonderscope

2009-01-26T20:45:00.008-06:00

We are winding down tonight after a string of busy days. We recently went to Michael's and purchased new stickers for Elle for her potty chart. She, of course, picked out some stickers with the Disney princesses, such as Aurora, Cinderella, Belle, and Jasmine. You wouldn't believe how quickly her potty chart seemed to be populated with princesses! And what's funny is that she would put duplicate stickers (the same ones from different sheets) right next to each other on the chart, so it looks very orderly. While at Michael's we also bought Elle some twine and beads (bright beads, wooden beads, and stars) and she has been stringing them to make lots of pretty necklaces.

One of the Aquahawk coaches recently accepted a job with another company and she will be moving to Baltimore. A number of the Aquahawk coaches and their family members took her out to eat on Friday evening at 23rd St. Brewery. It snowed while we were eating and when we came out there was a light dusting of snow. Not enough for accumulation, though. They said we're supposed to get snow today and tomorrow, but all we've seen so far is some icy rain.

Patrick attended a meet in Overland Park this weekend. He only had to have to for a half-day on Sunday, so he convinced the rest of the family to go to Kansas City with him. We stopped by Crate and Barrel, which was cool because Sarah had only seen the store online up until this point. After dropping Patrick at the pool, Sarah, Elle, and Jay went to a kids play place called Wonderscope Children's Museum. It looks like it used to be an elementary school. Each room has something different to do. We had so much fun we didn't even have time for 3 or 4 of the rooms! Some of the options for things to do were an H20 exhibit, a sandbox, and a craft room. We spent quite some time in the room for kids 2 and under so Jay could crawl around and get out some energy.

In what would be the cafeteria of the school there was a big lego activity area. There was also a contraption constructed of tubes. The kids sent brightly colored lightweight kerchiefs through and they would fly out the various ends. Elle loved it! The last room we played in had a puppet show stage and kid medical items, such as a squishy skeleton in which you had to put together the bones. Maybe next time we go we'll be able to go to the other rooms. After picking up Patrick we stopped by Red Robin. Patrick and Sarah were starving as they had not eaten since breakfast. Luckily, the kids had been snacking all day, so they weren't as hungry.

Tonight while Patrick was at swim practice, Sarah took the kids to the Lawrence Parents as Teachers playgroup. Patrick often takes the kids to the playgroups offered during the daytime, but this was nice as Sarah can't attend those. Elle had fun lacing items, washing babies, stringing big beads, and playing in general. Jay was all over the place and was just a happy guy-- what else would you expect, though?

The only other thing interesting to mention is that we started purchasing farm-fresh eggs. A lady at the Senior Center where Sarah is doing her practicum has a connection, so we signed up for one dozen eggs a week. We received our first dozen on Friday. The eggs are a pretty brown color. We haven't had a chance to try them yet as we were finishing off our old eggs first, but we hope they're yummy?

Kids Say the Darndest Things

2009-01-19T17:48:00.011-06:00

Well, I'm sorry we keep changing our blog format. I haven't really been pleased with the layout, so I've been playing around with different ones. I ideally would like to find a template with a wider typing area, which I really couldn't find. Fortunately, Patrick was able to help change the pixels, so I made a skinny blog wider. Not sure if it's my favorite template, but it'll do for now.

I thought this week I would actually write down some of the funny words and sayings that Elle has come up with. Kids with developing vocabularies sure do say some fun things!

Elle's Word/Saying Real Word/Saying

Moy More

Tuna Kona (one of our cats)

Toby Colby (our other cat)

Chicken Kitchen

Opent Open

Pwiget Piglet

Help you Help Me

Ronis Macaroni

Cecerle Circle

Blanklet Blanket

Backways Backwards

Chug-ar-choo-choo Chug-a-choo-choo

Mackin Napkin

Commote Remote

This weekend Elle has been transitioning to the big potty! After going in the real potty she yelled to us, "I need a paper towel." Also, I told Elle she needed to clean up her toys because after she cleaned them up we would have dessert. After cleaning up her toys, Elle said, "All done cleaning up. I want to eat dirt!" Also, one time either Sarah or Patrick was getting on the computer and Elle said, "Are you computing?" One of our all time favorites was when Elle was eating ice cream and it was apparent she had an ice cream headache. She put her hand to her forehead and said, "I bumped my head."

Back in the Swing of Things

2009-01-11T16:46:00.006-06:00

Well, we're officially back to work. Sarah started her practicum at Douglas County Senior Services this week. It seems like it will be a good learning experience for her. She is still not sure what all of her responsibilities will entail, but the details will be ironed out soon. The Senior Center is close to downtown and within walking distance from the Aquahawk office, so on the days that Patrick is in the office, Sarah and Patrick might be able to see each other during the lunch break.

After her practicum on Friday, Patrick dropped the kids off downtown with Sarah and they all played at the park. It was such a gorgeous day on Friday- around 50 degrees. We definitely wouldn't mind if the temperature was like that for the rest of the winter. Unfortunately, the weather changed by that evening and we had a windy Friday night. Patrick had a meet in Topeka starting Friday afternoon and lasting the entire weekend. He also has swim meets the next two weekends, so we won't be seeing a lot of him.

I forgot to write last week about something funny that Elle recently said. When Sarah's mom was in town she mended Elle's old Jayhawk dress, which is now a bit too small. Elle managed to get a hold of it and put it on. She put on tights and a skirt underneath the dress. She likes to wear dresses, and when she wears them she often says she is wearing a "princess." Well, after donning this outfit she called herself "Princess Jayhawk." It was very cute. Elle has done very well with her potty training this week. I think she's only gone in her diaper 3 times during the course of the week! We can't wait to only buy diapers for one!

Jay has been a drooly mess this week. I think he is getting 3 of his top teeth at the same time- poor little guy! One of the teeth is already popping through and the other 2 look like they are about to break through the gum. Jay has been waving a lot lately, too. We got together with some friends on Saturday after the meet and they couldn't believe what a happy and sweet disposition he has. Poor Elle fell asleep on the drive to our get-together and she fell asleep in Sarah's arms while they were there. I think she is still getting back into her routine after all of the company we had in town because it already seemed like she got a lot of sleep this week!

Welcome 2009!

2009-01-04T18:01:00.007-06:00

Well, our two weeks of vacation is coming to an end, much to our dismay. It was wonderful spending time with family. We had a relaxing week with Sarah's mom and step-dad. The week included Christmas Part II, knitting, crocheting, playing with the kids, going to the dog park, shopping in KC, and watching football and basketball. Elle's buils-a-bear, Dara,received the rest of her Cinderella and athlete outfits. If you remember back in July when Elle picked out the original outfit, she opted for a swim suit with Cinderella shoes. She now has athlete tennis shoes that match the suit and Cinderella glass slippers. Sarah's mom has a fun Pandora charm bracelet and her mom started one for Sarah during their visit. Her first charm is a Jayhawk! Also during their visit, we made a few meals, one of which included brussels sprouts. Sarah had no idea that they grew on stalks!

New Year's Eve was very quiet for us. We watched Get Smart and went to bed before midnight. How unexciting we are! Dunkin, our chow/german shepherd cross celebrated his 4th birthday this past week and Guinness will have a birthday in a few weeks.

We must say that we are very disappointed by the Colts loss yesterday. The day started so well with the Jayhawk basketball victory against Tennessee. The Colts game was definitely a nail-biter that resulted in no good. This week we get back into our normal routine. Sarah goes back to work and begins her practicum. However class doesn't start quite yet. Patrick also returns to his normal practice schedule.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-28T13:32:00.019-06:00

Whew- isn't it too bad that vacations have to pass by so quickly? We haven't even had a chance to have a nap during the break. We had a very Merry Christmas. Patrick's parents and brother arrived earlier in the week and it was nice having a few days with them. One of the days we went to the Allen Fieldhouse exhibit with all of the sports memor-

abilia. The curator came out and offered to let Elle try on a football helmet, but she was a little nervous to do so. She did enjoy carrying it around, though.

On Christmas Eve Elle helped make cookies for Santa. We also put out some carrots for the reindeer. Santa and the reindeer must have enjoyed their snack because most of it was gone in the morning.

Christmas was a nice and restful day. Elle enjoyed helping everyone try to open their presents. Jay just liked being in the midst of everything. He took a nap halfway through the present opening festivities, so we had to save the rest of his gifts until he woke up. The kids received lots of presents, including puzzles, games, clothes, dress-up costumes, cars, and a train table set. Everyone was much too generous!

We had an extremely yummy Christmas dinner of center-cut beef tenderloin. It was quite a treat and was prepared perfectly by Patrick. Sarah's mom and step-dad arrived in town yesterday so we had Christmas Part II. Jay received lots of dinosaurs and Elle now has a plethora of play food.

I forgot to write last week about our recent outing to McDonalds. It was the first time we have taken Elle to a McDonalds with a playplace. She had a 4 piece chicken nugget happy meal, which happened to take her 3 sittings over the course of a few hours to completely finish (no wonder she's so little)! She really enjoyed checking out the playplace, but was a little apprehensive of climbing way high up in the toys. Has anyone noticed how small the McDonalds portions seem to be now a days? Sarah ordered a chicken sandwich, which was just teeny weeny.

One other thing worth mentioning from this past week is that Elle had her first eye exam. Due to a family history of eye problems on each side of the family, it was recommended that we have Elle's eyes checked out. She did really well and was very cooperative. She had to wear glasses at one point and find items that popped out of the page. When she took the glasses off she said, "like Sponge Bob!" Elle did an excellent job identifying the motorcycle, telephone, and other objects. The doctor said her eyes were good and that she didn't need another check up for 2 years.

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year and best of luck sticking with those resolutions!

Sprite the Elf

2008-12-21T21:55:00.005-06:00

It is hard to believe yet another week has passed. The time goes so quickly. I can safely say that all the members of the Norman household are well. We all had some type of the bug and we are very happy that it has moved on. This week a little elf started paying a visit to our house. His name is Sprite. At night he reports to Santa as to if Elle and Jay have been naughty or nice. When he returns in the morning you never know where his perch will be. He's a sneaky little guy....

This past week was Sarah's last week at her practicum. It was a great experience providing case management to older adults in their homes. Now, she has two weeks almost completely free from anything. She is working 5 hours this coming Monday and around an hour the following Monday. Other than that, Sarah's plan is to do as little as possible over the break! Lots of R&R are in order. Sarah decided that the break would be a good time to do some very low key activities, such as knitting. She bought some yarn and has already started her first scarf.

On Saturday, Patrick had morning practice. He came home and surprised the rest of the family with a treat of donuts. Yum! We had tickets to the basketball game. Patrick, Mike (the head Aquahawk coach), Heidi (Sarah's former roommate), and Josh (Heidi's husband) went to the game. Sarah stayed home with the kids and also watched Heidi's little girl, Addie, as well. The kids had a blast playing together and chasing each other around the house.

Saturday evening we had a small get-together with some of Sarah's former roommates. During college Sarah lived with 5 other swimmers and divers for 2 years in "the farm house," a house on the edge of Lawrence. Heidi, Rebecca, and Kristi all came over for the get-together. It was nice catching up and hearing what everyone has been up to. Rebecca and her husband have recently returned from spending a year working in Korea. It was interesting to hear about some of the cultural differences. It's nice that we are still able to get-together every now and then!

Now we're gearing up for the holidays. Patrick's family is coming to Lawrence for Christmas and Sarah's mom and step-dad are driving out for the week of New Year's. So, we'll be nice and busy with company. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

The Bug Got Us

2008-12-14T06:56:00.008-06:00

First, I just want to say in this first picture we are not driving with the kids in our laps! The picture is from last weekend when we were eating our Cold Stone ice cream in the car because there wasn't room in the restaurant!

Well, this week has been pretty uneventful, so there's not much to write about. Sarah's last class was Monday, so she has a break from writing papers for about a month. After next week she will be finished with her practicum and will then have a two week break! On Friday there was an MSW student social, so Sarah and the kids went. They were only there for about an hour because it was quite evident that they were each very tired. Sure enough, both of the kids fell asleep on the car ride home.

Patrick is spending this weekend coaching. There is a three day meet in Topeka, where he has spent most of his time. There was also a meet in Lawrence on Saturday, so he had to split his day driving back and forth between Topeka and Lawrence.

Apparently there is a nasty bug going around town, and we were unfortunate enough to get it. Elle woke up during the middle of the night on Wednesday and threw up twice. Each time we had to give her a bath and change her pajamas. She was fine the rest of the night, but then threw up again Thursday morning. Sarah came home early from her practicum to watch the kids so Patrick could go into the office. After that, we thought we were fine and dandy until Sarah woke up around 1:30am on Saturday not feeling so hot. It is the worst she's felt in a very, very long time. Jay didn't miss the bug, either, poor little guy. He threw up all over Sarah on Saturday morning. He apparently didn't feel well all day Saturday, but didn't throw up again until that evening. He actually had great aim as he was standing at the tub! Patrick hasn't been feeling great, but he's hanging in there!

Jay continues to be on the move and he'll probably be walking before too long. When we are downstairs, he can now crawl up the stairs, so we really have to keep a close eye on him! Guinness is the other member of the house who has been keeping busy. I swear he acts like we don't feed him! He has gotten into the trash a couple of times this week. Last week he ate a pan of brownies (which were covered) off of the counter-- luckily he was okay. He also snacked on a cardboard box that was on the counter to be taken down to the recycle bin. For real! What is his deal?

Last Class of the Semester

2008-12-08T16:34:00.018-06:00

Sarah's last class of the semester was today, so she's been working hard on her final paper. She still has two weeks of her practicum before there is an official break, but at least there is a break from writing papers for a little while. The semester went by very quickly! Next semester will essentially be the same- 3 hours of social work practice class and 20 hours per week of practicum. Sarah will switch practicum placements and will be at the Douglas County Senior Center.

This past Saturday we had a busy day. After Patrick finished his practice that morning we headed downtown for the annual horse and buggy parade. There were lots of beautiful horses. They were all different sizes, as well. Elle had a lot of fun looking at the horsies. Unfortunately one of the buggies broke and dropped to the ground while people were inside. An ambulance had to come, so there was a small break during the parade. We used the break to shop in some of the stores on Mass St.

After the parade we headed home

and hung up Christmas lights outside. We also took the dogs for a walk, complete with kids in tow in the wagon. Jay fell asleep during the

walk, which was funny to see him. We came home and Jay took a little nap before we headed to the Kansas City plaza. We wanted to take the kids to see the plaza decorated with Christmas lights. For a bite to eat we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Unfortunately thee was a 2 hour wait, so we went to Tomfooleries where there wasn't a wait. The dinner was yummy. Patrick and Sarah split a burger and a buffalo chicken sandwich. Elle had chicken tenders, which were served in a little Red Ryder wagon. Tom-

fooleries also has a train that goes around the restaurant. Each time it went by Elle pointed out the "chugger choo choo." After dinner we went around and looked at a few shops. We then went to get an ice cream cone at McDonalds, but they had just closed, so we had to wait in a really long line for ice cream at Cold Stone. The place was packed, so we decided to share our ice cream in the car.

Elle's First Haircut

2008-12-01T15:36:00.006-06:00

We had a four day weekend and didn't manage to post to the blog during that time! We actually had a busy four days as the time seemed to pass very quickly. On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday we (or shall I say mainly Sarah) did a lot of yardwork. We raked the front and backyard and mowed, as well. I don't remember the final count, but we had between 15 and 20 bags of yard refuse! Unfortunately we didn't have time to clean out our gutters. We also did the yard work just in time for the rain/freezing rain/and snow that we received during the rest of the weekend.

Thanksgiving was nice and low key with just the four of us. We enjoyed doing some cleaning as well as the yard work prior to making dinner. We didn't make an entire turkey as we knew we would be eating leftovers forever. Instead, we made stuffed turkey breasts, leek stuffing, parsley mashed potatoes, sweet potato and carrot puree, baked apples, pear/walnut/blue cheese salad, and pumpkin dessert bread. Everything was yummy. Many of the foods were soft so Jay could eat them, as well.

Speaking of Jay, he is pulling himself on lots of the furniture and seems to enjoy standing to get a different view on things. Elle had an exciting weekend because she had her first haircut! She didn't have a lot of hair cut off, but it was evened out so she no longer has a curl in the back that is longer than the rest of her hair. She was very good while getting her hair cut. She sat extremely still on Patrick's lap and didn't wiggle a bit. She was so good that we took her out for an ice cream treat afterwards. She is continuing to do a good job using her potty and has gone on eat at least once each day. On Wednesday she went three times on the potty, including once at the babysitter's house.

We enjoyed watching the border war between KU and MU on Saturday. We missed part of the game as that is when Elle's haircut was, but we were able to watch the end, which was the best part. What an exciting game it was- and even more so since KU won!

We are also very busy this weekend because we finally painted the downstairs bathroom and re-installed the toilet. Still work to be done down there.... Sarah's last class for the semester is December 8th, so she's be trying to take advantage of every free moment to work on her final paper.

On Sunday evening we put up our Christmas tree. It sees like it is up very early, but with how quickly time passes, Christmas will be here before we know it! We had most of our ornaments individually wrapped in newspaper and Elle enjoyed unwrapping each one saying, "what do we have here?" She also decorated the bottom rung of the Christmas tree, so Patrick and Sarah had to even it out by moving up many of the ornaments.

Elle's Extended Slumber

2008-11-23T18:43:00.006-06:00

Elle was sick this past week. She didn't go to her childcare provider on Tuesday. We were hoping that she would be well enough to make up the day and go on Wednesday, but she wasn't. When Elle is sick she tends to be in a rotten mood and she, quite frankly, is not very fun to be around. She threw lots of tantrums and "no" was yelled with attitude. On Friday afternoon Sarah bundled up the kids and walked to the park with the kids in the wagon. It was really cold out (in the low 30s), so the kids had jackets and were covered with blankets during the ride. They swung for a little while at the park, but then Jay became fussy so we headed home. I think it was a combination of being cold, hungry, and tired that made him fussy. He cried on and off the entire ride home. When we pulled into the garage, Sarah went to get the kids out of the wagon and found that Elle had fallen asleep sitting up! So, Sarah took her up to bed-- this was at roughly 4:45pm. She still wasn't awake around dinner time, so Sarah went in, changed Elle's diaper, and put on some music for her. Elle continued to sleep and slept for over 14 hours straight! She was one tired little girl. Needless to say, the sleep really helped improve Elle's mood as she was much more enjoyable to be around the next two days.

Patrick left Friday morning for a 3 day swim meet in Columbia, Missouri. He is supposed to arrive back home late Sunday evening. We are all looking forward to his return as is the case every time he goes out of town. While Patrick was out of town Sarah, Elle, and Jay did lots of Christmas shopping. Hopefully there won't be too much more to do, but I don't think that's the case as the shopping always seems to drag on and on.

We have been quite challenged lately when it comes to keeping clothes on Elle. She constantly wants to strip down to either just her diaper or to the nude. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it was summer, but since it's cold out we don't want her to be sick more frequently. On the other hand, we are hoping that her disrobing tendencies are a step in the direction to being potty trained. Over the course of the past three days Elle has gone in her potty four times! She is also starting to recognize when she has a wet diaper as she takes her diaper off and asks for a new diaper. So, we're getting there-- slowly, but surely.

Tonight we used Skype for the first time. Sarah was unfamiliar with the program. It is a program that you can use to talk to people via your computer while also using video capabilities so you can see who you are talking to. If anyone would like to chat with us from time to time via Skype, please let us know.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are looking forward to the short work week and extended weekend. Yardwork and schoolwork are definitely on the agenda for the long weekend. We also need to clean out our gutters. If the weather is nice we may try to hang up some Christmas lights. We were going to volunteer to deliver Thanksgiving meals to homebound seniors on Thanksgiving day, but the agency already had enough volunteers. Maybe next year we can do something to the same effect.

Here are some more pictures of our basement. The work still is not completed, but much has been done. Two of the pictures are of the living room area and the other is of the desk we are making where the bar used to be.

Did Jay Shrink?

2008-11-16T20:07:00.007-06:00

I've been meaning to mention this for the past couple of weeks and I don't think I have-- can you believe the price of gas lately? It was very exciting when gas went down below $2.00. I don't remember the last time gas was so cheap! Currently in Lawrence gas prices are about $1.76. The other day I filled up both cars during the course of the day and was able to fill them for less than $40!

This week Patrick went to the Coldplay concert in Kansas City with one of our good friends. Patrick had seen Coldplay previously in Albuquerque a couple years ago. He had fun at the concert and said the music rocked! On Saturday one of the coaches Patrick works with gave us some extra KU football tickets that she had, so we ended up going to the game. Our seats were right on the 50 yard line on the 12th row- awesome seats! Unfortunately, it was really cold. There were even snow flurries throughout the day. At half time we went to a friend's house close to the stadium. She offered to watch the kids, so just Sarah and Patrick went back for the second half. We didn't stay the entire time, though, because the Jayhawks were playing poorly and we were frozen.

Jay had his 9 month check up this week. He weighed 22.2 pounds, which places him at the 78th percentile. He's only gained a pound since his 6 month check up which is hard to believe with how much he eats. We're not quite sure what his current length is. At his last check up he was 26.5 inches, which they said was the 99th percentile. When our PA-C came into the room she said that Jay was now at the 5th percentile. Sarah asked how he could go from the 99th percentile to the 5th percentile in a few months and the PA-C said that at Jay's 6 month check up, they had misentered his height as 26.5 feet, which would obviously place him in the 99th percentile! However, his current height just doesn't make sense because they measured him at 26.25 inches, which means he would have shrunk! We aren't concerned since he is so healthy, so hopefully at his 1 year check up will get better measurements.

On Saturday night Sarah got together with some of the people she used to work with at Brandon Woods, which was fun. It was good to see all of them. On Sunday we went up to the Legends to return some extra materials to Nebraska Furniture Mart and do a little Christmas shopping. This is the first time that Elle wasn't scared by the dinosaurs at T-Rex. She walked right up to them and told Jay not to be scared!

Guinness is Starving

2008-11-07T17:19:00.007-06:00

This past Sunday we decided to take things a little easy and enjoy the warm weather. It seems like we have had to focus on the house projects during our weekends so we haven't done many fun things with the kids. So, we went out to breakfast at Ingredient (which is always yummy) and then went to the Topeka Zoo. The Topeka Zoo is smaller than the KC Zoo, which is good with small kids. We took the scenic road to Topeka and stopped at a garage sale along the way. The people had a ton of kids clothes. Many of them were name brand, such as GAP and Gymboree. We even found a few things with the tags still on. They were selling all of their kids' clothes for 25 cents a piece, so needless to say, we walked away with a handful of goodies! It's so exciting finding a good garage sale. We had fun at the Topeka Zoo. Jay hadn't been to the zoo since he was really little, so he got to see the animals essentially for the first time. The zoo is expanding and there were a number of signs saying that it would be the future home of other animals. I think Elle really enjoyed the building with the turtles, monkeys, and fish!

Patrick went to the grocery store on Wednesday and purchased some puffy cereal for Jay. They are about the size of cheerios, but they are a little softer and they dissolve quickly in his mouth. He has been gobbling them up and the container was empty by the end of Friday! He seems to really enjoy feeding himself. I don't know how we're going to keep up his appetite, especially if he keeps it up into his teenage years.

Speaking of appetites, Guinness has been voracious lately. He acts like we don't feed him. On Monday Sarah made a side for dinner of mini quesadillas. She went with Elle to Elle's room to get a bib, and when she returned she found Guinness with his top two paws on the counter, eating one of the mini quesadillas. On Tuesday a very similar event took place. Sarah put Elle's plate of chicken and rice at the table. She realized Elle didn't have a bib, so she ran to get one. Meanwhile, Guinness got up on the table and ate her entire piece of chicken. Neither time was Sarah gone from the room for over a minute! On Wednesday after Patrick went to the grocery store he stopped by Great Harvest and picked up two loaves of bread. He came home and unloaded the groceries and then left again to run an errand. When he returned home, he found Guinness in Jay's room with the wrapper of the loaf of sourdough bread!

This has been a bit of a long week. Everyone in our house had their turn with a cold. Jay wanted nothing to do with sleeping in his crib and was only content with Mommy & Daddy. Elle also had a couple of nights where she woke up frequently through the course of the night. On Thursday night the kids seemed to take turns waking up so we were up nearly every hour. Needless to say, we were all very tired by the time Friday night rolled around and we were all in bed quite early.

One other thing we did this week is introduce Elle to the game Candy Land. We didn't expect her to understand the game yet as she is still young, but she had a lot of fun with the cards and moving her man along the board.

Election Day was this past week. What an exciting time for this country! This evening we are going to an Obama celebration get together with some other families. We are going to make a fruit pizza decorated with the Obama logo. We'll see how it turns out.

Swarms of ladybugs

2008-11-02T16:31:00.010-06:00

Wow- it's hard to believe how quickly October passed and that November is here already. Patrick celebrated his birthday this week. It was a fun, low-key birthday. We had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, veges, and pumpkin bars for dinner on his birthday. Overall, Patrick had a nice birthday. Thank you to everyone for the thoughtful gifts!

On Wednesday the Lawrence Aquahawks had a trunk-or-treat after swim practice. Sarah brought the kids so they could partake in the festivities. One of the moms/coaches on the team has 3 kids who swim. Her mom has made many of the Halloween costumes for the kids. The mom got one of the costumes and lent it to Elle. So, for trunk-or-treat Elle was a cute little Indian. She had a lot of fun going trunk to trunk. At one point one of the parents asked if Elle wanted a pencil or candy. Sarah answered, "a pencil," but Elle was very vocal about wanting candy. She ended up receiving both.

On Halloween the kids dressed up again for some fun. Elle was a bat and Jay was Winnie the Pooh. Everyone who saw Jay as Winnie the Pooh said it was a perfect costume for him. We went over to a friend's house for a short while on Halloween. We then headed down to Massachusetts St. for the tootsie roll stroll. Local vendors come out and hand out candy- often tootsie rolls- to kids. I think we arrived a little late because many of the vendors weren't out any more.

While we were on a Mass St., we saw a gigantic spider in the street! A creative guy took a really low bicycle or something to that effect and built a spider around it. The spider was about as big as a car. The guy would hide down in the spider and curious bystanders would come over to look. When they got really close he would pop up, spray them with silly string, and then start moving his spider by pedaling. It was quite an attraction!

After the tootsie roll stroll we returned home. Patrick took Elle trick-or-treating and Sarah stayed home to pass out candy. We didn't have many kids, probably because we missed some when we were at the tootsie roll stroll and because there weren't a ton of houses with lights on going down our street. There were more houses on some of the neighboring streets. All in all, we had a fun Halloween.

One weird thing going on in Lawrence is that we've been inundated with ladybugs. Sarah was walking on campus recently and there were swarms of ladybugs. She had to brush off handfuls of them! Apparently they aren't really ladybugs, but are lady beetles that are a little lighter in color than normal ladybugs and they pinch every now and then. Earlier in the summer Lawrence released 18,000 of these lady beetles instead of using pesticides.

Ice Cream Fun

2008-10-27T20:13:00.011-05:00

We are pleased to announce that we have the beginnings of a functional basement! What a long road this has been. We picked out tile flooring and had it laid last week. The paint down in the basement is a little lighter than we anticipated, but we're not going to change it now. It is so much lighter and brighter in the basement now that the dark carpet and wood paneling are gone. Also, our new lighting definitely helps! We didn't have a lot of time this weekend to work on organizing the basement because Patrick had a swim meet, but we were able to bring back in the larger pieces of furniture. We still have a number of projects to do in the basement, but they are small in comparison to what we've already done.

We forgot to write in the blog last week that we had gone to Sheridans, a local ice cream joint. After placing the order they asked if we wanted a complimentary ice cream cone for Jay. We said sure, but were a bit perplexed. Turned out that Jay received the teeniest little ice cream cone. It was too cute! And boy did he enjoy it! Sarah also took the kids the other day to Culvers for a small ice cream treat. Elle was apparently eating her ice cream too fast as she put her hand up to her head as if she had an ice cream headache. Her statement at that point was priceless. She said, "I bumped my head." Isn't it cute how kids translate one thing to another, such as having the sensation of an ice cream headache to a bump on the head?

We are getting ready for Patrick's birthday and Halloween. The Aquhawks are having a trunk-or-treat on Wednesday, so Sarah will take the kids in their costumes. On Halloween Lawrence has a tootsie roll stroll. The businesses on Massachusetts St. come out and hand out candy (mainly tootsie rolls) to the kids. Last year we took Elle, but she didn't get much candy- maybe because she was really little and couldn't say "trick or treat." I think this year she'll do a better job collecting candy. We are also planning on taking Elle trick-or-treating down our street.

Here are some pictures of our basement. I'm having trouble with arranging the pictures, so they're out of order. The first and fourth pictures are of our work in progress. The second and third are before pictures of our basement. We've realized how out of place the gold fireplace is, but it will be a while before we replace it.

Going to the Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-19T07:58:00.005-05:00

What a busy and fun week we have had. I think we write this every week, but the projects downstairs continue. We have painted most of the downstairs. A couple walls need a second coat, and we have not yet tackled painting the bathroom, but other than that we're done painting! I think we both feel like and end is in sight with the projects in the basement! With help from Patrick's dad we installed our track lighting on Friday. Prior to having track lighting we had two recessed lighting bulbs- one of which had burned out and the other hung down because it wouldn't stay up in the ceiling. The light downstairs was always very dim and cave-like. Now with our track lighting we have an incredible amount of light. It's a huge transformation!

Jay has been much better about sleeping through the night this week. His crawling has improved over the course of the week, as well. On Wednesday Sarah took the kids to the nearby pumpkin patch as there was supposed to be a Parents as Teachers event there. It had rained early that morning, but since it had been a while since it had rained, we didn't figure it would be cancelled. Turns out the event was cancelled, but we still enjoyed the pumpkin patch. Jay didn't have the best time because he was in need of a nap, but Elle loved being there. She fell asleep on the way home around 5:15pm and slept til the next morning!

Patrick's parents have been visiting this weekend. They've been helping us out with many of our projects, which has been great. The Normans took the kids to the Toy Store and also bought Elle a new pair of shoes. When looking at the shoes she was very adamant about the shoes she wanted and she wouldn't even try on other pairs! Yesterday we all went out to the pumpkin patch again. We took a hay ride out to the patch and picked out lots of interesting looking pumpkins. It was such a beautiful day and the weather was great. Last night we made a fire in our fire pit and stayed up way too late enjoying the fire and each other's company. We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. Elle had way too much chocolate and marshmallows, but you only live once.

And He's Off...

2008-10-12T12:56:00.010-05:00

Well, it's official- Jay is now crawling! He's still a little stop and go, but he's definitely moving forward. Now we have 2 kids to chase around. We have to baby proof the stairs ASAP!

This past Monday we had our new heat pump and furnace installed. Quite a big hit on our wallets, but we had to replace our old a/c and furnace. They were the originals in our 30+ year old house. We just recently learned about heat pumps and found out they are more environmentally friendly and efficient than air conditioners. The heat pump, which is out back, has a thermometer on it so we can look at our thermostat and see what the temperature is outside. The heat pump does the majority of the heating and cooling for the house. When the temperature outside dips below 35 degrees the furnace will kick on. The heat pump uses electricity instead of gas, which is good due to the high gas prices. Speaking of gas prices, though, they have gone down here in Lawrence. We saw them dip below $3.00 and yesterday we saw a couple of gas stations that had gas for $2.82.

We forgot to write about a cute incident that recently occurred. We were driving in the car and Patrick reached back to hold Jay's hand. We commonly do this if he is driving, but Jay wasn't crying during this occasion. Sarah asked Patrick why he was holding Jay's hand and he said, "Because I love him." It was very sweet.

Jay has gotten into a very bad habit lately. He goes to sleep in his crib, but then wakes up each night around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and absolutely refuses to go back to sleep in his crib. He only wants to snuggle and be in mommy and daddy's bed. We are trying hard to break this habit, but it's hard to let him cry because then he wakes up Elle. Last night he did wake up Elle, but we ended up getting her back to sleep. Around 4:00 in the morning, though, Sarah rolled over and bumped something with her foot. It was Elle!! She apparently had woken back up and snuck into bed without Sarah or Patrick waking up.

Jay has been eating like a champ. This morning for breakfast he ate an entire individual container of blueberry yogurt. He definitely does not need the encouragement to eat like Elle did at that age!

We have been spending this weekend much like this others- working hard on the basement. Will the work ever end? It seems like we have done so much we have even more to do. We are also gearing up for next week as Patrick's parents are coming to visit. Should be fun- we're planning a trip to the pumpkin patch!

Guinness Greets the Neighbors

2008-10-05T08:45:00.006-05:00

Patrick and Sarah have still been working on the basement demolition when they have time, which isn't too often. We got a number of quotes to do acid staining on the concrete in the basement. The results seemed questionable and with the more people we spoke to, the more unsure we became with doing acid staining down there. So, we opted to do tile floors. Now it's a matter of getting that done! We have also been waiting to paint downstairs until we have a floor color, so we feel like we're a bit stuck in terms of progress lately. We are still finishing up the drywall where the wood paneling used to be, so we do have some things to work on currently.

On Sunday evening we were moving some items from the basement into the garage so we'd have more room to work. We took a couple of larger items along the side gate as it would have been tough to fit them through the door between the garage and house. About 10 or so minutes after moving the items we looked around in panic- where was Guinness? We had let the dogs out and had forgotten to shut the side gate! Luckily Dunkin was a good boy and had not run off. Patrick started walking down the street while Sarah got the kids in the car. Sarah has never seen Elle get into the car so quickly and obediently. She was concerned about Guinness' whereabouts, as well. We figured we'd find Guinness next to a back yard that had dogs, but where was the question. Well, he was right down the street greeting the new neighbors who were outside playing basketball. Isn't he quite the welcome party?

This weekend Patrick helped host a zones camp for those swimmers who have times qualifying them for zones. This way the kids from the various teams in the Missouri Valley division get to know each other better and create commrodarie before the actual meet. So, Patrick was essentially tied up Friday afternoon through mid-Sunday with the zones kids. The kids worked hard and had fun, too. They not only practiced, but also rode the T-Bus and went to see a movie.

This picture is taken at the Legends. Elle always wants to go see the dinosaurs at T-Rex, but then doesn't want to go near them.

Jay's second tooth

2008-09-28T09:04:00.004-05:00

Jay has been a bit fussy this week at times because he is getting his second tooth! He is gibber-gabbering so much and the other day when he was chatting it really sounded like a sentence instead of gibberish. He continues to get stronger pushing up on all fours and rocking back and forth. Before we know it he will be crawling all over the house. It looks like we need to get another baby gate to put at the top of the stairs.

This week Sarah's mom sent a box of goodies and one of the items inside was a container of chocolate covered pretzel balls. Elle managed to get a hold of the container and pull it off of the counter. She snuck into Sarah and Patrick's room and started sucking the chocolate off and putting the pretzels on our bedspread!! It was a mess. When Patrick went to go start a load of laundry Elle decided it would be a good time to color with crayon all over Jay's highchair. Needless to say although we did a load of laundry we still have chocolate on our bedspread, so it looks like we'll need to do some really scrubbing to our bedspread.

Thursday was Sarah and Patrick's fourth anniversary. How quickly time flies!! Last year for our anniversary we received a gift card from Sarah's dad for either Hereford House or Pierponts. We finally used our gift card this year and went out to eat sans kids. We decided to go to Pierponts, which is at Union Station in Kansas City. The service was exceptional. As an appetizer Patrick had a blue cheese, pear, and walnut salad. Sarah had crab chowder, which was extremely filling so she was pretty full by the time the entree arrived. For dinner Patrick had blackened sea bass with a risotto cake and spinach. He really enjoyed it and rated it as a 10! Sarah splurged and ordered a steak (we don't eat red meat very often). She had a filet mignon with asparagus and mashed potatoes. The steak wasn't the best steak ever and had a consistency more as if it was cooked in a crock pot. It was a nice evening, although it was weird not having the kids to attend to or having to rush through dinner because of a cranky kiddo.

Jay is doing push-ups

2008-09-21T09:32:00.005-05:00

Again I feel like we have had a fairly uneventful week, so there's not much to write about. Last Sunday was the annual Arts & Crafts festival down at South Park. We went down and were quite underdressed. It was cold! One booth had the cutest sweater for Elle, so we got it for her and she stayed warm the rest of the time we were at the festival. The sweater was quite a hit because every booth we went to asked where her sweater was from. The sweater is cream with a colored fringe. It's a bit big on Elle so I think she'll be able to wear it for a couple of years.

Jay still hasn't been sleeping very well at night. After being sick and having his tooth poke through, he got out of sync in terms of sleeping through the night. One evening this week the lack of sleep must have caught up with him. He went to sleep at 6:00pm and slept for over 12 hours! He was a tired little boy. Jay is building up his muscles in preparation for crawling. Right now when he's on all fours he can push his body up and rock back and forth on his knees. Sometimes he lifts up his body so it looks as if he's doing push-ups. We have been using the food mill a lot to vary up the foods that we give Jay. We still buy some jarred baby foods, but it's nice to be able to feed him the same thing as what we are eating. He has had a wide variety of foods including eggplant, celery, capers, tomatoes, and tofu.

Elle is talking in more complete sentences. The other evening she was helping Patrick in the kitchen and she said a couple things to him using complete sentences. Patrick likes to have Elle "pound it," meaning that they each make a fist with their hands and then bump their fists together. Elle said, "pound it" to Jay and then proceeded to try to get him to pound it back. Well of course Jay doesn't understand, so when Elle went to pound it with Jay he fell backwards. Poor little dude. Elle has also improved her coloring skills. One evening she was coloring and she made a pretty darn good circle. She then started drawing lines off of the circle. Patrick had Sarah come look and said that it looked as though Elle was drawing a sun. After drawing her lines Elle said, "a jellyfish." No doubt something she learned from Sponge Bob Square Pants.

We've had some friends in town this weekend, so it was nice to meet up with them. We also went and tailgated with friends for the KU game on Saturday. Both of the kids were exhausted and fell asleep on the way home from tailgating. This weekend we went and purchased drywall and have been working on putting it up. It is part of our basement renovation process. We are putting up drywall where we took down the wood panelling.

The pictures we are posting with this blog entry are from when Elle and Jay went over to Sarah's former roommate's house. Her little girl, Adelaide, is almost two months older than Jay. The babies got along really well. The pictures of the deer are in their backyard.

Jay's first tooth

2008-09-14T07:11:00.006-05:00

Well, it's official- Jay is getting his first tooth. He has had some episodes of unnatural screaming and crying in the past couple of weeks and we suspected that he had to have more going on than just being sick. And sure enough, last night we felt the tooth poking through his gums. We're excited that he is getting teeth, but he has such a cute toothless smile; it will be sad to see it go. Jay has also been babbling up a storm. He is making sounds such as "ga ga ga" and "da da."

We are also very excited because our new garage door was installed on Friday. We have been without a functional garage door since April of 2007. It seems like we have such bad luck with garage doors and garage door openers as not only has the one in our house been broken the majority of the time that we have lived here, but the one at our house in Albuquerque was broken for a fair amount of time. We have been opening our heavy wooden garage door manually since last April. The door has to be original to our 30 some odd year old house. Well, the door had slats and they started to fall out, so we new we could no longer get by with the old door. We got a great price on a door and opener and were very pleased with the service. The garage door is definitely the quietest we have ever heard.

As Patrick would say, we had rain for 40 days and 40 nights, or so it seems. We have had a lot of rain. It's been great having the rain, but as a result we've had some massive mushrooms growing in our backyard. On Friday night we had a tornado warning and the sirens sounded. Sarah, Elle, and Jay were at the doctor's office at the time. We were escorted back behind the receptionists and were then seen in the copy room. They were very accommodating at the doctor's office and it was an interesting experience. We left the doctor's office after finding out that Sarah, Elle, and Jay are sharing their illnesses. Sarah also has strep throat, so we had to go to Walgreens for some antibiotics. Okay, back to talking about the rain-- Saturday night Sarah went out to run a quick errand. The rain had ceased for a little bit and in the sky was a gorgeous, vibrant double rainbow. When Sarah got home the entire Norman clan went out to view the beautiful rainbows. Although we couldn't see them very well from our house, we still could see pieces of the rainbow and Elle talked about the colors in the rainbow, including pink and "lellow."

Elle started childcare this week. Since Patrick has to go into the office for the Aquahawks we decided it would not be feasible for him to take both kids with him to the office because he would never get any work accomplished. So, Elle is going to a family's house for six hours two days a week. Jay is going with Patrick to the office since he's still so young and isn't all over the place and into everything yet.

Jay has a cold

2008-09-07T16:07:00.004-05:00

Well, it has been a loooong week. Patrick left at 4:30am on Tuesday for Las Vegas. He attended the ASCA Swimming Clinic. He had the opportunity to meet a lot of other coaches and attend a number of talks to help further his swimming knowledge. One of the coaches that he listened to was Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps' coach. He brought the kids back some small gifts. The cutest was a little Trojan hat for Jay. It's a little big, but maybe he can wear it for Halloween this year or next.

Sarah, Elle, and Jay kept busy while Patrick was out of town. Heidi, one of Sarah's former roommates watched the kids during the week. Heidi lives in Lenexa, so Sarah had to drive to and from Lenexa each day- lots of driving. One good thing about all the driving is that the kids fell asleep on the way home, so Elle actually took naps this week. Elle and Jay played hard at Heidi's house with her little girl, Addie. When we returned home on Tuesday, Elle went down for a continued nap from the car and slept all night long. She was one tired little girl. One day Elle saw some deer in Heidi's back yard! Heidi took a few pictures, so I'll post some of those after she emails them to us.

We came home from Lenexa on Thursday and Jay had a runny nose. He had an awful night that night and none of us slept much. After a little sleep, we awoke on Friday to Jay having a temperature of 101 degrees. Poor little guy. He had a stuffy nose, so every time he tried to drink milk or suck his thumb, he couldn't breathe through his nose, so he would begin sobbing. It was very sad. Sarah called the doctor to see if they wanted to see Jay. They did, so we went in during the early afternoon. By then his temperature had gone down to 97 and the doctor said he has a cold. Jay was better that night, but started being a bit cranky again on Saturday night. I guess he is still a little under the weather and he seems to have passed his cold onto Sarah. When Jay is sick he seems only to want to snuggle, so Jay and Sarah have had a lot of together time. We wonder if Jay caught his cold because of the recent drastic temperature changes in Lawrence. On Monday it was 86 degrees in our house. When we returned from Lenexa on Wednesday, it was 66 degrees in the house. Quite a big change!! We've had a few days of rain and even some fog.

Patrick returned from Las Vegas Saturday night. Sarah, Elle, and Jay were all glad to see him. We have spent a good portion of Sunday cleaning and organizing the house, and bathing the dogs. Dunkin and Guinness shed non-stop and it seems like the floor is covered with hair right after we sweep.

Today starts the Colts' football season. We are looking forward to the game tonight and good season with Peyton Manning. GO COLTS!

Also, we don't have the computer hooked up downstairs so we can't upload any new photos. Hopefully we'll be able to upload some new photos soon so they can be added to our blog.

Happy Labor Day

2008-09-01T17:59:00.008-05:00

Happy September & Happy Labor Day! I wish I could report that it is cooler, but it has been terribly hot this week. Our a/c has officially kicked the bucket and it has reached 86 degrees in our house this week. I think the heat has made us all a bit cranky, but it's supposed to cool off the middle of the week, which can't get here fast enough. One extremely hot afternoon Sarah put up the blow up pool and Sarah, Jay, and Elle cooled off in the water.

We have been incredibly busy this week. It seems like we've hardly had a minute to just sit and relax. Elle was so tired one night that she almost fell asleep at the dinner table. Her eyelids kept getting really heavy and her head would start to nod. If only she would take naps! But that's a losing battle for us.

This weekend was the first KU football game. We packed dinner (Patrick made bagel sandwiches and potato salad) and took some blankets up to the hill. The kids rode there in our red wagon. We sat on the hill right near the new practice field that was built since last year's football season. There were some little boys a few years older than Elle who were playing nearby and rolling down the hill. Elle had fun chasing after them and playing monkey see, monkey do when they started rolling down the hill.

The main reason we have been so busy is because we decided to take on lots of house projects this weekend. We pretty much gutted our basement. We took on a few sporadic projects that weren't planned, but we think they'll make the basement look a lot better. I will post pictures when we are finished, but it will still probably a good month or two at the least before we're even close to being finished. But, we're making progress and we're looking forward to making the basement an area in which we enjoy spending time.

Unfortunately, no progress will be made during this week. Patrick is leaving very early tomorrow morning for the ASCA Clinic in Las Vegas, NV. This is a clinic that focuses on coaching. Sarah starts her practicum tomorrow, so it's going to be a very busy week. One of Sarah's former roommates is going to watch the kids. She has a baby a couple months older than Jay so hopefully all the kids will have fun playing together.

Jay's 6 month appointment

2008-08-24T15:49:00.005-05:00

We've enjoyed one of our last weeks of summer. This summer has gone by way too quickly and it will be an adjustment getting back into a busy, busy schedule. Our little man had his 6 month check up this week. It's hard to believe he's already half way to being one! He didn't have any vaccinations this time because the office was out of HIB, so we postponed all of his 6 month vaccinations until his 9 month check up. Jay is 26.5 inches (99%) and 21 pounds 4 ounces (95%). We had Elle step on the scale and she weighs 27 pounds 7 ounces. Jay is working on overtaking her in no time at all!

On Friday Sarah had her orientation for her practicum for school. Students met their field liaisons and learned about some of the practicum requirements. Following that was an orientation for the PPAE program that Sarah is a part of. PPAE stands for Partnership for Productive Aging Education and it allows students to focus on aging. Normally social work students have a practicum at one placement for a year and then at another placement for the second year. Students in the PPAE program go to two different sites during their first year, and then will be at one place the second year. Sarah will be at Project Lively during the fall semester. Project Lively serves older adults in their homes. During the spring semester she will be at Douglas County Senior Services.

After orientation, Patrick picked up Sarah and we all went to the Aquahawk office as Patrick had a little work to do. He ended up being there much longer than we anticipated. Because it was late and because we didn't have a lot to eat at home, we opted for a cheap dinner out at CiCi's Pizza. Unfortunately, the place was a zoo because we arrived at the same time as the entire Haskell Football Team of 70-80 players. And you know how much athletes eat! The CiCi's staff did great cranking out the pizzas, though, and we all left after eating way too much.

Saturday morning we headed to the Farmer's Market and picked up some green peppers, green onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and chicken. We also stopped by the Merc, the local healthy foods store. It's so hard because we want to buy local produce and shop at places like the Merc, but the prices are always so much higher than other grocery stores. We bought some groceries there and then later in the day Patrick picked up a few more from Checkers- quite the opposite of the Merc.

This weekend Lawrence is hosting the first annual Busker Festival. When we first heard of the festival, we had no idea what it was about. We found out that the Busker Festival involves musicians, fire and sword eaters, mimes, jugglers, dancers, and magicians. Very cool!! We headed over to Mass St. early Saturday afternoon. We were bombarded with people. It is definitely obvious this August that the college kids are back! Walking to Mass St. Elle found an awesome looking caterpillar, so we took some pictures of her checking the caterpillar out. Anyhow, we didn't see too many of the events at the Busker Festival as they were staggered throughout the day from noon to 10pm. We did see some folks dressed in white sheets with their faces painted white who were standing completely still. We also saw a one man traveling band and some jugglers. Elle also had a balloon animal made. Guess what she picked--- none other than a dinosaur!! We were sorry we didn't see more of the events, but it was fun to get out and see some fun stuff none the less. Unfortunately the batteries in our camera died while we were on Mass St. so we didn't get too many pictures.

For dinner Saturday night we splurged and made fondue, which was a first for Elle. We made a fairly simple cheese fondue and enjoyed it with a baguette, some fruits and veges, potatoes, chicken, and crackers. Patrick made Elle a surprise bite during dinner. She wanted to reciprocate so she put a potato on her fondue fork and gave it to Patrick saying, "Happy Birthday to you!" It was cute.

On Sunday we went to the Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships held at South Park. We set up a blanket and listened mainly to the youth competition. There was a craft area set up for kids, so Patrick and Elle went over and made a paper bag hat. They had such a fun time making the hat so they decided to make another hat for Jay.

The Garage Sale

2008-08-17T14:05:00.010-05:00

Well, it's hasn't been a very exciting week, so there won't be much to write about. Sarah, Elle, & Jay are so glad to have Patrick back. He was coaching in Indianapolis for a week and returned Monday afternoon. After Patrick returned, we went to Culver's for an ice cream treat. We were sitting down eating our ice cream when Elle said, "that's delicious!" It sure was.
We continue to work on potty-training Elle. We recently went to Target and let Elle pick out some panties hoping that it would encourage her to want to be done with diapers. She picked out Dora and Hello Kitty panties. We also bought some cheap little "potty prizes." However, our efforts don't seem to be paying off. Elle ended up pottying in her panties and on the floor. I guess she's just not ready to be potty trained yet.

We were hoping to have a garage sale this weekend as it was about the only weekend out of the year that they both had Friday and Saturday completely free. However, we looked at the weather and saw rain in the forecast for the weekend, so we decided against having a garage sale. Then, on Friday morning we were watching the weather and saw that the forecast was changed to being sunny all weekend. So, we scrambled together to have a garage sale on Saturday and Sunday. We thought for sure all of our baby clothes would be a huge attraction, but unfortunately we didn't have many people come to look at baby clothes. We seemed to have a lot of folks from the 65+ age category- definitely not in the market for baby clothes! We made a few bucks and got rid of a number of items, but still have a ton of items to get rid of. I guess we'll take a carload to Goodwill.

The weather has continued to be nice and bearable, so we've gone for a few walks. We walked to the park one day and Jay went swinging for the first time. He seemed to really enjoy swinging as he was smiling the entire time. Also, he is sitting up like a pro. In just the past week he has stretched the amount of time he can sit up considerably. We can now have Elle and Jay sitting in the same room semi-playing together! Jay celebrated his 6 month birthday on Sunday. It's hard to believe he's already half-way to being a year old!

After the garage sale on Sunday we decided to take the kids to the pool. Sarah turned her back on Elle for a mere minute to call a family to see if they wanted to join us at the pool. During that minute that her back was turned, Elle got a hold of the sunscreen and decided to lather up. Let's just say it was a mess and probably a third of the sunscreen bottle ended up being squeezed out all over our bed and on Elle. It's amazing how quickly kids can cause destruction.