More Halloween Fun

Well, I had to have a party last night, almost enitrely so that I could make these:

They were very fun and tasty!  I couldn't throw a party like Katie, but it was fun to have a reason to do a few things I have been meaning to at Halloween, and to decorate for real!  Here's the recipe for the Shards of Glass Cupcakes.  We also had Vegetarian Chili from the recent issue of Cooks Illustrated.  While I was getting stuff prepped for it the night before, Dylan walked over and asked, "What on earth are you making?"  I assured him to just eat it and ignore the ingredients he was seeing, since it had some weird ones.  But it was really good, even for the carnivores in the crowd.  So, try it.

In other news, Dylan's job is going well.  He has to wake up before us, and gets home later than he used to, but he is really enjoying it, and he does not regret his decision at all.

NinjaGO!

Happy Halloween everyone.  Here are our costumes!  I put it on flickr with comments on components if you are interested.  It was another fun year! 

New Beginnings (not in church lingo)

Phew!  We have had a lot going on lately.  So, first off, Dylan quit his job on Monday.  Despite all the times over the last year that he thought about just walking out for one reason or another, and all the imaginative ways we had discussed him quitting, he just ended up telling his boss and giving his 2 week notice.  So, his last day is October 1st.  He's been surprisingly sad about it the last few days. This is because he knows that all the work that he has done to build a productive water department will be undermined and result in a return to the mess that he started with.  He will also miss several people who work there.  However, among other things, he is tired of being unappreciated and unsupported, and feels like he couldn't take the abuse much longer and stand by while such poor decisions were being made.  He will most likely be doing some consulting back to them on some issues that he is most familiar with, so I expect we have a little while before he becomes the city's worse nightmare at city council meetings and turns into "that crazy guy" who is always getting up at meetings.  

The job he accepted is with a consulting firm called Water Systems Consulting.  It is a small engineering firm that is based in San Luis Obispo.  He is quite familiar with them, since they have worked with him on some projects while he has been at Morro Bay, and the owner has actually offered him a job several times over the last year or so, so as Dylan was nearing the end of his patience, he talked to him seriously, and got an official offer.  He will have to do some travelling, which is painful for us, but seemed inevitable for his next job.  Whatever it was going to be, there was no real way to beat a 2 minute walking commute!  So, I am sad about that.  But, he looks forward to the job; the work will be more focused on construction than at morro bay, which he does great at.  Click here if you want to read about the cool giant dam removal project that he will be working on, as long as the company gets the job.  He is hoping to take some time off in between, so hopefully that works out!

The other thing that has been keeping me up at night is Carter's school.  We have switched him out of the school we started at (Ethan's school) and into the Family Partnership Montessori Charter school.  Ethan is still at Del Mar, and I am planning on moving Carter back for 1st grade.  I need to be careful with how I talk about the reasons for the switch, for the sake of my little readers.  I will just say, I insisted on a more nurturing environment, and the principal was not interesting in accommodating my request, so we looked into the charter school.  I am really happy about the switch (and Carter is happy too).  The Montessori school is right by our house (even on the same street), so it is actually easier to have our kids at two different schools, even though you wouldn't think so.  And the school day requires no driving, which makes me happy. 

The Montessori school is a public charter school that has 4 days a week in the classroom and then one day at home learning.  His class is a combined kindergarten/1st grade classroom with 20 kids, and then the 2nd-6th grade are in a different classroom.  So, it is endearingly small.   I don't know how much you know about Montessori, but it is a very different classroom environment than a typical classroom with a focus on allowing the children pick what they want to be working on, with some direction from the teacher.  I have some concerns about that, but since Carter is really motivated right now about learning reading and writing, that is what we are working on at home.  And I am really enjoying my time with him.  I give him some "bus stop work" to do while I take Ethan to the bus stop and then we work together in the afternoon too.  This is a very comfortable halfway point for me between public school and homeschooling. 

I have been thinking a lot about homeschooling, particularly because my two friends Karisa and Stephanie are planning on doing it.  And this is one of those things that Dylan is graciously kind about.  It is like Trader Joes.  You see, for years, when we lived in Sacramento, I never went to Trader Joes, even though Dylan told me that I would love it and should go.  But I just thought, whatever, honey, it's just another grocery store, I might as well go to the one close to my house.  So, I never went until after I came back from Arkansas.  And I had no idea what I had been missing!  It is not just another grocery store!!  In fact, I don't know if I would have even wanted to move to Arkansas if I knew I was going to have to live without Trader Joes.  He was right all along about what I would like; I just was being stubborn about it for no legitimate reason.  Well, homeschooling may end of being one of those things.  Dylan, for basically our entire marriage, has gently expressed his desire for me to home school our kids, and I just have rolled my eyes at him over and over.  I mean, I still feel like I have legitimate reasons for not homeschooling, but I have softened some in the last few years.  I have to say, having Carter at a school where we are more in control of the curriculum has been a game changer for me.  With Ethan and Carter up to this point, as sick and sad as this may sound, I didn't want to work too much with them on learning at home because I didn't want them to be super bored in school because of it.  But now, with Carter, I don't have to worry about it.  And I am really enjoying it.  So, we'll see where this leads us.  If I did end of doing home school, I would be super excited about me kids being able to do things like this. 

P.S. Katie, I will get the perfected blueberry muffins up here soon.       

Goodbye Summer!

Well, summer is over!  The boys are back in school and we made it through most, but not all, of our list of things to do from my previous post.  Here is the list of things that we replaced some of the items with instead: 

1.  Destroyed everything. I really think I should start making a list of things that get broken in our home.  It has got to be at least one a day, and almost all from that cute blond one.  Let’s see, today, we got away easy with him ripping the cover of The Who record of Dylan’s.  Yesterday, he broke a light switch cover and poked a hole in the garage door (unrelated events).  The day before, he stuck a nightlight into an electrical outlet and shocked himself, which was right after I found the older boys had soaked one of their mattresses so thoroughly the night before with water that the carpet was wet underneath; you know, just for fun, while they were supposed to be going to bed.  

Man, oh man. The list goes on, and would work its way back to my favorite for the month.  That would be Tanner flushing a beanbag down the toilet and having to get the plumber to come out and pull up our toilet and get it out. 

Ya know, I wasn't very materialistic before, but being a parent sure beat any remnants of that out of me. 

2.  Tanner stopped napping. I knew that naps were on the way out, but at the beginning of the month when he learned to climb out of his crib, that pretty much sealed the deal.  He still really needs them, which is most evident from the complete lack of impulse control by about 5pm. 

He is so happy and so fun, and he is all smiles, but he sure does wear me out.  After Dylan gave the older boys blessings the night before school started, Tanner immediately runs up to the chair and says, “Now me.”  And as part of the blessing, Dylan said that Tanner was happy, and he was so happy because he feels the love of his Heavenly Father.  Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever?  It’s hard to stay mad at that boy.  I mean look at him: 

I went into his room, and he says, “Look mama, a temple!” 

 And he still says “Ay” instead of “Yes.”  Also, he calls Ethan “E-hee” which is the cutest thing ever.  Oh, and his stuffed Chewbacca that he got for Christmas from Katie, he calls “Chewbaba.”  It's kindof funny how incorrect pronunciation is so endearing coming from a two-year old.

3.  Bought some more houses.  We refinanced two of our houses that we own but do not live in, and bought two more houses in Washington.  So, that puts the tally up to five houses that we own that I would cry if I had to live in.  In fact, these ones are so nice, the insurance company won't give us insurance until we fix some things.  Is that a bad sign?   But they do look like they should actually make us money every month which is a nice change. 

4. Made a trip to the ER.  What would summer be without another trip to the ER?  I know most of you know, but Carter crashed on his bike while we were on a bike ride.  He hit his face on the pavement, blood gushed everywhere, Mom kept her cool, and after an extremely long and stressful day, ended the day with five stitches inside his mouth.  It was pretty rough.  This is how he looked the day of the big crash.  Sorry for the fuzzy camera phone pictures (refer to bullet #1 for reason for lack of camera; and that red line is a balloon string, not blood splatter, although there was a lot of that).  He healed soooo amazingly well.  By the next day, he looked a lot better and was in good spirits.  And by about two weeks afterwards, you couldn't even tell that there used to be a giant crevice between his lip and his gums.  It was pretty remarkable. 

 

5.  Made No Life-Changing Decisions.  But, oh boy, have we thought a lot about them!  We still are unsure on what will happen about moving.  I still am torn between having a half an acre to let the boys run around on, and having everything that comes along with living in this little beach town.  So, every single day, I look on craigslist for places to rent in Morro Bay, and on a realtor website for places to buy in Atascadero.  And that's about where it stops.  We've probably toured ten homes this summer, but nothing has seemed just right. 

We are also unsure what to do on Dylan's work.  I don't recall whether I have written about his work on here.  If not, he has not been happy at the City of Morro Bay for quite some time, and is looking at what he will do next.  He got an official job offer a week ago from a company that is based here in San Luis Obispo, but that he would have to travel several days a week up to Carmel for (about 3 hours away).   It is a good offer, a bit higher than he makes now.  He just has also been thinking of doing more of his own thing with his friend Joe, and has to decide what makes more sense.  I think we have narrowed it down to one or the other.  That is, unless something else comes up.  He goes up next week to see the job site for the offer he just got; so after that, he will let them know one way or another.  



Well, I had a few other things to add to the list, like Perfected Blueberry Muffins, Had a Mom Identity Crisis, and Cancelled Netflix, but those will have to wait for another day.  I am on Day 1 of 7 of having Dylan out of town, and should not stay up super late.  The yelling at my children will be inversely proportional to the amount of sleep I get. 

 

Ah, summer!

So, I know in Morro Bay, summer is not much different than any other time of year, except maybe with more fog than usual.  However, we have no school!  So, I sat down with the older boys and  made our list of things to do this summer.  So, because there is no way I can keep track of a piece of paper and so that any of you can weigh in on which activities you want to do with us, here it is (with crossed off ones being the ones we have already done in the last 5 days):

1.  Swimming lessons
2. Camping
3.  Karate or paragon
4. Bob Jones Bike Trail
5. Painting
6. Manufacturing camp with the lertwacharas
7. Play with Logan and Colin
8. Play at the beach
9. Climb up sand mountain (hazards overlook)
10. Hide and seek (Carter requested on the sand dunes, I have to decide whether that would be feasible, safety-wise)
11. Go to the zoo
12. Go to the waterpark
13. Have a water fight
14. Play at Mavericks
15. Play with Ben and Daniel
16. Play at Avery's
17. Waterfall and cave hike (Reservoir Canyon)
18. Mad science (camp or on our own)
19. Children's museum
20. Cut Ethan's hair
21.Go to Drive-in theatre
22. Go to garage sales
23. Invent something
24. Music in the Park
25. Play games
26. Climb bishop peak
27. Cal poly design village hike
28. U-pick peaches
29. Go to the swimming pool
30. Ride the trolley
31. Kayaking (dinosaur caves in pismo?)
32. Bowling
33. Fishing
34. Mid-state fair
35. Play tennis
36. Carter's birthday
37. Watch fireworks
38. Build a sand castle
39. Library summer reading
40. Luffa farm tour
41. Eat at restaurants
42. Play with Legos
43. Big Falls/Little falls hike
44.  Have lessons every few days to learn about rocks, waves, sign language, chinese, plant picture hunt, and music

We thought it would be fun to have 104 things, in honor of the phineas and ferb theme song, but we do still have to eat and sleep and all that, so we shot for 50.  This is our list so far, with a few maybes like touring the piedras blancas lighthouse, a trip to see some redwoods, and to sacramento, and going to the temple.  But I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere very far away this entire summer.  So, tell me what you will be joining me for, and we'll make it happen!!!

Also, I still haven't decided whether to add "Move to Atascadero" to this list.  And "I" was the correct pronoun to use in this sentence, rather than "we."  Everyone else in this family of mine seems to be on board.  We actually have an application in to a place, but told them I was not 100% sure yet.  It is just what we want, I just am not sure I can leave all the things that I love so much about living where we do in Morro Bay.  It's keeping me up at night.  Dylan played this on my phone for me on the way home from the concert in the park we went to last night. 

Sticks and Stones

Here's the highlights reel from the last few months:

Broken Bones

I think you probably know about Tanner and his broken elbow, but for posterity's sake and what-not, we have spent the last month with our one-year-old in a cast because he is one expert climber, but he went down with Carter when Tanner pushed him off the toy bookshelf.  And Thursday, the cast came off!  All healed!!  I am greatly relieved.  Okay, I know there's that whole "yay, his elbow's healed" but for me, it really was "yay, I can give him a really good bath."  It just had gotten stinky, and I am happy to submerge that little blond head and get him spotless for the first time in a month. 

Some More Mud

Ammon came out for my second mud run, although I think adventure race is a better name for this one, because I actually ended it soaking wet, but not really muddy.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  In fact, fun enough that I wrote a thank you email to the creators and the event site owners to encourage them to do it next year.  The obstacles were very cool, and I never thought I would get to say this about a running event, but there was a surprising amount of swimming. 

I actually haven't done any running since then, unless you count freeze-tag and running to the bus stop, but I will certainly do another one of these mud runs.  They make running worth it.  I am hoping there is one that conveniently will be in Utah when we go out for the Perkes family reunion, and if not, we will have to create one.  Because I am going to this reunion, no matter what.  I do not want to be disowned by my grandma for missing three in a row.

Mud Hole

So, for the first time in a long time, I am actually considering moving away from Morro Bay.  Dylan has been trying to get me to move to Atascadero (translated to Mud Hole in Spanish) for years now, and I have been extremely resistant because of how much I love it here.  But we truly need a yard.  I have been looking every week for about six months now, and have found nothing here that has a yard and would not cost us $3000 per month or more.  And that is really sad to me.  And so I have softened a little on Atascadero and have been doing my research this week.  I mean serious research.  I have researched school district maps and test scores, had a principal give me a tour of a school, driven past probably 15 houses for sale or rent, talked to four families that have lived in both places, tried to convince my close friends here to move with me, and compared average monthly temperatures.  For those who are unaware, Atascadero is about 1/2 hour away from us up a winding road away from the beach.  So, I would be leaving beach, hikes, friends, and walking everywhere.  And gaining oak covered hills, an actual summer, less cost, and a substantial yard.  However, I have decided that they must have a city-wide ordinance requiring oak cabinets, gold accents, and a brick/stone fireplace in every home.  Ya know, for conformity and all.  So, I'll let you know.  If we moved, I would want to move this summer before school starts.  We went to tour one of the homes and while we waited for the realtor, my boys had such a great time chasing lizards, playing with sticks, and exploring.  So, we'll see.

That's about it around here!  Our summer officially starts on Friday.  I'm not really sure what we are going to do with ourselves.  All I have scheduled so far is swimming lessons and lots of playing outside!  I welcome any visits!!!

Two different boys, same sunny window

Here is yesterday at 5pm.

And here is today.

Really, is there anything softer and sweeter than this?

Mississippi

So, I feel that I have recovered sufficiently from my vacation, so I am finally getting around to a blog post about it. Most of you have either seen pictures of the trip and/or were there with me, but for the few of you who weren't, here are the highlights:

-Well, I thought I was going on a vacation with my Perkes family, but came to find out that this was actually a Wade-style family vacation, which means we go on vacation to work not play!  The way it worked out, I showed up the day that my parents were moving into their house, so I set up beds, installed a towel rack, cleaned windows, went grocery shopping, made dinners, set up a foosball table, raked the yard, pulled ivy off their tree, and a few other things.  It was not what I had planned on, but it did kind of make me wish I had a house and a yard with projects to work on, especially a beautiful old house like my parents.

-It wasn't all work.  My parents live within a block from the beach, so I went running twice along the beach, and we went to the beach twice and Tanner swam in the ocean for reals.  Well, swam for reals, not so much ocean for reals, I guess.  He stripped down naked on the beach, and I let him stay that way, and then when the water hit his toes and wasn't like the arctic water we've got here in Morro Bay, he went in up to his neck.  And the crazy boy even kept trying to get me to let go of his hand and let him do it himself.  I've already got close to drowning one of my babies, and since I didn't have Uncle Chris to save us, I held on to Tanner despite his confidence.  Here's another cute butt shot of him, in case you didn't get enough from the previous post.  Ethan and Carter also really enjoyed playing in the water since you can go out really far before it gets deep.

And then of course, there was Isaac, who was impressively good-natured about Tanner throwing sand at his face and digging up the sand we had already placed, and about Katie and I turning him into a mermaid while he wasn't paying attention.

-It was also fun to see my friend Chelsey, whom I haven't seen since Carter was one, so in three years.  It was fun to have our kids sit around the dinner table on the wraparound porch on a warm Mississippi night and tell silly jokes to each other. 

-On the one day that Cami, Katie, and I overlapped, we were able to have our traditional Easter picnic.  I was a little bummed that we did no egg rolling, but since there are possibly no hills anywhere in the entire city of Biloxi, I was okay.  We went to this neat little spot nearby on the back bay where there was a tree that puts all other trees to shame.  It was awesome.  And so, we did our king egg contest, egg salad sandwiches with a candy egg hidden in one (Ethan's), and an Easter egg hunt, in addition to all the great climbing that we did on the tree.  It was great. 

-Other than that, there was some game-playing, playground-playing, cousin-playing, and scratching mosquito bites.  And most of the rest of my time was spent keeping Tanner from messing with the dog, messing with Isaac's stuff, and scratching their newly finished beautiful wood floors. 

-Oh boy, and then there was getting back.  I've recounted my adventures enough, but they included spending four hours in the airport and on the plane only to be sent back to Grandma's because of an oil leak; Tanner setting of the fire alarm in the airport; and skidding in front of oncoming traffic and crashing my car.  This is never where you want to be seeing at a tow truck from:

My dear friend Jen asked me if I said a prayer before I started driving, and I hadn't; but I tell you what.  I sure did right after I crashed.  It was completely unreasonable that we drove away from this unharmed, and I felt very much protected, and relieved that I didn't kill all my kids and myself.

Oh, and Mississippi did not disappoint.  I got to have a real serious thunderstorm, just as I had hoped for.  It was one of those crazy storms that California will never live up to, and my kids slept right through it. 

Muddy Mamas

I don't even know where to start on this amazing weekend!!!  I had been consistantly thinking about, dreaming about, planning, obsessing over this weekend so much that going into it, I started to get worried that it wouldn't be all that I expected.  But that worry was totally unfounded.  It was awesome! 

The trip ended up being myself, Alissa, Karisa, and Alicia.  And boy were these girls fun. Even driving in LA traffic was fun.  I mean, I knew already I loved them, but if you haven't seen an Alissa unleashed and away from all responsibility, you have not lived!!  She was a riot.

So, Friday, we ate at restaurants with no kids on our laps, laughed lots, drove lots, and I talked them out of going dancing at a club, because I can jump over fire, but don't make me dance.  That's the scariest thing ever.

The day of the dash was great. I woke up early because I couldn't sleep; it was like Christmas morning.  We got our eyes all painted by Alissa and we got all geared up with our matching Muddy Mamas shirts designed by Karisa's husband Logan, and then we were off. 

My best attempt at a warrior face.  Mostly, I giggled.

Our hotel was close enough that we walked over to the race, which was a great warm-up, and got us super excited.

And then the race!!  We started our heat towards the back, which I now know was a bad idea because we were running really slow at first because of all the people (there were 700 people in just our heat).  So, after being annoyed at the first obstacle when I had to wait for the other people crawling over the tires, things started to clear out, and it got better.  I can't remember all the obstacles, but the obstacles really weren't that bad.  They were more of a break from running, so far as I saw it.  It was no problem when I climbed over the wall that I had seen in the pictures and been most worried about, and at that point, I knew I could do them all.  The last three obstacles were certainly the most fun.  There was this water obstacle that you were in the lake and had to get up onto these floating plastic cubes and then down again three times.  So, I submerged entirely so I could get enough spring to jump my short, weak-armed self onto them.  And then the fire was next, which looked super cool in pictures, and I thought I was doing it, how smart of them to get us soaking wet first. 

Then, the mud pit was last.

 I was really glad that we did basically all our running without being soaking wet and muddy, since it was a lot harder once wet and muddy.  And I worry a bit about my race in May because they are going to get us wet from almost the very beginning.   Anyway, after a little climb over a viking hat sand sculpture, I was done! (Notice the mud in my mouth) 

And they gave me a medal (and everyone else too) that I wore for the rest of the day.

And after it was all over, I was ready to do it all over again!!  If I hadn't had wet, muddy shoes, I would have!  I ended up finishing at 1398th out of 9700 people that ran it that day.  So, that was kinda a shock to me that I did that well actually because I felt like I wasn't running very fast and could have run faster.  So that was that!!  Oh yeah, and a reporter for the Californian took my picture and wrote my name down.  I didn't actually make the cut for the paper because he had a great picture of another girl jumping over fire.  Anyway, then my girls threw me into the "Warrior Wash" (the lake), and that was that!  It was great.  We passed out our free beer tokens to some random people, and ran back to the hotel (I was really cold by this point). 

The rest of the day was great.  We went shopping, watched Hunger Games, and went to a Burke Williams spa, which could be a whole other post itself.  I have never been to a place like that.  It was crazy.  Steam rooms that smelled like oranges, cold water with lemon and fruit at every turn, soothing music, quiet rooms, a one-hour massage.  I cannot even give it justice no matter how much I describe it.  It was awesome. 

And the next day, I woke up, ate breakfast, and got back in bed.  When does that ever happen?!?  And then we drove back that day, with a few stops for food and the like.  And I came home to a calm husband, a clean house, and happy as can be.  Thank you, thank you to Dylan for giving me this time, and to my girls who joined me!!!  I had such a blast!
      

While you wait...

It has been a crazy busy two weeks with lots of adventures, so I'm still recovering a bit, but while you wait for the details of our Mississippi trip, here is my favorite photo from the trip which you won't see on facebook.

Miso Soup

See this?  I made it!!!  I'm getting pretty good at figuring out ingredients in things that I taste, but there are a number of things that I have tasted and retasted, and have had absolutely no idea where to start in duplicating the flavors.  And miso soup is one of those things.  And after some research and a trip to the oriental market, I did it!  Spot on.  I would like to thank Alton Brown and also the sushi book that I borrowed from the library.  And it is no wonder I didn't know how to make it.  The broth has four ingredients and the only one I'd ever even had in my kitchen was water.  And making california rolls was similarly not as scary as expected, once I had a recipe and ingredients.  So, I'm excited to have crossed another thing off the list of things I eat in restaurants but don't know how to make.    There are still a few more out there, like Pad Prik King (Thai food with this smooth sweet spicy paste and green beans and kaffir lime leaves), Malai Kofta (indian meatless meatballs in yummy cream sauce), tres leche cake, and a good warm cheesy spinach artichoke dip.  I'm sure there are more things I am at a loss on, but those are some that come to mind.  Oh, and I will provide recipes upon request, but am optimizing my time with two boys asleep at the same time, so wasn't going to type it all out right now.

Other than that, I'm still working on getting ready for my warrior dash coming up in less than a month, and I booked tickets to go to mississippi for a week for spring break, like two days after the dash.  And am excited to see everyone in my family but Ammon!  As in, I'm not seeing Ammon; not I'm seeing him, but not excited about it.   

The fire jumper and the killer Q-tip

The gauntlet has been thrown down, since even Cami has updated her blog, and she doesn't even have a blog!  So, I figured I should do a little updating.

First off, I had mentioned this months ago as something I was going to do, but it is official.  I, Amy Wade, am going to be a warrior.  March 31st, I am going to crawl through mud, and jump over fire, and climb cargo nets, but certainly pass up the turkey leg and beer at the end of the race.  I am so excited, and so obsessed.  Not only is this the coolest 5k EVER, but I am going to go down for the weekend to southern california with my super fun girl friends and without my children.  This will be the first time in the 7 something years I have been a mom that I am going to spend more than 24 hours away from a child of mine.  This is a very big deal.  So, I have been training my weak arms to do things they aren't used to doing.  And this week I ran the full 3 miles without even walking up the hill from the rock, for the first time.  I've looked into building my own cargo net to hang from my balcony for practice, and still am wavering on how sane that would be.  But awesome, right?  And if you can google it and get instructions on ehow, how sketchy can it be?  We'll see.  Anyway, I'll let you know how awesome my trip will be.

In other news, Tanner punched a hole in his ear drum with a q-tip.  I wasn't actually in the room when it happened, but Dylan said he just rammed it into his ear with his hand.  And then he screamed in pain for about an hour, and finally when he had settled down and once there was a consistent stream of clear fluid coming from his ear, I thought I should probably take him to the doctor.  I swear, this kid!  This is just the start of trips to the doctor for injuries.  And I felt like such a horrible momma.  I mean who let's their one year old have a q-tip?!  Well, that was me, for the last time EVER.   I tell you what, that was one expensive q-tip.  The ear drops we had to put in were in a tiny bottle the size of eye drops and cost us $50 (would have been $188 without insurance), plus the two doctors visits!  Anyway, it has been several weeks now and we went to the doctor today and it has healed over.     

So, other than the ups and downs of being a momma, I believe I have finally reached the point once again where my live is generally really great.  And I realized the litmus test for that variable is the amount of exercise and book reading I am doing; i.e., if I am able to exercise and read books, my life is finally reasonable again.  And we are there!  Which is great.

As a parting note for you, Ethan shared this cute little thing with me when I went down to wake him up for school yesterday.  "Mom, I have a door, called a wake door.  And when I open it, I am ready to be awake.  And I haven't opened it yet."  Love it.  So profound for not being awake.  I'm using that on my 6 am babies from now on.

PS, sorry no pictures.  Tanner is helping me type now so I better post this before he erases it all.  If I find some, I'll update later.