I'm too excited/nervous/anxious to go to sleep tonight. Tomorrow is our 20 week appointment with Dr. Mulholland, and if Baby O2 cooperates, we get to find out what we are having. Lauren is 100% sure that it is a girl because she wants a little sister soooooo bad. I asked her tonight what she wanted to name the baby if it is a girl and she said "ummmm, can we call her Genius?!?" Sounds like a great name to me!!

But WHYYYYYYYY Mom?

Lately Lauren has been asking me a lot of questions about VERY random things. Like the other day we were watching Madagascar 2 (for like the 1 millionth time...I swear) and she asked me if lion's could swim. I tell her yes (because I think they can but I'm not super sure) and she says "but why Mom?". Ummmmm, because they like to? (Even though I highly doubt that they like to because I've never seen a cat that likes to... so why would a lion?).

Our Wonderful Beach Vaycay!

Last week we were able to join some great friends of ours, and their families, on a beach vacation in Pacific City, Oregon. It was MUCH needed and full of fun, laughs, and MANY, MANY good memories.

We met up at the Harper's house and hit the road bright and early on our first day. We made a pit stop at Multnomah Falls, which was amazing, and snapped a few pics of our crew.

This pic was supposed to be the guys...but you can see that Lauren wanted to be one of the guys.

We made our way through the ugly traffic in Portland, found the LIQUOR STORE! (thank God...and Lauren kept calling it the liquorice store), and down the windy roads outside the city that dropped us into Tillamook. The familair smell of dairy cows and their stench hit me like a ton of bricks and I was ready to vomit. YUCK!! Another 20 miles or so out of Tillamook and we were there...BEAUTIFUL Pacific City.

We got the keys to our place and checked it out, then made a stop at the house where all of our friends were staying, then went back to our place to un-pack. Since we decided at the last minute to go on the trip we had to get our own place. It turned out to be perfect for us...a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms with Queen size beds. The house everyone else stayed in was a mansion compared to ours. It was on the beach, had 5 bedrooms, 2 floors, a HUGE living room downstairs with a ping pong table and a mural of the beach on the wall as if you were looking out the window upstairs. It was gorgeous!

When we got back to the "mansion" to hang out, the kids were more than ready to hit the water. They quickly found out it was COLD and decided to play in the tide pools which were much warmer. Here are a few pics of Lauren and Karson Rawlings (Clayton and Nickie's 4 year old) playing on the beach.

I forgot my camera the next day when we went to the Aquarium in Newport Bay, and it was also one of the coolest days too so I was super bummed. We went to the aqaurium with the Rawlings', Harper's, and Stevie and Anna. When we got there, I thought Clayton was acting really strange, but he was also amped to get to the "scuba" show and was adament about us not being late to it. Whatever..the guys wants to see the scuba show. So we walk around for a little bit and check things out. We saw a sea otter that was playing with himself...literally (and then we saw a sign that read that the sea otters were overly aggressive right now due to high hormone levels...go figure!), we let the kids play in the area where they could touch sea urchins and clams and stuff, we see the jellyfish and the HUGE crabs, the alligators and alligator turtles, we stand up in a fish tank, and check out the mighty python. Karson's telling us he wants to go see the sharks...actually he tells us over and over again...so we go to the shark area. It's a big shark tank that you can walk through and you can see above you and below you and if you stare up for too long you get dizzy and almost fall over (at least that's what happened to me). We snap a few pics of the kids all lined up and I see Clayton bugging one of the workers about something and he looks stressed. It's all just a little wierd for me and I start thinking something's up...just not sure what. FINALLY, we go sit in this room (a half hour before the show starts) and we magically get front row seats to the scuba show. The kids are all sitting on the floor in front of a HUGE window and eventually the whole crew is in the room and the show starts. Harper's asking all sorts of stupid questions, the announcer lady is talking on a microphone with the main diver, and they are talking about the STUPIDEST stuff. The kids are so bored they are getting up off the floor RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DIVER and trying to leave the room. Clayton busts out his camera and Ashley busts out the camcorder and I look at Travis and say "something wierd is happening." He laughs at me and rolls his eyes. The divers dissapear to the bottom of the tank and the announcer lady reassures us that this is normal. Next thing you know, the divers come back up holding a sign that reads "Anna, will you marry me?". OMG!! Sweetest thing ever! But I think even Anna was so bored from the stupid show and wasn't really paying attention and Stevie has to tell her to read the sign. Priceless. Kai (Stevie's niece) says "why is that guy asking Anna to marry him?" while I'm cracking up and crying at the same time. It was amazingly amazing. Good job Stevie!!

Still here...

It's been far too long since my last post...please forgive me. As I sit here typing at this very moment, I am listening to the wind blow outside my window and I'm wondering why we are having such nasty weather in the middle of July. You see, lately I've been feeling like everything bad keeps happening to ME. The weather's been so crummy this spring and summer and Lauren was sick A LOT. Which meant I stayed home A LOT. Which meant work was upset with me A LOT. Which meant I was left feeling guilty A LOT. How do you balance work and being a Mommy when you have a sick child that needs you? I know work needs me too, but Lauren is more important to me. Don't get me wrong, I NEED my job and I NEED to work (for my own sanity). When did it become ok for other people to make you feel guilty for taking care of your family? Or should I say, when did it become ok for me to feel guilty for making my family a priority over work? These are things I've been pondering a lot lately and I'm just now starting to put MY needs in front of every one else's. Keeping up with this blog is important to me, so I will catch you up on everything that has happened since my last post and I will try NOT to leave anything out!

Sh#t My Kid Does

All I can say about this post is WOW! Get a box of kleenex and prepare to laugh your a$$ off!

Travis picked up Lauren the other day from her new daycare. Gwen says "Lauren said a new word today! She dropped the F-bomb. I thought I just didn't hear her right, but then she just kept repeating it over and over and over again. I asked her where she learned that word."
Travis tries to blame me, of course, but Lauren said it was her DADDY!!

While working on flashcards at Gwen's house, she gets a 1/2 of a Mike&Ike when she gets a few right. In typical Lauren fashion, when she gets bored she starts acting like a goof. Gwen says "you know Lauren, the more you learn the more candy you get."
Lauren thinks for a second and says "ohhhh yeah, but don't tell my Mom."

While riding her bike at Grandma Debbie's house the other night, she drove it right into the rocks. I said "Lauren, you big goof, why'd you do that?"
She looks at me kind of funny and says "Mom, I can't ride my bike and talk at the same time."

As we're getting ready for a tubby last night, she takes her pants off and says "look at my butt." I say "what a cute butt you have Lauren".
She says "and Daddy has a butt and Jock has a butt and you have a BIG butt."

As I'm taking a shower this morning (and Travis is at the hospital with his Papa) I hear this sort of scratching noise on the wall. Not thinking too much about it, I simply ask Lauren what she's doing.
She says "I'm drawing you a picture with my crayon! Come see!"
As I'm hurrying to get the soap out of my hair, I'm yelling at her to stop coloring on the wall and to get into the bathroom (where I can see her).
She yells back "but I can't. I pooped in my pants!"
I ask her why she did that when the toilet is 2 feet away.
She tells me "cuz I was busy coloring."

Stay tuned..there are plenty more stories to come!

All You Need Is Love...or COFFEE!

This past week was one for the record books. After having a really sick kid last week and barely getting ANY sleep, I found it even harder this week to catch up on it all. First, we had a "falling out", if you will, with the director at Lauren's previous daycare. It's a long story and a bit messy, but we decided NOT to send her back there after her sick week last week. So, that meant we had to find someone to watch her all week.



My awesome brother and sister in law asked their daycare provider if she had room this week for Lauren and it turns out she did! Lauren got to spend all week with her cousins Boone and Brody at Angie's house and she had a blast! On Monday, they started out with their daily trip to the bus stop (down the street from Angie's house) to get Boone and Ian on the school bus. Lauren was fascinated by this, and even kept telling everyone that Boone rides the short bus...and that she does too! Ha! I think they even made a trip to the doctor's office for Angie's little boy who was sick. Apparently she did great and had a ton of fun because she wouldn't stop talking about it all night.



Tuesday morning when she woke up she was all about getting to Angie's so she could walk Boone to the school bus again. This kid has never been so excited to get to daycare in the morning! It was a piece of cake getting out the door! I can't remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday that they took a field trip to the high school to listen to Angie's daughter speak...but she had fun doing that too. They also went to the library one day and got stories read to them and got to check everything out.



Friday was THE day though. I knew Lauren was going to be sad to leave because she'd had so much fun all week. Angie's neighbor has a "monster" truck of some sort, or maybe it's called a mud bogger, but Lauren got to sit in it and "drive" it. OMG! She was soooooo stoked!

Welcome to the SICK House...

The past few days have been absolutely horrible and I would rather forget about them, but the purpose of this blog (besides to update family and friends on our life) is to have something to look back on and remember the good and bad times. This is deffinately one of those bad times.

Lauren has been fighting a sickness for about 3 weeks now. Poor thing had RSV last year and ever since then, every time she catches a cold it goes straight into her chest and she has been diagnosed as having asthma. Poor girl! On top of that, she is UNlucky enough to have 2 parents who have severe allergies and is now fighting a sinus infection. Dr. Walker said 2 more weeks of antibiotics and breathing treatments at least twice a day. Everything was going well, and then BAM!

I got a phone call while I was at work on Tuesday morning. It was Lauren's daycare. She was running a fever and needed to be picked up immediately. I called Travis and he left work to go pick her up. He even took our thermometer so he could check her temp himself. When he got there, she was down for her nap and had a 102.6 fever! When I got home that night she was just miserable and kept saying her tummy hurt. Then she seemed to be feeling better, still running a fever and all, but actually playing and acting fairly normal. She FINALLY fell asleep around 10:oo and was cuddled up in bed with me...so I could monitor her fever throughout the night. I remember looking at the clock and it was midnight. Lauren was sitting up next to me just sort of looking at me. I asked her what was wrong, and I don't think she was even really awake. Then she threw up. ALL over me, all over her, and all over the bed. Then the tears came. Got her in the tub while Travis cleared the bedding off the bed and made us a new temporary bed with blankets. After both of us were cleaned up, we were back in bed and asleep in no time. I decided to sleep at the foot of the bed. Just in case.

In the morning, she was still running a fever of 103 and didn't want me to even touch her. After an agonizing 10 minutes on the potty, she just wanted to lay down and go back to sleep. Thank GOD for my Mom being able to stay home yesterday to watch our angel for us. She had to deal with a VERY pukey (literally), VERY sick little girl. In fact, she wasn't aware that so much could come out of a little girl like that. However, she seemed to have turned a corner and is now feeling a LOT better. She hasn't thrown up for over 12 hours, she's been able to keep down bananas and toast and Pedialyte, and she's been pretty ornery today (one sign I KNOW for SURE means she is feeling better).