Drive

We used to go on drives all the time, but when I got pregnant they weren't as often since the car made me sick sometimes, and when Sawyer was born it was even harder.  He did well when he was little of course, but getting older it is hard to have him sit still for so long.  It loses the relaxation when he is yelling from the back seat.

That is why I was excited that Andy was able to go for a drive today!  Well, I had to drive since he was feeling so crappy, but still good.  Sawyer was ready for a nap when we left which was perfect.  I wanted to go enjoy the sun!

We headed south on meridian.  I just LOVE Graham!  It is funny how 3 minutes in one direction will take us to all sorts of stores and restaurants, but 3 minutes the other takes you to big farms with signs selling hay, chickens, and "weaning pigs".  We drove through the woods with the windows down and ended up in Elbe to let Sawyer look at the trains.  A bunch of bikers had just gone to the burger stand so it would have been a really long wait, so we actually ate on the train restaurant.  Poor Sawyer looked awful though, the Tamiflu gets him super loopy.  We had fun though, and the train gave me free dessert for mother's day!

These are out of order because of how I named them, but you get the idea lol.  Elbe is such a cute little town in the middle of nowhere.

That maroon train is where we ate

Free dessert

My favorite kind of fries

This train left right after we took this

He likes to push the buttons down

Loopy 

When we got back Andy mowed the lawn (in like 3 minutes- heck yes!) I cleaned out the car for Andy and he put the grill together YAY!!!  Excited to throw some steaks and burgers on there asap!

Our little side patch is just funny, I'm not sure why they bothered putting grass there at all

Up and running!  

Home is where the flu is

Ohhh man.  It is here in all of us.

Andy hasn't gotten any better since Saturday.  He even had to go to Portland this week for work so it was just me and Sawyer one night.

Sawyer is about the same but his cough is worse.  He is still pretty chipper considering.  He won't eat much though.

I just got it today.  I drank a couple airbornes today in an attempt to stop it, but by tonight my entire body hurts bad and my throat hurts.

We visited the doctor yesterday.  Andy tested positive for the flu, and Sawyer's swab was sent in for pertussis (whooping cough) since his cough sounded so bad and it is really going around in WA right now (declared an epidemic here.)  They prescribed Sawyer Tamiflu because it was early enough in his illness to be effective, but since he has thrown it up last night seconds later, kept it down this morning at the babysitter (though he actually ate for her this morning so I think that is why), and then just threw up tonight's dose.  The kicker is that it was $93 after insurance...which is frustrating cleaning it off the couch especially since we are going on our vacation in less than 2 weeks.  The doctor office itself was miserable too because Sawyer didn't like them checking his ears and threw a fit, and Andy said the nose swab was like the most uncomfortable thing he's felt.

I was worried Sawyer would have issues so I slept on his floor on an air mattress in case he had a problem.  I am really hoping it isn't whooping cough! We are going to humidify his room tonight to try and help his awful cough.

Bleh.

Here are some pictures I took before I fell ill.

Sawyer with Aflack

Trying to get him some Vitamin D

Andy wiping his nose and Sawyer being miserable

Sawyer mid sneeze

Distracting him with the front-facing camera while we wait

Here are a few I took of the Spring to end on a good note. I normally don't take nature pictures but wanted to get some sun.

Little Sicky

Unfortunately Sawyer wasn't doing so well this morning so he stayed away from daycare.  My mom was nice enough to take him, and I had to work only a half day.  He had a fever in the morning and though he looked happy, he would randomly lay down on the floor every so often.

My mom let us borrow Cars 2, so he laid on the couch most of the day and we watched that a few times.  He eventually fell asleep for a little while.

Little bubbles

He woke up and tried to be happy, but he still looked so worn out all day.

He got hungry and asked for fruit, but when I gave it to him he just stared at it.  I asked him if he wanted broccoli and he did so I threw that in and then he wouldn't eat anything until that was done.  I even made him a sandwich that got wasted.  It was so sad when he tried to eat the broccoli, because it is really hard to stick the fork into so he tried for minutes and was getting nowhere...plus his little hands were kind of shaky.  I ended up having to stick the pieces for him (it took me a few tries each piece lol) and he was so grateful he said thank you each time I handed it to him lol.  He ate half the bag himself :)  Here he is looking like a poor zombie.

I decided it was best for him to have a bath to clean him off and give him steam in case he starts to get croup (he has been getting a cough so I am worried).  He had fun but he was so cold he got out early and had goosebumps :(

He doesn't want to go to bed so I told him he could sleep on the couch while I watch TV and if he leaves he is going to his crib so he crawled up nicely and fell asleep.  Andy is in Portland for the today and tomorrow so we are missing him now...he still sounds awful by the way too :(  I am hoping they both feel better by the weekend (which is supposed to be summer weather) and that I don't catch this!

Secret Smarty

They say you aren't supposed to push your kids into learning- it can cause emotional stress and give them all sorts of issues.  I didn't want to force reading on Sawyer early because I heard that is pretty stressful to learn, and even kindergarten is before their brains are ready according to my early childhood education class (though now you have to read entering kindergarten or you are behind they say.)

I think they have something going though.  We don't really try to teach Sawyer things, we just sing him the alphabet song and count along with the TV shows, but we don't sit him down or anything and force him to try to learn stuff.  There are 2 instances within the past 3 days that I can vouch for this though.

First was at Andy's aunt's house on Saturday.  They have a big fish tank and I counted the fish and said the colors to Sawyer as he watched them swim.  I asked if he could count the fish and he went "1, 2, 3...x...y..." and we laughed.  Andy and I started talking and doing other things while Sawyer watched the fish.  We suddenly realized Sawyer was counting...he counted all the way to 10!  When we let him alone, he does what he wants and doesn't feel stressed.

The second thing was Sunday.  I brought up the books we got at the yard sale and the puzzle to show Andy who was sick in bed.  I showed Sawyer the puzzle and gave it to him.  I took the pieces out to see if he could do it (not expecting anything) and said "can you do a puzzle?"  He started shoving the letters in all the wrong spots.  I put them all away myself and Sawyer took the puzzle and tried to walk it to the stairs.  He spilled out ALL the letters.  I left him with the puzzle for a minute while I talked to Andy.  I came back out and he had put about 1/3 of the letters in their right spot already and was working on the rest.  I did a little experiment and tried to get him to do the puzzle later and he put them in the wrong spot again, but when I stop telling him to do it and he plays with the puzzle on his own, he puts all the letters straight in the right spots.  It is so weird!

I am hoping this is just proving the point that you shouldn't pressure kids into learning before they are ready, and not proving that he will have test anxiety in the future lol.

P.S. Sawyer has had the runniest nose and even a fever today, but he has been in high spirits and jumping all over the place.  Andy actually made it in to work today which is good, but he is still sick with something else.

Eat Your Vegetables

We are such a healthy eating family.  This was my lunch today...which I must add was incredibly delicious I wanted to keep eating.

It is 2 kinds of gelato I found on sale (raspberry with dark chocolate flakes and caramel sea salt), Mt Dew, a fish and rice Lean Cuisine (hey, healthy!), and ritz bitz sandwiches.  You will be proud to see I just took a little off the top of each gelato and am keeping it in my work freezer for daily eats.

Oh, and we can't forget the fact that my not-even-two-year-old was drinking half of my Mt. Dew in the car on the way home.

Ok I must explain myself on that one.  Sawyer was hungry so I was giving him ritz but he inhaled a crumb or something and starting coughing with little tears so I gave him the only thing I had to drink to get it down...then he wouldn't give it back and you can't wrestle a toddler in rush hour traffic in a moving vehicle so he drank the rest.

See, the thing is, I don't really like vegetables much.  If I eat them, I am still starving.  A small burger will fill me up more than a plate of vegetables.  Plus they don't taste as good.  We are trying to get better though so we bought in on a CSA share with my parents.  If you don't know what that is, it is "community supported agriculture" where you pay a farm an amount of money and you go there weekly to pick up a box of produce.  They even have an exchange box so if you hate something they include that week you can exchange it for something "better".  It is even organic (they just aren't "certified" yet but practice all organic practices.)  I am hoping with all the fresh herbs and vegetables we will try some tasty recipes that have vegetables in them since we already paid for it and my mom is going to pick up the box so we don't have to go out of our way to buy them.  I am confident it will help!

The 'Couv and a sick day

Yesterday we headed down to Vancouver to hang out with the Monsons (well, none of them are actually "Monson" anymore except his grandparents lol ANYWAY...

First up was Andy's cousin's baptism.  We arrived at the church at EXACTLY 3:00 when it was scheduled to start.  That is pretty impressive because it is a little over 2 hours away so we timed it right lol (maybe too close).  We sat down in the room but Sawyer had other plans and started wiggling so he spent all the time in the hallway. It was actually funny because after the actual baptism which we let him watch, he kept saying "bath! bath!"

Afterwards we ate some delicious cookies and chocolate covered strawberries and headed to Aunt Kristi's to eat.  Even though it was Cinco De Mayo, we had 3 kinds of lasagna lol.  It was fun to hang out as usual down there because his aunts are like the most hilarious people, and his grandparents were up from Utah, his cousins visiting from college, and his aunt Kathy up from California.  We also got to hear funny stories of his Aunt Karla who teaches high school Junior English and one of her classes a couple times a month will play a trick on her for example: at a certain time, they all fell over "dead" until she said the secret word (she didn't even figure out what the word was).  Another time they all came dressed as mormons and paired their desks in twos.  Yet another time when she stepped out to make copies they had spiderwebbed the room in string, and the last one she told us of was they hid as many kids as they could in various furniture and popped out randomly throughout class (joke was on them, she had marked them absent).

After we ate we all scrambled into cars and headed to Skyview HS because Preston was the lead male in his school's production of "Kiss Me Kate".  The play and Preston were hilarious!  Luckily with the swearing/adult content of the play they didn't want Garrett fresh from baptism to go so Uncle Ben watched Sawyer for us.  We got back and said our goodbyes and got home about 12:30.

This morning was no bueno.  I woke up to find Andy downstairs and sick as a dog!  It came out of nowhere! He couldn't really move much so I took Sawyer out of the house and headed to my parents.  The at-home daycare up the street was retiring and she had a yard sale.  We got some books, a puzzle, and a baby golf set all for $5 as well as a slide and picnic table for Sawyer for another $10.

We got back and my dad noticed the truck hadn't drained out the rainwater so he threw Sawyer in.  He was sliding and falling all over, it was really funny though and he loved it.  He had to bathe in a bucket afterwards and streaked for awhile around the yard.  He even tried to go down his new slide in the nude which cracked me and my dad up so much I could barely take a picture.

I think the dinosaur book is probably worth $20 on its own

We went for a walk at the Rogers park, then had BBQ hamburgers and watched Cars 2.  We brought Andy some 7up and orange juice and hope he starts to feel better tomorrow :(

Mommy and me day

I can't believe how busy we always are.  I am glad I found a time to post this before I forgot, even if it is a bit late.  Anyway...

Tuesday Andy went to Skagit Valley area to learn and study for one of his tests he needs for his job, and he was staying up there for the night.  It was also inventory day for me so I was getting off at 1:00.  This meant it was Sawyer and mommy day with nothing to do since I didn't want to try to take Sawyer to practice with me (they cancelled it later anyways since too many people weren't going).  We don't have a lot of "nothing to do" time around the Monson house.

I was excited to spend all day with him because he has been so sweet lately.  He doesn't throw fits unless it is in a store we won't let him run in and that hasn't happened in awhile.  I picked him up from my mom's house and he was sleeping on the floor.  I pulled out some blankets and laid on the couch (awesome).  He woke up like 40 minutes later. I asked him if he was hungry and he said no, but I knew once he saw food he would be.

We got taco time and shared.  It was so cute, he ate most of my tots and we alternated bites.  Then we watched 2 Sesame Streets, and 3 Super Whys.  I decided I should probably tackle some of the chores we don't have time for.  I cleaned our bathroom and did laundry.  We had piles of clothes in the hallway because all we normally have time to do is throw it in at night and the dryer as we sleep.  We end up doing that over and over and the dry ones just end up in piles in the hallway (luckily our laundry room is upstairs where nobody goes at the back of the house).   I folded piles and did like 3 more loads. Sawyer messed up my piles while jumping on the bed...a lot.  I had to create some bumpers by our night stand so he didn't hit them because he likes to jump off our bed.  He also likes to dive head-first off the end into the pile of clothes that we don't have anywhere for yet.  (Yes our walk-in closet is huge but it only holds my clothes LOL)

I must add that the whole time he wore this hideous girls shirt my mom got just to keep him warm at like the Good Will or something but he would NOT let me take it off him whatsoever.

I have to add that every day when we ask Sawyer if it is time for bed, he will say "ni-ni, no" and crawl up next to me on the couch and lay there with me while we watch our shows.  He will lay there silently for 2 hours even.  If he starts to wiggle we can just say "are you ready for ni-night?" and he will be silent again.  Well I put him in his crib for bed and he gave me the saddest look ever so I decided to let him sleep with me that night.  He tried to wiggle once and I said "want to go in your bed?" and he stopped.  He wanted the middle of my pillow though so he almost pushed me off.  Plus I kept waking up to pull him back to a safer spot on the bed but I liked that he slept until our alarm went off the next morning at 8!

Here are our pics from our day. We missed Andy (he kept running to the door yelling "DADDY?" if he heard the wind outside, and when he woke up he looked so sad when I said daddy wasn't there as he tried to claw under the door for him, but we had fun on our own!

A break to watch bob-bob

Andy's pile o'clothes he jumps head first into