And The Winner Is...

A few weeks ago, John brought home an entry form for a contest at work. Kids up to age 12 could submit drawings that showed "safety" in some capacity (car, sports, work, etc). Winners would be chosen to be featured in the Skanska 2013 Safety Calendar and receive $50. We encouraged both boys to submit drawings, but Nathan wasn't interested. So we submitted Aiden's and then didn't think anymore about it.

Well, John came home this afternoon with the news that Aiden had won the Grand Prize! He received a blue ribbon, $100 instead of $50, and his artwork is featured on the cover of the calendar. Aiden was in shock!

(Click on any picture to enlarge it)

His certificate and "Grand Champion" ribbon.

His artwork on the cover.

And the artist's name and age on the cover (he submitted it before his birthday, so that's why it says he's six).

What an exciting day!

Experimental

Aiden likes to do experiments. Lots and lots of experiments. He often does them by himself - without explaining to me what exactly he's trying to achieve. I found yet another experiment as I went into their bathroom this evening to get toothbrushes.

In a sink half full of water there is a broken clothes pin, an earplug, and a leaf with five pennies on it.

I can only imagine that he was trying to figure out what would sink and what would float, but the randomness of this one really cracked me up.

Camp Tilikum

The day after the baby shower we had the opportunity to go out to Camp Tilikum, a local Christian camp and retreat center. While there was a big part of me that was exhausted and wanted to stay home, we didn't want to miss out on having lots of fun with our former church. We don't get to see those folks on a regular basis now that we attend a church closer to us, so it was nice to talk and relax with them for an afternoon.

After a packed lunch, we headed down to the lake to do some canoeing. Being on the water was extremely peaceful and no one fell in!

Nathan went with grandpa.

 Wasn't it a gorgeous day?

After a hike around the lake with Laura, we headed to the big swing. Aiden was super excited and was the first to give it a try!

 Ready, set....GO! And he flew through the forest! He loved every minute of it!

 Next, it was Laura's turn.

 And then grandpa's turn!

 This is what Nathan thought of the whole thing. "Don't you dare put me on that swing."

 And just as we were thinking about getting ready to go, Nathan was stung by a wasp. So we did the outdoorsy thing and put mud on it. Thankfully Nathan isn't bothered by stings very much (he let out an annoyed yelp, but was otherwise fine). No tears, even though his arm gets fairly red and swollen. As you can see by his face, he was simply frustrated that we had to put mud on him.

All in all, it was a fun day and the boys were fast asleep within a few minutes in the car.

Baby Shower

A month ago (I told you I was behind on blogging!), my sister-in-law Laura and I put on a baby shower for my other sister-in-law, Carrie. In case you aren't familiar with that side of the family, my husband's brother's wife is also named Carrie and I think we've gotten past the confusion it can cause. Mostly. :^)

We were able to rent out the Lake Oswego Heritage House again, and once Laura and I settled on a theme, we were ready for a beautiful little shower. Our theme was yellow and grey, even though we knew the baby's gender. I put together some invitations - although I will tell you that I was wishing I had one of those old fashioned gigantic paper chopper things that teachers use. Cutting large rectangles out with scissors is not effective nor do you get straight lines. But I think they turned out ok and it was fun coming up with a design.

Finally the day arrived and we had so much fun putting the room together.

The food was quite yummy and good looking, if I do say so myself. We did get asked who catered the event, so I think that means it was a success!

We had an amazing turn out and it was so wonderful to have so many family and friends in one place to celebrate Brady and Carrie's little one.

 We are so excited for the arrival of the newest Minthorne baby, and I personally can't wait to be an Aunt for the first time! That little baby is so very, very loved.

When a Tree Falls

When a tree falls, or rather tree branches....multiple times....that tree needs to be taken care of.

Remember last year when the tree in our front yard lost a branch and it blocked the road? Well, almost exactly a year later, it lost another branch. This time it didn't fall across the road, but fell on my car. It narrowly missed breaking the back window, but gave it a decent scratching, a large dent, and pushed some of the rubber (?) siding stuff out of place.

This time it just blocked my driveway.

So the same tree guy came out, got out of his truck, and immediately said, "Isn't this the same tree I said needed to be removed last year?". Yep, that would be it. Except our HOA doesn't like to move quickly on anything. Ultimately, he said the tree HAD to be removed before it started raining again or else we'd have branches falling into the house, our car, and the neighbor's car. But again, the HOA is slow as molasses. After numerous phone calls over a week and a half, stressing that we were going to have significant property damage on our hands if we didn't take the tree out, we were able to get emergency approval from the management company (not the HOA itself but the people who work for them). That was good enough for us, so out it came!

Now my yard looks weird and empty.

And Aiden was very interested in the stump.

Here's another before (from when we bought the house) and after to compare.

We have so much more natural light coming through the front of the house, the yard guys don't have to clean up massive amounts of leaves every Friday, and I don't have to deal with my car being covered in bird poo constantly. The whole tree removing process was amazingly fast. From the time they arrived to the time they left totaled about 15 minutes. And the rains started the very next morning. Whew!

I am so happy to have that tree gone. Although now it is painfully obvious that the trim on the house needs to be painted. And that will need to wait until next summer.

Buster to the Rescue

This afternoon, I was upstairs on the computer when I heard Buster from the backyard, barking his head off and scratching at the back door. Now, Buster tends to bark a lot when he's outside if he hears the UPS truck or children playing, but this wasn't his normal yappy bark. This was his "there's trouble" bark. Yes, he has different barks. He tends to give his "there's trouble" bark when the boys have gotten into a little fistfight and he's trying to stop it.

So I ran downstairs and opened up the back door. Buster and Honeydew had been out in the back for about 20 minutes at that point, but Honeydew was nowhere to be seen. The back gate stood wide open. Buster stood there on the deck, barking at me. It wasn't until later that it really occurred to me that he had not run out of the open gate, but had stayed there on the back porch barking until I came to see what the trouble was. What a good, smart doggy!

Yes, this dog. What, you mean he doesn't look like a genius?

I'm sure you want to know what happened with Honeydew. I got Buster inside and then ran out the front door, calling her name up and down the street. I had no idea how long she'd been gone (no more than 20 minutes, but that still provides a big head start) or where she'd gone. We live about two blocks away from a busy road and I was afraid of what I might find if I headed that way. After a few minutes of walking around, a kid came running up to me. "Have you seen a brown chihuahua?", he asked. I said, "No, but I'm looking for a dog too. Have you seen a black lab?". He said yes and that a couple of people had taken her, saying that they were going to try to find the owners and he would help me find their house. It took a few minutes, but he lead me to the right house where a nice high school girl had Honeydew and was giving her some water. I thanked her profusely and then somehow managed to wrestle a very wiggly lab back to our house with no leash and a broken wrist.

What an adventure. Honeydew is microchipped, but doesn't have a tag on her collar with our name and number on it, so the only way someone could have contacted us is by taking her to a vet or shelter and having her scanned. I was panicking since I didn't know if anyone would do that, or where I should look for her at all, so I was massively grateful that someone had seen her and knew where she was. I was also grateful that Buster had gotten my attention. It was a nice afternoon and it's not uncommon for the dogs to stay out in the back yard for quite a while when the weather is nice. It's also not uncommon for Buster to make a break for it when he has the opportunity. Then we would have had two missing dogs, and they would have been potentially been gone for a long time before we noticed.

We now have a "To Do" list: Get a lock for the back gate (this is the second time that it's somehow gotten open), and get a tag for Honeydew's collar with our number on it. I don't want to have to deal with a missing dog again!

Happy Birthday, Aiden!

Aiden turned 7 today. I'm still not sure how my first born is 7 years old already.

We had a normal day of school, then part of the tree in our front yard fell on my car (another post), then once John got home from work, we headed to the mall for dinner and a surprise.

You see, Aiden has been saving money for over a year to buy an iPad for himself. All allowance and any other money he could earn or received from birthday,Christmas, or tooth fairy went straight into the iPad fund. We had discussed buying him a new bike for his birthday, but when we realized how much he had saved, it was going to cost less to cover the remaining amount needed for the iPad.

We didn't tell him until we walked up outside the Apple store. I said, "Hey Aiden, I think this store sells iPads. Should we go in and buy one?" He stood there, frozen. Trying to make sure he'd heard/understood, I said, "Aiden, we're here to buy you your iPad for your birthday". He immediately burst into tears and collapsed on the floor. He was wailing, "Thank you! Thank you!" and that made quite a few people stare, but hey, my kid was happy.

After a couple rounds of calming down and then bursting into tears all over again, we had purchased the iPad and then headed over the the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, where the waitstaff sang Happy Birthday to him and gave him a sundae. It was a good evening and Aiden said it was the best birthday ever.

Happy birthday, little bug. We love you so much!

Sometimes Life Just Sucks

I try to keep a fairly upbeat tone to my blog. Don't want to look like a total whiner now, do I? But sometimes life sucks, and having a little gripe session is all you can do. So here's a whining post. After this, I'll move on to happier things - I promise!

I will admit it: I'm completely overwhelmed by school and it's only the 2nd week. I can't keep up with housework, I'm constantly behind on stuff for the preschool, I've not been feeling 100%, and my to-do list doesn't ever seem to get any shorter. This was really enough to keep me constantly stressed already and then what happens? I break my wrist.

Yes, I broke it. I had a little run-in with our 50 lb lab puppy, which ended with the wrist that I broke 10 years ago getting broken again. I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm in excruciating pain. I can barely type (I'm doing this one-handed), which makes homework difficult. And standard household with kids stuff really requires two hands, so that's taking an even bigger hit.
I'm not in a cast, since the fracture is small and the doctor wanted to reduce my chances of needing physical therapy later. So I'm in a wrist splint (which I do wear while sleeping), which allows me to remove it and do small wrist rotations once or twice per day. That should keep it from losing too much range of motion. We're going to see how I'm doing in two weeks, but I'm to expect the horrible level of pain to keep up for at least 10-14 days.

I've been in tears from frustration and pain multiple times today. This stinks. I am trying to remember that this is temporary and there are many people out there with way more awful things health-wise, but that doesn't take away how much pain I'm in at the moment. I do occasionally find solace in the fact that this won't last and I am grateful for that. I just really hope and pray that it heals quickly and properly. As I had pointed out to me, 10 years makes a big difference with bones. I'm older now and breaks can be much more painful and harder to heal. Let's hope this is the last break for my poor little wrist.