Remember when.....Part 1

Hey kids, this is daddy. I'm starting a new segment for your blog to remind you of funny/embarrassing things you did as a kid. OK, mostly embarrassing things. Embarrassing as you read them as a teenager, that is. Of course, you won't really remember these events, but I'll do my best to record and report these events as they happen. ;)

So, here goes. Tyson, you are up first. This first segment is all about you. And we are in the midst of potty training you, so guess what it's about. Ha ha ha ha.

- Tyson, remember the time you peed in your favorite store, Home Depot. It was right next to the orbital and belt sanders. A big puddle. You have this thing about peeing in your pants when your upset for getting trouble or not getting your way. I really hope you work at that Home Depot someday. Maybe when you're in high school. I'll be sure to show you where you marked your territory. :)

- Tyson, remember the time you dropped a deuce (aka "doodied") in your bedroom. It was right after your afternoon nap. I opened your door to let you know your nap was over and the smell just about knocked me out. Then, in a pile, behind the vacuum next to your closet lay the source of the smell. You were wearing sweatpants, but no underwear or diaper. Apparently it slid down your leg into a prefect pile on your floor. Ewwwww! :)

That's all for now. But there will be more. There will be more. Ha ha. Don't think your safe from this Kaiya just because your a girl. Your time will come. Oh, the memories...

Colds, Flu and Feeling Crummy - Part I

It seems colds and flus are already in full swing and winter hasn't even started!! Fortunately we haven't had the flu yet, but a certain cold has worked its way through each one of us.

I have found these two books to be super resourceful when it comes to dealing with health issues that hit our family.

The first one is Gentle Healing for Baby and Child by Andrea Candee. We found it when Tyson was little and dealing with reflux and we were hoping to find a way to deal with it without using zantac. It has become our go-to when we're feeling 'off'. It's great since it's geared toward kids, but of course can be used for adults too. I'll share a recipe for a sore throat soother from page 87 that we love. Thyme is antimicrobial and an expectorant. Honey soothes and preserves. Hopefully it will be beneficial for your family too!

• Steep 1 oz dried thyme in 1 cup of boiling water, covered, until cooled.
• Strain; mix the liquid with 1 cup honey. Mix well.
• Store in a closed glass container in your fridge. It keeps well for several months.
• Give undiluted doses of 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp several times a day as needed.

Nursing moms: Please be mindful that using herbs to help reduce congestion and fluids can also reduce your milk supply. That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't use them. Continue to drink lots of water and talk with your health care provider or lactation consultant if you have any questions or concerns.

Note: Dried thyme from a natural foods section/store is much more fragrant, colorful, and medicinal. Last year I used what I had bought from the supermarket in a hurry and it came out pretty bitter. This year's batch is made with natural dried thyme and is much better!! Also, it is a good idea to sanitize the jar/lid by boiling it in a pot of water first. Honey will not grow mold, but mold can grow on the glass jar if not cleaned properly before storage. Also another mistake in my haste to make it last year!

The thyme/water infusion after it has cooled

The final product - a spoonful of sugar is the medicine!

How do you take a nap....

when your toes are in the way?

Kids...

Shoppin'

Tyson loves Home Depot. Loves it. Today he went with Jason after his nap. When he heard they were going to Home Depot his eyes lit up "Tools there!!".

When they got back he ran over to me and said, "Go..Home Depot..Daddy!"
I said, "What did you get?"
He said, "Tools!"

Happy boy, happy daddy!

October 2009

Sentences.

"Eat own food. Not Tyson's food."

Says Tyson to Jada as she was sniffing around his chair while he was eating dinner tonight.

This is the first time I've heard him put two sentences together.

WOW!

Leftovers!

This is a Tenisha blog...I just need to record this in case I ever need to look back and remember it.

So, I'm not very good at making rice and beans, though everywhere I go and have them I love it. After attempting to make it the other day I had waaaay too much leftover. I had used 2 cups of rice (uncooked, whoops!) and 1 can of black beans and 1 can of diced tomatoes. Way to heavy on the rice. But I choked a bit of it down. Tyson gave a courtesy bite and didn't like it. I didn't blame him.

But..

Tonight I fixed it!! I had some precut pork in the freezer (from batch preparing about 8 lbs of it). So I stir fried it, added a few cups of unbalanced rice and bean mix and a 2/3 of a can of corn. Also threw in more cumin and a big dash of..get this...CINNAMON! Mixed it all together and we topped it with some shredded cheese and added a handful of stale tortilla chips. It was really pretty good! Tyson ate it all and almost asked for more, then decided he wanted to go play.
For the record Tyson does not like to eat:

Corn

Tomatoes

Beans

Yet for some reason he ate it all, heaping spoonful by spoonful. It was the cinnamon I think.

YUM!

Now, I wouldn't go out of my way to make this..it's not that good of a meal. But it is good for using leftover rice and beans and creating some new flavor with them. Chicken, of course, would be a good substitute as well.

If you happen to be reading this and have any good rice and bean recipes I would love to hear of them! I decided to freeze the rest of the rice and bean mix...maybe something else wonderful can be made with it...or maybe I'll just make this again.

Kaiya's birth day

On our way to the hospital we were joking about making this day of labor and delivery like an episode of 24 thinking that it would be a long drawn out process. Little did we know the plan for our day would be completely the opposite of that!!


My doctor had kindly scheduled me for an induction, I say that because after 6 weeks of being in the first stage of labor I was ready to move on. All the walks, teas, jumping jacks and running around the baseball infield was not making labor happen any faster. She wanted us to be prepared though, that even though I was going to be induced we could still be sent home after 24 hrs. if nothing was changing.


We arrived a little late..around 6:10, which was fine as it is the night shift that checks you in and then the day shift (7 am) that gets things started. The nice thing about having a set time was that we were rested (somewhat, someone was setting off fireworks in the park until midnight) and we had eaten breakfast. Compared to my first labor this was already a huge plus. The plan was to start the pitocin at 2 mL/hr and up it every half hour in order to get the contractions stronger and consistent at 5 min apart. And so we began.





At 8 am the pitocin was started along with saline which as it turns out, gave Kaiya and me a nice round puffy look for the next few days...:O)





At 8:30 am the dose was upped to 4 mL/hr. Not much change and these were the same strength as I had been feeling at home. Not really painful, just a bit uncomfortable.








The bottom black line shows the strength and length of contractions. The red line on top is trying to keep track of Kaiya's heartbeat and movement.


At 9:00 am I was going to ask the RN to keep the pitocin at that level to see if the contractions would keep going without much help, but my water broke! So then the painful, horrible, real contractions kicked in.


This is the part I thought would be long and drawn out. But, at 10:18 am Kaiya was born!




She was very blue at first, apparently she had been a little stressed flying out so fast, but gave a big hearty cry and by 1 min her first APGAR score was 9! At 5 min it was a 10. There was a baby team in there initially to help with her entrance into this world in case she had inhaled the meconium, but they must not have stayed there long because I never even saw them. She was doing great!




We had been praying for a safe and smooth labor and delivery and God definitely granted us that! I had energy after and was just amazed all day that it was over and done with so quickly. According to the RN I wasn't really induced, just nudged, since we only had to turn it up once. :O)

Tyson meets Kaiya

He's waiting to meet this 'new baby' that's arrived...little does he know, life will never be the same again!





He is quickly finding out 'life is never going to be the same again'. He's not really sure about this 'baby' everyone seems to be interested in.




Time with Papa - without the baby.



Wanting to be anywhere else in the room but this close to the baby.



Would rather not be looking at the baby.

Since those first few weeks Tyson has since become quite comfortable with poking her eyes, lifting her head up and jumping on couch cushions while she is laying on them...

Whew! :O)

Kaiya Annemarie

Our beautiful baby girl was born on Sunday June 28, 2009 at 10:18 am. We are home resting and spending family time together. More stories and pics to come.

Good Pickin's

Today we went to the farm down the road and picked strawberries for a half an hour or so. It was really fun! There were tons of big, ripe, red berries just waiting to be picked (or eaten, some of them never even made it into the bucket). Tyson was a great picker, way more into it this year, of course, now that he's a big 2 year old!

"let's see if they're any good..."

3 lbs of good!!

sneakin' a ride on the tractor.

When we got home we made a delicious smoothie...Yum!

"A Humming Bird"

Tyson has been saying this all evening and wanted to look at pictures of them. Then he asked to see pictures of himself so we thought we would combine the two and share this picture of a humming bird with you all! This was his favorite.

Back to the Beginning..

Today's lunchtime conversation was about the birds we could hear in the backyard preparing for the gigantic thunderstorm we had this afternoon. There was a flock of bluejays, I have never seen that many in the same place at the same time, and they were really loud.

The dialogue went something like this:
Tyson : Caw Caw
Me: Yep, there are birds in the backyard
Tyson: Birds? (though his 'r' isn't very strong..)
Me: Yes lots of birds
Tyson: Teacock? (translation: Peacock)
Me: No, not Peacocks. Blue Birds.
Tyson: Caw Caw

The End.

Weekend Update..

This past weekend was all about Baby!! For the past few weeks I have had ongoing contractions that I assumed were Braxton-Hicks contractions and at my OB appts told the doctor about them. Every time she asks "Are they more than 4 an hour? Does it last longer than 2 hours?" The answer is always Yes. She then tells me, repeatedly, that I need to call Labor and Delivery if that's the case and go in for an evaluation. My response would be "When they get more painful." And she would say "If you are having more than 4 an hour for 2 hrs...." So finally this past Friday afternoon I had been having "more than 4 an hour for 2 hrs.." so we decided to go in for evaluation. We also already knew that the contractions were not just Braxton-Hicks and were doing something because she had checked last week and I had already started dilating. We had to wait a long time, I guess all the sunny weather had gotten babies ready to come out, so by the time it came to shift change guess who the doctor was to come see me?! My very own! So that was cool, plus she got to see that I did finally follow her advice :O).

Well, I guess I was having way too many for them to be comfortable with, but the baby was having a grand ol' time moving around and had a great heartbeat going as well...(Tyson had a fun time dancing to it). We got to have an ultrasound to make sure everything was ok inside and the baby was soooo cute! (Ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hands, everything was moving and looked pretty clear!) Can't wait to meet him/her!

1. One of the options was transferring me to St. Vincent since they birth preemies (wasn't anything 'wrong' with the baby, just that it was a too early to be born.)
2. Another option was giving me a blood pressure medication to stop the contractions.
3. Another was giving me a steriod injection to help the baby's lungs develop quicker and then doing one of the first two options.

Fortunately the baby specialists thought the baby would be fine and said that the steriods were not needed. (And I still wasn't in active labor!! Just having a lot of contractions and continuing to dilate). The decision was then that I would take the bp med and stay an hour to see if the contractions would stop. They did slow down significantly, didn't stop altogether, but enough that the dr. felt comfortable with me going home. She did give me the option to spend the night if I wanted. Uh..as fun as that would have been...No. The side effects were HORRIBLE, but then all day Sat it was actually pretty nice not to have a contraction every 5-9 min.

We did go back for an evaluation on Sun evening as contractions had been going every 9 min for over 4 hrs, but I am now at a point where they are comfortable with the baby delivering normally if it comes to that. Obviously it will be best if it stays put for 3-4 more weeks at least, but there's no need for worry if it does decide to come early. So, now I can disregard the "if you have more than 4 an hour..." and I'm supposed to follow the "get lots of bedrest and keep off your feet" rule.

But there are a few things I want to get at Ikea....hmmmmm....

You can pray with us that the baby would keep growing safe inside for awhile longer, patience for me to accept the sitting down all day rule and peace of mind for Jason while he takes care of us all and continues to go to work.

Tyson's funny-isms...

Tyson is learning more words each day and enjoys parroting us ALL DAY long. Every sound and every word is repeated, which makes for a pretty funny ongoing conversation.

Uncle Aaron is in town right now and Tyson really likes him. (So does Jada...she's in love...) While going over the day's schedule with Tyson I told him that after his nap we were going bye-bye to the doctor to check on the baby. Tyson said "uh-uh"...that he didn't want to go. So I asked if he would rather stay home with Uncle Aaron. He said "Oo-win". (He insists that's Aaron's name.) All day we kept asking him the question, do you want to go bye-bye or stay home with Aaron. "Oo-win" was his answer, with a smile. :O) Well, finally it came time to go and he ALMOST stayed home, but then decided to come, only because he might actually get to see trucks driving on the road.

At the doctor appt he does a pretty good job paying attention to what all goes on. The first time he heard the baby's heartbeat he did his surprise look and was very impressed. Today when the doctor was doing the belly measurement he said "Whoa!" as she was stretching the tape measure out. It sure made us all laugh, as it is evident that my belly is getting much bigger.

Jason and Aaron are putting the insulation and walls back up!!! The garage is now closed off from the rest of the downstairs! Pictures to come of before and after...but it is so cool to be in the rebuilding phase now! We've just recently gotten rid of the mold that ended up growing and had all the heating ductwork cleaned...soo...we're good to go with getting it built up and moved back in!

31.5 weeks

Here's one slouching, pushing out and generally trying to make my belly look bigger..

And you'll have to click 'here' to see the belly I aspire to... When Jason saw Kari's baby bump he said 'Why doesn't yours look like that?' It might if I were to have twins I suppose.

springtime is zoo time!

Well, actually, nearly every month is zoo time for us. Tyson went with Grandma Ruthanne and Aunt Nikki a few weeks ago and this is the evidence of the fun they had!

Our point of view...

This is a common sight in the morning...both kids waiting for something to happen...Actually pretty much any time either of us sit down this is what will happen.

Hmm...February flew by..

Was the second month of this year really so busy that we didn't even post one blog? I guess so. Looking back at the calendar reminds me of all that we did, though as we lived it things weren't really THAT busy. But, each weekend we were either out of town or had visitors, so it seems we were.



I'll group these next few posts by weekend, so you can skip around to whichever one you want to read about :O).

Super Bowl Sunday

While the dad's were at work Tyson and I went over to play with Danielle and Jalen and eat some good food. Oh, and we watched the game as well...a little anyway.

New Car

Tenisha's Grandma Robinson was finally ready to sell her car now that she lives in a retirement community that has interesting things to do to keep her busy. Feb. 8 I took the train to Seattle to get together with her and then drove the car back down on Monday morning. We are so thankful for it! It is in great condition and quite roomy, so we're looking forward to many many years with it. We've already got plans in the works to drive it across the country to a family reunion in Michigan at the end of summer! Thanks Grandma Robinson!



The other exciting thing that happened that weekend was Lisa's baby Elijah was born! Congratulations Rollins Family! You can click on the 'Auntie Lisa' link on the right side of this page to see pictures of their precious little guy.

Valentine's Day weekend..

Nothing too exciting to report here, except that it was warm and sunny on Friday and then snowing on Valentines day. Crazy. Jason worked a double shift that weekend so we didn't see much of him.

Lewis and Megan come to stay

Jason's buddy from college, Lewis and his wife Megan came to visit for a long weekend!! It was really fun having them in town and getting to have some hangout time with them. Lewis' new hobby is photography and equipment, so he had lots of practice time with Tyson and Jada. Tyson was getting into it and started posing and making funny faces for the camera. While they were here we also went downtown to walk around a bit, though it was pretty cold and windy that day. I guess that's typical for February, but we've been teased with the atypical warm weather so we decided we prefer that.

Here's a few of the fun photos Lewis took...we think he's becoming quite the amateur photographer!

(remember, if you want to see an individual picture larger just double click on it, then press the back button in the browser to get back to the blog)

Ok...so I thought there were a few...there's a lot more that capture Tyson's personality so well!! I guess we'll have to sprinkle them throughout blogs for the next few months!! :O)

We're in the big league now!

Our first official trip to the ER for Tyson....



What it looked like after he smacked it on the corner of the chair. It was pretty wide and deep. Obviously we were able to stop the bleeding, but still thought stitches would help it heal and keep it from dragging his eyebrow down as it grew.

So, we went to the Urgent Care Clinic, only to find out that they don't do lacerations for kids under 4 years old. So we were sent to the ER. Fortunately it wasn't busy, but Tyson sure didn't like it. It was pretty funny though, at one point while he was screaming/crying and the doctor was getting the needle and thread ready to stitch him he stopped yelling and looked over and said, "Whazzat?" Then he proceeded to yell and cry some more.





With 3 big boy stitches. They never seemed to bother him.




One week later with the stitches out. Looks pretty good! Well, aside from the breakfast on his face. :O)

The last weekend..

The last weekend was definitely the highlight of the month for us. As a family we drove to Seattle then dropped Tyson off with Grandma Patrick. Jason and I continued on to Snoqualmie Pass to stay at the cabin of some good friends. To get to the cabin in the winter requires snowshoeing (or cross country skiing) in about 1.5 miles. It was a relaxing weekend for us, no schedule to keep, though we found ourselves going to bed early and waking up around normal Tyson time...but it was nice to relax and read, hike a little and sit in front of the wood stove fire. :O) Jada had a blast being a snow dog, she had such a great time bounding through the snow that she was limping for a few days after...

We did a short hike to the nearby lake on Saturday.

Crossing the bridge. As you can see -- the snow level is a few feet above the handrails!

What a cozy cabin! Thanks Hamiltons for letting us use it!

Tyson had a good time with his Grandma. He was smitten with all the cars that my brother and I used to play with as a kid. She had kept them for just a moment like this! :O) Thanks mom for watching him!

When we first got into town we were able to swing by Everett and visit Carmen and Jonathan, who had just welcomed Baby Bethany Ruth to their family!! Carmen doesn't yet have a blog to show off her pictures...we'll keep asking her to start one though. :O)