Catching Up

The past two or three weeks have gone by in a foggy blur. Mostly because we have been sick. Emily has been sick for almost 3 weeks now. The rest of us are going on 2 weeks.

Other than that, we have been trying to finish up the school year but the kids are already getting restless. So we've been fighting again over completing homework, chores, and now... being disruptive in class.

The girls have also been fighting on and off a lot too. I'll tell you, I'm already dreading summer.

Emily lost one of her front teeth this weekend. The one next to it is loose too. Her toothless grin is kind of funny. It's not quite as cute as the first time around when she didn't have any teeth yet. I can't even remember when I lost any of my front teeth. I must have blocked it out of my memory.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we took the girls biking to UCR and around the campus. It is probably the longest bike ride that they have been on. Emily did really well though, she was able to bike back up the hill without any help. Of course, Caitlyn had dad helping her along the way here and there. The campus has changed so much since I first went there. I almost didn't recognize where I was on campus from some of the new areas. I can't say that any of the changes have been for the better.

We also took the girls to an Indian Pow Wow at UCR. Christian and I used to go all the time when we were in college. The pow wow isn't quite as I remembered it either but the girls thought it was fun and interesting at least. Christian bought each of the girls some cute hair clips from a Navajo Indian Jewelry maker. Emily is wearing hers in her picture above.

It was hot this weekend, so the girls got to jump into their bathing suits and play in the sprinklers again. We made a day of it and put some tri tip on the bbq. Christian also made a pot of beans and we did fresh corn tortillas over the extra coals in the bbq pit. It was so good. I don't know why food always tastes better when it has been cooked over the fire!

Shots

Caitlyn got her kindergarten physical on Monday. She got four shots...two in each leg.

I still remember when Emily went in to get hers. It was such a stressful nightmare. Emily fought us and the nurse. What was worse is when she went after her shots to get here blood drawn. You would think that we were trying to drain all the blood from her body. She was so frightened and upset. The nurse was pretty upset afterwards too! I'm sure it hurt more than it needed to just because she fought us.

When Caitlyn got her blood drawn to go to preschool. She sat calmly on her dad's lap and listened to us when we told her not to look. It went off without incident and the nurse was so impressed that she gave her two rewards.

When Caitlyn got her shots, it went pretty much the same way. She layed down and tried to stay still. You can tell that she was a little scared and she flinched from the pain (especially by the time the fourth shot went in...and who could blame her), but not a cry or even a whine. She was so strong and brave! We were so proud of her!

Annual Mother's Day picnic

This past Saturday, we got together with my family for our annual mother's day picnic. We met up at the Yorba Linda Regional Park. It was a pretty nice day. In the past, we've had some scorching hot days for our picnics which as been less than pleasant. The kids got to play on the play ground, ride their scooter and bicycles. While riding around the park, we noticed a rental booth for these Surrey quadracycles and thought that it would be a great way to get my parents to come out around the park with us.

The rental was a serious rip off but it was a lot of fun. They were a bit harder to maneuver than we anticipated. Especially going up slight inclines. We had to get off our bikes and help push the quadracycle up.

Everyone had a pretty good time though. We took this picture of my mom with all her grandchildren.

Mother's Day itself did not go quite as smoothly. In the middle of the night, Emily woke up and blew chunks everywhere. Christian spent half the night (early morning) cleaning up the mess. I took Caitlyn out and had her sleep with me. Christian and Emily stayed home from church.

Emily napped some more while we were away but Christian didn't get any more rest because he was still cleaning up when we got back and he made us a ham dinner. But it was nice for me because I didn't have to do anything except teach my class in primary. Christian took care of everything for me.

Caitlyn's Birthday Party

As usual, on the Saturday after Caitlyn's Birthday, we had her grandparents and Auntie Marian out for a little birthday luncheon. I decided on this raspberry cake with white chocolate frosting. I think I have been too experimental this year with the girls birthday cakes. It turned out fine, for the most part but Caitlyn didn't take more than a few bites of it. Neither did Emily. They said it tasted funny. It's raspberry. That is, real raspberry puree. It makes it a little tangy. I guess they are used to the sweet artificial strawberry cake in a box taste. But then again, why would they? I've never made them a boxed cake for their birthday...but obviously, they would prefer it. I actually don't even recall ever making a boxed cake for Caitlyn. I had occasionally made a boxed cake when Emily was quite young though. I guess they've been to enough parties to know what it tastes like.

I'm used to Emily doing this...she's done it for years. She usually loves my cakes...except on her birthday then she often doesn't finish her piece. Caitlyn usually eats it all. I think this is the first year that she has not.

I keep telling myself that the second cake is mostly for the adults who come but I can't help getting frustrated that my kids don't like their birthday cake.

That's okay, she got a ton of presents to make up for it. Her big present this year from Grandpa was a real desk. She loves it. So next year when she goes to kindergarten and gets real homework, she is all set. Spoiled little punks!

Caitlyn's Birthday

Caitlyn went to school as usual on her birthday. After school, I took her to her dad's lab. She's been pestering him to go with him to work since before spring break. She did some drawing and coloring at his lab while he worked and then he took her for a walk at the Botanic gardens. Someone working there was feeding the turtles and fish and let Caitlyn help. Meanwhile, I went shopping for things for her party this weekend and put up some decorations for her at home. I also baked a little carrot cake for her.

For Caitlyn's birthday dinner, Caitlyn wanted to go to Panda Express. Not because of a love of Chinese food. Not because she really loves Panda Express...she's never been there.  She wanted to go there just because of the cute Panda logo. She sees it every time we go to Costco. Caitlyn loves pandas. She's been dying to go for months now and we finally decided to indulge her and take her there for her birthday. 

She didn't eat that much. Most of the good food was kind of spicy. The girls even tried chopsticks for the first time. I know, pathetic. Of all the places they finally try chop sticks, it's not at home where I am known, on occasion, to make Chinese food. It's not at my mom's house or even at any of the chinese restaurants that we've gone to with my family. It's at a fakey Chinese fast food joint. Oh well. They did okay.

But the biggest reason she didn't eat very much was that she wasn't feeling that well. We thought she seemed kind of sedate that evening. She even seemed tired earlier in the afternoon when she was out with her dad. When we got her home, we took her temperature and it registered at about 101 degrees.

Poor thing. We still did presents and cake at the end of the night but you can tell that she was pretty dazed and tired.  I called her teacher to let her know that Caitlyn wouldn't be going to school the next day. I also had to cancel her appt. for her kindergarten immunization shots she was supposed to get that next afternoon.

It's funny though, she stayed home the next day but she was as right as rain...pretty much. She had no temperature and she had no other symptoms of sickness. It was just one of those weird 24 hour things...or 12 hour bugs in this case. Oh well, at least she isn't sick any more but what a bummer for her birthday.