The real Santa

Soren's school had a little christmas craft night and Santa was there. He completly looked the part and was quite jolly. He tolerated all of Soren's touching and all of Xander's questions. I think he just might be the real thing.

Xander has been asking a lot of follow up questions about Santa Clause. Questions like, How is he going to go down our chimney? Where is our chimney? But there is glass blocking our fire place (it is a gas fireplace). Do the reindeers really fly? How does he get to all the kids in the whole wide world? This is my 3 year old. Soren has asked no such questions. I love Soren's blind belief in everything I say. Xander on the other hand argues about everything. I thought he just likes to be contrary but here is proof that he thinks through some things. The last question blew me away. I thought I would face this much later. Xander asked, "Mom, is Santa real?" Quinae, "Uh, Uh, why do you ask? Where did you hear that?" I don't care to lie to the boy but really I have to field that question now? Xander, "Nowhere. I just want to know." Luckily I was able to side step the question with, "So, what do you want for lunch?" Next year I may not be so lucky.

May I have this dance?

I don't know if I have already told you, but Soren has a thing for the ladies. He just likes them. Every day he is debating which one he should mary. It is pretty funny and a little concerning. Anyway, last night at our church Christmas party we had this great Christ centered program with lots of musical numbers. Most the kids started out sitting on the floor in the front watching, but by then end most of them are on the edges of the gym or running circles around the building. Too many brownies I suppose. Well, I was standing on the edges trying to keep the reverence and not start a full on revolt when Soren came up to me and verbatim said,

"Mom, how do you ask a lady to dance?"

Too curious to derail his plan and encourage him to watch the program I simply replied, "You say, May I have this dance?"

He then excitedly said, "Great! Thanks!" and dashed off.

Hmmmm, this boy is on a mission that I must watch. One of his favorite lady friends is his 5 year old neighbor named McKenzie. She is adorable and adventurous and I don't blame him. He dashed off to where she was twirling around to the music.

Soren then said, "McKenzie, may I have this dance?"

McKenzie just kept on twirling.

"I said may I have this dance."

She starts twirling farther away from him.

Not willing to accept defeat he runs after her proclaiming, "Dance with me! Dance with me!"

By this time it is not only quite evident he needed some additional pointers but he was also quite loud and beginning to disturb the program. I get McKenzies attention and ask if she wants me to show them how to dance together. She happily obliges which I was relieved and not sure she was going to do. I put them in ballroom dance position and tell them to twirl. It was soo cute and I was lucky enough to have my camera on me.

Here Soren is running after McKenzie asking her to dance while she is twirling.

Look at how happy he is. They were both giggling and really loving it.

Soooo cute

A blast from the past

This suit was Ryan's when he was little. Xader wore it to church last Sunday. Soooo cute!

Here is Soren in the same suit when he was 3.

This suit was Ryan's when he was little. Xader wore it to church last Sunday. Soooo cute!

Holiday fun

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We kicked off the day going to Regional Hospital - the hospital where Ryan and I work. We take care long term ventilator patients - people who can't get off the breathing machine. Regional specializes in getting them off but as you could expect this is the end of the line for these people, so if they can't get off here they are ventilator dependent for the rest of their lives. Some of these patients are neurologically totally with it but can't talk due to the breathing machine and have been there for months. Ryan and I have been taking turns caring for these certain 4 patients. All of them are completely with it. One of the ladies have been there since July and had failed for a second time getting her trach removed. She was crushed and has been struggling. So I thought we could bring our boys in and make their day. Having a couple work as nurses at the same place is somewhat of a rarity, so to get to meet the whole family was really fun for them. We had to gown up in every room as by the time you have been in the hospital this long most people have resistant bacteria - if they didn't come in with it. The boys were great. Soren is so sweet to sick people. Xander of course was asking a million questions. "Why can't they talk?" "What is that bag?" "Why is it yellow?" ect. By the time we left he would meet some of the staff and ask. "Mom, why do they talk like us?" - like he forgot that most people can actually talk. We then went to a 3$ movie theater for the first time with our whole family and saw toy story 3. Xander had never been to a theater and he did awesome. Lastly we hit Ryan's parents house for the traditional part of Thanksgiving. Earlier in the week of course we got to play in the snow. We went to a local park and went sledding. Even though the grass is showing the sledding went great. They boys would trudge up the hill and sled down it all by themselves! It was awesome. I would wait for them at the bottom because there is a fence right at the end and I would slow them before they would ram the fence. A good time for all was had.


Our first snowman. It was so cold that our snow was very powdery - odd for here. It took a while to get the snow to compact.
Lastly I finished putting up our Christmas lights. I am so excited. Every year I dream of Christmas lights bu felt a bit intimidated by them. I think it was because I did know how to secure them. All I could think of was nails and I never wanted to put holes in my trim. Well, today I learned of plastic clips, deposited a lot of money and became empowered. Lights are an investment! Gesh - that was half the pain, but now that the check writing is over and I super happy. I have a 5 year plan in adding more lights every year and then by the times Soren is 10 we will have a masterpiece! Until then I thought it was a good beginning.

72 hour car kit Power

Yesterday I worked at Regional Hospital located on Military road in South Seattle (near the airport). As you locals know, it snowed the night before a little and snowed all day yesterday. The seattle area is a mess whenever it snows. Between the lack of snow plows, hills, and lack of knowledge and good judgement of the people when it comes to driving in the snow, our region quickly become immobilized with stranded cars and accidents. My shift goes from 7am to 7:30 pm. My replacement didn't make it until 9pm. She came from Issiquah a 35 min commute on a normal day. Yesterday it was a 3 hour commute. I didn't work the next day and I was in the mood for an adventure and so decided to check out the road scene. The hospital parking lot is down the hill from the road and it took me 3 tries to get out of the parking lot. Challenge one concurred. I got on the freeway with ease. This freeway was closed a couple house earlier as it was a parking lot, but now at 10pm, we moved with ease past many, many stranded cars and a few minor accidents. Driving actually went real smooth until I reached the large hill just before my house (I was by Ikea). Cars were standing still. we inched along a car length every 10 minutes which I think was from people turning around more then actually making progress. I knew from getting out the the parking lot that even if I had the patience to wait, there was no way my car was getting up the hill. So I gave Ryan a call to have him google the distance from Ikea to my house. He said it was 1.5 miles.

"Ohhh, that is not bad. I am totally walking." I informed him.

I had a cell phone, there were people everywhere, there were warm houses, and even a hospital before I hit my house so I assessed it was pretty much a low risk activity. However, I wasn't really dressed for the event and although I thought I could probably make it in the clothes I was wearing (medium weight jacket, super thin cotton scrubs) I knew it wouldn't be fun so I sought out to rectify it. I parked my car and popped my trunk to see what I had to work with. I spotted my full leather hiking boots I left in my trunk since building our house. I smiled. "Sweet, my procrastination has paid off!" Then I cracked open my 72 hour kit, excited to actually get to use it. There were no clothes in the back of my car so I knew I would have to get creative. The helpful items that I had were 2 ponchos, 2 space blankets, 6 clothe winco bags, and a shake powered flashlight. So, I put on the boots, stuffed my pants and jacket with the clothe winco bags, wrapped each leg with a space blanket, tucking them into my sox and pants to keep them in place and topped it off with a poncho. I put the second poncho in my purse just in case I met someone who could use it. Things that I was sad I couldn't justify the use of - my crank radio, a simple plastic tent, the food bars (they are like 1,000 calories each in these little food bars. Although I hadn't eaten since lunch, the 3 days worth of bars are all sealed together and they don't expire until 2012, so I thought since this "emergency" was so weeny, I would save it for another one. One can only hope.) So in my new fashion statement, I set off. It was awesome. Wearing a poncho brought back all these childhood memories. Everyone was staring at me as I walked on my way. The space blankets were AWESOME! It was incredibly windy (they had high wind warnings of 50 mile winds with temperatures adjusted in the teens) and on one leg my space blanket kept blowing out of my sock. So I could feel the difference between legs, but the winco bags also did a lot and overall I was totally warm. I came accross several others on foot too. One lady was headed to the hospital. She was a labor and delivery nurse from Redmond. She was wearing comparable clothes as me - medium weight jacket and scrubs. She had been on the road for the last 5 hours. Yikes! She was blocks away from her destination by this time though. I told her what I was up to and what I was wearing. With every layer I described she would reply, "oh, you poor thing." I kept telling her, "no I am totally warm. It is awesome." But she couldn't help but reply, "oh you poor thing. When we were about to part she said, "Do you have any gloves? You could have mine." They were simple strenchy knit gloves. I relplied, "How nice of you, but I have pockets in the this cave of warmth with my poncho. I am tally warm" I was trying to instill confidence in her of my state, but she couldn't help herself and she said, "Oh you poor thing." It was a good thing we were parting.

As I headed up "snake hill" an incredibly steep and windy side hill and was shocked to see cars still trying to go up and down it. Wow, people are more stupid then I originally thought. I saw a couple staring at their car that is in a ditch and practically on it's side.

"Is that your car?" I asked

"Yup" they confirmed

"Do you need any help?" I inquired, fully ready to bring home anyone who didn't know where to go.

"Oh no we live just up the hill. We are trying to decide if we can dig it out." Wow, they are glass half full type of people as there was no way they were getting that thing out without another vehicle.

Then the girl sizes me up and ask, " Do you need help?"

"Help? No way I am totally warm. Space blankets are awesome. I live just up the hill too."

Hmmmm, I guess my outfit didn't instill confidence in others. I was thinking I was totally cool using anything and everything to be sucessful........and I was.......sucessful.

No one wanted my poncho. Their loss. I got home at 11pm and checked on my chickens before I went inside.

So without futher ado, I present to you a warm Quinae

And here is layer 2.

It was pretty much awesome. I had a great time. I was a bit disappointed It wasn't more challenging. I was in suburbia, it was totally light out with the street lights and snow reflecting - I didn't even use my flashlight. There were lots of people everywhere. So many ways for help if I needed it. It was only 1.5 miles. To keep myself entertained as I walked I did try to figure out how I would hunker down for the night in the elements if such a situation arise. I decided it would be hard and miserable. I thought of Bear from Man vs. Wild. One day though, I will have a better story.

Halloween backlog

I am a couple weeks behind on my blogging. Everything I have been writing has beed delayed but for the most part you can't tell except when holidays date me. Anyway, October was our busiest one since having kids. Last year was the first time the boys went trick or treating and this year we went "trunk or treating" (at our church) and hit 3 different parties during the month to kick of the celebration. Sadly Ryan missed every single one due to work. Honestly I as glad when it was all over. Too much solo celebration for me. I can't wait for him to be apart of something. When it is just me and the boys I do a pretty poor job with taking pictures. This is the best I have of our costumes.

Some good old halloween fun. They had lots of fun trying to eat the donuts.

Born that way

Minutes before the boys got in my room jumped all in my nicely folded laundry. I just said, “guys that makes me super sad. Why would you do that.” No one responded or seemed to notice me talking and I just left it at that. A few minutes later Soren starts to cry and I have no idea why.

Q: “Soren, why are you crying?”

Soren: “Because Jesus is mad at me.”

Q a little stunned at such a response: “Why is Jesus mad at you?”

Soren: “Because I jumped in your clothes.” (still crying)

Q: “Oh, buddy. (enter big hug) Hmmmm, well, how could you make it better.”

Xander who I remind you is also a culprit in the crime excitedly spits out with his hand raised, “Ooooh, Ooooh, you could say sorry!!”

Q (trying to hold in the laughter, because seriously, having one child bawling and the other child unfazed and even energized by the same problem is a bit funny): “Yes, you could say sorry and then ask if I will forgive you.” I love it when they ask for forgiveness. It melts my heart.

Soren still crying: “sorry for ruining your clothes. Will you forgive me?”

Q: “Sure. Will you help clean up these toys?" (laundry had already been refolded.)

Xander then pipes in all chipper, “Mom, you need to say sorry to me and ask if I will forgive you!”

Q: “Oh? For what”

Xander: “For making a mess with my toys!”

Q: “Excuse me?”

Xander then bursts into laughter. I laughed too, which was a mistake because for the next day he kept requesting I apologies and ask for forgiveness to him for a variety of crazy things. Nice. If a lesson can backfire, Xander will find a way.

Wow - My kids are really different.