Feb. 27, 2006

7:15 Drop off. Becky said Ariel hadn't slept in the car, so I swaddled and rocked her.

7:20 Put Ariel down for a nap.

8:15 Bottle

8:50 Left for wild fun adventures.

9:05 First Adventure - Starbucks. Remarkable uneventful, I think I have this down pat.

9:30 Arrived at Shannon's house for a playdate.

I told Ariel she was supposed to fall asleep in the car and then nap, but this is what she told me:


Here's Shannon holding Ariel, with 20 month Fiona watching. I love Ariel's expression in the picture, but Ariel did give Shannon some smiles too.


10:20 I swaddled and rocked Ariel again, and got her to go down for another nap.

With Ariel asleep, we all went outside and played on the trampoline. I even tried a few back flips and almost threw out my back in the process.

11:00 Wake up, small poopy, bottle.

12:25 Leave - Ariel napped in the car

1:00 Got home, Ariel woke up.

1:15 I put Ariel off as long as I could, but she finally HAD to have a bottle.

1:35 After the bottle, I put Ariel in the bjorn facing out. She likes that:



2:00 rocked and swaddled Ariel.

2:07 put her down, not asleep.

2:20 Ariel still was still not asleep, and Adam woke up grumpy, so I changed Ariel's dress to a light sleeper (and changed her diaper too) and loaded the boys up in the stroller and we went for a walk. I think Ariel slept for most of it, and Adam was instantly un-grumpy. And it was a gorgeous day, in the 70's. Ah, I'm done with winter.

3:20 Got home, Ariel had been sucking on her hand for a while, so I guesed she was hungry. I made her a 2 oz bottle.

3:25 Becky got here, while I was still feeding her.

3:30 Becky got to see Ariel have a big spit up on my couch. Ariel proceeded to be VERY grumpy.

3:50 Becky and Ariel finally departed. I could hear Ariel screaming all the way to the car.

Feb. 24, 2006

7:30 Drop off. Poor Becky was late because of a car accident slowing the highway. Luckily for her, Ariel was asleep, and was still asleep when she got here.

8:00 Wake up, bottle. Alex was insistant on feeding her. That gave me a chance to eat breakfast.

9:00 Nap in bjorn

9:40 Wake up. Ariel hung out in the swing for a bit. I put her down to change Adam's diaper. Then I was scrambling to finish my Creative Memories taxes, which I had been working on all morning.

10:00 Bottle

10:20 Crissy and Gavin came over for a playdate.

Here's Crissy and Ariel:


Ariel is a vision in pink today. I laughed when I got her out of the carseat, even her blankets are pink today.


11:00 Crissy put Ariel in her carseat, with plenty of toys, of course.

11:30 Ariel fell asleep in her carseat.

12:25 Changed a poopy. Guess I jinxed myself there, eh Becky?

12:30 Bottle

12:50 Attempted to get everyone ready to go for a walk. Ariel had another massive spit up, which require an outfit change and a sponge bath. I decided that she needed to go 3 hours before her next bottle.

1:00 Went for a nice walk around the neighborhood.

2:00 Stopped by the park, Adam had just fallen asleep in the stroller:



Alex dug lots of holes in the sand:



3:00 Left the park. We were walking by our neighbor's house when they came home, and Zach invited Alex over for a playdate.

3:55 Came home, with the intention of waking and feeding Ariel.

4:00 Pick up. No food for Ariel :(

Feb. 23, 2006

*Yawn* I'm pretty tired today. Jeremy and I have turned into 24 junkies and stayed up way to late watching the end of season 2. And yes, Dad, it was VERY exciting! But Jeremy took Alex to school today so I had a quiet morning.

7:10 Drop off. Ariel was awake and not happy. but I swaddled her up and she calmed down pretty quick.

7:15 Nap in bed.

9:00 Wake up, bottle

9:20 Crissy came to play.

Here's Ariel right after she spit up on Crissy's leg (Crissy says she still loves Ariel):


Crissy thought Ariel might like the exersauser. She did for about five minutes:


Adam played with trucks:


Then he posed (unasked) for me:


10:05 Crissy left and Ariel got cranky, so I swaddled Ariel up again, put in her pacifier and she fell asleep in about 10 minutes.

10:15 Laid Ariel down for a nap.

11:00 Just as I was getting Adam down for a nap, Ariel woke up. My baby tag team at work.

11:15 Changed medium sized poopy (it was not *********this********** big)

11:20 Bottle

11:40 Bjorn

12:00 Nap in bjorn. Ariel looked so sweet sleeping so I tried to get a picture. I don't think the picture did her justice, but you get the idea:



12:40 I had to put sweet Ariel in her carseat and wake up sweet Adam so we could pick up Alex from school. Ariel stayed asleep for at least part of it, but was awake and giving sweet smiles at the school.

1:30 Bottle

2:00 Ariel was fussy and dozing on and off. I kept her in the bjorn and did an hour long suduko puzzle (yes, it was rate "easy," shut up Becky). The boys were great this afternoon. First, they colored.

Alex actually drew pictures today. Becky was with me at his 4 year check up when the doctor asked if he drew faces yet. I said he pretty much scribbled like Adam. But today, he just started drawing, all on his own. Can you tell what these are?


Adam is more of an abstract artist:


After coloring, the boys were playing together really well. Some things they did were not great (like reorganizing Ariel's diaper bag) but on the whole there was very little fighting. Yay!

4:00 Ariel was actually napping well but I decided to wake her up and change her diaper so she could have another bottle before going home.

4:10 Bottle

4:30 Pick up.

PS - Against my better judgement, I went to websuduko.com. My first puzzle took my 10:53 so I'm not *that* big a loser. Right?

Feb. 22, 2006

Becky is way cool. She inspired me to poetry today:

Roses are red,
Yellow are ducks,
Becky's the best
she brought me Starbucks!

Thanks again!!!!

7:10 Drop off. Becky was running early, so she stopped by Starbucks. But's she not as knowledgable of all the Boulder Starbucks as I am (or all the Starbucks in a 15 mile radius from my house), so she did not go to the closest one and then ran a little late. Ok by me! Ariel was asleep, so once again I used my time wisely. Fed the boys breakfast, changed the sheets, cleaned the kitchen (which wasn't done last night because I fell asleep at 7:30 again. But I must of needed it since I didn't wake up until 6:30).

9:15 Ariel woke up, bottle. Right as I started feeding her, I realized Adam had a poopy. So I had Alex take over while I changed Adam.



Adam wanted to have a part too. I think this might be the first good picture of all of them together:



10:10 Leave for the mall.

10:30 Get to the dinosaur play area

Here's Adam breaking the rules and eating goldfish in the play area:


Alex is the climbing monkey:




Adam finally put his goldfish down:


Ariel was awake when we got there, fell asleep around 10:45

11:30 We headed upstairs to the pet store. One of our favorite stops at the mall. There are hermit crabs somewhere in that tank:



11:45 Lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen.



Here's a story about the CPK. When I lived in LA, I loved the CPK. But when I moved back to CO, there were none in the state. Not that they are unique to CA (there are franchises all over the place) but there none within 500 miles. Then they opened one in South Denver. Too far for us. And THEN then they opened one at the mall. One small problem though, Jeremy had vowed never to step foot in the mall as it is an abomination to mankind and represents all that is wrong with irresponsible growth. I made no such promises and very often when I'm all the mall, I stop by the CPK. And no, Jeremy has not stepped foot in the mall since it opened about 5 years ago, though he has gone to the outside movie theater.

11:50 Bottle

12:20 Done with our meal (tostada pizza for me, mac & cheese for the boys) we stopped by the bathroom. Ariel got a new diaper and new clothes. I'm sorry Becky, but she's been way spitty again and even the diaper burp cloths aren't helping.

12:45 Get home from the mall.

1:10 Ariel fell asleep in the bjorn.

1:45 Ariel woke up. Took some more pictures, then I let her talk to Alex while I spent some time with a grumpy Adam.

Here's Alex talking to Ariel. He was using his "growup" voice and was saying, "Hi Ariel, what do you want to do today? Can you give me a smile?"


Ariel's close-up today:


And this picture is for Granny Shirley. What color are Ariel's eyes? It's a mystery unto the universe:


2:30 bottle

3:00 Grandpa got here after getting his oil changed. He said he would have been here earlier, but he forgot to get off Foothills again and ended up in Superior. Then he had a rant about how the city of Boulder should label that sign better and let people know that if they don't get off now, they are out of Boulder. Um Dad, didn't you live here for 10 years?



3:10 Wet diaper change and a new outfit.

3:30 Pick-up. And I know I said this to you already Becky, but your daughter was a spewing volcano of spit-up today. I kept thinking of that Aladdin quote, "Watch out, they spit!" Ok, I'm off to change my shirt now.

Feb. 20, 2006

7:00 Drop-off. Ariel was awake and seemed happy to see the boys. Adam was sure happy to see Ariel.

7:40 Ariel started getting fussy, so I got her out of the carseat. I thought she might need a little nap before she ate, but she got more fussy, so I made a bottle.

7:52 Bottle

8:20 Ariel fell asleep after her bottle and I swaddled her and put her down for a nap.

9:15 Ariel woke up. She was happy for a bit, but got fussy. Part of it was my fault. I was using Ariel's nap time to proof her 3 month pictures so I could get them printed out. I was yet again reminded that I cannot expect to do anything even remotely complicated while caring for 3 children.

10:20 Ariel finally fell back asleep, in the bjorn

11:00 Wake up, bottle

11:20 Ariel's clothes were sopping wet from spit up, so she got a full clothes and diaper change. Sorry Becky, you'll have to put her in her red shoes again if you want a picture.

12:00 Some pictures:



Ariel learned a new trick while I was gone. She can sort of hold on to toys and sort of get them in her mouth:


These toy links are from Crissy :)

1:00 We went Crissy's house. Ariel fell asleep in the car on the way over.

1:20 Ariel woke up at Crissy's

1:30 Crissy fed her bottle

2:00 Play time - ceiling fan!

2:15 Crissy decided Ariel pink sleeper was too wet, so she did another diaper/clothes change.

2:30 Ariel finally fell asleep, on me. I was on the couch doing Suduko puzzles and then had no incentive to try and move her, so I stayed. I finished a medium one, and got stuck on a hard puzzle. Darn you, suduko!

3:55 Looked at my clock and sleeping Ariel, called Becky for pick up at Crissy's

4:15 Ariel was just starting to wake when Becky got there.

Becky, here's a preview of your collage:

How I spent my Winter Vacation by Wendy S.

You may or may not have noticed that Ariel's blog was not updated last week. That's because I was on VACATION. Our family took a week long ski vacation to Steamboat Springs. All and all, I would say we had a pretty darn good time. Jeremy and I went to the slopes 4 days. He skied the mornings, and I snowboarded in the afternoons. When Jeremy was skiing, I usually went to the Safeway Starbucks that was in walking distance to our condo, and took the boys swimming. We also watched a lot of TV, mostly the olympics. Alex is quite taken by curling, and now knows quite a bit about the sport. He'd like to paint circles on our floor and try it at home.

Alex also went to ski school 2 afternoons. Here he is:



And here he is on the magic carpet bunny hill:



He was pretty tentative, but he had fun and wants to go again.

After ski school, he liked to ride the gondola up and down the mountain:


I had to buy a disposible camera to take to the mountain, as I am not safe enough to carry a real camera. So here's some more pictures of Steamboat:

Here's a goofy self portait of me on the chair lift in my androgynous snowboarding garb (I was called sir at least once by a lift operator):


On our last day on the slopes, we had a massive powder day. Here's one of my favorite runs I was doing that day:


Steamboat had a ton of snow. So much that they didn't know where to put it anymore. All the parking lots had gigantic piles of snow in and around them. Here's the family standing by our condo:


The day I did laundry, I mis-timed it and all the clothes were in the dryer when it was time to go to bed. So Adam wore my PJ top for a bit. The helmet was his choice, Safety First, you know:


I also used my vacation time to knit Alex a sweater. I'm very flattered, he wants to wear it every day:


And as for what Ariel was up to while we were gone, I'm not entirely sure. Grandma and Grandpa watched her a few days, as did Laura and Crissy. Gavin was apparently quite taken with Ariel and wanted to feed her all her bottles:


And that is how I spent my vacation.

Feb. 10, 2006

One of the pitfalls of falling asleep at 7:00pm is that one make wake up after 8 hours of sleep and find that it is still the middle of the night. So that is how I came to be cleaning my kitchen floor at 4:00 am this morning. The good news is that my house is very clean now, the bad news is that I anticipate crashing at some point today.

7:05 Drop off - awake, bjorn. Ariel fell asleep pretty quick.

7:15 Get a phone call from the credit card company to tell us that our cards have been "compromised" and have been cancelled. Joy!

8:00 Wake up, 3 oz bottle.

8:15 Hung out in bjorn, napping and awake.

9:45 Crissy arrived - with Starbucks!!!! (that I was very much needing)

10:00 Tried quick photoshoot - Becky - we will do more (the color is not great), this is what we got so far.

Testing the light with Adam:








10:30 Bottle (3 oz)

10:50 After Ariel finished her bottle, she fell asleep, but we didn't let that get in our way:







I do believe that I corrected my color problem.

11:30 Ariel woke up, more pictures:









11:50 Big spit up out the nose, photo shoot over.

12:30 Asleep in bjorn

12:45 Crissy and Gavin had to go home. So sad :(

1:00 3 oz bottle

1:20 LAST photoshoot, that I had to do all by myself.

Best full length:








Oh, by the way, this was the dress Becky worn during her 3 month pictures. Awwwww.

2:00 Go to toy store. Intended to buy Adam a baby doll and Alex some more kid-kinex. Got the doll, they didn't have the kid-kinex. Tried one more place, still no luck. Bummer.

2:30 The predicted crash and burn out. Sooo tired. Sooo done with kids.

3:25 Get home, 3oz bottle.

3:50 Really really hope Becky is getting home soon. Really. Adam got sick of the baby doll, wanted to hold Ariel. Ariel wanted to cry. I wanted to cry. Adam did cry when I took Ariel back. Wah!

4:25 Pick up, Yay!

PS - Ariel was very spitty yesterday and today.