Keegan's First State Fair

Last Saturday we took Keegan to the state fair. Saturday afternoon we didn't have anything going on so we called up Julie and Tony to see if they would like to go to the fair with us. We knew it would be crowded but since it was so nice out we were just looking for a nice way to spend the day outside.

We all decided to meet at the fair rather than at the park and ride. So I guess that was the first adventure. I had packed Keegan up some solids for dinner and enough formula and bottles for a couple feedings. We also had Keegan's hat, some toys, a couple blankets, sunscreen, etc. in the diaper bag. I also packed my Hotsling because I was worried about having enough hands on the bus. When we got to the park and ride I put on the sling, put Keegan in it, and then put on the diaper bag backpack. Lyle had the fun job of carrying the 20 lb stroller folded up.

When the bus arrived it was empty so it was easy to find a seat and there was room for the stroller (which is something that I had been worried about). We sat on the bus for another 15 minutes or so waiting for it to fill up. This was a little irritating because I felt like we were wasting precious "Keegan is being good" time. Keegan had a fascination with metal pole we were sitting next to and spent the first 15 minutes caressing the pole. Then as the bus started getting crowded he started trying to pull on people's shirts. This one poor guy was standing right within reach with his shirt hanging at the perfect level for Keegan to grab. Everytime I looked away Keegan would try and grab the guy's shirt. Luckily the guy thought Keegan was cute so he didn't ming too much :-)

As the bus started moving Keegan was in awe of the view out the window. He kept staring out the window and getting really excited. The sling worked great because Keegan could sit or stand on my lap as he wanted and I didn't need to hold on to him. Of course most of the ride Keegan decided he wanted to stand on my lap and bounce up and down. Let me tell you this was just great. The bus was jostling me and Keegan was bouncing up and down on my lap...very comfortable...

We exited the bus without any incident, got Keegan into his stroller, bought tickets, and went into the fair. It was very busy. Keegan just sat there holding onto the edges of his stroller with eyes as big as saucers. That is pretty much what he did for the next hour. He just thought everything was so neat; he hadn't ever seen this many people in his life before. He had his first taste of cotton candy. At first he thought it was weird and made a funny face; then he decided he liked it!

We met up with Tony and Julie and began our slow progression around the fair. The number one lesson I learned is that when traveling with a stroller you must be patient. You can get places, but it is slow going. Also with Keegan there you don't see things very fast. We had to stop and feed him a bottle, then he had to be changed, then he needed his solids. Luckily Julie and Tony didn't seem to mind the snail-like pace at which we toured the fair. An hour or two after arriving Keegan started getting sleepy. So, we lowered his stroller into the reclined position, put a blankie over him, and gave him his nook. He was asleep in an instant. Keegan proceeded to sleep through the Midway. I have no idea how he could sleep through all that noise. I won him a stuffed dragon while he was sleeping though.

The first highlight for Keegan was the hot tubs. I let him put his hands in the water and he spend a good amount of time trying to catch the bubbles. He also liked that the benches at the end of the hot tubs were just at the right height that he could stand on them and grab the hot tub edge. The Eco building was another high point since he got a shiny button there that he was enamored with. He seemed to think the horses were really big; he just stared at the horses with really big eyes and grabbed onto me really tight. At the DNR building he got to watch some fish.

Good food that Lyle and I tried for the first time were deep fried Snickers bar (too sweet for me), deep fried fruit (this was yummy), deep-fried pickles with cream cheese inside (yummy), strawberries with cream (yummy), and pizza bread (yummy). Tony was on a quest for the new deep-fried spam. He found some and seemed to find it pretty tasty.

We were at the fair for probably 6-7 hrs. We were all getting tired and Keegan was getting crabby so it was time to go. We got Keegan loaded back onto the bus. He was crabby and we had to bounce all the way back to the park and ride to keep him happy. So he stood and bounced in his sling. Then when we got to the car he fell promptly to sleep. Overall it was a great day and we had a lot of fun.

Speaking of which Keegan can now pull himself to a standing position with great gusto. I had set him on the floor to play with some toys and when I came back he had pulled himself up on the cat tower and had proceeded to drag it backwards a couple of feet. He was very proud of himself and I was stunned. I guess he will be mobile before we know it.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

While mommy is away the viruses will play!

So last week I was out at the film plant. This plant is where we coat all of the medical imaging film and is located in Oregon. I won't say much about the run except to say that the days were long (14 hrs or more), the run was somewhat of a failure because of equipment issues, and I hate sleeping in hotel rooms. As if this isn't enough Keegan got sick.

Keegan has had many colds and one eye infection since he started daycare. To date he has been able to elude the dreaded ear infections. Well, I got a call from Lyle late Tuesday night (midnight central time) that Keegan had been screaming for the last hour or so and Lyle couldn't figure out what to do to make it better. We went through everything Lyle could try and he had tried it all. Finally he gave Keegan some Tylenol and let him sit up awake on the bed and play. For some reason Keegan would scream if Lyle laid him down but was fine sitting up. I felt bad that Lyle was having to deal with this because I know no matter how much I love Keegan, when he starts this incessant screaming it is really frustrating. He hasn't done this since he was a couple months old; even with the eye infection he was still a happy boy.

So of course this is happening while I am gone. Well, on Wednesday my mom calls Lyle and Lyle calls me. Apparently Keegan now has a fever of 102.8oF and is very unhappy. Lyle and I discuss and Lyle decides to give Keegan some Tylenol and watch him over the night. Next morning Lyle calls and says that Keegan is doing better; his temp is 100 something. Since Keegan still has a fever he has to stay home from day care; so Lyle is staying home from work. This really sucks because Lyle is a contractor and doesn't get paid for sick time. Keegan's little sickness is costing us literally hundreds of dollars. Unfortunately later in the day Keegan's fever shoots up again to over 102 so Lyle takes him into the doctor.

The doctor says that Keegan doesn't have an ear infection and his lungs are clear. So the doctor tells us to bring Keegan back in on Saturday if the Tylenol can't keep his fever under control. So Lyle has to stay home with Keegan on Friday; more money out the door. And poor Keegan is very unhappy, Keegan is not happy with anything. I get back Friday afternoon. Keegan's fever shoots up again on Friday night.

Back to the doctor's office at 8am on Saturday morning. I think this is an ungodly hour to be somewhere on a Saturday morning. Of course it doesn't matter much because we've been up since 5am dealing with an unhappy Keegan. Keegan doesn't really want to eat his bottle, he doesn't want to nap. Keegan needs someone holding and distracting him at all times or he lapses back into his screaming fits. By now we have figured out that the screaming fits start around the time the Tylenol is wearing off. Obviously something is hurting.

The doctor let's us know that Keegan now has an ear infection in both ears. Keegan gets put on antibiotics. So now Keegan is supposed to be taking either Tylenol or Motrin all day with antibiotics 3x a day. Keegan is still crabby and he still isn't really keen on his bottle (he'll eat his solids though). We figured out it must hurt his ears to suck on the bottle. Either way Sunday was another tough day; full of Keegan needing to be distracted until exhaustion and then put down for a nap. Saturday afternoon we went to the state fair and with all of the distractions there Keegan was pretty good; if not quit his jolly giggly self.

I guess in general it just sucked that poor Keegan had to go through all of that. It really sucked that poor Lyle had to deal with all of the crap alone. Of course it all had to happen while I was out on a business trip. To make matters more complicated all of this was going on while my parents were out of town camping; so Lyle couldn't go to them for help. The other thing that was going on was that Lyle was interviewing for new contracts (his contract is up at the end of the month). He still hasn't gotten his next contract; I am a little stressed about that but we will see what happens.

Hopefully today Keegan will feel better.

Keegan did it!

Just a quick blog about something neat Keegan did! Last night while Keegan was supposed to be going to sleep (I was reading to him). He propped himself up on his knees and then with his little arms quivering in effort got up on his hands. There he was on his hands and knees and he started rocking back and forth. I got all excited and was like "wow, keegan you are awesome" and he looked over and gave me this big grin. Lyle ran over to see and I ran to get the camera. Of course by the time I found the camera, turned it on, turned the flash on, focused on Keegan and then started to take the picture Keegan fell over.

Not sure why I thought this was so exciting. I guess Keegan gets so frustrated that he can't get around by himself that I see this as a huge step in him getting some mobility and independence. I was just *so* proud of him. I had to call my mom and tell her.

My mom working with him on the roller/crawler thingy and Keegan's frustration with the older babies at daycare crawling circles around him is finally paying off :-) I am sure that, while we are all exciting for Keegan to start crawling, we will regret it when we have to chase him around constantly!

Digression on Closets, Books, and Digital Archives

Okay this has nothing really to do with Keegan but it was driving me batty yesterday. In general I tend to be a very organized person; not maybe the neatest person in the world, but I am organized. Everything has its appropriate place. An example of the difference between neatness and organization is my desk at home. I know exactly where everything is on my desk; even though the "in" box is a huge messy stack of papers on one corner of the desk.

There are 3 areas where I have major neatness issues. These three things drive me crazy and are strangely interlaced with things that make me happy. The closet is the first area, the "library" is the second, and our online music catalog is the third.

The closet has always been a perpetual nightmare for me. When Lyle and I lived in Cottage Grove we had all of our stuff in a closet that was smaller than the one I had at my parent's house, it was horrible. When we moved to our new house in Blaine we finally had a huge closet. Lyle uses about 1/16th of the closet; I use the rest. I remember thinking that my closet problems were over when we moved here. I remember Lyle joking "remember you don't *have* to fill all of this space up". Well thanks to a pregnancy and post pregnancy pudge my nightmare has returned. I had two trash bags full of cloths that didn't fit while I was pregnant. Now I have one trash bag full of cloths that still don't fit (mostly they were pretty tight when I got pregnant) and a bag full of maternity cloths. It is a nightmare. A few weeks ago I went and unpacked all of the cloths that I determined will at some point fit again. These are now stacked along the walls of the closet because there isn't enough room to hang them up with all of the other cloths I bought because I didn't have enough cloths because I hadn't unpacked my pre-maternity cloths after I had Keegan. There are cloths and shoes everywhere. You can't move around the closet...all of the mess is mine.

Unfortunately at the root of this closet issue is a pure pleasure of mine. I *love* buying cloths. I probably buy at least one new item of clothing every other week. T-shirts, skirts, dresses, you name it; if I find it on clearance, and I like it, I will buy it. It gives me a high and a warm feeling of happiness. Luckily I have never gone to the extent that my habit is a financial burden (lyle may disagree with this statement), but it is a space problem. I also become emotionally attached to my clothing. I still have the shirt I wore on my first date with Lyle. I can tell emotionally important events or places where I have worn most of my clothing; I can tell you where I bought each item of clothing and how much I paid for it. How much of my mind is occupied by this useless knowledge I shudder to contemplate. I could probably have pi memorized out to a million places instead of knowing the exact details of each piece of clothing I own; the usefulness of either type of knowledge is dubious. When you couple my love for clothing variation with a keen sense of loss when I get rid of clothing it results in lots of trouble and lots of clothing.

Unfortunately the clothing/closet issue really stresses me out. I hate it when the closet is messy and I hate when I don't have enough space for my cloths.

Then there is the book issue. After cloths, books are my next greatest vice. I love books. I love owning books, I love collecting books, I love seeing books, I love the smell of books...I love books. Each book I own is precious. I can tell when I bought the book, and during what time of my life I read the book. I can tell you what other books the author wrote and how many books are in the series. I can give you a brief synopsis of the book. But, I cannot under any circumstance throw away the book. I have started getting better about re-selling books that I didn't like or don't plan to re-read again. If I can re-sell the book I feel like I am still respecting the book and the characters in the book and moving them on to a new life. Unfortunately I read a lot of books. I probably read 4-7 books a month at least. We have a lot of books in the house. When we finished the basement a whole wall of the basement was going to be dedicated to bookshelves. Well, it is done. The book shelves are up....and they are full. There is no room to grow there. Keegan's bedroom now has a bookcase in it full of all the books that I have read that I think he would like in the future. I hope that Keegan likes to read, else I will need to come up with a different excuse to keep all of those books. This is another area that gets disorganized and stressful for me. Not nearly as bad as the closet but still a pain all the same.

Lastly is our online music. This drives me nuts. We have all of our CDs burned onto the computer. This is great because we can listen to them all over the wireless speakers that are hooked up to the computer. We have some 10 gigs of music. My Sansa (mp3 player) has 5 gigs of space. It seems like no matter what music I load onto my Sansa the music I want to listen to isn't on there. It's such a pain. I have 900 songs on my Sansa and sometimes when I am in the lab I feel like there is nothing to listen too. I have all the songs memorized and I am bored with all of them. Hopefully in the future I can upgrade and carry *all* of my music.

Anyway, I feel better now that I have shared all of my material psychosis with whoever reads this. This has nothing to do with Keegan except in the most roundabout of ways. Hopefully this was at least amusing to read if nothing else. I hope that you are all having a great day. Back to work for me.

6 month checkup - All is well

So Keegan had his 6 month checkup this afternoon. He weighed 18 lbs 11 ounces and was 27 inches long. That puts him in the 75th percentile for weight and the 65th percentile for height. Basically similar to what he's been at. Like usual he was delightful at the doctors, really he was! He tried to help do everything. He grabbed the ear scope to help Dr. Kuku put it into his ear and grabbed the light to help her look in his mouth; I am not sure how much actual help it was but he tried. Lyle was along this time too so that was nice :-)

Dr. Kuku once again told us we are in big trouble as Keegan showed her that he would grab and pull himself up if you hold out your fingers. She is convinced he is going to be an early walker and made sure to give us lots of information on baby proofing the house :-) Keegan did not like the shots but only cried for a couple seconds. Once I picked him up he settled down and just glared at us for awhile. He did have a quick smile for the nurse though as she left.

It was pajama day at daycare so Keegan spent all day in his strippy PJs. I should really get a picture of him in those; he is so adorable. Jenny, Lyle's sister-in-law got them for us. He is starting to outgrow them though and that makes me sad!

He is in napping now. We started to read the Belly Button book and when he tried to eat it I pulled the book away saying "no, let's just read it". His lip started to tremble and then he broke into an absolute screaming fit. So, it was easily determined that he was tired (those shots will do that to you) and down for a "nap" we went. It's kind of late for a nap since he goes to bed at 7pm; maybe he will just sleep until tomorrow morning we will see.

Quick funny story. Last night Lyle was at hockey and I was trying to get Keegan to go to sleep. Well he didn't want to. So I left him lay in his crib while I made up his bottles for daycare. I hear all this noise in the crib and go in there in time to see him sit back down. He had pulled himself up on the mobile controller and turned the power on to the mobile. Then he laid back down and proceeded to kick the different buttons on the mobile to change the music and the lights. I didn't have the heart to turn it off again after all the hard work he had put in. So, I let him play with it for 15 minutes or so and then it was time to go back to sleep.

This weekend was great! We didn't have anything planned and we spent a lot of time just hanging around the house playing. It was fun to not have to rush to one place or another. During one of Keegan's naps Lyle and I tried to finish up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Of course Keegan woke up 15 minutes before the end of the book (we were listening on audio book) so Keegan joined us for the remainder of the book. You can read about what I thought about the book on my book blog here: http://karissabooks.blogspot.com/

It's good to be done with that book; it was pretty good and now I can continue with some other books I wanted to read.

We got some pictures of Keegan and Jubei "playing"; they are getting along great. The pictures are up on Picasa; see picture link at the side of this blog.

Other than that I am thrilled to be done with school. Not so thrilled that I have to spend all of next week out at the manufacturing plant in Oregon. I always feel bad for leaving Lyle with everything while I am gone. He says he feels worse for me because I have to work such long hours out there and I don't get to see Keegan at all. I am not sure which is worse; I just know that I am always thrilled to come home! I am getting out there early afternoon on Sunday so I am thinking about taking a quick road trip out to Crater Lake National Park. It's an 1.5 hr drive out of Medford (where the plant is). So I am not sure how adventurous I'll feel out there; we'll see maybe I'll have some great pictures when I get back!

Anyway, I have other things I should really be doing. So, back to those things! Hope that you are all doing well.

Baby food and other food for thought....

So Keegan has tried almost every available fruit and vegetable that they sell in the pre-made baby food. Let me tell you there aren't that many of them. I think a kid can only eat so much sweet potato, peas, and bananas. Although Keegan really loves his bananas so maybe he can't get enough of that. So as I desperately search the store shelfs for other fruits and veggies I begin to wonder why baby food is so Americanized. I mean where are the avocado, kiwi, quinoa, buckwheat, broccoli, legumes, papaya, mango, any many other baby foods? Are our babies stuck living in a world where there only exists a very limited number of fruits and vegetables? Then we wonder why our 2-3 year olds balk at trying something new...

So in frustration I decided to embark on the latest of many past and yet to come baby crusades...I am going to make Keegan some yummy baby food. How hard can it be? So I take the first step in any well thought out and well planned research. I Google how to make baby food. I get numerous hits (a number of them rather dubious) one website was really helpful though ( http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/). We'll get back to that information though. Anyway, let's just say I was less than thrilled with the majority of results. Okay step 2 of research visit babycenter.com and search there. They actually had a very nice overview of baby food; but no specifics. It just now came to me; I probably should have searched with wikihowtos also, but I didn't. So anyway I go back to wholesomebabyfood.com.

I figure how complicated can it be. You grind it up and freeze it. In interest of wanting Keegan to continue his life (not die of food poisoning); I begin reading wholesomebabyfood.com. Apparently things like carrots and broccoli are a no-no until the baby is over 6 months old. These contain nitrates that can turn into posionous nitrites in young babies causing blue baby syndorme; apparently it has something to do with the baby's stomach chemicals being right...I am not going to go into it all. The carrots from the store are treated to removed the nitrates.

Okay so...no broccoli for a month or so. Next food strawberries.

After more reading I find there is a general rule to not feed your babies berries until they are over 12 months old. Something about their digestive system not being able to handle it. Blueberries and cranberries are exempt because they are not real berries.

Okay so no feeding Keegan strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, or boysenberries.

I had heard that citrus is bad to give babies before 12 months. This fact is reiterated on the site.
Apparently eating citrus before 12 months greatly raises the chance your child will have a citrus allergy later in life.

Okay...no citrus.

What about the kiwi, mango, papaya, starfruit etc. Well, exotic fruits are more likely to cause allergic reaction in young infants. So you should hold off on those until he's 9 months or older. Sorry, Keegan I already fed you some kiwi...looks like you are fine though so we can knock that one off the list.

So...no exotic fruits.

Well we love tomatoes at our house, so what about those? Well tomatoes, corn, and cranberries are some of the many fruits and vegetables deemed to acidic for infants under 9 months. They are known to upset tummies.

So, no acidic foods.

With my list of exciting things I want Keegan to try drastically limited. I decide that we'll try eating some avocados. Now to find a way to puree these...something easy to clean. The site recommends using a hand grinder. Low and behold Babies R' Us has a hand grinder *with* carrying case for the low price of $9.99. I buy it and am excited to try my hand at baby food making.

I turn in my final project for school (no more school, yes!). Then set about steaming plums in the microwave. I quarter them and plop them into my hand dandy easy to clean hand grinder. And I grind....and I grind...okay still grinding over here. Now plum juice is leaking down the sides of the grinder. My hands are red, the counter is red. But, by golly in about 15 minutes I have ground 4 plums into a pulp that would make someone proud I am sure. The fruits of my labor (ha) fill up a whole 4 spots in the ice cube tray. Each cube in an icecube tray is supposed to be ~1 ounce. How many ounces does Keegan normally eat I wonder. Looking at the gerber food jar I see that it contains 3.5 ounces. Oh... Oh, goody I just made Keegan one meals worth of food. I look at the plum juice running down the side of the counter and sigh; then for good measure swear a little bit. Then tell Lyle we're going to get a $60 personal hand blender, like the Magic Bullet because my arm hurts and I am never hand grinding again. Keegan is especially unappreciative as Lyle puts him to bed; we didn't get to go on a walk because mom was making baby food..so no swing ride for him. Wow, this making baby food thing was just a great idea....

Oh No Baby Has Another Cold...

So just as Keegan is beginning to get over the cough he had last week...yesterday he started snotting all over the place again and his cough worsened. I feel like the poor kid is just getting one cold after another. I try to remember he has only been going to daycare for a month. That eventually he will get over his illnesses.

The above begs the questions what can you do when baby has a cold? We have the moist cool humidifier in Keegan's room to help him breath. Keegan gets Tylenol when he has a fever or if he seem especially uncomfortable and nothing seems to help. Keegan gets his nose suctioned out whenever he sounds painfully stuffy (which he just loves, yeah right). Unfortunately none of this really seems to help him at night. The last couple nights Keegan has awoken coughing and extremely stuffed up. Then he cries and is uncomfortable and can't get back to sleep; the effect of this is that we get no sleep either. So in desperation last night we were trying to find a way to make him more comfortable. We figured out that Keegan can breathe easier sitting up and he doesn't cough much when sitting up either. So...how can he sleep sitting up?

Well the answer harks back to Keegan's earliest days of existence when rocking in a swing was the only way to keep him sleeping and happy. So last night in comes the swing into the bedroom. In comes Keegan into the bedroom. We have to strap him into the swing now as, when awake, he tries to throw himself out of it. I was worried that despite being strapped in he would still throw himself out of it so I insisted we pile pillows below the swing. Lyle thinks I am loony...but it made me feel better. So Keegan is placed in the swing. Surprisingly he sits in the swing very placidly sucking on his nook and quickly falls to sleep. Once I figured out that he did not like the swing swinging and turned the swing so I could reach him from the bed the night passed with small incident. There were a few times a night where I had to reach over and reinsert his nook; other than that all was well.

I think Lyle liked it too because he didn't have to get up to reinsert nook in the other room. Hopefully this will not become habit. Hopefully Keegan's cold will pass. For last night though the wonderful Fisher Price swing was a solution to an otherwise sleepless night for the three of us (maybe the six of us if you include Ruby and the cats).

Oh Happy Day

So on Wednesday afternoon I was driving home from work. It had been "one of those days". Keegan didn't sleep much the night before, because of his cold. I was tired. I was doing my first set of experiments (coatings) at work for the week. I prepped for this experiment on Tuesday then was informed by my tech lead that we were having a two hour meeting to plan a coating run at the plant on Wednesday morning. So much for getting my experiment done early Wednesday.

I decided that if I got in at 6am I could most likely get the coating part of the experiment done by the 9am meeting and still get all of the experimental samples tested in the afternoon. Then I realized that oh crap I left my mp3 player at home; so I will be working in the lab in dead silence. Oh, joy. The meeting was pretty much a drag. It started with 22 coatings on the list which we needed to par down to 18 coatings in order to get the experiment at the plant done within 24 hrs. We left the meeting 2 hours later with 26 coatings on the list...very productive. There were a number of disagreements of which I enthusiastically took part in. Oh and management wanted the run to be on August 21st; which means that if the plant needs formulations a month before coating to get in raw materials in time then they needed the formulations last week. So now we are scrambling and I find out I'll be out at the plant probably a week in August and a week in October.

Oh, and did I mention I am trying to get my final project done for school? Oh yeah and the trim *still* isn't up in the basement. Keegan doesn't have any clean bibs, Ruby needs her nails cut, and the house needs to be cleaned up, etc. etc.

Oh my drive home the 694/35E split once again proved to be the bane of my existence; making me once again late to pick up Keegan. Getting off of 35W I inevitably got stuck behind a huge truck hauling dirt that kept shower rocks at my windshield. Anyway, you get the picture. It was a day of no major catastrophes but lots of stupid things that seemed to be piling up and weighing me down. So on the way home; stuck in traffic I decided to think about all the things in my life that I am happy about. I thought maybe I would blog about them in case I am ever having a bad day again and I can come and read it.

So here we go! I have a loving husband who has a great sense of humor and helps with tons of stuff around the house. My husband has a great well paying flexible job that he loves. I have a wonderful well paying job that is flexible where people treat me with respect and value my opinion. We have a great house on a beautiful lake that is laid out exactly like we want. We have three hilarious cats and a wonderful dog. They are generally well behaved and bring a lot of fun to the house. They are also healthy; which has often not been the case in the past.

We have a wonderful little boy. Keegan is healthy, happy, and curious about everything. Keegan seems to actually like me and Lyle :-) We have great family including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Our parents are wonderful people who always go out of their way to help us and will always be there to support us both emotionally and financially. Our parents all love Keegan to bits! We have the most wonderful friends. Our friends are fun to spend time with, caring, and very supportive. Speaking of people; the people we work with are nice, respecting, intelligent people that are fun to spend 1/3 of your life with. And in general everyone I know is in good health right now; except for continuous daycare colds.

We are able to put money away both for retirement and for Keegan. It makes me feel good that we are already on the route to helping Keegan pay for college. We can afford to do fun stuff and don't have to worry every second about money (an improvement over 3 years ago). Our cars are working and in generally good condition(I hope I don't jinx the Mazda by saying this). Keegan has great daycare providers (both in my mom) and at Tutor Time. The Tutor Time teachers really seem to enjoy having him there. I have a great doctor (both OB and internist), that keeps me feeling great; Keegan has a great doctor that keeps him healthy. We have great cleaners that come to help keep the house clean and they play with Jubei with the laser pointer and he loves that. We have a great financial adviser and lawyer that we trust. Oh and I did I mention we have a Wii and a PS3 that I will have time to play again some time in the future. I am almost done with school and the basement is almost done. We are able to spend a couple hours each night focusing on and playing with Keegan and Keegan seems to love that.

Anyway, the list gets a bit particular and strange toward the end but those are all the things I was thinking of on the way home. So I guess I am most grateful for our family, friends, and jobs. Personally I don't know what I would do without Lyle, Seras, Loki, Jubei, Ruby, Keegan, and my mom and dad. This family is the core of my life and makes my world a happy place to be!

So next time I am complaining to someone about what a rough day I had; make sure to tell me I really don't have it that bad. People have it much worse. The only thing I always worry about the precariousness of the people and things in our lives. Hopefully everything stays like it is now for quit a while.

Another day..... Another Dollar

Well you know how things go when you get busy, things don't get done like you would like, but such is the way of things. For the last couple of nights Keegan has been having coughing fits at 12pm. Last night it lasted about an hour or so, and it was about the same on Tuesday night as well. So needless to say tiredness has started to creep into my mind when trying to work from time to time. Today I realized I had been staring at the same piece of code for 15 minutes or so. Just tells me I should have gone to bed sooner :). Anyway the funny thing was this morning Keegan woke up at 5:30 like he normally does, and Karissa went out to turn on his mobile so he will stare at that while we get ready. Well we got ready and I went out to scoop him up and change him, feed him, etc. But I look in and he has his butt up in the air and is sleeping soundly. I give him this look of "bum" and go to feed the cats instead. It was nice that he waited till 7:15 to wake up for the day, and I fed him them, and took him to Grandma's house. Karissa of course had left at 5:30 so we had a little guy time this morning.

Other things that are happening... well there is the whole bridge thing here in the twin cities, and I still can't believe that a major portion of I35W is toast. Speaking of cars, the Mazda hasn't been sounding too good, so tomorrow I will have to take it in to see if it is something major or not. Hopefully it is just something minor, but we will have to see. Lastly, I was reading online about some stuff and came across the picasaweb stuff that mentioned that you can make an album into a flash, and embed it. So I thought I would try it out..... so here goes.