4th of July

We had a great 4th of July this year.  We were lucky enough to have friends and family come and join us for a party at our house.  We had a great time and shot off a lot of fireworks.  You can see all of the fun below!

Sadly Gma Lucy and Gpa Larry weren't able to come up from Florida to join us this year.  Gpa Larry is undergoing chemo for colon cancer.  So everyone send happy thoughts their way!  We are hoping the treatments go well and aren't to difficult or painful.  They were definitely missed!

You can see some of the pics below.  It was a lot of fun; of course Keegan was the life of the party just like he usually is.

The Party started inside, with the play room being a main source of entertainment!

We ate lots of food, watch some dolphin movie, and talked.

Then it was time to go outside and get wet (at least if you were Keegan)

Even Everett joined in on all the fun...while his mom and dad relaxed in the sun :-)

Lyle organized his stash of fireworks in anticipation of the soon to set sun.

Keegan ninja fought smoke bombs.

Even some baby swallows got in on the action.  You can see one of the chicks chirping for its mom.

What a great looking group.  Hard to believe that Gpa Ralph is almost 90!  He doesn't look like he's out of his 70's :-)

After smoke bombs it was on to lawn darts...Keegan's way.  Who knew you could turn the lawn dart target into a whip for Captain America?

Cate and Chris took in all the action as we got closer and closer to the sun being down....

Keegan does his sweet pose for the camera while waiting to start the "big" fireworks!

Then we started on the big ones!  Guess who was really excited???

It was a great time and fun to see everyone.  Hope you all had a great 4th of July also!

Soccer!

Keegan just finished up soccer for the summer.  He had a lot of fun especially since his best friend from school, Jared, ended up being on his team.  See below for some pics of the boy doing his thing!

Getting ready to play soccer.

Still waiting for Soccer to start.

This is so much fun.

Keegan is the one with the cone on his ear, Jared is the one with the cone on his head.  Guess they are bored.

Now they both have cones on their heads....

Click to watch video.

Keegan and his friend Jared after the final soccer session.

Keegan with his soccer trophy.

Keegan asked why he got a soccer trophy and I told him it was because he did a good job.  He looked at me and then said "Well, mom everyone got one."  I said "You all did a good job."  Keegan handed me the trophy and said "Well it's not that special then is it."

Uh, okay...well I guess he is kind of right.  It's like those participation ribbons I used to get in gymnastics...nice but not all that special.  Whatever, at least he had a great time playing soccer!

Behind again

So this weekend we went camping up at Bear Head Lake State Park.  Despite the occasional thunderstorms blowing through it was a lot of fun.  We took walks, boat rides, naps, and ate lots of Dairy Queen.  Maybe not the best for the body, but my mind enjoyed the break.

I have pics of our New York Trip, Kee's final hockey session, Lyle's Birthday and the last two camping trips at home on the computer.  I will try to make it a priority to get all those darn pictures online some time this week.

I did get wonderful news last week; I do not have to fly out to our plant for work this month!  This news made my week and means I will spend a full month at home...the first in a very long time...I think since December or something like that.

I've also been having a bit of a tooth deal going.  During my last trip to the plant I cracked a tooth; probably from grinding my teeth (which I do when stressed).  Went in to have the dentist look at it on Thursday and I needed a crown.  The whole thing sucks because I have very good teeth, this is the first major thing I have ever had happen to them. 

Then things got worse when the Novocain wouldn't work...seriously the dentist shot me up with Novocain like eight times and then put me on nitrous oxide.  I still jumped when she would hit this nerve in my tooth...it just wouldn't go numb and hurt horribly when ever she tried to drill that part of the tooth.  So she drilled about a quarter of it out, epoxied it or something and wants me to come back this afternoon to finish drilling.  I was at the dentist office for like 3 hours and am really not looking forward to the appointment this afternoon.  She was worried I might need a root canal and I have heard that is so not fun.  I am not totally clear on what happened because the nitrous oxide zapped me out pretty good.

So I am really really hoping the drilling goes better this afternoon and I can just get this crown on and be done with it.  Or maybe they can just knock me out or sedate me or something; I wish there was someway to have this done without me having to be present and conscious.

All that fun aside, I am going to try to get some posts up about camping...birthday...etc.  Hope you are all doing well.

Ramping up for yet more fun...

This weekend Lyle and I will be in NYC.  We've never been there and hope to see a lot of great sites Sat to Monday.  Then on Tuesday we will be attending BEA (Book Expo of America): I'll be covering that adventure on my book blog.

The general craziness has continued.  I was at the plant in Oregon again last week.  Then got back and we picked up our boat and finally got that in the lake.  So could we calm things down for a bit?  Of course not.

We fly out to NYC this week and then get back for a couple days.  After that it is up north to go camping over Memorial Day weekend.  Then back home for a few days and then I will be out at the plant again for a week.

I swear I feel like I am at home less than 50% of the month some times.  It is fun but exhausting...okay well the work trips aren't exactly fun...but I am a Platinum member of Choice Hotels now and I get free airline tickets a lot so that is nice.

We still haven't gotten the canoe out this year.  We have done lots of bike rides with Keegan on his tag-along bike.  I will have to post some pics of that at some point.

Keegan is done with hockey for now and still has a couple sessions of swimming left.  Then in June he starts soccer.  After soccer he has informed me he wants to do karate with mommy.  So the boy's got plans.

Everyone in the family has been doing well.  It looks like Lyle's contract is going to be renewed at Medtronic so that is nice.  There have been some sniffles and sneezing from occasional allergies but other than that we have been surprisingly healthy.  (I suddenly feel a need to knock on wood)

Hope that you all are doing well.  I still have yet to post pics from our first camping trip...hope to get around to that in a couple weeks.

Keegan Quote of the Day:

We were debating what to have for dinner while Lyle was at the hospital visiting his stepbrother.  Keegan's input was this:

"Well mom, you know me.  I am kind of a sprinkles and frosting type of guy."

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay I know it is not quite Mother's Day but I plan on doing other fun things on Mother's Day, so I will say Happy Mother's Day right now :-)

This brings to mind last Mother's Day.  I had been having to travel a lot to the plant (which I am still doing and just seems to be my lot in life right now).  I got home late on a Friday and was kind of bummed about it all.  When I walked in the door I was greeted with the below:

Yep that says "I Love Mom" written out in Duplos...  It was so geeky and so sweet.  I love my family :-)

For this Mother's Day weekend we got plans.  Saturday is yard work, then going to Free Comic Book Day at the Source (I am so excited!!!  I can't decide which one I want...I love Locke and Key and am really looking forward to the Jack of Dreaming one, and then there are the neat ones for Keegan), then to pick up the boat, then meet my parents for dinner and hopefully go see Thor at the movie theater. 

For Sunday we have plans to hit the Outlet mall (my Mother's Day present) and then meet up with the rest of the family for dinner.

It should be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it :-)

Hope that you all have an excellent Mother's Day too!

using lyle's new r

Stuff

Okay so this blog has been very lame lately.  I apologize.  Of course we have a lot going on.  Also my book blog karissabooks.blogspot.com is going really well; over 500+ followers!  So...uh...I've been spending most of my time on that...

We do have a lot going on though.  Keegan is playing hockey now and is also in swimming lessons.  He keeps bugging me about when he can start karate and soccer.  So when he is done with hockey he will have a month of soccer and then we will talk about the karate.  He likes to do things, lots of things.  But constantly complains he doesn't get enough time to play and then constantly complains he wants to do more sports.  Ah, well, he is four.

I have missed a lot of big things, so here's a partial recap.

Keegan's Birthday

Keegan had a great birthday.  He had a lot of his friends over to pump it up for a party and they had a great time.  Thanks to everyone who came and for all the great presents.

 These are the kids we could get to sit still for a picture.

For some video of the jumping go here

There was much present opening and eating of cake.

All pics can be found here.

Swimming with the Dolphins:
We finally got some pics up of us getting to interact with the dolphin in the Bahamas.
I will be posting the video of it later.  Lots of fun; definitely something cool to do with the kids if you ever get a chance to.

Kissing the Dolphin

Family Dolphin Pic

Keegan Starting Hockey:
Keegan was very excited for this and really seems to enjoy it.  The sessions are kind of long for him (a whole hour) but he has fun and really is getting to be a better skater.

The Hockey Player Himself getting ready to go out on the ice.

Learning How to Shoot

Look Mom I Made a Goal!

For all hockey pics go here.


Refinished Our Bedroom:
We refinished our bedroom in January too.  This involved pulling up the carpet, repainting, and then laying down a hardwood floor.  It looks really nice.  I don't have a before picture, but here's what it looked like after.

 

We Also Went to the Mirror Maze at the Mall of America:

That was actually pretty cool.  We were worried it would be lame.  But it is very well done and actually quite a bit of fun.

So...what are we doing right now?  Well we are trying to find a hardback travel trailer to replace our pop-up camper.  We do so much camping that we think it would be nice to have something with A/C and a toilet.  So we've been looking around for one of those.

I am still doing a lot of traveling for work.  I keep hoping it will slow down but it hasn't really.  

Lyle and I will be taking a trip to NYC mid-May.  It is both for his birthday and so that I can attend BEA (Book Expo of America).  I am excited to attend BEA, it will be my first time there and I am going as Press for my blog.  I am super excited to meet some of my fellow bloggers and some of the publishers I've been working with.

We are also trying to plan a trip to Yellowstone Park sometime in September.  Haven't really done much for it yet but we are excited to go see geysers!

Other than that just normal stuff.  Trying to get the lawn cleaned up for spring, getting the boat back in the lake, Lyle's contract is up in June so he is looking for a new one, Keegan is going to daycare and doing his activities...then we have our first camping trip next weekend.  So, just normal stuff.  We keep pretty darn busy and never seem to have enough time, but we sure do have a lot of fun!

Here Comes Science...

Funny little story.  We are sitting in the car listening to Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants. The following rousing rock chorus is being sung:

"The sun is a mass of incandescent gas."

Lyle is shaking his head.  Then the following conversation ensues; while Keegan is in back "reading" his hockey magazine and belting out the chorus line above.

Me: What's wrong?
Lyle: The sun isn't made of gas it's made of plasma.
Me: Well maybe they couldn't think of anything to rhyme with plasma.
Lyle: Miasma rhymes with plasma.
Me: (rolling my eyes)
Lyle: What?! It does.

Then the songs ends and the next song starts up.
"The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma.  Don't listen to what we told you before."

I die laughing. 
Me:  You've listened to this CD before.
Lyle: (shakes his head) Wow, that is just weird. 
Me: It's like they read your mind.
Lyle:  I guess great minds think alike.

I could not believe that they were signing about miasma rhyming with plasma; I mean come on what are the chances.  It was just absolutely unbelievable.

Anyway it is an awesome CD, if you have kids check it out.  I mean where else to they sign a song about chemical elements where "Elephants are made of elements".  The teacher was pretty impressed at daycare when Keegan told her we are all mainly made out of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.  Lots of fun songs on here ranging from chemistry, to space, to electric cars, to paleontologists.

Cooking while working full-time

So I came across this article and it struck me as interesting and practical.

I know cooking good meals was tough for Lyle and I before we had Keegan, and now it is even tougher.  Now instead of getting the Vegetarian (or chicken) that I crave along with the meat Lyle loves I have to consider the wants of Keegan (4 year old food sensibilities) as well.  I have to do this all in the two hours we have together each night before Keegan's bed time, get all the housework done, and would like to have time to play with Keegan as well.

I shouldn't say I...because Lyle does just as much as I do.  Still, there are occasionally nights when Lyle and I get home, look into each other eyes, look at Keegan, and say "How about a pizza night?!"

We are pretty lucky in that we make enough money that we can go out to eat a few times a week.  With only one kid it's not too hard.  Then everyone can be happy.  I can order a nice salad, Lyle can get meat, and Keegan can get his chicken nuggets and fruit.  Still even that takes time.  So most nights we try to make something for dinner that doesn't take more than 10-15 minutes to make.

What does that mean?  Well it means most of our meats are frozen and many are packaged/processed.  Is that bad?  Not necessarily.  We stick to chicken and fish.  That includes such dubious items as fish nuggets (which actually taste much better and are healthier than you would guess) and chicken hot dogs (again much healthier than the traditional version).  It also includes frozen raviolis and chicken taquitos; things like that. 

Could we make tastier stuff ourselves?  Possibly.  But I personally have never been a fan of cooking.  Friends tell me that chemists love to cook!  I guess since I stand in a lab all day doing formulation work by the time I get home I just want to sit down and eat.  I do not want to spend another 30 minutes standing over the stove, doing yet more lab (albeit kitchen) work.

Unfortunately even if you make healthier processed foods for dinner, there are downfalls.  The healthier options generally cost more and are harder to find.  We have been lucky that the Super Target we shop at prides itself in healthier options.  So I can find much healthier options there (chicken and turkey hot dogs) than I can at more traditional grocery stores.  Still they are more pricey than traditional options.

The other thing we do with side items is to just keep it simple.  Having a four year old means picky eating.  Keegan hates vegetables with a passion I will never understand, but he loves fruit of all types.  For veggies we eat them raw and dip in ranch sauce (Keegan loves ranch so sometimes he will fold).  I also keep many varieties of fruits around.  Keegan will eat any type of fruit and loves them all.  More calories than veggies but similar nutrients.  I have also taken to buying the veggie/fruit baby food mixes in foil pouches.  Keegan loves slurping the "smoothies" out of them and how else am I going to get him to eat a full serving of broccoli, pumpkin, or sweet potatoes?  He slurps up these mixtures and really enjoys them, I feel good because he is actually getting vegetables.

Then there is the sinking feeling you get after spending 20 minutes making tacos for your family because your preschooler requested them and then having him decide he absolutely will not eat them.  We've pretty much remedied that too.  I keep a supply of low-sugar yogurt and cheese sticks in the fridge.  If Keegan turns his nose up at taco meat, I say fine go have yogurt and fruit for dinner.  He gets his protein and calcuin, as well as important nutrient from fruits.  I can think of worse dinners to have than yogurt and fruit.

So, all in all I have been pretty happy with how we control meals at our house.  Many of the prepared frozen items are actually healthier than ones I would make by scratch, everyone in the family will eat them, and they are quick to cook.  We keep things simple; fruits and vegetables are usually eaten raw with occasional dipping sauces.  Generally it works out pretty well.  There isn't a lot of junk food around (although neither Lyle or Keegan can live without their weekly dose of Sun Chips).

Still occasionally we have those nights and last night was one of them.  We got home realized we were out of dog food and that I needed to stop by my parents to get something.  It was beautiful out and sunny and Keegan asked if we could go to Dairy Queen.  Lyle was ready to make dinner on the grill but time just wasn't going to allow for it.  So...we went to Dairy Queen and indulged in greasiness and saltiness.  It happens...not all the time but maybe once every other week or so...   Well we are just human after all, and every once in a while you need a little bit of ice cream and a big juicy burger :-)

My..ami

A couple weeks ago we took Kee on his first cruise.  It was a 4-night Bahaman cruise and great fun.  On the way there though we had a bit of a mis-communication with Keegan.  The boat left out of Miami. 

Keegan: "What city are we in?"
Me: "Miami"
Keegan: "Is Your-ami in Florida?"
Lyle: "No the name of the city is Mi-ami."
Keegan: "No daddy you are wrong is it Mommy's-ami."
Me: "Nope the city's name is Miami, even if you say it, it is Miami."
Keegan: "but where is Your-ami?"

He finally got the hang it but it took awhile.  You can see all of the pictures for the trip here.

I got dreadfully seasick the first day at sea; weird because that's never happened to me before.  But by the second day I was better.  The first day we spent at Key West.  We went on a trolley tour, went to the Sunken Ship Museum, and went on a tour of their Aquarium.  The Trolley tour was nifty, the Sunken Ship Museum pretty lame (except for the walk up to the watch tower), and the Aquarium was small but neat since we got to watch them feed the sting rays and sharks and then got to pet a baby shark.  Did you know shark's feel like sandpaper?

 

Keegan in Front of the Sunken Ship Museum Leaning on a Cannon

 

Spongehead Keegan outside of the Key West Aquarium

The first night on the cruise ship we found the Aquanauts kid's area and signed Keegan up for the kid's program.  We felt a little guilty leaving him there but he had a great time.  It was a great program.  He got to play with other kids his age for a couple hours and do stuff he thought was fun, while Lyle and I got to go sit in the lounge and listen to musicians and relax.  The second night was pirate night.  The kids got to dress up as pirates and parade across the stage for the main show, then they went on a scavenger hunt throughout the ship.  Below is a picture of our little pirate...

The second day we went to Nassau, this was our big dolphin excursion.  Swimming with the dolphins was spectacular.  We did it at Blue Lagoon Island and they did an absolutely fantastic job.  It was a once in a lifetime type of thing (of course, we will probably try to do it again sometime because we had so much fun).  I have to scan in the dolphin pics later, but below are some pics of our boat ride to the island.

Coming back from Blue Lagoon Island.

After that we went to Senor Frogs and had dinner/partied.  Keegan danced like crazy in the dancing area and there were funny hats for all.

Lyle with the silly hat.

Outside of Senior Frogs

The next day was Coco Cay.  There we did a glass bottom boat tour (which was kind of lame and long) and had a lot of fun playing in the ocean and on the beach.

The beautiful beach.

 

Looking at a peppercorn snail on the glass bottom boat.

The next day we were back in Miami and we took a Fanboat through the everglades.  We saw lots of alligators and had a great time zooming through the Everglades on that fanboat...those things can really whip across the water.  Definitely something fun to do if you can.

 One of the many Alligators we saw

Keegan and I sitting on a fan boat.

Overall it was a fun trip and it was very nice to hang out in some weather that was in the 70's and sunny.  We have really been missing going to the beach over the winter and can't wait until it warms up.  The highlights were probably the fanboat tour and the dolphin excursion.  Lots of fun was had by all :-)

The other funny thing Keegan kept asking about were tsunamis, he wanted to know all about those.  Except he kept saying Salami.  At one point he asked someone if the island ever got hit by giant salamis...  It was very hard to not start laughing at him...

All I want for Christmas is... Strep and an Ear Infection?

Well that was Keegan's Christmas.. maybe not his wish, but what he did get for Christmas. Ok step back a second. Keegan wasn't feeling well on Christmas Eve. We thought he might have just had the flu, because he had a fever, so we gave him Tylonol, and he did seem to get better. We first opened presents at our house, and Keegan got some cool stuff. We then made the rounds to my parents house in the morning, and then we went to Karissa's grandparents house.

The next day we opened up presents from Santa, and then went to Karissa's parents house and had breakfast, and the opened presents. Keegan was suffering though, and even with tylonol wasn't doing too good. We spent the day there, but by the end of Christmas day, we knew Keegan would have to go to the doctor the next day. SO we took him to Urgent care Sunday morning after, and found out that he had both an ear infection and strep throat.

Of course Keegan got lots of toys of course, and some gift cards for later. Among his favorite toys this year were the Lego castle set, a clone trooper gun, and a bunch of books that he likes to read.

So after a 10 days of amoxicillin Keegan was doing good, and we thought we were in the clear. Then last weekend Keegan wasn't feeling good again, and so again it was to the doctor and he still has strep throat. Now he is taking Cefdinir for the next ten days and hopefully that will clear it up.

Anyway Keegan has been quite the trooper through it all, he has been somewhat crabby, but considering the illness that is to be expected. He was doing pretty well today, and hopefully that will continue, we shall see.

Other than that fun stuff going on. We are taking a vacation at the end of the month, going on a cruise to the Bahamas, so we are looking forward to that. Karissa had to go to the plant again, so it is just me and the bud this week. Work is going well for me for the most part, nothing too exciting, still working at Medtronic. Karissa is up and down about her work, so it just depends on the day.

Making cookies

What do you do when there are a billion feet of snow outside and there are -30oF windchills? Well you do some shoveling that's for sure.  On Saturday there was also some present wrapping, Nerf gun fights, and a Dance Dance Revolution tutorial for my almost 4 year old son.  Then Saturday night we went over to my parents (only a couple miles away) and watched movies, played board games, and had pizza.

But now it is Sunday...it is too darn cold to do anything outside so what did we do?  Well...after the car racing, more Nerf gun fights, contest to see who can shoot down more Galactic Hero figurines with the Nerf gun, some housework, and some Lego building.  We decided to make sugar cookies...with icing and sprinkles.

This meant we need to take a quick trip to Target to get supplies.  One of which was butter flavored shortening...I am not a shortening person, but I was willing to give it a try to make perfect sugar cookies.

We forgot to take pictures of the doing, but we got some of the aftermath.  Keegan help me cut out shapes, Lyle did the oven baking coordination.  Then we all chipped in with the decorating.

Keegan started out as the sprinkler of sprinkles, but was making a huge mess.  After seeing I was getting frustrated with him, he suggested he be the icing spreader.  Well I was dubious, but he actually did a wonderful job spreading icing.  Eventually Keegan and Lyle were both icing and I was the sprinkler...I am picky about my sprinkle uniformity...

We decided to flavor the icing so the green had a little mint extract adding, the pink some almond extract, and the blue some orange extract.  The orange flavoring was definitely the yummiest, but Lyle enjoyed the mint ones a lot too.  See pictures below.

 The froster extraordinare

Tired Karissa cleaning up the aftermath (let me tell you all that shoveling really takes it out of you!)

The sprinkles only cookies.

The Lyle and Keegan frosted ones up close.

The frosted ones.

The icing aftermath....

The biggest thing we learned from this is that...it takes a lot of time and is a lot of work...oh and Keegan is a really great froster :-)

Snow

You gotta' have that post about all the snow we got on Saturday if you live in MN so here is ours :-)

We got a ton of snow.  Here is the view of our deck from our living room window.  That black thing in the right-hand corner is the grill...yes it is buried under snow.

This is the view from our bedroom which also goes out to the deck.  This was halfway through the day, by the end of the day it was a foot higher up the door.

Below is a little movie showing the storm midway through.  Yep, I love Minnesota.  Actually what I do love about Minnesota is that even with all of this snow it was business as usual by Sunday :-)

Mental Leaps

Every once in a while Keegan starts making some mental leaps.  It seems like in a couple weeks he starts doing things that he wasn't doing earlier, not gradually but in a leap type of thing.

I know developmentally they say children will make cognitive leaps throughout their childhood; supposedly this can leave them cranky and out of sorts for a while.

Well we have been going through a bit of this.  The last week or so Kee has been one cranky little boy...but he also started doing some interesting things.

1) Lyle and I can no longer spell words that we don't want Keegan to hear.  For example I said "Lyle don't forget Keegan needs a B-A-T-H tonight."  Keegan says "Mom I know I need a bath, I just don't want one."

Or I say "Keegan wants some C-A-N-D-Y after dinner, is that okay with you?" Keegan replies "I get to have candy after dinner?"

The same thing has happened with the word Santa, now Lyle and I have to spell it backwards in order to talk about Tanas's presents."

2) Coloring and drawing.  Keegan was the king of scribbles.  He would make a vortex of scribbles and call it a volcano.  Today at Green Mill he flipped over his paper placemat grabbed a red crayon and drew a very clear volcano with lava blasting out the top.  Then he drew something over the lava and something down the side of the volcano.  I pointed to the volcano and asked if the read stuff was lava inside...Keegan said "No mom, it's magma...geez.  The stuff coming out of the top is lava.  The cloud over the lava is the ash cloud and the stuff going down the side is the pyroclastic flow (seriously he knows what a pyroclastic flow is)."  I was blown away!  In a week we went from scribbles to detailed diagrams of volcanoes.

3) Dexterity.  Up to this point Keegan has needed assistance with Legos.  He is way young to be playing with them anyway, but he enjoys them so we help him put together stuff he can't do.  Then on Thursday night the item out of the Lego Advent Calendar was a skeleton with these tiny ball socket joints for his arms.  I was having a devil of a time getting it together.  Keegan took it from me and snapped it together in 2 seconds and then handed it back "Here mom, I got it."  I was like "Uh, okay...when did you learn how to do that?"

4)  Money. As I think I detailed in a earlier entry, a couple months ago Keegan asked for chores so that he could make money of his own.  Today he asked if he could count the money he's made so far.  He wanted to take it to Target and maybe get a toy with it.  He was kind of sad that he's done all this work and has nothing but money to show for it.  Lyle and I are all about teaching him to save, but at his age he also needs to equate his hard work with reward (because face it I wouldn't go to work if I didn't get money and was able to use the money for things I like).  So we decided he could take the money and go to Target.  Keegan was surprisingly mature about it.  We told him how much money he had and he looked at a ton of different toys always asking how much they were.  When something he wanted was more money then he had he didn't whine, he just put it back on the shelf.  We explained he could save up his money and get it later, but he wanted something special today.  So he looked until he found a couple smaller things he had been wanting.  He was very pleasant about the whole thing and it really impressed me.

I am sure there are other things he has done that I just can't think of now.  For example he has started becoming more concerned of what people think of him; which is interesting too.  He is kind of hard on himself about certain things.  When he brought home a paper of letters he had traced I praised how good they all looked and he immediately pointed out all the ones he thought looked bad.  When he brought home a colored picture and I said how  much I liked it and put it on the fridge, he wanted to take it down because he said it was too scribbly and it looked like a baby had done it.  (It's still on the fridge anyway, because I like it and I think he should be proud of it).  I hope he is not too hard on himself in the future; but I know I was always very hard on myself so it's not too surprising he's like that...  

Anyway it is interesting to see him grow :-)  He is developing into a very interesting and capable individual!

Firetruck Santa

So last night was the night when Santa comes by on the firetruck and the Fire Station collects food shelf items.  Keegan was very excited and so was I :-)

Only this year it was a bit more complicated.  Santa was supposed to be by between 5:30-8:30pm.  Quite a large window, we knew that previous years he has come by around 7:30-8pm...so we figured this year would be similar.  What complicated this all was that we had swimming lessons until 5:45pm and then Keegan wanted to get tacos at Zantigos.  So we didn't get back home until 6:30pm.

At this point we had no idea if Santa has already been by or not, but we assumed not since we didn't hear sirens in the area.  While Lyle was getting Keegan ready for bed, I was scavenging through the pantry trying to figure out what we had to give to the food shelf.  I had meant to pick up some stuff earlier but forgot.

Then things got more complicated.  I wanted to get something out of my purse.  Hmmm...where is my purse.  Then I districtly remembered leaving Zantigo with a feeling of emptiness despite having just had tacos.  A couple there distracted me when they started talking to Keegan about Santa on the fire truck.  He of course had walked up to them to tell them all about how he had to eat his tacos fast so he could go home to see Santa.  So apparently my purse was enjoying a night at Zantigos.  Off I go to Zantigos to pick up my purse.  Which I found, with everything intact.  Yay for me :-)

I rush back home and Santa still has not stopped by.  It is now 20 after 7pm.  Keegan is in bed, Lyle and I are alternating freezing as we stand by the storm door and listen for sirens. 

Well Santa decided to take a different route this year.  He came in the back way, the way we can't see from our house.  So suddenly there he is trucking down the street.

Of course, for the first time in weeks, Keegan fell asleep by 7:15pm.  So I throw my coat on, race downstairs and grab Keegan.  He is very asleep.  He really wanted us to wake him up if Santa came.  So I am yelling "Keegan wake up Santa is here, he is here!"  Lyle throws Keegan's winter coat on and Keegan and I race down the driveway with Keegan in arms in the extremely cold temps.

Santa is already past our driveway but you can kind of see Santa and you can definitely see the fire truck.  So I am like "Keegan Keegan do you see santa!!!"  He mumbles "NO".  I am like "Keegan Keegan do you see the fire truck!?"  He mumbles "Yeah".  We get candy canes and give canned goods and run back inside.  We are freezing and my arms are about to fall off from lugging around a 35 pound toddler who is a half-asleep dead weight.

We get inside Keegan says "Mom, why did you do that? I want to do back to bed."  I carry him down to bed chattering the whole way about "Wasn't that exciting? You got to see Santa!!"

The majority of the night was wasted looking for Santa, stressing about missing him, and trying to get Keegan out to see him.  But we did it, we got out there to see him so it was all worth it.

Then what is the first thing that happens this morning?  Keegan wanders into the bathroom almost in tears, "Why didn't you guys wake me up to see Santa?"

I just stared at him.  Took a couple of deep breathes and said "We did Keegan, you saw him and I have the candy canes to prove it."

He says "No I didn't get to see him, you guys are so mean."  I walk him out and show him the candy canes.  He says "Oh...mom those are mint candy canes...I hate mint."

Thus began my morning...