sick sick sick

For the past two weeks, we have been sick.  And by we, I mean the kids and I.  Dave was lucky enough to miss out on the fun.  One by one, we fell like dominoes.  First Sam, then me, and finally Katelyn came down with the flu.  Kate was so sick that she developed bronchitis and had to take antibiotics for a week.  It was terrible.

Thankfully, we had Dave to take care of us.  He was like a super hero running around fixing people hot chocolate and soup, cleaning and tackling laundry mountain, and running errands with the kids so that I could nap in peace.  And he did all this while working from home, answering emails, and fielding phone calls.  The only breaks he got were when we brought the sick and afflicted over to my parents' house where my mom took good care of us.

When we finally decided we were not contagious and no longer walking germ factories, we took the kids to Chick-fil-A to get everybody out of the house.  We met my mom for dinner and Dave bought kids meals for Sam and Kate.  After we ate, we traded the toys (which is always really lame at Chick-fil-A) for ice cream cones.  We thought the kids would be so happy to enjoy an ice cream treat.

But Sam had other ideas.  Sam just wanted to play in his dessert.  Instead of eating, he wanted to squish the ice cream between his chubby fingers and crush the cone in his little sticky fist.  This just had "Bad Idea" written all over it so I tried everything I could to keep him from making such a huge mess.  Finally, I had to take the cone away.  And Sam threw a fit.  So Dave took him out to the car while my mom and I cleared the table and got refills with Kate.

I came out of the parking lot to find my two guys sitting by the car like this, Sam with a triumphant look on his face and a sticky smooshed up ice cream cone in his hand.

Sam: 1   Mom and Dad: 0

don't look at me

Well, the first week of my diet was a brilliant success as it almost always is.  I stuck to it religiously, never even looked at forbidden foods, and even exercised a few days.  And on Monday morning, I stepped onto the scale to be delighted by a five pound weight loss.

The first week is always great.

During the first week, I'm still riding high off of the day before my diet starts.  That's the day where I allow myself one final binge.  I eat my fill of all the foods I will be missing and say goodbye to them one by one.

Blue Bell Butter Crunch Ice Cream

Cheese

Ranch Dressing

Pasta with butter and garlic

Cake with lots of frosting

You know, all of my friends.

For the next week, I live off of that buzz that I get from all the sugar and simple carbohydrates.  I feel great for a while and I think to myself, "I can do this."

It's always Day Eight that really gets to me.

I start feeling anxious at first.  This is not an unusual feeling for me so at first I don't notice it.  Then I feel sad for no reason.  I start to worry about strange things that don't make any sense.  Yesterday, I started having existential crises.

That's right.  Existential crises.

Then I get mad.

And that's where I found myself this afternoon.  Standing in the kitchen feeling angry and mad.  And today the object of my rage was poor Dave.

Poor Dave stepped into the line of fire for me today because I was standing at the kitchen counter making two jam sandwiches.  I was making jam sandwiches because I had had enough.  I was at my limit of feeling tired and sad and grouchy and worried so I was going pump sugar into my veins in the fastest way I knew how which was to eat the most processed sugary food I had in my house at the moment.

I don't even like jam sandwiches.  This wasn't like I had done a poor job of ridding my kitchen of the foods that tempt me.  In all honesty, if I didn't have bread or jam, Dave would have found me standing in front of a bag of sugar with a spoon in my hand.  And I'm sad to say, I'm serious about that.

Poor Dave tried a sly approach this afternoon.  He came into the kitchen and carefully asked, "What are you doing?"

"Making sandwiches."

Followed by, "Don't look at me!"

He then cautiously asked if I was making the sandwiches for the kids and then I just lost my cool because he knew that I wasn't making those sandwiches for the kids and I knew that he knew I wasn't making those sandwiches for the kids.  I felt like he was treating me like the addict that I am.

In the end, I didn't eat the sandwiches.  I furiously threw them away and stormed out of the kitchen.  And then that sweet wonderful man actually apologized to me and took the blame for that incident by saying that he should have approached it differently.  I feel terribly guilty, by the way.

Then he took the kids and me to Orange Leaf for a healthier treat.

And I stayed on the wagon thanks to poor Dave.

Before we left, Dave told Kate where we were going but not to tell me because it was a surprise.  It was all she could do to keep the secret.  She kept shouting, "We're going to go...  We're going to go..."  She rode to Orange Leaf with both hands over her mouth to keep from spilling the beans.  When I finally guessed it, she screamed with excitement because Orange Leaf is her favorite place and Kate loves surprises, even if she has a hard time keeping them under wraps.

setting sail with st. luke's

Last weekend for Dave's work Christmas party, we went on a lunch cruise!

At first, we felt a little bad for leaving the kids with my parents for so long.  The cruise left from Kemah which is a little over an hour away from where we live and the boat was going to be cruising for three hours.  That's a long time for poor Grandma and Grandpa to be on babysitting duty!  We almost decided not to go but my mom talked us into it.  I'm glad we went because we had such a fun time!  Thanks Mom and Dad!

For lunch we were served Cornish game hens with apple sausage stuffing and little baguettes that were delicious.  I had never had Cornish game hens before and I've always thought they were so fancy!

After lunch, we went upstairs to an open air deck and enjoyed the view.  We cruised up and down a channel that had beautiful and definitely expensive homes on either side.  We had a great time just enjoying the breeze, talking, and watching Dave's fellow employees' crazy dance moves.

But by far, the highlight of the cruise was definitely when I got to sit in the captain's chair and blow the horn.

the best days of my life

These are the best days of my life.

Lately I find myself being overcome by waves of nostalgia.  They wash over me suddenly, brought on by a song on the radio, the scent of something passing by, or a long forgotten flavor brought back to the forefront of my mind.

I used to think nostalgia was a happy word but when it hits me it's often accompanied by subtle tones of sadness and longing for good times now passed.  When I'm feeling nostalgic I only remember the good times.  The lens of time warps my view and my memories of anything negative are hazy at best.

The good times stand out.  The best times are crystal clear.

I've tried many times to explain this melancholy feeling I get to Dave.  I keep telling him that I hope when we go to heaven there is a movie theater playing non-stop films of the best days of our life.  I'm hopeful that heaven will have that.

These were the best days of my life.

Dave and I were young and in love and beautiful.  We had everything in front of us.  Everything was so exciting.  I still remember the soreness I felt in my cheeks from smiling so wide during our first awkward conservation in the laundry room of our apartment building.  I remember the sweetly sickening butterflies fluttering around the top of my stomach the next day hoping that every buzz of my phone was a text from him.  And I remember the giddy excitement I couldn't hide when one finally was.  I remember the electricity of holding his hand for the first time in the dark of my apartment living room watching a stand up comedian on TV.  Everything was fresh and everything was exciting and everything was special and new.  They were the best days of my life.

These were the best days of my life.

I was a teenager, sheltered by the work of my parents and love of my family.  These were the days of my hardest chore being loading the dishwasher after dinner.  They were the days when my biggest concern was whether or not my letter jacket would arrive in time for my family vacation to Utah.  (A vacation, by the way, I neither planned nor paid for.)  It was a time when I came home from a not-so-grueling day at school to a mother who asked how my day was and prepared a family dinner, a father who came home from work to help with my not-so-strenuous homework, and siblings who thought I was cool enough to hang out with.  I wish I could go back for one more car ride from early morning seminary to school where Jack and I would inevitably stop somewhere for breakfast along the way.  I wish I could go back to the family nights where Lauren would inevitably ask someone to play a game with her.  Life was simple and beautiful and I didn't even know it.  I just wanted to grow up.

These were the best days of my life.

These were the days that my beautiful babies were born.  I have goosebumps dotting my arms and tearing welling in my eyes just remembering these perfect, wonderful days.  I wish those moments could be frozen in time for just a bit, those moments where those brand new babies were placed in my arms, their souls having just been with Heavenly Father.  It was a moment that no one could have prepared me for, a moment where I was so overwhelmed with pure love it startled me.  They smelled like vanilla frosting and I couldn't put them down.  Those were the best days of my life and they just went by too fast.

These were the best days of my life.

Dave and I moved our tiny little family into a tiny little apartment a few miles away from my parents.  The three of us shared a bedroom and seven hundred square feet of cramped living space and it was wonderful.  I could clean the entire apartment, floor to ceiling, in one afternoon.  We had a little balcony we could sit on and watch the fountain in the courtyard below.  It was the first time we had our own place as a family of three and it felt blissful.  It felt like family.  It felt like home.

These are the best days of my life.

Sam was a little under the weather so we stayed home in our pajamas all morning.  We watched cartoons and read books and the kids played on the bed while I tried to fold laundry.  Finally Kate decided she wanted to get dressed and opted for a blue princess costume.  She's twirling in circles in the living room behind me.  She's in her own world.  It's a world of magic and wonder and her favorite characters from Angelina Ballerina and I get front row tickets to watch in amazement.  It takes so little to brighten her day.  She came up to me with an imaginary wound on her forehead asking for a band aid.  When I got one from the medicine cabinet her face lit up and she threw her little arms around my neck and in a tiny toddler voice exclaimed, "Thank you Mama!"

Sam had a hard time settling in for his afternoon nap.  I listened to him toss and turn in his crib trying to get comfortable for a while.  Finally, frustrated and awake, he started to cry.  I came to the rescue with open arms and a bottle of grape juice.  I brought him out to the rocking chair in my bedroom and cradled him like a newborn and sang song after song until his eyes got heavy and he started drifting to sleep.  Occasionally he would look up at me with big giant eyes and sometimes I'd close my own eyes only to feel a tiny little hand pat me on the chin.

That evening Dave came home from work and we met at the grocery store where the bus drops him off.  We walked around with the kids in a race car cart and picked up frozen yogurt and a rotisserie chicken.  The girl at the check out gave Katelyn a strip of stickers that read "I've been Krogering."  When we got home, Kate promptly peeled off all the stickers and stuck them on the two of  us until we were covered in smiley face stickers of primary colors.  Finally, with our two beautiful children fed, bathed, and fast asleep, I sat down on the couch to eat my dessert and watch re-runs of Seinfeld with my best friend.  Now, almost seven years later, when we hold hands there is a warm and comforting familiarity that I love.  We'll go to bed early because we can and I'll smile when I think back to the days when goodnight meant goodbye so we tested the limits of our ability to stay up late.  I'm so lucky to be able to say goodnight but not goodbye to my love.

That was one of the best days of my life.

That day was today.

27 years - a birthday pictorial

my sweet valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!

The stars must have been perfectly aligned for us because Dave had the day off today.  It was so nice to sleep in.  Katelyn slept until almost ten this morning!

First, we took our littlest Valentine out for a special breakfast at Billy's donuts.  She calls donuts "nuts" and went crazy saying "nuts" over and over again when we asked her if she wanted one.  She continued chanting "nuts" on the car ride over, as we walked into the store, and after we paid for our "nuts" and sat down to eat them.

We had a wonderful time eating our breakfast and enjoying our late morning.  And then...  We went to the Sprint store because I lost my phone this week and had to get a new one.  The worst part about going to a cell phone store is the haggling.  They kept saying they were giving me "the best deal they possibly could" until I threatened to let T Mobile buy out my contract.  Suddenly, there were discounts available left and right.  It is a frustrating game that I hate to play.

The worst part of going to the cell phone store with a toddler is trying to keep her away from the displays.  In the midst of our negotiation, Kate knocked over an entire display of Otterboxes and then started screaming, "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!"  She was very embarrassed about it.  Then, when Dave stopped her from knocking over the next carousel of displays she threw a fit.  Every toddler knows that the only good and proper way to throw a fit includes also throwing yourself to the ground.  In the process of her theatrics, poor Kate bit the inside of her cheek.  We then had a screaming toddler with a mouthful of blood on our hands.  It was a traumatic experience for everyone involved.

We ended up leaving in a hurry and we drove over to my parents' house to try to collect our thoughts.  By this point, tensions were high and Dave and I were pretty grouchy.  That was when my mom offered to babysit Kate so we could get out and see a movie.  Thanks Mom!

Only, when we got out to the car, we decided that we didn't want to spend money on a movie that we could rent later.  It's a treat to go out without Katelyn.  It's an even bigger treat to go out in the middle of a workday.  So I said to Dave, "Let's do something wild and crazy to do like bowling or ice skating or...  That's all I can think of."

And we laughed and laughed and laughed because, really, we know that bowling is not that crazy.

But we had a great time!  The bowling alley was nearly empty and we bowled non-stop for two hours just laughing and enjoying the wild and crazy bowling alley being serenaded by the soothing sounds of crashing pins and songs we might have slow danced to had we known each other in middle school.

And now, we are nice and cozy in our home, away from the crowds, enjoying our Valentine's treats and watching the Olympics.

I don't think Valentine's Day gets much better than this.