The Ears Have It!

Well, we finally gave in.  After 3 ruptures of one ear drum, it became clear that tubes were in our future.  Luckily, we visited the doc on Tuesday and were scheduled for the first surgery on Thursday morning. So the plan was to show up at 7 am, surgery at 8:30 and outta there by 9:15. Nan came to keep Mason after the surgery while I went back to work. Well, you know about the best plans - they're made to be broken.

No food or drink after midnight. No problem! We were worried that Mason would cry for his bottle... and he did ask for it a couple of times... but overall he rode happily to the doc at 6:40 am.  As we are pulling into the parking lot Mom says: "Mason has something in his mouth!!"  I hopped out of the car and ran back there, told him to spit it out, and he said "No! No!" And then the goldfish (or whatever it was) were gone. And now I know to clean out the carseat of all food for trips to outpatient surgery.

So no big deal, we'll just tell the anesthesiologist that he ate a gold fish cracker and life will go on as scheduled.  Look how happy and angelic:

And when I told her she said: "Hmm.. I need to think about that." Mom and I looked at each other wide-eyed. After some consultation with her colleagues, they decided to delay our surgery TWO HOURS. Awesome. Because I was hoping I could spend two extra hours in outpatient surgery with my 2 year old. I hate it that I'm honest. Think of all the kids that probably had whatever they wanted for breakfast before this simple, 10 min, no IV, no tube down the throat surgery.  So... Mom and I were a great tag team. There were a lot of wagon rides.

There was some iPad time.

Some snuggling.

Some crawling on the floor meowing like a "meow meow."

Minutes passed like days, but we made it through. Honestly, he did awesome for a kid that had no food or drink until 11:00 am.

Recovering.

And how is he now? Judge for yourself:

Lovely Weekend!

It was a beautiful weekend in Greenville. On top of that, Grandma and Grandaddy came to visit!! And we took them too.... the park! Shocked, right?  It was a great day for a picnic.

Before we left, we iced cupcakes for Grandma's birthday.

Then we found a sunny spot.

And after we polished off some home-fried chicken and some pimento cheese sandwiches, we just sat and watched the kids run and took it all in.

The boys climbed waterfalls.  The girls found flowers.

We were so happy that Grandma and Grandaddy made it to visit.

On Sunday we did more park time. This time we walked a few miles on the Swamp Rabbit Trail.  Lots of fun to explore. You can walk from downtown to the Zoo, among other exciting attractions. Like this "Choo Choo."

All aboard! (You didn't think we would leave Foster home?)

Choo Choo!!

There were many parks to visit along the way. Kate was especially fond of the "heart park."

 

Then we trekked back up Main Street for some food and we found two more mice on the way.  I spotted one and then Kate spotted one all on her own!

As you know, Kate had many struggles with Pre-school early on. Heck. Until last month - when things started to improve.  Well, last week she transitioned up to a new class: Kindergarten Prep.  And the old Kate is back.  She walks right in every morning, doesn't look back, and I actually have to ask for my hug and kiss. My theory? The new class doesn't require nap time. They can rest and read for about 30 min, and then if they aren't tired, they can play a quiet activity. Voila! She loves it!  And today, the Cat in the Hat came home with us.

He even went for a bike ride.  You are supposed to read him stories and then write those in his book. She picked out the stories within 10 min of being home, and has already completed her "homework" assignment that is due Friday. She wrote all of the book titles in the notebook and drew a picture. Doing homework for actual school won't be like this at all, will it?

And Mason?  A little jealous of his sister's scooter. So he improvised with his little bike. Have I mentioned that he must be like his sister at all times?  He is also transitioning to a new class this week. On the way to school Kate asked, "Are you looking forward to it, Mason?" He just nodded.  Word is that he enjoyed his new class and didn't even want to go back to the toddler room. 

Sneak Peek

As you know, we finally sold our house in March. So we've been shopping. Kate isn't a fan of house shopping: "There are too many houses!" She may be in luck. The wait is almost over.  Here's a sneak peek of what's in store...

Weekend Adventures

Finally!! It has warmed up! And that means we were out and about - in my favorite city, and enjoying our new city.

Friday night we dropped the kids at Nan and Pop's and headed down to Charleston for the Cooper River Bridge Run. The plan was to train for the month of March before running a 6.2 mile race, but the weather didn't cooperate, and so we ended up kind of not training at all. I think we ran twice in March. Each time a couple of miles, but no more than three.  We got up silly early for this nonsense. It was cold.

We waited in the cold in a very long line.

And then we took a (very warm) bus ride over the river to the starting line. The sun was just coming up.

We made it to our corral. I've never been in A. It was awesome. There was no one to trip over at the start. I do remember getting passed a lot.

And we both survived. Strangely enough, it was not my worst Bridge Run ever. My slowest time was 1 hour 6 min. That was 13 or so years ago. I was 25. Not sure how that is possible, but it is. This year I ran a 57 min race and Don was close behind me. We rewarded ourselves with dinner at The Wreck - our favorite restaurant in Charleston.

Then we grabbed the kiddos and headed back to Greenville. I'm not kidding when I say that I would put the parks here up against any.

It's spring!! Flowers everywhere! And Pollen. Let's try not to think about that.

We found this airplane along the Swamp Rabbit Trail. This is a memorial to Major Rudolf Anderson, a Greenville native who served in the Korean War. He was the only American fatality in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He died when anit-aircraft shrapnel hit his plane.  

Mason loved the plane.

The walk back.

 And a snack downtown.

Mason looking down on the street from our table:

We also managed to squeeze in some house shopping. It's not a popular activity for the kids.  We tried to call it an "adventure," but Kate caught on quickly.  "Nooooo. There are too many houses!"  We've found one that is more interesting than the rest, and are going to see it again tomorrow. The kids went bonkers in the back yard - which is big enough for lots of running, skipping, dancing, and whatever else you'd like to do.

Today we came home and enjoyed the weather.

Mason enjoyed riding the pink princess bike.

 

Kate went "swimming."  She does this lately. Some mornings while I'm cooking breakfast, she'll go and put on her bathing suit. What the heck? At least she was fully clothed in the front yard. I'm also loving the hat she outgrew 2 years ago.

   

Here they are. I managed to snap a shot in the .0034 nanoseconds that they were both looking at the camera.

Hoppy Easter!

It was a great Easter! Unfortunately we slept too late to make it to church this morning. Luckily, I made it to the Good Friday service just in case. Instead we ate Peeps for breakfast. Very healthy.

Then Nan brought us Easter Dinner (that meal that southerners eat in the middle of the day).  Macaroni and cheese, green beans, potatoes and ham. Yum!! Kate filled up on the traditional Easter broccoli. What's that you say? Never heard of broccoli at Easter dinner? Yeah, me either. This is Kate.

After we ate, we dyed eggs in the cups that I've been dying eggs in since I was a little girl. Love these cups. They're only used for easter egg dying. And they smell like vinegar all year round for that very reason.  This year we found out that my aunt (Mom's sister) has the same set, and only uses them for.... decorating eggs! 

It was a beautiful, warm, and sunny day. Which makes it seem really odd that Kate chose to wear a scarf, gloves, and Valentine socks with her Easter dress.

Once again my attempts to get serious photos of the kids was met with.. well, a four year old and a (nearly) two year old.

My best "serious" shot of these two.

They were much more amenable once they had on their rabbit ears.

And also much sillier.

Sweet kids. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

The Weekend

This weekend the kids and I took a trip to Lexington. It looks like we are finally going to sell our house there, which is, of course, bittersweet.  I won't bore you with all of the crazy details of the sale, because really, I could go on and on about how nutty the process and the buyers have been.  If all goes as planned, we close Friday. It really is a fantastic house and I might be in mourning just a bit over it not actually being ours. But, now we get to start looking for a new place to make our home in Greenville, and that's pretty exciting. This next place has some big shoes to fill.

It must have a front porch that is good for picture taking.  One last picture of the front porch. I would have taken the kids out of the car to get a shot of them here, but Kate was crying about leaving our "home" and I thought maybe that wasn't the best idea. Never fear, she was making up wacky songs 30 seconds later - so not depressed the entire car ride home.

Another shot of the living room before packing. A peaceful house. Just looking at the photo gives me lots of happy. :)

 And then there is the attic. Yow. We have a lot of stuff. My job for the weekend was just to cull out the things to sell at an upcoming yard sale.  My parents deserve gold medals or stars or halos for helping us through the process of moving (and storing our garage sale stuff). I'm serious when I say that I could have clothed many of the small children in Lexington:

Thankfully some friends showed up and took a lot of this off my hands so that I was down to three large boxes in the end. You are just seeing the baby stuff here. There is at least as much miscellaneous junk we are also selling.

The kids played at Nan and Pop's. It was a windy day. Perfect for pinwheels. Of course, any time is perfect for Nan and Pop.

And Mason showed off his cup-drinking skills. What a big boy. It took Kate forever to master this, but M is a ninja at it.  Here he is drinking sweet tea from a Halloween cup. I don't support small children drinking sweet tea, but he kept asking to taste mine, and I really just wanted to eat my supper in peace.

And then it was back to Greenville for some park time on a warm March afternoon.  I'm always amazed that this exists just downtown in our new city:

The kids are huge fans of the park. There is a ton of wide open green space to run and be silly. Kate loved running down this huge hill.

And M too.There were people walking their giant lizards in the park. Yes, that seemed odd to me too. "They're really very social." Um... uh huh. Right.

I was impressed with Don's willingness to stand on a rock with these two.... you know, after the whole broken foot debacle.

And more sunshine today means the kids did more running wild in the back yard. But more importantly, they wore themselves out for bedtime!