A week with cousins

After we'd been in the states for a little over a week, the kids were pretty much adjusted to the time change....well, actually between the time change and Kevin's teething I wasn't positive with him.

We decided to head over to the Tri-Cities to visit my sister (Robin) and her family for the week. Kherington LOVED it and both kids were so spoiled the entire time. They got used to having an actual breakfast each morning...I guess leftover's for breakfast won't fly anymore now that Kherington is old enough to somewhat care and sees that some kids mom's actually cook in the morning. Always having a playmate around, playing with new toys geared more towards kids past the baby stage (we did keep out some awesome baby toys to kevin too), a big basket full of dress-up clothes (by the end Kherington loved all the purses and the disney princess shoes assortment and even stuck on a tutu while prancing around), a trampoline short enough that Kherington could climb on and off by herself, a trip to the tumbling gym and so much more fun stuff.

We used a bench to block off the passageway to the stairs which ended up being the perfect height for Kevin to play on, but not be tempted to climb over. That way we could relax on the couch and not spend every second wondering if Kevin made it to the stairs (he is very good at going up and not so good at going down).

We took the kids to a tumbling gym one morning. It was awesome! I wish they had one of those around here. Since it was my first time, Kevin and Kherington got in free (I think it's normally $5, but when it is freezing outside that is sooo worth it). Kherington was in love with the red car she's chilling in below. Anytime she moved away from it, she'd run back as soon as someone else started to show interest and just sit in it. Aside from the cars, there was foam pit, trampolines, balance beams, bars and more. So much fun for kids!

Putting kids down for bedtime was a little bit of a challenge. Apparently cousins, even when they are not in the same room and are not yelling/crying, can somehow keep each other awake.

On December 6th, Sinterklaas came and dropped off a small present (a book) for both Kevin and Kherington and left chocolates in all the kids shoes which Kherington had left by the fireplace the night before. It's a good thing he found us even though we weren't in Belgium. Shaun and Reese were pretty excited to enjoy the treats from Sinterklaas.

We also got to celebrate both Robin's and Fred's birthday's which meant yummy dinners, treats and balloons :). For Robin's birthday we went to Costa Vida for lunch! Delicious! I would still say I like Cafe Rio better but it was so yummy and it made me realize that the version I make is not that far off (I don't do the dressing right). Oh and for Fred's birthday we had a delicious Jambalya. Good food makes everything more fun :).

For me it was nice break. Since arriving in the States I had just been checking things off my to do list. Shopping for a year is harder than it sounds. Then add in trying to get stuff bought/made and wrapped (and mailed) for Christmas and I was exhausted.

We had planned on staying through Sunday after church but it looked like it was going to snow so we ended up heading back to my parents on Saturday. We hit some pretty thick fog between Yakima and Ellensburg, then a tiny bit of snow near North Bend but that was it. The kids fell asleep just as I started driving and didn't wake up until North Bend (about 2.5 hours later). That made the trip pretty relaxing too.

The U.S. of A

We made it the States in one piece. The flight wasn't too bad. We had a couple issues flying British Airways: car seats cannot be rear facing ever (good thing I brought Kherington's seat for Kevin) and I was incorrectly told that Kherington could not sit in the car seat (Kevin was sleeping in my arms) because she was too old which resulted in a lot of crying and screaming to end the flight.

Kevin probably slept about 5 of the 9.5 hour flight from London and Kherington slept about 3. She watched cars 2, smurfs and rio on the individual plane TVs.

The kids had somewhat of a rough time adjusting their sleep, but as of this morning they BOTH slept until 5:30am which I think is pretty awesome (they started with waking up for the day at midnight, then 2am).

One of the mornings Kherington woke up for the day at midnight and her brother joined us not long after. Around 4am I looked over and found she had gotten out the ice cream and a spoon...funny girl...and funny that Kevin is just waiting for some to fall down to his level.

Kherington was little jealous of Kevin clip on chair (which is the exact same one we have that she used when she was his age), so she climbed in. Kevin has been a garbage disposal. Seriously eat, sleep (well, sleep when he's not teething). He's funny. He will fight going to sleep and nothing you do will make he go to sleep then it just hit him and nothing you do can keep him awake (makes it a little difficult for doing the time zone adjustment).

Kevin is now a full blown crawler, stands himself up on everything and LOVES the stairs (he has fallen down them once so far...he can go up but not down and doesn't realize you can't just sit down anywhere). He also loves climbing through the stools then crying until you come help...bu then when he can see you he is just happy as can be.

We bought Kherington and Kevin some Purdue gear (off ebay) and even dressed them up to cheer on their boilermakers (Kherington was giving me a little attitude while I was trying to take her picture).

One of the fun games they play with grandpa is the indoor blanket swing. Good exercise for Grandpa and so much fun for the little munchkins! Grandma gave Kevin a little bath in the kitchen sink which he thought was pretty awesome.

Some other things...

Kherington does not have friends here which is pretty rough for her (and us). One evening I took her to Burger King to let her play on the toys (indoor playground) and have a strawberry ice cream sundae. We lucked out and there was one of the family there letting their 2 kids play so she had some friends for a little while :).

I hit up the Black Friday sales with Robin. Carter's, OshKosh and Children's Place all opened early (9pm on Thanksgiving) so we headed up the the outlets and I did my best to outfit the kids for the next year (meaning 3T and 4t clothes for Kherington and 12m, 18m and 24m clothes for Kevin). We also dropped by Target on the way home to pick up some DVDs.

I broke down and bought my Christmas present which I am now typing on :). A 13" MacBook pro. Ryan's awesome and kept telling me to just do it (kinda a pricey gift when I don't really NEED it, but the bottom line was that I knew I would get it either now or a year from now so I decided to go for it). I ended up buying it from the apple refurbished store. I love it. I got it setup to do my work stuff on it and it's nice to have a computer I can be on at any time.

My dad took Kherington to the grocery store with him. He came home with some fun stories...first she took an apple from the bottom of the pile in the produce section and just like you see in the movies they all came tumbling down. Then while he was trying to tidy the mess up, she wandered off and he couldn't find her. He ended up finding her in the flower/balloon section where she found some stuff animals.

Kids Update Nov 2011

We have been BUSY! Since August we have had a constant stream of visitors and while I'm happy to say I've finished blogging the visits, I do want to record how much the kids have changed.

Kevin
Our chill little guys is still chill, but getting so much more active.

• He still normally does his arm crawl (which has gotten faster), but yesterday he also did a could normal crawl moves.
• He loves to stand himself up on anything. His current favorites are the toy parking garage, his car seat and any big boxes.
• He likes to 'help' unload the dishwasher...definitely not very helpful when we're trying to load it. He clears the diapers and wipes off the bottom two shelves of the book case then gnaws on them.
• He LOVES the power cords that are under the computer and no matter what we put in front of them to block him from them, he manages to find a way around.
• He is good traveler. He usually just falls asleep in his car seat when we start going which make it really easy (crossing my fingers the same is true on a plane).
• He is not a huge fan of purees, but loves bread and expects to be eating whenever he sees you eating.
• He has been sleeping horribly at night...so not cool. He sleeps awesome from 9pm-midnight, but then after that he's up on and off until the morning.
• He like his voice - he lets out random happy squeals every now and again

He had a check-up today and here are his stats (so he's about 7.5 months old)
Weight: 7.4 kilos (16.28 pounds)
Height: 72 cm (28.3 inches)
Head: 44 cm (17.3 inches)

According to the curve in the back of the "carnet de l'enfant" (the book every child has here to store all doctor info), he is still slightly below average in head, is now above average (moved from about 15th percentile to 60th percentile) in height and is still trucking along around the 15th percentile in weight. I guess that makes him long and skinny.

Kherington
Oh Kherington. She is a very active, sweet little girl who usually drives me crazy by the end of the day (sometime I don't make it to the end).

• She is into EVERYTHING - she just pushes the chairs around to help herself to whatever she wants (it drives me crazy)
• She loves to give Kevin hugs and kisses
• Her current favorite animal is George (as in curious George). Brown bear has gotten the boot, but Bruce (formerly Rainbow Bear) still get to go places.
• She loves story time and cycles through the books she likes us to read. Recently she has been on a 101 Dalmatians and Sesame Street's Perfect Picnic books. Previously it was Princess and Curious George.
• She could (and sometimes does) eat noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner..sometimes she helps herself and eats them dry just like her Dad (yucky)
• She loves (and expects to be able to) help me bake/cook/mix
• She loves water - sometimes she disappears and then I hear the bathtub going (and sometime that happens multiple times a day)
• She also travels wells thanks to our DVD player. The only gotcha is that she must be the one to find and put the DVD into the player. This is fine, but it causes all our DVD to get scratched.
• She is sleeping awesome at night. She goes down more easily. We read her a few stories then leave her to read to her animals and she actually stays in her bed and does it.
• She is a chatterbox. She loves talking on toy phones to all her friends, family and animals.
• She runs around in just her underwear way more that she should...I never thought I'd be like this, but I feel like it is a success when she make it back into her underwear after using the potty...My current motto is as long as the underwear is on correctly I just don't care.
• She does not like coats...she will put it on when we leave, but then remove it as soon as we get outside (kinda defeats the purpose)

Ryan and I and doing well too :)