Goodbye Honda Pilot

Well, it's gone. And yes, Luke did cry. He was so attached to this car (going through some kind of phase!). We did take it to Disneyland twice, St. George lots of times, Zion's National Park, camping at Palisade, on countless Sunday drives, and as a littler guy, Luke napped many a day in this baby for mom's sanity.

We had 39 great months in our Honda Pilot. It is the longest we have ever kept a car of the 17 in our almost-seven years of marriage. It was a pretty painless process dropping it off in St. George and the guy actually dropped a payment the leasing company failed to bill us about a year ago - which meant with the disposition fee dropped and a payment, we saved 700 bucks! It was one of the most pleasant surprises of our trip. If you ever need to lease a car, call MVM Leasing in St. George! I did feel a little twinge of sadness saying goodbye to my car. I guess Luke has to get it from one of us.

Getting Ready for the Trip

Thursday night we were packing for the trip, so we threw the boys in the tub. It was such a party!

Then Luke fell asleep on the lovesac. Harry fell asleep in our bed.

This is how they were an hour later.

We thought having them sleep in our room would be kinda fun for everyone. We were a little mistaken.

Biking in St. George

Here's a teaser of our biking weekend. We're having fun and will have a full update and lots of pictures Sunday or Monday.

American Idol and Luke

Tonight we were watching last night's results show of AI, and as Ruben Studdard's "Celebrate Me Home" played and as we watched Chikezie's goodbye montage, Jon and I were chatting and suddenly realized Luke was bawling - and not just little tears, those BIG crocodile tears of real sadness. "What's wrong buddy?" we asked. He just broke down that he was so sad Chikezie was going home and it really hurt his feelings because he likes him the most. We tried to explain that he really isn't the most talented of the remaining Idols and all but one have to go home at some point. He wouldn't calm down until Jon suggested we try and find a way to write him a letter or email and tell him how great he is in the eyes of Luke. We'll have to figure out how to pull that one off. Who knew Luke was so attached? We sure didn't.

Luke's Top 5

I can't believe I forgot to do this Monday. OOPS. Here they are:

1. Batman
2. Mom
3. Harry
4. Grandpa
5. Playing Mr. Potato Heads

Our sweet little guy.

Harry's Quote of the Day

Whenever we drive anywhere, we see mountains. Harry loves them and yesterday he said, "Mom, I want to fly in the mountains, I want to fly in the clouds." "You do?" I asked. "La," he said in the sweetest little voice.

"A Trip to Wal-Mart" or "How Far is it to Insanity?"

While I have been under the weather, I just haven't been able to do my regular mom routine. I must admit - our food storage is significantly depleted and getting milk at diapers at Costco has been about as much as I've accomplished the last few weeks. Don't even get me started on the house. However, I've been feeling much better this week and decided today was the day to attack a full schedule, including my dreaded trip to Wal-mart.

After a rather uneventful laundry/kitchen/tidying-up morning, the boys and I drove to Salt Lake to meet Jon at the bike shop. We needed to get our bikes tuned for the trip to St. George this weekend and traded cars and stuff. The boys were pretty well-behaved there. No major events. Life seemed to be getting back to normal. Then the drive home happened.

As I mentioned, we swapped cars, so that meant the boys and I were piling ourselves into the smallish sedan. It's a great car and we love it, but honestly I had forgotten how much room the three of us take and how much more room we have in our mid-sized SUV. Unfortunately, we are not small people, and even Luke's little knees were so close to the back of my seat. And, as much as I don't want to share a major shortcoming of mine, the entertainment system in the MDX really is a major source of my sanity, especially on rides longer than 15 minutes. (I have a philosophy about the timing of seatbelts and carseats being absolutely mandatory and the subsequent invention of the DVD player in cars, but that is another post altogether.) Anyway, the drive home was one of the longest in history. The boys were so excited to be in the "shark car" as they have so affectionately named it, they couldn't settle down. I learned a lesson about how well sound travels in a smaller space. For forty-five minutes that felt more like four or five hours, (we got stuck on 90th in traffic) it was non-stop laughing, screaming, joking, knock-knocking, happy sounds, stressed out sounds when big brother took something from little brother, etc... you get the idea.

As I started to merge toward our exit, I realized I'd forgotten about the Wal-Mart trip on today's agenda and we were completely out of milk. So I stayed on the freeway for two more exits and we made our way to the dreaded, yet beloved place.

I, like many moms I associate with, have a love-hate relationship with Wal-Mart. I love it because the prices are consistently lower than everywhere else, unless you're buying bulk and Costco is my best friend in that case. But I hate it because it's simply never a pleasant shopping experience, with or without kids. Jon and I joke that it's a bad place for our marriage, especially on Saturdays. If I send him out for something at night, he finds any reason to not go there. Albertson's is a whole .2 miles closer to our house and gas is pricey. I've also come to find that anything can happen at Wal-mart and when someone says, "You'll never believe what I saw at the store today," they're going to follow it up with a Wal-mart story.

It started off ok, other than the safety strap on the cart being broken. No biggie. Then Luke got lost. It was probably really two minutes, but felt a lot longer. I did find him in the video game section, after weaving the cart through the packed isles, almost running over unsupervised rugrats on bikes and scooters, not being able to walk more than a foot away from a restless Harry unbuckled in the broken cart. Luke was so non-chalant with his response to his panicked mother, "Mom I was just playing this super cool game. Let me tell you about it." We had a little talk about stranger danger and staying close to Mom at the store and stuff. Somehow that fueled my usually laid-back little guy. He was running the isles - one of my top ten reasons for hating Wal-mart, he was grabbing everything he wanted and throwing it in the cart - not ok. And was overly helpful at the checkout, dropping things and getting in everyone's way - more of my top ten. His intentions to help were good, I think. We did eventually make it out to the car.

By this point I was feeling a little frazzled - more than the normal trip to the store and I was ready to get home. So we started home and Luke was determined to be good for the rest of the outing since I threatened to not play Super Mario with him tonight. With peace finally in the car, I thought it would be a good time to talk to him about the plans for the weekend. We are dropping off the Pilot because our lease is over and the boys are staying with my folks Friday night. Luke started asking questions about the car, and actually got a little tearful. We have had many fun memories and trips in that great vehicle. We then had to have another little talk about how cars are things and the memories we have stay with us but things like cars come and go. I'm sure there will soon be a goodbye Honda Pilot post in the next few days. You'd think after 17 cars in seven years of marriage, we'd have this down to a science. We weren't expecting our kids to grow emotionally attached to the cars.

We made it home and the boys have returned to their normal angelic state (hee hee). I am getting there, how many moms really feel sane anyway? Especially after a trip to Wal-mart.

My Attempt at being Artistic

I've been messing with photos a lot lately, so here's my most recent attempt at something that might resemble art. Someday, I just might have a photoblog, but that seems lightyears away right now. Enjoy some of the sights of Easter....

More Easter Pictures....

Here are the highlights...the rest are at my Picasa Web Album. http://picasaweb.google.com/KSFuller/Easter2008

Thanks to my big sis for stepping in with her camera and sharing her photos.

Easter Sunday

Somehow my new camera's lens decided not to work on Easter Sunday. So my envisioned photoshoot in cute new clothes never really happened. We had a fun day, nevertheless. Church was nice, although we did learn our lesson about filling the kids with sugar just prior to our meetings. More than one of the families who sat by us made comments about how entertaining we are to sit near. Yeah, entertaining for those not involved. We went to my parents' for an easter egg hunt and realized neither of the boys have Jon's or my competitive spirit. Luke got 10 eggs, Harry 12, and Jade and Ivy shared the other 50 - and everyone was totally fine with that - including Jon and me. ;)

I'll be posting more Easter pics, courtesy of my sister's camera. But here's what I got with the old Canon SD300.

Happy Easter!

I love my "dankdet"

We accidentally left Harry's blanket at my folks on Thursday and he got it back today. I'm not really sure how we made it so long without it. And rather than being super excited like how he gets about Little Einsteins, it was a somber moment. He loved and hugged his blanket and finally laid down and snuggled with it. He really does love his "dankdet."

Easter Crowns

We had Grandma Lorelie and Jade up this afternoon to do a little craft I found online. I have to be honest, my kids aren't the best at staying focused with crafts and often it turns into a "how fast can I color the whole thing with a black marker" contest between the boys. I thought by bringing Jade and Ivy (we missed Ivy because it was her naptime), we could bring some focus, but I wasn't counting on it. I kinda figured it would be me and my mom stuck with three uninterested kids and we would be putting it all together. Boy was I wrong. All three had a ball making their Easter crowns and when they were finished, they hopped around like little bunnies for quite a while. I'll definitely keep this craft in the idea box come next Easter....I think we could do this for lots of holidays. Oh the possibilities....

Jade was very focused and had a plan, while Luke was happy to be done and quite proud of his final project. Harry just wanted to get his on his head and won't let anyone take it off. Here are our three silly little kids. Thanks for coming up Grandma, it was a lot more fun than we thought!

Easter Eggs

The boys decided they wanted to dye the eggs today. But they definitely didn't want their pictures taken while we were crafternooning! I'm sensing a pattern lately. So here are our eggs. Funny little boys. We had fun all the same.

Welcome Baby Swogger

Harry and I went to visit my good friend Rachel today during Luke's preschool. We got to see sweet baby Jay - only three days old. He is so tiny and precious and I got to snuggle with the little guy the whole time we visited. After two girls, they are so excited to have a little boy and we couldn't be happier for them. Harry looks so big next to a newborn. How soon we forget how little they once were.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Luke's Five

Hope everyone has a happy St. Patrick's Day today. Here are Luke's five for the week.

1. Karate

2. My Bionicle

3. St. Patrick's Day

4. Mom

5. Dad

He had these all ready for me when I asked this afternoon. I did try a photo shoot in the boys green clothes today and they wouldn't cooperate so I guess we'll try again for Easter!

Pictures from Shae and Cathy's Wedding

We went to some dear friends' wedding this weekend. Shae introduced Jon and me almost eight years ago and he just married his sweetheart, Cathy. We are so happy for them, but will certainly miss them. They have been dating long distance, Cathy here and Shae in Texas, for a few years. Now there won't be so many frequent Utah visits since they are moving to Dallas. Shae often spent the night at our house while he was in town, so we hope they all come to visit soon. Luke was so cute to share his treats with his new little friend.

Hugs for the bride.

Jon, Shae and Bill...these three fellas came to San Fran together while Jon and I were dating and we had quite the weekend.

A friend's little guy. He sat in front of us at the ceremony and I couldn't resist snapping some photos.

Cathy did a beautiful job with her flowers - I love the colors.

Le Jardin in the winter is so pretty. It snowed all night and just got more magical as the night went on.

Leaky Windows

I wasn't sure I was going to post anything about our latest saga until I saw my sister in law posted her own situation and I figured that gave me permission. Please tell me if I'm wrong, and I will delete this post!

The title comes from a comment I made to a friend one day who had just had nothing go right that day. When it rains, it does pour, but it doesn't stop there. The wind blows and the windows leak too. Life just doesn't rest with the curve-balls and I guess that's my lesson in being prepared -- for anything.

A couple nights ago, Jon was talking to his mom and she said his little (30-yr.old) sister was going to the emergency room because of some shortness of breath and pain in her chest. Of course, we anxiously awaited any news that would come our way. I have to backtrack to last summer when a dear friend called me and said her husband (32 at the time) was going in for open heart surgery and ended up with a sextuple - yes that's six- bypass. I sat with her during the surgery and we talked about everything from the books we were reading to life philosophies and why things happen the way they do. He is now doing great and is basically a walking miracle, but I had some similar feelings when Jon told me about his sister. Mostly it was the uneasiness of not knowing what's going on and why this is happening to someone so young and so close to us. Her doctors weren't concerned about heart issues, for her it was fear of a pulmonary embolism - blood clots in the lungs. But, just like heart attacks, people die from that.

Here's some info I found in an article by Craig F Feied, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, FACPh, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown:
"Pulmonary embolism (PE) is an extremely common and highly lethal condition that is a leading cause of death in all age groups. A good clinician actively seeks the diagnosis as soon as any suspicion of PE whatsoever is warranted, because prompt diagnosis and treatment can dramatically reduce the mortality rate and morbidity of the disease. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is missed more often than it is made, because PE often causes only vague and nonspecific symptoms."

Thank goodness she has such a great physician- my father in law is one of the best, if not the best, especially when it comes to emergency situations like this. Around 11pm, we heard back that she had multiple blood clots in her lungs, she was stable, but would be in the hospital a few days. In my mind I started counting all the people I had heard of, friends of the family, people in the ward, people who worked with my mom, etc...who had died from this condition. It really freaked me out so I called my mom, who is always willing to lend an ear during most people's regular sleeping hours. She too, had a PE, ten days after I was born and spent two weeks in the hospital away from her precious (ahem - I'm modest, am I not?) newborn. It was a sobering experience for her and she told me it basically changed her life. No doubt this will have a similar effect on my sister in law.

Yesterday we went to visit with cards the kids made and spent some time with our special patient. She is in good spirits and optimistic about only being in a few days. She will be on blood thinners for about six months, however, and they are testing her to see if she has the tendency to clot or not. Her sweet husband of only six months is being a trooper and although I think he sees the gravity of the situation, he is being a great support to his sweetheart and easing everyone's minds as they come to visit.

We're so glad to still have our sweet sister with us and as we count our blessings, this will be at the top. Things are good, she'll be fine and life goes on. As she put it, she's just a healthy 30-year-old, with blood clots. We all have our flaws I suppose.

Today's Pirate

I took this picture the other night and it got me thinking about how different things are for our kids than they were for us. I mean, how many pirates with cell phones did you see as a kid?!

Mega Mask Boys

A couple Christmases ago, my folks gave Luke a Mega Mask toy we found at Costco. He loved building the silly masks and hats and it has a voice changer, but hasn't really played with it over the years as much as I thought he would. I think just recently has he really grown into this cool toy. He wants to play with it all the time and surprise me with whatever he makes. The other day he kept Harrison busy for quite a while working on their creations, and they both came up with something pretty crazy. Here they are....my little...well, whatever they are!

Luke's Weekly Top 5

Ok here they are...he was in the bath when I asked, can you tell? They actually changed more than I expected. Funny little guy.

1. Playing in the bath

2. Taking care of my brother

3. Playing with my brother

4. My Transformer Scorpionox

5. Grandma and Grandpa's playroom

Correction

I got another phone call from the doctor this morning. It went something like this:

"Is this Kathryn?"
"Yes."
"Well, we feel really bad because we told you that you didn't have mono yesterday, but we got the second part of your blood test back today and it was positive."
"What? You're kidding, right?"
"No, we're sorry. You need lots of fluids and rest and it should last 6-8 weeks. Oh, and stay away from physical activities and sports."

At that point, I was practically laughing and practically crying. I will do my best to rest and take lots of vitamin C and fluids. Zipfizz is my new best friend so I can knock out two birds with one stone. But stay way from physical activities and sports? Have you met me? Seriously.

I was SO excited to get all my spring cleaning done - to get my life organized, to work out like crazy - we were starting P90X again, to get the house perfect, to clean out the basement, to get going on the yard, to paint the playroom and the boys' room, to organize the office, etc...I really could go on forever. The bottom line is I am feeling so much better with the bronchitis in check, I really do feel a surge of energy. It just took a little wind out of my sails this morning to hear that no matter how hard I push myself or how much I rest, I will still be this exhausted for awhile.

My mom and I were chatting this morning after I got the news and as we were commiserating our condition, we decided the best approach is to just do our best and be more forgiving of what doesn't get accomplished. The ideal resting in bed with someone bringing you vitamin-filled drinks just doesn't happen in this life. What does happen, is we keep plugging along only noticing that we move slower than normal and get a little less, or a lot less, done. Do the important things and forgive yourself for the things you just couldn't do.

So there it is - a correction to my super happy news yesterday. There is a silver lining though. According to my numbers in my blood test, I am in the middle to the end of those 6-8 weeks. I'm thinking two more. I can do that. That is, unless they call again Monday to say they missed that!

P.S. The doctor said Jon probably has it too. I suppose that makes sense with mono being the "kissing disease" and all. No sense in checking, just have him rest and stay away from too much activity too. Inside I was really hoping they would say get him checked too and his would come back negative and they would just say, "Take care of your wife!" Wishful thinking, I guess. He is being really sweet and helping me with the kids a ton.

Follow the Prophet

I nabbed this picture from my friend's blog. Thanks, Cherry. I just love it and wanted to share it. I think I am printing one out for myself and putting it in a little frame on my desk in the kitchen. And maybe one in the boys' room. I was just thinking they needed something like this in their little pirate lair.

Getting so much better!

I have to apologize for the depressing post about me yesterday. I wrote it from the depths of when I was my sickest - and grumpiest. Today, things are much better. I got a Z-Pack and 24 hours into it, life is looking much brighter. And the big news is NO mono! Yay! Time to just focus on getting better. I might even leave the house today. The boys would be so happy. We might even go to Costco. Wowee. Everybody have a happy day and enjoy this sunshine. Let's just pray it is soon accompanied by warmer temperatures.

Harry's Top 2

I started having mommy guilt that I did a post solely about the Super Lukester, so I decided to share Harry's top two things. Why two, you may ask. Well that's because he is two and not that much a of a coversationalist yet. Mostly his commands are one or two words and often times Mom and Dad are the only ones who really understand his language! I don't think his will change as often as Luke's so I don't think I'll be adding this to the weekly posts. So here they are:

1. Disney's Little Einsteins
2. Disney's Little Einsteins

No, that is not a typo, he loves it that much and has loved it that long. He is now starting to prefer certain episodes and says things like, "choo choo one" or "einstein car!"

yes, I finally went to the doctor.

Just a little update for those of you who have known I have been a little under the weather lately. Actually, I haven't left the house much for a couple weeks other than to mooch food off the parents, family b-days, and the occasional trip to preschool or karate. I haven't even gone to Walmart or Costco. Yes, that is starting to show. I probably ought to get some milk before I have to bust out the powdered stuff from the food storage!

I am not looking for sympathy, but I did find out today that I actually am sick. I was getting to the point myself where I wasn't really sure if I was sick or just having major sympathy symptoms for all those around me who are. Harry has two ear infections. Luke just got over the cold/flu junk going around. It seems like everyone I talk to has something or is just getting over it. All this sick energy, surely I wasn't really sick!

I finally went to the doctor today after practically a month of my mom and Jon prodding me to do so. I guess they were getting fed up with my lack of energy and constant hacking. Anyway, they're doing full blood work (mom has mono so cross your fingers I'm not that sick,) and he said I have bronchitis and a bout with the flu. Seriously. The one year I actually decide to get a flu shot and they miss on the vaccine. But the good news is I am feeling a lot better than I did yesterday. Would Spring please hurry up and get here so I can go outside and feel like a human again!?

Luke's Top 5

We were driving to Karate this afternoon and Luke started listing all his favorite things. I thought it would be a fun idea to ask him every Monday and post his top five. So here they are for this week, in no particular order:

1. the pirate ship mom and dad gave me for my 5th birthday

2. kiwi - my favorite "new food"

3. the Mr. Men show on Cartoon Network

4. karate

5. Spiderman