My Name is Inigo Montoya

photo by www.buzzsugar.com

There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night with one of your kids sick. However after all of the clean up and finally getting some sleep, then next day I think it is only right to watch the best movie ever made to watch when you are sick.
The Princess Bride.

The kids had never seen it and Kira was a little skeptical when I showed her the video case. Enzo did not care because I told him there were pirates. A hour and some change later the kids loved the movie.
Kira thought the Rodents of Unusual Size were funny and said
"Them hungry, they just need some cheese."
Enzo spent most of the movie dueling with his sword.

Thankfully I think Kira just had a little stomach bug. She did not get sick again and we laid low all day. She seems just fine. Even though the circumstances were not the best I was happy to introduce the best "sick day" movie ever. I am glad they liked it as much as I do.

Two Years Ago

Two years ago at Midnight my water broke and thus the labor begun.

Nine hours later, ten minutes of pushing out you came

Your big sister, who you call "Ra Ra" is holding you for the first time

I can't believe how small you are 6lbs 15oz.

Kira was not quite sure of you

But I know she loves you so much

You are my momma's boy

My crazy monkey

At your baby dedication

We are so blessed to be your parents

You getting acupuncture, you were and are a trooper

You love Ra Ra
You love your food

And we love you Mr. Man

Happy 2nd Birthday Enzo!!

Oh How I Love Mondays

No really I love Mondays. I work Friday and Saturday. Sundays are usually filled with church and family. So Mondays are just for me to catch up and rejuvenate in a sense.

I finally put all of our laundry away after having to refold it all. I cleaned up our room and that always feels good. I tutored my high school student. I had a nap with the kids. They both napped for two hours at the SAME time. I made a tasty Chicken Satay with veggies and rice. Yum. I bought stuff for Corned Beef and cabbage for tomorrow. I might even make green bagels or pancakes tomorrow.

This morning I ran with my friend at the beach and it felt so good to get out and exercise. I have not wanted to exercise but I am in dire need to exercise. I am at my heaviest ever (about 15 lbs over my realistic weight) without being pregnant, at least being pregnant you kind of have an excuse for extra weight. No this is plain laziness and pure apathy for any kind of good eating or exercise. So today I drank water like no tomorrow and ate really good. I think if I do not eat after 9:00p.m. it should help a lot. I definitely find myself snacking late night and that is never good.

My realistic weight is a weight that I can comfortably keep without starving myself or being too neurotic about everything I do. All of my clothes fit perfect without any binding but they are not falling off. If I just exercise on a regular basis I usually do not have a problem with my weight. But it is the regular basis that needs help.

I am going to put together a fitness schedule for my next race. I am planning on running the Half Marathon in October at Long Beach with my friend again. We want to shave off some serious time of our last race. This means serious training and discipline. I need it.

What do you do to get motivated to exercise?

Aaron Roohk June 6, 1972- March 7, 2009

Today with a conflicted heart I said goodbye to a dear friend. Aaron was 36 years old when he passed away on last Saturday morning after a nine year battle with Brain Cancer. He had three tumors over the course of his sickness. He was a fighter. Today was the Celebration of his life (memorial service) at Rock Harbor Church up in Costa Mesa. I know without a doubt that today he is dancing and singing in Heaven with Our Savior! The celebration of his life was beautiful and full of laughter, talk about cars, computers and a person so full of God's love and happiness. No matter what pain he was in, when you went to see him and encourage him, you left having been encouraged. He was always giving everything he had, whether time, money and ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on.

I will remember Aaron for always telling it to me straight. He always knew how to talk to me with truth and love in a non-judgemental way. He would have no problem calling a spade a spade, but with a sweet smile that you could not deny. His smile, was big and bright and it matched his big blue eyes. Even though Aaron and I did not see each other for sometimes years at a time, we were always able to start where we left off with our friendship. He knew me through bad boyfriends and even worse hair. I remember once he met Eric, he pulled me aside and told me I did a good job picking him out and that it was about time I found a keeper.

My sweet dear friend called back in in the winter of 2008 and told me "I have not got enough attention lately so I thought I would get another tumor so that people would pay attention to me." That was Aaron always laughing and joking about his condition. When I saw him at the hospital later that day he did not want to talk about him He wanted to know what I was up. I shared with him about my family and gave him my blog. He immediately accessed it on his phone and gave me a hard time for not formatting my photos correctly. He told me when he got out of the hospital he would show me. He was the computer pro, gadget guy and a connoisseur of cars. He had over 21 cars in his 20 years of having a drivers license.

I thank God that I knew him and because I knew him I am a better person. He was selfless at all times and truly live with God's purpose.

I will miss you my dear sweet Aaron, but I know this is not goodbye but rather just like the other times in our friendship that I won't see you for a while, but we will pick up our friendship in Heaven and sing and dance together in Our Wonderful Father's House.

Aaron's favorite verse

Isa 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew [their] strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

Phil 1:9-11

And this is my prayer:

that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,

so that you may be able to discern what is best and

may be pure and blameless, until the day of Christ,

filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through

Jesus Christ—

to the glory and praise of God.

Ballerina Tutu

Easy Fun Ballerina Tutu

Materials:

I bought two spools of tulle at Tall Mouse, but you could get them at any craft or fabric store.

A pink and purple each about $4.99,

I had thin ribbon at home (thanks mom) in the same colors.

I had plenty of elastic at home, I would recommend a 1/2 inch wide,

I used 3/4 or 1 inch and I think it was too wide.

All I did was measured Kira's waist about 22 inches.

She does not like things too binding, so I made it a little loose,

so definitely measure for your child.
Measure elastic out for 23 inches and connect end by sewing together..okay a little sewing
Then I measured out tulle, about arms length.

Fold it in half

Bring the loop under the elastic, I chose this because I like the look of the finished knot

Bring the rest of the tulle through the loop

Pull until snug

Next I cut a few long ribbons and short ribbons and

just tied them in knots around the waistband too

This was the easiest practically no sew tutu

Kira was so excited, she played Angelina Ballerina all day

Enzo and Kira posing like ballet students.

Enzo saw Kira getting her picture taken and got in the shot.

Day 28 of Nothing

Saturday the 28th

Wow I can hardly believe that it has been 28 days and I have hardly spent anything outside of our basic necessities. I totaled up my spending throughout the month of unnecessary spending.
I have spent, drum roll please.....
$90.96
It was that Wal Mart trip of $54.00 that really did my spending in.I think I probably could have done better, but I feel like I did good. I am happy to say I paid rent early and all of my first of the month bills have all been paid early as well and we have more money than we have ever had at the end/first of the month, EVER! It feels awesome to have accomplished so much. It was a little painful at first but at the end I was excited to see how I could keep from spending. I think I am going to come up with a plan to continue this "Nothing" mentality going.

Have you learned anything or been challenged in anyway by this? I would love to know. :)

Day 27 of Nothing

Friday the 27th

I get a call today from Enzo's occupational therapist. He tells me that on Wednesday when he was in for his weekly appointment there was another little boy who had chicken pox at the unit. Oh Great! Now Enzo had his first round of shots back when he was one month and he has not had any more immunizations since. Now that is a WHOLE different discussion, but I will briefly tell you, Yes, I have done all of my research and investigative reporting on the subject of immunizations. Eric and I decided that we did not want to possible hinder Enzo's mind any further with the possiblilty of side effects of his shots. The best is when at his first year check up his pediatrician was hounding me to whether or not we were going to do shots that day. When I finally told him we were not continuing giving him shots he got all gruff with me.

This is the doctor who I really liked and enjoy going to see him but he constantly belittled me and it got old. I was fed up when I went to see him at Enzo's four month checkup and I told him I thought something was wrong because he did not use his left hand at all. He politely told me it was nothing but to set my mind at ease he would refer Enzo to a neurologist. Praise the Lord he did. She was the one who diagnosed him with Cerebral Palsy.

After I told him we were not going forward with shots he sat there grumbling and looking at his paperwork. Then he proceeds to tell me that if I am going to have him have any shots it should be these two. Are you kidding me?! Out of a ten different shots there are only really two that you think they really need? Really, no really, how do I even believe that. I do not remember the two that he mentioned because I was so flustered at what he said.

Okay I guess I went off a little more than I planned on the whole immunization thing. Sorry. Now I am not againist it nor really for it. But as of right now Enzo is not totally immunized. I know this is a crazy subject and I am not trying to be on a soap box or anything, I am just telling you how we came to the decision not to immunize right now.

So as I am writing this Enzo's teacher called me to tell me the scoop of the child who came to school with chicken pox. Apparently he HAD his chicken pox shot and still got them....hmmm. Isn't that interesting? Anyways she told me that there is a incubation period of 10-14 days until they show signs or are contagious, so we are okay to come to school. I don't know how I still feel about having them possibly getting someone else sick, I would feel terrible.
So that was my friday day in a nutshell.

Kira decided to throw one tantrum after another all day long and I was losing my mind. I am still trying to keep to the no tolerance rule. I am asking them once to stop what they are doing and then after the second warning if they still do not heed my words it is a timeout no matter what. If they fail to take the time out I threaten with the spanking stick. Oh brother I am hitting all the "Hot Topics" today. I do not like to spank and I really only spank if there is outright defiance. I think my no tolerance rule of time outs has really worked. It has kept me calm and I can tell I have more patience with the kids. I think this works for us. But there are those days of pushing the limits and Friday was definitely pushing the limits at every moment. I finally had to put her down for a nap even though it was 3:00 pm, she needed to cool out. My sitter came over and I woke her up and she was definitely in a better mood. I left for work.

Work was crazy weird. It was as if it was a full moon or something. It was a decent night tips wise, nothing to go crazy about but okay. I was tempted to bring a bottle of wine home at the end of the shift but I did not.
I did not buy anything today. The cool thing about this experiment of nothing is that it has rubbed off on other people. Eric told me has really tried to not spend too. Which is great since I did not tell him he needed to do it too but he saw that we were saving money and he wanted to help too. I told one of my co-workers about what I was trying to do this month and I think he is trying to not spend anything this next month. It is pretty cool, especially in these times of uncertainty.
One more day of no spending. Yeah!