Merry Christmas to All!

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Snow, snow and more snow...

I haven't updated this in a while. Its been a busy couple weeks, I finished out my first quarter at Evergreen. Not as great as I would have liked but its done and over and I'm really excited about next quarter. I'll have a class every day but only for a couple hours so it shouldn't be too overwhelming. Plus its math and I can't wait!!!

This week was supposed to be my week at home to rest up and get caught up before the holiday while Beckett was still in daycare but it hasn't turned out that way. Starting Wednesday I think we've had over a foot of snow! And its still snowing now! The Evergreen campus has been too dicey to get to so Beckett's been home with me. Our street is just covered with ice and snow. We ventured out yesterday to go to mom and dear's but on the way home another storm came in and we just barely made it home. There were spinouts and accidents all along the freeway! It was fun when if first started but we're all ready to be thawed out now! Not sure how we're getting to moms for Christmas but hopefully it will all work out. I'll see if I can post some photos on here of the house and the snow. Its really something for our little part of the world!

Finishing up a roast for dinner, Beckett's got a touch of a fever so he's pretty low key lately. Lots and lots of movies. He's not too keen on playing in the snow. It doesn't help that its only about 20 degrees and thats cold for us! Off to finish up dinner and get it on the table.

Beckett's First Video Blog

My Work

Well, there is one thing I usually don't do and that's blog about where I work. I work at a VERY large credit union in Washington. OK, the largest credit union in Washington. I've been here for 12 years now and absolutely love my job. I love my job because I work someplace that actually cares about our members. We aren't in the money business to make money, but to do what's right. That's a pretty powerful statement in this day and age. With so many people worried about their jobs, their investments and their financial instutions I'm proud to work somewhere that I don't have those worries. So, that's it for now - I'll step down from my soapbox...
www.becustrength.org

Funny Stories...

So Beckett is developing quite the rational thought processes...

The other day we came home to a room full of white cotton stuffing that the dog had pulled out of his toy. Beckett walked into the room and said "Uh Oh Mama, what happened to Tag Tag?" (For those of you who don't know, Tag is our fluffy white cat!) And for the briefest of moments I too wondered how a cat could explode!

The second story revolved around rest time at Beckett's daycare. Beckett, Jude and Luca have been trouble since the beginning of classes and have since been separated for rest time. Beckett (who our teacher said is the most social child she's ever had!) now rests on his mat and yells names across the room for whoever will answer. So here are all these little 2 and 3 year olds resting quiet and Beckett yelling out the roster until somebody responds! Crazy!!!

More two week cycles...

Still no baby for us. Its getting really frustrating, especially when a few people we know are having babies - and we really are happy for them, just wish it could be us too. The question now is how much farther do we go? We're already hundreds of dollars into this so if we quit now it seems like a huge waste of money - and it did take 5 tries or something with Beckett, so really only trying 3 isn't horrible. Its something we both really want, so I'm sure we'll keep plugging along, but when do you wonder if its more? Like is somebody trying to tell us something??? Also the timing thing isn't so great now - we tried to make it so the baby would be born next summer when I'm on break from school, but now we're approaching the end of August for a due date I think, which means I won't be home as much. Oh well, just a sort of sad day... I'm sure it will happen when its supposed to and everything will work out just as its planned, I'm just not a good waiter! Onward we go!

Changes...

I guess its a good day for America. I just hope that we continue on our road to change and that our new president elect follows through on his claims to shake up the presidency. For the first time since Clinton, the president I voted for actually won - something kind of exciting! All of a sudden I'm proud to be an American and feel a responsibility to change our world for the better.

In other news, and in my opinion on a much sadder note, California is passing Prop 8 defining marriage to be between a man and a woman. I was hoping that California would lead the nation in allowing some basic civil rights to a whole new group of Americans. I guess we'll wait a bit longer. If it took almost half a century to get a black president into office after the Civil Rights movement, I guess I can hope that before I die we'll see a gay or lesbian in office too! At least we were acknowledged in Pres. Obama's speech last night - more than I can say for his opponents.

And on another note - sometimes things don't change right away. I'm off to finish laundry, clean the kitchen, and finish homework. Things I do regardless of who is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave!

I'm proud of you America -- now please keep things moving!

Halloween

So I'm sitting here typing this while Beckett's napping. Poor guy threw up this morning at Mama Abby's office. Thank God the ladies that work there are so good to him! I brought him home and we watched Lightning McQueen and has some ginger ale and applesauce and he's been sleeping for a couple hours now. Hopefully he'll feel better later to go out a little bit and trick or treat. He's been so excited to be "the black spiderman" I'd hate for him to miss it completely.

An update on our baby situation for any who are interested... Abby's fibroid is in a pretty good location - outside the uterus and on the top I think. So no worries about it being in the way to concieve. We're once again living in 2-week cycles, so I'll post something again in a couple weeks when we know more.

Our conversations have been focused around toys and Santa Claus lately. Our latest project is trying to explain Santa to Beckett... We've been circling pictures in the toy catalogs and will try to get a letter out at some point. Any suggestions on how to make this work is greatly appreciated!

Catching up

We had a busy weekend but got all the projects we needed to completed. Abby and I put up door trim on Saturday, Dear came down and helped with the baseboards (I was scared of inside and outside corners!) and Mom helped watch Beckett. We also finished the floor transitions and the house just looks amazing! Its nice not to feel like we're living in a construction zone! Our friend Gavyn finished our shower so now all that's left is to paint it, and I think in the interest of time it will end up the same lime green color it is now - major changes will have to wait for this quarter to finish! On that note I finished my 3 papers and got them sent off to my professor! Yeah me! Now just some (5 chapters) bullet points, a few NYT articles and another book (with 2 more papers) and hopefully I'll be caught up by Monday! W0w - to see it like that it doesn't feel like I'm making the progress I feel like I am!

Abby and I are heading to another doctor appointment this evening to get her fibroid checked out. They're doing a procedure to see if its inside or outside her uterine lining to make sure thats not whats causing her to not get pregnant. I guess if the fertilized egg were to attach to the fibroid it wouldn't thrive, therefore she couldn't get pregnant... Hopefully its something simple, otherwise I'm afraid it would be my turn to get pregnant and I'm not sure I'm up for that on top of everything else I've got going on!

So anyway - thats alot of information but I thought I'd catch everybody up on our lives as of late... Got next quarter all figured out and might even study abroad next year! Don't know how all of it will work out yet, but it always seems to so we'll just wait and see!

A nice relaxing weekend?

I just got back from dropping Beckett of with Grandma - he's hanging out with them this weekend so Abby and I can get some stuff around the house finished. So here's our list - we're finally getting the trim done that we took off when we painted and redid the floors, we have to finish the transitions from the hardwood to vinyl in the kitchen and entry and recut the floor, and our friend is coming over to finish drywall in the master bath then I get to paint it. Oh and also I have about a half a book to read, 3 papers to write, and 5 chapters to do bullet points on! How do you think we'll do??? Here's to another pot of coffee!

Baby Dust

Babies, babies everywhere. It seems that when you're not looking, suddenly everyone is having babies. Everyone except us that is. We were back at the dr again on Saturday morning. For another ultrasound. He checks for cysts before he'll give clomid. So, no cysts and back to clomid I go. However, he didn't like the looks of my fibroid. He wanted to know if it was inside or outside the endometrial lining. Basically, from the way I understand it - if it's inside the lining and the fertilized egg attempts to attach there, it just won't happen. So, it's back to the dr again on Wednesday. This time for a sonohistiogram. Something about a balloon catheter and checking the shape & size of my uterus. This will be attempt #3. I know there's so many women out there that have a lot more attempts than we've had, but it still doesn't make the waiting and the time any easier. The picture below is of our friends Casey and Nathan's baby girl, Lauren. Beckett got to meet her and hold her on the day she was born (9/1/08) and the look on his face was so wonderful. He absolutely loves that little baby girl. However, he's quite sensitive and when she starts to cry, he gets pretty upset about things. This process is hard for me too, because I had honestly thought that perhaps Beckett would be an only child. I know that everyone says you can't explain it, but you just love #2 just as much as #1. I sure hope so, because my Beckett is the absolute light in my eyes. He is my favorite person in the world and I can't imagine my life without him. I don't even remember life before him.

I forgot...

The best part of my story from yesterday and the reason I titled it what I did... We were sitting at dinner the other night and Beckett was refusing to eat our fettucini alfredo (he wanted noodles with red sauce, not white...) and I said that I wasn't ready for a three year old yet. He looked right at me and said "Mama, I'm not three - I'm two!!!" and proceeded to get up from the table. We convinced him to sit back down and at least eat the "chicken" out of his bowl (it was really scallops and he loved them) and got him saying "I'll be three in January." It was really very cute in the end... Apparently even a 2-year old knows the trouble with 3-year olds and refuses to be one before their time!

"I'm not three!"

So I'm into my third week of school at Evergreen. Its ALOT of work - reading and writing - but I really do learn something every day in class. Evergreen's set up a bit different and they have what they call programs, not classes. The program I'm in is supposed to go all year, but I think I'm going to transfer into something else next quarter. Something more into math and teaching... I found one that I like that is actually a night class twice a week so we'll see how that works out.

Anyway - onto other news, Beckett has turned all into a 3-year old. Yes, I know we have a couple months yet, but his little attitude sure isn't waiting! Everthing we do now is "I do it myself" or "Beckett do it!" From filling the bathtub with water or getting food out of the fridge... Its alot to deal with on a daily basis! He's been in daycare since the first part of September and every morning is still a struggle to leave him. He screams and has learned "mama I need you" which breaks my heart every time I hear it. He has a great time in class and hates it when we have to leave but starting our day that way every day is a little wearing... Even now as I sit here on the couch getting ready for bed time, all I hear is whining and "no" and "I want..." Oh well, this too shall pass, right???

Everything else is going well I think. Abby is suffering through a cold that the rest of us had last week. God love daycare! The animals are good - Tag started Prozac which I think is a little funny since I've been on it for a few months now. Maybe we should try it for Beckett??? It really is quite the happy pill!

Anyway - I think thats it for now... Hopefully we'll update more sooner rather than later... TTFN.

A rainy Saturday

Not much happening today. Beckett woke up with a slight fever and we've laid pretty low. Had Eagan's for lunch and now we're at home. Katie's doing homework and I'm trying not to be too bored. We were supposed to go to Wild Waves tonight, but between the fever and the rain - I don't think that would earn me any mother of the year awards. So, it's home for us. I don't know what it is about rainy Saturdays, they can be fantastic or they can make me go a bit stir crazy. Arts Walk was wet last night. Beckett and I went while Katie stayed home and (guess what?) did homework. We had a couple of friends displaying their artwork. We bought a Christmas gift for Grandma. I think she'll love it! Shhh... I can't say what it is in case she reads this... Well, off to figure out the evening.

I'm not very good at this...

So apparently once every couple weeks is as much as I can commit to updating this... Its been a busy few weeks though! We took the long Labor Day weekend and went camping out near the water north of Poulsbo. A very nice campground. We left Beckett with grandma Jane and Papa and took the dogs - we couldn't handle both! Everybody had a great time - although the dogs aren't quite as fond of being outside as one would think. Spike was thoroughly irritated that we were sleeping on the ground and just sat and shivered the first night... It was really very sad and pathetic.

We came home Sunday and got sort of unpacked only to get a phone call that our dear friends who were expecting a baby on the 10th or so started getting regular contractions. It was very exciting and little miss Lauren was born early Monday morning. We went and visited at the hospital and everybody was perfect and healthy! She decided to come early however so her parents were unable to make the trip to the airport to pick up Grandma and Grandpa from Australia so Beckett and I made the trip Tuesday afternoon. Everybody is at home and getting settled into life with a newborn and we're just overjoyed to be able to watch her change and grow. Even since we first saw her only a few short days ago she's changed.

Tonight we have Beckett's daycare orientation for the Evergreen Child Care Center that he will start at on Monday. He will go for a few weeks before I start at Evergreen on the 29th. We're very excited and I think it will be good for us all to start doing our own things for a change. It will certainly be different though to not be with Beckett every day all day!

I suppose thats up to date for now. Abby's home next week and we're going to try to get some of the projects that we've started this summer finished before school starts back up again. It will be nice to just be home and be together...

A quiet couple days so far this week but that is good, we needed to wind down a bit. We gave our best friends (and Beckett's Godparents) a baby shower this weekend and that took a bit of doing to get together. They're having a little girl and its really hard to find baby girl things that aren't all pink and ruffley - since nobody in this family is pink or ruffley! I think we did good though, they got alot of great things. My mom made a diaper cake for them that turned out great. Its like a tiered cake but the tiers are made of diapers... A great gift since its extremely useful but wrapping a box of diapers is just not exciting! We're all about cars at our house lately... Both the movie and the vehicles. Beckett doesn't play with anything if it doesn't have wheels. We also set up his new twin size bed and he's absolutely loving it! He sleeps much, much better now which is nicer for everybody! We also bought another stroller today - its our 4th or 5th one I think. Beckett is just so tall and big for his age that he outgrows even the nicest and most expensive ones. I've done my research on this one though and it should get us through... Plus it has a ton of add on accessories that we can use if we need the stroller for baby #2 someday... Tomorrow we're heading to the dog park with Spike and Lucky again. It's supposed to be in the mid 90's by the end of the week so we'll probably go in the morning and try to stay cool in the afternoon... All is going really well - I'm fighting some sort of sinus issue but I'll get to the doctor and that should be easy enough to fix. Til next time...

blogging

I was just getting ready to blog and realized that Katie has done the updates for the week. So, yea me! I don't need to update everyone.

A few updates

We've gotten re-acquainted with a couple friends that we've lost touch with over the past years... its been a wonderful couple weeks and a fantastic summer all around. We went to the McChord airshow a couple weeks ago topping off an incredible toddler week... this last weekend started with Sand Sculpting practice that went way better than anybody expected and I think we're all looking forward to a great day this year and it ended last night with a friend at our house watching the movie Saw. We spent Sunday at Woofstock in Tacoma with Lucky (spike stayed home) and went to the Ft. Stilacoom dog park - a great, great park. Beckett loved it just as much as the dogs! then we went for a bbq, had burgers and grilled corn on the cob and other than an itchy sunburn it was really the perfect day! we got the living room together as I finished painting last week, now we're ready to tackle Beckett's room and assemble the "real" bed we got him. This is turning out to be an absolutely perfect summer for our family and we're really getting into the grooves of being in Oly in the summertime!

Our Singing Boy

Beckett has learned to climb on the rock in our backyard. We often spend our evenings in the backyard since the lawnguy has started to come to our house. We LOVE LOVE LOVE the lawn guy. Our lives are now pre-lawnguy and post-lawnguy. And Beckett has come to love the backyard as much as us. He expresses his joy through singing.

Our week

We went to the zoo on Sunday. The zoo is one of my absolute favorite places to go with my family. It's actually my idea of a perfect day. Beckett loves the animals and I could watch them for a very long time. Sunday was a bit hot and I really do hate the heat. I love the sun, but hate the heat. If it gets much above 75 degrees, I tend to get cranky. Work's been fairly busy this week. I've had a lot going on and done a lot of driving. Then, last night we went to Lakefair here in Oly. In the 2 years we've lived here, we've never gone. But it's awful hard to beat fair food if you ask me. onion burgers, cotton candy, snow cones, roasted corn. HMM!!! Of course, about 4:30 this morning it caught up with Beckett. I woke up to "mama! Mama!" I went into his room and he said, "change diaper". Not a pretty sight. Then he thought he didn't want to go back to bed. His sheets were damp, so I let him come into bed with us. Not something we do very often at all. We don't do co-sleeping. He's slept in his own bed since he was quite young. Trust me, at the beginning I tried even. I thought, hmm.. maybe if he'd sleep here I could get some rest. No such luck. He would never fall asleep. Well, last night - he fell asleep, but then for about 3 hours Katie & I kept getting 2-year old knees & feet kicking us in the ribs and the back. Back to his own bed tonight.

Beckett's Red Foot

Katie graduated from community college on Friday night. The whole family went out to dinner afterwards and after dinner, Beckett was running to meet Grandma. Well, since he's not so light on his feet, he fell. He started crying and we thought it had been a long night so we took him home and put him to bed. The next morning, he woke up and wouldn't get out of bed. He said that his foot hurt. I tried to get him to stand on it, but he wouldn't. So, luckily his pediatrician has Saturday hours and we had an appointment at 10:30 Saturday morning. We took him in and he needed an X-Ray at the hospital across the street. He wasn't too keen on the X-Ray, it killed me to have to practically hold him down while they took the X-Ray. We had to go back to his dr's office to get the results and as soon as we walked in, the nurse asked what his favorite color was. Which could only mean one thing - he needed a little cast. He said his favorite color was red. So, that's what he got. A little red cast. So tiny. He'll tell you what happened. He can't say the 'k' sound, so it sounds something like this...
"Bettett walk, walk walk. Bettett trash. Owie foot" Basically that's what happened. He'll also tell you "Dr Open. Yellow hands". Yes, the dr had to open the cast packaging and he was wearing gloves.

He's doing very well with it. He started walking around on it and has gotten rather good at scooting around and getting onto and off of the couch and chairs. My sweet boy is very resilient and you may not ever even know he had a broken 5th metacarpal.

California Supreme Court Rules For Marriage Equality!

California Supreme Court Rules For Marriage Equality!

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Holy Crap! It's about time!! Could Washington be next? The expanded domestic partnership rights are a great start, but hmmm... Cali is looking awful good right now.

Beckett attended his first real birthday party today. 6 little girls ages 5-6 can really wear out a very cute & sweet 2 year old boy.

tomorrow

My sweet girl has been gone for a week. I've missed her a lot. I'm so glad she gets home tomorrow. I know though that she needed time off and I'm glad we were able to work it out for her. It's been a longish week, but oh so worth it - for both of us. I have developed an entirely new respect for what she does day in and day out. I have fallen more in love with my son in the last week than I think I have in 2-years. Even when I'm with him and she's here it's not the same as it just being the two of us. He's a pretty amazing kid and pretty much the best person I could ever hope to have the privilege to raise. I'm so grateful to whatever higher power brought him into our lives and trusted me with this perfect human being.

As far as Katie is concerned, I miss everything about her. The way she sounds, the way she smells, the way I can reach over at any time and just know that she is there. It's a big lonely house without her in it. She makes our entire house and my entire life worth living well.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

This past weekend, I had the honor of going to the Seeds of Compassion event at Qwest Field and seeing the Dalai Lama speak. It was supposed to be something we did for Katie's birthday, but her trip to Mexico turned out to be the same week. I went with a friend instead and that was fine.

The true pleasure was getting to see him speak. It was very surreal. Kind of like watching any sort of famous person speak. He was a very funny, little man and he looked kind of like a little doll. Only in the fact that he was just someone I would like to hug. he also had a very infectious laugh. I think Barbara Walters said that once. Well, it's true.

My favorite thing he said was that we should give our children affection and that would create good people. And now, as I watch my beautiful son wipe everything down with a kleenex (he's dusting) - I know what he was talking about. Our children need love, peace, joy and affection. They gave us unwoven bracelets in the beginning and at the end told us to weave our intentions into them. I wove my intention to raise a kind, compassionate, caring, respectful little boy and to bring a strong, healthy, happy man into this world that will someday make an impact on the world quite similar to the one he's already made on our lives.

marriage

is not easy. Worth it though.