H1N1 Flu

So they aren't calling it 'Swine Flu' anymore - now they are calling it H1N1. The point is to get away from the pork connotation and association. John started talking about the swine flu last week and I said "Well - we're having pork chops tonight anyway."

So I am currently watching a news conference on the first "probable" case in Minnesota. It's up near St. Cloud and they have closed an elementary school and middle school because of it. This comes at the same time they are reporting the first US death in Texas due to this flu.

I am concerned, trying to be a bit better at washing the kids' hands as well as mine.

So I ask you - what do you think of all this? Does it have you worried? Do you think about it at all?

Who needs a laugh?

Ok...a couple weeks ago Katie brought this 'artwork' home from school.

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She told me what these were...and now I know. Do you? :)

Raining babies...

Tis the season, I guess. Everyone and their sister is having a baby lately. :) I have to take a minute to send a little congratulations to Nick and Tina Jolin - cousins on John's side. They just had a baby boy, yesterday I believe. (Facebook is a wonderful thing.) I've seen more pictures of their little Luke than I have of the twins! :) Big sister Jenna (who is Katie's age) and big sister Natalie look like they are going to be great helpers.

Also - I thought you would enjoy hearing about a friend of mine up here who had a baby on Wednesday morning. She decided to have a home birth. They are gaining popularity in the area, and I have to be honest, if we ever decided to have another one, I think this is the way I would want to go. (Don't hyperventilate Mom.)

This was her second pregnancy and she had midwives come to her home and had even set up her own birthing tub. Anyway - she ended up having - after 7 hours of drug free labor - a baby boy...a 10 pound, 12 ounce baby boy. Holy Moly. Also - the baby was born face up which makes labor a bit more difficult. He was 22 inches long with a 15 inch head. I'll let that sink in for a moment. :) The funny thing was that this mom was doing status updates on her Facebook page during labor. :)

After Will was born a nurse told John that any baby born with a head over 14 inches meant that the mother deserved something with diamonds. Will's head was a bit over 14 inches. :)

Congrats to all the new moms.

Ethan an Emily

....but I'm not sure which one is which.


I had my brother send me some pictures from his phone. So here are the new babies...but not sure which one is which. :)

Personally, I think the top one is Emily and the bottom is Ethan. From what I hear things are going ok...not much time to talk to anyone because while Erica is at the hospital with the babies, Jeff and my parents are quickly trying to put Jeff's house back together again. The kitchen had been ripped apart along with the dining room. So for the past 48 hours Mom and Dad have been trying to help get things patched back together. New cupboards are going up today I guess and they finished sheetrocking a little laundry area along with the kitchen and dining room. Great timing to do all this work huh? :)

Introducing....

Ethan Michael, 5 pounds, 14 ounces - born at 10:35 pm. And Emily Nicole, 5 pounds, 11 ounces - born at 10:37. They were delivered via c-section - I'm not sure why. That's all I have right now. Actually that's about all there is to tell.

When the levee breaks...

We have water breakage. Erica was on her way up to LaCrosse for a check up and her water broke going over the Lansing bridge. :) That was around 11 this morning and I haven't heard anything since. Check back for more pending twins coverage.

Ryan and Shelley Mahannah

This was the big wedding weekend. Our friend, Shelley, got married on Saturday to a sweet guy named Ryan. We had good weather - for mid April. Could have been a lot worse. Katie was one of 2 flower girls, and I was one of 3 bridesmaids. It was a really fun day and I would gladly do it all over again because we had such a good time.

Shelley - the saucy bride

Shelley's friend, Sharon (who is great) did a beautiful job on Katie's hair. She was a princess!

Katie was really amazed at what her hair could do.

I am a horrible mother because I don't have any pictures of Katie in her dress. BUT - thanks to Shelley's great friends who were busy snapping photos, I have gotten a couple and I'm sure there are more to come. :)

Katie posing for a picture while the rest of us were being posed behind her.

Katie says her favorite part of the day was being at the dance party. I also think her and Will had a good time taking a limo ride around town. The kids got tired early - it had been a long day for them. So Will was sent home with Grandma Lyla around 8, and Katie was sent home with Denise and Sarah by 9:30. They were both coming off their sugar highs. Shelley had set up a candy buffet at the reception. Everyone could fill little bags with jelly beans, tootsie rolls, gum drops, M&Ms, and other assorted candies.

The Kubitz/Mahannah team had really thought of everything. As the reception started they had an appetizer buffet set up to tide guests over til the food was ready. They had shrimp, little smokies, cheese curds, nuts, etc. Yummy. "The Weeve", (whom we now love) one of Shelley's personal attendants also handed out kiddie bags to all the children at the reception. They were filled with stickers, note pads, erasers, glow sticks - anything to keep the kids happy, just in case the candy didn't do it's job. ;)

The bride and groom also anticipated guests getting a bit hungry during the dance, so.....around 10:00 just as everyone's tummies started rumbling - BOOM - pizzas by the armload - 20 or so - started showing up from Gus and Tony's, a local favorite. By the end of the night there was like 2-3 slices left. :)

Oh - did I mention the open bar? The ALL NIGHT open bar? If you can't have fun at a wedding with an open bar all night then you're not trying very hard. :) In addition to the open bar - there was bottle after bottle of wine from the Marquette Winery - very tasty, although it did give me a headache - which was cured later. And if you didn't want wine - well, how about brandy.....from a shoe? At first when I saw a crown of people passing around a shoe to drink out of, I thought someone lost a bet. But I was later told it's a polish tradition - so a new shoe was bought for the occasion...Vera Wang, no less. :) And I - like a lot of guests there, drank some brandy out of the shoe. Mmmmm....I was very warm.

Beautiful table decorations - 'Happy Balls' made in Lansing, IA just for Shelley's wedding....the flowers that Katie carried...and candle in the background.

It was so great to catch up with friends that I hadn't seen in years. It was nice to have fellow 30-something-ers out on the dance floor. We'd either give each other a puzzled look and mutter "What song is THIS? I've never heard THIS before!" or, scream "I KNOW this song!" Odds were that if the song was recorded prior to 2000 - we'd know it. After that - who knows.

It was an event that most of us hadn't seen in Waukon before...VERY well put together....VERY classy.....VERY detailed. Overall it was gorgeous. I'm so glad that I'm already married because I would hate to follow that. (Good job Sharon!)

Congratulations again Shelley and Ryan!

The joys of Costco

I joined Costco yesterday. Some of you may be familiar with it - it's a wholesale store. They were running a promotion with made it almost free to join, so I did. John and I had been talking about it for a while now. They sell everything from food and pop to TVs, mattresses and caskets. The food is all sold in bulk, and they don't use any grocery bags because everything is too big to fit. Now that we have room to store some things I thought I would see what deals I could find.

I now have enough toilet cleaner, Windex, and all purpose cleaner to last the rest of my natural life.

Now before you say I went overboard, let me defend myself. I bought a case of Lysol Toilet Bowl cleaner....that's 4 bottles for $7.42. THEN I also had a Costco coupon to get $3.00 off THAT. So I figure 4 bottles for $4.42 was a good deal.

Overall, there are deals to be had. I was able to stock up on breakfast bars for John, waffles for the kids, and some yummy pasta. It will be important to know about the sales the grocery stores are having on things like pop, but I think it will be worthwhile to shop Costco once to twice a month when needed - especially on those non perishable items.

And if you ever need your toilet cleaned, let me know. Well, maybe not. :)

I'm alive!

This was the closest thing I could get to an Easter picture. Tantrums get thrown - Easter or no Easter.

Gosh where have the days gone? I have been meaning to get a post on here for the past three days! It all goes in cycles. Some weeks I manage to get on here a lot - some weeks not so much. You all understand.

Easter came and went rather quickly. The weekend before Easter our church put on a party for the kids. I took Katie and Will...not really knowing what to expect. It was a free party, although they did ask for donations of plastic eggs and bags of candy the few weeks before. I brought a few dozen eggs so I figured I did my part. It was an AMAZING party! There was just the right number of kids. They split them up into two rooms...one was 4 and under, the other was 5 and over. Will and I stayed in the 4 and under room while Katie drifted back and forth. They had cookie decorating which was BY FAR Will's favorite. They also had about 4 different crafts set up for the kids to do. When it was time for the egg hunt, the first group of younger kids (that was us) went up into the sanctuary and were told that they could each find 9 eggs. Katie found hers, and I was just going to let Will find 3-4, and that would be enough...no, no, no - silly Mommy. Will found his quota of 9 as well. The party went so well, I decided to skip the city egg hunt the following weekend.

Last Saturday Katie and I went to the Hannah Montana movie while Dad and Will hung out at home. It was a pretty good movie - lots of music, which pleased Katie. There were about 20 people in the theater with us - half girls around Katie's age. Whenever a good song began in the movie - UP they popped, and the dancing bug took over. It was really cute - and made the movie more enjoyable.

Sunday Katie had to sing in church so we did our egg hunt at home, and the kids opened their Easter Bunny presents. Katie got a Hannah Montana game along with some books and stickers. Will got a couple cars and some books. The four of us went out to eat after church.

Mmmmm...chocolate and orange juice.

Nevermind...

Ok. Jeff and Erica get sent home. False alarm I guess. Obviously it's gotta happen sometime!

The other side

Jeff and Erica are at the hospital, in labor as I type. (I think) They went in last night and that's about all I know. Jeff is not the best person to pass along medical information. I have a million questions, but they go unanswered as I sit on the other side and wait. This is why we told people AFTER the kids were born. :) Well, that and the fact they were born in less time than it took to make a phone call. (Give or take)

Hopefully I'll have good news soon.

Good Times...

We just got home from a visit to the Mall of America today. The kids and I met up with my niece, Sarah, who was in town on a class trip. Every other year or so, the band and choir take a trip to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater to see a show, (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) and spend a few hours at the mall. So we met for lunch and walked around a bit. Katie even talked Sarah into doing a few rides with her in the amusement park.

Sharky at the Mall of America practically attacked Sarah. I think they are going steady now. As you can see, Sharky is thrilled.

The dinner theater here in Chanhassen is really just a stones throw from our house and it's odd knowing that Sarah is there. :) It makes me think back to my own trips to the dinner theater when I was in high school. I was in 11th grade...I was part of the very FIRST bus trip up here to Chanhassen. We saw 42nd Street...it was really very good. The next year we came up here as well, but I can't remember the show that we saw. Little did I know 14 years later I would be raising a family about a mile away.

Another funny coincidence...Remember last summer when we went on vacation and Katie took a few tennis lessons at the resort we stayed at? Her tennis instructor is also an actor and is currently working at the dinner theater AND is in the show that Sarah is seeing. :) Small world.

On another note - I did talk to Erica, my sister-in-law, and Joey is doing well after his eye surgery on Monday. They worked on both eyes I guess...they were tightening some eye muscles so that his eyes don't cross..don't really understand anything more technical than that. He is supposed to have a low activity level for the next month....no running...no jumping....no wrestling...etc. Not sure if that has something to do with blood pressure or what, but he's SIX years old, yeah - good luck with that.

Erica also had a check up while they were in LaCrosse. She is 34 weeks now - both babies are doing well, and are probably close to 6 pounds. Both her and Joey go back for check ups next Wednesday.

Congratulations also go out to my friend, Natalie (from high school) - she is expecting her second child in October. Her son is a few weeks older than Will. I'm very happy for her...happy that it's her and not me. :)

Just a quickie...

Just a quick shout out to my six year old nephew, Joey, who is having eye surgery today in LaCrosse. Good luck guys! We'll be thinking of you.

Children's Museum

On Tuesday the kids and I went to the Children's museum in St. Paul. From the number of people there, I SWEAR, you would have thought it was Saturday. I think the weather and spring break for some schools pulled the people to the museum. The kids really don't mind the crowds, but it's much harder to keep track of 2 small kids. I thought that Will would just follow Katie around most of the time. NO WAY! They each wanted to do different things that seemed to be on the opposite sides of the rooms. So I stayed with Will and told Katie that she could go explore on her own - but don't go to a different floor, and check back with me in about 15 minutes. (Like she knows what 15 minutes is.) So every so often I would pick Will up - usually kicking - and go on a hunt for Katie. Obviously, we found her each time, but there were moments where my heart sped up much faster because it seemed that she was no where to be seen. I think when we go back next year (yes, it will take a year to work up the ambition to do that again) it may be better cuz Will will be 2 1/2....either that or it will be much worse. :)

The special exhibit this time was "Clifford." Will worked up the courage to go touch him after about 10 minutes.

Katie working in the kitchen - that yellow thing is suppsed to be bread...I think.

Will finally got to use the broom after some other kids had been hogging it.

And really the only time they spent together...lunch. Katie painted her face...you like?

On another note, I heard from my sister-in-law, yesterday...the one expecting the twins. No - there aren't any babies yet, but she did go to the dr. and they are estimating that baby A - the boy, weighs 5 pounds, 5 ounces. And baby B - the girl, weighs 5 pounds, 1 ounce. Yes, she is having one of each which, I think is good because then we won't get them mixed up....well, at least the odds are in our favor.

And finally - that brings us to the question of the week. Boy the weeks go fast, don't they? Maybe I should have a question every OTHER week. :) I had a suggested question that I will use this week.

How do you define love?