Sunday, April 25, 2010

Easter 2010 and such...

Wow! I'm way behind on blogging. Sorry. It was a bit of a stressful and busy month around here with lots of drama regarding my Dad's care (I'll spare you all the details of that as right now it seems to be going well, but believe me, it was MAJORLY stressful for all of us for about 2 weeks and it looked for awhile like we might have to either find other care arrangements for him or even bring him back home - NOT a good situation at all!! - but after a very long week of taking turns spending about 10-12 hrs/day with him between me, Joel and my Mom, lots of tearful and heated meetings with the staff at Roselani Place, and some pretty significant changes in his medications - we seem to have things under control for now. Fingers crossed this lasts for awhile!!).

So anyway, right in the middle of all that stress (and probably at least party because of it) my Mom and I both got pretty sick. I ended up with a nasty sinus infection, chest congestion, terrible laryngitis (with hardly any voice at all for about 3 days), and on top of all of that - Pink Eye of all things!! - NOT FUN. I finally gave in and went to the doctor to get some antibiotics (I'm not big on taking antibiotics, but after 2 weeks of dealing with that crap, it was time for something). Between dealing with my Dad's situation and being sick, I missed about half of two weeks of work, so I've also been playing catch-up there. Not to mention trying to give Dean lots of extra love and attention as I think he was feeling a bit neglected and picking up on those negative stressful vibes.

But finally this past week we seem to be getting back into our normal routine, we all seem to be healthy, and we've been enjoying some much-needed family time!!

So, how about I get you all caught up on the GOOD stuff from April now that you're all up to speed on the not-so-good stuff??

The day before Easter we dyed Easter Eggs. This was Dean's second year dying eggs and I'm still not sure who has more fun with this - Dean or Joel! ha!
We had a really fun Easter at home. Dean got a TON of goodies from the Easter Bunny - probably way more than he actually deserved if we're really considering the whole "good boy" thing. Some of the highlights were the Toy Story DVD and coloring book, a Rock-N-Roll Craft Kit, several Early Readers Curious George books, and lots of other small toys and arts & crafts items.

The only thing that Dean REQUESTED from the Easter Bunny this year was "Funny Putty" - all because he happened to be at my Mom's house when Aunty Jayci got her Easter Care package from her Mom and there was "Funny Putty" inside. Dean didn't stop talking about that stuff for days!! (thanks a lot Judi). Unfortunately, the Easter Bunny could not find any "Funny Putty" anywhere on the entire island of Maui the day before Easter, so we had to settle for something called "Glitter Lava", which Joel thought looked about the same. What a giant mess!!

After playing with all of the Easter Bunny loot, we stopped by to visit my Dad. I don't especially like pictures of my Dad as to me they don't look like him. But I know that there will come a time when I cherish these photos and will be glad that I have them. So I force myself to take them.

My Mom and Jayci came over for Easter Lunch - Joel cooked a delicious ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and home-made rolls. He always makes the best home-made breads!! This year, my Mom requested a pineapple glazed ham, so Joel made the most ridiculous looking ham I've ever seen:
But it sure was good!! We managed to get away with only 1 large Easter Egg hunt at home this year. I'm sure there will come a time when Dean remembers that Easter is all about Egg hunts and will pester us relentlessly to hide eggs over and over again (I think I remember doing this as a child). Until then, I'm going to enjoy my single-hunt holiday!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Fun time on a Saturday Night

Last weekend we had some good friends over - mostly because Joel and "the guys" were watching the fights. Aris and Heidi came by with their 3 girls. (Heidi was Joel's boss at his first job on Maui at Child and Family Services and they went on to become good friends and Joel has since become good friends with Heidi's husband Aris). It was also fun to hang out again with JoJo and Lorly and their girls Sienna and Samaira. (JoJo and Lorly were in our childbirthing class and Sienna was born about 5 days before Dean, and now they live just right down the street from us!). Heidi also brought along one of her girlfriends, Jackie, who it turns out is a nurse on OB/GYN at Kaiser and I already knew from work (the OB dept is right across the hall from the PT dept, so we run into each other all the time at work!) - so yeah, Maui is a pretty small island!! Joel's good friend and former boss, Vince, also came over to watch the fights. But anyway, Dean was excited because he got to hang out with some of his lady friends he doesn't get to see very often - specifically Sienna, Taylor and Nicole. And of course, he always loves hanging out with Uncle Vince! Here are some pics of Dean and Sienna having an awesome time playing on the swing set...


And here's where Dean spent most of the night after Vince showed up - not leaving him alone!! Dean does love Uncle Vince!:

Easter Video

Here's Dean singing the Peter Cottontail Song with the Roly Poly Class at Preschool. It's funny because he's pretty just watching Natia and mimicking everything she does. But it's pretty adorable! Thanks Ellyn for taking the video!! :-)



If you can't see the video in the e-mail, go to the blog HERE and scroll down to the blog post titled "Easter Video" on April 1, 2010.

Preschool Easter Bonnet Parade

Dean's preschool had their Easter program this morning and it was sooooo cute!! I am mildly sick to my stomach to realize that I took about 100 pictures of Dean and Charlie and a few of his other buddies with my "good" camera only to realize after the fact that I had stupidly left my memory card at home. duh. I was just snapping away completely oblivious. Fortunately for you though, I had given Ellyn my little camera to take video during the "parade", only I forgot to set it to video, so she ended up snapping a few photos of Dean actually wearing his Easter Hat - totally a Happy Accident! Yay for my 2nd stupid moment of the day! :-) Oh well. Ellyn did take a cute video of Dean actually participating with his class while they sang the Peter Cottontail song, so I'll publish that in a separate post in a bit. And I did realize my Memory Card mistake after the parade, before the Egg Hunt - so I did get some pics of Dean during the Egg Hunt with my little camera. But I'm still bummed. I know I got some great shots of Charlie singing with the Turtle Class and then of Dean walking across the little "Stage" wearing his hat and a few others of Cole, Natia and some of Dean's other friends from the Roly Poly class.

So anyway, the kids all made their Easter Bonnets ("it's a HAT, Mom!" explained Dean) and then they walked across the little "stage" area on the deck at the school one by one, in "parade" fashion to show off their hats and said "Happy Easter" to all the parents. It was so cute. As they started - the Turtle Class (or middle age group - this is Charlie's class) went first - I was thinking there was NO WAY Dean was going to do that, especially not wearing a HAT! (he NEVER wears ANYTHING on his head!!). He totally surprised me and I could see him patiently (well, patiently for Dean) waiting his turn, and then when it was finally his turn, he marched right to the middle of the stage and said "Happy Easter" and then continued right on off and went to stand with his classmates. He did so good!! It was definitely a proud Mommy moment!! Here are the photos of him in his Easter Hat walking across the stage:

Patiently waiting for Sara (one of his teachers) to tell him it's his turn to go across the stage:
After the Parade, there was a big Easter Egg Hunt (they used the word "Hunt" lightly - it was more like a free-for-all as there were so many eggs that they really weren't hidden so much as just EVERYWHERE!). But the kids had a blast!

This photo is to prove to everyone that my child is not the ONLY one who never wears shoes! ha!:
Dean was very particular about which eggs he wanted - it was so funny. he'd skip right over lots of eggs and obviously was going for very specific eggs. He filled his bucket, then started trying to stuff his pockets!I love all of the "green" crafts they do at Children's Garden - like the Easter "Baskets" the kids made out of recycled milk cartons. Here is Dean showing his off: So cute!!