Friends

Being a single mom while your husband is away on business is so much easier when you have friends around to help pass the time.  Alan was in Vegas for five days last week.  I was expecting it to be long and hard, but it wasn't too bad because we kept busy with lots of friends.  (Until yesterday anyway, when Spencer got sick again.  Uggg!)

Andrew lives across the street and is a perfect playmate for Spencer because they have such similar interests.  They can switch back and forth between playing trains and cars for hours.  It's so lovely that Spencer's at an age when having friends over is actually a break for me.  There is the occasional fight of course, but they really get along very well for 3-year-olds.

My wonderful visiting teacher/friend, Nicole, invited us to go to OMSI (a science museum) with her and her cutie-pie, Anna, one morning.  Spencer and I had never been and we loved it!  It's a big museum, but the area we stayed in is similar to our children's museum.  They had all kinds of fun, sciencey exhibits.  Spencer's favorite was the whirlpool.  He threw balls into it for a solid 15 minutes.  Even though I knew he loved it, he had the most serious expression on the whole time.  It was funny.

Spencer gets along with kids his own age or older okay, but younger kids are a different story.  Check out this major grouch-o face he made at Anna!  

We missed Alan a lot and are SO glad he came back today, but are also so grateful for friends to keep us company while he's gone.

Almost quarentined

This has been the longest week.  Not bad, it has just seemed so long because Spencer and I have been stuck in the house almost the entire time.  Spencer's little cold turned into pneumonia on Monday.  We had a miserable trip to Urgent Care with a tired, sick and uncooperative little boy but the albuterol and antibiotic they gave him really helped and he was doing so much better the next morning.  His cough was still pretty bad though, so I canceled everything for the next few days and we just stayed home.

I actually really enjoy just staying home and playing (for a few days anyway).  Here's how we filled the time:

Playing LOTS of trains and cars.  Spencer was so proud of this track he built all by himself.  Too bad that I had to take it apart later because it went all the way from his room, down the hall and into our room.

I think the doctor at Urgent Care felt bad that Spencer had such a rough time there.  As we were leaving, he tired to give Spencer a monster truck as a prize for surviving I guess.  (It certainly wasn't a prize for being brave or cooperative!)  Spencer had noticed that someone had a display of Disney figurines above their desk however, and loudly cried that he wanted The King car (from the Cars movie) not the monster truck.  The kind doctor actually stole the car from the desk and gave it to Spencer.  I felt bad, but was worn-out myself and didn't want to deal with the total melt-down that would have occurred if I had refused.

We did our own little preschool complete with tracing, coloring, a treasure hunt and snacks.

Spencer is now tired of me practicing with my new camera.  This is what he does every time I try to take a picture.


Alan built this cool track for Spencer.  I think he secretly enjoys it as much as Spencer does.

 

Then today, just as Spencer was about better and ready to be out in public again, I had oral surgery.  I had to have three gum grafts for receding gums.  The actual procedure wasn't that bad.  The only pain I felt was the needle pokes for the anesthesia.   It was quite painful after the anesthesia wore off and before I could take my pain meds though.  Thankfully, Spencer was awesome today and played by himself so good while I laid down for awhile. 

It's hard eat anything solid so I've just been drinking smoothies and shakes through a straw.  The left side of my face is all swollen and it's hard to talk so I think we're going to be staying home for a couple more days.  Hopefully I can keep finding things to keep Spencer occupied.  Good thing Santa brought lots of new train tracks and he has his King car!

Christmas Day

After having such a rough night the day before Christmas Eve, we had hoped Spencer would sleep in a little on Christmas morning.  He was back to normal and up at 7:00, however.  His tummy still wasn't completely back to normal, though, because he didn't even ask to eat any of the candy Santa left in his stocking and didn't even want a cinnamon roll for breakfast.

Christmas gets more fun every year with Spencer as he is understanding more and getting more and more excited.  Santa brought him a bunch of new Thomas trains, the Tidmouth Sheds and some fancy new tracks.  Alan and I had expected Spencer to be really excited about the train stuff, but he barely glanced at them before unpacking his stocking.  For the record though, he does love his new train stuff and I am getting SO tired of playing trains with him. :)

The three of us spent an hour or so opening our own presents before heading over to Alan's parent's house for a yummy breakfast and more presents.  We all got a lot of nice things and I, for one, felt a quite spoiled.  Alan splurged and surprised me with the fancy SLR camera I had been drooling over for a few months.  (Too bad I skillfully deleted all of the pictures I had taken with it up until yesterday!  Grrr.  Hence, the lack of Christmas pics.)  Spencer came away with gobs of fun, new toys and games to help make the rainy winter and spring months more bearable.  Thanks to everyone for all of the nice gifts!  We feel so blessed!

I'll admit that I wasn't super excited when I first realized Christmas would fall on a Sunday this year.  However when the day actually came, I LOVED it and now wish that Christmas was on Sunday every year.   It was absolutely lovely to be able to worship our Savior at Church on His birthday.  So much better than blobbing around in pjs and eating junk all day.

After Church, we had a delicious ham dinner with Alan's parents and Alicia.  Then spent the rest of the evening playing games in front of the fire, reading instruction manuals, skyping and talking to family on the phone.  It was a lovely, relaxing day filled with warmth and love.

Now, it's all over.  The decorations are down and my house looks so bare.  Hopefully I can keep that warmth and love with me for awhile though.  January is always such a blah month for me.

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve this year was one of the less-thrilling Christmas Eve's we've had.  Spencer and Alan were both still a little under-the-weather, but we decided that we didn't want to spend Christmas Eve sitting around at home.  We visited the Santa Land Memorial Room at Macy's in downtown Portland with Alan's parents and Alicia, but were quite unimpressed.  The place was packed when we went on Christmas Eve two years ago, but I guess everyone realized how lame it is because there were only a handful of other people there.  Spencer was still feeling sick and tired and wanted nothing to do with the bored Santa Claus and his elf.  He did like the model train though, and had fun running back and forth following it.

Alan and Alicia both have good memories of riding the real train that used to run on a track around the ceiling of Meier & Frank.  This dismantled car is all that's left of the original.  Sad.

Did we drive all the way here for this?!

Next, we stopped by Pioneer Courthouse Square to see Portland's Christmas tree and then had a yummy dinner at Macaroni Grill.  We drove by one cool street of lights on the way home then put Spencer to bed an hour early after our sleepless night the night before.  Santa set up his loot while Alan and I watched The Nativity Story (check that one out if you haven't seen it yet) and then we hit the sack completely exhausted too.  Even though it wasn't a terribly exciting night, we were so happy to have Darwin, Debbie and Alicia to spend it with.  Thanks guys!

How to get a free shirt from Winco

::Warning::  

This post is pretty disgusting.  If you get sick easily, don't keep reading.

We were running a few errands together last Friday.  The last place I needed to stop was Winco (my favorite grocery store.  Sorry if you don't have one near you!) for just a few things.  We didn't even get a cart and Alan was just carrying Spencer.  After picking up my 5 items, we were walking to the checkout when Spencer threw-up ALL over Alan's shirt.  The front of Alan's shirt was completely covered along with most of Spencer's jacket and both of their pants.  Alan kept asking for a bag, but since I don't usually carry barf bags in my purse, there was nothing I could do except quickly flag down a store employee.  The guy took one look at Alan and offered to bring him a Winco shirt.  Alan stripped down in the middle of the store to put on his lovely, new polo then took Spencer to the car while I cleaned up and paid.  Even though it was cold, we left the window down the whole 30 minutes home.  It was a long, stinky ride.

Spencer continued to throw up every 20 minutes for the next 12 hours and Alan wound up feeling rotten for a day too.  Thankfully, they were both feeling almost back to normal for Christmas day.  The Winco shirt is now in the trunk of my car ready for the next disgusting disaster.

Old & New Favorite Things

Alan had a few days off work before Christmas and he's had a little break from races, so we did one of my favorite traditions from my childhood and started a new tradition that I think we'll keep.

As a kid, we always decorated gingerbread houses just before Christmas.  I'm not sure why it's so much fun, but it was obvious that Spencer loved it as much as I did this year.  Alan made a big house out of real gingerbread this year and I glued graham crackers onto a small milk carton for Spencer's.  I think Spencer ate a lot more candy than he put on his house.  When he was finished, he was a little sad that he only had a few gummy bears on his house because he ate all the rest.  He had fun making patterns with the M&M's and kept saying, "This is the coolest house!"  Alan was pretty proud of his too even though the roof is about to cave in now. :)

Later that evening, we went to Zoo Lights for the first time.  I think Alan had gone as a kid, but didn't remember much.  Alan was smart, though and got us there a little before the lights started.  We got in the line for the train as soon as we got there, but still had to wait for about 45 minutes.  (The line was twice as long when we got off so we were really glad we got in line when we did.)  It was a long, cold wait, but it was worth it because Spencer LOVED the train.  It went past all kinds of moving animal light displays.  I had never seen anything like it.  We walked around the zoo for a little while after the train, but Spencer was cold and hungry by that time and was ready to leave.  I think this is something we'll save our money for every year (as long as it's not too rainy or cold!).

Magic

On the years we don't travel for Christmas, we get a real tree from one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of tree farms in our neck of the woods.  Alan wanted a big tree this year so he and Spencer decided on this 9-footer.  Actually, Spencer was tired and grouchy and was insisting on a 2-foot tree until I told him they were the baby trees and weren't for sale.  This tree is beautiful, but we had to cut it down quite a bit and move a lot of furniture to get it in the house.

I'm so glad I have a handsome hunk to do this job for me.  We probably would have gotten a two-foot one if I had to cut it down and haul it home by myself.

Spencer had a great time decorating the tree.  He loves to take his own three ornaments off to play with and since he has been very careful, I don't mind at all.  He loves all of the funny, little ornaments Alan has from his childhood.  Even though Christmas trees are a lot of work, there is something so magical and beautiful about them.  Traditions like decorating the tree and driving around to look at Christmas lights always bring back a little bit of the childhood excitement and mystery of Christmas for me.  It makes me happy and it's completely worth having to vacuum up pine needles almost every day.

And, it wouldn't be Christmas if Alan didn't make my Uncle Steve's amazing rocky road fudge.  I think Alan has created a fellow fudge fanatic by letting Spencer lick a very large spoon.