Trip to Sandpoint, Idaho

Wow, this is an official photo dump. Out of 309 pictures, I present roughly 10%, or 32 pictures. 

The kids in the Life Flight helicopter. Hopefully this is the only time they will ever be in it. 

 Isaac lost his second tooth! On August 5th. This time he did not swallow it and he put it under his pillow. The tooth fairy gave him $1. 

 Now the rest of the pictures are of our trip to Sandpoint, Idaho. It was kind of for Taj's wedding, but technically only Nana and Boompa were invited to the the actual wedding. We crashed the pancake breakfast the next morning and besides we had lots of fun on and around the lake.

 Getting ready to go on the pontoon boat.

 On the pontoon boat, on Lake Pend Oreille.

 Auntie Anna wanted to jump in with Sonia.

 This is how Sonia felt about that.

 Of course Boomps and I did what we do best. Eat the snacks.

 Beautiful Nana.

 We took turns riding on the inner tube/flotation thing. It was fun!

 The next morning we went to church.

 Then, we crashed the pancake breakfast. The kids played in the sand and water. 

 We went to a family festival to meet up with some other cousins later in the day.

 Nana got some pictures of London and Pinja. They are just about the same size with their cute blonde hair!

 On the way back there was a beautiful sunset on the Columbia River Gorge! We got out and took some pictures.

I love a good family vacation! 

a new year

I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but it's been hard since losing Uncle Greggy. But, it's a new year and we should probably at least record some things. 

We went to Seattle for New Year's - Sonia stayed up 'til 1:30 a.m. Isaac fell asleep at 10. Here is Sonia wishing Isaac happy New Year!

 and a new year's kiss

 Sonia and I partied pretty hard, but we were still with it enough that we dropped the boys back off at our friend's house, then went to Mass first thing (well, 9 am, but that's first thing for New Year's day) and afterwards we went to Krispy Kreme to get ourselves some doughnuts. Look at that little cute, funny face.

 That evening we went over to Fantastic Aunt Kathy's and had an awesome dinner with cousins. We got to see cousin Katie too, which is a rare occurrence, so that was fun! Pat and Mike were both there too, and Mike's kids too. Sonia, however, unfortunately slept most of the party, so she didn't get to play with anyone. Isaac and Louisa had fun playing together though.

 Then of course we went back home. Isaac got Rascal the rabbit for two days (stuffed rabbit they send home from his class) so we took some pictures of him with it.

Of course when Sonia and I got  home, Sonia claimed the rabbit as her own and wouldn't give it back.

That actually pretty much sums it up. Sonia is 2. Isaac is in kindergarten. There really isn't much else you need to know. That tells you a lot!

Lydie and September

Well, it's about time we have a brief update before September passes us by without a blog update! (haha, I guess it did. October too. Wow.)

The big thing this month has been Lydie, one of Isaac and Sonia's tanties, coming to visit us! We have been pretty busy each weekend and working during the week. The first weekend we went to Central Oregon to our very good friend Craig and Lisa's wedding, then went by Crater Lake.

The second weekend, we went to Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel. Ignore my face. The chicken was really good.

Then we went to the Portland Zoo.

Then Lydie went to Newport for two days with my family.

 (Photo by London)

The next weekend we went to Seattle (almost immediately after we picked up Ibrahim, Papa's nephew). Obviously the goal was to show Lydie as many places as possible in one month. :) We stayed with a friend from Burkina who we have been meaning to see for awhile, (but we have always cancelled our trips because, well, things come up...) Victorien and his family.

 Funny story - the sandals I am wearing in this picture broke while we were in Seattle. I bought them about 2 years ago when Isaac and I were visiting Seattle and the only pair of sandals I had brought broke. I guess they just wanted to make it back to Seattle before giving out on me.

We got to see Victorien's daughter play in her soccer game too, and on the way back, got to stop by a birthday party for Auntie Fritz and meet Uncle Doug, Great Aunt Christy and Great Aunt Kathy and Great Uncles John and George in one fell swoop. So, it was a nice, although exhausting weekend. Driving tires me out and we couldn't quite fit everyone in one car so we took two. 

The next weekend was special because it was the wedding reception of one of my best childhood friends and bridesmaids, Chel, and her new husband Kai! Many happy years to you two! They are a ridiculously good-looking couple. :) Apparently, though, I did not get a flattering picture of them. Don't worry, I didn't overdo it and ruin all their wedding photos with the flash. Just the three I tried didn't turn out well enough to put here.

They had the reception at a neat location where I didn't have to worry about the kids getting run over if they ran off :) and they had a special play area just for the kids too. The ArtFarm Barn in Seal Rock. Artsy.

I felt kind of dumb because I told Auntie Anna that it would be fine to leave London with us and she could go home to study, then London had a total meltdown and we almost had to leave early. Next time I will NOT do that if it is near bedtime.

We loved having you here, Tantie Lydie!

Sonia still asks, "Where's Tantie Lydie?"  She will actually answer her own question now. "She's in Burkina." 

Halloween 2014

This Halloween, we carved Jack O'Lanterns with Ibrahim, 

 wore a cape with our Tinkerbell costume (Sonia said she wanted a cape),

 dressed up as Batman for the third year in a row (when I asked Isaac what he wanted to be this year, he said, "Well, I have a Spiderman costume and a Batman costume. So I'll be one of those." I just love him.),

 and got more candy than anyone could possibly need just by going around our little loop. 

Senator Jackie (our neighbor!) was so sweet and actually gave Isaac the pumpkin basket. The handle of the one he had in previous years had broken, so he just had a little bucket at first. It's nice to have  good neighbors.

"froggie"

I'm definitely settling back into the routine more - this week is way better exhaustion-wise! Although, it is only Tuesday. Anyway, fun update - yesterday we found a crawdad in the little stream that runs behind our house. Isaac wanted to keep it as a pet. Sonia called it a "froggie". We ended up letting it go in the evening, but that was so fun! I didn't know we had those in the creek. 

In other news, Henri got an "A" in his Anatomy/Physiology class! YAY PAPA!

exhaustion

This is from Monday. I went back to work on Tuesday. Now I am completely exhausted .

  

That is one thing about working full time and coming home. You get exhausted. I know I am probably being a sissy. My mother-in-law works 10 times as hard as me every single day, so I really have no excuse. But I still get tired. As I learned from this training we did for the last 2.5 days,  I am missing some skills. Probably for me I am missing a whole ton of them. Obviously I need to decide to work on a few of them at a time. 

I think the main problem about doing all this full-time work then needing to come home and cook dinner and be supportive though, although they say I just need the skills, is really this: You don't get time to really think. I can't say I even approximated being a good parent while I was home this summer, but at least I had a few hours in there to think. And sometimes I did feed my children. When you work full time and come home and do all that keeping the house up stuff (which has not been happening this week, let me tell you), you have hardly any time to sit and reflect about anything, much less how you might do things better. I get physically exhausted from having to wake up early to get everything going and drop everyone off and not being able to take a nap. Obviously the executive functioning and emotional regulation pieces are tough for me, and probably where I need to build a lot of skills. At the same time, I feel like I just need a big break from everyone and everything. A big one. From the kids. From cleaning up the house. Several hours to myself with no demands or pressures. 

Gawr. Whine whine whine. What a bad example I am being. People do well if they can, right? I don't think I can. I would write about our cranky neighbor more, and she deserves her own whiny post, but apparently she said she thinks I am not a good parent. I usually don't give a *(swear word of choice here)* what other people think, but when someone insults my integrity or basic capabilities it is something that I internalize. Then I read some post about NFP and how one of the reasons to have less children is if the parent's skills are low and I thought, darnit, that is me. Then I felt all sad because really I would be happy with about 7 children, but maybe I am not supposed to have that many anyway. So I realize I need to become a much better parent even to just help the two little people that I have right now. But I don't feel like I can even do anything. I feel paralyzed. It feels like too much and I just want a break and most of all, I want a nap.