KatieAndJoel.com

This is another set of picture from far too long ago (you can see just how long ago when you notice that Don is in one of the photos, and they left on January 7th), that I always meant to post but for some reason didn’t quite find the time.  I’m also *slightly* embarassed as they were taken with the nice new G1 camera, but before I had any clue what I was doing with it.  The result was sadly under-exposed images.  It’s bloody tricky figuring out the manual controls of a camera.  Whenever I try and cheat and set the thing to Auto mode, the pictures are horrible.  First, the flash appears to be be a small nova, causing enormous and unsightly shadows of the boys, and yet somehow managing to underexpose the background.  But worse, the auto mode uses face detection, and whenever it detects a face, it switches to Portrait mode.  Portrait mode is all well and good for adults, but not all that helpful for children - they don’t sit still.  I have perfectly acceptable photos of adults at speeds as slow as 1/15th of a second, but anything slower than 1/60th of a second for the boys results in an obnoxious blur.  To top it off, the kit lens is all too slow, with a max f/stop of only 3.5.  A slow lens, with a need for high shutter speeds, and ISO performance that’s only really useable up to 800 (or 1600 if I never want to print them), and there’s no winning.  The nice flash that Marilyn bought me at Christmas helps enormously, as I can bounce it off the ceiling and avoid most of the flash problems.  The other solution would be a decent fast prime, but I haven’t been able to convince Katie that I should go and spend $300 on a new lens yet.  <sigh>

Oh, right, children.  I almost forgot…  Apparently we have two of them.  One’s a bit smaller, but reckless and uninhibited.  The other loves to be naked.  During our nighttime routine, we give the boys 15 minutes of “naked time”, which is really “nearly” naked time, as they’re legally required to retain their diapers at all times, lest we have a repeat of Nicholas’ gleeful jumping-in-the-poop incident.  The boys will be absolute buggers when we get home (starting to wonder if they aren’t angry at us for leaving them - at least Nicholas seems to be, anyway), and usually not all that eager for their dinner.  When we eat, they beg, or scream.  Then we strip them, and the world is suddenly a wonderful place, with merriment and hilarity in equal measure.  Our day starts with the quiet cuddle, holding the boys after we’ve gotten them out of their cribs, but before they’re ready to play.  It ends with squeals of manic delight, and an exhilirating foray into exhibitionism.

Sorry about the video link in yesterday’s post - I made a small mistake in the address, but since with internet address it either works or it doesn’t, it didn’t.  Anyway, it’s fixed now.  It’s a kind of big file (I think around 12mb) and a minute and a half long, but honestly it’s well worth it.  Some day I’ll figure out how to get videos onto the site more easily.  In the meantime, one at a time, with just a few too many typos.

Yes, yes, this is shameless begging.  Almost two years have gone by since the boys’ surprising arrival 3 months early.  It used to be that I could not see the light at the end of a very scary tunnel.  These days are lives are filled with the following bliss:

General Mayhem

Nicholas and Dexter are amazing little boys.  They are finally repeating words, much to my delight (and maybe our horror as we now need to clean up our language), and they seem to grow by leaps and bounds every day.  Joel and I are constantly rearranging the house, trying to stay in front of it all.

That brings me to my shameless begging.  Please support us in the March of Dimes walk this year.  As you know, the March of Dimes’ mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.  Seeing that we benefited from their research and Nicholas and Dexter are healthy, happy toddlers (when not throwing tantrums), I would say it’s a very good cause to support.

We walk on April 24th in Everett.  You are welcome to join Team Yates in the walk and/or you can donate to our team via this link (Click HERE).  Our goal this year is $1000!!!!!  We are off to a very slow start, seeing that the walk is just 50 days away.  Nicholas and Dexter will both be walking this year.  Hopefully in the right direction too!  So, if you can give even $5 (and foreign currency donations are accepted too), we’d really appreciate it.  Team Yates would like to do everything possible to prevent others from having to walk through the scary tunnel of an early birth.

Thank you so very much for all of your continued support and well wishes.  We greatly appreciate it!  Love - Katie, Joel, Nicholas and Dexter

Is the title to obvious?  Yes, today (March 7th) was my birthday and it was a day of flexibility.

First off, the boys gave me the best present ever.  They slept through the night AND they slept until 7am.  That means I got a total of around 8.5 hours of sleep last night.  WOWOWOWOWOWOW  That hasn’t happened in like, forever.

Anyway, here’s what our initial plans were and then I’ll tell you how they changed.  I had planned on being up around 6am but as you heard, I got to sleep in.  The goal was to then walk with the boys to the French bakery down the street for a mid-morning incredible croissant around 9:30am.  Instead, I was on the road to my brother’s house.  I’m going to say Ryan got food poisoning last night and like any bachelor out there, he didn’t have the necessary “get well” food items like Sprite, Saltine crackers, bananas, chicken noodle soup, and Pepto Bismal so I bought him food and dropped it off.

The second part of that story was that Ryan was suppose to pick up my uncle Dick at the airport around the same time Joel and I were to have a glorious birthday dinner at the Outback Steakhouse (~1pm).  Well, you guessed it - Joel and I headed to the airport instead.

We thought that the  Outback would have the same hours at South Center mall that it does up here in Everett.  We were wrong and thus ended up at the Mongolian Grill, a good faster food restaurant.  Seeing that there was no wait for food, we had time to kill on our hands before Dick’s fight got in.  A quick tour of the renovated mall, followed by three laps around the airport and Uncle Dick was picked up and delivered home.  We had just enough time to stop by the French bakery before it closed at 4pm to pick up a dessert for Joel, myself and Malin.  There were a few remaining delectable items left so it was ok.  The babysitter was relieved of duty and we played with the boys.

The next surprise of the day occurred at 4pm.  My friend Dawnn and her fantastic daughters Katie and Ashlyn dropped by with cupcakes made just for my birthday.  We had a great time playing and Dexter spontaneously kissed Katie on the cheek without prompting.  I think this was his first kiss.  At least it was a Katie.  What a little ladies man.  Dexter also gave Ashlyn hugs.

Nicholas just loved the cup cake and DEVOURED his in a nano second.  That boys loves cake.

After they left, I opened my presents and THANK YOU Mom and Dad for the great gifts.  I think the Carry Underwood concert will be tons of fun.

Chris and Don, I love the chocolate and Joel has said I don’t even have to share.

Joel and the boys came through too.  They also got me concert tickets but to Tim McGraw.  Joel, being the forever thoughtful husband, gave me a electric pad for my feet in bed because during the winter, I’m always complaining that I can’t warm up my feet.  Nicholas (who loves eggs, and really loved camping) got me a portable plastic egg carrier for camping and Dexter decided he wanted to watch the Star Trek movie with me.

All in all, it was a fantastic day.  Thank you everyone who made it special!!!!

This was an oldie but a goodie that Joel wanted to share with you.  Here you can see the boys are already learning how to really sit in a recliner.  I wonder what we did that day because they really looked wiped out, don’t they?  Current status is that the boys are trying to drop their one remaining nap (much to our horror).  This one remaining nap has been cleverly whittled down to around an hour which leaves us just enough time to do absolutely nothing at all except prepare and eat our lunch.  Now we actually have to do our chores after they go to bed.  So much for down time……..

 

So today Malin told me that when she takes the boys for a walk, if a dog barks at them, Nicholas will bark back.  So here’s the question: which parent should take credit for this personality trait?  And do we have to admit it?

Sometimes, it’s hard not to read your horoscope and say, oh yeah, that is so me.  Then there are other days when all your “traits” as dictated by some magazine do not fit at all.  Well, having children is a lot like that. 

Joel and I will watch Nicholas and Dexter and inevitably, start saying “yep - he gets that from me.  Oh, that is so you.”  I’d really like to give you a match the baby trait with the parent trait but I think the logistics of writing that would be a bit hard.  So, I’ll let you off easy this time.  Here are some of the boys’ traits that we claim to be our own.

Nicholas is all about being in control.  Hmmm, sound maybe a bit like me?  He will only play rough and tumble when he wants to.  He does not like being interrupted when he’s focused on a specific task and will let you know to leave him alone.  When he is overly hungry or tired, he melts down quickly and much to Joel’s disgust, Nicholas is a true carnivore.  We both love the water and don’t mind getting dirty.  These are all traits that my beautiful boy and I share.  However, he gets his red-headed feistyness from his dad and like his father, Nicholas will quickly figure out how something works.   

Then there is Dexter, who is quite like his father.   Dexter does not know when he is hungry and will forget all about food if something else is going on.  He can’t sit still.  Dexter jumps from task to task but when he finds something he likes, he becomes laser focused.  Needing to be in control is not something Dexter craves.  In fact, he loves it when Joel plays rough with him.  Dexter is not a fan of meat and absolutely loves black beans.  In marrying Joel, I’ve had to introduce beans into my diet but I can say I love for non green beans is on par with Joel’s love of meat.   Dexter is wicked smart when it comes to electronics and almost ordered us another On-Demand movie the other day.  He also gets overwhelmed when there’s too much going on around him, and doesn’t like to get dirty or wet.  One of the few traits I share with my amazing Dexter is our ability to be totally silly, to have a much more even-keeled temper, and to zone out in front of the TV. 

As for the traits Joel and I won’t claim as our own, sticking sippy cups up the nose is on the top of the list followed by putting bins/tubs over their heads and walking into things, or eating vegemite.  Where they get this stuff, I don’t know.

Today I need to declog a drain, fix a stroller, let Katie buy herself her birthday present, and set up an auto-deposit for Malin’s paycheck.  I’ve been working on re-painting the trim for 3 months, and am almost ready to apply the primer.  My Dad was out here last weekend, and he brought 4 shelves with him that I’d asked him to make for me.  I sent him the dimensions, but failed to verify before hand that the walls were straight.  They weren’t.  So now I need to clean the garage, so that I can get out the Mitrebox and trim the shelves.  I bought other stuff to put shelves up in our bathroom over Christmas break, but I haven’t been able to start that yet.  I’m supposed to set up our FSA’s to auto-deposit so we stop getting 3 checks every other week.  I have a package of stuff to sent to Laura, thought I got a deferment since the second bracelet still hasn’t arrived.  We have a small tree that needs planting, and I really, really want to go and get another apple tree before it’s too late to plant this year.  Our grass has turned to moss, so I need to get the moss killer out, then de-thatch the yard, then aerate, then put down more grass seed.  I have the stuff ready to add an outlet to the upstairs landing (for a night light), but still haven’t found the time.  I killed off all the overgrown ground cover in the front yard, but haven’t made it to Lowes to buy the bark to recover the ground.  I also need to measure, buy, and cut PVC pipe in order to re-assemble the boys play tent.  Maybe tomorrow…

This morning we were desperate to get out of the house, so we ran off to the Children’s Museum again, which means Dexter and Nicholas will be coming down with a cold by Tuesday, and I’ll be sick next weekend.  We got some cute pictures of Dexter milking a cow, but I haven’t had a chance to download them yet.  Maybe tomorrow…

Before we left this morning, the boys got a hold of the remotes and went to town.  I glance up just in time to yell for Katie’s help, and we recovered the remotes *just* as the “confirm your purchase” screen came up.  Dexter was trying to order “The Box” on pay-per-view.  The trailers kind of creep me out, so I’m glad we stopped them.  So it’s been Amelia and The Box so far.  I’m kind of wondering about his taste in movies… 

In the meantime, the boys have been throwing one dramatic tantrum after another.  It isn’t so much about poor behavior – I think it’s more about their molars, but it hasn’t stopped for the last several weeks. I think Katie’s on the verge of skipping the country.  Think she could find gainful employment in Sweden or Australia?  Their sleeping now, but we don’t have much time left, and i need to run upstairs before the Drain-O eats through the pipes.  Maybe the kids will be done throwing tantrums by this afternoon.  Then again, maybe not.  Maybe tomorrow…

I haven’t anything terribly exciting to share at the moment.  For some reason the last few weeks have had Katie and I worn down, and it’s been hard to find the energy to do much of anything, let alone work through the photos, clean up the video clips, and remember the good parts of the day to write down.  It’s a shame, because there’ve been lots of cute moments, and they deserve remembering.

We’ve also been slowing down on the photos.  Maybe the boys just aren’t as cute anymore…  Or maybe it’s because I miss my good camera, if that adjective still applies.  It kind of sucks – I finally stepped up to buy a DSLR, then have to send the thing in for 2 months to, of all the stupid things, have an onboard battery replaced.  Well, I finally got it back on Monday, so now my only excuse for bad photos is my own incompetence, and the lack of an affordable fast prime lens for the micro four thirds format.

Right now we’re watching The Hackers, vintage 1995 film.  Think of it – a movie about cutting edge network security, back when Malin was just about ready to start 1st grade.  Good times.

The boys have been getting their molars, so it hasn’t been the best of times.  This afternoon, in desperation, we got out the bubbles, and the boys had a great time of it, and it gave us the chance to wash the floors.

And apparently I set the shutter speed a little long by mistake, but the effect was kind of interesting.

Shortly thereafter, we finally noticed that the boys hadn’t had their snack, which Nicholas was kind enough to remind us of by screaming inconsolably until we finally clued in.  It was a surprisingly good feed.  Dexter wasn’t acting all that hungry, but we scooped him up anyway.  He rose to the occasion an date well, though he wasn’t particularly passionate about it.  I was working on Nicholas, trying desperately to get him to eat his last spoonful of peas, and realized I had lost track of his fork.  Then I looked over at Dexter.

Sometimes I think they’re just mocking us.  Oh well.  There’s always tomorrow.

-Joel

The boys have developed a new game, or I should say, Nicholas has patented this one.  Yesterday morning, Nicky entertained everyone by sticking his sippy cup up his nose and then blowing his nose on it.  The rush of air and snot shot down into the mouth piece of the sippy cup, which forced air up through the little air release valve and thus sprayed water on his face.  He’d blow, spray and erupt into giggles, over and over and over again.  So much so that his brother had to copy him.  All of a sudden, I had two boys sticking sippy cups up their noses and loving every minute of it.

Where do they get these ideas?  I sure haven’t seen Malin, Joel or I stick anything up our nose and blow.

Snort and Snuff