for our out of town family & friends

I took this picture of the kids playing outside in our backyard 3 days ago.

Seeing is believing tonight, and that's when the next picture was taken. Tonight.

Not that I should act surprised. I grew up in these here parts, and I know that this is normal for our area in the spring. Still, it feels like a cruel joke.

Henri said, "Mama, I don't want it to snow anymore. I want to go to the beach."

Sorry son, the beaches don't open around here until June. The neighborhood wading pool is filled around June 15th and closes at the end of August.

bleach on black

See the picture of Cosette below in the previous post in her black velveteen jumper?

I found a penny-sized bleach spot on it when I took it out of the wash today.

I don't use bleach, except when I'm working in the nurseries. Then I get bleach spots on MY clothes, sometimes.

I'm pretty sure this spot was caused by the dishwasher detergent. Cosette stuck her fingers in it the other day while I was loading the dishwasher. She must have rubbed it on her pants before I washed her hands off.

Anyway, I want to send out a big thanks to Sharpie Markers, who make it possible for me to salvage our black clothing that get bleach on them.

Thank you, Sharpie!

getting better

Her ear has stopped draining--though it still smells a little.

So what's up then with the latest symptom--a runny nose?

2nd random thought:

I'm thinking about eliminating milk and/or wheat from Cosette's diet for a couple weeks and reintroducing them to her one by one. Cosette has had a patch of eczema on her thigh since she turned one, and it's been all flared up this week and spreading. Since eczema is sometimes caused by food allergies (NOT MY LITTLE GIRL TOO!), I want to do what we can to help it go away--poor little thing keeps trying to itch it. If a food is the culprit (I just read that eggs is usually the cause), then I feel like eliminating wheat & milk from her diet for a short time to see if it goes away & figure out the trigger might be a wise thing to do. (FYI--Cosette doesn't eat eggs yet, but I do.) The problem is that she still nurses so that means I need to eliminate all these things from my diet for a few weeks too. I probably should stop eating those peanut butter sandwiches while I'm at it. I've been wrong before. This may or may not do anything. So tell me to get to a grocery store to pick up some rice milk & bread & maybe some oat flour so that we can get on this thing!

June 2005

Henri at 16 months


Look at those curls!

Always good times with his friend, Ava.

in the lake

with his cousin, Chase

16 months old today

Cosette is...

(see title)

***update*** on Y.E.S.

Cosette's ear is still yucky, goopy, and stinky.

I took her to the doctor yesterday. (At 20.75 lbs, she's in between the 10th & 25th percentile.) She's been diagnosed with an ear infection with a perforated eardrum as we expected. The doctor couldn't see her eardrum--too much goop. She said that most cases heal up fine, and the child's hearing will not be affected.

And because the drainage has not cleared up and there is a suspicious Impetigo looking-like rash around her ear, we put her on antibiotics and ear drops. Cosette LOVES taking her medicine, and I put the ear drops in while I nurse her. Cosette LOVES nursing too. She's always been a pro at it.

Cosette continues to be very happy and has no other symptoms of illness (no lethargy or fever).

Seriously, the girl's ear smells bad! By the end of the day, her entire head & face wreaks. A nice bath clears that up, but it doesn't take long before the drainage is all over her again. Hopefully, we'll see end to the yucky ear syndrome soon.

because my mom had to work

We had an Easter dinner at our home and invited my family over. I tried making tomb rolls (aka resurrection buns) .And I was pleased with how they turned out. The nice looking ones in the back, I made in a muffin pan. The funny-looking front batch were made in a popover pan. I'd recommend the muffin pan.



Henri liked us to cut them open and tell the Easter story each time we tasted one. "See, Henri, the tomb is empty. Jesus is alive! The LORD is risen!"

Henri responded, "The LORD is risen indeed!"


I also made my first ham, which turned out very tender (thank you, Recipe Zaar) and the Honey's holiday favorite--sweet potatoes with lots of butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows of course. My younger sister, Jaime, brought a delicious Olive Garden-like salad, bread, cake, & ice cream.


My brother, Brandon, and brother-in-law, Tony, also came over as we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Johnny read the Bible as we finished going through the resurrection eggs I had made last year in the MOMS group at our church.

My mom ended up getting off early from work, so she spent the entire time with us. She didn't have to do any cooking, so she got to spend most of the time loving on the grandchildren. While Henri & my nephew, Chase, ran around the house, Cosette tried to hug & hold baby Brynn.



The Honey was looking good in his finest. He did much of the clean-up after dinner while making a delicious pot of coffee and some of his famous lattes.

Y.E.S.

Warning: This post is gross.

The title stands for Cosette's

Yucky Ear Syndrome

A thick yellow discharge is flowing from Cosette's left ear this evening. After doing some research, I think that means that she has an ear infection and her ear drum has burst. Her ear has been red & crusty & a little drippy all day, but it's yuckier tonight. I thought her fussiness had to do with her cutting one molar 2 weeks ago and another one this week.

She's happy now though with few other symptoms other than a red, sore ear with lots of yellow goop. From what I've read, it seems that we should see a doctor during normal hours, and it's not an emergency.

I hate it when illnesses come upon the kids on a Friday night. That means we have to decide about whether to wait until Monday to head to the doctor or consider something sooner. Since it's late and she isn't acting sick, we will wait for now. Maybe I'll call a nurse line tomorrow if it gets worse. Oh decisions...

Any experiences with ear discharge?

give me a ride too, Papa!

ouch!

Note to self: When one trips, try to avoid the doorframe.

of sippy cups, wedding rings, & lack of posts

1. On the sippy cup of milk--I found it a couple of days ago under my bed. It was curdled, but not stinky.
2. Johnny delivered my wedding ring back to my finger on Friday. I cannot believe how shiny it is. I didn't realized how dull the platinum band had become. Plus all the dirt that had collected in the crown under the diamond that was impossible to fish out is gone.
3. I typed those exact words in #2 in an e-mail to my friend, Jen. Sometimes I feel like posting something, and sometimes I don't. So tonight, I'm copying myself.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day because I think my kids have some Irish in them from my Honey's side of the family. But no one wore green today.

my mom

aka Suzette, Suzy, Grandma

somewhere, but where is it?

Somewhere in my house is a sippy cup full of whole milk. It's been missing since dinnertime last night. The question is: Where is it?

We've looked and looked and looked.

I guess the smell will tell us soon.

And I already checked the garbage, which is where it landed about a month ago when it disappeared.

bare finger

My wedding ring is broken. The band is cracked all the way through and has been rather annoying to wear this past week. The crown is bent in many places, exposing wide areas of the diamond and giving some fear that it might fall out.

My dear, wonderful, magnificent, beloved, amazing, brilliant, darling husband took it from my hand this afternoon and brought it to a jeweler near his work to be repaired.

I love my husband. Love, love, LOVE him! I praise and thank God for him. I love that he's taken my damaged ring to be restored so that it doesn't have to lay broken on my finger--this symbol of the covenant we made with one another under God over 7 years ago. That's why I'm so attached to it.

Thank you Honey. And when Cosette wakes from her nap, I'm going to raid my old jewelry box in that room to see if I can find a ring to wear in the meantime. I rarely wear other rings, but I think there's one in there with my birthstone on it that my parents gave to me one Christmas, and there's also my high school class ring (GO SAINTS!).

1. I don't want anyone to think that I'm not married to a most charming man.
2. My finger feels bare and empty without it.

And now I must wait 5 business days before I get my ring back.

Thank you, my Love, for finding someone to mend it. I love you.

hiding the mullet

We'll call this one, "Hi, I'm cute, and I think everything is funny."

So I wouldn't say that Cosette exactly has a mullet...yet. Her hair is definitely coming in the back, a little on top, and barely on the sides. We're getting a little concerned with what this might lead to. I don't want to move toward cutting my daughter's hair sooner than I had hoped. I want to be like my friend who cut her daughter's hair for the first time at 2 1/2. We don't want Cosette's hair to turn out like what another friend feared for her own daughter.

I have managed to put a thin ponytail on top, but I can't find anything on the sides to create pigtails until I went for the hair on the back of Cosette's head recently.

I've been really looking forward to putting two pigtails on top of Cosette's head above her ears since the time she's been born. So I'm not super excited about putting the pigtails on the back of my tiny girl's head.



Nevertheless, by putting the pigtails on the back of her hair, we accomplish two things:

1. Cosette gets to have pigtails in her hair.
2. Cosette's ever growing, thickening mullet is hidden.
   

Oh, wait! Wait! One more story that has NOTHING to do with anything else that I've written thus far!

Cosette was marching on the treadmill today. No, the treadmill wasn't moving, but Cosette was marching in place on it with a HUGE smile on her face and a giggle, probably regarding how excited she was that she was on the treadmill like her papa, whom she had seen on it a few days ago.

Here's another picture for good measure.

Her papa & I are in love with Cosette's smile.

And this would be another jumble of random thoughts by Yvette.

not how I was planning on spending our evening

I wasn't planning on:

• vacuuming
  
• cleaning my bathroom
• giving Henri & Cosette a shower/bath
• giving Henri a haircut

But the event of the night dictated that I do so, and I laughed and laughed. I really did. I didn't want to do said events above, but it sure made my night home alone with my two children interesting.


I love Henri with long hair. I like the texture of the different blonde colors and waves in his hair. I wasn't pleased with his last haircut. My Honey thought Henri was growing a mullet and asked me to cut it back in January. Oops! I cut it too short. Over the past few days, I've been thinking about how nice it is that his hair is starting to get longer again.

I usually don't make dinner when the Honey's not coming home. But I didn't feel like cereal or a sandwich, so I made one of my planned meals: Black Bean & Tortilla Bake. Most of my meals are one-dish meals. I can't think in pieces, which is why I'm not crafty and my mom & friend help me decorate. I digress.

Henri was doing one of his favorite activities: cutting paper. Only he decided to not cut paper anymore and went into the living room. Upon putting the tortilla bake into the oven, I turned around to see Henri looking at his reflection in the glass of our gas fireplace with his scissors in hand near the top of his head. I screeched and told him, "Don't cut your hair! Put those scissors down."

Thinking that I had saved him from cutting his hair, I reached the living room only to see this:
And this:

And this:

He had cut his hair off on the top right corner of his head, near his scalp in a few spots. Perhaps he was inspired by his friend Alexander's recent haircut.

It was here that I laughed. Granted I was disappointed that I would have to cut off his longer locks. For some reason, however, I've always had this moment in the back of my mind. Doesn't every kid chop off their own hair at some point? I think my older sister chopped my bangs off when I was little. Well, my son's moment to shine had come. Like a rite of passage into childhood.




Now I knew that my whole night would change. We now needed to fix the mess, and take a few pictures.





Here's what his hair looks like now:

Seriously, this boy has my Honey's hairline.

I couldn't bring myself to buzz it completely off. I used a #3 on top, and I can still see a couple of the divots where the hair was cut shorter.
When the Honey sees this, he may want me to buzz it shorter. He doesn't know about it yet. Henri was getting very irritated by the hair covering his face and body while I cut it, so it was time to stop and throw the boy into the shower:

Cosette soon joined him in the shower because she wanted to. I also had to hold her several times while I cut Henri's hair because that's what one-year olds want. They want their mamas to hold them, constantly.


I do have one question. I'm not sure that I will laugh if Cosette cuts her hair like this one day. How do you fix that if a girl cuts her hair off to her scalp? Can you really give her a buzz cut? Wouldn't that make it worse? Do you just use the longer hair to try and cover it up? Moms of girls, fill me in.

jury duty

Guess who started jury duty today?


hint: This person has never had jury duty before.

hint #2: I've had jury duty twice.


clear answer: That would be my snazzy spouse.

side note: We went to the orchestra on Saturday night with the Honey's work, hence the snazzy clothing in the above photo when we dropped off our kids at our friends' home.

comfort measures

Henri's blanket was a homemade baby shower gift from Bree over 4 years ago. It's his special blanket.
One of the habits he's formed over the years has been sticking the ends of it in his ear to comfort himself.