Our Yard

looks so bad. We don't know how to get, or maintain, a good yard, so we called a place to come and fertilize and spray weed spray and all that, but they rescheduled twice due to weather. Yesterday in the car, Leelee said "Do you want to hear something bad? Our yard looks terrible!".

This is our yard looking better, actually. It was horrible before we got the water going.

The kids painted in the garage while the yard people worked their magic

Baby lounged in the chair. I thought those paints would entertain them for an hour. However, they entertained the kids for about 10 minutes!

**** Warning! Photo of elbow coming up. It's not that gross ****

17 days post-op. April 24

Five Guys Burgers just opened up in Richland and it is jam-packed with people. The kids liked de-shelling peanuts (Leelee), eating them (Olin) and throwing the shells on the floor. Funny how Olin likes peanuts, just like a little adult.

Kombucha

Olin LOVES Kombucha. I pour a little in his sippy cup and he goes crazy, guzzling it down.

Dinner & Target

Our last 3 date nights, Dae and I have had dinner or happy hour somewhere followed by "what should we do next to maximize our chances that the kids are asleep when we get home?" (Terrible, but true). Turns out the answer to that question is to go to Target and leisurely browse for a good half hour. So instead of the standard dinner and a movie, our evenings out have consisted of dinner and Target, always. It's a sure recipe for success! Tonight when we were at Target, Dae found this recliner & ottoman on display, elevated, at the end of an aisle and said that's where I would find him resting once I was finished browsing cosmetics. I browsed a bit and came back and he was lounging there with his feet propped up, surfing his iPhone. I could not stop laughing because I thought of how funny it would be if one of his patients that he had operated on walked by and saw him sitting there! I am actually laughing out loud even thinking about it again. After all, Richland is small and Dae has seen his patients at Granny's Buffet and Joker's Casino (both to his dismay) so it is highly likely that someone we know would be shopping Target on a Tuesday evening.

Tonight we were talking about how lucky we are to have a nanny who is so available. We can pretty  much always count on the fact that she will be available which is so nice.

Completely unrelated, but wanted to have some sort of journal record of Leelee's napping. He's pretty much grown out of naps as of the past couple of months. These days he naps in the afternoon perhaps once or twice a week and it's usually because I take a nap or he falls asleep (involuntarily).

Also, he is getting pretty good in swimming. He will probably still be at the Jellyfish level next quarter but I'm ok with that as long as he's having a good time and progressing. I see him doing "monkey, tree, rocket" for the backstroke and I see him kicking his legs and windmilling his arms in freestyle and he bobs underneath the water and jumps in the water and all of this is unbelievable because he hated the water as of last summer in Hawaii.

Olin Understands

Even though Olin ain't talkin', he seems to understand a lot. He loves going to get his shoes for me to put on. Today, he got Leelee's shoes and brought them over to him. I can also ask him to throw stuff away and sit down and he understands. So I'm happy there's a little bit of comprehension - he's just late on the talking bit.

Today, Leelee was pretending to talk on an old iPhone that we have laying around and I heard him say "Baby just went into quiet time and mom's about to take a shower. She needs to take her band-aid off her arm, and then put a garbage bag over it!". hahaha! For the record, I've only had to do the garbage bag thing once since I now have a removable splint that I don't wear all the time.

Ev & Didi Visiting

Ev and Didi came for the weekend and were a huge help around the house. We had a great time!

Didi and Leelee enjoyed helping baby put on his shoes.

Dolled up and shopping at Target to kill time before an auction dinner with Kelly

Cute photo - the theme was Masquerade

Kids got some masks at the Dollar Store as well.

Baby's face made me laugh. So serious.

Healing (**don't look at photos if easily grossed out**)

I'm fascinated by the ability to heal and I've been taking a picture of my elbow every few days to document. The pictures are kind of gross, especially right after the surgery, so feel free to not read on! I am just documenting the healing process because it's pretty amazing to me and I want to remember what it looked like and how quickly it is getting better. I will probably keep posting new photos as it heals but I will always warn you so you can look away!

Day of injury (April 6)

Day of Injury (April 6)

4 days post-op (April 12) It was so swollen, and the size of the incision really surprised me. I thought it would be little.

4 days post-op (April 12). So swollen.

Normal right hand.

7 days post-op (April 15). Redness has gone down and it looks better. Sutures still in. I got them taken out a day later.

11 days post-op (April 19). Considerably better. Sutures have been out 4 days and the redness and swelling are going down. The gross rolled area between the sutures is totally flat now. I am amazed by that!

Bathtime Buddies

Wednesday Night

Just got back from a Winemakers' Dinner at Bookwalter. It was really delicious!

Last night, we finally went to Monterosso's Restaurant, the train car turned restaurant that Christian has been begging to go to since Christmas.

Look at Olin...head to toe Helly Hansen thermal underwear as his "outfit". I'd like to blame my one arm, but in all honesty even if I had two working arms I'd still have no problem letting him leave the house like that!

Baby naps with his bottom up, just like Leelee used to do. He is so peaceful and cute when he sleeps, as opposed to when he is awake. These days, he honestly cries for about 75% of the time when he is awake...

Leelee painted Tshirts today at school for Bike Day on Friday. They put paint on bike tires and rode the bikes over the shirts. So fun!!

Pics from Leelee's Birthday in Seattle

More pictures from my mom's house in Seattle two weeks ago...

Teeth and hair are all I see. That, and a real cute boy. 

Serious focus.

My mom got Leelee a bullet train that he had been coveting for a couple of months...

Lazy-Eyed Recycling Bins

We hit the recycling bins at least every week so the kids are really familiar with them. About a month ago, Leelee said "Mom, how come some of the recycling bins are like this?" and he half-closed his eyes like this:

And he asked "And how come some are like this?" and he opened his eyes like this:

I looked at the recycling bins and sure enough there are definitely two different types, heavy-lidded and wide open:

Heavy-lidded

Wide open

Dae and I were laughing SO hard over his eye interpretation of the recycling bins.

We went to Fujiyama (tri-cities' version of Benihana) on Sunday with our neighbor Richard. This time, the kids loved the show and baby was not scared of the fire!

Transfixed.

Going Batty

That's me...going batty. Toting these kids around, one of them constantly tantrum-ing (Olin) has been bad, real bad. This morning my neck was super stiff on top of the whole arm thing, so I'm just moving really, really slow in general.

Onto brighter things:

So handsome and so adult-like here

Exactly

Class photo

From my dental office!

From my mom - thanks!!!

Broken Elbow

Post-op.  The arm was numb for 12 hours so I was all smiles!

Saturday in Seattle I was running down some cement steps while carrying Olin, fell and landed on the elbow I was carrying him. We went into Kadlec Sunday since it was so swollen and it turns out I fractured my left elbow.  SO... typing one-handed is not cutting it (although Dae nicely observed that "the accident sure didn't affect your texting abilities!")

I met with the orthopedic surgeon on Sunday and my two choices were 1) surgery, in which they place a stainless steel tension band and I am splinted for 1-2 weeks but should have almost full range of motion after that time although may be uncomfortable, or 2) immobilization (cast) of my arm in straight position for 6-8 weeks. He didn't recommend option #2, and I didn't want it, so I went in for surgery yesterday. All went well, and I was under conscious sedation, so I didn't need general anesthesia. The babysitter came to pick up the kids, Kelly gave rides to the hospital, picked up Leelee from school today and made dinner for us tonight, and Stacy brought dinner over last night. SO very nice of them!

Anyway, this one-handed thing is no fun. Even opening envelopes or jars, or trying to dress myself (and the kids...ugh) takes a lot longer. Trying to pick up Olin is usually very clumsy and the poor guy is never really situated very snugly on me right now! On the bright side, nothing happened to Olin and it was my left arm and not right!

I guess I'll probably be back working in a couple of weeks so all in all I feel pretty lucky in a weird way. As a sidenote, we may have maximized our deductible for the year so Dae has been contemplating getting his knee(s) surgery as well. We're a house riddled with injury!

Xiao Long Bao at Din Tai Fung

Watching them make the deliciousness!

Le Panier at Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market

Now some cool photos - haha!

Saturday night. Swollen but I didn't think broken.

The dark area on the top bone is the fracture.

Here's the pin. I can't believe the stuff they can do.