Happy 9th Birthday Dear Christian!!!

We love you so much!!!

Lovely selfie. Taken at 8:30pm after dinner at 7:45pm. Spring has arrived and with it the smorgasbord of activities and sports.

School birthday celebration. He later confided in me by asking "Mom, I don't know what to do when people sing happy birthday to me. Do I smile? Do I look around?"

Reciting a poem for his birthday

Celebrating Jo's and Christian's Birthdays at Fujiyama. That place repeatedly and consistently gives me major nausea and headache for about 24 hours afterward. There is something in the food/additives that does not agree with me.

Their gift station they set up in the basement. We refused to let them set up shop in our main living or family room area. Chances are we'd never see the carpet again.

Ninja course party at Garland's!

Cake and balloons at puo può's house

Steel Lake in Federal way by Cho Dang Tofu restaurant

Got a library card at the Seattle library! They were very interested in finding "Dog Man". A comic book, basically.

Playing "locate the item" under the cup

Untouched photo: I think it looks a professional photo, personally. ha.

Comfy reading position for a 6 year old, and only a 6-year old

I'm teaching them how to do laundry. hehehe. I made a deal that if they gathered all their clothes, started the washing machine, and alerted me that they started a load, I would change the clothes over to the dryer. So far they have done a whopping single load. And that's only when they were really desperate for clothes, usually track pants.

World's tiniest inscription on world's tiniest square cake. We polished it off in one night. Perfect. Christian asked for Wild and Reckless Sherbet, white cake, and red frosting. It was a pretty good combo.

Baseball cupcakes I special ordered at Fred Meyer for his baseball practice today. The baker at Fred Meyer did a great job and it was only $11 for all these cupcakes. The going rate of specialty cupcakes is like $3 per cupcake so I was quite happy with the price.

The spring schedule I have (maddeningly) signed us up for:

Mondays: Math team, Art class, Baseball, Ninja class
Tuesdays: Chess club, Soccer x 2
Wednesdays: Spelling Club, Baseball x 2, Soccer, Ninja Class
Thursdays: Violin, Piano, Baseball x 2, Soccer x 2
Fridays: Free until Robotics class starts in 2 weeks

So what's happening is I try to cook healthy and portable food but find it very difficult to keep it hot and make it taste good and keep it healthy when it's been sitting in a tupperware for 3 hours. I also try to enforce practicing piano and violin and doing their workbooks but that usually falls by the wayside. I try to keep a lid on fatigue by reminding myself it's only 2 months out of the entire year that our schedule is like this. We basically do very little the rest of the year.

Orange for the Fam

After today's Dri-Tri, Dae told me to sign him up for Orange and he's going to give it a try. He had talked with another Kadlec doc who had joined and who was also there rooting on his wife.

Both boys also loved rowing so much during the event they asked if they could join Orange. hahaha! Just now before bed, Olin said "mom, I'm going to set up my Orange Theory at home"....

This was his rowing machine.

Sidenote: We're traveling over the next few weeks with spring break so Dae and I looked up Orange theory nationally and....good news! There are two locations in Chattanooga for when we visit Halmoni and Haraboji in two weeks! :) I wonder if they do things different in the South.

Dri-Tri

I finished my first Orange Theory Dry Triathlon (Dri-Tri) today! I had been a ball of nerves for days. ha! My goal was to finish in less than 50 minutes and I finished in 46 minutes 41 seconds. The run, as I had anticipated, was by far the hardest part. I was hoping to do 9 minute miles but was so tired when I got on to the treadmill I ended up running slightly under 10 minute miles.

2000 m Row
300 Body weight reps
5K run

Our group of 14. I think I got 9th place. The kids asked me "Are you glad you didn't get last place?" and I said yes. Because I warned them I may very well get last place. :)

Cheering squad (+ Dae and Alaina)

The kids spent tons of time on these rowers!

Last weekend, kids had their own mile race. Christian went out hard, got tuckered out, but intermittently ran and finished with a 10:04 minute mile!

Birthday party invites a la 2018. A digital copy, texted to all invitees. So efficient and cheap!

Sleeping patterns. There are two boys in there somewhere.

Sleeping patterns, part II. Foot in face. Olin did not like this photo when I showed it to them. He laughed for about 10 seconds, and then promptly said "Mom, I don't really like that photo"

This is otherwise known as panic. I opened up our passports to find that Olin's expires in 5 days, and we leave for our spring break trip (with a stop in the Bahamas) in 15. So I scooted over to our local passport office, which is in our post office, and she said the only option since it's so close to our trip is to go to Seattle. Lucky for us, we were planning a trip next weekend anyway. Phew!

Sick baby, last week.

Needed cold washcloth on head.

The Big Sick(nesses)

The family has been riddled with ailments:

1. Dae: Kidney stones
2. Olin: Swollen eye - blocked duct?
3. Christian: Fever, missed school Friday. He hasn't missed that much school due to sickness in 4 years. I think one other time. Dae thinks more than that, but I think I am right. He then kind of threw up this morning a couple of times. It was clear, and it might have been coughing or post-nasal drip that stimulated a gag. I felt so bad for him. 
4. Me: I have been off and on sick since January 1. I can't take it! Even my trusty oregano oil wasn't fighting off the bugs. I decided to triple arm myself by taking oregano, Vitamin C and Elderberry. I think that'll do the trick. The sickness has come in 2 weeks of sickness, 1 week of ok, off and on for 2 months. However in between those bouts of sickness, I threw my lower back out in January (haha) and woke up with a stiff neck last week. I am seriously over it. 

Spelling Club. I am chair of Spelling Club, and I love it. haha. We meet weekly on Wednesdays, it's open to 3rd-6th graders, and we have been giving a little lesson, and playing games and doing mock Bees. The kids are surprisingly good spellers.

I love it when the kids read without putting up a fight.

Last week we went to see Nel play Grandma Josephina in CK's production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The kids loved it! Afterward, the cast came down and mingled with the audience and Olin asked to take lots of photos with all sorts of cast members. Wasn't shy about it at all. 

Make-you-own fossil at Dino Days at the Burke Museum at UW

Olin's left eye. Pretty red and puffy for about 3 days but getting better. He always wakes up with puffy eyes (as does mom) but the left was definitely worse.