On A Quiet Sunday Morning

I love baking, especially breakfast baking...  Sunday mornings are often the only chance I get to practice this craft, so I try to get a little goodness in most weekends.

This past week, I had been out of town Monday through Thursday, and Cindy had a whole week of not sleeping well...  (Obviously I play an important role in her good-night's-sleep) I got back on Friday, so the sleep issue was resolved, but then we spent all day Saturday working in the yard and selling off daycare equipment and supplies (yes, in case you haven't heard, Puddle Jumpers is officially closing its doors!) and then I topped all that off with DJing a dance that went until 11pm.

I got home last night about 11:30 (love local gigs!) but my mind was still pretty wound up - meaning no sleep for me until around 12:30.  I woke up around 8, along with Cindy and Danee, who had found her way into our bed at some point in the night.  After some sleepy morning snuggles and singing with our sweet babygirl, Danee and Mommy fell back to sleep, so I got up.  Surveyed the kitchen.  Declared it a FEMA-worthy disaster zone, and got to work.

Two hours later, the dishes were all washed, the garbage and recycling were taken out, and there was a delicious Oatmeal-Strawberry-Banana Coffee Cake cooling on the stove.  The smell was enough to wake my sleeping beauties, and we're about to dig in, then get ready for church.

It was so nice - and so rare - to have a couple hours of quiet time where there weren't any outside influences demanding my time and attention!  It made me want to make a note of it.. and I vaguely remembered that I used to have a place where I'd record things like this - big things, little things, things meaningful only to me, or relevant to many...  And just like that, here I am blogging again!

Feels good...  Despite a year+ of neglect, I still prefer this format to Facebook's "Notes" for extended postings.

Revisiting the '80s ManicMix

Nope, not another contest, just re-posting the video for fun's sake.

26 Songs, 60 Seconds.  Enjoy, and good luck!

Haute Couture for the Toddler In Your Life

Danee's little friend Tavis just turned two a couple days ago. Having been through several two-year olds myself, I've determined that they should come with warning labels.

So in addition to an awesome Lightning McQueen play set, Tavis is getting a warning label.

I had so much fun with it, I made one for Danee too!

Easter 2011, Part 2

This year's holidays are going to be lots of fun, because Danee is finally old enough that she's paying attention and reacting to the things that we do for the Holidays.

Easter was a great example... She woke up long after the big kids, and came upstairs to find this sitting by the fireplace:



Immediately, she knew it was for her! (I suspect the Pinkness of it all clued her in)



She promptly grabbed her basket and headed to the middle of the room to explore her treasures...



A new Strawberry Shortcake DVD...



Lots of crinkly yellow Easter Grass...



A soft, pink monkey wrap for the pool this summer...



Chocolate,



glorious Chocolate...



And a big, pink punchyball!!



But as you know, there's no age limit on enjoying your Easter Basket...

Tyler



and Kaylee



Also loved their goodies!

And finally, something that's a bit of a tradition here at the 813...



SILLY STRING FIGHT!!!







Even older sisters get in on the fun - willingly or not!



Still to come, Part 3 - Dying Easter Eggs!!

Easter 2011, Part 1

This year's Easter Weekend was jam-packed full of the kind of excitement you can only get with a big family... It kicked off at 4pm Friday, when Danee walked a little too close in front of the swing set, and got knocked down.

Now, when I was a kid, our swing set sat directly on the grass in our backyard (and my local playground also had the swings directly on the grass) but apparently it's a miracle I survived. Now, thanks to the fact that our home is a licensed day care, we get to know about all the great nanny-state laws, like "All Swings Must Have At Least Six Inches Of Bark Beneath Them, Out To Six Feet From The Perimeter."

I have no idea who determined that bark was more comfortable to fall on than grass, but we are compliant. The problem is, you have to build a box to hold all that bark in, which (in my ever so humble opinion) makes the whole thing far more dangerous than the swings of my youth, because if you're running out of your swing, you're very likely to fall when you hit the edge of the box - and land in the treacherous grass... Or, in Danee's case, you'll walk too close to someone swinging, get knocked back, and CRACK - your head lands right on the edge-board of the box, splitting your scalp open. Safety Feature Fail.

Since Daycare was in full swing at the time, Cindy called 911 and the Fircrest Fire Department came up the hill and wrapped Danee's head while I was driving home from work to take her to the E.R.



Blessings come from the least likely places. Unless you're brand new to keeping up with these Brinkerhoffs, you certainly know that we've spent lots of quality time at the Mary Bridge Hospital and Suites. Over those many visits, we've made some friends in the right places. As we were driving up to the E.R. Valet Parking, I wondered aloud if our good friend Nurse Ricky would be working... and once we got past the door cop who needed to verify that we didn't have any weapons of mass destruction hidden in our baby's diaper or under her head bandage, we got up to the check-in counter, and guess who? Nurse Ricky was there!

Now, I'm certainly not saying that Nurse Ricky plays favorites, but I will say that we were triage'd and placed in an exam room in record time.



Before we even had a chance to complain about being back, there was a doctor in the room, looking at the huge gash in the back of Danee's head, and commenting on how small it was - as if it was an adorable newborn kitten or something - and how it wouldn't need stitches, just glue. We've done the glue thing before, and are firm believers in the amazing medical abilities of Super Glue!

In less time than it takes to watch three Pixar Shorts on Disney XD (with commercials), we were all done, and heading for the car. In the only moment of showing that there may have been some sort of trauma to her head, Danee threw a monstrous fit as we left the hospital. She didn't want to leave, didn't want to get in the car, and DID NOT want to get strapped into her car seat. It really wasn't until we got home that she finally calmed down somewhat, and then still wasn't really happy until she got to go play outside - in the very same back yard where this whole ordeal started.

She was fully back to normal, and our round-trip time from the panic'd phone call telling me to come home NOW, to returning from the hospital, was just over two hours. That's a record - and it's amazing how enjoyable the E.R. can be when you have friends in the right places, and you're not there for respiratory distress. I'd take several more of these types of visits instead of ANY more lunch related stays!

Friday night was in the books, and Easter Weekend still had lots more to offer... maybe you'll read about more of them tomorrow!

Danee's Got A New Friend!

This morning Cindy took Danee to Build-A-Bear, and they made a Soft, Pink Easter Bunny!

I'm not sure what her official name is, but I've been calling her "Bunnie" all day.  I think it works for her.

Anyway, we actually had a sunny and non-arctic afternoon today, so I took Danee down to the park to play, and Bunnie had to come along... Danee and Bunnie climbed the steps of the big toy...



They went down the slide...





Annnnd, they also grabbed the gate in protest when it was time to come home...



Once we got home, Danee and Bunnie played in the back yard while I made dinner - they played house...





And the sandbox...





And when the sun started to go down, I'm sure Bunnie was complaining as loudly as Danee was - I just couldn't hear it!

That's My Girl... Just Like Her Mommy!

For the last 11 years, Cindy has had a near-nightly ritual that she loves, wherein I rub lotion on her feet...  It usually happens on the couch in the evening, while watching TV of some kind.

It's such an important part of our relationship that for Valentine's day this year, I got her a tube of  NuSkin's Epoch Firewalker foot cream, to up the luxury factor a little.  Tip to all the guys out there:  If the lady in your life also enjoys a good foot rub, track down some of this stuff - it's well worth the gourmet price!  GOOD STUFF!!

Anyway...  the last few weeks have been crazy busy, what with Puddle Jumpers filling up with 2 year olds, and TS4A keeping me out late solving the world's technical problems, and the foot rub ritual has been a bit neglected.  Last Tuesday in particular, I didn't get home until 8:00, and was so exhausted that it was pretty much bed time on arrival.  So the NEXT day, when we found ourselves on the couch watching Tangled (which is an awesome movie, by the way - go get it!) I jumped up and grabbed the lotion, then positioned myself on the couch with Cindy's feet in my lap.

Before I could even start the rubbin', Danee jumped up from her pillow on the floor, scrambled up on to the couch, on to Mommy's lap, put her feet in the air, and gave me that smile that said "Daddy will do WHATEVER I WANT!"

And I did...  I rubbed her tiny little feet until they were thoroughly softened up, and went to work on Cindy's.  Danee did NOT like that very much, and kept sticking her little feet in between my hands and Mommy's feet.

A few minutes later, the distractability of a two-year old worked to our advantage, and Danee was back on the floor, on a pillow, snuggling with her sister Kaylee.  I'd gotten up for a glass of water, and as I came back to the couch and pulled out the lotion to resume my husbandly duties, Danee -- who is just now starting to really use words -- JUMPED up, and RAN, FRANTICALLY over to the couch, shouting, "WANT!! WANT!! WANT!!!"

Poor Cindy did finally get her foot rub, eventually... with interruptions...