Goodbye, Laila.

Sorry that I have been MIA the last week. I took Friday off of work to do some shopping for Jaxson's birthday party and my niece's birthday party, then my two little brothers (ages 12 and 10) came over and spent the night at my house because Jayden had been asking to play with his uncles all week long. I also started feeling sick come Friday and it developed into a full-blown head cold and I was working from home on Monday and Tuesday so I didn't get anyone sick. I still sound like crap, but I'm feeling alright. Hopefully I will continue to feel better so I'm back up to snuff by Saturday for Jaxson's first birthday party.

Also, on Monday, we finally parted with our 5 year old female cat, Laila. I adopted her from a shelter back in February 2006 when she was 13 months old on a wild and crazy hair. I was just getting ready to move into my own apartment and wanted my cat, Kimahri, to have a companion. She was really shy and skittish at first and it took her a long time to truly warm up to us and let us be playful with her (and we are talking close to 2 years!) and soon after I got her I noticed she had a urinating problem. The cat peed on everything!! I felt so guilty getting rid of her because I felt it was my responsibility to help find a way to "fix" her. For years, I tried EVERYTHING the vets had suggested to me to no avail. I'd had multiple check-ups done on her and they could never find any physical indicators of what would make her urinate...no UTI's or other infections/irritations. I can't even count how many times Aaron and I would say " I've had it!" or "I'm done!" or "She has to go!". We'd always talk about trying to find a home for her....and yet she stayed. We put ads on Craigslist but no one answered. PAWS wouldn't take her since she peed as she was "unadoptable". Aaron and I didn't want to take her to the pound as they are a kill shelter and I'd hate to have her put down just because she pees, plus the worrying over if she was okay or if she was put down (along with any guilt) would have made me feel just awful. Other than the peeing, she's a wonderful cat; very loving and gentle, loves to snuggle. She's not hostile in the slightest sense of the word. I personally always felt like I was betraying her since it took her so long to get accustomed to us as her family and I felt like I'd be putting her back at square one...and maybe her new family wouldn't be as lenient or patient as Aaron and I were.

After this last week, we'd just had enough. Even though her peeing was unpredictable, she was still doing it. We've caught her on numerous occasions peeing and pooping in our fireplace. We've had to throw out numerous toys for the kids because she's peed on them and ruined them. We've had to replace our bath toys or sanitize them numerous times because she's peed on them. Just last month I found petrified cat poop under Jayden's bed with one of his Legos stuck in it. She's even gone as far as to pee on a pair of my work pants right after I'd taken them off... I mean I literally had put them on the bed right behind me as I was changing into my pajama pants. She's peed on our bed, on Jayden's bed, in the pack and play, on our bath mat, on the carpet....literally anything and everything. She's always marking her territory and rubbing on things, shaking her tail in the air. This week was just extreme though. Within less than a week, she peed on all of the boys' bath toys (again!), a pair of Aaron's shoes (which she ruined and had to be thrown out), and his jacket. I noticed a huge wet spot on the back of his jacket and down the sleeve and I wondered what it could be from since the jacket was on top of our clean laundry pile, and jokingly I said "Is it cat pee? You might want to check...". I could tell just by the look on his face that it was. I'd let my guilt and fear keep her here longer than most would tolerate, but I knew I had to put the health and safety of my kids first. I didn't want to be the stinky house either and we've tried so hard to clean. I've washed walls and done laundry, mopped, steam cleaned, etc. Everything to keep the house clean and smelling good. Aaron and I just couldn't take it anymore.

So, Aaron packed her up and took her back to the shelter I got her from. When we tried to take her there the first time, they wouldn't take her as they didn't have room. Luckily they are a no-kill shelter and they didn't charge us to bring her back. We still had all her original paperwork so they had her information on file. Come to find out that the shelter didn't even know anything about her so they didn't know she peed. Someone had just left her on the doorstep of the shelter with her two kittens and they took them all in. They told Aaron and his mom (since she went with Aaron) that sometimes there are more feral cats that cannot be trained. There's nothing physically wrong with them, but they just cannot or will not learn to urinate where they should. I was comforted by the fact that I was told that they have a great facility with plenty of room for the cats to play. They have a big barn for the more feral cats so they have space. It's a well-kept shelter with lots of volunteers and each cat has there own special cat bed & blanket. Even if she's not adoptable, she can live at the shelter her entire life until she dies of old age. They won't ever euthanize her. So, I feel so much better knowing that she has a good home where she will have lots of people and cats to play with, she will be well taken care of, and she won't be put down.

So, now we are just down to our one cat, Kimahri. He's fully house-trained and doesn't pee on things so we can actually leave our bath mat down now. :) Aaron and I plan to use some of our leftover tax return to have a professional carpet cleaner come in and clean our carpet. I know the smell and stains won't ever completely go away, but we want to deep clean as much as we can. And we feel so much better.

Waiting sucks!!

Today is just one of those days where the ol' fever is acting up. I've always been a rather impatient person once I have my mind set on something as I'm totally driven by deadlines. I like to keep on somewhat of a schedule as much as I can and this whole waiting thing is killing me! Can't I just be at the finish line already?? Realistically speaking I know we aren't quite ready for another addition just yet and we have a lot of work ahead of us this year to get to that point, but both Aaron and I are extremely anxious and emotionally ready... I just wish all the other stars were aligned so that the wait would be over.

In one aspect of things, time seems to be flying by. As it draws closer, for instance, I still am in awe that my "baby" is almost a year old, walking, almost talking, and just becoming a toddler all around. I'm trying as much as I can to just sit back and enjoy my time with him and Jayden as I know that they will only be this young once. I also know that we need as much time as possible to get ourselves in a better financial position: we need to have Aaron working and pay off as much debt as we can. But days like today creep in every now and then where the desire seems so great and I take on the "not fair!" attitude. Sure, I'm more than grateful for my family and the things I do have...we are so truly and ultimately blessed. On the other hand, I don't think I'll be completely at ease until I know my family is complete. I know that Aaron and I want more kids and that there are members of our family waiting in the wings, and THAT is what I am impatient for. I'm ready to welcome them to our family in this world and then continue on this journey together as a whole and complete family.

I know it will be here before I know it once I've looked back on it, but right now December cannot be here soon enough!! Aaron and I are ready for Santa to bring us a different kind of present...one 9 months in the making! :)

...ugh. Waiting sucks.

Party Planning and St. Patty's Day

I haven't been around to post in a while because I've had things keeping me busy over the last week...and it seems like it's only going to get even more crazy especially with birthdays coming up. My niece's 3rd birthday is on Thursday and her party is this Saturday. On top of that, I'm in the midst of planning Jaxson's first birthday party which is the following Saturday. We decided to do a circus and animal themed party. It took me forever to get the invitations done since I barely had time at home so I devoted my lunch hours to working on them at work. If you know me, you'll know that I won't just go out and purchase those already made invitations with the lines inside so you can just fill in the blanks. Sure I could do that to save time, but it's not very often that I get to tap into that side of my creativity (I'd love to do it as a business) so I take advantage of the events & times where I can.

Here is the finished product. They look better in person but this will have to do. I blurred out personal information like the address and phone numbers just because my blog isn't private and you never know who could be (and is!) watching... And, no, in case you were wondering, we didn't send an invitation to ourselves, but I wanted to show what the address labels looked like too.

And this is just something random that I've noticed since I started throwing parties for my kids... Where is the etiquette? I remember when I was a kid and the invitations said RSVP...people actually called to let you know if they were coming or not!! What a novel concept, right? However, it's like pulling teeth nowadays for people to take 5 minutes to call or even e-mail with a quick yes or no. Either that or my family and friends are horrible about it. Granted not all of them are that way, but I still end up calling those I haven't heard from (which ends up being about half) to confirm so I can plan better. If I wasn't so anal retentive and organized, I'd probably just be like, "Oh well, if there's not enough food for everyone there because they didn't RSVP then it's not my problem". But....I'm not like that. I like to have a close-to-accurate headcount so I have enough food and make enough cake. I also like to stay within my budget and I don't want to buy stuff for a bunch of people who don't end up showing up and then I waste my time and money. I'm a planner, a party coordinator. Maybe not by profession, but it's somewhere in my genetic makeup.

Anyway, speaking of food. For the menu, we decided to go with food you would find at a circus (fancy that!?!), or carnival/fair. So, we will have things like hamburgers, hot dogs, corn dogs, popcorn, peanuts, fries, soda, and cotton candy. I plan on making circus cupcakes thanks to a recipe from my sister's awesome cupcake book, and then a small "smash cake" for Jaxson. And there will be ice cream... can't have a party without it! Here's the picture of the cupcakes I hope to make and I pray they look this good...

Last, but not least: the activities. I mean, what the heck do you do for a first birthday party?? I posted on my Facebook this morning before I left for work asking anyone for ideas for a circus party. I didn't even think of it, but I had huge responses and most of them said to hire a clown. Why didn't I think of that? Probably because I figured that you really can't do much with a one year old. Then I got to thinking that there will be other kids there and they'd probably have a lot of fun with a clown. So, now I'm looking into a last minute clown for the party depending on how expensive it is. I found one that looked promising, but the starting price is $100 an hour...YIKES! I must throw cheap birthday parties. I'm waiting to hear back on some other quotes and hoping I can find something a little more inexpensive, but that seems to already be on the cheaper side. If we can find it in our budget, then we might try to hire the clown. If not, I have to think of a Plan B.

On a completely separate side note, which I could have written a separate post about but did not because I just didn't feel like it, I took a few pictures to commemorate St. Patty's Day last week. I was at Target the other day and saw these cute shirts on sale. I wanted to get them matching shirts, but they didn't have the one I wanted in Jaxson's size so I got the next best thing. I don't go all out or anything, but I'm proud of my Irish heritage so I nevertheless feel the need to represent. It's virtually impossible for me to get my children to sit still long enough for a decent picture, so just in case I wasn't able to get both boys together (good mommy thinking as that's exactly what happened...or didn't happen depending on the way you look at it) in the same photo wearing their St. Patty's Day shirts, I took a picture of the shirts together and then got separate pictures of the boys.

The only time I can ever seem to get Jayden to hold still, since he's the worst of the two photogenically speaking, is when he's eating. I swear that half my pictures of Jayden are of him sitting at the table with his food. If I try to get pictures of him before or afterwards, I typically end up with half a head of blond hair or a picture of my very stained carpet. Jayden constantly goes like the speed of light while my outdated digital camera takes pictures at the speed of a snail. This was my best attempt.

Now that Jaxson has discovered his new found freedom and ever increasing speed due to walking, he's also starting to present a challenge. Especially since he's in a never-ending quest to keep up with his big brother. Again, he's pretty chill while eating or right after so this is a picture of him after finishing a bottle while taking a moment to chill in Mommy's lap.

And last, but not least... I actually DID manage to get a picture of both boys together, but not until after Jayden had covered his shirt in peanut butter, so I only have one child in his St. Patty's Day shirt. If I do manage this feat, it's only by a miracle that I can get them to both look at the camera at the same time. Obviously I didn't get my miracle this time, but I still think they are too cute to resist.

Children's Museum

On Saturday, the fam and I had the pleasure of tagging along with my mom and my sister's kids to the Imagine Children's Museum in Everett for a fun day outing. I've never heard of this place before, but I'm so glad that my eyes have been opened because this place is AWESOME! Jayden (and even Jaxson!) had an absolute blast and there's tons to do. It's relatively inexpensive compared to some other outings that you could have as a family--- for like $22 we all got into the museum and we were there for hours! I'm sure that if we had let him that Jayden would love to stay there all day long and play with the trains, water, slides, and "flight control tower". :) Here are some pictures from our day.

First, when we started for the day, we stopped off at the Italian cafe where my niece, Shayna, greeted us as the hostess and even acted as the chef too!

Then we stopped at the Wildlife Clinic, but as you can tell Jayden wanted to stop being caged by Daddy's clutches so he could free roam like the wild animal he is.

I posed for a picture with Jaxson in front of the treehouse (which oddly enough you can't see in this picture). He loved being toted around in his brand new carrier... and let me tell you that this thing is an absolute godsend for the both of us!! He gets to be held nonstop as he likes and I can still snuggle with him while having my hands free (and be "ergonomically correct" since back pain sucks)!! Meanwhile, Trevan and McKenna were up inside the treehouse playing the "telephone game" with Shayna down below.

After that excursion, we stopped at the bank where my mom helped the kids "print" their own "benjamins" (that's a $100 bill for those of you who don't know), Jayden and Daddy played "Connect Four" with the dollars and coins and Jax and I posed with a picture of George Washington made completely out of coins. Trevan even helped out at the drive-up teller window (you could actually see cars pass through from outside as if they were driving up) and we found the "World of Treasures" hidden inside the secret treasure vault.

Next, my sister's gang and my mom went downstairs to create their own St. Patty's Day artwork in the Art Studio while Jayden found the theater.

If he doesn't sign up with the NBA or become a football player, he might just have a chance at being a stand-up comedian. Well, we thought he was pretty funny anyway and he seemed to laugh at our amusement... Who knew that running around and falling on a stage could be so much fun?

After washing up, McKenna and Shayna joined us at the theater in their almost-matching outfits.

It was all over once Jayden found...the trains. Yes, this kid could be occupied for hours alone just by trains. I think he'd die and go to Heaven if we ever had an exhibit of trains as large as they did. We had to wrestle him away after a half hour just so he could see the rest of the museum. He was captivated by the motorized train and everytime it came by him he's squeal all giddily, "Look Mama! Look Daddy! TRAIN!!". Oh how the smallest things can provide the most entertainment. :)

Next to the train exhibit was the plane. He knows all about any kind of transportation so this, too, was up his alley. He liked to "fly" the plane, but his favorite thing of all was the "flight control tower". You take these ping pong balls and put them into a vacuum tube (like the ones at a bank or drive-thru pharmacy) and it sucks them up into these 4 different tubes that criss-cross across the ceiling above the plane exhibit, then they fly across the room to this ramp that dumps them into a wooden box for the kids to start again. I wish I had gotten a picture of how many balls Jayden managed to carry over to his tube. I'm surprised there were any left for the other kids...

After that we stopped at the "H2O Headquarters" which was appropriately housed by a structure resembling a Washington State Ferry. Jayden loved playing with the fishies and ducks, splashing, squirting, and pushing on levers to make things spin and produce bubbles. As I've said before, bathtime is a favorite in the Andresen household and both boys take to water as well as a fish does. Even Jaxson got in on the action...and that kid is a splasher! Good thing they have aprons!! :)

The kids all gathered around in the Fire Station to slide down the slides, try on some hats, and take a picture with a very creepy, totally kid-unfriendly fireman (or at least I thought he was creepy...).

We even stopped at the farm where Jayden and Jaxson both took a turn on the tractor...and they both absolutely LOVED it! Jayden loves all things with wheels so this wasn't surprising.

And although Jayden had absolutely no interest whatsoever in the pony, Jaxson had a blast in the saddle.

Then Jayden drove a bus with Daddy before we headed up to the rooftop exhibit...

...where we all froze our butts off while the kids went down the slides, crawled through tunnels, played on the musical instruments, and Jayden attempted to uncover dinosaur fossils for like 5 seconds until some unruly grade schooler snatched the shovel he was using right out of his hand (and of course the stupid parents didn't even discipline their child even though I told the kid that he was being rude and that my son was using the shovel first). I mean, seriously, what kind of kid does crap like take a plastic shovel from a 2 year old when he's playing with it without asking? Oh yeah... the kind that gets away with everything because their parents have never heard of the word discipline. Luckily Jayden wasn't too brokenhearted and went back to playing on the slides, but I wouldn't have felt bad at all had he turned around and socked that kid and said "No, mine!". Ok, maybe I'd be slightly mortified and I might have disciplined him in public, but inside I'd be secretly laughing and feeling pretty dang proud that my kid stood up for himself (You go, Jayden...). But that didn't happen, so....

Lastly, we ended the day with Daddy and Jaxson riding in a Jeep before we walked out of the museum and back to our real cars for a bite to eat at Red Robin.

Had I not been so starving, I might have stopped to take some pictures of us at the restaurant, but really there's not much exciting about watching a bunch of people eat. The food was good, Jaxson's incessant screaming annoyed the people next to us, and I'm pretty sure that Jayden drank the restaurant's complete stock of chocolate milk while we were there. And then I had to change a very poopy diaper in the passenger seat of our car courtesy of our 2 year old... but I'm sure you really wanted to know that, right?

And no, I definitely didn't take a picture of that. It would have given you nightmares.