What a week-end!

We had a great week-end, but I do feel a little exhausted this Monday. Halloween, a birthday party, a baby shower and dinner with friends on Sunday evening. It's nice to have more of a social life, but it's also more tiring!
Halloween was absolutely perfect in my mind. We went to Gig Harbor in the afternoon, where they close off the downtown area so that kids can go trick or treat in the stores. There are lots of people and lots of kids in costumes and it's just fun to see everyone walking around and having a good time. The rain even stopped so the kids (and we with them) had a great time. Miriam wore her Thomas the Tank engine costume and was a trooper all afternoon. Gabriel on his side was a real clone trooper and had the best time with his friend Alex. Together they were quite a duo. The loot was impressive. I think they collected more candy than we gave out later that evening.
We finished it off with dinner at El Pueblito complete with margaritas and good company. What a great day.
Saturday was a birthday party followed by an adult dinner party at our old friends the Kennedys in Redmond. All the kids just filed down in the basement and we had some nice adult time upstairs and enjoyed Michelle's great food. I missed being able to do that. It was a lot of fun.
Sunday, Gabriel got to hang out with Apa Ron, Sam and Uncle Frank and watch the Seahawks game, he seemed to have had fun even though the Seahawks played lamentably. Miriam and I enjoyed some girl time at Kristi's baby shower on Raft Island. Brent, unfortunately, had to work... someone has to bring in the money...
So it was a little hard to get back to work today... but we're enjoying a nice quiet evening at home tonight!

That was fun

We had a play date today with new friends from soccer and that was a lot of fun. Their oldest boy is just Gabe's age and they played so well it was fantastic. They built that elaborate castle in Gabe's room, with knights and star wars figurines and were just quiet in there for almost 2 hours i think. Meanwhile I got to hang out with their mom who also seems to be a very nice person. I'm really looking forward to doing this again and to getting to know new people a little bit better. It's something that I really need to feel good.
It also seemed like my week was a little more relaxed this time so I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed by things, which is good because the last two or three couple of weeks I felt like all I could do was keep my head out of the water. Today I actually got to relax, cook a nice dinner for the family, have a glass of wine and hopefully watch Grey's anatomy tonight with Brent. Small pleasures but sometimes you just need that. Hopefully i will also do good work on the diss' next week. I need to make progress there.
Kids are good. Gabe lost another tooth on Wednesday. I think he now has the cutest smile ever... Brent and I are working on getting a discipline program together that will make the house more peaceful. It's mostly good around here but sometimes there are also serious aggravations and i'd like to keep those to a minimum!
Miriam got a haircut (!) with her dad this morning. That's a real miracle since usually she starts screaming bloody murder even before we're in the hair cutting place. Apparently she did okay and they got to trim her bangs and just the ends of her long crazy mane... She looks adorable. I'll try to have a picture taken soon and post it on Flickr.

Sweet little boy

I often complain about my dear Gabriel on this blog, or rather I complain about how difficult it is to raise a little boy when one has as little patience as I do. And it's bizarre to see him become his own little person who is not so connected to his mom anymore... I mean he lost a tooth yesterday. Soon he's going to be driving his own car. He's definitely growing. But today he just melted my heart... Miriam received that princess coloring book from her dad and I was coloring Snow White (yeah, i know. And the kids weren't even around. I was doing it during Miriam's nap time. It was the only way i would be able to do it so it looked the way i wanted... : ) Once i was finished, i just left the coloring book laying around and when Gabe saw it he asked me if I had done it and when i said yes, he asked me if he could have it so he could put it in his room because he liked the colors I picked...
My sweet little boy. It just made me feel so good it was ridiculous. But i guess i needed a moment like that!

By the way, we had a wonderful time up in Anacortes, at our friends Dan and Nancy. They have a great farm up there and it was great to go to the pumpkin patch and then carve at their house. Even the weather was nice! Hopefully we'll have pictures soon!

L'ennui...

Un peu l'ennui aujourd'hui mais avec les récents événements je pense que c'est assez normal. Sinon je ne me souvenais pas que l'école enfantine était aussi compliquée quand nous étions petites (bien sûr mes parents ne savaient pas que je me roulais par terre tous les jours en disant que je ne voulais rien faire, alors je pense que ça simplifiait les choses...). Il me semble que Gabriel va bien, mais il y a toujours une ou deux choses à ajuster et à contrôler et c'est parfois un peu fatiguant. A la maison j'imagine (ou j'espère) qu'il pose les défis normaux d'un enfant de 5 ans. Je m'arme de patience et d'encore plus de patience pour réussir à être une mama à peu près décente.

Concrètement aujourd'hui j'ai passé la journée avec Miriam, ce qui était très chouette. On a fait de la peinture, et puis un autre petit projet secret et ensuite on est allés affronter les éléments pour l'entraînement de foot de Gabriel. Il ne pleuvait pas vraiment, mais il y avait clairement une bruine très peristante. Maintenant je dois encore mettre Gabe au lit, et enuiste j'ai une petite soirée Desperate Housewives devant moi : )

Bon allez, encore une entrée peu inspirée. C'était juste pour pas perdre l'habitude, mais c'est vrai que pour le moment, on est plutôt vraiment dans la routine (et au fond je ne m'en plains pas!).

Pas grand'chose de nouveau

Juste une pause dans ma semaine pour voir où on en est...Tout va plutôt bien chez les Andis. J'ai commencé de donner mon cours et ça c'est bien passé; je suis encore un peu nerveuse mais j'ai eu du plaisir et je pense qu'il faut que je me fasse bien confiance pour que l'expérience soit complètement positive. Je pense que mon horrible expérience de l'année passée a quand même laissé quelques séquelles mais je ne peux pas prendre ça comme référence! Donc avec un peu plus de confiance en moi ça devrait tout bien se passer.
Brent a eu une semaine un peu folle. Comme la plupart d'entre vous le savent, un bébé a été abandonné devant l'église dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche il y a maintenant un peu plus d'une semaine. Brent a rencontré les deux parents du nouveau-né ainsi que les grand-parents et ils semblent qu'avec un peu de temps tout devrait finalement jouer pour le mieux pour cette petite fille qui a eu un début de vie bien agité. Brent a vraiment fait du travail formidable avec la famille et on espère que toute l'attention va maintenant se calmer et que les deux familles vont pouvoir se reconstruire lentement mais sûrement.
Les enfants vont bien. Miriam est une petit concentré d'énergie amusant et coquin. Pas de grand chambardements dans sa vie en ce moment si ce n'est qu'elle est toute contente d'avoir un nouveau siège pour la voiture. Elle joue aussi beaucoup aux Legos ces derniers temps et peut tout à coup s'absenter pendant 20-30 minutes et être toute tranquille. Je la retrouve généralement dans sa chambre en train de jouer tout calmement. Gabriel nous lance chaque jour un nouveau défi et Brent et moi devons faire preuve de beaucoup de patience et de créativité pour affronter ses humeurs et ses tentatives de "rebellion". C'est pas toujours facile et on ne répond pas toujours de la meilleure façon qui soit, mais on essaie de faire de notre mieux pour lui donner confiance en lui tout en posant des limites claires à ses velleités d'indépendance. Il a vraiment un sacré caractère ce petit bonhomme. Voilà désolée pour cette update gnangnan j'avais pas d'inspiration... a bientôt pour des nouvelles un peu plus drôles je l'espère!

Ps: il a commencé de pleuvoir et il paraît que maintenant ça va plus s'arrêter jusqu'à la mi-juin... On verra bien : )

Another day, another beach...

We had quite a nice week-end around here. The weather was absolutely fantastic, crisp and sunny, with leaves starting to turn. I just like it. Today, we went down to the beach at Redondo/DesMoines and had a great time. I forgot the camera so no pictures to testify but it was fun. Gabriel got soaking wet: apparently he is like his mom in that matter and cannot keep himself away from the water if he sees any. I mean the water could not have been much warmer than 12 or 15 celsius i imagine but Gabe could have cared less. He was wet from his head to his toe. Miriam was much more careful. She enjoyed playing with the tide, but kept herself mostly dry and had a lot of fun playing in the sand. It was just a glorious afternoon.
Tomorrow we're going back to our routine... but it was nice to have such a relaxing week-end.
Oh and Miriam and I made a plum pie.

Enjoying a day with Miriam

... and Gabriel latter on. I usually watch Miriam on Tuesdays and we try to do something fun or at least to get out of the house. Last week did not work so well but today was a really nice day. After doing our Tuesday chores, we met with Ama Eileen, had cappucinos at home (Miriam loves ordering a cappucino, it's basically foam and chocolate powder but she feels like it's the real thing) and then went to the beach at Dash Point for a little bit of trike riding. I just love going out there. It's always pretty, there's always something fun to see (today a seal and a jelly fish) and it's just a very relaxing place. I guess it's the effect of the Pacific on me. It calms me. After that we had lunch at a Teriaky place close to our house and got home just in time for Miriam to take her nap. I had two very quiet hours to myself, which i used to do some more chores, watch some tv and read a little bit. After Miriam's nap, it was time to go get Gabe at school. He seemed to have had a good day. We got home and he played his star wars game for a bit while Miriam and I got some painting done...she had so much fun, and was so concentrated I didn't think i could make her stop... Once both were done with their activities, we took one last trip to the park that's really close to our house. We go there often between 5 and 6 pm. It seems that it's a good way to bring the evening to a close. And it is kind of fun to see the people there...we always see one guy walking his black lab and the kids get all excited because the dog reminds them of Zelda and Athos. Fortunately, the guy is really nice and always lets the kids pet his dog. After that, we got home, did dinner and all this and now i just have to put Gabe in bed and then hopefully i can enjoy a quiet evening with Brent who's already back from his meeting.