Rigby's Birthday

I have a lot of catching up to do.  That is because recently I have spent a lot of time looking like this.

Fortunately for Rigby, he did not have to wait a few months for his party.  I am keeping up with some parts of life, even if this blog is not among them.  At almost the last minute, Nick and I decided that we were not interested in hosting at our house, given my condition, so off we went to the local kids' gym.

It was wonderful!  The whole place was reserved just for our group, and the workers took care of everything.  We have never had such a kick-back, no stress, no clean-up party.

Here's the little super man himself!

He can walk his feet backwards up that wall until he's almost vertical.

Did I tell you that the workers did everything?  When I showed up with naked cupcakes and two buckets of frosting, they even offered to frost them for me.  I am too controlling of my projects to accept, but that was above and beyond of them, I say.

Here is the result.  Rigby had asked for a light saber cake.  This was so simple to do and he loved it!

Below, Curie is getting ready for a career in football by practicing her tackling.  Look at the air she is catching as she runs to knock down the mat!

Presents and the table...

We had a great group of cousins and friends.  The pizza arrived a couple minutes late, so they all ate up their veggies like such good kids!  Maybe it was the workout that made them so hungry.

Here, I'm showing off the Stars Wars theme on the plates.  I don't look too sick there, do I?

Which one is our cousin and which is our neighbor?  Sometimes we have trouble telling them apart.

Even their smiles have the same number of teeth!

Happy birthday to my favorite Jedi!  We love you, Rigby!

Twins!

The twins referred to here are not actually human, but you were pretty excited to read this blog post, weren't you!?

The personal news here is that I've been feeling well enough lately to feed my family food that has not previously been frozen.  Including the above egg.

Quick Update

I have birthday parties and Halloween to catch up on, but I don't seem to be getting to those.  So here's the quick story on the pregnancy.

I'll be 15 weeks tomorrow.  This is quite significant, as I generally feel much better around 15 or 16 weeks.

This is my journal... my record of my life, so please don't read my list of symptoms as complaining.  I want to chronicle how all of this goes for me.

Pregnancy number four has continued to be my best ever.  I have rarely crossed the line from sickness to misery, though I have been pretty consistently sick.  I have not thrown up much, which helps me a great deal mentally.  Although I have lost six pounds due to lack of eating, I know that I eat consistently and that what I eat is healthy, so I'm confident of the nutrition that I am taking in.  In past pregnancies, I have vomited to much, I often wondered how I could be nourishing either of us.

Food has no appeal to me.  I eat only because I know that it's the right thing to do.  Even my favorite foods are bland and unappealing.  I especially recoil at anything sweet.  I eat very little sugar.  Nick sometimes says that he is jealous of this and that he could stand finding treats so repugnant.  I have eaten just a couple Halloween candies, but only because I keep hoping that something will taste great.  Can you imagine going for months without ever being pleased and satisfied by food?  I am truly hoping that I will be over this in time for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner!

My days are pretty much the same.  I get Bethelle to the bus, then do the minimal amount of work that I can get away with.  I sit on the couch a lot and watch way more TV than usual.  My energy level is very low.  I am grateful, though, for the things that I can do.  I can take care of the kids without much trouble.  I can do the grocery shopping.  I have gotten the kids all the places that they have needed to be, like soccer and girl scouts.  I was even in a musical (post on that to come later).  It was more than I had the energy to do, but I did it anyway.  And I have done all of this more easily than in past pregnancies.

Like I said, I don't mean all this as complaints.  I am blessed to be able to be pregnant whenever I want and to have had three healthy babies, with all signs of this baby also being healthy.  Life is good, but I am looking forward to when life is a little better, and hoping that all these symptoms will be over soon.

My Bethelle

Yesterday on the bus, Bethelle was faced with a decision.  And she did the right thing, though it brought her to tears.

I love her so much.  And I trust her.  She's a brave, good girl.

What You Probably Already Know

My posts have been few and out-dated lately.

That's because we're pregnant!  Which means that I'm sick and lazy.

Rushton Number Four will arrive in May.  We are very excited and I am pleased to report that although I feel pretty terrible most of the time, I am not half as sick as I have been with past pregnancies.  When pregnant with Bethelle, I lost eleven pounds in the first trimester.  I would cry just thinking about needing to eat food.  With Curie, I remember laying in bed, hoping that the other two would play happily in the playroom for a long time.  My worst moments in my misery were when they would tell me that they were hungry.  My heart would drop.  I had to feed them, but how was I going to manage to do it?

This time, I want to lay around all day, but I can do more than that, and I haven't been upset about anything.  For the first time, Nick has been able to save up some days off of work to help me during my sickness.  I keep waiting for that familiar misery to hit before I ask him to use them, but it just hasn't happened yet and I'm already ten weeks.

I'm not one of those who says, "I've never felt better/prettier/happier than when I was pregnant," but I'm pulling through, and I'll take it!

Nick's Birthday

This post is way, way overdue.  You can tell that I'm writing it in a hurry by the lack of any creativity whatsoever in the title.

For Nick's birthday, he wanted me to walk nine holes with him.  Nick is a golfer, which makes me a golfer's wife, and somehow we have been married for eight years and this was my first time ever to walk that many holes with him.  As this gift required some babysitting, it seems to me that it really became a gift from my mom, who drove out to our house with crafts and food, ready for some kid-time.

Look at this little ditty of Nick's dad.  This is my new favorite picture of him.  He is one of my most avid blog followers, and I'm sure checked the blog several times a day after this outing.  I wonder if he ever gave up.

My birthday man, in his element.

Or maybe this is his element?

Being only two golfers, we were paired up with a couple, Dr. and Mrs. Kim.  Their first names were so funny to us and quite easy to remember.  She introduced herself as E.J. (my first and middle initial) and he is P.N. (both Nick and his father's first and middle initials... Nick is really his middle name).  I'm sure these two go by something a little more foreign sounding back home in Korea.

The next day was the actual birthday, so we headed down to Nick's parents' for dinner.  I was a little beyond wanting to entertain after Curie's big party, so I was glad that Patsy offered.

Trish made her famous potatoes, and you can tell that they were enjoyed.  We also had pork roast and broccoli salad.  Everything was soooo good.

 This picture was supposed to be of her face, but this lady can turn quickly!  Turns out, this side of her head is almost as pretty as the other side, I think.

Bethelle made these cupcakes all by herself!  Well, OK, Rigby helped with the sprinkles.  She was so proud of them.

Heat Wave

The first week of school was a hot one around here.  Considering that summer did not show itself until August this year, our September heatwave was welcomed.

The parks are considerably more quiet when school is in session, so the little ones and I gathered some friends and went to the lake.  It's no Crissy Field (wow, I miss that place), but our little lake was a nice refreshment from the heat.

Rigby likes having a quick picture taken and requests it often.  If it is my request that he smile, though, no guarantees.

These two are really getting to be best friends now that Bethelle is gone at school all day.  I knew that would happen, but it is fun to see.

What a ham!

First Things

Last week was a week of firsts in our family.

1)  Bethelle's FIRST time riding a bike without training wheels.  She's six years old, so this has been a long time coming, but with all the moving and apartments of the last two years, we slacked on this.  Just in time, I decided that our schoolgirl had better know how to ride.

Twenty minutes.  That's all it took.  Congrats, Bike Rider!

2) Bethelle's FIRST day of FIRST grade.  This also means her FIRST day of school this calendar year (she didn't go in San Fran), and her FIRST day of full-day school, ever.  All of this amounts to a big transition for me, but Bethelle could not have been more pleased or excited.  She has been waiting for this moment for all six years of her life.

She has been there four days so far, and I am still skeptical of her "high-rated" school in this "high-rated" district.  When I asked her what she learned today, she says, "Mom, we don't learn things every day."

"Well, What did your teacher teach?"

"Umm... she doesn't really teach."

Great.

3)  Rigby's first day of soccer.  I know he's only three, and that is a bit young for organized sports, but he'll be four very soon, and I have noticed lately that he is getting a bit cozy in Bethelle's shadow.  Time for him to shine!

4)  Bethelle just started soccer, too.  But she played last year, so this may not technically be a FIRST.

Lulu's Island Get-Away

A few weeks ago, Nick and I were discussing planning Curie's second birthday party and, separately, that we need to get out to Anderson Island yet this summer.  And a star was born: a birthday party on the island.

Anderson Island's naivety and serenity is preserved by the ferry passage required to get to her.

This mountain seems to follow me around.  I am not complaining.

Check out the power in this picture!  These cousins are so lucky to have each other.

Washington gets some of its best sunshine in September.  Trish got her first sunburn of the season out here.

Dad relaxed a bit.

We went swimming and the water was truly WARM.  Awesome.

Fresh crab, anyone?

This doesn't really show anything about the party, but it makes me swoon.

Present time!  Alyse, a mother of three little boys, was worried that she didn't get a girlie gift for Curie.  No worries there, Alyse.  Curie likes Thomas the Train and dinosaurs, so that's what we got her.  She has a boy for a best friend (Rigby), so I'm not sure girlie stuff is in her near future.

My mom has a tradition of giving each two year-old a homemade quilt.  Curie's is so quilty and patchwork.  I love it.

The kids set to playing with the presents pretty quickly.

How would you like a chef that looks this good?  Sorry!  Taken!

Happy Birthday, Curie!  We love you so much!

Here are some clips from the party.  It's like being there... for two minutes.   It's worth watching just to hear Curie's cute voice.

Will someone please remind me to delegate next year?