Tom and Jerry Syndrome

Today most of the day was consumed a doctor's appointment, picking up prescriptions and insurance companies. Pravan was scheduled to see an allergist and I really did not know what to expect. It was an early start for all of us and the busy day started. The nurse told Pravan that she was going to scratch his back and he said " I don't have an itch " That was so funny. She scratched my arm so I would know what it felt like. It was like a pinch. She then asked Pravan to lay on his tummy and drew spots on his back. She made about 50 marks on his back and the poor kid cried out " OW ' " OW " about 50 times. He did not cry until he had to lay there for 30 min and then it started to itch. He was not allowed to scratch at all and it was heart wrenching to watch him cry. We read some books and talked about transformers to get his mind of the itching.

When the results came back it was Tom and Jerry syndrome. He is allergic to cats and mice, dust mites and several weeds and trees. The poor kid. No wonder he can go through a whole box of tissues in a day. Well now we know and we can fix it. Hopefully the prescription and several other measures will help. I will be spraying the house with dust mite spray as well as a cat dander spray and he now has a special allergy pillow and will also have a humidity gage in his room to ensure the humidity is below 40 % at any given time to prevent dust mites for breeding.

I did have several errands to run and I feel like I took too many chances with the kids today. At the shopping centre the shopping cart refused to move after a certain distance. It was literally stuck and I had a ton of groceries in it. The kids almost went flying out of the cart when it stalled. That was scary. My car was not too far away but we went kind of in the middle of the road. I dragged the cart as much as I could so we would not get hit by a car. I still had the dilemma of getting to the car. The easiest was to go get the car but I could not leave the kids alone. Plan B I approached a lady walking by and asked her to watch the kids while I got the car. She was a sweetheart and I was only gone a minute. Then at Costco we were having lunch and Priyasha had to pee. Yes another pee moment. What was I to do. I asked Pravan to stay put and not talk to anybody. I ran to the bathroom and when I returned Pravan was still there. The lady across from him told me that he was a good boy and did not even talk to her when spoke to him. PROUD MOM MOMENT!!! I was relieved but then he needed to go and he did not need to 2 min earlier. I pointed to where the bathroom was and he went all by himself. He ran all the way there and all the way back. It was a zoo in the store and I was impressed he did not run into any one or hurt himself.

Well it was an eventful day that will come to with a reward of brownies and raspberries. If you have not tried it give it try. The combination is to die for and if you a sweeter treat why not add ice cream. Bake brownies, cut into bite size squares, add raspberries and blue berries. Stir well. Serve with ice cream. Mmmhhhh ! GOOD

Back to Reality !

Wow what a trip. There were awwhh! moments, pee moments, stop it moments, breathtaking moments, simply marvelous moments, take a nap moments, incredible view moments, cut it out guys moments, pee moments , oh boy moments,scary moments, "quiet guys" moment, and pee moments. Did I say pee moments. Oh my goodness I have been to so many bathrooms on this trip. Boy do kids have small bladders. On top of the bathroom visits we had to pull off on the highway several times for Priyasha to pee in the portable potty. She did have a pull up on but refused to pee in it. It actually stressed her when she needed to pee and there was no safe place to pull over. This would be the downside of an intelligent child that potty trains herself before age two. The most exciting thing on the trip was seeing a fox as we drove along the upper Klamath Lake in Oregon. We turned around and pulled over and were able to get some great pictures of him. We stopped at the Lava National park and it was quiet incredible to explore a real cave. It was so dark and cold and scary in there even with four flash lights. It is an experience we will not forget. Fear of the unknown can put the heart in overdrive. Crater Lake is breathtakingly gorgeous. I cannot believe how blue the water was. All that water just from snow melt. Nature is awesome. Crater Lake is the deepest in the United States and it is something you should see if possible. Pravan was disappointed that the volcano did not erupt as we were looking at it.Todd and I on the other hand were glad.Pravan was afraid to get out of the car and said that we should take a picture from the car in case it erupted we will be able to drive away fast. A little misconception in a five year olds' mind based on what he has seen on television. It was so cute. Priyasha called every mountain we drove by a volcano for the rest of the trip. We also had a chance to drive close to Mount Shasta. We would have had better views but the smoke from the California fires ruined that.We did not have time to visit Lassen National park on this trip but we will visit it agian soon since it is only about 3 hours away. Pravan has a black book with a list of things he wants to do in his life.I write them down for him with a date of when he said it and cross it off with a date he accomplished it. He would like to go to Hawaii soemday and see the volcanoes there. I hope he will continue to write stuff in this book . I am overwhelmed and exhausted this week. I still need to upload all the pictures and then you can see my trip through my eyes. We got some beautiful priceless shots. Hope you have a restful week.

Heat Wave

Oh boy it has been a hot week. In the 90's everyday. Yesterday we spent about 6 hours at the pool. It was so hot and everyoen was in the water or in the shade. The kids were exhausted and I was more tired than usual. I could barely stay awake last night to finish my martini and watch my soaps. I had to go to bed. Today is another hot day and it is perfect to do the laundry. I have a clothes line in the backyard and I hang up my clothes. I have to remember to pick them in 20 mins unless I want stiff cardboards instead of a soft dry towel. I love the smell of freshly laundry sheets and towels. Hubby is home today and he has Pravan fpr most of the day. They were out this morning doing errands and now they are both at the pool. Priyasha is enjoying an ice cream and a movie and I am stealing some mommy time. I have been busy packing this morning. We are going on a spontaneous trip to Crater Lake. It is in Oregon which is a ten hour drive from us. Pravan loves volcanoes and this will be a fun trip for the kids and us. I will get my photo fix as there will be many many photo opportunities. Looking forward to it. I will be back to post more next week. Have a great weekend.

Lazy 5 water park

Today it was about 95 degrees and I had planned on taking the kids to this water park. I discovered this morning that I had no bread in the house so I could not make sandwiches. I then realized I was running low on other essentials like maple syrup and dish soap. I had to squeeze a trip to the grocery store in somehow. Since I am always so early I stopped at the store and bought all my dry groceries and then we went to the park.I picked up lunchables and a sandwich for myself.I met Candice and her kids there at the park .The kids had a good time. They ran and splashed and tried to get me wet as well. It was all fun until the water just stopped. Usually they take a break for about a min and that gets the kids all excited and waiting in anticipation. Pravan tries to stand on a hole to cover it up and not let the water spray and it works. Well this time it stopped and we were soon told that they had to shut down because the pump had broken. All our fun came to a screeching halt. We did get free passes for our next visit. I got the kids ice cream to cool of as it was so hot. It was an exhausting day. Tomorrow we plan on going to the pool. Loving this summer.

Lavendar Ridge Farm

Just about 4 miles from my house along the Truckee River is a lavender nursery. I have been meaning to go there for a while now. Finally I decided to take the kids there and do a photo shoot. They make all kinds of lavender products form scented sachets, lip balm, lotions, potions, soaps and even ice cream. The kids had a blast running up and down the lavender isles. Is was quiet a site to see so many lavender bushes. We also observed the workers pick the flowers to make the products. They work fast. We also saw many many bees. They were busy working too. As long as we did not bother them they did the same for us. I will have to post some pictures later. As a treat before we left I ordered some ice cream and the owner being as sweet as she is could not resist the joy on the kids faces and gave us complimentary ice cream. It was pretty potent and the kids liked it. Very interesting taste. I thought I was just eating the flower.

We had a great time. It smelled wonderful and the chimes and waterfall made it relaxing.

negative space photo challenge

2006 pictures

Okay so I cheated this time for the challenge. It has been an overwhelming week and I did take pictures and some were specific for the challenge like my daughter on the swing. I was browsing through my thousands of pictures and found these and thought that they would be great for the challenge. This is the annual Reno Balloon Races .Traditionally every year in September we get the kids up at 4am. I make hot chocolate in a huge thermos and pack some blankets. We head out in our jammies and watch the dawn patrol. It is an amazing event to witness and the kids especially Pravan looks forward to this. Hope these work and I had the right idea when taking the pictures.

Okay so I have too many. Some are from 2006 and some are from 2007 when mm y mom visited us from South Africa. Sorry could not narrow it down. It is a wekness I have. Looking forward to feed back.

2007 pictures

Monday Madness

The weekend is over and the madness has not left. Yesterday we went to a birthday party at Jump Man Jump. It is a place with bounce house's and lots of energetic kids. My son was playing a game with a bunch of grown ups and kids and all was going well. Then he wrestled with another kid over a ball. He refused to let the ball go and he fell to the ground and hit his head. I was not to far away and saw him laying on the ground. I went to comfort him and when I picked him up he collapsed in my arms. He got all stiff on me and his eyes rolled back into his head. It was very scary but he snapped right back. This was his third head injury since January. i am surprised he has not had a concussion as yet. I took the necessary pre-cautions watching over him through he night and waking him up several times to make sure he was okay. This morning I made an appointment to get his head examined by his paediatrician. He passed all the tests and was told to be more careful as he could bruise his brain. I love that little boy and he just gives me too many little heart attacks. I probably will restrict some activities for a while. Now he is doing well and playing just as hard. I watched two other kids today as my friend Suzanne needed to go to physical therapy. Her arm hurt her for a while and she discovered she has calcification on her arm and it is painful. Tomorrow I will watch another friends two kids as she had to go to a specialist. Lately all my friends have health issues and I feel like the old woman in a shoe. I can't seem to keep track of how many kids I have in the house. Until tomorrow.

Great Basin and batman

Today we had plans to go to great basin. It is a small fun adventure park for kids with a log ride and pony rides.Since the kids went to sleep with their faces painted I had to wash it off this morning. Spider man washed off with no problems but the butterfly outline was there and was a stubborn stain. I could not take my two year old princess out like that. I had no choice but to paint over it again. Since I painted her face we were all ready to go but Pravan needed some attention too. He requested batman and I did a good job with that. The park was great. Pravan enjoyed the pony ride. Looked more like a horse to me.

Priyasha was afraid of it so he used her ticket. He also loved the log ride. I was afraid to go on it but since he was having so much fun I had to give it a try and conquer my fears. I screamed the whole way down and when we stopped he turned and said " come on mom, that was not so bad " I did loose my nice sun hat on that ride and I was not too thrilled. We also enjoyed the dinosaur park. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy. Take care and have a wonderful weekend.

Face Painting

Today was the last day of swim lessons. It is interesting how I saw the same group of people almost everyday for the last two weeks and now I may never see any of them again. I did make one friend there that I hang out with on a regular basis now. After class we race to Papa Murphy's and picked up a pizza for lunch and we were expecting some friends to come play. Brandy and her kids came over and we had a great time. Priyasha and her little boy being the younger ones had to take a nap. Brandy had to leave around 2pm because of that but two of her other kids Hannah and Spencer wanted to stay and play.I said it was okay and they did. They had a great time and so did I. I let the kids jump on the trampoline for a while and then the boys played water guns while Hannah did puzzles. I then decided to paint her face. I though she would be happy with a cat but she wanted a butterfly. I googled it and found some images I could copy. It turned out great. When I boys came inside they wanted to be spider man. I googled that too and I loved the results. When they were picked up their parents were shocked but not mad. Thank goodness. I think I found a new way to entertain all the kids that come to play.

I was the joke of the day

Okay for that last two weeks everyday at 10 am I have met with the same group of moms at the pool. We were all taking the kids to swim lessons. Priyasha is the youngest and loves the water. Being the youngest puts her at a disadvantage as she cannot reach the bottom of the pool at two and half feet. So she gets out of the pool and comes to me. I roll up my Capri's and walk with her in the water as far as I can without getting wet. I then hand her to her teacher and she is fine. I then stand on the edge of the pool and support her and even hold her hand. Well all the moms look at us and have this huge grin on their faces. They think it is cute, I think it looks silly. I look silly hanging over the pool in my clothes trying not to get wet.

Everyday I say that I should bring my swim suite and everyday I do not. Well today was an exception. I thought if I got in a swim suite it would help her. I joined the instructors and it was a hopeless idea.Priyasha got out of the pool and sat on the cement crying. She refused to get in the water with me. I stayed there and helped all the other kids out. I finally gave up and got dressed. She then got in the water with the teacher was as happy as a clam. Go figure. Women they start young. Sending all these mixed signals of what they really want.

Click happy

Been a away for a while now. I have been busy. Waiting for spider man to show up at my front door. I have so much to post and talk about. Many pictures to upload. My husband called me click happy the other day and I did not realize how true that was. I have finally moved all 27 000 pictures to my hard drive. I copy and pasted. That took four hours of baby sitting the laptop to make it was going without a glitch. I then deleted each file but only after I cross referenced each file. I gave it a quick glance which was not so quick with about 500 or so in each file. I was still afraid to empty out my recycle bin. I then could no longer view my pictures in the Kodak software as the link was broken. I had to call Kodak and they had me update to the latest version and helped me re - connect the pictures. That was another 3 hours. I am not very patient with the PC. First I click an icon and I am not sure if I clicked it so I double click. Still nothing happens so I click and click yet again for a total of about 8 or 9 clicks before it opens. That drove hubby insane and he called me click happy. When I told the Kodak guy I had 27 000 pictures he called me click happy too. Wow two men on separate continents call me the same thing. What's up with that. Anyway I later discovered after finally hitting the empty recycle bin button and searching for more pictures I still have 10 000 pictures on the laptop in different folders in different places on the laptop. Click happy is an understatement , don't you think ?

Spider man captured

Yesterday was a busy day. Lately I have been killing my mice. I have killed three in the last two years. I think that is a lot so I got very comfortable with the touch pad on the laptop. After taking the silhouette class I decided to but a new mouse. I always purchased the one with the retractable cord but the store did not have that. I advanced on the technology ladder and bought a wireless one. I love it and feel like I have a new laptop. Then I bought a cooling pad but it is too small for my 17" PC. I like big things and the PC is big. I am going to return that today. I also chatted with lots of strangers in a chat room on a digital scrapbook site. I had fun and I am hoping to move to hybrid scrapping. I am nervous like everything else it will be addictive. So while chatting, checking e-mail and a few other things I was browsing eBay for spider man. There was a new listing except it was for 6 days. I cannot wait that long. Well I can but with being the queen of instant gratification I WANT IT NOW ! ( lol ) I e-mailed the seller and asked her to make me a deal. She was willing to if there were no bids and told me so. I was at swim lessons and did not get the e-mail until later. When I accepted her price and deal there was one bid and that changed everything. Then I was ready to play the waiting game but she responded and told me that she had more fabric available and made me another deal and I accepted. She listed it as I was watching eBay so I could snatch it right away and make payment. Wooohooo SPIDER MAN IS CAPTURED !!!! Pravan is going to be thrilled. I am thrilled. I will be getting the sewing machine out when it arrives and be in stitch heaven. Okay off to swim lessons now. Later !

Spiderman almost captured

Okay this weekend was all about finding spider man. I finally resorted to the internet. A great way to shop until you are hit with the shipping fees. I did not find spider man on Jo ann.com either so I turned to eBay. It is a place where you can find anything and everything. I swear people would buy it if it was listed. It is amazing. Well I placed a bid on the fabric and was quiet confident I was going to win but I was outbid and lost the deal. OH well next time I will be smarter and watch it as the listing comes to a close.Well there is another 5.5 yds listed but ends in 6 days. As the queen of instant gratification it will be painful to wait.

This is week two of swim lessons and the kids are doing great. Priyasha loves the water and all the games. She is the youngest at two and the others are three .Pravan is with the four and five year olds. He is almost six so that makes him the oldest and he loves that he is the fastest in the group. A little disadvantage to the younger ones but it is not a competition or anything. I think this is a great boost for his confidence level and he is very comfortable with the water now. He is my cautious kid unlike Priyasha who jumps in first and then check how deep it is.

Okay I got to get my day started and I will post more stuff later. I need to show you guys all the baby albums I worked on. Today for sure.

On the hunt for spider man

One of my many passions and love is sewing. I have been having several affairs lately. My latest one so going to be the sewing machine. My scrapping addiction will be having a couple one one night stands as I have a few samples to make for the stores and a dear friend wants me to make a whole scrapbook for her mom as a gift. Photography is my main love and always without fail has all my attention. Well Pravan will be six in August and his passion is transformers and trains. When he was two I made him a quilt that had a traffic theme on it as dad is a traffic engineer. Now four years later it still looks great but he has outgrown it. Over the last few years I have made the kids lap size quilts before we go on vacation. I have already picked out the Thomas fabric, cars fabric and dump trucks. Pravan has these smaller ones and now that he can understand spider man that is his latest affair. Spider man was popular but I guess not in fabrics. I have made two stops at two different Walmarts and called two others and spider man is missing in action. Today I will make a stop at Jo Anne's and hopefully be able to use a 40% coupon when I find some. Pravan sleeps in a full size bed and the quilt is large. I have had a goose down comforter sitting in my closet that is a queen size and had no home for it. I finally found a home. I am going to make a slipcover for it and it will be Pravan's. I will make one side transformer and hopefully the other will be spider man. I may even be adventurous and make double sided curtains. I wish I did not have to sleep. I already go to bed around midnight, 1am or 2am depending on the day. I cannot sacrifice any more sleep. I am a night owl but man am I a grouch in the mornings. Okay I promise to update you on the hunt for spider man. If you have any suggestions let me know. I will also post some pictures on the quilts this week. i

Silhouette Class

I finally broke down and took a class to learn the basics on this die cutting craft machine. I am very protective of my laptop and I have 27000 pictures on there. Yes 27000. I need to back up. I know I do and I will. I was nervous taking it out of the house. You need a pc to operate this silhouette. I learned so much and I am in love with this machine again. hubby got me thai food around 4pm. So what do they call it in between lunch and dinner/supper ? Between breakfast and lunch it is brunch so does that make is chupper ? Oh I do not know what I had a late lunch and it was great. I am enjoying some quiet time while everyone naps. Well if you come up with a creative word post a comment.

Pee Happens

Hello, It was a busy morning on Wednesday. We went to swim lessons at 10 am and by 10:45 am I was driving from Reno to Truckee ( 45 mins ). No big deal. I made sure Priyasha had used the potty so we would be okay for the drive. I always carry my portable potty in the car just in case we have emergencies or a prissy moment like last week. I had her car seat lined with the bed liners you get at the hospital and a car pad cover made for potty training kids. Everything was going smoothly and we were happily singing to kid songs. There was some minor construction but we kept going until there was a lane merge. All of a sudden I was going 15 mph instead of 65mph. Then I hear the dreaded phrase " mama I have to go pee pee " " okay baby can you hold it ? " I responded. She shook her head and I was happy. A few minutes later she said the same thing and so we went for three more rounds then I looked at her and she had a scared look. I knew she could no longer hold it. Her poor little bladder was about to burst and I could tell it hurt her. Luckily there was a place for me to pull over. There was just a ton of traffic and lots of trucks. I got stares as I walked over to the passenger door to get her out. I just could not resist taking several pictures. I just had too. I reached for my camera and preserved this moment for my high maintenance beauty queen. The joys of motherhood just keeps on going and someday she will be able to look at these pictures and laugh. So take the opportunity to snap some of your own Kodak moments. Post me a comment and a link back to see what you have captured.