Our New Car

On Friday we sold our Honda Accord. Luckily, I had been driving Jason's Ford Fusion for a while in order to prep the car for this last week of it being up for sale, so I was weened from driving my Honda. We sold it to a nice lady for $7600 and then turned around on Saturday and bought ourselves a Ford Freestar! It is used, but it's a 2006, certified and fully loaded vehicle in excellent condition. We paid $13,996 for it and are very happy with it. The kids love it, especially because it has a DVD player in it. They got to try it out, while we signed all the papers, and watched Dora during that time. Of course now Karissa thinks we'll be watching a movie every time we go anywhere, but we're working on that. So now, I am driving my own Ford (a first) and a "mom" car (also a first), but it feels great! Now we're ready for baby number 3!

Has the following features (added by Jason):

• Electronic Stability Control
• Traction Control
• Parking Sensors
• Driver/Frt Passenger Side Airbags
• Auto Day/Night Mirror
• Memory Driver settings (once you get the seat, pedals and mirrors where you like them, you save the setting. If someone else drives the car and messes up your settings you only need press a button to return it to yours.)*
• Heated leather seats
• power sliding doors and power tailgate
• Keyless entry keypad
• Homelink (built in garage door opener)
  

*This is especially helpful when the parents come, since they use the side mirrors for looking at the side of the car instead of the blindspot. Maybe it helps to remind them that they left the gas cap door open.

Fire Station

On Friday we went to the fire station for Victoria's field trip. The Paramedic giving the tour thought she recognized Victoria. She said it was probably from the last time we went, which I was somewhat confused by since we hadn't been in over a year and I'm sure she sees lots of kids there on field trips. Well, it finally dawned on me that she was one of the Paramedics who came to our house last month when we called 911. I asked her if she went on ambulance runs and when she said she did I told her that was probably where she recognized Victoria from. I told her she came when Karissa had her seizure and she said, "Oh yeah! Your house was the one with the cool fire place I talked about that night." She was glad to see Karissa was doing better and realized Victoria was the one who was at the door and then ran around the corner when everyone came in. It was just a cool coincidence.

Here is Victoria looking up at the huge fire truck.

This is the ambulance Karissa and I got to ride in.
In the fire truck.

My Birthday

I turned 31 on Thursday and it was one of the nicest birthdays ever. Having children old enough to really celebrate makes it more fun. Karissa helped make the cake and Victoria helped put the candles in, and of course take them out while licking them. We didn't do anything extra special that day besides getting a pizza, but Victoria kept calling me "The Birthday Girl" and being especially helpful. Jason brought flowers and let me relax in the tub. It's amazing how your expectations change when you have kids, and when you're pregnant!

Here's a video I took of Karissa singing her ABC's on the toilet. She just started singing it, so I thought I'd better catch it on tape, even if she was on the toilet. She has yet to actually "go" on the potty, but she sure is cute!

Dinosaurs and Crazy Mom

Victoria had a field trip on Friday at the U of M Natural History Museum. My job in her school is the Field Trip Representative for her class. Basically, I just collect the money from the parents ahead of time before a certain number of field trips, remind everyone of when each one is, and get to each one a little early to pay the money to the destination and hand out the name tags to the students. Since this one was farther away, about a half hour, and I usually get to each field trip right on time, rather than a little early, I was worried about timing, especially since it was in Ann Arbor, which is a somewhat more confusing area to drive in.

For some strange reason, I will blame it on my pregnant brain, I thought the field trip started at 9:15. So we rushed like crazy to get ready and leave. The museum is on campus, so I had to park far away. I stuffed Victoria in the bottom of the stroller so I could run/power walk up the hill to the museum. When I got to the museum the only way in was up three steps. I made Victoria get out of the stroller so I could pick up the thing and carry it up the steps. Maybe it would have been okay without Karissa being in it, if I had not been 6 1/2 months pregnant, or if I was not still recovering from the pinched nerve in my back from bending over and cleaning up vomit for a week, but it was painful! When I caught my breath, and realized that the museum store, which was where I was supposed to pay, was closed! I went up to where the dinosaurs were, looking for our class, thinking they had started without me, since I was a few minutes late by then. I could not see a soul! Then it dawned on me that the field trip started at 10:15, not 9:15!!

Well, we enjoyed the other two floors, space and Michigan wildlife, with no one else around and saved the dinos for the visit with our class. Luckily, I was on time and was calm and composed by 10:00 to pay the museum store and welcome Victoria's class.

The field trip was interesting. Victoria got to hold a three-clawed hand bone and some teeth. She enjoyed looking at the huge displays and of course had to pretend to be a dinosaur at home the rest of the day. She had fun, despite getting her finger stuck in the elevator at the parking garage where we had to fill out an emergency claim, but it was minor and they waived the parking fee, which was the only perk.

(I don't know why this picture comes up like this here, it doesn't have the line in my picture file.)

As for my craziness, on Saturday morning (the 7th) I woke up and pinched Jason and Victoria and said, "Happy Saint Patrick's Day!" He quickly informed me it was not St. Patrick's Day and that I was losing my mind. I realized he was right since it comes after my birthday, which I hadn't celebrated yet. So, I didn't get to make the green scrambled eggs I was planning on making for breakfast and had to explain to Victoria that her mom made another mistake!

(Here's the crazy mom at 28 weeks, per request for another belly shot.)

Fun Weekend

Since the kids were feeling good again by the end of last week, we went to the Hands on Science Museum on Friday to use our pass. Karissa enjoyed the water table and Victoria enjoyed dressing up, as usual.

I thought we'd spend more time with the ambulance than we used to, since we have now had the ambulance experience. Karissa wasn't too excited about it at first. I'm not sure if she remembered riding in one for the real deal, but she warmed up to it after watching Victoria.

On Saturday, since Jason has a break from school right now, we went on a little family trip to a metro park where they had a demonstration of how to tap Maple trees for sap and the process to turn it into syrup. It was interesting to learn about and the kids enjoyed it. I'm glad we did it since the only places in the world where these trees grow are from the New England states, and a little into Canada, to Minnesota and down to Tennessee. It's a very small area, which is why real maple syrup is so expensive and hard to find. Also, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup and each tree yields about 10 gallons. So you need 4 trees just to make one gallon of syrup!



At the end, we enjoyed a pancake and sausage lunch. Victoria ate her heart out! The kids are still making up for the lost calories when they were sick.

This Economy

A little over a month ago Jason had decided it would be fun to all go out to eat one Friday night. Victoria said she wanted a taco, so we thought we'd go to the only reasonably good Mexican restaurant here in Canton. We drove over there and it had closed down. In the very same parking lot Cici's Pizza, one of the kids' favorite places to eat, was also closed down. Victoria asked why the restaurants were closed down and we told her because no one has any money to eat out nowadays. We ended up going to Qdoba, which is like a Mexican grill, similar to Baja Fresh. It was 15 minutes away, which is strange to have to drive even that far for a taco. We did pass the Michigander favorite, Mexican Fiesta, but any Mexican restaurant that serves coleslaw instead of refried beans as it's side dish, is not Mexican-- and don't even get me started on their salsa!!

Last night we went to get ice cream, as we had promised the kids we would take them to get some when everyone was healthy again and Victoria blew her nose in a tissue, rather than ing it up. We have a coupon from Uncle Derek left-over from Karissa's birthday for Baskin Robins. We drove over there and it has closed down! It was even combined with Dunkin' Doughnuts! We drove across town to another ice cream place we knew of and it was closed as well, though not permanently. I don't even know why it was closed since it was still buisness hours-- maybe for cold weather?? We ended up stopping at the grocery store to pick up a carton there. At least we saved money ourselves.

The point is, everyone should buy a Ford to keep Michigan from going under-- everything is closing down here!!