Kiersten’s Blog

For six hours of every day, Ashton feels like an only child.  Sure, he likes it, but he’s never been an only child before.  He doesn’t know what to do without his sister around.  London has always been really good at occupying herself with quiet activities, such as coloring or reading.  Ashton enjoys doing those things, but I have to color or read with him.  I’m sure London was that way at his age too.  I don’t mind it.  In fact, I enjoy the time that just the two of us get to spend together.  The problem is, Ashton misses his partner in crime.  He gets lonely with just me around.  He gets really excited when it’s time to pick London up from school.  Today I had to get Ashton up from his nap to walk down the street and pick up London.  He didn’t mind.  I told him what was happening and he happily took his pacifier out and left it in bed with his bear (both of which he usually takes with him when he gets up), all the while saying, “Lala, Lala.”  Then when we got to her classroom door and waited, he knew she was coming soon and couldn’t help but continue to say, “Lala, Lala, Lala.”  When she finally came out and hopped into the wagon with him, they hugged all the way home.  They were both excited to see each other.  And this happens every day.  With all the fighting they do, I’m glad they’re best friends.

I feel like I have been following Ashton everywhere with a wet rag today.  That kid doesn’t stop making messes!  I get one thing cleaned up and he’s on to the next.  And he does it on purpose too.  Today started out early.  Luckily Taylor was home until 11 so that helped a lot.  We were up and eating breakfast by 7:00.  That’s when Taylor noticed the ants.  I made sure to mop before I went to bed last night, but I rarely mop the whole floor.  You see, our whole bottom floor is wood laminate so mopping the whole thing is quite the job.  Instead, I try to keep up by consistently mopping the dining room (at least under the high chair) and spot mopping everywhere else.  Last night I missed one small crumb.  Sometimes that’s not a big deal.  Other times, like today, the ants swarm.  The crumb was between the dining and living rooms and not far from the patio door, but that’s not where the ants were coming in.  I still haven’t figured out where their trail began, but it went around the rug in the living room and there was a pile up on the crumb.  Out came the Raid.  Taylor sprayed them down, but I get a little nervous spraying Raid with kids around, for 2 reasons: Number 1, it’s like an oil slick wherever that stuff is down.  It could send one flying across the room.  Not to mention, I don’t want it tracked all over my carpet.  And number 2, it’s toxic!  I don’t want that around with kids who eat things off the floor.  Did I just say that?  Yes, I have a child who frequently eats off the floor.  In fact, after dinner today (after throwing his whole dinner on the floor) I got him out of his high chair and told him to eat the rest of his dinner.  From the floor.  That’s the kind of mom I am.  And that’s my point.  It’s impossible to keep this place clean with my little hurricane running around!  So back to the ants.  Taylor took the kids upstairs and I mopped the entire floor.  Not with a mop, but with a rag and a bucket on my hands and knees.  Then I proceeded to do the bathrooms.  I figured I might as well.  Then I noticed that my shower doors looked gross so I spent some time on them.  I was surprised to see that it was only 10 a.m. when I finally got in the shower after all that cleaning.  But later, after swimming and afternoon naps, Ashton was up again making messes.  He turns his cups upside down, just so they leak out all over the place.  While he was drinking his milk, I followed him around with a paper towel.  It doesn’t help to contain the kid in a high chair either.  When he’s finished with his drink, he promptly throws it on the floor.  Today, of course, the lid came off and spilled everywhere.  At least it was only water at this point.  But really, doesn’t he see that the floor is clean for once?  I guess I better stop rambling and go clean the floor.  Again.  I wouldn’t want ants.

Ashton is finally a walker.  He was taking steps around Father’s day, but it wasn’t until a week or two after that when he actually started using his feet as his main form of transportation.  Now I can’t get him to slow down!  He even thinks he’s big enough to walk up and down the stairs!  While on vacation, he was walking around somewhere (maybe the beach) outside and stepped on something that got lodged into his fat little foot.  I didn’t think much of it and assumed it would find its way out soon enough.  It didn’t seem to bother him at all.  But Friday morning, I noticed a red line traveling from the wound up his foot.  Fearing blood poisoning, I scheduled a Dr. appointment.  The doc said it looked like it was infected, but of course didn’t want to slice the thing open and dig it out so she put him on antibiotics and told me to have him soak his feet twice a day, use an antibacterial ointment, put wart remover on it at night while he’s sleeping, and keep him out of beach water.  What?  It’s summer time and we live in San Diego!  Poor guy.  We went to the bay yesterday and he was pretty mad that he couldn’t go in the water.  Of course he HATES the antibiotics he’s taking.  In fact, I’m not sure if he even swallows any of it at all.  But it does look like it’s getting better.  At least the red line has gone away.  My favorite part of the whole prescription is the foot soaks.  It’s hilarious to watch my little boy soaking his feet every night.  I think it’s his favorite part too.

I think this picture is so cute!  This is what they looked like on Sunday.

London loves to dress up.  She’s really into princesses at the moment, but what 4-year-old little girl isn’t?  She called me into her room, laughing, this morning.  She wanted me to see her princess brother.  Poor guy.  He has no idea.

Notice not only the skirt, shoes and headband, but the choker, earrings, wand and ring. And, of course, the necklace.

Lately (since I have quit Facebook) I have spent more time on an old hobby: sewing.  In all of my extra time, I should really be fixing all the little spots that need touch-up paint in our house, but who wants to do that?  Not me.  So I sew instead.  I have really enjoyed re-fashioning items.  You may remember the dresses that I made out of old shirts of Taylor’s.  Here’s another example of one.

Denver was getting rid of a bunch of shirts so I took the ones I thought would make cute dresses.

The sleeves didn’t work out so well on this red one, so I re-fashioned the dress into a skirt.

It looks pretty cute and it was really easy.  My latest project, though, is a fabric high chair thingy.  I found a tutorial here and thought it was a great idea.  Since we’re going on a 2 week vacation this summer and are not sure where along the way we will have access to high chairs, I thought I would whip one of these bad boys up and use it along our way.  Ashton loves it.  I used the measurements from the tutorial, but that’s about it.  I instead bought an adorable Pottery Barn Kids baby quilt at Amvets (I love that thrift store!) for 5 bucks and did a bit of re-fashioning.

before

I’m happy with the result, even if it did break a needle and make my machine do funny things.  I gotta get that fixed before the next project on the queue.  Hmm, maybe that will give me some time to paint.  Anyway, I cut up the cute little blanket, added some quilt binding around the edges, and sewed it together.

Ashton loves it!  I’m so glad.  I thought he might try to wriggle out of it, but he actually wants to use it!  Hopefully the novelty won’t wear off before the trip.  Now the question is what to do with the leftover quilt scraps.  Any suggestions?  Maybe a wall hanging for Ashton’s room?

Out with the old and in with the new? Or maybe just keep the old.

Remember this?  I found a new one.  Thanks to a facebook friend, I found the exact same one on ebay.  I paid $12.99 for it.  I thought it was a rip-off.  It’s a small stuffed bear!  At least I didn’t have to pay for shipping and I thought $12.99 was a small price to pay for a good night’s sleep.  I was excited to get the package a couple of days later, but when I opened it, I almost didn’t recognize it.  The bear looked so clean and fluffy and new.  Nothing like this old rag that Ashton carries around constantly.  It even looked bigger!  But a side-by-side comparison proved that it was, in fact, the same bear.  Ashton didn’t believe it, though.  When he asks for, “bear” and I hand him the new one, he looks at me like I’m crazy and throws it.  I’m working on dirtying it up, but it’s hard for me to want to make such a cute little thing nasty.  For now, I just leave it with him in his crib when he sleeps, hoping the stench of the old bear will rub off on the new guy.  At least I have a back-up in a desperate situation.  Hopefully I’ll never need it, but I have peace of mind knowing that I can rub the thing in filth and maybe, just maybe it will look and smell like “Bear.”

Yesterday was my dad’s 60th birthday.  We decided to go up and surprise him for his big day.  Tuesday night we drove to Taylor’s aunt and uncle’s house where we slept that night and last night, since they are much closer to where my dad was that day.  He and my uncle Dee were planning on making it to Carpinteria last night.  Once we got up into Ventura county, we called to find out where my dad was.  Then I dropped Taylor off near where they were and he rode his bike toward them.  He passed them about a mile or two later.  They, of course, didn’t recognize him.  Taylor saw them then crossed the street and caught up to them.  He pulled up beside my dad and asked him what he was doing way down here.  Needless to say, he was happy and surprised.  Taylor then rode with them for the next 40 or so miles to Carpinteria.

While they were all riding, I took the kids to Solvang and met up with my mom.  Solvang is this cute little Danish town.  It was fun to walk around a bit.  Then we headed back toward Santa Barbara, stopping to pick blueberries along the way.  I had seen a sign advertising blueberry picking on our way to meet my mom and thought it might be something the kids would enjoy doing.  Boy was I right.  London had a great time picking, but wouldn’t eat them.

Ashton wasn’t too interested in picking at first.  Mostly he just wanted to push the stroller around.  Then I made him try a blueberry.  There was no going back.  He found a bush and started stuffing blueberries in his mouth.  I couldn’t stop the boy!  At one point his started walking down the row toward my mom and I asked him, “Do you want to go pick some more with Grandma?”  He realized he could have more.  He stopped walking, signed and said, “more,” (or, “ma, ma, ma”) and kept picking right where he was.  He would have been content to stay there forever.

Once we had our fill of blueberries, we decided to go to Santa Barbara and see if we could find the men.  We had no such luck and headed to Carpinteria where we checked into the hotel room where they were all going to stay.  Not long after we got there, Taylor called to let me know they were close by and to be ready when they rode in.  We screamed and hollered at them and I was hoping to get a little video, but I pushed the wrong button and got a still shot instead.  According to my dad and uncle Dee, yesterday was the hardest day.  They were glad to be where they could rest.  It was fun to see them and I’m excited to see them again on Saturday when they’re all finished.  I’m so proud of my dad!  But I still think he’s crazy.

Yesterday we met some friends at the park right by our old apartment.  It’s probably the park in the county that’s the best for summer time play since it has a sprayground and it’s totally free.  It gets quite crowded, especially on hot days.  This particular day, there was a bus full of kids from some school so it was really busy.  But that didn’t stop the kids from having a good time.  It’s the same park where London’s pre-school graduation was held last week and Ashton really wanted to get in the water.  I knew he would be excited to go again.  The kid did not want to stay out of the water.

He had a great time crawling around, and he even started walking around!  He’s finally to the point where he walks about as much as he crawls.  He’s still kind of unstable but he’s doing really well.  Here’s a video of him walking.  I’m SO glad he can start wearing out the bottoms of his shoes now and maybe his pants will stay a little cleaner in the knees, but no guarantees on that one.

I finally got around to putting things on Ashton’s walls.  We’ve been in this place for six months now, and Ashton’s room is the only one that doesn’t have anything on the walls.  Ours doesn’t have much and still needs a lot of work, but his was really starting to bug me because I had a few ideas, but I just never got around to finishing them.  I have had the valance up for a while, but I’ve been needing to tweak a few things about it.  I finally did it today and it took all of five minutes.  Why I didn’t do that months ago, I’ll never know.

Marisa (my amazingly crafty sister-in-law) sent me the cutest letters spelling out his name months ago.  I was so excited about them and until today, they sat on the dresser.  They looked cute, but the dresser is tucked away under the windows in the corner and behind the closet where you can’t see it.  I needed a shelf to display them.  After I looked around a bit for a perfect shelf, I remembered that I had a shelf.  I didn’t need to buy one.  But I did need to finish it.  I wasn’t looking forward to that job, so it took longer than it should have because I kept putting it off.  Finally last week I finished that project.  Now it was time for the hanging, but every time I had a minute to do it, Ashton was sleeping in his room making it impossible for me to work in his room.  Taylor told me that he would do it (because he didn’t think I could) but finally today, I took matters into my own hands and did it.  And I love it!  If you want to see a better picture of the letters, Marisa posted them on her blog here.

We also added on the adjacent wall a “beach” sign.  In case you were wondering, the sign really is pointing in the direction of the beach.  I really like the way it’s looking and have a few other ideas milling around in my head that will be in the works soon, I hope.

P.S.  I just realized that you can’t see how cute the letters are by the pictures I took, so I’ll have to take more because they are SO adorable!!!