Frame Family Adventures

Well, I thought it was about time for me to update this blog thing. A lot has gone on in the past 8 months since I last posted, but I am not going to take the time to update that far back! I will start with December and see if I can do better in 2012!

So we started off with a bang in December. Well, not so much a bang, but a continous thunderous wind where we thought the roof was going to get ripped off! We were among the 300,000 Southern Californians that were without power for 2-7 days (we were without power for 3) due to a huge windstorm, with winds up to 100 mph. We lost a palm tree, but luckily we were not our neighbors down the street...

This is an "immature" black widow. Freaky looking thing. I took a picture of it before I smashed it. They lose their ornate markings when they are full grown. But this spider was pretty dang big.

Brown Widow... Can you see the hour glass?

Yesterday Craig came home and said to me, "What's going on with the fridge?" Confused, I repied, "I don't know. What's wrong with it?" To which he said, "It's empty. There is no food in it." Funny Craig. I told him we were so busy on Saturday I didn't get to the store....well, since I seem to have had some memory loss since Chase has been born...well, except if Craig and I are arguing over something....OF COURSE I remember whatever it is then, because I AM ALWAYS CORRECT :) Anywho, I had forgotten about the last time I had gone to the store with 3 kids and vowed to never return with them, and headed to the store this afternoon. Can I just say now, again, in writing, that I am WILL NOT return to the grocery store with all 3 kids....or even just Cole....unless I can strap him in the cart.

The carts here in good ol' sunny California are half the size of those carts in Utah. The reason...I don't know. Maybe because...yeah, I don't know. I am not even going to try and guess why this is. Because I can't think of any GOOD reason why they would do this. All I know is that the carts here are totally lame....and the parking spaces are too while I am not on the subject. My car has so many dings in it now from their miniature parking spaces. They must make them miniature to match their carts. I LOVE Costco carts. 2 kids in front and the baby in the car seat in the cart. And they have nice wide parking spaces too that actually fit my SUV. I will still go to Costco with 3 kids.

So, back to my story, I head to the store with 3 kids in tow. I leave Chase in his carseat and put him in the basket of the cart (which means I have no room for the food, so I have to get a basket to put underneath to hold all of our food). That leaves my other two kids running around Trader Joes in pure craziness trying to find this DANG monkey called Jo-Jo. (The store provides the kids with suckers if they can find this monkey). Weaving in and out of people's carts, people having to stop their cart to watch out for them. Oh yes. Loads of fun. After being in there for 10 minutes and losing my kids at least 10 times, literally. We head out. The basket is packed full with produce and is very heavy so I tell the checkout guy I am going to let him pull it out because it is too heavy for me, to which he makes a snide remak of "Oh yeah. I can do it. I only get paid minimum wage to do stuff like that." Then, Cole sees the check out guy (who has long hair pulled back in a ponytail) and says to me, "Oh look Mom! Jesus! Hi Jesus!" To the guy. Thank GOODNESS the guy can't speak 2 1/2 year old. (Or at least he acted like he didn't hear him). I could not help but start laughing and smiling...trying to act like I am just smiling at my kids.

So we miraculously leave this store without anything unharmed or unhinged. But I am not done and need to go to another grocery store. So we had over to the other grocery store to pick up our mounds of yogurt. (And I mean mounds). I decide to just hold Chase this time on my hip. So losing my kids once, and only 1 broken yogurt on the floor later,(from Chase's sticky fingers)...we head to the front. Only for my kids to go CRAZY over all the candy at the front. Cole is trying to UNWRAP all the candy and running in around in circles, again literally, running in circles saying something over and over that I can't understand except that part that he says, "Look at me." The checkout lady says, "Boy, you sure have your hands full." Thank you lady. I JUST LOVE IT when people tell me I have MY HANDS FULL. Love it. So we checkout and head out. I make my kids hold onto the cart so they don't get run over. We get to the car, stop the cart and I go to open the door and look back and Cole is GONE. Seriously, the kid took off in 1 second. I look at Haley who is still standing at the cart and I ask her where he went, she says she doesn't know. Panicing, I race around the other side of the car to look for him, freaking out that he is going to get run over by a car or stolen...when I hear him talking. He ran 2 cars down to talk to some stranger sitting in his car with his window open...telling the guy we are going home. Oh this kid of mine.

So I am writing this now...SO I DON'T FORGET. That I WILL NOT take all 3 kids to a grocery store UNLESS the cart is large enough to hold all three kids.

As for the rest of our week...Chase is getting into and getting out of everything. He won't even sit for longer than 1 minute before he decides he wants to go exploring and starts army crawling across the floor. He is getting pretty fast too. He climbs out of the bouncer chair. I will strap him in and he stretches his arms out to the side to push himself up and then climbs out....he has gotten his foot stuck everytime, but he still keeps trying. He immediately goes for cords. Any cords. Vacuum cord. Cable cord. Computer cord. AAAAHHH. I raised the Exer-saucer to another level to prevent him from supermanning out of it...only to find his feet off the bottom of it AGAIN yesterday as he was leaning over trying to reach something outside of it. He is alreay pulling himself up to a stand too. All this and he is barely 8 months. He also has an oral fixation that I don't remember my other two kids ever having. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. Maybe it is just because he is my earliest crawler and gets into everything. I am constantly having to survey the floor to be sure there are no small parts...which is extremely difficult to keep them off the floor as I have two other hellions.

Cole's funny saying this week--Me, "Cole let's get dressed." Cole-"I don't want to get on my dress!"

Haley, this morning came in and asked Craig if the Disney characters at disneyland were just pretend. And that is why they didn't talk. Now Craig is hoping he did not crush her dreams.

Chase has no funny sayings yet :) But he has decided that the best way to tell me that he doesn't want anymore food is to SPIT IT AT ME. All over me. All over my hair, face, clothes, his clothes. Feeding time is a real joy with him :)

I have to update the previous post as the pediatrician misdiagnosed Cole. We took Cole to an ENT specialist and he said his ear drum did not rupture nor does he have an ear infection. The bleeding is being caused from Granulation...which to my understanding, is pretty much a reaction to the ear tubes. Either to the tubes themselves, or possibly trapped skin cells between the tube and his ear. We will continue the ear drops that have been prescribed and return to the ENT to see if this granulation tissue is gone.

Before I get started with all of our woes, I will begin with our funny saying of the week-Craig and Cole were getting pizza. At the pizza place there was a dog. Cole sees the dog and says "Pet the dog!" Craig says, "No. You can't pet it." Cole says, "Lick the dog!"

Also Chase is army crawling all over the place. You put him down and away he goes. He has even figured out how to go from sitting to crawling. Let the baby proofing begin.

Now for the woes.....
Yes, it's true. The Frame household has apparently been cursed the past two weeks. It all starts with Chase. Chase got sick two Tuesdays ago. After pretty much holding him all night long, as he coughed all over me, I got sick the next day. For two days Chase and I had fevers. Then Craig caught it. So...after barely making it through each day, last Thursday, Craig & I both went in to the doctor as we both felt pretty crummy and were pretty sure we had ear infections?!?! Crazy. I have never had an ear infection as an adult, and never want to again, but I will be MUCH more sympathetic to my kids when they get their next ear infection. So the doctor results are, Me-Ear Infection & Sinus Infection....and Craig, he's the real winner in our duo, with TWO ear infections, sinus infection, upper respiratory infection, AND an eye infection (pink eye). So we get home from the doctors and are in our kitchen and Craig sees this SWARM OF BEES outside our window. We watch them hover around our window and roof and then within a few minutes they are gone.....only then Craig says, "What's that sound?" Yes. BEES. IN OUR STOVE VENT. This lovely swarm/colony of bees moved into our stove vent as their new home. So we call the "bee people" and they say to tape tin foil all around the stove vent to prevent any intruders in our home and they will be out in a couple of days. Nice.....So the tin foil is a nice touch to our cabiny home. Oh, it get's better. So this same day our furnace broke. So it has been 65 degrees for the past 4 days in our home and the furnace guy finally calls back and says he will be out at 4pm. So I go back to the thermostat for one more try and sure enough, the furnace kicks on. The guy still comes out but can't find anything wrong with it. Wait, I'm not finished. To top off our week-On Saturday we decided it was time to take Chase & Cole in to the pediatrician as Cole was developing pink eye and we figured since he had been so whiny the past few days he probably has an ear infection in combo with the pink eye...and since Chase started the whole thing we better get him checked too (if you are wondering about Haley she has been antibiotics during the past 3 weeks for an ear infection/pink eye too). So we head to the doctors on Saturday, to which the doctor checks Cole and Chase and says they are both fine. Cole has pink eye, but his ears are good. Good huh? Well, this morning he woke up (2 days after we took him in) and his ear was all bloody because his EARDRUM RUPTURED. The eardrum that ruptured is the ear that has a tube, in which the doctor looked into his ear for 1 second (Seriously. I am not exaggerating. He saw the tube and said, "Oh. There's the tube." and pulled the otoscope out.) I think he saw the tube and just didn't even look and assumed his ear was fine. Now, today, the pediatrician is trying to tell me this can happen. No ear infection to ruptured eardrum in under 2 days???? I'm not so sure. We are headed to the ENT tomorrow and we will see what he says.










On a lighter note. Did you know that I have a superman child? Yes. Chase is our superman. I had him in his exer-saucer and walked out of the room and walked back in 10 seconds later to find him literally flying in his exer-saucer. His binky had dropped and he was reaching over to see where it went...possibly trying to reach it. He reached so far that his little feet came off the ground and left him parallel to the floor. He did this twice in the same day. So...we decided it was time to raise his exer-saucer a little higher to prevent our little superman from really flying away...or falling to the floor.

May 2011
Time sure does fly when you have 3 kids. I mean really REALLY fly. I cannot believe that my newborn, Chase, is now 7 months old and almost crawling. He is the smallest of my three. He has consistently been in the 5th-10th percentile for weight and 25-50th for height. I have tried SHOVELING food down this kid to get him chunkier but to no avail he is still small. He is such a happy baby. He smiles at everyone who will give him eye contact. With two bottom teeth in and two top teeth almost popping through, he is just growing so fast. (Funny how I saw them coming in a couple weeks before and told Craig. He thought I was CRAZY. Went to the doctor for his well baby and without even mentioning anything about his teeth the pediatrician says she can't feel any teeth but sometime in the next few months....I am THINKING to myself "Uhh. I can see them. But whatever." And guess what broke through THE VERY NEXT DAY. Yep. A tooth. And the second tooth broke through 2 days later. Yes. I am not crazy. So there! So much for my pediatrician. I am definitely going to be in trouble as soon as he starts crawling as he wants to see and touch EVERYTHING. He will play in his exersaucer, but soon will get board and will LEAN as far as he can to see what he can see on the floor. Anything he can grab goes straight into his mouth. So we have been kept on our toes to make sure the floor is clean of any itty bitty toys.

My 2 ½ year old, Cole, is climbing, jumping, running, and anything else a little boy should be doing. He is saying please and thank you. “Mommy, pease watch a show?” “Mommy, Pease have treat?” “No, No thank you!” He loves trains, trucks, boats, cars, helicopters. When he hears a plane or helicopter outside, he takes off running to find a place where he can watch it fly through the sky.
Sayings by Cole:
"Mommy, I ready take nap now. C'mon Mom." (and then takes a 3 hour nap every day)
"Super-Bunny" (as he runs through the house)
"Hi-yah, Hi-yah, Yi-yah...Let's make Pie!" (legs and arms chopping to the hi-yahs)
Chase was crying. Cole says "Need baby food Chase? Okay need baby food." Goes to the fridge gets some baby food (squash) and takes it to Chase, opens it. Then goes back to the kitchen and says, "Mom. Chase need baby food," and proceeds to open a drawer to find a spoon. I say, "No. Chase doesn't need baby food. He just wants Mommy." Thankfully Cole says, "Oh. Okay!" and puts the squash lid back on (I had NO IDEA he had gotten the squash out). What a disaster that would have been!

If Cole doesn't want something he always says "I TOO BIG (for whatever it is)"

Cole gets into EVERYTHING. He was in the tub one day. Gets out of the tub and climbs onto the toilet. I walk in and he is standing on top of the toilet, naked.

One day he climbed on the kitchen stool...finds some gum...I went outside to put Chase in the car and come back to find him eating 4 pieces of gum. Turns around and looks at me and then FRANTICALLY trys to shove as many MORE pieces of gum into his mouth before I can reach him....which is one more.

Haley, my 5 ½ year old is reading so well. She can read all of the Bob books and has started reading Little Critter, Clifford, and other books. She LOVES to draw and color. She is always making everyone she knows (me, Craig, Cole, Chase, teachers, friends) pictures. She is such a smart & bright little girl. To her, everything has to be fair. Whatever Cole has she has to have to. “Which one has more?” is a question she asks often. She is SO ready for summer and swimming. The pool is just getting warm enough that we can swim in it. I wish I had taken pictures of our first swimming day with Cole, Chase & Haley, but I didn’t…so next time I will remember!

Sayings from Haley-

She asked me to make her a bow for her bunny, to which I told her to ask her dad as I was feeding Chase at the time, to which she says, "Does Dad even KNOW how to make a bow?"

I have been making fruit/veggie smoothies lately to help get some more veggies in my kids' diet. Haley came in from playing and sees me making a smoothie (4th time in 4 days) and she says, "Woah Mom. You are going crazy with the smoothies."