quick update

So, we are still preoccupied with vomit and diarrhea around here...Calvin got it too, and now John claims his stomach hurts. Finn threw up tonight and then wanted an egg. But not just any egg. He wanted a straight egg.

Me: "huh? What's a straight egg?"
Finn: "You know, a flat egg" he says, demonstrating with his hands smashed together.

Apparently John made them "over-easy" eggs for breakfast. And Calvin did not like them.
Finn clarified: "Calvin does not like flat eggs. He likes the bumpy kind that are 6 inches tall". He was referring to the scrambled variety.

sorry, could not resist a picture

As for me, I'm not sick just yet--oh the sense of impending doom. I worked all weekend frantically finishing a gift for dearest baby Jo(Congrats to Josh and Jessi on the birth of their new daughter Josephine Ann!). I finished tonight, so now I can get sick:)

So I've been doing laundry round the clock, due to the flu... I'm beat cuz Ollie has been waking up every hour or so at night. Off to bed I go, and hopefully things look up tomorrow.

John teaches high school tomorrow but does not have to teach his college class, due to Ceser Chavez Day--So, LONG LIVE CESER CHAVEZ!! I hear Ollie crying again...

yack

Wednesday night, Ollie woke up almost every hour during the night and even yacked on me a few times. I thought he must have eaten too much and was just spitting up. The next day, he continued throwing up here and there, and even had a bit of diarrhea, but otherwise he seemed happy and wanted to play. I was puzzled. Or maybe in a little bit of denial. Perhaps it was the cheese I gave him? Or maybe he was a little sick? And then last night he threw up on me twice. For some reason, it still did not occur to me that he actually had the flu bug, otherwise I would not have so brazenly carried him about, without regards to my furniture. Or without being worried about him crawling around puking on the carpet. Life just carried on. My parents were planning on coming up and spending the night. I told them about Ollie but they were not too concerned. Until Finn started throwing up.

Finn on yacking:
"I'm not sick...it's just spit...the clear kind...like the clear tape you put on presents."

It looks like I'm not the only one in denial.

Don't worry though, we cancelled our weekend plans. I'm really bummed that we don't get to see my parents. We will stay holed up till this passes. And I may be taking a little blogging break this weekend if I end up sick myself. Speaking of breaks...have you ever been thoroughly annoyed that blogger sporadically does not allow you to make a line break? Normally, I really don't care but yesterday I was really annoyed that blogger was smarter than me. So, I looked it up here and learned that blogger does it to help you save space?? Thanks blogger! You can press return as many times as you like, but it still won't give you that line break between paragraphs. Unless you force a line break, using this simple html tag :
When I tried to type it out here, it worked so well, it disappeared when I pressed "publish post" and gave me the promised line break instead. So I had to use a picture of the text instead. That's my only picture, considering I am not posting any pictures of this flu bug...you're welcome! And have a nice weekend!

showtime

When John tucked Calvin into bed and turned on his aquarium, Calvin informed John that he was watching his "show":

These aquarium wonders are the next best thing to Shamu. Though still not enough to entice Calvin-the-sleep-bandit to stay in bed for too long. He later got out of bed, found John and stretched out his finger.

"there's a scratch on my fingin daddy".

Daddy did not think that it required 1st aid and asked Calvin where his blankies and animals were.

"they're in yours room daddy".

Calvin is currently pluralizing everything. Like when he pointed at a word on John's shirt and said there were "twos n's on it". In fact, as I'm writing this, Calvin just said "oh, news marshmellows", referring to the fresh bag of marshmellows John opened(Calvin insists on rewarding himself with a mini marshmellow every time he goes potty).

I would post more pertinent info, but I'm "toos" tired. zzzzzzzzzzz

p.s. when I got up this morning, I showed Calvin this post--he pointed at the aqaurium and said "there's my tv".

Easter

As my sister Lindsay would say, "I am a lying liar who lies". I tried to blame my blogging woes on a poor innocent teething baby. The reason I did not post these Easter pictures earlier was because I was a little bummed that so many of my pictures were overexposed--we are pale, but not that pale. I borrowed a friend's camera...and let's just say that I had Much Fun and learned a little too. I'm posting them anyway and if I ever figure out all this lighting stuff, you can say you knew me when!

We started off Easter celebrating at church. We sat like high-schoolers in the over-flow bleachers with Gretch and Mike. When we went back to the nursery, all the high maintenance babies(ie. all babies but Sam) were fussing while Sam crashed on the boppy mid-floor. It is so fun having all these boy babies around.
A mom in Target yesterday came up to me and inquired about my 3 boys. She then said "I have 3 girls...so I feel for you". I told her I loved it but she did not look convinced. She just does not know about all the fun boy babies Ollie gets to play with! Ok side-note: When I found out Ollie was a boy, I gasped NOOOOOOOOOOOOO at the ultrasound, and my face turned bright red for days. Everyone in the waiting room tried to console me and told me how expensive girls were. And how difficult/dramatic they were. To which I responded "I want to go broke and I don't care if they are hard". Two weeks later I was over my disappointment and when they handed me Ollie...Oh my...I was immediately smitten. Seriously love-struck, enamored, head over heels, over the moon, the whole 9 yards, as I was with Finn and Calvin. And when I heard the news of all the other baby boys being born, that was just icing on the cake. I love girls too though, having 10 adorable neices. And I'm 1 of 3 girls and glad to be a girl myself:)

After church we went to the in-laws and had a nice kosher ham lunch in the backyard. Most of my time was spent chasing little boys around outside with the camera. My mother-in-law has a total green thumb, so I tried to take advantage of all the foliage. I also took pics of the cousins but can't post them due to *objections*.

After the Easter egg hunt, everyone came over to our house to hear Finn play some grooves on his drums. Finn was in heaven. All-in-all, it was a lovely day.

Easter eggs

For some reason I never get around to dyeing Easter eggs with the boys. It just never occurs to me. This year was no different. I was too busy assembling baskets. A yellow bus for Calvin, another Tommy DVD for Finn and Ollie's 1st kitty. I think the kitty was more for Finn and Calvin's sake--they are so excited that Ollie now has his own kitty. Finn is watching the Tommy DVD as I type. It includes a very technical(boring) section on how to assemble and tune your drums and Finn is transfixed. Yawn.

I think I'm turning into Grandma Erickson. Yep, I'm saving the Easter grass. Normally I throw away everything in sight, but the colors were so pretty. I'll probably throw it away in a week when I come to my senses and realize I can't find a home for it.

To make up for my lack of ambition, John went to the store all by himself, bought some eggs and decided to dye them with the boys. It was very sweet.

Ollie was busy teething during the egg dyeing festivities. One more tooth to add to his repertoire! I'll try to post Easter pics in a day or 2. Teething babies make blogging very tricky.

angel boys

One day, Finn came flying into my room at mach speed. When I inquired about his get-up, he informed me that he was dressed up like an angel. Exept instead of white robes and golden halos, he used pillow-sham wings and shoe-string halos.

flying around like wild mashuginas!!

The source of Finn's inspiration? During sunday school this December, the teachers dressed up the children as angels as part of the Christmas festivites. They took pictures of the kids and sent them home to their parents as little gifts. I was informed ahead of time by the photographer that Calvin started screaming the moment they put his costume on. And sure enough, when I got my photo in the mail, Calvin was bawling his eyes out. He seemed happy enough to let Finn dress him up though.
At one point, Calvin was flapping about so wildy that he lost his balance. He could not use his hands too break his fall, since they were tucked into the pillowcase, so he took quite the spill. And then he fell again. Luckily no angels were seriously hurt during the filming of this production. John joked that Calvin was a fallen angel. I did not think that was funny. Neither did Finn.

Flying off into the sunset.

hybrid cats

Has anyone heard of these hybrid cats? A couple of months ago, my SIL was telling me about a house cat that was part tiger. I was instantly fascinated. Then yesteray a I read an article on Yahoo news about some hybrid cats that were part leopard.

Aren't they outrageously fun? I instantly thought of Calvin, whose two favorite stuffed animals are orange kitty and leopard(aka epa). What more could he want in a pet? When I showed him this picture, he sat staring at it, completely mesmerized. Then he started talking to it in a happy high-pitched voice. If these hybrids weren't so pricey(at least $1000) I would buy one for Calvin in a heartbeat. And I don't even want a pet. At least for now. Dogs require more attention that I can muster and cats...well, everyone seems deathly allergic to regular cats. Like my sister Jessica. I wonder if she is allergic to hybrid cats? I want one. Don't worry mom, or Jess, I'm not going to get one. It's just fun to imagine having one.

St. Patty Picnic

Other than shamrocks, the color green and Irish celebrations, I know very little about St. Patrick's Day. I tried to research it a few minutes ago, but was too tired and started to snooze...though I did find out that the original color was blue not green. I should know a little more, considering I am part Irish. I did celebrate a little today though. Auntie Paula invited us over for a green-food-lunch.

cute clover-shaped sandwhiches

It was so warm and beautiful outside, we had a little picnic outside. Brooke, Calvin and kitty Lucy enjoyed basking in the sun.

Later on Gretch and Mike stopped by for a few minutes to drop off a pasta maker and I had to snap a shot of the babies' 1st St. Patty's Day together.

Lijah's starting to get some hair-- looking kind of red and Irish, no?

After Calvin woke up from his nap, I thought it would be fun to play outside and take some pictures. However, he awoke with quite the storm-cloud over his head. The other day he woke up from his nap crying hysterically. I rushed in and asked what was wrong, and he squeaked out that "a fly tried to hurt him". I don't know how photographers deal with the ever-changing moods of a toddler. Can you imagine if an adult cried over a pretzel one minute and the next minute was laughing over flower pedals?
And don't get me started on Ollie. The past few days have been absurdly challenging, because he is teething again. Saturday night he woke up at 12am, 1am, 2am and 6am... and last night he woke up a lot too, but I can't even remember how often, I am so delirious. He's like Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde.

One minute he's completely chilled out...

the next minute he is crying bitterly over his teeth...

and the next minute he's smiling happily from Finn and Calvin.

Whatever their moods, I always love playing with my pile of boys.

Palm Sunday

I'm sitting in church today on this Palm Sunday and during one of the songs, the doors open and a sea of children come flooding down the aisles, waving their palm branches. It's really quite incredible and gets me every time.

It's dim and I'm looking around for Finn, who is nowhere to be seen. John and I finally spot his tiny frame waaay across the room standing next to a teenage boy helper. All of the kids are waving their branches, and Finn's just standing there, not moving an inch. I just wanted him to see us so bad, but I knew that was unlikely considering how far apart we were.

He looked so little, I just could not help jumping out of my chair and sneaking down the aisle to where he was standing. Onlookers probably thought I was some crazy stage-mom trying to get her kid to wave his palm branch proper-like...really I just wanted to say hi so he wouldn't look so shell-shocked. Most likely he was just mesmerized by the drummer and would have done just fine without me.

However, flashback to last year when Finn came out with his palm branch. He said he was looking all over for us and couldn't find us. During their exodus down the aisle back to class I had grabbed his arm and tried to say hi. After church when I asked if he saw me he said, "no I did not see you, but some lady tried to grab my arm".

Well this year there was no doubt who that "lady" was. He saw me and I was happy. Though next time I will be on the down low.

Finn and some lady

favorite new book

Gretchen lent us this charming little Dr. Seuss book: It has quickly become a favorite around here. I love it, the boys love it, everyone loves it! How on earth can you resist a book that has "a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them"?

I'm not nearly as good as reading to the boys as John is...however, this little number has definitely inspired me to do better. The last few days I could hardly wait til Calvin's naptime just so I could bundle us all together on the couch to read this book.

It would a make a great addition to any Easter basket, as it is very smallish and measures just 5.25"x5.75".Get it:)