Kitty and Doggie

Originally uploaded by FrogTaco

Zoya from Zoey’s preschool class was at the park today, and brought along her face-painting kit. She only does cats and dogs, but her services were in great demand.

View all the photos

"It was great. Everyone adored me!"

At time of purchase you can choose between a Child Prize or an Adult Prize. The Child Prize includes the winner’s choice of two of the following:

1. Seattle Pacific Science Center Family Membership
2. Seattle Children’s Museum Family Membership
3. Woodland Park Zoo Family Membership
4. Seattle Aquarium Family Membership
5. Northwest Puppet Theater gift certificate
6. Everett Imagine Children’s Museum Family Membership

The Adult Prize (which you should probably go for—it’s okay, you deserve it) is a two night stay at the Pan Pacific Hotel in downtown Seattle.

Just let us know how many tickets you want, and for each one whether you want to vie for the Child Prize or the Adult Prize.

Thanks, on behalf of Zoey and all her preschool friends!

Here are the 4 month old stats:

Yes, two weeks ago it was Keegan’s four month appointment. Here are the stats:

17 pounds 1.5 ounces (90th percentile)
26 inches (90th percentile)
42 cm head circumference (50th percentile)

We are looking at new car seats. We have decided to upgrade Zoey’s to a booster/high back car seat because she will be growing into the new booster style in the next 6 months or so. We will need to move Keegan in before that (at 27 inches and 20 pounds). So, that’s the plan.

He has just learned to stick out his tongue. It is very cute. No picture yet. He’s fast. He is getting better at holding his head up and sitting up. He is also teething now. I am also going through all of his clothes. He is wearing the 9 month size right now. All the 6 months clothes are now too small.

Everything is getting starting back up now that school has started. We are still getting used to our new schedules. Preschool is up and running for Zoey at the new location three days a week. Little Gym is on a new day.

Moving right along… Keegan just cut TWO teeth! Yep. The first one (his bottom left) cut about 4 days ago and his bottom right cut sometime during The Night of No Sleep last night. He is very interested in food. Very interested. We are holding off until he is 6 months old (just another couple weeks). Zoey didn’t start on food until she was 7 months old. That was when her first tooth cut through.

In poop news, we had a clogged sewer pipe that was backing up in our garage. Ummm, yep. Spent almost $700 to get that cleared out. And then he tells us that the pipe leading to the street is busted and made of cement and that it will be probably "in the upper teens" which means 15-19,000 (!) dollars. I just about dropped Keegan. So, I guess we will deal with that when we need to. We are okay so far.

We just finished up our preschool’s silent auction last weekend. It brought in more than $5000 for the school. YAY! I am so glad that is over! By the way, Grandpa Earl made an amazing wooden bird house and it sold for $60! Thanks Grandpa!

Zoey is doing well. She loves preschool. She loves the little gym. She is starting to draw numbers and can spell the word "stop."

That’s all we’ve got for now. More catching up (and pictures!) shortly.

After playing at the park for a while, we all headed back to the minivans for the short trip to the Kenmore fire station. There we checked out a fire engine, watched a fire fighter put on his full gear, tried on fire fighter jackets (the kids were hesitant except for Zoey, who’s always up for trying on clothes), watched a fire fighter slide down the pole, and shot water out of a fire hose into the parking lot.

Check out the field trip photos.

As for Grandpa Earl, he cleaned the gutters and fixed the one in the front that previously waterfalled right on the walkway every time it rained. He then rewired an outlet and added one for Rona’s copier down in her art room. He even organized my messy messy workbench. He did these latter projects despite having come down with a cold. It seems like only I have developed cold symptoms, and mine aren’t that bad. Grandpa Earl is feeling pretty crummy, though, so they took off this morning for home. Thank you both so much for all you did to help us out!

Our other visitors have included Aunty Nicole, who brought us some of Tim‘s homemade Chicago-style deepdish pizza. (Deeee-licious! Thanks!) She also was kind enough to hold Baby Keegan for us while we had lunch. Aunty Angela dropped by with some Korean seaweed soup for Rona, which is helping her feel so much better! Let’s see… Grandpa Robert and Grandma Barb came over with delicious New York style pizza, and they both held Keegan for us too. This afternoon Monica (who introduced us and officiated at our wedding) stopped by to do up Keegan’s astrological chart. I had to leave in the middle of the astral report, but I’m pretty sure he’s a Taurus with a Capricorn moon. Or something. Rona can do a more accurate star chart update when she feels up to it.

Aunty Junko will hopefully be stopping by soon to meet Keegan, and Brian and his crew are going to stop by tomorrow with food and baby holding arms.

If you’ve stopped by and I forgot to mention it, my apologies. For now, Rona and Keegan are sleeping down the hall, Murphee is pacing restlessly, and Ballerina Zoey (or perhaps Princess Marvelous, her superhero persona) wants me to read her a story. I have more photos to post, hopefully tonight. Here’s one:

I posted some photos to Flickr a few days ago, which document a recent preschool fieldtrip to the Fairbank Hands-On Animal Farm in Edmonds. We’ve gone there before, once in 2005 with just the three of us to get Zoey a pumpkin, and then last year Zoey and Rona went on this same fieldtrip with the Discoverers Co-op. When I started posting this I discovered that I never actually posted the photos from last year’s trip, and the 2005 photos were buried in Zoey’s old photo gallery. I’ve uploaded them all to Flickr now.

Cole’s Third Birthday

Way back on November 26th, we braved snowy roads to venture out to Cole’s third birthday party at the Mountlake Terrace Pavilion. Cole is from Zoey’s preschool. We all had a great time!

Snow Days, November 2006

We had a lot of snow (for the Seattle area, anyway) at the end of November (starting the day of Cole’s birthday party). When we got home from the party there was enough snow that Zoey and I made a small snowman. Traces of him were still around over a week later.

Imagine Children’s Museum

On December 12th our preschool went on a fieldtrip to the Imagine Children’s Museum in Everett. This place is like a giant, multi-story preschool, complete with gift shop. I recommend it very highly if you live on the north end and have preschool to elementary age kids.

December 2006 Seattle Wind Storm

Surely you heard about this in the news, unless you were living it and had no power like us. Our power was out for 114 hours, which is roughly five days (4.75 days, according to Google Calculator). Some had their power back sooner, some later, and some (no one we know) ran their generators and barbeques in the house and thus died from carbon monoxide poisoning. We were grateful to get our power back, though we had to throw out hundreds of dollars worth of food. We were also very grateful to Auntie Bonnie and Grandma Arlene for sharing their light and heat with us. Zoey had a very happy Hanukkah on Lopez Island, and was unfazed by the power outage at home (other than not being able to turn on the T.V.).

Christmas 2006

On Christmas eve we awoke to a gorgeous sunrise, wrapped up some presents, went to breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Kirkland, gave Zoey a makeover, took Murph to the park, and got everything ready to go to Portland the next morning. That night Rona had a trumpet gig at a church down in Burien. The next morning we went off to Portland for Christmas, and we all had a great time. When we arrived at Grandma Evelyn and Grandpa Earl’s house, Zoey walked into the tree-bedecked, present-laden living room, and said, "Wowwww!"

Discoverers 2006 Holiday Party

On December 30th we hosted the holiday party for our preschool. The grownups enjoyed the featured activity of baking “crayon cookies” in mini muffin tins, but the toddlers seemed to prefer decorating sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles. Good food, good people, good times.