The year in review:

I had intended to put a newsletter in my Christmas cards, but I couldn't find paper I liked. Then I figured if anyone is interested they'll log on to the blog, so I may as well post it here for free!

2007 with the Benzas

January: The year began with Kyle still working 12 hour days at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. He was working 4 pm – 4am. Heather’s work schedule altered for school down to 10 hour weeks, then to 8 hour weeks because of new shift bids. We had tons of snow. I stayed up watching Grey’s Anatomy Season ONE on DVD most nights waiting for Kyle to get home. Heather started English and Anatomy & Physiology…the last pre-requisites for the nursing program. We sold the townhouse (FINALLY!) and closed on January 30. January 31 I had my 27 week appointment with my obstetrician who found I had super high blood pressure and protein in my urine.

February: On February 1^st Thomas and Kyle and I headed over to the University of Washington Medical Center where I was admitted for pre-eclampsia. My inpatient saga is chronicled at www.carepages.com page name: benzababy. Kyle missed a lot of work. Reese Eliot Benza was born February 16 at 29 weeks gestational age weighing 2 pounds 2 ounces. Heather came home from the hospital reluctantly on February 23. Reese stayed in the NICU at UWMC.

March: Heather traveled every other day or so to the hospital to visit Reese and slept most of the in between days while struggling with the side effects of high blood pressure meds…UGH! Diet and exercise people!! Kyle visited every Sunday and returned to working full time. Baby shower on the 31^st!!

April: Reese traveled via ambulance on the ferry to Harrison Hospital in Silverdale to “feed and grow” on April 3. Mommy got sick and could not visit for a week. Reese came home April 16, which was the last day of my maternity leave so I got to quit my job. Woo Hoo! Kyle took 2 weeks vacation. Reese’s first outing other than to the pediatrician was to Lowe’s and Fred Meyer, where mommy smashed his head into the roof of the car lifting him up to sniff his butt to check for poo. Daddy reminded mommy of that often when she corrected his baby handling skills.

May: Grandpa came to visit from Virginia. The public health nurse came to the house for weight checks. Kyle worked and Heather sat on the couch holding Reese. Kyle turned 29 whopping years old and Heather had half of a peach martini—the first alcohol since August.

June: Reese moved into his own bedroom. He had his final ophthalmologist appointment for Retinopathy of Prematurity and was declared visually healthy. We did shop hop!!!!! On day one Reese and I went with my friend, Laura and her daughter Delaney. The next 4 days Kyle came with us. We traveled to about 48 quilt shops along the I-5 corridor. It was the most fun! We bought a Dodge Nitro and downsized to the one vehicle since Kyle walks to work.

July: Reese went swimming at the YMCA and we joined a mommies group. We vacationed in Lake Chelan, WA with Mimi and Poppop and Uncle Travis and Uncle Dylan, where Kyle discovered Guitar Hero and an obsession was born. Reese rolled from his tummy to his back. We got our basement floor rhino coated and now it’s actual living space.

August: Kyle got sent to work in Everett, WA. So Reese and I went along and hung out at the hotel….a daily maid…blissful! Reese successfully used his exersaucer and started laughing at himself in the mirror.

September: Still in Everett. Reese had his 4 month corrected age appointment with the physical therapist at UWMC. She tests his abilities and expects him to perform like a full term 4 month old would since he should be 4 months old now. He passed with flying colors. Reese started eating rice cereal and sweet potatoes and peas!! Kyle’s Uncle Mark and Aunt Gloria visited from Connecticut. We went to Seattle to Pike Place Market one day and then to Reese’s first professional baseball game. The Mariners lost. I abandoned the hospital blog and began our new blog www.benzabulletin.blogspot.com. I joined a book club. We became infatuated with at home Karaoke.

October: Kyle started working 12 hour shifts at Bangor, so he has to drive. Basically Reese and I did nothing all month because we had no car. Kyle’s normal shift is 3pm-midnight so we go do our errands at 3pm, but with a 12 hour shift he leaves at 5 pm, so we need to visit with him from 2pm-5pm while he’s awake, but Reese and I can’t get moving early enough to leave the house. Reese and I went with Mimi to Uncle Travis’ college for parents’ weekend at Whitworth University in Spokane. Kyle got Madden ’08 for the Xbox 360 and Reese LOVES to watch him play.

November: We hosted Thanksgiving at our house. Grandpa from Virginia visited. Great Grandparents from Vancouver also visited. Reese had his first cold and ear infection. We finished all of our Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving! Heather is super excited that our yard waste collection can now allows us to add compost stuff (fruits, veggies, coffee grounds!)

December: We had record breaking amounts of rain and flooding. We found out Reese needs glasses and $1000 per month shots for 5 months. Reese crawls, chatters and sits…oh yeah he also shrieks a hideous high pitched squeal when he is annoyed or frustrated or you do not jump fast enough or high enough to suit his fancy. We decided we’re the parents now we get to make the rules, so Kyle and I opened our gifts to/from each other on December 15!!! Ha, you guys weren’t even done shopping were you?

2007 was shockingly fast. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m swiftly approaching ancient or because having a new baby makes everything a whirlwind. Either way our 2008 resolution is to capture more time for fun, family things. We plan to stay on top of organizational task so we can work more efficiently. We’ll plan more thoroughly to cut down on wasted trips to save time and also gas. Hopefully that will free up more time so 2008 doesn’t feel like a flash.

Happy New Year!

Amazing Feats!

Reese had a lot of tricks on Saturday. I put him on his belly on the living room floor in front of his toys to play while I went into the kitchen. About 30 seconds later Kyle walked by and said "look at him sitting all by himself"
Me: What?! I put him on his belly!
Kyle: Well, he's sitting
and lo and behold he was in fact sitting...he got from his belly to his bum unassisted.Later in the afternoon he awoke from his nap with a hideous, shrill shriek. I ran in to discover him laying in the bed trapped in this mermaid position!

Glasses

Kitsap Optical ordered some frames for us to try. We settled on these Tigger glasses in a brownish color. The blue is just so in your face. These seem a little less offensive. So they should be ready for pick up the end of next week. We'll see if he keeps them on. We were concerned about him growing out of them fast, thinking maybe we should get a bigger size so he has room to grow. My dentist's daughter has glasses (got my teeth cleaned Friday-no cavities) and my dentist assured me he would break or lose them way before he outgrows them. She said they get 2 or 3 pairs each year. So next open enrollment we have got to get better vision insurance!

Snowy Christmas!!

We bundled Reese up in Uncle Dylan's snow suit..12 months, so only a little big, and headed out into the Christmas snow.

He didn't like it. Well, maybe just a nibble.

It started snowing while we opened presents and just kept on coming. I was a little worried that we'd run out of formula. I brought close to a whole can, but I thought we may be stuck if it didn't stop. But by night the roads were fine.

CHRISTMAS!!

We went to Mimi and Poppop's for Christmas day. When we arrived Reese was a little puzzled to find another reindeer. The blinking antlers were very intriguing. We opened gifts, but Reese was so tired so he had to nap first. Even after a nap he did not find gift opening all that exciting. He yelled and made faces....give me my stuff already!

I really just want to taste it anyway.....

hmm......this looks pretty tasty....

....and so does Daddy's beer.

Christmas EVE

We had Christmas Eve at the Benza's. This is Reese's first gift. We opened one before dinner and he really loved the wrapping paper--very tasty. Later he was on my lap and held a gift on his lap while Candy Gram passed everything out. All of a sudden he started coughing and I realized he had a stringy ribbon stuffed in his mouth all slobbery and gross, but he enjoyed it. After a dinner of both beef and pork tenderloin (there was supposed to be more guests) we headed to the Christmas Eve service at Crossroads Church where Kyle's parents attend. Here's a shot of the three of us. It's the one with Kyle's eyes the most open, unfortunately it's also the one with my biggest chin fat.
We met up with my friend, Shannon and her husband, Charles and sons, Liam and Finn. Finn and Reese realize in horror that they've made a huge fashion faux pas and have shown up wearing the same designer Christmas outfit. We will remember to coordinate for future events to avoid the embarrassment. Then back home to open gifts. And the star of the show:
It is still in the box because I am unsure of my color wishes. You can see the little color swatch next to the red numbers. This is pistachio which most closely matches my sage kitchen. But my kitchen is so dinky it can't live on the counter so it doesn't have to match. I am debating whether or not to trade it for a funky color. I'm torn, but will decide by Wednesday...either we'll bust it out or go get another color.

Mobility

Reese is after Tara while Yodi watches cautiously from behind. He has kind of started sitting and crawling at the same time, though he has not totally mastered either. He is quite mobile with his modified crawl.

Dadadada

The day began with the traitorous turd boy grabbing Kyle's face and gleefully saying Dadadadadadadadada! Kyle fixed the toilet so you no longer have to hold the handle continuously to make it flush, which took about 2 seconds...I'm not sure why we lived with it broken for a whole year. Then we went to the mall where Reese discovered he likes Cinnabon!

This is my first attempt at the video post...I was blocking the light but really it's the sound that's important. I haven't figured out how to edit this to make it shorter. You really only need to watch until 25ish seconds. After that it's my pathetic attempt to make the traitor say "mama."

The Latest Update

Wednesday Reese's pediatrician's office was working on getting authorization from another RSV provider that would hopefully charge us less than $1000 out of pocket per injection. Then Thursday morning my dad (Grandpa in Virginia) called to say he would chip in $500 each month for the RSV shots, so we decided we'd go ahead and get the shots at the $1000. But I will still pursue trying to get it cheaper for future injections. We got an appointment at a Bremerton place for 1pm Friday. We went today, got the shot and get this...covered 100%. So I don't know if this is the difference between Mary Bridge Children's and the other company, Option Care or is it just that we already paid our annual out of pocket cap? We'll see in January but for now he got the vaccine for one month and we didn't have to pay the $1000. The health department emailed me back asking me to call them, but we were hectic today--and we got the shot so it's less urgent, so I will call them Wednesday after Christmas to find out our options for January. Thursday Reese and I went to another eye shop and tried on glasses:These are a little large and crooked. They've ordered a smaller pair for us to try. Kyle likes this blue, but I think it clashes with the blue of his eyes, so we are not 100% yet, but I think we're getting these. The other place had miniature sized grown up glasses. These are baby glasses....all one piece, no metal parts, no screws, no nose pads to cram into his eye when he falls over. So they are much safer for an infant. Once he's bigger (2ish or so) he can have bigger boy cool glasses--assuming there is such a thing, he may have to wait until he's much bigger to find cool ones. He didn't have a fit and yank these off instantly. He let us get a few pictures before grabbing them, of course he has a huge gash from his fingernail under his eye now. But all of our doctor trials over over and we can now enjoy Christmas. Yippee! I'll never schedule multiple visits in one week again since 2/3 of our visits were horrible news! BTW Today Reese weighed 15 pounds 13 ounces, so he gained the 1/2 ounce per day the pediatrician recommends.

The Very Traumatizing Week

I was hoping the girl from the eye doctor would email me the photos we took on her camera so you could see Reese's marathon doctor week, but she didn't yet, so you'll have to take my word for it that he went. You already know he went to the eye guy on Monday and needs glasses. That was kind of devastating. But Tuesday we woke up to the sound of the tree cutting truck! Yippee! I don't believe I've mentioned the tree before. When we first moved in Kyle wanted to chop it down, but I wanted to keep it. Finally around June it got some greenery on it and then it just started dropping its non-stop debris. So much that I don't how the mailman made it to the door without tripping. So in June we hired a tree man to cut it, but then he realized it was in the power lines and said the power company must trim it out of their lines first. My first request went in on June 27. They said that counts as an emergency and they'd come in within 24 hours. HA! About 9 or 10 calls later and irate rants our tree was finally cut December 18. Now it looks ridiculous but we can hire the tree cutter! YEah!! Apparently the people never bothered to do their job correctly and forward the info to the appropriate people. We have to go to Tacoma to Mary Bridge's Childrens Hospital for Reese's RSV shot. They said it would take about 15 minutes, so I made the appointment at 1pm thinking Kyle can make it to work on time unrushed. Turns out he had to call out for the day.

Here is Reese sitting in his window crib waiting for the shot. He had to strip down to get weighed since the shot is administered based on weight. Good marketing since you are probably still unsure if your 2 pound baby will survive and may be less willing to spend the money on the shots, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So they bring in the paperwork that essentially says your baby will probably die this cold and flu season without these shots and a form to sign authorizing the shot and another agreeing to pay $1000 per injection. That is our 20%, so our insurance company is paying $4000. I said "oh no, no, no! My letter says $340, which is obscene, but $1000 is not happening." So after 2 hours and hysteria and melt down and tears we leave without the shot. The woman whose job it is to tell people they are authorized for the shot and how much it costs, said "oh sorry but those letters aren't gold." She actually had the audacity to say those words to me. Like the difference between $340 and $1000 is a slight variance since our price quote wasn't etched in stone. Another example of people collecting a pay check but not doing their job. My pediatrician's office is working another angle to see if we can get the shot cheaper from another provider, however the doctor herself said she doubts it will be cheaper. We said we could finagle $500 per but no more since he will need 5 or 6 shots depending on the season. Check your budget do you think you could scrape up $1000 with 30 seconds notice? And keep doing it every month until spring? It's ridiculous, since normal people do not have a pile of cash under the mattress--you guys don't do you? So the other option (we actually have a flyer from Mary Bridge recommending this) is to avoid crowds like family gatherings or stores. Avoid other children. Anyone who MUST come in contact with the child must wash with soap and water before touching him. Sanitize all doorknobs and light switches and toys and crib railings and faucet handles etc etc etc frequently. FUN!
I am LIVID. I understand pharmaceutical companies must recoup the billions they spend on research but it's pretty pathetic that our country allows them to recoup their money off the backs of already at risk infants. Had Kyle and I just moved in together and had babies out of wedlock Reese could get his shots free since I would officially be a no income household. Gotta love how the family values spouting government penalizes actual tax paying families and really encourages irresponsibility. So I am working on my new political campaign to get some help for actual working families. Obviously I don't want to take away assistance for children in families who make less money than we do, but we are regular working class folks, not money bags and deserve some options too. I'm not shopping at Nordstrom you know. HOWEVER since I am too irate to write like a rational, intelligent person I will revise for a week or so before I start my letter writing campaign. AND last night I got a phone survey call from a paid employee (as opposed to a campaign volunteer) to quiz me about my political stance on gay marriage. I don't really care if you agree with it or not but I am angry that they have money to spend on that kind of nonsense but not to help make my baby's shots within the realm of a doable price. I am not even asking for a reasonable price! Like somehow if my neighbor's spouse is the same sex that will affect me at all, but my child's inability to get medical treatment affects me a whole bunch. Frustrating!!!!

It's election year so decide what matters to you and vote accordingly!

On the plus side I am no longer crying over glasses because my brain can simply not process both days of crappy news simultaneously.

Wednesday Reese got a flu shot from his regular pediatrician. Here he is sitting on the scale....15 pounds 12 ounces!! He is at -3% on the regular weight chart, yes that is negative 3%, ha ha. But compared to other 29 week preemies he is between 25th and 50th percentile for weight. He is between 50th and 75th percentile in height. He's a pee wee still but she is satisfied with his rate of growth. And he is hitting his milestones in an acceptable fashion, so it's all good. Plus we get more bang for our buck from our exersaucer and jumperoo and bouncy seat and car seat. Which reminds me the car seat straps are as tall as they can go so I think we will have to move to a tall boy seat before he gets to the weight limit.

Then on to the glasses hunt. This is the smallest pair at Kitsap Optical. Reese did NOT like it. They are ordering 2 pairs for us to try out with no obligation to buy. So we'll go back after Christmas to try some plastic frames. On Friday I will go to our eye doctor's Bainbridge Island shop to check their selection. With frames and lenses Kitsap Optical estimates about $235 before tax. Needless to say I am price comparison shopping because who knows how quickly he'll outgrow the glasses. Our insurance only covers exams, no hardware, bummer.

If you had a healthy, normal pregnancy and a healthy, normal baby you should stop right this second and thank your lucky stars and give your baby a big hug.

I have to go cook dinner now...we're going on the top ramen diet.

Santa's Lap

Reese sat on Santa's lap today. He was not scared at all. He actually smiled with his tongue sticking out in three of the shots they took. He was very intrigued with Santa's real beard. The photographer captured Reese whispering his Christmas wish list into Santa's ear. He said"Santa, I want to look super cool like Clark Kent and Harry Potter and Elvis Costello! I want eye glasses for Christmas." He will be getting his Christmas wish. Reese had a follow-up visit with the ophthalmologist today and he is officially nearsighted and has astigmatism. His left eye is dramatically more near sighted than the right eye, which could lead to a lazy eye if not corrected. So Reese will be getting baby sized glasses for Christmas. Unfortunately Kitsap county has a VERY limited number of places that carry them and our insurance does not cover hardware--exams only. SO......We will hunt around this week to all the eye places we can find that carry baby glasses to find the hippest glasses for the best price. If we can't find any I have recommendations from 2 local optical labs for places in Seattle. Tomorrow Reese goes to Mary Bridges' Children's Clinic in Tacoma for his first RSV vaccination for $350 a pop. Hopefully RSV season is short. Perhaps we'll have time to check some glasses places in Tacoma. Then Wednesday he gets his second flu shot. Yippee! What a fun week. AND I may try to schedule a second opinion visit with a different eye doctor, but ours is the only pediatric ophthalmologist in Kitsap, so we either have to go to Seattle or to a regular eye doctor. And yes I know regular eye doctors can see adults as well as kids, but I bet very few have ever had a 15 pound patient, so I don't know that their 2nd opinion is all that valuable. We'll see. I'm trying very hard to be thankful he's not blind or that he doesn't have cerebral palsy or that he didn't die in the NICU, but it really sucks that my cutie boy will probably be stuck with hideously ugly baby glasses. Check out the photo gallery of a baby glasses website for an idea of what they look like.

Reese is 10 months old!!!

Reese is 10 months old chronologically. 7 months and 1 weeks corrected age. He was 15 pounds, 27 inches at his doctor appointment on 11/29/07. I bet he's gained about a pound or so since then. Coincidentally Kyle was those exact measurements at 4 months. He has definitely been eating more, he notices a lot more of his surroundings. He is completely fascinated by all lights. He even ogles the overhead light when it's off. He watches the traffic drive by the front window like it's a tennis match. He loves his jumperoo and he still likes to superman. He really likes to chill with Dad. He'll actually sit on the couch with Kyle and watch football. He absolutely will NOT sit on the couch with mommy. Oh no, he can not tolerate anything resembling relaxation!

The Christmas decorations are up and Reese is mesmerized by the fiber optics snowman lights. I put him in the bumbo and pushed him close enough to touch the snowman. He is working very hard to crawl. He's been getting around by rolling and scooting. Lately he's been getting up on his hands and knees and throwing his body forward. Sometimes he uses his hands and pushes himself backward a bit. The last few days he's been on all fours rocking. This morning he moved about 6 feet while I wasn't looking. I caught him up on all fours in his new location....so did he crawl the whole way? Maybe!

Reese loves his feet and his hands. They are the tastiest toys during this whole teething period.

and he LOVES to have his clothes off. He seems to be able to move about much easier. He tends to pull his legs up into his clothes which really hinders his forward motion.

I couldn't capture a good photo since both subjects are rather oblivious to the process, but Reese really notices the cats now. When he realizes they are nearby he smiles so big. he goes as fast as he can to get close enough to touch but they've run by then. Today he got up on hands and knees and lurched forward ferociously. He was face to face with Tara just long enough for her to sniff him, but not long enough for him to get his hand out to touch her. And they were both out of position by the time my photo snapped.

Grandad's Birthday

We celebrated Granddad Benza's birthday at Red Lobster today. his real birthday is tomorrow. We did not take our camera though so this photo is from 11/25/07. From the left is Granddad, Great-Grandpa, Reese, Daddy. Reese missed his nap in order to attend the festivities. Everyone felt he was stingy with the smiles. But he was sleepy so he wasn't very playful.However once we got home and he felt well rested he was full of smiles!

Charitable Donations for the Christmas Season

Kyle and I have been discussing how even though we feel like there is a lot to complain about a lot of the time......really his job is a testament to absurdity and the fools on the road and dealing with the electric company to get our tree chopped out of the wires and...there's oh so much...BUT REALLY we do not have too much to complain about. First of all we were lucky enough to be born in the USA instead of Afghanistan---gotta say I'm super duper happy about being able to leave my house without my husband since his work schedule would really crimp my shopping style and I like to be the one who drives. I recently met a woman who lost a baby 28 weeks into her pregnancy and our neighbor in the NICU lost her baby at 38 weeks and somehow we have a 29 weeker that seems to have suffered no ill-effects from prematurity. Kyle has a decent, stable, if sometimes frustrating job. Our baby has Grandparents that want to spend time with him. We both feel lucky to have not gotten stuck with freaks for in-laws...apparently this is an uncommon occurrence.
SOOOOO the point is we thought we really should be doing more to help others because honestly we do give good stuff to Goodwill, but only because the thought of a yard sale is unbearable and I just haven't gotten it together to sell on ebay and craigslist.
I am somewhat addicted to the blogs of strangers and I found Kathryn over at Daring Young Mom who writes that each year her family helps someone in need, though she says they should be doing it all year long. Western Washington's recent flood devastation (do you have flood insurance? odds are Oprah ain't gonna show up to help you) got us thinking about doing something to contribute to our community and I've also been quizzing newly married folks about their Christmas traditions with their new spouses and children. I think Kathryn has a perfect idea to combine the two and make it a family Christmas tradition to help others.
We'll start this year doing something to help someone in need each Christmas and hopefully it will grow into a bit more regular activism. If you link over to Kathryn's site she has first hand photos of the flood victims. I don't know her so giving her a donation may be unwise, but she provides links to the Red Cross and United Way. The local news says that Red Cross workers are required to commit to 3 weeks so all the Red Cross volunteers who have come from all over the country will stay through Christmas to help...I don't expect people to jump right into that level of dedication, but really everyone probably could do a little something extra to help. This time of year it is very easy to find a way...Toys for Tots, Food Banks, Blanket drives at the homeless shelter, Job Interview clothes for battered women shelters and don't forget the March of Dimes fights prematurity year round.
American Red Cross: Pacific Northwest Flood Relief
I'll get back to you with what we've decided to do. I have been listening to the news which has said at least 15 times about the guy who paid for the coffee of the car behind him at Starbucks and they did this for many cars one after the other. All the people the news are talking to seems to have felt really joyful over the unexpected niceness. So I think something that simple would count!

Vitamin C Fix

Reese was fascinated by the oranges at Candy Gram's house. I swear these oranges were as big as his head but he managed to hold it all by himself and attempt to eat it. Grandma waited long enough to take the photo before she snatched the pesticide riddled fruit away....we'll have to convince her to buy organic!
Mommy and Reese at Candy Gram's house. This is a few weeks old, but I'm not sure of the exact date. Reese is wearing his uncles' sweatshirt and sweatpants. I'm thinking this must've been a football Sunday.

We did not take any photos but we had a cookie baking day at grandma's today. Daddy played with the boy until he had to go to work. We worked on our cookie baking for a good 5 hours I think and yet we each managed to make only 2 batches of cookies and Candy Gram's will be frosted tomorrow. Apparently we're very slow. I think the boy was very distracting. It still seemed easier than doing it in my own kitchen. But with only 2 batches Kyle, aka the cookie monster, will surely eat them all by the end of the weekend.

Our Christmas Elf

Yodi was not too pleased to be wearing his Christmas finery. Somehow I captured this photo of his tongue as far out as it will go!

Tara is very interested in checking out Yodi's situation. After the photo she swatted him.

AND LOOK!! The boy is sitting on his own for long periods!! He can not get himself into a sitting position yet and he generally gets out of it by face planting. But he's getting coordinated at staying upright and rebalancing after he starts to waiver.

Decorating

We left our tree tied up until we got it into the stand. We figured it would be easier to get it in the door and we'd lose less needles.

Reese was very unsure about the whole thing before we added lights. He'd grab a branch then kind of flick his fingers and make a whiny groan in the back of his throat. I guess he wasn't liking the texture. Once the lights were up he was more interested. Ignore my non-matching pj pants.

Okay so no ornaments yet but I couldn't wait to take pictures. The flash makes it look like the room lights are on. I can't figure out how to fix that. We got new LED lights from Costco, which look super cool though you can't really get the effect in the photo. Also if we take them out of storage next year and find they don't work Costco will replace them!! Woo Hoo!! This is the view from the front door.

This is the view withthe living room to my left and front door to the right.

And this is the cutest boy!

Christmas Tree

We went to Bacon's Tree Farm in Belfair to hunt for our Christmas Tree on Saturday . Surprisingly we found one in about 5 minutes!!That's our Tree to the right of us. A little hard to see it and get all 3 of us in the photo. Once it's up and decorated I'll post a photo of the tree by itself.

Here's Kyle getting ready to cut down our tree at Bacon's Tree Farm in Belfair. Madison, the Gutierrez family dog, is in the background.

Reese and Mommy at the tree farm.

Here's Kyle with our tree all wrapped and ready to strap to the car. It looked really puny but the measuring chart says it's 8 feet. We'll see when it's in the house.

After tree cutting we hit Subway for lunch and Reese got his first taste of Daddy's Nacho Cheese Doritos. He's licking his lips to get every last bit powdered cheese goodness.

Local Flooding

Here is a photo of the exit we take to go to the mall and Costco. If you turn right off the photo there is a bridge that was knocked down.
This is the parking lot of a strip mall across form the regular mall. Those purple awnings on the building in the back is Chuckie Cheese.

Weather

Kyle is geared up to walk to work. Bremerton's conditions at the moment were 54 degrees, 30mph winds, 100% humidity. I don't think I've ever seen the weather report say 100% humidity. The news reports that our Bremerton Airport registered 6 inches of rain. Seattle airport registers 3.something inches of rain: the second wettest day in history. The number 1 wettest day was in October 2003. Washington has been declared a state of emergency.

Check out our weather problems
You can see weather photos that are submitted by local people (I think). Some of them are kind of hard to realize what's going on if you are not familiar with the location, but you can get an idea at least.

Reese's Mariners hat doesn't cover his ears and we've had a hard time finding a hat that is not too big. But we bought one last night and here is Reese trying it out. We hovered by the door while Kyle sopped up the standing water by the basement door. He's seems to like it okay.

Done with my Class

I have submitted my final paper and writer's journal via the digital dropbox for my dreaded online English class. I do believe the in school class I was taking and thankfully dropped upon being admitted to the hospital was more horrible than the online version. BUT my online version was also horrible. Everyone else I've talked with said this class was nothing, a snap, a breeze. I signed up for 2 workaholic teachers apparently. Next January I get to go back to doing a class I'll actually like, Anatomy and Physiology. I hate English class and I'm so glad it's over! I really wanted an A but honestly at this point I'll take a B and be happy it's over.

Daddy's Day Off!

Kyle's work got canceled so he got up with Reese at 8:30am (since mommy got up in the middle of the night) and I got to sleep in until 10:30AM! WOO HOO! I woke up feeling rested for once. So the boys watched the Seahawks game, apparently a nail biter to the end, while I actually made some eggs for breakfast.
After the game we spent the early afternoon having a Christmas gift wrap extravaganza! We have wrapped everything except Reese's stuff!
We didn't want him to see his presents while he was busily playing nearby. He got sick of playing on the floor. He's been working very hard at trying to crawl....it's so exhausting. I really expect him to get this crawling thing down pat by Christmas. SO we had to bring the exersaucer down to the basement. I must say I love having a basement!
About 4:30 we realized we needed more wrapping paper and the roads looked good. So Reese packed up to visit Grandad and Candy Gram, so Kyle and I went out by ourselves to shop. Do you realize how easy it is to just POP into a store when you only have to deal with your own adult body and supplies? In fact all Kyle' supplies fit into his pockets. We hit the mall to pick up the last gift we needed, so we are 100% done. We got Cinnabons! YUMMMM! Then Walmart for gift wrap. We had a really great day! Today (monday) Kyle is back to work and I am finishing my English class work that's due by midnight and then my class is over! Woo hoo!