Such a big helper

I keep forgetting that Chloe is growing up, and fast. The other day I was in a hurry and was trying to get the kitchen cleaned up. (don't know why now) Anyways, like usual, when I am in a hurry, something usually goes wrong. This time I had knocked over a cup of coffee, a full cup of coffee and it went all over the kitchen table, down two of our chairs, and onto the floor in a nice splatter pattern. Oh boy, so much for getting stuff done in a hurry. Chloe saw me make this mess and immediately ran to the puddle that was still forming and started to "pat" it. Of course this made the mess even bigger. Now it was on my 1 1/2 year old toddler who puts her hands on EVERYTHING!

So now I was in a hurry to get the mess cleaned up before she could make an even bigger mess. I went into the laundry room which is right off my kitchen and grabbed some towels. Of course, Chloe had to do what I was doing, so she grabbed some towels of her own. However, she grabbed all of the towels and brought them over in the laundry basket. Such a wonderful little helper. And she started to help me clean up.

She was so cute. She kept running back into the laundry room to grab more towels, even though they were no longer needed.

Then she proceeded to do some deep cleaning for me.

She got out one of my travel tooth brushes from my bathroom and started to scrub the floor. I guess she thought that I made a really really big mess.

Then she, like mommy, put her dirty towels ( and her personal wash cloths for bath time) on top of the washing machine to be washed.

What we have been up to lately

Who knew you could keep not one, but 2 girls occupied with a left over orange box? These have become one of their more favorite hang out spots.

They even read books in them. The girls spent a good 1/2 hour in here.

This is just a picture of her curls. Yup, these are them. All 3 of them.

Since the kids are getting to be much more active now a days, we are taking them to bigger and "better" play sites. These photos were taken at a place called Scandia. It is a big place with miniature golf, batting cages, go carts, an arcade, and an area called the playhouse. It is a sectioned off area that only kids under 2 are allowed into. It has I think 5 ball pits, 4 fun slides and hamster tubes (for the kids but I can get through them). The kids have such a blast there. It is totally secured and the kids have no way of getting out without an adult, and their adult (you have a matching wrist band and they check when you leave that they match up) so you don't have to be totally on top of the kids. They get to have some freedom. I love how places are becoming more secure for us families.

We are still taking the kids to the park every week. This park only had two baby swings, and one of them is usually occupied. Since both London and Chloe wanted to swing, we compromised. They got to share the swing. At first they liked it, but after a few minutes they were not so pleased, but when we offered to take them out, they refused. Oh well.

So I hope you enjoyed my little update of what we have been doing these past few weeks.

It is official

Brett found out on Friday that he got into the Long Beach hospital rotation. So this means that we get to pack up and move to southern California. His rotations start on June 22nd, so we will probably be moving in the first part of June. Wish us luck on finding an affordable place to live down there. I guess it is fairly expensive. YIKES!


I will update you as we get more information.

I haven't cried this hard in a while...

(Please bare with me, I am somewhat rambling on. It may not all sound well thought out, but I had to say something)

I don't know if any of you follow the TV show Private Practice, but tonight's episode really got to me. It touched me as a mother and as a child. I don't want to give it all away because it is so much more emotional when you don't know what is going to happen in the episode, but boy did it make me miss my parents and my sister and make me want to hold on to my daughter so tight and to never let her go.

For some reason I had this rush of emotions come over me and I was just bawling on the couch. I am glad that I was all by myself because I probably looked like a blubbering fool.

After the show, I went in to the office where Brett was studying and I told him that we HAVE TO move back to Washington. There was no option. He of course looked at me with streaks of mascara smeared down my cheeks and asked what was wrong. I told him about the show and he, being the loving husband that he is, assured me that in time we would be going back, but it may take a few years. Not the answer that I wanted, but I guess it will have to do. I don't really have a say in the matter...yet.

To my parents- I miss you both so much. You mean the world to me and I love you. I wish that we were able to be up there 100% of the time so you can watch Chloe grow up into the wonderful woman that she is going to become with your own eyes and not through the computer. I want to be there for you through everything. Know what Dr. appointments you are going to and if there was anything I could do to help. Trust me, when the first opportunity comes around, we will be there.

To my sister- I love you and miss you so much it hurts at times. (A lot to be exact) I wish that we lived closer to each other so our kids could grow up together and be the best of friends. I just wish that I could see you more often, to be able to hug you and to go out for lunch and movie dates while mom and dad watch our kids.

I wish that the world worked like this:

You grow up, meet the boy (or girl) next door, fall in love, get married, find a well paying job in the town you live in, the old couple that live in the same neighborhood that you and your spouse grew up in, moved out and you are able to move into their place just in time for you to bring your family into the world. Both sets of grandparents will be retired and will be able to play with the grand kids on a regular basis, cousins would be playing in the streets ( no cars of course ) and we would all be living happily ever after.

Oh how I wish. But reality is nothing close to that. We grow up, move away for various reasons, and every once in a while visit home. We do make the phone calls on a regular basis, but it never seems like it is enough.

To those who are able to see their family members whenever they choose to- enjoy it as much as you can, because one day you may not have this luxury and you will beat yourself up for not taking advantage of the time you could have spent with your family.

Sorry for this emotional post, but the show really got to me tonight.

To everyone who means anything to me- I love you and thank you for being in my life.

OK it is now 2:05 and I MUST go to bed. I have responsibilities.


to watch this episode, go to:
www.abc.com
click on free episodes
click on Private Practice
choose episode 12 "Homeward bound" from season 2

Grab some tissues and enjoy it!

Conversation with my nephew

ring * ring * ring *

Ryan : "Hello?"
Me: "Hi is this Ryan?"
R: "yah"
M: "HI Ryan, this is your Aunt Krissy"
R: "Hi Aunt Krissy, can I talk to Grandpa?"
M: "Oh I'm sorry honey, grandpa is in Washington."
R: "oh"
M: "Can I talk to your mommy?"
R: "um hold on..."
M: "What are you (as in he and his mom) doing?"
R: "Moppin!" (he is really excited about this)
M: "Really? That's awesome!" "What else have you done today?"
R: "mmmmm"
M: "Have you played with the rabbits yet?"
R: "YEAH! They're outside though. The snow is meltin."
M: "Oh really? is it almost gone?"
R: "yeah, no snowman..it's meltin"
M: "You built a snow man?"
R: "NO, the snow is meltin!"
M: "oh I see. I tried to build one with Chloe but she didn't like being out in the snow."
R: "Why not?"
M: "I think that she was too cold and she just didn't like it"
R: "oh ok."
Tracy in background "Tell aunt Krissy I will call her back"
R: "mom says she will call you later"
M: "Ok Ryan I love you, Bye!"
R: "I love you aunt Krissy....umm can I talk to Brett?"
M: "Sure! hold on let me get him"

They have their own conversation for a few minutes.
then I get the phone back

M: "Ok Ryan I love you and I will talk to you later." "you can hang up the phone now."
R: "Ok love you too, bye!"

Oh how I love talking to Ryan now. He is such a conversationalist.

Happy Birthday January babies!

January first came and we celebrated my nephew Nolan's 5th birthday. He is getting so big now. He is currently in preschool and is learning so much. He loves superheros and currently he is into the hulk. So grandma Robin made him a HULK cake for his birthday.

It was nice to have another excuse to get together with the family again.

I have no idea what was on the TV (Ryan had control of the remote), but Chloe was standing like this for a good 5 minutes before Brett moved her out of the way.

Happy Birthday Nolan!

------------------------------------------------

My Dad's birthday was on January 2nd. So to celebrate his birthday, we took him out to dinner at one of his favorite Mexican restaurants. Chloe really enjoyed my Shirley temple because it came with cherries and an orange slice.

After dinner we headed back to my parents house and had home made cake and home made ice cream. It was so good and Chloe couldn't get enough of the ice cream.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy New Year!

This year we spent the evening with Brett's friends down in Seattle. We started the night at Dan's house, went to an Irish pub and ended the night at the space needle.

























I had always imagined that it would be extremely crowded at the needle because when I was growing up I would watch the news broadcast at the needle and it would be packed with people and my parents would make comments about the traffic and how scary it might be down there.



























So I had my reservations about going, but I went along with the group as usual. It was raining, cold, but surprisingly not crowded. They blocked off the entire center around the needle for the fire line, so we got to stand on a side street next to the EMP building. We got there maybe five minutes before the show and had enough time to find a decent spot, take some pictures and pour the champagne.















It was nice to see the fireworks up close, but I think that next year I will go somewhere where it is warm, dry and I can watch the fire works on TV. Where we were at there was no music so it didn't seem like such a great show to me. Oh well, better luck next year.






















Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to my parents, we were able to spend Christmas and New years up in Washington. When we first got there, Chloe, Brett, my mom and myself all came down with a stomach bug that put us out of commission for almost a week. So unfortunately we did not get to do as much as we had hoped.

Chloe helping Grandpa Mark decorate the tree











Chloe helping Grandma Lynn in the kitchen














Chloe helping me wrap presents...well more like wrapping herself with the stolen wrapping paper










Once we were feeling better, we celebrated Christmas with my parents. We woke up and opened up our stockings that Santa had left us (Chloe for some reason didn't want to look at her gifts), ate a wonderful breakfast and proceeded to open our Christmas presents. We got such wonderful things.










Chloe enjoyed the piece of candy that Grandpa gave her so much, she had to have more...and helped herself to it. She even ate some of the foil wrapper!










It snowed on Christmas, well it snowed almost every day we were in Washington. Chloe wasn't to fond of being out in the snow. I don't know if she was still feeling sick or if it was the fact that she had to wear lots of clothes, (lately she is into being naked) either way, we didn't go out in the snow as much as I had liked, but we did manage to get some pictures.











Once she figured out that she could eat the snow, she enjoyed it for all of 15 minutes.











A few days after Christmas, Brett's parents arrived from Oregon (they moved there in August). We had our Schweizer family Christmas over at David and Eric's house. It was nice getting together with the whole family.

Stephanie and Ryan and our nephew Nolan

Eric and his girlfriend Brittany David and Chloe

The "original Schweizer family" and Chloe

My cousin Amanda and her husband Nathan were finally able to come visit us and brought along Joshy and the baby to be to play. Well I guess baby to be didn't do a whole lot of playing outside of Amanda's belly.

Joshy and Chloe got along pretty well this visit. Poor Joshy had broken his arm a few weeks back so he was wearing a splint, but that didn't slow him down one bit. The two of them were so fun to watch. When it came time to eat, Joshy had to wear a Ziploc bag over his splint so it wouldn't get wet or dirty. Chloe was fond of this idea. Now every time she sees a Ziploc bag she has to wear it on her hand. Oh she cracks me up.

We were able to see some of our friends as well on our trip. We braved the snow and traffic that we are no longer used to (we don't do a lot of freeway driving here in Cali and when we do, it isn't bad. They have many freeways down here, not just one) and got out of the house leaving Chloe with our parents most of the time. It was nice to be able to do that.

All in all it was a great time. We wish that we could have done more, but that is life. Merry Christmas everyone!