oh, the Weekend!

So Thursday I tried out another MOPs group.  For those that don't know, Mothers of Preschoolers, or MOPs as it's known is usually run by a church and has childcare, a speaker, a craft and time for mommies to hang out, usually with breakfast.  http://www.mops.org/ for more info.

I've been in MOPs for 3 years now, I was the finance person for 2 years and a table leader for one.  This year however, I'm just a participant and am joining a second group.  Being at home with two kids with one in school is new and since Henri's not old enough to participate in activities by himself, They are using both my hands and they are full!

The MOPs group for 1st & 3rd Thursdays started up last Thursday and I really enjoyed it.  It's of course a little different than my other group, but that's fine!  They took Henri off my hands for a bit and I opted to take Valerie with me as she was due for a feeding, however, they have a nursery open as well for her to hang out at.  We discussed fall routines and ways to make mornings go more easily and made coffee cozies with our names on them as our craft project that will also serve as our name tags. 

Then was a hand therapy appt.  My therapist and I are going to start trying to get me out of therapy for the carpel tunnel.  I'm being diligent about my stretches and exercises, wearing braces at night and drinking more water.  She also gave me some putty to build hand strength.

Friday was spent catching up on housework and things around the house and Paul left for Canada for the weekend to do a curling bonspeil to try out a new team

Saturday, the boys and I started in my craft room during Valerie's nap creating stuff and I finished up a bunch of almost done scrapbook pages.  While we were doing that, my dad called to invite Carter to the Puyallup fair.  Carter tells me grandpa said  to get a stroller ready.  I figured that meant they were taking Henri as well and got the boys all ready to go in jackets and boots (it's been raining here, but was pretty nice Saturday morning.)  My parents showed up surprised to see Henri wanting to go.  I laughed when they said the stroller was for Carter!  We walk to and from school 3/4 of a mile away from our house and he needs the exercise as he's an indoor guy.  They agreed to take Henri when I assured them he'd stay in the stroller. 

Then my friend Shawnte came over and I made some chocolate crinkle cookies for our friend Jane's husband's evening prayer service (Jewish funeral) for Sunday evening.  Shawnte got to meet Valerie. 

My parents returned and I was so happy to hear Henri had stayed in the stroller even dealing well with the fact that he's too short to go on rides while Carter got to go on them.  They just kept saying how good the boys were, which, any mom knows is one of the BEST things you can hear! 

Sunday was BUSY!  We have a new swimming schedule for the new season.  9:00am on Sundays Henri and I go in the pool in Bellevue, 10am is church in Kirkland, 12 noon is a 45 minute advanced swim class for Carter.  I had been in a dither trying to figure out how to do swimming now that we have Valerie.  I was SO SO HAPPY to see my friend Svetlana at swimming at 9am!  Her sons are in the pool Sunday morning and she was happy to keep an eye on Valerie.  Carter was there, and would have been a fine babysitter, but I feel better having Svetlana there as well.  Plus, Carter was happy to see Matthew.  He and Matthew actually share a table desk at school!  Carter wistfully told me on the way home, "I wish we could go to Matthew's house."  I guess they are getting along ok if he's seeing him 6 days a week and still wants to play.

After swimming was over, we got home about 1:15 STARVING (I'd missed breakfast and thrown some grapes and crackers at the kids in the car) my parents had been in Woodinville at the dive store and offered to bring over fried chicken.  Um, YES!!!!

So we chatted with them over lunch, then they took Valerie home since Paul was feeling a little run down from his weekend curling and didn't want to risk Valerie getting some sort of cold from him and I headed up to Arlington for Ken's evening prayer service.

My friend, Jane is my high school Spanish teacher, so I've known her give or take 15 years.  Her husband had a stroke 5 years ago and his health has deteriorated since then.  This last June he had to have a leg amputated due to poor circulation and then was about to have the second one amputated when he died.  Jane called me Friday with the news and told me a prayer service was planned for 4pm Sunday. 

Jane did the service herself and it was incredible.  She and Ken were fairly devout Jews (light Kosher, etc.) and she took readings from several places and there was some Hebrew singing/praying and the men wore yamikas (I'm sure I'm not spelling that correctly).  She did a great job leading and explaining some of it to us non-Jews.  She then gave a eulogy telling us things about her best friend in the world, including some new things many of us didn't know.  Jane is in her 60s and Ken was in his 70s and they were married 39 years.  Then we visited for another few hours and I headed home.  She was hit a bit with the gravity of the situation shortly before I left when looking at some of his sculptures she'd put out and realized that she'd have to do something about all his chisels.  We assured her that she didn't have to do anything right away.

This is the second funeral for a friend's husband I've attended.  I suppose that means I'm a grown up now.  The first was actually Svetlana's husband about 4 years ago.

Now we are back to Monday.  Keeping busy making muffins, getting Carter to school, sort of potty-training Henri and feeding kids and changing diapers.  I'm also starting to work on credits I need to keep my CPA license.

Here's a video for you to enjoy that my dad calls "best free thing at the fair"