Pinterest Success: Lollipop Tree

Happy New Year!

Here is a quick Pinterest success that I created back in the spring but it is still living on strong since Dum Dums are cheap and not everyone takes one...

Here's the pin:

Here is the website

As you can see, it is fairly easy to recreate and looks pretty awesome.  I grabbed one of those foam balls from Michael's, had a little candy container at work and put it all together.

It looks small, but it's quite large on my desk!  I have one department assistant who takes one every time he works, and a handful of students will grab one, but they aren't as popular as other candy.  I'm sure if I worked in an elementary school they would be gone in a heart beat.  Definitely a success!

Catching Up

Sunday, December 28

My friend Sara was trying to host a Mary Kay party and we didn't really plan accordingly...it was supposed to be at 2pm on Sunday but of course that was when the Seahawk game was on!  Most of her friends were out of town or watching the game, so we ended up having an impromptu MK party at the in-laws and it was just Sara, Missy and Ann/Nana.  But it worked out-I had a lot of fun still!  These are all what we call "Dash-Out-The-Door" looks, only Sara has eyeliner on.

Sara hung out for a little longer afterwards and then Josh came over later for the Seahawks game!

Leif likes honorary Uncle Josh!

Oh, and it was cute-Leif was carrying around Eeyore in his mouth for a while...

Seahawks won which was awesome, we had lots of good food, played lots of game with Josh, and I can't remember if bath time was the night before or that night, but enjoy these bath photos.  Leif loves baths.

Monday, December 29

Last full day in Washington...ran a Target errand to return a few things, got together with my good friend Hattye for lunch, hung out at home, then met up with my folks in Factoria Square for dinner.  Afterwards we stopped by a bowling alley to see some of Pop Pop's friends, and Leif was very intrigued by bowling!

Hanging out at home-Bella liked Leif's lion puppet

Pa picked out a place called "Ooba Tooba", a Mexican place.  Pretty decent food!

Bowling Alley shenanigans

Tuesday, December 30

Woke up around 4:30am to get to the airport...the lines were crazy to check-in for our flight, but the security line was easy (no coats to take off, no shoes, no removal of liquid bags...what IS this place?!)...flight was smooth-Leif slept most of it, and after retrieving our car and picking up Miles, we were home.

My ONE year old is so awesome!

Let's see...New Year's was uneventful-just cleaned up the house.  We tried making it to midnight-Leif's nap schedule was all wonky, so he went down early, woke up around 10:30pm, hung out until 11:30pm and then fell asleep at midnight.  Hubs didn't make it-he fell asleep on the couch around the time Leif woke up!

January 1 was nice-we ended up taking a hike at Sage Ranch Park, literally a three minute drive from our house.

So the park borders the Santa Susana Field Laboratory...from wikipedia: a complex of industrial research and development facilities located on a 2,668-acre portion of the Southern California Simi Hills in Simi Valley, California, used mainly for the testing and development of liquid-propellant rocket engines for the United States space program from 1949 to 2006.

There was a "small nuclear meltdown" in the 1950s...crazy, right?!  And we live so close to it.  If we start to mutate, you know why.

What else...

January 3: Aunt Missy got us a membership to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, so we decided to take a trip down.  Unfortunately our dryer was broken and they could only come that afternoon, so we had to make it a very quick trip.  Leif enjoyed it!

January 4: Grabbed lunch in Burbank and found that Leif loves pita and hummus.  Then had a successful trip to IKEA and a nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon.

January 5: Leif had his one-year checkup that morning...

Happy baby.  He did such a great job-three shots and the nurse poked his arm to get his blood, but couldn't find his vein.  No tears from this kid!

When I got to work, they were doing a simulation school shooting to train police and firefighters.  Hard to tell from this photo, but there are mannequins all over the ground and they had big guns.

And yes, I'm back at work.  Campus is quiet which allows me a little free time here and there to update the blog!  And I'm all caught up.  :)

Continued Update: December 25-27

Back for more Christmas break updates...

Thursday, December 25

Merry (belated) Christmas everyone!  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and celebration with your loved ones, we sure did.

Our cute little Christmas boy

Hubs brought back a present from his best friend-a Richard Sherman jersey!

Hanging out while we open presents

Pop Pop & Aunt Thor watching hubs open his presents

Pop Pop received a 12th man flag and pole from the hubs

More Seahawk Christmas gear

Hubs got Nana a Seahawk snuggy!  It was definitely a Seahawk Christmas.

After opening presents, I rushed to get ready while other friends of the family visited and then we took off down south to Tacoma to hang out with my side of the family.

Cousin Sydney and Leif look a lot alike, right?!  

My niece/cousin Ari opening up one of our gifts for her

Cousin Ari helping Leif

Grandpa received a Seahawk snuggy too!

Our cutie loves to climb boxes

Grandpa makes Leif laugh all the time

When we came back to the in-laws, they were watching Princess Bride.  Leif really enjoyed the movie!

Friday, December 26

That night Leif woke up every couple hours per usual but he would cry/shout.  I was able to get him back to sleep most of the time, but then around 3am he just wouldn't stop crying.  He was miserable.  We finally climbed out of bed and decided it was time to get to the hospital as we didn't know what else to do.

The E.R. staff was friendly at Swedish Hospital at 3am.  We got in quick and the doc said it wasn't an ear infection even though he was pulling at his ear (we later figured that his ears probably were clogged/wouldn't pop since we experienced the same thing), and she sent him to get x-rays since his lungs didn't sound great.  Yay, first X-rays...he did great with the first one but the second one he had to sit sideways and I had to lift up his arms-he was not happy.  Finally they came back with news that it wasn't pneumonia thankfully but bronchitis, so they hooked up this contraction on the wall and put in liquid albuterol; it slowly came out as gas and I had to hold it up to his face for ten minutes.  He fought me a little at first but then promptly fell asleep.  When it was finished we waited for his albuterol prescription and then drove sleepily back home.  We were able to get him back to sleep quickly, but then a couple hours later he did the uncontrollable wake up cry again.  After panicking for a little bit, we got dressed and hubs headed downstairs with Leif and was able to get him back to sleep in the rocking chair.  I immediately called a couple pharmacies to see if they had the infant mask we needed and after a couple tries found a Walgreens down the road that had one...

NOPE.  They had the large kids mask but not infant mask.  So the pharmacist called another Walgreens which thankfully they had it, and I trekked to Everett.  I successfully got his inhaler, mask and a whole slew of meds for hubs and I since he was full blown sick and I was on my way.

I came home to hubs laying in bed with Leif, and I took over for him.

This was taken around 9:30am.

 He finally woke up right before the brunch my mother-in-law was putting on for her gal pals.  Leif was in much better spirits and we were able to hang out for a while.

Leif loooooves Aunt Missy.

We made it through dessert and that was when Leif started acting up.  We headed upstairs where I rocked him to sleep.

He woke up a couple times, repositioned, then fell back asleep.  You can't tell but he fell asleep with his finger in his mouth.

I slept with him for the first hour, but then I woke up, watched tv and texted everyone in the house since I couldn't move.  I decided then that we should move Leif's birthday party from the Seattle Center to the house since he wasn't feeling that great, and it would be easier to put him down for a nap if he needed it.  He finally woke up around 4pm (a three and a half hour nap!) and we left him with Nana to get decorations for his party.  I tried to go for a "Pacific Northwest" theme, but it was actually quite hard with the time limit we had.  We ended up getting a lot of Seahawk colored decorations, a paper moose head that mounted on the wall and a few little Evergreen trees.  Hey, for last minute, can't ask for much!

Saturday, December 27

Happy FIRST Birthday dear Leif!  I can't believe he's already one.  Time really does fly by when you have a baby!  By the way...try to decipher which is an iPhone photo and which photos were taken by hubs.  Bet you can probably guess right away...

Hubs putting up the large banner...I didn't know it was so big until we opened up the package...

selfie outside!  Leif looks a little out of it, but he was such a trooper all day.

Like the large moose-reindeer head?  Found it at Michaels for 70% off!

Like his outfit?  I figured it was as northwest as I could get him...the onesie underneath is a space needle!

Even Bella got festive

I thought this was a great photo of my friend Sara and Leif!

Good turn out for Leif!

Food spread!  These are the evergreen trees I found, again at Michaels for 70% off

Instead of a cake, Nana found cake balls (I'm obsessed with them still).  I thought this was better since it's a smaller portion!  And of course I ate about 50 of them throughout our stay...

He wasn't sure of them at first, but then he finally tried a couple bites

I thought he'd go all nuts about them since it's his first real taste of sugar overload, but he only nibbled.  Good boy!

Ari smiling big!

My brother John and his kids, Lance and Sydney

Opening presents-even though my folks bought Lance a few birthday gifts, they still got him Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore. He enjoyed them!

Nana & Pop Pop got him a Russell Wilson jersey!

Ari was sweet and wanted to show Leif all his presents and books.  She's a cutie pie!

Leif lasted all the way until the end of the party and then went down for a nap.  He was such a great little boy on his first birthday!!  AND during the party our aunt and uncle told us our cousins were in the hospital-she was in labor!!!  We thought it would be fun to celebrate our babies' birthday on the same day, but her baby ended up being born at 3am the next day.  But it's still neat, we have double birthdays to celebrate now!

Welcome to the world Isabel Mari!