Home sick and hunting for eggs

We are scheduled to leave for Hawaii on Monday. We've planned this trip almost a year in advance. Everything is booked. Thursday, I get a call from the school that JT is in the nurses office with a 103.1 fever. I rush from the shop to pick him up and bring him back to work with me stopping briefly for tylenol, ibuprofen and these stick on your forehead cool gel things.

Poor boy. I made an appointment to see the Dr that afternoon. We got in and she says it's a virus. We're about 1 full day in so his fever should clear within 3 days then he'll have a cough. I tell her we are going on vacation. She says worst case scenario, there is a Kaiser in Hawaii.

He stays home from school the next day too. It's the Friday before Spring Break. I specifically remember being sick in elementary school and missing the Friday before the Break. I missed the classroom candy, the Easter party. It's all good though since they don't do things like candy and Easter in school anymore. sigh.





By Saturday he seems to be eating again, the fever is staying down. They dye Easter eggs.

Sunday, after a morning of candy and easy pull apart danishes we head to church. We come home and I cook a giant meal while packing all of our clothes for a week. We hide and hunt for eggs.

They grub down on too much sugar. I'm setting the table as we watch a movie that HeaBug got in her Easter basket... Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away.

And then it comes. The puke. Suddenly. And with it... a fever. For HeaBug.

A shower, some tylenol, and a bed on the couch later, some of us sit down to eat a bit of what was going to be fabulous food.

HeaBug swears to never eat purple peeps again.

No need to take her in, I know what this is. It's the virus. The one that JT had. Fever for 3 days then lots of coughing.

Darn you sick. We are still going to Hawaii tomorrow.

Happy Easter. Love the Booth Ohana

All Equal

Today in honor of the hearings about Marriage Equality, our family wore red. We support Marriage Equality for all.

Everyone deserves to find this kind of happy.

Girl Bug in the Spring

HeaBug is growing too fast. Her hair is getting longer, she's playing t-ball, still doing her gymnastics, she's old enough now that at Brother's games, she just runs off and plays with her pals. She's writing all of her letters. She makes up her own songs. She plays and plays and plays with her toys. She's able to navigate most apple devices. She's such a sassy pants and I can't get enough of her.

love being her mom.

The Penelope Lane Spring Boutique

This place is just too much fun. It's like Etsy come to life. Vendors (crazy, amazing, talented, smart, funny) come together once a season to this rad boutique at the Seal Beach Country Club put on by my girlfriend Sarah of Little Penelope Lane. HeaBug LOVES to go with me to go "shopping"... She's a dangerous one, always putting pretty things in the bag.

We browse, we sample, we chat and of course we buy. It's great because there is a centralized checkout so you just pay once. I scored on some SUPER cute things. My favorites are a vintage window with vinyl graphics from Inspired Window and a large B from Little Ms. Berry. These were the icing on the cake that is my dining room wall vignette.

Gratitude turns what we have into enough.

Such a fun girls afternoon. 2nd best part was the snagging the 1/2 off baked goods at the end of the day. Oh my the yumminess.

Open House

Spring time means Open House. Where we get to wander through our child's classroom, oohing and aahing over all the things they have done. Thanking and congratulating their teachers on a job well done and browsing the classrooms of the next grade level up.

We did all of the above and are still so THANKFUL that JT has such an amazing teacher. She's wonderful and experienced and we really lucked out being a part of her class.

Just speaks volumes about the level of teacher at our school, their dedication to the students, their classroom and the community is so apparent. Proud to be an Emerson Eagle!

Cotillion

A few months back we got an email from a friend inviting us to 2nd grade guest night at the Bobby Burgess Cotillion. Manners, etiquette, dancing? Oh yes. It was a 50's themed night so we wouldn't have to worry about getting him in a jacket and tie. To ease the nerves a little, we headed to shoe city that day after school to pick up a pair of red hi-tops. We gelled up the hair and headed just down the street to the Golden Sails Crystal Ballroom over on PCH.

He was nervous but didn't let it show. JT is a pretty short guy (his parents top out at 5'6"/5'7") but you'd have never known that was a problem. I watched from the side of the ballroom as he watched the leaders and tried his best to follow their movements as he danced with different girls. At one point, they had the kids stop dancing and the fellas escorted their lady to get their refreshments and then carried both back to their seats. They were serving root beer floats, which JT does not enjoy. I asked him later if he took one to be polite and he told me that he said, "No thank you ma'am. I'll just have water please." Melt me!

We knew only one other Emersonite so they kinda looked out for each other. I made sure to snap one of them together. When we left, JT told me that his tummy hurt the whole time but he wasn't going to let it show. Now that we were in the car, it didn't hurt so much. I explained to him that was nerves... Not the last time I'm sure.

We went to Ruby's Diner for dinner, seeing as how he was already so fly guy'd out. I enjoyed burgers and shakes with my two cuties before heading home for the night. I asked JT if it seemed like something he'd be willing to try for Mom next year... He said, "Sure".

xo
mrs. B

Dirtbag Bat Boy

Our JT was invited to be a bat boy this season for the Dirtbags. JT LOVES the Dirtbags. He spends his summers with these guys. They coach his baseball camp and he's got these college homies that he really looks up to. So when we got an email offering him this opportunity, he was over the moon. 

He'll be bat boy at 5 home games this season, we were able to look through their schedule and pick which games we'd like. His first game was on St. Patrick's day against the Wichita State Shockers. He got to be there for batting practice, shagging balls in the outfield. 

Seeing him out there, he just looked so small. It was a funny moment, sitting there in the stands, watching your kid in the outfield at this stadium... that small hope that he chooses to play baseball here in college... oh man. It really did bring tears. I look over and see the same things running through Mr. B's mind. 

HeaBug cheered for her brother as we watched him hustle out to collect the bats and then hustle back into the dugout.

After the game, we asked him if he had a good time, if he learned anything, if he paid attention... He answered enthusiastically that Jake was going to join clans with him. I had no clue what that meant until JT elaborated that he was talking about Clash of the Clans, a game he plays on his iPod. Too funny, Jake the pitcher and my JT chatting it up in the dugout about a game. We were so proud of him and we're looking forward to many more Dirtbag games. Sunday afternoons at the ballpark, it really doesn't get better than that.

Uncle Kene and Auntie Lei: For time and all eternity

Uncle Kene and Auntie Lei. It's like peanut butter and jelly. Or macaroni and cheese. For my whole life, I've said their names together like it's one name. Uncle is my dad's older brother and the Patriarch of our Kamae Family. He once challenged me, at eight years old, to learn all the states in alphabetical order and their capitols. I still know them. Uncle has jokes for days and he has the best laugh. Auntie has always been the quieter of the two. Her hair has always been long and she would wear it in a long, low ponytail/braid or she'd twist and twist and twist it into a beautiful low bun and hold it there with a comb. When I was a really little girl, she used to make me jelly toast. I always wanted my nails to grow long like Auntie's. It wasn't until I was almost an adult that I even realized Auntie's real name was Julia, but she'll always be Auntie Lei to me.

Uncle Kene and Auntie Lei called us up to tell us that they would be going to the temple to be sealed together for time and all eternity. Our faith teaches that families do not end here on earth and that through being sealed, your family will continue to be together in the life hereafter.  That we are woven together perfectly and by making and keeping sacred covenants with God and each other, we can be together forever. If you really want to know more about it, there's more information here.

Uncle and Auntie have been married longer than I've even been a thought but getting to be there and be a part of their going through the temple for the first time, seeing they way that they looked at each other, at the people surrounding them, it was all just so overwhelming and wonderful. 

We are so thankful to be a part of this eternal family.

JT's Dinosaur Report

JT was assigned to do a dinosaur report. He chose the Velociraptor. I helped him navigate how to open the windows on the computer and guided him as he did his own research. He had the option to hand write the 5 paragraphs on this informational report or to type it. He chose typing. We sat there and I had him place his hands on the home-row keys. (He knows a little about it since he's started learning to type thanks to a fabulous and free BBC website!) I walked him through most letters... T, index finger, left hand up, H, index finger right hand out, E, middle finger left hand up... You get the idea. But he typed every bit himself.

He also had to put together a diorama. We spent an afternoon and went to the book store in hopes of finding something in the clearance area that we could cut up and use pieces of but we had NO luck! We did find some fun things at Michaels, river rocks, glitter glue, confetti and desert plants (thank you California Mission Project kids). So Mr. B picked up some sand paper from lowes and we printed out a desert landscape picture and glued that to the back. Our pair of velociraptors came courtesy of Amazon Prime. I penciled out the layout for JT and gave the boy a glue gun. There were only a few things I had to re-glue but he did it! It's really important for me that he does his own and takes responsibility for his own projects. They don't always come out as cool as "I" would want them but they are his own work and he can be proud of that. I think there's more to be taken away from that for him in the long run than something pretty that his parents did for him. Way to go JT, he got an excellent grade on his project and we got to see it displayed at Open House.