NEW NAMES

Mimi informed us today that dad and mom now have new names. We are now known as "Big Daddy" and "Big Mama". Also since her baseball team is known as the Lugnuts, Mimi should be called "Naomi Nut",

SIGNS

The other day when Erin was here, she and Mimi got real busy with making signs for Mimi's bedroom door. At first the signs read girls were welcomed but not boys and definitely not dogs, Butch in particular. When I explained that if they put the "no boys" sign up Liam (Erin's brother) and Blake might get their feelings hurt. They then decided that boys were ok to enter but still no dogs. Mainly becaause Butch likes to steal away with Mimi's toys.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

This afternoon Mimi did the girly thang with her friends at the nail salon and then she says "We went to Black Diamond Bakery!!!" I asked what she ate and she said grilled cheese sandwich and cake. She really had a blast getting her nails done today.

BATTER UP

This morning was the first T-Ball practice at another elementary school not far from home. TodayZoe and Ryan are the only other friends of Mimi's that showed up. Erin was at her last soccer game and Blake is on his way home from California. It was colder than a witches brew this morning on the field. Mimi had a blast anyhoo. Mimi was really being a little devil at practice. She was supposed to be practicing throwing the ball to Ryan, she pretended to throw the ball to him and threw it sideways instead. Then they both proceeded to chase the ball. That continued till I saw what was happening and put a stop to it. Poor little fella. Mimi making him chase the ball when she was supposed to be throwing it to him. Heaven help the person who she ends up with later in life.

Then it was time to head over to Safeway to purchase a few items for lunch. Around 2:00 it was time to head back over to the Starbucks located in Safeway. Today is Maddies birthday and she invited Mimi to help her celebrate this auspicious occassion by doing the girly thing. I did not count but there must have been around 12 girls in the party. No boys allowed. First the girls went next door to get their nails done. Then they headed over to Black Diamond Bakery for a late luncheon. In about half an hour I will go over to pick her up. I just now got home from shopping a Kohl's. Fortunate for dad I HATE SHOPPING. Kohl's is having a sale and Mimi needs a nice dress for the Father/Daughter Ball that is coming up in about a week.

Come this evening we will go to downtown Kent to purchase the needed items for T-Ball. The league will provide the Jersey and cap, we need to buy everything else. The sport shop is having a one day sale and mom is all about the sales. More than likely we will have dinner down there. Not sure where though.

While Mimi and I were out doing all of this running around, dad stayed behing to clean the backyard of all the fallen debris from the trees in the greenbelt just behind our backyard fence. I think he got tired of listening to me bitch and moan about it this past week. What a guy!!! He gave up a skiing day to please mom. What a fantastic guy he is! Maybe that is why I love him so much.

In a few minutes I have to go pick Mimi up and then the whole family will head over to downtown Kent to purchase the baseball uniform that she needs. The league is purchasing the Jersey and caps for the kids, we have to supply everything else. Then on Monday after her piano lessons we will go to Walmart to get her shoes and gloves.

We received a bit of good news yesterday. Group 119 (we are grp 123) have been matched with a child and may be going to China late March or early April. Woo Hoo! The line is inching forward finally.

WHY'S,WHY'S AND MORE WHY'S

At home this morning:

Mimi: Mom, why didn't dad kiss me good-bye this morning?
Mom: He did, you were sleeping.
Mimi: Why does dad have to go to work?
Mom: Maybe it's because we like to eat and have a roof over our heads and keep warm ya think?
Mimi:Why does dad have to come home late sometimes?
Mom: He takes the train to work and sometimes he has a lot of work to do.

At Costco (now mind you, the girl had just finished a huge breakfast about one and a half hours earlier):

Mimi: Mom, in about 5 minutes I'm going to be starving. Can I have some pizza?

I bought the girl her usual slice of Costco cheese pizza, her favorite. Another male customer asked her if she could eat that whole slice. If anyone has ever had a Costco slice pizza, they are huge so therefore I cut the guy some slack since he does not know our child very well.

After Costco we went to Fred Meyer's:

Mimi: Mom, can I go to Freddies Playland?
Mom: No.
Mimi: WHY?
Mom: They're closed.
Mimi: WHY can't I go to Freddies Playland?
Mom: They're closed.
Mimi: BUT WHY CAN'T I GO TO FREDDIES PLAYLAND???
Mom:THEY ARE CLOSED!!!
Mimi: Why?
Mom: Pat (attendent) is taking a break.
Mimi:Why does she need a break?
Mom: You know Mimi, you can drive a person to drinking in a heartbeat.
Mimi: Am I making you crazy now???

That's the understament of the year. Then I found out from Mimi tonight that the reason why Halli came downstairs sopping wet the other day was because she and Mimi were having a water spitting contest in Mimi's bathroom. Each of the the girls would fill their mouths up with water and spit on each other. EGADS! I think I need a drink right about now. All is finally quiet and peaceful in the Putney household at this moment.

ERIN AND MEEMER'S

Although the majority of the snow has melted by now, it is still considered a snow day by the school district. I really did not want to stay at home. Starting to get cabin fever ya know. So I packed everyone up in the car and off we went. First I thought that we would head over to Costco. I saw Shelley's industrial strength mixer yesterday and really want one. I'm finding that alot of the moms do baking up here in the Winter months and I am getting darn tired of mixing everything by hand. So off we went. While in the car ole' Butch started to get real ansy so I thought that first we would stop down by the lake so that he and Mimi could get the sillies out of them. When we reached the lake it was very picturesque something out of Mayberry on the old Andy Griffth show way back in the day. Kinda wished I had my camera with me darn it! There was no one there so I let Mimi and Butch run loose. They both had a grand old time together. Then on Costco we went to look for my mixer. Unfortunately they did not have it but we did see Erin and Patrick and their mom Janet. They were killing time while Liam was in school. We then went over to Fred Meyer's to check out their mixers and they did have them but they cost a whopping $249.00 therefore that killed that idea right then and there. However we did get some grocery shopping done while we were out and about. Now that we are home Mimi and Erin are playing quietly in her room and Butch is passed out cold. I may take a nap myself as I have not been getting much sleep lately.

THE WEATHERMAN WAS RIGHT

Every now and then the weatherman can be right and sure enough he was right today. It started to snow last night and continued into the wee hours of this mornig. The stinky part about living in an area where it snows is that the school board will call with the latest conditions. For the past two days Mimi has been waking up earlier than usual. This morning the school called 3 times starting at 4:30 this morning. The first call was to let us know that there will be school even though it is snowing, a little while later they called back to say that the school will start 2 hours later than usual, finally the 3rd and last call came about one hour ago to say that due to the bad road conditions there will be no school at all. I live for the day when I can sleep until 9:00 am without any interuptions. I don't think that is asking too much, do you??? Mimi is quite thrilled about snow days but she does not realize yet that it cuts into their summer vacation. The kids have to make up these snow days by going to school in the summer. Also since there is no school due to the snow, her gymanstic class is cancelled and we will have to make that up at a later day. Usually our make - up days are Monday afternoon but now that she is on the Lugnut T-Ball team, they have their practice on Mondays afterschool. So I am not quite sure what we will do at this point but I quess that I will cross that bridge when I get to it. At first living here where it snows was quite exciting but now it is starting be a drag. The novelty of it all is starting to wear off. It can really put a cramp in your daily routine.

MORE T-BALL INFO

Yesterday Shelley and Brandy came over to the house for lunch while the girls were in school. Shelley says that she does not know what she was thinking when she signed Zoe up for T-Ball because she also signed her up for Spring soccer and they turn out to have the same practice days and game days. Keri did the same for Blake. Shelley also signed up her older daughter Alleya for Spring soccer. She was just beside herself when she realized what she had done. Then when Zoe found out the she will be on the same team as Mimi, Erin and Blake, she said that she wanted out of soccer. Shelley still has Alleya to worry about and how she is going to be able to handle taking Alleya to soccer and Zoe to T-Ball at the same time. Meanwhile she still has 4 year old Braden to tote around. I told her that Zoe is more than welcomed to come with Mimi and I when we go to the T-Ball practices and games. I think that will be a load off of her mind. Hopefully she will be able to get a refund from the soccer. As far as Mimi goes, my thinking (as I am sure of dad's thinking) school work is first and foremost and as far as the extracurricular things such as piano and sports, well that comes second. In the meantime I am trying not to load her up with too much stuff at one time. So for now it is piano once a week, gymnastics 2x's a week, then T-Ball in Spring, swimming in Summer, soccer in Fall, skiing in Winter. It seems to be working out just great for now. Dad is especially happy with the skiing because he says that because she is doing much better at skiing now, he can actually ski with her instead of picking her up all of the time. It's also a plus because it gives them some father/daughter time together. With his work schedule as rough and tight as it is we squeeze as much family time is as much as we can. She is just growing up way too fast to let it pass by.

3 GGGGHOSTS!!!

Ater school the girls came over to the house. Whoever said that girls don't play rough like boys are LYING!!! Mimi and her friends were just running a muck around the house upstairs and downstairs and you can't send them outside because it was rainning as all get out. Katrina (friend) once told me that when the kids are in school they have to mind their P's 'n' Q's so that when they get home or if they feel comfortable in a friends home, they let all of the anxieties out. So I am real happy that these girls feel real comfortable in our house to let their guard down. Not long after Zoe left for home, Halli came downstairs sopping wet. I then went upstairs to see what was going on and apparently the girls had decided to have a water fight in Mimi's bathroom. There was water everywhere! I can't wait for summer to start, then they can have all of the water fights they want to their little hearts content in our backyard. Unfortunately the weatherman says that we are to get more snow tomorrow evening and into Thursday.

T-BALL

Our Mimi is a super duper athletic girl. Now that the official skiing lessons are over (still has one make-up class to do), T-Ball is getting ready to start in one week. Just now received a e-mail from her new coach. It seems that Mimi, Blake, Zoe, Erin and Ryan are all going to be on the same team. YIPEE! Their team name is get this--- the Lugnuts!!! I'm still rolling on the floor with laughter. That's right-the lugnuts. Apparently they are some team out of Lansing Michigan and according to the coach they have really cool jerseys.

ONE MORE FULL RICH DAY

It's back to the old grind again. This morning while Shelley had some errands to do, Zoe hung out with Mimi and myself. First we hit up Ms Celia's place for our weekly piano lessons, then it was time to head over to Costco for pizza lunch and a few groceries. The girls really loved sitting in the cart and eating their pizza while I pushed them throughout the store. Of course we had to buy a couple of dvd's while there. That is one of my weaknesses. While there they saw Hannah who is a classmate of theirs doing the same thing as we were. Then it was time to head home. We had a little time for them to play at home. Erin came to join us for a while. Soon it was 12:30 and time to head over to the school. The girls had loads of fun pushing little Liam around in his trike. As soon as I got home it was time to do a bit of house cleanning before Eileen came over to drop off the Girl Scout cookies. Everyone knows that I am a sucker for buying those cookies. Between dad and myself we bought 8 boxes! I found out that you could store them in the freezer and that they taste great in the summer months yet to come. Eileen stayed for a while to visit and next thing I knew it was time to pick Mimi up from school. By the time we got home, she went with Erin to her house for a while and I realized that I had not even eaten breakfast nor lunch! It was 4:00 in the afternoon and I was quite hungry needless to say. I had just enough time to get a quick bite to eat before it was time to take care of the animals and pick up Mimi from Erin's as I still had a few more errands to do before going over to Ling Ling's house for our monthly buddhist study meeting. As soon as I picked up Mimi, she tells me that she is starving but we still had to make a stop at the bank, send "George" to the roomba center to get fixed and pick up dad's hair supply from Maya's. When all was said and done we headed over to Red Robin's for dinner then on to Ling Ling's. I must also mention that our child the early bird woke up at 2:30 in the !@#$% morning THIS MORNING! I finally was able to get her to go back to bed but I unfortunately did not get much sleep and I am now dead on my feet.

FLAN

While Mimi was sick last week, she basically lived on Campbell's chicken soup and popsicles. Now that she is on the mend, boy howdy is she ever making up for her lost appetite. She is chowing down like there is no tomorrow. Last Friday morning she woke up and scolded me for not feeding her the day before "Mo-om! You forgot to feed me yesterday!!!" "Did you not eat breakfast, lunch and snacks at our house and pizza at Keri's last night?!" I said. "OOPS. I forgot" said the girl. Of course no Mexican dinner is complete without Mimi's favorite dessert of flan. Take notice that the girl has swiped my spoon and is eating the flan using double fists. Sticking the spoon to the nose is what happens when one has just a smidgen of too much sugar.

WORLD'S LARGEST TIC TAC TOE GAME

While waiting for the food Mimi and dad enjoyed a game of tic tac toe. Of course Mimi was the X and she won the game. Therefore she was doing her I Won cheer of " I won, I won, oh yeah, yeah, yeah!"

SALUTE!!!

The party ended at 3:30 this afternoon and mom was quite hungry as she did not have lunch and there was no food at the party. Instead of the traditional birthday cake they had a ice cream sundae set up. Mimi decided that she wanted to have dinner at Chuck E. Cheese again so off we went to pick up dad and go to dinner. When we got there, there was a humongous line waiting to get in. Forget it we said and went back home to have dinner at our local Mexican restaurant.

RYAN'S BIRTHDAY

It seems as if there are a whole bunch of kids born in February. Man oh man! Actually Ryan's birthday is next week but since it is their second winter break all of the kids were home this week. As soon as the ski lessons were done, Mimi and dad hightailed it for home just in time to catch the tailend of Ryan's birthday party. The kids had a blast. There were a few of other kids from Mimi's class there too such as her other friend Alex.

THE NEED FOR SPEED

This morning Mimi and dad went up to Snoqualmie for Mimi's last official ski lesson. She has one more make-up lesson to do next month. Dad helped out the instructors as not many of them showed up today. Dad says that Mimi is doing real good and that she has the need for speed. He says that when she was skiing by herself she likes to go fast otherwise she would go slow with the rest of the class. He also says that she can do her turns real good. Last week she came flying in the door exclaiming "Mom! I did real good today! I only fell down 3 times!!!" Meanwhile back at the ranch, Butch was just beside himself. He so much wants to play with the cats but unfortunately our Stanley does not like to play with him much. Butch kept barking at him as if to say "C'mon and play with me!" Finally Stanley had this look on his face saying "Look here dude! KNOCK IT OFF!!!" Then proceeded to chase Butch all over the house, downstairs and upstairs both. That just got Butch even more excited than before.

BREAKFAST FOR MOM

Yesterday morning Mimi said that she was going to make breakfast for us before we were to start our day. After my shower I heard Mimi call out to me to come down to breakfast. She had fixed us Lucky Charm cereal with milk and a glass of water. Bless her little heart. ;-)

THE RUCKER'S HOUSE

When the party was over at Chuck E. Cheese, Mimi went home with Blake, Zoe and the rest of the gang. She was absolutely in 7th heaven. On the other hand, it was time for this party animal to head over to another party at the Historical Rucker's House up in Everett. Picked up dad from his office on the way of course. Apparently the Rucker family is a Seattle pioneer family and have a mansion up on the hill overlooking the Puget Sound. Along with dad's arcitect company was the construction crew that is working on a new tower for the Providence Hospital up in Everett. They just finished with the design and were celebrating with a wine tasting party and appetizers that go along with the wine. I had to take a picture of the Larb Kai menu especially for Princess Teri. I hear that she makes a out of this world Larb Kai and I have never heard of it or tasted it before last night. It was really delicious and goes well with the Reisling. I think that I may have had 3 or 4 little servings. I should have taken a picture of the Larb Kai itself. Oh well I guess I had a brain fart. They put a biteful of Larb Kai on the spoons that you eat the Chinese soup with. Very clever. Starting soon along with a couple of other contractors, dad will be making the 120 mile round trip to work everyday. Poor guy. I guess that is part of the job though.

CHUCK E. CHEESE'S

At the end of this month, February 28th to be exact is Blake's 6th birthday. Since he and his family will be down in Southern California doing the Disneyland and Legoland thing, we celebrated his birthday yesterday at Chuck E. Cheese. All of the kids had a blast. You know they say that at least somewhere in the world there is someone who looks like you? Well imgine my surprise when I saw this little girl who was not part of our party but just happened to be there with her family. She looks so much like how our Mimi looked a couple of years ago that I just had to take a picture of her and Mimi together. She too is 6 years old.

DAYTIME ROAD TRIP

Since dad had some time today, I thought it would be a great idea if we went and had lunch with him at the Westlake shopping mall in downtown Seattle. Of course no trip to downtown Seattle is complete without a ride on the monorail for all of us train lovers. Mimi had my camera with her in the backseat on our way up to Seattle and unbeknownst to me she took a gazillion pictures of herself and the landscape. Thank goodness for digital cameras. I was able to erase a lot of them but unfortunately she ran my battery down too so now it is re-charging. I must also make mention that although it was quite cold outside, it was magnificently clear and gorgeous! On the way home we saw the snow capped Olympic mountains and the Cascades on the other. Then there was Mt. Baker on the left and Mt Rainier on the right. Another beautiful ending to a beautiful day.

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN......

Tonight Ling Ling and her mom May came over for a visit. When the two of them get together it is like TNT. They were making such a ruckus upstairs that the house started to shake a little. I asked Mimi what they were doing to which she replied "we're just having some fun!"

AT THE PARK

Since both Mimi and Spencer are early risers, we were able to leave for the museum at 9:00 this morning without any problem. It was great because we kept beating the crowds. There was absolutely no traffic on the way there. Then when we got to the museum it was not crowded until it was time to leave. Michelle then drove us to Chinatown for dim sum at Ocean Seafood right across the street from Uwajimaya and we beat the lunch crowd. The food was pretty good too. We then had a little extra time before heading home so over to Uwajimaya it was. Mom did a little grocery shopping and Mimi and Spencer hung out at the bookstore which is Mimi's favorite place to go. We arrived home around 3:00 in the afternoon and it was much too gorgeous outside so of course we had to go over to the park. By this time Spencer had already gone home with his mom and Mimi played with Erin and Liam. Butch who had been cooped up all day came with us too. Tomorrow after her gymnastic class, we are planning to have lunch with dad. So I am thinking about parking at the Space Needle where the parking is only $7.00 and taking the monorail over to the shopping center for lunch in the food court. We'll see what happens but that is the plan for now.

MIMI'S CAFE

In the back of the museum there is a place dedicated to the Asian countries such as the Phillipines and Japan. Here Spencer and Mimi have their own sushi shop. There is also a replica of a small but typical Japanese home which kind of reminded me of my Aunt's home in Japan.

MORE ALL IN THE FAMILY???

Mimi loves to build things. While Spencer was inspecting the other rooms, Mimi spent the majority of her time in the "Construction Zone".

ALL IN THE FAMILY????

After the grocery store it was time to move on.

MIMI THE CASHIER

At the museum they also have various rooms set up differently depicting various places and jobs. Here is Mimi and Spencer at the grocery store with Mimi ringing up Spencer's groceries.

ON OUR WAY.....

Today Spencer had the day off from school too. Therefore his mom Michelle had invited Mimi and myself to the Children's Museum in Seattle. That is where they have a membership. All the way there we heard the infamous question "are we there yet???" They have one huge room there dedicated to Curious George this month.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

As I am updating Mimi's blog at this moment, I turned around to find that both Mimi and "Butcher's" is passed out cold. While it is true that we have had a busy day not to mention week, it is still not over yet. Ever since Butch has had the works done to him, he has mellowed out just a smidgen. Even he tagged along with us everywhere we went this week, but like I said the week is not over yet. This morning my friend/neighbor Michelle called (they too moved from California. Boy there are a lot of former Californians up here!!!) and suggested that we could take Mimi and Spencer to the Seattle Children's Museum tomorrow. Fortunately both Mimi and Spencer are early risers so we will probably leave around 9 in the morning and try to beat the traffic. Then on Friday Blake is having his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese and then afterward she will go with Blake's family to the airport to pick up his grandma and go back to his house for a sleepover. Meanwhile dad and I will be attending a job function up in Everett. The project that dad has been working finally completed their design for the Everett Hospital and they are having a celebration at some historical landmark. Will have to tell you about it later, I am having a brain fart now. Then on Saturday Mimi and dad will go for her ski lesson and Sunday will be a make up ski lesson and a birthday party. Then next week it will go back to our regular schedule plus one more birthday party on the weekend. PHEW!!!

MOTHER/DAUGHTER DAY

Today started off with gymnastic class this morning. Due to the fact that it is the second Winter break, the kids are out of school this week and because of it Mimi was the only one in her class today. Along with Mimi there were two other boys Adam and Liam in another class. So all in all, the three kids had a private lesson today. Adam and Liam are cousins and both of their families moved up here to Washington from Riverside, California just shortly after we did. Come this June it will be 2 years for us. As it turns out Liam's family lives in Issaquah and Adam's family lives just one block from us. Usually its their grandma that brings them to the gym but this morning it was Adam's mom Elizabeth who brought them. Both of the boys and Mimi always have a blast when they are waiting for their classes to begin. We exchanged addresses so maybe next week Mimi will be able to have playdates with them. Then maybe we will be able to introduce them to Erin's brother Liam since they are all of the same age of 4 years old. It seems that Mimi has several birthday parties this month that she has been invited too so I thought that it would be a great idea if we would go to South Center Mall for lunch and then try to pick out a couple of birthday presents. Unfortunately we could not find anything woth buying but on the upside we were able to have a delicious lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. The Mango Mai Tai wasn't too shabby either. By the time we got home it was already evening and Blake had called so Mimi went over for a while. Meanwhile I still had a few errands to do and so Keri said that it would be ok for Mimi to stay with them for a couple of hours. Going to the nail salon was one of the things on my list. Imagine my surprise when in popped Keri to say that Mimi and Blake were in the car while she went next door to pick up a Papa Murphy's pizza (take 'n' bake). My, my, my we do live in a small town!

EL CORPORAL

When the party was over, we came home for about one hour till it was time to go over to the gym for a make up gymnastic class in the evening. Of course Blake had to come with us cause he hates to miss out on any fun just like the rest of us. He too is getting over the virus and his mom Keri wanted him to come home but he does have a silvery tongue and talked her into letting him come along with us. I think he may by a lawyer in the future, who knows??? As usual, at they gym we saw our other China friends Rhonda and her daughters Emma and Elsie who were already down on the floor, then there was our former neighbor who we just left at the party, Kelly. Kelly's two boys Josh and Cole were at the party and her daughter Jaelyn is a gymnast. By the time practice was over, we were starving! Dad arrived home just a short while after we did so over to El Coporal's it was for a delidious Mexican dinner then bed.

MORE OF NATALIE'S BIRTHDAY

Natalie's birthday party was held at the 321 Bouncy House in Bellevue. The stinky part about having a birthday in the Winter season is that you can never plan on having a party outside. It has to either be at your house or somewhere else indoors. However yesterday was absolutely gorgeous outside. It was just like the title song of the tv show "Here Come The Brides" for those of us who can remember. All of the kids had tons of fun. Even mom got into the act.

NATALIE'S

Monday (yesterday) was Natalie's 8th birthday. Her family also moved up here several years ago from Orange County, California. Although everyone in our neighborhood is sooooo very nice, Natalie's dad Scott and Mimi's dad really clicked because they are close in age and have the same interests. Sometimes little Scotty will ask little Greggy for a playdate on a Saturday night.