The last day!

Well, I honestly made it through NaBloPoMo, I don't have anything fabulous to say, but thought I would share a picture of the kids from back in April! Before they were 2 & 4, little munchkins.

We had a busy day today and I am supposed to make playdough for the preK, I thought I was on the schedule for Jan, I guess maybe I am on the schedule for Jan and Dec! Fortunately it is easy to make!

I have Christmas cards to get working on, so my time to post everyday might be limited, but I did enjoy taking more pictures and thinking about what I was going to post. Hopefully I will continue to post more regularly, but I can't make any promises!

Second to the last post of the month

I would have liked to include a picture of Gwen in her outfit today, because that is something I would never go out in public in! But, I missed the picture, sorry. When she first came out this morning she had a zipper short sleeve shirt (teal) on and a light pink sweater over top. I made her go back to her room and put on some pants or something, she came out in hot pink and gray tights! I explained to her we don't go to school in tights and shirts only, we must wear either pants or skirt on top of tights. She was not pleased! I thought it was a little too early to be discussing outfits and "GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM AND PUT ON SOMETHING APPROPRIATE!" Actually, I didn't say that at all, or yell at her. Since she was a little tired and therefore uncooperative so I gave her some skirt options and she said I could pick. I chose a dark pink number for her. It was so terrible, it actually looked cute! Oh, and I should mention the sweater was on backwards!
The thing about parenting is you never know what to expect, you don't know how having 2 parents that have personality types that mesh well together can produce an offspring (or 2) that can completely disagree with you. Funny how someone can look like your "mini-me" and be mostly nothing like you. Like who would think she would pick a Batman cave over a pink dollhouse, seriously, anyone? Eric is proud to get that for her for Christmas and although I don't like to force into gender stereotypes I did feel like she should get something "girlier". I'd like to say that because then Nate won't play with it, but he totally will!
I heard Gwen crying today during her quiet time and I asked her later why, (not an upset something happened, but a little sob) and she was upset because her playdough that we made dried out because they forgot to put it back! Poor thing...
We are now done with Christmas shopping, well we have one more thing to get, but this limited budget and small house definitely has its benefits and I hope that we maintain this lifestyle after we are in a bigger house and less limited budget. I don't think the kids will care or notice and it certainly is less stressful. We are also doing cheaper Christmas cards this year, I have figured sending 54 cards will cost me $25, which includes postage! I am super excited about that, because I was considering not sending them this year, but we have found a way, yay!
Alright, that's it, time for bed!

Christmas pictures!

It occurred to me that Advent has started and I haven't considered Christmas cards. Which means that we have to try and get pictures of the kids together. So today, after a long day of trying to perfect our outdoor lights. (it isn't going well, BTW!) I thought why not try to take some Christmas pictures of the kids. This is what we got, mostly.
Gwen was mostly helpful, Nate, not so much.

Where is NATE?

Oh, he is more interested in the ornaments.

We did get some pictures that might be passable, I hope.

outside, decorating

We started decorating the outside of the house today. We took down all the Christmas decorations down from the attic and started on the outside only! I did put up a couple of nativity sets and the Advent wreath. But onto the decorating...
We got a pole for decorating last year after the end of the year on clearance. Eric loves it, makes short work of decorating when you learn how to use it and not hit people with it, and you aren't 2 or 4.

Nate wanted to help us pull stuff down from the attic. He is a very good climber, makes Eric nervous, but he didn't fall once!

Nate "helping".

Nate's helping was hilarious, at one point he put his hands over Eric's eyes...I sadly missed that shot because I was laughing too hard.

We did not finish the outside decorating today, hopefully tomorrow. Eric still feels like we need "inflatables" in the yard, I disagree. We appear to have a big hole in one of the trees where one of the strands of lights worked until we hung it 20ft up in the air. We are competing in a neighborhood decorating contest, our neighbors on the corner have their lights set to go on/off with Christmas music. Some of it flashes very quickly, but it is our most fierce competition, that we have seen so far!

Iron Bowl and turkey

Happy turkey day! Sure I know most of you ate yesterday, but we waited until today and halfway through yesterday Eric said to me, I think you made the right call! The kids are appearing much better today. I had a goal of dinner at 1, although I think I should have made it 12, 1:15 was just too late for Nate. He was ready for a nap. Eric says I was much calmer this year, played with the kids, read a book, made dinner.

I wanted to show a picture of my marshmallows on the candied yams. They didn't really "melt" like store bought marshmallows do, so I kind of went overboard, but it was very good! I might have also taken them out a bit too early, but it was the last thing we were waiting on, so I pulled them out before they really started to brown up.

Gwen ate the turkey leg!

After dinner, I had enough time for a short nap and to watch the IRON BOWL. The game was very stressful in the beginning, but we pulled out the win! Very exciting...seems that my Mom and her friends had a good time watching the game, lots of yelling and screaming after the game was over...now onto the SEC Championship Game, South Carolina is going to be ready for us I fear...hope we can start at the beginning of the game this time instead of waiting until the second quarter!

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope that everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving. It will be very quiet around here today. The kids still seem to be a little sickly. They still aren't eating a lot, so we are postponing until tomorrow. We are waiting for parade to start. The kids got up at 6:30, maybe everyone will take a nap again today.
We have much to be thankful this year. We hope you are surrounded by friends and family this year, that you are filled with good food and great company.

Quarantine

I am thinking about celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday...Eric has to work and the kids have been sick. I think Nate is doing better today, but Gwen appears to be out for the count. She was going to help me make muffins today and I just took one look at her and thought, she doesn't look good, so now we are sitting here watching some Sesame Street while everyone relaxes. I am hoping some relaxing will help her. Fortunately for me Gwen is not as cranky as Nate was yesterday and Nate is not cranky today either! For the first time since I started making turkey dinner I have decided to not make my Aunt Arlene's stuffing! I am going to try a cornbread stuffing. I decided to go ahead and make my own cornbread this morning for the stuffing. I wanted to brine the turkey this year, but I read that if you buy a frozen turkey they are injected with a salt solution so it can make for a salty turkey/salty gravy.
Now for the random picture for this post. I may or may not have mentioned we started cleaning out the toys, in the process we found the cowboy hats. Nate is particularly obsessed with Toy Story, so "Woody" got on his horse with Mr Potato Head and "Jessie" got on the back.
Here Gwen is showing us her squirrel. I don't know why she felt the need to have herself photographed like that, but she did!
We got Nate some underpants, I thought we would try to start potty training, but with his illness, I think we are going to skip that for a couple days. That hasn't stopped him from putting 2 pairs on underpants on today over his diaper! These pictures are from this weekend, though.

He picked out Toy Story underpants, is anyone else surprised?

Eric wants to know why I got him the tighty-whity style when he found out they had boxer brief in Nate's size, but the boxer briefs didn't have characters, so he didn't want those! I imagine the whole training process with boys is going to be quite different than it is with the girls!

Leaves and trash cans

What did I do with all those leaves, did you ask yourself? I had a lot. The first and second batch of leaves we put in the composter, I've also mowed some of them, this third batch I decided to borrow the neighbor's yard waste trash bin. She has been kind enough to say that we could use it if we needed to, so I dragged it out while Eric was cleaning out the Jeep and started piling in the leaves...I have found snow shovel is really handy for shoveling leaves! Sadly, I only got 1/4 of the leaves in there when Nate came up to me and asked to help me by going into the trash can...he is quite the helpful boy.
Gwen saw all the fun Nate was having and ran in and got more appropriate shoes for the occasion...I didn't think flip flops where the best option.

We would pile the leaves in and they would crush them down...Eric thought they looked like grape crushers!

They loved it when I "closed" them in there!

Sadly today is a bad day for us. The school nurse took Nate's temp and it was 99.6. Eric doesn't think that is so bad, and it isn't but combined with his general fussy attitude a day of vegging inside has been prescribed. He is currently watching Toy Story with Gwen and Eric. Well, I am sure Gwen and Nate are watching, Eric "sleep-watching" with his eyes closed! Eric decided to work a half day today since he has to go in on Thanksgiving, which works out for me. I can now walk around the house without listening to Nate cry and I don't have to carry him anymore! Momma has to get ready for Thanksgiving, after all! His temperature does not seem to be increasing, I guess I should go in there and give him some water, keep him hydrated!

Another busy day

It was another busy day at the homestead today. Eric left before the children got up, so I had to get the kids ready for school and whatnot. Not a huge deal, we made it, on time, mostly and I remembered to bring our donation for the family that Gwen's class sponsored! Go me! Gwen's backpack was a little weighed down with green beans, but she made it. I then met another preK Mom at Starbucks with our boys, while we were there another Mom showed up and we chatted until we had to get to the school for our volunteering. Today was "Celebration day" for Thanksgiving and my "trade-off" babysitter had volunteered to help with the celebration while I had been signed up to be art-helper. So the boys went with her while I went to help with art. The kids worked on their turkey water colors. Gwen's was very pretty if I do say so myself! maybe I'll take a picture and post it. When art was done I had to take both the boys to the nursery for a playdate, which is no easy task, since my friend's son is going through a Mommy phase. It wasn't too bad, but he did spend the morning sleeping on me...I couldn't bear to put him down, in his sadness. Nate didn't care, he played the whole time. We picked up Gwen from school, ran to Target, came home, had lunch. I realized I forgot to put dinner in the crockpot and it was too late! Put Nate down for a nap, I sorted separated and did 5 loads of laundry (dryer fixed!!!). Spoke to Grandma on Skpe. Made kids dinner, folded laundry and put away what I could. Made grocery list, spoke to my husband, sent cranky email about deposits not being returned, turned off computer. Remembered I had to post tried to use husband's computer which is apparently not pleased wirelessly with the world. Turned on my computer, saw deposit should have been returned, hoping to get more information in the morning, typed up boring post about my day and then hopefully read some more and go to bed! Good night!

ok, ok

So I know I had said I had done the last of the Halloween posts, but when trying to find a picture to send to the MIL so she could see the kids costumes, she isn't connected to the internet, you see.
So, I pulled out the kids costumes to get some better pictures.

And tried to take some pictures, that I could send to her. Nate hammed it up for me, as you can see.

He likes to sweep, some might say he likes to sweep up candy!

Grandma was on the computer with us and Nate decided to put on his sunglasses and ham it up for her. He kept asking for candy and to go trick or treating.

I think I probably confused the poor kids, but apparently not as much as I did when I put away/hid their Halloween candy. Gwen has told everyone that the Halloween candy swiper took it. I haven't told her it was me. The new rule at our house is that if there is candy left by Daddy's birthday, the candy will disappear. Makes sense to me, and I am pretty sure that is all that matters.

LEAVES!

We have 2 HUGE trees in our front yard. They shed a lot of leaves in the fall. I think this is the third pile of leaves I have made this year to about the same height. Gwen was at school so Gwen and I played in the leaves. He tells me he is a witch.

He had a great time making a mess of my pile.

Here the witch is on his broomstick. I actually had to get on the broomstick and we went somewhere.

He was pretty tired after all the playing outside in the leaves!

Friday

I realize I don't really have anything to say right now. I think there is stuff rattling around in my head, but I've got nothing to post. At least nothing to post here, now. So here's some pictures, Gwen and Nate watching Sesame Street. Nate's new hat, can you tell it is a yarn mohawk?

Finally, pictures

I realized I haven't posted these water pictures from Mom's visit. The kids showed Mom how much they love playing in water sprinklers. Nate was trying to drink out of it, because that is what he does!

I have the part for the dryer, so hopefully we will get it fixed this weekend. We've been very busy around here.

Blah

I was just about to crawl into bed and then I remembered, I did no post today! ACK! Maybe one day soon I will get a chance to do a post with pictures again and maybe some substance, but not tonight!
Eric opened up the dryer tonight and the belt is indeed broken, the kids used it as a jump rope. Sadly I didn't have time to get a new one, but a friend graciously let me come over and dry my clothes...now I just have to get over there and pick up our jeans!
I just went into check on the kids and my heart stopped for a minute because I couldn't find Nate, and then I realized that lump of sheets by the wall was not a lump of sheets, but Nate, they are sleeping in Gwen's bed tonight I guess!
We had a project meeting tonight with some of the ladies from my Church, we had a good time, I wanted to scrapbook, but they were too chatty, so I quilted instead. Sadly on the way into Church I put my plate of fudge on the car and it fell off, fortunately most of it fell on the Al foil, so I recovered it. I considered picking it off the ground and putting it on the foil, but I didn't. Let's just say some people wish that I did and might have consumed a little glass, sorry about that ladies, next time I will use Tupperware! At the end of the meeting I sat in my friend's new minivan and she showed it off to me. Besides being a little jealous of the cool features and space I wonder at the turn in my life where I sit in a minivan and drool! Not that I really want a minivan, but it has some nice features! Ok, well goodnight, Eric has to get up early all this week and that means I am on kid duty ALONE every morning and tomorrow I am grocery shopping so I can't take Nate to drop off tomorrow in his PJs!

Belts

I've had much to do tonight, and I feel like I am not done with half of it. I guess everything I haven't will hopefully get done tomorrow. Our dryer appears to be broken, I think it is just a belt (I am praying it is just a belt) but sadly I had already done 2 loads of laundry before I realized it. :( Fortunately I realized I can hang clothes up in the house and they will dry. I won't tell you long it took me to realize that! All else is well here, I've got to get to the grocery list, I realize that I have nothing for dinner, oh wait as I typed that out I realize that I do actually have some stuff I can make for dinner, SCORE, no sides, but whatev, now I don't have to make a grocery list, yet! But, I guess I should start it because I am going to be out tomorrow night and I don't want to be up too late tomorrow night either.

SCARF!

I mentioned Gwen's new scarf and hat and gloves. She wore them today to school and was VERY excited. When we do the "kiss and ride" some of the eighth graders help get the kids out of the car. They switch back and forth between boys and girls every two weeks, this week the boys started their turn. Gwen was so excited about her matching that as soon as the boy opened the car door Gwen said "see I match!" "I am wearing a scarf!" The boy just smiled not really knowing what to do or say. I said "they are new she is very excited". He just continued smiling and she said something I didn't hear, he shut the door, helped her with her with her backpack and she marched off. He just kind of stood there thinking, cool I don't have to walk this one in, but one of the other eighth grade boys must of told him to make sure she gets into the school because he reluctantly followed her in, Gwen blissfully unaware...she is so independent.

I asked her if any of her friends mentioned about her scarf and stuff and she happily told me about it. I mentioned Gwen and her letters. Here I dotted out letters for Eric's birthday card. I didn't think about making more space for her and the coloring aspect of her writing, but I think it turned out better than I hoped, her first "handmade" card where she did all the writing!

mid November, already?

It is the beginning of another week here. Is Thanksgiving really the week after next? Should I start considering the Thanksgiving meal? I guess I should, but there is always next week for that, isn't there? Should we start considering Christmas presents for the kids? The Grandparents keep asking me what they should get the kids and I am drawing blanks here, especially since I am not allowed to get Gwen a tea set, which I think she would love! (Nate would too, he loves to pretend eat). But alas, Eric does not want to clean up after tea sets, too many pieces he says. It is hard to figure out what to get the children that won't take up too much space but be fun to play with.
Gwen is finally showing an interest in writing her letters. She has been faking it for a while, but finally brought home papers where she has written her name in her real letters. She also will trace letters if I "dot" them out for her, which is a definite improvement. Oh, the strides she has made since starting school. I am glad she is taking an interest, finally.
Nate is starting to improve, I think with my new parenting style. He still gets into trouble if he gets bored, but he has started to nap again (but I dare say now he won't, since I have mentioned it) and this makes for a much more pleasant afternoon. It is still hard to remember he is 2 with his advanced verbal skills.

mid day posting

About mid-day today I had the thought I should do today's post, but I put it off and now I have to do this post post AU game, and I am a little hyped up. It was a very stressful game. Eric doesn't understand the emotional havoc watching a college football (specifically AU games) can have on a person. Sadly he didn't get a love of football from his father. Onto the post.

Here are some pictures from yesterday, Gwen decorating herself up like a present...

Nate hamming it up for the camera.

Here is a picture of the kids with the birthday boy, with the cake.

Here's the cake! My first attempt at decorating a cake with icing tips. (the wholes are from the candles...Nate was upset because he didn't get to blow out the candles.) I made Eric a white cake with confetti and fluffy white frosting. He likes it, I guess because it isn't super sweet...Gwen was disappointed that didn't have ANY chocolate, she is not sure it can be a birthday cake and not have chocolate...that's my girl.

It is starting to get cold here so we got the kids some winter garb, Gwen was excited to pick out matching hat, gloves and a scarf.

I think Nate's garb is hilarious, but we haven't got a picture of it yet. Eric is very amused by hat and gloves.

Happy Birthday, E!

Today is the husband's birthday. I would like to start this post out with all the things that drive me crazy about him...ok I really don't have anything terrible to say about him on his birthday, he's a nice and supportive and a good father. Without him I wouldn't be where I am today, literally and figuratively. ;) We are incredibly proud of the progress he has made in school. The kids love him dearly and hide from him every night when he comes home. Seriously, mid-sentence, they will stop what they are doing and run when they hear the garage door go up. Nate starts checking the garage around 4 some days. Sadly we don't have much planned for him, but he keeps telling me that is how he wants it, nothing special.

But, I will take this time to update you on the quilt progress...I don't know if you remember Eric's t-shirt quilt project I started last year. I actually finished the front of it for Eric's birthday last year.

I started quilting it sometime last winter, but haven't gotten very far because, well I have to do it by hand and I am not quilting it in a traditional manner because the bottom is so thick, so it might take me the rest of my natural life, since I only do it in the winter when it is cold. I have so far "quilted" the Alabama t-shirt and have started the 2 under, can you see it?

I took a close up picture so you can see. I did the Alabama t-shirt in the no symbol...Eric was not pleased about that, but seriously, I am quilting it and I don't like them. For the quilting of the rest of the squares I am doing a wavy pattern which I traced onto paper and then hold it on the quilt and draw it on in water soluble ink, I think you can see that light blue line on it.

Here's part of the back, I think you can see the pattern on the blue section...you could probably see it better if I pulled it taut, sorry about that.

So, sometime in the next 100 years we will have a really warm quilt made out of Eric's favorite t-shirts, that he and about 15 people can use to keep them warm...I am feeling the need to find a quilting bee!

Happy Birthday! We love you!