And baby makes 5

Outside

2012-01-19T22:09:00.000-05:00

We have a big field at the end of the neighborhood, the kids love to go there and run wild. The husband enjoys running around with the kids, so I sat on the hill and watched.

They would come and check on me every so often, but I was knitting and watching them, so I was good.

It is good for them to get out in this unseasonably warm weather and run some energy out. I know some day it might actually become winter here and they will have to stay indoors.

They are a little crazy, but man do they like to run outside!

We like to encourage the running around outside, so they don't run around in the house and scream at each other. Of course when they get too tired they whine more, but then they go to bed early, you win some you lose some.

The Quilt and other things

2012-01-15T20:31:00.000-05:00

As some may remember, I have been working on this quilt for Eric for I don't know, like a million years. Ok, in truth I started this bad boy in September of '09. You can see the full thing without any quilting here and when I started hand quilting here. But recently I realized that I'd only finished 3 squares and I still have 22 to go, so I have to figure out how to get this thing on the machine. I did at the beginning of the month and I now have 9.5 square done. I have really sped through the thing now. The bad thing is that my basting method, while fine for hand stitching, is not holding up for machine quilting, the t-shirts have stretched some. This is not going to be the flattest quilt, but it won't take me 25 years to finish! I guess I should re-baste. But, here it is so far, well actually I have another shirt almost done, I am working on the diagonals now.

Today Gwen went to a birthday party. She came home looking like this. I don't know if you can see the jewels on her face.

She wanted to look like a fairy princess! By her account she had a very good time. They had a clown who did a magic show (with a BUNNY!), balloon things and obviously face painting. The lady had quite the skills!

New Year's Eve

2012-01-12T21:33:00.000-05:00

We were pretty excited to have visitors for New Year's Eve. Gwen was really excited, she wouldn't go to the grocery store with Daddy and she wanted to decorate the driveway.

I think that Eric might have helped a little.

It was nice to my friend and her daughter. We don't get to see each other that often, even though we live closer than we used to, and we seem to be in the exact same place in life currently. Which you know doesn't always happen, made Eric a little uncomfortable, just the idea of what we would talk about sent him off to another room! But we had fun, kids stayed up too late, and we saw the ball drop. The neighbor was kind enough to make a special trip to bring over some sparkling cherry juice that she apparently had laying around, so we were able to enjoy that in Champagne glasses, like we were real drinkers! A good night indeed!

Mother-daughter tea

2012-01-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Gwen and I were invited to a Mother-Daughter tea on New Year's Day. (this is why we had the big practice tea party with Grandma). Gwen was super excited and decided to wear her Christmas dress and I asked her if she wanted to do her hair in the hot rollers. She said yes! She wasn't pleased with the length of time the curlers were in her hair, but I tried to keep them in for as long as possible. One thing I know about my hair is it starts out big and then falls, was pretty sure Gwen's would do the same.

BIG HAIR!!

I combed it out a little, and she was ticked at me, but her hair is actually cut to curl out, so I just brushed it out a little.

Ready for the party!

She and her little girlfriends had a great time. They got to paint a little tea pot and cup, drank hot chocolate, ate little sandwiches and put on a play. It must have been a lot of fun for her, she asked if we could go to another one the next day. My friend has said she would like to make this an annual thing, I hope so, it was fun to chat with the Moms and watch the girls and their "play".

Christmas 2011

2011-12-31T12:28:00.000-05:00

We had a very good Christmas this year. Mostly quiet and lots of quality play time. The kids tried to change up Christmas lists Christmas Eve, but they seemed to really enjoy the toys that they received and haven't mentioned the ones that they tried to change up for. They played all day with their toys and are still playing with them. I put together a slide show of pictures, but sadly it has taken me a week to save it! The website was down and every time I tried to save it, the thing crashed. Finally this morning I saved it! So, FINALLY I am posting this.
We decided this year to do a standing rib roast. Not only was it super easy and fast, it was very good. I think it was a nice "light" dinner compared to Thanksgiving, which is nice because who wants to slave in the kitchen when there are Legos and new toys to play with!
It was a good Christmas for all, we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2011 - Free Slideshow Maker

Preparing

2011-12-24T14:06:00.002-05:00

The time is here, to prepare for Christmas, and we are almost ready. Breakfast is made, cake is cooling, presents are being wrapped.

But, I've been told it is time to get ready for Church. So, I guess it is time to get the kids in from outside and find out what fits.

The kids are excited and a little crazed today. I guess that is to be expected on Christmas Eve, isn't it?

Who wants to take bets that Nate will fall asleep on the way to Church?

That should make a for a fun evening!

Oh, I almost forgot, the shrimp is thawing! YUM! Still have to pick up some bread though. I would have made some, but Mom said it was too much work!

Hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday season!

Happy Christmas Eve!

Christmas cookies

2011-12-04T19:31:00.001-05:00

This weekend, in my utter craziness, I decided that our Mother's group should host a Cookie Decorating party for the kids of our Church. Fortunately, everyone I talked to was on board! A couple Mothers and I got together Friday night and made 10 batches of cookies, which translated to over 600 cookies! We had about 35 kids RSVP, but you never know, and we might have just been making batches, throwing them into the fridge and then we counted and realized we had 10 batches! We used the Church kitchen and had a great time. Thank goodness for the convection ovens and my friends who so graciously stayed late to help, we couldn't have done it without them!
The next morning we made some frosting, laid out the cookies and said get to it kids!

I forgot to figure on the little kids and their love of frosting and sprinkles, many of the cookies were towering with frosting and sprinkles, which would be cool if the kids were just making these for themselves, but we decided to have them make some and donate some for the home-bound parishioners.

We decided to use royal icing and put it in plastic bags and cut out an end for them to squeeze onto the cookies, we had the kids bring their own sprinkles. The bags worked well, for the most part. We had a couple that split when we were trying to push down the icing and we had a couple that came out the zip part. But, we had no complaints and some kids stood there for the whole time just making cookies, I was impressed.

Everyone told us how great of an idea this was, and how much they loved it. How well organized it was and all that, which was slightly hilarious, because we didn't do anything to organize it, really, just made cookies and frosting. We also had the kids decorate bags and make cards for the home-bound. They did such a great job and it was such a fabulous way to spread some cheer.

I hope that the home-bound all get their bags and cards, the kids sure had fun doing it!

It made for an exhausting couple of days, but well worth it!

Thanksgiving

2011-12-03T18:33:00.001-05:00

I may or may not have mentioned that Thanksgiving was not our best day, Eric has been fighting some mysterious illness for almost 2 weeks now. He is on the mend, after I demanded he go to the Doctor. He is at least able to participate in family time. And, I think that he is finally able to sleep well, since prescribed a cough syrup! Thanksgiving seemed to be just another day around here, except, I worked really hard to make a dinner, that basically only I ate, sure the kids had some, but not much, and then I had to do all the dishes!

We got some cute pictures of the kids though!

After dinner, while I was doing the dishes the kids played and Eric laid on the couch, pretty much his M.O. for the last several weeks, poor guy.

Nate likes to wear the buckets on his head, he's a funny kind of a kid!

Hope your turkey day was better than ours!

Turkeys

2011-11-26T23:01:00.001-05:00

Today we left the house, it was the first time we all left the house since probably Tuesday. We'd been outside, in the yard, but we did some shopping. It was nice to get out of the house, stores were kind of busy, but not Black Friday crazy. We were finally able to get Nate something to wear for Christmas. Thank goodness. I think it is time for me to attempt to get some Christmas pictures made. Should be all kinds of fun! Eric and I did pick up a Black Friday deal for ourselves for Christmas. Guess we should really get Christmas shopping started for the family. Maybe after Eric starts to feel better from his mysterious illness. I am hoping that none of us get it, he's been sick with a fever for almost a week now. I am hoping that since it has been almost a week, that we are all in the clear, the incubation period should be past, a girl can dream.
I have some pictures to upload here, but I have to charge the camera battery and then upload to the computer. Hopefully tomorrow, I will get to it.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T19:34:00.001-05:00

Eric unfortunately is still sick, which was bad for my T'day dinner. I heard him telling his Mother he didn't do my meal justice, and he certainly didn't. I may have made too many things, but everything sounded good (and tasted good, if I might add. As I write this, I realize I am a little hungry now, might be time for round 2! This year I made mashed potatoes, but instead of regular mashed potatoes I saw a recipe for them with goat cheese and caramelized onions. They were great! Eric also wanted creamed corn, I found a recipe for skillet creamed corn (topped with bacon!) YUM! Then I also made the usual suspects, cran-bake, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, biscuits, and gravy! We also had "jello" my kids called it, which makes me kind of sad for them that they think cranberry sauce from a can is jello, but they love it, so it is a good thing I bought 2 cans!
The kids seemed to have been suffering from over stimulation from being inside too long, so I sent everyone outside to finish up the cooking, but they didn't last long, Daddy slept outside while they played. They didn't really hit their outdoor stride until after dinner when they ran outside to say hi to Mrs. Susan. I went out with them and they ran outside basically in circles around her yard. They did "help" her a little with her gardening. She is a very nice neighbor and is so patient with them, probably because her son is in high school and she misses the toddler hugs!
I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Half-a-day

2011-11-22T21:13:00.001-05:00

YAY! Half-a-day. I am looking forward to cleaning this place up and starting some baking tomorrow. I will be baking at least 2 pies tomorrow. I couldn't decide between making a pumpkin or a pecan, I think E prefers the pumpkin and I prefer the pecan, so I'll be making both. I am going to make a caramel pecan pie, instead of what I usually make-the chocolate pecan pie! As E and I are married longer I learn more about his likes and dislikes. I'd like a roll for T'day, out of no where he tells me he wants biscuits! Sure, I know biscuits to rolls, not a big deal, but I am wondering what else I'll learn.
Gwen had her little celebration, came home with her vest, her necklace and her headpiece, all that she made. They apparently had a feast outside on the picnic benches. It feels like it is unseasonably warm around here. We aren't going to complain, but I kind of wish we had a porch, because I would totally do the outdoor eating thing on the porch, like I grew up with! The kids would love it, they love the outdoor eating!

Manic Monday

2011-11-21T21:55:00.001-05:00

Nate and I went into school today and one of the ladies that works in the office gave him a little toy, while I was collecting checks. Apparently she made him close his eyes and put out his hands. He was incredibly excited, his exuberance was noticeable. He has been doing reenactments all day.
I am looking forward to the kids having a couple days off. I am hoping to get some cleaning and stuff done around the house, that we just don't seem to have time to do with the pick-up, drop-off, other things to do in between.
I went to the grocery store today without kids, and some crazy lady felt the need to talk to me. I felt our conversation was weird. First she was sending her shopping partner, who she treated as if he wasn't 100% with it and kept repeating "LIGHT brown sugar" for sweet potatoes, and then turned to me and said, "RIGHT?". I have always been a little confused as to which brown sugar to use, unless specifically stated in the recipe, so I just agreed. And then she started chatting me up about what we were having for Thanksgiving asking me if we were having turkey or a roast? I answered "turkey for Thanksgiving, roast for Christmas" to which she replied "oh, changing it up"? I don't know about you, but I thought everyone (who eats meat) eats turkey for Thanksgiving. Although I noticed in her basket a roast-like thing. I went ahead and picked up light brown sugar for my sweet potatoes, because she seemed to know what she was talking about when it came to sweet potatoes. I was trying to convince a friend that we should do Thanksgiving together, I would do half the meal and she would do half, since I didn't want our family to get a free ride...but she didn't want to relinquish half the control, so we are doing our own thing. We'll likely have too much food, hopefully I won't have to cook much this weekend!

Raleigh parade

2011-11-19T19:58:00.001-05:00

Today we went to the Raleigh Christmas parade. I think we didn't go last year, although we aren't sure. We went without planning, just got in the car and went. I couldn't really remember the parade route, but what the heck. The kids don't care about that kind of stuff; they just wanted to see the parade! We left about the time I would have liked to have been pulling into Raleigh. But, we found a spot, which we realized later must have been at the end of the route, so we ended up not missing much, if anything. We started out at not a very good spot, and put the kids on our shoulders so they could see, but we could hardly see. Then some nice tall man, asked if anyone wanted to get closer with their kids. So I said sure, and we were able to just hold them up high. There were plenty of breaks in the parade, since we were at the end, so we ended up being there 2 hours! I eventually scooted Gwen up front because do you know how heavy our kids are after about an hour of holding them!? People really started clear out at about 1.5 hours in so I also let Nate get up close, but probably only for the last 15 minutes. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, since I was holding one or the other of the kids, but towards the end I got more pictures.

Raleigh Christmas Parade 2011 - Slideshow

Gwen's favorite were the ballerinas and the princesses. I just have to say, there were a lot of princesses. Miss NC this and Miss NC that. Gwen was so pleased! Nate was pleased because we got to see the Star Wars people again, but he was a little disappointed there was no Darth Vader. I was thrilled to see big balloons, although the toilet was a little surprising. I think Eric's favorite was the large shopping cart. It was hilarious because we could tell when Scotty McCreery (American Idol from Garner, NC-Mom) was coming through, we could hear the girlish screams coming from the crowd. We all enjoyed the parade, I love a good parade, maybe next year we could print the route and you know plan a little in advance, or we could go with the flow again, whatever!

Ramblings

2011-11-18T21:40:00.001-05:00

I sort of feel like I am running out of things to say on this blog. Gwen is doing well in school. Nate is endearing himself to the people at school. Gwen is apparently supposed to dress in khakis and ponytails or braids for her Thanksgiving celebration. Unfortunately, the kid doesn't have anything khaki to wear with her uniform top, what can I say, the girl likes pink! Fortunately, we have a Kohl's gift card and a 20% off coupon. The note said not to buy anything, but well, what else am I going to send her in? Maybe I can scrounge up something from our hand-me-down bin, if I don't get to it this weekend. I am pretty excited to braid her hair, I love to do bows/braids and all that kind of stuff, but she won't let me. She told me today I could do braids, I didn't tell her ponytails were an option! They have been working on all kinds of stuff for the classroom, building a tepee, making head gear, talking about the Mayflower. Gwen keeps asking me facts about the first Thanksgiving, and I know about 95% of what she asks me.
Eric let the kids watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We watch every Charlie Brown special for every holiday, Eric feels it is important, or he likes to reminisce about watching those with his family. The kids especially like the physical humor, like when Snoopy is trying to set up the table and gets caught. Nate just laughed and laughed, which caused everyone else to laugh because his laugh is so infectious.
I am about done with my responsibilities for my first official month in my job. The ordering process is about to come to a close and I have the whole of Thanksgiving break to work on my lunch lists. That will be nice. Wonder if I can teach the kids how to highlight? I think it is going well, at least no one has complained to me personally. Good news for me!
I am starting to plan our Thanksgiving meal. It will just be us this year. As the kids have started to get more adventurous at meal time, ok well only Gwen, it has been fun to plan and hope they actually eat. I will likely do too much for our little family, but then I am hoping not to cook for a couple days, so that will be really cool! Who doesn't want a fresh turkey sandwich?

Duck!

2011-11-17T22:25:00.000-05:00

This was from this summer. The in-laws have a duck race* where they live and the MIL loves to send the husband a t-shirt, this year the kids were delighted that they also got t-shirts. I can't tell you how many times the kids and husband wore their matching shirts this summer. I would imagine they would still be wearing them if the temperature went down to 50! Fortunately, they didn't have my size, or maybe I'm not known for wearing duck race t-shirts! How cute is my family!?

*I should note:although this is a live duck race no duck are mistreated in the race-or my MIL would not support it!

Inspiration

2011-11-16T23:35:00.001-05:00

I've been a pretty big slacker these days when it comes to dinner. I have been uninspired and lazy. Tonight I had a Mom's group meeting and there were 2 nutritionists there, one was a holistic nutritionist who kind of took over the meeting. I have been trying to pull the snacks foods out of the house, preferring to make things on my own and that has helped me with some of my food problems, but I've gotten lazy and uninspired. But I feel the need to get more fruits/veggies in the kids diets. I also struggle making Gwen's lunches, so I started looking at some websites tonight, and now I've stayed up too late pouring over these darn beautiful food pictures on a random website instead of writing my grocery list and going to bed. Let's just say the next couple recipes coming out of this kitchen will be likely from that website, I hope they are as good as they look! Sometimes you never know where the inspiration is going to hit you...hopefully it will continue through the holidays and beyond!

Child of the week

2011-11-15T20:54:00.001-05:00

At Gwen's school they have a 'child of the week' program, where the kid gets special treatment. We went in a read her class a book and apparently the class thinks of things they like about her. Just for her kicks, thought I should put it on here because it is so cute.

she has nice manners
she has beautiful eyes
she looks her nicest everyday! (which is kind of funny since they wear uniforms)
she is nice to others
she has a nice haircut
she is very wise
she includes others
she is always bucket-filling (which is the theme for this year 'buckets' filling with compliments or taking stuff out with not nice behavior)
she has nice handwriting
she has a quiet voice
she smiles with her eyes

It is funny to see what her classmates think about her!

Monday

2011-11-14T22:09:00.001-05:00

We must have had a pretty good weekend because we are all exhausted today.
My running partner bailed on me this morning, well, I say bailed, but she has problems with the old alarm and I was about 150pg left in David Copperfield and didn't notice I had been sitting in the car 25 minutes so I didn't call her and oops she slept until after 7! Kids have to be at school at 8am...she just made it!
You see, when you've been reading a book for months and you have less than 200 pages left, you kind of are just motivated to finish. I am intrigued, and I am currently less than 100 pages left and trying to figure out when I am going to have time to finish.
I took Nate to the park this morning and then this afternoon I took both Nate and Gwen to a different park. I think they were both exhausted after that and I hope they get a good night's rest! We met some of Gwen's classmates at the park and I was able to chat with them, which was nice. I didn't understand why I found Nate with a bunch of older boys who were being very mean to him-squishing him. I pulled him out of there and he started crying, telling me how mean they were. I don't understand why he kept playing with them if they were mean to him. It makes no sense to me. I hope it is just an age thing and he'll learn to defend himself!
This week is theoretically less busy for me, but yet at the same time, I don't think I will be home very often. Which is bad, because you know, I have to vacuum up the leaves and do the laundry. Darn those school uniforms! At least we all have plenty of clean underpants!
Ok, well must get to bed and finish David Copperfield while the kids are sleeping, because they really don't let me sit and read.

Weekend

2011-11-13T20:20:00.001-05:00

I found this picture on my camera. Nate was playing with the camera while Mom was here and told her to smile. It is the best picture that he took, all the rest ended up being fuzzy, that might have been because he decided to take a picture of himself at "point-blank" range and probably smudged up the lens.
Eric appears to have enjoyed his birthday weekend. We drove over to the Lego store and let the kids build some Lego people. They really enjoyed that, the mean parents that we are did not allow them to take their Lego people home. About 5 minutes from home Nate started to cry that he had wanted to bring his Lego men home. Too late now buddy!
The kids also had a good time in the leaves, but I missed the opportunity to take the pictures. I'll have to clean up the leaf mess in the house for days. Lots of yelling and screaming outside today. They were making memories, as my neighbor says.

Happy Birthday!

2011-11-12T23:11:00.001-05:00

As I've mentioned today is Eric birthday. Filled with box cake and french toast and Legos. He got a nap and slept in, so I think there will be no complaints this year. He is also pretty excited about his birthday present which is a replacement watch for his other watch. He was pretty shocked to receive a brand new watch. I had sent his old watch in to get the band replaced for his birthday and they sent that watch back along with a brand new one and only charged me the price of the replacement band. Pretty good deal! I also had the kids make his cake and they were all excited to decorate the house this morning. I got some pictures of that and some video.

As you can see the kids had a good time decorating, they actually made the cake also, which they enjoyed and are pretty proud to have done.

Birthday2011 - slide show

Sadly what I didn't get was a picture of the sprinkles flying off the cake when Eric blew out the candles! Gwen complained that there were sprinkles in her water.
Grandmom enjoys getting the cards with the music because she knows the kids like them, and here is proof of how much they like them.

All-in-all a good day for the birthday boy. Thanks to my partner in crime for sticking around another year. Hope this year is your best yet!

Today

2011-11-11T21:29:00.001-05:00

Today wasn't such a bad day, overall. Eric has been working pretty hard this week and not getting much sleep. The kids and I have been trying to trudge through at home without him. Tomorrow is his birthday and I suspect he will try to spend most of the day sleeping, because who doesn't want to spend their birthday sleeping? I guess someone who isn't a parent doesn't. But, I suspect almost everyone wants to sleep in on their birthday and since Eric is lucky enough to have a weekend birthday this year, so he can. We will be going out to dinner tomorrow night, that should be nice, thanks to our babysitting swap. I can't think of much else to talk about tonight. I've got to get to bed, since I have the early shift tomorrow! Night-night!

Happy Birthday!

2011-11-10T19:17:00.001-05:00

Today would be Dad's 63rd birthday. I knew it was coming and thought, man it would have been nice to make his favorite meal. Or something like that. I did end up making something that had the kids silently eating, so no crazy fussing! Win-win! It is hard to believe the amount of time it has been and it would be nice to commemorate his life in that way, I think. So, I guess in a round about way I did good by my Dad, we had a nice family meal, which is something I think my Dad would appreciate.

----

I am going to declare officially this not my week. Not necessarily a bad week, but certainly not my best. I think we all hope next week will be better! And slowly I think it will get better, as I figure out the logistics of working, full day for Gwen and Nate! Nate appears to be going through a particularly rough time as a 3 year old. He is testing and I don't have the patience for it! I guess we'll get through it, but when you are in the trenches it is somehow hard to remember you can get out.

Today

2011-11-09T18:22:00.001-05:00

Today was just an annoying day. So annoying! It started out great, little G is child of the week so E and I got to go in and watch the morning routine and talk about ourselves and read a book. Eric read the book. While we were doing that my kid switcher took Nate to Starbucks and got Eric and I salted caramel hot chocolate, which I think tastes like a chocolate covered pretzel! YUM! Nate and I came home and watched Sesame Street, did a little vacuuming and then packed up to go volunteer for lunch. It all went down from there. I won't go into specifics, because it would take too much explain. So, I finally get out of school am almost home, about half way and the school nurse calls, Gwen has a fever 100, which is apparently the magic number for kid has to come home and be fever free for 24 hours. The kid is fine! Not sick at all, I have no idea why she had a fever and I would have checked her temperature as soon as we got home, but the nurse apparently gave her tylenol for a sore throat, that she has never complained about. Very annoying to have to keep a child who is obviously not sick home. I guess I will make sure she gets some OJ tonight and hope for the best.

busy, busy, busy

2011-11-08T22:51:00.001-05:00

It is funny how I start every week thinking, this week is going to be a quiet one. Then I got a call from a vendor and my week has gone downhill from there! Sure, it is nice to have stuff to do, but a Momma's got to have sometime to connect with her kids and clean the house (some time). We sure miss that 3rd set of hands that kept everything clean. I still wonder how I have the disconnect in my brain. I like my house to be clean, I function better when it is, but don't always take the time to clean it. Sure it takes time, but some of the things I need to do would only take a minute or 2 to maintain. I guess it is the maintenance I have a problem with. I can clean with the best of them and damn the house will be clean, it is the little pieces of crap that get left everywhere that are the problem. Once it gets terrible, where do you start? Along with the busy, busy, busy, I've been thinking about the tone and attitude of my children. Sure on the surface they are sweet and great, but every once in a while that snot will come out. And although I am glad it is mostly at home, I wish that I could get that attitude out of them. Sometimes the girl has a spiteful streak in her that I just want to start yelling at her "holy crap stop being a B@#$ to your brother!" Fortunately for everyone I have yet to break it down that way for her, but I am thinking at a weak moment it is going to come out. Then I am going to have a larger problem to deal with. I have to figure out how to get through to her. Today one of her little friends said "bye my best friend" and she said "I'm not your best friend". AHHH! I was so ticked. I considered pulling her out by her ear! She used to have issue with having more than 1 friend to play with, she can only tolerate 1 person at a time, but I thought that problem was dealt with and corrected in school. I don't know, these are the problems that make it difficult to parent. How do you make them understand something abstract, or make something real to them? How do you correct without belittling? These are the things that I need the most help with, because as I become stressed or tired I don't deal with well. I can sit and read 100 books, I can listen to them squeal and yell around the house, I can even tolerate fighting (since it doesn't come to blows) but give me some attitude and abstract problems, I'm a goner. Sure these aren't my only problems as a Mother, I am getting a better hold on my strengths and weaknesses these days. But in some aspects that really bites, because really this parenting gig is never the same thing, everything changes every instant of every day and as soon as you get a handle on it, it changes. I guess that is what keeps us coming back. I can sure say that if I can't figure out the abstract and the correcting the teenage years are going to be a real problem! (which I already know they are based on history repeating itself and what not!)

Cake

2011-11-07T23:57:00.001-05:00

About a month ago I had a birthday. My husband was kind enough to make me a cake. I told him it wasn't necessary, because it happened to be the same time as Mom's night out. So I knew I would be going out with my Mom friends. But he was determined. He went out of his way to make me a special chocolate ganache/raspberry something or another. It was good! I think he is trying to out do me in the baking department!

Chitlins

2011-11-06T20:01:00.000-05:00

I had an idea for this post earlier, but now it has left my head. So, I guess I will just ramble on about the kids.

Gwen is doing well in school. We just had her parent-teacher conference and they had nothing bad to say at all. She is doing well, she struggled for about a week to get her stuff done in a timely matter, and when she came home with the progress report that said she was "not completing assignments in a timely matter" she straightened right up! She is writing some of her letters and numbers backward and her teacher assured us that is common for children just learning to write, but if she continues to write letters backward mid-year we might have to look into learning issues. I did ask if the backward thing might relate to her left-handedness and that is a possibility also. I am exceedingly proud of Gwen, she was tasked with 2 speaking parts in her school Mass and spoke them so clearly and loudly, I was so proud! (Grandma was also!) The teachers told us they weren't real sure the Mass was going to come together, Gwen along with her classmates would kind of speak softly and then all of a sudden the day before Mass at practice spoke clearly and loudly that it about knocked their socks off. Her teacher said the whole class cheered and rallied around her, my little leader. Let's hope that she only leads to good things and not bad!
Nate is still something else. Too smart for his own good and well loved at Gwen's school. Anyone who knows Gwen knows Nate, he gives them hugs and walks, who am I kidding, runs around the school. He has his little friends and really can't sit still. Seriously, cannot. I am hoping that with time he will learn to focus and possibly sit still. Maybe his teachers will have some luck with him next year. He has spent some time in the class with one of the teachers who is taking classes to get liscensed, whenever she is done working with him she always says he is on par with the 4 year olds she has in class. She also said that her teacher said he was a future writer based on the stories he told her for her class assignment.
We are proud of our sweet, affectionate children, and hope and pray that they continue to stay that way!

Aunt Kiki, visit 2

2011-11-05T21:36:00.001-04:00

I called it visit 2, not to confuse it with last year's visit. This year we decided to try a different Cracker Barrel for lunch. It was pretty nice, a little closer for us this time. We had a nice lunch and the kids were well behaved. It is always nice to see Kiki and talk with her in person. You get better information, like I had no idea she'd been dating someone and is now engaged (as of this writing, not as of the visit). We are very excited for Kiki and her fiancee. Guess next year's visit will include him! I was pretty excited to see Kiki, because she was the last godparent we had to see, for the kids to see their godparents this year. Afterwards, Kiki brought out some little gifts for the kids. Don't be mislead by Gwen's face, she really liked the shrinky-dinks...she might have been distracted by the big lollypop Daddy got her, he is such a sucker! (haha, get it?)

Nate of course is such a vocal kid, he tells you exactly how much he loves everything Kiki had in there

We tried to get the group shots. This isn't the best of Gwen, but the good one of the kids, Kiki has her eyes closed, I didn't post that one.

This picture of Nate makes me laugh...what expressions that kid has!

It was a nice visit. This is another reason I am glad we are where we are, so convenient to the godmothers!

Soft pretzels

2011-11-04T22:21:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, I believe that if I have the time to make stuff from scratch, I will try it and it will be awesome. Such is the case with these soft pretzels. I am not a huge fan of pretzels, but others in my family are and instead of buying those nasty freezer things I thought I would make my own. I am glad I did, they were awesome (based on the fact I don't think they made it 2 days in this house!) I thought it would be a fun afternoon activity for the kids and I and it was. Sadly, we haven't had an opportunity since, but maybe with it turning colder and getting darker earlier, this might be something we will have to try again. I took a little bit of the pretzel dough and rolled it into the ball and gave some to each kid. I was hoping Gwen would be a big help with this project, but she got very frustrated when the things didn't turn out as she expected and wanted me to do it...Nate just jumped right in there and made the same shape over and over again, a snake, and then he would kind of throw it on the cookie sheet and say "Bam, a snake". It was quite hilarious. Here is a before picture:

After:

I attempted to make them actually look like pretzels, but it was a little more challenging than I expected. I guess with practice, I might be able to get some that look ok.

Here is the recipe, it is from the cookbook Petit Appetit:Eat, Drink and be Merry....by Lisa Barnes I highly recommend it if you are looking for Easy Organic snacks, I've made some good things from it...they have it at the local library.

Halloween bike ride

2011-11-03T21:40:00.001-04:00

My husband sometimes gets hair brained ideas. Usually he was instigated by his friend and they would do these things together. But his friend lives too far away now, so he has to work on these things by himself. And it is not these things that are so hair-brained, it is that he finds things at the last minute and doesn't have time to train. He decided to do a 100 mile bike ride. Sure he rides 4 miles everyday, but he didn't train. My Mom was visiting so letting him spend the day doing what he wanted seemed fine. The race started at 8:30 in the morning and he woke me up to take him to the race. He called periodically and gave us updates, sadly that day started out terrible. It was rainy and kind of cold, but Eric persevered. He sadly was unable to keep up the pace to do the 100 miles, and so ended up doing 62, which I'd said wasn't bad for the day. We all went down to pick him up, but Nate fell asleep in the car, so Mom sat with him. I snapped this picture of Eric just before the finish line.

I am happy to report that Eric didn't finish last and got a beer and some pizza. We are very proud of him and enjoyed teasing him the next day when he walked like he had been riding a horse.

Teepee

2011-11-02T19:35:00.003-04:00

A couple weeks ago I tried to post this and the pictures wouldn't work, I'll try it again. A couple months ago we had a storm, maybe a hurricane, not real strong for us, but sadly the neighbor lost a part of her tree. Eric thought it would be fun to help her saw it up. We decided to salvage the wood we could for firewood and make a "teepee" for the kids. The kids enjoyed playing in their "teepee".

Nate makes a LOT of faces now when he has something to say. The boy is crazy.

Halloween

2011-11-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

My Momma came for a visit, she appears to enjoy spending time with the kids for Halloween, might be the childlike wonder, or the free candy after walking around the neighborhood in the "COLD", or it could just be because she likes to visit and this is as good of a time as any! We don't question, we enjoy, you should too, because without her being here, we might not have any pictures, so when you look at the slideshow, thank my Momma! This year was a big year for us, we had Halloween Carnival at Gwen's school, the kids always love that, we had a party at Eric's boss's house, we had a neighborhood party and then we the actual event. Let's just say the kids got plenty of use out of their costumes. Gwen actually wore her costume again today. So, Friday we had the Halloween Carnival, Grandmom had wanted to do something special for the kids for Halloween so she pre-purchased the tickets for them. (Thanks Grandmom!) The kids really love this event. The school is completely transformed and each class is in charge of different activities. Gwen's class was in charge of the ticket booth, which meant I was in charge of the ticket booth, which truly wasn't that hard, but probably would have been easier if Gwen had a bigger class and everyone came! But, whatever it all worked out. We didn't actually bring our camera for that so we have no pictures, which is too bad because Nate and Gwen got on the twirly bird by themselves, this year it was a single seater and the went with 2 bigger girls and had a great time, Nate was just a smiling and a laughing. He kept trying to twirl the thing around. But he really had the most fun on the bouncy maze while Gwen and Eric did the climbing wall. Nate seriously went 15 times in a row. The next night was Eric's boss's Halloween party, costumes mandatory. Mom was kind enough to help plan the costumes and make me a poodle skirt, sadly no one knew what we were...We had a good time, but it was another late night for the kids. Dinner, was served, I have no idea what it was, but it was good! Sunday afternoon our neighborhood had a party, we went to that also. They had a bouncy house, free pony rides, cotton candy, all free, all good fun for the kids. We chose to walk and on the way home Nate fell asleep and didn't wake up until the next day! I tried valiantly to wake him up for dinner, but he just wasn't having it, so we let him sleep. Then Monday was of course Halloween! 48 and rainy, my Mom was thrilled! We invited some friends over since there neighborhood is "lame", the kids wimped out before we hit the whole neighborhood, but we were treating for an hour, and they got plenty of candy, so it is all good! All and all a good weekend for them, now I just have to get more activities in line for Christmas, since Halloween seems packed with activities! So, without further ado, the slideshow!

Halloween2011 - free slideshow

Wedding weekend

2011-10-18T19:42:00.003-04:00

I have been pretty busy lately and I think that this past weekend and the preparation for traveling through 9 states to get to the wedding has taken up most of my time. We chose to drive to the wedding to keep the costs down. And I have to say my kids are fabulous travelers! The drive was long; we packed new car toys in a bag, food and audiobooks. Eric drove most of the way and has vowed to not drive for a LONG time.
In good news, we had a nice time at the wedding and Eric really enjoyed spending time with his friends from college. They did a great job with the wedding and the kids really couldn't get enough of seeing their godfather and Hector and Carissa. I took some pictures, but sadly none of us in the rental car! (I wonder why that was). So, here is the slide show.

Wedding extravaganza - photo slideshow

The Kindergartener!

2011-08-25T13:45:00.005-04:00

Today was a big day for us, the oldest started Kindergarten! She has been so excited to start Kindergarten. I think she's been ready since the day after preK ended. The husband wasn't sure we should send her to preK, but on days like today I was totally sure it was the right thing to do. Gwen was already to go this morning, about 15 minutes before we had to leave, she confidently got out the car and held the 8th graders hand and went into the school.
We had a Meet-the-teacher on Sunday afternoon, where Gwen met her other classmates, her teacher and I took some pictures. Next to the birthday board.
Next to her cubby.
With her crazy brother.
On her first day of school, in her uniform!
On the way to the car.
With her brother, but who's the crazy one now?

Walking out with the eighth grader-in the background in red is her preK teacher, chatting with the Kindergarten aides. I saw her turn, spot Gwen, catch herself and turn around. It was until then that I held it together and I am going to blame her teacher on that.
Gwen only had a half day today, so Nate and I ran some errands, came home, started some laundry and went back to pick her up. You can see her in the picture walking to the steps.
She apparently had a good day. They read a book, and she talked about some stuff that happened, I think we are on par with a good day again tomorrow. She was super nervous and excited about school today. As a matter of fact we apparently decided to have a party last night between 2 & 4am. FUN! Oh wait, not fun at all, we are all exhausted. I was not pleased at all, since I had to get up and run this morning! I am going to try and put them to bed in about an hour or so. (Heh, just kidding) I did enjoy the one on one time with Nate. He was terribly clingy today, but I suspect the is the exhaustion, well that with a side of Momma's boy. I could tell he missed Gwen terribly. I don't know what I'm going to do with Nate all day, I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

What you don't want to see more video of swimming lessons?

2011-08-10T22:21:00.003-04:00

Well, too bad, we've got more! This is Gwen pushing off to a swim.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

I don't remember what this video is, but it is Gwen swimming.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Ok, this is Gwen swimming down to the other end of the pool, I took the whole way down to the other end. What I think is funny about this video is that Gwen apparently decided to pass someone and she works really hard to pass the kid, then gets to the end and is floating. Nut!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

So in this video, Gwen was supposed to jump in, and then saw me with the video camera and decided to jump off the starter block. Show off!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

These are from today, "safety day", look at the smile on that face.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Nate jumping in at the deep end, his first time!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

You are in luck, tomorrow is the last day of swim lessons! I am trying to convince Gwen to jump in on her own, no hands, she'll do it with me, why not do it with her instructor? We'll see if she will perform for the camera!

Swimming Lessons

2011-08-08T20:10:00.004-04:00

I have noticed that now that the kids are in school I realize that summer has gone a lot faster. Although it could be because we didn't really know anyone last summer and now we have friends. I decided that the kids needed swim lessons this summer, so in the last couple weeks of summer I finally got them into the lessons. And they love it!
I took some videos also, for my Mom and Eric to see their progress. Gwen and Nate are actually in the same class, there are 2 instructors and they split up the younger kids into a separate group. So they seem to be in separate classes. Gwen has improved so much, but I'll let the videos speak for themselves.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Nate swimming

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

If you listen closely, you can hear Nate squeal with delight when his teacher twirls him around.

Nate enjoying swim lessons from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Gwen floating, not thrilling, but note worthy.

Gwen floating from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Every week the "older" kids swim the length of the pool.

swimming to the deep end from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Jumping in and swimming to the edge

jumpin' in from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

After the swim lessons we go to the playground and they have water to play with, the kids love it...

After swim from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

More recent blast from the past

2011-08-07T20:38:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago on 4th of July we had the big rain storm, which canceled the fireworks. Eric and the kids decided to play in the rain. I took some videos, 'cause that's what I do!

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

The kids love playing in the rain, and apparently so does their father!

Blast from the past

2011-08-05T19:34:00.002-04:00

I have been not really posting on here, obviously, so here is a blast from the recent past. A couple months ago we decided to take the kids to a free festival at the NC fairgrounds. It was called the NC got to be festival. They had a bunch of free stuff for the kids to look at and a petting station. We had a good time, except we had to figure out how distract the children from the exorbitantly expensive ticket prices for the rides. Gwen loved the petting zoo, Nate stayed away. We watched this hilarious animal race; only hilarious because of the announcer and the kids enjoyed it. It was pretty hot for May.

Happy 4th of July

2011-07-14T20:40:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I know that the 4th of July was 10 days ago, but we know that I've been a little behind. This year we decided to take the kids to some fireworks. They've never seen fireworks before, so late for them, but this year we decided to try it. We found out that you could get into the ball game for free after the 7th inning and then stay for the fireworks. So we decided to try it. The 4th of July was going well, we got Nate down for a nap and then about 5 o'clock, it rained liked it has never rained before. And, they postponed the fireworks and the baseball game. So, we decided to try again the next night. Eric also humored the kids and got pictures of them all decked out in their red, white and blue. And apparently there was some finding of Daddy's cap and gown. We went to the game the next night-made it for the end of the 8th inning and for the fireworks. After the fireworks we ran the bases. The kids really enjoyed that!

Happy 5th birthday!

2011-07-10T20:17:00.002-04:00

Today is Gwen's 5th birthday! My oldest starts Kindergarten this year, summer is halfway over! I don't know really what to say about her. Most of the time she is a sweet, fun and great help around here. She does have times when I wonder what has happened to my sweet girl, but her brother is requiring more and more attention and I think the sweet one occasionally gets jealous and when I speak to her about it and give her some attention life gets much better. She adores Nate though and usually plays so well with him.
She is very affectionate, she especially loves babies and animals. She is planning on moving to a farm, she'd like goats and other assorted animals, which I think she has already named. Every time we see a baby she calls it a "cutie pie" and tries to help it in some way. I almost dread when the neighbors with dogs are outside because I know she will run down there to play with them and then I feel kind of awkward, because I don't really know those neighbors and then I have to make random chit-chat.
She is very timid. She needs lots of coaxing to try something new. And often times she can't be coaxed into something new. I am usually unable to coax her into stuff, which can be very frustrating. But, since going to preK she has become more confident and I am excited to see how much confidence learning to read next year will help her overcome her timidity. She is slated to spend the night at a friend's house this week. And although I am pretty sure that she can completely do it and I have the up most confidence in my friend, I will be interested to see if I get the call. I had a neighbor growing up that was often invited to spend the night and fortunately we were neighbors because it was a long time before he could make it through the whole night. I don't think I had a problem, but then again, why would I remember that? Sometimes I think if we make a big deal about something she gets more nervous. So, I've just casually mention it and telling her that she can come home if she wants or she can stay. I did mention to her today that her friend sleeps in the same room as her baby brother and her eyes just lit up with excitement, so I am thinking that might be incentive for her to stay.
I took some pictures and video of her today, opening presents and riding her bike. I have to mention she was real cautious about her bike today, which is kind of funny, since whenever we were in the store and she tried it she was all over the place with confidence. We tried to take her to the Tobacco trail today so she could get more confidence on the trail, smooth surface, no hills. But sadly, the easiest way to get there is by hooking the bikes into the bike trailer and towing the kids and the bikes behind Eric. On the way there, Gwen's bike tire was rubbing on the trailer tire and rubbed a hole into the tire and tube. Fortunately we found a new tube and Eric replaced it and as you can see from the video she was back riding the bike and racing on the street.
Here is the slideshow with pictures of her cake-which Eric made and I frosted...he made a light and fluffy cake, quite yummy, but the kids seemed to prefer my roses, which were so rich not as much cake was eaten (or maybe they were full from dinner!)

Here are 2 videos of Gwen opening presents, which I thought were quite funny-I am sad I missed the very beginning, because she received a "pop-out" card from her Godfather and she was so excited, when people asked her what she got for her birthday they mentioned the pop-out card. She has since popped out all the characters and played with them.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

These next videos are of Gwen "racing" Eric. He's not wearing shoes or a helmet and he is using my bike, I'd say it was a fair race. She used to ride down the driveway on her old bike, but she apparently needs more confidence before she can start doing that with the new bike.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Another ride...

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

My garden

2011-07-08T08:33:00.004-04:00

I thought I'd post a couple pictures from the garden, these were taken at the end of May- you see lettuce (that I think reseeded from last year), bell pepper and dill.
This is the tomato section, some of these I planted from seed, some we received for free from the farmer's market and some were moved from other sections of the garden were they apparently reseeded themselves from last year...we have Roma, cherry, big boy and purple Cherokee. This picture is also from May
This is the tomato patch from May.
This is 1 of 2 berries I got before the birds got them all! Blasted birds...I have a plan for next year though, we'll get some, next year!
This is also from May, we have beans and sunflowers in the back row, watermelon and squash in the row up from that.
Ok, so this is the watermelon now...2 plants lots of trailing going on now and i see a lot of flowers, I have found at least 1 melon growing, but I've only looked at 1 little section...I am hoping to have lots of watermelon slushies in my future!
This is the strawberry patch now, you can see we've had a lot of growth and we are having a lot of trailers that are making more strawberry plants. YAY! We are well on our way to a strawberry patch!
These are my green beans, so far I have 2 that I picked, not sure what to do with 2, next year I will have to plant more, closer together...now I know! (you can also see another tomato plant that I did not plant, but is just growing there...)
Here you can see more of the garden, you can see my sunflowers are getting big, my lettuce is going to seed, and I didn't plant any of those marigolds either.
I've decided next year I can plant some stuff closer together. I also hope that I will have some compost to go into the soil and if we keep the garden this wide, I can get at least one more row in there. I also think this year I gave the tomatoes plenty of space, but maybe they should go in the back...I am having fun planning and doing all this stuff...I just feel like I need more space! Damn reseeding marigolds, tomatoes and lettuce!

2011-07-07T21:26:00.003-04:00

I think I have mentioned that between Gwen and Nate, Gwen is more reserved, more pensive, more a watch and see kind of kid and Nate is more I LOVE THAT. We have a new found appreciation for the public library, air conditioned-age specific activities, what's not to love. Last year we participated in the summer reading contest and Eric won a prize! So we've decided to try it again. The libraries have kick-off events where you can pick up your forms and they have stuff for the kids to do and some free food. FUN! The kids decided to get their faces painted. As you can see:Gwen the ever present ham:
Nate-he was so proud! He told her he wanted to be Captain America, she asked him if he had a red mask and white stars. I should have videoed his reaction he was like "YEAH". I know that you can't really tell that is who he is.
Today we got the met the mail man as he was delivering mail, sadly I did not know that Gwen was going to receive a little package from Grandma. I have successfully hiding all the cards, but when the mail man hands it to her, what was I to do? I gave her the choice to open now or on her birthday. She obviously chose to open it immediately. Then proceeded to put everything on. I made her pose with all the stuff on so I could take a picture so Grandma could see it...
If you look closely you will see 4 headbands and a skirt. Sure I probably shouldn't have let her open it today, but we are 3 days to her birthday and you can't say no to the birthday girl, can you?

Hi! How've you been?

2011-07-06T22:11:00.003-04:00

I'd like to say we've been really busy, but I am not sure we have been really busy. Mom was here, then she wasn't, then we did Vacation Bible School. And now we are done with Fourth of July and almost to Gwen's birthday! I know, summer is almost over and I have pictures that I haven't even posted. I have been feeling like I haven't been finishing anything and have projects weighing on me, I guess not necessarily anything I can say hey guess what I did, but piles of crap that I have to accomplish are not still there, so YAY me. But that doesn't leave much time for blogging. So, maybe I will start blogging more, but I can't make any promises!
The kids have recently received lots of cash and since we don't often splurge on them or buy them anything Eric decided to just take them to Target and let them pick something out. Here is what they picked out:Nate sure gave lots of people in Target smiles, he almost ran through the store yelling "I AM CAPTAIN AMERICA". He might have added sound effects at the end, you never know with that boy! He definitely is a very vocal boy, and has no problem showing every emotion and letting us know about it. Seriously like to yell excitedly about stuff, I don't know where he gets it from, cause Eric Gwen, and I aren't like that. But he certainly keeps the older generation entertained, it is kind of fun to walk a little behind Nate and watch the wake of smiles he produces. I also find myself talking to a lot of random people who seem to feel the need to talk to me about his enthusiasm/energy level.
I made Gwen pose with all her accessories. Ok, so I didn't have to beg this time, she willingly went over and posed.
We were hoping to throw her a princess tea with her best girlfriend whose birthday is 4 days after hers, but all the other girls from her class will be out of town, so we've scrapped the idea and we are going to just do family thing together. Maybe we'll do something more later. Gwen isn't super princessy anymore but since we were planning the tea, I encouraged her to get the accessories also. She hasn't really worn the whole thing together, but I often see her fussing over the tiara, bending it back so it is just so (that is how you know it is high quality!). Purple is her new favorite color, if you must know!

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T12:43:00.003-04:00

to my babies' Daddy and to all the Fathers out there. What do you think, do they look alike? I have heard people say they think they look alike.

New bike

2011-06-15T18:40:00.002-04:00

Today I am going to post the videos I took of Nate riding his new bike. I seriously can't keep up with him, I had to run next to him! I am noticing his balance, if the bike begins to tip to one side he can usual compensate for it. Today he had his first hit the pavement with his chin spill. He was ticked, but he hopped right back on. To watch him "fall" off his bike is something kind of funny that I can't describe, one day I hope to get them on video. Gwen had the idea to attach her stroller to her bike so her bear could go for a ride, so I took some video of that also, because I thought it was so sweet.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Happy 3rd birthday!

2011-06-11T20:02:00.003-04:00

Today is Nate's 3rd birthday! It is so hard to believe he is 3, mostly because he's talked like a 3 year old for several months now. He's also now day potty trained, which you don't often see in 3 year old boys. He is much improved this year. We are still suffering through a boy who does not nap but probably should, but who would want to nap when there is so much fun going on during the day with Gwen home.
He is quite a sweet boy. He has his favorite people and he gives them leg hugs and such. He still gives a good hug and kiss to all of us, he loves to cuddle for sure.
As I've mentioned he is a very good talker and seems to be very smart. It will be interesting to see if that translates well to book smart. He is a very active boy and has to be watched all the time! He also seems to be very musical. He always wants to listen to music and often plays the piano or the guitar or whatever.
Today has been a very good day for the birthday boy. We decorated the house up and woke up to the sounds of Gwen yelling about balloons. Nate has been walking around all day declaring "it is my birthday!" He seemed to love all his presents and is so aggreable and happy that we all had a lovely day. His godmother and her daughter were able to come up and join us for the afternoon, which was lovely. And although we could not find Nate's "Speed" car to put on his cake, he loved it nonetheless! He is currently camping outside in the new tent he and Gwen have received for their birthdays! Here is a slideshow from today. Enjoy!

The videos-preK graduation

2011-05-28T18:59:00.004-04:00

I have uploaded all the videos, they are all less than 5 minutes, some have several songs some have just a couple. I have only viewed the first one, I might eventually go back through and watch them all, but wanted to get them posted, in case someone out there is like, "I can't wait to see the videos!"

Halloween & Thanksgiving songs from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

I have to give credit to Eric for most of the videos, I think I might have done 1 or 2 of them, and probably the ones that you missed the beginning of because I was like, oh, I'd like to video this one!

preK graduation

2011-05-28T14:02:00.003-04:00

Before my sweet Mother's head explodes from the excitement of seeing Gwen's preK graduation I thought I would post the pictures. (Ha! I'm just kidding, she is excited to see them for sure, but she won't be able to see them because she doesn't have an internet connection currently, so this will be a nice surprise for her!) We also have several videos to post, but that will take longer, so for now pictures of my sweet girl. I took pictures of her on her last day of school, just as I did on the first day of school. She looks so different! If you'd like to compare, here is the post about the first day of PreK.

On Thursday was the end of the year ceremony, "graduation" if you will. The kids performed all the songs they had learned throughout the school year. I think it was 10 songs, I am too lazy to go count, sorry. They did seasonal songs and Jesus songs and fun songs. The kids were really funny, some had stage fright and some half participated, but they were cute! After their performance we went back to the classroom where we had refreshments and gathered all the stuff they had for us, including their graduation certificate. They also gave 100 picture album book stuffed with pictures of Gwen and her friends throughout the year. Then we said goodbye to her friends and teachers (sadly one of her teachers couldn't make it, she was in Ohio watching her son become a Capt. in the Air Force).
Gwen seemed fine about school ending but Friday evening she became pretty upset. She was showing Grandma the pictures from her photo album over Skype and I guess she realized how much was going to miss her "kids" and her teachers; she started crying about how much she missed her teachers. I coaxed her into making a card to her teacher that we could deliver to the school. She was still upset but sat in Daddy's lap and started the card before dinner. Both kids were incredibly tired so we put them to bed early and it was very quiet in there and I went to check on Gwen and she still had tears in her eyes and had her photo album opened to her teachers' pages. She was also kissing their pictures. Poor sweet child! Guess we have to work a little on transitions with her.

A post only my Mother can appreciate

2011-05-27T14:49:00.002-04:00

I have been spending a lot of time focusing on my Dad, so I thought I would do a post my Mom would enjoy! I asked Gwen to clean up their room this morning and this is what I saw, I quickly ran the vacuum through thereI then opened the closet and found this:
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and thank goodness Gwen's bed is on the floor and not on the bed rails!

Here's a story within a story that doesn't at all involve my kids!

2011-05-26T18:35:00.003-04:00

I mentioned the jury ~~duty~~ service thing that I had the other day a couple things to note. First they made a big production of the fact that you are doing your civil service and we shouldn't call it jury duty. It was quite humorous, judges, clerks all called it jury service as jury duty had gone through a PR campaign and the powers that be had decided that changing the name was going to make it more appealing to North Carolinians. HA!
Ok, so that totally wasn't the point of the story, more a digression. Have I mentioned I have signed up for a half marathon? No, well I have, my training partner and I are going to run 13.1 miles in Oct! She is very confident that we will make it, I am trying to figure out if she is going to notice if I walk the whole time. But, we've made it to 30 minutes of running which is more than I have ever done in my life and if I could just run somewhere with no humidity I think I could run for hours.
But, I digress again, so back to jury ~~duty~~ service. I immediately get selected to be in the jury pool for a trial. So we proceed to the courtroom where we get the spiel from the judge and he has the court clerk call out 12 people to sit in the jury box. So far so good, I'm not called! The judge asks the 12 to tell a little background information: married/single, employment, spouse employment, where in the county you live, etc. Everyone goes through there info and we get to juror number 7 and he gives us his neighborhood. Right then I think that is odd, is the judge from Wake County supposed to know where that is? I certainly have never heard of this "transitional neighborhood" before. The judge turns the questioning over to the ADA and she starts asking a bunch of questions, at first the questions are routine, do you know anyone here in the courtroom, any of the witnesses, etc. But then they have to get into the more personal stuff, will you be able to be unbiased? Through this process people answer questions and a couple get removed for "cause". Whatever but juror number 7 must realize he is going to be on this jury and he's got to put the heat on, because he doesn't want to be here, so whenever he feels that it is appropriate he talks about his "transitional neighborhood" and maybe he feels like the victim looks familiar, but he isn't sure and if this crime happened in his neighborhood he would have to side with the defendant. The ADA asks him if he knows where the address the crime took place is at and he says no, but if it was in his neighborhood...blah, blah blah. He was like broken record and I kind of wanted to stand up and yell, "we understand you don't want to be on the jury, tell them you can't be biased" At this point we had been sitting in the courtroom for an hour or so, I was done! The ADA finishes up, he spews his crap at least one more time and she kicks off a juror and then has to start again. But is satisfied so the defense attorney starts his spiel, which actually was humorous. He started out saying who he was and if the selected jurors had ever heard of him, or his law partner, or seen advertisements for his business, in case someone had a bad opinion of him or his practice/who he represented. The whole way it played out was funny, because it seemed so cocky, and like he was shocked no one had heard of him. So he gets to juror number 7 and says "it sounds to me like you really would like to serve on this jury, but you feel like you can't be unbiased", all polite and political like. And the guy starts again, well you know if this happened in my neighborhood...blah, blah, blah. It kind of went around and around for a couple minutes, which was funny and then the defense attorney finally got him dismissed and put us out of our misery. Thank goodness!
What strikes me as funny is I couldn't remember the name of the neighborhood, he said it like 5 times, so you'd think I would remember, but I didn't. Today I was trying to look up the course elevation profile to send to a friend complaining about the elevations of a 10 miler she was thinking of running (which is 3.1 miles less than what I signed up for, and she's a runner!) I found the course map; low and behold I get to run very near that damn transitional neighborhood, "Walltown"! Lucky me, I guess now I know where it is and I'll be able to talk about its transitionalness. Lucky me!

Ironic

2011-05-26T15:07:00.002-04:00

This was an unusual week for us here. I had jury duty service on Tues, which is kind of fitting if you knew my Dad. The story goes he was called for jury duty the day before inventory which was a day he had to be at work for, he tried to change it, but they wouldn't let them. He had some choice words for the judge, or so the story goes. Now that I was in the jury pool for NC I can judge some different areas of service. Each state has it's own process and at this point I am saying I liked AL process the best, it seemed to go much faster and they didn't tell you if you were an alternate until the jurors went to deliberate. Which actually is awesome because you pay attention but if I was an alternate and knew it I would probably not place as close attention. I think that the only problem with jury service is they don't let you change your date. I was very concerned I was going to get called to a trial and not have childcare. I think all states should excuse Moms like me who state at home, had to rely on a friend to selflessly talk my children all day, with not much else but my thanks!
Today was Gwen's preschool graduation. They sang all the songs they learned though out the year. We sat in the music room and listened to their "performance" Eric got some video, which I hope to post some time soon. They didn't have the hand out the certificates and wear the caps and gowns. I am cool with that, they are only 4 after all and while it is cute, it is not necessary, because really all it does is make everyone cry and act silly. With this week, I am sure I would have cried and I did cry when Gwen's teacher blubbered over her class gift. (the kids laid down on the ground in the letters spelling out her name. It appears almost all of Gwen's classmates will be returning in the fall, one girl and her family are moving, but everyone else will be there next year. So our summer has begun. And at this point we really don't have anything on the agenda! YAY!

5 years

2011-05-25T21:17:00.003-04:00

I have been trying to come on here and post but have not had the words. I finally realized why, 5 years today. So, I guess I will post about that. I am still a bit distracted, but I guess I will try to type out how I feel.
A couple days ago I thought, I'd like to talk to Dad about that. This is random and not usual for me and I suspect if I figured it out, it would be one of the "significant" days of Dad's last days that subconsciously remembering. It was actually then that I realized I started several posts and hadn't finished them.
As I was thinking of my Dad today I was wondering if my ideas and thoughts about him are getting romanticized, which I guess is what happens when you don't get to talk to people, you remember the good times and forget the bad, you remember things differently. I have been considering what Dad and I would talk about today. And I have had a good giggle, when I think about how I would lament the damn bunny that is getting into my garden STILL and he would talk about the squirrel that is climbing on the pool enclosure. Then we would talk about Uncle Jack and how he would give the squirrels a ride in his town car in his humane traps.
I have determined it doesn't matter if the death of a parent is expected or not, it still is an adjustment and difficult. And just when you think you are fine a little something will sneak up on you, but fortunately those moments are few and far between for me now. Of course the problem is that you never know when things are going to sneak up on you. I suspect I will always have some kind of funk around this time, some years worse than others, but I still have my Momma left to talk to about it and although I imagine the depths of her pain are worse than mine it is nice to be able to say "How you doing?" and to have someone to share how your feeling without having to say "since Dad died".

Strawberry picking

2011-05-10T18:48:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago we went strawberry picking at a local field, since that darn rabbit was eating all our strawberries! We had a good time and filled 1 basket. We haven't been back, but will probably go soon...they were delicious!
Nate started out really good, but he soon realized that he could eat them, so his production wore off pretty quickly.
Gwen also didn't work as hard as year's past, but she did her fair share and eat a few too!
They also have a sandbox and these picture things that I couldn't get the kids to pose for in 1 together, so they did them separately. Crazy kids!

Gwen was quite obsessed riding this thing. Luckily some little kids came on and joined her and Nate. Her morning was then complete!
It was a fun spring break activity!

The garden

2011-05-08T19:20:00.003-04:00

I thought a fitting post for Mother's Day would be a post about my garden. Happy Mother's day! We are experimenting with a garden again this year. The garden last year did pretty well and Gwen came home from school with some plants they grew in science class, so we planted them in the garden! Sadly, a bunny has been taunting us, we have been eating dinner outside and a rabbit has been sitting on the "hill", waiting for us to finish our dinner so he can start us. When the rabbit started eating the leaves off Gwen's stuff from the garden I had enough, and we went to the store and got chicken wire and random post type things and Eric fashioned an enclosure.
Sure it is tacky and whatever but at least it is keeping the bunny out! That is all I really care about...sure it looks like nothing in this picture, but now all those spots have something popping up. And, you can see at the very right side of the picture, our lettuce which is growing in the grass! (Note, when having the kids help you with the lettuce planting, don't hold the seed packet over the grass)
Here is our awesome strawberry patch, that I am hoping that will recover from the rabbit eating all the leaves and we will actually get some strawberries to eat.
Hope everyone had a happy Mother's day. We had a nice day, the kids were sweet, the husband made a nice dinner and I got to take a nap and celebrate a good friend's baby get Baptized. A good day!

Poor boy

2011-05-06T20:11:00.004-04:00

I feel pretty sorry for the little guy, his sister makes him be a little sister or a baby. The little guy seems to have allergies and this terrible cough, chesty and with clear mucous. He had the same thing last year at this time, even though the doctors told me last year it was cold after cold, he was too young to be diagnosed for allergies. So today, poor kid was tired and this happened.Bless his little tired heart!
It was at this point I decided to put him in his room! What if he fell of his chair?
He has been coughing a lot at night, so I suspect his sleep at night hasn't been very good. Poor kid...guess we should figure out what to do about the allergies!

my luck

2011-05-06T12:56:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking, it is time to do a how my kids have matured post. My kids are at the age that is really great. At this point they genuinely like each other and I used to separate them for quiet time, but it is working better to keep them together. Nate would just trash the bedroom and Gwen would be bored and keep bothering me. They would be whining and fighting in the car, so I thought maybe they need time apart...apparently not, they need time away from me. I am cool with that, Gwen is enough of a tattle tale that if Nate gets into something she lets me know. It is a good system!Gwen has blossomed, as her teachers at school tell me. She is quite the sweet little girl. She is becoming more independent and often makes lovely conversation, for her age. She is coming along in the writing department. I think she has a long way to go, but as a right hander I keep out of it, so I don't confuse her poor left handedness. She is in a lovely phase where she will ask me to spell things out for her and she will right them down. She knows some "sight" words, I was rather shocked to see that, but very proud of her. While she was on spring break I brought her to Bible Study and she had all those little boys playing games and being quiet and mostly out of trouble. She has no problem being in charge. But, I think she sometimes just watches a lot especially if someone else is in charge and she doesn't want to do what they are doing. She seems to not always stand up for herself, if no one has taken the lead she will, but won't always defend herself, so we will have to work on that a little. I don't want her beating up on people, but I'd like her to learn not everyone will do what she wants to do all the time so she's not such a sore loser. I am sure that will come in time!
Gwen and Nate are definitely in a lovely phase of getting along, it certainly makes my life easier that they genuinely like each other and want to hang out together. I have noticed that now that Nate has gotten older the playing is getting a little rougher, plus Nate's I don't care attitude about bugs/insects is really having a good influence on Gwen the "AHHHHHHHH A BUG" screaming phase is tapering. She doesn't always love the insects but she often says "oh what a cute caterpillar...." I am afraid we might have bugs coming into the house, because my children bring them into the house! I am not looking forward to that at all.
Nate is something else; a real charmer! He has all the ladies fooled. He is mostly potty trained, unless he is particularly tired, (apparently like today). He only seems to have accidents at home though, so I am pretty happy about that. Well not really happy about it, until I just typed it out just now and have to say, if he's going to have an accident anywhere I'd rather it be at home then when we are out somewhere. He is a talker and he loves music, if he could sing and listen to music all day, he would. He is a little crazed sometimes, but he seems to be pretty smart and sometimes follows directions the first time you tell him...that is of course if he isn't tired, hungry, or has to pee! He is sweet and affectionate. He gives anyone he knows hugs and kisses.
In other news, my kids are obsessed with pets. They pretend to be dogs and lap water out of bowls/cups, whatever. They walk each other on leashes. It is quite cute. I guess one day we'll have to get them a pet. Probably won't be for a few years yet.

Easter pictures

2011-05-03T21:21:00.004-04:00

These aren't the last of the Easter pictures, as I was looking at the pictures I realized some were missing. It finally dawned on me that some of the pictures are on the old camera...so eventually I will get the egg dying on here, possibly, we'll see! Eric's school had an Easter Egg Hunt, it ended up only being a few kids (5) and they hid 150 eggs. Let's just say that the kids got a lot of chocolate! The weather was iffy and I guess people were scared it was going to rain, it didn't. Sadly we forgot to bring their baskets so we got some boxes from Eric's work.
Here is a picture of the kids with the "Easter Bunny"
The kids got up Easter morning and did their home egg hunt, but sadly because of Gwen's attire we won't be posting any pictures of her...but enjoy the pictures of Nate!

Holy man, it was hard to get them to find their baskets, they just didn't get it. I kept trying to get them to find them, but they were more interested in the eggs. Finally they found them. Here is Nate working on his puzzle.
We had a nice Easter dinner, Gwen helped me ice with the cake. I didn't get to that to mid-day on Sunday. But it didn't matter, it was yummy and it was done in time for desert!
Hopefully I will get to the last Easter post sometime soon!

The project

2011-05-02T20:00:00.003-04:00

I decided that while Gwen was on spring break we should do a project. We went to the store, picked out some beads and a cross and everyday until spring break she asked if we could make her Rosary. So, first thing Holy Thursday we made her Rosary. As you can see she dressed for the occasion and wore her baby on her back. (in her homemade sling-type thing) Nate enjoyed playing with the beads.
Here she is hard at work.I think Nate took this picture!
Here she is proudly showing her Rosary.
Some of the beads weren't the easiest for her to get on, so I had to help her, the Rosary is kind of gaudy, but she's 4 and she likes it and is proud of it.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T13:05:00.004-04:00

We have had a busy couple of weeks leading up to Easter. Our Mom's group at Church decided to do an Easter Egg Hunt, so we have been busy with that. I also decided to attend the whole Triduum, which means I have been out late. I usually only attend the first 2 days of the Triduum since I take the kids in the morning to Church, but this year decided to do it all! We also had an Easter Egg Hunt today and yesterday. Wow! Busy! I am posting some pictures from last week's Easter Egg Hunt. For you to enjoy. The kids decked out in their Easter finest!
Some of the teens decided to play duck, duck, goose with the kids, while the eggs were being hidden. Gwen didn't want to and Nate was super excited to play. He totally didn't understand and ran every time someone said "goose". He as usual brought smiles and laughs to everyone there!
Nate getting some eggs, he is pretty good at it now!
The kids seem to be having a good Easter, we will be eating early afternoon and they are SO excited to eat more candy and they seem pretty happy with their puzzles and new game. Happy Easter everyone.

The marathon

2011-04-12T21:08:00.004-04:00

The epic battle, potty training. It is not that terrible, the problem is that while I have a urgency to get done with the potty training, Nate doesn't care, he is 2 after all and to him so what Mom is always doing laundry and is washing the floor more than usual. He doesn't care. He is not trying to be ugly or contrary. I am convinced he can do it and he knows what he is doing, but as with everything else, as he starts to get tired and hungry all of our training goes out the window. He does awesome in the morning, it is in the afternoon we have all our accidents. Of course as with everything with Nate it is a rather humorous prospect, I am sure lucky that Nate is the second child and Gwen broke me in to the whole epic nature of the "potty training experience". I am not as frustrated and take it all in stride. I think we are getting close, we only had the one accident and he apparently pooped in the potty today (unlike yesterday when he pooped on top of the potty). But we have all learned that when Nate poop on the potty come get Mommy because Mommy needs to help wipe. (she doesn't want to continue to wipe up poop from places that aren't your butt). I have also learned that boys need way more underpants for "practice" than girls. Nate is pretty good about sitting on the potty and pointing, but man the aiming thing doesn't always go as planned. I don't understand why and I am not sure I want to, but needless to say, we change underpants A LOT even though we don't have that many accidents. He only has that problem at home though. So this weekend we got another 7 pack, Nate is pretty excited.
He took them all out and put them on his head, and told us he was Mater! This weekend we helped with the Used book sale at school, this is Eric's type of activity. I signed him up to clean up and we went a little early and he bought a lot of books and talked about it all weekend. While we were there we looked at Gwen's classroom, I don't know if you can read her praying hands...
it says "I pray for Lana's dog Chewy and my family and my Uncle Eric". What is funny is we do special intentions everyday and we pray for our friends and their dog who has been deceased over a year, they've never met the dog, but we pray for him, everyday!
I think I have previously mentioned my free tulips and I think it is kind of funny that I planted all these tulips and I got all the pink on one side and all the yellow on the other. But these last to pop up are so pretty I made the kids pose in front of them. I think you can see we chopped off Gwen's hair! She wanted it to be short like her friend's I am pretty excited about it, she looks cute and so much easier to maintain!

Big Day

2011-04-08T20:21:00.004-04:00

We aren't that far from Raleigh, so one Sunday after Church I suggested we drive there and take the kids to the museums and the Capital. The kids have been begging to go the museum, so we went. A couple weekends ago. We brought the carrier with us, the kids enjoyed it, here are some pictures from the Natural History Museum. Here they are listening to facts about great NC sports figures.
Here is Nate riding in the canoe, who knew he was allowed to climb in there! Gwen was too chicken to do it, but a museum employee said you want to get in, Nate said sure!
We went to a guided tour of the State Capital. Eric didn't think it was that impressive. But we did get to sit in the seats.
Apparently the Capital building burned down, but one of the things they managed to save was this picture of George Washington, I think it is one of 3 paintings of him. She said it was very heavy!
This was a the other side, I don't remember which side was which! We got to go upstairs and see from top...we thought it was interesting because 2 newspaper reporters sat right up front.
I took a picture of where people could come and sit and watch. It looks fairly uncomfortable.

We also thought this was interesting, apparently they wanted a sculpture of George Washington, they asked Thomas Jefferson who he suggested. He suggested a guy from France who had never met George Washington, and the portrait that was sent never made it, he found a bust of George Washington and was inspired to make him look like Mars, the god of war.
Apparently the men tried to get this out, but it was too large to fit through the door. Fortunately, they were able to re-create this gem for our Capital!

Update

2011-04-07T18:16:00.003-04:00

We have been very busy around here the last couple of weeks. Nate showed an interest in potty training and like Gwen I think like Gwen he would do much better if I just let him go with it. It seems to me if I ask him to go and he goes then he forgets to tell me. But then I have issues now like today when he pooped in his underpants (again) and he tried to clean it up. He pooped in his pants yesterday and fortunately I noticed almost immediately. But, sadly today he pooped during quiet time. I made him go potty before we went for a walk this afternoon and today he peed on himself during dinner. So I put him in a diaper! I know that is the wrong thing to do, but I can't handle any more laundry. He is totally able to be potty trained and he has the desire and most of the signs and I want to get it done, but I am tired of the laundry. I don't have any patience for this part of the process especially since he has days when he has no accidents. I just don't know what to do. We will be gone most of the morning again tomorrow so I haven't decided if I want to just let it go with underpants or if I am going put him in diapers and wait until later. This is the part of parenting I am not fond of, maybe I should have read up on a parenting book or something on potty training, because I am obviously no expert.
I seem to be having a random bad week where I break dishes and I get peed on and it generally makes the week frustrating. Sure they have been great moments but generally things just aren't going my way this week. Which happens to everyone on occasion. So, we will see what next week brings, it is going to be a quieter week, I think.

New bike

2011-03-31T20:39:00.002-04:00

The other day, ok maybe a couple weeks ago I saw my neighbor throwing this out in the trash.
I thought why let that go to waste, so I picked it out of the trash. (It was on the top) I thought even if it didn't work for Nate we could give it to one of my friends' kids. Nate loves the thing and uses it all the time. He uses the pedals unlike the other bike we have, so I guess we will keep it. He won't even let Gwen use it.

New trike from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Round 2!

2011-03-30T22:02:00.002-04:00

I'm in the midst of potty training number 2.To be sure, I am not the only one potty training this time, Gwen seems to be doing a lot of the work for me. We have been very busy, I don't think Nate and I spend that much time at home anymore, which makes the potty training difficult. Nate totally gets it, which makes this time easier. Last week he just said I've got to go potty, Gwen took him to the potty and took care of it, awesome! She also fielded the pottying today during nap time. Which was great because I could only tolerate so much of sitting on the potty after the terrible ride home!
I have learned this time around to wait until he is ready and shows an interest, have the underpants that he is going to be excited to wear waiting for when he is ready and to not freak out when there are accidents. So, I seem to have no down time these days, HOPEFULLY next week will be quiet and we will be home or something, but I suspect it won't be. Does anybody else look back to the days where the kids and I had nothing to do and no where to go and think gosh was I bored? I think I am looking forward to summer...it will be much less running around and I might be able to be productive and on a schedule again...

A conversation

2011-03-22T19:43:00.002-04:00

Gwen: Can you share the book with me?
Nate: NO!
Gwen: If you don't share it with me I won't get married to you or play with you at bedtime.
Mom: Gwen, you have to make the consequences something more attainable.
Silence
Gwen: Nate can I have the pirate book?
Nate: This book?
Gwen: Yes!
Nate: YES!
Gwen: Thanks!
Nate: Will you still marry me?

I guess they still like each other...

Spring!

2011-03-18T21:23:00.003-04:00

Have I mentioned my husband loves living here? He thinks that the early spring we get here is awesome. This year I was able to secure us some free tulips and I planted them last fall. They are really pretty. It is supposed to be a random assortment and it seems I have put all the pink ones together, at least of the 3 that have bloomed so far they are all pink.

I think they are very pretty, the best free thing I have secured...

St. Patty's Day

2011-03-17T21:25:00.004-04:00

I have been incredibly busy, so busy, I've been exhausted and haven't had much time to blog, but I have pictures and things to talk about. Today is the first day in my recent memory that Nate and I had nothing to do this morning. It was lovely, we ate breakfast, first for one of us, second for one us, I'll let you guess which one. So we read some books, sorted some laundry, and this is where the problem began. Our house is tiny, so I can see him from the bedroom in the kitchen. He was playing with the closed vitamin bottles, shaking them while listening to the music, so I was keeping a pretty good eye on him, but what I didn't realize is there was a marker attached to the refrigerator, that he could reach and then he yelled look 2 red ones, and I freaked out thinking he figured out how to get the last 2 (red) vitamins out of the bottle. I saw this:So then we took some pictures of his "work".
Then I decided maybe we should enjoy some outside time. Nate was in agreement so we went for a walk. Nate went for a little run down the hill and in the field. He had a good time. Here you can see more of the "damage".
I decided to do something fun for St. Patty's Day. I am not a huge fan of beef...and the other day we were at a grocery store that was giving samples of corned beef, neither of the kids liked it, I thought why make a meal they won't eat anyway. So I decided to make an all green meal. I was even going to make green cupcakes, but changed my mind...maybe some other time. So today I made green noodles, cabbage and green smoothies. The green smoothies were a hit, although Eric was doubtful. Seriously could not taste the spinach, just tasted like a banana smoothie and I got some spinach in Gwen...score! Man who knew you could sneak veggies into smoothies and you can't even tell!
The kids were distracted by the ability to sit outside and eat for the first time this season.
And, Nate asked to go to bed at 6:30! You can tell that I might have had him outside too much today. He even took a nap. I guess drawing all over yourself with permanent marker will tire a boy out...(and no I didn't wash it off him, I mean if you go through that much effort, you might as well wear it all day with pride)

Dance, dance, dance

2011-03-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

My Momma completed her first complete week back to work after her football injury, so I thought she'd like to see some videos of the kids...mostly Nate dancing. Because I am pretty sure there is nothing cuter than Nate dancing. He is definitely my musical child and sometimes while Gwen is at school he sits on my lap and I play the piano, it doesn't last long before he is sitting next to me playing his own tune. But it is not something I did with Gwen, Nate enjoys it though.
First I give you "Charlie Brown song" as Nate calls it. His current loves are Zip-a-dee-doo-dah and Linus and Lucy. He asks me to play them all the time. This is a back view, because he likes to look at the iPod as it plays, I don't know why, I guess he likes to be close to the speakers...

Charlie brown dancing from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Our next video is from after dinner (well for everyone but Eric). We don't usually listen to music while we eat, but today we did and when this song came on Nate said "I don't like it, another song" the refrain of my life...but then the song continued to play and I said "Daddy likes this song" Nate decided, it must not be a bad song...he certainly doesn't have that reaction when I tell him I want to listen to a song.

Superstition from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

His sister as you can see couldn't handle he was possibly getting his picture taken and she wasn't in frame, so she joined in, slightly obnoxiously, but whatever, Friday night dance party at our house! The hilarious part of the story is that Nate totally sings this song now "There is superstition driving down the wall" I don't know where superstition is going but sadly he doesn't know more of the words. Guess we will be listening to that song more so he can learn the words!

Visiting

2011-03-10T14:07:00.004-05:00

This weekend we had a visit from the godfather and his girlfriend. We have not met this girlfriend before and were excited to finally meet her. The kids where SO excited to see the godfather they could hardly contain themselves...although I think Eric doing the countdown every night at bedtime contributed to their being so pumped! They flew in and stayed for several days. It was nice to see the godfather again and to meet the girlfriend. She seems very nice. I didn't take near as many pictures as I should have. At one point I thought, I should really pull at the camera, but sadly it stayed a thought, so I missed so great pictures, so I think.
Friday was a quiet day, picking up from the airport. The kids playing with Uncle Eric and Ms. Bruschi, board games, outdoor games. Fun! There was bowling, a night out alone for Eric and I, a trip to the Mall and a trip to the Botanical Gardens. I think everyone had fun. Here is a slide show for your viewing pleasure.

King Cake Day

2011-03-08T20:48:00.003-05:00

Gwen came home from school today all fired up! She has been so excited about Mardi Gras today "SHE HAD A PARTY AND GOT A BALLOON AND MADE A MASK AND SHE GOT A BABY JESUS!" So I decided to make a King Cake, we had the baby Jesus after all. We've never made a King Cake before, but what the heck, I knew I had a recipe somewhere. It took me a while to find the recipe, but I did and we made the King Cake. The kids where very excited and helped. I remembered to take pictures. Gwen was very excited to place the baby in the cake, well not at first, but I assured her the baby would stay warm in the cake. Seemed weird, but she's 4 and well she was like ok and went and found the baby she previously hid.

Gwen has also learned that today is the day for sweets, no sweets tomorrow. "No ice cream, pancakes, cake" and no meat tomorrow. I haven't pushed the abstinence/fasting thing with them yet, because they were too young last year. Now I don't have to go over it with her, score!

Eric's favorite video of all time!

2011-02-26T18:06:00.003-05:00

Last night I took a video that Eric just laughs and laughs and laughs when he watches it. Here is a picture teaser.

Nate is such a character, last night I was sitting on the couch and Eric calls me in and says you've got to see this, so I pull out the camera and take the above picture. I tried to get an action shot, but that didn't work, so I decided to take a video. Here is Nate, aka trouble. Hopefully he never does it again, he is likely to land on a toy and get hurt. Enjoy!

Jumping! from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Swim Lessons

2011-02-25T20:54:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to loading the swim lessons pictures, the new and improved swim lesson pictures, but new and improved I mean from last Saturday. Nate's swim instructor feels like he will be swimming soon. He has always been a kicker, and by kicker I mean even if on dry land you lift him up he kicks his feet...it is a good thing to remember about him, always!
Gwen is freaking out about putting her head under water, she wants her goggles, I don't know where they are, but she cries about it a little bit. I tell her to suck it up and put her face under...ok I don't tell her to suck it up, but I am being a little stubborn about this because she won't always have goggles and if she would just learn to keep her eyes closed she wouldn't have a problem, as a matter of fact I used to swim with my eyes opened under water without goggles as a kid, maybe I should tell her to suck it up! I guess it wouldn't help though she is rather stubborn, I don't know where she gets that from! ;) Here are last week's swimming lesson pictures, in slide show. Enjoy!

Changes

2011-02-23T21:09:00.002-05:00

Lately I have noticed some things I'd like to change in our family. Mostly I want to change Nate and Gwen's dependence on junk. It might be my fault, but I'd like to get healthier stuff in them. I guess I shouldn't have bought the cheese crackers and stuff that they've become addicted to. So, I've been looking for other types of snacks to give them that might sneak some nutrition in. Nate has been refusing to eat/try dinner so I'd like get as much healthy options in beforehand. To that end yesterday Gwen and I made granola bars. With pumpkin, apple and lots of sugar, which I guess is better than lots of preservatives. The kids really have liked the granola bars, that didn't harden up as much as I thought they would, I am wondering if it is because I made the applesauce myself and it was a little "juicier" than store bought. I also made yogurt and today we made smoothies. The kids enjoyed that also. Gwen enjoys helping me in the kitchen and my kids really like fruit. I have to figure out how to sneak some vegetables in, I think, but for now I am happy to get some good nutrition in them. I hope these small changes improve our overall health.
The kids are doing well. Nate cracks me up, he wakes up in the morning and looks like a drunken 2 year old, hilarious! He stumbles out rubbing his eyes, wobbling a little bit, hair kind of crazy. He has also decided to nap again, we are going with it because he's not 100%. I am trying to decide what to do about him. He seems to have a lot of congestion in his lungs he has a terrible random cough and a clear runny nose.
Gwen is doing well and appears to be planning her birthday party. She is funny about it she wants all the girls and then she mentions 2 boys she'd like to invite. And explains how the second little boy doesn't like princesses, but it will be ok, I am sure we can talk her into whatever we want to do, it is a long way from now. She has been rearranging Eric's bookshelf which is hilarious. Eric has painstakingly arranged his bookshelf. She can't read yet and alphabetical order doesn't mean a thing to her, she is arranging the shelf by "penguins and roosters". This goes against his plan of books he's read and books he's not read. She is so helpful!
Eric has finished one of his classes, he is gearing up for spring break and the big visit from the Godfather and his girlfriend. We are glad he is back from MD, it ended up being a rough trip for him-it took longer to fix than he expected and the car we rented had no cruise control. :(
I am working on an Easter Egg Hunt for the Parish. That is taking up some of my time. I don't have much else going on, I am just happy to no longer have a fever and can eat foods again. Some day I hope to get the pictures off the camera and post them here, but first I need to charge the camera's battery and that apparently is too big of a commitment for me! Don't worry Mom, I'll get to it soon!

The business at hand...

2011-02-19T21:56:00.002-05:00

We have been rather busy lately and I feel like the business will continue for a while. The kids are not 100%. We had swim lessons today, the kids did great. Gwen still will not dunk her head, she wants goggles, I know we have some somewhere, I just don't know where. Plus, I kind of want her to swim without the goggles and I am a little ticked at the 2 Mothers that let their kids bring their goggles, but what can you do? Nate is doing really well in swim class, his teacher thinks he will be swimming soon, he LOVES to kick. Plus I don't think he gets that irritated when he gets his face wet. Both kids took long naps today. Almost 4 hours! We let them stay up a little later and they were both exhausted and went to sleep right away. I am hoping a good night's sleep will do them well. Gwen doesn't have school on Monday, so an extra day of rest will probably do everyone some good!
Eric has to drive up to the old house tomorrow to take care of some wiring damage done by squirrels. We are a little ticked that our tenant did not let us know that there were squirrels living up there. But that's how things go, I guess.
We went to a birthday party for Gwen's classmate the other day. Now Nate keeps asking to go to Chuck E Cheese. Whenever you ask him what he wants to do, he says Chuck E Cheese. I guess you could say the boy knows what he likes and doesn't stray from it.
We have been enjoying the nice weather, we had a picnic lunch yesterday, played outside today. Gwen played with the neighbor's dog, but Nate still afraid, plus that dog barks ALOT! Gwen also held a guinea pig and now wants a guinea pig...Mommy wants nothing to do with a guinea pig! But I am glad that she does like animals, now we just have to work on Nate.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T20:02:00.001-05:00

For Valentine's day this year we decided to bake cookies for Daddy. I thought I would do this on Thursday, I don't know why, I had a 99deg fever, but for some reason felt like we should make cookies? Eric had an after work obligation, so maybe I thought I'd have more time. Sadly, when I made this decision, I had no idea that SOMEONE had used up almost all the FLOUR and the SUGAR! So I had to improvise, and well, it made for quite the interesting problem. First off, I used some wheat flour, second I left dough in the refrigerator too long, although I imagine that might have had a lot to do with the wheat flour than with the time. Also I might have forgotten to add all the wet ingredients before the dry ingredients, oh well, you have kids, things happen! I had already told the kids that I was going to have the help me roll out the dough, sadly Mommy didn't realize it would be too hard and not really stick together. Fortunately, Daddy doesn't really care about such things. And the cookie still taste the same. So lesson learned, spend more time discussing with husband how not to use up the baking supplies before "holidays" fake or not...
Today we were set to decorate and Nate was acting pretty tired/sickly he laid down in his bed and went to sleep. Sadly it was at 3:30, but he only slept 2 hours and since he was sickly, appeared to go back to bed on time-ish. Gwen and I decorated the cookies by ourselves. I will let you determine who made which ones. I decided to do Mexican for dinner tonight, not even Eric's favorite or anything, but I knew the kids would eat burritos/taquitos I fancied ours up a bit. And then for dessert I made panna cotta. It was pretty good. Here is the slideshow:

Eric asked me today, if I was completely on the mend, I told "well, when you don't have any backups you gotta get better", he thought I had looked in the mirror and willed myself better, as per my Dad's advice, who knows, it might have been both. So after 3 days of a low grade fever and hardly eating solids, I am back in the swing of things, the kids are starting to get sick, possibly. Hopefully some good nights sleep for them will get them on the path to recovery.

Some more randomness

2011-02-05T20:46:00.003-05:00

I have a couple random photos here for you to enjoy. Here's one of Nate one night right before bedtime...he looks pensive and probably is thinking of something he shouldn't be doing...Another random photo...don't know what's going on here either, I think it might be the same night...
Bedtime...
I have started working on the princesses. It is more challenging than the Toy Story series. I think this is for several reasons, one the wall is bright pink! Second, the paint on the wall is eggshell as opposed to flat. The colors don't come out as I expect so, challenging! I think the paint brushes that I used on the flat wall aren't as good for the eggshell wall.
This is what Eric and I have finished so far, yes Eric has helped me...
I think it is pretty spooky right now, and I ran out of Red, can't you tell? You can't tell, but Aurora besides being a little pasty, is a little clumpy, but I think changing the brushes is going to help, I hope!

Happy Groundhog's day!

2011-02-02T21:27:00.003-05:00

Gwen was very excited about Groundhog's day today, she brought a groundhog that she cut out of construction paper, she named her Wally. Here she is digging Wally out of his hole. Pulling him out...
Giving Wally's prognostication...it is spring, winter is over. I hate to tell her the temperature dropped has dropped and her prognostication is wrong...(BTW Gwen doesn't actually know the word prognostication).
We decided to go for a walk because of the warm weather today, Gwen was a little upset here because Nate was beating her and she is not pleased! It is all about winning these days with her.
We walked Wally, of course.
I was allowed to pet him and Gwen stopped a couple times to talk to Wally. Nate ran pretty much the entire way. Sadly Wally was injured today over a scuffle of a chair...Nate tore his leg, fortunately we were able to reattach his leg with tape! Hope you had a great groundhog's day!

Warm Weekend

2011-01-30T19:53:00.003-05:00

I am exhausted! First it was swimming lessons, I don't think that was exhausting for me, since I sat on the benches. But, then there was the painting and the bike riding and well, I don't think we did anything else, I am exhausted. So, this is what I started this weekend...actually I think this is from Thursday, but I had the green done, and that is about it.This is where I was last night, being distracted by little children and climbing...
And this is where I am now!
And I also finished slinky's slink and did a little work on Rex.
And then of course, Eric started more drawing...
Can you see the HUGE princesses, of course Gwen says they are the perfect size for her, exactly what she wanted and I am just thinking, crap I just about finished buzz and the rest of them, still have to do touch-ups, but dang it, they were supposed to be smaller than Buzz!

Swim Lessons

2011-01-29T23:12:00.001-05:00

We would like to thank Grandmom for sending the kids money for swim lessons for Christmas...the kids LOVE it! I mean seriously, Eric had a hard time getting them out of the pool; Nate especially wanted to stay. Since I couldn't find a weekday morning/afternoon time swim lesson, we decided to do Saturday...I am not ready to give up 5p twice a week yet, sorry. But this works out because as I have been used to doing the swim lessons, getting in the pool and stuff, I asked Eric if he wanted to take Nate in and he said yes. So, for once I got to be dry and take pictures, a win-win for all of us, because now you can enjoy a slide show of the swim lessons.

So, hopefully we will continue to have kids that love the water and hopefully my little girl will work up the courage to get that face in the water and blow some real bubbles!

Daddy's first tea party

2011-01-29T22:38:00.002-05:00

I had to post Daddy having a tea party with the kids, since he was so against Gwen getting one. These are for you godfather! (they are actually having pink lemonade)Nate is giving me a big smile...
I tried to get a group shot, I didn't think this one worked out like I hoped,
so I tried again!
What was I doing during this tea party, that's right, I was painting! Good news, I am almost done...until Eric starts the next drawing!

Settling

2011-01-25T20:42:00.004-05:00

Just when I thought we would be settling back into a routine with the kids, my husband goes and starts working late and not sleeping. Now to be fair, there are so many hours in a day and he's had a lot to do. He has turned in his grant proposal and we are glad he is done with that. He went to lunch yesterday with a couple of students and a guest lecturer. They discussed Eric's grant and how much work it is and the lecturer mentioned that his students work on them for 3 months, Eric has only been working on it for a month! This could explain his late working and sleepless nights. Sadly, this also throws off my schedule; I am tired also. Eric came home from work today, we had dinner and I sent him to bed...he pulled an all-nighter!
Last week we had a random warm day, I took advantage of it and took Batman and Gwen outside for some fresh air. They chose to ride their scooters...

Nate is getting really good at his scooter, he has the advantage that he can fit both feet on side by side. Gwen is still having some difficulty, but she is also getting better.
They chose to change scooters and I saw that Nate really does balance well on the scooter he had no problem on it and Gwen could use some practice.
It is back to being cold here this week, so I guess there will be no more scooter riding. Mom gets too cold standing out there watching, I guess I could move around or something...

Grandmom visit

2011-01-20T20:09:00.003-05:00

Last week Grandmom came to visit, a quick visit; not much time to take pictures. But we got a few. Grandmom wanted to do some "Grandmom shopping" as she calls it. She wanted to spend a little time getting them some stuff while she was there so she could see the kids when they got the stuff. Hence the Batman boots and raincoat/cape Nate is wearing. He has been wearing it almost nonstop. Here is Grandma reading a book after the purchase.
Gwen was 'child of the week' while Grandmom was here, she got to bring in a "special snack" for her friends. She was line leader and able to pick a special friend to eat snacks with each day. We were able go into Gwen's class and meet all her classmates, introduce ourselves and read some stories to the class. Gwen picked out 2 special songs for her class to sing. I snapped this picture quickly before we left, only Eric apparently knew that I was going to snap the picture.
In the parking lot of Toys 'R Us, we went there also.
Grandmom took over some of our responsibilities-brushing teeth, reading books and combing hair!
We also took Grandmom to the Farmer's market. Sure it is winter, but they had "Okinawa sweet potatoes"-purple sweet potatoes. We didn't have a chance to try them while Grandmom was here, I found a recipe for them we are going to try possibly tomorrow? These turtles are in the park near the Farmer's Market.

Gwen and Nate climbing on Daddy as usual. Not a particularly a good picture, but you can see Gwen is wearing her child of the week crown.
Reading a book before Grandmom left.
It was a short trip, but I think we squeezed in some quality time and everything she wanted to door accomplish. A humorous story from Grandmom's trip, she noticed that Nate has Woody, Buzz and Hamm from Toy Story and is pretty obsessed with the everyone from Toy Story. She promised Nate she would get him Rex and she was pretty insistent we go somewhere so she could get him Rex, she didn't want to go back on her word, understandably. So, day 2 we go to Toys R Us and we wander around and find some potential new Rex's to take home. She asks Nate do you want this Rex and he says "No". HA! 2 year olds! After another 30 minutes we settled on the Slinky Dog for Nate and "naked baby" #2...aka naked baby's twin. That is kind of humorous also, while I was tasked to help Nate decide what get after the Rex fiasco, Grandmom went with Gwen to the pink section to look at a new baby. (maybe I should clarify a new doll baby). Grandmom tried to talk Gwen into a Barbie, but Gwen had her heart set on "naked baby" number 2. I came over and tried to talk her into something else and oh the sad face, I thought she was going to cry. So, Nate left with what he wanted and Gwen left with what she wanted. And Grandmom was surprised and will likely talk about how her Grandkids have minds of their own and can't be talked into something they don't want. But a funny memorable story to be sure!

Project day

2011-01-19T18:06:00.000-05:00

On MLK day we got a little crazy, and decided to paint on the kids walls. And not just anything, Eric has some skills in the drawing department. He asked the kids to help and he gave them some paper and told them to draw them on the wall, so they took their papers put them on the wall and started coloring on the paper. So funny! Anyhoo, here are some pictures.
Hamm done, Rex in progress! (see the coloring on the paper Eric is holding up, colored by the kids)
Here is my part of the work, the painting.
Buzz and Hamm-done!
Rex, Mr. Potato Head and Slinky dog. I've started on Mr Potato Head.
I think Eric is pretty much done with drawing, now I have to get busy with the painting-it might take a couple weekends of work, if only we could get them to sleep somewhere else, I could get a lot done!

Videos

2011-01-17T22:46:00.002-05:00

While my Mother is recovering from her surgery, I thought she'd like to view these videos I found while cleaning up the 2010 pictures.
Video 1-Nate chasing squirrel. I have talked about this before, here and I watched this video and still giggle just thinking about it. Just imagine this happening over and over with Nate running around the tree and Gwen not running off...hilarious!

Squirrel from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Nate playing the guitar. He is our musical one...

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

This is from our snow in the beginning of December, Eric took this video.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

This is the box, Eric called me over to see what Nate was doing, but the daughter was starved for attention apparently, because she jumped right in there, but picture Nate, doing this.

Untitled from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

For the first couple of days, Gwen would insist on putting the windows back in and Nate would punch them out, it made her so mad!
Hope you are feeling better Mom!

The box

2011-01-16T20:54:00.002-05:00

While my Aunt was here she was kind enough to buy us a chest freezer. Of course it came in a large box, which translates to hours and days of fun, if you are 2 or 4...
Daddy cut holes in it and they have slept in it and played in it.

Here they are getting cozy in the box.
Nate was out cold, but Gwen asked Eric to get Nate out of the box so she could sleep in the box by herself. She felt like it was too crowded for her to sleep in there with Nate.
She has slept in the box several nights. We even "hid" in the box from Daddy. They have now turned the box over and it has new life, we might throw the box away sometime in February, we'll see how it goes.

Teaparty

2011-01-16T20:39:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned before, Gwen did not have a tea set, but she really wanted one, so I enlisted the help of the Godfather to get her a tea set. Maybe I shouldn't say that, he asked what Gwen wanted, I told him what I thought she wanted. The amount of tea parties we have had does mean to me that she is very happy to receive this set and there aren't a lot of little pieces which was Eric's main gripe. She has set up our tea party.
Helping Nate understand
Silly boy
YUM!
Drinking some tea.
I realize that I mostly have good pictures of Nate and bad pictures of Gwen, I should not have sat next to Gwen I guess, the pictures aren't as nice as she usually photographs, I'll have to apologize to her later.

Final Christmas post for 2010

2011-01-16T20:17:00.004-05:00

I have been quite busy and appear to have quite the backlog of pictures. We'll see now that I have a couple of calm days coming, if I can clear out the backlog. Starting on Tues though I will be starting back at the gym in the evenings, so fitting blogging in will be a bit of a challenge again. Such is life. We are done with visitors for a while, we had my Aunt and cousins and my MIL visiting. Both were short visits, but we packed fun into both I think. Sadly since they were short visits I didn't get much of a chance to take pictures. I guess I will get to that later.
I took pictures of the kids sleeping in their new beds but sadly didn't post the pictures for my Mom, sorry!
Gwen and her new Dora baby...
We went out after Christmas and took advantage of the post Christmas sales. We got some lawn ornamentation. I like it. Sadly Rudolph is about the dumbest thing I have seen, they make this outdoor lawn thing and then they make the plug a type that needs to not get wet! Seriously, the cord isn't very long either, so we are going to have to "rework our theme" for next year, not that that is really a surprise to us though.
And yes, that is my daughter with no coat and no shoes standing out in the cold, she is apparently hot blooded/warm-natured, I don't know, she often swears she is warm and walks around with no shirt on, even though I don't have the heat very high.
We have a lot of lights to fix and work out for next year, still no word on who won the contest. I saw our fiercest competitor 2 weeks ago and she said she hasn't heard anything either. She has been checking the website obsessively. We got the newsletter yesterday, but no news about the lights competition, how very disappointing! Oh well, we enjoy doing it, and that is all that matters!

Visiting

2011-01-07T20:22:00.004-05:00

January is going to be a busy month for us. We had my Aunt and cousins visiting, they rented a little place off campus and they would come over and hang with us. They were here for New Year's Eve and they stayed until Wed. Here they are watching the Rose Bowl (we won't talk about it now though) I think the kids enjoyed playing with "uncle" Pete.
They definitely enjoyed "uncle" Pete's iPad and enjoyed "drawing" with "uncle" Jim.
We were able to go to the preschool and visit Gwen, she introduced her friends and we got to with her to the playground. Nate really enjoyed that.
He thinks he is a big kid!
Walking back to the car.
I didn't get a whole lot of pictures. Sadly I lent my battery to Jim so I got less pictures than I normally would have. We took the boys to a UNC basketball game, that was a lot of fun. Plus my cousins went to work and we cleaned out the attic and pulled down the inside Christmas stuff, I have most of the outside done. Now we just have to get the lights in boxes and the sorted toys, for toy rotation, into the attic. And then I just have to sneak the toys for donation into the trunk. Then we will be ready for our next visitor who arrives on Wednesday!

A year in review*

2010-12-30T19:21:00.003-05:00

I think I have had a pretty productive year, maybe not on the blog, since this is my lowest amount of posts in a year! Which is pretty sad, considering the year I started this was when Gwen was born in 2006 and in 6 months I had 20 more posts than for the year than this year! Wow! I also looked back at how the year started for us and I found this post! The pictures and post probably sum everything up from the beginning of the year. I did get out and start meeting people, I think I have made friends, I am tentative to say that still, I don't know why, but I am. I did finally get Gwen's paperwork in to the preschool! She loves it, I love it, Eric loves it, and Nate loves it. The kids look so young in that picture, don't they? They are so sweet and troublesome, but if it wasn't for them I probably wouldn't have gotten out and met people!
I think I am doing much better at the end of this year. I am finally no longer controlled by the depression that has plagued me for 4 years. I am able to sit and play with my children, today we played playdoh for a while. It was fun! I am better able to tolerate my children's personalities quirks without raising my voice, a huge step for me. I still occasionally raise my voice, but on rare occasion, yay me! I certainly didn't want to be that kind of parent. I am still no perfect Mother, but I am improving and hope to continue to improve next year. I don't want to always say no to my kids, I feel like I say that a lot, and I am not talking about the don't do that things, I am talking about the stuff they want to do. We need to spend more time doing what they want to do, so I need to budget my time better, so we have more time do do fun stuff. For example, sometimes they will ask to go outside right before I have to start dinner, so I need to find the time to do that earlier. Of course sometimes I am being lazy and don't want to go outside in the rain, but I will work on saying yes more, within reason.
I think overall I am in a better place this year, which means everyone in the family is happier this year. Sure, it is still a struggle to live the lifestyle we live, but I have found a way to be more at peace with it.
I feel like I have had lots of introspective kind of years and I am ready to no longer consider who I am what I want to be. Hopefully having friends means I won't have time to sit here and consider anymore. But who knows what this year will be for us, we are as ready as we can be for this year! We hope you who read this have a great 2011!

*So I realize this isn't much of a year in review, but this is all I've got for you today...I had great plans to do a year in review when I started, but as I started to blog I apparently ran out of steam! I have made some resolutions for next year, but I will be not be discussing them now. Hopefully I will be a better blogger next year.

A real snow day

2010-12-28T19:59:00.002-05:00

The day after Christmas we got 6in of snow. It has been a little chilly since then, so the snow hasn't melted. The kids are really enjoying the snow, Nate still loves to eat the snow. Fortunately we had all these boxes laying around, the bat cave box is perfect for sledding, when you are 2 & 4! The waxy surface plus the place to put their feet, perfect! So we brought it out back and let the kids sled. Then we went for a drive and came back and realized there was a bigger hill that we could take the kids to, not far from the house. So, we walked over there and braved the big hill. Gwen loved it! For some reason Nate was not that interested in going down the big hill, I took him down with me a time or 2, and Eric took him and Gwen down, one at a time...we didn't get any pictures of that, but I am compiling a slide show of both hills.

I also took videos of the kids so my Mom could see them sledding, only in our back yard though.

Gwen sledding from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Nate sledding from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Gwen & Nate sledding from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

Looking back at the slide show I realize that Nate really doesn't know how to sled, he kept falling over or running into things, he didn't get hurt though. Although knowing what I now know about that boy, if he did get hurt I am pretty sure if he like it, he would still do it, getting hurt jumping on the bed has not stopped him from doing it...blast that boy!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T21:33:00.002-05:00

I've decided instead of going through the Christmas pictures, I would just put all the pictures in a slideshow, you can look at them at your leisure, you're welcome!

A couple things to note, Gwen woke up at about 7:15, I could hear her little foot prints and I said "who's there" she said "Santa's been here, he's left us presents". We thought we would eat breakfast open presents, nope we opened presents they played and then Eric and I ate breakfast, around 9ish they decided to eat. When Gwen opened her presents she said "IT'S WHAT I WANTED" for almost everything, even though they weren't on her Santa list. Needless to say she loved them all and she was very excited. It was funny and cute, and made me realize these are probably the perfect years for Christmas. Nate was beside himself I don't know if his little hands could carry anymore. When I was putting him to bed he asked if Santa was coming again with presents...I suspect this is going to be a lot like Halloween for him, he is going to try to wake up every morning and look for presents! We had a good day, everyone stayed in PJs, no real fighting, and no entertaining needed, lovely! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Figgy pudding

2010-12-25T19:34:00.004-05:00

I asked Gwen what she wanted for Christmas dinner and she wanted figgy pudding, she was adamant that we have figgy pudding. So, I made figgy pudding. Who am I to challenge her? Several people have said to me that I am a good Mother for doing this, and I don't think of it that way. I have been thinking of this concept, what makes a person a good Mother? I know several people who I feel like go above and beyond the call of duty. People who we don't know how they do it and wish we could too. But we all have areas that we excel in, and areas that make us so nervous and relieved we don't have to worry about as parents, if push came to shove we would step up for our kids, or I am sure I wouldn't be friends with you. ;) And in the general scheme of things I am not sure making figgy pudding is all the great, but I did it and Gwen tried it and we all had a Merry Christmas, in our PJS.

So, what was the verdict? Figgy pudding, not really that hard to make. Easy, really, the hard part is the steaming of the pudding, my recipe called for a bundt pan covered in foil and then secured with a rubber band, then putting it in a 12x17 pan carefully pouring in boiling water covering the whole thing with foil and steaming it. And that wasn't the tricky part, the tricky part was making sure it was done, we couldn't find a rubber band to put around it, so we fashioned a piece of copper wire...it was kind of a pain, but it worked out for us. So, how did it taste? It tasted liked fig newtons with out what I am assuming is the newton part of the fig newtons. It was too seedy for Gwen and I, but the hard sauce made it yummy! I won't be making it again for a while, and if I do, let's just say I will try to de-seed some of the figs!

Snow day!

2010-12-23T19:20:00.003-05:00

We had our first snow day here last week, well, our first since Gwen has started school. I thought it would be fun to stay in PJs and watch movies, Gwen had other ideas. I ended up reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" a couple times and Gwen was determined to go outside and play before all the snow melted...I tried to explain to her it was mostly ice or sleet, but she still dressed herself...I didn't dress Nate so much I left his PJs on and he put Gwen's boots on (he's been wearing them A LOT lately with his cowboy hat and calling himself Jessie, he might be obsessed with Toy Story!) and then I put his jacket on...we had a good time until Nate fell on his face. I decided that was a good time to go inside and have lunch! Enjoy the slide show.

To explain the inside pictures, we read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and they gathered up stockings and used them to pick up toys around the house and put them in the sleigh, since they were trying to stop Christmas...real grinches! Not my idea at all, because who wants to clean that stuff all up!

Random

2010-12-23T09:43:00.003-05:00

This is going to be a random post with random pictures, they probably won't relate to anything, but you should know no children were hurt in any pictures, or stuck, for long!
In the following picture, please excuse the laundry pile, waiting to be laundered!
The past couple of days have been busy, I have been scurrying to finish Christmas cards and get them sent. Which I think I finally finished. I think that sending Christmas cards are becoming a thing of the past, if my excel sheet shows any indication, either that or out of sight out of mind...I don't know which, but I still do them and give you 2 years, if I don't get a Christmas card 1 year, still on the list, but 2 years in a row...off!
We have been watching Christmas movies, and during this movie Gwen was scared, which for some reason means she watches from somewhere not on the couch, usually in her room, but the view to the TV is blocked by the tree, so she had to sit here!
Nate fell asleep during said movie, he slept the night through, it was about 7p when this picture was taken!
I have been told by the bank 5-7 business days until a NC certified check will be processed which I am sure complicated by the holidays...so while I consider the Jeep sold, Eric still is waiting. Although with all the paperwork and info we have on this lady seems to me that everything on the up and up, especially since the woman and her fiancee seem to own a used car dealership! Eric does wonder if they are just going to resell the thing, but who knows!
I have realized that I don't have any cookies for Santa, so on the docket today, making cookies for Santa. I feel like staying home today and going no where, so that is what I am hoping to do. I paged through my Dec issue of Southern Living with Gwen and she picked out 2 cookies to make...I have all the ingredients so we are going to try them!
Gwen made this hat during her preK "celebration" she is very excited it jingles! I also stupidly asked her what we should have for Christmas and she is adamant-it is not Christmas with out figgy pudding! I usually make a cake for Christmas, so what the heck, all though I have heard reports that the figgy pudding is terrible, and I was considering making another cake, but I guess now that we are making cookies, I won't have to make another sweet!
I was on my way to a playdate yesterday morning when Eric called and said I can't finish the Jeep can you come home? I was already about at their house so I stopped at the door and said, sorry we can't stay, here's some candy, Merry Christmas! She generously offered to watch my kids so I could run home and help Eric (I guess when you have 7, what is 2 more?) I decided to let her watch the kids, no point in disappointing all those kids right before the holidays! The kids had a great time and wanted to go back today, but as I already mentioned, I am not driving anywhere today, if I can help it! I think I had another random thing to mention, but I can't remember it now!

The lights!

2010-12-22T21:58:00.003-05:00

Now that I have gotten the Christmas cards out and have finished candy, I can now veg out in the evenings, and by veg out I mean work on the blog and exercise...although I think that my veg'ing will be short lived since Christmas eve is soon, I guess in 2 days...is that right? I am so out of sync! When Eric finished his portion of the lights, he made me run outside in the cold down the street and fortunately I had brought the camera so you can see the view also. (Amy this is for you!)Eric tells me his intent was if someone is at the end of the street they will look down and see a bunch of lights and say "Gosh, I've got to see that!"
Here is the side view, Eric and I discussed him fixing the half strand of the icicles that aren't working, but I thought if he fixed it we might blow more fuses...next year we must work on our strands/outlet.
This is the almost finished look...this is after we finished everything, but sadly the garland lights I put around the garage door didn't stay up, and I don't feel like going out and fixing them all the time, so sorry, this is what it currently looks like with wreath and mailbox lit! No word on who won the neighborhood contest, but we suspect that the voting was low and they don't know what to do! I guess we will find out eventually, my neighbor hung some lights outside around her door, influenced by our awesome light display...I guess that is reward enough, cheering someone up and spreading the joy of Christmas lights! So, Eric and I will continue to plan for next year and we look forward to going out after Christmas and picking up some cheap stuff on clearance for next year...I hope I am not the only person out there who looks at the lights planning for next year...I saw a outdoor light timer that goes you can set to go on at dusk and off at dawn or at any other time, that I have my eye on!
Today we sold the Jeep. It happened so quickly, we are a little in shock! But it certainly was a nice Christmas present for us. Eric might be a little freaked out and miss the Jeep. But we will adjust as we have with everything else.

Museum

2010-12-14T19:57:00.003-05:00

We go to a weekly playgroup and in lieu of the playgroup this week we went to the museum. This was Nate's favorite display. He could move the skeleton heads and he loved it. He kept going back to it.
This might have been his second favorite thing, the spaceship. He played with the controls and ran around and talked about space.
He really enjoyed it.
And then we had to go pick up Gwen at school, so we had to leave. :(

Cookie decorating

2010-12-12T19:23:00.000-05:00

One of the things I most remember about Christmas is having the neighborhood boys come down and decorate cookies with us. I don't know why the sisters that were my age didn't come down to decorate, maybe they did, I don't remember. So I decided to have my friends that have kids Gwen and Nate's age to come over to decorate cookies on Saturday. Gwen and I made the family cookie recipe on Friday, I doubled it! Nate was so excited on Saturday, he sat in the kitchen at the table for about 45 minutes before everyone got there. And then my friends arrived with their kids. There were 10 kids here, although I guess the 2 youngest being 1 and under don't count? They were here, but they didn't do any decorating or eating... I took some pictures, but I seemed to have missed one of the little girls, she was on the wrong side of the table for me.

The kids didn't color as much as I thought they would, so I decorated the rest of them really fast before the icing melted. The kids seemed to have fun then we pushed them all outside to run off some sugar. I think at most the decorated 5 and ate most if not all of them. Gwen really showed her stuff. It was a lot of fun, but I was pooped for the rest of the day! Eric even made dinner!

The Tree!

2010-12-10T15:23:00.003-05:00

This weekend we came home from Church to find that Daddy had put the tree up...so we decorated the tree on Sunday. I was determined to get every decoration on the tree, we have a lot of decorations and Eric thought I was being a little ridiculous, but I did it! With the help of the kids of course.
Not only did Gwen decorate the tree with me she also did the garland, can you tell? Maybe not in this picture, but you'll see...
It is also easier to put every decoration on the tree when Gwen put every decoration on one branch.
See how proud she is!
Gwen had a play date the other day and the girl told me that her tree was prettier than ours....I was not offended, I think it is funny. They apparently buy a real tree, which I imagine it is much nicer than our fake tree, but ours has personality!
Nate helped Eric diagnose the lights.

Plans

2010-12-09T14:58:00.002-05:00

I had what I thought was a rather humorous phone call from our neighbor. She called to make sure she hadn't offended us because she made a comment about how she doesn't have to use lights in certain parts of her house because of our light display! That was not the case at all, we weren't offended, we were just blowing fuses because we may have put too many lights in the series...oops! As my Mother has reminded me, it is a work in progress and it might take years for us to perfect our lights display. I thought I would take a picture from last night and show you where we would like to "grow" our lights display. Poor Eric worked on it for about an hour last night, I'd feel sympathy, but I was making candy and stirring the pot the whole time! Here is what we have so far, minus the arrows. So last night Eric worked on adding those 2 sets of lights at the top of the 2 trees. Eric has told me he was going for height, so that when people down the street ride around looking for lights, will see the sheer height of lights and drive down the street to look! You can see Eric in the picture, the green circle above his head, I am hoping we will put a lit wreath there, I don't think I am exaggerating it's size! The green arrows around the garage door, I am hoping to put lit garland there...we have it, we aren't using it, I say why not! Maybe we should also use it around the mailbox. The yellow arrows where we would like to get something to line the drive with, like these or these or some other pathway lights that are not candy canes (because our neighbors have those and we don't want to copy!). If you see the lavender arrow you can see Nate's snowman lawn ornament, sometime it is there sometimes he grabs it out and chases things with it, also we have a half working set of net lights there, Eric is going to fix those, I think. Eric would like to get some kind of lawn ornamentation, but we can't agree on that, we would put it in the dark space to the left of the picture. I am also thinking that the right of the house would be perfect for me to shine the AU on the wall, but Eric would probably want to do some Christmas thing that say happy holidays or something.
I can totally see why my Dad totally got into this, man it is fun. I remember half listening to him while he talked about his plans. So I recommend if you have the slightest competitive personality you might not want to get started putting up lights, or you will start competing randomly with neighbors, sure our neighborhood is having prizes this year, but I think we would compete no matter what! To look back at what we did last year you can look here and here and picture them together.

Its snowing

2010-12-04T21:39:00.002-05:00

Today, surprisingly enough it snowed. I say surprising, because I haven't been watching the weather so I had no idea it was going to snow. I guess now that Gwen is in school, I should start paying attention to those kind of things. The school was having a craft fair today and we volunteered to help out, so while I was at the craft fair Eric played outside with the kids. Here are the pictures he took.

Apparently they tried to make a snowman and Nate stomped on it so Eric told Gwen she could throw a snowball at him...

I think she missed. I think in this picture you can really see the Mohawk quality of the hat. (did I mention we got it at Old Navy?) You can also see the snow he squashed to his right.

We ended up with about 3 inches of snow. I went out tonight and took pictures of our house, you can see the whole deal here, this was taken from our neighbor's driveway.

I played around with the settings to get this picture, which I think shows the craziness that is our house lighting scheme.

This is from the side view, when you are coming down the street this is what you see...

We thought we had enough lights to do the trees, so I think we are going to get more lights, I think if we are going to compete we really need to step it up. I have a large lit wreath I want to hang outside also, but Eric is fighting that, and by fighting it, I mean not brainstorming to help me figure out how to get it hung and lit...it is a little heavy. Maybe after we get more lights we will take more pictures...you also can't see the lawn decorations the kids picked out or the tree ornaments.

We are also watched the Auburn-SCarolina game. Pretty good game if you are an Auburn fan, which I am! Looking forward to watching the National Championship game, so hope no one needs me Jan 10th in the evening, although I think they play better when I tape the game and watch it a little behind everyone else. I also hope the game is more like tonight's game and not like the last several nail bitters!

The last day!

2010-11-30T20:32:00.002-05:00

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!