Random updates

I can't believe it we've made it a year. Eric has completed a whole year of school, I have completed yet another year home with the kids. I am only about 50% more insane than I was last year at this time. But the big milestone is that we thought if we could make it through this first year of this graduate school process we could make it through the rest of the duration, however long it would be. Certainly things are different than we expected, but overall we are doing well and I guess we are stronger, isn't that how the saying goes? This time has made us review our priorities realize what is important and what is not. I think we've also decided what to do if we do eventually have spending money. Of course that changes daily.
The kids seem to be doing well. I think Gwen is pretty excited to go to school, in about a month! She is a little confused though, she thinks her VBS teacher is going to be her preschool teacher. It is going to be rather interesting to drop her off and then have Nate. I think he is going to be lost without her and I am hoping that errand running will be easier with just him, but I don't think it will be! We are still working on several things with Gwen, manners and being nicer to her brother. She apparently needs more focused attention. I am working on trying to work with her on some of that stuff but I really hadn't noticed how much she just grabs stuff from Nate and just expects him to take it. I am also trying to encourage them to work out their stuff on their own. I don't think that's going to work out though...
Nate, what can I say about that kid, except trouble. Man does that kid listen only when he want to. I don't know really how to make him listen, sometimes he is great, sometimes I just want to pull out all my hair! Randomly he has started peeing on the potty, only in public, when Gwen goes to the potty. He did start peeing on the potty here at home first, but I haven't convinced him since then to do it again, and seriously in my head I had no intention of potty training him for a while, like when he was 2.5 or 3,certainly not 2! So, I haven't really been pushing it. Because as we may remember, I am not the best at remembering to remind the children to pee. (well you might not know that, but I am, I hope all my children have the iron bladders like Gwen and that we don't have to utilize public restrooms a lot.) I am looking forward to having some Nate & me time while Gwen is in school. I feel like Gwen gets Mommy and me time while Nate is napping, but Nate doesn't get that time. Maybe he will be less of a wild child if he gets one on one time...I suspect we will spend a lot of time reading, he will read and read and read with you...
In other news I have volunteered to co-lead our Mom's group at our Church. I just hope that someone volunteers to co-host with me, otherwise I don't think I will be able to do it, being new in town and all. Monthly they schedule a someone come and talk to the group or just talk about stuff. Considering I haven't been a member of this group for a year yet, what do I know. I guess I am just feeling that I've got to get out there meet people and make friends. I feel like I have been meeting people, we have like this "honeymoon" period and then things happen and I don't see or hear from them again. I used to get upset and worked up but whatever. I don't want to waste time and energy worrying about when I could be worrying about other things, like my fighting kids or my garden. Whatever has been eating my garden has apparently found greener pastures and I actually harvested 2 plum tomatoes today and am excited to make "Penne alla Vodka" tomorrow with stuff from my garden. We have been harvesting cucumbers and some onions and a little bit of lettuce and I am so excited because it looks like my eggplants are sprouting!!! I am hoping to get some eggplants this year, because I geniunely like eggplants but they are not something that I routinely buy, but if I just had them around, I would eat them.
Nothing on Eric tonight, this post has taken entirely too long...he's the same old same old, going to work, coming home, doing stuff but nothing I think that could be reported on the blog as newsworthy...maybe that is just because I am too tired to add anything else!

Friday, again!

I think yesterday was a Happy day for the hubby. We were able to keep some secrets from him. I made these, they weren't near as pretty, (I had a 3 yr old helper), and I didn't use red velvet cake, but I think they are good. We also had his favorite meal (I called his Mom and got the recipe), made his favorite appetizer, AND we went shopping without the kids. Our very sweet neighbor came over and watched the kids (she called it a vacation, because she has 6 kids!).
The kids and I are spending the day at home today. We had a morning filled with random accidents, all involving Nate, come to think of it. He was "playing" the piano, and fell off the piano bench. Nothing major was hurt, just his pride! I was watching him from the kitchen and it all happened in slow motion, so crazy, but he just landed on his butt! Then, to make matters worse, he climbed up on the hubby's chair and took a big sip of Daddy's coffee. Then he started screaming! Fortunately it had cooled off and wasn't straight out of the pot, and I hope Nate has learned his lesson. His skin turned bright red, but no blisters, YAY! I am going to go ahead and predict he is going to have us in the ER by the time he is 2!
Gwen appears to be having a pretty good day today, I had to give her some special attention because she was stealing toys from her brother, she has claimed everything as hers and I have to "gently" remind her that not everything is HERS!
A week or 2 ago I took out all the kids "big" toys that they never play with, and they haven't noticed. I took out the little people stuff, weeble wobbles and I think next to go is the pop onz. The kids just don't have any interest in that big kind of stuff. Nate was making me chuckle this morning because he was taking his bus and running it over my arm going "vroom" then he was running it over one of the stuffed animals. We need to start cleaning this stuff out before Christmas, plus the kids don't play with it so it is just clutter. And Lord knows this house can't handle clutter! Now that I am done with Eric's secret projects I can start keeping this house clean again, I was spending all my cleaning time working on his project and just straightening up a little, but not much. I wonder how anyone with kids so young keep up with anything. The problem is things get used up so quickly, and then in the old house I used to have the "cave" that I could put stash stuff easily until I had enough to start another bin or do big organizing sessions a LOT easier when you don't have to worry about a 3 & 1 year old finding the stuff. So, I am going to have to figure out how to do that, clutter makes me feel claustrophobic and lazy. It ends up being a negative downward spiral for me and then I hit bottom and start cleaning again. Also Nate gets into EVERYTHING! I also now have to keep the laptops up because he picks them up and puts them on the floor, and since I have never seen him do it, I can only assume that he is not gently placing them on the floor, so our toddler proofing has reached a new height requirement. I would like to think EVENTUALLY he will learn to stop touching and doing, but he is using negative attention right now to get the attention he needs, gotta figure out how to stop that! But, I am off to catch up on house work and de-cluttering. Ciao!

Routine or not routine

As usual around here, nothing around here is routine or normal. Eric finished his first rotation, but hasn't set up his next one. Classes officially start today, but his doesn't start until tomorrow. What does this mean to us? Eric has been home a lot. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it is just that when we are trying to get the NC routine down it isn't very helpful. But, it is good for the kids and helpful for me to see him for a while, before he gets bogged down with work and studying. Although, in one of his orientation classes he was told, you work as hard as you need to, to get your work done. We'll see how it goes.
In other news, we have Nate and Gwen are currently sleeping in their new room. It has been a couple days, but during naptime I have them separated. Which is kind of funny, because during naptime, Gwen wants to sleep with Nate and during bedtime she doesn't. She thinks that I don't know what's up, but I do, she doesn't want to nap so she wants to hang with Nate, but I think he keeps her up too late with Nate so she doesn't want to sleep with him at night. I think it is just another late night don't want to go to sleep antic. Just like the new I have to pee stalling bedtime strategy!
In other news Nate is on some sort of eating strike. He isn't really eating dinner at all. But as soon as he gets down from his high chair he eats the food he dropped off his high chair or he wants to eat off our plates. We have 1 theory that since he has been sequestered in the kitchen, he is none too pleased about not eating with the rest of the family. I think we will try to move him back into the dining room and see what happens. If this doesn't work, then I think I am going to have to start weaning him since we know he is using that as a supplement and that isn't what we don't want! I have been holding off on weaning him, with the teeth coming in, moving, putting him and Gwen together, I just didn't want everything to be happening at once and he shows no interest in weaning. I didn't wean Gwen until a couple months from now and she didn't really care. I think Nate at this point might care, but we don't know until we try. He has been throwing temper tantrums these days, which are kind of funny, at this point. We'll see if they turn into full blown temper tantrums, or stay these little "anger spikes".
The new house is starting to come together. The MIL comes in about a week, so we have a little more rearranging and organizing to do, so she can at least be slightly comfortable. The guest bedroom is in pretty good shape, but we need to make sure she has enough room for her stuff. The problem is we have more stuff to sell in a garage sale in Oct, so we are running out of space, as usual. But we keep making progress on the house and getting more and stuff together and unpacked and organized and every step to organization is a step in the right direction!
There are some things about this house that I must get off my chest, first the light switches...HATE them, not the actual switches, but my instinct for which switch turns on which light is ALWAYS wrong! And while I am speaking of turning on and off light switches, I should mention that Gwen is now old enough to turn on and off light switches! Also, the spider web situation is pretty terrible, and not just the spider webs the lint/dust. I am just not used to all this dirtiness. I loved the hardwood floors, and feel like I could vacuum this house everyday, not just the floors but the vents and the ceilings and then I would be able to control the spider webs/dust. Even though this house is much smaller than the old house, with 2 kids it is not feasible at all! So I guess I will continue this loosing battle.
I also think I am allergic to NC, this could pose quite a problem for my future. Ok, so I might not be allergic to the whole state, but there is definitely something here bothering me! I have heard that eating local honey can help people, especially children with allergies, so I might try eating some local honey and see if that will help with my issues. Because frankly I don't want to sound like this and be hacking up a lung for because of so much congestion from allergies. Plus, I need to get back into exercising, which is difficult with congestion!
Last week we went and got our tags for NC, can I just say how irritating is that! It was twice as much money to get our tags for 1 year in NC than it was to get our tags for 2 years in MD. These are things you don't think about when you are moving, well we didn't think about, and in reading the website had no idea it was going to be that much. It is called the fees they hide on a different screen so we had no idea until we got there and with 2 kids and terrible acoustics we couldn't really get a good picture of what the heck was going on!
I guess that is all for now, not much else going on, oh wait, unless you consider Eric has pulled out his t-shirts and purchased some fabric, that's right we are going to be working on another tshirt quilt here! So stay tuned, one day we might start working on it!

The bedroom

I was speaking to my Mother the other day and since she is having a hard time visualizing the new kids bedroom. I thought I would post some pictures so you all can see the room. So, here you go, pictures of their room, from the front door, Gwen's bed and the toy box. Nate's bed, as you can see I am utilizing under crib storage for both the beds.

This is a picture from Gwen's bed to the closet.

From Nate's bed to the door.

Here is another view from almost inside the door. What you can't tell is where we have Gwen's bed, I guess I didn't take a picture from Nate's bed to Gwen's bed. We don't have her bed right up against the window, we have a doll size bassinet there. I think if you print out all the pictures you can tape them together in sort of a panoramic view of the room, good luck, and don't forget to fold for the corners!

This is the closet; it is a huge closet, I don't think you can really tell by that picture, so I took 2 more pictures.

This is the left side, we have 2 of those gaming chairs sitting on top of each other in there.

This is the right side, I still don't think you can see the depth, but you might have some idea of how much space. Maybe one day we can do a closet organization system in there.

Also, in the quest to become NC residents we had to get our cars inspected. While we were waiting we went to Target and picked up this:

YAY! Now we can put Eric's book collection in there and it is cheap and less than $30! I don't care, functional and cheap and it even comes with a thing so Eric can attach it to the wall so no children can pull it down on their heads!!! YAY!!!! I guess, truly that is the most important thing, that and cleaning out the guest closet for the impending Grandma visits! Now if we could just get a 1 year old to sleep through the night we might actually be ready for the Grandmas to visit...I am hoping these teeth coming in soon, because Nate was not happy to not see me last night, hopefully we can get him to start eating dinner again soon!

Things around here are starting to get into a routine. I don't know if it is good or bad, but it is a routine nonetheless. We have most of the boxes taken care of, although there are somethings I am missing, that I would like to find, but they aren't emergencies. The house isn't too bad and we love having the yard. Gwen seems to not want to leave the house, which is strange, she used to always want to go places. We have been watching Sesame Street, but we have run out of taped episodes (we are not getting cable and haven't purchased an antenna yet.) The other day we met some Moms at a local museum that has free entrance for Durham residents during certain times. It was packed, but we all really enjoyed it, I think we will go back on the free days, there was a lot to see that we missed! The funny thing was Nate attached himself to a little girl who was not much younger then him (a month) and kept trying to kiss her. Seriously, so funny, that boy, trouble! The Mom and I just laughed, the little girl likes her own personal space, I have heard her freak out when other kids are too close, so she must like Nate ok. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures.
In other news, I have some weight to lose, no surprise there...we all know I didn't lose the weight after Gwen and I have 5 lbs to lose from Nate. My problem is that the normal "easy" fixes that people talk about, I already do. I don't drink sodas, I exercise, I hardly sit down during the day, but I do probably eat more than I should. It is the quantity of food that I eat is probably the problem. Plus, Gwen wants to eat CONSTANTLY, I am not kidding, it seems like at least every hour she is trying to get me to feed her. Any time I try to eat a piece of fruit it gets confiscated by a kid. So my fruit/vegetable count is hard to judge.
Both kids took naps yesterday afternoon, it was lovely, not just because they napped, but because I think they really needed it and are now more caught up, so there has been less whining and crankiness. YAY! I have given up and making Nate do 1 nap, we will just suffer through the 2 nap thing until he is ready to give it up one of his naps on his own. I just have to be more vigilant about the schedule. Oh, I have forgotten to mention, Nate has been getting in his molars. Sadly, I did not notice, all the moving I thought he was being cranky because of that, oops! Mother of the year, right here. ;) I know, we have had a lot going on. So, he has his top 2 molars completely in, his bottom 2 we are still waiting on. I hope when the finish coming in he will start eating a variety of foods again!

How's it going?

How are you? We are alive, living, and much better arranged, all good news, yes? If you would have talked to me last week you might not have had such a pretty picture. But, we worked hard this weekend, and the boxes that were in my living space are now gone. The kids are, well, still my kids and still living in the house with us. As Eric told Gwen at one point in the last couple of weeks, you are lucky we moved away from W. VA, because now we can't just drop you off with the gypsies (something he's been telling her every time she is a little crazed and driving us crazy!) The nap situation around here is changing....

look at my sweet girl, she fell asleep while reading her book. Nate on the other hand, has decided to not take his afternoon nap. I have decided after a week or so of not taking that nap it is time to change his schedule, his schedule is very constraining, shall we say. He goes down at 10, so there is no time to really do anything in the morning. Then try to get him back down at 2-3, fit in lunch when he wakes up around 12ish, so that doesn't give us much time, either. So we are trying to start pushing back nap time. So far, not all that far back, 11am, but it did give us more time to play at the park this morning, which I know they both enjoyed.

Gwen is, have I mentioned she is 3! I know I used to talk about 2! this way, so maybe I should start saying !3!! to get my point across. Whole CRAP! (sorry Mom) but man does she make me want to a) drink or b)go back to work. Neither of which are things that can remedy the immediate problem, the whining, the ability for the mood to go from happy to bat crazy in 0.00001 sec. She is turning out to be a good kid, makes me proud, some of the time, and makes me bat crazy, the rest of the time. At least now when she runs in someone's way she says excuse me, instead of disregarding them altogether...a positive step in the right direction, yes? She's cute, she's funny and she I think has grown taller, she now comes up to my hip, almost my waist.

Nate! I know I just posted about him, in his own separate post, but I found these pictures, ok this one I found (edited out his junk, since i feel a little weird about posting that, since he's not a newborn) I think the unedited version might come in handy when we want to threaten to embarrass him in the future, but I have a feeling, he won't really care, but just look at that face! I was actually trying to get a picture of him applying lotion, he is getting really good at that. It is hilarious to watch. (The lotion applying explains why he glistens). There is just something about the way he holds himself that cracks me up, he sticks out his belly as if to say, look at that budda belly...

Do you remember how I described the I want what you've got face? Here it is:

This picture was taken today, by Eric. I have realized that Nate is definitely my boy, he might not look a thing like me, but I handed him a piece of cheese and he threw down the rest of his food and grabbed it up...my boy, makes me proud!

The cleanup; the packup

We thought we could get everything in one truck, well let's say I thought we could get everything in one truck...that wasn't possible. So we had to go back to MD to pick up the rest of our stuff. I thought we were going to go back the weekend following our move, 4th of July weekend, but we ended up going back the weekend after. Since this is what I prepared for, I had not brought enough clothes and stuff for more than a week, so by then I was pretty tired of the 4-5 outfits I had for myself and the kids.
So back we went the following weekend and packed up the remaining things and cleaned the house and whatever else needed to be done. Thankfully a good friend came over and watched Gwen in the morning so I could pack and then came back. In the afternoon, Eric and Brooke came over to help. Saturday we got almost everything packed up and then Sunday we cleaned and packed up the rest of the house. Eric came back over to help on Sunday. As you can see I had a little helper.

He sweeps he dusts, he provides musical interludes, what else could you ask for?

He loves banging things (and if you are reading this and think drums would be a good idea, they would NOT!!! This place is too small!)

We also had a helper when moving stuff out...

who may or may not be a little too dramatic about helping.

We made it out, only 2 hours after I wanted to be out. Sadly there was a LOT of traffic for about 10 miles that we sat in for 1 hour. Just a lot of traffic on 95, so we stopped off at Bass Pro Shops we stopped walked around and had dinner. I seriously considered driving the truck back so I did not have to be in the car with Gwen anymore, but I suffered threw it...and we made it! (obviously!) We did have fun at some point on our trip. I have many friends that travel with their kids and they get all geared up to go, sadly, since I had the big move and I was trekking with the kids alone, I was unable to plan big things. I could hand food back, but Gwen had to pass the food back to Nate (which she did). I have no DVD player or any other such device, but that didn't stop us from talking and singing. As a matter of fact the favorite part of our trip was the "sing along". Gwen would tell us songs and then tell me to wait to so she could turn it up and then we would sing the requested song very loud (because that is what she requested!) When we got back I ran into our nice neighbor who offered her husband to help us. He came over the night after we got home and he and Eric moved the remaining stuff into our house! YAY! I will be moving stuff around and hopefully sometime in the next six months I will have this place livable. (My Mom will be here in Oct, so whatever I can't accomplish I know she will help me finish and organize, she LOVES doing it and I will enjoy not having to think about it anymore!)

While I was packing the weekend before we moved Eric watched the kids. Gwen seemed to enjoy playing with the bubble wrap. Apparently she enjoyed it as a wrap dress.

I went back upstairs to continue packing and Eric snaps some pictures.

All this playing with the kids causes tiredness in a parent.

Re-connected!

After harrowing days of staring at a blank screen (and stealing internet from unsuspecting neighbors) we are finally connected to the internet. It was very frustrating and since we were unpacking another truck last night we were unable to spend the quality time needed to figure out what was going on. What does this mean for you? It means that the backlog of pictures and random posts will start appearing again, hopefully on a more regular basis.

The house is a wreck, still trying to figure out how 48ft of truck is going to fit into a 1400 sq foot house. I have some ideas and now that we have the ladder we will be able to store stuff in our attic. YAY! I will also be turning this:

into a linen closet. I really need the storage and I don't think a coat closet on the "other side" of the house is a very good idea, this closet is right outside the second bathroom, and if you saw how many linens I have you would know it is a necessity! I went and got the needed supplies for the coat closet conversion, so I am super excited to get working on that....I would totally start tomorrow, you know, if I could do it by myself without the kids around interferring, so I guess it will sadly have to wait until this weekend when Eric can work on it. :(

Also, random picture of the kids in the kitchen. This picture was taken 2 weeks ago, right after we moved into the house. These boxes are since gone. I am standing in the dining room/family room taking this picture. The kitchen faces the backyard there, so I could keep an eye on the kids if they were older. The farthest away door is my pantry! WOHOO! a pantry, I've never had one of those and it is huge, now if I could just figure out how to rearrange it! The closer set of doors is the washer/dryer.

Standing where I am, to the left is the door to outside to the right is the aforementioned coat closet, bathroom and Nate's room is on the other side of the pantry and laundry. We are eventually planning on putting them in the same room, I am hoping soon! So I can organize the third bedroom into a guest room/storage for my scrapbooking and sewing and other assorted hobbies. We are waiting for Nate to start sleeping through the night to make the change.
All for now. I hope you can get a better idea of our new arrangement, those of you who have been to our old house, know what a change this kitchen is from the last one!

We've arrived

Of course, that was several days ago. I should be unpacking, I should take pictures, I have done none of those things. Actually I have been unpacking, I just haven't taken any pictures. The kids are doing surprisingly well. Nate has been attacked by mosquitoes. It is pretty terrible. I have counted 10 bites on him. Bless his heart, and several of them seem to itch, he has scratched some of them and he has 1 right on his check that is infected and hard and just looks terrible! I went out and bought bug spray today. Nate has been fussy, every time I turn my back to him to grab something he starts to scream. :( I don't know if he is bothered by the bites, made because Eric and I had to leave him in the jumper while he may or may not have been attacked by mosquitoes or because until last night there was no room for him to wander around the house. And, if you know Nate you know he needs to move! Gwen is a little whiny, but she is suffering from a definite lack of sleep, so that is to be expected. She is not quite sure what she wants to do, but she never wants to sleep! (I am working on this blog while seeing if she is going to nap!)
So, how is the house, you ask? Well, first of all it was nasty. I mean seriously nasty, floor gross, cob webs, and rice everywhere in the kitchen. I guess I am just not used to moving into a house someone lived in before. I don't remember our last house being like that. Of course, that was a while ago and that place hadn't been lived in for a while. We left some of our stuff back in MD, which is a slight problem, because some of that stuff is stuff I could use, you know, like pillows and tennis shoes (seriously, I have all my shoes here, except my tennis shoes!), and assorted other things. We can not walk into the garage and I have no idea how I am going to arrange the kitchen or really anything else in this house. But, we have a long time to figure that out.
I do have to say the people here are incredibly nice. I think the lady that lives across the street from us (almost) is going to be a new friend...she has 3-5 kids (I am not quite sure how many, she didn't introduce me to any but the last 2) Her 2 youngest are the same age as Nate and Gwen, her 3 year old is 6 days younger than Gwen, I think her youngest is a couple months older than Nate, but I can't be sure, because I met another neighbor at the same time and I think the three kids are all Mar-June or maybe May-June. But, she said she would love to show us around to the parks and whatnot, (since I asked if there was a park close by) and she told me about a pool we could join for the summer that is a good deal cheaper than our neighborhood pool, maybe next year. We are in a cul-de-sac and it seems that there are 4 of us moving in, so hopefully we will have some good luck with the neighbor situation. I am encouraged that I might have already found someone to play with Gwen. YAY!

the deck

A couple weeks ago we heard the ice cream man. Apparently this is a great big deal, if you could see how Eric ran out the house and down the street with Gwen, and you know what, they brought nothing for me! :(
But onto the rest of the post, as you can see we were taking stuff off the deck and putting in storage, and letting Nate play outside while Gwen ate her ice cream, he first decided to play with the hammer.

As usual he had to taste the hammer to see what it actual is.

Oh, just realized I was taking pictures...

Ew, what's that!

What's in there?

Eric just making sure Nate doesn't bonk his head.

I'm in!

Well, now what?

Now how do I get out?

Daddy let me back in!

Hi Mommy!

Maybe I should try this again, it was fun last time!

Well, maybe not...

Packing

packing and more packing. I wish I could say there was an end in sight. I am beginning to wonder if there will ever be an end date. Of course, it would help if we were going to make our closing date. :( It appears the cards are against us. We have had several things stand in our way and it has been many ups and downs and frankly I am not sure my heart or stomach can take much more of this. But through it all the kids have been very good. They have played well by themselves so I could endlessly be on the phone and pack and do whatever else I have had to do. One day this week while Nate was napping I thought I would pack, I set Gwen up with some painting, but she didn't last long and thought she should "help" me!

She made a train of boxes.

When we paint around here, we take of our shirts (when we are under say 5) that day she was wearing a dress, all day I looked for it, couldn't find it. The next morning I found it.

along with some books she apparently wanted to pack up.