Eric's favorite video of all time!

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

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

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...

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

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

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!

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!