Snow day

Well for once the meteorologists got it right, it snowed last night and we appeared to have gotten 5in or so of snow, "soft" snow, so we couldn't do any snowman building or snow fighting, but we did keep the kids out in the snow entirely too long. I hope that they do not have any of the frostbite and lose function of anything, I would hate for them to have loss of function in a toe or something. I have compiled a slideshow of pictures from the day.

You may wonder why I have been doing so many slideshows, I am running low on space for pictures, so slideshow are the answer, for now!
Also I'd like to send my love and prayers to some family today. Love to you all!

Carpets

The last couple of days have been pretty terrible for me. Not in a crazy way, but I just had started to get out and meet people (and be social!) and then Gwen came down with a cold. A rude shock indeed! I have enjoyed the company of my new friend and enjoyed getting out and making friends. And now, to be sure with the snow we are going to be snowed in! Eric and I have been laughing about it, we figure we might be the only people in the city with a snow shovel. We will likely be snow shoveling tomorrow just for kicks, to remind us of the old days! Of course it is likely to be only a couple of inches but since this area has none of the equipment to take care of the snow, we could actually be "snowed in". Fortunately this week I planned well, ok, maybe I didn't plan well, it just worked out that I go the the grocery store early in the week so I didn't have to go out this time when there was going to be a run on milk, bread and TP. Also fortunately I am quite the milk and bread hoarder. We go through 2 gallons of milk a week maybe more. And our grocery store has quite the deals on bread and I can't quite help picking it up at $0.25/loaf, whether we need it or not.
But I digress, we have been staying in and not getting out and meeting people, much to my dismay with Gwen's cold I thought it best not to be out and about in case she wasn't feeling well, at this age I still don't think she can understand or communicate when she is feeling unwell. For weeks after she threw up last time, every time she needed to cough she would run to the bathroom thinking she was going to throw up. It was quite humorous, to me. And I digressed again!
The last several months I haven't really been able to be present with the kids, in the moment. Moving to a new place, getting a feel for the area and getting into a routine have been quite difficult for me. Getting a new exercise routine and our family effort to keep the house up have certainly helped my attitude and my overall health. (I might recommend my Mother take a moment and sit down when she reads this next statement.) I hate to live in a messy house, it makes my brain hurt. I hate the clutter but once it starts to get to messy I get to overwhelmed to do anything about, it becomes a downward spiral for me. This also affects my want to let the kids do certain things like take out the finger paints or other such crafts. But today, I threw caution to the wind and let Gwen paint with the finger paints. It was going well, Nate was napping, it wasn't really all that messy and then Nate woke up and sadly Gwen eventually invited him to come in and paint with her. That is when all hell broke lose. If you'll recall, the last time we tried the fingerpainting Nate wasn't interested. (if you don't you can check out here.) Well, this time Nate became totally involved, sadly now the paints are all the same color, as demonstrated here, I guess I won't have to worry about letting them fingerpaint anymore. I think not that all the colors are black/dark green, it is time to toss! There is this really cute smile Nate gives us but I haven't been able to catch it on camera. I hope that I can one day, because it is so charming, sadly he knows it.


Gwen went ahead and painted her whole top half, I went ahead and gave them a bath, at like 3:30, then I went ahead and spent the next hour getting the spots up off the carpet. (ok maybe it was 30 minutes but dude I really had to scrub and it all hasn't gotten out all the stains, if anyone has a recommendation for a carpet spot cleaner let me know)

Museum of Life and Sciences

Like 6 weeks ago we went to the Life & Science Museum in town. It is free on Wed afternoon for residents, so one day when Eric was off during the holiday we all went. It was great fun! We took the camera and saw more of the museum then we ever have on our previous trips. The kids really love it and we had to pull them away from almost all the exhibits, especially the outside ones, their poor hands were cold, but they couldn't wear gloves and "work". It was rather cold that day so not many people were outside, which was nice for the kids. I took some pictures which I put in a slide show for you. But sadly as I looked at the pictures they were all blurry. My kids don't really stand still for long.

I have more pictures to download off the camera and since it actually snowed here like the weather people predicted I hope to have more pictures in the upcoming weeks! ;)

Intelligence

I have mentioned here before, I think, about how smart Nate is. Not that Gwen isn't smart, she totally is, but she has a different kind of intelligence, one that isn't a mischievous as Nate's. Nate appears to be quicker on his feet, this likely comes from the fact that he has her to watch and learn; and watch and learn he does. But, he also certainly teaches her some "tricks". Nate will do things that would never even occur to Gwen to do. I think she tends to be a little lazier, Nate is more of a go getter, which is definitely something that makes raising him more of a challenge, he sees something he goes and gets it. Doesn't ask, just does! As in the case of this slide show!

He saw the diaper bag sitting in there with the snack cups, couldn't find any snacks, set a chair in front of the pantry door, got the snacks, took them back to the living room and as you saw proceeded to get himself snacks. It was at this point Gwen realized, hey, he's got some snacks! Gwen would never have considered doing that, but Nate thought, I'm hungry, I'll get myself some snacks! And I guess I think that is a pretty amazing that at 1.5 he had the thought process to do the whole thing and I watched him, snapping some pictures. I did let him eat some of the rewards before I gave him something else instead. As I've said before, he is one you definitely have to watch, because he is always doing something you don't really expect!
In other news, I met up with my new friend and I feel like we've really hit it off, based on the fact that we got kicked out of 2 coffee shops and probably could have continued to talk! We then met up with the kids this morning and have plans to meet up again next week. We have a lot in common and I think we will eventually get the husbands together also to see if they will also get along. Which will be kind of funny since her husband is a professor at Eric's school, in a different department.

Dangerous

Today I decided to go to a new Mom's get together. The kids got to meet some other kids, I got to meet some other Mom's new to the area, win-win. Now I just have to decide if I want to join their group, there is a yearly membership fee. Also, since the weather has been nice and it sounds like it is the last nice day for a while, I took the kids outside to play. I have to say, Nate is going to be the death of me, just watch this slide show and see what I mean!

The boy is just asking to go to the ER, he just climbed up there and has figured out how to push the peddles but is just a little too short, plus I don't think he can get the whole around motion yet, but he will have it figured it out soon, he is entirely too smart!
It is funny how the second one seems so much smarter, because he watches everything Gwen does and tries to do it. I don't feel like I have as much to report about Gwen these days, at 3.5 she isn't doing much new. I mean sure, we saw a 5 week old baby and was "helpful" to the Mom, giving her the blanket for the baby and the "binkie". The Mom humored her and that was cute, but certainly doesn't give much for the blog.

Warm afternoons ahead!

Since yesterday was warm, sunny and no wind, I took the kids outside with their strollers. (Nate got his own, non-pink, boyish stroller for Christmas!) I thought they would just play in the cul de sac with their strollers, boy was I wrong, Gwen decided we were going on a walk. Which meant we walked around the entire neighborhood, about a 3/4 mi, took us 30 min. Probably would have taken longer if Nate had anything to say about it! He kept picking up "STICKS" (mulch) and putting them in his stroller. This is what Gwen did as she was waiting for us... She kept running ahead and had to be in the lead, Nate didn't much care! Here she goes, running off again!

Nate was pretty fun to watch from behind, I think he is just a smidge too small for running with his stroller and he would do it on tiptoe. He also looked at the ground the whole time, so funny!

They took a break, hard work all that walking in the fresh air!

I think they had a good time. Even though the cranky-panky 3.5 year old rebuffs all plans we make. She never wants to do anything we ask her to do anymore, unless it is sit at home or go to the bookstore. I am also wondering if something is going on with the little one, for the last month or so she has been sleeping without a diaper and I would say maybe once a week she'd pee in the bed, but the last 3 nights she has. I am thinking it is time to put her back in diapers and be done with it. She has also been quieter, maybe a little moody?

This morning we went to a play-group thing at the airport, they have this observation area, but sadly it is poorly marked, or not marked at all, until after you take the first turn! It took us 20 minute to find the outside observation area and then found out how to get to the other place, that was inside. There was another Mom in the wrong area also and we headed over together. After we found the place I got talking with the other lost Mom and found we have a lot in common. Her husband also randomly decided to go back to school for his PhD and she is also not into girly-girl things and has a daughter into princesses! After the playdate we decided to get together for a MNO, hope she emails me! It would be nice to meet people I can talk to locally! Sadly though I think my house would start being messier, I have lots of time now to clean and the last couple weeks, it has been clean! Oh well, I guess you can't have everything!

Delurking day!

Well, it's that time of year again! Delurking day! If you don't remember what that is, read here. If you've been reading my site and you haven't commented or told me you read this please leave me a comment. Thanks so much, hope you are having a great day! Back to the kids and their loud playing!

Scenarios

Scenario 1:
You come home and find dinner on the "warming" in the oven, house clean, kids super excited to see you and everyone happy.
Scenario 2:
You come home and hear the fire alarm going off, dinner on the stove, possibly burning, kids screaming, and house messy, but kids still super excited to see you.

mid-Jan?

Well hello there, how've you been, we're great, thanks for asking! I guess I have been busy/lazy/procrastinating. Its not like I haven't thought about you, I have, I have even had several posts in my head that actually haven't had an opportunity to get things out. We have now painted the living room/dining room, its all the same room, so we had to do them both! It took a little bit to adjust to the color, but I think we like it. It is so nice to have it painted, this house has not actually been painting since it was built 10+ yrs ago. And, since you know it was the builders special, it was just flat paint and scuffed. And then, to be crazy, we started hanging stuff on the wall, like we actually want to live here and make this place our home! Eric is now addicted to the prettying up of the place and wants to do more. But, since school starts today and we don't have anymore gift cards, we are out of luck for a while.
I think I also may have mentioned that Eric and I were given the opportunity to get out of dodge without the kids! We played it cool and were like whatever, if you want to stay home with the kids Grandma, good luck to you! I don't know who enjoyed themselves more, Grandma, the kids, or us? It was fun being without the kids, we drove several hours to the Biltmore. Eric's never been there and so I thought it would be a nice place to go. They had the place all decorated up for Christmas, apparently it was the busiest time of the year and there was a LOT of waiting at the winery, and elsewhere. And since we didn't have the kids, what did we care if we had to stand in line!? And when we were standing in line we found out a "wine & chocolate" special tour thing they do, so we signed up, and it was fun learning about the wines and chocolate pairings. Eric, being an overachiever tried all the wines from the winery, well, except for the "premium" wines, you had to pay for those! (If you are counting that is 20 wines!) I on the otherhand am not that dedicated, mostly though because I don't like white wine at all! But I had several of the reds 2x! We did the special candlelight tour and the regular tour. It was fun! We even met this couple that took our picture: we took their picture for them. But, I kind of like this picture of us better.

We stayed in a B&B and I spoke to my first Canadians, I think. They were heading for FL and they weren't pleased with how cold it was! For breakfast we had creme brulee french toast! YUM!!! It was lovely, so if you ever need a name of a place, let me know, I'll pass it along.
But, fortunately for everyone who lives with me I came back refreshed, and better able to cope with 2 kids and 1 husband. I even called a neighbor and scheduled a play date, that we went to yesterday! We had a nice time, I got to speak with the Mom, the kids got to play with some new toys, we will have to have them over to our house to play.
I have been procrastinating on Gwen's preschool forms. :( The pre-K is part of a K-8 school so their forms are a little intense for the 4 year old set (I think!) Seriously, it has made me ignore it, until Sunday, when I sat down at Church (next to the Principal!) Yesterday I made some phone calls and today dropped off the medical form before grocery shopping, which the practice had finished for me by the time I finished grocery shopping! Awesome! So now that's done.
I have also started looking into more of the Moms groups here, my Church has 1 and had some info in the bulletin, so I have contacted them and another group. I have learned one thing in recent weeks, I need someone local to talk to that isn't Eric! I also need to get exercising in, but have realized that it is too cold for me to take the kids out. They had so much congestion in the beginning of the winter, but now that I am no longer running, they are not having that problem. I have been doing indoor exercising, not necessarily a lot of fun, but I have got to start being more active.
We have also started working as a family to keep the house cleaner. I don't make resolutions, it is too depressing to fail at something at the beginning of the year, but we decided that if we work as a family to clean the house, it doesn't fall to 1 person always picking up. So far, 2 weeks in, I think it is going well, the house is staying cleaner and we aren't stepping on things and neither Eric and I are angry at each other for things being left out and messy, I hope this trend will stay, because our quality of life has improved, which is always a good thing! ;) Hopefully it won't be another 10 days before I get to updating again! I guess I should pull out the camera and start taking pictures of the kids again!

Christmas Eve

Sadly, we have been sick here since my last post. Gwen and Eric with the same sickness, I won't go into specifics, but needless to say, Nate and I are lucky to not have that. I had a different sickness involving sore throats and lots of sleeping. Today though, Eric went back to work, we went to back to our "routine". And I was busy today doing laundry and Nate went ahead and sprayed it in his eye, so that was fun.
But, onto the next posting about Christmas, I know it is already 2010. Here are pictures from Christmas Eve, we went to Church, and all survived a miracle really, because Nate was with us, but no pictures from Church. We came home, had our traditional "shrimp, Uncle Gary style". Made some reindeer food and let the kids open 1 present from Eric's Mom. Then everyone went to bed to wait for Santa and the kids to awaken...

Decorating cookies

I have many, many pictures to update you on so I'll try to start at the beginning. My Mom just left this morning, Eric drove up to MD to take care of some of the stuff on the house, but I am getting ahead of myself. My Mom arrived from FL last week. I thought this would be a good time to decorate cookies, our family's tradition. I haven't had such a good luck getting the cookies to work out right, so I was glad that Mom was coming so I could watch and learn. Watch and learn I did! Now I hope I can remember to next year. Here are the pictures:

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas eve, the presents are wrapped and under the tree, stuffing made, cake made, ready to go, I suppose. Now all we need to do is go to bed early, there is much un-wrapping to do tomorrow. I forgot to remind Gwen that she is not to get up and un-wrap presents tomorrow until everyone gets up! I hope she just doesn't get up and start un-wrapping. We went to Church today, the children's Mass, had our tradition, close your arteries shrimp. Currently Eric and my Mother are discussing www.noradsanta.org it is a pretty intense conversation. I am beginning to wonder if they are going to stay up and watch the whole thing.
I have realized yet again, I have a backlog of pictures to post. So here are some from our "Christmas photo shoot". We tried to take pictures on the campus, but it the kids were not super co-operative and this picture, I wish I was better positioned for and I wish I would have gotten the sweet one right after it where Gwen kissed Nate, but alas, I didn't! :( This picture actually made the Christmas card, I think. It was I think the cutest where we could see there faces.

I loved this picture, but I didn't feel like it would work on the card. And really, can't see Gwen's face.

I also wanted to include these pictures of the kids "helping" us put up the tree.

Well, goodnight everyone. Merry Christmas! I hope you have a happy and blessed holiday surrounded by friends and family.

Its not real snow

We have been kind of busy around here, I have been scouring to do the last minute Christmas things and making caramels. I have delivered candy to all of our neighbors. I've been busy, I tell you.

Today we went to a little shopping center with the kids, we didn't know anything about it, but we thought we'd give it a go because it was decorated pretty. It was a little hoity-toity for us, and mostly had place to eat and no shops. I tried to get pictures of the kids in front of the tacky decorations.

Well, Gwen cooperated for like a minute.

You might notice in those pictures there is snow. Apparently, if we wouldn't have moved from MD we would have gotten snowed in. Yesterday when it started snowing, I showed Gwen that it was snowing and she said "Mom its not real snow, it isn't on the ground and we can't play in it". So, last night we got some snow, that stuck to the ground, we bundled the kids up and took them outside to play.

You can see Nate really enjoyed himself, well I don't know if he really cared so much about it, he was trying to sneak around the car.

We could make snow balls, and then I tried to make a snow man, well, I succeeded in making a snow man, but then it was crushed by the children, who probably wouldn't have crushed it until Eric said something like Nate-chop! Which is Nate's newest trick, he loves to walk around and say "chop, chop" and then knock stuff over or hit things, great, thanks Eric!

A good time was had by all, we had hot chocolate after we came in and then I made caramel, which takes forever! It was a lot of stirring...

Dr. appt

Here are the vital statistics:
He is 25lb 4oz (50%)
32in (50%)
It seems he grew about a pound (15oz) and 1 inch. Also his head is at 50%, so he is all around average! Everything went well, he got all the shots, and now is done with shots until preK! YAY! Also, he has a bump on his wrist, which is apparently a cyst, that is often hereditary. She said that it probably will not be a problem for him ever, but we will keep an eye on it, and if it does cause problems (like when he is weightlifting!) or get bigger it can be drained. All-in-all good visit, on schedule, back in 6 months!

Gwen

My almost 3.5 year old is going through a rather trying time, apparently. Eric says that he kind of feels like she has PMS. She is quite the emotional one these days. Some days I get this, where she is cooperative and sweet and will do what I ask with very little questioning...other days I get this, where she won't even turn around for the camera....I had to get the picture following this one on the fly, which is why it is so dark.

She is a study in contrasts, some times she's up, sometimes she's down. You never know which one you are going to get. Many things I wonder about...why is she sleeping on the floor?

Why does she refuse to nap, but anytime she sits still between 3-4 she falls asleep, like in my car, in the stroller, or next to me on the couch this afternoon. She is a mystery. It makes me think of a silly little movie that I saw where the character says "I love you, but I don't really like you very much right now". I love her dearly, but she makes me question my sanity.

Here she is climbing the rock wall at the local museum.

We have had some issue with Gwen and her peeing. Not really a problem so much, she just won't go as often as I should think she should, like 1-3 times a day, usually she doesn't pee until mid-afternoon. I had discussed it with the Dr at her 3yr appointment and she told me I should make a routine out of it, and I've tried, seriously, I've tried, but its been 6 months and I have to beg and plead with her to go, not worth it to me. I feel like at this point, I am just training her to go when I tell her, and not actually go when she needs to, so then if I forget one day to remind her she is going to have an accident, which I don't want to happen. So, I'm going to let her be for a while and go when she needs to, and see how it goes. Today she went during quiet time and she didn't flush "because it is so loud and she didn't want to wake anybody up"! She is so considerate. We have tried to night train, but we are staying up too late (E & I) so we aren't getting up the instant she gets up, which I think we are going to have to do to night train her. So as soon as we quit being lazy, that will go well, I am sure.

FYI-that little boy in the picture is not Nate! I took the kids to the Museum the other day on a Mom's group thing, they had enough members that we could get in for free. I haven't done anything else with these Moms because their activities are not convenient for me, and then Friday I hardly got to talk to any of them, but the kids had a super fun time, and that is all that matters!

Busy Evenings

The last couple evenings I have been super busy, I have been busily writing my Christmas cards. I have other things to do, after the cards, but wanted to get them out, so I could cross them off my todo list.
Gwen has started to take over some of my responsibilities around here, finally. She has started reading Nate's books before nap time (this is news to Eric, who still reads the stories before bedtime, sucker!) She demands that he sits next to her and she "reads" to him. Of course, she is almost 3.5 and she is not actually reading to him, she has just memorized the books. And sometimes needs help remembering how to start the page, but usually does all the words, as written.

Ah, 1 less chore for me! Now if I could just get her to keep her clothes on all day and clean up after herself, I would be set!

Sunday-update!

Well, sadly I forgot to mention a couple things in my Sunday post from yesterday. After Nate's nap we couldn't decide what to do, and Gwen was uncooperative, so I suggested we clean out their room. Eric and I went in there with a trash bag and removed baby toys, toys they don't touch and books. We actually probably pulled 2 garbage bags worth of stuff out of there. Nate has a tendency to tear books, so we have to figure out what to do about that. I have started throwing some of those books away, since he is tearing them beyond repair, in my opinion. We now have only 1 "cube" that has toys in it and a half filled toy box! AWESOME. I kind of wish Christmas wasn't coming, because I think this will make our lives a lot easier and now they have 1/3 the toys they used to have in there, which looking at it, seems to be a more reasonable number. Now if we could just get Gwen to get rid of some of her "babies" (stuffed animals and dolls) we would be in much better shape, because her "babies" bassinet is overflowing.
I also attempted peppermint bark. We LOVE the stuff from W-S. But we've always thought it was too expensive and I have been wanting a recipe to make it at home. The recipe I made yesterday was a fail! :( It mostly tastes like chocolate, the ratio seems off and well, it is just not right. I am just going to have to try again... Find a different recipe, I don't know. Don't get me wrong, it is edible, that's not the problem, the problem is too much chocolate, not enough peppermint.
I've also realized it is time to make candy, we have our last music class next week and I'd like to make candy to take to the class. So I've got to get on that. I also had a chat with our neighbor the cop and his wife. Man are they nice people, they are definitely getting some of our candy! He gave me the low-down on the high-speed chase and the catching of the criminals! He told me I could come over any time I had a question or problem and he will let me know what is going on. (Since I said I wanted to come over and find out what happened but had seen it on the news and so I didn't need to know). I am glad that conversation is over with, now I won't feel so weird going over and finding out stuff about police activity. It was funny though, because he didn't realize that it was Eric he saw on the trail, it was, after all a rather unusual coincidence!

Sunday

The last couple of nights, maybe a week or so, we have found Gwen sleeping on the floor in front of the door. We don't know why, I suspect it is so she can listen to the TV and sneak peeks, but I think Eric and I have found a temporary solution that we haven't implemented yet, maybe soon. One of these days we found Gwen like this. Sitting in front of the night light, I should think if she didn't sit in front of the light, she wouldn't need the glasses, but what do I know! Nate has taken a particular liking to laying on his belly to look at things. He also loves to sit in people's laps and have them read to him. Sadly he will have you read the same story over and over again. I think Eric was tired of it and tried to get away, Nate wasn't bothered by this, he just laid down next to him and said "read, read". Eric, obviously obliged! We decided this year to celebrate the feast of St. Nick, sadly we were a day off, but the kids don't know that. We decided to stuff their stockings instead of socks or shoes and the kids really enjoyed it. We took some of the stocking stuffer like presents out of the already piled up gift stash in the garage and gave them some...Gwen got these PJs seen here! As you can see, still a ham and wearing Daddy's slippers...I should think she would be warmer if she wore the PJ bottoms, but again, what do I know! Nate got a truck, a fire truck to be specific, randomly throughout the day he would say "TRUCK, TRUCK" with some urgency, and then have to find it immediately. I would say it was a hit! They got a couple other things, but not so exciting as those 2 presents. Gwen loves her stocking so much she brought it with her to Church and she took it up to Communion!
We also put up more Christmas lights. We figured out what was causing the lights on the house not to light, and when we'd fix the issue on the strand we'd accidentally blow a fuse. It was fun! So we think we have finally figured out our lighting scheme, but we are figured out that we should do some diagramming or something before we just start throwing up lights, oh well, next year! Here is the rest of the scheme with the new lights from Dad's stash. You'll just have to look back at the other picture and pretend it is 1 picture! Maybe soon we will have all the lights working at the same time and we can get a picture, just maybe.