It's December!

It's December and the kids are SO excited. Noah has told at least one person every day for a week, "Tomorrow is Christmas." It's going to be a long month. Anticipating this, I bought an advent calendar to put the wait in perspective. It's a nativity scene and they get to add something to the scene every day. Very cute.

Noah's new obsession: blueberry muffins. So we saw some delicious blueberry muffins at the grocery store so I suggested to the kids that instead of buying those, we make some together. So today after school, they helped me make blueberry muffins. After eating one and being told no to asking if he could have another one, he decided if he couldn't eat one, he'd at least carry one around with him. And that's just what he has done. Shortly after I found him lining up four muffins across the back of the couch like a display, I told him he is only allowed to hold one and he has to sit at the table. Then the strangest thing happened. My usually energetic, slightly grumpy in the afternoons, four year old sat down and held a muffin in his little hands without eating it. That was 35 minutes ago and he's still there. Watching cartoons from the table, holding his new little buddy. I may have a future in baking.

Happy New Year!

Hello friends and family. Happy New Year!!! Todd and I rang in the New Year with the kids, some friends and Todd's mom and sister. It was a great time - we started out with Bourbon Slushies....yes that's right, bourbon slushies are a tradition around the holidays here. I passed on them on Christmas Eve at the neighbor's party but couldn't say no to my MIL on New Year's Eve and I have to say they are sooooo good. Anyway, so we had bourbon slushies, a big dinner, ate way too much, then had dessert. After dinner the adults played charades. The kids saw us having so much fun they had to join in and we had fun watching them act out different animals. The would come to me and whisper in my ear, tell me what I am. I'd whisper back, "pretend to be a butterfly." And then they would go to the center of the room and act out their animal/insect, etc. After a few hours of games, the adults started to get sleepy but not Noah and Sabelle. We all sat around the room with our glasses of wine marveling at their energy.
I don't know how we did it but we made it to midnight. The neighbors behind Dee Dee put on a fireworks show every year so we went outside and just looked up over Dee Dee's house and watched the show. It was windy and cold so I got in the car, turned it on, blasted the heat and watched from the car, comfortably. One by one almost everyone piled in the car to join me. At the end we had me, Dee Dee, Robin, Michael, Sabelle and Noah stepping and lying on each other while trying to see out the windows. Todd and Derbigney braved the cold. When it was over we walked inside and Sabelle went into the living room, curled up in a chair with Dee Dee and was asleep within 2 minutes. Noah puts up more of a fight but he was tired and soon fell asleep in his bed.
We missed my mom and dad and brother Jason and nephew Foster. However, Noah did have fun calling "Granman" and "Gaga gaga mommy" the next day and playing charades over the phone. It goes like this, Granman makes an animal sound, Noah laughs hysterically and screams, do it again! Do it again!
Well, I have a hundred things to do so I better get off the computer. Errands, naps and then we promised Sabelle we would take her to see The Princess and the Frog movie. Bye for now.

Overheard at our house...

Sabelle saying her prayers last night before bedtime, "Dear God, I wish unicorns were real."

Noah, lying on the floor (having his diaper changed), looking at my shoes, "Your shoes are pretty Mommy. Can I kiss your shoe?"

Not me

Not me!!

So let me first say that I got the idea for this “Not Me” stuff from another blog I read sometimes. I always think her Not Me posts are so funny and so true to my life. She has actually started a thing she calls “Not Me Mondays” that some of her readers participate in too. As she says, it is so therapeutic and freeing to “admit some of our imperfections and reveal a few moments we’d rather forget.

Why?

Well, for one, because reading through stories of other people’s Not Me! Mondays each week is a great way to level the playing field. We’re all human, we all take embarrassing shortcuts, and so we may as well show each other that we’re all in good company!” That being said.....

• I did not eat an entire half-gallon of ice-cream by myself in 3 days (and Todd ate two this week). That would be gross. And since we both are supposedly "getting in shape". And we do not hide the ice-cream from the kids and eat it all ourselves and then hide the evidence while they are asleep. They do not get the cheap sugar cookies that were on sale at the grocery store so that we can splurge on ice-cream for ourselves. No, we wouldn't be that selfish. Not me.

• I did not keep telling the kids to go to the other (shady) side of the baby pool today because I couldn't find the sunscreen and thus didn't put any on them. And then I certainly did not try and drag the before-mentioned pool full of water across the yard to a shady spot because as the afternoon went on, their pool was exposed to the the sun completely. It didn't budge an inch because with water, that thing must weigh 400 pounds.
  

• I do not skip bath time if the kids were in the swimming pool that day just to save time and my sometimes aching back. And I do not just tell Todd with a straight face, "the chlorine killed everything anyway, right?"

• I did not shove bites of a PB&J sandwich into Noah's face every 5 minutes while having physical therapy at the park yesterday because we didn't get there early enough to eat lunch before PT and that is not because when we were at my parent's house this weekend, I left his walker behind (and didn't notice until my parents told us) and so we had to drive over there and pick it up before PT.

Nov 29th, 2007....

The following is my first unoficial blog entry. It's from 11/29/2007! I just found it from the other blog I started. See - I'm doing better already...I've done TWO posts this time around. Anyway, thought this was funny so I'm sharing...

Well, I have not managed to keep up my journaling with memories of the kids so I decided, perhaps I'll be able to sustain a blog. And this will be easier to convince Todd to join in to as well. He is a much better writer than I am so we'd all benefit. No pressure Todd. OK...so here's what's going on in our little corner of the earth....
We moved in to our new house on Chestnut Forest Court about 6 weeks ago and (yes we are still unpacking boxes) we love it. It's much bigger than our old house so we don't have to abstain from emptying the diswasher, talking, eating, walking, etc. when the kids are sleeping. We have just put up our Christmas tree and are getting into the holiday spirit. We still haven't shopped for the kids yet but the last thing they need are more toys. :) I'm thinking Santa will be bringing books to us this Christmas. Sabelle knows every word of every book she owns and therefore doesn't pay much attention to bedtime story time. Noah still dislikes (o.k. hates) being read to so we'll have to find him some books too - perhaps some that come with snacks (since all he ever wants to do is eat). Noah has been all over the house since he learned to crawl but if he spots Mommy he whines and lays his head down on the floor like he's sooo tired. His physical therapist thinks he's a little manipulative. Haha. And she falls for it every time too - he just has to fuss a little and lay his head on her shoulder and she melts. Terri is the only person that Noah will let hold him, other than me. He won't even let me put him down next to me on the couch at times, he has to be in my lap. Quite the opposite of his big sis although she is very affectionate at times. I see now why blogs are not a good idea for me - I'm too ADD. I don't know what to write so I think I need to type everything and nothing at the same time. Perhaps if I do it more on a regular basis, I'll learn how to hit the high points and condense our memories into pretty little packages but my first try is a little messy. More to come (hopefully)!
-J

Still here! Ah....the day of an unemployed couple.

So I have to say it's been rather nice to have Todd home for the past 3+ months. After about 6 weeks it got old and we started panicking. Now we are trying to keep ourselves as busy as possible and that seems to help.

Last night we stayed up late painting the kitchen and dining room (yellow). It actually looks great. We are not always great with color (that's putting it mildly) but we got lucky this time and only had to go through 3 different sample colors before finding the right one: Fioli Honey by Valspar. Has a nice ring doesn't it? So there we were last night as the kids slept, painting in complete silence. Neither of us wanted the t.v. on and we were both too lazy to make a decision about music so we zoned out on the fumes and painted and painted. We were determined to get it done, tired or not.

So this morning we woke up, made breakfast -eggs and english muffins (and Cheerios for Noah - he HAS to have his Cheerios). We do this every morning now since we usually have no timetable or place to be! :) After breakfast we drank our coffee as we watched the Today show until the kids, begging for Dora and Diego, won out. I went upstairs to do a quick search for jobs and Todd started on the kitchen painting and sanding.

Didn't get time to finish or post but now it's Friday afternoon so I'm a day behind. Today we woke up, ate breakfast. Todd and I were both really exhausted but last night both kids slept all the way through the night (something that hasn't happened much lately). I made a blanket fort for the kids. Drank 2 cups of coffee. Watched a little news. Todd and I then spent the next 4 hours searching for jobs, sending our resumes out, calling places, etc. The kids played really well together. After finding Noah on the kitchen floor in front of the pantry yesterday covered in uncooked rice and pasta, flour and who knows what else, we put a baby lock on the pantry. Now if we can just remember to keep it locked. He did managed to rip the labels off the paint cans and get his hands on a pair of candlesticks but that's small time for Noah. Now we are all going out to take the kids to the museum. We are all a little stir crazy. I need to find our camera so I can post some pictures.

Very first entry!

All right, so after enjoying keeping up with friends via their family blogs AND failing to consistently journal, I figured it was time to start a blog. So here we are.

Today Noah had OT and apparently loved on everyone and was kissing all the women. He is my little love muffin and has now started kissing women (he knows) like his physical therapist, teachers at church school, neighbors, etc. Today though he was kissing everyone. He also had a head CT scan - he's been complaining of his head hurting the past 2 days and he was due to have his yearly scan so we went today. It was inconclusive, as far as a shunt malfunction goes. We'll watch him but he seems to feel just fine.

Sabelle has been cracking us up with the things she says. She remembers everything she hears and repeats it a few days or weeks later. My absolute favorite was when she was trying to decide whether she wanted to bring her backpack or a play purse with her (to wherever we were going) and I pointed out how big her backpack was and she stopped, thought about it for a minute and said, "I'm not going to bring my backpack; it's not appropriate." I couldn't help it, I laughed out loud. We're going to give her a complex because we are always laughing at her because she is so funny (even when she isn't necessarily trying to be funny) and she thinks were making fun of her. She is my sweet, sweet girl and very much a mommy's girl. I'm going to post the most recent pictures I have of the kids - from Lemonade Days riding ponies.