Christmas in April?

Noah is in love with the Christmas lights. I think I might leave the tree up until Spring.


He's trying so hard to talk and can only get out a few coos. He already takes after his Mama and has lots to say.


He greeted me this morning with a bunch of big smiles, which made me smile.

Life is good.

Elf Yourself

This was too funny not to post.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

A Visit From Grammie

David's Mom came to visit for the week. Sadly, she leaves tomorrow. We will all miss her, but I think Emily will miss her the most. She had someone always willing to play a game, dolls and read books. Emily had been working on a new set of site words for over a month and was just having the hardest time with them. I'm not the greatest teacher and I get frustrated easily. Grammie and her sat down together and in 30 minutes, Emily knew them all. We also always had an extra set of hands wanting to hold a fussy baby. It was nice to have her here.

Here are some pictures from the past week.





Until next year at Christmas...

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Mainly that this little guy survived his too early entrance into the world.


I'm thankful for this little princess too.


And this little cutie.


And this handsome man.


What I am not thankful for is the experience of trying to take our annual family photo for our Christmas card. My mother in law snapped about 30 pictures and they all pretty much looked like this.


We drove down to Phoenix and spent the day with my family. It was a wonderful day and the baby didn't make a peep in the car either way. I was VERY thankful for that.

I hope you and your family had a nice holiday.

Boxers or Briefs?

Apparently neither.

He looks innocent enough. And he is. Except the kid hates underwear. I put some on him every morning and the first time he goes to the restroom, this is what I find.


I can either run after him 7 times a day and dress him again or just let him be. He tells me, "I don't like underwear"! I thought maybe he just isn't a brief guy. So, I bought boxers briefs with transformers on them. He still won't wear them. I know I need to pick and choose my battles and this is one that I'm not going to fight. The only time I draw the line and insist on underwear is when he goes to gymnastics. I found out too late that he went commando to gymnastics a few weeks ago.

I'm hoping it's just a phase. Have your kids ever boycotted underwear?

Not What I Expected

We got Roxie from the humane society a year ago. You can read about it here . At the time, we thought we hit the jackpot with finding a great dog. We soon found out she had some issues. You can refresh your memory of some of her antics here , here , here , and here .

To recap, she digs holes in the backyard, escapes, ruined our front screen door trying to get in, ate the majority of last years Christmas presents, gets in the trash, pees on the carpet, eats anything (cardboard, baby wipes, gloves). She has major separation anxiety issues. She only does this when we leave her. She is a perfect dog when we are home. When we originally got her, we were told that someone had adopted her and her brother and brought them both back in a week. The only thing the person wrote down on her information sheet was "not what I expected". Isn't that the truth? We even got another dog to try to ease her discomfort when we were gone. Nothing has helped her.

We thought we could change her. We thought enough love and a good home would ease her fears. We were wrong. She has gotten progressively worse over the last year. We don't know how old she is exactly, but we imagine probably 8 or 9. She doesn't want to go for long walks anymore. She started getting in the garbage a month ago. And the other day she started ripping into the box for our new printer. Thank God I got home in time or who knows what might have been left. It used to only be things that had an edible scent to them. We think she may be losing it.

David and I were dreading Thanksgiving. Leaving her at home meant god knows what. Taking her with us meant listening to a panicked panting dog for 2 hours who would probably pee in my car...again! Then, I thought about the anxiety medicine that we had for Forest to get him through thunderstorms. We could leave her home, but drug her. We made an appointment at the vet.

The day before the appointment, she ate our printer box and then we went to Costco and she got in the garbage, feasted on stale bread and popcorn, and pooped on the carpet. It took David 45 minutes to clean up. We were both at our wits end. She is ruining everything in our house. Do you have any idea how many times I cleaned diarrhea out of the carpet? You don't want to know. We tried to put her in a crate and she rammed her face against hit so hard there was a pool of blood on the outside of the crate and she broke a tooth. That was an emergency visit to the vet. We thought we were out of options and thinking maybe we would have to put her down. What other options do we have? I never would've gotten a dog with major separation issues if I had known. We are too busy of a family. We can't take her back to the humane society. We'd be totally honest on the questionairre and nobody would adopt her. Her anxiety issues would only get worse while she sat in a cage waiting. I put an ad on Craiglist thinking maybe a nice older person who doesn't leave much would want her. All I got were a bunch of "good luck" e-mails. But, our hearts felt heavy with the option of putting her to sleep.

Then the vet tech suggested doggie prozac. Seriously? Doggie Prozac? It is used to treat OCD and anxiety issues. She definitely falls into that category. How much is it? $60 a month. Ugh, a little too pricey for us. With all of David's pay cutbacks, we even cancelled the $12 a month subscription for the newspaper. We told the vet that we couldn't afford it. To which they told us, they could prescribe Roxie the human generic version from Walmart for only $4 a month. Cha ching! So, there you have it, our dog is on prozac.

It may take a week to see the full results. But, we also got some Xanax to give her for the rare occasion that we might be gone for a longer period of time, like on Thanksgiving.

It sounds absolutely crazy, even to me who is generally pretty crazy. But, it's our last option. The vet says it works wonders....stay tuned!

I Look Like Who?

A few weeks ago, I got the dreaded e-mail from US Airways. I haven't used or gained any miles in a year and I'm at risk of losing 30,000 if I don't act now. They get me with this every year. I have 3 small children, when could I possibly fly? And to cash in on my bonus miles, I must take a red eye on a Tuesday. I will hold on to these miles probably until the kids graduate high school and David and I will use the miles that I saved for 25 years to fly to Seattle. A $99 flight on Southwest Airlines.

I digress, I decided to purchase from one of the companies that they do business with as every $1 I spend is 1 sky mile. I do this every year. It's the one and only time I order from Avon. I like Avon, but I just don't usually buy anything from them. I guess I'm too cheap for shipping, but this time, I even had a free shipping code. Score. I ordered a beautiful compact with a rainbow of eyeshadows.

I like eyeshadow. It's one of the few make up choices that I play with. It's probably why when I was flown to the hospital with Noah, Emily helped David pack for me and she put 13 compacts of eyeshadow in my bag. She told David that I use them all and she's right. Of course, she failed to see that I also use a razor and tweezers on a daily basis. I would've traded 12 of those eyeshadows for tweezers and a razor in a heartbeat.

I have brown eyes, so according to Carmindy on TLC's What Not To Wear, I can get away with almost any color eyeshadow. I was so excited with my new Avon eyeshadows, I dove right into the blue. Now, I didn't get all crazy Farah Fawcett like, just some nice blue highlights on my lids.

I walked into the living room where Ben looked up and noticed my new color right away. He said, "Wowwwwwwww, you look like Toodee from Yo Gabba Gabba."

I immediately thought of this guy and thought I should go right back to sleep.


Then, Ben informed me that Toodee is the blue one. Strangely enough, I felt much better that I looked like this one.


Do you see the resemblance? We are kindred spirits I know it!

If you've never had the privilege of seeing Yo Gabba Gabba, here is a video clip.

Now, I know it sounds annoying, but Ben will literally talk to his food at night and ask his broccoli if it wants to go to the party in his tummy. Then, he promptly eats it. Whatever works, right?

Tomorrow, I'm going for green eyeshadow. I wonder if Ben will think I look like Shrek or Kermit the Frog.
Maybe I should just stick to browns.

A Place To Lay His Head

Noah slept in his crib for the first time last night. We didn't have the room to set it up before. He had been sleeping in a bassinet in our closet. Don't judge, our closet is bigger than some kids' bedrooms. I think he enjoyed his new room. He's still eating at 1 and 5 at night, but at least he was happy in the morning. I think because he didn't have to smell stinky sneakers all night. He loves his mobile. Here he is cooing at it this morning. Sorry about the lighting, but I didn't want to blast sunshine on him first thing in the morning. You get the idea though.


I doubt he liked the flash for this picture, but he was getting crabby anyway, so might as well really tick him off.


In other news, Emily made some wall art in the bathroom last night. We save all of our toilet paper and paper towel rolls, shred them and compost them. She decided to get creative. If you would like to order your custom wall art, send $29.99 to our home address and we'll get one sent out for you. Or you could just grab some scotch tape and go to town.

A Door Closes

The rooms in our house have changed many times since we moved in over 2 years ago. I wrote about a few changes that happened last year here . This was before we were pregnant. Now things needed to change again.

When we bought our 4 bedroom house plus a den, we did not enclose the den. Sure we wanted doors, but at that sales meeting, the price just kept adding up with every upgrade. We decided doors on the den were optional. Then, we got pregnant. We have 4 rooms, but we need a guest room too. People come to stay a lot and we need to have that space for them.

My Dad and David took on the task this weekend of enclosing the den.




We are going to stain the wood around the door instead of paint it. It's so pretty, why paint over it.

The guest room used to look like this:


Suzy helped get it all set up, and now it is Noah's room.



I love this saying above Noah's crib. David's Auntie Barb sent it to us.


The guest room furniture got moved to the old den that now has a door on it.


And our formal living room became a den/play room.



We are getting a second computer as we all seem to want to be on at the same time.

I wonder how long this set up will last before we need to change it again. Although, I can't imagine what for. We certainly will not be having any more babies!

The Final Game

The kids had their last soccer game today. The season started off a little rocky, but the kids didn't give up and we made it till the end. I'm very proud of them for hanging in there and not quiting.



They were most excited about getting their trophies.


Goodbye to the Dragonflies. It was a great season.

Six

Happy Anniversary to my dear sweet husband.
After six years, you still come home from work every night and give the kids a bath.


Now that's love.

Here's to 60 more sweetheart.

Man Eater

He looks innocent enough right?


Until he made one of Ben's robots into an amputee. He didn't really NEED his right foot.


But, then he did this to Emily's Strawberry Shortcake doll.
We have several other amputees around the house as well.


He's only two years old and still chews some things. I can usually deal with it or tell the kids that's what they get for not putting their toys away. But today he put me over the edge. I was mortified when I woke up.

Just look what he did to Emily Elizabeth.


He decapitated her.

I'm making the appointment to get him neutered.

3 Months

I took this picture of Noah when he was 3 weeks old.


Here he is at 3 months.



The doll on the left has been wearing way too much self tanning lotion.

We saw a nutritionist today, so he got weighed and measured. He was 22 inches long and 10 pounds 7 ounces. She said he was between the 25-50% for height and weight, but that is impossible. He wasn't even on the chart for weight 3 weeks ago at the Doctor. When I came home, I googled several charts and they all say he is about 5% for his height and weight. I guess it doesn't much matter as long as he is growing well.

First Book

Now that Emily has completed her reading rainbow at school (letters, sounds, site words), her teacher is sending her home with a series of Scholastic early reader books. The instructions were she would get one a day. We were supposed to read it to her and then let her read. Emily picked up the book and read it the first time without any help. I'm so proud of my girl.

Game 6

Look who enjoyed watching the World Series last night...

...he got seriously ticked off though when the Yankees took the lead.

That's my boy!

Torn Between Two Lovers

Feeling like a fool... That song reminds me of driving around with my Mom in the 70's in our orange Datsun pick up. But that has nothing to do with this blog post.

We all know Ben loves dressing up like a superhero. His old favorite was Spiderman.


A trip to Walmart the day after Halloween scored us a great deal on this Power Ranger costume. He had to have it. He loves the muscles.


He even wore it to the park yesterday and wondered why he was all sweaty. Yes, it snowed here last week and now it's 75 degrees. He's worn it two days in a row to pick up Emily at school. I'm really hoping I can get him in something else before we pick her up today or the other Moms will start to think I'm odd. Maybe they already do? I have to wait until he goes to bed tonight to sneak it in the wash.

He's really torn between the two outfits, but for now the Power Ranger is winning.

Speaking of loves, I reconnected with an old love recently. Comet. Yes, plain old fashioned Comet. It's all we used in the house as a kid. My Mom would assign me the chore of "dutching the sinks". Where did that word ever come from? Dutch the sink? Is it a real word? Slang? I don't know.

For years, I had gotten away from Comet and went to soft cleansers. Then, I went on my green kick and used vinegar. When I stayed at the Ronald McDonald house after I had Noah, I had to do my own housekeeping. For $10 a day, maid service is not included. Whatever! And there was my old love. Just sitting there waiting for me to hold him. A grabbed the can of Comet with a smile and went to town on the sink and tub. I fell in love all over again.

You know what else I fell in love with at the Ronald McDonald house? The wonderful people and companies who donated their time, energy and money to come to the house to make dinner for all of the families staying there. Somebody signed up for this every night...sometimes it was a family that had stayed there, sometimes it was a company or church group. After a long day at the hospital and feeling like if I ate one more turkey sandwich, I'd become a butterball, there was a group of smiling, happy people making me a home cooked meal. It was unbelievable really. The generosity of people sometimes astounds me. It makes me realize that I can and should be a better person.

Since we are on the topic of the Ronald McDonald house, if you are looking to get rid of some toys before Santa brings his bounty, consider donating to them. They are a great charity who made our lives easier for 13 nights. They have play rooms for the kids who are staying there, and they can always use gently used toys or video games that your kids are bored with.

You can go to Ronald McDonald House for more information.

Smiles

The hardest thing about going to bed every night is knowing that I will be up again in less than 3 hours. Since I was uncomfortable for a few months before Noah was born, I haven't slept more than 5 hours at one time in almost 5 months. It's starting to make me a little crazy.

Noah will be on what is called an "adjusted age" for a year. Meaning, he was 9 weeks early, so we need to subtract that amount of time from his age to find his adjusted age. Noah is 12 weeks old, minus the 9 weeks, so he should be doing what a 3 week old is doing. Basically, nothing. Well, eating, crying, pooping. That's about it. It also means that everything is going to be prolonged by 2 months. He probably won't sit up until 8 months, when most babies do this by 6 months, etc.

We hit our first milestone last night. I was up for the 1 A.M. feed. I was tired and bored watching Dancing With The Stars (if you've seen one quickstep, you've seen them all). I was having bad menstrual cramps, Noah had spit up all over me, I was thinking this was going to be a long feed. When, I went to put the bottle back in his mouth, I went for his nose by accident. I laughed and said something about how Mommy is silly. And he smiled! A real smile! We've gotten a one sided grin a few times, but I'm never really sure it's a smile or just a movement. Last night, I was sure. It was adorable. Big open mouth full of gums. And as I coaxed him for more, he obliged with a few more grins for his silly Mommy.

It was just what a needed to get me through the night.

Now, if I could only get a nanny.

Baby Noises

I love the little sounds of Noah sucking his pacifier and breathing/snoring. If this doesn't make you want to have another baby, I don't know what will.
Turn up the volume...


Just in case you need any birth control, this is what happened 10 minutes later.
Turn down the volume...

Take Two

Halloween night was so much fun. The kids got all dressed up. Emily was Thumbelina and Ben decided on Buzz Lightyear. For much of the day, he said he wanted to be all of his superheros...Batman cape, Buzz outfit, Spiderman hat, etc. I'm glad he picked one in the end.


Noah was Tigger. This was a 0-3 month outfit and obviously huge on him, but he looked cute.


I dressed up as an overtired, overworked stay at home mom...oh wait, that's what I am everyday.


We met up with a group of our friends and went trick or treating together. It's always more fun for the kids to go with each other. It's also more fun for us parents to be able to chat the whole time.


We were out for almost 2 hours. The kids were totally exhausted but they were troopers. We had bought 2 big bags of candy from Costco to hand out. My Dad and his wife usually come up and hand out candy while we take the kids out. This year, they didn't come because Suzy wasn't feeling great. So, we put out 3 bowls of candy with a note to take 2 pieces. This is what was left when we got home.


The funny thing is the 6 pieces of candy left in the bowl were not any candies that we originally had. I'm thinking kids thought of it as an exchange system. Take 3 laffy taffies and leave 3 tootsie rolls. At least they were creative.

The night ended with me tucking the kids in bed while David fed Noah. Emily's last words of the night were, "my belly hurts". Isn't that how it should be after eating too much candy on Halloween night?

What did you do for Halloween?