Progress and lack thereof

Ok, so last new years I made a few easy resolutions. I actually managed to turn about 20% of those resolutions into habit over the past year. Which is good. For me.

I've managed to plan my meals monthly for the entire year. I really like it that way. I use a weekly calendar printout that hangs on my fridge to plan my week and I adjust my monthly food plan slightly if I have to according to the meat I have and our other plans for the week. At the beginning of the year the meal planning was hard because, planning that far ahead, we weren't ever eating what we were particularly craving like we were used to, we were eating what was planned. I was surprised how fast the craving something in particular changed for me. Eating like that was just a habit in itself.

The other thing I've really gotten a handle on is my shopping trips. Costco once a month was my biggest concern and I've got that one down. I only go when the coupon book comes out. And SUPER thanks to my grandparents still watching the kids for me once a week, I have a great grocery shopping schedule too. Every Monday.

The last of my 20% is my ever slightly better handle I have on updating my checkbook and budget worksheets. I actually converted everything to a computer program, which is nice, but it's taking a surprisingly long time for me to be really comfortable with it. I don't like change very much.

Well, that's the 20%.

As for the lack thereof...

The exercise video I bought to assist me with my exercise goal is still unopened. A whole year, and still unopened. I have lost 5 pounds though. But I'm assuming that's from muscle degeneration. My stack of pants that need hemmed is still the same size, and I still don't plan activities for the kids regularly. But I'm ok with all that. I feel pretty good about my 20%.

For this year I'm going to re-focus on opening that video and maybe running in my neighborhood. And the pants. I'd have so much to wear if I'd just get those damn pants hemmed before they all go out of style.

And I've added two habits that need to be formed this year. Firstly, I need to get ready for my day more regularly, in the morning, before the day really starts. Shower, hair, AND makeup if I'm going out of the house. And secondly (thanks Ang) I'll be doing my dishes at night more often than in the morning (when I could be showering) because it DOES make the next day easier (and cleaner). And so far, more than 3 weeks into the new year, my new habits are well on their way to being not so new habits.

On a side note, Thor stole my baby girl this morning to take a quick trip to Colorado and I miss her. She was SO excited to go and as far as I've heard she hasn't cried for her mommy yet at all. I'll have to have a talk with her about that when she gets back.

Getting along

The kids have been getting along unbelievably well lately. So much so that Madeline has been throwing fits whenever I have to put Maison down for his nap or to sleep at night because she wants to play with him more (unless she's waiting for a naptime popsicle, of course). I love it. Maison is getting old enough to sort of participate in Madeline's games. And Madeline is getting old enough to just pretend he understands even if he doesn't. And they communicate pretty well. Madeline understands Maison's gestures & noises even better than I do sometimes.


Madeline does get frustrated when he decides he doesn't want to play anymore and ignores everything she says, but before she throws a fit she tries being really, really sweet to him to get him back into the game. In her sweetness, she calls him Buddy and Little Buddy. And she sounds like she's calling a puppy. It's so cute.


I hope his "Buddy" nickname doesn't follow him into his school years. I don't think he'll want his friends calling him that.


They were playing together on the Sit-N-Spin here. The picture's freaky, but in person they were spinning and laughing.

Las Vegas fish

are hecka ugly. But we had some time to kill so I took the kids out to the marina to feed the carp. They loved it. It was a little stressful for me to have them so close to the water, but they mostly sat anyways. After their bags of popcorn were gone (half to the fish and half in their mouths) we took a drive over to the beach. I thought they could run off some energy. There was no one else there and it was a nice but windy day. Most of our time there, Madeline stood/ran/jumped with her arms spread wide enjoying the wind, and Maison wouldn't go near the water so he played in the dirt up closer to the truck.

A haircut

To stop the tangles.



She loves it. She can't stop looking at herself in the mirror and has taken on brushing it herself every morning.



And I love it too. She's growing up too fast.

Oh yeah, it was CHRISTMAS.

So I figure that as long as I have my Christmas header still on my page it's not to late to post about our Christmas. Isn't there like a one month rule or something anyways?

Christmas was great fun. Christmas Eve dinner at our house (I forgot to put the noodles in my chicken noodle soup until nearly everyone was served), Christmas brunch at Grandma's (super yummy baked french toast)and dinner at Mom's (that she threw together in about an hour and it was great). It was a whirlwind of gifts and food. The kids got so much stuff that I've just now finally found places for it all. Us adults traded our usual name draw/ Un-secret Santa for a fun Stealing Santa exchange. I ended up with a flashlight. A flashlight so bright it hurts my eyes even looking at it from the side. Thor had wine glasses, then a pocket knife. but ended up with Starbucks instant coffee.


All of my pictures are posted here.

And here are a few pictures from our visit to The Magical Forest. It was so, so, SO cold that night. Madeline had a Blast (with a capital B, you see), but Maison wasn't quite feeling it.

He'll never be one again

See, even he's upset about it. He wants to stay a baby forever.

Or, maybe not. The real story to that picture is that he kept blowing out the candles as soon as they were lit so we moved the cake away from him until his birthday song was over. Which made him mad. And then he refused to blow out the candles at all. And refused to look at anyone in the room. So Madeline ended up blowing out his candles on his second birthday.

Luckily, for our memory book's sake, Ian relit the candles and convinced him to blow them out after most everybody was gone from the room. His candle blowing puff of breath is lightning fast.


The big hit of the day was the little quad he got from his Grandma and Grandpa. He learned to drive it like a pro in just a few tries and uses it to zoom around the house.


I hope you had a happy birthday little man. Two is going to be a big year. We still haven't heard many words from you (but I do think I've heard you say Spongebob (go figure) and Ian), but you communicate in other ways like a champ. You are very bossy even without words and as long as you don't talk you can still be my little baby boy, which is just fine with me. You love everything that has moving parts and can entertain yourself for hours. Most often you are lining up or pushing your cars and trains, watching their wheels spin, or pushing bigger toys around the house and yard. You like to jump on the trampoline and slide down the slide. You still follow me around like my little ducky rarely letting me close a door with you on the other side. One of your newer things is wanting to be held and carried around for a long time by whoever you have your heart set on at the moment and not letting them put you down without a fight. You copy everything your sister does, which drives her crazy of course. You want to be a big kid and do big kid stuff like use scissors and play video games, and someday you'll be able too. Maybe when you're three like your sister is now.

Your goofy smile and funny games light up our hearts, little guy. We love you to pieces.

Christmas Recital

Madeline had a little Christmas recital a couple of weeks ago. She amazes me with how well she does on stage. Their dance was maybe a minute long to "Let it Snow". She's the tall girl in the middle:

Filling in the blanks

In an effort to get 2009 stuff up in 2009, here's a quick rundown of what we've been doing the last couple of months.

Starting new fashion trends...

Practicing fancy new things...


Hosting Thanksgiving for the first time...


Making our Christmas lists...

Decorating our tree, starting a third of the way up...


Posing for pictures, in front of said tree...

Making and eating gingerbread houses...


Putting up the lights (of which a quarter are currently falling down and a half have stopped working completely for some reason)...


And we had a two year birthday, but I'll have to get to that later. Whew.

Polar Express

We took a trip to Williams, Arizona to ride the Polar Express train. What a blast. This year all of the cousins got to go together and they had so much fun.


The rest of the pictures are here.

They all visited Santa. Madeline was happy to sit on his lap and ask for a Barbie house. I think Santa was very surprised about that since she had NEVER MENTIONED IT BEFORE. Maison was not exactly happy, but since he was on Ian's lap and not Santa's he wasn't crying, which is much more than I expected.

Cutest baby on the toilet award goes to...

I know. He's not really a baby anymore. But he's my baby, so technically (or not) I can still call him one.

This is pre-potty training. He'll potty as he sits there, but is really there just for the toilet paper he gets to throw in the bowl. And he likes to flush and wave to the tp as it goes down the drain.

Impossible conversation

Here’s just a piece of part of my day long question/ answer sessions with Madeline.

In the car…

Her: Mom, are we going far, far away?

Me: Well, kinda far, but not like to the beach far.

Her: Oh. Like this far? (her hand trailing her arm from her shoulder down to her wrist)

Me: Uhhmmm, maybe.

Her: Like this far? (her hand trailing from her shoulder down to her elbow crook)

Me: Yeah, like that far.

Her: Can we see Marlee?

Me: No, we’re going to Miles’s and Isabella’s house.

Her: Is it far like Marlee’s house?

Me: Yes, but just not the same direction.

Her: Can we go to Marlee’s house?

Me: Uhhmmm, not right now.

Her: Why?

Me: Because we’re going to a birthday party right now.

Her: Oh. Marlee’s birthday party?

Me: No, remember? It’s Miles’s birthday and his baby sister’s.

Her: Go faster. Why are you not going faster? Because there’s cars?

Me: Yep.

Her: Why are there cars?

Me: I don’t know, there are always cars.

Her: Are we getting closer to Marlee’s house?

Me: No, we’re going to Miles’ house.

Her: Turn here! Turn here!

Me: No, that’s not the way.

Her: But it’s a shorter way!!

Me: No it’s not.

Her: Can I go to sleep?

Me: Sure

Her: Are we getting closer?

Me: yep

Her: Are we by our house?

Me: Nope

Her: Are we far, far away? Like 46 seconds far?

Me: Yep, I think so.

Her: Like 183 seconds?

Me: I don’t know, honey.

Her: Like NRRRRRMMMMMM (car driving sound) far?

And on and on and on and on and on

I love how she’s really trying to figure out the measurements of things, even though she gets her terms all mixed up. She typically measures distance on her arm, quantities on her fingers, days by how many times she has to sleep and sizes by mommy, daddy, baby references. Anyways, between her measurement terms getting mixed up and her throwing whatever number comes into her mind in there, understanding is very difficult on both sides of the conversation.

And, yes, I know this here blog has been sorely neglected. I barely hit 3 posts in November. So sad. My wonderful friend Angela has me reading again and I can not tear myself away from the books. I'm going to have to go cold turkey for a while after my current batch is read just so my bills get paid and dishes get done, and presents wrapped, and cat box cleaned, and children fed, and laundry done, and so on and so on.

Today my ears hurt

I think today was the loudest day of my life. Both kids were up super early, Maison may be having some sort of teething issue, Madeline is just Madeline. One would scream and the other would scream louder. We almost got kicked out of the library. The security guard asked me if I had a pacifier or bottle that I could give Maison. My ears are still ringing, my shoulders are in knots, tomorrow will be better.

Halloweenie

We did a few different things this Halloween. It is really the first year that Madeline knew what was going on, picked out her own costume and was excited to wear it (almost every day for a week and a half). On Wednesday we took the kids to Ian & Max’s school for their costume parade and classroom trick or treating. Madeline was so brave walking around the whole playground with the other kids holding Max’s hand. And she got to hone her trick or treating skills.


On Friday the boys and my mom came over to decorate some pumpkins. My kids painted. The rest of us carved, except mom she carved at home. Hers is the fancy cat. Ian’s is the big one. Mine is the small smiley one and Max’s is the other small one. Maison’s painting attention span is short, but very intense.



We had some family over on the big day. Miss Piggy showed up with her Harvard student boyfriend. We also had a hippy and a cat. Next year the rest of us losers are going to dress up. Maison was a train engineer. He wasn't paying attention and I was able to get the bandana on him. We chowed on mini pumpkin pies, mini caramel apples (which turned into apples in watery caramel goo, unfortunately) and chili and cornbread.


We went through a disgusting amount of candy again. I had chocolate withdrawals for a few days after because I didn’t stash enough chocolate and Madeline traded all of hers with the boys for Starbursts. We took the kids up our street and back down, until the boys wanted to leave us in the dust because we were slowing them down, and both of our little ones wanted to be carried everywhere by then anyways. Maison learned right away how to hold his bag out for candy.

Thirty-eight

Holy cow, that's almost forty!


For his 38th birthday last week, Thor asked for BBQ'd hamburgers, tator tots and a Spongebob cake. So, of course, that's what he got!




Spongebob turned out pretty cute, although he was falling apart by cake cutting time. Too many layers, not enough support. He was in BAD shape by the end of the night. The grand finale was us chanting as he fell over backwards right after Thor blew out his candles.

We had a nice dinner out on the porch and the kids and Thor beat on a pinata for a little bit. Thor doesn't trust his family enough to believe when we scream that he's about to bash in our living room window with the pinata (broom) stick. Thank goodness Gpa interveened and got him turned the right direction.

FALL!!

Brrrrr....

We're not complaining.