Better Late Than Never

OK, OK, I know it's almost Christmas, but I still have yet to post pictures from our Thanksgiving. We had a great day with the Clay family. We had lunch at the Golden Corral, played at the park and hung out with friends. It was mostly relaxing, entertaining and happy.





Since Thanksgiving, we've been having a germ fest in our house. We've had lots of infections and viruses. When we think one thing is gone, another takes its place. Someone is always sick - gotta love these cold months! It doesn't help that Ryan and I don't get to bed before 1am every night thanks to the newest member of our family. What can I say? The girl loves to eat.



Speaking of girls loving to eat, check out Claire's post-Thanksgiving backside!

I vowed I would

never be one of those moms that let her kids go around with nasty, black-cuffed coats in the winter that look like they haven't been washed in years. So when Claire comes home with gray fur cuffs on her coat instead of white fur, as they should be, I throw the coat into the wash. Unfortunately, this has been happening every week. And all the blame goes to those cursed shredded tire chips they have at her school playground. I guess the days of gravel or wood chips are over. Claire has managed to ruin pretty much all of her socks and a pair of khaki pants. Everything comes home gray. I guess that's the price I pay for safety.

William's "silly heads" creation - they make me laugh!

You know you're tired when...

...the sentence you're reading doesn't make any sense because you're trying to read the word "shower" as "show -er". Because, what the heck is a "show -er"??

...you keep incessantly calling your baby girl her brother's name.

...you keep putting your nursing pads in backwards, causing you to soak through your last clean sweat shirt and nursing bra.

...you can't figure out why anyone would want to put hydraulic acid serum on their face, only to have misread the magazine's suggestion to actually use hyaluronic acid serum (whatever the heck that is)

...you think something in one of the Anne of Green Gables book is so funny, that you are crying, you're laughing so hard. Anne of Green Gables funny? Seriously?

...your toddler's request for one more cup of milk about puts you in tears.

...Barney is on, the remote is across the room and you're too tired to get up and turn it off. Now you know you're tired...

exhausted

Can I just say that mothers have to be the most sleep-deprived people on the planet? Insomniacs having nothing on me. The longest I have slept consecutively in the past three months is four hours...and I've only done that once. I know there are others out there who are dealing with the same thing and this is for all of you.

Now imagine this...

• new baby who eats ALL THE TIME +
  
• other small children in the house that have figured out that when mom is feeding the baby, she can't get up and stop them from destroying the house or torturing the other siblings +
  
• a husband with the stomach flu (the nasty kind that requires him is own bathroom that no one else is allowed into) +
  
• mom now has an eye infection due to the lapse in her immune system as she tries to fight off a cold, (possibly the stomach flu if her luck holds out) and an ear infection none of which she can get medicine for due to her breastfeeding the cute little piggy... +
  
• lots and LOTS of laundry +
  
• loads of guilt because mom has not worked on any projects or done anything to get ready for the upcoming holiday season as she is barely managing the basic household duties +
• all of the other junk that comes with having a school-aged kid, toddler and newborn (fundraisers, swimming lessons, girl scouts, homework, doctor appointments out the wazoo, etc)
  

= one EXHAUSTED parent!!!

As I always think at these times: it's a good thing they're so darn cute!

A 6-year-old's Take On Politics

I know, I know. The whole presidential election is long and gone (thank goodness, I don't think I could take one more: "I'm so and so, and I approve this message"). But I wanted to share a conversation we had at the dinner table with Claire the night before the election. She was telling us about how the kids at her school were going to vote for president. We asked who she was voting for and it went something like this...

Claire: Did you know that Obama loves basketball?
Ryan and I: No.
Claire: And do you know what his favorite food is?
Us: No, what?
Claire: Chili.
Ryan: So who are you going to vote for?
Claire: Obama.
Me being the cynical mom I am: ...naturally, seeing as how you don't like basketball or chili...

If it were only so simple...

Baby Rose

OK, I know you have all been waiting for me to post pictures of my sweet baby girl. As of last night, we once again have high-speed internet (it was just made available in our area last week). Ryan wanted to stay home and work today - but I knew that would mean that I wouldn't be able to use the computer, so I strongly encouraged him out the door this morning. I've been waiting months for this!



l



Baby Rose is the sweetest little girl. We are so glad she is finally here. She just fit right into our family - we knew she was supposed to come to us and I'm so blessed to have her. I promise to post more pictures later.

I just wanted to send out a thanks to all of my wonderful friends who have helped our family these past few weeks. Seeing as how we have no family in the state (or surrounding states), friends act as family for us. I've had numerous people bring over their baby equipment for us to borrow. My friends threw me a baby shower that was so much fun, it lasted until 2am! I received wonderful gifts and enough gift cards to allow me to buy a new stroller for the baby. Living downtown and pushing William and Claire in the stroller everywhere killed three strollers. So thanks to them, we are mobile again. THEN, I had friends willing to watch the kids when the baby came. My sweet friend Amy came over the other day and spent two hours taking pictures of Rose - you can see a few of them on her blog Playing House. The link is on the right side of my blog. They turned out absolutely beautiful! The day after I got home from the hospital, a couple of friends brought over lunch and stayed for a visit. I was going through withdrawals from them, so it was a wonderful treat (and a great sandwich!).

Now that my mother-in-law and mom are both gone, I'm on my own again. I'll dedicate another post to them later - they were irreplaceable help for me. So, knowing that I was on my own again, my friend Collette set up a few meals for us. So thanks to her, Gwen and Jennifer, our fridge is full of great leftovers that will keep up busy for several days. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Texas, here I come!

It's funny how growing up, we never had a gun in our home, except a Red Rider bee-bee gun that my Dad would occasionally let us shoot in the back yard (wearing eye protection of course). But now that my parents have bought a farm out in East Texas, something has happened to my once very suburban family. Let me demonstrate...

Mowing the pasture for the cows

Ryan did some damage to our sail boat with this pellet gun, he was a dead-eye shot, we were all so proud.

You're never too young...

Shooting lessons from Aunt Kate

Clarie, sister-in-law Kate, me, Ryan and brother Dan

Take that you mangy varmit!! (or sailboat in this case)

We bought a little plastic sail boat from Wal-Mart (where else in East Texas?), filled it with "Great Stuff" (expanding foam that is great for a lot of home repair, we have found) and set it to sail on the pond. As the wind blew it across the pond, we pelted it with bee-bees and the occasional pellet. When our arms were tired of cocking our trusty Red Riders, the men blew the sail boat to smithereens with the shot gun. Good times folks...all we needed to be complete hicks was some beer and a few wife-beater shirts for the men folk. As my younger brother sang for us:

I'm a rootin' tootin' cowboy with my hand on my gun.

FREEZE you mangy buzzard, reach for the sun.

See ya'll later.

(Oh, and I know some of you will be appalled, but the children were well supervised, and seeing as how there was no alcohol involved, all parties were careful and in their right mind.)

The crazy men in my life...

I have to brag about the two men in my life. Both make me laugh everyday and are so sweet. William loves it when Ryan comes home in the evening. Ryan chases William, they wrestle, play games and do all those things that Mom won't (or can't) do. I can't imagine my life without them, even when they do drive me crazy.

William fell asleep next to "baby Green", as he has named this baby doll. Notice he had her covered up with one of his precious blankies. William was sitting next to the baby before he fell over unconscious.

Grandma Ryan...honestly, what can I say?


Tool happy: Ryan loves new tools and had a little too much fun pruning our front trees.

William dressed Ken all by himself. Ken is the only Barbie that William will play with. I particularly like Ken's utility belt. And yes, those are his boots on his hands.

With baby girl coming soon (I'm due in two days, so she BETTER come soon, sheesh!!) our boys will be outnumbered. I'm glad they have each other.

So I've discovered

a few things this week. As I was gearing up for bed last night, gathering my TUMS, glasses, Reader's Digest, chapstick, hand lotion and hair twisty to arrange on my headboard, it occurred to me that I am officially getting old. All I have to do is add a jar of Oil of Olay and I have turned into my mother. Here's a picture of my nightly arsenal. Now mind you that a couple of those things are to battle the woes of pregnancy.


Another discovery is that while painting the wall behind a toilet it hard, painting the wall behind a toilet when you're 7-months pregnant is almost impossible.

I have also come to the definite conclusion that the people that previously owned our house were morons. As Ryan said yesterday morning about the previous owners, "they were either stupid, lazy or poor - probably all three". If it was humanly possible to botch a repair or improvement job, they did.

Another one of my discoveries is a wonderful one. When we recently got our new land line, we had to buy new cordless phones (the other ones wouldn't work for some strange reason) and Ryan bought me an ear piece so that I could do other things while I talk on the phone. So now I tuck my phone into my apron pocket, plug in my ear piece and paint baseboards, wash dishes, clean toilets, etc all while chatting with friends and family. Wonderful!!


Now that I am raising a 3-year-old for the 2nd time, I have officially decided that 3-year-olds are crazy. With Claire, I thought: maybe it's just her, or the gender. But now that William is 3, it's the age. For example, we got home from the store where William was happy and helpful (he is a different boy when his bossy older sister is at school) and he was trying to take of his tennis shoes. He is usually receptive to help getting his shoes off, but on this day, he got one shoe off but couldn't get the other. I was unloading the car with groceries, so I quickly walked over and took the offending shoe off. Well, that was a mistake. He started yelling that he wanted to do it and then tried to put the shoe back on so that he could take it off. I continued to unload groceries while he cried and threw a tantrum because he couldn't get his shoe back on. The same thing happens with flushing the toilet, opening and closing doors, getting the mail, turning lights on and off, etc. So I now have to check and ask him if he wants to do it or needs help before I do any of those things. I'm telling you people...they're crazy.

With the week only half over, we'll see what I have yet to discover...

The Last Day of Summer

It's hard to believe that summer vacation has come and gone. We had a lot of fun and got a lot done. Unfortunately, I didn't get all of my summer projects done. On our last official day of summer vacation, we tried to pack in a lot of fun.

Playing on the slip and slide

Trying to finish one last summer project

In typical guy fashion, taking a good nap

Playing with Barbies

Out for a bike ride at the park

So it's been awhile since my last time on the internet, to say the least. We now have a dial-up connection, which is incredibly slow, but at least it's something! I have not had a chance to catch up on all of your blogs, but I will a little at a time. I have managed to get a lot done around the house while I had no internet, so I don't plan to spend a lot of time on it now. But it is good to be back. I won't use this particular post to catch you up on our life the past two months. I will say that we are all well and have been busy. William had his third birthday last month, we had new carpet installed in our entire house, I am moving along in my pregnancy (almost 7 months now) and school starts next week. That's our life in a nutshell. The pictures are from the Transportation Museum. We took William there for his 3rd birthday - it was a big hit with him.

Summer Days

Well it's been a month since I was last on the internet, yet I have survived. I'm actually borrowing my friend's computer for this entry. I don't particullarily have much to say, but I did want to share some photos of our trip to Texas and some projects around the house. We have had a nice summer; it's been busy, yet somewhat relaxing.

My good friend gave me this hutch and I painted it to match my dining room. I still have to paint the top part.

A 'hay' ride on Grandad's tractor


My finished flower bed


Our garden

Feeding the cows on the farm




Uncle Scott and the cousins