December 2011

I wanted to blog the December happenings so that when I get the time one of these days to finish putting my blog into a book, I have the memories.  Sorry I've been so absent - just busy and things have been a bit crazy, lots going on.

The kids went to see Santa at Pettiti's again this year. They have the best Santa, no lines, beautifully decorated and our friend Mike takes the pictures. Nicholas was so excited to go and he sort of ran up to Santa with his list and tripped over the steps, and then looked up and saw Santa and froze. He quickly decided he maybe didn't like him so much, but he didn't cry. Just didn't want to be all that close.

We had to step in to take a couple pictures.

Hannah enjoyed her visit and went over her list with Santa very throughly.

We did manage to get one half way decent picture of the two of them with Santa.

 We got their Christmas pictures taken and that was a disaster! I checked in saying, "we're here for our 7:00 and I'm sorry to whoever has to take these pictures!" I knew Nicholas would be a handful. We did manage to get a couple pictures with them both looking. Good enough to get cards made up, which was the ultimate goal of the event.

The kids were both home sick one day in December. Colds pretty much, but the coughing has lingered on for weeks - probably coming and going, but seems like more coming than going, which gets old!

Mom and I went to put on Hannah's Christmas party at school the Friday before her break. That was fun. The kids enjoyed it - we did a craft,

played bingo

and had a snack.

It was fun to go hang out with the Kindergarten class and watch Hannah interact with her friends.

After her party, I took her back to work with me for the rest of the day. We have a Santa at my work and he happened to be in the office that day, so I asked him to come talk to Hannah for a couple minutes. She was so surprised to see him there at Mommy's work!!

Then she had her Christmas program at church - It was the Christmas Story through the eyes of the Friendly Beasts. Hannah was a cow, the cutest cow I've ever seen!!! It was a cute pagent. I had helped to make the costumes, so it was fun to be involved that way too.

Hannah almost has her split - keep working on it, you'll get it all the way real soon!

Nicholas is getting to be such a big boy - he's talking a lot more and just getting so big. Here he is posing for the camera....and saying cheese!

He's still very ornery though too!

I kept Nicholas home the first week of Hannah's 2 week winter break. I stayed home with them Wednesday through Friday and we were very busy the entire three days. We finished shopping, got Nicholas' hair cut, did lots of running around.  We went to the Christmas party at daycare. They had another Santa there and the kids had a real fun time.

This is the first Christmas I didn't bake a single cookie - and it was JUST FINE!!! I did miss doing it, but I just did not have the time this year and wasn't about to stress out over trying to make it happen.

We went to Dawn's after church on Christmas Eve. Nicholas was a bit spooked by Santa, but did warm up to him and sat on his lap before he left. When he was being bad, we'd say "Santa's watching you" and he'd get back in line in a huge hurry! I figure I'll use that line until it doesn't work anymore, but it has been a good one! They had fun with the start of their Christmas gift-opening excitement.

The kids always have a blast with Uncle Jack.  He sure loved playing with their new rocking horse with them!

And then they played a new game with Krista and her new boyfriend.

And Aunt Dawn and Nicholas were buddies too.

We got home kind of late and had to get cookies out for Santa and then the kids went to bed.

 I was hoping they'd sleep in a bit, but I think we got until about 7:30. Hannah was up first and we had to go in and wake Nicholas up. He was a bit grumpy and really didn't care about the surprise of the gifts under the tree.

  

I tried really hard to get them to take a picture together by the tree...that didn't go so well. 

Hannah was super into the gifts and the whole Christmas morning. Nicholas opened his first gift and then just wanted to play with it and wouldn't open the other stuff. Hannah gladly offered to help him opent the other things, so I guess it worked out well for both of them. They were both very happy with their new toys and played the rest of the morning.

I made breakfast for them and then later, we got ready and went to my mom's. We had a nice time over there too. They got more toys and books and all sorts of stuff.

Hannah got an OSU tu-tu, but Nicholas is the one that really liked it!!! It was killing Tony that he wanted to run around with it on and I thought it was hysterical! I'm not sure if I enjoyed watching Nicholas think it was fun or watching Tony cringe at the site more, but either way, it was funny!!!

Hannah and I got matching aprons.  We'll have to do more cooking and baking together. 

Hannah spent the week at daycare for her second week off. She was super excited to go since it's been a few months since she's spent her days there. Now she's the big kid that doesn't have to take a nap, so she thinks it's wonderful!!! I'm so grateful for having Val's house for the kids. They've done such a great job helping me raise these two kids and the kids love them all so much. We had a week off from gymnastics and from choir practice, so it was a nice break.
And that's about it for December. Soon I'll have a January update also and then maybe, just maybe I may get myself and my poor old blog back on track this year with more frequent updates. I would recommend not holding your breath though!

Fall recap

Well, let's see, we left off with some fall fun on tractors at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Since then, there has been plenty of happenings, just no blogging....I just plain old suck at this anymore! There are plenty of excuses, but none that really matter, so with that, I'll just post an update on our lives.

Hannah and Nicholas ared donig great. They are totally buds, most of the time. They love to play together and make each other laugh. It's hard to remember what Hannah was like as an only child. They couldn't be more different through. Hannah is still so sweet, gentle and peaceful. Nicholas is crazy, ornery and loves rough housing. Here they are though in a sweet moment having their bedtime snack together on the steps. Not sure why, but it was cute! Sorry for the grainy pictures.

Nicholas is really getting into watching TV and movies now. Unfortunately, his list of favorites is limited....Elmo, Wiggles and Hi-5. He loves them all though!

We took the kids to a fall fest place last month for my company picnic. Unfortnately, we didn't get to spend a lot of time there because we had other running around that day. It was a really neat place though in Hartville. Here is one of the couple pictures I took of them playing in the corn pit.

Then came Halloween. Of course, it came really quickly. I hated it being on a weekday night too...made it a little hectic, but I picked the kids up a little early to give us time to run home, eat and change before trick or treat.

Hannah was Rapunzel (so not a blonde!)

Nicholas was the cutest dragon ever!

They sure had fun being dressed up and going trick or treating.

We teamed up with Hardins as we always do. Laura and I sat out to hand out candy and Tony and Aaron took the kids.

Unfortnately, I forgot to give Tony the camera during trick or treat, so we didn't get any of Nicholas going up to the doors, but he did pretty good. He did come home sitting in the wagon, but he got out at each house to get his goods!

Here's a funny picture of how Nicholas fell asleep one morning while Hannah and I were at church. He slept like this for almost his whole nap!

Hannah's gymnastics session ended a couple weeks ago. The sessions always end with "Show what you know" where they go out to the floor and show what they've learned and we take pictures and then there's a ribbon ceremony. Unfortnately, this time, Tony went out so I had to take both kids by myself. Nicholas was actually really good during class but then the inner monster in him came raging out when the floor opened. It was AWFUL!! Really, it wasn't his fault at all. To him, it was like a dream come true for this giant playground to be opened up to him. He had no way to know he couldn't play and it was so hard for me to keep him in check while watching Hannah and trying to take pictures. He's getting too big to hold and won't just stay by me if I tell him to. I turned into the psycho mom for a while. But anyway, here are a few of Hannah doing her stuff!

Then while I was in full psycho mom mode during ribbon ceremony (becasue I just wanted to sit there and watch while Nicholas saw no one playing on the equipment that was calling his name), Hannah was super excited to receive her RED trophy!!! I had told her that I thought she was only getting a medal again this time, because I really thought she was. The look on her face when she realized she got all 4 ribbons and her trophy was AWESOME, but of course, I missed taking a picture of it trying to hold Nicholas down. We were so proud though of her the entire way home!!!

I actually won our last poker tournament! That was good - hadn't won in a while and it felt good to play so well.

Hannah got her first report card - all very good marks! Exceeds standards in many areas, especially reading. She's reading at a 2nd grade level right now and can actually read some 3rd grade books! We also had our first parent teacher conference - all very good things to say about her! I'm so proud of her!

We finally got our new carpet in the bedroom. We put our furniture back in the room differently to open up the windows. I really like how it's arranged now because it makes the room seem bigger, but now I'm on the wrong side of the bed! It's really awful - I can't sleep like that! So I may have to give up being next to the clock and get back to MY side of the bed so I can sleep!

Hannah's also been participating in children's choir at church. She loves it. The kids sang last week at church and it was really sweet. Tony came to watch too, so of course Nicholas came to church as well. He was so cute when it was children's sharing time. When he saw the kids were going up, he was curious and wanted to go, but was hesitant. He went about half way down the aisle, then came back and kept going closer and closer and then he spotted Hannah sitting up there so he ran to her. She was awesome and put her arm around him to comfort him and they were so cute sitting there together. (sorry for the poor pics in church).

Luckily, Nicholas came back to his seat just before it was really over because that's when the kids choir sang. If he's have still been up there, we'd have made a scene trying to get him to come back and not stay and sing. He saw them at practice and stood up there because they were doing super fun hand motions to their song.

And then this past week was Thanksgiving alread! Hannah had no school Wednesday, so I took the day off with her. We hung out at home all morning then went running around and then to see the Muppet movie. It was fun to hang out with her all day...she's so grown up!

We went to dads for dinner. Nicholas had fun playing with their new puppy, Maizy.

We went to Dawns after that for the rest of the evening.

I did some shopping on Black Friday and we went to the lighting on the square and we got our outside lights up yesterday (in the awesome 60 degree weather!!)

It was a really long weekend, much needed, but I'm actually ready to go back to work and school and our crazy, busy schedules!

Waited for 5 years for this

Since I'm on the trend of blogging about once a month now, no apologies for the non-posting....it should be expected by now. I'll be sorry when I finally put this blog into a book and have such gaps between posts, but at least I'm capturing some of our crazy life!

So all my dad has wanted since he became a Grandpa is to share his love of tractors with his grandkids. Since Hannah was old enough to walk, Dad's been itching to get her on a tractor. The problem has been that she hates loud noises and is not the most adventursome kid. So the attempts up until now haven't gone so well. I think when I had a son, Dad was even more anxious to live up to his name of Grandpa Tractor. Hannah was excited to go down for a visit last month and I thought Nicholas would be too.

Dad had all the toys ready to go and it started off really well. Hannah and Nicholas climbed up on the Gator and seemed excited about the fun ahead.

Unfortunately, Nicholas didn't like the noise either, but to Grandpa's delight, Hannah loved all the rides!!! She even got to steer the 4010 - so fun!

And then she took a ride on a small garden tractor with Grandma

And then Hannah rode a dozer and they both explored all the tractors in one of the barns.

Nicholas did brave up enough to at least SIT on one with me.....this was "my tractor" growing up!

We had fun and maybe next summer Nicholas will like it better. I think he may have considered it a little except for the fact Grandpa scared him with his "Boo Toe". You see, dad had a hole in the toe of his tennis shoe and while we were eating dinner, Nicholas noticed it. When we realized he was checking out my dad's toe sticking out of his shoe, Dad lifted his leg at Nick and yelled "BOO!" That didn't go over well at all!!!! So after the tractor riding, Nicholas was acting afraid of Grandpa and even went over to our car in an attempt to leave. I realized what was wrong with him - he was afraid of my dad's shoe!!!! So like a good Grandpa, he went in to change shoes and we had a peaceful rest of the visit.

I have to say (maybe an advantage to blog delay) there is a second chapter to this story. First you need to understand that we visited them the last weekend in September. Now, a month later, this past weekend, Nicholas was drinking out of one of our John Deere sippy cups. We were looking at the tractors on it and he was really trying to tell me something. He kept "saying" the same thing over and over with the same fluctuations in his voice, but because a lot of what he says is still not understandable, I had no clue what he was saying. Finally, he looked over at our door to where we take off our shoes and he said "shoe". Then I realized what he was saying....he was pointing to the tractor on his cup and was telling me that "papa had a hole in his shoe"! It was hysterical!!! Funny how things really stick to kids sometimes!

So, it was a month ago.........

Nicholas is now 19 months, however, we did get his 18 month pictures taken ON TIME. I just didn't blog about it. So now, better late than never, here are Nicholas' 18-month shots. The photo shoot was awful! He had no interest in sitting still, smiling or realy even looking at the camera. It made one thing easy, picking the pictures. This was really the only one we got of him sitting still and pretty much looking.

He is pretty cute, huh?

And then we got this one too. Sort of felt obligated to get at least one more pose, although he's a bit in action here.

He went for his 18 month checkup and is doing great. We had a hard time getting him to sit still on the scale (do you see a pattern here?) so we got his weight at 28-1/2 pounds (75%), although I think it's on the high side. He was 34-1/4 inches tall (90%). He got the last of his immunizations until he's 5. He hated every second of being near the doctor, so maybe since his next well visits will be minus the shots, he might be a better patient. Not holding my breath on it though! That was really it about the visit, short and sweet. Nothing concerning so there wasn't much to discuss. He's doing great, strong willed, stubborn, starting to talk a lot more and all boy!

We also got family pictures too. We actually started out with the family pictures. I was hoping this process would warm Nicholas up to the idea so that his shoot would go better. Good plan, but wasn't so perfectly executed. Although, I'm sure it did make his session at least tolerable, just by then, he was pretty much done. We really only did well when I was in the picture with him. Here is the best one we got of all of us.

And then an OK one

And one of Tony and the kids. Nicholas wasn't too fond of sitting just with Tony. That's another story.....he went through a mommy-only phase recently. I'm happy to report, I think it's finally ending!

And then one of me and the kids

And there you have it! Tony is off the hook for pictures for another year and I'm hopeful Christmas pictures will go better!

catching up....again

First of all, I have no clue what happened to my blog page...I hate how it shifted to the left, so hopefully as I do some more posts, it'll straighten out.

It seems like every post I do this year is about catching up from the previous weeks of blog-lacking! Well, today is no different I suppose. I guess it's a good thing that I'm too busy to sit at the computer and journal our life, but then when I remember that this is used to keep in touch as well as keep stories and pictures to remember, I feel terrible.

So with that, let me begin.....
Kindergarten has been going very well. We've got the new routines down in the morning and in the afternoon and all seems to be going just fine. Hannah missed the bus to come home one day, but it wasn't her fault. I still am not quite sure what happened, but something about being too busy with a game or something and she and several other classmates missed the call for bus riders. But she was safe & sound at after care and they called right away to let me know. All in all, this first (almost) month of school is going great. She seems really happy and is doing well.

Hannah started back to gymnastics the end of August. She's happy to be back in class, but now with school, Tuesday's are a LONG day for her!

Tony started a new diet and work out routine. He's making a commitment to get healthier again. His new diet also helps all of us as well since we're eating more fruits & vegetables and lean meats. I would like to get back to zumba or jazzercise to also get back into shape - need to make more time for that.

My 36th birthday was earlier this month....just another day really, but we did a small celebration that day. Tony got a small ice cream cake, the kids were both a little cranky, but none-the-less, they rang in another year for me with some signs of love and appreciation. I got an MP3 player - yes, I'm probably the last to get one - so I don't have to carry around CD's in my car! I now have to find some time to get some music on it. Again, no time to sit at the compter - maybe after this post?

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures with me and the kids with my cake and gift.

Our poker league started up again. Tony did well our first night by finishing third. Hopefully we can get on a winning streak together and not only pay for our playing, but maybe make a few extra bucks for a rainy day!

I started teaching Sunday School this year. I've got a second grade class. So far, I've got about 6 kids. I like this class because it's small enough to handle, they're capable enough to do things on their own, but I'm still a bit smarter than they are so I think it'll be a good year. I'm co-teaching with Laura too, so it should be fun! I also did this to help me get to church way more often than we had been going...so far, so good. Hannah's batting 1000 since school started!

We celebrated birthday's over at mom's on Sept 11th. It was sure a day to reflect back on the events 10 years ago. Although I missed going to any of the celebrations and rememberance events, we watched a lot of it on TV and I talked to Hannah a little bit about it. I also took some time on my own to just be so very thankful for everything I have and how my world today works.

The birthday celebration for Randy and I was nice, a simple dinner and some ice cream cake. No longer do I get to open of my own gifts anymore, but I'm so glad I have two great helpers to do it for me!

And other than several visits with builders about a new house and lots of looking online at what kinds of homes are on the market, Tony and I are just trying to figure out our plan on how to move up - the right way. We (well, I) REALLY want to build and am very hopeful that will happen some day. In the meantime, we're going to finish doing some things around here to get our home sell-ready so when the time comes, we can do it and hopefully quickly.