Early April

Oh Blogger how I've missed thee.    On Easter Sunday we went with the then visiting Cousins to church.  Previously Jill wouldn't go to Den, but to see the Bishop, she let him hold her.  Josie was all over the pew and probably would have let the Bishop hold her.  At least everyone was quiet.  In that voice that is trying to be a whisper, but actually still sounds kind of a regular voice, right before we walk through the church doors, the kids say 'we have to be quiet'.  Usually they are pretty good. It cracks me up each time.

Having cousins visit made for a built in photo session.  Unforatunely we were each doing something goofy in each photo.  Trying to figure out how to coordinate a girl who likes pink and a boy who likes blue...as a mom who can't seem to coordinate colors for the family photos.
Whenever we have company and the kids sleep in the same room, they end up hanging out in Eddie's bed at least part of the time.  Not sure if they would have made it all night without one of them falling on the floor.... 

Josie loves to cook (Eddie too).  Here she is making her birthday cake for her party the next day (week after Easter).

J is THREE!

We offically have 2 preschool aged kids! J turned 3 on April 3 and I'm finally sitting down after a night work meeting to post to the blog with pictures after almost 6 weeks of almost no posts. I wish blogger had a way to create an album off to the side so I could upload a whole bunch all at once, it's always so difficult to choose. Speaking of choices...

J wanted a pink cake, which meant strawberry cake and pink icing. Cousin Jill and her mom and dad came on J's birthday, which happened to be the day before Easter (Jill's birthday fell ON Easter). It also happened to be the day we decided to dye Easter eggs...and that I learned brown eggs don't hold dye in the same way as white eggs. Doh!

J and I went to the grocery under the guise of her picking her birthday balloons, but really we needed eggs, bread and milk--and birthday balloons.

She was hard to pin down for what she wanted for her birthday meal, but we ended up with french fries and hotdog/hamburger for lunch and then grilled chicken with dipping sauce, broccoli, and I think tater tots?? Sad I've forgotten already!

Turning 3 also coinciding with giving up her pacifier. We had tried to limit its use leading up to her birthday and that did not go well, especially when it accidently got packed with checked luggage on the return flight from California. She tried to tell us the day after her birthday that she was really 2 and so we needed to give her the paci. We countered by saying she'd get a camera...I need to get out there and procure that camera!!! We have been building up to when you turn 3 and give up the paci, you'll get a camera from g'parents Ohio....now to make the selection.

She wants a pink camera, Den wants a camera that runs on lithium, not alkaline batteries and I want one that she can use the shutter. All these 'wants' don't seem like much, but the less expensive cameras don't come with lithium batteries....

We tried to make a pretty big deal of her birthday...it would have been a great day to have her party, had Easter not been the next day.

More later...must get some sleep.

Update to previous post

Grandma Ohio thinks I sound unhappy about all the guests, which is not the case. We love having people come visit. Our frustration has been that our house is not in the kind of shape we'd like for it to be to entertain said guests. It would take us probably 1 week straight of working sun up to sundown to knock out even 1/3 of our 'to do' list. That sounds so luxurious---1 week of just working on projects around the house...
landscaping...I'm close to wearing Den down to putting in the shrubs and perinnials I'd like to see;
painting the front hall and stairs;
ripping up the carpet to the basement and installing a new landing at the bottom of the stairs;
tackling the basement that has become the dumping ground when we need to clear out a space.

I could attach my spreadsheet, but it would be too depressing. Anyone want to come for a visit and either do some babysitting of 2 adorable, loving kids who generally get along really well and love playing outside? Or conversely, anyone want to come help Den with any of the above?

Then there are the scrapbooks and all the pictures to print...
I know as the kids get older it will be easier to knock out this list...and then I will wish they were young again and hanging out at the house.

Still Here

My mother in law sent an email recently asking if I've been posting pictures somewhere lately besides this blog. Not really. Haven't had time to do much of anything. Took us a while to recover from Eddie's birthday party--I guarentee the largest kid birthday party we will ever host in our own home! We are gearing up for J's birthday party shortly and I definitely owe some photos from our exploits:

March 25-April 2 a trip to LA and San Diego for Eddie's spring break--great time! Got home just before 10pm on April 2 and on Saturday April 3 (J's birthday), picked up my cousin and her family from the airport just before lunch. They stayed until Tues., with their daughter's birthday on Easter Sunday. Then on Tues, Den's cousin called to say she was heading our way. A quick change of the sheets and although we encouraged her to stay until Thursday when her aunt and uncle, AKA G'parents Wisc. were coming for 5 nights she decided to hit the road. Somehow I did get clean clothes for the family during all this and Den cooked some amazing meals. Don't ask about the house. I figured none of these people would be judging me on the cleanliness of my house :)

We'll have a 9 day break and then it's time to welcome g'parents Ohio. I always wanted to operate a bed and breakfast, I really did (do). It still is kind of a dream of mine, but I think I'd prefer my actual house be in another part of the b and b and have the rooms be a little more permanent and dedicated to guests. Wonder who will come next...

Soon I'll post my ode to Josie turning 3 and giving up her paci!

The Biggest Party Ever!

Eddie wanted to invite his entire preschool class to his 5th birthday party. There are 16 kids in his class. When I told him he might want to maybe invite only a few of his friends from school so he could invite several neighborhood buddies, he declared that he wanted to really invite all his preschool and would eschew his neighborhood buddies.

Not wanting that to occur and banking that only half would accept, we ended up inviting 19 kids. This is about how many kids we invited last year, but only 11 kids (plus some siblings) showed up last year. This year, as the RSVPs trickled in, all but 1 kid we invited came!!! What are the chances of that happening? I have never thrown a party where every.single.invitee.came. I'm thrilled for Eddie that they came, but man, that was 19 kids (including Eddie and subtracting the one who couldn't come), plus younger siblings (including Josie) and we had 25 kids total in the house.

Eddie wanted a racecar theme, so Den crafted some cute invites and then we based most everything on racecar themes--as much as we could. It was difficult coming up with things for an indoor party.

We all but implored the parents to drop their kids so there would be room at the house. About half the parents stayed. My parents were in town, Josie's Godmother came, Cookie came and then we had several parents who jumped in to help. I ran out of games/activities in about 15 mintues and we forgot to do one of the games.

We had the kids all sign a scrapbook page so that when I get to doing a scrapbook, I'll have it all set, and then we gave each kid a 'Pit Pass' with their name that we loaded with stickers after each activity. After everyone arrived, we played hot potato and the kids got a kick out of that. When they got eliminated, they were supposed to go to the living room for a set of 3 activities, but somehow it ended only being the car fishing with magnets. The magnets on the poles kept getting hooked to each other, but it kept the kids busy a while. We were supposed to have a bean bag toss into the tires of a racecar Den made, but I didn't realize it wasn't occuring. Then we were going to have a tatoo stage with racecars, but I worried about parents showing up with tatooed kids, so we skipped that at the last minute.

When we did the craft last year it took nearly 20 min. whereas this year it was about 5. We had them decorate with beads a race car cut out and then color a printout of a racecar.
So in 15-20 flat I had worked through all the activities I had planned for the kids and it was only 45 minutes into the party. I should have come up with a couple extra games on the spot--simon says (which Eddie reminded me we didn't play), but instead just had them all play with toys until it was time for cake.

I think most kids had a good time and one kid didn't want to leave at all. Cookie I think brokered a couple playdates.

I'm not sure what to say were the lessons learned. I hated that I didn't have more games lined up, or didn't bother to do more games on the fly, but there were just so many kids, it was difficult to come up with the space to do them all. It was a bit to windy and the ground was soft enough to sink into.

The silver lining is that while it wasn't completely programmed this time I felt like I had time to talk to the other parents, spend time with the kids--except my own.

Eddie had stood at the door waiting for each child to arrive and then he sat on the steps with all the goody bags to hand out. He had a great time and remarked that his favorite part of the party was having all those people around to sing happy birthday and play. This combined with him telling me that he would be happy with whatever gifts people brought (some moms were asking what he'd like), made my heart melt. What a sweet kid and how fun it was to be able to give him something he enjoyed so much and if he is like me, will remember.

Five Years Old!

February 22, 2005---Five years ago the doctor held up Eddie for Den and me to see with one hand supporting his head and his other hand holding up his body. Fast forward to Feb. 22, 2010 and Eddie walked into our room, toting this balloon, asking why we had given him a letter 'S'.

I made him 7 layer jello to bring into preschool and then got him blue-frosted cupcakes for after dinner desert.

Icing, the best part!

I used to do regular updates of the kids as they aged. At five years old, Eddie can write his name and can read familar words, such as the names of people and words he sees all the time. He can write all the letters of the alphabet and count to 100. Every now and then he gets up higher and we have discussions about 100s, 1000s and even more conversation about infinity.

His pre-engineering skills are developing nicely and he can assemble things his mama can't and seemed to be able to read multi-step instructions really well to assemble toys.

I hesitated writing about his likes and dislikes too detailed, this being a public blog and all. However, I will say he is your typical 5 year old boy. Den and I remain convinced he has a photographic memory.

I love watching him interact with his sister. I marvel at all he can do at five. I'll try and write more later...but need to get this up before it's Josie's birthday.

OUt and About in FLA

More Highlights:
Sami is quite the athlete and we manage to catch a soccer game each time we come to visit. It was quite windy the day of the game, so Josie and Eddie snuggled under this blanket, half fighting over it and half trying to keep each other covered.
After the game, cousin Kirsten and Sami played a little with J and Ed with the balls. It was really sweet--they are both so good with the kids. Enjoyed catching up with all the cousins...
I was so tired from being up half the night with the kids either coughing or dreaming or whatever, so all my plans for activites went out the window and we just hung out at the house. It is definitely hard to be a single parent...but it was so nice to have the cousins for the kids to get to know...they talked about them all the way home.

While There was a Blizzard...

The kids and I went to Florida for what was supposed to be a 4 night trip while Den went skiing in Utah. I was completely stressed the whole time we were in FLA about what was happening back home, but we still had a great time. The kids are real pros at flying--when we walked up to security, Eddie had his shoes, coat and backpack into a bin before I could turn to help Josie.

Highlights:
Flight was delayed both directions. Our flight home was cancelled on Sunday due to the weather, but despite calling the airline 2 hours before, and the monitors in the terminal showing it was taking off, we didn't learn this until we had returned our rental car and presented ourselves at the ticket counter. Grabbed a new rental car and headed back to hang out with Cousin Sami, whom the kids adored.
[note: to get home, we got the rental company to drive us to curb side drop off and the driver even helped me get the carseats in their bags; then someone else noticed me struggling with the 1 suitcase, 2 carseats, 2 kids, backpacks, and the bag with Ed's nebulizer trying to get inside and they carried a carseat and suitcase in. Yet another couple helped when we had to move down the counter to an agent from the self check. All in all, we really lucked out. I did have to do battle with another passenger who said that she had 2 elderly people she needed to check in who were in wheelchairs. I told her that I had a 2 and 4 year old who both had to go to the bathroom and we'd been waiting at the counter for 25 minutes. I said, "I can go toe to toe with you, if you'd like". She graciously allowed us to go in front.]

Had a fun time hanging with Gwyn and then hit the beach in the afternoon. The kids had a blast, but it was freezing. The playground I'd planned for us to use was closed due to the Superbowl festivities. Ugh.

On Friday, Cousin Sami got to skip school after taking a test and we all headed to the Miami Zoo. We rented these little bicylces and the kids had a blast, imploring Sami and I to peddle faster. That was until it rained on us and then Sami and I peddled as fast as we could move the bike.

I had promised Eddie both a camel ride and a ride on the monorail. The later was a complete bust. Ugh. The camel was a rip-off--less than 2 minutes for $5/person, but Eddie can say he has ridden a camel. To be continued...

Facebook | Your Photos - February storm

Facebook Your Photos - February storm: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=47714&id=1043519422&l=86e0614983
Lets see if this works...

Still Here

Promise to post with pictures soon, but for now, we just got home late Monday night. Den went skiing in Utah while I took the kids to visit cousins in Florida. We came home to about 17-20 inches of snow and lovely neighbors who shoveled our walk for us! Tonight we are expected to get 8-16 more inches (depending on where one lives). We've already got 4 inches and it is supposed to snow all night and all day on Wednesday. Lots of fun pictures to upload...
From FLA: cancelled flight on Sunday because of storm
Eddie: I never want to leave Florida
Josie: Is Sami sad for us to leave?