No More Babies in This House

It's official, my little baby boy is now a kid. That always seemed to be the turning point for my kids. Once they were two, they just appeared to grow up. How is this possible that 2 years have already gone by since Dr. Rao said those mind numbing words...."It's a boy!" And I said "Hmm, I don't think I've ever heard of one of those."

I have learned a lot from this kid in the last 2 years about boys. Some things I had heard about from other mothers; but the rest was best left to discover on my own, because, one, I wouldn't have believed it, and, two, I would have been horrified.

Here are some of the things that I have learned about boys:

1. They have no fear. They don't think before they act. They don't weigh the pros and cons in their little minds. They just go for it.

2. They love to jump from very high places.

3. They love to throw food and think it's wildly hilarious when the food hits their mothers.

4. They really can pee on demand and do so the moment their diaper comes off.

5. They are adorably loving and super cuddly, and I love my little boy so much it hurts.

Happy Birthday Nicholas, your family loves you so much!!

Payday Came

If you will recall, I stupidly made a bet with Nick last month and my overly confident self lost. Big. My part of the bet was that I had to cut my hair to my chin.

These are two of the pictures that I showed to my hair dresser.

Stop smirking. I didn't really think that she would be able to transform me into Julia, but I liked the style and the length. My hairdresser has hair exactly like mine, and I have been going to her for about 8 years. She's very tactful, but reasonably blunt. She kept using words and phrases like "big" and "a lot of hair". I was getting really nervous, but I told her to work her magic and make me look like Julia.

This is what I looked like when I came home from the Salon. (I always get it straightened when I get my haircut, because for me to straighten it myself would take at least an hour.)

And here I am "au natural". I don't love it, but I guess I don't hate it either. I am certain that I will never cut my hair this short again. It's just not me. The next bet I make with that man I married, the wager is going to be so low down and dirty, he won't be able to leave the house for weeks. Can you hear me cackling with glee?

Happy Birthday Shea!

Top Ten Reasons Why Shea is a Great Kid

1. She is honest (Sometimes brutally so)

2. She is faithful to what she believes in

3. She is smart

4. She is fascinating to talk with and has a very interesting view on many subjects

5. She loves to read

6. She loves her little brother and sister very much and tells them often

7. She is a great friend

8. She is not interested in all the latest and greatest fashion trends (She received a pair of Ugg boots for Christmas and returned them because she couldn't justify wearing a pair of $150 boots. Who does that???)

9. She is an incredible athlete

10. She is beautiful

Happy Birthday Shea! We love you so much!

The Kickoff

The birthday season is upon us, with the kickoff celebration starting with Miss Paige, my lovely young niece, who had the first celebration of the new year. She is technically the second of the year, after Shea, but we celebrated her birthday 2 weeks early. Paige will turn 12 on the 21st.

In our family, we have at least one birthday (usually 2 or more) every month of the year except for December. In our household, we have a birthday every month from now until May. Shea's is in January, Nicholas' is in February, Taylor's is in March, Nick's is in April and mine is in May. It's pure craziness. Poor Isabella has to watch us all have a party one by one and she has to wait an eternity until August for her party.

I am not sure what other families do, but we always invite the whole family over to celebrate each of our days. In addition, I have always let the kids have a "kid party". Shea's birthday is this Friday, so we are having the family over on Sunday. Planning is in full swing. I'm making lists, planning the meal, shopping and cleaning. I also let the kids pick their special meal on their actual birthday, and bake a cake for dessert. Then, because I thrive on absolute and utter chaos, I bake cookies or brownies for the kids to take to school to share at the lunch table with their friends. Thankfully, Shea was gracious enough not to request her kid party this weekend. I think we're going to try to squeeze it in at the end of the month, before I start the plans for the upcoming 2 year old of the house. (Small sob at the thought of him turning 2.)

Lurking in the back of my mind is Taylor's 16th birthday in March. I can't just treat it like any old birthday. Aren't 16th birthdays a big deal? I don't have the slightest idea on what to do to make it more special and a little more grand. I have two very different personalities to contend with. Taylor has the more-is-always-more mentality. Let's rent the Rock Hall and invite the entire 10th Grade class, while I pull up to the red carpet driving my new pink Porshe Boxter. Then there is my ultra conservative, money conscious, super responsible, never impulsive husband. I am not being sarcastic, by the way. These are truly some of his best attributes, and I am very grateful that he is the way he is. His stand on the party will go something like this - Let's have the same party that we always do. Just because she is turning 16 doesn't mean that we need to spend more, do more, have more. The budget, the budget, the budget......It's going to be so much fun in this house over the next few months I can hardly wait. I may check into the local loony-bin for some extra special fun.

You think my posts are few and far between now? Hopefully I don't let an entire 5 or 6 month span go by before I write something. Until then, wish me luck with all my party planning.

Guess Who Got a Haircut

Doesn't he look like a deer in the headlights? Notice the sucker in his hand, untouched. There was no crying, the nappy afro is gone, and the curls are still in place. Exactly what I was going for.

I Love a Good Bet

Nick and I are always betting on something. They are usually simple little bets like how much money is in the coin jar, or what type of breed a dog was at the park, or how old Angelina Jolie is. Sometimes there's a wager, but more times than not, it's just for fun. I'd like to think that I win more than I lose, but I am sure Nick will beg to differ. I am sorry to say that when I do win, I am not very gracious about it. I tend to rub it in a little by doing the I'm-a-winner-you're-a-big-fat-loser dance round and round his body.

Last night we went to Champp's for dinner. Nick ordered a Patty Melt and as an after thought, asked her to put mushrooms on it. The waitress did not write it down, and then went to 2 more tables after ours. I bet him that there would not be mushrooms on the patty melt, and he said there would be. (Yes this is the level of excitement that our life has become) The wager was, if there were no mushrooms on the sandwich, Nick had to wear his hair slicked back like a sleazy Italian for 3 days this week to work PLUS (this is a big one), I could purchase a new pair of Ugg boots that I have been eyeing. If there were mushrooms, I had to choose between cutting my hair to my chin, or tattooing Nick's name on my butt. (I know what you're thinking; I married a sicko) I think my hair will look like a coiffed poodle if I cut my hair that short, so I almost agreed to the tattoo. After all, what's 4 tiny little letters on a place where no one will see. That was until he informed me that it had to be his full name. First, Middle, Last and the suffix, Sr. That's 28 letters. Uh-uh fool, I went with the haircut. After all, hair grows back eventually, right? And he's the one that will have to look at me day after day until it does. So we shook on it. It was stupid, but all I could envision was how nice my new boots were going to look, and how funny it would be to watch him walk out of the house all week looking like Tony Soprano.

I underestimated the talents of our fine waitress, because sure as heck, there were mushrooms covering the entire top of that stupid sandwich. I LOST! And of course, I, being the mature person that I am, wished that he choked on one of those dumb things for the rest of our meal.

When we got home, Nick proudly got the laptop and started scouring the Internet for short curly hair cuts. Of course there aren't any because everyone knows you can't have short curly hair unless you look like Meg Ryan, WHICH I DON'T!! You can be certain that I will be looking for some other bet to wager with my darling husband where I don't have to cut my hair if I win.

So long Ugg's, I will visit you at Nordstrom soon. I promise!

I Am Just About Ready, and With 1 Day to Spare

The shopping is done (except for the food), the gifts are wrapped, and my house is trashed.

On the agenda today is: Clean house, finish laundry, grocery shop, find Shea something to wear for Christmas Eve, and help Shea make her friend's Christmas present.

I promised everyone some pictures of our decorated house, so I thought with it being 1 day before Christmas Eve, I should get on it, since no one will care how my house was decorated the day after Christmas.



I bought this Advent Calendar when Taylor and Shea were really little and it is the best one I've seen for little kids. It's by Play Mobil. Nicholas and Isabella have been single handedly ripping the boxes apart to get the toy on the inside. Some major surgery is needed on a few of them.

Don't you love these handmade gifts that the kids bring home from school? They are my all time favorite. Taylor made this in the 1st Grade.

At the time this picture was taken, our tree had no ornaments on it. There was an entire week where Taylor had something going on every evening. Decorating the tree is usually a family tradition where we all do it together. Taylor is very into traditions and not straying from them. Therefore, I waited a week until she was home so that she could be a part of the festivities. It ended up being just her and I and the little kids. So much for traditions.

Once the ornaments were hung, Nicholas started systematically removing the glass balls pulling the little metal thingy out and smashing the balls on our slate floors. It was tons of fun. The bottom half of our tree has no ornaments so it looks a little goofy.

Taylor and Shea are leaving for their dad's in the afternoon of Christmas day. The very next day, the tree will be down and out of our house. Nicholas will have to find something else to destroy.

This wreath is my pride and joy of all Christmas decorations. We really needed something large for the fireplace so that it wouldn't look lost, but most of the wreaths that we found were either too small or too expensive. We bought a bare wreath at Michael's, and then I bought pine cones, berries, and fruit and glue-gunned everything to the wreath. Because I am as creatively talented as a Chimpanzee, we bought the bow at Michael's. When the woman rang us up at the register, the bow itself was $30. Nick almost had a heart attack. So much for our homemade, bargain wreath. But I think it looks awesome, and I usually lie and say that I made the bow too.

After Isabella was born, I had pretty much decided that I was done having children. Hence the PEACE stocking holders. Nicholas gets the star since he is the littlest star of the family. Maybe he will get a stocking. I haven't decided yet. (Relax, he has a stocking. It just wasn't hung when this picture was taken.)

Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy the day!

I Know, I Know....It's Been Weeks!

No I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I'm busy! And unmotivated to write.

I will post some pics of Christmas decorations soon. In the meantime, here is a picture of my favorite animal at the zoo. I have nicknamed him Skeeterific. He reminds me of Skeet, our Golden Retriever (Whom we no longer have). Someday when I am feeling really sorry for myself, and want to bring myself down even further, I will tell you all about him and his brother, Hunter.

Oops...

Never sit on your mom's lap while she's eating a big sub from Jersey's Mikes.

Nature Hike (In Our Backyard)

On Friday, the weather was really nice, so I took the kids outside in the woods. We pretended we were explorers searching for treasures.

As you can see, neither kid has their "woods legs" yet. Isabella is much more cautious, by nature, so as soon as she would start slipping, she would sit down. Nicholas was running down the hills, and would do a full slip-on-a-banana-peel fall, roll over, get up, and start running again.

This is Taylor and Shea's fort that they made with friends the first summer that we moved in. (4 1/2 years ago) Still intact and quite impressive. It's a little tight inside, but I am sure Nicholas and Isabella will be able to continue building it sometime in the future to enlarge it and make it usable.

Here they are very impressed that they are capable of shaking a tree so hard that the entire thing moves. It was about an inch in diameter.

This is my favorite tree in our entire back yard. I know it's just a stump, but it was once a really huge tree. The tree was cut down a really really long time ago because the remains of the stump are very brittle and soft. I'd like to imagine that this tree was cut down maybe 100 years ago. And if the tree was that big 100 years ago, how long before that was it planted? Our development is new as of about 10 years ago, so why was this big tree cut down? I would love to find out the history of who lived on this land way back when.

This is in the side of our yard, and I am not even sure if this is our property or not, but the kids love to throw rocks and sticks in this creek and see how big of a splash they can make.

This was Isabella's first attempt at photography. Not too bad. She managed to get my entire body centered perfectly in the next picture. These don't look too different than the pictures I take. Is she that good, or do I take photos like a 3 year old?

After so many pictures, they were no longer willing to smile. They tried to give me their scariest faces.

And the winner is.......

New Favorite Purchase

Nick has been bugging me for weeks to buy flannel sheets for our bed. Our regular cotton sheets are just too harsh on his delicate skin apparently....So anyway....I found these great holiday sheets at Target over the weekend for $15 on any size! And they are really, really soft.

Of course, where ever I am, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum are never far behind. The moment I had the bed made, it became playground central. Why is it so fun to jump on parent's beds? Even Taylor and Shea take running dives from the doorway of our bedroom onto our bed. No matter how much we yell at them, for some crazy reason, it's always worth the tongue lashing.

Holloween Festivites

Halloween started for us on Wednesday at Isabella's preschool, where they had their party. I was one of the "helpers" and had so much fun. They had a parade for the parents to show off their costumes. Then the kids got to play their games and decorate Halloween cookies with frosting and LOTS of sprinkles. 3 year-olds are really, really, really cute!

Saturday we went to my Brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house to trick or treat. We also were there to celebrate Heidi's birthday. Aside from my husband, Heidi hates to celebrate her birthday more than anyone I know. So, she will do anything she can to get out of a party. This year, she cleverly decided that since we would all be at her house anyway for trick or treating, then we could celebrate her birthday as an after thought.

Isabella as Sleeping Beauty

Nicholas as a pumpkin (This also happened to be Taylor's costume when she was 2. At the time, I was felling rambunctious enough to sew the girls costumes. I went to the fabric store and picked the easiest pattern I could find. For the average sewer, it probably would have taken an afternoon to make this simple costume. I think I worked on it for about a week, with SEVERAL errors, where I had to rip apart seams and re-do them. But when it was done, it looked really good, and I was really, really proud of myself.) So why is Nicholas wearing it? Because I waited until the last minute to buy costumes. The upside: 50% off all costumes at The Disney Store. The downside: No boys costumes under a size 8. Low and behold - Nicholas is a 13 year old pumpkin. But was very, very happy.

Anthony: Scary Skeleton

Joseph: Scary I-don't-know-what

Taylor did not trick or treat this year. She decided to walk with the little kids, and pass out candy at Joe and Heidi's house instead. Boo-hoo, my little baby - all grown up and not trick or treating anymore.

Shea and her friend Lauren met up with us later. They decided on their costumes all by themselves. Lauren was "Attacked by an artist". Yes, I know. I had the same puzzled look on my face that you do on yours. And Shea was an old lady, but also the artist whom attacked Lauren. Again, I know - puzzlement. They both looked really cute through.

The happy birthday girl and her boys.

The happy birthday girl and her hubby.

Joe sporting the new do. He LOVED his new hair, and continuously flipped his hair out of his face ALL NIGHT!