Happy New Year

I wanted my last post for the year to have my favorite photos. I had no idea it would be so hard to narrow it down and gave up.  Looking through the thousands (I didn't count but there is a lot) of photos I took this year, it hit me how many blessing this year brought me. I am a very lucky woman and thank God every day for the life He has given me.  It's not a road I would have predicted but better and more rewarding.  This year was hard for many people and I'm very thankful Robert has a good job with a great company.  #1 place to work in Seattle baby! Woot woot!  We moved so that we could have the family life we always dreamed of and it was worth every penny, stressful moment and even though we'll be remodeling the heck out of it, it is our home,  the last we'll ever live in if I have my way.  My children are healthy, happy and thriving, I have a warm, safe roof over my head, and good food to eat. When Robert cooks that is.  I've made some great new friendships since we moved but I am trying to hang onto my friends from my old neighborhood as well.  I look forward to what 2011 will bring us.

Can  you picture two more perfect reasons to move closer to Daddy's work? 

I hope 2011 brings a little but not a lot of craziness into our lives,

messy, I know is here to stay. 

I'm sure we'll see our share of adventures and new experiences,

 along with some unexpected surprises.

With any luck, there will be many moments of pure joy,

 sweetness,

beauty,

tender hugs and smooches,

 life's little moments,

and lots of fun. 

But no matter what this next year throws at us,

we will face it together.

So long 2010. 

2011, bring it on!

Happy New Year!

3 in a day

Yesterday I took the kids to Twirl, a cafe/playspace for kids. They have supervised play on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9-noon.  With school out for the holidays, it was extremely busy with lots of kids.  It seems I wasn't the only mom who needed a break!  Beau and Lainey both really liked playing in their climbing area.  I think it's more suitable for Beau's age but Lainey didn't want to leave so what do I know.  Beau took a tumble down the stairs and bumped his head good, leaving a bruise just over his right eye.  I'm not one to freak out over the slightest bump on the head. If you've spent any time at all with these two, you know how they play.  

About two minutes after I took this photo of the two of them coloring in their Color Wonder books together, Beau fell off the chair, landing directly on his forehead.  That made bruise number two for the day.   This one is above his left eye.  I gave him "medicine" (baby ibuprofen) and he let me put some ice on it. 

Then after his nap, he wanted to help me make dinner and sat on the counter. He's done it a million times so I'm not sure what happened but I turned my back for a second and he fell on his head. Again. This time he got a bruise in between the other two.  He asked for medicine and ice again but he still ended up looking like the lumpy dumpy pumpkin from one of his favorite books.  Three nasty bruises in one day.  I don't know what I'm going to do with this kid!  I'm astonished that we haven't made a trip to the ER all bloodied up yet. Knock on wood. I know it's just a matter of time. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and I just finished wrapping all the presents for the kids. [In case Lainey or Beau learned to read miraculously overnight, Santa asked me to wrap them for him as the elves ran out of time this year and he knew he could trust me.]  I had ordered an artificial tree about a week ago thinking we would put it up next year.  Since we're about to demolish half of our house in a couple of weeks, we decided against decorating the house too much. Or at all really.  Our tree this year has been a little four foot thing I used in our old house to put in the window.  The kids took every ornament off of it and played with them until it drove me crazy and I stuck all of them in the garage.  They may have been shatterproof but they certainly weren't crazy proof. And, just a side note, Beau did manage to smash one.  I swear these Houdini's could be testers of child proofing products but that's a whole other can of worms.  


So the tree I ordered arrived today.  I had told myself (but not my husband) that if the tree arrived before Christmas, we would put it up.  So after a day of playing, going downtown to ride the carousel, and get one last glimpse of the big guy in the red suit, we arrived home at about 5pm.  I then assembled my very first gingerbread house, was going to make cookies but realized the dough needed to be refrigerated for 2 hours. My apologies to Santa-there won't be any cookies waiting for him in this house tonight.  Then, after I put Beau down for bedtime and Robert took Lainey up to bed, my sister and I tackled the tree. After a lot of fluffing, and I mean ALOT, the tree started to look like the Douglas Fir it claims to be.  I'll wait to decide if I like it in the daylight tomorrow.  


It's now almost midnight, my back hurts, and I can't stop looking at the tree.  Lainey is getting the Evil Dr. Porkchop that she's been asking for and Beau will get his big, blue ball he wanted.  Well, it's a ride on kind of ball that he'll need to grow into but he'll think it's a big blue ball.  I know the kids are going to be more excited about the tree than the gifts. And that Lainey will open one gift, play with it for an hour or so, and then decide to open another.  I don't understand that at all.  I loved ripping into my presents like it was a race.  Beau is just starting to get how you unwrap a gift but he loses interest fast. 


I just can't wait to see their faces when they see their tree.  They are the best gifts I've ever received and to see their smiles will light up my world.  It's hard for me to remember what Christmas and life was like before these two angels came into my life.  I know that my life and especially Christmas just gets better and better and it's all because of them.  

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons.
It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

-Dr. Suess

Merry Christmas!

Always be my baby

I finally came to grips with reality and decided to get Beau's hair cut.  I really liked his wild, crazy curls but it was getting a little unruly.  Part of the reason I didn't want to cut it was because I knew he'd look older and I'm in no hurry for him to grow up.  Ok, he can potty train and then it has to stop!

Last shot of the curls.  He did so well in the chair. He sat very patiently and although he didn't care for getting water squirted on his head, he did ok.

The ponytail.  It's of course saved for posterity.

Such a big boy!

First appearance of baby neck meat! Oh how I love nibbling back there!

And just like that, in less than 10 minutes, I have a little boy.

He did promise me that he'll always be my baby boy though. I think it's the only thing that saved me from bawling my eyes out.

While all that was going on, Lainey was keeping herself busy.

And I discovered how to get her to smile nicely for the camera.  Have her look in a mirror.

This is what I got when I asked her to smile for me. 

I gotta get some mirrors.

1-2-3-GO!

On your mark

Get set

Go!

If flying squirrels had curly hair, I could say I had one.

Our (almost) Christmas Card

The goal was a family photo. Then I found the perfect card and this photo didn't work with it. 

Lottery

Lainey does not like to have her picture taken. She likes taking pictures, and looking at photos of herself, but refuses to look at the camera.  I have tried so many tricks to get her to look at the camera and she just outsmarts me.  I just don't get it. If I was as beautiful as she is, I'd never stop looking at the camera. 

She makes me work for every photo I take but when I get one like this, it makes me feel like I won the lottery.  And then I look at it again and remember, I DID win the lottery. On March 2, 2007 to be exact.   

BIG day!

Beau went poop on the potty chair today. Not just any potty, he insisted on using the big toilet, "just like Daddy," as he put it.  It scared him pretty good but M & M's can do wonders for fear of poopy! Way to go little guy!

Christmas Tree Trial Run

We had plans of buying a tree last night, even found one we liked on a tree lot.  But when I found out the tree might have been sitting on the lot for almost a week without any water and was almost $70, well, that was the end of that.  I remembered that we have a little 4 foot artificial tree that I used to put in one of the windows in our old house.  I bought some shatterproof ornaments and we decided to see how the kids would do with a tree.  To say it's been popular is a massive understatement.  I tried to limit how many ornaments were out but the little munchkins found my stash.  Silly Mommy didn't realize that anything shaped like a ball was going to be a huge hit with Beau and he has at least two of the ornaments in his hands at all times.  Correction, he carries them around when he's not throwing them.  Lainey likes to take the ornaments apart and alternately take them off and put them back on the tree.  Thankfully, the tree was prestrung with lights and they haven't figured out how to get them off. Yet, that is.  I don't have the energy or patience to keep them out of a real tree so this will have to do for this year.   

Beau hugged the tree the first time he saw it. You can't do that with a big tree!

Lainey kept talking about how beautiful the tree was and how she loved it.

Lainey tried her hardest to put the ornaments on the tree.  She did an great job!

And did an even better job taking them off the tree!

Beau didn't bother with the little strings. He just shoved them into the tree. He'd be a great tree decorator if the tree was really bushy.

Must touch the tree. Must touch the tree. Must touch the tree.

And look at that, they are playing so nice together.  Too bad it's at undecorating our tree!

But, it's their tree after all. They can do whatever they want to it this year.  It's so not worth the stress of keeping them out of it.  And so far, knock on wood, those ornaments have not shattered!  Now Mommy is going to go and buy herself something pretty with the $70 she saved.

Blah blah blah

This is pretty much how I've been feeling lately about blogging.  I haven't even taken many pictures, which is really odd for me.

But.....I have these two adorable faces looking at me every day making life interesting, to say the very least.  What I'd do without them, I don't know, and don't care to think about. They are my heart and soul and fill my day with smiles, screaming, giggling, craziness, hugs and squeezes, surprises and sunshine.

Just when I think they can't get any cuter, they give me photo opportunities like this and take my breath away. So, excuse me if I don't post new photos very often. I'm too busy soaking up their (mostly) sweet smells and energy.