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2009 gave us a lot of great memories....
The arrival of baby Shane....the missing piece to our complete family!
Visits with family in Michigan.
Potty training.
Big boy beds and a Moses basket.
Swimming and sledding.
Parks and picnics.
Date nights.
Books and games.
Hugs and kisses.
and Lots and lots of love.
If 2010 is half as great as 2009, then we have a lot to look forward to this coming year!!!
Yesterday we drove across the state of Michigan just barely ahead of a huge ice storm that hasn't let up since! We left my parents earlier than planned so that we wouldn't get stranded somewhere on the side of the road on Christmas Eve. It worked out perfectly and we arrived in Grand Haven just before the storm dumped freezing rain and snow over West Michigan.
Fortunately Santa was able to get his sleigh through the ice and managed to drop off a bunch of presents for our boys at Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bills house. A few of their favorites were the bounce house, sleeping bags, and LL Bean duffel bags. This is the third round of Christmas gift opening in a week and the kids were well behaved and thankful for their gifts this time (it only took two practice runs to get it right!).
We also visited with Great Grandma Rodgers, Aunt Mari, Triston, Uncle Mark, and Uncle David today. It is so nice to catch up with family and makes me a little sad that we don't live nearby but we look forward to seeing everybody that much more every time that we come to visit!
The boys LOVE all of the Christmas books that we have around the house right now! Even Shane is starting to enjoy stories about Santa!
I am so relieved that Friday is finally here! This week has been crazy. Today was the third day in a row that the kids didn't nap! I need a break from these crazy sleep-deprived boys!
This week Shane has also turned rolling into an olympic sport. He could win the gold medal tonight! This kid can roll from one end of a room to another in 1.2 seconds flat!
This week I found him playing in the kiddie potty (it was full of pee too!), under the Christmas tree, and all the way in the playroom. He has tried eating play dough, a piece of backpack, orange peels, the phone, the remote, and just about anything else on the floor within rolling distance!
In between giving the boys time outs and doing finger sweeps on Shane I have barely had time to pee this week! Shane wants a ball and chain from Santa for Christmas!
Today we pretended to be pioneers. We lost our electricity two different times today for a total of about 5 hours due to some high winds in the area.
The first time we lost power was right at naptime and the second time was at bedtime tonight. It is amazing how hard it is to get kids to go to bed when the house is pitch dark. The loss of electricity causes a lot of emotional turmoil.
So we let the kids go to bed with flashlights. They each have an animal flashlight that makes noise when you open the mouth and turn it on. We have a rooster, a horse, and a cow.
You can imagine what it sounded like upstairs tonight at bedtime. Between the crowing, neighing, and mooing I was ready to go out and buy a generator!
In between the power outages we visited Santa again at the community center. I was hoping to get some more pictures of the kids possibly with smiles this time, but it wasn't meant to be. My camera's memory card was full and wouldn't allow me to delete any pictures so I ended up using a friend's camera. She is going to email the pictures to me.
Needless to say I didn't get much done from my to-do list today, but tomorrow's another day...as long as we aren't pretending to be pioneers again!
I made an appointment to see a dermatologist tomorrow to take a look at a weird spot on my face. I am sure that it is nothing, but I will feel better if a doctor tells me that it's nothing. My appointment is at 12pm so that John can come home and stay with the kids during his lunch hour and I don't have to bring them along. Nice!
When I set up the appointment the receptionist gave me an internet link to print out new patient forms ahead of time so that I could come prepared. I thought that it was a good idea too so I went to print them out today and be all Mrs. Prepared.
Then I got on the website and realized that the doctor that I am seeing is a plastic surgeon. There is a dermatologist there too, but I am scheduled to see the the plastic surgeon tomorrow. Weird huh? What is even weirder is that the website had a lot of before and after plastic surgery pictures on it. I completely forgot about printing out my forms and got all wrapped up in looking at the before and after pictures of the breast augmentation surgeries. It's fascinating!
There I am sitting in the den looking at all of these torsos of before and after surgeries and Wyatt comes in and catches me red-handed. He looks at the computer and then gets this shocked look on his face before looking back at me. Then he says "Mom, where are their heads?". I said "I guess that they got cut off huh? Ok, lets hop out of here!". Now that doesn't happen every day does it?
So tomorrow I will be going to my plastic surgeon to get the spot on my face checked out. Who knows? Maybe he will try and talk me into a face lift while I'm there. Maybe I will have my own before and after pictures to show off too!
Yesterday John called me from work to tell me that he heard about a 2 day All-Clad factory sale that he thought we could attend. Since we had plans for Saturday I told him that we could drag everybody there after work and eat dinner at a restaurant on the way home. Sounds easy right?
We drove an hour to the sale and arrived at approximately 4:30pm. It was basically a huge warehouse FULL of All-Clad cookware in every shape and size that you could imagine. There were tables and tables of pots, pans, utensils, cookbooks, and bowls stacked as high as you could imagine all priced at about 60% off retail price.
There were tons and tons of people walking around with loads of stuff to purchase. I very quickly assessed that it was going to be hard to keep an eye on all of the kids with so many displays and people around. John went to check everything out and I stayed in one spot with the kids. We ate snacks and talked and then the kids got bored.
It was literally impossible to watch everyone if they were not holding on to the stroller, so I had to be really stern and force them to stick close. Then we started checking out the tables of merchandise. There were so many people around that somebody could easily snatch one of the boys away and escape unnoticed. I was a little stressed which is why I wasn't really paying attention to John when he talked about getting some new pots.
He said that he was debating between this and that in this color or something else. He said that we need something bigger. I was thinking about keeping the kids together and if anybody was going to need to pee. I was thinking about where we were going to stop for food on the way home and how I was going to nurse Shane. I was thinking about maybe skipping the kids baths and sending them straight to bed since it was getting so late. What I wasn't thinking about was how BIG the pan was that John finally decided to buy!
It is a 16 quart stockpot! Do you have any idea how big that is? This is how big it is. 
(It was only after taking this picture of Shane that I realized that he had something in his mouth and subsequently realized that it was a piece of felt off the bottom of the kitchen chair legs. Nice!) We are going to need a new stove now and a garage to store this pot in when we are not using it. John told me tonight that after bringing it home, he decided that it is a big pan after all. He can't find a place to store it. I told him that most people hang those kinds of pots from utensil racks in the ceiling so that they don't need to use up all of their cupboard space. He said that if the pot fell it would kill somebody! Death by stockpot. What a way to go!
This morning we took the kids to see Santa. I signed them up for cookies with Santa at the local community center. The kids got to visit with Santa, decorate and eat cookies, and make a couple of crafts. There were only about 25 kids there so it was nice and organized. Wyatt was awestruck by Santa. He told him that he wants a big red car and trailer for Christmas. Sammy repeated Wyatt's exact words to Santa as his wish list and Jonah only answered yes or no questions about what he wanted for Christmas. Shane hated Santa period. He's probably on the naughty list now.
This afternoon I decided to run out and do some shopping while the kids were napping. Right before I left I heard Sam talking in his bed and decided to bring him along. I took him to Toys R Us. He was so thrilled to be out with Mom by himself at the "choo-choo store"! He was honestly the LOUDEST person in the entire store and the store was packed! "Mom, Sponge Bob" "Mom, Diego" "Mommy, we have this at home" "Mom, I want this for my birthday" and on and on and on. He is an enthusiastic little guy! People thought that he was adorable. His excitement is actually very sweet even if everybody in the store hears us coming. You can not be shy if he is your child! I had a good time and I think that Sam had a lot of fun too!
Tonight after the kids were in bed John and I had a cookie making marathon. We each picked out cookies to make and played Christmas carols in the background. We ended up making 5 different kinds of cookies. John made Hanukkah cookies (not sure why he picked those but he hasn't converted or anything) and date roll cookies and I made peanut butter Reese's chip cookies, shortbread cookies, and chocolate covered Oreo cookies. I want to package them up for gifts but John wants to eat them all. Unfortunately I don't think that he will have any room left in his belly for cookies after he cooks tomorrow's dinner in the new stockpot! He's making corn chowder and I have a feeling that we will be eating it for weeks!
We busted out the advent calendars yesterday. This year I got each of the kids a playmobile advent calendar where they open little boxes that contain pieces to a holiday scene every day until Christmas. I was fortunate to find the sets from the past 3 years so each kid has a different scene that is unfolding.
It has been a huge hit. The excitement is palpable. What is going to show up in tomorrow's box? You never know!
John and I decided to celebrate Christmas early here with the kids this year so that they can still experience the Christmas morning tradition at home before we travel to Michigan. So Santa will be hitting our house on December 19th this year. The advent calendars are on fast forward now and the kids are opening more than one box per day...whoops!!!!
Christina got Wyatt hooked on gum this weekend. He is obsessed with gum. He thinks that he is an adult when he chews gum. Yesterday I took the kids to the store to pick up a few things and I let him pick out some gum for himself. He chose pink gum...strawberry flavor. So far he hasn't swallowed any and remembers to spit it into the garbage can when he is done with it. He loves it! I like it for the bribery potential involved in loving something that much! Thanks Christina!
I am already getting sick of Jingle Bells. The Raffi version isn't bad, but when it is played almost continuously for days on end it can make your ears bleed!
We got the Christmas tree up last weekend! It is the first time that we have had a Christmas tree up in this house. The kids LOVE it. They have not messed with it too much. I am impressed!
Shane needs a stocking!
We enjoyed a great Thanksgiving holiday with Mom and Dad and Aaron and Christina. We were sad to see them all go today, but are looking forward to seeing everyone again soon in a few weeks when we go to Michigan for Christmas.
