A few more...

Photo Shoot!

Yup, the people at Sears love me. We take them in often to get their photos taken. Although it LOOKS like these were effortless to get because they're so darn cute :) I assure you it took a brownie and ice cream bribe to get Cal to cooperate....I'll put one of his devilish grins in too so you can see what we were dealing with!

Splish Splash

As with many things these days, these goofballs can't NOT take a bath together. They just have too much fun.

Update on the boys

Here are the two lovebirds. They'd much rather play with each other than me most days. Poor little Ben needs some playmates his own age though. He's still napping for 2 hours in the morning so it's hard to sign him up for activities but I wake him, much to his chagrin, one morning a week to go to Music Together. He hates me at first but once we get there he gets animated and happy. He loves his music. Ben takes after Cal in being a charmer and social butterfly. Last week, he crawled into the mommy's lap next to me and proceeded to give her hugs...repeatedly. Then towards the end we were doing a song where we had to lay down on the floor. Ben decided to crawl clear across the room to go lay his head down next to another mommy's. And then when we sat up he stayed with her to lavish her with hugs and attention. After class the teacher, who noticed this, asked me if Ben knew the other woman and I said, "Absolutely not!". haha...

Although he hasn't added too many new words to his repertoire, he's babbling and "singing" more and will actually try to repeat words that I say. He's standing firm on his refusal to walk. We've noticed him standing on his own a little bit more this past week but haven't been pushing him any further since this just usually leads to giggling and lunges.

Cal's the same as always. Oh except that "he's 3 now" you know and this means "I can do everything all by myself". It's very funny. I'm hoping to have some new preschool pictures soon!

Resolution update- Take 2

Well, I should always post my "to do" list. It seems I get things done faster that way! In addition to have finished painting the dining room, I had a stroke of good luck that my dad had some time to come up and help paint the hallway going up to the playroom! Any of the white walls that get painted make the house look better!! There's still a lot of white to paint over though!



Let's see...after scrubbing my house from top to bottom for 3 days (and even organizing and putting away baby clothes!) I've managed to stay on top of the cleanliness. I think mostly it's due to a onslaught of visitors and playdates that we've been having recently that's making me keep everything clean. Where are all the neighbors and insta-bests that want to drop by now?!?! Oh yeah, they're on vacation!! (This is actually true - both neighbors across the street just went on vacation - when do I get to go?!)



This leads me to an addendum to my New Year's Resolutions:

9. Spend more time with my husband SANS kids.
In actuality we are going to do this on Feb 8th. A whole weekend getaway without the kids...we're counting down the days!

After 5 consecutive days of working out, I've hit the "no excuses" mode and now have no doubt I'll keep up my 6 days a week. I now have enough different workouts that I can go 3 weeks without having to repeat one! Woo hoo.

Although I haven't found a way yet to make meals any faster, I've definitely become a little more organized and dinner prep has not been a problem on most days. I'm still looking into getting the freezer chest to try and do the Once a Month cooking. A neighbor even expressed interest to do it with me - hooray!

In some sort of miracle...ok ok, maybe it's due to the writer's strike and there being absolutely NO TV on lately...but I've found more time to read lately. I have finished my book club book for this month AND read the current issue of Glamour so I've been able to dig into Cold Mountain again...still as boring as ever.

Last but not least, everyone is finally healthy again. After a horrid December, we're hoping to keep illness at bay so we can enjoy some outdoor time and other wintery activities.

Hidden gem

I was looking back through the pics of Ben's first year of life and found this little gem of a picture. I'm not sure how this picture isn't blown up and framed on a wall somewhere or at least in a little frame by my side of the bed. I LOVE IT! I think this will sum up their brotherly bond for a lifetime to come. I'm not sure if the picture will be big enough to see all the details on the blog but Ben's got about 10 stickers on his shirt, placed by Cal of course, Ben is like "hey, what's going on here?!", and Cal has his "I'm a little bugger" look that he still does to this day. You know the one that says, "yeah I did that, but isn't it and aren't I cute?!"

Resolution update

Cal loves his LiteBrite.

So I've been working on my silly resolutions...only #'s 2 and 3 though. I spoke too soon saying Eric hadn't been sick. He got sick the next day. I guess someone heard my call for a cure in liquid form though because when I took the boys to the doctor again Cal had double ear infections and Ben had a sinus infection, sore throat, and ears that were on the verge of infection...hence, meds! So everyone should be on the mend soon.

#3- Well, I got down on my hands and knees with bucket, sponge, and putty knife (no joke) in hand and chiseled away at the dining room floor which pretty much looked like an elementary school cafeteria after a food fight. It's clean as a whistle now and ready to eat off of. And if Ben doesn't shape up soon, that's where he'll be eating off of! Ben and I have declared war. He's in the stage where he looks me straight in the eye, little eyebrow up with the "what are you going to do about this" look, slowly moves his hand with food over the edge of his tray, holds it there for a second, small little mischevious smile, and then BAM! he drops it. Then it's rapid fire, he gets as much off his tray as he can in 5 seconds. I give a firm NO!, ask him nicely to put it in his mouth, SHOW him how to put it in his mouth, ignore him, nothing works. Now he takes one look at his food and shakes his head no. Ben, I tell him, you haven't even TRIED it. I declared a mini-victory tonight when he whined and cried for 10 full minutes (Eric and I were pretty much done eating by this point) before he finally gave in and ate 5 or 6 pieces of pasta. Then he went back to throwing it on the floor. Anyways, kitchen island is looking better, kitchen floor and one bathroom got cleaned today. Things are looking shinier by the minute!

Happy New Year!

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS:
1. Finish painting dining room.
Ok to be honest, I just finished this today but if you had any idea how long it's taken me to paint that dumb room, you'd spit.
2. Find a cure for the common cold.
And if this could come in a liquid form that'd be great for my kids. We spent 5 WHOLE days healthy in December and not one healthy day yet in January. We're all sick again...well, except for daddy but he's got other issues.
3. Find a way to keep my house "drop-in" clean.
As in, if the neighbor wants to stop by at a moments notice I won't be terribly embarrassed at the sight of my kitchen island, bathrooms, etc. I know, I know...some of these are more appropriate for a "this is never going to happen so keep dreaming list".
4. Start working out again!
For any of you that knew me in FL you might be SHOCKED to know that since the day Ben was born, I can count the times I've worked out on one hand. It's sad, I know. Nursing treats me well and with moving this past year I put fitness on a back burner...hmmm, no wonder I'm in poor health now?! No more excuses. I'm getting AMPED (my new tae bo) tomorrow!
5. Find a new insta-best mommy friend (read requirements before applying).
She must: Live walking distance, have kids the same ages as mine, not care that my house is a mess, not pretend that she's perfect either, doesn't mind that I call her 3 times a day to complain about dumb things like the food that is constantly caked on my dining room floor because she calls me just as many about the same dumb things, considers a crisis that her child's beloved security item has been thrown up on, want to trade off on babysitting the kids, and can spend hours upon hours chatting away while our kids play perfectly together! Oh and if she has a husband that gets along with mine, that'd be great too.
6. Cook healthy meals in LESS time
This is another one that's never going to happen but I might as well try. If I can find myself a free or cheap freezer chest to put in my basement I'm toying with the idea of those "once a month" cookbook things where you spend 12 hours cooking and then freeze everything and voila! meals for a month. Dream on.
7. Finish reading Cold Mountain.
I've been reading this book since right around the time we were leaving Okinawa. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, Cal was 4 months old...he's now 3. Really I should just give up since it's a horribly boring book that's in essense just wasting my time but I have 90 pages left and I'll be damned if I let that book get the better of me!
8 Have more free time for me
Enough said!

Snowman Soup

It was a bit chilly out today so Cal requested the newly coveted "snowman soup" aka hot chocolate. He just received this cup and said "soup" from his teacher Miss Carla and it's the first time ever for hot chocolate for Cal. He loved it, of course.
Good to the last drop!!