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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Playing Around

Ohh, I got a new toy....here are some pics from my super duper new camera.  At this point I know how to push the button to take a picture and how to look at pictures I have already taken.  Yeah, I have a loooong way to go...

My favorite subject:

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Saturday, November 1, 2008

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

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Awwww, aren't they cute??  Now, before you even ask, NO!  I could NOT get one single picture where all three kids were looking at the camera at the same time.  It just wasn't happening because one pint size child was ALREADY bouncing off the walls and would not, could not, sit still.  At all.  Here's how some of the other pics turned out:

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Ahh, yes, she thought the whole point of me asking them to stand on the landing was so that she could jump off the last two stairs to where I stood.

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And here...well here, they've switched places and she's trying to sneak UP the stairs and is almost out of the picture.  Also, if you look real close, the smiles are quite forced.  This is because I've already threatened their lives...stand together, stand still and smile, dang it. 

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Last, we have just two kids because the other one has been kicked out of the picture.  But what you don't see is that she's off to the side, practicing her spider princess tantrum and Andrew is watching mesmerized, too enthralled to bother looking at the camera.

The other five or six pictures I'm not bothering to post are combinations of the above pictures and stories.  At some point, I knew when to consider myself defeated by the thralls of obtaining unlimited candy.  I didn't stand a chance!! 

Really, quite the memories!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Ewww

This is why parents get gray hair:

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Another view, you say.  Okay:

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Ahh, yes, there SHOULD be an elbow somewhere in there, but at the time of this picture, it was in two separate pieces. 

One more pic:

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Most of you know that my lovely gymnast came crashing off the high bars at gym and not only dislocated her elbow, she broke it as well.  Since then, she's had surgery and will be getting her cast on Monday.  This child has to go all out....blaaaah!

Monday, September 8, 2008

My Junior Assistant

Addie want to become my new baking assistant.  For a three year old, she's a pretty darn good helper too:

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Our cherry cupcakes turned out really well!

Okay...it's hot up here in Folsom...even our cat can't handle the heat sometimes:

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This is how I feel a LOT of the time up here...it's HOT...ALWAYS HOT!  BLAH....even with air conditioning it's hot.  We are right on the golf course and the crazy part is that there are ALWAYS golfers out there, even when it's 105...no thank you.  Nope, not me.  Ever.   Our neighbors, who are very nice, are always outside too!  I mean, it's HOT out people, really hot out.  We just peak out from our windows at them.  I bet they think we're a bunch of recluses.  I miss the fog...a lot.

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This is Addie just being cute...couldn't resist :)

Monday, September 1, 2008

Something in the Water up here?

There's got to be something in the water, something in the air, somethin...

Both kids fell asleep before naptime this week.  With Andrew, this isn't shocking.  My son likes loves his sleep, he's like his mom in that area.  He's not fond of the heat, again, like his mom.  And when you mix a ride on a barely air conditioned school bus with 105 degrees weather outside, this is what you may get:

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He crashed out, at the table, while having a snack one day after school. 

Now, Addison, she's not one to fall asleep.  She may miss something.  Anything.  Sleeping is not on her top 10 favorite activities, not by a long shot.  But, she just started preschool and she's been fighting a cold, so the girl has been busy!

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She was reading a magazine with me...apparently the magazine put her to sleep!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

What a Month will do

Wow...we've been in Folsom for a month now...some odds and ends that have happened in this first month:

  • Andrew is in school
  • Addison is in preschool 3 mornings a week
  • Addison has made a new friend
  • Our house is pretty cool
  • It's really really hot up here....I miss the fog!
  • Andrew now sleeps in a bed
  • Addison is growing out of her naps...boohoo!
  • One of our kitties has already escaped...
  • Allie LOVES her new gym!
  • The kids have lots of fun with the neighbor kids
  • Andrew already knows the way to Costco and his school
  • Allie is the first one to go to the dr. (hurt wrist at gym)
  • I have only gotten truly lost once (knock on wood).
  • The kids don't like to play in the backyard because of all the bees.

I'm sure there's more.....but I'm too tired to think of anything else at the moment!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Quiz Time

What happens when you put the following items together:

  • Night light
  • Safety Pin
  • Light socket

Here's a hint:

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I'd have pictures of the night light and half melted away safety pin, but those have been thrown away before I could take pictures.

So, which of my inquisitive children tried this hair raising, death defying experiment?

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Yep, if you guessed Addison, you guessed right!  We got up the other morning, and since Addie's door sticks, she can't open the door to let us know that she is awake.  I went in and she told me that her light popped when she tried to take it out.  Silly me, I thought she was just trying to take the nightlight out to be helpful.  Nope.  Somewhere she found a safety pin, thought it would be neat to put everything together and stick it in the light socket, and blew a fuse.

This is the same child that disassembled Dan's little flashlight that he kept on a key chain so he could see in the  dark...if we could just get her to put that same enthusiasm to..oh, let's say, putting on her own clothes!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Beating the Heat

Okay.  Dan got out of helping and let me tell ya, he owes us BIG!  With the latest heat wave Allie and I decided to blow up the big pool so everyone could cool off.  We have a manual air pump, so it shouldn't be too hard, right?  WRONG

It took us over an hour to blow the mammoth thing up...one looong, tedious hour.  But we got it.  Even though I was silently berating Dan for weaseling out working, it was worth it and the kids loved it so much they didn't even bother fighting!!!

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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

New Furniture

What is this a picture of?:

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a. A picture of Addie being cute

b. A picture of our couch

c. A picture of our couch that is now broken

The answer is C.  Just a few weeks after we ordered new furniture, Allie plopped down on the couch, a LOUD crack ensued and she sunk into the depths of our now dilapidated couch.  Was it a sign that we made the right choice in purchasing new furniture?  Was it confirmation that, no, we're not being extravagant, but purchasing what is necessary.  Well, maybe that would explain the new couch and loveseat...even our coffee table and end table (we don't currently own a coffee table and our end table is broke), but what about the new recliner?  Ahhh, well, our current one, just days before the couch coughed its' last dying breath, our chair made a funny noise and now if you lean back, it tips to the right and will fall over if you lean to far. 

So, in the end, our hoakie old furniture that has been moved....we think five times in ten years is begging for retirement and we have listened.  Next Friday when we move to our new house, we will be getting a new couch, loveseat, coffee table, end table, recliner, dining room table and 6 chairs! 

Next to be replaced:  Alllie's dresser, if you shut a drawer too hard, a piece of the front falls off. 

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

4th of July Parade

Oh man...

Well, we planned early on that we were going to take Andrew to the parade.  It's time to push him out of his comfort zone, we thought.  It's time.

Hmmm, a lot of bold talk by us.  His reaction reminded us that for as much progress as he's made by being in school, her still has a long way to go. The noises were over the top for him.  He was ready to go in the first few minutes.  I had to take him, shaking to the core,  out of the stroller and we had to watch a good portion of the parade at the end of the block.

He was very intrigued with the old cars and over a period of time I was able to get him back up to the stroller.

When I tried to push the stroller away from the front lines, Addison came unglued...we just couldn't win that night!! 

End result - Andrew is not FOND of parades, and we won't attempt another one for a looong time!  I managed to get a couple of pictures though....

Here he was okay:

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Here, he was done, didn't want to be there anymore!

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Friday, June 20, 2008

Want or a Need?

Okay, I'll be the first to admit...I'm not one for manual labor.  Don't like and try my best to avoid it...at just about any cost.  Hauling around two toddlers is enough for me.

So, we're getting ready to move........again, just 10 months after moving to our current home.  We paid a couple of guys to help out.  Still, the end result was a catastrophic accident leaving Andrew in a full leg cast. 

Facing a longer move, in the middle of July (for those keeping track, it's the middle of summer...HOT.  I don't do hot, and Dan would prefer not to as well), Dan and I are considering hiring a moving company to come in and move our stuff.  We received a quote today.  WOOHOO, it's not cheap, economical, or a bargain.  You wouldn't be able to call us frugal either.  Some would argue that you could never use us in the same sentence as frugal anyway, but that's not the point! 

Here's our choice:

Moving ourselves:

  • PROS
    • Cheaper
  • CONS
    • Busting our butt for two days, just moving.  This doesn't include packing and unpacking
    • Sweating a lot
    • Trying to keep track of three kids, keep them out of things, prevent any more broken bones.

Having a company move us:

  • PROS
    • We don't have to lift a thing!
    • I can take the kids and head up to the new house, take our time, not worry about anything!
    • We can be moved in one day
  • CONS
    • Expensive
    • Yeah, nothing else comes to mind here....

Hmmmmm.....it seems like an easy choice....if a windfall would just come our way!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Vacation Time

I need a vacation...I want a vacation.  I'm not picky, I'll even take my kids.  But I am so sick of seeing the same old landscape day in and day out.  I am bored to tears with our daily routine, which goes something like this:

  • Wake up WAY too early
  • Kids have breakfast
  • Kids spill some part of breakfast
  • Kids fight play
  • Allie rolls out of bed
  • Referee the rest of the day
  • attempt housework
  • attempt meals
  • watch the clock for naptime and bedtime
  • rest
  • sleep

I need a routine that goes something like this:

    • wake up when I want
    • do nothing
    • sit on a beach
    • get a nice tan
    • sleep
    • read
    • rest

Here's what I am imagining:

Here

Or Here

I'm not picky, just ready for some new scenery, just a few days....now I have to go find that windfall!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Almost Time to Move

How is it possible to accumulate so much crap stuff in such a short amount of time?  We have only lived here for 9 months, but we had a very busy garage sale where we sold loads of crap.  We have since taken 2 carloads of things to Goodwill, and thrown away an amazing amount of.....NOTHING!  Things not worth keeping, yet we kept!  Why?  Uhh.....who knows. 

So, here we sit, waiting to hear if we get house #1 or house #2.  We should know today but house #1 isn't looking so hot.  The lady wants to meet us.  We aren't the quietest group of people and I think we'll scare her.  Not only that, the last time we had to drive up to Folsom, we ended up pulling over twice because Andrew decided he'd had enough of....something.  Not quite sure what sets him off the deep end at times, but when he ventures down that path, it's time to get out of the car and wait for him to be done.  I'm not to eager to replay that last trip.  I'll pass.

So we wait.......and pack, and continue to be amazed at why in the world we have held on to things that shouldn't be in the house.

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BTW...I'm ready to go camping again!  That's why I'm including a few pictures. 

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Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Just a Week in the Life

Okay, so my goal for daily posting has failed miserably. Well, I guess I am going to shoot for AT least once a week right now. I'll try to sum up the last week as simply as possible:

Last Wednesday I discovered that my keys were locked in the car (twenty minutes before I was supposed to pick up Andrew from school). Did you notice that I did NOT say that I locked them in the car. Nope. The night before Dan and I went to Costco, and after I got the kids inside Dan unloaded and I thought he brought in my bag. Uh-uh. Nope, that stayed right out in the open on the front passenger seat which made it very easy for me to see from the other side of the door as I am trying to go get Andrew. Finally, after AAA came, I was able to pick him up over an hour late....oops.

On that same lovely day, on my way to get Andrew, I spaced out and almost missed the off ramp to his school. So, being the safe driver I am, I made sure I had a clear path and then flew across two lanes and off the freeway. Oh yeah, and as I discovered I was about to miss his exit, I started the "F" word (as it's sometimes called in my house, other times, the full expletive comes flying out), but trying to curb my potty mouth around my kids, didn't finish the word. It sounded like "Ffffffffffffffffffffff". Well, Addie, ever so helpful, finished the word for me! It was THE exact phrasing that flew through my brain, really quite canny. Chalk another point up to my mother of the year award.

Let's see, what else happened. Oh yeah, I left my husband alone with the kids (I try to do this often, for my own sanity), and I came home to a broken window. Andrew tried his hammer out on the playroom window, and my husband, lovely man that he is, missed the importance of this being a no-no in our house. Well, quite quickly he discovered the necessity of not allowing our children to bang on the windows with hammers, even toy hammers. So, now we have this high class Eggo Waffle box taped to the cracked window pane (only one pane of the dual pane window broke...whatever!). Yes, and the bright yellow design of the box faces outside, announcing not only our food choices, but makes for a eye catching design in the window. No, I'm not the one who taped the box up.

That same day, Andrew decided he didn't want the sliding glass door open anymore. So, knowing he shouldn't be messing with the doors, decided to close it anyway, and forgot to remove his finger from the door and it got stuck and he couldn't pull it out. Poor baby, he was shaking it hurt so bad....oh and yes, he cried! Happy to say, he's all better...just a bit of swelling now. But for a moment, I thought I was doomed to another ER visit.

Speaking of............

Ummm, oh, yes, and I made my semi-annual visit to the ER. It had been almost five months since our last trip, and we were due. This time it was our oldest. Poor Allie had been having some vicious stomach pains and they weren't going away. Finally, after a fever broke out, I took her in late Thursday night, and after five looong drawn out hours, we got to come home. She's doing better, her plumbing has been fixed and she's a much happier girl these days.

Other than that, it's been a quiet week.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Keeping it Up!



I am going to keep this blog updated...and although I'll never be one of those once a day posters, I am at least shooting for a few times a week!


Potty training has been a success, I repeat, potty training has been a success! Addison now uses the potty all the time and only wears a diaper during nap times and at bedtime. But, and yes, there's always a but....the one caveat of having a newly potty trained child, I now get to evaluate every single bathroom every single time we go somewhere new. In the last two days, I have been in the bathrooms of: Target, Ross, Grocery Store, Restaurant, Fry's electronics. That doesn't seem like much, but when you realize that these are the places Addison has visited, and every single one has required a bathroom visit, most of the time without result. She finds it very interesting to see what each bathroom is, and asks me "what's this?" "what's that?" "Will this hurt my ears?" "I'm scared, don't let me go down [the toilet]!" And no, I have not let her fall in...lol. I still have all this to do one more time once Andrew starts potty training......woohoo.

Yes, Addison is crying in the first picture. She was not happy to leave the zoo last Friday, and had no reservations about voicing her displeasure. She refused to even smile for the camera, and usually she is the house ham bone!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Playing in the Snow!

Well, we took Addie and Andrew to the snow for the very first time and much to our surprise, they loved it. Okay, let me clarify, we are surprised that Andrew loved it, we knew Addison would have a great time and she sure did! We all had a huge snowball fight, and being the mean mom that I am, I accidently hit Andrew right in the eye with the second snowball....oops. But, much to my relief, he handled it well, and didn't even cry!!! I felt so bad though...now it's funny and I laugh even thinking about it, but at that moment I was afraid I had traumatized him for life.

The kids may have not been feeling well that day though, because they complained less then Allie did about the long day in the car. We are not yet one of those lucky families that have a DVD system set up in their car and we have to entertain our kids the old fashioned way, which can be a real pain in the butt sometimes.

We went and looked for places to live as well....and we scratched some off our list when we couldn't even find the house...too far off the main road for us!! I'm not sure we accomplished much as we have no idea where we want to live.

Well, you may be wondering how the potty training is going, and I am avoiding the topic on purpose. Things have been going very well, many more potty triumphs than accidents, so I shall not sabotage a good thing right now!

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

One More Day

Well, I feel a bit better today. My life is all about Addie using the potty, so bear with me as that is all you are going to hear about for awhile. I think I even had a freakin dream about potty training, oh wait, sorry, nightmare, and at 4:16 am, when I woke up, I had to laugh at the complete idocrisy of this situation. Really, am I just being overly dramatic about this whole thing?? Possibly. Maybe I am blowing everyting out of proportion, and a different outlook is all I need. You know, being positive, having positive thoughts will make the situation better. At 4:20 am that sounded like a logical plan, and I held on to that idea until about 7:35 am when it all went to hell.

What made it that bad you ask? Well, in the span of five minutes, I changed two diapers, cleaned up dog pee (I can't even remember the last time one of the dogs peed in the house!!!!), cleaned up cat puke (ewwww, it was still warm) and was ready to call it a day.

About thirty minutes later, after breakfast, we put Addie in her big girl Elmo underwear and within two minutes (I am not even slightly exaggerating the time frame here either....i wish i was) she had pooped, and not in the potty. So, another mess to clean.

Why is my day better than yesterday, because she has peed in the potty TWICE!! Not one, but TWICE! So, again, for the math - we are at 2 pee pee in the potty and 2 poo's in the pants so, our record at naptime is 50% which you can clearly see is better than yesterday!!!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Potty Training Round 3

Can I state, for the record, that I hate potty training. Hate is probably not nearly a strong enough description, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment. I think I am going to just go bang my head against the wall, it's much less painful than cleaning up another 'accident'.

I have been racking my brain, trying to bring up memories from 8 1/2 years ago and I just can't seem to remember potty training being this much of a nightmare for Allie. Since I have no strong memories (good or bad), then I think it's a safe bet to assume that our first encounter with potty training was average. Fast forward to right now...average is about the last way I would describe how I feel right now. Addison on the other hand is completely oblivious to the drama that has unfolded at our house. Either 3 yerar olds are unable to understand the concept of bribery, or Addison just likes to see us flinch and grind our teeth in a very forced, difficult smile at each 'accident' that we are privelaged enough to clean up. For her, this just may be even more entertaining than SpongeBob.

So, for today's count at naptime: 1 poo in the potty and 3 different accidents to clean up. If you like math, that puts us as 25% for the day........

Friday, February 8, 2008

Potty Training...again....

Potty training Addison is going to span the next few years...maybe peer pressure will finally get her motivated to pee in the potty. She only has 3 more years until kindergarten, so heck, we're half way there.

I do have to give her credit though, she waited to get a bout of diareha until Daddy was home with her and after the second round, he bowed down to Addie and planted her butt back into a diaper. Round 2 to Addie. So, for those keeping count, parents: 0 and Addie: 2. Because of Addie's overdose on tomatoes (thus the nasty poo) we will begin round 3 of potty training on Monday.

Taking Andrew to school today proved to be a highlight of my morning. As he rolled around on the floor in the midst of a temper tantrum as I dropped him off, other parents walked in with their calm, well behaved children and had to walk over his writhing body to drop off their lovely kids. I am yet again reminded how far we have to go yet...but that's okay, one day at a time :)

I drowned my stress shopping and I hit the clearance rack and hit upon a gold mine!! I found clothes for all three kids, some as cheap as a dollar! I picked up some winter clothes for next year, summer clothes for this year, and some clothes for all three of them right now....I feel immensely better!

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Trying Again

Okay, I'm trying this again. My last blog didn't get updated but maybe twice a year. Since I don't keep baby books for my two toddler's I think it's only fair that they have some record of their childhood, so I will try this again for them. Maybe if I guilt myself into it, I'll actually follow through and update my blog on a regular basis.

Right now, we are trying to find a house because we have to move. I want to live up in the snow, but it doesn't seem like they make big houses in Placerville or Pollock Pines or Diamond Springs. They have smaller houses on lots of land, and I want a big house on lots of land! Unfortunately, we are limited where we can look by Dan's job and Allie's gym........and the fact that once you pass Cameron Park, there are no 4 bedroom homes for rent! And yes, we are definitely renting first so that I can confirm I want to actually live in the foothills.... :)

We are in day 2 of potty training yet again with Addison and hopefully she won't start holding her pee all day like last time! The count yesterday was: Pee in the potty - 2 and pee in the pants - 1. Not bad for a new day one!!!