He's fwee!

Evan turned "fwee" and we threw a party for him over the weekend. We had a Construction theme.

My sister (who is far more talented than I) made a dump truck cake. You know what was most impressive about the cake? When Evan saw it, he knew right away that it was a dump truck. If I had made the cake... well... I'm just glad that Kristin was there.

We made personalized hard hats for all the guests, including the adults. They were good sports and actually wore them. Now, I'll be a good sport and not post the pictures of them wearing the hats.

Even Lauren got into the action...

If the state of my living room is any indication, I would say everyone had a great time...

Happy Birthday Evan!

Wordless Wednesday

E: What kind of yogurt am I eating?

M: Strawberry Shortcake

E: I like it!

M: You know, when I was a little girl I had a Strawberry Shortcake doll.

E: What is a doll?

M: It’s a toy that looks like a baby or a little girl.

E: You ate your doll!?!?

M: No. I think we lost something in translation here….

The One where Carolyn is Emotionally Distraught over Fictional Characters….

If you were a fan of the TV show Friends, you might remember that all of the episode titles followed the same format….

The One where Phoebe Runs
The One with Ross’s Teeth
The One with All the Thanksgivings
My personal favorite: The One where Phoebe Hates Pottery Barn

So, in keeping with this format, this blog post is The One where Carolyn is Emotionally Distraught over Fictional Characters.

The only way I can read books for leisure these days is to listen to them on CD during my commute. So, I got a library card two years ago and I check out books on CD. Some of the books are challenging and thought provoking, but many of them are just fun fiction. Last year, I went through the entire Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. Towards the end of the year, I listened to the book Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks. You might recognize him as the author of The Notebook. Anyway, I loved Three Weeks with My Brother and decided to listen to some of his other books. So, I listened to True Believer and the sequel At First Sight. I finished At First Sight this weekend and I am seriously saddened by some of the events in the book. *spoiler alert* I cried when I heard the ending of the book and my heart continues to ache when I think about it now.

I guess it is a sign of a good book, but I can’t help but think it is also a sign of a manipulative author. I downloaded another Nicholas Sparks book on my iPod, but I can’t decide if I’m ready to go back for more just yet. I’m a sucker for happy endings, regardless of how implausible they may be. My real life isn’t overly drama-filled, and for that I am grateful. I’m just not sure that I want to add drama via my leisure reading selections.

Any advice cyber-friends? Are you laughing at my misery? Has anyone else been impacted like this by works of fiction?

Technical Difficulties

Okay, I hate to admit this but I'm not nearly as technically adept as I would like to be. My husband excels in this area, so we make a good team. Rather, he makes up for my inadequacies. It rarely has an adverse impact on my life, but it does surface from time to time in small ways.

Like my blog layout? Good. Because I can't change it. I couldn't even copy and paste the html code correctly from another website. My friend (Hi Dana!) had to log into my account to fix the formatting for me. It was cute, but then one day I logged in and the formatting was gone. I couldn't revive it, so I went with the bland and boring Blogger standard. When I add photos to my posts, they have a mind of their own and go wherever they want. Fellow bloggers - want to help me out? I'm clueless here.

We have so many pieces of equipment connected to our TV, that I can't figure out how to play a DVD. If Evan wants to watch Bob the Builder, there are about 154 steps to play the stupid thing. I think our "DVD" player is actually the PlayStation, or the xBox or the Wii or something...

TV Input... Nope.
DVD Power... Input... Video 1... Nope.
DVD Power... Input... Video 2... Nope.
DVD Power... Input... Video 3... Nope.
DVD Power... Input... Explorer 8300 - Score!

Play... Wrong remote... I give up!

I got an iPod Nano from hubby for Christmas this year. It's pink and super cute. I also got to spend some time in the iTunes store today. I think the iTunes store and I may be a dangerous combination. It's a little like online gambling. Give them your credit card into, and just click your way to bankruptcy. But, I digress...

So, I'm embarassed to admit this, but I bought the Glee Volume 1 soundtrack tonight. Or, rather, I intended to buy the Glee Volume 1 soundtrack. You know what I bought instead? I'm even more embarrassed to admit that I actually bought the Glee Volume 1 KARAOKE soundtrack! Don't know what the karaoke sound track is? Welcome to the club - no pun intended. It is the background track to the Glee Volume 1 sountrack. Like, in case you are so serious about singing along to this silly music that you want your own instrumental tracks, buy this! Or, if you're so new to iTunes and you're a little trigger happy, we'll suck $7.99 from you to capitalize on your stupidity!

Dave - just roll your eyes and shake your head when you read this. Chuckle a little to yourself about how stupid your wife is. It will make you feel better about the $7.99 I just wasted.

Everyone else - stay tuned. I'm going to use my extra time with this to work on a rousing rendition of track 11.

09 Blizzard - Digging Out

I haven't seen the "official" snow totals yet, but the "unofficial" reading we took on the deck last night was 24 inches. This is what it looked like:

See that man shoveling his driveway in the middle of the blizzard? That's my husband. Pretty much the BEST husband ever...

Where do you start with this? We can't even open the door...

Maybe having two cars is overrated. I wonder what would happen if I just left my car here until the spring thaw?

Frosty Flashdance

Driving to School with Evan

E: Ice! Ice! No Ice! Mommy’s car! You turn on car! I drive your car! I want to be warm! Why beeping? Toy magazine? Toy magazine! What that Jeep doing there?
M: It’s not a Jeep, honey. It’s a Hummer.
E: Why people in it? Where are they going?
M: To school. Everyone on the road at this hour is going to work or to school.
E: Yellow! Why that light yellow!?!?
M: It’s a warning sign. Like “Warning! The light is about to turn red!”
E: What red mean?
M: You know what red means.
E: Stop! Green. What green mean? Green means go! (Giant sneeze) What’s that sound?
M: Um, it’s you. Sneezing. (Looks in rear view mirror to see impossibly long trails of snot coming from E’s nose.)
E: I have a snail trail!
M: Hold on, don’t touch anything! I’m getting a tissue for you. Here, wipe your nose.
E: I can’t! You do it!
M: You have to try, the light is green and I have to drive.
E: Okay mommy!
M: (Looks in rear view mirror to see all snot is gone, but the tissue has not been used.) What happened? Where did all of that snot go?
E: In my mouth!
M: Oh, Evan, yuck-o!
E: That’s so silly!
M: That’s not silly, it’s gross. Next time use the tissue, okay?
E: Okay mommy! That’s the YMCA! Why am I going to the YMCA? Who drop me off? Who pick me up? Make u-turn! Why this a u-turn, mommy?
M: Because it’s shaped like a U. Look – long straight line, turn at the bottom, long straight line.
E: Do it again!
M: If we do it again, we’ll be driving in circles.
E: Do it again!
M: Look! We’re at school!
E: (Attempting to unbuckle his car seat) I do it ALL BY MYSELF! I can’t do it! You help me!
M: Let’s do it together.
E: Lock the car! Flash the lights for me! (lights flash) That’s so silly! Where’s my cement mixer? I play on the playground! Miss Sandy! Let’s play with your Christmas toys! Bye mommy! You say bye-bye mommy!
M: Bye Evan! I love you!
E: Who pick me up?
M: Daddy will pick you up. Love you!
E: Love you too mommy!

A fly on the wall...

As you may have guessed, the reason for this blog is two-fold. I want to share insight into our daily lives with friends and family. I also want to capture pieces of our busy life that might be forgotten over the years. So, in that spirit I am going to start posting “A fly on the wall” entries. They will be essentially things that you might overhear in our house on a daily basis.

Here are a few snippets of recent conversations….

*****

Evan (as we pull away from the Starbucks drive-thru): No latte for me?!?!?

Me: Uh, no. No “latte for you” for a long time…

*****

Evan to Lauren in the morning: “Good Morning Sweetheart!”

*****

Evan (standing on toilet, wearing his new winter coat and looking in the mirror): “I handsome. I very handsome…”

Letters to Santa

This is the first year that Evan seems to "get" Christmas. He understands the concept of Santa Claus and is quite excited about him. In fact, I think Evan has a running loop of the song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" in his head. If conversation in our house ever ceases, even for a moment, Evan will break into "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Only he sings it twice as fast as usual and sings the entire thing through about seven times before he stops to breathe. But, I digress...



Evan is really excited about Santa Claus, so we decided to write a letter to Santa this weekend. Here is the letter:

Evan got a bit of help with the structure of the letter. But, when we finished I asked him is he wanted to add anything else. This is what he suggested...

I love that kid. So, then Evan mailed his letter to Santa Claus...

And probably committed his first crime. Notice the incorrect address and the lack of any sort of postage? I think the USPS frowns on shoving things like that in their mailboxes. We're living dangerously these days. Here is the fun thing... Thanks to Sealed by Santa Evan should be receiving a personalized response from Santa and some reindeer food in the next few days. Isn't the internet wonderful?

A Perfect Day!

Saturday was a perfect day! We met some friends for breakfast in the morning. When we arrived at the restaurant it was cold and rainy. When we left, it looked like this....

So, we went home, lit the fire, put on some music and decorated the house for Christmas...

I made Paula Deen's Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake. Then, we decided that the house was sufficiently christened with holiday spirit. So, Evan and I played in the snow. When I bundled him up in this get-up he walked around saying: "I'm cute! I'm cute in THIS outfit!"

We made a snowman. We threw snowballs at each other. Evan would say, "I'm going to throw this snowball at you! One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten... eleven... tweleve!"

Evan ate snow. I know better. ;)

We caught snowflakes on our tongues and eyelashes.

Then we went inside and drank cold apple cider. It was Evan's request.

.

Later that day, Kristin drove up from Richmond. She watched the kiddos and I had a date night with my husband. Want to be my new BFF? It doesn't take much. Watch my kiddos and let me go on a date with my husband. As my sister, Kristin already has lifetime BFF status, but this solidified her standing! It was a perfect, perfect, perfect day!

Thanksgiving Recap

Ever since we relocated from Texas, we have been talking about going to a log cabin in the mountains for a getaway. But, the timing was never quite right. Over Labor Day weekend, I stumbled upon what appeared to be the PERFECT log cabin for such an escape. So, we decided to rent the cabin for Thanksgiving this year.

It was a great decision! After a busy Fall, it was a much needed break. The cabin exceeded our expectations. And, we had HIGH expectations going into the weekend! We invited our local family to join us and cooked our Thanksgiving dinner at the cabin. We spent the weekend hiking around the lake, staring at the fire, reading, napping and exploring. We are already looking for an excuse to go back. Here are a few pictures from our weekend...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wordless Wednesday

Kodak Moments

My daughter is a beautiful baby. I know I am biased, but I am quite certain if you saw her in person you would agree with me. Unfortunately, I cannot take a decent picture of her to save my life. I have friends who capture adorable photos of their children. I, on the other hand end up with pictures like this:



and this....



and this....

I can just imagine when she is in school and has to bring a baby picture to class for some project. I'll have to send her with something like this:

or this....

or one of these....

Some day, when she gets married, maybe she will ask me to contribute baby pictures for the photo montage. I'll have to send her something like this.....

If you don't get a Christmas card with a great family photo this year, maybe you'll understand why..... :)

Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa...

Every night we pray for our family members before Evan goes to sleep. This afternoon, he was going through all of the family members. He listed off all of the family members in Pennsylvania, and then all of the family members in Iowa: Nonna, Pop Pop, Aunt Dee, God.

The last one surprised me. So, I asked Evan where God lives.

In Iowa.

My family will be happy to hear that.....

Popped Right Out!

At least, that is what Evan said the first time he saw his baby sister. He looked at her, looked at me, looked back at her and said, "Popped right out, mama!" Out of the mouths of babes...

My last day at work was Friday and that evening I started to have some mild contractions. Unfortunately for everyone in my house, I thought I was having contractions for the last month of my pregnancy. And, I WAS having contractions - they just didn't result in full-on labor. I think everyone was tired of hearing me say "I think today is the day!" only to watch me go to bed and sleep peacefully through the night while they were on edge wondering if that night would be THE NIGHT. So, I decided towards the end of my pregnancy that I wasn't going to say anything more about going into labor until I was certain that I was, in fact, IN LABOR.

So, I started having mild contractions about 10 minutes apart on Friday night. But, I slept through the night. In the morning, the contractions were still there but they were about 8 minutes apart. I had a hair appointment that morning and decided to go. In hindsight, that may not have been the best decision. Could you imagine if I had gone into active labor with permanent hair dye all over my head? Fortunately, the Lord had mercy on me and my sweet stylist and we avoided that scene. I think I made her a little nervous though because I kept checking my watch. She asked if I was in a hurry. I assured her that I was not in a hurry, I was just timing contractions. Based on the look on her face, I think she would have preferred that I was in a hurry.

By that afternoon the contractions continued and they went from 7 minutes to 5 minutes apart and stayed that way for about an hour and a half. I decided to call the doctor on call to see if this was the magic formula for going to the hospital. The doctor didn't seem all that convinced that I was actually in labor, but suggested that we go in anyway to be monitored.

In my attempt to avoid being the pregnant lady who cried wolf, I hadn't mentioned anything to Dave about the contractions all day. So, I think he was a little surprised when I woke him up from a nap to say that it was time to go to the hospital. (My wonderful husband was terribly sick that day, and he was such a wonderful support to me despite how terribly he was feeling at the time!)

When we arrived at the hospital, they confirmed that Iwas indeed in labor. We were admitted around 5:30 that evening. I'll spare you all of the details, but the highlights included the epidural, a nap, and a few interior design shows on HGTV. (NOTE to Genevieve Gorder: PRODUCE, especially lettuce, does NOT make a great design accessory. That is just a stupid idea. My husband and the nurses agree with me - and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just because I was in labor.) Of course, the real highlight of the night was Lauren's arrival at 11:36 PM. She is beautiful and perfect, and has brought new joy into our lives.

Evan is adjusting pretty well to his new sister. But, he has told me that he wants to be "tiny" several times. Oh, and he keeps climbing onto my lap and announcing that he wants to "be born"....

I am finding everything a little easier the second time around, and loving my time with both children. Dave continues to be fantastic with them and we are enjoying our expanded family!

So, without further adu, we would like to introduce you to Lauren Anne...

Verbatims

The following conversations occured in our house this morning:

Evan: What dis momma? (pointing to Dave's shampoo in the shower)

Me: That's shampoo, honey. Daddy uses it to wash his hair. Do you use shampoo to wash your hair?

Evan: No momma! I'm a big boy!

*****

Evan: What doing momma?

Me: I'm going to blow my hair dry.

Evan: I do! I do! I help you momma! (proceeds to lean over and start blowing on my wet hair)

Cute! But not so effective.... :)

Confessions....

Okay. Newsflash for anyone who hasn't gotten the memo yet - I'm pregnant these days. Like REALLY pregnant. It's actually not a very pretty sight. Thus, the reason that recently you either a) haven't seen any pictures of me, b) have only seen pictures of me from the neck up, or c) have only seen pictures of me hiding behind a two year old.

So, this afternoon I innocently walked through the kitchen at work to get some water. Only water. I swear. But then I saw some Skittles in the vending machine and I knew things were only going to go downhill from there. I'm not a big Skittles fan, but for some reason they seemed like the perfect snack today. Don't judge me.

So, I walked back to my office to get some money for the Skittles. When I returned to the machine, I purchased the Skittles. BUT, the bag got stuck. And I really wanted the Skittles. And it wasn't really THAT stuck, but just enough that it didn't quite fall out. Just enough that I was certain a little "hip bump" from an 8 month pregnant person would definitely dislodge it.

But, a little hip bump to the front of the machine wasn't quite enough. I looked around and didn't see or hear anyone else. I was quite certain that a little hip bump to the side of the machine would do the trick. No such luck.

Just as I was about to take more drastic measures, I thought about being 8 months pregnant and caught in the act of trying to dislodge the Skittles from the machine. That thought alone was embarassing enough for me to stop acosting the vending machine and go back to my office.

For another dollar bill. To buy a SECOND bag of Skittles. To dislodge the first bag. :)