Happy New Year 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

pictures of the kids

was going to use these photos in a Christmas card-but I am a little late. So think I'll use it for a "Happy New Year" or "change of address" card!! will see what I can come up with!

December Update!

Wow things are surely busy for us right now. We are still trying to get settled into our new home-we still have boxes that need to be unpacked. We have been busy at work preparing for the Christmas season, the program and making ornaments and crafts. I've also been trying to do some things at home with the kids. Busy, busy, busy!

I have really enjoyed making crafts and ornaments this year-my dinning room has become the "craft room" for the month of December. I have pictures of some of the ornaments we have made-but I'll have to figure out how to upload photos from my camera before I can upload them!

School Photos

The kids are enjoying school these days. They both are doing so well and adjusting so well. I can see both of them in the hallway or lunch room and give them a hug or blow them a kiss and they do fine-no more tears! Sometimes if I get to close to baby girl she will start to cry-so I try to keep my distance which an be difficult at times since I walk by her class several times a day. But here are a few pics of the kids at school. Enjoy!

deer photos

Well as most of you know we recently sold our house and have moved into a new house. Well one afternoon while visiting a few open houses a friend and I stumbled upon a beautiful house-just down the street from our new neighborhood. The house was beautiful and the view out the back was beautiful. Unfortunately not only was it most likely out of our price range but the back yard was just WAY too small for us. But luckily I had my camera with me and snapped a few pictures from the driveway overlooking the backyard. Here is what we saw that day...

Now that would have been awesome to wake up to that sight every morning. But like I said it isn't too far from our neighborhood so maybe those guys will grace us with their presence from time to time. My dad has already seen one on the main street leading to our neighborhood!

Recycled crayons

Well I am a recycling nut!! I am so bad about keeping anything and everything thinking there must be another purpose for it or some way to reuse or recycle it. Problem is I am not creative enough to think of things on my own. But here is a supper great idea I found at this cute little website Chica and Jo. Very cute idea!

Now they took it a few steps further than I did. I simply peeled crayons and then broke them into pieces and placed them in small circle muffin pans. Then melted them in the oven and placed them in the freezer for a few hours. I sorted mine by color-but next I might try the multi-colored ones shown on this website. I'll also have to check out the dollar stores and clearance racks for cute little shaped trays.


Here are my crayons about broken and peeled..


and here is the finish product...


Yes the peeling of the crayons took some time-but I work at a daycare so playing with crayons kinds fits into my job description!!! Very fun project that will probably result in some very cute gift ideas for my kids daycare classes this year! I better get busy melting crayons!!

NEW HOME

As most of you know our home has been on the market for 2 long years!! Finally we have sold our home. We actually have closed on it and moved out. We are now in limbo waiting to close on our new home. Luckily the current owners allowed us to move our stuff into the garage since we plan to close on Tuesday. We are moving to a smaller home but at least it will be one level and hopefully easier to manage. The back yard is still a good size but still manageable. We look forward to getting settled into our new home and community and so gratefull for all the thoughts and prayers during this time.

Changes and Updates

Well so much has been going on the last few weeks. We finally have an offer on our house and we've been working to get everything in order. We have been out looking at houses and we have another outing scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure we won't have any trouble finding anything, but the potential buyers want to close on October 30th!! Yes that is fast approaching. I have a wedding to shoot this Saturday and Keith is working this weekend, so we only have one weekend to really pack and move out. So hopefully we will find something this week and all the inspections and things that need to be approved will get done quickly as well.

check this brain teaser out

Yes it is in Japanese but the point is to remember the numbers and click on the circles in order from least to greatest!! See if you can beat my score of 24!

Brain Teaser

Life

Well things have been so crazy lately. I'm working 35 (give or take) hours a week and some days I don't get off until 6:00pm. So we don't get home on those nights until about 7, which means by the time we have supper and baths it's the kid's bedtime. Which doesn't leave anytime for fun. So I've been trying several different things the last few weeks. One thing I've done is put baby girl to sleep while J plays on the computer or in his room. Once she is asleep he and I have some one on one time-which I have really enjoyed. But my house is a total disaster. I told my husband we need a maid-because every extra minute I have I am cleaning and you can't even tell I've done anything. I just don't see how working moms get it ALL done!

It would be so much better if we lived closer to the area. I actually do get a lunch break and a few days a week I get off at 1 so if we lived closer I could run home and clean while the kids were at school. Oh well, hopefully soon our house will sell!

Shopping Spree!

I love shopping-especially since I have lost 48 pounds this past year-trying to lose 2 more by the 3rd so I can make it an even 50!! Anyway, this week I found some great sun dresses at JC Penney on the clearance rack for $9.99 and one for 14.99!! I was so excited. I figured I could wear them early spring and summer-two are black and white and I have a cute little short sleeve mid crop sweater that I can wear over it-so cute!! Anyway--here are some pictures, they are not good quality but you get the idea.

Biting

Well I read a blog post the other day on biting, the poster's daughter had been bit for the first time at daycare. I sent her a comment about how our son was in daycare a year before he got his first bite at 15 months-on his last day of daycare. And now that they are both in daycare and have been for the last month they haven't had any bites, nor have I heard anything about bitting going on. Well of course wouldn't you know my baby girl got bit THREE TIMES today!! Before the teacher could get to her the other child bit her three times! My poor baby girls arm was so red, luckily it did not break the skin. I know these things happen so I didn't get upset-but my poor baby has bruises on her arm now :(

Hopefully it won't happen again-but like I said these things do happen.

Weekend getaway

My husband and I went on a small weekend getaway last weekend. We stayed in a cabin at one of the state parks. We throughly enjoyed it although it was much too short. We fished and hung out in the cabin most of the time-after a few trips to town for groceries and such. It was great to get away for the weekend and just relax. I'm sure the kids would have loved it-although it would have been tough keeping baby girl away from the edge of the lake. So maybe next time we will take J, but baby girl will have to stay at home until she gets a little older.

Daycare Update!

The kids are doing GREAT!!! J is absolutely loving his new class!! He says the nap is a "little bit" long and not "so so so so so so long" like it was in his previous class. He is doing great with his work-although I wish he would write his own name on his paper. I told him he needed to and he said, "but Mommy, my teacher writes my name on my paper." He is doing well with discipline I think-I just thought to ask about it this week. She has envelopes and they have green, yellow and red papers in them. They start the day off on green if they get in trouble once it goes to yellow and then red-red is BAD!!! J was on yellow one day this week, because he left the room without asking. He was going to the bathroom.

Baby girl is doing well. They told me she wasn't eating her breakfast and I had to confess that I let the kids eat butter cookies on the way to school. So they fuss at me each morning and tell me not to even put her at the table because she won't eat. Well one day this week she did not have cookies on the way to school and still did not eat breakfast. So this morning she had cookies on the way to school!! HAHA. She is doing well taking a nap on her mat! That was a big surprise! I figured it'd take them forever to get her use to laying on the floor on a mat for naptime-but they said she went right to sleep the first day!!

So with the kids doing well mommy is doing well-most of the time. It is such a challenge going from a stay at home mom to a working mom!! On the days I work until 6pm we don't make it home until almost 7pm, then it's dinner and baths and that leaves little to no time for play and relaxing. So I am going to have to work on that. It isn't like I actually "cook" much anymore anyway-I usually just have hot dogs or macaroni and cheese on my late days-but I've got to find more time for play!!

Weight Loss Update

Well things were going well until I started my new job. Kinda hard to stick to Atkins when there is so much yummy candy in my office!! I have gained about 7 pounds in the last two months. My birthday is less than 30 days away and I'd really like to lose another 10 pounds. Of course most of that will be the weight I've gained back in the last 2 months but oh well. I did quit my gym membership-I found one closer to my office that is only $20 a month!! So I do plan on getting by there in the next month and joining it. But in the meantime I hope to get out on the track and do some walking and maybe work up to some running. I'd really like to get back into running-did a lot of running in high school and college and although I was never a fast runner I did enjoy it.

So my goals for the next month: stick to Atkins-which I plan to do until I get to my goal weight. Start walking and work up to a light jog!!! That is about it as far as food and diet go.

Day care update!!

On Monday both the kids moved up a room at daycare. J moved to the "3 year old" room and baby girl moved to toddler 1. J has hated going to school and even made up a song last week on the way to school one morning, "I don't want to go to school ever, ever, never, never. I don't want to go to school, no, no, no, no, no, no". Cute Cute! Well yesterday he started his new class with Mrs. Joyce. We had open house last Thursday night and he was able to meet his new teacher, see his new room, and even play with the toys for a bit. So when he got up MOnday morning he said, "mommy, I go to Mrs. Joyce's class today". He still said several times that he did not want to go to school but he wasn't too whiny about it. Well I saw him several times during the day and we'd wave at each other and I'd give him a kiss from time to time and he seemed to be doing well. Same for baby girl. I saw her a couple of times int he lunch room and she didn't cry or fuss when she saw me-she just kinda looked at me with this blank stare like "who are you and why are you looking at me?".

Anyway, yesterday I had to take baby girl to the doctor for her check up. So after my lunch break I went back to the school to get the kids. Got baby girl first because they were already up from nap and then went by J's room-they were just getting up. I got his stuff together and we began to leave. But in the hallway he said, "mommy, maybe I changed my mind, maybe I want to stay". WOW!!!! From not ever, ever, never, never wanting to go to school to wanting to stay!! What a turn around!! Give that Mrs. Joyce a raise!!! So I left him there while I took baby girl to the doctor.

Then this morning on the way to school he made up another song, "I want to go to school, now, now, now!". And usually in the mornings he closes his eyes as we approach the school and fusses when he first sees the school. But this morning he got excited when he saw the school and even said "yay my school".

Mommy is very happy!!

Me Time

Whenever I happen to get both kids asleep at the same time and/or find myself at home alone (which is extremely rare!!) I often am torn between what to do with that time. Should I clean the house-since it desperately needs to be cleaned. Do I use that time to nap-since I rarely get more than 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep myself. Or do I use that for "me" time-to scrapbook, play on the computer, learn to sew or to attempt to complete other various tasks?? so much to do and so little time!!!!

Baby Girl's First Birthday Party

Everything went great, we had a house full of friends and family. Baby girl had on her new outfit, matching bib and matching birthday hat! Just beautiful!! I wish I knew how to sew so I could make things like this for her to wear!! So beautiful. I had bought fabric to make her a pillow case dress-but at the last minute my sister suggested "Mrs. Joyce" could make her an outfit and a hat to match. Little did I know it was going to be so cute or I would have sent several yards of fabric!! The outfit was monogrammed with her name, the hat and bib were monogramed with her name and/or first birthday!!! So cute...


She loved her cake!! She tore into that thing-unlike her big brother. He cried when everyone started singing happy birthday to him on his first birthday-and would not have anything to do with the cake after that.

She got such nice things for her birthday. I want to thank everyone that was able to come and celebrate with us and help make this special day such a success!

Daycare update

Well after three weeks of coming to daycare-J still complains every morning about having to come to school. Once we arrive at school he doesn't cry anymore-which is so wonderful. When I picked him up one day this week he did tell me he had fun at school, so that was a HUGE improvement!! Baby girl is doing well but she is not eating lunch for some reason. I think it is because she is too busy watching the other babies.

So all in all is is going well. In a week they will both move up to the next class. J will be in 3 year old kindergarten and baby girl will move up to the toddler room which means she will be sleeping on a mat-that will be interesting!!

Daycare Update

Daycare dropoff has not gone too well this week. Although J has not cried when I dropped him off at daycare, he cries from the time he gets up in the morning until we get to school. The beggin, "Mommy don't take me to school" starts when I pick him up in the afternoons and ends when we get to school. It breaks my heart. I'd like to think he has fun once he gets to school, but I haven't really had a chance to watch him at play. When he sees me he starts crying so I have to sneak a peak every now in then but that doesn't really give me much of a chance to observe him. Baby girl is doing well although from time to time she does cry when I drop her off.