Did Someone Say Chocolate?

Pumpkin fun

Happy Halloween!

We've been sitting here all day hoping for that rain to come that they keep calling for. Doesn't look like it's going to happen afterall. Which means we'll be heading to a Trunk or Treat where I work with the kids, then off to Cody's soccer game at 4:30. How frustrating to be having a game on Halloween night. Geesh. If the Trunk or Treat thing doesn't turn out well, we'll take Cody out trick or treating in the neighborhood later on tonight.

Here's the kids earlier cleaning out their pumpkin.


Daniel watching for afar.


Later he decided stirring the seeds might be fun, but he certainly wasn't interested in going anywhere near that pumpkin.

He just wants me grey

Okay my ten year old just walked into this room...thump thump thump. He says "oh cool". I turned to see what was cool. He said "I can do a back hand spring". I said "what?". With that...the little booger stood there and literally flipped over backwards into a handspring in the spot he was standing in. It took maybe 2 seconds to complete. I think I aged at that moment. gulp.

First hair cut!

After two attempts today, I finally managed to contain my one year old long enough for his first hair cut that was well overdue!

Here are some before shots of his little curls that I loved!






Here are some after shots. I can see some spots in the back that certainly aren't perfect, but crap cutting a one year old's hair is not an easy task. There should be some sort of medal for it. He squirmed and whined the entire time. NOT a happy camper he was.

That child

Cody had a friend drop by earlier to see if he wanted to go ride around and chat. I'm always reluctant to allow the kids to do that and usually say no. Today Doug and I figured it'd be okay. Before Cody left I told him specifically he is allowed around our block only and in the school parking lot. That's it. If they wanted to go somewhere else, he needed to come home and ask (same rule as when he goes to his friend Danny's house). We asked him to be home by 12 so he'd have time to eat lunch and go to the library. Doug actually had a movie/museum day planned for them as a surprise.

Twelve o'clock came and went. Doug went out to check to see if Cody was nearby before we showered. We didn't see him, so we figured we'd have to go drag his butt home. Phone rang while we were in the shower. Doug checked the message and it was some guy that Cody apparently ran into on the street calling us from his cell phone. Cody was lost.

Doug went to get him over a mile away down two other streets (one being pretty busy). We're relieved that Cody remembered the telephone number to call us. I'm disappointed though that he was telling the guy a wrong house addres. I'm extremely relieved that something horrible didn't happen to him. Getting past all that, I'm also pissed off that the child can't seem to follow rules. Sadly Cody is a follower, not a leader. Any friend that he gets with he just does what they want to do, whether that means cornering a pit bull in a backyard, leaving a friend's house to go play at the park without permission or purposely going against every guide line we set. I'm not sure what more we can do at this point. Punish Punish Punish doesn't get through to him.

We're definitely sitting down with all three of them tonight to go over rules, why we have rules and what to do when you're lost. My small town kids need to realize once and for all they are living in a city now. Cody is damn lucky he found a half decent person to call us, what if it had of been someone who liked little boys? I shudder to think.

Must brag

Ya know, I'm really blessed to have such a good baby. We stopped giving him his soothers over a week ago now and he's adjusted so well it amazes me how easy it was. Also a few days ago, we replaced morning bottle with earlier breakfast, sippy cup and snacks and he's blinked it away as A-okay in his world! After I brushed his teeth tonight before bed, I put him in his crib, he immediately snuggled in with his blankets, I turned his music on, lights off and he just drifted off to sleep. He's like that 99.9% of the time. There's the odd night here and there that he wants to cuddle a little, then he goes right to sleep. I love my child.

He fell again at school on Wednesday and gave himself a fat lip. This time he bled. First time for bleeding! Later that day also, he did a nose dive in his wagon of blocks and busted open the lip again and scraped his chin. He's looking pretty beat up these days. Poor little guy. He's pretty funny lately too. He dances on cue now, he spins round and round (which I don't like because he gets dizzy and falls over), makes some animal sounds, mimics sign language, smacks his lips loudly when I say "eat"... just a real cutie pie. Seems he's learning more and more every day. He definitely understands a LOT of our language to him now and will respond to phrases such as "pick up toys", "bath time", "want a snack", "want a drink", "let's go bye-bye's", "where's Dexter" etc. It's neat.

Tomorrow he has Halloween party #2. I'm the class party Mom for this party. I made up a pumpkin bucket of goodies for the kids (obviously no candy or junk). I also bought Daniel's costume tonight. He's a chicken. He looks adorable in it, unfortunately, it's big, hot and stuffed...he was none too pleased about wearing it. I'm not sure if he'll really trick or treat in it or not, I have a feeling he'll just sit on the ground in protest! ha ha. Oh well it's cute and Kohl's have their costumes on for 50% off. Woot!!

As you can see he's not thrilled. We'll get better pictures later!

Love that tail!

I need to update more often. I just seem lost in my own little world lately. It's been crappy and hot and I've just not been feeling that shit hot. No I'm not pregnant, pretty sure PMS is here. I just feel icky lately. No time for spell check so deal, k.

Justin and Cody's new room

Okay I'm finally getting around to posting the after shots of the room. Let's just get right at it:

Cody's bed unit fit in here nicely. We swapped out beds with Sarah because she had the matching bed to this bunk set. She has Justin's bed now. I love this set of bunk beds especially because they were free!! We also bought a new blind for that large window because the old ones were broke. This was the item that caused three trips to Home Depot for Doug. First ones were too short, second ones they trimmed too much, third time finally fit! Another thing Doug bought them were reading lamps for their beds.


The tv entertainment stand here is new also. I'll store music CD's there soon. We ordered that about a week or so ago from the same online store that we got Daniel's Little Tikes Garden Activity center from. Little Tikes makes this tv stand also, so ideally the boys won't wreck it (did I mention they busted the old tv stand within a week of having it in Justin's room?).


We painted the closet door to match the trim. It just didn't look right when just the trim was done.


We're out of brown paint. Not sure if I'll bother getting more to paint this door or not. I know it would look better, it's just not worth $20 bucks to me. So, here's the desk. I painted the shelves and drawers. It was pretty beat up looking before. It still has one crooked drawer. We were just given a huge pile of books from a colleague of Doug's, so now both shelves are really full.


This desk is also new. The computer monitor wouldn't fit on the built in desk, so we needed something in that corner to house the computer. Now it gives them both a place to work when needed (not that Justin ever brings home any homework). I see I need to tie up those computer cords still. Overall I think it'll serve its purpose and it definitely was cheap enough.


Just for fun, here's the inside of the closet that once was totally a mess. Boxes of crap piled up, clothes every where and K-nex all over the place. Now it has some shelves and drawers and hopefully it'll help the boys keep everything neat. ha ha.


I think sorting their toys and getting things organized and put away was the hardest. Or maybe it was painting that damn dark trim against the light colored walls...ghrrrr. I'm debating on the trim in Daniel's room now, do I really want to go through all that hassle just to have different colored trim? Heh.

The boy's room was tough to pick out colors because of the bunk beds. I wanted the room to have brown tones in it to match all the wood in that unit, but I also wanted it to be light colored so the room wouldn't seem so dark. The picture doesn't do the bunk beds justice because they really are huge and are definitely the focal point in the room, so it was tough. I decided because I had paint left over from the computer room and hallway, I'd just use that in their room too. I like it well enough although I do see myself changing it in a few years if we're still here!
The before shots are in the extended entry in case you forgot what the room used to look like!

Must....

...get pictures up of the new room. Gah kick me!

Tomorrow!!

Fifteen month WBC

Wow, my baby is fifteen months old already. Sigh.

Weight: 25.5 lbs
Height: 33.5"
head: 49 3/4 cm
Down to about the 75th percentile now.

We waited for exactly one hour before even seeing the doctor. I was already heading into work late because of our 10:40 a.m. appointment, but when they lag behind, it just throws everything. Daniel ended up crashing in the van without his lunch at 12:30 because of how late everything ended up being. Annoying.

The appointment itself went fine. I guess. I'm always left with a depressing feeling after seeing my baby get shots. He received his last DTaP shot today and a flu shot. In thirty days, he'll receive another flu shot (doc says when getting your first in life flu shot, it needs to be done twice), then he should be done with his immunizations until age 4-5. I counted them up today...including the next flu shot coming, he's received 20 needles. Gah!

The doctor carried the same attitude about people food as I do...he's not going to be six years old and eating baby food still, so basically keep at it, but don't force it. He also reassured us with his milk intake. I think the transition from milk equaling food for baby is hard to let go of once they start just drinking whole milk. I always worry that Daniel isn't drinking enough, but at 16-18 oz per day, doctor says he's just fine. Actually the doctor just laughs at me now and always points out Daniel's size. Heh.

Developmentally he's on track. We had a conversation about what to expect and things to watch for. We're seeing a lot of the things already, so hopefully I can just relax for a few months. We also amazingly enough put Daniel to bed tonight with no soother! We went through the whole bedtime routine and when I sat him in his crib, he began smacking the mattress as always in search of the bouncing soother. He didn't find one. I told him night night, went out, shut the door. About five minutes later, he started crying. I think he thought I was going to get one (I've done that before), but when I didn't come right back he realized he wasn't getting one. I went back in when he got upset. He clung on me, I held him for five minutes just snuggling and rocking. I sat him back down in his crib and that was it. Out like a light. Phew, I hope nap times are just as easy! Next hurdle...two bottles to get rid of!

Lesson to all babies

from Daniel.

#1 - Slip hand inside and pull hook down.


#2 - Open door.


Can someone explain to me the logic behind babyproofing if the baby can figure it out? ha ha. Yes we're in shit now. He figured out one, he's figured them all out now.

Pray for me

or better yet just shoot me okay?!

Yes my house is in total chaos. We've got two rooms tore apart trying to merge two full rooms into one. I feel like I'm doing my own mini clean sweep!



Keep in mind, I didn't bother taking pictures of all my other rooms in my house that have been neglected as a result of painting and organizing. Both Doug and I are going nuts with all the mess.






Even poor Daniel is up in arms with all the clutter!!!!


Ugh save us!

Yippee!

We're finished Justin's room. We could have been finished yesterday, but we took a night off from painting to watch the debate. I'm looking forward to putting everything back together tomorrow and moving Cody into Justin's room! The two older boys will share a room now, allowing Daniel to move into Cody's room (which is smaller and just happens to be across the hall from our bedroom). I've already got the paint for Daniel's room. I'm anxious to get that project started as well. What's great is once Cody moves in with Justin, it'll leave that room empty for me to paint whenever I want to!

I'll definitely take some pictures tomorrow when we lift up the plastic. I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out (except the base board trim was difficult to do because it was a dark paint border on light walls. Then even after it was all done, we peeled up the tape and the paint in some places lifted up as well making me go all around the stupid border again (it actually ended up being three times total. Uff!). We replaced one broken blind that Doug needs to get trimmed at Home Depot tomorrow, then we'll be all set to put everything back.

Cody has a soccer game tomorrow morning. That's always fun. Doug will take the kiddos out tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping to get a bit of cleaning done and some clothes shopping. I'm in desperate need of Fall clothes. Justin went to another football game tonight at his school. I can't tell you how great it is to see him getting out somewhere other than with us or school. He has matured so much this semester at school. We really think it's from hanging out with the high school boys that are on his cross country team. I never would have thought six months ago that we'd be dropping him off to a football game alone so he could go hang out. Progress I tell ya!

Sarah has been pretty good lately. She has very little homework this year and that always makes her happy. Now if we could just convince her that practicing her baritone is a GOOD thing, not a reason to tantrum and sass her ass off. Sigh. It was a rough night with her tonight. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. I am pleased to report she feels she has a 'best friend' this year at school. I'm so glad. Last year was pretty lonely for her.

Cody has been pretty busy with soccer and school, but still manages time for some play with his friends down the road. Last year, Cody barely played with anyone outside of school because his best friend moved away last year, but this year he's found a couple of boys that he plays with often. Truth be told, I think he just likes his trampoline, but who knows LOL. It's nice to see that him and Justin aren't glued to one another's company like last year. They both are doing their own thing and it's about time!

From my kitchen

Yum, Turkey Tetrazzini! I make this a lot now, so I thought I'd share the recipe for it.

1lb pasta, cooked (thin spaghetti)
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms (I use canned)
1 stick of butter (= to 1/2 cup)
2/3 c of flour
1 large onion (sliced thinly)
2 stalks of celery
5 cloves of garlic, chopped (I use jarred minced garlic)
4 c chicken broth (I use two cans of broth with a bit of water)
2 c light cream (I use heavy cream LOL)
1/4 cup dry sherry (key ingredient in my opinion)
4 c diced turkey or chicken, cooked
1 c grated parmesan cheese
1/3 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper
oregano

Method:
slice onion, dice mushrooms, chop celery fine, add garlic, fry in 2-3 tablespoons of butter until celery is just tender. Do not overcook.
In a pot, pour one can of chicken broth, heat to almost boiling. Meanwhile add 2/3 c of flour to the other can of broth. Add about 1/4 c of water to make up difference. Whisk out lumps. When first can is heated, add this mixture and whisk. Sauce will start to thicken immediately. Turn down heat to medium. Melt remaining stick of butter and add to mixture in pot. Add 2 c of cream, 1/4 dry sherry, 1/3 tsp garlic powder. Add salt and pepper and oregano to taste (I use a lot).
After your sauce simmers on low for 10-15 mins, add your mushrooms/onion/celery mixture to it, as well as your pre-cooked leftover turkey or chicken. Simmering the sauce is probably not necessary, but I always let it simmer while I'm cooking the pasta anyway. Important to NOT over cook the pasta. Once it goes in the oven with the sauce and cheese, it cooks a bit more then as well. Once the pasta is cooked, you can add your sauce/turkey mixture in a roaster pan, sprinkle with cheese and pop in oven until thoroughly heated (usually 15-20 mins).

The first time I made that recipe, I found it too high maintenance, but part of the reason it was is because I was cooking everything, including the chicken, all at once. Now I just use leftovers. I start the sauce and mushroom stuff first, when that's all on the go, I start the water boiling for pasta and dice my turkey up. By the time the pasta is cooked, everything is set to go to the oven. It really is easy and makes lots for leftovers. It's even better the next day! Try it. YUM!

If I think of it next time I make, I'll snap a picture.

We'll be done soon

We're almost done Justin's room. Woot!! I haven't done anything yet today though. I'm just plain tired. We used a flat white paint for the ceiling. I'm 99% sure I used the same paint (perhaps a different can though) for touch ups, but for whatever reason, it dried a slightly different color which sucks big time! I hate painting ceilings. Now it looks like I'm going to have to re-paint so it looks consistent. BAH. Pictures soon.

It's amazing, I really have nothing to say. I do have a question though...how many of you out there have ever gotten pregnant as a result of starting your new pack of pills late?

More of the same

I guess I'm not doing a very good job of updating lately huh? I swear I think about posting every day, then I decide watching clean sweep sounds better. Oh well.

Here is a picture of Daniel's latest play spot:
Laundry cupboard in our bathroom. (btw that's the green I was talking about in my comments Christi).




Not a lot has happened this week anyway. Kids have no school tomorrow, so I'm home with them. Joy. I spent three hours cleaning out Justin's room today. He has so much shit to sort through. I felt like I was doing my own clean sweep. We have completely removed everything except for his bed and a small table that I figure will be useful to hold painting supplies as we paint in there. I'm hoping to get the first coat done tonight, we'll see though. I know how these things go!

Here are some before shots:


I will be painting that desk.








I will use the same colors I used for the computer room, only the pepper spice (brown) will be for Justin's desk and trim only. The cinnamon cake (cream that is in the hallway) will be on the walls. Because Cody's bunkbed unit is so incredibly large and dark, I think the room really needed light walls that contain a brown undertone so it'll match nicely. I'm hoping I picked the right colors in there. God knows.

Heh I can hear Daniel out there all pissed off because Doug won't let him at Bella's dog food. He's crying his eyes out. I dish him up a dish of our food every night now and other than playing in it with his spoon, nothing goes in the mouth and every bite we pop in, he pops it right back out. Feed the dogs their dog food though and he goes nuts! Go figure. Oh well, some day. Wish us luck in Justin's room. I'm sure it'll be a beating just like every other room has been! =)

U*S*C*I*S

Had my appointment today at the U-S-C-I-S (US Citizen**ship and Immi**gration Serv**ices) office. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but what I expected was much worse. We basically had it confirmed that they closed my file due to a no show of my interview appointment in August 03. Sadly because they never received our change of address form, I never received notice therefore didn't show up. We should have looked into this much sooner, but it's easy to go on with life and have months pass by before you even realize how long it's been.

We made a petition to re-open, paid the $110.00 fee, got the proper forms and correct addresses (three different places that new addresses need to go to) to mail off our change of address (and no they won't do it there in that office where we were today sigh) and now we wait for further contact. Once we're contacted with confirmation that our file has been re-opened, I need to send off new forms to renew my work authorization. The way we see it, it could have been much worse. We could have had to start all over!

We watched the documentary "super size me" night before last. It definitely makes you examine what you eat, that's for sure. I'd love to have some reassurance that what I cook and feed everyone is okay. I can accept some junk once in awhile, but I think as a whole, we're pretty good about what we feed the kids. I think our biggest problem is the amount we all eat. Seconds is a given at our supper table at night. If I say no seconds, Sarah acts like I'm starving her. We always have fresh fruit/veggies, we probably need to switch to organic meat however. We've got the milk thing going, but the meat is a bit gross when you think about it all. It just sucks that the good stuff always costs more.

Daniel skipped his first bottle this afternoon! Woot! I actually think he'll be much easier to wean than what I anticipated. For a few nights in a row, he's only drank about 2 oz from his night bottle and seeing as he's drinking so well from his straw sippy cup now, I just put his milk in that this afternoon and all was well with the world. He didnt' fuss at all, took it drank what he wanted and finished it after his nap! I'm very happy. I'd love to kiss those bottles goodbye by his next WBC in mid October. I'm hoping sooner, but that's my goal. Aside from those stinky diapers he still has, he's almost not a baby anymore. Excuse me while I go cry my eyes out!

Long time, no chat

I guess I can't avoid this blog any longer. One night last week, my computer just decided to not work right. We booted the computer up, we'd hear it, then nothing would appear. We tried booting up from the CD and still nothing. Knowing how crazy computer issues make me, Doug threw it in the car and lugged it to the repair place. We got it back the next day with a new 80 GB drive in it. We knew my 6 GB drive was pretty much full because it had been causing me a lot of issues for the past couple of months, so we okayed the new drive. Funny thing is the computer guy was able to start the computer right up with no problem. Hmmm.

Well when Doug brought it home, we had the same problem with it. A few hours later, long story short, all it was was the monitor cord in the back. It had some play to it and just needed to be pressed downwards to make a good connection. Gah. How incredibly frustrating. That repair cost us two hundred bucks. At least I got a HUGE drive out of the deal though. Now all my music and pictures are on this new drive and I still have 64 GB left to play with.

I've been mostly scarce because the computer has caused me so many headaches. I had screwed some shit up transferring stuff over. There was one day I thought I might just throw the thing out the window. Uff. Oh well, all's well now. Last week at school, Daniel had his first real fall. They called me down to come look at him. He fell over in the sand yard and hit his face on some equipment. He was pretty sad looking. Poor little guy. His eye swelled up and had a big scrap on it. Got a bump on his forehead and later that night during bath time we discovered another large scrap on his belly. It scabbed up, swelling went down and only a little spot of it is showing now. Here's a shot of his booboo.





Daniel and I read every day together. For months it seemed he wasn't acknowledging anything in the books, but lately, I'm getting to certain parts of his favorite books and he's making the animal sounds with me. He can "baaaa" like a sheep and "sniff sniff sniff" like a rabbit. What I love is I don't even have to do it with him now, I just turn to that page and he starts with the noise. He's gotten so good at the rabbit sound now I can just tell him to show Mommy a rabbit and he starts sniffing. I love it! Tonight I was starting this update and right beside me we have his Little Tykes Activity Garden blocking access off to the printer...well we had bought him a new board book yesterday and he had that in his hands PUSHING PUSHING PUSHING his way through the garden to get at me so I'd read to him. Doug and I both chuckled at him. It was pretty comical. When I asked him if he wanted Mommy to read to him, he went and sat down in our normal spot where we read books together.

I love that I'm noticing him more and more recognize and respond to language we use with him. I think it'll be like crawling with him, there's just gonna come a day when we can't keep him quiet! Still not having any luck getting him to try table food, but we're persistent. Every night when I cook our meal, I dish him up some in his suction bowl (so he can't throw it) and give him a spoon. I figure one of these days, he's just going to give in and try some! I have finally got him drinking from a sippy cup. After failure with three different types, I bought him a straw sippy cup that Perkusi mentioned over on her blog and voila! He loves it. I'll give him another week or so and we'll start weaning those three bottles away one by one. Now if I could just convince him that soothers are the devil, we'd be all set!

Speaking of devils...don't these two look like trouble waiting to happen?



It's about bed time, so I'm off for now. I'll try to catch up more tomorrow. I've been awful lately about reading blogs. I've got weeks to catch up on some of them! Here he is tonight playing with his brothers and laughing his head off!