Okay, I'll play too! My friend Michele "tagged" me Friday on her blog so now I get to share 7 things with you that you previously didn't know. I'm such an open book that I am pretty sure that at least someone will know everything but maybe I still have a few surprises! Here goes...
1. I can touch my foot to my forehead.
2. I have to sleep with my body covered with at least a sheet - my feet can be out but from my knees to my waist has to be covered and my hands go under the pillow or I just can't sleep.
3. I don't always get the kids laundry folded - all those little pieces, it's many times easier just to pull it out of the laundry basket and have them wear it again.
4. I HATE folding the fitted sheet of a set. I have seen "tricks" for doing it but can never keep them straight and so my fitted sheets are always a mess... therefore I will often wash a set of sheets and keep putting them right back on the bed just to avoid folding them.
5. When I was 4 or 5 years old I was one of 4 little girls chosen to be a Bon-Bon in The Nutcracker Ballet, annually performed by the Fletcher School of Dance in Asheville, NC. I had to learn to do a cartwheel in order to fulfill this role and so my dad spent HOURS with me in the living room practicing. I finally did it!
6. To this day I still don't know how to shape/pluck my own eyebrows. Somehow I missed that phase as a preteen/teenager and now I'm totally intimidated by it so I wait until someone doing my hair mentions my eyebrows and then pay to have them threaded or waxed.
7. I was originally a music minor in college, took piano and organ lessons but then switched to communications.
Okay, hopefully someone learned something, maybe! Katrina - consider yourself tagged.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Still Alive!
We are out of corporate housing! We are almost out of boxes! I found the camera! We are finding out way around more easily now and enjoyed cooler weather (until this week when it's gone back up to 80 or so!). The kids love their new rooms and especially the large balcony we have. Here are a few pictures of the kids, if anyone is still checking this blog. :-) The first is from corporate housing when Katie was doing "a project". Next we have the kids on the balcony. In the third, notice Ryan's haircut and finally we have Fire-girl Katie as she goes down the poll, this was after a visit from the Fairfax County Fire Department to her preschool.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Up North
Today we finally all made it up north! Sean, the kids, and I had all made it, along with Max and Trixie (our cats) on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, kitten, Katie's beloved stuffed animal decided to have an adventure of her own (she stayed behind at a hotel in NC) and just arrived today! So now we're all here.
Sean has put in 2 full days in the office, Katie visited her new preschool and is ready to start on Monday. Ryan has sprouted his 2 top molars and I am maintaining some semblance of sanity. Sean takes the Metro to work and so Friday I took the kids during the day to show them how daddy gets to work. They really enjoyed the ride. Today we signed up for our new apartment home, had lunch at Chili's and then enjoyed the fresh fall air at a nearby park.
Anyway, I just didn't want everyone thinking we'd dropped off the face of the earth. Hopefully my next post will even be able to add some more pictures.
Sean has put in 2 full days in the office, Katie visited her new preschool and is ready to start on Monday. Ryan has sprouted his 2 top molars and I am maintaining some semblance of sanity. Sean takes the Metro to work and so Friday I took the kids during the day to show them how daddy gets to work. They really enjoyed the ride. Today we signed up for our new apartment home, had lunch at Chili's and then enjoyed the fresh fall air at a nearby park.
Anyway, I just didn't want everyone thinking we'd dropped off the face of the earth. Hopefully my next post will even be able to add some more pictures.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Our Little Domestic
Katie has always had a knack for helping around the house. She loves to dust and clean. As she has become potty trained she is often found "cleaning" the sink or the bathroom counter for 5+ minutes after washing her hands. She will run the Swivel Sweeper around the living room until the battery runs down. She begs to do more until we're practically begging her to stop. Not an all bad problem to have, I suppose!
The other area that Katie likes to help out is in the kitchen. Any time that I am making dinner or start moving around in the kitchen Katie says, "Can I help?" and runs to get her stool. Normally this is okay and sometimes I even enjoy her help, I just hadn't realized how proficient she had become until this past week.
On Monday morning I was really tired. It had been a rough night (because I have mothered the two sleepless wonders). I had been up since 5am and to top it off I was taking pain medication that could make me a little drowsy.
Katie had her normal gymnastics from 10:30 to 11:30, I had left the house early to run a few errands hoping that Ryan would fall asleep in the car. Not only did he NOT fall asleep in the car, he also fought sleep while Katie was at gymnastics. FINALLY at 12:40 he fell asleep. I was ready for a nap too, and since Katie had finished an hour of great exercise when she suggested going into my room to lay on the bed and pet the cats I was all for it! We have done this before and she's fallen asleep... well, and tell me you couldn't see this coming - I fell asleep.
I woke up about 30 minutes later as I heard Katie say:
"Mommy, I just need a little help with those cookies."
Huh? What Cookies?? I stumbled, still half asleep into the kitchen.
Katie proudly pointed to the frying pan sitting on the stove-top with a single peanut butter cookie shaped in the bottom. Oh, thank goodness that the stove wasn't on. I was wide-awake now as I pieced together what had happened.
I had fallen asleep while Katie was petting the cat. She needed to use the bathroom so she had gone and done that, had also changed out of her leotard into a skirt and shirt as well as washing her hands. Next, Katie had decided that seen the cookie-dough sitting in the container in the refrigerator... we don't normally have that but it was some that my mother-in-law had given us. Katie was going to bake cookies.
She had gotten her stool from the dining room and lugged it into the kitchen. Next she had gotten everything she needed...
- the cookie dough
- an ice-cream scoop
- 2 cookie cutters (1 heart shape and 1 gingerbread man)
- the rolling pin
- her sippy cup of water
- the frying pan
Sitting to the right of the stove was a layer of cookie dough that she had rolled out (believe it or not it was actually a perfect thickness). She had tried to use the heart shape but I guess it had been a bit sticky, so she used some water from her sippy cup and wet her hands and the dough to try again. What was in the frying pan looked a bit more round in shape than heart shape! I sure am glad that she came to get me for help. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when this happened... am I to nominate myself for worst mother in the world or outstanding mom that my 3 year old is trying to bake cookies by herself!?
As I cleaned up the mess (surprisingly I stayed calm - after all I was partially to blame for falling asleep on the job!) we talked about how we don't do any cooking in the kitchen without an adult ever again.
I called her dad at work. His big concern was, "How much cookie dough got wasted?"
(It really is good stuff!)
So, I'll stop now, I realize this is a bit lengthy and I didn't even take a picture, after all I wouldn't want to encourage her!! If anyone needs a house-keeper I've got one that could use some training. Send her back once she can fold the laundry!
The other area that Katie likes to help out is in the kitchen. Any time that I am making dinner or start moving around in the kitchen Katie says, "Can I help?" and runs to get her stool. Normally this is okay and sometimes I even enjoy her help, I just hadn't realized how proficient she had become until this past week.
On Monday morning I was really tired. It had been a rough night (because I have mothered the two sleepless wonders). I had been up since 5am and to top it off I was taking pain medication that could make me a little drowsy.
Katie had her normal gymnastics from 10:30 to 11:30, I had left the house early to run a few errands hoping that Ryan would fall asleep in the car. Not only did he NOT fall asleep in the car, he also fought sleep while Katie was at gymnastics. FINALLY at 12:40 he fell asleep. I was ready for a nap too, and since Katie had finished an hour of great exercise when she suggested going into my room to lay on the bed and pet the cats I was all for it! We have done this before and she's fallen asleep... well, and tell me you couldn't see this coming - I fell asleep.
I woke up about 30 minutes later as I heard Katie say:
"Mommy, I just need a little help with those cookies."
Huh? What Cookies?? I stumbled, still half asleep into the kitchen.
Katie proudly pointed to the frying pan sitting on the stove-top with a single peanut butter cookie shaped in the bottom. Oh, thank goodness that the stove wasn't on. I was wide-awake now as I pieced together what had happened.
I had fallen asleep while Katie was petting the cat. She needed to use the bathroom so she had gone and done that, had also changed out of her leotard into a skirt and shirt as well as washing her hands. Next, Katie had decided that seen the cookie-dough sitting in the container in the refrigerator... we don't normally have that but it was some that my mother-in-law had given us. Katie was going to bake cookies.
She had gotten her stool from the dining room and lugged it into the kitchen. Next she had gotten everything she needed...
- the cookie dough
- an ice-cream scoop
- 2 cookie cutters (1 heart shape and 1 gingerbread man)
- the rolling pin
- her sippy cup of water
- the frying pan
Sitting to the right of the stove was a layer of cookie dough that she had rolled out (believe it or not it was actually a perfect thickness). She had tried to use the heart shape but I guess it had been a bit sticky, so she used some water from her sippy cup and wet her hands and the dough to try again. What was in the frying pan looked a bit more round in shape than heart shape! I sure am glad that she came to get me for help. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when this happened... am I to nominate myself for worst mother in the world or outstanding mom that my 3 year old is trying to bake cookies by herself!?
As I cleaned up the mess (surprisingly I stayed calm - after all I was partially to blame for falling asleep on the job!) we talked about how we don't do any cooking in the kitchen without an adult ever again.
I called her dad at work. His big concern was, "How much cookie dough got wasted?"
(It really is good stuff!)
So, I'll stop now, I realize this is a bit lengthy and I didn't even take a picture, after all I wouldn't want to encourage her!! If anyone needs a house-keeper I've got one that could use some training. Send her back once she can fold the laundry!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
First Haircut
Before the Haircut
On Saturday, July 26th we took Ryan to get his first haircut. We thought we would go to the same place where we had Katie's done. It hardly seems fair that our little girl was a fuzz head until she was almost 2 while the boy was born with a head of hair. At any rate I had called two different places on Friday to set up the appointment. The first place they told me that they no longer take pictures of the first haircut and so I opted to go with the second place where they assured me that they still took a Poloroid. We made a 2pm appointment and showed up at Cool Cuts in Sanford at 1:50pm. We signed in and waited. Then we waited some more while they took every other customer in there, even though I had read the sign-in sheet and they were almost all walk-ins. At 2:20 they finally acknowledge me when I stood there with Ryan in my arms, "Did you sign in ma'am?" Um, yeah, I signed in for my 2 o'clock appointment 30 minutes ago. Next thing we knew 3 of the 4 people in red smocks were standing around the cash register and looking at the sign-in sheet debating whether walk-ins had been taken before an appointment or not - they decided that since the other people had walked in literally 1 minute before us that they were justified in taking that person first. We had not a single apology. We should have walked out at that point but we were still game, after all the kids were born in different states, different hospitals at least they could share the same location for their first haircuts! They told us to choose a seat - well the same car Katie had sat in was available - although now it is rusty and missing the steering wheel, but the other car had a client so we took it anyway. We waited another 5 minutes and then the person we had an appointment with came over. I said, "This is his first haircut." She says, "Ever?" I said, "Yes, that's why we came here because of the poloroids." "Oh, we can't do that, I can give you a card but the camera doesn't have any film." WHAT??? I called yesterday and double-checked that you could do this... at this point Ryan was fussing, we'd waited long enough and I wasn't letting them touch one hair on his head... we left. It would have been a more effective walk-out if we wouldn't have forgotten the diaper bag!
On Saturday, July 26th we took Ryan to get his first haircut. We thought we would go to the same place where we had Katie's done. It hardly seems fair that our little girl was a fuzz head until she was almost 2 while the boy was born with a head of hair. At any rate I had called two different places on Friday to set up the appointment. The first place they told me that they no longer take pictures of the first haircut and so I opted to go with the second place where they assured me that they still took a Poloroid. We made a 2pm appointment and showed up at Cool Cuts in Sanford at 1:50pm. We signed in and waited. Then we waited some more while they took every other customer in there, even though I had read the sign-in sheet and they were almost all walk-ins. At 2:20 they finally acknowledge me when I stood there with Ryan in my arms, "Did you sign in ma'am?" Um, yeah, I signed in for my 2 o'clock appointment 30 minutes ago. Next thing we knew 3 of the 4 people in red smocks were standing around the cash register and looking at the sign-in sheet debating whether walk-ins had been taken before an appointment or not - they decided that since the other people had walked in literally 1 minute before us that they were justified in taking that person first. We had not a single apology. We should have walked out at that point but we were still game, after all the kids were born in different states, different hospitals at least they could share the same location for their first haircuts! They told us to choose a seat - well the same car Katie had sat in was available - although now it is rusty and missing the steering wheel, but the other car had a client so we took it anyway. We waited another 5 minutes and then the person we had an appointment with came over. I said, "This is his first haircut." She says, "Ever?" I said, "Yes, that's why we came here because of the poloroids." "Oh, we can't do that, I can give you a card but the camera doesn't have any film." WHAT??? I called yesterday and double-checked that you could do this... at this point Ryan was fussing, we'd waited long enough and I wasn't letting them touch one hair on his head... we left. It would have been a more effective walk-out if we wouldn't have forgotten the diaper bag!Sunday, July 27th we took Ryan for his first haircut. We went after he had napped through church. We went to Hair Cuttery and walked in with no appointment. We had our own camera. They had me sit and hold him and then they worked with us and we got his hair cut. We didn't carry his hair home in a nice little plastic card but we were given a styrofoam cup to make sure we had the momento for the baby book!
After the Haircut
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