Thursday, February 28, 2008

it's snow fun

A video from the weekend of fun with our visitors. Some comments and funny things to watch for:

  • No, Maryn is not wearing oven mitts- those are her snow mittens.
  • Jonas is super sleepy the whole time, poor baby.
  • Jon's trademark feature makes a few appearances (some of you will know of what I speak).
  • The last line on the tape is the funniest- wait for it!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

my birthday boys

I wanted to document some of the things Seth has been saying over the past few days surrounding his birthday. He seemed to think that turning five was going to mean huge, immediate changes. You'll see what I mean....

"Mom, tomorrow when I'm five, what am I going to look like? What is my voice going to sound like?"
When I explained that he wasn't going to change overnight and that he grows a little bit every day, his response was "How am I ever going to get big, then?"

"So now that I'm five, I get to stop going to preschool and start going to kindergarten, right?"
This wasn't helped by the fact that we went on two school tours yesterday as I'm trying to pick which school Seth will be going to in August. He just doesn't understand why he doesn't get to go to kindergarten right now.

"Mom, now that I'm five, I can ride my bike somewhere by myself, right? Like to the store or something?"
I don't know where this came from.


Jonas had a birthday too, the day after Seth. He is such a sweet little boy. He's been taking tentative steps for a few weeks now. He is very good at playing independently, but he also loves to try and do exactly what his siblings are doing. He continues to not be a very good eater. He's showing the same signs of milk allergy that Maryn did at this age, so I am less than thrilled about that. He loves to climb and uses this skill to get into as many things as possible. I think he will be the first of my children to craw out of his crib. The only time he will sit still is when I read a book to him. His favorite is Good Morning, Good Night.
He says a few words...at least I think he does. When he's upset he yells something that sounds like "Mom!". He says "Da-da" when Jon comes home each day, and he waves and says something that sounds like "Hi!".

One last note, with all these birthdays- Maryn can't understand why it's not her birthday too. Luckily, Grandma B brought her a present when she brought presents for the boys- a Care Bear blanket and pillows that she loves! (pic to come)

And more pics and video to come of our weekend visitors. We had a fun, fun time with Papa, Grandma, Scotty and Rach. We love you!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Jon's new video

Jon finished this today. The theme here (he says) is the chaos and order of domestic life with children. Enjoy friends and family!


Monday, February 18, 2008

a little late...

This meme has been going around for a while. Many people have "tagged" me but I'm just now getting around to participating. Sorry, I should be better about keeping up with the blog-o-shere.

What is his name? Jon (formally Jonathan Walter)
How long have we been married? 7 1/2 years. Seriously, where did the time go?
How old is he? In his twenties for 14 more days.
Who eats more? Um.....I'm embarrased to report that we both eat about the same amount. I remember there was a time when I couldn't finish a Chipotle burrito by myself, but those days are long gone.
Who said I love you first? It went like this- we were standing on the driveway to my house and Jon said "I'm going to say something, but you don't have to respond if you don't want to." Just in case you're wondering, I did respond in agreement.
Who is taller? He's about six feet tall, I measure up at about five feet, eight inches.
Who sings better? Those of you who know us, know this answer. Jon is way more muscially talented than I am. I enjoying singing (lately it's pretty much been hymns on Sunday or songs to my kids), but Jon has an awesome singing voice- regular or rockstar.
Whose temper is worse? We both have a temper. The difference between us is Jon tends to get mad and then get over it fairly quickly, whereas I have trouble letting things go and therefore stay mad longer.
Who is smarter? This question is like the previous one- relative to the situation. Jon has a very creative mind which is useful in his chosen field of study and contributes to his musical talent. I have a very un-creative, linear mind which was helpful in my chosen field of study but quite annoying in the real world.
Who mows the lawn? We have never had a lawn. By the time we do, I think we'll have Seth mow it.
Who pays the bills? I organize the finances in our house but currently, Jon is the only one bringing home the money to pay the bills.
Who does the dishes? Both of us. Pretty much every night, we work together until the kitchen is clean.
Who cooks dinner? I really hate cooking- every aspect from the menu planning to the grocery shopping to the actual execution with children crying under my feet. I dread dinner time. Because he knows this- Jon will usually cook 2-3 times per week. And he is a fabulous cook. He comes up with dishes by just throwing together ingredients (which is something I cannot do).
Who drives when you are together? I also hate driving. (Since we moved here, I have backed up into a parked car on 2 different occasions. Plus with the snow and ice....I really, really hate it.) So Jon always drives. (Although, when we moved out here, I did drive our van 75% of the way. So I can drive, I just don't like to.)
Who is more stubborn? We both are at times, but I think my times are more often.
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Jon, no question. (See above answer about not staying mad very long.)
Who has more friends? We have a lot of the same friends. In general, Jon is better at maintaining relationships with friends. So since moving here, I have had to try and be more like him in this way.
Who wears the pants in the family? This is a really dumb question. We both wear pants.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

my little boys are growing up

(Seth with Bear, age 6 months)

If any of you have known Seth since he was a baby, you know that "Bear" is very important to him. Because he never took a pacifier, holding Bear was the only thing that would help him go to sleep. Seth's first word was not "Mama" or "Dada", it was "Bear". Bear has been loved almost to death. Many trips to the washing machine after being thrown up and slobbered on has left his fur matted and the integrity of his stuffing severely compromised. Bear has never had a name, but recently (in the past few months) Seth decided to name him "Tickle" (no clue why). This morning he said to me-
"Mom, I don't think I need to sleep with Tickle anymore. I'm going to give him to Jonas."
Sure enough, when I put Jonas in his bed tonight, Tickle was there. It made me a little bit sad, my first little baby boy will be 5 in just a few days! I really can't believe it.

My second little baby boy will be one year old the day after his brother turns 5. Jonas is also growing up so quickly. As I have mentioned before, we have two very steep staircases in our house. Just yesterday morning, I was talking to my friends about how well Jonas has learned to navigate those staircases. He has only fallen down once, right when he was learning to climb and then only a few stairs onto the carpeted floor. Well, yesterday afternoon we fell down the entire staircase onto the concrete floor of our basement. When I picked him up, he was bleeding profusely from both his mouth and nose. The doctor said that he completely lacerated his frenum and might have broken his nose. But she assured me that both of these problems are not treatable and will heal on their own. In addition to these injuries, he currently has a bruised bump, black eye and small cut under his eye from when Seth threw a toy at his face earlier in the week. So now these newest injuries of another bump on the forehead, fat lip and possible broken nose makes me the mother of a tiny Rocky Balboa look-a-like.
The way he's acting today, you'd think nothing happened to him. Truth is, his face actually looks one hundred percent better today than it did last night, so that's why this picture doesn't look so bad.
I just want them to slow down!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

princess p

We've had a bit of a regression with Maryn's potty training. She hasn't been able to "make it" soon enough, if you know what I mean. So on the day that Jon was making a video, we were trying to praise her a bit--plus she looks so cute!

Friday, February 8, 2008

A few days in February

Jon has had a fancy camcorder at home , checked out for his Video class, so we have been taking advantage of it by taking some home movies that are easily uploaded to the computer (something that our camcorder won't do).

Jon edited a bunch of footage together, but the length of the video is still almost 7 minutes, so I won't feel bad if no one gets through the whole thing besides the Grandmas and Grandpas.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

what's in a name?


I'm not a big fan of nicknames. Especially when parents give their kids a name and then plan on calling them by a nickname. If you want to call your child "Katie" then name her Katie and not Kathryn. The argument I hear most often is "I wanted to give them a choice to use their full name when they were adults." A valid argument, I just do not agree with it.

Another issue on the name front that bugs me is the increasing use of boy names for girls- making them unisex. Seth was telling me about a new child in his class and he said "We call her 'girl Alex' because we already have a 'boy Alex'." How sad is that? For the boy and the girl. What boy wants to have the same name as a girl and likewise what girl wants to be called "girl Alex"? Please let the boys keep their names people!

Enough of my rant, the real reason for this post is Jonas. I wanted to document some things that he has been doing lately so I won't forget. In direct conflict of my detest for nicknames, my boys both have them (Maryn doesn't- we just called her "baby girl" for a long time until she wasn't the baby anymore). But unlike what I described above- these are more like "lovey" nicknames that we just use in the family and would never plan on calling them that outside of the home. Seth is "Seffers" and Jonas is "Joanie". This is also in conflict with my dislike for unisex names- because "Joanie" is a girls name (which doesn't necissarily make it unisex, it really is a girl's name). But nonetheless- Joanie it is. I'm not sure how it started, but it sure has stuck. I'm confident that he will grow out of us calling him that because we don't use "Seffers" name very often anymore, so I'm not too worried.

So now- back to the documentation. Just this week, at his eleventh month mark, Jonas decided that he didn't want to be swaddled anymore (yes, I was still swaddling him every time I put him to sleep). So I was at a real disadvantge because I didn't know how to get him to sleep anymore. You'd think that by my third child, I would have it figured out, but no- every child is different. So I followed the example of my sister and started a little bedtime routine. I take him into his room, turn on the nightlight, sing him 2-3 songs while rocking and then lay him down in his bed all the time saying "It's time for bed, Joanie, bedtime." On that first night, I walked out of the room, closed the door, and just stood there is disbelief- he didn't cry! Not one little peep! Amazing. Now he hasn't been that perfect every night, and nap times are harder too, but for the majority of the bedtimes- he layed right down and went to sleep without making a single noise. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, because seriously all the credit should go to Jonas. He is just such a chill baby. Thank heaven for him.

One last shout out- Happy Birthday Ellena! What a big girl!

P.S. For those of you who inquired about my new background, I got it for FREE here.

Friday, February 1, 2008

winter storm warning

...is currently in effect in my area. We woke up to 7-8 inches this morning and it has now started to snow again. I included the following picture because it shows the snow accumulation on top of the table.
It started snowing yesterday around 2 pm. I got a little nervous when it was still snowing 4 hours later and I realized that I was out of some grocery essentials...me and everyone else in my neighborhood. The grocery store was packed with people- imagine Wednesday night before Thanksgiving...only worse. I was only buying a few things, milk, cheese, bananas, tortillas (you know- the essentials) but it still took me almost 20 minutes to get through the check-out line. The guy in front of me was buying a cart full of Lean Cuisine meals and yogurt, apparantly those were his essentials.
As we watched Lost last night, the ticker along the bottom of the screen listed schools and other placed that were going to be closed today. I even got a call from Seth's preschool teacher saying that his school was cancelled for today. Jon anxiously waited for any news of his school being closed. No luck. Everything in our town is closed today- public schools, government offices, library, etc...except Jon's school.
So it's kind of nice today to have an excuse to stay home. My kids are begging me to let them go outside and play in all this snow, but that is a "Daddy job" so they have to wait until he gets home this afternoon.
I'm really missing Arizona right now.