January Update

Been working on pictures lately, and I am almost caught up! Just a few days left from December. Here is a cute one of me and kids from the other night.



And another cute one of just them:


Not a whole lot else going on. Liam is back in school, and enjoying it. He is loving his new bed! (Pictures to come). We enrolled Rowan in pre-school for next year. I thought that maybe we could skip the first year for her, but if Liam doesn't go there for kindergarten, than next year would be the only year they attended the school together, so we decided to go ahead and let her go too. She will love it, I'm sure! And Liam will love seeing her there too.

The kids had their dentist apt. on Monday, and they did great! Liam cried a little when they did the rest of his x-rays (a couple they were not able to get last time). But he let them clean his teeth, and Rowan did not really like the angle of the dentist chair, so we let her lay in my lap again. Last time she cried the whole time, but she didn't cry this time! I was so proud of both of them.

I forgot my camera, so these are phone pics.

OCTOBER Pictures

So thankfully over the long holiday I was able to work on pictures, and below are a few of my favorites...The first two where taken early October at the farm at Thanksgiving Point. I love the picture of Liam, and how proud he looks on the horse. It was his first time riding on the pony while he held on all by himself!! I walked with him, just in case, but didn't hold on. And the picture of Rowan riding was great too! This was her first time riding the pony and she LOVED it!!



The kids were really into Halloween this year. Liam decided he wanted to be a skeleton. Liam was pretty interested in the scary part of Halloween too. This house is near Grandma's house, and he wanted to go see it all the time! We loved how he said 'Wampire' too. He's pretty interested in Zombies too. And he says he wants to be Frankenstein next year, but I'm sure that will change a few times before next Halloween comes round.


This was Rowan's first year Trick-Or-Treating, and she had a blast! She still says 'Trick-or-Treat' when she hears a doorbell.


After I took the kids around to several houses, Dad took Liam out to several more while Rowan and I stayed home to hand out the candy. I started playing 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and she just smiled and sat really still while I got a bunch of cute pictures of her. She is still obsessed with Jack and Sally a month later, so we are trying to get her onto other things, like princesses and Sesame street : )


Happy Halloween 2011


(There are lots more pictures on our Smugmug page...still working on Birthday party pics though)

Update

So realized I haven't blogged in a while. Thanksgiving is coming soon, and I plan to sit down for a few hours, and work on our pictures...we have Halloween and the kids Birthday party to post! So in other news, my company was acquired. They sent everyone in the company a generous gift card for Thanksgiving, was pretty happy about that. Anyway, I'm writing this on my phone,so check back for new pics. soon.

Life Update

Realized I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. Things are OK. Liam is doing really great in school. He has a crush on a little girl in his class. It's so adorable, and I had no idea it started this young!

Rowan is doing great! She has been a lot better about sleeping again. One night she just wanted to be snuggled and rocked, and I totally loved it. It seems she is growing out of that stage where all they want to do is explore, and she is starting to snuggle and hang out more. She loves to give hugs and kisses too...just so cute! I will be updating more about the kids soon on their site...

2 weeks ago I had a dentist appointment, and he recommended that I get a gum graft for a couple of my teeth. Turns out I need it for 3!! On both sides of my mouth too....so not looking forward to it. But hopefully it will help get rid of my sensitivity when I have hot or cold drinks and food. Plus maybe I will lose the rest of my baby weight, that will be nice!

It's that time of year that the yard starts giving us food. We have managed to get some tomatoes and squash from the garden after-all. AND all four of our fruit trees produced this year! Even the the little peach tree we planted in the spring gave us a bunch! It's been really nice! Mike spent the day yesterday canning pears. I feel bad I wasn't able to help, but I had to watch Rowan since she is only down to one nap now! Thankfully, we canned so many peaches last year, we have enough for the next year. Anyway, not a whole lot else going on...just got to figure a costume for Rowan...Liam made it easy for me this year by telling me he wants to be a skeleton :)

Update

Here it is, 12:44 am in the morning and I am working on pictures. I can't believe I am so behind editing them?! I have pictures from May!! Well, I used to work on them after I got home from work...after I put Rowan down for her nap, and if Liam was sleeping too. But, this summer Rowan has decided to drop her 2nd nap, and then on top of that we have the yard to care for too. Sadly my blog, totsite, and pictures have been neglected lately....and I won't even mention how behind I am on the indoor stuff ;) Anyway, needless to say, I am getting caught up (on the pictures that is)!! And I should probably hit the bed SOON!! But before I do, I need to post a really cute picture of Rowan in the tub : )

Loving Summer

I am loving Summer this year, and I am NOT ready for school to start in a few weeks?! We got our notice of who Liam's teacher is going to be this year. Her name is Miss Erin. We had requested Miss Farrah, and are sad we won't have her, but we're sure Miss Erin is really nice too. We get to meet her in a couple of weeks, and then he starts on Aug. 23rd. This summer just flew by way too fast. I have been spending a lot of time outside too, and it's pretty crazy because I actually have a tan on my arms! I put sun screen on most of the time if I'm going to be out for long periods, but some sun must be getting to me cause my arms have color! The last time I ever remember having a tan was when I was a kid!

Anyway, last Saturday I took Liam to this new thing they have behind the Dinosaur Museum. It's called Trilobite Treasures, and you can dig for fossils, specifically Trilobites. I thought they had them already discovered and hidden in sand, and we would use shovels and brushes to 'Find' them...but NO!! They are still in the shale/rock, and you use a HUGE hammer to split the rock open and find as many as you can within the time you pay for. We were there an hour, which is plenty long for a 3 yr. old. Liam had fun, but I actually think I had more fun than him. And in hindsight, I think this activity is best for older kids and adults. The smallest hammer they have is pretty big, and really could hurt a small kid if they aren't being careful. Anyway, we found some great trilobites on our own, and with a little help from the experts. Liam found a couple all by himself, I was so proud of him.

Update on Life

Ok, it's been a while since my last update. The summer has been going good. We have been pretty busy getting our yard fixed up. We really tried to keep up on the weeding, but there was just so much rain this spring/early summer that we got overwhelmed with it. We decided to hire help to weed, and it worked out because we needed to take out a dead bush and sickly tree and replace it with a new one. 16 man hours later, and we realized that there was just no way we would have had time to do that between working and taking care of the kids. It has been nice to have that out of the way so we could have fun with the kids. We got them a small bounce house this summer. Liam does not know that we own it. We tell him if he's really good we will call up Mr. Bounceman to come set it up. Both of them have been having a blast with it. Although since Rowan is only 19 mo. her attention span is pretty short and she only is on it for a short time. But, she has decided that she LOVES to swing now. She asked to swing one day, and she grins ear to ear!! We are glad the swing-set is finally being enjoyed now...even Liam likes to swing sometimes.


Last month Mike had me pick up a new peach tree to replace the 2nd cherry tree that died on us. We gave up on getting any more cherry trees, and decided to get a different variety peach tree, since we LOVE peaches!! Ever since I picked out that cute tree, I have had a new interest in the yard. We had our yard put in almost 3 years ago, and this year is the first year that it is really looking great. The plants have filled in, and the trees are getting really big. I took Liam with me to pick out a new Tulip tree to replace the original Tulip tree that was not growing, and looked like it might be diseased. I was a little nervous to pick out a tree without Mike's input, but when it was delivered he loved it. It really has a great shape to it, and it's been in for a couple weeks now, and I have been really good about watering it, and it's looking great!! I will have to post pictures soon. Last week I had found this beautiful purple flower that I had been wanting. They had these huge ones at Home Depot, and I wish now I had bought more than one because when I went back a couple days later they only had one left. But I grabbed that one, and went to a few other nurseries and got several more. It's called Salvia nemorosa 'East Friesland'.


We have an electrical box in our front side yard. When we moved in there where some bushes that were already covering the area, so we just decided to leave them when we landscaped the yard. Unfortunately the bush died which surprised us because it survived no water when our house sat empty for many months...anyway, we were not sure what to plant over there to cover the unsightly boxes, but I did come across this really cool plant called 'Burning Bush'. It is green right now, but it's supposed to turn bright red in the fall. We had Blue Stakes come out and mark up the area since it's right by all the utility lines. The lines are a complete mess?! We have no clue if/where we can plant now. Anyway, hopefully we can figure it out soon!

Life Update

Well, I've been meaning to blog about Liam's graduation, but I'm still working on editing the pictures...lots of red eye to fix! He ended up with a last parting gift from school, a lovely cold. So this past week we've all been fighting it off. At least it wasn't RSV, or a stomach bug!! Hopefully with the time away from school, we can all stay healthy over the summer.

We ended up getting a second batch of butterfly larvae. This particular batch were quite silky. Around the day they were getting ready to chrysalize one of them had a little liquid too, and I think that combination made their food like glue, and one of the caterpillars ended up getting stuck. He kept trying to get to the top. I called the company, and they said to go ahead and open it up and help him. We were really unsure because we didn't want the others that already started to chrysalize to fall off...but we just didn't want to see the poor guy die of exhaustion, so Mike was the brave one and took a pair of chopsticks and tried to separate him as gently as he could. He was really stuck!! It was pretty nerve racking, and it took several attempts, but he was finally able to get him lose. Mike got him to the top, and he thankfully didn't go back down, he knew exactly what to do. Although he did keep harassing the others...this batch was quite the crazy bunch. We were glad it was our second time though because we were more familiar with the process. We also ordered our ladybug larvae. They have been really interesting to watch too. When we got them, we couldn't believe just how tiny they were. They have grown a bunch over the last week, and they are getting ready to change to pupa's now.

Over the weekend Liam's cousin Emma had her 2nd birthday party. Since we had all been sick, we weren't sure if we should go. But Mike talked to his brother, and he said it would be OK, since they had been sick too. Liam was pretty much over his cold anyway, and it was outside, so I just made sure he didn't cough on anyone ;) Rowan was still running a fever, so Mike stayed home with her. We were glad we were able to go since Liam had a great time, and I was able to be the photographer for the family, and got over 300 pics for them. I love doing it! Below are a few pics, and for the family I left the link to see the rest. The password is the initials of the guest of honor.


















CLICK HERE TO SEE PICTURES OF EMMA'S PARTY

April Fools

Mother Nature can be cruel at times, but sometimes she has a silly sense of humor...hence the snow this morning, 'April Fools', 2 days late!! Although it's probably for the best because we are both pretty sore today. My arms have had quite the work out over the last several days....Thursday evening I did 20 min. on the Elliptical (first time in many months), Friday I spent 2+ hrs. cleaning our stove top (that had baked on grease) and then took the kids for a walk in their stroller up some pretty steep hills, and Saturday I raked the dead grass out of part of the lawn, then helped Mike carry the club house part (left part of set, see below) from the garage to the back yard! Needless to say we both need a break today. I forgive Mother Nature for the snow too, since this storm saved us from a minor disaster last night. As I was leaving to get take out last night, the wind blew the door to our house in the garage open. I got out of the car, and for some strange reason I went behind the car, and saw a box of parts for the set right behind my tires! Had the wind not blown the door open, I would have run over it!! So glad I didn't, that would have been a spendy mistake...it had the swings, and other parts in it. Anyway, we all got to enjoy a short swing before the storm got too bad. Below are some cute pics of the kids. Before the storm blew in last night.

I should have got a before picture, but imagine it looking pretty black around the burners :)
When we ordered the swing set, it said 2-3 weeks for delivery. We got a call from the delivery company the next day that it was ready! Now that is fast service.



First walk of the year 4/1/11


I love this picture of Liam looking back and Gretchen peeing in the background!




Love the crazy look on his face here!
Happy Swinging!!

Spring is around the corner...

I think the kids are on the mend as well as myself...sadly Mike seems to be feeling worse, but his started later, so that is to be expected. For the past 3 days Liam has slept really hard at nap time, but then was up really late, close to midnight?!?! Today we stopped at the store on the way home, so he did not take a nap. I'm hoping this will get him back on track. But then another whammy...daylight savings this weekend...not really looking forward to that!! Last year it took us about a month to recover from it. It never really affected me that much until we had kids. Only time will tell, but I'm hoping it will be easier this time.

Below are a couple of my favorite recent pics of the kids.

Rowan 14 months


Liam 3 yrs


And here is cute one of them around Christmas:

Sick day AGAIN.

Liam started to have a fever last Monday evening. He started with a fever and cough. His cough was so bad that he gagged up his food and sometimes his medicine. Usually when he gets a fever it breaks after about 3 days. This one was not going away, so by day 5 we took him to the Dr. The Dr. listened to his lungs, and heard a crackle. He checked his Oxygen too. He wanted to determine for sure if it was a bacterial or a viral infection, so he had us go to the hospital to get an x-ray. While we were waiting to be seen, Liam was getting anxious waiting. We walked around a bit, and we came across a vending machine. He wanted the Doritos, and so I checked my wallet, and there was NO CASH! I called my mom, since she wasn't too far away and asked her to bring some cash. They took us to the back before she arrived, but they told her where we were when she got there. Liam was happy to see Grandma. Liam did really awesome getting the x-ray. He listened to direction, and wasn't scared at all. We got him the Doritos and went home 2 hours later! The Dr. called later that afternoon, and told us that it appeared as he thought, as a viral infection. He thinks it's RSV, so no meds for that...just have to wait it out. Now it's a week after his fever started, and his fever seems to have broke, but his appetite is still gone. And poor Rowan has a fever, and me and Mike are sick too! Ugh, hope this thing clears up soon!!

Happy New Year : )

(Photo Credit: psdeluxe.com)

Well, once again I am behind on my blogging AND my pictures. There was so much I wanted to do over our vacation, but we got busy watching the kids (and lazy) and didn't get much done. But we did do one major thing on our 'To Do' list, and that was to go to a movie!! We did it!!! After 3+ years we finally went to a movie together. We went to see 'True Grit'. It was a really great movie! There are a ton of fun things that I have wanted to blog about, but I think that once I get the pictures uploaded I may just condense it into one update....so stay tuned. Hope you all had a great Holiday!!

Update on Life and Halloween Time!

Ok, I know, I've been quite the blogging slacker lately. It's just that when you have a second kid, and that second kid starts to be mobile, life gets a little bit hectic. So here are some highlights of our recent days...Rowan has perfected crawling, and cruising, but really isn't too interested in walking, which is totally fine by us for now. She has started to say 'What's that?' a lot. She loves to 'read' books. She doesn't chew them as much now, she likes to look at the pictures, turn the pages and she babbles like she is reading them...it is pretty adorable. Liam is loving school, although he missed a week last month because there was a stomach bug going around. He has always been such a healthy kid until he started going to school. But, I guess it's just one of those things that is bound to happen sooner or later when you get exposed to the public. The stomach bug he got was the first major illness we've had to deal with so far. He had pretty bad runs, and had no appetite! Thankfully, no throw-up with this one! We tried putting him on the BRAT diet, which worked OK if he was in the mood to eat anything. It cleared up after about a week...then Rowan got a minor version of it...I'm so grateful that I have kept up with pumping because Liam is bringing all sorts of yucky germs home, so far she has been pretty good! I'm hoping to be able to continue till he's out of school in the spring, but we will see if my body cooperates. Anyway, he had his Halloween program last week. We went to see the kids sing. We were unsure how he would react if he saw us, so we hid in the back. The kids walked holding hands around the back of the crowd, and Liam and another boy got separated from the line and escaped into one of the classrooms...then Mike had to herd him back to the front. All the kids stared at the crowd in shock as the teacher belted out the songs. Liam started to dance at one point, but mainly he kept running down the hall, just to be herded back by his teacher. We got video of it, and hopefully we can figure out how to convert the HD to load online.

Liam had a great Halloween! He actually was very excited to go trick-or-treating this year. He was very good about putting on his costume too. The first time we got it though it took a little convincing. We ended up putting Rowan's Flower costume on first, and just showed him how cute she looked, then he was fine putting it on. He was a dragon this year, and a very cute one at that! Halloween landed on a Sunday this year, so our state decided Saturday would be the Trick-or-Treating day...but unfortunately, it also was cold, windy and rainy! But thankfully Liam's costume was warm, and we had an umbrella. I took him to handful of houses, then we went home to warm up. After he ate some dinner, Mike took him to several more...the rain had calmed down, and he kept saying one more house, one more house. The next day he wanted to go again...we told him that it was over, but we could do some Trick-or-Treating in the house. It got pretty late and he needed a bath, so I asked Mike to have a few pretzels behind one door, and his milk behind the next one. He knocked on the first door, and dad handed him some pretzels, and then he said 'I want some candy'...such a funny kid! Anyway, it was pretty fun watching him enjoy Halloween!





I will post more pictures as soon as I get a chance to edit them : )

Update on Life

So far Liam is doing well in school. The first couple of weeks were a bit of an adjustment, and we often wondered if he wasn't quite ready. He cried when I dropped him off, and he would say he doesn't want to go. But then when I picked him up he was happy...And then on some days he would say he wants to go, and to see Miss Emily. Since school is in the afternoon he does tend to be more tired, and his naps now are hit and miss from day to day, and I suppose that is partly the schedule change and partly he is getting closer to the age where he will be dropping his nap. Although, a couple of weeks ago he fell asleep around 4:30 pm for his nap and when we went in his room to wake him up for dinner, he was OUT! We couldn't wake him and wondered if we should try harder to wake him, or just let him sleep. We were concerned that he would wake in the middle of the night, but we took a gamble and let him sleep....well I think we made the right decision because he not only slept for the whole night, he ended up sleeping for 15 hours! That was a first ever, guess he really needed some sleep?! We even were able to get some pictures...


Rowan is now 9 months, and is ALL over the place! She is standing, clapping, 'talking', playing, dancing, showing her independence-and even doing things she knows we don't want her doing?! We are shocked that she has learned this rebellion at 9 months...doesn't seem like Liam started that till over a year old. The older she gets the more we realize how similar she is to Liam, and how much trouble we are going to be in...Right now they are both very cute to each other, but we think that the older they get the more they will clash...We are enjoying their sweetness to each other as much as we can...and hopefully we are wrong and it will last forever : )


This picture was taken earlier this month (9-5-10)...you can tell how proud she is of her standing. Now a couple of weeks later she is cruising, and walking across the room with the help of her lion walker. This girl is going to be walking on her own before we know it!

Update on Life

Been feeling a little behind on things lately...mainly up keeping the house, working, editing pictures of the kids, maintaining the garden, etc. all while making sure the kids are getting enough love and attention as well. It is a juggling act for sure, and I feel like I'm dropping the ball somewhere. I often wonder how people manage more than 2 kids and keep their house running because I am just feeling...well, overwhelmed!

Anyway, I just wanted to write a little update on us, so that morph kid isn't staring at you on the top of the page! Mike and I hired a babysitter for the first time over the weekend. We felt it would be nice not to drive the kids south to our family's house when we are heading north, so we signed up for a babysitter site online and found a nice girl. We wanted someone that was older, not a teenager, and had experience and knows CPR and first aid if anything happened...yes we (or at least me) are picky! We paid a lot for her, but Liam really liked her, and it is nice to know now that we can actually go out for a dinner and movie sometime! We haven't been out to a movie since I was pregnant with Liam, how sad is that?! So below is a recent picture of Rowan...she is sitting like a pro now, which is good because our pictures are this Friday! She is also sitting herself up!! The other picture was sent to me this morning from Auntie Tiff (thanks!) It is a picture of Liam and his cousins eating ice cream at our 4th of July party.

Update on Life

Well, the summer is flying by. June was kinda a bummer month because my foot was healing, It is still not 100%, but it is getting better everyday. I miss wearing sandals...and because I can't wear sandals I am also stuck wearing pants too...Oh well! At least it's over with and we can move on.

I have a bag in my closet that I have been slowly putting unworn/unwanted clothes in, and I hope to make some more room for new clothes! I have a tendency to hang onto things for no good reason, but I am really trying to simplify my closet. Even though our house is bigger than the townhouse, our closet space is sadly smaller...and as such I really just need to do a good purging!! Wish me luck :)

It's July already, and I told Mike today that I couldn't believe that Liam will be starting pre-school next month?!?! I hope he does OK. It will be in the afternoon which is when he starts to get tired, so we will just have to see how he does. Thankfully, the school is very accommodating and will work with us, if we have any problems. I do have him on the morning 'wait list' so perhaps there might be an opening. Anyway, Rowan turned 7 months on June 26th! And she is just changing so much all the time...I will be posting updates of both of them soon on their totsite....anyway, here is a really cute picture of them.

Update On Life

Well Spring is finally here!! And it's Mother's Day Today! I took a few pictures in the yard to celebrate spring and mothers!

Pretty Pink blossom on our tree...


Ladybug hanging out on the peach tree.


Taking the kids out in the new double stroller...


Rowan turned 5 months on April 26th!


She loves her new Jump-a-roo!


And she found her feet!


Surprisingly, Liam didn't fight his new 'Cars' helmet and pads...


Loving his new trike.






Looking cool in his shades (well, dad's shades).


He climbed in when dad wasn't looking...does not realize he is WAY too BIG!!!!