No, I will not be staying up til midnight

New years eve.  Our exciting evening included taking all the Christmas ornaments off the tree and sorting the kids toys so we can rotate through them.  Now we're watching DVDs and I'll be going to bed soon.  I do not intend to be awake at midnight.  I didn't even make any official resolutions.  I have some vague ideas of things I want to work on though.  Maybe I'll post about it later?  I didn't make resolutions last year either, but last year I had a two week old baby.  This year not so much.

ANYWAY.  Happy New Year!  And welcome, 2011.

Books and such

So, I just joined goodreads.  I'm late to the party, I know.  But if you're on there, feel free to friend me.  One of these days I'll get some books rated!

Almost forgot

Will's one year appointment was last week.  He is still a little guy.  20 lbs 14 1/2 oz (22nd percentile) and 28 inches long (6th percentile.)  His head, on the other hand, is still gigantic.  19 3/4 inches around, which is huge, apparently (99th percentile.)  Huge enough that we have to have it checked again in 6 weeks.  The pediatrician said that 99% of the time it's genetic (and after measuring heads later that night I'm sure that's the case for Will) but that sometimes it can indicate a problem.  Hence the growth check.

I also took him for his one year pictures.  He was adorable- smiling, happy, giggling.  At least, he was for the HOUR we waited PAST our appointment time.  I would complain more, but seriously?  I pay $7.99 for all the pictures I need and they always turn out cute, big smile or no.  And they are cute again this time so I'll just shut up.  Then next time I'll remember why I always, ALWAYS schedule pictures for the first appointment of the day.

New Years Plans

What are you doing for New Years?  Part of me feels like we ought to Do Something, then the other part reminds me that the kids will be up at 6 am New Years day no matter what we do.  I'm not even sure what we would do anyway.  It's been SO long since we did anything besides watch TV on New Years eve.

And that's why I want to hear what fun things YOU are going to do.    

Doesn't happen very often

That's right!  A picture of me with Brian!  And nobody is in pajamas!  (How come I'm always in pajamas when the camera comes out?)  

This was before Brian's company's Christmas party which happened like weeks ago, I just hadn't gotten around to posting it.  Nice party though.  We got to talk to people without being interrupted every 3 seconds by mischievous children, AND we got to eat dinner without having to feed and/or wipe down small people.  Amazing how much lower your standards are for a night out after you have kids.

Christmas day, the photo highlights

Will enjoying his Little People Airport.  Enjoying the taste anyway.

I told Kalena to show me her triceratops so she turned around and smiled for like 2 seconds.  And then she roared at me.  That's her new kitchen in the background.  She won't leave it alone.  Also, she thought it was GREAT to stash everyone else's gifts so she wouldn't have to share.  I'm pretty sure every toy at my parent's house made it into that oven at least once.

Miss Amelia in her little Santa outfit.

Superman's TRUE secret identity: Jonathan Phelps.

Do I need a reason to post another picture of this cutie?  He looks like he's ready to fix something with those pliers.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope your Christmas was as awesome as mine.  Because there is nothing quite as awesome as watching a two year old play a tiny pink grand piano.  In fact, the only thing that made it MORE awesome is knowing that said tiny pink grand piano belongs to my niece, so all that noise will not be coming home to my house!




YAY!

Birthday party time

Yesterday was Will's birthday, so we did a little celebrating.  We didn't do lots of gifts, since we gave him birthday gifts when he was six months.  (Did I mention that?  To avoid doubling up on gifts at Christmas, we did some gifts at 6 months.)  Anyway, he did have a birthday gift from Brian's parents, and so did Kalena!  (Not a birthday gift obviously.)  Here she is, showing you her new pony.

Will enjoyed his card VERY much.  (See all those teeth?  From zero to 6 in 3 months.)

Then he got excited about his birthday gift...

and then Kalena decided she needed it, so she traded him for her pony.

He wasn't too sure about that cake.

But he enjoyed it in the end.

Rain rain go away

It doesn't feel like Christmas is 4 days from now.  I'm guessing that has something to do with all the rain.  Yes, rain.  It's Colorado in the middle of December and it's 50 degrees and raining.  Where is my snow?!  Christmas should have snow.

Anyway, I'm finally finished with my Christmas shopping.  After weeks of knowing the last couple things I needed I went and got them today.  Finally.  Of course, I still have to wrap everything.  I just couldn't get motivated to do it tonight though.  Actually, after much deliberation I had finally talked myself into making Will's birthday cake tonight instead of tomorrow morning, and THEN I realized I don't have enough eggs to make a cake.  After that my motivation to do anything at all was pretty much shot.  So now I'm in bed with my laptop and some hot chocolate.

In other news, Will is one tomorrow.  ONE YEAR OLD.  The time.  It flies.

You'd think living in the same town as my parents would mean LESS driving at Christmas

Brian and I picked Kari and Amelia up from Denver on Saturday.  That's right, we drove for 4 hours just have lunch, add two passengers to our car, and turn around and come home.  Because we just love them THAT MUCH.  Also my mom watched both our kids, and a whole day without a dirty diaper or a tantrum always sounds pretty good, even if it involves that much driving.

Lunch was extra fun because Kirsta and Joe came with their boys and brand new little Caroline!

Caroline spent the whole time zonked out, which was good because you know, no crying.  Unfortunately it meant no holding the little doll.  Next time!

Jonathan came to see Kari and Amelia off.  He doesn't get to come down until Christmas eve, so we're all hoping for good roads that day!

Of course, it snowed pretty much the whole way while we were driving, which always makes Vail pass extra fun.  It sure does make it beautiful though.  If you've never driven I-70 between Denver and Grand Junction, it's quite the scenic trip.  I definitely recommend it.  Preferably with someone else driving so you can enjoy the scenery.  

Anyway, more family in town tomorrow, Christmas must be getting close!

Siblings: because you can't curl up and go to sleep on your imaginary friend's shoulder.

Welcome, welcome

Well, I'm an aunt again!  My newest niece, Caroline Noel, was born yesterday at 12:39 am.  She weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz and is 21 inches long.  Joe was nice enough to post pictures here.

Looks like someone will get to use that Sagittarius onesie after all.

Just a few quick pictures of Kalena

Here's what she looks like when she's not pathetically sick.

And pointing out her favorite ornament.  It's her first Christmas ornament with Pooh and Piglet.

Technically she's not supposed to touch the tree, but she's just so cute telling me what everything is.

And we all know how I feel about lists

I had many things on my to-do list for today.  Caring for a vomiting child was not one of them.  UNFORTUNATELY, that's what I got to do.  And I'm not sure if you know this, but a vomiting child pretty much takes precedence over all other to-do list items.  There were some upsides, I suppose.  For one thing, it's Saturday which means Brian was home to help.  And he did MORE than his fair share ('cause he's the best.)  Also, it's well before family will be visiting for Christmas, which means plenty of time to recover before my emetophobic sister comes to visit.

Anyway.  I am really, Really, REALLY (really) hoping the rest of us don't get this.  Cross your fingers for us.



P.S.  Emetophobia is the phobia of vomit.  So Kari, now you can sound smart when you tell people you hate throw up!

Yes, yes I *am* a nerd

I discovered thinkgeek.com today.  I've heard of this site before, but I've never checked it out.  And since I could have easily spent everything in our bank account on cool stuff from there, it's probably best that I don't go there too often.  But, I did find one thing that I really, REALLY want.  The nerdy ABC flashcards.  Why those?  Well, because they're awesome obviously, but also because of this explanation card:

And I quote: "if you're a nerd or a geek or heaven forbid a chemical engineer"  HA!  Awesome.

P.S.  If you're missing the part about why I'm so amused, it's because I AM a chemical engineer.  (Or that's what my degree says anyway.)

Story of the day

Today Kalena was asking for her cousins to come over.  First she asked for Espen, then when I told he wasn't coming today she asked for Patrick.  I told her that Patrick wouldn't be coming for awhile because his momma is going to have another baby.  Then I asked if she thought her momma should have another baby (just to see her reaction, NOT announcing or implying anything here.)  She thought about it and looked at me and said, "No. Miss like Busta Bown."  (That's Buster Brown, our nickname for Will.)  I had to laugh at the two year old logic.  She doesn't want another baby because she likes the one we have.  I guess she thought we'd have to trade him in.

Someday, when they fight all the time, I'll read this to her so that she knows that there was a time when she did actually want him around.

It's always the dads teaching kids stuff like this

Brian has taught Kalena to open her mouth and let him spray whipped cream directly into it.  (Can you feel my disapproval through the screen?)  I only realized the other day how much his lesson had sunk in though.  After snacking on crackers with easy cheese (we normally don't have that stuff around, just so you know) I told her we were all done with snack and it was time to play.  All was fine until 15 or 20 minutes later when she picked up the easy cheese from the table, brought it over to me and said, "Miss open her mouth."  And then opened up, wide as she could, ready for me to squirt easy cheese right down her throat.

I did not oblige.

Just one of the MANY joys of living with a two year old

I have a comb/mirror combo that I usually keep in my diaper bag.  Kalena likes to play with it because the comb snaps into the mirror so Hey!  Fun puzzle!  Anyway, she got it out the other day and was playing with it, but when she was done I couldn't find the comb.  I figured I'd come across it sooner or later, but as more and more time passed I started to wonder if the comb hadn't found its way into the trash.  Kalena is generally pretty good about only throwing away trash but you never know.  Anyway, when I found it today I was VERY glad I hadn't spent a lot of time looking for it.  Because here's what you could see when you looked in the fridge:

And here's what I saw when I went to get that last coke at lunch:

Yep, in the soda box, in the fridge.

Pretty sure this is one time when my mom's "clean until you find it" trick wouldn't have worked.  On the other hand, my house would have been sparkling.

I guess JC Penny has no faith in my addressing abilities

After making sure I got the Christmas card pictures taken nice and early, I'm just getting around to addressing them.  I suppose that's better than just getting the pictures done now though.  Anyway, I was addressing them last night, and as I got close to being done I realized that there were more envelopes than cards.  Like, many many more.  I knew there would be a few extras since I asked for a couple in case a messed one up, but this was more than a few.  I counted and found that even though I only have 5 cards left, I have 29 envelopes.  That's 24 extra envelopes.  TWENTY FOUR.  I only ordered 36 cards.  I would have had to screw up two thirds of my cards to need 24 extra envelopes.

So.  Anyone need some 4 X 7 envelopes?

Turns out being at a dinner party with my parents means they can't watch the kids.

We hired a babysitter last night.  It was the first time Will has stayed with someone who wasn't family.  (First time we left Kalena with someone who wasn't family she was 6 weeks old.  Will is 11 1/2 months.  Crazy.)  Both kids did well, or so our sitter told us.  Maybe it was because we left her with a couple of tired kiddos. See?

P.S.  If you don't have family to babysit for you, who do you get?  And how much do you pay them?  Just curious.

I looked through the archives, but I couldn't find anything

I guess I never posted about when Kalena started signing, but I'm *pretty* sure it was before she was a year old.  Will, on the other hand, has been reluctant to start.  We've been signing with him basically since he was born (since we still sign with Kalena quite a bit) and all I've gotten out of him before now were a few (maybe) "more" signs.  But in the last couple days he's signed "milk" several times when he wanted to nurse or was nursing.  I keep hoping that one of these days he'll just up and start signing a whole bunch.  Or maybe "milk" is the only sign he'll ever do.

In the other news "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" is HIGHLY appropriate around here because Will is finally getting his front teeth!  Of course, I'm pretty sure he still won't be able to wish anyone Merry Christmas.  But hey!  Teeth!  And that's all the news around here.

Do you think she really expected him to answer?

Last Christmas Kalena got a Little People nativity.  It was one of the first things we got out this year, and I've been trying to make a point to Kalena that this isn't an everyday toy, it's a special Christmas toy.  One of the things I've been doing is making sure it gets kept out as a display instead of put away with all her other toys, so anytime we're cleaning up toys I help her gather up all the pieces and set it back up on the coffee table.

Being two, she isn't particularly helpful when we're looking for missing pieces, although she does enjoy "helping."  Mostly she likes to say, "Unner a bed?  Noooooo... Unner a chair?  Noooooo..."  But when I ask her where the pieces are she generally just asks me right back.  She tried a different tactic today though.  We were only missing one of the wise men, so I asked her where the wise man was and she responded by wandering from room to room saying, "Hewwo?  Wise man?"

I found him eventually.  In the Christmas tree.

It's December already!

And since it's December I decided we ought to put the tree up.  I got out some of the Christmas decorations last week, but I was waiting on Brian to help me get the tree put up.  (As much as I LOVE real Christmas trees, it's not worth the hassle right now and we already own an artificial tree.)  Then I realized that Brian wasn't really interested in helping me put up the tree (he would have, he just wouldn't have been thrilled about it) so I got it out today while he was at work.

Kalena is in love with all the ornaments, she keeps handing me things and saying, "Dis go onna tree."  She got into the spirit with a Santa hat, but try as I might I couldn't get a good picture of her in it.  She was enthralled with a little music box that plays jingle bells and has a train that goes "roun' and roun'" (that's what she's playing with in the picture.)  She's broken one ornament so far (a glass ball) and the tree isn't even decorated yet, so I'm seriously considering which ornaments will actually be going on the tree this year.  If it's expensive, especially sentimental, or breakable I'm guessing it will be staying packed up.  Bring on the stuffed snowmen and indestructible plastic ornaments!  Also, I think I need some silver garland stuff since I refuse to put tinsel on a fake tree.  I love tinsel, but that stuff is always a mess.  At least with a real tree it all gets thrown out with the tree.

Kalena with Santa hat and music box.

Seriously, you have to take a picture right now?  I'm in the middle of playing with this awesome thing.