Chaos and Fascination . . .

I am seriously thinking our mornings can't get any more chaotic than they were today. E threw one of his all out tantrums this morning because the couldn't find a particular fleece! NICE... I just hate starting our mornings like that. Nothing seems to help it and it just upsets everyone. I think most of the time he is tired, plus once he "gets to that spot" I don't think he really knows how to stop it, how to calm himself down and well I'm not sure how to teach him that lesson either! So hoping we wake up to a happy go lucky boy in the morning!

On a more positive note - - My baby girl got an award at Mass today. She was given the Peacemaker award from her pre-school teacher. She was soo excited for her award; not so excited about the mass part of it. We are working on that. We don't get too much of a fight on Sunday mornings, but she sure likes to complain about Wednesday school mass. Says she doesn't like it and it lasts too long! =) Sorry honey .... it is a part of your school week! Try to enjoy it! I so wish the one picture wasn't soo blurry. . . can you see the smile on her face?

We are really good friends with her teacher... Bella was going in to kiss her on the cheek! =)

     

Talking about me now... Tonight I finished day# 6 of hula hooping. I was able to get 30 minutes in. I did get my "run" in on Tuesday (yesterday) and I am seriously really enjoying myself. I have never been a jogger or runner of any kind, but really proud of myself for setting this goal (running a 5k) and really feeling like I can accomplish my goal. Matter of fact I know I can accomplish it. Isn't that the positive attitude you are supposed to have! I ended up at our local riverfront park and there were only a few people around and a little foggy. It was actually quite pretty jogging along side the river and being able to look out across the water!

Tomorrow (Thursday) is supposed to be the start of Week 2. Todd started one "day" after me, so trying to decide if I will try W2D1 (Week 2 Day 1) or just repeat W1D3 again. I barely felt "comfortable" in the 60second jog (boy does that sound like soo little time) but I'm very anxious to keep moving forward.

It almost sounds pretty silly to say since I haven't only been doing this a little over a week, but this morning I could totally see how people look forward to working out or how they enjoy it. I am very much an emotional eater, depressed, sad, happy, mad, bored....any emotion! Yet on the way to drop off the kids at school this morning I actually thought about how nice it would be to go for a nice run/walk right now. Instead of running thru a drive thru, it was like too bad I can't just drop them off and head to the park! I am really hoping this is a trend that continues and that I can stick with it!

A handful of blogs that I follow do this WORDLESS WEDNESDAY. I definitely am not wordless today or most days either, but thought I would share one more picture! Bella got too close to brother the other night while he was playing his DS and we think he pushed her back when she wouldn't move on her own. One of them most had one of the DS stylus in their hand because it left two little "cuts" on her cheek! So Monday she came home from school with a bandaid across her face! She really wanted to just keep wearing it. How cute is she!!!

Okay way too much to read today ...Sorry folks!

Day 4 (1-25-10)

Last night I finished day 4 of hula hooping. Very excited to be doing it. I mean I don't hate it, it doesn't bother me to stand there and do it and watch my shows on TV. This morning I even got up and did it, but lets just say it is a little harder to do first thing in the morning. I kept dropping it, but did get about another 15 minutes in total . . . Tonight I will be doing Night 5 while watching The Biggest Loser.

At some point today I need to do another day of my C25K and get the oil changed in the car! Still lucking out and haven't had to do it in the pouring rain. Even showed Todd how to run my iPod last night so he can still do it this morning too!

So nothing amazing this morning, but did find this nice little treat on one of the blogs I read. So if you are a digital scrapper this is a great little template. It can be found (and downloaded) HERE at the SSD  blog.

Well that is it for this morning off to get myself and the kids ready for the day!

Where to start?

So again I have abandoned my blog.... seems like life speeds up and it gets forgotten (Plus it is super easy to put tiny updates on Facebook)! I'm hoping to at least be able to update a couple times a week. I love reading everyone else's, but so not sure how Melissa keeps up with her blog so well! Since it has been so long I'm hoping it doesn't get too long tonight. Just hoping to touch on a few things!

So over time I will add a few good holiday and favorites from the last couple months. Lets' see it is mid January... Thanksgiving and Christmas and Ethan's birthday have all passed. OMG my first born is 7! Guess what... We are bad parents. He has talked about a a birthday party, but hasn't gone on and on about it so well we haven't planned one. It is just so hard right after Christmas and well I like to procrastinate. He hasn't brought in up at all this past week so I think I am going to push for a 1/2 birthday party in late spring or first thing after school gets out! He didn't really want to go out somewhere and have it and well the idea of having a bunch of boys (plus some girls and most likely some parents too) running around our house... just didn't sound that great!

I did get two pages scrapbooked the other night. It has literally been months since I had done any scrapping. (It really hasn't stopped my digital scrapping though). I did just buy this great HUGE KIT called ONE LOVE to benefit Haiti. I think I might have bought it for the premade pages alone. They look great!

I guess Boys will always be Boys... I want to be better about setting up the tripod and getting more family pictures. I got a few of all the grandkids with my parents, but not everyone that was at my parents house (that will be the next step) I did manage to get one at the in-laws...I tell myself it was because there were "lots" more people at my parents house LOL... it was just us four and the in-laws =) See now it is my written goal! Okay enough jabber onto the layout. Both of the boys had to "show off" and flash their mugs right in front of the camera!

Credits: Janet Phillips Collection# 10, LO# 2, Lauren Grier Shawna Clingerman Own It

Yeah for me it is still January and I got my first layout of 2010 done!! I sure love this boy, but man the last month or two he has been in super fine form and the temper flares and the crying and tantrums come! Slowly ever so slowly we are working through them. Trying to keep our cool and trying to "hold" him as much as possible. Enough of that... Here is my boy on his birthday in his new Tony Hawk hat (his newest fascination--Tony Hawk that is!)  

credits: Janet Phillips Keep it Simple 1-1, Melissa Bennett Love Actually, Font: DJB Gimme SPace

So have you made your news year resolutions? Well I finally did . . . yes the standard lose weight and get in better shape. It is something that I have been thinking about for a while. Love my parents and they were super  generous and bought me an iPod Touch for Christmas and lets just say I am loving it! So last week I finally put it to "real" use (I've been using it like crazy, already read a few books on it, played with my email and facebook on it.... just need to see about getting wi-fi at home =), but finally used it for the music part of it. Over the last couple of weeks I bought some new "workout" clothes, bought an arm bad for the ipod, downloaded a Couch to 5k (c25k) program. Here is the "actual" program: Couch to 5K and here is the download I am using right now. I might look into a different one, where I can use my own music. His music is okay and pretty upbeat...plus I do like right now how he is like YOU ARE DOING GOOD, 20 more seconds LOL....  =)

So this C25K program is only 9 weeks, but I think I will end up stretching it out a little bit longer. Actually I did some looking back through my pictures and realized that the 5k my family (my parents, older sister and her oldest daughter) walked last year I am thinking I will have to run it this year.... Thankfully it is in June, so I have plenty of time to be ready.... I remember last year we walked it and pretty much came in next to last...Not this year! Plus I think I have the hubby involved too (I think he is even borrowing the iPod on Tuesday so he can run and stay w/ the program too!)

So right now trying to eat healthier, making myself stick to my C25K program and after reading an online friend talk about her weighted hula-hoop ... I bought myself one too. Andrea said she lost INCHES after a short period of time! I bought it a couple months ago and just this past week I finally GOT IT... meaning I can finally keep the hula hoop moving with out dropping. Earlier last week it was 3 minutes, then Saturday night I got it going for 7 minutes a couple times and then just tonight I had it going for 21 minutes with out dropping it to the ground! So very excited about that! I could definitely tell that I did it for 20 minutes. I wasn't sure what to really expect at first. It did hurt at first (never any bruising though) ... it no longer hurts to physically do it, but I can feel the leg and stomach muscles working as I'm doing it though. My goal is to do it for 20 minutes a day thru February (if not for longer)!

Speaking of Andrea...I know her from the adoption message board I frequent and then from facebook. Lets just say she is a HUGE inspiration to anyone trying to get healthier and lose weight. Oh and she is beyond brave... check out her blog... start back at the "end" so you can read her whole story! ANDREA'S BLOG!
So be warned.... there might be a lot of life style change posts, excercise updates and fun goodies like that! Now I don't think I am as brave as Andrea and don't worry... no pictures! Heck I don't even know if I am brave enough to post my weight yet... Just know there is LOTS to lose!

I think this got long enough for a new updated post!

All about Bella

Seems these days it has been all about Bella. Actually maybe not all about her, but I've got some great pictures of her lately. Love this series of pictures of her. My parents brought back this "dress" from Cabo on one of their annual trips. She can now wear it with her jeans! I love this look...now to keep convincing her that she can wear jeans; that every outfit that she wears does NOT have to be a dress!

So this past week Bella said she wanted her ears pierced! Well I heard it and ran with it! I wasn't going to let it pass me by this time. Friday after she got out of preschool we headed to the mall. We (the Claire's employee and I) decided that it would be best to do both ears at the same time so we had a little time to kill before the other employee showed up. I had wore my heels and my feet were killing me. (I spent my morning taking photos of all the kids at school (well 85% of them, another mom took some too). Here are the ones I took of E and Bella.

Okay back to the ear piercing. So we were killing time and since my feet were killing me I sat down on a bench in the mall and this is what Bella did.....I guess every girl dreams! Bella is just starting early!

So once the other Claire's employee showed up we got the show on the road. She did GREAT until they actually pierced her ears. Even then the tears welled up and a few might have escaped, but there was NO screaming and no real crying. Just saddness!

So here is Bella right before the piercing...she doesn't even realize what is coming and YES we did tell her it was going to hurt...only for a minute though!

As they get ready to count to 3 for the actual piercing.

See the hand coming up... the piercing has started!

The aftermath....As soon as they were done and out of the way, she was in my arms with tears in her eyes, never a real cry, but the poor baby....it hurt her! I took her to look at her ears and well she just wanted her comforts...her thumb and blanky!

Now she was all smiles when we walked out of the mall with in 10 minutes of "it happening"  ....

Now the poor thing, we have to clean her ears at least 2 times a day (the directions say 3, but I can't subject her to that). I was cleaning them the Saturday night and she says to me betweens cries and tears, "This is NOT the best part!" Bless her heart. She just has to get past this and it will become another obsession for her....Earrings of every kind!

A close up of her earrings for the next at least 6 to 8 weeks! I can't wait until she can change them and put all of the Disney princesses in and tiny circles as she calls them.... Soon enough!

Wish me luck... I'm off to clean her ears! Nothing like starting her morning off on a bad note!

Face Crash# 2

So it is never a good thing when the school calls you. I was walking through Target today and my cell phone starts ringing! So Ethan had his second run in between his face and the pavement! The pavement won this round too. Maybe I'm a softy, but as his teacher got him out of music class so I could see him (I said I would stop by since I was out n about), he walked out of the music room with a iced sponge held up to his head. It looked soo sad and I was squatting down to see him when he came out and he walked right into my arms, laid his head on my shoulder and just said how bad it hurt. I asked him if he was OK and got a mumbled yeah, but he said he wanted to come home....so what was I to do? Call me a softy...I brought him home with me!

Not sure if you can really see it here.... but it scraped up his forward pretty good and his nose too (our right side). Check out those eyes... he is soo tired!

Here is Ethan from the first pavement fight:

After this one I did take him to the Dr. to have him looked over (and he did get a pretty thorough once over), but the Dr. said with the front of the head it is pretty tough and to watch him for the first 24-48 hours... Watch for odd behavior (way out of the norm), vomiting etc.... Thankfully then and now there has been none of that!

Snack Mix

Ethan has his moments of anger and frustrations, but part of the real Ethan loves to be helpful, loves to be close to us and loves when he has a sense of accomplishment! I have been looking at some cookbooks and those little 5"x8" themed cookbooks. I found a bunch of snack mix recipes and thought this one would be perfect for Ethan

It is technically called Santa's Snack Mix, but um well it is pretty perfect for anytime. Here is the recipe:

2C Honey Nut Cheerios
2C Chow Mein Noodles
1C Honey Roasted Peanuts
1/2C Raisens
1/2C M&M's (we added another 1/4C or 1/2C, not sure which one Ethan put in)
1/2C Peanut Butter Chips
1/2C Vanilla or White Chocolate Chips (we used white Chocolate Chips)
1/2C Chocolate Chips
-----and Mix all together.

Here are a couple pictures of Ethan making the mix

and the snack mix (before Ethan stirred it all up)

Here is what the picture looked like in the cookbook (and pretty much what it looked like once Ethan stirred it all up!)

Ethan was pretty excited to set some aside in a bag for his snack at school tomorrow and some for his teacher! Guess what Ethan will be making for the holidays LOL (okay maybe we will pick a new one to bring for the holidays!)

Bella and Ronan...

So little Miss Bella has a new friend in preschool, his name is Ronan! Adorable little boy and soo full of spunk! A week or so ago when we went to the School Open House and well they happen to be in the preschool classroom the same time we were. Well Bella was playing somewhat bashful and wasn't talking to anyone and so Ronan gets right in her face and was like, "IT'S ME RONAN!" It was simply the cutest thing ever!

Bella had her first real School party... Halloween. I was able to sneak down there for 45min to an hour. Long enough to snap a class picture and a few of Bella (and her classmates. Take a look at these of Ronan and Bella. (from tidbits I've got from the teacher... they do quite a bit together! Hold hands, play kitchen, play dolls... and Bella is very quick to remind us that Ronan is allergic to peanuts! =)

I'm not sure why she is covering her eyes, but it was super cute to watch her follow him around the room.

Do you think Bella could get any closer to him?

Oh and every time I drop her off at school, if Ronan isn't already in class then Bella asks (multiple times) "Is Ronan coming today?"

Christmas Shopping has begun!

So I have slowly started picking up a few Christmas presents for the kids already. Sometimes it feels like they are really easy to buy for and other times I am not even sure what to get them.... but it never fails they have way more than they need come Christmas morning! So far lots of books: 


For Ethan:
The Harry Potter Boxed Set (paperback)
Fudge Collection (well I think this is the set, that is all I wrote...it was a scholastic book order to benefit the school and threw away the paperwork)
Magic Treehouse# 39 Dark Day in the Deep Sea
The Lego Book
Lego Starwars: The Visual Dictionary


For Bella:
The Kissing Hand
I Love School
The Mixed Up Alphabet
Llama Llama Red Pajamas ($1 deal)


Well after typing it out it seems like a lot of books so maybe they won't all be given to the kids for Christmas, but they would make a great present/treat after a really good week or something of that nature, plus Ethan has a birthday coming up in January too!


Oh and I also got Charlotte's Web for all the nieces and nephews just because I love the story and it helped it was a $1 deal too. So guess what they are all getting for Christmas too!  =)


I just picked up this Chess game for Ethan.... He doesn't play yet, but I think he would really enjoy it and I love how the pieces are labeled for beginners (mom and dad included).

I told my parents that Ethan needed a tie rack to hold all of his ties and a funky cool tie tack (told the in-laws a tie tack too, but told them like a letter E or something...)

I did suggest this Barbie for Bella

Ethan again is usually pretty easy... um LEGOS! I love how you can "pick a brick" as they call it and just simply choose only the pieces that you want to buy! People are always a fun purchase, and OMG you can buy food! There is another Lego book I think Ethan would love... I saw it in the school library a couple weeks ago, so I need to find that one again, maybe that would be a good birthday present...

Bella can always use a new skirt/dress that twirls (has to be something that twirls when she turns), baby dolls, Barbies and play food are always a hit....

I'm sure the list will continue to grow as it gets closer!

HAPPY SHOPPING and pass on any ideas you may have!

Bella visits the pumpkin patch...

Bella was so excited to go on her first field trip. I woke up with her giggling in my face and she very excitedly announced it was PUMPKIN PATCH DAY! It gets better, when I told her she got to ride on the little mini school bus the school has she screamed with joy and hugged my neck ever so tightly! I love that happiness and pure excitement!


Bella has done so well in school. It has taken her a few weeks to realize that Miss K is her teacher and not just her friend that comes over for dinner with her daughter! She likes to play a lot, so having to sit down and actually work isn't always on the top of her list, but we are soo proud of what she is already learning! The last couple of weeks she has been spelling her name, finally she spelled it all right, in the right order! She was so excited that it was her turn to spell, you see we are always asking Ethan his spelling words in the car and at home, or we will simply ask Ethan to start spelling words that we think up as we are driving! (video coming soon... it has been taken just not uploaded to the computer).... 


So enough rambling onto the most important part... the pumpkin patch pictures!


After picking out their pumpkins and apples they got to have warm donuts and cider.

I have the cutest class photo in front of a wagon with beautiful fall flowers on it, but well with the whole class in it, I really can't post it.... but I can post these photos of Bella getting ready to leave the pumpkin patch on the bus. She was having the best time....

I just love that last photo I wish I had some great story behind it, but I think she was just being who she is!


Ethan goes on Thursday and we are hoping to go as a family too before Halloween so we will see how that works itself out!


Happy October!

Ethan lost another tooth!

Ethan has now lost his 2nd tooth. I think the only bad part is that for both of them the adult tooth is already coming in and it forces the baby tooth to really start "leaning" and it is essentially being forced out of his mouth. It hasn't caused any him any "extra" pain beyond the normal losing your teeth pain. 

He lost his first tooth while on vacation this summer. Very surprisingly Ethan has let Dad pull both of his teeth with out much fuss!

Here is the before picture. Actually it was taken the night before his tooth was pulled... We even tried putting a little baby Anbesol on his gums and well after hollering that it was spicy (is it really spicy or is that an effect of it being too old) oops!

So after putting on the Baby Anbesol dad tried pulling his tooth, well as you can see (or maybe not) but lets just say the tooth didn't come out! Not sure if you can see Bella there in the background, she is laughing her head off, I'm snapping away with pictures, Dad is trying to pull Ethan's tooth and well Ethan himself, we never could decipher if he was laughing/giggling or screaming....it was quite comical!

Night# 2 was the winner...look at his slightly toothless grin! Someday I hope he will lose a tooth with out an adult tooth already coming in... I want to see a true toothless grin! Either way he is soo excited to being losing his teeth! Also they are keeping track at school on these jumbo teeth...he got to be the first one to lose a tooth in October! =)

Two Word Poem about ME by Ethan

So Ethan had an assignment in school to write six lines with each lines can only contain two words. Now this was something he did in school and each Tuesday they send home all of their paperwork since the last Tuesday. I guess I should say that the two word lines were supposed to be about themselves.

So with out further ado here is Ethan's (just like he wrote them on his paper):

Math stinks
beavers rule
lice games
lice swimming
Watch transformers
draws well


P.S... those are LIKE not lice up there!

I love it though it is soo him, I love that I can tell no one told him what to write or say, he thought it up on his own and wrote it all down on his own (aka the miss spelling), But this is who HE IS at 6 and 1/2 years old.

Blue Shirts, Blue Bruises!

I found the I HEART FACES BLOG  a couple weeks ago and missed entering the challenge for last week, but looks like I might make this weeks challenge BLUE! So sad to say it is NOT a brand new photo, I am reviving a photo of Ethan from school last year. (Hopefully that doesn't make a difference in the challenge, I'm sure new photos are always best, but I just love this one!)

I think the blue in his shirt pops in this photo and then if we want to be a little symbolic LOL the big goose egg on his head is turning black and blue right before our eyes!


P.S. Edited blog post to add that on this weeks challenge, Week# 38 Blue I am #459 Blue Shirts, Blue Bruises! Happy picture viewing!

Tinkerbell Sleeps

Some days I just think the days whiz on by me (us). Between drop offs and pick ups it seems like we are always on the move. Today wasn't any different. Miss Bella and I both had a busy day (me...helped the kids with school pictures even though it all ran pretty smooth; I gained a couple quick volunteer hours) and Bella had a busy day of school, lunch at Burger King, home to watch Swan Lake for I swear the hundreth time and then of course a nap. I was able to transport her to the car and she stayed asleep.....so Little Miss Tinkerbell had a nice nap... that is until brother got in the car. It all worked out since we had to make a pit stop at the grocery store!

(And mom I was stopped at a light so NO I wasn't driving and taking photos)

I keep telling myself I will be better about posting so I'm working on a first day of school post with lots of photos and a summer reading post from Ethan. He was a super reader this summer!

My Baby Girl is in Ballet (and turnips)...

Oh how quickly the time between posts... still have a ton of photos to share! I am thinking I will just have to jump around a bit and post as I can.

First my baby girl has been talking about taking Ballet for over a year now (yes seriously) so we finally decided to sign her up (runs like the school year does). She goes once a week for 45minutes. So two weeks ago we were pumping her up to take her first ballet class, we talked about how mommy will wait in the waiting room (soo bummed that we don't get to sit in and watch). We are on the way there and I decide to look at the packet of information (yes I know I shouldn't be doing this while driving) and notice that it says it ENDS in about 20minutes from then. I hurry and call them and make sure of what time the class starts and stops and yup I so very much screwed up Bella's first ballet class. So I hurry us over there and they let her get in on the last 10 minutes of class. Poor girl she was soo confused as to why she didn't get to "dance" longer. I kept explaining to her how sorry momma was and that next week it would be all better.

Thankfully I don't think she will be traumatized by this experience and seemed to really enjoy herself on her 2nd day (granted she had a cold and sure wanted her Momma to take her instead of Daddy) but all ends well.

Here are the photos I snapped after her 10 minutes of ballet class. As you can see she wasn't too happy.

Of course we can't leave the boy out of the picture....

Last year in Kindergarten Mrs. M read a great little story about turnips (no I don't have the name), but she said every time she reads the story she also has the kids eat fresh/raw turnips. Surprisingly the kids always love it, Ethan included. So of course he wanted to plant some in our small little garden. Here is the fruits of his labor:

They weren't perfect (had to cut quite a bit off of them), but we were able to eat a little bit... I guess all in all I would call it a success!

My Dream....

First of all I love this photographer and the photos she takes: Andrea Burns now just too bad she isn't anywhere close to me....

I have followed her for quite some time and she just redid her basement into her photo studio...ahh if I could ever clean out my "craft room" could it at some point look anything like this: Andrea's new studio.

Now speaking of photos... I have soo many to share and so much that has happened in the last few weeks. We went on a 2 day vacation to the beach, our local state fair, Ethan started first grade, Bella started preschool (both with minor homework), I am doing some part time work at a daycare to fill in for a friend, Ethan is playing soccer and Bella has started ballet. So needless to say we are back to our regular busy schedule!

Here is a photo of both kids....because well a blog post is so much funner with photos.

Miss Bella!

Mr Ethan!

I just love my babies! =)

and well how could I not post this video of Bella singing a song she learned at school....(hoping to get a little bit better video later...this one was taken with my phone)