Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas eve


I have taken quite a blogging holiday. We have been so busy with my inlaws here and all of the christmas festivities that I have not been on line much. So I am going to start with xmas eve. We have a fairly new tradition of having my Dad, stepmom (Trish) and brother Jake over for dinner. I really like it cuz I dont usually get to see them much over xmas. I get to cook all day long and I really love it. This year was a very yummy year. But my dad couldnt come which was a really big bummer. I LOVE my dad and am a bit of a daddys girl, so I was sad that he couldnt come (he had a bad back). Thankfully, Trish and Jake still came for the dinner. We had so much yummy food. Roasted red pepper dip and cheeses from Trader Joes...if you have never had cambazola cheese before, you need to leave the computer right now and go out and buy some. It is amazingly delish.

We then had a salad course with apple cider dressing.

Our main course was a slow cooked ham that Loren used about 5 different recipes to make in the crockpot. It was awesome, but he doesnt know how he did it! Then cauliflower gratin http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1853962
and Paula deens corn cassarole http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/corn-casserole-recipe/index.html
and yorkshire pudding with sage and bacon and last but not least mashed potatoes...Oh yeah, and then christmas cookies...I am still full.
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Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!

More later, we have been so busy. The boys (and us) have had a wonderful and blessed day. L's mom and dad are here visiting for the week so we have a lot going on. I hope everyone has had a wonderful christmas and not too much snow!
Peace

Sunday, December 21, 2008

xmas party 1

Jacks best friend and Jacks best friends mom.

















d Jacks favorite race car hat.














the boys playing their favorite game of being run over by a giant purple ball. All the boys screamed with delight as L bounced the ball off of them and they would fall down.
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Saturday, December 20, 2008

xmas party 2


Here are the Dads eating at the kiddy table, just like they used to do.














Here is a beautiful gingerbread house that Ryans mom made! The boys (and adults) couldnt wait to start eating it! Pretty and yummy!







Birthday cupcakes
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Friday, December 19, 2008

Busy, busy, busy

This has been quite a week. Trying to finish up xmas shopping, start wrapping, getting gifts ready for work today, baking gifts, loren working late one day, it has been a hectic week. And I am not done yet!!

I will soon be posting pictures of a very fun xmas party we went to last Saturday at Uncle Bill and Auntie Kates. It was the third annual "kid" party. It used to be that we were the kids (me, L, Kates 2 sons and their wifes) but now it is all about the next generation. Jack, his best bud Ryan (Kates grandson), Luke and now Kenzie (Kate's granddaughter). Crazy kids every where. The first year was just Jack and Ryan but I was pregnant with Luke, but we were not telling anyone yet, so i dumped my wine down the bathroom sink to not look suspicious. The next year Luke was added to the mix, but at 4 months old he was not very mobile. This year all boys and a few dads were super rambunctious. Kenzie is just adorable at 10 months and next year will be in the mix with the boys.

Monday, December 15, 2008

New best friend


I woke up this saturday morning to find Jack on the couch watching Bob the Builder. A show that he can watch many, many, many times and he requests it every morning now.

I was amazed to find the cat lying on Jack. He was pretty proud that the kitty wanted to lay on him.

After 3 years of being roughly petted, tail pulled, hair yanked out...T likes to hang out with Jack.

The cat also likes to sleep on Jack bed, tho not when Jack is in it.
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Friday, December 12, 2008

Who's the man

This morning I took Jack to school on my way to work. He always has to have toast cut into soldiers in a baggy to eat in the car on the way to any place he goes in the morning. He is a boy of many habits. As we were pulling out he asked (as he always asks) "butter on it?" I said "yes, butter is on it. Lots of butter. Daddy makes good toast." With out missing a beat Jack says back "daddy a good man". I agreed with him and totally cracked up.

Edited to say that I realized today that it is "Daddy is a good guy" not man, but guy!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Jack speech update

Jack had his almost 3 year old speech assessment. When he turns 3 he no longer qualifies for State services (good thing, cuz everything is being cut in the State) and will move over to the school district for services. He is doing really well with words, speaking and language. The problems are enunciation and social skills. He is really hard to understand and many things sound the same...like bird and boat. His speech teacher thinks that she can really make progress on the enunciation in the next few weeks but the she feels that he needs more social interaction with kids. He freezes up around other kids (execpt Ryan) and does not talk. He does, however, talk to grown ups. I think that he is really, really shy around kids. He is definately talking more and that is very much a relief, but I was/am shy and it is hard to be a shy kid. I hope if we get him more used to kids, maybe that will help. It looks like if he qualifies for services, he will be able to go to speech therapy at SLVE and have a "class" of 3 other kids who work on their speech together. This will start the end of January.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Race car shirt or tractor shirt

These are the options.

Jack will not get dressed if he does not approve of the shirt. And he rarely approves of the shirt. The types of shirts he will wear are race cars or tractor (trucks) or diggers of some kind...occasionally he will go for the dump truck shirt. He is a boy obsessed and I (and Aunt Kate) had to go out and buy him more digger shirts so that he will not wear the same one all week long. Even with his growing pile of car/truck shirts, inevitably the one he wants to wear is dirty. He will pull them out of the laundry, carry them around the house and say that they are not dirty and must be worn. I am afraid that his pre school will think that he only has 2 shirts and turn me in to CPS!

Monday, December 8, 2008

O Chirstmas tree


On Saturday we all bundled up in our santa hats and headed out to the xmas tree lot.


Luke only wore his hat for about 3 seconds...he is not a fan of the hat.


Everyone thought that the boys were adorable and even took a few pictures of them.
They wanted us to stay longer then the 2 minutes that it took us to pick out a tree and pay for it.

The boys were very excited and have not been able to keep their hands of the tree since.
So far, the tree has not tipped over yet or have any balls broken...yet.
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Friday, December 5, 2008

Sort of happy Jack is back...for the most part

Jack is seeming to act much better. Not totally back to happy Jack, but he is heading to 3 years old so we can not expect him to be all that great. He is defiant in many ways, but not always like he was last week. I dont think that the poor guy likes change and we had lots of changes to his routine with the TG holiday. We had a good drop off at school today which always makes me happy.

Luke had his 15 month drs appointment and the poor little guy has a really bad ear infection. The Dr was amazed to see he was acting so great with such a bad infection. I got to see it and everything. It was pretty neat and looked very painful. He put him on antibiotics with the hope that when his ear gets better so will his cough and sniffles that he has had for 2 months... I really hope we can all get healthy for xmas and get some needed sleep! Luke is now on the small side at 21 lbs he is in the 10-25%ile. We are hoping once he feels better, he will be back with his normal exuberant appetite. Typically the kid can eat, unlike the birdy Jack. He is in the 50th%ile for height (I don't remember the number) so that is good. Poor kid took a header yesterday and cut his lip open with his teeth. We are not sure how he did it, but it was really bloody. I dont do well with blood but I think with these boys Im gonna have to get used to it.

Job security at least for a little while longer

I just found out that I will get to stay in my job part time thru May, least I think it is May. I was supposed to start back full time in January. There is no way that I could do that at this point in my life and I was planning on resigning. It is really scary to think about leaving a good job during a resession. I am sure that the UC will not be hiring anyone else any time soon with the way the budget is going so leaving with out thinking there will be opening later on down the line was scary. I am fond of my paycheck, even if it is pretty small. It covers Jack's preschool and gives us a little more of a cushon to live on. I really do like my job and the people I work with are great! We are getting into our busy season which is a lot of work, but I really like it the best.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Awesome Tofu

I made this recipe for dinner on Monday night.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/caramelized-tofu-recipe.html

I used walnuts instead of the pecans since that it what I had on hand.
I don't have a picture of it, but it was really, really good!
Jack and Luke ate a few of the walnuts... boys have been really hard to feed lately.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

merry christmas

Still freaked out about xmas shopping, but looking forward to getting a tree. Luke is looking forward to knocking the tree down, many, many times.

My MIL sent us this neat wreath that sings and sparkles for our front door. The pix does not do it justice. We love it.
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Monday, December 1, 2008

attack of the body snatchers

I do not know what has happened, but some thing has taken away my sweet boys nice dispositions. Happy Jack is now unhappy, miserable and everyone must suffer Jack. Luke has taken to having extreme mood swings from sweet boy to no one can console me as I howl for 2 hours. Needless to say, no one in the our family is happy right now. I hope this "stage" goes quickly...

Happy Thanksgiving


Here are a few pix of our very hectic and fun Thanksgiving.



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