Top 10 of the last few days....

10. The kids are right now inviting me to their first "Garage sale." How much money do you think I should bring with to spend to re-buy the things I've already purchased?

9. Sylvie is telling me "Mommy, when I cough, there is somebody in here (pointing to her neck) and I have to go with Nan to put lotion on." Key point here: with Nan. The other day she went to put the lotion on by herself. A lot of lotion.

8.Logan's nose is so stuffy it's really hard to breathe. He keeps talking about his new McD's toys named "Shep" "Georgia" and "Cooper" and it sounds like another language.

7. We had a 4 am wake-up call the other morning where Logan told us his tummy hurt. Only to spill the contents of his tummy in the tub a bit later. Whew, tubs are easy to clean.

6. And then he spilled the rest of the contents of his tummy on the couch later. Which soaked through the sheet I had so carefully placed on there.

5. He may have caught that tummy bug from Sylvie because she blessed the same couch a few days prior. Twice. And the computer chair. And my face.

4. In a quick bathroom trip Logan decided to reach into the trash can and touch a razor that was thrown away there. And slice his finger. He was upset about the cut. But more upset about the Dora bandaids he was forced to wear. Daddy brought home Sponge Bob bandaids and I haven't heard any "it hurts" complaints since.

3. My husband's office had a big layoff which they called "Black Wednesday." Thank goodness he still has a job. So far.

2. The dog has needed some tune-ups and we got her to the vet. Now she's getting a haircut. Thanks goodness. It will cost more than the haircut I desperately need as well and should really try to fit in this weekend.

1. It's still way too cold for my taste. I am really anxious for spring. But being inside with sick kids, the house has stayed pretty clean. And organized. I think it helps that Logan hasn't wanted to draw all day long. And every linen in my house has been washed. Some twice. Do you think the couch would fit in the washing machine? :)

Glad you could fit us in your schedule....

Playing with "wedgets" (a building toy).

Sylvie: "Which princess should I make next?"

Me: "What about Barbie Fairytopia?"

Sylvie: (sigh) "I don't have time to make Barbie Fairytopia. "

Me: stiffling laughter

Sylvie: "Don't worry Mommy. I will have time tomorrow to make Barbie Fairytopia."

Dinnertime Tips and Tricks

For those with a 3 and 5 year old, feel free to steal any of these. Not all of these happen every night, but when it all works, dinnertime is just so much nicer!

*1 hr. before dinner- get down on the floor and play with the kids for a good 20 minutes. Preheat the oven if needed. Really pay attention and try not to think about dinner.

*30 minutes before dinner, put on a tv show that's about that long and tell the kids you need to cook dinner and when the show is over, dinner is on and tv is off.

*Tell Sylvie she does NOT need a big sippy of milk. Two reasons. One, she won't be hungry for dinner. Two, she'll have to pee during dinner. Which is just one more reason to disrupt dinner. If she insists, she gets a very small amount of milk.

*Have the kids set the table. Usually I call out "Who wants to set the table" and someone volunteers. So the silverware is all heaped in the middle, oh well. I let Sylvie stand on a stool at the silverware drawer and she can climb up and down and carry the stuff to the table in as many trips as she wants. Lets me get the last bits of dinner cooked or on the plates or cooled down.

*TV off. Music on. I find I'm a bit less frazzled if there is some nice jazz playing. So I've started using my cable tuner to get good music on in a few seconds.

*Water for dinner. We use a lot of closed-top cups during the day. I am trying to get the kids to pay attention enough not to knock everything over all the time, so a bit of water in a kid-sized sturdy open cup is good. Plus it reminds me to drink water with dinner too. They can get it themselves from the fridge or I get all of ours at once.

*Please and Thanks. We always said "Grace" growing up. But it feels forced. Logan's preschool says a quick singsong poem before snack and it's become habit in our house. "Please and Thank you are words we say, when we eat together every day." I like it. Plus it signals "settle down and time to eat."

*House rules- no running around, no standing on chairs at the table. If Sylvie is fidgety, she's allowed to stand on her stool at the table, but not on the chairs. Some kids get into this habit, it's hard to break! If it's just the kids and myself, dinner is quick, and they need to stick around until we are all mostly done. They ask permission. If it's a meal with Jorge, I let the kids run off and maybe even turn the tv back on while we enjoy our meal for longer.

*Getting the kids to eat. A few tricks. Asking for food off their plate was a good one when they were little. Right now I just kind of remind them "don't forget to try another bite of soup!" I ask them to show me their muscles or how tall they've gotten because they are eating so good. I used to talk to Logan about being a superhero and how they need lots of fuel from food. Sibling rivalry works. "Look Logan, can I give some of your pasta to your sister, you're not eating it. "

*My favorite current trick for eating is making a new "Food Friend." Logan came home with a sticker from school. Apparently he tried a pickle and since he was brave and tried it, he made a new food friend and was rewarded with a sticker. Now, when the kids get all "what's that!%&*" on me, I mention how they might just make a new food friend and get a sticker. This works better for my 5 year old, but usually by default Sylvie wants a sticker so she'll try the food. I guess you could reward yourself with a sticker if you only have one table-food eating child!

*NO dessert. Dessert after dinner is not a regular thing. Treats happen after lunch or in the afternoon. I've had all too many nights where the chocolate or cookies or even jello have the kids bouncing off the walls. So I prefer to serve treats much earlier in the day. Plus, I used to use dessert as an incentive to get the kids to eat and honestly they start asking "is this enough?" and then an hour later, they are hungry again because they did not eat.

*Don't count on being able to clean up or do the dishes right away. For some reason, the time right after dinner is usually super busy doing all the things I promised I would do while brushing them off during the making of dinner. If I just plan to do the dishes and such an hour or more after dinner is over, I'm not frustrated.

So those are my tips. Feel free to use them!

The everyday mundane

Well I usually have a lot of art supplies on this counter. I managed to clean the counter off except for things like pencils and glue and scissors I like to keep an eye on. I stayed up late to do it. It worked for about 30 seconds.

Check out my table right next to the counter. This is how my kids "entertain" themselves lately. Art projects galore. I swear I clean off this table every 2 hours. And don't get me started on the floor under this table.....the broom and I have a special relationship this year.

Cinderella is her favorite. She likes to call herself "Cinderella". She told my mom the other day "My sister Cinderella...." I'm waiting for the imaginary friend to arrive.

Adorable outfits just ask for photos, don't you think?

He kept moving, but when you have a baby boy, you think of legos and superheroes in your future. Here we have a Transformer shirt and lego creations. :)

Wow we got a lot of snow this go-around! It's still almost all there, thanks to the negative temperatures we had. That sunshine is so deceptive. I didn't think I'd get this pic, I thought the camera lens would fog up first.

Bonus

I got a bonus today:) It was preformance based which is really cool. They expect me to complete work on projects totalling a certain dollar amount based on my salary. Anything I complete over that, I get to keep 2% of the profits. It was a pretty good bonus- about 3 paychecks:) I was super excited!

Of course it's always nice getting a bonus but to me it was a special treat for a few reasons....
1-They cut back everyone's salaries by 10% starting this paycheck but kept the bonus program because basically we are earning so much extra for the company, letting us keep 2% isn't a big deal.
2-Jorge gets bonuses. I wanted mine too!
3-I got stiffed a LOT by never getting even a holiday bonus. One year was a bottle of wine (I couldn't drink at the time). One year I got about $100 max? I dished out $20 of it for a gift for the bosses! And the other years I worked at an office that didn't give bonuses or they let me go before the holidays arrived.

So YES I am proud of my hard work and really happy:) I'm trying to not think of the fact that they take 50% of it away in taxes. UGH!

A spelling milestone...

I must admit I read a friend's blog recently and my mouth dropped when I heard her daughter was spelling out words. And suddenly, this winter has brought an interest/obsession with letters from Logan! So very exciting.

Today he tore off a piece of paper and asked from the kitchen table "Mom, how do I spell dinosaur." Usually he is just asking. But he had a pencil in hand. So I spoke each letter. The only letter I had to demonstrate was the letter "u" and I showed him by tracing it in the air like he likes to do. So he brought the paper over and did really well! The letters were in a row, but backwards and a bit askew. But seriously...HE"S WRITING!!!!! I'm so incredibly proud.

Just now he wrote his own word and asked me what it spelled. It was TDiS. So I said "Tdis" and he said "I wrote 'this'!" Heck, we'll work on spelling. Yes, Logan, for the moment, you are sheer GENIUS!!!! Love this boy!

The Winter Blahs

I read somewhere about mid-January being one of the most popular times for people to take their own lives. The holiday hooplah is over, daylight is too short and the weather is ridiculous in most parts of our country. The news channels get past all the warm and fuzzy holiday news stories and onto the shootings, the failing economy, anything depressing. Preparations for Lent and Easter haven't even begun, spring seems an eternity away. And then throw in St. Valentine's Day being a difficult day if you aren't paired up with your soulmate yet. I can see why it's a tough time of the year.

I'm trying to stay upbeat myself. We are both employed- so far. Though both of our companies have let people go and may/will continue to. My company cut all of our salaries by 10%. I have a few groups of good friends- I enjoy the company of my co-workers, I have a group of moms that I get together with, I've been pretty close to my family and cousins, and my high school friends are still around in my life. The kids are happy and hilarious.

I think things like the recent airplane landing in the Hudson river have a place in our lives. They are there to inspire. Everyone came out of a plane with no engine power that crashed into a river. Alive and mostly unharmed! It reminds me of the earthquake I was in back in 2001. Tuesday was Fat Tuesday and the downtown area of Pioneer Square experienced a lot of looting. People overturning cars, just being obnoxious and destructive. It was all over the news and scary. So the next day, Ash Wednesday, I went to work (in Pioneer Square) and early in the morning there was a 6.4ish earthquake. Since that particular area is "built on garbage" it is not quite steady and it was quite the earthquake ride! Wow it was scary. But what struck me was the reaction after. The news crews were still in the area filming the morning news live in location from the previous looting and we all huddled around their tv's watching the size and extent of the damage. Our building was "red tagged" and we were not allowed to re-enter. There was a woman who had an antique shop in our building and she had spent the night guarding her store. With the earthquake, everything fell off the shelves. She came out crying and we all hugged her.

Very few cell phones were working (the systems were clogged) but those that were, people will willing to share. It was a general commotion of everyone running around checking on everyone else and making sure no one was hurt. Such a stark contrast to the night before where people had been destroying and galavanting and trampling had occurred.

My personal theory is that God decided Seattle needed a good swift kick in the pants to start appreciating what we have and working together. The economy was also failing at the time, and the earthquake brought work to a lot of architects, contractors, etc etc to repair and restore. It was practically the only work in our office at the time I know. So maybe the Hudson river landing was a kick in the pants that while the economy looks bleak and no one has money, life will move on and we just need to work together a bit more. At least I can hope right?!

Woke up this morning.....

And the furnace was OFF. Yes, off. Yes, according to the trib, the current ACTUAL temperature is now -17 degrees (windchill -34!). Yikes! All the heat rose in the house so I was walking down the stairs and Brrrrrr.....even the balusters were cold to the touch! I went to the thermostat and it read 66. Okay, just pop it up a few notches (though it was feeling a lot lower than 66). It went up and then back down. No change in heat turning on.

We turned around and woke up Jorge and we took a look at the furnace. Looked at the signal lights and nothing seemed too off. Turned off the switch at the side and turned it back on.It sputtered and then turned back on full blast. There was one signal light saying "weak flame input".

So my request for today is to think happy thoughts for my furnace that I do NOT have to replace the entire thing and that if anything it needs a tune-up. We do have an HVAC company who comes over every so often to fix and maintain, so it's not like the poor furnace has been neglected. We also have a boiler for our radiant floor for the addition only. That has given us trouble (it's from 1969) but so far the pilot hasn't even needed to be relit (no easy task- it's hard to get to- lay sideways on the floor, hold a button to turn on the gas and light the flame with a propane candle lighter all at the same time).

Heat...we need it when it's this cold!!!!! There is ice on the insides of my (newer) windows for crying out loud!!!!

"We didn't make chocolate cookies...."

We did not make them Sam I am.
We did not make them in the kitchen.
We did not make them on the table.
We did not make them Sam I am.

We did get all excited and found the recipe and I had some fresh whole wheat flour and chips and all the ingredients assembled on the table. That is...all the ingredients except sugar. Yeah, sugar. We were plum out of sugar. Who has a box of random cookie ingredients and is out of all the important stuff?

So I dug through the cabinets and found sweetened condensed milk. You can make ice cream of snow. Ready to wear my "cool mom" badge we got out snow and well, when I went to open the can, it had an expiration date. From a long time ago. So I decided that the evaporated milk might do. I looked it up. Condensed milk basically is evaporated milk wiht sugar in it. Yeah, since we have sugar around, I'll just add some in. So I settled for some fake sweetener and well Logan summed it up "This doesn't taste as good as just snow."

So we're eating chocolate chips alone and some day in the future, we'll be making the BEST chocolate chip cookies ever (with some wheat flower for some "health" factor). I can only dream.

Nonstop Energy!

Where do I get some? The kids have it! And they ate healthy all day! Today we have been home and playing and playing and playing and playing. They are just so full of energy and imagination and bursting to tell stories and be goofy. We've pretended we were at the movies (pretend popcorn eating and all!), painted, and the kids have been just all over the place.



This morning when the coffee kicked in I said "alright, let's play Hotel for Dogs" because that's what Logan had been begging to play. So I plopped down the dogs and vet office. Then Logan says "Let's do Spiderman too." So he brought spidermen to the floor. Sylvie brought her toys. And Abby brought her toy! I felt bombarded with them all talking and playing at once. It was crazy and fun. But goodness I needed a break after awhile!

And don't even get me started on Logan's paper projects. We officially have NO Paper left in the HOUSE!!!! Or tape. Or anything resembling a craft project. This child will run around like a crazy man wrapping "presents", making little tubes he calls telescopes and swords. The new quest is to make "Calendars" where he writes all the numbers and hangs them on a magnet with a hook. It's so cute! It reminds me of a friend whose son used to make "number rolls" writing numbers and taping them together. I dont' dare show him. My friend's little guy was in that habit for years! We might go broke buying paper, but I'm excited to see it:)


Here's a pic of all the things they brought over to play with. Too funny.

Update: This just in, I found his secret stash and he has been secretly taking the extra long paper from beside the computer desk to make extra big guns! Oh boy, how exciting!

(taken in secret from the computer desk between railings)

Oh goody!

Weather Forecast for tomorrow...9 am actual= -7 degrees, feels like -29 degrees

I'm just so unbelievably excited about all this! Can't wait!

Under the Sea.....Sylvie turned 3!

Snow Dog

Yep, you betcha we got a LOT of snow! Nowhere near mountainous, or blizzard amounts. But we got the high end of the prediction for the Chicagoland area. My guess is 8-10 inches at least in the last 2 days. So this is my second round of shoveling, and there was barely an indentation for my first round. Abby the 6 year old dog has never really minded the snow too much, her fur is so thick. She came out with me and was bouncing around like a bunny. It was hilarious. What a cutie pie! I had to wrap her up in a towel and pull snowballs off of her when we got inside.

The backyard shot shows how hard it can be to get to the alley to drop off garbage in the winter. When all those drifts get covered in ice (which could be a matter of days), it's virtually impossible without snowshoes. Fun times! The stairs belong to our neighbors who use their side door instead. This is why I took down our Christmas decorations long ago. And never put any outside. Seems like a good idea when it's 32 degrees and dry. Then snow, ice and below zero weather start making the idea of taking them all down a bit daunting!

Bedtime story...clothing optional

Me:"Once upon a time, there was a bad guy next door, so our neighbors called us and asked us to come get him. We all put on our superhero costumes. Sylvie, what did you put on?"

Sylvie:"Batgirl, no,Ariel, no, my Bride dress."

Me:"Logan, what did you put on."

Logan:"Nothin' " (pouting and not wanting to participate)

Me:"Okay, so mommy and daddy had their costumes on, and Sylvie was in her bride dress and Logan was naked. We all went next door." (Hysterical Laughter) "So we got there and the bad guy said "Woah, why are you naked? and he lost his concentration"

Logan: "So I punched him down!" Yeah!!!!!

No longer pouty, he went to bed picturing climbing the neighbors porch and surprising the bad guy:)

"Playschool"

Sylvie is all signed up for school for the fall. It will be her first of 2 years of preschool before she's old enough for Kindergarten in the public school. She is really excited. She watches Caillou most mornings and he goes to "Playschool", so despite the fact that "preschool" was said about 100 times yesterday by various people, it is officially "playschool" in her mind. I love it. Know what, at age 3, it is all play at school! She will attend on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Should be fun!

Educational Explosion!

We spent Christmas break obsessing verbally about numbers. Numbers of days until Santa arrived. Numbers of presents. Age transitions at holiday birthdays. So back to school now and Logan has gone crazy writing!!!! He sat down this morning and wrote out all the numbers. First it took "practice" and a few rounds of trying. But he did it! He wrote out 1-10 in order. Pretty cool! Yesterday he came home from school with a hat where he wrote out "Happy New Year!" with an exclamation point and all. I'm sure he copied it from a paper they had with the letters on it, but he insisted he did it himself and I am so proud of him!

Then he decided to be an author like Caillou and make a book. He drew pictures and hole punched the pages and we helped him tie them together. He now has a superhero book! In true little sis form, Sylvie had to find a reason to interrupt too much attention from big brother. If you notice, the one superhero has a bump on his head that he uses to bang his head against other bad guys. Please excuse our mess! The computer desk manages to catch everything.

Overheard....

Logan: "Can I play the game with you?"
Sylvie: "No"
Logan: (teary) "But I'm your big brother....."

Sylvie:"Spiderman, will you marry me?"
Spiderman/Logan: "Okay" (holding hands facing each other)
Together:"Here comes the bride....nuh nuh nuh nuh.....
Logan: "Let's go get the bad guy! " "Yeah!"
That's what I call a shotgun wedding!

Happy Birthday Sylvie!

You make our lives wonderful.

You sing all day long. Whether we listen or not.

You love to be "nudie bagudies" or in costume.

You adore your big brother, your family, and your dog.

You won't let anyone in your room, but insist on being in your brother's room at all times.

The Disney Princesses are your idols, but you get excited about Dora. You insist on at least 2 episodes of Caillou, "princess milk" and a blanket on the couch to start each day properly.

You want to be my little helper and dissolve into tears if I say no.

You cry if mommy isn't there when you wake up. You cry when you have to leave grandma. You cry when the mermaid song is over.

You smile and laugh and bounce to your heart's content when your favorite songs are playing. Or when someone is making you laugh. You love to have fun.

You light up our lives:) Happy Birthday little Sylvie Alecia who is now 3 whole years old!!!!!

Oh, and you are really not a morning person. But our family tradition is to do presents and muffins on birthday morning. So we kept with tradition. And you decided to dress up for the occasion.:)

New Dolly