Daddy's Home!

I got a surprise Friday mid-morning. Mark called asking what I was up to for the day. My plans consisted of feeding the kids, cleaning, and laundry. Mark had a better idea...drive to Grand Rapids and pick him up! He was given a California run (the best kind, lots o'miles) and it did not load until Sunday afternoon. So I rushed everyone into their winter gear and we drove to pick him up. Henry was so pleased. He has asked me everyday if we were gonna pick up daddy.

This morning we grocery shopped. We also stopped at Dick's Barber Shop to get Henry a hair cut. The gent that cut his hair said he was the best behaved kid :-) Truthfully...Henry is just in it for the sucker they give out when done.

You can kinda see Henry through the window getting his hair cut.

Tomorrow is going to be a draining day. We have to leave by ten to take Mark back to work then turn around for the drive back. That's least five hours in the car and I am pooped at the end as are the kids. But it was nice for the kids to have daddy home again so soon.

Through the kindness of others

Yesterday started off as a bad day. Irene got up 40 minutes early. Both she and Henry have colds. She was in one of those annoying whining modes and I was less than graceful with her. (Joan-I am trying to find grace in small things now too...thank you :-) We had spilled cereal three times and a number of melt downs (not all mine). After the kids were down for naps I was doing that fun bill paying thing when the mail came. One letter...from the landlord. I groaned, we never get good letters from landlords (have had a REALLY A$$H*!# one). BUT this landlord is a true gentleman. He wrote thanking us for January's rent and that since the economy is so crappy he is taking 70 dollars off our rent for the next two months. Yes! He is LOWERING the rent!!! In April the rent will only go back up 20 dollars. That means we'll still be paying 50 dollars less than the originally agreed upon rent! I love this guy! My hubby said we needed to find out his birthday and send him a gift :-) And just so you can understand what a great deal we have...we rent a house, the entire thing, no upstairs or downstairs neighbors. Four bedrooms and a lot of space downstairs. Living room, office, big eat-in kitchen, and dining room that we use as the playroom. We really do get a great deal and our landlord is a great guy and we are able to save our pennies for college funds, vacations, and future home ownership.

The best part of all this happening was that Mark and I have been throwing around the idea of moving closer to Grand Rapids. There is a small town about twenty minutes from G.R. that is about the size of the town we live in now. All this week I have been doing research on the place and trying to get a feel for rents. I wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do and I didn't want to leave my mom alone up here. Not to mention my kids LOVE her...oh and I might miss her company too. Crazily the rents in this small town are at least double what we are paying now. Plus it would be an apartment and we wouldn't have half the space we have now. Taking all this into consideration I decided to leave it in God's hands and asked for what would be best for our family. I kinda took the 70 dollar drop in our rent to be my answer ;-)

The kiddies playing on the stairs in the snow outside our place. Burrrrr!

I have to send a thank you to Shannon for finding this place for us! And I apologize for all the smiley faces and ....

Can You Spare A Tissue?

Colds, colds, do you want a cold? No? I have plenty to spare. Henry has a cold. Lots of sneezing, sore throat, and runny nose and eyes. Roo doesn't seem to have a bad one but she did take it upon herself to sneeze on my mouth yesterday. Gotta love kids! Today my eyes are burning like crazy and I am a bit stuffed up as well.
My mom came over for dinner last night and lunch today. I suspect she'll be back for dinner since I think I invited her...didn't I? Kinda hard to think and keep things clear today. I am so tired and my throat is starting to hurt. I am making spaghetti tonight if I can stay awake long enough!
Do you hear that? That is the sound of my mommy alarm...Roo is doing her siren screech. Gotta go!

A Weekend With Daddy

I have been totally exhausted from this weekend. A weekend that ended far too quickly! Thursday afternoon we drove to Grand Rapids to pick up Mark. My mom went with us because we were meeting Matt, Kaye, Eric and my dad at Chuck E Cheese's for dinner. Had fabulous roads, not a flake of snow!!! Irene took a short nap in the car and Henry fell asleep about ten minutes before we reached Mark. Marky got the kids each a little gift. He gave Irene a teddy bear wearing an "I love Virginia" sweater and for Henry it was a Mercedes. Ha! Not a real one!

We drove to Grandville to the Rivertown Crossings mall. Everyone was hungry so we stopped at Olga's Kitchen for soup and those yummy snackers. I had the white bean chicken chili. Very good! I highly recommend it. Mark had the broccoli cheese soup. He is very finicky about his broccoli and usually has a (sometimes well deserved) complaint about it. This time he LOVED it. Overall it was a very good lunch. After lunch we went to KB toy store. They had a handful of items left in the store since they were going out of business (and on Sunday they were completely closed). We got the kiddos each a fireman hat and picked one up for Eric too. Then we left the kiddies with my mom at the play area and went to Yonkers to pick up some Christmas gifts for Matt/Kaye and my Dad. I knew what I wanted to get them so it was a fast trip in. And they were having a huge sale!

We still had some time to kill before meeting up for dinner. Stopped at Meijer, Dollar Tree, and... well I can't remember if there was anyplace else. Finally we gathered at Chuck E Cheese's. Gave out the Christmas gifts which everyone said they loved. We ordered pizza and salads and got ready to play. The pizza there is not good and my kids want to play then eat cold pizza later, hence the late lunch. I had planned on taking a bunch of pictures since we were getting together to celebrate Eric's first birthday but I only took two. WoooHooo. Found out that Eric and Irene weigh the same, 23 lbs. Irene is 20 months old...Eric is 1. Just found that funny ;-) We had a very good time with the family. I wish we could have gotten together for a longer period. We left at 9pm and had a two hour drive home. Oh and the kids got these light up wands that blink, flash, change colors so we had a techno light display in the car on the way home.
Cousin Eric....Mr. 1 yr. old

Friday was just a day. The kids enjoyed having Daddy home. My mom got us Chinese for dinner. That was super yummy. But dinner was spoiled by Mark and Henry having a disagreement over something. I guess Mark told Henry to go to his room. Instead he came to me. I let him sit on my lap but I did not comfort or tell him Daddy was wrong. I was just letting him quiet down. I looked at Mark and he was okay with this and everything would have been fine but my mother decided to make an issue of it. Seems she felt I was being a bad mommy (again) and had to point it out (again). So I made Henry get down and I went to do laundry. When I came back up Roo and I went on the computer to play with the cat on my blog. Mark was in the living room with my mom but she decided to leave in a huff saying that she was left all alone in the living room. I mentioned that Mark was out there...the room isn't that big. She left anyway and has not called me since. That's right boys and girls...haven't heard from her since Friday. But with sooooo many other things/problems/stresses I don't feel like playing this game anymore, but that is something I will tackle in another post soon.

Saturday we went to Wal-Mart! Yippee! We bought a bunch of household items and checked out prices on TVs. Also had a really bad lunch at Big Boy. Bad as in the food was made poorly. Yuck. Found out Mark was going to have to leave the next day since they had a run for him. I was hoping to keep him here until Monday :-(

Sunday morning I was feeling "wifely" and made a big breakfast for us. Made eggs with chopped up salami, green olives and cheese. It is way better than it sounds! But not healthy at all which is why we don't make it often. Then we packed up and were on the road at noon. Mark wanted to have a late lunch at Olga's Kitchen again. It was good but the waiter wasn't which kinda spoiled it. We stopped at the merry-go-round for a quick ride then took Mark to his truck.


Henry on the merry-go-round. Roo refused to look at me so no picture.

By the time I was once again on the road for home Henry was coming down with a cold. He sneezed the entire two hours home. After every sneeze he would say he needed hot cocoa. So cute! Luckily we had good roads again and made it home before 6:30 pm. The days are getting longer (!!!) and only twenty minutes of the ride was in the dark.

Now we are back to the old routine and I am contemplating our future and what is best for this family. Stressful? Yes indeed. But that is a whole other post.

Tomorrow, Tommorrow...

Yesterday was an interesting day. I can't recall ever really watching an inauguration before. I must say this time it was rather difficult to watch with the children playing, yelling, fighting, screaming. Every time someone started talking one or both kids would howl. Craziness here. My mom came over for a quick lunch and to watch with me. With the volume on the tv turned up we watched Obama be sworn in as President!
I wanted the children to watch but at their age they were not that interested. In fact the only time Irene calmed down was when Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman were playing. I can't blame her...I love Yo Yo Ma too. Is it too soon to start her cello lessons?! My cello dwarfs her...think we'll have to wait a bit yet.
I am happy to report that tomorrow we'll be heading down to pick up Marky! Yippee! It has been three weeks AGAIN! My mom is also going with us and we are going to meet up with Matt, Kaye, Eric, and my dad for dinner. Since we missed Eric's party (damn snow) we are going to give him his gifts at dinner. Surprisingly Matt has chosen Chuck E Cheese's for dinner. I picked out four restaurants we could eat at that where family friendly. Chuck E Cheese's was not on the list and yet we are meeting there. My kids love that place but they do not eat there...they eat cold pizza at the hotel later. Oh well...it will be a fun time for all so I am not concerned.
It is not suppose to snow tomorrow...pray that it doesn't!!! (thanks! :-) )

Disappointment

Today is the day of my nephew's first birthday...and we are not there :-( The weather yesterday was terrible. We got at least of foot of snow and the roads were never plowed. It is a three hour drive to get to Matt's house and we would have to have left at 9am. Last night we had tentatively decided not to go but if the weather was better in the morning we would try. Of course this morning it was snowing again. The Weather Channel said we were not getting snow which made us laugh because huge flakes were tumbling down like crazy. We debated it as the snow piled up outside. I talked to my hubby who was in the state last night and left it this morning. The roads were terrible for him. So we decided it was best not to risk it since we would be taking the kids with us. I was very disappointed. Very.

Then around 11am it stopped snowing and the damn sun came out. The roads still look crappy but it isn't snowing. Ahhhhh! I can't win. So now I am kicking myself for not going. But I am trying to think of the fact that we would have to drive back in the dark and it could start snowing again at anytime. Plus I keep thinking about the last time I drove to Grand Rapids to pick up Mark. Thankfully the kids were not with me or I would have turned around. That was the scariest drive. Not one I want to repeat.

On Thursday I am suppose to pick up Mark. We have made a plan to drive the extra hour to Matt's to see them. Provided the weather is good...

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures Matt sent me of Eric's cake. Eric's aunt Becky made the cake and the cupcakes. They sure look good!

Edited to add...It was on the radio that we got a foot and a half of snow. Also the state police said to stay off the roads. Wasn't worth risking the kids.

One Bad Day After Another

It seems this week has been one horrible day after another. I realize that in the grand scheme of things my problems are minuscule but to me, right now, they seem insurmountable. Yesterday's problems followed me to bed last night giving me terrible dreams all night long. I got up early just to put a stop to them only to find that my cable is out. A technician will be coming out but not until late afternoon. In the middle of all this stress there has been a few fun moments though. Last night Henry put on my slippers (on the wrong feet) and shuffled around the house. I hope I don't walk like that ;-) And when I took a picture of that both kids started hamming it up for the camera. We also caught a bit of news about the plane that landed in the Hudson river in New York. Henry was amazed that a plane landed in water. He dug out his matchbox plane and had it landing in water during his bath. He is still talking about that plane today.

Bedrooms and Vroom Vrooms

Today Henry has officially moved into his own room. He and Irene have shared a room for a year, but today we moved his things into a room of his own. He was very excited about it too which pleased me to no end. Naptime today was fabulous! Irene actually slept for three hours. She was not a major grouch when she got up either. I was thrilled. :-)

Monday night....new Top Gear on BBCAmerica. Henry so loves this show. Well so does our whole family. We text message each other while it's on and Henry asks Uncle Pete for every car he sees. "I want that vroom vroom!" As soon as I said it was time for his show he ran over to the couch, jumped on, and covered up. I thought it was the cutest thing. Roo tried to sit next to him too.

Henry contentedly watching the Vroom Vroom show.

Sausage sure wears you out...

This morning we went with Grandma to the pancake breakfast at an area church. What a fun time! They offer so much food and for only five dollars. And the kids eat free because they are under six. Today the kids were just thrilled over the food. I have never seen them gobble down like that...except for last night. Last night Henry ate 3 (bunless) hotdogs! He really loves them and we don't have them that frequently. All day he has been taking about the hotdogs in his tummy. At breakfast he chowed down on the sausage. Roo chowed down on everything. I was really quite pleased that they ate so well.

After breakfast we went to K-Mart. My mom wanted me to dye her hair so we were shopping for that and for my nephew's 1st birthday gift. The gift shopping was the best part because my brother Matt always buys my children loud, singsong toys. Payback is a b*#ch!!! After leaving K-Mart my mom bought me a vanilla latte from McDonald's. By the time we made it through the drive-through Irene was asleep. Unfortunately Irene is the kind of sleeper that when she falls asleep she better be in bed cause that five minutes she sleeps in the car she'll consider her nap. She was so tired that she never woke up when I took her out of her carseat. But trying to find the house keys in my pocket woke her up. I tried to get her back to sleep in her bed but no such luck. Thankfully my mom was over so I left her with Roo and I headed out ALONE to the grocery store! I love grocery shopping alone. I can take my time and not be constantly looking for Henry and worrying about him. So I did my week's worth of shopping. When I got home I couldn't find Roo. While I was gone she had climbed up on the couch next to my mom and went to sleep. She was such an angel...at least while she was sleeping ;-) My mom said those sausages get you every time ;-)

After dinner I dyed my mom's hair which turned out very nicely. Then I washed dishes and gave the kiddies a bath. My shoulders are killing me now, but it sure was a great day!

Can't make up my mind...

Changed the template again. Still not happy, but at least I can capitalize words now. I wish there were more templates to choose from. Oh well.
Went to the grocery store today with the kids. Henry picked out a matchbox car and while I was checking out he got mad that I put it in the bag and hit me. Yes, hit me! So I told him he would not get the car after all which sent him into a crying fit. I tend to ignore these fits since there is really nothing you can do to stop them and I certainly wasn't giving him the car! Besides I was about done paying for the groceries. In the lane next to us there was a woman and little boy. The boy was probably between Roo and Henry's age...anyway they came over to our lane with a balloon for Henry. So sweet! But I wanted to ask where my balloon was....I had to deal with this kiddo ;-) The balloon calmed Henry down and the gesture was very kind. But I wonder what kind of charm or charisma my son has that people always rush over to give him things. This is such a common occurrence. I wish I had that! But I would prefer people gave me money ;-)
Pete texted me today that he got his vacation time back. In early December Crown BMW decided they were taking away vacation time as a money saving tactic. Really crappy move by these people and a good way to lose employee loyalty. But I guess they decided to "have a soul" as one person described it and gave the vacation back. I am excited because I am pushing for Pete and Ashley to come up here during one of the warm weather months.
Today was my second time snow blowing. Easier this time and I did a larger section. So much better than shoveling but it makes my hands and wrists hurt. I am sooo sick of snow!

Changing colors...

I changed the template of this blog today. Why? I don't know. This is just the darker version of the one I had before. This darker version will not let me capitalize the date and sidebar titles. I hate that! It makes me look like I have no understanding of basic English punctuation and capitalization. Let me do what I want with it! So...now I am annoyed that I changed it since it screams out to me each time I see it as being incorrect. Any ideas? I may have to spend time tonight trying on other blog templates.

Happy New Year!!!

Our New Year's Eve was a very quiet one. Surprisingly Mark was home with us which we did not expect. My mom was off from work but she stayed home because she was cold and didn't want to go out. No big deal. Mark made us spaghetti for dinner which the kids barely touched. Unusual since they both normally love it. After we put the kids to bed Mark made me a Manhattan to drink. Then he played on the computer and I read and watched tv. Pete called from C-ville...Ashley had fallen asleep by 9pm and I think he was bored. I didn't think Mark and I would actually stay up to watch the ball drop and all that but we did. Then bed. Exciting!!

The next day we had to drive Mark to Grand Rapids. He had a load to deliver to Canada. Poor Henry did not want his daddy to go back to work. He kept saying "daddy stay home pleeease". It broke my heart. I told Mark no more three weeks out at a time. It's too hard on all of us. Thankfully the roads were terrific all the way down and back. I was so worried about that since we had the kids with us. It started to snow almost the second I parked the van at home. But since I had prayed for good weather/roads just until I got home I couldn't complain.

Oh yeah...the Weinermobile was parked where my husband parks his truck. Loved it! Henry called it the hot dog vroom vroom and was still talking about it today. So cool!

We wish everyone a Happy New Year! Hope it's a good one!

Christmas time...Part Two

On December 26th we once again gathered at my house this time for brunch. Ashley does not eat beef or pork so we had turkey ham cooking for her. And of course we had to have polish sausage because that is a huge family tradition from a million years ago. We also had potato delight, eggs, and my great-grandma Rose's Christmas cardamon bread. After brunch the kiddies had naptime and Peter took Ashley to my mom's house to meet her doggies. Pete was mad because Jomo (my dog Chang's sister) who has always been Pete's girl growled at him but loved Ashley up. The rest of us found that funny because it so typical of Tibetan Spaniels.

We had planned on cooking dinner at home but everyone was tired so we drove to Beulah to the Brookside Inn for dinner. We sat right by the fireplace which was great when we got there since we were all cold but after a while poor Ashley was roasting. We were one of three tables that night. Could that be why dinner was not that great? Usually I love to eat there. They have a fabulous salad which I love and Henry does too. Plus their hummus is usually soooo good. But neither was good that night. They changed the salad and it was just ...yuck. The hummus had almost no flavor to it. The entrees were okay and dessert was yummy but it was a rather disappointing meal especially since we had wanted something Ashley would love and remember. But the company was superb and that's what counts. And Ashley said the next time we go down to Charlottesville she would take us to someplace that had fantastic hummus :-)

On the drive back to town we drove through Bear Lake's "Sparkle in the Park". It is a lakeside park that different groups decorate with lights and figures. Very cute. Once again we ended up at our house where Ashley made us champagne punch. Ashley and my mom feel asleep in their chairs and we talked about drawing mustaches on them but in the end the spirit of Christmas prevailed and we did not.

The next day Peter and Ashley were driving back down to my dad's. I tried to get them to stay longer but it didn't happen. On Sunday they had a long drive back to Virginia.

It really was a great Christmas and we so enjoyed meeting Ashley.

Edited to add...Stacy's mom made us Christmas cookies again this year. So yummy! We gobbled them down. We love you Annette!

Christmas time is here... Part One

What a busy couple of weeks! Getting ready for Christmas is always an adventure. I had to drive the two hours to pick up Mark on Christmas Eve. I started out early and thankfully my mother stayed home with the children. I didn't even make it a block before I was stuck in the snow. The city did not plow the roads! It was a mess but the worst part was the five...yes FIVE people that walked and drove past me and never offered to help. Some stood and watched me! Spirit of Christmas? More like Christmas Grinches. Not a very good start to the trip and it put me in a foul mood. Thankfully I talked to Pete and he made me laugh which brightened my mood. The roads were a terrible mess. At points there would be a line of cars all doing 45 mph. When I finally decided to turn around I was past the halfway point. I decided to keep going because at least I would have Mark with me going back and that would be better than going it alone. When I was about to merge with about of traffic and try to get onto another freeway all the snow from the top of the van slide down the window. This stopped the wipers and I could not see a thing! Thankfully I knew there was a car next to me that had just merged on so I could slip behind him to get to my exit/on ramp. Then I put on the flashers and tried to pull over. Because of the road conditions everyone was going really slow...thank God! It was frightening but fixed rather easily. After that point it was just rain the rest of the way. Of course on the way back we ran back into the terrible road conditions. I prayed a lot :-) We made it home and the children were so happy to see daddy.

Christmas day was a blast. I loved watching the kids open their gifts. And let me just say that my family and friends are kind, sweet, and generous. We did not go overboard with the gifts this year. Henry and Irene each got a couple of gifts that were just for them and the rest were gifts for them to share. That's the great thing about having young kids close together in age...they like the same things. So they were both happy with the gifts, especially the Elmo's Kitchen, and we were pleased to have not spent a fortune. My family and friends had a tremendous amount of gifts for the kids. The house looks like a toy store exploded in it. I was amazed at all the gifts the received. And yet the gifts were the toys I would have liked to have gotten the kids but didn't want to blow the budget on. Amazing how that worked out! The Lord provides...through my family :-)

My brother Peter and his girlfriend Ashley drove the very long drive from Virginia on Christmas Eve. They stayed the night at my dad's and had Christmas morning with him and my brother Matt before heading up here. This was the first time we were meeting Ashley. She and I had become good friends on Facebook but still I was worried that she wouldn't like me in person....the usual. But when they showed up...it was like we had known each other for years! She was so easy to be around. As a family we could tease, bicker, bitch, moan, and Ashley just joined in :-) We love you Ashley! Oh yeah...Ashley brought her Chihuahua Mollie up too. Chang Po was in LOVE!!!

My mother made a super yummy Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and all the other goodies that go with. Later that night we put the children to bed. My mom stayed at the house with them and Peter, Ashley, Mark and I went to the casino. For some reason we thought we could get a drink there but being Christmas day we couldn't. Instead we played "high roller" with our dollar each. Yes...a dollar. Then we ordered some pizza from the deli and took it home to share with mom. We stayed up late, 12:30am. Late for those of us with kids! It was a fantastic Christmas!

Photos by Ashley Crockett and Pete Wisniewski