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