The Start of our Advent Calendar

We are attempting to do the Advent tree again.  Which means 25 days of gifts or activities.  It officially starts tomorrow on the 1st of December, but we had to do our first family activity tonight, being that tomorrow night we have a Nebraska football game to watch.

So we headed out to the Luminaire walk at the Arboretum.

Oliver had a great time and wanted to go, go, go.  Except for when we came upon the musicians, then he was content to stand and listen.  That one loves his music.

He also loved the new train area.

Bella had a great time, she was yelling in excitement the whole time.  And I really do mean the whole time we were there for almost 2 hours.

The kids even got a chance to meet Santa.  As we thought, Oliver did not want to sit on his lap.

Once he saw the pretty lights in the background he calmed down.  Bella did a decent job looking at Santa herself.

We were joined by our friends the Divine’s.

And we wrapped it up with a family picture, although not everyone would cooperate.

It really was a great night to start our holiday tradition.

Happy Birthday to Me

So yesterday was my birthday.  Nothing too crazy happens around our household for our birthdays.  It’s pretty much just normal days around here.

Jesse did stick around in the morning to help me with getting the kids ready to go to school and the sitter.  Although the kids being out of the house for the day was short lived when Bella’s teachers called to say she had thrown up a bunch of phlegm on the bus and was tired and cranky at school.  So Bella got home from school and Oliver came back home from the sitters.

I did make my own birthday cake.  A cheesecake, correction a dulce de leche cheesecake, was my cake of choice.

My birthday meal of choice was a new meal combo from Dairy Queen.  You get a cheeseburger, fries, soda, and mini blizzard.  I know a crazy fancy meal, but it was delicious and quick, which is what you need when you have fussy kids around.

And my big present is a new camera.  It was shipped out yesterday so I’m hoping to receive it in the next few days.  And then I have a lot to learn about using it…but I’m excited!

Oh and I also made myself a new top.  People have been asking me if I am still sewing.  I am, and I have a few projects to share in upcoming posts.  I got the idea from pinterest.  It’s sort of a cape sweater.

I had bought some cheap sweater knit fabric and decided to give it a try, here is what I came up with.

BTW – I haven’t hemmed the shirt yet, I plan to put a curved hem in like the picture above.  Just ran out of time today and can’t decide if I should use black thread or cream.

Well that was it for my birthday.  Now Christmas season can officially begin.

It’s that kind of morning

I got to sleep in this morning.  That’s if you count 7am sleeping in, which I do.  And I was only up once with Bella.  So in general it was a decent night.

I’m paying for it this morning, as in nothing can be that easy.

Oliver is a wreck.  He woke up fine and I got him dressed and settled down in his highchair to eat breakfast.  I then went upstairs to get Bella ready for school.  We were running short on time, since we had slept in later than normal and Bella’s bus is coming earlier. 

Oliver started crying the second I was waking up Bella.  I yelled down that I was busy with Bella and he should continue to eat and we would be down shortly.

That did nothing.  But I needed to get Bella dressed, so I proceeded to do just that.  We came downstairs and Oliver was still bawling.  I got Bella in her chair and got Oliver out of his.  He wanted to be held, but unfortunately I needed to keep getting Bella ready.

So he cried and cried and cried as I got Bella’s shoes on, her hair brushed, etc.

I had wanted to get a picture of both of them, since I had put overall’s on them both.

Not happening for Oliver.  But Bella was in a good mood.  Oliver crying always makes her happy.

We got Bella on the bus.

Oliver is still a wreck.  Going to be a good day!

In case you are wondering.  The only way I am writing this post currently is because Oliver is finally content playing with the old tv remote, which has bought me a few moments of peace.  Although I see it’s getting old and the crying is starting again.  Off I go!

Oliver’s First Haircut

I have been mentioning I needed to cut Oliver’s hair for awhile.  I couldn’t decide if I should take him in somewhere, or attempt it myself.  I decided I could attempt it, and if it went really bad, we would just take him in.

Here is Oliver in full curly mop top.  If his hair stayed curly it wouldn’t look that bad, but when it dries it becomes straight and then it looks super long.  Plus you can’t tell from this picture, but he was really starting to look like he had a mullet.

He would not sit still for me.  So it was an interesting process.

The only thing he really enjoyed was turning the water off and on in our sink.

Thankfully curly hair is forgiving.

It’s a wrap

Our week full of getting things done has come to a close.
Here is a little bit of what we have been working on.
Jesse was busy finishing up his tree house/shed project.  Which included building a ladder, waterproofing the decking with tar, and putting up Christmas lights of course.

We also spent a couple of days putting up Christmas decorations.  Jesse worked on the exterior of the house and I worked on the inside.  We might have to do a house tour and show you all our work.  We still have a few finishing touches to go and just a little bit of house cleaning.

With the nice weather Jesse was busy installing a new door for our balcony/my office.

Here is a picture of the old patio door when the room was just a sitting room.  Remember we had to put old blankets down on the bottom to block all of the air that used to seep in?

And here it is currently after the new door has been installed.
When I had a little bit of time to myself I managed to sew a few curtains for the craft room.

We also worked on putting together the cutting cabinet, but haven’t gotten it moved upstairs yet.
Not too bad for a week’s worth of work, not to mention celebrating a holiday and having two demanding kids around.

Our Thanksgiving Week

Jesse took the week off work for us to enjoy a nice relaxing holiday week.

You don’t buy it?  You know us too well.

We were trying to get a bunch of projects finished up around our house.  We actually have one day left this week before our “holiday break” is over.  I’m not sure how much will actually get accomplished tomorrow, but I will be sure to post pictures of our finished projects.

As of today I thought I would actually talk about the family time we actually did spend together.

Bella’s birthday was a couple months ago.  It’s getting harder and harder for us to find things that she needs that can be bought in a normal store.  Most times we ask for money for gifts for her, so that we can get very specific things, or pool money together to get very expensive things.  With her birthday money I ended up finding a used piece of equipment from a family here in Kansas City and purchased it.  It’s a way for her to build up muscles to start crawling.

Right now we are just working on her lifting her head off the carpet when she is in it.  I put her in it for about 15 minutes on the days she doesn’t have school.  So this week she actually got to use it a few times.  She has been picking her head up a little bit, but only for about 5 seconds at a time.  Hopefully this is something that we can work on, and even if she is never able to crawl, it will help her with her head control in general.

On Thursday, which was actually Thanksgiving we spent the beautiful day outside putting up Christmas lights.  That late afternoon/evening we headed over to Jesse’s sisters to celebrate with Jesse’s family.  The kids did alright, but having a Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t sit very well with either of them.  We definitely have kids that prefer the morning over the evening.

Jesse and I debated heading out for black Friday shopping, and finally on a last minute whim decided to try Target.  We lucked out and got most of the things I wanted, even though we went an hour after they had opened.  That was pretty much the extent of our shopping.  And luckily we were back home by 10:30 that evening.

On the actually Friday we did hang out and enjoyed the Nebraska game.  Here is a picture of the kids and I (beware I did not shower and have no makeup on, and you can tell).

Oliver was wearing his second outfit of the day, since he had a huge diarrhea blowout that morning and then ended up having one again later that evening, and another one on Saturday morning.  Not sure if it was all the different kinds of foods he was eating over Thanksgiving, it was teething related, or if he picked up something.  I guess we will know in a couple of days if any of the rest of us are affected.

This whole week we have been exhausted as normal, as both kids have been waking up at night.  One can only pray and wish so many times for a full nights sleep.  I had this brilliant idea that I would hire permanent help for the day so I could sleep, and then I would just work at night from home.  That way if the kids happened to wake up, I could just quite working for the amount of time they needed me, and then get back to working.  And since someone would be watching them during the day, I could actually get 8 hours of continuous sleep.  I obviously thought of this idea as I was laying in bed awake at 3am.  Because not only do I get woken up in the middle of the night by the kids, I have a horrible time falling back asleep after I have been woken up.  Definitely a cruel twist of fate.

Happy Thanksgiving 2012

I specifically wanted to remember this in years to come.  This is Oliver’s take on what a turkey says.

 Oliver at 17 months old

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It’s Turkey Week

This past weekend we headed up to Nebraska to celebrate Jesse’s grandparents 60th wedding anniversary and to meet our new nephew Camden.  We did not do a good job taking pictures, but we did get a couple of Oliver and his cousin Beckett playing house.

The previous two weeks I had told Jesse we were going to go on a “good eating” binge so that we could enjoy this week.  We accomplished one of the two pre-week eating plans, but the second week went to crap when neither of us was getting any sleep.

Regardless I am hitting this week with a flourish and started baking away yesterday.

I started with Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins.  I took a few recipes and combined them, plus I substituted some ingredients to make it healthier.  They turned out delicious.  Or so myself and Oliver think so.

The whole time I was baking things Oliver kept coming up to me and saying “mo, mo” which means more, which means I want whatever you have.  I kept telling him either the items weren’t ready to eat, or they were too hot.  But the second the muffins were cooling on the counter, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was allowed to sample one.

One wasn’t enough for him, but I wasn’t about to let him eat anymore than that.  He needed to leave some for the rest of us.

I also baked up some Pizza Hut Cheese Sticks.  I know so very Thanksgiving appropriate you say.  No, just really not good for you, so they are sneaking their way into this week’s diet!  I must say they were very close to the real thing.  I followed the recipe found here.

I also made this dessert, Pumpkin Lust Cake, especially for Bella.  Bella and I may have sampled a little bit of it for lunch today.  I thought it was delicious and it seemed to go over well with Bella.

Craft Chair

I bought all the fabric to finish off the craft room ages ago.  I haven’t gotten around to doing most of the projects.  I finished the lamp a while ago.

And today I decided to tackle another quick one, which was recovering the desk chair.

It’s much more playful now.  I realized I went a little crazy with my color schemes of late.  Between the craft room and the family room, I have some bright colors going on.  Maybe it’s psychological and I need some cheering up!

I figured I might as well throw in a large shot of the room.  The bed was slept in last night by Jesse.  Not because he was in trouble, but because Bella was in his spot in our bed, coughing away and keeping me up most of the night.

We have talked about finishing up the craft room/guest room, which would mean:

1.  sewing curtains

2.  making a headboard and covering it in fabric

3.  making a wall organization system

4.  painting, staining, and adding height extenders and wheels to what will become a craft/cutting table.

5.  cutting and staining a top for the bookshelf you see in the background.

6.  re-staining or painting the bedside table.

7.  and last but not least, buying/making a bed skirt to hide the mattress.

Most of these projects are actually mine to get done, and since I’m usually watching the kids, I don’t really have time to do anything.  So I’m thinking this might not actually get done.

Stop with the coughing already

I’ve tried not to talk about it.  But ever since we had to cancel our trip to Nebraska at the end of September, Bella has been coughing.  It’s been one or two times a night she is up coughing and crying so we have to go into her room and calm her.  In the past 7 weeks Bella has slept through the night 3 times.  And on a couple of nights it has been bad enough that I have been up most of the night with her. 
Last night was a bad night.  I was so sure I would be up with Bella the whole time.  But actually Bella was up coughing only 3 times.  It was Oliver who was up until 1am that gave us more trouble.  Though as soon as Oliver finally went to sleep for the rest of the night, Bella was up having a spell that was bad enough I had to try drinks of water, orajel, and tylenol.

So anyways, I didn't get to sleep until 2am, and then Bella was up coughing again this morning around 6:30am.

Oliver was still a fussy mess today.  He has a horrible runny nose and I’m guessing isn’t feeling the greatest.  Bella on the other hand was doing well and actually rolling all over the place.  Until around 2:30pm today when both kids started to get kind of fussy and really needy, and of course me being only 1 person I wasn’t really up for the task.

I was tired.
I had a headache.
I may have had 1 cup of coffee, 10 mini snickers bars, 1/2 bag of chips, 2 Dr. Pepper’s, and a lean pocket during the day.  It didn’t make me feel any better.
I may have watched a bunch of episodes of The Voice and Glee, so that at least there was music on the television and we could dance around at times when the kids and I felt like it.
I may have let Oliver get away with more than normal today so that I didn’t have to listen to him constantly crying.
I may have snot stains and food stains all over my clothes…all from Oliver.
And I definitely didn’t get anything accomplished today, but hey we are all still alive, I guess that’s something.

At least he was happy during bath time.
I think I am off for bed and praying for a little sleep tonight.