Ringing in the New Year - Part Two

Some photos of the W. family New Year's Eve. There was Chipotle and McDonalds. We watched "Finding Nemo"

We played with cars.

We played with toy hammers.

We played with dinosaurs.

There were cheesy bathtime grins.

And bath crayons!

And little brothers trying to tell big brothers how to do something.

Soon the little guys will go to bed and Duane and I will ring in the new year with cheesecake and a movie. Happy New Year to all!

Ringing in the New Year

As many of you know, I am not a gal who is big on New Years Resolutions. I've tried writing them down, choosing really practical things, and what-not, but they never seem to stick. This year though I have two resolutions I"m going to make. I'm trying not to think of them as resolutions, but as changes to my life.


The first is to spend more time with the people I love. I have already made a promise to one friend that we wouldn't let a month go by without seeing each other - even if it's just to grab a cup of coffee. Now, she reads this blog, so this is her little reminder too! :-) Duane and I gave two people the gift of our time for Christmas. A dear friend of the family is going to be taken to dinner by the W. family. Grandma W. was enrolled in the "Dinner of the Month" club, where the W. family will have dinner with her once a month. It sounds like such a little thing, but so often we look up and weeks and weeks have gone by and we haven't seen people! Life is too short not to spend with those who mean the most to us.

Along those same lines, I am going to start keeping a gratitude journal. Every day I am going to write down something that I am thankful God has graced me with. I know not all of them will be earth shattering, but that's kind of the point - to focus on the little moments and the gifts from Him that we often take for granted.

So that's it for resolutions. We're going to spend this evening eating Chipotle and watching TV. Not exciting, but there is no place else I'd rather be.

Happy New Year!

Another Day of Vacation

Here are the oh-so exciting highlights of today.

The refrigerator repairman came today. The good news is that the fridge is still keeping food cold, the bad news is that the parts that need replaced are going to run upwards of $300. Oh well, still cheaper than a new fridge. The only thing that really annoyed me was the fact that when the repair man called to say he was on his way, he treated me like a "silly woman." Normally I would have words about that, but I had a killer headache and two kids to deal with, so Duane came home while the guy was here. Still annoys me though.

The boys and I had an outing with Grandma H. today. We went to this coney island place near our house to eat. Wesley did such a good job. He was sweet and he ate his lunch. Ryan was a little beast. He screamed when I put him in a high chair. He rolled around on the floor. He insisted on "stirring" my iced tea. He barely ate anything except ketchup. Here's the proof:

Sweet little Wesley. Clean face, full tummy, cute little toy.

The Ry-baby. Covered in ketchup and boogers and just looks ornery.

After lunch we headed over to the conservatory. They are running special programs every day this week since kids are on vacation. Today's show was a pair of magicians. They were terrible - big on banter and short on tricks. Grandma took Ryan for a walk (ok, really a run) while Wesley and I watched a little of the show. We snuck out after about 20 minutes. What we did enjoy was the kids Chihuly play area. The boys were fascinated by the plastic pieces and spent a good half an hour playing with them. Again, Wesley did a great job sharing the pieces with other kids and encouraging everyone to work together.

Despite how this picture looks, Ryan actually did play with the pieces and didn't throw them. He loved climbing in and out of the little boat to move the pieces back and forth.

We've spent this evening taking down all the Christmas decorations. Wesley must have gotten something out of the magic show because as we were putting the decorations away he informed me that he was a "matitian" and showed me some of his "amazing" magic tricks. Let me tell you, they are almost as good as his jokes.

Tomorrow I may take the boys to the North Market - depends on how they are acting since it has the potential to be a painful trip. We might go to the "big" library and I do have to take the cat to the vet for a follow up appointment. Ah, the joys of vacation.

Little Plumber Boy

Ryan has recently discovered the bolts that hold the toilet down. He is fascinated by them and I often find him hanging out by the toilet, trying to remove the bolts. Thus - the Little Plumber Boy is born!

Not Me Monday

I did not find it incredibly funny that Ryan kept referring to his Uncle Dave as "Daddy" - especially since Duane has been having such a hard time getting Ryan to call him Daddy and not Mommy.

I did not fall off a bar stool at my Dad's on Christmas in an effort to rescue Ryan when he didn't need rescuing. And even if I did, two days certainly didn't pass before I could straighten my arm again.

I did not have to send a cranky little four-year-old to his Grandma's bedroom TWICE on Christmas Day so he could re-evaluate his attitude.

There is no way Ryan got TWO toys with hammers in them. That would just spell danger for my house.

I didn't volunteer to do grocery shopping the day after Christmas just because I knew the store would be quiet and I needed a little time to myself.

It couldn't have been me that nearly had a mental breakdown at how disorganized the church potluck was. I mean, type-A personality aside, isn't "disorganized" the definition of a church potluck?

I would never ever have tried to eat my weight in Hershey kisses in a misguided attempt to deal with the fact that the fridge nearly died.

Christmas Photo Recap

Wesley on Christmas Eve.

If you give a boy a hammer......

Wesley ADORES his animal jungle treehouse!

Aunt Sue (NOT Susan) in disguise.

Ryan checked to make sure Santa ate the cookies we left him.

Block break!

Stocking time!

Wesley's still not too sure about the bike Santa brought him.

This one's a hit!

Checking out the new CD player.

Wesley and his dinosaur mountain rescue set.

Wesley, Uncle Kirk and Ryan on Christmas Day.

Hmmmmm....think Santa stopped at Grandma W.'s?

Guess what Mark got for Christmas?

Trying out the new dinosaur stamps.

Breaking the crayons.

The single most popular toy at Grandma W.'s - seriously, the kids all fought over it.

Ryan kept sucking the cheese spread off the cracker.


Time for a little drink of milk.

Wesley took this picture - it's not too bad.

I think this sums up the day.

It's Ry-day!

Wesley decided to be kind of anti-social while we went visiting today, so all the pictures are of Ryan. That's OK. He's pretty cute too!

Ryan spent a lot of time checking out the Christmas village on Grandma's piano. He loves to point to the door (which he calls a "knock knock") and the apples in front of the market.

Time for a little concert!

Whew! Performing is very hard work!

Maybe I'll just take a little nap right here

Refueling with Grandma. Ryan tried his first "Sara Sandwich" today. Sara sandwiches are a hot ham and swiss sandwich with a special sauce of butter, mustard, onion and poppy seed. He LOVED them! The boy has good taste.

Christmas Joy (and Tears)

The boys and I were busy little elves today. This morning we watched a Christmas movie then decorated our gingerbread house. It was really hectic trying to keep track of both boys and all the candy. To be honest, I'm shocked that any ended up on the house! I know they both probably ate their weight in candy and a bunch of it landed on the floor. Still, our creation turned out pretty well.Then after Ryan went down for his nap, Wesley and I whipped up a batch of peppermint bark. Talk about tasting like Christmas! Well, if the truth be told, I made the peppermint bark and Wesley provided quality control. We make a pretty good team.

When Duane got home we headed out to the zoo to see the lights. My stepbrother, his wife and their kids are in town, so we met them and Grandma and Grandpa H. there. The visit started out great. The place wasn't crowded, the lights were beautiful and the boys were behaving.

Of course, all good things must come to an end when the W. family is involved. We made it as far as the manatee habitat when Wesley decided it would be a really good idea to show off for his cousin Cherie (she's 12, I think). Anyhow, Wesley was doing some sort of acrobatics in the little video viewing area they have there when he fell flat on his face.

It might have been humorous if he had just been embarrassed, but when he sat up, there was blood pouring out of his mouth. It didn't look like any teeth were missing, but I couldn't tell if the blood was coming from his teeth, his lip, or his tongue. I had a flashback to when I bit my tongue open when I was just a little bit older than Wesley and had to have stitches. As I was trying to mop up the blood and figure out where it was coming from, part of my mind was racing and wondering where the closest place to get stitches would be. Luckily, the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. His two front teeth had bit into the inner lower lip and it swelled up pretty bad, but he was OK.

We looked at lights for just a little while longer. Pretty much long enough for Wesley to quit screaming and for Ryan to call my stepbrother "Daddy" several times and demand Dave pick him up. We all went to dinner then, which was blissfully uneventful. Wesley ate pretty well considering a) he is notoriously picky and b) he had a fat lip. Ryan made sure to use everything on his plate as a vehicle for ketchup and stopped eating once the ketchup was gone.

Tomorrow we're going to meet up with the same crew at Grandma and Grandpa H.'s just to hang out. Hopefully no blood shed will be involved.

Not Me Monday

I did not invite Wesley to sleep in the "big red bed" one night for the sole purpose of using him as a teddy bear. Even though cuddling with a child in footie jammies is the next best thing to taking a big dose of Nyquil, I would not have been so selfish.

I certainly didn't the same leftovers three times for lunch even though I didn't like the dish all that well the first time around.

I'm sure the lights on the top third of Christmas tree did not burn out the week of Christmas. And if they did, there's no way I drove to FIVE stores looking for some plain white lights with green wire only to not find them anywhere. And even if all that happened, I certainly did not get so cranky that I went home, ignored the boys and my husband and went upstairs for a nap.

It's a Wrap!

I planned on spending today doing all the wrapping. In years past, I have spent a whole day wrapping gifts with Christmas music playing. It's usually kind of relaxing and helps put me in the Christmas spirit. SO not the case this year.

Perhaps the day got off on the wrong note when I decided that the boys MUST have haircuts before Christmas. The kids haircut place near us has closed, we didn't have appointments anywhere and didn't really want to drive to the other end of town. We thought, "Hey, why don't we just go to Duane's barber?" The whole W. family piled into the car and off we went. We arrived at the barber shortly after they opened and we were the only people there. And then things started to go downhill. Ryan was not the least bit interested in having his haircut. It took both me and Duane to hold Ryan down in a vice like grip while the barber tried to cut his hair as quickly as possible. Wesley did better, but he had a little meltdown too.

After the boys were groomed we headed home to start wrapping gifts. Great plan, except Wesley REALLY wanted to help. Now, it's hard to tell a 4-year-old that he cannot help wrap Christmas gifts, so I let him pick out bows and put labels on the gifts. It definitely made things go slower and several of the packages have bows that don't match and some of the tags are so smeared you can hardly read them, but Wesley loved helping. He even told me, "Christmas is about giving, right?" So sweet.

Aunt Susan is spending Christmas in FL with her family, so she and Uncle Kirk came by for a while this evening. It was so nice to just hang out with them. We tried to teach Ryan to whistle by blowing across the top of a bottle. I'd blow across it, then Ryan would take the bottle and give it a try. Well, to be honest, he'd just stick the bottle in his mouth and hum. It was so funny!

Oh! In other news, Wesley has decided that Santa can indeed bring presents to our house this year. In fact, he asked me to call Mr. Claus to let him know. When Aunt Susan asked what Wesley wanted Santa to bring him, Wesley replied, "Whatever he brings is what I'll like!" Here's hoping he still feels that way on Christmas morning.

A Christmas Miracle

Today was Wesley's preschool Christmas program and party. To be honest, we didn't have real high hopes for him with it all. Despite the fact that ALL his grandparents, as well as Mommy, Daddy and Ryan attended the program, I think we all expected him to end up sitting in the audience or refusing to do anything - especially considering he told us that he was going to "sing zero songs" for the program. Boy, did we get a pleasant surprise!


When the classes filed into the sanctuary, Wesley walked in with his head held high, doing the royal wave at everyone. The couple sitting behind me laughed and said, "Check out that little blond boy waving!" I had to turn around and confess he was mine. The picture to the right was actually taken as the classes were leaving the program, but it gives you the idea.

Wesley sang every song during the program. Not only did he sing, he did all the motions - even to the songs that didn't have any

motions to do! It was a riot to watch! Ryan did really well too. Of course, we gave him a sucker as soon as the program started to keep him busy. But he

really liked hearing all the "big kids" sing. Duane would hold him up to see and Ryan would just smile and smile!

After the program each class had a Christmas party, complete with a visit from Santa Claus!

First listened to Mrs. T. read a story to the class. As you can see, Wesley was very interested in story time.

After the story it was time for Santa's favorite snack - milk and cookies. Wesley was the first one to the table and was so patient while waiting for the rest of the class to get their hands washed and pick their cookies. He ate three cookies. Ryan did too!


Wesley class - aren't they a big ol' bunch of cuties!?


These two young ladies are Wesley's girlfriends at preschool. That's little Miss L. in the purple dress and little Miss P. in the black and red. There is another little boy in their crew, but he was in a different part of the picture.

Santa had a gift for every child and each child got a turn to sit with him and tell what they wanted for Christmas. Wesley told Santa that he didn't want anything because he wants his house to look the same. He has been saying that almost every day! We're not making a big deal about it, but I think it kind of surprised Santa.

It was a wonderful program and party and Wesley seemed to enjoy himself. I'm so glad we were all able to be there to share the fun with him!