Something New

Today we did something that we haven't done yet as a family of four. We went to a restaurant! John has gone with the kids, I have gone with the kids, John and I have gone, but we've never gone as a group of four. I guess we just haven't because usually if we have money to go to dinner, John and I just go, and John and I almost never go. Another contributing factor to our lack of family dining out might also be that eating out with 2 little kids just doesn't sound all that appealing. Who wants a dinner out with kids when you can have a dinner out with out kids?

But today I was downtown with the kids at the discovery center (which was a ton of fun but I didn't get any pictures because I was with people that I didn't know very well and would have felt a little stupid) and we decided that we would take the opportunity to go to lunch with dad and visit his office. It was fun to get to do family stuff during the day, and the kids were even good at the restaurant (well, they were really good once the food came).

Wip Wop Bipin Before

Ains came into my room singing this song this morning. Do you recognize it?



Or do you need a little hint?? Pay attention to the chorus!
(click on launch stand alone player and it should work)

What's funny is that we haven't listened to this song in a long time. There was a time when I would listen to it over and over because I'm lame and that's what I do when I like a song. But that was months ago, and I guess this morning it just struck a chord with her!

Too much TV

I don't usually watch that much TV. It seems like the TV watching in this house goes in cycles. Lately we go most days without turning on the TV at all (days, not nights, that would be crazy!). But yesterday I had a moment of boredom and got sucked into TV mode for the rest of the night. First I got sucked into the Oprah show. What was particularly sad about this is that it was just a recap of her favorite things show but I still somehow got addicted.
After a bit of meaningless TV we watched Charlie Brown Christmas. I really like that show (especially the dancing scene, I've never seen any crazier dancing in all my life) but we couldn't just stop at the actual Christmas show. We also had to watch the next 30 minutes of newly made Charlie Brown snippets that just don't compare to the original.
I then got sucked into the biggest loser. To be honest, this happens a little too often. I just really like seeing the before and after pictures of the person that gets voted off.
After Biggest Loser I felt I "needed" to watch the finale of Dancing with the stars. Even though I don't really follow the show, and I don't really care who wins.

So I watched TV last night from about 4:00 to 10:00. I wish I would have done something a little more productive. Watching that much TV made me pass the point of enjoying just being able to sit and be entertained and got me to the point where I just wanted to turn it off because I had a headache from watching so much.

Good Job John!

The days events were as follows...

Wake up to a crying Owen an hour before he is due to wake up.
John is nice and checks on him for me in an attempt to give me a chance to shower.
Owen does sleep, I have time to get dressed and I actually got a little bit of scripture reading in before I hear crying again.
Ainsley wakes up and seems to be in a super good mood.
Super good mood doesn't last so long and there is soon a fight over the specially requested "stove oatmeal" that she is refusing to eat.
Drop girls off at preschool.
Do grocery shopping.
Owen goes down for a nap.
Sweep the floor.
Owen gets woken up from a nap in order to pick up girls from preschool.
Arrive at home and chaos begins.
More crying over lunch about oranges.
Sweep the floor.
Try to finish advent calendar.
Ains gets trapped under a cushion and more crying.
Owen gets in trouble for climbing on the table...more crying.
Snack time....for some reason more crying.
Sweep AND mop the floor.
Do the laundry.
Iron shirts.
Tell Ains to get off the computer...more crying.
Owen decides he's hungry...more crying.
Feed Owen dinner early.
Family eats dinner while Owen cries and throws bits of his roll at us (he got one in my glass).
Owen gets sick of throwing bread...more crying.
John volunteers to stick kids in bath which will guarantee what will seem like and eternity of "cry free" time!
Do dishes and sweep the floor. (Am I the only one that has to sweep after every meal or snack???)

Seriously, John is great about taking the kids at the end of a "cry" day. What a great dad!

And on to Christmas!

Not to totally put down Thanksgiving...I know I have a lot to be grateful for...but this year I just wasn't into it. I didn't really even feel like a big turkey dinner. Yet, I still ate my fair share of the big turkey dinner. But I have been on the Christmas bandwagon for a few weeks now. Christmas music has been playing in the car, and now that Thanksgiving is over John can't complain about it! On Saturday we got our house completely decorated for Christmas! The tree is up (our tree is a beast to get up because it has several broken branches and is not pre-lit, so this took the majority of our time), the lights are on the house (with our minuscule amount of lights this takes all of 10 minutes), stockings are hung, and Ainsley is now confused as to why we have to wait so long for Santa. I love the whole Christmas season and this year I will really enjoy it because I'm almost done with my shopping too. I just have a few odds and ends to pick up! Yes, Thanksgiving is over, and thus, Christmas has begun!

The only pictures we took were of the decorating of the tree, so enjoy!
(Ainsley is very good at grouping ornaments, it's fun to see how the tree changes slightly every day as ornaments on the bottom few feet of the tree are constantly rearranged.)
I just threw this last picture in because I know lots of you are dying to see my hair, which has lightened a considerable amount now and so I feel comfortable posting a picture of me even though I'm not doing anything in particular in this picture.

Check Up

Owen had his 15 month check up yesterday ( I couldn't find a recent picture that I hadn't put on already so I just put this one on from a few months ago). He is a healthy average boy! Mostly. As far as size goes he is in the 50th percentile on all of his measurements except for his head. His head measurement is still off the charts. His poor little body just can't catch up to that noggin of his! He threw a tantrum in the doctors office so he is right on track as far as behavior is concerned. There were just 2 slight areas of concern (that I'm not really worried about for some reason).

First of all they did a blood test and it showed that he was anemic. They were surprised by this because he looked so healthy and didn't show any of the typical signs for a child with anemia. So they tested again and got the same result. We just have to put him on a multi-vitamin with iron and retest in a month. I just hope the multi-vitamin takes care of it. The other area of concern is his speech. I shouldn't say concern because I'm not at all worried, nor is the doctor (weird that I just used the word "nor"), but Owen still has yet to say a word. He babbles a lot but he has no consistent sound that he uses for any object. I think if he were closer to 2 I would be worried, but for some reason I'm just not. The doctor told us about a free infant/toddler program we can try to jump start his speech. Apparently they will just test him and do some activities with him and show us some things that we can do with him at home. The only reason the Dr. even suggested this was because she felt that Owen was at the age where he would become frustrated because he is old enough to realize that there are words, and he has none. She said this might end up causing John and I more frustration than him, just in dealing with a frustrated toddler, and that if this program could give him a little boost it might be worth our time. So I guess we'll give them a call and see what happens. So in conclusion, fun visit to the Dr., we just came away with homework!

Snow Day!

This morning we woke up to snow! Contrary to popular belief, we don't get that much snow here, and what snow we do get usually melts by lunch time (in fact the snow is melting rapidly as I type). So we headed out first thing this morning while the snow lasted. Actually, Ains insisted we go out right after breakfast and I tried to get out of it because I had wet hair, but she won. So after 15 minutes of getting ready to play in the snow, we went and played in the snow for all of 15 minutes. Owen didn't last that long. I think he was a little frustrated because the snow was so wet that he was lugging around tons of snow packed on his shoes, and he couldn't get around very well. Ains had a great time though. She spent her time throwing snow balls, and she got pretty good. Despite the fact that she was only able to make snow balls that were about the size of a bouncy ball, she actually hit me a few times (I was sure to get her a few times too)!