Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday to me, yesterday

Yesterday was my birthday. Drew really tried hard to make my day special. He made me a terrific dinner and then friends came over for some cake and ice cream. It was an enjoyable day. Molly has been singing Happy Birthday Jenny to me all day. I kind of wish that everyone called me mommy sometimes.... If you ask her how old I am she'll promptly tell you "tweneey ix".

I really liked the show Gilmore Girls. Drew worked for a bus company when we were first married. One summer someone left season 5 on a bus, after a few months I inherited it. I also have season 7. (I found it really cheap. Probably because it was the worst season, what a disappointing season finale... ) If I see a season at the library I always pick it up. For my birthday Drew got me seasons 1, 2 and 3. When I was opening them Molly was glowing with excitement. "More Gilmore Girls" (Molly and Gabe love the credit music. They get so excited as they show off their dance moves. I love being a mom and watching those moments.) After we put the kids to bed *. Drew and I started watching season 1. I think pilots are always awkward as people are figuring out their characters etc. Example: Kirk was in it, but his name was Mick? Strange. It was kind of like watching a first date. No one's really sure how to act or what to say. Now I'm a few episodes past that and it's feeling a lot more familiar.

Thanks Drew and to everyone else who called and came over :)

*One other little happening.
Last night when we were putting the kids to bed we couldn't find Gabe's pacifier. Which is really strange. He only has it when he's in his crib so it's always in the crib or on the floor near the crib. I did the only thing I could and gave Gabe an old pacifier that they (Molly and Gabe) like to play with that has a hole in it. And then I cut Molly's. They both still want them at night/nap. I hear a lot about how they're "boke", but it's just very matter of fact. It looks like we're at the beginning of the end of being a pacifier house. I knew that I'd have to take them away at the same time and I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't be buying anymore. So yesterday was the day. And this morning Gabe slept until 10! I'm going to be delusional and say that the two are related.

Holy Snow

We got hammered with snow. Last year I was excited for snow and it didn't really snow at all. This year mother nature's making it up to me.

Molly playing in the first fakes of the morning...

What a difference a day makes. I think "they" (our local weather people)said Lincoln got 10 inches total. Then the 40 mph winds came and this is the nice snow drift out our back door. I'm guessing it was close to 3 ft...

So what do you do when it's below zero and too cold to go out and play? You play basketball inside and...

...craft. Here they are painting cut up t.p. rolls that we tied into snow flakes. Anything involving paint and glitter keeps Molly and Gabe entertained for a solid 20+ minutes. That may not seem like a lot of time, but I think 20 min at the table for a 1 and 2 year old is pretty good.

While I'm not a fan of driving in the snow it is fun playing in it. Some friends came over and we went sledding with the kids. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the kids facial expressions as they were sledding. It was priceless. Drew also got 1 1/2 snow days so that was nice. Not quite as good as LPS's 3, but having Drew home on a Wednesday was a treat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving. What's better than good company and good food? yum

Happy Math Thanksgiving

This is the second year that all the math grad students, in Drew's year, have gotten together to celebrate an early Thanksgiving. I used to feel strange hanging out with Drew's school friends. 1-I'm not a math student. There are always jokes floating around about professors I don't know and equations I'll never understand. 2-We have kids. Mainly for these reasons I felt out of place and still do on occasion, but let me tell you Molly and Gabe were the life of the party. I guess because I'm with them having fun ALL the time I forget how fun they really are. If that makes any sense?. :) Molly and Gabe had 15+ adults to be entertained by. This is Molly and Gabe hiding under the table with Molly Sr. In the end we ate way too much and the kids had hours of entertainment. Not a bad Sunday afternoon.

Paint Yourself Silly

At Boo at the Children's Museum we got a bunch of coupons. One of them was from Paint Yourself Silly. We got to paint an ornament for free!

I'm probably lame, but I love pottery and all things ceramic. Thanks Emily. My roommate was taking a ceramics class and let me tag along one night with her to the ceramics studio. Wouldn't you know it, the first thing that I threw was centered and it was love from there. I took a couple of classes. I wasn't any good at it, but I love the feel of wet clay and the smell of it drying....

I made sure this coupon didn't go to waste. We painted our ornaments last night. Gabe immediately dipped his brush and put it on his face. I'm not sure if he was trying to eat it or smell it??? Either way. Yikes.

Molly picked a star. You can pick a maximum of 6 paint colors. I thought well we only really need a couple. Then I thought no if we get 6 we should pick 6. Holy cow. Molly used all her paint and some of Gabe's. Her star is beautiful, and hopefully it's dry by now :)

Daddy helped Gabe paint his Christmas tree. So pretty.

I'm excited to pick them up in a week or so. As we were leaving the store Molly slowly made her way to the ice cream parlor next door. She was very disappointed with me when I told her we couldn't get ice cream before dinner. Mom has to ruin all the fun. Right as we were leaving the building she told me that she needed to go potty. Drum roll. And she went potty on the big potty all by herself without her potty seat!!! That made my day. She also used the little potty at the library Wednesday, but the library has Molly size toilets. I think this means I might not have to bring her potty seat everywhere we go now? fingers crossed. That would be the last step of the whole process. It's been a couple weeks now since she's worn a diaper when she's sleeping and we haven't had any accidents. yippee.

*fyi when I say potty seat I don't mean an actual chair I mean the donut shaped thing that goes on top of the toilet so your kid won't fall in. We never got an actual potty chair, it kind of grosses me out, but so does carrying around her potty seat..?..

an early christmas

We live on a pretty tight budget. I knew that we'd have to when Drew decided to go back to school. (not that we were really living it up on a teachers salary before) Having said that we've also been able to buy some of the nicest things that we've ever had. We have to save, but when you're marking where every penny is going you can also see exactly what kind of surplus you have. We've been combining our surplus with the money that I made over the summer. (I watched my friends little girl for a few months.) I've wanted a nice camera for a while now and on 11/10 it arrived! After a lot of research we decided to stick with cannon. I found a deal online for the cannon xsi w/ the basic lens and a 55-250 mm lens. It wasn't cheap, but the lens was a fraction of the price it would have been separately. I talked Drew into ordering it a little before we had intended. It was a good price and who knows how long "Internet specials" will last. I've been having a lot of fun with my Christmas present.

I think this picture captures Molly and Gabe perfectly.

I have a TON of pictures. I've been experimenting and having a good time. Most of my pictures have been of Molly. She's much more cooperative... In the end I have a lot to learn, but I'm super excited.

East Campus

My friend called me and said it was children's day at the animal science building. So we got dressed and headed for east campus. Molly called it the baby zoo. We got to see a horse, cows, sheep, pigs, turkeys, chickens, and mice. A couple of students walked us around and taught us about each of the animals. The only feature length movie Molly has ever sat through is Charlotte's Web. I think that's why she likes pigs so much? Anyway we had to take a picture of this guy. Right when we walked by he started snorting rather loudly. Molly and Gabe both thoroughly enjoyed it.

After we saw the animals we went and played at the arboretum. Molly and Gabe really liked playing in the leaves. Maybe someday we'll live by a tree. For now we'll just have to visit them.

Then we ended our outing with some ice cream from the dairy store. mmmm. I should have thought to take a picture when we first got our ice cream. The girl behind the counter must have thought Molly and Gabe were cute because she gave them the biggest scoop ever.

Halloween Week

October was fun, but I'm so happy it's over. Our primary program was October 25th. A week or so before I couldn't sleep. I kept waking up in a panic thinking did ___ get their part? Remember to bring ___. ___ shouldn't be sitting by ___. We need to change ___ and ___. It was way more stressful than it should have been. A huge weight was lifted as I left Church at 11:30. Having said that, the program went really well. A couple people (who didn't even have kids/relatives in it) even said it was the best one they'd ever seen. We also ended right on time for the second year in a row. Big thumbs up on that one.

Monday (10/26) I was planning on taking the kids to Boo at the Zoo, but we had some plans for Wednesday night fall through. I decided that we'd stay home. It was a nice break. Monday is one of Drew's late days, it was nice not having to get the kids ready by myself. Tuesday I woke up and felt like my face was going to explode. I've never had that much sinus pressure come that fast before. Gross. But Halloween only comes once a year so I sucked it up and we went about our plans .

Tuesday we went to Martin's Hillside Orchard with our music maker friends.

We went on a hayride.

We played in a small corn maze.

Which way?

Wednesday night we went to Boo at the Zoo. The kids loved it. They were in awe of all the lights and costumes. Molly was thrilled that she got to wear her wings. She kept telling me "I the bee's knees too". It was great watching them as they absorbed every moment.

The firetruck came to Boo at the Museum Thursday night. The first month of music makers we sang a fire truck song. It's still the kids favorite. I hear Gabe walking around the house dinging all the time. The truck being right outside was a big treat.

Look at those happy faces...

Friday night was our Halloween Party/chili cook off at church. Drew entered, but didn't win. He's sure that it was fixed. :) I was in charge of a touching booth. (you know, you have the kids touch some food item and you tell them it's something gross like brains or eyeballs) The look on all the kids faces were priceless, some of them jumped. Who would have guessed touching things from my fridge with your eyes shut could be so terrifying :) I wish I could have captured those moments...

Our trick or treating group. We didn't get any great ones of the kids going door to door, but they LOVED it. Gabe loved the houses that were decked out. He didn't want to leave them. Molly on the other hand would tell me "it's too scary mom les go". In the end they loved it and slept great! It was funny watching Molly go from running to each house to jogging then walking and then begging to be held. It was a busy week, but I decided from the beginning that if I was going to make their costumes that they were going to wear them as much as possible. And that they did.

*HaPpY HaLlOwEeN*

We've had a crazy busy week with all kinds of fall fun. I have a bunch of pictures I need to sift through. Hopefully they'll make it on here in the next few days...

Our pumpkins and glittery spiders.
My sweet bumble bee and my scary mummy.

Weekend Round Up

I realize it's Wednesday, but Drew didn't have class on Monday or Tuesday. So we had an extra long weekend. Whoop whoop for F.A.L.L. B.R.E.A.K.!

Saturday Drew went to the football game. Ouch is all I have to say about that. It was painful to watch. While he was gone I was working on the kids Halloween costumes. When I was preoccupied I heard a slam. (I have to remind Gabe and Molly countless times throughout the day that we don't slam doors. I would say 1/4 of our timeouts are from breaking this rule.) Gabe was in the bedroom and slammed the door. Molly runs over to open it Gabe giggles and slams it again. Then you see Gabe's chubby little fingers reaching out from under the door. Then Molly laughs and says "he scare me mom. he scare me" as she starts tickling his fingers. It was really cute moment. I'm not sure if Molly understands "scare" or if she's actually ever used it before, but it was really cute.

Sunday Gabe got to go to nursery! He did great. They brought him to me to get a new diaper and as we were walking back he ran to the door. It's so nice having a kid who wants to be in there. Molly still has her moments. Something miraculous happened Sunday evening. Molly started going on the POTTY! (We were working on potty training a couple weeks ago, but then we got sick and that went out the window) Something clicked in her head and it's been 3 days with no accidents. After she goes potty she gets a tic tac which she now calls potty tacs. :) I'm still doing a diaper at night and nap times. She's been staying dry during nap and waking up a little wet in the morning. I think it'll be a while before I let her sleep in panties. (especially since nap time is on my bed) Hopefully I'm not jinxing it, but I'm excited about it and more importantly so is Molly. She'll just tell me when she needs to go and do it.

holy bed head

Monday we went and played some frisbee golf. We went to Roper park (right off 180 and superior). The weather was perfect. Drew and I only did 9... baskets? We thought there were 18, but on the walk back to the car we passed basket 27. Maybe there are 30? Anyway I didn't lose as bad as usual. I'm terrible at frisbee. Gabe was content hanging out in the stroller, which I was grateful for. There were a ton of people playing. (Part of the reason we only played 9) I was surprised at how many people were walking around with backpacks full of frisbees. It really made us look inferior with our two drivers.... Molly was our caddy. She would always run to the disks and pick them up for us. When we got to the basket Molly would put her frisbee in with ours clink the chains a few times and then pull them out.
Tuesday was the first day I took Molly out in only underwear. We went to the beginning of music makers and then we took Gabe to the doctor for his 18 month check up. Molly told me that she needed to go potty at the doctor's office, but one look at the big toilets and she was done. She held it until we got home.

Today we went to story time. As we were leaving the library Molly told me that she needed to go potty. This time she sat on the toilet, but didn't actually go. Some progress. After story time we had to run to wal-mart and the grocery store. Again she held it until we got home. I'm really proud of her and I'm so happy that Gabe is walking. I couldn't imagine going into public bathrooms with a baby that wanted to crawl on the floor. Gross.

I haven't posted a video of Gabe walking yet. Here is one from this morning.

you must be joking...

This is what we woke up to Saturday....
Here we are Friday. Nice. Sunny. A normal fall afternoon.

And here we are again, Saturday morning... Sick huh?

Last weekend we had the swine flu. It was lovely. We were all feeling terrible, but Molly still kept us entertained. Recently she has been wearing two different shoes all the time. I have to consciously remind myself to check her shoes before we leave the house. Anyway this is my girl. She's always decked out and I love it.

I Blame the Touch...

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. Drew's touch is way too convenient. I can check everything in the palm of my hand. So the desktop has been being neglected and thus so is the blog. Fall is here and we're getting back into our routine. On Tuesdays I'm taking the kids to music makers (a way cute music class), on Wednesdays we go to toddler time at the library (we get to sing, march and hear a story), and on Thursdays we have playgroup. Randomly we work in the zoo, children's museum and parks. So we're alive and running all over Lincoln.

My adorable Molly is now 2 1/2.
I decided that Molly's old enough to potty train. That's what we've been working on. aaaahhhhh. Molly can seriously hold it ALL day. We've made some progress; we've only had two accidents. But after staying home ALL weekend I decided that I needed to get out Monday. So we went to the zoo....
I'm not sure what you 'd call this (see picture below). It's a box made out of plywood that has a bunch of looking holes at all different levels. I think it's a cool idea. It's overlooking a little pond that contains a bunch of exotic birds. This is a picture of Molly and Gabe modeling what you should do. Right after I took the picture Molly turned and gave me one of her I have a great idea smiles. (That smile means one thing... trouble.) Molly ran full speed into the wall at the other end. I swear the whole thing shook. Gabe thought it was hysterical so he was laughing and clapping, which echoed quite nicely. Gabe's laughing was all the encouragement Molly needed to take off for the other side. I swear one day someone is going to ask us to leave. I couldn't see the animals, but I'm sure they were scared that a crazy two year old was going to come through the wall to kill them... yikes.


We went to the children's museum last week. One of Molly's favorite stations is the face painting. Go figure. Here she is with freckles (I have a bunch of freckles that Molly is very interested in. Molly has one freckle on her leg.) rosy checks and blue eyes. Priceless.

A picture of Gabe courtesy of Molly. Nice angle huh? :)

A lady from church invited us over to pick apples. Molly kept calling it apple jack (after the parade we went too. apparently it made quite the impression).

Mike is in the tree throwing the apples down to Drew. Drew was catching/bagging them. I loved the creativity/teamwork.

We went to the Apple Jack Festival in Nebraska City a couple weeks ago. I'm a little embarrassed to say that it was the kids first parade. Lame parents I guess... Molly and Gabe LOVED it. It was the longest parade that I had ever been too. I think it was 2 1/2 hours. It was full of marching bands. Gabe danced. Molly waved. After the parade we went to the Arbor Day Farm. There we had yummy carmel apples, and apple slush. Sadly I didn't take any pictures after the first 1/2 of the parade, but I'm sure you can imagine all the apple goodness.