farewell 2010

Today it was 64 degrees. What a way to say goodbye to December. We couldn't pass up the weather so we headed to the zoo.

(can you tell which picture didn't get edited :/.... sorry Molly)

Here we are on "the big wheel".

Doesn't it look like he's posing for me?

a bit of randomness

We are slowly making our house the way that I want it. I think things would happen a little quicker if I had a bit more energy and maybe a waist? I keep thinking that in a few months it will be easier. It will be warmer and I won't be pregnant anymore. Then I remember that I'm going to have a newborn. hmmm.

When we moved into our house everything was white. Upon further inspection I think every room in our house at some point in time was pink. Yes pink. Old lady plum/pink. (sorry to any older women :)) This is our smallest bedroom soon to be nursery. Notice the lovely pink carpet... Molly called this our pinkalicous room.
One day in October I told Drew that I wanted to take the carpet out. He said we'd eventually get around to it. The next day while Drew was at work I got around to it. Next to go was the wallpaper. Luckily the whole room wasn't wallpaper because it took me FOREVER to get all the glue off the wall. (I have big plans for our kitchen, but I'm dreading taking down all of that wallpaper. GROSS.)

TaDa the finished project.

We moved the crib in a couple weekends ago. It's been slow going, but the big stuff is done. Now it's on to the fun stuff. Picking out pictures for the walls and making curtains.

While I was at it I also decided to take the carpet out of the rest of the bedrooms. We have really nice carpet in the living room and hallway, but not so much in the bedrooms. I'm happy that we are now pink carpet free. Drew still has a couple more weeks off. The plan is to get the other two bedrooms painted and hopefully the bathrooms.

One other little project.

Molly has been into headbands lately. Here is one that I've made for her.

Merry Christmas!

(I got a 50mm lens. I'm so excited. Thanks Suzie.)

highlights of the week

Santa (12/11)

Last Saturday our friend invited us out to the golf course to see Santa. We couldn't pass that up. We had pizza and cookies. We watched a magic show. Then we watched Santa drive over the hill in a golf cart to the club house. So fun. Santa even gave the kids $5 in the goodie bags he passed out. It's nice having some connections. :)

Look no tears!
Molly and Gabe were pretty devastated when their balloon animals died later that night...

My Birthday (12/13)

I had a great birthday. School was even canceled in my honor. :) (apparently school gets cancelled a lot here? There was only 2 in. of snow on the ground.) I got everything I wanted. Drew even took me out to dinner without the kids.

And the biggest highlight of the week...
Potty Training! (12/14-present)

That's right my little man is going on the potty!!! The diaper fairy visited our house and took all of our diapers.

12/14- 3 accidents

12/15-2 accidents

12/16- 1 accident (it was a sad one right outside the bathroom door.) Gabe started telling us when he needed to go to the bathroom. HUGE step forward.

12/17 NO ACCIDENTS! He even took a nap and stayed dry.

We're doing pull ups at night. I'm not sure if he's waking up wet or if he's peeing before I realize he's awake... I'm ok using one pull up at night if it means no more diapers. Well at least for a couple months. :) I am nervous about the weekend: leaving the house, using public toilets etc. I guess we will see how that goes, fingers crossed.

let it snow! let it snow! let it snow!

and then rain?

This morning we woke up to snow. Molly and Gabe were really excited. So was I. I decided to pull out the camera and cross my fingers for some Christmas card worthy pictures.

I've always felt really lucky that Molly and Gabe are the opposite of picky when it comes to eating. Gabe LOVES to perch himself near whoever is cooking. He wants to try, smell and "help" make everything. Molly is the same. I can't think of anything that they won't eat... Lucky me.

Molly and Gabe make up for this lack of pickyness in food when it comes to clothes. I was pleasantly surprised when Gabe actually let me put that pull over sweater on him. I've tried to get him to wear it to church. That has ended with Drew eventually coming into the kids room and telling me that it isn't worth all the screaming and to let him pick out a different sweater. arg. Gabe has a dresser full of clothes. 1/2 of them he refuses to wear. By refuse I mean arching of the back and screaming bloody murder. If said clothes do make it onto him he'll take them off and run away naked. "me no like that"

Then there is Molly. Where do I begin?
Me "Molly it's cold outside. I want you to pick out a pair of pants"
Molly "why do you want me to be ugly? I want to wear... {fancy sundress} I want to look beautiful."
Me "it's too cold for that"
Molly then starts crying. Huge tears start. Followed by wailing about how Princesses never wear pants. Sometimes I'll get her to happily agree to wear a skirt with leggings. But did you know that princesses never wear skirts, leggings, coats or fancy shirts? They only wear fancy dresses. I do get her on occasion when I point out that while Cinderella and Snow White may always wear dresses, but their "bad mamma's" make them wear ugly rag dresses. Holy Cow. I used to think Molly was a "normal" girlie girl, but I don't see other little girls walking around wearing crowns and clip on earrings ALL THE TIME... I do think the crown is funny and she does where it everywhere, but I have enough to battle with her about. If she wants to wear a crown to the library and to run errands more power to her.

Maybe I should be looking forward to kindergarten. I've been told that all of the schools here require uniforms. Everyone can look "ugly" together.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My parents, sister, and brother drove down for Thanksgiving. Here is a picture of everyone sitting down for dinner. We had lots of yummy food. It was so nice having my family here. Friday Drew and I were able to sneak out and start/finish Christmas shopping for Molly and Gabe. We also snuck out on Saturday to see the new HP movie. I LOVED it. I think it was the best one so far. Maybe it's because I felt like it was truer to the book. Or maybe it was because I didn't read the book right before the movie. Either way I'm excited for July when the next one comes out.

My parents left this afternoon. Now it's back to laundry and getting back on a schedule. Most of the time my family was here it was wet and gross outside. Drew and Ben played football in the rain Thursday morning. We woke up to a pathetic amount of snow on Friday, but Molly and Gabe were still really excited about it (it was all melted by 11). Saturday and Sunday were chilly, but today has been beautiful. All of the rain over the past week is turning our grass green again. It's a little deceiving because I know that winter is right around the corner.

That's that. Our weekend in a nutshell.

it's a bird. it's a plane...

It's a baby BOY!

He should be arriving sometime mid March. The ultrasound said that he's measuring a little small. Maybe he'll be a week late like Molly... Or maybe he'll surprise me and be a couple weeks early like Gabe... Either way we're all really excited and can't wait.

(Drew thinks he looks like Gabe)

Happy Halloween Weekend!

Friday: the church Trunk or Treat

don't they look thrilled to be there?

(Gabe is a monkey. I'm noticing that I didn't get any pictures of him with his hood up...) Saturday: Boo at the Zoo

Molly's favorite

by this point in the night Gabe was passed out in the stroller.
Molly on the "giant wheel"

The talking pumpkin. She said Molly was a beautiful witch. Anyone who says Molly is beautiful automatically becomes a fan favorite. "Mommy did you hear her? She said I was beautiful." And I keep thinking is this really my 3 year old?

Halloween.

We had dinner with some friends and then went trick or treating around the block. One family had a big screen tv on their front lawn and were playing the Thriller music video. There were 10+ people dancing along. Molly and Jimmy were awe struck.

Drew's pumpkin

friends welcome

Last week our friend Aaron had a conference here in Louisville. He brought along Becky and the rest of the kiddos. We had so much fun. We've really missed them. When we lived in Lincoln we would get together a lot, our kids get along really well and it was nice always having a friend to do things with. Molly and Gabe have been talking about them coming for a LONG time. Now we are working on getting back on schedule and catching up on the sleep we missed out on last week. :D

We went to Mooremen Landing and walked around. It was so pretty. The kids had a great time playing in the leaves. One thing about Kentucky is that there is NO shortage of leaves.

We went to Mammoth Cave on Friday. Sadly Aaron was at his conference so he missed out on this one. Here we are exiting the cave.
me and the girls

Becky with her little guy.

What can I say? Gabe is so happy to be a part of our family.

We also went to the zoo played some frisbee golf and went for a little night hike in the Jefferson Memorial Forrest.

Thanks for coming Anderson's we had a great time!

Paint & Wood

Before.

After.
The hallway/kids door.
One of the things that I like about our library is that after story time they always have a craft. Molly and Gabe's door is ready for fall.
(Last week felt like fall low to mid 70's. Sunday it's supposed to be 90. Not complaining just sayin...)
We have a friend who takes care of a golf course. Last week he cut down 2 trees. These trees have a new home behind our garage.
This was the start. Now the wood goes all the way across the garage and it's stacked up to the window. We still have a bunch of trunk pieces that need to be cut and then stacked... It should keep us warm this winter. and the next. and the next. Anything to keep the heating bill down is fine by me.

Meijer

I'm not sure if any of you live by a Meijer or if Meijer adds are national or just local, but my Meijer is having a can sale this week. Meijer brand vegetables are 4/$1.00 and apples are $.59 lb. Our store was pretty cleaned out, but Wal-Mart add matches...

One other reason we love Meijer is Sandy. Sandy is the little electronic horse you can ride when walking out of the store. Molly and Gabe asked if they could ride her the first time we were in there. I without really looking said No and then realized that you can ride Sandy for {drumroll} $.01 Now whenever we're in Meijer the bribe is "if your good you can ride Sandy before we leave".

Fall is Here!

{I'm so happy that blogger let me put more than 1 picture with this post :) Does anyone else ever have this problem? I'll wait forever for my pictures to load only to have an error message show up. Hallelujah it worked today.}

The weather is finally cooling off here in the great state of Kentucky. Last week in was in the mid to high 90's. This week it's in the mid 70's. Do you know what that means? It's time to start wearing really cute hats. I was trying to practice with the manual settings on my camera yesterday evening and I had two very uncooperative kids. Even though the model isn't impressed I'm pretty happy with the way this hat turned out and I'm excited that now I can make/talk her into wearing it. I'm sure this hat and others like it will start popping up in pictures throughout the coming months.

What have we been up too? Well our freezer broke last week. I was sad to have to spend money on a new one, but not sad to replace the old one. So this is the newest addition to the Wilkerson home. It's big, shiny and showcases all of our fingerprints very nicely. :) Now our appliances are 2 and 2. The built in microwave is also stainless steel and the stove and dishwasher are a nice off white almondy color. Eventually they'll all match...
Here are a couple zoo pictures. I've been pretty impressed with the Louisville Zoo. With our Lincoln Children's Zoo membership we get into this zoo for free. Always a plus. This Zoo also has an awesome splash pad equipped with a pirate ship and slides. Although because it's getting late in the season I think it's only open on the weekends because I loaded up the kids and their swimming stuff last Monday and it was closed. After walking around the zoo in the 90+ degree weather we were all pretty sticky and tired, no pictures of that visit.
*In this picture it looks like Molly peed her pants. Not to fear she didn't a pretend animal peed on her. At least she thought it was funny...

I'm sad that I didn't get any pictures of this goats face. It was one of the ugliest goats I have ever seen. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Maybe next time...

We've also enjoyed playing in the rain. What good are rain boots if you can't find any puddles to jump in?

We (by we I mean Drew) started painting the front room. It's a neutral beige type color. I think it makes our house feel a lot more inviting. When it's completely finished pictures will be coming hopefully tonight fingers crossed. Next month our plan is to start painting the kitchen. I found a back splash that I LOVE. The only problem is that I don't think we have the budget to purchase the back splash next month. I'm slightly worried that I'm going to paint my kitchen around a back splash that will be discontinued or something by the time I'm ready to buy it... We'll see. My decorating wants list goes on and on. I also want to get a new curtain rod and curtains for the living room. Something bright that will compliment the blue that will be in the kitchen and our very neutral living room. I love decorating I just wish I had an endless budget so that I could do everything at once. :)

Now I should probably be off to put away some dishes and laundry before Molly and Gabe wake up. I LOVE nap time!

ding

Last night after Molly was tucked into bed she said that she had to go potty. (For some reason recently Drew and I haven't been great about reminding her after we brush her teeth.)
Drew: "dang it"
Molly: with great excitement "ding!"
Drew: puzzled face
Molly: "I ding-ed it"

They're Here!

I've been waiting for this day ever since we've moved in. It's going to be nice not having to cart my laundry around town. (Having said that I've still been really spoiled. My grandma lives maybe 3 miles from us and she's been letting me do laundry at her house.)

Aren't they beautiful! I think I have about 1,000 loads of laundry to do. They'll be really broken in tomorrow.

Gabe was in heaven today. First it was garbage day and then the men came to deliver the washer and dryer. I think I've heard "you wash my morcycle shirt" about 20 times today. (Gabe has been asking to wear his motorcycle shirt everyday. Sadly its been dirty for about the last week and a half.)

Molly has been obsessed with princesses and fairy tales lately. Yesterday she told me that she married Jack and the Beanstalk. I asked her what happened to Prince Charming and she told me that he lives too far away in his castle. After asking her a few more questions she told me "fine I just marry myself". She then invited me to her wedding "you come into your bathroom and you can watch me marrying myself" I followed her into the bathroom where she danced in her tap shoes and twirled in the dress and pettiskirt she was wearing. (Drew and I have a good size bathroom off of our bedroom with a skylight. I think it's Molly's favorite room.)

Molly also named her little dog last week. Molly has always called her babies and stuffed animals by descriptive words. She has heavy baby, sick baby, bathtub baby etc. Last week she kept telling me "I bringing Mango a treat. Mango needs___" I asked her who Mango was and she told me that it was her puppy. He's 2 just like Gabe. She also told me "Mango starts with a M like me". Then the name evolved to Mango Clementine. I'm not sure where she came up with it, but I think it's funny. I guess Molly does like the Oh My Darling Clementine song, but I'm still not sure where Mango came from.

All of the 'i's have been dotted

and the 't's have been crossed

We're homeowners! Or at least we will be in 30 years.

Let the painting begin.

She's got a plan

Molly: "When I big I going to drive a car like you"
Mommy: "yep when you turn 16 you'll be able to drive a car too"
Molly: "oh... (with a very thoughtful look on her face) When I turn 16 I going to prick my finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep deep sleep"

I bet you can't guess what Molly's favorite story is right now.

*sidenote* We're using our wilkerson0505@msn.com email again. Even though windstream is based in the south and we're a lot closer to the south now than we were in Nebraska they don't service our area. Lame, but true.

We're Here!

Well we've been here a little while, we're alive and we have a phone connection! I'm just now realizing that I haven't pulled out my camera since we've been here. I'll have to change that this week, but for now if you want to see pictures my friend took our family pictures a couple months ago you can go here to see them. :) I think they turned out great. Thanks again Becky!


Drew completed his first week of teaching with only one incident. (Drew is split between 2 campuses, Bullitt County and Southwest. Southwest is 4 miles from our house and the Bullitt campus is about a 15-20 min drive. On Tuesday he got to his Bullitt office ready to print his syllabus, but the computer wouldn't recognize any of the documents on his flash drive. So he drove to his southwest office printed everything and made it back to the Bullitt campus with a couple minutes to spare. I think I would have been on the verge of tears.) And as for me and the kids well we're getting settled. We've unpacked a lot of boxes, but I feel like there are still a million more. I'm also feeling really young. Most of our neighbors (at least the ones right by us) are older with grand kids older than Molly and Gabe. Everyone has been really friendly and it's a pretty quiet neighborhood. So that's that so far. Teaching, Boxes and playing in the yard.

One step closer

I've often joked that all we needed was a sand box and a goat and we wouldn't need a Lincoln Children's Zoo membership. Yesterday at a garage sale I found a crab sandbox! My parents bought some sand for it. Hours of entertainment. Gabe isn't a fan of sand on his feet or being dirty, but he loves playing with sand. It's entertaining to watch Gabe as he tries to stay clean and winds up with sand ALL over him. Molly on the other hand told me that the sand box was the ocean. She then layed on her belly and pretended to swim in the sand. "Look at me jumping in the sea. I swimming in the ocean." I think I'm going to have some really dirty kids as long as the weather permits.

Sad

I have so many pictures to post. Projects I've finally finished. New family pictures. Some fun outings. I'm not sure when they'll make it on the blog, everything including my camera is neatly packed away. Tomorrow I'm leaving Lincoln with the kids. Drew will be following shortly. I'm really sad to be leaving, but it's amazing how taking all the pictures off the walls has made our apartment not feel like ours anymore.

ewww

I like making things with Molly and Gabe. We have different projects or outings almost everyday. On days that I don't plan anything they run around tearing our apartment apart and driving me crazy. One of the things that we've made a couple times is homemade gak. I store it in a Ziploc and every time we pull it out we need to add more starch, or it looks like this.
Gabe is never a fan of gak, but he's always insistent on playing with it for a couple of minutes before returning to play dough. We've also made our own play dough. I LOVE homemade play dough. We still have some that we made in December and it hasn't dried out. Fantastic.

A few weeks ago I watched my dear friend Becky's kids. Here is Gabe holding her little guy. I think it's funny in this picture that her baby doesn't look that much smaller than Gabe. (Her baby is only 2 months) I thought this was a sweet picture and since Gabe has been a bit of a monster recently I decided to include it. 3 of Gabe's "i" teeth just broke the surface and he has a strep rash. All of this makes for one crabby toddler and one frustrated mama.

When I have to get the laundry folded water always keeps them busy. Our patio is shaded until 12:30ish in the summer and we like to take advantage of it.

Lazy Monday

It was beautiful yesterday, overcast and breezy so we went to the Children's Zoo.
All Aboard!

Molly was BRAVE and decided she was going to feed the BIG goat (usually she'll only feeds the babies).