Back from vacation

We got back from our Disney vacation a few days ago, family is here for a few days but I'm so thankful the holiday season is coming to a close. The Disney trip was fun for everyone but really stressful, especially when you have 2 kiddo's with a intense hatred of long lines and minimal things young kid's can actually do. Now the family is here for a few days before going home, and we just celebrated our own "Christmas" today since we weren't here on the actual holiday.

As you can see I changed the background again, mainly to please the snow lover in the house, Catharina. She's waiting very impatiently for the real thing, I try to appease her with pictures, books and info on her current favorite animal penguins and that's working for now. We're in talks about putting Cath into either a ballet or gymnastics/tumbling class for exercise/socialization without mom/something to do in winter, but don't know which to go with. I would love for her to be in ballet, since she seems to have some interest in it, and since I so loved ballet when I was little... but the gymnastics/tumbling classes I've seen look right up her alley too, and they have some great programs, although some are rather costly. Any suggestions?

Pete is throwing himself into his love of trains/cars and will throw a major fit if anyone touches his new birthday stuff, don't you love the 2's. He's been getting entranced by the way his trains magnetically stick to their cars, so I'm thinking may'be getting some info on magnets? Other than that the only thing new with Pete is he has to see a Pediatric Urologist next week, to check on things "down there", and be sure that his previous surgery at 6mo took care of the Hypospadias and no more surgery is needed. Needless to say I'm on pins and needles about that, I just hope we won't have to go through that ordeal again.

We were in a car accident yesterday, Jason bumped into a pedestrian, who was not in the crosswalk, when we were leaving the Harris Teeter on Duke St. The man is fine, he only has some bad bruising to his legs, the kid's were with my mom and we are fine. But, of course this is bringing up a whole slew of troubles, even though we did everything right! Thankfully both the police and car insurance guys are in agreement that it wasn't our fault at all, but unfortunatley there were no witnesses and now the guy we hit is making up tall tales to milk us out of $$. The man we hit is saying that our car ran over his legs before we stopped!! How would it be possible for our SUV to run over this man's legs and only leave him with bad bruising, but not any broken/fractured bones? While I of course feel sympathy for the man, I must cry bullshit here. And, of course our insurance agent informed us that this matter may not be resolved for a year, may'be more.... This will make for a exciting year.

Uneventful week here....

We didn't have a very eventful week here, and it felt nice! We had a very quiet Thanksgiving with no extra family members, no friends, no traveling... it was just the 4 of us and it was wonderful. The kiddo's hated the hand/foot print turkey craft idea I had, and we meant to make turkey hats but the hats I got were too big, ugh.

This week we hope to work on ornaments for the tree, as we have decided that we will only adorn the tree with either handmade ornaments or one's given by friends. We're trying to keep things as simple as possible before our trip in Dec.

I am trying my hand at scrapbooking, and I really like it! So, hopefully you will be seeing my latest creations. On that note, I have to run to Michael's to get some adhesive, because the Scotch brand double sided scrapbooking tape really sucks!!

Updates...

Updates aren't going to be happening on a daily basis here, so don't get your hopes up. We're not that interesting, and I either don't have the time or don't have the motivation to update all the time. I do plan on updating this blog at least 2-3x/week, and I'll try to include a picture or some other juicy details.

No new signature, or header yet as Jason is still helping me making them but is dragging his feet. I will give you pictures today though. I have pictures of "turkeys" the kid's made, and a photo of their new haircuts. In the future I probably will just post photos of completed projects sans kid's as I dislike putting pictures of my kid's on the web for everyone to view for security purposes, thanks mom.

I'm back

After a bit of a break I've decided to resume my blogging here once more. I've been trying lots of new things to lift me out of this depression I've been in for the past few months, it's been a really hard year but I just have to hope things will get better. So, I've started updating and personalizing this blog, and with Jason's help I hope to have a custom header and signature by tomorrow. I'm getting out of The Mom's Club which feels freeing, I'm going to try my hand at scrapbooking, and my new goal is just to make life simpler.

Catharina is obsessed with everything ABC's currently, which is resulting in her knowing almost all of her sight letters. We are doing some basic potty stuff which she is actually receptive to, may'be she'll be trained by 4 I can only hope. Jason is taking charge of art here as Cath has decided that I am too boring to be a art teacher... I just get the fun of cleaning up the creations *whoopie*. Jason is also teaching Cath how to use the computer mouse to play games online, this mostly ties in to her ABC obsession. Cath has decided she loves drawing lately... on the walls... I figured out recently that she prefers ro stand up when drawing/painting rather than sit down, so one of her presents for Christmas is a art easel. And, on a final note for Cath, she finally got her hair cut! She and I have been tired of taking care of her long hair for quite some time so last weekend I asked her if she wanted it cut and she said yes, now it's just below her ears and very cute. We are donating her 12in ponytail to Locks of Love.

Peter, my baby, will be 2 on Dec. 13th, and I am so sad. Pete has really gotten into Thomas the tank engine, and trains, I have no idea where it came from as we never watch that at our place. He talks more now, although only 50% is audible to others, and he is joining Cath on her potty training, at his request. Again, to end on a hair note, Pete got a mohawk! It looks really cute, although being the amateurs we are the lines aren't straight so it looks much better spiked than not.

Kumon Workbooks

We've recently rediscovered the wonders that are Kumon workbooks! I tried them about a year ago with Cath and there was no interest, and we've tried mountains of other workbooks with the same results. I recently decided to give workbooks another try since Cath needs to work on things like letter recognition, pre-writing skills/tracing, and other fine motor stuff.. and we decided to try Kumon, because everyone seems to rave about it. We got a bunch of Kumon workbooks at Target, and have been working mainly on coloring and pasteing over the last few days, and I'm suprised to say that Cath loves these workbooks! She and I both love the colorful pages, how they start off very simple and increasingly get harder, they're not "too" long, they seem more fun than academic.. Cath has showed some interest in the Uppercase letters workbook I got her and is getting better at guessing which letter I'm showing her, but still not much interest in tracing it. And, we gave the Cutting workbook a shot but Cath got really frustrated when I told her that she shouldn't operate the scissors with 2 hands, and that ended the lesson real quick.

This week we'll be reading "The Big Green Pocketbook" by Candice Ransom, it was about time we started actually "doing something again". I plan on helping Cath to make a lapbook for this book, and I hope to record some of this adventure and share it all with you. I just hope Cath is cooperative when I'm taking pictures, I normally can't make her hold still for more than a minute. Peter, if you're reading this I'm sure you know what I'm talking about;)

This is me, take it or leave it...

I am so sick of kissing up to people and playing nice just to be snubbed by them at the first possible opportunity, or to hear those whispers about "how weird she is". So, I'm done with trying to please people!!! This is who I am what you see is what you get, if you don't like it then good for you go get a cookie and cry about it for all I care.

I know I'm young, I'm "so liberal she should be a Communist", a hippie, not one of those "perfect mom's", my kid's actually have tantrums in public *oh the horror*, I'm "weird" and "ruining her kid's life" because there's no Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy/figment of somebody's imagination here. Yes, Pete still co-sleeps and wakes up in the middle of the night, yes I'm still nursing, yes it's still considered "normal" for all this to be going on. No, Cath is still not potty trained, she shows no interest in handwriting so we're not going there, and there is nothing wrong with her because she doesn't like crowds and has breakdowns in public she's just a introverted child.

There, I think all the major issues are on the table. So, if you get offended easily, don't like what you've read thus far, completely disagree with my views, or whatever you're excuse is you know where the door is and trust me I won't be shedding a tear over that departure.

So, for those sticking with me, I've started to personalize this thing. It's still obviously in the beginning stages, but something is better than nothing. Yes, I actually put up a picture and there may be more to come, at least of the kid's. I have come to terms with the fact that I'm completely un-photogenic, the camera and I are not friends, so I will not be posting pictures of myself much.

We're Home!

We made it back, now it's time for the fun to begin again! I'm suprising myself by admitting that we actually had a wonderful trip with almost no major bumps, for once. It was so relaxing to be away from the city, the river and all its wonders has always worked some sort of magic calming on me, and I think its rubbed off on the kiddo's too. We had such a wonderful visit that when Jason came up for the weekend to bring us back we were actually talking of may'be moving back to NY after he finishes getting his degree, which is something we swore we'd never do. I guess as much as I hate to admit it I am a small town girl who wants to live close to her family, I'm not suited to live in this or any city, I yearn for a simpler life with less stress. Why is it that the older I get the more of a hypocrite I find myself becoming?

Cath is really blossoming now, she seems to be growing out of her shyness although I suspect that like me she will always be shy to a degree, she talks more especially outside her comfort zones, and we're making headway on verbalizing our emotions when she gets upset instead of just yelling. Pete isn't really doing anything new I can think of, except looking less like my baby everyday, especially nowadays since he's sporting a faux-hawk. The schooling is on hiatus right now because life is too busy and we need some cool down time before adding another thing to our schedule, I plan to start up again in a week or two, after we recover from MIL's expected visit this weekend.