What we're reading this week

Cath and I are reading "Charlotte's Web" at nighttime to get her used to chapter books with not too many pictures, and she is loving this book! I have been very surprised by how attentively she is listening to this book while I'm reading.



Both kid's are reading "Goodnight Moon" with me this week. We will be talking about the different phases of the moon, planets, clocks/telling time, memorizing "Hey diddle diddle", and reading "Goldilocks and the three bears" as a supplement.

Now for my reading list:
We can all use some help with our budget sometime, especially when trying to buy a house!
















And here's the new picture if me:

Waiting....

I've been wanting to post all week, but I only really have one issue on my mind lately, getting a mortgage for a house. We have turned in all our needed info to the mortgage broker, and now we have a 2wk wait until we hear back from the lenders. And, apparently a VA Loan doesn't always mean a guaranteed mortgage like we thought, especially not in this economy! I feel so stupid for letting people know that we may be buying a house, now if we don't get the mortgage having to explain to them why we're all of a sudden not buying will be adding insult to injury. I'm tryting to stay positive, but am of course extremely nervous/anxious and driving everyone nuts with this issue.

We took a break this week. Everyone was sick at some point this week, and I wasn't feeling too motivated so we stayed home and did nothing all week. We'll get back into the swing of things sometime next week, probably after the holiday/inauguration mess is all done.

And, my last bit of news. my hair is now short again. I'm sure that comes as no suprise to most as I love short hair and I also change my hair at least a few times a year. Long hair bores me, and I've never looked that great with even medium/chin legth or so hair, so I may have to stick to just short for a while now. I love my hasirstyle now, pictures will come when Jason wakes as I'm horrid with cameras... my only issue with it is now I look identical to my dad! It's always something....

Car troubles...buying a house... shoes?

We haven't heard back from our car insurance guy whether the man Jason grazed with the car will settle or sue, obviously we hope he will settle. Everyone is in agreement that he was in the wrong so if he decided to sue it really wouldn't amount to much more than a major annoyance, and those lovely legal fees. But, that wasn't the end of our car troubles last week, I ended up popping 2 tires while trying to avoid a pothole! Of course, even if I knew how to change a tire it wouldn't have helped me here since I only had 1 spare, albeit a full size spare not a donut. We had to be towed to the nearest car dealership, and bought 2 new tires and got the alignment checked out. The other 2 tires we'll replace next month, the downside of having a AWD car is when 1 tire goes they all must go, joy.

Our lease will finally be up at this horrid apartment in June, so we have decided to buy a house, finally!! I have been bugging Jason badly about this for a while and he's finally caved, we should be applying for a VA Loan in the next few days. Until then I'm having quite a bit of fun house hunting online while kid's nap, I already have a list of potential dream homes I bug Jason about quite frequently. I'm actually in shock that we can buy a single family home in Woodbridge/Manassas area for around $200-250,000, I never thought I'd see that!

Cath's shoe saga is finally over, she got new shoes over the weekend! As most of you probably remember she has held on to her favorite shoes for months now and refused any other shoes, shopping trips for shoes... Finally when my mom was here we took her shopping and I explained she must get new shoes because someone else needed her old shoes, she got extremely upset with me but reluctantly picked out a new pair when Jason bribed her with ice cream. Now she has a shiny new set of brown Mary Jane's with butterflies on them, and I'm seriously dreading having to relive this again 6mos or so from now.

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.