We made it in. The move went without a hitch. The house is great. Now we are doing the whole UNpacking thing and trying to keep the kids alive while doing so.

The dishwasher holds more than my old one.

The rooms are painted the colors we chose.

The bathroom fixtures are not far from what I would have chosen myself.

The kids now have their own rooms.

Our living room is not overwhelmed by both a TV and a computer (each are in their own separate rooms).

But the best part, you ask? The best part is that at approximately 3:15 school lets out, and at that time ALL of the school buses go by our house heading to the school parking lot and back out again. And at that time, you can find Sam, sitting joyfully in the living room window eating his snack and yelling, “Look! Look! ANOTHER one!” And that, my friends, is a great investment.

I will say, however, we have not a window dressing to speak of, and no intention of doing anything about that until the weekend. The neighbors are getting to know us quite well.

And sorry for the comments being down over the weekend - my brother was moving us to another server and, of course, I didn’t know there was a problem because our computer wasn’t hooked up. Hope all are well. I’ll read blogs again soon, I hope, once we are functioning. I think I have like over 200 posts on bloglines . . . heh, heh.

Labels: House, Pictures, The Big One

Today was your last day of being two.

(birth)

We went to the zoo, and you helped me push the stroller around.

(Halloween - 5 months)

We rode the train.

(crawling, first vehicle obsession)

You ran around with your friend and chased the geese.

(sick day)

You told me about nine times that tomorrow you wanted “chockat cake . . . with FWOSTING! And Thomas!”

(your sense of humor)

You had a tantrum about eating at the dinner table. I explained that we eat at tables.

(playing in the pool at Mimi and Poppy’s)

You pointed out that the train table is also a table, and that it also has two little chairs . . .

(your first steps)

Dinner was at the train table tonight.

(walking on your own)

As I put you to bed you told me you loved me “so much.”

(my favorite picture of you)

I told you I loved you so much too.

(Christmas - 19 months)

I told you that you were my big boy. You said Yes.

(second birthday)

And I asked you how you got so big, how it had happened so fast.

(Halloween - train engineer, of course)

You wanted to sleep with your “favorite cars: owange O twuck, bwue wace car, and big wed wace car,” as you have every night for the past three weeks. You always list them for me, despite the fact that I have known which are you favorites this whole time.

(first day of school)

I told you that “tomorrow when you wake up, you’ll be three.” How did this happen?

(last week at the carnival)

You fell asleep, snoring and exhausted from your last day as a two year old, with my hand rubbing your head, your arm slung over your eyes, and telling me that you really like cake . . . and pudding too.

Labels: Birthdays, Pictures, The Big One

****Edited below****

Nothing quite so disconcerting as handing over pretty much ALL of your money in one tidy cashiers check, is there? We closed on the house. All went well. I think my stomach is finally settling down. And, well, I guess we’re home owners now. So I suppose one of us had better get around to mowing that unattended lawn . . . and moving. That would be good too. We move a week from Saturday because we wanted to have work done to it before we brought the kids in. Now I wish we could just get it over with.

You know, this was a very different post when I put it up two hours ago, but it felt wrong (and I apologize for any confusion for the few of you that may have seen it in its original form).  It was sort of a downer, which is not indicative of how my husband and I feel about the purchase of our new home - it felt dishonest and forced.   And most of all, it told details of a story that is not mine to tell, so I’m taking a lot of it out.

What I really want to say is this:

That’s our house.  Those trees? Those are our trees.  That’s where my family is going to live and play and settle.  And we’re so excited about it we can’t stand it.  We can’t wait to be there and wake up for the first time in our new home.

Labels: Bodily functions, House, Pictures

You know what is amazing?  When Sam wakes up in the night and is afraid or confused, he says, “Mommy.”  I am the first thing that comes to his mind.  “Mommy, I need you.”  When he gets hurt, “I need Mommy to kiss it.”  When he doesn’t feel well, “I need Mommy to chill me out.”

And what amazes me about this is that I am the mommy.  Me.  Someone (two people, actually) needs me so much that when they awake in the dark I am the person that can make it all better.  I’m the mommy.

I’ve submitted the above photo to the 5 Minutes For Mom photo contest.

Labels: Bloggy Stuff - Memes/Links/Business, Mommyhood, Pictures

Sam and I have been playing a lot of Candyland lately.  He caught on remarkably fast, seeing as it’s his very first board game and all.  But after a while I started to notice something a little…odd.

Here are some examples of some of the cards I was allowed to draw during our recent game.

You can assume they pretty much all looked like this.

Here are some of the cards Sam “happened” to draw.

Again, you can assume they pretty much all looked like this.

In case you can’t tell, this is a stack of all of the “special cards,” all of which were “his.”

And here’s the “pile” we were drawing from, where he directed each of us as to which card we could pick up.

And here is the face Sam makes when he knows he’s being “naughty.”

Labels: Pictures, The Big One, Toys

The other day, in a moment of awesome maturity, I called my husband and held up the phone so that he could hear the sound of both children screaming for several minutes. They were sort of trying to outdo each other…well, Sam was trying to outdo Robby, and Robby didn’t like it. Anyway, I’d been listening to both of them scream and cry with absolutely nothing I could do about for about ten minutes. Finally I just started laughing at the ridiculousness of it and called him, you know, just cuz. We couldn’t even hear each other.

Sam has been sick this past week (again!), and it makes him very clingy(understandably so). When he gets like this he sometimes just wants me to hold him and let him sit on my lap. Somehow, this act has acquired its own name because he asks to do it when he’s upset and needs to calm down. Now, when he wants me to pick him up and put him in my lap he walks around saying, “I need Mommy to chill me out.”

Chillin’

Labels: Mommyhood, Pictures, Talking, The Big One

He’s eight months old today.

He’s a sweet-tempered, happy boy.

He smiles easily, you just have look at him.

He waves at everyone he sees by sticking his hand up in the air.

He has the best baby laugh ever. EVER.

He’s never had a blog post devoted entirely to him alone - he’s a neglected second child.

To be fair, I didn’t even start blogging until his brother was nearly a year old, so in that respect he is ahead.

He’s huge and heavy.

He has recently started to smile with his eyes closed.

He has two teeth and more on the way.

His name is Robby.

And he’s my baby.

 

Labels: Pictures, The Little One