Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy Birthday Jesus!!
Zoey was so great today passing out presents. She would hand it to whomever and then say, "here you go, Merry Christmas" She did it for every present. It was very sweet! The kids had fun. Max just stayed in the corner and played and played as Zoey just brought him more presents. It was a very nice day. I hope it was for you, too. I will definitely get some pictures on here soon!!

The BEST Christmas present

Zoey made a present for us at school... It is an ornament with a picture of her inside and red and green beads glued all around. It is so great:)

Seriously, Jill... Buy new clothes!!

As if I didn't already know I needed new clothes (see earlier blog), my favorite workout shorts decided to rub that simple fact into my face to say, don't forgot all aspects of your wardrobe need help! I thought these particular shorts (with an elastic waist) were getting looser, and I knew that it wasn't due to weight loss, but was just in denial that they were getting OLD! See I probably should have gotten rid of them like five years ago, but they were my favorite and had sentimental value, so I just kept them and kept using them..

The other day I decided to hop on the treadmill, so I go to change into these shorts, and I notice the looseness again, but carry on with getting ready... And then I clip on the IPOD to the shorts and whoosh... the shorts and IPOD slip off of my butt... It is an IPOD NANO, the little one that weighs like 3 ounces!!! Needless to say, there was no running going on after that and the shorts found a new home in our trash...

I'm being attacked!!!

Zoey was helping me with the laundry today by putting all of her shirts on hangars. I left the room for a second only to hear, "I'm being attacked!" She was giggling like crazy, so I rushed into the room to find her laying on her back, feet and arms in the air like a dead cockroach, only she was wiggling all around, hysterical with laughter because the shirt, put nicely on the hangar, was covering her face and attacking her!! I am not sure where that came from, just a funny imagination I guess... She went on to be attacked by at least twenty other shirts, both hers and Max's. It was definitely the most amusing time I have had putting away clothes.

Sweet Words

I went up to Zoey, who was standing on a stool and was giving her a big hug and she said, "Ohhh, that makes me feel so good."

me, too, honey, me, too.

Party Time

Zoey and I made cupcakes for a party at Max's school... She did all of the sprinkles:) She still hates getting her picture taken, though, so unfortunately I don't always capture great ones of her...




I went to the party by myself with both kids and took the camera with every intention of getting some pictures of the two of them, but I was busy just running around getting them food and making sure Max didn't spread cupcake goo on too many other people/things... So here is a picture of Max after we got home, just because... He is "flying" his hand around. He loves to make all of his toys fly...

A little dilemma: Zoey's school has one teacher, so I got her a neat little gift for Christmas. Max's school is a little different. He has one main teacher but a ton of volunteers and therapists and room helpers... I think I counted 13 total that he knows and interacts with each time... Any suggestions on gifts for that many?? I would like to do something because they are all such special people and we are really appreciative of them and the school. So if you got some creative juices flowing, I would appreciate your thoughts...

How old are you??

I hope you all are getting ready for Christmas and we all wish you and your family a Blessed Holiday season!!

So my side of the family (Jill) is getting together for Christmas this year. No one wanted to venture to the frozen tundra of Massachusetts during winter, so it has been a little while since we have all gotten together. Needless to say, I am an excitable person, I look forward to everything, and this is no exception. I am getting really excited thinking about family and presents and traditions...yay:)

So the other day I am on the phone with my parents, me on one end, and the both of them on the other, telling them how fun it will be and asking what the plans are and all of that. Well, lots of stuff is going on, so due to many different schedules and stuff, my parents told me that we would not be opening presents until Christmas Day, in the afternoon... I knew we had to wait until Christmas Day this year (we normally open up presents on Christmas Eve) but I didn't know we had to wait until the afternoon!! I can't wait that long, I say, what torture!! My parents are like, ummm, hello, you are the parent now, this is about your kids and they don't know any better. This is true, I think to myself, they are too young to know what we would "normally" do, so to them we just set out a time in the future and tell them to behave until then or they don't get to open presents, simple enough. Neither of them remember any past Christmases or are aware of our traditions yet anyway. So we make some more jokes about how I am not even getting any presents anyway (they say that every year, but money is still a present, mom and dad!!) , and hang up...

Then Ross comes home and I am being all dramatic and preparing him for the news... that we have to wait until Christmas AFTERNOON to open presents... He looks at me a little confused, thinking, what did I miss here?? So I start to tell him again, we aren't opening presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, but Christmas AFTERNOON!!! All he says is, "How old are you, eight?"

I have nothing more to say... Seriously though, I do realize this is not all about me. I actually enjoying giving more than receiving (seriously!) and just love the magic of Christmas and all that it stands for... If it were up to me and my childlike ways, December would go something like this...
December 6- St Nicholas Day, put shoes out, get goodies
December..... Hanukkah, that's right, Jesus was Jewish after all and He celebrated it, so I would too, plus 8 days of presents
December 24-25- Christmas... you get the picture

p.s. I would celebrate my half-birthday every year too, except it is Feb 29th, what kind of cruel joke is that?

FOAMIES!! FOAMIES!!

We love the foamies.... For those of you who don't know, they are foam stickers in all different shapes and patterns. I know both sets of Grandparents are very familiar with foamies... since they have all spent hours and hours playing with Zoey, putting foamies on sheets, actually reams, of paper. Every once in a while they have a sale at Michaels and we stock up. They also have pretty cool foam things to build, like dog houses or gingerbread houses... here is Zoey working on making an ice castle... Hard at work, concentrating on glueing




And here she is with the finished product:



Definitely a fun project for us, while Max is napping.
By the way, the whole "Widget" name thing is still going on. She tells strangers (like the check out lady at the store) that she is Widget and her brother is Wubbzy and they just look at me like, "what???". Instead of explaining it, I think I am just going to say, "her name is widget"... It might be entertaining to see what kind of reactions I get!!

Desperate Housewife...

It is official... Ross is now way more stylish than I am. This really wouldn't be a problem if it started out that way, but this is not the case. When I met him, besides the necessities he needed to compete his daily uniform, I think he owned 7 shirts. Five of them were t-shirts, all navy blue, one was a long sleeve shirt, also navy blue, and the other was the nice button down that could or could not be worn with a tie that he wore to any and every occasion that needed it, including our first date. Along with a pair of jeans, cargo pants, shorts and workout clothes, this pretty much was it. If he and his buddies were going out to some place that needed a collared shirt, he had to borrow one. Part of this is SoCal living, mind you. I mean, you don't have to wear shirts to enter places here in a lot of cases and flip-flops are an essential part of any wardrobe. So I woke up this morning to see Ross nicely dressed in dress pants and shirt looking way too stylish... and yesterday for church I had to wear my "church shirt"... that's right, singular... as in, one, and only one... I keep having to change were I sit in case someone notices that I wear the same thing every Sunday...

This is all my fault, I was pregnant for what seemed like three straight years and then didn't want to buy new clothes until I lost all baby weight (I am still waiting:) and then I didn't want to buy anything because some days I never left the house... Well, now, today, with my realization of Ross going off without me into the land of GQ, just kidding, that is so not where he wants to be!! But anyways, now I actually have to leave the house every single day and see other people, who probably don't care what I am wearing, but might take notice of the weird lady who always wears the same things...I guess I just have to hit those after Christmas sales.

Don't feel too sorry for me, I still have cool shoes...

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!

I just wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my Mom and Dad... We Love you!! Thanks for being such a model of love and marriage. God Bless you today and always.

Using Your Noggin

We have recently discovered some neat preschool games on the computer that go along with the TV channel, Noggin. Zoey now understands how to use the mouse on the regular computer and on the laptop. She moves it around according to the directions and then asks, "Now do I click on it?"
It is definitely amazing how easy it is for them to pick up on technological things because it is something that has always been around. Max loves the mouse that has the roller thing on top to scroll... (see, I don't even know what it is called, thus the name, roller thing). My nephew Josh just did a homework assignment on Powerpoint. Craziness. But definitely neat. Here is a picture of the kids playing some games on the laptop...

Amazingly, Max is content for now to just watch and cheer Zoey on. He yells, "good job" or "perfect" when the characters say it after Zoey has done something right. We will see how long it takes for him to want to do it too... that may be the end of our new found computer time!!

Another random thought... It is definitely a work from God how angelic and sweet your children look while they are sleeping... It is what makes us keep going, I think. You can have the craziest day, where it seems like they are just pushing your buttons on every issue. You know, they don't want to eat what you made for breakfast, they run around the house when you are trying to get their shoes on, they throw a fit at the store... and then after they have finally gone to bed and you go in to check on them, they look like angels. And to add to it, you can kiss them and touch their soft cheeks and hair and they don't even stir. If I did that to Ross he would grunt at me and ask what I was doing, like I was crazy or something, but the kids stay fast asleep... I don't know when that ends, but I hope it's not soon.

Here we go!!

So here we go... entering the world of blogging. Basically we just thought it was a neat way to share with our family and friends some of the daily happenings in our life with Zoey and Max! This way we can easily share pictures and little anecdotes. For example, just today, Zoey and Max adopted some cartoon character's names. They love this show called Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! and so Zoey is now Widget and Max is Wubbzy.

Me: Hey Zoey...
Zoey: My name is Widget.
ME: Sorry, Widget, can you please come here.