HALLELUJAH!!!

Surprisingly, I have not been on here a lot lately. Being snowed in for a few weeks, you'd think I would have been online a lot. But, having two wee little ones running around with cabin fever really hinders ones online time.

To say that it snowed here would be a severe understatement. This winter, we have received 51 inches of snow. And most of it has not been fun snow. It has been too deep and heavy to play in. The snow is taller than my son. The children want to go outside and play, but when they get out there, they cannot even walk around in it.

Claire has only been to school one day this month.

SHE HAS SCHOOL TOMORROW!!!

YAY! (I am doing a happy dance!)

Not that I don't enjoy being around her. It is just that all four of us cooped up together for this long amount of time...Well, we have had enough Family Time for a bit.

Plus, I don't want her to forget what she has learned. I did do school with her and Nicholas a few times. Practiced writing her name. Going over letters and the sounds they make. Oh, and craft time. Lots of coloring. Actually, Daddy helped with most of the coloring.

Anyway, she is going back to school tomorrow so we can get back on schedule.

And if I hear the word snow again, I am moving somewhere tropical. I am thinking Siberia.

No Pants

Well, today while Claire was at school, I let Nicholas run around without a diaper. For three hours.

The good news? He sat on the potty 5 times and didn't 'go' anywhere around here.

The not-so-good news? He didn't go in the potty either.

He waited til I put a diaper back on him then went. It's a start. And at least he did not go elsewhere.

So, now shall I invest in Pull-Ups for him or continue to let him run around with no pants?

The tough decisions I face these days.

sigh

Potty Time!

Well, Nicholas has been using the potty sporadically for a long time now. He goes after breakfast and right before his bath. Sometimes before his nap. He has clearly shown an interest but with me returning to work and J staying home, taking online college classes, as well as applying for jobs, poor Pooka's potty training kind of got pushed to the back burner.

So I am starting tomorrow.

After Claire goes to school and J is at the library, I will start intense training. If I can get him out of diapers within the next few months, I will be the happiest mommy ever!

Let the battle begin!

Friday Friday

It is almost impossible to type a coherent sentence when there are children in the next room, who are supposed to be napping, acting like cats and dogs. Woof woof and meow meow is all I can really here. And they are LOUD.

Seriously, if someone forced me to go lie down every afternoon, I would embrace it! I miss naps.

Okay, okay, I admit it. I took a nap yesterday. For about 5 hours. But, it was drug induced. I was feeling achy, hot, cold, etc. so I took some DayQuil. The one where it says you will feel better but not drowsy. Yeah, right. I was out less than 30 minutes after taking only 1/2 a dose. I fell on to my bed a little after 10:00ish in the morning. Next thing I knew, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and the children were getting up from their naps. J had picked up Claire from school, fixed and fed them lunch, and put them down for their naps. I slept right through all of that. Oblivious to everything. The worst part was waking up to the medicine head afterwards. I felt like I was swimming in jell-o for the rest of the afternoon. Almost not worth the nap.

Almost.

New Year, New Resolve

Nope, not a resolution. Just going to try harder

Anyway, it was extremely difficult to keep this up while working, taking care of two little one and a hubby. And housekeeping. So the blogging (and a lot of housekeeping) fell by the wayside

My temp position is over. It was only supposed to last through the beginning of August but ended up going through the beginning of January.

This past week, all four of us were home together. All week long. Every day of it. Claire did have school Tuesday-Thursday in the mornings so she had a reprieve from all the family togetherness for a bit. Lucky girl.

I spent part of last week trying to get re-acclimated to being home again full time. I have managed to bake two loaves of Honey Wheat Bread. Turned out pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. I am looking forward to getting back into the kitchen and being able to cook more often. Cooking is my stress reliever. And I received some new cookbooks for Christmas. I am excited about trying out some new recipes

And I am going to start baking. I cook often but have never really gotten into baking. I've started with bread and am going to work my way up from there. Cakes from scratch, brownies from scratch. After I 'master' that, who knows

Claire's First Day of School

Claire started school this week.

There were tears shed.

Tuesday morning we all get up. (Yes, I had to take the whole day off school.) Claire eats her breakfast with no fussing. That's new. Good though. She puts on her new outfit courtesy of Aunt Jojo. She takes her new lunchbox with her snack in it and off we go. All four of us to take Claire to school. And take pictures of her along the way.

We get to her classroom and she balks a little at the door. The assistant lures her to the table with play dough. It doesn't get much better than that. Jason took her snack to her cubby at the end of the hall. I told Claire I love her and then told her bye. She just kind of looked at me so Nicholas and I left. We got about halfway down the hallway when Nicholas just started crying and crying. Jason was walking towards so I thought N wanted his daddy. I put him down and he ran right past Jason and headed back to Claire's classroom. Jason grabbed him and we went straight to the parking lot. Nicholas cried halfway home. I didn't shed a tear though.

When we went back to get Claire at noon, I thought N would be so happy to see her. nope, he wanted to go in her classroom and stay there. I guess we talked school up so much for Claire that he wanted to go as well. Hopefully he still has that same attitude when he is old enough to go to school himself.

Claire is enjoying school and loves her teacher. She talks about Mrs. Hamilton a lot. I am glad. Plus she is making friends but having a hard time remembering their names.

My little girl has come such a long way. I am so proud.

The Tale of The Iced Mocha

I have really been dragging today and need caffeine to get me going. As you know, I make my own iced mochas at home every morning. Well, today I need an afternoon one. But I don’t want to walk a few blocks to my car and drive somewhere to get one. I start checking around to see where on Main Street can make an iced coffee, preferably a mocha.

Bartleby’s Café has them on their menu but they are about 4-5 blocks away. That’s a bit in this heat. Someone suggests that I call the Red Truck Bakery. They just opened up where Mom’s Apple Pie was. I call them. They do iced coffees but not mochas. Decision time. Do I want an iced mocha that badly to brave the heat that far or just get an iced coffee that is closer. I decide to try Red Truck. They just opened a few weeks ago and I hadn’t been in there yet. A co-worker asked me to get a cookie while I was there. No problem.

I get outside and am crossing the street into the parking lot for Red Truck. There is a mom and two young boys exiting the shop. I walk up to the door and try to go in. The door doesn’t budge. I look at the sign and it says OPEN. I try the door again. Still doesn’t budge. I read the sign closely. They closed at 3pm. I don’t have a watch on but know it was only 2:47 when I left my office and it takes less than 5 minutes to walk there and back. I figure the office clock was wrong and decide to go to Bartleby’s. Which is an extra two blocks away at this point. I am over halfway there when the court house bell tolls 3 o’clock. Yeah, the bakery closed early! Grrr!!!

I arrive at Bartleby’s and order my iced mocha. The guy makes it and puts the lid on it and hands it to me. I grab a straw and head out the door. I open the straw, toss the wrapper in the trash, and try to put the straw in the lid. Only my lid was malformed and didn’t have the opening for the straw. My cup was leaking from the top every time I took a step. So I had to walk down the street with my open straw, my leaky cup, plus my change and my co-workers cash. And she didn’t even get a cookie.