Makes it all worth it.

Too smart for his own good

Dan: Why is my knee swelling up again?

Nathaniel: Cause you're old

Dan: Oh really? And what makes me old?

Nathaniel: When you married mommy!

Once Upon a time

There was a baby

She used to sleep.

And Now she doesn't


It's a good thing she's cute

I'm prepared tonight. I've got a blanket, a nice healthy dose of Motrin and some warm water ready to go. I will win. She WILL go back to sleep.

--------------------------
5:08am Tuesday Morning Update: THEY BOTH SLEPT PERFECTLY THROUGH THE NIGHT!

Brittney's got nuthin on Lady Gaga

I'm sitting here watching the Grammy's opening act. It's Lady Gaga doing a duet with Sir Elton John. Yah, she's weird. Officially up to freak status. I don't understand her, I don't even try to pretend to. I will admit to having some of her stuff on my iPod tho and I do enjoy it.

Regardless of what you think of her, she's got talent. I'm impressed.

We had a good weekend. Dan played Saturday and I was able to go.

I baked a cake for the lead player's birthday. It actually came out great!
I didn't burn it or undercook it, I was really nervous!

We finished the weekend with a lot of relaxation. Tried to catch up on some needed sleep.

In fact, Audrey crashed, sleeping 1/2 on 1/2 off the couch, for three hours. They say never move a sleeping baby, so we didn't. We didn't dare take the chance.

SHE WAS FINALLY SLEEPING!

We colored, played Wii, played computer games, cleaned, band practice, ran around playing chase, duck duck goose and other random fun things that make your belly hurt from laughing so hard.

There were no tantrums, no fresh remarks, everyone was happy and actually fun to be around!

You mean they can't read my mind?

Maybe I just don't understand the boy hair cut lingo.

I asked for short on the sides and longer up top.

Somehow that translated to an all over tight buzz cut.

I'm so sad.

All Night Long

Remember that song from Lionel Richie? That's the song playing in my head right now. That's how our night was with Audrey.

She was awake.

For hours.

Long painful hours.

It's a good thing she's cute. Did you know she's almost two? Do you realize it's been that long since we've slept well? Not to mention the awful pregnancy sleepless nights from before she was born. People wonder why I get grouchy.

I took the 11:30 - 1:30 shift. You sit there rocking. The first half hour isn't bad, you enjoy the snuggles, the good smelling hair, the deep baby breathing. Soon more time passes and you start the countdown. If I get back to bed now I'll only have 3 more hours of sleep before I have to get up. OH my gosh, I have so many things on my desk that are hard & complicated. How am I ever going to get those done on just 4 hours sleep? Oh no, now it's only 3 hours sleep. Go to sleep Audrey. Stop crying. Oh crud, now it's only 2 hours sleep. Stress starts to set in, I yell for Dan to take over.

He stumbles in and I crawl back to bed. By now, I have a very long 4 year old sleeping sideways in my bed. I slide back in bed, he sits up and starts grilling me about when is summer coming? What day is it tomorrow? When are we going to Disney? What's under the snow? Is tomorrow a computer day? What are we having for breakfast? Where is his Transformer? Can he wear the pants with no buckles tomorrow? Did I know that Maggie's birthday was yesterday? How do airplanes stay up? When can he sit in the front of the car?

Everyone finally passes out. But don't worry, it wasn't for long. We're awoken again with blood curling screams from the precious little girl's room. She woke up at 4:45 swimming in her crib. I think we gave her one too many cups during the night. Gross.

We're all up now. 5:13am. Watching Barney in bed. There's a new show episode on about Airplanes. We all get weirdly excited when On Demand finally comes out with new episodes.

In other news, I had an amazing workout yesterday. I ran 4.2 miles in 46 mintues. I was happy with that.

I'm going to do whatever I can in my power to make today fly by. It has to. I need a weekend.

Good Morning

Been a while. I've been horrible about updating. I feel like I have nothing great to say and it takes me forever, so why say anything at all. I've been awful about taking pictures lately too. So I don't even have anything great to put up from the kids.

I'm working on changing the layout. I'm bored with how this place looked. Bear with me as I come up with something fresh.

I've gotten two haircuts in two weeks because I'm bored with my hair too. Friday night I'm changing the color.

I think I'm ready for summer. We've been inside way too long.

8 more weeks and I'll be on a plane to California. Someone is having a big birthday and it's not me. We need some updated pictures together but here's two from the archives that are my favorite

Circa 1992

I'll never forget this moment:

This trip has resulted in a recommittment to the gym. Seems like everyone around is me loosing weight and firming up, so why was I still so lethargic. They've made amazing progress and I'm still at the same level as I was last fall. I did good last spring but then became stagnant. I was focusing on some large running goals but for now, I'm focusing solely on GETTING to the gym. I go at lunch time which makes for some interesting afternoon hair. I think my coworkers are used to it. I try to hide at my desk as much as possible from 2-4pm. I'm sure the afternoon daycare teachers just put me in the slob category. I can't wait to get running outside again.

The trip does make me nervous. I've never been that far away from the kids before. I feel like it's opening us up for some disaster. I need to get over it.

It's tax season! We've already filed and are anticipating the return. Amongst doing responsible things, Dan & I are getting new laptops. Some little boy dumped a large cup of coffee in mine over a year ago and it's been dying a very slow death ever since. I've gotten through with duct tape and prayer but I don't think I should put it off any longer. When we got Dan's laptop 5 years ago, we went cheap with a lazy processor. In the last 5 years, his computer abilities have come full circle and now he needs a more beefy computer. He's also been having major issues with his and has had to rebuild at least 4 times since December. We've been researching and reading and trying to figure out what's best for us - so overwhelming! It's a HUGE committment! I think it was easier to name children than it was to pick out a new computer. Did you know we're getting TWO laptops for less than what we paid for just ONE 4 years ago! Wow.

The kids are good.

Audrey is coming out with words now. Her favorite is Sorry. She'll hit you just to be able to say sorry. She's a horrible sleeper. She's showing interest in the potty. She's 100% girl and gets excited when she has dresses on. She'll come over to you, point at her dress and won't leave until you tell her she's pretty. Last week I put on her brown shoes, she threw a fit, took them off and brought me her pink shoes. She's really fun, loves to laugh. It's great to have a baby in the house but I really love the stages she's getting into. She can DO things now. She can play independently. She can do the stairs. She can eat everything on her own. No more high chair. No more baby gear. She's in love with "Bah-eeeee" Barney.

Nathaniel is 4. Nuff said? He's definitely kept us on our toes. He challenges everything we say and needs it explained completely. He never stops talking. Ever. I mean it. He's reading at school and is doing great writing too. They have computer class twice a week and lots of cool projects and lessons. They're getting outside once a day now depending on the weather. He can't wait to be 5.

He's learning cause & effect like never before. I'm trying to get into his head the difference between constructive play and destructive play. When working with him to clean his room, I'd asked for the 5th time to pick up the train tracks. He turned to me and said "blah blah blah" doing this fancy attitude movement at the same time. Needless to say, he lost his tracks for the week.

His imagination is wild. He has come up with a whole place that he works at and he has several employees too. He's named them Trinist, Treetopper and Metop. Trinist is the most popular that we hear about all the time. Trinist is 99, he lived at the old house that had a fire but now he lives in a green house. Trinist has a son named Trinist, he's 3. Trinist the dad, joins us wherever we go.

I'd say the last 6 months with him have been the most challenging of parenting thus far. We figure it out as we go and hope we're making good decisions.

I'm off to start another day. I'm already anxious for lunch time to get to the gym. I'm even more anxious for Friday 4pm. I want this week OVER.

Chatting on the phone

Playing dress up

And this is how we start the day

A bunch of Saturday's ago, I wanted to see Michael Jackson's movie "This Is It". We'd left soccer at 12, movie started at 12:15, no time to drop Nathaniel off at home. I'd heard the movie was great and thought Nathaniel might like the band footage and all the effects of the show so What else do you do but bring him with you.

Regardless of what you think of Michael Jackson, I highly recommend the movie. Yah, he was a little weird. Yah, there was tons of controversy in his life. The movie didn't even hint to any of that. It was pure musical brilliance. A glimpse of what you would've seen had he ever gone on tour.

Nathaniel Loved the movie. The dancing, the band, the bulldozer scene near the end. The Thriller scene freaked him out & he had to hide.

Fast forward to Christmas. A co-worker gave me the soundtrack to the movie. It's good stuff. I can't wait to run to it outside in the spring.

I always play music in the morning while we get ready to go. It's a regular Dance Party USA at our house. What a way to start the day.

The kids were showing off some especially sweet moves this morning:

Click here to open separate window

Merry Christmas!

Finally, an update!

We had a wonderful Christmas. We've been celebrating for over a week now and it's been fabulous spending time with everyone.

We took the kids to see Santa last week. Audrey loved him from a distance but when it came time to get within the same breathing space - she flipped. Our final picture definitely came out interesting and wasn't quite worth the hour and a half we waited for it. I did get a shot on my own of Nathaniel in his lap. He was so excited and would not stop talking to the poor guy!

Nathaniel insisted on making a sign for the reindeer so they would know to stop at our house.

Christmas Eve, we hung the sign outside and sprinkled reindeer food (oatmeal & glitter) around the sign. Nahtaniel surprised us & went right to sleep, Audrey fussed all night but for reasons other than Christmas.

Dan started putting the kitchen together around 10:30. That thing had more pieces than I've ever seen. I enjoyed sitting back with my hot cup of coffee watching as he put in one screw at a time. All 500 of them. He handled it very well and was finished by 1:30.

Nathaniel woke up at 6am and we came downstairs at 7am. I expected a massive whirlwind of wrapping paper and toys flying all over the place but they played with each gift for a while, then opened another. It was drawn out & really enjoyable.

Click the picture for the slideshow. Hopefully by the time this post is up, the video is also ready for viewing.



Later in the afternoon, Dan & I removed the tree and all decorations, putting the house back to normal. Our tree was SO dead, I couldn't handle it anymore. I'm excited to still have two more days off, then I only work three days and then four more days off. Can't beat that!

Happy Friday!

What a slacker I am.