I did it!

I was trying to go a whole month without blogging, and it is safe to say, I did it. It is also safe to say, it wasn't hard and I wasn't trying! Without even blinking February went by and now here we are in March. I have plans of doing a better job blogging, but then, I have said that before.

The problem wasn't that there wasn't anything to say, there was a lot going on in February. A very special little boy turned 4, we went to a hotel to celebrate. We were running this way or that way the entire month, which, for the month of February is good. Normally this is the month where I am most affected by the winter doldrums, that hasn't been the case this year, despite record amounts of snow fall and cold and days below 40 and days without the sunshine...

So here we are in March and things are going well. I have a few things I can update you with for the kids, pictures to come later.

Veronica, last week she had a couple of blog worthy moments. The first, we got a lot of candy from Tim's work and there are two types of suckers, blow pops with a gum center and tootsie pops with a chocolate center. I asked her if she wanted the tootsie pop and she said, "No thanks, I will have the other one because I am fast forwarding from chocolate." I was very impressed that she remembered that she wanted to fast from chocolate during lent, the second day of suckers in the house didn't fare as well! :) Also, she was holding Felicity and exclaimed. "Wow, you are a lot heavier than last week!"

Peyton turned four on February 17th, Ash Wednesday, so we celebrated his birthday early. Thanks to my sister in law, Sarah, I found a great deal on priceline for a hotel, we went and had a marvelous time. It was nice to have something to break up the monotony of winter. I think it may be a yearly tradition for our family. Peyton has all kinds of Peyton-isms, his most recent, 'that is rediculous". And he says it in the most matter of fact way, that is impossible not to laugh. He also says, that is weird- all the time, I am afraid he offended someone at our church because he called him weird, really the guy was very funny and the kids all loved him but "You are weird", didn't quite convey that message. We have since tried to curb the "weird" statements.

Felicity, OH BUG! She is crazy right now. I think she is teething four teeth and is just having a terrible time. Just ask my mom, dad, grandma, my aunt Diane, my cousin Kimmy or any other poor soul that had to be around her these past few days! She just is having a rough time. I don't ever remember this with my other children, but they all have teeth, so either I got really lucky or it is a passing thing that I will forget someday!

As for Tim and I we are great. You can count us among the millions of people that would say that the Biggest Loser (the TV show) has changed our lives. We are in a new and improved weight loss competition with 14 other people, and both of us are really changing our lives. We both get in about 3 hours of exercise each week and are really trying to watch what we eat. So far since the week before the competition, I have lost 28 lbs and tim has lost nearly 15 (over 25 pounds since our first biggest loser competition last year!). Tim is back into the pant size he wore in college (wish we wouldn't have gotten rid of those clothes!) and I am in a size I have NEVER worn before, not even in high school. We both feel so much better and I am hoping for a really active spring/summer!

Pictures

After looking at the pictures from Grandma's house I could tell that I didn't have my blog in mind when I was there. There is not really many blog worthy pictures, but I will post what I have for memory's sake. I suppose the longer I blog the better I will be about taking more pictures. My mother had some good ones, but who knows when she will ever upload them and send them my way. (Maybe a little faster now that I have called her out! : )
This first picture is of Felicity and Grandma, this isn't the first time they have met, but it is the first time Grandma got to hold her I think, so that was pretty sweet.

This picture is of Grandma's orange tree. She is trying to see how big her fruit can get, I think it is just cool she could get the plant to fruit at all. I can guarantee you that if it was at my house the plant would die before it would even leaf. Although looking at all of grandma's plants it makes me want to have a greener thumb. They were pretty cool!

On the Road Again

So we are headed back to our home, and I am blogging from the road. My parents can get wireless anywhere, it is pretty cool. All in all, we had a great weekend! I worked on some mini-offices that a friend introduced me to. I got both Ronni and Peyton's done, so I will post a picture of those at another time. My grandma was awesome. She looks so good, it was fun listening to all the stories she has. Always entertaining.
I went to church with my Aunt Paula and Uncle Brian on saturday with no kids. It was amazing. Now I love having my kids at church too, don't get me wrong. I think they do a great job at Mass, for the most part, and I really have no true complaints, but it was really nice to get a break and I was really in tune with everything the Priest was talking about. I got over the cowboy boots and the fact he looks like Matthew Brodderick, after about six times of going to church there, so I was locked in. The only thing that distracted me were the older people in front of me. Anyway, we got through Mass without anyone getting hurt. The old lady with the cane made it to communion and back okay. I don't know why they worry me, but I just watch. Anyway, I happened to be keyed in on the old lady with the cane when we were leaving she mentioned something about St. Patrick's day and green beer. I had to chuckle a little bit. I told my aunt Paula and she said, you think that is bad, she is the person that drives grandma around! She drives grandma? She could hardly walk, I will just reiterate my earlier comment, Grandma looks awesome! (I guess the old lady pulls right up on the side walk next to the doors and grandma gets out to help her into the church when they go to sew, pretty funny!)

The rest of the night we spent eating pizza and watching basketball (ames won and I am happy to say that that was the first and last time I will be rooting for anyone with a "cyclone" in its name) It was a really fun weekend and just what the doctor ordered. The kids had a blast! We went on a walk, seeing my cousin Kimmy's old house and we played at the park. It was really neat watching the kids play with the toys I played with in my youth. Also, to pass on the love of grandma's house is just too priceless. At the end of the day, I told Ronni she needed to come downstairs and get ready to leave otherwise papa would leave without her. She just shouted down, "That's okay, I want to stay here!" Like I didn't see that one coming, but I have to say I don't blame her. I remember when I was younger counting out exactly how many nights we were going to get to stay there and being so sad when it was the last day and we didn't have any nights left. To this day, everytime I go I wish I had just one more day. I don't know why we don't go more often.

So now we are on our way home. We are looking forward to going home. Tim spent the weekend working on projects around the house. I told him not to tell me what he was doing because I didn't want to obsess over it, so now I get to go home and play the "can you guess all the things I did while you were out" game.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend and got to enjoy this weather! I can't wait for spring, I saw my first robin walking to church saturday night so I know it is getting close! It can't come fast enough!

To Grandmother's House We Go

Life has been a little crazy around here lately, and when I say crazy, I mean the really overwhelming, when can mommy ever get a break-- kind of crazy. So we are leaving for a weekend. Which is good and bad. Good because mommy gets a break, going to grandma's is relaxing for me and something new and exciting for the kids. The kids will have a new atmosphere to get used to and new toys to play with, I am sure they will get bored and start acting up, but that will take a bit of time, right? Plus my mom and dad are going with me, so that should be fun. It is bad because, all good things come with a price. For me that price is packing and getting ready to go to grandma's. I can't just leave my house a complete and total disaster, which is it's current state right now. My kids' clothes won't pack themselves, and my kids themselves aren't really cooperating with the whole, mommy doesn't want to hear you cry right now, mood I am in. So what am I doing, blogging to appease my sister, while at any given time one or more kids are screaming, the dogs are barking and my house is still messy and my kids clothes are still not packed. Oh the life I am in... The funny thing is, it would only take about an ounce of effort to right this ship, but yet I still can't seem to muster that energy. The pain of being a lazy bones... I'm working on this, some days are just harder than others.

Anyway,I'll post some pictures so this post isn't just a ventfest....
Ronni was hamming it up for the camera once again, this was like the third shot, she decided she liked her smile in this one. This girl is absolutley adorable right now, I don't know why I am having such a hard time. She has a really good understanding of what her body is telling her to do and what her mommy wants her to do, and understands why there is a consequence when she listens to her body over her mom. In fact just yesterday I heard her telling her cousin that she wasn't making a good choice and asked her to stop listening to her body. It was so funny.


Peyton on the other hand is a handful. He understands what listening to his body means, too a typical conversation would go like this: Mommy- Peyton clean up your toys. P- doesn't listen and continues to play, M- Peyton what is your body telling you to do, P- Play with my toys, M- What is mommy telling you to do, P- clean up my toys, M- Who are you going to listen to? P- My body. Go figure. No wonder he is driving me nuts right now! This picture Ronni actually took, she is my little photographer! Notice his first black eye. At this point in Ronni's life she had already had 5 black eyes. I tell people it was his consequence for listening to his body...
Felicity is getting really big as well. She is five months now and not rolling over. I figure it is a combination of her being really crabby most of the time (gas) two siblings and two dogs. She doesn't spend a whole lot of time on her tummy. Another thing we are working on...