Wanna snuggle?

When we check on the kids before going to bed, this is how we find Luke some nights. Not in his own bed. He climbs onto the changing table and into Seth's bed with some extra blankets and gets comfy. This boy does not like to be alone. At least Seth doesn't seem to mind - and it gives Matt and I a good laugh.

Bum luck at the Bee

Maya is pretty good at spelling. Over all she's a pretty bright kid. She gets great grades at school without really having to try and she enjoys learning. For all that, I am very grateful. Her school had a spelling bee today. Last week each class had their own individual spelling bees. The top two kids from each first and second grade class participated in today's bee. Last week's spelling bee in her class was her very first one. She loved it.

She was very excited for this morning. After she won last week she told me about it and said that she would have a spelling bee this week. That was all she said. I assumed (and you know what happens when we assume) that the spelling words were just words from her spelling lists this year. She's gotten perfect scores on all her spelling tests so I didn't think about preparation for today's bee. Yesterday after school she pulls out a thick packets with hundreds of words on it. Apparently these were the words that would be in today's bee. Not enough time to review them all in one night. So I went over words that I thought would be tough for her like "awl" vs "all" and "cents" vs "sense". Things like that. Did we look at every word? No. Most of the words that I saw on there I knew Maya wouldn't have a problem with.

She was so excited this morning. I told her to have fun, even if she misses the very first word. Guess what? She missed the very first word. Not that it was a hard word to spell - it was a word she had never used before. Kids are getting words like frog and clap on the first round. Maya's word was dock. As soon as they said it I was bummed. I knew she probably wouldn't get it. In our family we say "doc" a lot because Matt is a doctor. That is the doc she knows. We never use the term "dock". Like I said, it's not a hard word; it was just unfamiliar. It was a bummer to miss a word on the first round. The winning round words were "everything" and "everyone". Piece of cake. Maya was heartbroken and I found her afterwards crying. She said she wished she could have had a second chance because she knows it. . . Capitol D - o - c. (We practiced words like June and Maine) I explained to her it wasn't a name and told her what a dock was and how to spell it. We sat for a few minutes and I gave her lots of hugs and walked her back to class trying to cheer her up.

It was just bum luck. And you know what? She will never spell "dock" wrong again.

How's my day been?

A little Murphy's law for me after that last post. My good day needed to be equaled out with a not so good day. Now, I've had plenty of worse days, even heartbreaking ones. This isn't one of those. This is just one of those days that as much as I try to be in a good mood, my boys are making it difficult. I specify boys b/c Maya is a school all day and she is pretty much a dream child.

Seth decided to help me start my day by crying for an hour straight this morning before the sun came up. Didn't matter that I had fed him and was holding him and snuggling with him - he wasn't happy and needed to cry. I am not at all a morning person so that didn't start my mood off right. Matt is also on call today so as all this happens, I know that no relief is coming this evening. It's okay; I'll deal with it. I'm just in a bad mood. We get the morning going and after a very frustrating drive in the fog (some people just suck a driving!) to drop kids off at school we get settled at home. Seth cheers up and even goes down for a nap. So I have some quiet time with Luke.

When Seth wakes up we head out to Super-Walmart to get some groceries. The trip starts off fine, no tantrums from either boy. I have one thing left to get in the store when Luke gets upset that I said no to popsicles. The second I turn my back to get what I need I turn around and Luke has run off! He has a very bad habit of doing this. He gets punished every time yet he continues to run away. I start walking down the main aisle checking every which way as I walk. I'm torn between fear of Luke getting snatched and severe anger that he has done this yet again! I decide to ask one of the workers for help in finding him. I tell the woman my problem expecting her to ask me what he's wearing and then have it announced through their walkie talkies or over the PA, but instead she looks at me funny and walks away. I think she's going to do something when I notice that she is talking to another customer helping him! WHAT!! So I proceed to do some more laps around the store getting angrier and angrier. I assume the worker I asked probably didn't speak English b/c usually when you say my 4-year-old has run off people don't ignore that. I decide to go check by transformers because sometimes Luke will head over there. He's no where to be seen. I finally ask another worker (hoping he speaks english) for help and finally I get the response I'm looking for. As he's calling it in he spots Luke (heading for the transformers) and runs to catch him because I have an infant in the cart. I can't just leave Seth to chase Luke. It's very frustrating. I yank Luke away from the toys, give him a lecture and proceed to drag him down the aisle to put his treat back that he had picked out. He doesn't like this and decides to start a tantrum. Who cares - go ahead and scream. I will not let him get away with this. We finish up and he calms down after I explain to him that I am indeed NOT a mean mom and that what he did was dangerous and that's why he lost the privelige of walking by himself. I'm rambling now. We're home, he's had his time out and everyone seems to be doing better. Hopefully the rest of the day will be nice and uneventful.

Now that I have this written down, 20 or 30 years from now when he's telling me similar stories about his kids I'll have this blog printed out as a family journal and be able to show him right where his kids get it from.

Plain Old Good Day

Today was just a good day. Nothing spectacular or amazing happened. Kids still fought a little and whined a little. Seth still cried a little. But that's to be expected. I didn't say it was a perfect day. But it was a really appreciated good day.

To start off, Matt was able to have the day off thanks to the holiday. That just puts things off to a good start. I absolutely LOVE having my husband home every second I can get him. On a friend's recommendation we tried out a new pizza for lunch while out running a few "because we want to" errands. It was sooo good. The kids gave it two thumbs up as well. And they give out the little dough balls for kids to play with while we waited for food. Always a plus.

It was an absolutley beautiful day. Sunny and close to 70. No complaints about that at all on a mid-January day. I do not miss the snowy cold weather at all (only during the Christmas season). So after relaxing on the couch while Matt and Seth took a little catnap, we went out back and played catch and hit a few wiffle balls. I'm proud to say I hit another one completely over the house and into the street - no help from the roof rolling it over. Man it feels good when you connect with the ball like that. When we went inside, it turned out that Luke went and snuggled with Seth (in other words he woke Seth up from his nap). So we all went to the park - Maya on her bike, I jogged the scenic route and Matt pushed the boys. We played Frisbee til it was too dark and we all jogged back together with an all-out sprint down our caul-de-sac. It feels good to just let loose.

It's been on of those days when you don't have a million places to be. We were able to just be together as a family and ask "What do you want to do?" not "what to we have to get done?" It's been the type of day you appreciate when it comes along, when you can sit down at the end of the day relaxed and say "It was a good day."

Hopefully we won't have to wait to long for another.

Little Memories

Last night before heading to bed, Matt checked to make sure that Luke was in his bed. Luke was not in his bed. Instead, he had climbed into Seth's crib and the boys were all snuggled up in there with piles of blankets on top. I wish I could've taken a picture, but I really didn't want the flash to wake Seth up. We carefully pulled Luke out and tucked him into his own little bed. Luke is such a snuggler when it comes to going to sleep. He doesn't like to be alone. Apparently even sharing a room isn't enough. Seth looked pretty comfy too all snuggled into Luke's side. It was really cute.

(This blog is my version of a family journal. I don't want to forget these little moments, so I'm starting "Little Memories" which will be short posts of funny things said or moments I want to remember.)

Vacation needed to recooperate from vacation

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I don't know about all of you - but as wonderful as this holiday season was, I am exhausted and need a vacation to recooperate. December is honestly a blur. I do like to keep busy, but it was a little insane. Lots of activities, lots of music to prepare and perform, and lots of errands and shopping.

Matt had the week of Christmas off. It was nice to be together and enjoy the holiday as a family. Christmas eve we spent with friends. We had our little tradition of going out to eat and then heading back to someone's house for desserts and christmas carols. We headed home and got things ready for Santa to come. Maya and Luke put out cookies and milk for Santa and oats and carrots for the reindeer. We read the story of Christ's birth and then tucked the kids into bed.

Christmas morning the kids didn't get up until 7! When I was a kid I'd get up with my brothers and sisters at 4 am and sneak down to see the tree. It was always so magical. We'd all grab blankets and pillows and snuggle on the couches until the hour was decent enough to wake our parents. I wonder when that will kick in. My kids may just be heavy sleepers. Once they are out, they are out and they don't like to get out of bed until they are good and ready. Maya and Luke showed us the letters they got from Santa and we even found some reindeer footprints in our entryway. Very exciting.

It was Seth's very first Christmas. He turned 9 months old on Christmas day. He spent the month very curious about the Christmas tree. By mid December I noticed that the bottom foot or two of the Christmas tree no longer had decorations on it as we had to constantly move them out of reach.

Seth spent more time trying to open someone else's present as opposed to his very own that we set right in front of him. But once it was opened it kept him entertained while the rest of us opened presents.

We got lots of fun stuff. Here are the fleece stocking caps that my mom made. Very warm and comfy! Seth is sporting mine for me.

We also got lots of fun things to play with in the backyard like a soccer net, baseball gloves and a T-ball set that will also pitch the ball to you.

It's so fun to just play all day long out in the backyard and then come in and play new games inside. What a fun day.

As I said earlier, Seth is 9 months old. But, up until this point we have never moved his crib mattress lower from the newborn level. I made Matt do it the day after Christmas cuz Seth has been starting to pull himself up. Sure enough this is what I find the next morning:

The first time I've found him standing due to his own power. He sure looks proud of himself.

My sister Jessica and her husband Lance came to visit right after Christmas with their kids - a pit stop for a few days before moving on to Lance's family reunion. we loved every second of having them here. Matt was on call pretty much the entire time they were here, but he was home for a few hours one afternoon and we all headed to a fun park to play. Good times!

My handsome blue-eyed boys!

Luke likes to climb on this tree and find things around the base of it to throw.

The kids had lots of fun with Aunt Jessica "saving their lives" on the slide.

Jess and her fam headed out the next morning - which was probably for the best because Seth woke up with a fever in the middle of the night and wasn't himself again until Saturday/yesterday. We spent part of new year's eve up the street at our good friend's home lighting fireworks and snacking on goodies. We only lasted until about 10:30 at their place because Seth was still not feeling well and crying like crazy and Maya ended up spending a good part of the night crying due to an earache (which I remember doing as a kid - those things hurt!) So Matt and I rang in the New Year with our baby sick in bed and our oldest crying in pain.

Seth woke up the next morning without a fever (but still not his smiley self) and Maya woke with her ear feeling better. Everyone is now happy and healthy and I pray it stays that way for as long as possible because I am worn out and need to recover for a bit.

I really hope you all had a really fun holiday break. For those of you outside of San Antonio, I miss you very much and think of you often. I wish we could be closer.

As for this New Year of 2010, our family is up for some big changes. Matt will finish his residency this June and then more likely than not the Air Force will move us to a new base (your guess is as good as ours as to which one) and we will start a new phase of Matt's career and our life. He will probably be deployed a few months after we get to wherever we're going, but hopefully that won't happen until after next Christmas. If he's gone before that - Mom and Dad, plan on me and the kids coming home to NY for the holidays!

Maya will turn 8 and be baptized this spring. Luke will start going to school and Seth will start walking a talking. It seems like yesterday that Maya was a baby having her first Christmas. Now we have 3 and things keep changing so fast. At least it's a great ride and (go ahead and gag a little at the cheeziness) I get to have Matt next to me for the whole thing.