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Sunday, February 24, 2013
Ben's Boy's Weekend out West
Being the generous, loving wife that I am (or that I fall short on being, oh so quite often), I gave Ben a trip to fly out to Seattle to visit his brother Jon for a long weekend of snowboarding, relaxing and bonding. While I did not expect to get any pictures from the weekend at all, I was pleasantly surprised that few good pictures of the boys in action on the mountians.
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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Valentines Day
While I still think Valentines Day is the most over-rated holiday (well, that and New Years Eve) its fun to get excited about it for the sake of the kiddos, who adore anything and everything holiday related.
Ben left super early on Thursday morning to fly out to Seattle to visit his brother and go snowboarding for 4 days. So that just left me and my little sweethearts at home. I had appliquéd the boys special shirts the night before and both were excited to wear them to Jackson's class party that day.
Jackson's class had a big valentines field trip planned to the Pavilion "Snow Carnival", where they would shave up the ice rink to make snow for the kids to play in, as well as let them "skate" around the rink in their shoes.
The kids had a blast and it was hard to capture a unblurry snapshot as fast as they were sliding across the ice.
The class all piled in the sled for class photo op, but that never seems to work out successfully.
Weston, crashing the party, spent the first little bit trying to venture out on his own, but after slipping & falling hard one time, he returned to the relative safety of my arms (yes, I did fall twice -- thankfully not hard and not face first!). I finally put him in his stroller so he could observe from the safety of being strapped in to a stable object.
After an hour of ice fun, the kids loaded up on the bus (the highlight of the day for most) to head back to the school for the pizza party & valentines exchange. I stopped by and picked up pizzas for the class and meet them there. The kids chowed down while us parents got the chance to catch up for a few minutes.
After lunch, we got an improv version of several of their songs & dances they do every day, and it was so much fun seeing Jackson in his element, independent of me. I videoed it with my camcorder so its unlikely that will every make it over to this blog.
We got home in time to sort through our v-day loot before nap time. Not quite as impressive as Halloween but still more than enough sugar-filled loot for some time.
After naps (loooong, joyous naps!) I made a gourmet Valentines Dinner featuring whole wheat frozen chicken tenders, instant herb garlic mashed potatoes, chicken-flavored stovetop stuffing and some delish frozen yellow corn on the cob. Freezer to table in 15 minutes or less was the name of the game.
After dinner, we had an impromptu dance party on the coffee table - yes, all of those preservatives in a single meal made us all feel so LAWLESS! I think I figured out how to embed a video file into a blog posting. It was beyond!
http://youtu.be/loOgg1NbqKg
We rounded up our fun night with bubble baths and books and lots of extra hugs and snuggles. And not once did I pick up my phone for anything other than to take a picture or video. No checking FB, email, reading blogs, etc. I was intentionally present, soaking in the love and joy of my two precious boys.
And by "checking out" of social media, it frees you up in ways your don't even consider. Last night I started and nearly finished a sewing project that I been eyeing for a month now. I also read a few more chapters in Mitten Strings for God (thanks Sal - Loving it!!). I did two loads of laundry, painted my toenails and even made homemade egg salad at 10:30 at night just as a snack (pregnancy much?)
So while Ben is out living it up having an awesome snowboarding guys weekend, I'm just hanging out between Greenville & Hickory, enjoying these precious but fleeting last few months of my life with two...soon to become three.
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Ben left super early on Thursday morning to fly out to Seattle to visit his brother and go snowboarding for 4 days. So that just left me and my little sweethearts at home. I had appliquéd the boys special shirts the night before and both were excited to wear them to Jackson's class party that day.
Jackson's class had a big valentines field trip planned to the Pavilion "Snow Carnival", where they would shave up the ice rink to make snow for the kids to play in, as well as let them "skate" around the rink in their shoes.
The kids had a blast and it was hard to capture a unblurry snapshot as fast as they were sliding across the ice.
The class all piled in the sled for class photo op, but that never seems to work out successfully.
Weston, crashing the party, spent the first little bit trying to venture out on his own, but after slipping & falling hard one time, he returned to the relative safety of my arms (yes, I did fall twice -- thankfully not hard and not face first!). I finally put him in his stroller so he could observe from the safety of being strapped in to a stable object.
After an hour of ice fun, the kids loaded up on the bus (the highlight of the day for most) to head back to the school for the pizza party & valentines exchange. I stopped by and picked up pizzas for the class and meet them there. The kids chowed down while us parents got the chance to catch up for a few minutes.
After lunch, we got an improv version of several of their songs & dances they do every day, and it was so much fun seeing Jackson in his element, independent of me. I videoed it with my camcorder so its unlikely that will every make it over to this blog.
We got home in time to sort through our v-day loot before nap time. Not quite as impressive as Halloween but still more than enough sugar-filled loot for some time.
After naps (loooong, joyous naps!) I made a gourmet Valentines Dinner featuring whole wheat frozen chicken tenders, instant herb garlic mashed potatoes, chicken-flavored stovetop stuffing and some delish frozen yellow corn on the cob. Freezer to table in 15 minutes or less was the name of the game.
After dinner, we had an impromptu dance party on the coffee table - yes, all of those preservatives in a single meal made us all feel so LAWLESS! I think I figured out how to embed a video file into a blog posting. It was beyond!
http://youtu.be/loOgg1NbqKg
We rounded up our fun night with bubble baths and books and lots of extra hugs and snuggles. And not once did I pick up my phone for anything other than to take a picture or video. No checking FB, email, reading blogs, etc. I was intentionally present, soaking in the love and joy of my two precious boys.
And by "checking out" of social media, it frees you up in ways your don't even consider. Last night I started and nearly finished a sewing project that I been eyeing for a month now. I also read a few more chapters in Mitten Strings for God (thanks Sal - Loving it!!). I did two loads of laundry, painted my toenails and even made homemade egg salad at 10:30 at night just as a snack (pregnancy much?)
So while Ben is out living it up having an awesome snowboarding guys weekend, I'm just hanging out between Greenville & Hickory, enjoying these precious but fleeting last few months of my life with two...soon to become three.
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Haircuts
Ben has been urging me to get Jackson's hair cut short...as in buzzed. I'm a fan of the longer little boy cut so I got it trimmed a couple weeks ago. (I usually trim it myself but recently Jackson told me he didn't want me to cut it, he wanted a "real" haircut). So, we got him a "real" haircut. In Ben's opinion, not much difference in the before and after...but after him being scalped in the past, I didn't want to risk too much.
Before
After
So on Sunday night, I conceded and agreed we could clip Jackson's hair.
For a little background, I have been cutting Ben's for years now (thanks to Dave Ramsey, we invested in a pair of great clippers that have saved us so much over the past several years). I will admit, those first few cuts were a little rough, and I would get into a fit of giggles just thinking of the damage I could accidentally do if I had a wrong jolt of the clippers.
Think "Jackass the Movie".
Anyways, Ben always made me put the clippers down when I started getting tickled. Although he did have a contractor once ask him who cut his hair, and thinking he was getting a compliment, he proudly said that his wife did. The contractor then told him that it was a good thing he didn't pay for the cut because she missed a spot in the back. And sure enough, there was an inch-wide patch where I had somehow left longer then the rest.
So I was not expecting great things for Jackson's first foray with the clippers. However, the was not his usual squirmy self so I was able to successfully trim his hair and it.is.precious. He looks JUST like Ben and we can see so much more of his sweet expressions and huge blue eyes without those heavy bangs in his face. We keep looking at him as if we are seeing a different child, and he is so proud of his big-boy haircut.
And he was excited that "Me and little brother have the same haircut now!"
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Before
After
So on Sunday night, I conceded and agreed we could clip Jackson's hair.
For a little background, I have been cutting Ben's for years now (thanks to Dave Ramsey, we invested in a pair of great clippers that have saved us so much over the past several years). I will admit, those first few cuts were a little rough, and I would get into a fit of giggles just thinking of the damage I could accidentally do if I had a wrong jolt of the clippers.
Think "Jackass the Movie".
Anyways, Ben always made me put the clippers down when I started getting tickled. Although he did have a contractor once ask him who cut his hair, and thinking he was getting a compliment, he proudly said that his wife did. The contractor then told him that it was a good thing he didn't pay for the cut because she missed a spot in the back. And sure enough, there was an inch-wide patch where I had somehow left longer then the rest.
So I was not expecting great things for Jackson's first foray with the clippers. However, the was not his usual squirmy self so I was able to successfully trim his hair and it.is.precious. He looks JUST like Ben and we can see so much more of his sweet expressions and huge blue eyes without those heavy bangs in his face. We keep looking at him as if we are seeing a different child, and he is so proud of his big-boy haircut.
And he was excited that "Me and little brother have the same haircut now!"
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Happy Birthday Mikey!
Today is my little brother's 30th birthday. I still can hardly believe I'm 30 myself, so it blows my mind that Michael is 30. {And I'm happy to report he has not let his mullet grow back.} Jenn threw him a birthday party at their new house in Cary over the weekend, and we made a family affair out of it and took the boys to help celebrate.
We left Thursday evening after Ben got home from work, and finally got to their house around 2am. Rough start to the long weekend but so worth it!
Our Friday was spent hanging out at their house and the boys had the BEST time playing in Scout's dog cage.
And back track to November 2010, here's Jackson doing the same exact things - not much has changed!!
We did make a grocery run on Friday and Jackson was Aunt Jenn's little helper. He thought he was big stuff pushing his own cart.
And when he got samples to taste, he insisted on eating them WHILE pushing his cart, "Like you do at Costco" he told me. Yes, my 3-year-old called me out.
Saturday morning we ventured to the Flea Market over at the State Fairground to hunt for some "treasures". All we bought were two cheap toboggans because it was so dang cold I was sure both kids were going to get sick from being outside. And if I had a place to hang it, we totally would have bought this comfy swing.
On a side note, here's one of my favorite purchases of the consignment sale I went to last week. They both wore there new Buzz & Woody pjs over the weekend and were adorable. And for the record, they are both size 4T. Other than height, these two are nearly the same size.
Saturday night was the big party. Westie was down before the first guests arrived but Jackson got stay up for a little bit. As you can tell, Westie wasn't exactly a happy camper to be handed off for this pre-bedtime pic...
Jackson, on the other hand, was a great sport and adores his Uncle Mikey.
We had a great time in Cary and were so glad we were able to make it to see
their new house and to help celebrate Mikey's third decade!
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Tuesday, February 5, 2013
You know that feeling you get when someone sneaks up on you? Lately after about 30 minutes of "quiet time", Jackson will sneak out of his room and silently creep into whatever room I'm in...and I will jump out of my skin when I look up and see him standing there.
I caught him sneaking down the stairs yesterday...in an face mask no less. Is this normal??!!?
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I caught him sneaking down the stairs yesterday...in an face mask no less. Is this normal??!!?
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The Circus "Parade"
Last week, the circus came to Greenville. While we have taken Jackson in the past, its not something we do every year. So I was excited to check out the annual "Circus Parade"...which is basically the animals walking through downtown, from the train station to the coliseum. I had heard mixed reviews so I wasn't sure what to expect.
Let's just say that we will not be doing the circus parade again. And I use the word "parade" quite loosely. I realize the purpose of the processional is strictly functional, getting the animals from point A to point B. But I kid you not, we waited for an hour and a half and could have missed the entire thing had we blinked. I'm talking half a dozen elephants, a few horses and some trick ponies. Don't get me wrong, it was neat seeing the animals up close, but really, they could've thrown in a clown or two. I guess all the hype had everyone overly expectant, but Jackson summed it up by saying that "Bebe's parade was better than this one." (He was referring to the annual Old Soldier's Reunion parade in my hometown, which had bands, floats, cheerleaders, etc).
Thankfully the weather was decent (despite threatening showers) and we had friends with us.
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Let's just say that we will not be doing the circus parade again. And I use the word "parade" quite loosely. I realize the purpose of the processional is strictly functional, getting the animals from point A to point B. But I kid you not, we waited for an hour and a half and could have missed the entire thing had we blinked. I'm talking half a dozen elephants, a few horses and some trick ponies. Don't get me wrong, it was neat seeing the animals up close, but really, they could've thrown in a clown or two. I guess all the hype had everyone overly expectant, but Jackson summed it up by saying that "Bebe's parade was better than this one." (He was referring to the annual Old Soldier's Reunion parade in my hometown, which had bands, floats, cheerleaders, etc).
Thankfully the weather was decent (despite threatening showers) and we had friends with us.
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Friday, February 1, 2013
The burden of documenting our lives
Am I the only one who feels like I can NEVER catch up with photo albums? I mean, everyone takes hundreds of pictures, so its not the actual digital photos themselves that are the burden. Its compiling them from the iPhone, iPad, digital camera, etc into one place, then sorting, dating, uploading, printing THEN archiving those rascals.
Confession: I have not updated any hard photos albums since December 2010. Yes, that is 2 years ago. Yet I have thousands of digital images on my various devices that are just sitting there, eating up precious memory space and waiting to be used in some way, shape or form.
But then the burden snowballs...okay, I've got the digital pics in one place, sorted by month & year, weeded out the bad ones and ready to upload, but what next? Do I upload to shutterfly and do a photobook? This will be a small fortune considering it would be upwards of 100 pages long for each year, not to mention time consuming. Or do I upload my pics to Costco and get them printed as 4x6 prints and just mount them in photobooks myself? More labor intensive but probably less expensive and I can do it in stages at my own pace. And I don't do anything fancy...just double-stick tape & a sharpie.
After debating back & forth for several weeks, I decided to dive in with the latter and just work on it a little bit every evening. My goal is to catch up to date by the time Baby Brother is born in May. So far, I've successfully printed 2011 photos in their entirety, by month, and have completed the album pages from January - July. Its been a fairly quick process once I go organized and also figured out you can import photos into Costo from Picasa which is amazingly quick and saves a step since I already use Picasa as my way to organize & share our photos.
I have actually really enjoyed going back through out older pictures and reminiscing as I make these books. Ben & I have gotten some great laughs, and its fun to see how Weston resembles Jackson when he was younger.
I know we will treasure these albums for years to come, and that helps motivate me to document as much as I can!
On a video note, I am so blessed to have a private videographer (Mom) who takes tons of video when we are around, but also takes the footage from our iPhones, iPads & video camera and edits, creates chapters, menus, etc., then burns us DVDs. We have an entire album of home movie DVDs that Mom has kept current for us. We are so thankful for that and the kids love to watch them fairly often.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Confession: I have not updated any hard photos albums since December 2010. Yes, that is 2 years ago. Yet I have thousands of digital images on my various devices that are just sitting there, eating up precious memory space and waiting to be used in some way, shape or form.
But then the burden snowballs...okay, I've got the digital pics in one place, sorted by month & year, weeded out the bad ones and ready to upload, but what next? Do I upload to shutterfly and do a photobook? This will be a small fortune considering it would be upwards of 100 pages long for each year, not to mention time consuming. Or do I upload my pics to Costco and get them printed as 4x6 prints and just mount them in photobooks myself? More labor intensive but probably less expensive and I can do it in stages at my own pace. And I don't do anything fancy...just double-stick tape & a sharpie.
After debating back & forth for several weeks, I decided to dive in with the latter and just work on it a little bit every evening. My goal is to catch up to date by the time Baby Brother is born in May. So far, I've successfully printed 2011 photos in their entirety, by month, and have completed the album pages from January - July. Its been a fairly quick process once I go organized and also figured out you can import photos into Costo from Picasa which is amazingly quick and saves a step since I already use Picasa as my way to organize & share our photos.
I have actually really enjoyed going back through out older pictures and reminiscing as I make these books. Ben & I have gotten some great laughs, and its fun to see how Weston resembles Jackson when he was younger.
I know we will treasure these albums for years to come, and that helps motivate me to document as much as I can!
On a video note, I am so blessed to have a private videographer (Mom) who takes tons of video when we are around, but also takes the footage from our iPhones, iPads & video camera and edits, creates chapters, menus, etc., then burns us DVDs. We have an entire album of home movie DVDs that Mom has kept current for us. We are so thankful for that and the kids love to watch them fairly often.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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