The Best and Worst of 2010

This year was a busy one. Like every year, there were good times and bad. Let's review.

Best:

-Wyatt's birth. Hands down the highlight of my year. Seeing him grow and watching him now as he starts to interact with me, Rob and Rex is just amazing.

-Rex. He's 2 and he's pretty crazy and doesn't listen well but man, that kid is so funny and smart! The things he says and thinks about just blow me away sometimes. He is so observant and I love that he is speaking in sentences more now and can relate what is going on in that giant head of his. He is so much fun every day.

-My husband is the greatest. He does so much for our family- he works so hard every day at his job then does so much here at the house too. He is amazing and I love him so much. And an extra special shout-out for tearing the roof off part of our house and fixing it. It was way more work than either of us anticipated but he did great and the house looks and functions better now.

-Visits from friends and family. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time and spent their money to come see us. We really appreciate it and are so happy you did.


Worst:

-The Floods. Not only did it flood a bunch but we had to boil all our water or use the bottled stuff for almost a week. That was tough. I am thankful though that we had no flood damage at our house and the water issue was all I had to worry about.

-My health. There were the pregnancy and recovery issues that I expected to deal with this year but I also was sick enough to go on antibiotics twice during the first two months of Wyatt's life and then I had the flu two weeks ago. Hoping for better luck in 2011.

-Wyatt's eating and sleeping- really the problem is not eating or sleeping good still. I can deal with it for a while but he is almost 8 months old and only wants breast milk straight from the source. No bottles, no formula, no rice cereal, no oatmeal, no veggies or fruit. Rob has had very little success with applesauce and I've had no success with anything. He makes it so that his tongue blocks any potential opening you may find to get food in his mouth. If you try to push the issue, he just uses that tongue to force everything back out. He is still gaining weight but we are definitely starting to have a supply issue because I can't keep up anymore. He's just too big. AND he wakes up once or twice a night (sometimes even up to four times a night!) to eat. I'm exhausted. He's had a couple of good runs where he sleeps through the night for a week or two and I think we're over the hurdle but then it all falls apart. Will just keep praying and hoping that this gets better. SOON.

Merry Crink Crink!

We had a very nice christmas here at home with our family- or should I say a nice "crink crink". Rex says "crink crink" instead of "christmas" which is a lot of fun. He told everyone "Merry Crink Crink!" and he loved to go look at all the "crink crink lighties" that people had up on their houses. Anyhow, Rob had Christmas Eve and the day before that off too which was really nice. He and Rex helped me out with my eggnog sugar cookies. I made the dough, rolled it out and cut out the cookies and then handed them off to the two of them for decorating.



Rex was really, really, really into it. He would get a little mad if he ran out of cookies to decorate so I had to hurry up and make sure I was getting them ready for him fast enough. He wouldn't get off that chair he was standing on either until we were totally done. It was pretty cute. He didn't have his usual 2-3 hour nap that day so he was pretty spun out by bedtime. It seems a multi-vitamin does the same thing to him as they do to me- gives us a big shot of energy and then we can't sleep. So he had the vitamin with his lunch and then when he laid down right after, it was not happening. Christmas Eve was a very long day and we didn't get up until after 9:00 a.m. Christmas morning. We unwrapped all our gifts and had a lot of nice stuff.





Santa brought Rex a digital camera, a Buzz Lightyear toy and a pillow pet- the monkey, of course. Wyatt got a bunch of toys and the bear pillow pet. He seemed to really like the little Curious George stuffed animal my sister sent for Rex though. Rex wanted to get his hands on some of Wyatt's toys too so I'm sure they'll all be mixed together before long. We gave Rex a big tool set that is pretty realistic looking and just as I thought, he loved it. He's been drilling on the book shelf, grinding the kitchen cabinets and here he is welding on the living room wall.



Note to Rex- the goggles work better if they are covering your eyes instead of your forehead. All the toys and books and clothes were a lot of fun but this is my favorite picture of the day. I just love seeing them in their matching Christmas jammies on Christmas morning.



Rob did pretty good with presents but mine was better- I got an electric smoker. This may sound like a weird present but I really wanted it. For several months out of the year, we can't barbecue. Total bummer. So, a lot of people here in Iowa have smokers to cook their meat in. A lot of them barbecue in their garage too but the way ours is set up, that's not possible. Now I have to go to the store and get some meat so we can try that thing out!

I had the flu last weekend and it was bad. That's what I get for not getting my flu shot, I guess. Thankfully the guys all have their shots so I didn't get them sick. I will be going to Walgreens this week to get mine- I don't want to get it twice. Getting the flu the week before Christmas is no good but I am so happy I didn't have it on Christmas. I had most of my Christmas shopping and chores all under control so it wasn't too bad. Anyhow, there wasn't a lot going on around here leading up to Christmas. And yesterday we spent a lot of time trying to find homes for all the new toys and books and washing new clothes. Santa left Rex a "Mao meow" (that's Mickey Mouse to the rest of us) shirt that he is so anxious to wear. It's all ready to go for today. He was not too happy with me that he couldn't wear it yesterday- sorry, kid. It was a good thing his other favorite shirt with trains on it was available. We had to bring up a bookshelf out of the basement to put in Rex's room for all his toys. I've been asking Rob to do that for a few months but now it had to be done. A lot of toys that used to be in the living room are in his room now which is great for two reasons. First, they are not in the living room anymore. Yay for that. Second, it makes Rex's room feel more like his space now that his stuff is in there.

I think I've babbled on about Christmas long enough now. Hope everyone else had a great Christmas too!!

Hot Streak

I like to gamble. I don't go to Vegas much or even to any of the nearby Indian casinos- is that even right? Native American casinos sounds weird but Indian seems not PC and like it's people from India. Anyhow, I don't gamble with slot machines, cards or table games much but I do make sure I get my Powerball and Mega Millions tickets- as well as the occasional scratcher- every week. The last two weeks I have been winning all kinds of money- I even got $100 playing Powerball! Altogether I think it's about $160 so far. I've put a lot right back in because the goal is to win a jackpot or at least the $200,000/$250,000 prize, not $100. I'm taking some of my winnings though and putting it towards a special Christmas present... for myself! Honestly, I don't even care about moving to a huge house on the beach or fancy cars or anything like that. I would probably get a new car and a new MacBook and a few small toys (a super-duper DSLR camera for starters) but mostly I'd like it to travel, have something for retirement, and help people and causes I care about. Seriously. I better make sure I get my ticket for tonight too because the Mega Millions jackpot tonight is $104 million. Ok, with that much, I might think about the beach house after all!

Rex is on a hot streak too- he got a fever yesterday and it still is going on today. My poor baby. He does not feel good at all. Hopefully he gets better soon because I hate seeing him like this. Well, maybe not just like this because he looks so cute asleep but you know what I mean.



One thing that is not hot around here is the weather. It snowed this weekend and this will be sticking around. We've had a little snow prior to this weekend but nothing much. It all melted away pretty fast. But this is cold and windy and nasty now. It's nice that we'll have a white Christmas though- I was beginning to think we may not this year. I would have missed that but only a little. The snow and cold is only something to be tolerated in exchange for the pleasant summers, springs and falls that I love so much. I think Rob is liking the snow a little better this year now that he has this:



We have a snowblower now- Yay! No more shoveling. Not that I have done much of it since I was pregnant 2 out of the 3 winters we've been here but I still felt bad for Rob always out there, shoveling the snow. Not anymore though.

Time Flies When You're Doing Nothing

It seems like we've been so busy lately but when I sit down to write about it, I can't really think what we've been doing. Rob finished up all the yard work stuff for winter and put up the storm windows this weekend. I did a lot of the pruning already but he needed to get all the leaves picked up and mulched. Rob also got the Christmas lights on the house last weekend and put up the garland over the front door and garage door this weekend. It is so fun to see Rex's reaction to the lights on all the houses he sees. He starts giggling and squealing and saying, "Crink-crink lighties!!!" Sometimes there's a "Wow!" or an "Oh boy!" in there too. It's a lot of fun. It's hard to believe what a big boy he is turning into. I took this photo of him this weekend and I looked at it and thought "Wow-look at him in the jeans and Star Wars t-shirt. He looks like a boy now so much." I'm sure he'll seem little when I look back at this photo in 5 years but for now, he looks like a big kid.



My other boy is getting big too. He had his 6-month check-up with the doctor last week and he is doing great. He is almost 17 pounds (a lightweight compared to Rex who was 20 pounds at 6 months!) and 27 inches. We took him to get professional photos done at the 6 month mark but I did his monthly photo shoot and here's one of those pictures.



I guess we've just been busy with everyday life things and a little Christmas too. We picked out some stuff for Rex but since he was with us, we just discussed it slyly and one of us will have to go back for it. I'm trying to do some of my shopping, as much as possible, from small local businesses this year. Shopping online and in big stores is nice but I'd like to spend my money so that it goes to people here too. Rex has been trapped in his room this whole time and he is starting to get restless so I better wrap this up. Here's one last photo of my 3 guys. I think I need to get in some of these photos though next time...