Happy 4 Year Anniversary To Us!

Rob and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary today. Yay for us! We didn't celebrate too big because our boys make that kind of tough. At 2 years old and 8 months old, they are just too much work for a high school kid to babysit and since no family is close by, we decided we better stay at home. We were going to get take out but with all the blizzard warnings going on and lots of snow, I made dinner instead. I made a roast with potatoes and carrots, buttermilk biscuits, jello and carrot cake for dessert.



My bundt pan is shaped kind of crazy and makes cakes look a little funky when frosted.



Here are our dinner guests that joined us-



I don't mind having them joining us but I did tell Rob that I hope it is the first and last anniversary dinner we share with them. I feel a little bad saying that but we need at least one day out of the year to celebrate us and enjoy each other's company without any interruptions. I gave Rob The Pacific on dvd- nothing says "I love you!" like World War II. Seriously, he really wanted to see it and was very happy with his gift. I purchased a food processor that was part Christmas and part anniversary gift. It came in really handy for grating all the carrots for the carrot cake! I think Rob really benefits when I get new things for the kitchen so I think those are his favorite kinds of gifts. And not that he picks them out, I want them and I pick them out. This isn't a Father of the Bride "He bought me a blender" kind of breakdown thing. No no. These are things that I want and pick out. So we both got really good gifts and had a nice dinner to celebrate our four years of marriage.

It's hard to believe how much has changed for us in the last four years- new jobs, new house, new state, and 2 new people in our family. Wow. Here we are on my favorite day, the day that started it all.

Things I've Learned About Snow

I've learned a lot since this picture was taken (our first weekend in Iowa in 2007)-



Now that I think about it, I learned a lot that weekend about snow and winter weather. I didn't know there was such thing as freezing rain but I found out fast. The craziest weather I have seen so far was "thundersnow" where it was snowing AND had thunder with it. I think that has only happened once so it is pretty rare. Even the snow itself can be very different depending on how wet or dry it is. Try making a snowman with dry snow- you'll be there all day because that stuff doesn't stick together at all.

Driving in the snow was the thing that concerned me the most about moving to Iowa. I pictured that every day would be like that Bridgestone commercial.



It's not like that at all. I mean, it does happen sometimes but we just don't drive when it's bad like that. The plows come through quickly to clear the snow and the main roads are fine in no time. Residential roads and ones with less traffic take a little longer to get rid of all the snow but that is okay because there aren't that many cars on those streets so if you struggle a little, it isn't a big deal. When a snowstorm is coming, you plan ahead for groceries and things like that so you don't have to go out. If you do have to go out, take the bus. Let them crash. Speaking of crash, you have to just prepare yourself for falling on your butt. It will happen. It gets pretty slick and icy out there and everyone will be on their butt at some point. It hasn't happened to me yet but I think God's been looking out for me since I've been pregnant or carrying small children around most of the time. Rob's wadded it up a time or two though and I am sure my time is coming.

The thing I think about first though when I think about snow is how beautiful and peaceful it is after a snowstorm passes through. I love the snow before anyone has walked or driven through it, before the snowplows have come through- the snow just sparkles when you look at it and it is amazing to see. It truly looks like there are diamonds all in it. The snow blankets all the houses, trees and everything in white and no one is out driving around so it is just so quiet. Even a boring, ugly chain-link fence looks pretty when there is snow on it.



I still look forward to spring and summer but I'm learning that winter is a pretty special time too.

Good Eats

I have about two minutes to type this up but I just have to share my news. Last week we had a turning point with Wyatt's eating- he is finally starting to eat some baby food. I can not find the words to adequately express how excited I am about this. We have been working with him for months and finally have made progress. We've tried all kinds of things- Gerber baby food or homemade, Rob and I both trying to feed him, tried letting him feed himself, and foods of all kinds (that he is allowed to have at this point). Now we know that he doesn't care who is feeding him, he prefers completely pureed things rather than textured, chunky foods and he likes the apples and pears the best. Today, at exactly 8 months old, he ate an entire container (his first of any kind) of apples for lunch.

He likes to take little breaks and play with the spoon.



Wyatt opens his mouth now when the spoon is coming towards him. So much better than the pursed lips we used to be faced with when he saw the spoon coming.



An actual smile while eating. A miracle.



Yay Wyatt!!!

My Snow Angels

Rex has all the gear now to go play in the snow- heavy duty jacket, boots, gloves and hat- so we've taken him out in the yard a few times to let him play. Here he is with his dad.




Aren't they so cute? Cute AND naughty.



I was just trying to capture this nice moment of my husband and son playing in the snow together and I get nailed by a snowball. I have a feeling it's not the last snowball I will get hit with. Truthfully, I don't mind. I love that I have two sons which makes for a total of 3 boys in my house. I just have to remember that things in my house will get broken and trips to the emergency room are likely. I will keep hoping that they don't though.

Things have been pretty slow around here. Although my resolutions to be more organized and lose weight were kind of half-hearted, I have been making progress on both. Rob built some shelves for me in the basement and I bought a bunch of storage containers so we've been working on getting things put away and organized. Once the basement started looking a little better, I felt like going down there to use my treadmill and so I did almost 4 miles on the thing this morning. It took a little encouragement from Rob to get me out of bed but I'm so glad I listened to him and exercised. It definitely puts me in a better mood for the day. Someone who is not in a good mood right now is Wyatt- he is running out of patience with me while I work on this so I better get going.

Super Sleeper

I love superhero jammies for my boys. I don't have any for Wyatt- just a onesie so far for him- but Rex is a different story. First, there was the generic superhero one piece outfit. Then we upgraded him to Batman pajamas (cape not pictured). And now as he moves into yet another size, he has not one, but FOUR superhero jammies- a Christmas gift from Nana and Papa.

First up is Spiderman.



Next we have the Man of Steel.



Here he is sporting the latest from the Dark Knight collection.



Finally, we have Mr. Tony Stark, aka Ironman.



I wasn't aware that Ironman and Curious George had that much in common but they seem to be hitting it off here. I often complain about how little girls' clothes are so cute and it is a lot harder to find cute things for boys. I have to say that the superhero pajama collection may just make up for that.

Happy New Year!

Wyatt got into the spirit of things with this special onesie-



Rob and I stayed up for midnight on New Year's Eve- I only got a little kiss though because I was informed that I smelled like pepperoni (we had pizza for dinner). Thanks honey. We spent our New Year's Day taking down the Christmas tree and some of the decorations. We got sidetracked though when we took down the tree and decided to totally redesign our living room. We took the dining table out so it is all living room now. This is mostly because the family room project is costing more than planned and, therefore, taking longer than planned. We all need more room and since we can eat at the table in the kitchen, it was decided that the dining table would be stored in the basement for now and we would have a large living room now. I'm not going to lie, it's a little crowded to eat in the kitchen but since it is only temporary, we can deal with it. New Year's is all about organizing and making life better, right? I'd say we did just that.

I read that in the Japanese culture, sweet potatoes (or satsumaimo, as they call it) is part of a dish called kurikinton which is supposed to bring you wealth in the new year. I don't know what kurikinton is exactly and didn't have any sweet potatoes on hand but I did have a container of Gerber sweet potatoes (I think you see where this is heading). I heated up the container and we all took a bite- even forced a very small amount on Wyatt- in hopes of landing a big prize (HGTV Dream House, perhaps) or a big jackpot (Mega Millions is up to $290 million- Yowza!) in 2011. Not expecting much but it couldn't hurt, right?

As for the rest of my plans for the year, I'm not sure that I have any resolutions prepared. Last year I set out to blog 8 times a month which was reasonable until Wyatt was born. I never met my goal after his birth because I am so busy with the two of them all the time. I did have 19 more posts than 2009 so I consider it a success. I have some weight loss goals that I'd like to meet but until Wyatt sleeps better and I can devote time to my new treadmill in the basement, those goals look pretty tough. I miss my running though and as soon as I can get a decent night's sleep, I am all over that treadmill. I consider myself a pretty organized person but as I look around my house, I see I could make quite a few improvements there. I suppose my goals are to weigh less and be more organized on December 31st than I was on January 1st!

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...