My Funny Valentine, Sweet Grumpy Valentine

Oh, how times have changed.

I like to think I've been a low maintenance wife when it comes to Hallmark holidays. I've enjoyed some wonderful gifts, some candlelit dinners, some fancy chocolates...

But as nice as all of those were, they still weren't as lovely as the first Valentine's Day with three Valentines. I got a nice bouquet of flowers, yet that's a monthly occurence in our house (isn't he the best?). We had nice sit-down meal as a family...of Applebee's takeout ($5 after tip, minus gift card). Jason and I enjoyed some quality time together, snuggled on the couch watching Butler basketball (I fell asleep at 9:00).

It was not overly exciting, but it was just a good day to remind me of how lucky I am to have my Valentines. Marshall was pretty grumpy most of the morning and evening. I couldn't manage a very good picture of him in his Snoopy shirt, but it's the same one Miles wore.

Miles was his normal goofy self. My favorite story of the day...

I've been trying to teach Miles that, unless the person knows you're being funny, it's rude to stick out your tongue at someone. When he did that during Valentine's dinner, I gave him the evil eye. He immediately said, "Sorry. I meant to stick out my bottom and shake my booty instead." Yeah...cuz that's better. :-)

In long overdue video news, check out the boys' new YouTube channel.

What's Happenin'

I hate to take the tone of the cheesy family newsletter, but, well, that's just what cha gotta do when you only blog once a month. Here goes...

Marshall is getting to be such a big boy! As always, he's pretty darn smiley, even when the poor kid gets pink eye and an ear infection and teething at the same time!

He now has two "vampire" teeth poking through on top - looks like they aren't the front teeth but the ones on either side. Good thing, because he's been eating all kinds of big boy food! Other than cereal, he's pretty much off the baby food and eats whatever we eat. He eats chicken, black beans, Cheerios (of course), and many other things, but his favorite is spaghetti sauce!




Marshall is also babbling a lot. He has what seems to be a pretty good handle on "dada", although he did look at the TV the other day and call Mitt Romney his dada. Hmmmmm...

He's cruising pretty well along furniture and enjoys "walking" while holding both hands. Here's a video of both...and a close call of a potential wipe out!

Miles has been continuing to do very well at pre-school. The latest news is that he has "two girlfriends and one boyfriend": Scarlett, Maleah, and Collin. Thankfully, Scarlett is back in his good graces, I guess after coloring me a picture at school (always suck up to the mom...works every time). At once point in time, they had apparently broken up because, according to Miles, she "told too many stories."

Miles has about 50 toys from Christmas that he hasn't touched more than once, but he's really been enjoying his Transformers. He's also been doing lots of imagination play, especially when it comes to Super Heroes. We spent the better part of tonight, includiing our trip to Jimmy John's, pretending to be Batman (Miles), Robin (Marshall), and Wonder Woman (Mommy). Luckily I didn't have to literally dress the part because, as Miles says, "Wonder Woman doesn't wear a shirt - she just wears underwear." OoooK.

Miles' biggest Big Boy Change is that he's now taking swimming lessons at the Y. He has been truly fantastic! My goal by the end of the 7 weeks was simply for him to be in the water without me. By his second lesson, he had already jumped in by himself and gone under water. Last week (only lesson #3), I didn't have to get in the water at all with him. Then again, it helps that he has private instruction, being the only one who signed up for the group class!

Jason and I have been keeping busy with work and trying to take in as much of the Indy Super Bowl hype as we can. We went downtown last weekend to check out the Super Bowl village and will probably get down there tomorrow for a little bit. The fates have been shining down on our fair city with temperatures in the 50s all week...if only we could avoid the rain tomorrow. It has been so fun watching Indy being painted in such a great light at the national (and sometimes world) level!



P.S. Happy 60th (or 120th) birthday, Pops! Yep, Papa is so special that he gets to celebrate two birthdays every year!

12 Days

So, today is Epiphany...which means I am within the 12 Days of Christmas period. Which means I can still have a Christmas post without technically being late. Which means I'll take the lazy way out and use the tired 12 days of Christmas theme. Which means I won't even fill in each day with clever replacements.

On the first day of the Christmas season, my true love gave to me...a niece born in Kentucky! Natalie Grace - 6 lbs 15 ounces on December 16.



On the second day of the Christmas season, my true love gave to me...two cozy gloves.
Grandpa, Granny, and Aunt Ashley came up on December 23, and Miles got a big boy treat of staying with them overnight in their "downtown hotel". He had lots of fun watching Alvin and the Chipmunks at the movies and taking a late night carriage ride around the circle and throughout downtown. He looked super handsome in his Spiderman hat mittens set:






On the third day...
We continued our Christmas Eve traditions. Gpa, Gran, & Ash joined us for church and then we went out to eat...classed it up with Ruby Tuesday this year instead of the Pondo. Our little family then opened a few gifts, set out cookies for Santa, and sprinkled reindeer food.

On the fourth day...four walling (curse) words.
Christmas! Miles was ecstatic about his Hot Wheels Wall Track (not so ecstatic - Daddy, after ripping off a piece of dry wall). Marshall's favorite Santa gift was his Little People airplane. The boys also had the pleasure of seeing all of their grandparents at some point. We are blessed!

On the fifth day of the Christmas season, my true love gave to me...five minutes of peace!
By the time Tuesday the 27th rolled around, we were all happy to go our separate ways for a little while. I went to the office, and Jason dropped the boys off at day care so he could get some work done as well.

On the sixth day...
We used our new Deluxe Children's Museum membership on Wednesday the 28th and took Grammy with us. Miles like showing her the Pirates and Bumble Bee. Marshall was actually big enough to crawl around the baby area!

On the seventh day...
Jason and I intended to have a date day, and the boys went to day care again. We went shopping but struck out. Jason was hoping to buy David and Hilary a Christmas Story leg lamp, but the four Walgreens we stopped at were all out. Ah, romance!

On the eighth day, my true love gave to me...eight hours of sleeping.
Friday was another work day for me, so Jason was going to have a guy's day with the boys. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Miles ended up sleeping all morning and went to bed early. He had a fever but didn't complain about anything other than being tired. Thanks again, day care.

On the ninth day, my true love gave to me...nine ladies dancing.
OK, so I'm sure we saw at least nine ladies dancing on New Years' Eve. Granny graciously offered to babysit, so we went out on the town for a big night in Louisville with David & Hilary.

On the tenth day...
I'm trying to forget the tenth day. Too much New Years' Eve fun to make for a good day for me....

On the eleventh day...
We celebrated the typical New Years Day on January 2. It was a great family day of sleeping in, snuggling in the bed, watching the Rose Bowl parade in our jammies, and just spending a nice day at home!

On the twelfth day...
On January 3, Marshall had his 9 month well-baby visit. It was nice to actually visit the doctor for a non-sick reason lately! Marshall was (drummers drumming drumroll, please)........28 inches (50%) and 18lbs, 5 ounces (20%). The doc said the dip in weight is normal for nursing babies, but we're using it as a good excuse to let him eat even more "regular people" food. He's eaten spaghetti and even had a little of Miles' grilled cheese last night.

Whew! Merry Christmas!!

Dear Santa

Preparing for Christmas this year has been quite the drawn-out process! Not only are we getting ready for Santa, but we're also getting ready for Baby Girl Cousin #2, who is set to arrive on December 16. With that, and Gavin's first birthday on December 20, we'll have quite the social calendar each year in December!

It took us three days to put ornaments on our trees. We let Miles go crazy on our "family" tree, so the lower third of the tree has about 5 ornaments on each branch. Here's Round One:



Luckily, Marshall hasn't quite figured out that the ornaments are there yet in all of his crawling adventures. He's pretty focused on cords right now, so maybe he'll be drawn to the tree once he tires of that.

We had an impromtu photo session to see what we could come up with for our Christmas cards, and we got quite a few keepers! I was planning on using the world's cutest school pictures, but the Christmas ones turned out so well that we abandoned that plan. I won't spoil the surprise, but here's one that we didn't use. I think Miles looks so old in this one - it hurts my heart!



Today we visited Santa at my work. Marshall was not his biggest fan:



Miles told Santa that he wanted the race track thing that goes on the wall. Shortly after Thanksving, I helped him write his letter to Santa. Here's the transcript. I think Santa will probably do a pretty good job getting most of the stuff on this list, so you might not want to buy him any of this stuff!

Dear Santa,
I would like more socks. Some of my socks are too small and too empty. I want a train (like a black train on a black track). That is what I saw on a kid newspaper. A black robot (editor's note: Miles has been referring to him recently as "a black guy"). He's that tall and says "MM. MM. MM." and he moves his feet like that. And he talks to other robots and says, "Hey, I'm a robot." He tackles him! Maybe a gumball machine that's like big and straight with colored gumballs inside...like a rainbow. On my next one, I want another robot that punches Transformer bad guys. A star machine with lots of twinkly stars. A grabber thingy that can grab my boots and throw it in my room and let go and pops in my room. I want some new boots. Some more crayons too. A Mr. Potato Head that goes on his head. I want maybe a boat just like on the Curious George movie and it goes, "Moooooot!" (like loud). Two rocket ship crayons.

I like you Santa.

Love,
Miles

Turkey Flu

So, you might remember a while back when Miles had the swine flu. It's not quite Bird Flu, but I like to call this year's round the Turkey Flu. Miles brought home the foul little fowl the night before Thanksgiving. He was up all night puking but was in surprisingly good spirits the next day. I was hoping he just had a minor bug, and that would be the end of it. This is where the wah-wah sound effect would come in if this were a TV show. We enjoyed a relaxed morning with Uncle David, Aunt Hilary, and Gavin. The best part of it all - Marshall decided to start crawling!!

And, yes, that is a dog chewie. Notice the 273 different toys strewn around and how that boy was only interested in the nasty chewed-up raw hide that he couldn't have. Whatever motivates him! Miles got better throughout the day, and, despite my feeling like dung, we all seemed to have a nice family Thanksgiving dinner. Marshall even got to eat Turkey with Sweet Potatoes baby food!

It wasn't quite Miles' favorite food...if he had he wish, he would have had Taco Bell. (The Sunday before, he told the entire congregration during the Children's Sermon that Taco Bell was the place he was most thankful for.)

I started to feel better the next day, so I hoped the whole illness thing was a fluke. (WAH, WAH) We decided to go downtown to see the Circle of Lights illuminated. Here's a pic before the lights came on.

Unfortunately, Uncle David, Aunt Hilary, and Gavin didn't make it to the countdown, thanks to the Turkey Flu's decision to take vengeance on Uncle David. I was the next victim later that evening. Oh, the Humanity!!!

Just as I was beginning to make a recovery, we noticed that Marshall had a fever. Shortly afterward, Jason was laid out from the Turkey's treachery. We heard that Aunt Hilary and Gavin made it home in time for them to be struck down by the Turkey's fury as well.

After three days of fevers, we took Marshall in to the doc. He confirmed that it was indeed Influenza A. He said that we were his first official case of the year. I told him we were honored. All of this, and our entire family had flu shots! I lamented to the doc about the point of it all, and he reminded me that things could have been a lot worse if we hadn't gotten the shots.

So, lesson for the day. Get your flu shots...or the Turkey Man may come to get you too!

That Little Witch, DST

Extra hour of sleep, my ass.

(WARNING: Lack of sleep may produce blog posts rife with PG-13 rated vocabulary. It'll be no worse that what you see on prime time TV...so deal with it.)

Ah - Daylight Savings Time. I never understood why Hoosiers were so up in arms when we started switching our clocks a few years back. I (and the other 47 states) grew up with DST, and it was no big deal. Apparently, the Hoosiers whining about the change must have all had kids.

This fall started out promising. We slowly adjusted Miles' schedule to keep him up a little later the week prior, and on Sunday morning, he slept great! Sure, Marshall woke up at 5:15, but that was 6:15 the day earlier, and that wasn't so bad.

Then came yesterday morning. Marshall woke up at 4:30. OK, no big deal, it's just a blip. He'll get used to it. And Miles still slept until 6:15.

Then came this morning. 4:30 again. Miles wakes up me...Jason...and Marshall. After much whining (and threats to take away candy), I convince Miles to play "quietly" in his room while I feed Marshall. He comes in to ask for breakfast. He comes in crying because he can't build a tower with his Lincoln Logs. He comes in to ask me if I like his Army boots. All before 5am.

And then the "quiet" play starts. Whatever jerkfaces bought Buzz Lightyear (aka the World's Loudest Toy) and Bulldozer That Plays Cheesy 80s Rock Anthem (WTF?) are getting big red frowny faces in my Book of Mommy Offenses. Sorry if that's you...my brain is too hazy to remember who I'm offending right now. That's what happens when you have a migraine and a space ranger comes in to greet you with flashing lights and sirens at 5:15.

So, here it is, not even 9am, and I've done some work, written this post, and drunk three cups of coffee...all while waiting for Marshall to wake up from his "mid-morning" nap so I can take him to day care.

When we were still lucid on Saturday, we did get out and enjoy the beautiful weather at the Butler football game. Some pics for your viewing pleasure:

Diggin' the Dinos

Miles got full use out of his Halloween costume this year - Buddy from Dinosaur Train. He tried it on for various family members at least 5 times, then he got to wear it for two different parties at school, and he put it on once again to visit Uncle Billy and Cathy.

All that matters is the big day though, Trick-or-Treat!



I'm embarrassed to admit that I got a little snippy with Jason over the ToT plan gone awry. I thought he would take Miles out to a few houses, then bring him back so I could check him out in action. Well, somehow the Candy Hound convinced Daddy to circle the entire block. Once Miles returned, he wanted to hand out candy (check out the tail):



I finally convinced him to go back out with me...he made it three houses before declaring that his feet hurt. Oh well - I got to spend most of my Halloween night with this little dino instead!



We did manage to get one quick pic with the two dinos together:




But the best one came beforehand!




Thanks to cousin Lyla, we had a cute jack-o-lantern. We visited the Kolbs last weekend and they took us to the cutest little pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkin. We had a great time!