I'm sexy and I know it

Spider Ethan, Spider Ethan

Does whatever a Spider Ethan can

Pretty good, huh?  Did it myself.  Okay, not really.  One of Ethan's classmates had a birthday party at school during school, so they had a face painter come in.  He was super stoked to be Spiderman for a day.

Blythe is 6!

Blythe turned 6 on January 20th. It really is still hard for me to believe.  Brynn is learning to talk and tells me made up sentences with made up words and I answer "really?" and "wow" and "no kidding" just to keep my side of the conversation going. I swear I was still doing that with Blythe not that long ago and now all of the sudden she has grown up and is starting to ask real questions that deserve real, thought out answers.  And I'm so not ready for that!

She is something else, I tell ya.  She can make a new friend in about five seconds after walking into a room.  I think she's friends with everyone on her bus, including a gigantic 5th grader.  From what I can tell, she's friends with everyone in her class.  Ethan started swim lessons a few weeks ago and within 10 minutes of the first class she had made a friend and they spend each swim lesson duration coloring, drawing, or designing.

She's also a smart little girl and is learning to read so fast it's incredible (to me at least).  She never has trouble with her homework and I can tell already she is going to like math and be good at math.

She has a good eye for fashion and the girl loves her some accessories!

When she has a friend over, they still always go for the dress up clothes first.  With Ethan, she'll play legos or Trio or dress up or make believe.  When Brynn is in her room, she turns on the music and they dance together.

But Blythe is my crazy one.  When she gets excited or just happy, she can be wild and difficult to calm down.  She makes me nervous when she gets like this as she could easily break something or hurt Brynn or Ethan.

And while Ethan is generally my rule-follower, Blythe's probably more follows the "rules are meant to be broken" motto.  And she's sneaky about it.

So in general, she's friendly, popular, smart, and sneaky, which will make for some pretty terrible teenage years, so I better enjoy these next few years while I can.

And for her birthday, she got an American Girl doll, which she has named Jasmine.

Today she had her birthday party, which was at "Paint Your Pot", a place where you choose your pottery and paint it.  The girls (and Ethan) had a great time!

Brynn is in love

...with her new bed.  Okay, it's not a NEW bed, but we changed over her crib to a toddler bed and she LOVES it.  We haven't tackled naptime in it yet, but the nights have been just fine.  We put her to bed and I think she stays in her bed until morning time. Blythe and Ethan used to run around their room playing and throwing books, but Brynn makes no noise at all.  We haven't used a monitor for Brynn since she was about 9 months old, so I have no idea really what she does in there, but she's quiet and when I check on her before I go to bed, she's asleep in her bed.

What she really loves is that in the morning Ethan comes into her room and she can play with him.  They appear to play a while in her room, maybe some in his room, and then sometime later come and wake us up in our room.

Prior to her new-found freedom, she was in crib jail.  Ethan would still come in her room in the morning and play with her.  He would throw things into her crib for her to play with and then he would leave.  He'd leave the door open, so she could watch him play while she stood in her crib and occasionally she'd shout "E-YAN!" at him.  But Ethan would never try to get her out of her crib and Brynn also never tried to escape.

So now the 2 are morning buddings and Brynn couldn't be happier about it.

Another dance video

Blythe isn't the only one in our house that loves to dance.

A little lesson in money

I can't remember.  I think I might have blogged about starting an allowance for Blythe and Ethan.  Anyway, we started a couple of weeks ago and it's been going pretty well.  Making my mornings getting the kids ready way easier.  Blythe has 5 chores - Make her bed, get dressed, do homework, clean her room, and say "Please" and "Thank you".  Ethan has 3 chores - Get dressed, clean his room, and say "Please" and "Thank you".  When Blythe turns 6 later this week, she will get 1 more chore.

Sometimes I still need to remind about Please or Thank You, but sometimes the Thank You's are a bit over-the-top.  "Mom, thank you for making us breakfast" (after I just plopped down 2 pop-tarts directly out of the box).  "Mom, thank you for letting Gommy and Laura come visit" (after they came to help while I was out of town).  You get the idea.  But excessive is better than not enough, so I'll take it.

At the end of the week after doing all chores every single day, they get $1.00.  The first time, Blythe said, "That's it?" and I told her a dollar was a lot of money, so she was good with that.

I think Blythe had $1.00 to start with.  They both got wallets for Christmas and I think Peep gave them each $1.00 for their wallets.  I paid Blythe another dollar for helping me take down both Christmas trees, put away all the ornaments, and clean the kitchen.  Then after 1 week of allowance, they each got another $1.00.  So if you're good at math, you'll see that Blythe now has $4.00 and Ethan has $2.00.

Well, just before Gommy and Laura left on Saturday, Ethan was in a foul mood and decided he would break the crayons Blythe and Brynn were coloring with.  Gommy caught him and told him to stop, but he kept on.  When I came in and saw the damage, I told him those were my crayons and now he ruined them and would need to buy me some more.  He was a little upset about this.  Later I made him go get one of his dollars out of his wallet so we could go to the store.  Then he was REALLY upset.  "But then I only have ONE dollar left!".  And I further explained that that was a shame, but he had to spend one of his dollars on new crayons.

We went to Target.  Unfortunately for Ethan, they were out of the crayons on sale for $0.65 and only had ones that were $1.19 (I spotted him the extra change).  Either way, I wouldn't let him get change from his transaction because then he'd think he got more money back than what he lost ("look!  I gave them 1 money and they gave me back 5!").  I made him pay separately for his stuff and continued to ask him, "Next time you won't break crayons, will you?" hoping that this lesson will teach him to respect other people's things.

Since it was Saturday, just before bed both kids got paid another dollar for the week.  So now Blythe has 5 dollars and Ethan has 2, which made him very upset again.  Guess time will tell if this little lesson in money worked.

Super Sunday

I finally made it to an NC State Basketball game last night!  First ACC game of the year too and we won! 

Blythe was there too (next to me, playing the ipod).  And of course Braden took the picture, so it was a family event.  We even made it almost to the end of the game.  Pretty amazing. 

We were a little late though as we had a very busy day.  Poppa, Gommy, and Laura came the night before and stayed the night so we could attend Harper's baptism in the morning.  Beautiful baptism for such a sweet little girl!  And the kids were all even pretty good in church.  Afterwards, we headed to Doug and Lynette's for some yummy BBQ and some Quirkle.  For those of you who don't know what Quirkle is, look it up and then buy it because it's super fun.  Even if I did get last place. I'm sure I could think of a clever excuse, but really I just didn't play well.  Still fun though.  

We had to play speed Quirkle though because Ethan had a swim lesson and we needed to go home first.  We were home literally 15 minutes and Ethan got changed, Blythe got changed (into Wolfpack gear), Brynn had a snack, dogs went out, Braden got changed, I got changed, we grabbed snacks, and all changed shoes.  Pretty efficient! 

Ethan's swim lesson went well.  There are 5 kids in his class.  They started exactly on time and even went a bit late, so I'm happy with that.  And he was under water and blowing bubbles within 1 minute of the class, so we had no anxiety about the lesson, which is always good. 

Busy Sunday that started well and ended well and was fun all in between!

Working on Mom of the Year...

For 2013. 

2012 is already blown.  I met up with one of my college friends at a park yesterday with the kids.  While the kids played, we chatted it up.  I admit I wasn't paying as much attention as I should.  Brynn did a belly flop off a 5 foot platform, but fortunately landed pretty softly on the mulch and wasn't hurt.  I did have to get the "look" from the disapproving grandmother who watched it happen though.  Whatever...she was fine.  Mom of the Year..

But later (again while chatting it up), Brynn apparently rolled down a set of stairs.  Or at least that's what Ethan said happened.  She was covered in mulch, so appeared that she actually did do quite a bit of rolling.  And her face was scratched right by her eye.  And she was crying.  But she got over it.  Went home and she took a nap and then woke up with a swollen eye that was a little but black and blue.  Later we broke in Braden's new fire pit.  While getting it going, Brynn decided to walk on the seating wall like a balance beam, and of course Clumsy fell off and scratched her face.  That time I watched her fall and yet still couldn't prevent it from happening.  Mom of the Year.

In an effort to salvage 2012, I took Brynn and Ethan to school today so I could spend the day with just one of the 3 kids.  On the way, I put in Peter Pan in the DVD player.  Before it started, there was a preview for Tinkerbell.  These days Blythe asks me 1 million questions a day and most end with "...right, Mom?".   So of course my response to her question, "Fairies aren't real are they?  Right Mom?  Are fairies real?" was "Mmm..Hmmm...No".  She asked for further clarification so I said I didn't think they were real because I had never seen one. 

She said, "Well, what about the tooth fairy?".  Crap.  Forgot about the tooth fairy.  Then Blythe said, "Maybe the tooth fairy is real.  Or maybe it's just people's moms and dads".  What the crud?  We haven't lost a single tooth in this house and already we're shooting down the tooth fairy?  Geez, can't we at least make it through a few teeth?  So of course I told her the tooth fairy was indeed real.  I hadn't seen my tooth fairy, but I wrote letters to my tooth fairy when I was a kid.  And she wrote me back and told me her name was Penny.  That seemed to suffice as believable.  At  least for now.  Mom of the Year.

I think I did salvage at least the day though.  Blythe and I had a great day.  We started at home by making a chore chart so she can start getting a weekly allowance.  We'll see how that goes, but for today it was great.  Then we took some of her birthday party invitations to mailboxes of her friends.  Then we went to a pottery painting place and spent a couple of hours painting pottery.  She painted a mug that turned out um...nice.  I painted a dog jewely box for Brynn.  Guess we'll see how they look in a week or so.  Next we went to Chick-fil-a for lunch.  Then went to the mall and hit up H&M.  This was Blythe's first experience at a trendy store and I think I am completely out of touch.  We looked at kids clothes only.  Found lots of cute things, but I swear H&M isn't as cheap as it used to be.  Blythe found a dress and some shoes she loved and I found a Lighting McQueen shirt on clearance for Ethan.  Although I could tell the dress would fit just by holding it up, Blythe wanted to try it on.  Her first experience in a fitting room.  She was so grown up today.  Makes me feel like she'll be sixteen before I know it.  But anyway, we had a great day.

Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 was a good one.  One major reason was....we did NOT have to travel!  Yahoo!  Braden's parents, Grams and Peep, made the drive up here from Louisiana with a car full of presents.  Unfortunately just before they got here, I came down with a really bad cold that lasted throughout their entire visit.  Boo.  We still managed some fun (some of it sans Mary).  Braden, Peep, Ethan, and Blythe hit up an NC State basketball game on the first night, we headed to Marbles kids museum on Friday, and Braden took his parents and Blythe and Ethan to Pullen Park and to show off his new office on Saturday.  We also made it to church on Saturday night (of which I have no pictures...I barely functioned to get to church, let alone take pics). 

Sunday was Christmas morning, and Santa actually made it to our house the night before.  Although the Indy Santa promised Ethan a bike AND drums and Blythe a purple guitar AND an American Girl doll, he did not deliver on that promise.  Ethan did get that blue bike and some Thomas trains and Blythe got that purple guitar and a microphone. Brynn scored a shopping cart and some dishes.  Here's a video of the kids checking out the living room to see if Santa came. First here's a pic of what the living room looked like after Santa came. 

Ha!  No mention of the presents Santa brought (at first)???

After a nice lunch, Grams and Peep drove off with a whole lot more room in their trunk.   And we chilled and played with new toys the rest of the day. 

The next day we headed to Durham to celebrate Christmas with the Mittendorf's.  There were some pretty exciting gifts given.  Ethan got a new train table, which he was super stoked about.  Blythe got a boombox and a cool NC State backpack on wheels. Brynn loved the Bogie look-alike she got.  Braden got a firepit (which we'll be trying out tomorrow) and I got a family membership to Marbles (yay for lots more trips to Marbles!).

Christmas shows

Something new for us this year were the Christmas shows our kids put on for us.   Ethan's class at school put on a show on Dec. 16.  They started practicing their Christmas songs even before Thanksgiving and it was really quite impressive!  They sang about a dozen songs.  Thank goodness for the one little girl in black who knew all the words to all the songs.  Ethan I think did too, but he got major stage fright and barely performed.  And with all fo the parents in the audience, many of the kids felt it necessary to run out mid-song and give hugs to their loved ones.  Ethan didn't for a long time, but since it appeared to be the "cool" thing to do, eventually he did too.  I'm so glad their day care actually celebrates Christmas and allows them to learn Christmas songs.  They all were really cute.


Next up on Dec. 21 was Blythe's Winter Show.  Because she's in a public school, it was not a Christmas show and they did not sing Christmas songs. They sang songs about snow, penguins, winter, and colors.  And skidamarink a dink a dink.  Organizing over a hundred kindergarteners is no easy task, but it turned out pretty well. 

Last up was also on Dec. 21.  Blythe's ballet show-off.  Time to actually see what we've been spending our money on every month for a once/week ballet class.  Clearly our money is not being wasted...I mean the natural grace and talent she has is so clear.  Fortunately Braden and I's lack of grace and dance talent has no affect on Blythe and must have skipped a generation.


Okay, clearly I am being sarcastic.  At this point it's about experiencing different things and having fun, which is what she is doing.  Do I think she will someday move to NYC in hopes of joining a major ballet company?  No.  But she's meeting friends and she loves to dance, so that's good enough for me.  Looking forward to the actual recital in June.

Lots of piggies!

These are Brynn's first pigtails!  She did NOT want me to put them in her hair, but when I put them in Blythe's hair, then she decided it was okay for me to put them in her hair too.

So cute!  I LOVE pigtails!

Bloomington, IN

Last Saturday Blythe, Ethan, and I hopped on a plane to Indiana.  That sentence makes it sound like an impromptu trip, but in reality I bought the tickets back in September when I found them really cheap and we've had a countdown to the trip ever since.  So first off, traveling with kids who are almost 4 and 6 is WAY easier than travelling with a baby or a 1 year old or a 2 year old.  Both Blythe and Ethan were pretty good on the plane (short of the occasion kick to the seat in front of them and the fascination with the tray tables).

We arrived in Indianapolis and Ashley, Luke, and Amy picked us up and we drove the hour down to Bloomington to see the Freel's new home.  The kids picked up right where they left off like the last 4+ months never happened.  Amy and I talk still at least 4 times a week, so of course we picked right back up too.  Their new house is beautiful and they (like us) have been very busy since they moved in painting, working in the yard, hanging stuff up, and trying to get acquainted with a new city.  Their hard work has paid off!

Ethan and Luke dove right into the endless supply of cars, trucks, and trains that the Freels have and Ashley and Blythe were out of their street clothes and into dress-up clothes in probably less than 2 minutes after getting  to the house.  Neither Blythe or Ethan have had much of that kind of play since we moved, so it was so nice to see them play so hard for the whole trip.  Makes us miss the Freels even more though.

The trip was Saturday to today (we woke up at 4:35am to catch the early morning flight).  The 3 day trip was highlighted by a visit to the Wonderlab...a science kid museum, a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo (which was decorated with lots of lights for Christmas and had an amazing Santa), some shopping, a trip to the park, and a movie outing to see The Muppets (do NOT waste your money on it!).

A few pics from the Wonderlab.  The place was super cool and the kids had a blast!

And some pics from the zoo.  Although the Santa was awesome, he did have a fault.  He told Blythe and Ethan they could each have 2 things (instead of 1).  So Blythe then also asked for an American Girl doll and Ethan asked for drums.  WTF?

And a few others from the trip:

Thank you Freels!  We had a great time and can't wait to come back!

Christmas shopping

So I have nearly finished all of my Christmas shopping and have purchased 2 things in a store.  EVERYTHING else has been purchased online and I am eagerly awaiting many of my purchased items.  Shopping online is SO much less stressful...why doesn't everybody buy everything online?  One of the things I purchased in the store was a guitar for Blythe.  I tried to buy it online on Cyber Monday, but had no luck.  So I had to go to Toys R Us to get it (which is only 5 minutes from our house).  The other was a gift for Brynn which was much cheaper at Toys R Us than on Amazon.

Problem is, I purchased a PINK guitar.  And as previous post indicated, Blythe has asked for a PURPLE guitar.  Now, normally I would not mess with exchanging it.  It's not like she's really gonna care.  In fact, I asked her if Santa brought her a PINK guitar, what would she think.  She made a face, but then said she would  still like it.

But I got to thinking about it and that whole write-a-letter-to-Santa-and-he-will-write-a-letter-back thing may cause issue.  She wrote in the letter that she wanted a purple guitar.  What if he writes her back and tells her he will get that for her?  SO - back to Toys R Us I went today.  Good lord.  Everybody and their mother was there today at lunch time returning things or picking up site to store items or trying to call every freaking Toys R Us this side of the Mississippi in search for who knows what.  I almost settled on pink right then and there.  But then some assistant manager finally came to the front and yelled to page all available cashiers, which appeared to snap everyone out of their stand-around-and-do-nothing-but-look-busy attitude, so after that I made it to the front relatively quickly.  Geez.  She better not change her mind to pink now.

In other news....the Walmart closest to our house finally has added a grocery section.  So that knocks off 4 minutes each way of my bi-weekly Walmart trip.  Yahoo!  It's the little things people....

Getting into the Christmas spirit

Now that it's December, we are in full fledged Christmas spirit.  The house is now completely decorated for Christmas (Braden finished the outside lights today, so will have to post decorating pics later).  We put up our 2 fake Christmas trees.  I need to plug in the pine tree scent my mom gave me, so it feels sort of like real trees. I saw a sign at one of the places selling real trees that said "Support North Carolina not China.  Buy a NC tree".  I thought that was a good sign, though it didn't change my mind.

Last night we headed to Durham for the "Santa Train" at the life and science museum.  We met up with Doug, Lynette, Ada, and Harper there and then afterwards went for dinner.  Although it was almost 60 degrees yesterday, the temperature did fall pretty fast, but still wasn't TOO bad.  They had hot chocolate for everyone, you could make your own reindeer food, and Blythe got her face painted.  Brynn enjoyed her free candy cane. The train ride was fun.  About halfway through, we stopped at an area that was all decorated with lights and Santa was there.  He went to each and every seat to ask each kid what they wanted for Christmas.  When he got to Blythe, she told him she wanted a purple guitar (despite us trying to convince her she wanted a PINK guitar).  When he got to mine and Ethan's seat, Ethan told him he wanted a blue bike.  That was after Brynn freaked out and yelled "NOOOO!!!" right in Santa's face.  This picture was taken right after that (notice Brynn as far away from Santa as she could possibly get):

After we left the Santa area, the kids had to keep their eye out for Rudolph's red nose, because Rudolph had run away earlier in the day.  Fortunately, the kids spotted the red nose and told Rudolph to go home.  Anyway, it was a good family affair to get into the spirit of Christmas.

A couple of weeks ago, Grams sent us some pre-printed Santa letters for the kids to fill out, color, and put stickers on.  Fortunately for us, the town of Cary has a "Santa Mailbox" that has been designated by Santa as a pickup spot for all letters to Santa.  So today the kids filled theirs out and and we went up to the Town Hall to find the Santa Mailbox.  Now we just anxiously await his reply.

November catch up

Man, what a sucky blogger I am.  6 posts in November?  Seriously?  That's right up there with July and August.  Was I as busy as I was in July and August?  Uh....hell no.  I seriously hope I am NEVER ever ever again in my entire life as busy as I was in July and August of this year.  Actually, things finally settled down in November.  I no longer had a worker at my house almost every single day.  Only a few days in November.  I actually started to get caught up in my job (the one that pays me money).  Imagine that.  I started planning for swim camps next summer.  I even started Christmas shopping (ALL online except I went to ToysRUs 2 days ago because I couldn't get their website to play nice with me on Cyber Monday).  We found a church we really like and will be joining later this month.

We went to a few football games.  NC State basketball games started up.  Went to 2 home swim meets.  Went to the Raleigh Christmas parade (that is held every year BEFORE Thanksgiving).  Went to Pullen Park, which is right next door to NC State, but has been closed for 2 years for renovations.  It is the 5th oldest amusement park in the country.  Let's not think Six Flags though.  It has a carousel, kiddie boats, a train, and peddle boats.  And they souped up their playground and swings.  The new additions are very nice and each ride is only $1.  We'll be going there a lot.

I also spent the month trying to figure out what causes Brynn's eczema break outs.  I was convinced it was food-related, but it doesn't appear that it is.  But it drove me crazy all month!

Brynn also had her 18 month checkup, where everything checked out fine and she is exactly 50th percentile in height, weight, and head circumference.

We also headed to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, which was quite relaxing (as relaxing as can be expected with 3 kiddos and then 2 more when Doug and Lynette arrived).

So why didn't I blog much in November?  Blame my Kindle.  I think I read 3 books in November.  It consumes me completely when I get sucked into another book.  And I'm reading another now (not on the Kindle though).  Maybe my New Year's resolution should be to blog more and read less.  And eat more junk food and stop exercising.  Okay, so maybe I should just take breaks between books.

So there you have it, now I'm all caught up and can start fresh with December.  Here are some pics from the month of November:

The kids playing Ride Horses - Giddy Up!

Forgot to mention I also painted the dining room

Kiddie boats at Pullen Park

Blythe and Anna Grace on carousel at Pullen Park

The kids made masks at Thanksgiving

Harper and Brynn cozy in the Cozy Coupe