Christmas at Home

So I missed my deadline yesterday to get my blog post done. Almost done with Twilight....it is consuming my life! Good thing there's only 3 more books to go (I think).

Anyhoo, after returning safely from Baton Rouge, we were hosting my family at our house for Christmas. Fortunately, we had everything pretty much done before we had left town, so other than grocery shopping there wasn't much prep work. Gommy, Poppa, and Laura (and their dog Rudy) showed up first, followed by Doug, Lynette, and Ada (and their dogs Brady and Jack) a few hours later. There wasn't room to park on the street (due to several feet of snow piled up in the street), so we played musical cars in the driveway and made room in the garage for the most important car...the "car with 2 seats", aka Jeep Hurricane, aka Santa's gift to the kids. Those things don't come pre-assembled, so good thing the guys started on it on the 23rd as it was quite the task. Meanwhile, the girls put together a whole house! Gommy and Poppa got Blythe a dollhouse that's practically life size. So we put together rooms and even some furniture.

So we were all set to open gifts on Christmas Eve (not Santa gifts though). There were LOTS of gifts opened and boy, can that be exhausting! Ethan loved all of his trucks...so much he had to sleep with one.

We all got my mom "Rock Band 2" for the Wii for Christmas, so we spent most of the day and night completely rockin it (on Easy level...sometimes Medium). Somewhere during that time, we also made it to church for the family service and then attempted to get photos of the kids all dressed up. But this is still almost impossible.

We read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the kids (regular version and Cajun version) and let the kids put out milk, cookies, and beer (hey, that's what Santa said he wanted).

The next morning, they were so surprised to find a car in the basement!

Unfortunately, the weather (freezing rain and ground already covered with icy snow) prevented them from driving it outside that day. We ventured out the next day and determined Blythe has a long way to go before driving it well. Ethan may actually catch on quicker. Until all this snow melts, we probably won't drive it much which is fine by me (because its freaking cold to stand out there!).

Overall, a great Christmas! It was so good to spend time with family, but it's also nice to almost be back to normal. If only the kids had school this week....

Christmas visit in Baton Rouge

Okay, so it's blog catch-up time. I'll only be able to post one tonight though because I'm now reading "Twilight" and it's consuming most of my free time.

So anyway, we'll go back in time to our visit to Baton Rouge. We really had a very nice visit after our struggle to get there. And it helped that it was in the 60's and beautiful while Blacksburg was digging out of 23 inches of snow.

One of highlights of our visit was a trip out to Global Wildlife Adventures (I think that's what it was called). It was about an hour drive to an area in the middle of nowhere. We turned in to the site and had to wait as some deer and zebra moved out of the way for us to get to the parking lot. So weird! We checked in and while we waited, we were able to pet a baby kangaroo named Skippy. So cute! Anyway, we had reserved a "Pinz", basically an off-roading jeep with all open windows so we could explore the land with our guide and feed the animals. We were able to get this close to the animals:

Seriously. That was a camel, by the way. We were able to feed the llamas, donkeys, and giraffes right out of our hands. We also fed the camels, deer, antelope, zebras, rhea (ostrich-like animals), buffalo, and cattle.

Blythe loved every second of it and loved feeding all of the animals. Ethan, however, was a bit scared and didn't feed any animals until the end when he finally warmed up to the giraffes.

Here we all are in our Pinz:

What a neat experience!

Besides our day out with the animals, we also had fun with the fireworks Peep bought and the hayride he set up. And I personally loved being able to sit outside in the sun for long periods of time without freezing my butt off!

Of course, we also had Christmas gift exchange and so the kids opened LOTS of presents. Most of them we had to ship back, so it'll be like opening them all over again when they get here!

The trip back was uneventful (thank goodness!) and other than Ethan being the extreme wiggle worm he is on an airplane, the kids were actually pretty good. We got home literally minutes before our company arrived for Christmas celebrations at our house, which will be my next post (hopefully tomorrow).

The snowstorm

Okay so we made it to Baton Rouge so I'll post about our activities here later when I can post some pics, but figured I'd start it off with our ordeal getting here.

Yes, we knew it was going to snow a lot and there was a chance our flight would get delayed or cancelled, but we never anticipated how the day would actually turn out. Up to the point when we left, weather reports said that it would snow 1-2 inches during the day on Friday and then 8-10 inches overnight in Blacksburg, so we figured if we just left a little bit early, we'd be able to last through the short delays a minor snowfall might cause. Thus, we left ill prepared to spend more than just a few hours in the car.

So we left the house at 2:30pm for our 8pm flight out of Charlotte (normally a 2 and a half hour drive). I saw the very first snowflakes at about 1:45pm, so we left shortly after it started snowing. Took us about 10 minutes to get about 1.5 miles away and saw 2 cars that had run off the road in that short distance. That should have been our indicator right there to turn around and go home. Add to that all of the people leaving the VT graduation that had occurred that morning, and we had ourselves a long trip down Hwy 460 (one that normally takes 10 minutes to get to the interstate). An hour later, we had made it to Christiansburg (5 miles) and decided to get off and get on the interstate another way. We only had to stop at a few lights, thank goodness, because getting going again was difficult (and we saw some cars that all together couldn't get the traction). Finally we made it to the interstate where we thought it seemed closed because there were no cars. Smooth sailing for all of 1 mile before stopped traffic. Took us another hour to go the next 5 miles, where we again decided to get off and bypass about 11 miles of the interstate. That way was faster, as we went those 11 miles in about 50 minutes, but also by then there was about 5 inches of snow on the ground and it was coming down fast, so we decided the interstate was the safest route. Again, at that point we were 20 minutes from our house, but it had taken use 3 hours to get there, so we should have turned back.

But we decided to forge ahead, thinking after we got down the mountain things would improve and we'll finally be able to go more than 20 mph. Unfortunately the conditions got worse and worse. About every mile, Braden would reach around and pull on the windshield wipers to remove the ice off of them. It was almost a complete white out and we couldn't see the road at all. After 5 hours on the road, we had made it off of the mountain and into North Carolina. We had stopped to get snacks and gas, but the stops were very quick as the snow was coming down hard. Just past the North Carolina border, COMPLETE standstill. Apparently a wreck, though we never found out for sure. But there we stayed for the next 6 HOURS! From 8pm to 2am. Ethan slept during that time and Blythe slept some of it. Braden and I did not.

Back at 5pm we had called the airline and rebooked on the next morning's flight, so at this point our goal was to make it for our 9:30am flight. Finally after 6 hours, we started moving. However, conditions were not much better. We drove in a forged out lane somewhere in the middle of the interstate in a single file going about 20 mph until we got just north of Charlotte. About 20 minutes from the airport, we were finally able to see the asphalt of the road and start to go at a normal speed. We made it to the airport at 5am....14 and a half hours after we started the journey. Our new flight was only a little bit late leaving, and after a terrible flight with 2 very tired kids (who had been awake since 2am) and 2 VERY tired parents, we were finally here.

My amazing husband drove the whole way eyes wide awake and hands gripped to the steering wheel. And yes, we drive a mini-van, but we weren't one of the 100 or so cars we saw that had run off the road. What an ordeal!

Watch out! The snow is falling!

Yikes! 12-18 inches of snow is what they are forecasting for Blacksburg Friday night and Saturday. Good thing we're getting outta here (and heading to Louisiana)! Hope we can make it outta here tomorrow! Maybe some of it will still be around when we get back and we can have some white on Christmas.

I'm keeping my optimistic hat on and praying we don't spend hours in an airport tomorrow night with 2 very tired children. Stay tuned...

Just another Big Box store

What could be more fun than a giant box?


Not only can you cut a door in it and make it a nice fort (capable of fitting an adult and 2 small children...uncomfortably at best), but you can also color it with markers and crayons and stab holes in it with child scissors and then have your kids argue over whose turn it is with the scissors so Blythe can stab more holes and Ethan can just "make holes" in the same spot that Blythe did and then push markers and other things through the holes. Great fun!!

Let's face it - I'm just procrastinating

So it's Monday and our 10 days of Christmas traveling/festivities start on Friday so there is SO much to do (namely cleaning, finish shopping, wrap ALL presents, give away these damn sugar cookies I made yesterday before I eat them all, and something else..can't remember...oh yeah, work...ugh - finish a very large project plan due by end of the week that I just started on Friday). So that seems like a lot of work, so instead I will blog.

Blythe and I started the weekend by going to the movies Friday evening to see "Princess and the Frog". Such a good movie! Blythe watched the whole thing. Part of the time in her seat and most of the time curled up in my lap. I think being in a dark theater just makes her tired. But she never falls asleep during a movie. Instead she fell asleep on the way home at 6:30! I was shocked actually. But anyway, we had a good time.

Saturday night the day care had a "Parents Night Out" where we could bring our kids there from 6:00-10:00 so Mommy and Daddy could have a date night. Or go to Target. And finish up shopping for Blythe's Christmas (Ethan is already done). And go to Walmart. To pick up the "Car with 2 seats" that Blythe has asked Santa for. Then go to our neighbor's to stash it in their garage. Then we did manage to make it to a restaurant for a fairly quick albeit nice dinner.

We have not gone to visit Santa at the mall this year. We did see him and wave to him one time at the mall, but Daddy wasn't with us, so we didn't have the "real" Santa visit. Instead we were waiting on "Brunch with Santa" at the Country Club that was scheduled for Sunday. Due to our beautiful icy weather, it was cancelled. Boo. So there may be no visits to Santa this year. Not that Blythe is asking. And not that Ethan is missing him (as I'm pretty sure he would freak out when we try to sit him on Santa's lap).

Newport News

After getting in town from Chicago last Thursday, we headed that night to Salem to see the Elmo Show (for our 3rd year in a row). Although the kids had a blast (Ethan obviously was at a much better age this year than last), I'd say the show itself was the worst of the last 3 years because the stage layout was different and the characters didn't come into the audience nearly as much. This was just fine with Ethan since he's afraid, but Blythe desperately wanted to hug them all (she did get to hug Telly Monster). Anyway, we all had a good time and the kids were exhausted afterwards.

On Friday we packed up and headed East. Clear across the state of Virginia over to Newport News (just a bit further than Williamsburg) to visit Ethan's godparents Tommy and Angie who just recently moved to a new house there. The house was beautiful and the kids loved playing with their dogs, a golden retriever named Goldie, and a chocolate lab mix that looked like a smaller version of our dog Juni. Doesn't matter what her real name is because our kids named her "mini Juni" for the weekend. Unfortunately the weather called for rain all day on Saturday (here in Blacksburg we missed the snow all day Saturday), so we were limited on our activities for the day. We decided to head to Virginia Beach to go to the Virginia Aquarium. Ethan LOVES aquariums and this one was no exception. Here he is in front of the seahorse exhibit.

Blythe loved it too because there were lots of big sea turtles (Marvin, Marvin's sister, Marvin's uncle, etc).

There is no Kohl's in our area, so after a trip to Kohl's in Newport News for some much needed Christmas shopping on Sunday, we packed up and headed home. Thanks to Tommy and Angie for a great weekend away!

The Thanksgiving Post

Okay, so Thanksgiving was almost 2 weeks ago, but hey, I'm barely keeping my head above the water here. The house is finally getting back to normal, Christmas decorations are slowly going up, we're still in process of Christmas shopping, and haven't wrapped a single thing. I did order Christmas cards yesterday. It'll be a miracle if we get them in and I get them all addressed and sent before Christmas.

So anyhoo, as for my Thanksgiving post. We headed to my parents on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, giving us almost a full day to just chill there before any holiday activities. While the others were cooking on Thanksgiving morning (Braden and I had cleanup duty instead), Poppa, Braden, and I took the kiddos to the local fire station. My dad used to volunteer there until recently but we were able to "sneak" in anyway and show the kids around. Ethan LOVED it (Blythe had been there once before, but still had a good time).

Ethan kissed the trucks all goodbye before we left and he wanted to watch my video clips of their trip to the fire station over and over and over again. He calls fire trucks "aba ducks", so he kept talking about the aba ducks for the rest of the trip.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. My pregnant self had lots of food. My very picky daughter had some sweet potatoes and rolls.

To get out of the house, we braved the largest mall in Charlotte (Concord Mills) on Black Friday. Thought the evening might be less crowded. Thought wrong. I bought not a single thing, except a train ride for the kids and dinner and a carousel ride for the kids. They also played in the Lego store and played on the mall playground. And then Ethan had a complete breakdown as we were leaving the mall (something that has now become very commonplace in the past couple of weeks). Terrible Two's...here we come.

Saturday we literally watched football all day long and were happy to do it. We took breaks only for eating, potty breaks, diaper changes, temper tantrums, and Miley Cyrus.

Then we headed home on Sunday feeling much more relaxed than we were a few days before! Ah, I love the holidays!

Still alive!

Okay - just a quick note to let you all know I am still alive. Just haven't been home. We headed to my parents for Thanksgiving, then a quick 12 hours I was home before heading to Chicago for 4 days for work. Home about 24 hours before Braden, the kids, and I drove to Newport News, VA to visit Ethan's godparents Tommy and Angie (oh, and we went to the Sesame Street Live Elmo Show during that 24 hour stint at home). And then got home yesterday evening. And now have SO much more work to do ("real" work and house work and getting-ready-for-Christmas work). I will blog more later starting with our Thanksgiving trip and then our Newport News trip.

Ethan goes pee on the potty!

Yesterday Ethan went pee pee on the potty (SUCH mom language, I know)! We've sat him on the little potty a couple of times after bath before and nothing happened. However, he's been very interested in other people going potty recently. Especially his friend Luke who was potty trained recently. When we were at their house on Friday, he followed Luke to the potty every time he had to go.

So anyway, yesterday morning was a lazy morning and Ethan had his jammies on for a while. He then started trying to take them off (which I helped him do). So then he was in just his diaper. And then he wanted to take off his diaper, which he never does, and fought me when I tried to get it back on him. Then he said something about potty, so I tried to put him on the potty downstairs, which he doesn't like (Blythe never liked that potty either...it's practically never been used). So, he was acting like he wanted to go on the potty upstairs. So I took him upstairs (all the while very concerned he was going to pee or poop all over the place). He got the potty out of the bathroom, picked it up, and acted like he wanted to bring it downstairs. I didn't let him and instead let him bring it to his room while I picked out clothes for him (hoping I could dress him and that would keep his diaper on). Next thing I know, he hops up from the potty and I look in there and he had gone! He was so happy with himself.

So a good accomplishment for Ethan! Not only that, but later before bed I got him undressed and he again acted like he needed to go. So he went and sat on his potty and again he went! Yay!

All that said, this does not mean we are starting to potty train. I do remember back when Blythe was about this age and we started putting her on the potty occasionally. She went every time we put her on it. So we thought potty training would be a breeze, which it was not (though she wasn't too terribly hard). But we are one small step in the right direction. There is hope of potty training before #3 gets here!

The Devil Wears Truck Jammies

Braden is currently out of town for a swim meet. On Wednesday, Blythe's daily sheet at school said she was "Grumpy" and "Tired". Then yesterday, Ethan's sheet said he was "Grumpy". Coincidence? I think not. I think they miss their Daddy.

As you can see from yesterday's post, Blythe continued being grumpy and tired after she got home. Ethan wasn't grumpy that day, but the second we walked through the door at home he became the devil child. Apparently this continued all the way through the school day yesterday, but ended when we were at Blythe's gymnastics class because he could play with his friend Luke. Unfortunately the second he got separated from Luke after class, he became the devil child again. Nothing a little McDonald's can't fix, right? Wrong. Screamed in McDonald's. Didn't want his chicken nuggets. Didn't want his apples. Only wanted Mommy's ice cream. So he screamed "ICE CREAM!" "IIIICCCCEEE CREEEAMMM!!!" "ICE CCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMM!" SO embarrassing. So I gave him some ice cream (Blythe too) thinking after that was out of sight, maybe he would eat his dinner. Nope. So basically Blythe and I both had to eat really fast so we could get out of there as quickly as possible.

Then he screamed in the car most of the way home.

I know what you're thinking. I was thinking it too. This would be the PERFECT night to switch him from the comforts and safety of his crib/toddler bed into his new big boy bed in his new big boy room. I mean, seriously, what was I smoking last night? But I moved over his monitor and his sound machine, and his books so he would be forced to sleep in that bed no matter what.

We sat in his new bed and read some stories, which he was fine with. And then I said, "now it's time to go to sleep". So he got out of his bed and went to the hall and started to walk to his old room. So I scooped him up and brought him back to his new room where I tried to force him to stay in his new bed, but he was screaming and crying. Finally I got up and left the room and closed the door with him screaming and crying at the door. I felt bad, but he was just going to have to wear himself out.

I went and tucked Blythe in and spent some time with her and once the crying stopped I went back into his room, hoping to find him asleep on the floor so I could just put him in bed. But I found him half asleep on the step stool up to his bed, so I tried to put him in bed again and again he fought, but this time he was much too tired. So finally he fell asleep on me and then after a while, I was able to move him off and leave the room.

But he did great. He did not fall out of bed and slept until normal time this morning. I had told Blythe last night to go into Ethan's room when she woke up this morning because he might not know where he is. She did exactly as I asked. Such a good big sister! And then when I went in there, I hyped it all up that he slept in his new big boy bed and he seemed very pleased with himself. SO - let's hope tonight goes a little smoother.

Oh, for the love...

Every now and then, I kind of second-guess our decision to have a 3rd.

Ethan's shoes

Ethan is quite particular about his shoes these days. Used to be that I would put him in his Nike tennis shoes almost every day. Sometimes the brown "church" shoes if he was wearing khakis or something nice.

But nowadays he refuses to wear the Nike shoes. I will ask him to go get his shoes and every time (if they are in the basket), he will bring back his brown sandles that were hand-me-downs from his friend Luke. He will hand them to me and say "Yook". When it's only 50 degrees out, sandals aren't quite practical, but if he finds them he MUST wear them, so socks and sandals it's been. They don't quite fit with socks though. So now I must hide them.

This means when he searches for shoes, he will then bring back the brown "church" shoes, also hand-me-downs from Luke. So again, he will bring them to me and say "Yook". Since he was wearing a football jersey and matching football sport pants this morning, brown church shoes really would look ridiculous. So I tried to force the Nikes. But he was NOT having it. He would grab them from me and throw them across the room.

Fortunately he had some tennis shoes in his closet that were a size bigger that were hand-me-down's from Frank (our next door neighbor). So these were perfectly fine to wear. And then he would point at his shoes and say "Fank".

Lesson learned - he only likes hand-me-downs. So if I do buy him new shoes, I just need to tell him they were someone else's.

12 weeks 5 days ultrasound

I had an ultrasound this morning as part of the "quad" test to test for down syndrome and other things. This was new for me - the last 2 pregnancies they only did ultrasounds at 7 weeks and at about 18 weeks, but I guess things continue to change and progress medically. So anyway, I'm 12 weeks and 5 days along. All looked good on the ultrasound. Baby is measuring at 13 weeks 1 day along, so appears I'm on my way to another large baby.

Confirmed baby has 2 legs and 2 arms (always good). Brain looks good, as does heart, bladder, blood flow, etc. We were even able to count all 10 fingers on the baby.

And I had more blood drawn for more tests (results in 7-10 days). Always fun to do that!

So, everything appears to be right on track. I'm almost at the end of my first trimester and unfortunately the nausea still has not gone away. 6 weeks of nausea is not fun. According to my very accurate bathroom scale, I have gained about 8 pounds. That's high for a "regular" person on the first trimester, but low for me (I think). Appears you can still gain weight even if nothing ever sounds good to eat.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics from the ultrasound. On the second one, you can see baby waving (and you can see all 5 fingers).

Sickly weekend

Ah, the joys of having a sick child. I got the daycare call on Friday that Ethan had a fever. I wasn't really surprised since he hadn't eaten much on Thursday night or Friday morning, so I had the sneaky suspicion he might be getting sick.

Once he got home and had some Tylenol, he started to feel much better and played and acted somewhat normal and even ate okay at dinner. But Saturday morning I went in his room and saw he had thrown up in his bed (and on the carpet) and on himself. And he had a fever again. And he was coughing. Poor guy. Again, after he had some Tylenol he acted almost normal. Throughout the day you could tell he didn't feel well, but still played outside and interacted pretty well. Then Sunday he woke up with a fever again. And I think he threw up a little, but it was mostly mucus. And he had the chills and looked downright miserable. Later in the day he started looking like he was feeling better, but by nightime the fever had returned. So there was no sending him to school today. Fortunately he slept much better last night and had no fever this morning or at all today, so looks like he is on the mend. He still has a very small appetite, which is unusual for him. So, based on all the symptoms, if I had to guess I'd say he has the flu. Whether it's H1N1, I don't know. He hasn't been vaccinated for seasonal or H1N1.

Anyway, I'm praying his sister doesn't get it since she spent the whole weekend with him, and it's impossible to keep them from putting things in their mouths and from switching drinks, etc. And of course hoping I don't get it (though I have been vaccinated for H1N1).