Nov 2, 2006

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. I need to show off pictures:

It was below freezing, so the boys wore their jammies and their coats under their costumes:



Alex always knocked first. Despite an afternoon of coaching and practice trick-or-treating, Adam was still saying, "May I please." We made it down our street and back, and came home with a reasonable amount of candy that Jeremy and I hardly ate any of.



And the pumpkins I slaved over. The one on the left is the one we grew in our backyard:



7:05 Drop off. Ariel looked sad. Becky said she had been sad all morning.

7:15 Breakfast, apples and blueberry. Ariel wasn't sad. I didn't give her any waffles since we have Ego at the moment which have nasty trans-fats.

8:00 Ariel went down for her nap with a bottle quietly and willingly. I made the mistake of turning on the computer so I could read about how to use my new flash.

9:30 Ariel woke up.

10:15 We finally left the house. I had something I needed to take care of, finding a place to take pictures for my holiday card family portrait shoot on Saturday. I knew I wanted to do something on Flagstaff Mt., something that looked like Any Colorado Mountain. So I set my trip odometer and got out occassionally to take pictures. Adam (don't like this, too rocky not enough trees):



Alex, better view, still needs more trees. And a blue sky would be nice, too:



And somehow I mananged to find an activity that made all THREE kids cry. Ariel was better after I got her a bottle but the boys whined and whined. And have I said that this mountain road starts approximately 2 miles from my house? And that the spot I picked (not any above) is only 3.7 miles farther? It's not like we mounted an Everest expedition. Yeesh.

11:00 Home. I changed a poopy, then had lunch.

11:30 Ariel had lunch. She ate all her green (garden veggies, yes Jana I put that in just for you now).

I was messing with my flash again. See how you can see the detail and color out my window?



Oh, after the green I gave Ariel one of Alex's raspberries. She treated more with much contempt and did not try to eat it.

12:00 I put Ariel down for a nap with a bottle of water.

1:00 Adam was needed a nap, so I put him down. I fell asleep too.

1:45 Ariel woke up.

2:30 Ariel had another bottle. Alex was bored out of his mind, so we finally started filling in his Dr. Seuss "All About Me" book. That kept us busy counting all the windows, doors, mirrors and pictures in our house. We didn't count the forks, too many were in the dishwasher.

At some point I changed another poopy. Perhaps the prunes backfired.

3:30 Adam woke up.

4:15 Pick up.

October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween!

7:00 Drop off. Remember yesterday, my plans about not going on day light savings time? How I predicted that would last a week? Well, it lasted one day. I was rolling out of bed again when Ariel got here. Adam was still sleeping.

7:15 Breakfast - prunes and apples. Just to make sure the ol' system is running smoothly. Nothing at all to do with Dad watching her tomorrow (muhahahaha!).

7:45 Nap. While Ariel slept, I prepped the pumpkins for carving. Note to self, do not leave pumpkins outside the night before carving when the temperature is going to drop below freezing. I also found that I have no idea where my pumpkin carving set is. And I broke one knife (which made Alex cry) just getting the top off.

9:15 Wake up with a poopy.

10:00 Left the house, Ariel had a bottle in the car. I dropped Grammie and the boys off at the library for story time and then Ariel and I had wild fun going on errands.

1. Going to the photo store to try and get the 1/4 of my order that wasn't in the envelope when I picked up yesterday. They said they would re-print it but I would have to come back later.

2. Going to Circuit City to pick up my new flash. I realize my camera habit is a bit of a problem when I was thrilled that I found this flash for $199 AFTER rebates.

3. Circuit City didn't have a diffuser for this flash (which is pretty much an overpriced piece of plastic). So I stopped at Mike's really quickly and they didn't have it either.

4. Went to Michaels to see if they had any pumpkin carving tools. The did not. So I walked over to Safeway. They didn't either, but they did have candy on sale, so I picked up a few bags so we would have some for trick-or-treaters tonight (no point in buying it early around here).

5. Stopped by the grocery store on the way home. They did have pumpkin carving tools. I also bought some of the chocolate chip pumpkin cookies I've been avoiding this week. Mmmmm.

Ariel didn't mind the errands too much. I carried her everywhere in the sling and she liked that part.

11:45 Got home, fed Ariel lunch (she didn't finish the jar).

I tried out my new flash. It's pretty fancy, but seems to work well.



12:30 Ariel went down for a nap. I carved up my pumpkins while she slept.

2:00 Woke up.

Here's a picture of Ariel in her halloween shirt. I couldn't get the cute mouse on the front, she kept moving. And she was playing with that kitty and calling it Kitty. Awwwww.



And under that sweet shirt, she had on this undershirt. (If you can't read it, it says, "I listen to Slayer with my daddy." Isn't that horrible (and guess who bought the shirt?)



3:40 Put her down for another nap. She was not amused. She also learned a new trick, pulling herself to sitting using the crib rails. Brings back memories of my boys standing up in the middle of the night and then crying because they wanted to be asleep.

3:45 Pooped

4:10 Pick up.

October 30, 2006

Daylight Savings was obviously invented by someone without children. We put our boys to bed at the correct 7:30 time, but everyone was up by 6:00 this morning. It is my secrect ambition that I don't go over to daylight savings time so I'll not be rolling out of bed when Ariel is arriving, but I see that lasting less that a week.

7:10 Ariel arrive, breakfast of apricots, cheerios and a mini waffle.

7:40 Nap with bottle.

8:10 I woke up Ariel so we could do to the mall for our stroller workout.

8:35 Get to mall. It was a beautiful morning. The original instructor's kids were sick, and we had to wait until 9 until the sub came, so we walked for 20 minutes outside. My car thermometer said it was 67 deg. Remember that we got 6 inches of snow last Thursday?

9:15 The rest of our workout was quick and painful. We did a lot of upper body today. We stayed in one place so all the babies were out of their strollers and scooting/crawling around.

9:50 When we moved to the carpet for cooldown, I changed a poopy.

10:00 Workout over. On the way to the bathroom, we ran into Super Grammie!

10:15 We took Super Grammie to the market research place. She got to sample almonds and I did a potato chip thing and then a chapstick thing. Then Grammie bought us Starbucks. And lastly, we got Adam a pair of winter boots that fit (he's a size 7 and I was stuffing his feet into size 5 boots).

12:00 Got home. Ariel fell asleep in the car after she drank her bottle and transfered to the crib. I took a shower. My arms were so sore from the workout that I had trouble washing my hair and putting on makeup.

12:25 I left Ariel napping with Grammie and I left early to run a few errands. I wanted to go to the bank, but apparently there is construction on every major road and/or intersection in Boulder and I spent 30 minutes driving around in slow circles trying to reach the prechool.

1:10 Picked up Alex. Then Alex and I went to Jamba Juice for smoothies. I wanted to test my theory that all I need to survive is Starbucks and Jamba Juice.

1:40 Got home, Ariel was just waking up. I had everyone put on their Halloween costumes so I could take pictures. Ariel had a break from inside to outside to eat her sweet potatoes/corn.

Adam Monster



Alex Spider



Both my boys



Ariel Kitty



Group Shot #1



Group Shot #2



Alex's head from #2 on picture #1. Yup, I think this will be the official picture this year.



3:30 Put Ariel down for a nap.

4:00 Becky got here. She got to watch me copy and paste Alex's head. I think she was bored.

4:30 Becky woke up Ariel and they left.

October 27, 2006

7:10 Drop off. Breakfast - orange and banana medley. And waffles. Ariel likes those waffles.

7:35 I put Ariel down for a nap, but she didn't want to sleep, she wanted to scream.

7:45 I gave Ariel a bottle in the crib, she drank a little and then went back to screaming.

7:55 Gave up on Ariel taking her usual nap.

8:10 Left for the mall stroller workout.

8:35 The workout started well. First, the instructor read books to the babies while the Mommies ran some laps. Then we did a circuit workout alternating between cardio like jump ropes and resistance like more squats and lunges. And that's when Ariel decided to scream again. She was clearly tired but would not go to sleep. I would do 1/4 of the reps and then come back to her and evenutally I left the workout early. But I did get enough in that my butt and thighs will hurt all weekend.

10:00 Left the mall. Ariel fell asleep in the car.

10:15 Ariel was still asleep when we got home, I transfered her to the crib while I showerd.

11:00 Woke up, screaming again.

11:15 Pooped. (I heard she pooped TWICE for dad yesterday, how was that, dad?)

11:30 Lunch - green (peas). She only ate about 1/2 the jar.

12:00 Left early to pick up Alex from school so we could go to the Shabbat sing.

12:30 Shabbat sing. Ariel didn't hate it as much as I thought she would. But I don't think she loved it either. 50 kids ranging in age from 2 1/2 to 5 plus some of their siblings is hard on anybody. But Alex was very happy that we finally came.

And it appears that Alex had a rough day at school. He got hit on the forehead with an icey snowball, then a boy slipped and fell on his leg. But it looks like he'll live.

1:00 Left school. We first went to Whole Foods to get our Friday salmon. I went there intsead of Wild Oats because they have a stuffed salmon pocket that's really good. I got the spinach/feta one.

1:45 Next stop, the Beer Store for some Shabbat wine. And beer for later. TGIF. It is very sad that I couldn't buy wine at Whole Foods since we live in Colorado. How handy would that be?

2:00 Got home. I put Ariel in her crib since she hadn't slept since 11. She screamed some. I got our challah started.

2:30 Gave Ariel some tylonel. My expert opinion is that her ears are bothering her again, or less likely, teething. But something was up with our sweet baby today.

2:45 Ariel finally fell asleep. I finished up our yummy pumpkin cookies (thanks for the recipe, Amy!)

3:30 Wake up.

3:50 Pick up.

We hope you feel better soon, Ariel.

October 25, 2006

7:10 Drop off. Not only was I dressed and showered, but I had already cleaned both bathrooms. Apparently you can get a lot done in the mornings when you get up at 5:30 (thanks, Adam).

7:15 Apples, strawberries, bananas for breakfast. And I tore up some of the boys' mini waffles and Ariel LOVED them. She didn't want to eat the cheerios after she had some of that sweet wafflely treat.

8:00 Down for nap with bottle.

9:00 Wake up.

9:40 Went over to Crissy's to hang out.

10:45 Ariel ate Crissy's last ice cream cone.

11:15 Go home.

11:30 Down for nap with bottle.

12:20 Wake up. She had a quick lunch of orange (squash) and then I took this video of Ariel "talking"



12:35 Left to pick up Alex from preschool.

1:00 Pick up.

1:30 It's supposed to snow tonight and I realized that we are running out of time to go to the pumpkin patch. We headed over today and it was really nice. Ariel loved playing in the straw, the boys had some bizarre game involving broken pumpkins as toliets, I didn't listen too closely.

This is Adam's pumpkin hat, it was too big (and too hot) so Ariel didn't wear it for long.


I love this picture. Adam looks so old and mature. He really dotes on Ariel and tells everyone that "this is Ariel my cousin."


The best shot of all three.


Ariel's best shot.


Adam's best shot.


Those crazy kids.


Alex's best picture.


I'm pretty sure Ariel didn't eat any straw, but I cannot say that it wasn't in her mouth.


3:00 Home. Ariel had had a bottle in the car, then went down for a nap at home.

4:30 Pick up.

October 24, 2006

7:05 Drop off. Once again it appeared that I was in my jammies, but it really was my work out clothes.

7:10 Breakfast - pears and pinapples and cheerios.

7:30 Nap with bottle.

8:10 Leave for another round of stroller fitness at the mall (I had to wake Ariel).

8:35 Mall. I brought the double stroller and each boy brought his own stroller and riding penguin. I wish I took a picture, but I was too busy trying to work out and wrangle three kids that my camera was far from my mind.

The workout today was taught by a different teacher and was much different that yesterday's workout. She moved much faster and did a lot more cardio by walking/running with the strollers. My little group fell very behind as Adam was insistant on pushing his stroller and his little legs only go so fast. I finally convinced him to ride with Ariel. I still got a good workout and had fun, but I think we'll stick to M/W/F workout dates so I don't have to deal with three kids.

Around 9:30 Ariel had a bottle in the stroller.

10:30 Get home from the mall. Ariel went down for a nap and I showered.

12:00 Ariel woke up (with a poopy) - green for lunch (garden veggies). I gave her some mac and cheese and she ate a bit.

1:00 In a desparate attempt to get out of the house (Crissy left me high and dry and went to see another friend) we went to Ace Hardware with our coupon to get our free Al Gore compact fluorescent light bulb. That went fine, and then we headed over to Wild Oats to get some much needed staples, and that's when it went downhill. There were two Wild Oats kid carts so each boy got one and that wasn't the problem. The problem was they started arguing over which items went into which cart. Alex got really snotty and was threatening to leave me at the store, and then he rammed me with his cart and hit me. I was really stumped as to how to handle that and my first reaction was to leave our carts and go home, but that wouldn't work because we were almost done and we really needed that food. So I made him leave his cart by the register and let Adam finish, and I told Alex that I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but I would tell him when we got home and to not worry. I know Preschool Alex doesn't act out like this, it drives me batty!

2:00 Got home. Ariel finished a bottle. I told Alex that I didn't have energy to bake cookies with boys that behaved like that at the store, so Adam got to help make our chocolate chip cookies. Alex was a bit upset, but I don't think that was the best consequence I could have come up with. At least I got some yummy cookies out of the deal.

3:30 Ariel went down for a nap with a bottle.

4:30 Pick up, one poopy, soaked, sleeping baby

I forgot to tell this cute story yesterday.... When we picked up Alex from preschool, we went over to say hi to Snowflake the guinea pig. Ariel starting kicking her legs and saying, "keh keh keh." I think she was trying to say kitty, and that reminded me that last year Adam was calling Snowflake a kitty too.

October 23, 2006

Well Happy Monday y'all. We had a very nice visit in the Springs. I forgot my camera, so as Jeremy says (sarcastically) it's like the weekend never happened. But I did take my camera to Laura's Family Fun Birthday Celebration last night:







7:10 Drop off. Now, it looked like I wasn't dressed, but I was in fact wearing my yoga pants workout outfit (stay tuned to find out why).

7:15 Breakfast - apricots. And Becky, she didn't bat an eyelash at them and ate them right up.

7:30 Down for nap with bottle. I got Jeremy and Alex out the door for preschool. I think we've finally figured out a system that will work for everyone. Jeremy will take Alex to preschool early. Alex will not hate going early because we bought him a special new kid k'nex toy, not as a bribe (well, not exactly) but because early drop off is very lonely and boring and it will give him something interesting to do.

8:10 Ariel woke up just in time for our Fabulous Adventure™ - doing a stroller fitness class at the mall. Right as I was backing out my driveway, I notice a man on a bike in front of my house. He wasn't moving so I thought maybe his dog was right behind my huge car. But no, it was our crazy ex-(yes EX) tenet. He had forgotten Jeremy's phone number YET again. Have I mentioned I'm glad he's our EX-tenet now?

8:30 Get to mall. I loaded Adam and Ariel in the double stroller, then we found our way to the meeting place in the mall. The class was pretty intense. It was a lot of resistance training, like lunging and squatting. And running up escalators and then lunging and squatting. It was a pretty hard workout for my couch-potato body. Surprisely, both the kids did really well. The only hitch was that Adam peeded his pants a bit and I didn't bring a change of clothes for him since it's been so long since he's had an accident. I took off his wet clothes and put on one of Ariel's diapers for modesty.

10:10 After class, I went to Old Navy to try and get the to give my $5 on a purchase I made last Friday and forgot my coupon (yes, I bought MORE Halloween stuff!) Wow, all I can say is they really made me work for my money, the transaction took about 10 minutes. Ariel also slammed a bottle in under 2 minutes.

10:30 Left the mall, Ariel fell asleep in the car.

10:50 Got home. I was able to transfer Ariel to the crib. I took a shower, then we ate lunch.

12:00 Ariel woke up. She had sweet potatoes for lunch. I tried to give her one of Adam's spaghetti o's but she flatly refused. Several times.

12:25 Ariel pooped. I changed her diaper.

12:30 Double header. Apparently Ariel wasn't done pooping and pooped some more. I can only imagine what such a sitution would do to dad if he were babysitting....

12:40 Left to pick up Alex from school.

1:05 Pick up. Both Alex and his teacher confirmed that he had a good day and liked his new kid k'nex set very much.

1:20 Stopped by Safeway for some Jamba Juice.

1:40 Stopped by the toy store to buy baby doll strollers for the boys. See, I kinda said I would do the stroller class again tomorrow, but I'll have 3 kids. I thought that Alex and/or Adam might have fun pushing strollers with me. Ariel had a bottle in the car on the way home.

2:15 Got home. Ariel took another nap. While she slept, I designed her birthday invitation. Pretty cute, huh?



Those are Baby Einstein characters at the bottom, that's Ariel's birthday party theme.

4:15 Ariel woke up.

4:30 Pick up.

October 20, 2006

7:10 Drop off. I whisked Ariel into Adam's room to play with board books while I finally completed a big project - finding all of Adam's winter clothes. I seriously need to have a garage sale to get rid of the baby stuff. It's near impossible to find the size I want while weeding through the boys' cummulative lifetime clothes collection.

8:00 Finally finished the job - Ariel had breakfast. Orange and banana medley. And cheerios.

8:30 Ariel took a nap with a bottle. I ate breakfast and took a shower. And I even put make-up on AGAIN. Two days in a row. But I also wore a Halloween shirt and matching socks.

9:40 Ariel woke up.

11:00 Crissy and Gavin came over. I fed Ariel lunch - orange (squash).

11:15 Ariel went down for another nap with a bottle

11:20 Crissy stayed with the kids while I went to Alex's preschool for parent/teacher conferences.

11:40 Jeremy met me at conferences. It's really pleasent to listen to people say such nice things about your child. Jeremy and I decided that we would prefer to live with the Prechool Alex than the Home Alex. Apparently Preschool Alex is very gentle and quiet and doesn't hit people every 5 minutes just for fun.

12:30 Got home. Crissy was feeling a bit sad, the bid the put on the house was refused and they aren't sure where they are going to try now. It's very stressful and can I add that DC housing prices are CRAZY.

12:45 Ariel woke up.

1:30 Ariel had a pooptastophe. The poop had gone up her back and required a bath, which she didn't like. After the clean-up, Crissy cuddled her and fed her a bottle and Ariel felt better.

2:35 Crissy and Gavin left.

2:45 Put Ariel down for a nap with a bottle.

3:30 Ariel woke up just as Becky got here for pick-up.

And no pictures, I spent all day trying to get ready for our trip to Super Grammie's house.

October 19, 2006

7:05 Drop off. I guess I can stop saying I was not showered and not dressed. Just assume that's the case, I'll let you know when I AM showered and dressed.

7:30 Breakfast - prunes and pears. Oh yes, I can see this is going to be a super fun day!

8:00 Nap with bottle.

8:40 Call Crissy for inspiration. She told me she was at the mall last night and did a chocolate tasting research project. Heck, I'd do that for free! That inspired me to shower and dress. And just because of feeling like a slob lately, I went the extra mile and put on make-up. Is it really any better?



And during the extra 20 minutes this all took, Alex and Adam were playing that fun game of Grab and Scream. Sigh.

9:40 Alex and Adam's exuberant playing woke Ariel. She had a poopy.

9:45 Go to mall.

10:10 Get to research place. They wouldn't let me do the chocolate test!!! And they told me all they had was a perfume one. The first question they asked was where I bought my perfume and I just coudn't lie through that. I can't even remember the last time I wore perfume. So I left empty handed. But still treated myself to a Starbucks, since it was right next to the elevator.

10:20 Went down to the dinosaur play area. The Mommy Fitness class had just ended and it inspired me to ask for a flyer. I haven't exercised in way too long, and I'm not finding time to do it. Now I'm thinking that if Jeremy goes back to taking Alex to school, I can take Adam and Ariel in the double stroller and do their workout. Hmmmmm.

A woman also commented on Ariel's cute strawberry hat and asked about it. I gave her a card.

11:30 We went potty and another woman asked about Ariel's hat and asked if I sold them. I gave her a card too. Then we went to the pet store. At the pet store, I told Alex I would think about getting him a fish.

11:45 Pizza lunch. Ariel had her green (garden veggies) and then I gave her my pizza crust. She thought that was the best thing ever. She mouthed it until it was a soggy mess, then she ate about 1/2 of it.





12:15 We went back to the pet store and bought the impulse beta fish. I hope I didn't make a big mistake.

12:30 Got in the car to go home.

12:45 Home. Ariel fell asleep in the car. I took her in, changed her diaper, gave her a bottle and she went right back to sleep.

Here's the newest member of our family - Wish Fish:



I tried to find the beta fish bowl out in the shed and just could not. The shed is an official Gawd Awful Mess and I gave up. Sigh.

1:15 Adam wanted to take a nap too.

Alex spent the afternoon trying to build satelites and Mars Rovers out of Kid K'nex. Which is very frustrating for everyone involved since Kid K'nex were not intended for such detailed models. I've been telling Jeremy that Alex is ready for Legos, but Jeremy does't think Jeremy is ready for them yet.

3:10 Ariel and Adam woke up (chicken/egg).

3:30 We had a little accident. Ariel's diaper leaked, and she had a poop in there. I knew those prunes were going to make today super fun!

3:45 Ariel had a snack, Veggie Booty. Veggie Booties look like they are related to Cheetos, but they are in fact vegetable-dust-coated-packing-material. Strangely, no one under the age of 5 has figured that out yet and so they eat them. Ariel enjoyed them very much. Then she washed them down with a bottle.

4:25 Becky came. She's going to wait for Jeremy to come home so we can go to Old Navy together. I heart ON.

October 18, 2006

Happy Birthday Laura!

And the update - Adam did in fact go to bed at 4:00pm yesterday. He woke up at 9:30pm and I laid down with him. He was wiggly for a while but he didn't get out of bed. And then he got up at 5:30. Oh, and Alex woke up at 3:00 with what must have been a nightmare, he was crying that the birds on his sound machine didn't sound right.

7:10 Drop off

Roses are red,
Sunflowers are gold,
Becky is awesome because
she brought me Starbucks when it was cold.

mmmm. starbucks....

7:10 Breakfast, apples and blueberries.

8:00 I put Ariel down for a nap and the boys and I took a shower. Alex didn't wanna but he had school pictures today and I couldn't let him near a camera with his bedhead. And speaking of, I couldn't decided whether or not to pay for school pictures when I'm a budding photographer and just took his 4 1/2 year pictures. But then Crissy pointed out that you can't go back if you change your mind, and that crappy school pictures are part of growing up. So I picked the cheapest package and we'll see.

Ariel didn't go to sleep right away, so I came in and gave her a bottle.

8:35 Woke Ariel up to take Alex to school.

9:15 I didn't have time for breakfast, so Ariel, Adam and I stopped at Safeway for some Jamba Juice and a bagel.

9:45 We made a quick run through the bank drive-thru and then we went to the library.

10:15 Storytime at the library. I sat on the floor with both kids and they were pretty darn good. Ariel was mostly flirting with everyone while sorting through the library lady's book pile. Ariel was pretty good about not chewing on the books, either.

11:00 Home - I put Ariel down for a nap with the rest of her bottle.

12:15 Ariel woke up and had lunch. It was orange, but a whole different kind of orange. Carrot, apple & mango. Not something that I would choose for myself, but Ariel ate every last bite and got her 90% RDA of vitamin A.

12:40 We left to pick up Alex from school.

1:15 And thus begins our afternoon adventures. First, we went to Old Navy to pick up a gift card for Laura's birthday. Nothing exciting happened there, except we were behind a man buying bags of clothes for himself. He was an employee and he got a bunch (80 items) of clothes for $60. Pretty impressive. But my question is, is he planning on doing laundry seasonally, or did he buy stuff for friends too? Because all I saw him buying were shirts, and 80 shirts is a heck of a lot.

1:45 We drove all the way down to Westminster Mall to go to JCPenny's for a Secret Mission. The Mission was a success (just barely but I can't elborate), but Holy Cow Alex was being a pill. To show you how bad he was being, he spent a lot of time crying about Adam hitting his lip, and Adam was in the stroller the whole time! Ariel was in the mall with only one shoe because it had fallen off somewhere and I was really hoping we found it because I bought the darn boots and I wanted to take a picture.

We found the shoe right outside the car.

Ariel worked on a bottle in the car.

2:30 We went to King Soopers to buy Laura some flowers and balloons. Alex continued to be a pill. I'm chalking it up to an early onsaught of teenagedom or he didn't get enough sleep last night.

3:00 We dropped off Laura's birthday present and then headed home.

3:30 We got home, I changed a giant messy poopy. Then I took the picture of Ariel and her super cute (but don't stay on) cowboy boots:



During this photo shoot, Ariel pooped AGAIN. A distinctly different, messy big poop.

4:00 Alex finally got out of his room and I let him and Adam go outside in their boots to play in the snow. Almost immediately Alex threw a snowball at Adam and had to come back inside. Insanity!!!

4:30 Becky and Jeremy got home. Becky and I went out to her car to fix the installation of Ariel's new carseat. I'm not going to name the upid-stay eap-chay person who installed it, but it took about 20 minutes to get it out and only 5 to get in back in the right way. Becky and Ariel didn't leave until 5:00.

October 17, 2006

7:05 Drop off. Not dressed, not showered. Jeremy didn't know that Ariel was even coming until Alex told him. Pretty sad when your four year old is more in the loop than you are.

7:30 Delcious breakfast of apples and cherries and cheerios.

8:15 Nap.

9:40 Wake up.

9:40 I took a shower with Ariel in the exosaucer in the bathroom. She didn't enjoy it much, but she didn't hate it either. But I do think it's easier for both of us if I take care of that before she gets here.

10:00 Time to go to Crissy's house. So the 411, yes, they are definately moving to the greater Washington DC area at the end of December. Mr. Crissy has a job there, and they put a bid on a house. This weekend, I finally told Alex that his best friend was moving and he was very sad. He cried. Then I told him I was sad because my best friend was moving too. So periodically he asks me if I'm still sad. And he came up with a solution - Jeremy could get a job in DC and we could move too. Uh, not bloody likely (no offence of course, Crissy). Crissy's house hunting trip was a bit confusing for Alex. Last night he asked who Gavin's new mommy was that took him to the park. And I think somehow he thought that Crissy and Mr. Crissy moved and left there kids behind and he asked why they didn't want Marcus and Gavin anymore. But I think we got it all straightened out.

Ariel had a bottle in the car. And when I got her out of the car she gave me a little claw wave and said, "bye." I count that as the first word I've definately gotten out of her.

Have I mentioned it's snowing yet? Technically it's not the first official snow, that happened last week but only the foothills got anything to stick. Today we have big fluffy snow:



11:00ish Ariel ate an ice cream cone

12:00ish Ariel had some oranage (carrots, Jana, not orange colored crayons).

12:30 Ariel took a nap with a bottle on Crissy's floor.

1:20 Woke up. Not very happy.

1:50 I put her back down with another bottle. She drank it but didn't go back to sleep. She was in a better mood though.

Ariel was playing with Crissy and pulled up on the magazine rack. That's the first time I've seen her pull up without getting stuck half way and screaming her head off.



3:40 We finally left Crissy's to take Ariel to Becky's work. Adam fell asleep in the car.

4:00 Drop off Ariel at Becky's work.

PS Adam went to bed when we got home and he's still asleep as of 7:00. That seems bad, huh?

PSS We have 3-4 inches of snow now. Alex asked if it was winter.

October 16, 2006

7:00 Drop off. Ariel seems to be feeling much better.

7:30 Breakfast, pears and apples and cheerios.

8:00 Nap

8:35 Woke Ariel so I could take Alex to preschool.

9:00 Dropped Alex off. Ariel had a bottle in the car.

9:15 Didn't feel like going home but I had no where else to be so we went to Target. That can be dangerous, especially when you don't need anything. And I did pretty good too. The only thing I bought was a My Little Pony for Adam, partly because Adam liked Margot's ponies so much and partly because I know it will bug Jeremy. I did notice that the Sock Monkey sheets are on clearance and I would have gotten the boys some but the only size they had was twin.

10:15 Got home. Ariel played for a while. She's really moving now. And she's an official Butt Schoocher. See?



Gone are my days of leaving her sitting and playing while I change a load of laundry.

11:00 Down for nap with bottle

12:00 Wake up, lunch time. Green beans in a jar and I tried some apple and banana pieces with her. She was intrigued but mostly put them in her mouth and spit them out.

12:35 Left to pick up Alex from school.

1:00 After picking up Alex I decided to take them to a park since the weather is supposed to get yucky tomorrow. We went to the Rocket Ship park and the first thing the boys did was climb the giant metal rocket while I pushed Ariel in the swing. I was surprised Adam made it all the way up there, but not so surprised that he couldn't get down. He was happy for a while but then Alex wanted to do other things and Adam wanted down. The problem was that I couldn't go up to get him with Ariel in the bjorn and I had left the stroller in the car. And if I put her down not only would she ingest 10 lbs of gravel immediately, but she would also have schooched half way to the creek. There were a few moms at the park and I tried to decide which one was mostly likely not a kidnapper. So I sat swinging in the big swing with Ariel contemplating my options while Adam howled when a woman came up and asked if I was Wendy.

As soon as she spoke, I recognized her as Barbara, Crissy's friend who was watching the boys while Crissy and Mr. Crissy went house hunting in DC. And yup, sure enough there was Gavin, who I had noticed previously as "that boy in the neon green shirt" (he was far away, I swear!). So I tossed Ariel over to Barbara and scaled the rocket to rescue my poor child. Then Barbara and I talked and gossiped about Crissy (who is due back tonight). And the weird part is, we hardly go to the rocket ship park and Barbara says she doesn't go there often either but she had been at Whole Foods and didn't want to go home before picking Marcus up.

Ariel dozed a bit in the bjorn near the end, then had a bottle in the car on the way home.

2:50 Got home just as Crissy finished leaving a message on the machine. I caught the phone just in time and we chatted a bit before she boarded her plane.

Alex was pretty excited about the new My Little Pony too (first he saw the brush and told me that it belonged at Dagny's house and what was it doing here?):



I told him it was Adam's and Alex decided it was a Halloween present and demanded to know when he was getting his present. I stalled and asked what he thought he was getting and he said he wanted a robot toy that looked like Fender but a different color and didn't fall apart. Uh, we'll see.

4:10 I was just exhausted. Must have been due to lack of caffeine and/or sugar. I put Ariel in the exasaucer and crashed. Not fully crashed, just sort out. Everyone once and a while one of the boys would wake me by head butting me and at some point I realized they were pretended I was a giant challah that they were eating me. I think.

4:30 Pick up.

And for the record, I crashed again until Jeremy called me at 5:15. Then I decided to get up and make dinner.

October 13, 2006

TGIF!!! (and I mean it!!!)

7:05 Drop off. Not dressed, not showered (me, not Ariel. Ariel was dressed, I'm not sure of her showering status).

7:30 Yummy breakfast of pears and pineapples and cheerios.

8:00 Nap attempt. By that, I mean to say that I attempted to put her down for a nap and she hollered at the top of her lungs. Eventually fell asleep.

8:30 Jeremy took Alex to school. Jeremy couldn't carpool with Becky because he had to go to the courthouse today to get our tenet's eviction started. It's a long story, but the short version is our tenet is crazy and there has been police intervention.

9:00 Ariel woke up.

9:45 Bottle

10:00 Time for Ariel's picture session. Boy, for a baby that can't crawl she's sure getting around. I couldn't get her to sit in one place for a second. These are the best of the bunch.







11:45 Nap attempt #2. Also noisy. I gave her a bottle in bed.

12:30 Nap "attept" aborted. Left to go get Alex from school, stopping at the post office first.

1:00 Pick up Alex.

1:30 Stop at Wild Oats to get our salmon for Shabbat dinner. Is it weird to have a Catholic-sort of Friday fish day on Shabbat? There was only one kid cart availible and the boys did a good job of pushing it together, though it was the closest we've come to actually breaking something.

1:50 Got home.

1:52 Becky called to say she was picking up Ariel early so she could take her to the doctor. I, being the nosey person I am, asked why. Becky thought that Ariel might have an ear infection because she's not, I quote, "her happy self."

Get home. I took a few more pictures of Ariel.

This was the best expression, but the focus is slightly off and it's driving me batty.



Becky likes this one best:



And the collage:



The rest are on my flickr site.

2:15 I fed Ariel some green and some cheerios.

2:30 Put Ariel down for nap attempt #3 with a bottle of water. She actually went down with only a little bit of screaming.

3:30 Becky picked up Ariel early so they could go to the doctor and get Ariel's ears checked out.

October 11, 2006

7:05 Drop off. Jeremy and I are trying a new system. All this school year, he's been taking Alex to prechool. That's super for me because I don't have a 40 minute commute in the morning with 2-3 kids, but bad for us because Jeremy doesn't get home from work until after 6pm on these days. So today was the first day of carpooling with Becky. Becky drove them both off to work at 7:10. I think Jeremy will offer to drive too, but I was under the impression that Becky would prefer not to ride in Jeremy's crappy truck.

7:15 Ariel had breakfast, pears and pineapple and star puffs.

8:35 Left to take Alex to school. Ariel had a bottle in the car.

9:00 Drop off Alex.

9:05 Ariel fell asleep in the car.

9:25 Got to Crissy's house. Had to wake Ariel.

10:30 Ariel played for a while started getting cranky so we put her down on a blanket in Crissy's room and she fell asleep.

12:00 Ariel woke up. She had green and cheerios for lunch.

12:40 Left to get Alex at preschool. So I pretty much blew the whole morning, though I did get to spend some quality time with Crissy. So far, I'm not liking the new system.

1:00 Pick up Alex. Ariel had a bottle on the way home.

1:30 Get home. I took some pictures of Ariel in her SUPER-DUPER cute peacoat.





Then Ariel went inside and played with toys.

3:00 Ariel went down for a nap.

And I took this picture for my internet board, but I thought it was an interesting study of what a slob I've become. I'm at the point where I acknowledge my slobbiness, but don't really care. What if I never care???



4:00 Ariel woke up

4:15 Bottle

4:30 Pick up.

October 10, 2006

Happy birthday to Jeremy, he's 32 today. We celebrated this weekend, having our first night away - all the way to Denver - since Alex was born. It was super fun, we can't wait to do it again (is this weekend too soon?)

And a public service announcement: Chocolate covered espresso beans should really be a controlled substance. I've been popping them like M&Ms for the last three days and running around like a Yorkie on speed. The good news is that they are all gone now. Maybe I'll sleep tonight.

7:05 Drop off. Becky, did you noticed I was dressed AND showered? Which was all the more amazing considering Adam had been screaming non-stop for the last half an hour.

7:20 Breakfast- smooched banana. And Ariel had some of my homemade waffles. The boys had waffles and stopped screaming. Maybe they were hungry?

8:20 Nap. I cleaned the house and actually washed the dining room and kitchen floors. They needed it.

9:45 Wake up.

10:00 Bottle

10:15 We really needed to leave the house but I didn't know where to go. I finally decided on the library, as there was storytime and I had an overdue book. And I also figured the annoying preschool wasn't going to walk 1/2 a mile in 40 deg weather with a light drizzle (and I was right!)

11:15 Got home. Boys had mac & cheese for lunch, Ariel had mixed veggie goop and weird star puffs.

12:00 Ariel went down for a nap. The boys and I made chocolate cupcakes for daddy's birthday.

2:00 Ariel woke up and had a poopy. I was putting the dirty diaper in our outside trash and I saw an animal run up our driveway. My thought process went, "cat. BIG cat. hugely fluffy tail? dog??? FOX!!!!" Way cool. I didn't see where it went after it passed my mudroom door.

2:10 Another bottle.

3:15 I just got the Scott Kelby Photoshop Elements book (on Amazon for $10 including shipping!) - I'm either going to learn a lot about fixng photos, or find a new way to waste more time on the computer. I took some picture of Ariel to play around with.

Here she is, photo all proofed (using Kelby's eye sparkler sharpening technique, whites of eyes whitening technique, basic color correction and then Andrew's AIO).



And this was the original (Toni, I was shooting +2/3 on AV with my 35mm on f2.0 and this was the only one that came out underexposed. Unfortunely all the ones with the right exposure didn't have good focus).



4:30 Pick up.

October 6, 2006

7:00 Drop off. Boy, I did not do well this week. Today I did get up with Adam at 6:05 am, but only made it as far as the futon before falling asleep again. I'm getting ready for the time change this month :)

7:30 Breakfast - apples and pinapples

8:10 Nap

8:50 Wake up. While in the crib, Ariel created a horrible, mushy, LARGE poopy.

9:30 Bottle

10:30 Ariel, Adam and I walked to Starbucks. In the interest of research, I tried a caramel mocha. Crissy, it was ok, but I probably won't order it again. Not worth the extra money for syrup. Adam said he wanted a cookie so I got a biscotti, but he did not like it.

Then we went to Wild Oats for our Friday salmon. I was bummed that they didn't have any kid carts for Adam, he does love pushing them and he hasn't broken anything yet.

Here's Ariel in the big cart. She looks sad, but I don't remember her being sad:



12:10 Got home. Ariel was asleep in the stroller. I made Adam lunch - a tofu dog - which he used to eat his ketchup.

12:40 I had to wake Ariel to put her in the car to go pick up Alex.

1:00 Pick up Alex from school.

1:15 Drove through credit union #1 drive thru so I could deposit more money in my paypal account. I have eBaying to do! Ariel was getting fussy so I made her a bottle and she slammed it in about 2 minutes. She was done by the time we left.

1:30 Credit Union #2. I had to deposit some checks (thanks Becky!) and I'll share my new level of craziness with my found change saga. Remember my found change? Way back on July 6th, I started my change quest, picking all the pennies (and more!) than I found. Well, now I've taken it to a new level. I brought my little piggy bank to the credit union and deposited all $6.10 (without the $5 peso coin and the two RTD tokens). Then I transfered that money to it's own ING account, where it will start making 4.40% interest for me. I'm now shooting for $40 or so, then I'll go get a pedicure or something.

2:00 Got home. We started our challah, I made it with a cup of whole white wheat flour and a cup of regular flour (and it turned out pretty good).

2:30 Discovered Adam in the bay window with his pants around his ankles, claiming that he had gone pee-pee (true, even his shoes had to go in the wash).

2:45 Ariel had her lunch - squash. And then I gave her gold fish with her cheerios, which I later found she had systematically picked out and put on her lap. Or maybe she spit them out. Either way, there were about 8 gold fish and only one cheerio down there.

3:30 Ariel went down for a nap.

4:00 Becky arrived.

And for those interested, Jeremy and I are now caught up with our Lost viewing, including Season 3's premiere. Yay! In fact, I'm listening to the season 2 bonus features while I write this (my favorite has been "The world according to Sawyer." Ah, I do adore Sawyer). And in celebration of Lost, here's Alex's summary (apparently gotten from Daddy).

October 5, 2006

7:00 Ariel was dropped off right as I rolled out of bed. I was tired, as I was awakened at 4:45am by a loud pounding noise, which turned out to be Adam hitting his door. Further investigation proved that upid-stay eap-chay usband-hay didn't plug in the baby monitor properly and who knows how long Adam had been awake. When I went into his room, his jammies were around his feet and he told me that he "went pee-pee on his penguin." Which was true. And some on the floor too. Oy.

7:30 Ariel had apples and blueberries for breakfast. I told her that it would turn her poop green. She was unimpressed.

8:20 Ariel took a nap. I used that time to shower, and then to set up Adam's new carseat and switch his old seat for Ariel. Yes, it's official, Ariel has graduated from the infant seat to the convertible seat.

9:40 Ariel woke up, we attempted to leave the house. Besides all the normal things that slow us down, I discovered that when I put Ariel in her seat, it was at more of a 60 deg angle than a 45 deg angle. So then I had to take it out and put a rolled towel under it and do it all over again.

And here's the big girl in her new seat:



After I took the picture, I gave her a bottle.

And Becky is having a bit of sticker shock paying me $100 for a Britax Roundabout that only Adam used for 18 months. If any of my mommy friends would like to chime in and tell her what an AWESOME deal she got, I wouldn't mind.

Adam got a 5-point harness/booster seat that's like Alex's:



10:25 We finally left for our Fabulous Adventure™™ of the day - going to The Mall with Crissy and Gavin.

10:45 We got to the mall. When we got to the play area, we found that there was a magic show at 11. Crissy and I agreed to take turns watching the boys at the show, while the other one went upstairs to make money at the consumer place. I went first with Ariel.

11:00 Consumer place - my first job was watching a dentyne commercial and answering a hundred billion questions about it. I always feel funny doing commercials, since I never watch them in real life since we don't have TV reception. Plus, this one was more annoying than usual and took 20 minutes and only paid $5. Then I sniffed soap for 5 minutes and was paid $10. Ariel was ok, she played for a bit, and then drank 1/2 a bottle of water.

11:40 Traded places with Crissy and got to see the end of the magic show. The last trick was impressive, the magician turned two doves into a bunny. I have a feeling Alex is going to get a lot of mileage out of today. Already he has shown me two "tricks" - breaking a stick in half to make two sticks, and pulling a toy out of Adam's back.

12:05 The boys and I wandered upstairs to find Crissy. She lucked out, she tasted juice and got to do an at-home body spray survey for $30. Then we all went to get lunch with our earnings.

12:30 Lunch - pizza for the boys, fish tacos for the ladies, and something orange and goopy for Ariel. And then she ate those weird little star cheerios in her diaper bag that I never open.

1:00 We went outside to the sandbox. Crissy got us Blizzards™ and Ariel had a bottle. Crissy rocked Ariel to sleep, and Ariel actually transferred to the stroller.



1:30 Crissy and Gavin departed, we stayed outside for a bit more.

1:45 With Ariel still sleeping, we went to McDonald's for icecream cones.

2:15 Then it was down to the family bathroom with the small potty. Both the boys were inspired to poop in it. The trip took for.ev.er.

2:45 Left the mall.

3:00 Quick trip to the yarn store to photograph this month's community knitting project (mittens) then on to the grocery store to get food for dinner (BBQ shrimp).

4:00 Got home. The boys went out in the backyard. I made my bed with Jeremy's new birthday sheets. An informal poll of my friends showed that 100% of them believed that their husbands would not want these sheets. I didn't even ask if they thought they would make good birthday presents. But when I saw them in the Target ad, I knew I had to get them for Jeremy (in case you can't tell, they are sock monkeys!):



4:15 Tried to feed Ariel a bottle, but she was just playing so I put her back down with her blocks.

4:30 Pick up.

PS - Today I discovered that Blogger has a spell check. Who knows, maybe I'll even use it.

PPS - I have edited this post to turn the blogger spellcheck Crasssys back into Crissys. Um, I don't think I'll be using it again. I didn't think there was any power in the world that could make me more incoherent, but I stand corrected.

October 4, 2006

Well hello everyone. And in case you are wondering, I AM writing this blog on the 5th. We had a Lost emergency last night, in that we had to watch it. We only have 2 episodes left of season 2, and the premiere of season 3 taped and ready to go.

We had a great time in Chicago with Toni, Dagny and Margot. We hung out, we went to the Children's museum and the Botanical Gardens. All the kids got along really great. Alex and Dagny had a slumber party and stayed up until 11:00pm taking about the planets. Adam and Margot know the same version of the ABC's. And Toni is a fellow aspiring photographer and we took each other's pictures. I can't post what I took of Toni yet as I am still working on installing DPP (Toni- I'm trying, but Lost keeps getting in the way). So here's the pictures, not very good from a photography standpoint, but you get the point:

Chicago Pictures

7:00 Drop off. Ariel had apples and cherries for breakfast.

8:20 Nap

10:15 Ariel woke up, had a bottle

10:35 Walk to the post office. Toni expounded the virtues of click-and-ship but I really needed to walk somewhere and NOT get a Starbucks. It was a bit nippy outside.

11:00 Post office. I thought it was some weird bank holiday as there were no cars in the parking lot.

11:25 Get home. Adam and I ate lunch, Ariel took another nap.

12:35 Went to go get Alex from school.

1:00 Pick up Alex.

1:15 Quick trip to Jamba Juice - my Starbuck-vice replacement. But tell me it's a little heathier, and the kids get some too.

1:30 Onwards to Crissy's house. Ariel ate her lunch there, Green.

2:30 Crissy left to go to Target to buy VHS tapes for Lost recording and to pick up Marcus from school, I stayed behind with Gavin.

3:45 Left Crissy's. Maybe Ariel had a bottle in the car, I don't really remember.

4:00 Drop off at Becky's work.