Happy New Year!

10 years ago today I met Ken! I had just turned 20 at the time so I've now known him for 1/3 of my life.

I was a junior in college and was dating a different guy who's birthday was on New Year's Eve. We had planned for a few months to go down to my roommate's house in southern Indiana, go to a nice dinner and Midnight Mass for the millennium. As the time got closer, however, I realized that this guy was not "the one" and didn't really want to go by myself with him. So I begged my friend Mary to go with us. She told me she had already promised her friend Ken she'd do something with him. I told her to bring him! Mary and I had been friends in grade school and just reconnected 6 months before at a young adult Steubenville conference. She was taking guitar lessons at the music store where Ken worked. So worlds collided that night! We started dating 3 months later and 2 1/2 years later we were married.

Although I didn't think of dating Ken that night, several things impressed me about him. He had decided to become Christian at that time, and was very open to everything that Mary and I had to say. Mary is the kind of person who loves God with her whole heart and had a big personality. When Ken was thinking of becoming Christian, he was afraid he'd lose his personality, but Mary showed him that that was not the case! One thing that really impressed me was how polite he was to our waitress at the restaurant, who was not doing a good job that night. He went out of his way to be nice to her, and I could tell that was his personality, because he wasn't trying to impress anyone. Also my boyfriend at the time was trying to impress everyone with his guitar playing skills. Ken didn't even say a word about it but I later learned that he is one of the best guitar players I've ever met, and could easily have shown the other guy up.

To this day, he is still impressing me with his patience, kindness, work ethic, love of God and his family, and now especially by his vocation to fatherhood. I couldn't imagine a better husband or father, and I can't imagine what the world would be like if we hadn't met that night, and Madeleine and John Paul weren't here!

I love you Ken - Happy Anniversary!

30

I was going to blog about 20's today, complete with pictures, but I am out of time! I will save this post for a later date.

But today was great! My parents took me out for breakfast with Ken and the kids, and Ken gave me a Droid, which I've been playing with all day :)

Then Ken and I got to go out for a date tonight, which was a rare treat!

Everyone have a Merry Christmas!

8 months old! (yesterday)

The Bud had a big month! He went from not crawling to crawling everywhere, hanging out on his knees, and just now he's started to try to pull up to his feet. He gets one foot up. He is a very physical and strong boy! It's not my favorite chore to change his diaper because he rolls violently to his tummy multiple times during the change. I have to give him something he's not supposed to play with to hold his attention, like the tylenol bottle or something! He does not like to be still.

He's grown so tall that I'm occasionally putting him into 18 month outfits! This one is actually a 9 month, and you can see how short the legs and arms on him. He is a great eater. Not a fan of the puree, of which I've stocked the freezer. He prefers to do it himself with chunks of banana, slices of orange, apple, pear, cucumber, mango, broccoli, carrot, etc. While he's doing that I try to sneak a few bites of the puree in. He makes the biggest mess at meal time I've EVER seen. I pretty much have to stick him in the sink after every meal.
He loves this piano in Madeleine's room. He is very good at balancing on his knees. Madeleine was still a month away from crawling at this age! And she had no teeth. He has two on the bottom and is working on a top one.
He has been saying more syllables, like dadadadada and mamamama. I swear he said HI when I told him to the other day. He is waving too.
You know what else he is doing? Still waking up 1 or 2 or 3 times/night. Killing me. Something has GOT to give soon! He doesn't self soothe like M did, because he doesn't suck his thumb or take a pacifier or anything. However, Madeleine didn't sleep through the night until 13 months, so I just keep thinking maybe he will by then too. Please God :)

I, of course, think he is the cutest baby boy in the whole world! He is loving and even gives hugs and buries his face in our shoulders. He LOVES his sister - no one can make him laugh harder than she can. When she is watching TV she crawls over to her couch and pulls up to his knees and just stares at her. She is still so good with him, she takes care of him and hugs him all the time. They're starting to really play together. Today he stole her Winnie the Pooh and started crawling away really fast while she tried to get it! Then later they were handing it back and forth really fast and Madeleine laughed and said, "We're sharing!"

I'm so excited for his first Christmas in a few days!

Christmas picture preview

Oh and here is a hair picture! What do you think? Yesterday my friends took me out to my favorite Chinese restaurant for an early birthday dinner. Then we came back here and Jenny brought me delicious cupcakes, Heather brought wine, and Ken made my favorite amaretto sours with his homemade simple syrup and fresh squeezed lemon juice. I might have had one. Or three :) Thank you everyone!

Dominic and Jenny

And today the Bud is 8 months old! I didn't get any good pictures of him today though so I'll do his 8 month post tomorrow. I did get their professional pictures back though, and as always, was extremely happy with them!

Ken doesn't understand why I have to get a naked picture, so here's the reason:

It is the cutest thing I've EVER seen! :) I got one of Madeleine at 3 months, and tried to get one of John Paul at 3 months too so they'd match, but he wasn't cooperating. So we tried again at this photo session and I was thrilled. Don't think I won't be putting an 8 x 10 in my bathroom. Cause I will.


I kind of lumped his 6 month (which was really 7 month) pictures together with Christmas pictures, so here's one of the two good ones of the two of them together. She was really good and tried to hold him while he tried to crawl straight off the table. I had to actually catch him a few times.
And this is my very favorite. It was totally worth it staying up till 1am the night before to finish his hat!

Merry Christmas!

Chopped

I got my hair totally chopped off today! I went to my girl and told her I was turning 30 next week and was ready for a big change. She thought about it for a while and then gave me a great haircut. I really like it! It's a big change! Maybe I'll try to get a decent picture tomorrow :)

Also, we had dollhouse drama today. I bought Madeleine the Fisher Price Loving Family Dollhouse.

But it didn't come with too much stuff to play with. So I tried craigslist and ebay and had several leads but it never worked out. Then I saw this beautiful wooden dollhouse on craigslist and contemplated sending this one back, until I went and saw the wooden one and it wasn't what I thought. So I made the trek to Toys R Us today and picked up a couple of extra "rooms" of furniture for her. She has a birthday coming up in a few months so we could always add to it. I think she'll really like it - she LOVES playing with "tiny" things, putting the dolls to bed, feeding them at the table, etc. I think we're going to try to set it up so she'll see it when she comes down on Christmas morning, so we won't have to assemble it while she waits to play with it.

I love this age - where she likes to have tea parties and play with dolls. I love pretend play, especially watching what her little mind comes up with. She's so fun.

Our December so far.

We went and picked out a real Christmas tree - it was so fun! I'm not sure I'll go back to artificial! That reminds me, I need to water ours!

Our advent wreath. It has 3 candles lit now.

Their snowman hats. I made Madeleine's last year and decided at the last minute I'd make one for John Paul right before getting their pictures taken. They look SO cute in them!

His new favorite toy. You see my barricade? He laughs at it.

What did I do??

Go Colts!

Rotation is the key

I should have been doing this all along! This morning Madeleine and I purged the toys and books we've accumulated over the past few years, and got two garbage bags full for our friends' garage sale. The house looks so nice and clutter free right now. We also found several old books, toys, and puzzles that they haven't played with for a while. They kept the kids busy for quite a while today! Madeleine enjoyed feeding her baby a bottle and putting her to bed with a little silky. She also did several wooden puzzles and John Paul enjoyed chewing on the pieces. Now we have room for Christmas gifts too.

So Ken and I decided to only get 3 gifts for each kid (plus a few stocking stuffers.) We decided that if it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for them :) So we both had a great time choosing the 3 perfect gifts for them. Madeleine is getting a dollhouse for her main present, and then a stack of books and puzzle books (ok so that counts as one present) and some really cute pretend cupcakes and cakes since she's been really into tea parties lately. John Paul is getting a teddy bear, since he loves stuffed animals and doesn't have a really nice big one. It's black so it looks boyish. And also a little birdhouse that he can put birds in - they all make different sounds and fit in different holes. And Ken hasn't decided what his gift to John Paul is yet.

I did 90% of my shopping online this year, and I have to say I don't think I'll ever go back to waiting in lines and fighting the traffic and dragging the kids out in the cold. It was great! Now I just have to hope it all gets here in time... it should!

I should probably post some pics one of these days.

Our tree looks beautiful, and our advent wreath on the door has 3 candles lit. Madeleine's list of words she can read is growing, and she's gone 3 days with no potty accidents. She is doing fantastic and I'm so proud of her! Also yesterday, the child did a 100 piece puzzle by herself. Tiny pieces, lots of detail. I gave her a few directions like, "Find the corner pieces and straight edges," and "group similar colors together" but she did it all on her own.

So this is for anyone who lives around here. One of my best friends is adopting from Ethiopia. They're having a big rummage sale to raise money for their adoption fund. Their sale will be in May so I'll keep you updated on that. But does anyone have anything they'd like to donate to the sale? If so, please email me and we'll work out a way to pick it up and they have a place to store it until then. We are going to donate our Anakin Skywalker couches and I'm going through lots of toys and clothes and baby stuff. This is such a great cause, they will be fantastic parents and this child or children will be so blessed!

Can we have hope??

Three days ago Madeleine decided that she did NOT want to wear diapers anymore. I let her wear big girl underwear (which she loves) and she has done SO great over the past 3 days! We've gone out, went to story time at Barnes and Nobles, grocery store, even got their pictures taken today and she's done amazingly well. She had a few minor accidents at home, but just because she didn't get there quite in time. She's telling me when she needs to go and holding it until we get to the potty. Other than talking about it occasionallyf and watching Elmo's Potty Time, I didn't do any formal training. She just decided herself that she was done with diapers and PLEASE GOD LET THIS BE IT!!!

I took them to get their pictures taken today (I know, it's December 10!) and they turned out great. I can't wait to get them back. Last year I made Madeleine a snowman hat and decided at the last minute I wanted to make one for John Paul for their pictures today. So I stayed up until 1:15 am last night but I finished it! And I'm really happy with that picture. I also got the cutest little naked boy picture - he's sitting up looking over his shoulder. I love love love it!

Great weekend and Madeleine update

D came and visited us this weekend! We had an awesome time, and our activities included picking out a real Christmas tree (our first one) and also beating the game Super Mario Brothers (both of us beat it, I beat it first!) We were also entertained by endless renditions of Frosty the Snowman, You are my Sunshine, Up on the Housetop, Put down the Ducky, and countless other songs. Our house is decorated and smells wonderful with our REAL tree. We hit downtown Indy and did some shopping, and D bought John Paul a great pair of shoes, which he desperately needed! And he looks adorable in them!
Thanks so much for visiting! Pictures coming soon, I just don't want to get off the couch right now :)

So today we had a fantastic day. Madeleine woke up this morning and told me that she didn't want to wear diapers anymore, she wanted to wear big girl underwear. I've heard this before, but I decided to let her try it. The child did not have ONE ACCIDENT all day today. She took care of everything herself, and even told me she had to go when she was sitting in her booster seat at the table. That has never happened before. She even told me she wanted to wear her big girl underwear to Mass. I was extremely nervous about this, especially since I had to take both kids by myself, but she did great! I'm so proud of her! I hope this is it. She seems to be ready. She wants to wear underwear and not diapers anymore, and she knows how to do it. Let's hope she keeps it up. I can hardly imagine only having one kid in diapers!

Madeleine and I made a paper advent wreath and put it on the pantry door, complete with 2 lighted candles and a wreath made out of cut-outs of her hands. It looks great and she understands that advent means we are waiting for Jesus' birthday. We have also been working on "reading" words. Every day or so, she tells me a word she wants to learn and I add it to our list on the fridge. We practice every day and she has a list of words she recognizes, including Madeleine, John Paul, Mommy, Daddy, Bonzo, cat, pony, Advent and candle. She even recognizes the words when they are not on the fridge, for example, when we got her stocking out, she looked at it and said, "That says Madeleine!"

She's been loving puzzles for a while now. We started her out with these puzzle books with 12 piece puzzles. We explained to her that she should find the corner pieces first, then the straight edges, and then fill in the middle. She became an expert at those puzzles. We decided to try a puzzle book with 48 piece puzzles, thinking she'd need lots of help. I'm not kidding, the kid can do these puzzles better than we can! She will sit and do puzzles for hours. Ken bought her a 100 piece puzzle the other day and she did the entire thing with very little help. I'm really really impressed with her.

Also, she must have a photographic memory, because she will "read" books to me after I've only read them a few times to her. We go to the library about once a week and get a stack of books. After a few days I will hear her telling her animals the stories, word for word. A few times I've had her "read" a book to me, and I am amazed at how accurate she is!

She is VERY independent, and can be very trying at times (just ask D) but overall she is a wonderful, smart, sweet, interesting and fascinating child. We are so blessed to have her!

Unintentional blogging break

Wow I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging in about 3 years!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here, but my friend Dominic (second picture from the bottom) has cancer. He just had his second chemo treatment and his hair is falling out. He said his head would be cold so I knitted him 3 hats in the past week, which is pretty much the reason I haven't been on the computer! I got them sent out yesterday so hopefully he will get them tomorrow. I was really happy with how they turned out - I've never knitted manly hats before (Ken is not into hats!)

Anyway, please pray for Dominic. And visit his website to keep up with him.

The other reason I haven't been on here is because John Paul is crawling. everywhere. He did this before we were really ready, so I have been spending my days trying to keep stuff out of his mouth.

We did have a few nice Thanksgiving dinners. Hopefully I'll be back to my regular blogging self now!