Life at our house

Hello, world! Things here are continuing to move and change. Some family updates:

Chris

• Chris turned 1 year old on Wednesday of last week. His party (of which I previously posted pictures) was great and served as the real celebration of the milestone. Amazing how the stereotypes are true about second children - for Nic's first birthday I took the day off work, we visited the zoo, and had a special day of it all. Chris went to daycare like normal, had an everyday dinner, and ate the few remaining bites of owl cake before bed. I did buy him a Birthday Boy t-shirt to wear.
• Though he hit the walking milestone by his birthday he's yet to consistently say a real word. Lisa got to hear him say "again" and I've heard him make sounds that sort of resemble the word I just said (ie "bug" while at the zoo). Doctor seemed totally unconcerned at his well-baby check-up so I guess I am too.
• I do quiz Chris on people's names quite a bit - "where's Daddy?", "where's Nicky?" I'll ask and then wait to see if he hones in on the right person. He normally does which tells me he knows more than he's letting on to verbally.

Nicole

• The future her is dying that I'd post this at all but I'll claim it's not so bad because I didn't actually post a video (yet).... When Nicole wants to get out of something, like eating part of her dinner she doesn't like, she'll claim she has to go to the bathroom. Since she's still within 6 mo of being potty-trained I'm always hesitant to deny taking her even if I think she's faking just in case. So, off we go to the bathroom. There she sits on the potty and clenches her eyes, grunts and groans, and shakes her head with "the energy" of pooping. Really she's doing nothing but acting as validated both by the empty potty and the giggles that escape after her performance. Yes, she still has to eat the corn when she gets back to the dinner table.
• Nicole LOVES to wear dresses and I love to put her in them. I actually have to make a point of only showing her two shorts options or she'd wear a dress every day.

Jim

• Jim's still plowing away at our wall. It looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. He's done so so well. I'm not just saying that because he reads this, it really does look fantastic. He's made such good progress that by this coming weekend's end it'll probably be fair to say he's on "the home stretch".
• His ball team is doing okay this year. They're in the middle but hopefully will be picking up the pace in the next week.

Me

• What the heck is up with this humidity?! It's INSANE. My hair looks crappy on a regular basis.
• I need more shoes. Like a nice pair of flip-flops and a new pair of casual heeled black sandals. I've walked off the sole on the heels of my main pair.
• I'm going to see Eclipse with my co-workers on Wednesday at midnight! So excited!
• NOT a fan of the new Color Splash: Miami format/aura.

Uh Oh

This happened last night!

I wouldn't say that this was "out of the blue" because he regularly pushes a walking toy around, but he doesn't often just stand and balance on his own. I've never seen him push himself up to standing from the ground on his own. He is also a very fast, and therefore very effecient, crawler so I thought we might have weeks before he hit this milestone.

Jim actually saw the very first steps (he was walking to me as I had my back to him), but we did lots of practicing using the red ball as incentive and Grandma came over later that night to see him. :)

Happy Birthday, Christopher!

Chris's birthday party was today (his real birthday is on Wednesday). Want to feel like you were here with us? This is the blog for you....



We started with some visiting and lunch,

opened lots of thoughtful presents,





and played the "destiny" game (you put out a Bible, a dollar and a bottle of booze and whichever one the baby goes to shows the path the child will follow in life). The button in the bottom right corner will make the movie larger.

I presented Chris's cake to him and we all sang Happy Birthday.

Of course the cake went over really well. :)




Following dessert we gathered to watch a year-in-review movie I made about my #1 son. If you care to watch all 7 minutes, be my guest! Another reminder that the button in the bottom right corner will make the film bigger for viewing.

Happy Father's Day to all you great DADS out there!

Long Lost Blogger

Things have been going lately which has kept me from writing. Chris got sick- ANOTHER double ear infection layered with an acute sinus infection. Then I got sick with a sinus infection that actually was so bad I went to bed at 7am last Wed, called in sick to work Friday and went to the doctor.

Some GREAT things have happened since I last posted though:

1. My Goddaughter, Lauren, was Baptised on 6/6/10. I have pictures at home to load.
2. The wall has made wonderful progress
3. The deck furniture is in and that project is 85% complete. We need an umbrella [and a frickin' all-outdoors de-humidifier!] and we'll be suitable for actually using it!
4. I'm 2 hours into my photo project for Chris's first birthday (6/23/10) and it looks GREAT

Are any other Twilight fans reading Bree Tanner?

Since I've been sick and have had no energy to do anything productive, I've caught up on my DVR a bit. I've been watching:

• Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole (Thanks to Tom for the suggestion)
• Cake Boss
• So You Think You Can Dance
• Taboo

I've also DVRed America's Got Talent but have yet to watch it....

I'm no Viki, but I'm trying to make a vow to eat salad for lunch 2X/week to prep for swimming on our family vacation in July. My body isn't really back to where I'd like it to be post-Chris and, contrary to his initial requests, Jim says that he'd prefer I not excersise due to the time commitment. *victory*

Declaration of War

Music Notes

Many times I've stated my love for the radio. I would very much consider myself a "music appreciator", I think largely because I myself am not musically talented (something I intend to rectify with my kids).

• My current favorite song? Breakeven
• Songs that I'll always listen to, even if I just heard it- Little Wonders, Fast Car, Sway, Time of My Life, Won't Be Like this For Long, etc.
• A song I'm REALLY over is I Need You Now.
• If someone tells me that a certain song is meaningful or a favorite of theirs I feel compelled to listen to it. One of Jim's favorite songs is The Freshman. Nicole adores I Love Rock and Roll. My boss told me that the song he thinks of when he thinks of his wife is Then. I'm plagued by hearing them on the radio and being able to bring myself to changing the station. I feel the same way about the song Jim and I danced to at our wedding
• My co-worker's favorite band is Slipknot. This is NOT my kind of music mostly because it (brace yourself, I'm about to sound old) sounds like noise to me. We listened to several songs yesterday and I think I physically understand only about 1/12th of what they're actually saying.
• Thanks to some kudos from Tom's Blog I started paying more attention to Lady Gaga and now I'm all wound around her finger. I really do like her voice and find her songs catchy in general. I'm not really sure why People doesn't feature her more than they do- if nothing else she's weird which often translates to interesting. ** Update** apparently Larry King thinks she's intersesting - she was on last night! Here is the show! **
• In case you're interested, this is my Pandora station that I listen to at work.

Last weekend in May

Thank God for national holidays. We all appreciated the vacation day on Monday for Memorial Day.

• Chris broke 2 teeth in one day and when I felt for them I noticed that his gums on either side of the new teeth were swollen too. You can imagine how happy a baby we have on our hands right now.
• Greg's graduation party was on Sunday- Jenna did a really nice job putting everything together. Congrats to the newest MBA in the family! I thought this was really sweet - my dad offered to let my mom go back to school to get her Masters Degree so she wouldn't be the "only one in the family without one" (Mike's in progress for his MBA now). She appreciated the gesture but declined stating she was "too old" (I disagree she's too old for anything but understand why she doesn't want to go back less than one year from retirement).
• I bought patio furniture at Lowes this weekend and it looks LOVELY! We set the firepit out too. The chairs for the dining table are in and we need to schedule delivery from Menards. Add some plants and some pretty lighting and we're in business!
• I headed up to the Outlet Mall (Monroe, OH) with the girls on Saturday. Spent about $100 on lots of fun things and had a great time in general!
• I should have mentioned it in the Nicole blog from last week but Nicole has lots of grandmothers and we normally refer to them by their last name- Grandma Hook (Jim's mom), Grandma Templin (my grandmother), etc. However, my mother, who she sees 1+/week is just "Grandma". As a result when Nicole needs clarification she refers to her as "Normal Grandma". This is especially funny when we have several Grandmas together (at the Graduation Party for example) and I tell her to say good-bye to Grandma. "Normal Grandma or Grandma Wolf?" she'll ask in front of both of them.