Birthdays

Both of my little boys birthdays occur in January so combined with the previous couple of month’s holiday’s and the following month that has both Andy and my birthday, it makes for a very busy time of year for us. Call me a bad mother if you want to, but at this stage in my kid’s lives I find it a little absurd to throw big birthday parties when all they really want is a couple of presents and a little cake and ice cream. So although I do not go all out, nor can I afford to, I do throw them an intimate little party that includes me, my husband, and both of my children and, depending on the availability, some extended family.

This year was just a tad different in that it was the first year that Jack seemed to be fully aware that it was his birthday and all that comes with it. Unfortunately, this year also happened to be the year that Daddy does not live with us all the time and that Mommy’s work schedule interfered with celebrating on the actual day of his birth. I work two days of double shifts in order to be able to spend the maximum amount of time with my children. The days that I work they stay at their Grandparents house and when I am done I will either go pick them up or they will drop them off.  This schedule seems to work the best compared to working five days a week and having my in-laws have to watch them for those five days rather then just two and a half. Plus, I get uninterrupted maximum time with my babies.

So with all of this set in motion, it made perfect sense according to Murphy’s Law that I would end up working doubles on both days that my children's birthday’s occurred on. I fully intended to celebrate the very next day with neither of them the wiser, but there happened to be a couple of glitches in my plan. The first was that Jack’s pre-school is aware of his birthday and made it his special day at school. The second was that, in Alex’s case, his Daddy did happen to be here and had to celebrate it while I was at work because he was leaving the next day to go back to San Diego.

It did not bother Alex so much that I wasn’t there to celebrate, but my mother in law warned me that Jack was feeling a little sad that neither of his parents were there to celebrate and had even asked “Didn’t Alex even get me anything?” It practically broke my heart. His grandma did what she could to make him feel better, but I know there is nothing worse than feeling like the people you most care about and care most about you forget the day you were born.

Lucky for me, my children are still resilient enough to let it roll of their backs and forgive me, though I’m sure as they get older it will become harder to forget, so I am definitely going to try harder to make them feel special.

In the meantime, I did get them gifts and and cake and ice-cream and we did celebrate with our own little party.

Instead of getting a large sheet cake, which we never would have been able to finish, I got a small German chocolate cake that went over really well and we were able to finish it off in about a week.

 

Alex helped Jack blow out the candles at Jack’s request.

 

Jack got a toy from Star Wars that he was completely thrilled about and forgotten about nearly a whole week later!

   

He also got another little Star Wars toy that we gave to Alex because anyone with two kids this close in age and as young as they are knows that you cannot give a toy to only one child without the other child having a complete and total melt down.

They both ended up having tons of fun for the evening and we had a movie night that ended up as a slumber party in Mommy’s room, which happens to be Jack’s all time favorite thing to do right now.

 

When all was said and done, Jack told me it was his best birthday ever, which, even though he has only five to choose from and four of those he may not even recall, still made me feel so much better.

Alex’s birthday was a little less harsh to deal with as he is not as aware of me missing out as Jack was, plus, his Daddy and Grandma Ann were there to help celebrate with him.

He got a truck from his Grandma and a Buzz Lightyear plush doll with a blanket from his Aunt Meg, and a very large and noisy garbage truck from his parents. In our defense, he was the one who picked it out at the toy store.

In keeping with the tradition that both children receive a gift, both Jack and Alex also got a ZhuZhu pet, which is a small interactive rodent that they seem to really be fond of and is actually kind of cute. I think it may be a hamster or gerbil. Andy picked them out so I am not completely sure what all they do, but the kids seem to like them.

Next year will be different. Andy should be moved here by that time. My schedule should not interfere as much and if it does I will have more flexibility to change it around with Andy here. We may even start planning a birthday party once Jack gets into kindergarten and starts making friends. We may have to see how that works out, but it looks like that is the direction we are heading.

Until that time comes, Happy Birthday to my two precious little angels. Mommy and Daddy love you.

Jack’s play date

Okay, so I know this may seem strange to other people, but Jack nor Alex, have ever really had a play date. Sure they have gone over to my friend Josie’s house and played with their kids, but we consider them to be more like family then friends. There was also once in San Diego when one of my work friends came over with her son, but again it was not something I would truly call a play date.

Now that we have moved to Wisconsin, purchased a home and Jack is going to pre-school it was inevitable that this subject would come up. Jack has become really good friends with a little boy named Colton at his school and is forever talking about him and sometimes I even believe that Colton is the reason Jack does not mind going to school in the first place. So Colton’s mom asked me one day while we were there to pick up the kids if it would be okay for Jack to go to her house for a play date as Colton had been begging for a long time for it to happen. I didn’t see any harm in it as I have gotten to know Colton’s mom pretty well (although not well enough to remember that her name was Kim until I confirmed it with my Mother-in-law later).

So it was decided that Kim would come by and pick Jack up and he would play at their house for around 5 hours. That seemed like an incredibly long time for two little boys to play together, but it has been awhile since I was that age so what do I know. All went well with the exception of Alex crying his eyes out for the entire time because he felt left out, and Jack was returned to me safe and sound.

I am not up on the etiquette of play dates so I just assumed that at some point I would return the favor and that happened last week. I definitely did not know what I was in for. Colton’s parents dropped him off at our house and fun immediately ensued. They were very good at playing together… for the first two hours. It only went downhill from there as all three children became very tired very quickly as none of them seemed to want to take a nap at all. There were bouts of cheerfulness and fun, but there was also a definite increase in screaming, yelling, crying, and whining; however, if you asked any of the children if they wanted the other to go home then the answer was an adamant NO!

The house ended up in ruins and when the parents finally cam to pick Colton up, it seemed like way past time.

So things I have learned from Jack’s play date:

1. Five hours is too long to have anybody’s child over at your house if said child is under the age of 13. The age is a guess, but they seem to be more self reliant at about that time.

2. Etiquette-schmettiquette. I gave them one child which equaled two in their house. I got one child which equaled three in my house. They had two parents and two children, I had three children and one parent. The numbers don’t add up to be fair.

3. Children will not keep themselves occupied and will continually interrupt with the smallest of problems.

4. No matter what the pre-school teacher says, they do not know how to share.

5. It doesn’t matter how good of friends they are, at the end of five hours they will not like each other until the other child is walking out the door in which case they will need just five more minutes to play.

6. Five hours is just too long to have anybody’s child over at your house. I know I said this before, but it bears repeating.

7. Your house will be a complete mess, someone will get hurt, someone will be left out if there are an odd amount of children, and no one will like what you make for lunch even if they liked it last week.

8. Winter is not the time for play dates as you cannot guarantee  that they will be able to go outside, which means all yelling and screaming and peals of laugher will take  place within ear shattering shot.

So even though it was fun for Jack and Alex to have their little friend over, it was not fun for me. It would have been better in the springtime when they could go outside and run around instead of being cooped up in the house all day long.

I think that if I do try this again it will have to wait until I have backup and possibly until it gets nicer outside.

 

 

Done with school… so now what?

As of the 17th of January I am completely finished with school and can now say I have an Associates Degree in Accounting. It took approximately two years of nonstop classes and most of my sanity and patience to  get it all done. I had originally intended to use this degree in the hopes of being able to obtain a new job in  a new city as we had been planning on moving from San Diego for awhile and I had no way of knowing whether or not it would be with or without Southwest Airlines, which is where I currently work. So I decided tog et my degree and hope for the best.

Of course about half way through, Southwest announced the opening of Milwaukee and I no longer needed the degree, but was so far through it I didn’t want to give up. So now I am finished, which feels amazing because I have way more time to spend on other things I care more about, like my children and husband.

Now what? Well, I see it as my backup plan in case (knock on wood) something ever happens to my wonderful job at Southwest. I also see where it can help me advance with my current job. Someday there may come a time when I will be happy to give up my face to face time with my passengers and be content to sit behind a desk from 9 to 5 and type away on a computer doing payroll and balancing reports, so when that time comes then I will be fully prepared.

Until then I will continue to spend all my free time with my children and catch up on my scrapbooking and card making, both of which have suffered severely the last two years.

So, although I am thankful for the fact that I can now say I have a college degree, being done only means that I have my time back and a huge student loan to pay off.

The Search is Over

Okay, so I know this probably isn’t the most interesting news for many of you out there, but I am just too darn excited that we got as lucky as we did. For the past two years I have tasked my husband in finding me a nice usable old fashioned wood card catalog so that i can have it for my scrapbooking. Well, my friends, that time has finally arrived!

Shortly before Andy was to make a four day trip to come for a visit here in Wisconsin, he happened to look online at Craiglist in Chicago and found and add for a card catalog that stated it was in nearly perfect condition. There were no pictures posted, but he immediately called me and had me check it out.

The lady we bought it from was very nice right from the start and sent me pictures of it right away. The pictures were great and we agreed to meet halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee to make the transaction. When we finally got it home and cleaned up it was even better then we hoped it to be.

It was just beautiful. I’m not quite sure what kind of wood it is made out of, but it is solid wood and no laminate like I remember in the library of my childhood. There are some minor scratches on it in a few places, but the majority of wear seems to be on the front legs near the bottom, probably from vacuums and feet kicking it. There is a little metal plate on the top middle that says Remington Rand Library Bureau Div., but aside from a little research online that shows it might be made between 1927 and 1976, there is no date that I can find so I do not know how old it actually is.

I really could not have asked for a better piece of furniture or better job of hunting down exactly what I was looking for by my wonderful husband. If anybody knows any of the history surrounding an item like this please feel free to post a remark as I would love to know anything about it.

Winter Wonderland and all that good stuff!

The best part about the snow has got to be the amount of fun that can be had from sledding. I am not much of an outdoors type person, and even less so in the winter time, but this is just too much fun to skip. This was the first year that Alex got to go sledding and only the second time that Jack has been able to go and we had a blast!

Mark, Andy, Jack, Alex and I headed out to Calhoun Hill which is built specifically for sledding and has two massive hills that make for some fast and ridiculously good fun. Jack went down with his Uncle Mark first just to get the hang of it, but from that point on he was on his own by sheer force of his own will. He did so good and had so much fun he hardly wanted to leave. He even trudged up the hill after every slide down carrying his own tube.

Andy took Alex with him on his first sled ride and, only because I was nervous to let him go by himself, Alex went with someone down the hill all but twice. The first time he went by himself it was from halfway up the hill and his Uncle Mark, who has better aim then me, let him go where I was at the bottom to catch him. The second time I was the one who let him go from halfway up the hill and because of my poor aim he hit a jump and bounced right off his snow tube and bit his lip.

Poor thing, I was sure he would want to sit out the rest of the time in the van where it was warm and safe. When I asked him if he wanted to go to the van he looked at me with tears in his eyes and blood on his lip and said “Again!”

Needless to say, he went down with someone each time after that.

Jack all by himself.

Alex and his Daddy.

Probably the most fun was when we all got onto our snow tubes and formed a chain and went down the hill all together. For those who have ever done this, it is a fairly terrifying and completely fun thing to do. I was lucky enough to be able to hold onto my camera while we were going down the hill and captured the speed and craziness and a little of my fright in the 14 seconds it took us to get from the top to the bottom.

Please forgive the tiny screams as I was a tad bit frightened for my life and had Alex on my lap as well as holding the camera and the other snow tubes. FUN!!

Dreaming of a white Christmas

We have been extremely blessed this year and even more so that we got to spend our first Christmas in our new home in Wisconsin. I have to admit that I was dreading the winter time here and all the snow and hard work that it would bring with it. I was scared to drive on the wintery roads and nervous that I would have to shovel my own driveway. I was positive that there would be a huge winter storm when my husband was away and I would be responsible for everything that involves… and I was right.

We had our first snow fall of the winter right after we moved into our house and after my husband had gone back to San Diego. It dropped ten inches of snow on the ground and since I had to work that day I wasn’t able to deal with it until I got home which, by that time, meant that the snow plows had already come through and made it impossible for me to pull into my own driveway.

So I parked on the side of the road and climbed through the thick pile of heavy snow piled in my driveway and found an old shovel the previous owners had left behind. It took me three back breaking hours to get my driveway clear and several angry outbursts as I cursed the snow and the cold and the people who drove by and watched me suffer. I realize that snow is nothing new in Wisconsin, but I was angry at everything and hurting from shoveling what felt like three thousand pounds of heavy wet snow.

As soon as I was done I called my husband and told him to get online an order me a snow blower because that was the first and last time I would be going through that type of pain. One snow blower later and I say let it snow, let it snow.

SO with all my nervousness behind me (turns out Wisconsin is incredibly good at keeping the roads clear, which was my number one fear) I could focus on Christmas and getting the house into that special mood that comes along with it. I hadn’t even unpacked all the boxes in the house before i had all my Christmas decorations up, including my village.

The picture window on the side of the living room made the perfect  place for the Christmas tree. This was the first year since Andy and I have been married that we were unable to use the angel topper that we normally do because the Christmas tree and the angel together are too tall for the ceilings. Andy did find a beautiful star that fit just beautifully though and it completed the picture.

We had Christmas at Andy’s parent’s house on Christmas Eve with his parents and his brother Mark and then joined them on Christmas Day for dinner along with Meg (Andy’s sister) and her boyfriend Steve and Dave (nephew) and his fiancé Lindsey.

 

Andy and I never really surprise each other for Christmas as we both tell each other what we want most of the time, so we make it all about the kids, besides what more could I ask for then a house? This year Santa was especially good to the kids and gave them all kinds of toys. Jack got an interactive tyrannosaurus rex, Devastator from Transformers, Rocky the Robot truck, and various other smaller gifts. Alex did just as well with a Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, Chuck the Talking Truck, a pack of Hot Wheels cars, and other miscellaneous toys. They also got a giant interactive Triceratops that they affectionately named Tank.

I did manage to pull one over and actually surprise Andy by getting him a framed Frank Lloyd Wright wall art piece that matched one I had gotten him last year for his birthday.

The one on the right was the one I had gotten him previously and the one on the left was the new one. I found it pretty funny when the night before he opened up a gift from his mom and she had gotten him some pretty stone coasters that were also Frank Lloyd Wright and as I found out later had been ordered from the same website.

Christmas was good to us this year and it was white and very nice. Next year I hope to have some of my side of the family in for a visit, but time will tell. It is more than I can ask for to have even some family this close to us.

Our House is a very, very, very fine house…

So it has been forever, or at least it seems like forever, since I have been able to post anything on my blog of late. My last update, I believe, had moved us to Milwaukee, the kids and I at least, and Andy on occasion.

My job is going well. I like the majority of the people I work with and love the people here in Wisconsin. It really is true that people in the Midwest are nice.

Probably the biggest news is that we were finally able to purchase a house of our very own. I had been searching the internet for homes since we heard that Milwaukee was an option for us and had thought I found the home I wanted, but it turned out to be in closing for some other person. As these things usually go, better things were waiting for us. After I secured a real estate agent, a fantastic one at that, who was very patient and truly focused on what I really wanted, we continued the search for houses outside the internet into the real world.

This probably sounds like a lie, but we viewed a total of three houses before we had found the perfect home for us. My agent said he has never found a house that quickly before. I credit myself and my husband for knowing exactly what we wanted and not willing to compromise… and luck.

It was perfect for us. A one story all brick Ranch with tons of mature trees in both the front and back yard. It has a two car garage and plenty of parking. The windows have all been replaced with dual pane insulated windows and the kitchen had recently been remodeled as well so we have tons of storage. There are tons of huge closets throughout the house and the basement has been finished giving us two additional rooms for guests as well as another kitchen downstairs and a full bathroom.

What sold us completely on the house was the giant back yard. We have a total of .80 acres and, just like I wanted, the majority of that is in the back so there is plenty of room for the kids to play.

We placed a bid on the house and were a little worried because we knew another bid had already been placed. When it came right down to it, the seller’s chose our bid, even though it was no different than the other bid (we found out later) because of the personal letter we had written to them telling them why their house would be perfect for family and thanking them for the opportunity.

Things were pushed through pretty quickly with only one major snafu that was corrected the day before we closed. From the time we saw the house and placed our bid to the time we closed was only a little over a month. It was a very emotional day for me when we closed, but I didn’t realize it until the entire seller’s family greeted us after we signed the papers to congratulate us on our purchase. My eyes only watered, but the lump in my throat made it difficult to speak.

Two whole storage units and a sore muscles later, we had moved all of our things into the house over the course of a month. It took this long because Andy was not able to be here for the majority of the time and we had to do what we could when we could.

We did a little painting and rewired some outlets, changed a few lights and took down a wall, but the majority of the house is exactly as it was. More will change I am sure when the months get warmer and it becomes easier to move around outside, but as for right now it is home and feels good.