Christmas 2008

this was a good year for christmas. owen totally got the opeining presents thing. the funniest part was on christmas eve at my in-laws where he told us it was time for birthday cake after presents had been opened.

last night at dinner, owen ate just about everything i put on his plate, including the ham. granted, we had to use ketchup to get him to eat the ham, but it works and i'm not going to complain. i'd be stupid to do that!

i'll post pictures when i get my camera back. i left it at the in-laws' last night. someone had been up for too many hours and needed to get to bed. we tried a nap in grandma's room, but he ended up just stripping himself nekkid and running around the room. today we are having dinner with my dad and deanna (his lady friend).

owen loves all of his puzzles and books, his violin, and his train table that santa brought. santa brought me harry potter and the philosopher's stone - the british version of hp book 1! very cool!!!

Simon is Owen's friend from mom and baby group when they were infants. Delia is Simon's baby sister. She's 9 months old.

Snow (still)

i decided today, after spending the day playing in the snow, first with owen and then with our neighbors building a snowman, that this is wonderful weather. it is beautiful, peaceful, and reminds me of my childhood in denver. we were invited out to a friend's house this afternoon to play in the snow. owen went sledding for the first time and had his first snowball fight with his friend, simon. i'll put pictures and video (hopefully) in a new post once i'm done with this one. people were being really smart on the road, too. it took me 30 minutes to get there, and it usually takes 15 or 20 so that's not too bad. it took a little longer to get home, but the weather was getting bad again so the roads were sorta icky. not a problem. owen fell asleep about 2 miles from home, which meant that he only had a 5 minute nap. he's down now, trying to talk himself out of his room. fat chance! he's using every trick in the book. potty, water, milk, "my get out?"

i found myself really enjoying the snow tonight. i've been sitting on the couch in the living room, with only the christmas tree lights on, looking out the window at the snow falling. we're supposed to get 2-4 inches tonight. that's on top of the 6 or so we already have. i also put on muppets christmas carol tonight. i was talking with my godsister, suzanne on fb and she and i started quote in lines back and forth. we got even the obscure ones! if we were off, we were pretty close. it was sad, but funny all at the same time. d, her hubby, was wondering what she was laughing at. if jeff had been here, he would have wondered the same thing. i had an advantage as i was watching the movie as we were quoting.

i hope tree sales are going well, especially with the snow that's been coming down lately. i also wonder what time jeff will be getting home tonight. it's 8:00 now. i'm not really expecting him for at least another hour at the very least. with these roads, it could be longer. the one problem with living here is that we don't have the infrastructure to deal with snow when it happens. sand and deicing fluid, yes, but plows? i'm not really sure. i've actually only seen one in the last week.

the one thing i'm really worried about right now is that the snow on the power lines that run over my car doesn't snap the lines. that could be bad. unless my insurance pays for a new car, if that's what needs to happen. it's the only bad part about not having a garage.

snow pictures part II

He wasn't too sure about going off of the snow. Last year Owen stopped dead in his tracks before he got to snow. He refused to walk in it. Scroll down to see the difference a year makes.
Walking in the snow! I decided to get him out in the snow while it was still snowing last night. He did pretty well, don't you think?

Close-up!

Pictures

What a ham! He even counted to three before the picture to tell me that he was ready.

Cheese! As you can see, the tree goes floor to ceiling. Those are 9' ceilings!

Taken from the front porch.

The snow is piled half-way up the letters and numbers on my license plate

Oh the weather outside is frightful

and there's no delightful fire here. no fireplace for the fire... but the christmas tree is so delightful. it's snowing for the ?th time in the last week. it's been snowing for the past 4 hours or so. i'd guess that we have between 1 and 2 inches of new snow. they were predicting up to 8" tonight from this new storm. i'm just glad that this is winter break, less school that we'll have to make up at the end of the year. so far we're at 2 days to make up. i wonder how much more we'll have when it's all said and done.

i need to get pictures of owen in the snow and in front of the tree. i'll post them when i get them.

i got an hour of total freedom this morning. jeff took owen to the lot while i did some last -minute shopping for both of my boys at target, then i picked up owen at the lot and we went to eddie bauer where i spent the gift card i got from my mom and jim for my birthday. i bought a skirt, sweater, and turtleneck. i went over the amount by 14 cents. not bad. i was so excited to buy mediums and a size 10 on the skirt - and have nothing be too tight!!!!!

can't trust him...

...any farther than i can throw him.  yesterday was my birthday.  jeff has a tendency to pull things over on me on special occasions.  earlier this week he informed me that i would be getting my present from him at dinner.  he also said that we were going to have dinner and then either go to a movie or dancing at mccabe's.  well, there aren't any movies that look decent right now and we couldn't have gone dancing as late as we would have wanted with our sitter. when jeff got dressed to go out last night, it wasn't for dancing.  as we were driving, i started to get suspicious.  i knew that bill engvall was playing at the dome last night.  jeff put on one of bill engvall's cd's in the truck on our way to dinner.  also, there was no box that got brought into either the truck or  into the restaurant.  i was right!  the show was great.  turns out bill engvall's daughter is a senior at the same university i went to, here in town.  it's cool to have that local connection to him.  

as we were leaving the show, it was starting to snow.  there's only a dusting right now, but that's ok.  i'll take whatever snow i can get!  when you live here, that's what you gotta do.  

relief!

at least somewhat.  many things have either resolved totally or are close to resolution right now in terms of my stress level.  

1.  concerts at school are over, with one more at the local church next friday, but that will be fun!

2.  Lou update:  all brain function is normal.  He meets with the neurosurgeon tomorrow and barring anything different from the NS, all of his strokes have been caused by an irritation of his brain by some of the left-over blood that had leaked and caused his surgery on thanksgiving.  not all of the blood was drained, and what was left was expected to be absorbed by his body.  i guess it was basically making his brain itch (michele, you can correct this if it needs to be corrected.)  when i talked with my mother-in-law this evening after my concert, she sounded so relieved and relaxed.  

3. tree season is nearing an end, and we finally have our tree.  it needs to be decorated, but it's in the house.  this is a long month.  

4.  i found a sitter for saturday night so that jeff and i can go out just the two of us for my birthday.  i used to babysit this girl years ago.  now she's taking care of my child.  to every thing (turn, turn, turn) there is a season, huh?

one more full week of school before christmas break.  mom has chemo (#3 of 4) a week from today.  i'm so ready for break!

more stress

my father-in-law has had a very rough go of things these last two weeks.  last weekend he had surgery (on thanksgiving) for bleeding on the brain.  last night he was readmitted to the hospital after suffering a stroke.  luckily, my brother-in-law, aaron - a medic - saw the whole thing happen and got him to the hospital right away.  while at the hospital, he had a second stroke.  the first stroke was most likely a TIA (mini-stroke), and aaron is suspecting the second one was too, judging by what Papa was doing last night following both.  he's in the hospital being observed.  

jeff has been working 12 hour days at the tree lots with no break at all.  hopefully, he'll be able to take a good portion of today off.  he sounds like "an old woman lounge singer" right now (those are his words, not mine.  i'm guessing this is the last year for trees.  

four eyes...two of them pink

owen was exposed to pink eye at daycare yesterday. i woke up with it this a.m. when o got up from his nap just a few minutes ago, one of his eyes looked pink and had a little bit of goop in it. the good news is that we already have meds here and they're on board. between the two of us, we have one good left eye (me) and one good right eye (owen). what a pair!

YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!!

we're officially done with the pt. owen slept in underwear last night and stayed dry (and asleep) all night long. he also stayed dressed the way i put him down. i've basically decided that he doesn't like the feel of pull-ups any more, hence taking them off at night. now that he can stay dry all night, it's not an issue! i'm such a proud mama.

it's looking like o won't be going to school tomorrow. he's got a temp of 100+ i have a waiver day tomorrow and need to go to my morning session, but will likely take the afternoon off to stay home with owen. jeff will take him to the lot in the morning for a couple of hours.

going commando!

that's what owen did last night.  this in and of itself isn't new.  it's the exact reason we've been putting a duct tape belt on him every night.  last night, however, he woke up at 4:30 and started fussing.  when i finally heard, "mama!" i got up, figuring that he had taken off his pull-up and wet the bed (i hadn't put the tape on last night.)  i was only half right in my assumption.  not only was the bed dry, but he was too, and the pull-up was on the floor.  we quickly went to the potty and climbed into bed.  we're testing with underwear tonight to see if we can make this work again.  i'm seriously thinking that we are totally done with potty training!  and it's only taken us  11 months!  lol  he went through a 3 hour nap yesterday (sunday) in his underwear, too.  no problems!  way to go, mr. o!