Mommathon

We're not going to be build the house we originally wanted to build in the subdivision we were going to build in. We went to go check out our lot yesterday and there was a big pit that had been dug across the street from our house that did not look like they were digging a basement. When I asked in the sales office about it they said it was going to be a construction waste pit that will also collect rain runoff and it will be that way for atleast the next few years. Ummm.....what???? I have two small boys who like to explore and what better thing to explore than a pit of trash that is right across the street from your house. We were (remarkably) able to get all of our money back since they hadn't really done anything yet. So...now we are building a house a little northeast of the original subdivision in a different subdivision. That's okay, it will be more liveable...the kids' rooms will be bigger, it has a hearth room, it has a living room, there's a community clubhouse and on and on. :)

Liam has such a tender soul. We went to see Charlotte's Web today and Liam was SOBBING at the end and he wasn't crying because Charlotte died. He was crying because Charlotte didn't get to go back to the farm with her friends because she was going to die. We had to sit in the theater for a while after the movie, he cried all the way home, he laid down on the couch and cried for a little while, too. Then, this is the real heartbreaker, he found his plastic Charlotte that he got in his kid's meal from Wendy's and carried it around with him and then later took it to bed with him. Is your heart not breaking?!

We spent Christmas evening with Grandma and Grandad. We had a yummy dinner with scrumptious pie for dessert.



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We had a scrumptious brunch which included quiche, bacon, coffee, juice, cinnamon rolls, Povatica (sp?) bread and some wonderful apple-stuffed bread from Panera. What made it extra special is Sean's sister and her kids, who used to live down the street from us but now live in North Carolina, were in for the holidays.

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Sean trying to figure out how to put Colm's workbench together.

Finally...Christmas pics. We had a Rescue Heroes/Dora/Diego Christmas this year.

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Yes!

Is there anything left?

Now that we have ripped open all of the packages, we can finally play.

This is a cute story with a good rhyme, but sometimes the illustrations are the star of a book and this is one of them. The illustrations are great and the looks on the animals' faces as they are trying to push Santa out of the chimney are hilarious! The combo of the story and the illustrations are going to make you want to read this story again and again. Ages 3-6.

This is a spin on the Goldilocks version, but with no Goldilocks. The bears make some gingerbread cookies, but they are too hot, so they go for a walk on Christmas Eve while they wait for the cookies to cool off. Someone comes to their house, however, while they are out and eats their gingerbread. There are clues while they are on their walk that Santa is in the neighborhood as well as clues left around the house that point to Santa being the one who ate the cookies. This is a cute story that is also a good book to work with kids on making predicitons. I got this one at the library. Ages 2-5.

Kids love it when you change the words to songs and that is what this book is all about. Songs such as "Our Friendly Mailman" set to the tune of "Frosty the Snowman", "Toy Catalogs" set to the tune of "O Tannenbaum" and "Something in My Brother's Underpants" set to the tune of "Winter Wonderland". Liam thought most of the songs were hilarious. Two thumbs up! I got this one at the library. Ages 3-8.

What to do, what to do...I have a friend whose oldest son is the same age as Liam and they have been "friends" since they were born. We have had playdates fairly consistently for the past almost five years. The problem lately has been that they have opposite schedules...Liam has preschool in the morning and the other kiddo has preschool in the afternoon, so they haven't seen each other in a while and they are getting to the age now where they have their own thoughts, ideas and interests and they want friends who have the same interests they do. In the middle of their playdate today Liam said, "This is the worst playdate ever!" Okay, maybe we need to work on our manners, but honesty is the best policy, right? We had a talk after the playdate today about how you might not like to play with everyone, but it is still important to be nice to everyone. He's growing up...

Liam has been playing with his Nativity set during naptime and I noticed that Mary and the angel were kind of off to one side with Baby Jesus. I asked him why they were over there and he said that Mary and the angel had to talk before Mary could decide when everyone else could come and see the baby. I guess Mary's a little possesive.

It took me to almost the end of the book to figure out why the author gave the book this title, but I think it is pretty fitting. This was a good book. It was not a page turner that you can't put down and you must keep reading it to find out what happens in the end kind of book. It was just a good story about a young woman living in Manitoba and learning what it means to be a mother, a daughter and a friend.

Chloe came over and made cookies with Liam today. Liam has been looking forward to doing this for quite some time, so he was very excited. It was a sticky mess...they kept spilling sprinkles everywhere and licking icing off of everything, Chloe had icing in her hair, Liam had icing all over his shirt...but they had a good time.

Look at how much he is concentrating.


I made one of these, can you guess which one?

I usually only write about books that I am reading for myself, but decided to add to the list of books I review. I thought I would add children's books that I think are quality books. I may review them because they have a great theme, they use rhyme and repetition, or what have you. I will try to chose books that are new as well as oldies, but goodies. I figured I would make myself useful since I am getting an entire degree dedicated to teaching children how to read and since I don't have any students I thought I would share my thoughts concerning children's literature with you. So, my first book is Are You Grumpy, Santa? This is a great book not only because it is cute and is a twist on the normal Santa delivering presents story, but it also uses rhyme which is important in teaching children how language works. When children start to understand rhyme, they can be read a story like this that uses rhyme and based on what they know about rhyming words put together with what they know about the plot of the story, they can start to fill in the blanks of the story if the reader stops and allows the child to finish the rhyming phrase. I found this book at Barnes and Noble. Ages 3-7

...it just looks that way. This is what our basement looks like right now. Notice that the shelves (which are meant for storing the toys) are almost completely bare. How am I ever going to be able to keep this house clean enough to sell it?

Liam has been busy cutting pictures from magazines so that he can use them as visual aides when writing his letter to Santa. He said he wanted to make sure that Santa knew what the toys looked like. He was also sure to include the descriptions of the toys so that Santa would know what else came with the toy. Someone is going to be very disappointed on Christmas morning. Hopefully he will forget about some of the things he cut out and perhaps he will get some of them for his birthday which is what Santa had to do last year because Liam sent his letter too late.

These are the pictures he has cut out. He has started glueing them to paper. He has quite a little operation going here.

Last night in the car we were listening to a beautiful rendition of O, Holy Night when Liam said, "Mom, doesn't this song make you want to just sway your head from side to side?" So, we were driving around listening to Christmas music swaying our heads from side to side and probably getting a few stares from other drivers. Oh well, I guess they just aren't in the groove of the holiday season yet.

This is the diary of a girl who grew up in the 70's. The diary is from when she is 13 until she is 18. It is easy to relate to the angst she goes through while dealing with her family, friends, boys, and her faith. I think it reflects the troubles, worries, ups and downs, joys and sorrows that every teenage girl experiences.

I finished another class tonight! Yippee! I have two more semesters (this spring and summer) to go and then I will be done! The last two are going to be the most time consuming, too, since I have to do three case studies, two of which are VERY in depth and I also have to take a comprehensive test in there somewhere to prove that I actually learned something, oh, and then we are going to be moving in the middle of all of that. Sounds like fun, huh? I am sure I will look back at all of it in September and smile.

Liam HAD to decorate the tree today. So we dragged it out of the basement and let the festivities begin. Liam did most of the decorating and Sean put the star on top. Colm wasn't interested in decorating, so he played us a tune on his whistle-instrument thing.





You have absolutely no idea what I went through to get this picture. I tried to take a pic of the boys together, but it was clear that that was not going to happen...so I did them separately. Colm was doing everything but sitting up nicely and smiling for several pictures (God bless digital cameras!) The promise of an M&M got him to sit like this...finally!

Today was our church's Christmas Family Festival. First, we went and talked to Santa. Liam had a list for him which included two walking hands (it's a Halloween toy he saw in a catalog) and a truck. Colm was not happy about sitting with Santa, so we made it a family portrait instead of just the boys.

Then we had a yummy pancake breakfast provided by the K of C.

Then the boys made some crafts, like a sticker nativity scene, a Christmas button and a Christmas lace-up project. We also colored some Christmas coloring sheets.

They also had a cookie walk (both the boys won some cookies) and we decorated birthday cupcakes for Jesus' birthday.


A good time was had by all!

We finally went outside and played in the white stuff this afternoon after naps. The boys wanted to play in it this morning, but it was only 19 degrees outside, after naps it was 32 degrees so I figured we had better seize the moment. It was still cold though and it took us longer to get ready to go outside than we actually spent outside.

Sean has taught Liam how to play checkers and Liam loves it!

The box started its life as a box that had Discovery Toys in it. It then took on numerous other lives...

The box as an airplane...notice the propeller

The box as Santa's sleigh...with lots of toys in it

The box as a hang glider

This book was okay. It wasn't a page turner, but it was good enough that I wanted to finish it. The story was about a woman whose parents are divorced and how she comes to terms with their divorce and second marriages through her writing. She also ends up realizing that she is older, more mature and "not a kid anymore" when someone (I won't tell you who in case you read the book) ends up living with her (possibly) in the end.

I got brave today and decided to make homemade pretzels with the boys. They love the big, soft cinnamon-sugar pretzels they have at Sam's, so we decided to make our own and they turned out YUMMERS!

Mixing

Kneading

Rolling

Eating

The finished product

1) Go to Wikipedia

2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year.

3) List three events that happened on your birthday

4) List two important birthdays and one death

5) One holiday or observance (if any)


Here is my info:
3 Events:

1)1864- President Abraham Lincoln establishes the Secret Service to combat counterfeiting

2)1946- The bikini was introduced

3)1989-Seinfeld is aired for the first time


2 Important Birthdays
1) 1675 - Mary Walcott, American accuser at the Salem witch trials
2) 1996 Dolly the Sheep

1 Death:
1) 2002 Ted Williams, baseball player

1 Holiday or Observance: Independence Day in Venezuela

We started out the day at Maria's house where she always sets a beautiful table.

We didn't get to eat there though, we just hung out and socialized and the boys played.

We then went home so the boys could get a nap and then went to my mom and Jim's house. There we had turkey, stuffing, green beans, pumpkin pie, apple pie, apple salad, quiche and sweet potatoes.

After dinner the boys put puzzles together and roughhoused with Grandad.

Liam spent part of his afternoon reading to Butch. He read The Hat by Jan Brett, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat and To Market To Market, among others. The cat tolerated it.

Liam's school had their Thanksgiving lunch today and we got to sit with Chloe and her mom and brother. I am so glad that Liam and Chloe are such good friends since they are classmates and neighbors. (I think Colm has a little crush on Chloe as well.) :) We were also lucky that Nanny was able to eat with us, too. Liam's class made some very creative placemats for our dinner that had fall leaves on them and on each leaf was something they were thankful for. Liam was thankful for: Uncle Patrick and Aunt Kate, Claire, Erin, Mommy, Daddy, Colm, Nanny, when I take him to the park, stuffed animals and daddy's piggyback rides.

Every morning Colm has a waffle with honey or syrup and butter. The problem is that he wants to be able to visibly see that there is butter on every bite of his waffle, but the butter keeps melting. So I have to put butter on this waffle and then about two minutes later I have to reapply the butter on each individual bite. (He will let you know if you missed a spot.) Needless to say, we are running out of butter and quick!

I am not ready to let Liam start seeing PG movies quite yet, especially when I don't know why they are PG. He has seen one PG movie(Madagascar), but Happy Feet came out this week and he wants to see it. Well, I don't have time to go see it first and then decide if I think he should see it, but if you go to http://www.kids-in-mind.com/ they pick apart movies and tell you things that are in the movie that you would want to know about as a parent. A great timesaver!

I have strep-again! How is that possible!?! Sean says I am the only person he knows who can give themselves strep. I went to the doctor on Friday to get another strep test because my throat was hurting. The test came back negative which really made me mad because that means they aren't going to give me any meds. So, I took quite a few Tylenol this weekend for the pain and by today I was feeling pretty good. My throat hurts a little, but not too much. Then after dinner tonight I get a call from the dr's office saying they cultured my strep test and I DO have strep! I knew it! So now I have to go to the pharmacy tomorrow to pick up the meds that I really needed three days ago.

Too funny...we were running errands yesterday when we saw an old, broken down, woodpaneled, rusty, olive green station wagon next to us and Liam (with all the enthusiam of a four-year old who is seeing something exciting) says, "Mom! Look! It's a limosine!" I hate to laugh at my children...but I had to laugh. THAT was definintely NOT a limosine.

We were at our church's holiday bazaar today when a lady asked Liam if he was getting ready for Santa. His reply? "No, I am getting ready for Thanksgiving." I could not have been prouder. It absolutely drives me batty when people decorate for Christmas before they've even eaten their Thanksgiving turkey. I guess Liam feels the same way. :)

Colm using his favorite...markers.


Liam was inspired to draw this airplane while we were watching a video of my father-in-law flying in a cool airplane. Liam did a whole series of airplanes in a variety of colors. This one was my favorite.

This is SUCH a good book, not a happy book, but definitely good! I love the cover on this one, too. It is so perfect! Anyways, the book is about a man, Jonah, and his search for his half-brother and how he hopes that finding his half-brother will help him find himself.

My hubby and I went out on a date tonight. We went out to a movie-together. Honestly, I can't tell you the last time we went to see a movie together. I think it may have been when I was pregnant with Liam...that would be about five years ago. Anyways, we went to see Stanger than Fiction. What a good movie! Highly recommend it.

Happy birthday to my hubby...who knows more about computers and programming and such than I ever hope or care to know, who works his tail off to provide for our family, who loves his family probably more than we know, who trains and runs more than I ever will (or ever want to), who loves to read and watch anything science fiction and who would love to get me to read one of those books...not gonna happen sweety! Love you and happy birthday!

Against my better judgement, we went to Chuck E. Cheese today. I think Colm ate about 5 bites of pizza and Liam ate zero bites of pizza. I did manage to get him to eat a few grapes though. The kids did have fun though and I am glad it wasn't too crowded. I had a hard time keeping an eye on Liam and Colm since they wanted to go in different directions and they both needed my help on certain rides/games at various times and sometimes at the same time..sorry, guys, there is only one of me. Liam wanted to ride all the rides. It was so funny, at one point he was riding a helicopter and it started to go up (and I will say in Liam's defense that it did go up pretty high, higher than I expected) and he kind of freaked out a little bit. Upon seeing Liam freaking out, Colm absolutely had to ride it that very second...two kids who are very different. Anyways, it was time to go and we didn't have enough tickets to buy anything. Now that Liam understands the whole turning in the tickets for goods thing, I am sure the next time we go we will spend our entire trip trying to collect as many tickets as possible. Then we went home and had lunch, again, since they didn't really eat anything at Chuck E. Cheese.

I was outside playing with the boys today when my neighbor, who is pregnant, went rollerblading past us. Doesn't that seem a little odd to you? Should you really be rollerblading when you are pregnant? This is the same woman who was still running when she was seven months pregnant with her first child. Let's face it, the woman likes to exercise.

Check out this cool kid site to make your own snowflakes. Hint: You might want to try it first before doing it with your kiddo. It's a little tricky at first, but the results are fun!

http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

It has been forever since we have had someone over to play, so my kids were very excited when Chloe and Clayton came over for a little while today while their mom was at the dentist.
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We played with Play-Doh for a while.


Then we had a dance party.


Then we had a jam session on the piano. Yes, all four of them are playing at once.

Colm has been doing the funniest thing lately. If he hears you cough, sneeze, clear your throat, snort, sniffle or make any other noise that he deems "blessworthy" he will say, "Bless you". The funniest thing is he seems to have bionic ears. No matter where you are compared to where he is, he will whisper or yell (whichever one is appropriate) "Bless you." You may think he is sleeping peacefully in his bed, but if he hears you make any of the aforementioned sounds, he will bless you from his room...and you better acknowledge him, especially is he is far away. He will keep saying bless you until his good manners have been ackowledged. It is starting to bother Liam, however. Liam informed me today that Colm needs a lesson on when he should say bless you. (Liam had been getting blessed a lot lately since he has the sniffles and he is really started to get annoyed because he isn't sneezing, only sniffling.)

Why? Because cookie season has officially begun. I am sure the little girl who came to my door today thought I was a little weird I was so excited to see her. I restrained myself and only ordered two boxes-one box of Lemonade cookies, they are new this year and then a box of Thanks-a-Lot cookies, they are shortbread cookies with chocolate. Yum!

Sit down. I am going to vent. This is what Colm has had to eat in the past 24 hours...

Dinner last night-We went to Chik-fil-a and all he ate was french fries.

Breakfast-Yogurt and some juice

Lunch-We went to On the Border and he ate french fries and some chips and salsa.

Dinner-I warmed up the leftovers from lunch and still all he ate was french fries. He also had a HUGE cookie that they give you for free at the grocery store about 30 minutes before dinner that I DID NOT give to him.

That's it! I have had it!!! We try to make sure our kids have the best of everything and yet they are eating CRAP! Why did I breastfeed? Why did we buy jars and jars of organic baby food and then turn around and let them eat garbage? They only eat what we give them and I am tired of it. We are going to have a serious diet makeover for the littlest members of our household and I mean soon!!! I am not going to expect them to eat sprouts every night, but there are not going to be any trips to McDonald's anytime soon and there will definitely not be any french fries anytime in the near future.

I don't mind giving my kids treats...as a matter of fact, I love giving them treats, but treats aren't treats when they eat them all the time. I love that we can go downstairs after Mass and have donuts and socialize; I think that's great. I just don't like feeding them junk like that all the time.

We did an experiment when I was in 5th grade. We had two rats. One we fed fruits and veggies, the other we fed donuts. The donut rat almost died until we started giving him the fruits and veggies again. I know what kind of rat I want my kids to be. :)

I knew it the moment I woke up this morning. I couldn't and still can't swallow without cringing. I am hungry because I can't eat anything of substance...I am eating all of Liam's string cheese. I went to the dr. so now I have some meds so I will be back at the dinner table in no time flat.

Don't judge a book by its cover...or maybe you should. I love the title of this book and the photograph on the cover is perfect. This book is about three women and how their lives overlap. Rachel is a professor of poetry whose mother is very ill. Ella is one of her students who also happens to work at a women's clinic and Georgia is a teenage girl who frequents the women's clinic. This isn't one of my favorite books, but I did enjoy most of the storyline. Also, it is not a happy book, but unfortunately mirrors the lives that a lot of women are leading.

Colm loves going to art class. I originally signed him up because he wants to paint at home all the time. I don't mind letting him paint, but he just won't stop. So I figured at least with this there is a starting point and an ending point to the class and he will have to stop painting because everyone is leaving. This is a great class. It's not just painting, either. Every week there is a theme that all of their activities are centered around. They also play with play-doh, build with huge foam blocks, use stamps, play dress-up, read books, sing songs...it's great. He also has a great teacher.
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