Moving week

Nana is still hanging around our house, cooking us dinner, packing up boxes, and has even gone to the new place to do some cleaning and replacing of the contact paper in the bathroom!  Can you believe it?  We really put her to work!  She is leaving on Thursday and we are going to be SOOO sad when she goes.  She saves Todd and I at least 30 minutes to an hour in the evenings by cooking dinner and cleaning up afterwards.  Meanwhile, Todd and I get the kids ready for bed.  Last night, we had them down and asleep by 7:30!  We were patting ourselves on the back... until I realized that we probably owed that to my mom!

Boxes are still being packed and we had an insanely busy weekend.  Todd bought us a washer and dryer off of craigslist from a poor guy who lost his house.  Todd didn't know this when he offered him less than the asking price of the washer and dryer, but felt really bad, especially when he said, "I think I'll miss the washer and dryer more than anything."  It was so sad, because he had two kids living in the house!  When Todd got there, the guy was still using the dryer (hey, at least we know it works!).  If we didn't buy it, someone else would have.  I just felt so bad for the guy. 

Meanwhile, I was spending money at IKEA.  I bought a LOT of new curtains, a lamp and a rug for Grant's room, a large rug (5 x 8 for only $40!) for the playroom, and a chalkboard/dry erase easel for the playroom.  I spent two hours there and really could have spent all day.  And all of my money!

Sorry I haven't posted any pictures.  We haven't taken very many since we've been so busy trying to pack up.  I'm a crazy fast typer so blogging doesn't take much time, but taking the pictures, getting the pictures off the camera, editing the pictures, and uploading them does take a lot of time!  PLUS... our computer is in our room, which is where Grant sleeps.  He's been going to bed in the 7 pm hour lately, which means we can't really go in there and make a lot of noise.  In the new house, our computer will be in the living room and Grant will be in his OWN room. 

Grant is getting so big and is doing some sort of noise that might be a laugh... I dunno.  He is SO smiley and cute, I can hardly stand it.  He likes to grab at things now (knowingly or not) and can really move all around when he's kicking his legs.  We're working on rolling over, but I think he'll be like his sister and be lazy.  Hopefully he'll be rolling over by 6 months, LOL!  He has his 4 month appointment (plus shots) on Monday, so we'll see how it goes.  I weighed him the other day and he was 13 pounds.  Whew!

Natalie is doing well too... one of her daycare friends is having a birthday this week so they are having cake (or cupcakes or cookies, or whatever they are having).  So she's been talking about that a lot.  I have to go out and buy her some new shoes, because she is finally needing a pair of size 7's!  She has the smallest feet!

Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures later this weekend, after we've moved in to the new place! (Which happens Friday when the kids are at daycare).

A funny from Nana

I'm posting this blog on behalf of Nana.  Yesterday as the kids were in the car pulling out of the garage to go to daycare (Nana was driving, and I wasn't there because I was walking to the train station), Nana said, "And we're off!"  and Natalie added, "Like a herd of turtles!"  Nana thought she might pee her pants laughing! 

This is a saying from one of Mommy's friends (Megan Meadows).  I say it all the time, and Natalie has picked up on it.  Daddy even started saying it, and she always says, "No daddy, like the horses!"  I think she remembers this from last year's Kentucky Derby/Preakness/Belmont Stakes.  Funny how much longer she is remembering things these days!

Better swaddle

I swaddled him much better last night and he slept from about 9-3:30.  Then he ate, and slept from about 4-6:30.  I only got up once - and that was right around 5 am because he was grunting and it woke me up.  He never woke up, but he's just loud when he does it, and it wakes me up. 

By the end of the week, I might be a master of swaddling! 

Nap time funny

She didn't mean for this to be funny, but yesterday when I put Natalie down for a nap, I was rubbing her back (as daddy does, since he usually puts her down for her nap but he wasn't at home).  She sighs wistfully and says, "Mommy, your fingers are GREAT!" 

A week without Daddy...

Daddy has been gone less than 24 hours and WE MISS HIM!!!  He went down to DC for a conference this week.  At least it's only a 4 day work week and he'll be back on Friday.  Whew.  Good thing Nana came to help out!  She is the best... I really don't know what we'd do without her.  Even though I can manage on my own, it is so helpful to have a second person there to watch the kids when say, I need to go to the bathroom, or when I need to put the laundry in the dryer. 

Add on top of this the fact that we are moving next Friday!  Ugh.  Nana is sending the kids to daycare this week and packing boxes while I'm at work.  I mean really, we don't pay her enough!  Okay, we don't pay her at all, but maybe we should!  All of the things she does for us, and Grant repays her by letting some seriously stinky toots (worse than Pop Pop, according to her!), and Natalie throws a fit this morning because Nana has to drive her to daycare, and not Mommy (out of our routine).  She may never come back after this week!!!!!

Meanwhile, I also have a new appreciation for my husband's nightly duties.  Grant still sleeps in our room because he still wakes up once at night to feed.  Because his bedroom is on the second floor, and ours is on the third floor, we don't feel like making the trek up and down the stairs in the middle of the night, so he's still in the pack-n-play in our room.  Last night, Grant kept wiggling out of his swaddle (I just swaddled him in a waffle blanket) and grunts and snorts as he's doing so.  He's a strong little dude.  He went to bed at around 8, and I went to bed at around 11:30.  He wiggled out of the swaddle at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30 and then was stirring again at about 4:00.  I don't know if he does this every night, because I usually sleep with ear plugs in due to Todd's (and lately Grant's too) snoring.  I think I need to take some swaddle lessons, because I certainly don't do it very well. Todd is the master of the swaddle, and of giving Grant a pacifier without actually waking himself up while doing it.  Anyway, I'm hoping he sleeps a little better tonight because I did not sleep very well last night! 

Good news from Nana... she packed THREE boxes today!  Hooray!

Some pictures, some scallops, and other ramblings

Sorry that I haven't posted any pictures.  Todd put some new photo editing software in our new computer and I don't really like it.  For some reason, it won't rotate my photos.  It rotates them when the software program is open, but it won't save the rotated pictures to my hard drive.  It saves all of the edits I make - like eliminating red eye, fixing the contrast and brightness, etc.  But it won't save the rotation!  So if you go and look at the pictures on smugmug (link to the right), I apologize for the unrotated pictures.  I'll have to figure out how to fix that later...

ANYWAY... the kids seem to be getting over their colds.  We had a really fun weekend.  Natalie was really behaved Saturday.  I point this out, because she's two and a half.  Not a day goes by where we don't have some kind of tantrum or spaz out.  We went to the Natick winter farmer's market in the morning.  We picked up some lemon honey cheese (sounds weird, but is delicious!), some homemade black bean salsa, and some fresh scallops.  First... Todd and I differ on the way we pronounce the word scallops.  My parents and whole family is/are from the midwest.  So I pronounce them "SKAL-UPS."  Todd is a New Englander, and he pronounces them "SCOLL-UPS."  So everytime I say skal-ups, he corrects me and says, "You mean scoll-ups?"  Same with coupon- KOO-PON is the way I pronounce it.  He pronounces it wrong, like, "Cue-pon."  SO WRONG.  But I digress...

The skal-ups were DELISH!  Oh my... my husband can cook.  Whew!  He sauteed them with butter, olive oil, and a boat load of garlic.  He also added some red pepper flakes and parsley.  He put them on a bed of spaghetti and linguini.  It was amazing.  Unbelievable.  One of my new favorite meals! 

Then... the kids slept until 7:45 (Natalie) and 8:15 (Grant) this morning!  Natalie is just really content to hang out in her crib and sing and talk to herself.  It's really cute.  And really great because we can catch a few extra minutes of shut eye.  Then I went out for a brunch with some new friends.  I met Tiffany through my friend Heather Yori Ingold (I've mentioned this before) and about 8 of us had brunch in Somerville.  Funny story... I ordered biscuits and gravy.  But I was leery of ordering them because they are a very southern food and here I am ordering them in the north.... so these biscuits and gravy could go horribly, horribly wrong.  So I discussed this with the waiter, who told me, "Oh they're totally authentic southern food.  Our head chef is from the south."  To which I perk up... they can't be bad if the chef is from the south!  "Yeah, he's from West Virginia!"  Um... not really buddy, but okay, I'll try them anyway!  (They were good, if a bit heavy on the sausage, and not enough pepper.  I added my own). 

It was a good time hanging out and talking girl stuff- shopping, babies, husbands.  SO FUN.  Apparently these girls get together once a month, so I'm excited about seeing them again in March! 

I've also gotten some packing done this weekend.  Not a lot, but some. 

Here are some semi-recent pics of Grant.  To be honest, I haven't taken ANY of the kids lately.  We keep forgetting the camera when we go out.

Weekend update

Natalie and I are still recovering from our colds, and now Grant has come down with it.  Poor guy.  It makes me so sad to see him sick.  He had a fever this weekend as high as 101.1.  Last night, it was "down" to 100.5, but he seemed warm this morning again.  He's also really congested and has a terrible cough. On a good note, he took his bottle at 10 last night and although he was fussing around 2 am, Todd gave him his pacifier and he fell back asleep and didn't wake up until my alarm went off at 5:15!  I took him to the doctor on Sunday and his ears and chest sounded fine, so that is good news too.  Hopefully he won't get any worse. I just keep waiting for this fever to break!

Meanwhile, Natalie is still coughing, but her runny nose seems to be getting better.  I am off and on... some moments I feel great, then an hour later, I feel crummy again.  I hate winter!

On Saturday, we took the kids for lunch at Rise-n-Shine in downtown Natick.  It's our "cheat" day from our diets, so I enjoyed the chicken fingers and onion rings.  I mean, if you're going to cheat, go big, right???? It was good, and reminded me of college, except without the hangover.

After lunch, we swung by the new house.  We went inside to check out the rooms again, to see where we can fit our furniture, and what to use the rooms on the first floor for (we've decided adult living room, playroom, and guest room!).  We also wanted to check the layout of the bedrooms, to see which room would fit our furniture.  I think we have it all figured out.  But Natalie was SO excited to be at the new house.  I've never seen her so excited over something.  She was running around, spinning in circles, hopping and doing little jumps... it was really funny.  Although now that I think about it... maybe she inherited the gypsy gene from Todd and me?  Uh oh!  Later when we were back at home, she was still talking about it.  She even said, "We will take all of our toys to the new house!"  The good news is, we will have ROOM for all of our toys! 

More good news... I just heard from Todd and Grant's temperature is back to 98.6!  Hooray!

PS:  The computer is almost totally set up.  We have a *NEW* photo and video editing software, so pictures are forthcoming!