It's begining to look a lot like Christmas

I am so excited for Christmas this year! Addison will be so excited and adorable. I put up the Christmas tree one morning while she was still asleep; including the star, lights, and garland, and waited to see her face when she woke; it didn't dissapoint!
"OH WOW MOMMY OH WOW!" was exclaimed, over and over by little Peep.
I can't wait to see her face Christmas morning; all that wonder and joy make me feel like a child again too =) Just driving around looking at Christmas lights is new and amazing, "Oh WOW, so PRETTY!"

I'm pretty sure I bought her waaaaaaaay too much this year! As in, all our income tax is basically spoken for... so much for paying of the rest of that one student loan lol.

Josh and I are going on a weekend getaway next weekend (December 10, 11, & 12) to Burlington VT. Actually, he is going there to train to be a Union Rep at work, but, the Union pays for the hotel & expenses and after his classes, which are only a few hours, he can do whatever he wants. We plan on going out to eat a lot (there are a few gluten free restaurants there), and plan on finishing up our Christmas shopping.

Not sure if I mentioned it previously, but, Kellen has 2 little perfect bottom teeth in. He is also pulling himself up to standing and is now 7 months old. He is also a terrible Mama's boy... ugh I hope it's just a stage because most Mama's boys that I know don't end up very self sufficient; which, yes, is mostly the mother's fault. I hope I can raise my kids to be self assured and independent with much love for their family. (This means I hope to Jesus they can handle picking up their own dirty kleenex, other trash, dirty clothes etc. unlike some other man I know...)

Addison is this * * close to being potty trained. She still has trouble remembering to go when she gets playing and she has only gone #2 on the potty/toliet once... Other than that she does really well. We are so proud of our big girl =)

**I am so excited for all these weddings coming up, pretty soon people will have to start having babies so we have more excuses to come together and have a great time =)

teeth =

Finally my little man has 2 teeth poking through those swollen little gums.This has not seemed to help the sleeping situation though. And, Addison has woken up at around 4am every day as well.

Fracture

My poor little baby got her cast on today =( The kid's are still napping so I'd thought I would do an update. She was such a good girl, just sitting still and behaving while the Dr. put the cast on (no small feat for a 2 year old). I feel so bad for her; thankfully, it only has to stay on for 3 weeks.

My handsome little man's big baby blues. I have to say I am loving the new camera; it is amazing!

I actually captured her beautiful smile a couple of weeks ago. I can not remember the last time I managed to get a picture of her looking directly at the camera, smiling, and looking happy. I captured 2 such elusive pictures on the same day!

naz book club...

ps. Any news on the book club because I have the book!

Bedtime Wars

"Sleep much?"
"I wish."

This is how almost all of my conversations with Josh & my mom start lately.

It all started one day a couple months ago when my son decided he no longer wanted to sleep through the night. This soon progressed into refusing to go to bed before 9pm and sleep past 5am. Finally it evolved into a 2 hour bedtime routine, followed by waking up twice during the night, and finally rising between 5 & 6am for the day. Did I mention he refuses to nap every other day? On the days he will not nap without a fight, I usually end up rocking him for an hour while he sleeps just so he gets some rest! I don't know if it's teething or what!

Speaking of sleeping, Addison has been fighting bedtime with a vengeance the past three nights. Tonight I rubbed her back for a while until she feel asleep. Lucky for me I have a wonderful husband who got Addison to sleep the first two nights; and, on his night off sacrificed his free time to take care of Kellen so I could sleep. This involved him taking said screaming child from his crib, attempting in vain to get him to sleep, and finally, driving him to Ogdensburg at 3 in the morning where he proceeded to rent a few redbox movies, buy a vending machine soda and actually manage to get our poor little man to sleep.

The ironic aspect of all this is it hasn't put a damper on my baby urges at all! I'm thinking next fall/winter we will start trying again. This would be after wedding season, but, I'm not sure how it would factor in going back to school or how we could squeeze in a teaching semester in Artesia, NM.

With the exception of the bedtime wars, my children are amazing. I love them tremendously!

I'm pretty excited to take the kids out Trick-or-Treating tomorrow. Hopefully Addison won't be too shy. She shouldn't be because I am only taking them to people we know; but it's possible.

Jace came over today and it went really well. There were a couple little wrestling matches but nothing serious, they spent quite a bit of time playing together. It's so funny that they are rough with each other sometimes, because they are both so gentle with the baby. I was worried Jace might be a little rough with him but he isn't at all. It's so cute to watch them step around Kellen and give him kisses. While Addison was napping, Jace spent some time bringing toy after toy to cranky Kellen until he found something that Kellen liked. They are all so cute, I can not get enough of their huge smiles and the patter of their little feet it really makes me want ten kids.

I made turkey tacos for dinner tonight and they were really good. I've never cooked with ground turkey before, but, I did not want to eat red meat, and ground turkey is really good for you. I'm still stalled out on the weight loss... can not stand looking at myself it really makes me want to throw up... DISGUSTING!

Yesterday's post to LJ - updates for my Naz girls <3

Kellen is 6 months old! His little baby months went by so fast. He is creeping all over the place; there is no stopping him. He is going to be a skunk for Halloween. He was sleeping throught the night but ow he wakes up again a few times a night; I can't stand it!

Addison has been going to dancing and doing pretty well. She is going to be Tinker Bell for Halloween.

This is my second week babysitting my nephew Jace full time. It's going well so far. Addison and Jace fight a little bit; but, that's pretty normal given their ages (26 months, and 19 months). They are getting a lot better though and it's great for Addison to get to play with someone her own age. So watching Jace and going to dancing is getting her more socialized within her age group.

Josh told me the other day that he has decided that he does want to live here forever! So we are planning on putting an addition on the house w/in the next few years. This addition would include and upstairs master suite, laundry room, & office/bedroom; it would also include a downstairs bathroom, family room, kitchen and dining room, along with converting our current kitchen into the common entryway with lots of coat and shoes storage.

Josh also wants to teach at the academy for one semester, 3 months. I'm not sure when he would want to do this, but, since he wants the kids and I to go to, we would have to schedule it carefully!

And, yes I do have the baby urges. But, no, I don't plan on acting on them quite yet because I want to be skinny & healthier before I get pregnant again. Plus no one wants to see a pregnant woman table dancing at all these weddings coming up (Lauren, Jolie, my cousin Keith, and Erika?)

Life in the Fall

well it's been over 3 weeks since i have had any soda! yay for me! I've been drinking water almost exclusively with the occasional adult beverage =) I've lost almost 10 pounds in the last month and a half. I had to stop going to the gym for the last 2-3 weeks because I was having terrible migraines almost everyday. However, I'm about to get back into the swing of this as it seems quite a few chiropracter visits have cleared those migrains up. I think I'm going to bring my elliptical machine over to my parents house (we don't really have room in our house for it)... this way it's a gym and babysitter's house all in one. Plus my mom seemed excited about using it herself. Mom has lost 94 pounds total since she started losing (60ish of that is since her surgery). She looks amazing; I'm insanely jealous and yet so happy for her. She actually went on a shopping spree for clothes and shoes for herself. I can not remember this ever happening once during my lifetime.

I entered Addison and Kellen in the GAP casting call just for giggles =) It would be so awesome to win, but, there are really low odds as thousands of people entered their kids too. Anyway it's something fun.

Addison has started going to dance class. At first she was really shy and would cry and not want to leave me; but, last Tuesday she did much better. She was running around the room, dancing a bit on her own, but, mostly she wasn't shy. A great improvement over the clinging behavior of the past weeks. I was surprised the other day to learn that Addison can count to 10 on her own. I told her to help me count the stairs and she just went to town. It was so cute =)

Kellen is still not crawling; which is hard to believe considering that he has looked like he would for about 2 months now. Oh well, at least it helps keep him out of trouble! He finally likes food; it took over a month before he showed any emotions when eating. Now he enjoys it. He weighs 19 lbs now; Addison weighed 19lbs when she turned one... He isn't really chubby though, he is just tall and big and a little chubby =)

I'm trying so hard not to be preggers for Lauren's wedding... but I'm already getting the urge!

This spring, March, the kids and I will be going to Arizona to visit with my mother. My grandparents are spending the winter out in Tucson in their 5th wheel. Therefore, we will be visiting them, my elderly Aunt, other family, and of course, the friends I made while in AZ. It should be an adventure with the two little ones lol.

I'm 95% sure I'm going to go back to school next summer too. Although, I may write the chair of the department and ask if there is anyway to start taking classes during the spring semester; maybe the electives. I'm really excited =)

We should start a book club! I think Diane had a great idea =) Someone choose a book already!!

well I quit drinking soda the other day, and I'm surprised I've been able to do it so far. It's been four days of merciless headaches plus I've had I really stiff neck all week. Blah... at least I managed to give Addison a bath and get her to take and nap, and I got to shower too!

Grad School

So I've been thinking about going back to school for quite some time now. I am pretty convinced that I'm going to bite the bullet and go back for teaching. I really wanted to do Library Science, but, there are no programs offered for that up this way, and the online ones I've found are really expensive. I just can't imagine going $40,000 into debt when we already have enough. SUNY Potsdam is just 30-40 minutes from here and it offers an MST in Social Studies Adolescence Education. And, being a state school, it's alot cheaper, about $20,000 (both $$ amounts are estimates not including any scholarships or financial aid). The only problem is they only accept new students into the program during the summer semester! I wish I had known this and I might have started a few months ago, although summer semester starts in the end of May. While that is further away then I would like, it does provide time to save up money to help pay for the program and Kellen won't be as needy in a few months either. I'm not sure I can really picture myself being a teacher, but, alot of people that I went to high school with are teachers that I can't picture doing that either. Basically, I really want a good job, that makes money and teachers have summers, holidays, and weekends off. I go stir crazy being a stay at home mom, and I'm sick of living paycheck to paycheck where having a good job will obsolve us of that problem and also allow us to actually save money and pay off our current debt! I'm hoping that once I get into the program I would come to enjoy it even though I'm not sure that I would. Mostly I'm worried that I won't be a great teacher and that I won't know enough about the subject matter to be confedent. But, my brother and his girlfriend made some good points, mentioning that just going over the materials the day before you teach them helps alot and also, if someone asks a question you don't know the answer to it's not a big deal to tell them you will find out the answer within a couple of days. The biggest issue holding me back is lack of confidence in my ability. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it.

Land...

I think we have finally decided that we will not be looking for or buying a different house. We are planning on finding land in a great location and building our dream house. I think his heart is set on living much closer to work, which, I can completely understand. This makes my heart completely set on living in the Waddington area. My feeling are: 1. Waddington is a nice little town where people really seem to take pride in their homes and community. 2. It has an awesome paved path for walking/jogging along the St. Lawrence river. 4. Maybe we can buy some land on the river! 3. It is in between where he works now and where we grew up. This means if he ever did transfer to the Ogdensburg station he wouldn't be far from there either. And, I can still see my family all the time, although it would take more planning than it does now. My only real conserns with Waddington are: 1. It is 30 minutes from groceries/walmart unless you count the small grocery there that is most likely expensive and lacking in variety. 2. It is 30 minutes from my family =(

Teething...

It's offical, Kellen has been teething for over a month now, and it's getting worse. He won't nap anymore and it is harder and harder to get him to eat; he just wants to chew things!