Bunked

Sooner than we imagined, or were ready for, the boy's bunk beds have arrived! About 4 weeks early! But hey, I'll take it. Now Jason doesn't have to sleep on a crib mattress on the floor - not that he seemed to mind :)

It's really hard to get pictures in the room, and we do not have the beds made up with matching bedding yet (if ever, William still seems to love the quilt I made for him a few years ago) but here they are. Matt worked SUPER hard this weekend moving pictures and shelves, repairing the walls and touching up all the paint for me. We also had to take down a ceiling fan so William doesn't get knocked in the head with it. All in all, a lot of work so THANK YOU MATT! I know it's not your favorite thing in the world to spend the better part of your weekend on chores, but now it's done - I promise not to ask you to move anything else - at least not in their bedroom...

The boy's new full/full bunk beds-
they can be separated down the road into two separate fulls

And dresser

The desk and shelves in their final home, where we used to have the crib - and a tired little boy

Sarah now has the bed we had originally bought for William, and she couldn't be happier in her new big girl bed!

Now of course, being that this is the house of Harried Mom, nothing goes without a hitch here. William's lava lamp, which we've never had problems with before (Evie has one too) managed to leave a heat mark on the BRAND NEW DRESSER. (Enter your favorite expletive here). I was not a happy chappy. I currently have it smeared with mayonnaise & covered with plastic wrap - did you know that fixes heat/water marks? - at last check it seemed to be helping. Also, William managed to have a bloody nose on the cover of his new mattress that he hadn't even slept on yet - all par for the course here. And also good reasons to not spend a lot of money on stuff while your kids are growing, because it will manage to get damaged before you can blink. One of these days I'll show you what they did to my sofa :)

Digital Overload

Now I know where Sarah gets her curls from!

That's me, in all my 2 year old glory. My Dad emailed me this picture yesterday after reading my post about Jason's birthday. He's been working on scanning all his slides from when we were kids, which got me to thinking about family history, pictures, and life today in a digital world.

I remember playing with the trays of slides in my parents' closet. They were great for stacking, making walls, playing with Little People on. I remember waiting impatiently at the top of the stairs Christmas morning while Dad went down to get the cameras ready and the sun gun turned on (did your Dad have a sun gun? You know, that blinding light that made it possible to film Super 8 in the house?) I remember poring through old photo albums and getting a kick out of my skinny Mom with her frosted hair and my Dad who could have passed for a member of the Bee Gees.

Dad had hair like the one in the middle

I have some pictures from high school and college, and Matt and I have some albums from our 'early' days together. Back in the days of film and pre-kids, it was easy to keep up with getting your film developed & into an album. They're neatly ordered on a shelf in my closet, ready for viewing. And then in 2001 we bought a digital camera. And all that went to hell.

It started out innocently enough, we wanted to go digital because we were about to have a baby & we live far from family. We could email pictures! Terrific! Of course, back then everyone had dial-up internet & pictures took forever to upload and download. Besides, I had a baby to deal with who took up increasingly more time. Then we had another baby. I was pretty good there for a while about getting prints made, making backup copies on CD's, and keeping things organized. Before we had Sarah I think I even got the albums caught up. That was over 3 years ago. I stopped printing the pictures 2 years ago when I filled up an entire tub with ones that needed to go into albums.

We now have 2 digital cameras, and Evie has her own. I have backup copies on disk in a fire safe that I'm 3 years behind on. Some of the pictures are backed up on the basement server which is a complete dinosaur to access. Some of them are on my hard drive (which thankfully gets backed up regularly). And the first 18 months of Jason's life? Sitting on Matt's desk in a ZipLoc bag on the hard drive we need to have recovered. That was an expensive mistake.

Back in the spring we bought a digital camcorder. I have no idea how to do anything with the video. I guess I'm in trouble when THAT gets full. Luckily, we're not videophiles, and the only time the camcorder comes out is when there is a birthday (which happens a lot in the fall!) or at Christmas. I can just imagine what it will be like to look at them in a few years - because, as you can probably imagine, it's really noisy and chaotic here at Christmas and birthdays - EVERYONE wants to be RIGHT THERE to see what's going on. Maybe someday when I have a minute (or really, more like 10 hours) I can sit down and figure it out. Maybe.

For now, I just keep snapping pictures and occasionally videotaping. That way when I'm old and grey (well, old - I'm already headed towards grey - or rather, white) I can enjoy looking back at my kids fighting on tape and be horrified at all the yelling I did. And wonder where all the time went. Assuming I can figure out how to go back and look at everything.

Happy Birthday Jason!

Dear Jason,

Last but certainly not least, it's your big day! It seems impossible to me that 2 years have gone by already - where has the time gone? (Oh wait, I remember - lots of feeding/napping/changing/sleeping - for you anyway!) Some of the best things in life come at you from out of the blue, and you were certainly one of them - a nicer surprise could not have been had.

Jason, hours old.

Home from the hospital, snug in Grandmom's arms

All in all, you've been pretty easy since the beginning - a good sleeper, great eater, easy-going, as long as Mommy picked you up when you wanted. You're still easy-going, as long as I pick you up when you want me to. Srlsy, you're 2 - would you please ride in the cart at the store? You're not big enough to walk around yet, and you're too big for me to carry - so just relax and enjoy the ride already!

I'm getting a kick out of you lately, as you steer me around the house by my legs or grab my hand and drag me by my thumb to help you get something or do something for you, and I'm tickled to hear you starting to combine words & communicate thoughts.

You're Fun Boy - always ready to wrestle, play ball, or crawl all over Dad like a puppy, and you always have a kiss and a hug for me.

Happy Birthday, my Little Buddy - here's to many many happy more.

Love,
Mom

Halloween 2009

Halloween has come and gone, and the in-laws are on their way back home after a fun-filled weekend. We carved pumpkins, dressed up, and were lucky enough that the rain held off long enough to finish setting up the haunt AND go trick-or-treating. It was a perfectly spooky night, overcast and just breezy enough to blow the leaves around. It's hard to believe it's over already & time to put it all away again until next year. Here's some highlights, and if you missed my last post showing you our full 'haunt', go HERE.

This year's addition, the Witch Doctor. The picture doesn't do it justice, as you can't see the red lights in the fire, or the purple smoking cauldron - it looked REALLY cool & turned out much better than we expected!

Pumpkin Edward in his place of honor in the foyer. The teen girls went C.R.A.Z.Y. over him :)

Jason, wondering what the heck is going on

Sarah, the sweetest little witch you've ever seen. She's still wearing her costume.

The whole gang - 2 Captain Kirks, 2 witches, a ninja (Evie couldn't find the mask in her room - BIG SHOCK THERE!) and Batman. Or Lego Batman, as William likes to say :)

And finally, after trick or treating was finished we had some neighbors and friends back to the house for drinks and dessert. This is what 13 kids aged 2 to 10 do to a room in 1.5 hours. I guess it could have been a lot worse!



I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween as well! We have one more birthday to celebrate (Jason's 2nd), and then we can catch our breath before the big Christmas push.

Welcome to our Haunt

Halloween is a big deal at our house. BIG. Matt puts a lot of time and effort into making our house a spooky haunt every year, and each year he adds a 'little something' to the display. Nothing gory, just spooky. Two years ago he made columns to put at the foot of our driveway. Last year he added a fence. He makes the tombstones by hand, out of foam insulation - they are amazing. These pictures are from last year, taken by my father who spent the weekend with us. Enjoy! I'll post photos of this year's addition and our costumes early next week! Happy Halloween everyone :)

Our house, from across the street. Fence and columns are fake.

The columns are made from plywood

The view from our driveway

Front yard, from the sidewalk

A scarecrow based on Sleepy Hollow the movie

The cemetery in our front yard

Bucky sitting behind a fresh grave

Our knock-off Frontgate ghosts :) I love these!

The bleeding tombstone

Fake fence - it's pvc pipe and wood stuck onto rebar

The family plus my Dad, Halloween 2008

Sarah, because she was just so darn cute!

Birthday Numbers

Today I turn 39 years old. Which got me to thinking, how the hell did that happen and where did the last 9 years of my life go? A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say:

The best picture from our Easter disaster.

What most of the rest of them looked like.

I turned 30 in the year 2000, and 3 months later I was pregnant. We've had four children, which brings me to the following realizations: I spent 3 out of the last 9 years pregnant. I nursed all four of them for about a year, for a total of 4.25 years. We've had kids in diapers for 8 years straight, and for 3 years and counting we've had 2 in diapers at the same time. I guess I know where all that time went! Oh, and I gained 153 lbs (pregnancies) and lost 147 of it.

Hopefully in the next year we can manage to get the last 2 potty trained, I can lose the last stinking 6 lbs of fat hanging around from 'baby' Jason, and we will move out of babyhood just in time for me to turn 40. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! It's bright and blinding! And I want it!

I love my kids, I love being a Mom and I'm especially grateful that I can be at home with them. But sometimes I'd (not so secretly) like to run away. It's hard to remember who I am in the midst of all the day to day treading water we do. The last 9 years have gone by in the blink of an eye and by the time the next 9 are over I'll be 48 and Evie will be a junior in high school. What will I be doing then when all four of them are in school all day? I can't even imagine. Hopefully not accounting :)

Everyone needs to have something to shoot for in life, and being that I'm a homebody, I don't have any great desire to go off and conquer anything before I turn 40. I have more modest goals, and really would just like to be more even-keeled temper-wise and maybe more spontaneous. Not everything HAS to be planned out at least a week in advance, right? Oh, and I'd like to do all this without the help of Prozac, thank you very much.

My to do list for the next year:

1. Have more patience with my family.
   
2. Make better use of the time that I have - for them and for myself.
   
3. Survive with my sanity intact!
   
4. Cut out the junk food & be more consistent with exercise - which will hopefully help me to
5. Get to my goal weight.
   
6. Swear less. Srsly. Little pitchers have big ears.
   

So! Happy Birthday to me! Hopefully I can stay on task and be a better, happier parent & wife. If only the damn kids would cooperate ;)

*************************************************************************************
And now for what I know you all REALLY stopped by to find out:

The winner of Pumpkin Edward (and the Starbucks gift card!) is......

I'd like to thank Pocket Edward for helping choose a winner from my scientific drawing

Jen at Tatertots and Jello!

I'm so excited Jen won because the giveaway was her idea in the first place :)

He's all packed and ready to go, I just need an address to send it to so Jen please contact me & hopefully he'll be at your house in time for Halloween!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to enter!

Happy Birthday Evie!

Dear Evie,

It's hard to believe it's been 8 years already since you woke me up at 1am to come barreling into the world at 6:08. Your story will be forever burned in my mind, as your Daddy and I both worked at the same company and on October 22nd, 2001 our employer layed off 700 people - Daddy included. THAT was not part of our plan. You decided to arrive early the next morning, which was probably the best distraction we could have ever had.

Baby Evie, not even hours old

Baby Evie, 6 weeks later

As you grew, so did our family. At 2, you were already a big animal lover, and so much fun to have around! Mostly you had me all to yourself & we would color & play, and watch Dumbo over and over and over and over again. But then William came along and you had to share.

Nothing says 2 like a ghost cake

Or maybe nothing says 2 like a morning cup of coffee.
We like to start them young!

A birthday trip to the Smithsonian

By four you could identify just about any dinosaur there ever was by it's proper name. It was pretty amazing. Your favorite animal would change like the flavor of the week, but dinosaurs were always at the top of the list.

At 6, as Queen of the Nile

Today at 8, you have a fair amount of artistic talent and a huge love of animals still...

You made me so proud in your first summer on the swim team

You're a wonderful big sister to Sarah and your brothers

And you're still super fun to be around!

Happy Birthday Evie, I hope you enjoyed your day.

Love,
Mama