Teeth, Trips, and Twenty Two Feet

A lot has happened in the time since my last blog post. We have been super busy with our annual trip to Washington, snow days, and a first for Sabrina!

I should start with our annual trip to Washington to visit my fabulous in laws. I have to say, that as rare as it is, I love my in laws. I do not think that I could get any luckier. I have a mother in law that is literally like a second mother to me, and loves my kids just about as much as I do! My father in law is also an amazing person, who is always there with a joke and always manages to put a smile on my face. I see so much of my husband in these two people, and it is great to spend time with them. The great thing about this trip is that Sabrina got to meet her Grandpa for the first time, as well as three uncles, one aunt, and one Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. I unfortunately was bad about taking pictures and only managed to get some of Sabrina meeting Grandpa for the first time.

I think it is pretty safe to say that it was love at first sight for both parties! We had a great week with family (that even included Mom and Dad getting to have an evening alone WITH NO KIDS!!!) 

Also big news in our neck of the woods, was a massive snow storm that hit about a week before Thanksgiving. I was less than thrilled about it, because I hate driving in the snow. Ben, on the other hand could not have been more thrilled to get to play in all the snow, and when asked how much snow there was he replied with a sweet "about twenty two feet". He was able to build his first snow man (with Daddy's help) and even got to watch the puppy try and chase the snow flakes

 The biggest news of all comes in the form of a little bitty tooth! That's right people, Sabrina got her first tooth just last week. It took her long enough and I have been swearing that it was coming in for about three months now. I know it is only one tooth and she still has so many more to go, but it is a start and as soon as she gets a few more she can start eating fabulous foods like spaghetti and pizza. For now we stick with the mushed up stuff and yogurt melts. She is growing up so fast and it seems like she has a new trick every day, between crawling and standing up on  furniture I feel like I can not keep up. It also comes as no surprise that she is just as stubborn as her Mom and Dad and will not let me look at the tooth for more that a nano second let alone take a picture of it, so there is no picture of the tooth (yet)!

Halloween

My promise to be a better blogger was foiled. But, I promise it was not my fault! The last two weeks have been so insanely busy. Not only have we still been busy getting the new house put together, we have also had our fair share of crisis. First I ended up in the hospital for an allergic reaction. Then, on the day of the first snow, the kids and I were rear ended on the freeway. I knew eventually I would become victim to the bad drivers that seem to only show themselves when the weather is bad, but I was hoping that my turn would not come for a few more years. Thankfully everyone is fine, and I am pretty sure my car will make it too.

In other news, yesterday was Halloween and the kids got to go trick-or-treating at Dad's off ice (one of my favorite Halloween traditions). Not only do the kids get more candy than they know what to do with, but they get to collect it in a climate controlled, well lit environment and I don't have to worry about losing them in a crowd of kids all dressed the same. All in all I would be very sad if Brook ever went and worked somewhere that trick-or-treating was not a Halloween staple.

Benjamin decided that he wanted to be Batman, and after searching high and low for a a Batman costume for a three year old (apparently all three year old's want to be Spiderman or Optimus Prime), we finally settled on a pair of black pants (which Ben described as the softest pants on the planet, and fought me tooth and nail when I had to take them off), a shirt with a Batman logo, and a cape and mask that he already had. All in all it was a cute costume, especially when paired with him saying "I'm Batman" in his best Christian Bale voice.

Bean didn't really get a say in her costume, but didn't protest too much when I put her in the cutest elephant costume I have ever seen (thank you Costco)! She didn't collect candy, but seemed to really like Brook carrying her around his office (probably because she got to smile and flirt with everyone who passed). She wasn't even scared of all of the costumes (including her dad, who had decided to shave and had a "mask" of sorts). Her first Halloween was good to her.

After we got home from office trick-or-treating we toyed with the idea of going around the neighborhood, but after we got our first trick or treater we decided against it. Ben had more fun opening the door and seeing other kids in their costumes and handing out candy than he did getting candy for himself. He became the official "candy handeroutter" and yelled "Happy Halloween" as loud as he could to each kid who knocked on our door. He finally passed out from excitement and candy overload at about 9:30, and after the third high schooler in jeans and a t-shirt that knocked on our door asking for candy, Brook and I turned in for the night.  It was a great day, and a great reminder of how much I love Halloween. Maybe next year I will even get around to decorating.

Oh and just on a side note, this is from an  impromptu photo shoot in the living room yesterday and I just had to share! 

I'm Baaack!

Well, just like I knew that I would, I have been a bad blogger. I have always tried to keep journals and diaries from the time I was little, and every journal and diary is filled with one or two pages of my great wisdom, and the rest is left blank. Good intentions, bad follow through. I will try to be better about blogging and have spent the whole days thinking of all the fabulous things that I could blog about...

It has been a very hectic couple of months (in my defense). We purchased and moved into our new house, and are busy unpacking boxes, painting, and my favorite (not) taking down wallpaper. I have decided that whoever writes the publicity campaigns for all the wallpaper removers out there that are supposed to make the process easy, need to be formally punished for being big fat liars. It is not easy and painless, it is hard and painful. It took an entire day for three people to get wallpaper off the walls of one bedroom in the house, and took another full day to get the glue residue off the walls and prep them for the actual paint. Needless to say, I am not looking forward to taking down the wallpaper in the two other rooms that have it, and have been finding myself thinking "Is this floral wallpaper in my bathroom really that bad? Am I really sure I can't live with it for another twenty years?" (By the way it really is that bad, and I really can't live with it for the next twenty years). A word of advice: if you are thinking of putting up wallpaper in your house, please think of the poor people who have to take it down!

In other news... Ben has been working really hard on potty training! As any other mom who has ever had to potty train a child knows, this is not just an accomplishment for him, but one for me as well. I feel like every time he successfully goes in the potty and I reward him, I keep looking around for my reward too! I mean I am the one that asks him twelve times in one hour if he needs to go to the potty, I am the one that has to clean up the mess when he does not make it in time, and I am the one that barely sleeps at night because I am waiting for the screams saying that he has wet the bed (I am even prepared with my emergency sheets at the ready). WHERE IS MY TREAT? I guess I can say that my treat is that I only have one child still in diapers and I don't have to buy two sets of diapers anymore. (I guess I will just have to take that money I am saving and buy myself a treat- I hear a pair of shoes off in the distance calling my name).

Well, this little note to say that I had indeed not fallen off the face of the planet has turned into a little bit longer rambling on my life. New pictures of the kids and the house to follow!

Until next time...

Finally A Blog!

I finally have a blog! After years of saying that I am going to create a blog and share my stories, I have finally done it... I can not promise that I will post every day, or on any sort of regular basis, but I am finally doing something that I have wanted to do. So prepare, dear readers, for my tales of adventures (and the occasional misadventure) of mommy hood with the two best kids in the world!