Tuesday, January 28, 2014

1/19/2014-1/25/2014

This week has been cold, then warm, then cold, then warm, and Georgia isn't quite sure what to make of it. One day we are having picnics in the park, the next day we are making soup and hunting down our slippers.  It was cold most of last week.  Henry had school and Georgia went to Gigi's.  Wade was able to fix our bathtub faucet that would not stop running (yay Wade!).  It was quite an adventure but he figured it out and I am super proud of him.  I'm also super glad that he works from home and is willing to take time out of his day to fix stuff.  I'm sure it resulted in a few late nights to make up for missing work but I would never know it for sure because he rarely complains about late nights.  What a good guy.
After weeks of jam packed weekends, we were happy to lounge around in our pj's on Saturday morning. We made a big breakfast, watched some cartoons, drank coffee and then decided to go for a long walk and explore the neighborhood a little bit.  We are house hunting for Wade's dad, trying to find a place for him that is close by and at the same time sort of dreaming a little bit about what the next 5 years are going to look like for us.  Our little house is very sweet and the kids love sharing a room right now, so for the time being we can stay put but I think long term we are going to need a little more space.  There is a street by the river, Walnut Street, that I would LOVE to build a house on.  We'll see, for now we just like to sit in our little living room with the sunlight pouring in and dream together.  On Saturday evening we ate an early dinner and then cleared off the table to make some Valentines Day decorations which quickly turned in to making monsters and skateboarders.  Georgia and I left to take a bath and came back to find our wall of hearts had been filled with crazy looking construction paper creatures.
On Sunday we did more lounging, more coffee drinking and we headed to the park for a picnic.  Lawrence has so many great parks. We went to one our favorites, we call it The Rubber Park because it is covered in rubber tiles.  It's set up to be handicap accessible which is great for little toddler legs that can't do big steps. After some time at the rubber park Henry headed to a friends house for a play date and we headed home for a nap.  Don came over in the evening and brought some pizza and played with the grandkids.
This week Georgia has been working on potty training.  She's doing so great.  I hate to jinx it but I think she's got it.  I'm still not brave enough to do night time without a diaper but she can pretty much go all day in big girl undies.  When she pees in the potty she has to show Papa every time.  She says, "Papa come look.  I peeped in the potty." She gets a gummy bear as a reward for using the potty and she always makes sure that she picks up an extra one for Henny. Lately she is also becoming very affectionate with Henry.  Every day after school she runs over to him, tackles him and says "Oh Henny.  I miss you so much." It is pretty special. She loves watching the Grinch and does a running commentary on his moods, "The Grinch is mad...The dog is sad...Oh now he's happy...His heart is growing Mama..." I love it.  Other things she loves right now- dresses, tutu's, shiny shoes, bike rides and walks, soup (thanks to Grandma for that one), Pepper (the cat), mama's milkies, hiding from us, reading books and taking baths.
We got Henry's grade card this week and are so proud of him.  He had a few behavioral problems last semester, namely he had a couple of incidents when he was not a good listener and did a little eye rolling, which is something we do in our house to be funny, but it isn't funny at school.  He figured it out (with the help of a week long grounding) and his grade reflected that.  He got a Kindle from Santa which has been taking up a lot of his time.  I also pulled out my old Sim City game from 6 years ago and we have been enjoying building cities (and destroying them) for the past couple of weeks.
Wade is busy with work and the band.  He got to ride his motorcycle last weekend, which is sort of incredible...riding a motorcycle in January! I'm also busy with my new job, just trying to learn as much as I can so that the bosses don't regret giving me this promotion. I need to learn how to not open up the laptop on the weekends, not think or stress about work, and I'm sure I'll get there eventually.  I just need to find a balance.
The week ahead looks cold and busy.  It's Catholic School Week so Henry has some fun activities at school, ending with a performance on Friday morning at the Lied Center and an open house at school in the evening.  It's always fun to see his creations on the hallway walls.
Have a great week friends.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

So, 2014 and stuff

Well, that was a long, awkward silence. I can't believe we are almost a month in to 2014 and I'm already failing at my #3 resolution.  I have come to terms with the fact that I am not a good (reliable, consistent) blogger but I'm not giving up.  In fact, in typical Laurie fashion, I'm going to make it even harder on myself by committing to updating this blog weekly AND attempting to print and file all my photos each week.  Can I do it?  Sure. Will I do it? Probably not, but I like a challenge.
So far 2014 has been busy.  But I guess I need to go back farther than that.  Let's see, when was my last update? AUGUST!  Yikes.  I really am bad at this.  Well, I'm guessing that school went well for Henry in August and September. He probably had a few colds and forgot to have us sign his folder a few times.  I'm sure we ate a lot of frozen yogurt on half price Tuesdays.  I probably complained about being tired and Georgia most certainly put a lot of random items in her mouth.  Wade played some shows and designed some stuff.  The kids dressed up for Halloween and did some serious trick-or-treating. November was NUTTY.  Georgia had her second birthday.  Henry had his 8th birthday and his first friend birthday party.  We traveled to Colorado for Thanksgiving and spent a few days with our dear friends Jason and Mandy and then went to Fort Collins to visit Susie, Ted and Willem.  The drive was an adventure and we learned a little bit about how this family does on the road (not great).  Oh also, in November Georgia got Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease and a stomach bug (also, not great).  In December we spent a lot of time with family and had a wonderful Christmas which was followed directly by more sickness, ear infections, nasty viruses, strep throat and sinus infections. But we bounced back to welcome in the New Year (3 days late and at 9:00 pm) and jumped right in to 2014 with more visitors and a baby/bridal shower for my sisters.  The kids got baptized. We decided to get some chickens this spring. Nearly every appliance in our home broke, including our furnace during, what meteorologists are calling "The Polar Vortex".  I started a new job which is about 90% writing (so I better start sleeping or this may not be good). Whew, and we are only 22 days in.  I have some personal goals this year that I will update you guys on as we go.  I know this is usually a family blog and then I have my own blog for random ranting, but I can't keep up the one, let alone two, so I've decided to throw in random rants every now and then on this blog.
I have photos from the last 4 months that I will try to post in the next few days and then we'll all be caught up and I can get on with the business of becoming the super blogger I was always meant to be.