Friday, December 31, 2010
9 hours to spare
I just completed my 2010 new year's resolution to get the photo books done up until Emily was born. Yes, just got them ordered... amazing what you can accomplish when you are avoiding cleaning the house. Also, the 30% off coupon helped with motivation.
LOOOONG Week
I can't believe that it hasn't even been a week since Christmas. The amount of work I have done for the children is equal to at least two weeks. Patrick has been alternating between sugar high and sugar crash for far too long and it makes him so demanding (he just said to me, "don't make me mad" when I acted like I might not do what he told me to do). There was one night where he insisted on 3 water bottles on his nightstand. Oh, not all 3 at once, no, I would bring him one and he would start gearing up for a tantrum if I balked at bringing him another. Emily was already asleep, he knew he had me. He needed a few other things too, like his football helmet and a car, and after the 6th trip up the stairs to see what was brewing, I told him I would call Santa to come remove the toys. That worked. Oh this was also the night that he refused to take off his underwear and football pants to put on a pull up so he just put the pull up on over the underwear and football pants. The next morning he walked around like that for 2 hours too and never had an accident. Clearly potty training for him was just a matter of him deciding he was ready.
The girls have been keeping busy with their new dogs. Yes, we decided they were ready to each get a dog. Oh, I mean video game dog of course. Let's not be ridiculous here, I don't need anything else making a mess or having an accident on my floors. Anna got her Nintendog for her DS from Nana and Pops and then Megan loved it so much she got my parents to buy her it too. So now they can play at the same time and meet up to walk their dogs together. How pathetic is this? I feel somewhat guilty that they are so excited about fake dogs going on fake walks.
The premise of the game is that they start out with a certain amount of money and they use that to pick out a dog and buy the dog supplies. Anna was immediately out of money, she must have pimped out her dog Paris Hilton style, so Megan told her to go sell her extra dog toys at the second hand shop so she could buy dog food. That was the only way they knew to get money. Well, I was growing concerned for this poor (fake) dog who was most certainly going to starve when the food money ran out, there had to be other ways to earn money. Sean read some instructions and was trying to help them out, guess you can find presents on the walk and go sell them. So essentially, it's like they are homeless people and dogs who walk around trying to find stuff to take to the pawn shop. What's next, begging at the intersection? Now before anyone sends us fake money for fake dog food to avoid the psychological trauma of a fake dog dying, no worries, Kira came to the rescue. Megan's friend has this game already and is quite good at the frisbee competition and thus won Anna a lot of money. And then Megan figured out that she and Anna can take their dogs for a walk and Anna can give her things to take and sell so she has money for her dog food. Now they both have two dogs and can't wait to buy more. They had better figure out how to play frisbee themselves because four dogs are going to need a lot of food.
Now sweet Emily has not been a problem at all this week, as usual. I did find her in her room yesterday though, when I thought she was playing by the front door. Patrick was with her just out of my line of vision and I knew he would tattle if she did something dangerous, I just didn't know he would wait until she had already done it. I just heard him say, "Emily being care-cul". Took me a minute to remember that care-cul is careful and thus she was being careful climbing up all the stairs by herself. Usually I catch her on the first one. She is the most patient child and so calm. She enjoys time without her siblings but unfortunately there isn't much of that. Patrick is definitely toughening her up. He wants whatever she has of course so once she fights back we will have years of listening to those fights. Joy!
Sean worked a ton this week but now has 3 days of no army and 5 days of no moonlighting. We have nothing planned and no babysitter, so not sure what will happen. We do have a lot of travel planned for 2011 (in complete denial that traveling with 4 children will most likely be pure torture) so he may pick up some shifts to pay for that. Or he may just enjoy his video games, which I am pretty sure don't involve fake dogs. Even without a real dog around here, this house is beyond filthy and trashed, so you can guess what my plans are, whoo-hoo! Happy new year!
The girls have been keeping busy with their new dogs. Yes, we decided they were ready to each get a dog. Oh, I mean video game dog of course. Let's not be ridiculous here, I don't need anything else making a mess or having an accident on my floors. Anna got her Nintendog for her DS from Nana and Pops and then Megan loved it so much she got my parents to buy her it too. So now they can play at the same time and meet up to walk their dogs together. How pathetic is this? I feel somewhat guilty that they are so excited about fake dogs going on fake walks.
The premise of the game is that they start out with a certain amount of money and they use that to pick out a dog and buy the dog supplies. Anna was immediately out of money, she must have pimped out her dog Paris Hilton style, so Megan told her to go sell her extra dog toys at the second hand shop so she could buy dog food. That was the only way they knew to get money. Well, I was growing concerned for this poor (fake) dog who was most certainly going to starve when the food money ran out, there had to be other ways to earn money. Sean read some instructions and was trying to help them out, guess you can find presents on the walk and go sell them. So essentially, it's like they are homeless people and dogs who walk around trying to find stuff to take to the pawn shop. What's next, begging at the intersection? Now before anyone sends us fake money for fake dog food to avoid the psychological trauma of a fake dog dying, no worries, Kira came to the rescue. Megan's friend has this game already and is quite good at the frisbee competition and thus won Anna a lot of money. And then Megan figured out that she and Anna can take their dogs for a walk and Anna can give her things to take and sell so she has money for her dog food. Now they both have two dogs and can't wait to buy more. They had better figure out how to play frisbee themselves because four dogs are going to need a lot of food.
Now sweet Emily has not been a problem at all this week, as usual. I did find her in her room yesterday though, when I thought she was playing by the front door. Patrick was with her just out of my line of vision and I knew he would tattle if she did something dangerous, I just didn't know he would wait until she had already done it. I just heard him say, "Emily being care-cul". Took me a minute to remember that care-cul is careful and thus she was being careful climbing up all the stairs by herself. Usually I catch her on the first one. She is the most patient child and so calm. She enjoys time without her siblings but unfortunately there isn't much of that. Patrick is definitely toughening her up. He wants whatever she has of course so once she fights back we will have years of listening to those fights. Joy!
Sean worked a ton this week but now has 3 days of no army and 5 days of no moonlighting. We have nothing planned and no babysitter, so not sure what will happen. We do have a lot of travel planned for 2011 (in complete denial that traveling with 4 children will most likely be pure torture) so he may pick up some shifts to pay for that. Or he may just enjoy his video games, which I am pretty sure don't involve fake dogs. Even without a real dog around here, this house is beyond filthy and trashed, so you can guess what my plans are, whoo-hoo! Happy new year!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Baby B-ball
Poor Emily missed out on skating so she stayed home and played with Patrick's little basketball game. He would not be happy to see this photo, not really into sharing these days.
Get Your Skate On
Trying to keep busy over break, decided to try out the ice rink. The girls caught on after an hour or so, Patrick did 2 laps with me and then had snacks with Grandpa and Grandma.
Happy Bigs Christmas!
The girls were pretty happy with Santa this year and I was happy that Santa got my memo about not filling up my house with junky toys. The girls each got a certificate for a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter which Sean will escort them to during a cold month soon. The girls have been obsessed with Harry Potter for years as Sean read the books to Megan a while back. Anna only listened to the first book, then it got too scary, so she didn't understand why Megan asked to switch play characters with her... from Hermoine to Ginny. This would be a spoiler if it didn't come out years ago, but Ginny marries Harry at the end and Harry is much admired in this house.
Yes, it's all about the romance, even with Star Wars which was their other Christmas gift... lots of those little Star Wars action figures. Many wedding scenes in the Star Wars play time around here and more than once I have heard Megan explain to Anna that certain ones can't get married because they are brother and sister. Barely time to fight interglactic battles between all the weddings and honeymoons they go on.
And thanks to Nana and Pops for the quiet gifts this year... Kindle for Megan who is always begging for new books to read and DS games for Anna who isn't much of a reader yet. She got some Nintendogs game so I keep hearing her training her dog Lucky, over and over, so much for that being a quiet activity. But, it's the closest she will get to having a real dog for a while. I don't clean enough to have something that sheds in my house. A dog would have to come with a full time housekeeper.
I did manage to surprise the other big kid with some night vision goggles, a la Modern Family where Phil can't stop thinking of things that he wants after his wife Claire says she can never think of anything to give him... he lists off bug vacuum, night vision goggles, yogurt maker... I thought I'd go with the one that would be fun for the kids too. Until we see how many animals are lurking in the backyard at night, then we'll have nightmares to deal with.
Santa brought me a new house which means painting in January after the Christmas decor comes down. Sean got me a printer so I don't need to interrupt his video game playing by barging into his office to print something. So thoughtful!
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Big Boy Presents
Patrick finally potty trained himself after I told him that Santa only brings football helmets to big boys who don't wear diapers. Apparently I lucked out and stumbled upon the one incentive that would work. He is starting for the Buffalo Bills next season, we just need to review the play book (or is it a play sheet of paper for the Bills?) to get him up to speed.
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