5 Year Anniversary

So this post will be a little out of order since I'm a couple of weeks behind, but I thought I should at least do this one now since I had it ready.

We have officially reached our first "big" milestone anniversary.  As I thought back over the past 5 years, I honestly can't believe it's only been 5 years.  I think we have probably accomplished more in 5 years than most do in 10 or 15 (part of which I'm proud of and part of which probably is setting me up for insanity).

Anyway, most of the things we have accomplished are on the top most stressful life events.  Here is a brief summary of what we have accomplished in 5 years:

• Lived in 7 different homes (which means we have moved 7 times....this is probably the most stressful!)
• This means we have lived in Colorado Springs (CO), Highlands Ranch (CO), Castlerock (CO), Omaha (NE), Bellbrook (2 different places) (OH), and Charleston (WV).
• Bought our first home (and even sold it for more than what we paid even after having crazy renters) 
• Welcomed our first dog into our family. 
• I have had 4 different jobs. 
• Eric had 2 different jobs, and then of course law school (which was more than a full time job!) 
• We brought two wonderful children into this world.
• Eric graduated law school.
• I started my MBA (which was supposed to be complete by now but due to this list, it's been extended a year as I have 4 classes of 17 left!)
• Bought our second home.
• Eric took and passed the BAR!  Wooohoooo!

And thanks to Eric, the only thing that surpasses the number of times we've moved is the number of cars we've owned. We are now up to 9 and he has already been talking for months about his next one. 

Not that any of this was easy, but I figure if we can survive through all of this stress, then I know we will be there to support each other through anything else that comes our way.  I am truly thankful for all of his support.  He is a wonderful husband and father.

If we've accomplished this in 5 years, I can't wait to see what we can do in a life time! 

I created this video of our years together.  I hope you enjoy!

5 Year Anniversary Video

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A Big Smack-a-roo

Mallory and I were dancing tonight and I was trying to show her how to go out and swing back in for a kiss. Eric said, "Mallory, give Mom a big smack-a-roo right on the lips."  Of all the times she listened, unknowing that a smack-a-roo meant a big kiss, she turned around and smacked me in the face. Thank you for that.

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18 months and 46 months!

Holy Macaroni, I actually got this post updated not a month late!! Way to start off the new year!  Anyway, I started the "xx Months and xx Months" posts after having done something similar about each week during my pregnancy with Jared.   I thought it would eventually end up being a post where I would have nothing to write about because it was every month, but here I am, a year and half later still doing it.  I'll admit, in the beginning it was more milestone related, but now it has pretty much become the post I look forward to where I get to take all the random pictures from the month that don't really have anywhere else to go and dump them for you to enjoy.  I love these posts because it allows me to remember all the crazy ideas/stories they came up with during the month.  It's amazing how much you forget in just a month until you start looking at pictures.

Anyway, here are the pictures from this past month.

 Why wouldn't you take every big bowl from the kitchen, line them up, and use them as walking path? 

You spend time teaching them to swing a golf club, then realize, when they start swinging it at everything, including you and the walls, the person who invented a golf set for young kids apparently never had kids.

Look at me.

Here they are at Eric's office. Jared hit his lip at the park the day before (and that night is the night Mallory busted open her chin).  I swear we don't beat our children.

Jared insists on putting his chair on the mattress to sit on. Why he likes this will always be a mystery.

I'm not sure who this is more embarrassing for, me or them.

Jared loves his hat.  I think he knows he looks cute in it too!

Oh yes, we have a climber.  Jared climbs on anything and everything. If he can't get where he wants, no problem, he will push a chair or stool to whatever he wants and climb to get there.

Jared's 15 seconds of coloring attention span. After that it's coloring on the floor and table.

Mid play rest, or tantrum, I'm not sure.

While it is similar to a chair, the dollhouse patio will break.  I cannot break him of this habit.

Look mom, I'm pregnant.  Wonder who she has seen pregnant lately, not me!

Mallory doing her "teacher books" in the background while Jared sleeps.

More climbing and bouncing (hence the terrible picture).

Jared loves dancing and music. The moment any song comes on he starts dancing and as soon as it turns off he claps and says, "yay!"

Jared accidentally touched the remote and it changed it to this channel with weird music and dancing.  He wouldn't stop dancing to it.

Here is a little video of his dance moves:)

Jared Dancing

One last little tidbit for the month. The other day I got her picture book of all her primrose friends.  5 months later she was still able to name every single one of them. 

The other thing I've learned this month, if you have a 1 year old and you hear "one, two...", you better run as fast as you can because by the time they get to three, that means either some thing is about to be thrown right at you so you better get out of the way, or they are about to jump off something and you need to be there to catch them.  Either one doesn't end well.

Well there you have it, another month.  Seeing as I'm starting back into the school semester in a couple of weeks, this will probably be my last on time post for the remainder of the semester. I cannot wait for it to be over!

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The First Snow Sighting!

It has been a very wet winter, none of which involved snow, until now!!  The kids were so excited to see snow that they stood by the door for at least an hour.

Still standing....

Oh, now they've moved to sitting.

It finally accumulated enough to go outside and play in it.  All Mallory wanted to do was eat it.

Jared had a tough time moving around in the snow suit.

Raking the snow :)

Last, we managed to scrounge up enough snow to build their first snowman.  No judging, we had to work with what we were given, this isn't Colorado!

Mallory even made a snow angel :)

Hopefully we get some more snow soon, it just doesn't feel like winter without it.

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Happy New Year!

I will be the first to admit, there are only a handful of times I have actually stayed awake until midnight to welcome the new year.  When I was younger, I lived in the mountain time zone, so I could always watch the ball drop on the TV at 10pm and then go to bed.  Ever since we've moved to the eastern time zone, I actually have to stay up until midnight.

This year we actually made it to midnight because the kids were awake (which was not by choice).  Since Eric was still slightly sick, we just hung out, played Candyland and watched episodes of the Big Bang Theory.  About 30 seconds before the ball dropped, our DVR changed the channel and I couldn't get it back to the channel in time to see it.  Even though we were up, we missed the ball.  Oh, well.

About 30 minutes before the new year, I told Eric we needed to quick come up with some goals.  His response was, "We don't need goals."  It was late and I wasn't really interested in debating on whether or not we needed goals so I didn't push it anymore. 

A couple of days later he told me his goal was that he wanted to get a hefty savings.  Um, ok, who doesn't?  Unfortunately when you have student loans and two kids in childcare, savings are never going to be "hefty."  Anyway, we comprised and are going to get back to a budget and attempt to stick to it.  Budgets take time to track, so that part I'm really not looking foward to.

2011 was a big year for us, and I'm hoping that 2012 is a little less eventful! Here are a few of the big moments from 2011:

1) Eric Graduated Law School
2) Laura's Wedding
3) Won a free iPAD and FLIP Video Camera
3) Bought our second house.
4) Moved to West Virginia
5) Eric started a new job

Here's to working hard and making another great year in 2012!  Happy New Year!

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Breakfast Eggs on the Go!

I think this is great idea so I had to share.  We are always in a rush in the morning, so when I saw this recipe I couldn't help but get excited to have another quick breakfast solution in the morning.

I wish I would have taken some pictures throughout the process, but all I have is the picture after they are frozen.

Anyway, I'm not sure of the official name, but it's basically a hashbrown/egg/bacon baked in a muffin tin, frozen to use at your convenience.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

Hasbrowns (1/3-1/2 package of simply potatoes hashbrowns)

Bacon (about 8 cooked pieces)

12 eggs

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Oil the muffin tin (I haven't tried it but I would recommend muffin papers if it will work).  Mix hashbrowns with oil and salt and pepper.  Sprinkle the bottom of each muffin tin with the hashbrowns and bake at 425 for 15 minutes.  Take them out of the oven, and crack an egg on top of the hashbrowns.  Sprinkle with cheese and bacon bits (the recipe called for cooked bacon broken into pieces but also said if you were in a rush you could use bacon bits found in the salad section).  Cook on at 350 for another 15 minutes.  Let cool and then freeze for future use.

Enjoy!

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There's a Hole in my Pants, Dear Liza, Dear Liza...

There is nothing like making it all the way through the day, after talking with the dry cleaner, technician, and insurance assessor (which involved me bending over in front of him), not realizing you have a huge rip in your pants.  I have no idea when it happened.  I guess I'm just thankful that I wasn't wearing bright pink underwear.

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A whole Lot of Sickness

I think December is the cursed month of sickness for our family.  Last year, it was the flu during Eric's finals which left me working from home with Jared in the sling and Mallory sleeping on the counter. 

 This year was very similar only Eric wasn't in finals.  This all of course happens in the one week the  daycare closes for the year. I had arranged for a college student home from break to watch the kids so I could work.  This was a nice little insight into what it would be like to have a nanny.  While it was nice not to have to waste 2 hours of my day driving, it reinforced that it would not work for us to have a nanny at the house while I worked.  If Jared knows I'm around, he cries until I get him. 

 This meant I had to sneak around the house and whisper on the phone so he did not know I was there.  For the first two days I worked in our bedroom.  However, on Wednesday Eric came home with a fever of 105.5 after taking ibuprofen (which he was convinced he was getting brain damage and I was convinced it was just the flu and that he just needed to sleep it off).  I wasn't about to be in the same room as him all day breathing in his germs (so loving, right?  I could never be a nurse who sees sick patients), so this left the guest room.  I don't really move around a lot during the day, but not being able to leave the guest room made me feel confined and it was awful. 

Anyway, on Thursday Eric still could not get out of bed and at about 10am Mallory fell asleep in the playroom with the sitter.  This was not normal so I took her temperature and sure enough she had a fever.  Not wanting to subject the sitter to all the germs since she was starting a new a job the following Monday, I let her go and gave up on working for the rest of the day.

Luckily, Thursday was also the day Mallory was scheduled to have her stitches out. We headed to the doctor just after lunch and turns out, she had strep throat. This actually ended up being a blessing in disguise because she was fever free and acting back to normal on Friday (of course after a long night of her being up all night).  Eric also got some antibiotics and he was feeling better within a couple days.  I felt bad for telling him it was probably just the flu and to suck it up when he could have been on antibiotics earlier, but what do I know?

Needless to say, we were all exhausted, so we spent the weekend doing a whole lot of nothing.  Although I wasn't sick, I think my body just kind of shut down after the month of December and the stress of the week.  Thankfully Eric was able to get up with the kids in the mornings so I could get a few extra hours of sleep. 

I also learned that it is uncommon for children under 3 to get Strep Throat.  Hopefully we are in the clear and Jared stays healthy!

On a side note, there should be some kind of rule against parents of young children getting sick (or if I'm making rules up there should just be a rule against getting sick), it's just not right.

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5 Stitches in Mallory's Chin

The Friday before Christmas, we were awaiting the arrival of Lisa, Dan, and Natalie.  Mallory was in her tights since we had Eric's work party earlier in the day and she was running around with this wooden die in her hand (it came in a little wooden box I got from Budapest).  Anyway, she was running on the hardwood floor and came around the corner and slipped.  When she fell, the corner of the wooden die went straight into her chin. 

Surprisingly she didn't cry that much and she didn't get to see the blood (which it wasn't bleeding that bad, just looking at it was disgusting because all you could see was fatty tissue, which to spare you I did not take a picture of).

Anyway, Eric took her to the ER while I stayed back with Jared. I don't know why they call it an emergency room, it took them over an hour to start putting the stitches in.  I guess if your kid isn't screaming it doesn't come off as an emergency.  Eric said she did really well, but that she told the guy that she fell off a stool (even though she didn't), so I'm sure we'll have child services at our door soon to investigate.

On a side note, why do kids do that?  We had the insurance claim agent come to assess the goods that got damaged in the move, and as I'm showing the guy the suitcase that was completely smashed in from the move, Mallory proceeded to tell him that it was that way because she was jumping on it.....seriously Mallory???? Not helping me out here (and I can assure you that is not what happened).

Anyway, back to the stitches.  When Mallory got home (at this point it was midnight and it happened just before 9pm.), she told me the doctor did a great job, she got a scooby doo sticker, a Little Pet Shop stuffed animal.  She said,"Mom, I didn't even cry.  He just put soap on my chin and I got strings put in my chin."

When we were walking up to bed, she was limping and said she couldn't walk upstairs because her chin hurt.  So funny what they come up with under these circumstances.

Just before bed.  Holding strong.

She really wanted a snack but said it hurt to chew it. When she wasn't thinking about it, she'd open really wide and eat, but if I was watching her, she wouldn't open very far and wanted all her food put into tiny pieces.

For the next day, everything was, " I need to ask Daddy if it's OK for me to do that with my chin." I guess since Eric took her, he is the one that knows everything. :)

A week later we took her back and she got all five stitches out. The doctor asked her if she wanted to keep them and she wanted nothing to do with them.

 Having a band aid on for a week left band aid marks on her skin.  I have to say she was such a trooper through all of it.

Apparently scissors aren't the only thing you should run with, keep on the look out for wooden dice!  Also, where are the classes for this part of parenting?

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Christmas 2011!

Eric and I decided when we moved into our house that we were not going to travel for Christmas. It just becomes too stressful trying to fit presents into the luggage and we really just wanted to start our own traditions for our family.  While it was hard to be away from all of my family for the holidays, it was nice to be at home.

Here were all the presents the night before.

The next morning, at about 7:30am we were waiting for Jared to wake up so we could all go down stairs together.  Eric decided to go down and let Roscoe out, so he ruined his Santa present (guitar which I apparently never got a picture of)before I could down before him to see his face.  At least it wasn't ruined before Christmas.

As Mallory was getting her stocking goodies, she said, "Mom, Santa gave me way more than I ordered."  She also got pink nail polish and Natalie got purple which she immediately convinced Natalie that they should switch.  Luckily Natalie was equally excited about the switch.

Jared had/has just as much fun with the dollhouse as Mallory does.  They both fight over the family pieces.

Jared thinks the goal is a hide out.

This little set has a hair dryer that turns on and blows faint air.  They still fight over this everyday.

Jared opening his first present.

Jared rode this all day long.  He loves beeping the horn.

I hate how the house is always a disaster on Christmas day!

We saved this one for last.  This was not my brightest moment.  It wasn't until after I wasted all the wrapping paper that I realized I should have collapsed the easel first....

Did I mention I also wrapped it in the basement? :) The guys had quite the time bringing it up.

The kids were wiped out after all the chaos of the morning.  They were all about to pass out in this picture.

Santa (a.k.a Aunt Lisa) brought them Kazoo's. There is a video of all the Kazoo playing I get to hear every day at the end of this post :)

After promises of going to the park, we finally made it there just before dark.  Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

We did art with all our new art supplies.

We went back to the park the next day while Eric, Lisa, and Dan went to play tennis since Lisa and Dan got new tennis rackets for Christmas.

When we got back they wanted to ride their bikes before it got dark.

Kazoo Video 

I asked Mallory what her favorite present was and she said,
"All of the presents I got." Smart girl.  We made some wonderful grilled ribs, mashed potatoes and gravy, and salad for dinner.  We all went to bed early that night, which I think is a sign it was good day! Merry Christmas! Every year gets better and better!

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