At the risk of embarrassing my daughter...

I have to share this funny story. Tonight, after she got out of the bath and brushed her teeth, I noticed Brooke had some, ahem, audible signals that she might have to go potty. So I suggested it, and she agreed. There was, as usual, a lot of dilly-dallying around, she hopped off the potty to grab tub toys (pants around ankles) and I told her to get back on the potty and concentrate on going #2 so we could get on with the bedtime routine. I left the room for a second and when I came back, she was sitting on the toilet with her legs crossed. I said "Brooke, you might want to uncross your legs if you want to get the job done," to which she replied, "but Mommy, I'm pooping like a lady."

How can a mom argue with that?!

My muses

Just a few shots taken today and yesterday that came out cute.

This is what happens when I scold Brooke for putting her feet on the table. Monkey see, monkey do!

Ah, sibling love!

Counting!

This boy continues to amaze me.

Look whose birthday was today!

Our fearless puppy, Leo, turned ONE today!
He celebrated with some new toys, a large serving of german pancake this morning from the kids, a long walk through the woods from Justin, and a small dose of humiliation during a photo shoot with me. He took it like a real man.


The kids gave him some love - though not at the same moment, shucks says the photographer...

And Brooke had some fun trying on Leo's party hat (which we made at the kitchen table).

Potty? At 19 months?

Jack has been showing some interest in using the potty. What the heck? Brooke didn't get potty trained until a few days after her THIRD birthday. Don't get me wrong, I'd be thrilled beyond measure to be done with diapers sooner rather than later. I'm just shocked. The other day we were at the grocery store and he started saying "poop! potty!" repeatedly. I was completely taken aback. So twice now I've put him on the potty when he says he wants to... he's all talk and no action but it's awfully cute to see his little chubby legs dangling there.



And for good measure, a pic of my girl. All geared up with her best friend Ellie in her backpack. I took the kids to Applebees for lunch yesterday and they came home with balloons, always a treat in our house. We are getting ready to sign Brooke up for next year's pre-school. We're very happy with her current school, so we're going to stay with it - again, three days of class, but it's longer (3 hours instead of 2.5) and we're adding a fourth day which is an "enrichment class" that goes on a field trip every week. I have friends whose kids have done this class in past years and have raved about it - they take the kids to places like the back room at the grocery store where they see how food comes off the trucks and is unloaded and stocked on the shelves. I'm excited for her, it will be a lot of fun and new experiences.

Friday Misc.

I'm a little grumpy this morning because after having a very good week (or so I thought) on weight watchers, I weighed myself for Biggest Loser this morning and have only lost 1.8 lbs.! I mean, it's a loss, so I'm happy about that - and if I continued to lose 1.8 lbs. each week, I'd eventually get to my goal, but it's still not "wowing" me. I guess after watching The Biggest Loser on TV I have a distorted perspective of what a reasonable weekly loss should be. Those people manage to lose anywhere from 8-20 pounds per week, it's so awesome. Obviously I am not working out every day, all day, like they are so I have to remind myself of that. Hopefully next week will be better, I'm going to keep the faith and keep doing what I'm doing.

I'm also grumpy because at 10pm last night, while I was reading in bed, my phone beeped so I ran down to see who was texting me so late at night and it was my babysitter, who is sick and can't come today. BLAH! I had a whole morning of working out and reading and who-knows-what else planned while Brooke was at school. Now it will be me and Jack... which means no working out, reading, etc. The last time I took Jack to the daycare at my gym he wailed so hard they paged me back after 5 minutes, so I'm nervous to try it again. It's worse than not going at all to get there and get dressed and get started only to stop after 5 minutes. So today I will either try that again or just bag it and take Jack to the Children's Museum for a couple hours while Brooke is in school. I happen to have a half-off coupon right now, so it would be really cheap.

How's that for a morning cup 'o pessimism? I need to get back in a positive frame of mind. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Inauguration Day

Justin came home after midnight last night (delayed, late flight from Denver) so lights were not out for me until after 1am. Needless to say I was not thrilled to hear Jack awake at 6:50am. But the promise of watching inauguration festivities pulled me out of bed (oh, and a cup of coffee...)

Now it's 7:30 and both kids are up early (thanks, Mr. Garbage Man!) and we are watching the festivities in DC. I can't help but think about what a wonderful thing it is that when my kids become aware of the president of our country and all that the position stands for, Barack Obama will be their point of reference. They are too young to have any concept of race, and I love that their perspectives will be shaped from the foundation of a person of color in the White House.

Oh my goodness!

I've lost 4.6 lbs. in one week! My first weigh-in for Biggest Loser 6 was this morning. I'm off to a great start... wish me strength!

Late night ramblings

Yo Gabba Gabba Heaven at the Kennedy House

I'm not sure why I'm blogging instead of going to bed - it's almost midnight and everyone else in the house is asleep. I confess that this quiet time is golden to me. Even if it means staying up really late and sacrificing sleep, it's heaven to putter around and do whatever I want, without being whined at by anyone.

Brooke and I decided to host a Valentine Party for her pre-school classmates. I just finished the invitations and they are pretty adorable, if I do say so myself! Here is a photo of the front. The inside has a cute verse printed in red in a great font called Harrington. (I wanted Aged but I was too cheap to pony up the $29 and buy it.) We asked each child to bring a small (under $10) Valentine gift to exchange. Our friend Whitney, who works at the stamping store, helped us design it and also sold us this super fantastic elephant punch that makes a perfectly adorable elephant that even has an ear that sticks out. Too cute for words. Of course, my elephant-crazed girl has punched no less than 1000 elephants in all the colors of the rainbow and "sprinkled" (her word) them throughout the house.


I think the party is going to be a blast. We're making all kinds of pink and red foods, cupcakes, home made candies, and have even started collecting some fun things for goody bags. I even found a couple of fun projects at Oriental Trading Co. that are Valentine-themed (including one for girls and one for boys). Ah, I love planning a kids' party... and I figure since Brooke's birthday is during the summer and over a holiday weekend, it's unlikely that she will be able to do something with all of her class, so we'll have this party now and then do something special with one or two friends on her birthday.

In other news... I joined Weight Watchers last night and I'm happy to say that my first day is over and went OK! They have really improved their program since I tried it (briefly) in 2006. I have to admit I'm impressed. The online tools are fantastic - online tracking, food value lookups, recipes, etc. Tonight I made a Weight Watchers coconut shrimp recipe for dinner and it was quite good! Of course, it would have been fantastic with some corn-syrup laden dipping sauce, but I survived without it. I have a long list of "weight-watchers approved" foods that I'm anxious to pick up tomorrow to make things a little bit easier for me.

OK, it's officially after midnight and I must go to sleep. If I can drag myself out of bed early enough, I'm going to try and hit the gym before the munchkins wake up and the craziness starts.

A fresh start

2009 = the year that I get serious about losing some weight and keeping it off!

Today is the first day of an online weight-loss competition a friend of mine has organized and I'm off to a good start. Had salad for lunch, went to the gym and walked on the treadmill for 47 minutes, ate an apple for a snack this morning. Wish me luck - there is a lot at stake for me, both personally in terms of my health, and also the competition prize money! Of course I already have a few ideas how I could spend that money...

Jack cracks me up. His vocabulary is exploding which is so fun. He is starting to have real preferences - for his food (he points to what he wants in the fridge, usually mozzarella sticks) and his clothing too. His favorite shirt is his football sweatshirt and he asks for it by name - "football!" while pointing to his chest. It's quite adorable. When you confirm what he's asking for he nods vigorously and says "Mmm!" He is working on a whole bunch of two syllable words, like airplane, football, Brookie, and, inexplicably, pinecone. He imitates everything Brooke does, including asking "why?" incessantly which is a bit much for one mom considering both of my kids now ask why whenever I tell them to do anything. He adores his dog, Leo, and calls "Yee-Oh!" loudly, including yelling "Yee-oh, pee pee!" loudly out the back door as Leo tries to do his business with a shred of dignity. It's quite hilarious.


Brooke had a concert in pre-school today, which was postponed from before Christmas due to the snowstorm we had. It was darling. They all had percussion instruments (jingle bells, shakers, triangles, sanblocks...) and sang about 6 songs. I got some video on my Blackberry but am not sure how to get it off the phone and post it. Brooke was really proud of herself and had to restrain herself from running over to hug me several times during the concert.

Yum

Brooke refused to sit on Santa's lap. Absolutely put her foot down. And you can see how happy Jack was...

Last night, I finally made up the gifts for Brooke's pre-school teachers. School was canceled due to snow the last two days before Christmas so I got a short reprieve. They got a cute white Starbucks mug filled with home made Vanilla Chai Tea Mix and a Barnes & Noble gift card. I have to admit, I was skeptical about the Chai mix - thought it might be un-drinkable, so I tried it before I gave it away and it was so good I went out and got more ingredients this morning so I could make some to keep and some to send to work with Justin! So yummy - to me, this tastes as good as a chai tea latte from Starbucks.

It's great to be back in the routine this morning - Brooke is at school, Jack and I came home and finished packing up the Christmas decorations, and the house is somewhat quiet. Heaven! Now if I can just get my body back on the routine. After weeks of staying up wayyyy too late and drinking more than my usual one cup of coffee every day, I have not been able to fall asleep the last two nights at my regular bedtime. It's such a bummer to lie in bed at night and stare at the ceiling until 2 or 3 am, thinking of all the projects I could be doing if it wouldn't wake everyone else up. Grr. So today I'm holding fast to one cup of coffee and hoping it helps me get to sleep on time.

Another pic from our holiday season... Have a great day!

I'm alive!

I know you have all probably given up on me, and I'm blogging to the sound of static right now, but after a two month break, I am back! I have a bazillion pictures and stories to post, including everything from Thanksgiving to our trip to Hawaii, snowstorms, and Christmas too. It seems like time has just flown since 11/1!

I promise that very soon I will post more pictures, but I thought I'd share this one from right before Christmas. We had so much snow. It cooped us up in our house for a few days, then snarled everything up for a week or more, and then it melted... and now it's falling again. Sigh. We were enthusiastic the first time, but this time? Not so much.

Hope you all had wonderful holidays! More to come...