Snow Days

You see the brown "bar" in this picture?
That brown bar is actually the top of our deck off our kitchen. There's about 3 feet of snow out there. There's no where for it to go. And more is coming this week. Fun times here in NY.

Good news is I've discovered a new way to keep Ish occupied on days when we can't get in the car and get out for a bit. Dollar Store paint brushes and paint with water books. Cheap, easy and hours of fun!
Ish refers to it as his "special paintings" and takes his art very seriously.
He pretty much soaks the papers - dipping his brush after every stroke.
And he's so proud of every masterpiece he creates.
And masterpieces they are.

Wordless Wednesday: Baby's Baby

Weekend Photo Shoot

It was about 4 degrees outside all weekend. We weren't really motivated to go anywhere. So we hung out in the nice warm house. And Matthew (inventor of weird things to do around the house) decided he wanted to hang out on the stairs with Woody and Buzz. I asked him if I could take pictures of him and his crew and he said yes (even gave me a few "CHEESE"s). So here they are:

Winter in New York

So late last night/early this morning we had our 5th storm of the season roll through since the December 26th blizzard. Schools on our area are closed. My office building had a delayed opening. Matt is working from home because the bulk of the storm came in right before rush hour and he never would have made it to the office for his numerous am conference calls.

Now don't get me wrong - I like getting bundled up, I like being able to use our fireplace, I like being snowed-in every once in a while. But this is ridiculous! I am so ready for winter to be done. The days seems to drag on though and every morning I seem to see another snow event listed on the Pix11 5-day weather forecast. It's gloomy out. The snow piles aren't melting because the thermostat doesn't get much past 30 these days. Parking is limited everywhere you go because of it.

Another minus to this weather is lugging around a toddler while 6 and a half months pregnant. Not fun. Especially when that toddler gets all squiggly.

And the fun and excitement of a snow-day wears thin when you get one every week. It's just not fun anymore.

So spring - if you can here me, if you read my blog - please please please arrive early!! Don't let those dang groundhogs/woodchucks/whatever see their stupid shadows next month. Kick old man winter's butt!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Diner Fun

The Big Boy Room

With potty training going okay (I don't expect miracles from the boy!), and with Noah's arrival only a few short months away, I've been thinking about what to do about Ish's big boy room. I don't want to hit him with a bunch of change at once (we all know this boy is a craves routine), but I do want to make small changes over the next few months.

One change is moving him from his crib (which we will use for Noah) into his big boy bed. We already have the bed - a Cars toddler bed we scored at a tag sale in almost new condition. It's sitting in our office, waiting to be used. Ish knows it's there - he's seen it. He seems excited about it. Of course we'll have to do a lot of nailing-furniture-to-the-walls work before we implement the move.

I bought Toy Story wall decals on sale at Target a few weeks ago to replace the "babyish" Pooh decals on his walls now. I haven't shown them to him yet because I know he'll lose his mind! I'm hoping these will help him with his transition to his bed.
We'll keep the nursery furniture he has in his room for the time being because eventually I want to move Ish and Noah into the same room and would love to make a big deal to both of them about picking out furniture for their shared room. One thing I picked out already (and hope that it's still around in a few years - you hear that Bob's Discount Furniture!!!!) is this awesome bunk bed. The stairs even have storage space and you know I'm all about storage space!

I'm scared of change too - so , I think the next few months will be tough for me and Ish. Thank goodness Matt handles change well! I'll keep you posted!

Saturday Playdate

LeeAnn over at The Life of Rylie...and Bryce Too! invited me over for a Saturday Playdate today on her blog. Click on the button above to check out my post.

Thanks LeeAnn for having us over today!!

Wordless Wednesday: Male Bonding

Sticker-rama

About 6 months or so ago if you showed Ish a sticker he would run screaming and crying from the room. Seriously. There was lots of drama. Something about the stickiness did not appeal to the young Ish. But he's grown - he's matured. And now, stickers are the best thing ever!

He's very careful when peeling.
On the tough ones, he asks for help.
But for the most part, he's independent. Actually takes his time. Placing the stickers in his sticker book (also known as a plain old 1-subject notebook).
Every once in a while he stops to admire his work.
And then he continues on.
The new found love for stickers is good for me too. Cheaper bribery.

2011 Home Goals

Remember The Nester? She's the blogger who hosted the fabulous holiday home tour a few weeks ago. Well now she's hosting a new tour - a tour of Home Goals 2011. I have a few goals in mind this year, so I am throwing my hat in the ring again! Seeing as we are limited in budget and time, I'm trying to keep things realistic here.

One of my first goals is to reduce the paper clutter that seems to multiply in my house. It starts with the mail - the mail that overwhelms me. So everyday I pull out the bills and random insurance papers and then throw the magazines/ads/catalogs/etc. into one of my little multi-purpose bins. It doesn't take long for the poor bin to become filled to capacity.
So while I do recycle everything and anything I can from the bin about once a week, I decided to take my de-cluttering a bit further. I've started contacting companies of several catalogs I receive and I have asked to be removed from their mailing lists. I don't catalog shop. I shop in stores, I shop online, but not from catalogs. So far all the companies I've contacted have responded that they will remove me - one even telling me they were glad I was making the decision to go green. I'll continue to contact companies as the catalogs come in and hopefully I'll be able to reduce a lot of the paper that comes into my house.

Another home goal is to update our guest bath - which is currently this lovely shade of old-lady rose.
We've already replaced some of the tacky gold fixtures with silver, but still have a few more updates to make. The big change is going to be the color. It took us a while but we picked a nice seafoam green from Home Depot and all we need to do is a coat of Kilz and one to two coats of the green to get rid of the dusty rose.
Other changes I hope to facilitate in the house are:

• Cleaning out the spare room (which will become Noah's nursery)
• Transforming Ish's room to a "big boy" room
• Organizing the office - it's about 1/2 way there now

Hopefully we can pay down some debt and put some money aside for bigger projects in 2012 - a new fence, updating our awful master bath and new decks off the kitchen and family room. But for now, I'll be happy once that awful rose colored bathroom is gone!!

Wordless Wednesday: Lunch Date

And with this post, vacation is over

It's Sunday night. Like any other, I'm doing some laundry in prep for the upcoming work week. We went out this afternoon and picked up some cold cuts and took inventory of what we had in the house for work snacks. We put Ish to bed and cleaned up the living room and play room. New sheets on the bed, new towels waiting for us tomorrow. Just like any other Sunday night.

But with this Sunday we don't just say goodbye to the weekend. We say goodbye to Christmas vacation. Even though I went back to work last week, it was a short (and I have to say boring!) week that started on Tuesday (thank you snow day on Monday!) and ended somewhere around 4:30 on Thursday. Matt has been off for the past two weeks. He played Mr. Mom while I was at work last week and kept young Ish occupied. They enjoyed their time together - can you tell?
We all enjoyed our time together snowed-in last Monday. Hanging out in our pjs and eating lots of yummy leftovers.
And we hit the stores this weekend to see what bargains we could snag. I bought my boys matching outfits for next Christmas.
We spent our mornings laying in bed watching Special Agent Oso and eating Lucky Charms (well, me and Ish ate the cereal - Matt is crazy and thinks it's too sweet - TOO SWEET??!!). We lounged around and set our own schedules for the days. It was nice to say the least.

But now the Christmas decorations are down. The outside lights are down. Everything Christmas has been boxed up and put away. The house almost seems empty without our wall art and all our random holiday decorations. It seems dark in here without the lighted garland on the staircase. And it breaks my heart every day when Ish asks to go see the Christmas lights of our neighbors that we've seen for the past month and I have to explain to him that Christmas is over and everyone put their decorations away. I know he'll ask again tomorrow.

Matt and I aren't big on New Year's Eve. I think we've stayed up to midnight only once since we've been together. This year I was in bed by 9ish. I left Matt in the living room watching whatever sporting event he was watching. It's just not a big deal to us. But in retrospect - we've said hello and goodbye to a lot of great years and a lot of heartache. From getting married, to having Ish. From dealing with genetic testing to dealing with a year of unemployment. It's certainly been quite a roller coaster we've been on these past few years. And while 2010 was quite alright (a new job for Matt, finding out we're expecting another healthy little boy), there is quite a lot to look forward to in 2011 (most importantly the arrival of our little Noah sometime late April).

So, I'll bring my rambling to an end now. Even though it makes me sad to say goodbye to these past few weeks and this past year, I'm also glad that time is moving on, bringing us closer to new milestones for Ish and meeting our little Squish.

Hello 2011. Nice to meet you. :-)