Merry Christmas 2008

Lizzie, Anna, Clara, and I would like to wish all of you a very warm, loving, hopeful Merry Christmas! May 2009 be a good year for everyone!

Elf Yourself

Hahaha… OK so not really new, but funny nonetheless…

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/ZRiRv0NSSvjbNsBQ

And

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/0U1z0Guk8VYgqpHcF2K8

Happy Birthday, Johnnie!

Happy birthday today to my wonderful husband!!   32 spectacular years old!

We love you, babe!

Here’s some photos of the family birthday dinner we had last night - meatball subs on china, that’s how John rolls. 

The birthday boy himself:

Happy, pudgie Clara!

And last but not least, the string of finding unusual ornaments on our Christmas tree continues… a green pony-tail holder…

Deck the Halls…

Hello!

Well, there are a few small things I wanted to post…

First of all, GO BULLS.  Unfortunately attending the bowl game would break our budget, especially during Christmastime, but we’ll certainly be watching on TV.  How awesome to see your perpetual “underdog” team be so successful this year.  Woo-hoo!

Potty-training is going well with Anna…  we’re making progress I think.  As long as you take her every few hours, it’s great… leave it up to her to tell you when she needs to go, and we have maybe a 50/50 success rate.  Marshmallows, M&Ms, and mini candy canes are all acceptable bribes.  *cough*cough* oops I meant rewards.  One problem is how small her rear end is now - her pants don’t stay up as it is - remove the bulky cloth diaper and there’s no hope.  She’s learning to be more careful not to bang it on things, with her padding gone.  Anna is super excited for Christmas, getting into the spirit with decorating and present shopping and her Little People Nativity set.  She’s old enough to know what we’re buying and who we’re buying it for, which would be a problem with spilling the beans, but fortunately she also is old enough to understand what a surprise is, and can keep a secret too.  Super fun!

Speaking of padding…  :)  Clara is doing well!  The dress she wore for her 3-month/Christmas pictures was the same dress John’s Mom made for Anna, for her first birthday.  And it fit Clara like a glove.  Now that she’s “lapped” Anna clothes-wise, the seasons match up and she has more things that fit.  Anna wore 9-12 months clothing her second winter, and Clara’s wearing 9-months now, so yippee!  Clara has also discovered she’s the boss of her own feet (she figured out her hands awhile ago) and also realizes she can make splashes on purpose in the bath, so that’s cute.  :)  Now when she is in the bathroom and hears the water running, she gets all excited to get naked and get in there!  It seems we are destined to never get any sleep.  At my parent’s house, where Clara sleeps in bed with me, she sleeps through the night just fine.  Here, where she sleeps in her crib, she’s up every 2-3 hours all night long.  Temperature, propping the crib up, different jammies, me sleeping on the floor or downstairs, doesn’t seem to matter.  This surprises me, since she’s so different than Anna was - she’s quite the Daddy’s girl and more independent than Anna was at this age.  So maybe she just wants her Mommy-time at night, when there’s nothing else to divert my attention.  We’re carefully considering becoming a co-sleeping family!

Josh and Lindsay are having a boy!!!  Leith Duncan Steele!  Leith means wide stream (or river) in Scottish, and is also the name of a town Josh visited in Scottland a few years ago.  It’s pronounced Layth.  Anna calls him Layf or Dunc, and enjoys talking to him through Lindsay’s belly button, which is sticking out so cutely already!!

Now after this long-winded family-oriented update, I leave you with this question:

How do you trim your Christmas tree?  With twinkle lights?  Garland?  Treasured ornaments?  How about naked cabbage patch dolls?  ‘Cause that’s what you’ll find on our tree…

UB is 2008 MAC Champions

The Bulls won 2008 MAC Championship game 42-24.  Awesome.  Awesome!

Oblivious or Intentionally Inconsiderate

That is my question today: Are people oblivious or intentionally inconsiderate?  On my way to work today an old guy pulls out of his drive way.  This is really nothing that special except for the fact that it force me to come to a really quick stop in the middle of the street.  In my neighborhood it is only 30 mph so I was not going that fast to begin with.  Then the guy slowly accelerated and barely reach 25 mph.  I do not like to takegate for paranoia reasons.  I just drove slowly behind this guy until he pulled into the near by church.  I felt a little bit guilty for swearing at this man after seeing that.  My point is we are all members of society here!  I know it sound like a Sienfeld episode but really!  Was this guy really in his own world that he did not see me coming down the street?  Or wost yet that he intentionally pulled out to force me to slow down?  This is scary and dangerous stuff when you are driving.

Granted I have become a real screwball when it comes to driving.  Liz thinks I am absolutely nuts.  It could be the fact that I can not let her drive if I am in the car.  There are various reasons why I now feel that way.  I think it stems from the time that I lost my brakes while coming to a screaching halt at a stop light just before seeing a cop at the same light.  Scary stuff if you think about.

Unfortunately, the oblivious and intentionally inconsiderate driving will only get worse out there as the Christmas season progresses.

Which leads me to something far more pleasent:  Thanksgiving Pictures and Christmas Portraits

Enjoy!

Lots of stuff…

Well it’s been awhile since we posted!

Let’s see….  In kiddo news, Clara laughed for the first time this week.  We’ve been getting little “ha”s and “hee”s out of her sometimes, but this was several real long belly laughs, so cute!!  She was in my arms while I was cooking dinner and Anna was literally bouncing off the walls in the kitchen, and apparently Clara though that was the height of hilarity.  Thus begins the siblings’ conspiring against Mom, now that Anna realizes behaving like a lunatic makes Clara laugh.  :)  Clara also managed to sleep through the night last night, 10pm - 6am… I’m trying not to get too excited about it, because prior to that she was up at least 3 times, so this was probably a fluke.  Hope springs eternal, though!

And now some potty training news…  Anna’s been pooping in the potty for about 6 months now, really consistently.  Since we really don’t mind changing pee diapers as much, and with the transition to a big girl bed and bringing Clara home, we didn’t push the rest of the training.  On Saturday and Sunday we let her run around naked all day (we turned up the heat) and she made it to the potty every single time, no accidents.  John even took her to their BPO children’s concert (not naked, of course), with no diaper or pull-ups, and she did fine.  Now today, she’s peed on the floor like 5 times.  Siiiiiigh.  I don’t like cleaning up pee from the floor, or changing her pants 6 times, but, she knows full well she can pee in a pull-up and does, so I don’t want to use those either.  (not to mention, they’re expensive)  I can see success in sight, and would love to get rid of the diaper paraphenalia in her room and use the space for something else, plus, I think she’s ready.  Additionally, at the rate Clara’s growing, she’s going to need Anna’s size diaper soon.

So, Zbrzeznys and Hjemdahl-Monsens, is this sort of up and down normal? 

Other news… hmmm…  we’re organizing Anna’s toys in preparation for Christmas and when Clara starts to crawl…  the girls’ Christmas pictures turned out cute and will be posted here next week…  getting all four cousins (Curtis and Patrick and Clara and Anna) to sit still, look at the camera, not cry, and not dump the babies on the floor, was quite a feat.  Whew!

My sister-in-law’s baby belly is really starting to pop out, so that’s cute, and they find out the sex on Wednesday, so I can’t wait to hear what they’re having.

Ah!  Just to prove I’m well-rounded - the trailer for season 4.5 of my favorite show, Battlestar Galactica, came out in Canada, and is on YouTube, so that’s awesome.  I avoid spoilers, but will watch anything “officially” released by the sci-fi channel.  I’m excited for January when it comes back.  :)  There, see!  I have a life other than the babies.  A nerdy one, sure, but a life.

Happy Birthday to Lizzie

Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife and the mother of my children!

Also, the cat’s out of the bag as far as my integrating our blog into the rest of our site.  I have been working on it (off and on) for some time.  I was playing with it yesterday morning but forgot to change it back.  Oh well, enjoy!

The First Significant Snow of the Season!

…and Anna was loving it.

It’s Over

All of America can now be glad that this two years of campaigning is now over. Is he who I voted for? Am I happy with the result? Definitely Not. It is however, the American way and I am forced to move on. President Barack Obama. Sends chills down my spine still. It will take some time to get used to that. I hope he will be as good a president as some 52-3% of the country thinks. I can always hope he will think differently and change his ways on some issues. He is only human after all.

Alright that is it for the political talk, back to the family stuff…