hurt so good? maybe not.

i desperately want to be in bed right now. but i have major heartburn and breathing is hard enough, let alone laying down. these girls have permanently changed/destroyed my esophagus!

anyway, a random post because i'm bored and in pain.

*i went to target today in search of a leotard for avery. she starts gymnastics this week! i found the dance/gym stuff in the girls section. and as i was looking around i was astounded that i could technically start buying her clothes in the girls section. the height and weight of the xs stuff would probably fit her. but she's only 3! and slowly her 4t pants are creeping up her ankles! where did my baby go?

*all of our months spent saying "please" and "thank you" and all those niceties has started paying off immensely! for a while it was just an automatic response from avery (and now nola is starting) to say "thank you" when we gave her something (juice, her jacket, etc). there's been a shift lately. now she'll say (completely sincerely) "thank you for picking up the doll for me, mama?" or "can you please get me my yogurt for lunch, mama?"

*along with the shift in sincerity and appreciation, she's started to notice/understand/conceptualize other peoples views/feelings. the other day we were in the car and we saw someone walking their dog. nola got really excited for some reason, and kept woofing to signal she had seen the dog. avery turned to her and said (yelled) "nola! that's not our dog. that's someone else's dog and if we took it they'd be really sad." :)

*nola's ear infection(s) have cleared up it seems and there was only a little fluid left in one ear at her checkup on friday. of course, saturday she came down with a horribly stuffy nose, etc and i thought for sure we were in for another infection. so far though, the nose has calmed and everything else seems okay.

*the other day nola was running around in a sweatshirt and her diaper and i noticed how skinny her legs are becoming. "skinny" might be subjective, but they're definitely changing :)

*we're getting more snow tomorrow. and tomorrow night. and wednesday. and wednesday night. depending on who you ask, we should get anywhere from 10-22 inches. it'll be interesting to see what actually happens, as no storm this season has gone exactly to plan...i've already compiled a (too short) list of things to do to occupy time and energy with the girls, but if anyone has suggestions, i'm all ears :)

strange

i could talk about the snowstorm we got last night that was expected to give us maybe 3 inches, maybe 6 at most. i would say there's close to 10 inches out there right now? gotta love boston weather and no one knowing what's going on. ever.

but i'd rather talk about my classes that i had yesterday. (ps, i'm in school for library science, school library science to be exact.) the first class was okay, a couple people that liked to hear themselves talk and prove they know more than everyone else in the class (ps, there are only 8 people in the class). then i went to my next class on instructional strategies. and asked the professor if she worked in my elementary school. she did.

my professor in grad school is my elementary school librarian! she remembered my mom (she worked in the office) and she knew my dad worked as the media/tech guy in bedford and did an on-site visit to his school years and years ago when his district was doing something big. she wanted me to say hi to them for her and genuinely was excited and thrown off that she had a former student from 25 years ago in her class.

aside from that, she's a fantastic teacher. i went into the class thinking "holy cow, there's so much i don't know and how am i ever going to learn it". midway through the class i started thinking "wow, there's so much that i get to learn in this class and use in the future when i'm teaching".

i got home before the snow started (i heard that some parts of the state had snowfall rates of 3in/hour overnight!) and today zane has a snowday :) a very good start to the new semester.

impromptu

a little impromptu dance party before naptime. for the first time, avery asked for music on to dance to. i happily obliged :)

nola apparently loves outkast. zane will be one proud papa ;)

you know where to find me.

i start classes this week. yep, 2 of them. on the same day. not freaking out a bit! i just checked the syllabi for the courses and i need 10 books. i'm praying that there aren't any days that will require all books to be with me, my backpack isn't nearly that large.

moving on...in preparation for "back to school" we had high hopes of fixing up/cleaning out/simplifying the office so that it would be a useful, purposeful, comfortable space. it took far longer than we expected, mostly because i was holding onto so much emotional clutter--napkins that i wrote on in college with my friends, sugar packets that i wrote the date and special memory on, a wine cork from the first bottle of wine zane and i shared in new orleans. a lot of the stuff i looked at, "awww"ed at, then tossed. other things i kept (the wine cork ;)) and put everything together in one place. other than the clutter, we had to figure out what furniture was staying and what wasn't necessary. after that it was organizing and putting back together. i had visions of it being our command center. and so far, so good. every single piece of paper we need (from bills to phone lists to birth certificates to quotes from the girls) is in that room. it makes the rest of the house run smoother. a happy new year indeed :)

other than some baskets and frames, i didn't spend any money to finish this room. i still need to put some pictures away in albums, paint the file cabinet blue and put more pictures on the wall, but for now, it's done and it's our new space. pass a highlighter and coffee, please :)

got pants?

i'm pretty sure i was the only one that wore pants all weekend (a 3 day weekend! zane had another snow day on friday, it was w.o.n.d.e.r.f.u.l!)

today though, we'll all be wearing pants. with windchills -15 to -20, i dread taking avery to school and the process of getting ready. i think a hot coffee is in order. maybe 2.

beef stroganoff and stuff.

sledding yesterday. we dropped nola at my parents and were so excited to have avery experience her first time on a sled! she was bouncing off the walls she was so excited too. she kept saying that we were going to a mountain to go sledding. we stuck to a pretty tame "mountain" so we wouldn't scare her off from sledding forever.

that wasn't a problem. the sled we have (a gift from a friend last year) is for infants and has such deep grooves, it wouldn't go too fast unless it was on sheer ice...

at the beginning of sledding.

and 5 minutes into it.

:) it was brutally cold and windy. she didn't like walking in the snow. her hands got freezing cold because she was wearing 2 pair of my crappy mittens. so, not the happy experience we were going for, and hopefully the next time we bring up going out in the snow she won't resist as much as nola!

onto the recipe. beef stroganoff, just about as easy as the chicken recipe (you have to chop some onion which i hate doing, so it's not as cut and dry ;)) and absolutely just as delicious.

1 pound cubed beef stew meat

1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed golden mushroom soup

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup water

4 ounces cream cheese

*combine the meat, soup, onion, sauce and water in crockpot. heat on low for 5/6 hours until meat starts to fall apart. add the cream cheese and mix just before serving. (again, we serve with egg noodles or regular noodles, either way, delicious.)

(i should add that yesterday morning zane and i looked in the fridge and saw that we had leftover stroganoff and fought over who got to eat it for lunch. we ended up splitting it 3 ways :))

this one.

this one:

...gave me SUCH a hard time today. she is right in the middle (geez, i hope it's the middle and not just the start) of asserting her independence and attitude and arguments and likes/dislikes. (it doesn't help that she has an older sister who she sees doing all these same things with more words and less tears!) let's just say that i almost gave up the battle to go to bj's today because i didn't think i could wrestle her to the ground to dress her one more time (i persevered though, and we did get out to buy diapers and aside from my tantrum when the van door was frozen shut, everyone was relatively happy and well behaved), and at bedtime zane and i found her in the upstairs sunroom, hiding in the futon matress.
it's amazing to see her growing up so much, so fast. and it's fun to see her (strong-willed) personality come out more and more along her funny side. but man, days like today were tough. and tomorrow we get more snow! which means we'll find her looking out the back door saying "snooo, snooo, snooo...." and not because she wants to make a snowman ;)

a 3 year old...

at her finest ;)

avery: mama, what are you doing?

me: i have an eyelash in my eye and i'm trying to get it out. it hurts.

avery: oh. well, i don't even care. i don't have an eyelash.

never a dull moment!

a whole lotta pictures.

we've done a lot in the past few days, and all that action makes me sleepy and not in the mood to write much. zane had another snow day today (snow, rain, ice, yuck...) and the girls were in rare form, so we're just zapped. instead, a cop-out picture post. which is probably what some of you would rather anyway ;)


(i can't remember if i posted all the hat pictures here as well as facebook.) nola loves to wear hats (as long as she's the one who picks it out and puts it on), and the other morning she chose the cowboy hat for breakfast. note she has a spoon in each hand, so as not to mix yogurt with oatmeal. dare i say she's becoming as particular as her sister and dad?

avery and marley were hanging out in the sunroom. i heard avery yell "mama! look! and take a picture!" (a nicer shot than the other picture she demanded i take today, see below....)

nola is our funny little clown. pair that with teething, tantrums and maybe a lingering ear infection (?!), and she's completely unpredictable and irrational sometimes. i sometimes am worried about silence, and i'll walk into a room to find something like the above scene. i walked over to her and she giggled and ran away.

avery got a ballerina dress-up outfit, complete with ballerina slippers. she's in love. we put our cds on random the other night and when tom petty came on, we were not disappointed. as the music was playing "you belong among the wildflowers", avery was flitting around and twirling and bringing tears to our eyes :)

since i know who sees this blog, i can share this picture :) after she went potty this morning, i came into the bathroom to find her posing next to the toilet, grinning. i still have no idea why. there was nothing in the potty, nothing different in the bathroom. she just wanted a picture taken. so i took one. and then she made me get her camera so she could take a picture of me. i haven't uploaded that one, probably wont share...

since avery got a new dress up outfit, now nola can get in on the action and wear snow white. she had 3 layers of clothes on under the snow white costume and looked like a football player. add the french inspired hat and it's quite the combo ;)

avery's latest drawing of zane. complete with beard. :)

friday.

hello snow, goodbye bed!

we had a snow day around here. got a call from zane's district last night that they were cancelled for today (we expected it with the forecast). this morning i got up to make sure the cat wasn't trying to get into avery's room and looked out the window and could tell there was some snow, but not how much. before we got out of bed this morning, zane was trying to figure out when to snowblow, because he didn't know when things would start accumulating.

little did we know that 10 inches had fallen from about 2am-6am! we were sitting on the couch enjoying the quiet before the girls were up when i thought i saw lightning and zane said it was probably just the plows. then, seconds later we heard thunder. very surreal to be in the middle of a nor'easter and feel like there's a thunderstorm in january.

anyway, zane did one round of snow removal this morning (ps,this snow is heavy, wet and packed down since we were hovering around freezing for most of the morning--i wonder how much it would have measured if it was the fluffy light stuff that the western part of the state got! i have no idea how much we actually got, a news station said 12 inches, but i know its more than that...but less than the 26 in. western mass got!) and then we enjoyed a hearty breakfast, some playtime and then a room makeover.

avery's great mema sent a bed tent for christmas and it finally arrived yesterday!! to say that avery was excited is an understatement. i'll just leave it with the fact that she didn't make one sound from the time we put her to bed (with her bed tent, even though it's for a twin bed) until zane went to wake her up this morning. priceless. thank you great mema!!!!

today, we took down a twin mattress from the attic and set up avery's room with her new "bed". one day maybe we'll buy a frame if she gets tired of sleeping on the floor ;) don't have any pictures of the new room. and even though she didn't nap a wink today, i have high hopes that she'll do great overnight again.

overall, it was an awesome and exhausting snow day, with lots and lots of good food (bacon with breakfast, buffalo dip, beef stew in the slow cooker). i think i had visions of doing nothing and lounging. it wasn't like that at all, but it was gooood.

out of the mouths...

"she's a fancy, fancy toy!" -avery

all potty, all the time

pardon all the talk about the potty, but just like first smiles, steps and words, this is big around here.

not only is avery using the potty 100% during the day, since using the big potty at grammy and gramps' over the weekend, she hasn't gone back to her little one once. which means we haven't had to clean up anything from her.

!

i never thought this day would come!

we're on our way to target this afternoon to pick up some night time pull-ups. selfishly, we're not quite ready to have her in undies over night and jump into all that would entail, and she's not asking for that yet, so we'll enjoy our quiet nights (um, her screaming and crying doesn't really count as quiet i guess, but it's not something we have to get up for) for a little longer. all in all, i'm so excited that we let this be completely her decision, her choice, her timeline. i know there were times when i wanted to (and probably did) push it, and she let me know that she's in charge. and since she's in charge of this, it's completely her accomplishment and achievement :)

our kid is a freaking trooper!

another week, another dr's appointment with one of the girls. i feel like we've lived at the drs the last month. good thing we like the office so much and they seem to like us.

nola had a weird rash on her foot for a few days that wasn't responding to things we tried. then it looked like she had a little rash starting on her belly. being friday, i decided to get her in so we weren't stuck over the weekend.

the good news: the rash (on her foot) seems to be a non-specific rash and might be related to dry skin/cold weather. and the rash on her belly is probably a viral rash that came on after her last cold from christmas went away. (my thought is it could be from the blueberries we reintroduced to her diet after questionable breakouts last spring)

the bad news: one ear either still has the ear infection she was treated for almost a month ago or it's a new infection. either way, it didn't look good and (again) that would explain her random bouts of fussiness the last couple days, the refusal to eat much, the crying out in the middle of the night even though we go in and she's not quite awake. :(

so, we're onto another antibiotic and have a check up in a few weeks to make sure everything's cleared. from what the dr said, her ear was not in good shape. honestly though, with the exception of a few periods of crying for reasons that i couldn't pinpoint and not sleeping as soundly as she usually does, nola has been a trooper (again!) while probably not feeling good. maybe even being in a bunch of pain.

here's to hoping this new medicine kicks in soon! happy weekend!

little munchkins

avery decided to wake us all up around 4 this morning. and at 5, when i finally dragged myself out of bed in frustration, she was still yelling. thankfully, she stopped shortly after and my hope is that our lack of attention during her screaming fit will show her shouting will not get you what you want. i feel like we go through one of these "cry it out" spells in each new phase...from infant to baby, from baby to toddler, from toddler to pre-schooler. i don't know which is worse ...feeling helpless when it's your baby crying and not knowing what's wrong or feeling guilty when your big girl can say EXACTLY what she's thinking and is perfecting her "buttering up" skills. anyway...

in an attempt to drag myself out of the funk that results from a way too early start of the day, i piled the kids in the car (ps, it was freezing this morning) and hit the dunkin donuts drive thru. i had already decided that the girls could get a little treat, enough to give them a little sugar kick but not enough to send them over the edge. we pulled away and i said "some munchkins for my munchkins!"

avery asked "are we your munchkins?" and i replied "yep".

with giggles and kicks and waving hands "weeeeeee're your munchkins!!"

:) all this to say that i'm happy that i didn't let the hour of misery this morning ruin the day and all the fun moments that come with having 2 little ones running around. a few months ago when i was caught up in stress i probably would have held a grudge (at least for a few hours) and missed out on a lot of the giggles and smiles that have already turned this day around.

now onto the weekend. :)

a rare food post

i don't know that i've ever blogged a recipe before. but tonight i will. because it's that good. and easy. and did i mention good?

drum roll....chicken stroganoff. in a slow cooker. amen.

i have to admit, the only stroganoff i had ever had before this year was of the hamburger helper variety. ( i know, i know. zane introduced me and we used to make HH in the early days of our marriage when we were both working and thought we needed to make things easier on ourselves. if we only knew that these would be the days that we'd want the ease of pre-prepared meals!) anyway, i don't know what made me come across this recipe and try it. but i did. and i don't know what we ever ate on cold winter nights before we had this recipe. it's official. i'm in love. and when you're in love, you want to share with the world.

so, try it if this kind of meal sounds appealing. i'd be very surprised if you don't like it. (and so would thousands of commenters on allrecipes.com, where i originally found the recipe ;))

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (i take them directly out of the freezer and into the slow cooker)
1/8 cup margarine, but if you're more crunched for time, you could use thawed)
1 (.7 ounce) package dry Italian-style salad dressing mix
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup

1-put the chicken, margarine and dressing mix in the slow cooker and cook on low for 5-6 hours (it doesn't usually take nearly this long for me)
2-add cream cheese and soup (sometimes we add sour cream too) and cook for an additional 30-45 minutes

by the end, the chicken falls apart in juicy goodness and everything is just so creamy and rich and good. we usually put ours over egg noodles, but i realized that egg noodles were giving me a stomach ache and indigestion, so tonight i used regular pasta and it was just as good.

so. there. my one and only food post. enjoy. (i have to say though, we seem to have an awesome collection (for us) of meals that taste so good and are so darn easy, when there are plenty of recipes out there that are more complicated and involved. in my book, these days, easy is good :))

back in the saddle.

it's always an adjustment from having zane home all the time on breaks to seeing him off to work again. add a few days a week where he's staying late to do some extra work and there are long days for everyone.

and, with the new year, there comes new expectations and routines around here. i'm excited about the changes and the consistency of a lot of the things we want to see accomplished around here. i'm sure when i'm back in class(es), it'll be a bit more difficult to maintain or get ahead, but i'm up for it :)

yesterday we had movie time upstairs while i put laundry away. after a while, the girls got restless and wandered in and out of our room, playing and chasing. but the best was this:

nola took a pacifier out of averys crib, grabbed a blanket from her room and snuggled down with her water in the sunroom. avery followed suit. first off-nola never uses a pacifier and she never drags a blanket around. second- this is the complete opposite of what usually happens. if avery sits on the floor with a book, nola does too. if avery wants goldfish, nola starts chanting "ish ish ish!" if avery sits on the potty, nola waits her turn for "pop-aye!" really cute and endearing and little-sisterish. suddenly seeing nola lead the way and have avery clambering to follow was awesome!

that's all. i'm going to enjoy these last few minutes of a silent house (if you don't count the dogs snoring behind me on the floor of the office).

ps, i think we can officially count avery as potty trained (for the day at least)! yesterday afternoon we went to a playspace and avery wore a pullup. when we got home we went to change her back into her undies, she was dry and sat right down on the potty to do her thing. so proud!! next up--getting her used to the big potty so she can go anywhere! yay avery!!

a new year indeed!

things have been a little hectic around here. pretty sure nola's getting some new teeth ('i'teeth or molars, not sure) so she's not napping (well or at all), i turned 31 and had a great day enjoying the little things (an uninterrupted shower, a free coffee, baby snuggles, mexican take out), and avery decided she was ready to do the potty 100%.

we're up to our heads in undies around here ;)


i should really find a picture of avery's legs when she was a baby (or even a toddler). you'd never guess she'd sprout these long thin legs from the looks of any baby pictures ;)


the other day she put on undies and that was that. she used it all day long (with the help of a sticker chart that gave her little rewards every 5 times she used it) and only put a diaper on for bedtime. one incentive around all this was telling her if she wore undies then she didn't have to go up to rest during naptime. she wasn't sleeping much anyway, and we figured we'd at least get something out of it :) (now we just have to figure out how to get her to nap every once in a while, because it's clear that she's exhausted after a few days of non-stop action!)

all of this stuff (except teething i guess) makes us pretty happy. and tired. and ready to take on a new year full of adventures, surprises, growth and happy memories.

happy 2011!