My little helper!

Today I cleaned up a little while Luke was having a quiet time. Put the toys up, moved the chair, and was ready to vacuum. But quiet time didn't last as long as I had hoped, so I put Ender outside, got Luke up, and vacuumed anyhow. Later that night after Michael was home Luke had found a part to the old vacuum and was pushing it around the house making a noise that to him must have been a vacuum noise. And Luke must have really been watching me because even in imitating me he would move that little vacuum of his back and forth! It's funny even when Luke vacuumed Ender still didn't like it!

What a little stinker!

I thought this was so cute...Michael and Luke watching a show and Luke lounging on the foot stool in between Michael's legs. But wouldn't you know as soon as I grab the camera, and right at the very moment I take the picture....Luke turns and smiles! Not so candid, but still really cute, and it made me laugh! Luke has turned into quite the camers hog whenever he see the camera! The other day, I was taking some home video on the video camera and as soom as Luke saw me with it he gave me his best "cheeeeese" smile thinking it was the regular camera!

New this week!

Luke has started feeding us! Yesterday Michael was holding him in church and Luke was having his goldfish snack, and I look over and Luke is feeding Michael. I leaned over and asked Michael if he told Luke to do that and he said no. So today I noticed that while Luke was watching a show and having a snack, Ender was super close to the chair (Ender always hovers when there is food), I was just about to tell Ender to leave it, and then I notice that Luke is feeding him! I was Lucky enough to have the camera right there and was able to get a little video clip. Sooooo, for your viewing pleasure....


It's just so cute!

Grrrrrr...

I wish Allstate would stop mailing me the letter that the mail me telling me that they are still in the process of trying to recover our deductable(S) that we paid on our claim and that the other party has not yet complied with the request for payment!

We are never going to see that money again! And we knew that and counted on never seeing it again! We actually made two claims, in April 2006, for the flooding we had in our house... almost 3 years ago! Also in the letter they tell me that I have the option of pursuing the money on my own. If Allstate can't get the money, what makes them think I can?

I guess maybe I should contact Allstate and tell them not to send me anymore letters. I get them in the mail, it makes my blood boil and I get angry, and then I get over it in a while just in time to get another letter in a few months....

Stop dangling this in my face...especially when the money would be nice to have!

Besides we are no longer with Allstate. We liked them and all, but when we moved they refused to insure our home because of the claims that we made. And since we wanted our car insurance and home insurance with the same company for the discount...we took our business elsewhere.

Rant over... maybe I can sleep better tonight!

Luke and his light

Luke likes to wear this light on his head. The other day he wore it for 15 minutes! It's really funny to see him running from one room to the next with this light on. Luke even tried to put it on Ender once, but Ender just ran away, so now he tries to put it on my head! And yes, if you notice he does wear his pj's a lot, I just realized I post him in his pj's a lot! He goes to bed so early that I usually change his clothes after he eats dinner before Michael gets home, so that when Michael gets home he can play uninterrupted and happy before going to bed! And if Luke takes a bath after dinner, which is usually 2-3 times a during the work week, we just get him in his pj's!

I've been booted from my chair...

I guess it was only a matter of time! Luke now loves to sit in my chair. Maybe he needs his own, because now the best seat in the house looks like the popular spot to sit! He sat there by himself, for a good 20-30 minutes! Very cute!

And if you notice his owiee...if that is even how you spell it... he fell and hit the corner of the wall. We will have to see how it looks tomorrow, he only let me put peas (that's all we had) on his head for about 5 minutes! So I hope it doesn't look to bad later. Good thing we didn't schedule pictures or something like that!

Almost 23 weeks

Okay, so here is a belly picture. I've had a request or two and I guess I have just been lazy. Some pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, but in one Michael cut off my head (just to be funny...hahaha!), and in the rest of them I didn't like them, so I didn't post them. Things are going well with this pregnancy, aside from the sciatic nerve problems I am having, and so it is all down hill from here now that I have passed the half way point. I have another appointment the first week in March, and that one will be the really long appointment because it will be the glucose test, I'm already anticipating just how hungry I'll be. It's great to feel the baby moving around so much although she seems to be on my bladder more than Luke ever was at this point. I'm able to eat more sweets this pregnancy, with Luke, even if I wanted to eat something sweet I couldn't bring myself to eat it so I had to pass up some very delicious looking sweets...I guess I am making up for it now! We, or I guess I should say I, am slowly getting things ready and collected, put together, washed, folded, etc. for when Cassie gets here. My goal is to have everything on my list that I want to have done completed by early to mid May...I can totally do it (we shall see)!

New meaning to the phrase growing like a weed!

We never really go in and out of our front door since we use the garage. But just look at this weed! It's taller than Luke! And if I let it keep growing, it will be taller than me soon! As soon as the weather gets warmer I'll have Michael help me in the flower beds (he doesn't know that yet) because things like that will be really difficult for me to do in a couple of months, plus, I should stay away from pesticides and fertilizers.

Luke's first art...

...okay, so it's more of a scribble, but hey whatever. I didn't think it over very well and when he was done realized I couldn't even save it or scan it. See, I just handed him his magna-doodle. So then I thought that I could at least take a picture! I guess I should go and buy some big fat crayons and have some paper on hand now that he's showing an interest in coloring!

Ratatouille...well done Michael!

On Wednesday night Michael made Ratatouille. We love the movie, and so Michael decided he wanted to try the dish. I admit I was hesitant to try it, it had vegetables I had never had. But I was pleasantly surprised by how good it smelled while cooking it, and that it was pretty good. We ate it by itself, and warmed up some rolls. The next day since there was leftovers I cooked some rice, and served the leftovers over rice, and that was really good too. You may be wondering what is on Ratatouille. Michael found a few different recipes and took from several of them, so this is what we ended up putting in it: Roma tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant (that is the vegetable I had never had) yellow bell peppers, red bell peppers, onions, yellow squash, garlic, a bit is salt and pepper, and a little bit of balsamic vinaigrette. We chopped it in chunks instead of slices and then cooked it in the electric skillet. We will be making it again but with a few differences, less peppers, more zucchini, tomatoes and onions, and no eggplant (it was the seeds in the eggplant that weirded me out, it was good, but I could do without).

* had a request for the recipe, so here it goes. This is what we did:

We cut into chunks (maybe a little larger than a die)
2-Roma tomatoes
1-Zucchini
1/2-Eggplant (pealed and then chunked)
1-yellow bell pepper
1- red bell pepper
1 whole med sized onion (we did yellow onion)
1- yellow squash

-We put about 2 tsp garlic (we used minced from a gar) and a few tablespoons olive oil and onion in the electric skillet and saute for 3-4 minutes.
- then we added the zucchini and squash and saute for another 3-4 minutes.
- then we added the eggplant, saute for 3-4 minutes.
-then add the red and yellow peppers, saute another 3-4 minutes.
-then add the tomatoes and saute another 3-4 minutes.
-then we added the balsamic vinaigrette (we used Kraft Light Balsamic Vinaigrette), covered, and simmered 10-15 minutes. We might have simmered less, so the vegetables weren't super mushy.

Michael did the cooking part, I helped with the cutting, so I hope that I interpreted his notes right. But this does seem like a recipe that you can cater to your tastes, more or less of things etc...

Soccer Monster

Luke loves to "play" soccer with Michael. It's very fun to watch how excited he gets!

On a side note: This just happened while I was loading this video on....

I've mentioned before that Luke loves the bath. So when I heard Michael running the water in the master bath (the big bath) I undressed Luke and got him ready for the bath. We think it's to dang cute to see him then running all through the house to the bath just as fast as he can (yes, naked). But today he went running towards the other bathroom and I had to get his attention so he would run towards the big bath. Luke all of the sudden stops, puts his hand on his privates, looks at me and then bends down to touch the carpet. Right then and there I knew what he had done...he went pee on the carpet! But the part that I found amazing was that he knew what he had just done.

Luke's 15 month appointment

He has grown! He had his 15 month appointment today and he looks great!

He now weighs 22 lbs. he hasn't gained much, but I guess the more they walk/run the more calories they burn.

And he is now 33" tall! Wow, that seems really tall to me...I guess I can expect him to outgrow me by the time he's, what 10!

Picture taken yesterday before church, doesn't he look so handsome?!

Does anyone remember...

....The Rodeo Grandmas??

"Rodeo Grandmas," a television advertisement featuring four women ages 68 to 92 who adoringly yodeled and roped viewers into "corralling" WaMu's new concept of free checking for its customers.

I don't know why I've been thinking about this for a few months?

Love that bubble bath!

A bath is a really good way to kill some time around here! Luke loves the bath. So when ever he is cranky or we have some extra time before nap or he gets messy self feeding or it's a bit to early for bed, he gets a bath! I think once I spent 45 minutes watching him in the tub! He doesn't like the getting out so much though!

Nesting continues....

It's a tight squeeze...but it will work! Michael brought home a crib yesterday. As you can see I already assembled it and put the bedding in it. All it needs is a mattress. A co-worker of his had it in her attic and wasn't needing it anymore! Michael knows me so well that he even told his co-worker that I would have it set up that same night...I just had to get it done! This is the smallest of the 3 bedrooms that we have, but the other bedroom only has 2 walls, so we went for wall space over floor space.

Maybe I'm nesting early????

Which is fine by me! Since we won't be needing boy clothes for a while and don't want to get rid of them, I needed to find a better way of storing them. I am out of room in Luke's closet, and it's just him. So we are going to store the close elsewhere (garage) and then the closet will be better organized for Luke and Cassie. I didn't want to store clothes in boxes in the garage since the temperature varies so much, and there were openings in the boxes that would allow the close to get dirty. So I got containers, folded all of the clothes that we won't be needing, and labeled them so I know what is in them. I also put away the clothes that are too big for Luke now, but soon won't be to make room in the closet. While I was doing this it was also the perfect time to separate the little bit of clothes and blankets that we can use for Cassie. So out of 7 boxes of clothes and 1 box of blankets I will be able to reuse all of the onesies (newborn through 12 months +), and a few unisex outfits like the sleep and plays, the lap pads, hooded towels (so what if those are blue), and a few blankets when the cold weather comes. I was disappointed when looking through Luke's clothes because most of them are stained, he just spit up that much all of the time. I'm hoping the stains come out with something like oxyclean (which I didn't have then) and I will be sure to toss some in with all of Cassie's laundry. Sooo, the now newly organized boy clothes can go in the garage. Next on the to do list is organize the garage. I did start on it yesterday, made a little headway, but now it's too cold and I need Michael's help. And yes, that's a lot of diaper boxes, and those are the ones we kept!

Does anyone make tie shoes for toddlers?

Luke lost a shoe. We noticed the past couple of days that he loved to un-velcro his own shoes. On Friday when we were at The Home Depot I noticed that he had managed to take his shoe off. So I mentioned to Michael that we should periodically check to make sure that his shoes were on. How ironic that since I was the one to say that, the shoe went missing on my watch. So it is gone...somewhere in the Grapevine Mills Mall. And I only noticed it was gone on the way out of the last store we were in before we went home. I went back to the last store in hopes that maybe, just maybe I would get lucky enough to find it...nope. But it was a good thing we did go back because I found his doggie blanket. See, we were out longer than I thought we would have been, and he was past the point of being done... by 30 minutes, so everything I gave him he tossed out. I ca;;ed Michael and asked if he wanted me to retrace my steps and try and look for the shoe, thankfully he said no. So on the way home, I made one last stop to buy a new pair of shoes. I got him the same kind, just in case he looses another shoe (but with our luck he will, and then we will have two left shoes...isn't that the way it goes?) And then we were on our way home. For real this time! It really annoyed me that I had to get a new pair of shoes. I like to shop for him, but t replace things that are lost irritates me. To bad it wasn't lost closer to summer and then I could just get him sandals, or shoes with ties that would make it just a bit harder for Luke to get off! Oh well, vent over.

A few pictures from our trip

We got to WA. on Dec. 17 and the only snow there was what hadn't melted from the weekend before. It started snowing the night we got there and pretty much snowed all week. There was a lot of snow. And it was very cold. Ender loved the snow, Luke thought it was okay but we only played in it one day for about 15 minutes, and I was lucky enough that my coat was still able to zip up! We had a lot of fun. When we left 2 1/2 weeks later there was still a bunch of snow on the ground, but the roads were clear. It even snows a bit the morning we left.

Let me now formally introduce...

...you all to Cassandra! No middle name here, kind of a tradition. No pictures of me yet, I'll have to have Michael take one on Sunday...hopefully this pregnancy with my head!

*** Due date June 6th, but if she grows like Luke did (he was 8lbs 4oz. and induced a week early) maybe end of May!

I have lots to blog about...

...and pictures to post, and news to share...





First our news....





in June....







we will be having a.....







baby....







GIRL! (so the lack of evidence says)

Everything looks good and normal but I am having troubles with sciatica pain or whatever, hopefully it won't get worse, but if it does there may be physical therapy.



Now the other stuff. But I'll leave it brief, and post more details later. We are back from our 2 1/2 week vacation to the Seattle area. Lots of fun...lots of snow. Busy unpacking, doing laundry, getting the house put back together (again), and trying to get Luke back on a normal schedule...no small task, any of those!