Do you want juice with that haircut?

Matthew had his first haircut the day after Christmas last year. He wasn't too happy about it - David's grandfather was a barber for years so we asked him to do it. Maybe I should add that David's grandfather celebrated his 92nd birthday the same day he gave Matthew his haircut. He also gave David his first haircut, so I thought it would be sweet. After the first haircut, I took Matthew to my "old" stylist from "back home" a couple of times, but he was always disagreeable. Sometime when we didn't have a trip planned, David was going to the barbershop and I asked him to take Matthew. So the two of them went together. David said Matthew was perfect! He watched his daddy get his hair cut and then sat nice & still in the chair for his own cut. David said even the buzzing near his ears didn't bother Matthew! I figured if he's that well behaved, then they can always go for haircuts together...so they do!

This morning the fellas went off for haircuts, and were going to make a quick grocery run since we've been out of town for a while & our cupboards are bare. I heard someone at the door long before I expected them to return, and it was David. He was stopping by to get a sippy cup. Apparently every time they go for a haircut, they visit the store next door for a juice box. Today, Matthew remembered & asked for juice when they left the barbershop. They were out of juice boxes & David said he wasn't doing too well with the bottle, so he decided to come home for a cup.

Maybe if I was bribing with juice Matthew would be more cooperative when I take him, but I think it's a great boy's day out to have haircuts & juice, so I think I'll leave this one to daddy.

Merry Christmas!

Yeah, I've gone missing. We went south for the holidays, spending a few nights in Tennessee and a few in Georgia. We'll be home by New Year's, and I'll update more then. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

A shitty day!

Sorry to make so many posts today - I figured with all the pictures it was better to split the ones about the weekend. After a good weekend I couldn't be having a shittier day. I just lost my job. Technically I'm a contract worker so I don't really have a job, but I only work for one company (it's the company I worked for before we moved to Michigan) and they decided they need to put the contract on hold. I am sure it is easier for them to do that than to let someone who is a full time employee go, but it sucks for me!

They want to put it on hold for 3-4 months, but what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Pick my nose & scratch my ass?

David & I have always been pretty responsible, so I think financially we should be okay for a bit, but I am afraid to sit around & wait on them to get their shit together & call me back.

I also love our daycare situation and don't want to change that unless absolutey necessary, so that means trying to find something part time Tues-Thurs. The economy & job market here suck, so I really dread trying to find something.


AAAAAGGHGGHHHHH! What am I going to do?

Happy 2nd Birthday!

After Matthew's nap we celebrated his birthday with cake & presents. He seemed really into the whole birthday thing, so it was a lot of fun. I think he blew out his candles 5 times! After we put him to bed, we heard him singing "Happy Birthday" to himself.

Here are some more pictures of his birthday celebration:





MIL complimented us on what a good baby Scarlett is - she said she has never seen a better baby As stressed out as I get when I have to spend time with MIL, this weekend was a pleasant surprise! There were absolutely no tense moments - she basically got to enjoy her grandchildren & I was able to get things done around the house. (and oh yeah, she folded a TON of laundry while they both slept!)

There were a few things I wanted to do that I did NOT get done, mainly finishing up the Christmas shopping and cleaning out our bedroom. Right now my dresser is still full of spring/summer & maternity clothes, and my winter clothes are piled up in rubbermaid containers in front of the dresser! It's a mess...maybe I'll get it straight soon though!

sledding

We also got about 10" of snow over the weekend, so yesterday morning David & I took Matthew sledding. (David had scheduled a vacation day since his mom was here.) Matthew seemed to enjoy it, and he liked making & throwing snowballs! I think his favorite thing was rolling down the hill though! I tried to get him back on the sled but he just wanted to roll. I didn't mind, since I was tired from pulling him & the sled up the hill! David & I took turns, but since David usually takes better pictures I wanted him at the bottom taking pics! It was hard to get a good one on the hill since Matthew kept spinning in the sled.

cinnamon rolls

Sunday I spent cooking! I made cinnamon rolls. I swear it took all day between taking breaks to feed Scarlett! They turned out great though. I also made Matthew's birthday cake. Oh yeah, I got another early Christmas present....a kitchenaid mixer! David gave it to me early thinking it would help with the baking! And yes it did! I LOVE it!

So it's been a GREAT Christmas already!

Anyway, here are some pictures of the cinnamon rolls:


IN PROGRESS:


READY TO ROLL:



FINISHED PRODUCT (I ended up with 8 of these pans!):


CLOSE UP:

GREAT weekend

Friday I cleaned like a madman to get the house in shape for MIL to visit. She got in late (her flight was changed & she didn't get in until after midnight) and then we stayed up a while chatting - she told us she brought us our Christmas present early. It was a DSLR camera. She told us that she didn't know much about them & that the store charges a restocking fee if the box is opened so we should research it before we open the box. We spent Saturday morning researching, but finally just got anxious to "play" with our new toy so we opened it.

The camera is AWESOME! My big complaint about our "old" camera (that we just bought in July) was the delay between pressing the button & the picture actually being snapped - now we have no delay! It also takes much better pictures! Here's one of the first pics with the new camera:

So yeah, I complain about MIL but she is great about gifts! I really appreciate the camera because I have been wanting to take a photography class but anything above basic (showing you how to email pics, how to get them off the camera onto the pc, how to organize the files, etc.) requires either a 35mm or DSLR. I had mentioned that to her just in conversation because we were talkiing about taking pictures of Matthew & Scarlett & she really listened, ya know?

Anyway, we have already taken 550 pictures! WOW!

Saturday afternoon David & I left MIL with the babies for a while - we were shopping but ended up staying at one store for almost 5 hours! They were having an "extra 10% off" sale and if you applied for their credit card you got another 10% off, then a lot of toys were 20% off, so we tried to get as much as possible. We also bought the Rock Band game for BIL (from MIL, but she hadn't been able to find it) and we saved money on it because of the sale & credict card! After spending 5 hours there my feet hurt so we came home. We had planned to go "out" Saturday night but after that excursion we were both tired! I think that's a definite sign we're getting old?

Recipe Friday - Pineapple Casserole

I've decided to TRY and post a favorite recipe every Friday. Enjoy :)

Pineapple Casserole

2 20oz cans of pineapple, in juice (I use chunks)
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
2/3 c sugar
1/3 c all purpose flour
1 c Ritz crackers, crushed
1/4 c butter, melted

Drain the pineapple, reserve 1/3 c of juice. Place pineapple in a lightly greased casserole dish. Cover with cheese, then mix it up a little. Combine reserved pineapple juice, sugar, and flour. Pour over cheese. Combine cracker crumbs and butter and sprinkle on top. Bake at 400* for 25 minutes.

Note - I have baked this at 325, 350, 375, and 400 for different lengths of time. It seems to come out best when I bake it at 400, but it just depends on what else I'm cooking what temp I use.

Christmas Magic

I have always loved Christmas and can't wait to pass down certain traditions to our children, but one of the things I'm not so good about is decorating. Oh, I LOVE Christmas decorations, but I'm very much a "put it up at Thanksgiving, take it down at New Year's" kind of girl. Since David and I have been married, we always go visit family for Thanksgiving and Christmas (with the exception of the year we were awaiting Matthew's arrival). We sometimes start Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving, but most years the bulk of our buying is after Thanksgiving. So many years I would be out of town for work and then we only had weekends...we had to choose to either shop or decorate, so we shopped. The years I spent more time at home we decorated too. We actually have 3 trees of various sizes that have different "themes" and go in different rooms. We also had garland, velvet bows, & icicle lights for the outside of our old house - here we don't have a lot of room for the garland, but maybe someday we'll do the outside!

This year we were out of town for a while at Thanksgiving and will be gone for 2 weeks at Christmas so we waffled about putting up a tree. Finally we decided to put up JUST a tree so we got started Monday night (I decided what the heck - we'll leave it up later in January!). David & I waited until Matthew & Scarlett were in bed and brought the tree up from the basement. We got the branches and lights on, then decided to wait until last night to add the ornaments. Yesterday morning when Matthew woke up & I brought him downstairs, he pointed at the tree and asked "what's that?" - I told him it was a Christmas tree and that was that. He didn't pay it much attention. Last night after we ate supper, David showed him the switch to turn the lights on & asked him if he wanted to turn them on. He climbed under the tree and flipped the switch. I tell you, the expression on his face made it worth it! He lit up more than the tree did! It was great. He sat watching if for quite a while, then we got out the ornaments and he helped us with a few of those before he had to get ready for bed.

This morning the first thing he did when I brought him downstairs was crawl under the tree to turn the lights on. We are planning to finish the ornaments tonight & hopefully I'll get some pictures up later this week.

Tupperware

Last night I was cleaning up after supper and had some leftovers. I grabbed a Tupperware container from the drawer to use for storage. To my surprise I found that it already had something in it. We have very little storage space in our kitchen and I don't usually put lids on tupperware and rubbermaid - I stack them inside each other, but this specific piece I stack others inside and then put the lid on. I guess sometime we put food in it and then the other one of us didn't realize it was food inside so we put it in the drawer. Even more surprising is that the food still *looked* edible. No way was I going to try it though! The last time I made quesadillas was before we went out of town for Thanksgiving - THAT'S how long the tupperware kept it! Needless to say I'll be checking my tupperware a little more closely before putting it away from now on!

to the doctor

Yuck. One evening last week I thought Matthew's ear looked a little gunky, but the next morning it looked fine and he didn't seem bothered by it, so I ignored it. I don't want to be one of those people that calls the doctor over every little thing, but if the office had been open that evening I would have called. I waited, it looked better, I didn't call. Makes sense, right?

Yesterday it started looking gunky again, and this morning when he woke up it was awful. I set up and appointment and took him in. Poor little guy has such a high tolerance for pain, we don't know he has an ear infection until it ruptures and sure enough, that's what happened. He didn't want me touching his ear this morning, so I know it hurts. I also tried to prep him for the doctor checking it by telling him that the doctor couldn't make him feel better without checking it, and that he should be a big boy for the doctor. When the doctor started to examine him, he looked at me with a little hesitation and I said "remember I told you the doctor would need to look at your ears?" so he sat quietly while the doc checked him out. When the doc was finished, Matthew looked at me and said "big boy" - I told him yes he was and then the doctor bragged on him too. :)

Matthew weighed 29 lbs - surprising to me since when we were in GA before Thanksgiving he felt a lot heavier than my niece, but she weighed 31 lbs at her last check up. Someone's scale isn't accurate!

I had Scarlett with me so I asked them to weigh her too (I'm still a little bothered by her not gaining a lot of weight between 2 & 4 months, after gaining quickly early on). She weighed 15 lbs 1 oz, which means she had gained more weight since her 4 months apointment than she had gained between 2 & 4! That surprised me since breastfed babies usually slow down around this time. At the same time it makes me feel much better about her weight!

Visit to Santa, and other random thoughts

Last weekend we decided we HAD to buy Matthew new shoes so we headed off to the outlet mall. We hoped to get some Christmas shopping done also and planned to visit a huge store that has all things Christmas. Matthew woke up at 6am, early even for him! I got up with him and figured Scarlett would be up soon (she went to bed around 9 and hadn't gotten up during the night - that was 3 nights out of 4 so we are making progress) so I let David sleep and planned to shower after Scarlett ate. Well, she didn't get up until almost 10 so we got off to a really late start, considering it is over an hour drive to the outlet mall. Anyway, I got Scarlett fed then got ready to go and decided to pump in the car on our way - I was pretty engorged since she went so long without sleeping, even after she ate! I also thought it might make shopping easier if she would take a bottle, and figured if she didn't take the bottle I would still be able to feed her. So when we got to the Christmas store, I put her in the sling and tried feeding her - she GULPED down 8 oz of the bottle! She has never taken that much before, and never taken a bottle from me, other than in the car with my arm reaching over the seat! I love progress!

The Christmas store had a Santa Claus and the 2 nice things were that you got a coded sticker for your child, then they called the codes so you got in line then (no hours long wait) and you took the picture with your own camera - so no paying $20 for a single 5x7. I am very particular about Santas though - for pictures it has to be a "real Santa". When we were growing up I used to want to talk to every Santa we saw, and my mom would tell me "well he's not real, wait until we go see the real one" - and one Saturday we would make the trip to the mall (70 miles away, seemed like forever in those days) that had the real Santa. Now what, you may ask, makes a real Santa? It's actually pretty simple I think - everything about him is real - none of that fake beard business! So when we got the stickers for the kids, we asked the woman if Santa was real and she said yes. David actually said "his beard is real?" to double check, because the glance I caught of him from far away I didn't think he was real and she said "of course". So we got the stickers and waited until our code was called. We stood in line for about 5 minutes and then got up to see Santa. While this was a great personality Santa Claus, and he took a good bit of time with each child, he was NOT a REAL SANTA! How in the world could the huge Christmas superstore NOT have a REAL Santa?!?!?! So, we took their picture in his lap and made plans to take them to the mall to have their picture made with a real santa...not that they care, it's all about us, I know, but I don't feel like Christmas is complete without a Santa picture.

As for the rest of the trip - we bought several Christmas presents, we got Matthew some shoes, and it was overall a good day.

Neighborly

Did I spell that right? It looks funny to me, but I'm pretty sure it's right. Anyway, we bought our house a little over 2 years ago. When we moved in none of our neighbors seemed very friendly. The couple on one side of us did water our grass (I think they realized we were busy trying to get the house ready to move into) a couple of times, but they hardly spoke to us when we saw them out in the yard. The people on the other side only talked to us twice in the first year we lived here, and one of those was to ask if they could "borrow" our driveway when they had a party. I am always nice to them and they are always nice to us, but I wouldn't feel right running next door to borrow an egg if I was baking, ya know?

I've since learned that one of our neighbors is much nicer than I realized. We got home from our week and a half long Thanksgiving trip around 6:30 that Sunday night. It was cold, dark, and snowing. David noticed that a lot of our neighbors had leaves piled in the street, so he thought maybe they were doing leaf collection Monday. He called and sure enough, it was scheduled. He was tired and sick so he didn't want to rake that night and our blower is on the fritz. I told him I would rake if I needed to, but he has this "thing" about me doing what he views as "man's work" so I finally convinced him just to wait & we would do it later. Too bad that was the last pick up and now we have to rake them, bag them, and let them be collected on trash day. That's a lot more work than just raking them into the street! Anyway, David came home at lunch that Monday & started fussing at me for raking. I told him I hadn't and he wouldn't believe me. I finally told him one of our neighbors must have done it. Someone had raked our front yard! Now I'm not sure if they did it because they are really nice and knew that we hadn't been home for over a week, or if they just did it to keep the leaves from blowing into their yard, but either way - that's a pretty damn good neighbor.

So I am planning to bake cinnamon rolls (either this weekend or the next) and I will be taking a pan to each of my next door neighbors, just to be neighborly. (Well and to thank them but since I don't know who to thank I'll just cover both!)