KerryAndGabe.com

Something that makes me happy: Gabe went to watch football at a friend’s house today, and I took the kids to the mall to visit the Disney store and the Sanrio store (aka “The Hello Kitty Store”). The kids had so much fun with all the stuffed animals, and I let them each pick something small from each store. Deciding what they wanted was the tricky thing. Cullen changed his mind every minute, but he was pretty firm when he made up his mind. He picked a small beanie baby bear from Sanrio. Maddie chose a small Hello Kitty with a purple dress. I wanted Cullen to get his initial pick which was Badz Maru, but he lost interest in it after a few minutes and then refused to have anything to do with him. He liked a lot of the girly choices, but he ended up with a manly bear that says, “Roar!!!” At the Disney store, both kids wanted Simba. I was glad to get them the same thing to eliminate any fights later!

Something I’m thinking: I wish Maddie still took naps.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping to write some posts about TBGT this week as well as maybe some other photos that I haven’t had a chance to post. I’m a little behind.

Something happening around the house: Hopefully, Gabe will get a chance to finish the deck soon. It’s been raining a lot, so he hasn’t been able to finish the stain. It’s going to look great when it’s done!

Something I’m reading: I read a little more of Rebel Angels, the second book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy.

Something Gabe is reading: He’s still reading first book of the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

Something I’m watching: Fall television has started up, but we’re not really watching anything terribly interesting just yet. I am excited for the new season of Amazing Race, as always.

Something I’m playing: I played the Winnie the Pooh board game with both kids as well as Animal Upon Animal. We are getting more into board games, and I’m sure we’ll have many on their wishlist for Christmas.

Something tasty: Gabe made the chicken pot pie again. YUM!

Something Maddie is doing (43 months old): Maddie got a cute haircut today, in preparation for our photos with Catherine coming up. We went to a bounce house party, and wow. That was crazy chaos. Maddie had a blast for about 20 minutes or so, and then she was tired and overwhelmed. She was a bit sensitive after that.

Something Cullen is doing (20 months old): Cullen loves Annabelle and Minnie these days. He’s so attached to them! We’re going to have to make a trip to the American Girl store for him. Ha! He’s been into playing with the Winnie the Pooh figures. He stands them up, puts them in and out of the box, and makes them talk to each other. It’s pretty cute! He got another haircut today, and I think they cut too much and didn’t cut it very straight. I guess we’ll see.

Something I learned: We can now get kindle books at our local library. Woohoo!

Something I’m looking forward to: Dinner with friends, book club, hair appointment for me, Catherine coming to take photos, and another birthday party for one of Maddie’s friends. I’m also finally getting my permanent crown finished, and we’re closing on our refinance. Busy week!

Something captured: I snapped this one on my iPhone and sent it to Gabe. No, we didn’t go home with all of those buddies. I made them each choose only one (but Santa may have snagged a few more when they weren’t looking).

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Four days of games. Just finished up this year’s That Board Gaming Thing (TBGT) last night, and I was too exhausted to come up with a post.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about all the various ways that I can get in more sleep and more games next year. I only had about 3 hours of sleep each night, and that’s really not enough for me to function reasonably. I enjoy the late night crowd…but the kids still wake me up at 7am. We might have to do something differently next year.

Something happening around the house: I don’t really get how the house can be such a disaster when we haven’t even been here for 4 days. Oh. Right. I guess it’s probably because it was a disaster when we left.

Something I’m reading: I finished A Great and Terrible Beauty (this month’s book club selection) and sorta started on Rebel Angels. I just didn’t have time for reading this week between preparing for TBGT and attending it.

Something Gabe is reading: He finished Dooms Day Book and started on Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

Something I’m watching: Not much, but we’re about to start watching a bunch of stuff. I did catch a few episodes of Jake and the Neverland Pirates with the kids. Yo Ho!

Something I’m playing: Le Havre, Forbidden Island (twice), The Adventurers, King of Tokyo (3 times), Thunderstone, Catch Charades, Quarriors (3 times), Cornucopia, Attika, Jaipur, Witch’s Brew, For Sale, Fortune Cookie Charades, Time’s Up (twice), Galaxy Trucker (twice), Rallyman, Tobago, Jamaica, Songburst, 7 Wonders w/ Leaders Expansion, Fits, and London. Gabe played Le Havre, Quarriors, Cornucopia, Attika, Witch’s Brew, For Sale, King of Tokyo, Kingsburg, Cargo Noir, and Die Burgen von Burgund.

Something tasty: Gabe bought me Whimsical Cookies for my birthday. Yum!

Something about both kiddos: We stayed in the hotel for TBGT for 3 nights, and we tried to put the kids in the same room. One night, they finally went to sleep almost two hours later. My sister came to the hotel one night so that Gabe and I could both play some games. Maddie kept getting out of her bed to get something out of her backpack. Kristin was watching them on the video monitor and returning to tell Maddie to get back in her bed. She did this several times and then removed her backpack. She then heard Maddie say to Cullen, “Cullen, we can’t let her come back in and see us!” She was the instigator this time, keeping Cullen up. “Baby, don’t go to sleep, baby. Baby, wake up!” By Sunday midday, the kids were a bit cranky from several days of missed sleep. I think for the cruise, we’re going to have to separate them. I’m a little worried that we’ve ruined them after sharing a room on two trips. Maddie’s going to be disappointed not to have Cullen in the same room next time!

Something Maddie is doing (42 months old): She’s learning how to spell certain words (obviously it’s memorization at this point, but it’s still exciting!). She has been able to spell her first name for a while, and now she can spell “mom” and “dad.” She’s able to spell it out loud as well as write it. I noticed that she started writing “MOM” on some of her papers (in addition to “MADDIE”). She’s also getting much better with her coloring. At dinner the other day, she colored a sheet from the restaurant and mostly stayed in the lines. I was impressed! I think that her Crayola video game has been helping with that. She does quite a bit of coloring on there.

Something Cullen is doing (19 months old): Little boy can throw a tantrum! This isn’t exactly new, but he really is good at the whole “I’m unhappy and now I’m going to throw myself on the floor and scream about it” thing. I’m sure that his increasing ability to communicate should help. He now says things like “Maddie right there” (for identifying where people and things are), “Goldfish in here” (when referring to his goldfish in his snack cup), “I don’t like it” (he says this in a variety of situations), “Get Maddie” (when he gets into the car and we head over to pick up Maddie), and “Get me book” (or whatever else he has dropped that is out of reach).

Something I am struggling with: I thought I was experiencing allergies on Sunday night and Monday morning, but by Monday afternoon, I knew I was sick. Ugh! Bad timing! I didn’t feel well on my birthday on Tuesday, but I took a vacation anyway and got my license renewed and went shopping at the outlet mall. And then we had one of Maddie and Cullen’s teachers babysit on Tuesday evening, and I backed out of the driveway and sideswiped her car. I felt awful about that! I don’t have a good track record when it comes to backing up. Can we just invent a car that rotates around for me?

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I took Gabe bowling for his first time ever!!! Yes, that was on my “life goals” list. I think he’ll actually go again sometime.

Something I learned: Tons of new games!

Something I’m looking forward to: Not too many plans this week, thankfully. I do have a wedding to attend next Saturday, and one of Maddie’s best buddies is having a birthday party.

Something captured: My family at TBGT!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Gathering to play board games with friends.

Something I’m thinking: I did think about what I was doing and how I felt 10 years ago (Facebook and the media do not want you to forget it, not that I would anyway).

Something happening around the house: We had a pre-TBGT games night on Saturday. Fun times! I think the kiddos had a good time, too, as evidenced by almost every toy in the house getting some play time.

Something I’m reading: I decided to stop reading Four Corners of the Sky. It was ok, but it wasn’t riveting. I decided to move onto A Great and Terrible Beauty, which is this month’s book club selection. Unfortunately, it seems that several club members have read it and did not care for it. I don’t mind it so far, but I haven’t gotten too far.

Something Gabe is reading: Dooms Day Book by Connie Willis.

Something I’m watching: Football, football, and football…not exactly by choice.

Something I’m playing: Saturday, I had the chance to play 7 Wonders, Macao, and Notre Dame.

Something Maddie is doing (42 months old): We are working on her not being so upset about things that people say to her. Lately, her brother has been taunting and teasing her about things. She wants to be first every time we do anything, like get seated at the dinner table. She has to get into her seat before Cullen gets into his high chair. We usually let her because Cullen just doesn’t care that much at the moment. But then Cullen will say, “I first” and look at her like he’s waiting to see her reaction. She gets very upset and whines, “CULLEN SAYS HE WAS FIRST BUT I WAS FIRST!!!” We’re having a hard time getting through to her that it doesn’t matter what Cullen says. She had a similar issue with a classmate who told her that she can’t count this week. She decided that since repeatedly telling her friend that she CAN count was ineffective, that biting might be a better approach. This is the 2nd time that we have had a biting incident (same victim). We had a big talk about all the things that we can do other than biting to solve her issues. Hopefully, it won’t happen again. Maddie was working on her penmanship this afternoon. She did a pretty good job of writing all of our names (she had to ask us how “Kerry,” “Gabe,” and “Cullen” were spelled, but she did great!). I’m so proud of her!

Something Cullen is doing (19 months old): As I mentioned in Maddie’s summary, he has started intentionally taunting Maddie. It’s amazing how early that this sort of thing starts. Oh my goodness. His favorite taunt right now is to say that he was first at the table (when he was not), just to watch and see how Maddie reacts. He’ll look at her and say, “I first!” and gets this little grin as he waits for her reaction. Today, Maddie hadn’t had a snack yet and Cullen had a snack cup with goldfish. She said, “I want a snack!” and Cullen imitated her (“I want a snack”) and waved his snack cup near her. I think he’s been doing forms of this for weeks, but I’m just now realizing he’s doing a lot of this stuff on purpose. He’s also picked up on the taunt, “Ha ha a boo-boo” from Maddie, and I have seen him with a toy that she wants saying “ha ha a boo-boo” while he carries it around the living room. This reminds me of when my sister used to tease me and say that she was older than me since her birthday was in February and mine was in September. When we were really little, somehow this really got to me. I wonder when Cullen is going to figure out that one (since his birthday is in January and Maddie’s is in February). I predict that it will drive Maddie crazy when he does. Cullen is a sweet boy, and he’s very into his Mommy right now. He doesn’t like to be separated from me. It’s sweet, but it breaks my heart when I have to leave him at daycare or like tonight when I went to dinner with a girlfriend.

Something I am struggling with: I want to buy a new purse, and I’m trying to decide which one (and how much I want to spend). I know. My life is rough. Happy birthday to me!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’m making Gabe go bowling for the first time ever. Can you believe he’s never been bowling? That’s what I asked of him for my birthday. He was tricked! He couldn’t say no!

Something I learned: I reacquainted myself with the fact that I do not like Moon Dough nor will I be buying any for the kids ever again. We bought a small pack of it for Maddie at some point. It does work really well in the special molds, but it’s awful, awful stuff. It crumbles like crazy and gets EVERYWHERE. We’ll stick to Play Doh, thanks!

Something I’m looking forward to: My birthday, making Gabe go bowling, and That Board Gaming Thing! I am so excited about 4 days of board gaming! Woohoo!!! Gabe and I are taking off work on Thursday and Friday so that we can both play while the kids are in daycare. It’s going to be great. We’re taking turns the rest of the time (and my sister is even going to babysit for us one night).

Something captured: We took Maddie to lunch at the cafe on Friday, and she was very excited!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that has never happened before: We experienced a 5.9 earthquake along the east coast!!! It shook the house for about 20 seconds or so. Almost everyone that felt it was thoroughly confused. An earthquake is not something that comes to mind for most of us. We’re not likely to experience another one in our lifetimes. Crazy!

Something that was disappointing: We had to cancel games night yesterday due to our family being quite the germy ones. Probably some wouldn’t have made it due to the effects of the hurricane.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking that probably very few people have experienced an earthquake and hurricane (relatively the same proximity) within a few days. Fortunately, neither event was particularly damaging in our area. It wasn’t that long ago that we had a tornado come within a mile of our house. What’s next? Locusts? Hmm…we do have an annoying fly loose in the house. Does that count?

Something happening around the house: We bought a “new” dining room table this week, finally! We also had the “last straw” moment with our maid service and “fired” them this week. We are in search of a new service.

Something I’m reading: A Storm of Swords. I feel like I’m making progress now. Lots of things have been happening.

Something Gabe is reading: Gabe finished A Dance with Dragons! Not only that, but he started and finished Moneyball and started on Doomsday Book. Yay, Gabe!

Something I’m watching: Gabe has been watching Falling Skies. We’re still watching Alphas. It won’t be long before the fall season starts. We’ve dropped so many shows in the past year or two. I’m not sure what we will be watching this time! I saw The Help with some girlfriends and had a nice time! I loved it, and I thought it was a good adaptation of a great book.

Something I’m playing: I managed to play a game of Dominion at work this week. We had enough people to play two simultaneous games.

Something tasty: I was hoping to say banana bread, but I didn’t quite have enough bananas to pull it off.

Something Maddie is doing (42 months old): We allowed a lot of TV for Maddie this week since she was at home for two days with a fever (and we were housebound this weekend for hurricane and illness). She woke in the middle of the night crying and screaming and was very hot with an almost 104 degree temperature. She kept saying things like “I’m burning hot” and later (after Gabe said that she was “on fire”), “I’m burning fire.” She also kept crying that Cullen got her sick. She was sad earlier in the week when Cullen was sick. She said, “I don’t want Cullen to be sick. I don’t want to be separated.” Awww. We introduced her (and Cullen) to The Lion King. I was a little nervous about how different parts of it would go, but the kids handled it well. I just talked through the intense parts so that they wouldn’t be scary. Maddie asked a lot of questions at parts, like when Mufasa was trampled. She didn’t get scared, and she wanted to see it again the next day. She also got more into Madagascar, which is good since the DreamWorks characters will be on our cruise ship later this year. We have three (free) character breakfasts booked already.

Something Cullen is doing (19 months old): Cullen was the first to get the fever bug. He didn’t seem to get as sick as Maddie did, though he was cranky for several days afterward. He was also aggressive at school and earned a lot of time outs. When I had a little talk with Cullen about whether we hit our friends, I said, “Cullen, we do not hit our friends.” Cullen replied, “hit our friends. I do.” At least he’s honest? His vocabulary continues to grow with short sentences. Randomly, he will sing the ABCs, Frosty the Snowman, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Of course, he doesn’t get all of the words. Like for Frosty, he says, “Frosty the Snowman. Happy soul.” He also enjoyed The Lion King and has been asking to see it again. I think I forgot to mention it, but Cullen can officially jump and get his feet off the ground now. It’s still an adorable toddler hop. He’s becoming quite the little dancer as well. He really needs a haircut, but I wanted to wait a few more weeks so that he’ll be freshly trimmed closer to our family photos.

Something I am struggling with: My family being sick. I caught the nasty fever bug from the kiddos. It’s been a while since I’ve had a fever bug. Since I still had a fever of almost 101 this afternoon, I’ll be home from work tomorrow. Maybe then I’ll be able to actually get some rest. Being at home with two little kiddos doesn’t lead to much resting, go figure.

Something I’m looking forward to: It’s still a few weeks away, but I’m looking forward to That Board Gaming Thing! I’ve been doing some planning work, and I’m excited! For this week, I’m looking forward to dinner and a possible movie with a friend (rescheduled from last week), book club, and visiting with family.

Something random: When I was a kid, I used to think that the water on the driveway from washing our cars would cause it to rain later that day. I understand how that whole evaporation thing worked, but I just didn’t get the scale of it. All I knew is that when we washed our cars, it would later rain.

Something captured: My sweet babies. I should have known that they were getting sick when they snuggled with me like this for 45 minutes. I did enjoy the snuggles! They are back to their squirmy, wormy selves, so I’d say they are feeling better!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping we are making the right choices when refinancing the mortgage (and that everything goes smoothly with the process).

Something happening around the house: We now have smudges on our walls in places where we tried to clean up the marker drawings the kids left for us.

Something I’m reading: I finished SuperFreakonomics for this month’s book club. I am back to reading A Storm of Swords.

Something Gabe is reading: I swear, he really is making progress on A Dance with Dragons (77% now). These GRRM books are really long.

Something I’m watching: Gabe is watching Falling Skies (I’m just not paying much attention to it). The show doesn’t really interest me.

Something I’m playing: We played 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. We also played a new game, Luna, that we would like to play again. We played 7 Wonders again last night. Maddie and Cullen played a Winnie the Pooh game that friends brought over for them, and Maddie played Go Away Monster last night.

Something tasty: The other day, Gabe decided to make cheesecake on a whim. From scratch. I’m impressed! It is very yummy!!!

Something Maddie is doing (42 months old): I think that Maddie might have gone an entire week without making bracelets or necklaces. We didn’t see any come home. She must be getting more interested in other lessons around the classroom. She still brings home coloring pages daily with her name written all over them in varying sizes and colors. Her name writing is getting pretty good. She’s now officially 3 and a half. Where is the time going? She had her last t-ball lesson yesterday, and I’m a little relieved. The t-ball was fine, but the instructor bugged me at times. I don’t think we’re going to be signing up for more of her classes (this is the second time we’ve been in a class of hers). I think she might be losing her marbles.

Something Cullen is doing (18 months old): Cullen is picking up on more phrases that he hears often. Lately, he’s been saying “ha ha a boo-boo” (Maddie’s version of the “Nah nah na boo boo” taunt). He also says things like, “Here I am,” “Mommy’s here,” and “right here” when locating people and things. He brings books and says, “read it.” He identifies things as “Mommy’s shoes” or “Maddie’s blanket.” I love his hugs and “kisses.” Just like Maddie, he no longer gives kisses. When you ask for a kiss, he offers his cheek. I try to get him to do the kissing by offering my cheek, but then he just pushes his cheek next to mine. Either way, it’s adorable. Cullen had a couple of cranky days this week and a little bit of a cold. He is still sleeping through the night more often than he is not. I think he only had one or two nights this week where Gabe went upstairs in the middle of the night to pop in the paci. We did manage to wean him from the paci in the car this week. He’s been paci free for several weeks at daycare for naps. I tried one night to put him to bed without the paci, but that was a miserable failure. I’ve decided that I don’t have a problem with him using the paci in the crib a while longer. Perhaps we’ll wait until after our big trip in December. After all, he has just started sleeping more consistently. We don’t want to mess with that pattern!

Something I am struggling with: I’m not looking forward to my dental appointment on Tuesday where I will be getting the permanent crown. I’m not sure what the dentist is going to do, but I think he’s not going to affix the crown permanently since I’m still having issues with that tooth. I may need a root canal.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’ve been thinking about my yearly photobooks. I’m going to see if I can limit myself to just one book a year. I think that’s going to be difficult for me. I’ll still make extra books for big vacations. Last year I had 3 12×12 books almost 100 pages each. The two previous year, I had 2 12×12 books each. I’m going to have to brainstorm ways to organize the books since the chronological approach won’t work if I want to limit the number of pages.

Something I learned: Making cheesecake must be a fairly easy thing to do (no offense to my husband). It’s always been a mystery dessert to me. I’ve never attempted to make it.

Something I’m looking forward to: Book club outing to see The Help, dinner and a movie with a friend, and games night.

Something captured: Summer!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Weekends with our friends in Fancy Gap.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about the wonderful time we had with our friends. The kids had fun together, we had a lovely picnic lunch and hike at Cumberland Knob, spent the evenings on the porch, played a little cards, read some of our books, and played at the park.

Something happening around the house: Our a/c units have been replaced, and our house is cool and comfortable again. We are expecting lowered energy bills. Allegedly our summertime electricity bill should be reduced by 30 or 40%. The wintertime gas bill is supposed to be cut in half. Time will tell on those. Regardless, it’s going to take a while to recoup the cost of the units.

Something I’m reading: A Clash of Kings. Still.

Something Gabe is reading: A Dance with Dragons. Still.

Something I’m watching: Not much. We cancelled our Netflix account for now. We haven’t been taking advantage of it for a while.

Something I’m playing: Gabe and I both had the opportunity to play Thunderstone this week. It seemed a little random, but it was fun. I wouldn’t mind having it and trying the expansions. We also taught Euchre to our friends while visiting their mountain house this weekend.

Something tasty: Scott’s veggie chili.

Something Maddie is doing (41 months old): Maddie picked up a habit of ending sentences with “right?” and saying “yeah, right” in response to other people’s statements. I’m not sure where she picked up this habit, but we noticed it for the first time this weekend. I hope that she’s not getting sick. Her tummy hurt a little today, and she had some extremely cranky moments a few times this weekend. I think a lot of it was being overtired. She got to bed late on Friday, woke up at her normal time on Saturday, and then didn’t take a nap on Saturday. I know she was tired! Maddie had a new lesson called “picture story” this week. She did it twice, and it’s been my favorite take home work so far! I posted her first story a few days ago. I probably will post another one soon!

Something Cullen is doing (18 months old): Cullen loves music! He has added several songs to the rotation on our daily commute. This week, his favorite song is “Poker Face.” He is an adorable little dancer, too. He constantly wants me to play various Winnie the Pooh songs as well as “Poker Face” and “Howlin’ for You.” One of his teachers said that Cullen was pushing kids out of his way and saying, “excuse me! excuse me!” when Daddy was picking him up from school on Friday. Today, he had a dirty diaper. I asked him, “Cullen, did you poop?” He looked at me and said, “Yeah. I did poop.” He’s constantly surprising us with his communication! Cullen had his 18-month appointment. He was 24.5 pounds (31st percentile) and 34.75 inches long (97th percentile!). His head circumference was 19 inches (64th percentile). He’s a tall, skinny boy! He had some restless nights this week, but we didn’t have to soothe him on at least 3 or 4 of the nights this week. He woke up a bunch on Friday night and cried for a few seconds but went back to sleep each time. He cried enough to wake us up each time, of course. We think that it’s due to teething. We discovered that two of his front, bottom teeth have finally poked through the gum. We had been concerned about his front teeth (and still are concerned about the top ones) since his teeth have been coming in in a weird order. Three of the four molars have at least started to poke through the gums. I suspect he’ll get that 4th molar pretty soon. Poor little guy is a miserable teether. I’m glad that a lot of teeth are coming in all at once. His grand total of teeth that have at least partially poked through the gum seems to be 9. This was a big week for Cullen, it seems. He completed his first hike all on his own (previously, he’s done the same hike in the Ergo carrier). I’d guess that the “hike” was only about half a mile total (maybe not even that much). He had to climb over rocks and logs. He is a determined little boy! He rarely wants to be carried. He often will say, “walk!” or “I want to walk” when we’re carrying him. He’s often on the go these days. Oh, and I think we’ll be staying away from restaurants for a little while. Cullen pretty much sealed the deal with his outbursts on Friday evening. It’s just not worth the hassle right now! Oh, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned this one. We’ve given both kids a few showers lately. Partly out of convenience and partly to get them used to it as we won’t have a bathtub on the cruise. The first time I gave Cullen a shower, I said, “Tut tut, it looks like rain!” (from the original Winnie the Pooh). Now every time Cullen gets in the shower, he says, “Tut tut looks rain.” It’s adorable.

Something I’m looking forward to: We don’t have too many plans on the calendar this week. I’m looking forward to Maddie’s first exposure to t-ball with a sampler class that starts on Saturday.

Something random: I’m considering not bringing the SLR on our cruise later this year…though after glancing through the photos from the weekend (pocket camera only), I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

Something captured: We had a picnic lunch at Cumberland Knob on Saturday, and I thought the trees above us looked pretty. I snapped this photo, but I seriously don’t remember it looking like this when I previewed it. Weird. It is a little like photographing a ghost. Maybe I’ve discovered some kind of wormhole in the Blue Ridge Mountains?

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Creating family memories.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking we had a wonderful weekend. We had a dinner/play date with friends on Friday, swimming lessons and games night on Saturday, and movie day today. Good times!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that our kids are as well behaved at the next games night. Gabe and I managed to both play games on Saturday while the kids played with each other and other kids at games night. This is the first time that this has happened aside from when my parents were here and we had extra help watching the kiddos.

Something happening around the house: We had games night yesterday, and I think for once we ordered the correct amount of pizza and collected the correct amount of money. This almost never happens.

Something I’m reading: I started to read Inkspell (it’s been a while since I started that series), but then I decided to switch over to A Clash of Kings (again).

Something Gabe is reading: Gabe is reading A Dance with Dragons on the kindle. I don’t think he’s actually started it yet. It was released this week.

Something I’m watching: We watched a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones. We are way behind! We also saw Winnie the Pooh with Maddie and the final Harry Potter movie. Woohoo! We’ve been doing well with our movies lately.

Something I’m playing: I played a teensy amount of Super Mario Galaxy. I also was able to play 7 Wonders (twice), Fresco, Ricochet Robot, and Stone Age.

Something tasty: We threw a bunch of fresh veggies from our produce box into a crock pot soup today. It was yummy and felt like a healthy sort of thing.

Something Maddie is doing (40 months old): Gabe reorganized Maddie’s closet recently. She finally has her clothes in her own room, and she couldn’t be more excited. She’s been picking out her own clothes daily (sometimes she makes interesting choices), and she puts the dirty clothes in her very own hamper. She loves to play in her closet, too. She’s pretty content to play in her room by herself (for short periods of time, anyway). It’s getting to the point where instead of her room sometimes being a sort of time out (we send her there when she needs to calm down sometimes), she ASKS to go to her room. This week, I said, “Maddie, do you want to go to your room?” in reaction to her doing something she shouldn’t be, and she replied, “yes. Can I go to my room?” And so it begins. Today, we took her to see her very first movie in the theater. It was awesome. The Winnie the Pooh movie was a perfect first theater experience! All morning, she was asking us when we were going to the “movie center.” The movie was the perfect length at just over an hour. She got a bit restless towards the end, and she was a little upset that she missed the end of the movie due to an ill-timed potty break. Overall, it went wonderfully. I have to admit that I nearly got a little teary eyed from the experience.

Something Cullen is doing (17 months old): It’s been almost two weeks since Cullen has nursed, yet he still wants to nurse every couple of days. The last time he has tried to lift up my shirt was on Friday evening. He’s had some cranky moments this week. Little dude is not a good teether. I’m pretty sure that some of his other molars are going to come in soon (he has two on his right side at the moment, in addition to his 4 front teeth. His teeth are coming in in a strange order). I also feel like he will get those other top front teeth eventually. You can see the teeth coming down, but I don’t think they have broken through the gum yet. Hmm, a quick Dr. Google search indicates that we might need to have them checked out and have the gums cut. The teeth have looked like they might break through the gums at any second for weeks. We’ll be going to his 18-month appointment next week, so we’ll be sure to ask about it then. Cullen continues to repeat everything and puts together more and more two and three word concepts. Of course, he also repeated “dodo head” (thank you 5 year olds at the preschool for teaching the younger kids fun things). Cullen loves books! When Gabe reorganized Maddie’s closet, he also reorganized the kids’ books. We have a bunch of books downstairs, but now each kid has a bunch of books in their rooms. We have been reading a lot of books at bedtime.

Something I am struggling with: Sleep! I had one night where I think I had too much caffeine during the day and ended up with too many thoughts in my head at night. Then, I had two nights where I was trying to upgrade parts of the website and ran into some technical problems with the upgrade. I had to change many files, and it was tedious. Now the site should be more secure, so I suppose that’s a good thing!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I started scanning my 2004 scrapbook. I’m planning to use the scrapbook pages in a photobook and fill in the gaps of the events that I had not yet scrapbooked. It’s a bit tedious as I have to scan each page 4 times and stitch it together in photoshop. Oh how I wish I had a speedy giant scanner.

Something I learned: I learned about some of the differences between php4 and php5 after upgrading the website to use php5. This was quite a bit of work, and I spent hours editing nearly every page on the website. Whew!

Something I’m looking forward to: My last photography class is this week as well as the last swimming lessons for the kiddos. I’m going to see New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys with Melissa on Saturday. That’s right. NKOTBSB. It should be an interesting evening…

Something random: So, we stayed until the very, very end of Harry Potter, just in case….but there was no bonus material. Unfortunately, we did not stay until the very end of the Winnie the Pooh credits and missed a bonus scene. Argh!

Something captured: Maddie’s perfect first movie experience.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: I had a bunch of Toy Story toys that I collected from fast food places when the first movie came out. They have been hanging out at my office for a while. Since I’m moving offices at work, I decided it was time for them to find a new home. The kids were so excited today to each have their own Woody doll. I’m happy to see my kids find so much joy in the toys. I plan to let the kids have a new one periodically.

Something I’m thinking: We’re going to have a lot of fun this summer in the backyard kiddie pool!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping to get a dispute settled with the hotel in Atlanta that we had planned to stay in but didn’t. They claim that we not only didn’t cancel (which I swear we did), but we showed up and stayed for our entire stay! They have charged us accordingly. The worst part is that it is the most convenient hotel for our family when visiting my grandparents. It doesn’t seem like we’re going to ever be staying there again!

Something happening around the house: The cleaners came on Friday, but we’ve managed to make it look like home again.

Something I’m reading: I finished Dark Places for this week’s book club. I wasn’t really a fan.

Something I’m watching: We aren’t watching much right now.

Something I’m playing: This week, I played 7 Wonders a few times, 2-player Dominion with Gabe, and Ave Caesar. I wasn’t a fan of Ave Caesar. I don’t think I’ll be playing that one again! Gabe and I have also been playing LOTS of Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. We figured that we better use the new Wii. We both started over on Super Mario Galaxy since neither of us finished the game when we played the first time. It was too hard to jump in mid-game when we couldn’t remember how the moves work.

Something tasty: For July 4th this week, we made red, white, and blue parfait out of jello, cool whip, and blueberries.

Something Maddie is doing (40 months old): We’ve started Maddie on her video game training. We tried to play a little Wii Sports with her, but that didn’t work out very well. We also tried to get her to collect star bits in Super Mario Galaxy. That was a little better, but it was still not going well. We broke down and ordered Crayola Treasures for the DS. She’s loving it and doing very well! She is on her way to being a video gamer after all. I don’t think she fully gets what the whole theater experience is going to be like, but we’ve been playing more of the original Winnie the Pooh to prep her for the movie. She also spotted her Winnie the Pooh costume the other day and wants to wear it around the house all the time. It’s too bad that the Winnie the Pooh movie wasn’t coming out in the winter. I’d have to let her wear the costume to the movies! Tonight, Maddie got out of her room at least 30 minutes after she went to bed. She was whispering between the railings down into our living room. I looked up and said, “Maddie, why are you out of bed? Do you need to potty?” She smiled all sweetly and said, “I just want Daddy.” And after saying she wanted Daddy a few times, she said, “I want Daddy because…because…because I love him.” Awww, how can Daddy say no to that one?

Something Cullen is doing (17 months old): It’s another eventful week for Cullen. Monday night, he slept from 8pm until 7:30am. So in addition to sleeping through the night (which he has never done), he slept later than he usually does. Sadly, he did not repeat this any nights the rest of the week. He is cutting another molar, so that might explain his extra fussiness a couple of days ago. In other big news, Monday was the last day that he has nursed. He didn’t seem to miss it at all for the first 3 or 4 days. He didn’t ask to nurse, and I didn’t offer for him to nurse. Then this weekend, he grabbed my shirt numerous times Friday, Saturday, and today. I tried to keep him distracted and busy and offer a straw cup of milk when he seemed to want to nurse. I wasn’t sad about it until the past couple of days. My goal was to nurse for around 18 months, and he will be 18 months soon. I’m happy with it, but it makes it harder to know that he’s missing it. When Maddie weaned, it was pretty easy. She didn’t seem to care and only wanted to nurse once after we quit. He is talking more and more. I know I say this every week, but it’s true! This week, he was putting together even more two word concepts and phrases. When he saw a new Elmo shirt we got for him, he pointed and said, “Elmo shirt! Elmo shirt!” He brought me a green car and said, “Green car!” He still often says, “I want that” or “I want milk” or other similar phrases. He brought Gabe an empty snack cup earlier this week and said, “Marshmallows, please!” He now gets a couple of marshmallows after a good dinner along with his sister. He says please a lot when he wants something (especially food). If we’re carrying him and he wants to get down, he’ll say, “I want to walk.” While in the car, he requested that we listen to Howlin’ for You by The Black Keys by saying, “Yat-ya song. again.” (Maddie and Cullen call that song the yat-ya song because of the chorus). He brought me a bottle of water and said, “drink it.” He says, “help me” when he needs help. The other day, he was laughing and making friends laugh and kept saying, “I’m funny.” He’ll bring us the TV remote and say, “Mickey!” and point it at the TV and start pushing buttons. He repeats EVERYTHING. And I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that we had a few days where we were getting reports of Cullen tackling other children. At first, they thought he might have been giving them hugs. The time he was sitting on another kid’s head was a bit questionable. Then, we got reports of him yanking kids off the horse or ride on toys when he wanted a turn. We haven’t gotten any aggressive reports lately.

Something I am struggling with: I’m struggling a little bit with weaning Cullen, but I feel like it’s the right time to stop. It has just been tough on me the last couple of days. I’m a little sad.

Something I’m looking forward to: Games night, possible Winnie the Pooh movie with Maddie (soon, anyway), playdate and dinner with friends.

Something captured: Our July 4th parfaits! They were YUMMY! I love how the flash bounced off the cups and made little starbursts that look like fireworks.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: We put together all of the Dominion boxes into two plastic boxes with dividers. This is going to make it so much easier to transport (even from upstairs to downstairs in our house – 6 boxes were unwieldy!).

Something I’m thinking: I have thought that I hated seeing movies in 3D, but it turns out that 3D has come a long way!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that I will get into Dark Places, this month’s book club book. I think that I’m just not in the mood for the genre at the moment.

Something happening around the house: The usual disaster zone of toys scattered everywhere and clutter on every horizontal surface in our kitchen.

Something I’m reading: I finished Naamah’s Kiss, and I plan on taking a little break from the Kushiel series. I read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had remembered more about her role and the surrounding events in the Twilight series. I started reading Dark Places for book club.

Something I’m watching: Gabe had a comp day for Friday, so we decided to take advantage of this and go to the movies. Despite the reviews, we decided to see Green Lantern and Cars 2. Have you ever tried to coordinate more than one movie in a day? It takes some planning, if you care about what you want to see and have time constraints. When I used to do “all day movie days,” it took a great deal of planning to fit in 4 or 5 movies in one day!

Something I’m playing: We played 7 Wonders and Dominion with the Cornucopia expansion with friends on Friday. Last night, Gabe and I gave the two player version of 7 Wonders a try. We were happy with how well it worked for us! We hope to play some games with other friends today, if the kiddos will cooperate!

Something tasty: I made Rice Krispies treats last night with chocolate and vanilla swirled marshmallows. Yum!

Something Maddie is doing (40 months old): Maddie’s gotten pretty good at writing her name. She has a preschool workbook and asks for “lessons” from it often. She does well tracing letters and numbers, and can write quite a few of them without tracing (though not all). She can write the letters in her name the best, of course. We still get comments from the teachers about how stubborn she can be. This week, one of the teachers asked us which one of us was stubborn (to which we replied that both of us are!). She has been doing more lessons in the sensorial section with shapes and colors and sizes. We’ve gotten the Winnie the Pooh movie out to prep Maddie for the new Winnie the Pooh movie coming out in a couple of weeks. I’m so excited to take Maddie to the theater for the first time! I can’t think of a better first movie!!!

Something Cullen is doing (17 months old): I hope that he’s getting some more teeth, because he’s been a bit cranky lately! He woke up many, many times last night. It’s been looking like he’s going to get the other teeth in the front for months, but I’ve started to give up on those. The gums where the other 3 molars will appear soon are bumpy, but nothing has broken through yet. He’s still a bad sleeper, even though he’s not nursing in the middle of the night. He goes back to sleep fairly easily most nights, but he wakes up at least 2 or 3 times. I laugh about friend with 3 and 5 month olds who routinely sleep 8 or 9 hours. Um, I don’t know if Cullen has ever done that! A couple of days this week, I thought we were doing good with the weaning from the nursing, but we had a few days where he had to nurse more than usual (just not at night). Most of the time, he nurses either in the morning or night, still, and sometimes both. He’s repeating just about anything we say (good thing we’re already careful about what we say with Maddie around!). He has so many words! It’s really amazing to me how much he’s capable of saying. Today, we tried giving Cullen a shower to see how he would react (to prepare for the cruise when we won’t have a bathtub). After having water play outside yesterday, I think that he thought it was great fun! I think that the showers on the cruise for him will be just fine.

Something I am struggling with: Gabe and I are struggling with the lack of sodas in the house. We decided to cut out diet soda in the house. We still allow ourselves to get it at restaurants (and, shhhhh, don’t tell Gabe that I have been sneaking some from the soda fountains at work). (oh, crap, he reads the blog)

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Gabe and I went through our shelves of games and updated the list on the website. We’ve been meaning to do that for a while! I’m working on a blog post that will be a follow up to the books we need to read list that I posted earlier this year. We’ve been doing great on that reading challenge! The only problem with that is that I haven’t been reading enough on my kindle! I keep reading books from my shelves and borrowed books from friends.

Something I learned: I learned that I can now instantly redeem my amazon credit card points when ordering items on amazon! Woohoo! I haven’t ordered any gift certificates, and now I’m glad I didn’t deal with the hassle. Now, I just have to decide what I want to order for FREE.

Something I’m looking forward to: My photography class has a field trip this week, so that should be interesting. I hope that it will be informative. I’d love to see fireworks tomorrow, but I don’t think it’s going to happen this year.

Something random: I’ll be enjoying my last week in the office building that I’ve been in for 13 years. The thing that I will miss the most is the daily hot oatmeal bar downstairs. I guess I’ll either have to hike to other buildings (or wait for the cruise later this year, ha!). I love fresh, hot oatmeal.

Something captured: Our new solution for the Dominion cards! Yay!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: While I’m not happy about the reasons for canceling our July 4th weekend trip (my grandpa has been in the hospital), I am happy to be spending a long weekend at home. I feel like I could use some “relaxing” time (as if staying at home with two little kids is “relaxing).

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking that it’s Tuesday, not Sunday.

Something I’m hoping: I hope that I can get rid of this annoying summer cold.

Something happening around the house: Toys, toys, everywhere!

Something I’m reading: I’m almost finished with Naamah’s Kiss. I finished and started rereading The Giver for this week’s book club, and I’m looking forward to the discussion!

Something I’m watching: I went to see Bridesmaids, and it has one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Something I’m playing: We got together with friends on Friday to play 7 Wonders, Airlines, and Piece of Cake. I really like 7 Wonders. We are going to need to add that one to our collection soon. The other two games were fun, too. I’d play them again!

Something tasty: For tonight (Tuesday), Gabe found us a new recipe to try. It involved chicken, green and red peppers, pineapple, and an orange sauce over rice. Yummy! We also lightly battered the chicken, so it felt like we were eating a restaurant dish.

Something Maddie is doing (40 months old): At home, Maddie only stops talking when she’s sleeping. She’s seriously a chatterbox! And Cullen talks way more than Maddie did at this age, so I think we’re in trouble. Poor Gabe will never get a word in. This week, Maddie told me that one of her best friends was no longer her best friend. I was saddened! What could have happened? A day or two later, her buddy was on the list again, so who knows. Maybe they had a little spat that day. Who knew that 3-year old friend dynamics were so complicated! Maddie currently consistently lists 4 of her buddies as her “best friends” (except that one day). It’s interesting that all four of them are friends that she sees regularly either on the playground or outside of school and that all of them were in her 2-year old classroom. Only one of her best friends are in her class now. Maddie is doing better in swim class every week. She is still hesitant to go with the instructor into the pool, but this week she went willingly (reached for the instructor) every time. I’m so glad that we’re doing the lessons. I am definitely seeing improvements! She’s not going to be swimming laps anytime soon, but she is getting more comfortable in the water, at least. She did great in her last two dance classes, too. She followed instructions almost the whole time in both! I was so proud of her. I think the difference was that all the kids were running around playing tag before class. I think it helped Maddie be more engaged with the class with a warm up period beforehand.

Something Cullen is doing (17 months old): He is talking so much! Like I said, he is talking a lot more than Maddie did at this age. I think he has a large vocabulary, but he also just chatters more frequently. I’m hearing him say, “no!!” more often. He’s quite opinionated. Every day, he surprises me with words that he knows. Today, he pointed to several pictures in a book and identified a snake, elephant, and lion (in addition to many other things). I don’t think I knew that he knew those words. He can repeat anything (and often does both immediately and later in context). He is continuing to put words together in two and three word sentences. His most often used phrase is still “where ___ go?” The other day, Cullen lifted up his shirt and put a “Little People” person to his chest. I thought that maybe he was trying to nurse the little person, but Gabe said earlier in the day that Gabe was stuffing people into Cullen’s shirt for giggles. So, maybe he wasn’t nursing the figures…either way, I thought it was funny. Cullen is still nursing once or twice a day, but he’s weaning slowly. We haven’t gone an entire day without nursing yet, but we have had days where he didn’t nurse in the morning and other days where he didn’t nurse at night before bed. We have had other days where he needed more nursing time for comfort with his teething and being sick (I think he shared his summer cold with me). He says “Mommy” and “Mama” frequently, and I love it! He now points to himself in photos and says, “Cullen!” He loves identifying people that he knows in photos. He’s great at Mommy, Daddy, and Maddie. He can also identify a few others. Cullen has been very attached to the baby dolls lately. He has really bonded with Maddie’s baby doll (who used to be called “Baby” and was renamed “Baby Sister” by Maddie when Annabelle and Henry joined the doll family). Maddie isn’t too fond of Cullen playing with Baby Sister all the time.

Something I am struggling with: This stupid cold.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I decided to go ahead and write some thank you emails for the National MS Society thank yous that I have not handwritten. Better late and in electronic form than never, right? Sigh. I will try to do better next year. We raised over $6000 this year, woohoo!

Something I learned: I learn stuff all the time and then I think, “hey, I should use this for my Sunday Somethings!” and then I forget when I sit down to write it down on Tuesday night. Ahem. Oh!!! I almost forgot…I learned what my hair looks like straight. I loved it, but I’m not sure that I can do it myself. I might have to get the equipment and product to try it out (I don’t even own a hair dryer). It was very weird to see (and feel) my hair straight.

Something I’m looking forward to: Well, if this had been Sunday, I would have said Maddie’s last ballet class. I think we will have to do more classes like this (not necessarily ballet or dance). I think the extracurricular lessons are good for Maddie. Tomorrow night, I have photography class and book club. I don’t want to miss book club, so I’m going to go to about 30 minutes of photography class before running off to book club. I actually completed this week’s assignment, so hopefully Melissa and Jason will pass along feedback for me. I’m looking forward to a day with my hubby on Friday. He managed to get an extra comp day for some overtime put in last weekend, so we’re going to try to see two movies.

Something captured: One more photo of the ballerinas after their dance class.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey