KerryAndGabe.com

Something that makes me happy: The annual Christmas date with Audrey makes me very happy! This year, we went to brunch at the Umstead hotel and then to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I had seen them perform years ago. What an amazing show! I hope to do a write up about it soon.

Something I’m thinking: The blog has been neglected lately. We’ve been extremely busy with getting ready for the holidays and our cruise.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that my family stays well between now and the end of the cruise. I’m paranoid about someone getting sick and missing the cruise.

Something happening around the house: Our annual poker tournament was on Saturday. Good times! The bonus room is still set up like a poker room with the chips as we left them late on Saturday.

Something I’m reading: I barely read this week, but I’m reading the 3rd book of the Percy Jackson series (on the kindle from the library!).

Something Gabe is reading: He’s almost finished with The Hero of Ages.

Something I’m watching: I went to see The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 with girlfriends. Yes, the movies aren’t great, but they are fun. We did see the trailer for The Hunger Games. I cannot wait for that one!!! It better be good!

Something I’m playing: We introduced Die Burgen von Burgund to Melissa and Jason.

Something tasty: The brunch at Heron’s was YUMMY!

Something about both kiddos: The kids are very excited about Christmas lights on our way home from work each day. I am looking forward to showing them the crazy decorated house near us, closer to Christmas. I think they are going to love the decorations on the ship as well! Cullen is already saying, “I like Christmas lights on cruise ship.” He started saying that at random once I told him that we would find lights and decorations on the ship.

Something Maddie is doing (45 months old): Most people don’t see the side of Maddie where she talks NONSTOP, but wow. That girl talks continuously when she’s at home or in the car or anywhere when it’s just our family. I swear, she doesn’t stop unless she’s in the presence of others. We don’t get a lot of silence in this household. I can’t remember the last time that she took a nap at home. Every once in a while, she will fall asleep in the car on a long trip. She does pretty well with “quiet time,” which is more of a break for us than it is for her! The down time benefits everyone!

Something Cullen is doing (22 months old): We taught him our “other” names this week, and he answers that Mommy is “Kerry” and that Daddy is “Gabe.” I tried to teach him his last name, but instead of saying his real last name, he insists that his last name is “Brudder.” Ha! I tell him, no, that’s not right and tell him his real last name, and he says, “No! Brudder! Stop saying that!” We’ve been having lots of conversations lately. It should be interesting to spend a week with him on vacation and then another week for the holiday. I always notice big developmental changes when he spends extended time with us.

Something I am struggling with: I did something to my shoulder, and it hurts like crazy. I hope it is better soon.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Somehow, I managed to get tickets to Les Miserables AND Wicked this week for dates next year. Woohoo! I’ve wanted to see both of those shows for a while. We’re also working on the arrangements for next year’s Disney trip!!! And…we’re getting ready to go on the cruise on the megaship.

Something I’m looking forward to: ALLURE OF THE SEAS!!!

Something captured: Lasers! Fire! Headbanging violinists!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Melissa and I saw the NKOTBSB concert this weekend, and it was awesome! I’m so glad we went. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a crazy crowd. It seemed like more people were there for BSB than NKOTB (maybe 60/40). Matthew Morrison from Glee was also there which was neat. Somehow, the girl next to us had not even heard of Glee. The concert was very, very loud. It was so loud that I felt the sound was distorted, and I had a hard time figuring out what people were saying at times. I’m not just being a fuddy duddy when I say this, but I really feared for hearing loss. I wasn’t the only one. It was ridiculous. It was a long show, too! They had some other boy band open before Matthew Morrison, then he performed. Then NKOTB and BSB performed together at times and alternated almost every other song. I liked that format. That way if you only care about one of the bands, you don’t have to suffer through the other one for too long at one time. We were certainly there to see NKOTB, but we did enjoy a lot of the BSB performances, too. We had a great night!

Something happening around the house: Well, one of the things that I have worried would happen actually did happen this week. Our air conditioning units decided to bite the dust. That’s right. Both units bit the big one. The house is over 15 years old, so we were not hopeful that we’d be able to fix it. They charged us around $1k to “fix” the systems, and they could only get one of the systems up and running (and it was only limping along). Of course, that cost could be applied to the installation of new units. Since they couldn’t really fix it, we were stuck with getting that company to install them. They are coming tomorrow to install the downstairs system and Wednesday for the upstairs.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about how we are going to handle the enormous expense of two new units. I’ve been shuffling money around bank accounts, investigating our HELOC, and exploring financing options. I’m going to try not to worry about what house related expense will be next. Things on our radar are the roof, washer and dryer, and garage door. At least all of those things are much cheaper than a new HVAC system (even all of those combined). Days like these I wish I was renting!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that our energy bills will be reduced as promised. It won’t make up for the cost of the system for a while, but it is better than a kick in the pants.

Something I’m reading: I didn’t get to read much this week. Things were crazy. I’m reading A Clash of Kings.

Something Gabe is reading: Gabe is reading A Dance with Dragons. He’s about 20% through the book.

Something I’m watching: Maddie and I went with one of her best buddies to see Winnie the Pooh. Maddie had been asking to see it again. I thought it was a good way to beat the heat this weekend. She enjoyed it, and I did, too. We stayed through the credits this time to see the little bonus backson clip.

Something I’m playing: We played a little Super Mario Galaxy. I also played Dominion during lunch on Friday.

Something Maddie is doing (41 months old): She’s been writing her name for a little while now, and she’s getting better and better at it. She writes her name often when we do artwork around the house. We spent the night at her friend’s house on Saturday to get out of our oven of a house, and she slept in her friend’s room. She ended up sleeping in the same bed as her friend. This was an interesting experiment! The girls gabbed and giggled for a while, and it took them forever to go to sleep. When Maddie fell asleep, her buddy started crying. She was upset because Maddie was sleeping! Cute! They were adorable curled up on the bed together. They didn’t get nearly enough sleep, unfortunately. They kept each other awake until about 10:30pm, and then Maddie woke up several times through the night. I’m sure part of that was being in an unfamiliar place. She was cranky most of the day today. I hope that it’s just because she didn’t get enough sleep and not because she’s coming down with something. She likes to say, “oh, man!!” a lot these days, especially when we tell her to do something she doesn’t want to do.

Something Cullen is doing (18 months old): Cullen adds new words to his vocabulary daily. I know I keep mentioning it here, but his verbal skills really are amazing. I tried writing down all the words and phrases that he knows, and I have over 130 so far (EDIT: I’ve worked on the list some more and have over 200 words). I’m sure there are many that I’m forgetting! These are just the words that he spontaneously says (not words that he repeats). He is now officially 18 months old, but I haven’t had a chance to finish his letter. We had a few too many distractions this week. During lunch on Saturday, he started saying, “oh, goodness! oh, goodness!” out of the blue. He loves to do marker work (and says, “marker work! marker work!”). We have to watch him carefully as he likes to get up from the table and walk around with open markers. He’ll also open up a bunch of markers and not put the caps back on. He also wants to write on furniture and put the markers in his mouth. There’s a reason we never did markers at this age with Maddie!!! He likes playing with stickers, too. Sometimes he counts. He says “2, 3″ after someone says 1. He also randomly says, “8, 9!” He was doing that in the mountains in May, but I wasn’t convinced that he was really imitating counting until later. He requests songs every time that we get into the car. He still requests the “yat ya” song, but now he also requests the backson song from the Winnie the Pooh movie. He tried to lift my shirt to indicate he wanted to nurse once or twice this week.

Something I am struggling with: Sleep. I’ve had a lot of insomnia in the past few weeks. I think it is related to my increase in my morning caffeine.

Something I learned: I played around with photoshop elements actions this week. I’m excited to try some editing soon…whenever I actually get a free minute.

Something I’m looking forward to: A cool house. Dinner with friends, book club, and more time spent with friends. I’m also glad that we’re finished with dance, swimming, and photography lessons for now.

Something captured: Melissa and I are ready for the concert!

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: Theoretically, being caught up with photos would make me happy.

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking about ways to reduce our electric bill. Wow, I know the last month was a hot one, but I still didn’t expect to see our bill that high. Yikes!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping for cooler temperatures soon. I’m a big fan of the fall.

Something happening around the house: Our broken toilet in the master bathroom is finally fixed! Yay!

Something I’m reading: Nothing, really. I’m not going to finish this month’s book club book before Wednesday’s book club. I’m ok with this. This will be the first time that I’ve attended book club without having read the book.

Something I’m watching: More from Supernatural. We’re still on Season 1.

Something I’m playing: More Carcassonne. Not much Words with Friends.

Something tasty: Twice this week, I made fresh pasta sauce with our tomatoes and other veggies in The Produce Box. That’s a yummy way to use the tomatoes (and makes me tempted to have a little vegetable garden).

Something Maddie is doing (30 months old): She is now officially 2.5 years old, and I swear I’ve written her letter. I haven’t had a chance yet to organize the photos, but I do hope to have those done soon. We had her 30-month conference with her teachers. She’ll be moving from the daycare to preschool in about 6 months – wow! They have no concerns about her development, and she seems to be doing very well in all categories.

Something Cullen is doing (31 weeks old): He’s now officially 7 months, and he’s crawling all over the place. He’s still mostly sticking to his army crawl and is getting faster at it. I love how he crawls across the room towards me when he’s upset now. It’s so adorable. He had carrots for the first time (before I burned the rest of the batch). He loved them! I’m going to have to get some more carrots for him. We have been doing a few simple combinations like peach/banana/oatmeal and prune/avocado (which gets mixed reviews from Cullen, but the first time he loved it).

Something I am struggling with: I’m struggling with making baby food this week! Things have been going quite well, but this week I burned a batch of carrots and discovered that the peaches were moldy before we had a chance to use them. What a waste of fresh, organic produce! Oh well, I guess I’m still learning.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We went to the Jack Johnson concert on Saturday. This was one of the items on my list!

Something I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to meeting with Cullen’s specialist on Thursday so that we can finally get some answers. I’m looking forward to some other stuff, too… our last ribbon dancing class, a possible movie with my hubby, book club, the cleaners, and a visit from Gabe’s parents.

Something captured: Before the Jack Johnson concert last night.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Buying clothes for the kiddos. It’s so much more fun than buying clothes for myself!

Something I’m thinking: I’m thinking that another trip to the Smithfield outlets is not in my future…perhaps ever, unless maybe I’m passing right by it on the way back from somewhere.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping we didn’t go overboard too badly when buying the kids’ fall wardrobe. Something tells me that we have a bit more than we will really need.

Something happening around the house: My parents came to visit this weekend. We were originally going to visit them at their house, but we had a long week and they agreed to visit us. We had a great time!

Something I’m reading: Um, let’s see. The Poky Little Puppy, Elmo Says, books about Winnie the Pooh, Richard Scarry books, snippets in Parents magazines, The Three Little Pigs, and other kids’ books. I didn’t do any reading for book club. I’m really starting to doubt that I’ll finish this month’s book.

Something I’m watching: We watched another disc of Supernatural and the finale of Hell’s Kitchen. Supernatural had a few scary episodes early in the season, but it isn’t scaring me nearly as much now. Some episodes still make me jump a bit, though! We’re still on Season 1.

Something I’m playing: Ooh, it was a great week for games! We installed the Carcassonne app on the iPhone. I’m loving it! It’s nice to play a “real” board game. I’m still playing Words with Friends. Cullen also slept long enough for us (with a few interruptions) to play Tichu with my parents! It gives us a little hope that we might be able to do “normal” things like that here and there.

Something tasty: We went out to eat with my parents and sister last night, and then we came back to the house. My mom, sister, and I went to the grocery store to get dessert. We found a dairy free brownie mix. The brownies were quite tasty!!!! It was a treat to get something chocolatey like that, since most easily accessible chocolate has milk.

Something Maddie is doing (29 months old): We went shoe shopping for her this weekend since she is outgrowing her current set of shoes. This was a very frustrating experience, and I think I’ll write up a separate post for it. She is definitely into her books these days. She wants us to read to her constantly and can sit through some lengthy stories. She talks nonstop and makes me laugh all the time. Yesterday morning, she saw Gabe putting powdered sugar on his pancakes and said, “Daddy, I want snow on my pancake!” Cute. Since we’ve been feeding Cullen, she’s very into feeding her baby doll. We got her a baby doll high chair, so she’s excited about that. And baby continues to poop all over everything (no, she is not a potty doll. My child has an active imagination). This morning, she spent a good hour with a wipe cleaning up baby’s “mess.”

Something Cullen is doing (30 weeks old): It’s been a crazy week with Cullen. He had the follow up to his bladder infection testing on Tuesday. We were hoping that they wouldn’t find anything, but they diagnosed him with kidney reflux on both sides. We won’t know much more until the appointment with the urologist later this month. We may need to get Maddie tested as it is very commonly found in siblings. I’m guessing that they will put him on a maintenance dose of antibiotics, he will have to be tested periodically, and he may require surgery if he does not outgrow the condition. In better news, we have declared that little dude is crawling! He is definitely on the move. He showed off for Nana and Papa this weekend, and I have some video to post soon. He easily can sit for lengthy periods of time. He also enjoyed some more new foods this week with the introduction of oatmeal (as a thickening agent), peaches, and butternut squash! Little Man is loving his foods! Oh, and we dismantled the co-sleeper. He hasn’t been sleeping in it for a few weeks, but it made a nice bed rail and place to put things like books. We put the Snug Tuck pillow back into place. Cullen has also slept in the pack-n-play in our room two nights in a row for a little bit at a time. There is hope.

Something I am struggling with: I’m struggling with patience as we have to wait a couple more weeks to find out more about Cullen’s kidney reflux (and find out if Maddie needs to be tested).

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I’m going to the Jack Johnson concert next Saturday!

Something I learned: Almonds are not nuts. They are a fruit.

Something I’m looking forward to: The concert with friends next Saturday.

Something random: I miss playing poker and board games sometimes, but I love the life we chose with our kids!

Something captured: We got some new camping style chairs for the kiddos.

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Going out to a concert with my hubby (and friends) made me happy! It is always a little strange getting out of the house without the kiddos. It makes me feel like we need to do it more often!

Something I’m thinking: Um, August already???

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that the tests that we have to do for Cullen come back without any serious problems. I’m trying not to worry too much.

Something happening around the house: Right at this moment, Gabe has the kids upstairs in the bonus room. I’m hearing kids’ songs and Maddie’s constant babble. Everyone sounds happy, and I think I’ll join them soon and finish this later!

Something I’m reading: I finished Little Earthquakes in time for book club this week. I’m trying to get started on Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which is our August pick for book club. I have tried starting this one in the past but haven’t gotten too far. Maybe I’ll have more success this time.

Something I’m watching: We watched King of Kong, a documentary about competitive (classic) video gaming. It was entertaining enough. I told Gabe that if he got laid off from his job, it is not acceptable for him to pursue world records in arcade games.

Something I’m playing: It would be nice if I could use this category for board games or card games, but I haven’t had much opportunity for those lately. I do get to play Words with Friends on a daily basis. I’m still playing a little Scramble 2.

Something tasty: We had fajitas tonight with friends, and they were tasty (though a bit spicy!).

Something Maddie is doing (29 months old): She is doing ok without the paci, but bedtime has been a more lengthy process. She babbles quite a bit before falling asleep. Her naps have been more challenging as well. She had a very rough night last night with lots of waking, so we are really hoping she’s not getting sick. Maddie has been asking us to read lots of books, and she has started reciting some fairly complicated books almost word for word. Repetition, repetition, repetition. She’s very into doing everything all by herself. If you do something for her, she makes a point of putting whatever it was back to the original state and then redoing it by herself. Parenting a toddler requires quite a bit of patience.

Something Cullen is doing (27 weeks old): Poor little guy has had a rough week. He started on Monday night with a fever and vomiting. He had a little congestion, so we thought he must have a sort of cold or virus when we took him to the doctor on Tuesday. Wednesday was his 6-month check up. Since he had gotten worse, they decided to take blood and urine samples and run some cultures. The blood test showed an elevated white blood count, pointing to a bacterial infection. Unfortunately, the urine looked abnormal and the cultures grew bacteria. So, he is being treated for a bladder infection. We will find out more this week with a follow up visit to the pediatrician. He is going to have to have some further testing at the hospital. I’m trying not to worry about the guy too much until we know more, but obviously that’s hard to do as a Mommy. The pediatrician focused on his illness, but we did talk about his 6 month well visit a little bit. His weight was 16 pounds, 10 ounces (30th percentile), length of 27 inches (68th percentile), and head circumference of 17.5 inches (98th percentile). Dude has a big noggin. The pediatrician commented on Cullen’s “advanced” babbling skills. He has been cooing at us and squealing more often. He has been rolling more to get places, and you can just tell he wants to crawl. He’s not quite getting on his hands and knees, but he’s getting closer. He is able to sit for brief periods by himself, not just in the tripod pose. We’ve been introducing him to foods, and this week he had banana, avocado, and sweet potato. He’s hitting a bunch of milestones all at once!

Something I am struggling with: Cullen’s health issues. Sleep. Keeping up with photos.

Something I learned: I am learning a little bit about kidney reflux, one of the things that they are testing Cullen for soon.

Something I’m looking forward to: Maddie’s ribbon dancing class and a possible visit with my parents.

Something random: I love how Cullen touches my face. I think it’s his special way of telling me that he loves me. It’s not an exclusive affection for me as I’ve seen him to do it to certain others as well. Of course, he does prefer me over all others right now. He’s all about Mommy!

Something captured: I will now always think of this as “The Shimmer Wall,” immortalized in song by Barenaked Ladies at last night’s show. It was a big deal for Gabe and I to get out of the house and see a concert together!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: Hearing my daughter say, “I lub you, Mommy” tonight when she was going to bed.

Something I’m thinking: Today, my parents have been married for 40 years.

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping to pre-order my new iPhone this week. Yep, that’s right, we decided against the Droid Incredible with Verizon and now we’re going for iPhones. I’m excited.

Something happening around the house: I did some kitchen organizing with the pantry and spice cabinet. I still have a little more work to do, but I spent a lot of time on Saturday cleaning things out.

Something I’m reading: I’m almost finished with Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella for June’s book club meeting. I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I’m having trouble getting motivated to read Devil in the White City (July’s book club book). I feel like I want to read lighter stuff, especially since my time and brainpower are limited.

Something I’m watching: We watched The Blind Side last night and really enjoyed it. I think since we don’t get much chance to go to the theatre these days, we’re going to try to make a point to watch movies at home with Netflix more often. Speaking of the theatre, I was able to sneak out on Friday night with a girl friend to see The Karate Kid. I really enjoyed it! I thought they did an excellent job of the remake. The movie was different enough from the first one to seem like a different movie yet stayed true to the basic story lines and had many references to the original.

Something tasty: Our first fresh corn on the cob (which I prefer off the cob) of the season.

Something Maddie is doing (27 months old): Maddie made some big strides in her potty training preparation. I call this phase, “potty awareness.” We’re not actively potty training, though I think that this will happen pretty soon. She has asked to go to the potty for almost all of her BMs this week. She’s so proud of herself. Her diapers are still often wet, though she will sometimes ask to do that on the potty, too. She is getting really good at dressing herself. Today, she got something on her shirt and wanted to change. She changed both her shirt and her shorts with no help from us. She went to the drawer, picked out her new clothes, took the old ones off and put the new ones on. She has been working on these skills for a while. This has been a big week for Maddie. In addition to her potty successes, she had another swimming lesson and continues to excel at puzzles. At her swimming lesson, she went completely under water for the first time and LOVED it. She has been a little timid in the water lately, so this was a big victory. She still seems nervous every time she gets into the pool, but she usually warms up and then has a great time after a few minutes. We bought Maddie some new puzzles this week, and I have to say that she is very impressive with the jigsaw puzzles! We bought 3 puzzles of varying difficulties – 12, 24, and 48 pieces. I was pretty sure the 48 piece puzzle was going to be too challenging. I thought that the 24 piece may also be too hard for her to put together by herself. We tried the 12 piece first. She put it together in less than 5 minutes, completely by herself. In fact, she was trying to teach me how to put together puzzles. First, she collected the corner pieces and told me about them. Next, she showed me one piece and one of the connecting pieces. “See the pink here? And the pink here?” Hilarious! I am very impressed by my little girl. She can put together the 24 piece puzzle without help from us (and does it over and over and over). We haven’t brought out the 48 piece puzzle yet, but I am thinking we’ll have to do that soon!

Something Cullen is doing (20 weeks old): We took Cullen to the doctor on Monday for reflux issues, and the doctor recommended that I cut dairy out of my diet as a first step. Well, I’ve been through this before!. I have been dairy free for almost a week, and I believe it has already made a difference. Cullen was spitting up often and was not taking good naps before the trial. He is spitting up rarely now, seems to be in a better mood, and has been napping better during the day. Now, if we can just get him to sleep at night for more than 2 hours at a time (and sleeping in the crib/bassinet would be good). I am still holding out hope that we’re in midst of the “4-month-regression”. Several of my mommy friends have indicated that their infant went through a regression around that time. Hopefully, it will just be a short phase and we’ll get back on track to making progress on sleeping through the night. Cullen went swimming for the first time this morning, and he seemed to love it! He’s so cute in his little swim trunks and rash guard. Cullen has been more interested in toys and has been happy playing on his tummy for greater lengths of time. He’s fascinated by the remote control, as Maddie was at this age.

Something I am struggling with: Food! Cutting out dairy isn’t as bad this time as it was the first time. Some of the substitutes are coming back to me. Pizza is something I miss the most as there really isn’t a reasonable substitute. Quesadillas are also tempting and without substitute.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: We bought tickets to see Jack Johnson later this summer! Seeing one of his concerts is on my goal list. His music is meaningful to our relationship, so we are excited to see him perform!

Something I’m looking forward to: A swim event for kids under 4 years old at work on Friday.

Something random: I almost forgot to take Cullen’s photo today! Good thing I still have a few more hours. Something tells me that this one isn’t going to be an awesome photo.

Something captured: The neighbors’ yard had a midnight makeover. Maddie’s response was profound: “it belongs in the potty.”

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

I love Google Analytics. I had prevented my site from being in the search engines for a while, but I couldn’t resist finding out how people would find me. I allowed my site back into the search engines and installed Google Analytics nearly a year ago.

I check it almost every day, though I’m most interested in seeing what searches land strangers on my page. These searches have resulted in a ton of hits for some posts. I’m not saying that these are my best posts by any means…just the ones that get the most hits.

Here’s the top 10 blog posts (from least popular to most popular):
10. Changes in Girl Scout Cookies – I received a good number of searches around Girl Scout cookie time for things like “changed tagalongs” and “did the girl scouts change the recipe for tagalongs” and other similar searches. I wonder whether I’ll have similar searches around Girl Scout cookie time next year.

9. Maddie’s cute little feet – I’m not sure why I waited so long to write a post about Maddie’s underdeveloped left foot. I know that I personally spent HOURS searching the internet in the hopes that I would find similar abnormalities in other children to help me understand. I did not find much. I get searches for this one at random times for things like “underdeveloped feet baby,” “child with different sized feet,” “underdeveloped feet in young babies,” and “will different sized child feet even out.” I hope that some other parents can find a little of what they are looking for in this post.

8. How many of these children’s books can you name? – I created a quiz for my friend Melisa’s book themed baby shower. It turned out nicely! I get some searches like “book quiz with answer.” I don’t see a ton of obvious searches that would land people on this page, so it is surprising that it was so popular. I think I had more of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers following the blog link than usual, perhaps.

7. Maddie’s Birthday Party at Daycare photos – For some reason, I get a lot of hits for “daycare birthday party” and similar. I guess that people are looking for ideas of what they can do at daycare for their child’s birthdays? At any rate, I get a good number of these searches, making this post the 7th most popular one.

6. My first big lesson in parenting: never say never – I get some searches for this one about co-sleeping, but I think most of my traffic came from my friend Ann‘s blog when she referred to my post. This is the post where I admitted that I was NEVER going to have my baby in the bed with me. How wrong I was! The weirdest search that landed someone on this page was “dairy-free breaded chicken.”

5. Concert Review: Mannheim Steamroller – I decided to do something different and post a review of the Mannheim Steamroller show that I saw as part of my annual Christmas date with Audrey. I had no idea that so many people were interested in it! Around Christmastime, I had sometimes a dozen searches with people looking for reviews on Mannheim Steamroller shows. I’m wondering if this post will be just as popular around December this year.

4. Maddie’s Hives – This one could end up being the most popular post ever, considering how recent it is and how high it ranks already. I get numerous searches involving hives, including things like “102 fever and hives,” “hives in the morning,” “hives with fever,” “penicillin allergy hives pictures,” and “pictures of penicillin allergy hives.” A few searches on “cefdinar” show up in the logs as well.

3. Melisa’s Baby Shower photos – This one is a bit surprising. Many people find it with generic searches such as “baby shower photos,” “my baby shower photos,” and “friend’s baby shower photos.” Maybe these people are potential shower hosts and are looking for ideas. I’m really surprised, however, by the number of people that have searches containing Melisa’s name (considering the unique spelling). I have seen searches such as “melisa shower” and “melisa baby.” The funniest that I have seen are “melisa archives” (they were probably disappointed considering that it is probably not the archives they were looking for), “melisa babe” (I’m starting to think she has a secret admirer), and my personal favorite “melisa in the shower” (now I KNOW she has a stalker).

2. Animal Crossing: City Folk – These searches have been getting less lately, but for a while I had a flurry of activity with people wanting to know all sorts of things about Animal Crossing. I’m planning to write a separate post eventually to serve as a sort of resource (mostly linking to legitimate resources). People want to know tips and tricks with the game, but my post was more or less a review.

1. 25 Random Things About Me – And the winner goes to…the Facebook viral activity. Around the time that the list was really popular, I got tons of hits daily. Interestingly my follow-up post didn’t receive quite as many hits. These searches started the day after I posted it and continued strongly for a few weeks. It tapered off gradually after that. I would expect this post to fall in the ranks eventually, but for now it has been the most popular post on the blog. The searches in this case were quite obvious, all variations on “25 random things about me.”

My friend Cindy tagged me on Facebook on her note, 25 Random Things About Me. I have seen these in the past, though I rarely complete them. I always enjoy reading other people’s lists, though! Since I was tagged, I thought I would give it a try, especially after I saw Audrey’s list. As I was writing my list, my friend Robin tagged me on Facebook as well…I’m having fun reading everyone’s lists!

1. I have always wanted to have kids, ever since I was very young. As it turns out, I absolutely love being a Mommy.
2. I have one sister, and she is one of my bestest friends. I wish for my kids to have strong sibling relationships.
3. I’m obsessed with photos. I like having my own to remind me of my life’s moments. I love looking at friends’ photos. I will even spend time looking at other people’s photos (like my friends’ friends’ photos on Facebook, for example).
4. My daughter will be one next month, and I have taken multiple photos of her each and every day of her life. I plan to put together a book with one photo from each day in her first year. I think it will be neat to see how much she has changed.
5. Gabe and I were married in Sedona, Arizona with a traditional Native American ceremony conducted by a Havasupai shaman. It was absolutely perfect and a very unique and moving experience.
6. I love to play games – board games, card games, video games, computer games, word games, dice games, casino games, etc etc… I have an extensive board game collection (the list in the link is not complete) and host semi-regular games nights.
7. I played the trombone for over 10 years in middle school, high school, and college. I loved every minute of it. My high school jazz band experiences and college marching and pep band experiences were some of the best in my life.
8. I love to travel and wish to visit all the US States (and possibly Canadian provinces/territories). I have visited 36 states (though a few of them almost don’t count), DC, 3 provinces, and 1 territory. I’ll be able to mark off one more state and 2 provinces in September when we go on our cruise.
9. I did a Sprint Triathlon in 2002. This was quite an accomplishment for me, and it could be the only one I ever do. The training was challenging, but the race was so much fun. I feel entitled to call myself a triathlete.
10. I don’t cringe when I find myself turning into my parents (as I’m sure I will be doing more and more as Maddie gets older). I think my parents are pretty cool. Becoming more like them is not a bad thing.
11. I love personal finance and enjoy my complicated budget and asset spreadsheets. I love planning things like when the mortgage will be paid and how I’m going to enjoy a comfortable retirement. I have even considered this to be something I feel I could do as an alternate career.
12. I actually enjoy doing my taxes. Gabe has been doing taxes for his family for a while, and I enjoy helping him with those now, too. It helps when we get a tax refund, but that’s not the part that makes it fun to me. I just like the process and the organizing of finances.
13. I graduated from NC State with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics. I decided on my major before I arrived at school and never changed my mind. I directly use my degree in my career.
14. I took piano lessons for many years, until I was too involved with the band to have time to practice both.
15. I played in a handbell choir during high school and loved it!
16. I have an intense fear of spiders. I hate to even think about the word, much less conjure up frightening images. I have to be really careful about what I watch or think, especially close to bedtime, or I have night terrors (note this is not the same thing as a nightmare).
17. I’m a little bit weird about my snack foods. I tend to lick chips and eat candy bars and such in layers.
18. I have seen They Might Be Giants perform live over 20 times. Pretty much every show has been different.
19. I love to read and try to read as much as possible. I’m actively part of one book club and contemplating a second. My list of books that I want to read is neverending.
20. Walter Cronkite and I share a common ancestor, or so I’m told. I’m apparently in possession of a letter from him confirming this fact. Herman Melville is another distant relative. My mom’s side of the family has some extensive genealogy records which are currently residing in my spare bedroom closet.
21. When I was a kid, I thought it was neat that my first and last names were exactly 5 letters each. I could spell out my first and last names by writing one letter on each fingernail. I’m weird, I know.
22. My friend Amie and I used to steal paper towels from the bathroom at our church when we were little. I say “steal” because we did not use them to dry our hands but to fold them up and put them into our socks. I think we liked how smooth they would feel at the end of the day. I’m weird, but I wasn’t alone in this one.
23. I hate the sound of fingernails being clipped. It doesn’t bother me when I clip my own (or my daughter’s – they barely even make a sound anyway).
24. I was extremely unoriginal in naming my stuffed animals during my childhood. I had a teddy named Teddy, another named Ted E. Bear, a duck named Chickie, an armadillo named Army, a polar bear named Poly, a bunny named Bunny, a blue and white checkered boy doll with orange hair named Boy, and many others. My Cabbage Patch dolls were always called by their “given” names. Care Bears were Birthday Bear and Cheer Bear. Other dolls were called by their package names, such as Jeans Beans and Baby Bath. My child is lucky she’s not “Baby.” We are not doing much better with her stuffed animals, as evidenced by her favorite Lambie.
25. I love lists.

Audrey and I went on our annual Christmas date last night. This year I found out that Mannheim Steamroller would be performing at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, and I thought it would be perfect for our annual date! We purchased our tickets in the summer, and I have been excited about the show. We went out to dinner at The Pit downtown, which I intend to review in a separate post.

Audrey had not heard much about Mannheim Steamroller, so I was a little nervous about whether she would like it. Tickets were not cheap, even for the nosebleed section where we were seated. I was very excited when the lights dimmed and the band began to play. My parents played a lot of Mannheim Steamroller at Christmastime when I was growing up, so the music brings back fond childhood memories. Soon after the first song (Hallelujah) started, I was a little concerned. It just wasn’t as good as I was expecting, and I was worried that Audrey wasn’t going to like it. She admitted to me afterward that she felt the same way and thought, “this is what everyone raves about?” The next song, Feliz Navidad, was equally unimpressive. It’s not that either of the songs were bad exactly, but they just weren’t living up to all the hype that had been created in my head.

Thankfully, the next song was Deck the Halls from their popular 1990 album simply entitled Christmas. This song made me very happy! I was relieved and so glad to hear one of my favorites. I’m still humming that one this afternoon! For me, the show didn’t really get started until this one. I enjoyed most of the rest of the show, especially We Three Kings, Messengers of Christmas, Faeries, the medieval feast songs (the first half of the 2nd set), and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I thought that Carol of the Bells would be my favorite, but I was a little disappointed in that one. I have heard so many versions of that song, but this one did not rank among my favorites. Carol of the Bells was the last song of the regular show, so I was happy to not end on a disappointing note when they played 3 encore songs.

The visuals were interesting and often bizarre. The combination of video and lights (and video with the band in the background) was definitely entertaining at times. Sometimes the effects were just weird, like the angels near the end. They were more scary than beautiful or inspiring if you ask me! The visuals did make me snicker at times, though I felt like much of the audience wasn’t appreciating the little gags. They had a lot of little “jokes” throughout the show, but not many were laughing (which is probably to be expected).

I had a great time at the show. Admittedly, I was already in the Christmas mood since we put our tree up early this year, and I’ve been listening to Christmas music for over a week. The show made me happy, both for seeing the music live and for my annual Christmas date with Audrey!