KerryAndGabe.com

Something that makes me happy: My sweet TWO year old boy!

Something I’m thinking: Happy birthday to Cullen!

Something I’m hoping: I’m hoping that this week passes quickly.

Something I’m reading: I didn’t read too much this week, but I’m still reading The Last Olympian, the final book in the Percy Jackson series.

Something Gabe is reading: He finished The Sea of Monsters (the 2nd book of the Percy Jackson series). He’s now reading The Fall of Hyperion.

Something I’m watching: We recorded Alcatraz, but we haven’t watched it yet. If we don’t watch it soon, we’re going to run the risk of it being too overwhelming once the recordings start piling up.

Something I’m playing: We played a little of the Hinterlands Dominion expansion. I think I might have played a little Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Something I’m creating: Hopefully, I’ll create a few more blog posts this week.

Something tasty: Mmmm, we ate at Brigs for Cullen’s special birthday breakfast this morning, and I had gingerbread pancakes. Yum!

Something Maddie is doing (47 months old): It turns out that Maddie was unable to avoid the stomach bug, though it appears that it didn’t hit her too hard. Thank goodness. The last thing you want is a preschooler with a stomach bug. It sounds like she mostly had a fun day at home with Daddy. She and Daddy baked Cullen’s birthday cake together today. She also mostly iced it herself and did all the sprinkles. She loves helping in the kitchen. She’s been cooking a lot in her play kitchen, too. She’s gotten into building forts out of their Anywhere chairs and blankets. For whatever reason, she calls it the “jail.”

Something Cullen is doing (24 months old): We had a big day for the birthday boy! We started at Brigs where he helped himself to handfuls of my pancake. He just reached over and tore off sections of it over and over. I guess we should have gotten him the gingerbread pancake instead of the plain one! He thoroughly enjoyed his breakfast with scrambled eggs, fruit, pancakes (both plain and my gingerbread), turkey sausage, and milk. We then headed to Target where he was allowed to pick out any toy he wanted (well, we would have steered him away from something expensive!). He did very well with the concept of picking out one thing at a time and then “trading” it for something more desirable. He started out with a cowboy rubber duck and ended up with a Duplo Firehouse set. We were happy with his choice! In between, he held an apple shaped pillow, a Minnie Mouse pillow, a set of toddler cars, a LOUD Lightning McQueen toy that talked and raced when you shook it, and a Mater spy truck that did something but we weren’t able to figure out what. The process was entertaining! We stayed out of the decision making process for the most part and just let him ask for the things he wanted. We also picked up some Space shapes goldfish and had a snack in the car on the way to get his haircut. He sat very still and the stylist was surprised at how good he was during the cut. For dinner tonight, he had some of his favorites: pasta, strawberries, broccoli/cauliflower, and garlic bread. Of course, we had cake. This week, he really has made progress with his one-to-one correlation when counting. He has demonstrated accurately counting objects up to 8 (and I think 10 once). Sometimes when the items are all together (rather than distinctly apart) he does the thing where he just points and counts out numbers, but for the most part he really seems to be getting it. He does especially well with 4 or less items. Earlier this week, one of his teachers told us that he declared that “Aiden can’t eat milk and egg.” I’m surprised he’s picked up on his classmate’s allergy! I guess he’s heard the teachers talk about it enough times. He also used air quotes for the first time. His teacher said that Cullen said his diaper was “messy” (and used air quotes when saying this). Cullen then looked at me and said, “I pooped. It was ‘messy’” and used air quotes appropriately. Ha! I’m so proud.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I booked TWO trips to Disney! Woohoo!

Something I’m looking forward to: Lots of stuff going on this week. I’m mostly looking forward to getting through the week, book club, and games night!

Something random: Well, I thought I had found my Favorite Thing of 2012, but I might have to reconsider. On Saturday, I took a bubble bath with my kindle double bagged in ziploc bags (admittedly, one bag is probably sufficient). It was fabulous! Best use of a ziplog baggie EVER.

Something captured: The birthday boy!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: I have a lot of great friends.

Something I’m thinking: It’s a new year! I don’t make resolutions, but I still can’t help but to reflect on things at the beginning of a new year.

Something I’m creating: I just finished making our photo calendars (a little late this year). I am working on narrowing down photos from the trip and writing up trip reports (and catching up on other photo posts).

Something happening around the house: Despite having almost 40 people in the house for games night, it surprisingly doesn’t look like a disaster zone this afternoon.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Titan’s Curse and started The Battle of the Labyrinth.

Something Gabe is reading: He’s been making some progress on Hyperion.

Something I’m watching: We’re thinking about having a movie day tomorrow since Gabe has a holiday (and I have more vacation days than he does). We’re not quite sure what we’re going to see, but we’re hoping to catch two movies.

Something I’m playing: Kids of Carcassonne, Go Away Monster, Hisss, and Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed with the kids. I played Chinatown, Tobago, and No Rules Pictionary last night. I watched kiddos a lot of the time. Gabe played King of Tokyo, Galaxy Trucker, Tobago, and No Rules Pictionary. We also played Lancaster.

Something tasty: I made my Grandma’s Chicken Divan tonight. Yummy!

Something about both kiddos: The kids are getting into playing games, which makes me very happy! They are both doing very well at following rules and taking turns in Go Away Monster. Maddie is grasping most of the games that we have tried, but Go Away Monster is the only one that Cullen has been able to play so far.

Something Maddie is doing (46 months old): Maddie finally has the attention span and desire to play board games. She has been doing well with Kids of Carcassonne (though doesn’t grasp all the strategy of it yet), Five Little Monkeys (which has no strategy, just spinning and moving and following the rules), and Hisss (mostly). I was most excited about Kids of Carcassonne which is a great introduction to Euro games and is a neat little kid adaptation of Carcassonne. Maddie’s favorite show is Jake and the Neverland Pirates at the moment. She still hasn’t been exposed to much variety in terms of different shows. She’s enjoying her LeapPad. We haven’t used any of our app credits yet. She hasn’t had much interest in taking photos or videos with it. I really thought that she would like that feature, but I think maybe she doesn’t quite get it yet. She has a train game that she likes. She also has been playing Smart Girls on the DS and Siege Hero and Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone. I’m proud of her board gaming and video gaming foundations. We’re reading her the first books in the Magic Treehouse series.

Something Cullen is doing (23 months old): Cullen has started using his imagination. I’m not sure if he did it this week or just prior, but he has taken pieces of food and said, “a dog!” or “a boat!” I am impressed that he is able to play a game of Go Away Monster. It’s a very simple game, but it has the basics of taking turns which is an essential foundation for board gaming. He can easily pattern match the shapes. Players take turns drawing tiles out of the bag and either vanquishing monsters or putting furniture in their rooms (the pattern matching). We have tried a few other games, but he’s just not ready for any of them yet! He can play Monkey Lunchbox on the iPhone without help from us, including the puzzle minigames where he has to drag puzzle pieces to create pieces of fruit. It’s amazing to me how early kids can grasp the iPhone. Some of the minigames involve him just touching the screen at random, but it’s a start. He had a few cranky days this week. I discovered that he’s FINALLY cutting the eyeteeth. It seems like it has been a really long time since his last teeth came through. At least two of them have broken through the gums. All of them are coming soon. Cullen is sweet with his new dolls. Sometimes he just gets up into the big blue chair and rocks with them. He also likes to roll around on the floor and hug them.

Something I am struggling with: We have so many options for schools now, and I’m trying to sort through some of the mess since it won’t be that long before we’ll have to decide where Maddie goes to school. Crazy!

Something I’m doing towards my goals: I keep dreaming about a Disney cruise, one of the goals I have listed. I find myself searching itineraries every few days or so. It might just have to be our next cruise vacation. Disney is this year!

Something I’m looking forward to: It’s nice when we get to January and don’t have too many plans. I try to make a point of not scheduling much past the end of the year when it’s October/November/December. I am thinking we need another games night soon, though. While we had a great time with friends on NYE, neither of us played as many games as we had hoped!

Something captured: Cullen and his “ladies”

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

Something that makes me happy: The GIANT Christmas tree that we have in our library right now. It has lights, and we’ll have to do the ornaments soon.

Something I’m thinking: The holiday season is going to be so rushed this year with our cruise coming up really soon now!

Something I’m hoping: I hope that we can get all the things that we need to get done before vacation and Christmas.

Something happening around the house: We’re getting the house decorated after a few days visiting my parents.

Something I’m reading: I finished The Peach Keeper today, thankfully. I wanted to make sure I finished before it was due back at the library on the kindle. The waiting list is huge! Fortunately, it’s a quick read. I enjoy Sarah Addison Allen’s novels!

Something Gabe is reading: Hero of Ages. I don’t think he read any of it this week.

Something I’m watching: Getting ready to watch tonight’s Amazing Race.

Something I’m playing: We played a lot of Words with Friends on our iPhones this week. We played Wits and Wagers twice with my parents and Kristin and Chad and then Ticket to Ride twice with my parents. We had so much fun with my family!

Something tasty: Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house, though my favorite part was probably the turkey and country ham casserole the next day. Yum!

Something about both kiddos: We visited Santa on Saturday, and this year’s Santa was much better than previous ones. He attempted to make Cullen feel more comfortable, since he was not at all interested in sitting on his lap. And the photographer was amazing! I could not believe that we actually got a photo of both kids smiling. I was not even aware that Cullen smiled at all until I reviewed the photos. He was crying and trying to get away for the most part. I couldn’t hear what Maddie told Santa at first. Santa tried to ask Cullen what he wanted. Cullen was not talking to Santa, and he asked, “would you like a truck?” I told Santa, “actually, he wants a doll.” Maddie then said, “Hey, I want a truck!” So my son wants a doll, and my daughter wants a truck. After the Santa photos, we went to have lunch with my parents. I then had a spur of the moment idea to get haircuts for the kids (too bad we didn’t do that *before* Santa photos), and amazingly a kids’ salon was literally 30 feet away. Saturday went extremely well, and we were so happy to have haircuts and Santa photos out of the way. We had dinner at my parents’ house and headed home. We had a smooth ride home with no traffic jams. It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful visit. While we visited my parents, we took them to a children’s museum that opened last year. The kids had a blast, and the adults were completely worn out by the end of the morning. Whew!

Something Maddie is doing (45 months old): She has a new habit this week of saying “ya” instead of “you.” I’m going to have to try and break her of that habit. It’s cute at times, but it’s annoying at other times! I have noticed recently that her vocabulary is getting more and more sophisticated. Lately, she hasn’t allowed me to do anything with her hair, so it’s good that we trimmed up her bob again. It’s an adorable look on her! She looks so cute with pigtails, ponytails, bows, and braids, when she allows it!

Something Cullen is doing (22 months old): When you ask Cullen a question that doesn’t require a yes/no answer, Cullen starts his answer by saying, “um….um…..um…..um….” He also has a habit of saying “Awwww, man!” whenever he doesn’t like something or drops something or anything negative. Both habits are hilarious, and he says them at extremely appropriate times. He should be entertaining on the cruise. When we were having lunch with Nana and Papa, he had a taste of something he didn’t like. The next thing we knew, he had leaned over and spit it out on Maddie’s plate. Hilarious!!! He didn’t want to have anything to do with that piece of food! No way he was going to spit it onto his own plate. Too funny. We don’t get a high chair for him most of the time in restaurants, though he still uses his high chair at home. He’s so proud of himself, and I don’t think it will be long before we ditch all high chairs. We are probably going to transition him to a big boy bed after the cruise. He’s still resisting naps on the weekends, but most of the time he still takes one each day.

Something I’m doing towards my goals: Getting ready to go on the cruise on Allure….so soon now! Even Gabe is starting to get excited.

Something I’m looking forward to: I’m going to see Breaking Dawn with girl friends (rescheduled from last week), book club, early Christmas with friends, a birthday party, our annual poker tournament, and my annual Christmas date with a friend. Whew. Busy, fun week.

Something captured: This year’s Santa photo!

Others writing The Sunday Somethings: Audrey

I’m a bit late on my latest letter to Cullen. Once again, I had the letter mostly ready to go shortly after his birthday, but I had to pick out the photos. I can’t believe my next letter will be when he turns TWO! (more…)

Maddie has been getting better and better at writing her name and other letters. She loves to ask us how to spell things and writes them, letter by letter.

These were taken at the end of September.

She wanted to write the names of everyone in our family (she had a little trouble with Cullen!):

And this is the first real card that she has made, for her friend Sophie. Sophie is in the middle with Maddie on the left and Cullen on the right. Maddie does pretty well with relative size when drawing stick figures (Sophie is tall!).

She doesn’t mind if the letters don’t fit on one line (and sometimes she won’t continue to the next line but just fits the letters in randomly):

She drew Daddy, Mommy, and Sophie’s Mommy on the back. When I asked her why I didn’t have arms, she said that I didn’t need them. Ha!

I love it – I see lots of homemade cards in our future!

I’ve been working on this one for a couple of weeks (he was 18 months on July 22nd). I was a little slow to put the finishing touches on it and collect the photos. Now it is almost time to write Maddie’s 3.5 year letter. Whew. Here’s the latest letter to Cullen. (more…)

When I found out that both Cars 2 and Winnie the Pooh were coming out this summer, I knew that it was time for Maddie to have her first movie theater experience. After hearing less than stellar reviews about Cars 2 (though we ended up seeing it and enjoyed it), plus concerns about it being too mature for the little ones, we decided that Winnie the Pooh would be her first flick. I don’t think we could have picked a better movie. I just about cried when it started (I know…who was more excited?).

She wanted to bring her big Pooh and little Pooh to the theater as well as her Winnie the Pooh ears. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more adorable movie-goer.

We met friends Melissa and Jason at the theater for Winnie the Pooh (and the adults viewing of Harry Potter afterward). We were happy they could go with us today (plus, we were running late to both movies, so it was fortunate to have friends to save our seats and save the day!). Melissa also snapped this super duper cute photo of the 3 of us (Cullen was at home napping the whole time).

She literally was sitting on the edge of her seat at the beginning of the previews. I worried that the previews might be a little confusing to her since we were at the theater to see Winnie the Pooh. It was difficult to tell what was going through her head when the previews started. I think she was in awe.

A few times throughout the movie, she asked questions about why a character was doing this or that. She got a little wiggly in the second half. At one point, she spent 10 minutes wanting to sit in my lap, sit on her booster (the movie theater has plastic seats to prevent the seat from folding up on the little ones), and sit on Gabe’s lap. Overall, though, she did very well. I think that the length was perfect for her. I don’t think we will want to take her to a longer movie for a while longer! The worst part was that she needed to take a potty break right near the very end of the movie. I was pleased that she asked to go potty and that I didn’t get peed on since she was sitting on my lap at this point (this was my biggest fear about taking her to the movie). We missed the end of the movie. She was a bit upset about the movie being over when we came back!

Maddie loved the movie and immediately wanted to go see “the new cars movie,” especially when she saw the movie poster outside. When asked what her favorite part was, she said it was when Christopher Robin was carried away by the backson. I have to admit, that part is quite catchy. Gabe and I can’t stop singing the backson song! We’re going to have to get this one when it comes out on blu-ray.

Hooray for a successful first time theater experience. It was wonderful!

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

I had another fancy hair appointment, and this time I knew I would be taking the stylist up on the offer to style it straight at the end. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work or what she would have to do to get the look. It was so weird to look in the mirror for a day and a half! I had many people compliment it, and many people who said, “I’ve never seen you with straight hair!” Well, guess what? Neither had I! I might have to get the necessary equipment and products to do it myself. We’ll see. Maybe next time I’ll get her to teach me the techniques. Right now, I don’t even own a hair dryer, and I have no desire to add any time to my morning routine. Since she did my hair in the evening, and it lasted the entire second day, I see that it’s possible to do it at night. I might be able to handle that….we’ll see. It was so weird to be able to touch it and run my hands through it (and it was so soft). Overall, it was a very strange experience (though not a bad one). I liked it!

Shannon and I had back to back appointments, again, and then we went out to dinner and a movie to celebrate her new job!

He can now travel outside of the country. Is it just me, or are baby passports hilarious? I think it is amusing that he will be using this same passport for the next 5 years. I thought it was funny when we originally obtained Maddie’s passport, and I especially think it is amusing that we are using that same passport later this year to go on our big cruise. Um, you really can’t tell from that photo that she’s the same child.

We applied for Cullen’s on his special day with Mommy, and he was a bit older than Maddie was when we got hers. At least he has hair in his passport photo, so maybe he won’t look quite as drastically different. Still, I think that it’s going to be hard to recognize him from his 15-month old photo when he’s 6 years old!