There are people like me!

This blog post is a good read and makes me feel better about all the complaining about motherhood that I do and feeling like I'm pretty poor at it. At least I'm not the only one.

Read this spot-on blog post here.

My favorite lines from it.....

“It’s helluva hard, isn’t it? You’re a good mom, I can tell. And I like your kids, especially that one peeing in the corner. She’s my favorite. Carry on, warrior. Six hours till bedtime.”And hopefully, every once in a while, I’ll add- “Let me pick up that grocery bill for ya, sister. Go put those kids in the van and pull on up- I’ll have them bring your groceries out.” (Anyway. Clearly, Carpe Diem doesn’t work for me. I can’t even carpe fifteen minutes in a row, so a whole diem is out of the question.)

And now I turn in for the night while I listen to the rain on the roof.

St. Joseph

St. Joseph is now a part of our family. Read about St. Joseph here. The practice of burying a St. Joseph in your yard supposedly speeds the selling process. When the house sells, you dig him up and take him with you to your new home.

So meet our St. Joseph.....

Chuck and I buried him in our yard today. Chuck helped dig the hole for St. Joseph ( after St. Joseph played in the barn a little while with the cows, horses, and zebras.)

and we said our prayer to St. Joseph. It was the sweetest thing when Chuck said "Amen" at the end.

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Caretaker of the Holy Family and Guardian of your little home in Nazareth, I appeal to you in your role as custodian of Homes and Families. Please join us in our prayers and give us your assistance in this time of need and relocation.

We ask you to send us the new family for our present home, one that you will have picked, one that will know peace and joy all the days they live in this humble home.

We also pray that your blessing will go with us to our new home, where you will always have a place of honor and respect. Let us never forget to come to you with our gratitude and thanksgiving, and always seek your counsel. Amen

Thank you 70's!

Going down for a nap at 2 is probably where our sleeping problem is coming from.

We have actually had a successful morning. We have done two loads of laundry, the house is washed, and we have been to the store.

It is a gorgeous day here in the 70's so we have been outside all day. Chuck insists on playing in neighbors yards. He never plays in our yard. The yard man that does all of our yards was across the street. Chuck picked up his broom and headed across the street and helped him rake up the leaves. We blew bubbles with Ms. Ginger and also went and claimed all of Nellie's toys as our own.

Now he has yelled so much from his crib that he is sound asleep. I guess he thinks once you get past 1 o'clock, naptime should be skipped. Mama still likes to nap after 1 though.

No News = not good news

No news from us means that we are crazy out of control here. School started back this week which means that Chuck went from sleeping in, to waking up at 4:00 every morning. What is this child trying to get back at me for? I thought for sure that he would be tired this week since he was getting back on a tough schedule. Not so much.

My assistant was also out for the week so back to school week had a little wrench thrown in it when my "plans" could not really be followed through since my expected help was not there. Needless to say this mama is pooped. Four o'clock wake up calls and lack of the usual help at work has done me in.

Daddy is moonlighting two hours away for the next four days so he will just stay the night instead of having to drive back and forth. It's just me and the little dude this weekend. Not sure how we are going to make it through this one. One hour at a time I guess. I am praying that rain doesn't ruin our 70 degree weekend. I am going to find a big field so this little guy can run until he falls asleep mid-stride.

On a better note, the house is going up on MLS and the dude that came today to give me an estimate on washing the house can do it tomorrow! I like it. Also, we contacted a bank in Tyler to start the mortgage process and they have a program for physicians, just like the one here, that does not require a down payment from us. Which is just super news. Stressing about a down payment is one more thing to mark off my list. ( Well, actually the bank just sold but the new shareholders like the program so will probably keep the physician program going.... so things are looking good.) I like it.

Hopefully the next two days will be full of fun and pictures ( if they are anything like the four hours I spent with Chuck today, I seriously doubt it..... we definitely had a terrible-twos day today... and of course for no apparent reason.)

I like sleep too. I am going to find some now. Nighty night.

It's here.....

Tomorrow has arrived. NOthing happened today except trying to take a toddler to run several quick errands..... quick turned into running away from Mama the whole time!

Don't have much to say or much time to say anything. Gotta make sure this house is ready for a realtor call at any second... now what do I do with the big guy asleep in the bed? Shove him into a closet? ( He said they can come look while he is asleep ( weird?) it's not like he is going to hear them!)

Last Hurrah

Tomorrow will be day 3 of daddy working night and the Chuckster and I trying not to kill each other. It was warm Saturday so after naps, we ventured to the zoo for a quickie look at the animals. It's nice being a member because it is free so just a quick hour visit is perfect. Today we went and played with Nellie ( our girlfriend across the street) for a little while and tomorrow she will probably come over to ransack our house.

Of course we both have school on Tuesday ( back to mommy waking up at 4:00) so I am sure we will come up with some errands that need to be run. Not so sure I am excited about Tuesday but I know it will be spring break before I know it and we will be buying/selling a house and moving!

The end to 2011 and the beginning of 2012 has been very low key. We have mostly been hanging out inside playing with our animals, coloring, running, jumping.... you know... the typical life of a *almost* 2 year old.

In this pic, Chuck "cooks" pasta while Mommy fixes daddy dinner ( that he eats at 7 am due to work schedule). * Notice the Ove Glove on one hand. For some reason the kid loves to wear the Ove Glove whenever we are in the kitchen.

Chuck bathes his new baby. He is doing a good job of learning how to care of others. Until he got tired of it and launched it out of the tub. I didn't say we were done learning! (Please disregard the hair... he really refuses hair washings so you do what you can!)

He still talks about everyone he saw over Christmas on a daily basis. He asks about Aunt Koko at least three times a day ( did you bribe him or something?) and he is very concerned about Uncle. Not sure which one. Today he mentioned Abby and Jacks. He also picked up the phone at Nellie's house and I asked who he was calling and he said "Bob Bob, Na ( how he says Granna), Uncle, KoKo, Abby, Jacks. " Apparently it was a conference call.

Bye Bye 2011

First of all, what happened to 2011? Actually I am kind of glad it flew by. I hope the first part of 2012 goes by just as fast and as smoothly as 2011 did.

We are all Christmased out. We agreed that our Christmas was wonderful. We are so thankful we got to visit both families and that Chuck adjusted well to all the traveling. Besides a little bug that Chuck left Jackson with and seemed to share with some of is family members, all went well.

Chuck enjoyed staying up late, learning how to jump on a bed, and playing baby dolls. He really is maturing. There was a noticeable difference just between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was unable to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner but I actually got to savor Christmas dinner so that was a nice change.

Chuck's choice words over the break were "go" which could mean "go" or "come" depending on what he was talking about. He also said "octopus" on his first try which really bothers Dr. Chuck is at the age where he should say "I love you" any day now. But when you tell him you love him he says "no". When you say "octopus", he says it. He also is using the word "uncle" a lot. He is very concerned where his uncles are. Today when we walked in from daycare, he saw a baby picture of uncle Chuck on the fridge and he started yelling "uncle" and pointing. He also thinks Toby Keith is his uncle. He really enjoys dancing to Toby Keith at Granna's house.

My mom made the kids an octopus like the octopi she used to make in her sorority in college. I didn't get to see the expressions of the kids when they all opened it but my dad said it was priceless. I think Abby might have jumped back and Chuck made a face of pure disgust. They had no idea what the octopus was ( I will get a picture tomorrow). The octopi has grown on all of them. Chuck took it upon himself to take all of the eyes off the octopi. He had the nerve last night to ask me where the octopus' eyes were. I told him that he had removed them. So now you see why one of our words for this week was "octopus".

As I said earlier, he is talking in sentences. My dad just laughs hysterically whenever anything comes out of his mouth because it is pure jibberish and only every few words you can understand ( or at least I know what he is talking about).

We didn't get many pictures because either we have to put it down to catch a flying two year old or he sees the phone and demands to play a game on it. Oh yeah, another new word... "game".

Here are some pictures we did get.

Chuck playing on a guitar ( which wasn't even a Christmas present... it was jacked from Marmee's house.... however it is his favorite new toy by far). He is playing for his new Cabbage Patch baby doll named Marlin, who could possibly be of Mexican decent.

Santa brought Chuck some awesome animals that he is obsessed with. His song of the Christmas holidays was "Old McDonald". He started singing "moo moo moo moo". I think he was missing school after being gone eight days.

And his Schwinn. Santa brought Chuck a bike. He walked into the living room and pointed and said "bike". Then he said "no" and started crying. Not the reaction we thought we would get since he talks about them a lot. His Schwinn grew on him and he is really enjoying it. I guess we will get to ride some more this weekend since it will be 70 for New Years Eve!

One more day for me to get the house straightened and all of us unpacked. ( We will probably have someone coming to look at it after the first of the year. Dr. has to work for the next gazillion days and our schools are both closed on Monday so Chuck and I have a long weekend ahead of us. Thank goodness for warm weather.