my mom & our crazy life

thank you all for your calls, emails, thoughts & prayers for my mom. she had surgery, is home and doing great. she will be off her feet for a long time (12 weeks), but she is in great spirits, has lots of visitors (if you live in the portland area...VISIT HER!), and seems to be recovering well.

it's been a whirlwind around here for us. we scrambled together childcare for the girls, since my dad had been watching them. a mom from our church has two girls about the same ages as greta & calla. she had offered several times to watch our girls & when this happened i took her up on it. she is watching them on tues & thurs and they go to the lutheran school on mon, wed, fri. it's a good thing...greta LOVES it. when mike picks her up from school she tells him she's not ready to go home yet. and she and em get along great on tues & thurs...everyone is doing well with the changes.

the craziest thing this winter has been the snow. it snows about once a week. this is not the oregon weather i am used to. this was evident when i crashed into a curb yesterday, driving my parents car. everyone is fine and the damage is not too bad, but it was alarming & makes me nervous to drive in the snow! who would have thought we'd move to oregon and have so much snow?

then today we came home to a cold house. the thermastat read 59 degrees...it was really cold. i just paid the bills, so i knew that wasn't the problem. turns out the heat company is supposed to refill the propane tank when it's below 30%. when mike went out to read it, it read 0%. so, we had no heat for a few hours (calla's lips were the slightest shade of blue) but we are warm & cozy now. it just seems like strange things keep happening to us, so we're hoping for a break here!

i know everyone really just wants to see pictures...so enjoy them!

merry christmas...greta is ready to open presents!

calla didn't care as much about opening the presents...she was lounging.

someone found the vaccuum!

greta showing off her new hat & mittens

this is calla's new "funny" face...it's hilarious!

and this is greta's "poop" face
a picture of us...because we really do still exist!

you're kidding, right?

today my mom fell & broke BOTH of her ankles, along with one of her legs. yes, you read that right...both ankles & a leg. she is having surgery within the next 24 hrs, will have pins in her legs & be in a wheelchair for at least the next several weeks. pray for a good surgery, fast healing & sanity...seriously, i would go nuts!

i've been tagged!

this is a first for me. i've been tagged by ann-marie to share my resolutions for 2008. so i've been thinking about what i really want to do this year. i had some ideas already, but i've taken a little time to think of more. and i keep thinking & thinking...and talking & talking...so here they are, in no particular order...

1. Love God & love others more. nuff said!

2. become a non-snobby foodie. i have this inner foodie in me, but she is often muffled by something like this, "mom, where is my cinderella doll?" or "ma-ma-ma-ma...WAAAHHH (insert 10 month old falling on her face)." so i want to experiment. i want to spend more time in the kitchen. try new things. enjoy it, even if i do have a toddler and baby tugging on my legs. i have realized that i'm a bit of a restaurant snob. i prefer to try new places rather than return to old (not always true, but most of the time). in my love of restaurants, i realize how easy it can be to become snobby about it, hence the desire to be a non-snobby foodie. i just want to enjoy it for myself & share it with others, no attitude!

3. enjoy the arts. go to more movies. read more books. go to concerts, art shows, fesitvals. and expose our girls to the arts, too. you are never too young to appreciate things. okay, i'm not about to take them to see juno (if you haven't yet- see it!), but we can find age appropriate versions of the arts for them.

4. volunteer/give back to the church. i'm not sure what this means, but i want to give more of my time, energy, resources, love, ideas...i want to give to God's Kingdom in new ways. i want to let God use me.

5. knit. i learned how to knit as a young girl from my great grandmother mimi. i put it down for years, picked it up in college & again put it down for the past 4 years. today i picked it up again & it was like returning to an old friend. i loved it. i want to make things for the girls (and that sweater i promised mike years ago), but it appears i'm starting with a sweater for greta's bitty baby. i figure it's small & a good way to learn a sweater. but a sweater for a doll who can't appreciate it? call me crazy...a crazy knitter.

6. work out. i'm starting tomorrow. no really, i am. 5:15pm i'm meeting a friend at the gym. we'll see how it goes. we're talking about training for a half marathon. i figure even if we don't make it to the race, we'll get in shape along the way. and lordie my body needs some help right now. it's not that my clothes don't fit or that i don't like my weight...it's that my body jiggles in ways i never knew possible. to the gym i go!

7. go to bed earlier...all of us! we slipped into a bad habit over the holidays. we were going to bed late & in doing this our girls were going to bed late and the real problem in all of this is that mike & i now are missing out on our time at night. so we need to go to bed earlier. (i'm listening to little feet pitter pattering upstairs while i'm writing this...at 10:36pm). friday night i went out with my mom and carolyn. we went to dinner & a 10:20pm movie. i went to bed at 2am & was up with calla at 6:30am...i'm too old for this!

and on that note i'm off to bed...for pete's sake, it's almost 11pm, what am i doing up!?!?!

Pre-School, Already?!?

today we visited our first pre-school. we have been talking about it with greta for a little while. reading a few books about kids going to school, asking her if she would like to go to school & play with kids, etc. with my work schedule & mike's school schedule we have known that we would need to figure out some form of childcare & have hoped that pre-school would be the thing that would work. so...we all got in the car today and drove to a local pre-school/childcare. during the drive over we told greta where we were going and explained things a little. when we pulled into the parking lot she was greeted by the nice playground and the first thing she said when she got out of the car was, "i think i'm going to like it here." we walked around inside and, while we may look one more place, i think we might have found a good fit. they have a childcare for calla so both of the girls can be in the same place for a few hours, 3 days/wk. they do bible lessons, letters, numbers, colors, shapes. i have to admit (and i know most moms feel this way at some point) that i felt like we have done a pretty good job teaching greta at home when they went through the curriculum. letters- she knows almost all of them, numbers- she knows them to 20, colors- yes, shapes- yes...so what is she going to learn new here? then i realize the learning comes for the other kids & the random things we don't teach at home.

now i just have to adjust to greta going to school. on one hand i'm ready; on the other hand i'm not at all. how can our baby not be a baby anymore? i know it will be good for her, for me, for all of us, but i just can't believe the time has come. i have these visions of sending her for a week and then deciding we will become hermits. i will home school her & we won't need to deal with formal school or childcare, and i will keep her home & sheltered forever. okay, so those visions don't really exist, but it still is quite an adjustment to send her off. i'll report back when we make the big leap...it feels like we're making such a huge jump/commitment. why does sending a kid to pre-school seem like such a huge thing?