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Monday, March 31, 2008

And The Walls Come Tumblin' Down!

We are really into the throes of the remodel. The walls have come down inside between the family room and living room and Tim and David made use of the nice weather last week and took down the brick on the exterior of the house where the new patio slider and windows will be installed. This week we should have more progress inside as the 1/2 wall should take shape and the fireplace will be framed in and then it's time for DRYWALL!!

The more we talk about this, the more excited I am getting. Now if I could only have it finished NOW!

Oh well.....it will be beautiful and worth every ounce of dust and dirt that we are living with in the process.

I have created an online collection that I keep uploading our pictures to - bookmark it and check back now and then to see how we're doing!





Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Marching For Babies


The boys and I will be participating in the March Of Dimes March for Babies on April 26th in honor of Julia Grace who became an angel of God on 3/25/08.

The Mom's group that I am a part of has formed a team called Julia's Grace and we will all be wearing tshirts and raising money to go to March Of Dimes. We will all be walking in our respective cities.

Heaven Gained An Angel Yesterday


Since Jack’s birth, I have been a part of a wonderful group of Moms on the Internet. Some people may not understand how a group of complete strangers could be so close, but we are. We are 200 women with young children who all experience the same trials & tribulations of parenthood and when one of us falls, we all fall together.

Yesterday, a good friends daughter, who was born at 23 ½ wks and weighed less than a pound at birth became another one of Gods angels. We were all shocked and full of disbelief when her Mom posted yesterday on our board that Julia Grace had passed away.

She had been doing so well! Julia Grace had proven all the Doctors and nurses wrong and had grown to a whopping 6 lbs 14 oz and had passed the 40 wk mark last week! She was transferred to a Children’s Hospital in preparation of moving her forward in her progression of going home to be with her family. All of us on our board were anxiously awaiting news of a successful surgical procedure yesterday to place a tracheotomy and remove her breathing tube and instead received the devastating news that the night before, something happened and baby Julia gave up her fight.

I may have never met Julia Grace or her Mother in person but feel as though I have lost a part of my heart and my family. The death of a child is a loss for everyone who’s life they have touched and for those who they were never able to meet.

Julia Grace, you will be missed.

"Perhaps they are not stars, but the souls of our lost loved ones shining down upon us to let us know they are alright" - Anon.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

I'm A Big Boy Now!

Okay, so we've tackled the potty training and succeeded. We've ditched the highchair for a booster seat at the table with Mommy & Daddy so now it was time for the BIG step. A Big Boy Bed! I think it was partially Tim's and my wanting to hold on to that one thing that kept us thinking that Jack was a baby still - the crib. But when my father so nicely said "Elizabeth, you can't send him to college in a crib you know?" that I just bit the bullet and did it.

In one weekend, I dropped $450 on all of the STUFF that we needed, sheets, matress pad, blanket, bed rails and mattress set. Daddy picked up the mattress on Friday and yesterday was the big day!

The crib came down and the big boy bed went up! Bedtime went off without a hitch and he slept all night long without any issue.

My baby's not a baby anymore!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

He Ate The WHOLE Thing!

Last night as we were leaving Kindercare, the boys stopped at the cracker basket to get their nightly crackers for the long 3 minute ride to our house. Well, instead of crackers there were apples in the basket (they were out of crackers) so Jack took one and started eating it. Well, I wasn't sure about Mason eating a whole apple but to avoid a major breakdown before we even walked out the door, I just gave him the smallest apple out of the basket.

I kept an eye on him from my mirror in the car on the way home and he seemed okay with it so I let him be. Well after about 30 minutes of working at it once we got home....the boy at the WHOLE apple - and I mean the WHOLE freakin apple, skin, flesh, core, seeds and all! Tim and I were laughing so hard. When he finished he handed Tim this little tiny speck of an apple and said "Done" and walked away.

It totally blew our dinner last night as neither of them really ate a whole lot but they had just both eaten an entire apple - Jack worked around the core, unlike his little brother.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Hippity Hoppity Easter's On It's Way!

Sunday was the Annual Claymont Easter Egg Hunt. Yes, it was in the upper 40’s and sunny here and the boys were in their winter coats but that didn’t stop us, or anyone else with children in the neighborhood for that matter. The signs all week said the Easter Egg Hunt started 3pm SHARP so that’s what time we headed up to the “spot” for the festivities. Only to find out that it was at 4pm that the Egg Hunts started, so we had to kill a whole hour with the boys. They had the customary petting zoo and snacks so that, along with a walk down the street was enough for us to make it to 4:00.

Mason was in the first grouping, “Birth to 2 ½”. Tim and I laughed because that’s not really a good age grouping but who cares. Mason was one of about 5 kids doing the hunting. Okay, so it’s not a hunt, it’s more of an Easter Egg PICKUP as they just lay the eggs in the grass. It took a few eggs for Mason to get the concept of walk, pick up the egg and put it in my basket and move on to the next colorful orb laying on the ground and repeat. But…once he realized that the eggs had CANDY in them he was hot on the trail. We scored about 10 eggs in his round.

Jack was next. VERY ANXIOUSLY awaiting his age group “2 ½ to Kindergarten”, he stood on the sidelines with Daddy waiting for the “on your mark, get set, go!” and he was OFF! It looked like a stampede as all these children scrambled to pick up eggs that were scattered all over the grass. Jack was a pro at it! He scooped up eggs as Tim, Mason & I cheered him on from the sidelines. When all was said and done he had picked up about 15 eggs filled with candy (oh joy!).

The boys emptied their eggs and handed them back in to survey their winnings and gloat in their accomplishment. We hopped back into the stroller and on “Thunder”, Jack’s bike and headed home. Another Claymont Easter Egg Hunt was in the history books.


Sunday, March 9, 2008

It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's A SUPER SLEEPER!


A good night’s sleep is something that neither Tim or I have had since, um…….let’s see…….October 19, 2004? Well……okay, well we may have gotten a few nights when Jack was an infant and he was sleeping through the night but then I got pregnant again, and that insomnia kicked in and I never got my full sleep filled nights back, until recently.

Mason is (or will be) 23 months on 3/23 and I am pleased to say that he has become a “Super Sleeper” as Tim and I so proudly refer to him every morning! He’s down for the count at 8:30pm every night and is sleeping, most of the time without so much as a peep 6:30am!!!!! We almost don’t know what to do with ourselves now! Having a full night of uninterrupted sleep is such a blessing to have back. I’ve forgotten what it was like. In some ways I miss my middle of the night rendezvous’ with him because those were such wonderful times to snuggle up with him when I was getting him to go back to sleep and because I know that it means that he’s getting bigger and is not a “baby” anymore but then I think about the lack of sleep induced fog that we would function under on those days following rough night and don’t miss that for anything in the world.

Just one more step towards being an independent little boy…….it’s hard to believe that he’s almost TWO!

UPDATE - As I posted this yesterday, I thought that I might jinx myself by saying what a good sleeper Mason's become and I think I did just that. Last night was a HORRIBLE night for all of us - the boys were both up multiple times and Tim and I got very little sleep - waking up this morning was HARD TO DO. Hopefully it was just a fluke and we'll be back to SUPER SLEEPERS tonight.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Pass The Kleenex... Please!


We are currently running at about 25% in our house - which is not good. Tim's just getting through ANOTHER round of antibiotics for a dreaded sinus infection that he's continually gotten this winter, Jack has had an ear infection and some sort of upper respiratory bug and now I've got some sort of respiratory bug too! Mason is the only "healthy" one in our house (Knocking on wood).

I'm so ready for Spring time it's not even funny. We have literally circulated the germs in our house all Winter long. I don't think we've had a week were at least ONE of us has not been sick! It's so frustrating and we TRY our hardest not to spread it to each other but we obviously are not doing a very good job at it.

ACHOO! Please pass the kleenex......................

Monday, March 3, 2008

Spring Sprang (well for at least 48 hours!)


We had THE MOST beautiful weather this past weekend!!! 60's on Saturday and upper 70's on Sunday. We had the boys out as much as physically possible to shake off some of the cabin feaver that had been building up for the past few weeks. They were able to ride their bikes, shoot their air rockets off, go for a few walks, and we even took a trip to the "orange park" down the street and to the Museum of Transportation on Sunday.






Today..........30's, rain and 4-8" of fresh snow is in the forcast for tomorrow! UGH! I'm so ready for Spring!