Random Musings

I have more Thanksgiving pictures from Saturday, but will get to those later. I have several funny pictures from the last few weeks that I'm throwing in to one post!

This is Nick eating the bottom crumbs of a cheez its box. He dumped the crumbs into the pink kids bowl and was eating them with a spoon. I was sitting on the couch taking a picture with my cell phone while I was painting my nails b/c I thought it was so ridiculous. I still love him and his silly quirks. This is how we spend our time when kids are napping--in the sunroom watching football together on the weekends!

Hunter helped me make a birthday cake and loves licking the beaters :)
I love taking pictures of this guy--he's so funny!
Hunter loves to make his "mad face" at the dinner table.
Pretty scary huh?
I was attempting to take pictures for our Christmas card, but couldn't get a good one of both kids. I love the matching pj's though, so we'll have to try again very soon.

This is a semi-annual publication from my high school (Mercy). I have some information in this most recent issue--see below! I actually got an email from an old friend who saw the piece, so I'm glad we are in there b/c we are going to get together after the holidays.

The bottom middle picture is Nick, Jack, Doctor, and me. The doctor and I graduated from Mercy in the same year. Just so happens she was on call when I went into labor with Jack, so she delivered him. Talk about awkward (at least I didn't have a bm during labor--did I just say that?!?!), but seriously, it was weird. haha. Anyway, I thought it would be a good story for the Mercy Alumni magazine. Then at the top right there is a picture of both boys.

More Thanksgiving pictures and update on my back

Below are more pictures from Thanksgiving day. We got together with Nick's dad, stepmom, brother, and his fiance yesterday. We hung out at our house and went out to dinner. We were thankful that they came to our house b/c it makes it so much easier for us not to have to travel far with the kids. I originally planned to cook, but with my back feeling so horrible, I just couldn't deal with it.

Gammy Dori and Jack watching the Lions lose :)
Big D and Hunter...Hunter really loves hanging out with Big D. He said "Big D laughs like a gorilla" and we all got a kick out of that!

Me and my sweetie pie. I love this little guy SO MUCH. He has been a little fussy, but he's great anyway!

Jack was happy sitting in my uncle Steve's lap :) He's great with kids!
Nana and Grandpa got Hunter a rc car to play with at their house. He had fun with it and was such a great boy. I think we've finally gotten to a point where we don't have to worry about his every move and him breaking something. It makes it so much more enjoyable for us. Now as soon as Jack is walking we'll have to worry about him instead!

My mom and dad put Jack between them, which was nice for us!

Big D and Gammy Dori at Thanksgiving dinnerMy Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Steve

When we got home, we hung out for a few minutes before putting the kids to bed. I thought this picture was funny b/c I was getting the camera and Nick was not paying attention (as usual) and Chopper was kissing Jack on the mouth! Yuck!

On another note, my back is in BAD shape (that is an understatement). It's so ironic (and bittersweet) that I felt better when I went to the Mayo Clinic and a week ago I could feel the injection wearing off (about three days after I returned from Mayo). It has gotten worse all week and the last two days I've woken up early in so much pain that I can't go back to sleep. Saturday I was up at 6:00am and today I was up at 4:45am and unable to sleep b/c I was miserable! SO, Nick and I talked this weekend and decided I'm going to call this week to schedule the surgery. I am meeting with a surgeon at Henry Ford Tuesday, so unless they recommend something different, I will probably have surgery at St. Joe's. My plan is to schedule it for right after Christmas. I was hoping to hold off till February, but I can't wait that long. Waiting until after Christmas is going to be hard enough. My lower back has been bad, but I had some relief from the pain shooting down the back of my leg, but now that that is back, I have to have surgery. There is no rehab, no exercise, nothing I can do besides surgery. There is a piece of the disc that broke off and is pushing against the nerve. It's the same disc that I had surgery on in 2006. I am so frustrated that there is nothing I can do besides having surgery b/c it's going to be horrible. I can't get another injection until the beginning of January, and was hoping to do that asap and buy myself some more time, but I can't take it anymore. It's not good timing with my parents going to FL, Nick's mom in Texas, but we'll manage...I just can't wait any longer. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It's going to be a long month with the stress of the holidays and feeling like this.

Thanksgiving 2010

I have lots of pictures to sort through, but here are a few of my favorites. We had Gammy Dori and Big D over in the morning yesterday. We hung out with the kids and watched the Lions game. After the game, we all headed to my parents house for dinner. We had fun, Hunter was a really good boy and that made our day much more enjoyable, and the kids both slept until after 7am this morning--YIPPEE. I actually woke up on my own and was not woken up by a kid for the first time in at least a week! More pictures to come later...

Hunter loves to make his "mad face" at people, so here are all three of us giving the "mad face". I think mine is the scariest of all :)

Both of the kids looked so cute with their sweaters. Jack was a little under the weather, but finally slept good last night. He also had his first bloody injury yesterday morning...more on that later too.

When all else fails...stick him in the tub

Jack has been waking up early these last few mornings. It has been hard for us to get ready for work and keep him out of trouble while we get ready. He'll be ok in the pack and play in the bathroom for a bit, ok in the closet crawling around for a bit, and then we tried this yesterday...it worked for a while and then he got bored!

I had him in his Christmas pj's b/c the night before I was trying to take pictures to make our Christmas cards :)

Have a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!!

Today Nick and I are going to Hunter's school for lunch--they are having a Thanksgiving Feast with all the pre-school parents. I hope Hunter doesn't act out like he did when we were there for his birthday celebration.

Hunter and his floor puzzles...

If you didn't read this post about Hunter's puzzle obsession, here are another set of his puzzles. These are fun b/c we'll set them all up on the floor. He must get this from his mommy b/c I love to do puzzles too! All the puzzles are about 2x3 feet, so they are pretty big!

I got this one at Wal-Mart out by a friend's house in West Bloomfield and it's reversible. There is the fire scene (above) and a huge fire truck on the other side. I've gone to two other Wal-Marts around here and can't find any more like this :(

Thomas the Train puzzle...this one was expensive and I don't like it b/c the pieces don't stay together well. You pay for the "thomas brand", but it's not a good one.
This is one of our favorites. Monica, our previous nanny, got this for Hunter for his 3rd birthday. It's a huge hit.

I brought this one back from Minnesota for Hunter. We've been having lots of fun with it, but he keeps asking me what the types of fish are and I don't know them all.

The bottom left is an alphabet train puzzle that is about 10 feet long! It's really fun too :)

I think I'm bad for feeding his obsession with puzzles, but they are so much fun. I am really hoping when he gets older we can do huge ones on the dining room table together since Nick doesn't like to do them. haha. I also like them b/c he has so much energy and he'll actually sit still to do puzzles. Anything to get a break!

Learning to write...and what a coincidence!

Hunter has been learning the basics of writing his letters at school. They have an interesting way of doing it at Montessori school which involves tracing the letters with your finger which are a sandpaper texture. I guess it's highly effective and his teacher told us recently at a conference that it couldn't hurt for us to do a little of this at home too. She suggested we draw the letter on the chalkboard and he dip his finger in water and try to "trace and erase" it with his finger.

Daddy showing him how to do it. I pulled out the camera b/c I was so proud of him...he really concentrated on this and had to trace it perfectly. I know one of the goals with the pre-schoolers is to teach them how to concentrate and focus on a task and he did a great job! I was shocked that with his energy level he actually did the abc's two times in a row! He really enjoyed this and is learning along the way. He was also really proud of himself once he completed it.
Yay Hunter! When you say, "Hunter is so smart", he copies you and says, "I'm so fart". Those "s's" are still a little hard for him! It cracks us up though.

The huge coincidence...so, the next day after we did the chalkboard activity, Nick saw an advertisement for an apple app that we could buy for $2. So, now he can also learn to trace the letters on the ipad! It does the upper and lower case letters and also shows you the proper way to write the letter. Technology is so amazing.

I thought it was so crazy that the day after we did the one activity he saw the advertisement for this. I like to limit tv, and "screen time", but at least he's doing something educational on the ipad :)

Mill Pond and Chucky Cheese

I took all these with my iphone, so they aren't great quality, but some turned out ok. One of the very few family pictures! haha. We went to the mill pond area in downtown Brighton. They were having several events for kids and then Santa and Mrs. Claus were coming to turn on all the downtown Christmas lights. It was freezing cold outside, but we had to go on the train ride or else Hunter would have been very disappointed!
Waiting to get on the train that took us for a ride down Main Street in Brighton.
Jack and I snuggling on the train to keep warm :)

They had a table set up so you could write letters to Santa. Hunter said, "I don't want anything. I already have four toys." I told him that was just fabulous if he didn't want Santa to bring him anything and then told him he had hundreds of toys, which is way more than four! He still had fun checking out the mailbox.

We went to the Yum Yum Tree for dinner. We used to come here a lot when I was growing up. They have a train track and train that goes around the top of the restaurant (see top of picture above). Hunter and Jack both enjoyed watching it go around and I did too when I was a kid!
Hunter was up on daddy's shoulders waiting for Santa to arrive to turn on the lights.
They even had a reindeer come with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

We went to Chucky Cheese recently. It's a lot more fun now that Hunter is older and can play a lot of the games. Jack loves just looking around at everything and they have a few things he can do. We have to come up with things like this to do now that it's getting cold! Hunter got his picture taken with Chucky :)

Sitting in the car ride together.

Hunter was driving and Jack was his passenger.

Riding the carousal...Nick had to follow it around and hold Jack on

Nick and Hunter riding a roller coaster ride together. We won lots of tickets and had some good family fun! Who would have thought five years ago this is how we'd be spending our time together?!?!