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Happy New Year!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Our year in pictures
January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
Happy New Year!
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
Happy New Year!
Friday, December 17, 2010
Our January Experiement
My kids have way too many clothes. I am often overwhelmed with the amount of laundry we have and I never seem to be caught up. I don't mind doing laundry, but the folding and putting away. Ugh. I can put it off forever. I'd been thinking about doing this experiment for awhile and finally decided to just go ahead and do it. No more thinking about it, just do it! :)
six items or less
Here's each of our six items: (I also limited them to 2 pairs of pajamas each. And let them have one pair of sweat pants as an extra item.)
Jax:
One pair of jeans, one pair of sweat pants, his overalls (not in pic, he's wearing them today), one piece outfit, long sleeve blue shirt, short sleeve blue shirt, stripped onesie, and 2 pairs of pajamas.
Cohen:
3 long sleeved t-shirts, short sleeved collared shirt, jeans, brown pants, sweat shorts, and 2 pairs of pajamas.
Judah:
3 long sleeved t-shirts, short sleeved collared shirt, jeans, brown pants, sweats, and 2 pairs of pajamas.
Me:
Green sweater, grey sweater, flowered long sleeve shirt, flowered tank top, dark blue tank top, and 1 (one!!!!) pair of jeans.
Eek, I'm a little nervous about 1 pair of pants for the month. And it's actually a little gross. But I couldn't bear the thought of only having 4 shirts. Especially with the time of year it is I need to wear layers. Oh, well. I'm going for it. :)
So...anyone want to join us?
six items or less
Here's each of our six items: (I also limited them to 2 pairs of pajamas each. And let them have one pair of sweat pants as an extra item.)
Jax:
One pair of jeans, one pair of sweat pants, his overalls (not in pic, he's wearing them today), one piece outfit, long sleeve blue shirt, short sleeve blue shirt, stripped onesie, and 2 pairs of pajamas.
Cohen:
3 long sleeved t-shirts, short sleeved collared shirt, jeans, brown pants, sweat shorts, and 2 pairs of pajamas.
Judah:
3 long sleeved t-shirts, short sleeved collared shirt, jeans, brown pants, sweats, and 2 pairs of pajamas.
Me:
Green sweater, grey sweater, flowered long sleeve shirt, flowered tank top, dark blue tank top, and 1 (one!!!!) pair of jeans.
Eek, I'm a little nervous about 1 pair of pants for the month. And it's actually a little gross. But I couldn't bear the thought of only having 4 shirts. Especially with the time of year it is I need to wear layers. Oh, well. I'm going for it. :)
So...anyone want to join us?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
"Mom, I have a question?"
I used to think parents were crazy when I was heard parents complain about their kids always talking and asking questions. I think it peaked when Judah was around this age:
and I had friends that had older kids and would talk about all the questions their kids had. I couldn't wait for Judah to start talking! We could have great conversations he could ask intelligent questions and I could give intelligent answers and it would be great. But then reality hit and now things like this happen on the way to Potlatch:
Judah: Mom, is Potlatch far away?
Me: No, not that far it won't take us that long to get there.
Judah: Can we walk to Potlatch?
Me: No it's too far.
Judah: But you just said it wasn't too far.
Me: Well it's too far to walk, not too far to drive.
Judah: We could bring the stroller. Cohen and Jax could ride in the stroller and I could walk and then we could switch when I get tired.
Me: No it's too far we're going to drive.
Judah: But I can walk real far.
Me: No not today.
Judah: How about a different day?
Me: No, I mean we're never going to walk to Potlatch.
Now, let me clarify that while this conversation is taking place between me and Judah (who is in the very back of the van) Cohen and Jax are also in the car. Cohen throwing in his occasional question or demand, sometimes having to do with our conversation and sometimes him telling Jax, "I'm not happy right now." when he doesn't like what Jax is doing. Great. I wonder where he learned that???
Judah: Maybe me and Dad can walk to Potlatch?
Me: No Dad isn't going to walk to Potlatch with you either.
Judah: Maybe when I grow up I'll walk to Potlatch.
Me: Maybe. I bet by the time you grow up you'll want to drive to Potlatch.
Judah: No. Potlatch isn't that far.
Me: Judah. It is too far. (starting to lose my patience about here)
Judah: You said it wasn't that far.
Me: No. I said it wasn't that far to drive it is definitely too far to walk.
Judah: No it's not.
Me: Yes it is.
Judah: Mom. No it's not.
Me: (with a big sigh) okay Judah.
Judah: So we can walk to Potlatch.
Me: No Judah we are not walking to Potlatch. Ever.
Judah: Why not?
Me: It's too far! It would take all day to walk there and we'd be really tired and we'd have to turn right around to walk home and we wouldn't have any time to play.
Judah: No it's not that far.
....I stop responding....
Judah: Mom!
Judah: Mom! It's not that far!
Judah: Mom! I can walk to Potlatch. It's not that far.
Judah: Mom! I can walk real far.
Judah: Mom! When I grow up I'm going to walk to Potlatch.
Judah: MOM!
Judah: MOM!
Judah: HEY MOM!
Judah: HEY MOM! MOM!
Me: Okay Judah.
Judah: So we can walk to Potlatch? It's not that far. We can bring the stroller and Jax and Cohen can ride and I'll walk and then when I get tired we can switch?
Around this time we got to Potlatch.
Judah: See mom, it's not that far.
Then he refused to let me take any picture of him. Stinker.
and I had friends that had older kids and would talk about all the questions their kids had. I couldn't wait for Judah to start talking! We could have great conversations he could ask intelligent questions and I could give intelligent answers and it would be great. But then reality hit and now things like this happen on the way to Potlatch:
Judah: Mom, is Potlatch far away?
Me: No, not that far it won't take us that long to get there.
Judah: Can we walk to Potlatch?
Me: No it's too far.
Judah: But you just said it wasn't too far.
Me: Well it's too far to walk, not too far to drive.
Judah: We could bring the stroller. Cohen and Jax could ride in the stroller and I could walk and then we could switch when I get tired.
Me: No it's too far we're going to drive.
Judah: But I can walk real far.
Me: No not today.
Judah: How about a different day?
Me: No, I mean we're never going to walk to Potlatch.
Now, let me clarify that while this conversation is taking place between me and Judah (who is in the very back of the van) Cohen and Jax are also in the car. Cohen throwing in his occasional question or demand, sometimes having to do with our conversation and sometimes him telling Jax, "I'm not happy right now." when he doesn't like what Jax is doing. Great. I wonder where he learned that???
Judah: Maybe me and Dad can walk to Potlatch?
Me: No Dad isn't going to walk to Potlatch with you either.
Judah: Maybe when I grow up I'll walk to Potlatch.
Me: Maybe. I bet by the time you grow up you'll want to drive to Potlatch.
Judah: No. Potlatch isn't that far.
Me: Judah. It is too far. (starting to lose my patience about here)
Judah: You said it wasn't that far.
Me: No. I said it wasn't that far to drive it is definitely too far to walk.
Judah: No it's not.
Me: Yes it is.
Judah: Mom. No it's not.
Me: (with a big sigh) okay Judah.
Judah: So we can walk to Potlatch.
Me: No Judah we are not walking to Potlatch. Ever.
Judah: Why not?
Me: It's too far! It would take all day to walk there and we'd be really tired and we'd have to turn right around to walk home and we wouldn't have any time to play.
Judah: No it's not that far.
....I stop responding....
Judah: Mom!
Judah: Mom! It's not that far!
Judah: Mom! I can walk to Potlatch. It's not that far.
Judah: Mom! I can walk real far.
Judah: Mom! When I grow up I'm going to walk to Potlatch.
Judah: MOM!
Judah: MOM!
Judah: HEY MOM!
Judah: HEY MOM! MOM!
Me: Okay Judah.
Judah: So we can walk to Potlatch? It's not that far. We can bring the stroller and Jax and Cohen can ride and I'll walk and then when I get tired we can switch?
Around this time we got to Potlatch.
Judah: See mom, it's not that far.
Then he refused to let me take any picture of him. Stinker.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
little swimmers
We had a lot of fun swimming the other day. Even Jax seemed to enjoy it. Then I had to fish Cohen out of the hot tub when he forgot he didn't have his water wings on...what a way to ruin a fun time by one of your kids going under! I think he gave us both a heart attack.
Judah is getting better at swimming. Yay Judah!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Cruise: Day 8 and final thoughts
Well. Day 8 we woke up and had breakfast in the dining room and then got off the ship and went home.
Some final thoughts on the cruise. I loved it, would love to do another cruise! I think it is a great vacation to do with young kids. And it was perfect that we didn't have to deal with flying anywhere, yet we got to see some new places.
Kids club: Camp Carnival is the official name as Judah likes to remind me! I think that this made the cruise for us. On the days that we were out at sea I can't imagine not having the kids club to take the kids to. There is only so much you can do in a little cruise ship room and the swimming and mini golf are awesome but with the little ones it only holds their attention for so long. They gave us a schedule on the first day for the whole cruise. Here's a picture of part of one days schedule:
So they had tons of fun activities planned for the kids and the boys loved it and often asked to go there.
We had an assigned dinner time of 6:00. Every night we were able to walk right into the dinning room and to our assigned table. The people that didn't have an assigned time had to wait in line to be seated. I can see the ease of not having to be to dinner at a certain time, but in our case it worked out great for us to have a schedule and we also had the same waiters every night. And they were AWESOME!
They were so great with our kids! If our boys ordered meat or something that needed to be cut, they would cut our kids food for them, Iputu (the bottom one) often fed our boys bites to get them to eat more dinner, and he made them animals out of their napkins and had origami animals waiting for them at their seat a few nights. I can not say enough positive things about these guys. They made dinner so much more enjoyable for us! Our kids really liked them and talked about them a lot. I still hear the boys mention their names while they're playing "cruise ship" sometimes.
A few quick details for anyone interested:
~We were on the Carnival Spirit.
~We were on the Riviera deck, which is the bottom passenger deck, and we were in rooms 1191 and 1195. I was worried about feeling claustrophobic on the bottom deck, but we were well above water level and the way the ship is set up I definitely didn't feel like I was in the dungeon or anything!
~We had oceanview rooms and the inside of our rooms looked just like this. Justin's mom had a room and the big boys slept with her. One on the couch that turned into a twin sized bed and one in bed with her. There was a bunk type bed that came down from the ceiling but I didn't feel like the boys were old enough to be safe on that. Jax was in with us and his crib did take up a lot of the free space in our room. This was definitely a vacation where you put your clothes away and stashed your suitcases under the bed because there was no place to put your suitcases if you wanted to just live out of the suitcase instead of unpacking.
~ I wish I could remember how much we (well, actually Justin's mom very generously paid for the cruise. Thank you Grandma Cindy!)paid for the cruise. I think it was in the high $500's, and I think Jax was free because he was under 2 and then the first 2 people per room were full price and the third (in Justin's moms room) was 1/2 price. Or the kids were half price. Not sure how that went. Well, I started the trip writing down everything I ate because I was curious if we would get our moneys worth. But I stopped by about the second day. Because seriously, let's just take me and Justin for example: A hotel for 7 nights would be at least $100 a night, so right there we're up to $700. Then add in a 3 course meal every night (appetizer, main course, and dessert), and we're talking good food. Lobster, steak, etc. I think at a regular restaurant our bill would have been at least $100 a night for our dinners, so that's another $700 right there. And then I can stop adding because for room and dinner we've already surpassed the cost of the cruise. And that's not even counting other meals or other activities like mini golf and the night shows. I think cruises are a great deal! We did book this cruise a year in advance so we got their early saver discount, but they run deals all the time. I've been keeping an eye out for our next cruise destination!
And I'll leave you with a few picture Cohen took with my camera on the cruise. Not bad for a 2 year old huh?
Thanks for reading every little detail about our cruise!
Some final thoughts on the cruise. I loved it, would love to do another cruise! I think it is a great vacation to do with young kids. And it was perfect that we didn't have to deal with flying anywhere, yet we got to see some new places.
Kids club: Camp Carnival is the official name as Judah likes to remind me! I think that this made the cruise for us. On the days that we were out at sea I can't imagine not having the kids club to take the kids to. There is only so much you can do in a little cruise ship room and the swimming and mini golf are awesome but with the little ones it only holds their attention for so long. They gave us a schedule on the first day for the whole cruise. Here's a picture of part of one days schedule:
So they had tons of fun activities planned for the kids and the boys loved it and often asked to go there.
We had an assigned dinner time of 6:00. Every night we were able to walk right into the dinning room and to our assigned table. The people that didn't have an assigned time had to wait in line to be seated. I can see the ease of not having to be to dinner at a certain time, but in our case it worked out great for us to have a schedule and we also had the same waiters every night. And they were AWESOME!
They were so great with our kids! If our boys ordered meat or something that needed to be cut, they would cut our kids food for them, Iputu (the bottom one) often fed our boys bites to get them to eat more dinner, and he made them animals out of their napkins and had origami animals waiting for them at their seat a few nights. I can not say enough positive things about these guys. They made dinner so much more enjoyable for us! Our kids really liked them and talked about them a lot. I still hear the boys mention their names while they're playing "cruise ship" sometimes.
A few quick details for anyone interested:
~We were on the Carnival Spirit.
~We were on the Riviera deck, which is the bottom passenger deck, and we were in rooms 1191 and 1195. I was worried about feeling claustrophobic on the bottom deck, but we were well above water level and the way the ship is set up I definitely didn't feel like I was in the dungeon or anything!
~We had oceanview rooms and the inside of our rooms looked just like this. Justin's mom had a room and the big boys slept with her. One on the couch that turned into a twin sized bed and one in bed with her. There was a bunk type bed that came down from the ceiling but I didn't feel like the boys were old enough to be safe on that. Jax was in with us and his crib did take up a lot of the free space in our room. This was definitely a vacation where you put your clothes away and stashed your suitcases under the bed because there was no place to put your suitcases if you wanted to just live out of the suitcase instead of unpacking.
~ I wish I could remember how much we (well, actually Justin's mom very generously paid for the cruise. Thank you Grandma Cindy!)paid for the cruise. I think it was in the high $500's, and I think Jax was free because he was under 2 and then the first 2 people per room were full price and the third (in Justin's moms room) was 1/2 price. Or the kids were half price. Not sure how that went. Well, I started the trip writing down everything I ate because I was curious if we would get our moneys worth. But I stopped by about the second day. Because seriously, let's just take me and Justin for example: A hotel for 7 nights would be at least $100 a night, so right there we're up to $700. Then add in a 3 course meal every night (appetizer, main course, and dessert), and we're talking good food. Lobster, steak, etc. I think at a regular restaurant our bill would have been at least $100 a night for our dinners, so that's another $700 right there. And then I can stop adding because for room and dinner we've already surpassed the cost of the cruise. And that's not even counting other meals or other activities like mini golf and the night shows. I think cruises are a great deal! We did book this cruise a year in advance so we got their early saver discount, but they run deals all the time. I've been keeping an eye out for our next cruise destination!
And I'll leave you with a few picture Cohen took with my camera on the cruise. Not bad for a 2 year old huh?
Thanks for reading every little detail about our cruise!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Cruise: Day 7
Another "mostly" day at sea with a little bit of Victoria at night.
We were all tired by this point! Judah took a really good sleep in! One of the family activities was a build a bear type thing in the kids club. We're not big fans of stuffed animals, but we let the kids do this. Cohen made a frog with a firemans costume and Judah made a bear with a soccer costume. I always love seeing what they choose! Judah is sleeping with his bear in this picture, and they still sleep with their special animals from the cruise every night!
The big boys spent the morning in kids club and Justin got to go on a cool behind the scenes tour of the ship. The boys got their faces painted!
After lunch we spent the afternoon relaxing. We did some swimming and then Judah went to kids club, Cohen wanted to stay with us so we hit up the buffet on the lido deck for an overabundance of desserts and then sat in the sun. My disclaimer is that I didn't eat everything that was sitting in front of me, I wanted to try it all though!
We were in Victoria from 7-11 p.m. such a short and inconvenient time. At least for us with 3 little kids! Someone said that they have to stop in an international port on cruises. Not sure if that's true or not but that would explain our short stop there.
This was a special mom and grandma date night for Judah. We went on a horse drawn carriage ride and then had tea at the Empress. He was such a big boy about it! Then we had a little bit of time to wander around before we had to catch our bus back to the ship. Nothing was open, but I love Victoria so it was still fun to walk around a bit.
Justin took the other boys into town for awhile too. They had a great time wandering around and checking out Victoria with dad!
The thing that I found strangest of all about Victoria (and I actually still can't get over!) is that they never checked our passports or drivers license or anything. We had to scan our ship id card when we left the ship, (we had to do this in each port when we got off the ship and when we got back on), but after we got off the ship we didn't have to go through any kind of customs. Then when we got back on the ship we had to show our ship id card when we went through their little customs gate. Our ship id card, not our passport or drivers license. I don't get it. Maybe because they do a check of some kind on each person that gets on the ship initially. I know that if you have had a DUI you can't get into Canada so does that mean we had a ship full of DUI free people??? I doubt it! Can you just not get off in Canada if you don't "qualify"? When we went to Victoria for our one year anniversary we rode the Clipper and going through customs was awful. We had to go onto the secondary questioning and it just seemed really difficult. And I thought security was getting tighter, all this big talk about needing passports to enter Canada and then we got on a cruise and they want our ship id card. Seriously if anyone has any answers for me I would love to hear them because I can't move on from this!
We were all tired by this point! Judah took a really good sleep in! One of the family activities was a build a bear type thing in the kids club. We're not big fans of stuffed animals, but we let the kids do this. Cohen made a frog with a firemans costume and Judah made a bear with a soccer costume. I always love seeing what they choose! Judah is sleeping with his bear in this picture, and they still sleep with their special animals from the cruise every night!
The big boys spent the morning in kids club and Justin got to go on a cool behind the scenes tour of the ship. The boys got their faces painted!
After lunch we spent the afternoon relaxing. We did some swimming and then Judah went to kids club, Cohen wanted to stay with us so we hit up the buffet on the lido deck for an overabundance of desserts and then sat in the sun. My disclaimer is that I didn't eat everything that was sitting in front of me, I wanted to try it all though!
We were in Victoria from 7-11 p.m. such a short and inconvenient time. At least for us with 3 little kids! Someone said that they have to stop in an international port on cruises. Not sure if that's true or not but that would explain our short stop there.
This was a special mom and grandma date night for Judah. We went on a horse drawn carriage ride and then had tea at the Empress. He was such a big boy about it! Then we had a little bit of time to wander around before we had to catch our bus back to the ship. Nothing was open, but I love Victoria so it was still fun to walk around a bit.
Justin took the other boys into town for awhile too. They had a great time wandering around and checking out Victoria with dad!
The thing that I found strangest of all about Victoria (and I actually still can't get over!) is that they never checked our passports or drivers license or anything. We had to scan our ship id card when we left the ship, (we had to do this in each port when we got off the ship and when we got back on), but after we got off the ship we didn't have to go through any kind of customs. Then when we got back on the ship we had to show our ship id card when we went through their little customs gate. Our ship id card, not our passport or drivers license. I don't get it. Maybe because they do a check of some kind on each person that gets on the ship initially. I know that if you have had a DUI you can't get into Canada so does that mean we had a ship full of DUI free people??? I doubt it! Can you just not get off in Canada if you don't "qualify"? When we went to Victoria for our one year anniversary we rode the Clipper and going through customs was awful. We had to go onto the secondary questioning and it just seemed really difficult. And I thought security was getting tighter, all this big talk about needing passports to enter Canada and then we got on a cruise and they want our ship id card. Seriously if anyone has any answers for me I would love to hear them because I can't move on from this!
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