Ooh, a Contest!

I found out about this from my sister's blog and now I'm passing it on too. 5 minutes for Mom is giving away a free Dyson vaccuum. Click on the first link and enter the contest.

Prayer Request

I just received some very sad news. The mother of one of my childhood friends has been battling cancer for a very long time now. She was victorious for a while but the cancer came back and at this point her doctor says there is nothing more they can do. She will be entering hospice. I have been completely amazed by this woman's strong faith all throughout her ordeal. She has praised God through it all and I have been humbled, encouraged, and inspired by her absolute reliance on Him for her strength and comfort. I want to ask you to be praying for her but especially for her four grown children who have to face this.

the Global Warming Swindle

Weekend

Well, as you may have guessed from the previous post, we had a not-so-great ending to what was otherwise a wonderful weekend away. Everybody's health improved enough to go ahead with our plans. We dropped the kids off at Luke's sister's house Friday evening and headed up to Sturbridge, Massachusetts, where Luke and I had some much needed R&R away from the kidlets. For all the veteran parent readers, you know how absolutely essential this is for your sanity and the health of your relationship and for all you newbies I suggest you keep it in mind--your kids will thank you for it.

Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day and we spent much of it outside. First we headed to an orchard and brewery and got a tour of the sugarhouse where they make their maple syrup and saw how they tap their trees. Then we headed to the shops in town where Luke willingly walked around several different shops with me and even appeared to enjoy himself. After lunch, our last stop was a pottery gallery. Luke has always been fascinated by pottery--the finished pieces and especially the process. While they weren't throwing any pieces that day, the gallery was quite impressive and the artist very nice. We found several things that we really liked but were way too pricey but, thank goodness, they had a sale table and we found a piece that completed the collage that I have been working on for our living room. So, we have a nice souvenir from our weekend and , after over three years in the house, a completely decorated living room.

We had purchased a dinner package deal at the Inn so Saturday night we had a rather impressive meal at a particularly nice restaurant. All was well until Sunday morning when the lack of hot water threatened our newly acquired tranquility. As you recall from my question, the situation was not rectified and I ended up washing my hair in the sink with ice cold water (that's actually painful to the scalp and my head was tingling for a good part of the day) so that I didn't look like an absolute freak with really bad bed-head. They had offered the use of another room but I was not terribly interested in packing up my stuff and traipsing across the hotel in my pj's. When we checked out, instead of being profusely apologetic, the owner did everything he could to get out of compensating us for the incovenience we were caused by assuring us that it was not his fault that the water heater died. Well, you know what sir, neither was it my fault! Finally he begrudgingly agreed to refunding us a whopping $50, much less then even half the cost of one night. At first it was offered as a credit towards our next stay but after facing his rather uncaring attitude, I assured him that we would not be coming back.

It threatened but did not ruin our weekend. We enjoyed it immesely and at least one of our kids was happy to see us when we returned. Lily heard the door and before I even saw her I heard her yell, "Oh YAY! Mommy!" Noah on the other hand did not even look in our direction and muttered a hello and of course cried when we told him it was time to go and he could not play with his cousin anymore (whom he sees every week)! Ah, the love.

Question

What would you do or expect if, on your last morning in a hotel which had provided comfortable accomodations, you discovered that there was absolutely no hot water to be had for your much anticipated shower? Would that change if, when you reported the problem, no immediate action was taken to rectify the situation and you waited for an hour before they even called maintenance to see if there was a fixable problem and when they did check into it, discovered that it was not able to be fixed?

Please, if you would, post your answers in the comment section of this blog. It would be much appreciated.

On being sick...

It stinks! Monday night Luke came down with a stomach bug and spent the day Tuesday moaning on the couch. He would have done the same yesterday except that he couldn't afford to take another sick day. I started feeling a bit weird Tuesday but held it off til late afternoon yesterday and spent the rest of the day moaning on the couch. At least until I heard those horrible wretching sounds coming over the monitor...Lily had managed to hit everything in her crib. The second time it happened we decided to bring her downstairs with us while we finished our movie and I ended up staying with her on the couch until about 3am. Today she seems absolutely fine but Noah has been running to the bathroom every 20 minutes or so since 6:30 this morning. I hope he overcomes it as quickly as she did.

Kids are so resilient. It really is amazing. I can't believe how well my kids are handling this. Both of them just do their business and then they are fine--no crying or drama at all. I mean, I can tell they are miserable but they don't make a big deal about it. And today, Lily is acting none the worse for wear considering how little sleep she got. What a blessing. I'm not sure how well I'd handle it if they were curled up in pathetic little balls crying and whimpering. It's hard enough not being able to do anything to really help them other than comforting them and cleaning them up.

I just hope we are all over this by tomorrow. We have plans to go away for the weekend. The kids are going to stay with Luke's sister and they are really looking forward to playing with their cousins all weekend. Luke and I have reservations at the Sturbridge Country Inn in Massachusetts with plans to visit a local maple house since this is a "Maple Days" weekend. It's a nice area and not too far so we don't wast too much time just driving in the car. I really don't want to postpone...

Spelling Bee and The Grinch

For those of you who have played the spelling bee game, (which, I agree, is terribly addictive) don't you think the voice of the word reader (or whatever else you might call him) sounds like the voice of The Grinch from the original animated production?

So, here is some trivia: Boris Karloff was the narrator and the voice of The Grinch. At Chrismas-time this year, I heard the song from the movie on the radio and I thought that the DJ said that it was actually Dr. Seuss singing the song but I checked into it and apparently I was wrong (yes, I am fully capable of admitting such a thing contrary to popular belief). The man who sang that song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", was Thurl Ravenscroft. It was a tad disappointing to find that out because I just thought it was so cool that it could have been the actual Dr. Seuss.

Ouch!

So, here are the pictures I promised...As I said, this happened yesterday while Noah was sledding with his cousins at their house. They have a small hill out back with woods down below. Apparently Noah ran into a branch. Ariel came in at one point to get something and reported that Noah had gotten a scratch but was ok. An hour later all three trooped in cold and wet and the right side of Noah's face was totally swollen worse then it looks in the pictures. He was fine--at least until I cleaned it up and put ointment on it. Even then he only cried a bit and then was off to play for the rest of the afternoon. What a tough guy!

Slow Week

Well, I haven't posted anything in a week. I'd like to say it's because so much has been going on and I have so much to catch you all up on but, sadly, that is not the case. Instead, it is because nothing much happened (which just means that it was a pretty normal week).

Although for Noah, I suppose it was a rather good week because he got to go to his friends house for a 'playdate'. This was a long awaited and very-much-talked-about playdate. He had never been to this friends house before so it was particularly exciting.

Now that Noah is in preschool, the rules for playdates are a little fuzzy: do you drop the kid off or do you stay and chat with their mother (or grandmother in this case) whom you only know from the brief encounters at the school when you are dropping off and picking up your children? Before it was always Noah coming with me to my friends' houses to play with my friends' kids who were his friends by default. But now Noah has his own friends and I don't know their mothers all that well and don't know how comfortable it will be sitting in a relative stranger's house for 2 hours while our kids play. Nor do I know how comfortable I am leaving him at that house. And I have to decide if I have a legitimate concern for not wanting to leave him or if I am just having trouble cutting the strings a little bit more. So, in this case, the plan was for me to drop Noah off but I went in for what was supposed to be a brief hello and goodbye and ended up staying for over 2 hours talking. I am glad that it went that way because it was great to get to know a very nice lady a little better and now I will feel more comfortable about leaving him at this particular friend's house in the future.

It is rather amusing to me that I am writing this because I recently perused a book in the book store called The Three-Martini Playdate, which was recommended to me by a friend. It is a very funny common-sense advice book on parenting and it talked about just this sort of dilemma. The author's tongue-in-cheek suggestion on how to determine which are the mothers you would want staying at your own house for the play-date would be to mix up a batch of martinis and share them and see if they freak out or not. I suppose this sort of litmus test would totally depend on the person giving it...

So, anyway, other than this playdate of Noah's it was a very uneventful week. We did have another snow storm at the end of the week, which was rather disappointing considering that the three days prior to it were sunny and warm. What a tease! But spring is just around the corner so maybe it was the last hurrah for the winter. Noah and Lily were quite happy to get to play in the snow so I guess it's not all bad. However, Noah did manage to get a nice scrape and shiner when he was sledding today. Maybe I'll get a picture of it tomorrow and post it so you all can see it. Wouldn't that be great?!

I hope you'll excuse my ramblings but I felt the need to post something. I can't get out of the habit this early in the game...

The Birthdays

Luke's mom usually does a birthday dinner for everyone in the family. Because Luke and Lily's birthdays are so close we celebrate theirs together. Today was Luke's 30th and Lily's 2nd was on Wednesday. Luke got his annual 'make your own pasta' dinner with the cakes provided by his sister, Becky. She makes the cakes for all the birthdays because she has elevated it to an art form and they are always very impressive in looks and taste. So, here are some pictures of our day.

Luke's Cake: chocolate-peanut butter brownie with chocolate ginoche--heaven!

Lily's Cake: individual bunnies with white chocolate tops hand-painted by 'the master' (with help from her husband, Charlie--I have to give him credit because I did almost stab the man with a knife today :)

Lighting the candles

YUMMY!

"Present time present time: open the present see what's inside!"

The much-needed birthday nap with the Care Bear that Nina gave her

Me and the birthday boy

Me and the birthday girl

Preschool

Noah has been in preschool this year. For most kids it is their second year but this is his first and he absolutely loves it. From day one I have had a hard time even getting him to say goodbye to me when I drop him off in the classroom. He has a wonderful teacher who loves the kids and they adore her. They all have so much respect for her. This is a cooperative pre-school, which means the parents help out a lot, so I have been in the classroom many times and I don't think I have heard her raise her voice once. That is a skill I would love to acquire!

He has made many new friends and gets along well with everyone in his class. He has learned how to write his name and count to 100 and cut things out of paper. They made dinosaurs out of chicken bones and are compiling an ABC book. For all these reasons I am really glad that I sent him to preschool this year but probably the best reason for me is that after only two and a half hours of playing with his friends and doing crafts and learning about fun things he still is excited to see me when I pick him up. He runs out smiling and gives me a big hug. That is an incredible feeling.

So, next year will be interesting because we have decided to try out homeschooling. Noah seems to be okay with the idea but I'm not sure how much he understands it yet. When the time comes and he isn't going to school like most of his friends, we may have an upset little boy on our hands. But I'm pretty sure that he will handle it well. The preschool experience has been great for him but right now this seems like the best option for our family. Only time will tell, I suppose. And until then, I have a lot of prep work to do...

Like I said, they have done lots of fun crafts but this one was my favorite. You probably can't read the text but it says:

Sometimes you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my fingerprints
On furniture and walls.

But everyday I'm growing up
And soon I'll be so tall
That all those handprints
Will be hard to recall.

So here's a final handprint
Just so you can recall
Exactly how my fingers looked
When I was so small.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Today my baby is 2 years old! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. We will be celebrating her birthday on Sunday along with her Daddy's birthday so I will post more pictures then. But here is one of the day she was born.

Happy Birthday Baby! Mama loves you so much!

C-c-c-cold!

Do you have any idea how cold it is here today?! Well, according to The Weather Channel
it is 12 degrees out there but, due to the gale force winds, it only feels like -5. It is really, really cold. So, this is New England and it does get cold up here and normally it wouldn't really bug me except that my furnace won't start. Neat, huh? Well, there isn't anything wrong with it, thank goodness, it's just that there isn't enough oil in my tank...yeah. Now it says it's not quite on 'E' yet but apparently that doesn't matter. As if oil prices aren't high enough, I have to pay $.15 extra per gallon for the emergency fill and I have to pay the guy to re-start my furnace for me. Not all of their drivers know how to do a re-start either so they totally have to re-task a guy to come out here and do this. Lovely.

There is something to be said for those service contracts...

My Lily

Here's Lily in her princess costume... so precious. I wish that I could have frozen her in time around the 18 month mark. She was such a sweetheart--loving, cuddly, compliant, happy most of the time. Now she is almost 2 and the past few months has seen a marked increase in all the symptoms of that dreaded affliction: the TERRIBLE TWOS. She is still loving and cuddly but only on her terms. She is rather whiny and of course my name seems to make up the entire content of her vocabulary when she is whining: "Maaaaaaamaaaaaa". She fights with Noah a lot and she fights dirty--hitting, biting, pushing, usually accompanied by ear piercing screams. But then there are many moments when she is absolutely the most beautiful little girl on the planet who loves to shower me with kisses and hold my face between her hands and rub noses and just generally make me melt with love.

Following Suit

Well, I figure since everybody else is doing it, I should probably jump on this blogging band-wagon. I actually started a blog shortly after Lily was born but I never posted anything on it. So, I can't guarantee that this is actually going to amount to anything but I should at least give it another shot, right?

Right....