Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2009 brings to you all you wish for, and more! For us, we are off to a pretty good start.


Our front-page news is George is completely potty trained now. We've learned all he needs is a gentle push to if you really want him to do something. So, we did just that! It was a few days before Christmas, and everything was quite hectic and stressful for us as I'm sure it was at your house. George just would not take a nap, even though he was very tired. It must have been the excitement of the visit from Santa looming over his head. Anyway, I was so frustrated and tired of trying to get him to nap that I said (in a kind, motherly voice of course) "Fine! If you're not going to take a nap like a big boy, then you can wear underwear like a big boy!" And George said "Ok". So, we put on the undies and the rest is history. Sure, there were a few accidents along the way but not many. The second chapter to this story is that he changed his requested reward from train toy to a garbage truck. He's been saying he wanted a garbage truck for a loooooong time, so Santa was bringing him one anyway. However, Santa searched long and hard for the perfect garbage truck, and could only find this one as a suitable truck for such a lovely boy:

Its such a cool garbage truck! Except it was ordered from Canada, and was not going to be here in time for Christmas. This worked out perfect, since the Tuesday after Christmas it finally arrived and was waiting for him on his singing potty when he woke up from his nap, accident free of course. He was so excited he almost peed his pants. Ok, not really but I couldn't help putting that in there. We are very proud of him, and will remember to gently push in the future when we're trying to get him to do something!


As you can see from the picture, Charlie and Louis are now sitting up! When they were about 6 1/2 months old, they suddenly realized this wonderful new trick and it didn't take them long to master it. Next I am sure they will learn to crawl, but not in the near future because they can barely hoist their heiney into the air when they are on their bellies. They both babble quite a bit, Charlie has begun the "da-da-da" babbles in the past couple days. Louis hasn't yet, but he is quite the shrieker! It is fun listening to them. I have to keep reminding Matt that Charlie really is not saying "dadda". He, of course, proclaims that he is and declares "dadda" as Charlie's first word. There are no teeth popping through in either of their mouths yet, but their sleeping habits and occasional fussiness better be explained by a tooth pretty soon or else I'm going to go bananas in the middle of the night. They do not go back to the doctor until they are 9 months old (they are 7 1/2 months now), but I'm guessing they are at least 20 lbs each. They are quite tall, and are into 12 month clothes already for hte most part. Its funny, because I really thought that they would stay on the small side for a while since they had a small start. I was so wrong.

We do have a few additions to the house in the past month. One is a snowblower. Finally, after 5 years of generosity from our neighbors helping us out we felt guilty enough that we really needed to get our own snowblower. We check the forecast everyday now and hope for snow. It will be the only time in our lives we really hope for snow, because all we want to do is use this thing. We bought it Wednesday night. Murphy's Law says it now will not snow a sufficient amount at a time to use a snowblower. Unfortunately, we had a record or near-record snowfall amount in December. And we did not own the snowblower at that time. Bummer. These pictures were taken Christmas Eve day. We built a fort/cave on the giant pile of snow next to our driveway.


The other addition is Ricky, the pet caterpillar/moth. It came crawling out of our Christmas tree one day, so George collected it in his bug catcher. After a few days it spun itself a coccoon, then recently hatched into a moth. We're not sure what to do with a moth now, because I don't know if it would make it outside. Please don't turn us into the humane society if it dies.

We had a wonderful holiday season, and busy like everybody else's. The business and travel is worth it for the quality time we were able to spend with family and friends. George especially enjoyed Santa Claus this year and what he was all about. Next year Santa and Mrs. Claus will have to make sure we eat all his cookies because he did not like that this year they did not. His favorite thing this Christmas was opening presents. Sometimes he stopped to look at what was inside, but other times he would move right on to the next gift. It seems it will be a challenge with George to keep the identity of Santa hidden. George knew where Santa/Mrs. Claus did their shopping. He would open a gift and say "Oooh, he got this at TJ Maxx!"

Since it is a new year we are back into the swing of things. George is still doing swim lessons. I expect this to be his last session as a turtle and to be promoted to pike status. I enrolled him in gymnastics again, this time through the Y though. He only had one class so far. He's the only boy, and is surrounded by Carlie Patterson wannabes who budge and show off their little gymnast skills. But, he likes it he said. If he likes it after this session we'll sign him up for hte next session.

That's about it. Our beer lines were temporarily frozen for a while, but its flowing again. Phew! We're supposed to get very arctic air in the next few days, so I'm sure they will freeze again. I bet if I looked back on all my blogs there would be an update on beer in almost every single one. Its Matt's hobby, so I figured it deserves a little attention. Matt is almost finished building Tina's tank stand, so she can have a home in the living room instead of our kitchen counter.

Well with the holidays out of hte way, hopefully I can update more often now. I said hopefully. =)