Another Contest

Head on over to Burgh Baby. She is holding a great contest today. It is for a wonderful cause too.

I promise to be more exciting later in the week.

A Few Things

First of all, Belle over at Life of a Southern Belle is having a birthday this week. She is so cool that she is giving stuff away all week. Go on over there and enter.

Second we are feeling much better here. Mark is back to school. Anna seems to be the only one still suffering. She has dripped a gallon of snot in the last couple of days. There is a mental picture I am sure you needed. Thanks for all of your well wishes. I am sure it helped.

Third. Well I don't have third. It seems like I should though because it doesn't seem like enough to just have one and two. OK here is a third. It is raining again. That means no playing outside today.. No hanging out laundry. I am starting to run out of underwear. Not that I hang out underwear but still I am almost out. This isn't cool. But hey at least it isn't snow. This would be a lot of snow. Feet. And I don't like to shovel that much so rain is OK I guess.

Have a great day!!

My New Crib

I am trying something new here in heaven. This is my attempt at a fall themed site. What do you think? I am not sure I am crazy fond of it yet. Just going to have to move in try it out for a few days. I expect I will be in there fiddling around with it again real soon. And just so you don't think I spend all my time rearranging colors on my blog. Here is a very long video of some dancing.

I am really surprised Jason lets me keep my camera.

In other news, I just noticed this is my 100th post. Wow, my how time flies. Guess I won't do that 100 things post until later. I am a rule breaker. Go me!!

Scenes from the Sun Porch

I love our new porch. One of the best times to be out there is the late afternoon. The work is mostly done. Dinner usually bubbles away on the stove while we play and have fun. I have really become a fan of meals I can make ahead and have them standing by waiting for us. Love that crock pot baby.
Anywho, one of the reasons I love the porch so is the lighting in the afternoon. Sun is going down behind the trees and makes a soft rosy glow over the landscape. It makes for some really easy picture taking. And since I have no idea what I am doing, easy is best.
Mark posed for me. He never does that so I took full advantage.

Jason poses even less than Mark. Don't they look cute together? I love my blue eyed boys.

I love to watch Anna observe the world around. She just takes it all in.

Sometimes the world doesn't make her very happy.


We moved the kids play table out to the porch. They have so much fun coloring together.


I can not get over how long this girls lashes are. I would kill for lashes like that.

Isn't he a little cutie.

So there you have it. Scenes from the sun porch. Care to come and join us for a spell. I promise I won't even take our picture. Much.


We are still a little on the snotty side here. So if you see snot in these pictures just pretend you don't. Thanks.

Cream Cheese Festival

This can not be bad.

There were all kinds of cream cheese themed events at the festival.
What is that you ask? Why the makings of cream cheese art.

My name forever memorialized in cream cheese. What could be better.

Mark had fun smearing cream cheese on the wall too.

We had cream cheese bingo. That is the cream cheese bingo blob wiper right there. This must be her first year as a volunteer.

And what Cream Cheese Festival would be complete without the World largest cheese cake.

They even handed out free samples to the crowd. And let me tell you Philadelphia can make a cheese cake. YUM!!

Can you say you sampled the worlds largest cheese cake? I can. My moment in the sun. I am milking it for all it's worth.

We even had time to squeeze in a picnic from one of the vendors. Mark loves a good picnic.

Then we headed out. The kids were wiped out. We found out the next day that sickness had descended upon our house. We probably passed our cold around all of Lowville. Go us! So if you went to CCF and now have a raging runny nose. Sorry.


In other news, our glorious contractors are now done. No more banging, pounding or clanging. The kids can now nap in peace. YEAH!
Actually we thought they did a great job. If you know you live near me and would like to get an estimate from them email me at Ellynm78 at gmail dot com. I will give you the name.

Does this not make you smile?

Need to see more?


And yes I made Jason stop so I could take a picture. If you saw a crazy lady running across a field in front of the Kraft plant, that was me.

This is but a small part of what we did last weekend. More to come later in the week. A little hint. It had to do with cream cheese. Only my favorite food group.

We have snot

There is snot on the big baby and the little baby. There is snot on the Mommy and the Daddy. Snot on the carpet, the walls, the ceiling and the windows. Snot on the dog and the cat. I think they are hiding the basement. Snot on the table, the doors, the beds, and the crib.
The only place snot isn't is the tissues. When the tissues come out the babies run away screaming.
We are drowning in snot. And it is gross.

Hope your day is going better.

A few pictures from our pre-snot days.



Ewwwwwwwwww!! Snot on the computer!!

This Old House III

Want to catch up from the begining of this drama. Click here and here.

I think this is probably the last time I will do house updates for a while. Our glorious contractors are almost done. We are just waiting a few special order windows to come in.
We had quite a few of the windows replaced. The seal between the panes of glass had popped and dirt had gotten in there. So this is what it looked like before.

Here is the the after.

Big difference, huh? We can actually see outside now. It's great.

Now I am just kicking myself because I think I deleted the before picture of our porch. Well, you will just have imagine with me. OK, close your eyes. Wait, no don't close your eyes. Read this. Eyes open? OK, good. Concentrate. Imagine a porch where all the window have been painted shut 25 times. The windows are very dirty and half of them are broken. Got that? Ok now imagine that when you moved in you used this porch as your box holding area before they went to the dump. OK, now imagine a boxspring on the porch because it would not could not go up the stairs of your one hundred year old house. Got all that?
Ok now look at this.

I love love love this porch. It is the best place to hang out in the afternoon. The sun warms the room up just right and makes it feel very cozy. The kids play with toys and each other. It is the best. Want to come up and enjoy a cocktail with me?

On a side note, see the furniture? Craigslist, baby. $100!! I love Craigslist. If you haven't tried it, you should. It is going to garage sales without the junk. Love it!!

Cuteness

Some days they just melt my heart.

Housewife

I got to have coffee with one of our contractors yesterday. We started talking about his family. He has a boy a little younger than Mark. I asked him what his wife does. He told me she is a housewife. That started me thinking. I would never call myself that. I would not be flattered if Jason called me a housewife either. While I do take care of our house I don't consider myself a housewife. I do the cooking, the laundry, the bills, the cleaning, and the grocery shopping. But I don't consider these things my job. I do them as a side to what my real job is. I am a stay at home mom. My job is the health and well being of my kids. It is my job to keep them fed and clothed. It is my job to make sure they get played with everyday. (It's a tough job but someone has to do it.) It is my job to make sure they say please and thank you and all other facets of civilized behavior. This is my job. Not the laundry. I don't think housewife is a term for my generation of women. My generation of women are Stay At Home Moms Extraordinaire. Housewife seems very 1950s to me. Like I should frittering about the kitchen is puffy skirt. While I do fritter a bit in the kitchen; I wouldn't be caught dead in the skirt. Very not me. SAHME. That's me.


I bet when he said that he never would have guessed it would get me thinking so.

The First Day

Mark's first day was supposed to be Monday but Ike came to visit Sunday night and knocked out power through most our little town including the school. Mark was so disappointed but we did a dress rehearsal. Yesterday he actually got to go.
We arrived and Mark immediately went into play mode. He was off and running.

The only time he showed any apprehension was when I said I was leaving.

After I told him I was coming back to get him when he finished playing he was OK. It was like he thought he was going to have to stay forever. I am happy to report that there were no tears either from Mark or Mommy.
It was a little light in the stroller yesterday. Anna kept looking over for Mark. It was kind of sad.

We girls will tough it out though.

I went back a little early. (They told me I could.) I wasn't the first parent there. I was however the first one in the door. All the rest of the parents were just waiting for someone else to go in first. So I did. Then it was like opening a flood gate.
I caught them during snack time. Mark loves Goldfish so I bet this was a hit. Once he finished he crumpled up in his napkin and stood up and said "Boy, that was good." It was so funny I snorted. Way to make a good first impression on the other parents. Snort like a pig. Go Me!!


I've been spotted.

They had circle time and sang a song. That was the only time I wanted to cry just a little, not because I missed him but because he was having such fun. Oh great. Now I am the snorting pig blubbering baby. There is one in every class.
We loaded up and came home for lunch. He was so mean on the way home and through lunch. He went straight to bed after lunch. He doesn't do very well major upsets in his routine but he will get used to it.
Last night before bed he told me all about what he did all morning in finite detail. I love to listen to his perspective of things.
We are going back today to catch up. We can't be using one of our 3 allotted snow days already.

I Am an Award Winner

A while back I received this one from my dear mom. Thanks mom. You're the coolest.

I am passing this one along to some people I just love to read. Go check out these ladies if you have a chance.

Laurne This is my sister. She is serving her country right now in Iraq. She always finds little tid bits in her daily life to post. I am so glad she is bored.

Weezee Her life has gone to the dogs. She has five of the cutest dogs you ever want to meet.

Belle's daughter just started at Clemson this year. She posts pictures of all the fun tailgating they get to do. They even take cucumber sandwiches. Looks like it is way fun.

Belle gave me this award. Thank you so much Belle. It is quite an honor to receive an award from so fab a blogger.

Belle's award came with a few rules. I have to tell you 6 things that make me happy and pass it on to six fabulous bloggers. This should be easy.

1. No single sound makes me happier than the sound of my kids laughing. Just listen here. Best sound ever.

2. I love to spend time with Jason. He is one of my favorite people.

3. I am always happy on my morning walk. I love to chat along with the kids about the things we come across on our way.

4. The smell of fresh cut grass sends me over the moon. Fall leaves are almost as good.

5. I love the anticipation of a road trip. Coming home is nice too.

6. I love to blog and the people I have met through blogging.

I guess I would be happiest if I were walking by a house with fresh cut grass pushing the laughing kids with Jason while planning a road trip. I don't know if I could take that much happiness though. I might just pop.

Now I am supposed to pass this along to six fab bloggers. I am giving this to ladies who I look forward to reading everyday. Thanks for making my morning coffee even better.

1. Dlyn She is without her camera right now so a tiny little bit whiny. But other than that she is a hoot. I look forward to her every day.

2. Manic Mommy This woman will make you shoot that morning coffee right out your nose. She is a true blue mom who doesn't sugar coat parenthood. I love her.

3. Lauren Yes Lauren again. She is serving her country and deserves multiple awards. Go You, Lauren.

4.Nap Warden is a fellow SAHM who also trains for marathons. I don't know what she does with all the free time she must have. She is so fun and an inspiration to those of us who just try to get out and walk a couple times a week.

5.Burgh Baby I love to go and see what The Toddler has been up to.

6.Melissa is a new blogger. She is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She doesn't have tons of time for blogging being a mom to three, the youngest of which is 2 months old. She is new to the world of the SAHM. She is a very busy lady who blogs when she has time. Now post some stinking pictures of that baby.

The same rules apply to you as applied to me. Now go and pass the love.

That was fun. It was a little like being back in junior high though. Will this person think I am a dork for giving them this award? They are soooo much more popular than me. Oh well, hope I am not a dork.

Pictures

I am trying to get back into the bloggie groove. We went out of town last weekend. It is taking a couple of days to catch up.
I thought I would do a couple of pictures today. Hope you enjoy.

Anna has a new thing for hats. Come here wearing a hat and she is going to want it.

This is Mark's favorite new pose.

Anna has never done this before. It was so cute. She did the head bob into her lunch before I caught her.

I promise to be more exciting later in the week. I have awards to hand out and a trip to the farm. WE will also have our last installment of this old house. We are in the home stretch now folks.

Mark's Open House

So are you crazy sick of preschool stuff yet? It hasn't even started yet and you are sick of it. This is not good.
Anyway, Mark's open house was the other day. We went down the stairs to his classroom and that was the last time we saw him. He was gone off having fun with the other kids. These were the only shots I could nail him down for.
He played in the playhouse with two little girls for the longest time. Leave it to Mark to find the prettiest girls in the place and hang out with them.


He cleaned up a little. He is always one with the vacuum cleaner where ever we go.

Anna even weaseled into a few pictures. She had almost as much fun as Mark.
See her new shoes? Aren't they the cutest?!


I think she is cutting teeth again. It never fails to turn her nose red.

September 11

When I sat down to write today, I started probably 10 different posts, all centered around September 11. What do you say about a day that changed our country forever?
Well I will keep it simple.
I pray our country never again has to endure the tragedy of 9/11. I am praying for the families of those lost. I am praying for our service members fighting for our freedoms. Come home but not until our job is done. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for your sacrifice. You are appreciated and missed.

This Old House II

Well this the second part in my series. If you want to catch it from the begining stop by here And for a good laugh about this old house and how dumb we are check out here.
Today we will talk about our glorious contractors did last week. We asked them to put up a vanity light fixture for us because this is what the house came with. It was too high for me to use and to low for Jason to use. And to top it off, it was crazy ugly. It had to go.

We had more pretty wallpaper under it. I am thinking about striping the paint off the walls so we can go back to this for the whole bathroom.

This is what it looked like when they were done. Well, not exactly. They ended up having to cut a huge hole in the wall behind the mirror to fish the wiring through. There was sheetrock dust all over the whole bathroom. They don't do clean up. So this is what it looked like after we spend an hour in there cleaning.

They are also replacing a bunch of the windows. The panes in the old ones a popped and fill with condensation. The condesation dries and leaves behind dirt. Again they had to go.

And here we are. I think they look really nice. Far more energy efficent too. We are just going to put some caulk around the outside and we will be good to go.

Have a great day!!

Study of a Toddler

Mark come here.

Smile.

Don't close your eyes so much and smile.

Open your eyes.

Ok, now SMILE!!

Good Job!

Brat.