fulfilling a destiny

Izzie

Sophie

well, on my way to becoming the Crazy Cat Lady! So, we went to the shelter because I've been wanting a kitten. And I don't have any reason, I just wanted a kitten. So, I suppose I felt guilty just walking in the building and past all the grown-up cats...like one of the adoptive parents that only wants a baby! So, to ease my guilt, I SAVED TWO! Yes, I know. I have no good excuse! But aren't they cute?!

why can't we just have a regular cold?

Avery had an ear infection with every little sniffle. I suppose Nora didn't want her to win. Nora started with a cold Friday. Sunday she woke up weazing. By the time we got to the dr it was worse. Luckily, our dr was the On-Call dr and she knows we don't call for nothing. Well, hoping we were there for no reason, we discovered Little Miss Nora had a small pneumonia. Happy Thanksgiving! Maybe I should have breastfed longer. oops. Good news is, she got some drugs and is much better today!

our confused pets

Avery keeps re-naming all our pets. Addie is either Molly, Cassidy or Kobe, but very rarely Addie. Our cats are Sammy and Cappi.

Oh, and now she likes to make her stuffed dog Kobe and she becomes Amy. Don't worry Loni and Jackson, you're still one of her favorite games. And believe me, she doesn't forget "NO MOM I'M LONI, REMEMBER?"

And yesterday we went to GB's house but we had to stop at Walmart on the way to buy 2 big TVs (thanks for the tv idea dad!). Oh, and we started a fire...we piled up the sticksand then blew on them (also thanks to dad for the blowing...how else do you start a fire?!)

I love that imagination!

old friends

I haven't been missing many people even though I haven't stayed in touch with anyone over the years. My niece (is only 4 yrs younger) worked with one of my greatest friends. She got us back in contact (finally I suppose!) and she just came up to visit Monday. It was so weird and so nice. We literally spent most of our lives together for several years and haven't really talked since we lived in NC. It was strangely comforting to see she was really the same person. And actually disappointing that I wasn't around for so many things. Not that she needed me but just to be around.

Even though that was great I find myself having a hard time convincing myself that I want to move closer to all those people I knew once. I don't want anything to do with most of them. And it's not like I look very different and could not even be recognized. Darn it.

Well, thank you Sarah for the reunite! I needed that. Now, how do you deal with the rest? Just pretend you don't know them? Punch them? Hide under the racks? Hash out the old crap, fists included? Never enter Concord? Hope we don't buy a house in Concord!

what is wrong with my child?

Sunday night Avery went to bed absolutely fine. Monday morning Marc woke her up and when she stood up, she fell over. She started crying that her knee hurt. Marc brought her downstairs and we decided it was actually her ankle. We gave her motrin and still she cried every time we looked at it. We thought she was making it up but that kid likes to move way to much to do this so long. And she had a small fever.

So, I wheeled her to the doc's. Of course ours wasn't there. Random dr was obviously worried that maybe the joint was infected. So, we headed down to have an x-ray taken, rather than bloodwork, just to rule that out. (Avery gets very anxious at dr, I think that's why we were waiting on bloodwork)

So, after we about traumatized her, we came home, had lunch, went up for nap. I went to get her around 3. She got up. Walked downstairs. She limped a little for like an hour but that was it. She went to gymnastics. She's absolutely fine. I called dr for answer. They actually said, it's a mystery. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ANSWER IS THAT?? At least give me growing pains or some stock answer like that.

So, what can I even do? I trust my dr and I'm sure she looked at it but...mystery??? What if she's missing something? How could she go from not being able to walk to fine in hours? Have you heard of anything like this?

nostalgia attack

It just hit me this weekend and about 10 photo albums later, I realized I'm pretty darn happy! I've been getting completely overwhelmed by the routine of every moment. It's been getting me a bit down. But looking at us BK (before kids) was such a great reminder of all that we've done together. It's sort of crazy to think that we've been together for about 1/3 of our lives. Even that seems overwhelming at times (Marc still hasn't learned how to get those clothes in the laundry basket...i'll never give up) but to actually look at our memories, wow, it's been a really good ten years.

Not that this is very interesting to anyone else but, too bad, it's my blog! Marc, wow. Pretty great.

Acadia Pictures!

Sand Beach was the best way to begin and end our trip

The top of Cadillac Mountain

Sand Beach, first stop after long car ride, just as gorgeous through the clouds

Nora's super-fun game

It starts each and every time you open the fridge. She comes running and stands so you can't close the door. Then she pulls out as many things as she can and runs away. Last night, she got the grey poupon. she brought it to her dad and said "bite bite bite" as she did her little 'i'm so excited dance'. So, of course, Dad opened it, dipped in a finger and ler her lick it. She made the worst face! She came to me for water, a lot of water. Then she went back and asked for more! Aaaaaaahhhhhh, crazy!

Avery's new favorite game

Both my girls like to play with their baby dolls. Well, Avery now likes to pretend (ALL THE TIME!) that she is Loni and her doll is Jackson. And then it gets a little weird, then Marc becomes Uncle Scott. Maybe I shouldn't have actually written that!

I suppose this is another sign that we should be closer. Damnit!

it's been awhile, let's see...

Marc took a vacation, I know it is SHOCKING! We went to Acadia Saturday through Monday. Wow, what a trip. It was tough but so so great. We hit GREAT weather. The girls did a great job and it was SO so beautiful. If I can make it work I'll put some pictures up later. And if you can make it, GO.

The rest of the week, we were here doing tons of silly things. Halloween is tough when you don't trick-or-treat (and the kid is exctied about Halloween) so we had to go to the library thing and the museum thing and a pumpkin patch. It was fun but naps didn't so much happen so then we were dragging 2 GROUCHY girls to all over. It was great.

Happy Halloween!

new tunes

I'm looking at 5 hours in the car this weekend without any kids. Pretty excited about no 'I Feel Crazy so I Jump in the Soup'! I'm a little bored with the same songs, any ideas on some worthwhile downloads?

ahh nature

i know that I thought I wanted to live in the woods BUT that was because I like quiet. Well we've been letting the cats out since we live in the woods and they probably wont get run over by a car. Cassie really enjoys the birdfeeder so she pretty much camps out waiting for her first catch! Well, apparently red squirrels are scared of big fat cats so instead of emptying the feeder every day they sit in the closest trees and on the roof and just squak at Cassie for 30 mins at a time. Have they forgotten how to find food in the forest? Wouldn't their time be better spent forraging?

I think it may be time to buy a pellet gun!

blue cheese chips=drool and Homer Simpson uuohh

if you like blue cheese and don't mind not having a waist, you NEED to try these. Go to Ruby Tuesdays and don't get them with the bacon, not really crispy and can you really make them with more calories?! uuuuuuoooohhhhhh

oooohhh fire

we have been stacking wood for at least a month! We bought 4 cords (I shouldn't admit that's all we got since it's taken so long!). It's been sitting on the edge of the driveway as close to the bulkhead as possible. We picked at it but you can't dump a load into the basement while the kids are sleeping if you want them to sleep. And it's not like we need it tomorrow...we don't want to waste the rest of this nice weather...hiking and fairs are much more fun!

Anyway, the pile is finally gone. So to celebrate we lit the wood stove! It was still like 60 degrees and we have monitor heaters too but we needed to enjoy the fruits of our labor! It was lovely! And I made stuffing, a nice mini-Thanksgiving!

so...confrontation help...

there's this woman in our music class who keeps trying to encourage Avery to do more. And I'm pretty sure she means well in her own 'aren't i great, let me help this woman who clearly can't take care of 2 kids' way. BUT every time she looks at Avery, Avery tweeks and tries to hide in me, never mind when she talks to her. Avery's just a little intimidated by people right now. She likes to watch everyone and get ideas and then she does what she wants. And this is a new group so she's a little extra shy. And this woman is constantly talking to her. She finally starts DANCING in front of everyone and she says "nice spin Avery". And so, Avery stopped. Why is she not understanding that she should leave her alone? Is there anything I can say that says "just back off" without actually saying that?

By the way, same woman's child took an instrument out of Nora's hand. Kid got no discouragement even though mom was right there watching. Avery said "but Nora wants that". This woman needs some putting in her place or she will pass this arrogance on to that kid! She just doesn't know that the world does not revolve around her. People like that drive me insane. I kind of want to teach her! I think that makes me a bad person...I think I'm ok with that!

a crazy walking child!

Yesterday Nora decided she's ready to walk! She's been crawling and cruising and taking more little juants between furniture for so long and driving us crazy not really trying to walk. Smarty Pants has just been happy just getting around on her own! These last two days she's barely taken a break. It's exciting to see my stubborn little thing growing up!

?????????

I knew that the never-ending questions were coming and she's always asked questions but it's like a switch flipped in that Avery. She has not stopped asking questions since last week. She's even asking silly questions that she absolutely knows the answers too. Every little thing, what's that mom? to the porch off her room. What mom, what did you say? to the little curse that just slipped...like I'm really gonna repeat that one. That child is never quiet, at least so long as no one else is around!

And that's another thing, she tucks herself into me and can't even look at people, nevermind have a conversation. It's strange. I hope it doesn't last much longer because she's missing out on a lot. Strange.....

Cumberland Fair

I have always loved the fair. I'm not sure if it's because the Deerfield fair fell almost on my birthday and so it became a special event every year. I have gone a few times since I was a kid but it had lost something. I found it again this weekend! Going to the fair with 2 amazed little kids is the BEST!

Avery was bored to death sitting in the car and wasn't looking too excited while we waited in traffic to get in. Then we parked in a big field and she was still like, why did you make me drive all this way. Then we walked up to the gate and you could see a couple rides spinning up high and she just couldn't even figure out what to ask!

Nora, however, was harder to impress. She played it cool until she saw the bunnies! Both of them spent the next 3 HOURS in awe of all the animals! We mooed and neighed and oinked our way around the fair. It was fantastic!

The girls were EXHAUSTED on their way out. I didn't think Nora was going to make it awake to the car. But the crazies were so excited they never slept the whole hour drive home! I think sharing these things with them is the greatest feeling!

another strange weekend

Saturday was raining. We decided to get some of those boring errands taken care of. Nora didn't sleep well and so we were off to a rough start. We wound up getting nothing accomplished, grouchy, tired, and with rumbly tummies. We went home early so everyone could rest and oh, the kids who couldn't keep their eyes open didn't stop talking. blah blah blah

Sunday though, what a great day. We went for a hike. The weather was perfect. We had a picnic. We played at the playground. We went over to the outlets and wound up with icecream cones. Nora slept in the car and we spent only 20 mins in the grocery store (we'll see how excited we are about that later in the week!). The girls had cereal for dinner (fantastic! I think we'll add this to our regular week!). And after they went to bed I almost got to have dinner alone with my husband! (Nora needed one more tuck-in.) It was really just a great day.

anyone know anything about landscape architecture? it's just my latest interest. i'm trying to get real info without spending tons on books

i'm not sure what i was thinking

so, not to compare children, but Avery painted her first picture just before her first birthday. I thought that moment was scary...how do you clean up that much paint? And Jackson gave his grandma one of his paintings for her birthday. So, it was raining this morning and I was trying to keep them busy inside. I thought, this is a great time to take out that paint.

I got them each an ugly shirt that we didn't care about painting. I got everything out while Nora begged to play with the rice table. (I had decided we were painting!) And it was time to create! I blobbed some paint on a paper plate. Nora dove right in, not afraid to get dirty. I was excited. Her little purple finger went right into her mouth. Damn. Not a good start. You can't blame her, we were sitting at the table! So I told her and we tried again. I got out more and more paint because Avery just needs some of every color! I think Nora tried a little of each color. It wasn't really that bad I suppose but it hurt my stomach just watching it.

Nora did wind up with a beautiful painting. And Avery made a lovely gray!

Then it was clean-up time. While Nora was tasting, Avery was rubbing her hands through the paint and it was actually dripping off her. I had Nora in the bathroom, leaning over the sink washing her hands and crying and Avery at the table repeating "i'm all done, momma, clean me up". I actually had to check the paint to be SURE that it was nontoxic the way Nora was crying. Clean-up lasted about 30 minutes. We have lost 2 shirts and one pair of sweatpants to the paint pile! Whew, that was tough. It was sort of fun but man, it was A LOT of work! They batter have enjoyed it!!!!

cute little kid moment

Avery's dancing around in her tutu singing and spinning to her own music. Marc's getting ready to leave for work. Avery says "but Dad, you can't take my tutu to the office with you". I like that picture, Marc walking into the office wearing a tutu.

great weekend!

I got to spend money! I spent time both with and WITHOUT the kids! The weather was FANTASTIC! I stacked wood (which makes me and the grass underneath the huge pile happy)! My dad cut a hole in my wall! It just doesn't get much better! (I'm 'remodeling' my bathroom and that darn plug was in the way of my plans, therefore, Electrician Dad made it all better! Thanks again Dad!)

i'm getting sucked in! HELP!

All right, so I still don't really get it but I seem to be enjoying it! Like the new template? Sorry, I don't have time for a lot of hobbies right now and this doesn't take a ton of time! And I like pretty colors!

when I grow up

I just cannot figure out what to be when the girls leave me for school. There are so many things that I enjoy but I also want something that will still let me raise the girls and give me a career. I'm not crazy about going back to school to endure the extra junk that goes with. I suppose it's prabably different when you go at my age (damnit!) and to go when you have a clear, direct goal must be at least slightly easier, right?! But for now, there's still the task of figuring out what to do. Where to start? I have to admit, I took an online career apptitude test and it was kind of exciting to look at some of the possibilites and to know I still have hope to not just be home all the time. Wish me luck!

Marc's Pesto Pizza

This was better the first time...i hate that...but here t is...Amy~this is that pesto pizza from Railway, but better!

pizza crust~i found one in the natural food section that is whole grain and a little thicker
pesto sauce~don't go cheap
fresh mozzarella
tomato
green pepper
mushrooms
red onion

lookin for a good book

Not that I have much time for reading books longer than Moo Who? (great one!) but I'm looking for some nonfiction books to read. Any recommendations?

new england summer

They aren't perfect, but that's one of the things I love about them. We get it all and one day you'll be dying for the ac and the next you'll be fighting turning the heater on!

These last few days have been SO perfectly beautiful. The temperature, just right. Bright blue clear skies. Warm but not baking sun. And that breeze that threatens to bring fall with it!

Thankfully my car's broken and no one seems to know why so it's been in the shop all week. Otherwise, we would have left and wound up at a store or a library (ew!). We would have missed this that I've been waiting for all year. We have just played outside all week. We've been running and climbing and, of course, swinging (which really isn't much fun if all you do is stand behind and push). I've just loved it.

I know this doesn't sound like me but I was starting to sound a little too whiny and I'm trying to teach Avery NOT to whine! Dinner time...time to cook dinner!

ooooohhhhhhh aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

I put a picture up! I put some links on! I'm very excited!

Sunday

I know, you must be thinking, 'no way' but yes, the fun continued through Sunday.

Avery's fever was GONE! Hooray! She was feeling much better and that meant we didn't have to watch Bob the Builder, AGAIN. So, we thought the day was going well! We left to get groceries, Sunday is grocery shopping day. We stopped at Dunks to get some yummy breakfast. We got stuck in construction traffic but no big deal, soon enough we were through and on our way. Then, Nora puked. And puked. (i use this word because Marc hates it, especially when Avery says it! that's a fun game!)

The worst part of this was that it was MY car! Not really, but I didn't mind that Avery's happened in Marc's car! Don't feel bad for him, he has leather seats, it came right off!

Poor Nora, we didn't have anything to clean her up with so we grabbed the few napkins Dunks gave us and just headed home, back through the construction. Avery was upset we weren't going and had to sit there next to it. Nora fell right to sleep, thankfully. And, after a good nap, she seemed fine. Hmmm. I think she just really dislikes grocery shopping.

the fun continues! ~Friday and Saturday

so, where did I leave off...last week, Marc took Friday off to 'enjoy summer'. The day turned gray and oh so humid. We decided to go to the beach anyway. We found one close by and just went. The place was a little sketchy. But we certainly couldn't change our minds after Avery knew the plan, so in we went. They were setting up for their bluegrass festival and there were some campers but other than that, the place was empty. We were fine with that, we don't like people all that much anyway! So, we hiked over to the beach. The wind wouldn't stop and it was COLD! The sand wasn't that nice beach sand, it was sandbox dirt. We were disapointed but whatever, it was 30 mins away. Then we saw lots of sea life washed up. Strange. Then Avery broke out in the worst hives I've ever seen. That poor kid's arms, legs and EARS were red and blotchy.

We packed up after maybe half an hour. We hiked back to the car and threw everything and everyone in the car. Avery was so sad. And the swelling was starting to hurt. Nora was just shocked and wondering what this game was. We went straight to Walmart to get benedryl. And by the time we were home, they were almost gone. Few. (nurse thought it was from a virus, she'd had hives off and on all week)

Anyway, we spent the day home and it was fine. Friday night she had a fever 102 which lasted through Saturday night. Of course Saturday turned out to be one of the hottest, most humid days. Poor thing.

Thanks Marc for taking the day. Sorry it didn't turn out to be much fun but it was a little advernture, I suppose!

considering kids?

let me just share the last couple weeks of my kid life. The first week of THIS month, Avery got bit near her eye, it swelled almost closed and then turned a lovely shade of purple. That same week, she spilled boiling water on herself while falling off her stool. She had red splotches all over and her hand started to swell. We almost went to the doctor red and puple and swollen. I'm not sure they would have let her come home with me.

Then there was the zoo day this weekend. See Marc's blog if this doesn't make sense. Long story short, vomit everywhere, tiwce.

Today, Avery had hives all over. Nora had a fever and cried more than not. All that crying really gets those mucous membranes going and what do you do with all that when you're one? You swallow it. What happens next? You spit it back up, all over your mom.

I've been peed on. I've had to clean up after leaky diapers. Nora's fallen off the bottom stairs too many times to count. Avery falls every few seconds and cries for most of them (that happens when you have a little sister and need more attention). And there's whining. And there's screaming. And there's throwing.

I'm absolutely sure there are SO many more events that I don't even consider out of the ordinary now. And remember, this is just this month. This month is not over yet! So, just a little warning if you are considering. The good stuff is so great but the rest really really sucks!

death and violence

So, I came downstairs from putting Avery to bed and I heard a strange sound. I went to the window to check things out and I saw this bird on the ground by the lovely birdfeeder we have. At first it looked like he was just enjoying a nice Nut and Berry snack from the gound. Then I realized he was actually holding a smaller bird down under him and pecking at it. Feathers were flying. The sound I heard was the poor little victim bird. I went out to scare him to stop and he thought about it for a second and then FLEW AWAY WITH THE BIRD. I was a little traumatized. I am now re-thinking this nature/woods thing. I'm thinking maybe I'm lucky he didn't attack me. I've never seen a bird attack before. Maybe the birdfeeders needs to go. It seems like a trap. Thank goodness Avery was in bed...

i don't get it

Nothing new for me though! I don't quite understand the point of blogs but I figured I might as well give it a try. If I ever figure out how, I might even put some pictures up! Wow, exciting!

Anyway, Marc's blog is Marc's. I expect that this will be 'the Rowes' site! My point is that if you aren't interested in family junk (potty training and such) you probably don't want to bother reading this...ever! About that potty training thing...'they' all say, just be patient, no one graduates highschool in diapers. Well, screw all of you! I'm damn sick of changing those damn smelly things!

Not that I think anyone who would ever read this wouldn't already know but I called this crazy-beautiful life because I have two kids under 2 1/2. I think that's enough said!