And we are off. . .

So we are leaving in the morning for our Christmas "vacation". I put it that way because I am not sure it will feel like much of a vacation for most of the time. We are first driving to Michigan and then to Atlanta and back to IL- in like 8 days. I think if I calculated it it might be 1/3 of the time driving. Oh well. . . I am still excited. I have always liked roadtrips as long as I am driving, I get car sick otherwise. This will be the longest trip we have taken with the kids but thank God that we have a minivan now and not our tiny little Aveo. I mean, don't get me wrong, the gas mileage in that car was great but we just could not have possibly fit in there. Plus it is a bonus that the minivan has a DVD player too.

I am not sure that I will make another post for at least a week or possibly two so I am gonna go ahead and post some pictures I took today of the kids. The first is of Maggie singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb". She is wearing her "princess dress". As much and I wanted and tried to prevent her from having an obsession with princesses, I failed. She insists on wearing the dress everyday- and she wants to sleep in it. She has to wear the headband, tights and shoes with it too. The next picture is of her posing with Caleb. She is getting somewhat better about sitting still long enough for me to take a decent shot. The last is of Caleb's attempted sitting. You tell me what you think of it. I call it a sit but I am sure the pediatricians may disagree. I have more pictures but these are the highlights. Be sure to check back after Christmas for more updates from our trip.

Merry Christmas to everyone!!

P.S. Sorry I am such a pathetic wife and didn't do Christmas cards. Maybe after we have been married for 5 years I will have my act and addresses together enough to get that done!

Daddies are not Mommies

Okay, so let me preface this blog entry by saying that I love Mike- he is an AWESOME daddy, but- he is a dad and not a MOM. So tonight- I left to go to Target after dinner. I was gone for 20 minutes. When I came home, he told me to feel Maggie's hair. "What?!?" Why would I need to feel her hair? So- I felt it. It was totally stiff on both sides. What was the culprit?? Hairspray! I asked how it happened and why he let her get the hairspray and his answer was that he was giving Caleb a bottle. When she came out with the hairspray she said "I do hair like Mommy!" You know- I have that new 'crazy hair' (as she likes to call it) and so she was pulling out the sides of her hair and spraying it like she has seen me do. Really it is endearing that she emulates me so much, but I just had to share the story.

Growing Up

I took this picture a couple of days ago because I was so excited and sad about this new achievement for Caleb. It is such a bittersweet moment when babies start holding their own bottles. It is the first step to his independence and I feel like before I know it, he will be sitting at the table with us, eating with a "momma fork" all by himself. At the same time, it is a huge relief for the moment that I can give him his bottle and then walk away to tend to Maggie. He, of course, is not totally able to do this on his own and still drops the bottle from time to time, but for the most part- he's got it down. He is also rolling very well and scooting around on his belly in circles. I am not sure that you can call it sitting, but you can sit him up by himself and he kind of folds in half and sits for about 30 seconds to a minute before falling over to the side. I am working on this skill though because he really seems bored by laying on the ground all the time and his a too big for the bouncy now. All this movement is thrilling for Maggie- she announces his every move to me when they are playing and she loves the interaction she gets with him. Having two kids has turned out to be so much easier than I originally thought!

Here's Mike

So, I haven't noticed comments from anyone else about the absence of Mike from this blog, but he was just viewing it tonight and was concerned that he wasn't on here. So here he is! This was taken today after Maggie's nap. She walked into the living room and caught him eating cheerios from a cup. She said "Oh, I need popcorn too!" She tried to take his cup so I got her one instead. Then she crawled up there with him to watch football. It was a great daddy-daughter moment so I thought I would share it with everyone- for Mike.

Have you ever seen anything like this?

This picture was taken yesterday, December 14th. It is a picture of Caleb's ankle after I had a pair of socks on him that were apparently a little to tight. He wore the socks on Tuesday- this picture was 3 days after I took the socks off. It doesn't appear to have faded at all and is still the same today. It is crazy- like a bruise only red? I guess I need to buy my kid some new socks! But seriously have any of my mom friends ever had something like this happen to them before? I am blown away that it is still there.

Marsha's trip

So Marsha came to visit and I can't take any credit for these pictures because they were all taken by her. She also was patient enough to sit and watch me make this slideshow. I am so PUMPED that I was able to finally do something different from the regular, boring posts I had before. These pictures were taken at the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Maggie and Caleb were HUGE troopers on Monday as we took the METRA train into the city and then caught two connecting city buses to our destination. Maggie really enjoyed seeing the fish. She was screaming at the dolphins- which was a little embarassing but also a little cute. We decided to drive in the next trip which worked out much better but wasn't as much of an adventure as our first. We also visited the Museum of Science and Industry and I am not sure why Marsha has no pictures from there. . . or at least she didn't want to share them for this slideshow! I have some on my camera, but I haven't gotten around to downloading them (no surprise!). We watched an OMNImax movie there called Monsters of the Sea. I was so terrified that Maggie would flip out at the sharks attacking all of the fish, but much to my surprise she laughed and she came home telling Mike that the shark ate the fishies! She then says "I eat fishies too! I a shark!!" Ahh. . . the innocence of a child! She also sat very patiently through a movie called the Star of Wonder, about the star of Bethlehem. She later informed us that it "put her to sleep!" I must say I was falling asleep under the peaceful view of the stars projected across the ceiling. We are so glad that Marsha came to visit and will be willing and excited to have any other visitors. The kids LOVE it and so do I!!!