"Nice to meet you, I love you."

"Nice to meet you, I love you." That was probably the best/funniest thing Lauren said today. Grandma Jan was on the phone and we asked if Lauren would like to talk to her. That was what came out of her mouth. Immediately after, she was off to harass her brother but she at least took time out of her busy schedule to talk for a few secs.

On Friday we were invited to hang out at Buddy and Dana's house (our next door neighbors). As we walked over (with the kids in their PJs) the ground shook with Mr. Buddy's bass from his stereo. We turned right around and grabbed Lauren's pink headphones and then continued to our destination. Gabe and Mary (neighbors down the street) along with their 2 boys were there already. We listened to music and just hung out while the kids watched cartoons and the older kids played Guitar Hero. After talking to Mary that night, I decided I'd like to go into Real Estate when I grow up. She got her license last year and this year she sold 2 houses and made over 100k. Yes...if I ever grow up that's what I'll be doing.

Saturday Matt and I attempted a workout at the YMCA. We dropped the kids at the child watch and started our workout. I was deep in my tread-climber workout when I heard my name over the loud speaker requesting I come to the child watch area. When we got there we found Tyler in hysterics. The poor boy was screaming for his blanket which was in plain view to him but the child watch workers had no clue it was his and just didn't know what he wanted. We tossed him his blanket but he was in hysterics and just couldn't calm down. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating it must be to a 23 month old who has no clear way of communicating his needs when it is so clear in his head what he wants. Poor guy. We canned our workout and went home instead. A little workout is better than nothing right?!

We still went to church that night even thought I thought Tyler might be traumatized at being left alone earlier. In fact he did just fine and walked right into his classroom. It was Lauren who let out 2 fake cries before being cajoled into coloring and playing with play-dough.

Today, (Sunday,) we made our weekly visit to the clean Kroger. The other Kroger, which is closer to our house, is usually full of aliens...just like it's sister company Fred Meyer is after 8pm (or maybe I should say daughter company, since I believe Kroger owns Fred Meyer). Anyway, since we went too close to lunchtime, Tyler had an absolute melt down in the cereal aisle. We forgot his blanket in the car. For a minute I thought we might get kicked out of the store due to his desperate screams but Matt and Lauren ran out to car and saved the day with his blue blanket. Immediately he was fine and we finished the shopping trip without any further drama.

Other than our trip to the grocery store the kids just sat around zombied in front of the computers playing their video games. =) Enjoy the pics.


And now Matt is watching the Nascar race and I'm hoping to distract him so we can watch the Academy Awards hosted by my favorite Jon Stewart. Or at least watch the nominated movie "Michael Clayton."

Winter Break

I just did the coolest thing. Last night we were at our community group and I missed Survivor. I was pretty bummed but then I went on CBS.com and watched the entire episode on their website. Maybe we'll have to get rid of our big tvs and replace them with huge-mongous computers instead. =)

And in the weekly news. It was winter break for the kids. No school. I don't remember having a winter break in between the Christmas and Spring breaks. I guess the kids just learn a lot faster in less school days now. It was a pretty typical week...not much to write home about. Matt was in town and working in the office...no winter break for him. On Monday we all went to the gym (since we have a family membership now) and Matt played poker later that night. Tuesday, I went to a Mom's Night Out get together. It was a fondue and wedding photo get together. Sounds cheesy, I know but it was actually quite fun to see everyone's wedding photos. Especially the ladies who were married in the 80s. (hair, puffy shoulder dresses...need I say more?)

Today we had our playdate at Miss Claudine and her daughter Isabella's house. She has also turned her formal dining room into a playroom. It was great. Lauren and Tyler were able to play with the toys and still see me while I talked with the grown-ups. Cynthia also came with her 2 boys. The only bad thing about the playdate is that we lost Tyler's FAVORITE red car. You'll notice he has it in his hands in the pictures from this week. That's because he takes that car everywhere. dinner to bed to everywhere! It was a rough ride home in the car without it so tonight or tomorrow we'll have to go buy one (it's a red Hummer) or hope that Claudine calls saying she found it. =) And you know the poor kid has only that one car [insert sarcasm here.]

P.S. my Tiffany's boxes got pulled from Ebay. Apparently there are some shady individuals out there who would purchase those boxes in order to sell fake Tiffany jewelry. Shame on them.

I don't mind an absentee Valentine's Day

Matt got home around 7am Saturday morning after taking the red eye back to Atlanta. He didn't quite get enough (any?) sleep on the plane and of course the kids woke up right at 7 o'clock. He was a trooper and got up to make us breakfast before succumbing for a short nap. While I was getting Tyler dressed, Lauren came in with a light blue (big) bag from Tiffany's!! My Valentine's gift was a couple days late but no one will ever hear me complain. I got a beautiful silver bracelet and matching necklace. If anyone wants the boxes and bags they came in we'll be selling them on E-bay this week. Apparently these sell for about $20 including shipping. I'm amazed. Saturday night we had Casey and a friend come over to watch the kids while we went to dinner. We went to a fancy Thai restaurant and since that didn't take long enough we went shopping. We got Lauren and Tyler some birthday presents and also a new comforter for our bed to tie in our new sheets to our bedroom decor. It was half off so Matt was especially happy.

Today we made some fresh juice. The noise of the juicer bothered Lauren but she was fine after we put her head phones on her. Other than grocery shopping and watching the Daytona 500 that was our day. Matt requested a relaxing day after traveling all last week and that is what he got.

How hard is it to say "Ma Ma?!"

We've kept ourselves busy while Matt's been in Spokane. We made the 40 min. drive to Trader Joe's on Wednesday. I loved that store in Eugene but unfortunately we moved to the south side of Atlanta and apparently that's not where the organic folks live. So the cool organic stores (Whole Foods, Fresh Market, Trader Joe's) won't build down here. It's pretty much grits, meat, potatoes and fried mac and cheese down here. I picked up some Trader Joe 2 Buck Chuck (cheap wine) along with some other really cool food stuffs.

Thursday Lauren had her Valentine's Day party at school. They had some snacks and then put the chairs in a circle, taped their V-day bags to the back of the chair and each walked around putting their valentine cards into the bags. Lauren made a killing. I only gave scratch and sniff cards but most everybody else gave candy with their cards. Tyler latched onto a Thomas the Train Valentine and hasn't put it down since. He pretty much carries it in his hand morning to night. You'll hear him talk about it in the video I'm attempting to "embed" into this posting.

As you'll see in the video Tyler is talking a lot more. You can't understand much in the video but he is saying some real words now. He will climb up 3 stairs and then yell "stuck" over and over again until I get him. When I change his diaper he says "stink" and totally cracks himself up. It's the funniest thing. And he'll say "fire" and point to the fire place. Since he has a southern accent "fire" sounds more like "far". But we know what he means. He'll also say "Tyler" and "Lauren" but what he will absolutely not say is "Ma Ma" or "Daddy". He'll just smile and point at me when I ask him to say Ma Ma. Oh well.

Today we went to our Friday play date with our Mom's club playgroup. Isabella and Lacy were there and we were in a huge master bedroom turned playroom at Miss Jennifer's house but my two kids wanted to climb all over me instead of play. How I long for the day for them to just scuttle off and entertain themselves and be SOCIAL. I'm sure I'll regret this sentence later though.

Tonight I'll be watching Interview, a film Theo Van Gogh intended to put out but was assassinated before he could. Steve Buscemi took over the task for him. And poor Matt will be taking the red eye back to Atlanta. He should be home around 7am. Hopefully he'll get some sleep on the plane because the kids are really looking forward to seeing him. (and I am too, of course...) =)

Pre-school Evaluation

Check out Tyler's new do....

We had Lauren's first ever parent teacher conference today. I was pleased to hear about her academic achievements since I tend to focus mostly on her social skills. FBK has a rating scale of C=Consistently S=Sometimes and NY= Not Yet. She had mostly Cs on everything, some Ss where it pertained to interacting with others and a NY for not being able to cut a straight line with scissors. She is able to count to 20 and name more shapes than they've gone over in school. And she can recognize the numbers 1-6. I think she can recognize more but that's all they tested for. The teacher says she's doing great in relationship to other kids in her class. Says she has great concentration skills and really takes everything in. She recommends a 5 day preschool next year to really help her with her social skills even though her teacher has seen a lot of improvement throughout the year. I'll get a copy of the evaluation/report card on Thursday so I can be more specific then.

I hope everyone is so excited for the season premier of Big Brother!! whoopee!

Waiting for my plane

Well I'm in Denver waiting for my plane to load for Spokane. I love this airport...they have free Internet; they just make you watch a 30 second commercial first, what a novel idea. I’m not doing too bad, I think the fever is nearly gone. I just took two more Tylenol and had a snack. I can’t wait to get to Spokane and sleep. I land at 10:58 Spokane time which is 1:58 AM Atlanta time….yuk!

dia del dentist

Lauren had a fun visit to the dentist today. The pediatric dentist's office we went to looked like a movie theater inside. They had theater art on the walls and the chairs in the waiting room were movie theater seating...with the colorful pull down seats. A movie was playing but we didn't have much time to watch it before the hygienist came to get Lauren. Lauren got to sit in the kid size dentist chair and was a little nervous while the chair tilted back so she could get a better view of the TV in the ceiling!! If she was nervous after that you couldn't tell. She got her teeth scraped, polished and brushed and didn't even cry once. She was a great listener and did everything the dentist and hygienist asked. Apparently not many 3 year olds get this much done. They pretty much go until the child has had a enough. She and Tyler got a toothbrush and a prize for being so good. The dentist said her teeth looked good but we need to do a better job brushing near the gum line and also we need to floss daily. Yeah yeah yeah. There was a dentist in training from GA Tech watching. He asked where I was from saying I looked familiar. I thought he looked a little familiar too. I kind of chuckled and said Oregon and he said he was from Washington. hmmm. Maybe we both just have that Northwest look to us. =) The dentist told us to keep working on our accents. Yes, sir.

After the dentist it was hair cuts for both kids and then the grocery store. Tyler's hair is short. I'll try and get a picture of that tomorrow.

Poor Matt came down with the bug this morning. He ran a fever and said his throat hurt. He took a bunch of Tylenol and went into work anyway. He left for Spokane today for a meeting he couldn't miss there. Hopefully he'll do alright on this trip.

And since I couldn't think of a good reason not to go AND because my step instructor saw me at church and didn't say anything just pointed...I decided to go to the Y for my step class this evening. Kiddos played in the child watch and I forgot I wasn't in shape anymore and worked out like I was a top olympic step athlete. It was miserable but now I feel pretty good.

And that was our dia del dentist.....

weekend on the mend

After being sick and house-ridden for so long it felt good to finally get outside this weekend. It was also nice that the weather was sunshine-y and semi warm. I even saw flip flops and capris at the zoo. A bit too early for me though.

It sure was a ladies weekend for me. I was invited to play Bunco at the neighborhood game on Friday. I almost won $15 but lost in a roll out. Bunco, if you don't know is a mindless game of chance. The true purpose of a Bunco night is really to eat, drink and gossip with friends. I've decided that subbing is the way to go. I never have to host and prepare dinner for 12 ladies.

Saturday we went to the zoo. Lauren's been asking to go for quite a few days now. She was still a bit under the weather though and it was a rough trip. She had quite a few meltdowns. Still we had a good time and Tyler got to ride a real life zoo train. That night we went to church and afterwards we had Morgan come sit with the sleeping kids for a couple hours so we could go hang out next door at Buddy and Dana's. Shep has the Guitar Hero game which is all the rage nowadays.

Today was a beautiful day to end the weekend. Matt took the kids to the park with Tyler and Tera across the street while I had a mid afternoon snack at a Pampered Chef party. I bought a non aerosol container so I can make my own Pam spray out of olive oil without the added chemicals and also broke down and bought one of those veggie chopper thingies. This looked easy to clean and didn't cost too much. The cool thing was that I knew all but one lady (out of 10 or so) at the party....either from Bunco or the Moms Club. After 2 years here I'm finally getting some connections other than my immediate neighbors.

Tomorrow Lauren gets to see the dentist for the first time. I'm going to be so nervous but I'm sure she'll do just fine. Stay tuned...

I downloaded some pictures onto Flickr because it looks like I'm going to run out of picture storage space sometime. Here's the link/website to the photos I took over the weekend.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellentee/show/

doctor's orders

After a week of suffering we took Lauren to see the Doctor this morning. Turns out she has a sinus infection and most likely so do I. Since Lauren got to see the Dr. she got a bunch of medicine to help her feel better though. To help me though and keep the family healthy, Matt picked up a bunch of fresh fruit and veggies so we can make some more healthy juicer shakes. I'm sure this will help me fight the sinus infection without antibiotics.

Lauren and I played it pretty lazy today. You can tell by the amount of energy she displayed at dinner tonight. Tyler, on the other hand, felt fine and was a bundle of energy today. He wanted action. Whenever I sat down on the floor he would run and tackle me. He also got into pushing and hitting and grabbing...making his sister cry. Hopefully this is just because he's reacting to us not feeling well and him just feeling bored. Otherwise we may have a little problem. =)

Y'all stay healthy now.

in the thick of it

We are battling the flu bug in our house. Lauren was the first to come down with it last Friday. She had aches that kept waking her up at night and a bad cough. She seemed to be doing better so we went ahead with the Super Bowl party. It was pretty fun and even the drama was kept to a minimum. I can't believe how many people we can fit in our little basement. Of course the kids had the run of the main floor too. We tried to keep Lauren out of everyone's way so I spent most of my time not watching the game but keeping her company. Right after the the game was over I felt a tickle in my throat. Thinking oh no! I went to bed. That night I was up quite often with fever and chills. For the past two days I've been pretty miserable. I like to pride myself in not getting sick (ever.) But this is something else. Matt's been home for 2 days now with the kids so I can nurse my aches and pains in bed. He has to go back to work tomorrow so hopefully I'll be partly functional. The wild card was Lauren tonight at dinner. She started complaining about a tummy ache again. When I took her temp. it was 103. I guess this isn't a 24 hour bug and we'll just have to take it easy for a little while longer. Matt is doing all he can to get us healthy. Today he broke out the juicer and whipped up all the veggies and fruits we had into a healthy smoothy. It was delicious.
While Lauren was at school today (pre fever) Daddy and Tyler did some arts and crafts. The train just wasn't strong enough to pull the cars up the hills. Tyler did most of the work and Daddy just gave some direction.