A Little Bit 'O Everything

I've been extremely uninterested in blogging lately. 

 Several reasons for this, but the biggest is that with Miguel gone all the time I am pretty much exhausted.  Bedtime for the kiddos rolls around and all I want to do is get in the bath with a good book or maybe watch an old movie on netflix. Cleaning, exercising, blogging, and basically anything I have to think about goes out the window.  Plus, Nolan climbs all over me when I'm on the computer, so doing anything when he's awake is pretty much out of the question. :o)

This post is all the posts I've been meaning to do in one. 

Warning: it's really long, and more of a journal entry, so you can read as much or as little as you like.

Update on my little darlings

Little Nolan man is doing great.  He's SO cute. And getting SO big.  He loves to give kisses and hugs and be held and cuddled.  Especially by dad.  Mike knows that from the minute he gets home friday until the minute he leaves monday the kids will pretty much be all over him.  They CLING to thier daddy. 

Lots of love, I tell ya.  

He is saying lots of words, although probably no one but me can understand them.  Words like "light" come out "ee-ott"  and Cecily is "deh-dee"- not to be confused with "dada".  "Thank you" is "fay tee"- wierd, right? He also says "change bum" which sounds like "tay bon", and my personal favorite "GIT DOWN!"  which comes out clear as can be.  

Speaking of get down.... Nolan is SUCH a climber.  He is so tall for his age that it's pretty easy for him.  The only problem with having a tall kid, however, is that his little brain hasn't quite gotten as far as his body has.  He can physically do things that 2 year olds can do, but a 2 year old has a few more logical reasoning skills to say "no- that's dangerous" or remember "last time I fell off and bonked my head."  It's been a bit of an adventure trying to keep up with his near-catastrophic falls (hence the exhaustion at the end of the day). Nonetheless, I love his cute little buns and when he giggles at me, or blows me kisses I forget about the craziness. 

Cecily has been doing Joy School the past few weeks with some other little girls here in Billings.  Mike's cousin Andrew and his wife Becky are here and they have a little girl who's just younger than Cecily and they get along great.  Becky invited us to do a little trial run of joy school with the other moms and we gladly accepted.  We'll start full time next fall, but it's been fun for CJ to play with other girls her age and have a good time.  It's also fun to have 1 kid (only Nolan) for part of the day.  Sometimes I think "Wait, why did I think I was busy with just one kid?"  I'm sure you moms with 3,4, 5 or more are saying "why are you complaining about just 2!?" 

To be honest, Cecily has had a pretty hard time adjusting to the move to Billings and dad being gone and just all the things that have been happening in our fam lately.  She is a sweet little thing, but tantrums have increased, not to mention some potty accidents.  Lately she loves to contradict anything I say- just to be contradictory.  It's UUUUUUber fun for mom.  And yes, that is sarcasm.

We have been trying a new reward system using poker chips and I have been trying my hardest to be patient and understanding and realize that this will take her a while to get used to. 

My favorite thing about Cecily lately has been watching her imagination.  She is IN LOVE with Play-doh and sculpts all sorts of funny stories out of it. Nolan's nap time is CJ's playdoh time every day.  The other day she covered her hand in it and then told me a story about how her hand was in a cave and her fingers were the mommy and daddy and sisters and brothers. 

She is still obsessed with coloring and as far as we can tell is going to continue to be left handed.  She has started to draw people with heads and arms and faces.

She watches Go Diego Go! occasionally, so every notebook we have has become her "Field Journal."  She draws animals and pretends to write about them.  Darling.  I love her. 

The new addition to the family

and a trip to Utah

A few weeks ago Mike got a new Honda Civic.  We LOVE it!  It's just like our old one, except it's an 06 not an 03 and it's got less miles.  It's a manual transmition though, so it gets amazing gas mileage. 

The trip to Utah to get it was SO quick.  We went down on Saturday, got the car and Mike drove it back up Sunday.  We got to see my brother Jeff and his family, then the kids and I stayed so we could see Mike's grandparents and Mike's sisters who we dearly dearly love.  I drove 9 hours with two chickletts on Monday, and man, was I ever glad to get home!  Not that it was too terrible (well, except for Cecily pooping her pants -not kidding- in the McDonals playland in Idaho Falls- but lets not go there) it was, however, very tiring.  

Above is Cecily and Brielle (Rachel's daughter) with Great Grandpa Vincent

He is so cute with these two girls!

Do you see the adoration on Cecily's face?

These two are like two peas in a pod!  A few weeks ago Cecily said to me "Mom, I just want to go see my precious, precious Brielle,"  I do too, sister.  I do too. 

Our new home

This is old news, I know.  Here's a picture, though!  Hooray!  Hopefully we will be able to paint the outside next summer, but who knows.  It's part of a long list of projects that we are excited to do, but who knows when we'll get them all done.  Ps- does anybody know how much it costs to take a gargantuan pine tree out of your yard?

The Help

I just finished reading this book and I liked it. The -I finished it in 2 days- type of liking.  I'm so cheap, and waited for it to come out in paperback before I bought it!  I'm excited for the movie, but we all know that movies are never as good as the books they're based on.  I think it comes out in August.

AAAAAnd......

that's pretty much it. 

I'm sure tomorrow I'll think of a million things I forgot to blog about :) 

Oh, well.  That's the great thing about the internet.  It's always there.