B&N Story Time

When we are free, I've been taking Lila to story time at Barnes & Noble on Fridays. It is something for us to do and she actually really likes it. I was trying to get her to show me how cute she looked before we left, but she declined. 

This is Ms. T. As I wrote about before, she's been doing story time since Nate was Lila's age and we would go from time to time. There is comfort in things that don't change. Last Friday, Lila decided she would  listen to the story from the stage. Thankfully Ms. T is very laid back. 

After the story is over and the coloring page has been colored (Lila especially likes this part because Ms. T. lets her get as many colors as she wants from the big box of crayons), we head over to the Elmo books and she plops down to read. This week she loved the new Brown Bear book - where the next animal appears in a slide back window. So cool! If we didn't already have 15 copies of this book, I would totally buy it!

I think Barnes & Noble is awesome for having this story time and allowing kids to read books from the shelves. We never get a nasty look, in fact they encourage you to stay awhile. Of course they do, it's all in their business model. But as long as you don't succumb to any purchasing pressure from B&N or Starbucks, this is a totally free activity!

Meet Neato

I have to share my Christmas present from my ever-so-thoughtful husband. I vacuum. I vacuum alot. I'm a vacuumer. And obsessive vacuumer. Even more than an obsessive vacuumer, I am a supreme noticer of all dirt on the floor. Hence the obsessive vacuumer personality. 

Scott is trying to help me not be so obsessive about the vacuuming. So he surprised me with this robot vacuum for Christmas. Bestill my heart. I did find the one I was supposed to be with forever...Scott, that is. 

Meet my Neato...

www.neatorobotics.com

It wasn't love at first sight though. Scott tried to run it a few times when the kids were home and it just wasn't working for me. It is sort of loud and the kids couldn't stay out of it's way. I almost told Scott to take it back.

But then...

I started it right before Lila & I left the house on a Friday. And when we came back a few hours later, the entire house was vacuumed and Neato had hooked herself back up to the charger. Isn't she a dream? 

Now, I've been starting it after the kids leave in the morning. I'm happily downstairs working as I hear Neato cleaning the floor upstairs. Heavenly. She can even be programmed to run at the same time every day. 

I'm in love. 

Neato didn't ask me to provide a product review, but I would so be doing it if they did. 

Snow & Stuff

I seem to be on an "early in the week" blogging schedule. It's not really intentional, I'm just lazy and don't go back down to the office very much at night. I need to find an easy way to download pictures from my camera directly to the iPad (or iPhoto or one of those things), so I can lay in the comfort of my heated mattress padded bed (thank you Mary & Kevin!) and blog. Thanks for reading. It does mean the world to me.

We had a good weekend. I felt like it was just the right mix of busy and not busy. Scott's weekend was busy with work around the house though. Ya know, with those projects that you do when you are getting ready to think about selling your house and when they are done you say "Why didn't I do this years ago?" I answered "I don't know" a lot this weekend.

We went out to dinner on Saturday night and had a great time. It's not often you can say that when dining with children. But we went to my new favorite place, the Black Finn. I know it's probably a chain but I love it. The food is really good, the kids meals are reasonably priced and they don't mind my children being in there. Score all around.

I was asleep when Scott came to bed and said those dreaded words.

"It's snowing."

Really? I check the weather about every 5 minutes on my phone and I didn't see that. I mumbled some really negative thoughts and went back to sleep. I didn't want to get out of bed on Sunday morning because I didn't want to see the snow. All 4-5 inches of it.

But I did and it actually wasn't that bad. It was pretty for about 5 minutes. And it was warm by winter's standards so I knew it wouldn't last too long. So I decided not to be unhappy about it. Imagine that.

The kids didn't ask to go out and play until the afternoon, which turned out to be in the best interest of everyone. Aren't they cute??

When it snowed around Christmas, Lila didn't have the best experience so she was a little leery at first.  She ended up doing fine. But I think she's kind of like me - all this work to go out and get wet? No thank you.

It is supposed to be 52 today and then low 50s the rest of the week, so I'm sure we'll have some nice slush come the weekend.

In other household news that makes me laugh out loud when I think about it...Lila has been doing so well in the big bed that I decided to take off the rail this weekend. It was hard to make the bed and I just didn't like looking at the quilt all bunched up, so I took it off. I didn't make a big deal out of it and didn't mention it to her at all. She watched me do it but didn't ask any questions. The first nap, first night time, and next nap sleep were great. No problems at all.

Then last night, or rather this morning about 4 AM, we heard this soft call of "Mommy, Mommy, Mom, Mama, Mommy." So interesting that Nate always calls for DAD and Lila always calls for MOM. Anyway, we ignored it for a bit but I could tell it was getting louder so I got up and went in there. It was dark of course, so I patted around the bed trying to find her. No body. Amazingly, I didn't freak out, I just looked down at my feet and there she was, all curled up on the floor. I picked her up, covered her up and walked out of the room. She fell out of the bed, made no noise, and decided to stay a while. Amazing little girl. I'll be putting some more pillows down below in case it should happen again!

Have a great week!

Random Thoughts

It's no wonder we don't feel good when it was 32 on Sunday and 72 on Monday. 

I'm knocking on a lot of wood because Lila still hasn't gotten out of her bed. 

I think Nate's other front tooth has grown since the first one came out. 

I turned the heat off during these unseasonably warm temps. I'm cold. 

The cat jumped up on the bed last night and scared the betookles out of me. Then she bit me when I reacted. How is that right? 

Scott loves his job and I'm proud of him. 

Nate is really into Batman and Spiderman right now. I told him that we needed to watch the old Superman together. I'm sure it will be hilarious by today's special effects standards. 

Lila closes her eyes when she doesn't want to hear what you have to say. 

There is a To Do on the House list on our fridge. It has 32 items on it. Scott is going to be busy. 

Spring. It's coming. Make that groundhog not see his shadow! 

Weekend Recap

We had a fairly low-key weekend. It was an OK-weather day on Friday, but then was cold on Saturday and rainy on Sunday. So the weather did not get a passing grade this weekend. But we found other stuff to do. Miraculously. 

Scott was doing a project on our basement stairs banister and had out the blue painting tape. Lila helped herself to some and had the best time moving the tape back and forth on the living room walls. Who knew this could keep her occupied!?!

Friday afternoon was sunny, not overly warm, but Nate worked on his Star Wars characters while Scott was cleaning up the yard.

I messed with these pictures and now they have a blue tint. I'll have to figure out how to get it off! He lost the first one of his front teeth last week. Growing up too fast. Although this is only the 3rd tooth he's lost so far and some kids in his class have already lost them all.

Lila found a small canister of playdoh in her toy box and played with it for a little while last week. When she asked to do it this weekend, I said, "Ya know? I think we have a whole slew of playdoh and toys somewhere."

I found it and they occupied themselves 3 or 4 times over the weekend with this mess.

Yes, mess. It makes a mess. I learned not to clean it up after they were done because as soon as it was clean, they wanted to get it out again.

We also had a fabulous dinner with the Haas clan on Sunday night. David, Kimi, Evan, Olga, Elena & Sonia came to our house for dinner and I didn't take one single picture. Sadly. But we had a great time and laughed hard.

Have a great last few days of January! Spring will be here soon, right?

Nate Room Tour

When I posted pictures of Lila's updated room, I remembered that I'm not sure I ever posted full photos of Nate's updated room. I didn't want to leave him out and I'll want to remember his room years from now! 

 Scott & Nate found this desk at a local antique shop. I love it! It's a little cluttered for my taste, but I have to let some things go. This is one of them. 

 Nate has never had a headboard. It took me a while to find this one, but I'm very happy with  it! It's just what I wanted in terms of color and size.  

 You can see that Kitty P has found a new favorite spot. This room gets so warm in the afternoon because of the windows (if I remember to open the shades). She loves the sunbeams! 

I feel like the kids' rooms have finally come together. I'm sure this means we'll move shortly. Isn't that how it always works? 

100th Day

Happy 100th day of School! 

Nate's Lego creation to depict the 100th day of school at ECC. I love this so much more than finding 100 of something!