Bella, Gabe and Josiah

When I was in high school, I was driving down the road when suddenly one of the belts in the engine went out and my car just stopped in the middle of traffic.  As this was before the days of cell phones, I just sat there, unsure of what to do.  Then a policeman pulled up behind me and told me that I needed to move my car.  He ended up pushing my car out of the way and calling my Dad to come and rescue me.  Between the two of them, they got me and my car back the house so that Dad could actually fix my car. On Tuesday night, we were driving down the road and I saw a police car had pulled someone over and since his lights were flashing, I pointed it out to Gabe.  He was very interested and wanted to know what was going.  I told him that either someone was driving too fast and the policeman needed to tell him to drive slower, or the person had a problem with their car and he was helping.  Then I told him the story of when my car had died on the side of the road. I may have created a m

As of last night, the flooring project is finally done!  Now we just need to do a deep cleaning and we can put the house back in the market!  This also means that we can do things in the evenings after work that do not revolve around working on flooring projects.  This will make our evenings much more pleasant...  I don't know that I'm the kind of person who is cut out to live in a house that is in the middle of a big remodel project... In other news, last Wednesday, Gabe walked into my bedroom first thing in the morning and said "Wake up Mommy!  It's garbage time!"  Then he really wanted to show his toy garbage truck to the garbage man.  As we were walking out the door, the garbage man was coming, so he got his toy garbage truck and we stood in the driveway to show the garbage man.  I thought that he'd give us a smile and a wave.  Instead, he got out of the garbage truck and came and looked at the little garbage truck.  He asked Gabe all about it, including

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a nice, low-key day at home. The kids and I went to Gram and Gramps’ house for cinnamon rolls and the Macy’s Parade in the morning. Then we all headed back to our house to cook, take naps and play games. (I know it looks like they’re all napping, but they’re really watching Blippi on Gramps’ phone or avoiding getting their picture taken. It happens a lot around here...) Then we had a lovely dinner. And because someone else also refuses to smile for pictures, you get this: I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving also!

I know I’ve been quiet, but I haven’t had too much to report here. We’re still in the middle of the floor project, but the end is in sight! That said, guess what we’re working in every single evening??? Gabe continues to be hilarious. This week we were in the car and he said “Mommy, what is propriate and anapropriate?” Then at dinner, I told Pat and Gabe then told Daddy that “propriate” was good and “anapropriate” was bad, so he was clearly paying attention. Last night we went to the church for dinner. Bible study got canceled, so I told Gabe that we were going to go home after dinner and make a special treat. He asked what we were going to make and I told him muffins. He got all excited and told me how much he loved muffins and how yummy they were. Then he pointed to his mouth and said “Look at that smiley face!” After dinner, Bella went to middle school youth group and Pat went to high school youth group, so Gabe and I went home and made our muffins. This was the first ti

This weekend was Gabe’s first gymnastics class. He thought it was wonderful. And entire room full of things to climb on and jump on? Does it get better than that??? One of his friends from school was there and the two of them were so excited to be together. She was showing Gabe what to do (she’s done the class before) and he was eating it up. I’m not sure that we have a gymnastics prodigy on our hands, but it’s a great way to burn up energy. His literally ran and jumped for the entire hour. I’m not sure how he was still standing up when we left. (And an hour later, he was laying on his string blanket on the floor of the kitchen with his eyes half closed, but he claimed he wasn’t tired...)

When we decided to potty train, I was not even thinking about night training.  Let's just focus on the day and not worry about nighttime at all.  Plus, Gabe sleeps in a crib and while he's ready to transition to a toddler bed, it just hasn't happened yet.  And you can't have a potty trained toddler in a crib, since they can't actually get out of the crib to use the bathroom. But once again, my son defied expectations. The last couple of nights, he's woken us up at about 6:15 with a "Daddy!  I need to go pee!" and a completely dry diaper.  So, I guess that he's going to night train himself and we need to convert that crib to a toddler bed.  That said, he still won't be able to get to the bathroom by himself since he's too short to open the door, but that's a different problem... This morning both kids had doctor's appointments, so I got to sleep in a bit.  Or at least, I was going to sleep in until someone got up early to use t

On Thursday I decided that I needed to go for a run. Normally I run at work, and now that it’s getting dark earlier that’s really my only option. Unfortunately, it decided to start snowing. I hadn’t brought my winter running gear, so running in the snow just sounded miserable. I decided that my best option was to run at the fieldhouse after work. I can’t run more than two miles going in circles, but it’s still a run, so it’s better than nothing. Bella didn’t have school, so she was hanging out at daycare with Gabe for the day. I figured this was perfect as she could keep an eye on Gabe while I ran. When we got to the fieldhouse, baseball practice was starting in the field, which both kids wanted to watch. It was perfect. Well, it was perfect for my first mile. Then Gabe told me that I needed to stop running... I also noticed that he’d had an accident, but all the spare clothes were in the car. Lovely. I checked on them after every lap, but things got a little more complicated.

Saturday, Gabe had a playdate. He actually doesn’t get many of these, mostly because I work and that leaves us with weekends... Plus, he has friends at school so he’s getting plenty of friend time in. Anyway, he had a playdate and it was hilarious. These two boys are actually the same kid. They played with monster trucks, garbage trucks, fire trucks and tools. Everything Gabe loves, this kid had. And then Cori (his mom) and I got to laugh about all of the things that we never thought we’d have to say until we had little boys. For example “Let Gabe play with that hammer and I’ll get you another one.” Also, it was funny to watch Gabe play with another boy that’s at his level. At school he is surrounded by girls. There was another boy almost a year older than him that left for the preschool room shortly after Gabe got to the toddler room. And now there are three other boys in the toddler room, but they’re all much younger. One of them just moved over from the baby room last month. So they