Yesterday the kids turned 1 1/2, so it's check up time! One quick shot and then no more until they turn 5. I'm sure they are not upset about the prospect of having to go without the needle for a bit. Maya outweighs Devin by about a pound, and she's also about an inch taller, and she lords it over him like there's no tomorrow. Little does she know that soon the tables will be turned and her not-so-little (but still Little) brother will have the upper hand.
Interestingly, we told the pediatrician that we were planning to move away and she didn't really seem phased. No pining about missing her twins, no asking if we could stay with her practice... so I'm convinced, nay, I didn't need convincing, let's say I'm more resolute about our plans to leave that practice. We originally picked that group because of our interview with the Head Doc In Charge, and we hardly ever see her, so there's no love lost there.
On the Home Fo' Sale Front - not a lot of action I'm afraid. There are a few homes up on the block in our 'hood, and our's is only slightly more expensive than the cheapest one - others are $15k+ more than ours so that's good news. And the one that's cheaper than ours doesn't have the full 3 baths (just 2.5) and no "in-law" suite. We just talked to our realtor yesterday, and she says that the other realtors haven't had any traffic either which is good for us - it means our house doesn't suck, there's just no traffic. But we have put out some flyers, and buried St. Joseph in the back yard... I'm just hoping he didn't get pooped on.
Devin & Maya watching snow fall on the deck
Enough of the snow, Daddy, read me a book!
I'm quite fine to read my own book, thank you!
Welcome to the CD Cover Meme. It works like this:
1. First, get the name of your band: this will be the first article title on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
2. Get the title of your album: the last four words of the very last quote:
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
3. The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover:
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
I've had some pretty crazy ones... enjoy it!
Well, a few more days and our house will be officially "on the market". We've had a busy few days here at the first of the year! We got the POD loaded and off to the storage unit, after a brief, disappointing display of un-neighborliness. Turns out they didn't like having the POD on the street, and instead of coming and knocking on my door, they decided to call the police and complain. So my nice neighbors allowed us to drop the POD in their driveway (they've been out of town for a few months anyway).
So the POD is off, and today we had our yard sale and unloaded almost everything! The remainder was sent to the Salvation Army for better use. Our house is immaculate. The floors/walls/cabinets/rugs/furniture are all nice and clean. We repainted the front door, dropped a few flowers around, cleaned up the backyard... We are ready to sell! All we have to do is bury St. Joseph...
It occurs to me, or rather, I was gently reminded, that I was remiss in my last post about New Year's Day. My parents came down on the 29th of December for Second Christmas - which I conveniently forgot to mention. It was great having them down, as this time Devin and Maya weren't under the weather, and Devin had a new-found world of aural delight was he had his tubes put in. It was a great visit! Dad helped prune back a few bushes including the thorny beasts on the side of the house, a/k/a pyracantha. Mom had some great grandmother time with the kids which allowed Steph to get the Christmas decorations down and boxed up.
On that note, iof our e to mention that I have put up pictures of our dual-Christmas celebrations, which you can access here.
Happy New Year, y'all! The first day of the New Year found us doing all sorts of strange things. Here's a short list:
- Packed the kids into the van and headed up to Wolf to visit with Auntie Karyn and revive her from the doldrums of holiday retail work.
- Called on a local box vendor and bought a tree's worth of sturdy cardboard boxes and some strapping tape.
- Watched an episode of Good Eats in wonderiferous HD.
- Determined that we have an awful lot of "stuff" in our home.
- Scheduled delivery of our POD unit for tomorrow (ok, technically we did this today just before writing this, but the plan was to do it yesterday).
- Wondered why children's toys are so intricate and expensive. Whilst unloading some storage area we found the drum lid to a toy drum. Devin spent the morning dropping it on the floor repeatedly much to the chagrin of my eardrums. Maya likes to walk around with a clear plastic block-bucket on her head.
- Got the house listed on Craigslist.org. Oh yeah, I guess I didn't mention that we're in the market to move. :) We're looking to relocate over to the Sandy Plains area. So, while the market is great for buyers, we're gonna try to sell and buy. Hopefully, it's a wash. So if you know somebody in the market for a great house with plenty of room in a nice area that's well-situated... well let me know.
Devin was in and out of the operating room in about 15 minutes. All is good - more updates later; as I'm getting this by phone from Stephanie.
--- UPDATE ---
All went quite well. The procedure went as planned (under 15 minutes) and everything is satisfactory. Devin was a bit cranky afterwards, but was in great spirits for most of the day. That's about all I have to say about that. :)
It's [the day after] Boxing Day, and that means a return trip to Atlanta from Sanibel. We had a good visit, even though it was bittersweet having to see Steph's grandmother in the nursing home. We were able to get in to see her quite a few times, and each time she was elated to see all of us, especially her great-grandkids! I was happy to be able to help out the family by moving furniture into her new home and helping get the old house ready for sale.
Speaking of, if any one is interested in some prime real estate in Sanibel Florida, on a canal with a pool and grandfathered-in fully-paved driveway and cement block construction... let me know.
The icing on the cake was when we stopped by to say our goodbyes to Grandma Olson. I had Maya on my shoulders, and we were seated on Grandma's bed, and Maya reached out to her great-grandmother for a hug. That was awesome! Oh, and the first time Maya said, "I love you" was to her great-grandmother the previous day. I didn't actually witness that myself as I was hanging a curtain rod, but I heard it was pretty sweet. And we also learned some other neat tidbits of information. Stephanie's great-grandmother Amanda was also a twin - boy/girl, just like ours, and the only twins ever in the family. But here's the rather neat part - Amanda was born on July 28, 1877 - 129 years before Maya and Devin to the day! I just think that's something awesome and special.
So we made the trip back last night in record the usual time, only 12 hours! Actually the trip was pretty good, we had about 2 hours total for stops (dinner, snack, gas, pee). So that puts actual road time at 10 hours.
-- Insert Sleep Here --
It's now 10am, and Stephanie should be checking Devin into Scottish Rite to get his tubes put in. Actual surgery time should be at noon. Right now, as I'm typing this, Maya is still asleep (!) which is pretty incredible. I think she definitely takes after her mother in that regard; she has gotten to the point where I have to wake her up to get breakfast :-) Devin on the other hand, is like me and is up at the crack of dawn most days. So keep Devin in your thoughts over the next few hours, since he will be under for this procedure. But it's all out-patient, and he should be back home by 3pm I'm hoping... the Doc says it should be like flipping on a light switch for him, and I'm thankful for that. The little guy needs to be able to hear properly! On a related side note, he has finally started to repeat words like "Hi" and "Up", which is great!
Maya on the other hand has continued her education by learning how to ask for "hup" (help) when she needs something (like assistance getting up onto the sofa) and by repeating "pweez" (please) ad infinitum when she really, really wants something. We have already started with Miss Manners training for Little Miss by requiring that request words (e.g. help, up, cracker) must be followed by please. We'll see how that works out :-)
While typing this I just texted Stephanie to see how things are going...but I haven't heard back so she probably has her phone buried in her purse, left it in the van, or is busy checking in our boy. I'll update this again with news. TTFN!
Well, here we are, about 4 days in to Steph's new life as a non-smoker. It hasn't been easy for her or the rest of the family, but we are definitely making strides. I'm quite proud of Steph for making this move so she'll be around longer for her family to enjoy :)
So, if you happen to see her in the next few weeks and it's "different", or you don't hear from her in a while, or you talk to her and it's a bit strange - take heart, you're probably not the reason. It takes a bit of time to settle into these things, and she's got a lot on her plate this time of year what with holidays, finals, and her "music television". (Don't worry if you don't get that last remark - you need to be a fan of Family Guy).
In other news, I found out Maya has a boyfriend at PMO (Parent's Morning Out). Steph and I made a joint trip to pick up the kids on Tuesday with the intent on going out to lunch afterwards (which, by the way, was a complete bust as apparently the PMO people gave the kids each a pound of sugar for lunch). Turns out Maya and this little boy were playing, and the boy's mother was there to pick him up so as the PMO people were brining out Devin, Maya and this boy, they made the remark that Maya and this boy are "special friends". I'm going to have to look out for this one. We got their school pictures back, and Maya is sitting next to this boy. Uh oh. Big time trouble already. Oh, and Maya is getting four new teeth, so she'll have a complete set in the front :)
Oh and we've been testing some new foods. Everybody likes peanut butter and meatloaf, although Maya doesn't care much for the bits of onion in the meatloaf. Come to think of it, I've noticed that she doesn't like "foods within her foods", like little tiny blueberries in her blueberry yogurt, and bits of onion in the meatlof. Separately, she likes them just fine. And she doesn't care very much for freeze-dried peas, whereas Devin can get enough of them or freeze-dried corn. I wonder if he would make a good astronaut :)
I'm going to let the cat out of the ol' bag here...we've already decorated for Christmas. And the kids love the tree. And they know who Santa is.... just FYI.
I'm going to be posting November's kids pix on my Picasa Web Album - so you can either subscribe to the album's RSS feed or keep reading here and I'll let you know when I've put new pictures up.
By the way, there are new pictures and a movie up. :)
Without a lot of explanation... just enjoy my clicky-clicky handiwork and follow one or more of these links. You'll be rewarded with... well, something. Fans of The Office will enjoy.
Last weekend we managed to trod through IKEA on a Sunday... I know, quite a feat. The kids enjoyed some traditional Scandanavian fare: macaroni & cheese, crackers, and juice. Those wacky Swedes/Finns/Danes/Norwegians!
We're in the process of planning some shelves for downstairs in the library, and we also picked up a tunnel for the kids - they love it! And we also got a set of chairs/table for the kids' room, which only cost USD$20, which was quite surprising.
On a sad note, IKEA does not have any 5-gallon stainless steel pots. But I did manage to pick one up from Linens & Things on Friday, so that quest has been successfully concluded. :)
Improve Your Photos 60 Seconds at a Time
I happened on this nifty little website which will give you a... well, it's not really short, but it's a bullet list of important tips to help you improve your photos, without all the usual phototechnical speak about f-stops and aperatures and shutter speeds. Well, actually they do mention ISO and shutter speed, but it's not overly technical.
Enjoy it!
