Rooming In

The boys have made a big step.

They are now sharing a room. Before Alex came along, Ajay had his bedroom, and he had his playroom. Then we converted the playroom into Alex's bedroom. The boys have been collecting so many toys, and a lot of them are shared toys, that Biju and I decided to load all of them into one room. Lemme tellya....I had to wade through a LOT of toys to get this job accomplished! I threw a few out that were broken and had planned on sending some to other children. I ended up keeping every just about every working toy because I kept thinking "well surely the boys play with that!" I did take out the more baby-ish toys and boxed them up to be passed along to some other little one. I brought in our old (my parent's old) microwave stand from the garage to help store some more of the bigger toys that didn't fit in the storage bin or toy box. It is all organized, for now. I do hope the boys can keep their playthings in the playroom, and in somewhat decent order.

Here is Ajay's room with the toys all emptied from the toy box and the storage bins. I thought dumping everything out would help me sort. It did, but as a warning to any parent wanting to undertake this sort of task - do it while the children are not around!! (yes, that is both boys hiding out inside the chest) What you can't see are the toys that completely covered Ajay's bed, too, and the rest of the room that wouldn't fit inside this shot.

The boys thought "it's bedtime" meant "it's bouncetime" and did their best to wear out the mattress. Alex eventually tumbled off the bed and broke his happy button.

Alex learned that bouncing in his own crib was much safer than bouncing on Buh-buh's bed!

I didn't get a pic of Alex's bedroom before the switch, but here it is after it was converted into the disaster area, I mean playroom.

And because I'm a goof and went off to my parents for Christmas leaving my camera behind, I only got a couple of snaps of Alex opening presents. He had slept through Sunday's belated Christmas celebration at my grandpa's house, so he got to open once we got back to town. When he finished tearing through his own, he thought it best to start ripping into my sister's family's gifts!

Mom sent me some photos last night, so I'll share those with you, too! Here was the view out my brother's back door on Christmas Day. You can see the ground poking through in some places, and other areas have snow drifts that could completely conceal a small child!

Ajay thought he'd give Papa a hand at clearing some of the snow. Mom had to work quick to get this shot, as his helpful mood didn't last too long (the snow drifts were screaming his name!).

And just cuz I thought it was a sweet moment, I'm throwing in, at no additional cost to you, a pic of the boys from this morning. Ajay was helping Alex put his socks on.

A white Christmas, indeed!

Now THIS is a white Christmas!

Biju and I debated whether we should brave the roads to head up to my parents. Keeping an eye on the continuously changing weather reports, we figured we had a small window of time to get loaded and out of the house in time to make it before the really nasty stuff hit. We were going to go, then changed our minds and I called my dad to let him know we were chickening out. He said the weather was clear up that way, and I knew our weather was clear for the time being. So we changed our minds again. We got the boys fed and dressed then flipped on some good ole PBS to keep them entertained while we loaded everything up. I asked our neighbor to keep a close eye on the house and gave her a key so she could get in and turn our faucets on every now and then. We surely don't want to have any pipes burst!

And so we drove. It had started icing a bit as we headed out and we had our window defrosters cranked up high to keep the ice clear. The ice mellowed out a bit as we travelled but then came on full force again a little later. The boys were happily watching The Incredibles on the DVD player (thank you, Honda!), I crocheted on Mom's gift while Biju kept his eyes on the road. The wind was very strong and I can tell you we did not get good gas mileage! We passed a number of cars pulled over to the side of the road scraping their windshields. I called family members, or they called me, to keep in contact and updated on our whereabouts and safety. Once we got about 45 minutes from home and were filling up gas (needed a full tank in case we slid off the road and needed to run the heater for awhile!) my dad gave us an alternate route to take home. He figured the other roads would be better to take. The roads got considerably worse and I don't think it mattered which path we took! We lost traction a couple of times but nothing drastic. It was nice to pull into my parents driveway, but that meant we had to get out into the blowing snow and ice! YUCK!

Our Christmas Eve celebration has always been held at my grandpa's house, but we knew early on that once we got to Mom and Dad's, that was that for the evening! My brothers and their families came in and we all made up a nice little dinner. The kids got to open a couple of presents, then it was bedtime. Matt and his crew drove their truck the quarter of a mile down to their place with Jeff and his crew following behind. The roads were definitely worse than what they were earlier in the day. Matt had to stick his truck into 4-wheel drive to get out of the driveway, I do believe.

Ajay woke up at 6:30. He didn't see his pile of the goods from Santa, so broke into tears saying "I didn't get what I wanted!" After seeing that he had, indeed, gotten Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Candy Land, he was a much happier camper! Biju ambled in with Alex on his hip around 7:15am. The kids played a few hours while Mom did some last minute wrapping. It was then time for the rest of us to head to my brother's place for a yummy breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Breakfast was followed by more present-opening. And we all know how much fun that is! We were able to keep the pandemonium to a minimum as we followed the "youngest to oldest" route. Then Dad, Matt and Jeff headed back up to get the tractor to feed some hay to the cows. They were gone a few hours! They had gone up to town and were actually able to break through to the highway. Amazing! They just got back, and said that Mom's van isn't going to make it back up to the house. I guess we'll have to make a couple trips with the truck to get back to Nana and Papa's place. Who knows when we'll be able to get out. Most of the roads are impassable. But hey, at least we have (in no particular order) food, water, family, games and the Internet!!

I hope you and all of your loved ones are staying warm and safe!!

Our Christmas Greeting to You!

I'm not sending Christmas Cards out this year, so I wanted to give everyone an online greeting, instead!

YYYYYYYY

May you feel the presence of God throughout this holiday season.

May you be filled with Love now and throughout the upcoming year.

May you have the patience to deal with your adversities and

be thankful for the gifts you've been given.

May you have a very

MERRY CHRISTMAS

and enjoy a

HAPPY and SAFE

NEW YEAR!!

YYYYYYYY

Welcome, Audrey Caroline!

Audrey Caroline made her much awaited debut today. Mama Shelly and Baby are doing well.

(Ajay took this picture!)

Shell went into the hospital this morning at 6am to get the induction started. She was due on Christmas Eve, but being a diabetic, the docs wanted to induce earlier to be sure Baby came before the placenta stopped doing its job! I'm sure she can tell a better version of the story, so I'll just sum it up here. She got the pitocin and epidurals going early this AM, she pushed for about a half hour around 1pm, I think, but Audrey was comfy inside. Doc said to wait a bit longer to see if the contractions would help move her down a little. That must've done the trick!

Audrey Caroline

December 18, 2009

2:12pm

8lbs 7oz

19 3/4 inches

Kyleigh stayed with us for the day while Paige was at school. Here are the kiddos ready to head over to the hospital for their first look at Audrey. Ajay is holding the little gift box with Audrey's birthday present.

Alex wasted no time getting comfy in the delivery room.

Papa Jim was holding the little bundle when we arrived. Here is Ajay along with Kyleigh looking at "My baby sisser!"

The nurse needed to check her vitals...

Uncle Biju got to hold the babe for a few minutes.

Here is Audrey with her mama and both sets of grandparents.

Here are the little mitts I crocheted up for our little winter baby:

Muffins with Mom

Alex and I just got home from having a special treat at Ajay's school this morning. We dropped Ajay off at his classroom, as usual, then headed into a classroom next door where they were holding a Muffins with Mom event. We picked up a couple of muffins and some juice and settled in amongst the many other moms that attended the "function." We all got to introduce ourselves and announce who our child(ren) was/were and which class s/he was in. Up next was a slide show of the school children going about their days, set to some Bach. We were dismissed and Alex and I joined the 4 other women going into the Pre-K room. Ajay immediately started coming towards me and I had to shoo him back to his spot on the carpet. It was fun listening to the kids sing "Who let the M out? M..M..M. Who let the N out? N...N..N." A couple more songs, a lesson about Q, then learning labs. Ajay was in the first group called to play with shaving cream. Alex wanted to get his mitts in, too, so Ms. Mc. got him his own tray and squirt of the squishy stuff. When the timer went off, Ajay and his classmates walked down the hall with their hands in the air towards the bathrooms. Alex did the same. Once back, we watched Ajay and some of his friends string lettered plastic blocks onto thick strings. Alex tried, and almost got one all on his own. Afterwards it was time to head home. Alex wanted to stay, and Ajay wanted us to stay. It really was fun :)
And now it is time to get our shoes and coats back on and go pick up Ajay!

Brrrr

Good golly it is cold out there! I've been bundling the boys up every morning for our trips to school. I crocheted Alex a pair of woolen mittens. I don't think the wool feels nice on his hands, as he often balks at putting them on. The other night I tried to put some wool pants I had crocheted on him, and he absolutely would not let me. He was fine with a different pair of pajama pants, though. So I guess the wool pair of pants I'm almost done crocheting might not get any use :(

I keep thinking I want to make my blog more Christmas-like, but I've been pretty busy lately. I've been focusing on Norwex, and all this week I'm devoting my spare time to crocheting. Maybe in January when things slow down a little, I'll figure out how to make some changes to the blog. Even though the blog may not be decked out for Christmas, I've tried to make the house look like the approriate season! The boys helped me decorate with the non-breakable things during the day, and when Biju got home from work, we all put up the rest of the "pretties."

The boys making some time for artwork

Here are the boys all bundled up to brave the cold

And for an extra treat, a video of Alex singing this morning. I wanted to get him singing all by himself, and to get him counting, but as soon as I turned the video on, he clammed up.