Here's what Hadden and Chris were up to today.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
"Can't We Have Anything Nice?"
Do you remember your parents, most likely your mom, saying this repeatedly when you were a kid? My parents are very big on taking care of the stuff you have so that you don't have to buy it again. I'm pretty sure that not taking care of your possessions is my dad's #1 pet peeve. It is definitely mine. I realize that I am a little fanatical in this respect, especially in today's disposable society. Chris is much less worried about stuff getting broken and needing to be replaced.
So, can I just take a minute to vent/beg for ideas? Hadden is like a tornado around here. He runs, jumps, crashes, bonks, yanks, throws, and stomps on anything he can get near. We have repeatedly explained the reason that we have rules around the house is so that people don't get hurt and things don't get broken. I feel, however, that everything we have ever said on this topic has been lost on him. Aside from the zillion or so times a day he accidentally (or not so accidentally) hurts Calla, it seems like he is on a complete destruction spree lately. Yesterday, we were trying to be outside so as not to go absolutely crazy, and Hadden decided to take the "big car" (the kind you pedal Flintstones style) down the driveway at top speeds while Calla was hanging on to the back. She couldn't run that fast and was holding on by her hands while her knees dragged all the way down the driveway. Mind you, I was chasing them screaming "stop, stop, stop," to no avail. By the time they reached the bottom, The knees on Calla's hideously expensive down snowsuit were worn down to almost nothing. "At least it wasn't her skull," I kept trying to tell myself.
Then, this morning, I was trying to clean up breakfast and make yogurt, while the kids ran around in their underwear and diaper (They love to be naked, and I rarely indulge them, so I was trying to be nice). After about 10 minutes, Hadden came in and said he needed me to come see something. Well, it turns out that something was one of the brackets from Calla's curtains torn from the wall with a 6 inch gaping hole where it used to be firmly attached. In order to fully understand my fury, please understand that Hadden has already broken the valence and the open/close stick from his own blinds, which are only 2 years old. We have forbidden him from touching any window coverings at least 50 times each day and have resorted to pulling most blinds all the way up and hiding the cords during the day since he was one. Needless to say, I flipped out when I saw the hole in the wall. After he had spent a long time in his own room, I made him go to the bank, withdraw money from his savings account and go to Lowes and buy the materials to fix the wall. Hopefully we can remount the curtains after we fix and repaint the wall, though they will have to be mounted lower on the wall since that spot will no longer hold the bracket weight, being that it's made up of only Sheetrock mud and not of any substantial material!
So, is the answer, "No, we can't have anything nice?" Or, is there some way to teach a four year-old boy not to tear the house and everything in it apart bit by bit? Please, enlighten me!
So, can I just take a minute to vent/beg for ideas? Hadden is like a tornado around here. He runs, jumps, crashes, bonks, yanks, throws, and stomps on anything he can get near. We have repeatedly explained the reason that we have rules around the house is so that people don't get hurt and things don't get broken. I feel, however, that everything we have ever said on this topic has been lost on him. Aside from the zillion or so times a day he accidentally (or not so accidentally) hurts Calla, it seems like he is on a complete destruction spree lately. Yesterday, we were trying to be outside so as not to go absolutely crazy, and Hadden decided to take the "big car" (the kind you pedal Flintstones style) down the driveway at top speeds while Calla was hanging on to the back. She couldn't run that fast and was holding on by her hands while her knees dragged all the way down the driveway. Mind you, I was chasing them screaming "stop, stop, stop," to no avail. By the time they reached the bottom, The knees on Calla's hideously expensive down snowsuit were worn down to almost nothing. "At least it wasn't her skull," I kept trying to tell myself.
Then, this morning, I was trying to clean up breakfast and make yogurt, while the kids ran around in their underwear and diaper (They love to be naked, and I rarely indulge them, so I was trying to be nice). After about 10 minutes, Hadden came in and said he needed me to come see something. Well, it turns out that something was one of the brackets from Calla's curtains torn from the wall with a 6 inch gaping hole where it used to be firmly attached. In order to fully understand my fury, please understand that Hadden has already broken the valence and the open/close stick from his own blinds, which are only 2 years old. We have forbidden him from touching any window coverings at least 50 times each day and have resorted to pulling most blinds all the way up and hiding the cords during the day since he was one. Needless to say, I flipped out when I saw the hole in the wall. After he had spent a long time in his own room, I made him go to the bank, withdraw money from his savings account and go to Lowes and buy the materials to fix the wall. Hopefully we can remount the curtains after we fix and repaint the wall, though they will have to be mounted lower on the wall since that spot will no longer hold the bracket weight, being that it's made up of only Sheetrock mud and not of any substantial material!
So, is the answer, "No, we can't have anything nice?" Or, is there some way to teach a four year-old boy not to tear the house and everything in it apart bit by bit? Please, enlighten me!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Fun Park
Because I am too cheap to pay for a blog book and because I already have a photo printer and digital scrapbooking program, I am going to try posting some scrapbook pages and see how it works. You can click on the image to bring it up larger. You don't mind doing that, right? Just one little click? Feel free to let me know your opinion. Here are some shots from the Fun Park with the kids a few weeks ago. Hadden has become a pretty good little roller skater. They had lots of fun with Grandma and their friends Jack and Piper.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Disneyland!
To make a long story short, Chris and I had ski/snowboard plans for our anniversary and then it decided to rain, so we got all bummed out and decided to plan a last minute trip to Disneyland instead (It was 24 hours from the time we had the idea until the time our plane took off!). What were we thinking? Hadden had the time of his life. Calla on the other hand was scared of just about everything. The only thing she liked was the carousel. We rode it about 100 times! I will not subject you all to the many and various resons why I hate Disneyland. Instead, I will just say that it was really special to see Hadden meet the "real" Mickey, Buzz, Donald, etc. And, P.F. Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps...sooooo yummy!
The Magic Castle
Ice Cream in Containment
On our Anniversary outside P.F. Chang's. Did I mention the lettuce wraps?
The "real" Mickey
Bear hug
I felt so bad for Calla! The only character she would have known was Pooh, and she fell asleep in the line to see him, literally 2 minutes before we got to him. Oh, well!
I had to include a picture of the only thing that didn't make Calla cry...the carousel!A Muggle No More
This may come as a shock to some of you who previously had to be subjected to my many arguments against reading the Harry Potter books, but I just finished the final book in the series. And...I must repent. I liked them. They haven't made it all the way to the top of my favorites, but I did have a seriously hard time putting the last three down. So, please excuse my absence from blog, email and phone calls. Also, the backgroud sums up how we all start to feel about the weather around here every January!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Here are some of the fun things we did yesterday. I should have included a picture of Chris and I plowing snow on our tractor, since we bought eachother the snowplow as our solitary gift giving effort this year, but I forgot to take a picture, so just try to imagine 2 feet of snow with 3 inches of ice underneath it. Happy Holidays!
Snuggling with Daddy! He's back!!!
Hadden and Calla's New Kitchen
I cooked a ham and a turkey breast! For those of you who know me well, you know this was huge and deserved photographic evidence.
Calla is just so cute!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Buckeyes!
My grandma--my mom's mom--used to make Christmas cookies every year. My favorites were always the buckeyes. Basically, they are a really yummy Reeses peanut butter cup. She passed away a little over a year ago, so this Christmas I thought I'd make buckeyes to carry on her tradition (and because they are yummy). The kids helped, by which I mean they ate as much as possible while standing on chairs at the counter, but I did the dipping after they went to bed.Taking a chocolate bath
All done and waiting to be eaten
Calla really liked them!
What I should have taken a picture of was my hand after I was done dipping. Next week I'll post a picture of me on the treadmill, thanks to all the buckeyes! Sorry about the formatting issues. I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind blogger's justification of the pictures.
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