the ding ding man

I think our ice cream man (or ding ding man as we call him) has gone mad...seriously mad!

First of all he ONLY comes around when it's below 60 degrees, cloudy, raining, hailing or snowing. Yes, he has come around the neighborhood while there's snow on the ground....but not when it's 80 degrees, no, then he might actually have to sell ice cream to some cute little kids! We know this because we've lived in our neighborhood for 5 plus years now and this is how he has always been. So, we pretty much have our ears ready in any kind of weather for the beautiful sound of the ding ding man.

So, on Thursday afternoon I'm playing outside with the kids. It's pushin' 70 degrees out so of course I'm not expecting to hear the ice cream man....but Hannah starts yelling

"the ding ding man, the ding ding man! I hear him mommy!"

I rush inside to get some cash, because who knows, this could be the only time we see him all year! I get back outside and I hear that he's getting close and then we see him slowly driving down the main street in our neighborhood. Now if you've ever been to our house you know that we're the first house off the street....you can't NOT see us. I am waving like crazy (I can't run b/c I have to hold Caden so he doesn't run on to the road) and that crazy ding ding man just drives past!!!

Hannah is totally bummed but I think "certainly he's just taking a different route to get to our house."

wrong!

he turns around and comes by our house AGAIN...music playing, driving slowly, ding ding going...but he doesn't stop, even though I'm waving money at him!

so, now I am completely certain that our ding ding man doesn't like kids and doesn't like ice cream and obviously doesn't like to make money! Yes, he has definitely gone mad!

Haircut

Hannah's hair was getting SO long...and a little unmanageable. I was also getting a little tired of the drama everytime I combed through her hair. So I cut it. 4 inches!

And I LOVE it!

I was a little nervous about cutting it short but I had been thinking it needed to be done for a while and when Chris told me he thought Hannah's hair was getting a little wild I knew it HAD to be done!

After I cut it Hannah was bouncing off the walls with excitement (even more so then normal if you can believe that!)

Here are the before and after pics. We'll probably let it grow out long again (because I love long hair on little girls) but for the summer it will be nice to have it short.

not so quiet mommy time

Yesterday the kids both took short naps so at 2:45 I said

"Mommy needs a quiet time!"

I thought I would just lay down for a few minutes with the kids played quietly by themselves.

So I lay down

and am woken up by Hannah

"Mommy, Caden's doing naughty stuff. He's dumping spices out!"

I sit up to go see where the spices are being dumped out....

and I am covered in an entire bottle of cilantro! In my hair, on the blanket, in the hood of my sweatshirt, all over the carpet!

Apparently I fell asleep, and I guess I'm so use to having kids climb all over me that I didn't even notice Caden dumping spices all over me! I'm just glad it wasn't Chili powder! That would not have been fun to clean up.

So much for mommy quiet time!

plane ride

I survived!!...ten days without my husband and 4 plane rides with my two monkeys!

We had a great time in Florida visiting Grammy and Papa and now have many more wonderful memories to add to our collection. I'll be posting pictures soon.

I just had to tell this story before I forget.

Our flight got in last night at about 6:45 pm so Chris was just gonna pick up McDonalds on the way to pick us up b/c he knew we'd all be starving.

So, that being said, here's the rest of the story.

As the plane is taking off Hannah says:

Hannah: Mommy, what if our plane crashes into the river?? (remembering the Hudson River plane crash a few months ago...yes, she still remembers it vividly!)

Mommy: Then all the boats would have to come rescue us.

Hannah: What if they couldn't save us and we all died.

Mommy: Then we would go to Heaven and be with Jesus.

Hannah: Mommy, that would be so fun if you and me and Caden all got to go to Heaven together.

Mommy: That would be awesome!

Hannah: Oh no, mommy, if we died we wouldn't get to eat McDonalds!!

Life through Hannah's eyes

"Mommy, your tooth is crooked."
"Which tooth?"
She thinks for a second...."all of them."

"Maybe we could use your winder mommy. "
"....a winder???"
"You know the thing you use on your hair."
"Oh, a blowdryer! :) "

While holding her cinderella princess..."mommy, you look like her, you're pretty like a princess!"
"Thanks babe!!!"

My night

Last night I got home from bookgroup around midnight, which is pretty normal. I figure if I get home and am in bed by 1am I still have a good six hours sleep before my kids wake up. Of course last night right after I get home Caden starts crying. He's been sleeping through the night for over a year so this is not normal....although lately it's becoming a little more normal. (Maybe it's teething, maybe it's nightmares, I just don't know, the kid's only a year so he doesn't exactly tell me why.) He cries for all of about a minute and goes back to sleep. Chris and I ended up talking a while and we don't get to bed until about 1:30 am. Ok, I'm still in good shape, by the time I fall asleep I'll still have five hours of sleep, not my ideal but it'll work.

I barely drift off to sleep and I hear it again, Caden's crying, a little longer this time. So now I'm thinking "what's wrong? is he sick, did he pee through his diaper again??" I let him cry it out and he falls back asleep. At 4am I hear him again so I think I better check to see if he's OK. I get him some motrin, rock him back to sleep and put him back in his crib. He sleeps until 5;30am and starts crying again... so I give in, go to his room, pick him up and just hold him... the rest of the night.

I gave up trying to figure out what was wrong, I stopped thinking about how I was gonna function the next day on only 2 hours of sleep, I quit worrying about what I was gonna do the next night if it happened again (and trust me, this is not normal for me). But at least for one night I just held my little baby boy. I know these times will be ending soon and I want to enjoy every minute of it. I just rocked him and prayed for him and watched him sleep and guess what? He woke up with the HUGEST grin on his face!....who knows, maybe he just needed a little cuddle time from his mommy! :)

Christmas Ham

This was the first year since Chris and I have been married that we celebrated Christmas by ourselves with just our kids. At first I was a little bummed that we wouldn't be able to be with my family since they were getting together in Florida, but I got use to the idea and was really looking forward to starting our own family traditions. We slept under the Christmas tree the night before Christmas Eve and also had a little birthday celebration for Jesus on Christmas morning, birthday coffee cake, candles and all! :)

Of course, since I love to cook, it was really important to me to have a great Christmas meal. So I planned the entire menu and decided to make a ham since that's been my families tradition since as far back as I can remember. I talked to Chris' grandma (who makes a killer ham) and asked her what kind of ham she uses. She told me to get a John Morrell bone in ham so I sent Chris to the store to buy the ham.

When Chris got home from the store I noticed that the bag containing the ham seemed rather large. Remember we only have four people to feed, myself, my husband, our 3 year old daughter and our 1 year old son who hates food....(yeah, he's not my child!). So as Chris is putting away the groceries he says, "you might want to make some room in the fridge for the ham, it's pretty big." So I'm thinking, OK, it's probably about 6 pounds, which is a pretty big hunk of meat. Then Chris says "it's a 20 pounder!" That's bigger then our one year old son!!! So I ask him how much it cost and he says "40 bucks...but Rachel per pound it was a better deal then the smaller hams." Just doing our part to stimulate the economy!

Apparently it was the smallest John Morrell bone in ham at the store and he figured he better get what I wanted. The ham did turn out awesome...and good thing too since we'll be eating it for the next six months! :)