A crappy year, come on in 2008!

2007 has definitely been a rough year for us! The hardest hit was definitely Sam's mom passing away! Regardless of importance the hard knocks have kept on coming all.year.long. Frankly, I am ready to say good bye to 2007! Before I do, here are the first sentences of the first posts of every month for 2007!

January A new year is upon us, quicker they go as older I get!

February William is 9 months old

March Today is such a beautiful day!

April
and yet here I am posting a blog?



May Dear son, it amazes me that the first year of your life outside of me has passed!

June woke up far to early drove through starbucks on way to park as result of waking up far to early :)!

July Today my dear son William is 14 months old and I can't believe it!

August William falls often, he is crazy and climbs on things he shouldn't I find myself chasing him to catch him moments from severe danger.

September Today was Nathalie's 1st day of Preschool!

October William is 17 months old!

November http://senwlong.blogspot.com/2007/11/nablopomo.html

December On Saturday, the kids and I went to Seaport Village with my Mom and Dad.


So there's my year in review!!

Sam's 45th birthday SURPRISE....

Sam will be 45 at the end of January! And I Have the best present for him ever! He doesn't read my blog, that I know of, but I'm sure that as soon as I write that he will....lol. So I'll say this, He will find out about his surprise in 2 weeks! So at that time I will reveal to you in all its glory the best birthday surprise ever (for my hubby anyhow!)

Surprisingly

William actually went to bed without much of a fight, I couldn't believe it! My first effort began at about 9:15, and I figured that for ease of sleep I would just put him in my bed (rather than his own), especially because Nathalie was already asleep in my room. After about 45 minutes of him tossing and turning and trying to wake Nathalie up (thankfully he did not succeed in this mission). I said "William if you don't leave Nathalie alone, we are going to have to go night night in your bed" and he said "yeah". I asked "William, do you want to go sleep in your bed?" and he again said "yeah". So I carried him into he and Nathalie's room, tucked him in tight, gave him kisses and hugs and his little firefly to sleep with. 5 minutes later he was out, I couldn't believe it. My lil guy didn't want to sleep with Mommy and Nathalie, which made me somewhat sad, but he is asleep and that really is what counts to me right now!

Christmas rocked!!!!

Not only for the kids, but for me too! My family all pitched in and bought me a laptop for Christmas! I am soo excited about this, it is something I really will use for school! Unfortunately I left my camera at my moms, so I cant post any Christmas day pictures yet, but I promise there are lots that will be posted soon!
Nathalie's favorite gift was the one that santa brought her a baby doll, with highchair, stroller and bed. Williams favorite gift was a geotrax set that he got from his Nana and Papa as well as his auntie. He got sooo many trucks and cars, but loves them all! Nathalies next favortie gift was from her "uncle" Dan, and was a set of barbie movies, definitely not my choice, but thats okay, it was christmas after all. The kids were amazing yesterday, and William actually took two naps!
Sam has to work overnight for the next three nights :( but this means that this morning he allowed me to go back to sleep after breakfast and showering, around 9:30 until noonish, it was fantastic! William has now been asleep for nearly 3 hours, which is also fantastic, but I know it will end soon!

Merry Christmas Eve

Its Christmas Eve, and Nathalie could not be more excited. I've always waited for "the year." I'm sure those of you with little kids know what I'm talking about. This is definitely "the year" for Nathalie. The year that she's realized who Santa Claus is, and what presents are and how fun it is to give presents to other people. On Saturday we went to a Christmas party at a friend of my mom's, and Nathalie had made her a Christmas ornament. The pure excitement and delight that Nathalie beamed when giving that gift to "aunt" Judy was amazing. Today and tomorrow Sam and I both don't have work which to me is the best gift that we could ever be given, two days as a family of four with no outside influences tearing us away from those closest to us! This morning the four of us woke up and Sam and I allowed the kids each to open one present for Christmas Eve. Nathalie opened a Dora backpack full of games, Checkers, Bingo, Crazy Eights, Dominoes, Tic Tac Toe, Go Fish, Memory and Old Maid, which we've been playing with all day, I'm so glad she is getting so much enjoyment out of it. William opened up a blanket, its plush and has a firetruck, police car, and race car on it, he's been cuddling with it all day too, its so cute. After breakfast we took a walk to the park for a little while and then walked home. William went straight down for a nap, and because I don't think I've mentioned this I should say, in his big boy bed. He and Nathalie have been sleeping in Nathalie's room for a couple of weeks now, and it as been a surprisingly smooth transition. One night William woke up in the middle of the night and was welcomed with open arms into our bed, but thats been the extent of it really. My baby boy is getting so big. Daddy decided he was going to nap too, and I loved the way a nap sounded so Nathalie, Daddy and I all went and had "quite time" in Mommy and Daddy's bed, Nathalie never quite fell asleep so after about an hour of her being good and quite, I told her that she and I could get up which made her very happy. Tonight we will go to my sister's house for a Christmas Eve dinner of homemade Chili and then we'll spend the night at my parents house and spend Christmas there tomorrow. I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas!

200th post woo hoo

As I was getting ready to post, I realized this is my 200th blog post. What a milestone. Another milestone, the one I actually came on here to write about....only one more final tomorrow and then no school until the last week of January! It's definitely been a trying semester, its hard to balance it all. I often found myself feeling guilty having to leave my kids to go to class, or to study, but I know in the end this will be worth it for them!

The Christmas tree debate

I'm feeling like a rotten mother and its all thanks to friends like Luci,Sara, Elaine,and Natalie. Ok so you get the point. I, I mean we had decided not to put up a tree this year. William is at quite an inquisitive stage and with the stress of finals next week etc.etc.... And I'm not really that rotten of a mom, as we spent the whole day after Thanksgiving setting up Nana and Papa's tree, which Nathalie got to enjoy every minute of. We will be spending Christmas eve at my sisters house (she has a tree) and then sleeping over night at my parents house, again waking up to a tree. So please reassure me that I'm not scarring my daughter for life by not putting up a tree this year!

hemidemisemiquaver

yes its really a word it means 64th note; oh and if you already knew that then I must say you are much more intellegent than me.

The Sickies....

have hit our house, and pretty hard at that. William started it with a runny nose Saturday, which was followed by diahrrea Saturday night, and my favorite, he even threw up on Friday night. His nose is still runny, but he seems to be on the mend now. I ended up with it yesterday, nasal congestion, fever cough and wanting to do nothing but lay around all day, which consequently is what I did.

What have I done this year?

Way back in January, I posted this uber list of goals for the year, so which ones have I actually accomplished or made a dent in? Let's recap!

1.) No I still don't workout, and I at least walk with the kids once every 2 weeks but have made a valiant effort to go to the park at least 2 times a week!
2.) I have been eating a lot less junk, have been using a lot more Organic, and have definitely decreassed my horrible addiction to diet coke, I'm almost completely weaned, lol.
3.)Cooking more healthily indeed, see above. I know there is still plenty of room for improvement, as of now, we have cut out all red meat and are slowly working on birds too. I'm hoping by January to be mostly on veggies, with fish here and there as that is something that dh and I really enjoy.
4.)Health of dh re: his shoulder surgery, we (he) made it through with flying colors.
5.)I still haven't had the physical.
6.)I went to the dentist in July and am due again, okay I'll call them tomorrow.
7.&8. Not quite up to 4 nights a week of cooking, its hard with my schedule; and regarding the new recipes, its probably more like 1 a month.
9.)Sam has given up alcohol all together, which is much larger than I ever began imaginable, and it has definitely made our family stronger.
10.)Nathalie aka Ms. Independence, I really don't think she needs extra support in this department.
11.) With the passing of Sam's mom we've definitely come to cherish every moment more and more.
12.)We do get out of the house more than 3 days a week, Nathalie being in school goes 3 days a week. William and I try to go to playgroups on Mondays and or Tuesdays, and we all three go on Thursdays. Also we spend Saturdays and Sundays at Nanas and Papas.
13.) LIMIT TV we were doing really well with this and then had a bit of a relapse, but are getting back on track.
14.)LISTEN to my children's needs, I'm really trying on this one
15.)Take a trip together just the 4 of us. no one else. Not yet, but we're hoping for January, so almost made it
15.)Yell less, praise more (apply to both dh and dc's)--With dh its gotten a lot easier, since he stopped drinking, don't get me wrong he wasnt a druken bastard or anything like that, but he'd have a couple beers, sometimes more, a night, and wouldn't do anything.
16. Read at least 1 book a month, Well if Organic Chemistry text books and Calculus text books count then I definitely have accomlished this one too lol.
17.)Make me time...Well, it may not be once every month, but I have been getting more "me" time than last year most definitely
18.)SPEND LESS.....SAVE MORE need to work on this more
19.) I feel like my patience is increasing
20.)the boxes are decluttered
21.)Do dishes daily, do not let them go for an extra day or two--um still working on this one
22.)definitely doing better on the laundry front.
23.)done in the kids department, still need to work on our clothes
24.)we went out just the two of us on Sam's birthday, January 30th hey at least it was once this year.

19 months!

Today, William is 19 months old. He's now closer to 2 than 1, and that makes me a little sad. After dropping Nathalie of at preschool this am he and I headed to the park, we had a wonderful day playing. He just fell asleep eating in his high chair, I've never had a kid do that before lol its funny. I took a pic, but since I just uploaded pics, Ill get that one up later.

Chirstmas is coming....

On Saturday, the kids and I went to Seaport Village with my Mom and Dad. While the kids were happily occupied by Nana and Papa, I snuck in some Christmas shopping at apple box toys. I bought William this pound a peg, (hopefully he wont pound Nathalie in the head), I also got him a couple of little wooden cars as stocking suffers. I got Nathalie, a wooden Jewelery box that plays music, she wouldn't leave it alone in the store w/ Nana, so I was tipped off that it would be something good to get her, I also got herthis wooden lace up shoe, as she's become obsessed with tieing shoes lately, so I thought this might help her learn! Nathalie and William both rode the carosel, and I took pictures but haven't uploaded them yet. We had lunch at Buster's Nathalie and William shared some noodles, plain, because Nathalie didn't want any marinara sauce, I had a really good grilled chicken sandwich, although Nathalie ate half. Nana bought Nathalie a special treat of hot chocolate before we left for the day. And William was asleep before we left the parking lot. I got Nathalie an advent calender at Trader Joe's last week, so we'll be counting down the days till Christmas, maybe her and daddy can put up the tree tonight while mommy is at school.