Happy Birthday!

Today is Dave's birthday. I wanted to post something earlier, but I have about 15 minutes of alone time now and I finally have to opportunity. Happy Birthday to the most wonderful husband and father. We all love you lots!

We are going to celebrate a little bit tonight with Mexican food. Then tomorrow night Dave and I are going to go out and celebrate. Yeah for alone time!

On Saturday morning, Dave's parents are coming in town and we are going to celebrate again with a yummy dinner and cake. It is a weekend of celebrating.

I am really excited about Sunday though. We are going to take Samuel (well and everyone else is coming too), to see a real Thomas the Tank Engine. Thomas is going to be in Granite City, Illinois which is about 30 minutes away. We had to get tickets ahead of time so that we will all be able to ride the train. I am so excited. I have been talking to Samuel about it since I bought the tickets and he is asking everyday when we are going to see Thomas. I can't wait to see the look on his face when Thomas actually pulls into the station. I will post lots of pictures.

I am off to get a few things done before I have to wake Samuel up from his nap.

Again, Happy Birthday Dave!

The House and Joseph

We have a huge hole in the ground. They are making progress with our new house and it is really exciting. We have almost completed all our decision making. Randomly in the middle of the night or when I am falling asleep, I start thinking about things we need to do or questions we need to ask the builder. I have decided to keep a notebook and pen by the side of the bed, so when I have these great ideas or questions I can quickly jot them down. It drives me nuts when I can't remember things. Right now I am not remembering much. I feel like my brain is overloaded.

I am busier then I think I have ever been in my life. I wish I had much more time in the day. Or I wish that Joseph and Samuel would go to bed earlier and sleep in later, which would give me more time in my day.

Today Joseph and I hung out while Samuel is at school. I took some really good pictures of him. He is so funny now. He smiles all the time and makes the craziest faces. It is almost hard to get a good picture of him because of all the crazy looks he gives when I pull out the camera. I can't believe that he is 8 months old.

Joseph went to sleep about an hour ago and is still sound asleep, which sucks because I have to leave in about 5 minutes to pick Samuel up. However, while he was asleep I organized all of our bills, cut all the brussel sprouts up that we are eating for dinner (which if you don't cook with brussel sprouts very much, the preparation of the sprouts are so time consuming because I like to cut them up), unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it and did all the dishes. It is amazing what I can get done in an hour.

Well, I am off to pick Samuel up. Here are some 8 month pictures of Joseph:

Ignorant People and Funny and Smart boys

I just have to complain a little bit. I hate this time of year when we see political commercials non stop.

I have some time to watch the Today show this morning and I am absolutely disgusted by Carl Paladino, the Tea Party candidate in New York and the Hasidic Jewish leaders he was talking to regarding homosexuals. Here is an article about what was said, it is absolutely disgusting and so sad. Paladino's interview on the Today show makes him look even worse. I don't know how he can say with a straight face that he will be the Governor for all people in New York when he is clearly discriminating.

Okay now to funnier and happier things.

Conversation with Samuel last night:

Samuel: Mom what clock is it?

Me: Do you mean, "What time is it?"

Samuel: Yes, what clock is it?

Me: It is 5:30.

Samuel: Is it bedtime yet?

Me: No, it is dinner time. Are you ready for bed?

Samuel: No, what clock is bedtime?

Me: You mean, what time is bedtime? It is around 7:30.

Samuel: Oh, Okay. I am tired.

Around 6:30, yesterday evening.

Samuel: Dad, what clock is it?

Dave: You mean what time is it?

Samuel: Yes.

Dave: It is 6:30.

Samuel: I watch movie now and then go to bed.

Dave: Okay.

He was in bed by 7:30. I guess we wore him out this weekend. It was nice. Such funny conversations now.

Paintings for our new home

I have this obsession, probably comes from my Dad, with art. I am determined not to have anything in my house except for original artwork. We have lots of photographs, but my goal is to start saving money and purchasing paintings.

I found this website today, a gallery in Chicago, Melanee Cooper Gallery, that has the most amazing artists. I wanted to list my favorites so I can look them up later if they are no longer featured at this gallery:

John Denpcy

Michael Kessler

Miranda Lake

James Leonard

Tremain Smith

Jill Sutton (I am LOVING her stuff)

Cheryl Warrick

Alicia LaChance (she is a St. Louis artist and I met her at the St. Louis Art Fair - email address: starz_fell@yahoo.com and phone number is 314.398.9636)

I also love this art work from Ginny Herzog.

8 months

Joseph is 8 months old today. I can't believe that time has flown by so quickly. He is growing so much and changing all the time. He is really developing a personality. I love how excited he gets when I tell him we are picking Samuel up from school and how he and Samuel laugh in the back seat when they are together. He isn't crawling yet, but I think it is soon. He can go backwards, but he just can't propel himself forward. I am not sad that he is not crawling yet though. I know it is time, but I like how he is still somewhat stationary and isn't into everything. I know the time is soon to come, but I also would like him to stay small and a baby as long as possible.

He is really becoming quite verbal and will say "Mama" and "Dada" a lot. His other new trick which I am not very happy about is biting. Biting only me and he is vicious. This morning for example he was nursing on my right boob and I was going to switch him to the other side. He looked up at me with his big beautiful brown eyes, smiled the sweetest adorable smile and while I was thinking about how lucky I am to have such a beautiful sweet baby he leaned over and chomped on my nipple. I am not talking a little nip, it was a full on chomp. Of course I screamed really loudly which scared the shit out of Joseph, which led to full on screaming and crying from Joseph. However that only lasted a few seconds because then he gave me the big smile again and then started nursing. Do you think he knew what he was doing? I think so. He is already becoming manipulative. I guess he is learning early from his brother. Anyway, his new thing is when he isn't hungry instead of just turning his head away or just down right refusing to eat, he takes a snap at me. I am actually nervous now every time I go to feed him because I never know if I am going to be attacked by his razor sharp two little teeth. I am fearing more teeth coming in, which I also know is coming soon because he has had explosions in his diaper for the last two days. Nice.

On the Samuel front, today when I picked him up from school I asked him what he did. Normally his answer is "I don't know." Today he started talking and telling me some things he did in school and I really think it was in Spanish. I had asked him what he ate for lunch and if he had anything to drink. He said something and then I caught the last word he said and it was "Leche". I called Dave right away and I asked him what the word for milk was in Spanish and he said it was in fact "leche." How exciting is that?! It is scary to think that my 2 and a half year old knows more then me already and it is only going to happen more often.

Well, I have to go to try to put Joseph down for a nap.

Pictures from the last week

For those of you that did not see this when I posted it on Facebook, here is a picture of the boys last week in their footed pajamas. I think they look absolutely adorable.

This is what Samuel is normally doing to Joseph. He always wants to lay on top of him and as you can see Joseph loves it.

Joseph started to make these crazy faces and I was able to finally get some this morning:

Samuel cooperated for pictures today:

This is our lot. Hopefully a hole will be dug very soon.

Getting Colder

This past week the weather has been pretty chilly. We turned on the heat last night because it was freezing in our house at night. We all sleep much better though when the house is cold, but when it gets below 65 degrees, the boys get chilly.

Samuel's vocabulary is really expanding. He has started to say some pretty big words (for a 2 year old). Lately when he really likes food he will say to either Dave or me, "this food is delicious." It is funny to hear him say delicious. Then last night we gave the boys a bath and Samuel looked at Dave and me and said "get Joe Joe out immediately." At first we weren't sure what he said but when we questioned him he was definitely saying immediately. It is amazing how much his language skills can improve in just 6 months. We were worried when he wasn't really talking when he turned 2, but he has really started and I know it won't stop now.

I think Samuel is completely potty trained (I am knocking on wood right now). He has gone four full days with no diaper, expect at nap time and night time. We have run errands and he went to Mother's Day Out all day yesterday and didn't have an accident. We are going to try it again at his other school today and see what happens. I am pretty excited. He pretty much potty trained himself. We encouraged him and rewarded him for going in the toilet, but I never actively tried to potty train him. Luckily it was easy. I am sure Joseph will be a disaster as is everything with him lately. Anyway, I am pretty excited about not having to change anymore Samuel diapers.

I know I mentioned several times that Joseph was a wonderful baby, but now he is turning into a very difficult toddler. He screams and cries all the time if he doesn't get attention. And he wanted attention all the time. They said at Mother's Day Out yesterday he cried almost all day. They felt terrible for him, but they couldn't get him to stop crying. When I got there to pick him up, he wasn't crying and seemed to be in a good mood, but I am sure that was the only time he wasn't crying. He isn't crawling yet and I know that is really frustrating him. He gets pissed when he is on his stomach and can't get where he wants to go.

On the house front, we are breaking ground this week. We still have so many decisions to make. It seems like it is never ending. Dave is taking half day on Friday, so we are going to finalize our kitchen and bathroom layouts, pick out our granite for the kitchen and fireplaces, tile for all the bathrooms and hopefully carpeting and marble for the bathroom counter tops. We also have to finalize our brick, siding and roof colors. Monday we are going to pick out all our lighting fixtures, knobs and pulls and door levers. We are getting closer to making all of our selections. I have days when I am really stressed out, but overall it hasn't been too bad.

I really need to decide what I want for our back splash in the kitchen and in our bathroom. That is stressing me out.

I better start getting things done this morning.