Check it out... I put a new video up of Gwennie (with a brief appearance by Ethan).

The kids have been killing us lately... They are fighting bed times, then getting up super early. Not helping the Mommy crankiness!

Today I got stuff done, finally. Usually I start feeling energized when cleaning and start to like it. Not today. I hated it from beginning to end. I cleaned off the counters, swept, did loads of dishes, swept/mopped/vacuumed the front rooms. Sorted laundry (hasn't made it quite into the rooms yet) and ran to the store for a few things.

We had cream of red bell pepper soup for dinner. Its one of my best soups.

Blah blah blah. Yada yada yada :)

Thats kinda how I feel. Yesterday we went to Lowes and got a bunch of stuff to do home improvements. I got the house cleaned up a bit, but its already dirty again.

Jason came home early to play his game. I've been slacking all morning. I should be working, but zero motivation.

Hopefully we'll be talking to builders this week to get something going. I hate having ideas/projects that stall... Once something is decided, I really like to get moving on it asap.

Gwennie now has 6 teeth. Four broke through the top this week.

So much stress right now.

New house/land stuff, kids (rambunctious), house (disaster), family (my brother, what are we going to do with him?) and the everyday trials and tribulations. All the same complaints that I always have. Twould be nice to have something different to complain about... to at least be original in my pity party!

I'm just bone-weary. Another downhill slide into some depression, but I'm hoping its a short hill.

Tomorrow is Grammy's 70th b-day party. Will be good to see everyone... they always lift my spirts.

This will be brief.

Check out the new video I uploaded of the kids. Pretty cute.

Also, doesn't Gwen look like she is about to attack here?















Gwen has 4 teeth now.

I made this kick-butt cookies today. They will rock your world. Chocolate Espresso Cookies

Tonight I'm restarting all my knitting projects, so those of you who are waiting, sorry... but I should be done soon :)

Its been a long time since I last blogged. Just haven't felt up to doing it. We've been very focused on house/land hunting and are just crashing at the end of the day. In fact, my brain feels so numb right now I don't even know what else to say...

Oh, I got a carpet cleaner today which is very cool. And... um... Yeah, thats about it. Much happened over the weekend but I really don't want to rehash at this point and time. Maybe later.

Very very tired!

Ok, before I forget, I need to tell you what Gwennie and Ethan have been doing lately that is cute.

First, Ethan.

He is really getting into kissing things. He kisses dolls and toys and dogs and tv's and people too. Just watch out, he's not quite gotten the knack of closing his mouth while he kisses, so you get very slimy! Just tonight though he gave me a great big "muah!" on the cheek. Too cute.

Gwen has started clapping for what she wants. We'll put her in the highchair and she starts clapping like crazy for food. When she runs out of food, she starts clapping again! Its really really funny. She's also tickling things now... she likes to make a "dawdledawdledawdle" sound while she tickles you. Its exactly what Ethan does, so she must have picked it up from him. In any case, its so adorable.

Today it was far too cold to walk. Frigid! I need to get back in that routine.

We did do some walking though. After Jason came home we headed out to Costco and got some stuff. The best thing we got was those berry sundaes which are SO good, and then I got a churro for Ethan and Oh. My. Goodness. It was delicious. I've never had one before, but now I'm afraid I will always want them. Holy cow it was good.

Tomorrow Becki will be here babysitting while J and I hit the homeshow, then go out for our Valentines Dinner. I'm excited about the restaurant!

Shelly came over and babysat tonight while Jason and I went to a UBuildIt seminar. Twas very interesting. So much information though. Hard to process it all through and figure out what is possible.

Haven't felt up to posting much... Having a lot of back, neck, shoulder and hand pain.

Maybe I'll feel up to saying more tomorrow :)

We got snow today... about 3 inches. It melted pretty fast though.

The kids. Ugh. They were... unbelievably troublesome. Its the kind of day that makes me want to pop a few more of those Zolofts and chase it with something alcoholic (just kidding... kinda!). Ethan screamed nearly non-stop. About everything and anything. He repeatedly did things he knew he shouldn't. Playing with the pellet stove, hitting sister with his broom. Oh. My. Goodness.

Didn't help when Gwen fell asleep in my arms at like 2, then Ethan asked to be put to bed at 2:30. Of course, they were up at 4:30 and neither Jason or I got any breaks.

I made a really good split-pea soup for dinner, with rolls. For our "something special" for V-day, I made a dutch apple pie (no top crust, just a struesel topping).

Going to haul myself over to the couch to eat my pie and relax my brain.

Oh, one more thing. This is one house we are tenatively looking at. Its actually cheaper than what we would sell our house for... the major downside? Its in Sultan.

Would you like to see what Ethan does every single morning of every single day? I bring to you... "The Espresso Request"

Just to clarify, Ethan does not drink coffee (though he's tasted it and found it delicious). He just likes the steamed milk that comes at the end :)

The inital request.


Helping to put the grounds in the filter. He *always* tastes them. Eew!


Milk out of the fridge


Milk onto the counter


Between the last picture and this one there was spillage of my vanilla flavoring on the floor, so we had a take a short break to clean it up.

While we are waiting, Ethan asks if we can make drip too. I decline.


Wasting more time...


Gwen realizes that I haven't held her for nearly 10 minutes and acts dramatic


Voila! Espresso starts coming out...


While I steam the milk, Ethan is distracted by cookies


Finally, he gets to eat some of the foam. He is happy.


Hope you enjoyed our morning routine!

Oh dear, I've been terribly lax in my blogging duties.

This weekend we looked for property... mostly in Snohomish area. We found some good stuff online in Sammamish, but are leaning more and more away from King county as they have so many restrictions on building and the taxes are higher.

Tonight, Sue came over to talk to us about the options for selling. Her preliminary work up was $20,000 more than what we thought we could sell the house for, so that's good. She brought us all sorts of interesting things to look at. What we really need to do is buckle down and move on a piece of property. Until then, we really don't know anything about our timeframe and can't get anything else done.

This Thursday we're going to a home-building seminar, then this Saturday we're going to hit the HomeShow. Afterwards we're going to do our Valentines Day dinner at a southern restaurant called Sazerac. I wanted to one called Cascadia, but the meals were a little esoteric for Jason's taste and I wanted him to like the food too :)

I did something nasty to my thumb today. I was grabbing Ethan away from the toilet and something "popped" in my thumb. I looked at it and there was a black and blue spot and a lump. I could still bend my thumb, and I applied pressure to the bump and it mostly went away, but the bruise remained. Its been sore and achy all day. Weird.

The kids drove my bonkers today. Ethan and Gwennie were at each others throats over various things (snacks, utensils, toys, you name it) and I felt so... so... confined. Like the house was collapsing in on me!

Oh, we were "tagged" over the weekend. Graffiti was sprayed twice on our fence, then on some mailboxes and a local school. Tomorrow we're going to run out to Lowes and get some stuff I read about that you can spray on it and then brush off. If that doesn't work, we're going to try a pressure washer. We're reluctant to paint over it because then we'll have to paint the whole fence to make it look nice.

We stopped at the library over the weekend too and I got 3 more books, plus a book on tape that I got by accident. I now have two large stacks of books. Oy.

Another busy day. Ethan has so hit the terrible twos, its not even funny. Ugh!

During first nap, I ran to Fred Meyer to pick up the groceries I'd forgotten the day before and return some stuff. While I was there, I picked up a pair of jeans in the next size down from what I currently am wearing. Totally did not think they'd fit... I haven't worn this size since before the kids were born. But my current jeans were loose (held up with a belt actually) so I thought it would be worth a try.

Guess what? They FIT. Not even snug. Fit like a glove. Can't believe it. Haven't even been walking for two weeks and I can get into them. Wow! That really brightened my day :)

After returning home, I made up some bread dough to rise, then the kids and J (he stayed home again today) and I went walking. Since Ethan walked most the way, it was more a stroll than an invigorating walk, but just the same, it was good to get out in the air.

I made pork chops with vinegar and sweet peppers for dinner, with a side of roasted sweet potatoes. Pretty good, though Jason said that the recipe wouldn't even make his top 10 of fav pork chop dishes. Ouch. Well, I suppose you can't hit it out of the park with every recipe.

Trying to decide what to do... A huge stack of books await, but I have knitting projects to finish too. I'm knitting two ponchos for sisters that are approximately Ethan and Gwen's age. For the baby one, I used my standard pattern, but couldn't convert it right into a toddler size so I made one up. Its coming out cute, but I'm afraid it might be too long. This poor girl may be running around with what will look like a blanket over her. I need to knit a bit more and then hold it up to Ethan and see.

Ok folks on dial up, get ready for a wait... I have lots of pics in this blog!

Where to start... A few days ago Jason and I started looking into house feasibility again and have pretty much decided to build. Right now we're looking for land. Its exciting and scary to think of going forward with this, but its the only way we'll be able to get a house with what we want as far as bedrooms and baths with the property we want too. Hopefully we'll be able to find some land that is not too far for Jason. Right now he works from like 6 - 3, except on Thursdays when he works 9-6. Adding the extra distance to where we'd want to live could easily extend his working hours by 4 hours a day (2 hours in, two hours out if traffic was bad). That would be really really ugly.

Today Jason didn't go to work and we did a lot of research on house stuff. We also went to the park with the kids... I'll attach the pics below. After coming home the kids went to bed and I took off for some grocery shopping.

On the way home I picked up the mail and found a gift for Ethan and Gwen from Grandma Karen and Grandpa Les!

Ethan just loved the stuff dog... Here are some cute pics of him trying to feed the dog some of his orange.





And here are the playground pictures:

We could not get the kids to look at us. Too many distractions. This cracks me up because they're both looking in the opposite direction!


The kids were crazy about swinging...


Love these!




Ethan was really into going down the slides...


Gwennie playing around



Pics of Gwen on the lifeguard station...


I took this because of her feet. They were just so tiny and perfectly folded.

I feel like crap.

Not physically, but mentally and emotionally.

It just hit me like a ton of bricks early this afternoon. Feeling like a failure, that I disappoint so many people, that my best isn't good enough most the time. Misunderstood. Lonely. Frustrated.

Got a lot done today. The house needed a good cleaning and it got it. I put our living room back into its proper configuration (we changed stuff around for the SuperBowl), swept and mopped the rooms, sorted and put away laundry, did dishes, vacuumed. It looked spotless until the kids got up and now its all messed again, but at least the floors are clean underneath those toys.

We had a boring old tuna casserole for dinner, but it wasn't bad.

Think I'm going to head to bed early. Don't have much enthusiasm to stay up and watch my shows.

*sigh* So much to blog about, where to begin.

Well, Saturday we woke up at 2am with our power out. Because that stopped the kids light and music, they were up at 5. Ugh. Our power came back on for about an hour or so, then went out again. It was freezing in the house, we couldn't cooking anything to eat and had no way to entertain ourselves. So, we headed out to Mom's place.

On our drive out there, we ran across a huge tree just about a mile from our house. It was blocking one lane, but we were able to get around it. Further, on the road my Mom lives off of, a whole bunch of trees came down and snapped lines and there were fires. A fireman turned us around and we had to take the long way through Granite Falls. We expected to run into troubles that way because its more heavily wooded, but surprisingly it was mostly clear. There was one tree across the road, but when we got there a policeman had just finished sawing it up and pushing it off the road.

Mom's power was out too, but they had their generator going so we were able to keep warm, cook, and keep the kids entertained comfortably. We headed home at about 1 and our power was on by the time we got home. It flickered a few more times, but never went completely out.

Sunday, we cleaned like the dickens to get ready for our SuperBowl party. I simmered German brats in 2 cans of Guinness and 1 bottle of India Ale, along with two onions and some garlic. Smelled divine. After they were about halfway cooked I pulled them off the heat and let them cool in the liquid until serving time, when I'd throw them on the grill.

Everyone showed up around 3 and we ate at about 5. The game was ok. Bad calls, but the Hawks weren't playing that great either. Just made everyone depressed. Dinner was good though :)

This morning the kids slept rather late (7) and we had a nummy breakfast of leftover brats, toast and strawberry/banana/orange/lime/yogurt smoothies. Ethan was NUTS about it :)

The house is messy, but all that looks good is snuggling up on the couch with my coffee and watching the rest of "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" (so far its been excellent!). Its the documentary behind that movie, "End of the Spear".

Today I WILL go walking. Need to get back into that, especially now that our weather will be good for a bit. I haven't gained any weight, but I've stopped losing. I'm still just at the cusp of dropping a size. My current pants are too big around the waist, but the next size down is just a bit too snug. A few more pounds and I'll be golden.

Ok, off to indulge myself with the rest of this movie, then try and get some cleaning done.

I'm on a downswing... I had about 2 weeks of lots of energy, I was getting stuff done, but yesterday I wasn't feeling it and today I REALLY have been lazy. House wasn't cleaned, I put off showering forever just because I felt like it was too much work and all I've done is read and knit.

Oh, Angela... Tell Jamie that her poncho has been delayed because her Aunt is crazy! I knitted it all up and washed it and oh, its cute. However, right before I was going to mail it off I looked at it again and realized that I had knitted it much too small! Doh! I really can't believe I did that and didn't catch myself. Sigh. So, I will restart, and hopefully she'll have it soon. I won't bail on this like I did with the baby blanket, promise ;)

Well, I can think of nothing interesting to say, so I'll close this up.

Wait, here are a few bath pics we took the other day that are pretty cute.

My pretty pretty princess-



Ethan upset because I told him that water has to stay in the tub. Check out the drama!


I love this. It's such a "Why is SHE so happy" look from Ethan

Do you see what I see?




















A teeny weeny pigtail!

I make horrible brownies. Every couple months I try again, and they always come out strange. Edible, but off in some way. This batch tasted fine, but they are super crumbly and rather dry. How they can be dry with 4 eggs and a stick of butter in a 8x8 pan, I do not know.

Today I got a delivery of a really cool new sling. Instead of the pouch design of my other one, this one uses rings and is very adjustable to every size and position. Its much easier to nurse in. I still love my pouch for some things, but this ring sling... I can tell I'm gonna like it. Maybe I can get Mom to take pics of me using it tomorrow.

The weather has been wild the last few days. I thought for sure last night that our power would go out. When I was up at 1:30am this morning, I saw that the houses on the other side of the easement had lost power and this morning some of our clocks were reset, so we must have had a brief outage at some point.

During a break in the rain, I wanted to walk with Ethan and Gwennie to get the mail. I was going to let Ethan walk, but he just wouldn't! He kept wanting to get in the car. He also seemed afraid of the wind. When a big gust would come, he'd duck and run into the garage or my legs.

The kids have been playing together more and more lately. They'll disappear into the front room and we'll hear them giggling, talking and having all sorts of fun. The first signs of rivalry are starting to pop up now and then. Gwen no longer is ok with Ethan just taking things from her. She actually complains, and sometimes pursues him!

This morning her and I had a little face off over the outlet in our room. They don't have covers as the kids are never in there unattended. Well this morning Gwen and I were on the floor and she wanted to play with that outlet. I said no, and moved her away. She immediately crawled back and reached for the outlet. I once again said no, tapped my finger on her hand and moved her away. We did this two more times. The 5th time she crawled up there I simply said, "no touch Gwennie" and she stopped, looked at me, and started kicking her feet and flailing her arms in what can only be described as a temper tantrum. But she didn't touch the outlet and once her moment was done, I had to grab her up and give her lots of hugs and kisses for learning :)

Oh, its kinda neat. Gwen has seemingly gone off the pacifier all by herself. She's gone two days now without needing one! I'm totally ok with it, as it will save the eventual trauma of removal when she's older.