TGIF

We have a fun weekend planned for ourselves and I am glad that it is finally Friday. The week has been a long one because Andrew's work has required him to work some odd hours for a few tests they were running and it has thrown off our week and our sense of time badly. Tonight we have a babysitter and we are going out for our anniversary (which is actually Sunday) - 7 years already! I am looking forward to the date though we don't know what we are doing yet - the product of being so contented with each other as to not needing to really embellish a lot of planning on anniversaries as we used to.

Saturday is a company party for B&W and so the kids are looking forward to the rides and amusement at a local water park where it will be held. And then of course Sunday is our anniversary so our weekend is booked and I am looking forward to it. Toodleloo!

Thankful Thursday

After last weeks thankful rant - I thought it would be good to keep this one short. Today's Thankful Thursday is dedicated to the fruits of my labors... nope not talking about my kids this time - but my garden.I am thankful that finally after a few weeks of fickle Ohio weather - I have had some real success with my cucumber plants. In the course of one week I went from having a few 1 inch green poopers to having harvested FIVE 7-8 inch beauties. I am also thankful that my tomatoes have really been fruitful as well. Though I must say in the past week or so a deadly disease has hit my large tomato plants making them die quickly- RIP. My cherry tomato plants have thrived and are producing like bunnies in the springtime. This adds much to the delight of my tomato eating offspring. I must also add that although I am thankful for the four pepper plants I have - I am decided against doing them again - they produce to little - to slowly for my patience.

Dancing with Dad

This morning Andrew put on some music and I came into the living room to see that he was on his knees dancing with Corilynn. She had a smile that was unmistakably that of a little girl so enamored by her Dad and happy to be dancing. When she was done, Lyman wanted his turn. I told him that I would happily dance with him since boys danced with girls. But he gave me this totally shy look that was kind of cute. He told me he wanted to dance with Dad.

So Dad preceded to show Lyman how the boy holds the girl's hand and her waist as they dance and had Lyman try to lead him in a dance. Then after the tutorial Andrew tried to get Lyman to then join Corilynn and dance with her now that he had learned. The same shy and worried look came on his face and we both chuckled to ourselves. Andrew asked Lyman if he was nervous to dance with a girl and Lyman confirmed.

It was the cutest thing to see both our kids fulfilling their gender rolls so completely at such a young age. Corilynn loved dancing and was the happiest of girls. Lyman was scared of dancing with a girl - nervous really. I suppose I wont see much change in either one of those sentiments in 10 years - with exception to one: Lyman might still be nervous to dance with a girl but at least he probably will want to.

Thankful Thursday

For today's edition I thought I would put in my Top 10 things I am thankful for today. There is no real order of importance here.

10. I am thankful for my son's imagination. He is so creative and funny when he thinks of things to make believe. Recently he has been obsessed with Indiana Jones ever since we saw a Indiana Jones skit at Disney World. Andrew rented a few of the movies to let him watch too and for a while now I have had my little guy walking around adorned by a belt to hold his pocket knife (plastic toy butter knife), his gun (a flash light toy he has that has a pivot at one point so it resembles a gun in his mind) and of course another belt - looped once on its self and tucked inside his other belt for his whip. He turns his yellow fire fighter's hat backwards to get the wide brim part to be in the front - completing his look with a hat. I am thankful for his fun personality and that he makes me laugh every time he dresses up like that and makes me call him Indian Jones instead of Lyman.

9. I am thankful for the rain we have had recently. Usually or at least it has been our short experience that in Ohio it rains usually at least 2 times a week. Recently over the past 3 or so weeks we have had hardly any rain - resulting in maybe one or two times during that whole time. As a result the grass has started to brown in spots and it made me sad since one thing that I do love about living in Ohio is how green it is. Over the past couple of days we have had a series of good rain storms and the grass has reacted quickly towards recovery making me grateful.

8. I am thankful that Andrew puts up with my crazy hormone induced moods and dreams. It seems every couple of weeks I have some kind of irrational obsession or emotional dilemma that he patiently puts up with. Always telling me it will be okay, or comforting however necessary. Always submitting to the house work I am obsessed over doing but cant do myself (bushes). And never ever making me feel silly for feeling one way or another. Most recently I had a horrible dream that he died and I was left alone to work out funeral arrangements, the children's upbringing, decisions about his belongings and if or when to do something with them. All totally mortifying things and when I woke up that morning to an empty bed (Andrew had already left for work) I was even more worried about it. When I talked to him about it he simply reassured me everything would be fine and even promised me not to die. He could have laughed at my silly, wild and dramatic dreams and the stirred up emotions they cause afterwards - but he didn't.

7. I am thankful for Corilynn's "baby" voice that she uses whenever she describes anything small (human or inhuman), baby like or cute. She gets this little high pitched little voice and puckers her lips while using her hands to describe its miniature nature and talks sweetly about it. She frequently talks about the baby in Mommy's tummy this way and its just too cute.

6. Speaking of baby, I am thankful this baby has his/her appetite in line with how Id like to see things go this pregnancy with my body. I am thankful that instead of helping me pack on the pounds like the other two pregnancies did - having me gain 10 pounds by this halfway point in the pregnancy - the baby has chosen to take some strength from my already abundant "food storage" found in my bum, thighs and the pizza baby I hold in my tummy. I have only gained 1 pound so far this pregnancy at half way through! I am thankful for this for sure because starting this pregnancy heavier than I have with the other two pregnancies has not been easy when I considered the added weight likely to come. I think part of this low number is the fact that I couldn't keep anything down. Yeah for only 1 pound.

5. I am thankful it is a three day weekend for us. Andrew has tomorrow off as his Friday off for his work schedule and that makes me happy.

4. I am thankful that my sister, Nancy, who is just starting out as a foster parent has gotten her first set of foster children. Sisters, ages 5 and 3 and I am grateful at the wonderful and tender feelings she already has for these little girls and the blessing it will be in every one's life to have these additions to their house.

3. I am thankful for my discovery of Motherhood Maternity's belly band. What a lovely invention! Its just an elasticy strip of fabric in a tube that is about 15 inches long that I can put over my unzipped jeans, or under a shirt that isn't really maternity but doesn't quite cover my belly anymore and it makes it look like I am wearing a cute little white undershirt underneath - making my open fly disappear. And can I say comfortable! Check it out - these are awesome.

2. I am thankful for the green peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and crispy lettuce in my fridge calling for me to make a chompalicious salad for tonight. I am also thankful for the delicious ranch dressing mix that I have - and how wonderfully it has chosen to take over my previous craving for cookies with dreams of white herb speckled goodness delicately dancing around said veggies.

1. I am thankful that over the past almost 5 years of being a Mom that I have learned to cope with the sound of a two year old's screaming tantrum when nothing at all is wrong. I am thankful that I have become able to ignore said tantrum when all other attempts to comfort, reason and understand the erratic emotions of that two year old fail. Can you guess what is going on at my feet currently?

At What Point Do You Consider Narcolepsy?

Outdoor Exploration

Early one weekend morning (and I mean EARLY - 3/4 am) I was awake unable to get to sleep because I was having one of those pregnancy moments where you obsess over the dumbest things that are not urgent but yet keep you from getting to sleep. One time in my last pregnancy I was up for 5 hours one night planning, preparing to do lists and obsessing over my parents 50th anniversary party. Here is the kicker - I knew this fact the whole time too - my parents 50th anniversary at the time was still 7 YEARS AWAY! You get the point now then. Well back to this most recent pregnancy obsession - I laid awake obsessing over how over grown our bushes were and how we were going to have to trim them. We didn't have a hedge trimmer or some garden clippers so of course obsessing over getting the right tools was also part of it. Well when I could reasonably make the phone call I called a neighbor and borrowed their hedge clippers to do the job. Here are the before and after pictures. Looking at the pictures the situation looks less ridiculous of a topic for obsession - they really needed it.

It was stupid the real, almost tangible feeling of relief I felt when the job was done. It was really stupid but my bushes look great now.

Lyman and Corilynn love to go exploring in our very own forest in the back yard. Of course they are not allowed to go back there without Dad or Mom because they could fall and get hurt and we cant see into the forest at all. Here they stand near some big bones (probably cow bones given to a neighbor dog and left out there). The kids believe they found dinosaur bones and are really proud of their discovery.

Lyman with his typical "cool" pose of folding his arms over his chest standing on a really big fallen tree.

Corilynn loves to go into the forest with the Dad because he carries her a lot of the time. Thankfully we haven't found any poison oak or ivy yet back there so that's another perk to our house that we didn't anticipate but feel lucky for.

Kid Comedy

One liners for the week:

Corilynn:
"Momma, change my diaper because it is soooooo stinky."

Lyman:
"Dad, it hurts my feelings when you don't let me throw a tantrum."

Thankful Thursday

Yippee for Thankful Thursday! Today we have a lot to be thankful for. Today we had our 20 week ultrasound and got to see that we have a healthy, beautiful baby growing in there. Phew.... I was beginning to wonder if it might be an alien. We decided not to find out the gender and because of that I was feeling like this ultrasound might end up being sort of anti-climatic since in all of the other times the 20 week ultrasound was exciting because you got to find out what you are having. Instead it was good to see the baby moving and having fun in there and get to see the little limbs and fingers and toes. When it came time for the technician to find out the gender (they want to check things are ok there too) we closed our eyes and it was sort of fun like waiting to open a gift. Only our gift wont be ready being wrapped until December 3rd or thereabouts.

Well maybe I spoke too soon: This picture of the face makes the theory of alien a little more plausible - oh well I am thankful for my alien baby.

I am thankful for a cute little leg with a little tiny foot on the end.
I am thankful for 10 fingers and 10 precious little toes. I am thankful for these two little feet.

I am thankful for a strong little arm that likes to nudge me to remind me how much I love him/her. I am thankful for this little arm bashfully covering its little baby face.

I am thankful for two little eyes, one little nose, and one sweet little baby mouth that all make up such a perfect little baby face.

It has been neat having such a fun thing to report on for Thankful Thursday. I am thankful to have two other perfect reasons to be thankful already in my family. And lastly I am thankful that Andrew could take some personal time off work to come and be there at the ultrasound with me.

Name Game

Andrew and I have a real hard time with picking baby names. Our creative juices run wild when it comes to girl names giving us way to many to choose from that we like and not enough ability in most cases to narrow it down to just one name. On the other hand, with boys names we have the opposite problem - our creative juices are in a drought leaving us with very little we like together and so that list stays very short. Either way we have been having fun going through a name book for ideas recently since we have to come up with one for each gender since we have decided not to find out what we are having this week at the ultrasound.

Last night Andrew was reading off names in the book and the kids realized what was happening and decided to contribute their own suggestions to our name list for the baby. Thankfully between the two of them, we got a suggestion for either gender. Lyman repeated one of the names he heard Dad read off and said,

"Dugan sounds cute" Then Corilynn quickly responded with
"Tingerbell sounds cute"

So there we have it. Why didn't we think to have our kids name the next kid ?-- oh wait because we would have kids named after Disney princesses and Star Wars characters....darn. We are open for suggestions if any of you have name suggestions. But of course don't give us your favorites unless you wouldn't mind us using them before you get a chance to. And to make it fun - $5 to you if we choose your name suggestion. I know that raises the stakes pretty high but have fun anyway.

Adventure with Dad

Andrew had Friday off so he planned to get up early in the morning to go with Lyman on an adventure in Paris. They took off before the girls woke up and went to the lake to fish and spend time together. They found a little island in the middle of the lake and went exploring on it. Lyman found a lot of trash on the island and thought it didn't look nice and he decided they should clean up the trash so that the animals had a nice place to live. Together Daddy and Lyman cleaned the island and explored the wildlife together.

While on the boat around the lake they found a large bird of prey near its nest and got to take a few good shots of it with the camera.

Soon we will post picture of Corilynn's Daddy Daughter Date when they get to go on it next weekend. It was rainy on Saturday so he didn't get to take her out to do something special with her.

Thankful Thursday

Food food food food food! Why is it that for Thankful Thursday today all I can think about is the yummy food I've had recently or food I am excited to eat in the future? Hmmm.... the answer for the day - cause my life as a pregnant woman orbits around food. It is my earth and I am its moon - constantly rotating and adjusting myself around it.

Having said that I am thankful for some of the good food I have had lately. I am thankful for the Popsicles I had last night. They were cold, sugary and fun to eat in the steam of my hot bath.

I am thankful for the Chipotle that I got at lunch after a ridiculously long doctors appointment for Lyman's preschool prep physical. I have always been a fan of Chipotle ever since it was invented by some genius and came to my home town of Parker, CO over a decade ago. But today's Chipotle hit the spot in such a way as I have not had in such a long time with any food (probably because of the love/hate relationship I have had with food during this pregnancy - something about throwing up all the time makes you resent food.) I get my chicken burrito from Chipotle with extra sour cream and guacamole so that every little tiny morsel of food in that over sized burrito is covered and seduced by the creamy goodness of either topping. Today the girl who made my burrito knew what she was doing because she spread the toppings out so well that ever bite was a delicious, sloppy, heavenly mess. I felt the urge to groan and moan like Bob in the movie "What about Bob?". I am thankful for that burrito because when you are pregnant and you have a good meal that sits well with you that tasted good and hit the right spot it is quite literally like personally seeing the heavens open up and sing out your name.

I have already posted thanks for food past, present and so here is the future. Today at the grocery store I found a 5 pound young whole chicken mislabeled for a total price of $1.79 instead of showing it as $1.79 per pound. So I am excited to cook my roast chicken that only cost me $1.79. Lemon pepper roast chicken - you are lingering in my dreams and I await you.

On one non-food related gratuity (can I use that word this way?) - I am thankful that Lyman is a healthy little boy who can do all the things he needs to or should be doing and then some for preschool. The doctors were so impressed with his level of development mentally and I was so impressed with how mature he was at the office when they had to do his vision, hearing and urine tests. He threw a fit last time they wanted a urine sample and this time he was all man about it. What a big boy I have. I cant believe he is getting so big that he is getting physicals for school now. Oh and check out the new family pictures I put up on the blog for each of the kids including this one below.

Practicing

The other night we left in the late afternoon to do a few errands with the kids. On the short 15 minute drive to the first stop, Lyman fell asleep. He woke up when we got him out of the car and stayed awake the rest of the evening. But we told him on the way home that maybe we should all (and by "all" we meant only the kids of course) go to bed early that night because "we" were all tired.

Lyman protested saying that he wasn't tired at all. But then I reminded him that he fell asleep in the car on the way to the first errand. He promptly said, "I wasn't sleeping, I was practicing sleeping so that I don't forget how to sleep." We both shot a look at each other in the front of the car with a chuckle under our breath. He is so clever but we are bigger - "we" went to bed early that night.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Today is not only the nation's birthday but the birthday of one of my good friends, Sam!

Happy Birthday Sam! Hope your day is great and your run went well.

Disney Round III

This is the last round of Disney photos to share. Here is one of my favorites of Corilynn. Each of the kids got one souvenir from Disney and Corilynn got a princess dress pajamas. She stood swaying her little dress and admiring herself for quite some time in the mirror after we gave them to her.

Lyman was also quite excited about his souvenir- he got a sword and shield set so that he could be a knight. He was probably (and is still ) the happiest kid in the world. The rest of the evening before bed they two of them played princess and prince/knight running around pretending that their cousin Micah was the villain. It was cute to see Lyman pretend to protect his Princess Corilynn. Corilynn of course knew her part very well - even walking around on the tips of her toes all dainty like.

Of course at Disney world you need to see some of the characters. Corilynn was awestruck with the princesses we saw. Here you can see her totally thrilled to get to take a picture with Belle.

Corilynn was also very thrilled to get to see Sleeping Beauty (below) but it was Lyman who was more excited for this one. It didn't take more than one look at her and you could tell that it was love at first sight with him. He pushed Corilynn out of the way for the picture so he could be the closest to the princess. It was really funny to see him so taken by her beauty. It didn't help his little heart much to have her calling him Brave Prince the whole time. That made his day.

At my request we spent one of our days at Sea World. It was one of the things I really wanted to see because for some reason no matter how many times I could hear about how big the killer whales were or the play fullness of dolphins- both creatures seemed mythical to me and I wanted to see them. We went and saw all the other cool things at the park and Micah and I even got Andrew to ride a few roller coasters. Here is a picture of the kids behind this aquarium glass to take a picture with Andrew.

Sea World had a lot of kid sized rides so the kids were totally thrilled to get to ride on these big "roller coasters" that looked like the big ones they saw for adults at Disney world. And because the kids rides didn't seam to be Sea World's big attraction - they were nearly deserted and there where no lines on most of them and nearly none on the others.

We didn't take many pictures of the cool Whale and Dolphin shows where they do lots of tricks and jumps and flips. This was because I wanted to be watching since this is why I wanted to come to the park and Andrew wanted to enjoy it too without having focus on pictures the whole time. Plus at certain times we needed to put the camera away because the animals would splash the audience a few times. But they were every bit as cool as I had imagined and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I loved seeing those big majestic animals swimming with the people and gracefully jumping from the water. It was really something else. We took more pictures than the ones below but I didn't want to swamp the blog with too many pictures.

One of the reasons we wanted to go to Disney world other than having never been there was because in our nearly 7 years of marriage we hadn't gone on one family vacation that didn't have a motivation to go to some family event (graduation, weddings, holidays, visits to family, etc) and so we wanted to take our first ever Andrew Mackrory Family vacation. It was a great experience and fun to make memories just with our family.

Thankful Thursday

It has been a while since I got to do a Thankful Thursday. With the vacation it made it near impossible to get the time to sit down at a computer to write one. But I am thankful for a lot of things today. I am most thankful that the nausea from the pregnancy seems to be dwindling. Also I am thankful that I can feel the baby move a lot more recently. It is such a magical thing to get to that point in the pregnancy. It sort of makes things more real and also every time I feel him/her move I can feel that I already love this little one. I thought at first that this was a boy but recently I have thought it might be a girl and so now I am double confused. We decided to not find out this time since we have one of each - you know play the game. I think it will be fun and even more so that I feel totally at a loss as to what it could be.

Yumm, I am also thankful for the Thai Chicken Noodles I made last night for dinner. Haven't made it in a while and it was gooood - as I speak I am chowing on the leftovers. Yum yum yum yum yum.

I am also thankful for our Disney vacation- I am adding here Round II of pictures and updates on our vacation. One of the days while we were in Florida we went to the Kennedy Space Museum. They had a lot of fun things there including actual space shuttles to look inside of, a really cool 3D IMAX movie and a space take off simulator. We all rode the simulator, Andrew riding it twice. It was amazing how much force you feel when it "takes off." One of the things we did was take a bus tour out to the launch sites. You could see where their upcoming space shuttle launch was preparing to take off here in a few weeks with the Shuttle already in place. The tour led us to the building where they keep the actual Saturn 5 space rocket and all about the moon landing.

The kids loved running into an "actual" spaceman. This guy was dressed up like on and they were eager to take a picture with him.

This is one of many pictures Andrew took of the Saturn 5 rocket. The thing is so huge- maybe you can tell by the size of the people compared to it but really you just never expect it to be so gigantic.
Here is a distance shot of the launch site with a glimpse of the shuttle prepared for take off.

The kids also loved playing with this spinning globe on a water jet of the constellations. They got totally soaked playing though which was alright since it was blisteringly hot there that day.

The kids also posed near this fake spaceman in the space suit. They thought it was so cool to get to look through the glass to see the outfit.

At one of the Disney Parks another day they found a kids play area with water spouts which was a big hit and both kids took full advantage of cooling off in the water and getting totally soaked.

Stay tuned again.... lots more pictures of the fun coming up in future posts. Right now I have two kids driving me crazy trying to sit on my lap or cry on my shoulder and I should stop here before I loose the work Ive done already by the struggling foot of a toddler on the keyboard.

Disney Vacation Round 1

Our Disney dream vacation couldn't have started as well as it did without the help of Grandma Mackrory's visit. She came and helped with laundry, cleaning the house and packing for the trip. The kids also loved playing soccer outside with her, helping her weed the garden and swinging on the swing. Kudos to Grandma!

First thing we did on our vacation was take the time to visit the ocean on our way down to Disney World. This is a beach in Florida about an hour away from Disney. The kids absolutely loved playing in the waves and the sand and collecting sea shells. It was the first time in my life that I almost wished that I lived near the ocean because it was just too much fun for them. Of course we could only stay for about a half hour and that was plenty if you ask me with regards to the heat and humidity. The kids could have cared less about going to Disney World and probably could have lived on the beach the rest of the week if you asked them at that point.

Corilynn would giggle and laugh every time the wave came up to splash her toes but she didn't really want to let go of my hand just in case.

Lyman totally ignored my pleas to try NOT to get wet because we would still need to sit in the car and drive a while before we got to Disney World. He was in heaven. We then drove to Disney World and just in case you didn't catch it by the name of the place - it is its own WORLD! We didn't anticipate how big the place would be - I mean we got lost inside it trying to find our resort hotel. There are highways inside Disney World, 4 lane highways complete with exits etc. It is soooooo HUGE! After we checked in we dropped our stuff off and went straight to the Magic Kingdom because we figured the kids would love that best. So we drove the 5 miles from our hotel on the Disney World highways to the first park "Magic Kingdom" - then you park and have to take a shuttle from the parking lot to the first stage of the entrance. Then from there you can either take the monorail or the ferry to the actual park entrance. Are you getting a picture at how huge this place is?

The kids loved playing on the carousel and dumbo rides and seeing the Magic Kingdom castle.
They also loved to play in the Dino Land dinosaur exhibition.

My nephew, Micah, came with us to help us out with the kids and here we are rubbing Buddha's belly for good luck during the vacation.
Stay tuned... I have lots more fun to post for the week. Maybe later today or tomorrow. :)