The Sweet, Sweet Sound of a Flushing Toilet

A wonderful "first" occurred in our home today. I was making lunch for the boys when I heard the toilet flush. Normally this is not one of my favorite sounds, but today, it was accompanied by Micah emerging from the bathroom and informing me that he just went potty all by himself. With no help. At all. He did it all on his own. O, Happy Day!!

Now, I'm choosing not to dwell on the fact that he also tried to go unassisted TWICE during his naptime, when he was supposed to be sleeping. Apparently I made such a big deal of it the first time that he wanted to impress me again. I'll excuse the fact that he didn't take a nap at all today because of his 2 potty breaks. Nope, we'll just focus on the positive. Yea, Micah!

Umm, does this mean I should start scheduling a mid-life crisis, too?

I often listen to 93.3, KIOA, the "oldies" station. Ahh, I love all that wonderful music that came before my time.

Until. Today.

I was dumbfounded to hear "Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen. On the OLDIES station. OK, I can clearly remember when this song came out. How am I possibly old enough that music from my childhood is ON THE OLDIES STATION?

I'm going to go put on my Mom Jeans and try to catch a rerun of the Golden Girls now.

My less-than-two-year-old

Here's a sampling of my 21 month old's mad vocabulary skillz. That's right, I spelled it with a Z.

"I want my toothbrush."

"Hi, Daddy. I eating mac and cheese."

"I play with Alphie Robot."

"Good night, Mommy. I love you."

His pronunciation is not great, but his ability to string words together far exceeds his older brother's (Micah, at age two, was just starting to say things like "hi nana" or "purple train").

Watch out, Micah. Eli is on track to talk even more than you do!

Micah Says. . .

"I licked the car. Three times."

Before and After

I'm not ready to post too many pictures yet, but here is a sample of some of the changes we've made to Yellow House.

Here's the living room when the previous owner lived here.

Here's the living room now.

We still need to work on filling up the walls and adding some lighting, but we think the room feels a lot bigger already. And we love the paint color!

It's been a while. . .

. . . since I've posted pictures. If these look particularly awesome, you can thank my dear husband for buying me that new camera for Christmas!!

These are from about 2 weeks ago, right after Christmas. This was Eli's first-ever snow playing experience. He loved it, despite barely being able to move due to his really tight snow pants. I'm surprised he could walk, given that the crotch in the snowpants was only slightly higher than his knees. Here are our little (snow) angels!

Micah also got his first taste of snow. He's already an addict. I've caught him eating snow off his pants and his carseat in the last week.

"It looks like Duke!"

We painted this weekend (a big thanks to the Mullers and my parents for taking the boys!). When the boys got back today, Micah walked in to our beautiful new looking warm camel-colored living room, and said, "It looks like Duke!"

For those not WELL versed in Thomas trains (ie everyone reading this besides Jill and Tara), Duke one of the Thomas trains, who happens to be a brownish-orange color. . . which is actually a pretty close representation of our paint color! Leave it to Micah to tie our new wall color back to his beloved trains.

My Dad

One of my Dad's "trademarks" is that he always carries a handkerchief in his pocket. He's taken some flak for this throughout the years, though personally I've always appreciated this about him.

Here's another great use for his handkerchief, at our Christmastime.

My New Year's Resolution

After much thoughtful deliberation, reflection, and soul searching, my resolution is to go the entire year of 2011 without:

1 - joining Facebook

2 - sending a text

3 - truly understanding what "smart phone" means