7:30 pm

At this time of night there should be 2 people asleep in our house... but there's only one... and it's the wrong one.

Yoda has been yelling "Mommy!" for 25 minutes straight.

Although she is in bed, Mimi is too excited about Dinosaur sheets, Dinosaur stuffed animals, Dinosaur bedtime-stories, and sponge hair curlers to sleep. 

I'll give you a hint, it's not me, or Parker.

Anyway, here's some more of Christmas:

What our lives were full of in 2011

Or...
Some stuff I may or may not have blogged about in 2011

Parker earned his Bobcat and Wolf badge and has now moved onto Bear!  

Dino goodies--Mimi is still as Dinosaur-obsessed as ever.  

Carnivore {Meat-eating} Dinosaur= gummy bears and Swedish fish

Herbivore {Plant-eating}Dinosaur=Carrot and Celery sticks

AND

Sweetivore {Candy-eating}Dinosaur= CANDY

(another idea from the internet)

Bread

I don't bake as much as I should, but when I do, they can't wait for it!   

Drilling holes in the house.  Kind-a freaky.  But very helpful to make our dryer work better. 

Getting Yoda off the bottle.  

Lots of gardening.  ahh... I almost can't wait :)

Studying

Greg studied the entire year, from January until November.  Solid.  When he wasn't studying for an exam, he was working on a smaller internet class-thingy (something that took about 50 hours to complete, and he did 2 of them in less then 2 months.  That's on top of working and being a full-time dad). He passed both of those--wahoo!!! 

Goodbye Soccer. 

No one was having fun, and that is supposed to be the point. So we have quit for now.  The only thing I'll miss is how crazy cute Mimi was in her little shin guards and cleats.  

So many fevers I lost count

Hiring someone to do elective surgery on the house. 

 I got this sweet bike trailer so Yoda could join us. 

Growing grapes=snacking on grapes, making grape jelly, and making grapevine wreaths.  

Carving out a craft/sewing area for myself.  It's not perfect, but it's SO nice.  (more pictures on their way.)

All that doesn't even include all the family and friends that we visited or who visited us--that could be a complete other blog post.  

I've given up on resolutions for me.  I'm just working on small, reachable, daily goals for now.  Life is too messy (literally and figuratively) to add in any more guilt.  2011 was interesting--here's to hoping that 2012 is awesome, with no ER visits :) 

Chess Club

Often Mimi plays with the chess set and calls it "Chess Family".  When she puts them in the box that holds all the pieces, she calls that the minivan.  She's super cute. 

I talked Greg into being the Chess Club leader at Parker's and Mimi's school.  With this new volunteer position, Greg has stewardship over dozens of chess sets. 

The other day the kiddos helped sort out all the pieces and sets.  It was like a Chess Family Reunion. 

What a weekend

The weekend started with a blast.


And stayed on track.






Sometimes we were puzzled.


But, we got what we always wanted.



More birthday and Christmas pictures to come.

Yoda's Birthday

2 Years

Yoda turned 2 years old!  

This is often where he sits playing with his favorite things: trucks, tow trucks, race cars, sippy-cup and his bunny. 

Tomato Cage Tree

I saw this idea on the web and since I had just taken down the garden, I decided to put off finding a place for the tomato cages for a few more weeks.  A few ribbons and lights.  It probably won't be our only tree and it will probably go outside, but for now, it's just a funny tree in our living room.

More of the office

There are a few more changes we have made to the room formally-known-as-the-dining-room.

It's funny how things turn out, here's how things have gone so far:
I think of an idea,
I wait 3 years to mention this idea to Greg,
Greg says it's a great idea,
I finally get around to doing that idea. 

So here's what we've done:

We put in the great shelving from the Container store.  I love it, I can keep stuff out of the hands of little ones, get a little more organized, and keep a bit more of my sanity.  Plus there's lots of desk space for the kiddos and their homework.  Easy access to recycling bins, crayons, etc. 

Next, I spent a few days rewiring the room so that the cable and the phone jack would be on this wall instead of the other wall.  That's right I said I rewired the room!  Impressed?  I did get instructions on how to do this from my dad over the phone, thanks again Dad! 

Something I didn't see happening was that this room has become a second TV rooms of sorts.  We end up watching movies and stuff on the internet and so the computer room needed more comfortable seating.  Greg took a day off and we headed to Ikea.  We came home with a couch!  Here the kiddos are comfortably sitting in the van while the couch is in front of them covered by the Star Wars quilt.

And here we are enjoying a cozy seat and watching a show.

 As I sat watching a show once, I realized how close we are to finishing this room.  One easy fix was the curtains.  I'm not a fan.  Since we end up spending time in here at night, I feel like we are on display for anyone outside this window.  Something had to be done...

I finally decided on a window treatment.  This was not an easy decision for me.  I feel like anything I buy will end up being a toy for the children in the house, so anything with a string was out.  I have a feeling that these won't last forever, but they work for now.  They let in a bunch of light, while blocking out anything we may be doing in the office (say staying up late watching old episodes of 30 Rock).