Blast off

For Parker's Birthday he got a rocket. Valerie helped him assemble it.
Yoda helped too.

Mimi posed for a picture.

We launched the rocket when Sonya was in town.

Some video.



Yoda summing up the experience.

Old Floor/New Floor

Here's the old floor that covered the kitchen, entry hall (pictured above), eating area (pictured below), laundry room, and the 1/2 bathroom.  In total 444 square feet in our house. 

And here's the new floor.  Very similar, brownish, faux tile, vinyl flooring.  It took me weeks to scrape off the old stuff and it took the installers 8+ hours to put in the new stuff.  

Here's a close up.  Also this picture shows Yoda crushing Cheerios with a Han Solo action figure.

SOOO glad this part is over with.  Just a few more touch ups before we're done with the kitchen!

Pop Rocks

For Valentine's Day the kiddos got Pop Rocks for Valentines. 

100

We enjoy meeting new friends at Chick-fila play place.  Last time we were there we ran into an 8 year old girl who was very interested in role playing Harry Potter adventures. She had a terrible English accent and recruited Mimi and Parker to play along.

HP Girl to Parker, "You be Harry. I'll be Hermione."
Parker's response,  ...  (he's not very verbal, but he immediately started playing along.)
HP Girl to Mimi, "Who do you want to be?"
Mimi's response, "I don't know but I want to be BAD!"
HP Girl -  "You can be Bellatrix Lestrange."
Mimi - "Great" and begins to chase Harry and Hermione.

========================
In other news, this week marked the 100th day of Kindergarten for Mimi.  She brought in 100 things to celebrate.

Tearing it up

We've been saving up since we bought the house to put in new flooring on the first floor.  The old vinyl was old and torn in places.  I'm glad we waited and redid the kitchen first, I like the layout so much better now.  Wouldn't it have been terrible to redo the floors, just to redo them again when we redid the cabinets and counter-tops?  There is value in procrastination!

I'm taking a little break today from ripping out the old stuff, to post these videos.  The first is to show (almost) how much floor we have to replace.

 The second is to show my favorite part of the whole process.  I've been listening to fun music to keep we going, occasionally Mimi joins me and dances.  And here's Mimi dancing to one of her favorite songs, with Yoda trying desperately to get her to come and play with him. 

Eventually Yoda came around and started dancing once David Bowie was on the radio. 

And here's a picture of some of what I've been up to.  You don't always have to pull up vinyl flooring if all you want is new vinyl flooring, but in our case we did.  Since moving the cabinets left a large hole in the vinyl, the only solution was either rip up everything, or put a thin layer of plywood down and then the new vinyl.  And since that would mean our floors would be about a 1/2 inch taller and a bunch more money, I opted for this option.  Wish me luck!

UPDATE:
the bottles are two games.  One makes a tornado in the water and the other is a fountain.  Neither has anything to do with the floor.  Yoda just decided to put them right in the middle of the camera shot before he went down in the basement. 

Yoda's Haircut

I've tried to keep his hair trimmed, but he fights too much.  So it was time for a real cut and we headed to the 'hair-cut-store'.  Mimi decided to wear her shirt that matches Yoda's, so she was in the BEFORE shot (also pictured is Finn McMissile from Cars2). 

I thought he would fight it, but he was much more cooperative for a stranger.  Or course the video helped, but I also tried the exact same video at home and it never worked for me. 

Here the stylist was telling me this is the only sad part of her job, cutting off baby locks.  

AFTER 

She kept some of the length and I love it.  

Here he is on a normal day. He's saying CHEESE. 

And just to keep it fun, here's Parker at 2 years, 2 months, just like Yoda is right now.  I kept his hair trimmed much more, and didn't go to a 'hair-cut-store' until he was like 5 or 6 years old = he didn't fight a hair cut. 

And here's Mimi at the same age too.  I kept her hair trimmed too, only just in the back.  In this photo she's also saying CHEESE! Isn't it crazy how different their hair is? 

Draw Down

Me:"What do you want for your birthday?"
Mimi:"I want 6 more things then slippers.  I want 7 toys from you."
Me:"Well, please write them down, so we don't forget them."
Mimi:"I have to draw them down"
*after a few minutes*
Mimi:"Can you give me some ideas?" 

Here's her list, just in case you wanted to see it.
1-slippers
2-goldfish in a bowl
3-some pig game
4-a rocket
5-a card, this is a "6", she looked at Parker's card with a "9" on it, and flipped it around so she could copy it--very clever.
6-More Littlest Pet Shop animals
7-?, literally a question.  She said she wanted something to surprise her.

January

One, last, Christmas photo to share...

Now that it's really winter, we are curling up with some good books and taking it easy...

Mimi

Mimi:"What are we having for breakfast?
Me:"Bacon and Eggs."
Mimi:"Now that's what I call winter dinner...I mean snack!"
Me:"Breakfast?"
Mimi:"Yeah, breakfast!"
__________

Greg had just finished with the fireplace and had a bit of soot on his hands as he went to floss Mimi's teeth, she was surprised:"Why are your hands burned!?"
He washed them. 
__________

We were distracted with something while Mimi played the piano very sweetly (she doesn't actually know any songs besides the first few measures of "Mary had a little lamb").  When we asked about the music she told us:"A played two songs. One was called 'Falling Rain'.  The other one was called 'Joker Card'."
Later, I saw this on the piano propped up like music. 

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 :)