Tumbling Monkeys

Our Brianna loves to play games. She could play board games, card games, matching games, computer games and puzzles for hours. This year for Christmas she got a great game from her Nina called Tumbling Monkeys. It's for ages 5 and up but Bri loves it! It kind of reminds me of the game Kerplunk with the marbles and the sticks, do you remember that one?!?! We used to love it and the premise of Tumbling Monkeys is the same. It has a palm tree that you fill with brightly colored sticks and then you drop these plastic monkeys in it. The monkeys hang from the sticks and then you roll a dice and pull a stick according to the color you rolled. The goal is to end up with the least amount of monkeys, but not according to Brianna. She is convinced that the winner is the one with the most monkeys! She is so funny because if she pulls a stick and the monkeys don't fall she says "Oh, I got stuck!!!" She has so much fun and it is fun to play with her now that she's learning how to take turns. It's also helping her with her colors since she has to pull the stick that matches the color she rolls. Games are such a great way to teach kids how to play fair and to have some quality time together. So if you have preschoolers go out and get this game, I bet they'll love it as much as Bri does! And if you don't have preschoolers yet buy it anyway to have on hand. It really is a fun game and great for mommy time or family time!

Spring (?) Break

Today officially begins my week of spring break! I have needed this break really bad! Then we wake up this morning to snow. As I write this we are under a blizzard warning, expecting a possible 15 inches by Sunday morning!!! I can't believe this! First of all, I can't remember a blizzard in Cincinnati in my lifetime. It's kind of cool but come on- it's March for pete's sake! I'm supposed to be enjoying sunshine and birds, and instead I'm watching my daughter build snowmen!!! Does anyone else think this is a bit bizare????

Well, if it has to be snowing, and right now that's the only option, we might as well make the best of it right! Steven got off work early and after stopping at the grocery he came home and took Bri out to play. She has been so excited all day and couldn't get outside fast enough. They spent a little over an hour building a snow man around a big boulder that sits outside our building. It turned out really good.

If Bri looks exhausted in this photo she was! She had been playing hard with daddy and it started showing on her little red face! This is how she looked before they went out to play:

Jonah was taking a nap while they were outside so I decided to use the quiet time to scrapbook. I haven't scrapbooked anything in quite a while so I was excited. The snow gave me the inspiration to scrap last year's sled riding pictures of Bri. (See, I said it had been a while!!!) I was so excited with how they turned out I thought I'd share!

Sometimes waiting for the right inspiration pays off! I hope to get quite a few layouts done while we are snowed in this weekend!

Pray please for mom. She is stuck in Florida right now. She went down for a conference and it looks like right now she's stranded. I told her to make the most of it, after all she is in Florida, but she's really bummed out and worried about when she'll get home. So just keep her in your prayers!

Well, that's all for today! Be safe wherever you are!

Walk, Walk, Walk my Baby!

He's walking! My baby boy has finally gotten the hang of it! We've been trying to get him to walk forever but he was the most stubborn walker I've ever seen in my life. We'd hold his hands and try to get him to walk with us and he would hold his feet up in the air! He didn't want to walk! He had it all figured out, "If I start walking they won't carry me around every where so why would I want to do that?!?!" Chris is convinced that he walked all around the house at night while the rest of us were sleeping and now I'm convinced he was probably right! One day Jonah just started walking, and then he wouldn't stop! Two weeks later he is almost running- I'm serious it is sooo funny!!!! And he is getting himself up from a sitting position to a standing position in the middle of the floor without something to hold on to! Of course he still has the drunken baby waddle but he's officially a walker! Life as I know it will never be the same! There is nothing that is off limits any more!!!! But I'm happy. It's so exciting to see your baby reach different milestones and this means he is so much more independent, which is both good and bad. But it means he's growing up and the best is yet to come! Keep on walkin' little man!

You might be wondering how Brianna feels about all of this? She thinks it's hilarious! She really does! She stands behind him and says "Hehehehe... Momma look! Jonah's walkin!!!! He's so funny!!!" She's hilarious!

American Idol- David Archuleta- Imagine (High Quality)

This was the most amazing performance of American Idol this year and probably of every other year past! This kid is truly amazing, especially for his age. If you didn't see this on Tuesday night take a few minutes and see it now. You won't be disappointed!

News from the housing market

Well, we officially got the house on the market! And here's a big surprise- apparently the housing market sucks right now! Did you know that? I had no idea! (Note: must be read with much sarcasm!!!) Currently there are 10 other condos in our complex that are up for sale and all of them around the same price point! That doesn't feel like great news to me. But at the same time we really feel like this is the right move for us right now so I'm confident it will happen, I just think it's going to take longer than we want it to!

The other thing that stinks is now my house must be spotless all of the time! We never know when they will call saying that someone wants to walk through so no more big messes. This is kind of a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it is forcing me to get out of my clutter habits and hopefully by the time we get into the new house I'll be cured of my clutter bug. But it's also a curse because, well, we have a one year old and a three year old. Enough said. So just pray for us...that we'll be able to sell and I won't lose my mind before all is said and done!!!!

And as I promised when I posted those hideous pictures of all of the closets in the house (which by the way my husband almost killed me about!!!!!) that I would post the after results! Well, here they are, at least the pics of the master closet. Let's just hope we can keep it like this! Because I think I'm in love with this being organized thing!!!! (Did I say that out loud!?!?!)

If Tomorrow Never Comes

Yesterday morning Steven and I were shocked to get the news that our friend Barb Terry had died. We had both worked with Barb at different times at USBank and we both considered her a friend. Her death was very sudden and very disturbing to both of us. She was 39 years old, a single mother of two (the youngest being only 8 months old) and she died from a blood clot that had developed in her knee, went undetected and ended up in her heart. They're thinking that the blood clot was a development of her pregnancy with Joseph, and 8 months later it ended up killing her.

When Steven called me yesterday morning to tell me the news I just started shaking. It didn't seem possible, it seemed like I had just seen her the other day. I immediately started thinking about her kids. Kaitlyn is 12 and is a total momma's girl and Joseph is so little and still so dependent on her. My mind keep racing over what would happen to them now that their mother was gone! Then I started to think what if it was me? What if it was my kids that were left behind- yes they have their dad, but what if he was gone too? All of these thoughts are very depressing but something like this really makes you confront your own mortality, and it's not a pretty picture.

We realized we don't have a will, we don't have nearly enough life insurance, we are not prepared for the inevitable end that has to come to all of us at some point but is still very elusive. So we will begin now to get our affairs in order starting with a will and a living will, funeral plans and getting more insurance. That way we know that our kids will be taken care of, and it will be done according to our wishes, and not decided by the courts after we are gone.

The other thing Barb's death did was to put things in perspective. I, like others, can get very wrapped up in petty and unimportant things. I don't want to do that. If tomorrow never comes I want my kids to remember me playing with them, not yelling at them, hugging them, not spanking them. I want my husband to remember the gentle side of me, not the nagging side that tends to come out when I'm frustrated with him. I want my friends and family to know that I love them and to not have to wonder when I'm gone. Yes all of this takes more work and we can't always be perfect, but I want my family's and friends memories to be good and happy.

Thanks Barb for waking us up! Thank you for your friendship. You were a great friend. You loved everybody and made people feel good about themselves. I just have to say- Barb, you rock!!!! We love you!

View from the top of a hill

This weekend Steven and I attended the annual ski trip with a group of our friends. They started this about 12 or 15 years ago because several of them have birthdays in the month of February. So every President's Day weekend we go up to Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceberg, IN for the Saturday midnight ski. We ski from 9:00pm until 1:00am and just have a blast! Who would've thought that when I started dating my husband nine years ago that he would turn me into a skier, but he has and now it's my favorite thing about winter. Granted we are talking about skiing down the side of hills in Indiana (albeit pretty big hills!) but you've got to start somewhere right?!?!? I hope to one day ski on a real mountain, maybe in Utah or Colorado or anywhere that's not Indiana. But for right now I am perfectly content with navigating Far Side (our favorite trail), Backstage, Showtime, and Clyde's Superslide. But even after 8 years I've yet to try out Center Stage, which is this hill right in the middle of all of the trails and is a straight drop. Well, it has some slope to it obviously but not quite enough for my taste. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to try it....then again, maybe not!

This year we took Steven's little sister Michelle and her friend Sarah with us. They had never been skiing before. It was fun to teach them how to ski back and forth to keep from getting too fast and to point their skis in if they want to slow down, etc. The best though was teaching them how to get off of the ski lift and then falling myself at the top of our favorite slope trying to get off the ski lift! But in my defense I hadn't fallen all night long and I got hung up in Sarah's skis. I don't have an excuse for wiping out on the same slope half way down (I said it was because I was going too fast! In truth, I just lost my balance!!!)

But it was really fun and I'm looking forward to doing it next February, if I don't get to a real hill instead!