Monday, January 5, 2009

Ice Baby

You know it's cold in your house and outside when you find ice on the inside of your windows and not just a trace but quite bit. I decided that the Christmas lights in the girls bedrooms needed to come down today because I really wanted to put the last box of Christmas stuff finally away. I pulled up their blinds and started pulling off the suction cups holding the lights when I noticed that at the bottoms of the windows near the track the window had a nice quarter inch of ice all the way along and in the corners there was a bit more. Is it time for new windows? Probably. Will we get them? No, because I plan on moving after this winter. But poor little M whose bed is below the window with the most ice on it. I'd move the bed but there is no place else to put the tiny toddler bed so we'll just make sure that she is covered up at night before we go to bed. That is an easier thing to say than to do. M has little to no fat on her body. Last night when I went to tuck her in before heading to bed she had taken off her pajamas and was huddled in a ball. I put her heavy fleece blanket on top of her and she relaxed a bit. I knew the temperature was going to drop last night with the incoming storm so I put her jammies back on while she was sleeping--not an easy task as she kept wanting to suck her thumb but I needed her arm to put inside the sleeve. It was finally accomplished and a blanket tucked in around her. This morning she was still dressed so that is a good thing; however, if she chooses to get undressed in the middle of the night except for her underwear like she did last night, I can't do much about it. I'm hoping this getting undressed thing is just a stage.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Happy 2009!

Ever since we've had kids we've decided to celebrate New Years early. Early is usually around 8 P.M. so somewhere in the world someone is bringing in the new year with us but usually it's not our neighbors. We light sparklers at 6:00 and then come in to play some games, eat some treats and then do our countdown at 10 seconds to 8. At which time we toot our horns, pop those little confetti things and shout at the top of our lungs, "Happy New Year!" Then it is time to clean up the streamers, finish getting the kids ready for bed and then finally put them to bed. We figure there is no sense in having the kids stay up late since they don't sleep in and then have them be grumpy all the next day because of lack of sleep. It works out really well since they watch fun movies during the day and at night we have our party with lots of fun treats that they have picked out.

This year, E, asked me if she could stay up till midnight. I told her no and that we celebrate early so that the next day we can all be happy people. Besides we were going to go sledding the next morning after we got up and had breakfast. That seemed to help. And on New Year's Day we did go sledding bright and early and we were the only ones at the hill so they all had plenty of time to sled on the sleds or on their stomachs and do the penguin slide. Even H got a few rides and enjoyed crawling on the icy snow. He lost his boots a few times but what do you expect from someone who still crawls everywhere.

Our favorite game this year was the Honey Bee Hop--squeals of giggles are heard as the girls try to jump over the bee and it gets them all tired from jumping and laughing. Here's to a great 2009!