It's never too late

OK, so E was 5 months old a week ago. I'm getting a little behind.
Oh well, here you have it:

He's rolling from front to back, and nearly from back to front but not quite yet. He's tried some rice cereal but it takes so much time to prepare it and feed it to him that I haven't really pushed the issue much. It's not like he needs it, he almost weighs as much as Marisa. Not really but he's gaining on her quickly. He giggles and loves to be tickled, spooked and just plain paid attention to. However, he plays well by himself when there's just no one to play with. He discovered his toes and enjoys playing with them whenever he can. If he can't play with his toes, he's chewing on his fingers.

He's quite the good kid and if we can just get him sleeping longer at night he'll be doing even better. We will be going through sleep boot camp soon. I just gotta work up the courage.

Anyway, some pictures:

And it burns burns burns.... that ring of fire

I'm referring to the hole in my bank account that was caused by $300 that Shane let me have all to myself from our tax rebate check. HA!

It's no secret to anyone who really knows me that I LOVE to spend money, so the fact that I held on to the money for a whole month, is quite the accomplishment. But, boy was it getting hot. There is a reason why Shane and I don't share bank accounts. Although, I would like to think I have enough self control that if we did, I would be more responsible with it. If for no other reason than to stay out of trouble.

Anyway, back to the point. I had this money and although I don't need anything.. we all have wish lists. On my wish list; a digital SLR camera, and a new serger among other things. I already have a pretty nice point and shoot camera and I already have a very old, but still functioning serger. What to do? what to do? I know, I can hear the angel on one shoulder saying, what makes you think you need to spend that money right now anyway? Hang on to it and buy a camera or a serger when the one you have no longer works correctly. But that devil on the other shoulder.... well, he's just so loud and convincing.

So I decided that since my serger works just fine and a new one would do the same thing, only maybe just a little easier to thread and change settings, it would still function quite similarly. And our point and shoot camera has been a source of frustration for me lately. I always want more. Better pictures, more options, faster reaction time, better zoom and the list goes on.

So when on St. Patricks day I got a paypal coupon for anything bought on ebay that day I went a shopping. I found two that were perfect. I chose one, bidding at the last minute to win it! Woo Hoo. Saved myself $40 in the process and now I am in camera heaven! I love this thing and I don't even know more than putting in the automatic setting and pressing the button, but I will learn.

Shane says there's no difference and I've wasted my money, but I've got a whole list of things that I think made it worth it already.

1. FAST!!! I can take one picture right after another, especially when the flash isn't on. There is no down time whatsoever which is great for taking pictures of these wiggly kids.

2. The portrait mode. This is the biggie for me. With my point and shoot, even in the portrait mode, it seems to give everything in the picture importance. ie. the house in the background, the chair they are sitting in, the messy living room.... everything is in focus. Whereas with my new friend, the kids are in focus and everything else is given less importance, the messy living room is softer and doesn't draw attention. Gotta love that. I feel like there is no depth and all the pictures are flat with the p&s

3. The potential. I think I used my p&s to it's maximum potential. I didn't get very far. With my new camera, there is so much to learn and new things to try. The possibilities are endless. I can't wait.

The only thing where my p&s wins is in it's portability. Toss that baby in my purse and we are on our way. The new one is big and goes in it's own bag.

Anyway, here are some comparison pictures for you. I see the difference, do you? BTW, these are some of the best pictures I've gotten from my point and shoot. But i still love the difference.

point and shoot

SLR

point and shoot

SLR

This one is just for fun. I can just read her mind in this one.

And here are some more of my faves so far from my new camera:

I don't wanna grow up

One more month until I'm done saying how many months old this one is. 23 months and counting. Not much new this month, She cried from about 3:30am till 8:00am one morning this week. It seems the more I try to help her in the night the louder she gets, So I just left her crying.

Still kind of at a loss as to what to do for her birthday. She is so shy, or something that any celebrating will probably just send her crying. Something I would like to avoid if possible.

Here are the many faces of M. Except for the pouting ones, which I would rather not remember.

Remember

I have all sorts of revelations at night when I'm supposed to be sleeping. Something about lying in bed or feeding a baby in the pitch black of night makes my brain work overtime or something. This lovely nightly ritual however reeks havoc on my daytime brain function.

Anyway, I've been trying to come up with a gift idea for Marisa's birthday for a while now. We don't need any more toys and she doesn't seem to care for much. She loves books but we have so many already. So needless to say, it's been on my mind for a while now.
Well during some 2 or 4 am feeding it struck me like lightning. THE PERFECT GIFT!!!!! She will love it........ it's a............ (***BEEP!!!!!***) I can't remember!!!! You have no idea how mad this makes me.

All I know is that it isn't a toy. It's somewhere along the lines of something she can wear or is useful (for a two year old) or something like that but I just don't know. I've been walking through the lanes of Walmart in my brain over and over again (since they cover just about any department, not that it would necessarily come from there).

NOTHING!!! I'm so mad! I keep wondering if I have remembered it and it wasn't as perfect as I thought.

Has anyone seen my mind? It's lost. :(

If I had a million dollars

Well...... Yesterday we met up with a bunch of my old roomates from college for dinner. One of these girls married a guy who is the son of someone who has to be one of the wealthiest people in our state. So anyway, they often host our get togethers because they have several very nice places to go play.

This time it was at a cabin up by Sundance Ski Resort. From first glance, the place looked big but not 5 times bigger than our house, which it is (and our house is not small). The place could have been a hotel, and it was very easy to get lost. The chandalier in the livingroom probably cost as much as our house.

But the point of this post is not how huge the place was or how nice everything was, It's actually the fact that we left the place and didn't have that feeling like "if only we had that much money" like I would expect to feel. I actually left feeling happy to have what we do. I was happy for our car that could actually climb the hill to the cabin and fit our family, I was happy that we only have one house to look after because I'm struggling doing that at the moment. I was happy for friends to share dinner with, even if it is only every year and half or so. I was happy that my kids were relatively well behaved, or at least it could have been a lot worse. (Marisa was GLUED to me and cried a good portion of the time but oh well)

And I asked myself if I could have taken one thing from the place, it would not have been the large theater, the pool tables or the paintings (although we could sure use some art around here). It was actually this:


We are SO looking in to getting one of these, How fun!!!! Marisa even liked it until I left her to go get the camera, then it was the end of the world. I had never seen this before last night and I was wishing I was little again. I would have LOVED it.

They had a Wii hooked up and Roman was more than eager to share his skills. He played with the other boys who seemed impressed, he was so proud. He IS very good at MarioKart, which is embarasing because it shows how much he plays. He has all gold medals on all the races and and won almost all of the karts and racers. Oh my. It's a good thing he goes to school in a few months.

Thanks to the A family for hosting a fun night, thanks to friends who stay in touch enough to meet up for dinner now and then. Good times. :)

How do you like me now?

So I finally got around to changing the look of our blog since the last theme was a little fallish, and the top pictures didn't include Ezra. Only took me all day. It's no wonder I only change things about twice a year :)

Anyway, I also added a feature where if you don't check my blog regularly but want to keep up with what we are up to, you can have each new post emailed to you instead. I'm testing it right now, but it should be working (crossing my fingers).

Update 3/6/09: Yep, the email thing works.

One Two Three Four

I can't believe Ezra is four months old already. Yet, (I know I say it all the time) October was FOREVER ago, so I feel like sometimes I expect more from the poor kid. For example, I keep wondering why he doesn't sleep better at night when in all actuality, he's probably doing as good or better than any of our other kids did at four months.

He has taken a lot more interest in his surroundings lately and is getting good at reaching for and grabbing toys.

He LOVES to stand up and gets a big gummy grin and wobbles in excitement when he does.

He still loves his sleep. And, he LOVES it when I let him sleep in our bed, right against, or on top of me. But it's only when I'm desperate for some shut eye that he gets the luxury. He is by far my most cuddly baby and when I hold him he hangs on so tight just like a little monkey.

He definitely has a look of his own. He probably looks more like Marisa than anyone, but I think he got a good helping of Shane's genes. His hair has lightened up a lot though and he might be a blondie for a little while anyway.

Here are his 4 month stats:

25 1/2" long
16 lbs 7 oz (yes, he's a porker)
head is 43 cm

All of these are right on the 75% mark.

And of course some pictures:

Come here you!

I'm gonna eat your face!

Marisa is 22 months old!

She is creeping ever so close to the terrible twos and boy is she trying out for the part. Crying about EVERYTHING! no kidding. I put her in her bed when she does it, but I don't think she cares. I think it's just something I have to ride out. I wonder if ignoring her would be better, so she realizes that it does her no good. With Roman I knew what would set him off and I would try to avoid those things. It worked quite well. But, it's hard to avoid everything. Man is she stubborn! Most of the time she doesn't even know what she wants, but she just wants to be in charge.

I'm wondering how I'm ever going to get her to go along with anything I want her to do because she will not be bribed, prodded, tricked or anything along those lines. It's her way or the highway. ***Sigh***

She is learning more and more words every day and is pretty clear most of the time. Although, for some reason, crackers are called "tree"s ???? Roman is Moe and pacifiers are pass. And, everything is "mine!" LOL

She refused to smile for pictures so here you have it.