Sorry for the long absence; I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I am however, very excited that February, and hopefully the crummy weather that comes with it, will soon be long gone. Let's see...what have I got to report that's at least reasonably interesting?

~ Since Steve started his new job (and actually has time for things other than work), he's been busy with various home improvement projects. He's currently replacing all the doors in our house, which will be nice but, like all our other remodeling projects, is ending up being much more of a hassle than we anticipated. Once we got all the replacement doors in our house, we realized that they are a fraction of a millimeter too big. Steve loves any excuse to buy tools, so he went out and bought a table saw to cut all the doors down to the right size. I can see this being a very long and drawn-out project.

~ I'm still throwing up, which is annoying, and makes it difficult to eat any sort of healthy diet. Once I think of something to eat, then go to the trouble to make it and eat it, if I throw up afterwards I have no motivation to do it all over again. This means I end up eating a lot of root beer floats and other equally nutrient deficient items.

~ I think Noah has the prettiest bluest eyes I've ever seen.


~ I've given up trying to get Noah to nap by himself, and am trying to embrace it instead. I love reading fiction, but had mostly given it up as something for which I have no time. I decided that as long as I have to sit and hold him while he sleeps, I might as well do something I really enjoy. I've been finishing two or three books a week, just by reading them during Noah's naps, and I'm loving it. Right now I'm in the middle of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Good stuff.

~ Emma has two passions lately: playing games on the computer, and trying to sound out words. Steve showed her some kid games on the internet last week and now all she wants to do is play on the computer. When she is not playing computer games (or whining to do so), she is telling me which words start with which letters, and asking me to help her spell the rest of the word. About a million times a day, she will announce, "I know that P starts with potato!" or some such other phrase. She always says it backwards like that, and about half the time is completely incorrect, but that doesn't seem to hurt her confidence at all. "I know that M starts with fish!"

~ I bought a cookie scoop, and I love it. We've been making a lot of cookies because Emma loves to scoop out the dough into perfect little uniform mounds, and also because I love to eat cookies!


~ Earlier this week I was transferring files from the old computer to the new one, and I somehow managed to delete my music folder. It had taken me years of my life to accumulate over 2500 of the best songs ever written, and now they are all gone. I tried to transfer them from my ipod to the computer, but Apple has made that as difficult as possible, and while I managed to get them on the computer, all the song names are unintelligible four letter files, and that does me no good. So, goodbye music library. You will be missed.

Noah is still sick. He seems to be getting worse instead of better so yesterday I took the poor little guy to the doctor. I was assured that he'd be feeling better in a day or two, and I left feeling like we might finally be illness-free by the end of the week. My optimism was short-lived, however, because last night I woke up to Emma crying and discovered she'd thrown up all over the bed. Sigh. Do you ever have those days where you feel like you just want to run away?

Our entire family has been living in a cloud of nasty sickness for the last week. The last two weeks, if you count the chicken pox. We had to cancel every single fun thing we had planned for this week because of it. Emma was feeling a lot better by her birthday, but by then I was so ill I couldn't even get out of bed. All the preparation for the birthday festivities fell to Steve, who happens to be an excellent present-wrapper, but not so good with the cake decorating.We had decided that, after her birthday, Emma was going to stop using binkies for good. The day after her birthday she was super cranky because of it (which made for a LONG day for me because I was feeling deathly ill at the time), but now she seems to be doing great. I am so happy that no one in this family uses a binky anymore, and that I was able to pack them all away. Yay!

Now, Steve is currently in the middle of the sickness and Noah seems to be just beginning it, and we all have bad coughs and runny noses. Want to come over, anyone?

This morning I looked at Noah and I had to take a picture of him, because I remembered that I had a picture of Emma in the exact same spot, wearing the exact same outfit. He is a couple months older than she was, but I think they look so much alike.Yesterday I realized that I never posted pictures of the Christmas presents I made. I still don't have pictures of some, but since there is no crafting going on here right now, I might as well at least share what I have.I made this reversible apron for my mom with a pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's book, Simple Sewing. She loves sprinkles and puts them on every dessert possible, so I embroidered a cupcake on the front and added beads for sprinkles. I also added a smaller cupcake on the bottom with applique using the reverse side fabric.
Poor Emma is pretty sick today. This morning she had a fever of 103, and she won't let me take her temperature anymore, but she still seems pretty hot and hasn't gotten off the couch all day. She had to miss dance class last night for the second week in a row and she was so disappointed. I hope she feels better tomorrow!

Woo! We got all sorts of fun stuff this weekend!

Steve has been talking about getting a Playstation 3 for awhile, and I've been totally against it. We have a PS2, and he doesn't play it very often, but when he does he only plays games that are filled with violence and blood-spewing and I hate it. The thought of spending $400 on something that would only cause arguments pretty much made me ill. Knowing that his purchasing it was inevitable, a few weeks ago I started trying to talk him into getting a Wii instead. I know that there are plenty of family friendly games for Wii that he would be willing to play, and I even started getting excited about it. Plus, I heard somewhere that you can download old NES games and play them on a Wii! Dr. Mario, here I come! Anyway, during a trip to Best Buy on Saturday, we decided to get one. It wasn't quite that easy, though. We had no idea how hard those things are to find! Over the weekend we went to six different places trying to find one, with no luck. A guy at Target, however, told us they might be getting some in this week. I called this morning and was told they had some in stock, so I loaded up the kiddos and drove to Target. When I approached the electronics counter, I noticed that there was a lady ahead of me who happened to be purchasing a Wii. When she was finished with her purchase, I told the guy behind the counter what I wanted and he informed me he'd just sold the last one! The lady smiled and wished me luck, which she told me I'd need because she'd been trying for weeks to find a Wii. The employee told me that all Targets had gotten them in that morning, so I called another Target and was informed that they had some in stock. "But you better hurry," she warned me, "because we only have two left." Hurry, I did, and I got there in time to buy the last one! Yay! But seriously, why are those things so difficult to get? They've been out for over a year!

We actually went to Best Buy on Saturday to get some more memory for our ancient six-year-old computer, but while we were there we ended up buying a whole new computer instead. I'm pretty excited about that as well, although Steve doesn't want to set it up until we get a new desk. I don't want to wait for that, so I'm thinking I might just try to do it myself. I'm no good at that kind of stuff though, so we'll see.

One last fun purchase...I outgrew all my regular pants several weeks ago, and the maternity jeans I wore during my last pregnancy somehow morphed into high-waters. Because I'm way into being comfortable, and also to avoid Steve's jokes about my expecting a lot of rain, I've been living in yoga pants. I can only wear pants that come in Short sizes, and the only place that carries those locally is Gap Maternity. Yesterday Steve (claiming to be embarrassed to be seen with me anymore in any of my current pants) offered to drive us all the way up north to the only Gap Maternity in Kansas City, and watch the children while I tried on pants! Yay! I was happy to be able to leave the house today and not look like I was still wearing my pajamas.

I apologize to anyone who might be coming here looking for any sewing or knitting stuff. I have not been feeling very crafty lately, but tomorrow I will finally have something to share.

Yesterday morning all I could think about was eating some deviled eggs. I love deviled eggs, but don't usually make them because peeling all those eggs is too much trouble. Yesterday, however, nothing was going to stand in my way. I made a whole carton of them, thinking that it would be so convenient to just walk by and grab one (or five) out of the fridge during the day for snacks. And it was convenient, and wonderful, and delicious, until I started to get sick. Although eating deviled eggs is a pleasant experience, throwing them up is absolutely NOT, and now I fear I will never be able to eat deviled eggs again. The good news is that I am now in the second trimester, so the sickness should be ending soon. I hope, I hope.
Yesterday was the first day of implementing the new sleeping plan that is supposed to result in Noah's sleeping on his own. I got a Pack N Play from a friend and set it up in our bedroom. I watched carefully for his "window" of sleep, and as soon as I saw that he was getting sleepy, I prepared him for his morning nap. I sat on the edge of the bed and nursed him until he was almost asleep. I then gently placed him in the Pack N Play, told him "night night" and left the room. It felt weird to leave him in there and, honestly, pretty much like a waste of time. He has never been in a cradle or crib or anything like that in his whole short little life, so putting him in there and expecting him to think, "Oh right, she put me in this weird cage thing, and I guess I'm supposed to fall asleep in here," seems a little ridiculous. He played in there for about five minutes, then started to call out for me. I could picture him thinking, "Hey! You forgot about me! I know you didn't mean to do it, but you left me in this bedroom all alone and I'm stuck in this funny box." I went in and try to lay him back down, but he wasn't having it, so I picked him up and nursed him to sleep and of course then held him the whole time while he slept. Today I tried again, except he only lasted about ten seconds before he wanted to get out. At a loss for how to show him that he is actually supposed to sleep in there, I climbed into the Pack N Play (praying that it wouldn't collapse) and pretended to fall asleep. He climbed on me for a while while I "slept", and eventually I gave up because I was getting pretty uncomfortable in there and I knew there was no way he was going to just lie down and fall asleep. Now I'm sitting here at the computer while he sleeps soundly on my lap. Sigh. I knew this is going to be a long process, but I'm starting to think it's going to be not exactly long, but more like impossible.

Well, I'm back. It was nice not blogging for awhile, but I sort of miss it so here I am. Even though I was enjoying my little blogging break, in the back of my mind I couldn't seem to stop mentally writing out blog posts about my activities.
Probably our most interesting news right now is that both of my sweet children have been attacked by the chicken pox. Emma is through the hard part and now has only scabs left, but poor Noah just keeps getting more spots every day. His little body is now covered with an attractive mix of spots, blisters, and scabs. This song has been a popular one at our house lately.
We were actually at my parents' house when the kiddos got sick, and although I was planning to come back on Saturday, I was more than a little apprehensive about driving back across the state all alone with the disease-ridden kiddos. My mom ended up driving us back in my van on Sunday so I could tend to the grumpy passengers, and she took the train back home yesterday. It was great having her here for a little impromptu visit.

For more than a year, Emma has refused to wear anything but a dress, and the fancier, the better. In all that time, she has worn pants seriously maybe twice (no matter what temperature it is outside) - until last week. She overcame her aversion to pants pretty much overnight, and now prefers them - so much so that she fell to the floor in despair this morning when I informed her that all three pairs of her jeans were in the washer. At least no one can ever accuse her of not being passionate.