Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Zander at the computer
This cold is not helping Zander's fussiness at all. Wherever I go, he goes. If I put him down, I have to be prepared for him scooting right after me, crying the whole way. He's finally got scooting on his stomach down to a science and can go pretty fast. It's hard for him to crawl up on his knees. With no carpet underneath him, his knees just slide out from under him. I'll get a video of it sooner or later. Anyway, now anytime I'm at the computer, he has to be at the computer too. We put a basket of books under the computer desk to pull out whenever we're sitting there so he can be right next to us. This particular day it wasn't enough to be sitting on the floor next to the computer chair, so Zander sat on the desk next to the monitor while I was typing. He likes to see how far he can push my patience when he sits there. The keyboard is such a temptation to him. He can't sit there without reaching out and touching just one key. Every time he touches the keyboard or monitor, he gets in trouble, but he just can't help himself.
Memory Lane
I finally got all of our computer's files backed up today on the external hard drive we bought at Christmas time. It was a good job done. We've had a couple scares recently where we thought we had a virus, but thankfully it's been sorted out. Already I keep all the pictures and videos that are 9-12 months old on the external hard drive (we now have two). All of the pictures of Matt and I in high school and college, baby pictures of Gabe and Matt's deployment and return pictures are all on the external hard drive.
Going through it today, I started looking for pictures of Gabe when he was around Zander's age. Sometimes it's so hard to remember exactly what he looked like then. Looking at them, I can't believe how much he's changed. To me, he doesn't even look like the same boy anymore! Now that Zander is here and is the baby, I have forgotten what it was like having Gabe as the baby. Zander's the one that snuggles, Zander's the one I cart around now, Zander's the one demanding the attention. Gabe plays games and reads books and does puzzles, Gabe can play toys by himself and fix himself lunch, Gabe doesn't need me as much as he did. Four years seems like a lot of time, but when I look at these pictures, I feel like this just happened. I remember everything from each of these moments caught in time. I'm glad I have these, I'm glad I have these memories to look back at and marvel.
There's a quote I put in Gabe's baby scrapbook that I remember reading and feeling as if it encapsulated my feelings at that exact moment. It still applies.
"You are a marvel. Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again... And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know who you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michaelangelo, A Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel." - Pablo Casals
Enjoy the pictures below and a trip down memory lane for me.
Going through it today, I started looking for pictures of Gabe when he was around Zander's age. Sometimes it's so hard to remember exactly what he looked like then. Looking at them, I can't believe how much he's changed. To me, he doesn't even look like the same boy anymore! Now that Zander is here and is the baby, I have forgotten what it was like having Gabe as the baby. Zander's the one that snuggles, Zander's the one I cart around now, Zander's the one demanding the attention. Gabe plays games and reads books and does puzzles, Gabe can play toys by himself and fix himself lunch, Gabe doesn't need me as much as he did. Four years seems like a lot of time, but when I look at these pictures, I feel like this just happened. I remember everything from each of these moments caught in time. I'm glad I have these, I'm glad I have these memories to look back at and marvel.
There's a quote I put in Gabe's baby scrapbook that I remember reading and feeling as if it encapsulated my feelings at that exact moment. It still applies.
"You are a marvel. Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again... And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know who you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michaelangelo, A Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel." - Pablo Casals
Enjoy the pictures below and a trip down memory lane for me.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Catch-up
It's been a little while since I've actually posted something other than pictures, and I apologize. It seems the only times I have put coherent thoughts together has been as I'm laying in bed, waiting to drift off to sleep. By that time, there's no way I'm going to get up and get on the computer.
These past two weeks have been very hectic and crazy for us. Matt spent the last two weeks in Daegu (about four hours south of us) at an Army base doing training. During that time, both boys and myself caught colds. Gabe had a fever and chills for 24 hours. Thankfully, it only lasted the 24 hours and not longer. Zander finished cutting his front two teeth and is now starting to cut the two side front teeth. He and I both still have sore throats, coughs and runny noses.
Gabe started his basketball clinics last Saturday and they will be every Saturday (starting Feb. 6) until mid March. There were 31 kids that signed up, so they split up the kids into two sessions of one hour each. It will be very exciting for all of us. Matt and I volunteered to help coach Gabe's session, but told the coach that we'd be willing to help with the other session too. I am excited to be helping other kids and for Gabe to see me in a different light than just Mom. At the first "practice", he was having a hard time throwing the ball up and catching it. His first response was to give up and start complaining about how he can't do it, really he just wanted my attention. When he saw that I was helping other kids and not there to focus only on him, he picked the ball right up and tried again and eventually got it. While I LOVE spending time with both my sons, having them home and teaching Gabe from home, I'm glad that we have this opportunity for him to be independent and not have me and Matt as a back up. I'm also so thankful that Matt was able to go with us to this past "practice" and hopefully all the Saturday's to come. It will definitely be interesting trying to teach the kids stretching and running drills with Zander in the front carrier. Also, I'm not sure how many pictures are going to be taken, as which ever parent is not "coaching" will be minding Zander. This is going to be a trial thing, I hope you all can understand.
Volunteering with the basketball clinics has also "forced" me to look at getting back in shape. As I was leading the 4 year olds in skipping around the cones at the last "practice", I was told by a sweet little girl that I needed to go faster because I was holding up the line. If I can't keep up in skips with a four year old, something's wrong. I still have the goal of running a 5K before we leave for the States. I was in pretty good shape before it started getting cold here, but as winter kicked in, I started slacking and now need to kick my own butt back into shape. I've now been doing at least a 1/2 hour of something everyday. Today was 1/2 hour weight-loss Yoga, yesterday was Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred and 1/2 hour cardio. Gotta keep it up.
Also, Sunday Gabe and I were finally able to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 1! Matt watched Zander and we took Paige (our friend from upstairs) to the theater on base. It was very good. Let me just say though that the people that sit in front of kids and then get frustrated that the kids talk and kick the chair in front of them and generally act like kids make me crazy. I purposely sat me and the kids away from everyone else, we didn't block anyone's view and were well out of earshot to the nearest person until someone decided to sit directly in front of us and then a group sat next to us. Both groups shot us glances every time one of the kids talked. ARGH!! I could rant about this topic forever. Other than that, the movie was fantastic. I'm not going to critique it in this post because it would be long and drawn out. If you want my opinions about it, just ask me or maybe I'll make a separate blog post about it. I was very proud of both kids for doing so well. It's a long movie, a long time to be sitting still. A lot of it is down time, character and plot building and not a lot of action. Both kids sat very well, ate their candy, drank their hot chocolate, and kicked the seats in front of them a couple times. Good times to be had by all. Except the losers that chose to show up late to the movie and then sit directly in front of and next to kids and then have the audacity to be pissed about it.
On the creative side, I've also been working on scrapbook pages. Now that I've got my workspace organized (in my own way at least), I've been able to get some ideas pumped out. For my best friend Krystal and her daughter Isabella, I've got three pages done, but still have plenty of ideas and inspirations. For my mom, she wanted note cards and thank you cards, and I have three completed for her as well. I will try and take pictures of them tomorrow to post. I'm pretty proud of myself. It's been awhile since I've been able to access the my artistic side and it feels good to get pages completed. I feel horrible for poor Zander, getting pages done for Isabella before him, but I am promising myself that I will get ones completed for him once we get to the states. Also, I'm trying to get ideas for Valentine's cards to make with pictures of the boys. I usually like to get holiday or themed shirts for them to wear for pictures, but I don't think it'll work out this year for V-Day. It's not like it's a great big holiday, I'm not really that torn up about it. And no stores really have anything that super this year anyway.
Gabe's birthday is starting to creep up on us too. It's a big year for us. Gabe turns 5 (gasp), I turn 27 (super gasp), Zander turns one (I'm in complete disbelief that it's only 4 months away) and Matt turns 28 (two years away from 30, eek!). Already I have mixed emotions about Gabe's birthday. I bought the vintage Star Wars cupcake decorations from Williams-Sonoma around Christmas time, both good guys and bad guys. If you ever get bored and love Star Wars, check out their stuff on Williams-Sonoma. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty cool. If I could frost cookies like that, I would totally buy those cookie cutters, but I definitely do NOT have the patience to do that. We did the the pancake molds. And the Dark Vader spatula. It was a Star Wars-y Christmas. Pretty sweet. Tangent. Gabe's birthday. I'm trying to figure out if I want to mess with a big birthday party - invitations, figuring out a party place (definitely don't have a big enough place for lots of people), decorations, games, goody bags, food - or if we want to have a small get together with a couple friends over. I'm conflicted. This is the first real time that Gabe's had close friends and it'll be the last birthday for him here. But do I want to mess with all the planning and hassle while we'll still have basketball season going and t-ball getting ready to start as soon as basketball ends? Conflicted. I feel like we need to do this for him, to make his birthday special. At the same time though, I don't want him to think that he has to have a big party for the day to be special. I guess we'll see as time goes on and basketball season picks up.
Well, I'm glad I got a chance to catch up. Hopefully I will get some pictures of the boys taken this week, maybe videos too. Along with those, I want to get pictures of the scrapbook pages/cards posted and possibly pump out some more!
Genna, Matt and the boys
These past two weeks have been very hectic and crazy for us. Matt spent the last two weeks in Daegu (about four hours south of us) at an Army base doing training. During that time, both boys and myself caught colds. Gabe had a fever and chills for 24 hours. Thankfully, it only lasted the 24 hours and not longer. Zander finished cutting his front two teeth and is now starting to cut the two side front teeth. He and I both still have sore throats, coughs and runny noses.
Gabe started his basketball clinics last Saturday and they will be every Saturday (starting Feb. 6) until mid March. There were 31 kids that signed up, so they split up the kids into two sessions of one hour each. It will be very exciting for all of us. Matt and I volunteered to help coach Gabe's session, but told the coach that we'd be willing to help with the other session too. I am excited to be helping other kids and for Gabe to see me in a different light than just Mom. At the first "practice", he was having a hard time throwing the ball up and catching it. His first response was to give up and start complaining about how he can't do it, really he just wanted my attention. When he saw that I was helping other kids and not there to focus only on him, he picked the ball right up and tried again and eventually got it. While I LOVE spending time with both my sons, having them home and teaching Gabe from home, I'm glad that we have this opportunity for him to be independent and not have me and Matt as a back up. I'm also so thankful that Matt was able to go with us to this past "practice" and hopefully all the Saturday's to come. It will definitely be interesting trying to teach the kids stretching and running drills with Zander in the front carrier. Also, I'm not sure how many pictures are going to be taken, as which ever parent is not "coaching" will be minding Zander. This is going to be a trial thing, I hope you all can understand.
Volunteering with the basketball clinics has also "forced" me to look at getting back in shape. As I was leading the 4 year olds in skipping around the cones at the last "practice", I was told by a sweet little girl that I needed to go faster because I was holding up the line. If I can't keep up in skips with a four year old, something's wrong. I still have the goal of running a 5K before we leave for the States. I was in pretty good shape before it started getting cold here, but as winter kicked in, I started slacking and now need to kick my own butt back into shape. I've now been doing at least a 1/2 hour of something everyday. Today was 1/2 hour weight-loss Yoga, yesterday was Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred and 1/2 hour cardio. Gotta keep it up.
Also, Sunday Gabe and I were finally able to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 1! Matt watched Zander and we took Paige (our friend from upstairs) to the theater on base. It was very good. Let me just say though that the people that sit in front of kids and then get frustrated that the kids talk and kick the chair in front of them and generally act like kids make me crazy. I purposely sat me and the kids away from everyone else, we didn't block anyone's view and were well out of earshot to the nearest person until someone decided to sit directly in front of us and then a group sat next to us. Both groups shot us glances every time one of the kids talked. ARGH!! I could rant about this topic forever. Other than that, the movie was fantastic. I'm not going to critique it in this post because it would be long and drawn out. If you want my opinions about it, just ask me or maybe I'll make a separate blog post about it. I was very proud of both kids for doing so well. It's a long movie, a long time to be sitting still. A lot of it is down time, character and plot building and not a lot of action. Both kids sat very well, ate their candy, drank their hot chocolate, and kicked the seats in front of them a couple times. Good times to be had by all. Except the losers that chose to show up late to the movie and then sit directly in front of and next to kids and then have the audacity to be pissed about it.
On the creative side, I've also been working on scrapbook pages. Now that I've got my workspace organized (in my own way at least), I've been able to get some ideas pumped out. For my best friend Krystal and her daughter Isabella, I've got three pages done, but still have plenty of ideas and inspirations. For my mom, she wanted note cards and thank you cards, and I have three completed for her as well. I will try and take pictures of them tomorrow to post. I'm pretty proud of myself. It's been awhile since I've been able to access the my artistic side and it feels good to get pages completed. I feel horrible for poor Zander, getting pages done for Isabella before him, but I am promising myself that I will get ones completed for him once we get to the states. Also, I'm trying to get ideas for Valentine's cards to make with pictures of the boys. I usually like to get holiday or themed shirts for them to wear for pictures, but I don't think it'll work out this year for V-Day. It's not like it's a great big holiday, I'm not really that torn up about it. And no stores really have anything that super this year anyway.
Gabe's birthday is starting to creep up on us too. It's a big year for us. Gabe turns 5 (gasp), I turn 27 (super gasp), Zander turns one (I'm in complete disbelief that it's only 4 months away) and Matt turns 28 (two years away from 30, eek!). Already I have mixed emotions about Gabe's birthday. I bought the vintage Star Wars cupcake decorations from Williams-Sonoma around Christmas time, both good guys and bad guys. If you ever get bored and love Star Wars, check out their stuff on Williams-Sonoma. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty cool. If I could frost cookies like that, I would totally buy those cookie cutters, but I definitely do NOT have the patience to do that. We did the the pancake molds. And the Dark Vader spatula. It was a Star Wars-y Christmas. Pretty sweet. Tangent. Gabe's birthday. I'm trying to figure out if I want to mess with a big birthday party - invitations, figuring out a party place (definitely don't have a big enough place for lots of people), decorations, games, goody bags, food - or if we want to have a small get together with a couple friends over. I'm conflicted. This is the first real time that Gabe's had close friends and it'll be the last birthday for him here. But do I want to mess with all the planning and hassle while we'll still have basketball season going and t-ball getting ready to start as soon as basketball ends? Conflicted. I feel like we need to do this for him, to make his birthday special. At the same time though, I don't want him to think that he has to have a big party for the day to be special. I guess we'll see as time goes on and basketball season picks up.
Well, I'm glad I got a chance to catch up. Hopefully I will get some pictures of the boys taken this week, maybe videos too. Along with those, I want to get pictures of the scrapbook pages/cards posted and possibly pump out some more!
Genna, Matt and the boys
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
My Nook
This is my NOOK. I am in love. You will be too. I might seem a little obsessed, dedicating a whole post and several pictures, but please don't judge me. Especially not until you get one of your own. If you are an avid reader, I highly recommend it. I love that it plays music, that it cruises the internet, that it reads not only B&N files but any pdf file. I love that it makes it so easy for me to start and stop reading at any time.
This is the NOOK sad and lonely on my kitchen table.
This is the NOOK watching me and Gabe play the Kinect. It gets jealous very easily and stares longingly until I pick it up.
This is what the NOOK looks like when it's getting ready to change your life.
This is what a NOOK looks like when it loads up, well, not just any NOOK. This one is mine because it has Zander's picture as the background. Every other NOOK just has the standard wallpaper. The bottom part is the touch screen and how you navigate your options.
This is what it looks like when you go to your library page. It has the list of books to choose from, but also has the book covers at the bottom. That's the biggest reason I chose the NOOK over the Kindle. I like the look of the covers and that it shows them when you're reading the books. Also, I really like that it has expandable memory, you can insert up to 16 GB memory card to store any kind of music files, picture files or pdf files.
This is what the NOOK screen looks like when you start reading. I'm not going to lie, I was skeptical. How can it really look like a page? How can it not be reflective? But it's true, it doesn't blur and while it's not textured like a page, it's pretty similar in font and color. I would most compare it to the screen of an etch-e-sketch. The only part that's reflective is the touch screen at the bottom. It's not back lit, so you can't read in the dark, but also it makes it easier on the eyes and doesn't blur. Also, the arrows on the side are how you turn pages. I really like that it has arrows on both sides for both directions, that way no matter which hand you hold it with, you can turn the pages.
This is what your NOOK looks like when it's on screensaver. It has all these really cool pictures of famous authors and changes every time it goes to idle for 10 minutes. This is Oscar Wilde.
This is the NOOK sad and lonely on my kitchen table.
This is the NOOK watching me and Gabe play the Kinect. It gets jealous very easily and stares longingly until I pick it up.
This is what the NOOK looks like when it's getting ready to change your life.
This is what a NOOK looks like when it loads up, well, not just any NOOK. This one is mine because it has Zander's picture as the background. Every other NOOK just has the standard wallpaper. The bottom part is the touch screen and how you navigate your options.
This is what it looks like when you go to your library page. It has the list of books to choose from, but also has the book covers at the bottom. That's the biggest reason I chose the NOOK over the Kindle. I like the look of the covers and that it shows them when you're reading the books. Also, I really like that it has expandable memory, you can insert up to 16 GB memory card to store any kind of music files, picture files or pdf files.
This is what the NOOK screen looks like when you start reading. I'm not going to lie, I was skeptical. How can it really look like a page? How can it not be reflective? But it's true, it doesn't blur and while it's not textured like a page, it's pretty similar in font and color. I would most compare it to the screen of an etch-e-sketch. The only part that's reflective is the touch screen at the bottom. It's not back lit, so you can't read in the dark, but also it makes it easier on the eyes and doesn't blur. Also, the arrows on the side are how you turn pages. I really like that it has arrows on both sides for both directions, that way no matter which hand you hold it with, you can turn the pages.
This is what your NOOK looks like when it's on screensaver. It has all these really cool pictures of famous authors and changes every time it goes to idle for 10 minutes. This is Oscar Wilde.
Cleaning House
For the past couple weeks, I've been working on reorganizing our house. As soon as the Christmas tree came down, I was itching to start making this apartment bigger and less clustered. I've been downsizing everything from videos and games to furniture and books and have FINALLY got our apartment in a condition that I'm satisfied with. I'm frustrated that it's taken so long to finally get it right, but happy that we can spend the rest of our time here much more comfortably! Here are some pictures of what the rooms look like.
The boys room (ignore the screaming child in the crib and the toys all over the floor). Finally got the crib into Gabe's room. Also we were lucky enough to get the hutch in the corner from our friends here. It's big enough that we can fit both Gabe and Zander's clothes into it eliminating the need for the dresser we have in there and equaling more floor space.
This is the new and improved living room floor plan. We've moved the computer to the wall between the two bed rooms and Gabe's toy box next to the TV. It's so much more open and gives the boys more room to run/crawl around and play.
Last but not least, my biggest project, organizing the "junk room" in the front bedroom. It has been a dumping ground and storage since we've moved in and I finally got it cleaned out enough that the boys can play there! Yes, there's still stuff in there, like the extra twin mattress and stroller, vacuum, steam cleaner and Christmas tree, but without a garage or storage unit, it has to go somewhere. Gabe got the Toy Story table for Christmas and the other coffee table has toy storage under it. Also, I got all of Gabe's art supplies organized into a book shelf so he can do playdoh or art whenever he wants. My biggest accomplishment was clearing enough area for me to set up a workspace for doing scrapbooking!! I have room to spread out my papers and stickers and finally work on getting pages done. It has been a long time since I've had room for this stuff, I'm so excited about getting back into a creative mindset. Most of all, the boys can be in the same room while I work, best of both worlds!!
The boys room (ignore the screaming child in the crib and the toys all over the floor). Finally got the crib into Gabe's room. Also we were lucky enough to get the hutch in the corner from our friends here. It's big enough that we can fit both Gabe and Zander's clothes into it eliminating the need for the dresser we have in there and equaling more floor space.
This is the new and improved living room floor plan. We've moved the computer to the wall between the two bed rooms and Gabe's toy box next to the TV. It's so much more open and gives the boys more room to run/crawl around and play.
Last but not least, my biggest project, organizing the "junk room" in the front bedroom. It has been a dumping ground and storage since we've moved in and I finally got it cleaned out enough that the boys can play there! Yes, there's still stuff in there, like the extra twin mattress and stroller, vacuum, steam cleaner and Christmas tree, but without a garage or storage unit, it has to go somewhere. Gabe got the Toy Story table for Christmas and the other coffee table has toy storage under it. Also, I got all of Gabe's art supplies organized into a book shelf so he can do playdoh or art whenever he wants. My biggest accomplishment was clearing enough area for me to set up a workspace for doing scrapbooking!! I have room to spread out my papers and stickers and finally work on getting pages done. It has been a long time since I've had room for this stuff, I'm so excited about getting back into a creative mindset. Most of all, the boys can be in the same room while I work, best of both worlds!!
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