Pre-dinner selfie!
And you can see why I don’t often take a group shot—it’s hard to get everyone in without lots of scrunching. 🙂
Author Archives: Jen
More proof I’m turning into my mother.
I just couldn’t throw out the shrimp peels. So I’m making a small batch of stock.
Dancing at baseball practice
Tom wasn’t home in time to take Owen to baseball practice so I had to take Katie. She didn’t want to use the iPad…but wanted to dance! We really need to get her in a dance class soon!!
Katie’s Barbie reward
After our initial potty-training experience went well, we’d been having a rough few weeks with Katie having wet underwear A LOT. So we decided a bribe was in order.
She found a Barbie she wanted at Walmart and she had to be dry for seven days to get it. We put up a chart and she put her daily stickers on…and damned if she didn’t do it the first try!
The kids discovered the motion-detector camera this morning.
We have a new video-monitoring system in the house that has motion-detecting cameras. Since I’ve been wanting to keep track of Katie after I put her to bed (she’s been getting out of bed this week), I moved one of the cameras to the upstairs hallway.
These are the videos it recorded this morning. They didn’t know it was recording them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34GQkpbOYyE
This is how Katie does bingo.
She can’t quite play for real yet so this is what she does while Owen and I play.
Minecraft Story Mode
Owen was so excited to show me this story he wrote today.
Once there was a boy named Steve.
He was mining at night and zombies
came hunting after him and Creepers
came out too. And he found a village.
Throwback Thursday—One of my all-time favorite Owen pictures.
From 2010…
We donated a new Box Tops collection container!
At the last PTO meeting I went to, the principal mentioned that the current Box Tops display was getting a little ragged and needed to be fixed again. The Box Tops coordinator said she had tried to find a replacement but the company no longer offers them for sale. I immediately got the idea to see if we (me and Tom) could fix it—like maybe Tom could build the same thing but out of wood to make it more sturdy…
But once I got home and dove into Pinterest, I had better ideas! Once I got the okay from the principal and we actually decided what we were doing, it didn’t take too long. We ordered a mailbox from Amazon and Tom used wood that we already had…and this was born.
Once Tom got it painted and I got done designing the sticker and logo placements (a chore in itself considering how anal I am about this stuff and how perfect I wanted it to be), it looked damn good if I do say so myself.
So this morning I delivered it to the school.
And here it is right when you walk in the school. 🙂
(Jamey Chianetta is the principal.)
So now there will be a small part of our family at Halley for many years to come, even after we’re gone. 🙂
Owen’s note for daddy
Owen wrote this for Tom before I got up today.
I miss you and Katie misses you too we love you dad. Love Owen & Katie to dad
The things I do for Maggie.
I was going to go to bed…but she was super comfy and warm on my lap and I couldn’t bear to disrupt her…so I made myself watch one more show. 🙂
A rare sight
I wish this happened more often…but realistically it’s maybe once a month, if that.
How you wear a hat when it’s 28° but you’ve spiked your hair.
Charlie gets a dual checkup
December photos are online!
Katie is 3 years 6 months…and 1 day old.
Yep, I forgot yesterday. 🙂
BEFORE & AFTER SILLINESS
A sliver of sun…
Maggie and…Bella?!
I looked over and saw them and just assumed it was Charlie…until I realized that Charlie rarely comes in our room.
Cuddling with Daddy
Helping me change her sheets.
She actually did very well…probably better than Owen, actually. 🙂
She wanted to watch TV in our room.
I had stuff to do in her room so I allowed it. 🙂
She had to tuck in her barbie.
Packrat or hoarder?
Never thought I’d be able to wear this again. It’s been about 21 years. It never got donated because it was very college-specific (it was our dorm sweatshirt)!
Lil’ Headbanger. Kinda.
Perfect song for it, but not quite headbanging. But still cute. 🙂
Three sounds Owen likes to hear.
You can tell our house is full of technology: Xbox, iPad, and Alexa. 🙂
WANTED: The Grinch
This came home from school today.
TRANSLATION:
WANTED: The Grinch has
a dog Max. He is green. He acts mean. He stole Christmas.
He has green fur and he is mean he is not nice.
He does not like Christmas. I am looking for him because
he is mean. He has stinky breath.
If you see him please call Owen at school 800-555-1000.
First grade school picture!
Once again, Owen rocked his school picture! I love this kid! (I would have preferred a blue background, but you had to pay extra for that!)
And his first three years (the fall pictures only):
And if you include the spring pictures as well:
Are you sensing a trend in the outfits I pick? 🙂 I can’t wait to see how many years I can do it!
One wear only + dust catching
I was packing up clothes to go back to the Beson cousins and realized she hadn’t worn this dress! So, we changed outfits so I could snap a few pictures. Of course, she had no issues putting on a dress!
Uncle Rob was behind me, hence the funny face.
Catching dust!
Do you see what I saw?
Can you see it?
How about now?
From the big picture:
Two got spooked off. The buck remained perfectly still as I walked up the trail and around where he was.
So apparently this is what dedication looks like?
Walking in 17° weather. Who am I? 🙂
Cats and their comfy spots.
I had gotten a blanket out of the drawer the previous night and forgot to close it. This is what I found in the morning.
