Since Christmas

On Friday, the day after Christmas, our new dishwasher was delivered. Perhaps you remember me mentioning a few weeks ago that our dishwasher broke? It proved to be beyond repair, and with some Christmas money we received we purchased a new one. To expedite things, Keith removed the old dishwasher from underneath the countertop days in advance. To prevent Isaac from playing in the empty, somewhat dirty hole under the counter, with a hole in the floor for the water line through which one could see our lovely unfinished basement, Keith decided to cover it with Elmo wrapping paper. See below.




There was definitely an argument over whether or not we should pay Sears to install it for us. I know that Keith is very handy and capable of doing such things, but it takes up his time. In my opinion, his time, especially when he's off from work and supposed to be enjoying time with me and the boys, is priceless. However, Sears wanted $130 for installation. So much for Keith's time. Naturally, it took longer and was more complicated than expected, requiring not one, but two trips to the hardware store. Finally, though, it was in and ready to go!

My favorite thing about the new dishwasher is how quiet it is. Our old one was so loud (due to the fact that the motor was frying) that you couldn't hear yourself think if you were in the kitchen while it was running. Forget having a conversation, or watching a movie in the family room while it was on. Impossible!

While Keith was installing the dishwasher, my sister Kristin called to let me know my Pittsburgh Zoo membership came in the mail! This was her Christmas gift to us. Right after dinner I went to her house to pick it up, because they were calling for beautiful weather on Saturday. Then, after the boys went to bed Friday night, Keith & I drank herbal tea and watched the movie Amazing Grace. This is a most excellent film about William Wilberforce, the British politician who worked tirelessly for the abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain. It was a wonderful, uplifting, inspiring flick, and only 1 hr. 50 min. long!

Sure enough, it was beautiful on Saturday. The temperature was well into the 60's. We loaded the boys into the truck & headed for the zoo! We had light jackets on the boys, and baseball caps to keep their faces from getting sunburned, but Keith & I were walking around with just sweatshirts on! It was a great day. The only bad thing was that everyone in the tri-state area also decided to go to the zoo that day, and I do not like big crowds, especially not with a big double stroller to push around. We made the most of it, though. Now that we have a membership we can go anytime we want, so the things we didn't get to spend very much time on we'll be able to go back & see again shortly.

After the zoo we went straight to my parents' house because my mom was making beef stew. I don't know what it was about her stew that night, but it sure hit the spot! While the stew was still cooking my parents watched Amazing Grace. After dinner we watched 24: Redemption. It was fantastic! Can't wait for the new season to start in January!

On Sunday Keith was feeling a little under the weather. It was my turn to volunteer in the nursery at church, though, so Isaac and I went together by ourselves. Josiah stayed home to take his morning nap since Keith would be home with him. I don't think we did much else that day. Since Keith was home, he made a delicious pork butt roast for pulled pork burritos (one of my personal favorite dishes!). I sorted laundry, and started a few loads. Same old, same old.

On Monday Keith was back to work, and it was back to life as usual for me with boys. This is going to come out the wrong way, but sometimes it's easier when Keith is at work and it's just me with boys. I guess it's just what I'm used to. It's my routine. He has his routine, I have mine. Mondays are laundry days, and I had plenty to do. I'm proud to say that I got it all done too! It was leftovers for dinner. And this night, after the boys went to bed, we watched Prince Caspian, which was one of my Christmas presents! We both decided it was a great movie, but that we had to go back and read the book again because we could barely remember a thing! Also, we had heard that the Biblical references in this movie were even more pronounced than in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. However, we don't agree. We hardly recognized any glaring Biblical references at all. I also want to add that Disney always has to ruin almost every movie they make by having a romance going on in it. I'm going to assume, since it's already out on DVD, that most readers have seen this movie already. If you haven't, then skip to the next paragraph right now. I found it so irritating that Susan gives Prince Caspian a kiss on the lips good-bye, and they embrace, at the end. I fully admit that I need to re-read the book, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't in it! Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Tuesday, yesterday, I was very irritable for some reason. I assume it's because I didn't get much sleep after going to bed so late (because we were watching Prince Caspian) and because Josiah did his thing at 5am again. I think I made the most of it though. I actually completed two pages in Isaac's scrapbook! Last night after dinner we headed to the mall to do some walking and to let Isaac play at the PBS Kids play area. For some reason, though, Isaac wasn't feelin' the play area, so we went to Petland instead to check out the animals. This he loved, and we let him walk around until we got in the truck, rather than putting him back in the stroller, so that he could burn up some energy!

This is New Year's Eve! I've got a stuffed turkey roasting as I type. Only have to prepare the green bean casserole and we ready to go. I want to add that I went to the grocery store to pick up "a few things" for tonight and tomorrow, and my bill came to $71.09! What!!!??? I am shocked and discouraged by the cost of groceries anymore. I did have to buy a couple more expensive items, like AAA batteries and Arm & Hammer Pet Odor carpet stuff, but $70! Come on!!! It's discouraging because we're really trying hard to stick to a budget, and have been ever since I stopped working. Oh well, guess I still have a lot to learn about spending less.

Anyway, tonight we're looking forward to having our friends, Jess & Phil, and their 4-year-old daughter, Jenna, over. We plan to have a nice turkey dinner, some sweets and popcorn, and wine of course! Hopefully we'll get a movie in too! Right now we have You Don't Mess With the Zohan with Adam Sandler. Looking forward to it!

Come back tomorrow for my New Year's resolutions! Ha! This oughta be good!

Drudy Family Christmas

Although Isaac was still less than impressed with all of the presents wrapped up under the tree for him, it was quite an enchanting Christmas nonetheless. This picture was taken Christmas Eve, anxiously awaiting my parents' arrival. "Why so anxious," one might ask? Well, we expected to make homemade popcorn and begin the first of several games of 500 of the evening. Actually, we forgot to make the popcorn and ended up watching the 17 & Counting marathon on TLC until we put the boys to bed around 8 o'clock. Then we played 500 & Pit.

My parents left around 10 o'clock. Keith & I got ourselves all ready for bed, brought the presents downstairs (they were "hidden" in the spare bedroom) and arranged them under the tree, made some herbal tea, curled up under our blankets, and spent the rest of Christmas Eve watching my all-time favorite Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life!

Fiberoptics, nativities (even if they were porcelein), Nutcrackers, and snowglobes were a few of Isaac's favorite things this Christmas season.

Isaac quickly figured out how to plug this one in on his own-not the safest thing for a not-quite-two-year-old to know, but what are you going to do? He also enjoyed taking the little train off of its tracks several times a day and then saying, "I'll fix it!"

Even though we filled the stockings as we bought things, it never occurred to Isaac to look in them. The two ridiculously enormous stocking, the teddy bear & the snowman, are Isaac and Josiah's stockings, of course!

See that snowglobe he's reaching for with his right hand? About thirty seconds after this pictures was taken, Isaac went into the bathroom to go potty, and dropped the snowglobe on the tile floor, shattering it into a million pieces. The nutcracker was actually part of a centerpiece that Keith & I won at the Westinghouse Christmas party earlier in December.

My first ever real Christmas tree. Among the reasons why my parents said we shouldn't get a real one were, 1) it will catch fire and burn the house down, and 2) Maggie will pee on it. I'm happy to say neither of those two occurred. It did, however, fall over once. There were only three casualties, one of which was one of my favorite Gone With the Wind ornaments! Keith bought some superglue though and fixed it perfectly! Keith also went out and bought a new, bigger tree stand. While it was completely decorated and everything we transferred it from its old, smaller stand into the new one. Never fell over again! Nor has it caught fire or been peed on by the dog.

We finally went to bed around 12:30am on Christmas Eve. Actually, I guess it was technically Christmas Day already. Josiah stirred a little around 1:30am but easily went back to sleep on his own. Either because we had drunk some wine, ate tons of cookies, or had gone to bed so late, neither of us slept well. The boys woke for the morning around 7:30am. I took videos of us going into their bedrooms and getting them out of their cribs. They had no idea that it was any different from any other day. I recorded Keith carrying them both down the stairs, trying to catch their first reaction to all of the presents (which I now remember that I forgot to take a picture of). Josiah was actually much more impressed with all of the brightly wrapped boxes than Isaac. Isaac didn't get it at all, until we started opening of course!

We began with the stockings. In each of their stockings they got some books, puzzles, needed personal care items, and appropriate treats; teething biscuits and Gerber snacks for Josiah, peppermint patties for Isaac, which are his favorite candy. Next comes the presents. By this time Isaac is just beginning to notice the Elmo & Cars wrapping paper. We opened all of Isaac's gifts first, and then Josiah's. Among Isaac's gifts were a Thomas the Train tent, a Magna-doodle, a dump truck and a fire engine. Josiah got the Fischer Price Laugh & Learn Home, bath toys, a little basketball net with little balls, and one of those Fischer Price toys where you flip a switch or turn a nob and different animals pop up (I don't know the official name of it, sorry!). Naturally, Josiah was all up in Isaac's stuff, and vice versa. Any suggestions for how to help them both distinguish their toys from one another's? Or should we just stop trying now?

Next Keith & I opened our stockings and gifts. We do the same thing with our stockings as we do for the boys, stuffing them with candy, personal care items, and some fun stuff. I got Keith a lot of clothes this year, as he's lost so much weight he basically needs a whole new wardrobe. I also got him a Redwings Christmas ornament, as he always complains that the tree is covered in ornaments I had before I met him and none of the ornaments are his. A couple of other neat things were The Universe Seasons 1 & 2 DVD's (he loves watching those shows on the History Channel), and a gift bag full of various types of malt powder. For a long time he's wanted to make me homemade Belgian waffles, but said we had to have malt powder. After going to Giant Eagle, Community Market, McGinnis Sisters, and calling Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, I had to purchase the malt powder from King Arthur Flour online. One of my favorite gifts was my Steelers hoodie (which, I'm embarassed to say is my first ever Steelers apparel). I also got a couple of books on my list of things to read, Prince Caspian DVD, some Bath & Body Works stuff, and a new outfit fom Aeropostale.

With our family room ransacked by Christmas presents and wrapping paper, we then made Belgian waffles for breakfast. I was amazed that Isaac ate two whole waffles. Josiah had his usual baby oatmeal. (Sorry JoZo, next year you can have a waffle!) I tried my best to clean up/organize the family room before we all headed upstairs to get ready for the day.

Around noon we went to my parents' house. We were the first there, so we opened the boys stockings as soon as we arrived. My mother also stuffs stockings with needed personal items, treats, and some fun little toys. Then Mackenzie and Damian arrived and immediately did their own ransacking of my parents' living room by opening their stockings and gifts. I decided to wait to open Isaac & Josiah's gifts as they didn't even notice they had presents to open. Next it was time for Christmas dinner: ham, scalloped potatoes, broccoli casserole, and coleslaw. There were other things, I just didn't eat them. Oh, and did I mention...tons of cookies!

Josiah soon had to lay down for a much-needed nap, so I took advantage of that time to try & open presents with Isaac. There couldn't be anything Isaac was less interested in than opening presents! As we started showing him things, though, he got into it, again. My mom got him so many neat things. One really cool thing was a big easel with chalk and magnetic letters and numbers. We also opened our gifts from my parents while Josiah was napping. Again, my mom got us so much cool stuff: The Office trivia game, a couple new Gone With the Wind Scarlett O'Hara ornaments, new bedsheets, a digital photo ornament. I think my favorite though were name plaques for Isaac & Josiah, with the meaning of their names. We knew the meaning of their names already, that's why we chose them, but it's so nice to have something to frame and put in their bedrooms.

When Josiah woke up we opened his gifts of course. He, too, got many cool things from my mom. And again, Isaac and Josiah were all into each other's things. I'm taking suggestions on how to alleviate that crisis when Isaac sees Josiah playing with one of his things and frantically exclaims, "Share, brother!" as he's yanking the toy out of Josiah's hands.

After that, we had to load up our truck with all of the gifts (and Maggie) and take them home, because there was no way we could fit everything in the truck with the boys & Maggie in it! After taking everything into the house, we went back to my mom's to get the boys and then headed to my Aunt Dar's house. Seems like it's been years since I went to my Aunt Dar's on Christmas, so it was nice to be there again. One of my younger cousins has a baby girl who is just a little older than Josiah, so it was really fun to watch them look at each other and play around one another.

We finally got home around 9pm, promptly put the boys to bed, again organized the family room, and went to bed ourselves. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Below are some more cute pictures of our Christmas.

Almost Christmas

Keith has the week off work, and I fear he isn't enjoying it much. He's so restless & just wants to get out of the house everyday. I think he's happier at work, with his mind occupied.

Isaac has had a rough couple of days. I don't know if having his daddy home has thrown him off or what, but we're having to put him in time-out multiple times a day. Have we officially crossed over into terrible-two territory?

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, & I still don't know what our plans are, if we even have any. We invited my family over for games & snacks, and of course It's a Wonderful Life, but no one seemed terribly interested. My sister is planning on baking cookies with her kids, and my mom wants to go to church. My dad is always up for getting together. Our church has a Christmas Eve service, but my mom won't go to it. Plus, after thinking it through, Keith & I decided we wouldn't be able to worship or even pay much attention with the two boys at that time of evening. Maybe next year.

I do know that Christmas afternoon will be spent at my mom's, and in the evening we're planning on going to my Aunt Dar's. I am so excited for Isaac this Christmas. I hope he gets into the whole present-unwrapping thing. I am excited for Josiah too just to have his 1st Christmas. I'm planning on taking lots of pictures & videos for the next two days so we have lots to remember this Christmas with.

Kind of a boring blog this time. Sorry.

What's New

I've finally mastered the art of grocery shopping on my own with two kids! No more do I have to wait until Keith gets home from work! No longer do I have to rely on my mom to watch one

or more of the boys! Last week I put Isaac in the part of the cart where kids normally sit and I put Josiah, in his carseat, in the big part of the cart and just piled groceries up all around them and underneath. This week I just pulled a second cart along behind me. I'm just so glad to be a little more independent, just a little less reliant on other people.

Isaac had his allergy testing on Tuesday this week. Ever since I first fed him baby oatmeal when he was just 5 months old or so, he always broke out into hives with any kind of oats. Then other times it seemed like he got hives for no reason. He's also had eczema since he was about 6 weeks old, and just very dry skin in general. Then on our way home from Michigan after Thanksgiving we stopped at Panera for breakfast bagels. Isaac took a couple of bites of his sesame bagel and his lips swelled up. This is what led us to the allergist in the first place. It turns out Isaac is allergic to oats, peanuts, eggs, sesame, dustmites, cats, and possibly dogs. The very good news is that his allergies are not life threatening. He just gets itchy! Also, because he has never cared for peanut butter or eggs, they should be fairly easy to avoid. I just have to start paying more attention to ingredient lists for "hidden" eggs. The ironic thing is, because of his eczema, I've used Aveeno bath cream and lotion on his skin all along, and Aveeno has oatmeal in it! So we've switched to Cetaphil for cleansing and Vanicream for moisturizing.

After his doctor appointment, Isaac and I went to my mom's for the day, as she was already watching Josiah anyway for me. The boys napped there and I just hung out. I finished reading Jon & Kate Plus 8's book Multiple Blessings while I was there.

Wednesday was the only day this week we didn't go anywhere. I did my workout during the boys' naps. Actually, i don't think Isaac napped that day, he more or less played in his crib for two hours. Then I made chili and cornbread. My good friend Dana came over for dinner and brought a bottle of vino! We talked until about 8:30pm. Keith was very helpful with the boys so I could visit with my friend.

I wasn't planning on doing much Thursday (yesterday), but my dad, true to form, started telling me all that he wanted to get my mom for Christmas. This is his subtle way of asking me to do his Christmas shopping for him. So, I had to go to my parents again. Fortunately, my mom did let me go shopping while the boys napped at her house. I finished Keith's Christmas shopping and bought the stocking stuffers. I also took care of one thing on my dad's list for my mom. We had dinner plans with some friends, so I had to go back to my parents to get the kids and then head back out to Monroeville. Fortunately, again, my mom offered to watch Josiah so I just had to take Isaac out. We met our friends Jason & Mabry at Mad Mex. Isaac flirted with every girl that walked by. He has his carrot and celery sticks dripping with ranch dressing hanging out of his mouth as he leaned over to say "hey baby" to a little girl on his way to the potty with her mommy. He also said hello to the manager on duty. What a boy. Oh yeah, funny thing about my Isaac...we ordered him a nice kiddy burrito. Kids' meals come with carrot & celery sticks with dressing as well as a nice dessert of a small brownie with vanilla ice cream. What do you think he ate all night? Nothing but the carrots and celery. Wouldn't touch the burrito, brownie, or ice cream. So characteristic of him and his eating habits. I love it.

This morning Isaac had his toddler gym class at 9:30. True to form, I was late getting out the door. Again. Thankfully, my mother does watch Josiah for me during this class as I have to be in the gym with Isaac helping him and supervising him. This gym class is really cool and a really rich learning experience I think. He gets to be out with other kids his age, he has learned to climb a ladder in this class, and there's about 5 min. when the kids sit in a circle and do a quick activity. Of course, Isaac is totally not interested in this part of the class. I have to hold him down to get him to stay in the circle. But it's good for him to start getting exposure to this kind of class environment.

After picking Josiah up at my mom's we came home, had lunch, I did dishes, and then after some playing it was nap time. I have my homemade pasta sauce on the stove, I'm about to go make the meatballs, and I can't wait for Little House on the Prairie to come on in 7 minutes!

Long Time, No Blog

Thanks to Keith's stepdad, we all came home from Thanksgiving vacation with a wicked outbreak of the cholera plague. It was the first time I ever had to deal with a vomiting child, which was not fun. Isaac had the worst of it & it actually took him a full week to recover. Praise God though, we are all well now!

Because we were all so sick when we came back from Michigan, we did not get around to Christmas decorating until a week ago, and we did not get our Christmas tree until this past Saturday. Therefore, we are quite behind on sending out our Christmas cards. We just did our little photo shoot in front of the tree last night. Isaac was anything but cooperative. We did manage to get a few good ones though. The photocards are expected to arrive between 12/15-12/19. I usually have my tree decorated the day after Thanksgiving and the cards in the mail before December 1. Just wasn't happening this year.

Sidenote-this is the first time I've ever had a real Christmas tree! I love it, but it isn't very fragrant. I thought a pine scent would permeate my house more, but that hasn't happened.

Moving right along, our dishwasher broke, for good. Not sure when we're going to be able to get a new one, so we're doing dishes in the sink. I was really trying to clean my fingernails up for Keith's work Christmas party this Friday too. Now I have dishpan hands. Oh well. Life goes on.

Over the weekend I finally got around to watching a DVD on vaccines that my friend loaned to me. Hearing the information on this DVD made me sick to my stomach that I've blindly allowed Isaac and Josiah to have all of their vaccines without hardly asking a single question. The issue definitely warrants further investigation . I want to encourage all moms out there reading this to learn more for yourselves. Don't just take the pediatrician's word for it. Do your homework and learn both sides of the issue.

On a lighter note, Josiah is sitting up very nicely on his own. He's also trying so hard to get up onto all 4's and crawl. He officially has two teeth. He has worked his way through all of the vegetable purees, except zucchini and yellow squash, has mastered oatmeal, and is going to begin more fruit purees this week. Because he stopped nursing so early (2 1/2 months!), I wanted to find some other special thing I could do for him in place of breastfeeding, as Isaac nursed for 8 solid months. What I decided to do was make his own baby food homemade. It really isn't that hard or time-consuming at all. I just make as many different purees as I can one day a week, pour it into ice cube trays to freeze, then pop the cubes out and store in Ziplock freezer bags. This way I can better control the consistency of his food as well, as he prefers thicker consistencies.

I am vexed about one thing with Josiah. He still doesn't sleep all the way through the night! He's 6 months old and I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. He makes it until usually about 5am, and then will not fall back to sleep without having a bottle. I'm afraid we've gotten into a bad habit by giving him a bottle in the middle of the night like that. The only other thing I know to do is just let him cry it out. I hear that the first night is bad, the second is worse, the third is better, and then they have it. I'm going to check a book out at the library called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and what it has to say. I really want a full night's sleep again!

Isaac is still a human sponge. He just says more and more words everyday. He is beginning to use please and thank you. He also says words like hungry, food, vitamin, banana, elephant, fork (though it sounds like a bad word, if you know what I mean), coat, hat, and mittens. He's even starting on some phrases like daddy working, josiah sleeping, i'll fix it, and i'll get it. He calls Josiah JoZo. We call Josiah that a lot and that's easier for him to say. He's just so adorable right now. Still loves books & music. He's really good at identifying shapes. We're still working on colors. He's doing very well with potty training too still. I guess the next step though is to actually put him in either a pull-up or underpants and teach him to stay clean and dry. I mean, the kid can't run around naked forever, and it's cold outside. The only thing that worries me about this is that he's never pulled his pants down or up before. I guess he'll just learn. He'll probably learn very quickly at the rate he's going. Right now though, with no bottoms on he can just go to the potty whenever he has to. I hope the added step of pulling his pants down doesn't totally make him angry and give up. We shall see.