A Tiring Day...

Of car shopping is done. Thank goodness for fightingchance.org. What a valuable tool.

Nina knitted new scarves for the kids. Here are CJ and I posing with them:

And then Dada and CJ posed (look for Sam in the back)...

More Snow

We woke up to more snow. Surprise, surprise.
The weather service was wrong and we seemed to get the bulk of it this morning. We had a difficult time making it up the hill on the way home from church, but much to the Corolla's credit - we made it on the first attempt.
The kids are relatively quiet. We got out the Little People dollhouse that we inherited and it was taken over by dinosaurs and unicorns.
Always something happening in our home, there is!

Fortunately, the snow is light and fluffy, which made it easier to shovel. But let me tell you - in our next house there will not be any sort of retaining wall anywhere near our driveway. The kids did well playing outdoors. It was a veritable heat wave, with it being more than 20 degrees, so we figured we should take advantage of the balmy weather.
We take out the kiddie pool to contain Sam while we're doing the grunt work. He actually doesn't seem to mind:

Snow angels in the driveway:


Hanging out in the yard:

The Worcester Three-Decker

Plugging around I found this article on the Holy Cross website regarding the Worcester three-decker, which is really a staple of housing here in the city - the article states that there are still some 4,000 in existence, meaning over 12,000 families reside in them. I myself lived in one for three years during college.

Another Tuesday Night

I should be doing something productive.
I have paperwork that could choke a horse. But I don't feel like doing it right now. So it will have to wait until tomorrow.
I used to be the anti-procrastinator. In college, I was always the kid that had their assignments for the quarter completed 6 weeks ahead of time.
I wonder what happened.
Oh - wait - I know.
Two words.
Sam and Caroline.
But I wouldn't have it any other way. =-)
Now if I could only ignore the laundry and the housework with the same conviction that I'm ignoring my paperwork.

I just saw some color guard videos on the web. Sac 07 / 08 and St Ann's from 02. Good stuff. I was impressed and saw lots of familiar faces. Hopefully I can get to a show this year.

I just realized that I didn't even post on Caroline's birthday. Oh, my.
It's still hard to believe she 's been around for three years.
Today as we were going to Ria's, she stopped and talked to Ria's neighbor and said, "Hi Tom. It's me, Caroline. Meet my friend Triceritops." Then she proceeded to tell him (in a Worcester accent) that she would "See ya - have a good one."
She's too much. =-)

Sam and CJ's hangout spot recently (besides the princess tent) has been on her bed (now that Sam can climb up all by himself). They just sit and conspire about ways to drive Mama and Dada crazy:

Smokey (or Soapy, depending on the day) is still sleeping with Caroline:


Caroline continues to do her most profound thinking on the potty. The other day I walked in to see this. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "Mama. I'm a lady." All I could say was "And how, Little One. And how."


And here's my little man with his new hair cut. I think it's so cute.

Tuesday NIght

This will have to be short if I'm going to keep up with my New Year's resolution of being in bed at nine thirty. But there's a really interesting show on Frontline tonight. Resolutions are meant to be broken, right?

It's nice to have life calming down after the holidays. I feel like the month of December was a total blur with the ice storm and Christmas. We're just catching our breath, it seems.

The kids didn't nap today, so Caroline was a bear tonight. Just utterly contrarian. She's so sweet when she's well rested. And can be so, well, NOT sweet when she's tired. She's been fixated on trying to figure out who is in her family lately. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents - she's beginning to make the association that Nina is Mama's Mama and Grampy is Dada's Mama. It's cute - she'll say "Sammy is my brother and Auntie Chrissy is my cousin." Progress is slow. =-) She's also figuring out that people with different last names can be related. Today she said to me "My name is Caroline Watson and your name is Karen Leahy." Like I said - we're still working...

We have lots of great pictures that have been sent to us on our upstairs computer. But I'm not always up there to blog - so hopefully soon I can put some of those up...

Sam is full tilt into walking. He goes seven or eight steps, then looks at you with an impish grin and then TAKES OFF. He's still in his cling-on phase where all he wants is Mommy. I keep trying to remember that he won't always want me around - so I have to enjoy it now. But it can be challenging when I'm trying to make dinner and supervising Caroline making bread while cooking on the stove with Sam either on my hip or hanging on my legs. Just as I'm about to lose it - he flashes his million dollar smile and all is well with the world (for the moment). =-)

Caroline and Sam had fun opening Christmas presents:

Sam and his new tool belt:

Santa brought the kids dinosaur jammies: