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Friday, February 18, 2011

A week of firsts!


No, Sister is not walking...yet... but both kids got to experience something so much fun for the 1st time this week!!
Long story short, Holdyn melted the <3 of a retired Fire Chief in Savannah.... Just by running in to him at breakfast one morning! They striked up a conversation and Holdyn obviously made a big impression! The fire chief and I emailed for a few days and he asked me to bring Holdyn to 'visit' his station. Little did we know, the captain had a surprise up his sleeve. He had called headquarters to get permission from the authorities above to allow Holdyn to go on a firetruck ride! Boy was that an experience! The chief and I sat in the back of the cab and Holdyn sat in the front with firefighter Jim. Every once in awhile when I would glance at him, he and firefighter Jim were giving each other knuckle punches!



Holdyn got to see just how heavy the fire ax was! On the left is firefighter Jim who was our driver and stayed with us pretty much the whole morning and rolled out the red carpet for Holdyn. On the right is the retired chief who set all this up and his name is Jim also!


Holdyn was very timid at first since he had never met these people before, but he got pretty comfortable around firefighter Jim!




I think firefighter Jim has found a new little buddy! He is working at our station on March 31st to cover someone elses shift, so we have it marked on our calendar to make a visit that day and maybe have some baked goodies with us :)




Firefighter Jim got a call and had to leave on the ambulance, so another fireman got to show Holdyn his favorite tool of all... the jaws of life!


Firefighter Jim and Chief Jim with Fireman Holdyn with another firefighter at the station.


Pops and sister came to see all the cool firetrucks, too!


Next up, they taught Holdyn how to take apart a hydrant to refill the tanker truck with water, right when it got back from a fire call. I told the firemen not to get mad if I had to call them next week for a hydrant that was taken apart and spewing water in my yard!!


Pops and sister had to stay behind at the station while we went on the engine. The lights and sirens might have scared her!


Before the chief left, he handed me 2 boxes and an envelope. He told me it was a gift for Holdyn. I had no idea what it was. We got home and found a hardback book all about fire engines, and an old timey metal fire engine. Holdyn was in HEAVEN! I opened the envelope, and it was the official invitation for Holdyn to come to the square after the St. Patrick's Day Parade where all of the 500 NYC firemen gather. The chief also has 2 sons that are Lieutenants in NYC coming down for the parade and they are bringing Ladder 39 t-shirts for Holdyn. I will NEVER be able to get him out of those!


The 'collection' with the new truck added!


Sister also had a 'first' this week. Holdyn's pre-school wanted her to do a 'trial day' to see how she would do because they are dying for her to come to school there!! She went there today and did awesome! I was worried she going to be a grump missing her morning nap, but they said the only time she pitched a fit was when they changed her diaper. She hates that at home anyways! It's like a wrestling match!



The kids had a great week. Holdyn is looking forward to the firemen activities the week of St. Patty's Day and Sister is excited to start going to big girl school 2 days a week for 3 hours a day to play with kids her own age!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

5 years later....

5 years ago (or 5 years and 3 months now) we had no clue what we would be doing in 2011. We were not even thinking of the next day. On November 5, 2005 if you would have told me that in 5 years I would be standing in that exact place with 2 beautiful children and an amazing (most of the time) husband, I would have told you you were crazy! If you would have told me 5 years ago what I would be doing and where I would be 5 years later I would have never believed you! We have had 5 years full of surprises, moved 4 or 5 times, had 2 beautiful healthy babies, stressful times, bad times, good times, but overall thinking back over the past 5 years it has been a wild ride... but an amazing wild ride! I wouldn't trade it for the world! Can't wait to see what the next 5 years has in store for us! A sneak peak of where we are 5 years later!
















Whitefield Square seemed to be a bit noiser in 2011 than I had remembered in 2005 :)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Driving Ms. Daisy

Holdyn (and Hadley I guess you could say!)  is the proud new owner of a mini cooper thanks to Great Granddaddy! He called this morning (out of the blue) and decided Holdyn needed a big ride on car. Granddaddy did not know, but Holdyn has been asking for one of these type vehicles for 2 years!! He was thrilled to hear the news when I picked him up from school!! He had several to choose from and his only requirement was that it had to be a 2 seater.

2 Peas in a Pod! DooDa and Holdyn now have the same exact car! Holdyn thought that was pretty cool!


This is what we started with.... I thought to myself ' It can't be THAT bad to put together' ... right?


Still looking pretty simple... I can do this!


 I had LOTS of help and after what seemed like an eternity only maybe 2 full hours and one trip to the mailbox to 'get some fresh air' because mommy was about to throw the car out the window (It took me 30 minutes for one tricky screw!!) we finally accomplished our mission! Only one problem was the car has no seatbelts... a HUGE problem for Holdyn! He noticed the one in the store didn't have them installed. I told him it was probably because it was on display, but I was sure the one we brought home in the big box would contain seat belts... well... gues what... it didn't!! Dooda is gonna be creative and come up with a seat belt because Holdyn was very concerned about this missing item! At least he has safety on his mind!


HoHo did pretty good on his first driving lesson. He only got to take it out for a test drive because it is supposed to charge for 24 hours. The real fun will begin tomorrow I suppose! Question is, will I be able to get him out of that thing!

Phone lines in the sewer?!

Yesterday couldn't have gotten any worse even if it had tried to. It was one of those days that nothing went right and every single thing went wrong. Seriously. It started off at 2a.m. with Holdyn crawling in bed with us and after so many kicks and jabs I was eventually pushed out. We just got a king bed to prevent this, but it doesn't really work when Holdyn is sleeping sideways! He usually only gets in our bed when Robbie is gone because he tells me there is an 'empty spot'. Well now he has started doing it even when Robbie was home. I couldn't figure out why, but knew we needed to get to the bottom of it! I usually go upstairs and crawl in the queen guest bed. To my amazement, Holdyn obviously woke up in the middle of the night and decided to rearrange one of his toy shelves into a 'firehouse' so he had piled all of the bins and toys all over the queen bed. At 2a.m. I didn't have the energy to clear the bed so I decided just to crawl in his daybed. Covered myself up with his firetruck comforter and of course, couldn't fall back to sleep. I guess I have never tried to sleep in his bed before because I noticed how SO uncomfortable that firetruck comforter was. It is thin, gave really no warmth, and was flat out rough and itchy. When Holdyn got up for the day I sat him down and we had a talk. I questioned as to why he kept getting in our bed. He gave me the same response he has been telling me for the past few months "Because your bed is so cozy". It dawned on me, that maybe the comforter was not comfortable. I would never have considered that since I had never experienced it myself until that night. I asked him if I got him cozy covers like mine, would it keep him in bed. He was thrilled of the idea. Of course it was a stupid idea to the hubs cause it involved spending money. I thought it was worth a try and if it didn't work out, it could always be returned. We were busy getting ready for school, feeding the kids breakfast, and trying to get clothes on Holdyn. Hadley had already hurled 10 sippy cups at me and she was screaming and pointing to Bubbas sippy cup. I just bought a gazillion of the cups that she took too after buying e.v.e.r.y. kind of sippy cup and she refused every single one but this one brand. After 2 weeks on it she was now going to decide that only Bubbas cups would be appropriate?!! Oh heck no! We were running out the door, late as usual (doesn't matter that we had been up for 3 to 4 hours!) and I didn't even notice that we forgot his bookbag until we pulled in the parking lot of school. It usually wouldn't matter, except it was Monday. Monday, if you bring your homework in, you get to choose something from the treasure box. Well of course he knows this and had a complete utter meltdown in the carpool line and NEEDED his bookbag that contained his homework. I promised to go back and get it and that is all he needed to hear. Sister and I drive back home, grab, the bookbag (in the pouring down rain) and drive back to school to deliver his homework.... phew! The teachers gave me the mom of the year award. They told me I shouldn't have gone back and gotten it. They didn't realize the meltdown that saved me later in the afternoon! Also, I guess, that would have given him the wrong impression of taking homework to school if I said "Oh well, it won't matter, just take it in tomorrow." Hope he is always that excited about his homework! Sister and I then had SEVERAL errands we needed to get done while he was at school. One was the grocery store and one was finding the comforter. I figured Comforter then groceries so the cold groceries wouldn't sit in the car while I was trying to find a comforter... make sense, huh?! We get to home goods and sister cried the entire time we were in there... took a minute to find what we needed in the size we needed. After carrying a crying sister we finally found what we were looking for... and a bonus! I found a RED (like fire trucks!) one for 35 bucks! Can't beat that with a stick! Got back in the car to hear the sound of griting teeth... like finger nails on a chalkboard. I look in the rear view mirror and sister is using the 2 bottom teeth she has and rubbing it against the numb of the upper canine that is coming in just smiling looking at me!! UGH!! Can't stand that sound. She then cries and cries and cries (I'm sure from teething... but I was out of teething tablets, that was on my grocery list) until half way to the grocery store I decide I couldn't take trying to grocery shop with the crying so I decided to turn around and just go home to put her down for a nap. On the way home, one of the MAJOR roads in Savannah had a detour. You couldn't go straight... you could only go left or right. Why you ask? Because the phone company shut the road down and they were climbing in the sewer!! What do phone people need to do in the sewer??? Problem with this was, the only was to get home was to go straight... however with the road closed, that was a problem which took me out a detour and put me out of my way. JOY. Got home and tried to put sister down for a nap. She cried and cried and cried (which is NOT like her. She always goes down right away. Teething I guess was the problem) and eventually fell asleep. Instead of doing laundry or tackle the mound of dishes that needed to be done, I decided to sit down (and breathe from the horrid morning) and finish the valentine plate I have had laying around for awhile and hadn't had time to get to it. It turned out pretty cute I think!


It was then time to go get brother from school, but after sister's crying fiasco she had only been asleep for about 30 minutes which meant, momma got to be the bad guy and wake her up!


After picking up Holdyn (we were 10 minutes late!) we had to head to Walmart to get a few things... remember the errands that should have gotten done when Holdyn was in school?! It is always SUCH a joy to shop with him, and it takes 10 times longer also! After getting what we needed, Holdyn getting in and out of the buggie 10 million times, Holdyn sword fighting with an 80 year old lady for 10 minutes who was encouraging him to chase her and get her, and finding out that teething tablets had been recalled by the FDA back in OCTOBER, (what in the world am I gonna use now?!! That is the ONLY thing that works for her.. besides keeping her on tylenol 24/7) we drug Holdyn out kicking and screaming walked out of there 2.5 miserable hours later. Did you know they are already putting out swimming pools?! Seriously!! It was just the last day of January! They are getting a bit ahead of themselves! I had to get a few plants to fix the pot that Robert fell over and killed all the plants a few weeks ago. Sweet Holdyn picked them all up off the ground and put them back in the pot for me. Hubs probably thinks this looks fine, but we are having an open house on Saturday so I decided for 'curb appeal' I'm gonna have to replace them and plant something else that is half way decent. That is on my long to-do list today.

We walked in the house to a foul odor in the laundry room. That's never a good sign. After further investigation, I found where Bay had an accident on the rug in the laundry room...ugh! After unloading the car, unpacking groceries, cleaning up toys, feeding the kids, Hubs having a heart attack on how much I spent on groceries, (buying fresh fruits and veggies is outrageous these days... guess we will have to go back to living on frozen meals! How come trying to eat healthly costs so much more? Doesn't make sense!) I went up to the attic to bring down a few things for the next holiday. A few moments later one of my little holiday plates slipped out of my hand and went crashing to the kitchen floor in to a million pieces. The whole time I was on my hands and knees cleaning up the mess, sister was 'cooing' and saying 'ewwwahhhhhhh!!!!' the whole time I was scooping up all the broken pieces and then vaccuming to make sure nothing was left behind. I then headed upstairs to get Holdyn ready for bed only to find this:
 He once again had dumped all of his clothes out looking for the one and only shirt, a firetruck shirt, that he wants to wear. I have washed it so many times it is turning grey. I have gotten to the point where I am having to hide it cause he will insist to wear it e.v.e.r.y. day to school. Now it has been 'dirty' for a few days :) He makes so much extra work for me. Hopefully one day soon he will realize this!

See the little thing in Holdyn's hand? It's a small raccoon with a looooong tail. That is the thing I drove back home and got his homework for. That is the new prized possession that he picked out of the treasure chest. I tucked HoHo and Mr. Raccoon in his cozy bed with his new 'cozy' covers (see them UNDER the firetruck comforter?!) and they both drifted off to sleep. I went downstairs to tie up the garbage and take it outside when the strap to the bag broke and garbage fell out all over the floor. How else would you expect this perfectly imperfect day to end?! I am proud to say Holdyn slept all night in his bed and never got up! When he woke up at 6 this morning, he told me how cozy his bed is now :) Hopefully it wasn't just a fluke night and he will continue to sleep and stay in his bed!

*Stay tuned because this afternoon Holdyn is getting a BIG surprise (as long as we can find the right one) from Great-Granddaddy... he called me this morning and insisted I take Holdyn today for him to pick this big surprise out from him and Sissy.... the child is going to be SOOO excited.