Sick day

The funk is rolling through our family. Let me catch you up. Hannah spent two nights in Children's with RSV, Frances and Thomas shared the fever virus, and James and Ansley have shared a nasty cold and light fever. Don't you wish you could come double dip in our cheese dip. Bob kept Ansley home on Wednesday. No fever all day so off to school on Thursday. Her eyes still looked bad but no fever. She was pumped because her class was heading to the Elementary school for breakfast. When I picked her up that afternoon she couldn't stop talking about every detail from the trip! It was so exciting to see her so pumped about the experience. Then 5:30 and she started to get the glazed eyes. The fever was back! It was my turn to sty home. I was thrilled to call into jury duty and be absent from hearing the crime that goes on daily in our county. I keep both kids home hoping to end this nastiness. By 9:00 I am pretty sure James recounted everything that was going on from his point of view. Ansley took ogre his excitement of the day when he took a nap. Her quiet time hit 15 minutes and then she was down stairs with me watching American Idol. nothing like a four year old commenting on every thing. So much for mommy time. Bob reminded me that in a couple years they won't want to talk to me so cherish the time.
Moments from the day:
Ansley: she is a daddys girl not doubt. She wakes up asking about him and falls asleep thinking about him. Today she was particularly interested in when he was coming home. I told her after daddy gets done with work. At lunch, which she calls dinner solely because it is closer to when daddy comes home, she told me that daddy comes home when it is dark out. I said yes most days he does. She responds I think it is getting a little bit dark outside!!
James: Earlier in the day I had made some water for him and put it on the kitchen table. After nap he asked for some and i told him where it was in the kitchen. He ran into get it and never came back. I went in to the kitchen to see what was up to find him drinking from the dogs water bowl!! Gross!! He sees me and proceeds to dip his fingers in and lick them and. shoot me a priceless grin. Never a dull moment. Thank goodness I have a blog to use in a slide show when he gets married!

Baby Hannah!!

For months now we have been talking about baby Hannah. Ansley has been excited. James has had no clue what was going on. Finally, she arrived. Caroline had a good delivery and has had a nice recovery. We stopped by on Friday to let the kids see Hannah!! Ansley had been asking to see her since she was born...so for three days! Believe it or not Ansley was in heaven but James took the medal for the most excitement when seeing a baby. At one point it was time to feed Hannah so Caroline told James. He told Caroline "baby says no!" It was love at first sight for him! I asked him what her name is and he replied baby. It took until we got home for him to believe that her name was Hannah not baby.
This is one of my favorite pictures of the girls!!


It takes a lot to wake up this baby!


Thank goodness Hannah is a patient baby. The kids were exploring her. James was putting on her sock.


He was petting her head the entire time.

Kid moments!!

To start off this post I must give a shout out to the makers of garage door pads!! James likes to help me take Oscar out after dinner. James has not learned how to open doors yet(thank goodness), so he likes to help me open the door and call Oscar. Tonight, I stepped out onto the front porch and called Oscar only to hear James mumble words which included close door and the next thing I new the door was closed and I was outside. Our front door is tricky because you have to press a button on the inside frame for it to be unlocked. Yep I have lived there 5 years and still managed to not unlock it. Trying to tell a 2 year old how to open the door is like talking to a mime. My lips were moving and telling him things but he just continued to have his own conversation on the other side of the door. I give up and go to the garage to open the door with the key pad. Luckily, we live in a culdesac so nobody saw me talking to the door.
It never fails that when we get in the car and head out and get on the main road a little voice from the back asks me to do something. I have tried to explain to the kids that mommy has to watch the road so we can all stay safe. So today we are on our way home from school and Ansley drops her markers. She gets the voice that has a tinge of attitude. I sigh and Ansley states to me "you don't have octopus arms do you!" Yes, she really has been listening to me!!

Go Crutchfield kids!!

Today was a long day at the courthouse. It is amazing how people can do such horrible things to others! I guess that is why I get paid $25 all day. It is also amazing how such a rotten day can do a 360 when you see your sweet babies. I was able to pick the kids up early today. James has had a great week at school. I picked him up yesterday and Mrs. Amanda was so excited because James new all his colors at circle time that morning. Then when I picked him up today she was excited again because he could count to 8. Yeah James!! I have to thank the leapfrog DVD Ready for School. Most of the time he does the cliff notes for counting "1,2,9,10!" I know good and well he can count to 12 but he choses to shorten it. Way to go Tank!
Ansley's class has started to get serious about preparing for kindergarten. When I picked her up today she was practicing some concepts. Her teacher showed me her work on prepositions and left and right. 100% go Ansley!!! This mommy is bragging big time about how well my kids are doing and how Great their preschool is!!!

My foot hurts = candy????

Today on the way back from FEAST (wednesday night supper... All are invited to St.Lukes for a wonderful night) Ansley informed me that her foot was hurting. Of course all James heard was hurt. Therefore, he decided to egg her on by poking at a tired and cranky 4 year old. Led to an awesome ride home. As we pulled into the neighborhood, Ansley told me that it would help if she could have a piece of candy. Then she gets specific: "My foot doesn't want hard candy it wants soft candy like chocolate." I gave her a hand for the dramatization and sent her packing with goldfish instead!! I love the mind of a 4 year old!!!

Good vs. Trying

Let me first say this before I throw may sweet boy under the bus!!! He is a busy, lovable, intelligent, creative, and sporty boy!!! He and Ansley are the two most precious things God and my husband could have given me.
With that being said the trying two's has set in. It is amazing how he can be so happy and then the next minute so offended. We were at Kroger today on a family outing. He decided halfway down the pet food isle that he needed a cracker and wanted it at that moment. I asked him to sit in the car and he could have one. Well that just put his halo meter on overload. He crossed his arms and told me in so many English-Chinese words what he felt (if he new how to use his middle finger this is where it would have been used). The store was pretty crowded and I am pretty sure they all came down our isle at that moment. Thankfully most people laughed and kept moving. Since he is in a throwing stage I decided that the dog food cans were not the best place to be. I managed to get him away with Only one damaged can. SuperNanny would not be impressed by how I lately have been using the timeout technique. Certain times James will stand in one spot and have his fit. I ignore him and once he is calm I will slyly go up to him and tell him why he is in timeout and that he needs to apologize. He says he is sorry and gives me a hug and moves on. Today that worked for a brief time. Yes it is lazy parenting but it works in these situations. Well he continued to have the emotions of a teenager. As I was leaving the check out line to take him to the car kicking and screaming because he wanted the candy bar from the "every parents nightmare shelf", the lady in front of me was trying not to laugh and asked where my bottle of wine was as she was looking in the cart. I informed her that the fridge was full of it at home!! I do love this stage. He is so sweet and I am having to find the strength not to laugh during his moments of frustration. You may wonder where Ansley was during this trip. She was reaping the benefits of getting the crackers that James was wanting. It is funny how she was just skipping down the isles not carrying that half the kroger population was staring at us. People must have thought we were an insensitive family because we just kept on with our business while cranky pants expressed himself. And yes tomorrow is school for the little ones while I am off to grand jury duty!! If you were wondering who is indicting all those big cases the news.. yep that's me. I have learned so much about the criminal justice system. As they told us we are getting the first three years of law school in two months. My Brain hurts having to intently listen to all the evidence on 70 cases at least per day. It is amazing what people think to do. On that note it is bedtime must be refreshed for a full day of fun!

One more day off

Today was our last day off. Here is how it started off. Not sure it gets any sweeter than this .



We decided to pack a picnic, go to historic Norcross park, and pretend like it was warm out when actually it was only 43. degrees out. The kids had a blast. James was especially fond of the train play set!! He was convinced it was going to move.











Of course daddy needed play time too.

Cabin Fever!!

Here are a few things we did while stuck in the house for 5 days!!!

 Once he put the jacket on it didn't come off.

4th and 5th Snow day!

Thursday we were in the house again. Two things I have learned from being snowed in: 1) by reorganizing the kids rooms and playroom they think they got new toys. 2) being snowed in tightens the kids love for each other.
I finally decided that it was time to clean up the house and get it back to its original state. The downstairs was the easy part. Cleaning up the kids floor was a whole different story. However, I managed to do it with minimal threats. I was able to reorganize and get rid of unused toys. The kids ended up playing together for at least an hour!!!
I thought at the beginning of the week the kids might chew each other up by the end of the week. However, once we got past the cabin fever on Wednesday the kids began to make up new games and adventures together! Now they are hugging each other and asking each other to go and play upstairs. Of course I am pretty sure they are trying to gang up on me. I have been told numerous times that I am not to join in on the fun. They are growing up to fast! They are such wonderful kids and siblings! What sweet little blessings.

Please be patient. Something is wrong with my picture uploader

Yard pics

Snow day 2

Day 2 of snowed in went well. We managed to destroy the house before 9:00 and pretty much kept it that way all day. After an hour of picking up I felt defeated. So it was easier to join the gang! After lunch we went out for a sled run.
















James still can't get enough of Ansley's hat. And yes that is a pink bucket. I promise we do have blue stuff and we are making a better effort to get him some.





When daddy got off work we bundled up again and went out for round 2.








Oopps!!




My turn




James and Bob taking a turn!







Building a snow castle.




The face of a snow baby..not even bribing worked!!





Time for some gingersnaps




We have been doing a great job cleaning out the pantry. We are also running low on art projects. I have a couple more up my sleeve tomorrow.

Sledding video

Christine sledding



Ansley and Bob sledding

Snow day 1

Around 9:30 the snow began to fall. It was beautiful and coming down fast. This morning we had at least 5 inches. Before Ansley went to bed we talked about having to stay home from school because it was going to snow. I could tell she was up this morning when I heard here footprints run from the bed to the window then down the hall and down the stairs. Before she got down the stairs she was screaming mommy snow!! I love when her eyes are full of excitement! We got out two times today to play in the snow. We went out this evening with the kids in our culdesac and went sledding!!James and Eaamon were more interested in digging in the snow/ice. James loved the snow. He was wearing sisters pink hat around all day reminding us that there was snow outside. I had to bride him with a lollipop to come inside. Once Ansleys hands got cold she was done.












Knee deep and loving it!











The creek always looks so beautiful in the snow.











The lake was all ice!













Watching the neighborhood kids sled down our yard.






Lunch break






Round two snow play with the culdesac gang






Make shift smores: mini marshmallows, Hershey kisses, and Graham crackers!!

Starbucks!!

Let me set the stage: I have just finished pumping gas in the cold air. I get into the car and say in an excited cheering voice who's ready to go home!! I hear a serious yet sweet voice from the backseat say "Yea but can we please stop by Starbucks I need to get something." At this point I am trying not to laugh because she is so serious. Of course I told her it was too late for coffee. I soley blame Bob for this new discovery. Over Christmas break Bob was in dire need of coffee so he made numerous trips to Starbucks with Ansley in tow! Yep he has created a princess monster. I guess she will have to wait until Saturday for Starbucks. Did I mention that every time she went to Starbucks she got a snowman cookie that had tons of colored icing!

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Kitchen Renovation

As most of you know our house has been on the market. We have been getting great traffic but no bites. Our house is beautiful and up to date except for the kitchen! We were trying to get by without doing anything to it but the time finally came that the kitchen needed a face lift. So a week before Christmas we gave the contractor the go ahead. We had originally thought we were going to go through Lowes. However, a friend gave me this contractor's name and his price and timeline was unbeatable. He came in on Friday and the project was completed by Wednesday. There are not enough words to thank my parents for all their help!








This was definitely not a small project. We replaced 92 hinges and 60 knobs. Thanks to Rusty for helping us out!! The last step was to give the kitchen table a face lift. It was amazingly easy and fun! The table went from being green tile and natural wood to black. What a difference!! So keep your fingers crossed that we get this house sold in the springtime. I say the springtime so I can enjoy my kitchen a little bit but if someone comes along sooner than that I will not stop them.