cindyandmike.com

It’s been so long since we’ve updated our website! The holidays came and went and now we’re in February! I have no excuse! Here are a few updates since our last post, in no particular order:

1.  Had two cookie exchanges at our house in the month of December….fun times and delicious cookies. Several new recipes to add to my book!

2. The kids and I tried to make the trip up to Chicago for Mike’s MBA spouse luncheon…packed the car, dropped Oliver at the kennel, and then saw 3 cars spin out and land in the ditch on I65. Called Mike and Karen to say, “we’re turning around!” We came home and made a gingerbread house!

3.  Christmas Tree decorating afternoon at my mom and dad’s house….Santa came for a visit this year and was a big hit with the grandkids! He even sang to them - insert here - retired music teacher trying to make some christmas cash by going to parties as Santa. Adorable!!!

4.  Maggie had her 15 month check up - all is great - 30 % for height and weight; 97% for head!

5.  Sam had his third dentist appointment. We went really excited; little did I know, this age hates the dentist.

6.  The Bears didn’t make the playoffs. Don’t mention football again until August.

7.  Annual Bonge’s dinner with great friends - amazing night!

8. I made probably about 15 dozen cookies and about 10 loaves of bread for the holidays. Yes, we love to bake around here!

9. Sam had his totally cute Christmas program at school. He loves to sing…but was a little shy in front of the “audience!”

10.  Took 3 total hours spilt between two nights to put the kitchen together that Santa brought the kids. Mike commented about 4 times that he could have written the instructions better…yeh…right honey…..

11.  Dinner date night with my two best friends and their husbands….we rocked out that night - how old are we?!?!  We realized we had NEVER been out, just the six of us, without kids…EVER. Is that possible?? So fun, and we’ll so do it again!

12.  Had a wonderful Christmas Eve and morning…the expression on the kids faces made our year.

13.  Celebrated New Year’s Eve with our friends Rachel and Conrad with their two girls Bella and Sopie…we rang in the New Year in our PJ’s playing Wii. Didn’t everyone do that?

14. Mike started his last quarter of school! Yippee!

15. Mike’s family came to celebrate Christmas in January. So fun to see family!! We miss them!

16. Record breaking snowfall brought a smile to Sam’s face…but not to Maggie! Sam loves to throw snow in her face!

17.  Did I already mention it’s Mike’s last quarter of school?

18.  Sam loves to count with his fingers.

19. Sam and his good friend Jack, went to the Monster Truck Jam downtown. Stayed out until midnight with daddy….

20.  Both kids have been sick twice….but all on the mend now!

21.  Maggie has all four eye teeth coming in…bring on the Motrin.

22.  I turned a very uneventful 33 years of age.

23.  Maggie is now running and is non-stop talking!!!

24.  Mike was pumped to use our snow-blower for the first time this winter!

25. Sam, most days, insists to be called “Bill.” And he calls us “Steve” and “Cracker Jack.”

26. Maggie, while out eating sushi, confused the soy sauce bottle for her sippee cup. Probably won’t make that mistake again.

27. Maggie loves to accessorize. Hats, purses, necklaces (usually rosaries), coats, socks (most times on her hands as sock puppets), etc. - you name it - she loves to wear it - all at the same time. No kidding.

28. The other day, Sam tried on a pair of my sunglasses and said, “Dude, do I look good?”

 SO, there you have it. We’re getting older and growing up around here. Loving life in 2009….happy new year to everyone!

Three weekends ago Cindy left for the weekend to go to WKU for her 10 year college reuinion. Sam and Maggie stayed with me, which was fun. I found out just how much a full time job those two are! If you leave them for more than a minute Sam is navigating through the TiVo menu and Maggie is crawling on top of the kid’s table. They’re crazy I swear! But we had fun. I had Sam put on his own clothes all by himself, which he resisted at first but finally obliged. And he went peepee on the potty for real for once. All I had to do was use some Halloween candy (whoppers of all things, I’ll let you do the visual.) More work to do on that. Now he no longer wants to sit on the potty, even if we try to bribe him with candy or DVD’s.

Maggie started walking that same weekend. She only took a few steps, but it was on her own. She stood up out of her little musical chair and walked two steps all by herself. I didn’t catch it on video. Since then it’s taken her quite a bit of time to take more than two steps. This past weekend she started walking a lot. Here’s the video evidence. P.S. Yes we have pants for her. No I don’t know why parents increase the pitch of their voice two octaves when talking to their kids.

Big week here.  Maggie is crawling.  Not slow, but really fast.  It’s a military crawl, but she is really fast nonetheless.  And Sam used his Elmo potty for the first time.  He asked Friday night when I was at school if he could go.  He’s asked about 10 times previously, but nothing ever happened.  Friday though it worked, and then he did it again on Sunday.  Pretty cool.  Yeah, we get excited about this stuff.  Pictures to follow.

Hate to see them get too far ahead of themselves, because hey, fractions are hard enough let alone standard deviations and correlation and activity based costing, but Sam and Maggie are already thinking about grad school. Good news is that I think they have made a good choice in Chicago GSB. Hmmm, I wonder what the tuition will be in 20+ years…

Maggie is one week and one day old today! We’re doing really well…Sam is an awesome big brother! This morning he actually “helped” me carry Maggie to the changing table and “helped” put on her diapee! He was really proud of himself! Maggie eats a lot - which is awesome! She’s a really content little girl and loves looking at Sam.

After this weekend, Mike has the month off from school, so the basement work will begin again! He’s excited to finish it up, and we’re excited to have the extra “football watching” space! And of course, the Elmo lawn mower, basketball goal, and Big Blocks room!

Maggie has been Simpsonized. I uploaded a picture of Maggie to this website and viola it created a picture of Maggie. Simpson style. Pretty cool eh?

Picture courtesy of www.simpsonizeme.com

We decided to name our little girl Margaret Anne Barnett.  We’ll call her Maggie.  Except when she’s in trouble, then it will be Margaret Anne of course.

Last Thursday night Mike and I were talking about being in the hospital with Sam…and what it was like - you know, having a new baby and being new parents, lack of sleep, staying three nights in the hospital with crazy nurses, etc. etc. It comes back oh so quickly! We’re anxiously awaiting our departure tomorrow! We can’t wait to get home and get back to our new “normal” life!!

So I forgot that a lack of sleep can actually cause your body to hurt.

We were exhausted last night. Baby Girl Barnett wanted to feed for three hours straight, and mommy, being the sweetie she is, capitulated. At about 12:30am, we gave up and asked the nurse to take her to the nursery. She agreed, but suggested the only sure way to get her to sleep would be a paci. Otherwise if she cried they were going to bring her back to the room. I would have rather taken a hammer to the head at that point.

So we gave in. She took the paci for 15 minutes and then slept until 7am. Let’s hear a big “Whoa yeah” for the inventor of the paci.

It was a nice day.  My parents stopped by, as did Cindy’s.  So did Lisa, Dana, and Gage.  We all took Sam and went to lunch for my birthday and Lisa’s birthday.  While I was originally excited about my birthday because now I can officially run for president (umm, not doing that as I don’t want my roaring 20’s replayed for me on CNN), it ended up my birthday was special because of the best birthday president anyone could ever get.

Baby Girl Barnett had a good day.  She is hungry constantly, which is the exact opposite of Sam.  She had the latching thing down pat the first time she tried.  She doesn’t really cry yet, and she seems pretty content, which reminds us of Sam.  She shares a lot of physical features with Sam, like her long slender feet and fingers, and her face is obviously very similar.  Except for the chin.  Here are some pics of Sam from last year for comparison.