Saturday Update

So I realized that I never let you know how our progress on Saturday turned out. Well after all of the talk on the lattice we ended up not being able to do it as there is no way to get it to hold together and we are still missing pieces. We have decided that we are just going to have to buy a piece of lattice that is not the same and get it in there. Calvin's woodwork is all sanded and ready to go. We are planning on painting that Friday and then we have the floor to do and then we are done. There is a good possibility the room could be completed by next week (fingers crossed). KMart ended up not having any toys that we really needed. We went to Menards and got a lot of shopping done, paint and other things to get the storm door fixed...which it is, yeah! Well that is all for now, boring but I thought I had to update you on our progress.

Happy Birthday...to Me!

So today is my birthday in case you are currently residing under some form of rock and haven't seen the news bulletins. I hate getting older but I think 26 will be nice. 26 and I will have been married for 5 years and will have all of my children. I am also a college graduate which is exciting to me that all of that has happened. So if I look back on the whole plan I had for my life, I am basically living it...meet a man in college, get married, have all kids by 26, live happily. See I have done it. Now High School plans are not what is in fruition...I do not live in NYC and I am not a CEO but none of that matters. Plans change and I love that fact!

This morning Nicholas woke up super early (5:30) and made me breakfast in bed. I have to say that I am the luckiest woman in the world. He is just so sweet. As delicious as the food is the best part was getting to spend a few fleeting moments alone in the morning hours with my most favorite person in the world.

Tomorrow we are going on vacation for my birthday. Which I am super excited about except for the fact that we have all been sick and it has suddenly turned cold and rainy here in Indiana and across the country. Regardless I am determined to have a wonderful time with my wonderful daughter and my wonderful, romantic husband.

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary

-Aaron Rose

I do believe that today I am feeling in a somewhat romantic mood. That is, I want to brew a cup of tea, curl up in bed, and read a good Jane Austen novel. However, household duties forbid me from doing this today. That and Emma the toddler prevent me from lounging. Today is Saturday and I am finding if I share with all of you what in the world needs to get done today it helps to keep me on task. If I tell you we have 57 things to accomplish and then I come back here and report only 3 were done, then I feel melancholy. So hopefully reporting to you will help me to accomplish the full 57. Today Nicholas is going to be sanding woodwork in Baby Calvin's room. This is the last step before painting the woodwork a gorgeous cream color that is continuing throughout our house. After that hopefully we will get the furniture repainted and then it will be moving in day in Baby Calvin's nursery...I can hardly wait.

We are also going to be working on the lattice on the top of one of the panels of our fence. Our little yard is surrounded by a cute fence with wood slats on the bottom and lattice work on the top. The lattice on this particular portion of the fence had been entwined with a vine of some sort that basically shattered the lattice after a time. When we bought the house we figured this would be a relatively simple fix, buy some new lattice to replace the old. However after two years of lattice shopping at every lattice supplier known to man, we have discovered that the lattice on our fence was handmade. Oh joy of all joys. So this afternoon Nicholas and I will be outside trying to reconstruct lattice. The problem has been there for the two years that we have owned the home, but I am just sick of it and in the summer it is somewhat covered by the trees, so now as the leaves are dropping you can really see the problem. I am also set on getting it fixed today because the Arts Cafe is tomorrow and people are going to be walking up and down our street to see how wonderful our neighborhood is and we don't need anyone dissing our poor little fence. I am such a geek but I believe that the details are what make the picture perfect.

Other things to accomplish today include going to K-Mart to do a little shopping. There was a coupon in the paper for half off a toy so I am figuring that will be a good opportunity to get a little Christmas shopping done for Miss M.

Dinner tonight will be at the elder Witwer household which should be nice as we have not seen Nicholas' dad in what seems like a millenia. Also Nick's mom and dad have been holding Emma's gross nasty baby doll for ransom down there (not really, but doesn't that sound dramatic) so we are going down there to bust her out.

So those are the things on my to do list today. I will try to report back tomorrow and let you know our progress. Hopefully I can tell you that everything has been done!

1st November Blog

In my desperate attempts to get to know this whole Blogger website program, I have learned how to add a new background, yeah! Now I don't have the same background as everyone and their brother as there are only about 3 to choose from. How boring. So I hope you like this one and hopefully I will stay on top of things enough to change it when Thanksgiving is over.

I know that everyone is in love with Thanksgiving and everything but personally it has never been my favorite. Probably because I have always spent my holidays being shuffled around from one family to another and now that I am married I am always running from my family to his. Well not this year. I am enjoying Thanksgiving. Ha, ha, ha! There will be lounge pants, and games, and movies after dinner and lots of laughing I presume.

As much as I love November (Christmas preparations, leaves falling, my Birthday) I also hate November (Christmas preparations, leaves falling, my Birthday). Christmas preparations are always fun but I somehow always seem to concoct these outrageous plans throughout the year and then when the time is upon us it either doesn't look like what was in my head or it turns out that to turn my thoughts into reality would be a huge stretch of the budget. Last year I wanted to make these trees out of cranberrys for a centerpiece. Except that a large amount of cranberrys turns out to be quite expensive and it required a ton of pushpins with a white head. However no one sells white push pins except for a florist, who was happy to sell me some, but at the cost of $12.00 for a small box. Next idea please.

Leaves falling: Nicholas and I seem to have differing perspectives regarding leaf pickup. When I was growing up as many of you know, my parents live in a rural area and leaf pickup consisted of raking what you could and having to burn it. I always hated how things just looked to dirty when all of those leaves were on the ground. So I always wanted to have a house where there were no leaves anywhere when they were picked up. Nick on the other hand is content with letting them sit until "they are all off the trees" which I think would take until Christmas which at that time the impending snowfall would be a burden to leaf raking efforts. So to conquer this difference of ours this is what I did and maybe you other wives can follow suit: Living in the city our "yard" consists primarily of landscaping. And I hate when leaves are in the landscaping. So I took Emma out and I raked all of the leaves out of a large portion of the landscaping. This in turn ended in huge piles of leaves in the actual lawn part of our yard. So Nick then raked them to the curb for leaf pickup. I think this system worked nicely for us. It would be a good one to continue except for the fact that I am zooming into my 9th month of pregnancy like a cow trying to run a marathon.

My Birthday: oh how I love Birthdays. They are just so fun and make you feel like such a little kid. I love the surprise of getting cards in the mail and presents when you least expect them. My time of the year for Birthdays kind of sucks though as it is close to Christmas so we are always saving for Christmas. This year though we are going to Brown County for my Birthday present so that should be wonderful. Birthdays are always so depressing though. Each year I have this time when I look back at my 26 years and realize I have done nothing significant. Will anyone remember me when I am gone? I also look to the future and realize how fast the years go by and feel so sad that it feels there is hardly any time left. The kids will be in school, then out, then gone, and then we are just kind of waiting for the end. I just want to make sure I treasure all of the small moments in my heart.

Pumpkin Eyes

I love this picture of Emma. I took it the other day when I was out raking leaves and Emma was exploring. She is just so cute and inquisitive. Here she was enjoying sticking her hands in the eyes carved into the pumpkin. We then went and washed our hands as the squirrels had been chewing on those very same eyes and I am not sure if rabies stays in squirrel saliva, but I figured we shouldn't be the ones to find out.

Leaves Are Falling

As I watched the leaves fall from our breakfast room window, I realized how easy it is to have the thoughts of a grown up; I don't want these thoughts. I could look at the leaves and think of how much of a mess they create: they are in the landscaping, under the fence, pooling on the walk. Instead I would like to see them as little drops of color wonderment, the down for a huge leaf bed to jump in. I look at Emma's paints and so often see a mess, a clothing disaster waiting to happen as she gets herself wet with paint water and makes her art work sopping wet. Instead I would like to see her paints as an opportunity to teach her her colors, to show her how paper absorbs water, unlike the floor, and to pass on the creativity that my Mom managed to force into me. So many events in our lives are awful, horrific events. Some events in my life are ones I wish to forget and dread the thought that Emma could ever go through something like that. And yet, I try to find my inner child when dealing with every day situations. When Emma is running around the house being silly, I can tell her to calm down as she might break something, or I can get on the floor and be silly with her. I believe something that my old friend Jackie Brady told me when I was lifeguarding, "life is based 10% on circumstances and 90% on your attitude." And how true is that? I am a Child of God and with knowing that in my heart, I can walk confidently through life with my head held high. Why should I be discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Jesus is my portion and I know He watches over me. Can I get an Amen?

Our Little Piglet

Can I just ask the simple question of how flipping cute is Emma?
So this weekend was one of Halloween Fun for the Witwer household. Saturday we carved Emma's pumpkin which you can see next to her. Nicholas decided to make her a kitty cat, as she loves kitty cats. Personally it kind of looks like a bat to me, but maybe I am just weird. Maybe I am weird...hee, hee, like I am not so far gone on the weird-o factor. Anyway, Sunday we then had our neighborhoods Halloween party which was so much fun. I must say, I truly love our neighborhood. There is nothing better than neighborhood comraderie (or knowing how to spell comraderie, which as you can see, I do not!). Kids were dressed as stop signs, Wizard of Oz characters, pirates, a little girl had a witch costume on that made her look like a Jon Benet type hooker. And of course there was our own little piglet. We decided to duck out of the parade this year, which seemed last year to simply be us walking around the block stepping on the back of each other's feet. Not so fun. While we were tactfully ducking out of the parade, who should arrive but Juan Manigualt. For those of you who are not familiar with our area, Juan is the republican candidate for Mayor. He is running against Nick's boss so if he wins he will be Nick's boss. Kind of awkward to say the least. So he came over and started talking to us (personally I think he was trying to get my minority vote, but hey, whatever) he was small talking with us and just kicking it around until he asked Nick where he works. You should have seen the look on this guys face when Nick responded that he works in the Economic Development Department for the City. Wow that was a priceless face. Especially entertaining was watching them interact after together after Juan found out that Nicholas is in charge of the golf course, airport, and all of the industrial. Awkward would have been nice to see as Juan has been bashing the growth in Nick's area. They did however agree on several issues so as Nick said he wasn't just standing there giggling. Going back to the party though there was a pinata, cornhole (gotta love Indiana, right?), pumpkin painting, and plenty of food. It was a beautiful day and we got some fantastic shots of our little Piglet. Hope you all had a great weekend

Pathetic

So last night we went out on a date, a real live actual date! I don't think we had been out on a date for, well, I seriously cannot remember the last time we were on a date. So we went out to eat to one of our places we used to go out on dates when we were dating. You can completely tell that we are used to having Emma with us because we had finished our meal from sitting down to having our leftovers packed up in 20 minutes. Nick said "we seriously just had a date night in 20 minutes". We are kind of pathetic. After that he asked me if I wanted to do anything and believe it or not we went shopping. Normally I would have wanted to go and get ice cream or take a walk or just be silly together, but now that we have Emma the idea of going to a store and not having to make a mad dash around to get what we need and get out sounded blissful to me. So we went shopping and found some cute dish towels and we even found a Christmas present for me for Nick to wrap and give to me. Yeah! So all in all it was a nice time and it was nice to get away. My mom watches Emma every other Friday so maybe this will become a habit for us. But it was kind of sad, I sat across the table from the man I love and we had nothing to talk about. I am scared we are going to become one of those old couples who take books to dinner and never talk to one another, they just read. They either hate one another or they are just in such perfect harmony that they know what the other is thinking at each second of the day. So that is what I am scared of...being old with Nicholas and not talking to him at all.

Chilling at Home

So we have some freaking huge plans for today. Let me get my planner open so I can tell you all about it. Oh wait, we aren't really doing anything today! Yeah! It is rainy here although not all too cold as it has been and I am so looking forward to a day bumming around the house in our jammies spending quality family time together. We are going to be carving Emma's pumpkin tomorrow and I also have to make Christmas presents (of which I am not telling you what I am making...ha!)

We are also going to be returning our new DVD player to Best Buy because I am apparently incapable of purchasing electronic equipment. It seems that whatever I buy somehow seems to have some type of problem. I think I could go out and buy a top of the line television and the thing would probably not work. All I needed a DVD player for was to watch Baby Einstein DVD's as our conked out on us and Emma would give me those sad puppy dog eyes every morning when she couldn't watch her "Babies" as she calls them. So we bought another one and now it jumps and skips and stops at its own free will. Stupid DVD player. This is why I want to live on the frontier and spend my days churning butter.

So we will be sitting at home today if anyone needs us which I am very excited about.

Our Autumn Door

I thought I would post a pic of our fall decorations but this picture does not do it justice. I suck at taking pictures. Anywho, behind the giant mum in the front is an arrangement of gourds followed by other mums up top. I love it. Mum is my Birthday flower as you know and since my birthday is coming up, now you know what to get me. I am writing this before I head off to work; mom took Emma so I am baby free. She is even going to watch her tonight which means Nicholas and I are off to a date night in the sun. I don't know what that means, just go with me. I seriously cannot remember the last time I was alone with that man. Strange huh, its as if we have been taken into a hostage situation by Emma and no one is allowed to escape until she has tired of eating grapes sliced in half and whole milk out of her cup. Anyway, hope you all are having good Fridays...hang in there the weekend is almost here.

So Freaking Pissed

So I found out by looking at her Target registry where you can list your baby's name that a friend of mine is naming her baby the same name as Emma. Now don't get me wrong, I know Emma is now the number one name for girls and I understand that that is going to be used, but the entire same name? With no call to check and see if that is okay? That is just low. Sorry but it is. Nick and I are friends with the Graverson's who also have an Emma. We don't see them too often but like to think of the four of us as kindred spirits so we called them to make sure it was okay to use Emma...not Emma's whole name but just Emma. I am so pissed. Names are something that are unique and you don't give your kid the same name as a friends kid. Mom One "This is my son Marilynn Manson" and Mom Two "and this is MY son Marilynn Manson". Weird, and now I am pissed. I have been polling other friends to see if I can be justifiably pissed or if this is crazy hormonal pregnancy pissed, and by far the numbers are heavy on the oh yeah be pissed, be very, very pissed side. So now I am mad...mad enough to slash tires...I will have to google how to slash tires or get a slashing tires for dummies book, but still the idea is there.

Calvin's Room

Sunday Jaime came over to help paint Jerseys onto Calvin's newly painted walls. And I must say they turned out pretty darn good. Nick had the enormous job of drawing these

beasts and I must say it is a good thing the two of us are creative and artistic people...not to mention Jaime, oh my gosh that woman can paint...go you!

There are still plenty of touch ups but the general idea is now on the wall and I am so proud of the whole idea. For those of you who don't know, Emma's room has dresses which were also all hand painted. So our home is very unique.

Even Emma helped with the painting (she is so cute, how does she just pick up a paintbrush and know how to pretend paint? She even dipped where paint should be.)

So all in all I think it is looking pretty darn good. Jaime had the rockin' idea of using penants as our valances. So we have two windows and I think that I will need four penants per window. So if you have any old baseball penants around that you don't want and you don't think your husband will miss, please let me know. Hope you all had a good weekend too!

Random Thoughts at Work

When is the last time you ate canned meat? Does anyone eat this on a regular basis? I bought corned beef in a can last week. Wasn't bad, but just weird. Nick made weird faces and yet proceeded to eat it. This is the man though who had not had spam until we were married and he loves it. Ah canned meats

Does anyone else ever see someone a little "too" excited about Halloween and wonder if they worship the devil?

I am looking for a tactful way to tell a 82 year old woman that you do not need any more wreaths and purple flowers look fake...any suggestions?

How do you know when sour cream is bad? It is cream that has soured for goodness sake. And cottage cheese. People should know how to spot these things. Because when you are pregnant all animally products smell like hairy buffalo butt anyway.

So I was showing Emma lint when we were doing laundry and I am trying how to explain what lint is...fibers of cloth and hair and other grossness?

What do you think a good man name for me would be if I were ever to become a man? I am thinking Leon might suit me.

My New Home!

So I am going to be blogging here. Unless I absolutely am hating this, and then maybe I will move back. Either way, here I am right now. Well this weekend went well. I think that I am really liking this whole, cool weather thing going on this October. At first I was freezing, but once your body gets used to it, its not so bad. We went and got a pumkin at the pumpkin farm. As you can see, Emma is not too sure that she wants to share her wagon with a pumpkin.

We went to Babies R Us today and I can now say that we have all of the bedding for Baby Calvin. It is going to be cute. When we got home, Nick primed the walls and Emma and I booked it to the library (ha, gotta love puns!) He is now officially done with sanding the drywall so I was even able to hang some of Calvin's clothes in his closet. Here's a question for you...how is it he still isn't even born and yet Calvin has more clothes than me? Life is just odd. So I hope you enjoy this blog. Let me know what you think with comments. Love you all!