Alex will be fun to watch this year - at age 4 he has REALLY grasped the idea of Christmas and what comes with it (meaning presents). He's still a little confused on the concept of time. When he asked me last week when Christmas was, and I said it was the holiday after Thanksgiving, he was a little surprised the Friday after Thanksgiving that it wasn't Christmas. So I had to explain to him that Christmas was actually about a month away.
He then came in a little later to report that "Mommy, the TV thinks it is Christmas."
Curse the commercials on Nick and ToonDisney.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Another Happy Birthday
To my dear sweet husband. I couldn't ask for a better partner for me or a better father to our kids. I love you!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Lots of pictures
Now that we finally have our internet connection up and running, I've got a bunch of photos to post.
Most of these are from our first day in New Jersey.
Our new little house. Of course Alex likes the green shutters on the windows.
Lucy after 1500 miles in the car with evenings cooped up in hotel rooms. She ran topspeed laps nonstop for at least 20 minutes as soon as we made it to the house.
The explosion of leaves in our backyard. Strangely, the city of Westfield picks up the leaves a few times during the fall, so everyone just rakes them into big piles out into the street at the curb. Very strange to see the first time.
Grace and Alex LOVE the playhouse. Grace has already seized control of many of my discarded kitchen items (this kitchen is smaller than my Dallas one was) to stock it.
Alex loves the "pokeyballs" from the Sweetgum trees that are all over up here. They are his "bombs" that he throws at things.
Grace was happy once we found the monkey bars at the school across the street.
Of course we had to immediately take them over to check the park out.
Here's our huge moving van packed with all our stuff (including the VW station wagon). It was filled to capacity, mainly with our stuff. A woman's furnishings from a one-bedroom apartment and her small compact car were in there too. This was one BIG truck.
Grace yesterday before her first day at school. Your first day picture is a little different when you are starting in November in New Jersey versus in August in Dallas.
And everyone was happy to get donuts after the first day of school.
Most of these are from our first day in New Jersey.
Our new little house. Of course Alex likes the green shutters on the windows.
Lucy after 1500 miles in the car with evenings cooped up in hotel rooms. She ran topspeed laps nonstop for at least 20 minutes as soon as we made it to the house.
The explosion of leaves in our backyard. Strangely, the city of Westfield picks up the leaves a few times during the fall, so everyone just rakes them into big piles out into the street at the curb. Very strange to see the first time.
Grace and Alex LOVE the playhouse. Grace has already seized control of many of my discarded kitchen items (this kitchen is smaller than my Dallas one was) to stock it.
Alex loves the "pokeyballs" from the Sweetgum trees that are all over up here. They are his "bombs" that he throws at things.
Grace was happy once we found the monkey bars at the school across the street.
Of course we had to immediately take them over to check the park out. 
Here's our huge moving van packed with all our stuff (including the VW station wagon). It was filled to capacity, mainly with our stuff. A woman's furnishings from a one-bedroom apartment and her small compact car were in there too. This was one BIG truck.
Grace yesterday before her first day at school. Your first day picture is a little different when you are starting in November in New Jersey versus in August in Dallas.
And everyone was happy to get donuts after the first day of school.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Alex can read?
Last night as I was reading "Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You" by Dr. Seuss, Alex was being his usual stubborn self and saying he was not going to participate by repeating the sounds in the book (this was our first time to read the book). Well, I'd turned past the first page with the "Moo" on it and finally convinced Alex to say the words once while I read, and I say "What does Mr. Brown say?" to which Alex replied "Buzz." Which was the word on the page I hadn't read yet. I asked Alex how he knew Mr. Brown said "buzz" and he said "Because it is right here Mama. B-u-z-z."
Now I don't know if I should be proud that my son can already read a word, or if I should be concerned because the one word other than his name that he knows is probably due to watching many hours of Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
In other news, Grace starts her new school today and is very nervous about it. Also the television and internet should be hooked up tomorrow (thank God!). It is sad that we have discovered we ALL are very dependent on our television - Jim and I feel like we've been living in a bubble for the past week or so.
Now I don't know if I should be proud that my son can already read a word, or if I should be concerned because the one word other than his name that he knows is probably due to watching many hours of Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
In other news, Grace starts her new school today and is very nervous about it. Also the television and internet should be hooked up tomorrow (thank God!). It is sad that we have discovered we ALL are very dependent on our television - Jim and I feel like we've been living in a bubble for the past week or so.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Our South Park family
To occupy ourselves in the hotel room, we played on the computer last night. The kids had a lot of fun with this website, where you can make a South Park version of yourself. Here is what we ended up with:
Jim as created by Grace.
Julie as created by Grace.
Grace created by herself.
Alex created by himself. Note the green hair.
Jim as created by Grace.
Julie as created by Grace.
Grace created by herself.
Alex created by himself. Note the green hair.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Moving along
We are now more than halfway to our destination in New Jersey. For the most part the trip has been pretty easy. The navigation system in the new Toyota is wonderful to have. Not that the drive route is hard to figure out (so far it has just been a couple highways), but it is nice to see the countdown of how many miles and estimated time until we reach the next hotel. And I'm sure the system will be invaluable once we hit the Northeast - no more long, straight highways up there.
The hotels haven't been too bad either. Very clean, but they seem to be shrinking in size as we reach each subsequent one. Could be reality, or could be a cooped-up feeling held over from the previous 6 hours in the car. And if I survive my two bouncing-off-the-walls kids every evening I'm sure I'll be a much better person at the end of this all!
So our first day of driving took us from Texas through Arkansas to Memphis, TN. We stayed at the Days Inn Graceland, which was literally across the street and half a block from Graceland. The hotel had a guitar-shaped pool, free Elvis movies and Elvis music and pictures everywhere (Mom, it wouldn't surprise me if Susan Brown stayed here sometime).
Yesterday we drove across Tennessee, which took an entire day. But we went from Memphis, in the bottom left hand tip, to Kingsport, just about in the top right hand tip. The Great Smoky Mountains are beautiful. In fact, the entire state of Tennessee is beautiful. Gorgeous Fall color all along tree-lined highways. Today we drive to Maryland, then on Saturday just a short half-day drive to Westfield, NJ.
One last note - we resisted in purchasing a DVD player for the kids, but did set up a laptop with two headphones for them. Wow, it's like valium for them back there. And we also haven't made this a sightseeing trip. Our stuff is set to arrive on Monday and we want to give the kids a couple days in their new town before the craziness of unpacking begins. Plus it is hard to sightsee when you have a dog with you. So we stick another Spongebob DVD into the player and barrell on down the road.
The hotels haven't been too bad either. Very clean, but they seem to be shrinking in size as we reach each subsequent one. Could be reality, or could be a cooped-up feeling held over from the previous 6 hours in the car. And if I survive my two bouncing-off-the-walls kids every evening I'm sure I'll be a much better person at the end of this all!
So our first day of driving took us from Texas through Arkansas to Memphis, TN. We stayed at the Days Inn Graceland, which was literally across the street and half a block from Graceland. The hotel had a guitar-shaped pool, free Elvis movies and Elvis music and pictures everywhere (Mom, it wouldn't surprise me if Susan Brown stayed here sometime).
Yesterday we drove across Tennessee, which took an entire day. But we went from Memphis, in the bottom left hand tip, to Kingsport, just about in the top right hand tip. The Great Smoky Mountains are beautiful. In fact, the entire state of Tennessee is beautiful. Gorgeous Fall color all along tree-lined highways. Today we drive to Maryland, then on Saturday just a short half-day drive to Westfield, NJ.
One last note - we resisted in purchasing a DVD player for the kids, but did set up a laptop with two headphones for them. Wow, it's like valium for them back there. And we also haven't made this a sightseeing trip. Our stuff is set to arrive on Monday and we want to give the kids a couple days in their new town before the craziness of unpacking begins. Plus it is hard to sightsee when you have a dog with you. So we stick another Spongebob DVD into the player and barrell on down the road.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
It's almost here
The packers came today and within about 7 hours packed up just about our entire house. The additional cost to me was totally justified by the fact that if I had been packing the house myself it would have taken me probably an entire week, which just isn't conducive to trying to sell a house at the same time. I was very surprised when it was time to bring the kids home from school that they didn't freak out to see everything packed away. Alex got a little upset once or twice in the car as I was describing that his room was in boxes to get him prepared. But then I pointed out that anything NOT packed in boxes wouldn't make it to New Jersey with us, and didn't he want all his things to make it there? But once we got home both he and Grace seemed okay with it all.
They load up the truck tomorrow and we begin our four night stretch of a different hotel every night. Should be interesting on how that is handled, both by the kids and by the dog.
Tomorrow should be full of tears. Both kids will have their last days at school. I think goodbyes at Alex's school may be the hardest - I've had kids there for the past 4 1/2 years, plus I worked closely with all those ladies for a year and a half. It will be sad at Grace's school mainly because she loved going there so much. And we'll be going to dinner with Mom & Dad - don't even get me STARTED on how that will end after a bottle or two of Sangre de Toro at Cafe Madrid!
But here's a few pics of what we are moving to. We didn't get any shots of the front of the house when we were up there last weekend, and I don't want to share the photos of the bedrooms that REALLY need some different paint colors. But I've got these to tide you over until we make it up there on Saturday:
Our back yard as seen from the not-to-code deck. Just need to add some more railing so my kids or dog don't go flying off a 5-ft up deck edge. The little playhouse seen here in the back of the yard should be a big hit with the kids. It could use a freshening coat of paint, but I don't think the kids will care one way or another.
I hadn't realized it when we first saw the house (with carpets, etc. in it) that the hardwoods downstairs are laid out in these great patterns. Both the living room and dining rooms have these cool diagonal lines going through them, and there is this neat cross-hatching in that space between the two rooms.
Our nifty little fireplace. It's probably about 5 feet high and has outlets on the top at either end of the mantel, so the first purchase we made for our new house were two groovy lamps at Ikea to light up the room. Of course that involved a trip to Ikea in Newark, which while you are browsing and seeing all this cool, cheap furniture feels like a fun time. Until it is time to self-serve your furniture pieces in the warehouse area, transport them yourself on big weirdly-rolling dolly cart to pay lines (which we used the self-serve ones just to get out quicker), only to discover the sides to your 7 ft. tall pantry shelf unit will no way in hell fit into your tiny Ford rental car so you have to deal with the purgatory that is the Ikea returns area. You come out prepared for the 30 minute drive back to your house saying NEVER AGAIN. But then you discover the side pieces for the pantry can actually be ordered online, and you realize that ANY delivery fee is better than going through all that again. Wow - sorry for the off-topic rant there!
From the house you can walk three houses to the right and find this path that will take you to the 250 acre Tamaques Reservation (park) chock full of fun stuff for the family - play areas, baseball diamonds, hiking trails, jogging track, etc.
And here is the little pond you first hit upon reaching the park. I wish we'd had the camera with us the day before when we walked over - there were probably at least 20 of these geese hanging out there that day.
Hopefully once we get up there I'll be able to post some more photos of the house (esp the front) and at least one photo of Grace's new school, which is literally three houses to the left and across the street. But first I have to survive the 3 1/2 day drive. Yikes.
They load up the truck tomorrow and we begin our four night stretch of a different hotel every night. Should be interesting on how that is handled, both by the kids and by the dog.
Tomorrow should be full of tears. Both kids will have their last days at school. I think goodbyes at Alex's school may be the hardest - I've had kids there for the past 4 1/2 years, plus I worked closely with all those ladies for a year and a half. It will be sad at Grace's school mainly because she loved going there so much. And we'll be going to dinner with Mom & Dad - don't even get me STARTED on how that will end after a bottle or two of Sangre de Toro at Cafe Madrid!
But here's a few pics of what we are moving to. We didn't get any shots of the front of the house when we were up there last weekend, and I don't want to share the photos of the bedrooms that REALLY need some different paint colors. But I've got these to tide you over until we make it up there on Saturday:
Our back yard as seen from the not-to-code deck. Just need to add some more railing so my kids or dog don't go flying off a 5-ft up deck edge. The little playhouse seen here in the back of the yard should be a big hit with the kids. It could use a freshening coat of paint, but I don't think the kids will care one way or another.
I hadn't realized it when we first saw the house (with carpets, etc. in it) that the hardwoods downstairs are laid out in these great patterns. Both the living room and dining rooms have these cool diagonal lines going through them, and there is this neat cross-hatching in that space between the two rooms.
Our nifty little fireplace. It's probably about 5 feet high and has outlets on the top at either end of the mantel, so the first purchase we made for our new house were two groovy lamps at Ikea to light up the room. Of course that involved a trip to Ikea in Newark, which while you are browsing and seeing all this cool, cheap furniture feels like a fun time. Until it is time to self-serve your furniture pieces in the warehouse area, transport them yourself on big weirdly-rolling dolly cart to pay lines (which we used the self-serve ones just to get out quicker), only to discover the sides to your 7 ft. tall pantry shelf unit will no way in hell fit into your tiny Ford rental car so you have to deal with the purgatory that is the Ikea returns area. You come out prepared for the 30 minute drive back to your house saying NEVER AGAIN. But then you discover the side pieces for the pantry can actually be ordered online, and you realize that ANY delivery fee is better than going through all that again. Wow - sorry for the off-topic rant there!
From the house you can walk three houses to the right and find this path that will take you to the 250 acre Tamaques Reservation (park) chock full of fun stuff for the family - play areas, baseball diamonds, hiking trails, jogging track, etc.
And here is the little pond you first hit upon reaching the park. I wish we'd had the camera with us the day before when we walked over - there were probably at least 20 of these geese hanging out there that day.Hopefully once we get up there I'll be able to post some more photos of the house (esp the front) and at least one photo of Grace's new school, which is literally three houses to the left and across the street. But first I have to survive the 3 1/2 day drive. Yikes.
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