This is Megan "reading" to Jake. She's so funny. She's just recently started doing that baby/toddler jibber jabber talk. You know where they "say" all kinds of stuff with voice inflections and everything, only, you have absolutly no idea what they are saying. Yeah, she's doing that. It's so cute. She does it all the time "da da be bo ba.." And she's also started "saying" what ever you ask her to say. And she's pretty good. Some things she says the exact same sylable, just in a different tone so to her it's a completely different word.
me: say Kitty
Meg: ta ta!
Me: say Daddy
Meg: Da da!
They almost sound exactly alike. Anyways you guys with kids know what it's like. :) Oh yeah! She says Bye-Bye perfectly. Just like that old sketch from Saturday Night Live with the airline flight attendants...remeber that? when they say "ba-bye" member? It's just like that! I've also noticed her comprehention has just really increased in the last few weeks too. She knows exactly what we say to her. She even follows 2 step directions. You know.."pick that up and put it in the box". That sort of thing. She's SO not a baby anymore :(
Not much else is going on around here. But hey, isn't it amazing? I'm posting in the middle of the week! Holy cow! Anyways, I'm trying to get ready for Christmas. I moved my living room furniture this weekend in order to accomodate the Christmas tree. Thatis going up this weekend. I actually like the way I rearagned things. And I'm totally convinced, there are too many dead things in this house. And by dead things, I mean wild life mounts. You know, stuffed deer and ducks and....the list goes on. I'm seriously thinking of charging admission here. The house will be known as the "Wilcox Wildlife Museum". I'm going to have to do an entire post with pictures walking you all throuh the house. I'm not kidding you, it's bad. I wish I had a video camera. (well one I could hook up to this computer) You'd think I'd have creative controll over the place since you know, I am the lady of the house and all. I'm going to have to work on that.
Speaking of Pete, and hunting and all that....The ranch is supposed to open up in Februrary! That's like 2 months away! It finally hit me this weekend that this is really happening. That I'm married to a pig farmer. I got a call here at the house on Saturday...a friend of a friend...He wanted all kinds of information on the ranch. Prices, location, services..yadda yadda yadda. It's the first time I've really felt like I'm a part of this whole thing. It's kind of exciting actually. So we're making up business cards and this weekend I'm going to go up and take some pictures for a brochure. It's been a very long year setting this up and now it's finally becoming reality. Scary and exciting all at the same time.
Well...that's all I got for now. Got to go to sleep so I can be all restful for my boring job. woo. hoo.
ETA: you've got to see this! This is my favorite Christmas song and this version will give you chills! It is REALLY long. 9 min. 9 sec. but I promise you if you hold out for all 9 minutes you will not be disapointed.

Thanksgiving ...

Was SO good. And too short. This is my mom and Mike bringing the bird off the grill. I'm tellin ya, this is THE best way to cook a turkey. Holy smokes, every year Mike never ceases to amaze me with his turkey cooking talents. It was so juicy, and tender...melt in your mouth goodness.
Anyways, as you can see, we went up to my moms for Thanksgiving. It was just the 6 of us...us four and them two. But it was nice. Years ago we used to have big crowds, it used to be a weekend event, you know? Family from out of town here all weekend...Big dinner on Thursday afternoon with a table stretching from one end of the house to the other, movies and games. Leftovers Friday night, more games...then antique shopping on Saturday and counting all the Christmas trees on tops of the cars coming down from Apple Hill (a local area for fresh trees). Those were some of the most memorable Thanksgivings and memories that made this my favorite holiday. Though the crowd has dwindled, the company is still good (and the food more than excellent) and it's still my most favorite holiday. Thanks Mom and Mike for making this year just as special as all the rest. :)
I had to work today. I think that should be like against the law or something. It just doesn't feel right! Plus it messes up the whole rhythm of things when you have a random day off in the middle of the week! And Pete did have the day off today, so that made it all the worse when the alarm went off at 5:30 and only I had to get up. There was no traffic this morning so I made it to work in record time. I actually had about an hour to spare before I had to be in the office. So, I stopped at Khol's. I don't even really like that store, but heck they opened at 4am..they have to have something good,right? Well, I pull into the parking lot and whoa, it's full. But surprisingly, I have no trouble finding a spot. I see the TV station van parked out front of the doors. I walk in and it actually doesn't look that bad. There didn't seem to be THAT many people in there. Boy was I ever wrong! I started walking around and noticed there was actually no one shopping...everyone was standing in line. There were HUNDREDS of people that wrapped around the store probably 3 times waiting to check out. They all had piles and piles and PILES of stuff. And they were all just standing there like a herd of turtles. I've never seen anything like it. I turned by butt right around and marched right back to my car! I still had about 45 minutes to waist before I had to get to the office so I decided to try Michael's. It wasn't too bad but I honestly didn't know what I wanted or needed there so I kind of walked around aimlessly...Ran into Michelle from work who actually had today off...Then I found a shadowbox that I'm going to make up for Megan's room.
So no real Black Friday coolness for me...Oh yeah! I DID go online when I went to work and got fabulous deals at Old Navy. I got each of my kids 3 outfits for less than $100 including shipping! And THEN I went to CK.com and bought Ali Edwards Life Artist book...such a deal! 16.50 with tax and shipping!
So I guess today wasn't so bad.
Except for when I got home...Dang Pete ate all the left over mashed potatoes! Every last smakrel of em! oooh he got an ear full from me!
Tomorrow:
possibly some shopping
maybe moving of some furniture to accommodate the Christmas tree
maybe some more baking
we'll see
Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Jake

Sometimes I forget he's still a little boy. He's such a big kid in so many ways. He speaks very well. He can go potty by himself. He can dress himself. He brushes his own teeth. He can almost tie his shoes. He gets his own drinks from the fridge. This morning though, I looked at him sleeping...he still sleeps with his tounge out like he's sucking on a binky. And I looked at his arms and he's still so tiny. Not tiny like a baby of course, but still a little boy. Sometimes I think I expect too much out of him. I expect him to look after Megan and watch her when they play outside. I expect him to behave when we're in public. I forget he's still just a little guy. Tonight he was all cuddled up with Daddy on the couch. He was so quiet I forgot he was still not in bed. I turned and looked at him and he was sound asleep, snuggled into Pete's arms. It was the sweetest thing! He's still my baby. It's hard to believe he's going to be in school next summer.

Real life. Right now.

There she is...taking every last bit of tupperware out of my cabinet. Again. This is life for us every day.
Hold on, this post is all kind of randomness!
I can't believe it's Friday already. And I've been a bad blogger. And Thanksgiving is less than a week away. I could have sworn we had another week. I'm ready for it though. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I suppose it will be a little strange and a little sad without my grandma though. hmmmmm. Ok I didn't come here to cry. (not today anyways)Let me change the subject...
We bought a new car. Well not a new car. A new old car. A little Honda for Pete. Turns out driving the big ole truck from here to SF every day and to the ranch 3 or 4 or more times a week was costing us ohhhhhh I don't know $1000 dollars a month. Yeah. Need I say more?
Remind me never to go on a scrapbook cruise. I was checking out Donna Downey's blog and she just got back from one. I didn't realize there were so many ummm...old people on cruises. And, I'm totally NOT against old people. Heck no. I guess that's not what I would call a good time. It seriously looked very boring. I could be wrong. Oh and I really have nothing against Donna Downey either (except that maybe she's pushing her "stuff" way too much on her blog) Ok now everyone thinks I don't like old people. My grandma was one cool chick. Seriously all I'm saying was that the pics on DD's blog looked like everyone was about to fall asleep. Donna and her husband were the only ones having fun. So it appeared. Of course, if I were to go on a scrapbooking cruise with say...all my blogland scrappy friends....WELL that might totally be a differnt subject! Now that sounds like a good time!
Yoga pants are the best things ever. I'm not kidding. They are so comfortable. At least the ones I have are. And no..I don't do yoga.
Speaking of exercise...You know how like a month ago I was like "hey my pants don't fit and hey I've lost 15 pounds" or whatever? Remember that? Ok well the truth is, I totally made that 15 pound thing up. yep. The thing is, I don't have a scale. It's one of those things were I just never got one. You know, I didn't put it on my wedding registry so I never got one. So I just figured it was about 15 pounds that I lost. Anyways, the other day I was at my friends house and she's commenting on the fact that it looks like I've lost weight...yadda yadda yadda...She happens to have a scale in her bathroom...long story short: DUDE, I have lost twenty-seven pounds since January. TWENTY SEVEN. 2. 7. wholey crap! I thought the scale was broke. I had to get on it 3 times just to make sure.
While I was at my friends house I took some pictures of her new baby girl. If your interested, you can see them here The first half are unedited and then the 2nd half I kind of photoshopped...well as much photoshopping as I know how to do. But I think they turned out pretty okay.
I'm planning on a pretty crafty weekend. I've got all kinds of little projects started. We'll see how far I get with it. And maybe I'll post again over the weekend. Have a good one!

Wow, Yeah it's been a long time since I posted! The computer has been monopolized by Pete every night this week so I havn't been able to update.
Seattle was so much fun! Chrissy is great. Seriously, I saw her sitting on a bench waiting for me and it was just like I'd known her forever. No akwardness whatsoever. (in case anyone was wondering!) We walked all over Seattle on Friday, (yeah, we were kinda lost) and then we walked all over Bellevue on Saturday (but we didn't get lost over there!) My legs are still hurtin' from it! (uh huh, I'm a little out of shape)Ok they're not hurting anymore, but they were when I wrote this...like 4 days ago. LOL! But it was really a lot of fun. We met Nicole and Jaquiline on Friday night....Nicole is just as sweet in person as she seems on her blog. And Jaquiline and I were on the same flight home back to California! She lives near me in Santa Rosa and told me about a scrapbook store in Berkeley that I'm going to have to go check out. Seattle was a beautiful city, and I really felt at home there. If it didn't rain all the time, I could live there. It was like a little miniature San Francisco..but better! Pete did great with the kids while I was gone...but I guess he hit up one of his sisters to watch Megan on Saturday. That's ok though. :) He told me he could never deal with me being gone for like a whole week or anything. He said breakfast and lunch was no problem, but he'd have a hard time with dinner....He said he'd have to think about it all day, and that he'd have to stop what he was doing in the late afternoon in order to make dinner. Really? ya think?! LOL!! Noooo, I could never relate to that! ha ha! But in his defense, he did a really good job, and I came home to a clean house, freshly mopped floor, and all the laundry washed, folded AND put away (for the most part). So he get's an A for the weekend. :)
The time change has really screwed me and the kids up. I hate when we switch from daylight savings. Yeah, I know we get an 'extra hour' to sleep or whatever...and it is nice that it's not pitch black dark when I leave the house in the morning...BUT it IS pitch black when I get home and I can not stand it! I hate driving in the dark. It took me about 15 minutes extra to get home yesterday. That's a big difference when you've only got an hour and a half to get dinner and baths in before bed time. Oh yeah, and Megan was just fit to be tied Monday night. She was so ready to go to bed by the time we got home. In her mind it WAS bedtime. So I put her down by 7:15 and didn't hear a thing from her the rest of the night.
I think the time change has messed with my mood or something. The last two days at work I've been really cranky. You'd think after such a good weekend I'd be in a good mood. For some reason I'm just not! I guess I should be grateful for this job where they pay me a lot to do nothing. (And I am) but grrrr...I get so uptight when people don't do their own work....or expect others (me) to do it for them. And I didn't know this either...but apparently, I'm a personal fax machine. Yep. And why does the day seem so much longer, even though it's dark earlier? Every time I look up at the clock, I swear it's moving backwards instead of forwards.
Anyways, I can tell my attitude problem is seeping into this blog post so I'll end it here. Here's some pics from the weekend :)
Look! I'm touching the Space Needle! Little did you know, Seattle really IS a miniature city! ha ha ha!!!

Here's Chrissy...isn't she cute? :)

I love this one!

This is from the roof of our hotel-so cool :)

Here's one of me just for giggles...my face looks really red...not sure why other than it was kinda cold up there!


Ok, more later..someone is freaking out right now..it's bed time!