Savin' money...

Never thought I'd see the day. Joe clipping and organizing coupons!

talents

Trey was watching Yo Gabba Gabba today and the topic was talents.  Joe asked Trey what his talents were, and Trey said “eating hamburgers and saying please.”

Jonah sitting up

Sitting up (and looking so surprised)

Losing focus...

and we're down!

Trying again...

Down again and playing with big brother

News flash

Jonah can sit up! More info to come when I have time to post photos and a cute little video.

Joe and the dogs

don't worry..i'm not!

I signed up long ago for a newsletter from parents.com that shows info about Jonah's age.  I need to stop reading it.  This week's says "baby not crawling yet?  don't worry."  As if to suggest that I would be worried.  I'm not worried.  So Jonah "forgot" how to roll over from his stomach to his back, and has never rolled over from his back to his stomach, or attempted to crawl, but he is a sweet, happy baby who swings his legs in time to music.  I know the moving around will come.  In fact, as a 2nd time mom, I enjoy that he is still stationary.  Looking back at Trey's Tiny Tales, he got on all fours and rocked in early October (8.5 months) and crawled on Oct 30th (9 months).  Jonah is 7 months and 1 week.  Back off parents.com!

double meaning

Today Trey told me he is a very big t-rex.  So big!  We were leaving the house to go for a walk, and he said he had to go pee-pee.  So he did that, then came back to me and said "Mommy - do you want to see how big t-rex's pee-pee is?"  I said "Sure Trey...on our way out of the house" thinking we'd take a swing by the bathroom and look at the pee in the toilet.  He said "No Mommy look now. {pulled down his pants} Look at the very big t-rex pee-pee!  A very large pee-pee."  So maybe having different names for pee and his privates would have been a better idea.  Reminds me of the time he asked Aunt Mari if she wanted to see his ding dong, meaning his belly button.  I know why I started calling it a ding dong (b/c I used to push his belly button and say ding DONG" like a doorbell), but in retrospect, probably not the wisest choice.  A note to all new parents out there...be careful what you name things.

Teething biscuits

I found this recipe in a magazine and Joe was sweet enough to make them for Jonah.

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons applesauce

heat oven to 300. place all ingredients in a medium bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until dough begins to hold together. dust counter with flour, then transfer contents of bowl to counter. knead lightly until the dough is smooth, about 3 minutes. roll out with a rolling pin until 1/3 inch thick. cut out biscuits in any shape. transfer biscuits to a greased cookie sheet. bake until barely browned, about 35 minutes. store up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.

Jonah was a fan!

{more photos on the right under photo albums}

What I do to Joe when he falls asleep on the sofa

another resolution

I forgot to add it to my New Year's Resolutions, but I also want to stop using plastic bags.  Both Joe and I have great bags from BagguBags, but the trick is remembering to take them into the store.  I thought about taking the bags into Target today, but then I realized in the checkout line that I had forgotten them.  Argh!

My lovely new mudroom

I have always dreamed of having a beautiful mudroom, and thanks to Grampy I have it! It was part of our Christmas present. He flew out a few weeks ago to install the cabinets and beadboard with Joe's help. Isn't it beautiful?

Napkins

We are down to our last 2 rolls of paper towels. eek! I haven't found any that I like (but then again I have only looked online). However, in the spirit of being satisfied with what you already have, I remembered some red napkins that I bought long ago. I would prefer a pattern so stains don't show, and I don't have enough for family dinner, but these will work for now.

The seam on my favorite pair of flannel PJ pants were coming apart, and when I tripped on them while carrying Trey, I decided it was time to give them up. Luckily I have 3 other pair of flannel PJ pants that I have hardly worn. I mean...really...who needs 4 pair of flannel PJs? I cut up my favorites to use a cleaning rags. Last year I would have just thrown them in the trash.

{yes, he does have a pink binkie. I ordered some online and had no say in the colors.}

Happy Valentine's Day!

A fun birthday gift

This is what Mari got Trey for his birthday. He LOVES M&Ms, so this was perfect!

{click for a closeup}

a great imagination

Trey has been doing a lot of pretending lately.  But he doesn't seem to understand when I try to play along with him.  The other day he jumped on the bed:

Trey:  I'm a penguin and this is very icy.

Me:  Ohhh.... so icy!  Don't slip on the slippery ice!

Trey:  No mommy, I'm just pretending.  This is actually your bed.

Joe told me Trey does this to him all day too.  Very funny.

my poor baby

Ugh.  Don't you just hate to see this?  I had to take Trey to the ER last night.  He was having difficulty breathing - wheezing and working hard.  I've heard him like that before, but what really scared me was that he couldn't get 4 words out without having to take a breath.  It sounded like he had just finished running a race.  Luckily we have a Children's Hospital with an ER close by, so we hung out there for about 3 hours.  They did some breathing treatments then chest x-rays, then diagnosed pneumonia.  It isn't clear if this is new pneumonia, or it never went away from when he had it a few weeks ago.  Oh, and as an added bonus, the doc found a severe ear infection.  We got home around 10pm, Trey got his z-pack antibiotics, and slept until 9:20 this morning.  Probably a few more days of the nebulizer ('the neb" as the ER docs called it) and he will be back to normal. 

Welcome to the family, Black.

Introducing the newest Frankovitch...Black.  He is a 5 - 7 year old black lab we have adopted (so no, we didn't name him).  We haven't decided if we are keeping his name or changing it to something similar, but different, like Jack.  He will be a good friend to Quinn and the boys.  Joe had him checked out at our vet today and he received a clean bill of health!

Trey, 3 years

Jonah, almost 7 months

Tiny Tales @ babyGap Home

Here is a pic of the Baby Tales kits on the shelf at BabyGap.  Thanks Grandma T for hitting a store to check these out for me!

I am way behind in blogging. Things at work have gotten really busy with 4 new direct reports, so that is 5 new hours of meetings per week (4 one-on-ones and a staff meeting) in my already packed schedule.

cuddles

When I put Trey to bed at night, after we read some books, I turn off the light and we "cuddle."  For one minute, I always say.  When he first started asking me to cuddle after books, I tried to hug him, and he said "no mommy.  you cuddle on your side and I cuddle on my side."  Ummm...ok.  So last night he asked me to cuddle, and I was laying on my side of his bed, and he sweetly put his hand on my arm and said "mommy - it's been 1 minute."  As in...leave.  

sweetness is...

getting the giggles with your 3 year old so hard that tears stream down your face.

Resolutions check in

It is February, which means I am a month into my new year's resolutions.  Here is how I am doing:

1. Increase the amount of money put into savings month over month.  We did well in January, which is our new baseline.  We showed a lot of restraint and planning and I am proud of us.
   
2. No new clothes for 2008.  Still good.
   
3. Eat more simply, which means no fried food. Still good.
4. Give up papertowels and paper napkins and move to cloth. We have 8 rolls left of paper towels and I've been looking for cloth napkins but haven't found any yet that I like.
5. Have a garage sale.  Planning this for March.

Tiny Tales is "Item of the Day" on Uncommon Goods!

http://www.uncommongoods.com/