Is this thing on?

WOW! Talk about a little break huh?

I have to say I'm a bit embarassed by my lack of posting for such a long period of time. To say that I've been swamped might be the understatement of the year. Riley started kindergarten this year, Paige is running around like the princess that she is, my husband has taken up running (something I tried for a little while but then got swamped with sessions), my photography business has entered the busy season ... and yeah ... LIFE IS BUSY!

I'll come back to do an update soon ... but I wanted to put just a touch of life into this thing for today. :)

:: that's what happens ::

Take a woman who works full time at one job ... add in two growing children, an ever expanding small business and the holidays ... do you know what you have? A mommy that hasn't posted on her blog for almost 2 months! *blush* Isn't that horrible? I feel so bad that I've missed posting about Paige's 2nd birthday party, Thanksgiving, visiting Santa, Christmas, New Years ... it seems the list just goes on and on! I'll try to give you a condensed version of an update ... but don't be surprised if you need to take a potty break half way through.

Riley
Riley is ... well, Riley is an ever growing sponge that frustrates me to no end some days and leaves me speechless other days. He's doing well in school. We had fall conferences and got a great report on him. He fooled the teacher into thinking he didn't know his colors that well ... when they kind of quizzed him one day he claimed he didn't know what color red was. *insert a huge eye roll here* Red is only my favorite color and we have it all over our house. He knows what color red is. When his teacher told us that I looked over at him like "Say WHAT?" ... and he just smiled and looked down to the floor. Stinker.

One of his big battles with us currently is the fact that he thinks he needs a tv in his room. I guess someone at school has a tv in their bedroom. He thinks we're just horrible parents because we flat out tell him no. Thankfully he's still young enough though that he doesn't have a GREAT grasp on how long a year really is ... because when he asks when he can have one, he still seems to be satisified with the standard, "When you buy your own house, you can have a tv." :)

Hockey is going well for him. He's skating has improved by leaps and bounds and there have only been a few times I've heard him say that he didn't want to go to practice. I think it's done a lot for his determination. If you're at one end of the ice and the coaches want everyone at the other end, you need to figure out how to get down there ... you can't just give up. Dad's not going to be able to walk out on the ice and help you out. I was really worried about that after the first couple of practices. He's one of the youngest, smallest kids on the ice at that time ... some of the other kids who have been in it for 3 years are just flying around him but it really doesn't seem to bother him. *phew*

Paige
Paige is our sensitive soul in the house. If she thinks she hurt you she'll melt down in tears and need to snuggle ... meaning that if she's poked you in the eye to the point it's stinging, you have to just close your eye and console HER. Forget that your eye feels like it's on fire.

Speaking of colors ... she's currently in love with the color pink. Santa gave her the "Pinkalicious" book for Christmas and ever since everything she talks about has something to do with pink. I'm not quite sure what to think about this. I'm not really a "pink" kind of girl.

Anyway, she started talking kind of late compared to Riley and just when I was beginning to think I needed to look some info up on the topic, she took off with her language skills. She will now say just about anything. When we correct her pronunciation by breaking words up she's really good about repeating them correctly. It's fun to watch it click in that little brain of hers. Currently her two most favorite phrases (and cutest to hear) are "Help me" and "Come on!" ... the latter being said while usually patting her leg like we're dogs. You can't help but chuckle. Oh, and I almost forgot, but her other word that cracks me up is "CUTE!" Everything is cute ... her hair, mommy's hair, her shirt, the way I set the dinner table the other night ... all "cute, Mommy!"

Riley and Paige Together
We're starting to have to seperate them a little bit at times while playing ... but for the most part they really play well together. I think Riley likes that there's someone more his age to play with and Paige just thinks it's cool that he WANTS to play with her. She mimmics his actions so much at times. Riley has this little "Awwwwhh" that he does when we tell him he can't do something. Well, Paige has picked it up and it's like we have Riley Jr. when we tell her not to do something.

Don't worry though, it's not all peaches and cream at the Knudson household. Riley likes to blame the mess of scattered toys all througout the house on Paige and Paige likes to get little shoves (or at times ... a bite or two) in on Riley. I'm sure it's just a sampling of what teenage years will look like for us.

Christmas
Christmas was good. We have Riley convinced that Santa got him mixed up with a good boy down the street ... he got way to many presents for being on the "maybe" list. He believes that so much that he tells others the same thing. :) We're evil parents. Ha ha. Star Wars was big for Riley this year. He's into anything and everything Star Wars. His imagination is amazing to watch as he plays with all of the action figures. The way he uses our furniture as different kinds of jails cracks me up. Paige is just starting to "get into" certain types of toys ... but the winners this year seem to be My Little Pony's with their dress up clothes, the giant princess castle that my mom got her and some princess dress up clothes.

Our daycare was closed most of the week after Christmas so Ryan and I decided to take some time off to spend at home with the kids. I'd been so busy in the fall with photo sessions that we hadn't really taken time off together. We managed to do a few fun things ... went bowling, did some shopping, went to a movie (Paige's first ... thankfully we went during her naptime and she fell asleep ... I don't think she would have lasted the whole movie otherwise) ... stuff like that. Riley and Paige had a sleepover at Auntie Deb and Uncle Stacy's one night with cousins Katelyn and Jack. Katelyn didn't appreciate Paige's attempt to snuggle in the middle of the night though. :) New Year's Eve Riley was the biggest party animal in the house ... he went to a party at our neighbors while the rest of us stayed home.

Ryan and I
Ryan is doing well. He's starting to think about his last class for his MBA that starts in February. After that, he's DONE! It's hard to believe that it's been 3.5 years already since he started the whole process. I remember thinking at the time that he was out of his mind, but I'm really proud of him. I'm not sure I'd have the energy right now to go back to school.

I'm doing well. I managed to take some time off from photo sessions between Christmas and the New Year which was much needed! By the end of November I was worn out from doing quite a few sessions for Christmas cards/presents. Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute of it ... but it was just a lot to handle with Gloria Dei and the family.

So there you have it. That's loosely what I would have sent out as our Christmas letter had I ACTUALLY sent something out. I designed and ordered cards and everything ... they're really cute if I do say so myself ... but they never made it to the mail. Oh well, it was just that kind of year I guess.

It all comes back around!

I figured I better come and update this thing before I start getting e-mails from people wondering if I'm okay. So today, I'll share a story with you.

When I was growing up, there was a certain spot in our old house that my mom used to lay down on the floor with a pillow and this blue crotched blanket (that I think she still has) in an attempt to read one of her books (a trashy Danielle Steel book I'm sure). I'm not sure why she didn't lay down on the couch ... maybe because my dad usually had his newspaper spread out up there? Hummm, I'm not really sure.

Anyway, I usually took this chance to plop down on her back and "style" her hair. I'd go and get a spray bottle with water, a towel, a mirror and just about every brush or comb we had in the house. I'd sit on the small of her back, while she read her book, and start spraying down her entire head with water. Sometimes I got a bit overzealous with the water ... and that's where the towel came in handy ... wiping off her face and trying to keep her book from getting soaked. I'd style it all to one side of her head and proudly ask her to look at herself in the mirror. Then I'd style it all to the other side and again ask her to take a look. I'd finally get to a style that I really liked and tell her that I thought she should wear it to work the next day. She'd just look in the mirror and give me a half smile as to say, "Sure honey ... I'll just let you believe that and hope you don't realize it's different in the morning." I don't remember if I ever questioned her as to why she never wore any of my styles to work ... because really ... who wouldn't want to go to work with their hair brushed from the back to the front?

I can remember this all very vividly. I can remember the exact spot that she'd always lay. I can remember the combs we used and what colors they were. I can even remember where we stored the water bottle.

Well, as my title for this blog post says ... it all comes back around! Monday night I talked to a good friend on the phone for about a half hour. Paige and I were still doing the "girls thing" as the boys were at Grandma and Grandpa Knudson's house for hunting. I was sitting on the floor between the couch and coffee table and at some point Paige got up on the couch behind me with a comb and started brushing my hair. Pretty soon she went to get her little detaingle spray bottle that we use on her hair. Then she went to get a second comb. All the while, I was thinking of my mom and I. Before long, she had my hair half wet, had pulled on my hair hard enough that I would have wimpered if I hadn't been talking on the phone and had about 10 hair "pretties" on my head. She was so proud of herself. She did it the entire time I was on the phone ... laughing to herself when she'd get the comb all twisted in my hair and then laughing even harder when she got a clip to stay in. I couldn't help but laugh at how, without me even provoking it, she did the exact same thing I'd done to my mom 25 years or so ago.

Maybe we have a hidden stylist gene in our family line that just been fully exposed yet? I wouldn't mind free haircuts for life. :)

BOO!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!

The kids are psyched for today. Normally I have a hard time getting Riley up but this morning I reminded him that it was Halloween and he jumped right up. And Miss Paige squealed (literally) when she realized we were taking her flower costume to daycare. Ha ha.

Pictures courtesy of Shelley. It was too dark to get a good picture when I left the house this morning. I'll have costume pictures up in a few days.

I've been MIA.

I know, I know. I haven't posted in forever. October has just been a super busy month and I have been doing just enough to keep my head above water. How about some updates? :)

Riley ~ Riley has his last night of "Learn to Skate" class tonight. Paige and I didn't go with last time but Ryan says that he's catching on more and more. I went the second week and "mom mode" kicked in when I saw him struggling to get to the end of the ice he was supposed to be at. I had to turn away a couple times because you could tell he was trying his hardest but just wasn't able to keep up with the other kids. He's pretty much the youngest kid out there so it's to be expected ... but, yeah, it's hard to watch your 4 year old struggle like that. He starts actual hockey practice the second week in November. His other big news is that he's headed up north to grandma and grandpa's house with daddy for deer hunting. He's been asking and asking and asking and PLEEDING with dad to go with ... and dad finally caved. I'm not sure how much he'll actually spend out but I think he's just excited to be included. (And Paige and mommy plan to shop while the boys are gone!!!)

Paige ~ Paige is talking more and more. I'm not sure anyone outside of Ryan, Shelley (daycare), Riley and myself can understand much of what she says but we keep encouraging her to "use her words". She talks a LOT about the whole potty training thing but most of the time she tells us AFTER she's gone. The one exception? The other night after bath I was trying to get her dressed ... I'd had a long weekend working and was tired. She wouldn't let me put her diaper on and went over to the bathroom. I was the mean mom and wasn't in the mood to deal with the 2 seconds of sitting on the toilet only to do nothing besides putting a half roll of toilet paper in the bowl afterwards so I told her that no, she needed her diaper on. So what does she do? She peed in the hallway. Yep, mom of the year award for me. :) The positive (that I kept telling myself as I was cleaning it all up) was that she told us before she went. Hopefully we're making progress there (as long as mom cooperates).

Ryan ~ Ryan is headed out to Texas tomorrow for work. Whoever planned this conference obviously doesn't have kids as they planned it over Halloween. :( He managed to get tickets for a Wild vs Stars game while he's down there which I think he's pretty pumped about. Besides that he's been busy working on my "honey-do" list. He's put a new faucet in one of the bathrooms, put up a new towel rack and toilet paper holder, fixed some chipping issues we had in the tub downstairs, varnished and put up new closet doors in the office and a few other smaller things from leftover summer projects. Plus he's been "super dad" quite a bit lately by taking the kids out when I have sessions.

Me ~ I've been trying to keep the household together but feel like I'm failing at it right now. October and November are just swamped with photo sessions for everyone wanting Christmas cards. It's good ... I like it ... I just wish I didn't have that other pesky 40 hour a week job too. :) I seriously would not be able to keep up if it wasn't for Ryan stepping in so much lately! Other than that everything is good. I feel like I've officially made the transition to winter because I've taken out my little knitting bag. :) The SNOW that we got on Sunday helped with that a little too though.

Halloween is this Friday ... it's hard to believe! Riley is going dressed as a hockey player (dad wants to add a black eye to the costume) and Paige is going dressed as a flower. How total opposite can you get huh? :) We'll head out to trick or treat with some neighbors. I'm not sure how long Paige will last but hopefully it'll be long enough to make it around the block. I figured that would give Riley a decent number of houses to hit up for candy. I'll throw some blankets in the wagon with a doll or two and a sippy cup of juice and that should tide her over for a while.

Well, that's all that's new on this end. I have pictures to post but those are on a different computer. I'll try to get those up soon. Have a great Halloween everyone!

It's that time of year ...!

Look at our little tough man. :) He starts learn to skate classes tomorrow and then starts playing sometime this fall.

AHHHHHH!!!!! I'm not sure I'm ready for this!

Just a couple ....

Last night I took Paige across the street to the empty lots to see if I could get some pictures for her 2 year pictures, as well as her birthday invites. I don't want to share them all right now because I'd like to get her invite out first ... but here are a few sneak peaks! :)

Reason #1158

Do you want to know reason #1158 why a parent should NOT ignore their child's calls? Because sometimes the little girl has an inquisitive older brother who opens the HUGE bottle of, newly purchased THAT NIGHT, bubble bath to smell it ... and sometimes said inquisitive older brother doesn't always put the top back on.

Yes, last night Ryan and I were talking and somewhat ignoring Miss Paige and her "Mommy! Mommy!!!!" calls ... and when I did turn around, she was sitting on the floor covered in a slimy substance ... to which I went to investigate. Well, as soon as my foot hit the hardwood floor and went slipping and sliding around, I knew what had happened. Yep, I looked in the bathroom and she'd poured out half the bottle (I'm guessing that the bottle was a little under a half gallon) onto the floor, finger painted with it and then fell on her butt and spread it out into the hallway. By the time I had time to put thoughts to words, Riley had stepped in it ... leaving Ryan as the only one who couldn't claim he felt as if he had olive oil between his toes. Thankfully it was bath night anyway.

Free to a good home!!!

We have some computer "stuff" we no longer need and thought we'd offer it up here.

If you're interested please e-mail me or leave me a comment. The only payment we request is that you come and pick it up. :)

First of all, we have a computer and monitor (old style, NOT flat panel) that we had planned on using for Riley ... but with two desktops and a laptop already in use in our house (and with Ryan no longer in school) we decided to just make Ryan's computer the "family" computer. Quite honestly, I don't even know much about the computer. Ryan said it's a 512 but I don't know the size of the hard-drive. I do know it's an IBM . I believe this was one that Ryan used to use ... and he typically did word processing/banking/internet stuff on it.

As I said, we had planned on using it as a kid computer ... something to let him play games on and learn how to type/use a mouse without opening up a risk to our personal computers.

Also, I just upgraded my printer so we have two printers to give away to good homes.

HP 2210 All-in-One ~ This one just needs new ink cartridges. It's the printer that was just attached to my computer 3 hours ago.

Features
All-in-One device that Prints, Scans, Copies and Faxes
Photo quality printing with up to 4800 x 1200-optimized dpi
Six-ink color printing with optional photo inkjet cartridge
Print borderless 4 x 6-inch photos with HP Premium Plus Photo paper
Print directly from CompactFlash (Type I or II including IBM Microdrive), SmartMedia, Secure Digital / MMC and Memory Stick
Use the card slots to transfer images to the computer's hard drive
1200x2400 optical-dpi, A4 size, 48-bit color flatbed image scanner
Optional black ink cartridge for faster, crisper black text for regular printing tasks.
High-quality photographic reproduction using HP's exclusive color layering technology from Photoret IV technology
Printspeed: 17ppm in black and up to 12ppm in color
Up to 33.6 kbps fax transmission speed
Up to 99 copies, reduce or enlarge 25% to 400%


HP 930c ~ This was what we used two printers ago. We kept it thinking we'd hook it up to a computer for Riley. Also needs new print cartridges.

Features

Print technology: HP thermal ink-jet
Speed: 9 ppm in black, 7.5 ppm in color
Resolution: 2,400 x 1,200 dpi for color, 600 dpi for black
Input capacity: 100 pages
Output capacity: 50 pages
Media types: Plain, ink-jet, photo and banner papers, envelopes, transparencies, labels, cards, iron-on transfers
Maximum paper size: 8.5 by 14 inches
Memory: 4 MB
Print cartridges: 2 (black, trichamber color)
Dimensions: 17 by 8 by 16 inches
Weight: 12.6 pounds without print cartridges

Nothing says Fall like a trip to the apple orchard!

I fully admit I may be a bit bias. I remember being let loose in my Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Kevin's apple orchard with my cousin, Cory, ... both with our own baskets to collect however many apples we wanted. I remember my Uncle Kevin somehow maintaining his sanity as he pulled a bunch of my pre-teen squeeling and gossiping girl friends around in a tractor wagon as we picked apples and pumpkins. So yes, I fully admit that I may be bias ... but I'm not sure how anyone could disagree that the first bite into a freshly picked apple is what Fall is all about.

We headed out to our favorite orchard today. Northwoods Orchard is a somewhat small orchard with a few animals to pet, a corn maze, wagon ride, pumpkins ... oh yeah, and apples. :)

We've gone to this same orchard every year since Riley was born. I'll never forget how we found out about it. I had called my dad to ask him if he knew of one around our town as the ones we had gone to the years before were closed. He proceeded to tell me how he'd driven by a new one and wasn't really sure what it all had. When I asked him for directions he started giving me street numbers but then suddenly his tone changed. "Once you get into Douglas, take a left and go past Cheryl and Kevin's old house. Go up and over the hill to the west of them. And once you go over the hill you'll see three beautiful combines ... take a right there." Leave it to my dad to give me directions based on what was in the field on the day he happened to drive past.

Anyway, as I said, today we headed out for the first time this season. We walked around to see all the animals and then took a walk to pick some apples. Riley is an old pro at this as he fully remembers these trips last year. Paige on the other hand was a bit confused ... until she saw one section of trees that had a lot of apples on the ground. Then she suddenly realized WHAT those red things where ... and started collecting. At one point she had about 4 apples in those tiny arms ... rotating bites through them. It was a sight to be seen!

And because it's tradition ... the first pan of Apple Crisp was baked tonight. That'll be pretty standard dessert for the next month or so around the Knudson household.

Here's a few quick pictures ...