Warning: this may be boring for you....

I just wanted to write out some thoughts on life and my kiddos, I cannot promise that this post will not be totally self centered and maybe even uninteresting for you.

Henry is getting so big. He went to the Dr. Tuesday for his 3 year well check appt. he is 40" tall and 36 pounds, to all of you who don't have a chart nearby that's pretty big for a child his age. A height predictor online predicted that he will be 6'2" when he is 18. He's going to tower over my 5'3" frame! He surprised me the other day when we walked in the library, they had a little window decoration that said "Happy Fall" on it. Henry pointed at the window and said "that says Happy!" I was shocked. I said "yes, Henry it does say happy, I didn't know you knew that" he surprises me so much every day. We have started a sticker chart to encourage him to be good. He is struggling with trying to gain independence and get attention from me and be good. He sometimes pushes Zoe or takes a toy from her and then runs to tell me that "I pushed Zoe" he tattle tales on himself. He always gets in trouble for it....how much attention can I give him!! I'm only one woman! He can be so sweet too. The other night I let him stay up late and watch "So You Think You Can Dance" with me. He just snuggled on my lap the whole time. On one dance he looked at me and said "maybe I can dance like that girl" I said, Henry you want to dance like the boy not the girl....My favorite thing about Henry is when he looks at me and says "Mommy, I wuv you so much!"

Zoe is so sweet, she is learning to talk. I need to write down her words sometime like I did for Henry. She has no where near the vocabulary that Henry did at her age but she is right on track and smart as a whip! She is so good at figuring out how toys work. She's going to do something mechanical when she grows up. Zoe loves to dance with Henry. We put on the Wiggles and she lights up and starts shakin her booty. She loves the dogs so much. She pets Abner and says "abby, woof woof" We are constantly having to stop her from kissing him because he would lick her face off if we didn't. It's so sweet because I remember the first day we brought Zoe home from the hospital she was sleeping in her carseat and we set her down. Abner stayed as close to her as he could and if Henry came too close he would growl at him. They have been best buds ever since. Buster is our Beagle and he doesn't really know what to think of the kids. We tell Zoe, "leave buster alone, he's a grumpy beagle" He has snapped at Henry and accidentally bit him before so we don't want to take any chances with Zoe. Zoe also has a great imagination. I caught her making a bottle for her baby doll the other day. She held the bottle under the sink in her play kitchen and made a Shhhhh sound like she was running water. She is always bringing me something (pretend) to eat in between her thumb and index finger. She is a clown, always trying to make people laugh. I love her tremendously!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night the kids and I carved pumpkins. I cut off the tops and Henry helped scoop out the guts. Zoe was not interested in carving the pumpkins, she just enjoyed being outside and being a cute model for Daddy. Matt took some pictures of our pumpkin carving (below). Henry proclaimed that Zoe wanted to have a scary pumpkin and he wanted a happy pumpkin. I don't know how he knew that Zoe wanted a scary pumpkin, but to keep the peace I complied the best I could. I am not, you see, a pumpkin carving artist but King Henry declared that they were passable. Now I just need to get some candles, Last year I bought these "fake" candles but I made the mistake of leaving them on the end table in the living room. I should have known by then that anything left at eye level of a 2 year old was free game. Henry somehow managed to break them both and unfortunately birthday candles do not stay lit for very long and that's all I have in the house!

Halloween Week-and memories of Halloween

Saturday is Halloween and I'm really looking forward to bringing the kids trick or treating. Last year I brought Henry but Zoe was too small (she was 5 months old). This year I think she is big enough to enjoy it. They are both dressing up like pirates. I am debating whether I should paint a mustache on Zoe or let her be a girl pirate. I think mustache would be funnier and could be used as blackmail later. Tonight I plan on carving jack-o-lanterns with the kids so stay tuned for pictures tomorrow.

I loved Halloween as a child. Every year I told my mom what I wanted to be and she would create wonderful costumes! I was so lucky to have a mom that could sew and was willing to take the time to! She could have just bought a cheap plastic mask. Two of my favorites were a poodle skirt, and another year a long red southern belle dress. Those two costumes got used several times by my little sisters.

My elementary school was in a small town in the Catskills called Phoenicia. When I say small town I mean don't blink or you may miss it!

Every year on Halloween all the kids in the school dressed up in their costumes after lunch and we had a big parade through the town. The old people would sit out on their porches and watch the parade go by. There would be fire trucks leading the way and the percussionists in the band would play a drum beat the whole way for us. It was truly one of the highlights every year. That night we would go trick or treating through the town. Some kids would just cause mischief; shaving cream, throwing eggs etc.. I never participated in that although it did look fun. You would drive down main street and see dozens of kids covered in shaving cream from head to toe. (and your car would be covered in it too, they showed no mercy!) One year my dad filled a fire extinguisher with water and we squirted the kids as we drove down the street. It was hilarious!

Newborn photos!

If you are interested, newborn session from Sunday is up on my photo blog.

ABC's of me....for Katie :)

A - Age: 31

B - Bed size: Queen

C - Chore you hate: emptying the diaper pail P-U!

D - Dog's name: Abner, the weiner dog (full name is Abner Dabner Long-dog Cox) and Buster the beagle

E - Essential start your day item: Breakfast!

F Favorite color: Red

G - Gold or Silver: Silver (white gold)

H - Height: 5'3"

I - I am: eating smarties at my desk.

J - Job: Admin Assistant for an industrial construction company.

K - Kids: Henry - 3 and Zoe - 1

L - Living arrangements: House

M - Mom's name: Linda

N - Nicknames: don't have any

O - Overnite Stay in the hospital: when I was 12 I was in the hospital for 3 weeks with pneumonia, When I had my babies, and when I had my gall bladder out last year.

P - Pet Peeve: smoking

Q - Quote from a movie: I can't think of any...

R - Right or left handed: right

S - Siblings: 3 sisters, Kelly, Katie and Becky

T - Time you wake up: 6:30 ish

U- Underwear: yes

V - Vegetable you dislike: squash

W - Ways you run late: umm I have 2 kids, need I say more

X - X-rays you've had: lots

Y - Yummy food you make: cookies, ziti

Z - Zoo favorite: Elephants

I crossed one thing off my List this weekend!

I crossed number 63, "take newborn pictures", off my list Sunday! Some friends of mine had a sweet little baby boy a couple weeks ago and they gave me the opportunity to do a photo shoot Sunday. I forgot how tiny and delicate newborns are! I think I got some very cute pictures. I haven't gotten a chance to really look through all of them yet because I went to So You Think You Can Dance in concert last night. It was very fun. My mom treated me to the show which was awesome. Great dancing and some very funny parts to it as well.

Anyway, I digress. I hope to be able to share some of the pictures from the shoot Sunday within the next day or two.

I did pull a task from a jar on Friday which was to design a logo for my photography "business" I did work on it but I have not come up with something I really love yet. I have a few ideas in my head that I'm going to try to put into action very soon. Hopefully I'll be able to post a few options soon to see what you all think.

987 days and counting

hmmm, I read through my list last night and I want to cross something off of it so badly! so many of my tasks are in progress but I have yet to cross one off (besides inspiring someone else to write a list) I think I may write down a few of my tasks that I can realistically accomplish in a weekend, put them in a jar and pick one to finish this weekend. Any time I know that I'll have some free time I'll pull another task from the jar and try to finish it that week or weekend. Stay tuned for what task I pull from the jar this week!

Always kiss me goodnight...

Sorry it's been a while since I have blogged last. I have been sort of busy and haven't really had anything going on that I deemed interesting enough or "blogworthy". I have some things going on that I think will be great blog fodder in the coming weeks and months. I have been keeping up with my list. The drinking water thing is the hardest one! Kissing Matt everyday for a whole minute is the most fun one. Sometimes I don't do it til I go to bed at night but I always have a good "goodnight kiss".

One minute is longer that you think. I never set a timer I just kind of guess and stop when it seems like it's been a minute. Luckily I haven't had a day yet where I didn't feel like kissing him or was not able to. If one of us is sick it probably wouldn't be a good idea although I guess I could kiss his hand or elbow or something. I think that if we were not liking eachother very much one day the one minute kiss will make us literally "kiss and make up"

This task has made me realize how much we didn't kiss before, so sad really. I would suggest this to all my married friends out there. Maybe start with a 20 second kiss and then work your way up to a minute. Have fun!

First Full Week of my 1001 days

Although I started my 1001 day countdown last Thursday, Monday was the beginning of the first full week. Weekly goals include, exercise 3 times a week for 30 minutes and walk to work once a week. I exercised Monday night and Tuesday night and it felt good (although my muscles are feeling a little bit sore).

I have not exercised for months and I'm glad I'm getting back into a routine again, I can't wait to do my workout tonight. In the past I have gotten bored with my exercise routine after a month or two but now I have Netflix which includes a "watch it now" feature that allows you to watch movies streaming on the internet. Luckily we also have an XBox 360 which allows the Netflix movies to stream to our television. There are a lot of workout videos on the "watch it now" feature on Netflix. I think that by using those it will help me, both my mind and body to not get bored like I usually do with working out. (have I mentioned that I love Netflix!?)

I will probably walk to work later in the week. It has rained every day this week and I would much rather walk when it is a non-rainy day thank you very much! (If it's rainy tomorrow and Friday I'll just walk twice next week to make up for it)

1 year old Photo Shoot from Yesterday

Some pictures are up from my photo shoot yesterday here if anyone is interested in looking at them!

Day 2 - 999 days to go

OK, don't worry, I'm not going to give daily updates for the next 999 days! I just got back from the store and am excited. I have decided what Advent calendar I am going to attempt to make. It's this one. I think it is so cute! I bought a cookie sheet at the dollar store today for it, now I just need to decorate and find some cute things to use for numbers. I also bought a coloring book at the dollar store to color (for #29). I can't wait to get started. I mowed the lawn today and I totally am counting that as 30 minutes of exercise, because, well, I make the rules!

Last night, as I promised myself in item # 98 I wrote a letter to myself on day 1 and I will read it again on day 1001. It is tucked safely in my nightstand drawer. I will type it out so that everyone can read it....on day 1001.

Day 1 - 1000 days to go

I am really excited about this journey I am about to embark upon. I hope that I will look back on this challenge that I have set before myself as life changing. I hope to become a better wife, mother and person because of it. I hope to reach some goals that I would have otherwise put off til "tomorrow" but of course tomorrow would never come. Thank you for joining me on this journey for the next 1000 days! and as I like to say "Let's do this!"


To kick off my 1001 days I decided the first thing on my list would be #76 to bake a cake and bring it to work. Of course I need to do this 4 more times before I cross it off as completed but I thought I'd share what my first step was in reaching my 101 goals.

I made this recipe and it was delicious!


oh wait, what's that?


I've never made that recipe before?


Huh?


I guess I killed 2 birds with one stone. I can count this cake as my new recipe for the month(#3)! Of course to be fair to myself I probably will do another new recipe this month because what I really wanted to get out of that goal was some new dinner time recipes. I think I'll try this one. or ooh ooh this one.