Please let the refrigerator saga end today

The repair man is coming back this afternoon to install what I hope is the correct control board in our fridge. Please let the saga end today. John really misses his morning milk.

Good Golly, Miss Molly

Our poor sweet dog, Molly, has been feeling poor since yesterday morning. I knew something must be wrong when she ran upstairs and immediately laid down at my feet for no good reason. After more bizarre Molly behavior, she lost her breakfast and then later her dinner. My wonderful husband examined the contents and found 6 Nalgene sippy cup valves and 6 hair ties. I knew she had a thing for the valves and despite my efforts to keep them hidden from her, she still managed to consume them. Usually they pass on through but apparently these 6 got stuck along the way. I had no idea she had a thing for my hair ties. I will definitely be making an effort to keep them in a drawer when not in my hair. When, oh when will she learn that she should only eat the things we feed her. All other items should not be swallowed. She whimpered almost all night long. I'm not sure if her tummy was hurting or if she was hungry. She ate her breakfast and will hopefully keep that down. She's just been laying at my feet all morning long. At least she's wagging her tail and taking an interest in the boys today. Hopefully she's managed to get up everything that was blocking her digestive track.

Videos from John's Christmas Program

Again, these are overdue but here are a few videos from John's Christmas Program.

Videos from Field Day

I know these are long over due but Here are the videos I shot during James' Field Day at school.

Jude at 8 Months

Jude is 8 months old today. I can't believe how quickly this past month flew by. In this past month Jude celebrated his first Christmas. He really enjoyed all of the wrapping paper and excitement in our house that morning. He got some really wonderful new toys from friends and family. Jude also started getting up on all fours just before Christmas. Thus far he hasn't started crawling but he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth before plopping back down on his tummy. While he isn't crawling, he does managed to get around pretty well. He rolls, scoots, and pushes himself to get wherever he wants to be. Jude is also getting pretty close to being able to pull himself up to standing. He uses my fingers to get himself up. I should probably get some standing toys down out of the attic for him. He's also eating three meals a day now. I give him yogurt for breakfast, fruit for lunch and veggies for dinner. He has a really good appetite and finishes three ice cubes of food quite easily. We've also been giving him biter biscuits to chew on while we all eat dinner. He's really good at sucking on them and if he does bite of a chunk, he actually chews and swallows it. I guess it's about time to start with fruit puffs and cheerios. He does a great job chewing and swallowing little bits of bread whenever we go out to eat. Jude is still sleeping well in his crib. Most nights we don't hear a peep out of him and if he does wake up, he just chats to himself and eventually goes back to sleep. He takes two good naps every day. One in the morning after breakfast and one after he eats lunch. Both are almost 2 hours long. Jude also started babbling this past month. Right now he really only says da-da. On occasion, I hear ma-ma but it's not very often. Jude is still a really happy, sweet boy. I love that the first thing he does when I pick him up is give me a HUGE hug. He wraps his arms around my neck and kisses me on the cheek. The only downside is that he likes to grab onto my hair and pull really hard. I'm really looking forward to the next stages of his development - crawling, pulling up, talking more, walking, etc.

Here are some new photos and yes, I did cut off all his curls. His hair was just too long.

Getting in some floor time.

From Photos for Blog

Jude has mastered the side sit and can get from sitting to his tummy this way.

From Photos for Blog

Up on all fours.

From Photos for Blog

The Refrigerator Saga Continues

The lovely repairman arrived just before 4 pm yesterday and quickly had the new control board installed. Unfortunately, he ran into problems when it came time to program it. Instead of a flash signifying that the programming was successful, all he got were beeps and an error code. After 20 minutes or so on the phone with Maytag, he was told they shipped the wrong control board. And to make matters worse, he didn't have the correct one on his truck. So the saga continues. The correct part was ordered yesterday afternoon and should ship today. Hopefully it will arrive Thursday or Friday and can be installed Friday or Saturday. Looks like I have to go buy more ice to keep milk and cheese cold for a few more days. Let's hope and pray that the correct part arrives sooner rather than later and that the installation and programming go smoothly.

The Maytag Repairman Does Exist

After annoying me with flashing lights and rhythmic opening and closing of the ice dispenser for two weeks, our fridge up and died this past Saturday. Thankfully I called a week prior and Maytag told me it was a known issue and was shipping me the part necessary to remedy the problem. I never realized just how much we depend on the refrigerator until we didn't have one. I had to move everything that was in the freezer to our stand alone freezer and everything perishable from the fridge down to the freezer. Finally, last night we had to break out the ice-chest. The Maytag repair man is supposed to be here between 1 and 5 today. Let's all hope and pray that they mailed us the proper part to repair our beloved fridge. I don't know what we'll do if he can't fix it today. John loves his milk and James loves his cheese.

Reading list for 2010

I received a $50 Amazon.com gift card from my wonderful mother-in-law for Christmas and purchased quite a few new books. I have a rather lengthy reading list for 2010 but thanks to my Kindle, I'm sure I'll get through them all. I just finished book #1 Thursday night - The Lovely Bones. I wanted to finish before the movie came out yesterday. It was quite an interesting read. I'll be adding the movie to my Netflix queue because chances are I won't be able to catch it in the theater. On to book #2 - The Nanny Diaries. I saw this movie a few years ago and thought it was really cute. Thus far I'm enjoying the book. Also on the list for the year are The Paris Vendetta, The Friday Night Knitting Club, The Never War, The Magicians, and The Golden Compass. If you have any suggestions, please pass them along. I'm always up for a good book.

Video Catch Up

I was just going through my Flip Share and realized that I haven't uploaded videos in a few months. Right now they are being sent to youtube and as soon as they are ready, I'll post them here.

Happy New Year!

Thus far 2010 is off to a great start. We had to ring in the new year without Brian but he needed to get his grandparents safely back to Tucson. He was also very helpful in fixing some things around their house before heading back to Katy. The later half of Christmas break was difficult as it was really cold and yucky outside so we were stuck in the house for too many days at a time. Thankfully school started back up on the 6th and we're back into the swing of things. While I enjoyed sleeping until the kids woke up, I really like our routine and missed it. Now we're all up, dressed and fed before 7:30. I hope the year continues to be nice and calm.