Welcome Octizard

So I'm stealing the phrase Thane used the other day to describe our blizzard in October. Yes, we survived our first blizzard of the year. It was awesome. We had 2 days of non-stop snow and some mighty gusty winds at times too. I'm not sure what the final count is, but I would estimate it to be well over 2 feet, maybe closer to 3 feet. We have so much snow on our roof and frontyard it's unbelievable. Our backyard got hit pretty hard too but because of the winds, the snow mainly accumulated at the back of the yard right in front of the trees. For those of you that saw the video of Shawn jumping into the snow pile, that was taken in our backyard. Yes, Shawn is one crazy puppy. He was so excited to jump in the pile. He's still a kid at heart I tell ya.

In case you were wondering, yes, I did help with shoveling the driveway. I actually enjoyed doing it. It's a good workout really. Plus, Shawn had to work from home, so I thought I could help him out by doing some of the shoveling too. We tried to get Inara to come out and play with us, but she wasn't having any of it. I think the fact that the snow was so high that she got a little scared. I mean it would have come up well past her waist at times, so I understand where she's coming from. While Shawn and I shoveled, Inara sat on the steps in the garage and watched us instead. Hey, at least we got her outside, and she stayed out there for awhile why we worked. I think we just need to take small steps with her before she gets used to playing in it.

This morning I decided to take a short drive to the grocery store with Inara to get out of the house for a bit and to give Shawn a lil quiet time so he could work in peace. I was cracking up driving around and looking at ALL the snow everywhere. I mean really it's a ton of snow! I love seeing the ginormous piles on corners left from the snowplows. It makes me smile to see such mounds of snow. Then when we got to the grocery store parking lot, I was shocked by the number of cars that were completely buried under snow. What happened to these people that they decided to abandon their cars for the last 3 days? Just seems so weird to me. Then I love to see parking spots taken over by mounds of snow that they have plowed. This all seems so foreign to me because I've never lived anywhere where it snows like this, so it's just such a novelty still. As we got out of the car, Inara and I stopped to watch the maintenance people hit the awnings from underneath to make the snow come down. Guess I never would have thought about that. When we were driving back home, I decided to drive around our neighborhood a bit and drove by the school to see if families were sledding on the killer hill located just behind the school. There were already about 6 groups of kids sledding. I was so jealous because I really wanted to go sledding too. As we were driving around, we were greeted by many people outside shoveling their sidewalks and driveways. I was shocked to see some people shoveling with actual garden shovels rather than snow shovels. Hmm...seems like that would make things harder, but to each his own. All-in-all it was a fun little 60 min drive around our little area to see what the damage was from the storm.

Late this afternoon, Thane invited us over to go sledding, so as soon as Inara woke up from her nap, we packed up and headed over to the other Tomlinson house. Fingers were crossed that Inara would be more receptive to checking out the snow this time. Also, I was anxious to finally go sledding. The 7 of us headed across the street of Thane and Kristi's house to this private but perfect hill for sledding. Inara didn't want to try it, so I had her stand on some sort of sewage pipe cover that was free of snow. She pretty much stood there the whole time. Shawn sled down the hill as Thane took Avery for a run. Finally, I braved it and went down myself. I LOVED IT! It was so much fun I couldn't wait to do it again. We all took turns going down the hill. Kristi stayed at the top of the hill with Jack and Inara. Shawn and I kept asking Inara if she wanted to go down too, but she adamantly said NO! At one point, I stopped at the top of the hill to re-tie my shoe. Thank goodness I had Inara in the corner of my eye, because the girl leaned forward to see what I was doing and was going head first into the snow when I reached over and caught her. Of course, she got scared and started crying. I tried consoling her, but she wanted daddy. He held her for a bit and got her to stop crying. At this point, we asked her if she wanted to go down the hill with daddy and she wimpered no. We decided it wouldn't kill her to go down with Shawn, so he got situated on the sled and went down with her. She didn't cry sledding down. She started whining once they were at the bottom, but I think that's because she had already been crying and not because of the sledding. I was so proud of her for at least going with Shawn and not throwing a fit. I'm also so proud of the fact that she was outside in the snow for as long as she was. Way to go baby girl. At this point, she wanted to go back inside Kristi's house. A HUGE thank you to Auntie Kristi for offering to take Inara inside with her and Jack so that I could stay out and sled a bit more. (I owe you one sis.) Avery went inside too, so it was me and the boys still left. Thane started working on shaping the slope and adding a bump so we could catch some air as we went down hill. Boy was that insane! They then just kept adding a bit more snow to the bump to get more air. That they did indeed. We got some great videos of Shawn and Thane eating crap. We'll get those posted on our photo gallery soon for everyone's enjoyment. It was the best ending to 3 cold days of wintery weather in October.

Oh and I can't forget the entertainment center built-in. During the whole snow storm, we also had our contractor Mark and painters here finishing up on the built-in. Thank goodness it's complete. Shawn posted before and after pictures at www.shawnandmarisa.com for everyone to check out our first big home improvement project. We're so excited it's done. I know this was something Shawn wanted to upgrade since before we moved in, so hooray to Shawn for getting his dream TV center completed. Now if we can ever save up for that basement completion, we'd be golden.

The best way I can save my marriage

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33425617/ns/technology_and_science-games//

So Shawn sent me this article today and I seriously was laughing so hard reading it I even got tears in my eyes. First, I love the comments about having a 2 year old. But this story hit home even more because this game is Shawn's new obsession. Yes, obsession I say. So much so that he has sacrificed sleep a few nights to play this game. Last night, I rolled over to find an empty spot in the bed next to me. I moved the pillow to see the clock and was shocked to see 2:30 in bright green numbers. I got up, marched down to the basement, and looked at him with the wife/mom look. "Really Shawn? Really? Come on!!! It's 2:30!!!" I walked away scoffing, "You're ridiculous. Seriously ridiculous." He came up a few minutes later and laughingly said, "I'm sorry. But Jason's a bad influence." Oh yes, blame it on the unmarried friend without children. Whatever. Now after reading this article though, I guess I'm gonna have to make some time to play Borderlands to work out our marital spats by blowing up zombies and other apocalyptic creatures. Hope you enjoy reading the article.

Inara sure does love Annie!

My 2 year old can read and other fun stories

I thought since things have been tough around here the past week, it was a good time to sit and reflect on how awesome Inara is, especially when she's not sick.

It's truly unbelieveable how much she talks now. The girl can carry one heck of a conversation with me now. And she's so smart. It shocks me all the time when she says things out of the blue. I know a lot of her smarts are due to things I teach her, but I really do see a big change since she's started school too. She's getting her colors down really well. When she plays with toys and reads books, she likes to label things by their colors and gets them right more often now. She's also learning her shapes. I was so impressed one day when she and I were reading this book with shapes and she started getting them all right. We've read this book a number of times before and she never got the shapes down. Now she knows triangle, oval, and circle. Yes, she's only 2 and knows soooo much! It's truly because I take the time every day to sit down and read books with her, talk to her when we are out and about and describe things to her non-stop. I've said it before and I'll say it again, people in stores probably think I'm a little loopy, but it has made a world of difference in what Inara knows. Talk to kids all the time and they will start to blossom like you'd never expected.

Inara is starting to become quite the music connoisseur. She's always loved music, but now she's starting to sing along with songs. Her favorite song to sing would have to be Ring Around the Rosies. She first started singing it at My Gym when playing on the trampoline after hearing another little girl sing the song while playing. Now Inara does Ring Around the Rosies all the time. I love hearing her sing the song too. She's getting better at singing along with Itsy Bitsy Spider now as well. She also dances a lot more. I know they have music class at preschool, so I'm guessing they encourage the kids to dance along. Instead of just bending her knees and turning in circles, now Inara moves her shoulders and bounces her head. She plays the Leapfrog Fridge Magnet toy that plays songs and will skip until she gets to She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain because it's her favorite song to dance to. It's so cute to watch.

Based on what she's been doing at school, I figured it's time to get her doing more arts and crafts things at home too. A couple weeks ago I introduced her to paint with water and she loved it. Today we painted for the first time. It was hilarious watching her paint because she is very slow and careful at it. It's also cute to watch her paint with her left hand, but when she wants to paint something on the right side of the page, she will switch the brush to her right hand. Hmm...I'm thinking she just might be ambidextrous.

Another big landmark was when Inara learned how to jump with both feet at the same time. For the longest time, when you told her to jump, she'd do more of a gallop since she couldn't get her feet to come off the ground at the same time. Now though, she's doing a lot better and bends her knees too so she can get some air. It's so cute, and she was so proud of herself when she finally got it. I love hearing her say, "I did it!"

Shawn and Inara have a lot of fun games they like to play. For the longest time, Shawn's been doing High 5 with her. Well, the other day she got Daddy good when they were playing High 5, and she pulled her hand back and said, "too slow Daddy." Shawn and I couldn't stop laughing. It was so cute. The other game they play is Red Light, Green Light. Shawn will say Red Light and Inara will say random colors like Purple Light. Then he plays along and says, "No purple light." She thinks this is so funny as if she's pulling a fast one on Daddy. It's so cute to hear them when they have their own inside jokes and games.

And if there was ever any doubt that Inara is a Daddy's girl, let me share a funny story with you. Shawn is a HUGE chocolate milk drinker. He loves it! I might even say that's his favorite drink. Of course, he had to introduce Inara to chocolate milk, and as to be expected, she loves it. The other day I asked her if she wanted some chocolate milk with her lunch, she got so excited and yelled, "Yay my favorite!" I looked at her and had her repeat it because I couldn't believe she said it. I don't remember teaching her what favorite means, but she picked it up somewhere and now uses it to describe her love of chocolate milk. Ahhh, just like Daddy.

It's amazing how kids pick up on things so easily and will use them correctly too. Usually when I have to go potty during the day, she must follow me into the bathroom and sit on her little potty while I go. The other day she and I were playing and I told her I had to go potty. She looked at me very seriously and said, "One minute." "Excuse me baby girl. What did you say?" "One minute mommy." "Do you want mommy to hurry and be back in one minute?" "Yes." This conversation cracked me up. I know she got that from me, because when I need to do something, I always say, I'll be back in one minute. Now she's telling me I can take a break, but only for one minute. I swear she's too smart.

Inara and I always have different inside jokes/games we play when we're in the car. She loves to point out cars, busses, etc. She also loves to point out UPS trucks. Yes, I've taught her what a UPS truck is. She also looks for cars that look like family member's cars. She points out Mikey's car, Isti's car, Grammy's car, etc. all the time. She got me the other day when she spotted a car that looked like Auntie Kristi's car, and she said, "Follow it Mommy." What? When did she learn follow it? So now at random times whenever we see a bus, a UPS truck, a mail truck, etc. she will tell me to follow it. Might I add when I don't, she gets a bit ticked off that I didn't do as instructed. Oh the 2's can rear their heads at some of the craziest times.

Another inside games of ours is playing chase. She now will ask me to chase her on purpose. In the past when I've started chasing her, I will call out Fee Fi Fo Fum. This morning while I was getting dressed while she was playing in my bedroom, I suddenly hear Fi Fi Fo Fum. Then she came running into the walkin closet and said, "I get mommy." So dang funny. Another chase related game we play is gotcha. There is an Imagination Movers song about Wherehouse Mouse and they sing gotcha. When we listen to this song in the car, I will reach back and grab her foot and say gotcha and she laughs hystericallly. The other day when we were playing, I was chasing after her. Suddenly she turned around and said, "Gotcha mommy." Seriously how can you not laugh all day long when you have a 2 year old in the house? She's so much fun!

A daily conversation we have is "Mommy a Daddy go?" "Sweet pea, where is Daddy?" She solemnly replies, "At work." Lately, she's been saying, "Daddy at work. Hane (Thane) at work. Greg at work. Marco at work." Then she pauses and says, "No, Marco golfing" and she laughs. Marco is one of Shawn's best friends who he plays soccer and goes golfing with. I think it's so humorous that she has started saying Marco's not working because he's golfing as if she's always going to associate Marco with golf.

Our nighttime ritual now involves listing all the things that are asleep. It goes like this. "OK sweet pea. Time to close our eyes and go to sleep." "Mommy, sun sleeping?" "Yep. What else is sleeping?" "Moon is sleeping. Stars are sleeping. Cows sleeping. Rhinos sleeping. Horses sleeping. Diggers sleeping." And so on and so on. Some nights this goes on for 30 seconds. Others it's at least 3 minutes. However long it goes, it never gets dull. I find it pretty darn cute.

I saved the best story for last because it truly is the best and most impressive story yet. Inara has started reading books. Well kinda. More like she's memorized a book. Of course, it's a Curious George book since that's what we read most. She got Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon Race for her birthday. Ever since we've had to read it every night before bedtime. In the book, George visits Mt. Rushmore and goes to see a hot air balloon race. One night she completely shocked me when she pointed to a picture in the book and said, "Mount Rushmore." Then she pointed to the presidents' faces and listed their names. WHAT? My daughter can say Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln? I couldn't believe it. I then started pausing when reading the story, and to my amazement, Inara started completing the sentences. I would read "Everyone had seen the rescue." And she would finish "George was a hero." I would read "The rope had come undone and there was only one place to go." She followed with, "Up up up and away went balloon. George went with it." This shocked me so much, and when I told Shawn, he didn't seem too shocked until he read the book to her one night, and she was looking through another book but was still tuned in enough to complete the sentences. Yes, the girl is awesome! I know part of this is the power of repetition, but it also shows to me the power of reading. She LOVES books and it shows how important it is to read to kids because Inara pays attention to the stories and has now shown how she can memorize things from books with repetition. I can't say it enough: Inara rocks!!!