Category: Family news/Updates

The other night I was rushing to pick up the kids as I left the office a bit late.  The kids do not like to be the last ones picked up and I don’t really blame them.  When the clock creeps toward 5:30-6 pm everyone wants to go home.  After I collected the ninos and loaded them into the car, Ajax asked what we were having for dinner.  I said that we were most likely having leftovers as I was very tired and daddy was working in Dearborn today.    Mom, he said, I want you to make dinner.  I will make dinner, I said, when have I ever not fed you dinner?  Ajax then said, Mom, I want you to make dinner, or I’m gonna beat you.  I immediately busted out laughing, as Ajax was completely joking.  I looked in the rear view mirror and seriously told him that wasn’t funny.  He then wagged his finger at me smiling saying, I’m gonna beat you mom, really, I want you to make dinner.  This went on for a bit, when I realized this such thing probably shouldn’t be encouraged, so I called a time out and told Ajax that though I found this conversation funny, he wasn’t allowed to say that type of thing to anyone else.  Ajax said ok!

After the kids went to bed I told Dave about my conversation with Ajax.  Dave pointed out that I needed to watch what I said around the kids because Ajax picked that up from me.  I told him that was ridiculous… but apparently I had threatened to beat Dave just last night for failing to make rolls with dinner.

The above photos were taken by Ajax who ran around with the camera.  He was quite the photographer.

Grandma Dara and Grandpa Rod were heroes and babysat the kids for two days last week since Dave and I both had to work on Thursday and Friday.  We ended up meeting Grandpa near Saginaw at the Cracker Barrel on News Years day, which was a first for the kids and they loved it.   And then we met again at the Cracker Barrel on Saturday to pick up the kids.  We then stopped back in Lansing, changed, and then headed into Farmington Hills for dinner with family friends.   Dinner was excellent and the kids ran nonstop.  It was very nice watching the kids run around with all the other kids, running the same pattern around that house that I ran as a kid (round the stair case, into the kitchen, down the hallway and back into the living room).  We ended up staying till about 9 pm when we realized a pretty big storm was rolling in, so we hit the road.  It was a good thing that both kids passed out because it took a very long time to get home.

On Sunday a wicked storm rolled in with frigid temperatures and over a foot and a half of snow.  The weather was so bad that schools and businesses alike closed for Monday.  Hence, I am home now with the kiddos.  Dave and Ajax spent time outside yesterday and today shoveling, but so far none of the side streets have been touched, so I’m unsure how I’ll even be able to get to work tomorrow the snow is so deep.

Here are pictures of our day at home so far.  Noomi and I made a blanket fort which Ajax played with legos and matchbox cars upstairs.

Before Christmas we had our traditional cookie baking day, but this year to spice things up we also added in pork and chicken tamales.  They were so wonderfully delicious I cannot believe we’ve never made them before.  Well, actually they were horribly time consuming so I understand why we’ve never made them before.  I ended up meeting my mom in Dearborn, visiting my grandpa Nader and then she came home with me and stayed the night, as Mr. Dave had his work Christmas party in the evening and didn’t get home till almost 1 am.

On Saturday, my sister came over and together we made a double batch of Russian tea cookies, peanut butter and sugar cookies, which the kids decorated for Santa.  I cooked the tamale meat in crock pots and then Dave ended up rolling almost 80 tamales in corn husks.  My sister and I then watched a sappy Nicolas Sparks movie, which I think we both secretly loved, and steamed tamales till 10 pm.  That night we were also hit with a mega ice storm, which left thousands without power and the roads nearly impassible (we still have several large limbs that came down in the storm that Dave needs to cut up).

We served the tamales Christmas eve as a pre-dinner snack and they were a huge hit!  I think we will official institute them  as a holiday tradition.  Oh and Noomi also loved them, though Ajax refused to try them.

Kids love snow.  I don’t mind snow so much as long as I don’t have to drive in it.  This past weekend we got quite a bit of snow and the kids were very excited to play in it.   On Sunday the whole family suited up and headed outside.   Noomi was a little too suited up and had a hard time walking and Ajax just rolled and rolled in the snow drifts.  Noomi and I weren’t out very long as it was pretty cold, but Dave and Ajax had a very good time goofing around.   Ajax helped Dave shovel a good portion of the driveway and was a very hard worker.   He wanted to shovel the neighbors driveway as well, but ended up losing steam as there was a little too much snow for him.  It was a nice thought though, as I’m sure our neighbor would have been happy.

Once inside Noomi still enjoyed watching the guys in the front yard and kept yelling – Ajax! Ajax!  She is using more and more words and loves carrying around books.  She is certainly a second child and has gotten away with not using her words as much.  She is pretty cute though, so we all let it slide.

On Saturday morning we all got up and were surprised by how much snow had fallen overnight.  Grandma Dara had stayed the night as her nephew had graduated from MSU the night before.  All three of us adults looked at the snow and then at 10 am we loaded into our vehicle to head to Kalamazoo to visit friends (a date we’d sent up in October!) and Dara headed home to Mikado.

The roads were of course worse than any of us had predicted and after spending 1.5 hours in the car going what should have taken us 20-30 minutes we conceded defeat and called our friends to cancel.  The roads were very slick and we saw multiple cars in the ditch.  On the slow track back home (which took us over an hour, so yea about 2.5 hours in the car going nowhere) the kids complained that they were hungry and then out of nowhere Noomi projectile vomited her entire breakfast all over herself, the car, and even on me as I had been turned around trying to console her.  Dave immediately pulled over on the slushy dangerous highway and I jumped out of the car to get to her.  I won’t go into details but it was totally gross and horribly smelly.  It smelled so bad that Dave was ill the rest of the night.  When we got home everything in the backseat of the car had to be washed, Noomi and I each got baths, and her car seat was stripped and washed.  Dave spent a good deal of time cleaning the car as there was throwup everywhere; even on the outside of the car.

Dara also had terrible roads on the way home, but eventually made it home safe.  We all should have stayed home in our PJs! lol.

Poor Noomi… Ajax was in prime big brother mode today, lol.  Every toy she picked up, he wanted, every toy he had, she wanted. Round and round our morning went with Dave and I both threatening to take away all the toys if they couldn’t share.

I guess everyone was a little tired because last night we to the Silver Bells parade in downtown Lansing.  I picked up the kids early from daycare and we had an early dinner and were on the road a little after 5 pm to find parking and get good spots for the parade.  There were a ton of people downtown all congregating in front of the capital building.  Ajax was amazed and thought it was so cool that we were out that at night, while Noomi was bundled in her stroller sucking her thumb watching all the people.  The parade was pretty neat with all the floats covered in holiday lights and playing Christmas songs.  Ajax did wonderful and didn’t get scared by all the loud noises.  We didn’t make it through the rest of the festivities, it was too late and way too cold (the temp saying it felt close to 24!), but when we got back to the car we ended up having an excellent view of the fireworks, which we then got to enjoy in the warmth of our vehicle.

Today, was pretty quiet.  We cleaned the house, did laundry and I got some baking done.   Noomi played in the pantry and took out all our canned goods and spread them throughout the kitchen and living room.  She is in her repeating mode and will repeat everything you say.  It’s pretty cute to hear her say random words like – duck, please.  Her favorite book right now is – Good Night Moon – and we read it to her a dozen times a day.  She’ll carry it around and hold it up to you to read to her.

Ajax spent a good part of his day playing with his train set and tractors and watching this ridiculous cartoon that he is obsessed with.  It’s called – Lego Ninjago.  As a matter of fact he talks about Ninjago (ninjas) all the time and how he wants to be a Ninjago and how he’ll need to leave home soon because Ninjago’s don’t live with their moms and dads, they live at special schools where they learn to be Ninjagos, so ya know he needs to go soon.  I actually debated with him a bit, that he couldn’t go because we’d miss him too much.  He replied, that yes, that would be sad, but he had to go.  We went back and forth and I finally ended the conversation with – he can’t go because I don’t know where any Ninjago schools are in Lansing.

Here are two pictures from the parade.  It was pretty dark and hard to take pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above is a picture of Ajax brushing his teeth.  A few seconds after I took the picture he was laying completely across the counter.  I have no idea why.

 

On Friday I got a call from daycare telling me that Noomi was running a 102 degree temperature.  I said ok, and headed over to pick up the kids.  Noomi finally caught our cold and was quite under the weather all weekend. On Sunday night she committed to waking up every 20 minutes like clock work.

While she wasn’t feeling well, Ajax was doing great so Dave decided to take him to the museum in E. Lansing.  They had so much fun and Ajax could not wait to tell me about all the dinosaur bones they saw.  He also got to “excavate” and search for bones with the MSU anthropology club.  He kept digging and holding up his finds and claiming they were all dinosaur bones.  The professor asked Ajax what he thought one such find was and he exclaimed that it was a dinosaur bone.  She told him that that was a good theory, what did it feel like?  He proudly claimed that it felt like a rock!  For the record it was a rock.