Goodbye to 2007

I better blog for the last time in 2007. I have about 45 minutes left.

I know I’ve been gone for a while now. Cleaning up the house, shopping for those last minute gifts, family coming to visit us left me with very little free time. We had K&K come over for the weekend before Christmas. Then they left on Monday morning and my cousin D and her bf R drove up from Colorado and got here Monday night. Just in time to finish up our Christmas Eve meal. And just in time to eat it all. It was good!! On Christmas Day we stayed around the house and opened gifts, ate, relaxed, ate, drank, talked. The kids had fun opening all the gifts. L was really into it this year. It was so fun to see him all excited this year. The night before he left some chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk on his table for Santa, and a couple carrots for the reindeer’s. He even wrote a letter with the help of his Daddy. I thought that when he sees all the gifts in the morning he’ll forget all about the cookies and milk, and carrots that he left for Santa and his reindeer’s, and jump straight to the gifts. But nope, when he came down he saw all the gifts, then looked at the table where he left goodies for Santa and told me that Santa ate the cookies and drank up the milk and the carrots were almost gone. The look on his face was priceless!

Wednesday and Thursday we took some short trips with my cousin to the beach, Malibu, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, and Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. It was sad to see them leave on Friday morning. I wish we would live closer.

Now waiting for the new years. Kids are asleep, V is snoozing on the couch and I’m craving for some chocolate. We had curry chicken with vegetables and rice for our meal tonight and there is a bottle of champagne in the fridge that is waiting to be opened at midnight. Hopefully it won’t pop loud and wake up the kids.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy year!! I will see you all in 2008.

My New Year resolution is to blog more. You can help me do that with leaving comments, this way I know there are people reading it and I’m not just blogging for nothing, and I will be coming back more often to blog.

Boys and girls

During lunch, Lukas and I were talking just about random things. And somewhere along the line we started talking about girls and boys. I was telling him that Lukas is a boy (this is not the first time I was telling him that) and Ava is a girl. Then I said that Mommy is a girl and Daddy is a boy. And you should’ve seen the look on his face. He looked at me like I was from the moon or something. Then I said that Ava and Mommy are girls, and Lukas and Daddy are boys. No! he said. So I asked him, what am I? He said I’m a Mommy and Daddy is a Daddy. I said yes, but we are still a girl and a boy. I said Mommy is a big girl, and Daddy is a big boy. And he said no. He said that Mommy is a Mommy and Daddy is a Daddy.

Got to love those little kids!

Brook’s Shoes for Kids

A few weeks ago we went to Brook’s Shoes for Kids to look for some shoes for Ava and Lukas, but mostly for Ava since she has only one pair that fits her and is getting too small. We walk in and there was no other customers. The lady standing behind the register was on her cell phone. No biggie, I look at some shoes and she is still on it and standing behind the register. There was no Hello, no Welcome, nothing. I look through all the shoes that are displayed on one wall and move across the store to the other side, look at all the shoes there, and she is still talking on the cell. About 10 minutes has gone by when she came over and asked if I needed some help. Mind you, I was still the only one at the store, with exception of my kids, my husband, and mother-in-law. So I ask her to get my kids feet measured. She started with Lukas’. After she was done measuring she started telling me about how he is flat footed, and that is bad for the kid, their feet, how he is too old to get it fixed, AND that he DID NOT WEAR PROPER SHOES WHEN HE STARTED WALKING. WTF!?!?!? Then she goes off telling me that I need to see a doctor and they’ll probably will have to get a special something (I don’t remember if she said a shoe or a little thing you put in the shoe to get his arch up) and that it was going to cost me ONLY $300. Only!?!?!? Is she out of her mind?! Their feet grow fast and I would probably end up having to buy 2 pairs a year, which would cost me ONLY $600. She was totally talking to me like I didn’t know what I was doing, was not buying proper shoes for my child and so on and so on.

Then it came Ava’s turn, and it went pretty much the same. She told me that her feet were not as flat as Lukas’ were, but that she is going to be pigeon toed. Because one of her feet are going in, and that is because she used to always sit on the foot and still does. You know when you put your foot under your butt and you sit on it, it’s like the foot is bent inwards. Well she used to always always sit on that one foot. And that is why it is leaning in.

When she started walking her foot was turning in even more and she even used to trip over it, but it has gotten a lot better through out the months, and I’m not that worried about it. As it is straightening out and she is not tripping over it.

When we were leaving she started telling me that she has seen kids Lukas’ age that have flat feet and that it can get fixed. What the hell?! Did she even know what she was talking about?!

It’s funny, because I’ve gone to that store many times (and even bought some shoes there too) and everyone is always very nice. But not this lady. Maybe she got hired there for Christmas season or something, because I haven’t seen here there before. Too bad I didn’t get her name. But I do know what she looks like. But I don’t think I want to go back to that store ever again.

We went there because I was looking for Stride Rite shoes and they carry them there. The Stride Rite store is in the next city over at the mall, it’s not too far, but Brooks Shoes were a lot closer. Just down the street.

Anyway, we ended up going to the Stride Rite store at the mall, and the lady’s there were WONDERFUL!! They measured my kids feet, and said that a shoe has nothing to do with having a flat foot. I thought so too, but wanted to be sure. I ended up getting a pair of shoes for Ava, and will be always going back there.

Oh, and we did ended up going to the pediatrician, but not because of what the lady was telling, but because I already had a scheduled appointment for Ava’s 18 months and Lukas’ 3 years (I know that he is 3 years and 4 months now, but when he turned 3 we were out of the country). Doctor looked at their feet and told me not to worry about it, as they are still very young and their feet are still changing, and that the shoes have nothing to do with how your feet are.

argh

My babies were sick. Monday night Lukas woke up wanting to go to the bathroom for #2, after he wasnted to sleep with us and and was all cuddling up to me. Then suddenly he turned around, said Daddy, and threw all over our bed and Viktor. That was around 2am. Poor baby he kept throwing up on and off until about 9am. He could keep anything down. I’d give him some water, he’d drink it and a few minutes later it was all coming back up. But in between he was active normal, he was proud of himself that he ran to the bathroom really fast to puke. During the day he was fine. Didn’t really want to eat anything except for some crackers and was drinking Gatorade, water, and chamomile tea.

I was so sure that Ava was going to get it. But since she didn’t get it that day and the next night, I thought we were all passed that throwing up thing. Until yesterday when she woke up from her nap and I went to get her. I walked in the room and the whole room smelled like puke. It was grose. Her whole bed was covered in puke too, and so was she. Poor little girl. She puked a few more times and that was it for her. But she was also not able to hold anything down, so I wasn’t pushing. Once she started getting better, I was giving her the same stuff, except she didn’t really liked the chamomile tea. I even made it semi-sweet. I’m not sure if Lukas liked it or not, but I told him that it will make him feel better, so he was drinking it. He even asked for some today.

Last night went pretty well. Lukas slept all night and Ava just woke up once, it’s probably because I’m not giving her any milk yet, and she’s used to having it before she goes to bed and in the morning at around 5-6am. Since she fell asleep earlier than usual last night, she did woke up at 7am this morning. Again, I think it’s because she didn’t get her morning milk. Don’t want to take the chance yet. I’ll try not giving her any tonight too, unles she cna’t go to bed without, I might give her like half a cup.

Today all day Lukas has been telling me that his tummy hurts. It might be from not eating, he just won’t eat anything. Or maybe he’s just pretending to be sick. Who knows. I did offer him all kinds of food, and he only had very little of it.

Tomorrow we have a doctors appointment for both of them. We haven’t seen their pediatrician since May. I’m sure they’ll be getting some shots. They’ll check their weight and hight, and all the other regular check up they do. Then I have a few questions to ask too.

December 1st

Wow! I just can’t believe the year is almost gone. Where did the time go? I remember getting ready for the last Christmas. Making a ham, a potato salad and a few other Lithuanian dishes.

I love this time of the year. I love everything about it, except…

…except being so far far away from my family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband and my kids, and they are my family, but I’m talking about my parents, my sister, my nieces that are like daughters to me, my grandmother, my cousins, and the list could go on. I can’t even talk to them whenever I want to, because you know, it all adds up. I would love to talk to my parents every day, like I used to when they lived here. Now I’m lucky if I talk to them 1-2 a week. More like one time, unless I have to tell them something or I need to ask them something. It sucks. It totally sucks!

I would love to live there! Or at least somewhere in Europe. I know I would see them at least twice a year, probably more. And I could talk to them all the time, because they have plans for the cells that work in whole Europe. I would just have to pay a monthly fee and I could talk to them always. Agh, this is not happening, or at least not any time soon, so I need to snap out of this dream that I’m having and get back to the real life. V said that he would like to move there too, but first we need to come up with something that we could do out there, because he doesn’t speak the language. And honestly, I don’t think he will ever know it fluently. Because it is a hard language to learn.

You might ask why no one comes and visits me? Well, there is a lot of things going on. Like my mom can’t leave her mom (my grandmother) because she had a ………. and my mom is taking care of her. My sister and her husband work and they can’t take that much time off, plus the tickets are so darn expensive that they can’t afford it. My dad, maybe, maybe he’ll come next summer, or next Christmas. The only person that might come to visit us next summer is my older niece. But that all depends on her school. She’s been having some trouble with school and her grades, umm, kind of went down the hill, so if she brings them back up, she might fly over here in summer. I hope she does better at school and I hope to see her.

So that’s what’s been on my mind today.

Although there is one thing that I’m looking forward to this Christmas (well not really a one thing, but you know what I mean) is that my cousin Daiva will be coming with her boyfriend. Yay!! She lives in CO and they will be driving up. Not sure for 100% tht they will be here, but pretty sure, as they are already planning their trip.

Anyway, thanks to listening to my Saturday night thoughts. Now I’m off to watch some TV and to hang with my hubby. Oh, and have a glass of wine.

weird things

My last post looks so weird. All the writing and letters look weird. I have no idea why it does that. Everything was in black and white when I typed it up, and then I changed the colors to green and red to give more Christmasy look. But the post went all crazy. Oh, well, as long as you can read it I guess.

Fun Christmas Thing

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? wrapping paper, unless there is no way to wrap up the thing.

2. Real tree or artificial? growing up we always had a real tree, then we moved here and we were older so we just got an artificial one. And now that we have kids it’s back to the real one (although it’s probably safer with the artificial one). Love the smell of the real one.

3. When do you put up the tree? about a week before Christmas. Maybe this year we’ll get one sooner.  

4. When do you take the tree down? lol, sometimes we keep it till middle – end of January. But that’s only with the artificial one. The real one, probably about a week or so after New Years.

5. Do you like eggnog? I do, but I’ve only had it a few times.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? The first thing that popped to my head was a bicycle. It was a big, nice, green bicycle. Loved it! I think it’s still at the summer house in Lithuania.

7. Do you have a nativity scene ? no.

8. Hardest person to buy for? It kind of  depends on the year, but usually I have trouble with buying things for teenagers, especially boys. 

9. Easiest person to buy for? my kids!

10. Worst Christmas gift ever? hmm, don’t remember receiving a bad gift. I liked them all!

11. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Mail, and then sometimes I’ll e-mail too.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I like all Christmas movies. At the moment is The Polar Express.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? This year I started early and pretty much done!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? no.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Everything!! I love all the Christmas food! I love these raviolis that my mom makes, there is mushrooms inside and you fry them, yum!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? It depends what mood I’m in.

17. Favorite Christmas song? I like all of them.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? When my parents lived here, we always went over there, now we just stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer’s? No. They have names?

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Neither, I just come up with random stuff to put on. Last year I hung a bunch of little round ornament on the top and it looked cute! 

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Eve.

22. What is the most annoying thing about this time of year? hmm… I guess it will be Christmas cards, the ones that don’t say Merry Christmas. Most of the cards now just say Happy Holidays. It’s fine with that, but you literally have to search for a card that will say Merry Christmas. Lets not forget Christmas!

23. What I love most about Christmas? I love all the decorations, Christmas lights, Christmas music, the warm feeling you get inside, the love. I love seeing the kids get excited when they see Santa and they look at him for a few minutes without blinking. I love everything about Christmas! And of course Jesus Christ!

Feel free to do yours and let me know about it. (well, if you want to )