The last time we went out, we saw The Transformers and Saturday we saw Star Trek, which just happened to have a trailer for the new Transformers movie.  However, before we went and saw that fabulous movie, Jesse and I did something we haven’t been able to do in awhile.  We spent 1.5 hours at Barnes & Noble and browsed the aisles.  We weren’t together the whole time; he went and looked for books he was interested in and I did the same, but then we met up in the Cafe area and just sat and read.  It was great.  I haven’t been able to do that in awhile.  I think the last time I spent any length of time in a book store was last August when I went to the Borders in Ann Arbor for the Sherrilyn Kenyon signing.  While we were at BN, I did find some interesting novels and my TBR list was expanded again.

As for Star Trek, I liked it.  I’m not a huge trekkie fan, in fact, I’m not a trekkie fan.  I used to watch Deep Space Nine years ago, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it, who was on it, or what it was about.  In fact, I only remember truly watching it once while I was cleaning up the play room (I was probably 12 at the time, I don’t know).  So while I know that Star Trek is a huge franchise, I really didn’t have any expectations going into the movie except thinking that “It’s another one of those“.  But I have to say, it was a great movie.  There were a few parts I wasn’t crazy for (the obvious one liners that were from the original Star Trek that were thrown in to appease the fanatics), but overall I would go to see any sequel with this cast of characters.

Sunday was pretty good as well.  I didn’t get to sleep in, but that’s okay.  I made breakfast for all three boys and then they fixed my refrigerator.  Sorta.  We’re still not sure why it’s leaking water (we’re going to thaw the whole thing out and hope there was a huge ice blockage), but the doors are now opening into the kitchen instead of into the living room.  I’m loving it.  After that, all three left the house!  I was able to check my email in silence and then I promptly took a nap.  Of course, Ian and Jesse woke me up when they got home, but that was perfectly alright.  They brought me hoem something and Ian was excited to show it off.  Both of them were wearing excited smiles when they showed me the Wii Fit.  I’ve been wanting one (and I’ve already logged an hour on the thing), so this was a great surprised.  I got hugs and kisses from both and then Jesse went to put Ian down for his nap.  I ended up with a 4 hour nap yesterday.  It was awesome. Of course, I was tired the rest of the day, but it was still good.  We played with the Wii Fit, dinner was simple and Ian went to bed really well – so the night was really relaxing.  It was great.

So that was my mother’s day.  It was a good weekend.

It was suppose to be this past weekend, but since everyone here was sick, we postponed it until the 14th. And I was thinking of moving it to earlier in the day (from 3p to 11:30a) since that would work with everyones previous engagements.

I had all the plans set in my head. My sister was going to come up on Friday to help with the prep and we were going to take Ian swimming after Jesse got out of work.  Then my sister reminded me that I had a PC show that night.  In Marshall.  Where mom was going to babysit Ian.

Shit, I forgot about THOSE plans.  Ian and I were going to hit the in-laws during the day on that Friday since they couldn’t make his party.  Mom was going to watch Ian for the show and keep him over night.  I was going to come back home, sleep in my own bed, and prep for the party the next day.  Mom would bring him home in time for the party.

There is no way we could have done the party earlier on Saturday if I was going to be gone pretty much the entire day before.  So the party gets moved back to the original time slot.  Then that doesn’t help the issues of my sister having to drive the 4 hours home after the party and my mother having to be BACK in Marshall by 6pm.  Plus the in-law should wouldn’t be able to make it.  Damnit.

So I started thinking about moving it to this Sunday, and that brought up a bunch of the same issues.  Seriously, why is it this hard to have a party for a 2 year old?  All I wanted to do was celebrate his birthday with family and make up for the lousy birthDAY he actually had (with all of us being sick) and for some reason, fate isn’t letting me do it.

Basically, this is kind of a good thing for Ian.  Instead of having the one party, he’s getting three now.  One with each grandparent.  Something I have been trying to avoid, but what do you do?  We’re going to get together with the in-laws for Easter and he’ll get presents then.  We were already celebrating March birthdays at my moms in a couple of weeks, so we can include his then.  The only odd ball out was my father, but he’s going to come up this weekend, along with my sister (who is going to at a hotel with a pool) and we’ll celebrate by the pool.

This plan actually works out better for us since we won’t have to get up at the butt crack of dawn on the 21st to be in BC by 8am during a weekend where I have A LOT going on and I won’t have to provide all the food for any of the celebrations.  Doing it this way makes it simplier and cheaper, but it wasn’t what I wanted.  I’m annoyed on many levels right now.  I wanted to give Ian a birthday party.  Oh well, I’ll throw in a half-birthday party in August.  He can invite friends over for that one.

sigh…my men are so good to me. 

Thanks!

Isn’t this an amazing backyard. It’s so big I couldn’t even get it in one shot or even two, but I need to take three pictures. The last (fourth) shot was a closeup of the flowerbed he put in awhile ago. My father has just under an acre of land and pretty much all of it is unused land. The yard is split in half with a line of trees and he even has a huge garden out in one corner. There is so much room here, we could easily build Ian a huge play structure of his own and we would never have to go to the park. Talk about the parties we could have…the playdates…just the enjoyment of such a yard. Yeah, I’m envious. Because this is what I have:

Don’t get me wrong, I love my yard. We did really good considering the area we live in. But when you grow up with the yard up above and spend a long weekend enjoying it. Coming back to mine is kind of…dull.  In theory, we could put up a swing set for Ian, but it would take up a lot of space and we really don’t have that much to begin with.  At just under .25 acres, our lot is kind of small.  It works for us though.  Especially since we don’t have the time or energy to put into our yard that my father does for his.  However, it’s still a shock going from one to the other.  I’m allowed my yard envy…after all, I’ll get his someday.

During the entire time, Ian didn’t make a sound.  He was such a champ.  We had him wrapped in a towel, since we had just gotten out of the pool, and he was sitting in his stroller (not strapped in), and he was just enjoying the ride.  Once the rain start, I threw one of the towels over the stroller to try and cover him a little, but the wind wasn’t helping and that’s when we decided to seek cover.  Ian faced the building for most of it, but he didn’t complain once.  He was such a good boy.

When Jesse pulled the car around, I had Ian in my arms (so we could run easier) and the two of us slide into the front seat.  Since we weren’t leaving the parking lot, I kept him up front so we wouldn’t be stuck in the rain any longer.  I know, it wasn’t exactly smart to ride like that, but we weren’t in the car that long.  When we got back to the apartment, we made another mad dash and got inside.

I should also mention that while Ian and I were camping up by the building, the sirens went off.  The owner of the apartment heard them and came out to investigate and found us at his door.  We talked for a moment and found out that the sirens were for a tornado warning.  Perfect, just what we needed.  As soon as we got home, we shut ourselves in the laundry room (after grabbing clothes for me and the laptop) to ascertain how long the warning was for.  Thankfully, it wasn’t for that long and we were able to come out after a few minutes.   This was when Ian decided complain a little.  We wouldn’t let him play with the furnace and he wasn’t crazy about being shut in such a small area.  I have to agree with him though. It wasn’t fun since I was wet and wanted to get out of my swimsuit.

Today, Jesse heard some interesting horror stories at work today and even out realtor, Frank, had some trouble – he had a tree in his pool and another neighbor’s tree in his front yard.  All in all, the three of us survived the experience and we’re going to make sure we check the weather report next time before we go to the pool.

While the glasses are over three years old, they weren’t doing too bad until Ian got his hands on them.  He was an infant and grabbing new things was how he learned.  Unfortunately, he still hasn’t gotten it through his head that my glasses are MINE and not HIS.  While  he wasn’t the one who napped him, he did help with the problem.  I was messing with the frames because they weren’t feeling right and viola…off comes to bow.

Heaven help me…I’ll be with a toddler all day and barely able to see.

• Ian’s bedroom: Yes he is going to get his own bedroom. He needs to get out of ours. I’m not really sure what I want to do yet, but I do know that he’s going to need his own shelves, something with baskets to more easily store his toys, and a paint job. At one house, I noticed that hte owners had painter their child’s room in two colors – the walls were a green and the trim was yellow. I wouldn’t use the same colors as they did, but it did give me an idea of what I could do with Ian’s room.
• Jesse’s office: He wants his own room where he can escape. At the moment, the plan is to build a room in the basement of whatever house we get. We would prefer an unfinished basement so we can pick where the office would be and finish the basement ourselves, but we’re not being that picky about it.
• Basement: The house has to have a basement. For one, it’s additional space that doesn’t get included in the square footage of a house; and two, it’s an area that we can build to suit our needs. Currently, the plan for the basement is to divide it into three sections: Jesse’s office, laundry & storage room, and the the rest of the area to be used as a family/play room. Someplace for all the DVDs, video games, and most of Ian’s bigger toys.
• Kitchen: I like the cook, so the kitchen has be to function and have plenty of room. At the moment, I can’t really say what would need to be done since it would depend on the house we buy.
• Washer & Dryer: Must have. According to our Realtor, we can always ask to include the washer and dryer in with the rest of the appliances, but if we don’t end up with any, then that’s fine. I can make do with a laundromat for a couple of weeks, but we would end up buying new machines fairly quickly. When we do get the machines, I want to spend some money on them. I’m not saying we’re going to get top of the line, but I don’t want a pair of cheaps ones as well. Something in between that will do big loads (I would rather do one load of laundry than multiples) and is energy efficient as well.
• Dining Room Table: I want a dining table. We currently do not have anything. When we eat dinner, it’s either sitting on the couch in the living room or standing up in the kitchen (depending on what we’re having). I want to be able to sit down to a meal with Jesse and Ian at a real table.
• New Furniture: I’m sure this one is way down on the priority list, but I would really love to get new furniture. Something that is ours and not dug out of the trash or given to us by someone else. I’m not saying our current furniture is bad, but it’s not all that comfortable. The couches are great considering they only cost us $200 for the both of them, but after sitting on them for too long, you end up with a sore butt.
• Wired: Jesse wants to wire the entire house up with ethernet (in some form) plus have wireless throughout the entire house.

I’m sure I’ll continue to add to this list, but that’s all I can think of right now. At the moment, we do have a house we’re interested in. Nothing has happened with it yet, we just saw it yesterday and we want to see it two more times before making an offer. But if I had to go on my gut instinct, something tells me we will be making an offer within the next week. Keep your fingers crossed for us.