When in Maine...

I am sitting in a hotel room in Auburn, Maine waiting for Matt to call me from the dental practice across the street where he is interviewing for a job. So, I decided to post a few of the pictures we have gathered in the last 24 hours. When we arrived yesterday we took a drive up the coast of Maine through the town of Freeport, Maine (home of LL Bean). Cute little town. The nice lady at the information center gave us directions to Orr Island, where we found the Atlantic Ocean and a restaurant where they pluck the lobster right out of the ocean, cook it, and plop it on your plate. Talk about fresh seafood. Matt was brave enough to try it. I couldn't get past the fact that it still had eyes, so I could see the look on the lobster's face when it realized it was being cooked. I had the fried shrimp. Also fresh, and wonderful. After dinner, we drove inland to Auburn where earlier this week they had the biggest snow storm I have ever seen. There was a dump truck and a bulldozer clearing the snow from the parking lot outside our hotel all night. There was so much snow, they literally filled several dump trucks with it. My question was, where the heck were they taking all that snow?? We drove around and tried to get the lay of the land here in town. Still can't get over the 10 foot high piles of snow in front of all the buildings. Well, that's all the stuff I have pictures of for now. Hope to get one of a lighthouse before we take off tomorrow. Maine is beautiful, even with all the snow. I can't imagine how pretty it is when it is green.

Valentine's Party

I admit, it is a couple of weeks past valentine's, but I was looking through my pictures and wanted to share them. The kids were so cute. We gave them their Valentine's gifts and candy in the morning. They were both jumping around on our bed, eating candy, and being kids. Then Matt decided to make our bedroom furniture in to an obstacle course that the kids could climb, starting at the bed and leading to the top of his tall dresser. They loved it. Yes, even Corrinne.

She is a natural climber, and this time no one was telling her no.

What more could a couple of kids want?
After about an hour of jumping, candy, and climbing Tyler declared, "Mommy! We are having a Valentine's party!" I had to agree. It may have just been fun in our pajamas, but to Tyler it was a party. Simple pleasures.

Matt and I got to go to a dance for Valentine's the night before. We got all dressed up, and even had our picture taken to mark the occasion. I, personally, went on two shopping trips to a total of nine different stores looking for a dress to wear. No luck. My friend Jenny came through for me once again, letting me shop in her closet where I found a great dress option. Gotta love good friends. It was nice getting out without the little ones and enjoying some time together. We ate way too much food and had a nice time talking with a bunch of our friends at the dance. For Valentine's this year, Matt went conventional and bought me running shoes instead of flowers and chocolate. Now, some wives may take offense to such a gesture, but it was the best gift I could have received because it showed me that my husband pays attention to what I really want and knew I would be overjoyed to replace my 3 year old shoes with a new pair. What a guy! : )

One more cute picture of Rinne. Sometimes we catch her making the sweetest faces. This is the blissful look of a one year old who just got to eat all the M&M's she could handle. Fun to be a kid.

Let the job hunt...Begin!

Hopefully a couple months from now, the title of my blog will be, "The hunt is over". For now, we are in the midst of picking the perfect job. That starts with our very first out of state trip for a dental job interview...Duhn, duhn, daaa...(That was my suspense music if you were wondering.) So, Matt and I are headed to Auburn, Maine.. Yes, Maine... for a job interview. We decided today to just do it. The tickets were cheap, the opportunity has been made to sound pretty nice, and the town has a Wal-Mart, so I think I can survive. : ) We will be leaving at the end of the month for a quick weekend trip to see if it shapes up to be everything the recruiter says it is. We are still a little skeptical since the recruiter does have some financial motives for getting Matt out there. But, I figured what the heck. It will be a little adventure, and if nothing else it will teach us something we didn't already know about the dental job hunting process. So, if you know anything about Auburn/Lewiston, Maine (pictured above) I'd love to hear from you. If not, wish us luck and we'll let you know how things go in a few weeks after the trip is over.

A Day in the Life

Yes, it has been a month since I posted something new on this blog. I have been spending my time posting things on a weight loss blog with my mom and sisters. Yay for dieting!

So, I was talking to another Mom today who asked me, 'What do you and your kids do all day?'. It's a valid question, and though it may not be terribly interesting to most people, it makes for cute pictures for the grandparents. And let's face it, that's why I do this blog. So, without further explanation, here is my post of what my kids and I do all day stuck in the house.








After we drop Ty off at school and make a stop at the YMCA for and hour, Rinne likes to come home, kick back and watch some quality TV while Mom gets a shower. Backyardigans is her current favorite right now. Sometimes the box is more interesting than the movie, and she usually ends up sitting in front of the tv reading a book. I think she just likes not have to fight Ty for her favorite chair.

After Ty comes home, we have some lunch and then it's time to get the wiggles out before Rinne takes a nap. It's the best I can come up with when I can't take the kids outside because it's 10 degrees. You've seen the live action living room dancing. So, these still photos are nothing in comparison, but the kids do love to dance together. I love the faces Corrinne pulls. The dancing fun typically ends when Ty decides that wrestling his sister to the ground would be more fun. She's going to be a tough little girl.







Ok...so this post is getting a little long, and I actually don't have any pictures of what happens during Corrinne's nap, because it's usually me trying to clean or prep for dinner, or playing Geo Town with Ty or... It's different everyday. But, I do have a video of my "favorite" time of day... Between the hours of 3 and 6, when Daddy's still at school and Mommy wants to lock herself in the bathroom. This is a pretty much our life in the raw, so only watch the video if you promise not to be judgemental. : )

Here are my cute kids eating dinner. I really do like this stage where they are starting to become friends and do things together.

AND...for the grand finale! This is REALLY the best time of day. Rinne and Ty love their bath, and we recently started adding bubbles for a little more fun. These will make great black mail pictures someday.

Hope you enjoyed your little journey through our day. I'll try for a shorter post next time. : )

Dancing queen

My new favorite thing that Corrinne does right now is her dancing. I finally caught it on video today. She does this any time music is playing, especially if it is a song with a strong beat. Today, I turned on one of our local radio stations that does an hour called the "Lunch Break Bootie Shake". This video was the result. The music that really got her moving was a new Beyonce song. Ty got in to it too. The video is about a minute long and took me over 30 minutes to download, so I hope you get as good of a laugh out of it as I did.

Christmas morning magic

This was the first year Matt and I as parents could really play up Santa Claus, and I have to say it really puts a lot of magic in Christmas when your kiddo can't hardly go to sleep because he is so excited. We put out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer, and Tyler reminded us all night long, "Santa does not come while you are awake". Sage advice that he found tough to follow when it was actually time to hit the sack. Christmas morning was kind of crazy. I tried to keep with my family's tradition of sorting out the presents and then opening them one at a time in age order. It wasn't until we had gone back and forth two or three times between Tyler and Corrinne that Matt brought it to my attention that we were not really sticking to the plan since neither of US had opened a single present yet. I guess I was just too excited seeing my kids have fun. Once Matt and I attempted to jump in to the present unwrapping, the kids lost interest in what we were doing and the unwrapping quickly became a little chaotic. Can't expect two kids under four to really be patient enough to take turns that many times, right? My favorite present for Corrinne was this little rocking chair, which she quickly learned how to turn around backwards in, rock it really hard, and fall flat on her back. She only did that once. She also enjoyed her little cabbage patch from great Grandma Campbell. She gave it "loves" (hugs). Tyler loved all of his presents. Mean parents that we are, Matt and I did not bring out Tyler's Santa present until he had unwrapped everything else. He had asked at least two shopping mall Santas for a rescue helicopter. Once he had all of presents opened, we asked him if he had gotten everything he wanted for Christmas. He tried to say yes, and then said, "Well, I asked Santa for a rescue helicopter. He must not have heard me." After a response like that it would have just been cruel to tease him any longer. The reaction we got when we brought out that one last present hidden behind the tree with Tyler's name on it was priceless.

The other fun thing we did was tie a string to the tree that led both Tyler and Corrinne downstairs to a toy playhouse from their Grandma Nelson. Both Ty and Corrinne were very excited about this new addition to their playroom. All in all, there were lots of smiles from both parents and kids this Christmas. We feel very blessed.

Family is Fun

May I just say, I have the best in-laws a girl could ask for, especially when it comes to how great they are with my kiddos. Matt's parents came in to town for one day on their way up to visit the Omaha extension of our family. They packed more fun in to that one day with my kids than I am able to do in a week. Tyler was in attention heaven. Grandma and Grandpa listened to all of his jokes, watched all of his tricks, read him books, played with cars...what more could a little boy ask for? Ty, Matt, and the grandparents took a little trip to Independence to see the visitor's center, while sick little Rinne and I stayed home. Now those are good grandparents. Wish we lived closer and could see them more often.