nose piercing -again

i looked up the site of the place where i'll probably go (if i go) and they seem very impressive as far as professionalism and cleanliness. i think its the same place i went to get the top of my ear pierced several years ago when i was in oregon for the summer working at a camp. anyway, they recommend not being pierced when you are pregnant or nursing, so i'll probably wait a while. maybe over the summer or something.

special treat

i willingly and (almost) unashamedly admit that we bribe ellen. mostly to go to sleep quickly and quietly. the conversation generally goes something like this: me: if you stay in your bed, and are quiet and you fall asleep... you can have.....?" ellen: wait. i know. how bout...... and then she names something she'd like - usually gum or chocolate or ice cream or something you'd expect. for a while it was yard work - she loves to go looking for worms. but in the last few days, my poor child has become confused. yesterday she asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. a couple days ago she asked for bread and butter. poor, poor girl. but she seems to be coming to her senses - today she remembered chocolate existed.

nose piercing - update

i talked to my friend, julia, at church who has pretty much the exact piercing that i'm thinking about, and she offered to find out all the pertinent info and even to go with me if i do it. i'm leaning toward at this point, but i've decided to think about it for at least a week. the cons are that i've never really pierced well, and i'd hate to have a big ol' bump on my nose. and sometimes the inside part can look like you've got boogers in your nose. the pros are i'd be super cool. hmmmm.....

nose piercing

i think i might pierce my nose. a small tiny, barely there piercing on one side. amberlee has inspired me. your thoughts?

day after thanksgiving

we've been making fun of the fact that everyone's got their own personal laptop typical day after holiday in budd family - lots of cards (especially poker...dave and i both lost all our poker money to jeff) isaiah is learning to crawl...he's gotten a few centimeters on his hands and knees so far.

thumb update

member when i smashed my thumb? here's the update...i think the nail is about to fall off in the next week or two. kinda sad huh?

thanksgiving

thanksgiving was fun - we had a budd family thanksgiving at our house and i got to cook. and it was good! the apple pie was especially delicious if i do say so myself. :)

baking

i made my first apple pie today. it looks delicious and messy - just like moms. :) and i also made oatmeal raisin cookies. i think i love oatmeal raisin cookies. i even like the batter. i didn't notice it when i took the picture, but this cookie looks like it is missing a suspiciously small bite.

ellen is famous

this is one of the publications for the children's ministry stuff at imago. so now our daughter is a model. :)

ellen and i did some finger painting tonight she liked how the paint looked on her hand in other news, isaiah is back! he's been kinda out of it for a while. i didn't realize this until i gave him a new medication for his allergies and all the sudden he's that crazy little kid i remember from when he was first born. so i guess he was feeling pretty lousy the last month or so, cause he was just kinda there. just hanging out, not really excited about anything, but not really getting upset about anything. which seemed normal to me because that was how ellen was until she turned two. but now isaiah is back to his crazy self again...crazy meaning he gets really really happy and really really mad.

tonight ellen and i made chocolate mint chip cookies. they're pretty tasty. i didn't really realize what a clean freak i am when i cook - but that flour mess at the base of the kitchen aid was driving me nuts. i was having a hard time letting ellen help cause her version of cooking is a lot messier than mine. also, as i post these pictures, i'm realizing that the last few pictures of ellen have all been big hair days - its starting to look like we never do the poor girls hair.

mouse in the house!

last night while dave was at school i saw a small cigar shaped mouse in our house!!! holy cow! i called dave when his class was over to tell him and he said he'd caught one a day or two earlier, so that means there is a mouse family! i am not pleased about this. i hung up the phone and when i went into the hall a few minutes later i heard a loud, fast moving sound coming straight toward me! the lights were all off because isaiah has been sleeping in the living room so i could not see what it was. but i let out a muffled "crap!" and ran back in to my room to get the phone and call dave again. i decided i better see if i could find it because it was going straight toward isaiah and i didn't want any huge mouse nibbling my baby's toes. when i came out i saw a big smily dave face laughing hysterically. he had been in the driveway when we hung up and he snuck in the house and rolled a rubber ball toward me in the dark! that stinker. (in my own defense i had thought it sounded like a ball - but with a mouse in the house who knew what was possible.)

more park pictures...

ellen asked that i take a picture of the moon

cat mask

ellen and dave made a cat mask 'craffs' as ellen calls it.

special treat - ice cream

i took ellen to mcdonalds tonight for an ice cream sundae...

random pictures from our week

ellen likes to ride on top of isaiah's stroller when we go for walks. yet another credit card offer for ellen ellen "changed elmo's diaper change"

budd family thanksgiving

so the budd family thanksgiving is going to be here at our house this year. i'm exited. i like doing this kinda thing. i'm also having fun trying to plan it all out and see how its going to work. so far our menu includes ham (at dave's request) mashed potatoes, hawaiian rolls, martinelli's, pumpkin and apple pie. i think we need a few more dinner things like maybe a vegetable or too. if you're a budd and you're going to be here i'd love for you to email me some of your ideas of what you'd love to eat.

i just left ellen at the kitchen table eating her peanut butter and apple long enough to 'pat isaiah' (which really means nurse him for a few minutes, since he won't go to sleep by himself since he got sick a month or so ago). anyway it was all of about 2 minutes i was gone. when i came back ellen was fast asleep sitting upright in her chair at the table. seriously maybe 3 minutes. poor kid. musta been exhausted. (she was sick last night with a fever)

at the ripe age of two ellen has received her first credit card offer.

today a friend called to tell me that another mutual friend was in a horrific car accident in which one of her three small children died and she is now in the icu with just about everything broken, including her skull. she's going to be in a body cast in traction for at least six weeks they think. her oldest daughter who was about 8 died. her two younger children, 5 and 2 are pretty much fine and home with grandparents. i've never really processed emotions well - especially ones that involved tragedy and sadness. when my friend rachel died in elementary school, i think it was years before it hit me. Same with Grandpa Bob - several years later i started really missing him and feeling quite sad. This, however, is rocking my world. i just saw her yesterday. her kid died. and she's in a hospital heavily sedated and her world is forever darker. what the heck. what do you do? i think the freakiest bit for me is that i can put myself in her situation much easier than i can put myself in the others. i just can't even imagine what they're going through - what her husband is feeling, what her kids are feeling, what she's thinking about - how do you face the next day, how you talk to your kids, any of that.

flu

this last week has been up and down...on the up side we've moved isaiah into the living room to let him sleep in a room completely by himself and he's doing amazingly better - only waking up one to two times a night. whoa! that's huge. and on the down ellen had the flu a couple nights ago, and last night i had it and today dave has it. so i haven't blogged either because i'm so energized from sleep that i'm cleaning the house, or because i'm a sick dog.

volleyball

On Tuesday we went with dave to his weekly volleball game. ellen had an absolutely wonderful time stretching, jogging and getting warmed up. and she was really very interested in the game for about the first 10 minutes. Isaiah was too. He perked right up when he saw balls and people banging on them. and then they got a little restless and we were sitting on top of pushed in bleachers so i was a bit concerned for the height factor as well and trying to keep my ninja skills ready for any balls that came too close. so dave made them their very own playpen. and then for the third game, ellen found the ball room. and she got almost all the balls out (and i sheepishly admit i forgot to put them away before we left. sorry whoever had to do that). and she shut the door and locked herself in. i was freaking out because it was at a school and its not like everyone has those keys and i wasn't sure if the door was soundproof cause i didn't hear anything and i was sure she'd be freaking out. luckily one of dave's teammates had the key and she didn't seem to care at all. liz, dave's teammate with the key, let me hold it for the rest of the night, just in case.

pumpkins

we never got around to carving our pumpkin - so we made some instead... ellen is finally satisfied with her finished product... the masterpiece