The Big Game

So, maybe it's because I live in New England and maybe it's also because I'm a Christian and there's a ton of discussion surrounding Tebow's faith, but I can't open my computer without seeing a lot of hype about tomorrows Patriots vs. Broncos game!  I have to say...I'm excited.  Unfortunately, we don't have a television, so Scott and I are planning on huddling around our little laptop after the kids are in bed and live-streaming the game onto our computer.

So here is the question.  Who should I root for?  I mean, I was born and raised in New Hampshire, went to college in Boston and have been a Boston sports fan for most of my life (I'm not going to claim that I'm a die-hard, because I'm not, but I've always cheered on the Sox, Celtics, Patriots and Bruins and living in Boston from 2000-2005 was pretty amazing - there was a lot of winning going on during that time)!  So naturally, I'm a New England fan.  But...This Tim Tebow character has gotten my attention.  He's fun to watch.  He's a stand-up guy.  He has his priorities straight.  In this great article, Rick Reilly explains how every week "Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured. He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave & Buster's), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard-line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts.
Home or road, win or lose, hero or goat."

Wow.  Who does that?!?!  The article goes on to quote different people who have been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of this generosity and their lives have truly been changed. 

Now, I know it's not fair to make this comparison, but I'm going to anyways.  I just couldn't get this image out of my head when I was reading about Tebow:

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This is the $25 million custom-made 22,000 square foot mansion that Tom Brady and his wife, Gisele Bundchen, are building in Brentwood, California.  This article notes that they will be sharing it with their two-year-old son.  Wow.  I know they are rich and they can do whatever they want with the money that they both earn (and there are many green features in this home which is good), but it just stands in such stark contrast to what I know of Tebow.

 Two great quarterbacks.  It's going to be an awesome game.  I guess I'll be happy no matter what the outcome is.  Afterall, I am from New England and it would just feel wrong to root against them, but I'm loving the underdog story and the self-less nature of Tebow and the Broncos!  I just hope it's a good game!

Brady                                                                                                   Tebow

Free!

Here's a little money-saving tip for you.  You're welcome.

We eat a lot of yogurt in this house.  Micah's favorite food is yogurt with frozen blueberries in it and since he only eats about 5 things, we have that at least once a day.  I'm on a yogurt and granola kick (i know...i'm so healthy.  This helps to offset my huge bowl of ice cream every night) and Scott and Camden both eat yogurt every day as well.  Yogurt is not the cheapest food, especially when you buy organic.  We try to buy organic as often as possible, and although we can't afford to buy every type of food organic, yogurt is one thing that we always do. 

Scott often gets frustrated with me because I leave the tops of the yogurt containers lying around the kitchen counters so that I can enter the codes and earn points on stonyfield.com.  It is kind of a pain, but it has paid off!  I cashed in some of my points a couple weeks ago for some coupons for free yogurt and came home with four free quarts of yogurt.  That's right my friends, I just got $13.96 worth of free food!  Yahoo!!!  

 Free Yogurt!  :)

 If you are someone who buys stoneyfield often, open an account on their webpage and take the two minutes to enter the codes and it pays off!  :)



On another note, I received an AARP card in the mail a couple days ago with my name on it.  Seriously?!?!  I mean, I know I just turned twenty-nine and a half and am starting to finally feel like an adult (sometimes...), but I'm not quite ready to join the American Association of Retired Persons.  Sorry, Betty!

200

You know what I really want to be doing right now?

Watching this:

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But I can't, because this is how we feel about TV in our house:

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I could always watch it on abc.com tomorrow when they post it on their site, but it just isn't quite as exciting after the fact.  Oh well.  Such is life.

Guess what?  This is my 200th blog post!  Yahoo!  Shouldn't I do something fun to celebrate?  If I were a real blogger I would host a giveaway or something super spectacular like that, but I'm not a real blogger so for those poor few souls that read Just the Four of Us, you're just going to have to give yourself a pat on the back and pretend I'm giving you a hug saying thanks for being my friend and following what our little family is up to.  

Seriously, I think only about 10 people read my blog (thank you Scott, Mere, Amy, Mom, Mom A, Caren, Lisa, Shannon, Cerissa, Jess...), but some other people out there are reading because I just added my blog counter a little over a year ago and there are 19,791 hits (and now even more than that since apparently YOU are reading this right now)!  Granted Scott and I do our best to pad the stats checking the blog daily (I'm kidding, we aren't doing it to pad the stats, just to check our friends' blogs!), but there must be other people reading too!  In fact, my stats page tells me that there are pageviews from not just the US, but Germany, Canada, Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, Cameroon (Simone?!?!), England, Netherlands and Morocco.  For real!?!?!  Will someone please explain to me how this is possible and if blogger is just messing with me?  Anyways, I enjoy having this space to write down random thoughts, record pictures and funny quotes from my boys and record this crazy life of ours that is flying by too fast.  If you want to peek into my life, welcome and enjoy, and if not, that's OK too.  I don't need to be a famous blogger - just a good mommy and wife and daughter and friend.  (But maybe you should leave a comment so I know who you are.  It's more fun that way after all). 

Oh, and here are some pictures of my cute monkey and bumblebee that I promised:

Happy 200th post!  :)

Oh dear - Haha...I just counted up my posts on the side and apparently it's only my 194th post because my "stats" on my homepage counted a few posts that were never published.  Oh well, I'm not erasing this whole post now!  I guess we'll just celebrate again in a couple weeks when I really DO pass 200.  Anyways, it's time to go watch Friday Night Lights with the hubs.  Later!

Television

I have a love/hate relationship with TV.  I don't want to watch television, but I do.  I don't want to get excited about certain shows, but I do.  I don't want it to be something I schedule certain evenings around, but I do.  Grrrr!  I don't WANT to like tv...but I DO!  This is actually something that really bothers me.  I grew up without a television...and I kind of liked it that way.  My parents tell me that my sister and I didn't know what to ask for for Christmas because we weren't aware of all the newest and coolest toys.  I didn't know what I was missing, and honestly, it really wasn't much!  I wrote a long research paper in high school about the negative effects that television can have on children and my teacher was so fascinated by some of the things I found in my research that he passed the paper around to some other teachers in the school.  He and two or three other teachers all got rid of their television sets after that!  Scott and I are probably not going to get cable when we move into our new house, and honestly, I'm kind of excited about it.  If it's not available it will be much easier to avoid.  (And it doesn't hurt that I can watch most of my favorite shows online the next day if I still want to keep up with what's going on in the world of pop culture).  I don't want Camden and Micah to grow up glued to the television.  We limit how much and what we watch in the house with Camden, but he already LOVES to watch an occasional show.  He'll wake up from a nap and immediately ask to "watch show" and when I say no I then have to deal with a mini-tantrum...it would be so much more enjoyable if it wasn't an automatic desire for him.  BUT, (and there is a big but here), I do love the option of television when I'm just having one of those days and I need a little time to breath on my own.

And I do love my guilty pleasures of which I have quite a few.  Confession: I love reality shows.  Not The Hills or Real Housewives of New York or Jersey Shore (Is that a reality show?  I've never seen it).  Not that type of reality show.  I love Dancing With the Stars, The Bachelor/ette and American Idol type of reality shows.  I will forever be fascinated by how dedicated and committed the actors, musicians, comedians, athletes are to learning how to dance on Dancing with the Stars.  It is so impressive to me how these people put their careers on hold (*I know they are making major money being on the show, but their not usually doing their "normal" job at the same time*) and put so many hours into learning and practicing dance.  They get so emotionally and physically spent and it is fun to see how they improve and struggle through the season.  One thing I like about The Bachelor/ette and American Idol is that the people on these shows really are real people.  Now some of them are total wack-jobs there to try and get their fifteen minutes of fame, but others are just normal, everyday people who wind up being household names.  I mean, you have to admit it's pretty cool that Carrie Underwood was a young girl from a tiny town and is now a best-selling Grammy-winning artist.  I find it fascinating to hear the backgrounds of certain people, to hear their stories and to wonder how I would handle certain situations if I found myself facing those same things.

Two current stories have just broken my heart.  This guy just auditioned for Idol last night and has a heartbreaking story.  But he's so inspiring, so devoted, and it makes me happy to see people like this on television.

And this woman is currently on The Bachelor - what a story she has...

I like stories like these...I want to root for these people.  I want them to find happiness and success...and I don't want to give up my TV.  We'll see what happens when we move, but for now, I have to run, American Idol is on.  Seriously.

ramblings and famous folks

I have been such a blog slacker this week and it makes me so sad!  I have all these random ideas floating around in my head and just haven't had the time or clarity of mind to actually sit down and write!  And even now, with both boys sleeping at the moment (although it's probably just a matter of minutes before Micah wakes up...) I still don't think I'm going to be able to articulate anything very interesting.  Oh well, I'll do my best!

As you all know, New England got pounded with snow today!  It was so fun to sit in our little home and watching it coming down in buckets all day.  For some strange reason, I thought I would try to be super-mom and walk the boys down to the dining hall for lunch.  Part of me wanted to be super-mom and the other part of me was SO sick of being cooped up in our one-room downstairs.  We also haven't been grocery shopping in ages, and didn't have anything in the house to eat.  So, I bundled the boys up - snowsuits, boots, hats, mittens - and trekked outside.  My baby carrier was in the car (which was about 15 yards away on unshoveled walkways and covered with over a foot of snow) so I decided to push Micah in the double stroller.  That was a mistake.  I put him in there and covered the whole stroller with a huge blanket to block out the wind.  He was screaming the whole way.  Camden wanted to walk on his own, but was taking FOREVER so I finally convinced him to sit in the stroller with Micah.  I almost died going down the huge hill (literally slipping and sliding with my monstrous double stroller skidding and pulling me down the hill) and then Camden decided he didn't want to ride and tried to climb out of the stroller while we were still moving.  Meanwhile, my head is buried, staring at the ground as wind whips snow into my face.  It was a miserable 10 minutes and the only thing that made me feel better was seeing my friend Molly come into the dining hall looking just as flushed, frustrated, out of breath and exhausted as I was after walking over with her two kids.  We commiserated with each other a bit and convinced ourselves never to try THAT again!  Ugh!

On another note, we had such a fun evening on Saturday.  Scott and Gregor brought their basketball team up to Dartmouth to watch them play Harvard.  Rather than sitting home alone all evening, the boys and I joined them.  Camden had a blast watching the game, dancing to the music during time outs, eating popcorn and climbing around on the bleachers.

Scott was able to drive home with us rather than on the bus so we decided to stop at Ramunto's for pizza since it was getting pretty late.

Two of my FAVORITE books of all time.
Images taken from http://www.jodipicoult.com/

Part way through our meal, my favorite author of all time (Jodi Picoult) walked into the restaurant and sat right next to us!  I was freaking out to Scott, but he did a good job calming me down and convincing me not to say anything to her.  I'm not sure Scott quite understands how famous and how talented this woman is!  She has written 17 novels (the last three of which have debuted at number one on the New York Times best seller list!) and her books are translated into 34 different languages...let's just say she's super talented and well-known!  It made my day to see her eating pizza with her son and took all I had in me not to tell her how much I love her! 

Images taken from Amazon and Tomie.com

This experience came on the heels of a funny experience on Christmas Eve with our other local hero, Tomie dePaola.  Tomie has been published for over 40 years and has written/illustrated over 200 books.  Some of my favorite children's books were written by Tomie, and although he lives in New London, we don't see him very often.  On Christmas Eve we were out to dinner with my family and when my mom brought Clara to the bathroom she pointed out that Tomie was sitting at the Bar with some friends.  On her way back, Clara walked slowly by him and he struck up a conversation with her.  He was so kind and she was talking his ear off (we could all see and hear every word from the table we were sitting at).  The best line was when Clara says, "I've driven by your house before!" - aka: my family stalks you!  So funny.  He was unphased and was so sweet to her.





We've been making some good progress on our house recently!  The electrician will be in there next week!  I'll post some pictures soon of our gutted house!  It's pretty crazy!

Oh dear...Micah is up...gotta run.  Goodnight!

Incredible Inventions

There are many things that I am thankful for that make our daily lives so much easier, but I just want to give a quick shout-out to two of the most wonderful inventions in the world!

1)  FREE SHIPPING!  What a wonderful and amazing idea!  Living in a rural area makes running errands really difficult...especially with two little kids.  I'll often plan my whole day around a couple errands that I need to run because between the 30+ minute drive to get anywhere, naptimes, cranky kids, meals etc...it can make shopping difficult and no fun!  For example, I just had to make a "quick trip" over to the Tilton outlets to get something the other day.  I drove for over thirty minutes on backroads with both kids.  By the time I got there, Micah was screaming.  I dragged his carseat into the store and immediately took him out to hold him and try and get him to stop crying.  Meanwhile, Camden ran like a terror around the store, hiding, pulling things off shelves and just being a hyper toddler.  At one point I had to lay Micah down on the dirty floor to clean up 30 Christmas cards that Camden had just dumped onto the floor.  
Juggling kids is tough, especially when they are both hyper/cranky and, needless to say, I couldn't think straight and was so anxious to get out of there that I bought $40 worth of ugly Christmas cards that I ended up returning a week later, just because I didn't want that entire trip to be in vain.  Ugh.  Anyways, living far from stores with kids makes shopping more of a hassle than an enjoyment so I have to say...free shipping is incredible.  I order most of my baby items from diapers.com - they are amazing and I get free two-day shipping!  Love it!  I also just ordered Camden's few Christmas presents on Amazon from the comfort of my own living room!  Amazing!  Maybe I'll just turn into a total hermit and never leave my house again!  :)  Oh, and did you know there's something called Free Shipping Day coming up on the 17th...oh no...that's TODAY!!!  Check out this link to see all 1,759 stores and companies that are participating!  I can't buy anything because we're trying to save money these days now that we're homeowners, but YOU should go buy something and enjoy free shipping! 

2) The second incredible invention is the shopping carts that have little cars for kids to ride in at the grocery store.  Now, I have no idea why, but I didn't give these carts a try until last week.  Oh man...I have been missing out.  I'm not sure why I didn't use them before - did I think they were too germy?  Did I think I had it all together and didn't need them?  Was I too good for the race car cart?  I have no idea what my thinking was, but if any of you have ever seen me trying to grocery shop with both Camden and Micah, you know I don't have it all together.  Camden generally races up and down the isles as fast as he can, occasionally pulling items off the shelf to show me.  I used to dread having to go shopping with both of them (then there was that time I got them both all loaded up, drove the 15 minutes to the store in the pouring rain and after pulling into the parking lot realized I didn't have my wallet...UGH!  THAT was bad!), but these last two times I've gone Camden has ridden in these cool carts and has stayed totally content the entire time!  He LOVES it.  I ask him to help me steer and he uses the little steering wheel - it really is probably the greatest invention of all time (well, almost...I guess there have been a few others that have been more lifechanging...). 

Anyways, free shipping and race car carts are wonderful.  I'm a happy mommy!

Random Happy Thoughts

So I've been attempting to blog for days now, but every time I sit down with my computer on my lap Camden wakes up from a nap or needs a snack or Micah is fussy or  hungry or I'm just too darn tired!  Even though I haven't been as good about blogging, life has been wonderful in our home.  We are loving life with our two boys!  

 Here are a few things that I have been enjoying/excited about over the last week or two...

1)  On Saturday I got to play SOCCER!!!  It was amazing!  I played with a couple other faculty members against/with the girls Varsity team!  We had SO much fun and it felt so good to break a sweat, run around in the fresh air and score a couple goals! :)  I was really nervous to play as I was only 5 weeks post-partum and still not completely physically recovered, but my midwife said I could play and I went for it!  It felt much better than I anticipated and now I'm all inspired to get back in shape and lose this baby weight!  Here I am with Mel, Lindsay (who I played against in high school!  She is a nasty goalie and when she first started at Proctor a couple years ago we both totally knew exactly who the other one was from our years as competitors) and my friend Amy...

 

 2)  Unlike much of the country, I had never really watched the television show Glee until recently.  I would flip by it occasionally when I was watching TV and thought it was kind of strange - I mean it's essentially a musical on TV (something that's never really been done successfully before) and if you're just flipping by it it's a little strange.  BUT, I know enough people who love the show (particularly my sister) and decided to give it a try.  I borrowed the first season from the local library and started on the first episode and was immediately hooked!  I was shocked by the development of characters, the intense topics that the show tackled and how the producers handled each one, the incredible voices of the cast who sing all of their own songs...Let's just say that I spent Camden's nap times watching lots of Glee over the last couple of weeks and I am now officially caught up and can watch season two as each new episode premiers on Tuesdays.  YAHOO!!! :)  

3)  We had some of our good friends from college up to visit on Sunday and had such a blast with them.  We usually go down to Connecticut to visit them since there are a few couples that we're friends with who all live near each other, but this time they offered to come up to NH!  We met our friend's little baby Eden who was born in July and had so much fun catching up on life!  Thanks for making the trek Hayes, Kara, Josh and Meg!

 4)  I'm loving watching Camden love on his little brother!  How cute are they?!?!

5)  I got the new Taylor Swift album for free (long story) and am actually loving it!  I know, I know...I'm a preteen at heart.  It's fun to get new music and learn all the lyrics (something that I don't get to do very often!

6)  My favorite restaurant in the world closed for about 10 months and just recently reopened!  I went three times in the first two weeks (but still couldn't match my dad's 5 times!).  Loving having my Peter's Mother's Favorite back again!  :)

7)  I'm super excited for my brother-in-law's wedding this weekend!  Can't wait for Sarah to officially be a part of the family (although it feels like she already is!).  I'm sure I'll do a post with pictures soon!

8)  LOVE living near both sets of our parents.  They are the best and our boys just love them all to pieces.

9)  It's been so fun watching Camden grow up.  He got to ride on a horse last weekend and he's loving the easel that he got from Uncle Brian and Aunt Sarah for his birthday!  It's so fun that he's old enough to do crafty projects with now!

I guess you could say that life is pretty good right now!  We are so thankful for all of God's blessings in our life!