Sunday, December 28, 2008

All I want for Christmas

"Is my two front teeth!" said Erin. The bottom two, to be exact. She got her wish! Monday morning this past week she had the first tooth on the bottom peeking through, and Friday morning the second tooth on the bottom was peeking through. Way to go, Erin!And, since we're talking about Erin, I may as well include this cute picture. Erin decided since I am so behind on magazines that she better get right in there and help me out. She got herself over to the magazine basket, sat up, and tried to dig right in. (While I would not quite say Erin is crawling yet, she has got some creeping going on.)

Friday, December 26, 2008

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas yesterday! We are so blessed to have our families close by. We were able to celebrate at home just the four of us, then head to Mike's mom's house. There we enjoyed a wonderful brunch with the whole Bos side of the family. Mid afternoon the kids were able to get short naps in, then we headed to my sister's to celebrate with the Sinclair side of the family and have a great dinner. It was a wonderful day from start to finish! I hope yours was just as blessed!And why we were glad to be inside toasty and warm yesterday!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Random thoughts from Kyle


I love watching Kyle’s mind grow. Sometimes it amazes me, sometimes it confuses me, and sometimes it just makes me giggle.

Two nights this week I have awoken to Kyle’s footsteps on the stairs, coming back up and trying to coax Mulligan along with him. “You come up Mulligan? You sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s room? Come on Mulligan!”

Kyle’s favorite game right now is to mix up words. When we drive past the river he tells us it’s the lake over and over again. We correct him and he laughs and says, “That’s not the river, that’s the lake!!” The laughter increases and eventually he’ll say, “We’re playing games!” He also does that with the water tower, calling it a water fountain until he dissolves in laughter.

Bedtime still drags on with Kyle, and one night recently I went up to ask him yet again to get in bed. When I opened his door he said, “You’re not the pizza man!” We have never had pizza delivered, so where he got that is beyond me.

Too. Kyle likes to repeat things back, with too. He’ll sneeze and I’ll bless him, only to hear, “Bless you, too, Mommy!” The other day he wanted a cereal bar and I said, “I’m sorry Kyle, we’re out. I’ll buy some when I go to the store.” Kyle said, “I’m sorry, too, Mommy.” Which is funny, because I’m sure it was true, LOL. My all time favorite, and I hope I hear it forever and ever, is, “I love you, too, Mommy.”

Santa has been a big topic lately. While Kyle emphatically wanted Cranky the Crane for weeks on end, at the beginning of this week it firmly changed to Terence the Tractor (also a Thomas the Tank Engine character.) Kyle asked me if we could see Santa again, saying, “I ask for Terence the Tractor? I ask if another boy or girl wants Cranky the Crane?” How cute is that? He felt the need to re-gift Cranky, LOL!

This morning Kyle wore his Santa hat to our favorite breakfast spot. On the way to the door I said to him, "Do you think the girls [the waitresses who all love him] will think you're Santa?" Kyle looked at me seriously and said, "Will they want to sit on my lap?"

At bedtime I always talk to Kyle about his favorite thing that day, and what we’re doing the next day. Last night he asked if Santa was coming, and I told him in a week Santa would be here. He said, “Santa Claus. That’s a great idea.” I stifled my giggles and said it sure was.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Happy Seven Month Birthday, Erin!

Happy seven months, Erin!! What a joy you have been for 214 days now…. 5,136 hours of bliss! Erin continues to be a happy baby almost all the time, although she is figuring out her likes and dislikes and will let you know if she doesn’t like something. She’s pretty easy to figure out, though, so happiness is usually only moments away.

Erin is an exceptional sitter now. It’s so fun to see her sitting on the floor playing with her toys. She also gets to sit in the bathtub now and LOVES it. She is a splasher through and through! She got to take a bath with Kyle this week, which was a lot of fun for both of them. Erin rolls and spins her way around the room with ease. She does a little bit of creeping if there is something she is trying to reach, but it’s more of a big reach of her arm that pulls her a tiny bit forward. Crawling is a ways off.

Erin is a babbler and loves to chatter with people. We have to face her forward in church because otherwise she will babble away to the people behind her. She loves everyone she meets and passes out smiles readily, but she has also figured out that she does not want Mommy to leave the room. She’ll yell out a protest when I leave. Fortunately this is short lived and I can still leave her places like the gym daycare without her being upset.

Erin is still sporting an adorable toothless grin, but I have a feeling we are about to have a tooth explosion any time now. I think maybe she has been saving up to sprout a few of them at once.

We’re really looking forward to celebrating the holidays with Erin. She’s already met Santa and sat happily on his lap. Now she’ll get to visit with relatives and enjoy all the sights and sounds of the season. She loves looking at the lights on the tree. Life is so fun with this little one!

And because sometimes a picture just isn't enough, here's my sweet girl. ;-)

Monday, December 8, 2008

Bzzzzzz....

A couple of years ago I joined a website called BzzAgent. It allows me to try a variety of products for free. The concept behind it is that I will try the product, then talk about it. Word of mouth advertising can be very powerful, so the companies that make the products are hoping this grassroots word-of-mouth campaigning will push their sales.

My very first campaign was Take Five candy bars by Hershey's. I had never picked one up before, and man, let me tell you, their pretzely-peanut buttery-chocolately goodness is YUMMY.

Campaigns along the way have been for cleaning products, like Pledge dusting products and Scrubbing Blubbles shower cleaners, beauty products, like the Alveeno Positively Ageless line, foods, like Hillshire Farms salads and Grey Poupon, and summer products like Off and Coppertone. I've even gotten a couple top dollar products for free, like the Sonicare FlexCare (retails for about $150) and the Harmony One universal remote (retails for about $250).

Not only do I get to try the products for free, but I get points for turning in reports about the conversations I have had with people about the products. Those points accumulate on another site called MyPoints.com. I can then redeem these points for gift cards to a variety of really popular sites. My points are up to about $175 now.

My current campaign is for Smucker's Uncrustables. These frozen sandwiches are filled with the down-home goodness of Smucker's jelly. There are sandwiches with grape or strawberry jelly and peanut butter, just PB, PB and honey, and grilled cheese. The sandwiches are in the frozen food section, and you just take one out about a half hour before you want to eat it -- which makes them prefect for lunch boxes. And it's amazing how fresh they taste, you'd never guess they'd been frozen.

So now I'm off to write a Bzz report on my post! :-) Watch for another post for my next campaign!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

I want Cranky the Crane

I hear this every day. Maybe every hour. Over and over and over. It is what Kyle wants for Christmas. Cranky the Crane is part of the whole Island of Sodor offerings, he works down at Brendam Docks. (If you didn't know, Thomas the Tank Engine and all his friends live on the Island of Sodor.) Lucky for Kyle, Cranky the Crane is in a box in our house as I type. Lucky boy. ;-)

Kyle got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him how much he wanted Cranky the Crane. Santa was visiting the We Care Festival of Trees, which was a really neat event going on in the basement of the South Haven City Hall right now. I was proud of how great both kiddos did with Santa!

Monday, December 1, 2008

HOLY COW! Erin has red hair!

I had to say holy cow for Kyle. Mike said it this weekend and Kyle thought it highly amusing. He has continued to say it in a very boisterous way. So, HOLY COW! Erin has red hair!

I will preface this blog post by saying that I love Erin’s beautiful red hair and I hope it stays red. Although she’s a beautiful girl no matter what color hair she has. :-) I will also preface it by saying I don’t mind talking about her hair, so please don’t be offended or worried if you think I’m talking about you, LOL!

Mike and I were surprised to have a child with red hair. We each have a cousin with red hair, but that’s it. And they are cousins who live far away, so we don’t even see them often to be “reminded” of the red hair. So Erin’s hair was a surprise.

What is more surprising to me, however, is what a huge topic of conversation her hair is. There is not a day that goes by, and I am in no way exaggerating here, that I don’t hear multiple times, “Wow! She has red hair!” or “Where did that red hair come from?” and often, “What beautiful red hair!” This is from people we know, but also from strangers who stop me in the grocery store. People who stand in line by me at the post office. People at the next table in a restaurant. You name it… wherever I go, I get comments about her hair. It seems that anyone who sees a baby with red hair has to make sure I have noticed that yes, my baby’s hair is red. And it’s ongoing conversations with the same people… yes, her hair is still red six months later.

Two people have mentioned to me that they read articles that red hair is headed (ha, a pun) toward extinction. I found this very interesting, so I did a little bit or research on red hair, extinction, genes, etc.

Extinction – nope. This story has gone around several times, and resurfaces occasionally. The bottom line is that while red hair may continue to become increasingly rare, unless every single person on the planet with the red hair gene dies without reproducing it cannot go extinct. Makes sense.

Why red hair? Red hair is a mutation of the MC1R gene. Because it’s a recessive gene, both Mike and I had to have the mutated gene in order to create beautiful red-headed Erin. And because it’s recessive it can easily skip around in the family tree. That said, because Mike and I both have the mutated MC1R gene, our kids had a 1 in 4 chance of having red hair. Those odds are not too bad, but the odds that Mike and I both had it were higher since only about 4% of the population has a mutated MC1R gene. And while I always thought of a "mutated" gene in a negative way, resulting in disease or defects, I now see that "mutated" can lead to something wonderful and beautiful!

Forgot about the theories of genetics? (Junior high science was a long time ago for many of us!) There are dominant and recessive genes. You get your genes from each of your parents, and if you are given a dominant gene and a recessive gene for a particular trait, the dominant one will override it. Hair color is less understood than other genes, and you actually get eight genes for it, four from each parent. Most determine where you fall on a scale of black hair to blond, and others throw in the red hair gene. (Thus you could have red hair, but be on the blond end, and be a strawberry blond.)

So the bottom line is Erin has red hair, Mike and I both have recessive mutated MC1R genes, and we will continue to smile and talk about her hair every day because we love to talk about Erin!