Bob & the Kids

It is weird to say "the Kids" now. It used to just be "the Girls." I wish there was a better term. If you think of one, please let me know.

Jake

Jake is growing like a weed and is 2 months old this weekend. The last couple of days I have been putting him in his high chair. It has a reclining feature so it is great for him because I can put him in it and I can wheel him around the house with me. He helps me cook dinner, search for jobs on the net and eats meals with us. Once he is stronger and can sit up, we can sit him more upright.

Here are some pics that I took of him in his high chair. His eyes are actually OPEN for a change. :)

Job Hunting

Both Bob and I are hunting for jobs. We are definitely making some progress with updating our resumes, searching the various job boards etc.

Bob went to an informational meeting at Kent State University to find out more about their nursing program. He wouldn't be able to start until August and it would be 15 months of full time instruction. He is interested in the program, but it would be a large investment both financial and in time. They said to expect to study about 15-20 hrs. a week beyond the 35-40 hours in clinicals. So, Bob is going to discuss the advance course work, etc. with a neighbor of ours to see what it is REALLY like. So, it may be an option.

Bob also has a phone interview with Abbott Laboratories on Monday. The position would be very similar to what he was doing at Pfizer. This position would NOT be in Ohio, but would require us to move to North Chicago area.

I have sent out about 12 resumes in total and have only heard a no in one case. I just sent out 4 yesterday. So, I am hoping that something will come through soon. If not, I am thinking about calling a temp agency just to see if I can make some extra cash.

Will update when we hear or decide on anything in particular.

Impossible

It is difficult to get a picture of the girls together, but NOW, it is nearly impossible to get a picture of all 3 kids together. However, I almost did it. There was some moving around by almost everyone at one point or another. So, though these pics are not perfect, they are as good as you are going to get for now.

Enjoy.

Week in Review

This week has been quite eventful and not necessarily in a fun way - so hopefully next week will be better. Here is what has happened.

Bob's great Aunt Alice passed away this past weekend. Visitation was on Monday and the Funeral was on Tuesday. Aunt Alice was 94. I had the pleasure of meeting her and speaking with her on a couple of occasions. She was a delightful woman. She had pancreatic cancer. She is in a much better place now.

We continue to job search for both Bob and I. There are some promising leads for both of us. We try to remain optimistic but realistic.

Today, all 3 kids had a check up with the Orthopaedic Surgeon. Both Celie & Anna had x-rays and Jake was just checked - a little torquing here and there.

Everyone is doing well. But here are a few more specifics:

Celie - did an awesome job having her x-rays. She did scream a little - Bob told me, he went in with her while I hung out with Jake & Anna. We had worked on getting her prepared by telling her that we were going to the Drs and that she would need to get pictures taken. She would have to sit like a frog and say Cheese and hold still. Her hip looks very good and is recovering very well. We are still watching the right, but seems to be good for now. As far as the hardware, the Dr. said that we could take it out at 1 year or maybe even sooner. We opted for sooner - so mid March, he will be taking out the hardware. Yahoo!!!!

Anna - her hips are doing o.k. Her right hip isn't cupping as much as her left but is still doing o.k. Nothing that would warrant surgery or anything - at this point.
Double Yahoo!!!

Jake - hip check went well. Dr. didn't feel or hear anything that would worry him. Jake will have x-rays at the next 6 month check up everyone.

The girls are not getting x-rays/check up again - until August. YEAH!!

That is the Ostroski week in review.

Baking the Blues Away

We are baking away the blues right now. Bob got laid off yesterday. It was a complete shock to him, as well as to me. There was nothing to have prepared us for it. But we are managing. We are both networking like crazy to hopefully find some thing for either one of us. We are hopeful that some thing will come our way, eventually.

So, to keep my mind off of things, I decided to make sugar cookies with the girls - baking the blues away. So, we each had our own rolling station and set forth to make some sugar cookies, but most importantly, make a nice mess. Both Celie and Anna did a great job of rolling out their dough. Celie even cut out some very nice cookies (see the baked row of Celie cookies on the right) but then ended up playing with dough as if it were Play-Doh.

Anna took a different approach. She wouldn't let me help her roll out her dough or help her cut shapes out. Instead, she pulled her dough apart to create her cookies. They came out quite well when they were baked.

I made up the difference and cut out a bunch of cookies.

Tomorrow, we are going to make mess #2 and frosting all of our yummy bake goods. Hopefully, the girls will not eat all of the frosting and candies, but we will see.

Aloha

Jake received a gracious gift from friends of mine that now live in Hawaii, the island of Oahu, to be exact. It was quite a surprise. And it was a beautiful and thoughtful gift. I am looking forward to using the blanket and burp cloth as they are very cheerful just like their givers, Rochelle & Mike. Now, no matter how much snow might be on the ground, we can have a little sunshine in our day. Thanks Mike & Rochelle.

It runs in the Family

I like to think of myself as a fairly organized person. (however, you wouldn't know it by looking at my house as of late). And there are many times, some of which I have posted, about how Celie would organize her "people" or toys in funny and interesting situations.

Well, it must run deep in the gene pool, because today, I caught a few things that Anna has done. I know that it was Anna because Celie is off shopping with Bob and Anna & Jake are here with me.

Here are her people, sitting in a line waiting to go somewhere. I am amazed at the precision and such. Mind you, these people were in a container - straight. So, she gave them their sitting position and lined them up.

Here are some Disney figures lined up - holding hands - if they have them. Notice the 2 minnie's together - Hmmmmm.

This is scary. No wonder some of my friends think I am crazy.

While Mommy is Posting

In trying to keep the many adoring fans of this blog happy, I am trying to post a few more pics and post more often. However, What happens while I try to post a few things to the blog? This:


The cushions off the loveseat and sofa. Toys EVERYWHERE and yes, taht would be the girls, still in their nightgowns and it is almost 3pm. (they view them as dresses and scream to high heaven if I want to put "clothes" on them. So, I have learned - to pick my battles, of which, I don't try to have many). Celie saw the camera and her first instinct was to say "CHHEEESE!!"

On the other hand, Jake is totally unphased by the screaming and comotion coming from the living room. Ahhhhhh!!!!

Jake's doggy bank

Since Jake's room is done in a puppy theme, I thought that I would continue the theme as much as possible. Prior to his arrival, I made him 3 puppy themed, flannel backed blankets. I also decided to make him a "piggy" bank in my ceramics class.

It took me a while to figure out what shape his bank should be. A puppy bank? A bone bank? A dog dish bank? Nope. I finally decided that a Dog House would be the best and quite frankly, the easiest. So, I made him a Dog House Bank. And yesterday, he got his first cash to deposit in it.

I am going to work on some castle turrets a.k.a. princess balconies, etc. for the girls in my upcoming classes. Watch for photos.

Oh, One other thing on my plate

I have been asked to be a Board Member for the Brecksville Center of the Arts.

I am actually pretty excited about this. The BCA - Brecksville Center of the Arts is an art center in our little suburb that offers showings of artists' work as well as classes for kids to adults. I have been taking a ceramics class there for almost a year now. I love my class. I am not making any "masterpieces." But I am enjoying learning some new things and all of my lucky family has gotten ceramics for x-mas. :)

I am going to try to keep my mouth shut the first couple of meetings. From what I understand, the Board of Directors does most of the fundraising for the center. Which, I am glad to hear that the Board is involved. However, they do pay a director for the center and I haven't figured out exactly what he does. And I have met him on a few occasions and he isn't the most friendly person either. So, we will see how this goes.

The first event - a Board Meeting tomorrow night - but also Art from the Heart - a HUGE fundraising event for the BCA put on by the Board. Isn't that fantastic? I am donating 4 dozen cookies for the event that I just heard about - where is the marketing? where is the publicity for this thing? Oh, yeah, I said I was going to keep my mouth shut. Hmmmm. This may be harder than I thought.

I must be Crazy!

Celie asked if they could paint. Even though I was dog tired, I agreed. I think that I may be crazy for agreeing, but I was hopeful that all would be fine.

I changed the girls into some "play" clothes and gathered the supplies.

Jake decided that he needed to supervise this activity and make sure they doing o.k. He was trying to get pointers for when it is his turn to participate.

Both Anna & Celie started out doing a great job with their paintings. Of course, they really haven't figured out when to STOP painting on their painting. Trying to convince them that they should move onto another canvas didn't work. I really liked some of their "earlier" creations - before they muddled all of the colors together into 1 big blob.


After each of them had painted 2 -3 paintings, I thought that it was time to clean up. I gave them fair warning that we were going to clean up in a few minutes. Jake started fussing because he was tired of not being an active participant and wanted to be fed. So, I announced that it was time to clean up. Both girls had a fit. Thank goodness that most of the paint that I had in the little cups were now mostly on the canvases drying in the dining room. Anna decided that she wanted to sweep her arms across the table to make the paint cups go everywhere. Thank goodness for my quick hands as none of the cups or paint reached the floor. By now, both girls are screaming/crying and I am quickly trying to remove all traces of paint from the table and the girls. With both girls crying, Jake joined in on the fun as well. I swept up Anna and took her to her room. She cried herself to sleep. Celie finally calmed down and I fed Jake and he was happy.

If I wasn't crazy before letting them paint, I think I am now.

No Sleep for ANYONE!

Saturday night was an absolute wonder. Jake only got up once throughout the night and both girls slept threw the night which meant - that EVERYONE actually got some sleep Saturday night. How naive Bob and I were to think that it might be an upward trend. Last night was a nightmare.

Jake was up from 12:30 am until about 4 am - that is when I heard him and told Bob that I would take over since I had been up since 2 am because Anna decided that she needed to be awake. Bob went to see if a change of person would calm her down and get her to sleep. I fed Jake and he fell asleep in my arms. So, I took him back upstairs and put him to bed and then I went into Anna's room to sleep (who ever is on Jake duty has been sleeping in there to hear him better). Then about 1/2 hr. later, Bob came in with Anna. She was still up & now Celie was up too. We put Anna to sleep in her bed, sent Celie back to her bed and Bob and I actually slept in the same bed for a change (that is a long story). It was hard for me to fall asleep because Bob was snoring, but we managed to send Celie back to bed 2 additional times. The time 5:30am. Bob and I managed an hour or so of sleep before he was up to go to work and Jake was waking up with Celie announcing his every movement. Anna was still asleep.

We are definitely hoping for a better nights sleep tonight.

Fun in the Sunny Snow

We experienced a heat wave on Sunday. Bob took the opportunity to take BOTH girls outside to go sledding. The run that they had developed earlier was on the slick side from the melting snow. Bob actually was running down with them down the hill so that he could keep a grip on the sled as they went down the run.


Yes, that is Bob in a T-shirt. He was sweating up a storm while outside with the girls. I think the high of the day was in the low 40's but it was like a summer day to Bob.

He and Anna made snowmen for the front walk way. Anna actually made it longer than Celie did. Of course, as soon as Celie was inside and saw Anna still outside, she wanted to go back out.

Feeding Jake

The girls wanted to help Bob feed Jake. Celie went first.

Then Anna wanted her turn.
And she got it.
I wish they could change diapers.

1 Month old

Little Man Jake is 1 month old today.

I told Celie that this morning and she suggested that we needed to make a cake for him. Though that sounds like a GREAT idea to me, I don't think any of us, except for maybe Anna, could use the extra calories right now. So, we will celebrate in great spirit today.

Jake is doing very well. I think that he definitely has grown. We have had some difficulty with him sleeping, spitting up and being a little on the irritable side. I called the Dr. and she suggested that I switch him to a soy based formula. It seems to have done the trick. He is spitting up FAR less - no projectile spitting and he is sleeping much better than he was. Bob and I are actually getting a little bit of sleep at night. YEAH!! Now, we are just hoping for a little more time sleeping at night and less during the day.

Happy 1 Month Jake!

Misc. Pics

Trying to get a family picture. Can you tell that they were watching Kung Fu Panda? I had to stand in front of the TV to get the girls to look at me. Still didn't work - at least for Anna!

Dorky picture of me with a great picture of Anna. This was taken by me - so not bad for the Howie method of taking pics. (long armed).
Celie and I looking weird in our own ways.

Jake - that is what he looks like when he is hungry and lately, unfortunately, he has been hungry every 2 hours. We think he is going through a growth spurt.

Chicks Dig Him

I cried today

My brother and I some times comment on the ease in which our father can cry, kind of like those sappy Hallmark commercials. However, we love him for it.

I wish I could blame it on pregnancy hormones, but I am not quite sure how long AFTER delivery that I can actually use that as an excuse. Therefore, I will have to face the facts that it might be genetic and I am more like my father than I thought.

For today, I cried. Bob asked me why I was crying and all I could say was I am not sure why.

I have to admit that I was pretty much glued to the television today. No, there were not all new episodes on HGTV or FoodNetwork, but I was fascinated by all of the Inauguration events that were taking place.

I know that I have not lived as long as some, but I do not remember a time when there were so many expectations, so much celebration, so much media surrounding the festivities of the president elect. I also never thought that I would see what happened today in my life time - not only an african american president elected and sworn into office, but the hope that many have placed upon his shoulders. Many have been calling this an historical event. Yes, I would have to agree. However, what really made me cry today was seeing the mall filled to the brim with people. For some/many that have never been to the mall, it might seem pretty trivial. I had to explain to Bob why I was so amazed at the sight of it. Even on TV it looks pretty massive, however, I have been to the mall on several occassions and found it a wonderful, peaceful and LARGE place. However, every time I have visited, it was during the spring or summer when their were leaves on the trees. The foliage does provide one with the sense of intimacy. The feeling that even in a vast area, there is a cozy, safe feeling. Seeing the mall without the foliage, you could just see the never ending sea of people. People who came from all over to witness the historical moment. It was seeing all of those people, people hoping and wishing for a change, that made me cry. Maybe finally, our country's top officials can work together for the good of the people - for it is the people that put them where they are. I some times think that those in Washington forget that. Actually, I think that many politicians starting from local government to Washington forget that.

I have hopes for a new era. I know it will be hard, but I am hopeful for our future and the future of our children and our children's children.

I know it might sound cliche, but it is the truth. It is how I feel and that is why I cried today.

Celie the Snow Bunny

The weather outside is too cold for me, but not for my Polar Bears. The temp out is about 23 and with the "real" feel of about 16. Bob bundled up Celie and the two of them were outside for almost 2 hours. I captured some of their adventures through the warm comfort of the dining room.

My Polar bears coming up from the sled run that goes between our house and our neighbor Jim's house. Bob created a sledding run that has banks along the edges so that riders can avoid the trees and the creek. Yeah, thank goodness.


Celie taking a break from sledding and helping Bob shovel the snow off of the driveway and sidewalk.
Here is video of Celie sledding down the hill toward the ravine in our back yard. I was pretty shocked the first time that I saw her do this. I thought for sure that she was going into the creek. Thank goodness for the embankment Bob put in place.