The day before Thanksgiving...

Tim and I were laying on the floor in Casden's room. The baby was sleeping. Padget and Casden were playing and drawing on Casden's chalkboard. Padget makes a run for it out of the room. I brace myself, just in case she's going to run into me, but I have faith that my 5 year old can judge the distance. Wrong--Bonk! She knees me in the forehead. And then, in classic Padget form, she declares, "Sorry, Mom, but you should not have been there." Nice!

Casden has been using a very interesting pet name for us these days. It's "Doody". Probably more along the lines of "Doody=Poopy" than say "Howdy Doody". But he'll tag it to the end of such endearing statements. "Love you, Doody" "Good night, Doody" "Okay, Doody". And sometimes, he's parent-specific, as in "Doody-Mama" or "Doody-Daddy (which flows very nice!)". And he will call himself "Doody-Casden". I have no idea where he came up with it, but it is very funny and very Casden.

Casden has this odd accent--ever since he started talking. It's hard to describe, but everyone notices it. He also has some really adorable speech impediments, which I know he will outgrow in time, but I hope they stick around at least until Aidric is talking with cute impediments of his own. He has a hard time with words that start with "S" and another consonant. Like "sleepy" is "fweepy". We went to Dairy Queen after they got their swine flu shots last weekend, and he informed me that he had eaten all his "fwinkles". Other cute words off the top of my head include "hung-ee" (hungry) and "bloon" (balloon). There are so many more, but I can't think of them right now. Oh, he's very good with his manners, but has a hard time with the "th" sound so he says "No 'sanks!" for "No thanks!" And he has a hard time with "sp-" words. He'll tell you that something has "pots" (spots) or that he's drawing a "pider" (spider).

Nanny and Grandpa got us the book Elf on the Shelf. The story is that he is Santa's elf and every night he uses his magic to fly back to the North Pole to report on the kids' behavior and then he flies back and hides in a new spot. The kids are really enjoying this. They named the elf Fisbee (as suggested in the story), and Padget is so smitten by this elf that she blesses him every night in her prayers! Tim and I, however, are having a harder time with this project as the elfen magic seems to solely rely on Tim and I remembering to move the little guy. There have been quite a few days where Padget and Casden can't understand why Fisbee came back to the same spot. Tim has nearly been caught multiple times moving Fisbee in the middle of the day!

I think I hear Casden up. He has been getting out of bed in the time between his bedtime and our bedtime. The first night he did this, he scared the bejesus out of Tim. He was standing in our room, in the dark, in between the curtains looking across at the neighbors' Christmas lights. Tim nearly jumped out of his skin! Last night, Tim turned on the lights and gave me the all clear and then looked on our bed. Casden had been looking at Christmas lights (the curtains were messed up) and had apparently just crawled into our bed, covered himself up, and fallen fast asleep. It was so sweet! Less sweet was his 3 a.m. visit later last night. Yep, he was out of bed. Tim is putting him back in his own bed now. He was playing with Padget's hair ties in their bathroom sink. ?? He's a character, that one!

Funny stuff

Okay, it has been many months since I started this blog. The time has just flown by. We moved out of my mom's house and into our own house. We had baby #3--Aidric Jacob. I'm a stay-at-home mom extraordinaire...haha, not really! I'm muddling through.

Padget, for Halloween, told us that she wanted a pumpkin that would "scare people's crap out"! She said she learned that from her friend Maya in preschool. Lovely. I can't hardly wait to see what elementary school brings! I'm sure it will be enough to scare my crap out...!

Padget's is the ghost pumpkin.

Casden has refused to attempt potty training. He insists that the potty has eyes. ?? We have no idea where that came from. We actually then drew a smiley face on the potty to show him the potty has friendly eyes, but he was not amused.

When Casden doesn't like something, he says it's "yucky". This ranges from food that's yucky (which makes sense) to bedtime is yucky or cleaning up is yucky or, of course, going on the potty is yucky.

Aidric shrieks and screams a lot (at 4 months), but sometimes it sounds like he is yelling "HI!" at the top of his lungs or shouting "HELLO!" It's very funny because it stops you in your tracks. You know that he's not possibly saying that, but it's clear as day.

Casden is always asking to drink out a "big girl cup". It's tough to have a big sister! That's all he heard when she was learning to drink out of an open cup. It was a "big girl cup" so now when he wants to drink from an open cup, yep, it's a "big girl cup".

Blog name...

Peapod and the Bean...this has always been my "company" name. If I had ever started any kind of home business. I came up with it after I had my daughter, Padget, and while I was pregnant with my son, Casden (whom I had nicknamed "Bean" while in the womb). I suppose that baby #3 will be jealous that he is not included in my "company" name, however, it's not really like I am ever going to use it probably on anything other than this blog!! But in case I do, I even had designed my own business cards during a slow day at work!

History...

My life in a nutshell...I married my high school sweetheart, Tim. We dated for nearly 8 years before we got married, at age 24. We actually started out our married life in Butler, PA. And even then I never thought I'd end up back here! However, back then, newly married, no kids, Butler didn't really bother me. I worked full-time for the PA Dept. of Health, up in Jackson Center, so I had a 40 mile commute. Weeks flew by. Enjoying married life, fixing up our little house, playing with our new puppy. We lived here for 3 years, until Tim was laid off from his job at the local steel mill. He accepted a position in Toledo, OH and so off we went. But not before finding out we were expecting our first baby!

Toledo was actually fantastic. There was a lot of stuff to do, some great restaurants, great Metroparks for walking the dog. However, Tim was miserable in his job so after 5 months, he quit and accepted a position in CT. We bought a house in Middletown, CT and 2 months later, Padget Grace was born.



We really settled into CT. While it was difficult to be away from our extended family, it was always a bit of a blessing. We became very self-sufficient and it forced me to assimilate into my community. When Padget was 3 months old, I joined the local MOMS Club. It's the best thing I ever did!! I met such an amazing group of stay-at-home moms. There was something to do every day if I wanted to. And I made some really close friends. I also took on a part-time job in the evenings at a local gym, working the front desk. It was another way to get out of the house and meet people. Things were tight in CT, where things were expensive. We actually went down to one car for quite awhile, trying to make ends meet. But we made it work.

When Padget was 25+ months old, Casden James was born. Having two was definitely not easy for me, but we muddled through. Tim and I just don't make easy babies!! As much as I loved being a stay-at-home mom, I was always looking for jobs to apply for in my field. Honestly, there was not much in public health that paid enough to make me apply. I think there really was one job per year that met the criteria. However, right before Casden was 1 year old, I interviewed for a position with the University of Connecticut Health Center. 'Lo and behold, by the time Casden (finally) started walking (at 16 months), I was back to working full-time and the kiddos were in full-time daycare.

I was finally settling into being a working mommy, and then Tim has an opportunity to interview for a position back in PA. He'd always wanted to move back "home", it was a bigger opportunity for him career-wise, so of course, he went for it. And, of course, he got it. After 6 months of working full-time, I had to quit my job (one of the hardest things I had to do!). And away we went, back to Butler. And oh, shortly before this all came to fruition, SURPRISE! We found out I was pregnant!

And so, here we are...

Trying to breathe...

Never in a million years did I see myself 1.) Living back in Butler and 2.) Living at home again. While living at my mom's house is merely a temporary set-up, living in Butler is a permanent (unless Tim gets transferred again...).

Coming back to Butler has been a bit of a culture shock. We lived in Middletown, CT for over 4 years. I absolutely fell in love with New England. The weather, the culture, the proximity to everything. Or maybe I fell in love with my friends, the support, and having lots of things to do with my kiddos. Either way, coming back to Butler has been suffocating. We've been back since December, so it's been 3 months. Tim, Padget, Casden, and I living with my mom and my step-dad. The living arrangements have actually gone better than I could have expected. The kids have done okay sharing a room. We've managed to keep most of the clutter in the "play" room (the extra bedroom/tv room). All in all, it's been okay.

However, Butler itself is....ugh....depressing. Seriously, it's difficult to breathe! There's just nothing to do here. So, I decided to start this blog about my kids and some of the funnier aspects of our lives. A way to look at the good things and a way to chronicle the goofy things my kids do before I forget it all. I guess be forewarned that many of these posts will just be snippets, in no particular organization and not necessarily related!

But I guess I ought to start with some history...just so you know how this family came to be!