can i help dad?

daddy's little helper

everything takes twice as long now days. what used to be an easy five minutes of unloading the dishwasher... can now take ten minutes or more. aubrey wants to help with everything. she likes blowing her own nose and taking the tissue to the trash. of course she has to walk there herself and she has to do it EVERY TIME she blows her nose. (which in the winter can be quite often.) our little helper assists with the laundry too. daddy's wet jeans are a little hard to lift into the dryer.... but she manages quite well with the socks. it's fun though watching her feel like she is a part of team o'malley. she makes us so proud.

you gotta see this

sorry this is a repeat picture.... but you just have to see this. i kept looking at the "state of the union" photo and couldn't help but think that it looked vaguely familiar to me. check this out.
april 2006......january 2007

the state of the union

no, not really... i just said to matt, "i don't know what to blog about?" he said, "how 'bout the state of the union." i laughed.... hmmm,ok. nevermind.

sorry we have been slacking on blogging lately. not sure why? oh yeah, i remember because i am not aloud on the computer after 7:oo PM. in attempts to cure my recent insomnia there are a number of things that have been put on the NO-NO list.... like "no coffee, no computer and no lists (to-do lists or otherwise). this is all to get me off to bed before 2 AM. so far, nothing is working. my poor hubby, i keep annoying him. last night, every time he snored i held his nose. the nights before that.... when he would talk in his sleep, i would talk back, trying to figure out what he was dreaming about. this would work until he would realize i was talking to him and wake up and then i would laugh at him. nice wife, huh?

anyway.... matt is working a lot. i am busy with mom stuff. we are praying hard about house stuff... and the aubs is growing like crazy. she is getting more steady on her feet and spent much of today walking across susie's living room and down the hall to chase josh. at one point she surprised all of us by just toddling across the room toward the kitchen with for no real reason at all (like someone standing across the room yelling "go, go, go!"). she just walked all the way across the room to the chair and stooped down to pick something up that interested her.
she loves to play ring-around-the-rosey, thanks to maddie mclaughlin who taught it to her the other day at jen's house. "all fall down" is definitely her favorite part. sometimes we get a preemptive "all fall down" and have to start all over again. she know where her belly, nose, eyes, ears and head are.... mouth is a hit or miss. for some strange reason she no longer knows what the cow says. probably omitted it from her vocabulary so that she could tell us what the airplane say. (thank you fisher price) WHOOSH!

** scroll over "go, go, go!" for link to video **

fish?

This past Sunday Melissa and I decided to take Aubrey to see some fish. Since she has always loved to look at the fish in the pond in the back yard, we thought she might enjoy seeing lots of fish. Naturally we ended up in Camden (Baltimore was a little to far for a spontaneous jaunt). She was sooo excited! The first thing we saw was a little pool with rays and sharks that you could reach in and touch. She would have been in the water if I had let her. After a little while we decided to move on to see more, and she was so excited about the fish that she started to cry. We assured her that there was much more to see and she settled down as we came into the room with the OCEAN TANK.... BIG FISH!

She was beside herself.

Next we went to another place that was hands on... this time Aubrey was able to do a little more that just get daddy wet. Although I don't think she felt any different about touching a starfish than she did about touching a shell.

My favorite part was the HIPPOS! They are the most agile beasts I have ever seen (except for maybe Rick Wise, he's pretty agile... although he does not in any way resemble a hippo... at least not any more...never the less he's a beast.) This guy here was definitely showing how big and bad he was... the picture is actually a little bit deceiving. He was so close I could have smacked him on the nose. That was actually the scary part... the fact that I stood there and contemplated doing it... which would have been ridiculously stupid as he probably could have turned my hand into applesauce.

It was a great day... Melissa and I had lots of fun but the best part was seeing Aubrey's wide eyes as she discovered new things. Pretty standard dad stuff I would say.

what does the elephant say?

"THhhhhppppptttt"

I think it is supposed to be the trumpeting that mommy and daddy does, but it comes out a little more like spitting or blowing bubbles. Oh, well.... we know what she means.

cabin fever

after a long day of sitting inside i think it started to get to us all. after napping, playing with every toy possible, reading books and watching our videos.... we stumbled upon the most amazing indoor game. who new shredded paper could be so much fun. it may be the warmest january outside but inside WE HAVE SNOW.

saltines and gatorade

whoever came up with the BRAT diet was a genius. mostly because nobody knows what B-R-A-T stands for but whatever you fill in the blanks with it usually works. i've heard: bananas, rice, apples toast....bread, rice applesauce, tea....

bread, rice, apples toast doesn't really make sense because bread and toast are both bread?
whatever, i don't know.

the o'malley meals today consisted of jello, propel (for matt) & pedialite (for aubrey), chicken broth and finally (real food) chicken and rice for dinner. NOW... look at that, i gave them broth (that could stand for "B"), rice ("R" duh), totally missed the "A", and saltines are kind of a bread like product and i believe they are toasted so that could be "T" right?

in any event, aubrey has faired a little better than matt, he really got hit hard. probably God's way of making him stay in bed and get better (men are so stubborn when they are sick).

i took the opportunity to catch some daddy, aubrey photos since they were both so compliant today. ;o)

a picture of better days

today will mark the first day in our marriage where one of us has been forced to sleep on the couch. never in my wildest dreams did i think it would be me....

actually, it's my choice. i have managed to stay quite well this winter season. even though almost every one of our friends (and their entire household) has come down with THE VIRUS. however, matt and aubrey have not fared so well. my poor little pumpkins. i feel so bad. both are in bed.... hopefully sleeping it off. i am praying very hard that they are back to normal soon...and i really, really, really hope i don't catch this thing. well, off to the couch for me tonight.

christmas lost and found

sorry that these are way late.... we actually lost these photos, but thankfully were able to recover them. thank goodness for technology.

12/23

12/24

12/25

TOUCHDOWN

Fly EAGLES Fly! New Years Eve was a blast. Matt, Aubrey and I all got to watch the Eagles "understudies" beat the living tar out of the Falcons on Sunday night. Matt's mom made a great dinner and we spent time together as a family. After the game we watched a movie and turned on Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve just in time to watch the ball drop. I shouldn't really say WE though. I was the only one still up. I watched the ball drop. Yipee! Welcome 2007!

I keep asking people what their new years resolutions are and keep getting the same answer.

"I don't make resolutions...." Bummer.

I think mine would be.... This year I would like to learn how to golf, just kidding... I just heard some lady say that on TV last night. Um.... mine would be:

1)Train for Broad Street Run

2)Read at least one book a week

3)Exercise more and eat right....

I have a thousand things I would like to try, but if I started writing it all it would be a book AND I know I can't get it all done in one year, so let's not overwhelm ourselves here.