New Site!

Sorry Blogger...but you just weren't doing it for me.

Fellow readers, please refer to this site for future posts:

http://hollahollster.wordpress.com/

It's been fun Blogger...

Did you hear what I'm saying??

Lately, Iben seems to be talking more and more...or at least I should say he is saying more words very clearly. Here are a couple of examples that I just heard this morning:

• "Sure" when I asked if he wanted another piece of toast
• "Mom play" after he was finished with breakfast.
• "Call mom" this was last night when Aunt Shannon was watching him for me.

While he has been talking for a while, it still make me take a double look when he says something like "sure". That just seems like such a grown-up little word! It's nice to hear other words come out of his mouth instead of waffle or woof-woof. There are many more words that he says but it's too early in the morning for me to remember them all. :)

I still love it when he says "Please/thank you". He even said "thank you" this morning when he was finished with breakfast. What a sweet little boy!

PS I also love it when he says "Big Truck" every time we drive past a semi. He even did it all the way to Des Moines a couple of weeks ago...lucky for me, he slept most of the way home!

The Great Pumpkin Patch - in Iben's Words

Mommy & Daddy took me to the Pumpkin Patch yesterday and we had so much fun!! We started by going through the corn maze. I'm so glad my daddy and mommy are tall, otherwise I don't think I would have ever gotten out of there.

There were so many cool things along the trail - like small rocks, parts of a stalk and corn kernals.

We came upon a graveyard in the middle of the maze.

Also some friendly spooks who took their picture with us.

As you can see, there is a picture of me and daddy and one of me, mommy and Ichabod (that's what daddy calls the baby in mommy's belly).

Look at me! I hope to be as tall as the 4 next year!

Boo! I'm a spook!

I tried to help Daddy find the perfect pumpkin. We knew that we couldn't get one that was bigger than 36" around...otherwise it wouldn't fit through our door.

We also saw cute little puppies! I loved the woof-woofs!!

It was such a fun day! I can't wait until we crave our pumpkins next week!

Workin' for a livin'

I had every intention of writing a post this past Friday...but my subject matter was not completed until today. So just ignore that fact and take yourself back to Friday, Oct 10, 2008 and we'll pretend that I got everything accomplished in just one day. (HA! As if that ever actually happens!)

It was my day off today (remember dear reader that it's Friday)...from the carpet store...but not from the slavery of Coohey Construction and my position as office manager. (haha...I like giving myself important titles.) Take a look at the picture below to see the mound of work I had ahead of me:

I started the day off fairly well. After I responded to emails (Oops...non-work related) and made sure everything was okay on my Facebook page, I finally sat down to get started. Once I start working I feel it is very important to make sure I am well nourished and usually make several trips to the kitchen so my throat does not become dry or my stomach does not have a chance to start growling. On one such trip, I came back to this:
Jewel the cat loves to spend afternoons sitting on this very chair...seriously, she'll sit on it for hours...so she definitely felt that she was entitled to it. And she was ready to fight for the chair.



I thought it was a great opportunity for me to check my email and Facebook page again. Glad I did because I was able to chat with my favorite friend from across the pond, Angie! Since London is 6 hours ahead of us, this is uncommon and was such a delightful surprise. I will be having a British invasion in December when Miss Angie and her new love will be visiting us! Of course, I will blog about the visit and hopefully use some of the British terms they use. The British really have a great way of wording things...but more on that in December. I bet the suspense is killing you!


So after finally chasing Jewel off the chair, I was able to sit down and start the mundane work of an office manager. I opened mail, paid bills, filed (okay, maybe I saved the filing for another day) and updated our accounting system. Look at the fruits of my labor...a beautiful cleared off desk!

I bet you never met someone who felt office work was so intriguing that she decided to focus an entire blog on it!

One way to look at the current Wall Street mess...

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.

But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle.

It is called the 401-Keg.

5 things

All day I have been debating on the topic for today's post. So many ideas are running through my head. After much consideration, I decided to list 5 things that I love about my son and my husband. Here I go...

5 things that I love about Iben:

1) "Waffle" is the 1st thing he says to me when he comes to wake me up every morning.

2) He pretends to sleep at random times...snoring and all...and makes sure to get our attention before he "falls asleep".

3) When he says "please/thank you" when all he needs to say is please.

4) His excitement for going potty like a big boy. (I'm sure the reward of M&Ms and a sticker on his chart have something to do about that.)

5) His love of apples and peanut butter...I also enjoy helping him eat this snack.

5 things that I love about Shane:

1) The way he randomly leaves his socks around the house...seriously, I find them in the weirdest places.

2) How he goes to the extremes in all he does. (Facebook is his latest craze.)

3) His love for his "bat cave" (aka garage).

4) His constant positive outlook at life.

5) His hugs.

PS...#6 for Iben...the way he also randomly leaves his socks around the house just like his daddy.

My 2 boys make me feel like I'm the luckiest gal in the world! Love you!