From the Mouth of a Mommy Raising Rascals

Soccer, Tball, Banana Fana Fo-Fana

2014-05-14T14:17:00.002-07:00

Do you remember when you were a kid and you played sports and your mom looked like she was always in a hurry and you didn't really understand why? Well I understand.

For the first time as a parent, I had not one but TWO kids doing sports at the same time. I know what some of you are thinking, "Try having more than two kids, newbie."

After basketball ended, Ali decided she wanted to play soccer. I was honestly a little disappointed. Quite frankly, I don't understand that "only-use-your-feet" business. I never played. I don't know the rules. I don't know the lingo. And sometimes I accidentally sat on the players' bench thinking it was there for spectators. They really expect me to bring my own chair!?

I will admit, though, that seeing Ali play it was SO MUCH FUN. She's actually really good! I mean I know I'm biased, but the girl is tall and skinny and fast. She's coordinated with her feet, she's smart, and, most importantly, she had fun playing. I don't think her team won very many games, but not knowing much about soccer meant I really didn't pay attention to the score!

Look at that kick!!! She really loved being the goalie, but my favorite part was watching her play the field. I've seen her play softball. I've seen her play basketball. Neither of those sports really sparked much aggression in that kid, but soccer brought some of that out in her! I mean yes, she was still my little girly-girl who would sometimes dance and get sidetracked. :)

During all this time, we had Jordan playing tball (we're not allowed to call it that though. "I don't play tball, I play baseball!!!") It turns out that our little prodigy doesn't care much about being good at baseball. He's your typical 3 year old tball player who likes to play in the dirt and has no idea what's going on 98% of the time. Despite that, though, he still looks adorable.

See that uniform? The first game he just wore black shorts because we couldn't find any pants to fit him. Then my mother-in-law found him a pair of baseball pants and took them up about 2-3 sizes. Good thing she's good with a sewing machine! Otherwise he'd just been wearing black shorts all year. Also, his tiny fat feet aren't big enough for cleats, so he has to wear good ole tennis shoes. His shirt fits him alright, but it's a tad too short so it can't be tucked into his pants. I don't think his ill-fitting clothes have hurt his performance much, though.

Even though things got a little hectic for a while, we managed and enjoyed every minute of it, as I'm sure most parents do. I have a feeling, though, that this is only the beginning of our hectic lives as parents with athletic children. Oh boy.

I Need To Poop, Mom

2014-05-09T07:28:00.002-07:00

It has literally been forever since I have posted anything on here! Not that nothing has been going on--really there has been TOO MUCH going on that I just haven't found the time.

So today, let me interest you in a little story about my stinker boy.

As you probably already know, my child has never been a good sleeper. He's much better now than he was for the first 18 months of his life, but he still doesn't let us sleep through the night more than a few days a week. He wakes up crying because he's hungry, thirsty, had a bad dream, misses us, wants his sister, can't find his doggie, is cold, needs to pee, fell off the bed, can't find his ninja toy, wants to read a book, etc.

Let's get something straight: I am not one of those moms whose kids sleep with her from the day they're born until they're 23. I like my space. I don't like having feet in my back and a butt in my face. So anytime he gets in bed with us, I immediately turn my back to him (because he's going to kick me... and I'd rather it not be my boobs). Sometimes, if I'm not really really sleepy, I'll just pick him up and stick him back in his own bed... followed by several minutes of crying and, "But I neeeeeeeeeed you!" Go back to sleep, kid, it's 2 a.m.

Last night he ended up in bed with me (when did that even happen?!) and my husband ended up on the couch. This meant I slept on the very edge of the bed while Jordan elbowed and kicked me for several hours. At around 4, he jumped up and started crying, "Mommy I needa poop!" My first thought was, "Oh dear Lord, please don't let him be sick." So I jump up and run him to the bathroom (expecting the worst, you know what I mean), flip on the light, and toss him onto the toilet. "Mamma, cover my eyes, it's too bright." So now I'm holding him to make sure he doesn't fall into the toilet while also shielding his eyes. Luckily, he wasn't sick, he really did just need to poo.

We stay in this uncomfortable (for me, anyway) position for about 5 minutes while he does his business. Finally he says, "Mama, wipe my butt, I wanna go back to bed." So I do that, while still shielding his eyes because obviously it's still too bright for him, and then we go back to bed. That's when I realize he had peed in my bed. Ahhhhhhhh!!

So I did what any respectable parent does in that situation: I threw a towel on top of it and went back to sleep. Surely I'm not the only mom to ever do this. Right???

After a couple more hours of kicking/elbowing, my alarm goes off. I roll over and give him a kiss and say, "Good morning sweetie, I love you." He springs up and says, "Mama, you can't go up to the castle!!" "Oh, okay, why not?" I ask. "Because you just can't because the cars can't and they go vroom vroom!!"

Just another day in paradise!

Minecraft Creeper Valentine's Box

2014-02-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we decided to let Ali decorate her Valentine's box for school! I let her browse Pinterest for ideas ("So if I like something and want to save it for later, I just pin it?" Exactly, my dear.) and she chose what she calls a "creeper" from the Minecraft game. She is addicted to that game and I don't understand what's going on. All I know is the graphics are really pixeley and isn't this the 21st century!? Anyway, a creeper is apparently a Minecraft villain... but that's what she chose. This is what they look like:

Link to this image here.

And this is the picture she found on Pinterest the she wanted to duplicate:

Link to this image here.

So we found a square box that once belonged to a small food chopper, dug out some green paint and paper, and got to work. The only green paint I had was lime green, so we mixed in some black (afterwards I thought, "Hmm, brown would have worked better...") and came up with a pretty awesome villain green. She painted the entire box (several coats). We then took three different shades of green card stock and cut them into neat perfect squares. Just kidding, they were no where near perfect. But they were semi-square-ish. She glued them in her own special pattern and then we added the black eyes and a nose (or is it a mouth? not sure.)

See that awesome creepy green paint color? :)
Here she is gluing on her squares.

After everything had dried I cut a hole in the top and voila! Minecraft Creeper Valentine's box.

The finished product! With the exception of cutting out the black nose/mouth, the entire thing was done by Ali.

And there you have it! She was so so proud of her box. I can't wait to hear what her friends thought of it! Next on the list is Jordan's box. His will be much easier to construct! I'm thinking a tissue box with stickers on it... ;)

Super Hero Birthday Party

2014-02-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

My son turned THREE!? Is this for real?? I can't believe he's growing up so fast...

Lately he's been obsessed with 3 things: Cars, planes, and Super Heroes. His favorite super hero is He-Man, but since it's now 2014, He-Man decorations aren't exactly easy to come by. So we decided to just go with Super Heroes in general as the theme for his birthday party. We stuck with the basic colors: blue, red, and yellow.

First, the invitation:

I found a really cool invitation on SnapFish.com that looked kinda like this, but I didn't want to pay $30. So I started designing it myself. I found the little superhero images from a Google search, as well as the background and the city outline. I then sent my idea to my best friend and she tweaked the heck out of it and came up with this! It was perfect! We printed them on card stock and voila! She also designed the envelope.

How cool is that!?

Okay, on to the actual party.

The "fun" table. For the buildings I used cardboard out of the recycling bin at worked and covered them with plan black paper and cut up some yellow squares for the windows. The little signs I cut out of poster board from Dollar Tree. The red streamer also came from Dollar Tree... as did all the table cloths.

Even the grandparents got in on the tattoo fun! We found these at Walmart the night before the party and couldn't resist.

The masks were cut out of the same poster board as the signs. I found templates here.

Random stickers from Walmart and Dollar Tree.

Foam swords from Amazon (6 total) The kids had so much fun beating each other up with these.

Can't have a party without PIZZA!

Fruit punch (sugar free drink mix) came from Walmart. Straws came from Amazon (144 in a box and we used around 10. We may never run out!!)

Super Suckers! These guys took forever to make. The box is just another box I took from the recycling bin at work covered in red paper (also from work). I poked holes in it and stuck the suckers in. Voila! I got the sucker idea from my sister who threw her son a Super Hero party last year.

Can you see the Superman logo shape? I baked cupcakes because we're too poor to pay someone else to make something fancy. haha This is what I really wanted. Too bad, so sad. They were yummy at least.

I tried to be creative with naming the snacks. Eh, it was harder than I expected. The little name cards can be found here.

Possibly my favorite decoration was this hand-made banner! I wish I could take full credit, but I hardly did anything to this thing other than hanging it up. I got the idea from Pinterest (of course) and a template for the letters came from here. This made my life so much easier. I used the poster board I bought from Dollar Tree for everything, and had a student assistant at my work cut them all out for me. HA!

The whole setup.. ahh, lovely :) For the food table I put a blue table cloth on bottom, and a red on top (because they weren't really big enough to cover the whole table anyway, and this looked cooler than just one color alone). I should have taken a better picture of them, but at least you can see the blue poking out a little bit.

I thought it would be fun (okay maybe not fun, just cool) to have a picture of my son hanging up for family and friends to sign. I took a picture of him at the park with my old worn out camera and had the Media Services Department where I work blow it up to to size 16x20. $3.84!!

I'm such an awful photographer! But here's his gift table... "Super Presents." It's our coffee table covered in a plastic table cloth. Fancy. (And that boring brown present on the right? Yeah... that's from us. I used packing paper I dug out of the recycling bin at work. Hey, it was better than the pink cupcake wrapping paper I had at home! He didn't seem to mind...)

My shy little birthday boy in his Superman outfit! (bought here)

I just love those house shoes he has on lol Santa Claus got those for him for Christmas. How convenient!

Opening up one of his super gifts!

After all that partying... the birthday boy was SPENT. He played and played and then passed out and didn't wake up for 3 hours.

Even Superman takes naps.

Planning his birthday party and decorating for it was So. Much. FUN. Seriously, I love doing that kind of stuff. I started weeks ahead of time and got lots of help from my student assistants at work and, of course, my wonderful hubs. After the party was over I really didn't want to take everything down. All that hard work in the trash!?!? We did keep his birthday banner though. In fact... it's still hanging in our dining room. ;)

Bad Parenting

2014-01-27T06:37:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, my mom sent us home with two new bags of giant building blocks. When I finally remembered about them, I brought them in the house one weekend for Jordan to play with.

Okay, so I'm kind of a perfectionist and it really, really bugs me how my son puts those blocks together at random. I mean, can't my two year old tell that the tower isn't going to stand with only one little block as a base? And doesn't he know anything about symmetry? My husband, apparently, is just like me. At first, we just sat in the floor watching Jordan playing with the blocks. Then we'd say something like, "No Jordan, put this little block over here instead." And then it got to where we would move the blocks around when he wasn't looking.

It ended with us taking over the building blocks completely. As in... Jordan laid in the floor while we completely forgot about being parents and instead acted like children for about an hour. Shameful! (But... also kinda fun...)

Here is the castle Jordan started building that we kinda... took over.

"I stole my son's building blocks because he wasn't putting them together how I wanted! Thumbs up!"

Then we decided we could build a bigger, better one. So we tore that one down and built this beauty:

And this is what poor Jordan did while Mommy and Daddy went crazy with the building blocks:

Okay, so maybe we're bad parents, but I can't help but laugh every time I think about it. At one point Jordan tried to put a block on our masterpiece and I instinctively grabbed the block before he could get it on. My husband started laughing and said, "Did you seriously just take that away from your son??" Ooops.

So maybe we did go a little crazy, but Jordan eventually got his revenge.

So there you have it, Bad Parenting 101.

Basketball

2014-01-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Ali had her first ever basketball tournament and I MISSED IT because I had a huge race that weekend (that I'd been training for since August). And her team won the tournament! Wahoo!

So I'd been kinda pouting since then because I hadn't got to see her play. Well she finally had another game this past weekend and it was soooo much fun to watch!

Here she is guarding someone while on offense... haha

And then she realized she didn't need to be guarding someone and decided to get WIDE OPEN under the goal instead!

And here my little girl dribbled the ball all the way up the court and then shot a cute little jump shot!

Number 4, which used to be my softball number.

After I saw this picture I thought maybe we should enroll her in track, too. Look at those long legs! And that stride! Good grief, she is a natural runner. Wonder where she gets it from? ;)

Sunday afternoon Ali wanted to go to the park to practice some more.

And here's what Jordan did while sister practiced:

Rosie the Elf

2014-01-08T08:40:00.002-08:00

Well let me just say: Our elf Rosie did a stellar job of being creative this year. You'd think she'd be running out of ideas but she's one smart elf. ;)

Day one: Rosie came in on a zip line. That thing must have taken about 30 minutes to put together... She's so cool.

Look: she even used some of our flame-less tea lights to light the runway.

And apparently she's a Super Elf (which we already knew!)

One morning we found that she'd taken some of the kids' toys and toilet papered them. Naughty elf.

One day she decided to learn how to play basketball. It looks like she caught on pretty well!

And of course, what kind of elf would she be if she didn't roast some marshmallows and make s'mores? I'll never figure out how she blackened that marshmallow using a battery operated candle... must be Christmas magic.

Here we found an organized race among several of the kids' toys.

Look, she even made a checkered flag to wave at the finish line. How clever.

I didn't realize Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz would be so... competitive.

Uh oh... Rosie has a gambling problem. We found her and some other toys playing cards. What's in those glasses? A quick taste test revealed it was only fruit punch. Whew...

Nice bow, Rosie!

Apparently Rosie made good friends with Ali's American Girl dolls. Here she's fixing Allison's hair and it looks like they were also playing a BFF game.

"If you could change the name of one of your BFFs, what would you change it to?"

LOL

Then one morning we found her coloring in Jordan's coloring book. She really needs to work on her coloring skills.

One night, right before we all went to bed, Jordan broke a tire off of his FAVORITE race car. OMG, end of the world. So his sister says to him, "Don't worry Jordan, Rosie can fix it with her Christmas magic!" So off they run to find Rosie and I hear Jordan asking her to fix his car "priddy pwease?"

Also that night, Ali lost another tooth. She put it in a baggy and hid it under her pillow REALLY WELL, apparently, because when she woke up the next morning her tooth was still there. Oh man, the Tooth Fairy let the ball drop on that one. Or did she?

When we found Rosie that morning, not only had she made herself a cup of syrup and eaten half a peppermint, she'd also used a hot glue gun to fix Jordan's car AND...

She left a letter for Ali about her tooth. Whew, catastrophe averted.

One morning Jordan found Rosie in this over-sized plastic bottle.

Here she decided to break the ROOF OFF our gingerbread house. Brat. It was okay, though, because that meant Jordan and I could finally start breaking pieces off to eat since it was already "ruined". Thanks Rosie!

She must have felt guilty about the gingerbread house because she was hiding in Jordan's stocking the next day.

The morning before my big Spartan Beast I found this lovely little note on our bed frame. Awe, thanks!

One day we found her hanging from our pull-up bar. She must be working out.

Thankfully someone pays attention to the plants in this house! The poor ivy hadn't been watered in a long, long time so Rosie did it for me.

She likes basketball video games too, I guess.

One morning we woke up to find all our shoes tied together.

Ali woke up one day to Rosie "stealing" money from her money jar.

Our last morning with Rosie was fun! We'd left her some little miniature cookies and man, she went to town on those things. She spelled out Thank You in M&Ms.

Messy chocolate face.

She also left a trail of M&Ms from the kids' bedrooms to the living room. We're lucky we didn't get ants that night.

And here the kids are on our Christmas morning picking up Rosie's M&M trail. Ali was putting them back in a bowl. Jordan was just eating them.

And there you have it! Rosie the Elf, December 2013.

I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures every day, so there are only 19 days represented with the pictures. Some other things she did that I forgot to take pictures of:

Made a swing out of a toilet paper roll, covered it in wrapping paper, and hung it above our couch... we caught her swinging on it, too.

Took Ali's CD player and hooked up some ear-buds to it. We found her listening to music that morning.

Found my husband's old iPhone that had been missing for several months and was playing games on it.

Took a ride on a giant rubber ducky in the kids' bathtub.

I'm forgetting a couple, but you get the idea about how brilliant she was this year! I can't wait to see what she does next year! Maybe she should start planning her ideas early...

The Spelling Bee

2013-12-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

My daughter has been talking about her Spelling Bee for months. "Destiny, you can't miss it. December 17th at 9:00 in the gym!" So we all show up to support our little angel baby and the gym is EMPTY. Apparently it didn't actually start till 9:30... but being there super early got us the best seats in the house!

I am so so proud of my daughter! She made it through something like 9 rounds (and I was jittery and sweaty through every single one of them) and ended up getting 3rd in her group. Every time she would get one right she would go sit down and heave a sigh of relief. During one round they gave her the word "cowlick." She repeated the word back like it sounded gross or something... everyone laughed, it was so stinkin' cute.

The next round her word was lumberjack and she spelled it "l-u-b-e-r-j-a-c-k." Heartbreaking! But I was still beaming with pride and I think she was pretty proud of herself too for making it so far. I can't believe how grown-up she is!

Patiently waiting for it to start.

"Don't. d-o-n-apostrophe-t. Don't"

Look at her sitting there so proper with her legs crossed. She's so fancy.

The kids on the back row are the ones that got out before she did. The two on the front were the only
other two left. Here she is misspelling lumberjack. :( Still so proud of her though!!

Snow Day(s)

2013-12-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

I'm always skeptical when the weatherman in Oklahoma says it's going to get nasty. Thursday morning I woke up to a text message saying the University was closed. I looked out the window--it was raining. There may have been some sleet mixed in but, overall, the ground wasn't slick at all, just wet. Well that's Oklahoma for ya.

Then Friday it got fun. Sleet and snow and lots of it. Here in Oklahoma, is anyone really prepared to drive on slick roads? No, not unless it's a four wheeler and there's some sort of man-made sled attached to the back (whatever you can find is acceptable). So we were stuck at home all weekend. We did get out some thanks to my angel of a mother-in-law who let us borrow her Jeep--that kept us sane (and from killing one another). We did have a lot of fun though being stuck inside. Here are the fun photos from our snowy weekend. Enjoy!

Pano view of our backyard (with Jordan's cute little head in there, too)

Jordan wasn't so sure about all that fluff. He didn't
like getting it on his boots!

All bundled up. Check out those pink gloves. We should
really get him his own pair!

Ali making a snow angel... immediately after she started
yelling, "Snow in my pants! I got snow in my pants!!!"

Ali pulling around a laundry basket... what's in there, you ask?

Her American Girl dolls, of course!! She spent an hour
pulling them around in the backyard.

My icicle lights have icicles on them! (And now half our lights
are sagging)

We really didn't spend a whole lot of time playing in the snow. Fuzz and I are pretty big babies when it comes to cold, so we always came up with excuses to go back inside (like, "It's too cold out here." Original.). We decided to spend some time doing some indoor activities instead, like making a gingerbread house!

Daddy rockin' those marshmallows.

I'm not sure what Ali is doing with her hand here... But
look at that gingerbread house!

Jordan doing his part. As a perfectionist... it was SO hard
to just let him do it and not try and make everything the way I wanted it.
It was a physical struggle for me. But we managed!
(After he finished his wall... Ali couldn't stand how
crooked all the candies were so she just had to fix it for him!)

Another day out of school for Ali.. but I had to go to work. So
she came with me and I had her do some of my stuff.
She said, "Destiny, you're job
is so easy."

What I didn't take pictures of was us playing "Speed" (a card game) for hours on end. Fuzz and I played while Ali was outside (pulling her dolls around the yard lol) and Jordan napped. When Ali came in she wanted us to teach her how to play. She picked it up so fast and told me, "Don't take it easy on me. I won't learn that way." What!? That girl used to cry and pout if we beat her at the memory game... and now she tells us not to take it easy on her? She is just growing up TOO FAST. And she legitimately won a few games at Speed. And she didn't boast like her daddy always does. ;)

To end this post... let me tell you about our tree. Growing up, we always had colorful lights and random handmade ornaments and it was always the most BEAUTIFUL thing I'd ever seen. Being all grown up and mature now (HA) I wanted to have a matchy matchy tree. I wanted plain white lights, silver and gold ornaments, some red accents.. My kids did not like my idea. "But what's the point of plain white lights? That's no fun!" and "But you're not gonna put the ornaments we made you on the tree? Don't you like them?" So no, our tree isn't matchy. There are candy canes made from beads. There are ornaments with hand prints and foot prints on them that are so faded you can't really tell what they are. But... when I look at it... it reminds me of my tree when I was a kid, and it makes me all fuzzy inside. I think I'm okay with having a non-matchy, colorful, theme-less tree.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Halloween Birthday

2013-11-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

This has turned out to be one of my most favorite Octobers ever! I turned 26 on the 26th and gave myself a Halloween/Birthday Party. I literally started decorating October 1st for my party because A) I was afraid Jordan would be scared of the decorations if I didn't ease them into the house and B) I am a known procrastinator and I knew I wouldn't be able to pull it off last minute!

Phase 1: The Decorations

I bought spiderwebs, a 12 pack from Amazon for about $10. I didn't even use them all... Jordan didn't like the scary spiders!

This tree was made from packing paper (dug out of the recycling bin at work).I used tape to hold it up. Two days later my tree was nothing but a trunk.
I had to rebuild it using thumb tacks... which I'm sure my wall loved.

I decided to replace ALL my pretty pictures throughout
the house with Halloween silhouettes (or phrases).

Trick or Treat

I used an old glass vase and coated the inside with orange paint.
Then, after that had dried, I ventured out into my yard and pulled
out some dying branches off my Honeysuckle bush.
Add some spiders and a web, voila! Spooky centerpiece.

I made these witch shoes using an old pair of
heels. I used foil to shape the curled up toes,
hot gluing the foil to the shoes. Then I wrapped
them up real tight using masking tape, then
painted them black. The socks were some I found
in my sock drawer. Not kidding! I got the idea for
these fun little shoes here.

I found this big piece of cardboard in the recycling bin at work.
I painted that lil witch and cut out a face. The kids loved it!

The pumpkin came from our son's field trip to the pumpkin patch.
The mummy is actually a popcorn box wrapped in crepe paper and
with some googly eyes glued on. I found the mini jack-o-lanterns at
Walgreens for $3 (6 pack). The creepy cloth came from Dollar Tree for
(you guessed it) $1.

My daughter helped add to the decor :)

The tree--rebuilt! With cheesecloth ghosts and some
black bats cut from cardstock.

This blasted ghost was such a pain. I found a tutorial
here. Of course I didn't follow it to a T and my ghosts
head kept caving in.

How cool is this!? My sister helped out with some
decorations. She made the poison cauldron and made a
"Book of Spells."

My sister also painted this "BOO" sign!
OMG How adorable!

I hung some streamers up in my hallway
because it just looked a little too boring
for my taste.

I used construction paper and some string
to make this super easy banner.

Our entrance turned out to be SUPER COOL, in my opinion!

The front door: A mummy made from paper
plates and crepe paper. I turned out nothing like
I'd imagined but... ah well.

Lot's of handmade stuff going on here.

"If you are reading this then you are blissfully unaware of what
is creeping behind you!" Cardboard, scrapbook paper, duct tape (seriously),
glue, and glitter.

Phase 2: Food and Drinks

Using clear cups and black markers, we drew
on some "scary" faces.
Then we made vanilla pudding and dyed it green,
crushed some Oreos, sprinkled them on top, and added
some gummy worms. YUMMY.

Our bottled water was called "Swamp Water."
I got the printable here.

I had a vision in my head. I told my sister, Angela, what to do,
and she blew me away by making this creepy carrot and
celery pumpkin!

Another of my sisters, Tonya, made this ADORABLE cake using
a bundt pan and stacking the two cakes. I'm not sure how
she did the icing all melty (warmed it in the microwave?), but
the stem of the pumpkin is an ice cream cone painted green.

Witch's brew :) This is the only one I was able to get my hands on--
and this was the morning after. It was the last one... and it was delicious.

Tonya made these fun little snacks, too! There is a lot of brilliance in that
head of hers. I ate so many of the "ghosts" that I made myself sick.

This is the only picture I have of the "SCREAM SODA." Printables for the all of these
found here.

Phase 3: The Party

I really, really failed on taking pictures during the party. I have a few...

Jordan... dressed as Papa.

Hippy and Mr. Clean

Gmo the scary witch

Hippies.

Tonya, the Book Fairy.

Tonya, Mom, Me, and Angela.

Hippies and pig farmers aren't usually best friends,
but we're the exception.

Cowboy, Mr. Clean, Pig Farmer. Or the Three Stooges.

Now that Halloween is over, I should probably take down all my decorations and start planning for CHRISTMAS! Could you imagine not having the house decorated in time for Christmas? Now that's a scary thought!

The Big Eight

2013-10-08T08:26:00.001-07:00

What? Is it true that my little girl is now EIGHT years old? Yes, yes it's true! This birthday celebration lasted a whole WEEK. It started with a slumber party.

Playing in baby brother's crib!? Yup. Until I
told them there was probably pee in there... ;)

Oh the pillows and blankets were everywhere...

Dinner at Blue Moon Cafe where they destroyed
a plate of Blue Moon fries in less than 3 minutes.

The girls had a blast tearing up the house and wearing high heels that were 5 sizes too big! Birthday breakfast was quite fancy with pancakes shaped in their initials, and good ole fashioned scrambled eggs and bacon.

Blowing out her birthday breakfast candle! She felt so special!

The birthday party was a huge hit, too! Ali wanted her theme to be "American Girl" and was "girls only." Invitations were made, the cake was ordered, and little paper sunglasses and lips were made for both girls and dolls. They ate pizza and drank too much soda, played arcade games, and ended the party with a game of lazer tag. What fun!

Not even a third of the gifts she ended up getting! With a "Happy Birthday" Banner strung above.
Yeah, handmade banner. Birthday parties are a LOT of work!

The Cake (Not homemade. I'm not that talented.)

Fun glasses and lips for the girls and their dolls! (Handmade! I may
have had help from my student assistants at work. They had fun
helping me craft instead of working!)

The party favors: candy, bracelets, hair ties, doll wands, doll hair clips...

The Crew.

BIRTHDAY GIRL! That smile just melts me!

Mommy Destiny reading her letter we wrote her saying we were
going to see the musical "Wicked" next weekend. She wasn't so
thrilled about getting a couple of tickets from us, but man did she
have a BLAST at the musical!

American Girl clothes!

We're all "oooh" and "ahhh" over this cute little outfit.

Friends, family, parents

A bit blurry... The American Girls all posing.

Girls and their dolls...

Our gift to Ali was the best if I do say so myself: tickets to go see the musical, "Wicked," in Oklahoma City the following weekend! The first thing she said to me when I saw her the day before the musical was, "Guess what! It's WICKED WEEKEND!" I just LOVE my little lady! I was so afraid she wouldn't enjoy it as much as I hoped she would. What if she got bored halfway through and wanted to leave? What if she fell asleep!?

We left Jordan with Gmo (since most 2 year olds really aren't big on musicals, anyway) and spent the afternoon doing whatever Ali wanted. Shopping: check. We spent TWO hours following that girl around the mall. After about an hour I looked at my husband and said, "Is this what it's like when I make you go shopping with me!?" He just laughed. OH MY WORD, I will never ever make him go again. I mean, it was fun because she's 8 and cute. But me? I might be cute, but not as cute as an 8 year old, and certainly not as fun!

Little Lady all dressed up for our big date night!
She picked out her own outfit and wore some of my pearls.

Trying on clothes... tough life for an 8 year old.

More shopping...

After shopping was complete (*whew*) we told Ali we would go eat dinner anywhere she wanted. We expected it to be something fancy since, afterall, it was supposed to be a fancy date. She chose the food court at the mall.

How fancy!

Then we went to see the show. I can not put into words how much I enjoyed it. AND... Ali loved it too!!! She was on the edge of her seat the entire time. During intermission she looked at me and said, "That was awesome! I'm so glad there's still another act to go!" How cool is that!?

Before the show!

Daddy and Ali anxiously waiting for it to start.

Checking out the brochures.

I wasn't able to get many pictures... I got in trouble for taking the few that I did get and an usher made me put my phone away! That gave me a good opportunity to explain to Ali the meaning of "copyright laws." HA!

Afterwards we spent way too much money on t-shirts and a CD, which she has been listening to non-stop since we got home. I'm not quite sure we will ever be able to top her 8th birthday!!!

Potty Training

2013-08-19T08:02:00.001-07:00

My two and a half year old is finally potty training! I never ever thought I would get so excited about pee... but oh my word, I am just smitten with pride for my little boy! I've read blogs about how to potty train your child in one day (HA). I've read forums about how parents should be patient--children will let you know when they're ready. I've reminded myself over and over again that kids learn at their own pace and that he would eventually want to be a big boy and then I would be sad. I secretly started planning how I would handle having a 10 year old in diapers because I really thought it might happen.

But friends, let me just say, a switch finally went off and he is officially learning how to pee pee in the potty! This has been a long time coming. Last Christmas is when we bought him his first potty chair thinking that having his own potty would make him want to stop using diapers. HA. His favorite thing to do with it was wear the pee bowl as a hat.

So we started putting him on the big potty for hours at a time until he'd go. He hated it and we made him do it anyway. Yeah, not one of my proud parenting moments! Don't ever force your kid to potty train. He'll just scream and cry and then you'll end up feeling like a bad mom--and in the end he won't understand what the point was anyway. Totally stupid.

So how'd we do it? It was a total fluke, I'll admit. He'd wet his diaper and so I was changing him when I saw a pair of underwear in his diaper bag. I thought, "What the heck, might as well just go for it." So instead of putting him in a diaper I put him in underwear. I told him not to pee in them or his pants would get wet... I informed him that big boys who wear underwear pee pee in the potty. It was a pep talk that I honestly didn't think he understood even though he shook his head and yelled, "OK MOMMY!"

Let me add here that we were in public, not at home where most people recommend you to start potty training. Public. With people all around and numerous opportunities for him to pee at any given moment. I would also like to add that I swore from day 1 that I would never offer him candy as a reward for peeing because he is not a dog and I really hate when people do that. Well...

Every 10 minutes after I put him in underwear I would ask if he needed to go. Every half hour, regardless of what he said, I would take him to the bathroom. Being desperate as I was and not wanting him to pee all over his pants, I told him, "If you pee pee in the potty I will give you some candy." I didn't really think he'd do it. He said OK and then BOOM, peed in the potty. I was stunned... and I didn't really have any candy. Luckily Papa was there and came to the rescue--he had his pockets stocked full of Starburst.

From that point on, after he did it the first time, he went over and over and over again in the potty. The first day he had two accidents. The second day he had two more, which is about 900 less than what I expected. Today is day three and he's still doing great, even at daycare! No accidents so far and he pees every time they take him to the bathroom. Yay!

I just pray he keeps this up. I wouldn't mind being the mommy of a POTTY TRAINED 2 YEAR OLD!

Log Cabin Interior

2013-08-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

In my last post I showed some pictures of the outside of the log cabin but hadn't taken any of the inside. Well I finally did! Here is the interior, freshly painted and everything :)

The Log Cabin

2013-07-22T11:29:00.002-07:00

When I was 8 or 9 I entered a log cabin that my dad and I had built into the county fair. It won first place! And then, at the state fair, it placed 10th (dead last). I didn't care--I was pretty proud of my 10th place ribbon!

I can't be 100% sure about this, but I am guessing it was my dad's idea to build a miniature log cabin. We went down to Red River and picked out the perfect sized tree branches to use as the "logs." We constructed it onto a small piece of plywood, drilling each log into its perfect place. I remember doing about half of it by myself, but then Dad got tired of me breaking all of his drill bits. This little cabin was so thought out--it had a door that opened and closed, two windows (plexiglass!), and a roof that you could take off in order to look inside! That inspired me build furniture for my little cabin. All by myself, using tools that no 9 year old should ever use without supervision, I built a table, 4 chairs, a bed, a bookcase (equipped with about 15 books!), and a "bear" rug. I even used fabric to make a tablecloth, and made a quilt AND pillow for the bed.

After my 10th place cabin came back from the state fair, I refused to play with it. It was NOT a toy--it was a work of art. So it sat at my parents' house for about 15 years, occasionally getting picked up and moved just to get it out of the way. A few weeks ago my parents came to visit us and they brought my log cabin with them! It still had the 10th place ribbon inside, too! Some of the chairs were missing legs but I was able to glue them back on pretty easily. Other than that it hadn't changed a bit. I looked through the "books" and died laughing. I had forgotten that I had painted them and given most of them [misspelled] titles!

This little cabin is the perfect sized dollhouse, and, after all these years, I decided I was ready to let someone get some enjoyment out of it. Ali.

She was so excited and asked if she could repaint the furniture. My instinct was to say "NO!" because it didn't want anything about it to change. I mean... those original pieces of furniture are my memories, right!? How silly! They're just earthly things and someday they'll get broken, lost, and will even rot away, so I decided I might as well let her have some fun. So she painted all the furniture. The bed is now red and purple. The table is black and brown with brown chairs. And the bookcase is is white, blue, and orange (I think!). She repainted some of the books too. Her barbies have quite a colorful house, now! It's so surreal to see her playing with these things that I made with my own hands when I was just a year or so older than she is now! It's so weird to think that when I was 9 years old I was building a toy that I would someday give to my daughter. Whoa!!!

Painting one of the books =)

So here it is, my 10th place prize winning log cabin:

See, the door actually works!

Water Games

2013-06-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Summer doesn't technically start for another week and half-ish, but mine starts as soon as summer visitation with Ali gets here and that, my friends, was yesterday. I had to run to Walmart and get groceries (yeah yeah, I know... I hate that place, too) and while I was there decided to get some water toys: hose, sprinkler, and water guns! Ali was excited, too.

Yes, I call him Fuzzy Husband...

As soon as I got home and the groceries were put up, the water games were ON. Ali filled up all the water guns and started shooting Jordan as soon as they got outside. Jordan, of course, didn't like it. "NOOO ALLLII!!" he screamed. He would cry every time she shot him until we taught him how to work his own little pistol, and then he shot everything. Including me.

You see that little cloud looking thing next to her feet?
Yeah.. that's the sprinkler.

The sprinkler I bought was pretty much a dud. I guess that's what I get for paying only a dollar. We had to refill the water guns about 400 times, and once I even performed a mommy ninja sneak attack on them with all 6 guns at once. Of course... Ali saw me and so the only one I was actually able to shoot was Jordan, which prompted another, "NOOOO MOMMMYYY!!! MY ORANGE GUN!!"

Sneak attack!!

They played in the water for about an hour and a half until they both decided they couldn't go another second without food.

In other news, Jordan is supposed to be potty training right now. Want to know how many times he's actually peed in the potty in the past two weeks? ZERO. He'll sit on it for a while, sure. But as soon as he actually gets the urge to go, he'll ask for a diaper. We've tried making it fun, letting him stand up, putting him on the big potty... we even tried to bribe him with money (which he normally goes for) and still aren't having any luck. Well.. they say when they're ready it's a piece of cake. But the question is: Is my stubborn little boy every really going to be ready? Hmmmm...

Yep, I'm going to be the mom sending her kid to kindergarten in pull-ups.

Shoes and Muddy Feet

2013-06-07T09:00:00.001-07:00

Okay, so it's no secret that my son, Jordan:

Baby Jordan

Looks very much like his Daddy:

Baby Fuzz

Another pic:

The similarities do not stop there. They are so much alike in personality that it's a little scary. For example: They both love shoes. Husbands aren't supposed to have more shoes than their wives, but mine does! More clothes, too. And he owns about 5 gazillion dress ties.

Jordan has this weird obsession with his Nike sandals. We thought it was cute at first, but now it's such a nightmare if we can't find them. "SANDALS, MOMMY, SANDALS!!" He'll cry forever for them. He wears them to daycare every day, sleeps in them, and cries when he has to take them off during bath time. He has tan lines from them. He's worn them so much that they permanently smell like sweaty feet, regardless of how many times we clean them.

On those nights that I hide his sandals from him so he can't sleep in the stinky things, he still has to have shoes on. The kid hates having his feet exposed to our dirty floors I guess. "House shoes, Mommy? My house shoes?"

Last night we went to a friend's house to watch the game (go Spurs!) and we let our kids go out in the backyard and play together. 3 minutes into it, I hear Jordan crying. I run outside to see what's wrong... he's standing in mud. He'd taken his shoes off and walked through a mud hole and did NOT like the feel of it between his toes. He didn't want to even walk to me for fear of getting his precious little piggies even dirtier.

We cleaned him off. Seconds later, he'd done it again. It was hilarious. After a while (and several cleanings later) he decided to just stay on the porch. Then he and his friend called it quits altogether and just came inside to play. I wish I had a picture of him standing in the mud crying, it was so dramatic and funny!

My husband is truly the SAME way about dirt. He does NOT like it one bit. Sweat, he can handle. Dirt? Not a chance.

They may be alike in a lot of ways (pretty much every way imaginable), but I truly hope I can make Jordan have better eating habits than his dad. Wish me luck.

Humor in the Tears

2013-05-08T14:43:00.001-07:00

I was reading this blog the other day that literally had me laughing so HARD I was crying. Basically it's a parent who decided to post pictures of their son crying and why he was crying at the time. Okay, so on the surface it doesn't sound that funny. But once you start looking through all the pictures and captions... HA HA HA, I die.

Please please please do yourself a favor and go browse this blog! You can find it here.

So normally when your kid cries you wouldn't think it's funny; it depends on the situation. He's crying because he scraped his knee? Not funny. But trust me... there really are times when you just have to laugh. Poor Jordan... he just doesn't understand why I won't let him play with knives. Or guns. Or scorpions.

So in response to the blog that nearly made me pee my pants, here's some pictures that capture my own son crying (or looking ridiculously sad).

Reasons MY Son is Crying:

Because someone sent him a gift.

Because those smiling pumpkins are terrifying.

Because Mommy is taking a picture.

Because it was his birthday.

Because I let him wear the shirt he wanted to wear.

Because the acrobats at the circus were swinging too high in the air.

Because daddy made him get off the pony.

Because 10 eggs was the Easter hunt limit.

Because Mommy pushed him for 3 miles and didn't make him walk.

Because Mommy wouldn't let him eat the rocks.

Because the birthday party was over. (Daddy Coy got some lovins on this one)

I wonder what's worse... the fact that I really do find humor in all this OR that I have taken so many pictures of my poor baby crying!?!?

Sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying!!

Parks, Paints, and Parties

2013-04-10T08:43:00.005-07:00

This past weekend was SO much fun! We picked this kids up on Friday and went straight to the park where the kids wore themselves smooth out.

Jordan wants to do everything big sister does

We all thought this other little boy was Jordan!!!!

Cartwheels!

Daddy swings him too high!!! ;)

My little beauty

Someone was not happy when it was time to go. Have
you seen this face before?? Never fails!!

On Saturday Ali went to help Gmo work on Aunt Kasi's house. They said she was a big help!! While she was gone, I stuck Jordan outside with some blank printer paper and finger paints... he wasn't so sure about it at first. He didn't want to touch the paint with his hands, he just wanted to use sidewalk chalk to dip in it and use as a paintbrush! I forced him to get his hands dirty (thinking he would like it?) and he got kinda mad. He got over it though and pretty soon was covered in colorful paints :)

Later that afternoon, after Ali had come home and Kris had got off work, we headed back outside to play some more. Kris and I created masterpieces with the sidewalk chalk (he said he could draw better than me). Ali was our judge; she said she couldn't decide because they were both so beautiful. HA. What do you think??

Notice the second "D" has Duke written inside...

Jordan added his own little touch at the top of mine...

That night we had a movie night. We made popcorn and laid on pallets on the floor. Jordan fell asleep midway through the movie and then Ali cuddled up right along with him after it was over. Melts my heart!!

Sunday we went to my nephew's birthday party which had bouncy houses galore. It. Was. FUN. The kids seemed to enjoy it too :) I didn't get any pictures though... I was too busy bouncing along with them. I did get some afterwards though!

Rock wall!! See those bulging muscles??

He was SO sweaty and thirsty... and we all know he loves DP.

Carter got a new bike for his birthday...
Jordan tried to steal it but he couldn't reach the peddles.

She is SO photogenic!!

Jordan cried when we left
and clung to Daddy Coy (who loved that!)

My daddy and me :)

After the party we went back to my sister's house and let the kids play and just hang out. Jordan found a toy gun... we obviously haven't taught him much about those yet. See how he's shooting us?? That face makes me laugh every time..

I love that there's a picture of my kids next to their fireplace!

Sunday night we got home late and missed church, and I made the kids go to bed early. They both fell asleep almost instantly, but then Jordan woke up 15 minutes later. He didn't sleep so well that night and, by morning, he was hoarse from all the crying. He kept telling me, "Ear hurt, mommy." Monday morning I took him to the doctor and sure enough he had an infection in his left ear. Poor baby!!!

He's all better now and has slept really good the past few nights. I feel like I still haven't caught up on sleep though!

Easter Weekend

2013-04-02T13:41:00.002-07:00

What a beautiful weekend it turned out to be! Jordan got to hunt eggs Thursday, Saturday, AND Sunday... poor kid was hunting the same exact eggs over and over again but he didn't seem to notice.

Thursday was his Easter party at daycare. He LOVED it! Each kid got 10 eggs; we were told after the found their 10 that they couldn't hunt anymore. I'm tricky, though. After Jordan found all of his eggs, I let him keep going. He'd find one, put it in the basket, and I'd take one out. He'd find another, I'd take another out. It was a pretty good system!!

Eating snacks before the big hunt

"I'm SO ready, Mom!!"

EGGGGGGS!!

I am so happy right now!!

He was having such a great time! And then Mommy told him it was time to go back inside. What a fun killer.

"I am SO not happy right now!!"

"I'm just gonna lay here, you can't make me go inside!"

We stayed home on Good Friday and just played and patiently waited for Ali to come home. He kept saying, "Where seester? Where seester?" I wish they could see each other more often. We had fun, though, and the only time it rained that day was when he was napping, so we spent almost the entire day outside!

"I'm gonna jump, Mama, just watch..."

Ali came home that night and the fun continued. They chased each other around the house for a long time (which is customary when she comes home!) and then, after Jordan went to bed, we all played Clue. Mom won both games; I'm pretty awesome like that. I really thought Fuzz was going to win the second one but I pulled through. Ali thought it was fun just accusing people and making the little figures move all over the board, it was super cute. It was her first time playing but I can guarantee she'll have it figured out and beating our tails pretty soon!!

Little princess was pretty tuckered out that night!

Saturday we had another egg hunt near our church. Again the kids had a blast! They got lots more eggs and a LOT more candy. I'm a happy mama.

That night Ali and I dyed some boiled eggs. I'm no pro at egg-dying but I discovered that experimenting with different ways to color the eggs (i.e. kool-aid, shaving cream) was a stupid idea. Our "grape" eggs looked like mold. Our "marbled" eggs (done by rolling in dyed shaving cream) stayed white and smelled like a man. Our last two eggs, which were dyed the old fashioned way, turned out beautiful. We didn't take pictures of any of them, though. It was a sad looking little carton with only two pretty eggs. We also made cookies! We decorated them all pretty and they tasted AMAZING. I ate them before I thought about taking any pics, sorry!

Sunday morning I dressed the kids in their Easter clothes and forced them to take pictures. :) Ali had been BEGGING me to let her wear those shoes (high heels, of course) ever since I bought them. I kept saying, "Not until Easter, be patient." That morning she took a speedy bath and didn't even ask me to help her get dressed. She was so excited. Jordan could have cared less about his new shoes.

Frame worthy!!

Sunday afternoon they hunted eggs. AGAIN.

MONEY!!

It was such an awesome weekend! The weather turned out perfect :) Sadly... I didn't get any pictures of Fuzz and me. Maybe next year!

Spring Break

2013-03-25T11:18:00.001-07:00

Well I don't know about the rest of the world but my spring break was awesome! My job lets out for spring break, which means I had no work, no homework, and the opportunity to get absolutely nothing done! My favorite kind of vacation!

Spring break started out with Ali having a friend over who spent the night with her on Friday. They had so much fun together. Star gazing, tea parties, Monopoly... we never left the house but they kept themselves pretty busy!

They did their own makeup...

Tea party (aka orange juice), ice cream, and fish crackers.

Toasting.

The girls slept in the floor right next to the bed

Jordan woke up bright and early and ate breakfast
before the girls woke up.

Toasting again at breakfast... hehe

Saturday we went to my sister's house to see the family. We got to see my nephew who lives in Houston, he's getting so big! The kids spent the entire day outside playing (it was SO nice that day!) and Jordan didn't even take a nap. He was quite the cranky kid by the end of the day.

The boys playing in Carter's closet
(that's a giant egg on J's head)

Legos

Evan!! Isn't he just so gorgeous??
He's growing too fast!

Ali with her new cookbook and
apron Aunt Shawn got her :)

Gigi

Sunday afternoon I drove down to the farm to spend a few days with mom and dad and kept the kids down there too. Fuzz was in New Mexico for work and was gone most of the week. We had a blast on the farm! We went on little adventures (those pics are on a different camera, as usual!), rode the tractor, fed baby calves, played on the swing set, had a picnic... It was awesome!

Carter and Jordan waiting for Daddy Coy

Cousins =)

Ali being a good big sister and pushing J

Picnic time!!

Toasting with DP and a banana...

Jordan wants to be a big boy

Panoramic view of the farm

Riding the tractor

Ali, Mommy, Jordan

Ali and Daddy Coy working (playing)

My dad took this picture.
He wanted to get an action shot of me working... HA

Blurry pic of my mamma

This cracks me up... J and Daddy Coy were
not ready for the flash apparently.

Ali and J

Getting a lot of work done, I'm sure!

Jordan was so wore out...
he fell asleep inside Peanut's dog house!

Our last day there I woke up
to Ali reading a book to Jordan <3

We came back on Wednesday and Ali had to go back to her mom's that evening. When we got home we put together this thing my dad made for us. I think it's called Redneck Golf??? The kids played for about an hour with it!

After Ali left I decided it was time to give Jordan a hair cut. I knew it had to be done while Kris was away or he wouldn't let me do it! He's convinced Jordan should have long hair. I, on the other hand, like to keep it out of his eyes.

Thursday and Friday I decided to take Jordan to daycare so I could get some stuff done around the house. And when I say stuff I mean crafts and scrapbooking and cleaning.

I've been wanting to do something about the gold fixtures in our bathrooms for a long time now but I could never find the right paint! I finally found some oil rubbed bronze spray paint and decided to give it a shot. That stuff is miracle in a can!

The new color looks so much more sophisticated.

I also experimented with tinting glass bottles. I had several that I'd been saving for something crafty. It worked okay, not great. I wanted them to look kinda bluish. I heated up about a tablespoon of water and dissolved some blue gel food coloring in it, then added it to about half a cup of mod podge. Then I added more blue. And then I added even more blue.

The bottles/jars I've been saving (and my life-saving coffee maker in the background)

Mod Podge is water saluable so it washes off of everything
after a little bit of soaking. Clean up was pretty easy and nothing
got ruined, yay!

I poured the solution into my jar, coated the inside
really well, and then poured the excess back into the cup. I
turned them upside down on a paper towel and some foil
for about 5 minutes.

Then I sat the jars upright for about 5 minutes to let whatever excess that didn't come out the first time settle at the bottom. This is REALLY important. I didn't do this with a bigger jar and ended up having streaks and big clumps all in it. It looked awful and had to be cleaned!

I then put them in the oven (set on about 200 degrees) and left them for roughly half an hour, until they were dry and looked clear-ish

Here's two of them up close! The tint is very light. If I ever do it again I might use the entire tube of gel coloring, ha! The one in the back was spray painted (way easier than tinting!)

I took some other jars I'd spray painted and stuck them all together, adding some little paper flowers I had made ages ago and a neat glass jug I found at a yard sale (which I ended up getting for free, no lie). This project was fun but probably not worth all the effort!

After all that I decided it was time to clean out my craft box:

And then my scrapbooking box:

And then I bought Jordan a cowboy hat:

Then we did nothing! Kris came home Friday night. Saturday I ran a 5K, came home, and laid on the couch watching my beloved Gilmore Girls for 8 hours straight. I'd say it was a pretty successful spring break; can't wait till the next one!

Terrible Twos?

2013-03-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

What are these "terrible twos" you speak of?

According to everyone I know... there is no way to avoid the terrible twos. This blanket term refers to the impressive little tantrums that a two year old can throw.

Last night, as my son was throwing the 150th temper tantrum screaming for "MORE DRINK, MOMMY, MORE DRINK!" I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he was born with the terrible twos. Lets face it, my son has been mastering tantrums since he first entered the world and the doctor said, "Man this kid has some healthy lungs!" Seriously we've been dealing with this kind of stuff for a long time. I think that makes me an expert on temper tantrums!

We've been working with him for several months now on using his "calm voice" when he needs something instead of crying for it. He is such an intense baby! When he's hungry, he screams for food. When he's thirsty, he screams for his drink. When his diaper is dirty, he screams, "I POO POO! I POO POO! DIAPER!!!!!!"

I've heard that the terrible twos can be extremely stressful. Maybe, for most people, that's true. But for us? I think, at this point, we're pretty equipped to handle it!

Three Nanny Goats Gruff

2013-03-12T14:49:00.003-07:00

Have I said lately how cute my kids are?

Last week Ali's class put on a play and she scored a leading role. That's my girl! My little "Annie Goat" was as prepared as a little girl could possibly be. She knew every single line throughout the entire thing!

The night before her play she couldn't go to sleep. "I'm too nervous!" she told me. We had bought her American Girl doll a new outfit and had planned on giving it to her as a gift after her big performance that night but my husband (bless his heart...) didn't realize it was a surprise and laid it out for her on her bed. She found it the day before her play and said, "Hey look what I found!!" Argh... surprise ruined! I still wanted to make her feel super special so we bought her some flowers and gave them to her that night.

I made her some felt horns and ears for her play. I would have loved to do more but didn't know I was responsible for the costume until just a couple of days before the performance. She ended up just wearing jeans and a shirt with the cute headband. Let's be clear: I don't sew. I mean... I can stick some thread into a needle and weave it in and out of stuff, but that's the extent of my talent. It literally took me two (or more?) hours to get her headband put together! I haven't seen it since. Yeah... I would like it framed, thank you very much!

I bought a cheap headband, some felt, and some ribbon so I could add some cute bows to go on it. I found a cool tutorial on how to make your own curly-cue bows and OMG they turned out so cute! Plus... the bows helped hide the imperfections :)

Here are some awesome pictures of my baby girl's performance (stolen from my MIL's facebook since I forgot my stupid camera that night!):

"I am going to cross the bridge with my kid brother, Billie."

And of course... SHE WORE HER PERFECT LITTLE HEADBAND BACKWARDS!! I'm sure no one else noticed... but I of course did! Isn't she the cutest little nanny goat you've ever seen!?

I am just SO proud of my little STAR!!

Boys and Girls are Different

2013-02-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

There are some obvious physical differences between girls and boys--my two year old can already point them out to me. But my kids are different in more ways than one.

Ali is sweet, gentle, considerate, quiet, shy, and very lovey-dovey.

Jordan is rowdy, messy, loud, extremely social, and very "MOM HOLD ME NOW OR I'LL SCREAM."

Because of these subtle (HA!) differences, I've discovered that I, without meaning to, treat them differently. For example, since I first came into Ali's life, I've made her take a bath every night she's with us. I've always been exceptionally patient with her. We can sit and read a book before bedtime. And not once have I ever spanked her.

Jordan, oh my sweet little rambunctious Jordan... I woke up this morning and couldn't remember the last time I made him take a bath. It's sometimes such a chore to make him get in the tub! "Noooo Mommy, no bath!" And then it's a chore to get him out of the tub. "Nooooo Mommy, not done!" And then when he is willing to take one he ends up pooping in there and then I spend half an hour gagging and scrubbing and bleaching. And I mean... does he really need to be that clean everyday anyway? He's just going to get dirty again... right? And sit still before bedtime and read a book? Don't make me laugh! When I read to him, it's while he runs around in circles, plays with his toys, etc. He doesn't "sit still" for anything (unless he's sick!). And yes, I have spanked him. In public, with him screaming "No Mommy, I lub ooooh (I love you)!"

With all that being said, I think it's perfectly normal and acceptable to treat your kids different because they ARE different. That doesn't mean I love one more than the other, it just means I have two unique children who require different things. :)

January Videos

2013-02-01T13:48:00.000-08:00

Jordan's Second Birthday

2013-01-31T08:44:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Mr. Jordan is already two years old! We had his birthday party at our house. As much as it pains me to say this: Our baby LOVES Barney the purple dinosaur. We've watched our Barney DVDs so many times I can literally sing every song, say every line, and do all the dances. As much as Fuzz wanted this birthday party to be sports themed--we went with Barney instead.

Being the mean mommy that I am I made a "no toys" rule for his big day. He has way too many as it is and our house is teeny-tiny... where would we put new toys!? Most people bought him books and clothes but there were a few that broke the rule (ahem, Ali and Gigi!!). Oh... and mommy and daddy may have broken the rule, too. Come on, we're his parents, we get to make and break any rules we please! We bought him a basketball goal just his size and he loves that thing.

Since I'm too cheap to actually spend money on party decorations I made most of them myself (while at work, shhhh). I cut out letters to put on our mirror and a big "2" to hang on our front door. Everything was purple, green, or yellow. I printed out and colored Barney and BJ coloring pages, cut them out, then glued them onto some sturdy paper to make stands out of them. I wanted to do some cupcake toppers as well. I printed out several Barney, BJ, and Baby Bop images in color, cut them out, and then glued them to some toothpicks. Viola! I made some chocolate cupcakes (using the Weight Watchers recipe that uses pumpkin so they wouldn't be so high-calorie!) and played around with the food coloring until I got the icing to be a respectable shade of purple. We hung up some green balloons, used a yellow table cloth, and that was it! It was the easiest decorating I've ever done. What was funny is that I recently painted our dining room purple so even the WALLS matched the them, ha!

I even made sandwiches, had fruit and veggie trays, and served drinks. AND we had ice cream. His party was pretty legit, right!? We gave him his cupcake, lit his candle, and sang him happy birthday while he frowned up a storm. I guess we scared him with all the attention! Ali helped him open all his presents and then the kids went outside to play. We were so lucky that it was so nice outside!

All in all it turned out to be a great day!