Going to Meijer

David: "Don't worry about lunch. I'm going to Meijer all by myself. I get some groceries. I pick up broccoli, Cheerios, more broccoli and tacos. It'll be yummy."

Me: "Oh, you are? Do you have your car keys?"

David: "Yeah. I don't have pockets so they in my underwear."

We have a name!

David finally picked a name for his hermit crab. Drumroll please.....

Billy Bush

Yeah. He picked that himself.

He heard Billy Bush's name one day on the way to church (I had the top 20 countdown or whatever it was playing in the background). Ever since he's been obsessed with the name and has named or renamed everything he's come across Billy Bush. Pretty excellent right?

The original, non-crab Billy Bush

Tired boy

I think Miss Rachel and Miss Shawna made him play extra hard in Sunday School this morning...

 

*Fun back story - he is actually in a timeout from throwing a fit after I told him he couldn't have a sucker.

Blue fingernails

David wanted to be just like Mama so tonight, while I was putting Max to bed, he painted his fingernails "Totally Wow" blue.

Totally wow. That's all I have to say.

Like little weeds....

My boys just both growth spurted on me. They look so huge now! Current stats:

David - 40" tall, 38 lbs, wearing 4T clothes and size 10 shoes.
Max - 35" tall, 28lbs,wearing 24 month clothes and size 6 shoes.

Neon anyone?

Meijer just had a sale on nail polish so I stocked up on super fun summer toenail colors. Currently, I am wearing the yellow one. So fun! They make me happy.

Neon Greenlight, Total Wow, Orange Hot,
Neon Caution and Neon Pink

Dinner Date

Since kids entered the picture we don't get out much for dates anymore. One of David's and my favorite things to do instead is put the kids to bed and do a late dinner at home.

All.By.Our.Selves.

It is wonderful. I don't have to cut up anyone's food or blow on it to cool it down. No one throws sippy cups at us or interrupts our conversation - which we actually get to have! And - my favorite part - we get to eat off of real plates and drink out of glass glasses without the fear that someone will elbow it off the table and break it. Simply amazing.

Last night we did one of our late night dinner dates. David grilled porterhouse steaks while I made baked potatoes and asparagus. Delish! 

More crab-iness

Stupid living room lighting. This *was* an awesome pic

Waiting for him to do something...

...which he finally did.

I stretched my arm to the other side of the table to catch
him walking. This is the pic I got. Classic.

He loves his crab!

He was totally out and walking on me! I swear! He got
 camera shy and hid right as I took this. :(

Morning TV Time

Clearly, coffee tables are for sitting on. Clearly. This is how they watch Handy Manny every morning. When my news goes off, they get to watch one episode of Manny OnDemand. That is a wonderful 24 minutes.

Faces that make me smile

Max saying "cheeeeeese"

A teeny hat on a big ol' noggin'

And finally we have David's toes...
because he desperately wanted me to
take a picture of his toes.

16 weeks today!

"Get ready for a growth spurt. In the next few weeks, your baby will double his weight and add inches to his length . Right now, he's about the size of an avocado: 4 1/2 inches long (head to rump) and 3 1/2 ounces. His legs are much more developed, his head is more erect than it has been, and his eyes have moved closer to the front of his head. His ears are close to their final position, too. Your baby's heart pumps 25 quarts of blood a day."



Babies Don't Keep

By Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

Hang out the washing, make up the bed,

Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,

Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew

And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo

But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo

Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?

Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

I spend so many of my days wiping noses and bandaging boo-boos, breaking up fights and making up rhymes. My google search history is nothing but children's books, maternity clothes and toddler crafts. I've never watched an episode of Oprah or followed the drama of a soap opera, but quiz me on Handy Manny's tools or the train names from Chuggington station and I'll pass with flying colors. Having a "good" day means nothing more than finding a new way to sneak veggies into an ordinary grilled cheese sandwich or cheese quesadilla. Every last one of my favorite songs are sung by cartoon characters. My purse contains more child-related items than adult ones. I get an average of 10 minutes "alone" time every day to shower, brush my teeth, do my hair, change my clothes and apply make-up...oftentimes, many of those are neglected.
 
In the meantime, no one does my dishes, washes my laundry, cleans my floors or plans ahead for dinner. Most of the time I'm ok with that, but then every now and then, it really gets to me. Looking at my to-do list this morning I really felt like a failure. So many of the things I listed were basic, simple, every day tasks that I just haven't been doing every day (or every other day or really at all in the last week).
 
I sulked for a bit, feeling down on myself then I remembered this poem that my mom quoted a few days ago to me. It just nails it. I haven't been doing the simple homemaker tasks....because I've been too busy doing the far more important mom stuff.
 
After taking a deep breath (and making myself a frappuccino) I feel much better. If I can accomplish even one thing off that monster to-do I'm going to feel ok today. :)

Camping

We were walking through Aldi the other day (LOVE that store) when we spotted this beauty of a deal. A twin size air bed with pump included for just $15! Sweet!

David now thinks he knows all there is to know about camping from looking at the package. You go outside and sleep on your bed in a tent and you take cups in case you are thirsty.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Extra Energy

I had a huge burst of energy this morning and did all sorts of things around the house. I got breakfast for the boys and myself, vacuumed the whole house, dusted, watched the news, checked facebook and my email, texted 2 people and did 2 loads of laundry....and it's not even 9am!!

I think I should make myself a raspberry banana smoothie every morning. :D

Teeth

Max cut his very last cuspid/canine tooth yesterday. He's done with teething until his 2 year molars. Yay!

First Pet

David got his very first real pet while we were on vacation. Sadly, it died within 18 hours. Lesson learned - never buy a hermit crab from someone on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Last night we went out and bought him a replacement. We have yet to name it, but David is so happy with him!

He's in the bumpy, ugly shell for now. See his little buggy
eyes and his little crabby legs?

Our crabitat. Can you tell David got to pick out the shells
himself?

Our crab.

New diaper cover! Yay!

Behold the cuteness....

Trying to suck his thumb and smile.  So cute.

Poke.

Wait, I can't see that super duper cute diaper!

There it is!

See how much cuter this is than
a yucky disposable???

Peek-a-boo!

                                                            Cowboy Hats cloth diaper cover from Wylie Clothworks.

Ghetto? I think so.

Q: How do you know you live in an area with a touch of ghetto to it?

A: Your neighbor's 5 and 3 year old kids go by the nicknames "Boobie" and "Big Fat Daddy". And they think it's normal. And they expect you to call them that too.

First Kicks

I felt Baby 3's first kicks today. Like the first undeniable, that had to be baby and not just gas kick. I was lying in bed on my back this morning when I noticed that the right side of my stomach was sticking up in a lump and the other was sunken in. I poked at the lump/baby and the feisty little bugger gave me a giant kick right back. I just got one good movement from him/her, but it was still pretty special. :)

I am 14 weeks, 2 days today. That's pretty close to the time that I first felt David (14 weeks) and Max (12 weeks). Rats. I was hoping that I wouldn't feel anything for a few weeks still. Follow me here...both boys were very large and I felt them on the early side of things. If you feel a baby later on it just has to be smaller right?? My hope for a small baby is dead now. :o)

Congrats, Daddy!

I forgot to post about this when it happened, but David and I had a party to celebrate when Daddy was done with school last semester (April 20th). I made an angel food cake with strawberries and cool whip and we blew up balloons. I had some leftover helium chillin' around here from a tank that I bought for Max's birthday in February. At that point we were busy packing to move and I didn't want to move the tank for the teeny bit of helium that was left so we got festive and used it up for Daddy. David got to stay up late that night and surprise Daddy when he got home from class. He had so much fun!

He made a video for Daddy (which made him shy so his words are all mumbley)....

....and posed with the balloons.

It's awful

I just love this clip. Some days, it's just so true. :P

The no phone drama

We got back from vacation on April 28th to find that we had no internet service. We had called before leaving for vacation to order a transfer of services for our phone and internet on May 2nd. Someone was having a really blonde day and messed that all up. In trying to fix their stupid mistakes they shut off and cancelled our internet service altogether on April 27th.

By this time they had no recollection of what we had actually wanted so that’s the way things stayed. No transfer planned, no reconnect scheduled. Our phone service is through the same company, but that remained untouched. With only some of the customer service branches open, we had to sort all this out over the weekend right before we moved. Dave has spent almost 3 hours on the phone (on our pay-as-you-go cell phones no less) with them so far just to find out a bunch of nothing. The people on the phone couldn’t do anything for our internet because the system wouldn’t let them enter us as new customers to set up new service. Our phone was still open and active through them so they had to amend our current account. Somehow that wasn’t an option because of all the errors that had happened so they sent a help ticket to the supervisors above them. That took 3 days to process and fix then we called back to set up a time for the technicians to come out and hook things up.

They gave us the first available appointments but those weren’t for nearly a week out. To make matters worse, our phone (that they say was green lighted on their end and should be working) is not working either. They are sending separate technicians out this week to look at our phone and internet services. Blech. Our phone is scheduled for today and the internet will be on the 11^th. Each of the technicians could arrive on their days between 9am and 8pm. We are to sit home each day until they arrive (um, what?!) because we need to be here to let them in. If I had a phone right now I’d be letting them have it. They have promised compensation for our troubles, but I don’t know if I can stand being their customer anymore.

All moved in

From May 6th:

We are all moved in and mostly settled now. We moved on Tuesday and thanks to no phone or internet distracting us we have spent most of our waking moments trying to make sense of the chaos in our new home.
We are loving the new place. It is only about 200 square feet bigger, but it seems to make all the difference in the world. Every room (minus our bedroom which is a little cramped) feels gigantic. We have 3 bedrooms now, but until Baby #3 is a few months old we don’t really need 3 rooms for sleeping. We have converted bedroom number 3 into a toy room for now. IT IS WONDERFUL! I really enjoy sitting down at the end of the day and not seeing toys stored all over the living room. It’s just great. We are also loving the wood floors throughout the house. They are so much easier to clean than carpet. The boys had a rough time adjusting to how slippery they are. Footy jammies are tough to walk in sometimes! I had to go out and buy them some non-skid slippers. Enter the world’s ugliest shoe/slipper/sock things…..

Just. So. Ugly.
They were the only ones I could find that were non-slip, easy to keep on their feet and trim. I didn’t need some giant character head on their feet making them trip even more. But seriously can you believe how ugly they are?!?

Day four

April 25, 2011:




I woke up about 20 minutes before my alarm this morning. It gave me a chance to gather myself before the boys and Dave woke up. We had to hit the ground running this morning. It’s the only morning all week that we actually have a schedule to keep. We have a ferry to catch at 11am in Liberty State Park in New Jersey. We are touring Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty today. I am beyond excited. When we started planning this vacation, I told everyone that Lady Liberty was the one thing I wanted to see. Today we are going to make that happen. David is very excited about this too. It’s the only landmark he knew anything about before coming here. He’s been looking at pictures of the statue for weeks and talking about the pointy star (crown) on her head. I can’t wait to see his face when he sees her in person.

We are leaving the house at 8am to make our 11am ferry in Liberty State Park (Jersey City, New Jersey). The boys and I will be ready in plenty of time, but I worry about the hubs. He’s been a bit sluggish and slow in the morning this week. We need to kick it into gear this morning!

We got to the ferry in plenty of time for a bathroom break, security and picture taking. We actually got to jump on the 10:30am ferry and start our day a bit early. So far, so good. We didn’t wait in line anywhere. We’ve just walked through. Parking was even a breeze. I think the weather had something to do with that. The forecast said high of 79 degrees and sunny, but it’s a cold, windy and hazy 68. It wasn’t great sightseeing weather and being right on the water, the ferry ride was brutal.

We got our freezing tushes off the ferry and into Ellis Island as fast as we could. Just inside the door, David had a major meltdown that threatened to ruin our morning. He didn’t want to be in the stroller, but he didn’t want to hold our hand while walking (on the flip side, Max slept through every minute of Ellis Island). We finally got him calmed a bit and went on our way. He wasn’t happy by any means, but he wasn’t screaming and causing a scene anymore. Life with children…oh so fun. We spent an hour touring the main building (exciting to me, boring to everyone else) before grabbing lunch in the Ellis Island Café.

After lunch we hopped back on the ferry (much warmer and more enjoyable this time) and headed for the Statue. Mom and Dad stayed on a lower level with the boys and the stroller while David and I went to the top deck to get good pictures. And what pictures they turned out to be! What a view!

After we got to the base of the Statue, we decided Dad would stay down with Max and the stroller (he’s been multiple times before and didn’t mind sitting it out) so we didn’t have to store it in a locker. David, David, Mom and I got through security in about 5-10 minutes and headed to the pedestal. We stopped just inside the door to see the original torch on display then toured the museum before heading up. Little David climbed every one of the 156 stairs between the museum and the top of the pedestal by himself. What a stud. We took our time looking around the top of the pedestal then made our way down taking pictures all the way. This is so cool. Definitely my favorite day so far. Once we left the secured area we found Dad and Max again and looked at the Liberty Bike and went to the gift shop. By the time we got there, David had fallen asleep in the stroller. 156 stairs is a lot for a little guy! We got our souvenirs then got back on the ferry to go back to New Jersey. We made the 1 ½ hour trek back to the house.

David’s Aunt Jen had lasagna going in the oven when we got there. We had about 40 minutes until dinner so the men played with the little boys while Mom and I went to Wal-Mart. The next day’s forecast is looking HOT and sunny so we wanted shorts for ourselves (everyone else had bought some at the outlets on Saturday) and some sunscreen. Today ended up pretty warm and even through the clouds we got burnt. We don’t want to take any chances tomorrow.

Dinner and chatting with Aunt Jen was fabulous, but we couldn’t wait to get the boys in bed and collapse ourselves. We are getting pretty tired at the end of every day now. Vacation is exhausting!

Day three

April 24, 2011:




Happy Easter! It’s Easter Sunday today. We don’t have plans to go to church with Dave’s Grandpa and Grandma today (they are Catholic and we aren’t comfortable attending that service). I bought an Easter book just for David so we’ll read the Easter story together then go out sightseeing. Today’s agenda is Philadelphia. I can’t wait. I want to see the Rocky steps and the Liberty Bell and eat a real Philly cheese steak. I’ve never had one so this will be a real treat!

Today is getting off to a much better start than yesterday. It’s now 7am and the only ones up are my MIL and me. I just peeked at my sleeping babies. They look like little angels. I’m now sitting here in bed, typing away on my laptop, listening to the hubs snore and the birds chirp out my open bedroom window, eating Pepper Ridge Farms cookies for breakfast. THIS is vacation!!! The boys didn’t wake at all last night so we are going on 9-10 hours of solid sleep for them. I really hope they wake in better moods than yesterday!

Oh what a difference a little sleep can make! Our whole family woke in better moods than yesterday. We are settling into vacation very nicely now and we are really enjoying ourselves. We leisurely wandered the house getting ourselves ready this morning. Just before leaving we packed some sandwiches in a cooler for a snack later. Then we piled in the van and made the hour and 15 minute trek to Philly. Great memories were made on that toll road (You guys remember that really confusing toll where we got out of paying $3.25?). Getting to Philly was a breeze. Getting into Philly proved to be a challenge. The roads are very narrow and close together because it’s such an old city and our GPS often got confused thinking we were on a different road than we were. We finally did get ourselves straightened out and headed in the right direction.

Our first stop in the city was the visitor center to pick up tickets for touring Independence Hall. We had about a half hour before security check-in so we saw the Liberty Bell first (or as David calls it “the Bliberty Bell”). So very cool. We weren’t able to read any of the history about it because of impatient little boys, but it was still cool nonetheless. It’s fun to make history real. We were able to tour Independence Hall after that. It’s still the original building from the 1700s, but nearly all the furniture inside is replicas. Just a few original pieces remain.

When that tour was over we were starving so we hit up a street corner cheesesteak stand for my first ever cheesesteak. There wasn’t much of a place to sit so we perched ourselves on a window sill behind the stand and ate our lunch. Lunch was so delicious. Like for real.

It was a blazing hot 87 degrees and very sunny in Philly so we tried to find indoor stuff to do after lunch. We toured the Ben Franklin museum and saw the remains of his house. We saw Betsy Ross’s house and walked around in the courtyard, but didn’t go inside. And we got some Frappichinos from a local Starbucks. Yum.

The very best thing for Dave and I in Philly was just walking around and enjoy the vibe and atmosphere of the city. It’s got an older and more historic vibe than other big cities, but it’s still very exciting. It’s not nearly as artsy fartsy or modern as other large cities. It was just great. The cobblestone streets are just about too much. I mean how adorable are cobblestone streets and brick buildings?? The Rocky steps are a bit too far away for us to want to walk to with the boys and we don’t want to pack sleepy boys up in the car just to get them out in 10 minutes so we have to skip that. Oh well. I got everything else I wanted to see.

After 4 hours in the hot Philly sun, the boys were ready for air conditioning and a nap. On our way back to the visitor center and gift shop Max fell asleep. We quickly bought ourselves some souvenirs and smashed pennies and got back to the underground parking ramp. Max’s nap only ended up being an hour, but it was enough to keep him happy the rest of the day.

We got a pleasant surprise when we got back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Dave’s aunt and her family were there to visit with us for a while. Dave’s 3 teenage cousins loved David and Max and David and Max loved the attention. They ran around showing off the rest of the night. David never did get a nap so we called in a night early and did the bath and bed routine. They were asleep almost instantly. David and I went back down stairs to chat with Grandma and Mom for a while. A few hours later we got ourselves upstairs for showers and bed.

Happy Mother's Day

My morning started off oh-so-fun. David got out of bed with a mission to make me unhappy. If I said go left, he was determined to pull right. If I said eat breakfast, he declared he wasn’t hungry. If I asked him to put on shoes, he insisted he wear slippers to church (I came dangerously close to losing that one). We finally managed to pull ourselves together and get ready for church. With about 20 minutes left until we needed to leave, I pulled together a breakfast burrito for myself (homemade, but frozen. Not hard by any means).



I sat in the kitchen and tried to eat as quickly as I could. I swear I never took my eyes off the table for longer than a blink, but somehow Max still managed to pull one over on me. I looked up in the middle of my breakfast to find him in the middle of the kitchen table staring at me. He had pulled off his socks and shoes and was picking at his toe jam. Adorable. Slightly frustrating because I had him fully dressed and ready to go, but adorable.



In the midst of getting him off the table I heard David banging around in the hallway. I yelled to him and asked what was going on. “Um, stuff. Things. I’m ok.” Every mom out there knows that’s NOT ok. I asked him to come to me and he obeyed immediately, running to the kitchen doorway COMPLETELY naked. I asked why he was naked and he looked at me sweet as can be and said he needed different underwear. Another mental red flag went up. Before I could ask why, he tore off down the hallway to his room. I started down the hall to find him when I noticed his bathroom door open and the light on. I peeked inside to find Dog and his shoes lying on the floor. I picked them up to take to him and found his shoes in a half-cleaned up, smeared around puddle of pee. He came creeping into the bathroom with a very guilty look on his face. I asked the obvious and inquired about the pee on the floor. He said he did pee (he stands now so drips aren’t uncommon, but I don’t typically find puddles), but I shouldn’t worry – he cleaned it up. Mental red flag number three. There was no trash around. He had no access to paper towel. I asked what he cleaned it up with. Sheepishly he admitted to cleaning it up with his underwear and shirt…and a little bit with his pants and a lot with his socks. He got a very disgusted look on his face as he told me how messy they all were now. He said he smashed it all in a ball then very proudly finished his story by telling me that he put it all in his laundry basket. I went to his room to check on the pee filled clothes. As I came back to find him and have a little “conversation” he looked at me and backed away saying “Mama, you look scary!”



I always have such interesting Mother’s Days.

Day five

April 26th, 2011:






The plan for the day is Atlantic City, New Jersey. It’s a 2 ½ hour drive from Grandma and Grandpa’s house so we had to get an early start. It was a good thing we did. We ran into some stand still traffic on the way and we got stuck for a while. We all needed a bathroom break by the time we got moving again.

We got to Atlantic City just after noon and were very surprised to find that it was a super cold, hazy and generally yucky day. I don’t think the high made it past 65 the whole time we were there. And it was forecasted at 79 degrees! There were still plenty of people on the boardwalk, but it certainly wasn’t prime tourist time.

We ate lunch right away then wandered for a bit before David drug me into Trump Taj Mahal watch him play the penny and quarter slots. He lost everything he went in with right down to his last 15 cents then he placed one last bet. It ended up winning every cent back for him plus 30 cents! Twenty minutes of fun and he walked out 30 cents richer! Even though the casino is marked as no smoking it was full of people lighting up everywhere. That 20 minutes almost did me in. I was feeling soooo sick by the time we got out. We walked a little bit down the boardwalk looking at some store fronts before “it” happened. And “it” was not pretty.

David got fed up with my attitude and sulking about not liking Atlantic City. He let me know I was making him miserable by acting like I hated the things he liked most. He had a little “attack Lauren” moment then I let him have it. I was tired from getting up before everyone else with the kids at 5:30, cold, wet from the ocean spray, had a headache and struggling not to vomit. I had been feeling sick since the car ride there, but I didn’t want to complain and ruin their day so I kept it to myself. Apparently, my horrendous headache and near vomit face is not one I can easily hide. Everyone thought I was in a bad mood or pouting or something and it was making them miserable. Yay for misunderstandings and fights in crowded places on vacation!! Gotta love it. We needed a stand out memory from today right?

David immediately felt bad and went to get me a snack to calm my stomach. It only sort of helped. We got David’s souvenir salt water taffy and a hermit crab and crabitat for David and Max then headed for the car. My stomach felt quite a bit better when we got home, but I was still struggling with my headache. Aunt Jen and her family were there when we got back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. She had brought grilled chicken for dinner for us. The boys were happily playing outside so I took dinner out to them and we ate in the grass.

We eventually coaxed them back into the house with the promise of toys and cousins. They absolutely loved Aunt Jen’s kids (though they are all near 20 and not really kids). I was very happy to have the break so I could sit and relax.

Two doses of Tylenol and several hours later I had finally bid ado to my headache, but by now it was time to go to bed. No fun. There were good moments, but given the choice I don’t think I would want to do today over again. Bring on tomorrow!