Three great tastes

The Reunion was big fun. I'm tired from all the fun, but also a lot happier to have had over 48 hours of adult only conversation. That alone is big. Everyone here had lots of fun. My camera has about 458 new pictures to prove it! But since I wasn't here, I can't really blog about it. Some time I may have to blog about the fun we had, but since I'm tiredish, it won't be today.

As I may have told you before Jackson is not an enthusiastic eater. Miller is a better eater, but isn't one of those children who will eat whatever you put in front of him.

Jackson is partial to crackers and candy. Miller is especially partial to anything crinkly. Mostly paper. Don't leave a magazine on the coffee table because you'll come back to wet soggy bits.

On Allen's birthday, naturally, his presents were wrapped. Miller loved playing with the paper. A little while later he starts to vomit. "Oh my," I thought, "no good having a sick baby when it's Daddy's birthday." A couple of minutes later, as he is on my lap, I feel him begin to vomit again. It didn't take too long to realize that he was gagging as he was vomiting. I reached way too far down his throat and removed a huge hunk of wet, gooey wrapping paper. Nice.

Has that deterred him from eating more paper? Not in the least.

Sometime recently I took these pictures of him in my room. He was crawling around getting into things as I dried my hair and got ready. Then he found the magazines under my bedside table. Jackpot.









So, a better mom might have stopped her baby from doing this, but I'm not that mom.

Just so you know, in the last picture he isn't hurt from falling off the bedside table, but he's angry because he thinks I took the magazine away from him. Really, it is just under his belly.

Apparently he told Jackson how awesome paper tasted because yesterday while I was busy changing Miller's diaper, Jackson helped himself to a little something from my road trip stash. Paper and all.

Apparently the smart folks in marketing at Reece's have the slogan all wrong. What it is really supposed to be is, "THREE great tastes that taste great together!"

Now that we have that straight! Let's get to the disclaimer portion of this message...

I'm not ashamed to admit that he has an old People magazine in Miller's mouth. I am a proud long term subscriber. I AM ashamed that it appears that my bed is not made in this picture. I'm sure it is. And if it isn't can you pretend like it is? That's what friends do, right? Thanks!

Converse, Converse we pledge our love to thee

Tomorrow I leave for my class reunion at Converse College. I won't be able to post and show you pictures of these adorable boys.

But don't worry I will be back and hopefully rejuvenated after 2 days with my girls. I can guarantee that I will have a funny story to tell, but it probably won't make a bit of sense to you. Not that it will stop me from telling it!
Right now I won't ramble about how wonderful my college experience was, but I will say that it was worth every penny!

Wordless Wednesday

Aunt Chele to the Rescue

Last weekend Allen had a Duty Weekend, which is where he works about 16 hours a day from home. The first one was awful because Jackson could not understand why his Daddy wouldn't play with him. In February he brought my sister up to help me for his next duty weekend. Not only was it better, but we had fun! I thought I was going to go it alone this time and was planning for that, but at the last minute, he found an inexpensive airplane ticket and she was able to come up again.
She got here on Saturday morning. We had a great lunch at CPK--Jackson ate all of his food! Then in the afternoon, she was a great Aunt and played outside with them while I continued my yard work. The water table was a big hit. Both boys were all wrinkled up--and as happy as pigs in mud that they were able to splash with wild abandon.




I managed to finish spreading mulch and since I had free help, I tackled a project that has been intimidating me since we moved here, nearly 4 years ago. I cut back the monster bushes and pulled out ivy from an overgrown bed.

You can see that they were about 10 feet tall--on this side. Now both bushes are about 6 feet tall.


I can't tell you how good it feels to have that done. (The real reason I can't tell you is because I am still hurting from all that yard work!) However the yard looks so much neater, and is beginning to look nice.
We hung out and played the rest of the weekend and enjoyed having Michele here.
Thanks Allen for bringing her up and thanks Michele for cancelling all your plans and coming to help us!

I Not Dirty!

"I not dirty!" is what he said. Really it was "I not dhur-ee" when we came in from playing outside and I told him we needed to wash his hands, before we could eat lunch. Obviously we have high standards here!

Clearly

I realize that every mom thinks that her children are spectacular and smart and cute and just plain amazing. I get it. We are designed to think that so that we will put up with all the other not so endearing things they do. But this? I mean this is beyond a mom thinking her son is special or advanced. My pediatrician likes to say "clearly" a lot. She has said in the past that this baby is "clearly" very advanced physically. She is right, and I know it because I live with him everyday, but "clearly" I was not expecting this.

Let me back up and tell you this--
For the last several weeks I have been working in the yard to get leaves cleaned up and the yard ready for summer. Jackson usually plays outside and sometimes Miller does too. He especially likes crawling over to the leaves and attempting to eat them before I can stick my dirty hands in his mouth and pry them out. So a couple of weeks ago, I was finishing up in the back yard, and Jackson and I were dragging the bags of leaves out to the curb when we came back from the side of the house and saw this jaw dropping exhibit. Allen looked out the window at the same time. He grabbed the camera and captured this.








He is way up there. So "clearly" we have a strong boy on our hands. As you know from before, Jackson has been labeled as "abnormally strong" by my friend Kelly. So what does all this mean?

Next year I am going to be telling y'all about how many Diet Cokes I had while my "clearly" physically advanced sons clean the yard!

Oh, just so you don't have to do the math, he was 7 and a half months old when he did this and "clearly" I shouldn't leave him in the backyard alone, even for a second, even if his dad is watching through the window, because next time he will "clearly" be over the fence!

Easter Fun

Can Easter already be over? Can this year be one third through? No way, except I have the pictures to prove it!
Easter morning Miller and I were up bright and early. When Jackson got up at his regular time, I left Miller in the Living Room to play. While I was dressing Jackson we were talking about the Easter Bunny and whether he had come or not. Meanwhile Miller was making a commotion in the Living Room. Jackson was naked and jumped into my arms and said, "Easter Bunny!! Mama, hold me!" Too funny! I had to take him in there and show him it was just the baby. The baby who likes to bang things together to see how loud he can do it!

Jackson was pretty excited about the contents of his basket. He doesn't know that the foil bunny has anything inside it. AND Let's Keep It That Way!!!


Of course he wanted Miller's toy frogs. Go figure. Like Jackson at this age, Miller just wanted to eat the Easter grass.


Miller surprised us by taking a 2 hour nap, so when he got up, we headed out to hunt for some eggs. By the second egg he picked up, Jackson figured out that there were jelly beans inside. He was on a mission. Stuff as many in his little mouth as he could.



The Easter Bunny thought that putting 2 Jelly Beans in each egg was fine. And that would have been fine--- if there weren't 60 eggs. Do the math next time Easter Bunny! 120 Jelly bean make for a sick tummy! (Really he only had about 6 Jelly beans when he got sick) But a little vomit won't stop Jackson from his goal, he barely stopped long enough for me to wipe his mouth and he was back in the game!






Miller just took it all in. When all the eggs were gathered we took some pictures of them and they came out really well. Jackson even let Miller "hold" some of his Easter eggs.

 

I think Miller is saying, "There's candy in there, oh, I get it!"

Where has the week gone?

Happy Easter! I can hardly believe that I haven't blogged in a week. I'm not sure where the week went. We are still impatiently waiting for Spring to arrive.

After several days of being clean and dry, Jackson regressed some in his potty training and it seems like he will never get it. I know he will, but it just gets old, you know! We stress that he is Big Boy and talk about all the things that big boys do. Babies can't...

So after a monring of many accidents (that I don't really think were accidents at all) he came in the room like this.



In case you fail to notice all the details he is:
1) Wearing rain boots
2) Wearing a rain hat
3) Wearing his backpack--probably preparing to run away to a place where big boys can wear diapers!
4) Has a Paci in his mouth
5) Has a Paci in his hand
6) Has wet pants--AGAIN!
Oh! And he is holding a Pull Up that we have for bedtime.

Nice!

Anniversary #9

Yesterday we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. As we like to joke around here, it has been 8 really fast years and one really long year. Our first year of mariage was a big adjustment for both of us. Once we got into a rhythm, things got much better and now they are hunky dory most of the time.

Typically we buy something together as a gift to each other, but not this year. Next year is going to be a big one and instead of giving each other gifts this year (and becasue we honest to goodness couldn't think of anything we needed) we decided to keep that money in our modest savings account and wait to use it next year. We plan to celebrate in a more elaborate fashion next year!

So this year it was cards and flowers and a dinner at Outback. The cards and flowers were nice but I really have to think hard and long about whether getting the evening off of dish duty is worth the trauma of taking my two young boys into an otherwise calm eating establishment and 1)expecting decent behavior and 2)getting Jackson to sit in a booster seat without diving under the table 478 times. Practice makes perfect is what I always say!

This year's anniversary was not exciting, it wasn't relaxing and it wasn't very glitzy. But come to think of it, it was memorable, because I was with my favorite guys and you just can't beat that!

Just Playing

Some photos of Miller playing. He is scrumtious, I tell you. He does come with a warning, though. He spits up a lot. When I say a lot I mean we change his--and sometimes our- clothes about 5 times a day. Can you say Laundry problem? I honestly don't mind because he is so stinkin' cute.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Whenever I think of a kite, I think of that song from Mary Poppins, "Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest heights". Now I am going to have that song stuck in your head too. You know, it is a catchy tune, but they call those songs that get stuck in your head a song worm. Just in case you were wondering.

Yesterday was a very windy day, so after we got all our errands done we went to the park near our house and flew a kite. It was perfect weather, perfect children, perfect cherry trees blooming, perfect surroundings, and we had it all to ourselves. We couldn't have asked for anything better.

Enjoy the pictures

Miller started really crawling last week, and guess what? He is F-A-S-T! I guess I should have expected that SUPER BABY was going to be speedy, but I didn't. You can see him in action in the video. Personally, I think that he looks a little like a robot baby when he crawls. He moves sort of jerkily and it is so determined that it makes him look like a robot.
If you can turn up the sound (and ignore my voice) you will hear Jackson saying some cute big brother things.


These days Jackson wants whatever Miller has, so if Miller is eating baby food, so is Jackson. If Miller is getting kissed because he hit his head, Jackson will re-enact the scene and pretend to cry. So right after I took this video, Jackson said, "My turn" and I had to take a video of him crawling down the hall. Cute, but not as impressive as with Miller.

Miller is trying to pull up on everything! He doesn't discriminate...if he thinks it will get him up, he'll give it a shot. The other day, he kept trying to pull up on a basket. Of course, the basket kept flipping up and hitting him in the head. After 5 or 6 times of this he would flinch before pulling up on the basket, but he kept trying. Thank goodness he has a short attention span and moved on! I worry about him being so physically advanced- will his brain ever catch up with his body? Is he going to be a dumb jock? I don't really think so, but being so advanced in certain cases, it could definitely lead to some sticky situations! Please don't tell him I said that!

We are SO ready for Spring here. It is another cool rainy day here. The grass is getting really green, but so far Spring is being as coy as The Bachelor after he proposes. It's saying, "Come here and love me." then I go get my flip flops out and Spring goes and changes its mind and says, "Just kidding, you're not right for me." and I am stuck looking like a fool trying to wear Capri pants when it is 50 degrees. No Global Warming here in G-burg!

Gosh it sounds like I'm still hung up on that ridiculous show, but really I have moved on and I'm swearing it off. Unless Chris Harrison promises that it will be the most stunning rose ceremony ever, and then I might just peek!

Wordless Wednesday

Well practically wordless...


Playing

Playing together

Playing, but hey...

I'm still playing, where did he go?