April Fools

With April fools day just around the corner I thought it would post a link I found for some good food pranks. Whether or not I will actually try anything on Mike is still undecided. If I get up the motivation and energy I would like to have a little fun with the kids though. :) I might just try out some of the food pranks listed in the link.

Puppy

Lizzie loves her stuffed animals. She especially loves her puppy. I love her little sing song voice. I have a video of Jacob somewhere saying puppy in the same sing song voice when he started talking. I was going to post it along side this one, but couldn't find it. Darn it all. Anyhoo...Here is Lizzie loving on her puppy.

Pictures and Commentary

"BUBBLESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!" (Blowing bubbles while snapping a picture. How's that for multi-tasking. haha.)

At the beginning of winter, we bought hats and gloves for the kids so they could play outside when it snowed...then it never snowed. Well it did, but not much. So when it snowed this day, I went to get out them out and they were NO WHERE to be found. It was driving me crazy. I looked everywhere. In the end we had to improvise. He was wearing my mittens and my beanie in this picture. And all the stuff Lou Lou is borrowed. We did eventually find the ones I bought. They were in a suitcase for some reason. Hmmmm...weird.

"I know he's in there...I can HEAR him."

After a while he got bored with the slides and decided to do what little boys do best...play in the dirt and weeds. Fun.



"Look Mom a ROCK!"

"I will now make it disappear!" Yum!

Lizzie made some cute friends while we were there. Jacob didn't really like this little girl. She kept pushing him around, and he kept telling her, "No a push!!!"

Ahhhh...this is the life. Kickin' back, eatin' cheerios, cheese...and something green. Hmmm." (I think it was avocado.)

The tornado crashes. It's hard work creating a mess like this. Who wouldn't need a nap...mid mess?!

This is the boy's "smile for the camera" face. I love the squinty eyes. Lou Lou has recently started making the same face.

"Yummy ICE CREAM!!"

Grandpa Pants. These particular sweat pants are to long for him and he hates that he ends up walking on the cuffs. So he pulls them up like this.

The boy has discovered the wonders of the refrigerator. He is constantly bringing me something he found in there. This time he found the little lime shaped lime juice container saying, "a juice, a juice". I warned him that it was not the kind of juice that he would like drinking but he insisted. Sooooo...I gave him a squirt in the mouth. This was the face he made. AWESOME!!

Lou Lou wanted in on the good stuff too. Here is her pucker. Oh the mean things we do to our kids.

The boy LOVES vacuums. Here he is with the big "bacuum" and the "you bacuum". (I'm not sure if 'you' means little or your. Cause whenever I get out the vacuum he wants to take over, so I always ask him, "where's your little vacuum". I'm still working on translations.)

Phew, that was a couple months worth of pictures. There were lots of others that I wanted to post as well. Then I remembered, most people don't get as excited about pictures of my kiddos as I do. :)

Former CEO now delivering pizzas???

How does that even happen? How do you go from making $750k a year, to delivering pizza and being hundreds of thousands in debt? I just don't get it.

Good-bye Winter

Today is the first official day of spring. Hallelujah! Spring makes me happy. Here are some things I love about spring.

More time outside. Since it's not to cold and not to hot being outside is a lot more enjoyable for longer periods of time and there are not a lot of bugs yet. More time outside=happier kids. I think they get stir crazy being couped up inside all the time.

Spring flowers. Tulips are everywhere in my yard. They grow in random places around my house. I have to remember to dig up some bulbs to take with me before we move.

Blossoms on the trees. There are lots of trees here and in the spring when the blossoms come out you drive down the street and see all sorts of spring colors. It's cool.

Spring clothes. Some people wear shorter skirts in the winter, but I just can't do it. I hate being cold and usually during the winter I wear long skirts with thermals underneath. In the spring I can wear cute, lighter, shorter skirts without freezing. I love capris, and short sleeved shirts.

The extra hour of sunlight. While I hate losing an hour of sleep, I LOVE having an extra hour of sunlight. Sunlight makes me happy.

Waking up to the sound of birds. Although I don't like that they poop on everything.

Spending less money on utilities. It's not cold enough to run the heat during the day and not hot enough to run the air conditioning.

Getting ready to plant a garden. Although, this year we won't be planting, since we won't be around long enough to benefit from it.

Breaking out the BBQ grill. We grill all through spring and summer. Mainly just to avoid heating up the house by cooking inside, but there are so many fun things to grill and grilled food just tastes soooo good. It will probably cause cancer, but right now, I don't care. haha.

Easter and April General Conference.

Things I don't like about spring...

April fools day. I always forget about it and Mike always gets me with something. Grrrrr.

Severe weather. The sound of those sirens totally freak me out.

Allergies. I don't suffer from them as much as I used to, but it does hit me every now and then.

I'm sure I could think of more things I don't like, but I don't want to. :)

Happy spring all.

I Wish

I wish I had more energy and motivation to be the perfect house wife. Cleaning is therapeutic for me, I'm just to tired to do it. However, I hate cooking. So...

I wish I could afford a full time cook. One that was a nutritionist so we could have healthy meals every day and I could get skinny.

I also wish I could hire someone to unload my dishwasher. I don't mind loading it, but I HATE unloading it for some reason. I can't explain why, I just do.

I wish I had a house. As in OWNED a house. So that I could unleash my creativity and paint and decorate however I wanted. And of course I wish I had the money to pay for a house and all my decorating.

I wish all the ugly tan-ish, brown carpet in the world (you know, the generic color of all apartments and rental homes) would disappear. Just vanish and be replaced with something more aesthetically pleasing...and stain proof.

I wish the camera would take away 10lbs instead of add 10lbs. Heck, I wish it would take away 30lbs. I would have my picture taken ALL THE TIME! :)

I wish I lived closer to home. I will always consider Utah my home. I doubt we will actually ever reside there (at least not in the next 20 years) but if I could just get within less than a days drive I'd be happy. Anything less than a 10 hour drive would be AWESOME!

I wish that winter and summer would last a month long each...tops. I like snow...for a short time. And I like the hot, hot sun...for a short time. But spring and fall should last much longer than they do.

I wish when I watched TV in the evenings, I wouldn't have to worry about seeing Victoria Secret commercials (nothing like a model in her skivvies struttin' her stuff in my own living room) or "hot, sexy singles" commercials with ditsy, scantily clad, skanky girls telling you to "call now". Come on. All I want is to do is watch a little 'Everybody Loves Raymond" before I hit the hay. It would be nice to have a little comic relief before bedtime without seeing the smut...ya know?!

I wish I had more time to read. I love reading. Unfortunately, when I get into a book I tend to block everything else out and everything gets neglected...including my children. I think I've read 4 books in the last 4 years. Sad.

I wish I could have my pre-children body back. I miss it. Unfortunately, no matter how much weight I lose, my body will NEVER be the same. Especially the 'twins'. Poor girls.

I wish I could teleport to wherever I wanted to go. (Maybe I've spent to much time playing YoVille.) I don't like driving and I don't like wrestling my children into car seats. It would be nice to not have to worry about it. Just push a button and boom...you appear at the park...or the grocery store. Maybe the next place we live will be within walking distance of all that stuff.

I could go on and on. What do you wish??

Update on the toddler rage.

Well, things have calmed down considerably since my post about this. We went from nightly (and daily) outbursts to almost none!! It's crazy. I have yet to take him to the dr. but plan to. But in the mean time, I've been taking notes and making some changes. I made a few changes all at once...so I really don't know which change has been making the difference. Not that it matters, all of these changes are for the better I am sure.

Since he broke his window we have been having him sleep in our room until we can get it taken care of. So, I've easily been able to keep a closer eye on him during the night. He will whimper here and there, but no major night terrors. For the most part he has been sleeping through the night. When he does wake up, he calmly walks over to the bed and either tries to climb in with us, or tells us what he needs. Usually just a drink and then he goes right back to sleep. I don't know if he's just more comfortable in our room (temperature wise) or if it is something I've changed in his daily routine.

I started feeding him dinner earlier. We typically eat between 6:30 and 7:30pm. It just depends on when Mike gets home and other things I have going on during the day. Usually by the time we eat he has long since hit super cranky mode and the melt downs are coming right and left. So, I make sure he eats no later than 5:30pm. He has been so much more pleasant to deal with in the evenings. Who knew?!

We've been making a point of getting him to bed ON TIME. He doesn't always go to sleep right away, but he at least has down time...if we can get him to stop jumping on his bed, that is. :)

I have eliminated juice from his diet. I don't know if it was just a coincidence or not, but this all started about the time we started trying to use up all the juice we have in the freezer. We got TONS of it from WIC. We rarely drink it. So, Mike started drinking it and we started giving it to the kids. Not a lot mind you. No more than they recommend you give kids. He loves the stuff and chugs it down. Anyhoo...we don't give it to him AT ALL now. It's milk or water for this kid.

Those are the major changes we made. Not only does he wake up not angry, but he actually wakes up CHEERFUL! It's crazy. Again, I don't know what is making the difference, but I don't dare change anything back to find out. It will be interesting to see what happens when we move him back into his own room.

25 Things I Hate About Facebook

I saw this on Kamie's blog and I had to post it.



Haaaahahahaha. So true!!

FUNNY!!!

I wanted to post this a long time ago, but couldn't find it anywhere. But Mike found it today and I just couldn't resist. Enjoy. :)

You've had a birthday, shout Hurray!

My little Jacob turned 3 today. Here he is on the day of his birth. :)

One year old...

2 years old...

...and today at 3 years old. Here he is playing his 'tar' he got for his 'birfaday'.

And here is his 'birfaday' cake. He loves 'moons' (aka balloons).


I can't believe he is 3 already. He's getting so big so fast. We love you my boy!! Happy Birthday!

Toddler Rage!

What do you do with a kid who wakes up in the middle of the night, angry and the world and wants EVERYONE know about it?!?! He's been having night terrors the last week, I'm sure because he hasn't been getting enough sleep. We've really been working on getting him to bed earlier, but that doesn't always guarantee he goes to sleep right away. Anyways, the other night he started screaming at around midnight. He got out of bed and proceeded to run around the house screaming and crying. Mike and I stood guard and just made sure he didn't hurt himself. He's had night terrors before but he normally stays in his bed. So this was new to us. Mike was sure he was possessed. lol. Okay not really, but he just kept saying, "that's not Jacob, what's wrong with him?" It went on for about 20 minutes and Mike was finally able to wake him up and he was immediately calm and happy. I laid down on the couch with him and watched a movie until he fell back asleep. Ever since then he has had some major rage issues. I can't figure it out. It's mostly in the middle of the night but sometimes during the day. I wish I knew what it was that sets him off. These episodes last about the same length of time (20 minutes or so) but he seems to be awake. He makes eye contact and is just angry. The screaming and crying is different from when he has night terrors. One is a scared cry, one is just ANGRY! He looks at me and yells and then tries to hit me. Then he runs around hitting walls, doors, anything. Then, like a switch, he is happy. This morning he woke up at 4 am with one of these little episodes. I just laid down on the couch and let him do his thing. He finally got mad because I was ignoring him and ran to his room and slammed the door. I could hear him in there crying and screaming and then I heard Mike get up and go in there. I went in there and he was laying on his bed and Mike was next to him patting his back and talking to him. A few minutes later, he came out, gave us both hugs and kisses and we laid down on the couch and turned on a movie. He didn't go back to sleep though. He was happy and cheerful most of the day after that. No major melt downs. Until about 3:30 in the afternoon when he started getting tired and cranky. At which point he proceeded to through a major tantrum. So I put him in his room and closed the door. I waited for him to calm down, which only took a couple minutes and I went in to talk to him. As soon as I tried to talk to him he started screaming at me. So, I sat there and waited for him to calm down and he walked over to the window and started hitting it. 3 hits and before I could get to him to make him stop, this happened...

His hand went right through. He was lucky he didn't get hurt. Not one scratch. Once I saw that he was okay, then it was MY turn to be angry!! He got put in time out in another room for breaking the window.

Seriously though. What do you do?? The kid is pretty destructive when he gets like this. There is a small whole in the wall behind his door from where the nob hits when he's banging the door against the wall in anger. Mike one day got so frustrated he emptied out a closet and stuck him in there (door opened with a child gate up) so he couldn't do any more damage. I'm thinking by the time we move, we won't be getting any of our deposit back. AAAAAH!!!