Chocapy

Occasionally...okay pretty regularly, when the kids are having melt downs and I am at the end of my rope, I gather everyone into the kitchen and we have what I like to call "chocolate therapy". I will get out some spoons and break open a jar of nutella, either that or tear into a bag of chocolate chips. It works quite well and has saved my sanity several times. Today I had one of those moments. Lizzie was screaming in the hallway because she wasn't getting something she wanted and Jacob was crying because he wanted to go outside, but I wouldn't let him because he kept leaving the door open earlier, so his outside time privilege was revoked. Jimmy was crying because he was hungry and I couldn't sit down to feed him because the other kids were both freaking out. So, I did what I had to do. "OKAY!!!! Everyone in the kitchen for some chocolate therapy NOW!!!" All the sudden crying stop, ears perk up and I hear "chocolate??" So they run into the kitchen and I give them each a spoonful of nutella. Lizzie likes to eat hers slowly and savor it. Jacob on the other hand eats it in one bite and comes back asking for more. Today was no exception. He ate it as fast as he could and brought his spoon back to me and sweetly requested "more chocapy, pwease".

Poor kid...

He inherited my poor fashion sense.

I think the pants are my favorite. Just shows ya how much he's grown since last summer.

4 weeks old

4 weeks...and my sanity is miraculously still intact. To celebrate Mike brought home these for me. He said he wanted to let me know how appreciated I was. What a sweet husband I have. Jimmy is such a fun baby and we just love him. Here are some 4 week pictures I took today (and last night).

"numnumnumnumnum...I'm so hungry I'm going to eat your face".

In the last 4 weeks there has been a lot of this going on...

And a lot of this...

He's such a snuggly little guy and those cheeks are just so smoochable I can't resist. I was hoping to get a picture of one of his adorable smiles, but they are rare and pretty impossible to catch on camera. Hopefully they will become more frequent in the next week or so and I can share. :)

Not So Guilty Pleasures

I have Steph to thank for this post. While she was here visiting we went shopping and I wanted to get some good snack foods. I grabbed the usual, boring goldfish and generic wheat thins and graham crackers and Steph got these goodies. I couldn't have found these at a better time. When I'm stressed I like to take comfort in food. With these I am able to just take a quick break, have a little tasty snack (instead of waiting until the kids fall asleep and binge on whatever I can get my hands on) and get back to wanting to kill myse...I mean taking care of my wonderfully, pleasant children. (Did I mention I just added potty training a second kid into the craziness?? Yes, I am insane.)

Move over goldfish, your being replaced. Even the kids preferred these crackers. They couldn't get enough of the cheesy goodness. I think the kind she got had white cheddar, not parmesan, but the parmesan is really good too. The combination of the two different kinds of cheese, one slightly strong flavored and one mild flavored, makes your taste buds want to do a happy dance, and assuming I stay within the 25 cracker serving size (which is usually about all I have time for) I can eat these guilt free without adding to my already expanding hips and backside.

I'm usually not a huge fan of Crystal Lite type drink mixes, but when she left this behind I decided to try it just out of curiosity because I LOVE lime. Lets just say when I went shopping yesterday I came home with several boxes. I was struggling with staying hydrated before and now I have no problems getting in plenty of water. I'm sure it's probably better to drink plain water, but that just gets boring, and this stuff is pretty low calorie and sugar free. :) The only problem now is keeping the kids away from my water mug. They seem to love it too.

Okay, this one might be a little bit of a guilty pleasure, but I justify it by reminding myself that it is dark chocolate and dark chocolate is good for you right?! RIGHT?!?! Which is probably why I'm not typically a big fan of the dark variety. I am more of a milk chocolate type of person, but these little morsels of happiness have pomegranate hidden in the center, and I don't know what it is about these flavors but they compliment each other so perfectly it makes my mouth water just thinking about it. *drool* It's probably a good thing these are so expensive, otherwise I would indulge way to much.
I just thought I'd share in case your taste buds are in need of some livening up. :)

Sunny Day Snapshots

These are a few of our favorite books...Part 1

"Part 1" because my kids have several favorite books and I am SURE I will eventually get to part 2. :) Don't ask me why I decided to do this post. It just sounded fun. And really, do you need any other reason for a blog post??? No, not really.

This one was given to us as a gift when Jacob was born. It is a classic and has been a favorite of his since he was a baby. Lizzie has always loved it too and both kids STILL love it. In fact it has been so loved we had to get a new one because our first copy was so worn. I can't quite put my finger on what the appeal of this book is but even I like it for some reason. I would write a description of this book for those of you who don't know what it's about, but I am sure I would make it sound boring. Because there isn't much exciting about it. You just have to read it and find out for yourself. It's magical.

I found this book at Goodwill. I think I got it for about 25 cents. Jacob has it mostly memorized and Lulu has parts memorized here and there. It's spring and time for Bear to wake up and each of his animal friends take turns trying to wake him up. I add in animal sounds and snoring for the bear. Both kids love it.

I also bought this one at Goodwill for about a quarter. It's Elmo...what more can I say. My kids love anything Elmo or Sesame Street related for that matter. But this one is a good one if you want help teaching your kids about saying "please", "thank you" and other good manners.

The next two books were free. That's why they are MY favorites. :) Jacob particularly likes Mr. Brown Can Moo. Mr. Brown can make all sorts of sounds and encourages kids to try them out as well. Jacob loves repeating sounds and the sounds in this book are pretty fun.

This one is one of Lizzie's favorites. She has parts of this one memorized too. Mother bird flies off to find food for her baby bird who is about to hatch. Unfortunately he hatches while she is gone and goes on a quest to find her. He comes across several animals and objects that he thinks might possibly be his mother. Somehow he eventually finds his way back to the nest just as his mother returns.

Both kids really get into this one. Grover is scared of getting to the end of the book because there is a monster at the end of the book. He makes several unsuccessful attempts to prevent you from turning pages and is surprised at what he actually finds at the end of the book.

I will call it good at that. Like I said, they have LOTS of favorite books. So stay tuned for some more of our favorites...one day...maybe. :)

You wanna watch what???

We just got Beauty and the Beast in the mail yesterday and the kids love it. They watched it at least 5 times yesterday. (I let them because I was sick and it was keeping them entertained.) As soon as the credits would start they would immediately ask to watch it again. They both call it Beast, only Lizzie can't quite pronounce Beast and it comes out sounding an aweful lot like...well...this is a g rated blog, so lets just say it doesn't come out as Beast. But it starts with a B and ends with ch. haaahahaha.

"I want to hold my baby."

Jacob loves to hold "his" baby. He asks to hold him every chance he gets. Jimmy tolerates it for a few seconds before he starts to protest. Actually, the reason he protests is usually because he's awake, and if he's awake he's hungry and he wants to be fed NOW!!!

He also tolerates tummy time for only a few seconds...

before he starts to protest.

We can't have the camera out without getting 15-100 pictures of Jacob. He LOVES having his picture taken.

Aunt Stephy came to visit us for a few days. She got here last week and left today. I was so sad to see her go. Not only did she rescue my sanity for a few days but it was fun hanging out with her during the day. I was brave and didn't cry until I drove away from the airport. I want her to come back. So does Mike. He says I was a lot happier when she was here and I was less snippy with him. haaahaha. Poor Mike. :)

Lulu had a little run in with a dining room chair. She was hanging on the back of it and pulled it over on top of her. It smacked her right on the bridge of her nose. It is pretty bruised and swollen. Poor girl.

Both kids like to wear daddy's shoes. It's a good thing he has two of each pair. :)

"I need to pump."

I know, I know, it's bad blog etiquette to post twice in one day, but I am behind on my blogging and I need to catch up. I couldn't resist posting this picture.

Due to some early nursing issues, I did a lot of pumping last week. I felt like that's all I did all day. Jacob found part of my pump and decided to try it out. "Mom, I need to pump" he says. Good luck with that kid. lol.

Easter Weekend

What is Easter without dying Easter eggs. This is the first year the kids really had fun with it. I only did enough eggs for each of us to color two. But Mike got really into it and colored more than his fair share. lol. He really is such a kid. But, he did mostly solid colors, so once they dried, the kids went back and colored with their little q-tip paint things and added designs to them.

My polka dot egg.

Early Saturday morning the Easter bunny attacked our back yard. The kids had a lot of fun gathering up Easter eggs and bubbles and sunglasses.

When all 5000 eggs were gathered up they took them inside to check out the contents.

Mike took some of the candy off thier hands.

All this time Jimmy was just chillin' in his pack n play. He's such a good baby.

I don't know why, but sunglasses have become an Easter tradition for some reason. The kids love them.

It was such a nice weekend. It was nice to have Mike home for the whole weekend. After our Easter egg hunt we had breakfast, got dressed and headed to the park. The kids played for a while and got out all that energy from their sugar rush. We half celebrated Mike's birthday on Saturday evening. We got food from one of his favorite mexican restaurants and had a nice dinner. Then he spent the rest of the evening watching LOST. We spent Sunday watching conference and just relaxing. Mike grilled some steaks for dinner and then we sang happy birthday and had some cake.

Monday was a sad day, because Mike had to go back to work. I was really worried how things would go without him. It went pretty good I think. We survived. It was definitely nice having him home all week to help with the kids. I definitely missed having him here yesterday. The kids were pretty sad when he had to go back to work too.

Fortunately, I got a call from my sister Stephanie the other day, and she volunteered to come stay for a few days and help out. I can't wait to see her and I hope she isn't driven crazy by the kids. :)

Happy Birthday To Mike

I know we didn't celebrate like he would have liked. I am sure he would have loved to have a big shindig and invite all our friends, but I guess this is what happens when your wife has a baby days before your birthday. I would like to have done something fun for him, but I just wasn't up to the task, sadly. But I hope he had a good day anyways. :)

Happy Birthday Mike. Thanks for being such a great husband and daddy. We love you!!



This is my sad, sad attempt at a brain cake. Yikes. It actually looked okay before all the frosting started sliding off. Then is just started to look like a pile of worms or something. *sigh*