This birthday celebration brought to you by...

Childrens Tylenol. I'm kind of regretting my decision to wait until today to celebrate Jacobs birthday. The day started out good. We got up and let him open his presents. But then around noon he started puking. Poor kiddo. Fortunately we always keep good ol' Tylenol and Motrin on hand. After laying on the couch moaning and crying and puking for 3 hours the Tylenol kicked in and he was able to get up and play for a while. We were also able to have his birthday dinner as planned. He didn't eat much, but he was very excited to have us sing to him and to get to blow out his candle...twice. :) Then he played with the bugs off of the cake for a while, but never actually ate any of the cake. Now he's back to sitting on the couch holding his puke bucket. Hopefully this is only a 24 hour bug and he will be back to his usual self by tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from the day. One of his presents was a Lightning McQueen and Mater puzzle. This kid is a pro at puzzles. He loves them and can spend hours doing them. (That's pudding on his face in case you were wondering. Yes, I gave him pudding for breakfast. haha.)

Here's Jacob and his new "motorcycle". If it has 2 wheels it's a motorcycle to him. He was pretty excited.

He's used to riding his tricycle, which peddles backward and forward. So when he got on his bike he kept trying to peddle backward because it was easier (I guess because the peddles are directly below him as apposed to in front of him) and getting frustrated when it wouldn't move. Mike had to try to teach him how to peddle forward. In the end he just gave up and went back to his trike. I'm sure with a little practice he will catch on though...I hope. haha.

Mike also decided to take a ride on the trike. I would have uploaded the video I got of him on it, but videos take forever and I don't have the patience today. But I laugh every time I watch it, because he's trying to peddle and he's all, "man this is so uncomfortable". hahaaa. It cracks me up every time.

Playing in the front yard is a rare treat for the kids. If it were fenced in it would be a different story, but they automatically start to take off down the street. I just don't have the energy to run after them. But, there is more room to ride the bike and trike around out there and since Mike was home today, we went out there. They had a blast. And it was also fun to have daddy to chase them around.

The kids would run up and down the sidewalk and since Jacob is the faster runner, he would get to the end first then turn around and run back to Lizzie and they would hug. It was cute.

For dinner we had Jacobs favorite. PIZZA!! He ate the pepperoni off the top and then started feeling sick again. So we decided to hurry and bring out the cake and sing to him.

Here is a close up of the cake. I am quite proud of this one. I got the idea from a cake book I got from Family Fun. My actual inspiration cake was pretty ugly. I did have to make improvements. All I'm missing are ants for the ant hill because I couldn't find any. Looking back, I should have turned it into a hive and put the bees on it. But I still really like the way it turned out and Jacob really liked it too. Most of the bugs are actually finger puppets. So the kids have been having fun playing with them.

I hope he had a fun day dispite not feeling good. I feel bad that we didn't do it yesterday when he was feeling good. I guess he will still have good memories of his birthday though. Happy Birthday my boy!! We love you.

My Firstborn is 4!!

Actually he doesn't know it's his birthday. He thinks it's tomorrow. Mike will be getting off of a 36 hour shift this afternoon and will be sleeping the rest of the day away, so we decided to celebrate tomorrow when he has the day off. But I wanted to do a post of Jacob today on his actual birthday.

This morning he woke up around 5:30am and came and laid down by me. He snuggled up to me and says, "Little Star, mama". Confused, I asked him what he was talking about and he starts singing "twinkle, twinkle little star", then says again, "Little star!!" Ahh, he wants me to sing twinkle, twinkle little star to him. So I started singing and he was back asleep before I finished the song. It was cute. I love my snuggly little boy.

Happy Birthday Jakers!!! We sure are glad you're part of our family.

Determination

As I've mentioned before, Lizzie is going through a phase where she refuses to keep her diaper on. She has been a little better over the last couple days, and she usually only does it now when she is either wet and needs a diaper change anyways, or is throwing a temper tantrum. It's not unusual for me to find a diaper being hurled at me when she is mad at me. Mike is pretty determined to get her to stop. Unfortunately, Lizzie is even MORE determined to keep it up. I have given up trying, but not Mike. First he insisted that we keep a onsie on her. But, of course, it didn't take her long to figure out how to get out of that. So, we pinned the bottom of the onsie on. It took her about 10 seconds to figure out how to wiggle her way out from the top. So, Mike then decided to pin the top of her onsie so there was no room to get out the top, and plus pinning the bottom. This worked for about a day. Today, she was upstairs playing by herself. The rest of us were downstairs in the office when I started to hear Lizzie crying, like she was stuck or something. So I ran upstairs to rescue her, only to find her standing there, diaper in hand, onsie still on, trying her darnedest to get that onsie off. She was not successful. But, I could not WAIT to show Mike that she had once again out smarted him. He has since made the suggestion that we cinch up the bottom of the onsie so she can't work the diaper off plus put pin her pants to her onsie. I'm thinking, seriously??? You really think your gonna win this one?? I say no. What do you think?

Not to mention, I foresee some major head butting between the two when she gets older. Oy.

Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

Jacob has decided that he does NOT want to be a "big boy". In his eyes, so far nothing good has come of it. In his eyes, he's getting the bad end of the deal. He now has to wear underwear and stop what he is doing and go sit on the potty when he has to go. Lulu, still gets to go in her diaper. He now has to go to sunbeams at church, and sit and listen. Lulu still gets to go to nursery and play with toys. So this last week he decided that he has had enough of this "big boy" crap and has insisted that he "needs a diaper". He still wears a diaper at night time. In the mornings, when he wakes up soaking wet, he would rather sit in that soggy, uncomfortable diaper than change into his undies. When he is in his undies he pees in them. Sometime he will tell me when he's peed on the floor and sometimes I will just notice that he's walking around in wet underwear. He's now gotten over the whole, not liking to feel wet, thing. He has also started suggesting that Lulu has to wear undies too. After all, it's only fair that if he has to, then so should she. I keep trying to explain to him that, although she's almost big like him, she's still to little to wear undies. So then he insists that he is NOT a big boy and he NEEDS a diaper.

As easy as it is to get frustrated with the whole situation, I have been trying to see things through his eyes. It really doesn't seem fair and being a "big boy" does not seem like much fun. So, now my challenge is to come up with some FUN big boy things to make up for all the lame big boy stuff that we seem to be focused on. Any suggestions??

If it's any indications as to the kind of week I've had...

I sat down at the computer this morning and as I looked around was a little surprised at what I saw. Empty chocolate pudding snack cups and fudgesicle wrappers and sticks galore. I think all the chocolate is the only reason I survived the week. The kids have been driving me crazy. With the daily poop smeared in the carpet messes and both kids peeing on the floor, I wanted to scream on a daily basis. And the lack of sleep hasn't been helping. I would actually sleep quite comfortably if it weren't for kids waking up multiple times during the night. Lizzie because she is cutting 3 teeth, (one of them a molar) AND she wants her binky. As for Jacob...who knows why he wakes up.

It's amazing how the kids react to a parent being gone. Mike was only gone for a week, but during that week, Jacob started back with his refusing to use the potty. He kept asking for a diaper and would get really mad when I told him no. Then he would just pee his pants. The few times he actually went in the potty, I had to threaten him with time out. After a few times doing that he decided he'd rather go to time out. He'd go right to his room and close the door himself. So yesterday I gave up and just left him in a diaper all day. Today, now that Mike is back, Jacob has already started happily going potty again. I wish Lizzie would magically start leaving her diaper on now that he's back. haha. No such luck. Both kids have just been completely uncooperative in general all week and driving me crazy. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, since I'm the one home with them 90% of the time even when he is here. He comes home, eats dinner (often long after the rest of us have already eaten), plays with the kids for a little bit, we do our nightly routine to get the kids to bed and then he's off to bed so he can be up early the next morning. So, why does him being gone for a week have such an impact on them??? I just don't get it.

He finally got home late last night and went right to bed since he had to be to work early this morning. But it's amazing how just knowing he's back has decreased my stress levels. Both kids were sleeping on the couch with me when he got home, So, Mike decided to take Jacob and have him sleep in our bed with him so he'd have someone to snuggle with. lol. He really missed his kiddos. It was nice, because I had one less kid to wake me up during the night. So I got a little more sleep. Mike said Jacob woke up once, but once he saw he was next to daddy he laid right back down and went back to sleep. When Jacob woke up this morning the first thing he asked was, "Where daddy go???". I reassured him he was just at work and would be back later.

I'm so glad he's back!!! Now I can go back to eating chocolate just cause it sounds good, not out of necessity. :)

Crazy Bus Stop Lady?

Lisa's comment on my yesterdays post about the bus stop kids reminded me of this story. I went out to check my mail the other day and noticed that one of the kids has started, once again, leaving his scooter leaning against a tree in my yard while he's at school. The same kid who use to ride his skate board up and down my driveway and slam into my garage door, then leave his skate board in the same spot while he was at school. I don't know WHY this annoys me so much, but it does. Maybe I'm just hormonal? I don't know. But when I saw his scooter leaning there, I was tempted to take it and put it in my garage and leave it there for a few days, then put it back out there. Just to give him a little scare, ya know. Or maybe it would be considered a warning? I don't know. Technically it's not considered stealing, right. Since it was left on my lawn, I would consider it a gift, really. When I talked to Mike last night I was telling him about how I thought about it, (even though, realistically, I'd probably never really do it) and he just started laughing and says to me, "Michelle, you are turning into the crazy bus stop lady". Yes, I probably am. And sadly, I don't care. I find it kind of humorous actually. I'm okay with being the crazy bus stop lady that comes out and yells at them for playing in my yard and steals their toys. Kind of like the old Monster House guy. "STAY OFF MY LAWN. DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!?". Okay, I've never yelled. I've always been quite nice about it actually. But kids usually don't see it the same way. In their minds I probably did yell at them and shake my fists.

I have noticed, though, that since I went out and NICELY asked them not to play on my driveway and stay away from my garage door, they have stopped waiting for the bus out in front of my house and have moved to the sidewalk to the side of my house. Which I appreciate. I guess I should be happy with that and let the kid leave his scooter and skate board there. It's not like it's making my house look any worse than it already does. Although the garbage they are still leaving on my lawn DOES. Okay, now I'm annoyed again. Maybe tomorrow morning I will go back out and start throwing the garbage at them and truly earn my status as the crazy bus stop lady.

But I NEED it!!!

Remember when I posted about these and said I would have them one day??

Well, guess what. They are no where to be found. So I went on a hunt for something similar. I did find some cute alternatives here, here, and here, but nothing as cute. I think I may have to settle for less cute. I loved this one though, because it was a matching set. I can find tea cups, but no pots. Although, as you see in the link, I did find watering cans that match the cups, which is still cute.

Now to convince Mike how much I need them. Our house looks so drab outside. Don't you think these would look fabulous sitting on my porch? Or in the flower bed?? I agree. I think they would do wonders for the outside appearance of our home.

I have a whole list of "needs" I need to convince Mike of. He is weird and seems to think things like diapers, and clothes, and food are more important. psh. Whatever!