Lizzie's Booty Shake

100 Cookie Cutters!

Am I weird to be sooooooooooo excited about this? I ordered these the other day and just got them in the mail today. Up until today I had maybe 4 cookie cutters and they were Christmas ones. I am always wishing I had different cookie cutters for different holidays and for my kids to play with with playdough. Well, now I have a cookie cutter for every holiday, shape, letter, number, animal, mode of transportation and sport. AWESOME!! I got out the playdough and Jacob had fun making animals. He loved it. YAY!

Bleck!!!!

This was the first of may puke attacks from Lizzie. I had no idea she was sick. Neither of the kids acted sick up until their first upchuck. Jacob had been running around and playing like normal. Then we sat down to dinner and as he was eating...boom. He puked all over his dinner. I thought it was just a fluke thing until he proceeded to puke every 15-20 minutes after that. For some reason he felt the need to get up and walk when he needed to throw up. After he puked on the floor a few times we finally figured out that we needed to follow him with a bucket when ever he started wandering. Luckily he never puked on me. We ended up bringing his mattress out to the living room and setting up his bed there. We layered towels under him so we could just remove a towel each time he puked. Worked great. He finally finished his bout of puking around 1am. Everyone went to bed, I stayed in the living room and slept on the couch where I could keep an eye on him.

Around 3:30am, Lizzie woke up. Which she does sometimes. She had gone to bed really early, so I figured she probably just woke up hungry, so I fixed her a bottle and she cuddled up to me on the couch. About 2 minutes after she finished her bottle it came right back up and landed on my half asleep self. Which is what the above picture is from. I had no idea milk could curdle so fast. She followed the same pattern as Jacob. Like clock work she would throw up every 15-20 minutes. As soon as she started throwing up I moved Jacob and his layers of towels into bed with Mike. I went through 3 different sets of pj's myself that night and after changing each kid 2-3 times I finally just turned up the heat and left them naked, except for diapers of course. I also wised up and started keeping layers of towels between me and Lizzie at all times.

After 7am there was no more puking. Both kids had fevers and spent the day watching movies, eating saltine crackers and drinking Gatorade (because they refuse to drink pedialyte...can ya blame them?).

They are slowly returning to their normal selves. No more fevers. We're all just tired, and the house smells of vomit. Nice!

Mike was feeling pretty bummed when both kids just wanted me. He tried to hold them to give me a break but no...they would just squirm and cry until I was holding them again. So this morning when Jacob woke up and started crying for, "Mike! Mike!" he was happy.

Jim Dear and Darling

Recently Jacob started calling Mike, Mike instead of Daddy. Mike is not a fan. He prefers Daddy. So he gets down at eye level and says, "no Jacob. I'm Daddy. Can you say Daddy?" He says it over and over until stubborn Jacob relents and calls him Daddy. But as soon as he hears me use the name Mike, he goes right back to calling him Mike. It's pretty funny.

Then, today out of the blue he decided to start calling me Honey or Hun. Which ever he feels like using at the time. Much like Mike does. So, we are no longer Momma and Daddy. We are Honey and Mike.

Happy Birthday To Meeeeeee!

Since it was my birthday yesterday, we decided to get a babysitter and go out. Mike had some things planned, but I don't think we ended up doing any of them. We decided instead it would be fun to go to Nebraska Furniture Mart and dream of the nice furniture we might have one day. hahaha. While we were there I found something that I WILL have one day.

It's a giant, planter, tea set! I saw it as soon as we walked in the door and I fell in love with it. Seriously, how cute is that???

While we were there we tried out several different couches. One of the main things we look for in a couch, other than comfort, is if it's a good cuddle couch. As in, is it deep enough to spoon in. Our current couch is not! So when we try to lay down and cuddle while watching movies, one of us is always hanging half way off the couch. It's a little better now that I've lost 20 lbs, but still not fun. So we got a lot of strange looks from people walking by as we were discussing weather it was a good cuddle couch or not. Don't worry, there was no public spooning. :)

Here we are testing out a cuddle chair. Another thing I must have one day.

We found a few other things that we thought were pretty cool. Most of which I am sure we will never own. Like these.

Fun concept but come on. Talk about confusing sleep time with play time. A SLIDE??? The hut thing at the bottom...maybe, but a slide???? I think not.

Once we finished there we headed over to Applebee's for dinner. I didn't get any cake, but I did get a nice big chocolate chip cookie Sunday thing which consisted of a big ol' chocolate chip cookie topped with 3 scoops of ice cream and chocolate syrup that tasted soooooooo good, I am sure there was something in it I wasn't supposed to have.

Once we finished up with dinner we headed home to save the babysitter from insanity. Thanks again Jen!! (She swears the kids were perfect for her. I don't know whether to disbelieve her or ask her what her secret is. lol.) Once she left we put the kids to bed and finished off the evening with a movie on our uncomfortable couch. haha. We watched Madagascar 2. FUNNY movie! I'm sure we will end up buying it in the near future.

Overall it was a pretty good birthday. Thanks Mike for the wonderful evening, and everyone else for the well wishes (and thanks Mom for the gift!!).

Random Pics and a Video or Two

What is it about dirt that boys are just drawn to? We played in the back yard a few days ago and he immediately found a grassless patch and started digging. He also likes to dump handfuls of it on his head...lovely.

I don't know what this was all about. He randomly decided to hug a tree.

The next 3 pictures are just cute snap shots I got while they played.

Lizzie is turning into little miss independent. She no longer allows me to feed her. She wants to do it herself. And as you can see, she does a great job!
Here she is trying to feed me...

And some more dancing videos. It's been a while. :)

Well folks, I think that's all I've got for ya today.

Sacrament Meeting Blues

Normally, my children do really well at church. I feel like we pack our entire house with things to entertain them with during sacrament meeting. The backpack we take with us is like Mary Poppin's carpet bag. It's bottomless and has endless sources of entertainment in it. From toys and book and crayons to snack and sippy cups. You name it...it's in there. When they get tired of one thing we move on to the next and we make it quite peacefully through the meeting and actually get to listen to the speakers. But then we switched to the 11am meeting time, and while it makes it easier to make it to church on time, it has been a nightmare keeping the kids quite. It's right during their normal lunch time and on any other day of the week, their most active time of the day. Last week we had crying, screaming, and kicking. They wanted nothing to do with the endless treasures in the pack pack. They just wanted OUT! And they let everyone else in the meeting know about it. After church someone asked me jokingly, "Sister Arnold, were you pinching your kids during sacrament meeting?" No, but you'd think by the way they were acting that they were being tortured. I felt bad for the people sitting in front of us. At one point Jacob was under the bench rubbing the leg of the lady in front of us. I assume she had smooth nylons on or something. Who knows. She was laughing about it, but I was so embarrassed. I made Mike yank him out from under the bench and he was NOT happy. Mike ended up having to take him out and have a little talk with him.

Today, about 20 minutes into the meeting he decided he had had enough and announced loudly, "Okay, a ready a sreesree". Sreesree=nursery. He loves nursery. Lots of toys and running around and snacks. Why were we making him sit through this boring meeting?!?! I sat him back down on the bench and whispered to him to sit quietly and we would take him to nursery in a little bit. Then he says with a grin on his face, again rather loudly, "Eww...STINKY". Evidently he thought something was stinky. And he thought it was funny. I don't know if he thought I smelled or what. I did take a shower this morning and I did brush my teeth before I left. I popped a mint in my mouth after that just in case. There is nothing like a toddler to make you self conscious.

I guess I'm gonna have to figure out other tactics to survive sacrament meeting... Maybe we will just sit out in the foyer from now on.