Friday, April 25, 2008

kiddie pictures

Just some new kids pictures...

Mason loves looking out the front window in the kitchen for trucks. Every time he sees one, he shouts "tuks!" Very cute!




It's outside time now and the boys love it. (Although tomorrow I hear we may need to break out the sleds). The picture of the sandbox is a common thing - Mana and Zander flooding the sandbox. They bury the hose and create a landslide. And lastly, powerkicks... Zander loves to do these and Mason just copies everything Zander does.





These are some pictures Mana took on a Daddy daycare day.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Mason's month-by-month

I finally got around to pulling together all of Mason's month-by-month photos. Still not sure what I'm going to do with them besides make a scrapbook page. I'm SO glad we took these every month. On of the months we forgot the bear, but all the other months, we have the bear for a size comparison. What a chunk in the first few months!












Mason's wall art

Finally got around to taking pictures of Mason's wall art from 'uppercase living'. I bought it in the fall, but didn't get around to putting it up until after Christmas. And now fianlly getting around to taking a picture of it. I still have some "wall art" for my scrapbook room that needs to be put up. Soon...soon, I hope.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Where has the time gone?!

When I started this blog in the fall, it was easy to keep up. Now that summer is around the corner, I have not been able to keep it up. AND I've been without a computer for a while while Mana upgraded me to his G5. I'm excited about that because now I can actually download pictures without deleting a bunch first. I have a gazillion pictures to download on this computer.

Tonight, I went to my first "card club". When I first told my mom about it, she said, "I was in a card club when you were little, but I don't think it's the same thing! We played 500." She right, I'm definitely not playing cards - just exchanging greeting cards. My friends Erica and Shelley live about a mile north of us in a new neighborhood. A bunch of their neighbors realized that they had an interest in making greeting cards. There are 15 women, including me... who was just just accepted as a new member. Everyone brings 15 of the same card and leaves with 15 different cards. Tonight, Shelley hosted this month's event. I only knew Shelly and Erica, but I LOVE meeting people, so it was fun chatting with everyone. There were many gals who are at the same point in their life - married with a few (or more) kids. Lots of kid talk which is always fun. The club started in January. In some of the previous months, there have been themes - birthday, thank you, etc. No theme tonight. I made paint swatch cards with a thank you greeting :) I guess in previous meetings, they have also demonstrated a technique or two. Tonight, there was no demo since Erica presented her "Premiere Designs" jewelry. Good stuff!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Manic Mommy Sunday

All day Mana was working on taxes to bring to his account tomorrow, so I was on kid duty all day. After Mason's nap, I took the kids on an "adventure" - as Zander likes to say. First we went to Petco. They both loved looking at all the pets. Mason shrieked several times - with excitement, not fear, so that was okay. Since they were so good, I decided to stop at Joann's to pick up a few sale items. We were only there about 10-15 minutes and were ready to head to the checkout (front of the store) when Zander said, "Mommy, I have to go potty." I thought 'okay, I can do this. I can help Zander pull his pants up and down if he needs it and hold Mason at the same time.' So, we headed to the bathroom area (back of the store, of course) and I was happy to see a "family bathroom". Perfect! So, the 3 of us headed in to the family bathroom. Zander was able to pull his pants down by himself, great. I lifted up the seat and Zander stepped up to the toilet, but he wasn't quite tall enough. He looked at me with a puzzled look and then said, "I can just hold it up" as he lifted his "stuff" almost onto the toilet rim. And I said, "No, no! That's so gross. Stop, don't do that!" During this whole bathroom experience, I kept thinking, 'If Mana was a fly on the wall, he would be cringing big time.' I thought about how I could get Zander up higher - and how to keep Mason off the dirty public bathroom floor. Being a family bathroom, it was a large room with a chair. So, I put Mason on the chair with a sippy cup of juice...and held Zander up. Of course, he couldn't/wouldn't go. So, we decided to head to the registers and head home.

As we were heading out the doors (paid already, thank goodness), Zander said, "I have to go potty real bad." After asking him several times if he was sure, we headed to the back of the store, again. This time the family bathroom was occupied so we went to the main women's restroom. Once again, Zander was too short for the toilet, so I had him stand on my feet this time - just enough to get him over the rim without touching. Meanwhile, I put my jacket on the floor for Mason to sit on and kept him occupied with a sippy cup. After a few minutes, Zander still could not go, so we left. He made it home just fine, thank goodness.

Oh, and did I mention that the bathrooms were about 85 degrees inside. Something was obviously wrong with their thermostat. It was like a suana. I came out sweating, as did the boys. This didn't help the whole situation.

As I'm writing this, I just thought of the fact that I could have used the chair (that Mason used) in the family bathroom, as a stepstool for Zander. It would have been very high, but it would have worked. Next time, next time.

I'm still all for having a fully potty-trained kid versus diapers, but there are a whole new set of challenges. Makes life interesting, I guess.

Friday, April 4, 2008

kid updates

Wanted to post a few updates on the kids...

Zander

* Zander is pretty much all potty trained. We still put him in a diaper at night. Otherwise, it's all undies! He's even doing #2 in the toilet, which I always hear is an issue for a lot of kids.
* No more naps! Actually it's been about 3-4 weeks since he's given those up. Actually, we forced the nap to be gone...for a couple reasons. When he was potty training, he would hold it until naptime & bedtime - when he would get a diaper. Much easier for him than using the toilet apparently. Also, he would not go to sleep when we put him down @ 8pm. He would run out into the living room many, many times after we tucked him in. Sure enough, when we eliminated the naps, he stayed in bed and went to sleep.


Mason

Mason is a walking and talking machine.
* He loves walking all over the place. Just in the last few days, he will get himself to standing without holding onto anything.
* Many more words are coming out of this little mouth of his...
- a-da (all done) - he says this when we're done with a book and when he's done eating
- boud (bird) - he loves looking out the window for birdies and announces "boud" every time he sees one.
- eh-fa (elephant) - one of his favorite books has a elephant and he says "eh-fa" when we read it.
- tuk (truck) - loves looking for trucks drive by
- ball
- boo (balloon)
- eye - as he pokes him own (or someone else's) eye out
- up - when he wants to be picked up
- dow (down)
- ah-sa (outside)


The boys broke out the sandbox toys and Mason had his first experience in the sandbox... and he loved it!

crazy cousins

I always have to laugh at how we torture these kids so we can get a "good" picture. The first one below is the 2nd picture we took - not too bad. The next one is the 9th picture we took. We should have stopped while we're ahead. These are from Easter - better late than never.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

who likes pickles?

Another cute little video...