The Cutes and Scoots Show!

Christmas Morning 2011

2012-01-27T19:11:00.000-05:00

Once Parker finally woke up Christmas morning, just about 8-8:15 or so as he usually does. (And yes, he does still go to sleep between 6:30-7ish) He likes his sleep! He was still a little dazed and confused... Can ya tell?

But then he noticed the train! He woke up then for sure! Doug did too when he realized there were presents for him. He loves opening wrapping paper as much as the boys do! Silly doggie.

And the present opening began.

Parker was slow to get started because he was still a little sleepy and confused, but Doug on the other hand had no problem in the world ripping open gift after gift and chowing down a bone or 2.

Merry Christmas to my boys!

We celebrate all aspects of Christmas and this year was that much more special because we had gotten Colby his very first Children's Bible. I loved it the minute I found it. The stories are so easy to understand and yet very thorough and the pictures were beautiful. Best of all, it came with a book on CD. So we've kept it in the car and listen to it quite often. They are both very good listeners when there is a book on CD in the player and will just ride and watch out the window. It passes Hours for us on many car rides with little to no toys! Love that. Colby doesn't even want to get out of the car when we arrive (if we've taken a short trip with the CD in) where we are going and we sometimes will sit in the car and listen until a new chapter starts. What a great way to kick off Christmas - this was the 1st thing he opened. A gift to him from Baby Jesus.

So we read the manger story chapter to start the morning.

And present #2, the Little People Nativity Set!

We were 2 presents in and the imagination was already captured. Christmas could have ended here and the boys would have been happy just playing all morning with the little people set.

But alas, I knew what other presents were coming up next. And I just had to let Parker open his guitar. He loves music so we thought this would be fun for him to "rock it out". Instead, I swiped it and got rockin!

Colby on the other hand opened a puzzle next and was perfectly content to sit and put it together. Might I add it was a 60 piece oval puzzle and he did the entire thing himself.

You probably noticed the pajamas change in the photos. Well, that's because as soon as the boys opened new pajamas they both had to change and put the new ones on! haha. Silly boys. They love their clothes presents as much as the toys!

Can you tell we love Little People sets? Parker got a Little People Pirate Ship from Santa but how fitting, he had picked out an Imaginext Pirate Ship for Colby as his present to him. (We always go shopping with the boys and let them each choose a toy to give the other as well as a book.) So now we have 2 pirate ships and they both have been going on quite the awesome adventures through the kitchen and around the living room.

Daddy even received a great gift! "Corn Hole" or "Tailgate Toss"... it's been a hit in our house since we moved to the South. Every restaurant has it outside to play while you wait or just play for fun after you order. We've only been able to play when we go out and we've been trying to pair that down sooooo I thought this would be perfect. Make our own home made pizzas instead and still get the family fun of Corn Hole!

Each Christmas the boys receive 1 "big" Christmas present. It always happens to be the one that Santa put at the back of the pile! That tricky Santa! This year, Colby had outgrown his 12 inch bike that he received last Christmas from Santa. Guess he knew that those little legs were peddling a mile a minute to get around the neighborhood. Well, this year he got upgraded to a 16 inch Cars bike! Awesome. So wouldn't ya know after we'd cleaned up the paper and gotten dressed, we took it out for a spin. A new Christmas morning tradition for sure! After all when it is 65 degrees + outside why not go for a family bike ride and enjoy the day together.

Parker recently became a Toy Story fanatic. When we went to see Disney on Ice that was the scene that captured his attention and he has since not stopped talking about Woody, Jessie, Bullseye and more. He loves them. He already had a Woody that he'd gotten at that ice show so how fitting that Santa would bring him a talking Jessie!! He was so excited! His new Jessie, and his Woody and Bullseye dolls are now inseparable... except at bed time because Jessie talks and well, she just never makes it into his crib at night time.

All in all it was a wonderful and very blessed Christmas morning. We didn't rush, we were home in our own HOME and we created wonderful memories. I love how the boys are becoming more and more aware of Christmas and all the wonderful things that go along with it. Hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas as well.

Southern Tree Chopping

2012-01-26T22:09:00.000-05:00

We chop down a live Christmas tree every year. Always have, even when Scott and I moved into our very first apartment together, a loft type place that had amazing ceilings. I think that's what sparked our need to have great tall trees. That very first tree together was like 14 feet tall because we lived in the 3rd floor apartment which was really the finished attic of an amazing Victorian house. It had no insulation and we kept the heat cranked up, but had awesomely tall ceilings and space enough for a huge Christmas tree.

So it has become our family tradition. We even got Nanny and Pal into it last year when we didn't have a home of our own to chop a tree for. We did this again this year when we were up for Thanksgiving so stay tuned for our Northern Tree Chopping pics and haha compare them to our 1st Southern Tree Chopping experience!

Well, I do have to say, there was 1 distinct difference between this tree chopping family fest than before - the temperature sure wasn't what it was usually up north!

The family farm we found online and decided to "give it a shot" turned out to be so adorable. It had trees - a must, but it had so much more than that. There were old school airplanes to ride in. And even teenage girls who lived there to help push! I would have hired that girl on the spot as a babysitter had she not lived the better part of 30 minutes away. She was so cute and awesome with the children looking to play... ya know one of those "good kids" that isn't worried about makeup or phones, but instead was out on a Saturday afternoon on her family farm, guiding people to the best Christmas tree and pushing tots around in a 1970s toy airplane. Why are there not more of these teenagers around? Or rather, why are they so hard to find?

It was one of those places where we could just turn the boys loose to run!!!!

And they did!

And they loved it!

And so did Doug!

This place even had these PVC poles to take along with you as you "tree hunted" so that you could measure them. Well, duhhhh, why haven't we thought of this before? Why always raise your arm up and do the tree measuring stretch in order to determine how tall your tree is... why not just take long a pole that has the heights marked along it? haha. Some things are just so simple and yet oh so amazingly revolutionary at the same time. Colby and PJ loved helping out and carrying the pole. It was, however, pretty comical when they tried to go different ways or when they were walking side by side and thus 13 feet wide instead of in front and behind. Made for a pretty amusing trek through the trees!

And then from across the farm I pointed out a tree... it stood alone. It looked like a great Southern tree. After all, up north we had always bought a Fir or some type of Spruce. Nope, those don't exist down here in the warmer climates, instead we had found ourselves a Leyland Cypress. A soft tree I might add and there it was from afar. Sure enough even as we got closer it still looked great, no bare spots, just the right height, and slim for the space we were going to put it.

Our 1st Southern Tree!

With all that "tree hunting" stuff over and done with, it was time for the real tree farm fun. There was a train ride... or rather a tractor retrofitted to look like a train and oh my gosh was that so much fun! I went on with the boys as Scott put Doug in the car and paid for our tree. We went around the ENTIRE farm, in and through the trees and deep in the "back woods", bumping along and holding on, laughing so hard. I thought the thing was going to fall apart before we made it back, but alas we did in fact return to where we were picked up and all with big smiles!

We collected our Cypress and tossed it into the truck along with our disgustingly dirty dog, who, I forgot to mention found a friend on the tree farm. Yup, a farm dog, a black lab introduced Doug, who of course couldn't help himself, to a pond! You guessed it. Doug went swimming in the most disgustingly stagnant pond. Let's just say that Doug had his very first experience as a "Southern Dawg", he rode in the back of Scott's pick up truck the whole way home!!! He was nasty and got a bath upon arrival home. But family fun it was!! Even Doug definitely had a great time.

I think we might have to continue our tree chopping tradition, even if the tree looks a little different, a little unique, a little Southern!! :)

Awaiting the Sleepy Bones

2012-01-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

Christmas morning was a typical morning in our house. Colby was up before Parker and thus we waited for our sleepy bones. Colby immediately checked to see how many cookies and how much milk were left on the plate we had left for Santa.

Then he realized that the train was going around and around under the tree and through the present tunnels.

There it goes!!

Chooo Choooo

The stockings were stuffed and spilling out on top.

And yet we still wait.... for our sleepybones, Parker! Colby had such patience and didn't seem to mind one bit as he was perusing every size, shape and style gift and bow as the train went around and around.

Fully Loaded Tree

2012-01-25T21:24:00.000-05:00

Christmas Eve is so fun and exciting as a parent... Love that the whimsy of the childhood excitement for Christmas morning is already peeking through as we set each gift out.

Putting the train around the tree and building bridges or tunnels with presents...

Around and around they go.

Underneath!!!

Chooo Choooo

Merry Christmas... Santa had arrived!

Christmas in Florida 2011

2012-01-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

This year we had the opportunity to spend a few days at the Mouse-ka-house before Christmas... don't you remember our wild crazy welcome from the rancid fridge? Well, thankfully after ordering a new fridge, having it delivered, dealing with our accident, the week got better! Nanny and Pal arrived the day before we were headed home for Christmas. So sure enough, Christmas in Florida it was!! After all, Nanny has to justify getting even MORE clothes for the boys - cause ya know we need to be able to leave a few at the Mouse-ka-house so we don't have to pack so much. And Pal loves to get toys so he HAS to add more parts and pieces to the GeoTrax set!

And yet even the simplest Tic-Tac-Toe toy thrills Colby the most! Isn't this the funniest smile you've ever seen? :) haha.

Parker loved his snacks from his stocking best - of course, typical PJ!

Nanny got a special hand made trivet from PJ. They had made these at school and we all know how much she cooks so it was perfect for her.

Pal, the Christmas fanatic got a new "Toy Store" piece for his village collection.

A velcro ball kit doesn't have to be used outside!

The boys had a wonderful morning opening a few gifts and we loved watching them. It's not all about the presents, it's about who is "present" for the excitement! Then it was off to the pool for a nice "Christmas" swim!

We switched to Direct TV

2012-01-24T19:53:00.000-05:00

We've had Comcast for years. We had it in CT and when we first moved we had it here too. That is until football season began and Comcast's version of "all football games" was more like football games that were somewhat regional but not really even that.

Safe to say that Scott was NOT HAPPY! Our New England Patriots would be shown on Sunday afternoons regardless of where we lived. Soooo when the frustrations rose and we ended up with a ridiculously priced cable bill that we STILL couldn't watch the games we wanted we decided to seek alternate options.

Direct TV it was.

They were extremely easy to work with, the install guy was so friendly and informative and within like 48 hours we had every channel under the sun for like $50 a month INCLUDING NFL Sunday Ticket!

So I thought it pretty comical when just tonight I saw a Direct TV commercial that made me laugh...Good thing we switched!! :)

&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;Goo

Evidence = Fly with your Car Seat

2012-01-24T14:32:00.000-05:00

I have posted several times over about my opinions both as a mother and now professionally as a Child Passenger Safety Technician about flying with a lap child. I just can't understand why people would do it. The couple bucks to purchase a ticket for your child and bring the car seat aboard is a no brainer when it comes to the decision between money and your child's safety. Why in the world would you take the chance?! JUST DON'T DO IT!!!

You already know that both Colby and Parker have been flying since they were weeks old and HAVE ALWAYS had their own seat, complete with child restraint on the plane. They know the drill, we get on board, buckle the seat up and then strap in for the duration of the flight. They are so much more content in their own known space. They look out the window, watch the luggage loader and the food truck and the other random happenings before we push back from the gate.

On a recent flight I had the unfortunate opportunity of sitting across the aisle from a woman who was traveling with 3 children under 6, none of which had a child restraint. So sure, some people might say, well what would you do in this case? Who would sit alone if you bought everyone their own seat? Well realistically I would have had the oldest child sit across the aisle and done 3 n 1 all in a row but really in this particular scenario, she wasn't traveling alone with the 3 kids. The people in the row in front of her were family and a husband and wife with a 4th child all traveling together. So if in fact this was OUR family all traveling in a group, 3 adults and 4 children, we probably would have "lined" up a lot differently than these people.

Make matters worse... let me back up, it was a very windy day. The day before Hurricane Irene was supposed to hit and thus turbulence was destined to occur at some point. So much so that even before they let us board this flight the CAPTAIN came out and spoke in the gate area. He got on the speaker and said to those who would be flying on this flight to go to the bathroom now and to get a drink if you want one because he has already determined with the 2nd Officer that the Flight Attendants would be remaining buckled in their seats for the entire duration of the flight. Not too many times the flight crew, or specifically the captain, warns you before the flight even takes off that this may and will probably be a bumpy ride and so he wasn't even letting those who are trained on how to walk on a moving plane to get out of their seats.

And yet this woman now has a lap child!!

Yeah, check out the shot that I snapped of how she was trying to wrangle up this probably 8-10 month old BEFORE we had even left the gate. This is what the kid was doing and we were still parked!!

Again before we taxi'd down the runway the flight attendants said how they wouldn't be getting up. So that lady looked over at me and saw both our boys strapped in and happy as a clam, not squirming, not worried and not already hollering because I was trying to contain them to my lap as she was and gave me a somewhat pleading, what was I thinking look. And I just looked back and made a - you had the choice - look and went back to my chattering seat partner, Parker. Would you want to handle this...

when turbulence was a known factor. But... "she didn't know there would be turbulence." BUT, WHY TAKE THE CHANCE????

Instead, we pay for the ticket, bring on the child restraints and continue to do sticker books with happy faces. Like this...

And when the turbulence did arrive as we flew, instead of freaking out, holding my child as tight as my arms would hold and realizing I made the wrong choice by flying with a lap child, I instead relaxed, enjoyed the ride and grabbed for my camera, laughing out loud as Parker threw his hands up in delight thinking we were on a roller coaster ride at an amusement park and not in a bumpy turbulent plane!! Weeeeeeeeeee.... So you wonder, what actually happens during turbulence?

Well, crash dynamics and the laws of physics show that weight x speed = restraint force.   Your little 15 pound tot when traveling at 30 MPH in a crash would suddenly become a 450 pound sack of potatoes.   Would YOU be able to hold that back? I wonder (yet would never want to find out) what they become when a plane stops suddenly and aborts take off at the end of a runway as they are traveling much higher speeds than that.   Any unrestrained object becomes a missile! Coffee pot, shoe, CHILD! Personally, I was more worried about that lap child flying out of her mothers arms and injuring us than I was about Parker tossing his hands up in delight!

Not evidence enough?

Recently, CNN reported that 3 flight attendants were injured severely as an American Airlines flight they were traveling on suddenly encountered turbulence. One of them was jolted to the ceiling and when she finally landed the food cart landed on her.   Anyone that was restrained was fine.

So what's that tell you?   Why... why oh why are we so worried about saving a few bucks. How about saving your sanity and your potentially a severe injury by just buying that baby a ticket and bringing the child restraint on board!

Trees, Trees, Everywhere There's Trees

2012-01-24T09:18:00.000-05:00

We LOVE Christmas.
We also LOVE Christmas trees!
We have 1 real tree we always cut down, 1 LARGE tree we bought last year on closeout for our sun room, and of course 1 small 4 foot tree in each bedroom! It makes the spirit of the season flow throughout the entire house.

It was a little strange cutting down our live tree this year because it was a completely different experience chopping in the warm weather AND there were way different varieties of trees than are available to cut up north. Usually in the north we'd end up with a Fir or Spruce, this year... this random crazy looking Leyland Cypress!

At least it looked better at night all decorated and lit up! :)

But of course the HUGE 12 ft. artificial tree in our sun room looks somewhat spectacular. Nevermind that the boys had knocked into the tree and the star was leaning for a few days before Christmas. ha.

And when you finally get the camera setting right... take the picture at night with no flash...

BEAUTIFUL TREE!
Love it!

Got Deer??

2012-01-23T20:37:00.002-05:00

We had deer in CT, but we definitely have deer here too!!! :)

Priceless Christmas Morning Pajama Picture!

2012-01-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

Every family has to have the traditional Christmas morning in the pajamas photo yearly! And yes it can not be a posed photo but instead an impromptu snippet of the beginning of the action.
Here is our Christmas morning pajama photo.

Complete with Parker and an exact display of all his skinniness! That boy eats us out of house and home and yet he is just so skinny! Like he has literally no neck!

Anyways, tangent from the photo... Welcome to our Christmas morning! :)

Brights

2012-01-20T15:20:00.001-05:00

Not sure if this message will make it out to all of the other night time drivers that I pass occasionally, but... I'll give it a whirl anyways.

People of the road at night... I am NOT driving with my high beams on!! I am driving with my regular headlights and so when you flash your high beams at me because you think that I have mine on it really doesn't do much good. My headlights are JUST that bright! They are great lights on a great truck and I am happy to light the road for others and myself at night. I'm sorry that you drive a teeny car and that you seem offended by the capacity with which my vehicle illuminates the road. BUT, don't really test me because I CAN show you what it looks like to drive into (or in front of) my BRIGHTS if you really want!!!

Those are just the regular lights... get over it and don't stare directly at me, watch the road!!

Cookie Baking 2011 Round 1

2012-01-19T22:09:00.003-05:00

We really enjoy making Christmas cookies, or cookies or just baking in general. Actually the boys (including Scott) that just generally like to cook. We can often be found in the kitchen and that's great - more family time, more learning time, more quality time!

So we make loads of Christmas cookies...

This is just a glimpse at our first round of baking, decorating and of course eating! :)

Very focused decorating I might add!

And a cookie is never a cookie unless it is in the tummy! :)

Right after my own heart! :)

2012-01-18T20:21:00.000-05:00

Colby came home with this in his back pack after Thanksgiving. If you can laugh at childhood honesty then you will surely enjoy this...

I'm thankful for roller coaster too little man!!

Hey... WE KNOW THAT GUY!!!

2012-01-18T11:01:00.000-05:00

Whether you typically watch reality TV or not TONIGHT, YOU MUST!!!

American Idol Season 11 begins this evening on Fox at 8pm and this is one of the first times I can have a claim to fame that I KNOW THAT GUY!!!

One of the contestants auditioning is in our church "band"! In addition to the amazing people, Godly messages and uplifting service, gotta be honest, he is kinda what makes me go back each week! He has a fantastic voice PLUS he is a Ryan Seacrest lookalike! Like... not just a smidge, but like total clone! They are even featuring that as part of his audition! So much fun!

So keep your eyes open and catch a glimpse of Shaun and if he should win, I can officially say I KNOW THAT GUY!!! :)

Or an amazing O Holy Night!!!

GOOD LUCK, SHAUN!!! GO GET EM!!

THIS..... IS AMERICAN IDOL!!! :)

Don't forget to watch!

Rudolph Noses

2012-01-17T20:18:00.000-05:00

I tried a new simple recipe this Christmas as part of my cookie making. It's not exactly a cookie, but it was quite tasty. Rudolph noses!

Lay out a bunch of pretzels on a cookie sheet...
Put a Hershey Kiss in the lower section of each...
Pop the tray into the oven for about 2-3 minutes, just enough to soften the kiss...
Press a red M & M into the middle of the Hershey Kiss! (The boys loved doing this part!)

I put mine into the fridge to chill so that the chocolate would harden enough to put them into a container!

They look a little silly, but are definitely very yummy!!!

Might work better with full size pretzels but I didn't have any handy so used what I had so that I wasn't out spending money, this was an experiment after all.

Mmmm, mmm, mmm. Might have to make these again on Valentines Day and change the name to Cupid Noses :) Any excuse to have pretzel and chocolate I suppose.

Yum, Yum!

ALL.... THE... WAY... ACROSS...

2012-01-16T20:09:00.000-05:00

As you can see...

Colby can now make it ALL. THE. WAY. ACROSS. the monkey bars! Strong little man!

All tucked in

2012-01-15T20:15:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the terrible quality photo, but it was just too classic Colby not to share. Colby has his "friends" that he sleeps with - 2 stuffed friends each night. Could be the same 2 each night, could change each night, could swap out every night, either way there is always 2. On this particular night it was Piggie (you can see the pink pig towards the back his bed) and Doggie.

Looks like he was feeling especially "close" to Doggie on this particular night. Do you see?? Yep, he zipped him in his feetie jammies with him. Guess this was a big brother who also practices "babywearing" or "stuffed friend wearing".

Side note... yes, he is wearing Sponge Bob pajamas. NOOOOO, I do NOT like Sponge Bob. NO I would NEVER have bought anything ever that has Sponge Bob on it. I AM NOT A FAN. They were a gift and he likes the bright yellow, he doesn't even know who Sponge Bob is. So because he just likes feetie pajamas and only had (at the time) 1 or 2 sets that fit him I didn't have the heart to just put them away.

Side note #2... Yes, he is 4.5 and still sleeps in his toddler bed. And fits. And won't be moving to a different bed anytime soon as he failed that test miserably when we were hotel hopping on our Thanksgiving trip north. More on that another day... tonight I still laugh at the photo of Doggie zipped in to Colby's pajamas! (Even IF they are Sponge Bob!)

Colby's Christmas Party

2012-01-14T21:25:00.000-05:00

Colby attends the public preschool program in our town and thus unlike Parker didn't have a Christmas Pageant, but instead a "Holiday Party". Still they did sing about Santa and did a Christmas type song then also did a Hanukkah song as well so technically it wasn't "all" Christmas, but was a Christmas party none-the-less. They opened the fun morning with a bunch of songs...

Yes, we live in a southern lily white town where the cookie cutter blonde hair blue eye child makes up nearly all of his class. Somehow we always seem to find these kind of towns... it was very similar in our small town life back in CT. Ha.

Up next... Gingerbread house making! (Or really they were Graham Cracker houses, but who's getting technical!)

They had so much fun with their icing snow and decorating their own houses with loads of tasty treats. No eating though!

Colby was so proud of his creation!

Our little engineer had made sure that each and every ounce of space was covered and that the walls were structurally sound made out of appropriate "wall" looking cookies.

The roof of course had shingles that ran vertically!

And the front had windows and a candy door with Candy Cane bushes welcoming people home! :)

His little friend "N"'s parents couldn't make it so I took her picture so that I could send it to them. Now to find their email address.... note to self, ask the teacher for N's email address. She is totally adorable and so well spoken for 4 years old. She rides the bus with Colby home in the afternoon and greets me with a smile every day!

They did their rotation groups for centers with other holiday activities... pin the nose on Rudolph, trail mix making, cookie decorating and more! Yes, that's Colby's teacher Mrs. B. She's so funny and very fun-loving! Just check out the outfit for the Christmas party... not too many people can pull off a red tutu with green shirt and scarf with a present headband hat - ONLY a preschool teacher!

Oooopsy... he pinned it on Rudolph's eye! :)

Last but not least lets decorate those yummy cookies and EAT!!!

All in all a very silly and festive time! He loves school and that's what matters, but throw in a few class parties and it just makes the experience that much more exciting, playful and fun!

Parker's Christmas Pageant

2012-01-14T10:10:00.000-05:00

All lined up and ready for their grand entrance!!!

TO....

The Christmas Pageant!

The 2s and 3s classes were the "choir" for the pageant and each of the children in the 4s class had a part in the manger scene! Totally adorable. The sheep even "baa'd" on the way down the aisle to take their place!

They had learned the 1st verse to a bunch of Christmas songs and I was totally impressed that Parker was singing his heart out the actual words to each of them at home while we were practicing for the big day! They sang Jingle Bells on the way to the front of the church and then Away in the Manger, Joy to the World and We Wish You a Merry Christmas during the pageant.

Totally adorable!

I can't wait to see what part he gets when he's in the 4s class! ;)

Puppy Love

2012-01-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

Two very patient boys on Christmas morning, just bonding over the infamous "wait"!

A Cinnamon Roll Tree

2012-01-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

What did you have for breakfast Christmas morning?
We had a Cinnamon Roll Christmas Tree - I know, I know, it's a stretch, but it was mighty tasty!!!

All Aboard

2012-01-13T07:49:00.000-05:00

Without further ado, here are the Guest Conductors on the Walt Disney World Rail Road with a unexpiring ticket to ride!!! :)

Yup, we took our place on the train on one of our trips to Disney and sure enough the boys were picked to be the guest conductors of the day! They got to invite everyone to come ALL ABOARD! over the microphone! Totally adorable.

 Yeep

The Uploading Has Begun!!!

2012-01-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

Oh just you wait!!

All the photos are moved and loaded and my technical finagling worked successfully!!!
OH YES... THE BLOGGING WILL RESUME. Why did this brain take so long?

Christmas up first and then working backwards until I get ALL. THE. WAY. BACK. TO. AUGUST!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK... did I really let that happen?!?!
Are you ready for some picture updates?
Are you ready for some reading?!

Better set aside some time my friends, this blogger is baaaaaaaacckk!!!

Colby the Star

2012-01-12T20:24:00.000-05:00

Ever have a star this cute on top of YOUR tree?!

First Attempt at Spelling a BIG Word

2012-01-12T19:45:00.002-05:00

Every day I continued to be amazed by what our boys can do and how smart they really are. Parker can now count on his own to 20!!!! (I remember how it feels like just yesterday Colby was only counting to 16 or 17 because that's how many steps we had in the house... remember that!) PJ always misses #7 for some reason, but we won't fault him for that, he's only 2.5 after all. He's totally adorable when he does it too because he'll spontaneously break out into numbers. 1, 2, 3, comes the voice from beyond just jabbering to himself. He LOVES to count as much as his brother and they often can be found together counting down from 10-1 and then yelling BLASTOFF!!! Minutes later I'll have 2 space ships running through the kitchen under me as I stir something on the stove. Very fun - Boys!

Ignore the fact that we were getting dressed when he broke out into spontaneous count and is thus in his undies with no pants! ha.

Colby is becoming quite the math wiz and numbers man counting to 100 singly as well as by 10s. But his spelling and phonetics are what really have caught his attention recently. I'm sure that speech therapy has propelled him forward in the sounding out of letters and words, but he is in the beginning stages of sounding out and spelling. He was writing and "working" in the office the other day while I had to get some last minute paperwork done and Parker was still napping. I found this in the stack of papers he had been writing on. I asked him to tell me what it was he was writing and we chatted about what he was thinking about. Sure enough he had tried to write... "Colby has skating tomorrow." only the Colby and a simplified version of the word tomorrow made it onto the paper, but for 4.5 I'd say he did pretty darn good at his first attempts at spelling such a big word.

They are growing up every day. Getting smarter every day. Pretty soon, I'll be having to remember Geometry and Calc!! Oye! :)

Two Cool Dudes in Shades

2012-01-05T21:19:00.000-05:00

Confident For Sure

2012-01-05T20:54:00.000-05:00

I was stopped at a light waaaaaay back when and had to snap this photo. I see this truck all over town and at first thought it might have been a woman truck driver. When I passed it once and realized it was in fact a man driving I vowed to get the picture the next time I saw it. Sure enough within the week I realized I was following it again. So yep, I took a picture of a very confident male truck driver driving around his pink tractor trailor truck!
Awesome!

On the Ice

2012-01-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

YEAH!!! So this is the first of my resolved camera and picture lacking posts! I WILL get back on track, I WILL!

Anyways, I digress - Again!

Colby is a sports guy. He LOVES to play - ANYTHING! He loves to climb, he loves to ski, he loves soccer, he loves to swim, he loves to bike, he is just a born athlete. Which, thankfully, probably resulted from 2 athletic parents and a good set of "can not sit still genes" he inherited from both sides! So when he got a pair of roller blades for his birthday from my sister, Kara, it seemed somewhat logical that the next step would be to get him out on ice skates. Sure, he's been on skates before at Smuggs and at our local rink once or twice with Scott back in CT, but never real group ice skating lessons. So we asked him if he was interested and what would you guess the answer might be from our over achiever, go getter, can't say no just like his mother, son of ours... yep, he was all in and pysched to go!

So we signed him up for the 8 week Learn to Skate program at our new local rink and every Saturday morning found ourselves as "rink rents."

He LOVED it! And wants to play hockey just like daddy. (Oh, I'll get to that post too. It's on the list.)

First day out!

(Note the dorky kid in the front of the photo who's parents are a little ambitious for a Learn to Skate 1 class, loading him up with head to toe (ummm might I include that the was wearing full on pads) hockey gear! Are you kidding? Talk about setting the kid up for failure. Or Scott's personal favorite, all the little girls freezing their butts off in their little ice skater skin tight outfits their overzealous mommy's bought for $50 at the pro ice shop out front.)

Yep, he wasn't the best kid in the class. Perhaps all that gear weighed him down.

Colby is just a steady eddy, he fell and got back up, but for the most part just kept chugging along.

They did make it across the ice and back a few times. The instructors were great with the kids, cones and bean backs and stuffed animals for props. When they are 4 and 5 years old those little simplicities go a long way!

Come on back... Stomp stomp stomp. Just learning how to walk in those blades.

And now a glide!!

They did great practicing bending down to pick something up and gliding across the ice.

And Mr. Competitive (ok so maybe he got a little of that from both parents too! Wink wink) was all about getting the stuffed animals and putting them in the big bucket, I think he was checking over his shoulder to see if anyone else was on his tail to collect more. haha.

Well, after 8 weeks the kiddoes in the group had definitely gotten better. Stomp stomp glide was a norm and constant falling was almost over. Thankfully the girls who cried the first 3 weeks had all finally stepped foot onto the ice and make it there and back again by the end of the session. The geared out hockey kid still had all his gear and his parents still came with full out hockey back and jerseys on themselves each week. Colby was sad it was over and is super excited that this coming Saturday "Hockey" starts up again. Yep, he's doing the next level Learn to Skate program in January and February and then March 1st soccer starts. We're loving that he wants to get involved and do it all, but trying to not let him get swapped at such a young age. Figured 1 thing a season is a good balance with summer we can do more since there's no school. I don't want to curb his excitement as he thrives on all the activity and hates to be bored, but also have to balance life, schedules and normalcy of playing in the back yard! We'll figure it out... we've got plenty of activities to come!

Lightbulb Lack of Blogging Moment

2012-01-04T21:21:00.000-05:00

I had a major light bulb moment Monday... why do those things always happen so randomly and why do they always take so long to happen?

Like hellloooooooooooo I was trying to figure out why in the world I haven't been blogging as much lately and why despite being busy I couldn't seem to find like 10-15 minutes a day to post "something", anything. I feel like such a drab blogger... sorry!

Enter LIGHT BULB .... DING!!!! Turn it on!! Like not a dimmer switch on, but rreeeeeeeeeallly ON!!!

Hellooo... brain. Welcome. Perhaps 2012 will begin with this big bang theory in my head.

So I realized a multitude things in my light bulb moment.

The blogging has been lacking not just because of the lack of time, but...
1. I haven't been taking as many pictures these days. (Why? Well that's for another post but it stems from this post a few months ago when I got a new camera. Can you guess what I am going to say. If you are thinking I don't use it as much because it is bigger and not pocket worthy, you answered correct. More on that later. I have a resolution - FINALLY!)

2. When I do actually take pictures on said camera I can't get them onto our home desktop computer because the digital card I bought was 4Gig and is too big for the computer to load the photos. So I can get them off and upload them to Blogger from my work laptop but I won't save pictures there so ultimately NONE of my photos from August on have made it into Picasa where I store all our digital pics on our home computer and THIS has made life VERY difficult. I couldn't just clicking a button or 2 to upload directly from Picasa to Blogger in order to initiate random snippets of info about our life, most posts of which when written entail photos of our adventures.

Synopsis of major run on sentence and thought above: Camera card was too damn big and no pictures were making it from the camera to the computer!

Because I knew I couldn't get the pictures from my camera to the computer I started taking more pictures on my phone. ... Insert ... light bulb moment # 3.

3. When I take pictures on my phone I upload many of them to Facebook and often forget that I haven't blogged about those random happenings.

4. Until I just got an iPhone it was EXTREMELY difficult and a ridiculously long process to get pictures from my phone to the computer... thus those pictures weren't making it into Picasa and Re-read #2 for explanation on what happens when a photo is not in Picasa... It doesn't get blogged about.

5. WHEN I DON'T HAVE PICTURES EASILY ACCESSIBLE TO UPLOAD, I DO NOT BLOG!!!

Dohh!

Sooooo.... Light bulb moment has been resolved (more on that when I write about the camera issues) and hopefully blogging will resume as normal. And FINGERS CROSSED, within a few days I'll have ALL my photos taken from said camera and too large card off the card and onto the home computer using a little technical finagling and latest pictures from my new phone onto the computer as well. Then, ULTIMATELY, back blogging of missed months of the Cutes and Scoots Show will be posted retroactively and all will be well in the bloggy world again.

Ughh... why did it take me MONTHS to figure this out?!

Christmas Chaos

2011-12-29T20:46:00.000-05:00

I love the "Tis the Season" part about Christmas.
I love the decorating and organizing and tidying that comes with all the newness of December.
I love that family atmosphere all the lights and trees and garland add to a bedtime story nightly.

But there's always a bit of Christmas Chaos. We were in it deep last week and perhaps the week before as school was wrapping up for 2011, Christmas pageants and parties abound. But I love this week off between Christmas and New Years. Scott and I get to spend it together, every minute, with us and the boys, doing whatever it is that we want to do. Keeping a schedule if we choose, ditching it all together if we want to, staying in our pjs ALL! DAY! LONG! and just remembering the reason for the season. Us! All of us! Together! Safe! Happy! Blessed and Healthy!

We still have presents wrapped and unopened under the tree because well, there were just too many on Christmas and the day after (Santa was good to us, but Nanny and Pal were even better)... why not continue the fun a whole nother week? The boys are perfectly content with what's been opened and playing happily with new and old toys, why not just let those be for a while? So that's just what we're doing. They don't seem to mind that there are more gifts still to be unwrapped under the tree. I think they just like that the tree is still up! They LOVE Christmas too... Guess that's inherited from Scott and I for sure :)

Anyways, pictures from our Christmas morning and the Christmas pageants and the parties to come. But first... I'm spending these moments with my family because that's just what this time is all about!

Ready for 2012

2011-12-21T22:24:00.000-05:00

Let's just say we haven't exactly had the most relaxing week around, hence my suddenly posting again and then suddenly not! Ha. There's always an excuse in motherhood. Our week has been filled with too much excitement and not the kind that I'd like to spread or "share the wealth" if ya know what I mean.

Ever feel like the black cloud is just following you around?
Yeah, well, it's been raining on us for about 10 days now and Sunday it started to POUR!!!

Dare I go back to 2 weeks ago when we went to cut down our Christmas tree and Doug found a pond to swim in... which proceeded to irritate his skin so he itched it to a bloody mess and ended us up at the vet to the tune of a $400 vet bill for skin infection, eye infection, treatment, meds, creams, powders, antibiotics and weeks worth of fun mending the pooch.

Or the next week when Colby went south fast with an asthma attack and nearly ended up in the ER because we just couldn't get it to break.   After 2 days of every 2-3 hours of a nebulizer treatment we called it and he went on a 5 day dose of Orapred, an oral prednisone pill. Dare I mention that this is his 3rd round of prednisone in the last 9 months! Our little asthma buddy is done with his meds but still has quite the juicy cough even after 10 days on an antibiotic so that it hopefully wouldn't end up as RSV in his lungs.

Or how about trying to jump start our Christmas vacation and heading south this past Sunday to the Mouse-ka-house even though Scott and I were still actually working Monday and Tuesday some.   But started off Sunday with Scott losing his sunglasses at church, yeah, of all places. I'm sure they will turn up, but that started this weeks ball of bad luck!

What's up next.
Oh perhaps coming to the Mouse-ka-house and not even getting to the front door before getting whallopped with a major odor being emitted from the house. Turns out the fridge had died sometime over the last 5 weeks since our spontaneous trip here in November and EVERYTHING in it was rancid, moldy, buggy and ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING. Having arrival at 10:30pm we popped the kids into bed hoping the smell wouldn't kill them as we covered out faces with towels and anything else we could find to block the disgusting odor and did out bed to ward off the gag reflex.   Working for nearly 2 hours ridding the fridge shelf by shelf of food into trash bags and then running outside to gasp for fresh air before trying to not vomit.   You name it, it was in there, it was straight out of an episode from Fear Factor and we would have totally taken the pass and gotten sent home if it were in fact the reality show. But no, this was REAL and took about 2 FULL DAYS to air out the entire house. Good thing 1, it's Florida and it's been ok to have the doors and windows open day in and day out and 2. it was December and not August or this would have required a true team of people with 3M respirator Hazmat masks.   Sooooooo nasty.

Scott proceeded at 1am to go to the 24 hour Walmart down the road and got every type and bottle of aerosol spray Febreeze or deodorizer known to man, trash bags and duct tape. If he's gotten rope and a cooler, for sure the police would have been on our doorstep looking for the next Scott Peterson because it definitely looked like he was trying to cover something up.   haha.   But no, instead, we rid the fridge of the bad old nastyness and ammonia cleaned every inch of it and then duct taped the dead fridge shut as to hope that would help keep the odor at bay.

So gross.

Monday we proceeded to go to Lowe's to buy a new fridge. After that morning adventure and some lunch we took off for a hopefully low-keyed afternoon at Epcot. NOOOOOOOOOOO, we can't go anywhere without drama for some reason. Enjoying our day at Epcot, Figment, yeah, Nemo ride what fun, get to the Norway water ride Maelstrom and wouldn't ya know 4 largely overweight people load into our boat in the last row and for some reason the ride worker decided that was ok and sends us sailing off into the water ride. Wouldn't ya know... that backfired at the bottom of the big waterfall drop as WE GOT STUCK! Yes, OUR BOAT is the one that shut down the ride and it took about 45min- 1hr for them to come "rescue" us from our boat. And the exact comment from the ride engineers that came to investigate the situation was "OHhhhh, well THAT would be the reason why!" meaning that those 4 people shouldn't have been in the back and TOGETHER in 1 row!!! He them continued to tell us that..."this is a 1st, NO ONE has ever gotten stuck at the bottom of the waterfall." Despite how long it took them to come get us off the ride as I think they left our boat to the end because we were the cause of the situation, it was quite comical actually. That ended our day on a pretty low note since we were planning to ride the "big ball" on the way out and by then the line was FOREVER.

We spent Tuesday waiting for the new fridge to be delivered, not so bad, calm morning, boys playing trains, me doing laundry. We then tried to surprise my in laws with decorating for Christmas with a few strands of lights on the bushes and not a single store around has lights left. We've probably spent 3 hrs driving around looking for lights - Walmart, no, Target, no, Lowes, No, CVS, no... All I want is 3 strands of lights. Suffice to say we still have no lights on the bushes and I think they will remain that way until next year! Sorry Nanny and Pal, we tried, just hasn't been our week.

Now on to Wednesday, today that is.

We have a functioning fridge. We cooked breakfast at home today - YEAH! It's our day to start vacation. Both Scott and I are off until January 3rd and all that was wrong is fixed - - - - or so we thought!

WRONG!!!

"Hey Colby, where should we go this morning?"
SEA WORLD!

Great, set out this morning to Sea World. Good Ness Will The Black Cloud Go Away!!!

Get about 7 minutes down the road and get in a car accident. Don't freak out. Everyone is fine. Just a little stop light fender bender, but still, clearly our luck has NOT changed this week. Aren't things supposed to come in 3s, I think we are on to multiples of 3 at this point. So add that to the list. 30 minutes of exchanging info and off we go. Dare I add the side note that it made me oh so sad that the little girl in the back seat of the car we hit was 3 years old and already in a booster. WHY?! WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT???? I promptly handed the mother and grandmother my card, but the cops showed up then and I couldn't get into it deeper about how really she's riding illegally and helloooo if this accident had been more than 4 mph would have been much worse for her.

Wouldn't ya know things just can't go our way sometimes and that was just the case for poor little man Colby.   He got measured outside the Polar Express ride and was tall enough per the stick there, but wouldn't ya know after standing in the 45 minute line to ride the train ride, the measuring stick inside determined that he has spontaneously shrunk! And so not measuring up to the "official" measuring stick, they wouldn't let him ride. Are you kidding? He just waited all that time? Not worth fussing and upsetting him so onward we went.   Made it up by riding some silly small Shamu roller coaster and on we went to find the Elmo Christmas Show. The 1 and only thing Parker had wanted to do all day long. 3pm show... nope, luck hasn't changed since 9 am or 12:30 or since Sunday for that matter... we get there at 2:35 and there's a sign up saying the show is already full.   OK, it's time to go home.   So both boys got 1 doozie for the day.

So we came home and went to the pool since we'd already blown nap time by then.

All should be good from here on out. OK, NO! Let's just top all that off by finding a flea on Doug and call it a night.   Yeah, we've gone 7 YEARS with this dog and never had so much as a leaf on him and sure enough now we've got fleas despite taking the monthly flea/tick meds... we've officially quarantined him to the lanai until I can get him to a vet tomorrow.

What next? We're batting 100% at this point, not sure it could get much worse.

Shall we even get out of bed tomorrow? I think we might just stay in a padded room until we go home Friday for Christmas.

Perhaps it's an omen. Oh, I forgot to mention... Baby Jesus is missing from our Little People Nativity set. Who knows where Parker might have hid him and maybe we just need to find him and put him back into the stable and all will be well again.   God isn't happy with us for misplacing his Son just days before his birth. I think Parker played it the other way. He knows it's not Christmas Eve yet and thus he's put baby Jesus away until then and will return him to the appropriate place amongst Mary, Joseph and the animals on the appropriate night.

Who knows... Either way somethings gotta change here, friends!

Not sure how much more of this I can take. When it rains .... IT POURS!!!   I told you I could write a book some day. For now, I blog, because there's no way I could remember all these book worthy adventures when it comes time to sit down and write. Some think I might make this stuff up. Nope, there's no way I could make all this up, that's for sure!!!

2012 ---- Bring it on!!

How's your luck these days?
Ours, well, I'll just let you decide about that.

Never mind the Monkey

2011-12-11T21:45:00.000-05:00

Random car pictures from our road trip before Thanksgiving!

Thought you might like to get a gimpse into what 2.5 and 4.5 year olds do when strapped safely into their car seats for the better part of 2 days! Well, we aren't car DVD people, never have been, don't plan to be. We don't really believe in that as a method for keeping children occupied. Now that's not to say we don't let the boys watch a movie on the iPad once throughout the trip, but it definitely is not tops on the list of things to do along the ride.

We play road games, listen to books on tape, read books, we are huge Magna doodle fans so that always comes out at some point, both boys have a learning game thing (like the one in the photo)...

Taking random pictures during the trip also keeps things light and fresh... Colby wanted to know why I kept doing the flash on the camera. haha. But check out how awesome his blue eyes look in the picture. Never mind the monkey hanging randomly from the ceiling! :) That keeps the imagination too. After all, monkeys do like to swing from their tails as he is demonstrating so nicely here.

Bored with games, books and other activities that mom has brought along. Why not make up games with your socks. Wouldn't ya know, your big brother did that very same thing at some point on a road trip to Williamsburg several years ago! :) When in doubt on a road trip with 2 year olds... break out the socks! :)

Well, there's always pretending you are in a cave to keep things fun.

And when you build a cave and there's white noise from the road and a lullabye CD playing through the speakers, the likelihood of having a sleeping child under those cave blankets = 100%!

Oh and don't forget about the snacks! Those are always a hot ticket item along the way. And well, because the hands are occupied with food there's never any photos of snacking :)

More random pictures from our return trip to follow! Gotta get those off my phone.

Sleepy Boy

2011-12-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

I just can't resist totally adorable photos of all snuggled up cozy sleeping little boys!!

Yep, car snoozers are the best! :)

Spontaneous at last

2011-12-09T20:14:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have seen my FB post a few weeks back about our totally spontaneous trip to the Mouse-ka-house in early November.   Scott had been traveling a whole whole lot, I had just gotten back from my trip away. We all just needed to do something totally out of the ordinary and rejuvenate our family time again.

What better place... there was only 1 choice in our minds!

And well when Scott and I got up and sent Colby off to school Friday morning we looked at each other and just knew.   We were Disney bound for the weekend.   Now that we're driving distance away it is soooooo an option to just pick up and go, LOVE THAT!! We quickly set to work throwing a few things in a bag and pulling our lives together so that we could be away for the weekend. And at 10:15 am (this is exactly where working from home comes in handy!) we set off with Doug in tow and 1 duffle bag to pick Colby up from school and surprise him that we were headed to the Mouse-ka-house!!!

Because, well, why not?

When you can drive there.
When you have a house to go to and stay for free (Thank you Nanny and Pal we love visiting the Mouse-ka-house).
When our park tickets are our Christmas gift from the N P Santa (nope, not North Pole, but Nanny and Pal)
And because that is where we love to go, our children love to go and for just a few extra hours in the car we can be in a magical world leaving all the crazy work world behind for 3 days.

So we picked Colby up from school, surprised him that we were headed to Mouseville and he was laughing that Doug was already in the car and off we went.   Lunch on the road and we were there in a few short/long hours depending on what you consider long or short.

We dropped Doug off at the Mouse-ka-house, settled a few things in and set off for dinner at T Rex in Downtown Disney.   And what better way to kick off a family fun weekend then top off our dinner with a quick stop over to Epcot for Illuminations!! Just because we can.

Back to the house for a good nights rest and our little roller coaster fanatic had a special request for Hollywood Studios the next day.   Tower of Terror here we come and I guess because it wasn't quite the holidays yet the park wasn't all that busy and much to Colby's delight we walked onto T of T and continued to ride it over and over again 6 TIMES... YES, 6 TIMES we rode Tower of Terror that day!! Such fun!

We also watched dancing brooms, met with a soldier, Pooh Bear AND Handy Manny!!!

We did go home for naps and a little R&R but of course being one of our favorite parks n all, we just had to go back! So... we had dinner in a car watching old school Sci-Fi movies and just being silly with milkshakes and mac n cheese!

Before we could leave Hollywood Studios that night Colby just had to right Tower of Terror 1 more time. So what does a little brother do when he can't quite ride the roller coasters yet? He tries on silly bellman hats of course. And pretends to bring lollipop flowers to his mommy! ;) We were going to see Fantasmic as that is Scott's favorite nighttime show, but it started drizzling and none of us were really in the mood to sit around in the rain, so we left. All in all a very good day! Well, and because of course I'm still the reigning family champ at the new Toy Story Mania ride!!! GOOOOOOOOO MOMMY!!! High Score every time! I dare not reveal my secrets. :)

And Sunday we were off to Magic Kingdom. Of course you have to hit up MK when you go to Disney with little guys, it's the classic Disney! And because we are silly and creatures of habit, we always go to the People Mover first.

I was trying to get our every trip photo on the People Mover and no one was cooperating to get their photo taken, but everyone wanted to take pictures with the real camera. Strange, but I attempted to use it to our benefit to get our traditional picture. So Parker was up first... he got to snap a photo all by himself of Colby. Not bad!

And Colby was next, he got to take a picture of Parker! Up close and personal even. :)

And what a gentle soul, Colby even turned and told us to get together and he'd take our picture. So despite being on a moving vehicle, somehow he actually took a not so bad photo of Scott and I!

We did our usual mozy about Magic Kingdom, stopping to see what we felt like seeing at the time, always getting a FP for Buzz Lightyear, riding the Jungle Cruise and of course Pirates of the Caribbean. Then there's Colby's favorites, Big Thunder Railroad and Splash Mountain. I wasn't in the mood to get soaked so Scott daddy'd up and took on the plunge and I took the ride on 'the wildest ride in the wilderness!!'

Parker got swapped from mommy to daddy during this expedition and was perfectly content to chow down some gummies on a stick. Because who wouldn't want to eat Nemo, Dory, Woody and some other friends who are on a tasty stick treat and that turn your teeth blue!

And when you are totally candied out with blue teeth, head on over to the underground tree house and play ground to wait for big bro and daddy to come off the wet ride!

Another Magic Kingdom tradition is a lap around on the WDW Railroad. Well, this trip wasn't just an ordinary ride... we had guest conductors on board. Who were they you ask?? Well, watch and see!!!

Totally coincidence that we sat in the very back of the train for a change and how fun!! ALL ABOARD!!

Sure enough we had lunch that day and realized that after 2.5 or even less short and very fun spontaneous days it was time to make our way home. So we left MK, went home to the Mouse-ka-house, packed up the car and Doug and closed down the house - until next time and made our way home.

We didn't get very far ....

Don' t think we'd gotten much farther than the end of the street ... Silence is golden...And I guess just proves that you can in fact have a very fun and somewhat exhausting time all wrapped up into 1 spontaneous weekend adventure. We love adventures!! Especially the family fun kind.

Both boys and I think Doug too were tuckered out and ready to go home, complete with sleepy bubbles from Colby. That's when I know he's sleeping hard! :) (And yes fellow car seat Nazis, I know his chest clip in the photo is too low by just a smidge, I moved it up following the photo when I noticed it.)

And with that we were headed home.

Gotta love family fun spontaneity!!!!

Buzz n Woody

2011-12-08T19:59:00.001-05:00

How sad that I am only now just writing about Halloween.   Ooopsy!

Better late than never I suppose.

We had a Toy Story theme in our house this year for Halloween - Colby was Buzz and Parker was Woody. They were very fitting costumes as both boys have those specific favorites and thus there wasn't much squabbling about who was going to be what. They both kinda mutually wanted to be Toy Story characters and it wasn't until we really started thinking about it that we realized how funny that we had our first "themed" characters for Halloween costumes.   Fun!

Buzz with his makeshift helmet!

PJ already diving into the chocolate!

Woody's hat flying off!

And the 1st house!!

Checking out their loot!

Off we go...

Trick or Treat


And the end of the night jag on sweets!

We sure did go a whole lot further this year than we have in the past given that there was more than like 8 houses to hit. That's where the wagon came into play! Good call, mommy :) Always thinkin!

The candy hung around for a while and eventually everything that was to be eaten was gone and I think I gave away the rest, who knows... BUT, we will be visiting our down the street neighbor for sure again next year as they gave out FULL SIZE SNICKERS!!! Scott and I quickly claimed those as taxes and gobbled those up :)

Flying High

2011-12-06T21:07:00.001-05:00

Ever wonder what it looks like to fly over a hurricane? Well, we found out!

The longer version of this will come with a post about our wild adventures and trip to Smugg's back in August. But, a somewhat abbreviated version is that we were due to leave for our vacation the day before Hurricane Irene was going to hit. Do we change our flights, do we keep them, do we cancel, will we be cancelled?

Thankfully despite all the projected paths headed STRAIGHT FOR US (eeeeek was the tone for about a week) the storm shifted northwards. The Tropical Storm warnings were lifted at our local airport the morning of our flight and we ended up taking off on time on our scheduled flight. BUT, because the storms had shifted north, would our connection through BWI be cancelled and we be stranded there or would we actually get out. Wouldn't ya know, the hurricane warnings were in full force by then in that area as the storm was pounding through North Carolina by then. We knew that if our connecting plane was AT the airport by the time we got there that we'd be in the clear and would be leaving. They were cleaning house basically. Any flights that were already arrived and were currently on the ground WOULD be leaving, anything that hadn't arrived wouldn't be coming. By the time the storm hit in that area they wanted no airplanes on the ground or at a gate at BWI. PHEW. Luck was on our side that day because our connecting flight to Manchester was in fact already at the gate and waiting for basically the last of us stragglers to get there. Wouldn't you know OUR connecting flight was the 2nd to last plane at BWI when we took off. Talk about cutting it close. There were no more flights coming in for at least a few days and no more flights going out until further notice.

So OK forget what I said about writing the longer version in another post. That was basically the longer version. :)

Anyways, back to the photo!
On our 1st leg of the flight we basically passed directly over Hurricane Irene as it was swirling it's way to the NC coast. Scott was able to snap this awesome picture of the eye of the hurricane almost right below us. You can see if you look carefully about 1/2 way down the wing the dark spot in the clouds, that's the eye of the hurricane. Further out towards the end of the wing you see more light and dark swirls of clouds... those are the outer rings of the hurricane "structure".

Wild right?!

Human Compass in the Making

2011-12-06T20:13:00.001-05:00

Somehow I seem to have a knack for finding my way from point A to B without much direction. Scott's got this trait for sure when we are boating, but I've got it on the roads. Before GPSs and even now when I have one, I somehow can manage to find my way around pretty well not knowing or having a clue as to where I am headed.   We joke that I'm a human compass! And whether sometimes I may be a bit ditsy when it comes to remembering where my keys, wallet or sunglasses are located, I surely can find my way in a car!

Well, wouldn't ya know. Perhaps from a bit of mom AND dad, Colby seems to have inherited this wonderful compass like instinct.   We have a family tradition of driving around the weeks leading up to Christmas and looking at the different lights in various neighborhoods. Now, here in a totally different state for Christmas this year we have lots of driving and lots of looking and lots of light hunting to do! We don't exactly have our usual favorites picked out just yet.

So just the other day we were driving around a new neighborhood that none of us (or so we'd thought) had ever been in before. I have girlfriends that live that but have yet to attend any events at their homes so haven't really had a reason to venture into those streets.

So we take a right hand turn off a main drag on our way home - in the dark mind you - and out of the back seat about 2 blocks in comes a little voice. "Mom, this is where Jonah lives." Scott and I look at each other quite surprised and Colby pipes up again. "This is where Mrs. C (his going home bus driver) brings Jonah home to his house."   Really, Colby? That's very smart of you to recognize and remember we are near Jonah's house. Do you want to find it? "Yeah. Let's go see if Jonah has lights!" So we proceed to ask him some random questions about where we are headed to find Jonah's house, amongst 600+ houses (looked that part up on their website) in the neighborhood and several hundred little streets that wind in this somewhat large development all on .25-.3 acre plots of land.

We are driving along and pass a few streets.
Should we turn yet Colby?
No.
Ok, we're coming to the end of the road, should we turn right or left?
Go that way and he points left.
We turn left.
Do we make any turns from here?
Not yet.
Does Mrs. C turn yet for Jonah's house?
Go straight.
Remember it is dark out and the only thing lighting the road is our head lights, a few street lights and a bunch of Christmas decorations.
Ok Colby which way? Turn yet.
There.... there was where Jonah gets off the bus.
Scott stops the car at some random intersection.
Where is his house?
Colby points behind us. Back there he says, you passed it.
Scott backs up a bit. Which one?
Jonah gets off over there, (pointing to the right) and crosses with his mom to his house over there. (and points left)
Well wouldn't that just make perfect sense that because he lives on the left hand side of the road he had to get off and cross in front of the bus to go home.

Wow, little man. You sure are smart! You found his house even in the dark.

Now granted we had not a clue in the world if in fact that was his house or not. So we praised him for being such a smart boy and kept on driving looking for more great light displays.

Meanwhile in the front seat, Scott and I looked at each other and quietly chatted about how awesome and really wild it would be if in fact he had brought us in the dark, from the back seat to the correct house when he usually is riding a bus during the day.

So you know me, I had to know. The minute we got home I looked it up.

Our totally observant and amazingly logical, all too smart 4.5 year old human compass in the making brought us to Jonah's exact house! Smarty pants. I knew that we couldn't keep much from him :) He's too smart!

Back to Bloggyness and Total Randomness

2011-11-30T20:02:00.001-05:00

Not sure how long my jag will continue, but tonight and tomorrow I've dedicated some time to updating all our random happenings and waaaaaaaaay too many missed months of family fun on this here blog. Scott's away a few days this week and that's usually when I get a chance to pull open the lap top in bed, eat a bowl of ice cream (cause remember I have no will power) and pound away at the computer.   But, unfortunately, despite his being away 19 of 31 days in October (no that is not a typo) I didn't really get a chance to utilize all those 19 nights for blogging as I would have hoped.

Why?

Well, because solo parenting for 19 days throughout a month all while working full time, running a 20k+ item children's consignment sale, planning MOMS Club events, being a taxi to school and speech and soccer, and all the normal daily happenings is, well, exhausting and draining. And frankly the last thing I really wanted to do by the time I flopped into bed very late at night was blog about things I had personally already experienced.   Sorry, I know you hadn't and now that we're living further away many of you dedicated readers don't see and do our daily life any more. Some thing had to give though when I started getting snippy and frustrated and not the cool, calm and collected, organized person I usually am.   I'm not typically one to fly off the deep end, and I certainly don't claim that happened in this case either, however, it was a looooooooooong FALL from Labor Day on and I will be welcoming Dec 1 with open arms... because we made it!

So where've we been?

YOU NAME IT!!!

Could it really be true that I haven't posted much about anything since July or early August. That sucks. I feel like such a blogging failure.

Time to wipe the slate clean.

So where to start? Do I go back and try to catch up. Post thing retroactively? Or just jumble it all up to keep you guessing and because that's probably how it will all come to mind anyways?

Not sure at this point so perhaps I'll do it based on how long I think the typing will be and what pictures I have to go along with them. Which, again, unfortunately is not nearly as many photos as I would have liked to have taken to document these moments of our life.

There's a story to go with that too.   Well you remember back when Colby had his camera accident and how I ended up diving deep into the camera world with an attempt at taking more pictures with a somewhat "real" camera. I didn't buy the pocket size Cannon to replace our old one, instead I got a split the difference between a pocket and real camera.   Eekkkk can I say this out loud.   I don't like it! Not one bit.   My picture taking has dried up somewhat because I can't just stuff it in my pocket and go with the boys for a bike ride taking the camera in tow. I can't just grab it and run out of the house to the park. It's too big for my pocket but too small to justify a full size camera bag and looking like I take photography photos.   Instead it's that confused state that needs a camera case cause I don't want it to get broken but too big for my jeans back pocket. Ughhh.    I'm actually quite frustrated at this point that I don't like it. Hmmmm random thought. This time I bought the protection plan, wonder if they will just take it back for a credit towards something different. Note to self: research this.   Anyways, because I don't feel like toting it around and clogging up a hand that I could be playing on the playground with or picking pumpkins with, instead I just bring my phone and end up taking pictures on that.   What's the problem here? For one, I then have to get them off the phone and onto my computer which typically means emailing them and a multitude of steps. Just as frustrating.

Anyways, so now I rant about cameras. I kinda just want my pocket size camera back but don't want to spend more money on yet another camera. What to do?!

So back to where we've been.

Hmmm... it's been so long I almost can't remember it all.
Back in July after the boys birthday party and our trip to Disney, Colby was at our church in vacation bible school. I think we covered much of that though.

On to August.
The Colbmeister attended his very first "camp". It was a nature camp from 9-12 and the first time we'd enrolled him in something other than preschool that we dropped him off and left him. Both VBSs I had volunteered to help out and thus was on sight and involved as a "teacher". Even funnier it was a camp that has a wide range of ages. You could start at 4 and the oldest was like 10. He loved it despite being the youngest kid there. I actually think the older kids took him under their wing like a little brother cause every time I went in to pick him up they were all playing and saying "Colby, Colby, come here. Colby come play over here with me." He is such a go with the flow kinda fun-loving kid that surely is older than 4 in play and thought so it worked.   And every time we pass the place since then he keeps asking when he can go back to nature camp.   I'd say it was a hit. But more about that to come in a separate post that's been in draft form since early August! Nice, good work Kristen!

The following week Colby started school. And well you've already got the priceless first day shots from that event!

The last week of August we had our annual summer trip to Smuggs! Yes, we are horrible parents and pulled our kid out of school the 2nd week of school. Oh well, this trip was planned before we knew he would be going to the public pre-k program.   Not the first time he's skipped school for something with the "family fun" label on it and it surely won't be the last!! Sorry to all those 100% attendance dorks. :)

September meant it was Parker's turn to start school. You've seen those pics at least too!

Colby also started his first session in a learn to skate ice skating program back in early September. More on that to come as well. Plus we kept busy on Wednesday afternoons again as he wanted to play soccer again too! This kid is a "do-er"!

Aunt Barre was in town for business and so we spent a few days with her in September. And then because it seemed like the trend to have visitors Nanny also came for a few day trip to see us the end of the month.

October is when the chaos began or really, continued to all out craziness. Scott started off the month in Annapolis. Remember we had gone with him in the past but instead this year just sent our love via this photo (and lots of phone calls of course). After a looooooong week there and being away, he was home for just a few very short days before heading out another full week, this time to Louisville. And yes, he will agree, there is NOTHING worth a doodle in Louisville. Or at least not when it concerns being stuck in a conference trade show hall all day every day, only to retire to your hotel room after a late night dinner. He moved on from the mid-West and was home a few short days before taking off again on another work adventure and leaving us to hold down the fort. Where'd he go this time? Umm, yes this is a blog post stall because at this point it's been a whirlwind and I almost can't remember.... Oh yeah... stall over. He was in VA the following week.

Sometime mid-October I co-chaired a children's consignment sale and raised nearly $10,000 for charity. That was an undertaking and a half that's for sure and some of the explanation behind my lack of blogging during October. Grandma came into town that weekend as an extra set of hands.

October was finally over, but November still meant loads of travel, this time thankfully much of it was long travel but still togetherness.

This time the first few days were mine. Remember, it was so weird being in a hotel room alone.

After that... a totally spontaneous weekend trip to Disney! Because, well, now that we're within driving distance and we have the Mouse-ka-house as a destination - WHY NOT!!! We got up the morning I got back from my trip away and said we HAVE to do something this weekend... looked at each other and said - yep, get packing, let's go! We knew what it meant. More on this to come.

Normal work day travels followed in the 2nd week of November and then brought on our wild whirlwind family road trip for business, football, visiting, shopping and Thanksgiving!!! 12 days, 15 states, 35+ (I lost count) different state border crossings (IE. SC-NC=1, NC-VA=2, etc, etc up and around and then back again).   We got home on Sunday in time to watch the Patriots football game, order pizza, unpack and realize it was sooooooooo nice to be back at home in our very own beds! Now that was a wild adventure with way more stops that I can list here and way more adventure that it even looks like in this 1 paragraph. More on this definitely as this kind of travel is waaaaaaaaaaaay blogworthy! Did I mention Doug came with us?

And sure enough why not wrap up the month with more business travel. Scott's back in Jersey this week and I have a feeling he'll be glad to see December too! I heard somewhere either mid-October or late-November, it's all run together by this point, that he's going to hibernate and hide for much of December. But please don't tell his customers so that he won't have to travel again.

I'm counting down the days til a very long Christmas break. We could all use it!
Thankfully even the public schools get an extremely long holiday break down here. Not sure if this is standard or if it is because of the days the holidays fall on. The last day of school around here is Friday the 16th and they don't go back until Tuesday the 2nd.   YES!!!! Love the family holiday time.

Christmas is coming!
Decorating has begun.
Cards ordered.

I'm back to my organized, fun-loving, still a work-a-holic, can't say no kinda person self again, but at least it's been tamed. I'd really be back at it again if I could kick this darn cold we all picked up while we were in the north country(... another reason why we love the south). I do, however, have a hunch it's the fun holiday stuff coming up that's keeping things lively, but I'm crossing my fingers this will last at least until March! :)

Maybe I'm back in the blogging world after all. This sure was a long 'un! Tired yet??? I told you there has been a lot going on... yeah, try living it!

Oh the disappointment

2011-11-30T19:57:00.001-05:00

Ever been totally psyched for ice cream sundae night???

Only then you open the brand new tub of "this great new flavor" you found at the grocery store that day and realize it has all the extras in it that you would love but HATE the flavor ice cream it is all mixed in.

YUCK!!!

Duhhhh that'll teach ya to 1. bother to try a new flavor after having already determined with your husband that you might as well continue to buy the peanut butter cup and 2. if you do in fact decide to experiment against his will with a new flavor to read the ENTIRE package and not just assume that all that yummy goodness of caramel and nuts and tastiness is mixed into either vanilla or chocolate, both of which would have been totally acceptable. BUT INSTEAD... it was all mixed into coffee ice cream - UGHHHH!!!

Good thing they were B1G1 and I got another flavor that was a secured tasty treat!

I LOVE SHUTTERFLY

2011-11-30T15:29:00.001-05:00

So I've been procrastinating this year and yet knew I had a deadline to order our Christmas cards... yes, I like to be early on things like this so I don't feel rushed! Anyways, wasn't so ahead of the game this year UNTIL I got a coupon code from Shutterfly for 30% off all holiday cards + an additional 20% off of the total + Free Shipping + a Free Calendar!!! OMG. Well that sure jump started my Christmas card designing self into full gear!

So I just ordered a 12 month customized calendar and 100 5x7 folded photo cards that I designed AND paid less than half of what the order total should have been.... Woooo hoooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Send me an email if you want to be on the Christmas card list or if you have a new address :)

Blogging to Resume Soon

2011-11-21T23:04:00.001-05:00

Promise!

I know I've been non existent for a while and eventually will have updates, BUT ... Can I at least get a pass for the last few days??? We crossed into our 13th state in 6 days today on our whirlwind crazy road trip! I'd say that's a good excuse for at least this week, right? Did I mention we have the boys and Doug in tow?!

Good love a good road trip!

Picture Re-Takes

2011-11-08T15:01:00.002-05:00

Ah yes now that Colby is in the "real" school system we have entered into the world of "school pictures"! Sure he had school pictures taken in preschool, but they aren't the real thing. Usually they have some cutsie preschool background or like last year their pictures were taken outside on the school grounds and turned out beautifully. But, not anymore, we had our first experience with actual, totally boring, typical school photos - pictures!

Let's just say that the quality wasn't the same as we have gotten in the past at our Picture People portrait studio shots or even those that we got when we had our amazing wedding photographer take pictures outside at an Arboretum after Colby was born.

Nope.... I think we'll be having re-takes! :)

And I think I might just book a photo shoot for the whole family at some point soon! School picture backgrounds and their boringness just aren't my thing!

Big Boy Rides

2011-11-02T21:56:00.000-04:00

Parker sure is growing up!! This picture is from July and even then he had already lost his baby face... just wait til I put up some current pics! I know I'm dragging along the catch up from the summer, but oh well, at least it's coming at some point! I'll get up Halloween pics soon :) Buzz and Woody were totally adorable. TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!! (Well, to the neighbors houses and back for bed. Close enough, right?)

Nature Island

2011-11-02T09:49:00.000-04:00

Parker and I went exploring a while ago looking for new places to "stroll".... aka walk and look and explore with the jogger. Well, we happened upon this amazingly beautiful nature trail that is nestled within a county park. How could you not want to come back here to see all that there is to see about nature?? A long plank dock over the marshlands to an island with trails packed down enough for the stroller but rough enough to be authentic. There were birds and crabs and turtles and frogs and so much more. It was a perfect "stroller date" and little morning of exploration just for us. I have a feeling we'll be back again soon!

Tides have turned

2011-11-01T21:42:00.003-04:00

Usually it's me at home alone with the boys while Scott is away traveling... Well, this week the tides have turned. I was needed at a distributor show for work while Scott is home holding down the fort.

I miss them all terribly already and I've only been gone a few hours!

It was amazingly odd flying ALONE! Usually we're navigating bag check and security and all that is an airport with boys in tow, car seats, carry ons and more. We've honed our process and are master travelers with well-traveled children, however, it's still some gear to haul. Today, just me, myself and I flying with 1 carry on and a book. Strangely boring.

I'm completely confident all will be well at home without me. Scott's an awesome daddy and great at multitasking so I'm sure he'll be able to handle things. Plus, all the laundry was done before I left so at least that's off the list! :) ha.

I have, however, learned 1 thing for sure. Being at home alone is one thing, but being alone in a hotel is a whole nother animal. At least I've got company during the day with the boys and at night with the pooch, a fridge and yummy desserts and MY PILLOW!!! But, alone, high rise tower hotel = no fun at all.

Thankfully it's only for 2 days and then I'll be back with ALL my boys again!! Love you guys!

Priorities

2011-10-26T21:48:00.000-04:00

I know I've been a little lax in the blogging world these days. I feel like I couldn't catch up and get ahead. I felt like that about life in general. Why do we all blog anyways? What is it about writing down every ounce of our inner story for the world to read? What about you?? Why are you reading anyways? Don't you have children to tuck into bed or dishes to wash or a good book to snuggle up with instead of staring at yet another screen? Just sayin'!

As for me and where I've been...
Scott's been wildly busy and traveling more than ever, he was gone like 18 or more days already just in October.... and thus my priorities have changed. I'm fulfilling more roles and maintaining all that is normalcy, all while taking on too much elsewhere in life. And as Scott has reminded me, I need to learn to say NO. I genuinely like to help out, I don't want to see someone else stressed because I've not offered my hands or heart in assistance. However, I do have to realize I can't do it all. I have to slow down. I have to learn when it's ok to say no I can't right now. But, I've never been good at any of those things. I'm always running 100MPH, I've always got 15 pounds of sh*t packed into a 5 pound bag (as Pal calls it) and I'm not good at not letting other peoples stresses become my own.

Over the last few months I've tried to dive in head first and get involved. We were new after all and I had to find a place to fit in and not feel like I was here just going through the motions. I think I may have over done it and now I'm almost burnt out. Bummer. That's not how I wanted our first year here to be remembered.

I joined the MOMS Club and thoroughly enjoyed the growing friendships, it was a simple way to meet and make friends. And then I realized I was trying to "act as if", I was playing the role of a stay at home mom all while actually working a full time job and ultimately I was asked to be the activities coordinator. With both boys in some form of preschool and trying to squeeze in "work" time while they are at school, now I hardly make it to any events and haha I'm the one planning them! A few months later I found out that a long standing tradition in the club was about to be cancelled. The semi annual consignment sale was on the brink of being kiboshed for the fall because no one wanted to chair the event. Soooo, yep, sure enough I felt bad that the hard work the women who have chaired for the years past now would mean nothing and thus I stepped up and said I would do it. That's taken up waaaay more time than I ever anticipated over the last 12 weeks and I'm pleased to say I just did the first thing on my road to setting priorities straight. I finally sent a letter to the rest of my coordinators that I have re-prioritized my life and can not repeat this role in the spring. Most of these women don't realize that I still work full time (despite my telling them) since they are pretty much all stay at home moms.   It's not a cop-out, just reality, I still work to contribute to our family income and we have opted for a certain lifestyle that requires that.   In my opinion, I'd rather work a very accommodating job and one that allows me to come and go as I please all while still earning a good paycheck, than cut out our 3+ family vacations a year. We enjoy our get-aways and enjoy being able to plan and do and buy as we please without worrying about money. Until I have to figure out how to make changes in that work department I think we'll just keep on doin what we're doing.   Thus, other things have to give.

We found an amazing church and have settled into having that as a part of our weekly life events. It's a breath of fresh air to be in a community where faith based life is the norm. Unlike the northeast, the average family down here does in fact still go to church together on a weekly basis. But... Then some of the people in the children's program found out I had a background in teaching preschoolers and elementary ed and I was asked to help out at the 11am service. So I felt an obligation of some sort to pitch in there.I want to though so that's part of the problem. Originally I had committed to every other month but quickly realized that I was probably better off just filling in when the spirit prompted me that I was truly needed to teach. I honestly WANT to be able to be there every week, but also feel like I'm constantly putting my family on the back burner for others. So what to do?

What's the right choice? Do you please others or let them down at the risk of feeling like you are letting down your own?

Maybe it's just my own problem... maybe I just need to let go. Maybe I just need to figure out how to not let all this "get to me". Unfortunately both Scott and I seem to be cut from the same cloth. He can't say no for requests people send to him for things to do at work. He's constantly the "go to" guy and thus that takes a toll on him as he feels the need to produce and not let others down.He steps up to the plate constantly at work because if he doesn't then he knows the job just won't get done... again, which is better? Just the same as I feel the need to not let others down when they know I'm a capable person for a "job". Only that's the thing... what is my job? At this point in life ... isn't it to be the best wife, mother and best friend I can be? Well, seems like I haven't been any of those things over the last few weeks or months.   So time for some changes.

So I'm stepping back and thus stepping up. Stepping back into my role that I've always wanted, loved and somehow fulfilled. Stepping up to those who make requests of me and telling them that what I "need" right now is to not really be "needed" all that much. Those who "need" me the most are my priority and therefore I'm going back to the good old days. Bike rides and play time and "Highs and Lows" during dinner time. I want to remember ALL the years as good years and thus it's time to realign the priorities with those in my heart.

Best Buds

2011-10-26T19:53:00.001-04:00

Parker absolutely loves our neighbor, Ben, they are YEARS apart in age, but best buds for sure. Thankfully Ben is wildly mature beyond his years and has taken to our boys like they were little brothers. He's actually fallen into the role of our babysitter despite only being 12 years old. Luckily he and his family live directly next door and so I'm confident he'd be smart enough to just run home if there was really an emergency he couldn't handle. The boys really look up to him and respect him, it's so sweet.

I love how well they get along and how they can all just be fun and silly together regardless of their age!

First Swings

2011-10-19T21:02:00.000-04:00

Much like Colby at almost this age, Parker got to experience his very first set of "swings" this summer!!! Sure he's ridden on a double swing when we went to Six Flags, but this was his first SOLO swing ride!! He loved it and how cute does he look hanging on and going round and round. Somewhere I have video of his first swing ride just like I do Colby's but ha we're already 3 months later now and finding it now is not proving all that easy. Oh well, I know he had a great time and I'm sure there will be dozens of other swing rides.

Happy Swinging!

Mechanical Engineer in Training

2011-10-18T20:56:00.000-04:00

Still catching up from the summer posts... This is the Lego store at Downtown Disney Marketplace. Outside they have all sorts of bins of Legos and the chance to "race" a car the you built. The person who wins gets to race again and if that car/vehicle of Legos wins in 3 rounds they race the "engineer" that is running the event. If they win in a 1 on 1 with that guy then they get a prize or something like that.

Well, my little mechanical engineer tried his hand at building a Lego car. His was totally adorable and really fun but oh well didn't win the race. No big deal, we just had fun watching and playing anyways! Winnings isn't everything and he surely didn't have any idea that finishing first was the gist. He was just totally excited to see his creation zooming down the ramp!

Way to build little man!

1st 3D Movie

2011-10-18T08:42:00.000-04:00

We took the boys about 2 weeks ago to see The Lion King in the movies. We had wanted to take them to just the plain old Lion King and not the 3D version because we weren't sure how PJ would do the whole time with the glasses. But, alas by the time we actually got to the theater it'd been out long enough that they pulled the "non 3D" version and so we just sucked it up and decided to do it anyways!

Nanny was in town visiting and she just loves the Lion King, Colby had never seen it and Parker had certainly never been to a 3D movie aside from the 20 minuters at Disney, so we figured why not? He did great for the first 1/3 of the movie and then got figidty. There's just too much going on when you've got 3D glasses to navigate, popcorn to consume, water in the coolest cup holder ever, a nanny who you haven't seen in months and mom, dad and big bro all in a totally new theater setting. Woah! Overdrive! Add about 3 gallons of water because of the salty popcorn and about 7 trips to the potty to pee it all out and by the end of the 90 minutes he was done. But he looked totally adorable sitting there for the first 30 minutes just chomping on his popcorn, piece by piece and sitting so nice with his glasses ACTUALLY ON his face! Ultimately I'd say he liked the movie, but 90 minutes is just still a little much to expect out of him in a contained space.

Even stranger was that my cell phone had some were camera setting going on and these were the original pictures I got when I tried to snap one of him with his glasses on. Talk about wild camera angle??? Sorta James Bond ish if you ask me?? A little weird and somewhat creepy that you can only see his eyes! Wild! Even stranger is that typically the red and yellow image colors when you do a "solar" type look at things mean that they are hot! Hmmm... his water bottle had ice in it? Guess it was just a color reflection thing and not actually a heat thing.

Weird!

Fun times had by all!

Followed by some awesome pizza for dinner!

Add it to the list

2011-10-17T20:23:00.001-04:00

So I wrote last week or was it the week before?   Oh goodness I don't know, that's how ridiculous these last few weeks have been and the next few weeks are going to be. The Fall is a wild time for Scott's travel schedule and this year is no different, in fact I'd say it was worse because he's in a new territory, has new customers and yet still had people from up north calling and begging him to come back - Ha! No way!...    And oh boy, I've already digressed and I'm only 3 sentences into the post.

So I wrote a while back about Parker and his preschool germies and thankfully how we were on the mend after way too many days of Dr. Mommy and getting very little sleep. He was a trooper though and aren't they always so darn cute when they are snuggly and sick?

Sure enough... Tuesday night last week Scott was on his flight home, it was the "last night" for that span that I was putting the boys to bed alone. Wouldn't ya know, Parker just can't catch a break! Poor guy.   He and Colby were playing very innocently, running out the last of their energy before bed time.   With the Jack n Jake bathroom that we have and the boys bedrooms at the end of the hall it makes for a fun circle to run laps. So anyways, they were playing and giggling and doing 1 final round of Duck Duck Goose and sure enough poor Parker definitely got the "goose".

He was lagging behind a much quicker Colby and Colby came flying out of his bedroom and like it happens pretty often boys will be boys they bumped into one another. In what normally would have ended up as silly laughing and giggles because they both fell down, this time ended up in big wails and many tears.

When Colby bumped Parker he fell alright. He fell right backwards and cracked his head against the stairs that lead to our attic. Back of the head meet step corner. Step corner, this is Parker's head... you should not like one another... Nope, they did not! He was pretty upset. Holding his head and hollering. Colby felt bad that he'd hurt Parker but we knew it was an accident. They weren't being bad just silly that wrong place wrong time stuff played out in real life.

Sure enough Parker's head nearly would have split wide open if it wasn't for his baby fine hair that held the skin together.   It never actually cut open or bled but he sure had a mighty fat egg to rival his first ever egg! It had that bloody spot underneath the hair and that it was in the back of his head kinda worried me.   Thankfully at 7pm our pediatricians office was still open. She said to keep him awake about an hour or 2 extra to make sure he wasn't lethargic or weird, keep as much ice on it as you can with a 2 year old. Which, thankfully he was so good about .... so we put Colby to bed and then read a few extra stories and he was just ready for bed so with more Motrin to help the little guy get through the night off to sleep he went an hour late.

And so our wild week of preschool germies ended well! NOT! :) The poor guy just can't catch a break. And I can't make this stuff up if I wanted to! You'd think they were unsupervised all hours of the day... hello, it's probably the very opposite, I was right in the mix of Duck Duck Goose... actually it was ME that was goosed by Colby and Parker just likes to run along for the fun of it!

Here's a glimpse at the little man's head after the swelling had mostly gone done. Phew we dodged another one there, that's for sure!!

Crab Dock Visit

2011-10-17T18:29:00.000-04:00

When my mom was here for the boys birthday party in July.... Yes, still catching up on summer posts, but almost done - promise! ...we took a ride down to the infamous Crab Dock. This is where Scott and I take almost all our visitors. It was the spot that won over our heart and means a lot for our life transition to the south. So we think that it should be some place that important people should see!

Plus, the boys love it!

How could you not?!

OSO, June, Leo and Manny

2011-10-14T22:06:00.000-04:00

More character happiness from our Disney trip back in November! Who could resist a breakfast with their favorite Playhouse Disney (now Disney Jr.) characters.

Sing Sing Sing!!!

2011-10-13T11:47:00.000-04:00

We've sung this song a few times in church over the last few months and I love how spirited it is. Don't ya just want to Sing, Sing, Sing?!?! Remember we don't go to a "traditional" church service, but a Contemporary Christian church and so band, singin' out load and joyful spiritedness is completely welcomed!

A few other favorites, but certainly not limited to these...

God of Wonders:

In Christ Alone: (a personal favorite)

And thank to my friend, Sarah, who also happens to love Give Me Jesus.

Can't forget Mighty to Save

And the always tear jerker Bring the Rain. I think that one has to do with my following Angie Smith and her originally named blog Bring the Rain, her story about daughter Audrey Caroline and how she saw past the deepest darkness losing a daughter at birth and realizing it was God's will for Audrey to have a better place with him.

And the song that was written in her honor

And now that this post has gotten away from me and I could go on and on. Our church had a concert Saturday night and recorded a CD of all the music we typically sing throughout the worship service. I took the boys since Scott was out of town and it was so wonderful to see them enjoying the same uplifting and glorious songs that we already love, this time in a large group concert setting. They were clapping and singing and dancing in the aisles as if it was the Jonas Brothers. But instead, how great, we were singing "God Songs" as Colby calls them!

Mr. Manners

2011-10-12T21:46:00.000-04:00

I think it's so funny to listen to the conversations that happen between Colby and PJ now that they are growing up and communicating like "big brothers". Some of the things they come up with and the back and forth responses are way too comical.

Thankfully they have both been very good with learning manners, picking up and using them appropriately. Parker even says sorry to the person that is supposed to be apologizing TO HIM! Ha. I get more "Fank yous" from him daily and I love how adorable it sounds when it comes from his squeaky voice!

So when riding home today in the car, I overheard the following between the 2 of them and I nearly burst out laughing. Colby has become quite the "~~Miss~~ Mr. Manners".

Parker at some point burped in his car seat...

Colby: Parker, you should say "skoooz me" when you burp.
Parker: Why?
Colby: Mom, Parker just burped and didn't say "skoooz me". I just told him that he should say "skooz me".
Me: Thank you, Colby, that's correct. It's nice manners to say excuse me when you burp.
Colby: Parker, when you burp you should use your manners and say "skooz me". So please say "skooz me" now.
Parker: Cooozee

Yes, Colby is still in speech therapy and there are several words and sounds that still really get him. Blends at the beginning of words are still very tricky, but amazingly he's come miles already! I love to hear and see the strides and now the communication he's willing to have, he sure has come out of his shell in the speaking word since starting with Miss Jill. Love her. Love our Mr. Manners and Little Manners!

Lazy Dahwghh

2011-10-11T21:33:00.000-04:00

Yep, I'd say we can officially consider him a lazy dawg!

On the mend

2011-10-11T10:37:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers, we've made it through the last few days with the preschool germies and sores in Parker's mouth. He was pretty miserable for several nights getting up like every 30 minutes and just restless. I'm sure that the sores in his mouth and the fever was not allowing him to settle into a deep sleep. Kinda reminded me when Colby had all those ear infections, he was better during the day because there were distractions, but the minute he laid down there was nothing else to think about and it was awful.

So I was pumping him full of Motrin and Tylenol on regular doses throughout the night and that seemed to help. Saturday night he only got up 4 times instead of 24 the previous 2 nights. (That was worse than a newborn by the way!) Last night he only stirred 1 or 2 times and a gentle back rub instead of a full on rocking was all he needed to settle back in.

I could tell he was on the mend yesterday as he hadn't had a fever since Saturday afternoon. Plus he ate a decent breakfast of pancakes before church and then devoured his spaghetti Sunday night for dinner. The bread still "hurt inside dare" according to him, but that's progress for sure. Luckily the doctor says he was only contagious while he had the fever so back to school he went today.

All of the "sores" or blister looking pimply things on his hands and feet are gone and so I'm more comfortable that he won't "infect" anyone by touching stuff!

I think this may be the doozie for this month, wonder what next month will bring. There's always something, isn't there?!

MISS YOU DADDY!

2011-10-10T21:32:00.002-04:00

Scott's been away this week.. ALL WEEK, like even over the weekend and for a long time kinda week! Usually we get to go to the Annapolis Boat Show WITH him, actually, 1 or all of us have always gone, but schedules and school just didn't allow for us to join him this year, bummer, I miss my annual crab smashing!

AND WE MISS HIM!!!

LOVE YOU DADDY!!!

Can't wait for you to come home tomorrow! Are you ready for these silly faces again? We're ready for you!!

The Things We Take for Granted

2011-10-10T21:13:00.001-04:00

I've definitely complained and blogged about hating when the electricity goes out, although the silence can be deafening, it is the darkness that scares me the most. I've admitted it, I'm afraid of the dark, always have been. Sleep with the tv on when Scott's away! HATE, HATE, HATE walking outside at night even with a lantern or street lights, even in my own driveway. When we're camping, I'd rather turn in to the tent and hunker down with a book and "hold it" all night long than walk to the bathroom facility in the dark.

And then I saw this video...

... it sure did make me realize how much we take for granted in the world of modern technology. I guess I shouldn't complain about even having a flashlight, some people don't even have a lamp.

Kudos to that guy for doing the ultimate in engineering and thinking outside the box. Now if only the world was made up of ALL people like that, we'd have one amazing place to live and raise our children.

HALLOWEEN PREPPED

2011-10-10T13:50:00.001-04:00

We've never really had to do much Halloween decorating since we lived on a 10 house cul-de-sac and set so far off the road. Most people on our street never even bothered to venture up our old crazy long steep driveway and those that did were few and far between! So I always put out our pumpkin and a few random Fall decorations, but nothing major and bought like A bag of candy that we always had heaps of leftovers for us to eat.

This year, however, is a much different story. When Scott and I came down just almost 1 year ago to house hunt and decide whether moving was in fact the right "new" path for our family, we noticed something about the neighborhoods. They were DEC'D for Halloween. Like, as big as Christmas decorating. Like everyone was ready for ghosts and goblins type decorating. It was cute, it was fun. So as the month creeped closer I realized we didn't have nearly enough Halloween decorations to be a part of this wild holiday that must be celebrated down here. Not sure why everyone gets so into it, but sometimes ya just gotta go with the crowd. So that's exactly what we did. The other night we went out to the Halloween store and geared ourselves out with some spooky decor! :)

The following day the boys helped to "web" out our entire front porch and dig some graves for some ghosts! :0 They were so into it, it was very cute and fun. So we are prepped and ready in the decorating department, complete with lighted bat in the top window for nighttime. (can't see that in the photos, but it's funny from the street in the dark!)

So the only outstanding question.... how in the world do I know how much candy to buy? You don't want to be known as "that house" that runs out of candy!! No way. I think I'll ask our neighbors to be sure.

Even funnier when you ask Sophia, our cute little neighbor girl who plays with the boys and is in "babysitter training" where they start and which way they go around the streets on Halloween. That girl has it all figured out. Her comment... you start out on the streets further away and END UP on our street because our closest neighbors always have the best candy and plus, if you come back and end here late enough they are just trying to get rid of it all so will go ahead and load up your candy sack even more than if you started here! Oooooo now that's good thinking!

What are your Halloween traditions?

We've got Buzz Lightyear and a Fireman in the house this year! How about you?

Snoopy!

2011-10-08T21:31:00.001-04:00

Shhhh.... don't tell Mickey and his pals that we cheated on him by visiting Snoopy & Friends at Carowinds this summer.

And yes, this photo from the end of July shows just how quickly Parker is catching up to Colby in height. Also, take note of the dangling arms!!! (Yes, he does in fact get those from me... sorry little man.) He's so lanky! :) Colby's trim as well that's for sure, but he's a lot more proportionate height to size and body shape, PJ, I'd use the word "petite" but 1. I cannot as he's a boy, 2. petite to me implies small... he is NOT small, just lean and long. ha.

Preschool Germies - They're Baaccck!!

2011-10-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

Well, it's official, we're a month into the school year!!

How can I tell.
From the preschool germies of course!

About 2.5 weeks ago we were at the pediatrician because Parker had green nose goo. Yum. Oh how I love green nose goo - NOT. And alas with a crusted over nose, mild on and off temperature and not many other symptoms I had my hunch for a "mommy diagnosis". Sure enough, we left with a prescription for a Z-pac antibiotic for 5 days and a sinus infection diagnosis. Mommy diagnosis #1 confirmed! 5 days on the antibiotic and he was good as new...

Well, as good as preschool germies will allow.

5 days of the antibiotic had cleared the green goo and he was back to being our rambunctious 2 year old tot! But, by day 7, just last week, maybe Thursday I noticed his runny nose and lethargic self returning slowly. I called the pediatricians office back again and described how I didn't think it had completely gone away and perhaps he needed a second round of antibiotic. She didn't want to give him another round unless we saw her so I thought we'll just water him down with lots of fluids, try some Benadryl to dry it up as it wasn't green goo quite yet again and avoid running to the doctor for every little thing.

Saturday morning I noticed the cooler temps and dry air had taken it's toll on my own lips as they were chapped, dry and adjusting to the lesser amounts of humidity. Hmmm, was Parker's face adjusting as well since he had this chapped lips, that spread out towards his cheeks. By Sunday it looked more like a full blown rash, excema is big in this house so it never really red-flags us. So we applied some cortisone creme to help clear it up and yet he was still not his bubbly self. He had spunk when he wanted, but pooped out and wanted snuggle time a lot quicker than normal. A few days of creme and the humidity has returned and the rash appears to have left - by Tuesday.

Wouldn't ya know. Tuesday I got a note home from Parker's school that there was in fact a confirmed case of Fifths Disease in his class. Hmmm... Wouldn't ya know Tuesday night I put him to bed and he had the lacy skin that made him look like he was a leopard. Ok, so I'm mommy diagnosing this one as well. The nose, the lethargic demeanor and of course "slapped cheek" rash had to have been incubating in this little guy over the last 10-14 days as it is carried A LONG time before it actually exhibits any of the outward signs and symptoms.

Not much you can do, it's a virus and will run it's course. He's fine, the rash on the face had already resolved and the leopard skin was pretty subtle except at night. No need to tell everyone we know at this point because by the time the rash appears he's not contagious anymore and remember every where we've been the last 2 week, nearly impossible! So guess he caught that at school from the "diagnosed case", otherwise known as little boy or girl in his class who's mom or dad probably didn't know until their child was no longer contagious either.

Some germ bugs are just so weird!

So we waited it out and carried on with normal life. That is until.

Until last night when Parker was just not eating like himself. We had gone to a friends house to BBQ dogs and burgers and while he was playing with the other kids, he was also content to just chug the trains around the train table and keep to himself. He'll usually dive head first into his dog and fruit and of course a cup cake. The boy pushed away a Halloween cupcake!! What's with that.

And then "the night". My super sleeper boy who usually goes to bed about 6:30-7pm, no questions asked and wakes without a peep the following morning about 8am... was up... all... night... long!

When I say all night, I mean, ALL NIGHT!! Gotta be honest, I"m writing this and my eyes are flopping closed as my brain does the typing unbeknownst to my fingers. Gotta love being able to type without actually thinking.

For some reason last night he just couldn't settle in. Well, and tonight too. I started this post about 2 hours ago and well, let's just say my duties as mommy have called several times already... oh how I foresee a repeat of last night. Guess that just means that the night is actually "young" at 10:15pm. Ha. Not usually something I'd say. Ya do whatcha gotta do, I suppose. After all, my reinforcement is away on business so I'm flying solo in the child quieting and calming and soothing department.

At one point last night (I can't recall specifics anymore as I was in his room too many times!) he was soaked to the bone, sheets wet, tshirt and shorts pajamas dripping from sweat because he was burning up a fever. I pumped him full of Motrin and hoped that would help him sleep the rest of the night. He tossed and turned all night, but it wasn't until he wouldn't eat "noodleeees" (pasta) at lunch that I knew I had to call the pediatrician and get an appointment. He was better this morning, just tired really. Playful, but quiet play, books, trains, not much of anything worth movement. He wanted me to carry him where ever we went and just was his feeling not well clingy self.

So I got an appointment for 3:30. Phew, let's see what we can get in for lunch and then cross our fingers for a nap to make up for last night (for Parker at least... there's never rest for the mommy!) and then would figure out what's going on.

Poor guy was still passed out cold when I went in to get him about 3:10, but I'd rather find out what's going on than be late or miss our appointment.   No way!

I explained the course of the last 2.5 weeks to the nurse and then our doc arrived. Re-cap for her. She nooded and seemed to agree without looking him over that Parker had in fact a case of 5ths disease last week/earlier this week when we saw the cheeks. Then she looked over his legs and arms and still saw the lacy veiny leopard skin. Mommy hunch #2 confirmed. Thankfully that was going away and the lacy skin is the last stages of that. Confirms my runny nose and slapped cheek.

But what was going on last night? Why's the boy NOW have a mild fever? Why's he not eating? At lunch he proceeded to tell me "Hurt in there" as he attempted to chew some pasta. Sure he might be tired and run down from the runny nose, but PJ just doesn't skip a cup cake for nothing.

Nothing going on in the ears. No temperature currently, but Motrin earlier in the day probably helps with that. And then she looked in his mouth.... and WOAH!!! Her words... Check those out! No wonder he's not eating. And then she asked him to show her his hands.... sure enough - - - - -

Poor Parker is getting whallopped this year with preschool germies. He's got a full-on case of Coxsackie or Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. Lovely!! Why do these things always happen when Scott's away?? He had huge sores in his mouth which probably means he's got them in his throat, blisters on his hands AND his feet and all this finally adds up!

Oh wait, he's up AGAIN. Be right back!

So yes, all this once again finally adds up.

The doc reminded me that it is actually pretty painful so hopefully the sores will resolve quickly, but based on the last 2 nights, I'm crossing my fingers to just get through til morning with an hours sleep! And again, it's a virus so really other than keeping him up on fluids and filled with pain medication and somewhat content, there's really no magical cure.

Luckily, Colby seems to have been able to fend that off and never came down with the germies thus far and I'm hoping he doesn't get the H, F & M because he had a mild case of it as a baby. It may have been a rough two years, but I'm confident that his immune system is very strong for things like this because of all those days spent in daycare as a baby.   All the bugs that Parker is getting now it seems like are things that Colby may already have been exposed to and thus isn't really getting sick.

KNOCK ON WOOD NOW PLEASE!!!

It's the love - hate relationship between keeping babies home or sending them to daycare/preschool. At some point they will be exposed to the same germs so it's really all just a matter of perspective. Cranky baby that you can comfort, rock and snuggle or crabby toddler that you do your best to distract from the symptoms, OR if you wait long enough a really cranky school child that is missing some of the more important years of learning as they fend off the germies!

So at this point we can check off 1. Sinus Infection 2. Fifths Disease and 3. Coxsackie from Parker's preschool germies list.   Not bad for 1 month in! Ha.

Ahhh... here we go again. :)

Being Blog Lazy

2011-10-05T19:17:00.001-04:00

Sorry, I've been blog lazy. Happens every now and then.
We've been up to lots of fun things... decorating for Halloween, soccer, learn to skate, ice hockey for Scott, Nanny visiting, church stuff, family stuff, school stuff... enough to keep us busy and tired by the end of the day.

We'll get back into it at some point in the next few days! :)

Rainbow

2011-09-30T20:10:00.000-04:00

A perfect rainbow in a magical place! Not much better than seeing a full end to end rainbow (the other end is on the other side of the tree!) beside the Sorcerers Hat! :)

My Reign as Super Mom

2011-09-29T22:15:00.000-04:00

Today was just one of those days that could go down in the history books. One of those days where EVERYTHING seems to just happen to all fall on the same day. Couldn't have been Tuesday or tomorrow, but no, anything that would need to get done throughout the week would HAVE to be today. Why does that happen?

PLEASE NOTE AS YOU READ... this is NOT a normal day! This is a total exception. We usually have a pretty relaxed day with the "norms" for each day and decide what to play with and how to create fun otherwise as it happens. But, doesn't work out nice like that all the time!!

So I got up and started my day off amazingly good!

I got a somewhat decent nights sleep last night despite Scott being away (yeah, I usually don't get a wink while he's traveling... don't know why, just can't sleep alone.). So alarm goes off, up and at em. I know that it was going to be a busy day so might as well have a positive attitude about it all and get going on the right foot.

Get ready.
Get Colby up and ready for school.
First load of laundry in!
Colby breakfast. Write note for his teacher reminding her it's Thursday and I'll pick him up today. Pack Teddy Graham's in his backpack as I offered to donate them for tomorrow's Teddy Bear Picnic.
Empty dishwasher while simultaneously reading emails from overnight.
And then I started peeling potatoes, more on that in a minute.
Colby finished breakfast.
Sneakers on, backpack on. Off to meet the school bus.

7AM!!

And on one of the busiest mornings that I've had in a long time, my typically sleeping til 8 or 8:15 son #2, PJ, decided TODAY he wanted to get up at 7:02! Great. Thanks for giving time to actually get things accomplished this morning effectively, little buddy, your timing couldn't have been more perfect.

A good friend of ours, who also happens to be our new dentist, just had a baby boy about a week ago. Yeah, a whopping 9 pound 12 ounce BIG BOY. I'd offered to bring the family a meal this week and what day they would like it so sure enough she chose Thursday. No problemo, add it to the list! I think this is actually how the list began to tell you the truth :) And so having given her a few options, she chose Chicken Pot Pie and all the fixin's! Yummy yummy!

And so once I'd scooped Parker out of his crib, instead of doing the usual get dressed and morning routine with him, off we went downstairs. He'd gotten up with plenty of time to get ready for school this morning so I certainly wasn't rushing to get him ready. And down for breakfast in pajamas he went.

While Parker was eating breakfast, yes, the second breakfast I've now prepared today as we do every day now that Colby is off to school early, I began picking the chicken off the bone from the rotisserie I had picked up at the grocery store last night. What easier way to make chicken pot pie than from a yummy rotisserie chicken! mmm mmm mmm
Parker eating, me picking, potatoes for the mashed potatoes boiling on the stove.
Into the bowl goes the chicken, into the bowl goes the cream of chicken soup, and a pot pie is in the making.
Potatoes are done! Mash those up, set them to cool.

At some point Parker decided to push several pieces of his banana into his yogurt cup. And then wouldn't ya know, he ate it after that. Well, I guess it was just his version of making home made Banana Berry Yogurt. Whatever, too busy to care about how weird that looked.

He was done and got down to play and proceeded to select the only toy off the entire shelf that he can not assemble by himself. Good pick! At some point amongst pot pie goo I coaxed him to pick something different.

Pie crust over the top, potatoes into a tupperware, everything into a cooler with broccoli steamers and soft rolls to go along with it and wallah, by 7:45 AM I'd successfully prepared a dinner for someone else. I'll worry about us later. Let's keep the forward progress.

Thursday's are an unusual day for us as Parker goes off to preschool at 9 and then I have like an hour of work time or enough time to do a few errands and then I pick Colby up at school for 10:30. Remember 3 hours of preschool is already up by then! Weird, but it work. Thursday's I pick him up so that we can go to see Miss Jill his private speech therapist for 11.

So up next on the list.
Packing lunches!
Pack a lunch for Parker to take to school. Pack a lunch for Colby to take with us. He eats his lunch in the car on Thursdays and actually really enjoys that special random weekly event. Usually he asks for a part of it as soon as I've picked him up on our way to speech. Speech is from 11-12 and then he eats the rest on the way to get Parker from preschool at 12:30.

Turkey and Cheese sandwiches, grapes, milk, and a tasty treat, which, at this point I've completely forgotten what it was. Goldfish I think. Easy enough, both boys got the same thing so I created my food line and into the lunch boxes they go.

By now Parker has taken out about 4 other toys and the sun room is beginning to explode into the living room. Whatever, he content and I'm getting things done in the kitchen. Load up the dishwasher, clean up the kitchen and start stacking everything that needs to get out the door for the day.

Parker and I head up stairs to get him dressed and ready to head out the door and I realize I have wrapped the presents for the new baby and big brother. Forget the wrapping paper, into a gift bag those things go! As Parker puts on his shoes, I do the flight of the bumblebee and collect all the trash from the inside of the house as it is trash day. Then again do a second flight to pick up all the toys in the sun room and those that have spilled into the living room. Switch the loads of laundry and ...

Grab the car keys!

Out to the car we go.
Out to the car goes the meal.
Out to the car goes Parker's school bag.
Out to the car goes 2 lunches.
Out to the car goes 2 gifts bags.
Out to the car goes the heap of other random paperwork and stuff I need for throughout the day.

Drag the trash can to the curb, Parker hauls a cardboard box as my helper!

Ah yes, SUPER MOM!!! My reign as Super Mom was beginning. All of that done and successfully ON TIME and it was only 8:45 AM! Can I get a Whoot Whoot! Some how I had wrangled up the energy to get all that done and return a few emails from my phone during all that morning craziness.

Drop Parker off at school.
Off to drop that random paperwork by a girlfriends house. Hate to say it but sometimes it's just easier to deliver things to friends who have covered front porches when you know they probably won't be home. Not because you don't like them but because you do and that always means a 20 minute conversation to catch up. Which, on this particular day, I did not have. So drop it by, avoid the face time, and stay on time!

Now to see that new baby! Forget about the fact that I was bringing them a meal, I wanted some new baby snuggle time. And despite being nearly 10 pounds at 10 days old, he still looked so itty bitty. Stayed and took in as much new baby smell as I could before having to leave to go get Colby at school.

Off to school.
Another great day! Found out when I picked him up that they'd painted with chocolate pudding today. Fun.
Off to speech.
While Colby was at speech I had to make the rounds doing some random advertising for a sale I'm running. Don't worry more on that to come in October at some point.
Back to get Colberoo.
Great speech day!
Off to get Parker.
Good day for Parker too.

NAPTIME!!!

Woo hooo, we've made it to nap time and within 30 minutes of walking through the door from our chaotic morning both boys were asleep.

Pretty exhausted and needing to put out some "fires" for work stuff, but alas, still feeling somewhat like Super Mom from that morning.

Oh yes, the day gets better!!

Here we're only at 1:30pm, there's got to be more if I've dedicated and entire, ridiculously lengthy blog post to the happenings from our day and my reign as Super Moms. Yeah, well, don't be so sure of yourself, that might change quickly! ha.

Thankfully both boys slept! Love when that happens. Love when I can get lots of computer stuff and work done when they are sleeping so that I can dedicate more time to them while they are awake. Colby was up about 3ish and Parker about 3:15. Not a crazy long nap like Monday when he slept 4 hours but not a shortie overtired boy either. I'll take 2+ hours of downtime any day! And today, thankfully that was actually quite good timing.

Why?
Well, because I had asked a few friends with kids about the same age if they all wanted to pick a day to meet at a local park. Sure enough, wouldn't you guess that the only day that everyone was available (3 moms and a bunch of kiddoes) was today. We had all decided to bike to the park instead of just meeting there, extending our adventure and fun time together. So I emailed during naptime off to confirm our "bike park date" and wouldn't ya know, 1 dropout. Her kids hadn't napped and when they finally did fall asleep late, she wasn't going to wake them thus they'd be missing the outing. I had a hunch at that point that this wasn't going to play out as expected but went with it.

So with plans to meet for 4pm, I got everyone off to the potty and sneakers, waterbottles filled and out the door we go to helmet up.

We open the door to the garage and

WHAT?!

2 birds are flapping around, flying back and forth and around the garage LOST. Trying to get out. Banging into the windows. Here and there and ... Parker starts screaming bloody murder and crying. Bang into the windows. Colby's just heading out the door and in my still somewhat confused and stunned moment of what the hell is going on, why is Parker screaming about a bird, I realize that Cman is standing there with the door wide open. Shit, shit, shit that bird is going to fly in the house and this WILL in fact get much worse. Colby, QUICK, shut the door. Why? COLBY, LISTEN TO MOMMY (as I run back up the stairs to the house and grab the handle shoving him out of the way) SHUT THE DOOR! The bird could have gone in the house, that's why bud. Phew. Awkward bird in the house disaster averted. I grab screaming Parker and calm him down showing him it was just 2 birds who were trying to figure out how to leave the garage to get back to their nest. And the all too concerned and overly sappy son #1, Colby chimes in. Yeah, Parker, those are the mommy and daddy bird and they need to go back to their nest to bring worms to the baby birds. Ok, so perhaps we've read "Are You My Mother?" 1 too many times. And bang into the windows. Does the darn bird know it is going to knock itself out if it continues to bang into the windows. Doesn't the crazy bird know yet that the window is NOT the way out!

So I open the 2nd garage door. Nope, that didn't help!

We helmet up and set out on our bike ride leaving both garage doors wide open and Doug outside hoping that if they don't happen to find their way out by flying, maybe he'll bark and scare them out or something. Hey, it was worth a shot, right?!

We ride to the meeting spot and my phone dings with a txt. Yeah, mom 2 with kids in tow on our family fun bike ride park day has now also cancelled. Lovely!

So rather than ditching the whole thing, we're already here, let's just keep going and we'll go to the park by ourselves. A park is a park no matter whether friends are there or not. And that's just what we do. In typical Kristen, I do my own thang usually anyways, I don't need other people to know how to go to the park with my boys. We wouldn't have probably opted to wear our bathing suits and rode our bikes to the pool instead of the park but whatever, let's have a good time.

Beautiful weather, smiling faces and a little exercise to boot.

Time to go home to make dinner!

Back we ride. About 3/4 of the way there Colby starts complaining that he's hungry and getting tired. I know, little man, I'm sorry. We're creeping into our normal dinner time, and I usually don't try to plan activities between nap time and dinner time, but it was supposed to be a fun get together. Forget that, next time, I'll stick to our schedule like my gut told me to. Isn't that what always happens when you try to be accommodating. Whatever, getting off my soap box now.

We got home and the darn bird, read bird, 1 had somehow escaped, was still banging into the window and flying about our garage. Well, at least there's only 1 now. :) I see our neighbor out in her driveway and holler over to see if she's got any bird evacuating advice. We share a good chuckle at the situation and the boys and I go in for dinner, bird still clueless and blind to the 2 HUGE spaces available for leaving his current circumstances.

Quick and easy dinner for the boys and I since Scott has been out of town. I'd bought us a rotisserie chicken when I got the one for the pot pie last night, some rice, broccoli and grapes and dinner was on the table in t-minus 15 minutes. Good thing too because these boys were famished. Not like it was crazy late, we usually eat about 5:30 and it was just about 6. Delayed because of our biking adventure and bird fiasco.

Ring, Ring.
HI!
Crap, I'd told "grandma" (my mother) to call tonight to talk to the boys. Tonight? Why tonight? I'm not sure what I was thinking, but whatever. We'll call you back, just sitting down to dinner. We're late. Day started out great but they need to be fed. I'll call you when they are in the bath.

With hungry boys, dinner didn't take that long to be chowed down, dishes into the dishwasher and then it was bath time.

The boys cleaned up whatever stray toys and books were left out as I swapped loads of laundry and up we went.

Into the tub!

These guys have always LOVED the tub so that's my time to putter about in the bathroom either cleaning or putting away laundry. Tonight, I was folding in the floor as they played and did the "tub thang"! And yes, the boys are content in the tub, I'm sitting there folding laundry and my always multitasking self called my mom back as I told her I would.

I was updating her on all the random happenings of the day. The chaos that has been our Thursday. My reign as Super Mom this morning. And thus far, I'd managed to not lose my title.

I spoke waaaaaaaaaaaaay too soon.

I knew it was headed south fast when Parker started squirting Colby with tub toys and he wasn't listening when I asked him to stop. So, consequence for the action. Take the squirter tub toy away. He was not happy with me. So I'm chatting and updating and folding and putting away all while the boys are just steps away in the tub.

And that's probably when my reign as Super Mom and my crown were taken from me.

Colby hollered for me and proceeded to alert me to the fact that Parker had just pooped in the tub. Really? Are you kidding? I don't think that either of these boys has ever done that in their lifetimes. I knew he hadn't gone yet today, but in the tub... come on.

OK, haven't even washed their hair yet (because I was folding as they were happily playing) and tubs over!
Everyone out.

I hand the phone over to Colby to update grandma on his day and the Teddy Bear picnic that's happening tomorrow while I was cleaning poop out of the tub and rinsing out the bath. With that job done, we go to his room to get pajamas.

It was then that my reign of Super Mom really was over. In his minutes alone, Parker had taken the container of fish food and dumped about 2/3 of it into the fish bowl. Oh my, oh my, oh my the fish is gunna die from about 2 years worth of flakes in his bowl at once.

PARKER!!!

Completely forgetting that the phone was still on, my mom proceeded to just start laughing into the phone. What did he do now?

He may have just killed the fish. So I grab a cup and start scooping the huge excess amount of fish food from the top of the bowl. I abandon that plan when I realize how much water I'm taking with the flakes. Grab the net and .... Umm, mom, I gotta go! This is EXACTLY why I do not have time to talk on the telephone. Don't ever ask me why I don't call! This is why?! ha.

I furiously proceed to send Parker into his room, still naked from evacuating the tub early, to sit and wait. Colby continues asking me in a meek questioning voice... mommy, why did Parker dump so much food in? Doesn't he know Fishy only eats a "pinch"? Why did Parker do that?

COLBY, please stop asking questions, mommy is busy trying to make sure Fishy does not get sick from so much food in his bowl, please go get your pajamas on.

Ok, mommy. But why did Parker dump so much food in?

OMG!!! This single parent stuff is for the birds! Thank goodness Scott gets home tonight from being away this week.

I manage to scoop as much as what seems enough to halt the emergency action for Fishy from the bowl. Colby gets his pajamas on and Parker remains sitting on his chair in his room, still naked and crying because he knows he did something wrong. I take 1 deep breath, ask Colby to finish putting away his laundry and to pick a book out for story time. He gives Parker a hug good night and sets to work. What a good kid! He may be fiesty some days but he sure does know when to step up to the plate when it's needed.

I finally discuss why I was so upset and remind Parker that he is NOT to feed Fishy without mom or dad, then get the little guy into his jammies. Story for him. Into his crib and ahhhhhhhhhh 1 down.

Colby and I finally get a chance to talk through all his questions about Fishy and Parker and the poop in the tub and thankfully he was content with my answers and ready for his story.

And at 7:30pm, I took my mommy crown officially - OFF!

Not because I'd lost my reign from the morning as Super Mom, but because my duties as mom were both in bed and on their way to dreamland. I made it to the end of this ridiculous day. I think I'll do my best to avoid any more days like this going forward. Although... It actually, despite all the happenings had gone very well until the birds! It's always the birds! :)

Can I go to bed now?!?!?!?

Being Super Mom is over rated!

Disney Birthday Week

2011-09-29T21:41:00.000-04:00

We always celebrate a "birthday week" and so this year it happened that Colby's birthday week started off with the Elmo and Cookie Party and continued while we were in Florida. Lucky boy got to ring in his 4th birthday "week" in Disney!

One of our dinners during the week was a new adventure for us. We went to Downtown Disney and instead of opting for Rainforest Cafe, one of our favorites, we picked TRex Cafe! The boys are reeeeeeeeeeally into dinosaurs these days so it was a perfect fit! It's quite similar to RC as it has interactive animals and actions and noises every 10-15 minutes but instead of rainforest animals, gorillas, birds and monkeys, the entire place is based on dinosaurs, mammoths and other Ice Age animals. Fun!

Dino Dan is our friend these days!

This photo cracked me up so I had to include it! :)

And what dinosaur explorers wouldn't have a big truck to take them on their dino adventures?!
The sun was sooooo bright, but in typical mom fashion I had to get their picture anyways.

After dinner we went strolling and Colby loved that this dragon guy was made out of Legos! :)

The Need for More

2011-09-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

Colby's been enjoying his new school and his new class and all that comes with "growing up". He is the type of kid that NEEDS to be challenged, he needs to be tested, and thrives to please and over achieve. He was born with quite the competitive spirit and that has proven all along as he beat every milestone days, weeks, months or even years ahead of what the norm was... babies crawl somewhere between 7-10 months, he was climbing the stairs already... potty training for boys a nightmare, nope, not for Colby... riding a 2 wheeler a Kindergarten skill, not for our 3.5 year old... writing, reading, and more. He just has this sponge for a mind and has been gifted with the ability to see and do then remember very easily.

With that, however, comes the need for more!

The need for more brain power, the need for more activity, the need for more knowledge and challenge and thinking!! OH how this darn kid is ALWAYS thinking. I think that may also be the reason for the random sleep happenings lately (remember the sleepwalking? Yeah, well, I'd almost say I can confirm that is exactly what he's doing, but that's for another post).

But... that also means that when he's not being engaged and isn't being challenged and isn't thinking, he tends to be bored and with boredom comes attitude and poor behavior. Really, I can pinpoint exactly when he's about to act up and it is almost always because he's bored or frustrated with his little pesky brother. :) So at home we tap into that drive, we give him more ways to think, we set him up to take on the latest challenge and achieve success.

Ok so sure he got that drive and competition from BOTH Scott and I, neither 1 is to blame, we both have our fair share of times we don't take "No" for an answer. Alas our children are bound to get at least a smidge of that. They've both got A LOT of it! :)

With about 17 other kids in his new class and 2 full time teachers in the class and an occasional helper, there's lots of activity happening during his time at school. I'm sure it'll take a few weeks for everyone to be dialed in and progressing somewhat along the same learning level, but I'm confident we'll be needing to stress to his teachers along his educational journey to continue to challenge Colby. The boy loves to write, he LOVES to write! And having volunteered at VBS this past summer and known some of the children who are now actually in his new class, some of them were just spelling their name, forget about writing it. I'm not saying the kid is the best by any means, I'm just saying I know what his strengths are and what makes him tick! Writing makes him tick. Doing makes him tick. Challenges make him tick. So when the classroom notes came home a few weeks ago and said by the end of the week they should be able to recognize the first letter of their name, I knew that might have something to do with the teacher saying Colby was acting out in class.

I inquired further and found out he was completely "tuned in" as she called it during circle time and the teacher guided centers, during recess and library, but when they had the rotation at centers where they are doing a free choice activity he was not on his best behavior. Why? Well, of course, now that I have this tid bit of info... it makes more sense that our usual "helper", "thinker", "writer", wasn't being challenged during free choice. He NEEDS More!

So after a few short conversations and some notes showing her what kind of work Colby's been doing at home, I'm confident that it's part of the growing pains in a new place as everyone, including the teachers, get to know each other.

And thankfully as of today, Colby's had 8 straight school days of great behavior and nothing but good comments from the classroom. I'm sure it's just one of many bumps along the road, but now we know what else we need to work on with him. Not only does he love to learn and have this mind that's a sponge and need more, he needs to figure out how to self-challenge when the situation arises.

Anyone else have a "thinker"!?!

Twins

2011-09-28T21:14:00.000-04:00

There's not much you can do to avoid the "twins" question when you are traveling with 2 blonde tots that nearly look like twins who are riding in a double stroller and being pushed by real twins.

Soooo many people asked us whether Parker and Kinsley were twins... I guess they kinda look the part ehh?? Poor Colby must have seemed like the odd man out. Twin girls?? Twin babies?? Who's the middle man belong to? And who of the bunch of 5 belongs to what mommy? Ha. So we spent the better part of several days continually saying... nope, not twins, just cousins!

What do you think... should we have played along?? Could they pass for twins?

I've got my coupon!

2011-09-28T07:29:00.000-04:00

Back when we moved here it took a while to figure out what grocery store would become my new Big Y. My favorite store that I'd visit weekly or bi-weekly as I often do when our supply doesn't need refreshing and I'll just wait it out for better sales.

Well, you may or may not remember that infamous $10 off $40 coupon that comes out in the Harris Teeter ad. Sure enough over the course of the last several months and the rise in "extreme couponing" because of the shows on TV, getting to the store on Wednesday's to get the coupon and ad has become more of a competition than a nice grocery bill lowering incentive. Should I get to a store or gas station to pick up my paper any time after like 8:30am, forget it... papers are non-existent, very frustrating. Thankfully our local Publix does not allow you to purchase more than 3 papers at a time but really is that even necessary, how greedy are we people? Sure you can go out to the car, drop those and come back in, but really, do you need 3 $10 off coupons, perhaps if your grocery bill is typically $120... can't we share the wealth?

And with Colby getting on the school bus in the morning, my incentive to purposefully leave the house before 8am with Parker still in his pajamas is, well, non-existent. So unfortunately I've only managed to sweep up a $10 off coupon over the last several weeks when I've either had to go out early or been on the other side of town later in the day and hopefully popped into a store to happen to see if there were any papers left. Otherwise, I've just let the coupon go, albeit not something I've wanted to do, and continued to use as many standard manufacturer or store coupons that I can each week.

Wouldn't ya know, I noticed a change in our grocery budget now several months later. It's too high for me. I'd forgotten that the $10 off coupon "adds" up each week. I may be able to keep our family grocery bill down to about $50-60 a week, but without the coupon that creeps up and $40 a month (in $10 off coupons) is a lot of money when you add it up over a years time.

Then suddenly there must have been a message from above. Our local yocal paper that comes out with the school news and random advertisements from business and which is about 8 pages long at most arrived last week. Tucked in with it was a full size piece of card stock. To my pleasant surprise, on it was an ad from the town paper showing a 1 day sale on the cost of getting the paper delivered to your home. You could get it for X weeks for Y dollars and so on, but at the bottom it was in huge print.... "Best Deal" Get the newspaper delivered to your home 7 days a week for 52 weeks (yes, that's 1 full year) for $100! No way! Sure, a $100 is a $100 but here the paper costs $2.00 on Sunday's to get the coupon flyer and then $.75 on Wednesday's if I get out to get it, but hello don't forget I'll automatically get the HT flyer with the $10 off coupon in it every Wednesday when it is delivered.

So a little quick math. After 10 weeks of receiving our $10 off coupon, I'll already have re-cooped our initial investment, not to mention all the other papers purchased and amounts saved otherwise from buying the other papers and getting the Sunday ads. That's 42 other weeks of automatic savings just for having the paper delivered to our home and not wasting my time stopping for both the Wednesday and Sunday papers.

As you are already reading, I did it! I called the very next day when the sale was good for and we are now daily newspaper receivers. Something I never thought I'd do, especially when we didn't need the paper to "start a fire" in the fireplace! ha. Not sure we'll actually "read" the paper on a daily basis, but perhaps flip through it maybe. Who knows.... but either way I just saved myself heaps of time pondering over the darn $10 off coupon and money in the long run! I'm looking forward to the lower grocery bill again!

How about you... what's your trick to managing your grocery bill.

Their Girls

2011-09-27T22:09:00.000-04:00

Yep, it's safe to say that these 2 little blondies think that those 2 bigger blondishies are "their" girls!!

Riding Low

2011-09-27T21:06:00.000-04:00

How many people can you stuff on 1 golf cart??

Right now we've max'd out at 8!!

Stick Horse Happiness

2011-09-27T10:01:00.000-04:00

One of our first dinners out when we were in Disney in July was to a personal favorite... The Whispering Canyon Cafe! The milkshakes are fantastic and the family fun abounds all while you are enjoying a tasty family dinner.

Randomly throughout the meal the kids will be encouraged to participate in different activities. One of our favorites is the Stick Horse Ride!!! There's enough stick horses for every child. I don't think I've ever seen this many stick horses anywhere else ever.

Giddie Up!! Around and around he goes... do you see Colby just rounding the corner by the post on the right??

And of course after you've ridden yourself silly on a stick horse, why not just put your pajamas on right there in the hotel lobby and get ready for bed. We headed home from The Wilderness Lodge and sure enough despite it still being early, Parker was passed out cold in the back seat. Stick Horsin' Around will surely exhaust any growing cowboy!!

Road Trip

2011-09-26T20:55:00.001-04:00

Back in July my cousin Amanda and I decided to take a road trip! Yes, we were somewhat nutty, but with a week's vacation for me and her husband away protecting our nation, we figured, why not? We're two strong mommies that can handle our brood individually on a daily basis, why not together. Strength in numbers right??!! So, the day after the boys' birthday party we compacted and loaded gear, snacks and car seats into her Tahoe and well... Destination Disney!!!

We had a set of twin girls... Colby somewhere in the middle agewise... and 2 rear facing 2 year olds!

We were full! We were crazy! haha. J/K!
Scott was able to join us for a few days after some other work travel he had, but all in all we were 2 moms and way outnumbered with 5 kids in tow!

(Can ya tell I've resorted just blogging in the now with some of the past thrown in for good measure!)

Why I do what I do

2011-09-22T22:57:00.000-04:00

By now you already know that I'm a car seat guru... fanatic to some... mom with a passion. And seeing as it is National Child Passenger Safety Week I thought it fitting that I put up a post about car seat safety. Perhaps a few tips and tricks or some best practices or some stories, BUT, then I had 2 things happen almost simultaneously and so instead I think I'll write from the heart about why it is that I do what I do!!

At this point I'm not paid financially to teach people how to appropriately select a car seat and then how to install it in a vehicle, I volunteer my time to do it. Instead I am paid in appreciation and generosity. I'd rather know that 1 more child is riding safe than waste my time figuring out how to get paid to do it and market myself for the "job". In my opinion the longer I wait around to be hired the fewer families I can personally impact during that time.   So at this point, I just do it because I care. I want to help families avoid becoming another statistic and not because I have to.

So when I was buckling in our own 2 little precious cargo in the Walmart parking lot the other day and saw this...

I was genuinely devastated.   Not to many people can say they are distraught or upset by what they see in other peoples vehicles, but I for one got very sad by what I saw in the backseat of the car parked directly besides us.   I finished buckling in Colby and PJ and proceeded to rifle through all my paperwork that I keep in my car to find something I could write on that was car seat informational.

Now if you aren't a parent or haven't had children recently you probably won't be able to determine what is wrong with the photo. The picture shows the base to an infant car seat or "bucket" as so many people call them. The base is a nice feature that allows you to snap in or out your infant car seat without removing the baby. Most people with multiple cars will have a base for each vehicle and then the 1 "bucket" and whallah, cost effective car seat that goes where baby goes. An infant seat typically is what you bring baby home from the hospital in and the maximum weight and height allowed differ by manufacturer and car seat... some 22 pounds, some 30 pounds, some even 35 pounds. Another thing to note is that because this seat would only be carrying an infant, it would ONLY be used rear facing. Remember, the longer you rear face a child the safer he/she will be as it is 5 times safer than forward facing. Even the AAP now recommends rear facing until a minimum of 2 years old.

But in case you aren't familiar with the photo... let me tell you some more.   The instruction manual will tell the person reading to - thread the seat belt through the "belt path", which, incidentally enough, would be labels "belt path" on the car seat. You take the seat belt, buckle it into the receiver and pull and push and pull and push until you have successfully sweat off about 10 pounds and secured the base to the vehicle so that it does not budge. Sounds simple enough right. See... happy daddy below installing their infant seat bases into the vehicle using the appropriate belt path and pulling until snug.

Ok so here are different but similar photos side by side...

Do you see yet??

The infant base installed in the car that was parked next to me in Walmart just a few days ago the photo on the left.... It is facing the wrong direction!!!! OMG... I was so taken back by how and why and who would have done this I grabbed my phone (while fumbling for that paperwork) to snap a picture. My luck that the sun was in just the right spot to cause a huge glare, but you can see it. The back of the vehicle seat to the right of the photo. This infant base should be turned around so the that "hump" where the belt path is would be closest to the back of the seat, much like the photo of a correct install on the right.

I found some Safe Kids USA paperwork with best practices listed and scribbled down a message telling this person that their infant seat was installed incorrectly and they needed to contact our local Safe Kids coalition to find someone to help teach them how to do it so their child would be safe.

Not to mention that you can clearly see the back of the base (which really should be the front) isn't even touching the vehicle seat bottom. Dear me. Dear me. I could have convulsions right now because darn it... these things come with a manual WITH PICTURES and diagrams. And there are people and places that are willing to help! I almost wanted to try the door to see if it was open so I could reinstall it correctly right then and there. No I did not for all you crazies who thought I was that nutty!

Doesn't every parent of a new baby know that Infant Only "Bucket" car seats are REAR FACING ONLY!!! Well, this picture proves the answer is no, they don't... but they should! So follow along with me. This parent/caregiver either knows that the seat should face the back and thus tries to put it in the car that way and it doesn't secure to the base and instead just rests on top... OR they know that the base snaps together to hold the seat in place and therefore the baby ends up facing forward. Neither answer is good. Both could have catastrophic results that, to be blunt, may end up with a severely injured if not dead baby should they get into an accident.

PEOPLE, THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO BE!!!

I left the 2 pages of printouts with the contact information on the windshield of the vehicle and said a little prayer. A prayer for this caregiver that they may reach out to those who can help teach them to keep their baby safe. A prayer for the child in the seat that until this incorrect installation gets remedied they may be safe from harm. A prayer for car seat manufacturers that they can continue to improve technology of child restraints so that installation is fool proof. A prayer for me and all the other child passenger safety technicians that we may continue this passion, this fight for those little bitty traveling companions who entrust their safety into those who are caring for them. We can not stop learning and teaching and spreading the word until things like this happen no longer, until every child (and adult) ride safe!

And I went home, giving the boys an extra smooch good night at bed time and thanking God for my passion to keep them safe.

Then it happened again. Another amazing "in your face" moment that tells me I do what I do for a reason.

I received an email from some of my favorite ladies over at Graco! (Hi Kelly and Analise!!) I love my Graco Nation "team", just an amazing group of parents/caregivers and Graco employees who recognize well-designed products that create a healthy, happy, safe environment for our children (ok and totally adorable fashions too). Evidently they recognized my passion for child passenger safety, how I've tried to provide some technician Q&A feedback to the group and my efforts to teach every parent the importance of car seat safety. Well, it wasn't just a pat on the back email. They were generous enough to offer to donate 5, yes 5, MyRide 65 convertible car seats to our local Safe Kids coalition.

~Insert Jaw Drop Here~

AWESOME!!!

And again, just like my Walmart parking lot experience, I was stunned. This time not in awe of a parent who appears to be careless, but by a company that always goes over and above to give back. Remember the Give One Get One, yeah, Graco too... Father's Day promotions... yup, Graco... Monitor sent to us when Parker was born... yep, Graco! Totally adorable bird house project - just because... Graco!

The generosity is wonderful, but the knowledge that these 5 seats will in fact touch 5 families lives that might not otherwise have had the opportunity to keep their children safe - priceless!!!

Not to mention that it's a fantastic seat that will continue to keep those 5 children (maybe more if it is passed on to brothers and sisters!) safe for YEARS.

Why???

We have this very seat... see...

Colby rode in it for quite some time happily still rear facing past 1, 2, even 3 years old. Parker now rides in it rear facing in Scott's truck. And will also continue to RF quite some time as it has a maximum rear facing limit of 40 pounds. Parker, at 2 years 2 months still weighs in at only 25 pounds fully clothed, yep, he'll be RF in his MyRide a loooong time.

And when we go on longer road trips, I "flip the feet" (if you have this seat you'll know what I mean) adjust the harness strap height and Colby will ride in it now forward facing. We swap the seats for convenience when we are traveling long distances as it's easier to have Colby be the one with the cup holders when we may be eating in the car. Technically he could still be in it rear facing as he's only 37ish pounds, but we'd turned him around at just about 3.5 years old... and well, let's just say that I have a feeling Parker will be RF much longer than that. I was a car seat guru back then, but now, I've got that stamp of certification and that much MORE knowledge than I did just less than a year ago. I am a firm believer of practicing what you preach and thus that's what I'll do! Plus, Parker's just a skinny peanut I couldn't imagine having that tiny body facing forward yet.

With the lazy boy recliner feel, yet the 65 pound forward facing weight limit and cup holders, the MyRide 65 is bound to make any baby, toddler, and child happy for many, many years. Our boys are - obviously!!! I certainly can't fall asleep this easily in a vehicle seat belt, that's for sure! Check out the ultimate in relaxation!

So here I am awaiting the delivery tomorrow of these 5 seats. Now "armed" and ready for my National Seat Check Event I'm volunteering at on Saturday.   Not sure whether we'll need them on Saturday or not, but there's no doubt in my mind that these seats will in fact be put to good use in the very near future!

As I wrote back in my email reply... "I'm so blessed to have had the seed of passion for CPS planted in my heart and how awesome that both of you and Graco are willing to foster that.   I almost don't really know what to say.   THANK YOU! Being in the business you are in, you probably already know how many families just can't seem to find the means to keep their children safe and it's not because they are being stubborn or ignorant, but often just because they don't know or can't afford to.   To know that even just 5 more families will have children that are safer because of Graco and myself, I'm so proud to be a part of this "tight knit" community.   ..."

So again, I thank you, Graco, Analise and Kelly. For all that you do as a company, for being the kind ladies I've gotten to know, and for continuing to remind me that financial rewards aren't everything.

September is Baby Safety Month and specifically this week is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Child Passenger Safety Week... are you and your precious cargo buckled up with "best practice" in mind?!

UPDATE:

LOOK WHAT ARRIVED TODAY!!
Parker was even so excited he wanted to be in the photo with all the boxes. Had to have his hockey stick in it, but that's a boy for ya!

Can't wait to buckle up another kiddoe in a fantastic, safe MyRide! Safe Kids Car Seat Event... here I come!

Chinese Take Out

2011-09-22T20:07:00.001-04:00

Here's my random thought for the day... ponder away!

Anybody have a clue as to why most Chinese food restaurants are take out only??? Yes, sure there's often sit down Chinese food restaurants but typically they are a little more "upscale" as upscale as a Poo Poo platter can be. But you know what I mean. The average run of the mill Beef with Broccoli, Boneless Spare Ribs, order a #1 Chinese place is take out... Why?!

An inbox with 3

2011-09-21T22:42:00.002-04:00

Yeah!!

I'm finally down to 3 emails in my inbox!!! Now that calls for major celebration if you ask me! :)

Stationery card

2011-09-21T22:21:00.001-04:00

Little Goblins Halloween Card

Create your own Halloween photo cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

I'm often emailed random coupon codes from Shutterfly... this week I got one for a free card. I only ordered 1 card because that's all that was free so anyone that might want a Halloween card from the boys... here it is! :)

Happy early Halloween from our goblins!

Trucks can be pink too!

2011-09-19T21:43:00.000-04:00

Came upon this truck driving down the road the other day and had to snap a picture with my phone!!!

Nope, wasn't a chic driving the big rig either as I somewhat expected. Guess the guy who drove this thing was very content in his manhood! :)

Elmo & Cookie Pool Party

2011-09-16T22:11:00.000-04:00

And to conclude the Elmo & Cookie Party Fun!!!

Here's some pictures of the party happiness :)

Some were swimming, some visiting, some snacking!

This is Elmo... noooooo. This is Miss Jill, Colby's speech therapist who was sweet enough to come to the party. I'd say of all people, this was the person he was the happiest to see that day. He absolutely loves her and we are so thrilled that they have created such a special bond. How awesome that someone who is there to work with him and get him to "work" hard for her, is actually one of his favorite people these days. I'm so proud of Colby and the amazing strides he's making with his speech... thanks to Miss Jill! Besides, she is definitely a fun person, who else can sport an Elmo hat like the best of 'em! :)

Well, Ok so maybe a few us of can be Elmo's and Cookie's and kids at heart!

This little cutie is Max. He is the son of one of my MOMS Club friends and totally makes my heart melt, well, and want another little one! :)

And here's Max with his mommy, Cynthia, and another one of my MOMS Club friends, Christine with her daughter, Barbara Raynne. (pronounced Rain)

More fun Elmo & Cookie heads... JoAnn with our little friends Kaitie and Ryan. Yep, he's stylin with those sunglasses and his Cookie hat.

Cake Time!!! or Cookie Time!!!
Whichever you choose.

Nevermind that Parker was taking a lick of icing before we'd even gotten through singing!

Yummy, yum, yum, yum!

Red and Blue faces all around!!

And with amazingly perfect timing, the thunder rolled in and skies opened up at 1:05 on the nose. Wouldn't ya know the party invite says that part was over at 1pm! Not too shabby in the timing and planning... if only I could work my magic like that every time we have an event that is weather dependent.

So those who were staying came back to the house for gifts. Parker napped and Colby opened some presents and visited.

All in all a very fun day.

Anyone having an Elmo or Cookie Monster party?? I've got plenty of party supplies that you can have to spruce up your shin dig!!

Hmmm.... now the 2012 party theme pondering begins. I already have a few ideas up my sleeve, but alas I think I'll get through the holidays first!

Even Grandma Rides to Dinner

2011-09-16T21:50:00.000-04:00

We have a local "wings" place! I've mentioned how close it was here. It's just a typical 'pub grub' type place, but it fits our style and we absolutely love how we can ride our bikes to dinner. Makes us not feel so bad about eating our way through an entire pile of wings. So when my mom was in town for the boys birthday party, we of course had to give her the "ride your bike to dinner" experience. Complete with beach cruiser bike, she made it!!

And yes, if you are detailed oriented and look closely in the photo.... you know you're in the South when there's a putting green on the deck of a restaurant so you can "putt around" while you wait or grab a drink at the bar. Fun!

Waiting on the school bus

2011-09-16T21:36:00.000-04:00

If you've got to wait around for your big brother to get off the school bus... why not do it in style!!

Zoom, Zoom!!!

And the bus driver even teased him and asked for a ride :)

Cousin Disney Meet-Up!

2011-09-15T21:31:00.000-04:00

When we were in Disney this past July, it just so happened that my sister, Dawn and her family were also there. We actually had come with other family members so didn't get a chance to spend a whole lot of time together, but we sure made it a point of meeting up and getting the cousins together a few times. So when we all were at Animal Kingdom one day, where else would you get together than at the Lion King show?! I managed to capture all the happy cousins sitting together while we waited to be entertained by Simba, Timon and all their friends. (Sorry, the camera phone can only do so much in the darkness of a theater!)

Love you guys! Miss you all over again!

Daddy's Day Out

2011-09-15T21:12:00.001-04:00

I think I've mentioned before that our new neighborhood is on a golf course. We love the peaceful atmosphere that it creates and how fun it is to drive home every day and see the people playing. Colby's even recently started asking to learn to play so we'll see how we can somehow figure out how to fit that in to our schedule. I love how the rolling hills, golf carts and flags on the greens create such a unique feel to our "hum drum", monotonous drive home... to me I still somewhat pinch myself and think that I'm on vacation every day because of the golf course.

I'm not much of a golfer, although now that we live here, I've resorted to the fact that at some point I'll have to learn. Scott enjoys a good game of golf just hadn't had much opportunity to go when we lived up north. The season certainly isn't as long as it is down here - year round!!

So when Kim was in town over the 4th of July, he took the opportunity to tee off with her as she has actually swung a club before... I, on the other hand, have just driven the cart! :)

I stayed home with 2 napping boys while they went off to play. Once the little guys had gotten up from their naps, I piled them into the wagon and walked on over to the course to see if we could find daddy and Aunt Kim. Sure enough they were on the 14th tee and so we followed along on the cart path to watch them play some.

I didn't exactly have my golf etiquette hat on that day and by the 18th hole was heckling at them. Sorry guys! Love ya!

I'm glad that Scott got a little daddy's day out time and perhaps I need to actually try out the sport once before I decide it's too boring for me. Besides, my competitive side can't let Scott get too good before I learn... the boys got him 4 private golf lessons for Father's Day. I'd better figure out how to play before he gets so good he can kick my butt for sure!

At what age?

2011-09-15T21:12:00.000-04:00

At what age should children... teens... kids... be given a cell phone?

My random thought and question of the day!

Donut Cake

2011-09-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

We do birthday's with a bang!!

Both Scott and I grew up in families that made a big deal out of birthdays and thus we've kinda just followed in that path with our boys. We actually celebrate each of our birthdays for an entire week! It keeps the celebration going and gives us a continued excuse to eat down the sweet treats that usually come with a birthday. Since Parker's birthday is July 1 and Colby's is July 15th we end up just celebrating for 2 straight weeks and get all sugared out before we crash on the 16th! ha.

So what better way to kick off our birthday party event Saturday morning than with a breakfast of champions... a DONUT CAKE!!! Nope, we'd never heard of it either until we went one day to our local donut shop and there was a picture of it in the front window. I ordered it right there on the spot. Knowing we'd have family and friends in town that morning of the party, I figured this was easier than making pancakes for everyone that morning all while trying to finish getting everything prepped to get out the door!

Donut Cake it was. Complete with candles and birthday writing. Yep, the donut place did all of that!

It was quite yummy and you could even choose which donuts and how many you wanted in the stack. I opted to tell them just a "kid-friendly" design as I didn't think this bunch would mind what donuts were in it, just thought it should be fun and bright!

He doesn't look like it because he was still half asleep, (even though it was already 8:45am) but PJ did thoroughly enjoy his donut!

Definitely the way to kick off a birthday party!

He's Cute, He's Skinny, and He's in Undies!

2011-09-14T21:06:00.000-04:00

Alright, so I"m a terrible blogger as this post is MONTHS overdue! Yes, much like his big brother, Parker, was potty trained before his 2nd birthday as well. Again, we cleared our calendar for Memorial Day weekend and set out to have a diaper free little boy by the end of the weekend. Yes, he'd been going on the potty a few times a week as I put him on, but not with the consistency or urgency of actually "potty training". So with nothing on the calendar and lots of windows to clean, the weekend of going commando began! :)

And so that's just what we did... All Weekend Long!

On the potty we went. On the potty again. Run, run, quick, quick! Lots of praise and rewards.

Sure enough after 3 long days of hard work and lots of stickers, M&Ms and a multitude of sprinkles on the floor, we had a not yet 2 year old who was tinkling on the potty with consistency!

I'd actually say that Parker "got it" even quicker than Colby did. With Colby we would sit and wait and sit and read and sit and sit and sit cause that boy had (and still has) the bladder of steel. So Colby would just end up holding it and holding it until he had to go or until we'd waited long enough for the pee pees to come. Parker, on the other hand, doesn't appear to have the ability to hold it nearly as long. He had to go ALL the time! Granted we were filling him with gallons of water to keep the pipes working but still, even now several months later he still has to go quite often. Guess he's following in my footsteps cause I have the smallest bladder in the world! He did, however, get the idea that the minute you sit on the potty (no potty chair this time around... we skipped that step and went straight for the real deal) you go... you sit = you go! Heck, after about a week he even got the concept of the poops! Remember that took Colby forever cause he'd just hold it and hold it. Parker, I found, actually had more consistent #2s in the first few weeks on the potty than he did #1s.

Thankfully we've been able to tap into Parker's food motivation. As you might remember, Colby had no sweet tooth what-so-ever so getting him motivated to go wasn't all that easy. I did manage to tap into his need to please and desire for fun trinkets with the special treat box, but that took long enough! Parker, on the other hand, LOVES sweets and water! So we were able to use that to our benefit. He's so skinny I'm not even worried about how many treats he was getting during this potty training time. We had M&Ms, cookies, cup cakes, sweet cereal, you name it, we used it! We had success... and he's still only 25 pounds so I'd say no harm done! :)

Sure we've still had our fair share of accidents but typically they are the outside and I don't want to stop playing accidents. Understandable given he's only just turned 2. He's still wearing a pull-up or diapers during naps and bed time and remembering how long that took Colby I'm not too worried about that. I'll take early daytime potty training any day over all day diapers.

I'd say our technique is now 2 times proven successful... so what's the secret??

Well, of course, that's for another post!

In the meantime... isn't this skinny, potty trained, undie wearing little boy totally adorable??!??!

Elmo and Cookie Party Prep

2011-09-14T20:45:00.002-04:00

So I'm going back a ways, but figured some have asked me what our Elmo & Cookie Party turned out like so I'd better put up some pictures... Better late than never, right?!

Seeing as the boys birthdays are summer birthdays, instead of doing party favors and trinkets that people toss out, I opted to get sand pails instead. I got them in the dollar bin at Tarjay so score there. I put each child's name on the outside for a little fun and added some child-friendly party favor items that went with the theme!

Elmo board books also from the dollar bin, some goldfish crackers (remember Dorothy is Elmo's goldfish!), and some bubbles or pencils depending on the child's age. Whallah, the bucket stuffing table was complete!

While I was bucket stuffing, my mom was cutting and prepping fruit. We had the party at our neighborhood pool so that meant for a bit of logistical planning. We had to bring everything there with no access to fridge or storage so I had iced down drinks in coolers days before and prepped all the snacks ahead of time keeping them in our fridge until we left. Luckily I had this extra set of hands for chopping watermelon and cantaloupe.

Saturday am was party day!!!
We had reserved the screened room so that all our guests had a spot to escape the sun and sit down at tables to eat lunch. It also helped to corral everyone for cake time!

I brought along the birthday banner I had made last year and it hung perfectly to announce our celebration to everyone at the pool!

Every child got to choose an Elmo visor or Cookie Monster visor. I made those instead of party hats and they were a big hit! I bought one of those party helium tanks to see how it would work and sure enough it filled about 30 balloons so that worked out great!

If you look closely on the tables, I'd bought Elmo Easter baskets on closeout and tucked the handles in and filled them with the chips and snacks! That turned out to be a very cute table decoration.

Seeing as it was most preschoolers attending the party and that most of the time people would be swimming, I had 1 game set up that everyone could do any time during the party. I filled a glass vase with crayons and had everyone guess how many were inside, the person closest got a prize. There was 99 in case you were wondering and our neighbor Maddie won!

I brought the little bitty wagon and filled it with cheese balls... everything was primary colors and added a great pop of color in the screened porch that is usually pretty drab.

My Elmo cake didn't transport all that well, but with Cookie Monster by his side, I'd say they made for a great dessert for the party and no one cared about how it looked but how it tasted! :) And in case you were wondering... the cookie was AWESOME!!! and yes, everyone's mouths were red and blue!!

I'd say the party prep went off with out a hitch, even WITH having to bring it all. I even remembered a cake knife and candles, but had forgotten matches. Some random person at the pool had some so thanks random woman with the matches!! :)

Losing Steam

2011-09-13T22:15:00.000-04:00

I thought for sure I'd be blogging all night long trying to catch everyone up on our happenings, but alas, I'm losing steam and throwing in the towel. See y'all tomorrow night! :)

A little break

2011-09-13T19:42:00.002-04:00

You probably noticed with the lack of posts over the last few weeks that I took a little break from blogging. Life around here was a little hectic, we were getting back into the swing of a new school year routine and getting ready for life with 2 little boys in preschool. Not to mention we squeezed in a family vacation during that time and just managed to sneak through some flights that passed over hurricane Irene. So, while trying to get life back to normal and everyone settled, mommy took a little break from worrying about everyone else in the world and instead worried about making sure my family was complete and happy.

I'd say we're there!

A few weeks into the new routine and everyone is still very much smiling! Colby absolutely loves his new teacher and classroom, he's doing great with his new speech therapist at school and is thrilled each and every day to get up at 6:15am because he gets to ride the school bus!! Whatever gets ya going in the morning... I'll take it! Parker has had 3 great days at his new nursery school. He's going pee pee on the potty at school and bringing home totally adorable toddler art. He even got out of the car this morning and instead of wondering what was going on with the little quiver in the lip as he did on day 2 (no tears ever, just a little questioning in the mind), it clicked that this is happening every week - he turned around and waved bye and said Bye Bye Mom-mah! Love it!

So I"m back at it again.

Hope you are ready for some reading!!

Telemarketers

2011-09-13T19:42:00.000-04:00

How is it that I can still get phone calls from telemarketers and random companies when I'm on the do not call list??!!?? Arghhh so frustrating. I hate that running to get the phone urgency only to find out that the darn recording on the other end is just a waste of my time. And for example, just now I got a call from the NRA! Really???? How in the world might our number ended up on the call list for someone who might donate to the National Rifle Association. Are you kidding me??? That just topped the list!

Anyone else frustrated by the random callers that you don't really want to talk to?!

Will Power

2011-09-13T19:31:00.001-04:00

Why is it that when Scott's away on business overnight I have the worst will-power in the world? Ice cream sundaes get the best of me and even worse I usually take them up to bed with me. It's not like we don't eat ice cream when he is around, but I most certainly have ice cream more often when he's away. What a weird thing really. Everything else in life is pretty normal, routine stays the same, not much changes throughout the day, boys generally are the same... nightly ice cream treat, however, certainly gets the best of me when he's gone. Perhaps it helps me calm the nerves of hating to sleep alone! ha.

Little Laundry Helpers

2011-09-13T19:22:00.001-04:00

Somehow we lucked out with two little boys who thankfully love to help out. And especially in the laundry department! Given that you already know our laundry schedule, it seems like the boys must as well.

So when I went in the other day to switch the laundry both of them came running in after me wanting to do it ALL! Yup, Parker proceeded to open the dryer and hand me everything from in it to fold. Colby headed for the washer and as the dryer finally became empty, filled 'er right back up again and even started it up!

I love my little laundry helpers!

Oh and in case your wondering what happens when the laundry is actually folded and ready to be put away. Depending on what time of day it is we'll usually wait for all the loads to be dried and then put it all away at once right then. Piles are made on our bed and get sorted accordingly. Colby does in fact put away all his own laundry into the drawers or on the shelves in his closet, he leaves the things that need to get hung up for me. Parker, too, puts away his bathing suits, pajamas, undies and socks. Everything else of his gets hung up so those are my job!

Townsend Teamwork at its best!!