Bath Time

Ameila was having  great time in the bath until she decided to dunk her face.  She was very tired and did it all on her own.  

Two weeks

It took my Amelia 12 days to take an ornament off our tree.  That took way longer than I thought it would.  Both of the kids have left it alone for the most part.  I even situated all of the ornament in a kid proof fashion.  Don't worry, the one she is holding is a plastic cheapy from IKEA.    

Here she is putting it back up on the tree.  I think she is way smarter than I give her credit for.  

Spaghetti noodle

Do you remember being a kid and learning that spaghetti noodles stick to the wall?  My son got that lesson tonight.  The cool thing was that I got to teach him.  We were just finishing up dinner and I threw a plain, sticky noodle at him.  I don't know what came over me.  A long day at work? Maybe?  He gave me the oddest look.  He knew that throwing food was wrong and that I'm always telling him to stop playing around at the table.  He was now learning the valuable lesson that sometimes you just have to let loose.  We spent the next 10 minutes throwing the noodle between Tim, Oliver and me, trying to stick it to each others faces.  Amelia even got caught in the crossfire.  All four of us were laughing.  Not just laughing, but full out belly laughs.  The ones that make you laugh, just because someone else is laughing so hard.  Who knew that one spaghetti noodle would be so entertaining and be a fun memory.  Another valuable lesson:  it's only okay to throw food if mom or dad instigates it.  And I mean it. 

Nuk Be Gone! Woohoo!

Yes Oliver was still using a nuk at bedtime.  We told him that when he threw his nuks (2) away he could get a new cool train set.  We prepped him for a few days and decided Sunday the 16th was the day.  I already had purchased and wrapped the Thomas Adventure Canyon train set so it was ready to go.  That morning he threw them away and got his new track.  He was so excited that we all got enjoyment out of setting it up.  I hope it was a preview for Christmas.  He played with it for 12 hrs strait.  He even skipped his nap "no nap today, I'm playing trains".  He asked for it once before bed.  We simply reminded him that the nuk was gone and he got a special train set because of it.  That was it.  He hasn't asked for it since.  I was expecting this to be a lot harder, but I should have known.  That's how he's been with every hard transition we've come across.  Bottle, big boy bed, potty training ect.  I know our being consistent has helped with it, but I can't take all the credit. He's just my easy going (transition wise) kid.

Grandmas rule

They spider swing with you.  

They hunt for trains on real train tracks with you.  

They break the law with you. Note the no trespassing sign right next to Oliver.  We love you Grandma Jeanne!

We did it!

I know, I know a little late Sara, but better late than never.  I haven't been able to talk about this topic without crying, so I had to wait until the kids were sleeping.  It's a happy cry, but to a 2 year old all crying is cause for concern.  

Two days ago I got to vote.  I woke up and was anxiously trying to figure out how I was going to manage voting with 2 kids.  I worked 5-9pm so I couldn't go when my husband got home.  I planned everything out.  Both kids ate, Amelia napped (extra long, of course) and we got dressed for playing at the park afterwards (bribe).  We walked the 4 blocks to North Dale and waited all of 15 second for a booth to open and we were out of there. Lickity split.  No lines, no complications.  I felt amazingly calm afterwards, but everyone at the playground seemed to be looking around sizing up the competition.  I wonder who they voted for?  

I got home from work at 9:15 and  I wasn't expecting them to announce the results so quickly.  When they said Barack Obama was the new President I was in shock.  After shock came tears.  I cried and cried.  I cried when I thought about waking Oliver up in the morning and telling him that Obama won.  I cried for all of the black people out there that deserve to have a president that looks like them.  I cried for all the people that have fought so hard get equal rights.  I cried because I felt like Barack will bring some peace to this world.  I cried because I finally felt hopeful.  I am still crying because there is so much emotion and history behind this election.  I feel like there will finally be someone in charge that is looking out for me and my family.  Relief. Hope. Love. 

If you ask Oliver who his parents voted for he'll tell you"Bak Obama," he even helped his dad put the sign out in our front yard, but I know he doesn't really understand.  Someday my kids will get it and they will always know that they were a part of it, strapped into the big double stroller. 

Today we went trick-or-treating at Rosewood Estates Senior Living Home with the mom's group.  We had a blast.  Oliver seems to understand the overall concept, but more times than not he forgets to say please and thank you.  There was a man sitting in the hallway with a bowl of candy in his lap.  Oliver walked right up to him and took a piece of candy out of the bowl.  The man's reply was "that boy is going to be rich someday".  I said thanks, but the more I think about it, I hope that's not how he gets things.  I hope that it is just a 2 year old seeing candy and taking some.  I know that's what it is, but it just got me thinking.    I hope gets what he want's in life, but doing it the right way.  Politely, honestly and caring about other people.  If being rich fits in that equation, so be it.  I'm sure he'll share with his mama.  

Thank you Oliver

Oliver and I decided to make caramel apples yesterday after I put Amelia down for her afternoon nap. I had anticipated it to go like every other time I've tried to make something with him. He usually starts out strong, makes a huge mess and then ends up watching cartons while I finish the last 98%. He surprised me this time. He helped me unwrap the 50 caramels, melt them on the stove, put the 5 popsicle sticks in the apples and spoon the gooey goodness over the apples. He immediately wanted to eat one. I told him he had to wait becuse it was almost dinner time and they have to go in the refrigerator for an hour. There was extra caramel even after adding extra to the 5 apples. I thought what the heck, why can't we have a treat before dinner. I'm the mom and I make the rules (at least while dad's at work). I cut up an apple, put it in a bowl, and drizzled the sticky caramel on top. You should have seen Oliver's eyes light up when I told him it was for us to eat now. Just from his expressions he seemed to understand that it was a special treat and we were breaking the rules. One for you, one for me as we casually enjoyed the fruits of our labor. I had dinner to make and I didn't care. I was taking this un-interupted time to enjoy my son's company. Also, keep in mind he has been in the kitchen with me for about an hour. That is a record. The whole time we were eating he kept saying 'thanks mom!' At one point, he even got up and moved his chair closer to mine, 'there' he said. He looked up at me with a really sweet look and said 'friends mom'. I gave him a huge hug and said 'yes honey, we're friends'. You could tell at that moment he felt very happy, content and loved. As did I. There you go, my favorite mommy moment to date. Oliver, I will always be your mom, you can't change that, but I hope you will always want to be my friend. I am very proud to have you as my very cool, sweet, caring and sensitive little boy. I don't feel like I say that enough.   I love you Sweetheart. 

ps. dinner was still on time.

MMMM...Chocolate

He is definitely my son. 

No, I was not letting him eat a bowl of chocolate.  He was licking the bowl after I melted some milk chocolate chips in it.

Disney movie here I come

My aunt bought Amelia this costume at a garage sale earlier this week. 

 

She absolutely loved it, and we had a lot of laughs. It was well worth the $1.00. 

I can't pass up a good deal

So I'm learning that my thriftiness can sometimes be a curse.  I had a mission on Saturday, make baby food for Amelia.  I woke up early.  Oliver and I were at the Farmers Market by 8am. *side note-  I had a great time with Oliver.  I rarely get 1 on 1 time with him.  If we split up I usually get Amelia because she is more cooperative if I am tying to get something done*  We were looking for  squash, apples, carrots, pumpkins & sweet potatoes.  We found butternut & acorn squash  for $1 a piece.  Great, I'll get 2 of each.  The butternut squash was so big the vendor asked me if I wanted to pull my car up.  Nah, I have a cloth bag.  I can carry it.  Then we found nice looking carrots for $2/ basket.  I'll get 2.  Throw in $1 for a yummy sprinkle doughnut for my cooperative, sweet son.  So total I spent $9 at the farmers market.  Since we only found 2 things on my list, we stopped at Rainbow on our way home.  They had sweet potatoes and apples on sale.  Fantastic.  I started to feel the "I'm getting such a great deal" rush.  I bought 6 lbs of sweet potatoes for $3.50, 6 lbs of apples for $6,  2 avocados for $2.50 & two huge cans of pumpkin for $4.  I had the drive home to try to figure out how much I spent. Grand total for all of the food was $24.  I could wait to tell Tim.  He was lucky to have married such a thrifty mom.  I started boiling sweet potatoes and got the squash in the oven.  I wish I would have taken pictures the butternut squash. It barely fit on my cookie sheet.  I pureed the potatoes in the blender.  And got them in the ice cube trays.  Keep in mind, I have 6 ice cube trays to freeze the purees in.  6 trays are usually enough to freeze all of he food I make, once in a while I have to do 2 batches.  The sweet potatoes took up all of the 6 trays.  I don't know why this surprised me.  So I was just going to puree the squash and refrigerate it until the trays became available.  I filled up the blender, but it wouldn't turn on .  I fried the blender.  Aggghhhh.  So I had to resort to using the tiny baby food processor I had stashed away.  Long store short, I am still not done.  I have not even touched the carrots or apples and my freezer is full.  I have to get rid of some of the food in order to finish my project.  Why did the freezer space not come into play when I was buying all of the food?  I'll tell you why.  I'm crazy!  When it come s to getting good deals, my common sense goes out the window.  But I must tell you,  I have 350 cubes/ounces of food already (not counting the apples and carrots).  That is 2 1/2 months of food for less then $24.  If anyone wants some squash or sweet potato puree, let me know.  I need my freezer back and I think Amelia would enjoy eating something other then those 2 veggies.  Next mission... get the rest of the food done before it spoils. 

Bike Ride

We decided to take a bike ride to the park tonight.   Amelia usually rides in a seat behind my bike, but we decided to shake it up a bit.  She loved it and they were do darn cute in there. And yes, I was taking pictures while riding my bike. 

Does it get any sweeter?

Comfort food

What did you give me, Mom?  A noodle!  I want the good stuff. 

That right.  I love graham crackers!  

I'm smiling so big you can barely see my eyes.

Just incase you thought I was blinking in previous picture, here's another one.  

I had to be this cute.  I left mom a pretty big mess to clean up after this eating adventure.  I made it totally worth it.  

I bet you're smiling too as you're reading this. Am I right?

We got a dog... and then she went home.

Her name was Doja.  She was a 9 month old Pit mix.  She was a great dog. I mean a great dog.  She was mellow and tolerated a lot of abuse from Oliver.  But she was big and took up a lot of room in our little house.  If only she had come into our lives 5 years later.  

We had her for a trial period so we could see if she was a right fit for our family.  I spent the past four days going back and forth on whether or not we should keep her.  I pretty much drove myself insane.  It's done. Tim brought her "home" tonight.  I am really sad, but I know I'll wake up tomorrow relieved.  I think this experience cemented how much I love my family and value my time with them.  Now instead of being overwhelmed by two kids, it seems like, wow I only have 2 kids.  It seems really quiet around here now and I like it. Our family is complete for now.  Thanks for the learning experience Doja!

Minnesota Children's Museum

Amelia loved playing in the water.

Great timing Dad!  I love this picture. 

Yep, Oliver was climbing.  I know it's hard to believe.

She's already taking time to stop and smell the roses.  She's now sitting on her own.

 

Future rock star?  Maybe. 

We had a blast at the museum.  For some reason things just seemed to click for Oliver.  He was playing appropriately with all of the toys.  My favorite was when he went shopping at the grocery store and after he paid he put all of the food away in the right spots.    He's getting so smart.  Amelia was her typical going with the flow sort of gal. Thanks Grandma Toni for the membership. We're making good use of it.  

Hand Me Downs are the Best

Tim's sister brought us a bunch of toys yesterday that her 2 little boys have out grown.  It's like Christmas in my living room.   

Can you find Amelia? She's under the easel. She put herself there.  She must have been just as overwhelmed as I was.  I was overwhelmed in a good way.  We both have been getting bored with our current toys. We have so many new things to play with.  

Every single piece of this Little People World was either a gift(1), garage sale purchases or hand me downs from cousins or nephews.  We are so lucky. Oliver has been playing with this for a whole solid hour, of course he's climbing all over me now that I'm on the computer. 

Fun at the Fair

Minnesota State Fair- 2008

Here are my little piggies

Oliver's first ride on the Giant Slide.  He loved it. He said, "more, more, more" for the next 10 minutes. 

He loves sitting on the tractors.  Notice the big tractor he's riding is an Oliver tractor.  And no that is not what he is named after.  That was the first question my grandpa asked me when he was born. 

It was so hard for him to wait his turn to ride this tractor, but he did it!

*this post could have been so much better if the picture layout thingy wasn't so silly.  I can't put the pictures or text where I want them.   AARRRRGGG I am so frustrated.   Is it just me?  I feel like I am competent on the computer but this program is not making any sense.  What my post looks like in the edit or preview mode is not what shows up once I publish it. No I did not mean for it to look like a jumbled mess. Lets play "guess what order the pictures are supposed to be in and what caption goes where". This sucks.  My post quickly turned from a quick blog about a fun day and turn into me swearing and wondering if I will ever do this again. And Tim doesn't blog so he is of no help.  If anyone knows what I am doing wrong please let me know.  

Karma kicked my butt

We had a great morning playing at North Dale.  Our good friends were there, it wasn't too crowded and the weather was fantastic.  We ended up staying until noon.  Perfect,  the free lunch from the St Paul schools starts at noon. 

 We convinced Karen and Aiden to come eat with us.  This lunch program is fantastic.  It's healthy and free for kids.  There are a few very strict rules and the 14 year olds running it will make you abide by them.  1. only the kids can eat it (parents can't even take a sip of milk). 2. the food has to be eaten there (no taking 1/2 eaten sandwiches home).  Those are the 2 rules and I can't seem to follow them.   My friend, Kelly taught me how to sneak the food into the diaper bag while the kids are diverting the attention of the food drill sergeant.  I used this tactic today to sneak this half pint carton of 1% milk into the stroller.

 We have plenty of milk at home, but I just cannot seem to pass up a free school sized carton of milk.  Plus, Oliver has a tough time drinking straight out of the carton.  I have straws at home that would make it easier.  

Okay, stop making excuses.  I knew it was wrong.  I snuck the carton into the car and drove it home, feeling extremely guilty the whole time.  Oliver carried the smashed up, mushy milk into the house asking for a straw 1,000 times.  I set Amelia down and pulled a straw out of the drawer.  I opened the beat up carton and smelled the milk.  It smelled a little off, but I always think perfectly good milk smells bad. I took a small sip... argggggg.    It was spoiled.  I dumped the milk down the drain, chunks and all.   I was swishing and spitting the nearest water I could find and then guzzling my Diet Coke.  Oliver was laughing hysterically at me.  

The free lunch Gods were looking down at me pointing and laughing.  Okay,  I think I learned my lesson.  Next time I will at least look at the expiration date before I stick something into my bag.     * this particular milk expired today.

One Week

Sorry it's been a while. Everyday this week I have thought, "oh I should blog about that".  I have not been able to find 2 spare minutes to write anything.  So now I have to write one big blog to recap my week.  

First we traced Oliver on the sidewalk and instantly had to run it over with our trike.

Then Oliver wanted to play on the Thomas website.  I usually have to get the song/video going and then I go into the kitchen to work on dinner.  I heard the song end so I was heading towards the living room when I heard the next song start.  I peeked into the room to see him using the mouse to click on the next song. 

When I asked him if he did that all by himself.  He looked at me with a very proud look on his face and simply said, "two tums up" (2 thumbs up).  If you can notice in the picture he is a little confused about which digits are his thumbs.  I think it makes the story that much sweeter. 

Then we turned our back yard into a nudist beach.

Abby and Grace invited us to swim in their community pool on Friday.  We decided swim suits were the appropriate attire for this pool.  The kiddie pool was freezing, but Amelia still liked it.  Oliver had his first experience of falling into the kiddie pool and not being able to get his head above the water.  I was right there to get him, but it really scared him.  

I gave Oliver a haircut in our living room on Sunday. He has been getting so hot while running around at the playground. I thought he needed to get rid of some of the insulation.  I bribed him with special snacks and cut quickly. I have been following him around the house with scissors for 3 days now clipping pieces I missed.  Oh well, it was very cheap. 

 He even helped clean it up.   

As you can see, we have had a very busy week and 3 days.  I even left out a lot.  There,  that's one more thing off of my mental check list.   Next, making dinner and getting to work. 

Huff-N-Puff

Yesterday we went to the Lake Elmo Huff-N-Puff softball tournament.  I have gone to this tournament pretty much every year since I can remember (minus a couple years when it was not cool to hang out with my parents).  A couple of my aunts, uncles and parent's friends still play.  We got to the fields around noon for my aunt's game.  

Oliver had so much fun playing with my cousins Jack and Joe.  After that game (they won in the last inning) we went back to the main field.  They had a free bouncy castle and carnival games for the kids.  Oliver played all the games,

 well kind of.  He doesn't understand that he has to stand back and try to throw the ball in the hole.  Why would go through all of the extra effort?  He gets the same prize if he just walks up there and puts the ball in the hole.  I think he's learned a valuable life lesson. We even ran into our friends Julia and Leo at the playground.  What a great surprise. 

Oliver played and played some more. He didn't really care much about the softball games.  I did learn that it is very difficult to watch a game with a toddler running around.  Thankfully, there were a lot of family and friends around to help out. We ended up staying there until 7pm.  All in all we got to see some great softball and got very dirty.  Oh and the kids slept pretty well that night. 

Need sleep!

I woke up this morning wishing I could call in sick from being a stay at home mom.  I haven't gotten much sleep lately because Amelia is far from sleeping through the night.  Obviously, I cannot do that; I must go on.  I got myself moving by telling myself I would do everything in my power to take a nap this afternoon.  We played hard at the park and made it through a crazy lunch.  I got Oliver in his bed, then Amelia in my bed, ate my lunch and changed the laundry.  "Good I should still have an hour to nap".  I took off my glasses and got ready to join Amelia in my bed.  Her beautiful bright eyes were staring at me.   Dun dun dun.  My carefully executed plan out the window.  I wanted to cry.  I flopped down in the bed next to her just to pout.  She just laid there smiling at me with her big toothless grin. How could I hold this against her?  I decided to take that time to be totally into Amelia. We stared at each other 

and I stroked her hair.  And would you believe it,  she fell asleep.  Oliver would never have done that.  Once he was up, he was up.  I am continuing to find out new personality traits in my baby, and the more I learn the cooler she is.  I got more then a nap today. I got 1/2 a nap and awesome bonding time with my Little Miss Sunshine.

Potty training

From the minute Oliver was born I have been nervous about potty training.  I've always heard to start when the kid is ready and boys tend to train later.  Well, Oliver started potty training a little over a month ago.  I wasn't planning on starting then.  He only met 1/3 of the readiness signs in our book.  I got him some Thomas undies to have around the house to get him used to seeing them.  He immediately wanted to wear them.  He wore them all day long and only had one accident.  He used to sit on the toilet to pee, but then he couldn't make bubbles like daddy. Now he stands on the seat facing backwards.  You can't teach that.  

When I was growing up my parents taught me not to brag. And somewhere down the line I think I may have blended the line between bragging and being proud of an accomplishment.   When people ask how it's going I tend to downplay how well he's doing, especially to other moms with kids around the same age as Oliver.  I don't know why I do it.  It is not bragging to say, "I am proud of my son.  He has done really well potty training." Oh we have our days, like today when he had a puddle under him and sagging undies waiting for me when I got out of the shower.  He's learning, and I am really grateful that the accidents are getting less frequent.  I know that this could be so much harder, but it still a lot of work.  Just one more step towards being a big boy. I just need to make sure that my kids always know that I am proud of their accomplishments. Way to go Oliver!  I love you.