Wow! Two Whole Years

A few days ago we celebrated Adam's 2nd birthday. Wow! He was by far my biggest baby, but I still forget he was this small once.

Since our camera broke before we actually did birthday cake and such I'm going to upload some cute pictures of him through the past 2 years instead of anything from his actual birthday. He enjoyed the monkey cake I made and loves the presents he got. You'll just have to use your imagination for that.

This is him modeling the cheapo sunglasses the Easter Bunny brought the older two kids.

This is Adam with  his cousin Leah. He's almost 9 months older than  her and could have easily gotten away from her as she wasn't really mobile at this point, but he chose not to.

He was really happy riding around on Grandpa's shoulders until I came around to take the picture. At least he let me take it before he wanted to be with mom again.

This was his first real experience with snow earlier this winter. He LOVES snow!

This is what happens when you give a toddler a Dove chocolate!

Unfortunately, now that he's 2 this scene will be coming to an end. His bed wouldn't fit in with the double bunkbeds in Alex's room so Mary has had to continue to share a room with Alex until Adam could get out of a crib. I promised Mary several months ago that she could finally have her own room when Adam turned 2 and could sleep in a real bed. I have serious reservations about this. I'm pretty sure we'll be taking off the ladder to the top bunk so he doesn't climb in and bug Alex. Alex is a natural monkey and can easily climb up and down the end of the bed so we don't really NEED the ladder. Saturday we'll probably make the bedroom swap. I may be insane a few days after since I get most of my transcription work done during his nap and after he goes to sleep at night. Fun times, huh?

Just one more

blog entry and then I'll be done for today...

The kids and I like to play "I Spy" as we drive home from Mary's school in the afternoons. (It takes about 20 minutes or so to get home.) The other day Alex's clue went something like this. "I spy with my little eyes something green on the trees. I'll give you a clue. It might be leaves."

Friday on the way home in all the snow we were moving extremely slowly in a pack of cars. As fortune smiled down on us, a skunk sprayed it's lovely aroma somewhere in the vicinity. I made a comment about the stinky skunk and Mary said, "That's a skunk? I thought it was the food Daddy takes on trips." (Beef jerky.)

Finally, here's another entry in the "How Do They Sleep Like That" category... We found Mary sleeping like this when we went in to turn off their light a few nights ago.

Yes, her head is resting on the bars of her bed.

March in Colorado

The weather in Colorado in March might best be described as "bipolar". This week was a prime example. We had three beautiful days of 60-70 degree days.

The boys had a blast playing outside. In fact, I could hardly get them to come in for lunch so I could take Alex to preschool.

Our backyard is more jungle than yard, but they seem to enjoy it. I think we'll be feeling like we're settling on the frontier as we "clear our land" in the next few months.

Alas... Good things can't last forever. Friday we got a nice snowstorm. It wasn't too bad and the roads were mostly just wet until it was time to pick kids up from school, of course. It took about twice as long to get home from Mary's school.

It's been nice again the last couple days though and the snow should soon be a memory. Spring is definitely poking her head out!!

Punishment?

When is a time out not a punishment?

When your toddler decides he'll just take a nap when you put him in time out in his crib.

Fortunately, I realized he was being super quiet and went in to get him before he fell asleep 2 hours before his actual nap time.

So our upstairs toilet likes to run a lot (it's in excellent shape) so I was googling how to fix it. I found an article on ehow.com, which frankly wasn't all that helpful, but at the bottom of the article it had links to other "how to" articles they had.

This one seemed extremely odd. How to Follow Men's College Basketball (You can follow the link if you don't believe me.)

It has ideas about watching TV and listening to the radio.

Have we really gotten that dumb that we need someone to teach us how to follow a sport?? I mean if you want to follow a sport it seems like just common sense that you would WATCH it and maybe read about it.

Enjoying sports seemed to come naturally to me so maybe I don't truly appreciate the pain of someone who's trying to learn about sports to impress a date, coworker, potential in-laws, etc.

March Madness

March Madness is here. For many years I didn't care, but it can be really fun when you have a bracket competition with friends/family.

At first it was just Doug and I competing against each other. We started the first year of our marriage. Technically, we copied Stephanie and Aaron's idea. They bet a back rub. The first year we were married Doug figured he'd beat me easily so he wanted to up the ante and bet six back rubs. He did tons of research and I just randomly picked teams. Guess who won???

It was me!

He was still paying up a few months later when we took a trip to California. That last one sure felt nice after we'd spent a few days walking all over Disneyland and Sea World.

A couple years later during the first round of the tournament we got a HUGE snowstorm. It actually snowed 3 feet. So of course Doug couldn't go to work for a few days so we played Yahtzee and watched basketball games. It was really fun. Usually we don't mix well with board games. He's a bad winner and I'm a bad loser and he always wins, but Yahtzee was calm and fun that time. I couldn't find my pictures of all the snow, but we took this picture of Mary then. Cute, huh?

We decided to forego the back rub bets though and make the whole thing bigger and involve a lot of my siblings and their spouses and a few of the older kids. (It was Dani's idea really, but we put it to work.)

Now we can win THIS:

Yes, I know it looks like the Geller cup... Except of course this one has never been thrown in a lake after we fought over it. That's probably due to the fact that there isn't a lake near any of our homes and the fact that the contest is mostly made up of adults and we can handle losing now. (We used to cry over Monopoly as kids so this probably would have been the same.)

Happy March Madness!!

I own him!

Yes, that is Adam wearing my high heeled sandals. It'll be fun to show this to his future dates.

Alex's Birthday

Thursday was Alex's birthday. He was so excited to go to preschool because he got to take treats. Parents are no longer allowed to bring homemade treats to school so we had to buy something. He picked out green St. Patrick's Day donut holes. When I picked him up he was wearing this cute birthday crown and looking like he'd had the best day ever. (Too bad I didn't take a picture then. I forgot until later when he was ready for bed.)

Mary's teacher and one of the teachers from the other 2nd grade class had birthdays the same day. So they had cupcakes at school. Very LARGE cupcakes. Each kid had half they were so big. Mary's teacher remembered it was Alex's birthday too and saved him half of a cupcake.

We also went CiCi's pizza  to celebrate since Mary's school was also having a fundraiser there. I'd upload a picture of him there, but it's still on Doug's phone and I don't want to walk all the way upstairs and upload more pictures. Yes, I'm feeling lazy.

Saturday morning we threw a party for him with his primary class. I think they had a lot of fun. (He'll get to share another party with Adam in a couple weeks when Doug's mom comes to visit.)

A Charmed Life

Maybe it's fate that Alex was born in March. The luck of the Irish must have been passed down to him by some of his ancestors.

This boy has had many close calls that he has miraculously come through unharmed. The black eye above is the only evidence of injury he's ever had.

On at least four occasions he's taken off down the street on his own. He's decided to take a walk at each of his grandma's houses. (Small towns, no sidewalks on their streets.) Dad caught him once, and passing drivers pointed him out to Uncle Jim another time. Uncle Jim took the four wheeler down the street and rescued him. He went into the garage at our old townhouse and opened the garage door and left. Fortunately, our neighbor was out walking his dogs at the time and let us know he was out there. He even did it again last summer. When he realized he was lost he started crying and some man happened by and helped him home. All could have ended in disaster, but he's still with us safe and sound.

Once he ran out of the hair salon after we all got haircuts and almost got hit by a car. Luckily, the driver saw him coming and stopped.

At the end of Mary's 5th birthday party all the kids were playing with her new toys in her 2nd story bedroom when all the kids started yelling for me. I assumed they were fighting over one of the new toys but slowly climbed the stairs to investigate. (I was really morning sick with Adam at the time.) Alex was standing in the window sill, with the window open, with the screen pushed aside. (He was 2 1/2 at the time.)

Earlier this week we were driving through the pick up line at Mary's school. I usually let him come sit up in the front passenger seat while we're moving slowly through the line (2 mph tops). He wanted to open the door for Mary and opened the door right as I was hitting the brakes. The door flew open with him still hanging on. I think he nearly gave one of the second grade teachers a heart attack. In fact, she was far more concerned than I was. I learned long ago that I could lie awake every night worrying about him or I can just relax and let Heavenly Father protect him. I'd have an ulcer covering my entire stomach lining if I chose the former.

He's survived numerous other falls, accidents, and such.

That commercial from a few years ago said it all with the line, "It will be a miracle if he makes it to 10."

It may have been a miracle that he made it to 5, but we're very grateful. We love our little guy! Who else would tell me I'm the best mom in the world when I get Lightning McQueen safely down the highway at 200 mph on his video game??

Frustration

So apparently my blog has suddenly taken on a mind of its own. It will no longer let me double space my paragraphs if I choose. It decides to lump most of my post into one paragraph while randomly inserting an enter... For example, see my previous post. It looked pretty good when I composed it. I've messed around trying to fix it and wasted time and it still looks dumb.

So if anyone else is smarter than me about how to fix that, please feel free to leave a comment.

Of course this one looks exactly like I created it.

What Do They Mean??

Yesterday I had two people observe the boys and tell me, "Wow! You must have a lot of energy." (For the record it was Alex's preschool teacher and the receptionist at the dentist's office.)

What exactly are they trying to say?

Are they trying to say that I have two cute, fun-loving, energetic boys who must keep me looking young and radiant??

Or are they saying that they've never seen two boys misbehave so much and that they're exhausted just looking at them and wonder how I do it??

Hopefully, it's somewhere in the middle... A mom can dream, right?