Random

I had a random picture of the boys I wanted to post:

I love how the sunlight is coming in on the bed. Too cute!

And now a random story (once again a Gabeism):

Me: Ooh Gabe you have diarrhea...

Gabe: No Mommy it's water poop...

Well whatever you call it, it's gross and he has sharted (sorry I can't think of a better word...how crude) in his pants four times this morning. YUCK!!

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

Sam finally lost his first tooth...naturally. You may recall the first four top teeth were knocked out, roots and all, in an unfortunate playground accident.

Saturday was a big day at our house. He was so excited to have finally wiggled a tooth right out of his mouth. He was a little perplexed the next morning when he tried to eat a breakfast bar. It's hard to eat with almost no front teeth. This brings his total to five with a sixth wigglin' away as well.

Of course I always knew this day was coming, and I always thought I would be braver then my parents. I always remember them almost gagging when we would ask them to wiggle our teeth, I swore to myself that I would never be that way. Funny how these things come back to bite ya (no pun intended, okay maybe it was intended). When Sam had that tooth to the point where it was totally perpendicular with his gum I nearly lost my dinner. Thankfully he pulled it out without my help. Had I had to touch that thing I'm pretty sure I might have fainted. Am I a wimp or what?!

Missing five teeth!

Look at that cute little pearly tooth...much less gut wrenching in his tooth fairy box.

I'm trying to post a video of Sam explaining the "events" but I'm having problems uploading a video, any suggestions?

Urban Grace

I had a new reader last night (which I LOVE) who was reading about my room makeover (for pics click HERE).  She was wondering if Erika, my girlfriend who designed our room, had a website.  I never miss a chance to plug Erika and her fabulous style so click HERE to check out her site.  It's amazing!

Acne

I am 29 1/2. I should not have recurring acne. Last week I bought this at Target:

It seems like it is helping some...but seriously does it have to smell like Elmer's Glue?! Bleh....

One of those moments I just had to write down...

Gabe and I were walking to the bus yesterday. Gabe loves to talk and has a very dry sense of humor...this conversation he wasn't joking...

Gabe: Mommy, when am I going to be a baby again?
Me: Gabe you won't ever be a baby again, but one day you can have a baby with your wife...
Gabe: If I have a baby I'm going to give it away as a surprise...
Me: (Chuckling a little under my breath) Gabe you can't give your baby away...why would you want to give your baby away...
Gabe: (Totally serious) 'Cause I don't want a fussy baby, I want a dog...

Can you tell I've been struggling a wee little bit with Joel's fussiness lately. Yikes, maybe I need to keep my thoughts to myself a little more...HA!

Hoping these pics come in handy one day....

He looks very proud of himself doesn't he.  He was using these plus some old velcro rollers to make some very interesting devices that he was using to pound, against my laundry basket very creative and kind of musical....don't worry I got them away from him!

Pre-School

As a family we have decided to keep our kids out of pre-school.  I by no means judge those who do put their children in programs.  I must admit I kind of like the idea of having one less kid around occasionally.  

The following is a recent article I read by Dr. Laura.  At the beginning of last year we enrolled Ethan in a preschool program on post.  He was only going 2 days a week for a couple of hours but he HATED it.  I read an article from "Focus on the Family" that gave the same fact about aggression (found in this article), because we could see this becoming a problem we decided to pull Ethan out of the program.  Two months after he turned five he was chosen to be a "peer example" in the special needs preschool at Sam's school.  I really struggled with the decision to send him but eventually told the teacher we would give it a try for a couple of weeks.  Ethan loved the program and excelled.  I don't know what made the difference, his age, the children, his teachers, his purpose, but he loved Ms. Jessica and his fellow preschoolers.  

Anywho, check out this article it definitely gives some interesting facts (as a sociology major, I love articles like this!):

One of the main issues for the Democrats is their passion for getting children into preschools.  Democratic Presidential candidate Obama says he believes in universal preschool, and that he’d pump billions of dollars into early childhood education, promising improved academic performance.

Sadly, the past 50 years have seen a huge increase in families who put kids in pre-school:  from 16% to 70%!  In addition to being separated from parents way too early, the problem is that fourth-grade reading, science, and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) haven’t gone up since the early 1970’s.  Hmmm.

For decades, I’ve read the studies about Head Start.  Those studies indicate an immediate gain on IQ tests and other cognitive measures, but show that in later years, those scores become indistinguishable from non-Head Start kids.

Why the heck is there such determination to take small children away from their homes and mothers, and put them in an institutionalized setting, which does not add to their lives, but actually subtracts from them?  A 2005 study from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley (neither of which is known as a conservative institution) found that kindergartners with 15 or more hours of preschool every week were less motivated and more aggressive in class than other kids.

In Canada, the C.D. Howe Institute found a higher incidence of anxiety, hyperactivity, and poor social skills among kids in Quebec after the introduction of universal preschool. 

As you might imagine, the only preschool programs that seem to do more good than harm are targeted at children who come from extremely poor families (often those with neglectful and/or addicted parents).  Even so, the return (adult crime, earnings, wealth and welfare dependence) were much smaller (16 cents for every dollar spent) than Obama’s notion of a $10 return.  Universal preschool programs in Oklahoma, Georgia and Tennessee (2006, Education Week  analysis)find no statistical difference in the performance of preschool and non-preschool students on any subject after the first grade.

Enough with the government intruding on parents’ abilities to make educational choices for their children by guilt or mandate, without any substantiation that there is a positive benefit.  Common sense should tell you that small children are best served by a loving mommy.

The reality is that the overwhelming majority of children come from loving homes with attentive parents.  Tearing children away from their homes and families for government-run, institutionalized learning programs that demonstrate absolutely no concrete benefit to the children is somewhere between sinister and cruel.

By the way, Obama’s daughters go to a private school whose annual fee in middle school runs around $20,000.

11-15

Well life has been bogging me down a little but here goes on numbers 11-15 on great things to do/take on vacation:

11. Enjoy some time bonding with your extended family. The boys love going to visit family and are equally excited to see everyone but I will say I think they enjoyed bonding with Great Granny the most. They loved snuggling with her at night and also enjoyed learning about how things were when she was a little girl.

Chillin' with Great Granny. Even at close to 90 she is a hoot
to hang out with and as feisty as ever!

The Spencers

The Lepperts

12. Number 12 on my list is be sure and get a grotesque spider bite, like this one:


Here it is close up (can you see the fang marks, click on it...you'll see 'em):


When I woke up with this on my leg we decided that maybe I should take a trip up to the ER at Fort Knox. BAD IDEA!! We kind of forgot that they have trainees there and they take priority so three hours later I finally was able to leave with a bag full of meds that the pharmacist was a little worried about me taking all together (always great to hear the pharmacist say "Are you sure the doctor wanted you to take ALL these ALL together?", great for my confidence). I was a little concerned that the ER doctor had a death wish for me so my parents let me run over to their neighbor's house who luckily is an internist. He took one look at it and thought there was a good chance that it might be MRSA (the antibiotic resistant staff infection)...well lets just say my confidence was now totally shot. He wrote me another script for different meds and told me not to take all the others from the ER doc. I was feeling pretty good about the whole situation until the next morning when I woke up looking like this:

Yeah, that's right it was now turning black and blue and getting bigger. The black marks around the peripheral are sharpie marks where we were monitoring it's growth. It did get slightly bigger then this before it got smaller and my poor mother...she had to check it for me every hour. I was really scared that it was going to turn necrotic and they were going to have to take big chunks of dead flesh out of my leg. Hey...it could happen!

13. Number 13 is a no brainer for me...if you don't have one of these in your car and you have children, do not pass go, do not collect $200, rather take that $200 and have one installed:

(picture from edmunds.com)

I don't know what we would do without this thing. It has provided literally hours of entertainment while we are on the road, and trust me, we've been on the road a lot. Plus, if your lucky enough and your vacation has been exhaustingly fun enough (plus it helps if your are passing around a little sick bug as mentioned in my previous list), your kiddos will often look like this after watching a video for a very short time:

14. Speaking of making riding in the car easier...if you have boys, be sure to bring number 14 on my list: (picture from Nestle.com)

Forget the milk, these wide mouth bottles make pottying on the road a cinch...I won't go into the details, you can use your imagination...

15. And last on my list for tonight...be sure to take a bath in a HUGE tub!!! One of the reasons my boys love visiting my Mom and Dad is this thing:



When full, the boys could almost swim in it, not to mention the fact that Mom always makes TONS of bubbles for them, even Greg wants to get in on this action!

Stay tuned for the final installment of what to take on vacation. I apologize if this post is not up to par with my normal hot blogging skills....we've been passing around a fever and tonight I think it's got my number....off to take my temp! Have a fabulous night.

Back to School

I'm going to have to take a break from vacation blogging....

This morning I woke up needing some of these:

Why you ask? Well, yesterday I sent this baby:


Followed by this baby:

To school. I did pretty good all day. We had homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast, I packed their lunches and snacks the night before complete with little napkin notes, their backpacks were packed and ready to go, I made cookies for when they came home and Gabe and I enjoyed some Mommy and me time. Everything was going pretty well, until...the bus was 30 minutes late getting home. My babies got off the bus exhausted and hot and the first words out of Ethan's mouth were "I had a bad day". Now, you have to know Ethan. Ethan mutters these words a lot, in fact his catch phrase, the thing he's known for is having the best day of his life and then emotionally crashing followed up with "This is the worst day ever". It's not that he's an ungrateful child or doesn't enjoy life, Ethan just has really high highs and really low lows.

From what I could gather from our conversation the worst part of the day was all the sitting, followed by the fact that a little girl pinched him three times (love taps?) and he didn't have enough time to eat his fruit roll-up at lunch (this is a huge deal in our house, because I only buy fruit roll-ups about once a year). The best part of the day was riding the bus...that was all he could think of...poor guy.

None of these conversations reduced me to a crying mess at the end of the day, the ultimate clincher was when I went to tuck him in last night. He'd been asleep for hours and was curled into a little ball under the quilt I made him. My entering the room disturbed him enough to make him roll over and in his sleep, very quietly I heard him whisper..."I wanna go home"...even typing this just breaks my heart....I tucked him nice and tightly and whispered in his ear, "Don't worry baby, you are home..." right before I started to sob. Thankfully I have a pretty great husband who just let me cry and for once didn't try to fix anything, he just let me cry....which is why I need those ponds cucumber eye pads. You should have seen the shiners I had this morning, between my ragweed allergy and the crying I looked like I should have been answering people's stares with "If you think I look bad, you should see the other guy!", okay it wasn't that bad.....close....

Here are some pics from yesterday:

How did we go from this:

To this:


In what felt like a blink...how is it possible that I have a second grader and a kindergartner. I am blown away....

Oh, and on an equally important side not...Sam had a wonderful day. He's such an easygoing mellow kid and everything about learning excites him. I'm hoping Ethan will learn to enjoy school as much as Sam does, I'm pretty confident he will!

6-10

Have you been dying to hear the rest of my list...poised on the edge of your seat...I bet you haven't gotten up from you computer, or slept, or showered since my last gripping post.....oh who am I kidding...no one enjoys my blog THAT much...

6. Number 6 on my list of must dos for a fabulous vacation is, as in the famous word's of Alan Jackson..."a lot of front porch sittin". My parents have an amazing front porch. Here's the view from their porch....



What you can't see in these pictures is the amazing porch swing I'm sitting on...I could spend hours on that thing, my Dad often takes his afternoon siesta out there. I love that front porch and the time just sitting around talking with no distractions.

7. Which brings us to #7. Always eat at least one item of food that makes you look like your papa:

I was just telling my Mom that I don't know what it will be, certainly not a mustache (I hope), but I need something that my grandbabies will recognize as my signature...every time those boys see a mustache or figure out away to give themselves a moustache they think of their Papa!

8. Give your baby his first hair cut! First hair cuts are always memorable, why not have one on vacation! Joel was a trooper. She didn't cut off as much as I would have liked but he does look a lot better!

9. Number 9, in no particular order, is spend some quality time driving around the farm on Granny and Grandpa's GoKart and Golf Cart! On Tuesday morning we got up and packed to head down to Bowling Green. Of course right before we left Gabe decided to lose his breakfast all over my Mom's beautiful white Ballard Design's slipcovered chairs. Thankfully, Mom was very gracious and Biz does amazing things! When we finally made it down to BG, we went through the drive threw at Zaxby's (you know I love me some Zaxby's) and then headed down to Greg's parent's farm where they were researching buying some transportation for the farm.

The boys had a blast on this:


I have to admit...I think the adults had just as much fun on this one as the kids did...all though...if you are ever on one of these, be sure to avoid these:

(Look quickly...I don't really have a weak stomach,
but this picture really does make me want to barf)

Yes, that's what you think it is. A fresh cow pie. (Ethan had a hilarious revelation the other day..."Mommy if cow's make cow pies...then I make Ethan pies"...."Why yes Ethan, that's true, HA!") Greg and Sam had the unfortunate luck of "not seeing" a few of these down in the pasture...let's just say everyone got a bath after riding that day!

We also really enjoyed the new Golf Cart that Kathie and Larry purchased for the farm. We even managed to get Greg's grandmother, who is pushing 90, on it and were able to take her down to the creek, which she hadn't seen in two years. Gabe told her we were taking her on a date, we all got a good chuckle out of that one!

10. Number 10 is probably my favorite tip for vacationing. Always, always, always, save some time for some pampering! Thanks to my sweet mother-in-law and sister-in-law I was treated to a massage, facial, hair cut and color, and a make up treatment! Here I am before:

And after:

I'd say it's an improvement! It wasn't a huge change but she did darken up my color and give me some more layers. Greg's happy so I guess that's what matters!

Well....stay tuned....11-15 are coming soon....

Google Reader

P.S. If you are reading the previous post in google reader, please ignore spelling...I posted before I did spell check and google does not update....

Okay....read on....

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity Jog

Well, we are finally home. Bags have been unpacked, the car has been cleaned out, the mail has been gone through....we are so glad to be home, but had such a wonderful time on vacation!!

To recap, I'm going to make a list of my Top 20 things to take/do on vacation...I guarantee doing/bringing these things will lead to a fun filled vacation full of memories!!

1. The first thing you absolutely must bring on vacation is a stomach bug!!
Oh the joy, when 15 minutes into our drive Ethan threw up. Luckily, I could tell he wasn't feeling well before we got in the car and suggested he bring a bowl and thankfully he has good aim. We did manage to quickly pull over in the parking lot of a chiropractors office, clean him up, rinse out the bowl and get it back to him before he vomited again. Oh the joys of being a parent. At that point I thought for sure we were going to have to just turn around and go home, but when we mentioned it he cried. So being the good parents we are (I actually felt rather guilty) we decided to continue on the road but not before stopping at the grocery store...which leads me to...

2. If you even think you might have a puker on your hands, invest in these for your vacation:

[photo from Glad.com]

I personally do not trust my children's aim to always be as good as Ethan's. I purchased the HUGE 8 cup size. What I liked most about these was the handy dandy lid...had he puked again, we could have just thrown a lid on that sucker and been on our way, not to mention, they came in a three pack which meant all my sympathy pukers got a bowl as well!

3. Number 3 on my list of fabulous things to bring on a vacation is a baby with EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA...we were about here:

[photo from Monticello.com]

When we smelled something, we hoped was the fresh smell of a nearby farm...but no...it was the fresh smell of Joel's derri air (how do you spell that?). This was our car as we pulled into a cute little church parking lot:

I thought for sure we were goners....

So we get Joel out, get him all changed, the boys run off some steam and then potty behind the van, and then my dear husband has a great idea...."Heather, pee in one of those big bowls you just bought...then we won't have to stop again for hours!"...can I just tell you...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually entertained the thought...I crawled in the back and was so close to giving it a try when two cute little old ladies came out of the church and were staring us down...I just couldn't do it after that.....I really think having all boys is starting to get to me!

4. Well we finally made it to Louisville after 11.5 grueling hours, we were exhausted. It took all day Saturday for us to recuperate, not to mention that now Ethan had a 101 degree fever! On Sunday everyone seemed to be feeling better and we ventured out to do #4 on my list:
If you live in the Louisville area I highly recommend Incredible Dave's. We had a blast. My Dad even convinced Sam and I to try this with him:

[picture from newheights.biz]

It was exhilarating! I finally even worked up enough gusto to try a back flip complete with perfectly pointed toes....my children were very impressed! Later on in our vacation Greg and I went on a date and ventured back over to Incredible Dave's. Greg was my hero, winning over 2000 tickets on "Pop a Shot"! I also discovered that I am pretty good at this game:

I guess 12 years of viola is finally paying off!


5. Number 5 on my list of memorable things to do on vacation is the Kentucky State Fair. The Fair wasn't as fun as any of us previously remembered....but we did enjoy some good old fashioned fair food, complete with Country Ham sandwiches, Cotton candy, corn dogs, tater chips, shake up lemonade (which totally disgusted me as I could literally feel the sugar going down my throat, but the boys LOVED it!) etc. We did enjoy the exhibits, the boys enjoyed "Safety Town" put on by the State Police. I remember the commercials for "Safety Town" from when I was a little girl!

After all the exhibits and food we decided to head to the fairway...GiGi bought enough tickets for the boys to ride several rides. Ethan was still not feeling totally "right" but thought he could handle one of these rides:

[photo from Ontariocountyfair.org]

The first time around he did pretty good and decided he wanted to ride again...the second time around he didn't look so good. I quickly got him off the ride and looked for something, anything the child could puke in...lucky for us there was a large potted plant right beside the ride operator...not so lucky for him....Ethan lost all of his fair food AND it was 90 degrees out. I did my best to water everything down, but I eventually just had to walk away....YIKES!!

Well...it's taken me over an hour to compile this list...you'll just have to wait until tomorrow for the rest!!! Stay tuned!!

Something to leave you with....

Well, I won't be posting for a couple of days but I wanted to post this video I found on YouTube.  The song in the background is my favorite right now, and the story in the video is about the girl who wrote and is singing the song.  Very inspirational....

I feel like a Miracle Grow Commercial

It's 10 AM.  I have the beds stripped, the washer running and the dishwasher unloaded, reloaded and running, and scrubbing bubbles is soaking into my shower tiles, so I thought I would take a moment to blog, not to mention let the hot water heater catch up before I attempt to take a shower!

When my Mom was here over the Memorial Day Weekend she helped me tremendously with my landscaping and curb appeal.  We dug up, threw away, replanted, transplanted, re-sodded, etc...it was quite a job (and really, she did most of it).

One of my favorite things are the urns she purchased and then filled with plants.  They have been so pretty and I love to look at them when I come up the sidewalk.  The urns hold, white impatiens, trailing vinca, and caladiums.  We picked them out for all their green and white and because my front yard gets almost no sun, so we definitely needed shade lovers.  Mom lovingly planted them for me while she was here and then added a good dose of miracle grow, with instructions for me to follow up after a week....well of course I forgot....but luckily my urns look beautiful.  The funny thing is is that the pants have grown very differently in their respective pots....in one the impatiens are HUGE and the caladiums are average, in the other the caladiums are HUGE and the impatiens are average.  It's so strange.  I had a light bulb moment one afternoon and thought, I bet I just need to switch their positions on the porch, which I did...it has made no difference.  My theory is that 1.  the damage is done, no amount of switching them is going to make them look the same...or 2.  it had nothing to do with the sunlight and their is some other factor at work.  Either way, I still love the way the look....check them out for yourself:

Large caladiums....you can hardly see the impatiens.

Average sized caladiums and HUGE impatiens.

I should have taken the pictures the same direction so it would be more obvious...oh well....but you can definitely see a difference.

Off to go scrub some shower tiles!  Happy Hump Day!

Joel's Birthday

Well I finally think I figured out this slideshow stuff.  Greg and Nancy took close to 240 pictures of the birthday boy, don't worry I weeded a TON out.  

Yesterday we celebrated Joel's birthday in Hawaiian style.  We had a nice time, but poor Joel had his well baby earlier in the afternoon, which meant shots and a very tired cranky baby.  Probably bad timing on my part.

At his appointment he was 20lbs 10 oz which puts him in the 25th percentile.  He was 28.5 inches long also putting him in the 25th percentile.  I'm not sure of the numbers on his huge head but it was in the 90th percentile.  My kids always seem to be petite with huge heads.  

Hope you enjoy the slideshow from his big day!  Don't quote me on this, but I think you can click on it to make it bigger....okay....off to lay down, I have a terrible headache....

Check Back Soon....

Joel's B-day pics are coming....I promise!!  I'm having trouble with Google, but I'm working it!

He won't need therapy....yet.....

I haven't forgotten to post about Joel's birthday....it's just that....well....we never actually told him that it was his birthday....well that's a half truth....we wished him a happy birthday on the actual day, but then we didn't have a party....I feel guilty....don't make me feel worse.....

I have big plans to celebrate his "golden birthday" (he was one on the 1st of August, hence the golden day), we just haven't gotten around to celebrating. It's not that we don't want to....it's that our dear friends the Kules always seem to be busy, and since Jillian is pretty much Joel's only age appropriate friend...we are waiting for her ;0)

In the mean time, here's a funny picture of Gabe as well as a funny story:

Me: Gabe, will you always be my baby?

Gabe: No Mommy, I'm a big boy now....

Me: When you grow up are you going to get married?

Gabe: When I grow up I'm going to marry you Mommy, because I LOVE you soooo much!!

Me: Oh, Gabe, I can't wait for us to get married....

Pause....as we both think about marriage, him growing up, etc (or at least that's what I was thinking about!)

Gabe: Mommy....I can't wait to be a grown up....

Me: Why is that Gabe?

Gabe: 'Cause then I'll get to spank people....

(I'm cracking up at this point)

Me: Who do you want to spank Gabe?

Gabe: (With the biggest onoriest grin I have ever seen)....I wanna spank ETHAN!!!

Ahhhh brotherly love.....gotta love it!!

Gabe chipmunk cheeked!! Those cheeks are full of grapes....dangerous....I know....but I had to get a picture before I told him to NEVER do it again!

Toys-R-Us

**I just realized, I totally fibbed....we actually got 16 toys for that price...that makes each toy less then $10 a piece....I'm still amazed!**

Ethan has really been struggling to understand that he has to save his "store" money in order to be able to buy "cool" things.  In an effort to give him a visual image of something he could save for we ventured out to Toys R Us.  Did you know that right now they have all of their Clearance items marked down an additional 20%?!  We spent a grand total of $157.59 and basically completed our Christmas shopping!  We still need one last "wow" gift for Ethan and Gabe and haven't purchased anything for Joel, so we aren't completely done, but we are pretty DARN close!!  We bought 13 gifts for $157.59....amazing!!!!  We are ecstatic.  I think the most exciting thing is that since we have been saving ahead for Christmas we had this money in our "sinking funds" so we didn't think twice about dropping some dough and didn't even have to consider putting it on our credit card.  Guess who's going to be shopping at Toys-R-Us every July from now until eternity!?!