It's chilly in here!

Anyone who knows me knows there are two things I will never do: one is wear pink and the other is wear hearts. When you see my daughter you would never guess my disgust for pink and hearts because she's usually covered in pink...hearts, not so much. But last week I was out shopping and saw that they had little girl swimsuits out and I just had to get one for her.

When Dustin got home from work I pulled the swimsuit out of the shopping bag and he immediately went running for the thermometer. It is pink AND has hearts!! I know, I know. I'm not quite sure what came over me. Nonetheless, she's adorable in it!





Ironically the day I purchased her swimsuit turned out to be the coldest day in over a century. However, I'm quite certain that it wasn't because hell had frozen over.

Saturday we decided to venture out of the house and go bowling. Josh was thrilled and I must admit, I was anxious to see if all the bowling we've been doing on the Wii would actually help my average. I'll tell you right now...Wii bowling is much easier than actual bowling.

Just look at our scores. PATHETIC!



We all had a good time and Lauren had fun laughing at Josh.







Lauren will be eight months old on Thursday. If anyone has any tips on how to make time slow down....let me know.

Teething hell

The title should say it all. One of Lauren's front teeth came through early last week and we kind of thought there were two more working their way through. However, according to all the baby books, teeth move up and down many times until they finally break through the skin so when the other two teeth we were watching went back down we thought we were in the clear. WRONG!

Wouldn't you figure that at 9:58 on Sunday night her teeth would start on the move again? I was just lying down for bed when I heard her start to scream. Between her screaming, her crying and Josh waking up to yell at Lauren I'm working on about two and half hours of sleep.

That aside, she has mastered the art of standing and pulling herself up on things. She'll pull herself up into a standing position from anything; the couch, a stair, the dog, your leg. At first it's kind of cute but soon you realize that she can crawl as fast as you can walk and you end up having a 25 pound ball and chain around your leg.



Don't get me wrong...I need the exercise. But dragging your child around on your leg is probably not a method of exercise Richard Simmons would endorse.

Stupidly, Dustin and I did not think much past the amazement of her new found ability. Sunday afternoon we decided to all lay down for a nap after church. We got about a solid hour of quiet time before we heard Lauren laughing and playing in her crib. I shoved Dustin out of bed and told him to go check on his daughter. He yelled for me to come see this...



Needless to say....the mattress is being lowered ASAP!

Once Josh heard all the commotion he came running in and they both started laughing uncontrollably. I'm not sure at what....but it was cute.



I realized last week, when Lauren's feet were dangling out of her car seat and when I nearly buckled Josh's "pee-pee", that it was time to get the kids bigger car seats. You'd think that this would be a simple feat. I mean, everyone carries car seats, right?

I ended up going to five different stores and ended up spending $250 for car seats on Friday. To say that the shopping process left me irritated and broke is an understatement. The stores either had $30 seats, which in my opinion my children would be safer with a phone book and a roll of duct tape OR $270 seats, which in my opinion my children would have to ride in until they turned 18 in order for me to get my money's worth.

So when I found one in stock for Lauren for $149.99...I grabbed it. I lugged them out to the car and informed my children that their mother loved them even though she couldn't bring herself to buy the "Cadillac" of car seats. Josh didn't care...he was just happy he didn't have to wear a nut cup to get buckled in anymore.

Two Josh Stories:
1) We went to a Chinese restaurant last Friday for lunch. The waitress was of Eastern decent and had a very thick accent. I struggled to understand what she was asking and quickly gave her our drink order.

Amazed, Josh looked at me and said, "MOM.....I didn't know you knew how to speak Spanish?"

2) Dustin's been fighting a cold for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, it's sitting in his chest and throat so his voice is really hoarse. I asked Josh to go wake Dustin up on Saturday morning because breakfast was ready.

He came running down and said, "Mom, Daddy's voice sounds awful. I think he's got some froggies in there."

Too cute, huh?

Other than that, not much else is new. It is snowing for the millionth time this winter and the temperature is unbelievably cold. Hope everyone is staying warm and driving safe!!

Dancing Machine

I think it has snowed every day since last Thursday but less than an inch each time. Actually, having a nice, clean blanket of snow to cover all of the dirty snow was a welcome sight so I'm not complaining.

It had started to snow while Josh was in school on Thursday so by the time I got there to pick him up he was itching to get in his snow pants and boots. We got home and I barely got Lauren out of her car seat and he had Mattie at the back door and was begging me to let them out.





This week we found out that Lauren has a new trick...she can dance! Well, she rocks back and forth real fast to music so as far as I'm concerned she's dancing.


We all had such a laugh watching her. It was absolutely hysterical! Then tonight she was down on the floor crawling around and I thought I'd see if she'd do it with just me singing and sure enough! Too funny!!

We didn't really do too much this weekend. I worked my first Saturday of tax season - BOO! Josh and I played the Wii for a good chunk of Sunday. His new favorite game is Playground. It has a bunch of games like dodge ball, slot car racing, paper plane throwing, Nerf darts and MY favorite...tether ball. While Josh and I had fun playing together...I cannot lift my right arm above my shoulder. As pathetic as that is I guess I'm not going to win any arm wrestling contests any time soon.

I kept losing one game, I don't remember which, and Josh came over, grabbed my remote and said, "Mom...watch and learn." Seriously.

Lauren is working on a few new teeth. Three to be exact. So we can go from this..


to this...


in no time flat. It certainly makes the weekend feel like it's a whole lot longer when you have a child screaming and crying. But with all these new teeth she is eating big girl food. We have moved on from baby food to REAL FOOD! Ah....now she can feed herself!

And now that she knows the goodness that is REAL food...she wants a piece of everyone's food. To end our weekend we all came up to our bedroom and watched Tom and Jerry before we all went to bed. The kids were all cuddled up with us and we each had a bowl of ice cream. Lauren obviously learned her begging from the dog because she was frantically crawling around the bed trying to get a spoonful before she could finish swallowing the last.

All in all...it was the perfect way to end a weekend.

The small things in life

Some say that it's the small things in life that make life worth living; like a gentle breeze on a hot day or a child's laugh.

A small thing that made my life worth living this week was watching my husband play Guitar Hero III...on EASY...for over an hour...on one song. Yeah, I think we heard "Hit me with your best shot" about 40 times. Unfortunately, we only heard the song in its entirety once because every other time he got Boo'd off the stage.

Josh and I were laughing so hard and Dustin just got more and more frustrated with every "Ker-plunk" from a missed note. Anyone who's played this game before can verify that this game causes the "player" to have a greater appreciation of the talent of guitar players.

I was on the phone with my father for most of Dustin's "show". So I had lost count at how many times he had been "Boo'd" off the stage. So I asked Dustin...and was quickly interrupted by my son screaming, "EVERYTIME, MOM! He's been Boo'd off EVERYTIMES!"

SO FUNNY!

Another moment I'm happy for this week...Josh learned how to spoon feed Lauren. Do you hear the angels singing?




You know that saying about the greatest inventions come from the things that are the most obvious...yeah, I should have thought about this a loooonnnngggg time ago! Yes, she was messier than usual and yes, most of her food was either on her shirt or her high chair. BUT, I was able to cook an entire meal without Lauren screaming at me and Josh begging for supper to be ready. He was proud, Lauren was full and I was happy...so the mess is immaterial.

Other than that the weekend was pretty uneventful. Dustin and I took Josh to see Alvin and the Chipmunks and we loved it! He laughed so hard and I even busted him dancing to some of the music. We will DEFINITELY be getting the DVD when it comes out.

Josh pushed Lauren around the kitchen in her high chair on Sunday. Of course I was telling him to stop but as soon as Lauren realized she could see Josh through the back of her seat I had to grab the camera. God, do they have me trained?

Me: Josh, stop!!
Josh to Lauren: Look cute and smile and she'll stop yelling at us.
Me: DUSTIN, grab the camera!!!!



Josh cleaned under his bed this weekend and found a toy for Lauren. I cleaned it up and she was ready to ride all over the house.



Now that Lauren is eating some solid food she tends to have bits and pieces of food that stick to her and fall off throughout the day. Mattie has caught on to this fact, hence, her following Lauren around on her toy.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

How much is that doggy in the window?

I know you will all be shocked but we got yet another snow storm this past weekend. It started snowing very early Friday morning and by the time the afternoon rolled around we had another 4+ inches of the white stuff.




As soon as Saturday morning came the boys were ready to get started on cleaning the drive and sidewalks. Dustin went out and got all the "toys" started and Josh brought me his snow pants and boots. I was playing with Lauren in her room and quickly got the bottom half of him dressed so that he could catch up with Dustin. I told him to yell out to Dustin and ask him to help get his coat and hat on.

Josh went running down the stairs and did just as I said. Then I heard a scream and Dustin yell, "MATTIE!". I went running down the stairs to find Josh laying on the foyer floor. I helped Josh up and yelled for him to "NOT LET LAUREN OUT OF HER ROOM!" and I quickly threw on my boots and a jacket.

I am the first to admit that if you didn't know better...you'd think Mattie was deaf. You can yell directions at that dog as loud and as much as you want but you might as well be banging your head against the wall because she DOES NOT listen.

You add freedom, plus a bunch of snow, plus us running after her and our normally "deaf" dog all of a sudden gets a sense of humor.

After the first 30 minutes of trying to catch her Dustin was ready to give up. It was bad enough to have our dog mock us by hurdling four foot snow drifts in order to make it impossible for us to catch her, but it was even worse that all our neighbors were outside and more than happy to enjoy the show.

I kept yelling at Dustin that we needed to keep trying. At that point I was not worried about the dog. Our luck she wouldn't get hit by a car; she'd cause a 10 car pile up and we'd be in financial ruin because every driver would get a lawyer. AAHH!!

I was frantic by 45 minutes. I mean, the kids were home alone and the door to the garage was wide open. By 55 minutes, I wanted to catch her only to strangle her. FINALLY, some kind Samaritans pulled over and the wife got out of the car and yelled, "Here doggy!" And guess who came trotting right over to her?

I grabbed Mattie, threw her in the van and thanked the lady with tears in my eyes. She understood and said she'd been in our position many times before.

I looked at Dustin and told him to hop in the van and I'd drive him home the 5 blocks. He looked right at me, put up his hands and said, "I need to cool off."

I sped home to find my son protecting his sister. I was so emotional to find him barricading the door to her room. Lauren was trying to get out and was already half way out the door but he kept pushing her back in. He looked up at me and said, "Mommy, she didn't get past her door. I kept her safe. I'm sorry Mattie got out."



I could have died. I just gave him a big hug and a bunch of kisses. He's such a good boy and a great big brother. However, needless to say, Mattie is in the "Dog House" and I am so thankful that the kids were okay.

And even though it's been a few days...finding humor in it is still a little difficult.

Other than that we didn't do much this weekend. A lot of laundry and cleaning but that's about it.




Uncle Joel had surgery on New Year's Eve day to remove his abnormally large kidney stone. Thankfully, he is "stone free" and we all did our best to see he had excellent care upon his release from the hospital. I brought him to our house after surgery and in light of that, we didn't have much planned for New Year's Eve. Joel felt good enough to play a little Wii, but that was about it.

Today we all pretty much laid low and only moved around to eat and find a new place to take a nap. While I certainly don't envy my brother's delicate condition, it was nice to have him around the house for a few days and we were bummed to send him home.



May 2008 bring health and happiness...and no more kidney stones.