Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Why It Doesn't Pay To Lie To Your Kids...
Ayris: Mom, I'm just going to sleep under here since there isn't room in the bed with you and Daddy.
Mom: No you're not.
Ayris: Why not?
Mom: Because there are spiders under there! (This was the honest to God first thing that came to my mind! Lame right? What kind of mother uses fear as a tactic!)
(I can hear Ayris scrambling to get out from under there and into her bedroom...)
Ayris: Well, why are there spiders under there?
Mom: Because it's dark.
Ayris: Well how do you know there are spiders under there?
Mom: I don't...maybe there's not? (Trying to backpedal at this point, since I've finally accomplished getting her into her room...which was the initial goal)
Ayris: Well, would the spiders hurt me if I laid under there?
Mom: I don't think so...they might just crawl on you. But maybe there's not even spiders under there right now...who knows?
Ayris: Well what if they are in my room?
Mom: They're not.
Ayris: But you said that the reason they're under your bed is because it's dark...and it's dark in my room, so maybe they're in here too. (SUCH A DEDUCTIVE THINKER THIS ONE!)
Mom: You know what...we probably don't even have spiders upstairs because it's too high for them to climb.
Ayris: But they might be in my room?
Mom: No, they are absolutely not in your room.
Ayris: How do you know?
Mom: Because it was sprayed with a special spider spray to keep them out.
Ayris: When?
Mom: I don't know! It was done when they built the house! Ayris, just go to sleep, there are NO spiders in here!
SO...the moral of the story is that it doesn't pay to lie for 3 reasons: The first, is that I didn't save any time in the long run...I probably would have spent less time coming up with a better way to coax her out from under the bed versus this 10 minute discussion about where the spiders may or may not be and second...the poor child is probably going to wake up screaming bloody murder tonight because she thinks she's covered in spiders (this has already happened on more than one occasion AND on those particular nights, we hadn't even had a 10 minute discussion about spiders) and lastly, I'm sure this whole lie is far from being over with...at some point, you just know she's going to see a spider in her room and then I'm going to be subjected to a million more questions about why the spider spray didn't work and how can we get some more?, etc, etc, etc.
Oh the joys of trying to raise a healthy, happy kid...and all the unfortunate missteps I seem to be making along the way!
New Recipe From Trisha Yearwood

The kids actually enjoyed the soup too...although Ayris was making faces like it was disgusting the entire time she was eating it (she hates onions but didn't mention them being in there??)...anyway, I thought I'd share how our lunch conversation went too:
Ayris: Mom, what is this on my shirt?
Mom: I don't know, you tell me...what did you spill on it?
Ayris: Nothing.
Mom: Well, it kind of looks like chocolate to me (she was having some of her Easter candy this a.m.)
Ayris: NO, it's NOT chocolate. I'm pretty sure it's poop.
Mom: Ayris, it's not poop. How would you get poop on the front of your shirt?
Ayris: Well, one day, a long time ago, I wiped my butt with my shirt and might have gotten poop on it...
Mom: First off, why were you wiping your butt with your shirt?
Ayris: It was an accident.
Mom: How is physically taking your shirt off and wiping your butt with it an accident?
Ayris: I don't know.
Mom: Well what does wiping your butt with your shirt a long time ago have to do with what's on your shirt today?
Ayris: I DON'T KNOW! I just think it's poop.
Mom: Ayris, it's not poop. You would know if it was poop...smell it.
Ayris: Yeah, it's not poop. It smells like goldfish.
OY! I should have started the initial conversation with the words "Smell it!"
And speaking of butts...Asher has started saying this new thing that just cracks me up. Anytime he farts (because neither of my kids mind farting at any given time...Ayris routinely will do it in a store to no avail...but whatever...they're still young enough that it's cute right? Or is that just because they're mine? Should I teach them farting in public is bad already?)...he'll stop what he's doing, turn to the nearest person and say: "that was from my butt." Just in case we didn't know I guess...or maybe like his butt's gift to us...because that's kind of what it sounds like when he's says it..."That was from my butt"..."You're welcome"...I think the fact that he he says it with such seriousness is what makes it so funny. It makes me laugh every time though...too bad he doesn't fart more often!
By the way, our second cat DID come back that same night...so I'm not quite the horrible cat owner that I was prepared to label myself as. It's actually a toss up as to whether I would have ever labeled myself as that in the first place or rather labeled the cats as STUPID for ever leaving this awesome place they call home. It's a toss up at this point. None the less, we're glad they're home.
ALSO, I haven't mentioned Asher's potty training in some time. I'm 99.9% sure he's potty trained at this point. I can't remember the last time he had an accident...he doesn't even get the tiny spot of pee on his underwear anymore like he used to when he was figuring out when he had to go and rushing to get his underwear off. He's such an awesome boy! And he's only 2.5 years old...that's pretty good for a boy right? Just another reason that I think my kids are a smidge advanced =)
Baked Potato Soup
4 large baking potatoes
6 Bacon Slices (I still used 6 slices even though cutting the rest of this stuff in half...you can't have enough bacon!)
2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup all purpose flour
6 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon salt (yeah, I did like 2 Tb but we're a salt family)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 green onions finely chopped
5 ounces cheddar cheese shredded (I stuck with the 5 ounces even though it was halfed...we like cheese too!)
8 ounces sour cream
Bake potatoes covered in foil at 400F for an hour.
Make some crispy bacon and crumble it up.
In a saucepan, melt butter and add flour, stirring constantly until smooth. Gradually whisk in the milk over medium heat stirring constantly for about 5 minutes. Scoop out the potato insides and dump into the mixture along with the salt, pepper, onions (I added the onions when I started the base just because I didn't want them crunchy...not that green onions would be if you used those), cheddar cheese, sour cream and bacon. That's it!
Are You Getting Sick of Movement Videos?
Sorry if any of you have kids named Marshall or know someone super cool named Marshall...it's just not striking that awesome chord with me right now =)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
WOOT WOOT FOR THE FORTIES!







Monday, April 5, 2010
I'm a SUCKER...and Apparently Just Lame On My Own When It Comes To Buying Things In General
As for being lame on my own...I'd like to blame my children's begging and pleading for my obvious case of not being able to say no to things BUT, when I started going through Asher's old clothes, I decided the pile looked like it would have been leftover from like 3 boys...not just one child. And keep in mind...this pile is only 0-24 months...I still have the bigger sizes stashed away...the OTHER thing to keep in mind is that I have donated A LOT of the kids clothes and toys...if I'm not particularly crazy about it, I'll give it away...I only keep the stuff that I thought was really cute on the kids...so with that said...look at this crazy pile:
It looked a lot bigger in person...AND while I'm at it...if you also consider that my children only stay in clothes up to 24 months until they're like 6 months old...that's a lot of clothes for 6 months! Good thing I've only bought baby Collins like 15-20 outfits so far! Looks like I'll have plenty to keep him clothed!
And in other absolutely ridiculous news...I have managed to lose our other cat. I'm too annoyed to go into the story...but I'm crossing my fingers that she's not really lost...and that she's just hiding somewhere.
Etsy Suspender Shorts!





Another movement video...
Anyone else notice that I'm almost in the 40's??? It's getting close!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
A Few Quotes and Pictures...
Ayris: Mom, I'm just going to sit like this, real careful so I don't hurt my toe more.
Mom: Okay, good.
Ayris: Yeah, but when it's all better, I'm going to start doing all of the stupid things that you don't like me doing again.
Good to know. Ayris has been wanting to move the couch cushions to the bottom of the stairs so she can jump from 5-6 stairs up...she's also been jumping off the couches, etc...and I keep telling her that she needs to settle down since she's got this toenail that is hanging on by nothing. Well yesterday, Asher drove over it with his dump truck and it started bleeding everywhere...then at the zoo, it was rolled over by a stroller and then someone stepped on it and it started bleeding again...I'm not sure how it's EVER going to heal, short of purchasing some kids size steel toed boots...but it's good to know that Ayris is already planning in advance all of the "stupid things" she plans on doing once it's all healed.
This was a few weeks ago, but as I was getting out of the shower, I heard Ayris say "Asher! Daddy's home!"...when I walked out, I told Ayris that Daddy wasn't home, to which she replied "I know, I just didn't want Asher bothering me anymore so I told him that Daddy was home" (Anytime Chris gets home, both kids run and hide and then he's supposed to find them...so Ayris, being the smart one that she is, decided she'd just tell Asher he was home, so he'd go hide and leave her alone) =)
And then, Asher, as I was typing this up, just proclaims, "Mom, I'm going to go pee on the couch!"....Um...no you're not buddy, go get on your frog!..."Okay, mom" (with a bit of defeat in his voice)...it was nice of him to give me a heads up though so I could decline his generous offer of allowing me yet another thing to clean up after today. I've got to give the kid props though because twice now, I have caught him wiping up pee on the floor after he's gone potty. If he doesn't hold it down enough, it shoots out and over the toilet...the sucky thing is that I'm not always in the bathroom with him...so I'm not convinced I've caught him each time he's wiped up pee in the bathroom, which...leads me to believe, he's probably had some pee covered fingers poking at my face...or even worse, going into my mouth when we play the "biting fingers" game. YUCK.
Here are a few pictures from the zoo today:
Yes, those are Ayris' pink shoes that he's wearing...had it been up to him, he would have been wearing her pink ballerina underwear as well...he was bummed that his spiderman ones were in the laundry so Ayris' were his second choice...luckily I persuaded him into some lovely spongebob ones!
And watering some flower pots outside yesterday...





Monday, March 29, 2010
Just A BIT of Complaining and a Bunch of Pictures...
Here are some shots of Ayris...before and after her little mini facial...
I was trying to get some good shots of the two of them so I could update the main blog picture that is along the top...but unfortunately, Asher is not into taking pictures lately...












And this is at 32 weeks.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
A New Day
So yesterday...I decided to get the kids hair cut. After an hour and a half of sitting in the salon, I was so over trying to wrangle the kids to sit still and quit spilling water on the floor, etc...but as soon as we left, my mood was lifted because of this gorgeous weather...so it didn't matter...
I should mention that BEFORE going to get the kids haircuts, I had taken them outside to get a few pictures before Ayris was going to chop it all off...as we were coming in, the kids wanted to bring some rocks in with them. I said NO and told them to leave them on the doorstep...that we could go outside once we got home and they could play with them then. And we did...we went back outside later in the afternoon. Again, they asked if they could bring the rocks in. Well remember that mom who commented a while back about saying NO a little less and YES a little more? She should have just stuck to saying NO.
I asked Ayris if I could wash her hair because they had put pink stripes all in it and I wanted it out. While we were doing that, Asher decided he wanted to give his rocks a bath...at which point, Ayris decided she wanted to give her rock a bath. Ayris' rock was about 10 times...maybe more, the size of Asher's little rocks. After bath time, I was getting Asher set up on the bedroom computer to play some PBS games while I dried Ayris' hair...she had asked if she could dry her rock off because it was wet...sure, whatever...no big deal. Until the rock fell from the counter down onto her big toe. Long story short, I took her to the emergency room to get it checked out...after about 2.5 hours of being there, nothing was broken and she only had a surface scratch/tear underneath her big toe (that they finally found after about 45 good minutes of them peeling back her entire toenail) that was causing it to bleed profusely. She was sent home with 10 days of antibiotics and some Tylenol with codeine.
I have decided now, after this night of hell, that it'd be easier to be like that mom on the Chuck E Cheese commercials that sends her kids outside all wrapped in bubble tape to protect themselves. Or better yet...just get something like this for all four kids...

In all seriousness though...I'm THAT mom who doesn't want her kids skiing or snowboarding, motorcycling, etc...as I'm pretty sure people die doing stuff like that...but Chris of course has always countered those thoughts with the idea that we're going to have to let them try new things...yesterday's incident just goes to show that it's possible for them to hurt themselves even if I were to lock them in the house all day.
These are the parts that suck about being a parent though...as I was laying in bed last night, I was questioning why I wanted 4-5 kids in the first place...its always seemed like a good idea but now it was occurring to me that I was going to have to go through these types of things with not only two children but 4 or 5...and last night, I wasn't sure if my heart could handle that...because I'm honestly convinced at this point that my kids hearts are pretty much tethered tightly to my own. Now that it's a new morning, I'm on board with the fact that, at the very most, her toenail is going to fall off as the new grows out...but last night, I was a mess with the idea that something this horrible had happened to my child. When you're sitting there with a kid who is screaming at the top of her lungs because they were hurting her (when they were giving her shots to numb her toe), it kind of seems like the end of your world. I felt sick and couldn't help but cry right along with her. And of course, there's the part about keeping it together. MY mom was always the one who was supposed to keep it together...when did it become MY turn to keep it together? I personally felt pretty distraught yesterday as the whole thing was going on but apparently, in the eyes of Ayris, I must've been pretty stoic. She asked why Grandma Sooner and Daddy both said "Oh my gosh!" when they heard about her toe (unfortunately both Chris and my mom called while we were driving to the hospital and that stupid car function that makes my phone go through the entire car made Ayris aware of their reactions)...apparently, I never seemed scared to Ayris...I just kept reassuring her that everything was going to be okay and that her toe wasn't as bad as it looked (it totally was nasty looking but she was FREAKING out so I didn't know any other way to calm her down)...none the less, it's nice knowing that even though I personally felt like I was falling apart, Ayris must've thought I was fine.
But again, today is a new day and Ayris is enjoying it. She was served breakfast in bed and thought that was pretty cool in and of itself...I also made her favorites for lunch...hard boiled eggs and jello...and I told her she could pick dinner (She chose KFC because she wants chicken, mashed potatoes and macaroni)...and all day she gets to pick movies that we are watching as a family in her room so she can keep her foot elevated (she could probably walk around but I personally would prefer her not until we change her dressing tonight and see what her toe looks like...it continued bleeding all through her dressing last night and that was 5+ hours after she dropped the rock on it).

In some less depressing news, the other day when we were in the car, Ayris just told me out of the blue that when she was a baby in my tummy, she knew she wanted to pick good parents to love her and now that she was out of my tummy, she was glad she had us as her parents. Isn't that so sweet? Of course, this was all before the toe thing! But it's those random comments like that that make the hard days all the more worth it.
Here are some of the pictures that I had gotten yesterday before everything went down...

