Christmas 2009

I've been blah about blogging lately but figured I'd put up a few pictures quick from Christmas. This was the first year that both kids really got into it...which is a good thing because they got TONS of stuff this year. The biggest blessing obviously wasn't all of the stuff but the family and friends we had to share the season with!

Today sucks...

as far as weather is concerned. I cancelled my 16 week doctor appointment and was planning on staying in the whole day but the kids, Ayris in particular, kept begging to go outside like a crazy person. And crazy she is...I don't think they would have come in had I not told them they had to...after about 5 minutes, Asher's cheeks looked painful:

Ayris' weren't as bad even though she had taken her hat off after being out there for like two seconds...

They both couldn't' have been happier though rolling around in that snow. I can't believe any person in their right mind would find that fun. It was practically killing me to stand inside the garage in my boxer shorts, jeans, tank top, tshirt, sweatshirt, fuzzy socks, chris' carpenter shoes, gloves and hat...I was freezing and didn't even have the wind hitting me.

This was on what seemed to be our mile trek to the mailbox...and the mailperson hadn't even come yet! Speaking of mailpeople...I think they should be paid about $80 an hour to deliver mail in this crap. I might just send a letter stating that to the post office headquarters...or the government...whatever, it won't be happening but PRAISE those mailpeople for getting all my desperate housewives dvds delivered to me everyday!

This is just another picture I'm throwing in of Asher...Ayris dressed him this morning...all the way down to those purple polka dot socks. She was VERY proud of herself =)

So in conclusion, I am THANKFUL to be a stay at home mom for yet another reason...not having to get out in this weather if I don't have to. I'm thankful for this home and the heat that has been running nonstop all day!

The difference between men and women...

Or at least Chris and myself...

So last night, Chris walks in after getting home from work and thanks me for making dinner. MmmK, whatever, I just let it slide by. Then after he finished eating dinner...he said it again, "Hey thanks for making dinner." Mind you, I make dinner quite a bit...at least during the week...we do our fair share of eating out but again, I frequently make meals, so when he repeatedly thanked me last night, instead of welcoming the appreciation, it translated a little like this in my head:

Chris: Hey thanks for making dinner. Because it's not often that you cook...and I'm sure it took a lot out of you to have to make it since you're so *busy* at home all the time. Actually, I can't really tell what you do all day but you like to remind me on almost a daily basis how hard it is to be you...and to be home with the kids...and how much work it is...and how stressful. So of course, I completely believe you...which is why I'm *thanking* you for making this awesome dinner.

Chris, of course, must've seen the slightly annoyed wheels a turnin' in my head because before I could say anything, he followed his appreciation up with the explanation that he's trying to be more appreciative of me and even though I cook a lot, he thought he should start thanking me for it every once in a while.

On a completely different note...Ayris has discovered the word damnit. She said it a few days ago when I was on the computer and I just asked her where she learned it...she said Daddy. I didn't say anything more because I figured if I ignored it, she'd just forget about it. Fast forward a couple days after that and Chris is making something in the kitchen. I hear Ayris say the word damnit and Chris asks where she learned that...and she told him that he had said it. So he apologizes and tells her that he shouldn't have used that word because it's bad and that God wouldn't like it...to which Ayris responds, so will I not go to heaven if I say damnit? Chris tells her that he's not really sure (obviously he knows a person is not sent to hell by saying damnit but Ayris doesn't know much about hell yet and I think he was just trying to get her to stop saying the word because throughout this conversation she had already said it like 15 times) at which point Ayris proclaims...

"Well, I think I'm just going to keep saying damnit because I'm not ready to go to heaven just yet!"

Oy! I have a feeling she's just always going to be one step ahead of us at all times.

Getting Schooled By My 3 Year Old...

OK, so forgive me for going two weeks with not a word and then posting three times in one day...but this blog material is primarily based on the cute and sometimes frustrating things that are my children. And they hadn't given me much to work with up until recently. I digress.

So a commercial for that kids movie G-Force just came on and as I was picking up the living room...Not REALLY paying attention to the TV mind you, my daughter asks:

Ayris: Mom, what are those animals on there?
Mommy: (Again, not even looking at the TV, just going from my memory of seeing the preview before I reply...) "I think they are rats."
Ayris: Um, I think they are guinea pigs because rats have really long tails and those didn't have long tails.

OK, first off, why ask the question if you apparently already know the answer? Second, if this is any indication of how much of a deductive thinker she'll be when she starts school...then I thank my lucky stars because hopefully I won't be having to help out too much in the homework department...and while we're on the subject of teaching, I just want to point out to Chris (in his many attempts to get me to teach the children while at home) that our children are obviously better off learning things on their own and without my help. It's probably BEST that I don't even TRY to educate them...because if I do, I'll be sending them off to school thinking that Guinea pigs are rats and that Geese are ducks...personally, I think these comparisons are at least in the same family so no biggee...right? I can't help that my children are completely anal and particular. The other day, my mother said something about the "cheese" on my sandwich, and Asher said "It's pepperjack grandma!"...and Ayris has also been known to point out that something was not just a "bird" but rather an egret. I know...I birthed some smarties =) Trust me...I too used to be smart but these children are intelligence suckers...come to think of it...that must be reason they are so smart...because they've drained me of my intelligence and taken it for themselves. We'll just call them The Greedy Ones and we'll call me The Sacrificial Mom...I like it...that title totally makes my intellectual limitations alright by me! =)

P.S.

I forgot to mention that all of my just addressed Christmas cards were sitting on the counter when Asher decided to flood everything yesterday SO...when your picture cards come all wrinkled and hard, that is why!


Here is a picture before going out in the snow...that's another sucky thing about going out in the cold...putting on a hundred different pieces of gear to ensure that your children don't freeze...it takes a lot of time!

Asher was over taking pictures at this point. The camera is not his friend anymore, after only one picture, he generally proclaims, All done mommy! Yeah right, mommy can't take just one!

On a completely different note...you know how it's been suggested that women hanging around one another will sometimes have their monthly cycles sync up? Well I wish the same could be said for children and their mothers when it comes to exhaustion levels...because if that were the case...all three of us would be going to bed right now...at 4:50 p.m. It feels like it's about 11 p.m. here in the Collins household tonight. Too bad I have another 3 hours to go...that sounds like an eternity...

Imperfection With A Little Manipulation Thrown In...

SO...yesterday, Omen 1 and Omen 2 (as Chris lovingly called them and I thought appropriate) decided to flood my kitchen and drench my walls, cabinets, picture frames, counter tops, seat cushions, CEILING and CARPET (that sloshed and showed standing water when you walked on it!) in a matter of about 10 minutes while I was upstairs. They used the kitchen sink sprayer to cover absolutely everything that existed in the dining room and kitchen. It was an awesome sight to see water dripping from the ceiling. I completely lost it like a crazy woman...spanked Asher because he was the one holding the sprayer at the time (Ayris was conveniently upstairs shedding her soaked through clothes and wiping down her hair and body with a towel)...I put Asher in a time out after I removed his shirt. He's crying bloody murder, never having seen me so mad when Ayris comes trotting down the stairs and loving says:

"Mom...why are you so mad?"

At which point, I decided that my two little angels were going to be taking a nap for the first time in ages. As I'm marching them up the stairs, Ayris says:

"But Mom, we haven't had lunch yet!"

Mom: I don't care! You're going to bed!
Ayris: But Mom! I don't want to go to bed before I've eaten lunch!
Mom: Yeah? Well I don't want to spend the next hour wiping up the kitchen and getting all the water up off the carpet but I have to do that!

(I ended up with TWO tub fulls of water (the attached reservoirs that come on shampooers) AND I'll also have you know that my children eat from sun up to sun down...they've usually had multiple things to eat before lunch even rolls around...so no need to judge for me sending them to bed without lunch...AND they also had milk the whole time so...=)

Turns out, neither child even took a nap...the little actress that is my daughter faked sleeping the three times I came into the room and she did a pretty good job until I caught on that she was "waking up" just as I was closing the door each time. But they sure as heck finished their two hour sentence in their room quietly while I cleaned up the kitchen and then watched an episode of Desperate Housewives. Yes, I gave myself a good 42 minutes of guilty pleasure that day...because honestly, how often do I ever get to lock up my kids? NEVER...it's pretty much Curious George and Caillou EVERYDAY until my little cherubs go to bed and I get some me time. However, after seeing how well putting the fear of God in them worked to my advantage, I may have a new tactic on mothering.

(I'm totally kidding...I'll suck it up and sacrifice all the really cool things I could be doing during a two hour reprieve each day during their hypothetical lockdowns.)

So now...on to the manipulation part...I'm lovingly awakened this morning to Ayris saying:

"Mom! There's more snow on the ground...I think we should play outside ALL day today!"
Mom: Ayris! You know how I feel about the cold.

(At this point, I'll stop to advise you that I really hate the cold. Although Chris might disagree now that our house is kept at 65 degrees at night =) When I go out in the cold, my back tenses up and I unintentionally shake on the inside, not from being cold...I don't know what it is...almost a stress response...so within minutes, I'm exhausted and aching with back pain...PLUS, I don't enjoy frozen nose hairs and the red dry skin it gives me...overall, going out in the snow is absolutely miserable for me) At which point, my very smart and manipulative daughter states:

"Yeah, well Daddy doesn't like the cold, but he takes us outside anyway!"

For starters, pretty sure Daddy doesn't mind the cold...and secondly, Good for Daddy! There's plenty of things Daddy doesn't do that Mommy does so I guess that's part of his "taking one for the team" things!

Seriously, I think I should cut off ALL communication between myself and that child because she is a FAST learner. I mean, doesn't that comment kind of go hand in hand with my comment yesterday about her not wanting to go to bed before lunch and my retaliation being that I didn't want to clean the kitchen but I had to do it anyway...maybe they are not exactly the same ideas but they are similar tactics/responses none the less. They both implore guilt onto the other party.

Oh, the joys of motherhood. On the episode that I snuck in of Desperate Housewives yesterday, this character Lynette (who is a working mom of 4 and NEVER gets a break from her children) is finally taking a much needed vacation with her friend Gabby...during their massages, Gabby's phone rings and it's Lynette's husband, Lynette is trying to tell Gabby she doesn't want to talk and when she gets on the phone, her husband has thrown his back out on his and the kids camping trip and needs her to cancel her vacation. When she hangs up, she responds, "I hate my life" to which Gabby responds, "It totally does, I'd never switch places with you!" All the while, Gabby is going through a nasty divorce with her husband and basically having issues all around...but still wouldn't trade places just because she knows how much it would suck to be a mom 24/7.

It doesn't suck to be a mom. It sucked yesterday but it doesn't always suck. The little demons are worth it most of the time, which we obviously all realize once we have them...otherwise, the world would be a lot less populated!

On a positive note for my children, my friend Aleece has stepped up to the good mother plate and invited us over while SHE will take the kids out in the snow...all I have to do is her dishes in return. Sounds like an AWESOME plan to me! AND just so you know, I would have sucked it up and taken them out eventually BUT the time they would have spent outside would have been minimal...like 5 minutes max...and I can't swear that I wouldn't have just sent them out the door while I stood inside watching through the window =) But now we'll never know since my dear friend Aleece will be doing the treacherous task for me!

My Children Are Perfect...

They just haven't received the memo on all that perfection encompasses. Either that...or God was trying to remind me that no one is perfect...not even MY children...so I shouldn't set my expectations so high.

My children were perfect as of about 7:30 last night...that's at least what I told Chris as we were going to bed...

Me: Our kids have finally completed the circle of perfection...they've been sleeping through the whole night for a while now!

Chris: Perfect? What about all their fighting and screaming and not listening?

Me: Oh, that's just normal kid stuff...so that doesn't count.

2:30 a.m. rolled around and my (now decidedly) imperfect children decided to get me up not once, but twice.

Me: Honey, can you go fix them? I've already been up twice.

Chris: Remember your comment before you went to bed? Well, I think you jinxed us.

Well no sh*t! Seriously, I'm never saying a single nice thing about those kids again...because they'll just find a way to prove me wrong!

Here are my children being the perfect little posers for our Christmas cards...

Ayris looking happy, Asher looking annoyed...

Asher looking happy, Ayris being annoyed...

Mommy getting annoyed because Ayris won't shut her mouth long enough to take a good picture...

Asher making a face...at this point, I'm not sure we'll EVER get a nice family picture when we have two more kids to add and we can't even get our already perfect angels to participate. Bleh...perhaps perfection is overrated. That's what I'll keep telling myself while raising these children...

More pictures and a 13 week baby update

I told them to hug...this looks more like a strangle hug...

Not the best picture of Asher but I thought Ayris looked really grown up in this one...

And this one...

Asher not cooperating...

Being ornery...

Finally smiling...

These are Asher's model shots...here's his big smile...the only smile he knows how to give...

Here's the ride side of his face in case any photographers require that...

And here's the left...

Here's his...you know I'm cute pose...

And here's his weird tilt forward so his already ginormous head looks even bigger compared to his body...

And this is him giving up and rolling around on the floor...deciding he was done with picture time.

Baby Update Week 13:

How your baby's growing:
Fingerprints have formed on your baby's tiny fingertips, her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin, and her body is starting to catch up with her head — which makes up just a third of her body size now. If you're having a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries. Your baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce.

Close range messes

It's one thing to be in another room away from your children and find out they've made a mess while you were gone...it's another thing to be sitting 2 feet away from one of them and discover this:

Chris is going to be ticked when he finds out Asher got into his stash while he was gone!

I'm totally kidding...it's salt. And luckily, the salt was free and I have about 5 more bottles of the stuff...but seriously...where did the kid find that? I don't remember it being on the table...maybe it was. The better question, is how in the world did I not notice it until it got to the point where he had chewed off the lid and made this mess on the cushion? I'm obviously not being very attentive today. Cleanup involved getting the handheld vac out which the kids thought was super fun so all in all, I guess it wasn't a big deal. I just can't get over the fact that it happened in such close proximity to me. I guess that goes to show that it doesn't matter if you're in the same room...crazy things are still going to happen...at least if you have me for a mommy.

A few things Ayris has said...

Mommy: Ayris, what is Asher doing?
Ayris: Oh, he's just coloring on everything he's not supposed to.

Um...thanks for telling me sooner!

Upstairs in the loft yesterday Ayris was "doctoring" me:

Ayris: Mommy, you have a cold, so I'm going to call the doctor and make an appointment for you to get a shot.
Mommy: Ok.
(Ayris gets out her fake phone and asks for the number...I tell her...this was her conversation thereafter)
Ayris: Yeah, Hi doctor. My mommy has a cold and I think she needs a shot. Yeah, that's right. She needs a shot. Uh huh. Yeah. That's no problem. No, she'll be fine. It's just a cold. Okay, yeah. Uh huh. I love you. Bye.

At that point, I just started laughing:

Ayris: Why are you laughing mommy?
Mommy: Because...did you know that doctor you were talking to?
Ayris: No, why?
Mommy: Because you told him you loved him at the end of your conversation.
Ayris: Yeah, because I love him.

It totally made sense in her mind to just say I love you at the end of the phone call because that's what she does with all the grandma's and grandpa...I just thought it was super funny at the time. Maybe it's not? I don't know but it made me smile =)

I knew my kid was special...but this is pure talent...

Warning: Totally awesome yet somewhat disgusting picture below. I'm just so amazed at my son's ability, I had to share it with the world....and honestly, I don't think it's something he'll look back on and be embarrassed by when he gets older...because I think there are very few people who possess the skills that Asher does when it comes to making a chocolate/vanilla poop combo!

Pretty impressive, right?

Is it wrong to vacuum sheets?

So my husband has been gone for 40 minutes and counting...he offered to take our rentals back to redbox (and is probably regretting it now because the first two he's gone to have been "full" and won't accept any more discs...so he's hunting for one that will take them) AND offered to take the kids with him. In the 40 minutes that he's been gone, I have done the dishes, vacuumed the entire house (upstairs and downstairs), done a load of laundry, had a conversation on the phone, tried to clean out stains on the couch from a red permanent marker that Asher no doubt left on there, picked up the kids room which was no small feat considering the 100 stuffed animals strewn about and the 15 minutes I spent with the vacuum hose sucking up little white pieces of ceiling (off the floor, under the bed, on the beds/sheets, etc) that the kids like to scrape off when I'm not watching them like a hawk. Which brings me to the question of this post...is it lame if I just vacuum my children's beds instead of actually washing the sheets like most moms would? It's a total pain in the butt to make bunk beds! AND, I had a conversation on the phone. All in 40 minutes! With the kids here, it would have taken three times as long to do all of those things and upon completion, I would have found about 10 more things that needed cleaning up because of the lack of supervision on my part when I was cleaning to begin with! (Like the marker all over the couch!)

Well that was short lived...he's home...so I guess I'll stop cleaning =( It was a nice 40 minute reprive though!

A few photos, and a baby update!

So I had my mom take some pictures of myself and the kids yesterday...tell me which ones you like...I had issues trying to get the kids to take some good pictures with REAL smiles on this first one:

This one would have been perfect minus the tinkerbell couch in the background and the fact that Asher looks like he's completely over taking pictures at this point...

I don't' know why I liked this one since no one is looking at it but again, Asher looks like he wants no part of it while Ayris and I look like we're having a good time.

Again, Asher isn't feeling it =)

Asher decided he'd at least perk up a little bit...

This is the face of a resigned mom at this point...one kid is making crazy faces while the other just can't look at the camera...how am I EVER going to get 4 kids to be in a picture together?

These individual shots with the kids turned out the best...

Although I had to tickle them to get them to smile!

It was worth it though...everyone looks so happy!

Also, I had my 12 week appointment yesterday...heartbeat was 150 bpm. Still no weight gain after three months...I'm still down 2 pounds...woot woot. Wonder if I can keep that going the next 28 weeks. (Well that sucks. 28 weeks? After I wrote that number out just now, I thought, that can't be right...that sounds like forever!! And I thought three months down was good). I'm kidding about not gaining weight by the way...it's not like I'm dieting (unless you count lots of pizza, buffalo wings and french fries dieting) and I sure as heck haven't been exercising. I have this goal to not go over 170 though with this pregnancy as 170 is exactly what I weighed at each birth with Ayris and Asher...so yesterday I asked Dr. O'Neil if it was feasible to only gain 18 more pounds in the next 6 months...she said yes but that it would be hard...which probably means I'd actually have to make an effort to only gain that. That's probably not going to happen so we'll just be counting on a miracle.

Baby update 12 weeks:
The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder.
Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce