Littles

Hannah found my camera the other day, and asked me to bring it upstairs to do a little impromptu photo shoot in her room.  She got on ‘bigzebra’ first and posed…Ben looked on as he decided which animal to pitch at her (his new favorite trick.  In fact he did it to the vet during a recent visit.  Fortunately she is a friend and has three boys of her own.)

 

Where there’s a Hannah…there’s bound to be a Stretchie!

Ben is not impressed.  Apparently it’s WAY too early for these kind of shenanigans. 

But he can’t resist the fun for long!!

In spite of their frequent arguments, they really do love each other . 

Now You Know Why She’s Fatty Patty.

The hood of the Pilot will never be the same. 

Kinda reminds me of this:

But not so trim. 

He crawled out of the crib…

We knew it was coming.  Just maybe not so soon.  I’ve caught him throwing a leg over a few times… but this time, he crawled all the way out and was playing with all the toys way after bedtime.  (busting him was hilarious.  He looked so confused and tried to crawl back in to the crib.)

So…we moved him to the big boy bed!

He never got out either…so I think he liked it.  However I remember this from the other babies…the first night always goes very well (the novelty factor I think) but the second, third, (and subsequent two weeks in Caitlin’s case) are never good…so I’m gearing up for some very late Ben bedtimes!

I am glad to have him in the big boy bed though…that crib is on it’s last legs…one stiff breeze and that thing would be in splinters!  He’s probably a bit safer now .

Happy, Happy Easter!!

Hope y’alls was as wonderful as ours was. 

Because clearly, it was a good one!  Thanks, Dee.  (btw that bowl was completely empty before we went to NanaDees for dinner/Easter treats.)

New!

Finally, we are no longer in the market for a new (used) car to replace ‘Little Red’…because look what I bought today!!

oooo!!!  So pretty!!  And it matches the other cars, which is obviously VERY important.  It’s a 2001 accord and a big upgrade for Matt from little red.  The poor guy has been driving around in rotten conditions to save money on gas, and he so deserves an upgrade! He likes this one because in addition to not leaking copious amounts of oil, it also doesn’t rattle past 60mph, doesn’t sound like a no-muffler-muscle-car, and the most important feature of all?

The shiny, ice cold, beautiful AIR CONDITIONING.  Matt’s favorite feature.  Before I went to check the car out this morning I think his exact words were, “I don’t care if they want to GIVE me the car, if the AC doesn’t work, I don’t want it.”.  He’s a little bitter about the past few Georgia summers with no air.  The car also gets terrific gas mileage, so we are happy.

I took both kids with me this morning to go look/buy the car and HOLY COW do you know how long it takes to buy a car?  Like, I pretty much knew I wanted it and the process still took a full two hours!!  (with Pea and Ben it felt like seven.  They should really have toys or at least a holding room for kids at those places).  But it was all worth it in the end…Matt can’t wait to come home today and try out his new vehicle . 

Oh!  And the best part of the story?  Is that on the way home from the dealership (which was an hour away), Pea…perhaps in the spirit of full disclosure to the car, christened it with throw-up! (please don’t tell matt)  Yes.  I hope that it was an isolated incident…but I have a feeling that this could be an…interesting weekend for us…

Waste Free Kitchen

I can remember being little and not wanting to finish my dinner (mostly the green stuff) and my mom/dad saying, “There are poor starving children that would LOVE to eat that food, and you want to waste it??  Shame!!”.  (I offered to ship the foods directly to those children, but they never went for it.)  While this little parental speech always annoyed me as a child, as an adult, I find myself a bit more understanding about their hatred for waste.  Today, as I looked around the refrigerator for lunch, I noticed three half-eaten, no longer good, cans of refried beans (ok, that sounds really nasty, but just wait.  There’s a reason I’m subjecting you to this.)  As I had just purchased another can at the grocery store today, the sight of those three gross cans made me feel a bit guilty.  I hate to waste, but I am also terrible about using up the old stuff before I get the new stuff out.  So, this, along with the ridiculous price of groceries got me thinking about how I can do better.  I thought awhile, and then turned to The Almighty Google.  There was a lot of stuff out there for the kitchen, but mostly it was “use your old clothes as paper towels after you sew them by hand and make sure you monogram them for good measure” stuff.  Y’all know I’m not crafty.  Sewing and monogramming are out, but I do like the idea of using old fabric as cleaning rags.  That’s probably where I will start.  But!  My big issue is finding a way to use up old leftovers and NOT having them grow legs and crawl out of the fridge of their own accord.   So, I’m going to really try to aim for a “No (or perhaps less.  Yes, lets just say LESS) waste kitchen'”.  Maybe I’ll save a few bucks in the process, and hopefully my fridge will be a bit happier. 

At Last Night’s Soccer Game…

Two things happened:

1. Caitlin scored her first goal of the season!! 

And then….

She scored her second goal of the season!!!

GO THUNDER!!

The Unmentionable?

So, looking over the past few posts, I realized that there have been very few stories about TheBen.  Now before you call me a neglectful mommy, let me explain!o

  Ben has been a bit of a challenge for me…not that he is necessarily a bad baby, but…it has taken me longer to figure him out than it did with the others.  Let’s just say there was a lot of miscommunicating going on between the two of us.  So I haven’t wanted to blog about him because I was afraid that my perspective at the time might paint him in an…unflattering light.  However!!  All of a sudden, things have gotten a bit easier for us.  I realized that Ben is really really all boy, (and also not a baby) and if he is unhappy, it is because he is either: a. not outside, b. not throwing something or c.is being left behind.  This last one is a big one.  One of the things that he does that drives me crazy is racing behind me, crying and crying and CRYING to be held and carried around…which I really can’t do ALL THE TIME.  But I realized that the poor child just wanted to be able to keep up with me…( apparently he thought his mommy was always running away to do other things and didn’t care about the baby).  So I’ve made an effort to either hold his hand and let him go where I was going which he loves!  Or sometimes if I just tell him, “mommy is leaving to run downstairs but I will be right back”, he is okay with it.  I guess he just needs to know.  So between that and the weather being nice enough to be outside 90% of the time, things have gotten a lot easier. 

Overall, he is a sweet boy-he still loves the wagon, and eats like a horse!  In the mornings he is especially hungry-he eats an entire bowl of cheerios and yogurt, followed by a cereal bar, washed down with a cup of juice and topped off with half of whatever I’m eating.  And then 20 minutes later he’s ready for lunch.  Matt has nicknamed him the sheriff of Nottingham because he is always taking a “bentax” on whatever we are eating in the form of a handful or a mouthful  (sometimes both).  He also has very strong lungs…and while his speech is coming along nicely, he still can have an entire conversation (complete with appropriate inflexions) in a completely unintelligible language.  I feel certain that he knows what he is talking about…but I still don’t.  It’s pretty funny to listen to.  

He is not exactly an angel all the time however-in fact just this morning he cost me $20…because he decided that the library book (about sharks) should be carried into the bathroom and have the faucet turned on to it.  Because heaven forbid those sharks dry up!!  The sweet librarian pointed out that this was actually probably the sign of a genius.  (I asked her if she knew anyone who wanted a tiny genius…she said decidedly, no)

So there’s the Ben update…hopefully I haven’t neglected him for too long And next time I’ll have some pictures I hope!

Friday Update

AH!!!  Pea is giving up her nap!!  Isn't it too soon for that?  This week she napped only one out of five days.  I think she has figured out that if she doesn't nap, mommy will usually let her play mario kart (so as to preserve mommy's quiet time, which is very important!)  She is usually in a pretty good mood for the rest of the afternoon even when she doesn’t nap, so this is probably about the right time.  As sad as I am about this, I’m starting to realize the freedom that comes with no naps.  I just wonder what it’s going to be like when Ben’s not napping…and I’m not tied to the house for three hours in the middle of the day…It’s going to be strange!!

Speaking of strange…y’all need to see Pea’s hair today:

Crimped hair!!  She loves it:

Last night Matthew had a late (715) ball game, (which they won!!!) so after I put Ben to bed, ‘us girls’ put on a girly movie (Angelina Ballerina) and I braided their wet hair into a million tiny braids so they would wake up with eighties rocker hair.  Caitlin was so thrilled about this…and she looked adorable too:

Daddy?  Was not so thrilled.  In typical man fashion, he flipped out because SOMETHING HAD UNEXPECTEDLY CHANGED.  He came downstairs all huffy and asked if I had seen Caitlin’s hair. 

“Yes, I did  that to her hair!  Isn’t she precious??”

“NO!  She looks like some rocker punk child from the eighties!!  You better take a picture of that because it will NOT be happening again!  I’m not having my daughter going to school like that!!”. 

I laughed, calmed him down and suggested that there were worse things that our daughter could wear to school, and that we better just leave this alone. 

The kids sports are really in full gear now-Matthew had THREE games this week and Caitlin has two games and a practice.  Pea is still enjoying gymnastics even though she still doesn’t follow directions-just runs around playing on all the equipment.  Here are a few of the pictures of all the fun:

Matthew warming up in the circle.

 

Racing between bases

Hannah…doing something random:

These pictures are so bad, but I couldn’t figure out how to use the flash without it reflecting me as well.  So you get me and Hannah.

I have some of Caitlin on the soccer fields, but they are on the other computer, so I’ll post later. 

For now, I’m going to enjoy the rest of today with no practices or games!  Happy Friday!