Eww!

Just a few quick moments to share tonight...

Last night Tank popped his head in the front door with his face covered in water like he just took a big drink. The thing is, I never gave him anything to drink. He did this a few times before I went to check on the source of this water. Turns out, he was helping himself to the dog water bucket on the deck. Blah!!!

Tank likes to play the body part game where he points out different body parts and tells you what they are. Thanks to Daddy, he now knows where is "ding ding" is. Lovely.

A Couple Firsts

First off, I'd like to apologize for the recent gap in posts. I believe I have my computer recovered and working well...for now. Now, on to the real stuff...

Bubby finally made his first forward crawling moves tonight. He was real slow and cautious in his motions. I'm sure it won't be long before he's chasing his big brother around. Tonight was also their 1st double bath. Usually we split them up on bath night. I do Bubby's bath and Daddy does Tank's. But due to a recent injury, Daddy gets some time off from bath night duty. (More details on that to come.)

After spending a few hours at Grandma's on Monday night, Tank informed me when I returned that he was a "weet pie!" Translation: Sweetie Pie. Grandma was teaching him some new words. Daddy has also taught him some new words but I'm not going to repeat them. Thank you Daddy!

Now, on to the reason that the boys were at Grandma's on Monday night. I was in the middle of cooking dinner when I got a call from Daddy. He was on his way to the ER. He got his hand cut in a machine at work. Since I move a little slower now when it comes to dropping everything and responding to his emergencies, it was about an hour before I got there. They were still trying to get the bleeding stopped so they could stitch it up. A couple hours later, after they resorted to applying pressure upstream from the cut artery they were able to put in the 11 stitches and send us on our way. 1 more AFLAC claim for us. They are going to curse the day they ever signed us up for a policy!

On another note, the boys are doing great at their temp daycare. And Tami, their regular provider, is recovering well after surgery.

Hope everyone has something fun planned for the weekend. I'm heading to the Iowa Speedway to feel the need for speed!!

How'd I get here?

To be honest, I don't know if it's the full moon or what but I can't seem to function properly this week. The other day, I honestly thought I just needed to pull the van over and wait for someone with a clear mind to come get me and take me home.

Besides my inability to figure out which end is up, the boys have been plenty busy this week. They have switched to a temporary sitter for a few weeks, as of Wednesday. Tami, our normal daycare provider and my best friend, had surgery on Wednesday so she needs a little break from our heathens to recover. Tank will probably go back sooner than Bubby since she doesn't have to lift him like she does Bubby. But we wish her a speedy recovery! They are enjoying their new sitter. She is a neighbor that we have known for years. She actually babysat my little sister when she was a little tike. She's a wonderful woman and thank God she went back to doing daycare and was able to help us out.

Last night when we got home, Tank wanted to play in the new pool. Mind you, it was only filled with a few inches of rain water and wasn't even cleaned up yet since I had just bought it at a garage sale. Since he was going in for a bath soon, we just stripped down to his diaper and let him play. Just a few minutes later, I heard the kitchen door open and went to make sure he wasn't running wet thru the house. All I found was one big wet diaper that he had ripped off and thrown in on the rug. So of course, outside was Tank playing in only what nature gave him. Oh well, I'm sure the passing neighbors had a laugh or 2.

Sorry

I apologize for the gap in blog posts. Our computer has been giving us a hard time so if you again don't hear from me for a while, just assume it finally crashed for good. But on to the real posting...

Plenty has been happening around here in the past week. Bubby is still working on figuring out crawling. He's doing a little army crawl and pushing backwards still but no real official forward crawling yet which is fine with me. He gets where he needs to go fast enough already by rolling or army crawling so that's enough for me. He's getting better at entertaining himself for longer periods of time but checking out all of Tank's toys and spending time destroying the toy bins and clothing shelves on the changing table. If you happen to visit and see a giant moving pile of clothes, most likely there's a Bubby underneath it.

Tank has been up to no good as usual. We had a garage sale this weekend with our friend Tami. While I was manning that and trying to keep the boys within ear shot, Tank went to play in the back yard and decided to take another dip in their pool...fully clothed. This is the 2nd time he's done this number now at Tami's house. He has also been removing his own diaper several times lately. Luckily so far it has only been a wet diaper but I know it's only a matter of time until I find a nasty mess somewhere. I'm hoping this means he's getting closer to full potty training since he wants it off but we'll see. He has also been picking up a few new words lately. Most of you know that he is a little behind in his ability to carry on a full conversation but he's getting better. The word for the past few days as been "applesauce". (Notice a lot of his interest involves food. Obviously he gets that honest.) Anyway, once he learns something new, he feels the need to repeat it. For instance, he just saw a jar of applesauce on the kitchen counter. Now he's sitting in the living room watching his cartoons and repeating over and over "applesauce...applesauce...applesauce". But repetition is the key to learning so I guess we'll just let him ramble on.

Have a happy Sunday everyone!

It's Official

We have an official "curtain climber" on our hands!

Back in the Workforce!

Thank you for all of your prayers and "good vibes" for Daddy's 2nd interview on Monday. They all helped and pulled through for us, leading to a job offer later that day. With no hesitation, Daddy started work the next day! He has enjoyed his 1st week of work and stayed plenty busy. He's working 10+ hour days and is glad to be back to work. He's in a much more stable industry now in regards to the economy. He's now working at Farmers Hen House, which is about 8 miles from home. So compared to his previous commute, he dropped about 300 miles a week which obviously helps significantly with the cost of gas. He is responsible for maintaining all of the high tech machines they use to process their organic eggs as well as being 2nd in command for the entire production crew. Click here to read a little more about the company. One fringe benefit...we never have to buy eggs again.

Did I say that?!

If I had to pick 1 thing that a vacation is good for, it's reminding me that I need to work. I couldn't believe it when I caught myself thinking "is this week over yet?!" Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and don't know what I would ever do without them, but...I'm a better mommy when I work.


Here's just a few things I found myself saying today...

• Stop that!
• Be quiet, your brother is sleeping!
• Get out of the refrigerator!
• How did you get stuck in there?
• Where did you get that from?
• Get your hands out of your pants!
• Stop smashing your peas!
• Quit playing with your peas!
• Eat your peas!
• Shut the refrigerator!
• Stop biting yourself!
• Put that back!
• No more!
• Get your hands out of your pants!
• Ger your hands out of your pants!
• Go to bed!!!

Adventureland...a day in pictures

1st ride of the day, the Ladybugs! We discovered quickly that the problem wasn't going to be getting him on the rides, it was going to be the getting OFF part that he didn't care for.
















Quickly on to the next one, Lady Luck.











This is my favorite shot of the day. How sweet is that?!

The Chuckwagon

Feeding the giant catfish.

I'm really not sure who's having more fun here.

Convoy!

Relaxing on the Infant Ocean. Who needs to steer when you just go in circles anyway?

The Frog Hopper! One of his faves.

Working on a sugar high. Banana Icee!

Kokomo Kove. Definitely worth dragging all the swimsuits and towels. He loved the water slides, he even went down the big ones by himself!

The aftermath. This was the scene about 2 miles down the Interstate.

Highlights from the 4th

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! We didn't camp this year over the holiday so we got to enjoy things close to home this time around. The boys enjoyed their 1st fireworks show. The last 2 years Tank has been sleeping by the time fireworks came around so he missed them. He was quite impressed with them though for his 1st show. He would see them shoot off and scream..."oh no, oh no!" in anticipation and then clap when they burst in the air. Bubby sat back and watched in true Bubby fashion. I expected him to get scared at the loud ones but they didn't bother him a bit.
They enjoyed 2 more parades to bring their count up to 4 in the past 3 weeks. Tank has gathered more candy than 10 children need. Lucky for me though he just likes collecting it and doesn't ask for it after we get home. So it will stay as a treat or maybe potty time rewards. Speaking of...we're still working slowly towards that goal. He's had a couple successes in the bathroom but we're far from winning that battle yet.

Bubby is now up on all 4's and rocking back and forth. He's still only pushing backwards though. No forward crawling yet. Which is again, fine with me! He thinks he's hot stuff though when he gets up and rocks.

Tank now thinks that he can just open the fridge and help himself whenever he wants something. The other day I caught him standing with the door open while he ate some rice pudding. This morning I walked in on a messy yogurt binge. He bit through the foil top enough to suck out about 1/2 of the container before I found him. The mangled foil made my teeth hurt just looking at it.

If you get a chance, send good vibes and prayers our way for tomorrow. Daddy has a 2nd interview for a job he's trying to land so we're wishing him the best in the morning. Hopefully after that we will be heading to Des Moines for Tank's 1st trip to Adventureland. Bubby will stay home with Aunt Megan so Tank can have a special day alone with mommy and daddy. I'm sure I'll have some good stories and pics to share from that trip!

Have a good week everyone! I'll be thinking of everyone while I'm enjoying my vacation week! :)

Bubby's New Tricks

Bubby has picked up a few new tricks over the past few days. He started playing peek-a-boo. He'll bury his head in your chest and then pop up and laugh when you say "Peek!" He has started throwing himself backwards while we are holding him so he can hang upside down. And the best one (according to Daddy, not me!) is that he was up on his knees and moved forward just a little tonight before he flopped over and rolled the rest of the way to his toy. So I'm sure it won't be long, probably even in the next day or 2 that he takes off and crawls. This is something that I'm not quite ready for yet. I love the "stay where you put them" stage. Obviously he's been rolling around the room for a while but him moving from room to room isn't something I'm looking forward to. It is exciting to watch him learn new things though.

Thanks to all who voted for the boys in the Des Moines Register's Cutest Baby Contest. They both got over 100 votes. Everyone did a good job at keeping the votes even!

Hope everyone has a good 4th! 1 more day of work for me then I'm on vacation for some R&R. Although I'm sure that won't really happen with these little tykes around. We hope to head to Adventureland and maybe some camping up at Lake McBride for a few days. I'll have plenty to report after those outings I'm sure!