Crunch!

Today at daycare, the boys' friend "Punk" grabbed a Nestle Crunch off the counter and took off with it. A little while later, Bubby came crawling into the kitchen with the biggest chocolate laced grin you have ever seen. He was covered in chocolate...hair, face, shirt, hands, everything. But he was happy as could be. Obviously he was either given the chocolate by his accomplice or has been taught how to steal by his brother. Either way, he discovered a new love today.

When I heard the story about his day, I thought - you know, sometimes all it really does take to crack a smile is chocolate!

Random Thoughts

A couple nights ago, we were eating dinner and I got a tickle in my throat that threw me into one of those big coughing bouts that you can't seem to stop. The whole time I was coughing, Tank was proclaiming from the other side of the table "Cover your mouth! Cover your mouth!" even though I was already covering my mouth. I guess he really is listening to me...at times.



This morning we tried another potty training concept...no TV until you potty, or at least give it a good shot. He gave up on me after about 5 minutes and went to sit in the dark living room with no TV. I didn't notice at first though that he snagged a bag of bread off the counter on his way and was sitting in the dark eating a loaf of bread, one piece at a time. Nice.



Bubby has been showing his budding personality lately. Today at daycare he growled and screamed until he got to sit in the chair he wanted and then beamed brightly when he got his way. Last night he got in trouble with daddy for playing with the DVD player again. He doesn't take long to shove the lower lip out and burst into tears when his feelings are hurt. Drama King!



I also want to give a shout out to Jenna. She was an awfully brave girl yesterday and underwent the liver transplant that she has been waiting for. We are praying for her quick recovery and for her family that is anxiously waiting for her to gain her strength back and go home. They are an amazing family to say the least!

Speaking of...head on over to CMN's site to vote for the UI Children's Hospital to win the Ultimate Game Room contest. Those kids need something great like that to take their mind off their pain. Vote 10 times a day for the kids!

1, 2, 3...

Over the past few days, I have heard Tank counting quietly to himself. But tonight was the first night he chose to blurt it out loud. He got to 10 a couple times, perfectly but sometimes stumbles in the 7-10 range. Tonight I heard...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 8, 7, 10! How can you not giggle at that when they seem so proud?! And hearing it as "one, two, free, pour, bive, six, sebin, eight, nine, ten!" just makes my heart melt. How precious!

Bubby has picked up a few tricks of his own too lately. First of all, by some miraculous intervention, his hair has started to lay down somewhat lately. He looks like a studious little man now instead of the wild child light socket look. I admit though, I think both styles are cute! He has also started pulling up to try to stand by things. Mostly he just hangs out on his knees but he gets brave every now and then for a brief moment and gives it a shot. He has also started using his words and screaming "MAMA!" when he wants something. Many more years of that to come I'm sure.

Brotherly Love

Last night Tank & Bubby took a bath together. Bubby was in the back and Tank in the front. Tank jumped up and pulled the shower lever. And since we have a shower head with a hose that holds a little water in it from the previous use, Bubby got a blast of ice cold water all over his head. He was not happy, needless to say.

On a completely unrelated note, Tank has been working on potty training the past couple days. Last night I sent him outside to "run free" for a little while if you know what I mean. I went to peek out the door and check on him, only to find him taking a squat on the patio. But since it wasn't in his pants, we chose to celebrate the moment regardless of the location. He was pretty proud! I'm sure he won't be when he reads this in another 15 years.

Swimming Anyone?

Today we met Daddy's parents for lunch in Sigourney.

Afterwards we went to the town square to find a spot to sit and chat a while. We found a nice spot by the fountain next to the courthouse. I wasn't sure why Tank was running so fast to the benches when we got out of the vehicle. I figured it out though when he started trying to peal his shirt off and scale the little fence around the fountain. (Note to self...don't expect a mischievous 2 year old to be near a large fountain without trying to swim in it.) Needless to say, we didn't get to stay long since he never stopped trying to hurdle the fence every time we looked away. By the way, I'm not sure what they were trying to keep out with that short little fence. Obviously it would have been no match for our kid.

First Fight

First off, I apologize again for my gap in postings. I just got my computer out of the shop, again. The Geek Squad assures me it is fixed...we'll see.

On to business - looking back over the past several days, I would have to say the 1 thing that sticks out the most would be the fact that I had to break up the 1st fight between the boys the other day. We were driving to daycare in our car instead of the usual SUV so they were sitting closer together than normal. Bubby has recently learned to spit...a lot. He doesn't just shoot a little stream, he's a little replica of Old Faithful. Since he was sitting fairly close to Tank, he shared a little bit of his geyser. Tank, not a fan of being spit on, decided to retaliate by hitting. Lovely. After a few moments of back and forth spitting and hitting, I raised my voice to my best "angry growl" and ended it. Afterwards, I could only imagine what they will be doing to each other in another few years when they are rolling around on the floor pulling hair and giving wedgies. We have so much to look forward to!

Heavy Heart

I still just don't believe it but today put it a little more into reality. On Sunday, we received the shocking news that my cousin Sam suddenly passed away. At 47 years old, he was way too young to head home. With the strong faith that I have, I know that everyone has a purpose. And his was obviously completed already if he was taken home, but...it's still hard to see the reasoning in that plan right now. Later on, I'm sure it will become apparent but for now, we comfort each other to deal with the emptiness this loss has left in our extended family. Today was visitation and tomorrow is his funeral. Please add a prayer for Sam's wife, children, mother, siblings, and extended family tonight to help them find their own way to remember him as he would want to be remembered.

I do have to say that Sam left behind many many ways to remember him. He was such a fun loving, hard working, helpful man that I think you'd struggle to find even 1 person who he couldn't get along with. As I looked through all of the old photos and read all the stories at his visitation today, I couldn't help but smile. If you needed your driveway plowed, Sam was there. If you needed a tree cut up after a storm, Sam was there. If you needed a haircut, Sam was there. Yep...even a haircut. Recently I decided to take a good chunk of length off my mane. Sam was getting his haircut before mine at his sister Sherrie's shop. We chatted a while, joked back and forth about life. When it was my turn, Sam asked Sherrie if he could take the first snip. With his usual big grin on his face, he proceeded to chop off a good portion of my hair. He thought it was pretty funny that he could go tell Grandma that he cut my hair. When I talked to my mom later, I told her that Sherrie was pretty busy that night so Sam cut my hair instead. She looked at me like I was crazy. It was pretty funny at the time, but I didn't know it would be my last memory of him and the last time I would see him. Although I am glad that we all left with smiles on our faces, as everyone usually did then they parted ways with Sam.

As the saying goes - "A moment in our lives, forever in our hearts" Rest in peace Sam!

Bubby's Latest Pic

I'm about a month and a half late in posting this but here's his 8 month picture. Check out those eyes!

What's That Sound???

There's a very strange sound in our house tonight. Wait...I think it is what I have heard some people call "SILENCE". The boys went to stay with their cousins for the entire weekend so needless to say, it's a little quiet around here. It is 1:00 am, I am now fully loaded with Tylenol PM and ready to hit the rack. We will be dead to the world until at least 10 am. So don't try to call us!

I would like to thank Aunt Twyla for being brave enough to take on the boys for the weekend. Especially Bubby considering his has an ear infection. Hopefully tomorrow goes better than tonight did!

Tonight we got groceries...quite a wild night out I know. Tomorrow we relax and then join our friends for dinner at the casino and some adult beverages to celebrate the birthdays of the 3 coolest people around!

Bubby's 1st Haircut

What a big boy!

After! He did so good, as usual! He looks like such a little man now. I can't believe he's almost 10 months already!

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!