January 2009: Another month of destruction

This is one of the cabinets in my kitchen along with the door that used to be attached to it. The broken green Croc just happened to be there too. The white box is an exercise ball that has never been opened (hence my flabby tummy). That is another story - back to my cabinet. I am MAD. Cabinet doors are just not meant to hold 90 lbs of boys on them.Pottery Barn Kids Room. A new expression of the Little Guy over the top bunk.

Yeah, don't forget to look at the ceiling.
Sorry I didn't get a shot of the hole in his toy box. No, I don't always watch him. Haven't you heard of "quiet time"? He still doesn't get it.

And you know what I was even madder about? When he snuck out and stole the Mavala polish. He painted every fingernail and toenail and poured the rest out on some toys and filled the bottle up with water. I think I might have floated on air and almost went through the roof. Mavala goes on thumbnails to stop thumb sucking and it really works. Believe me, we tried a lot of other stuff and this did the trick. It is nasty. I painted my own nail and put my tongue on it and had to go spit in the sink it is so bad. Lovely picture, right? Anyway, I highly recommend it but I must warn you that if your kid makes a mess with it and when you clean it up you accidentally get it all over your hands and the side of your mouth, it could be bad. Really bad! You will remember how bad every time you lick something off your lip or try to eat something off your hand. Trust me. Bad.

Five is Devine

A five year old. Right here:
By five and a half I bet those bangs will have grown out.

I finally got my picture of him on the stairs in this irresistible shirt. You can scroll down to see the details of that or click here.


I was going to put a picture of him at 3 in this shirt. It just isn't working out so well.

One of his teachers calls him "peanut butter and jelly face" and with good reason. He brings a bag of acorns home from the playground most days and tells me on the ride home how they are like a pumpkin inside. Yesterday a neighbor was over playing and he came in the house to tell me "We are going to get married."

When we are in the car he drives me crazy messing with Baby Girl. I am constantly saying "don't touch her" and "leave her alone". I do like the way he will lean over and whisper to her "I am going to love you forever." That is so sweet. But, just you wait and see what he did to the house...

Flashback Friday

Bonnie commented that I am a SLACKA and she is so right. I will post tomorrow a little something to show some of the destruction that has been going on at my house by my two little...rambunctious boys.

This picture is of my Little Guy when he was approximately Baby Girl's age. Little Guy's SNACKA. It was back before he wrecked stuff in my house. I really loved my boys in those little Levi's Jeans. That is a Gerber puff by his toe. he must have loved them as much as Baby Girl. I still use that sippy cup. It looks like I am having some kind of fancy hair moment there. And, what happened to that watch?

Lastly, this reminds me that I should put some rubberbands on my cabinet doors again to keep out Little Miss Curious.

Random Picture Challenge: August 2007

August 2007 Folder - picture #30
from 4 Little Men's challenge.

I checked myself and made sure I followed the right directions this time.

So, here we go...This is the Big Guy and it just happens to be one of Hubby's favorite pictures of him. It was way back when he was only 5. There is no fun story. I took it in the backyard after dinner one night for no reason at all. It was not long before he started Kindergarten and I was pregnant with Baby Girl. It seems like a lot has happened since then even though it wasn't so very long ago.

I just love those tippy-toes.

Ma-Ma, why do you keep taking pictures of me?

One of Baby Girl's favorite pastimes: pulling out the books on these shelves. It happens all day long so I don't always pick them right back up. It has been customary to walk around or over the books when going through this room.

More of the legwarmers. I wish they made Baby Gap clothes big enough for me. I also wish I had the sweater to match these legwarmers. I was going to post this picture on my other blog and decided to share here too. Did you know I had another blog?

I just looked and I am so glad they no longer have this in Baby Girl's size (or my size). Glad so I don't have to buy it. It is cold enough here to wear a full sweater suit. I can't say I have ever done that.

I loaded up my Gap cart with these two items because they are on sale for $9.99 and I can't decide which I like better. Sometimes I fill my Gap cart and never check out. Just one of the many ways I like to waste time and be unproductive during B.G's nap time. They are supposed to go with the legwarmers, but I just don't know. BabyGap did not pay me for all this advertising. I could only be so lucky. If they ever do pay me, don't believe a word I say. I would say about anything if they paid me. :-)

Back to the tippy-toes that I love:

While we are here I want to mention the two books already on the floor. The one with Cookie Monster is her favorite. It was well worth the $1 Santa spent at Target. She brings it to me all day and fusses to sit in my lap. I am running out of things I can point out and say about it. She loves it, though. I like the way she gasps for air like it is so surprising and new every day. The other upside down book is tearing on the back even though it is a board book. You might be able to tell. It came to us that way. It was her Christmas gift from her grandparents and was so obviously used. And that is all I will say about that.

It does lead me to finally explain my posting of November 12th. Sorry to keep you hanging for over 2 months. If you look closely you can see "Kmart 1995" and maybe some of the stains on the bottom of this little stuffed lamb. It was Baby Girl's first birthday present from her Grandparents. They met her for the first time around her first birthday and that was what they gave her. In case you are wondering what my Hubby thinks of his parents' gift, you will be happy to know he drop-kicked it across the room.

A little more leg action

Wordless Wednesday

Just Random and so wrong.

When I first tried to do my January random picture challenge, I made a mistake. I pulled the 8th picture from January 8th instead of the 8the picture from January. Lost? Yes, so you can see how I got so easily confused.

Anyway, I already found the picture and uploaded it so you have to look at it.

January 8, 2008.

Elvis' birthday.

Also, The Little Guy's birthday.

Guess how old he is. (4 in case you can't see all the fingers.)

I did the same picture on our stairs in the same shirt on his 3rd birthday. I have been telling him for two days I want to do it again this year. It is a little past his birthday and that shirt is only getting smaller. He has refused so I may have to break down and resort to bribery. I am not beyond it and I have a good bit of bubble gum leftover from Halloween (no chocolate - no surprise). The promise of bubblegum made him sit still for a shot so it will have to work for a picture.

Screamin' Beans

Your kids will love this. My boys were howling and played it four times before I told them they had to give my computer back.

We had chili for dinner so it was very appropriate.

Random Picture: January 2008

What is that woman at 4 Little Men doing to me? It is another Random Picture Contest and I can't resist that. Didn't I just do one?

The Month: January
The picture: #8I think The Big Guy's best friend and sister came over for a play date. School wasn't back in yet and I think their Mom had to work. So, it was an early morning and I had not gotten around to combing hair yet. Truth be told, I probably never did comb it on that day. The Little Guy's hair in this picture is about as short as it is now. I can see how much better his teeth are when I look at this old picture. His top teeth moved back after he stopped sucking his thumb.

I remember there was lots of changing clothes, dressing up and waving of swords. It is amazing that I got all of them to sit still together in one place.

Hey! I had a 3 month old somewhere! I must have said "shhhhh she is taking a nap!" a lot. I still say that a lot.

World's most bitter obituary

My husband read this to me off the Internet several months ago from a Sacramento newspaper and I have not forgotten it. I am reprinting it here to share with you. Curious to see if you think it is sad, funny or possibly both.


Mirror if necessary: Dolores Aguilar 1929 - Aug. 7, 2008 Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. She will be met in the afterlife by her husband, Raymond, her son, Paul Jr., and daughter, Ruby. She is survived by her daughters Marietta, Mitzi, Stella, Beatrice, Virginia and Ramona, and son Billy; grandchildren, Donnelle, Joe, Mitzie, Maria, Mario, Marty, Tynette, Tania, Leta, Alexandria, Tommy, Billy, Mathew, Raymond, Kenny, Javier, Lisa, Ashlie and Michael; great-grandchildren, Brendan, Joseph, Karissa, Jacob, Delaney, Shawn, Cienna, Bailey, Christian, Andre Jr., Andrea, Keith, Saeed, Nujaymah, Salma, Merissa, Emily, Jayci, Isabella, Samantha and Emily. I apologize if I missed anyone. Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing. Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again. There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

"Unnecessary quotation marks"

Today I would like to recommend another time killer to you. In a good way, of course.

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Baby Minefield

This is for Mara. She recently asked me how I kept the baby from getting in the little pieces of the boy's toys. Apparently I don't. I was in the kitchen while Baby Girl was walking around the house as she always does...sippy cup in hand. She didn't come back and things were very quiet in the other room. I went to investigate and found her putting together a Star Wars ship by herself.

We try. Really. But...you know there are those days...

She isn't too bad about eating things she shouldn't. If it had been my first born, he would have already eaten half of this Lego set.

I scooped her up and saved the day. Notice how I took her picture first, though?

Wordless Wednesday: New Baby

Baby Little Guy

Wordless Wednesday: The Guys

Hangin' out on a Sunday afternoon.

Not P.C. Post

Random Picture Challenge: May 2008

Brittany at 4 little men is having a Random Picture Challenge.

Her instructions were to go to your May folder of pictures, pick the 21st picture, and post it to your blog with a little description of the picture itself.

So here's my 21st picture from May 2008:

It is Baby Girl on the floor of our house. If you look you might see the wet marks from her drool on the floor. We were hanging out with the Little Guy and she was practicing sitting up. this is the way she did it - leaning over to support herself with her hands. I didn't quite get her face in the picture. I just love those little baby feet. They are still just as cute although a bit bigger.

Favorite Toys

Another go at the hair-do while she plays with her most favorite things. See how happy she is about them?

More Freebies - January 10th

Nate Williams has some free desktop wallpapers.

I'm not pushing Oprah or Suze Orman on you, however, I am a sucker for freebies. Until 1/15/09 you can download Suze's 277 page 2009 Action Plan: Keeping your money safe and sound.

Restaurant.com sells gift certificates for a lesser dollar amount. I didn't explain that very well. Take a look and put your zip code in to see what restaurants are participating in your area. Example: You can get a $25 gift certificate for $10. Problem: You have to spend $50 to use it (and tip is automatically added to your tab). I used one of these when I was out with a lot of girlfriends at a nice place and our tab was over $100. It was a great deal for us. If you watch the site a lot I think there are some even better specials. So far I haven't found anything that is too beneficial just for my family to go out and eat. Although with the way Baby Girl has started eating we will be ordering her a full meal and may have to pay $50 when we go out.

You can get free money for your child's 529 plan at Upromise. I'm guessing most of you are familiar with this one. I just looked it up and over the 6 years we have been participating, we have earned $247. Not a lot for 6 years. However, it was FREE (the important thing) and we probably don't take advantage of it's full potential. We used Babymint for a lot of years and earned a lot more money. We used their credit card and put everything on it. It was great. THEN they changed their credit card and were without one for awhile and I was annoyed. I never have looked into their new card and don't want to fool with it. You can get gift certificates from their site as well and save a percentage of your total purchase. I haven't actually done that myself. When I stopped getting money from the Babymint card and had a girl-baby, I opened a Gymboree credit card and get gift cards from them to use. That is good for my now life (and not my future). It helps with my buying-too-many-baby-girl-clothes problem I have developed.

Go to Sisterly Savings for a chance to win a $25 Gift Card to TJ Maxx. (ends 1/12)

Several places to win clothing labels, dishwasher safe tags and various stuff from Mabel's Labels at this link.

Contest ending 1/15/09

Enter a Blog Makeover Contest here.

New Look

Don't be frightened by this.

We were just trying out a new hair-do. The bangs in her eyes drive me batty. It worked pretty good for about 15 seconds.
13...14...15...she remembers it is there and goes for it.
Out it comes.
Look at this cool thing, Mama.
I take it from her and this is the result:
A dramatic fall to the floor to show her disapproval. There is usually some amount of screaming or whining that accompanies the fall.

Outing to the germ festival

Her first walking trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Not her birthday despite what the shirt says.

Love the Bundt

I've lost track of the cakes. I think this is #3. Even though she didn't mean to, Grammy came up with an excellent idea of letting him help bake his own cake. He put the candles on it and everything. It takes the pressure off of me to decorate it well.

She gave him the option of making a double layer cake or using a Bundt pan (he didn't know what that was).

His answer:

"Love the Bundt."

Still his birthday. Celebrate.

He can be just as sweet as he looks here.

Technically it won't be his birthday until about 10:06PM. I have forgotten the exact time. Isn't that awful? That may be right? Oh well, we have been partying and celebrating for weeks so I guess it doesn't matter.

Celebrate comes from Celebratus, the Latin origin of the English word celebrate. It means renowned or famous. It is where we get the word celebrity. That is what we do when we celebrate according to Les and Leslie Parrot. We make famous - if only to our immediate family - a special happening or accomplishment.

We just covered this in our Sunday School class. It is from the book The Parent You Want to Be. They say that by celebrating our kids milestones, we are saying to them, "I notice you. I'm tuned in to your life, and I delight when something good or special happens to you."

See, I am trying to be a good parent and that is the stuff I would rather write about on my blog. You just don't want to know how I pointed my finger at him and fussed about how loud he was several mornings this week. I sure fall short of greatness but at least I gave him 3 cakes and 24 cupcakes for his birthday. You know I will have the photo documentation for that if there is ever any question on my level of effort.

Oh-Five

Happy Birthday, Little Guy!

He is a moody little fellow. you never know if you will get a snarl or a big loving hug from him. If I am in a hurry I walk on eggshells so nothing will set him off. He is a brilliant negotiator. He hops, climbs and jumps. A lot. He adds Ls to words that don't have Ls in them (blathroom). He refers to any date in the past as "yesterday". He is loud, has an evil laugh and a bad haircut and I love him. He is all about coloring and drawing (often in the wrong places). He wants a real jeep and is so sweet to his little sister. He sometimes takes her out by the legs, but you know, in a nice way. His teacher calls him "peanutbutter jelly face" with good reason. He loves his PB&J and would eat it for every meal if we let him. I would have too at that age and am still rather fond of it. He has become skinny so I think he could use a little extra peanutbutter. I tried to sneak him almondbutter a few times. He isn't buying that.

Happy Birthday, Little Guy (and Elvis too).

Today he has on tap: Leader at school and birthday party with his classmates, baking his own birthday cake with Grammy (wish her luck), and a playdate at our house. He will get a few gifts as well and I hope they aren't books.

Little Guy-Eve

On the Eve of my Little Guy's Fifth birthday, I have some pre-birthday activities to post. The Big Guy calls the night before his birthday Big Guy Eve and we laugh and laugh and laugh..

I went to Party City to get a few things for my boys' joint birthday party. I bought some Kung Fu Panda stickers a couple of months ago and thought I would get some plates and party stuff with the same theme for the Little Guy. It was nowhere to be found and I asked two employees if they had it. They both shook their heads with pity and said "Oh no. We don't carry that." They said it almost as if it was a ridiculous question I had asked. The second person said "We have never had that!". I didn't bother to tell them how wrong they were. Is there something I don't know about Kung Fu Panda? Why?

There is no extra charge for awesomeness... OR attractiveness.

We had a joint birthday party for both of my boys last week at a jumpy place. There is a jumpy place right across the street from us and apparently it was too close. We had to drive 20 minutes to this one. I said if they had it there they had to share the party and they were okay with it so Woo-HOOOO! It was all of the Big Guy's idea and he is lucky his little brother idolizes him and does whatever he wants. Above is the one picture during the party that my Big Guy stopped running for me to take a picture of him. Below is when I asked The Little Guy to stop (he had to be held down). Although it was a joint party, The Big Guy refused to go sit next to his brother and blow out the candles. They were at opposite ends of the table and had a stand off on which one would move next to the other. I don't have a lot of patience for that especially with a room full of people and a worker-bee standing with a big cake waiting to put it down. So, there you have it. Decision made. I would like to say The Big Guy learned a life lesson, but he probably doesn't even remember or care now.
The Little Guy always licks his plate clean when he eats cake. How can you even argue with that? You should have had some of that cake - you might have done the same. Again, I ate most of what was left of the cake when we got home. Brown-noser? I can't wait for his bangs to grow back out.

Our older friend made him a cake this week and gave him 3 gifts. I might also add that she was very generous giving him more money than a 5 year old needs. Anyway, the 3 gifts were all books from her Mt. Rushmore trip. After opening the third one he threw it on the floor and started crying. It was pretty embarrassing although I secretly could not blame him.

What Five year old boy wants a book about girls riding horses for his birthday? TOYS! Bring on the jeeps and car tracks, lady!

I tried to explain that he could buy a toy with his money and I think he was too distraught to grasp that concept.

Here we are with cake #2. It was actually a brownie with icing and eats just as well.He was smiling in this picture because it was before he opened his gifts and still had hope.

Happy Birthday, Little Guy (becoming Big).