I don't want to snuggle with you!

At about 4:30 this morning, Emily informed us that her bed was wet. I am usually up by that time, but this morning, I had decided to sleep in a little bit and I just wasn't in the mood to change sheets, so I told her that she could come down and lay in our bed.

Emily has an entourage of stuffed animals that go wherever she goes. She has her monkey that she has had for about 3 years now and the rest of the crew varies. Right now it consists of a stuffed unicorn, a stuffed dog, and a stuffed bear as well. We have a king size bed, but sometimes it's close quarters with just Jason and I, so I tried to convince her that her crew didn't need to come and that perhaps she could just bring monkey with her. Her response was, "But mom, I love them!" Trying to reason with a 3 year old is not easy at any time and it is especially not easy at 4:30 in the morning. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "I know you love them, but they will be fine in your bed. They're used to your bed. They might get scared if they are in a different place."

Emily: "But mom, I need them."

Me: "Why do you need them?"

Emily: "I like to snuggle with them."

Me: "Well, you can snuggle with me and monkey instead."

Emily: "No thank you mom (hey at least she was polite!)....I don't want to snuggle with YOU!"

She is my little free spirit who speaks her mind and right now it constantly cracks me up! I'm sure it will not be as cute when the teen years roll around.

The rules according to Emily...

I remember when I was a kid hearing the phrase "little pigs have big ears" but not really understanding what it meant. I'm quickly learning that when you're a parent (and especially the parent of a three year old), you have to really think about everything you're saying because it might come back to haunt you.

Emily's favorite phrase these days is "unpropriate." Here are some examples for you. When Jacob grabbed the remote off of the end table in our family room, she shook her finger at him and said, "Jacob Miles...that's unpropriate." When the dog went running through the house, she shook her finger at her and said, "Zoey, that's unpropriate." If she gets upset at me or doesn't like something I say, she will shake her finger at me and say "Mommy....you are so unpropriate."

So, I'm guessing at some point in time (and probably more than once without evening realizing it), I must have told her that something she did was inappropriate. She has since become the rule enforcer of our house letting us all know what is and isn't "propriate." (of course none of these rules apply to her) You gotta love kids!

HAPPY EASTER!

We hope you all had a Happy Easter!

The hunt begins...

Easter morning started out EARLY at our house! We had a hard time getting Emily to sleep last night and she kept waking up saying that she heard something and asking if the Easter bunny had come yet. Finally, at about 6:30 this morning, we couldn't hold her off any longer! When the Easter bunny comes to our house, he leaves eggs hidden all over the house, so the morning always starts out with an Easter egg hunt.

Jacob is still a little bit too young to understand the whole "Easter
egg hunt" concept, but he started crawling quickly towards the first egg he saw and was super proud of himself when he found the second egg, but by the end, he just wanted to eat the eggs!











Emily informed us that the Easter bunny is "the best bunny ever" and she really loves him so much! Of course, she also already can't wait for next Easter! (you have to know and love Emily to understand) She also had several questions about the Easter bunny that mom was completely unprepared for such as ~ Where does the Easter Bunny live? If Santa drives a sleigh, how does the Easter Bunny get around? How did he know where I live? How did he get into our house without setting off the alarm? Gotta love life with a 3 year old!

Fun with Easter eggs

Decorating eggs was fun this year because it was the first year that Emily was really able to decorate eggs on her own. She was so excited about it and enjoyed coloring on her eggs with the "mystery crayon" and watching her designs appear. She enjoyed mixing the colors, too. The highlight of the evening for me was when she dropped one of the eggs and it cracked and she said, "Oh no...I think it's going to hatch!!" She kept asking me when the baby bird was going to come out.

Cheap entertainment!

It's been one of those days! Now that Jacob is mobile, we have to constantly keep our eyes on him. This afternoon, I was unloading some groceries and turned around to find him with a big smile on his face and a hand full of dog food. Of course, he had a mouth full, too! Although he has attempted to steal the dog's food several times before, this is the first time he was actually successful and he was pretty proud of himself! It's the same little grin he gets every time he gets ahold of the remote or a number of other items that are supposed to be off limits to him!! The problem is that when he gets that grin, you can't help but smile, too, and so it's hard to reprimand him while you're smiling. No wonder he doesn't get it!

In a desperate attempt to contain the kids (and retain my sanity), I put them in the laundry basket and gave them a few rides around the family room. The both loved it and neither one of them wanted to get out! We've got a house full of toys and this was the big hit of the day. You can't beat cheap entertainment!

Turn your blog into a book!

I just thought I'd throw this out there for all of my other blogging friends (who have been at this for way longer than I have and probably already know about it!). I found a site today where you can turn your blog into a book. I thought it was a pretty cool "Keepsake" idea. The pricing is actually very reasonable, too!

Here's the link:
http://www.blurb.com/learn_more/flip/

An indoor picnic!

When I was a kid, sometimes we would have "indoor picnics." Emily asked yesterday if we could have a picnic and it was super rainy outside, so I told her that we could have one inside. We ended up not having a chance to do it yesterday, so we did it today instead. It was actually a beautiful day outside, but the ground was still wet from yesterday, and it was super rainy. I think the kids still enjoyed themselves. Jacob liked having free reign and kept trying to help himself to everyone else's food!

The "after" shot

For some reason, I couldn't add this to my other post. (According to Emily, she's "ready for summer.")

Sunglasses, Mardi gras beads, and a Halloween necklace ~ $6

Flip flops from last summer that are way too small but keeping finding their way out of the trash can ~ $5

Living life with a three year old ~ PRICELESS!

Emily's new haircut

We're getting pictures taken this week and so I figured it would be a good idea for Emily to get a haircut. I have been taking her to a place called "Cool Cuts 4 Kids" pretty much since we moved here. She loves it because she gets to sit in a fire engine chair and watch a movie while she gets her hair cut. I take her there because it keeps her happy, but it kills me to pay more than I pay to get my own hair cut!

Here are some of the "before" pictures:

While Emily was getting her hair cut, Jacob decided to take a little spin in this taxi cab and spent some time playing with this train table.

The best laid plans....

If you know me very well, you know that I'm a planner. I live by my to do lists and schedules. When I have a break from work, I go into "Super Mommy" mode and try to cram as much as I can into the time that I have off. Spring Break was no exception. Last night, I sat down and planned out something fun for each day of the week and laid out a detailed schedule for today. For some reason, I thought we'd find a way to cram in a super fun activity every day and that my house would be sparkling clean by the end of the week, too. I was ready to go!

As a parent, I guess I should have learned by now that more often than not, life with kids does not go according to schedule. Jacob woke up at 4 this morning. He wasn't crying or fussy. In fact, he was super happy. I tried everything I could think of to get him to go back to sleep. I patted his back, I gave him his pacifier, I even tried making him a bottle....each time he continued to give me that sweet little grin while chatting and laughing. He just wanted to play. I gave in....why not? I'm used to get up at 4 anyway. What made me think I could sleep in on a day off?

Emily actually did sleep in this morning (sleeping in for her is getting up at 7). By the time she got up, I was ready for a nap. At that point, I was an hour behind schedule, but I figured we could still make up for lost time. Who was I kidding? It took us much longer than expected to figure out what to have for breakfast and by then, I definitely wasn't in the mood for cleaning it all up. To top it off...the dog ended up with the runs...not a great start to our day!

I hopped in the shower while Emily proceeded to undo all of the cleaning I had managed to sneak in this morning. I managed to stay calm and we continued getting ready. We were supposed to go to Pump it Up for the "pop in playtime." Of course, Jacob crashed right before we were ready to leave and didn't wake up until Pop in Playtime had ended. Emily was devastated, but I came up with a plan to "save the day" as she put it ~ we could go to McDonald's and have lunch and she could play in the play area instead.

After lunch, we even managed to run a few errands. I was still optimistic. I was sure I could get everything done and get back on schedule while the kids were napping. Of course it took longer than expected to get the kids settled and by the time they got settled, the cable guy showed up.

At this point, the kids are happy as can be, but my house looks like a tornado has hit us and I'm slowly giving up any aspirations of having any semblance of order restored by the end of the week.

As Scarlet O'Hara would say - Tomorrow is another day...and I think I'll forget about the schedules and planning for now!

(Stay tuned for the updates!)

Welcome to our blog!

I have wanted to start a blog for our family for awhile, but haven't had the time to sit down and figure it out. I have enjoyed keeping up with family and friends through their blogs and thought that this would be a great way to share pictures and keep our family and friends updated. Please don't be too hard on me because this is definitely a work in progress and I'm learning as I go!!

We have all been busy (who isn't these days?) but we are all doing well!

My good news is that next year I will be working at a new school that is opening and it will be MUCH closer to home for me! Instead of a 3 hour round trip commute, I will only be driving about 30 minutes total each day. I can't wait to have more time to spend with my family and I'm hoping I won't be such a frazzled mommy by the end of the day! My Spring Break starts today and I am looking forward to having a week off to spend with the kids!

Jason is doing well also. He is still working for Newmark Homes. He is doing a great job and I love knowing that he will know how to fix (or will have a contact who can fix) pretty much anything and everything that could go wrong with our house!

It's hard for me to believe that Emily is almost four now. My secretary from work hadn't seen her in several months and commented that she has grown a lot since she last saw her and looks like she should be ready for kindergarten already! She seems to be taking after her daddy heightwise so far and has really shot up in the past couple of months. I never know what will come out of her mouth these days. The other day she asked me if daddy was going to dress up and pretend to be the Easter bunny and hide eggs because she had seen some Easter eggs in our closet! She had her Easter party at school today and was so excited to go on an "egg hunt" with her friends from school! I've included a few pictures that we took before the party and on her egg hunt. (I haven't figured out how to add the pictures to the actual text yet....that will come in time!)

I can't believe how quickly the last year has gone by and that Jacob (or "Jakey" as we call him) is almost a year old! He is a quiet, mellow kid, but also very determined. He still has his "mohawk" although it's a bit tamer now since he got his first real haircut a few weeks ago. We really have to watch him because when he sees something he wants (and usually it's some sort of electrical device ranging from cords to the remote control and everything in between!) he goes into "stealth mode" and quickly but quietly makes his move. He now waves and knows how to say "bye bye." He loves his big sister and being anywhere that she is. This weekend he figured out how to climb the stairs when Emily ran up to get something. He also LOVES to eat (and isn't afraid to get messy as the pictures I've included show!). You'd never guess it to look at him, but he definitely eats more than Emily and even eats more than I do some days!