Grandma's are special

Jayden has been sooooo close to laughing for months and she has giggled a few times but not full blown belly laughs. Well tonight Grandma H had her laughing in a big way! She never laughed like that for us before. :o( Well I'm happy she's laughing. I was starting to wonder if her giggle was broke.

Then Grandma H gave her some rice cereal. So far we hadn't had much success. But she ate it all up and was even opening her mouth for the spoon! Good thing Grandma's going to be here for a few days, maybe she can get Jayden's good habit well established before she goes home.

My baby is 2!

I can't believe how quickly his baby days have passed by. Yet somehow, I can't seem to remember what life was like before him. Funny how that happens. Trevors birthday was on Friday and we gave him a present late in the evening and sang happy birthday. We're horrible parents. Somehow I didn't realize it was the 24th and since we were having his party on Sunday I kind of forgot it was his birthday. Bad mommy! The picture to the left is his present he got at about 10pm on his actual birthday.

We had his birthday party today and he had alot of fun. It was a pretty small affair. It was pretty much thrown together at the last minute and since I had to work that day we didn't have time to do a whole lot. We had balloons, streamers, cake, and of course lots of presents! We got him a bunch of books, a Remote control car, a interactive dvd/book/remote thing, and a little toy car.

Grandma H got him a cloth Noah's ark with cloth animals, a bulldozer that opens into a book, and a shape sorter/pull toy in the fashion of a VW beetle (leap frog I think.) Grandpa G got him a Trike which he really seemed to enjoy. Hopefully the weather cools down so we can use it outside without having a heat stroke. He also got him a wooden toy that has the round pegs that you hit with a hammer. He figured that one out right away. Grandma B got him the up and down roller coaster. He loves it and even went down backwards a few times. I only wish that our house was bigger so we could keep it set up. But it's way to big to stay in the toy room. Gretchen and Tony got him a gift card. He also got a card in the mail from his Great Grandma in California. Soon we'll take him to Target and Toys r Us so he can pick out his own toy. So here's a sampling of the pictures from his party.

Trevor's 2 Year Checkup

Here's his stats:
Wt:25lb 11 3/4oz 25%
Ht: 33 1/2 25%
Head:49.7cm 75%

I had to take him by myself. And wow what a challenge. It wasn't all that bad until we got done with our appointment and they said that we needed to have blood drawn to test for lead. What a disaster! We had already been there for about an hour and a half and he was getting cranky.

We waited forever! He terrorized the lobby while I chased him around trying to keep an eye on Jayden who was starting to fuss in the stroller. I got countless "looks" from others in the lobby. To which I sarcastically replied, "How happy you would be if you had been waiting here for 2 and a half hours!" Seriously I was annoyed. It wasn't like I was just letting him run wild. I tried books, cars, fruit snacks, cheerios, even letting him hold my cell phone which he threw.

Finally we were called back and he was in a full blown fit by that time. I had to hold him down while they poked him. He was screaming, I was crying, and by this point Jayden was really fussing. I don't know what I would have done if she was really crying hard. The nurse wasn't having much luck collecting enough blood because he was squirming so much so she had to call for backup. By this time there was blood all over. It was on the floor, his clothes, my clothes, and the nurses lab coat. Serves their butts right for making me wait so long.

So finally it's time to leave and I look outside and it's torrential downpour! Perfect! I guess the benefit of that was Trevor stopped screaming and thought it was fun. By the time I got both kids and the stroller loaded I was beyond soaked and my jeans probably weighed 20 pounds.
Here's a picture of Trevor and I once we got home.

I think I'll pass...

on having six kids. This is the funniest ebay auction I've seen. I know it's long but hilarious if you read all the way through. She also has a blog I'll have to check out.

Busy!

I've fallen waaaaaay behind in blogging. Life is pretty hectic at the moment. I'm short handed at work and training a new girl, so I'm working a lot of hours. Add to that needy kiddos = 1 mama with no free time.

Since this isn't just a blog but our family journal I plan to go through and back date some posts. So some of the stuff will be old news but I'll be working from the back to the most current hopefully in some sense of order. Good thing I take lots of pictures and save little mini drafts to blog about later. :o)

Oh, and keep your fingers crossed for me! I had an interview last Tuesday! I'm soooo excited and hope I get it. I think the interview went ~really~ well. Without spilling too many beans... here's a bit of the scoop. I'm being recruited for this position. They are opening a store in my town and there was one that opened in January and was VERY successful. It is in my "area of expertise" and I'm being considered for the position of General Manager. I'm under the impression that it would be substantially more $ and some (maybe most?) of the negatives in my current position would be eliminated. Especially the micro management factor and expectation to sell the Cadillac to the customer who can't even afford the Escort. And the beauty of it is that they actually have STAFF in their store. It's hard to give good service to the customer when your a 1 man show half the time. Not to mention if you're busy, impossible to break away for a potty break, or a mommy break in my case.

I went and "shopped" their other store before my interview and I was very pleasanty suprised. It exceeded my every expectation. :o) I could definately picture myself managing that kind of store. Drawback is that it would probably be a bit longer of a work week being that the position is salaried but they're closed on Sundays, so I'd never have to work on a Sunday. The person whom interviewed me said he was very impressed with the intiative I showed in driving to another city to shop them to know what the company was about, plus he was impressed with the internet research I had done into the company. Then 2 days later their recruiting Doctor came in to talk to my Dr. and I knew right away who he was when he said his name. I introduced myself and he said, "Nice to meet you, _____ told me all about you. He seemed very impressed." I'm not going to jinx myself by saying it's in the bag. But, I have a really good feeling about it.

Well, that was way more detail than I intended to go into. So anyway... don't forget to scroll down to see what we've been up to for the last month or so!

Breathing fire

I made one of my most yummiest dinners tonight. Unfortunately I used hot enchilada sauce instead of mild and we couldn't eat it. It is soooo good and really easy. Tastes just like enchiladas. Here's the recipe:

Enchilada Casserole

1 pound lean ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic
2 1/2 cups enchilada sauce
1/2 cup sliced ripe black olives (I use a whole can minus a handful that I eat)
10 corn tortillas
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (I add alot of cheese)

Preheat oven to 375f. Grease bottom of 9" sqaure baking dish. Combine beef, ionion and garlic in a lagre skillet. Cook to brown beef. Stir in enchilada sauce and olives. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low; cover. Cook, stirring occassionally for 5 minutes.

Layer half of tortillas on bottom of baking dish. Cover with half of the beef mixture, sprink with half of cheese. Repeat layers.

Bake covered for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 5 minutes.

I never follow a recipe exactly so I increased the tortillas and sauce and make it in a big casserole. Yummmmm

By George...

... He's got it! Trevor finally tells us when he's stinky. :o) He says acky over and over. He's not yet completely consistent. But at least he's aware and makes the connection. Maybe we'll have to try out the potty again and see if he has over come his fear of the big bad scary potty.

Reaching

Jayden started reaching for things today. I had her in her kick and play and came in the room and she was holding the little ball attached to it. She let go and intentionally reached for it again. She's also getting much more mobile. She gets around by rolling or pushing herself with her arms and toes.