Backdated Posts

Once again I have a whole bunch of backdated posts.  I am *really* going to try to do better in keeping up with my posts.  So here are a bunch of drafts that have been sitting around waiting to be posted.  Plus some other more recent ones that were posted out of order so they may have been missed.  There will be more in another day or 2

Our first Play group

Graduation

Easter

Jayden's First Birthday

Oh what a day

Stars of the Week

Blue

Springtime picnic

Phoenix Business Trip

Random pictures I love part 2

Trevor loves to help sweep the floor, rinse dishes and wants to do everything on his own lately.  (May 15) "That sun?"  No silly boy that's the moon! (May 15)

My all time favorite Trevor picture to date, taken when we were having a picnic.  He usually doesn't pose for pictures and throws a fit if I try to take one.  (May 18)  Taking a walk (May 20)      

Playdate at Liz's house.  Trevor lubs Ev-wyn     (May 22)

Jayden finally walks more than a few steps!  She's really on the move now!   (June 18)   Just goofing around.  They are buddies most of the time.  Often hugging and kissing on each other.  The hugging and kissing often turns into rough housing.  Trevor tries and often succeeds in tackling Jayden to the floor.  (July 6)

Random pictures I love

Since I was so bad about blogging for awhile and that there a bunch of pictures I thought were blogworthy but never blogged I figured I'd share a few!

Jayden at a Dr appointment in January

Spaghettio Hitler? (January)

This picture was taken Feb 2, it was an insane amount of snow!

 

Trevor's attempt to get ready for school himself, notice the coat is on upside down and hat is crooked, but otherwise he's ready to go! (Feb 11) Partners in crime (Feb 23) Princess Jayden is 11months old (Feb 27)  The kiddos love to fight over this chair.  Pretty in pink  (March 4) Bottles no more!  (March 12)   Both love to "read" books.  Trevor went through a stage of tearing up books, and Jayden is starting to lately.  Hopefully it passes.  They've destroyed more than their fair share of books and it makes me crazy.  We read lots of stories everyday.  (March 12)  On May 25th my youngest brother graduated High school.  The kids were wiped out on the way home.  They had a really busy day.  I can't resist snapping pictures of my babes sleeping.

Bedtime

Every night before going upstairs he puts away his toys, often with much prompting by us and tears on his part. He says night to Daddy and Jayden and gives hugs and kisses. We feed Blue and turn off Blue's light so he can go to "seep" If Trevor had his way blue would eat dust bunnies, bits of paper and pretty much anything else lying around as tries to stick stuff in Blue's tank.

As we climb the stairs he hollers down "nite nite" and "I U" As he proceeds upstairs he says, "Teef, teef, teef" over and over, reminding us we have to brush his teeth. Most nights he sits on the potty and looks at a book for a few minutes. Though he doesn't actually go in the potty. Before brushing his teeth he always must flush the toilet and says, "bye bye paper." The he stands up on his stool and washes his hands, he asks for handsoap by saying, "swubby swubby swubby" (he says the same thing for lotion) He brushes his teeth and dries his face and hands.

As we leave the bathroom he says "light on" so we have to swing by mommy and daddy's room across the hall to turn on the lamp and fan (white noise, we can't sleep without it) He runs into his room and hops on his bed, sitting on the edges and says, "Songs?" I ask him, "What do you want to sing?" He'll say, in no particular order: (but we always sing them all, I can't leave until we do)

"I I U" - I U = I love you, the Barney song
"Donalds" - Old Macdonald
"A B's" - ABC's
"iggle iggle" - Twinkle Twinkle little star
"spider" - Itsy bitsy spider

He says, "Covers?" I give him Fred and Foofy and his poohs and tiggers, he's got a bunch and he sleeps with his arm around them all and cover him up. He says, "Cuck cuck" for tuck tuck. And I tuck him with a touch of tickle. I lay my head beside him and he wraps his arm around my neck and we talk about how good of a boy he is and anything exciting he did that day. He gets a big proud grin. I always ask him who loves. Sometimes I have to prompt him and sometimes he says it all on his own, I say, "do you love mommy?" He says, "yeah mommy!" "Do you love Daddy?" "Yeah, Daddy" "Who else?" "Day-den!" "Anybody else?" "And Pa-ma!"

Lastly a bunch more kisses and hugs and one last "cuck cuck" and I head for the door and we blow each other kisses, he says, "yater ater" (later gator) and "See you soon" and couple more "I u's"

It's like that every night. It's my most favorite part of the day! Snuggles with my boy and all the frustrations of the day are washed away because in that 15-30 minutes he's as good as gold!

I'm Dreaming of a new kitchen

Of course it's just dreaming at this stage because we don't even have the money to replace our dishwasher that's about to die and our appliances that were bought second hand that are probably 20 years old. I'm not even exaggerating!

I saw this show, Carter Can, on HGTV and this is so what I want the inspiration for my kitchen to be. Maybe minus the upper shelving and cabinets instead. It's eco friendly too with bamboo floors and Squak Mountain stone counter tops. This is what the Squak Mountain stone says on their website, "Squak Mountain Stone, Noun 1. A Fibrous-cement material comprised of recycled paper, recycled glass, coal fly-ash and Portland cement. Material is hand-cast into “slabs” as an alternative to natural or quarried stone. Resembles soapstone or limestones." It sure is purdy!

Foofy & Fred

Trevor has two bedtime snugglies. Foofy is a fluffy stuffed bunny and Fred is a fluffy stuffed puppy. He also sleeps with an assortment of Poohs and Tiggers. But Foofy and Fred are the ones that he NEEDS.

Last night at bedtime Trevor was laying on Fred and he said in a funny voice, "help me help me, no breav!" He pulled Fred out from under him and said, "Awwwww it's okay." Then he laid on him again and said, "help me help me help me, no breav!" And laughed hysterically. Silly boy!

Maybe this will be easier

I found a new little tool that may make blogging even easier.  There's this handy little program called Windows Live Writer.  So I'm trying it out and we'll see if it works.  I've heard from others that it's super easy and so far it looks pretty good.

Oh what a day!

I had the day off today and thought I would take the kids to get their pictures done since we hadn't since Jayden was 1 month old. I had to go into work for a bit in the morning to do a quick partial inventory so the kids ate their breakfast at my store while I worked entertained them. I'll have to remember how much of a hassle it was trying to coral them and get them to eat rather than trying to rip the store apart. More cheerios got crunched into the newly cleaned carpets than into their tummies.

I should have given up and just gone home but since the mall didn't open for another hour and we were going to do pictures at Penneys we went to Target to waste some time and money. I can't leave Target without getting Starbucks. The kiddos didn't want their juice and cheerios. They wanted my carmel mocha Frap. And man did they want it. I got a purdy new comforter set in an effort to make my room a little nicer. (It looks great with my new lamp and sheet set. Hmmm now I just need to paint the walls, get a new dresser and put up some pictures.)

I got some shoes and clothes for the kids on clearance and we headed for the checkout. Why is that kids always do this huge freakout at the checkout. It happens to me every time. I changed Trevor's clothes in the car because I found the cutest outfit for him that matched somewhat with what Jayden was wearing. Freaking out the whole time.

Again I should have given up. But those pictures were going to be taken!

At Penneys there were a ton of people and I hadn't thought ahead to make an appointment so it would be an hour before we could get in. So we wandered the mall. I got Trevor yet another pair of shoes that looked better with the outfit than the ones he had on. We ran into CVS and got some cereal bars for bribery a healthy snack. I spent some more money that I didn't have on a cute necklace. (But it was on sale!!!)

We went back and waited. And waited. And waited. Trevor entertained himself by dumping the box of crayons they had on the floor not once but 3 times. There was ALOT of them. Once he tried to step on them and grind them into the carpet but I reminded him he had done enough damage to carpets at my store! He tried to color on the chairs and on the wall when I was tending to Jayden who was confined to the stroller but starting to get antsy. Luckily I noticed before he did any damage.

Finally it was our turn. The last time we went to Penneys they had the table that kids sat up on and the camera on a tripod. I guess they don't do that anymore. Trevor was free to run on and off the backdrop freely. He didn't really want anything to do with having his picture taken, which is why it's been over a year since we've had them done. We tried getting him to play catch. She managed to get only 2 pictures of him, though they aren't great, at least they were pictures. Most of the time he was running from the girl and pointing at her saying, "No Pi-tur!" with and angry tone and matching scowl.

While we tried to get Jayden to sit still for her pictures Trevor rummaged through their drawers and props. He brought me all kinds of photo albums, magnets, key chains, etc. Jayden though a little easier to photograph was unsure about this crazy girl making strange noises and wouldn't sit still either. The first few shots were of her clinging to my leg with a scared half smile. Luckily she warmed up a bit and we were able to get a few great pictures of her.

I really wanted to get a few pictures of the two of them together. I tried to get Trevor interested in the bench that Jayden had been sitting on and they started fighting over it and smacking each other a bit. So I found another bench and fished out a cereal bar. I didn't even think to take it out of the wrapper. This luckily all happened while they were on the backdrop so she was able to quick snap a picture before Trevor realized it and ran away leaving a trail of crumbs on their backdrop.

I really wish I had thought to take it out of the wrapper before handing it to him because the only picture of the two of them looks like a Honey nut cheerio advertisement. They both snarfed it down like a couple of hungry wolves. Duh, they didn't eat hardly anything for breakfast and it was quickly approaching lunchtime.

Trevor was losing his cool pretty quickly so I handed them another cereal bar and thankfully that kept them both busy while I picked out and paid for the pictures. On the way to the car Trevor threw a huge fit and threw himself to the floor in the middle of the store and I tried the walking away thing and he would run to get around me and throw himself down right in front of the stroller. He did this 3 times so I had to pick him up and carry him out while still trying to push Jayden in the stroller. This continued with kicking and screaming all the way to the car.

Once in the car he thrashed and screamed all the way home. I tried turning on the radio and he only screamed louder and kicked my seat. When we got home the tantrum continued and he was trying to fight with Jayden. So he got put in timeout while I made lunch. He was red and covered in sweat by this time.

His antics were then mirrored by Jayden so now I had two kids having bloody freakouts, not staying in timeout and trying to smack each other around. Gahhhhhh.

Finally lunch was ready and though there was crying and whining through it, it was at least better. Finally it was nap time. And all was finally quiet for two blissful hours!

Real Life #4

This week is Momentous Occasions. Thanks Jessica for the trip down memory lane. Our wedding day was definately the most Momentous Occasion of all. We were married October 16, 2004. It was a really chilly, windy day but it was perfect! Looking at these pictures makes me remember like it was yesterday. I'd go into more detail but it's past my bedtime. Maybe one of these days I'll have to write about it.

Be sure to stop back by in a few days. I'll try to post about a few other Momentous Occasions such as the births of my babies and Tae Kwon Do World Championships.

Bubbles and Ice Cream

Just recently Trevor has finally succeeded in his attempts at blowing bubbles. Though he blows more raspberries than bubbles as you can see in the video. Don't mind the fact the Jayden is chewing on a stick. It's one of her favorite things to do while we are outside. Before the video, here's a few pictures of our recent "adventure".

Mmmm yummy bubbles Why chew on the lid when you can eat the contents, thanks bro!

"Yea did it!" He was so excited when he actually made bubbles.

After bubbles it was time for ice cream. Jayden has this silly little habit of sticking her fingers in her mouth after every single lick of ice cream. It's pretty funny, watch the video and you'll know what I mean! Whoever invented kiddy cones is my hero! (Bloggers being a pain, I'll have to add the video later!)

Stars of the Week

I love love love our new daycare. When Travis started his new job I really struggled with the daycare dilemma. My job I have to work 1 night a week minimum until 7pm. And during our busy times or if someone calls in sick I need the flexibility to be there if need be.

Trav's new job could have some late nights as well. There are no daycare centers here open past 6pm. I really didn't want to put the kids in an in home daycare. I just have issues with that. So the one we're using now goes until 6pm and it's really close to my job. So far it's working out. Hopefully it continues to. We have yet to reach the busy season in both Trav's and my jobs so we'll see what happens then.

But the daycare is more of a preschool even in Jayden's classroom. They do field trips starting at age 3. The classrooms are divided based on ages and all kids in the classroom are within 1 year of each other. So things are very age appropriate. The do preschool every morning even in the 1 year old room. Trevor's vocabulary has exploded since there and they both really love it. They never cry when I drop them off and both get excited when we arrive.

It's is actually a small school that used to be an elementary. There is a large indoor activity area that is a mini playground when the weather is bad. There's security camera's and everyone is super friendly. It's even won awards. Price was hard to stomach at first but I'm considering it an investment in my children's education rather than just a daycare like our last one was. When I first toured it along with several others I KNEW this was it and that I had to make it work. It was cheery and warm and the kids were happy. I got teary eyed when I walked into what would be Jayden's room at naptime and the staff were sitting between the cots and rubbing the kids back to settle them into naptime. There was soft music playing and the curtains were drawn, and they were talking in hushed tones.

The other daycare that I toured that was more affordable was a very strong contrast. The rooms were a maze with only half doors dividing the "rooms" and you had to walk through one to get to the other. It was naptime as well and kids were crying and staff were talking in regular tones and it was LOUD. You could hear the babies crying in the infant room 3 rooms away. No wonder the toddlers were cranky and didn't want to nap. Also security was very poor. The 2 year old room was right next to the entry door. I child was napping on a cot within 10 feet of the door. And when I was getting ready to leave while someone unloading groceries, the front door was wide open and this child was visible from the sidewalk out front. There was no cameras and the staff wasn't nearly as friendly.

Our daycare has a bulletin board in each classroom for the "Star of the Week" and through the week their classmates talk about facts pertaining to that particular weeks star. Last week Trevor was the star and this week Jayden was the star. Here are pictures I took of their bulletin boards.

It's Real Life #3

So this weeks assignment is "where the magic happens" And if I were a magician I would magically transform our bedroom into a much larger, serene oasis. At this moment it couldn't be farther from that.

Lucky for me today is laundry day and I had already pulled the sheets off the bed. Surprisingly the bare mattress is actually prettier than what is actually normally on my bed. I really want new stuff but like everything else the bedroom decor has pretty much been forgotten about. My usual sheets are a lovely cream, navy and hunter green stripe. Travis' pillow cases match, mine are a dusty blue, they coordinate perfectly I assure you. *grin* The bed is rarely made, okay, never made. For covers we have uber warm, huge, fuzzy fleece blanket adorned with a wolf that I snuggle under in the winter. For warmer weather we have a lovely tattered and torn "quilt" It's one of those cheaply mass-produced horrors that I've had for ohhhh maybe 10 years. It's white with lots of blue, some pink and yellow and a tiny bit of red. That red ties in perfectly with my "beautiful" red walls.

The red walls where the first color paint we threw up when we bought our house. The red was a rebellion against the white rental walls I'd always had. I wanted COLOR and this red was just the ticket. Too bad we actually did "throw" it up because we did a pretty bad job painting. We never painted out the trim and it REALLY needs it. I'm sure the trim was at one time white. Now it's more of a yellowish cream. There's chips and gouges and red brush marks from where we got sloppy thinking we were just going to paint the trim white anyway. So how do we explain the brush strokes on the white of the ceiling? Ummmmm no comment.

So here is the tiny closet used by Travis mentioned in last weeks post. This door is as wide as the closet actually is. And that door is not even as wide as a normal door! The closet is deeper than it is wide.

Don't you just love my dresser! I want a nice antique type dresser someday, in the meantime this somewhat qualifies as a dresser. Travis has a matching one on his side of the bed. On top there's the lamp that I made when I was about 20, teddy bear given to me by Travis, phone book, roll of toilet paper, and a nursing pad!?! I've been done nursing for more than 2 months now! There's also lotion, I most nights put lotion on my feet and hands when I climb into bed. Or for a back rub once in awhile. The massager on the other side was part of Trav's Christmas present. I gave him that and some massage oil to throw him off, his real present was a massage at the spa. The massager is good for the back but if used on the shoulders you feel like your rattling your brains! There's also a binkie for those mornings I bring Jayden into bed with me so that maybe I can get a few extra minutes of sleep. She's almost kicked the binkie habit. Oh and the baby monitor we use to be able to hear Jayden over...
...the fan that we have to have running in order to sleep at night.

We jacked up our bed so that I could use underneath as storage. Primarily stored under there are books that I don't have time to read. Favorite authors: Stephen King, Danielle Steele, VC Andrews.

Oh look here's a bunch of decorating books. I was a big fan of these when I dreamed of owning a home and daydreamed often of how fabulously decorated it would be. Hmmmmm now I own my home and it's been many years since I've opened one of these books!

Somehow I doubt my mini-blind window treatment with the caution tag still attached would be a feature in one of those books!