Bloggity Blog Blog

Merry Christmas from the Barnes Family (it is what it is...)

2011-12-10T21:20:00.001-07:00

Merry Christmas from the Barnes family.

We decided that if we couldn't get any truly good photos of the four of us, we'd just use all the funny ones. I felt like this was the best, honest representation of our family right now. Children are crazy yo.

Be Naughty, Save Santa the trip

2011-12-07T19:10:00.001-07:00

We've been super lucky with Santa pics over the last several years since Connor was born. He loved Santa and loved having his picture taken, so we received adorable, frame-worthy pictures.

Many parents (at least those I'd befriend) will agree with me when I say the only thing better than really great Santa pictures are really bad Santa pictures. I admittedly wished for one of those pics with the screaming, terrified kid. I should have known that my Bear would come through for me on this.

Please allow this post to serve as a teaser to the less than amazing family photos I'll be sharing later this week!

Boys heart Best Buy

2011-11-30T19:02:00.001-07:00

Today when I picked Connor up from school there was a board where all the kids named words that start with the letter B. I immediately knew which one my kid offered up. Thanks alot Jeff.

Spoiler Alert: Dead Cat

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

So we came home from Thanksgiving with the Barnes family and decided to get going on the Christmas tree. That's the fun news. The bad news came in the form of a very unwanted visitor.

We keep our Christmas decorations, tree and all other junk out in a backyard shed. Jeff went out there and brought all the stuff into the house. We got the tree set up just fine and then I looked out on the back porch and saw a huge black cat sleeping right up against our back door. We don't have pets at all so neighborhood pets are often lounging in our yard since they never have other animals to bother them. We kept spreading out the branches of our fake tree and I noticed the cat was still there. Jeff tapped on our glass door it was laying against. Nothing. Awesome, dead cat. The boys noticed the cat at this point and we of course said she was sleeping. They soon lost interest in trying to wake the cat by banging on the door.

In a moment when they were completely distracted by decorating the tree, Jeff opened the door and poked at the cat with our swiffer mop thing. Still dead, and now we have to throw away our mop. Pretty sure I don't want dead cat spread all over my tile.

While Jeff decorated with the boys, I got online and tried to find out if there was anyone who would come to our house and take away dead cat. The city apparently only picks up dead animals that are on the road, which I obv understand. Still disappointing.

After the boys were in bed we went outside to assess the situation and come up with a game plan for dead cat removal. Actually Jeff did that. I tried to come up with names for the whole thing. Operation Dead Cat. Operation Kit Kat. Operation Party Crasher. You get the idea.

Also, it smelled rancid. And there were maggots. Not sure how that translates to timeframe but we're thinking a few days. I find it hilarious that Jeff walked past dead cat several times bringing in the Christmas stuff without even seeing it. Dead cat was huge!

I'll spare you most of the details but fortunately/unfortunately the cat was laying on a long doormat so we were able to roll it up and put the rug and dead cat in a triple bagged garbage bag. Considering the smell and infestation going on, neither of us wanted to put it in our car to drive to a garbage can. (No way we would put it in ours since it would be a good 5 days before pickup.) Our house backs up to a grocery store and there's a little green retention area a few doors down that you can cut through. Jeff decided he'd just haul the bag through the retention area and toss it in the grocery store garbage.

He came back home 10 minutes later looking pissed. Aparently, the cat's out of the bag. Literally. Dead cat fell into the retention ditch. I'm guessing the rug tore through the bags. So gross. I said, "well, we tried. let's go to bed". Jeffrey, being the better person, disagreed. He grabbed a couple empty boxes and a shovel and walked back down the street looking like a cheesey horror movie character. I'm positive our neighbors love us. I'm not sure how the collection process went down, but he came back several minutes later and took a loooong shower.

I poured an entire bottle of bleach over the patio just in case.

The next morning, Connor went looking for the cat. He understoodwhen we told him that the cat must have just been visiting and was already home with her people by that time. Clearly, this is how we explain death. Looking back, this could have been a learning opportunity, but we wasted it.

As you can imagine, the whole thing really crapped on our festive moods. Here's hoping your Christmas decorating traditions were far less eventful.

So you are considering having children?

2011-11-23T22:14:00.001-07:00

First of all, I love my children. It has to be said though that there are things I couldn't even imagine before having children. Boys namely. Here's how my morning began today.

Every morning while Jeff & I are getting ready Connor sneaks into our room and surprises us. We usually see him but pretend that he scares us. Whatev, he loves it. This morning he appears behind me while I'm getting ready and there's dried blood ALL OVER his smiling face, mostly surrounding his mouth and nose. I see it's on his shirt, pants, and hands and I freak out. After a quick inspection of where the blood is coming from, I realize it's darkest in one nostril. And one finger. Yep, he must have been picking his nose overnight and not realized it was bleeding a TON. He looked like a vampire* there was so much blood.

*obvious twilight reference. you're welcome.

Photo Dump - Baseball Style

2011-11-22T19:50:00.019-07:00

ugh. why do i suck at blogging so much? i'm sorry to my tens of readers. true story.

Connor is playing baseball again and being adorable while doing it. Since he's only 4 he's supposed to be doing tee ball for another year but he really wanted to move on to coach pitch. We lied and said he was 5 when we registered him this year. Amazing Parents party of 2? Yes.

We're playing with a few of the kids from his tee ball team, Aidan (the bff), Kaitlyn, and Elias so that is nice. There are a bunch of new kids too and although there are 14 of them, I swear it feels like there are 50 of them. herding cats. Jeff is assistant coach again which I find adorable. I agreed to be team mom. I mean why not? Like I have a ton of other commitments? Like I have control issues? yes to both.

Their team name is Cool Awesome Cats - hilarious. so uncomfortable to say. Some of the kids wanted Cool Cats and some wanted Awesome Cats so we combined. Kids are crazy.

Here are a bunch of pics from the first 6 games.

playing catch with Aidan
getting a talk from Coach Jeff

One of our fans made us this great sign!

chillaxin with crackers

bear bear

LOVE the concentration

the kids LOVE the parent tunnel at the end of the games!

the one requirement for Noah at games...carbs

the other team showing Noah how to hold the bat :)

Coach Jeff pitching to the kids during the game

bear wants to play so badly

A Very Happy Halloween 2011

2011-11-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

ugh. i just realized this was never posted. fml.

Buzz Lightyear & Charlie Brown!

Addison, Kaden, Jacob, Connor, Madison and Noah

Madison throwing a fit when Noah stole her chair

completely unfazed and enjoying stolen chair

Buzz & Jessie (Connor & Bella) with Kaden

The Blums busted out the Halloween train again this year. It was a hit again!

this was the ONLY time Noah carried his pumpkin by the handle - he carried it like a hunny pot all night!

it only took Noah one house to learn the ropes. He was great and loved it. He'd just keep taking candy out of the bowl until someone stopped him!

Rapunzel

Connor's wings were constantly in the way and whacking kids in the face

some of the scary decoration

sometimes they even got drive thru service!

evaluating his loot!

Happy Halloween!!

Love,

The Barnes Family :)

Art Fair 2011

2011-11-13T22:52:00.006-07:00

We aren't really artsy people and we don't really tend to buy artsy stuff, but every November you bet your ass we'll be at the huge Fountain Hills Art Fair. Why you ask would we go to a fair full of homemade clothing, organic soaps and beauties like this?

Well for fair food of course silly! Oh man, we go every year. Carly and Bobby joined us last year and I was thrilled when I got a text yesterday asking if we were planning on going again this year. OF COURSE! was our response so we all headed that way Sunday morning. Sunday is football day for all of us, so you can see this is quite a sacrifice. Totally worth it.

my turkey leg. it's a tradition. don't judge me.

being classy with fair food is way, way tougher than it sounds. clearly, we nailed it.

this is exactly what most of our photo attempts look like. one smiling adorb but looking somewhere else, one smiling creepily and looking directly at the camera, and one rando McD toy photo bombing our picture. #perfect

some sprinkles in the morning but a gorgeous day outside

Colton being super cool and adorable

another typical pic for us :) One smiling like an angel and the other passed out with food on his shirt.

2011 Fall Festival

2011-10-28T22:34:00.005-07:00

The boys' school held their annual Fall Festival tonight and we just got home. I'm exhausted. It's been a looooong week. Tuesday night we had Connor's baseball team pictures, Wednesday I had a not fun dentist appointment, Thursday we had baseball practice and then tonight was the festival. Imagine working a full day and then topping your exhaustion off with something every flippin night of the week. This weekend is full too. Oh, and then Monday is Halloween. It's obvious I enjoy being busy, but this is just nutso.

Connor has wanted to go as his hero, Buzz Lightyear for a couple years now. I always try to avoid the store costumes but when we let him try it on a few weeks ago, he made the cheapy costume look way too adorable to pass up. His wings were killing me though. He'd had them on for 5 minutes at the house and managed to knock over a frame and a cup of milk. Once we got to the school, he grazed the many cups of popcorn and then several bowls of chex mix. Disaster, but cute. There was a costume contest and Connor won Most Original - it makes no sense that a Buzz costume from Party city would win this category, but perhaps I'm overthinking it. A win's a win.

We didn't know what to do for Noah. I thought it would be hilarious to have him dress as one of the Pizza Planet aliens but we just ran out of time to be creative with it. I randomly saw a Charlie Brown picture somewhere and was inspired. Simple and perfect. He looked adorable. I struggled trying to get yellow socks for him for weeks. I shopped and found nothing. I decided to try and dye them and the color looked amazing until I washed them and it came completely out. I gave up and decided the tell-tale Charlie Brown shirt would carry the costume.

Jeff & I dressed up too, though as usual I'm not in any of the pictures. Jeff went as Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang and I don't think anyone knew he was actually dressed up. I went as a deviled egg. random? Yes. did anyone know what I was? No.

even charlie brown throws temper tantrums when he doesn't want his picture taken

Sheldon Cooper & Charlie Brown

"to infinity & beyond!"

we were thrilled to see a painting of Charlie Brown so we had to get a picture!

Each of the classrooms had a different project and ways to get candy! In the baby room, the boys got to decorate little pumpkins with foam stickers. I was thrilled that they had owl stickers :)

every now and then Noah would just sit down and snack on some popcorn. It's allowed when you're this adorable.

they took turns playing bean bag toss

another necessary popcorn break

If there's one thing I know, Charlie Brown LOVES dancing

Swim Lessons

2011-09-24T19:32:00.006-07:00

Connor was in swim lessons for two years and took his last lesson on the day Noah was born. We decided to take a break from swim since it would be really difficult to manage weekly swim lessons with a newborn in tow. Since then, Connor played tball and soccer and we weren't as optimistic to think that we could toss swim lessons in there at the same time and survive with our already packed schedule as much as we wanted to.

I found a ~~blatant excuse to spend money on something I wouldn't normally buy~~ groupon for swim lessons for a month at 1/2 price and decided to go for it.

The place we originally went, Gold Medal Swim, was great and we loved it. pricey, but really nice and worth it we thought. Swim Kids in Mesa had the groupon and we have friends who really like the place so we went for it.

We weren't as impressed with the place as we were with Gold Medal, but Connor really thrived in his 5 classes. He made really big improvements, and quicker than at Gold Medal so we were happy about that.

Today was his last swim lesson and he did so great. He did what they call 'float, swim, float' across the length of the pool so the manager came over mid-class and gave us a ribbon for Connor for hitting that milestone. It was a pretty exciting moment, even if it was his last class :(

Have you seen me?

2011-09-23T07:24:00.005-07:00

why do i continue to hold onto this earring for 4 months after i lost its friend (see how i said friend here? because mate is a creepy word...like lover. or panties)? i just keep holding out hope that one of my children will wander out of his room carrying the missing one and all will be right again. Or that I'll retrieve my car from the car wash to see it sitting on my seat after being found under a pile of goldfish crackers. I understand it's unlikely.

i feel like this because i love these simple earrings. AND because i looked for my missing library card for 3 weeks before giving in and getting a new one only to open a book jeff checked out to find it being used as a sort of bookmark. dammit.

so maybe my missing earring will resurface if i pretend to give up and throw this one away. do you hear that missing guy? giving up. throwing your friend away. (pretty please come back to me)

This Just Happened

2011-09-20T19:02:00.005-07:00

The boys come running (and waddling) out of Connor's room tonight with Connor screaming and Noah laughing.

Connor: Mama, my nose!
Noah: mamamama
Mama: What happened?!
C: I hit my nose.
M: On what??
C: Noah's face.

His nose was kinda discolored but there's a bag of peas on there currently so I'm hoping it looks better when we're done with that. He's telling me that it doesn't hurt anymore, but that's likely so he can lose the bag of peas.
Noah is still laughing.

Life is like an ice-cream cone, you have to lick it one day at a time. -Charles M. Schultz

2011-09-08T18:42:00.005-07:00

Connor's afternoon teacher gives the kids one piece of candy when they go home if they were good that day. Only kids who were on their "best behavior" get a piece of candy so it's a pretty big deal :)

Yesterday Connor told me when we were leaving the school that he forgot to get his candy. I told him that he could have a piece of candy when we got home. Then the tooth stuff happened and candy dropped down low on our list of important stuff.

Today when I picked him up, Connor told his teacher that he was due TWO pieces of candy from yesterday and today. I told his teacher that it was ok as long as it wasn't chewy - because of his tooth. The teacher told Connor that all he had were tootsie rolls (what???) and that he'd bring him something tomorrow.

4 year olds can only be put off so long with rewards so I told Connor that we would get an ice cream cone on our way home. He was THRILLED but after about 30 seconds of sincere celebration, he asked me if he could have ice cream too. I was confused but then realized that he thought i literally meant he could have a CONE. I love this kid. I told him I supposed so and there was lots more celebration. He told everyone we passed picking up Noah that he was getting an ice cream cone AND some ice cream. :)

When we pulled up to the McD drive thru I ordered one vanilla cone and this voice shouts out from the backseat, "and ice cream in it please!". Shouts it. After I straightened out the order taker we got Connor's cone and ice cream and he was thrilled.

BTW - Day One...tooth still attached. Yay.

What's the tooth fairy's going rate??

2011-09-08T07:34:00.003-07:00

my children have aged me about 10 years in the mere 4 years they have been in my life. Yesterday didn't help.

I picked the boys up at school around 4 and as we were driving home Connor announced that he hurt his tooth while playing baseball that day. I didn't think too much of it, as the boy comes home with bruises, scrapes and general dirtiness every day. That's his job as a 4 year old boy. I asked if it hurt and how it happened. He told me it did hurt and that he dove for a ball and his tooth his the ground...? ok. He wasn't overly worried about it and played with bear in the backseat so I figured it would wait until we got home.

About 15 minutes later and I got out after pulling in the garage and looked at his mouth. I didn't see any bruising on his face or cuts to his tongue or gums fortunately. The tooth looked ok but was very loose. Not like hanging on by a thread loose, but wiggly loose. Ugh. I didn't think we'd have to deal with losing teeth, tooth fairy absurdity and this stuff for a while ;(

I called the boys dentist and started driving that way while I talked to the staff. Luckily they are just about 5 mintues away as they asked us to come in and do Xrays so they could make sure everything was ok. Our dentist is great to get us in at the very last minute before they closed for the day.

the boys at the dentist office. Noah looking less than concerned. Hopefully this isn't the last pic of Connor with both of his front teeth.

Waiting for the dentist to check him out

Connor did amazing during Xrays which I was dreading - lugging bear around so that he didn't pull cords, rip papers on walls and trying to comfort Connor during Xrays was something I dreaded the entire time in the waiting room. The last couple times at the dentist, he was a train wreck during Xrays so I was gleefully surprised that this time he was super chill. Maybe it's the buildup of knowing he has a pending appt that has wrecked him in the past and next time we'll just suddenly roll up to the appointment like a super fun surprise.

Also, I love that kids know precisely the bribery that awaits them at the end of their appointment. When I told Connor we were headed to the dentist after we left our house he immediately said, I'll get a sticker and a bouncy ball when I'm done. He can tell you that you get to pick something from the treasure chest after Noah's ear appointment (ENT) and that you get a sticker at normal doctor appointments unless you get shots, because in that case you get a sticker AND something from the toy box. It's hilarious to me the things that kids remember.

We'd been told at his last appointment that Connor's roots in his two front teeth had already been dissolving. Likely from an injury to his mouth. Since we didn't remember any sort of injury to his mouth, the dentist told us that it could have been several little incidents and that can be enough to get the cause the roots to start to dissolve. At that point, they'd told us that he'd likely loose his baby teeth before the new ones started to come in. Because of that, his fall yesterday didn't necessarily have to be too hard to cause the tooth to loosen up. :( The dentist showed us the Xray and you can see his big boy teeth up above the little ones which was pretty cool. You could also see the injured tooth had lots of space around it near the gumline. She told us that sometimes the gum can tighten up around the tooth but in Connor's case it's unlikely. The dentist guessed that the tooth would make its great escape within the month.

If I'm being honest, I'm crushed for vanity reasons. The dentist told us that big teeth typically come in around 7 or 8 and so that means we'll have 3-4 years of a missing front tooth. While the pics I see of other kids missing a front tooth are cute enough, I'm not thrilled with this for MY kid. Oh well though. We're begging Connor to leave the tooth alone and not mess with it. He swears it doesn't hurt but who knows. We're just going to have to be a bit careful about what he eats (no apples, no chewy candy, etc) to try and keep the tooth in there for as long as possible but its just a waiting game at this point. It's days are numbered, clearly. We haven't mentioned the Tooth Fairy yet and I'm not sure why. Maybe because I don't want him trying to get the tooth out to get a few bucks. Maybe we can tell him about the Tooth Fairy but leave out the cash money part...at least until it's determined how much money she's passing out currently.

San Diego - Day One

2011-08-13T14:17:00.009-07:00

We don't do a lot of vacations, we really don't do any. We don't make the time and my job doesn't allow for much time away. Jeffrey is fortunate to have a ton of vacation time so we decided to go for it this summer and go somewhere fun for the boys. Disneyland is next year (yay!) so we decided to head to San Diego.

I'd always rather fly but with two little kids it's usually easier to drive since they come with so much baggage - double stroller, two large carseats, pack and play/crib, diaper bag, tons of diapers, etc. etc. etc. etc. So we drove. The trip there deserves it's own bit of attention because driving with family is horrible. absolutely horrible. That's not fair - sometimes it was mediocre, but mostly horrible.

I facebooked our way there so that I could complain in real time. The posts got a lot of feedback so I figured I'd let them narrate the pics of our vacay here along with a few other captions.

have learned a few things at this point being 4 hour into our trip. 1. i
always say i want to live in a small rural town...gila bend is not that town.
neither is tacna. 2. being stuck in a car with screaming children brings out the
WORST in everyone 3. no matter how many varieties of crackers you bring you
failed to bring the ones they want.

the boys in the truck right before we left the house. This was Noah's first time in a forward facing carseat. I have a pretty large SUV but it was full - all three rows and the back too!

Noah playing hide & seek

each of the boys had a backpack within their reach with toys, books, movies, snacks and other fun to keep them happy...or at least occupied

This is an ant pile. The ants were huge. We had to pull over along the 8 or the 85 or something. Noah was screaming and we had to get something for him that we couldn't reach. I stepped right out of the truck and into this. Sweet. I think it was at this point - one hour into the trip - that Jeff said the vacation was a mistake. #alwaystheoptimist

Noah selecting his snack of choice in Tacna.

#5. gas stations in Yuma clearly do not specialize in names like Noah and Connor.

#6. i got bored since the last stop when jeffrey took over driving. the result is an intense amount of eyeshadow for 12 noon. (I have no photo of this one to show)

#7. i have discovered that i thoroughly doubt jeffrey reads signs so i find myself reading them out loud. "strong winds ahead. use caution" "be prepared to stop". i dont think i am fooling him that this narrative is for my own benefit.

#8. am sick of jeffrey's answer to his poor driving decisions being "it's California".

#9. connor just asked us when our vacation starts. #subtledisappointmentstillstings

boys love trains and we saw several on our way to and from CA

i dont tend to be in too many of the pictures because i'm taking them so i have to shoot a few of these...please note noah passed out in the back :)

the windmills

‎4. border control is far too chill in their questioning.
"where you traveling from?"
"chandler."
"bye."

getting some work done in the car

grabbing dinner in downtown San Diego

so good when it hits your lips

noah likes to scream for an hour before passing out. sorry san diego, did we not mention that?

When we were booking a hotel for the trip I was really insistent on getting a suite - not for snooty reasons but because I didn't want to go to bed every night at 8pm. Being in a hotel room with kids is tough because every move you make they hear you and everytime they pee you hear them. It's as amazing as it sounds. So the suite was necessary and we'll have to do that from this point forward. The kids have their space and we have ours - this is one of my top 5 recommendations when traveling with kids. I don't know my other top 4 recs - snacks, portable dvd player, being flexible but still planning ahead and bringing a nanny.

We decided the week before our trip that we'd stop at a Costco mid-way and grab fruit, veggies and one of those sandwich platters to eat all week. That way we'd cut down on all the pricey food spending and we'd be able to grab lunch while driving on Monday. It worked out well. We love Costco.

So that was most of Day One. Our 6 hour drive took around 9 hours but included two gas station stops and one Costco stop. We landed at the hotel, thoroughly exhausted but decided to head back out and wander around downtown San Diego a bit and find something to eat. Tomorrow...SeaWorld!!

Cooking for 15

2011-08-07T13:25:00.004-07:00

Oh, it just feels like I'm cooking for 15? Gotcha.

I really fell off the wagon the week we were on vacation, but I expected that to happen and refused to feel bad about it - I'm on vacation afterall! Gearing up for vacay, we cleaned out the fridge so this past week there was nothing in the fridge, seriously, near nothing. I find that I do best on my current "diet" when I have plenty of food on hand. If I have plenty of cooked chicken, fish, chops, and even burgers on hand, I always have options. While I've never been a totally healthy eater, my issue has always been that I don't eat enough. I can tell when my weight loss slows that it's because I've had two meals lately instead of 4. My water intake sometimes slows too which is tell-tale.

So, we found a ton of cans of green chiles in the pantry today. They expire in less than 2 weeks. There's so much food in this house that I don't eat/cook with anymore and they've expired. We just had to throw out several ricearoni and hamburger helper boxes. such a waste, but I didn't even realize they were up there anymore since I'm not making them anymore.

Back to the green chiles. I just spent all morning making green chile talapia, green chile hamburgers, green chile pork chops and green chile chicken. The great thing is that I'll have food available for the next week and then some for both jeffrey and I. The bad thing is that the boys can't eat any of what I've made so I'm back to cooking at least two different meals everyday.

We did some serious grocery shopping yesterday and stocked back up on fruits & veggies so we'll have plenty of food for the next week. It really is amazing how much food a family of 4 (two of which have a combined weight of 55ish lbs) goes through.

There are so many amazing low carb recipes out there but they involve so much prep work and I just don't have the time. I do however, have the time to spend an hour one day cooking up a ton of chicken or pork chops to reheat throughout the week. After working all day and then getting home after picking up the boys, it's so much easier to reheat something for myself, dump some salad on my plate and maybe a tomato. Simple is what I need! If you have any simple ideas, let me know!

what's annoying me today you ask??

2011-08-07T13:11:00.003-07:00

Changing my email address. I have a gmail account that I never use for email, but have it for a couple things I use constantly like google calendar, docs and this blog. I just set up a new gmail account to start using instead of my yahoo one I've had for a million years. 7 years in reality.

I'm already over it. Trying to notify everyone and update the lists I actually want to be on. I have friends who check multiple email addresses but I can't do it. I want to have one work and one personal - no more. I get way too many emails everyday between Chi O stuff, friends, facebook, blog, etc. and I am on email constantly so I can't even imagine checking multiple personal email addresses. I realized when my yahoo email was having issues last week that I should just have a gmail address that I use since I use so many other google functions anyway.

I'm thinking it's going to take a good 6 months to get everything over to the new gmail address. Lame-o.

So today, I'm annoyed with trying to figure out if I can switch my blog, calendar, docs and anything else associated with my old gmail to the new one. I have a tough enough time remembering logins/passwords for the million things I already have...don't want to have even more.

PS - if you don't have my shiny new email address yet, please know it's only because I'm working my way through my contacts and have the attention span of a 5 y.o. Comment if you still need it and I'll send it to you!

skinny mini

2011-07-12T18:52:00.001-07:00

I haven't really talked about my weight loss attempt on here, mostly because I try to talk about the fam and things that annoy me on here mostly. For the past 6 weeks I've been chugging more water, eating way more lean protein, cutting out lots and lots of carbs and trying to eat more often.

I'm not going to make one of those dumb ticker things that counts down the lbs you lose so I'll just say that in 6 weeks I've lost about 25lbs. I'm pretty stoked about the whole thing obviously.

It's been relatively simple which is great. The tough part is when I'm at home - the boys eat normal stuff and I'm having to make something different for myself which is annoying and difficult. I haven't worked the whole exercise thing in yet but that's the plan. I try and make a lot of stuff ahead of time so I always have it on hand. I'll make a bunch of salmon or pork chops or even burgers. Chicken got old really fast so I have been staying away from that for a little while though I'm sure we'll be friends again soon. I've always loved veggies so that's been simple. It's amazing how as a mom you don't even think about popping teddy grahams into your mouth like nothing. No more teddy grahams for this mom, at least not for now.

None of my work slacks fit anymore which is amazing and trying at the same time. It puts me in a position where I really, really need to do some serious shopping but really, really don't want to. I love shopping, don't get me wrong, but I just don't want to go out and spend gobs of money when I'm still losing. I have a few skirts that I can wear without looking dumpy and sloppy but I'm going to have to make a few purchases to get me through.

I've slowed way down on the weight loss though in the last couple weeks which can be discouraging. I think I'm getting lazy about it (isnt that what got me in this situation in the first place?) and not eating enough. I think I need to start setting alarms to remind me to eat. My job is so fast paced that suddenly 5 hours will fly by and I haven't left my office.

I don't really have an actual goal in mind so I don't know how long I'll keep doing this. I can already tell though that my concern currently will be transitioning from this to being able to eat bad things some of the time without gaining all the weight back. I miss mexican food and pizza. and mexican pizza :)

too lame, or gross, for facebook

2011-07-12T18:21:00.005-07:00

sometimes there are things I really want to post on facebook but understand that the gross, boring, tedius or all of the above statements may not appeal to all of my friends. I guess that's what my blog is for. so here are my random thoughts today that I didnt post on fb...and keep in mind i'll post nearly anything on fb.

i think noah's bowells get moving when he's in the bath. maybe it's the warm water on his belly or maybe it's simply spite that the minute I have him clean he poops. literally, I get him out of the tub, dry him off and immediatly strap a fresh diaper on him and...bomb.

i read someone's post today that their 4 year old kid changes the diaper of their baby. maybe i'm doing this parenting thing wrong but connor only wipes his own ass about 50%...why on earth would i let him handle someone else's business?? perhaps i'm just not utilizing my resources sufficiently like this other mom seems to.

speaking of utilizing resources, I seriously cannot wait until my kids can do serious, back-breaking labor. This place needs a good scrubbing.

all my friends are having babies within like a few weeks of each other. The bestie had hers Thursday and our close friends are at the hospital as I type this. I know for many, being around babies really makes their ovaries ache but it just really re-affirms our decision to have two. not like I have a choice since the dr said no more babies for me but the decision to tie my tubes was a good one for us. I love their babies and love holding them and smelling them but I just can't do it all over again. I think the illness we've dealt with this past year has really taken it out of me cause I cannot do this baby thing over!

stay tuned. i have lots of posting to do to get caught up!

Happy Birthday Jeffrey

2011-06-21T07:32:00.010-07:00

Jeff turned 31 on May 31st and I really wanted to do something fun for him since his last birthday we spent it leaving the hospital with Noah. Best birthday ever if you ask me but since their closeness in dates likely mean that his birthday will be overlooked from now on we decided to make sure this one focussed on Jeffrey.

Our friends Adam & Andrea came along for the fun and we started the party at one of those racecar tracks. I got a Groupon several months prior and didn't really do my homework. I think I thought it was like bumper cars or something - wrong. We got there and they are intense, over 45mph racecars. I wanted to cry and my anxiety was through the roof. I could see people wearing helmets and was super freaked out to see that some people brought their own helmets. To me this is the equivalent of someone bringing their own bowling ball - but at 45mph. Anyway, they made us watch a safety video and gave way too much information about what different color flags meant when you were on the track. I stopped listening at one point.

They told us that after the video there were racesuits if we wanted to wear them. Jeff, Adam & I changed into our racesuits while a very pregnant Andrea waited for us. The boys took forever but I was out of that creepy lockerroom in a flash. The suits were horrible. All cut for men so the girls didn't really work. I panicked when I walked out and saw that NO ONE wore the racing suits. I immediately turned around to take it off but Andrea insisted we get a picture of all of us in our suits so I obliged. We took a few quick pics and quickly tore them off. Nerds.

We went out to the tracks and holy crap. Those things were flying. Ten people raced at a time and there was only one space open in the first race so Jeff went first. People wereHe loved it of course but came off the track and said he wasn't sure if he wanted me to go out there. Suddenly I had a mixture of panic and annoyance - why couldn't i do it it he could?!? huh? Then I remembered that I don't like cars slamming into me at 45mph and agreed. I decided to do it anyway because I'm cool like that. Next, all three of us were in the race. I started really slow and went pretty slow the whole time actually. I guess I only did 10 laps while everyone else did between 12-14. lame. I picked up my speed every once in a while but it was really intense. Some of the guys out there were really serious about it and got annoyed while I drove calmly in the middle of the track ha! I don't think I'd do it again but I'm glad I did it this time. Andrea and I took a lot of pictures during the races but the lights are really low and the cars move so fast that my little camera just didn't do it justice.

Adam told us that during one of the races he spun out and started driving the wrong way. hilarious. I do that in Mario Kart all the time so I see how he could get confused.

After leaving the track, we went and had dinner at a BBQ place because BBQ is Jeff's favorite food ever. We had drinks and chowed down for reals and stuffed ourselves. So good. After dinner we went to a little divey bar that has trivia. Jeff LOVES trivia and I do too so we were really looking forward to it. We (of course) drank more and we actually got 2nd place. Score! The team that beat us had like 8 people at their table so we got robbed a bit but that's ok. We won a $20 gift certificate to that bar so we'll need to go back sometime soon and try for 1st :)

It was a fun night and I think Jeffrey had a great birthday. Since Grammy & Papa Barnes kept the boys overnight it was amazing to get to sleep in on Sunday. Amazing.

the rules said closed toe shoes - they didn't say anything about them not being pink.

you can take time to wave at the paparazzi when you refuse to drive very fast

jeffrey & I

jeffrey, who made his driver name be Jeffrey Barnes

adam, who made his driver name be Snake :)

posing with my helmet hair

BEAR TURNS ONE!

2011-06-02T19:28:00.008-07:00

Our little Noah bear turned one this weekend and we had a great time celebrating his first year. It was much, much more low key than Connor's first birthday party (here), but it was just as special. There wasn't nearly the theme craziness of Connor's party, but it was great to get to spend more time with the birthday boy instead of worrying about hostess duties, decor, over the top favors, timing and everything else.

May birthdays for first birthdays are tough. We can't do a park because it's a million and one degrees at the end of May. We can't fit all the friends and family into our house comfortably. All the fun birthday places that have parties are a bit too much for a one year old birthday boy to be able to enjoy. My dad lives in a community with several pools and party rental space and it worked great! We got to swim and have the party in the clubhouse so that was perfect.
Although I didn't go theme nutso, there was of course still a theme! We went with...wait for it...BEARS. I know, you're surprised. :)

We decided to have bear snack food like gummi bears, teddy grahams in all the flavors and honeycomb to snack on. ohmygosh, his shirt was absolutely adorable too. I took a plain white shirt to a screenprinter and had them put a bear paw on the front with the number one in the middle. Then we put his name on the back like a jersey and it was perfect. well, it was perfect until the cake. :)

PS - I took a crap ton of pictures of the cake excitement and I know that...but your baby only turns one, well once and I wanted to capture every single bite. I think I may have.

showing off his Bear shirt as my baby walked to me :)

some of the other kiddo partygoers - Jacob, Robert, Connor & Sam

The big cake and Noah's very own cake. Seriously, if you're local and you need a cake please let me know and I'll past along Beefcakes information. It's yummy, super affordable and she can do anything. She did Connor's Toy Story cake last month! She'll do exactly what you imagine too!

Connor looking like a duck blowing out his brother's candle for him!

just getting warmed up...

ROAR!!

favorite.

He was so filthy and coated with cake and frosting when he finally stopped eating. Luckily, the pool has a little shower so Jeffrey hosed him down before he got into the pool. I'm still amazed that all this mess washed out of the shirt!

sticking with the swimming fun for the day all the kids went home with beach balls from Noah to thank them for coming to his party

it was really warm on Noah's bday so I'm so glad we all got to cool off in the pool!

Easter 2011

2011-05-22T21:05:00.010-07:00

We had another wonderful Easter this year and it was full of family and fun. My mom came over and decorated eggs with the boys - well the intention was to decorate with both boys, but Noah slept the entire time. Easter morning we woke up and the doorbell rang - Connor was thrilled to find his Easter basket outside waiting for him!! We got ready to head to my dad's house for egg finding but Connor's basket that had his eggs in the fridge was empty when he went to grab it! We explained that the bunny must have grabbed them to hide at Papa's :) We joined my dad and Tashi at his house to search for eggs and then went to visit with all the Barnes family. We had a yummy meal and got to spend time with family.

he was so excited about finding his Easter basket outside

We put puffs into Noah's easter eggs and he was thrilled with it

on the hunt for all of his eggs inside Papa's house

11 Months Old

2011-05-22T20:26:00.005-07:00

I completely forgot to mention in his 10 month update that Noah took his first step on April 23rd. He walked in his 10th month just like Connor - actually almost to the day the same as Connor. The big difference here is that after Connor took his first step, he never stopped walking/running. Bear took two steps and then did nothing for the next couple weeks. I thought that having an older brother would have Noah walking super early but I think I had it wrong. Yes, he wants to tag along and keep up with Connor but he's realized he can do it way, way quicker by just crawling after him really fast!

Something hilarious about Noah that I'm not sure I've mentioned is how he crawls - he rarely puts his knees down. He literally bear crawls, up on all fours. It's hilarious and everyone comments on it when they see him. Sometimes he'll crawl normal if he's not in a rush, but once he decides he need to speed up, the knees pull up and he's off!!

Health wise, Noah is doing great. The tubes have really seemed to make a world of difference for him which I'm so freakin thankful for. I think he's had a couple ear infections but we just use the drops and it's fine after a couple days. Amazing. They usually last 6 months or a bit more, so I guess we can anticipate them falling out sometime about 3 months from now. How will I even know? It will likely be a glob of earwax, right? Is it like the nasty belly button where suddenly you just find this gross little gob of something in the crib. I hope not, because Noah will probably just eat it. Ew. Sorry about that. Anyway...Noah had a bout of stomach flu this last week but it only lasted a day. Being such a great sharer, he shared it with Connor who threw up at a birthday party yesterday so that was lovely. They both seem to be feeling better now but we're still keeping them on super bland food to avoid starting it back up again.

Noah is quite chatty now though he still only says a couple things - mama and dada. I'm so thrilled to announce that mama was his first word! YES!! Connor said dada first so it was definitely my turn for the priority and I'm loving it. He'll wander around trying to find me saying "mamamamamamama". I love him.

He's still eating a lot of food. He came home from school the other day and his little daily report said he had a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch...and a corndog for snack. Maybe it was an error...but I kinda doubt it. My bear loves his food!! :)

I'm planning a flashback post here in the next week since Noah will be ONE this Saturday but everytime I look at his old pics I get all weepy. My little baby, turning one. How is that even possible?

Help us win please!

2011-05-16T12:08:00.004-07:00

allow my begging to commence...

This picture of the boys was taken by a local photographer, Nissle Fine Photography and is a finalist for a really fun contest for Father's Day. The company asked entrants to dress the kids up and bring props that went along with their theme "My dad is..." so I suited them up in their jerseys! Jeff is an Accountant for the Arizona Diamondbacks so we had lots of fun with it. I brought my laptop and an old adding machine. I brought a roll of receipt tape and flung it all around and then dropped some fake money I printed all over. I think it turned out pretty cute and had a difficult time selecting the photo for the contest becaue I really thought that lots were great. This is a surprise to Jeffrey so I told him to stay off facebook until the contest ends on 5/31. We'll see if it stays a surprise - I'm honestly amazed that Connor hasn't told him about the photo shoot yet!!

So, here's where I could use help...please vote for us. That's it. Well, after you vote, help spread the word to your friends so they can vote for us. Here are the simple steps:

Like Nissle Fine Photography on Facebook

Like Connor and Noah's photo

Spread the word by reposting on your own FB page - I am linking to my own page here and you can just share what I said if that's easier.

I really, really appreciate it!!!

Linds

Connor's 4th Birthday Party - Part 2

2011-05-15T23:03:00.006-07:00

Connor putting together goody bags for his friends

Connor & Jacob

I love that I got a pic of this :)

thought I'd end with this one because this is how a bear eats his food :)

Connor's 4th Birthday Party - Part One

2011-05-10T21:09:00.002-07:00

holy blog slacking I behind on my posts. Life is busy folks, really busy and with no signs of slowing down I'm going to stop making promises of being better :) I will try, but no promises.

Connor turned 4 on April 18th and it's unbelievable that my itty bitty baby could be this adorable, strong, smart kid. He's opinionated and totally independent and really always has been so that shouldn't surprise me...but it still kinda does. Like we did the past three years, we had a party at the park to celebrate. We have lots & lots of family and Connor is now at the age where we start inviting his friends instead of ours.

This year, Connor said that he wanted a Toy Story 3 party - not just a Toy Story party, but a Toy Story 3 party. We obliged, mostly because it's so popular right now that planning wouldn't be too tough. Plus, we kept it simple this year and didn't go nutso on theming it up...It was a good time and we really appreciate those who were able to make it out to celebrate Connor's special day. Thank you, thank you!

Noah had a blast, obviously.

Papa & Tashi were there too!

having fun at the coloring station

Connor & Grammy Van Hook

Connor's AMAZING cake - it was really yummy too!

Connor & Aidan enjoying the potato sack races

Madison, Kaci & Noah Bear

Cadence, Jacob & Brody

Levi, Kaitlyn & Samantha

Up Next...More pictures of the birthday boy!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-22T09:50:00.005-07:00

cell phone photo dump!

love taps in the bathtub

we put them in the costco cart together and it was so flippin cute that it made my entire day!

NOT thrilled with being kept out of the room

Connor got a Build A Bear gift certificate from the Smith family for his birthday. We decided to go that night so he could use his card. He's not really into stuffed animals (at all) but he loves build a bear and it's such a fun thing to do together.

Here's Connor telling Jeff that he wanted the midnight teddy bear. Jeff really wanted him to get something else since he'd already made a bear another time. I insisted that Connor got to choose for himself...

Here he is...stuffing his MONKEY. We call him Connor Monkey so that's ok.

After the stuffing you brush and clean your new friend. Connor takes this party Very seriously

I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the finished product so I'll try and remember to do that another time. geez. Connor decided he wanted to run the 'puter (Computer) himself so we let him do it all. He was thrilled. He named his monkey Connor. This adds to the bear he named bear and the tiger he named hockey tiger I think.

So sleepy after a day of birthday party fun for Connor's friend Aidan. :)

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-13T12:05:00.006-07:00

Hello and happy Wednesday everyone. We recently cancelled our cable and for some reason we had to move our home office around so that we'd still have internet access...I don't get it so my reasoning is vague at best. Our desktop is currently, temporarily, in Noah's room. Yes, that's what I said. For that reason, photo uploading has slowed way down. I usually dump pictures off my camera every couple of days or after a big event or something. I just downloaded two weeks worth of pics so I'm still sorting it all out. It's so much work and I'm so lazy. For now, here are a couple pics from the Dbacks Home Opener 2011 and then a TON of cell phone pics. The boys have had a tradition since Connor was born to go to the Dbacks Home Opener game. Jef'f's dad attends and it's a big deal. NO GIRLS ALLOWED. I was thinking I'd take advantage and attend some happy hour invite that I'm always turning down...but no, i lamely stayed home and messed around online counting down until all my boys came home. lame.

Peas spread on crackers - delish? no.

I had to take a pic and post it because i'm horrible at bowling - even wii bowling. not this day friends.

crazy boys

Noah loves Connor

We went to the park and rode the train around a bit.

Enough with the camera lady.

practicing writing his name while we waited for Noah's ENT appointment. I swear if chalk dust didn't gross me out so much I'd cover their walls in it. Connor loves writing his letters and numbers.

showing off one of the twelve pictures Connor painted for Aidan when we were talking about Aidan's bday party coming up

I came home one afternoon to discover Noah's bouncer toy chillin on the sidewalk. Apparently, Jeff had washed it off (Noah eats in it often so it's disgusting) and left it up by our front door to dry. The thing is...it's round so it rolls. hahahaha.

we weren't watching Noah for a minute at the party store and discovered he'd pulled everything off within reach. Here I'm taking photos rather than help with the mess.

enjoying the amazing weather over the last couple of months

Noah's 1st Haircut

2011-04-09T21:56:00.004-07:00

We planned on waiting until he was closer to one for Bear's first haircut but it just got really scruffy looking and we decided we needed to do it TODAY. The first four pics here are before pics so you can really see it hanging over his ears and getting dangerously close to heading into mullet-town.

I love this picture

Noah did really great for the majority of his haircut.

until he didn't.

stylin' and profilin'

Nearly Wordless Wednesday & 10 month update

2011-04-06T11:13:00.001-07:00

after lots and lots of attempts, I gave up on getting a nice pic of Noah and his owl.

hmmmm, what else can i get into now that i've managed to break into my big brother's room...

Noah's eating lots of real food now. Cheerios were his favorite for a while - until I gave him graham crackers. they are his crack, I swear. They are so incredibly messy and sometimes I make it way worse by spreading pureed veggies on top like a jam. So gross but he loves it.

doing lots better with the sippy cup now too. I think we're going to start having one or two of his bottles switch to sippy this week. yippee progress!

This is the first day he had chunks of banana and his reaction was way, way less than I thought. He loves to eat and banana is one of his favorite kinds of baby food. I think the sticky factor threw him off because he seemed much more interested in having it stick to his hand and flinging it on the floor than he was in actually eating it.

My friend Dawn gave us her daughter Stella's baby carseat to use. Bear is just so big that I gave up carrying him in the carseat when I pick him up from school. I found Connor sitting in it watching tv just like this. wacko.

It took three days of trying to get a good owl pic this month. Noah just isn't interested in sitting still. I sit him in the chair and he immediately busts loose and it's all I can do to keep him from falling.

he's really wanting to walk. zooming around the house with his walker is one of his favorite things to do right now. He stood by himself earlier this week. He was standing at the table holding and and just let go. He did it a few more times that night which means it's inevitable!

Honestly cannot believe that he'll be four in just a couple weeks. It seems impossible.

having a jam session i guess

bear belly

Friday Dose of Brilliance

2011-04-01T09:00:00.003-07:00

Since it's been way, way too long since I've done a Friday Dose of Brilliance post here I decided that today I'll post two. No telling when I'll post another one so soak it up! BTW - if you have a site that you find hilarious let me know, I'm sure I will too and we all need a reason to use the internet even more than we already do!

The horse had heroically made it over the highest peaks of Book Mountain, but unfortunately faced a treacherous descent before he could reach his companion.

Catalog Living - Hilarious Captions set to catalog photos explaining the story behind the pics. A look at the exciting lives of the people who live in our catalogs. Trust me, it's hilarious.

Kate Middleton for the Win - OMG. I love this. I can't wait to watch this wedding so for now this is helping me be patient. Enjoy and Happy Friday!!

Vintage Pearl Giveaway!

2011-03-31T07:32:00.003-07:00

Happy Thursday friends. Anyone remember this post where I talked about this site I loooove, The Vintage Pearl? Well, it was a year ago and Jeffrey never got my subtle hints so I'm still wanting, wanting something, everything from their store!! Today they are doing a big giveaway on their site so check it out and enter to win. They are giving away 5 giftcards for $100 each and I want one. I tweeted, facebooked, and blogged about it so cross your fingers :)

9 months old

2011-03-28T07:13:00.001-07:00

It's been a somewhat difficult past few months for Noah. Pediatrician appointments, pulmonologisy appointments, ENT appointments, urgent care, breathing treatments, steroids, antibiotics, ear surgery, ear infections, blah, blah. When it's all laid out like that it's not too surprising that I'm several weeks late with his 9 month post. I took the adorb pic on the day he turned 9 months old...just never got around to actually blogging about it.

I love that my kids are still mostly happy when they are sick. They smile and laugh and play. This is great news because if they acted as sick as they are sometimes it would make it 500x tougher on everyone. Noah is amazing. He's funny and has THE best laugh. His smile is oh-so cute right now as he still has just the two bottom teeth hanging out. They came in so fast one right after the other and then just stopped.

The lack of teeth have not slowed down his eating though. Holy crap this kid. He's still having about 25-30oz of formula a day and three solid food servings during the day. He eats the larger containers, plus we have to bulk them up with cereal because simple baby food just doesn't do it for him. In addition to those 7 meals we've added in snacks during the day which is always fun (& messy!). I wanted to give him finger food but when I checked around the house everything that would work had honey in it. Honey nut cheerios, honey graham crackers...after a quick shopping trip he devoured cheerios. Loved it. I kept giving him a handful of them which is like 20 cheerios and then they'd be gone and he'd be grunting/yelling/gibbering for more. I'd give him more and the same thing happened over and over until I realized I'd given him something loco like 6 handfulls. Another night I gave him a piece of bread, sans crust. He ate it and looked at me like, "um, what else ya got?" I grabbed a tortilla next and he ate that. The human garbage disposal wasn't done. I grabbed my new box of honey free graham crackers and he ate three whole graham crackers - this after the bread and the tortilla...and a whole meal of baby food+cereal!! Beast baby :)

nom, nom, nom - crackers :)

He wants to walk so badly and has really taken to his walker. Once we showed him that it would allow him to get around and see what was going on everywhere he loves it. He pushes it around everywhere and also thinks everything should be pushed around like this little walker. He'll stand up, put his hands on chairs, tables, his big jumper and push them around the room like a little tank. Yesterday I was feeding him and he stood at his walker - he'd take a bite, walk around a bit, return for another bite and so on. As for talking, he'll do the mamamamamama thing so I'm pretty sure we're going to say he says mama. yup. he does. He'll do dadadadada too but not nearly as much. It's only fair - Connor said dada first so I was due. Although he doesn't say the word NO yet, he's thinking it. Anytime we say No to him, which is often since he's threatening to walk, so he's into everything, he smiles and shakes his head vigorously. I love it. It cracks us up - we tell him no just to see him doing it. It cracks him up too!

the drying area for bottles, sippy cups and other kid stuff - note all the medicine thingies. geez.

(ps - the day I'm finally posting this Noah turns 10 months old! I'll get his 10 month pic posted but most of the stuff above is the same :)

Giveaway Winners Announced!

2011-03-19T23:04:00.005-07:00

Thanks to all who entered to win the coupons for free Purex Complete with Zout! Hopefully Purex will keep it up and I'll get more goodies to giveaway soon.

Congrats to the winners: If you won, please send me an email (my email address in profile) with your email & mailing address and I'll get the coupons to you. If I haven't heard from the winners in two days (by Monday at midnight) I'll choose another winner.

Thank you!

PS - If you didn't win, never fear...Purex is challenging you to "Prove it to yourself" by offering a free sample of Purex Complete with Zout. Go to http://www.freesamplepurex.com/ and get yours.

A to Z

2011-03-17T11:27:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Karen for posting this on her blog. I'm doing it too since I'm too ~~lazy~~ busy to post anything original.

A. Age: 30 - I'm good with being 30. Seriously. I can't believe I'm 30, but I'm good with it. :)

B. Bed size: We've always had a queen. Jeffrey desperately wants a king, but we have sheets and everything for a queen...seems like so much effort.

C. Chore you dislike: Dishes, and pulling weeds.

D. Dogs: nope. we lack both the time and patience to deal with anything that won't eventually end up taking care of us in our old age.

E. Essential start to your day: seeing my boys. I hate when I leave for work and they are still asleep. It's rare, but it makes me so sad.

F. Favorite color: I think Green is my favorite color. Jeff and I were talking about this last night and it was always purple, but I really think it's green now. Yes, green. It's decided.

G. Gold or silver: Silver

H. Height: 5'4"

I. Instruments you play(ed): Recorder in elem. That's it. I sang in choir though so I'll say that.

J. Job title: Resale and Disclosure Manger, Mom, Alumnae President. I got a lot of hats :)

K. Kids: Connor & Noah

L. Live: Arizona

M. Mom’s name: Barbara

N. Nicknames: Linds, mom...I think that's it

O. Overnight hospital stays: 3-one for each c-section and when I had my gall bladder removed

P. Pet peeves: People that can't spell correctly, poor grammar, "not my job" mentality...there are too many to list.

Q. Quote from a movie: "I wish I liked anything as much as my kids like bubbles" -Knocked up, "Tattoo on the lower back, might as well be a bullseye" -Wedding Crashers,

R. Righty or lefty: Right

S. Siblings: only, but 3 SIL

T. Time you wake up: 5:15am

U. Underwear: yes please

V. Vegetables you don’t like: Peas. Gross.

W. What makes you run late: Having two young children

X. X-rays you’ve had: numerous

Y. Yummy food you make: Meatloaf, casseroles, mexican food. I like to cook - when it's somewhat simple.

Z. Zoo animal favorites: Owls, duh.

A boy and his sock

2011-03-15T10:20:00.005-07:00

Noah has an obsession.

Neither of our boys have ever been really attached to a blanky or a stuffed animal or anything really. Until now. Luckily, it's an attachment that's easily replaced, cleaned and switched out. Noah's obsessed with socks.

Daycare told us that he's always taking his socks and crawling around with them - all day. They also told me that if one of the other kids takes their socks off they always find them with Noah. Creepy, right? Yes is the answer you're looking for. I know. (shame) Fortunately for all of us, he doesn't scream until he has them - he just loves toting them around everywhere. They are great for distraction too.

We noticed it at home too and just kinda laughed at it. Then I noticed when I was looking through pics of the last couple weeks that I have a LOT with Noah and his security socks.

you can't see it really well, but he's holding onto a red sock here

trying to get Connor's socks off

I guess it could be worse, but it's just so funny. He doesn't care about color or size. He will find a sock in a pile of laundry and he literally carries it around with him everywhere. He'll crawl around and play for hours holding onto one (or two if he's lucky) socks. I love my weird kid.

Photos, photos, photos!

2011-03-14T09:50:00.006-07:00

We took the boys to a Suns game this weekend. It was Noah's first Suns game and only Connor's 2nd or 3rd. Connor is so weird about basketball - he loves watching it but associates it with really, really loud noises. His cousin Jalen plays basketball and Connor HATES the screaming buzzer noise. We continue to try and rationalize with him that the noise is way worse at Jalen's game since it's in the tiny gym but he just wasn't buying what we were selling. Anytime we talk about going to a basketball game he puts his hands over his ears and talks about it being too loud. We surprised him with the Suns game so we didn't have to deal with it this time. We didn't tell him we were going until we put his new Suns shirt on and he handled it ok :)

Super excited waiting for the light rail. We take the light rail lots when we go to things downtown (unless they are at the ball park obv). It's just so nice to park somewhere and take the rail into Phoenix. No parking fuss, saves on gas, etc. Plus, Connor loves riding the train. This was Noah's first light rail experience, though I rode it a few times when I was pregnant with him.

clearly, he was thrilled about the first ride too

Noah did love watching the game though

this is a typical picture. Connor annoyed by all the picture taking and Noah trying to escape
this would have been a really great pic had the weirdo guy on the right not yelled Cheeseburger at the last minute, distracting bear. Thanks random guy, enjoy your beer.

Awesome parenting tip #345: Make your own baby gate so you can enjoy watching the game

it's been sicko central in the Barnes household, so there are lots of otter pops, or popsis as we call them, going on. Here's Connor teasing Bear with his. Bro love, gotta love it.

so cute. sadly, right after this pic was taken Connor let go of Noah and he fell over.

photographic evidence of why germs spread like wildfire in our house

Don't forget to enter my giveaway to win some free Purex with Zout - you can enter up to three times and the contest ends this Friday!

Purex Complete with Zout Review & Giveaway!

2011-03-11T19:52:00.007-07:00

Today I got my first product since becoming a Purex Insider - me likey so far. I thought they'd send me a sample size and expect me to review it but no...full size Purex Complete with Zout thankyouverymuch. Super thrilled.

So thrilled that I pulled some of our constantly multiplying laundry out and started a load up. We don't really use fabric softener that often since I have two little boys with sensitive skin. We just usually use a free and clear detergent and then toss some free and clear type of fabric sheets in the dryer and call it a day. My laundry is going now so I'm anxious to see how it worked.

The first thing I realized is how yummy it smells. Since I normally use plain free and clear products I miss out on the smell. This is the Fresh Morning Burst and it smells somewhat berry to me. Very good, and not too strong. I can't handle when laundry has too much smell to it so I like this, as it's not too overdone.

I didn't have any tough stains to test this out on (shockingly) but it did get out some ketsup and some paint that connor came home with on his khakis so I am a pleased mama so far. I'm actually looking forward to testing it out when they bring home something serious like blood or grass. The product works as a pretreater too so it does double duty in that way.

So I've heard of Purex of course and I've heard of Zout but this is the combo of the two products that promises to clean your clothes and take on your toughest stains. With two dirty little boys I know tough stains for sure. (I just wish it could do something about jeans with holes in the knees!)

The product contains three enzymes to fight the stains:
1. Protease: works on protein based stains like grass & blood - both common in my house
2. Amylase: handles starchy stains like chocolate & tomato sauce - again, common stuff here
3. Mannanase: works on guar, which is more common than it sounds (but just as gross). It's in ice cream, salad dressings, bbq sauce and lots of other foods. This stuff is sticky which is what makes it so tough to get out of fabric
(don't be too impresssed, I took this info straight from the Purex fact sheet they provided me with so that I'm actually giving you accurate info)

GIVEAWAY - Purex gave me two coupons to give away here!! Hooray free stuff :) Each of the coupons will get you a FREE bottle of Purex complete with Zout Cleaner so be sure to get your entries in by Friday, March 18th at midnight. You can enter 3 times, so read on:

MANDATORY ENTRY METHOD

1. Visit Purex.com and in a comment come back and tell me what you think of the Purex Crystals they are bragging about. This is a brand new, not even out everywhere product. You must actually click through to Purex using THIS link, otherwise this entry will not be valid.

OTHER ENTRIES (to be done after mandatory entry)

2. Become a follower of this blog (see top right hand corner of blog). If you are already a follower, give yourself an extra entry by posting that in a comment.

3. Tell others about the giveaway via Facebook, Twitter, or your blog and leave a link to your post in your comment.

That's it, simple. I'll be randomly selecting the two winners and will notify you that you're entry was selected. I'll post the winner on Saturday the 19th and you'll have two days to contact me to claim your prize. Doesn't get much easier than that. Be sure to enter all three ways for the best chance to win :)

Thanks for checking in. I'm excited about this Purex thing. A way to try new products, let the manufacturers know what I think and give away freebies to my friends and those who read my blog!

Update to sicky sick sick

2011-03-07T00:24:00.003-07:00

Well, we've all been to urgent care in the last 24 hours and the outcome: we're gross.

I drug myself into my favorite urgent care and was diagnosed with pneumonia. I was told that if the fever persisted for another two days I'd be hospital bound. I got a z-pack (my antibiotic of choice), a steroid and some codine cough syrup to help me sleep and control the incredibly painful cough that is seriously kicking my rump. The doctor told me that I'd feel noticeable better in 24 hours and he was correct. I still feel pretty miserable but most of the symptoms are gone. The cough is lingering and I can feel the junk in my chest but all the other stuff is way lessened. I can walk around without my body being in intense pain today so that is a great accomplishment!

While I was at my appointment, jeffrey took the boys to ped urgent care where we found out that Noah doesn't actually have RSV but that he has bronchiolitis again. Good lord! Not only that but his left tube (put in about 3 weeks ago only) is blocked. Fan freaking tastic. They gave us an antibiotic to try and battle the ear issue and later that night the other ear started draining which means that there's an ear infection there. So we're using the drops we have in both ears additionally. Hopefully we'll breakdown the blockage in the left ear and resolve the infection in the right ear. That's a twice a day thing. The oral antibiotic is twice a day too, but has to be done before 4pm so that's somewhat difficult. We've got to stay on the breathing treatments and they added another Rx to add into the breathing treatment regimine so we're loaded up on this whole routine.

Poor Connor. We thought he'd just have a bad cold or something but it turns out that he's got strep. He seems totally fine but his fever will not quit. We have to keep telling him to slow down and rest but he just feels ok so I suppose that's great news.

Jeff went to urgent care this morning himself and found out that he's got a bad respiratory virus

Regardless, they are both staying home with mom tomorrow.

I drove into the office tonight after dinner and grabbed a ton of work to do. I love being busy at work but I really hate that no one else knows what I do and can back me up if I am this sick. Job security is one thing but this is just crazy town. I don't talk about work often on here because, well just because. My office is run really, really lean and most of the departments consist of several people who all do the same jobs so they can step into each others tasks if needed. I'm a department of one and not a single person knows my job so I can't really take time away. Plus, my work is time sensitive and there are state laws that regulate how quickly I need to turn things around to banks, lenders, buyers, etc. so being behind really isn't an option. So hopefully I'll be able to get some work done tomorrow so that Tuesday when I roll in I'll just be 'normal' behind, not ridiculous behind. In other words, I'm kinda a bid deal.

On a side note, we're so thankful to our family for their help this weekend. My mom brought us a large batch of chicken noodle soup that we ate all weekend. I just had the last of it for dinner tonight and am thinking that I may make a batch of soup again this week - just so yummy! Jeff's mom really saved us today. I was pretty much quarantined to the room since bear and connor really can't get pneumonia. That left everything to Jeffrey who was really sick himself. He needed to get to urgent care so Diane came over this morning and handled all the medicine, breathing treatments, diapers, feedings, cuddles and everything else. She also bullied me into getting back in the room when I'd wander out and try to clean the kitchen or something else. :) I was mortified, but also incredibly thankful, when I saw her folding our laundry. We do 10-15 loads of laundry a week...seriously...and the clean loads were piling up, literally. That was a lifesaver!

That's it for now.

PS-I realized tonight that this is my 501st post!! Can you believe it?? That means I wasted the exciting 500th post on talking about germs and illness. Lame, but typical!

sicky sick sick

2011-03-03T13:16:00.002-07:00

ugh. noah had a 3 week reprieve of sickness, if you don't count his ear surgery on 2/16. I don't count that because he came out of it with flying colors and didn't slow down a bit.

A couple days ago he started with pink eye - grossest thing ever - but we got it all fixed like immediately with an antibiotic eye drop. The next day the tell tale runny nose came and then yesterday morning he woke up with a fever. Excellent. Jeff stayed home with the boys yesterday and took him to the doctor. Hello RSV.

RSV is our nightmare. Connor had it at almost the exact same age as Bear and was out for 3 weeks. Horrible. It was tough. I remember he was the same size as all the kids in his class and then he was home with RSV for three weeks, eating much less than normal, and when we took him back we all noticed that he was a head shorter than his besties. Seriously though, there was a noticeable difference.

Yesterday while Jeff was home with the boys, my throat was super sore all day long. Last night it really hit the fan with full on hacking and junkiness. You're welcome. Jeff's not feeling stellar either but I stayed home with Noah today and Jeff took Connor to school.

Noah's eating hasn't slowed at all so I'm not worried with that happening. He is all boogery and has a hacking cough every now and then. The fever is gone so the worst thing we're dealing with now is that all the snotty mucus sits in his tummy and he usually spits up his first bottle in the morning. It's not like it's a symptom, it's just that his tummy is all full of nastiness from the drainage all night. No fun.

These next two weeks are doctor's appointment-palooza. We have his 9 month well visit (ha) on Tuesday, his Pulminologist follow up is Friday and then his ENT surgical follow up is the following Wednesday. I think it's really safe to say that once those three appointments pass, we will have had nearly 25 doctors appointments (just for Bear!) since Thanksgiving. No joke.

I feel so icky...and I am trying to get work done but Noah seems to be just as obsessed with my laptop as I am. As long as he's still fever-free tomorrow he's heading back to school. He's not contagious anymore and they will do his breathing treatments there which is great. We do a steriod treatment in the morning and night and then another albuterol breathing treatment every 3 hours. Poor baby :)

Ok, well I'm off to try and get a little bit of work done. Hope you're having a great week...it's almost over!

Too lame for facebook

2011-02-26T21:14:00.001-07:00

1. Connor calls mcdonalds "old mcdonalds" and i think that's hilarious.

2. I got my hair cut a couple weeks ago. it's really short - for me atleast. i think the curly in my hair likes it this length because it really behaves...

(yes, I took this photo in my car, but I was stopped so chill on the judgement :)

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-23T17:53:00.006-07:00

Ready? It's photo dump time because these are all random. I have a couple things that I have lots of pics for and I'll try to get posts up for those here soon too :)

genius? yes.

I turned 30 at the end of January. I'm good with 30, regardless of the over the hill jokes and the 'haha you're so old' birthday cards that rolled in this year for the first time. I'm totally ok with 30, more than ok. I guess I'm just pleased with where I'm at when I'm hitting 30. There are things that I wish for...more money, more time, more calorie free cake but all in all I'm good. I'm in love with my family and enjoy all the things that we get to spend our time doing.

Jeff planned a little get together with friends for my bday and it was great. We went to Tilted Kilt in Tempe and sat on the patio and drank lots and lots of yummy beverages. There were about 30 of us there and it was just perfect. If you were there and you're reading this, thanks for coming. I wish I'd taken more pics but it escaped me. I took two. fail.

Jeff topped the night off with some amazing prezzies for me - he got me the most amazing laptop which I freakin love. It's huge, with a 17.3" screen. I had a tough time finding a bag that fit it! Love. He gave me a spa day certificate for a couple treatments from the boys. Can't wait to use that too!

Some of my amazing friends lavished me with owl awesomeness and told me that they are trying to turn me into the crazy owl lady. accomplished. Shelley got me a great owl keychain that is the size of my fist and three times as heavy, Jeri gave me the most amazing s&p shakers and a little owl frame. Anglea got me a gold owl necklace, with pearls, that I am obsessed with. I'm a lucky girl and I love my friends.

the hubs and I - both 30 :)

the bestie and I - also both 30 :)

ahhhhhh...so pretty. gift from my dad. i loves it so bad. i hooked it up that night after we got home from the bar. super excited.

Brielle, Carly and Bobby came over for the Superbowl. I had Carly pose so we could have photographic proof that she's pregnant :) I can't remember how far along she is here...18 weeks maybe? Just the start of the bump! More of these updates to come as I force her to pose for these.

We gave Connor a Toy Story 3 dominos game for Christmas and he loves it. We play about 3 games a night. Last night Jeff reminded us that I'd lost 8 games straight. Maybe I'm losing on purpose Jeffrey...maybe not.

Yeah, he's still really cute.

8 months old

2011-02-15T22:39:00.006-07:00

Noah's 8 month owl picture

Wow, it's been a rough couple of months with health crap with bear. Seriously. I had a lengthy post about this, but I can't find it so forget it and here's the super short version.

Noah got a cold around Thanksgiving and it went into his lungs and caused bronchiolitis. That put him on steroids and breathing treatments in an effort (successful fortunately) to keep him out of the hospital. It also turned into an ear infection which they treated with antibiotics. I love antibiotics, especially since our ped doesn't give them out liberally. I understand it but sometimes you just want your kid to get a script so you feel like something is being done to make them better. I'd love a placebo Rx. Can I get that?

Anyway, he'd be in bad shape due to the breathing and wheezing and then the horrible side effects of the antibiotics - poor Noah. Those oral antibiotics really rip up their stomachs and cause ugly diaper issues so then there's another prescription to deal with that. I am not exaggerating at all when I saw we've filled about a dozen Rx and had about 10 doctor appointments in two months - not to mention the two specialists we've now been to in the last 3 weeks. sigh.

Remember how I said this was the short version? Sorry. Anyway, after a couple weeks he'd be better so we'd stop the treatments and let the antibiotics run out. Then we'd have a week of health and it would go to crap again in a few days. We'd start all over and they'd determine he had an ear infection...it's possible that it was just one ear infection which is not great. They gave him steroids to help with the respiratory issues and had us come in three days in a row for antibiotic injections to try and overcome the ear infection. When we went back the doctors were sure that the infections would be gone and they weren't which meant that his ear infections were really resistent to the meds. Super. They told us we really needed to go to an ENT to discuss tubes. I'd dreaded this but took an official, on facebook, poll of friends in similar situations and heard amazing, supportive, rave reviews of the procedure, results and our surgeon. We were also referred to a pulmonologist to have a chest xray done and discuss whether his persistent respiratory issues were a result of viruses or something chronic like asthma or allergies. I'm really hoping for the virus outcome...that really makes sense to me too. It started when it got cold and before that he'd never had any issues so that's what I'm hoping for. They had him get some blood drawn and we should have those results in the next few days. Fingers crossed that nothing points to asthma :(

So the main point of this story is that tomorrow morning, at 7am...in 8 hours from now...Noah will be having surgery to get tubes in his ears. Everything I've heard raves about the results and about how life changing it is for the child. I feel so horrible that he's been so sick for two months of his little life. As much as I hate the idea of him being put under, I am told that the entire procedure from start to finish is about 10 minutes long. Ugh I really hate that he'll be put under, boo.

Well in other news Noah seems to be following in Connor's footsteps with being really physical. He's started cruising, which means he'll stand up and hold onto furniture or something and walk around the furniture while holding on. He doesn't share the bit of fear that Connor had about getting back down once he's standing up...he just throws his body down and either laughs or cries.

He's still loving food but the sickness did slow him down a bit. I'd say he lost a pound or something. He's weighing in at about 19.5 lbs right now so he's not hurting for chubs :) His chunky legs barely fit into the little leg holes in the bumbo, lol - it's adorbs.

Well, since I have to be up redic early to take bear to the surgical center I'd better log off and get to bed. I don't know if I'll be able to get any sleep thinking about tomorrow but I'm going to do my best to try! Keep him in your thoughts please.

Thank you!! :)

Cousins!

2011-02-15T22:23:00.003-07:00

Two of our nephews Kaden and Jacob had their birthday party at the end of January and all the family was there. My BIL's parents have this amazing yard and I really didn't take enough pics but I think everyone had fun, especially the birthday boys. It's so great that our boys have so many cousins close in age who live nearby. We get to see each other at their games, birthday parties, family dinners and all the time at random other stuff.

omg he looks like such a chubby bunny here :)

the only girl in the group - Madison :)

More soccer pics

2011-02-15T21:41:00.005-07:00

Connor is almost done with his first soccer season and while it started out amazing with 11 goals in his first 3 games, we had a rough patch there for a bit. He got taken down by the neck by this weirdo kid and got really skittish. Totally stopped going after the ball and just ran along with the pack kinda. Well, finally this week he snapped out of it and scored three more goals! Yippee Connor :)

Here are a few pics from recent weeks. I swear the registration fee is worth it just in cute uniforms and priceless pics alone!!

Kaci and Connor - future soccer stars :)

I swear I feel like that Office Space song, Damn it feels good to be a gangsta should be playing to this picture. Kaci, Connor and Gus

So, after getting hurt a few time with some rough takedowns we started trying to talk to him about brushing it off and getting back into the game if he's really ok. We're not mean, I swear...but there's a difference between really getting hurt and just getting a little spooked. We told him that whenever he falls down if he's not hurt he can stand up, brush himself off and flex his muscles. Seriously, the next play we say him go down hard at the end of the field - even though his back was to us we could see him get up and flex his muscles. It was amazing. Sometimes kids really do listen.

love running through the parent tunnel at the end of the game. I swear those kids run though 8 times

Crockpot Friday

2011-02-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

whoa blogger, it's been a while since i've posted a crockpot recipe on here. i'm home today with bear...another post for this part...so I figured I'd have the luxury of being able to start it mid-day instead of 6:30 in the morning. What, you aren't ready to eat dinner at 3pm? oh. my bad.

We buy basics like cream of whatever soup, frozen veggies, stuffing, etc when they are on sale. Jeff came home from the store this week with something loco like 8 boxes of stuffing. I saw a recipe long ago with stuffing and pork chops in the crock pot so I went in search of that. Couldn't find it so I am doing what I normally do and screwing around thinking I'm betty flippin crocker. I make no guarantees that this will turn out well, but I'm sure it will at the very least be edible. Pretty sure.

I didn't have pork chops. Didn't have any more chicken breasts. I dug around in our deep freeze and found only steaks, roasts and ribs. Then I remembered that we bought a bag of frozen chicken strips at costco this weekend and grabbed those. Here's what came of it:

Chicken strips - mine were frozen
1 can cream of something soup - mine was chicken
1 cup milk
a few slices of cheese - swiss here yo
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 box stuffing
1 cup chicken broth - I didn't have this so I used plain water and seasoned the chicken a bit more
s&p to taste

Cover the bottom of crockpot with chicken strips. Pour broth/water over chicken and then cover with the cheese slices. Mix up the milk and soup and pour over cheese. Dump the stuffing in there now and pour melted butter over stuffing. This is a crapshoot so use more or less depending on how it looks to you. Cook for 5 hours.

i love cheese

This turned out really yummy. I think that next time I'll add more water/broth so it's not so glue-like and gloppy. Tasted great, just looked gloppy.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2011-01-20T21:32:00.001-07:00

I seriously need to stop calling this post Nearly Wordless Wednesday. That's ok, I'm just thrilled to have a place to post our pics - lord knows baby books are practically archaic at this point.

We've had a busy past week or so. Each year, my sorority selects two cities to host an event called Chi Omega Today. They select highly performing alumnae chapters and this year Phoenix was selected. This is me being a super thrilled, super proud President!! My friend who works as the Director of Alumnae Development at our HQ in Memphis was keeping me informed as to the number of RSVPs as the event got closer. I was amazing, and proud once again. She told me that the average presentation had about 30-35 women attend...at last count we had over 90 RSVP. staggering, right? Well, the National President attended our presentation which was amazing. If I can put this into perspective, each collegiate chapter has a President - the college Sister who runs the chapter. Each state/alumnae chapter also has a President who runs the alum chapter (that's me). The entire sorority is run by 5 Governing Council members and the President is part of that council...and she came here!! I don't tell a lot of people this, but I'd love that job down the road, love it. I use the word 'job' loosely because for as much work as the role includes, it's voluntary just like my position is. Anyway, the event was a huge success. It was held at the JW Marriott at Desert Ridge, which is also the site of the 2012 Chi Omega Convention. Convention is coming here which means that more than 1200 Chi Omegas and their families will be traveling to Phoenix in July 2012...can't wait. I'm hoping to be re-elected President so I can serve in this capacity during Convention. So much fun.

That was a long story for only having one photo of the Chi Omega Today presentation. This is just a small group of us with Letitia Fulkerson, the National President.

Sara Koda, Marni Money, Letitia Fulkerson, Me, Alona Del Rosario, Shelley Lair, Rheana Techapinyawat, Wyndham Roth

Otherwise, we've just been busy with normal activities like soccer practices and games, watching our boys grow up far too fast and trying to enjoy family time a bit more. Here are a few funny pics of Noah taken this week.

Noah has been gagging each time we give him those little puffs so we gave up for a week or two. I tried it again last night and he full on ate them. I mean, it was a total mess and they were stuck all over him but he didn't gag or choke one time. As you can see by the pics, he loved them. I love the one of him licking the table. lol.

so inquisitive...he managed to crawl into the bottom of his jumper. the good news is he was able to get himself out too

Soccer Game Numero Dos

2011-01-18T23:46:00.005-07:00

five goals!!

Last week Connor scored three goals, all in the wrong goal. This week we pointed out "our goal" as soon as we arrived to the field and Connor seemed really excited to kick the ball into "our goal" this time. The prep time must have worked because he scored FIVE goals this week. I really don't know the name of the other team so we'll say they were the navy blue team.

I'm stoked that he'd doing so flippin amazing but can't help wondering...are we all honestly going to be disappointed when he stops scoring all the goals? Will someone else's kid have a turn at kicking the ball in? I know these are selfish, petty things to think about but what can I say here?? Anyway, for now we're just going to relish in the fun of it all and imagine him playing soccer professionally some day...I guess that still really needs to catch on here though right?

sharing a high-five with Gus after one of his goals

the kid in the orange shinguards was huge. and really good. and Connor scored on him. twice. my kid weighs 30lbs.

Connor and Kaci

the traditional parent tunnel at the end of the game

Tonight we had soccer pictures. Two of our 7 players didn't show up for photos so our team picture is itty bitty. Can't wait to see them. Connor was the only one who brought his soccer ball so he had a mini breakdown each time one of the other kids took their picture holding his ball. Don't get me wrong, he insisted that they use it but still...he's three.

I swear, with all the pictures of these kids I really need to find a way for them to earn their stay... :) People ask us all the time about getting them into modeling of some sort but I just don't know who is legit and who is a total scammer. If anyone reading this knows of a local childrens talent company I'd love some info. :) We joke about it all the time but maybe there's something to it. Who knows, if nothing else then it may just be something fun to do. You know, because we have so much free time in our family!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2011-01-17T23:47:00.005-07:00

I've been horrible at Nearly Wordless Wednesday postings so why not start up a post at 11pm. Sounds like a totally reasonable idea - oh, and I'm aware it's not Wednesday but if I waited until Wednesday it just may not happen :) I haven't pulled cell phone pics in a while so there are a few great ones here that I really wanted to get up.

This is after the trophy ceremony for tball.

Noah loves watching Connor - this was at soccer practice

we're introducing the sippy cup and Noah doesn't seem to be buying what we're selling. He's all about chewing on it...but he sees there's stuff in there and when it doesn't immediately go pouring into his mouth he loses interest and usually throws the cup. amazing.

we've just recently started having meals at the actual dinner table. is this horrible that it's a 'recently' thing? we never, ever eat at our table. i can feel the judgement happening as you read this. whatever, we're trying to be better.

this is what I saw as I tried to organize our spice cabinet. He started climbing the step stool. boys.

I promise Connor is laughing in this photo. He was laughing so hard that I'm surprised there wasn't a cleanup needed. Noah grabbed his hair in one hand and proceeded to beat him with the other hand.

look at those leg rolls will you? he's totally squeezable. and lazy. he can totally hold his bottle and will do it when he feels like it but sometimes he will just lay himself down and be a bum about it.

Connor loves soccer

2011-01-17T23:19:00.006-07:00

Tball, football, golf, bowling, etc...name the sport and Connor loves it. Really loves it. After finishing up tball a few weeks ago we started soccer. Connor hasn't ever really played it but he's really into anything sports so we went with it. The fact that it's a bit more active than baseball was likely helpful as well since there wouldn't be as much down time which causes "I'm hungry", "I want to go home" and "I have to go potty" to occur out of sheer boredom.

So, Kaci and Connor are now playing soccer. We only had one practice and then it was game day so we had no idea what to expect. tears? tantrum? who knows. Like most of his games, the family was out in full force. Both of my parents were there, Jeff's mom, Stephanie, Sarah, Chuck, Jalen and even Will was in town and stopped by. It was great. We're always a presence I suppose.

Right off the bat, Connor scored a goal...in the other team's goal but still. A GOAL. I hate that there aren't lots of goals in soccer and he got one. Thrilled. Espcially thrilled since the goal was in the wrong net - hilarity. I always love that stuff and he came through for us. Not just once...but THREE times that game. He scored three goals, all in the wrong goal. We didn't care, it was amazing. He loved it. Here's a video I got of his first goal. You can hear us telling him to turn around and to head the other way but we gave that up after goal #2 and just went with it.

how many goals did you get Connor? Three. FYI, this is three in sign language.

purple jerseys. love.

when you are three there are a couple "norms"...there is no 'out of bounds' and always run in a pack.

Bear loved it too

Go Thunder! Final: Thunder: 3, Other Team: 1

Crap Morning

2011-01-12T08:22:00.004-07:00

At first I was liking this morning, even tweeted/fb about it because I put my new contacts in and there is just something about having fresh, new, not globbed up with eye history contacts.

I got in an accident about a block from my office today. I was driving along, enjoying my ten minutes to myself each day, and saw a grocery bag with stuff in it up ahead in my lane. I had plenty of time to change lanes so I turned around to look back in the other lane. My truck, like most larger SUVs has horrible blind spots so I can't really rely on my mirrors. I saw a little pickup a ways back so I started to get over. There must have been an Accord in my blindspot coming up fast that I totally missed because all of a sudden I heard this scratching noise.

Seriously, it didn't even sound like a crash like it should, which I suppose is good news. I turned into a side street and sat there for a moment screaming at myself in my car. I called Jeff told him I was ok but had just been in an accident and where I was. After fumbling around for my insurance info I got out and saw the other driver. She looked like she was near vomit. Seriously.

I asked if she was ok and she said yes but that she suffers from severe panic 'episodes'. episodes. jesus. She was such a wreck that she couldn't even write out her info and had me do it for her. I felt bad while still being annoyed at the whole damn thing. It was really dark out still but from what I could tell her drivers door had scratches - not pretty but hopefully no real body work. My truch had a good sized dent in the fender - likely where her side view mirror was. Otherwise there were just scratches that should be simple enough, hopefully. When I opened my passenger door there was a little click noise so I guess I'm more concerned with what you can't see if that makes sense.

If anyone knows of an auto body place that would love to trade labor for Dbacks tickets let me know :) Only kind of kidding, mostly not. Ugh. I'm so pissed at this whole thing. Luckily our deductible is manageable and the car is still totally driveable.

I know everyone says the important thing is that no one is hurt. I 500% know that's the truth, but just allow me to stew in the financial ouch of it all.

We exchanged info and went on our way once I was sure she wasn't going to pass out. She worked closeby so I was pretty sure she would make it to her office. It was pretty quick dealing with the entire mess and I arrived to my office only 10 minutes late.

Happy Hump Day, sigh.

Too lame for facebook

2011-01-11T13:43:00.004-07:00

Today I'm wearing my glasses because I really need to change out my contacts but I was just too tired to get the new contact out of the itty bitty vial this morning so I didn't. How do people wear glasses all the time? I swear I clean mine hourly and they are still smudgy and annoying.

7 months old

2011-01-11T12:40:00.001-07:00

Mobility is the theme of this age for Noah Bear. He's crawling - to clarify, he's been crawling since mid-December so he's a crawler. He loves sitting up and looking around or grabbing at whatever is close enough for him to grab. If it's not close enough he'll crawl over, grab it and then sit there for a while just chewing on it. When he gets really excited about something he pounds his hand into the ground or slaps his leg over and over while smiling his big, gummy smile. I loves him.

Speaking of his smile, he's still rockin the two bottom teeth. they are bigger now so you can usually see them when he smiles or "talks".

We were at a doctor's appointment last week and I was jokingly trying to get him to say Mama. Dada was first for Connor so it's a constant joke for us that Noah will pick me. I kept saying Mama and Jeff kept saying Dada. After a few rounds Connor pushed past us, looked right at Noah and said "Connor!". It was hilarious and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Bear does choose his brother's name first. They really love each other and I'm so thrilled that they have each other.

His favorite toys still seem to be whatever Connor is playing with or whatever he wants to chew on at the time. Oh man I realized this morning that we've bought them matching shirts. I don't intend for them to wear them at the same time but if I were that person, they'd have a week of matchy matchy craziness. I blame Old Navy.

He's still eating a ton. Yesterday at dinner he had three large scoops of oatmeal mixed with a Stage 3 size amount of sweet potatoes - 6oz of sweet potatoes! That's a lot if you're not down with the baby food stats. We've been giving him a sippy and he just doesn't seem to have any interest in it beyond chewing on it. Maybe I'll put his milk in there and see if that changes his mind!

Here are a few of the 7 month highlights...

Noah is at an age now where he and Connor can play. This is both good and bad news for Connor. If we need Noah pacified somewhere we will tell Connor to go play with him or entertain him. Noah thinks everything Connor does is hilarious and deserves one of his famous belly laughs.

standing!! already!! On Christmas morning, Noah put his hands on one of those popcorn tins, pulled himself up and stood there until we sat him down. He loves standing. I remember this time with Connor and once they stand they don't want to do anything else. Noah is exactly the same. We really have to keep an eye as he somehow targets things like the laundry basket, or an empty box or other items that won't stay put when he pushes on them. Connor had stitches right about this point due to being an early mover so we'd love to avoid that with Bear if at all possible!!

7 months also gets Noah taking baths like a big boy - sitting totally by himself without his little chair bath tub thing. He loves it. We need one of those huge tubs for them, but let's get real. A few people have commented about me posting pics of them in the bathtub. Is this creepy and I'm totally unaware of it? I don't want to be that weirdo who posts uncomfortable pics of her kids...they are just babies, come on! :)

how cute is this little hoodie? so cute, I know.

being silly - Noah at 7 months, Connor at 43 months. bahahah. 3 1/2

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T22:31:00.009-07:00

Oh man, as my friend Krista said on her blog...I promise we celebrated Christmas and I promise there is photographic proof. Lately, I've just been feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of all of our photos and the task of getting them organized and displayed places...mind you I mean displayed here on the blog and on fb and similar stuff. Add in a full time job, two crazy boys, a few too many positions with my alumnae group and my pretty large capacity is overflowing! Our Christmas stuff is still up folks...gifts still hanging out in the great room. Eek.

We're fortunate for a few reasons when it comes to celebrating Christmas with the family. For one, all of our immediate family is local so there's no concern of who will be traveling and spending gobs of cash to trek across the country. Second, my family and Jeff's family celebrate Christmas on different days so we also don't have to deal with splitting the day up or trading off years. So lucky on this one I think!!

Jeff's family does all their holiday festiveness on Christmas Eve. In the past, we'd always attend midnight mass but now that there are so many kids in our family, we go to an earlier mass before dinner. There is a very ~~odd~~ traditional meal of cream of wheat, sausage, sour kraut followed by chaotic gift opening. I love it, but everything with the Barnes side of our family is chaotic - that is what happens with a large family. Then again, anything is considered large in comparrison to my little fam. Anyway, there were about 20 of us there for Christmas Eve and we're loud. True story.

Bear patiently waiting for prezzies to begin

Maddie being all sorts of adorable

Noah grabbed Jacob and refused to let go. Jake found it hilarious.

Several of the kiddos opening their gifts. This was the first round and by the end you couldn't even see the ground thanks to all the wrapping paper mess

Madison's gift was nearly bigger than she is!

Connor loved his airplane from the Blums

and Noah liked the car they got him too

Christmas morning is held at our house and it's quite smaller than the Christmas Eve celebration the night before. This is the first year we set cookies and milk out for Santa because it's really the first year Connor really got it so it was fun. First thing in the morning Connor woke us up telling us that Santa drank all the milk but didn't finish his cookies. Exhauseted, I told Connor that if he wanted he could finish them up for Santa - at 7 o'clock in the morning. He was thrilled!

My parents arrived that morning and we had mimosas and some brunch-like food. Champagne. Yum. I'm a fan. After that, it was present opening but first I tortured my children by forcing them to pose by all their presents for a few photos.

have I mentioned how difficult it is to get a good pic of 4 people at one time? Nearly impossible - see above :) BTW, these are our Christmas pajamas. Love.

trying to decide where to start first...

oh the sibling annoyance at Christmas was pretty intense. Noah's favorite toy is clearly whatever Connor is currently playing with.

Now that Noah is mobile, it's tough to get good pics of him. I gave up and just threw this cute tee on his rear and snapped a shot. done and done.

my dad gave Jeffrey a nerf gun game for the wii. i don't honestly know if Jeff's played the game yet, but I can say that we've totally taken turns sneaking up on the other person and shooting them with the nerf bullets. We're extremely mature if you didn't know.

Papa gave Connor an ornament with his Tball picture in it. The ornament plays All Star and Connor loves it

This was one of the favorites. It's a huge, really huge, really huge, race track. Oh, and it's noisy. By favorite I clearly meant it was a favorite of his, not me.

this is all Noah wants to do anymore I swear

Noah spent most of the holiday chewing on stuff - so much that a collage was needed

Yes. Noah pulled himself up and stood while holding on to something for the first time on Christmas day. Too fast, slow down Bear!!

We had a great Christmas and were thankful for the chance to spend the holidays with family so close. We hope you all had a great Christmas as well!!

Letters from Santa

2010-12-23T22:58:00.004-07:00

The boys letters from Santa arrived last week and it was quite the event. Thanks to Tashi, Santa always knows exactly where to send our letters :)

I don't know if Connor remembers getting a letter from Santa over the past few years but he is totally into Santa this year so it was kinda a big deal. By kinda I mean seriously a huge deal!!

The letters arrived in these super cute envelopes - postmarked from Alaska (?) and I was impressed with how pretty Santa's return address labels were - props to you St. Nick.

Aw, this was amazing. This night was the first instance of big bro being annoyed by little bros shenanigans. We've decided that Noah's favorite toy is whatever Connor is currently holding. Noah just did not want to leave Connor alone while Connor was so absorbed with his Santa letter. OMG. hilarious.

BOTH faces in this one just kill me. hahahaha. Connor was DONE.

The letters came with a certificate for being on the Nice List, a personalized letter from Santa himself and a cute photo of Santa that said Mrs. Claus took it of him in his workshop. Really cute stuff. Since our house doesn't have a fireplace, there was a little key in Connor's letter with instructions to leave it at the front door so that Santa could come in to deliver gifts.

Noah did this while Connor was in his Santa trance

more of this...

Noah checking out his Nice List certificate

super excited about something

More Christmas preparations...

2010-12-21T17:56:00.007-07:00

Christmas preparations are fully under way now in the Barnes household. The Christmas cards are pouring in...which I seriously love. It's so great seeing everyone in their "picture day finery" and seeing their super cute cards. We hang them all up and have serious guilt over throwing them away after the holiday, but we do because what on earth would we do with them otherwise!?

My mom started a tradition this year of decorating cookies with the boys. Actually this year it was just she and Connor but next year Noah will join in I'm sure. Fundamental difference between my mom and I: she let Connor decorate them completely by himself and didn't even hint at suggestions. I would softly suggest that he not make his gingerbread man's eyes red. This is probably why Connor had more fun doing this with Grammy Van Hook than he would have with me! :)

decorated by Connor himself

Last year we discovered Santa's House in Downtown Chandler. It's amazing. Totally free (with suggested donations going to the Chandler Lions Club) and never, ever a line. The volunteers are super nice and they let you just hang out with Santa - and you can take your own pictures, though you get a free one from them anyway.

We were just planning on doing one with each of the boys with Santa and then another with both of them with him but Santa insisted that Jeffrey and I join in. This was unfortunate as I'd totally left the house sans makeup for this first stop of the day - totally something I rarely every do. Yikes. Oh well.

Noah did spectacular and loved Santa. You can tell by his pictures that we'll never be getting that hilarious screaming child pic of either of our kids. Connor did great too, but he's chatting in his photo so it's the best we could get. I'm so glad they are good in this type of situation - I like photos too much to deal with anything less :)

posing by Chandler's Tumbleweed Christmas tree

thrilled by the bows attached to their gifts from "Uncle Adam"...Connor's Godfather. Connor kept saying "Open us up Mama".

do you see the matching shirts for the boys? Yeah, we did that. If I'm being completely honest I don't find it nearly as annoying as when little girls wear matching dresses. Sorry.

Decking the halls and other pics

2010-12-16T18:30:00.004-07:00

One of my closest friends Dawn's daughter Stella turned one a few weeks ago and they had a cowgirl themed party for her. It was super cute but the wind really killed Dawn's theme. Seriously, the wind was out of control...like blowing card tables away out of control!

enjoying the potato sack race - i don't know where one would find potato sacks but Dawn found them and Connor loved it

Making his very own cowboy hat

We set up our tree and most of the decorations on Thanksgiving weekend. One of my absolute favorite parts of Christmas is wrapping the gifts. Every year I try to do a theme or stick with a couple colors for gifts and every year Jeffrey interferes and just stuffs everything I ~~assign him~~ ask him to wrap in a gift bag. Not this year. Not this year.

cheapy labels dont go with my theme so I let Noah play with them and ruin them

After we set up the Christmas village I found this. For anyone without kids, especially boys, this is a snapshot of my life :)

Connor decorating the tree while Noah watches

Merry Christmas from the Barnes Family

2010-12-16T18:27:00.002-07:00

Six Month Side-by-Side

2010-12-16T17:33:00.002-07:00

The boys just had more pics taken at school a couple weeks ago and I'll post them next. For now, I needed to post this side-by-side comparrison of both of them at 6 months old. Seriously.

Tball Pictures

2010-12-12T22:24:00.002-07:00

I'm planning on doing an entire post devoted to the millions of pictures I took during Connor's tball season, but for now here are the team pics. Love.

Kaci, Connor, Aidan, Cole, Kaitlyn, Elias, Cole, Coach Jeff, Cheyanne, Coach Paul

Photo Catch up

2010-12-10T10:20:00.004-07:00

My photo catching up will be done in several installments...until I'm caught up. I'm being realistic and hoping that I'll be caught up by Christmas. Kinda realistic :)

We've been super busy over the last couple of months and I'm not making time to blog which annoys me. While I totally understand we have so much going on that blogging doesn't necessarily count in my top priorities, I use this thing as a baby book/scrapbook/time capsule/venting vessel and everything else so I really NEED to blog! Plus...my dad just sent out his Christmas letters and put my blog in the letter so I'm sure I can expect tens of people to start visiting on at least a monthly basis.

Connor's Tball season just ended this past week and soccer will be starting in a couple weeks. In true Barnes family fashion, we had his last tball game at 8am on Saturday and then ran to his soccer meeting at 10am. Not so sure about this new soccer team, but I will wait to see I suppose. Maybe.

I've been super busy with Chi Omega stuff. Our alumnae chapter delivered study buddy treats to the ASU chapter the day before their finals. There were cookies, candy, cakes, cases of water, popcorn balls and a ton more o-so-healthy items. They were thrilled obviously. This is soemthing that we do every year and I thing both the collegiates and alums love it. As an alum, I know it's great to meet the Sisters who are carrying on the Chi O legacy and it's great to go back to ASU and reminisce like an 80 year old woman...those crazy girls :) Here's a pic of some of us at the chapter house.

Angela pushing our child labor (Connor) around - BTW he looooves visiting the chapter house.

Kelly, Anglea, Kathy, Karen, Alisa, Alona, Jeri, Lindsay

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. This is my kid at the end of November - in shorts and a tee shirt. Gotta love AZ. We have been trying to take advantage of it and going outside to play - we know that in just a few short months we'll be sweating and sticky from a walk to the mailbox!

Every year we go to the Fountain Hills art fair. Most of the stuff sold isn't really our style, though the salsa we love is sold there and sometimes we'll buy a couple items for gifts. Oh, and we got this adorable frame for Connor three years ago so we made sure to get one for Noah too. Anyway, we really love just walking around for a few hours and looking at all the kitchy stuff is fun too. Carly and Bobby joined us this year and it was a great time. Plus, they have turkey legs and you may know how we feel about turkey legs...we love them. So does Carly...see below.

Hilarious - Can you see Bear reaching for the turkey leg? This was a week or so before we gave him real food...clearly he was ready and interested. :)

The mighty pregosaurus. Rawrrrr!

Connor's school hosted a thanksgiving lunch for the families and since I'm right next door it was super easy to wander over and join them. Jeffrey surprised us and made it too so it was a nice break in the day. After eating with Connor I grabbed Noah and brought him over to Connor's class so we could all hang out for a bit before Jeff and I had to get back to work.

cute centerpieces. After Tgiving, the teachers picked five kids who were really good that week and they got to take them home. Yeah, Connor got one. Score.

Connor and his sparkley pilgrim hat...what, pilgrims didn't use glitter? oh.

St. Nicks 2010

2010-12-10T09:29:00.005-07:00

I've blogged before about celebrating St. Nick's with our family, here and here and here. We don't really do much with our extended family for the holiday anymore - we're all cutting costs so much that it helps. We do however still celebrate in our household.

The tradition with our family it to get the kids a small gift in their stocking that they are supposed to open the morning of December 6th after St. Nick delivers it on the 5th. I thought it would be a fun tradition to give them their special ornament that day so that it can hang on the tree until Christmas - just doesn't make sense to get an ornament on Christmas when the tree is coming down soon. I also wanted to start the tradition of getting the boys new Christmas pajamas every year so that was added to the St. Nick festivities. We really blew it this year with all the "additional traditions"...instead of one small gift, each of the boys got a gift, an ornament and pjs. but that's ok, it's Christmas :)

We bought this cute sleigh several years ago and use it for Santa's gifts when he brings them. Of course this year I decided to be a crazy photo mom and stick my children in it in hopes of a cute photo. done and done. I FRICKEN LOVE THIS PICTURE!

bear helping me with the wrapping

Connor hanging up his special St. Nick's ornament - we got him a baseball ornament with a pic of him playing tball in it. love.

obsessed with Toy Story 3 - usually the St Nick gift is supposed to be something small, but we just couldn't resist getting him this...and couldn't wait for Christmas

Connor got green Santa pjs and Noah got blue pjs with monkeys and candy canes

Connor was trying to get Noah to care about his Babies 1st Christmas ornament

Noah was way more interested in the mat he was sitting on

Noah got his own set of 3 glow in the dark balls - a basketball, football and soccer ball

6 months old

2010-12-10T09:00:00.001-07:00

Are you kidding me with this?!? I refuse to believe that my Noah Bear is already half a year old. Ok, refuse may be too strong of a word, but my goodness.

Noah turned six months old on November 28th and we had his 6 month checkup this past week. It's been a tough past few weeks with some illnesses, but luckily we seem to have finally turned the corner. Nothing really dangerous but his cold turned into a respiratory virus that stuck around for a couple weeks so that's a big deal when you're this tiny! Speaking of tiny...he's not! At his appointment he measured 27" tall and about 18 1/2 lbs. He loves food, totally loves it. He attacks the spoon and if you're dumb enough to leave the food container within his reach, he'll grab it and thrash it around trying to get more food. I've only done that once! He got his little chompers early like Connor - even earlier than Connor actually! He had two teeth before he turned 6 months old.

He's really, really trying to crawl. You can see in the pics that he just gets up on his feet like he's getting his yoga in for the day or something. You can see him getting frustrated about it, but he manages to be mobile anyway. He scoots around pretty fast and we can't just sit him down and expect that he'll stay put anymore! He can roll around and around and has perfected sitting. It's funny that babies hate being on their backs. For a few months, we'd put him on his back and he'd roll to his tummy but that was really his only trick. Now, if we put him on his back he'll immediately roll to his belly and then get into a seated position. Hilarious though...if he reaches/leans too far forward to grab something when he's sitting he gets stuck and just hollers until we move him - like a turtle stuck on its back. cruel maybe, but very funny.

As for his overall demeanor, he's still primarily happy and smiley - except when he's not :) The teacher in his class tell us that he's perfectly happy just playing by himself but if another baby starts playing with something he's playing with it's Game Over. They say he screams until someone literally removes that other baby. While I find it kinda funny, hopefully he'll get over that soon.

Noah is in looooove with Connor - I wouldn't be surprised if Connor was his first word. He loves watching him and Connor loves performing for Noah. Connor hasn't quite wrapped his head around the fact that Noah can't catch the ball yet so we're working on that.

huh!?!?

downward bear

Gobble Gobble 2010

2010-11-29T12:38:00.006-07:00

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, probably one of my favorites and right up there with Christmas. I love the family getting together, the food and all that goes with it. I love the crazy grocery store and love the thought of how crazy it must be for black Friday shopping. That one I love from afar.

We had a two part turkey celebration this year. For the first time in years we didn't host it which was lovely for many reasons. The four of us headed to Jeff's parents house on Thanksgiving and my mom met us there as well. Everyone included I think there were 17 of us. I think. Before the big meal, most of us met up at a park to play football. This was my idea because I'm a nerd and I love seeing people on TV playing football before Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't nearly as cool as it is for my TV friends. There were 7 of us playing I think. One of those, Chuck...played college and pro football. Another one, my nephew Jalen is the only Freshman on the Mountain Pointe Varsity football team. Can I continue to brag for a minute? Yes? Thanks. Jalen is listed as one of nine freshman in the country on the watch list for National Freshman Football Player of the Year! THE NATION!! One day I'll watch tv and say "I changed that famous guy's diapers when he was a kid"...but that would be a lie because I met him when he was 4 and there were no diapers at that point. Anyway, the point of that was that I stuck it out for about 7 plays before wandering away from the game and taking a few photos. I was not missed. I wore wedges so maybe they missed mocking my shoe choice that day.

Auntie Sarah and Noah Bear - I love this picture. My sister hates having her picture taken but this is so sweet that it makes me melt :)

Noah watching the game

Uncle Chuck and Connor

After our big "game" we headed in where it wasn't freezing cold (60 degrees) and got started on gorging ourselves with goodness. I saw in my MIL's pantry that she had a bunch of baby foods in turkey day themes like sweet potatoes, green beans, peas and such and Jeffrey and I decided that today would be Noah Bear's first day of real food. I planned on making all of his food like I did for Connor but this was there and now I'm over it. Over it.

Grammy Barnes feeding Noah his first few bites of real food. He chowed through an entire large size of sweet potatoes. That's a lot for those without baby food history

He kinda liked it :)

On Sunday, we had Thanksgiving part two with my dad and Corliss. It was great having two thanksgivings - now I know what all other kids of divorce feel like. Jealous. Totally kidding, stop it. It was nice and relaxed. I love the big family holidays we get with the Barnes family, but also really enjoy the smaller things with my family - the ones where you don't have to scream to get the salt passed. Unless you feel like it which is fine with us.

Connor hates green beans - hates them. It was the first food we ever gave him as a baby and he was completely inconsolable after. Just spit out nothing for twenty minutes after it was all out of his mouth. I've tried it several times over the last few years and each time he's just sick with it. This year we tried forcefeeding it. You can't see it, but during the pic above we were all eating pumpkin pie and I finally negotiated down to the single green bean on his fork was all he needed to eat to get a piece of pie too. He finally gave in and took a little bite. Then he honestly gagged and spit vommited all over his plate. So nasty. YOU WIN CONNOR.

Noah on the other hand scarfed an entire thing of green beans...and another of sweet potatoes!

Sadly, this is the only picture of the boys that I got. Oh well, there's always Christmas. I do love that we managed to dig out Connor's "1st Thanksgiving" bib so that Noah would be able to wear the same one.

That bib worked its pants off

and bear was still hungry after

Friday's Dose of Brilliance

2010-11-19T12:07:00.002-07:00

I'm in love with this...you may not be but I'm sure you're aware of my owl obsession if you've read my blog before. I just spent 20 minutes making my own Owl Calendar and now you can too!

because i can't come up with anything clever to blog about...

2010-11-17T15:42:00.003-07:00

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Not really named after someone but my name came from Lindsay Wagner. sigh.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
I can't remember, but I'm kind of a crier so I'll say it was probably within the last week.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
It's probably the coolest thing about me. probably.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Turkey

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yuppers - Connor is 3 and Noah is 5 months old

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Hells yeah, I mentioned my handwriting right?

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Often

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
RIP Summer of 1999

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
I think I would. Not because I'm super brave but I think it would be a cool experience.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
I love so many. Lucky Charms, Golden Grahms, Kix. I really love cereal

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Rarely and I am always so mad when I'm hurrying to put them back on that I have to deal with it then since I didn't deal with it when I took them off.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
If I'm really doing it right, I love cake batter with cookie dough and brownies. go big or go home.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Hair probably. and jewelry.

15.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
I honestly don't think i have a fav color. It was purple for so long, but I really like green and yellow.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I bite my nails. gross, i know.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
my kids during the day

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
I'm really not into forwards and pressure like that.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Grey slacks and black pumps

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Ryan Adams - Desire

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
I don't know...Gray maybe. No one bothers the gray and I'd like to be left in one piece.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
food smells like cookies and spices. I avoid the soapy smells in candles and lotions.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
I'm at work so probably a realtor or title officer - before that Jamie Seessel :)

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
No one really sent this to me but I saw it on someone's FB and she's great

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Football

27. HAIR COLOR?
Brown once colored

28. EYE COLOR?
brown - no coloring needed

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Yes

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Too many. I'm really into wings right now.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings!

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
No idea sadly. Assuming it was grea.t

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Pinkish

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter. Summer is gross here.

35. WHO DO YOU ADMIRE?
ugh. anyone who got through this survey.

36. IF YOU COULD WORK IN A DIFFERENT PROFESSION WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I'd love to work in publishing of some sort.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
don't do it. i hate these things. by the time I get half way done i want to quit but i'm too invested.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
see above.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
The Smallest Color by Bill Roorbach

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
A pic of connor at my dad's house from maybe 2 years ago. i need an update.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl - because I'm 15

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)?
these questions are getting worse

43. IRONED OR WRINKLED?
Ironed - in the dryer.

44. BEACH OR SKIING?
Beach

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I don't think so...I can write a mean letter like nobody's business.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Mesa yo

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
See above some more

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
we worked together.

DONE AND DONE

5 months old

2010-11-16T08:43:00.005-07:00

Noah turned 5 months old a couple weeks ago and while I remembered to take the picture, I spaced on actually posting it. I think it got jumbled around with Halloween and other going ons. Here are all the pics so far with his hootie hoot :)

It's been a busy time as usual and we've had some health issues to battle. Nothing big or concerning at all, just annoying stuff. Noah caught a stomach bug or something a couple weeks ago and was out of school for about a week. Really gross stuff.

In Very Exciting News...Noah has his first tooth coming in right now :) We spotted it on Sunday night - remember the date mom...11/14/2010 - Noah's first tooth! It's on the bottom, just to the right of middle. It's nice to see an actual tooth after months of drool and crankiness over teething. Connor got his first tooth the day he turned 6 months old so Noah beat that even! A bummer about teething is that it causes all sorts of odd side effects - in Noah's case this week it brought on a bit of a cold. He's got a cough and all kinds of snotty issues. Poor baby. Ugh, and I hate the bulb thing - it never works well enough to validate putting them through the torture. But, we do it anyway because it's the only thing we can do!

Noah is really trying to be mobile right now. He's making a bit of progress, but no crawling yet - which is just fine with me. He gets up on all fours and then moves around lots. He will also lay completely flat on his tummy and somehow scoot. No idea how this happens but it works for him. He's working hard at grabbing things and while he's still a bit (meaning very) spastic with his hands it cracks him up to hold on to things...so much that he tends to smack himself in the face which also cracks him up. Being a baby is great. Watching babies learn is also great.

He's eating great and I'm anxious to give him real food. He just loves that nasty rice cereal so much that I really want him to be able to have yummy fruits and veggies. His doctor recommends waiting until 6 months and we're nearly there so I'm sure we'll just do that. Plus...I haven't got around to making any fruits or veggies yet so there's that too. I'll get around to it in the next couple of weeks. Connor started with green beans and hated them - still does. I think I'll start Noah on avocado and go from there! He's still eating a ton - 5 bottles a day at 8oz each. Piggy, but a cute piggy :)

He's got this amazing smile that uses his entire face. He has lots of smiles actually - small, medium and huge. The huge is my favorite and it takes his whole face to make it happen. It scrunches up his face and I love it! He really, really loves everything Connor does and it just makes my heart melt watching them together. We discovered mid Connor's tantrum last week that when he does that tongue spitting thing that kids do (gross, i know) it cracks Noah up! We're working on teaching Connor how to do that without actually spraying spit all over Noah. Still working on it... It makes Noah laugh, like a huge belly laugh and it's amazing. He's got so much personality now and it's so fun to watch him develop into this little person. I love my Noah Bear :)

Too lame for facebook - a letter

2010-11-10T15:34:00.002-07:00

Dear person who is seriously trying to have everyone believe they are no longer smoking by covering it up with way, way, way too much perfume,

give it up. thanks.

signed,

unable to breathe over here.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2010-11-10T08:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted pics in a while except the family pics or halloween stuff so we've got quite a bit of randomness going on here.

We've been pretty busy over the last few weeks with weddings, family stuff, tball and a bit of traveling. Mix in Halloween and there have been lots of opportunities for pictures of the boys and going ons.

when bear gets fussy and i'm trying to get something done we tell Connor to go and dance or sing in front of him. Apparently, awkwardly patting him on the head works as well.

two funny thing in this picture...1. when we took connor to the dentist last week the dentist gave Noah a toothbrush too. He loves it and has been carrying it around and playing with it for days. 2. When Noah sleeps he sleeps on his tummy, propped up on his knees with his rear up in the air. For about an hour after he wakes up, he has these red circles on his knees and you can see them in this picture.

Noah was sick with a stomach flu or something a couple weeks ago. I was home with him one day. I brought a bunch of work home and this is what my "office" looked like for a while that day.

Grammy Barnes bought personalized pumpkins for all the grandkids. We took the boys to decorate their pumpkins and this was the end result. Connor painted his whole pumpkin dark green. We put his hand print on it but he choose light green for that part so it barely showed up against the dark green color. I painted Noah's and we stamped his feet on the sides.

pouting over something or other during his tball game

Connor and "Coach Jeff". Connor hears other players and parents refer to Jeffrey as Coach Jeff so he will ask "Are Coach Paul and Coach Jeff going to be there?"...I don't think he gets it. lol.

Connor and Aidan waiting their turn to bat

showing Noah his drawing

Connor told me that this was Santa and his sleigh with reindeer. What? You can't see it?

We surprised Connor with tickets to see Mickey's Magic Show a few weeks ago. It wasn't as great as Mickey on Ice but he had a good time. Clearly so did Noah by the look of this photo.

Whenever the Dbacks offer up suite tix to employees for something like this we jump at the chance...so much easier to let Noah roll around on the floor and let Connor run around with the other kids rather than confining us to seats. Having the restroom right there certainly helps too!

I'm not really sure what Connor was doing here during intermission, but he looks like a frog

We got Noah a bumbo a couple months ago and he seems to like it in small doses. After about 15 minutes if he's not being entertained he tries to escape which I find hilarious.

Sneak Peak - Family Pics 2010

2010-11-08T08:37:00.002-07:00

We had our family pictures taken this past weekend with Megan J Photography and here's a sneak peek she offered us. We went to ASU and walked around finding fun places for our pics and it was easy and the kids were great. Megan took a lot of family pics and some from Connor's tball game earlier as well so I'm anxious to see all of them too!

Halloween 2010

2010-11-05T13:40:00.007-07:00

This was not a year for great Halloween pictures. Not a bit. My camera is great for a point and shoot but really not stellar for totally dark nights so there were a lot of crap pictures to sort through but that’s ok. :)

Connor was a super cute Handy Manny. I made his dbacks hat into a handy manny hat which makes me domestic I think. He loved his costume. Check the comparison :)

(hint...connor is on the left)

Noah was an adorable Tigger. This was Connor’s Halloween costume for his first Halloween too so we wanted Noah to wear it this year. It was too short in the legs but that’s ok. Check the brother Comparrison. Wish I got one with Noah Bear smiling but he still wasn't feeling 100%.

Tigger's (Noah) tail placement is funny to me. Yes, I'm very immature

Noah, Connor and Jacob

The kids were all running around this chair and then Connor immediately stopped when he saw baseball on tv

Bella and Katie

We trick or treat with my bro in law's family so that the kids can all be together. This was our 4th year doing it I guess and it's always the perfect way to spend Halloween. This year, the Blum family made a trick or treat train for the kids to ride around in. It was awesome. They hooked it up to a riding mower and pulled the kids around. It took way longer since we were getting them in and out all night but it was easily Connor's favorite part of the whole holiday. Next year, they are planning on lighting it up and adding more train cars. Awesome idea, right?

Our only niece Maddie was asleep the entire time...

...and Noah chewed on his seat belt all night

Jacob was some character from some show or something that I know nothing about. I do know that they've been growing his hair out for a while for the purpose of this costume. You can't really see it but it's sticking up all over the place and stayed just like that all evening!

this idiot scared the pee out of me. twice.

all night I tried to get a pic of Bella. This was the best of all of them. The prettiest Snow White ever :)

It was strange having Halloween on a Sunday but we had a great time. I had a flight to be on super early on Monday morning so we had to rush home and deal with packing and getting Jeff and the boys ready for the upcoming school days. It just doesn't seem like Halloween when it's near 90 degrees. Stupid Arizona.

Parenting Skills - he gots em

2010-10-28T20:30:00.001-07:00

Reason #543 that being a parent is tough work: work.

2010-10-28T11:16:00.002-07:00

Really struggling being a working mom today.

Noah got sick on Sunday night. My MIL stayed with him Monday and my dad stayed with him Tuesday. I’ll spare the details of formula amounts, concentration and time lapse but he’d get better, then puke, then get better, then puke. Super great. He went back to school yesterday after no puking for nearly two days and did great on diluted bottles of a smaller amount. Last night we gave him two bottles of full formula but a smaller amount and he did great. We thought we were in the clear. This morning, shortly after his 7am feeding at daycare I got a call. Can I tell you how much parents dread seeing their kids’ school phone number pop up on their caller ID? There’s no positive reason for this call. Either sick, hurt or in bad enough trouble that they are calling you. They don’t call to tell you that your son was an amazing sharer or really killed it at storytime this afternoon. So, they tell me that Noah only took 2 ounces (when he normally attacks his 8oz bottle) and didn’t want more. 15 minutes later, he puked it all up. Jeff wasn’t to work yet so I called him and he turned around. I got an appointment for an hour later and we both went to the appointment. I hate sitting at my office working when Jeff and one of the boys is at the doctor. All I can think is, “is he asking enough questions?”, “will he remember what we’re supposed to do?”. Jeff’s an amazing dad and a super smart guy but two parents are better than one. The doc told us that it’s just a “typical day care stomach virus” and that we should really try to keep him out today and tomorrow to be safe. Fine.

Jeff’s staying home today even though he has a super important lunch meeting that he’s missing, and shouldn’t be missing. Working and being a parent is incredibly difficult. My job is busy, super busy. I’m the only one who does my job, it’s super time sensitive and enough work for two people to do and stay busy with. If I’m gone for a day I’m incredibly handicapped when I get back. Worse? I’m traveling Monday and Tuesday of next week so I’ll already be coming back to a nightmare on Wednesday…I seriously cannot miss tomorrow too.

This puts parents in a horrible spot where they have to weigh their options. Do I send my kid to school and try my luck that he’ll be okay? Our boys are funny that they don’t act sick when they are – they smile, laugh, want to eat and play. He’s already sick and isn’t going to get worse…but I hate when other parents send their kids to school and they get mine sick. Hate it. I want to be able to be with my baby when he’s not feeling well afterall. With work it’s not just having to get the day off…it’s never catching up on work, not having any vacation time left after taking so much time off to actually have the kid and the stigma of not being at work because my kid is sick again. I hate that I have to make this decision…the choice should always be the kid right? But the job is what pays for us to have the insurance to take the kid to the doctor when they need to be there. It’s a cycle I tell you. But I’m not a SAHM personality really, so this is what we do. I'm sure dad's have the same feelings on this, but this blog is about me and my family so well, there it is.

That’s my rant for the day. Thanks for listening.

Pumpkin Patch 2010

2010-10-26T08:27:00.007-07:00

We took the boys to Mother Nature's Farm this Sunday and Papa Van Hook & Tashi came along. It's a fun, low key time. I think when they are older we'll head to Schnepfpfpfpfpf farms but for now this is a perfect fit. There's a petting zoo, bouncers, hayride, huge pumpkin patch, a hay maze and other stuff. Plus kids admission includes a little pumpkin to decorate.

We arrived around 12:30 and had lunch. It was nice out but I think ten degrees cooler would have been perfect since the sun was totally bright and the sky was completely free of clouds. I took about 100 pics so there's lots here to check out :)

always entertained by Papa Van Hook

Jeff & Connor attempting the hay maze

success is sweet

there was a huge pile of dirt at the farm and kids were walking along it...we wondered if this was a meant to be an attraction or if it was just an added bonus

Connor hunting for the perfect pumpkin

he made his selection and is now off to decorate it

this pic cracks me up. i feel like it sums up our family perfectly. i'm taking pics while connor goofs off about something and noah screams in the back. look at his little arms thrown up in protest. if only jeffrey was in the background checking his fantasy football scores on his crackberry. hilarious.

skull & crossbones. i'm a proud chi omega mama.

enjoying the hayride

I'm ready. Noah is chewing on Tashi's arm. Jeff looks annoyed with photos. Connor has lost interest. Super.

we found him here throwing the pumpkins. boys.

this is when my dad called me "parent of the year" for propping my baby up between pumpkins for the sake of a cute photo

3 feet tall :)

i love them so hard

Papa & Tashi with the boys

Pumpkin Man

2010-10-26T08:21:00.003-07:00

We had a crazy busy weekend so there are lots and lots of pics to post and I'll work on it throughout the week. For now, because I love comparrison photos, here is a quickie of the boys at the pumpkin patch. Mother Nature's Farm has a cutout and it's fun to see the similarities/differences with the boys.

Made by Survivors Event

2010-10-22T13:54:00.006-07:00

Here's a great opportunity to do some good friends, family and blog stalkers :)

I'm the President of the Phoenix Alumnae Chapter of Chi Omega and one of our goals is to stay committed to community service. Our National Organization supports Make a Wish, but our local chapter selects a different charity for each event. Last year, we hosted a fun evening of silent auction, bbq and music for Gabriel's Angels.

This year we decided that instead of holding one large philanthropic event every year, we'd do a smaller, quarterly event instead. Gone are the days of black-tie, pricey plated dinners. We're focussing on collection-based events like book collections, clothing donations and other events that cost those who participate little to no money, but still allow us to continue supporting worthy organizations.

Made by Survivors is an international organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking and modern day slavery. They help survivors of slavery rebuild their lives after rescue from slavery, with sustainable income, education and help reintegrating into society. They work to prevent slavery in high risk communities such as red light and refugee communities, by creating jobs for adults and through volunteer trips and donations to the shelter partners for rescue, school fees, emergency needs and reintegration. (from their site)

Our alumnae group is hosting an open house event on Sunday, November 21st from 2-5pm in Mesa at the home of our Philanthropy Chair, Jerilyn. Anyone can (and should!) attend to check out the homemade items of the women assisted by this organization. There's jewelry, art, home goods, clothing, kids toys and more at all price points. I think I'm going to do some Christmas shopping while I'm there and find some one of a kind items for friends and family. We have a facebook event set up if you're interested in attending or looking for more information. We have an amazing Philanthropy team who are working on making the event a huge success for this organization. If you can't make the event please let me know and I'm happy to get you more info on how you can still shop through their site or catalog. Here are just a few of the items available, but there are many more on their site.

I may pick up a few of these silk business card cases at $10 each - great stocking stuffers

I love this bracelet and it's only $28

some cute kids items too like this little blue butterfly purse for $18

I'd love to see as many people there as possible. Everyone is invited so please spread the word to friends or family who may be interested in supporting the organization. The party will be a casual & fun opportunity to make a huge impact on the life of a survivor.

Too lame for facebook

2010-10-22T08:41:00.002-07:00

When I was pregnant I tried to be better about eating. Not eating better, just better about eating. I get busy and I totally forget to eat. Not good I know, but really not good when you're supposed to be sustaining a life, right?

So I brought a bunch of easy stuff to the office so that I didn't have an excuse. I brought in a ton of those Quaker instant oatmeal packets - Apples & Cinnamon, Maple & Brown Sugar and plain.

Today I was completely disappointed to find that I'd finally scavaged for all the green and brown packets and was only left with blue, the plain. Not excited for breakfast today folks.

Too lame for facebook

2010-10-21T07:36:00.002-07:00

Sometimes there are things I want to put out there into the internet world that are just way, way too lame for even a facebook status. Forget about putting it on twitter because about 99% of my friends on there use their twitter for real, work related tweets and they def dont want to hear about something far too silly that even facebook can handle.

I've decided that this blog can be my outlet for those dumb, ridiculous thoughts that no one wants to see in their FB news feed. So 'too lame for facebook' begins. Whenever you see that title, feel free to skip over it completely and find something more engaging to read. It will help you avoid reading something and then thinking, well she warned me...it will also satisfy my insane need to post something utterly unimportant.

kthanksbye.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-20T10:51:00.006-07:00

We've been pretty busy lately with tball, fall festivals, weddings and lots of other stuff. The boys are doing well and fortunately keep up with our crazy schedule like pros!

Noah is threatening to become mobile, though it will surely be a couple more months before it actually happens...hopefully. He's mastered rolling from his back to his belly and will do it as soon as you lay him somewhere unless you're dangling a toy over him or making silly faces :) He can't quite roll from belly to back, but enjoys tummy time and pushing up on his arms to look around. He's reaching for toys and swatting at everything. Still, one of his favorite activities is watching Connor do just about anything. When Noah gets fussy, we like to make Connor dance for him. Creepy? Oh well.

Connor is having a better week this week, so hopefully it will keep up. Thank you to those of you who sent emails with suggestions. I really appreciate it and have been trying out some of your tips!! This past weekend he got to go to his fall festival, a Mickey Mouse show and his first tball game so those were fun things for him. There are fall festival pics below and I'll post Mickey and tball pics later.

Noah attacking his puppy, Cinnamon

it would be super if he knew how to really hold his own bottle - he's pretty close

Connor and Noah's school held their fall festival this past weekend. There was a crazy dust storm in true AZ style that gave about a 5 minute heads up so most of the activities were moved inside. We didn't have Connor's Handy Manny costume all done yet so he went as a baseball player and just wore his tball uniform. I wasn't about to put Noah in his tigger costume since it's still really warm, so he wore his "Got Candy" shirt he inheirited from Connor.

the finished product

Noah and Grammy Van Hook

Funkafied Friday

2010-10-15T07:51:00.004-07:00

I am finding myself in a bit of a funk over the past couple of days. Nothing huge, nothing really funk-worthy...just a few teeny tiny little things and they are finding me on the verge of tears and mascara meltdowns. I'm moody and snippy - kinda like a tiny little purse dog. Not a fun person to be around I would assume.

Connor has been having some new behavioral issues at school. I don't know if it's the age, a phase or the school he's at...but something sucks. He's hitting, spitting, and being totally stubborn and whiny at the same time. This is new for him so it's quite an adjustment. I'm pretty close with a couple of his teachers so they are great about stopping what they are doing when I arrive to give me the daily rundown. We have a sticker chart (only thing that works in our house) that he gets a sticker on for each day that he's good at school. If he's good at tball that day too, he gets an extra sticker...we've had tantrum issues at tball so it became necessary.

Anyway, it's really starting to wear on me listening to them everyday tell me that he didn't have a good day and that it's not getting any better. I brought it on by telling them to fill me in when I know most of the parents just walk in, grab their kid and go. I'm so burnt out on hearing it everyday that I feel like I've admitted defeat and instead of talking to him about it I just say "get in the car" and sadly head to tball or whatever we've got going on that day. Again, not a fun person to be around. I think it would be a bit easier to swallow if it wasn't just me dropping off and picking up each day. Jeff doesn't have to hear it each and everyday. I mean, he hears it from me but that's different than hearing it from his teacher. I drop them off at 7, head to my too crazy, too busy job for 9 hours and then have to hear about how Connor hit several children today and spit at the teacher. Who spits at people!?! My kid apparently.

We tell him that if it's a bad report day, there's no tball or no wii or no whatever is on the calendar...unfortuntely, sometimes the calendar wins out and we head to tball anyway because the family is taking time to be there to watch him. We've started bringing a kitchen timer along so that he has to sit out and watch everyone else play for a bit. It's a great idea in theory but I don't think he gets it. It just ends up being tougher on me because Jeff is out there coaching and I'm trying to juggle a bored/fussy infant and an anxious Connor.

I spend many a lunch hour feeding Noah, or hunting around for a tool belt or a specific green shirt to finish up Connor' Halloween costume. Which reminds me that I need to grab some white felt for his Handy Manny hat...ugh. Some days/weeks/months I really love running kiddo errands but sometimes it catches up with me and I feel a bit...um, what's a nice word for strangled? Oh, there's not one. Damn. Ok, I feel whelmed.

I think I'm just feeling overtaken with mommyness right now. I love it, being a mom is everything I'd hoped that it would be and more...but that doesn't mean the task is simple! I discovered the other day that just a few months ago my commute used to be spent listening to talk radio, listening to audiobooks, on the phone catching up with friends or whatever...my commute is a third of what it was and it is 100% full of I spy, singing the bumblebee song, trying to focus on the road with two screamers in back and lecturing Connor about his bad report from school. I have completely lost that alone time in the car. Does that sound selfish? Hope not, but if it does I think I'm allowed.

Not surprisingly, my post is not at all helping me get out of my mood. I think I'll end with this picture of my amazingly adorable boys and get back to work. I've got lots to do before I head out in a couple of hours in search of white felt. :)

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-13T10:33:00.006-07:00

yummy rice cereal. we ditched the shirt AND the bib this round!

hanging out in the big boy seats at school

at school - he's getting so strong and really good at tummy time and propping himself up...he'll be crawling in no time...sigh.

thanks ikea

Noah's 4 month dr appt. when connor wasn't playing on the doctor's swirling chair, he wanted to be right next to Noah. bros.

...or finding it hilarious to get in the way when i tried to take a picture!

sneak peek at Noah in his Halloween costume. This is the only hand me down costume he'll wear but we had to let him wear Connor's from his 1st Halloween. Kinda a tradition. a tradition involving short pants.

We all went out for Carly and Lauren's 30th birthday. As you may imagine there were nearly 80 photos taken and I managed to get 4-5 keepers. It was a good time :) We all get together so rarely now that we really enjoy it when we do.

Lys

Lo and Carly in front of the 100oz beer tower Dawn gifted them with. Would you be impressed or concerned if I told you that Jeff ordered one for me and I emptied it myself? All myself.

This just happened

2010-10-12T07:16:00.004-07:00

I've been waiting for the day to arrive when Connor finally repeated something bad that Jeff or I said. That day is here...kinda. I think he's easing us into it though, which if true, I appreciate.

Today on the way to school Connor's cup fell out of the cupholder and he shouted "darn!" with all the force he has. Yes, I know darn isn't like dropping the f-bomb or anything but still...he's three and that means it's only a matter of time. I'm sure he picked this up from us, as much as I'd love to blame it on school or Papa Van Hook and his sailor mouth :) Jeff or I will slip occasionally and the other parent will quickly correct with a less offensive word. This isn't the first time he's uttered things we've said in haste. One I find particularly hilarious is when he's playing a game or tball or something and he shouts out "Are you kidding me!?" totally in context. It's good stuff.

We aren't big cursers by any means, but yes, it happens. I think I'll try to get it all out of my system when the boys aren't around me so that I'm not accidentally dropping the occasional bad word around their copycat selves. That being said, I'm going to end this post and go get some effin coffee. Mommy's tired.

Guess who loves food?

2010-10-11T05:00:00.002-07:00

This Guy!

well, eventually his did anyway. Noah got the go ahead from his doctor to start solid food earlier this week. We'll be giving him some rice cereal at dinner time only, so just once a day for now. I seriously don't remember this stuff from Connor so it's good that our doctor explains it all over again. I remember that Connor loved the cereal and that he grabbed the spoon after I fed him a couple bites and wanted to do it himself. I really think Connor was a month older than Noah when he started solids though. Ok, just checked on Connor's old baby blog and he did start after Noah. If you're so inclined, you can read about it here.

Yeah, so you can see above that he was super happy sitting in his bumbo and then we tried to give him the rice cereal and it all went to hell...within two minutes. Hilar. Yes, I am mean and took a pic of him all pissed with food dribbling out of his mouth. So sue me. It still makes me laugh to look at so there.

We decided to switch him to the actual high chair for his first/second try at cereal and it went great. I think he may still be just a wee bit skinny to sit in the bumbo for anything important like eating. He slips around in there and his leg gets all stuck and jammed in there which really seems to piss him off. Anyway, after we moved him he did just great. We know that the first few feedings tend to be for practice anyway since barely anything actually stays in the mouth...babies just don't know how to deal with spoon eating yet.

He did really well with it and kept lunging for the spoon. Seemed like he had a great time. I think we'll keep it at once a day for a few weeks and then start up with twice a day once he's mastered the spoon thing. I have some video of it that I'll post later, so for now here are a bunch of photos of the event.

Warning...I'm about to talk about breastfeeding --- This new step also marks the end of my nursing days. Noah has been a great breastfeeder, but our schedule is just making it tougher and tougher. Also, I am horrible at pumping so I'm only nursing him 2-3 times per day so my supply is dwindling. With a few overnight babysitting occurances coming up this month, it will be even tougher. We have a wedding coming up next weekend and I'm so not feeling like pumping during a reception...again. I'm not really sad about it at all - I'm just thrilled that I got to nurse Noah since Connor didn't. I was all but totally done on Saturday and I'd had zero pain that's typically associated with stopping. Unfortunately, Noah had a cranky afternoon and I held him while he screamed and cried for about 20 minutes straight. It really is true that you can start producing when your baby cries. Yeah, lots. So I was back at square one and ended up nursing him that night. Sunday I started again and I'm feeling better now that it's Monday. Luckily, I've slowly lessened how much I nurse so the transition hasn't been difficult at all pain wise. As for Noah, he's so easy and could really care less where his meal is coming from so there's no transition there!

Thanks for checking in on the fam. This is an exciting milestone for Noah Bear :)