Swim Lessons

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?

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

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

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??

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

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. #subtledisappointmentstillstin​gs

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

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??

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

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

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

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!

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!