Water Leak

Lucas had been crying because he was tired and frustrated. Once he finished crying this is what he said:

"Mom, my eyes have a water leak."

We then explained what tears were.

Mr. Nicholas

This child makes me laugh, a lot.

Mr. Lucas

This child melts my heart.

Thanksgiving 2009

We took our new vehicle to the top of the mountain. We went the back way which was on a closed forest service dirt road that was mostly covered in ice and snow and the Xterra did great. I don't think the tires spun one time, the traction was outstanding. We popped out just below the peak so we went up and saw the view. And of course the kids saw snow and had to not only play in it but EAT it as well. This was Olivia's first experience with snow and she took a cue from the boys and decided to have a taste. It was so cute, Lucas told us on our way up the mountain that his ears turned off. We told him to yawn. He yawned and then announced that his ears had turned back on again. SO CUTE!

We then went home and made a fantastic meal. Except for the broccoli casserole. Predictably, american cheese slices do not belong on or anywhere near broccoli. Next time I'll just steam it and call it good.

One of the cats decided to make a grab for the turkey and jumped up onto the counter while the turkey was unattended. We probably never would have known about her adventure except she landed in the pumpkin pie and left four footprints. We identified which cat was responsible by finding residual pumpkin on Haylee's left rear paw. She seemed so innocent too when I asked her if she had anything to do with the paw prints. She looked right into my eyes and seemed to say "who meeee?" Haylee is such a hooker.

Looking south


As usual we had to keep Nick from jumping.


I don't know if you can see it but Nick is literally doing a pull up here. His feet were off the railing as he tried to climb the railing. And this folks, is why Nick sometimes has to wear a leash.


Lucas was elated to finally play in the snow. I felt bad I didn't plan ahead and bring snow clothing.




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Broccoli Salad Ghetto Style

It just occurred to me while talking to my sister that I forgot a vegetable for Thanksgiving (no, yams and mashed potatoes don't count). And we are eating in 2 hours. I had broccoli so I looked up a recipe and found one that I could make with ingredients I had on hand. Don't pat me on the back yet. This recipe involves 8 American Cheese slices. I don't think it gets any more rugged than American Cheese slices slapped on top of vegetables smothered in cream of mushroom soup then topped with smashed "buttery crackers". This should be interesting. I think I might clog a vital artery with this one.

Inside a Pumpkin

Shower Needed

This morning I decided that I needed a shower no matter what. I was tired of waiting for a "good" time which of course never comes. Today Nick stood outside the shower screaming and crying and banging on my shower door. It was really pathetic and upsetting. So I peeked out and saw Lucas sitting on the floor of the bathroom, also present to make me feel guilty for finally taking care of myself, and asked him to go get a pacifier to Nick. I then heard Lucas lead Nick into the living room where the crying stopped. So all was well. Blessed silence.

The silence continued, and continued and as I was quickly conditioning my hair I started to get a little panic-y. I rushed to finish the shower, threw a towel around myself and peeked into the living area where I saw the boys camped out on the floor with a huge basket of pez and Lucas was popping one piece at a time into Nick's mouth and Nick happily was crunching away. (We keep the pez up high on the bar, where we thought Lucas couldn't reach, for special rewards.) My first instinct was to yell at them to stop eating CANDY!! Oh my God unmonitored candy consumption???!!! But I stopped myself and saw the bigger picture for once. Who cares if they eat a shit load of candy? What's the worst that could happen? Rotten teeth? They'll grow new teeth. But holy shit I got a shower!!! And now I will have time to brush my hair AND teeth and I can get fully dressed. This was a blessing in disguise. So I tip toed back to the bathroom, cracked the door and ignored the situation in the living room. When I came back out Lucas had already put the basket and all traces of unmonitored candy consumption away. Everyone was happy.

Little Man Lucas helping Daddy reassemble our kitchen table. He looks so old in these pictures.



Here is Nick helping me figure out how to use the big intimidating pressure cooker. Once again I had waited until the last minute to plan dinner and so the pressure cooker was my only option. It worked out alright. Please ignore the big scary sharp cutting utensils that I have placed my curious and fearless toddler next to.


This is the humongous fish at the aquarium that scared the crap out of Nick . . .


. . . and made him hide behind my leg and put a death grip onto my pants.


Here are the humongous eels that also scared the crap out of Nick. . .


. . . and sent him scrambling to find a way to climb unassisted up my leg.


Giant Clams and their tiny companions the star fish aren't intimidating at all though. They had this bad boy under a black light (I know can you say welcome to the 90's? Gawd.) and all these little circles on the clam were glowing.


Lucas


Nick


Seahorses.

Things I've Said Today

• 5:45am: "No no, everything is fine thank you for calling. My son set the alarm off letting the dog outside." I was asleep and didn't know he was up.
  
• 10:15 am: "Nick NOOO!!! Awww shit." (elevator alarm going off - thankfully it stopped on its own)
• 11:30am: "Lucas can you show him how to get down? No! Don't drag him honey. Show him." Followed by me climbing into tubes and play equipment designed for little people so I could rescue Nick who was being dragged by his hood through the tubes by Lucas.
• 1:00pm: "Don't stick your fingers in there! Awww shit."
  

And the adventure continues.

New Blog I'm Following

Hey Ya'll go check out this blog http://whatsforlunchdot.com/ . I've added the link on the left of the page too. My sister told me about it and the author is very funny and her recipes look super yummy. I'm going to try the cranberry one tomorrow. Mmmmm.

Teething Sucks

Poor Nick. He has had a fever for two days now and I think it is his canine teeth finally are coming in. All he wants to do is be held and carried around, which is really not good for my achy back. I'm not going to make him suffer through alone, so I hold him and try to make it all better. He is not sleeping well at all and is up and down a lot at night. Today I had to hold him just so he'd fall asleep. I was pinned down in the chair while he slept and I was really bored so I took our picture (see below). Poor little man. He is still so little.



Mr. Lucas is so freaking cute and so incredibly sweet! Just the other day I taught him to respond to my questions with "I'm down with that Mom". Ahhhh! Hearing his sweet little boy voice say funny things like that is the best. Today he very patiently and thoroughly explained to me that he is not ready to poop in the toilet yet but that he will let me know when he is ready. I just could eat that kid up! I can't believe how sweet and innocent he is. I want it to last forever. Sorry there are not any pictures of Mr. Lucas but he is very good at avoiding the camera and not smiling or looking at the camera. I hope it is just a stage. I really want some good pictures of him soon!

Screaming in the Background

Just once, ONCE I'd like to have a phone call where Nick isn't SCREAMING SCREAMING SCREAMING in the background. It is so loud that people on the other end can't hear me. And to top it off I am loosing my ability to hear and understand people in crowded places. Yes that is right I think I am suffering from hearing loss. Even AJ has noticed it. I can't hear the woman checking me out at the grocery store, nor can I hear the pharmacist or my husband talking to me in the same room. I can't hear. I am constantly asking people to repeat themselves or to speak up. I think Nick is causing me to go deaf.

Parenting Mistake Number 5,247

This morning was chaotic, trying to find the library book that Lucas had to return today, finding a show and tell item, getting him dressed and fed and onto the bus all within 20 minutes. Then I started making a dinner for a new mom in my group (yeah, the mom group I won't stop talking about because I have nothing else going on) so that I won't have to worry about it later. By the time I got Nick dressed for the day it was nearly 3 hours after he had woken up. The problem is that I had completely forgotten to get him a new diaper when he woke up. The one he had on was . . . not so great. Once I pulled his sleeper off this is what I saw:




Opps. Sorry Nick.

What Goes Around

Do you remember this post?

Well pay back's a bitch. Lucas was playing in the laundry basket when Nick climbed on top. He could have thrown him off if he wanted but Lucas was sweetly in the basket asking me to get Nick off. I told him to hold on a second while I got a couple pictures. And so Lucas patiently waited for me to take pictures.



AJ is out of town. Last night Nick toppled once again from the computer chair, except this time he didn't bite through is tongue. Nope this time I struggled to keep the little guy conscious. I knew it wasn't good when I heard the "I got hurt really bad cry" followed by his eyes rolling around and his complete unwillingness to support his own head. Scary. He never fully lost consciousness because I kept pestering him but I was 2 seconds from calling 911. He was acting normally when he went to bed and his pupils are equally reactive to light so I think we are in the clear. If he were acting strange I'd take him in - again. All I did was leave the room to go turn a light on in Lucas's room. That's it. Next thing I know I hear a thud and crying. Seriously, this kid is crazy. I really don't know how to baby proof for him, we wouldn't have any furniture or counter tops or toilets or bathtubs. . . . you get the picture. Anyway. I will continue to chase his ass around all day and hope that we don't end up calling 911 any time soon.

This and That

We went to the natural history museum today. It was a free entry day!!


This is the arm of a starfish and these are it's feelers. I've never seen the feelers before but the whole starfish was moving around and using it's feelers. Really pretty cool.


Here are all the kids (some from my Mom's group) checking out a shark. OOOhhh. A shark. It was a really big deal.


Here are my crazy ass neighbors burning piles of tumble weeds from their backyard. At night. The wife kept hosing down embers as they flew through the air - not that it did much good. And her kids were right under the path the embers were taking and she didn't seem to care.

Here is the neighbor using his propane burner thingie to light the fire. I think he got singed because he ran back after I took this picture. We just bought one of these burner things too. They are a lot of fun.


Here is monkey boy climbing the baby gate after I told him not to.



He climbed down after I yelled at him.


And then he decided to go under the gate.


So proud of himself.

Zoo Day!!

Daddy Lion. He showed off his boy parts and a small group of young school kids started asking questions about the dangling parts. It was really funny - until Lucas heard them and started asking me about the dangling parts.

I made the kids pose in front of the Red Panda exhibit, and then I didn't get the stinkin' panda in the picture. But good news, the kids are getting better a posing for pictures. I was able to get both of them in one shot and no one was blurry.

Giraffes are a really big deal people. They have long necks AND long tongues. Nick watched them eat with their long tongues coming out and he kept sticking his tongue out too.



Zebras!!! Nick is half child half monkey. It was all I could do to keep him from launching himself over the railing and into every enclosure.

Hippos!!!

We waited for the zoo train. It does a loop around the zoo. As it turns out we see mostly construction areas of the zoo and not too many animals.

Riding the train. Nick was about to fall asleep in this picture.

Lucas was soooo excited. I'm not joking. He was so happy to be riding a train!!


You are witnessing several miracles. 1) Nick is asleep in public
2) I was able to transfer Nick from my arms to the stroller and he never woke up
3)Nick is asleep in the stroller!!! This was right after we got off the train (where Nick fell asleep).

See the baby Orangutan? She is 13 months old and is super freaking cute with her wild baby hair. She was so clumsy climbing around but the adults all helped her out.

This is Daizy the baby elephant who is 1 month old? Maybe 2 months? This is her grandmother with her. He mother was across the yard getting some alone time. Daizy already weighs over 400 pounds.

Checking out some Pinnipeds. Lucas LOVED them. They kept swimming really close to the glass and stopping to check him out. I was so excited too that I only took a few pictures.


Here is Houdini. He made a near successful attempt at escaping from the car seat while we were on the freeway. He shoved the chest buckle down to his waist and popped his shoulders through the straps. I could have killed him. I cinched him up so tight in the car seat that he screamed all the way home because he no longer had any wiggle room. Too bad Houdini.