Death and Taxes

What's that old saying?  There's only two things certain in life, death and taxes.....or something like that.  Well, one thing is for certain.  10 on Tuesday probably isn't going to happen today.  There is a slight chance I may get to it tonight, but I have other things I need to be doing :)

But on a high note, I did finish our taxes yesterday.  Shoot, it's not even the last minute.  I'm already mentally spending the refund.  Just doing my little part to boost the economy.

Just so you don't feel cheated, here's a pic.  My little guy is trying so hard to ride a bicycle all by himself.  He can pedal about 1 or 2 rotations, but that's it.  His little legs are not long enough yet.  But he sure loves to try.  Here's my buddy enjoying the bicycle.  Not a technically correct picture by any means, but I love it.

Tuesday again?

Man, Tuesday seems to come quickly these days.  I have no idea where the last week went.  I really swear that I try to post on more days than just Tuesday.  But another week snuck by me.  Maybe next week :)

1.  It's been raining like crazy here.  I swear the grass is up to our knees now.  The kids haven't really wanted to go out and play in the rain (it's still a little too cold) but Little J loves to put on the rain boots.  I bought the kids each a pair this year.  Of course Little J wants nothing to do with his.  Heck, I don't even remember what they look like.  But I know they were cute.  Instead, he prefers this:

Every.  Single.  Time.  I don't know what is the big difference between these and his little boy ones are.  The other day I asked him why he wants to wear sissy's shoes and not his own.  He replied, "cute!".  Oh boy.

2.  You know what one of my biggest pet peeves is?  People who still write checks at stores.  Please join us in the 21st century and get yourself a credit or a debit card.  Sorry to any of you that might still use those archaic things.  But I just can't stand it.  It takes 3x as long to complete the transaction.  And yes, I'm the lady behind you who has exactly 2 seconds to get out of the store before one or both of my kids explodes.  And no, my kids discipline issues are not your problem.  But come on already.  And what I love even more is when they don't start to fill out the check until the clerk tells them the total of their merchandise.  Come on.  Did you forget what store you were shopping in?  What date it was?  How to sign your name?  I do believe 2/3rds of a check can be filled out without knowing the total of your merchandise first.  If you must insist on using a check, at least have the courtesy to fill out the blanks you do know in order to speed the process along.  Just a little pet peeve of mine.

3.  Little J has been sleeping and eating better lately.  I'm sure it's a fluke, but I'm going to ride the good wave.  I don't even think I hear a peep out of him in the morning until 6:45 almost 7.  That's pretty much a miracle for him.  Sure better than those 5 a.m. days!

4.  When the sun did manage to shine for about 2 hours this week, we headed outside and had a little tea party.  

5.  Miss C is obsessed with the mailbox and getting mail.  She wants to check the mail just about every hour to see if we got any new letters.  Poor kid.  I keep trying to explain that the mailman only comes once a day.  But she still wants to stalk that little black box anyway.  Last week Nana sent a package and she was over the moon.  She actually played post office with that package all afternoon.  I gave her a roll of tape and I didn't see her for an hour.  She had a great time putting stuff in the box, taping it up, delivering it, opening it up (and acting surprised) and then repeating the whole process.

6.  I can't believe Easter is next weekend.  I haven't even thought about it, much less prepared for it.  Better get crackin!

7.  I guess this should really be renamed 7 on Tuesday.  I'm having a hard time getting to ten.  Here's my 52 weeks pic.  I said last week that I kind of wanted to spice things up a little.  Not that I don't love the standard pic where we are all looking (or at least one of us is), but I wanted to get back to a little humor.  This pic is inspired by that photo Blown Away.  Somedays I feel like this is so true.  

10 on Tuesday

My goal is to make Tuesday today!  Most of these pics are in black and white.  I'm in that kind of mood today :)

1.  We had B over for a playdate again last week.  The kids play really well together when he is here.  Since it was a nice day, we spent most of it outside.  They love to play "ball hoops" and run back and forth to the little playhouse we have.  We even had a little picnic lunch.  Look at miss lounge-erella back there.  A kick off the shoes and put your feet up kind of picnic.

2.  So we were outside over the weekend and Miss C kept bugging me to take pictures of her.  Of course I grabbed the camera and happily obliged her.   Well come to find out, she just wanted a lollipop.  So I made her work for it.  I told her I wanted a good shot of her and Little J both smiling at the camera.  I don't know how she managed, but she did it.  

Little J had a good time too.

Needless to say, they both got their lollipops.  I'm such a sucker (har, har).

3.  We also enjoyed a fishing trip (to Mee Maw and Goompa's neighborhood pond) and a picnic.  The kids had a blast fishing.  It was too cute.  Here is Miss C chillin' by the pond

Daddy showing his little buddy how to fish

Doing it all by himself (notice how we replaced the fishing pole with a stick).  He was none the wiser.

The two musketeers 

All that standing was so exhausting.  So they decided to sit and fish for awhile

One of my favorite shots of the day.  Goomps enjoying the afternoon

4.  Fishing worked up quite an appetite so we had a nice little picnic.  After that, we headed to the park for a little fun.  All in all, a fun afternoon.

5.  Little J's hair is starting to get really curly.  I haven't cut it yet, but the top is becoming a little unmanageable.  Poor little guy.  Hopefully it will be cute curly hair :)

6.  I have no idea why the site is underlining the text.  There isn't even an underline button.  Sometimes this blogger really frustrates me.

7.  Not too much else really going on here.  I'll probably just end with 7 today.  Here's my 52 weeks shot.  I feel like it's kind of getting to be the same old same old.  So I have an idea.  Next week I'm going to try to start interjecting humor into the pics.  I already have my first shot planned out in my head.  Stay tuned :)

Top 10

Instead of my usual 10 on Tuesday, I thought I would do something a little different.  Read:  I don't have any pictures of the kids this week and I failed to get my 52 Weeks pic.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I have one pic of the kids this week.  Can you believe it?  One stinkin' pic.  That's it and that's probably a record for me.

So instead, it's the Top 10 Reasons you know you are in the C household:

1.  The kids instinctively know when J is out of town.  They reek havoc on this mama.  They rarely get up in the middle of the night, but when J is away, they manage to double team me.  They must have a secret code or something.  It's almost like they tag out with each other.  When I finally get one back to sleep, the other gives me about 15 minutes and then starts up.

2.  The laundry has been sitting in the dryer for 2 days and no one seems to care.  Hey, at least it's dry.

3.  Your almost 2 year old's favorite phrase is "no, mommy" followed by "I don't want to"

4.  Your 3 year old taught him that.

5.  The oldest one in the household (ie me) is not the boss.

6.  People always look at you funny when you tell them you have a 3 and a 2 year old.  Almost like they are trying to do the math in their head.  The puzzled look is then quickly followed by an "I'm so sorry for you" look.

7.  I often get asked, "are they twins?".  My mom always got that too (my sister and I are 18 months apart).  I chuckle at this one.  Miss C is still a good 6 or so inches taller than Little J.  She also looks a lot older than him.

8.  I haven't heard the radio in 3 years.  Beyonce?  Who's that?  Now, give me a good rendition of Twinkle Twinkle.  I'm all over that.  I also find it amusing that They Might Be Giants (a popular band when I was in high school/college) now sings children's music.  I guess I'm still hip because I'm still listening to them.  Now, ask an 18 year old who They Might Be Giants is and I'm sure they will have no clue.  But all you 30+ somethings know who I'm talking about.

9.  Your two year old is the pickiest eater in the world.  He will not even touch chicken nuggets or mac and cheese.  What kid doesn't love those?  But play doh, he can chow that down like he gets paid to do it.  I don't get it.

10.  And the one pic I got this week.  I took the kids on a walk yesterday and decided to use my new ipod (which is a hand me down from J and is about 4 years old).  Never-the-less, I was pretty excited to use it so that I could drown out any bickering that might go on.  Miss C noticed it and asked what it was.  I told her it was my ipod.  She then said she wanted her "ear pod" too.  So she jammed to her music the whole way too.  I guess it was too much to ask for a smile.

Sheesh

So it hasn't gone unnoticed that I didn't post my 10 on Tuesday this week.  I have gotten several emails wondering where it is.  Sheesh.  

It's been busy around here.  Doing what, I don't exactly know.  But it has been busy.  The weather has been great too....so we've been spending a lot of time outside.   I even had by 52 Weeks done before Tuesday!

1.  Little J has not napped for 4 days straight.  This little bugger better not be dropping his naps on me!  He is napping now, thank goodness, but I'm stressing that this might be the end of my freedom.  He doesn't sit in his room quietly for as long as Miss C does.  I maybe get an hour, but that's it.  I know, I know.  I should be lucky I at least get an hour.  My mom loves to point out that I dropped naps when I was 15 months old.  Little J is 22 months so I should feel lucky.  Well I'm just going to hope it's a fluke anyway.  Here's my two guys.

2.  Miss C got a new bike.  We finally put it together last weekend and she loves it.  She can zip around so much better than the tricycle.  She picked out the princess one.  Nice and girly.  Although she did ask for a new helmet and she wants a Lightning McQueen one.  Girly but not too girly.  That's my girl.

3.  Little J insisted on riding a big bike too.  A little too big, but it's what he wanted.  We have a rule, no riding without a helmet.  So we grabbed J's old baseball helmet.  

4.  Chillin' after a bike ride.  Enjoying a nice refreshing juice.  That's the life.

5.  Dance like no one is looking

6.  We celebrated Goompa's 75th birthday this past weekend.  He actually turns the big 75 on the 14th, but they have other plans, so we did it early.  It was a nice dinner out and then we went to their house for cake and ice cream.  Goompa loved all his gifts.

Don't you love how Miss C took it upon herself to jump in this shot.  I swear, that girl never wanted to see the camera before.  Now she kind of likes it.

7.  So I decided to take advantage and try to snap a few of her.  This is how it went down at first.  Of course.

After the promise of candy, this is what I got.

She's no dumb cookie.  She's figured out that if she behaves in front of the camera she gets a treat.  Hence why she decided to jump in on the shot of Mee Maw and Goompa.  Little stinker.

8.  I tried to start swimming lessons this past week.  My dilemma was that Miss C is supposed to be in a class where the parents do not get into the pool.  They wear flotation devices and learn to swim without mommy.  Yeah right.  Like that was going to happen.  So I had the bright idea to start them off in the same class and then move Miss C up to the next level once she was comfortable.  So I'm thinking that having them together in the lower level class should be pretty easy, right?  Wrong.  What a disaster.  Miss C was ok with going in the water but would not release her death grip on me.  I have no idea how they are going to expect her to be in the water without me.  She's used to wearing a flotation device, but she still wants to cling on to me just in case.  Now, Little J wanted nothing to do with the water.  I was surprised because he loves the bath and loved the pool last year.  He eventually warmed up to it after about 30 minutes, but it wasn't easy.  Even then he didn't want to get his face near the water.  Forget trying to turn him on his back to float.

So after 20 or 25 minutes of this, Miss C announced she had to go to the bathroom and I decided to leave class early.  We had disrupted the class long enough.  We're going to try again this Saturday, but J is coming with me and they will be in two separate classes.  I'm not letting J get out of this fun.  

9.  Little J's two bottom canine teeth finally poked through.  Finally.  Man, that was a long time waiting.  Poor guy, I know they have been bothering him.  Now probably a month or so of a reprieve and then the 2 year molars.  He had a much harder time teething than Miss C did.  I swear I don't remember her teeth bothering her half as much. 

10.  Here's my 52 Weeks.  Notice anything different?  I decided to be sassy and dyed my hair dark.  It was a impulse purchase at Target on a Thursday night.  Don't ask why I did it.  I have no idea.  I'm slowly getting used to it.

10 on Tuesday

I hope I can make 10 today!  I haven't really picked up the camera this past week because I've been so busy with other things.  But we had snow yesterday and I managed to snap a few....

1.  Boy did we ever have snow.  About 4 inches of it.  Of course Miss C thought Santa was going to come again.  We rarely get snow in these parts of town, but it's managed to snow 3 or 4 times this year.  Each time I dread the old, "is Santa coming today?!" question.  She gets so excited, I just hate to burst her bubble.  By the way, she's been telling me that she's going to ask Santa for roller skates next year.  I guess Santa forgot this year.  What was Santa thinking?!  Well this mama just couldn't let my little buddy be disappointed anymore and decided she needed her roller skates.  She got them today during an outing at Toys R Us and hasn't taken them off since.

2.  And the snow pictures

They tolerated it much more than last time.  It still took Little J awhile to warm up to it.

3.  We were out in the snow at 7:30 that morning building a frosty the snowman.  Here is Miss C having her own little conversation with him.

Finally, giving him a hug

She kept checking on him all day yesterday and today making sure he didn't melt.  I think it's supposed to really warm up tomorrow, so we'll probably have to say goodbye to him.  Let's hope we don't see snow again until next winter!

4.  Little J has been saying Miss C's name (instead of just calling her sissy).  He pronounces it exactly the way she pronounced her name when she was first learning to say it.  It's not the easiest one for kids to learn.  So it's funny that they mispronounce it the same way.

5.  So I've been proofing the newborn session I did with my friend the other day.  Usually I try to go through all the photographs and jot down my favorites and then go back and edit those favorites.  When I came across this photo, I thought it was kind of cool because this little one loves to stretch and kick up those feet all the time.  It wasn't one of my favorites right off the bat, but I'd figured I proof it anyway because I kind of liked it.  

While I was taking the pictures, my friend and I would talk about random things.  For some reason, we started talking about how mom's feel when they have babies and how it's not always love at first sight (and how no one ever tells you that is totally normal).  That happened with my kids.  It took some time before I really felt the bond with them.  My friend shared that it was almost immediate with this little one because while they were in the hospital there was a little scare with the baby's blood sugar.  Miss R couldn't regulate it on her own in the beginning and ended up having to stay an extra night in the hospital.  My friend said that having something like this happen to your child really kicks in that maternal bond.

So while I was proofing this picture, I happen to notice that if you look closely you can see two little prick marks on her heels (click on the pic if you really want to inspect it!).  I just love how this photograph represents something so special.  Now it's one of my favorites :)

6.  And I think I'll end here.  Here's my 52 Weeks photo.  Not the best, I'll admit.  But hey, it was 7:30 in the morning and I barely had time for one cup of coffee before the kids dragged us outside.  So cut me a little slack, will ya?

Perfection

This is miss R (whose birth I photographed last week).  I took her newborn pics this morning and couldn't wait to dive in.

I think this photo says it all.