Exhausted

Another day late.....I've been pretty worn out lately.  I feel like I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel though.....

1.  It's been one big whine fest around here lately.  I seriously don't know what's been in the water, but both of the kids have been super delightful.  Ha, ha.  They say 3 is the new 2.  Sucks because I have a 3 and a 2 year old.  I guess I'm just lucky to get those terrible 2's and 3's all at once.  In about 2 years I should be sittin' pretty though.

It got so bad, that it was a revolving door of timeouts the other day.  There were several points where BOTH of them were in timeout at the same time

I'm kind of running out of corners around here.  And of course, that was all before 9 a.m.  What a fun day.

2.  I've started a group personal training class.  It's Tuesday and Thursday night and this is week #2.  It's kicking my butt.  I'm working muscles that I didn't even know I had.  The drill sergeant, I mean trainer, is pretty adamant about not drinking any caffeine.  If you think I'm giving up my morning coffee, you're crazy.  But I thought I would at least try to give up diet coke.  I only drink one a day (sometimes two if I'm extra tired).  I thought I would start today.  I made it to 9:08 a.m. before I wanted one.  I managed to hold out until lunch, but then I caved.  Maybe tomorrow.

3.  I came across THIS site and thought it was pretty informative.  It even breaks it down by age category.  Miss C has always been a big reader and we have books everywhere.  Little J is finally starting to really enjoy looking and reading books.  Of course, they usually have to be about tractors, trains, or cars.  Those are his favorites.  He even started to try to "read" the story.  Of course we really can't understand what he is saying, but he thinks he's reading.

4.  One of Miss C's favorite things is snow globes, or snow gloves as she calls them.  We've kind of started a collection.  She keeps them in her room on her dresser for safe keeping.  Right now she has three, one from NY, one with a bunny rabbit, and one with an airplane.  I think we'll try to keep the collection going.  Here she is admiring one of them.  Of course she had to be extra gentle.  She's kind of obsessed with taking care of them.  She knows they are fragile.  Believe me, she knows.  We've broken our fair share of snow gloves.

5.  We've been practicing naming the months of the year.  I think Miss C has pretty much got them.  She flubs a couple every now and then, but otherwise she's pretty good at it.  I've been repeating it so much that I was surprised that Little J picked up on it.  He knows February, March, April, May (although sometimes he skips it) and June.  Oh, and he knows October.  He'll shout it out after you say September.  He gets so excited.  We're also learning our colors.  He's been doing pretty well with that too.  I guess I also need to move onto shapes.  He has his 2 year appointment in a couple of weeks and I at least need to prove I'm not a total slouch.  Little J better be on that day if the doctor starts to quiz him!

6.  The weather has been so nice that we've dragged out the pool.  The kids are having a ball.  Miss C also enjoys the sprinkler.  Little J, not so much.  I've got to say that I'm kind of surprised.  I thought he would go at it full steam ahead.  

7.  I'm gonna end it here.  Sad that I only got to 7.  Even sadder that I don't have a 52 week pic this week.  Oh well.  It's been a whiney week :)

Forgot

Somehow I managed to neglect these two gems.  First is Little J enjoying the swings

And this is going to come back to haunt her someday.  She was tired of posing and decided to be creative when I told her to look at the camera :)

Can you say blackmail?  this might resurface when she starts dating :)

10 on Tuesday

Wow, Tuesday again, huh?  This might contain minimal words, but there sure are a lot of pics.  

1.  Well, let's see.  The day before Easter we dyed Easter eggs.  We decided to let the kids have a free for all.  I think more dye was on their hands than on the eggs.  But they sure had a blast.  Little J was throwing the eggs in the cups by the end and Miss C decided each one needed a "bath" in the yellow dye.  So it was a hodge podge of brownish broken easter eggs :)

Little J with the grandmas


2.  Easter morning was a blast.  The Easter Bunny was good to these kids.  Little J could have cared less about the amount of presents.  He found his plastic egg with jelly beans and was done.  He got smart, we put goldfish and pretzels in the eggs.  When he would come across one of those, he tossed it aside.  I guess it wasn't good enough :)
3.  Miss C was more amused by the amount of presents.  She quickly tore through all the bags

She was even excited to get raisins

But the best of all was the mini M&M's in the candy figurine.  She saw those in the store and just had to have them.  Funny that she hasn't even asked to open them yet.  I took all the stuff away after easter and hid it.  I guess she forgot how badly she wanted them :)

4.  Afterwards we got dressed and headed to Mee Maw and Goompa's house.  Mee Maw and Goompa had brand new fishing poles for them.  After that we had another Easter egg hunt.  Miss C was the one that spotted the eggs outside.  I had to lock them in the house to prevent them from grabbing everything before I could snap a pic

That little gem should count as my 52 weeks pic since that's me in the reflection.

Sitting down enjoying the spoils.  Someone (cough, cough) allowed them to plow through as much of it as they wanted because he, I mean someone, didn't want to have to listen to the whining when they were told "that's enough".  Needless to say, we had a major sugar crash before lunch.

5.  Just a cute pic of Miss C that I snapped.  I'm not sure what she was laughing at

6.  So I bought these parasols at hobby lobby the other day.  $4.79 for each of them.  What a steal.  I bought 5 different colors and I can't wait to break out the rest of them.  I took Miss C and Little J to a local garden the other day to give them a whirl.

Miss C has adopted the silliest "cheese" face when posing for the camera.  I try to tell her to relax and smile "naturally" but this is what I get.

I guess I should be thankful I even get eye contact!

Little J wanted to join the fun.  Being only $4.79, these things are pretty flimsy.  Little J (in true boy fashion) was trying his hardest to break them.

We were doing pretty well with the parasols until the kids found a water fountain.  Then it was all over.  At least they had a good time.

I pretty much had to promise the sun and the moon to get this.  Again the cheese face and the other one with food in his mouth.

7.  Since we had a nice weekend, we headed to a local park for some playground time and a little picnic.  Little J had fun running around and kicking the soccer ball we brought.

8.  There was this cute little path there through the woods.  Miss C wanted to go and look for deer.  I took the opportunity to take some snaps as usual.

I think this is my new all time favorite pic.  She's so silly :)
9.  I know I could get to 10, but that is all the pics I have proofed.  So here's my 52 weeker.  I look like crap-ola, so excuse that.  Holy bloat and bad angle :)

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

I know it's Thursday, but I've been so busy.  So this is a post and run, but I won't leave you without a pic.  Update coming soon.  I promise :)

10 on Wednesday

Only a day late, not bad.  I was going to try to get it done last night (gasp, three posts in one day) but I decided to go out and Easter shop for the kids.  I think I'm all done getting the goodies to fill up their baskets. 

1.  Miss C is so excited for Easter.  We've been having "practice" Easter egg hunts in the living room.  My job is to hide the eggs and her job is to peek while I'm hiding them and then run around and find them.  It's so cute.  She's going to love the hunt we will do in our backyard on Sunday.

2.  We went to our neighborhood Easter egg hunt last weekend.  I think the kids were a little overwhelmed.  There were a ton of people there and I don't think they like the large crowds.

Here she is getting ready for the hunt still with that, "I'm not so sure about this look"

Once they got started, they were ok

Miss C even posed with the easter bunny.  

And finally a picture of the family.  Of course we couldn't have everyone happy.  You can just forget that.

3.  After the hunt, we headed to a b-day party.  I didn't take too many pics there, but here is Miss C and her friends (G + K) enjoying what every kid basically goes to a b-day party for (the cupcakes!).

4.  Another pic of Little J on the bicycle.  

5.  Miss C has been really big into role play lately.  We seem to "reenact" the same things over and over and over again.  Right now she has been focused on the dentist.  I'm not sure why this is.  I guess the trip there a couple of months ago was a little more traumatic than I thought.  She keeps asking when each of us have to go back to the dentist.  She knows I'm April, she's August and Little J is next May (when he's 3).  Anyway, her favorite is to walk into the waiting room and have me ask who she is and what time is her appointment.  Then I'm supposed to tell her to go have a seat in the waiting room.  A few moments later, I'm supposed to call her name.  In her mind, she is supposed to ignore the call like she didn't hear me.  It's so funny because she giggles the whole time.  Then she finally comes for her appointment and the "lady" has to check her teeth first and then the dentist.  She just loves this game.

She also loves to play teacher.  The other day she set up court and read to one of her kitties. 

6.  Little J is all about Monkey See Monkey Do.  He watches his sister and then does everything she does.  It's funny to her now, but being an older sister I know it's not going to be cute for long.  My little sister used to do that all the time.  Drove me nuts.

7.  We managed to have one nice day last week and did a little painting.

She was showing me she got paint all over her finger.  She wanted to immediately wipe it off (like it was bothering her).  Never mind it was all over her clothes.  Wonder why that didn't bother her?

8.  I've picked of knitting here and there again.  I like to do it at night sometimes (it really keeps me out of the kitchen).  Anyway, Miss C told me she wanted to knit too.  So I gave her two needles and some yarn.  This is what knitting is to her (just threading one needle through the ball of yarn):

Miss C has really started to crack herself up lately.  She loves telling silly stories or saying silly words and then laughing at herself.  Kind of like she's the funniest thing in the world.  I just love that about her.  What a great quality to be able to laugh at yourself :)

She's also been into emotions too.  She constantly asks to see my happy face, my sad face, my angry face, etc.  This is her surprised face:

9.  If your wondering why 99% of this post is about Miss C, it's because Little J was in one bad mood this past week.  I didn't dare piss him off further by sticking a camera in his face.  I'm not sure what the problem was, but as of this morning he is back to normal (well as normal as Little J is).  Thank goodness.  I was about to go crazy with all the whining.  

10.  Here's my 52 week shot.  This is how I feel sometimes.  I was trying to tell Miss C to look "sneaky" as she was putting it on my back.  I guess it got a little lost in translation.  It always seems to be like this.  PS--she made the letters by herself:

Happy Tuesday, er Wednesday!

Sneak peek

Ok, I just posted below this too, but I've been editing for the last couple of hours and needed to get my girl CG a sneak peek of her cuties.  She's a loyal reader and I know she'll be so excited to see this post is for her :)

Hope you enjoy them!  

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.