heeellllllooooo out there

Is there anybody there?  I'm pretty sure I'm losing readership as we speak.  I've been so bad about updating and I missed another 10 on Tuesday.  This might be a drive by post, but at least I'm posting!

This is little J in a get up he put on all by himself.  Sometimes I worry about him :)

The kids were in a good mood tonight so we had a little fun with the camera.  We set it on self timer and did some goofy poses.  It was all fun and games until both of them wanted to take over position as camera man.  I guess pushing buttons on expensive electronics is so much fun.  Amazing how that works.  Anyway, here are a couple that we got before things started to go awry.

Enjoy!

Catching up

I don't even know where to start, it's been so long!  We've had a busy last couple of weeks and I feel like I'm really getting behind on this.  Maybe I need to not do 10 on Tuesday for awhile and do mini posts throughout the week so it's not so overwhelming!  Who knows.....

1.  Our good friends the G family moved to Connecticut this week.  Boo.  We miss them already.  I had a little farewell playgroup last week to give them a proper chaotic send off. I think there were 17 kids running around.  But that's so our playgroup--chaotic.  It's amazing that when we first started having playgroups, we all only had one child (and they weren't even walking yet).  Playgroups were relatively tame and more for our personal socialization.  It's been fun to see how much things have changed.  Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures (and the ones I did are crappy) so I can't share any here.  Double boo.

2.  Little J has really started to want to "accessorize" himself.  It's so funny with some of the stuff he comes up with.  Usually he puts on his boots with just about any outfit.  He's finally into his boots and not Miss C's pink ones.  Thank goodness.  He did feel the need to mow the lawn like this though

He also likes to wear hats.  J got him this Boston Red Sox hat so that he could look just like daddy.  It's so funny when he realizes that J is wearing his.  Little J will run right to his B Town hat and ask to put it on.  If the Boston hat isn't around, anything else will do

3.  This is a typical Saturday or Sunday morning at our house.  Daddy usually makes pancakes for the family.  With two toddlers, we always have someone ready and willing to stir the batter

4.  We celebrated Little J's birthday this past weekend with a party.  It was a joint party with his friend B who turns two next week.  We had a whole train theme and even planned for a trackless train to come to the party for train rides.  Well, it didn't go as planned.   It was supposed to rain on Sunday, so we cancelled all the train plans and had the party at Monkey Joe's instead.  All in all, the kids had a great time.  Here's Little J playing hoops

Here are the two birthday boys getting ready to blow out the candles.  Look at that snickerdoodle on the left.  I was just waiting for her to jump in and blow it out for them.  That is something she totally would have done.

Here they are enjoying cupcakes

Finally Miss C having a good time

5.  Nana and Aunt K came into town for the festivities.  Here is little J with Aunt K

6.  We also had our good friends the P family come in for the weekend and stay with us.  We had a great time with them as usual.  Here is little J and his buddy K taking time out for a few snacks.  Playing all morning is just so exhausting

7.  We brought out the sprinkler and Miss C and her friend M had the best time running around in it.  As a bonus, it's cheap entertainment and it waters the lawn at the same time!

8.  I'm not sure what she is doing in this picture, but it is so her for some reason.  She's been really cracking herself up lately.  

9.  Again, I have no explanation for this.  We had to borrow a ladder from a neighbor to help get a balloon out of the fan (don't ask).  I left J and Little J to take care of that task.  When I downloaded the pictures, this is what I found.  Looks like they had the situation all under control, doesn't it?

10.  No, I don't have my stinkin 52 weeks pic.  I'm really slackin in that department.  But I do have a great #10.  I'm going to have a nephew!  Uncle M and Aunt J are going to have a baby boy in September.  I can't wait!

Celebrate!

What a big day!  Not only was it Mother's Day, but Little J turned two.  You know what that means?  One extra minute in time out!  Just kidding.  I feel like my baby isn't really a baby anymore....

This morning we headed to brunch to celebrate Mother's Day.  It didn't go as well as planned since the restaurant didn't have a very kid friendly menu.  So my munchkins had dessert for breakfast.  Little J I could justify since it was his birthday and all.  Miss C just got lucky.  

Then we headed home for naps and a party for Little J in the afternoon.  The kids played in the pool, we at pizza, had cupcakes and then opened presents.  All in all, it was a good day.

Happy Birthday little buddy!  I can't believe you are two already.  We love you!

Tap, tap, tap

Can you hear it?  The proverbial fingers tapping of the 2 or 3 readers that anxiously await the 10 on Tuesday updates.  Does it surprise you I'm another day late?

1.  So I have a lollipop sitting on the counter and just within a certain 3 year olds vision.  I know, I know.  Cruel, huh?  Well this morning she says to me, "mommy, can I have that lollipop when I take some pictures?"  Oh, I have her so trained.  Or maybe it's the other way around.  Regardless, as soon as the sun decides to come back out, I'm going to start dangling that thing in front of her.  I have some hopes of practicing sun flare shots in a field of wildflowers.  I just need to find that field.  And with my sun flare skills, this may take quite a few lollipops.

2.  So this hot mess wants to get her ears pierced.  

Oh boy.  Not that I have anything against getting girl's ears pierced at 3 1/2, but I guess I'd always assumed we would wait until she was like 12 or something.  I think that's when I got mine done.  She's been begging and begging to do it.  It's been kind of out of the blue, so I have no idea where she is getting it from.  The other day she told me that her ears won't be beautiful until she gets them pierced.  Way to tug at my heart strings.  I thinking she really doesn't know what it means to have them pierced, she just wants to wear earrings.  So I'm going to try to find some cute clip ons and see if that will at least pacify her.

2.  Little J's favorite word is "poopie".  Isn't that cute?  Insert sarcasm here.  It doesn't help when you have a three year old that laughs like crazy when he says it.  That only encourages him more.  

3.  We had a playdate with little B this past week.  I decided it would be a good idea to bring out the paints with a 3 year old and two almost 2 year olds.  Of course I only had one plastic smock, so of course that went to little B.  I wasn't about to have his mom mad at me.  

Meanwhile my kids were practically eating the paint.  Just kidding, it wasn't that bad.  But I did have to strip them down and change their clothes.  I'm sparing you pictures of that mess.  It was a good time actually, so I didn't mind the clean-up.

Afterwards, Miss C sat down with them and handed out stickers.  They sat like this for about 20 minutes.  It was great.  

4.  Did you ever have your mom tell you, "wait until your brother/sister is older, you're going to be sorry?"  I always heard this when my sister and I would gang up on my brother and make him do stupid stuff.  When he got older, he was able to fight back (or at least got smart enough not to fall for our BS).  Anyway, Miss C has always had an issue sharing with Little J.  Usually when I ask her to share, she replies, "well, just 10 more times and then I'll give it to him" or "in 10 minutes".  Remember how she loves the number 10?  Anyway, this would drive Little J crazy.  No patience what so ever.  The other day I asked him to share the sippy with Miss C, he replied (with a finger wagging no less) "garble, garble, garble, 10 minutes.  In 10 minutes.  10 minutes.  10 minutes."  Ha!!  Wait until your brother is older, you're going to be sorry.  Of course I wanted to say to her, "sucks don't it?"  But I just kept my mouth shut and smiled :)

5.  Miss C has decided that for her birthday she would like binoculars and a diamond like Daisy (from Mickey Mouse).  

6.  I took the kids out on a cloudy day and tried to get a little practice in sucky lighting situations.  Of course I promised the lollipops and managed to snap these:

It took a lot of coaxing, believe me.

7.  I just love the bond between siblings.  These two are starting to really have conversations with each other.  Little J has become so verbal over the past couple of months and Miss C seems to really understand him.  For example, this morning they were both laying on the bathroom floor looking at an ant (why there are ants in the bathroom is another story).  They went on for several minutes just talking bath and forth to each other.  It was so sweet.  That's why I love this pic.  It's just the two of them engaged in their own conversation.  

8.  Little J's birthday is on Saturday.  Holy Smokes.  I can't believe he is going to be 2.  I have no idea what to get him.

9.  Miss C is getting so brave.  She went down the "dark slide" at school.  You know, the tunnel slides.  She has never had the urge to go down one before.  Now that she's done it, it's all she talks about.  She can't wait to go back to school and do it again.

10.  I don't have a funny 52 weeks pic.  I guess I kind of crapped out on that.  Anyway, here is one where everyone is looking and even appears to be happy!

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 :)