Friday, April 22, 2011

let me explain...


"see what had happened was..." - a quote from an old Bill Cosby standup routine. love it.
One of the truths is this. Stella was playing a game on my laptop. I told her to put the laptop away and get ready for school. She did it immediately. But she put it "away" on the ottoman. Rex followed behind her and threw my laptop on the floor. My laptop (lifeline) didn't kinda break. The apple store called it "worst case scenario." What?
It was an arduous journey through computer repair/nerd land. If Mark said, "Well I am Mark, I am the data recovery specialist" one more time!
The other truth is that I lost ALL of my pictures. The weird part is that I asked (paid) Mark-I-am-the-data-recovery-specialist to recover them specifically and I still didn't have them. Long story. Now I do. Some of them I even have in sextuplicate. Is that a word?
The last truth is that I got out of the routine.
Anyway. We are back now and my little babies are so good.

I'll start with SJ. I firmly, firmly believe in The Birth Order Book. Stella is precious and smart and amazing. However, we are opposites! She is type a all the way, bossy, competitive, obsessive. At the same time she is creative, sweet, caring, compassionate, patient, and very thoughtful. For example, she wanted to learn to snap. I showed her how. She let it marinate for about a day and then she got it. She didn't just get it, she got blisters on all of her "snapping fingers" on both hands. She snapped non stop for 2 weeks. WOW. I had no idea you could snap blisters onto your own fingers. Thats dedication and its typical Stella Jane. Stella is very opinionated, scientific and thinks way ahead. She is always hypothesizing and running experiments. Its really cute (scary) to hear her rationalizations. Yesterday after watching Bambi she said, "This movie is so sweet because when they all get to be teenagers they match up with girl teenagers." So many things race through my mind when I hear these comments from my little girl. Sadly, its already clear that she is boy crazy. I do not know why. But Bambi? Thats all she got out of Bambi? Well no. That wasn't all. About 30 minutes later she said,
"Mommy is it called 'buttheads'?
"Excuse me?"
"When Bambi and that other deer get into a fight with their horns?"
"Oh... yes." Buttheads. Butt heads. Huge difference.
Love her to pieces.
Yatesie. This boy is a new man. No more tantrums. Stays in his bed at bedtime. He is pure boy though. See his one knee kneel picture below? Have you ever seen a little girl do that? No. He is also sloooooooooow motion man. (Thank you again Birth Order Book) Basically if Stella likes it, does it, says it, reads it, breathes it, eats it, drinks it, Yates will NOT. He refuses to eat lunch or dinner. He refuses to tee tee at school. He does love oatmeal, cheese sticks, yogurt and nutri grain bars oh and calamari. Thank goodness or he would starve to death. Last weekend he spotted calamari in the frozen foods section at Costco. Talk about needle in a haystack. Needless to say we bought them and he wants calamari for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He loves to jump, run, climb, smash, crash, be outside and annoy. I think S and Y are learning so much about gender relations having each other. What a huge bonus. Yates gives the best hugs. He says he learned them at school. Please. Love that boy.
Rexie. What a sweet little baby. He had his 15 month checkup today and was hilarious. He sat in an adult chair and let Dr. Neely listen to his heart and check his ears all by himself. Dr. Neely was shocked at his compliance and at his huuuuuuuuuuge feet. Said Rex will be tall. Yay! He is wearing Yates' shoes from last summer. (reminder, they are 2 years apart) R has learned to be loud, very loud. He calls me Daaaaaah-deeeeeee and can really get loud with it. He calls Michael Dadee too. Somehow its a little bit different. Rex loves to eat. As soon as I get him out of his highchair, he runs to the pantry and begs for something else. We are working on that situation. Rex loves to climb, has learned to run and as I always say, he is so patient. He gets the short end of the stick every day. He gets his meals at odd times, he gets woken up from naps and crammed in the car, he gets abused by his older siblings. But he still has a huge smile. Love this boy too!
I will try to do better at blogging from this point on.

Friday, February 04, 2011

Busy, busy, busy

Daddy came home from work early today. Blizzard of 2011. I'm sure the neighbors love us : ) Or feel sorry for us for being completely loony...

I have been so busy trying squeeze in all of the things I want to do with all of the things I have to do. pant, pant, pant. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. It can be done... Me and Mrs. Phaedra Parks "really can have it all"... if only I could say it like she does. Totally kidding, but I do loooove me some real housewives... all of them... all of the cities... love!

New Toy Tamer Shelf... built by me, all 425 lbs of it : )

The kids are all fabulous. Stella is her usual literal, bossy, domineering self. We like to think its not her fault. Its her birth order/ only girl/ little mommy complex. We really do stay on her to keep her from absolutely crushing her brothers with her sheer presence. She is precious, perfect, thoughtful, loving, sweet and most always has the best intentions. Its just that people don't always want their stories finished for them or their imaginary game rules changed or the light switched flipped 1/2 a second before they could reach it on their own or to be talked over or overruled or wrapped in beads or reeled into a race or surrounded by unusually high volume/and rate of motion. She is a force for sure. Brilliant as ever, she asks questions like, "Mommy what is mortal?" before I even open my eyes in the morning... and she's only warming up.

Yates is still reveling in his birthday glory. He loves to push the boundaries as far as he can. He is dying to know what happens when you get to the 3 of 1,2,3. He doesn't mind being corrected for the same issue 2 million times a day. It just doesn't phase him at all. He will wait for ever for his chocolate milk if he isn't quite ready to ask for it politely. He likes to ask for something (without the please) be corrected for the missing please, then just say, "please." I think he is totally cheating the system. I'm onto it and it isn't going to fly. New rule. I need the whole sentence with the please all bundled up into one polite package. We do this literally 8000 times a day. Wouldn't it be simpler to just say please the first time? You'd think. Y is still very cautious, but strong willed at the same time. He completely lost it the other day when I wouldn't allow him to shimmy/tiptoe (barefoot of course) along the 2" outer edge of the cooktop, barely holding on to the ventahood while I was boiling a pot of water. Really? Does anyone else see this as uber dangerous and completely out of the question? Y rationalized that he had no intention of falling and hurting himself so why couldn't he just walk around up there with the boiling water and FIRE. Call me crazy. Y has started gymnastics and really loves it. He is the only kid in his class and I think its good for him. Lots of attention!

Rex, oh Rex. Another force, tasmanian devil in the flesh on a permanent seek and destroy mission. Now he can wreck some stuff... like we needed any help. He really loves all things crash, smash and bang. He really ought to look into adding a word or two to his vocab. uh-uh-uh isn't descriptive enough. He picks up on everything swirling around in here, knows how to hold and shoot a toy gun and is a professional truck scooter arounder complete with sound effects. If you can make truck sounds, you really should say a word or two. One of the cutest things he does is start waving when he is tired. Nap time or bed time he will get his paci and giraffe binky and just start waving. See ya! Another funny thing he does is pull up on his shirt when he wants to be taken out of his high chair. He is the perfect candidate for baby sign language. Someone ought to teach him that...


teensy little side note. starting a new blog, cause i'm so current with this one, for my new art expedition ; )

Monday, January 31, 2011

Yates is 3!

Happy Third Birthday Yates!

I really don't know where the time has gone with Mr. Yates. It just doesn't seem like he should be three. He is delighted to be three and we celebrated his big day as hard as we could. Stella suggested to Yates that he should have a fireman party and that was all it took. We had a great day and a super fun party with all of our friends and family.

Sitting in the firetruck with Stella

We had some of Yates' favorites, pizza and brownies and lots and lots of firetrucks. A fireman friend, Brian, loaned us all of his real fireman gear and gave us fireman coloring books and crayons. He even included a real patch (that Yates wore on a tshirt) and a Dallas Fireman tshirt. So, so generous! We rented a huge firetruck bounce house that was super fun. I think Michael played in it for at least 2 hours. The biggest surprise was having the fireman from our local fire station stop by in the huge fire engine. Bop and Gabby delivered a bribe earlier in the day and begged them to stop by if they were available and they did. I had already given up on the idea after calling every Dallas Fire Dept # I could find and being told "no way" over and over. Leave it to Bop. The kids loved seeing the fire engine and getting to climb through it.

The dudes hanging out with the firemen

Aside from the fabulous celebration we have the real Yates. He is a very sweet and sensitive "big" boy. (He is not little if you ask him!) He is a non-conformist for sure. He is coming out of a very frustrated stage that we are still working through. With a super sized personality as a sister and baby brother I know Yates feels the squeeze no matter how special we try to make him feel. Luckily his daddy is a middle child and turned out fantastically. Yates has an amazing imagination and plays soooo hard. It is so cute to listen to him playing and to the scenarios he is creating. He is so thoughtful and gives the best hugs. He says he learned those hugs from his school... really? Yates is a master noise maker and does the best helicopter sounds among many others. He "does not like his bed" and sneaks down stairs like a silent ninja multiple times eeeevery single night. He loves going to the grocery store and detests school mornings (understatement of the century). He has the best laugh and gets tickled so easily. He is my sweet big boy. He has taught me so much about raising boys and about how far patience and understanding will go. Happy Birthday Yates! We love you!

Climbing/screaming on the awesome jungle gym from Gigi and Gabby

Happy Birthday and Good Morning Shot #3

Buzz Lightyear Birthday Bike

The Men Playing Firetrucks...


Sunday, January 16, 2011

Happy Belated New Year...

So doing a better job at blogging obviously wasn't on my New Years resolution list. I do want to do better but a resolution probably won't help.
It has been a loooong time. Rex turned one on Thursday!!! We celebrated with Bop and Pink and a highly inappropriate kids birthday dinner at NHS Grille. The adults enjoyed themselves as best as we could. The kids just hung in there. Luckily Yates loves calamari (strange b/c he is uber picky) if you can order it plain, Stella loves mac and cheese and bread and Rex will eat anything that he can catch. We had a group birthday cake baking effort and opened presents.

I love taking the babies pictures when I wake them up on their birthdays. Here is Rex's 1st of many...

Rex doing his 1st Birthday masterpiece. I love these so much...

Having a little birthday cake with Stella and Daddy

Opening a present

Yates documenting...


Our little mini party pales in comparison to what a precious baby Rex is. He deserves fireworks and a full circus, sweet, sweet boy. He loves his big brother and sister and tries all day every day to be and do just like them. He actually keeps up really well and is going to be one tough cookie. He is almost always in such a good humor and does so well putting up with our hectic schedules and the terrible nappus interuptus situation. Rex is always smiling. He is very good at making copy cat sounds, but doesn't have any actual words... except Dada. When I ask him to say Mommy, he says Dada. Michael loves it and its fine with me. He is our sweet little baby and can just stay that way.

I don't know what it is about the turning of the calendar but it is fabulous. Whoever came up with resolutions, thank you. We all know that resolutions are hard to stick to, but just the idea of a fresh start, another chance is such a relief. I have wiped my slate clean from 2010 and am trying desperately to work every day on my resolutions. I am desperate to focus on art and creativity this year. I enrolled in an abstract art class and hope to hone my art and really find my true style.
2011 is also the year to go as natural and organic as I can. I have always had a preference for fruits and vegetables and whole/healthy/unprocessed foods. The thought of what is actually in processed foods just turns my stomach. Pesticides, chemicals, meat processing, high fructose corn syrup... all of that irks me. I hope that offering my family "real" food will teach them the correct way to eat and make them all healthier overall.
And finally, I want to work on my stress management... whatever that entails... I will be doing it. Lots of deep breaths and counting to 10 I guess. Happy New Year!
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