Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I know that the rain does many great things for the earth, but I am ready for it to go bless somewhere else for a while. Today is so rainy and c-o-l-d! Brrrrr... It was nice this morning to just stay inside, take it easy with the babies, and get some cleaning done in the big boys' rooms. But now- now, I am ready for some warm sun. Last week was so beautiful. The kids actually wore shorts and short sleeves several times, they played outside, we even had to turn the air conditioning on for a day or two because it was 85+ degrees outside- Spring had sprung! It was actually a little reminiscent of summer.

But then, it all changed. The heat is back on, the winter coats are being used daily, and it is just plain cold!
Today it is particularly cold, and this rain has just not helped. The dogs do not want to go outside, and when they do, they come back in smelly. On top of that, the kiddos can not go outside to play. They begged me to not park in the garage (even though it is a freezing cold rain, and I had to carry in two babies in that freezing, cold rain). So, we parked in the driveway, I made several trips in and out getting everyone and everything into the house, all so they could play in the garage.
So, this is what they have been up to today...

Landon practicing using Tyson's Healy's and

Tyson playing BeyBlades with a very captive audience of two.

( Yes, I know, my garage is a mess-- that is the least of my worries. haha)

Not nearly as much fun as playing outside in the warm sun, but at least they are enjoying each other's company (for the most part anyway...).

We are anxiously watching and waiting for Spring to make its return...

St. Patricks Day and the Birthday Celebration!

Saint Patrick's Day was an exciting time in our house this year. The boys have to wear a uniform to school that does not allow for green, so I got them these to wear to avoid being pinched.

The babies, of course, wore green.

 (sorry- turn your head to see this cute little leprechaun)

(We got her this adorable shirt for only a dollar at babies r us two weeks beforehand-score!)

They were both so bummed that a leprechaun had not come to school that day to give them gold coins. I wanted to make something green for dinner but after the green eggs we had the week before, I figured the best way to celebrate this holiday way was with dessert. I made a cake that had green jello inside, but from the outside all you could see was the whipped topping, making it appear white. (I had a fantastic helper in the kitchen--)

Of course, all he really wanted to do was this...

and this...

:-)

I kept telling the boys that I wished that I could have made a green cake or that the leprechaun would have come and dusted some green dust on the cake to turn in green, but they did not care. I was hoping that once we cut into it, they would have thought that the leprechaun had come and sprinkled his magic dust on it, but honestly, by the time we cut the cake, they had other leprechaun mischief on their minds. You see, while we ate dinner, that naughty leprechaun HAD come after all. He had made a special trip to their bedrooms in search of a pot of gold. He was a very naughty leprechaun and had left their rooms a MESS!!

(Tyson's room)

and

(Landon's room)

Luckily though, that silly leprechaun also left them these...

That totally made their night. By the time we cut into the cake, they didn't even care that it was green on the inside-- they didn't even notice until their daddy pointed it out ( in an effort to save my feelings, of course).


The very next day was Tyson's birthday. This year he opted to have just a few friends over for pizza and a movie. We thought that would be a simple little thing to do... haha, famous last words. First, Evan had gotten pulled over by a young zealous cop that morning because his tags did not match the vehicle description DMV had on file-- Ugh! So, he had to make a trip to the DMV to get that straight (insert lots of groans here). That took way longer than expected, so he was on his way to get the cake and movie later than planned. Then, in all of the frustration of the day, he got the wrong movie. The boys had decided that they wanted to see Megamind, but he got Despicable Me instead. I was of course no help, because when he asked if that was the right movie, I assured him that it was. haha. Wrong!


He got home and I ran out to get the pizza. He called me to tell me that it was the wrong movie and asked me to stop and get the right one at Redbox. Of course, I did not have my debit card, so I had to run the pizza home, get my card, and go back out to not one, but two redbox stands before finding the right movie. All that work, and those kids did not watch more than five minutes of the movie before growing bored. So... CAKE TIME!!

Of course, before feeding the cake to the kids, Evan wanted to get a taste... haha

The cake was delicious!! But, it was too small. There was hardly any left for us to enjoy later!

But, our big guy had a fantastic birthday, and that was all that mattered. This is what he got...


$20 from his Grandma Duff
Underwear and a shirt from Aunt Gina and Steve
$10 and a book called 'How to Talk to Girls' from his cousin Brooke and Aunt Mendy and Uncle Steve
$25 from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Hunt
Some Beyblades, a set of walkie talkies, and some Beyblade accessories from Mommy, Daddy, Landon, Chloe and Peyton
A gift card to McDonald's (and one for Landon too) from our neighbors
and a Giant Hershey bar from our other neighbors.
Oh, and Aunt Paula let him spend $40 at Toys R Us on whatever he wanted.


He also got to pick our lunch spot the next day, which of course, he picked McAlister's.

So much to Catch up On!

I started this blog as a place for me to come and share some memories that I want to last forever, but some days, I am having a hard time even finding time to get here to post. Guess that is the price that you pay when you are a work at home mom with two babies running around under your feet 24/7. But I would not trade it for the world! What I would trade, however, is my house. I would LOVE for it to go under contract so that we can finally move closer to Evan's new job. It would be awesome to be able to see my husband more every day, to not pay the cost of commuting 3 hours each day in today's gas prices, and to just feel settled already. I know that all of this will come in God's time, but man, I am finding a hard time being patient lately. This is something that I know that I must pray about and truly turn over to God. I am working on that!


Okay... so, since last I posted Spring has sprung and then disappeared again, St. Patty's day came and went, and I became the mother of an EIGHT year old!!! Whew! I can not believe that my little baby Tyson turned eight! It seems like just yesterday that I found out that I was pregnant with him. In June of 2002 Evan and I decided to throw caution to the wind and start trying to have a baby. The next day, Evan was not so sure. haha. He wanted to talk about it and really think it through, as was his personality. Well, we didn't have much time to talk about it, we found out we were pregnant two weeks later. :-) I remember the excitement. I remember not telling him that I had gotten a pregnancy test, taking the test (while he was at work), and then being so shocked and excited that it was positive. I could not contain my excitement- I called him and told him over the phone. Not the most earth shattering way to break the news, but he was super excited too.


I remember the long wait to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl, and being just certain that it was going to turn out to be a girl. Her name would be Taylor. haha. Well, then that appointment came, and I was SO wrong. Little Tyson Andrew was growing inside my belly. We were thrilled!! I remember the false labor that sent this anxious first time mommy to be to the doctor's office two weeks before her due date, only to be told that I was dehydrated. I remember being in middle of parent- teacher conference day and going to the bathroom, and my water broke. I remember walking to the classroom next door and asking the teacher what it felt when your water broke because I was so nervous that I was wrong again. I remember getting in the car and calling Evan, who was at home already, and asking him to get my clothes ready to go to the hospital. I remember calling my mom almost in tears with anxiousness and nervousness to tell her that it was TIME! And I remember getting to the hospital and being there for what felt like forever before labor actually came on. I remember them telling me that it was not going to happen anytime over night so they gave me some good sleeping medicine, and that is just about the last thing I remember. haha. You see- they did not want to check me too often because my water had broke and they did not want to cause infection. What they did not realize, however, is that the machine had somehow messed up and was not registering my contractions. I remember telling that the doctor that I was sure something was happening and he finally agreed to check me and was shocked to find that I was at a full ten centimeters and that little boy was coming! They took me to a delivery room and I remember there being A LOT of student nurses in there. Three pushes later, my beautiful little boy was born. I remember they laid him on my chest, and I was with it enough to know that I could not be responsible for him, so I asked Evan to take him. I remember Evan saying that his head was so big- he had seen Tyson crowing and was not expecting what was coming out to grow so much. haha. What a fabulous day that was. We had so many visitors in and out of the hospital room that night. It was great.


Well, I have to stop there for now-- It is time to go pick that handsome little boy up from second grade now along with his Kindergartner brother. More to come... hopefully later today.

Memories that I want to last Forever

The whole point to this blog was to record memories of my little ones that may otherwise get lost in my mommy brain or fade over time. These are just a few of those memories that I want to last forever...

Tyson
You are such a smart little guy. You love to listen in on conversations and then repeat them later while asking questions. :-) You are fantastic in math. You love to read every sign or piece of paper that we come across, yet you do not enjoy sitting down to read a book without some pushing from mommy and daddy. You have a lanyard that you got from your teacher (from the prize box) that you have attached a key to the back door on that you wear everyday. A few months ago, you made your own "keypad" to access your room. You always punched in your secret code before you went in- every.single.time. Mommy and daddy made you take it down when we put the house on the market- we did not think that potential buyers would know the code. :-) You love to ride your bicycle and your rip stick and you really love to play basketball. You are very good at all three. You are wearing size 8 in pants, 8- 10 in shirts and size 1 shoes. You fall asleep between 8 and 8:30 every night and wake up each morning between 6:45 and 7 am.

Landon
You have progressed so much with your speech this year. You also love to play outside on your bike, scooter and ripstick. You are really enjoying Kindergarten, but you also really love the weekends when you get to have a "sleep over" in Tyson's room- even though he usually makes you sleep on the floor. :-) You love to play with your big brother and do whatever he does. You are also very good in math (probably because of all of the time you spend with Tyson) and you enjoy playing video games on your Nintendo Playstation. You wear size 5- 6 in pants and shirts and size 12 shoes. You like to stay up late at night, and mommy and daddy have to make you go to sleep most nights between 8:30 and 9. You like to sleep until 7 in the morning most days.

Peyton
You are getting to be such a big boy! You love to mimic things that you see other people doing. One of your favorite things to do is to sit in front of the guinea pig's cage and watch him play. You also like to stand at the window and watch things happening outside. One of your favorite treats is when you get to play outside on the trampoline. You also like to have mommy or daddy hold you up to the basketball goal and shoot a basket. You and your sissy hold hands in the car sometimes, it is so sweet. You are not enjoying your naps so much these days, even though you still really need them. You have started napping only one time each day- usually for an hour or 90 minutes in the morning. You are small for your age, so you are still wearing size 12 months in shorts (usually the waist still has to be folded over), and you can wear 12- 18 months in shirts. You have finally transitioned to 18 months sized pants, but the waists definitely have to be folded over in order to keep them on your waist. You are wearing size 5 shoes. You love to take your shoes and socks off in the car, and you love to play with your toes. You have a toy slide that you really enjoy playing on as well.

Chloe
You are such a pretty little lady with a great personality. You wear a hair bow everyday, although recently you have decided these bows make for a great snack. You are crawling all over the place and love to play in the bathroom drawers. You pull up on all of the furniture and doors, but you do not seem to be very interested in learning how to walk. You love all of your big brothers and relish any attention that you can get from them. You take two naps a day, the first one is in the morning and it usally lasts from 90 minutes to two hours. Your second nap usually comes later in the afternoon and lasts for about an hour. You go to bed each night between 7:30 and 8 and then wake up early in the morning (around 5 or 5:30 am for a bottle). Then you go back to sleep until around 7 am. You wear size 9 months clothes and size 2 shoes. You also love to pull off your socks and shoes every chance you get. We have lost shoes at least twice in stores because of this habit. You love to look at yourself in the mirror. You are also very chatty- you talk all the time although you don't really have any real words in your repetoire yet. You do not like baby food anymore- you would prefer that we cut whatever we are eating up for you and place it on your tray so that you can feed yourself. You are a very good eater. :-)

Whew... What a night!

Yesterday was a fun day, but it was followed by a very long night! Yesterday there was not too much on the To Do list. The babies and I had to make a run to the grocery store because we were completely out of fruit and breakfast items! That is never a good thing in this house. We always have tons of cereal choices on hand. Remember how Seinfeld's cereal cabinet was always stuffed and people would say, Who has that much cereal? Well, we do! Anyway... off to the grocery store we went. The babies had a blast "driving" the racecar cart. LOL.

We got out of the grocery store JUST in time for school pickup. We got almost back to the school when... Ut oh! The low fuel light staring blaring at me... 1 mile to empty. Yikes! Luckily we were right next to a gas station, so we got gas and then were just a few minutes later than usual getting into the pick up line. Whew!

So, for dinner last night, in honor of Dr. Suess' birthday, we had GREEN EGGS! I did not make ham, but we did have a yummy breakfast for dinner. The kids loved it and ate every single bit of the green eggs. I took a picture of that too, but I have not uploaded it to the computer yet. All in all, it was a good day.

And then the night came... Everyone went down fine, but just before bedtime, both babies started showing signs of a runny nose. Peyton woke up at least six times throughout the night. He wound up in our bed because I was so afraid that he was going to wake Chloe up. Finally, around 3:30 am, Evan put him back in his bed. We started to fall back asleep when Landon comes into our room and announces that he has thrown up in his room. Fun! Of course, the next thing out of his mouth is that he may need to stay home from school tomorrow. haha. That boy has his priorities. Needless to say... we are all tired today. The babies are taking an early nap, and soon we will be off to pick up the big boys from school. They have an early release day today and then a teacher work day tomorrow... should be a fun weekend.

Tonight is Tyson's basketball team's pizza party. Hopefully we will all be feeling good and it will be a good time for all. And we are praying that bedtime tonight is much smoother!!

Pictures from our Weekend.... finally.

Since I am so new to this blogging thing, I wasn't quite sure how to upload photos in the beginning. Now, I am not sure of how to update posts to include them, so I am just starting a new post. I have a few minutes while the babies are napping, so here goes....

Here is my Tyson playing basketball on Saturday. What great form. :-)

Chloe is cheering him on...

Shooting his foul shot...

Back at home on Sunday, playing and relaxing on the deck... That mess on her face is from ONE Cocoa Puff.

The boys playing on the trampoline. Peyton LOVES playing with his brothers.

And Chloe... well, she loves to empty the drawers in the bathroom. :-)

They can hardly wait to jump into that bathtub!

He is so cool. :-)

Having so much fun.

Back outside, on the slide...

Finally... my turn!!

What a great weekend... can't wait until the next one!