Updates! LOTS of Pictures!

The laundry room!

brushing his teeth 

playing with the new tool bench 

had to pull his hair out of the way because he was feeding himself pudding and I didn't want it in his hair! 

GO PACKERS!!  Super Bowl sunday

Oh man, where does the time go?  I haven't blogged in over 6 weeks....Here's a quick update:

down the slide with Lulu

Hanging out playing with the tool bench again!

Baby E has learned to open doors around here.  This is NOT a good thing.  Since he has been mobile, I have been closing all door down the hallway to encourage him to stay in the "living" area of the house (where the toys, kitchen, etc. are located).  Now that he can open all those doors, he has decided that the bedrooms and bathrooms are much more fun to play in.  I don't mind the bedrooms so much - not too much for him to get into in there.  But the bathroom?  it's like Chuck E. Cheese in there for that kid.  The toilet water is apparently waaaaayyy too fun to pass up, and the drawers?  I had no idea that my hairdryer and hand towels were so much fun.  The worst part is that now he knows how to get outside. I see a trip to Home Depot in my very near future: like tonight when Big J gets home from work!
Baby E is also learning lots of new sign language thanks mostly to the video that Nana got him for Christmas.  He now knows how to say (in addition to what he already knew) "sleep", "bed", "cookie", "bath", "eat"  and my favorite: "love you".  There are a few more, but I can't remember them right now....he's also beginning to say few words - movie, cat, no, yes and Maria (his cousin) are the easiest to decipher, but he also knows 'fish' (eeeesshhh), yuck (uckks), and a few more - he does a LOT of babbling and he understands most of what I say to him (where is the ball?, where are your toes?, where is daddy's hair?, do you want to have breakfast?, etc).  I guess it's time to really start watching what I say around here!

The backsplash in the kitchen

I bought him a tool bench at a rummage sale a couple of weeks ago and he is LOVING it!  It has become his "go-to" toy whenever daddy is around.  He pretends to fix his big truck (that grandma and grandpa got him for Christmas) and uses the screwdrivers in some pretty random places (like on the couch and the fireplace).  He's getting so big and watching him learn is pretty amazing!

Hey mom, Take my picture!!!

In other news: I don't know if you've heard this or not, but my hometown team, the GREEN BAY PACKERS won a little game called the Super Bowl!  What an exciting time in this area!!  We also completely finished our kitchen/laundry room remodel!  Just got the tile backsplash in the kitchen last week, so it's officially DONE!!

Breakfast time!

I feel bad because I laughed

And then I realized he was really hurt.  Because he started crying AND there was blood.  Baby E was sitting in the basket that usually holds all his stuffed toys.  He was rocking back and forth then tipping himself over backwards onto the rug and he would Laugh and giggle and scream.  Then as he rocked back and forth, he tipped FORWARD, landing on the tile in front of the fireplace.  At first I laughed because I thought it was cute and then the blood.  Oh the blood.  Everywhere.  Took a quick look, does he need stitches?  Whew, just a bloody nose.  That I can handle.  Stop the bleeding and reassess.  Oh no.  He has a fat lip.  A big one.  Poor little guy.  He got an extra special bubble bath and I let him suck on ice.  Boys will be boys.

Baby E's first fat lip.

A-B-C-D

A funny feeling came over him.
"Blow dryer" said the assistant.
Come on now, he thought.
Don't be such a baby.
Everybody doing this, right?
Finally, everything was ready.
"Go ahead and turn around" said the stylist.
"Holy Cow!"
"I look like a whole different person" he said.
"Just imagine what your wife will think" said the stylist.
"Kelly is going to be so impressed", he told her.
"Let me just have a minute here and I'll be on my way."
"Maybe you should take a little more off the back?"
"No, I definitely think this style works for you" she assured him.
"Okay, but it's just so different from what I'm used to" he admitted.
"Probably because it's such a new style, it IS the 80's after all", she said, starting to get annoyed.
"Quite right", he said.
"Remember when you came in last time and I told you to grow it out?"
"Sure am glad I listened to your advice," he said
"Totally!" she agreed
"Unbelievable that just 2 years ago you had that disco look, huh?" she added
Vastly different from this, that's for sure, he thought to himself
"Well, I guess I had better get going." He told her, walking toward the front desk.
"Xerox of your receipt, sir?" The receptionist asked as she popped her gum.
"Yeah I guess." He answered
ZOWIE!  Forty bucks for a perm?!?!?!?

This post was written in response to the prompt Red Writing Hood - go check it out for some AWESOME stories, including one of my favorite (although truly scary, haunting) pieces by Natalie at Mommy of a Monster and twins.  I am not yet a member of this club, but I thought I'd give one of their prompts a try!  

I am NOT impressed

New Year's Eve brought with it our new tradition of hanging out at the neighbor's house watching Dick Clark slowly deteriorate in front of our eyes while enjoying adult beverages.  If this is any indication of what 2011 is going to bring, I am not impressed.  Let me explain.

First of all, our neighbors are a  couple who adopted a baby (at 2 days old) who is just 2 weeks older than Baby E.  As an aside:  when we first moved in we did some major remodeling and Big J (my hubby) was dragging large overfilled black trash bags out to his car in order to take them to the city landfill.  I was not home at the time and the neighbors thought that the new guy (Big J) had killed his wife and stuffed her into some trash bags.   I found this out 3 days later when I went to drop off some home-made applesauce and introduce myself.  Instant friends.

SO:  Last year they invited us to their house for NYE; it was just us and them and the two babies.  Babies went to bed early and we partied into the wee hours.

The Boys finishing up their New Year's Eve dinner

I thought for certain that this year would be much the same.  Alas, it was not.  The "babies" didn't want to go to sleep - they thought it was so great to have a roommate for the night and talked and giggled and talked (in 18 month old babble, that is).  After finally getting them down, I started to enjoy my glass of champagne. Then another. Then a third.  But then I stopped.  I was TOO TIRED to stay awake any longer.  I was in shock to learn that it was only 10:30.  I'm usually the last one out.  But here I was, falling asleep on the couch.  Do you see why this could be trouble?  Well, for one thing, I get a lot done at night while everyone else is sleeping.  Secondly, If 10:30 feels late NOW imagine what it will feel like when I've only had 4 hours of sleep the night before (like when Baby E and Big J are BOTH SICK at the SAME TIME). and Finally, how the hell am I going to keep my reputation as "life of the party" when I'm sleeping at 10:30?

We'll see how 2011 pans out, I guess!


This was written in response to Mama Kat's writer's workshop prompt:
2.) If the way you spent your New Year's Eve is any indication of how the rest of the year will go, how would you say your future is looking right about now?

Pizza Snuggie

This year for Christmas, my siblings and our spouses exchanged names in order to cut down on the gift buying.   There were two rules agreed upon:

Rule #1:  You could not spend more than $10 on the gift
Rule #2:  The gift must be either hand made or bought at a second-hand store (Goodwill, St. Vincent's, etc)

After all gifts were exchanged, it was agreed that my sister, Tara gave the best gift and my brother Ryan was the lucky recipient.   She combined his two favorite things:  Pizza and TV time.  The result?  A pizza Sunggie, made with love.

I know it looks bad, but the top was supposed to look like a pizza slice, not a KKK hood.......

This was posted for Wordful Wednesday

Sneaky little sucker

Its one of those days.  One of the rare days I feel motivated to do EVERYTHING.  I'm not complaining - I just wish they weren't so few and far between.  I got up early and had all the laundry finished (by finished I mean actually PUT AWAY) before Baby E even started stirring.  Then after breakfast, we organized the *cue scary music* TOY BOX.

AAAHhhhhhh sooo many TOYS!

The day after Christmas, I took out all of his "baby" toys and put in all the new stuff he got as gifts.  Here's the problem.  Instead of taking all the baby toys and putting them in the basement (which would have been the smart thing to do), I put them all in a giant blue IKEA bag and thought I hid it behind the chair.  Not such a good hiding spot.  I had been racking my brain trying to figure out why all his toys didn't fit in the toy box - now I know.  He has moved the chair and taken his old toys out and re-integrated them into his new toys.  Then he has moved the chair back.  Pretty sneaky for an 18 month old.  I also found the missing remote control and house phone.  2 points for motivation.

My big helper

After the toy box, we tackled the wine cabinet.  Just kidding.  I will be 'organizing' that a little bit later this evening.

Lights, Camera, Action.

How sad is it that my kid's favorite word is "Mooooo-vie" and his favorite thing to play with is the remote control?   He will point that thing at the TV and repeat his favorite word over and over and over.   The funny thing is, that I only let him watch about an hour of TV a day and it's USUALLY one of the same old  educational DVD's that he's been watching for weeks.  Occasionally, I'll branch out and let him watch PBS kids.

This is the basket he sits in while watching his moooo-vie

Today I dusted off my Pilates DVD (damn you, New Year's resolutions).  I put it in the player and started the work-out.  10 minutes into it I was secretly hoping that BabyE would wake up from his nap and demand to watch his moooo-vie.  No dice.  The kid slept through the entire 56 minutes of his poor mommy being tortured by Ms. Windsor of Windsor Pilates.  That bitch.  Now my stomach hurts too much to bend over and pick BabyE up.  I guess that's what he gets for not rescuing me from the DVD workout hell.