All things Spring......

I am getting hit hard this year with the whole spring cleaning bug. I am in a declutter and throw out kinda mood. I am a bit overwhelmed by the task I am about to take on. My house is much bigger than me and I have two little babies to take care of and try to keep clean too.
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So my first goal in spring cleaning is to declutter.

My plan of action is to get a box and put things inside it that I never really use. Put it in my attic and if I do not touch them or go looking for them in the next 6 months, I will toss the box.

I will do this room by room. The first room I am starting with is the Family/Playroom.
We've accumulated way too many toys over the last few years. I've already packed a box up and it is now in the attic. The room looks better, and I feel better!



My heart is set on this bad boy. I hate the sight of looking at all the toys, I do not want the toys being the "focus" when you walk into our family room. This piece of furniture will not only help me stay organized, it also keeps the toys out of view.

My second plan for a less clutterred life is learning how to organize better. I got all these great ideas from my sister Shoe Gypsy last night.

Wish me Luck!

School Time: Wind

After watching Sid The Science Kid one afternoon. We had to try out the fun water boats they made. Click here for instructions. Little Man loved to hear all about wind and then he got to be the wind and move the boat around. Super easy and cost you nothing!!

30 Days Of Truth......day 3

Day 3: something you have to forgive yourself for.

(picture taken by Little Man himself)

I think in in the midst of adjusting to taking care of and running around for this little one, I sometimes take my frustration out on this little guy. I suppose acknowledging it helps right?


For example. I am constantly complaining to my husband how Little Man makes me late to any place I go. Just two days ago I realized it wasn't even Little Man's fault. It's my fault for not letting the baby cry more.
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I am getting LM dressed when the baby starts to cry. I stop what I am doing and go to get the baby. Once I settle him, I start to dress LM again. Then the baby cries some more and I move him to a different location for some change of scenery. By time I finish dressing LM I feel like it has taken 45 minutes.....when really I was running around doing other things. I shouldn't get mad at that sweet kid. Did you see his face?
So this is a shout out to Little Man....I'm sorry you sweet kissable little boy. I love you...
Don't worry he hears that from me all the time.
Kids are forgiving people. Thank goodness.

I love my boys.

It's over!!!!

I can officially say that my toddler no longer sports this old habit........

We were down to one and I refused to buy another.

We constantly told him when it broke...he was not getting any more.

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He handled it like a champ

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He has only asked for it 3 times over the past 2 months.

Good thing I have a little baby in the house. I might other wise be sad that Little Man is growing up.

Rain rain go away....School Time

We were stuck in doors for a week and were going a bit crazy. I was trying to clean my kitchen for the 65748Th time and LM wanted something fun to do. As I was putting food away I saw my sugar and BAM it hit me. Lets make a indoor sandbox. However ours would have no sand and all sugar. With rice thrown into the mix at some point during the fun.Little Man enjoyed feeling the different textures and we were doing all kinds of scooping and pouring into containers. It was a good time to go over how our hands are for touching and feeling different things.
We found a nice container to store it in so we can play with it again on a day where we are going stir crazy.Just know it WILL get messy. There is no doubt about it. I forgot to pull out my spare shower curtain I use for projects like this, so you might want to try and remember. Please don't let the mess scare you because we had a lot of fun doing this until the baby woke from his nap.

Pink Nothings

From the mouth of babes......

I was trying to be sweet and give Little Man a treat the other day. So since Valentines is around the corner I thought he would like some conversation heart candy. I gave it to him and he refused to eat it.

Why?

Because it looked like chalk!!!

I tried to convince him that it tasted yummy and his daddy (who walks on water) loved these and I bet he would too....

NO mom, it's chalk.

I really don't blame him. I don't much care for them.

My Toddler Won't Eat!!

How often do you hear other parents or even yourself utter that sentence? I am guessing if you have a toddler, you have at some point wanted to hold their mouths open and shove healthy food down their throats. Although the thought of it sounds nice, you must be willing to have a toddler (try to) beat you up afterwards. So if you experience what I do, here are some creative ways that have helped my sweet LM to eat his veggies and fruit.

First weapon of choice. Cookie cutters. THEY. SAVE. ME. Simple, easy, and you can guarantee that 99.9% of the time your child will eat whatever is placed in front of him for meals. The trick is, you must first cut it into something your child recognizes. For LM, he is into trees ever since Christmas. We always decorate with raisins.
Sidenote: I have also found if I get food coloring and add a smile to the shape he will be extra excited to eat it.

LM is very into birthdays currently. He loves to sing the birthday song all the time (and loves to eat the cake even more). We have started to add "birthday cakes" to our lunches. We sing and pretend to blow out the candles (pretzels) and then eat our "cake".
Side note: Just be willing to sing this for almost every apple slice.

Some suggestions for the "icing" are just plain peanut butter for your apples or you could puree some carrots, add some chocolate syrup to your peanut butter for some added fun.

Geez who knew feeding a toddler could be liberating and ?!!

Feel free to leave some of your own parenting secrets in getting a toddler.

Does he love laundry?

Don't let this picture fool you......... he was waiting very patiently for the dryer to stop. Well not because he needed a new shirt, well I suppose he sorta does. Forget about that. Stay with me guys. He was waiting for his best pal. His dog he calls Pluto. He just adores him. It's moments like this I could repeat every day.

Whew, Christmas is over.

We had a fun little visitor come to our grandparents house this Christmas season. To be honest LM didn't really care. It could be the fact we had another fat man with a fake beard show up to the church Christmas party. When he saw this unbelievable santa with a real beard, a red velvet suit and bells on his boots, he knew he must be a fraud.
Christmas Eve I walked a plate of cookies over to my friendly elderly neighbor who has mailed me 3 cards since baby Daniel was born. I felt awful because I have not had a chance to talk to her. So I surprised her and she talked to me for about two hours. It was sweet. She gave me a tour of her house and made me jealous when I saw just how big her kitchen was. Since we both live in really old houses I was shocked when I walked in there. As a matter of fact the tour started in the kitchen. She knew it was unbelievable. She was so friendly and today I received the 4Th card from her thanking me for the visit.
Christmas day started off with LM running to the Christmas tree. He stood in front of it and farted then fell into the tree backwards. Right then and there I knew this was going to be a awesome Christmas.
It was crazy and hectic.
It was great.

Merry Christmas to all, and all a goodnight.

Black Friday won me over..

I think I might be in love with Black Friday. I didn't even do any shopping. I got to go to bed last night around 11 and wake every few hours to nurse. Whenever I woke up I glanced at my husbands side of the bed and notice, yup, he is still out standing in line for me. Seriously what a sweet guy. He didn't make it home until 7:30 this morning but when he did he told me he got what we wanted....a new washer and dryer.

They will arrive in a week and I cannot wait!!!!! I will upload pictures of my new and improved laundry room. Laundry never sounded so good to me.

Happy Late Turkey day!!

honestly i don't know how they do it.

Really how do those mothers blog and raise their children all at the same time. I find that when I have free time I am trying to feed myself and then clean my house and somehow manage to cook dinner and feed it to my toddler. Why can't I find the time to blog and just chill like all the other moms who blog all the time? Blogging seems to be the last thing that comes to mind these days. There are so many times I think, oh I need to blog about this. The time just never comes to actually write the post. Gee you are lucky to have this one. To the few who really read my blog these days. I really want to start posting more just so I have time to sit down and think. Two children are great. They keep me busy and I like that. Little Man has completely shocked me. I tried and tried and tried to potty train him before the baby came and he was so good at it for a week and then he just decided he wasn't going to do it any longer. For months, almost the entire pregnancy I tried to convince him it would be a great idea to use the potty. I finally came to a understanding with him....that he just wasn't going to do it.
Well he started telling us he wanted to go after the baby came home. It wasn't every time or even every day. That is until Halloween came. He loaded up his pumpkin basket and I saw a great bribe. I told him when he pees on the potty he could get a piece of candy and wouldn't you know it that did the trick. He is now staying dry at night and during his naps. I am soo happy to have a child who is using the potty and not so many of those dang expensive pull ups.


I never like to read blogs who don't put up a picture with the post. So sorry to all those who love visuals like me. I really don't feel like asking my friend google for a picture to relate to this post. If I were not so sleepy right now I would upload some pictures of the boy and baby. Maybe next time............

Wordless Wednesday.

And so life begins........

Baby Room

Okay, so here is a reminder just how bad I had let the spare room get. I have been working really hard on this room ever since my bug guy said he couldn't walk in there to even spray it. Then I found out I was expecting and that put me into high gear.

I am not 100% finished yet. I still have a few touches to add to the room. So this is just a lite sampler for you all. My husband painted the dresser for me and we still need to get some knobs on it. I didn't really have a theme for this room until I received these nesting blocks from my husbands grandmother. They have Peter Rabbit on them and I have decided to go with that. Nothing to over board. I have the blocks and I have painted a picture of Peter Rabbit. You will have to wait to see that until I get it framed. We still have to build the changing station for the little tike and put the bumper on the crib. Then, I think we will be ready.

The baby will be born not this Friday but the next. Time has just gone by and I wonder sometimes how I got her so fast. Married with almost 2 children. Wow. Makes me feel old. I suppose it is suiting to feel old because it will be my birthday next Tuesday. I hope that I will be able to transition to being a mother of 2 smoothly. Now that I understand what motherhood is really all about. I feel more equipped to tackle it. I know I am not a first time mom, but if you have any advice for making the change from a mother of 1 to a mother of 2 children don't hold back!!

Little things make me happy.

Like when Little Man asks me for pretzels then promptly shares them with his cars.

Playdough Tips and Tricks

Recently I got a new kitchen table. I am just in love with it. I have only used hand-me-down tables my entire marriage. I was thrilled to get my own style and size table I wanted. I have never been to picky with what Little Man did at my tables, that is until I got one I wanted to stay nice. I was worried about doing Playdough with him once I got it. The new table has ridges and I didn't want Playdough to get stuck in them. I didn't want him to play on my floors because of the same problem. With older wood floors you can find gaps and it's hard to get stuff out of them. I have some pink sprinkles still stuck in my wood floors from a while back. My solution was to buy a cheap shower curtain and use it like a table cloth while we play with the Playdough. It comes off soo easily and it's great when you have several children playing together because you can make it really big. I use it for paint time too. I have loved this and think you might too!

creepy crawlers.

Oh. My. Where do I even begin this post? Let's start with the first time we saw a bee in the house. It was early one morning and I was trying to get LM ready to go to our music class when he ran up to me and yelled "Bee Mamom!" We went on to have a conversation about how he saw a bee flying in the house and I told him I was sure it was a fly. Well later that day as he was napping and I was getting a bite to eat at the kitchen table I hear this buzzing sound coming from the kitchen window. I went to see and sure enough there was the bee he saw that morning. I killed it and felt bad that I told him it was a fly without ever seeing it. That's when it all began. I started to find dead bee's all over my house. I kept complaining to my husband to do something about it and then I stopped seeing them and forgot all about it. I found 5 the other day and remembered. So I sat down and had a chat with good ol' Google and found out just how much I had painted myself in a corner.
Turns out I should have called with the first few I saw not the 20-30 I have seen in my house. Google suspects I have a honey bee nest in my house somewhere. I am guessing my attic. We called my mother-in-law tonight because she dealt with this same issue once and got a number of someone to call. She also told us about a friend of hers who had the same problem and didn't take care of it and the weight of the honey made the nest fall through her ceiling. OH. I. WOULD. DIE!!!!!!
Mr. Husband will be calling tomorrow to see when someone can come over and check things out.
Great.
And if this wasn't enough to freak me out. Tonight my husband went to the mail box and found 2 of these nasty little guys inside. Our poor mailman has been sticking his hand into that box for the past couple of days and had no idea. I hope he is okay. Mr. Husband said he just killed a huge one on his car yesterday. What the heck. How many of these killers are living in my yard?

I am soo jumpy right now. I feel like I have bugs crawling all over me. EWWWW