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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Swimeen!!

I had it all planned and on the hottest day of the week. I wanted to take the kids swimming (or swimmeen, as Tommy calls it). I was so excited to get Tessa in the water and see if she's as fearless in the pool as she is on land.

It started off well..............

Nick had to work Saturday morning, but he got off around noon and we'd been planning all week to head to the pool when he got off. I took a  looooot smidge bit longer getting home from my mom's house and garage saling than planned, so I didn't get home until around 3pm. We hurried to get the car all packed up and the kids changed into their suits.
Tessa was all dressed up in her bikini (she wasn't sleeping here, just blinking!)
Tommy was so excited to go swimmeen!!

About 2 minutes into the drive, we ran into this............
 Yeah. That's the perfect swimming weather right there. But it was still really hot and there was no thunder and lightening, so we decided to keep driving to the pool in hopes the weather would pass us by.
One more minute later, I turned around to ask Tommy a question and..............


Needless to say, we turned around and went home. Oh well. There's always tomorrow......

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Belle of the (soft)ball


It's that time of year--SUMMER TIME! Which means my sweet little niece, Isablle (who is no longer little) is playing softball! We've been trying to get to a game for the last few weeks but it seems like something always come up. It finally worked out that we got to go see her play last night.

Isabelle has always been the princess of the family. She has always loooved princesses and dressing up and nail polish and lip gloss and dancing. She's a girly-girl (MY kind of girl :). But in the last year or so, it seems like she's started branching out and trying new things. I was so excited to see her play. We were running a little late, so when we walked up to the game, she was already on the field.

I swear to you, she looked like she was 15 years old. It almost made me cry, seeing the girl she's become from the tiny little infant she was when I first met her.

And folks, she is DARN good at softball! She was on third base and she was on top of it.

I love watching baseball (in person, not on TV--just to clear that up), but it's even better when you're watching someone you know. So watching Isabelle play made for the perfect evening. I was worried about my kiddos and it being too hot, but there was a little bit of wind that made it nice and cool and the kids had plenty to keep them entertained.
Tessa Grace was ready to watch the game with her shades on (they're actually Tommy's but heaven knows she doesn't want anything that isn't his)!
There was gravel around the whole park and Tommy and Tessa spent almost the whole time playing with the rocks. Tommy would put them in a cup and then throw them (we had a talk about how you don't throw gravel in a small space filled with lots of people--not good) or pour them back out. He did that for about 30 minutes. Tessa was trying to eat the rocks, of course. I was trying really hard to ignore the fact that there were sunflower seed shells mixed in with the gravel they were playing with. Gross. But whatever.
Tommy spent the rest of the time watching the game from Daddy's shoulders. Tessa hung out with Mommy in my chair. I was surprised at how long she sat still.
This is my other sweet niece, Mackayla. She helped keep the kids entertained. She loves her baby cousins!
And I have absolutely nothing to say about this picture except this girl will always let you know EXACTLY how she feels with her facial expressions.
It was so much fun to be there and get to watch Belle play. Her team is peppy and full of spirit! I love their pink helmets and neon socks and chants that they do.

You know those moments where you look at a kid and wonder when they stopped being a baby? You think, "Wasn't it just yesterday that she was small enough to fit in my arms and rock her?" And then you look at them now and realize they're almost as tall as you and their legs are long and skinny and they're trasitioning into being a gangly GROWN pre-teen? Yeah, I had several of those last night. Miss Belle is just so beautiful and grow up and mature. She reads books and wears tall, crazy, mis-matched socks. She plays softball and has earrings and is missing a LOT of teeth. Where has the time gone?

We love you, Isabelle Marie! We had a great time watching you play softball and are so proud of the girl you're becoming!







Monday, June 10, 2013

The B Word

Well, it happened. He said his first cuss word. And believe it or not, it was because he was repeating me, not Nick. Which I NEVER thought would be the case! But let me explain....cause maybe that will make me look a tiny bit like less of a bad mom if you know the whole story.

I was SO over work the day it happened. I was tired, left work with a million things that I knew I'd have to come back to tomorrow and I was ready to be home. And I may or may not have been on day 1 of my visit from mother nature. But I had found a recipe to use these left over wonton wrappers we had, so I was excited to get home and make it. You can use them to make ravioli! Genius! I had stopped at the store just to buy ricotta cheese, I borrowed a little bit of italian sausage from Gambino's and headed home to make some home made ravioli for the hubs and kids. I was really excited because I like making semi-home made meals for my family that aren't too complicated.

Nick was already home when I got back from picking up the kids, so I started dinner right away. I was already a little frustrated (not at Nick, just in general) because the kitchen sink had dishes in it (which I HATE, but we had run the dishwasher the night before and hadn't had time to unload anything, so all the dirty dishes were in the sink, waiting to be loaded). I like to start off cooking in a clean kitchen and I like to pick up as I go so there's not a huge mess in the end. But I was in a hurry to get dinner started, so I left all the dishes where they were. Then I realized we had NO clean dishes in the cabinets (they were all in the dishwasher), but rather than taking the time to unload it like I should have done, I got the dishes out as I needed them. The ravioli was simple enough to make--but I somehow ended up using 12 plates and bowls to get it all put together, so there were dirty dishes all over the counter as I was working. Sigh.

I should've stopped right there. But I didn't.

I just mixed some ricotta cheese, parmesan, garlic and italian seasoning and spooned some of it onto the middle of the wonton wrapper. Then you use water to seal the edges of the wontons so the filling stays in. At least, that's what the Pioneer Woman said to do. So that's what I did.

But the Pioneer Woman made it look so easy! Just slip the raviolis into boiling water and let them stay in for 3 minutes and then VOILA! The perfect ravioli! What the Pioneer Woman DIDN'T say is if you don't use a crap ton of water to seal the raviolis and actually fold the edges up (resulting in a very ugly ravioli), the filling will burst out into your boiling water and make it look disgusting and VERY unappetizing. She also didn't say that they would all stick together, forming one gigantic morphed ravioli that has no filling so is really just a bunch of wet wonton wrappers clumped together.

*disclaimer--as I'm typing this, it really doesn't seem as dramatic and hectic as it FELT that night*

So in the midst of trying to dismember the huge clump of wet wonton wrappers, I got super irritated that my semi home made raviolis were not working out and bummed that my nice dinner for the hubs and kids was being ruined. Plus, there was ricotta cheese and italian sausage floating all around the boiling water, so I was going to have to start over by re-heating a clean pot of water to do the rest of the raviolis in. It was at that point that my thoughts flew out of my mouth. I maaaay have said in a very mocking tone something along the lines of, "Nick, it's not working! The women on pinterest make things look SO easy....crazy b*tches."

Now. Let's stop for a moment and try to get around the fact that I said the b-word. I didn't mean it. And as soon as it came out of my mouth, I felt bad for saying it. And I thought I had said it much quieter than I said the rest of the sentence. But apparently, I did not. Because no more than 5 seconds later, I heard from the living room the tiniest little voice say, "Yeah, dose dazy ditches!"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I did a little of both. Nick was having a VERY hard time holding in his chuckles and started saying random words to distract himself from what was happening so he'd stop laughing. Tommy (luckily) had no idea what he'd just said and quickly forgot about the whole thing and went on to something else.

To anyone who reads my blog (IF anyone reads it besides my husband--hi honey!), please don't think I'm a horrible mom! Although I truly felt like one at that moment. I never dreamed I would be the one teaching him his first curse word.

Needless to say, I'm trying to watch my words and keep my frustration under control (I've found the best way to do that is to stay out of the kitchen, so it's kind of a win-win ;). I asked God's forgiveness and I know I've got it, but I'll never forget the gut-sinking feeling when I heard my child say something that never should have left his mouth just because he heard his mommy say it.

We are truly examples (good ones or bad ones, I haven't quite figured out yet!). I will work harder to show him and Tessa how they SHOULD be living. We are the only things they have to model their lives after, so I'm going to do my best to show them how to live as God's child. And thank God He gives us grace daily, becaus I obviously SO need it!

Thursday, June 6, 2013

From the mouths of babes

My son is cracking me up lately. His language skills are really coming along and he says so many things that I can't believe come out of his mouth! His little personality is starting to shine, too. You can tell a general idea of how they're going to be pretty early on, but once they can talk...yeah. You get the idea REAL fast of what you're going to have on your hands for the next several years.

*The other night, Nick gave Tommy a cookie and I said, "What about mommy? Do I get a cookie?" He said, "NO!" I pretended to be sad, so he ran over to me and said, "Otay mom, you just can have a wittle bit." Then he stuck his finger out so I could lick the crumbs off of them. Wow. How generous :)

*I'll say, "Come here, baby!" or , "I love you baby boy!" He crosses his arms and says, "Me not a baby! Me Nommy James! Me a BIG boy!"

*He can make anything an insult by adding the word "head" to anything. I'll tell him he's silly and he says, "NO! You a silly head!" I say he's a nerd and he says, "YOU a newd head!!" He also likes to call us mac n' cheese heads. He thinks it's the ultimate insult.

*Tommy is not allowed to say the word hush. We had gotten to the point where he was telling us to hush or Tess to hush, so we banned the word from the house since it's basically a nice way of saying shut up :) However, he started saying this word, "Hoosies!" He would say it constantly and we could NOT figure out what it meant. Until we payed attention to the context of it. He was saying it when he was mad--and we finally figured out it's his subsitution for hush. He thought he was outsmarting us all because then he could tell us to shut up without getting in trouble because he was saying hoosies instead. It worked until we figured it out ;) Now "hoosies" is banned as well.

*He has always--ALWAYS--called me mom. Never mama or mommy. It was just mom. Until lately. Now he says, "Hi, MomMAY!!" I love it.

*I've started to not enjoy driving so much with him. Everything we pass, he says, "What dat is, Mommay? What IS dat?" I'll say, "It's a house." And he almost always says, "No, it not a house, Mommay!" So if he thinks he knows what everything is, then why does he ask EVERY time?!? Drives me nuts :)

*I DO love when we go through Towanda every day to go to Brooke's and he sees our church and says, "Dere's our duwch!" Makes my heart happy that he wants to be at church!

*He hears me talking baby talk to Tessa or to our baby chickens and he mimicks it. It's hiLARious! His voice gets really high and squeaky and his little face scrunches up and he just looks so cute while he's doing it. He'll say in his baby voice to Tessa, "Hi sis!! You so cute!" or he'll say, "Look at me dickdens (chickens)! Oh, HI baby dickdens!!" Love it.

*Sometimes when we ask him a yes or no question, he says, "Um, no." And it's not like a long, drawn out "um." It's like a sarcastic "um" when you're really thinking, "Hell no!" but you don't want to actually say hell. Makes him sound like he's 15.

*The other morning I was putting him in his carseat and held his arm straps out. I said, "Okay, put this arm in.........now put the other arm in." And he said, "Now we do dah hokey dokdie?" I about died laughing! I don't know who taught him the hokie pokey but apparently he likes it!

*He repeats everything we say. Which means we have to be MUCH more careful with our words but also makes for a fun game too! I say hard things like, "Supercalafragalisticexpealidocious" (or however you spell that) and then listen to him try to say it back. Hilarious! We laugh a lot :)

Tommy, you are such a fun loving little boy. You're a little LOT ornery and always make us laugh with the things you say.  It's so much fun to watch you learn and listen to what you come up with!! You are silly and hilarious! We love you!