Blackmail

The other day, Tommy was running around in his undies and going "huntin" with his toy gun. His imagination was running wild and we were loving watching the stuff he was coming up with.

 

We noticed where he was holstering it.......

 

....because what little boy WOULDN'T use his Super Man underwear to hold his gun?

We asked for his tough guy face and got this.....

We asked him for a muscle man pose and he came up with this fancy move....

I think I shall save these for a day when he's 17 and his girlfriend is at our house and he's doing his best to impress her.....yes, this should work for blackmail quite nicely. 

We love you, funny boy!

Dirty Thirty

Tuesday, the 13th, was the day I'd been dreading.......although it didn't really end up making me feel any different. Except now when I circle my age group on surveys and random prize forms, I'll have to mark the 30-35 age group.  Yuck.

My family managed to make it a VERY special day. I dropped my kiddos off at Brooke's and she greeted me with these.....

 Beautiful flowers and peanut M&Ms.....yum!

My mom had me stop by and pick up some presents she had prepared...one present for each hour of my work day! I have the best mom.

When I walked into work, my best friend had decorated my desk to let EVERYBODY know it was my birthday and I was THIRTY years old.......saying 3 decades just makes it seem that much older!

A lady I work with made me a delicious pineapple upside down cake (my all time favorite EVER) for my birthday....so naturally, I ate a piece for breakfast!

 

Seriously. It's the best cake I've ever had.

Here are my presents throughout the day that I opened each hour (which makes the day really fast and really fun, by the way!)....

9:00am

10:00am

11:00am

12:00pm

 

1:00pm

 cross-stitch picture

2:00pm

 

 

3:00pm

(You trying to tell me something, mom?)

4:00pm

5:00pm

(I forgot to take a picture, so I found one online!)

I loved opening each of these gifts! Some made me laugh and ALL of them made me happy!! If you're looking for a way to make somebody's day really special, this is a great way to do it!

I only worked until 1pm on my birthday and took the rest of it off to do some shopping before we all met up with my family to go to dinner. I bought myself four brand new shirts (NOT from Goodwill!!) and some earrings. I had a great time just shopping ALONE (without children, it's like a vacation almost!) and spending money on myself without feeling guilty.

I met my family at Olive Garden and we had a great meal together. I love getting to spend so much time with our families and am so glad that we all live close to each other. I'd be lost without my peeps! They spoiled me with MORE presents--money, earrings, perfume, books, bath salts....everything I could ever want! And I opened it all while eating some delicious pasta. What could be better?!?

We went home for the night and Nick gave me a present from him and the kids. I got more earrings, perfume and the BEST present EVER---

a bradford pear tree!! I love, LOVE those trees when they're in blossom. He tried to buy one, but found out that to get anything other than a little bitty seed was QUITE expensive :) So he's going to transplant a bradford pear tree that's down by the pond and move it to our front yard so next year I can pull up to our house every day in the spring and see those beautiful blossoms I covet in other people's yards!

Thanks, babe!!

Being thirty hasn't been too bad....so far. Right before my birthday, I found a few gray hairs. I think that was more traumatic than my actual birthday. GRAY HAIR?!? Didn't I JUST graduate high school?!

But oh well. I've lived a very GOOD thirty years and my family and friends make every day (of my incredibly old life) wonderful. I'm thankful for each day that God has given me and pray for many, many more! Thank you to everybody that helped make my 30th birthday so special!

Mother's Day 2014

My Mother's Day started without having my kids in my house :) My mom had watched them the night before (which was the night of my surprise party) and they stayed the night there. So while I didn't get to wake up with my babies, I DID get one of the greatest gifts known to man.........I slept in. Kind of. Until 9am or so. But we didn't go to bed until around 2am. So I'm not sure if that's really considered sleeping in. Aaaaanyways...

My family was all coming to my house at 9:45am to have a Mother's Day breakfast. I forced myself out of bed and started cooking pancakes. My mom showed up with my kids, who wanted nothing to do with me for the next 30 minutes (we call this the Nana-hangover mode). Despite that fact, we had a delicious breakfast of pancakes, hasbrown casserole, sausage and biscuits and gravy. So good. And the company was even better!

The plan was for us to all go to church together, but that got all sorts of messed up. One of my sweet nieces got sick on the way over, so my brother's family couldn't go. And my kids were being super grumpy and mean, so there was no way I was sitting through a church service with them--I knew I wouldn't get to hear any of it anyways if they weren't in the nursery. We ended up staying home and relaxing until we headed to Nick's family's house for lunch. We did an easy lunch of hamburgers and hotdogs, potato salad and pasta salad.  Luckily, the kids got happier and behaved much better. They enjoyed running around with their cousins!

After lunch, we headed home and it was NAP time!! YAY! The kids slept good and we got to relax while they were snoozing.

My sweet husband bought me a bunch of Bath and Body Works stuff and a card that said something along the lines of, "Thanks for putting up with our kids while they're on steroids."

This should be enough to last me through the summer :) I love me some lotion and smell-good spray!

We got Nick's mom (and dad) a joint Mother's/Father's Day present of a grill!

And we gave my mom this.....

 Needless to say, she was THRILLED with her gift.

Overall, it was a great Mother's Day and the perfect way to spend a Sunday. We got to see every single person in our family and spend some quality time together. What more could a girl ask for?!

Being a mom is hard (FREAKIN' HARD!!) but my two kiddos make it more than worth it. Hope all you mom's had a great day, too!

SURPRISE!!

Turning 30 is not something I've been excited about. I know everyone says it's just a number.....and that's true....but man, it's a BIG number! I truly feel like I just graduated high school and I'm playing house right now. How am I old enough to have been married 6 years and have 2 kids?!?

Crazy.

But with the help of my husband and family and friends, it turned out to be an AMAZING birthday! My 30th fell on a Tuesday. My husband decided last minute to take me out on Saturday for a date night because on the actual night of my birthday, we were going to eat dinner with my family. He arranged for us and the kids to go to Los Palmas for some cheap drinks and delicious Mexican food! My mom was going to pick them up when she was done working and then we were going to The Loony Bin. I was excited, but woke up that morning feeling SUPER nauseous and blah. I was trying really hard to be perky for our date night, but I felt like I was going to hurl at any moment, which kiiiiinda takes away the fun. Before we left for dinner, the kids gave me a bouquet of flowers "they" bought for me :) They were so pretty!

We loaded up the kids and headed to Los Palmas and I was praying my tummy would settle so I could enjoy my salsa. This was the sky as we were getting ready to leave....

 I was super nervous we were going to be driving into a hail storm, but we missed it!!

Nick was being kinda weird while the server was seating us and kept asking to sit in the back of the restaurant. I was all, "Okay, that works because if I vomit, nobody will be around to see it!" The waitress took us to the back and turns out my hubs had arranged a little surprise party for me!! I was TRULY surprised! All of our family and my best friend was there and my cousin had driven in from Kansas City to be there too. I was so excited! My stomach started feeling better, I had a delicious pina colada and thoroughly enjoyed my salsa and tacos.

After that, we went to a piano bar called Ernie Biggs. It was SO great! Everyone except my mom (who was watching the kids) got to go and we had such a blast! The piano players are awesome and sing some very interesting songs :) You can pay to have a message written on their board and my sweet group did this:

You can also pay to have a super embarrassing song sang to the birthday person while they sit on the piano, but I threatened the life of everyone in our group if anybody did that.

My sweet husband knew better and said there was no way he was going to do it because he had to sleep with me in the same bed that night. Smart man.

We stayed at Ernie Bigg's until a little after midnight, which is SUPER past this girls bed time!! I was proud of myself. It turned out to be an absolutely perfect night with my family and best friend. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to spend it with (even though I wished my mom could have came, but I know she had more fun watching the kids than she would have at a bar!). I was so grateful my husband put in so much time and effort into planning my surprise party and making sure nobody spilled the beans! It was the best birthday party EVER! Thanks, honey! Here's to being thirty and growing even OLDER together!.......

*I'll post more about my actual birthday in another post.....this one was getting a little long :)

Little Bunny Fufu

Or as we like to call them, Buckwheat and Sally (at Tommy's request). Last weekend, we were power washing our house and deck when a couple of itty bitty baby bunnies came running out from our porch. The kids were napping, but Nick yelled for me to come help him. We caught two of them and put them in a big storage bucket so we could show the kids when they woke up........first mistake.

 

Now, I am NOT an animal lover. At all. Not even a smidge. And don't tell me you have the world's cutest cat thinking that will make me like animals if you show me pictures of said cat. However....these bunnies were so freakin cute!! Like, SO cute! They were tiny and soft and sweet.  And they're outdoor animals, which already makes them a notch above the rest in my opinion. I was starting to fall in love (or as in love as I could with an animal)....second mistake.

 

At one point, I was kind of regretting catching them because Nick and I have ZERO knowledge about how to keep baby bunnies alive. So of course we went with lettuce and carrots and water. The kids woke up from their naps and I rushed them outside to see these cute little fluffs of fur. Letting the kids get attached.....third mistake

 The bunnies did great for 4-5 days. They started becoming active and fun to watch despite Tommy dropping one (it wasn't hurt) in the garage and it escaping for a terrifying three hours (in which I worried the whole time that it was hiding in the lawn mower and come time to cut the grass, we'd have a shredded up bunny on our hands. GROSS.). However, the baby rabbit was found and put back in his kennel (rabbit cage??) and Tommy was instructed NOT to pick up the bunnies any more. But on the 5th day or so, something kind janky happened. We petted both bunnies before I took the kids to daycare and went to work. 

They were in our garage. 

The garage door was shut. 

When we came home from work, one bunny had died and the other was no longer in the box. What the what?!? There is NO way that bunny could have jumped out of that box. The sides were fairly high and steep and the bunnies were so tiny. I was SO sad about the dead bunny and SO confused about the missing bunny. The only explanation I could come up with was that there was a snake in our garage that ate it. I mean, really. WHAT ELSE COULD HAVE HAPPENED?! While Nick secretly went to take care of the bunny that died, I explained to the kids that the bunnies had run away to go back home to their mommies. Tommy calmly accepted my explanation and went about his day. I was relieved that we didn't have to take care of them anymore. I hadn't really wanted to keep them, but didn't want to turn them loose without knowing where their mom lived and kept imagining them getting stalked by hawks or coyote. But now, it was out of our hands and I didn't have to make that decision.

And then lo and behold. We were getting ready to go inside for the night and Nick sees a baby bunny right by the outside of the garage door. And he caught it!! WHY, NICK?!? WHHHHYYYYY?!?

Suddenly, we were back to being responsible for this little thing. He thinks it was the bunny that went missing, but I still feel like there's no way it could have gotten out. I guess we'll never know. Tommy was ecstatic. Tessa was happy. I was less than enthused. 

Little bunny has since passed away :( Poor little fellah. 

I can say I've walked away from this with two lessons. The first being--do NOT catch wild bunnies. Or any wild animal. Or even a tame animal. Just don't. 

The second being--if for some reason you ignore rule 1 and whatever animal you've caught has been mercifully taken from your care by the power of our Lord, Jesus Christ......do NOT catch it again should the opportunity arise! Just. Walk. Away.

RIP Sally and Buckwheat.

Easter 2014

Well, it seems all of my Easters are beginning to have a theme when it comes to the willingness of my children to be stuffed into cute Easter outfits and enjoy the day celebrating what our Savior did for us!

And that theme is..........

It ain't happenin' without a fight.

 Easter 2011--even at 3 months old, he was giving me the stink eye over wearing a suit.

 

Easter 2012---one really pregnant mama and one really pissed off child

Easter 2013--ummm....yeah. Need I say anything? SOMEbody didn't like her dress.

 

And thus, I present to you folks........EASTER 2014.

Teary eyes....check. Red cheeks.....check. Crazy fit over wearing a dress that she was SO excited to wear just a mere 18 hours before?.....check.

 

I didn't even fight for a good picture this year. The photographer and proud mom inside of me wanted so badly to get the perfect shot of the two of them together in their cute Easter outfits. But the fight wasn't worth it!

 

Even though she fought putting her dress on, once she was in it, we had a great rest of the day! We had celebrated Easter with my family the night before with an egg hunt and delicious meal. On Easter day, we went to church and then celebrated with Nick's family. The kids had a blast with their cousins! I managed to get a "kind of" picture of them individually.....

I think someday, Tommy will win an aware for most photogenic.....but I won't hold my breath.

 

All the running around they did at the party wore them out (thank God!). Miss Tessa got into her Easter candy on the way home without us knowing it. She gorged herself on chocolate (somehow managing NOT to get any on her dress) and passed out in her car seat.

 

It had it's moments, but overall, it was a great weekend filled with family and fun and Jesus. And I loved it.

 

Despite the fit throwing :) And while I didn't manage to get an idyllic picture of my two gorgeous babies in their Easter get ups, I DID manage to snap this gem of a pic that I will treasure forever because it is SO them.

 

Happy Easter!

Tommy's #1 Enemy

Where to begin.......

When Tommy was around one year old, he fell and hit his tooth on a plastic storage bin. It chipped his tooth and eventually turned it brown. We took him to the dentist (which did NOT go well) and he said at that time, it was just a cosmetic problem and there wasn't any real damage to his tooth or nerve. As Tommy's teeth started getting bigger, the chip was less and less noticeable and the browness of it was pretty light. I was SO happy, because I hadn't wanted him to grown up with snaggly teeth, but also didn't want to pay a ton of money to fix a tooth that was going to fall out eventually anyways.

So we let it go.

But.....

About two months ago, I noticed that a large part of his tooth had chipped off further, making what was left of his tooth look very........hillbilly. He complained occasionally of tooth pain (although I was never sure if it was legitimate because Tessa happened to be getting new teeth at that time and God forbid she get attention for anything that he doesn't get it for). We scheduled a dentist appointment for both kids and they were scheduling a few weeks out. Then we got the first available date for Tessa's ear tube surgery and of course it was on the same day as the dentist appointments, so we had to reschedule another few weeks out.

Long story short, 1 1/2 months later, we finally made it to the dentist. I had my mom go with me because I had a gut instinct that it was NOT going to go well and I didn't want to have to wrestle Tommy and try to keep track of Tessa. I'd been prepping Tommy about going to the "tooth doctor" and how fun it was and how they had all kinds of neat tooth brushes. He would smile and get excited and laugh while we were talking about it.

And then we walked through their front door. And "it" started. The whining.....the fear....the uncertainty. I had a knot in my stomach the whole time because I just KNEW what was coming. I felt really bad because it was Tessa's first dentist appointment, but I was so focused on keeping Tommy from having a meltdown that I completely missed the fun of her seeing everything for the first time and getting to enjoy her experience. I didn't take one single picture of her the whole time. Mom fail.

Anyway, they called us back and Tessa sat in one chair with Nana while Tommy sat in the one right beside her. As soon as the nurse pulled out a toothbrush.....yes, just a regular, standard tooth brush.......Tommy was done. He clamped his mouth shut, wouldn't lay down, was NOT cooperating. I think I apologized to the nurse about 50 times in the first 15 minutes. We finally got him to just let her brush his teeth, but then she pulled out the electronic spinny toothbrush thing (I believe that's the technical term) and he fuh-LIPPED out. I think the phrases that came out of his mouth were, "Don't touch me, girl!" "Get your hands OFF me!" "I do NOT like dis!!" "Tell that lady to leave. Me. ALONE"

Sigh.

Even though I knew it was coming, I wasn't fully prepared for the frustration that comes with having "that" child. I knew people were staring but honestly, I think I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer embarrassed by outbursts. It was just making me frustrated that Tommy was acting like such a weenie (is it horrible to call my kid a weenie?) and we couldn't get done what we NEEDED to get done. I threatened no prizes, time out, calling daddy and no ice cream until the end of time, but he didn't care. I tried hugging, consoling, sweet talking, praying.........nothing.

She finally quit trying to clean his teeth and called the dentist over. It took all three of us to hold him down and the dentist managed to see his front tooth while Tommy was screaming at the top of his lungs. And he ordered an x-ray. And I was all, "Yeah, THAT will go over well." While we were waiting for the x-ray room, I was holding Tommy and trying to remember that while I was extremely frustrated, he was extremely scared. I was trying so hard to have compassion rather than annoyance. He kept hugging me and saying, "Why is this happening?" I had to keep myself from laughing and I think I actually said, "Son, if this is the hardest thing you go through in life, you're going to be a lucky man. We all have to do things we don't like at one point or another." He just stared at me with the eyes of a three year old that thinks his mom is crazy and started fake crying again.

The x-ray went about as well as the teeth cleaning. I had to hold him down on my lap and we both got covered with the heavy aprons. He yelled, "This thing is weird!! Get it off me!!" and was kicking and screaming the whole time. The nurse was trying to shove the thing you bite down on between his clamped down teeth and I was cursing Nick for getting out of taking Tommy to this appointment. After 5 minutes of literal blood, sweat and tears, we got the x-ray. The doctor said the tooth needed to be pulled because he was starting to show signs of infection. He gave us the option of pulling the tooth now or coming back another day. Pardon my French, but no way in hell was I going to bring my son back AGAIN and go through all this AGAIN. So I told the dentist to get 'er done.

The nurse put laughing gas on Tommy. It did absolutely nothing to calm him down. And the mask kept coming off his face, but the nurse didn't seem concerned about that. I appreciated her help but she was kind of rude and snippy towards the end. Granted, Tommy wasn't the ideal patient, but I would think that working in a pediatric DENTIST office, that's something that should be expected. Tommy was hysterical and I was almost crying--even if you know your kid is being unreasonable, it's still hard to see them that upset. With 5 people holding him down, the dentist gave him about 5 shots in his gum and then pulled out the worlds largest pair of pliers. I almost threw up. I looked away and he just ripped that tooth right out! In like, 5 seconds.

There was blood everywhere and they kept trying to shove those cotton pads in his mouth and he was saying, "Mommy! Dis feels funny! I don't like it!! MOOOOOOMMMMMYYYY!!!!" But it was over and I was SO glad. He ended up getting two prizes and was happy as could be that we were leaving. They gave him a big green plastic tooth to put under his pillow with his actual tooth inside it.

My sweet little three year old (turned temporarily insane due to his fear of.....everything) was back to himself in no time. But now I feel like he looks like a five year old with that gaping hole in the front of his mouth.

He was really grossed out by his tooth (so was I). He kept looking at it and saying, "Yuck!" and "What IS that?"

It was a super horrible, super traumatic, super frustrating experience for Tommy and I. Like, I'm already dreading his 6 month check up. But I'm trying not to think about it and praying that God gives him some kind of super bravery by then--it could happen, right?!

I was super excited though for his first experience with the tooth fairy. He wanted to write her a letter with instructions not to take the green tooth, just the white tooth inSIDE the green tooth. He was very worried she would be confused and take the whole thing. So he dictated this letter and I wrote it word for word.......

I will treasure this letter FOREVER. Take my tooth to the doctor and make a necklace out of it?!? Where do kids come up with this stuff? And he told me he thought the tooth fairy should leave him $5! Say whaaaaa?!? FIVE DOLLARS? And then everyone at work told me that was the standard!

So the tooth fairy decided that would be okay for the FIRST tooth. And then we she was going to go back to old-school...$1 at the most. What kid needs $5 for losing a tooth?

He was so excited when he woke up and saw his green tooth was still there and it had $5 in it!

It ALMOST made up for our horrible experience.

And now, when he's being naughty, I threaten to take him to the dentist and he straightens RIGHT up! ;) Just kidding.......kind of.