JJ Jump..

Today Annie and I took the kids to JJ Jump... a big warehouse with a bunch of bounce houses and slides... what a good way to burn up the little guys energy.

Max was un-sure at first and just clung to me, but once he got used to it... you could'nt coral him into the little kid section he wanted to be off with the big kids on the big slide.

Ollie was ecstatic from the time we walked in the door... he got stuck a couple of times so Annie got to go in after him... It was a fun day, they have time set aside for just little guys, I think we will be heading out there again when it is'nt so crazy...

new couch...

yes, we are officially adults... we actually bought a couch. All our previous furniture were hand me downs.. nothing wrong with that, but it was nice being able to pick it out, choose our own fabric and everything. The shop we bought it at is awesome, the husband and wife team are so nice, and the couch was made in Woodburn, so it is supporting local business... Love it... so much better than the Ikea version we were looking at.

On the way home from picking up the couch B looked at me and said "Man, I can't believe we bought a couch together and a bed (technically our first adult purchase 2 years ago), I guess I am stuck with you..." I looked at him and said.."uh, ya and what about the two kids we have strapped in the backseat, I think you were stuck with me long before we bought the bed or the couch." silly boys....

perfecting the cheese face...

maybe we need to work on a little less enthusiasm with the cheese face... wild child

the zoo...

last week we had to get out of the house, so even though it was freezing I loaded the boys up and we headed out. It was a perfect day actually, cold and sunny, and not allot of people at the zoo. Ollie is still talking about the "wild animals" good thing we have a pass, i think we will be using it allot this year.

Resurrection Sunday...

I stole my title from Shannon, kind of brings it back to what it is actually about, rather than the consumer frenzy the retail industry has turned it into... of course I think every religious holiday has been changed to something it was never meant to be, and the religious aspect has been sucked out. but whatever, aren't they all just made up days coinciding with pagan holidays? who knows?


Okay back to Easter...



The Easter bunny left fun stuff for the boys, complete with special gifts from Nana Barb, the boys loved the jelly belly carrots!





We met family for brunch, last year we went to Edgefield, which was allot of fun, the weather was gorgeous... This year we headed out there and they had changed it so you had to make reservations, last year you did not... so we headed to the kennedy school instead, where no reservations were needed. The weather was crappy anyway and half the fun of Edgefield is being able to run around the gardens, so kennedy worked just fine for us.




Than headed to my moms for a lollipop picking, and easter egg hunt. I read an article about a mom who told her kids she planted lollipop seeds and they only bloomed on easter. I thought it was cute, and kind of spin on the easter egg..it was successful, we ended up in the greenhouse, which was awesome and kept everyone dry!





We made a laid back dinner, which was yummy... and the bonus of my day, both kids were down for a nap when we ate, so I got to hang out, eat, chat, drink wine all without little demanding people taking all my attention, and touching me with sticky hands...
The easter bunny even brought B and I a little something something... music, and smelly stuff from Lush... we love that place...

**when looking at the picture of max with the lollipop doesn't the song from wizard of oz go through your head..."we represent the lollipop kids..the lollipop kids..the lollipop kids...."

I am a big PBS dork...

I love public broadcasting... I also love listening to NPR... I bore B to death.. ..

anyway tonight when B was falling asleep on the couch, I switched over to PBS. There was a short on about a documentary, Body of War. I am not political, I like to kind of be in a bubble, I know it is horrible... But I get all fired up when I see this kind of stuff. I am not Anti-War and by no means am I Pro-War, I really don't know enough to claim a side.
It is terrible to choose not to take a side, when we have the complete freedom of choice. On these topics I try to keep my mouth shut (i know amazing, me not spouting my opinion). But this movie looks really interesting, I just might need to take a little visit to seattle, since it is'nt playing here yet.

Happy Birthday Daddy...

We were all recovering from the pukes on his actual B-day, but I managed to make some pasta and strawberry shortcake that night. Sucks B never gets any time off, and we had to spend the 4 days he did have off with the pukes!

Ollie's fashion statement...

His favorite new hat...


We are working on potty training. Which means no diapers, which also means ollie has a hard time keeping his pants on, the skinny little bugger.





I was making dinner and watching ollie in the living room, he was pulling his pants up high than reaching his arms up and sucking in his tummy to make his pants slide down. Than he would stick out his belly and say "Big Belly" suck it in and say "little belly." funny little bugger.

overdue kid update....

so my posts have been pretty sucky lately.. so here are some cute pics and updates of the little men.

Ollie...

Is talking a mile a minute, loves to sing the alphabet, and count anything he sees. I am a proud mama when he exclaims look mom "super letters" and proceeds to read all the letters he sees. The "super letters" statement comes from a show on PBS that he loves called Super Why. If the kid likes a show I guess I am okay with it being educational at least.

He loves the movie Peter Pan, we rented while we were sick.. we need to get out more.

He is using the word "Amazing" to describe everything... and when you walk in the door, loves to say "glad to see you"

Also when we were all recovering from the pukes, his blanket was washed multiple times. Anytime I would bring him a fresh, from the dryer, clean blankie, he would say "nice and warm, all clean." and "thanks mama, I love you." That made the puke clean up alittle easier.

When we get home, I have been having Ollie grab Max's hand and walk him up to the porch. Ollie loves this task, max not so much. What ends up happening is ollie chasing max asking for his hand and crying while max runs off holding his own hand.

Max...

Is also talking a mile a minute, he is quite the little parrot, I have an echo after everything I say.

Wants to do everything himself, and everything ollie is doing.

Is refusing to give up nursing, but we are working on it.

Loves to sing songs and dance around.

ARRRRGH...

I lost my phone, crap... ... ... well i think max lost my phone... I have searched the house every place a little man would think of putting it, and I can't find it. How freakin irritating.

Ollie started throwing-up last night, and has run out of your pants diarrhea to go with. Boy my week is rockin! and I can't even call anyone to bitch about it.

** i just found my phone, not even an hour after writing this. I guess I stuck it on the window sill, away from little hands, how smart of me, now if i just remembered how smart i was.

daylight savings.. ..

Can I just say, Daylight Savings has thoroughly ruined my schedule. I am having a bummer of a time trying to get adjusted to the time change... it just isn't natural screwing with my inner clock like this.

my "hope for healthy"...

Shortly after I was feeling human, B got sick. He was up all night friday night and pretty much dead for the entire day saturday. Ollie got sick once, I was preparing myself for a sleepless night but he was fine, threw up once slept the whole night and has been fine today. So thanks for the prayers for health it kind of worked. It could have been much worse.

B and I still feel poopy, but the boys are fine, which is good. We went to the video store today and rented 7 movies. That is alot of entertainment, but after days of sickness, we needed something to help with the boredom and misery.

B is feeling better and took max to fossil to get a new watch band. Why he needs it today is beyond me, but when he gets something into his head that he needs there is no stopping him.

Ollie and I just took his bike around the block. It was nice just spending some one on one time with him, looking at all the blooming trees and flowers. 3 days in the house makes a big difference when spring is blooming, our backyard is sprayed with color. Color that was not there on Wednesday when we were playing in the sun. And all the neighborhood trees are filled pink with blossoms. It was a "pretty walk"... according to Ollie.

B took him to soccer on friday and than out to a special daddy and ollie lunch, while me and max stayed home and recovered from our rough thursday. I guess on friday he did'nt want to play soccer and spent the whole class climbing the bleachers, B has alot of photo's of Ollie on the bleachers.

Okay so this is a random blog, but come on, I have been sick.

We got a new camera, ours was on the way out. Before I actually read the manual I was just messing around taking photo's, this will just you give you alittle insight into the wonderful world of Ollie and Max, and the fight for the blocks.

I love how the photo's are blurred by movement. These guys are fast and I think it captures the little tiff very well. Ollie loves his blocks, and we are working on sharing, he spends alot of quiet time building lots of different things, I love watching him and his imagination. He builds rockets, robots, cars, trucks, boats, he even names the different parts, the brakes, the engine, the lights... how do kids pick up this stuff.

**just a side note my kids do wear pants, even though most of my pics they are pantless. I seem to always catch them after nap time, which most of the time ollie comes out with just a pull-up on, he is in a no clothes phase.

.. .sick.. ;(

It has been quite awhile since I have been sick, and yesterday it hit me full force. Could not have had worse timing.

B's Grampa on his dad's side died last week and today we were supposed to be in california at a memorial. We than made plans to head down to B's mom's house for the weekend and than drive back on Monday on B's birthday. This would have been a great weekend to re-connect with family we don't get to see often.

I loaded the bags on Wednesday night, got the house cleaned up, and almost used up the last of the milk, I was in the out-of-town mood. Thursday morning B had to run into work early (like 4:30 am) to finish up some stuff. I was awakened around 5 by max crying, I let him cry for awhile but he was'nt going back to sleep, so I made a bottle (trying to stop nursing) and got him out of bed and brought him into bed with me. He would'nt take the bottle, but I was serious about the no nursing that morning... so he eventually took a little of the bottle and fell asleep, about a half hour later I was awakened by him puking on my bed. Not a lovely way to wake up. I thought maybe it was the milk, but he had never had a problem with milk before. So I climbed out of bed at the un-godly hour of 6am. I nursed max alittle and layed with him on the couch. He puked again. I got him a little water. He puked again. GREAT. In 6 hours we are supposed to be on the road for an 8 hour car ride down I-5.
Ollie got up, I gave him breakfast while max was sleeping in and out on the couch. Than, oh yeah, guess who got neausous. ME.... I took one sip of coffee, and puked.
To make a long story short, B got stuck at work till 4pm. I had Annie bring me sick supplies and take Ollie away since he was not sick. I than proceeded to puke my guts out all day long, while trying to deal with poor little max, who was also puking his guts out. At one point we were throwing up into the same bowl. IT SUCKED. Not to mention I have a tendency to pass out when I throw up... my day sucked.
B got home, I went to bed.
I last threw up around midnight, and have been holding down sprite and chicken broth since. THANK GOD that is over. Now everyone please pray Ollie and B stay healthy. I hate the pukes.

my beat up boy...

So max is a rough and tumble kind of kid. Maybe it is being the second, maybe it is cause ollie is a big meany. But my poor baby is looking sorry.

He got a black eye last week when he was drinking out of a cup and ollie went to grab it cause it was "MMMIIINNNNEE" tripped and ended up pushing the cup up into maxes little eye socket. Than a mysterious scratch appeared while the boys were playing in there room.

I spy on the boys allot, quietly wait at the door to see what is going on. Max is the loud one. So usually Ollie is the one who gets in trouble, and has to sit in time-out when they fight. I have been observing and realize max is an instigator. No surprise out there for you older siblings, right. I remember my younger siblings quietly egging me on. I remember being the one to egg on my older siblings (I used to bug jeff to death, and he used to beat the crap out of me, than I would go back for more... I didn't learn very fast). So max will steal toys, walk up and hit ollie on the head or any number of other ways to get some ollie attention. Ollie than will do what any other three year old boy will do, hit him back, kick him out of the way, sit on him... and oh yes, my personal least favorite bite him. Ollie is a biter. He spends allot of time in time-out. I don't know what else to do, I have read a number of books, and unfortunately I can't bring myself to bite him back. Or make him bite himself. I figure max is getting pretty rough, Ollie will learn soon enough. When max cries I will say in a stern Mother voice. "Ollie did you hurt max, what did you do?" He used to ignore me, he now says very sternly back "i bit him" and runs to time-out. Maybe my time-outs are not solving the problem?

My soccer star**

We started soccer last friday. Ollie was stoked to go out and kick balls all over the place. He was in little boy heaven, though he was slightly confused and kept trying to play basketball.

He did really good during the freetime play. I know he will get better at listening to the coaches the more we go. But the huge gym was just to tempting for his little 3 year old feet. He kept following all the lines around the gym acting like a train. Jo luckily was there to help me wrangle Ollie and Max. He will get better, I just keep telling myself that. It was his first class and alot of the kids have been going for awhile, it was good gave me a workout chasing the little man around trying to rope him back into what the other kids were doing. By the end Jo was running around with him. At the end of class the kids put away all the balls and only the three coaches have a ball. The game is try and steal the ball away from the teacher. Ollie did not understand this game, he was running behind the teacher with jo frantically doing his please sign and falling to the ground in a crying fit because he could not understand why the teacher kept running away from him. Poor guy. Soon he will learn that this is a game, and it is fun, right?

getting caught up...

well, we have been busy around here. I will get you all caught up... but check out the new t-shirt dresses I have been working at over at www.burdyflyaway.etsy.com

That has been keeping me pretty busy, plus the gorgeous weather we have been having... praise spring. Even though I know this little bout of sunshine is going to give way to glorious spring rain, but I am enjoying it while I can.