Best Buddies

Isaac and his buddy Kaleb. Cute little boys.

Flowers

I like flowers. A lot. I like growing flowers, but I especially like receiving flowers! And my sweet boys surprised me big time by bringing me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day! Well, nothing lasts forever, and most of the flowers had died, so I weeded out the hardy ones today and put them in a smaller vase and they still look great!The sad part about the original bouquet is they got it for me when I had my sinus infection and couldn't smell anything for days, so while they were most fragrant, I could only enjoy their visual beauty. My luck!

Thanks, Isaac and Daddy, for my beautiful flowers! I love you guys!

Soccer

I just signed Isaac up for a youth soccer league! The season starts April 18th and is for kids 4-5, so since that is just after his 4th birthday, he'll be old enough! I'm so excited for him, I think he's going to have a great time. Now we need to find him some shin guards and cleats.

On the form, it asked if I was interested in coaching, I said no. Not that I'm opposed to coaching, but one of the big reasons to put Isaac in soccer is to get him out of the house and out of my hair for a few hours! Hooray for soccer coach babysitters! :) (Is it awful to think if it that way?)

So keep your Saturday mornings in April - June free so you can come watch some adorable kids soccer!

Spring Fever

We really need a sand box.See that little red dot in my neighbor's sand box? Yup, that's Isaac. He spent almost an hour over playing with my neighbor's cute little boys. So much for nap time, but he had so much fun.

Emilie's other front tooth came through yesterday and she had an AWFUL night, poor girl. I hope the worst has passed and we can all get some sleep this weekend. MOMMY IS CRANKY WITHOUT ENOUGH SLEEP.

Growing Pains

I'm having a hard time uploading pics right now, so a few entries that I had started (which were dependent in the accompanying photos) will have to wait until I can get the kinks worked out. If only I could find a reliable computer guy...

Anyway, not too much going on around here these days except for Emilie's teething. She is normally such a happy and contented little girl, but if she's teething, WATCH OUT! She hasn't been sleeping as well, or eating well, or nursing well, and it's been going on a few days now. I don't know if it's the tooth that has broken through the surface already or if it's the neighbor wanting to join the party, but either way, I just hope that she can find some relief already.

Seeing what an incredibly short temper she has these days at the very hint of things not going her way makes me wonder what things are going to be like as she gets older. Is she going to be a spoiled Prima Dona demanding everything to be just so, or will she eventually learn to just roll with the punches? Because right now, you just don't cross her. If she somehow manages to get a hold of a cell phone or remote control? Don't even think of reclaiming it. If her rubber ducky dares to swim away from her in the bath tub? It might as well get on the next flight to Alaska. And if you have the audacity to wipe her nose? Well, let's just say, it's not pretty. Or quiet. And yes, the ensuing crying only causes more snot which just compounds the situation exponentially.

The sooner my little girl is feeling better, the sooner we'll all be feeling better. I just she will allow me a little more sleep tonight!

Isaac + Scissors =

The other day, I was brainstorming some ideas of things to do with Isaac to keep him busy and entertained on these long, cold, wintry days and I had one of my more brilliant ideas yet - I should teach Isaac how to use scissors! So, being the good mom that I am, I shopped the art supply isle while out shopping and found, what I considered, to be the safest kids scissors available.

Well, fast forward a few days. Jarom found Isaac downstairs on his own chopping apart some of his artwork. He must have found out where I had been hiding the scissors. Upon further inspection, Jarom discovered he had done more than just cut apart some watercolors. He then marched Isaac upstairs to show mommy the damage:
So now I'm in a quandary. Do I just let it grow out? Or do I give my son a short buzz cut to even out the length in the dead of winter?

Needless to say, we've talked quite a bit about what is and is not appropriate to cut with scissors. Think this lesson will last?

#3

Yesterday after Emilie's afternoon nap, I checked her gums again - that poor little mouth is so swollen right now with teeth! - and sure enough, her first top tooth had finally made it's way through! I think it's neighbor will be making it's appearance any day now.

Tooth count: 3

Think inside the box

I read this article the other day for some ideas of games to play with Emilie, and since we still have tons of boxes around, I gave it a try!I've been trying to do more craft projects with Isaac lately too (trying to break up the winter boredom) and he has become very good with the paint brush! I'll have to scan some of his artwork soon to show off his creations. So far, we've tried water colors and finger paints. As much as he loves getting messy, I think he prefers the water colors - plus he can work on a project longer which is a bonus for both of us!

Card swap

I had a card swap with my friends the other day and thought I would show off our cute Valentine's/Love cards, especially if you need some last-minute inspiration for your own cards!

It's a good day for.... laundry?

Last Saturday, I got a Isaac's clothes in the washing machine and noticed that after a few minutes into the wash cycle, it just stopped. I had my trusty handyman (Jarom) take a look at it and he saw that the fuse had blown. He did some preliminary research online and saw that when that happens, it usually means the motor has died. So we were looking at a few hundred dollars to replace that. So I called my dear sister because I knew that she had a washing machine they were getting rid of that was exactly like mine only a year or two newer, and as luck would have it, she hadn't gotten rid of it yet. So we loaded it up in the van and brought it home.

With some help, Jarom got Michele's washer upstairs, plugged it in, then watched in horror as my laundry room was showered. I guess the washing machine was left outside on a porch and the hoses froze, so the main valve cracked and that piece alone would be quite expensive to fix.

So now we were stuck with two broken washing machines. And if you know anything about Jarom, this was a personal challenge to his very manhood.

His first stop was Radio Shack where he got a replacement fuse for our machine. He swapped that out (and was so excited to use his soldering iron), but as soon as he started the washer, the fuse blew again, so the motor was officially dead. Then he cannibalized Michele's washer and took the motor and control board out and put it in our machine. Bingo! It worked! We juggled the two washing machines around again, up and down all those stairs, and in the end, we have a working washing machine again!

I think we're just under the Sugden curse for washing machines because both my older brothers had to replace their washing machines in the last couple months. I'm just glad that Jarom was able to get things working, at least for now, so that we don't have to purchase a new machine right away.

Jarom, I love you.

An audience

Isaac is at the age where he needs a captive audience every waking moment. If he's not barraging me with questions like "what does a fire truck do?" "what do broken cars do?" "what do trucks drive on?" etc, then he's usually commanding me, "look what I can do!" (are you imagining Stewart from Mad TV? You're not far off.)

It gets a little tiring to always give him the attention that he needs because I do occasionally have other things to do like, say, cook dinner or clean the house (how dare I, I know!). But as Emilie is getting older, Isaac has realized what a perfect audience she is! She adores him, she laughs at him, and she loves to be near him! They are hilarious in the car because he will sing songs or tell her stories and they will both just laugh and laugh.

This afternoon I put Emilie down for a nap and had the baby monitor on, but she wasn't sounding very asleep. Isaac heard her babbling and thought it would be fun to see what was going on. This is what we found.
Isaac found a bunch of her toys, threw them in her crib, and climbed on in himself. "We're playing babies!" he proudly explained. How could a mother be upset about that? Ok, so nap time was shot, but seeing my kids playing together so cutely (is that a word?) was worth the few moments of quiet time I was hoping to find.

My giveaway

Ok, I concede that people are busy and may not want to do their own version of a giveaway, and I am fine with that. And, not everyone has a blog that visits here and that can also complicate things. I can be flexible. Here's the deal. I will still make you something, and you don't need to re-post, but please keep up the spirit of the give away and at least do something kind to a few other people. Call your mom, send a friend an email, take your new girlfriend flowers, bake your neighbor a cake, whatever. And tell me about it when you've done your good deed!

So far, I am making something fabulous for Taryn, Ammon, Jana, and Ruth. (and I will need you guys to send me your addresses...) One more person out there? Hurry!

**update**

Ok, contest is over! Time to get crafting...

Announcing....

Hey guys, I'm still waiting for a few more people to say they want me to make them something, did you not read my last post? Heck, I don't care who you are, if I know you or not, I just want to feel like someone out there would like me to make something just for them. So please humor me and comment on my last post, it would make me feel happy.

Ok, enough of the embarrassing plug, I have a big announcement! Well, big for me anyway. I'm starting a new blog for my recipes and crafty stuff! I'm going to move some of the recipes I've posted lately over there and try to add new ones that I find as well as share some of my tried and true. Enjoy! Click here to go hang out at Cloey's Corner. I'm still going to keep this one going and use it more just to keep bragging about my wonderful kids, don't worry. I love talking about them way too much to quit.

And for your viewing pleasure, I thought I'd share a few pics of how cute my kiddos are when they're sleeping. Last Sunday, we drove out to visit Grandma and Grandpa, and the kids were out cold before we even made it to the freeway. Sleeping in the car isn't too exciting, but then I looked back and saw Isaac holding on to Emilie's hand while he slept and thought how ridiculously sweet he can be sometimes.
Then yesterday afternoon, I put Isaac down for a nap as I usually do, but didn't expect too much since he usually doesn't stay down for his nap and just plays for a while, but I left him in his room and went into the office to work. After a half hour or so, I noticed that I still hadn't heard him get up to play, so I went down the hall to check on him. He wasn't in his bed, so I looked in my room to see if he was in my bed. Not there. I looked on my couch, not there either. I looked in his closet, then thought to look under his bed. Bingo.

Fun and just for you!

I just saw this on a friends blog and thought it would be cool to do too! It could be fun!!Lucky you! The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year. (might be a little while)
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!