Monday, December 1, 2014

Baby Talk

Today, as I was getting my almost 3 year old ready for the morning, he was intently trying to explain something to me.  But none of his words made sense.  So I turned to 4 year old sister assuming she could interpret.  "What is he saying?"  I asked.  She replied, "I don't know.  I don't speak baby any more." Lol

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Throw Down in Chic A Way Playground

Yep, tonight was not the night for our family to go to "Chic A Way" (that's toddler code for Chic Fil A).  But with our house on the market and literally the 27th agent wanting to parade potential buyers through the place, we had to find somewhere to hang out from 6-7pm on a Saturday night.  So after loading up three worn-out kids and two yappy dogs and one tired husband, we headed to our potential new home to drop the dogs off and then on to <s>doomsday</s> dinner.

It all started off mildly.  After downing the required chicken nuggets to earn a prize and get to play, our boys bolted for the play area.  Sweet daughter stayed at the table to have her book read to her.  At the playground there was running and sliding and jumping; and then came the shoving and pulling and hitting...  which was from our 2 year old going on 3 toward both another giant too-big-to-be-in-the-play-area kid and also toward our oldest son.  The preteen kid gave my youngest a hip check, which knocked him on his tush, and the left the play area.  The the little guy turned to his older brother.  My oldest initially held our little one at bay by grabbing the little boxer's shoulders and keeping them in place by locking his arms.  Then the baby of the family somehow twisted, turned and punched his older brother.  So Daddy jumped up in the middle of the aforementioned and by the time he got to the boxer, the wailing had already happened.  Oldest was unscathed and went on his merry way while the boxer was being lectured by Daddy and was warned not to punch/kick/bite his older brother or anyone else.  Before the playground's door was opened as Daddy had his back turned and walking out, sure enough The Boxer ran up to his brother and socked him.  Sigh.  So Daddy scooped him up so he would be in exile(aka have to sit at the table) while other kids got to play.

Then moments later a lady seated right next to the window into the play area, approached me and said, "Is your son the one with the red shirt?"  "No, he has the striped yellow shirt on."  "OH!" she replied. "The boy in the red has him cornered and is punching and kicking him."  "Whaaat?" So I run in around the blind spot and by this time my kid had gotten away from the psycho, and psycho says to me, "He wouldn't quit making a weird noise and singing."  I said, "EXCUSE ME?  You think that gives you the right to punch him?!"  Psycho said, "It annoyed me and I told him to stop but he wouldn't."  GRRRRRR!  I said in my best gansta voice, "You got a problem with my son; you got a problem with me."  I asked Oldest what happened, and he replied, "The Boxer hit me!"  I have to explain I'm talking about the new incident not the one with his brother.  He deflects and says it's no big deal and he's ok.  OK, so now the Psycho has intimidated him enough that he's afraid to say what happen.  If there wasn't laws on the books, I would have smacked the psycho kid! 

Finally, red shirt Psycho leaves after I move our stuff to a table right outside the door where there wouldn't be any blind spots for us.  Then it happens.  We stupidly and mistakenly let The Boxer get to go back inside and explicitly tell him to not wrestle or fight or hit. 

First thing he does?  Yep, goes up to his oldest brother and tries to get him to wrestle.  Oldest knows that's not ok and tried brushing him off, tries getting away from him, holds him off by extending his arms so The Boxer can't reach him.  Then, you guessed it, The Boxer makes his twist, duck, smack move and slaps his older brother across the face.  SIGH!  I go in and scoop him up and tell him NO!  He cries hysterically while I tell him he has to sit on my lap and watch his brother and (twirling-not-a-care-in-the-world) sweet sister get to play. 

And then IT happens.  He lies.  Oh, I know they have all tried this.  All of us.  At some points and at lots of points in our lives, we lie.  I just hate it.  He tells me, "Mommy! Mommy!  My elbow, brother hit elbow."  Pouty lip out as far as possible with a touch of quivering, pointing to his imaginary injury, and tears streaming down his face.  It wasn't helping his case whatsoever.  He got in BIG trouble over that.  MommyCon threw down.  Crying and wailing ensued.  And we got out of there before CPS showed up.

Sigh.  Not the most relaxing time we've had at Chic A Way by any means.  Thankfully, no one got truly injured.  Thankfully, my littlest learned a lesson about not hurting his big brother, my oldest got a lesson about not letting a stranger just pound on you(and karate lessons will soon be happening), my sweet daughter was oblivious to it all and I got to enjoy reading her the book on birds from her kid's meal, and my littlest also learned his first lesson about how we don't lie.  Whew.

Oh, Chic A Way the many games to play.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Things Toddlers Say

Recently, I've noticed how well my two year old's speech has been coming along.  He's picking up more and more words and his pronunciation is improving every day.  I'm so impressed!  But today, today, I realized that he has figured out complex sentences when he laughed hystercially and excitedly exclaimed, "Mommy, I peepee on flooooor!"

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Things Toddlers Say

 Lately, our little two year old has joined in with prayer before meals.  Most days, he'll add at the end of the prayer, "And tanetoo airpanes."  Love my sweet babies!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Things Toddlers Say

Today on our car ride, my little girl gleefully reminisced, "Remember building the ig-goo last year at Grandmama's!  Remember when her yard snowed!!!"

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Birthday Surprise!

Ok, I've still got a lot of spring in my step but yesterday, on my 38th birthday, I learned a thing or two about getting old and beauty treatments. 

I got a pedicure.  It was bliss as always!  Bless the woman not afraid to touch my feet. (seriously, I hope she wins the lotto)  So afterwards, I think, hmmm how about an eyebrow wax. 

"Yea.  Eyebrow?  ahemm."  That was what was suggested to me the first time I got an eyebrow wax about 12-13 years ago.  Without me asking about it, the lady giving me a manicure suggested in her broken English, "Yea.  Eyebrow?  ahemm."  As for a person being clueless in the art of beauty treatments, I didn't take it as a putddown but more of an educational opportunity for me. 

So yesterday, when I asked about getting my eyebrows waxed and asked about lip waxing, I got the reply, "OH YES, lip wax.  We do lip wax!"  She seemed so emphatic about it that I took it as another "educational" experience and will be getting lip waxes from now on.  I'm thinking I probably should have started this 3 or 4 years ago with the amount of time plucking in the upper lip region increasing exponentially lately!  "OH YES, lip wax!"

Saturday, January 11, 2014

"Kiss, Mommy!"

Lately, my little baby boy has been exclaiming, "Keya, Mommy!"  Then as I'm holding him he'll grab my head and plant a kiss on my cheek and then wait for me to kiss him back and giggle.  It's so much fun and melts my heart.  It also helps to remember on days like today when I'm changing a diaper and he pee's on me and mischievous laughter ensues.  ha!

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

WHAT’S YOUR SECRET TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE? #HappyWivesClub

This post is part of the Happy Wives Club Blog Tour which I am delighted to be a part of along with hundreds of inspiring bloggers. To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! 



Secret to a happy marriage?  Does this exist???  YEP, and I'm living it!  My husband and I have been married 16 years.  Almost the first decade wasn't so good for a lot of reasons.  And we both were ready to throw in the towel after 9 years.  But thank the Lord, He knew exactly what both my husband and me needed...  HIM! 

Yep, I had been living my life for myself...  I worshipped myself, my husband, and alcohol.  My husband had his own idols to deal with.  We were all mixed up on our priorities.  But God!  He showed up just when each of us was ready to listen and change.  God gave my husband a new wife...  and it was me - except nicer and not as self-centered(ok, I will always have things I struggle with).  I couldn't have changed without God.  Like the Bible says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"2 Corinthians 5:17

I praise God for saving our marriage from the ashes.  I praise God for making us new creations in Christ!  I praise God for blessing us with 3 kids!!!  I praise God that I feel safe in my husband's arms and that he is mine!

How to have a happy marriage?  Make Jesus the center of your life.  Then it's not your husband you will worship but God.  And when God is the center of your life, you can't help but be changed and be joyful with the hope of salvation!



Fawn Weaver, the founder of the Happy Wives Club wrote a book about the best marriage secrets the world has to offer. They say the book is like “Eat, Pray, Love meets The 5 Love Languages.” I say the book is inspiring. You can grab a copy HERE.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Organization Upgrade!

Our home's "Central Command", aka armoire, has been an evolving area in our house.  Well, we were needing a place for charging all our electronics and also needed a place for the kids coats to hang so I didn't have to go up and down the stairs every time we were heading out.  The only problem was the armoire only had so much counter type space...  see...


So the only place I could go was up.  That meant building a shelf somehow.  Unfortunately, I'm not much of a carpenter.  Luckily, Lowe's will cut wood to length.  So after bringing home the pieces, fastening them together, and a bit of staining, here's what I came up with...

 
This "shelf" could almost be used for a bench if I had put a center support in it!  So next was putting this into the armoire.  Sounds easy right?  Well... when measuring the width needed, I forgot to take into consideration that the door hinges were a little bit into the width of the armoire.  Oopsy!
 
Also there were a couple more items that needed to be corralled but didn't have a box for them.  Sooo...  instead of buying pretty storage boxes I decided to make my own.  Being close to the holidays with all the packages we had ordered, we had a bunch of cardboard boxes to choose from and also had pretty wrapping paper to choose from...  Voila!
 


 
In the very center is the file tower that I used for the electronics charging station.  Also hooks were added to the doors for the coats.  It's so great to have everything so much better organized and have one place in the house for all the electronics to charge.  So handy!