the un-adventures of me

I know that ALL of my blog posts are about the kids, but I decided that I will interject a few posts here and there about my un-adventures of motherhood. They are nothing big and important, but they help put things into perspective for those of you who haven't raised young children in awhile.... this is my life. I will show you some of what I attempted to accomplish this weekend while I had Jacob home all to myself with no chance of him being called into work! It was great! I will cover two things: #1 being the big cleaning/organizing/simplifying project that has been stuffed in the corner of my room for far too long, and #2 being the task that popped into my head to distract me from #1.

TASK #1:

My junk moundSadly enough, the other half is out in the hallway.

Months ago, Jacob took everything we had stored under our stairs and told me I had to go through it and de-junk and re-organize. I loved the idea because he never is up for stuff like that. So I did, and we got rid of TONS of junk and made quite a contribution to DI of nice things that we just do not use. I was feeling pretty good until it came to l-a-t-e that night and I was tired. Everything that was left had to be gone through one by one and I had to really decide what to do with it and where to put it. I decided to put it into one huge pile that would bother me so much I would have finish up the next day. Come to find out, it didn't bother me that much. And so it sat and still sits.

(for this, look at the junk on the file cabinet covered with the sheet. ugh, messy.)

So I had finally had it and decided that with the first weekend Jacob is home I was going to clean up the mound, see, it keeps growing and growing like a weed the longer it is unattended. So, me being so smart, knew that if I piled it on my bed it would have to be cleaned up before I went to bed.

Hence:
The junk mound re-located
don't forget, the other half is still in the hallway...

Well, after clearing off the cedar chest that it was piled on, I opened it realizing that is where my missing photo albums have been. *Enter Taylie*
Taylie: "Wow! Cool mom...I see?"
Me: "Sure, you can see. Let's have a look"

45 minutes later:Yeah, all I accomplished to this point is what you see. It is cleared off and I managed to vacuum behind it and clean my baseboards. We looked at every album and picture frame that I had in there. So as I am sitting on a spare corner of my bed with Taylie on my lap contemplating my lack of progress and what in the world I was going to do with all that stuff. I looked at Taylie's hair and got an idea....

The Distraction...
Yes, we all know she is cute and a crack up, but I got the sudden idea to :

french braid her hair!


Now, for those of you who know me, you are probably laughing for 2 reasons: #1. I do not know how to do anything with hair. I barley pull off a respectable looking pony tail myself. The only reason you all think it is so great is because the color is quite nice. The distraction works well for me not knowing how to do a dang thing with it. and #2. I get distracted VERY easily when there is something I really do not want to do. I will find anything else to do!! Jacob was at a movie and Luke was sleeping while all this was going on and he came home took a look and the bedroom and then at Taylie's hair and giggled to himself and rolled his eyes at me. He did tell me how cute she looked though... :) Now, my favorite part of this story is that I have never ever french braided hair before. I don't know how and have never tried before. The urge just hit me and I went with it. I am not very good and it falls out quickly, but I have found a friend who said she would help me learn! Sweet.

So, my night/weekend ended with Jacob moving everything off the bed because I fell asleep on the couch. It has still not been cleaned/organized/simplified, but he stacked it much neater than I had. Go Weekends!!She sure is a cutie and so patient with me. It took 45 minutes to get them in. She told me her butt hurt and so she had to get up and take a break! She didn't even complain once :) What a sweetie!


Next Week: I am posting a picture of my laundry that I do every Friday night. I always say how much I do, but you really do not believe the pile till you see it!

the daily adventures of Taylie (...and Luke too)

I got to thinking the other day, what my photos would look like if I decided to follow Taylie around for a day. I will be honest, I only lasted a morning. It is far too exhausting to follow around a toddler all day, but I did learn many interesting things about my daughter and why my son tends to yell for help when he is with her. Here are some of the daily adventures of Taylie featuring Lucas as the victim...or uh, maybe sidekick is a better word.

The morning started with the donning of some Buzz Lightyear underpants (she picked them out all by herself...) and then seeing how many toys a standard size grocery bag can hold. Answer: quite a few actually, the only problem comes when she has to drag it because it is too heavy.

apparently while I was in time-out, she stole my sunglasses and decided that it was time for Elmo panties. The underwear...hmm, it is still a work in progress, lets just say that.

While wearing my sunglasses, she decided to teach her brother a new skill......

I am SO not pleased with this by the way! She was standing at the top of the stairs with food (look at this boy, does he look like he can resist a bribe like that??) and saying: "Here lukie, come here lukie, good boy buddy!" ARGH! So now, he climbs stairs with ease but does not get back down them quite so gracefully.


So then when he is bummed from falling down the stairs backwards (no, I didn't sit and watch it happen!) she decides that she needs to hold him and make him feel better:

so amongst the protests...he gets comforted whether he likes it or not.

Now when I say to Taylie: "Please play with your brother I will be right back." I understand why he yells, not cry, but Y-E-L-L. She feels as though it is her job to corral and barricade him into which ever area she has chosen to occupy at that moment. The yelling, I now know, is Luke's way of summoning me to rescue him from his bad fortune of being condemned to play with his sister. She does a very good job though. I gotta give her that!

...and again later during the day

the poor boy doesn't even have a chance with her around!

By this point I gave up to long ago and didn't capture the moments of her and Luke playing "hide" (a.k.a. hide and seek where they hide in the same spot and giggle with each other), "be a boat" (where she demands to be wrapped up in a blanket and lifted/swung/tossed around and whatever else you can do to a 2 year old in a blanket), and "make me a burrito" (where she likes to be wrapped up so tight in a blanket it risks cutting off circulation), giving Snoopy a bath and attempting to do her brothers make-up. Like I said, exhausting!

I did end with this bath picture where she has, so helpfully, offered to wash Luke's hair and face...against all protesting. Luke is not into anything that could be considered grooming. You would really think I am killing him when I clip his nail or comb his hair. The volume comes from daddy.

So there is a small glimpse into the life of my 2 babies who are so quickly growing up!! I will have to post more highlights and photos once my energy recovers. :)