Halloween 2009

First off, I promise that with the coming of winter will come more fully dressed children. Halloween was so much more fun this year now that Taylie can enjoy it! Luke is kind of a grumpy gus most of the time so he grumped the whole time he had to be in costume. This is pumpkin decorating Schlenker style:

Taylie said that the little pumpkin she made for Lucas.
She was extremely proud of her creations.

Here come many pictures of kids in costumes:

Lucas the Lion!

and Taylie the Tiger!
She told people that she was Sher-kan from the Jungle Book, and then growled at them.

Taylie is so cute with Luke. He was grumpy from being in his costumer and so she was making him feel better.

this is pumpkin carving Brooks' style, or old school I guess!

We had so much fun this year. Jacob and I enjoyed that my Mom wanted to take the kids trick-or-treating around her neighborhood and so we got 45 minutes of kid free quiet. Taylie loved it this year because Grandma S. gave her a bag and made sure that it was 3/4 of the way full before she brought her back. Needless to say, both kids were bouncing off the wall because they were so loaded with sugar! refer to the video of Lucas with a sucker...

:)

I don't care what anybody says....

nagging works.

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. :)

musically inclined...?

Usually, I post bunches of pictures from when we go and swim and all the fun we have in the pool. I decided to post some of Taylie's after swimming activities.

this could be the start of something big...

she was singing "Old Mc'Donald" in case it wasn't quite clear!

she gets such a kick out of playing "gee-tar" with Uncle Jared. I see a band in the making...

and I just like the picture of Luke's hair. It is cute and crazy messy!

swimming and milestones

I am such a proud mommy! Both of my kids are growing so fast and achieving so much so fast it is hard to keep up. I will start with Taylie. Her newest achievements revolve around the pool:

I am so proud of her! She loves to swim and now she is so proud cause she can do it all by herself... with the assistance of water wings!


and parental supervision of course...

On to Lucas: He is starting to come around to the pool. We actually got a few smiles out of him on this last trip. He is tolerating the outdoors for about 20 minutes before he decides that he has had it and throws a fit. He is getting better slowly but surely. I refuse to have a kids who wants to be indoors all the time. He will grow into it I am sure.

gotta love those 2 little teeth he sprouted

my 2 favorite guys

The biggest update on Luke is that he had a very productive 4th of July weekend. Over the course of 4 days he went from rolling over from back to tummy (which is old news) but what he decided he could do from there was go from tummy to pulling his knees up under him,AND going from that position to sitting on his bum, AND then adding crawling on top of it. But he is not done yet, he also started to pull himself up on furniture and stools and things! Like I said, he had quite a productive 4 days.


he is now pretty darn quick and can very effectively chase after Talylie. She ran down the hall and around the corner to her room and he is following!


he always peeks around the corner to see if she is coming back before he goes any further. You know how fast she moves, he runs a serious risk of being run over!


Before I could sit down and take a picture of him standing up, he plopped down, crawled over and tried to grab my camera. I think this is pretty cute anyway!

cute kiddlet pictures

You know, I think I have pretty cute kids!

Food (generic title, I know)

She is such a little momma hen! She came and told me that Luke was hun-gy and then when I came out to check on him she was already feeding him some little crackers. Keep in mind that he is fully capable of feeding himself...he just LOVES to be babied!

wants food...will eat
he got these open all by himself too!

first experience with mashed potatoes
he didn't really accomplish anything with the spoon, just flung the potatoes across the room more efficiently.

and, of course, Taylie with food so ground in her hair that I had trouble washing it out. the picture doesn't do it justice.

funny girl

funny Taylie! She took it upon herself to raid my t-shirt drawer (and chose my favorite one too!) and dressed herself in it and then grabbed my high heels and paraded around the house! actually...she sort of stomped around.

this gives a better picture of the shoes...

she never fails to entertain.