Happy 2nd Birthday Lucas!

On Friday the 19th my little baby turned 2! I cannot believe how fast the last 2 years have gone. Sometimes, it felt like it would last forever, but for the most part, he has been a happy little boy.

So, look at this picture and see if you can guess why he is SO happy?

Answer: He snooped in my closet and found his birthday present 2 days early
That is bound to make anybody happy, right?

Jacob got to do the honors of setting it up while the kids were trying to crawl through it because they were so excited to play in it. (you will totally notice a theme running through his birthday this year...)

This is what they spent most of Wednesday doing:

this picture with the 2 little booties sticking out is one of my favorites!

The cake (do you see the pattern yet?)

The day of his birthday we went and partied at Grandma Brooks' house. Luke really wanted pizza for his birthday dinner so Grandma made him homemade pizza! It was so yummy and he inhaled 2 full pieces.

While the pizza was cooking, Grandma gave him his birthday present which is:

Cowboy boots that look just like Woody's from Toy Story, but they are slippers! Then, to spoil him even further, she stuffed a pack of M&Ms in one boot and some balloons in the other. So pretty much his two favorite things stuffed in the cutest little boots ever.
(do you see the theme yet? It is right there...)

He tried to blow up his own balloon and it was hilarious!

Homemade Pizza!

My little squishy boy with his birthday cake

I was so impressed when he was able to blow out his own candle without spitting on it! To this day, Taylie has still not figured out how to blow out a candle.

and this funny face is what he pulled when everybody started singing "Happy Birthday!" to Luke. It kind of freaked him out. :)

He thought it was a much better idea to use Buzz Lightyear to scrap the frosting off his cake and eat it that way then to use a fork.

After the festivities, we went home and he put on the boots and spent the rest of the night playing with the Buzz Lightyear space ship that Grandpa and Grandma S. got him for his birthday! He has a wonderful birthday and it even carried over to the next day. Grandpa Jon and Grandma Karen came over Saturday evening to visit him and they brought him a Tricycle!
I will post some more pictures when I get them.

So, that is my birthday boy. All grown up at the age of 2.

I think he is going to be one of those kids who is just an old soul. He is a very serious boy who is not into may frivolous things. He has those times where he likes to play and giggle hard, but overall he is...serious. That is really the only way to put it! Very careful about everything and loves his little routines and pretty much likes to do the same thing in any given situation. He totally cracks me up!

I love my little Lukie bear! He goes in for his 2 year check next week and I will post more about his little personality then!

Kidism

(after the 4th time Taylie has emerged from her room during rest time, which included waking me up twice)...
Me: "If you come out again I am taking your toys away for the rest of the day!"
(63 seconds later)...
Taylie: "Mom, I want-"
Me: "Okay, I am going to pack up your toys right now!"
(4 minutes later)
Taylie: "Mom, thanks for cleaning my room. Now I don't have to do it!"


This is one of those lessons I do not think will be making much of an impact.

I heart SpaceBags!

I love them!

I have always wanted to try them, but not willing to spend the money in case they didn't work. After testimonials from 2 of my best friends (including the phrase "the medium sized ones are crap!") I tried them. I fell in love with my newest organizational tool.

Here is a Jumbo size bag that claims to hold 2 queen sized comforters and 4 pillows. I took two of my biggest King sized comforters and crammed them in, zipped it up and sucked out the air.

Before:

After:

*cue angels singing*

My closets are in for a brand new makeover! If anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, go for SpaceBags.

that's my boy!

He never fails to make my jaw drop!

What we have been up to...

Our last weekend (not this most current one, but the one before that) was crazy nuts! A few months ago, our upstairs neighbor had her water heater spring a leak. As I am sure you can deduce, gravity did its thing and our ceiling was toast. Our landlord is totally awesome. She told Jacob to go ahead and do the work so he could make some money off of the inconvenience of the whole ordeal. *cue angels singing*

Yuck, huh?

He started this the same weekend I told my best friend that I would help her with laundry. She found yucky black mold in her apartment and had to drop everything and move. I told her to bring over all her laundry and I would help her get it done because I didn't want her taking mold spores to her new apartment.

So you take this:

...plus this...

...and add this...

and you get one WAY crowded laundry room! We made it work though. I tried to stay out of the way and keep the kids busy, so we spent Saturday morning doing this:

while Dad did this:

We had lots of fun coloring on the sidewalk and Taylie is getting really good at recognizing letters and people's names so it was educational as well.

See that slipper, that is my foot. I was trying to help, but this is about the extent of my skills that I could contribute.

and this little chalk-covered bootie was my favorite part of the morning!

It took a good 3 days to get the wash done, and at the same time, it took Jake about 2 and 1/2 days to do the ceiling. Then I thought we should move onto something a bit more fun!

Again, this story begins with the upstairs neighbor. She is a sweet woman, but without fail, she comes home everyday during naptime. She slams the front door and stomps up the stairs and walks around doing who knows what. Everyday, Taylie emerges from her room and tell me that she hears something upstairs. She is convinced that it is Santa Clause and his sleigh on the roof and that he will be coming out the chimney any moment.

I thought that it may be better for her to be able to visualize how many days are left until Santa will be coming to our house, so we decided to make a chain and hang it up in the house.

Luke wanted to be in charge of green and Taylie wanted the red. We did the first link the in chain with glue and it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. We switched to staples and the novelty of hooking paper together wore off in about 3 minutes.

Taylie did an awesome job of tracing the letters on the paper with glue and they both had a blast with the glitter. I mean, they were encouraged to be messy! It was great :)

So, after hooking together 46 pieces of paper, we were done and they wanted it hung on the wall that is between their rooms. They still do not understand why I ask them to rip a piece off every morning after breakfast. It may just end up being a decoration for this year.

I love doing fun little things with the 2 cute kids! Next, we are going to string popcorn to hang on our Christmas Tree. I hope their interest in this last for a bit longer. :)

What is in your purse??

In my little life, Jacob constantly asks me why I have so many purses and why I wish to obtain more. Let me tell you why. Which purse/bag I use depends on which child/children I am toting around for the day.

Example: Today, Taylie went to preschool, Jacob went to class, and it was just Luke and me for the morning. Even though I had only 1 child for a few hours, I had my largest bag in tow. Yes, I know it is humongous. Yes, I know that people are probably watching me and waiting for a little dog to pop out and yap at them. And yes, I know that this stylish black quilted bag (with the pink daisy to boot) in no way, shape or form fits in with my usual Nike, hoodie, and basketball shorts ensemble. What isn't understood, is that it is completely necessary!!! Here is the list of things that ended up in my bag:

These were my necessities:

• Wallet
• Insurance Cards
• Cell Phone
• Vitamin B-12 pills
• Water Bottle
• Keys
  

This is everything that ended ended up in my bag by 9:30am:

• Wallet
• Insurance Cards
• Cell Phone
• Vitamin B-12 pills
• Water Bottle
• Keys
  
• Buzz Lightyear
• Woody (and hat)
• Miniature Tigger
• Luke's favorite blankey
• Luke's sippy cup
  

I barley escaped out the door before he added his Binky and cowboy hat.

Now, why not say "no" you ask? How could you deny such a simple request made by this face:

(this pout gets me every time, I can't even stand it!)

If there is still anyone out there who is mystified by why I cave to these demands, I dare you to try walking by the Disney Store in the mall with a toddler and then tell him you are not going inside.

As much as I get teased for having a big bag that I can never find anything in, in an odd way, it simplifies life. So next time you see a woman with a bag so big it not only goes against nature, but any and all fashion statements, take a minute to wonder: What is she carrying in that bag?!

Tay-ism

(In the car, on the way home from preschool. Every time I ask Taylie a question she replies "huh?" even thought she hears me)

Taylie: "Mom, I don't want to watch Nemo!"
(Yes, my kids are that spoiled. I should have taken away the DVD player in the car after vacation, but I couldn't say no to those tears.)
Me:"Well, we have Nemo and Toy Story, take your pick."
Taylie: "I want to watch 'The Incredibles'"
Me: "Well when we get home, let's get the movie and put it in the car for next time."
Taylie: "Huh?"
(I nearly scream)
Me: *sigh* "blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah!"
"Did you get all that?!"
Taylie: "Yep! Thanks Mom."

Jacob about wet his pants laughing.

This is like what I feel like talking to my kids. Apparently speaking gibberish is clear as crystal but heaven forbid I speak English!
Lucky for her, she is too cute to be frustrated at for long.

simple things

Taylie's preschool has been doing Halloween related things all month long.

Most people wouldn't think much about it.

Taylie is now afraid of the dark, witches, monsters, ghosts and a number of other

creepy-related things.

She has to sleep with her christmas lights on (they are strung around the top of her room) and wakes up periodically to tell us that there are monsters in her room. She has an over-active imagination to say the least.

Lucky for me, an over-active imagination is easy to work with. I have logic on my side and an intelligent little girl who sees when things make sence.

We crafted this:

I wrote word for word what she wanted on the sign and then made a second one when she said she had to have one for under her pillow as well.

We all sleep through the night now.

I am quite proud of my girl.

my not-so-little little girl

I was watching "Father of the Bride" the other night and decided that this little girl:

will be staying 4 years old forever.
Non-negotiable.
:)

California Trip--part 2

This is the end of the massive previous blog post about our trip that we took to California. If you haven't read about the beginning of our trip and want to, start here :)

So, I have covered Tuesday-Friday night which in a nutshell goes car ride, mesquite, car ride, hotel/swimming, sick kid, wedding, Disneyland, more Disneyland, and here we are:

On Saturday it was the day that we were going to head home but we had to take the kids to the beach. It was really overcast and sort of chilly that day, but I really wanted Taylie to see the beach since she had missed the wedding, so we packed up our beach gear and, thanks to googlemaps.com, we eventually found our way to Balboa Beach. There was pretty much nobody there because it was chilly to us so I am sure the Californians it was freezing. Taylie wanted to go right down to the ocean and start checking it out and Luke wanted to dig. (after getting plowed by a wave at the wedding Luke wasn't in a huge hurry to get near the waves again)

The waves were pretty big that day so we would get close and then when the big ones would come, we would run away. I couldn't get many videos or pictures because it was super hard to hang on to Taylie to make sure she didn't get swept away. :) She started shivering a little big once she got wet but she didn't want to leave the water.

We have a tradition that started when we went on our honeymoon to Cancun to take a picture with feet in the ocean. Here is our picture with all of our feet in the Pacific Ocean!
Cute huh?!

We traded spots because I was cold and the salt was making me itch so when I went to go and dig with Luke, we manages to find the one and only ladybug on the beach that day. It was so super cute to watch him so facinated as it crawled all over his arm.

Luke and his ladybug :)

My little girl playing on the beach

...one more trip out to the water

We all pretty much wore out after about 2 hours. We had already checked out of our hotel but Grandpa was nice enough to let us come back to the hotel and shower in his room. So we headed back to the hotel showered and got everybody in their jammies so they would be comfy for the ride home. We grabbed some lunch and Luke was like this when pulled up at the gas station

He slept for the first almost 2 1/2 hours of the trip until we stopped for potty breaks...

...and Taylie was pretty much like this for most of the ride home.
So, after 12 hours of driving, 3 potty breaks and a stop for pancakes to satisfy Taylie's dinner craving we finally made it home at about 3am Sunday morning! Everyone crashed immediatly and didn't wake up until late the next morning.

We were so glad to have the opportunity to go and support Jeremy and Becca and maje so many fun family memories together :)