The Best and Worst of 2010

This year was a busy one. Like every year, there were good times and bad. Let's review.

Best:

-Wyatt's birth. Hands down the highlight of my year. Seeing him grow and watching him now as he starts to interact with me, Rob and Rex is just amazing.

-Rex. He's 2 and he's pretty crazy and doesn't listen well but man, that kid is so funny and smart! The things he says and thinks about just blow me away sometimes. He is so observant and I love that he is speaking in sentences more now and can relate what is going on in that giant head of his. He is so much fun every day.

-My husband is the greatest. He does so much for our family- he works so hard every day at his job then does so much here at the house too. He is amazing and I love him so much. And an extra special shout-out for tearing the roof off part of our house and fixing it. It was way more work than either of us anticipated but he did great and the house looks and functions better now.

-Visits from friends and family. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time and spent their money to come see us. We really appreciate it and are so happy you did.


Worst:

-The Floods. Not only did it flood a bunch but we had to boil all our water or use the bottled stuff for almost a week. That was tough. I am thankful though that we had no flood damage at our house and the water issue was all I had to worry about.

-My health. There were the pregnancy and recovery issues that I expected to deal with this year but I also was sick enough to go on antibiotics twice during the first two months of Wyatt's life and then I had the flu two weeks ago. Hoping for better luck in 2011.

-Wyatt's eating and sleeping- really the problem is not eating or sleeping good still. I can deal with it for a while but he is almost 8 months old and only wants breast milk straight from the source. No bottles, no formula, no rice cereal, no oatmeal, no veggies or fruit. Rob has had very little success with applesauce and I've had no success with anything. He makes it so that his tongue blocks any potential opening you may find to get food in his mouth. If you try to push the issue, he just uses that tongue to force everything back out. He is still gaining weight but we are definitely starting to have a supply issue because I can't keep up anymore. He's just too big. AND he wakes up once or twice a night (sometimes even up to four times a night!) to eat. I'm exhausted. He's had a couple of good runs where he sleeps through the night for a week or two and I think we're over the hurdle but then it all falls apart. Will just keep praying and hoping that this gets better. SOON.

Merry Crink Crink!

We had a very nice christmas here at home with our family- or should I say a nice "crink crink". Rex says "crink crink" instead of "christmas" which is a lot of fun. He told everyone "Merry Crink Crink!" and he loved to go look at all the "crink crink lighties" that people had up on their houses. Anyhow, Rob had Christmas Eve and the day before that off too which was really nice. He and Rex helped me out with my eggnog sugar cookies. I made the dough, rolled it out and cut out the cookies and then handed them off to the two of them for decorating.



Rex was really, really, really into it. He would get a little mad if he ran out of cookies to decorate so I had to hurry up and make sure I was getting them ready for him fast enough. He wouldn't get off that chair he was standing on either until we were totally done. It was pretty cute. He didn't have his usual 2-3 hour nap that day so he was pretty spun out by bedtime. It seems a multi-vitamin does the same thing to him as they do to me- gives us a big shot of energy and then we can't sleep. So he had the vitamin with his lunch and then when he laid down right after, it was not happening. Christmas Eve was a very long day and we didn't get up until after 9:00 a.m. Christmas morning. We unwrapped all our gifts and had a lot of nice stuff.





Santa brought Rex a digital camera, a Buzz Lightyear toy and a pillow pet- the monkey, of course. Wyatt got a bunch of toys and the bear pillow pet. He seemed to really like the little Curious George stuffed animal my sister sent for Rex though. Rex wanted to get his hands on some of Wyatt's toys too so I'm sure they'll all be mixed together before long. We gave Rex a big tool set that is pretty realistic looking and just as I thought, he loved it. He's been drilling on the book shelf, grinding the kitchen cabinets and here he is welding on the living room wall.



Note to Rex- the goggles work better if they are covering your eyes instead of your forehead. All the toys and books and clothes were a lot of fun but this is my favorite picture of the day. I just love seeing them in their matching Christmas jammies on Christmas morning.



Rob did pretty good with presents but mine was better- I got an electric smoker. This may sound like a weird present but I really wanted it. For several months out of the year, we can't barbecue. Total bummer. So, a lot of people here in Iowa have smokers to cook their meat in. A lot of them barbecue in their garage too but the way ours is set up, that's not possible. Now I have to go to the store and get some meat so we can try that thing out!

I had the flu last weekend and it was bad. That's what I get for not getting my flu shot, I guess. Thankfully the guys all have their shots so I didn't get them sick. I will be going to Walgreens this week to get mine- I don't want to get it twice. Getting the flu the week before Christmas is no good but I am so happy I didn't have it on Christmas. I had most of my Christmas shopping and chores all under control so it wasn't too bad. Anyhow, there wasn't a lot going on around here leading up to Christmas. And yesterday we spent a lot of time trying to find homes for all the new toys and books and washing new clothes. Santa left Rex a "Mao meow" (that's Mickey Mouse to the rest of us) shirt that he is so anxious to wear. It's all ready to go for today. He was not too happy with me that he couldn't wear it yesterday- sorry, kid. It was a good thing his other favorite shirt with trains on it was available. We had to bring up a bookshelf out of the basement to put in Rex's room for all his toys. I've been asking Rob to do that for a few months but now it had to be done. A lot of toys that used to be in the living room are in his room now which is great for two reasons. First, they are not in the living room anymore. Yay for that. Second, it makes Rex's room feel more like his space now that his stuff is in there.

I think I've babbled on about Christmas long enough now. Hope everyone else had a great Christmas too!!

Hot Streak

I like to gamble. I don't go to Vegas much or even to any of the nearby Indian casinos- is that even right? Native American casinos sounds weird but Indian seems not PC and like it's people from India. Anyhow, I don't gamble with slot machines, cards or table games much but I do make sure I get my Powerball and Mega Millions tickets- as well as the occasional scratcher- every week. The last two weeks I have been winning all kinds of money- I even got $100 playing Powerball! Altogether I think it's about $160 so far. I've put a lot right back in because the goal is to win a jackpot or at least the $200,000/$250,000 prize, not $100. I'm taking some of my winnings though and putting it towards a special Christmas present... for myself! Honestly, I don't even care about moving to a huge house on the beach or fancy cars or anything like that. I would probably get a new car and a new MacBook and a few small toys (a super-duper DSLR camera for starters) but mostly I'd like it to travel, have something for retirement, and help people and causes I care about. Seriously. I better make sure I get my ticket for tonight too because the Mega Millions jackpot tonight is $104 million. Ok, with that much, I might think about the beach house after all!

Rex is on a hot streak too- he got a fever yesterday and it still is going on today. My poor baby. He does not feel good at all. Hopefully he gets better soon because I hate seeing him like this. Well, maybe not just like this because he looks so cute asleep but you know what I mean.



One thing that is not hot around here is the weather. It snowed this weekend and this will be sticking around. We've had a little snow prior to this weekend but nothing much. It all melted away pretty fast. But this is cold and windy and nasty now. It's nice that we'll have a white Christmas though- I was beginning to think we may not this year. I would have missed that but only a little. The snow and cold is only something to be tolerated in exchange for the pleasant summers, springs and falls that I love so much. I think Rob is liking the snow a little better this year now that he has this:



We have a snowblower now- Yay! No more shoveling. Not that I have done much of it since I was pregnant 2 out of the 3 winters we've been here but I still felt bad for Rob always out there, shoveling the snow. Not anymore though.

Time Flies When You're Doing Nothing

It seems like we've been so busy lately but when I sit down to write about it, I can't really think what we've been doing. Rob finished up all the yard work stuff for winter and put up the storm windows this weekend. I did a lot of the pruning already but he needed to get all the leaves picked up and mulched. Rob also got the Christmas lights on the house last weekend and put up the garland over the front door and garage door this weekend. It is so fun to see Rex's reaction to the lights on all the houses he sees. He starts giggling and squealing and saying, "Crink-crink lighties!!!" Sometimes there's a "Wow!" or an "Oh boy!" in there too. It's a lot of fun. It's hard to believe what a big boy he is turning into. I took this photo of him this weekend and I looked at it and thought "Wow-look at him in the jeans and Star Wars t-shirt. He looks like a boy now so much." I'm sure he'll seem little when I look back at this photo in 5 years but for now, he looks like a big kid.



My other boy is getting big too. He had his 6-month check-up with the doctor last week and he is doing great. He is almost 17 pounds (a lightweight compared to Rex who was 20 pounds at 6 months!) and 27 inches. We took him to get professional photos done at the 6 month mark but I did his monthly photo shoot and here's one of those pictures.



I guess we've just been busy with everyday life things and a little Christmas too. We picked out some stuff for Rex but since he was with us, we just discussed it slyly and one of us will have to go back for it. I'm trying to do some of my shopping, as much as possible, from small local businesses this year. Shopping online and in big stores is nice but I'd like to spend my money so that it goes to people here too. Rex has been trapped in his room this whole time and he is starting to get restless so I better wrap this up. Here's one last photo of my 3 guys. I think I need to get in some of these photos though next time...

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from Iowa! We cooked a big dinner here at home but we did cheat a little. We bought a package from our supermarket that had the turkey already cooked, gravy, rolls, pie and cranberry sauce. You had to heat up the turkey and gravy but it was super-easy. There was just no time to do a full dinner and look after a two year old and 6 month old. Here's our tasty dinner (we had dinner rolls and jello too but they didn't make it in the photo).



And here are Rob and Rex enjoying the tasty dinner.



Rex liked it all except the sweet potatoes.



Tomorrow is time to put up the Christmas lights and decorate the house- yay! I love, love, love doing that. I got some new stuff for the outside of the house already. I realized that my decorating inside is going to be sparse for the next few years (thank you boys) and so I should focus on the outside of the house. I'm way excited about it. The holiday season around here is made even busier by 7 family birthdays between November 23rd and January 23rd. It is a lot to keep track of and try to get everything bought/ordered/mailed/shipped/wrapped on time. Anyhow, the decorating hopefully will begin tomorrow and definitely will be done by Sunday night- except for the tree. I don't know what in the world to do to keep Rex away from it. Last year we put the short tree up on a 3-foot tall stand but he is so much taller this year that we need to come up with a different plan. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment with your idea!

The Cutest Boys In The World

I have the two cutest boys in the world and I have proof:



How cute are they in their matching shirts? I love it. I also recently bought them matching Christmas pajamas. I promise not to go overboard with the matchy-matchy because it would make even me want to vomit but a little of it is kind of fun. After I took that photo Rex starting a mini-meltdown but I got another cute one of Wyatt.

Mondays Suck

Today was crazy. It started off with us totally oversleeping. We all scrambled to get in the car and get Rob to work as quickly as we could. He was still pretty late though and he said it was the worst day ever to be late. Crap. Then I fell down the stairs to the basement. I was carrying 3 loads of laundry and I missed the last two steps. Thankfully, all that dirty laundry ended up between me and the floor so it wasn't a bad fall. Wyatt was just spun out all day. He is kind of cranky anyhow but he was super cranky today. I tried to make dinner but he was screaming the whole time so I gave up. He didn't want anything besides attention and Rob was gone to the store getting supplies for Thanksgiving dinner and trying to get his hair cut so it was up to me to give him the attention he was wanting so badly. I got Wyatt to sleep okay tonight but I'm worried how the rest of the night will go... There were other things too but I just want to forget about them. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day!

The (Mostly) Terrific Two's

Rex is a fantastic kid. He is and always has been a great sleeper, a great eater and an all-around happy guy. He's two and he does things you would expect a two-year old to do like have little meltdowns but those times are rare. My biggest problem is usually he is trying to "help" with something which means he is actually making what I am trying to do harder. Not such a bad problem to have. He could listen a little better but he does okay. I love that kid so much and wanted to share some of the funny things he has been doing lately.



He has been picking up on a lot of chicks lately. On Thursday, it was a college girl at the grocery store. I couldn't hear him but Rob told me later he was saying what sounded like, "Car? Eat?" Apparently he was trying to ask her out on a date? Then Rob took him to eat burgers Saturday for lunch and there just happened to be a high school dance team dining there. Rex was talking to the girls and Rob said they were all just eating it up. Attention Iowa- lock up your daughters.

Although Rex was picking up on the local girls, I think his true love is Giada deLaurentiis. He can't say "Giada" though so he calls her "Gia". We watch Giada at Home every day at 11:30. (The only other thing he actually asks to watch is Curious George.) He knows when it is time and starts saying "Gia? Gia?" He also pretends to talk to her on the phone. It is so funny. He has also walked up to the tv before trying to give her a kiss. Rob and I think he has made a good pick- besides the age difference and fact that she is already married, of course. She is a good looking woman that can cook too. Good job, Rex. He also likes to mimic what she does on the show. Right now, he stirs everything on his plate at meal times and says "Quick. Quick." I'm guessing one of the episodes recently had Giada giving something a "quick stir" and now he does that too. For a while it was always "heat it up" when I turned the stove on to cook. He knows what a lot of foods are now too thanks to her. He does like everything to do with cooking and being in the kitchen so maybe he'll be a chef someday.

He is really good about sharing. He even tried to share his fries with an older lady that worked at the burger place on Saturday. He shares with everyone. However, he also expects you to share whatever you have that he wants. He really is a genius though because instead of screaming "I want!" or something most kids do, he just looks up at you with those big cow eyes and says, "Share?" If you don't share with him, you obviously are a bad person because everyone is supposed to share. A career in politics maybe? Public relations? He sure does know how to spin things already.

Like I mentioned earlier, Rex is a fantastic sleeper and even better is how he wakes up- happy and he will wait in bed for probably 2 hours, just patiently waiting, until you come and get him. No screaming, no crying. He just lays there and plays with his stuffed animals that are in his bed with him and talks. His brother does not wake up so quietly and happy so I realize now how good I have it with Rex.

One of Rex's favorite things to do now is say "Are you (fill in the blank)?" He means "Where are you?" but he leaves out the where. So, for example, when he is looking for his cup, he walks around saying, "Are you cup?" It's pretty cute. The cup must not think so though because it never answers.

He is so good with his brother. He loves to give him kisses and talk and sing to him. Rex is pretty gentle with Wyatt and I am so thankful for that. Wyatt just eats it all up. Sometimes he can get kind of cranky but as soon as Rex starts talking to him, he stops and is all smiles again.

For a kid who makes some of the biggest messes I've ever seen, he sure does like to be clean. He always wants to wash his hands if they are "dirtily" and even if they are not. If he spills something on the floor, he'll say "clean 'em up" and find a towel to clean it up with. He announces to the world "all clean" whenever any of us have just had a "va" (that means bath) or "sha sha" (shower). The kid just likes everything and everyone to be clean.

I keep modifying this post as I remember things so check back on this again in a day or two because it may still change again!

Raise the Roof

Rob has been working extremely hard to turn the flat roof portion of our house into a pitched roof. A friend of ours does construction work so we hired him to do the ice shield, paper and shingles and he did such a great job. It was so much work to do all that framing and get the plywood on and we were more than happy to pay someone else to do the rest of it. Rob was pretty worn out and we missed him a lot. But now the roof is all done!



The roof was all done by Sunday night which was cutting it pretty close- it rained like cats and dogs here starting Thursday night. There is still a little work to be done with the fascia and siding which Rob will tackle tomorrow. But we know now that it is water tight. Yay for that.

Rob's parents were here for a week visiting. We had fun and I think they really enjoyed their time here with the boys.





I haven't been up to a whole lot besides being mommy and trying to be a good hostess to my houseguests. I made some pumpkin bread yesterday, mainly to give as a gift to our neighbors for putting up with all our roof craziness for the past two months. We gave them a bottle of wine too so I think if they were put out at all with our project (and I don't think they really were), they probably don't mind by now. We felt bad though and wanted to do something nice for them because they are outstanding neighbors.

I better scoot off to bed now. Wyatt is back to feeding twice in the night so I have to get my sleep while I can- my opportunities are limited these days.

It was a busy month

October was crazy busy and I still don't have much time so I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking. Rob spent every spare minute framing a section of our roof that used to be flat. It seemed like it wasn't too big of a job and that he could do it in no time. We were so wrong. And now when I look at this picture I think, "That's a lot of work- what were we thinking?!"



He also has put all the plywood on and now we are going to turn the project over to someone else for getting the ice shield, paper and shingles on. Yay for that because we all miss Rob. We tried giving Wyatt some rice cereal recently. He looks so tiny in the highchair compared to Rex.



It was not the greatest experience ever for any of us. He screamed and cried and refused to swallow it by the second bite. He just sat there screaming with it all pooled in the bottom of his mouth. I don't know what to do. He only wants breastmilk and refuses to drink from a bottle so it's getting tough on me after almost 6 months of it. He needs to eat something else. The one thing he will eat? His foot.



This picture shows his eye color the best but I still don't know what it is. I am tempted to say hazel but they could still go brown I suppose. I think that blue is definitely out now but it could go either way with the hazel and brown still. I have been working with Wyatt for just a few days on the blankets, trying to get him to roll over and today he did it all on his own! He was actually in his crib and I missed it because I went to the living room to get his carseat. I left and he was on his back and when I returned he was on his tummy! Besides eating his toes and rolling over, he also loves to get in his jumperoo.



He is actually asleep in the thing right now. He just wore himself out. He gets bored a lot so it's nice that he is loving that jumperoo so much for now.

The latest Rex news is he went on his first trick-or-treating adventure this past weekend. I got him a monkey outfit since he loves Curious George and all monkeys so much. It was a good choice because the kid loved it.



Rob took him around the neighborhood and he came back with some pretty funny stories. First, Rex would say "trick or treat" to some people but he made monkey sounds for just about everyone. He loves to ring doorbells so he was thrilled to be able to do that for once instead of being told that we can't just ring everyone's doorbell. I think my favorite part though was the fact that he actually just walked right in to a few people's houses. Nice. Rob had to go in and get him out of there. Well, he rang the doorbell but when they opened the door, he just cruised right in. He got a nice little supply of candy. He has never had it before but now he tells us " fun candy" "candy more" and "candy mmm" all the time. Here he is with some of his "fun candy".



Sorry for being such a slacker blogger last month but with Rob so busy up on the roof all the time, I had very little free time. Since that project is wrapping up now, I plan on doing a much better blogging job for November and the rest of the year!

Dinner Ideas

Nanette mentioned to me once about blogging about my dinners for a week or so to help give her (and others) some inspiration for their own meals. It would've been nice if I had taken pictures to go with all this but I didn't think that far ahead. Sorry about that. We've had some colder days which have been great for using my new crockpot. I love my new one- the last two Rival Smartpots I had both ended up incinerating the food and this GE crockpot I bought is working great so far. I love all the settings it has and the retractable cord is awesome. But definitely its strong point is that it doesn't burn our food. So here's some of our recent meals.

*Sweet and Sour Chicken (the recipe was on Hy-Vee's website but I can't find it now) with steamed rice. It's an easy meal (lots of prep work with cutting but the cooking goes super fast) and good for you too.

*Scalloped potatoes and ham, corn and strawberry/pineapple/banana jello salad. I am not the biggest fan of ham, but even I really liked this. The scalloped potatoes and ham recipe was from the Fix It and Forget It cookbook- one of my faves.

*Barbecued shredded/pulled pork, rolls, corn and mashed potatoes. I have to admit that one of our local grocery stores makes far better pulled pork than I ever do so I finally just gave up and only buy theirs.

*Deep pit beef, oven roasted potatoes, jello, green salad and rolls. The deep pit beef was disappointing but it was my fault because I didn't get it marinating soon enough. It was okay but it didn't really have any flavor. We started making our own salad dressing a while back- from the packages at the store, nothing crazy- and I would recommend that. It is so good and makes you want to eat more salad. Deep pit beef recipe also in the Fix It and Forget It cookbook.

*Shredded beef tacos. I reinvented the deep pit into shredded beef for tacos and that tasted great.

*Barbecue chicken, rice and salad. This is probably what we do the most during the summer. Barbecue some meat, and eat a carb/starch and a vegetable with it. We really like to use McCormick's GrillMates Montreal Chicken seasoning.

*Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. I make my own sauce- nothing fancy but it tastes better than anything out of a jar and is really quick and easy. It makes a lot so we reuse it in our own made up dish I like to call "stuffed bell pepper casserole". Rob calls it Spanish rice but that isn't right either. You just mix up the leftover sauce with cooked rice, bell peppers and cheese and cook it in the oven just long enough to heat it all up.

We don't cook like this all the time but these are some of the highlights from the last two weeks. Hopefully this helps Nanette or anyone else come up with an idea for dinner- I know what a struggle that can be!

Hard to Believe

It's hard to believe Wyatt is already 4 months old. He hit the milestone on Sunday so we did another photo shoot.



He also had a well-baby exam this week and he is doing great. He weighs 15 pounds, 9 ounces (65th percentile) and is 26 inches long (85th percentile). I'm also happy to report he has a completely average size head (unlike the giant melon on top of Rex's shoulders) so maybe he can actually wear some baby-size hats and it won't be such a struggle to get a shirt over his head every day. He had to get just two shots this time and he did great with those too- a little crying at first but that was it. We talked about what he is doing and the best thing is that he is laughing now. I love it. He's trying to turn over from his back to his tummy but so far has only got up on his side and then can't quite finish. He hates laying down for tummy time or back time so it's hard to work on that. He still wakes up a lot in the night sometimes and now I know why. I always put him down in his crib after I get him to sleep so any time he wakes up, he thinks, "Wait- how did I get here? Where am I and where's my mom?" He usually goes right back to sleep once I hold him and rock him (sometimes with feeding and sometimes not). The doctor said I should get him used to going in the crib while he is still awake to help stop this but I'm having trouble with that. The doc said he'll probably cry at first but then he'll get used to it. The crying we could deal with except Rex usually goes to bed at the same time and I don't want Wyatt waking Rex up. So, we'll just keep doing what we're doing for now. When Rex was a baby, I always put him in the crib once he'd fallen asleep and there was just a natural point to make the switch where I would put him down while he was still awake and it went fine. I think (I hope) there will be that natural point with Wyatt too and I'm not ready to force the issue just yet.

When we did the 4 month photo shoot, I had a really hard time keeping Rex off the bed and I finally gave up. I had him get up there so I could get a few pictures of them together and this was the best one.



They really like each other so much and I hope they always do! Wyatt will have a big smile and coo at Rex anytime Rex gets close to him and Rex just loves to give him kisses and talk to him. It's a lot of fun to watch my two boys interact with each other.

Meeting George

This past weekend, there was a special storytime with Curious George featuring an appearance by George himself. Right away, Rob and I made plans to go because we knew Rex had to be there. Curious George is a pretty special guy. Whenever you see a picture of Rex, George is usually close by. We are redecorating Rex's room with George stuff- my mom's making a quilt and we've gotten some wall decals and a poster. They started out with a storytime for all the kids followed by a little meet and greet time with George.

There were way too many people for the small area but we all managed somehow.



Since it was just me and Rex, I ended up holding Rex for most of the time. I think I'm ready for one of those Strong Man competitions now. Anyhow, I was so excited for the part where Rex could go up and meet George and we could take a picture. I thought he would just be so excited and all over him.



I was wrong. He wasn't afraid of him- I think apprehensive is probably a good word. He was fine with getting this close and waving and saying hi but that was it. I tried to get him closer and he did not want to. So we got a little souvenir and headed home.



He plays music and scoots along on his little scooter. Pretty cool but the song (Camptown Races) plays at like 250 decibels so we've got to fix that somehow. I think Rex had fun and I'm glad we went even if it didn't turn out how I'd envisioned it- things rarely do in life.

Rob worked on getting the rest of the bike shop demoed (demo'd? demo'ed?). Hopefully the weather cooperates this week and weekend so he can get the roof done. Here he is removing the ceiling.



I just have one more funny photo of something Rex does. He has OCD-ish quirks just like his mommy and daddy and has for a while now but this is the most recent.



For a kid who tears through the house all day and leaves it looking like Hurricane Katrina part II just blew through, it is so funny to see him line up his little cars in a perfectly straight line. But he does. All the time. I just love that kid.

Family Room

Recently I insisted to Rob that we had to find more space in this house for me and the boys to spend time in every day. Our living room space is pretty large but we use half of it as a dining room so that makes the living room a little tight. You can't spend much time outdoors from November-March so maximizing your indoor space is critical. I have just barely made it through the two winters Rex and I have spent at home so far. Now that Rex is up and playing more and we have Wyatt, I realized I would never make it through this winter in the space we have. There were two options- fixing up either the basement or converting our 3 season room (known as the "bike shop") into a family room. Spending time in the basement still seems strange so we decided we'd rather be above-ground. It only gives us about half the additional space the basement would (250 sq ft as opposed to 500 sq ft) but the family room will be a lot nicer space. The first step was to remove the old windows and install new ones which Rob was able to do. He spent the last two weekends on it and is all done now.




He still has the trim to put on the outside of the house but that's not so bad. I've helped as much as I can- thankfully, Rob didn't need much help since I need to keep an eye on the boys. Here's what happened when I went to help Rob yesterday.



Rex was having a snack and I thought I could just leave him eating his yogurt while I helped Rob for a few minutes. When I came back in, Rex had smeared the yogurt on everything within his reach. I just laughed. I didn't know what else to do. I got Rob to come in and look and he started laughing too and said, "How do you get mad at that?" Exactly. I know he loves to smear his food in his hair so what was I thinking when I left him alone with a full container of yogurt? Anyhow, someone is coming by to help us make a decision on the roof- it is a flat roof that has leaked in the past and we need to make sure that won't happen again. Then it will be on to the drywall, electrical, flooring and maybe a few other things too. It's a good thing Rob likes to have a project and be busy around the house!

Everything else is going good here. Rob has been our chef since Wyatt was born so I've been doing a lot of cooking now that Rob is busy with the family room project. I got a new crockpot because I had to. The old one would have things boiling hot when set on low. The new one did fantastic with the roast I made last weekend and I think I'll be relying on it a lot this winter. Wyatt is awake and crying now so I better go before he wakes up Rex. Here he is in a much happier mood.

I Am Old

I just ordered a new cell phone today because the old one is about 98% dead. It has been randomly shutting itself off (a trick my last phone also used to do to me) and now you can only talk on it using the speakerphone. The speakerphone is not really an option when you have a 2 year old that likes to talk loudly while mommy is on the phone and a 3 month old who may or may not be quiet when I want him to. So as I am looking through the phones on the website (because they are cheaper there and I don't have time to go to the store), I can hear myself thinking things in my head that definitely sound like someone I can't believe I have turned into. Things like "What the heck is an android phone? I see the commercials but I don't think my arms will actually start turning into robot arms so what does this phone actually do?" And "What's the difference between email and mobile email?" Then "Can't I just find a damn phone that I can talk and text on? I'm just a stay at home mom who doesn't twitter, facebook or have the need to put a bunch of music or tv on my phone!" I don't know how I got so out of touch with cell phone technology but I did. I was trying to get up to speed in about 20 minutes but I don't think I learned anything. I do still care enough though that I picked one of the cooler looking phones (I hope) so at least I look like I have a clue. I will have a huge learning curve when it gets here tomorrow. I ended up ordering one of the android phones, still not knowing what it does and why it's an android so if you see me and I have robot arms, please help me!

If You Just Heard That Thunk...

So here's the story of Rex dropping the F-bomb on us. All four of us were in our not-so-spacious bathroom because it was bath night for both boys and it takes everyone to get through that. I was working on getting Wyatt cleaned up while Rob was trying to get Rex undressed and in the bath. Rex bonked his head on the cabinet and Rob told me, "If you just heard that thunk, it was Rex's head hitting the cabinet." Apparently Rex thought "thunk" was a funny word so he kept trying to say it. At first it sounded a little like thunk but as he kept trying to say it, it ended up sounding exactly like the F-word. I was laughing so hard but I had my head down and kind of turned so Rex couldn't see me. I managed to not make a sound with my laughing which is very important- once he hears a laugh, he will just keep going and going with something. There were also tears running down my face from laughing so much. Rob was doing the same as me, laughing with no sound, but he pulled it together a little faster than I did. So, Rex dropped the F-bomb without hearing it from anyone and even better, has not ever said it again since. Here's my funny guy now, with my headband on his face. Apparently, he thought they were glasses.



Rex is pretty helpful now. He keeps the fridge stocked for me with Coke Zero.



He has quite an imagination and he likes to pretend a lot now. One of his favorite things is to pretend like he is going to Lowe's or the grocery store. He gets his keys and my old sunglasses on, sometimes he puts on shoes and grabs one of his phones too, and tells us "time" (which means "have a good time") and tells us he loves us then proceeds to the door. It is so so funny.



Wyatt is doing good too. He is a terrible sleeper. I hope that when he starts on rice cereal in a few weeks things will get better. Last night, he went to sleep around 10:30 and woke up at 1:00 a.m., 4:55 a.m., 6:20 a.m., and then it was touch and go from there. That is too much getting up in the night. He has times where he'll sleep 6 or 7 hours but those times have been very few. He is so different from his brother. I knew Rex was an easy baby and I was afraid this time would be more difficult and it is. I'm sure it could be worse though and really, it's not so bad. Knowing that it won't always be like this makes me feel much better. We've got to be getting past it soon. Wyatt also isn't as smily as Rex was. We took him to get his 3 month old photos taken a few weeks ago and he would not smile. Even when I tried to take his 3-month old photos that I do at home that same day, he wouldn't smile for his mommy either. Very serious kid and if you get a smile from him, you know you earned it. Wyatt's a great kid, he is just a little more work than his brother was but Rex was seriously the easiest baby in the history of the world. Seriously. Here are some of the photos I took for the 3 month old photo shoot.



Okay, I did get a little smile out of him- finally!


I'm going to try and do better with my blog posts this month. It is incredibly hard with Wyatt though since he doesn't nap much and always wants attention. I promise to do better than last month though!

TMI

I have too much information to share and I just don't know where to start. Wyatt just crashed out next to me in his bouncy seat which is awesome but now Rex is awake so I will have to keep this short for now. It's hard to believe that at the beginning of this month I had nothing to blog about! Our water was turned back on 2 days earlier than expected so that was such an unexpected blessing. Everything in my life is back to normal now but I know there are a lot of people who will be dealing with the flooding for months still. My father came for a visit last week so I have things to share from that too but I will save it for the next post when I have more time. Rex dropped the F-Bomb on us the other night which deserves its own post. I do have to say though that he did not hear the word from our mouths- or anyone's actually. Wyatt turned 3 months old a week ago and we did another monthly photo shoot as well as took him to get professional photos done. Our weather has been alternating between pretty hot and humid and really nice. I am just thankful for the nice periods because it makes 90 degrees and humid easier to deal with when you get a break. Anyhow, better get going but here are some pictures of us.

My friend Amy made these adorable shirts for the boys.



Me and my two boys.



When I was taking Wyatt's 3 month old pictures, Rob said "Change it to say '3 boys' and Rex and I can get in there too" so here they are, my 3 boys.

Water Water Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink

So, funny story. I realized last weekend that I hadn't posted anything in quite some time and thought maybe I should do something about that. But then I couldn't think of anything to write about. Rob's birthday was on Tuesday so I thought I would just wait until I had some material from that. Before I could post anything about that, I got way more material than I ever could've imagined. First though, Rob's birthday.



It's tough to get much done during the day but I decided we had to do something for Rob's birthday. I took the kids out and got a cake, balloons and posterboard to make a sign. The idea was to put Rex and Wyatt's handprints on the sign, but as soon as I tried it with Rex I realized it was not the best idea I ever had. Rex wanted to basically fingerpaint all over the sign rather than just make handprints so that was a struggle. Then the paint, which was face paint, wouldn't really come off his hands too well so I decided we would just skip Wyatt's part in the sign-making process. The sign didn't turn out quite how I imagined but I'm learning that is just how it goes when you are working with kids. We had dinner at home- Rob had to buy and cook his own dinner. It sounds terrible, I know, but listen to me first. He picked up the groceries on his way home from the massage I booked him so that's not so bad, right? Then he had the option of cooking or watching the kids while I cooked and he picked cooking. Not like I know how to grill up a steak for him anyways so that all worked out for the best. Here we all are with the birthday cake.



I took two pictures like this using the camera's timer and this was the better one since 3 out of 4 are actually looking at the camera. The dinner and the cake were yummy and I think Rob had a very good birthday.

So on to my really big and crazy news. It's flooding here. It is CRAZY. Our house is completely fine. There was a small puddle in one corner of the basement- so small it could just be wiped up with a towel- and that was it. We are very thankful for that. Rob was able to make it to work on Wednesday by going way out of town and around and then back again only to discover that there was no power where he works and nothing really he could do. He left work around 11:00 a.m. and they ended up telling all the employees not to come in at all on Thursday. This is what it looked like all over town on Wednesday- lots of flooded streets and lots of people looking around at it all.



The worst news was still to come though. Because of all the flooding, there was a chance our water supply was contaminated and we have been under a boil water order since Wednesday afternoon. Thank goodness Rob was home because he went out to the store immediately to stock up on bottled water and bought a few gallons in the milk jug type containers too. We can only use very little water while they try to get the water towers (which were nearly drained empty) filled back up and then flush the whole city water system. You can take a shower but it has to be less than 5 minutes and you better keep your mouth closed while you are in there. How do you wash a 2 year old and a baby though? With store-bought gallons of water apparently- at least, that's what we did last night. They can't keep their mouths closed the whole time so we bought a bunch of water on Friday to use for their baths last night. It was either that or go rent a hotel room in another city so buying the water didn't seem so expensive after all. We have been using paper plates/bowls and plastic silverware as much as possible to avoid getting any dishes dirty. It's a lot like camping around here. They hope to have everything back to normal by Tuesday evening which is far later than they first predicted. They also thought there was only one water main break to begin with too so there you go. Although it is all incredibly inconvenient and annoying, I am very happy that is all we are having to deal with right now. It could have been much worse and I know there are a lot of people not very far from here who are dealing with much worse circumstances.

Blown Away

Last weekend we had a quite a storm that started in the wee hours of Saturday night/Sunday morning. I knew it might rain so I wasn't shocked when I heard the rain, thunder and lightning when I got up to feed Wyatt in the middle of the night. It also sounded really windy but I was still very surprised to see this when I looked across the street the next morning. (If you click on the photo below to make it bigger, you'll see the huge limb that took out the neighbor's fence and also landed on the garage. You can also see a lot of sticks and branches in our yard.)



I couldn't believe it! Wow. We have some serious storms here but I haven't seen anything like that before. Trees were down all over the place. Or there was so much damage that you had to take the whole tree out, like we had to. This is our backyard.



If you ask me, this was a special gift from God just for me. Rob would not agree. That tree had been a sore point between us ever since the squirrels planted it for us there. I wanted it gone when I saw it coming up and Rob wanted it to stay. I hated it because it shaded too many of my plants that I like which require a lot of sun. Rob liked the privacy it gave our yard. I agree that we need something tall in that area for privacy but a large bush/shrub that doesn't shade my plants would be a far better option. Rob asked me that morning, "Did you see the backyard?" I told him yes and he said, "So how happy are you right now?" Hee Hee- oh so happy! So long tree!!

Since so many people had so much damage, the city allowed everyone to put all their fallen limbs and branches in your front yard for a special free pickup they would provide. Nice. And then every street you went down looked like this.



It turned out the winds were above 70 mph in our area- woah! Anyhow, it was quite the storm. I think a lot of people were unhappy with the damage done but I couldn't be more pleased with how it all turned out for us. And now, I actually have both boys asleep in both their beds so I am going to write some thank-you notes which are long overdue!