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.