Is John having more fun than the kids? You be the judge.
Cute pictures of MJ eating egg whites for the first time!
What a cute little smirk!
Yes, Santa brought her "pol nailish".
Christmas was overall very fun and nice. I was sick today, but we still enjoyed our day. The kids were spoiled rotten and they loved every single minute of it!!
Alexis got a hold of the camera and took a self portrait. . . isn't she cute?
John and I looking fabulous, kind of.
John reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. If you could see the kids, you would see that they are eating donuts or the frosting off of them and not paying much attention.
We drove through the festival of lights and Alexis asked if we went through with Grandma Tobi before. Neither John nor I could remember going last year, let alone with Grandma Tobi. So, I called her, sure enough, last year we drove through with her. What a fabulous memory Alexis has.
Who would have thought that children learn from such an early age? I have a weakness, I admit it, only one though. . . I love to eat Pillsbury cookie dough, raw. I thought that this was something that I could keep to myself and enjoy, seeing as John thinks it is nasty raw. I went to get myself a cookie today and this is what I found . . .
you'll notice that there are no more cookies. I know I didn't eat them I'd been pretty good recently, what with John having bought 28 Hershey's with almond biggie sized bars to give out as neighbor gifts. My own little treat was not to be, Alexis and Drew loved every last one, especially Alexis who said that three in one day wouldn't make her sick but five would! Oh well, I'll have to find something else . . . mint Millano, nope, John likes them, chocolate candy, nope everyone including Madison likes that, Rocky Road icecream? Ha ha, the kids don't like nuts in their icecream and as long as I buy John his own, it's all mine!!
John came home from scouts and took the kids down to the toy room to play, such a sweet husband you think? He truly is, but he has ulterior motives. 8:30 came and I realized they were still playing. Odd, I thought, John is usually all over the 8:00 bed time, the sooner the better. I made my way down stairs and what did I find? Happy children, check, happier husband, check. They were still up because John found a way to watch his basketball game without having mommy telling him the kids need to go to bed. Don't worry, as soon as the game ended the kids were in bed!
What do you do at 2:03 am? I bet you're snuggled up in your nice warm bed dreaming of the sugar plum fairy or something equally as nice. For some reason, tonight is the night of childhood problems. First, Alexis woke up and was having a hard time going back to sleep, or so I thought. The third time I went in, I realized she was sleep talking. After a few minutes I was able to get that she was very upset that Drew had ripped her last piece of bread. Don't bother asking, it doesn't make sense to me either. Anyway, she was holding it in her little hands, nothing was there, with tears running down her face because it was the last piece and he'd ripped it. I thought maybe I could figure out where this was coming from so I asked her if there was any more, she jumped out of bed and went out her door and started crying even harder because it was all gone. I promised we'd make more bread tomorrow, which is now today, that seemed to make her happy and after she said a prayer, she remembered to say that she loves barbies and princesses, she finally went to sleep for the night.
I remember thinking, ahhh a nice warm bed just for me. Sadly, it still is not to be. Madison woke up and I figured since I was awake I'd go ahead and feed her so that I could sleep without interruption for a longer stretch. Honestly, I should know better by now. I fed, she fell asleep and then pooped. I can't leave my baby in a dirty diaper so I changed her x5, she's slightly backed-up. Two hours later and countless small feedings and Madison and I were still very awake. John woke up came and took her and promptly rocked her to sleep. Heavenly you think? Ha Ha Ha. He can get her to sleep, but can't put her in bed without her waking up. So, he gives her back to me. With her amazing sense of smell she decides that she can't sleep in my arms without eating, again, there's nothing left. Luckily she's tuckered out and she only whines for a moment when I put her in bed. So now, my warm bed is calling and as much as I love my little girls and their cute little hands and cheeks, I'm going to find a happy place in my dreams and let John hear them next time!!
I've decided that if you ever need to know what you sound like or act like, you just need to listen to your toddlers. This morning Alexis woke up and I told her to go play her games on the computer. She came back a little bit later and said that the computer wasn't working. Odd I thought, she's been gone for a little while, but maybe I miscalculated and I haven't been sleeping as long as I thought. Nope, I was right. She then tells me she "accidentally" painted her fingernails. Like I would be believe it was an accident. The best part is. . .I was telling John this story while I was making breakfast and Alexis is listening to it. When I get to the "pol nalish" story Alexis says: "Don't tell him that!" She had the same voice inflection that I do when I say that to John. Oh, it made us laugh like Santa and his big belly!
John took the kids to the basement so that I could go upstairs and study for the two finals and a test I have to take on Tuesday, what a sweet husband, I know. Anyway, while I was studying Alexis came in and asked if she looked cool. Of course she does! She then proceeded to get out her "homework" so that she could be with me. Her homework consists of getting paper and anything to write with and then writing the letters of her name. She does pretty well for a three year old, but I have yet to convince her that putting them in order is the best idea. She likes to write Axlise or some variation on the last three letters.
Alexis: "Do you know where Cinderella went after they got married?"
Dad: "Where?"
Alexis: "On their honeymoon."
Dad: "I want to go on a honeymoon too."
Alexis: "You already did silly! With Mommy!"
Dad: "Oh how do you know? Were you there?"
Alexis: "No."
Dad: "Where were you?"
Alexis: "Grandma was watching us."
We went to see the Nephrologist today and . . . Drew is just fine! Again. They didn't do anything with him that we haven't done at the regular doctors. He looked at him, listened to his lungs, felt his tummy and looked at his pee. And, he decided that Drew is fine, he could have done all this minus the pee by looking at his file. Too bad they couldn't just tell us that over the phone and without charging us an arm and a leg. So, when there is more blood in the urine, he starts to swell up or some other catastrophic type of thing, then we should worry. Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited that Drew doesn't have a kidney problem, I'm just frustrated that no one has been able to figure out what is wrong with my poor kid.
On a better note, today John learned that OCD is something that is just in you. Drew was sitting on his chair at the doctors and John was kicking his little feet. First one foot then the other. After a while, John started kicking just one foot. Drew started moving his little feet so that his other foot would be the one in position to be kicked. John, being fun kept kicking the same foot. Drew finally said: "this one, this one". So, John obliged and started kicking that one. After a few kicks, Drew was moving so John would get the other. You get the idea, it went on for a few minutes, and John and I were just laughing. Drew decided to take his turn kicking daddy's feet, it was just as funny. Drew kicked John's foot with his right foot, then he kicked the same foot with his left foot. Then he moved over to John's other foot and did the same thing. He kept going back and forth and John and I were just giggling like little school girls. It was very cute.
Madison learned how to grab her little feet the same time she started rolling over. Today, she finally got those pesky socks off!! She was so excited, she was able to eat the socks and breathe at the same time! :)
Alexis' friends taught her that first you get married, then you go on a honeymoon and then you have a baby. She was telling me about how she was going to do this, hopefully in like 25 years, and she made sure to tell me that it would be with someone other than daddy, because he was already married. What an observant little girl. While Drew has slight OCD tendencies like his mother, Alexis is left brained like her mother. The other day she found a toy magazine. She sat down with it and a pen and started circling everything that she wanted. I do have to say, she didn't circle everything, she really only circled the things she wanted. After a couple of minutes she said: "Mom, I don't want this one, but I think Drew would want it. So I'm going to put an X on all the things that I think Drew wants for Christmas." Honestly, what three year old comes up with things like that?
I know it's only November and Thanksgiving hasn't even come and gone yet, but we went to see Santa on Wednesday. We figured that Drew wasn't sick and we had better take advantage of it and let him see Santa this year. Santa was a little late in arriving, and they had the beginning of the line right next to the candy display. Bet you can't guess what happens next... Drew grabbed a Rolo and was opening it behind my back. A nice lady came and offered the kids some brownies they had out, so the kids were sitting next to his chair eating brownies and waiting. When Santa arrived their little faces lit up and they got the biggest grins, it was priceless!! The pictures aren't that great, but it was so fun. They also had some great booths set up for the kids to do crafts and they loved it. Santa looked real too, what a great bonus!
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So we finally got to go to our "big event" we've been looking forward to for so long. This time around, we made sure we had the right date, the right time, right venue just so we didn't have a repeat performance of last weekend. However, as much as you try to plan and re-plan there will always be kinks in your plans that sneak up at the last minute. Yesterday Alexis got a huge fever like 103.9 at one point. We figured she just had what Drew had which was a 24 hour bug. Sure enough, she was feeling much better by today though not 100%. Since we had dropped a good chunk of change on these non-refundable, non-transferrable tickets, we all decided to go anyway. It all went pretty well except at the end Alexis was just so exhausted and tired she threw a HUGE tantrum in the parking lot. It was so embarrassing! Everyone probably thought we were horrible parents, but we somehow convinced her to let Daddy carry her to the car. Once we got in the car, Madison screamed non-stop from SLC to about North Orem. I don't know how these things end up being more stressful than fun, but hopefully the kids will have good memories. Alexis loved the little Belle doll we got her and Drew loved the Mickey Mouse doll that he got. (Shouldn't there be a more manly name for doll, when it's for a boy?) That was the highlight of the evening for them. I worry sometimes that we spoil them too much. Oh well, it's once a year and Alexis' adoration of princesses may only last a few more years. She seems to be growing up too fast!
John is going to roll his eyes when he sees this post, but that's too bad. I decided I had to let everyone know what a fabulous husband I have, he's so amazing. Not only does he do lunch with the kids four days a week, but he watches them at night three days a week so I can go to school. He surprised me with a box of See's Cherry Cordials last week because I was having a day listening to Drew whining again. This week he's cleaned the house, the car (it was almost ready to be dropped off at the dump it was so bad), done laundry and dishes and given me foot massages. (He cleans the house on a weekly basis, and he hired Steph to come and help once a week to do deep cleaning for me!) But the best part of this week was when I bombed a test, and I don't mean "oh I didn't do well", I mean I BOMBED it in full glory. I was so frustrated because I just hadn't had time to study and I really did deserve what I got, but it still stunk. When I got home, John opened two little bottles of sparkling cider and we drank to celebrate my imperfectness. It was so fun to be so bummed and yet to be having such a fun moment with him. What a perfect husband for me, I couldn't have asked for anyone better!
As a side note, Madison rolled over for the first time today. It would have happened sooner I'm sure, but I'm the type that loves to hold the baby. Only recently have I begun to put her on the floor to play and only because I've had sick little kids who need my arms as well, and because she's becoming a tank, both John and I are having immense back pain.
John joined a city league basketball team and even if he won't admit it, he's very excited to be doing something fun and athletic. This is the warm-up session before the game. They were all very limber after this. (Note the shoes Drew and Alexis, even though you can't see hers, are wearing, they have huge feet!)
John's team warming up. They didn't win, but they sure did try. They only had five guys there and the other team was filled with really big guys. They didn't lose by a whole lot though, so that was nice.
As you can see from the picture, we were all really excited to go to Disney on Ice. I bought tickets earlier this week, and we got VIP seats. That means I paid a lot of money to watch people dressed up skate around an ice rink. Anyway, the kids were all excited. I left my morning class early so that John could take off half a day of work to come home and help us get ready to go. All day the kids talked about it, we even borrowed a cape for Drew so he could be a Prince and Alexis could be the Princess. I started dinner in the crock pot so that when we came home we would have a nice hot dinner and we could relax the rest of the night. We left two hours early so that I could take a quiz at school and then stop by the Disney store to get Drew some Mickey ears. FYI - the Disney store does not sell Mickey ears, you have to call Disneyland and order them, how silly is that? Anyway, finally we were on the road. On the way up, John and I were talking about how I think it is more important to give your kids experiences than things, IE excessive toys. When we got there, we found some cheap parking, a block and a half away, and we unloaded everyone, coats, diaper bag, well you get the point. We walked to the Energy Solutions Arena and it was dark. Yes, the only people we saw were janitors. So, we looked at each other for a minute and John remembers that there is a Jazz game tonight, obviously it's going to be hard to watch people ice skating on a basketball floor. John runs to the car to see what our confirmation slip says, and he calls me and says: "You are a special spirit, boy have you done it this time." I'm thinking great, we're supposed to be at the E Center and now we aren't going to make it on time. Lo and behold, I have the wrong day. Yes, it's NEXT Friday. How special can one person get? Remember how I was telling John about experiences being important. Well, his next question is: "Since we're already here, can we go to the Jazz game?" How can you say no after that discussion? We ended up having to go buy Alexis a new shirt so that she didn't have to wear her princess dress to the game. I had Steph turn off our dinner, we went to a food court instead, and then we took them to their first Jazz game. They did really well. I think Madison liked it the best, she was so enthralled with all the sounds, colors and movements going on. Alexis and Drew loved the blow up bear that was knocking the refs on the head. Overall it was fun and exciting, but not exactly what we had planned for!
