Growing a Diva

2009-09-20T01:02:00.004-05:00

We had Abby's birthday party today (Saturday). All of us were there along with Grandma, Auntie Nikole, Payton, Alayna, and big sis Renee. The theme of the day was definitely "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to" . Lots of baby drama all around. But over all I think Abby had a very fun day.

Grandma made a Strawberry Shortcake cake and we had plates, etc of the same theme. We had hot dogs and chips, salad and veggies (hey it was her choice and she is only 4). Every time I would ask her what she wanted for her party all I would get for a response from her was "cake" and "balloons" so when she finally agreed on hot dogs I was happy. I did run to the dollar store this morning and got her some balloons as well- and through the whole day there was only 1 fight over them.

I'll post some pics I promise, of the party and some other stuff that we have done recently (like the last 3 months or so) as soon as I find the usb cable for the camera. I'm back to using our old one since the new one broke after our camping trip, and not sure where that cable ended up.

2009-09-18T20:42:00.002-05:00

My little baby girl is 4 today.
Happy birthday princess lady baby girl. I love you.

11 years ago today...

2009-06-22T21:22:00.004-05:00

I was the proud mama of a brand new baby boy.

Today I am the proud mama of an 11 year old (where has the time gone!).
Happy Birthday Matthew!

2009-04-17T23:02:00.002-05:00

I spent all day Thursday getting Gabriel's room ready to paint and then painting it. All day. Since I am doing 2 colors on the walls I had to paint 1 layer on the top 1/2, wait for it to dry, and then do the 2nd layer and wait for that to dry. Then repeat for the bottom layer, except that took 3 and up to 4 coats of paint in some spots.

So yeah, all day yesterday.

Today? I was putting up the new curtains for the room and get down from the ladder just to look over and see nice new coloring on the freshly painted walls. The ones I just painted yesterday.

Swirly little scribbles. I almost started crying... almost.

Instead I get mad and drag Gabriel in the room and start yelling at him (it's his m.o. after all). Joshua also comes in the room and was nice enough to point out its not scribbling- it's scratches (cry). While I am yelling at him and he's sitting there crying he tells me the worst thing I have ever heard.

"I didn't do it"

Wait... what?!?! My baby just said a coherent sentence- and it had to be that one.

So Joshua and I look over at Abby, who is standing in the doorway at this point and he asks her if she did it.
She gets that proud little grin on her face that only a 3 yr old can do and says "yep". You could just tell she was so proud of herself for helping. You just can't get mad at that.

So yeah, my baby says a sentence and it's all because I was yelling at him. I feel like shit.

Oh and there will be pics of the room, I am only 1/2 finished with it because I have like 1 wall that I need to remove the rest of the border from yet. So when I am finished there will be pics.

2009-04-16T21:48:00.000-05:00

I still haven't scanned the family pics yet, so here is the next best thing. I "borrowed" these from the JC Penney Site. These are all the pics we had taken.

2009-04-12T00:48:00.007-05:00

No, I still haven't gotten the family pics scanned yet. But to tide you over for a little while until I do here are some from our trip in Jan to the Edgewater Hotel in Duluth.

2009-04-07T01:51:00.002-05:00

I know it's been awhile, and I promise to post something half way entertaining at some point :) just not today. Tomorrow I need to stop and pick up our new family pictures (only took a year to do!). Maybe I will get lucky and have enough time/motivation/energy to scan them and get them posted here. If not then it will or will not happen sometime soon- maybe.

2009-02-22T17:17:00.002-06:00

It's funny the different personalities kids have. Today we were doing handprints on poster board to make into magnets (yeah that didn't work out so well- I now have squares of poster board with big yellow globs on it instead).
Gabriel was having a blast! Getting his hands full of paint, smooshing and smearing it all over anything and everything he could.
Abby on the other hand, was very methodical. She took her time, trying to get it just right. She also had a big problem with having paint on her hands. In fact, she hates being "dirty". If she so much as spills one drop of milk on her shirt when we are eating, it has to come off because it's dirty and she can't wear it any more. The same goes for her kiki, po and anything else she has.
The whole time she was painting she wanted to go wash her hands off. Me being the mean mommy I am, I made her finish painting first. As soon as we were done, she decided it was time for a bath.

Dear Daughter

2009-02-14T00:40:00.000-06:00

This is to remind you that you are 3... not 13... 3!
Your drama has been cute since day one, it continues to be cute today. It's one of the many things we love about you that make you who you are.
But lately you have been acting more like a teenager then the cute cuddly 3 year old you really are supposed to be.
You roll your eyes at me.
Yell (as you go running down the hallway into your room and slam the door) "GO AWAY, LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Now you have starting saying "oh my god". Correctly! As in "oh my god my pillow". Or when your clipo "dog" or "horse" breaks you say "oh my god, oh no".
Damn cute- yes. But you are way to young to be doing this all already!
At least you still like to cuddle, and do "hugs, kisses, high fries".
If you didn't then we would have trouble.

2009-02-14T00:12:00.002-06:00

You can make posts without having to think of some cute creative title to go with it?!?!? I didn't know that until just now. Thank you!

2009-02-13T23:41:00.002-06:00

It's a slow process, but we're getting there (ok not really but hey).
Today he hid himself in his room- the room he never goes in unless it's to pull out all the clean laundry from the drawers or to spend 5 minutes destroying everything before quickly leaving the scene of the crime-the room he doesn't even sleep in- and closed the door. When we opened the door to see what he was up to, we found the flood. He had hidden himself in his room to pee- on the floor.
At least we know he gets it- that he knew he had to go. It just would have been nice if he would have said something or tried to get to the bathroom again. Now we just need to work on that "click" for him to put it all together and it will be a breeze from there!

On Tuesday I stopped quickly at Kmart to get some big boy underwear because "no one likes to wear training pants" say bf. I had to walk by the girls section to get to the boys (and let's face it, with 3 boys and only 1 girl, looking at girl clothes is an adiction) and the girl's have better underwear!
The girls get 6 packs of underwear that has flowers and pinks and other pretties on them, and the boys get white. Just white. If I wasn't a cheap ass I could have gotten him a bunch of 3 packs of Thomas the Train, Go Diego Go, Cars, or some other cute little character. But when your looking at $5.50 for a 3 pack of cute or a 6 pack of white. The white wins. I did splurge a little and get him 3 pack of Thomas, along with a 6 pack of the white ones. My wallet is still crying over it though.

He's ready He's ready!!!!!!

2009-02-09T19:46:00.002-06:00

Gabriel is about to become potty trained!

This morning he was messing around with his diaper to pull it off (because that is what he does best) and I told him to stop it. Well he goes running off down the hallway and a minute comes back into the bedroom and starts messing around with the bathroom door (I was in bed and not looking at him- I didn't know his diaper was off until Abby said something) once again I told him to knock it off. So then he goes running into the hallway bathroom. After a minute I decide I should go see what he is up to. He made it to right in front of the toilet before he went. This is the first time he has tried to use the toilet on his own.

After that I put him in some training pants (which he did wet) and then we tried the potty again, and he went on the potty! Then after that he peed on an end table in the living room so I put a diaper and a onesie on him.

I'm just so proud of my little man, he is easily a full year ahead of his sister potty training wise (since we are still working on accidents and pooping on the potty with her, she didn't even start the potty training process until this last Nov). And he "get's it" a lot better than Abby did.

I'm going to be done with diapers very very soon!!!

I think it may be time

2009-02-07T00:21:00.003-06:00

Gabriel is starting to show the signs that he is ready to be potty trained.
He has been staying dry at night a lot lately.
When he gets into the bathtub he looks down at his peepee and then proceeds to pee (yeah that took me a few times before realizing he was doing it intentionally)
Best of all the other night I sat him on the potty and he actually went!!! But of course there is more to the story than that!

After I sat him down he tried very hard to kept himself pointed downward, and kept pushing it so it pointed down (does that say he gets it or what?). When it actually came time to go, he grabbed a cup we use for bath time (sitting in a bucket right next to the potty chair) and then peed in that!!!!
I'm so proud of my little man!

Bad mommy... you bad mommy

2009-02-02T21:14:00.004-06:00

What, you ask yourself, could be so bad that my darling princess would have to chastise me like that?

I did not have the snack she wanted (I can hear your gasp of horror right now).
That's right, Mommy did not have what she wanted to eat.

What is it she wanted to eat so badly?
Candy perhaps? Or maybe ice cream? Chips?

Apples.
Bananas.
Strawberries.

Yes, I hang my head in mommy shame. I have a child that actually wants to eat healthy stuff, and actually asks for the healthy stuff, and I didn't have any!!!
(for the record, this happened on Thursday night, I went out friday night and finally got some for her, so she had some available Saturday morning)
I even tried to substitute her favorite cereal. I made one huge mistake though, I showed her the box and asked her if she wanted some. She kept pointing to the box saying "that one". I finally figured it out- the spoon pictured on the front of the box also had a strawberry on it. So much for that little trick!

Bad mommy indeed.

How do you say good bye to an angel?

2009-01-31T00:21:00.002-06:00

Earlier today I can across this blog, http://half12.blogspot.com/ about a family and a little girl named Tuesday. She is a twin who was diagnosed with cancer.

Today she lost that battle.

She was 2 years old, just a month older than my own Gabriel. Words cannot even begin to express the sorrow I feel for the family.

Great Recipe

2008-12-27T18:00:00.004-06:00

So for Christmas brunch I decided to make something we haven't had yet, and it turned out wonderful! It was the Christmas Brunch Casserole . The only changes I made were: 1/2 lb sausage, 1/2 lb bacon and then omitted the mushrooms (I'm the only one who likes them) and parsley (didn't have any!) The only thing I am going to try to do a little differently next time is cook the hash browns a little bit first before putting it all together as the eggs made them a little too mushy for our taste.

It doesn't look that appetizing when it's done baking, but oh was it good!

(not my pic- stole it)

The great Christmas tornado of 08

2008-12-26T22:16:00.002-06:00

We had a good Christmas. In fact, it was great, everyone got all sorts of goodies.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T13:55:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone has a safe holiday season and it all goes as expected.

Fantastic deal on flannel sheets at amazon

2008-12-12T23:08:00.003-06:00

As of this post, only $9.99 for a queen size set. Can you believe it! Of course they were not that cheep when I ordered them a few days ago.
(The pic is a link directly to the page)

Some new favorites

2008-12-06T01:13:00.003-06:00

If you haven't had a chance yet, check out these site, I love them!
Thrifty Decor Chick
Cake Wrecks
The mamas Online

Wordless Wacky Wednesday

2008-10-15T22:40:00.003-05:00

Busted!

2008-10-12T22:40:00.007-05:00

Abby's new thing is door knobs- she knows how to open them and will do so any chance she can get (I'm really just thankful it took this long). Well the other day they got into our bedroom and just went to town! She even got a hold of the camera and took pics, I thought it was more funny than anything.

Heck, I am just proud that she not only figured out how to turn the camera on, but to take pictures and use the flash.

It was the flash that got them busted. Otherwise who knows how long it would have been before we noticed. So here is a sampling of the pics she took. To be honest I think she is better with the camera than I am!

The hallway

2008-10-07T20:57:00.002-05:00

So here is my newly repainted hallway. I thought I had a picture to use as a before picture, but it turns out I don't. Just picture it with white walls, and full length mirror at the end and that is what it did look like. Would have loved to keep the mirror there but the kidlets have made sure that isn't an option.

So yeah, ignore the lazy line at the bottom of the walls, we are redoing the baseboards as well and I got lazy. One day soon I will give you the grand tour.

As for the diva herself, well the world ended today. She dropped a thing of marinara sauce on her pillowcase, so we had to wash it. And she's just not herself if she doesn't have her po and kiki with her at all times.

Right now I am going through the torture that is bed time. Daddy lets her sleep out on the couch watching t.v. Personally, I'd like to enjoy my house I bought and would rather she slept in her own room.

Shhhh... Do you hear that?

2008-10-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

Nothing. No noise at all.
I actually have the house to myself this weekend (this NEVER happens)!!
Of course I have all this time to myself (besides working) and what do I decide to do? Paint. Finally got around to painting the hallway last night after work. I wanted to do the entryway as well (the same color) but I need to do some sanding and smoothing out of one of the walls and that was more effort than I actually wanted to do last night. So I just did a couple of smaller walls in the entryway so that I can finish the rest someday when the kids are home and not worry about their little fingers playing with the paint. I'll try to remember to take pics of it tonight after work.

Tomorrow (cross your fingers) I hope to have enough time to get a haircut and do some shopping for a birthday gift for a gift exchange before work. But I might just enjoy sleeping in as well. :)

Look, I pretty

2008-08-29T22:47:00.001-05:00

The other day I left scissors lying on the dining room table. And it just so happened to be the day after I tried to trim Abby's bangs. So yep, she cut her own hair. She was in the dining room, and I was in the kitchen, and the next thing I know I hear her saying "look, I pretty". It isn't too bad, I have a picture of it that needs to be developed yet, but she really only got a couple of chunks.

One more

2008-08-21T17:29:00.000-05:00

So I already have a family website I don't update, and 2 different weight loss blogs I don't update, so really what's one more.

It's just that last as I was laying Abby down for bed, with her gold necklace, her wristband from the beach, and her Easter hat on, I realized she truly is a diva. And I need to document it!