Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Am I going crazy or do I really want to go back?

Back to Anthony Travel, that is.

ATI has really been on my mind a lot lately. My friends, my old job, what a great company it is, and just memories in general. Some of this has been sparked by finding some old work friends on Facebook. And, some of it is because I think about how much $$ I used to make there and how much we're in debt now because I chose to quit and stay home with the boys. A few nights ago I had a dream of working at ATI again and it was a good dream. I couldn't get it out of my head at all. On a whim, I decided to pull up their website to see if they were even hiring. If they didn't have any positions than it would be easy for me to just toss the idea aside. Low and behold, they are hiring for an Event Manager, which is what I did when left there doing.

So, I made the call! I called my old boss. Maggie and I left on great terms. She understood my need to leave at the time. We still exchange the occassional email, Christmas cards, etc. She was so surprised to hear my voice and even more surprised when I told her I was considering coming back to join them.

Rejoining ATI would be extensive traveling again, which is one of the sole reasons I had to leave. With a 3 year old and a newborn baby at home, the traveling was just not an option for me anymore. But, not that Maddox is 2 1/2 years old and Leyton is in Kindergarten they are much more self-sufficient and Kris can easily handle them while I'm out of town.

There are tons of advantages for rejoining ATI. 1) The money, of course. This could really help us pay down our cc debt and get us into a new house much quicker 2) Full insurance benefits. I'm on a plan now that works for our family, but full benefits again would be tremendous. 3) I could start contributing to my 401K again! 4) I could quit my 2 jobs and not work nights/weekends again (except for when I'm traveling of course).

The disadvantages. Well, there are some, but there more hurdles than disadvantages. 1) Getting Leyton to/from school and after school care. I think I have a plan of action for this if I go back to work. 2) I'd have to pull Maddox from his preschool and enroll him in a full time daycare. Not the end of the world, especially since he's older now. He'll thrive wherever he is. 3) Ugh, I'd have to tell both jobs I'm quitting. Neither of them will be happy about that. :(

So, I'll post when I have more news. I am going in next Friday, I believe to do an 'interview'. I guess it's just protocol and following procedures. I can't expect to literally call and them say, come in, you start on Monday. ;)

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Christmas thru the eyes of a child

This has got to be one of the best Christmas mornings we've spent as a family! Now that Maddox is almost 2 1/2 he really got into the Christmas spirit this year. Leyton, being 5, was so into Santa and the mystery's behind him. Don't get me wrong, it's not all Santa and his reindeer's. Both my boys know that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday as well. Leyton even asked me how old Jesus was this year...uh...how do you answer that, lol! Maddox loves to read his nativity book and see the pictures of "baby Jesus". Too cute!

This is the letter that Leyton wrote to Santa on Christmas Eve.
The boys woke up about 7a on Christmas morning. Still starry eyed and sleepy, they dug into their stockings to see what Santa had left them.

Santa also left about 5 presents for each child to unwrap. In addition to the 'Santa' presents the boys had plenty to open! So many in fact that everytime an 'adult' opened a gift, they each had one too. Needless to say, they had a great Christmas. Leyton's big gift of the day was the infamous 'DS' that he told Santa he wanted. Maddox's big gift from Papa Steve and Gma Kathy was his new ride-on Jeep. Here's a few morning pictures from our Christmas morning.

Our Christmas Holiday

It's been such a fun, relaxing week for us. I somehow managed to get off work from the daycare for the week so I decided to spend some much needed quality family time back in Oklahoma. The boys and I drove up on Sunday afternoon. Monday we went to see my grandma up in Perry, OK. Whew, SMALL TOWN AMERICA. This is a representation of just how small it really is:
After Perry we spent the rest of the afternoon playing with my cousin's kids. All the boys are really close in age and just have a blast together. Tuesday Leyton and I caught up with the flowergirl, Molly, from my brother's wedding and went to a movie. Molly is my brother's wife's neice and is also 5. After the movie we hung out at Kris' grandparents for a while and then went over to my MIL's house to see Kris' sister and my sweet niece, Kyrsten. Here she is sporting her new tutu that Aunt Trin bought her:Wednesday, Christmas Eve we spent the better part of the day and evening in Tulsa. We celebrated the holidays with Kris's mom's side of the family. It's always a great time and I hate that we only see them once or twice a year. Here's a few pictures from that day:



Christmas day gets it's only blog post entirely. :-)
Kris had to go home on Christmas night, but the boys and I stayed in Guthrie until Saturday morning. I wanted to spend more time with my bro and SIL before they went back home to Denver and Leyton's cousins were coming back over to play on Friday. It was a fun filled week and I'm so glad I got in all that quality family time.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Hug your kids a little tighter today

It's been a hard week. On Monday morning I received word that a 4 year old boy that attends the preschool I teach at passed away in a car wreck on Sunday night. It hit so close to home because I knew the mom and kids fairly well. Amber and I used to be in the same local moms group and attended several playdates together. Not only that, Amber's 2nd grader attends Leyton's elementary school and she is just about as active as I am in the PTO. I'm just surrounded every which way by this tragic story. I've received emails from the preschool director, the elementary school principal, parents in Leyton's class and fellow friends who know Amber and her children.

Amber had all 3 of her children in her minivan on the way home from attending a birthday party. They were struck by someone who ran a red light. The vehicle hit on Brett's side of the van. Amber's 2nd grader is still in the hospital with a shattered leg. He's already had one surgery to pin his shin back together and he will still need more. Amber and her 2 year old daughter were unharmed.

This tragedy has really effected me. I drive thru that same intersection everyday when I take Leyton to school. All week I've been afraid to even drive my car with my children for fear that a tragedy like this will happen to me. I'm buckling the boys up extra tight, giving them extra kisses, and telling them I love you even more.

Here's is a small story on the accident:
Amber and her 3 beautiful kids were in a horrible accident yesterday evening heading back home from a party at the 380/Lake Forest intersection. It is with a very sad and heavy heart to report that 4 year old Brett wasn't able to fight through his injuries and passed away at 2:47 am this morning. Many of Amber's friends were at the hospital shortly after the accident and were able to give this amazing little man our love and many many tears before we had to say goodbye.

Andrew has a serious injury to his shin which will require several surgeries to repair the damage, one of which he had early this morning and came out like a trooper. He will be in the hospital at least a week undergoing surgeries. Amber and Danielle were not injured in the accident. Chris was in town and was able to be at the hospital shortly after the accident took place.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Yay for the weekend!

Thank goodness today is the start of the weekend for me. I had such a craptastic week that I really need this break this weekend.

So, the week started with Kris leaving to go out of town on Monday. I'm used to him traveling, so that's not a problem, it's just this time I wasn't able to ask off from my night shifts at the daycare which means the boys had to be up there all week while I was working. So, Monday and Wednesday nights the boys didn't get in bed until 1030p. Very stressful. Leyton does fine at night, but is just a bear in the mornings when he has to get up for school. Maddox on the other hand is a bear at night because he's used to going to sleep at 8a.

On top of dealing with that, Maddox has really gotten worse with his biting. He started biting his brother about 3 weeks ago. Bad bites too! Then, last week he bit a little girl at the daycare. And, this week he bit 3 times at the preschool! I feel just AWFUL everytime he bites. I do not want to have the 'biter' kid everyone talks about. :( Wednesday night while at the daycare working he attempted to bite a kid. Luckily, the kid caught on and got away from him and bit him back!! He came running to me and I gave him no hugs and love. I'm hoping this will help teach him a lesson. Actually later that night he tried to bite his brother. Since I was there when it happened I marched him to the bathroom and bit him on the arm. I hate that I resorted to biting him and it made my stomach turn to have to do it, but at this stage in the game, I'm desperate and I want him to STOP it. There was no biting yesterday at school, so fingers crossed it worked.

TGIF!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Sleep Issues

Poor little Maddox, he's never been a good sleeper. The first six weeks he was so colicky and would only be held, my mommy, no less. Daddy just didn't have the bouncing, shhh'ing, rocking thing down to calm a colicky baby. Well, the colic disapated and turned into a typical baby who just wakes in the middle of the night. 2 and 3 nights he would wake up crying. We tried everything from feeding him before bed and even feeding him cereal in the middle of the night to keep his belly full. The kid just doesn't sleep well. By 18 months Kris and I were at our wits end. He's was still waking up once a night even then. Maddox was 21 months old before he ever slept thru the night without waking up once. Now at 27 months, he is still waking generally 3-4 nights of the week crying. He'll either wake up and yell from his room for mommy or daddy to come bring him a cup of milk, or he'll wake up from nightmare.

Last night for example he fussed/whined/cried in his sleep for a good 15-20 minutes. When I finally determined it wasn't going to stop I went in to pat his back and calm him down. You could tell he was still asleep, but just crying out. It was so sad. :( I got him quiet and calm and within 20 minutes he was up crying again. This time, yelling in his sleep (like he was fighting with his brother or something?). I decided to go ahead and bring him to bed with me and wouldn't you know, being with mommy the rest of the night I didn't hear a peep out of him. He slept quiet and calm the rest of the night. I guess having the safety and security of mommy next to him helped him sleep.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Elves are watching

I've totally got Leyton convinced that there are lil elves spying on us in our house and in the toy aisles. Being that he's 5 now, he's really getting curious and has been asking a lot of questions about how does Santa know what he wants. We mailed Santa a letter a few weeks ago, but now Leyton is all concerned since he's changed his mind on what he wants, lol. So, I told him that Santa sends his elves to all the toy stores so they can listen in on the children's conversations and send the information back to Santa. He's buying the story and I love it! We were at home this afternoon and he's completely convinced the elves are hiding in our house too. I caught him taking the books off our bookshelf to see if he could find an elf behind the books. It's so cute. I even acted like a saw an elf (kinda like I'd see a mouse or something) and Leyton goes running to see if he could see the elf running behind our couch. He is going to be so ticked at me when he's older and realized mommy was just playing a joke on him. It's all just simple fun, right? I say, whatever you can do to convince your kids Santa still exists, do it. ;)

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Family Portrait time

Well, since Maddox was in my tummy last time we had a family portrait we thought it was probably about that time to do an updated shot of our family. We had such a fun time doing this photo shoot and for once, it was great to be in front of the camera instead of behind it.

After meeting the photographer I found out she's not a lot different than me. She's a preschool by day (like myself) and takes portraits for people 'on the side'. Her camera was only one step up from mine. She's inspired me to try and start doing this myself. I'm getting my fancy editting program for Christmas and once I have that I can hone in on my editting skills.
Here's a few of our fun, family shots.




You'll have to wait for Christmas to see some of the better ones.

Friday, October 31, 2008

A day at the Arboretum

Maddox and I enjoyed a nice mommy & me day at the Arboretum on Monday. I was off from school for the day, but Leyton still had to go since he's in another school district then where I teach. I have really been itching to get behind my camera and take some shots. It's been awhile since I've gotten to play around with my camera. I took about 170 shots that day. Maddox was being very photogenic too, which just helped my trigger happy finger. Here's just a few funs shots I took.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Flu, Flu, Go Away...

Yep, our family was hit with some string of the flu bug. Amazingly, it hit all us in different ways. We're not sure, but we think we may have gotten it from Maddox, although he NEVER should signs of being sick?! He threw up in the middle of the night last Saturday and had one diarrhea diaper on Monday. And that's it??? Then, Monday night I woke up around 11p and was up for the next 6 hours hovering the porcelein goddess. Thankfully, Kris took both boys to school on Tuesday and I was able to sleep on the couch all day. I went to bed very early and woke up 110% better on Wednesday. It was back to work and school for everyone. So I thought...

I get a call around 130p on Wednesday that Leyton was sick at school. :-( Poor boy. Got him all picked up and the hershey squirts were blessing him with their presence for the rest of the afternoon. He never has felt sick or achy, but I've kept him home all day today to keep him from infecting his classmates. It would be a lot easier to feel sorry for a sick boy if he'd actually ACT sick.

Kris also was graced with the 'maria' all day yesterday and came home early from work because he was achy all over and couldn't keep his eyes open.

So, today, while I'm at home with Leyton this house is getting super cleaned and sanitized. All comforters and sheets are being washed, toothbrushes thrown out, and everything in sight is being hit with Lysol and/or Clorox!! Go away flu!!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Death is an evil bastard!

The title says it all. Death is an evil bastard who sneaks up on you just when you're least expecting it.

I recently found out this week that a dear friend of mine from year's past has been taken away from us at a much too young age. Robyn and I were college roommates. We lived together for almost 2 years and shared many travels and road trips together. Two very long roadtrips all the way from Oklahoma to Niagara Falls and one snowy trip I’ll never forget to Colorado. And of course, our 6 week journey to Scotland and England will never be forgotten. All of that was over 10 years ago!! My goodness, life sneaks up on you and next you know it’s been 10 years!!

Sadly, and to no fault of my own, I’d lost contact with Robyn after college. We went our separate ways and onto our separate lives. I got married a year out of college and moved to Dallas. There was no myspace 10 years ago and email had barely hit the ground running. Keeping in touch with friends took more effort, sad to say. Although I lost contact, she will always, ALWAYS be in my heart. Our memories will always remain. Loosing contact with a loved one does not make death easier. If anything, it brings in loads of guilt for letting our lives and too many years separate us.

Since digital camera’s didn’t really exist ‘back in the day’, here are a few ‘vintage’ photos of Robyn and I.

Friday, August 22, 2008

My most embarrassing day EVER!

So, this morning I took the 2 boys to a bday party for one of Maddox's 2 year old buddies. They party was really cute. They had a company bring out farm animals for the kids to pet. All the kids really loved the animals. Leyton loved the bunnies and Maddox loved the piggies and goats. So, Maddox eventually thought he had had enough of the animals. He was hot too and wanted a juice box. So, while everyone was still out in the backyard petting all the farm animals, playing on the swingset, etc. Maddox wanted to come inside to do a puzzle. So, I let him go in to play. I kept checking on him every few minutes or so to make sure he was playing nicely with the toys inside.

Well, probably no more than 3-4 minutes of me not checking on him he decided to...





SPREAD POOP ALL OVER THEIR COUCH AND SOME TOYS!!!! Oh, and he was naked waist down and had poop all over his shirt!


Thankfully EVERYONE was outside so they didn't see me acting a fool to get him and the house cleaned up. I made a mad dash to the bathroom to wash him up and in the meantime clogged their toilet with a papertowel! I mean, seriously, what else could go wrong?? Oh, just wait!

So, I get Maddox cleaned, get the baby wipes and start cleaning the poop on the wood floor, toys, coffee table, and suede couch! At this point, my friend, the bday mom came in to help and she was very kind about it all. I'm sure, now that it's over with she's a little peeved. I mean, EWWW!!!! We sprayed some Oust, clorox wiped what we could, she got me a new shirt for Maddox, and we continued on with the party. Okay, so you think it's all done now. NOPE!

As the kids are eating cake I went back to the playroom just to do another double take to make sure there were no more toys with poop on them. I found a lego toy and OMG it was on a white cloth bench under a toy!!!! Um, yeah, I couldn't get it out. It left a stain. This was probably one of the most embarrasing moments of my life I believe. All thanks to my terror of a 2 year old. I couldn't wait for that party to be over so I could high tail it out of there!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Maddox is 2!

Oh my, I've certainly slacked from my blogger responsibilites. This past month has just flown by and it seems like my daily schedule sends me in multiple directions a day.

Maddox celebrated his 2nd birthday last Friday and he is the Big 2! We had a family celebration for him up in Oklahoma a few weekends ago. He's such a big kid and I love watching him grow and learn. He's speaking 3-4 word sentences now and is definitly getting an attitude. Ah, the terrible two's they call it?! He is definitly a terror at times and will push your buttons.

Here's my cutie. I took these shots a few weeks ago back at my parents farm.


Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Project Black. Take One

Leyton and I had a quick, fun photo shoot in the backyard yesterday afternoon. I wanted to get some shots of his cute new mohawk that he's been begging for. I also needed some shots for Project Black. http://annacpics.blogspot.com/ Thanks Anna, for inspiring me to get out and take some more creative shots with my son.


And, I know we aren't supposed to use B&W's for Project Black, but I couldn't resist adding this one to this blog post.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

It's time to potty train

I've been putting off potty training for as long as I think I can with Maddox. He's 23 months and according to some the right age to start. But, according to others, proably still a little too young. It's seems like if I remember right we also started pt'ing Leyton around this same age and he's was fully potty trained by 27 months.

Maddox has been regularly taking off his pants/diaper for about the last 6 weeks atleast. It's now gotten so bad that he immediately takes off his diaper right after he pees or poops. So, with him doing that, plus the fact that he'll pretty much pee everytime we sit him on the toilet, I've decided it's time.


Maddox will basically be naked anytime he's at home and I plan on taking him to the potty every 30 minutes. This is what we'll be doing for the next week or so until he gets the hang of things. Since I just decided today that we're 'officially' training, I still need to go out and buy some reward candy to help incentivise him to go on his own. Wish me luck, I really hope this doesn't last for months. I'd like to get him in undies by the time he goes to preschool at the end of August.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

It's Official, I'm a preschool teacher!

Sorry that it's taken me so long to update on what's going on with the prospect of me becoming a preschool teacher. I had to keep it on the down low for a little while for fear that some of my co-workers might let it slip to my director that I was looking elsewhere for a job. I'll be officially telling my director this week about my new job.

I will be an assistant teacher in the 4 year old, 4 day program. I'll be able to move up to my own class next year to become a lead teacher. Because of my experience in the field I will be getting paid more than I initially thought I would. So, I won't be taking too much of a pay cut from my current job. It's a paycut, but a very tiny one.

At this time, I hope to still work at the daycare 2 days a week and a few weekend shifts that are required of all employees. My fear is that my director won't want to keep me on for only a couple of shifts per week. So, I guess I'll see what happens there. I just want to keep the possibility open to work there too (especially around Christmas when the extra $ would be great).

Thank you to everyone for you kind remarks to my other blog. I appreciate everyone's support.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Summertime Fun

Not much to post on, but I wanted to share some photos of some our summer time fun so far.

Maddox LOVES the water and to 'swim'. But, this kid has NO fear. On this recent trip to the Frisco Athletic Center he was begging to slide down the kiddy slide and 'swim' in the lazy river. He wanted nothing to do with being held by mom and dad. He'd rather try to do it on his own. This kids gives his mommy and daddy a heart attack every day. Yesterday while at the pool we stayed in the kiddy pool that was 1 ft deep. Maddox would walk on his hand down the slope until he couldn't go any farther without drinking water. He also decided he liked jumping off the side of the pool!! YIKES! NO FEAR!!!

Leyton loved the water slides too. As you can see by the smile on his face, he loved every minute of it! Fun times!

And the last is a picture of a dear friend of mine Jolynn and myself. JoLynn's husband got an excellent job offer he couldn't pass up and they are moving to Arizona. :( We are really going to miss their family, but can't wait to visit them for a 'spa weekend' really soon!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The last of Project Blue...Daycare Blues

My, oh my, I found a lot of blue to capture at my daycare. Everywhere you turn there is a blue toy, a blue chair, a wall, and loads of other stuff. Here's a few pics I captured.

This is from our 'Sports Wall'. Kids compete against each other to hit the lights up on the wall and see who gets the higher score.

This next one is a foam block. Yuck, look at all the teeth marks on the surrounding blocks. Kids obviously prefer these as chew toys than they do building castles with them. Thank goodness we sanitize nightly.
A chair...

A word...

Ropes...

Thanks for looking. As you can see, I had a hard time choosing just one.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Mmmm....Sonic


Yummmm.....My all time favorite fast food joint. I stop here almost daily, sometimes twice a day for a nice refreshing drink. You just can't beat a Sonic Diet Coke (easy on the ice). The Sonic Blast's are yummy too, but at my local Sonic you have to ask for 'extra candy' or they'll try to skimp on the candies.
If you don't have a Sonic in your area, I'm so sorry.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Project Blue. Take One


It's a 3? It's an M?? Nope, it's the W from the back of my work shirt.

When racking my brain to get the creative juices flowing, I just starting taking pictures of anything with blue in it. This particular picture came from the front seat of my car. I was on my way to work, with my shirt in the front seat. Ah...BLUE.
There is much more to come. I took my camera to work that day, a daycare full of colors. Stay tuned for the endless possibilities of blue stuff at a daycare.

Update to previous blog

A lot of you have been asking and I wanted to give a quick update on my previous post. Our group has pulled together and is beginning to become like our oldselves again. We had a come to Jesus which I think probably helped for our future communications. I had mentioned in the previous post that there were 4 girls who all kind of felt like thier feelings were hurt. Sadly, one of them has still yet to come back to our group. I know many of us have tried to communicate to her thru email, to let her know she's missed and what an important part of our life she is to us. Well, I know from my communications, she's preferring just to cut ties. I'm still very confused by this? I still don't understand how/why she got hurt as bad as she claimed she did? She is a dear, dear friend of mine and I am still holding out hope that she'll eventually come back and try to make amends.
_________________________

As for this blog, be on the look out for my upcoming Project Blue. I've tried to get myself behind the camera a little bit the past few days and I'm anxious to get some photos posted for you. For more information on my Project Blue, click here http://annacpics.blogspot.com/.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Online friendships

This past week has been a really hard week on me. I've been bickering with some of my dearest online friends. Let me strike that, they aren't 'online friends' anymore, I truely consider 'in real life' friends. A brief history - I have known online these girls for going on 2 1/2 years. We met in an online website because we all were having babies with a due date the same week of August 2006. We are what you'd call a sisterhood of sorts. We became so close knit we moved our group off this well-known website to a private forum. This is a picture of 9 of us with our babies from a meet-up in Baltimore last summer.



Well, being that we're all women there's going to tend to be bickering and fighting every now and then, right? I mean, there are close to 20 of us and we all have different personalities, opinions, and viewpoints. As much as we're all very close friends, we can't all agree 100% of the time. There's been 2 or 3 times when one member of the group will do or say something that offends a lot of us and some bickering will start. Well, this past week was the first time in over 2 years I felt like our group may be splitting for good. Sadly, we're becoming divided. It really hurts to know that there are 3 or 4 members who have seperated themselves emotionally from our group and continued to have thier own little 'email' group, if you will. These 3-4 girls were hurt by something and instead of going straight to the people that hurt them, they chose to back away and not try to get things right again. I think the hardest thing I'm dealing with right now is the fact that of the 4 girls whom are pulling away emotionally from the group, 3 of them I really felt closest to in the group.


A part of me deep down feels like we're destined to become one again. I just can't imagine our group without them and I really hope they understand that. I really hope they reconsider and come back to our group. Here's another shot of some of us at another meet-up in Philadelphia this past January.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Graduation Day

I've been perplexed for the past couple of weeks on what to blog on. Nothing in my life seemed too over exciting to post about and share my pictures.

Last night was Leyton's preschool graduation. It was very sweet. The 6 classes marched in to the pomp & circumstance tune, all adorned with their caps and semi-gowns. They then sang about 4 songs, one in spanish and one about Kindergarten. I teared up a bit watching my lil guy up on stage. I wasn't sad he was graduating preschool and going off into the big world of elementary school. The tears were from joy and being a proud parent. I couldn't believe I was looking at my 5 year old boy up on stage and that I have many more of these type school performances ahead of me.


The preschoolers were called on stage one by one to walk across and received their diploma and hugs from thier teachers. They had to speak into a microphone and tell everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Leyton wanted to be a baseball player. Funny because only 2 hours earlier he told his daddy he wanted to be a fireman, and the day before he told me he wanted to be a magician?!?!
Leyton had such a good time and you could see from the happiness in his eyes he felt not only grown up, but accomplished. He was proud. He was a kindergartener!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Whoopie Cushion Wars

Maddox - "Mine!"
Leyton - "No, Maddox, it's mine!"
Maddox - "MIIIIINNEE"!
Leyton - "No, it's MIIINNNEE"

This is all I've heard for a week now. Maddox wants to play with all of Leyton's new birthday presents and in the process has learned an ear screaching word, MINE, that I have to hear 50x's a day. The big toy they fight over is the ever so funny noise maker, the whoopie cushion. Yep. The whoopie cushion that cost a whole measley 75 tickets at Peter Piper Pizza. How many funny ways can you sit, lay, stand, throw, or step on it to make noises? Leyton's new favorite way is to fill it with water and well, pee, out the whoopie cushion. Oh lord, the boys are a mess!

Monday, May 5, 2008

Happy Birthday

Wow, 5 years have flown by. 5 years ago I was in a hospital room holding my first born baby boy. Such an easy pregnancy and a very fast labor (4 hours!) I obviously get very sentimental around birthday times. It so hard to imagine your children growing so fast. Now, all the sudden, Leyton has hit this milestone where he is certainly not a baby anymore, not a toddler, and he'll be out of preschool in a mere 3 weeks. My boy is old enough for kindergarten! It just doesn't seem possible that he can be so big.



He had a big Star Wars celebration at Peter Piper Pizza (a pizza joint with games that shoot out those blasted tickets that earn you next to nothing, lol). Here's the cake:



He had such a good time with all his friends. 16 of his friends to be exact. It's so fun to have all his favorite buddies at the party. Look at how much fun he's having:




Whew, one party down and another to go in August. Sadly, the party perfectionist that I am, I've already started planning that one too. :-)



Thursday, May 1, 2008

Five Year Old Feet

I'm not really sure what it is about this picture I like so much. I mean, they're just feet. Gross, sweaty boy feet at that. Ah, but they also belong to my sweet little boy that is about to turn 5! Wow, 5! What happened to those baby feet???

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Fat Cat

This is our tabby cat, Fat Cat. The boy's named him. I think they did a good job naming him. If you could only see this cat in real life. He's only about 18 months old and he's male. When people see him they say, "Is she pregnant?" Uh, nope, that's just his fat rolls, LOL.


We really couldn't have asked for a better cat for our sons. He was raised with a German Shepard and a 2 year old little girl. We adopted him this past December. From day one he's never clawed at or been mean to the boys. You can only imagine the torture this poor cat goes thru with a 5 year old and almost 2 year old. They chase him, lay on him, pick him up, pull his tail, poke his ears. The cat just lays there and takes it. Sometimes he even purrs. ;-)

Monday, April 28, 2008

Project Green. Take Three and Four.

So, I decided to have a green photoshoot in my backyard. I mean, I've got all this lush, green grass out there so I might as well see what I can get out of it. Well, as you can see my son wasn't having anything to do with my photoshoot.


He actually loves to be the center of my attention. And, for the most part he's happy pose in front of my camera. On this particular day, he just wasn't having it. It was too sunny and bright he said. (insert eyeroll here)

I also have this beautiful bush that recently flowered. It is pretty, don't you think?