Sick

What are parents to do when they come down with a nasty cold and there are still two little boys that need to be tended to? First thought...wish that there was a grandma close by. Since that's not the case then you rely on a babysitter. Unfortunately it's Sunday and the babysitters are all at church. So what did we end up doing...turn on the TV for the boys, lay on the couch all day and made mac and cheese for dinner. I'm not gonna lie...it was a rough weekend. Both Rick and I are sick but luckily the boys are still pretty healthy. I hardly ever get sick but this one definitely put me in bed for the weekend. I don't feel like a stellar mom after this TV filled weekend but the reality is that's what we've had to do to get by. I just hope we get better fast and that the boys don't come down with it.

We did manage to make it to the backyard for a little while on Monday. Lincoln earned this bug net from getting stickers on his nice chart. This was the first time that he used it and he caught a praying mantis.

He has so much personality and attitude already. He wasn't actually mad.  He just thought is was funny to give me this look when I called his name. 

Conversations With Lincoln

In the mail today we received a package that contained a couple old pictures of Ricky. If you didn't know, back in the day (early-mid 90's) Ricky used to have long hair. His friend Mark was taking a photo class and he used Ricky as his model. I held up the below pictures to show Lincoln.

Me: Lincoln, who is this guy?
Lincoln: Jesus!
Me: What about this one? (as I showed him the second picture)
Lincoln: Well, it looks like Aunt Nancee.

Ricky and I just laughed. It's so true that kids say it exactly how they think. It made perfect sense. A guy with long hair reading scriptures must be Jesus. If it's not Jesus then it must be a girl since they have long hair. I think Nancee (Rick's sister) have a lot of similar facial features. Typically I'm not a fan of guys with long hair so I'm just glad Ricky cut his long hair before we started dating.
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Yesterday Lincoln ran into the bathroom and went about his business. As normal protocol, when he's done and ready to be wiped he will call for Ricky's or me to come in. Ricky was the lucky one yesterday. I was sick and sitting in the living room listening to this conversation.
Lincoln: Look, I did a big long load.
Ricky: Ya, that is a big long log.
Lincoln: Yep, I did a Lincoln log!  Let me flush the Lincoln log.

(I guess I will have to get used to certain guy talk like this.  We are pretty open in our house but I don't think we would be having conversations like this if I was in a house full of girls!)

It's Our Family

Lincoln has been more interested in drawing and coloring over the last month than ever before. We've been quite impressed with his artwork recently.  Not that he is an extraordinary artist at this point of this three years of life but I'm impressed with is his ability to visualize things or people and then draw them.  I grew up drawing stick figures.  I love art. I'm just not that good at it. My grandfather was a brilliant painter. He drew and painted a ton of beautiful landscapes that hung around my moms house all through my childhood years. I hope my boys have that same ability.  Lincoln gives people bodies in his drawings.  That's more than I could/would do when I was young.  It's really fun to sit by him while he colors because there is always a story for the pictures that he draws.  He's very creative yet matter of fact.
The picture below is one he made last night.  He started with a picture of me. He told me that my hair is long (all over my head) and then daddy (who he drew next) came to rescue me and give me a hair cut.  Then my hair was short.  Then he drew himself and brother Logan.  He also drew a butterfly for Grandma Tutu.  After his picture was complete he said, "here is my picture mom.  It's my family."

(Should I be worried that my head is like 6 times the size of everyone else?)

Not What I Expected During Candy Land

As Lincoln and I sit playing candy land last night I had a moment I'm not sure I will forget anytime soon. He was winning and I had just picked a double purple card.  I was quickly catching up.  My three year old not happy at the thought of losing the game. "Oh F**k," he said. My heart sank.  Panic set in.  What did he just say? Did I hear that right? What do I do? Ignore it? I felt like I needed to address it.  How do I do that and not over react? OMG!!  So many thoughts raced through my mind in a period of what I'm sure was only two seconds but felt much longer because of the chaos and panic in my mind.

I tried to remain calm and yet direct. "What did you say?" I asked.  Dumb, I thought to myself. Why did I just tell him to repeat it? I guess it's because I almost didn't believe my three year old had said that.
Next I asked, "do you know what that means?" I don't know what exactly I was expecting him to say at that point. Luckily he said no.  I proceed with, "where did you learn that?"  Of course he learned it at school.  We don't talk like that at home but I guess I just needed confirmation.  He replied, "Miss XXXX taught me that."  Well clearly I know his preschool teacher didn't teach him that so I just said, "so you learned it at school from the other kids?" To which he responded with, yes.

Okay, so now that I got the useless question and answer session out of the way now what do I do?  I clearly explained that we don't say that word. It's not nice and we don't say bad words. I told him that if kids say that word at school we don't repeat it and that we tell them that's not a good word to use.  Then we continued our game of candy land.

I was not expecting that at all when I sat down to an innocent game with him. I think I did good to not over react and not to make a huge deal out of it.  I guess that was okay.  The hardest part about parenting is that there are no black and white text book answers.  I figured I would have to address that some day but I was not quite prepared yesterday.  Hopefully we won't have to deal with that again for a while.

He's A Model

We got a fun text message from Ricky's brother Ryan yesterday.  Ryan is in China for a Baby Convention to promote the Baby Banana Brush and the new Sharky Brush.  Here is the picture we received....

Now, I know my son is cute but who knew that he could rock that huge poster!?!?!  What a cutie!  Of course I'm biased but I also think I'm realistic...and he is adorable!  It's fun to see him being a great little model for the Sharky Brush. Watch out Hollywood....here we come!
Just kidding - but when the boys were little everyone told us that we needed to get them into Hollywood and we often wondered what if we had? I'm glad we didn't but who knows what the future holds.  I think Logan is proving he's a natural!

Garage Sale

On Saturday we held our first ever garage sale. We worked for weeks to de-junk and de-clutter the house. I’ve been making signs, cleaning and organizing everything. We advertised on multiple websites along with posting street corner signs. It was actually more work than we anticipated.

We were up at 6:00 am (which by itself is a big deal) and then we opened for business at 7:00 am and it was quickly a mad house. I didn't realize how big the garage sale business is! At first I wasn't very comfortable with negotiating but now I'm a pro. It's interesting what people choose to spend their money on and what they think is a good price. I'm sure there is a good psychological study out there about garage sale shoppers. Its pretty intriguing to me to watch.  I also learned I don't have to sell anything at a price I'm not happy with. They can take it or leave it at the price I ask for it.

Overall we did really well. The goal wasn't necessarily to make tons of money but more so to de-junk, teach Lincoln the importance of de-junking and to make a little cash for the big valuable items we had. It's hard to sell blankets, jackets and long sleeve shirts when it's over a hundred degrees outside. We ultimately sold about 85% of what we put out. We will donate the remaining items which is what we normally do when we de-junk on a monthly basis anyways.

I don't know that we'll do another garage sale anytime soon but this time it was worth it and I'm glad we did it. Now we are off to buy Lincoln some Legos with the money he earned from selling his old toys and clothes.

I didn't think to take a picture until an hour into it so all our big ticket items were already gone.

100 Things

I saw an email a few weeks ago had a list of 100 things and asked you to highlight the things on the list that you've experienced.  Because this serves as my journal, I decided to take the idea and change it up a little bit. Instead, I listed 100 things that I've experienced.  Some are pretty fun and amazing while others have been more simple everyday experiences. There were so many more things I could have listed but this is a good start. I hope one day my boys will read this and learn a thing or two about me.  I've also realized as I jotted some of these things down that I am very blessed.  I've gotten to experience a wide variety of things physically, spiritually and emotionally. Eventually I will put my bucket list together and start working to accomplish that. 

1. Sat in the same room with a president of the United States, George W. Bush

2. Been horseback riding in the mountains

3. Was in a band (clarinet, tuba and percussion)

4. Vacationed in Maui

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Volunteered at the Special Olympics

7. Been to and worked at Disneyland

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a snake

10. Had a surgery

11. Been in a snow storm

12. Ridden a roller coaster with a loop

13. Been to the Golden Gate Bridge

14. Walked on Main St. in Disneyland with nobody else around at 2:00 am 

15. Been to the top of the Empire State Building

16. Had food poisoning

17. Been inside Alcatraz

18. Bought a house

19. Visited Ground Zero, The Statue of Liberty and Times Square

20. Slept in a tent

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Been the recipient of anonymous Christmas gift donors

24. Built a snow man

25. Held a dying animal

26. Gone toilet papering

27. Biked down a volcano

28. Ridden in a gondola (does the Hotel in Vegas count?)

29. Wished on a star

30. Watched a sunrise and a sunset

31. Been in a car accident

32. Been on a Ferris wheel that held the record in 1999 for being the biggest one

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited Nauvoo, IL and other early church history sites

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Learned a second language

37. Seen a Broadway play on Broadway

38. Swam in the Pacific Ocean

39. Had to be evacuated from our house because of a fire

40. Met a survivor of the holocaust

41. Sung karaoke

42. Sat in a natural hot springs pool

43. Paid for someone else’s groceries

44. Was my middle school Student Body President

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been in a parade

47. Been the victim of a crime

48. Seen my life flash before your eyes

49. Been within an arms reach of dolphins in the ocean

50. Been on a two week road trip with no plans or schedule to follow

51. Ate buffalo meat

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Watched a movie at a drive-in theater

55. Been on TV

56. Fell in love and got married

57. Rode a big yellow school bus to school

58. Taken guitar lessons

59. Traveled to Japan

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies as a girl scout

62. Been water skiing

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Organized and ran a blood drive

65. Gone skydiving

66. Stood up for something I believed in

67. Called 911

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Been heartbroken

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Played competitive sports

72. Made a quilt

73. Cried myself to sleep

74. Driven a motorcycle

75. Been in an earthquake

76. Spoke to an audience of several hundred people

77. Broken a bone

78. Been ice skating

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Know, and love, women who fought breast cancer

81. Been to the temple

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Had braces

84. Had my picture in the newspaper

85. Been on a police ride along

86. Visited the White House

87. Been to Sequoia and Yosemite

88. Had chickenpox

89. Rode on an elephant

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby with, and without, an epidural

95. Been to a professional sporting event

96. Lived in a small town

97. Had the wind knocked out of me

98. Fired a gun

99. Owned vinyl records, cassette tapes and a purple pager...I thought I was so cool!

100. Been stung by a bee

Monsoon Season

This was a clip from our local news last Wednesday, July 6^th:

A blanket of haze upwards of 10,000 feet high still covered downtown Phoenix Wednesday afternoon, caused by dust from Tuesday’s storm. The dust will remain if another dust storm hits tonight, but could dissipate with rainfall. The wall of dust, which originated between Phoenix and Tucson, rolled into the Valley just before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The mile-high dust storm moved between speeds of 50 and 60 mph and appeared to be nearly 100 miles wide, according to the Weather Service’s radar. The dust began to settle by the time it reached Yuma later in the evening. A typical dust storm in Arizona might reach 1,000 feet and travel between 30 and 40 mph.

At its peak Tuesday night, visibility fluctuated between zero to a quarter of a mile.

“I’ve been (in Arizona) for nearly 33 years, and I’ve never seen as thick a coating of dust, on streets and cars, as this one,” Ellis said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was forced to shut down for nearly an hour, spokeswoman Julie Rodriguez said. All planes were grounded between 8 p.m. and 8:45 p.m., and some flights were diverted to Tucson and California for landing. At least two flights were canceled.

The storm was so powerful, it blew a heavy cloud of dust into the terminals, triggering fire alarms. Airport custodial crews were busy washing windows and cleaning curbs late Wednesday morning.

Phoenix Fire Department received more than 700 calls for service as the storm rolled through the city.

The storm was part of the Arizona monsoon season, which typically starts in mid-June and lasts through Sept. 30.

(Photos compliments of the Internet)

My take on the whole thing: This is the first time I’ve seen something like this.  My intention in opening the front door was to pull my patriotic wreath off the front door because I could hear from all of the bashing against the door that it was too windy for it.  As I unlocked the door and slightly turned the handle the door flew open as it was a pressurized spring just waiting to snap.  I knew it wasn’t supposed to be as dark as it was for the time of day.  It was only early evening but there was an eerie feeling out there.  Trash, leaves and dust flew down our street with incredible speed. Of course at this time I didn’t know what was happening.  I just figured it was a natural part of monsoon season.  I imagined it was a little bit like how Dorothy felt in the beginning of the Wizard of Oz when her house blew away.  It felt like it was almost right out of a movie.  It wasn’t until about an hour later while watching the news that I actually realized what I had seen and experienced.  I now wish that I would have paid closer attention and had gotten Ricky to come down and see it. 

Every area of the country has it’s own weather issues.  I’m used to the earthquakes and I’ve been in white out snow storms.  I would still rather deal with monsoon season than a hurricane, tornado or snow storms.  I guess that’s a big reason why we live in Arizona. 

My Little Logan - 20 Months

Logan is already 20 months.  I can't believe it.  He is growing up so fast.  One of my favorite things about this last week is that I got to have a lot of one on one time with Logan without having to worry about a lot of other things, like work. He and I played a lot together, ran errands together, and had a fun time singing and talking. He is really funny but also quite stubborn.  He is super sweet and very attached to mom and dad.  He surprised me this week with his vocabulary.  He is talking in sentences using words I've never heard him say before and also using a ton of new words like...

Help with this please. Open this. Close this. Ice cream, popsicle, recycle, pancakes, hot, cold, truck, Chuggington, Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse, Bath tub, music, books, trash can, trash truck, vacuum, what, why, blanket, binky, ipad, mall, apple straws, cookie, hamburger, vanilla shake, strawberries, coke and diet coke (no he doesn't get to drink soda but he asks) and so many more...

I don't know that I've talked much about Logan's obsession with trash cans.  I don't know what it is or why he likes them SO much but he does.  He always wants to touch them, take things out to the trash or recycle can and he drags the little trash cans around the house. He climbs up on the play table to see the trash truck come twice a week. He has liked them for as long as I can remember him being able to move and reach for things.  I hope this means that he will be really clean and willing to dejunk as he gets older.  For now, we just deal with this funny random little obsession.

He also is at the "why" stage.  Any time we tell him to do something or tell him 'no' the response is always, "why?"  I didn't think that this stage came until much later but with Logan we are very much in the middle of it.  Why? Why? Why?
Logan LOVES his brother!  He is always SO excited to see him in the morning and after school.  He watches Lincoln's every move and tries really hard to interact with him.  Depending on what they are doing we can sometimes get up to five minutes with them playing together before someone is mad or hurt.  It doesn't sound like a long time but it's a definite improvement from the 30 seconds we were at.
I hope and expect that one day they will be best friends.  We tell them all the time that brothers are best friends.

Logan's stats:
Weighs 25 pounds
33 inches tall (yes - we know that he's tall for his age)

We are very grateful for our sweet little guy.  I love him more and more everyday!

Another Sign That He's Growing Up...

I did not send him (Lincoln) to school like this. When we picked him up I noticed his straps were like this and asked him about it.  His response, "Crisscross tomato sauce." Clearly this is something he learned at school and he thought he was pretty cool.  I admit that he's pretty cool - but it's hard to admit that he's growing up. 

File Cabinet Make-Over

Ricky had this beige blah colored file cabinet since before we were married.  I've never been fond of the color but since it works properly I had no reason to get a new one.  Since we moved to our house the file cabinet has been in my office. Our walls are plantation beige in color so I felt like it clashed and now was something that I had to look at everyday. Enough was enough. I decided I was going to make a change.  After searching online as to ways that I could change it up, I made up my mind and spent some time over the weekend to make it happen!

Here are a few things I learned along the way.

• Don't trust the employee at the Walmart paint counter when they tell you that the generic brand is the exact same spray paint as the name brand.  What I found out is that the paint may be the same but the nozzle is VERY different.  The Krylon nozzle is worth every extra dollar you spend.  After spraying three cans of generic spray paint my arms were exhausted.  My muscles were cramping and I couldn't finish.  After returning to the store to get more Krylon paint the next day, I was able to finish with ease. 
• You should probably wear something over your face when spraying five cans of spray paint. I thought I was really careful but didn't realize how much I was actually inadvertently inhaling.  I was blowing my nose a couple days later and still ended up with a black tissue!
• It's not smart to spray paint and then leave the garage door open during a windy monsoon season.  I got a pretty good layer of dust on my fresh paint that I had to clean off.

 

I LOVE the finished product!  My office is red, black and white so it looks so much nicer.  It's the small things in life!

4th of July Weekend

We didn't do anything too exciting over the three day holiday weekend. We hung out, finished a few projects and did a few little activities with the boys. I really like the 4th of July.  I love the All American summer feeling, the patriotic music, the fireworks, the delicious summer foods, and just hanging out. It's actually one of my favorite holidays. As the boys get a little older I plan to start some fun family traditions with them each year over the holiday weekend.

We have a little lake not far from the house. We took some crackers and fed the ducks. Lincoln made friends with the big white duck. 

 Lincoln and I had a date to see Cars 2.  I love that he's old enough to take him to see a movie.  We have our little routine.  He loves getting the kids popcorn pack and his booster seat. The movie was cute and  Lincoln seemed to really like it.  I was just glad we made it through the entire movie!

 In the spirit of the fourth, we decorate cookies red, white and blue.  Lincoln put on the frosting and sprinkles and Logan did a great job of taste testing.  

 Lincoln was really proud that brother Logan liked the cookie he made for him. 

 The is no doubt that Logan LOVES cookies.

 My little cookie monster!

 This was a fun little activity and the boys seemed to have a good time together.

 Some of the finished product.  Yummy!

 We went to watch the fireworks at our local stadium.  The boys really liked them for the first five minutes - then they were done.  The show lasted about 15-20 minutes.  It was alright but I would like to find something better for next year. 

  God bless America!

Spikes

The last week or so Lincoln has become obsessed with spikes in his hair.  I feel like he woke up one day and was like sixteen and vain. He wants spikes in his hair the minute he wakes up in the morning - this morning he was in my bathroom at 6:15 am doing his spikes. He touches them up a dozen or more times throughout the day and he even makes sure he has spikes right before bed. I don't know what has gotten into him!

The funniest part is that after he wets his hair and spikes it, he looks in the mirror and says, "lookin good" or "so handsome."  I can't believe it.  It's super cute to hear him say it and I'm glad that he has self confidence - it's just the obsessed part that I'm a little worried about. I have to say I'm impressed that he does them all on his own.

The other funny and/or amusing part about it is that we is SO concerned that his spikes will get messed up through the day.  If you try to give him a hug, you get a half hug because he doesn't want the spikes flattened.  He will say, "watch out for my spikes, mom!" If he has to take a nap, he's very careful how he lays his head down.  He is concerned when he has to change his clothes that his spikes will get ruined.

If I knew we were going to face a spike obsession I would've gotten his hair cut sooner.  As it is I'm rescheduling his hair appointment so that we can go in sooner.  Today he told me that he doesn't want grenade to cut his hair because he wants his hair long for spikes.  Ricky and I busted up laughing. The lady that cuts his hair is named Rene. Lincoln keeps calling her Grenade!
I wonder how long this phase will last or is this the start of it all!?!?

Spikes or no spikes, he is so adorable and I love him!