Birthday Pie!

 Matthew Streeter and my son sitting on the pig at The Machine Shed Restaurant in Des Moines!

 The birthday Pie with no whip cream and ice cream on the side, just sung to by the waiters/ waitresses at The Machine Shed Restaurant in Des Moines. The ice cream I shared with my 2 favorite boys, and the pie was delicious!

 Taking photos at the Park while my son played one warm(er) February day this week.

 My child, who won't hold still for 2 seconds to get a photo!

 He has so much energy some days.... he wears us both out! My two favorite men in my life!

My hubby, who works hard, so I can stay home with our son! It's hard to believe we've been 'together' for almost a decade already. In May we will celebrate 9 years of marriage!

Taking a photo of the High School from the park we were at.

I am taking it all in that I'm 32 years old, but enjoying the thought of being somewhere tropical on or near my birthday next year! My parents are celebrating their 40th Wedding Anniversary and are taking the whole family on a cruise- yes,  kids are included!

I'm in Charge of What?

This is a video of my dad, my nephew Aidan, and my son Christopher, my other nephew comes in at the end. 

This is a clue in how the week went..... granted this was taken BEFORE we accidentally lost the little one at the mall, and we were so thankful that a nice lady brought him back because he had gone all the way to the end of a hallway where we could NOT see him. We are also lucky that he was willing to go with the lady and not throw an almost 2 year old fit! 

Our trip home was interesting to say the least, and I'm about to share with you a little TMI, so if you don't want to hear it, stop reading.

My son, Christopher doesn't poop but once every 3 days, usually, at HOME. But we weren't at home, we were at his cousin's house in Minnesota. So we were up there all week and I couldn't remember the last time he had gone- was it Sunday morning? or before that? Geesh, I know, I'm a bad mom! So I called the pediatrician on Friday morning. The nurse said to try to give him prune juice- yum! We were able to get him to drink about a cupful by mixing it with Orange juice and even a little Vemma. Keep in mind, I was leaving Saturday. Whoops. I'm not going to do that again! The kid waited until the second rest stop in Iowa to go- painful crying all the way, when he wasn't sleeping (which he did for about an hour and a half)! He was crying "Mommy, hold me." I felt so bad for him, because it had been almost a week! But he finally went in the rest stop, and yes, made a mess in the process in his pants. Quick change of the diaper and using the last of my wipes, we were back on the road after I put on a new pair of pants. This incident has since made me think about what goes into the diaper bag we have. We no longer need an extra shirt for mom or dad, but an extra pair of pants for the little boy!

We are doing fine, and then I call my husband to tell him I'm getting on the homestretch road that will take me all the way to our town, and as soon as I hang up with him I hear crying in the backseat. I realized he had just thrown up! Great, what else can go amiss? I pull over, clean him up- and realize I'm out of pants for this poor kid, they are all shoved in the trunk in a garbage bag because they are all dirty clothes. So I strip him down to his diaper and cover him with a towel (just in case he does it again)... and bring him on home! Then when he gets home he's running around saying he's "Naked Boy!" I told him that once in the car... ONCE! I knew after he had thrown up he was feeling better because he was talking more. It's not like him to get car sick, so I'm not sure what happened.

All is well now, and we are adjusting back to our schedule and sleeping and playing on our own has been a struggle all week!

TV time and Frosting Kid!

So because we broke down and bought a new TV- one that's a flat panel, I know we were like sooo in the dark ages! Anyway, I realized we'd been watching to much TV, so I made this little chart with all of my son's choices for the day on the right. He gets one choice per day- most of the shows are just 30 min. long, except Seasame Street- but that's usually all educational. We are trying to get back to doing the No TV on Tuesdays again this year, so Tuesday he doesn't get a choice. 

Saturday is left blank because I'm not sure when the shows are on, and not that it matters anyway because daddy doesn't work on Saturdays, so he needs to spend quality time with dear old dad! Sundays are really busy so he doesn't get a whole lot of TV time anyway, so I didn't even include that in the chart. I just printed out a Word document with Monday - Saturday one one side and space for the 'schedule.' This is genius because the programs are on card stock and the times and type of programs can change from season to season- so all I'll do is change what needs to be changed and print out another sheet. 

So far it's worked, and despite a quick change Friday morning to get the TV on soon and a minor fit because the show he had originally chosen was on after the one he did the quick-change with we are doing good. After breakfast we went right to his chart to see what he had choosen the day before. For obvious reasons I have nothing on there before 8am, and nothing after 6pm- because that's mommy and daddy's TV time, where we sit down and watch TV together some nights. 

This is an 8 min. video of some of the things we did yesterday! It's cute and I had fun making it, the problem comes when he wants to 'see myself' on the computer over and over and over!!! So far the video has gotten 22 views, and I'm sure at least 4 of those are Christopher wanting to watch himself!!! To funny!

I knew it was to quite when I was in the living room yesterday doing something quick on the computer and had my music on and Christopher left the room and it was super quiet for a long time. I wrapped up what I was doing on the computer and went into the dining room to find this lovely face! At least he helped himself to a spoon and actually sat down at the table... it could have been much worse that it was! Watch the video and you'll find out what happens! 

A Parking Garage and Ames, Iowa

We did something fun yesterday, being cold and January and all... the day before we went to Des Moines to see my arthritis doctor and I saw a Family Fun magazine when I walked in and nabbed it ASAP! Found this craft in there... and thought what a perfect thing for a little boy to have! Find the directions to make it here. All it takes is 2 large cereal boxes and some toilet paper rolls... all of which are a constant companions in my house! Then it took a little bit of yellow and blue construction paper- a whole lot of glue and a little bit of patience and my boy has the best toy to go with all his match-box 'race cars'!

 My hubby actually thought I used paint for the yellow and painted the lines on for the parking! No, honey... do you know how messy that would have been painting with a 3 year old... I sadly have to say I do not let him paint very often. My son and I must have played with it for a good hour yesterday just sending our cars down the ramps (he has his and I have mine) and then driving the tow truck to fix the ones that "clash" and driving them over to the bottom part of the garage where they can be "fixed." It's awesome!

In other news, my son's Uncle Jimmy (my hubby's bro) decided to go back to college... Iowa State University  to be exact. He was lucky enough to find someone who needed a roommate and moved in and even qualified for some grants in less than a week! He's going to be a smart computer guy, well, he's already smart, he's finishing his degree so he can get a good job! God is good, and somebody keep an eye on my brother-in-law, because he's going places!
When we were up in Des Moines it worked out for us to go to Ames and visit him- we got to take him out to eat and we decided to go to Hickory Park Restaurant  a really yummy BBQ place there, that all the college students take their parents to when its parents weekend! We got out of the door for under $30! That's including 3 adult meals, a kids meal, and 2 ice cream desserts!

We are on letter M... learning all about Moose, Mouse and Mice, Mountains, Monkeys among other things! Fun, fun, and I was talking with a few other of my stay at home mom friends and all of us agreed that we wouldn't pass up being stay at home with our kids again! It really is great!

Christopher turns 3 years old!

Can't believe he turned 3... where did the time go?

We all had fun at his birthday party.. and as usual this year, I didn't take enough photos- it seems like I'm not as click happy as in 2010 for some reason. This has nothing to do with the fact that sometimes my camera acts funny- or the fact that I've taken over 20,000 photos in the 3+ years I've had my camera. I just don't feel like taking as many photos as before, weird, I know!


Buzz Lightyear, Bullseye, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head and some little green aliens even showed up at Christopher's party! Oh yeah, Christopher had some real friends there as well! The cupcakes were actually fun to make, my husband and I tag-teamed on the decorating.. my job was to put the Tic-Tacs as their antenna's and hubby did the faces. I even made little sleeves for the cupcakes to go into that looked like the alien's suits!

We played pin-the-tail on Bullseye and Christopher fixed 3 of the mixed up Mr. Potato Heads!  He got lots of great presents from everyone... some he's not quite ready for- after playing Rummy with him for about 10 min. he gave up and ran away with the cards! Maybe on game night at the church he can play!

View the Birthday Photos here

3rd Birthday Party!

Now to get rid of some old toys that he doesn't play with anymore... that should be challenging!

This was fun!

Thanks to my friend, Julie- this was kinda fun! 

End of 2010

So as I look back at my blog posts for the year of 2010, since it will end in just a few short hours. I've realized several things:
We're only on the letter L, we started on the letter A back in January of this year. Being that he's a boy and he's somehow stuck on letter B, I'm kind of taking it easy with this project- but I'm expecting to finish the rest of the alphabet by the time 2012 rolls around! Our wall for our letters is rather small, so I can only put up 4 letters at a time, then take them down, then do it all again... it's fun to see how it grows. Christopher likes to show daddy what he's made when Roy gets home from work. Right now the letters on the wall are: H, I, J, K, and L hasn't made it up there yet! So somethings you might see on my letter wall right now are Helicopter, House (He thinks it's Bob the Builder's house) Ice Cream Cone, Igloo, Jaguar from Diego, Kangaroo, and I have yet to put up his Lions- there's a mommy lion and a daddy lion.We

We've had a fun year, with plenty of times to go to the library story-time, NEST, and try to to do (usually without much success)  No TV Tuesdays!

So for next year we need to have some goals:
+ Re-try potty training with the end goal in mind (No more Diapers!)
+ Stick with the No TV on Tuesdays, no matter how much he wants to 'watch'
+ Get out and walk/ exercise- this is for both of us because he has energy and I have weight I'd like to loose!
+ Finish the alphabet, which shouldn't be to hard since somehow we breezed through the letters H-L since September when I stopped working

Taken in January 2010

He sure is growing up fast and I can't believe it was 3 years ago at this time of year when I was about ready to pop! He is the joy of my life and sometimes he's a drama king, but we love him anyway, we wouldn't trade him for the world- he's our son!





Taken in December 2010


Here's to a super-duper, God-filled 2011! Happy New Year!