Move over trains!!!

     Those of you who know my little sweety-pie TJ know that trains take a very special place in his heart, and a pretty decent chunk of his day.  He plays with them, talks to them, watches movies about them, and snuggles them to sleep.  He dreams about the trains that he would like to have (most of them of the Thomas variety) and has even started a mental wishlist "for Christmas". 

     I noticed, however that he mentioned a time or two something about a tractor in the last week.  So when my friend, Kelly, showed me this in her magazine of cool things to do with your kids, I jumped on it.  Went straight to the Dollar Tree that night (last night) and found the perfect tractors/ dump trucks, then on to walmart for a giant bag of corn meal.  TJ has been dying for some more attention lately, so I sent Lily to Joy School with the other girls, and took TJ over for a special playdate with just his little buddy Ethan.  I brought the new tractors along for a test drive.  They LOVED it.  TJ only left at the end of the morning with the promise that he could play in the "dirt" with Lily later after we picked her up.  Everywhere he went he had to bring his tractor.  (Unfortunately he also insisted it have a "full load" each time, and sometimes I didn't catch it in time.  Thus all the corn meal in my minivan.)  The best part is, I've been told that cornmeal kills ants, so I didn't have to worry about them doing it outside!

   

      Lily loved it too, although she was the most interested in it when I could play with her.  She likes lots of different toys, but is a lot more about the social aspect of playing than the toys/ games themselves.
    
     Anyway, I had to share this idea, it's already been hours and hours of fun at our house, and I'm betting there are more hours to come.  I'd say it cost somewhere around 7 or 8 dollars all together.  Worth every penny!

Joy School

     So I and two of my awesome friends have been taking turns doing a fun little home preschool (we call it joy school at my house).  It has been really fun.  We learn letter sounds, do crafts, read books, dance, play games, cook, and have freeplay time, or whatever we want to do with the kids really.  Every time we have a letter of the alphabet we base some or all of the activities on.  Last Thursday was our turn, and we had the letter J.  We each made a paper Jack-in-the-box, did the standing long jump, and read Jack and Jill.  Then we talked about how important followig directions are and made some brownies, following the directions on the brownie box.  Then we danced, and ate brownies.  It was a really fun morning:)

     Lily and TJ both love it, but Lily is absolutely crazy about it.  She always asks me, "What kind of day is it?" in the morning, hoping I'll say it's a joy school day.  She can't wait to go to big kid school, and because she has a late birthday, we're thinking about putting her in a preschool next year.  (She'll be 5 next November.)  We'll see.  The idea of her being away from home a whole year earlier than she has to makes be a little panicky.  But I'm pretty sure she'd eat it up.

   Also this week, this cute little buddy turned 8 months old.  He's starting to get a little more mobile, although he doesn't crawl yet.  He mostly just wiggles and rolls to where he wants to go.  It's fun to watch him explore and get excited about what's around him.  He says mamama and dadada (not necessarily words but those are his favorite sounds to make.  We love his guts.

Lovin' his jumperoo

This is one of the official "8 month" pics.
 I meant to do a real one later but forgot. 
We were just playing outside because it was
nice weather outside, and for whatever reason,
 he's wearing his big brother's hoodie vest.:)

Jaxon loves scootin' around and exploring in his walker.

I took his toe out and he cried,
 so I gave it back and took a picture instead.

This is from today.  Finally asleep after a couple of hours of trying
to get him to sleep without snuggling someone, we finally gave up
and he wore out in Tony's arms.  He put him down and he slept for
about two minutes by himself on the pillow.

Musings on the limits of visiting teaching...

     Tonight my sweet son, an hour or so after dinner, wanted some cereal.  Too tired to fight it, I told him he could have some, but we have no milk (haven't for days) so it would have to be dry.  He agreed.  Then I told him it would have to be on a plate, because all the bowls are dirty (as are most of the dishes that we own).  Not a problem for him.  He took his plate of cereal (Mini Wheats) and stepped over/ around a shoe, some trains, a little laundry, and whatever else is in the obstacle course that is my living room.  And I sighed and hoped they would put themselves to bed tonight.  No such luck so far...it may be happening when Daddy gets home from karate. 
     My visiting teachers are coming over tomorrow...do you think it would be overstepping if, when they say the standard "let us know if we can do anything..." trailing off as they walk away, I grab them and say, "GREAT thanks for asking.  Here's my baby, and a grocery shopping list.  This is where I keep the dish and laundry soap.  I'm going to take a nap."...?  Cuz seriously, I feel like I'm drownin' here.  I've gotten to the point where, if the phone rings I get a tight knot in my stomach just kind of hoping its nobody who needs me, for any reason.  Because I'll say yes.  Because when I look at the situation, I CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHY I feel like I'm drowning, or WHY I'm not able to get basic chores done and a the thought of a trip to the grocery store makes me want to cry.  There's no real excuse.  WHY am I so exhausted that I've felt the need to take two pregnancy tests in the last two weeks?  (Nope, not pregnant, also had a negative mono test last week).  I just don't feel like doing anything, it seems way too exhausting/overwhelming.  So beyond that one load of dishes in the dishwasher to get us through the day, and washing towels and underwear every couple of days, I've been kind of reserving all of my energy for the mothering side homemaker/stay-at-home-mom.  I'm hoping Jax starts sleeping through the night again, and that that will fix everything miraculously.  Like, "oh wow, I got 8 hours of sleep last night, I think I'll clean the kitchen and finally fold all of that laundry that's been sitting on the couch for 4 days."  Yup I'm gonna go with it, that's the solution, because I can't think of another one.  Motivation.  I need some motivation.  I need some energy.  I need some structure.  I need some adult conversation...but the thought of entertaining adults in my house makes me want to turn off my phone forever.  I haven't felt this anti-social in a long time. 
     And yet I appreciate the fact that I have awesome friends who want to hang out with me, and good visiting teachers who try to visit.  I suppose I just need to stop whining...and look on the bright side.  At least I have an awesome husband who gets excited and complements me on what was likely about a half an hour's worth of work on the housecleaning ("It looks like you worked really hard today!"  He's my favorite.)  At least I get to focus on mothering and don't have to focus on a "real job" to support our family.  Actually, I have a pretty freakin awesome life.  What is wrong with me???  Advice please?


PS. I, obviously, decided not to go private for now. but I kept your email address on hand if you gave it to me, just in case I change my mind later.   

Going Private (If I can figure out how)

    I started this blog, primarily, to be able to write about my experience as a young mother, and keep my family and friends updated on our lives even when we're far apart.  It has recently occured to me, however, that I don't really want any random person to be able to read all about my kids and what's happening with them.  So, while there are some thing I write about that I'd like to share with anyone and everyone in the world, the majority of it is stuff I would prefer to keep between my family and (at the very least) people we have met and know are not creepy stalkers. 
   For example, my most frequently visited post is "Chocolate Seduction" (it's about ice cream).  There is a chance that people are just looking for the ice cream...or it might be a bunch of creeps searching for...other stuff.

     So, if you ever read my blog, and would like to continue, let me know in the comments section...if you don't ever read my blog then you're probably not reading this right now. 

   Now...does anybody know how to make a blog private?

Where does the time go?????

     So I had a baby the other day...and now he's almost sitting up, trying to roll over, playing with toys and (most recently) eyeing our food.  In fact yesterday while I looked away (for a fraction of a second) Tony definitely gave him a little taste of his whipped cream.  (Sigh)  Where did the time go??  I mean this child (you know, my little tiny 4-and-a-half-month-old baby boy?) is wearing 12 month and even 18 month size clothing!!  I swear if he starts scootin' around and walking as fast as Lily did, I'll cry.


     And speaking of Lily...she used to be my big girl.  Something happened around the time she turned 13 months old (I think we call him TJ) that made me start seeing her as bigger than she really is.  But then something happened in the last few months.  I started to consider whether or not I should put her in preschool next year.  NEXT YEAR?? But she's my little baby girl!  She's only three...shouldn't she be at home for the next... few years? Seriously lately now I've started seeing her through different glasses, and everything she does makes me think of her as my cute little baby girl who needs to stay home with me forever.
      She's getting really big though.  She's starting to color in the lines, and randomly practices letters without my help.  I find pieces of paper everywhere that just have 5-10 random letters that she's been writing for practice, and they're starting to look really neat and big-girlish.  (There is usually also a picture of a girl/princess at the bottom too.)  She also recently learned to button up buttons.

     TJ is getting big too. He thinks he so funny, and always cracking jokes and making us laugh.  The older he gets, the closer he and Lily get it seems like...and the more they fight as well.  Mostly because he thinks teasing is hilarious.  Sigh...I have fun kids.

So...I wrote this and hadn't quite finished it the day before our unexpected trip to Canada, so it's kind of outdated by a few weeks, but I thought I'd share anyway. :)  BUT the reason I really got on the computer tonight was this:

Jaxon loves sweet potatoes.  I thought you would like to know. 

He inhaled them, and got frustrated when I didn't keep them coming fast enough.  And it was cute.

Life

     So much has happened in the last few months that I meant to blog about.  I even knew what I would write and how...and just never got around to it. 

     This fall has been a kind of ridiculously crazy one for my family.  My awesome brother Nick went on a mission (with no notice). 

...And I wished I was there.

     My absolutely amazing sister welcomed a beautiful baby girl after months of bedrest/ hospitalization, 10 weeks early.  Emery Hope was a tiny 1 lb., 13 oz. of perfection.   

And I wished I was there.

     Alisha and her family have blown us away with their hope and trust in the Lord during this very difficult time for their family.  I truly wish we happened to live in Lethbridge right now so that we could help lighten their load a little bit.

     Not only were a bunch of crazy things happening at home that I wished I could help/ be there for, but every 6 months or so I get homesick anyway, and that was really starting to kick in. About 3 or 4 days before Thanksgiving (the Canadian variety) I got tired of wishing and I started looking up plane tickets to make it happen.  And then remembered how expensive last minute plane tickets were...and and went back to wishing.

     The very next morning my mom called to let me know my Grandma Leavitt passed away.  About 12 hours later our whole family was packed into a mini van about to drive 30 hours to get home.  We made it just in time to have the first Thanksgiving dinner we've ever had with my side of the family.  I got to see family I haven't seen in years, got to help my mom a little bit, and visited with my Grandma Johnson a lot more than we usually get to.  (We stayed with her because on the same day that my Grandma died, my parents' basement also flooded.) 

     It was so nice to be home to remember and celebrate my Grandma's life.  She will be very missed.  She was honestly one of my very favorite people.  She was always there for me, and supported everything I did.  She was fun and happy and just someone who really made a difference in my life. 

I know that she must be so happy now though, being reunited with her beloved husband.  She talked about him always, with sooo much love in her eyes.  And I can't help but smile at the tender mercies of the Lord in the timing of the family reunion she arranged for us.  If she had to leave us this fall, it feels like it was for me that it was that week, because it ironically saved me from falling apart.  I need my awesome family in my life.



    But now we're home.  And with my family fix I feel like I can move forward (I kind of have to, so might as well:)  And yesterday was Halloween.  And it was sooo fun.  We cleaned our whole house up/ decorated it with paper pumpkins.  I made Lily a Princess Aurora costume (she wanted the blue dress) and a coordinating Prince Phillip costume for Jaxon.  (TJ had an opinion about what he wanted to be this year so I couldn't get him in on the theme.  Anyone want to guess what he was?).  Tony rescheduled karate and we went to the trunk-or-treat at our church.  And then we came home and had a little party with a few awesome friends.  The kids had a blast.  I was totally exhausted at the end of the night.  It was worth it.

Prince Phillip

Thomas The Train

 And Princess Aurora.  She had a very specific image in mind when she told me she wanted to be Princess Aurora, in the BLUE dress.  I spent all evening on it one day last week, and when she woke up she came in and saw it.  I thought she'd be so excited, and I said, "Do you want to try it on?"  She politely said, "No thanks.  I'll wait 'til you finish sewing it."  "Um...it's done." I said.  She looked at me super confused, "where's the spikey things, and the white spikey thing," she said pointing to random places on her body.  After looking at a picture on the internet to understand what she meant, and about 3 hours of work later, we had the dress she was imagining.  And she was right, she looked much more like Princess Aurora, even down to the very red lipstick lips that she insisted she needed to have. 

 The Princess looking happily at her Prince

 

At trunk-or-treat.  Yay for little friends!

Helping set up our live angry birds booth at trunk-or-treat

Party!!!

    We had a lot of fun, and looking at all of these pictures I think I'll put some of them up on facebook.  I love pictures of my kids on Halloween, I took a million!  I hope everybody else had a fun time!

The "Sweethearts"

I was talking to my Mom the other day and she was sad she didn't even know what Jaxon looks like anymore.  I told her that he was pretty much the same, but then I looked at him.  He's getting so big and changing so fast!  So I decided to do a little update on him and my other "sweethearts", which is the word Lily thinks means children.  (I love it, she's always asking everyone where their sweethearts are.)

The Jax

I can't believe he's already 4 months old!! He's getting really strong and a little bit chubbier.  I've been trying to get him to roll over for a couple of days, because he's strong enough to turn to his side and back...he's not motivated though because he hates being on his tummy.  But this morning I found him like this when I went to check on him during a nap:

I definitely had him on his back when I left him. So I guess that counts as his big first roll over?

This little man loves to play with toys. We call this one baby D.D.R.  His feet go crazy while he pushes the foot buttons and tries to make it spin and sing.  He loves to look at and try to grab mobiles and any other toy you put in front of him.  It's fun for us, we've never really had a baby do that before so much.

We just discovered that he's strong enough to go in the jumperoo now, which totally helps when I need to make supper (or do anything that requires hands).  He really likes to be held and snuggled...a lot.

He's also totally a thumb-sucker.  Or finger-sucker I guess, or whatever he can get his hands on.  I try to replace it with the soother, but as soon as it's not around his fingers/ thumbs go straight in. 

 

 The Teedge 

Our sweet little TJ is getting bigger too.  He is semi-potty trained as of this month.  As in, we potty trained, he learned how, and he basically just doesn't really want to do it yet.  So we're not pushing.  He'll be ready one day, I figure.  Every now and then he just takes off his diaper and uses his little potty randomly, and comes running to tell me, "Mommy, come see something!!", or my favorite "Come check-it-out!".  You know he's pretty proud of himself if he tells you to check something out. 

As you might be able to tell from the picture on the left (see the one with my very big 2-year-old in the high chair?) TJ is having a bit of a rough go at this new baby brother thing.  He's pretty sensitive, and needs a little more attention than he's been getting the last few months.  And he's been letting us know it (loudly).  He's still super sweet to his little intruder though, and definitely loves him!

And this is basically what he can be found doing at any given time of the day lately: 

He LOVES his trains.

The Lil

Lily can be found snuggling up to this little guy all day long.  She loves to sing him songs (she makes up words for him.) She also loves to play princesses with her friends and loves to do her hair and put "make up" (lip balm) on. 

Sometimes we like to go watch her daddy do Karate, and she loves to pretend she's doing karate at home.  She watches pretty closely too, and tries to do what he does.  The other night she wanted to do karate with Tony in our living room, so he was letting her pretend to do karate.  TJ thought they were dancing, and cut in, and started singing the theme song for sleeping beauty (He knows all the words so that he can be the prince and dance with all the princesses who come to our house.  We need more little boy friends maybe.)  Anyway he then continued to pretend to hold a little stuffed animal and be his "daddy" and cuddle him and make his owies better.  Lily continued to punch  and kick her daddy who had gotten some of his gear out by this time.  I love funny role reversal moments like that.  Lily will be a strong beautiful karate princess one day, and TJ will be a very sweet daddy:)

This is Lily with her friend Abby today.  We ended up having three different sets of friends over today, for a total of about 10 hours worth of playing.  It was totally unintentional, but a lot of fun!

Tony just walked in (home from karate) and we had a conversation something like this:

Me: "Blogging takes a long time.  I totally meant to be in bed by now.  It seems like I don't have time to do anything, or at least do anything well because it takes too long."

Tony: "Well you look beautiful, you always do a good job doing that."

And that's why I really like him.

And those are my sweethearts.  The end.