Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things I am Doing This Month:
1. Finals, blah!
2. Graduating :)
3. Praying Kendall and the boys are as safe as boys can be when at a bachelor party in Vegas and that the kids don't drive me to the nutty house while he is gone.
4. Getting my first professional pedicure and manicure EVER! (Thanks Kendall!!!!)
5. Third time a Bridesmaid for Nikki :) and making sure Layla and Aidan are the best flower girl and ring barer ever!
6. Helping Kendall with some tile work (Will be interesting, haven't done floor tile for a year, and wall tile for a few months)
7. Hopefully warm weather so one kid will get their first camping trip with me at Veadauwoo
8. Enjoying another wedding the day after camping since it is at Veadauwoo (saying goodbye to a great friend after she is married and moves to Seattle, the kids will miss her A LOT!)
9. Moving to a temporary apartment for a month and a half
10. Finding another job
11. Starting summer school Hurray
12. Garage sale to get rid of all the junk and baby stuff all of us have accumulated over the past years
13. Enjoying the warm weather every second of it with my beautiful kids! And with Kendall when he isn't working :)

Talking with Toddlers

This is how a conversation with Layla goes lately:

"Do you need a new diaper?"
"no."
"i can smell poop is that you Layla?"
"No!" shakes her head like crazy back and forth
" So Layla, do you just say no to everything i ask?"
"Noooo..."
"Do you want a snack?"
"yesh!" runs to the kitchen and points exclaiming "gookie! gookie!"(cookie)

Side Note: She really was poopy!

Something that Aidan will do is sing to himself, it is just darling but hard to get on video. He will just repeat words he knows over and over, holding them out longer as in singing. Sometimes he will be rocking in the rocking chair which makes it just darling. Most common words he sings is "bobbob....bobbob...." then he will mix it up "tattoooooo....tattoooo...he will do that for a bit then stops, then does "dadaaaa....dadaaaa..." Very cute!

Monday Memory Pictures

Layla and her little friend Stacy (4 months) at Nikki's bridal shower. She really loves babies, and this picture my friend took with her phone camera and sent it to me, it is just so darling! Layla holding Stacy's hand while she naps...very cute! Layla was sure trying to be the life of the party, she would run around TriDelta (Nikki's sorority that we had the shower at) and just be cute as a button to get attention.
This picture makes me smile, just warms my heart! This bambi was mine as a little girl and Layla loves it along with the movie...she will pick the movie out of the hundreds of movies on our shelves and run around with it and bambi repeating "Bambi! Bambi!" unfortunately our DVD players are either broken, in a room they are not allowed in very long, or not hooked up so she can't watch it as much as she would like.
Losing the remotes is a frequent thing around here, either us adults will stuff them out of sight under the arm of the couch, or little toddler hands will run off with them. One day i was digging under all the cushions, flipping them over and such looking for the remote, when i turned around, this is what i saw...apparently my little watchers became little helpers!
Aidan plays the Wii! He grabbed the remote one day, hit a few buttons to start another game of Wii golf, and well he hit it straight down the fairway, and then hit it right up to the green, if he could put i am sure he would have gotten a par. Also in this picture is pink cupcake frosting all over his mouth, the cupcakes are from Nikki's bridal shower and um...they turned his diaper pink to say it nicely also...
Lately when i go to the park atleast one child will run the opposite way and NOT listen or stop. Mostly Aidan. It scares me to death, because it is hard to choose, should i leave this child in a swing along and run after the other, take the kid out of the swing, and risk the other child running out into the street before i can get the other child completely out of the child swing (not a fast process). So i decided, if they are not going to listen they will have to use this cute little monkey backpack with a leash to keep them close to me. I'll give them a chance, and whoever isn't listening the backpack leash strike one, sitting in the wagon instead of walking on their own strike two, strike 3 if they throw a fit we go home. Many people are against this process, but it is for safety, and unless you would like to walk with me everyday with my kids and help me keep them from running into the street, toward a stranger, or a lake, there is nothing left to say. Its safety, just like a crib is safety, highchair straps, and baby gates.
Today was warm so i took the kids outside to draw with some chalk i found in the closet. Unfortunately the chalk ran out pretty quick, but the kids had fun scribbling on the sidewalks, and just running around in the sunshine. Eeyore along with the kids was covered in chalk dust, along with dirt that they found fun to pick up and sift through their fingers onto their pants while sitting down. I also had them get used to the flipflops they are going to wear in Gary and Nikki's wedding, they weren't bothered by them after i convinced them they were just like my shoes.

C'mon July 7th!!

As many of you know on my birthday we got the best news, the house we put an offer on accepted our offer so we went under contract! It is a perfect starter home and we could not be any happier about the purchase we are making. Kendall being a Realtor used his "in" to get us even an offer in, for the whole week before another individual was putting in offers and counter offers. Fortunately things worked out that we got our offer in, it was apparently better and it helped that Kendall knows the ins and outs of house contracts and what sellers want. The house has 3 bedrooms, and one room they call a "bonus" room which could be considered a small room since it has a window and closet, but either way it will be the playroom since it is right off the living room and the kids will be able to be close to us.
This is the back of the house, you can see a neat patio with a greenhouse style roof over it. Will be nice to have for entertaining friends and family outside!
This is the master bedroom, the closet is off to the right were you cannot see in this picture.
This is the playroom, i am standing in the closet to take the picture so it is hard to really see it, but i am coming up with different ideas on how i would like to paint it for them. :)
This is the front yard, you can see Aidan peeking his head out the screen door, he seemed to get in over half of the pictures i took. The front yard has a patio, nice big shade trees and a little fence also, but it isn't completely around since the driveway goes right up to the house.
This is the front of the house, the big window in the middle the kids LOVE, it is low enough that they can stand in front of it and look out, i am sure they will enjoy peering out it like they do the screen door here!
Here is the living room, again Aidan is admiring himself in the mirrors on the wall, the door on the right side is into the children's playroom, and then on the left by Aidan is the master bedroom and the bathroom next to that.
The kitchen is open into the living room, and has a new stove (with a flap top!!), the washer dryer however they current owners are taking with them but we knew that coming in. We will just have to find some second hand ones until we can afford new ones. Their isn't a huge amount of cupboards, but there is two pantries which is awesome! The third bedroom is to the right off the kitchen, it will be nice to have a space for people to come visit and also a little office space.
This is the third bedroom, it will be the kids room, it is bigger than the one they have now so it will be nice, the closet is larger too. Also to the right there is an odd corner with shelves that we can put some of their things on too, we will just have to repaint for sure, i don't think purple walls is suitable for a boy and girl room. Again, notice Aidan?
There is only one bathroom but it is long and narrow, the medicine cabinet is ENORMOUS in itself. There is a tub with shower, and then the toilet of course is in the back around the corner.
One last picture of the backyard from the patio, Kendall wrote into the contract that they include the kennel (for my dog Smores!) and i guess the owners didn't want to but decided sure why not! There is 3 sheds, two blue that match the house and one brown, the brown one we aren't sure if we are going to keep we will see. The yard is fenced in and Kendall took a walk to the back and said he even saw a tire swing, way cool!

So that is it, i cannot wait till closing on July 7th, it will take forever to get there but that is ok! We are moving out of where we currently are at the end of May into a temporary rental owned by Kendall's boss, she is really nice to let us stay there for about 2 months in total. It will save us money in the long run to go toward our morgage payments. The inspections and appraisal of the house was today and everything looked OK. Relief that we are getting a move in ready house that has been kept up nicely! Hopefully the rest of the contract time will go smoothly and nothing will show up to take our house away! I Love it! We are so very fortunate to have the support to be able to even get it!

This Stinks!

About 3-4 weeks ago, our washing machine broke. It broke right in the middle of the load soaking, so we had to ring out our clothes and stop using the washer. Well, this past week we have been smelling an awful rotten smell, then we all realized the water was STILL in the washer, rotting, molding, growing things i don't even want to know. Since our landlord had offered to hall the W/D away when we moved in because the tenants before us had left them, we said leave them so we could avoid a laundry mat, so there was no reason calling him for help. I suggested ciphering the water out, but nobody was willing to try and suck the water through since it was sooo nasty. Our stairway is narrow, and steep, and well the washer began to tear in half up the stairs, and soon, there was water pouring out all the way down. By the time we got it outside our house was filled with the smell of moldy water...UCK! After Nikki shampoo'd it immediately, it still has a stench, and we have every fan on, windows open, candles lit, and well it isn't that warm out today, kind of sucks.

Big World Out There

This week has been perfect weather to take the kids out for a walk, even though i see it is supposed to cool off after today. Bummer. Anyway, lately i have been taking the kids up to campus more either on my way somewhere, or just to let them get out of the wagon and walk around. It isn't too too busy, however enough that they try and stay a little closer to me when people are walking by, but also enough people they enjoy watching. Today it was 63 degrees, we took a walk from 10-1, stopping by Kendall's work, Laurel's house, and Megan's house. We also ended up eating lunch on campus outside with Megan and her dog Macy (remember the kids LOVE this dog). When we went inside to get taco johns, Layla was SO concerned that we left Macy outside and repeatedly asked "Macy??" Macy??" Very cute.
Ok Look closely in this picture, among the many students you will notice a non-traditional little student walking as if he is just one of the adults. You may have to click on the picture to make it larger, it was just so darling how tiny he is compared to everybody else, no fear at all.
Layla LOVES this dinosaur, she asks about it now only referring to it as "big" she can't of course say dinosaur, and we are practicing t-rex, gosh, even if she could say rex would be cool! She will blow kisses through the fence at it, point out its tail, and also hug the fence trying to hug it. Every time we leave she says "Bye!!" and does a huge wave. Sometime i'll have someone help me take the kids inside the campus museum, and also the greenhouse, i think they would enjoy that.
Aidan thinks the dino is pretty cool too, but he loses interest pretty quick and would rather run around campus with all the big people stepping on each little circle water manhole thingy on the ground, i don't know what the heck they are but he loves jumping on them, and they are everywhere in every size.

Adrianna's 3rd Birthday!

Saturday Aidan and I headed to Colorado with Karen and Zach to attend Adrianna's 3rd birthday party at Casa Bonita. Let me just say that Aidan was VERY good all day and only cried shortly on the way home after a day from 7:15am (he usually wakes up at 8) till 10:15 when we got home. We had a lot of fun being able to go, since Kendall had to work and attend a mixed baby shower for some friends of ours, i left Layla with him since it was Aidan's turn to go somewhere with me. Since my birthday was Friday, and Ebony's was last over a week ago we enjoyed some presents too :)
Adrianna the birthday girl enjoying dipping her fingers into the fountains water. I hope she enjoyed her day, i can imagine all the people and so much to do at Casa Bonita was quite overwhelming, but after she was home she had her cake and ice cream along with many nice gifts!
Aidan enjoyed his Uncle Zach playing with him so much, here they are in front of the Casa Bonita fountain!
This place has so much to offer, here we are at a puppet show which i think Adrianna might have enjoyed a little more than Aidan, he was not sure what was going on but watched intently.
It was great that my niece Ebony could ride down with my parents and be with us all day also, my brothers girlfriend Nga also attended and hung around all day too, it was a lot of fun having them both there!
My parents posing for the camera. Aidan also liked to tag around Grandpa a lot too, he really likes the male role models in his life it seems. Looks up to them.

Side Note to Amber, Karen, and Mom: I thought for sure someone would beat me to blogging about this day since we all have pictures and it has been a good day and a half, but i guess i win :)

Birthday Thankyou's

First off i would like to thank everybody for all the nice birthday wishes, i had a wonderful day and enjoyed hearing from friends and family :)

For my birthday i took the kids to a new park to play, they were exceptionally well behaved all day and that right there was a great birthday gift! They even sat on a large rock for me to take a picture of them even though they wanted to run run run.
When it was time to leave the tennis courts(they LOVED running around in them) it was hard to get them from running back IN to the courts. So, i shut the gate, but it left a gap big enough for Aidan's body, so he pushed his body through, however it was not big enough for him to pull his head through. Knowing he wasn't hurt or in any danger (just had to pull the gate) i snapped a quick picture of this embarrassing moment for future embarrassment to him :)
After we got home, Layla and Aidan wanted to play in their rooms and read books. Here is Layla reading to, yes the one and only, Naked Baby in my rocking chair.
One thing i asked Kendall i would like for my birthday is hotdogs on the grill...so why not have hotdogs and hamburgers and invite friends and family over too? It was a good time, here is a picture capturing Aidan eating chips and dipping them in the Salsa...he was real good at it with nobody around to show him.
Lastly, Kendall who grilled the whole evening for me and everybody else (oh i ate like 4 hotdogs!) : ) I made the cupcakes to give him a break and they went fast too...it was a great time! :D

Naked Baby

The other day after Layla had handed me her "bebe" to rock, i noticed how dirty her face had become, so i decided to let her take a bath with Layla. After i took off her clothes about an hour or so before bathtime, Layla carried her around and just admired her baby's body, as if realizing under all her clothes her baby looks just like her! during bathtime she would not put her baby down, or let her head under water very cute (we thought at the time) but afterwards she would not let go of the baby, when Kendall took her away long enough to dry her, we all heard "BEBE!!!!!!!" as Layla cried to Kendall to just give her the baby! Since then i have tried to dress the baby, but nooooooo Layla FREAKS out, she wants her baby naked, she loves her naked baby and refuses to let us dress her, and when we do she wants the clothes off...Silly little girl, so now when we go outside, she feels naked baby needs to come too, even though i am the one that ends up HOLDING naked baby while she plays...

Tattoo!

The latest fashion trend? or latest love for the children is temporary tattoos, in which we got from the birthday party a wile back. They love pointing at the tattoo's and saying "tattoo!" they then proceed to lift Kendall's pant leg to see his tattoo, and pull of my sock to see mine. They are pretty proud that they have something that most people that come around here have also. Silly kids.

The weather has been warm the past few days, minus today when it is barely supposed to reach the 30's with high winds...blah! At least we got out 3-4 times Monday and Tuesday. This weekend is supposed to be sooo warm, Aidan and I are headed to Colorado for his cousin Adrianna's birthday party, and Layla will stay here with Kendall (has to work) and attend a mixed baby shower for a good friend of ours. This will be Layla's second baby shower within a month, she will become quite the baby shower pro, although this one is a little different, since its boys and girls. It should be fun for her to go to a BBQ and Aidan i am sure will enjoy the festivities planned for his cousin turning 3. We always try to rotate which kid goes with who each trip, and since last time they both got to go somewhere, i took Layla, so it is Aidan's turn with me alone :)

Another problem we have had for a wile now is our kids do not like milk EXCEPT once a day, warmed up out of their bottle right after bath time. Any other time, NOOO way! Even if i try to warm it up in a bottle. So finally we have reached our final try, we are worried they are not getting enough calcium, or anything that is great for you in milk, since they get maybe 8oz a day and need 4 times that! Plus their last checkup Layla only grew a quarter of an inch to catch up to Aidan who hadn't grown at all!! So i finally broke down and gave them chocolate milk, i mix it myself with sugar free hershey's syrup, and i know Quik has calcium fortified chocolate powder too out there? Anyway, we figure if we get them loving that, we are gradually going to put less and less chocolate in until...hopefully Waaalaaa they love milk. We will see...so far the chocolate milk is a hit. They still get their vitamins and my kids don't get much sugar anyway so i am not too worried about that aspect, heck they are still working on their EASTER candy from a month ago, haha, glad they can't beg for it yet.

Yea Big Snow Man

Here is what our neighbors did with the snow in their yard...i watched them build it all day, to get to the head they actually stood on their tailgate of a truck when it was closed...in one hand is a beer can, a bottle of tequila in the other...other nice sculptures around the neighborhood was a "women" snowman with very defined womanly parts...and then a giant male part as the whole snowman...yea college town.

April Snow Showers Brings May Flowers?

Even though the weather said 1-3 inches last night...it dumped a bit more than that. i walked to class this morning at 7:45 in 9 inches of snow, and when i got back out at 10 there was another inch to 2 inches...and STILL snowing! :)
I took the kids out to help me shovel the path since Gary has class, Kendall is at work, and Nikki is currently stuck in Colorado. They really were troopers even though the snow was past their knees, here Layla is actually trying to help me shovel.
As you can see here, the snow is up past poor Aidan's knees and he is trying to get back to shoveled ground! hehe, don't worry he has 2 pairs of pants on, both which i still had to change.
Layla in her snowsuit...way CUTE, it was given to her by another mom who's little girl is a year older than Layla, so she gets tons of clothes and shoes from her...Aidan is the only little boy we really know, all the other ones are younger...
Aidan taking a turn at shoveling the walkway for me, Layla is messing around in the background. They had tons of fun out in the snow, enough that i had to get a bowl of snow once we were inside to keep them from eating the snow off the floor...

Excuse you mommy!

Even though i have slowed down on the sign language with the kids mainly because i am finding it hard to come with other words i want them to know, i have managed to teach Layla how to sign "excuse me". Aidan knows it, but again has to be coaxed to actually use it properly. Layla is getting better on signing excuse me for her burps, and farts mostly. Being persistent, mainly because they both started picking up laughing after each bodily function because certain boys...eh men laugh afterwards, so of course they picked that up. Anyway, last week I didn't live up to my own teachings and burped loudly, (i am home alone with kids who cares?) right after the action, i noticed Layla's head turn quickly, crinkling her eyebrows in a glare, she signed "excuse me", and repeated this until i signed it back. Haha, little stinker caught me!

Yay Birthday Parties!

This weekend was pretty busy for me, i first went to Nikki's awesome bachlorette party in Denver on Saturday night. All i can say? A Blast...i then got home Sunday early afternoon, in time to grab Kendall and the kids and head over to a 1st birthday party the kids were invited to, Madison (My friend from high school's daughter). The kids had so much fun playing and running around the room like crazy, there were at least 8 other small kids between 11 months and 3 years. Two of which were a few months older than Layla and Aidan who they loved to dance with and chase around. Very cute!

Aidan starting the party out with a balloon, the theme was lady bugs so everything was red and black. I am really thankful Kendall came, even though he only had met Tracy(Madison's mom) maybe twice, and the only other person he knew was my other high school friend Haley (baby boy due in May!). Despite him fighting a cold which everybody around us has caught, he was a sport and enjoyed watching our kids play. :D
Everybody kept commenting on how well our kids shared..surprised myself that they were being on their best behavior, i simply replied they are "forced to" at home since there is always 2 of them. Here Layla is handing Madison lady bug bean bags, Aidan is standing nearby thinking he is lucky because there was only 2 other little boys and 6 little girls...the other little girl sitting in front of Aidan is also a Madison, and Aidan is blocking a little girl that he liked playing with Kendra (she is 2 months older them him).
The pinata was a lot of fun for the kids, even though it was so tough that they eventually had to cut a hole in it and dump it out for the kids. Below is a video of Aidan and Layla trying to break the pinata...they were a little hesitant in sharing the baseball bat, but still did. After the pinata was broken(a ladybug) Aidan would carry it around since it was in one piece, as if it was the best prize ever! In this picture all the kids are scattered eating candy, Layla is running off with her candy. They only ended up with a piece of candy each, because after they had put it in their paper bag, Layla proceeded to pull out their candy and put it in all the other children's bags...very sweet, and good for us since that will be less candy we have to give to them! :)

Doctor Says Honey

Yesterday i finally gave in and took the kids to the Doctor. It wasn't that i didn't doubt that my diagnosis of teething and a cold was wrong, it was the fact that Aidan happened to come up with this cry throughout the whole night and during nap time which scared the crap out of me! It was though his chest was hurting or was tight, this scared me first on Thursday, and after a whole night of it, and then nap time on Friday, i called got an apt. and headed to the Doctor alone with two toddlers who one feel he is too much of an explorer to hold my hand, and the other one walks SOOO slow sometimes i feel i am not even moving! Everything went smoothly, we were the only one in the waiting room so when kids laid on the floor flailing their hands and legs, and trying to crawl back into the playhouse in the waiting room when i tried to get them to go back to the exam room, it wasn't as quite embarrassing. Finally the nurse came out to try and help me gather 2 kids, in which by the time i would have them both under each arm with Aidan's blanket, Layla's Eeyore and my purse on my shoulder, one would throw their paci...ooooooooook no more hands to grab that!!!

Anyway, the Doctor checked them over, and was thorough to check them all over for hand foot mouth disease which apparently is going around like crazy right now. Thankgoodness they didn't have any signs on that, however she concluded that they were just teething and were coming down with a cold...ok so i was right, but atleast i know FOR SURE that i was right and won't stay up at night stewing over if i am horrible for not taking them in just in case. If they get high fevers we will bring them back in but till then things are fine, except Layla blowing her snotty nose on me as we speak right now then turns to me going "uh oh" as boogers slide down her face and my arm.......ugggg. The joys of kids.

On another note, the kids have a little cough, the Doctors prescription for that? She said research recently has shown that honey is JUST as effective as cough syrup...so heck why not stay natural and let them down a table spoon of honey? There is a tip for any one with a bad cough, take some honey.

Wii Poop

Aidan and Layla have both had some pretty lets say "gross" poop lately...ok for a week, it sucks. It is AWFUL and this occurs anywhere from 2-6 times a day...EACH! I first figured, alright, we just got home from vacation it must just be a relieving of stress...couple days went by so then i decided on the idea they are getting in some more teeth, they still have a gap here and there missing a tooth. When Layla began getting some fevers this week, and now a runny nose, i have now come down to the idea that yes they are teething ALONG with a viral infection. In the words of Layla..."ucky" Anyway, nothing the Doctor can treat at this time, so as long as there is no ear infection indications or there fevers get worse we get to enjoy all of their fussiness till it passes. With Layla's runny nose, i try and suck it every 30 minutes to an hour to help ease the discomfort of snot running down her face into her mouth (and i get tired of wiping this snot every 2 minutes...) She now continues to ask me to do it...she knows it helps..but i am also concluding that she likes it, she gets this look after i suck the snot like she just took a bite of the best chocolate ever...she really enjoys the sucking of snot out of her nose! She will lay down and indicate the more sign after all remnants of boogers are gone...to top it off, now Aidan will lay down too, not wanting to receive the same treatment, but just for me to "pretend" very cute.



We recently got a Wii on a splurge buy since they are few and far to come by these days. We seem to not be the only people enjoying this game. As many of you know you hold a remote and do the actions required in the game itself, Kendall is playing Wii bowling, so he moved the remote like he is throwing a bowling ball...Aidan "plays" often too...It is only 8 seconds but look at the delight on his face! I call this clip..."Bowling with Daddy!"