Brainiac

I am in the office working and I peeked out to see what was going on when I was surprised to see Natalie sitting at the kitchen table with her scriptures (a blue Book of Mormon, she has claimed) and a notebook and a pencil. I asked her if she was having scripture study and she gravely nodded her head yes. So serious, but SO funny! If only she was really reading them, I would've had a heart attack.

Tidbits

I don't have much to say, but there are a few things that have been going on here that I thought were good enough to share.

1. Keith's new motto: I'm not bald, my hair is just shy!

2. I think we may need to get another pair of cowboy boots! (Brady has tried to claim Natalie's. I will post a picture as soon as I can get my camera to download on to the computer.)












3. We have recently taken to spying on the guy tht comes down to fish in his personal fishing raft. It is so funny to see him out there floating along kicking his flippers! Keith is trying to figure out what kind of lure he is using. We are not bored here or anything...














4. I am going on a movie date tomorrow...with some girlfriends! We are going to see Becoming Jane , I love Jane Austin so I am VERY excited about this, a chance to get away from the house without the kids and see a potentially great movie. Now if only Keith and I could go on a real date...anyone want to babysit...seriously?

What I am reading...

at 2 in the morning. 30 days of SPAM. Thanks Rene!

Update: OK, the farther along i get in the archives (starting at the beginning and working my way forward) the more I laugh and laugh, and crave SPAM! This is a must read!

Lists...

I keep seeing list on blogs and I thought, hey why not! And then before I got a chance to do mine, my friend Kelli posted a list (great minds think alike) and that sealed the deal for me. A list it is!

Mine is a top 10 of things that have just been making my days a little sweeter, kind of sappy but I still want to write it down. Here they are, not in any particular order, well maybe the first 3!

1. Coming into the living room and seeing Keith looking out the window with binoculars at the water(dreaming of all the fish he is going to catch, I am sure)
2. Brady loving on his glow worm and blankie
3. Natalie asking for "How Great Thou Art" as a bedtime song
4. Winning something I really wanted on Ebay
5. Brady sitting still long enough to actually watch cartoons! -gotta start rotting his brain early--basically I am excited that he is showing that he does have an attention span in there somewhere
6. Natalie singing "Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me" to herself all through the day(from I Stand All Amazed)
7. Brady asking to take a "Ba" (bath...duh) and actually crying if we can't give him one RIGHT THAT SECOND!
8. Natalie walking around in her new pink cowboy boots and silky pajamas
9. Having a job and feeling like a valid participant to Keith's law school education
10. DVR

temper tantrum

OK, I am stating right now that if you all want to keep seeing pictures of these two monkeys that I have, you better start leaving me comments! It is really easy. OK, for those of you who claim to not know how to do it I will walk you through the process. Look at the bottom of the post for the giant 0 Comments link, click on it, leave a comment! See, it's easy and everyone is happy. There you go, I have said my piece!

Update: Crisis has been averted. My Mom does love me! I am better now.

P.S. If you notice, I wrote this post at 2 a.m., no one is in their right mind at 2 a.m.!

Camping out

OK, I have another bed story. For the last few days the only way to get Natalie to nap has been to offer up my bed as her napping location. This will generally work to get her to nap without much crying, but I have to make her a tent. (I think this started when Erin was visiting and we would prop the air mattress next to our bed and one time it fell over the bed and made a sort triangular cave if you drapped a blanket off one end--does that make sense?) Any who, so Natalie has been napping in her tents, and today she wanted to stay in there and watch afternoon PBS cartoons. She was so cute in there of course I let her have more brain rotting time!

I'm waiting...

So, today I asked Brady if he wanted some milk because he walking around crying and grunting and just generally being a pain in my butt, and he promptly disappeared into the kids room. I followed him in there to see what he was doing and he had already crawled up onto Natalie's bed and laid down. He was ready for some milk! We don't really give him milk in a bottle anymore during the day, but when we used to Keith would tell Brady to go lay down and he would. He has never jumped up onto the bed to do it though and I thought this was pretty cute. Of course I had to cover him up, in case he decided to be the best kid ever and put himself down for a nap!

Window Seat

So, I may have mentioned before that we have a view of the river/lake... Well the kids absolutely love it and I often find them in the window gazing out there. I am not sure if this is just because I have made a little window seat for them, or if they, like me, LOVE the water. Whatever the reason, I have on numerous occasions found the kids looking so peaceful and innocent sitting on the trunk I have shoved in the corner actually being quiet and enjoying the scenery (whether they are actually looking at scenery or our weird neighbors I don't know). Here are a few of the candid (and some not so candid) pics I have gotten of my kids being peaceful (unless of course they are fighting over who gets to sit at the window!).

I think Natalie looks so pretty here.

Yes, Brady does have Nat's pink flip flops on here, but don't tell Keith I put a picture of it up! Brady was walking around in them all morning and every time they fell off his feet (read every time he got off or on to the trunk) he would hold them out to me and grunt at me which I learned was Brady speak for, "put these shoes back on my dainty toes Mama!" I would post an actual pic of Brady standing in the shoes, but then Keith might kill me!

Jackpot!

A few days ago when Keith took out the garbage he discovered a gate that leads back to the water (which we learned is a river) behind our house. Then yesterday we saw some guys drive back there and they went fishing. So we now have fishing access behind our apartment! Keith is very excited about this. This morning we actually saw some fish jumping and a crane flying around. It will be interesting to see if he is able to catch anything back there. I think this may boost his opinion of our new place, but he still hates the roaches!

Here is a better picture. You can tell we are really excited about this pond/river. It was really the huge selling point of this apartment for us. We realized we could never have something like this if we rented a house. Hopefully it will pay off and we will be able to get rid of the bugs.

Peek-a-boo

I have learned that with my little guy if he is in a bad mood or cranky or just being a pain in my butt (which unfortunately is often) all I have to do is start playing peek-a-boo, and he cheers right up. These are some pictures I got. I thought they turned out pretty cute! Considering as soon as he sees a camera he normally stops whatever he is doing to try and obtain said camera.

So funny...

So, this is what we have been laughing at the last few days at our house. It's pretty funny and fun to try and imitate! His laugh is what gets me every time.

New Kicks

S0, I was at Wal Mart and I saw these shoes and I HAD to get them for Brady. They totally remind me of old man shoes with the Velcro and the thick foam sole, but they are too cute! Plus we are trying to flood Brady's little mind with anything football, so these work out very nicely for Keith's master plan of turning him into the next Cowboys fan in this house!

Bubbles

Tonight we were on the ball and actually got dinner eaten and cleaned up with enough time for us to go to the park before I had to work. The kids had a great time running around and chasing after bubbles. Brady especially was so excited to run around unhindered by walls and couches and all those other pesky things that are constantly getting in his way.



It was so nice to be able to take them outside to play because the weather has been very hot here lately. And none of us really like to go outside when it is in the 100's but b/c of the nice breeze it was a very pleasant time for all of us.

Keith and I have to be really careful not to let them play outside for too long because they get all overheated and their faces turn bright red.

Just like her mommy

Last summer there was a period of time where there were a lot of lightening storms one after another. During one of the more violent storms me and Keith were at the dining room table and Natalie was out in the living room. Suddenly a HUGE crack of lightening followed by a LOUD boom of thunder went on outside. The noise was so loud, and so sudden that it scared Natalie to the point of disorientation. She tried running over to us, but then she fell and so she was trying to clamor into the rocking chair and just couldn't seem to get her bearings. All the while she has this look of sheer terror on her face and was crying for dear life. Needless to say it took me and Keith a while to calm her down and tell her that the world was not ending and that she was OK. Keith and I were so stunned by this behavior we didn't know what to do, it was pretty sad and funny then and it still is today.

So, anyways the reason I tell this story is because tonight Natalie was sitting in the sunroom at her easel playing with magnets when I went into my room to lay down and read. All at once I heard a small crash and then this same cry of terror that I haven't heard since that awful thunder storm last summer. I quickly ran out to see what happened thinking that my child was in mortal danger or at least thought she was in mortal danger, and I realized what had scared her. It was a curtain rod that I had propped up against a table out there that had slipped down and fell to the floor. Now, I too am a VERY jumpy person, so I can understand that quick unexpected movements can be frightening, but she was in full on terror mode at this curtain rod. Again, it took me and Keith a ridiculous amount of time to assure her that her life was not in danger, that it was just a silly old curtain rod that never hurt anybody.

Well, I personally don't know where she gets this bit of crazy from. It's not like I jump any time there is a shift in shadows in the dark house or sometimes like to sleep with a small light on to keep the roaches at bay...

Nothing to say...

So, the "big kids" are gone home, Keith is back in school, and life has really slowed down quickly for me and the kids. I am hoping now that all has settled down we will be able to begin some sort of routine (yeah, right) for our daily lives that will help me to do more things with the little kids rather than just playing at home all the time. We are slowly but surely getting the new apartment all unpacked. I think it is coming along pretty well. I am really begining to love this apartment, now if only we could get rid of the roaches (the roach sitings have greatly diminished, but we still live in fear of them) I would be perfectly happy here. Keith has issues with the apartment, like lack of storage, no silverware drawer, and the contstantly fluxuating temperature of our shower (never the same temp for more than say...30 seconds). I can live with these though and I like the lack of storage because that means I have an excuse to buy organizational things, and I love any reason to buy bins and boxes and baskets and whatever else to make an area all neat and organized. My next big project is the craft room/office/sunroom, when that is all fixed up I will take pictures of it all and post them here for all to see.

Here is a crappy picture of the view from the best seat in the house, the rocking chair by the window.

Look what we did!!

Sweet treat!

I have never really been the kind of mom to just give out sweets to the kids, but it has been so hot that Keith and I thought it would be fun to get some popsicles or something that Natalie could try. I went to the store to find something that wasn't too sweet or too big. I was so excited when I found "push ups", my mom used to get these all the time for us from the Schwann's man. This was Nat's first time with any sort of meltable, messy treat. I was so proud of her, she did really good (and luckily for me, not too much mess). She was ready for a 2nd one as soon as she was done!

Good Cover

Should I be embarassed to say that I like Mandy Moore? I don't know, but I do and I found this cover that she did of "Umbrella" by Rhianna that I have never really listened too. I actually like the words to the song, now that I can understand them.

Reading

Brady has been being a little booger lately, so this morning he ended up having a time out in his crib. I was in his room cleaning up and unpacking toys to keep him company. He say that I was putting away books and he reached for them (his way of asking for them) so I let him have a couple. I watched him to see what he would do. He took each individual book, opened it up, said "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba", and tossed it to the side to pick up another book and begin again. As soon as he "read" each book once he wanted more. I thought this was so sweet, especially since I haven't been able to find anything to keep him occupied or happy for the last few days. He may not talk yet, but at least he is making the effort!

BUGS!

Aargh! I just took my break and I had to kill 2 roaches! One of which was in my bathroom! This makes me SO mad. I hate bugs and in our old place we never had a problem with them. First thing tomorrow I am going to complain and try to get some sort of solution going. I do not want to live in fear that every time I walk into a dark room and turn on the light I will see skittering! I just can't do it! GROSS!!!

Hide and Seek

OK, I know this is my 3rd post tonight (so far), but I have to catch up on the stuff that happened when I was without my computer that I have come to love in the last few weeks.

On Sunday all 6 if us were running around getting ready for church (in our 1 bathroom apartment that we were supposed to be out of the day before-no lurking resentment here) and I realized that I couldn't find Natalie. Now, we were in a very small apartment so not being able to find her was a very stressful thing. I frantically rechecked all the rooms and then I went to check her closet.

I found her "resting". She said she was just waiting to go to church and wanted to take a little rest. I was very relieved, and then I remembered to get pictures!

And then of course Brady wanted to play too!

precious

I was looking through the images on my camera and I found these. I think this is so sweet. You know a good Uncle when you see him putting "makeup" on his niece!

NRH2O

So, we were supposed to move last Saturday and then we had a whole bunch of activities to do while Jason was in town hanging around until the game Thursday night. Most of those plans got cancelled, but we still found time to go to the water park. We had SO MUCH FUN! I am glad that we went there instead of Hurricane Harbor (thanks Rhea!) because NRH2O is smaller and it made it easier for us to have a place to have our stuff at a central location so we could split up and meet together easier.

Anyways, when we first got there Natalie was dead scared of the water. I think it might have stemmed from the fact that her first experience on the water park was having the giant bucket of water in Frogstein's Splashatory dump on her and Jason as soon as they started to go up. She was not expecting that and it really freaked her out. For the next 45 minutes or so it was a challenge to get her to even wade in the water. All she wanted to do was rest and "watch the other kids", this was fine with me because luckily I brought a book. So while she and I rested Keith took Brady out and all Brady wanted to do was walk on the hot cement (weirdo).

After a while I took a turn on a water slide with Erin while Keith and Jason watched the babies. Some how through the magic of being the cool uncle, Jason got Natalie back into the water. She ended up having a great time and even went down some of the small water slides that they have for kids. Brady even ended up going down slides with Daddy. He had to keep up with his big sister. He was so well behaved and never cried, I almost didn't recognize him without the screaming and grunting!
Natalie actually had so much fun that when it came time to go home (Keith sacrificed and said he would go home early with the kids b/c his noggin had already had too much sun) she cried all through getting dressed, being carried to the car, being put in the car, and for about 5 minutes of the drive, until she passed out asleep. We will for sure be going back!

The best part was that we all took home souvenirs...sunburns! Every single one of us has a sunburn. Even the babies got some weird quarter sized sunburns where the sleeves of their swimsuits ended. Keith's is the best...he put sunscreen on his face and I sprayed his head, but we missed a 3 inch stripe right across the top of his head. It is so funny looking! We are all hoping that we heal before we have to go to church. Especially me because I look like I have a ripe tomato for a head (note to self 20 spf face lotion not so good for being in the sun for 6 hours!). I think Erin, Jason and I got our burns from floating down the lazy river. We were too lazy to do slides so we just sat in the sun and baked!

Oh well, we a had a great time and I encourage everyone to go. The price was not too bad, because if you take a can of Dr. Pepper they take $4 off admission. Over all a very fun day!