Post Christmas

Well, I hope everyone had a very wonderful Christmas. I can definitely say that my family did. No one was forgotten, not even a little bit. Christmas Eve we went to my parents and visited with some family that lives in town and I headed to work at 6pm. It was weird because I never work nights anymore and I really didn't know anyone working. Tom was left to put the kids to bed and set up the SANTA gift. HA HA! Thomas was up bright and early in the living room playing with his new train table. When I walked out into the living room I said "Thomas who got you that train table?" He replied, "I don't know, you bought it for me mommy?" When I told him I thought Santa brought it for me he asked me if Santa was still here. It was very cute.

Three is definitely the year when kids start to really get it. He was all about the presents, but he thought every one was for him. We opened presents at our house and then went to my parents again. I got lots of fun stuff: clothes, gift cards and stuff for my scrapbooking room. Spoiled again just like every year.

To my very pleasant surprise though, I got something that made me almost cry. Back in June between dropping my kids off at my parents and heading to pick up my hubby to head to Las Vegas I lost my diamond pendent. It was the first gift Tom ever gave me, Christmas 2004, I wore it everyday since. I was devastated that I lost it. I searched my car and my moms house figuring it had to be in one of those places. I even had Tom sift through my moms very full vacuum bag in hopes she had sucked it up while vacuuming. No luck! Well long story short, while cleaning for my parents Christmas Eve shindig, my dad decided to vacuum the big chair that is in their family room. He went to my mom and asked her if she knew whose diamond he had found. She wrapped it up and gave it to me Christmas morning. I couldn't have been happier. We had never thought to look in the chair because the day I lost it I had never even sat in that chair. I think I am going to take it as a sign that 2009 is going to be a really good year.

Here are some pics from our Christmas. More to come once my mom sends me hers.



Me and Taylor Christmas morning, 5am wake-up call from Thomas. Yikes we aren't looking to hot.


Thomas playing with his new train table


All the presents, he had no clue what to do. This was the first year he had to help with passing them all out.


It took him all of about two minutes to fall asleep in the car after all of the excitement in the morning.



Our after Christmas trip to Cabela's. Excuse my husbands scary faces, he was refusing to cooperate during my picture taking. Oh and you will notice Thomas got a haircut this morning. He is SO much cuter with a nicely buzzed head.

Just a few days left

Where does the time go? Christmas is in 3 days and then the New Year. 2009!! Tom and I had our babysitter come over last night and we headed out to do.....well we really didn't know. We had no real plan, but that is usually how it is when you have kids and are always with them. Time spent with just your husband...what is that? We ended up just going to TGIFridays and sitting in the bar watching football and talking. It is amazing how nice it is to have a conversation without being interrupted. We laughed and reminisced about random things from years back. It was really fun.

As usual my day started at 5am with two kids and my hubby waking me up. :( Both of my kids are not feeling 100% which made for a very winy morning. I didn't really want to stay home all day so I ventured to Costco (not a good idea 3 days before Christmas) but what the heck. After that I went to the mall to pick up the kids pictures at JCPenny. The girl at the photo place was hesitant to give me my pictures because I wasn't picking them up at the designated time. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Picking a time two weeks earlier and being able to actually be there at that time is not easy with kids. Of course she wanted to sell me stuff and I was not having it. Thankfully my kids were crying and wining, so I don't really think she minded that I hurried right out of there.

Sandi just sent me pictures from Seattle and I have been looking at everything people have been posting. A little part of me wishes I was there, but only for a little bit and then I would be wanting my wonderful, but cold Arizona weather back.

Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and since by now everyone has hopefully received their Christmas cards I will post our 2008 family Christmas card picture.

How quickly you forget....

So, today I decided to have my babysitter come over and watch the kids while I went to get my nails done. I have the best babysitter and if it weren't for the fact that it is really expensive, I would have her over more often. It was the first time she has watched Taylor, but she has watched Thomas since he was 1. The nail place was busy, so I ran over to Target while I waited and when I got out of the car and was walking into the store I couldn't help but laugh at how light I felt. NO KIDS!! It is not very often that I walk into any place without a cart or a stroller and all the necessities that go along with children. No one to yell at and no one to keep from crying, just me. It is moments like this that I of course notice all of the women with their kids and see what I look like from the outside. It is an unspoken bond that all mothers of toddlers share. How quickly we forget what it is like to be without kids in toe. It was a very nice two hours!!

I have decided...

That for the month of December my new motto is....Go Broke or Go Home. Every year I say that I am going to be prepared, organized and ready for the holidays, in every way, but especially financially. As usual though, this year had turned out exactly like years past. I am no more on top of things than before and with only 9 days left it is crunch time. Anyone with young kids will probably agree with me that it is virtually impossible to get any shopping done or gifts wrapped. Each day I am left with a small window of opportunity after both Thomas and Taylor have gone to sleep, but this is only time well spent if my husband doesn't feel as though we need our quality time together. HA HA! Oh well, every year I figure it all out and on Christmas morning I am ready. This year will be no different I am sure.

Sunday night I took the kids to my parents to decorate cookies. I had to just laugh at how when most people decorate cookies with their kids they just let the kids go to town, big mess and all. Not us though, we had to stand right next to Thomas and guide him, for fear he would make some crazy mess that none of us wanted to deal with or cookies that looked like a kid decorated them. I think it is things like this that are the reason why my son doesn't care to be dirty and messy. I think the only time he has had free range to do whatever when it involved food was his 1st birthday. It was a fun night though and he really didn't know any different. He got to help and that is all that matters.

Totally tired!!

All I can say is that I am exhausted from Thomas' 3rd birthday today, but I will post a few of the pics. All he wanted was a skateboard and anytime you asked him what he wanted he would tell you a skateboard.....thank goodness for Aunt KiKi and Uncle Ken. He made out like a bandit with all of the things he got, including his skateboard. Here is our future Tony Hawk.

When it rains it pours...

First let me start off by saying that never will you ever hear me claim to be anything other than a procrastinator. It is never my intention, but nevertheless it is who I am. I got a new computer in February or March, I can't remember I was 8 months pregnant. I vowed that with the new computer I would do everything right, so as to hopefully avoid anything going wrong. Maybe two months after I got the computer I realized I had no sound. I was not happy at all, especially because I definitely started out with sound. I put off trying to figure out what was wrong, partially because of my procrastination and partially because I really never thought about it. So today, I received an email from my best friend and it was an email which required sound. Of course in this moment how mad I became at myself for putting off the sound issue.

Onto why my day has been one of those days.....I spent 1 1/2 hours on the HP chat with BOB B., very helpful was Bob until he told me to do something that inturn caused our chat to disconnect. I will be perfectly honest with you when I say that actual tears fell. Any mom of toddlers or infants knows it is not easy to devote this kind of time to something that does not involve your kids. I proceeded to try figuring it out on my own for another hour when I decided to try the chat again. This time I got TARUN.....he too was very helpful, but still no sound. In all I spent at least five hours of my day trying to get sound. NOTHING!!!

My kids picked today to be on their WORST behavior and almost the entire time I was chatting with Bob and Tarun I was listening to a screaming baby, a crying toddler and a barking dog. I accomplished absolutely nothing today. I ended my chat with Tarun because I couldn't take it anymore. If there is one thing kids know, it is how to get the attention back on them if it so wonders. I have given multiple time-outs today and bedtime will be as soon as I wrap up this post. Just to clarify that is 5:30pm, maybe a new record.

Like I said when it rains it pours!!

Yearly Tradition

I have to just write quickly about a tradition that my mom and dad started for us all about 6 or 7 years ago and I absolutely love it. Every year we go to the local mall and pull names of kids in need off of a tree. Today I met my mom and dad at the mall and was almost going to put off pulling tags today and then I couldn't resist. I read tag after tag and wish I could pull every single one. These kids want some of the simplest things and it breaks my heart to think that any one of them could go without. I pulled two tags, but will most likely bring more gifts to fulfill more tags. This is one of the best ways to give back and it is so easy.

Yes, it is finally Monday

This long extended weekend seemed to go on and on and I am very glad it is Monday. I can start to get back to some sort of normalcy and move through the last month of the year. WOW it is December 1st! I would ask where the time goes, but no one ever seems to have a good answer to that. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I worked from 4am-noon on Thanksgiving and then headed to my moms for Turkey dinner. It was delicious as every year, although I will say turkey dinner is not one of my favorite meals. It was a nice day with family though and that is all that matters.


This was the only decent shot of Taylor on Thanksgiving.


Thomas and Aunt KiKi on Thanksgiving with Seahawks and Cardinals jerseys on, both teams lost.

My true excitement on Thanksgiving week comes from BLACK FRIDAY!!! I tried to start early this year and made a trip to Michael's after we left my moms. Who could believe how many people were shopping on Thanksgiving night? Not me obviously because what I wanted was sold out in the first five minutes. Oh well, no big deal it was something for myself, so I could live without. I woke up on Friday morning and stood in line at Kohl's at 3am (they opened at 4), bought lots of stuff, but after all was said and done I didn't really feel like I accomplished any actual Christmas shopping. Tom hung all of the Christmas lights on the house and it looks wonderful.

Saturday I drug my family to JCPenney to have family pictures taken and what a mess that was. I should have known the weekend after Thanksgiving was not a good time to go, but we did it anyway. Long story short, it took forever, no one cooperated and I was not happy with the pictures. I spent a total of $20 on pictures, if that tells you anything. I will try again this week with just the kids I think and try to get a good one of them. We did Santa pictures too, at least that was something I could laugh about.

So Excited

It is the day before Thanksgiving and I am getting excited all around. Thomas helped me decorate the tree on Sunday night and I am very happy with the way it turned out. I have done gold and red for the last few years, so I decided to add green this year. Yes, I am one of those people who's tree is all color coordinating. I went back to hobby lobby and bought some more decorations. We are having a Christmas party this year, so I have to be totally decorated. Tom is off of work the whole weekend so he has promised me the lights on the house would be done before Monday. YIPPEE! I got out my Christmas CD the other day and have officially begun rocking' out to it every time I am in the car. People look at me like I am crazy, singing my heart out to country Christmas. Oh well, it doesn't bother me.


Of course I have not seen the day after Thanksgiving ads yet, but YES I will be one of those crazy women out at the crack of dawn waiting in line. I do it more for the fun rather than any particular sale item, but this year I am hoping with the way the economy is I will get some good deals. Most likely it will be Kohl's and then Target, Kohl's opens at 4am and Target not until 6am.


Quick side story.....while typing this post, I just heard a crash in the kitchen. I went to check it out and my son has just pulled all of the freshly baked cookies onto the floor. I have four left. My dog was trying to eat them as fast as I was trying to clean them all up. Oh the joys of parenthood.


Here is a pic of my tree and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

I take that back

So, quick update.......I took out my Christmas decorations and well, I really don't have any. SAD :( I guess I have to go shopping. What a bummer too because I thought it would really take up my evening and keep my kid entertained. Oh well! At least all the cool things I saw when I was out today may find their way into my cart and home with me.

Needless to say no pics yet!

I can't wait any longer...

My Christmas decorations are coming out today. After I picked the kids up from my moms this morning I decided to go browse around Hobby Lobby and see what fun things I could buy. I didn't purchase a whole lot, but there were so many things I could have purchased if I knew how my decorating was going. This would be the reason I decided to drag it out today. I was planning on pulling it all out soon, but I can't wait any longer. Now that my house is all pretty from a new coat of paint I am more excited to decorate.

I did however get Taylor her own stocking which I needed (purely for decoration, as I use gift bags to put all of my stocking stuffers in). It was 50% off, so that was exciting. There was no sale sign anywhere around the stockings, so I thought I would have to use my coupon. Nothing is better than getting to the register and finding out your item is on sale, although I did all that walking around and all of the things I got were all on sale. No need for the coupon today. :(

Well I will post pics once I am done decorating. Oh will Tom be surprised when he gets home. I am hoping this will help motivate me for Christmas shopping. Only one week 'til BLACK FRIDAY!! Yippee!! Yes, I am one of those crazy people out at the crack of dawn waiting in line. For the rush if for nothing else and I always get some pretty good deals.

Weekend Warriors!

Happy Tuesday everyone, well at least it is for me. I decided a while ago that I wanted to paint the entire inside of our house (excluding bedrooms), a very big undertaking. I convinced Tom to change his day off and do it this weekend, so we did.

Well, 8 gallons of paint and two very tired painters later, we finished last night. I love love love how it turned out. It is amazing how much a fresh coat of paint will change the way your house looks. I worked Saturday and Sunday, so we painted a little bit each of those days and then powered it out on Monday and finished. It is not easy to tackle something like this with two little kids, so bless my mom for taking them both on Sunday night and keeping them all day Monday.

I am happy to report that Tom and I made it the whole time without even one argument. I don't know about some of you, but husbands and wives doing projects together can sometimes be difficult (well at least for Tom and I). It was his 33rd birthday on Sunday, so truthfully I don't think he was too excited about painting, but he did it anyway. We were both pleasantly surprised that we actually FINISHED. It is such a good feeling to know we accomplished something big like this is one weekend. Now I need to make a list of all the other things I need to get done and get started. It is less than two weeks til Thanksgiving....where does the time go?

Here are a few pics from the weekend, Tom was not too happy with my documentation of our project. I will take some completed pics later.


The darker color is the new color of the walls.




Tom's job was the ceiling and parts I couldn't reach. He He! I got stuck with the trim and a lot of the taping. YUCK!

Hazards of parenthood

Sometimes being a mom isn't all it is cracked up to be. The are moments when you ask yourself "If I had known this before I had kids would I have still done it?" In most cases I have found that no matter what the answer is you have to learn to laugh about these moments.

Now to my funny story...I just got home from running some errands, both of my kids fell asleep in the car YEAH, but of course my little Taylor woke up as soon as I got her out of the car. I decided that I would give her a bottle before laying her back down. I gave her the bottle as I always do, in her little seat on the couch. I sat down to call my mom for a daily chat (one of many throughout my day). When Taylor finished her bottle she had a very funny grin on her face and I even commented to my mom regarding it. My daughter has a tendency of making me think she has a messy diaper just by farting really bad, I thought this was what she had done. I hung up the phone and went to pick her up when I felt a not so nice wet feeling on her lower back.................

..............And when I rolled her over to see how she managed to get wet on her lower back there was a nice surprise. Officially she has had her first blow-out diaper and it was a doozy! Still she sat with her grin. Honestly I couldn't figure out how I was going to pick her up without some transfer. Of course I instantly took a minute to call and share with my mom before I gave her a bath, that is how bad it was. All the while she still kept her grin as though she was proud of what had just happened.

As a parent I cannot tell you how many times I have said "That was the worst diaper I have ever changed" and then a worse one comes along, but let me tell you people this time I mean it. I still am not quite sure how it all managed to escape the diaper (one of the many mysteries regarding babies), but it did and I have a washer full of clothes, towels and a seat cover to prove it.

Happy Monday...

What a boring day to say the least. I always think it is a good idea sometimes to stay home and get things done around the house. Well at least it seems that way in theory. With two kids though it never seems to go as I plan it in my head. Doing simple things like the dishes isn't easy with kids, so when I am forced to do things like clean the bathroom I have to get creative. One in the bath and the other in a bouncy chair. One chore like that and it is all I can do to continue on. Once I get in a cleaning mood, I don't like to stop or I will lose momentum and that will be the end. Today was just not one of those momentum days though, I just never could get the ball rolling. So it is now almost 6pm and I only have a little to show for my day home. I guess tomorrow will have to be a continuation of my Monday.

On an entirely different note I am very happy to report that although I have been bringing up the rear in my fantasy football league all season and went into this weekend 2-7, I will take a win this week against my hubby. I do not expect to have a great comeback although I would love it if I did, it is just nice to bring my husband down a notch or two. It will also be nice not to be tied for last anymore, that title will be held by my sisters boyfriend all by himself. Sorry Ken!!

Happy Monday!!

A Serious Moment

So the holiday season is completely upon us and it will fly by this year just as it does every year, but I have been thinking a lot lately about the past holiday season and all of the things there are to be thankful for this year.

Anyone that knows me even a little bit knows how close I am with my family. My parents and my sister are three of the most important people in my life. I do not remember the exact moment and it surprises me that I don't, but almost a year ago my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It is very hard for me to put into words how I felt. I don't think through the entire process I ever could bring myself to talk to my dad about any of it. I am usually the one that can talk about anything and would rather let my feelings show, but I could just never bring myself to talk with either of my parents. Occasionally my mom and I would talk, but it always led to tears. I could not imagine losing one of my parents, so I had no clue how to deal with it. To say the least it was a rough time and not the best holiday season ever. My dad had surgery in February and I couldn't be more happy to say that he is cancer-free.

After all was said and done, I think I learned a lot. I always knew the strength of my parents, but had never seen it in such a way. I feel blessed to have the relationship that I do with my parents and try very hard not to ever take it for granted. I hoped and still do, that both my mom and my dad know how important they are to me. One of the greatest things that has come from having kids is seeing my parents as grandparents.

I really don't have any recent pictures of my mom and dad together and even pics of me with either one of them are hard to come by. My mom hates having her picture taken, but I do have this one of my dad and I at my wedding. Thought I would share.

I am proud to say.....

I voted for the first time today!!

I registered a little while back when I renewed my car tabs and was so excited. I really have no excuse or reason why I never have in the past, but I haven't. I felt like no one has any room to complain if they can't say they put effort into playing a part, so this year I did.

I have been looking forward to voting since I registered and when I got up this morning I thought, okay now I really have to do it. I had no real desire to take my two kids and stand in line forever, so I put it off all morning. I decided that after nap time I would pack them up and go stand in line. I put Taylor in the snugly and gave Thomas Dum Dum suckers (he never gets them, so he was super excited), told him to stand right by me and be very quiet. We only had to stand in line for about 10 minutes because M-Z last names was a very short line. Good thing I finally changed my name to my married name. Ha Ha it only took me a year and a half!

I was very excited to stand in the little booth and mark my choices. I am glad I voted and will be even more glad when the whole thing is over.

Halloween Fun

This was Thomas' third Halloween and Taylor's first and it was a success. Before I even start I need to say that it turns out Thomas' costume was a dragon and not a dinosaur. My husband and dad pointed out that it had more features of a dragon rather than of a dinosaur. Too Thomas though it was dinosaur and really that is all that matters. He looked great and so did my cute little ladybug Taylor. We walked around my parents neighborhood and once Thomas got the hang of it he would have gone all night. "More candy mommy, more candy!"

It was a beautiful night out. There really is nothing like trick or treating in 90 degree weather (not really 90), but definitely warm. Not a lot of people out in the neighborhood, but quite a few lazy people who put bowls on their doorsteps. The whole fun of handing out candy is seeing the costumes that kids have on. Oh well, Thomas gladly took their candy no matter where it was.

The night ended with two tired kids and one bucket full of candy. Here are some pictures from the night. My sis and her boyfriend went to a party after we finished taking the kids out, they went as contestants on the Supermarket Sweep. They looked great.

Are you kidding me??

It has occurred to me in the last hour that it really does not matter what I say to my son, he has no intention of listening to me today. This goes for my dog as well. As I type this post he has now been on "Time-out" for a very long time. I honestly can't remember the reason I put him there this last time, but with the day I have had I really don't care.

There are days when everything goes as planned or as expected, but then there are days like this. Where at 5:15pm I am seriously contemplating a 5:30pm bedtime. Don't get me wrong, although it might be hard to believe this right now, I love being able to be home with my kids. I know that I am lucky and I try very hard not to take it for granted, but today is just not one of those days. There are moments when I completely check out, this is what I am currently doing by blogging rather than parenting.

As I type, my daughter is screaming for no apparent reason (she is not hungry, colicky or anything else....just high maintenance), my dog is barking because she has been outside for all of the last five minutes and is afraid I may never let her in and my son is yelling, hoping that I will get sick of hearing him and let him up from his "time-out" chair.

If I was any sort of drinker I may be doing that right now, but I'm not so I will just continue to go through this sober. If there is one thing I have learned it is this: Being a parent can be the most gratifying unpaid job, but it can also be the most exhausting unpaid job. Either way it is unpaid.

I will sign off as a very tired MOMMY!

Pumpkin Carving......SO MUCH FUN!!

So we (actually I) had the great idea to carve pumpkins last night. We packed up the family and the pumpkins and went to my parents house to make it a family event. I tried to make it something we would be doing for Thomas' benefit, but lets be realistic....it was really for me. I wanted to have cool pumpkins to put on the porch.

I have not carved a pumpkin in years, but it was just as fun a I remembered. I will admit that I do not enjoy the gutting of the pumpkin though, and ended up giving that job to my hubby. I bought one of those kits and each of us chose a picture. Those kit things work pretty darn good too.

Mission accomplished! We have three really cool pumpkins to show for our hard work. Kelli chose the vampire about to bite into the woman's neck, I chose a spider in the moonlight and Tom chose a bat, well we think. He ended up doing the image upside down. This is a very typical thing for Tom to do, he is not a direction follower. AT ALL! Here are some pics from the night. My sis even broke out the old Halloween sweatshirt that my grandma painted for her YEARS ago.

We Made It!

I never realized just how much I look forward to the couple hours I get to spend with my husband every night until he leaves me for a week and I don't have it. Tom has always worked quite a bit. I guess the normal really it is just that I am always working his days off, so it really feels like we never see each other. With his new job he had spend this week in California and I was left to play mom by myself all week. I really didn't think it would be all that different from our normal week. I was totally wrong! Tom really helps me with the kids at night and I think they (Thomas especially) looks forward to him putting them to bed. Putting the exhaustion of kids aside, it is nice to have adult conversation.

He gets home tomorrow and we are excited that the week is over and he will be home. I am sure it will be minutes and we will all be driving each other crazy, but I think I like that better than being alone.

I really do not know how any single parent does it.......my hat is off to you.

When will it stop??

Either it never happened or it has been suppressed in my memory, but I do not think Thomas ever cried like Taylor does. I would say she is only happy when she is eating or being held, but truthfully if you are not walking around while holding her she isn't happy either. She cries for no apparent reason. No she is not colicky, just high maintenance. Maybe in some weird way I am being punished. All of the times of being high maintenance myself, but then one would think she would only act this way around me. Not true! She is this way with everyone. The only time you can be sure she is happy is with a bottle in her mouth....and maybe the 10 minutes post bottle. I move her from spot to spot around the house in 10-15 minute incriments and have been known (just yesterday actually) to blast music to drown her out. When all else fails she goes down for a nap. I feel like the worst mom sometimes, but I do not know how to make her happy.

These are the things we tell ourselves to remember the next time we consider having kids, but at some unknown time these same things are forgotten. Kind of like giving birth. I thought it was no big deal, in fact I even bought cute underwear to wear home from the hospital. Jokes on me because I had totally forgotten. So like I said even if Thomas was like, this I totally forgot.

Here is a thought....maybe these are the moments I should scrapbook about, them I would never forget.

Thomas and his costumes

So this is Thomas' third Halloween and some might say that I take great pleasure in picking his costumes. I am very aware that there will be a day when he does not want me to pick his costume, so until then.. Year #1 he was a chicken. It was great, well for everyone except him. He hated the costume. He cried the entire time he had it on (all 15 minutes). This year I had his pictures taken at JCPenney and took the chicken costume with me. HILARIOUS! Year #2 he was a monkey, complete with a banana in the pocket. I really didn't think it could get any funnier than the chicken...I was wrong. This year he enjoyed the costume and tried it on for us all quite a few times. Again HILARIOUS! So today my mom and I trucked off to Target to check out costumes and..........................here is what we left with.

Year #3 he will be going as a dinosaur. Once I convinced him to try on the head piece it was decided. Both my mom and I were laughing, so hard I had to cross my legs and truly try to stop. We told him to roar like a dinosaur and he did. This made the moment even better. I do not want to ruin great Halloween pics, so for now you will only see the the costume. Someday he will choose his own costumes and I am sure none of them will ever be as funny as the ones that I have chosen for him.

No idea what my daughter will wear for her first Halloween, but you can almost guarantee it will be funny.

He Finally Did It....

I started the daunting task of potty training a week ago Monday, and much to my surprise Thomas has been doing really well with the peeing. It really only took him a few days and he had that part down. I confined myself to my house for the first week, leaving only to grocery shop once and go to work at the end of the week. I was and still am very proud that Thomas took to it quickly.........On that note though, the pooping not so much.

Thomas cracks me up on a daily basis, he always has, but this potty training thing has brought the humor to a new level. I have heard horror stories about this task and the things that little boys do when they are forced to take the diaper off and use the BIG BOY POTTY as we call it. I consider myself lucky so far because the accidents we have had regarding the poop are not that bad, just funny. I decided to ask my pediatrician yesterday if she had any advice and to my amazment she told me to let him go in the diaper if he wanted to. I was not liking this idea. I truly felt like this was sending the wrong message. With that in mind though I knew he was scared to go on the toilet, therefor holding it all day long.

Well today was the day....He finally did it. I know my son and I was sure that if he just did it one time he would not fear it anymore. I have tried to bribe him with everything I can think of and finally it paid off. Any toy he wanted at Target if he would just go poop on the potty.

"Mommy, Mommy...I did it...I did it!" My excitement was through the roof, that is until I went to see for myself. Are you kidding me? One tiny little "pooplet" as I would like to call it floating all by itself at the bottom. I tried to be excited for him, but I knew he still had to go.

Fast forward 15 minutes....."Mommy, Mommy....I did it lots....I did it lots this time!"

Again with the excitement, only this time he did. What a feeling of accomplishment and it wasn't even me that went.

We will see how the next days go, but to end the story we made a 5:00pm Target run so he could pick out any toy he wanted. He picked out a motorcycle that was $5.99 and since that was what his heart was set on I threw in a Cars Ball to go with. $5.99 seemed not enough for this moment.

6 Months Old Today

I cannot believe that my baby girl is already 6 months old. Where does the time go? I wanted to really enjoy her being a BABY and I feel like it went even faster this time. She is about a minute away from being on the move and once that starts its all over. I wanted Thomas to crawl, walk and run so badly and once he started I wondered why I did not listen to the people who told me to just be patient and enjoy him in the moment. I will admit though, I feel like I appreciate Taylor as a baby way more than I ever did with Thomas. I have not found it harder to have two kids verse one, just different. I have been very lucky and I try hard not to take that for granted. Thomas is really good with Taylor, he gets excited when he sees her and it makes me smile every time. I really hope that they are friends growing up.

Taylor is going to be exactly like me, I can see it already. Those of you that know me, or my sister, or my mom know what this means. We are three of a kind and a force to be reckoned with. I never knew how I would feel about having a girl. I was very scared at first, but the first time I held her I figured that I would just do what I did with Thomas, only always make sure to wipe front to back (because with girls it matters) Just a little diaper changing humor!

Today the doctor told me she looks great. She is 27 1/2" long and weighs 16 lbs 7 oz. She is tall and average in weight (all of her weight is in her cute chubby legs)

Happy 6 Months Taylor Lynn Moore!!

It's only 2:30....

It is only 2:30 and I am exhausted. I have never been a morning person, but kids don't ask you whether you like to get up early or not. My little Thomas is serious morning person (he gets it from his dad). It does not matter what time he goes to bed, he is in my room at 5am. If he sleeps any later it is some sort of miracle. I have come to terms with it and have decided that sleep is somewhat overrated., but 5 is my limit. Do not think that one minute or even one second earlier than 5 is alright with me.

Which brings me to why I am looking at the clock and wondering how I am going to make it through the rest of the day. I was awoken this morning by Tom freaking out yelling at the dog, barking orders at Thomas to stay where he was standing. I tried really hard to ignore him and the whole situation. If there is one thing Tom knows though, is that I have a hard time butting out and I would most definitely come see what was going on, if nothing else just to be nosy. It turns out that at some point during the night my dog pooped on my rug, in my family room. The freaking out was because Tom did not turn on any major lights when he took Thomas to the bathroom at 4:30AM and they both stepped in it. And not just a little bit, one little footprint followed by one giant footprint, turning the pile into a pancake. Now if my dog was a puppy this may be seem normal, but my dog is not a puppy and has not pooped in my house in over a year and a half. So what the heck? Truthfully I wanted to go crawl back in bed and hope no one noticed me walk out. Why do I have to be so nosy, why can't I just trust my husband can take care of anything? For whatever reason I couldn't and being the way that I am out I came. Tom's cleanup job was not to my liking, so I took over and the idea of sneaking back to sleep quickly faded with sounds of Taylor crying.

Mommy Me

I can honestly say that when I found out I was pregnant with Thomas I was scared out of my mind. Tom was excited and I was so scared I cried for weeks. I spent nine months trying to wrap my head around the idea of me being a mom and I am not sure I ever really did. Being a mom is a big guessing game and almost three years later and I can say without a doubt, I love it. Kids are hilarious and although I am sure Taylor will someday join, it is Thomas that cracks me up everyday. The things that he says and does are priceless. He did not start talking until right around the time that Taylor was born and let me just say that he had quite a few things he needed to get out. He often talks simply to hear himself talk and I love it. I hope he never stops making me laugh because some days I don't know what I would do without it.

Football is our game!

And here we are, the Moore Family. Myself, Taylor, Thomas and Tom. As you can see we are huge football fans, Seahawks to be exact. The only game I can watch start to finish with no problem. For four, almost five months out of the year, it Football Sunday every week. The whole family loves football, so it has made for some good football pools and this year my sisters boyfriend even convinced us all to do fantasy football. Personally I just think he wanted our money in the pot because I am not doing so well. We'll see though, Kelli and I play each other this week and so do Tom and Ken. It should be a nice day of smack talking back and forth. If there is one thing we all are is competitive, not really one more than the other either.

What the Heck!!

I decided today that I would try this whole blog thing. I find that most of my days, take that back, all of my days are spent with my two wonderful children and although I love it, I have to talk to someone. I figure I will put it here and if nothing else, at least I will am getting out all the things that are happening in our lives. I think the whole idea of reading about all the things, no matter how small, in someones lives is very weird. I enjoy it though. I love reading what other people are doing or thinking. Hopefully someone feels the same about my life.