Life Lessons: Being Nice

If you don't have anything nice to say,


don't say anything at all.

P.S. This blog is for family and friends only please.

Life Lessons: Drinking & Driving

This morning while driving to Jena's to play, and I was sipping on a sweet protein shake, when Paige let me in on some information.

Paige: "Moooooooooooom, your gonna go to jail."

(Insert that special Oooooooohhhhhhh-I'm-Teeeeeelllllllling tone here.)
Mom: "Uh....why is that??"

(Spoken with genuine concern, I don't wanna go to jail. What was I doing? I thought I was obeying all traffic laws....seatbelts-check.....stoping on red-check......)

Paige: "Your drinking and driving! That's illegal."

(Said with the I'm-Five-And-I-Know-More-Than-You tone.)

Mom: "Paige, your not allowed to drink alcohol and drive...."

(Complete confusion on how to explain this one)

Paige: (Silence)

Mom: "Alcohol is...........like..........beer."

(I used beer for lack of another term. I know she doesn't know what liquor is, we don't drink at home.)

Paige: "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

(Insert the Wow-I-Thought-I-Knew-Everything-But-Perhaps-I-Was-Wrong tone here.)

Cute huh?

All About Daddy.

Little to well known facts about the man we love the most around these parts.

1. He has an obsession with cars. (Of course you know this) Yet, I don't think you understand how deep this obsession runs. Until you live with him, you can't know.

2. He does what he wants, when he wants. Sometimes I think we are just along for the ride.

3. He's the fun one. Yep. Hard to believe, I know.

4. He lives and breathes projects. Which is a good thing. Usually.

5. He loves me when no ones looking. If you know us, you won't believe this.

6. He does an amazing front/back flip on the tramp. When he's not about to break his neck anyway.

7. He's the funniest man I know.

8.He can accomplish a large amount of anything in a very short period of time. This stems from his unusual ability to procrastinate until the very last moment, then he becomes obsessed with finishing whatever it may be.

9. He doesn't know what NO means.

10. But mostly, he adores his girls. AND I MEAN IT. He truly is the best Dad in the world for our children. He plays, teaches, disciplines, and mostly loves them both dearly. We are the luckiest girls to have such a great Daddy around. ♥

For more awesome pictures from Father's Day check out my Facebook!

You Know It's Time To Potty Train When.....

You find diapers all over the house, and a nakie butt running around because your daughter doesn't want to wear them anymore.

But mostly cause your child brings you at least two poopy diapers per day.

(And by bring I mean hand delivered.)

Yuck.


P.S. Wish us luck. Because thanks to Paige's new favorite movie Look Who's Talking Too, my little cupcake is deathly afraid of Mr. Toilet Man. She won't wear her diapers, but she afraid of getting her tush bit off. Bad combo.

A New Heart

Tonight ater bathtime we had a bit of a challenge with the oldest daughter. She is sweet as pie and sour as........well.......something really sour.

Daddy and I were trying to get everyone ready for bed and she was having a hard time listening and following directions.

That's when I learned that it's all from the heart.

Daddy : " I love you to death Paigey, but you really need to work on your attitude."

Paigey : " Well it's because I need a new heart!"

Mommy : " Uh.....why do you need a new heart?"

Paigey : "Cause this one is always telling me to do naughty things!!"

Awesome.

Life Lessons: Pride

The following conversation happened randomly while watching Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (the OG) last night..

"Mom. Do you know why I'm proud of you?"

"No.......why?"

"Cause you went back to college."

"Awww........... Thank you Paige!"

I Don't Know If You Know.........

But I do this too. Right now it's just a collection of quotes I happen to find amazing. But someday I hope to find the courage to post my own stories, quotes, etc.

Someday.

Life Lessons: Cause & Effect

Doing this all day:
(with no nap to speak of)

Leads to this :

(Ha ha)

Chores and Punctuation.

This evening while discussing the possibility of earning her own money, Paige agreed to start doing daily chores.

So after dinner we all sat down as a family and brainstormed.

We came up with a chore list. Or, Paige did. But we agreed to it.

While writing down above mentioned chore list I realized my daughter is receiving quite the education in her kindergarten class.

First of all she made me label the paper with ~Chores~. Which I thought was just cute.

After the list was completed, I explained that the list was a preliminary one and I would re-do it to make it look all spiffy. But even knowing this, Paige insisted that I use proper punctuation.

You see when I wrote the list it looked like this.

~Chores~
Clean Paiges room
Pick up the toys in the living room
Clean Lillies room

But Little Miss Smarty Pants insisted that I put commas (apostrophes) on Paige and Lillie. To make Paige's and Lillie's. I have to admit I was a little shocked. I had no idea that my 5 year old knew anything about punctuation.

Now I know that she said comma instead of apostrophe, but I think we can let that slide. The fact that she knew the correct placement and that something belonged there in general is pretty awesome to me.

Pretty awesome indeed.

Solutions.

I think we have a solution to the problem we call "Lillian".

(I kid. I do love her you know.)

We put her to bed in our usual way, but instead of keeping her confined to her room all night, we let go.

We don't close the door.

We don't have the baby gate up anymore.

We just let her be.

Our house is pretty much baby proof anyway. The kitchen (which is, to me, the most dangerous place in any house) is gated off, so she's relatively safe.

Besides, when she does wake up, which she always does, she just comes and gets me. No more screaming in her room for hours..........just a nice calm "Mommy" in my ear to wake me.

I prefer this method.

Although I was pretty anti roaming-baby-all-night for the last year, I have come to realize she really isn't that interested in roaming the house causing trouble. She'd much rather just know she's not stuck alone in her room.

After all who would wanna be stuck in one room for 11 hours?!

This all sounds like common sense now, but two years of sleep deprivation can make you a little loopy.



P.S.

She still isn't sleeping through the night, but at least she isn't waking up the entire house. Maybe the sleeping part will come on it's own?

A girl can dream can't she?

Well I guess she can't if she doesn't get any sleep..........

Moving Update.

Well.....................

THAT sure blew up in my face.

I didn't get her to sleep until 3 a.m. (Seriously. No joke.)

Back to square one. (Or her room.)

Eh..........sleep is overrated............

Moved.

The television didn't work out as planned.....

On to plan one thousand four hundred and eighty six............


We've moved her back into our room.............

A year and a half since she's been in there..........but at this point ANYTHING is worth a good nights rest.

ANYTHING.

She can't wake up crying for me if I'm in the room now can she?

Can she???

I hope not..............

This Week......So Far.

My car took a poop.

Fixed itself.

Then took yet another poop.

So yippee for my birthday present! A new transmission! Hooray!

(Did you like the birthday hint? Very strategically placed I know.)

My youngest child decided (yet again) sleep is just "not her thing" and she'd prefer to just stay up all night and cry about it all day.

I love her.

I REALLY do, but come on! When (oh when!?) will I get to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time!??

Someday right?

So against everything I stand for (okay that might be a bit melodramatic)we gave her our television and DVD player.

Please Dora, babysit my 2 year old. Sing her to sleep. Lord knows she won't allow me to.

(As a side note, it's 8:15, a good 45 minutes after we put her to bed and she is still up, yelling for me.....Oh the joys of motherhood.)

On the upside, my laptop (which pooped out about 6 months ago) decided to randomly start working again. So at least one thing is working out for us.

Finally.

This is our week so far. And it's only Tuesday.....

Apology.

I'm a bad blogger.

Blame it on my computer please.

I do.

For some reason whenever I try to upload any pictures it does this really neat trick and

BOOM!

it freezes.

It's pretty awesome.

Anywho,

I apologize to the few people who actually read this.

I'm working on fixing this sucker.

But by then the kids will be all grown and out of the house.....

..........so don't hold your breath..................

Two.

Two years ago today we were blessed with this amazing little girl. I have truly loved you every moment. Happy birthday "Baybay Lil'"

Top Ten.

Things I SHOULD be doing :

10 ~ Opening my new toy (Sweeping the floor with my new broom and dustpan)

9 ~ Dancing (Mopping)

8 ~ Shooting hoops (Tossing laundry into the washer)

7 ~ Making bubbles (Dishes)

6 ~ Coloring (Cleaning up all of the artwork on my desk)

5 ~ Playing dress-up (Finally going through the huge boxes of old baby clothes)

4 ~ Building a fort (Disposing of the boxes from the before-mentioned baby clothes)

3 ~ Bubble bath (Cleaning the bathrooms)

2 ~ Playing Secretary (Paying bills)

1 ~ Hide & Seek (Or doing none of the above.....Wait..........I AM doing that............)

Daddy Daughter Day

Last week, Daddy met up with his friends and their little girl to take the baby to the Phoenix Children's Museum while Mommy was at work and Sister was in school. They had a blast! Here is the evidence to support my theory.

I Spoke Too Soon...........

Do you remember the other day when I posted about Nick's little adventure in the mud? Well it seems I spoke a little too soon.....

We all have bad days.

Days when nothing seems to want to work out right.

For me it's usually the days when the kids are acting like a couple of lunatics, Daddy is working late, and I just want a little peace and quiet. For Nick though, it is always vehicle related. Pretty much always.

Last week he got his truck stuck in the mud in the middle of a rainy work-night (see previous post). I thought that story would be the end of the muddy adventures.

I was wrong.

He insisted on taking the truck out yet again last week with his friends. He managed to make it out of the mud but not without a few technical difficulties. So on Friday evening he spent the entire night working on the truck, taking branches out of the suspension, cleaning off the mud so he could get the truck in tip top shape for Saturday. Because the third time is the charm right?

Right.

Saturday comes.....as they do.....and off they go.

I must preface this with my explanation as to why I never go on these adventures in the mud. Mostly it's because Nick scares me. His driving is.....let's just say....unique. I have no desire to sit in the truck and see a never ending replay of my life flashing before my eyes while he has his fun. Nah, I'll just stay home. Thanks anyway. Plus, if God forbid something bad happens, we both can't get ourselves hurt!

Back to Saturday. Off they go. Four guys. Two trucks. One camera.

Now this is the part in my little tale where things get interesting. Thing is.......I wasn't there. I only know the aftermath. But it is my duty to do my best recounting the story, for historical reasons.

They were having a blast. They made their very own dirt course. Drifting the trucks going a good 35+mph. Getting good and muddy. They even made a new friend. Chasing each other around a light pole having a grand ol' time.

Until Cj had a little setback. He somehow managed to hit a bush. You wouldn't immediately think a bush could really do any damage...but of course it did. A branch pierced his radiator and it started leaking everywhere. So his driving for the day seemed to be over.

Seemed to be.

Being the good friend Nick is, he was taking the guys around in turns. But seeing how bummed Cj was about his truck Nick figured he'd let him have a go.

So he did.

Cj set off taking things a little slow. Gotta get the feel for the truck ya know? He didn't wanna drive it hard like he did his own. Very responsible.

That's when it happened.

He and Nick B. headed off to do a 180 around the light pole in 2nd gear when the front tire seemed to catch. It all happened so quickly no one really knows exactly how it happened.

Nick remembers talking and laughing with Chris about how much fun they were having, when they saw the truck suddenly roll. From the passenger side, hood, driver side and stopped. Of course they immediately ran to see if Cj and Nick B. were ok. All they could see was Cj getting out holding his head and Nick B. still dangling in the truck, not moving.

Thank goodness everyone was ok. Nick B. couldn't get out because of the position he was in, he couldn't reach the seat belt. Other than being quite shaken up, they were all ok.

That didn't stop someone in the nearby neighborhood from calling 911. Three ambulances, three police cars, one firetruck later I got my phone call.

I'm gonna be honest. I thought Nick did it. I thought he was covering it up because I always worry about something like this happening. But after seeing how distraught Cj was I knew it was him driving.

In the end the truck is pretty amazing. They managed to flip it back up, with the help of Seth's new truck and amazingly the thing drove home. After a few minor repairs that is.

That's not to say it looks pretty.

It looks pretty..............bad.

Those boys........I tell ya.....

Thank goodness everyone is ok.

That's all I have to say about that...........

Before :

During:

The Cause:
(Cj's newly pierced radiator)

After:

(Still buddies)