TASTES LIKE HUMAN

The other day C and IJ were playing a game on Nick Jr. were you had to guide a little ant through the ant tunnels to see his friends. Well C decided that the little ant must be hungry and said (while dangling pinched fingers above the ant):

"You look hungry. How about a nice human?"

That kid has a strange imagination.

C'S 4-WHEELER

I may have mentioned before that for his 4th birthday, C got his very own gas powered 4-wheeler. No more Power-Wheels for him! (IJ has inherited C's old 4-wheeler and enjoys running into things. :) )

So far C's been just riding it around in a big circle in our yard until he gets used to controling it, and he's getting pretty good at it. He's only had one incident where he rode too close to nana and papa's truck and scraped some paint off the truck's front bumper. That freaked him out a bit (he did not want to tell nana and papa what he did when R made him go and talk to them) and he's been paying more attention since.

Since C's been getting better R has taken him out on a couple of short rides down the trail near our house (R on his 4-wheeler and C following behind on his). The last time they went out R took the camera and got some video clips:

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When they got back to the house R was telling me how well he did on the ride, and then I watched the videos. "You didn't tell me he hit a tree!" "Oh, it was just a sapling." Yeah, these guys are gonna make my hair go gray very early in life... :)

BELLY SHOTS 2

Yep, I procrastinated until May. You all should have known that I would. :) Anyway here are some shots of my humongo belly at the end of 36 weeks (yes, I know, the thing is huge!) :

kind of dark, but you get the idea

my maternity shirts barely cover this thing anymore

I think this kid is going to be huge like her brother, Mr. IJ 11 lbs. 2 oz. I'm in trouble. ;)

FLUSH

The other night during dinner C points to my belly and asks, "Is there a flusher in your belly?"

If only it were that easy...

:D

R'S NEW TOY

Just to let you all know, we're all still alive out here! ;) I know it's been a while since I posted on here, I've been bad. :) Lots of stuff has been going on around here since I last posted, like C turning 4, and our weeklong vacation to see family in Minnesota and St. Louis and the "Go, Diego, Go!" live show. Plus I got Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and discovered digital scrapbooking, so now every time I'm on the computer I'm either on scrapbooking sites or playing on Photoshop. :) I know, excuses, excuses. ;)

Anyway, R wanted me to post photos of his new toy, a Yamaha motorcycle. We are just collecting the boy toys around here, with the trucks and the 4 wheelers and the snowmobile (plus C got his own kid sized gas powered real 4 wheeler for his birthday!). When R came home with it in the back of his truck the other night, I sent the boys down to look out the door's window. I said, "Do you guys see daddy's new toy in the back of his truck?" And C exclaims, "It's a new...neeew...um, snowmovile?" He he he. :) R's pretty proud of it, and excited about all the gas he's going to save this summer. :)

Here's the photos of the new motorcycle taken by R, and some photos of R on it, taken by nana:

And here's a short video nana took of R out for a ride:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

More blogging to come soon...maybe...we'll have a newborn next month so we'll see! :)

SKIN

I've been out of lotion for the boys skin for a little bit now, and I was looking at C's face last night and noticing it was a little dry. I told R that I should probably pick up some more lotion, then I looked at C's hands and said to him (C), "Your hands are dry, too."

What does C say to this?

"No, they have skin on them."

Sometimes I wish I could follow that kid around all day with a tape recorder, with some of the things that come out of his mouth... :)

"WATER PART!"

Last weekend we drove down to Green Bay to stay at the Tundra Lodge. And, of course, go to the water park. We went last year over C's birthday and he had a great time, but IJ didn't get to enjoy it as much as that was the day that he hurt his arm. So I was just as excited for him to be able to have fun this time. The whole drive down all C talked about (when he wasn't paying attention to the movie on the dvd player) was going to the water park, where's the water park, are we at the water park yet? And IJ would enthusiastically shout "water part!". So when we finally got to the "water part", they were pretty thrilled. We went up to our room and the boys climbed all over everything, with C shouting how the water park had this, and the water park had that. He found the bathroom and exclaimed "Wow! The water park even has a potty!", and then promptly dropped his pants and peed in it. :)

C making himself comfy on the couch

IJ flopped out on the bed

We eventually made it down to the actual water park area (we mean old parents made them eat dinner first, and of course mommy had to shave her legs to wear her bathing suit with her belly sticking out... :) and the boys had a great time. IJ definitely enjoyed it much better this time. He even rode down the big slide with R more times than C did (so glad I'm pregnant and didn't have to go on that slide :). C ran all crazy from this area to that area, from up the jungle gym thing with the big water bucket, to the kiddie pool with the little slide and water fountains (which he kept sitting on to stop them from spraying, and karate chopping...), to the hot tub with R (at which point I wasn't glad that I was pregnant since the hot tub would have been nice...). IJ followed everywhere with his little lip chattering; it doesn't take him long before he gets cold. I really didn't want to get that wet, so when C decided that he wanted to go float on the river, I thought that was a great idea, something I could do with them without getting soaked (cause I definitely wasn't getting dumped on by that big bucket). I took C on a tube with me, and R took IJ. But of course on the river was a little area that had rapids and some water falling down from a pipe. I bypassed it the first time around with C, but he got mad because of course that's the exact part he wanted to go through. I was going to go through it so the water from the pipe fell on C, but of course the ass R pushed his tube right up behind me and pushed my tube so that I went directly under the water. I got soaked, and C, IJ, and R were all very amused. So much for the idea that I wasn't going to get that wet. :)

Ready for the "water part"!

After we finished at the water park, R and I took the boys down to get ice cream cones at the little place next to the gift shop. We took them back up to the room and I sat them right in the middle of the floor away from the beds. Because I knew it was going to be a mess, but I didn't care about the floor. I didn't have to clean it, but I still had to sleep in my bed. :) Needless to say, the boys required a bath after they were done.

The next day (Saturday) we took the boys to Toys R Us (we don't have one where we live, and I also had a $5 off coupon :). C saw the sign as we were approaching in the car and said, "Is that Toys R Us?". Yeah, he's only been to that store a handful of times in his life, yet he knows one when he sees one. As we pulled into the parking lot, C said (as if trying to convince us that yes, we do want to stop at this store) "I sure do love toys!".

Next up was our required trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Thankfully we also don't have one of these anywhere near our house, so whenever C sees the commercial on tv and asks to go, I just remind him that "it's very far away." Chuck E. Cheese is a special occasion only thing.

C plays some air hockey with daddy

C stops mid-dance to see himself on the Chuck E. Cheese tv screen

C on tv!

C dancing for Chuck E. Cheese tv

IJ driving with Bob

C having a good time

Saturday night in our new hotel R and the boys splashed around in the pool and hot tub.

IJ goes flying

And daddy throws C!

We finished off our weekend Sunday morning with a stop to Once Upon a Child, a children's resale clothing store. I always make sure we stop there every time we go to Green Bay. This time I bought a bunch of little pink girlie things, because I can now. :) I even found a little pink dress with a frog on it! (I collect frog things.) Now she'll have something to wear with the little pink frog socks I found at Target! :)

STRAWBERRIES

The other night C, IJ, and I planted some strawberry seeds in a pot. The boys decided that these seeds needed some music to get them growing faster (a la an episode of Jack's Big Music Show).

Here's C on guitar and IJ on drums, singing "Grow, Strawberries!"

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HE'LL NEVER LIVE IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA

Overheard earlier tonight:

IJ: "I'm Bob bob 'Quare Pants!" (Spongebob Squarepants)

C (with some disdain): "You're not even yellow with holes. Or square."

In C's eyes, IJ will never live up to Spongebob. :)

What do you think?

BIRTHDAY DOG SASHA AND IJ THE POTTY BOY

Tuesday was Sasha's first birthday. She is no longer a puppy, but a DOG. She doesn't seem to notice, though, since she's still acting like a crazy puppy. She's loopy. I can't even count the number of times in a day I say "Sasha, no!" or "Sasha, go on!" or "Sasha! Don't poop in the neighbor's yard!".

In a year, she's gone from this:

To this:

From getting into "trouble" like this (such a cute little muddy puppy she was):

To being this troublemaker (that's a dog toy stolen from the neighbor's yard in her mouth):

Yes, in a year Sasha has gone from this cute little puppy lump that was too scared to climb the stairs so I had to carry her, that would cuddle up and sleep in my lap and give cute little kisses, to a crazy dog that chews up my underwear and socks (and no one else's), who constantly tries to get to the neighbor's yard to poop, and just drives me relatively insane with how obnoxious she can be.

But I guess she's still cute. She sure can smile:

***

The past few days have been really good in potty training land. IJ has been relatively trained for a while now, ever since the day when he was a little over a year old that he asked to go potty after seeing C do it so many times. I put him up on the big potty not expecting much, but as soon as he was on there he pooped! He's used the big potty since then, cause I wasn't going to mess with one of those little potties if he understood what the big one was for. Since then I have gotten him mostly poop trained, but he was still doing most of his peeing in his training pants. I've been putting off putting IJ in underwear for a while, since that's what worked for C. But the puddles everywhere! But the past few days we've gone for it, and he's been wearing underwear for most of the day, and I've been giving him a few M&M's every time he goes in the potty. We've had a couple days where he's kept one pair of underwear dry the entire day! I can't believe how well it's been going already. The next step we have to work on is IJ recognizing that he has to pee on his own instead of me asking him around the time I know he should have to pee. Right now it goes about like this:

"IJ, do you have to go potty?"

IJ: "Nooooo."

"You're sure you don't have to go potty?"

IJ: "Nooooo."

"Okay, but remember, if you go potty like a big boy and keep your underwear dry, you get M&M's."

IJ thinks about this for a minute, and then "Mommy, I have to go potty and get M&M's!"

The only bad thing about the M&M thing is that C thinks that he should get some every time he goes potty too. So I'll probably have to wean off the M&M's soon and find some other potty reward. I saw a Dora potty chart with stickers on the Nick Jr. website that I'll probably print out. IJ likes stickers, so maybe that will work. I'm hoping IJ gets the hang of it faster than C did. C had the habit then, and still does now, of waiting until the very last moment to go potty. Pee had to be coming out of him before he would go, so a lot of the time he wouldn't make it. He's better now, but he'll still get the occasional wet spot in his underwear from waiting too long. I hope that IJ realizes that he can go potty before the pee is coming out. :)

Here's hoping he's totally trained by, like, next week. That would be awesome. :) At least I'd like him totally trained before his sister is born. It will be nice to only have one kid in diapers this time. :)

BELLY SHOTS

Today I'm going to share some pictures of my belly in all its 20 1/2 week pregnant glory (I took these a few days ago) because I can. Well, also because we never really took any pictures of my belly when I was pregnant with the boys. So I figure if this is the last time I'm going to be pregnant, I'd better document it. :)

kind of dark, but here I am (click the pictures to see larger)

belly from the side (I like this one)

belly from the front with my wonderful new surgery scar

I think I'll do some more in a couple of weeks, when I'm a little bigger. That is, if I don't procrastinate about it until May comes around... :)

THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

I had my ultrasound this past Wednesday, and after I left to pee (thank you, ultrasound technician :), the baby decided to cooperate and display what was between its legs. Get ready for it...

That's right. A GIRL. Female. Pink! Dresses! Hair clips!! :D Here's a couple more ultrasound pics:

I thought for sure the tech was going to say it was a boy. I mean I kind of thought it had to be a girl because of the morning sickness (I did not get any with either boy), but it was just the way she said, "Are you sure you want to know?" that made me think, I'm destined to have three boys. "Is it a male?", I asked, turning towards the screen to accept my destiny. "Oh no it's not." "It's not?!" And then I just about crapped my pants. ;) And then I went out and bought a girly pink dress and those baby girl headband things just because I could. Who cares if she won't be here till May and it's only January? :) I still have to get all new baby clothes either way. I'm going to have to add a little to the name of this blog, too. Mommy2Boys just isn't going to cut it anymore. I'll have to come up with something...

I'm also already up to 126 pounds. Last month I was 119. I gained about 50 pounds with both boys so I guess I'm well on my way. :) Although, maybe I should cut back a little on the cookie dough ice cream and double size three musketeers bars... (but I did have those ten pounds to make up for... :)

***

Our Christmas went went really well. This year was the first year that C wanted to ask Santa for specific things, so I think he really gets the whole Christmas thing now. He wanted three things: the Imaginext Adventures castle, "play-doh pick" (I have no idea why they call it that), and "the fishing game". Santa made sure those three things were underneath the tree. :) This was also the first year that we left milk and cookies for Santa. We made chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk, because when C and IJ talked to Santa online (a great uncle that dressed up), he told them those were his favorite. C and IJ also got one Christmas present from Santa a little early. We had gone downstairs to nana's and papa's, and that day they had bought the play-doh creativity center for the boys for christmas, but papa forgot to sufficiently hide it (it was sitting in their darkened bedroom, but the boys like to go it there and jump on the bed). We were all in the living room when C comes running all excitedly into the room shouting, "Nana! Nana! I saw it! C'mon! I saw it!" The look on her face was just priceless, since she knew exactly what he was talking about. I'll never forget that. :) She just told C that since he was such a good boy that year, Santa dropped off a present early. :)

Here are my favorite pictures from Christmas:

Christmas card photo

The first time they've been brave enough to sit on Santa's lap (IJ's pants are wet because he fell in a puddle on the way in). I didn't think IJ would willingly do it, because a couple of weeks before we had seen Santa at Target, and Santa came over to talk to IJ in the cart. IJ just refused to look directly at Santa, giving him a sideways glance with his eyes that said "If that guy touches me I'm gonna scream." Maybe he liked this Santa better?

Play-doh pick!

IJ and the "fishing game"

IJ extremely pleased about his new truck book with buttons

Look C! 33% more power!

R into the tunes (that's hearing protection with a built in radio so he can listen to music while using his tools)

Look! He actually posed for a picture!

We have to teach him that hockey is different from baseball...

C playing with his castle

The rest of December's pictures are here.