M1 meets a celebrity....

...of course he doesn't know he met a celebrity. This is M1 and his best buddy from preschool with Jack Hanna, the Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo. M1's preschool field trip was at the Zoo this morning and Jack Hanna was at the newly opened Polar Frontier. I was thrilled that we were able to get this picture. I still remember standing in line as a little girl awaiting a turn to meet Jack Hanna, probably over 20 years ago.
We love the zoo, and go often, Jack Hanna has done a lot of great things not only for our Zoo but with animal education on a national level.

So even though M1's first celebrity meeting might not have been overly memorable for him, it was for his Mommy. And that's all that really matters anyway, right?

Wordless Wednesday ~ No they are not twins

M1 is on the left!

Wordless Wednesday

Toy Story, a 3D movie. M1's first movie in a movie theatre.

For more WW check out 5 Minutes for Mom and Kati.

Howdy Ya'll, Welcome to the Farm!

The Birthday Boy, this is my favorite picture of him!!
M1 likes tractors. A lot. So it was no surprise when he decided he wanted a 'tractor party'. I tried to convince him that a pirate theme would be much more fun (I had visions of a treasure hunt, complete with treasure chest) he insisted that he did in fact want a tractor party. So the John Deere invitations were sent out, and the house took on a farm theme.

The guests were welcomed by a sign, hay bale and tractor. Along with pumpkins, mums, corn stalks and scarecrow (which will stay up and double as fall decorations).

The decorations were pretty simple, we sponsored alter flowers at church the morning of the party. I had called the florist to see if the arrangements could be all yellow, to keep with the green and yellow of the John Deere tractors. They were nice enough to oblige. Here's a picture of one of the arrangements and one of the decorated tables. I literally just put vegetables from the garden on the tables and buffet for decoration and it turned out great (and cheap)!!

Keeping with the farm theme, I made a farm cake..

Close up or the barn...

I thought I had taken a picture of the buffet table but I guess not. We served hamburgers and hot dogs, pasta salad, cheese and crackers, chips, pretzels and dip and watermelon. It was a hit!

Thank goodness it was such a nice afternoon (Sept 13, I'm a little behind posting) and most of the party took place outside.

These two are going to worry me when they grow up...

M1 and all the presents...

Ready for cake and ice cream....

I the 'tractor party' turned out pretty good. The decorations were beyond easy, and cheap!!

I'm up to my ears in stickers!

As I mentioned last week, M1 gets a sticker for learning his Bible Verse at school every week. So far we are 2 for 2. Not to mention he manages to score stickers every where we go, and he usually leaves Target's Dollar Spot with a sheet every time we stop in there.

Most of the stickers end up in a basket with his coloring books and he uses them as he colors. Seeing those stickers he's getting for reciting his Bible Verse took me back to childhood. I remember sitting in my friends room showing each other stickers from our sticker book and suddenly I felt M1 Had.To.Have a sticker album. One problem, they don't make sticker albums like they use to! (Wow, I sound old!) These days stickers come in a book, no blank pages to stick stickers!

So I made one!
I picked up a sketch pad from Michael's (using a 40% off coupon of course)
Picked out some scrapbook paper measured it to cover the front and wrap around to the inside cover as well.

I attached using Martha's Brand of Mod Podge stuff. If I were to do it again I would use something different to attach. This made it too wet and even after it's dried you can tell it was too wet. But it's for a soon-to-be 4 year old, who will carry it around and probably trash it in no time so I'm not overly concerned.

I sat a heavy book on the top while it dried. (Adult Beverage is optional) Waiting for it to dry was the hardest part!!

After it dried I decorated it with, well, stickers and ribbon!

I also added some of his stickers to the first couple pages to help get him started!

I had so paper scraps so I added those as well for color!

Update: This was part of his birthday present and he went nuts!! He loves his book! More on his birthday to come, it was a John Deere theme party!!

Has anyone seen my soapbox?

There it is!!

Give me a minute let me climb up here.

I don't do this often but every once in a while I just gotta get it out!!

~~Jon Gosslin, you are an ASS! I mean seriously??? You can not go on national TV (thanks ABC) and say that you despise the mother of your children and then follow that up with everything I do is for my kids. Hey Moron, they are going to see that clip some day!! And the twins are old enough to understand what you just said.

And really? You don't know why every one thinks you are out drinking and partying all the time? Are you seriously that stupid. You, at a bar, drinking and smoking with girls hanging on you are on the cover of every tabloid. Those tabloids might make stories up, but those photos speak for themselves. Is the partying, drinking and smoking for the kids too?

And one last thing douchebag, you called the cops on the MOTHER OF YOUR CHILDREN!?!?! How are you going to explain that to the kids!?!?!

Ok, I lied, this is the last thing. Kate just got a Playboy offer. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

~~The Haters of Duggers. Yes, they have 19 kids. That sounds like a lot to me, but I can barely handle the 2 I've got. Have you seen how good those kids are? If my kids were that good I might have 19 too! (Hubby, I'm just kidding!!) So everyone is bitching that they have too many kids. But guess what people, you are not raising those kids, the Duggers are. The kids seem happy and they are getting an education. And guess what?? They DON'T collect welfare. Leave them alone!

~~OSU Buckeyes, Could you bring your game on Saturday. Please?!? You are going to be playing USC on Saturday. U.S.C. Got it?? Try not to forget how to play ball. Yea, you won last week against Navy. Barely. It was Navy! Try not to get your faces smashed in this weekend!

~~M1, when did you get this big? Seriously, you are (almost) 4?

Wasn't this picture taken a week and a half ago?? (Not to bad for 18 hours of labor huh???)

I know this picture was taken last Saturday, right? This was your first OSU game, you were 3 days old. This was last Saturday before the Navy game right?? Right???

How can he really be almost 4????? John Deere Birthday Party on Sunday, Birthday on Monday!

My Preschooler

In all the madness of the last 2 weeks I just haven't sat down to blog. But in honor of Labor Day weekend and all of the laboring around the house Hubby and I got done, I'm turning over a new leaf and blogging!! I have sooooo many fun projects to share. We truly had the best 'working weekend' ever and I think we both felt very happy with all we got accomplished over the weekend.

In other news M1 started preschool last week. He's going to the local Christian preschool 3 days a week in the mornings. It's the same school he went to last year. Last year he only went on Fridays, and he didn't start until December so this is a little different.

He was clearly traumatized and didn't want to leave the house in the morning for school.

I think M2 was upset by it all too!

He was absolutely miserable on the drive over to school...

I think he just didn't want to go in...

I don't think he wanted to leave the parking lot...

He even stalled once inside...
M2 did too!
M2 also made himself comfortable in the class room.

I'm not sure he will be alright all by himself....

So clearly he was really excited, he still is and seems to really enjoy it. Thank goodness!! I'm so happy for him. They have to learn a Bible Verse a week and recite it to the teacher on Fridays. He learned his on the first day and told anyone that would listen. He even told his Sunday School teacher and our Pastor on Sunday. If they know the Bible Verse they get a sticker. I think we are going to end up with a pretty large sticker collection.

The first day Hubby, M2, Mama and myself all took him in. The teacher (who I LOVE) took a family picture of all of us. I can't wait to see it. I think that was such an awesome idea. But she's been the teacher there for 43 years so I'm sure she has a lot of awesome ideas. I am looking forward to a very exciting school year!!

Keep talking....

As I was walking out of M1's room last night after tucking him into bed he stops me and we have this convo:

M1: Hey Mommy
Me: Yea buddy?
M1: Megan and I are going to send each other postcards.
Me: What?
M1: We are going to send each other postcards.
Me: Ok (anything to shut him up and get him to sleep)
M1: Can you help me with them tomorrow?
Me: Sure, Buddy.

So Megan is the little girl that lives 4 houses down from us. Her parents and Hubby and I all went to school together. Her and M1 are in the same preschool class, and we pretty much see them on a daily basis. Therefore I see no reason for them to need to send each other postcards. Sometimes I wonder where he gets this stuff.

For more "The Kids Said What" visit Cammie.

He Said What?

Last night I decided to take M1 to 'to store' to get his 'Big Boy Packpack' for preschool. He of course choose 'Light Queen'. As we were leaving 'to store' I ask M1 what he wants for dinner. He replies with "Well... we could go somewhere" Ok, where do you want to go, I ask. He points to Taco Bell and says "We could go to that Ringy Dingy place" If I hadn't of seen him pointing at the Taco Bell sign with the bell ringing I never would have known what he was talking about! It was all I could do to not laugh at him! I tell him he doesn't like the food there, he insists that he does in fact like the food at the 'Ringy Dingy place'.

After some discussion he decided on the 'Place with the lellow sign'. As we are sitting in the McDonald's drive thru waiting to order he repeats multiple times that I need to let him order. I told him I could handle it and order Happy Meals for he and M2. However his window was down and after I got my total, he screams "And don't forget 'to toy'!"

That kid cracks me up! For more "The Kids Said What" visit Cammie.

Wordless Wednesday

'Nuff said.....

For more WW check out 5 Minutes for Mom and Kati.

I wonder what he was working on...

...when he fell asleep????

For more WW check out 5 Minutes for Mom and Kati.

The vs. To

When to use to vs. the. Seems like a pretty simple concept right? Except we have noticed recently that M1 no longer uses the. He uses to instead. We've just noticed the word to creeping in more and more. I don't even know when he used the word the last. And I don't know how to correct him. Some examples of his the vs. to issues are:

Where's to Baby?

Are we going to to store?

What's to dog barking at?

What's to kitty doing?

Tractor won't fit into to barn.

Where's to ball?

It was cute at first, but now I afraid it's formed into a habit and I don't know how to turn it back. We keep trying to correct him and he looks at us and says 'Huh?' Clearly he doesn't understand the difference, but I know he used to use the word the, I just don't know why or when he stopped.

And the sad part? Hubby and I have gotten into a habit of calling M2, To Baby.

Wordless Wednesday

M1 and his love....
For more Wordless Wednesday visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday, The Easter Egg Coloring Event

I have no words to describe how the Easter Egg Coloring Event went....See for yourselves....

I did however learn that egg die will NOT wipe off of walls, it stains them, and then you have to BEG Hubby to repaint the stained area......Ahem...

No More Monkey's Jumping On The Bed...

This is what happens to little boys who jump on the bed....

Eeeeewwwww, nasty huh?

M1 had been exceptionally bad and full of attitude for most of the day, Poor Mamaw was about at her wits end with him. As I have mentioned before he's been a ball of attitude lately. As you can imagine when bedtime approached the attitude didn't get any better. Hubby tried to get his pj's on him to put him to bed and M1 ran under the bed and wouldn't come out. He's been doing that a lot lately. So Hubby told him it was bed time and if he wasn't going to come out then he could sleep in his clothes, and left his room. Hubby said a few minutes later he heard a 'crash' and crying, when he went back in M1's room he was sitting on his bed, crying and holding his face and blood was everywhere.

I was downstairs cleaning up the kitchen and doing dishes from dinner, I heard M1 crying but I figured he was screaming b/c he was put to bed, that happens a lot these days.

Hubby came screaming and running down to the kitchen carrying M1, blood was everywhere. I started cleaning him up so we could figure out what was bleeding. Turns out his bottom 2 teeth went through his upper lip. After several attempts to figure out what happened we think that he was jumping on his bed and fell and hit the bottom of his chin on his head board.

Hubby called Mamaw and she thought we should take him to the ER. So Mamaw had to come over to sit with M2 so we could take him, he wanted us to both go. Since M2 has a trach only Hubby, Mamaw and myself can be alone with him. He was already a sleep but we can't take the chance of a friend or neighbor being with him and something happening and them not know what to do.

So off to Children's we went!! We couldn't get his lip to stop bleeding. When we got there the girl at the desk took one look at him and paged a nurse to come right up for a lip injury. We were taken back immediately, before they even took any of our information. The nurse we had was FABULOUS and the Dr was really nice to. M1 was so good and brave at the hospital, he just sat on my lap while they worked on him. I was really surprised and proud at how good he was there. They fixed him up and sent him on his way, with a popsicle of course.

His whole face is swollen and bruised today. I feel bad for him. He's pretty upset that his lip won't 'melt' (swelling to go down). I though that was a good term to use.

Hopefully he learned his lesson that you don't jump on the bed, or hide when your Daddy is trying to put your pjs on you!

Monkey Poop

So I've been finding this white fuzzy stuff everywhere for about a week...

On the living room rug...

On the kitchen floor...

In the dining room...

So I begin to realize something is going on and call M1 in....

Me: M1, have you seen this white fuzzy stuff?

M1: Sure have.

Me: Do you know what it is?

M1: Sure do.

Me: What is it?

M1: Poop.

Me: Poop?, what do you mean it's poop?

M1: That little brown monkey keeps pooping.

Me: What? I don't know what you are talking about.

M1: That little brown monkey, that Mamaw got me, keeps pooping.

Me: Go get him buddy, let me see him...

Well doesn't that just explain EVERYTHING!!!

After a 5 min. rectal surgery that little brown monkey, otherwise known as Curious George was good as new.