Today

Motherhood. Oh my gosh. Some days it is just too much.

Things I saw today (in my own house):

A dead fish
A window sill scribbled with pink chalk
My favorite candle riddled with holes & scrapes from a pen
Poop in the tub
A bird fly into the front window and land dead on my front porch
Pencil scribble on a can of diced tomatoes
Pencil scribble on my counter top
5 loads of clean laundry dumped out of baskets in a heap
Scotch tape on the wall
2 inches of snot hanging from a tiny nose
A dead roach
Tongue marks on the front window
A huge white spider web on the front bush that looks fake, but it is not
1 inch of snot smeared across a pink cheek
A bloody knee
A bloody band-aid on the floor an hour later
My 2 1/2 year old little girl hitting herself in the face because she's mad
1 smashed raspberry on the kitchen floor, with 2 ants on it
3 dixie cups with the top edge bit off all the way around
A puzzle box top being used as a stool and therefore completely broken
My 2 children in an actual brawl
A stack of bills & miscellaneous paperwork glued together with a glue stick
The glue stick on the carpet without the lid
My 4-year old son, telling his sister to touch the poop before it goes down the drain
A rotten cucumber in the back of the fridge
Remnants of a homemade masking tape spider web created a week ago in the dining room
Dried ketchup on my daughter's blankie
Both my kids licking the glass shower door (after the tub incident)
A pair of scissors on the couch
New chapstick in the pantry without the lid
New toothpaste in the bathroom without the lid (where are all these lids?!)
A 30-foot path of destruction we used to call the playroom
At least 10 random princess stickers strategically placed in non-sticker areas
A Ninja turtle on top of Snow White
3 little stuffed animals stuck on my acupuncture stress-relief mat


Please don't ever ask me again if I plan on having any more kids.

Cute pics

We had a fun weekend in Virginia with Todd's family. However, my camera was dead and we did not take a single picture. So, here are some cute pictures from last week when Allie debuted her summer 2011 dress that is already too short. (Glad I looked in the back of her closet and accidentally found a few things I thought we were saving for next summer but she's already too tall to wear now.)

Oh, and she came in my room and asked me if she could wear one of "Mommy's neckwaces," so I let her pick from my huge collection (3 total necklaces). She chose this necklace. I later realized these are real pearls.

Field Trip!

Zachary's class at school took a field trip to Build-a-Bear to pick out a class mascot. They made little hats for the trip (below). Zachary told me the two bears on his hat were Mommy & Daddy. When I looked at them, I had to laugh. Daddy has a tie. Mommy has eyelashes and a bathing suit on. Ha!!

The employees were enamored by all the boys! They couldn't believe this many boys could be so well-behaved (Thank you God for a wonderful school full of kids like this!!).
Originally, the teacher said that the boys voted and decided on a Flamingo. However, there aren't Flamingos at Build-a-Bear, so a T-Rex was second choice.
When the man asked the kids what this T-Rex needed inside him, Zachary yelled "Air!" which made all the moms laugh. I guess he thought they'd blow him up versus stuff him with stuffing.

They had to "run" in place to give the T-Rex his energy.

Getting to comb his hair.

Walking like a T-Rex, with those short arms.

They chose a baseball uniform for T-Rex, however his hat didn't work at all because T-Rex doesn't have ears.

It was a cute little field trip and I enjoyed watching my little Z with his peers. (It's just nice to know your own kid isn't the weird one, right?!)

Last days of summer

We are trying to squeeze in every last drop of summer before it starts getting chilly. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Allie has decided summer is over and she's ready for Fall. No "fwimmin" for her on Saturday.

Stone Mountain Park

Grammy & Grandpa came for a visit this weekend and we headed to Stone Mountain Park with our Middle School youth group for a LOT of fun!!
Bubbles!

Dancing!

Super healthy food at any hour!

Awesome fireworks & laser show!

TONS of silliness with Grandpa!

Cheering for the train! (And testing Grandpa's ability to keep everyone safe!)

Water!

And the monument itself!

"Love" it

Zachary & I had a lengthy conversation about the human body the other night. He had a lot of great questions about how things work and what's inside. My favorite question was one he asked about his heart...

"Mommy, does my heart have a happy face on it?"

For the record, I don't.

Zachary makes up songs all the time. He'll start singing & dancing to whatever comes in his mind. One of his made-up songs has stuck for quite awhile and I think it's because of my initial reaction, which included an eyebrow raising, "what?!" and some laughter.
Awhile ago, he started singing & dancing to his own hip hop version of a song he made up about me. It goes something like this:

"My momma smokes
My momma's stinky
My momma smokes
My momma's free
My momma walks
My momma sleeps..."

The first time I heard it, I didn't even realize what he had said. Again, he makes up crazy songs all the time, so I just don't always pay attention to the words.
After a few more times, I realized what he was saying. One time, on our Hilton Head trip, he was singing it loudly at a poolside restaurant. The table next to us whispered that first line and laughed quietly, probably thinking, "Oh, that poor little boy...and his mother who smokes."

It makes me laugh every time he sings it, and I've been wondering where he learned about "smoking." I'm not concerned about him knowing about "smoking," that's just a fact of life (people smoke in public...inevitably he will see that). However, I wasn't sure how he knew it was called "smoking."
I didn't want to directly ask about the "smoking" thing, so as not to make it a big deal. But I had to know. So I said, "Zachary why are you singing that song?"

Zachary: "Because I like it."

Mommy: "What does it mean?"

Zachary: shaking his skinny hips, waving his arms, "My momma smokes...My momma's stinky...My momma smokes...My momma's free"

Mommy: "Why are you saying , 'my momma smokes'?"

Zachary: shaking his skinny hips, waving his arms, "My momma smokes...My momma's stinky...My momma smokes...My momma's free"

Mommy: "Zachary, What does 'smokes' mean?"

Zachary: "Mommy, when you cook in the kitchen there's smoke."

Back to School

The kids started their little mornings out at school this week. They go Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 9-12 while I work. It is a blessing for all of us!! They LOVE their teachers. Zachary is in a class of 8 boys!! So fun. Here are their first day of school pictures. They picked out their clothes! (Grandpa, you will be so glad!)

This is the first face Zachary made for me when I asked them to smile for a picture. Omg.

Camping!

We took the kids camping for the first time over the weekend. Todd & I are what we call "leech" campers. We have to go camping with people who know what they're doing because we don't. We come along and do our best to pitch in, but really, we are not even close to being ready to camp alone. So, Aunt Jen & Uncle Dan are our camp guides. Dan made an awesome fire and had our tents up before we even got there. Yes, it was so nice! This was right when we arrived, the kids were SO very excited to see "Baby Ari!"

Both our kids slept the entire night. Although it took Allie about an hour to get in sleep mode and she continuously asked "what's that noise?" about every single sound. That exchange of conversation really drove me nuts. I finally said, "Every noise you hear is either a bug, a frog, a bird, a plane, a car or a person." She wasn't satisfied with that answer.

Here's my SUPER cute niece:

Our bathroom.

We hiked through the woods to get to a beautiful lake (lake pictures at the bottom...). It was SOOO nice.

Uncle Dan had to work really hard making this popcorn. Really. It took a lot of effort. We enjoyed the fruits of his labor, again!

Jenny has more (& better) pictures on her blog and I think she's going to put a post about what she cooked for us on her other blog (YUM!).

Yes he did.

I took the kids to a nearby pool that also has a small version of a water park. It was a lot of fun! I was by myself with them and that made it a little difficult because Zachary is tall enough to go in some deeper areas and since he can swim, he wanted to do everything (which Allie can't do).
At first, I kept them in the kiddie area, but Zachary kept begging to go on the big slides (pictured below, first). I was really surprised he wanted to go on them, and he kept asking over & over. I thought he wouldn't be tall enough for the height requirement, but he was!
So, I walked up to the top with him and showed him how it worked. I talked with the lifeguard (because there weren't many people there at all that day) and asked if I could be at the bottom to catch him. I wasn't worried about him ON the slide, my concern was him being propelled OUT of the slide into 4 feet-deep water. He's just swimming on his own and I wasn't sure how he'd handle that. After the Mommy-concerns pep talk, Zachary still wanted to go.
And he did.
Many many times.
On the green one.

Then he got real crazy and said he wanted to do the yellow one. I explained that it would be pitch black dark in the middle and he wouldn't be able to see anything, but that eventually he'd pop out at the end. He wasn't concerned at all and still begged to go.
And he did.
One time.
Just as he popped out of the yellow one, I could see in his eyes that he would not be going down the yellow one again.

I am super proud of him being so brave!

They also had a 2 feet-deep play area that Allie loved. She decided she had to be brave that day too, since big brother was getting all these props for his bravery.
She started by putting her little chin in the water, then her lips, then her ears, then her nose....and just before we left, she was crawling on all fours with her head completely under water. She popped under the water over & over.
It was so darn cute watching her practice this and feel autonomous enough to keep going. She'd come out of the water and say, "I won!!"
I'm really not sure why she thought there was a competition.
(Oh wait....yes I do...! It's in her blood.)Here's Zachary, showing her the ropes. He is such a good big brother, letting her go down the baby slide first, because Mommy is at the bottom waiting and if he went first, she'd be all alone up there. I was really pleased with how he cared for her.

Suds

My dad calls this a redneck hot tub. The kids call it a bucket bath. Whatever one might call it, it is a lot of fun! All you need is soap, 2 buckets and a hose.

Knock Knock Jokes

In one of his monthly kid magazines (which we LOVE), there is a page of jokes for kids. Zachary has started making his own jokes, which is hilarious, but not because of the puns. Here are some examples:

Zachary: Knock Knock
Mom: Who's there?
Zachary: Peach
Mom: Peach who?
Zachary: Orange you glad I'm your kid?

****************

Zachary: Knock Knock
Mom: Who's there?
Zachary: Six
Mom: Six who?
Zachary: Mayonnaise!

***************

Zachary: Knock Knock
Mom: Who's there?
Zachary: DOG!
Mom: Dog who?
Zachary: Orange you glad I'm your kid?

***************

Zachary: Knock Knock
Mom: Who's there?
Zachary: Elephant
Mom: Elephant who?
Zachary: Elephants eat bamboo!

And at the end of all his jokes, he laughs hysterically. Of course we do too, but not for the same reasons! Love this funny kid!