Face Painting

We loaded up to go swimming yesterday. I got Michael buckled while Isabelle danced around the garage, put her in and left to grab the swim bag. I went to put it in the back seat and opened the door to this...

What, you ask, is this? Apparently, there was a squished piece of blue chalk on the garage floor and that's what Isabelle was "dancing" in. It was still caked all over the bottom of her shoes, so she decided to make the most of it. It is also all over Michael, just harder to see in the picture. What made it funnier was the looks we got at the YMCA as we walk in with two smurffed children. Of course she had to add her sunglasses and cheese smacking. I love this nut!

All Grown Up

Michael turned 18 months this week. I swear in the last month, he has turned into a such a little boy. I gave him a real hair cut, not just a trim over the ears and mullet control and he looks SO grown up. He went from 9 month clothes to 18 month clothes overnight, grew out of his soft bottom shoes and and now he looks like a boy. This is kind of long, so read on if you really want to know, but I've been shocked how often I've referred back to Isabelle blogs to see when she was doing things and what she loves, etc.

He loves basketball. We've been watching the NBA playoffs so basketball has been on alot. He wants to watch it and brings me the remote, "Bah Ball." He's adorable. He even noticed the folded up backboard in the cultural hall in sacrament meeting and then started yelling "Bah Ball" of course right when it was dead silent. He was in the 3rd percentile for height and 10th for weight. Poor kid needs to start loving hockey or soccer. He does love any kind of ball and loves to throw things and jump off of things.

I have loved watching the gender difference. At this age Isabelle was the perfect little mommy. Michael has a sound effect for everything. Isabelle STILL can't make a gun noise, but Michael sure can. He is intense. He loves to head butt and even when giving a hug doesn't just give you a hug, he goes crazy. I can't even describe it. Rocks, cars, puddles and balls. I love watching my little boy.

He recently has become quite the daddy's boy. He will just randomly start saying "Da-deee."

He gets sad when Mike leaves and comes to me "Da-deee?" After explaining he will be back, he brightens up. Mike now gets attacked by both kids and Jake when he walks in the door. You think I exaggerate with attacked...you haven't seen it.

He had to help Dad change the brakes on the car.

He sticks his tongue out just like Dad when he concentrates (you can see it in the picture above).

He's obsessed with Toy Story. Woody and Buzz action figures are his best friends. He plays with them ALL the time and carries them around. If you look in the collage (click on it to make it bigger), he even uses Buzz to scratch his ears for him. He can spot Buzz a mile away in stores. Then he screams "Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" and is completely out of control for a good few minutes as we pass by. I can't help but laugh every time.

He can now say so many words and is talking a TON! Last week, most of the things he could say started with D or B. Dog, drink, daddy, bubbles, bath, Buzz, basket ball, banana, and more I can't remember but this week he's started saying everything, water, milk, cheese, shoes, hot dog, Matthew, Walter, Jennifer (people and dog that live around us), the list goes on and on. He's also moved on from telling me after he's gone potty to telling me while he goes potty.

He still LOVES his nightly bath. I can get him to stop doing anything including crying if I say bath! He's also a great helper with cleaning up. If he spills water in the kitchen he gets a towel and cleans it up. He loves to help vacuum and clean up his toys. He LOVES to read and is obsessed with books.

He will eat just about anything. He doesn't love most fruits and veggies especially if they are cold and slimy. He'll eat bananas and carrots, corn on the cobb and apples, but other than that, it's usually squished and thrown. He doesn't like to drink out of sippy cups and gets mad when he asks for a drink and you are holding a cup and get him a sippy cup. He'll throw it at you.

We've moved him out of the crib this week in preparation for baby brother. He's done really well. The best thing is he is too short to reach the door knob. Isabelle did awesome until she figured out the door knob 3 days after her transition. Michael has a few months. I've been making sure to hit bed time almost perfectly and made sure to wear him out all week for both nap and bed time and that helped too. He's so tired he crashes quick. Ahh the things you learn with experience. I'm sure I'll have a few new tricks for #3 too.

You can't quite see it very well, but he's laying on the return air vent. Most nights when we go to bed this is where I find him. He even has the lines in his face.

My grown little boy.

Swimming Lessons

Last summer when we lived by our neighborhood pool, we went swimming a ton. Isabelle LOVED to swim. We moved here in August and she still loved to swim. Over the winter we went swimming randomly at our YMCA, but not very regularly. At the beginning of April, it had been a couple of months since we had gone and Isabelle screamed hysterically. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" You would have thought we were beating her. Mike and I couldn't believe how absolutely terrified she was. Our little fish had turned cat. We decided it was time for swimming lessons. Until her session started we took her 4 times in 5 days and then once to twice a week since then hoping to get her over her fear.

Last week she had her first lesson. She was still quite nervous and thanks to bribery didn't cry once. And what, you ask, did she want to be bribed with? "The Cherry Game" I was willing to take her to the store and pick something out and if she did well she would get to play with it after each swim lesson. Instead, she wanted to play games at the YMCA while Michael was still checked in at the child watch. So she swam "like a fish" as she tells people and then we enjoyed a little game of Hi Ho Cherry-o. She LOVES it, looks forward to it, and is making some progress with getting her face wet, floating on her back and stomach, and jumping in. She's also meeting some friends, Mylo, Masyn, and Dylen who happen to be all girls (don't get me started on that one) that she loves to swim with after lessons.

The Lake House

Mike's mom has a brother that lives just a couple of hours from us. We went to go visit for the weekend while she was here. Just so happens, Mike's grandma and cousin and family were also in town. Mike's cousin has kids that our kids play with so well! They had a blast. We headed to their lake house for Saturday afternoon and BBQ evening.

Mike and Isabelle getting some jet ski time. It was cold, but they had fun.

There is a little beach when the lake is low. The kids played in the sand and freezing water and loved every second.

Michael stood around throwing sand.

Mike with his uncle, cousin and baby Ethan.

It was also free fishing day! Nikki is my favorite fishing buddy, so we HAD to go out even though we didn't catch anything.

The kids played in the hot tub, played games, and ran around. We all stayed up too late, ate too much delicious food, and visited. It was a great weekend. It was also nice to hang out with lots of family. We miss them!

Spokane's "zoo"

Spokane doesn't have a zoo. This to me is tragic. I LOVE the zoo and LOVE taking my kids to the zoo. However, Spokane does have "Cat Tales zoological training center." I thought that would be a fun thing to do with Grandma and Grandpa in town. We went to check it out. We probably will not be doing that again. It was cool, for about 15 minutes, 30 if you walked REALLY slow, but charge you like you'll be entertained for at least an hour. This place has over 20 tigers, a few lions, leopards, cougars, bobcats etc. All cats. You are decently close to the animals so you actually see everything.

We were too early for feeding time. To get our money's worth, we went down the street for a quick lunch and headed back for what we thought was going to be exciting...The exciting part was watching all the animals pace and play knowing it was almost time to eat. Eating time itself was not so exciting.

They did have one of the most beautiful male lions I have ever seen. His mane was healthy and huge and he was so pretty!

All in all, I'm glad we got to go. It was a fun little outing and the kids really liked it.

Easter

I have a really bad habit of procrastinating any post that requires more than 3 pictures....so here we go. Mike's mom came and spent two weeks with us and Mike dad came for 5 days of that. They were here for Easter and lots of fun. I'm just posting about Easter, I'll do the rest another day. Anyway, we had a great time! I'm also not changing the order of these pictures, so enjoy out of order!

Easter was the first pretty day of the year! We had to play outside even for a few minutes before church because it FINALLY felt like spring!

We all dyed eggs, even Michael. The best part was there was only one minimal spill and it wasn't even caused by one of the kids. :)

Isabelle had a blast! Once they were all dyed, she started re-dying them all because it was so much fun.

Final products. You can tell Isabelle was involved, they are almost all blue! The two that got eaten were blue too.

Grandma and Grandpa gave the kids a great big bucket and shovel, perfect for our dirt/gravel driveway and surroundings. They also got some Toy Story figures. Michael got Buzz and Isabelle got Jesse. They LOVE them! By far the most played with toys in our house now. Look at those happy faces!

They woke up to "Spring Spheres" hidden everywhere. I heard that on the radio. That is the new politically correct term for Easter Eggs. Seriously people! Ridiculous! Anyway, Isabelle had to open every egg on the way to see what was in them. Michael did a good job, but got distracted pretty quickly. He did not get distracted eating the candy inside though.

We had a nice Easter dinner that night and enjoyed the day with Mike's parents. It's always fun to have family around for holidays!

Denial

Apparently, Isabelle still wants a sister. Sometimes I think this face is too pretty to be a boy. I also have to stock up on horrible older sister blackmail pictures. Being "that" older sister myself, I just couldn't resist. And so it begins... :)

Michael is recovering from an awful double ear infection. He had 103 fever for numerous days, and would scream hysterically if we took out his pacifier or scream at the drawer where I keep them. He usually grunts at you if you take it away, but then runs off happily. I finally took him in and sure enough, ears. This is our first bout of ear infections. All I have to say, I now have empathy when parent's say their kids have had ear infections. It stinks! We have watched lots of "Buzz!" The beauty of this obsession, there are 3 movies to choose from. It's not the same one over and over and over again, instead it's the same three. He's recovering and today was his first day almost back to normal.

Mother's Intuition

is a load of CRAP! At least for me! I'm now 0 for 3 in guessing what my kids are. We're getting another boy!

Isabelle came with us to the ultra sound. She was adorable. When we first told her it was a brother, she said, "I need a sister!" We told her it was a brother again and she said, "But I need a sister!" She looked like she was about to cry. A little bit further into the ultrasound, she said, "Are you sure it's still a brother?" It was cute. By time we left she said, "I'm excited for both my brothers."

We were all kinda in girl mode. This pregnancy has been very similar to Isabelle's and very different from Michael's. With Isabelle so sure, we all kinda started thinking that way. Time to change the thinking! Now we have to come up with a boy name! I don't love any of my old favorites. It's kinda strange. Hurray for modern technology! I have a few months to get into boy mode. :)

TV Junkies

Sippy cup, check. Blanket, check. Not moving so I can accomplish something (usually a nap these days) check check!

Yes, Isabelle still sucks on her blanket.

Michael already loves TV as much as Isabelle. She has never been a great TV watcher until recently. She will now watch just about anything. Her favorite is Olivia, and occasionally will watch Barney, Dora, or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Her favorite movie right now is any of the Toy Story movies. I used to never worry about her watching or wanting to watch too much TV until lately. With me being so tired, I have found myself letting her watch 2-3 shows a day, where I used to only let her watch 1-2. And she sure tries to get more out of me. Depending on the day, I cave. We eat lunch, Michael goes down for a nap, I turn on an Olivia, and I take a nap and don't worry about a thing. It's pretty awesome.

Michael LOVES TV. He loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the Toy Story movies too. He will sit on the couch, point at the TV and grunt at me. Then if I don't do anything, he comes over and brings me the remote and says "Buzz!" If the TV is on, even if it's not one of his shows, he will sit still in a few minute intervals. If it's Toy Story, he will sit in 15-20 minute intervals. Shocking!

Not My Talent

"Organized people are just too lazy to look for something when they need it." A quote Mike and I laugh about often. Apparently, we aren't lazy.

My mom is very organized. My mother-in-law is also very organized. By organized I mean specifically those smoldering piles actually get put away regularly, things actually have a home and get put in them, you can ask for so and so's 4th grade report card and so and so's birth certificate and 1o seconds later you are holding them in your hands. Neither Mike or I got this trait, AT ALL! We are two of the most unorganized people you will ever meet! We hold something, look at it, and put it on the nearest surface because we don't know where to put it and then before someone comes over, that pile gets scooped up and hidden for another day. Granted over the last 7 years of our marriage, my organization skills have improved by LEAPS and BOUNDS, so where am I? Still no where close to an organized person! If you ask for something truly important, birth certificates, car titles, social security cards, I now actually know where they are and you can be holding them in 10 seconds. But if you are looking for a t-mobile bill from 2007 GOOD LUCK! It's in the house, it hasn't been thrown away, but GOOD LUCK, hope you have 2 good hours! Being pregnant with #3, I just keep thinking, "If I'm drowning now....OH CRAP!" Everyone already says 3 is the hardest, so let's throw in complete unorganized chaos to the madness. I'm sure it's also some nesting in me that the mess is really getting to me and I want to fix it!

Last year at tax time, (Mike does our taxes) it took a few days of on again off again working on it and asking, "Julie, where is...?" A few hours later and some things actually put away or thrown away we found it. This year I was determined to do better! All last year I started a system and was decent at keeping it up. Some times it was neglected for a month or a couple of months, but because I finally found what worked for me, it was a couple of hours in front of Pride and Prejudice (yes, the long one) and I was back in business. This year taxes were better! It only took ALL day on Saturday. Most of his questions were 3-5 minute finds with some even just seconds. There was still 1 mystery. I'm sure it's in a box, somewhere, just don't ask. Next year will be even better!

I know I didn't know either my mom or mother in law when they were pregnant with #3, but I can GUARANTEE they were much farther along the organizational trail than I am. I've observed, gotten lots of tips, and asked lots of questions and am on the right track. I just need one or two weeks of no cooking, cleaning, or kids and my house will be perfectly organized. :) Until then, when you come to my house, expect to see piles and don't open any closet doors. I'm improving, but still have a long way to go!

I'm down to 2 spots that look like this. It used to be like 15! And after I took this picture, I actually cleaned it, so now I only have one spot that looks like this. Come back tomorrow...it will be back, just in a slightly different form.

I'm not accountable for my husband's organizational skills. Look at his office. I'd like to say that I can help him, but who are we kidding?

So over the next month, my focus is less mopping and a little more organizing...we're going to see what we can do before #3 makes it's appearance and find a few more "homes" for things and improve a little bit more.