Life with Little Boys

This is kind of an embarrassing story… but then again it is so funny I think I need to remember it forever… so here goes nothing…

It is naptime.  I’m in the bathroom taking Max potty before I lay him down.  I’m putting his pants back on and he lifts up his shirt and says “I don’t have that rectangle on my belly.”

Me:  Rectangle?  What Rectangle?

Max:  You know that little rectangle thing.  I don’t have one.

Me: Yes you do.  You have a belly button.  See.  It is right here.  It is a circle.

Max:  No.  Not that.

*I’m leaned over now putting his pants on.  Now I have a scoop neck shirt on today.  Not like hoochy-momma scoop neck shirt.  A very appropriate scoop neck shirt.  Promise!

Max: (sticks his hand down the top of my shirt…between… well you can all imagine) See that little crack there.  That rectangle.  I don’t have that.

Me:  Maxwell David!!!  Are you kidding me right now!!! 

Die laughing and put him to bed immediately because I just don’t know what to say or what to do!

Baby Bump–17 Weeks

Oh Emotions!  When I was younger I cried so easily.  I cried if I was happy.  I really cried if I was sad.  I cried if I saw something sad.  I cried if someone else cried.  I cried.  I cried.  After having kids it got better.  I started to get control over it.  Now.  Pffsh.  Gone.  No control.  I cry over everything imaginable!!  Everything.  Here are some examples lately… watching American Idol and a contestant gets real emotional – TEARS!  Like ugly tears/crying face!  Jesse came home one day from work with a coffee in his hand.  I didn’t think anything of it – thought it extremely strange because he is never going to fall asleep with caffeine that late at night.  Then he tells me… he brought it for me!  CRYING!  I literally had tears streaming down my face!  It was coffee and him telling me how special I am to him.  Couldn’t stop crying!  Mallory, Max and I are singing songs one day.  We started signing “5 little ducks went out one day over the hills and far away…”  Anyway each time you sing it you lose a duck.  It ends with “Sad mother duck went out one day…” and we do a really sad voice.  Well Maxwell does his sad face and he bursts into tears!  Not kidding!  He is crying!  Now I’m crying!  Because he is so precious that he is crying because of sad mother duck!  I so desperately wished I would of recorded that moment.  It was priceless. Max totally has my sensitive side!!  Dropping Mallory off at school the other day and there is a little girl crying in her Mom’s arm because she doesn’t want her to leave.  My eyes fill up with tears!  The teacher aid turns around and looks at me and I said “that makes me cry too.”  She looks at her watch and says “I actually want to time it” It was 10 seconds of crying for that little girl. 

Oh glorious food!  Now that I am over the hump of morning sickness – food is beyond amazing!  The simplest item will be the most wonderful thing I have ever tasted.  I was on a huge spaghetti kick for a week!  It was a night where I needed a quick supper and decided I had some canned tomatoes and tomato sauce from my garden that I would just make up some spaghetti sauce… not to toot my own horn but that was the best spaghetti sauce ever!!  I ate every last drop of it!  Sub Sandwiches are also divine!  I have to stop talking about food – I’m getting hungry!

Exercising!  I’m proud to say I’m still going to the gym about 3 times a week.  The most amazing part to me is that I’m getting up before the sun and going!!  I attempted going at night and that was just too crazy.  So I’m going in the mornings before Jesse leaves for work.  The alarm goes off and I pop right out of bed.  Literally.  I’m a snooze addict.  I have never hit the snooze on gym mornings.  The other two mornings when I have to get Mally to school- snooze!

Boy or Girl!  In the very beginning we said we were not going to find out.  Well.  The ultra sound date is set.  The closer it gets the more crazy I get.  I think I need to know!  My Type A personality just might not let this go with not knowing!  Before we said – we have a girl and a boy we have everything we need – no need to find out.  Now I’m thinking… yes we have everything but do I want everything sitting here waiting until after baby arrives?  Having to organize and get clothes together after baby arrives?  This is baby #3… what is life going to be like with three children in the house?  Will I have time to organize clothes and dresser drawers?  Will I have time to get to the store to pick out the baby blanket?  We are a blanket family – my kids need that special blanket to carry around forever.  Oh to be Type A!!  Ahhh!

Heartburn.  Check!

Baby moving?  I’m not sure yet.  I have moments where I think – ah.  oh.  hm.  maybe.  um.  possibly.  oh.  probably not.  gas.  soon…

Not twins!  I thought for sure there were twins.  I secretly wanted twins.  Two babies in one shot!?  Heck yes!  At my last appointment they told me nope.  Just one.  And if she was wrong about that she would be really surprised.  : )

Clothing.  Ugh.  I don’t remember clothing be so uncomfortable before.  I’m already into my maternity clothes.  Which are kind of big from being stretched out from two rounds of this!  So the pants fall down!  The shirts really make me look pregnant!  So I have just found the most amazing yoga pants and t-shirts and I don’t get out of them.  I am so not a yoga pants kind of girl either.  I’m always dressed.  Every day.  Whether I’m leaving the house or not.  Nope.  Yoga pants now.  Unless I’m leaving then I’ll tough it out with real clothes… and sometimes I don’t. 

I purposely put “nice” clothes on for these pictures – I ended up in yoga pants and sweatshirt before the night was over.

I’ve been feeling very pregnant – but looking at these pictures I’m for sure pregnant!  Wowsers! 

Mystery Pox

I mentioned how Mallory had a bit of a fever all weekend.  Well she woke up on Monday with a fever still – and one spot above her lip.  Didn’t think anything of it.  Thought she scratched herself.  The rest of the day she was kind of itchy – but nothing that I thought was abnormal.  It has been bitterly cold and I thought she just need an extra dose of lotion.  So I gave the kids a bath and I gave her lots of lotion.  Sent her on her way.

Tuesday she wakes up before the alarm ready to go.  I asked her if she felt okay – yup.  Ready to go have a great day at school – yup.  Sent her to school. 

Went to pick her up from school that afternoon and I noticed a few more spots on her face.  Kind of thought it was strange.  But maybe she had a reaction to something.  It was again super cold and windy so maybe it was that.

That night she is sitting next to me playing the kindle and she is scratching and itching like crazy.  It was so much that I told her she needed to stop all that scratching.  : ) 

We are getting ready for bed and she ran out of the bathroom with no clothes on and came to show me what she has been scratching!

I took one look at her leg…

Looked at Jesse and said… I think she has chicken pox!  It would explain the fever!  Quick search on the internet and yup you can still get the chicken pox even though you were vaccinated.  It will be just a much more milder case – which seems to be true thus far. 

She hasn’t developed any more spots.  But I called her Dr. and she is to stay home the rest of the week.  No school.  No awanas.  No ballet.  Thankfully there is no school the rest of the week – so she isn’t missing much there.  She has missed a lot of awanas already this year due to the extreme cold and snowy winter we are having.  And ballet is just to get her wiggles out and let her be girly.

The one pox on her face she was scratching this morning and it opened up.  I showed her my very own chicken pox scares and told her to not scratch them or she’ll have permanent reminders of the chicken pox!  : ) 

So then I felt like I needed to call the school and tell them.  I left a message for her teacher and her teacher called back all worried about “Miss Mallory” and then told me that she has had 4 cases of scarlet fever in her classroom – and did I think it was that?  I did some research and nope.  I do not think it is scarlet fever. 

So far (knock on wood) Max has been staying in the clear!!

Cottage Getaway

Early last week Jesse mentioned he had Monday (today) off for MLK Day.  I casually mentioned we should go up to the cottage for the weekend since he had an extra day off.  We checked the weather – it was suppose to be a nice weekend.  That made the decision all the easier.  We went up Saturday afternoon and spent the night.

We worked on the sledding hill.  We got it to start at the deck and go all the way down to the river.

The river had open water right at the end of our run.  We tried to build up a bank so you wouldn’t go over.

But by day two it was super fast and we flew right over the bank.

Grandma is a screamer!  She hoots and screams the whole way down.  Then flies over the bank and sticks one leg in the river!

Oh and she also pops the tube! 

For some reason Maggie followed her all the way down the hill.  Almost landed in the tube with her.  Maggie didn’t do that with anyone else – but when Grandma went she had to chase her.  Must have been of all the screaming and hooting.  We thought Maggie popped the tube… but then we popped another on day 2 and Maggie was no where in sight.  Guess they put a weight limit on them for a reason!?! 

After the sledding the kids snuggled and watched a movie.  Mallory all of sudden developed a low grade fever.  She had no other symptoms, just a fever.  She had the fever the rest of the time.  But she didn’t let it slow her down.  She is so tough when not feeling well!  We kept asking her if she didn’t feel good – and she kept telling us she was fine except she was really cold. 

We played board games with the kids.  Ate snacks.  Watched movies.  Ate more snacks.  Took cat naps.  Watched night fall over the river out the patio door.  Saw a deer come out on our sledding trail.  Lots of relaxing. 

I tried to turn the sledding pictures into a flip-book.  So you can see them slide down the hill.  First up is Mallory.

Then goes Max.

Grandpa’s turn.

Last is Grandma and Maggie.

Feeding the Fox

About 75% of the time… I think it would even be safe to say 85% of the time… my kids play together so well.  They have gotten to the point where they run off and play together and I go do my thing.  I don’t have to supervise.  I don’t have to listen in.  I don’t have to check on them.  They play.  Play hard. 

Sometimes Mallory is Rapunzel and Max has to be Flynn.  Sometimes Mallory is Carrie Underwood and I don’t know what Max is.  Sometimes Mallory is Hillary (from Lady Antebellum) and Max has to be Dave or Charles (from Lady Antebellum).  Sometimes Max is Adam (my brother) and Mallory is Monica (my brother’s girlfriend) and they carry around stuffed baby animals as Junior (My brother’s little baby).  Sometimes they play tractors.  Sometimes they play monster trucks.  Sometimes they are both cats.

Like I said they play and play super hard.  I truly love it!  I love listening to them.  There is lots of emotion in their playing.  There is lots of pretending.  Lots and lots and lots of pretending.

When they play hard like this – I have gotten into the habit that I don’t check on them.  I can usually hear them.  And you know when they are fighting because Max cries.  Max always cries.  So if there is no crying – they are good.  Sometimes I don’t even check if Max is crying.  He can tend to cry for very silly reasons and they work it out in a few seconds.  Other times I have to go in and be Judge Mom and solve the problem.

Because they play so well together Max has no idea how to play by himself.  He has always had Mallory right there with him.  Her going to school 2-days a week as really thrown us.  He is literally lost with out her.  He kind of paces around and asks me to play with him or to snuggle him and watch a show.  As soon as we get her back from school – they are gone!  They have missed each other and they run to play.

We like to think that their closeness comes from having to share – everything.  They share a tiny room.  They know no different.  They never fight about it.  They have their own beds and they are usually pretty protective of their beds – but everything else in the room is no big deal to them.  I even make them share drinks if I’m running errands and I stop to get lunch.  I make them share meals sometimes… they are not big eaters.  I seriously make them share a lot.  Sometimes they complain – but if they chose to complain then they just don’t get any.  That usually turns the complaining right off. 

All that being said.  This particular night the kids are once again playing.  I’m in la-la land… I think I was texting my Mom.  Jesse was there but I’m not sure what he was doing either.  They were playing so well and they were right in the same room as me – but I just never thought to peek at them. 

When it was time to pick up toys and go to bed – oh boy what we discovered!!  They had gotten into the rice again!  However this time they didn’t use the tractors for it.  They sprinkled it all over the floor feeding “the baby fox”.  It was everywhere!  So… you make a mess – you clean up your mess.  Both kids love vacuuming – so it was almost a treat to them.  Maxwell is so funny with the vacuuming.  He has a hard time handling it – so I couldn’t resist taking his picture.

Jesse says “Wow.  You had a lot of fox to feed.” 

Mallory says “No.  It was just one baby fox.”

Well that baby fox did not like to eat in one spot! 

Rice Farming

We were in a pretty big cold snap for awhile.  40 Below zero!!  Which means we stay in the house and go no where.  Pretty soon you run out of creative things to do with the kids.  On top of it all Mallory was on Christmas break so the kids had been home for days upon days upon days.  We really ran out of things to entertain ourselves with.

One night they got out the gigantic tractors and did some farming.  Pushing gigantic tractors, wagons & combines around just wasn’t enough.  We got out the rice and put the combine to real work!

Mallory… just like her dad… had to sample the rice.  (Jesse has to smell or taste everything – food or not.  Apparently Mallory got that trait too.)

Putting the rice into the wagon to go feed the cows. 

Taking turns.

This was not a fast process.  It took a while to work that rice into the wagon.

They then drove it over to the cows and fed them.

Yes my kids live in pajamas after 4pm.  Especially since they got footy pajamas for Christmas!  They love them. 

Family Time

It was the last day of our Christmas vacation and we decided we needed to get out of the house and do something as a family.  I thought we should go to the Children’s Museum.  I was only there once when Max was a baby and I have wanted to go back ever since but I wanted both Jesse and I to be there so we each could take a child and go explore.  Just in case they both didn’t want to do the same thing.

I made a tough call and decided not to bring my camera.  I wanted to… but I wanted to stop and just enjoy the time we had.  If I have my camera I tend to be behind the camera and not paying attention.  I decided cell phone shots would have to be good enough to capture the moment.  And I think they are.

The first area is a pretend city.  A grocery store with a check out.  Then we moved over to the diner where the kids cooked for us.

Little chefs behind the counter!

Jesse wanted a taco.  The kids are looking for a taco for him.  He was a pretty demanding customer.  ; )

Then they went over to the bank and got some money.  Lots of money!

There was an area where you could climb into a mouth and through the intestines and stomach – to learn about digestion, I guess. I can’t remember.  Anyway when you climbed up the tongue it would make a crunching sound.  Well that FREAKED Max out.  He cried and refused to go.  Mallory braved it and went in and learned that it was a slide. 

Upstairs was all about Wisconsin.  They got to milk a cow and drive a tractor.

Of course the tractor was a huge hit.

Famer Max.

The downstairs was all about water and crafts.  This was Max and Jesse’s favorite area!!  Mallory and I played for a bit and then we went to do a snowman craft project.  The boys never even knew we were missing until her craft project was done.  Then they came to find us.  Didn’t last long – Max was begging to go back to the water.  So we did.

It was a little water obstacle course.  You drop balls into the bin and then you have to use the water & pressure to get your ball over to the other side of the room.  The kids are going to have a race to see who’s ball will come out the other side first.

Jesse working the controls trying to move the balls into the pipes.  I told you he was a big fan of this area.  Check out that concentration!

Mallory’s ball made it into the tube first! 

They run over to the end and retrieve their ball… to bring it back to do it all over again!

We all loved our adventure out and it was a perfect ending to our Christmas Vacation.

Button Button

A new year brings… teaching kids responsibility! 

I’ve been meaning to get back into the rewards charts with the kids but haven’t done it.  January 1st – we are all sitting around the counter eating string cheese… I have paper and a pencil in front of me and decide that we are doing it.  Today!

We all collectively thought of different chores and jobs and tasks that each child could do.  I took notes.  Then we all shouted out what the rewards could be for doing said jobs/chores/tasks.

10 minutes later we are up and running with a smooth little operation.  I had chore charts stashed away on my computer just waiting for me to take the plunge to do it.  All I had to do was write up the chores on it and print it off.

While I was working away on printing charts they kids quickly ran off to do their jobs.  They earned three buttons right off the bat!!  They were so very excited!

Fast forward to actually filling out the chart and earning their final buttons for the day.  Mallory goes first.  She earns some buttons and then we remind her that she owes us two for sassing during Candyland.  Instant grumpy eyebrows.

Maxwell comes to do his buttons.  He earns some more buttons and then I remind him that he owes me two buttons for whinning when it was time to pick up toys.

Maxwell- It’s not my fault.

Me- It’s not your fault? 

Maxwell- Yeah.  My leg weally (really) hurt.

Me- Max you said nothing about your leg when it time to clean up toys.  And your leg always hurts when you don’t want to do something.

Maxwell – Here you can have my wittle (little) buttons.  I like the big ones.

Then he hugs me and says “thank you for my buttons.”

Jesse totally missed this whole conversation go down.  I thought it was so super funny!  I was trying hard not to laugh at him.  So when Jesse came in the room again I told him – you missed it.  It is way funny to do the buttons with Max and I explained the story.

We read the bible story and then Jesse does prayer with them.  Every night he asks each child what they want to pray for.  Mallory wants to pray to not be sassy tomorrow and earn buttons!  (Score!!)  Comes to Max’s his turn and he rattles off his usual nightly requests and Jesse asks him if we should pray for anything that he needs help with (hinting at his whinning).

Maxwell- No.  I fine.

Jesse- Don’t you think we should pray and ask God to help you with your whinning so you can earn more buttons.

Maxwell- No.  I good.  My leg hurt.

I’m sitting directly across from them and I’m loosing it!  I’m hiding my face in my sweatshirt to hide my laughing.  He seriously uses the “my leg hurt” for everything.  If he doesn’t want to walk – it hurts.  If he doesn’t want to do something – it hurts.

Maxwell – I only like the big buttons.  I don’t need those little buttons.

Gone!  Full on laughing!  Everyone!  He is obviously a little bit too little yet for the buttons… but boy does he get excited to put them in his jar when he does get them.

We are on day 5 of the button system and it working so great.  We can use buttons to encourage them in other areas too (aside from the chart).  They love it too.

Some of Mallory’s Jobs:  Getting dressed, Making her bed, Doing her hair, Getting Jacket & Shoes on for School, Clothes Down Laundry Shoot, Vacuuming Floor After Supper

Some of Maxwell’s Jobs: Getting dressed, Making his Bed (His bed is super hard to make so he just has to have all his blankets & animals on his bed), Going to the Bathroom Himself (He walks around with his pants on backwards often – but he did it himself), Clothes Down Laundry Shoot, Move Chairs for Mally to Vacuum