Happy Happy Birthday to my THREE year old First Born

I can not believe it has been three years since Dylan's Day of Birth.  In some regards it does not seem like it has been that long but in others, I can't even remember my life without the bug.  I'd go into details about my now three year old but I don't have that kind of time for this boy of mine never ceases to amaze me in the brilliant, sweet, funny little man he is.

We love you Dylan Michael to the moon and back and more!

Happy THIRD Birthday!

Mom of the Year

I am pretty sure the mini beach is going to earn me the mom of the year award.  Today I had to change Dylan's sheets because during nap time he took off his socks and out poured probably 1/4 cup of sand into the middle of his bed.  We may as well be back in San Diego, my house is going to have a light dusting ALL OF THE TIME.  As if I thought the floor could get any worse.  Especially now that thanks to my mom and dad for getting it delivered and Uncle Mike for all the manual labor we have oh say 80 bags of it in our back yard.  More pictures of the sand trap will come.  I just need to take them.

We are moving so very close to my little man's birthday (although he would correct me and tell me that he is a big boy).  He is loving his countdown papers on the wall.  It is amazing that most of the time it really is some of the little things that get the biggest rise out of these kids.  He's also been getting a gift a day from either me or Ama Mary and Papa Steve.  The rest of the gifts will probably be opened Saturday afternoon or evening.  I also have a couple of cute things to do for him and plan to take him to some fun places tomorrow and Saturday to celebrate.  Today he had his birthday celebration at school.  He brought in white cupcakes with blue icing.  His choice.  And I am sure that the teachers and all other parents loved me for everything was blue!  There may be remnants of blue icing on his face even after his bath.  Oh well.  The boy gets what he wants most of the time.

And this is what Madison is finding fun these days.  She does it over and over again and smiles and laughs hysterically all while I am darting over to her to tell her to sit down.  I would get a better video of it but it is a little too hard to be within an arms reach and to tape her.  But you will get the idea of my crazy girl.

The Last Few: A Catch Up Post

We have had some fun over the course of the last few days.

Dylan enjoying some of my second batch of chocolate covered strawberries.

The fun really started off Friday when my dad and I took the kids to the Missouri Historical Museum to see the Mammoths and Mastadons Exhibit.  A bunch of big elephants and even a Sabertooth tiger kept their attention for about an hour.  

We also had some fun at the house in the morning and afternoon.

Madison's Valentine's Day flowers from Uncle Mike

From Scott's Phone - what the kids do in the basement.

This video is a random compilation of some of the kids' play.  It consists of Madison rocking on the butterfly, putting blocks on the pegs, riding the four wheeler, and some drilling tree stumps, and maybe a few others.



Madison needs to learn the rules of driving.  Cars and 4-wheelers alike do not mix with cell phones.



Friday night and Sunday morning the kids got to play at Monkey Joe's (an indoor bounce house).  They both LOVE it to say the least so much so that after Friday, Dylan HAD to take Daddy back there when he was off work.  And so we did.



We also celebrated Mardi Gras with some home-made from a box NOLA favorites.  I am relieved to be happily married with two kids whom I can not fathom leaving for a drunken crowded filled Soulard.

Sunday Madison, my mom and I headed to Candace and Jimmy's house for a Thirty One Party.  We bought a few things, munched on some food, visited and Madison made friends with all the ladies.  All the while Dylan was helping Daddy, Grandpa, and Great Grandpa in the backyard.  As if the tree drilling wasn't enough fun for the weekend, they put together a new and improved sand box for our back yard.  It is more of a sand pit or the mini-beach now located in my yard.  But the kids already love it.  Needless to say that sand was purchased today to fill it enough for the to play in and the rest of it is being delivered on Wednesday.  You don't want to know how much sand is necessary to fill it.  And it looks like Dylan enjoyed his sled with Great Papa even without the snow!

And I'll leave you with this cute little piggy...she does like to eat.

And the countdown calendar that Papa Steve made for Dylan till his Birthday!  He is loving talking about each day leading up to the "it's my birthday" yelp!  I love the excitement!

My February 15th

When I arrived home with the kids for dinner, I was pleasantly surprised to find a note on the fridge.

Scott had stopped off at Whole Foods on his way home after 30+ hours of work and picked up a few special items.  He was informed upon him awaking this evening that he should have just come home to sleep but...He had gotten some sushi rolls for dinner along with another 6 chocolate covered strawberries, some frozen chocolate bananas, and some frozen burritos for me (plus the waffles for the kiddos and a few other snacks).  My shrimp tempura roll and spicy tuna was delicious.  Dylan even ate several pieces of it and of course 2 strawberries tonight.  I was told I would have had all of this on Monday had the snow not foiled his plan.  Thank you bunny for all the thoughtful things food.  You are the best Valentine.

And in case you are confused, Scott treated a trauma where a woman was stabbed by her husband multiple times with a Samuri sword.  Happy Valentine's Day!

And one side note, Dylan's valentine's day crayons were a huge hit and they are going to repeat the craft in the classroom this month.  Oh and I should have sent valentines with Madison too (even though she technically did not attend school on Valentine's day) for she had several treats waiting for her today.  Oops.  Next time.

Be Jealous

Tonights Valentine's fare included a Party Pizza picked up from Walmart for $1.50 this week and the final glass from a $4 bottle of wine I've been sipping for two weeks.  High Class I tell you.  I even cooked it myself.  And for dessert, the last of the chocolate covered strawberries that I too bought for myself.  I would have had two of them but my son tried swindling them both from me.  Although that was after I tried lying to him but he called me out so I guess he deserved to try and eat them both.  I basically pried one of them from his little hands.  I'm a good mom I know.  What was I thinking only buying 2 lbs?!?  (I did in fact give an entire box to my parents - how they divided them up, I do not know).  And I take back any comments made to my hubby while eating cookies last night.  I will not admit to the number that I have consumed today.  It rivals the number Madison has had - yikes!

All joking aside, my hubby is the best.  And I in no way am directing any animosity towards him for the lack of romance today.  For I too did absolutely nothing for him.  And I completely believe that keeping the very sick patients of his alive is way more important than his healthy wife right now and we all know he has no control over his schedule.  And I am so glad that he chose to drive straight home last night when the weather was poor and to spend every extra second he could muster playing and loving his son (poor Maddie was asleep already) verses picking up something for me that he knows I don't want him spending money on anyways.  That is the best Valentine's day gift I could get.  And I am looking forward to some family fun this weekend!  Love you bunny!

Back to the day...

I rearranged my work schedule this week so that I could attend Dylan's Valentine's Day Party.  It worked out well for all parties involved.  Work was light today and I got to spend some extra time with the kids - WIN WIN.

Dylan is in the midst of quitting his nap.  I say quitting nap as in the sleep portion of it all.  In no way is he quitting the go to your room for an hour or so of quiet time for you and mama.  The issue is that before he would play for hours and then fall asleep for hours which led to him being in his room for 4 plus hours an afternoon.  I wasn't thrilled about this but I knew he needed the rest.  Now, he still needs the rest.  By the afternoon he is crabby, he falls asleep in the car or on the couch early and at non-opportune times, so he still NEEDS a nap.  I'm hoping he remembers that it is nice and starts to try and sleep before getting up and knocking and calling for me like he has the last few days.  It works OK for me to have both of my babies asleep by 7:30 but not quite so useful for Daddy's schedule.  Naps are needed.

Oh and I did wind up with a pretty awesome new toy recently...

 I am the proud owner of  Canon Speedlite 580EX II.  It is an external flash and I love it.  I now just need to learn how to use it.  I have just recently started shooting in manual instead of autofocus and really messing around with personalizing my settings on my camera so it saddens me that I am doing nothing of the sorts with my flash but running it in automatic mode.  But the knowledge will come, it will.  And I do love it thou and it is really going to help with my indoor shots - because we all know the camera's built in flash just isn't so pretty.  Maybe soon, I'll take a few "no flash", "built in flash", and "external flash" just for a fun comparison - you know when I get one of my kids to stand still and pose for me...or maybe I'll just shoot an inanimate object instead!

And there were lots of extra snuggles tonight for me with both of my kiddos.  Sadly, I now must hear cries for Miss Madison was not quite ready for her second round of love to end tonight.

May your day have been filled full of love.

Happy Valentine's Day

And some more of my littlest love bug...because she is so cute...

And you better not make my princess cry...

Snow Day

An early birthday gift from one of Dylan's bestest friends, Andrew.

Dylan and I made some sugar cut out cookies today and iced them.  They must be OK because daddy ate 3 when he got home.

Uncle Mike brought the kiddos some flowers and a huge singing balloon.

Yes, it snowed today.  And yes, Dylan HAD to play in it.  Madison begged to go out too but after about 15 seconds wanted nothing more to do with it and wanted mama to hold her instead.

And yes, my boys ventured outside to make a snowman at 8:30 PM.  They have been out there for an hour.  He is not going to want to get up for school tomorrow.  Good thing it is his Valentine's Day Party.

Dylan and his Coca Cola Bear Snowman

My little decorator

Background:  My parents have rooms for the kids in their house.  They do not get used much since they are mainly watched in our home but occasionally they do wind up sleeping up there.  Just recently Dylan got moved into a separate room where Ama has it decorated in construction trucks.  She had found some great circular wall art stickers that she was planning on using on the walls.  They were stored in the dresser in the room.  Dylan went up for a "nap".  They heard the opening and closing of drawers but no one expected to find this.  You can't tell from this picture but there are about another 30 or so on the inside front rail as well as on both side rails.  Dylan had also stuck about 10 of them to his own skin - belly, legs, arms.  I could not contain the laughter when he walked downstairs...and then when I saw this....The amazing thing was that he did a really nice job making the bed look all artistic.  Funny kid.

Randomness

It looks like Dylan's one tooth is going to discolor some after all.  It is starting to get a slight hint of grey to it which means he will be headed back to the dentist a few months sooner.  Bummer.  I was hoping to avoid that.  Now lets just hope it doesn't get any worse nor does it need to be pulled.

I went to exchange a blockbuster movie for another rental yesterday afternoon only to find our Blockbuster is closing.  They were selling all the movies.  The kids wound up with a few new ones in the process so I think they came out on top.  Went for ONE, came home with MANY and some candy which I'll have a hard time convincing the hubby that Dylan did in fact purchase it for himself since I ate an entire box of them myself last night.  But they are one of my favorites - Sour Patch Kids or I should say Sour Jacks, whatever sour gummy candy, Yum!

Hugs

 And a few collages of a day last week where the kids played outside.  This was before it got bitterly cold this weekend.  And they are forecasting inches of snow tomorrow.  Snow gives me anxiety.  Maybe because my hubby HAS to go to work no matter what and his hours on the road are not ideal for the snow plows to have it clear and safe.  It also doesn't help that I know I have to be able to leave certain days of the week as well.  I am just hoping that the crews keep the roads clean and safe over the next few days since of course by the end of the week it is showing that it'll be 50.

And this is how I am finding my boys most nights at 8 PM.  

Heart Shaped Crayons AKA Dylan's Valentines

We soaked the crayons in water so that the papers fell off easily.  Broke them in small pieces.  Put them in a heart shaped silicone mold.  Baked them on low heat until melted.  Let them cool.  And pushed them on out of the mold.  Ta Da!  Heart shaped crayons.  We wound up just attaching them to little foam hearts.  The one pictured above is a little different than the final product but you'll get the idea.  I think that they are cute little Valentines for Dylan to hand out to his friends.  And he had SO much fun helping!