Bad Day.

I don't know what happened today but something was off. Jack was extra obnoxious, to put it lightly. It started before the sun was up with banging on the wall and screaming that scared me half to death. after breakfast Jack decided to take the covers off his bed and then pee on them...??? While I was putting those in the washer I noticed that my blanket I had just washed not only turned everything a not so pretty shade of purplish red, but there was enough fluffy stuff in the laundry room to stuff a very large pillow.... everywhere! O.k. so clean out the entire washer and take apart the dryer, vacuum out the dryer, wash the laundry room and now yes, I am completely covered with fuzz, in my hair up my nose everywhere. I go back out into the front room where Jack has been running up and down the hallway with a pencil in his hand dragging it in loopdy loops along the wall. In the meantime Nolan I think watches the clock and about every 15 minutes for absolutely no reason that I can find just stops what he is doing and lays down and throws the worlds biggest temper tantrum. Fun. After giving the dog a very long over due bath I enter the front room to find Jack sitting on the couch watching t.v. soaked in pee. "Jack, why did you pee your pants?" jack " I just did it's o.k.!" It's o.k. is his new catch phrase. jack stop hitting Nolan..."It's ok." Jack stop screaming... "it's o.k.!"

Let's fast forward to 4 p.m. I decide to get them out of the house and go to the park, this is where it gets good. We are there for about 2 minutes when a very interesting young couple mohawk, sleeved tattoos and all come to the playground with there large bull dog running ahead of them without a leash. The dog runs up to Nolan (who is barely 2 years old) and starts jumping on him. The "man" barely glances at the dog and mutters for it to come here. I start walking over to Nolan and the dog runs ahead of me and jumps on him knocking him over and is on top of him! O.K. its probably a friendly dog, but it could bite his head off. The man hardly acknowledges that my two year old is on the ground screaming and just hands the dog to his girlfriend and doesn't say a word to me! Here we go..... I said you know what, even if it wasn't the LAW that your dog was on a leash it is common courtesy and your dog just knocked my baby over in case you didn't notice! He proceeds to roll his eyes at me and says "ya ya ya, maybe you should keep an eye on your kids" "Ummm, we're at a playground, he's two, I'm standing right here and did I mention it's the LAW to leash your dog?" The wife says yeah we heard you the first time! Then the guy, who is in fact wearing a coller of some sort, maybe it was the dogs I dunno, anyway, starts waving his fist at me telling me to get out of here! o.k now I'm kind of scared, I mean what a pshyco! I say that's it I'm calling the cops if you don't back off. I would have just left if Jack wasn't up in the jungle gym somewhere. As he leaves, and I swear I'm not making this up calls Nolan a name I just cannot repeat, let's say pansy but vulgar. I was pretty shaken up wich is to say a lot. They just went right across the street to a smaller park so i gathered the boys and left. Oh, during this altercation Jack fell off the twisty slide and hit his head so now both boys are screaming at the top of there lungs.
So anyway, we get home and the chaos pretty much continues with balls knocking off the dinner I had just set on the table all over the floor. At this point I'm just kinda oblivious. Jack got sent to his room and 2 minutes later I went in there and found him like this... at 6:45 p.m. I just put him in bed and lets hope he makes it through the night asleep.

Phoenix ZOO October 17 2008

New jammies

Jack and Nolan were very excited to put on their new jammies with their favorite characters on them. Jack wants to complete the outfit with some sponge Bob slippers. I'll see what I can do, for now light up dragon slippers will have to do. Nolan is so cute running around in his spider man slippers. He tries to watch his feet while running which as you can imagine has caused a couple of run ins with the wall.
The boys have been making silly faces at each other. These are some of their silly faces. Nolan is so funny, he just watches everything Jack does taking it all in and then tries his best to do what he does.

puppy love

Jack~"mommy, i love Mia cuz she gives me ksses."
me~ "That's nice, is she your friend?"
Jack~ "yah, she's the best friend I ever had."
Awwww

your never to young to have a starbucks.

Just kidding, it's chocolate milk people.
The boys have to have their Saturday dose of chocolate milk and sometimes, even a muffin!
Last Saturday while I was at work, Jim had to do some errands for Britton and took all the boys to Starbucks for a special treat. As soon as they pulled into the drive through Jack said "Is mommy here!"
Hee hee. Of course that's silly right? I mean obviously I was at the coffee bean & tea leaf and NOT a Starbucks (corporate mongrels :-).
Now I know there have been studies about how if you put healthy food in a McDonalds wrapper that kids will gladly eat it where as they wouldn't before. Well the same goes for Starbucks cups with my kids, they will eagerly suck down water or carrot juice & beet juice if it is in a coffee cup with a straw!
You just have to be tricky sometimes. I have also been know to "sneak" spinach, kale, broccoli and a bunch of other veggies into anything I can think of. The boys are going to be very confused if anyone ever makes them Kraft Mac & Cheese and it isn't green!

Egg Carton Critters

The boys have so much fun using their artistic genius to create artful expressions of their world.... o.k. they like to make a big mess. Anyway, it is fun and takes up at least 15 minutes out of the day where no one is screaming, kicking or pushing each other.
We decided to put our used egg cartons to use by making bugs, sharks turtles and robots! The boys love to show off their project of the day when daddy gets home. It is worth all of the mess to hear the excitement in their little voices when they say "Daddy, come see what I made, it's a cattapiwer!"

climb to conquer cancer

Jim and Britton went up to Flagstaff last weekend to do a 7 mile walk/hike up the mountain to raise $$ for the fight against cancer. Jim works for APS and they are very involved in the community. They sponsor several different organizations and are actively involved in donating time and $ to the red cross, schools etc. Jim writes communications for APS and did interviews while on the hike and wrote a column about the event. Britton raised $ to donate.

no autographs please!

My baby is getting so big! He is keeping up with his big brother Jack and copies EVERYTHING he does. Nolan's vocabulary amazes me! It is limitless.
He is becoming quite the little daredevil I'm afraid. He climbs up onto counters and tables and into the toilets and sinks. Child proof locks don't even slow him down at all! We had to turn Britton's and the bathroom door knobs around so we can keep them locked from the inside. He has been getting into Britton's room were the 2 guinea pigs are and climbing into the cage and trying to catch them. I hear the poor things squealing from across the house and have to come to the rescue (about 72 times a day until we turned the locks inside out). Britton has a loft bed 8 feet high which Jack has already fallen off of and landed on his head sending us on a very scary ambulance ride to the hospital. Nolan threw the worlds biggest fit when he couldn't get in the room anymore. He says "I want the bibby pibs, peeeesss mommeeee peeeeesss!" so sad. half of my day has been spent taking them out into the front room so Nolan and Jack can feed them carrots.

Children's museum of Phoenix

This place is amazing! We went twice last week. Well the first time we went the air conditioning was broken so they gave us all free passes to come back. Hot as we were we still had a blast.
There is so much for little guys to do there it can't all be done in a day. This little grocery store was a huge hit for all the kids. Miniature shelves were stocked with groceries & produce complete with scales for weighing. Jack & Nolan loved pushing their little carts around and loading them up. It is so awesome to watch them imagining and pretending. Jack was looking at the canned goods and saying things like "hmmmm, what should we have for dinner mommy?" and "Do we need cereal?" All the kids there were pretending to be different employees of the store; cashier, restocking the shelves, sweeping up.



Jack got to make his very own pizza then bake it in the brick oven. Then he made some soup in the completely stocked and decked out kitchen.




The museum is very hands on, however I was awed by the creative displays of art all throughout. These pictures don't do it justice, it is pretty impressive and everything from the light fixtures to the stair railings has an artistic element. There was a two story high wall of CD's hanging and glimmering in the sun coming in from the two story high windows. Huge origami birds & bugs dangled from the ceiling. You have to see the giant wall of shoes that spans down one hallway. In the "kitchen" there were several really neat sculptures made from hundreds of twisted and tangled silverware, and chandeliers made of cups and cookware were hanging from the ceiling.



Nolan LOVED the ball room. There were so many different things they could put balls in and watch them roll, plop and hit a Levy and go through a funnel and come out a tunnel, too cool. Even the hallways were filled with things to do.

Happy birthday to me...

My new D&B bag.
Jim & I were out having lunch & shopping around at westgate last week and we went into my favorite store, Apricot Lane. It's the coolest little boutique with really unique clothing and accessories. I saw a giraffe purse there that I fell in love with. It was only like $50. I gathered up every last bit of my self restraint and didn't get it. Then yesterday, I came home from work and we celebrated my birthday a week early so my mom could be there and made me a yummy lemon cake. Jim brought home dinner from Babbos and I got to open my birthday presents too! I was completely surprised by this Dooney & Bourke bag! Jim had gone back to Apricot lane to get my bag but it was gone. He spent all day searching for a giraffe bag and luckily for me found this one, I LOVE it! I also got a really pretty wallet from Fossil and a Sirius radio for my car and the house. What a spoiled girl I am! We are going out to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant with several friends next week for my official birthday :-)