Little Boys

I should have taken a picture of this, but I didn't......

So I'll just say that today after cleaning my kids bathroom Owen must have been bored, because he decided to pee all over the floor and then attempt to clean it up with baby powder!

Why, oh why, do little boys think it's fun to go potty anywhere other than the toilet?????

All my freshly cleaned towels and floors were covered in powder, I guess at least it left a nice baby smell in there.

Summer of the Flies

I officially deem this summer/fall, summer of the flies! We have been overrun. We can't keep them out of the house. We are killing them constantly. John turned fly killing into a game with the kids. Unfortunately, they aren't skilled enough to actually hit one (this might be because we use big magazines as our fly swatters...why can't I remember to buy a flyswatter!?) There have been many tears shed and many fights over who gets to try to kill the fly or who got the point for killing the fly. Maybe it wasn't the best game?

I am currently aware of 3 flies in the house this morning. And this is after I killed 1 and let 3 out as they were sitting on the back door, and John killed 7 last night! I seriously can't open up the door without at least one flying in. It's insane! I'm not sure if there is something about my house that is particularly alluring to flies, or if they really are bad this year. I might as well just start leaving food out for them so they will stop landing on us!
**********
This reminds me of preying mantis summer. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I was home that summer working at First Security Bank doing data entry with my friend Karalenn. I'm pretty sure we were the first to notice the insects that were taking over our town. I distinctly remember eating lunch outside on the grass one day when we noticed a preying mantis on the grass near us, then we noticed another on the wall, and then another on the grass. Since preying mantis's are quite possibly one of the creepiest, most alien like insects it totally freaked me out...I can't speak for Karalenn.

Our theories about preying mantis summer were strengthened when one night while getting gas we were attacked by hundreds of preying mantises (is that how you would spell that??) We were both out of the car and the outside lights were on at the gas station. Within minutes of being there we noticed MILLIONS of preying mantises all over the cement. Then they were all over the car. Karalenn even had to knock one off the gas pump handle so she could take the nozzle out of the car (she had to do it because it was her car and I'm a wimp!). It was seriously freaky!

Finally the media was informed of the problem and they came to us for information...okay, so actually I just saw the story on the news of how the weather patterns that year were forcing the preying mantis population north into Idaho, but if they had wanted some good stories they should have called us, their bad!

So my point is, I'll take a fly over a preying mantis any day! While flies are annoying, at least their not alien like and HUGE and scary!



On a completely different note...........................................

We planted another tree!!!! This might not be as exciting for anyone else in the world as it is for me, but I'm desperate for shade (some privacy wouldn't hurt either)! Our backyard faces west, and most of the windows on our house also face west. As a result we BAKE for most of the year! Our neighbors have an awesome tree that shades part of our yard, but I've been desperate for some shade on the other half. And now we'll have it in 10-15 years! Actually both of these trees are capable of growing 3 feet a year. So we're going to force them to grow 5, so that I can have some relief! John's brother Dan was nice enough to come over last night and help John get it into the hole. The base of this thing was massive! The two of them couldn't even lift it, they had to kind of roll it into the hole and we had to get it into the backyard with the help of a wheelbarrow. I was amazed it was that heavy because there was not a drop of water in the root sack, that thing was bone dry.
We planted the maple (on the right) 2 years ago. And on Saturday the nice man working at Lowe's sent us over to a tree auction at a nearby nursery taking place that day. After some cursing and unpleasantries (I won't say between whom) John was able to buy this 15 foot ash for $45. That's what I paid for our maple 2 years ago when it was teeny tiny. The trees we were looking at at Lowe's were $30-$40 and were pretty sad looking. And although our tree has a scraggly looking side, we got a killer of a deal! And the nursery owner assured John that the lack of leaves on the one side were due to it's lack of sunshine since it was packed in next to another tree, I'll be ticked off it those branches don't sprout in the spring!

And in case you're looking at the picture thinking the spacing of those trees looks ridiculous! I'll tell you now that I don't care! A woman at a nursery assured me that although these trees should be planted 30 feet apart, they should just grow together and most likely won't kill each other even though we only planted them 10 feet apart. Hopefully there will eventually be a nice wall of shade back there! And luckily, we won't be living here in 10-15 years when one of the trees will most likely be removed. Is that rude?

And, I'm glad I learned my lesson on house direction on my first house and not a home I want to stay in forever. I think that even if I found a house that faced east, even if I really, really loved it, I would have to decline, unless of course the previous owners had already taken care of ALL shade issues. It's just one of those things that I now know drives me crazy. Lesson learned!

Hard lessons to learn

I love Ainsley. She is a sweet and usu sally caring sister. She is a leader, full of confidence, has an imagination like no other child I have ever seen, is incredibly bright, and yet she is old enough that I feel she should be able to start to overcome a couple of her minor short comings. Maybe it's my non-patient pregnant self talking, but two of her habits are starting to drive me crazy. The traits I'm talking about are her LOUD talking and whining, and her abnormally messy eating.
Okay, I know the eating one might sound a little weird, but seriously, I rarely see a child her age that makes more of a mess at the table than my daughter...come to think of it, I don't know that I ever have. We talk about table manners constantly. You will regularly hear John and I at dinner time, "Eat over your plate." "Get your hair out of your food." "Use your fork, not your hands." "Wipe your hands on your napkin not on the table." "Wipe your hands on your napkin and not on your clothes." "Chew with your mouth closed." Etc....etc...

But it seems like we talk until we are blue in the face with no change at all. I can plan on an incredible pile of food under her chair after every meal. A much larger pile of food than I find under her younger brother's chair, mind you.

It may seem like a petty thing, but I can't help but think she's getting to the age where a little more might be expected if she is eating at someone's house, or next year when she will be eating lunch at school. It's one thing to feed a toddler, one expects a large mess, but as kids get older the mess should start to diminish right? Am I wrong? How do you teach table manners? I'm seriously at a loss! I'm not expecting perfection, just decent eating habits for a 5 year old.

The other lesson John and I are trying to teach Ains is to speak at a normal volume. For a while now I have seriously been worried she had a hearing problem due to her incredibly loud speech (they have since tested her hearing at school and that theory has been disproved). I've even had several other mothers comment to me (not in a rude way, more in a comical way) about how loud Ainsley is. Her voice carries like none other. And unfortunately Ains also has the very common trait of 5 year olds called,"talking non stop." My daughter doesn't seem to have a volume control on her voice. What really pushes me over the edge is when she whines in her really loud voice. The whining has definitely been a learned behavior for her, boy does it get our attention! It's just so loud and piercing...I can seriously only take so much of it before I am pushed to my limit. We have tried charts and all else to teach her to be a little more calm and quiet, but I don't think we have had much success yet.

While I'm desperate for her to change these behaviors, I don't want to be constantly shutting her down. What's a mother to do? It's been interesting to watch Owen's behavior when Ains is at school, he's much quieter. Not so much competition I guess. The volume level in our home is high because it has to be if you want to be heard over our sweet daughter.

So now I get to figure out how to decrease the noise level in our home, and hopefully before we have a newborn. I guess I can't expect my kids to be perfect...I'd definitely rather be dealing with these little annoyances than others I can think of that would be far worse. So, while I might be happy that we've got the issues we've got, I'm still working out a game plan to minimize our issues!

My Bad

Here is a fine example of what can happen when you choose to blog instead of play with your children. I've learned my lesson!

Words I Love

I love it when kids say words wrong...I hate correcting them because it's so cute, I'd almost prefer them to say it wrong for years.

Ains still has a couple of words that she says wrong. She used to use a 'W' for her L's and when she gets talking fast she still says "Wet's" instead of "let's." I also love it when she mistakenly says destructions for instructions. "The destructions say....." Too funny!


Owen has a list of words right now that make me laugh. I think my favorite is that he calls Zucchini, "bikini." I love that it's fall and so there's lots of chance to use that word.

He is into the computer right now and always asks to play on pbs.ord. He loves the letter 'B' and throws it at the beginning of lots of words. Benember is remember and benilla is vanilla.

He is still figuring out pronouns. He confuses he and him, and for some reason I giggle a little when he says, "I like he!"

But I think I like it the most when he says actually. He uses this word a lot...he uses it correctly and he says it correctly which is why I like it. How many 3 year olds regularly use the word actually? Too cute!

He replaces any "y" sound at the beginning of a word with the "n" sound. So he'll say, "I toes nu" (I told you).
Nu is you, na is ya, nes is yes, and so on, it's just plain cute.

And just on another note, Owen has also decided that he would like to be a cooker when he grows up. From conversation we have gathered that he will cook people hot dogs and other delicacies. I'm sure he'll do well in this profession!

Some out takes...as requested!

And for the record, our photo session ended when it did because Owen cut himself on a piece of grass (??Whaaat??) and due to the bleeding of the finger, and the lack of band aids in my purse, and the crying we called it a night and went and got ice cream.

Fall Photo Shoot

We finally got some new portraits of the kids on Labor Day. Go ahead, tell me how adorable my children are!

The Name Game

I have come to realize something throughout my pregnancies...John and I are not compatible when it comes to naming children. I hate to say this publicly, but John drives me crazy when it comes to choosing names. He either only comes us with crazy names, like Beatrix, Omar, Trolly Dodger, or Fenway. Or he gets one name in his head and can speak of nothing else.

With Ainsley this worked to his benefit (probably because I found her name first, and although I liked it I wasn't sure about it until she was born).

With Owen he stuck with Fenway until the end. I think the only reason he agreed to Owen was that is was his Grandpa's name, the funny thing about that though, is that I thought his grandpa's name was Charles and only found out right before I had Owen that that was indeed his grandpa's name. I just think it was funny that for months John had in his mind that we were naming our child after a relative, and I thought we had just picked a cute name at random. Maybe we need to work on our communication skills!

This time around John picked the name Omar for a boy...luckily I only had to listen to that one constantly until I was 20 weeks and then it was shut down for good. His girl name this time around is Emmie. It's not a horrible name, I actually think it's kind of cute, I'm just not sold on it. I have my own names. But I'm tired of hearing the baby referred to as Emmie and there being no discussion otherwise. He did try to humor me a few weeks ago when I got really mad and we talked BRIEFLY about other names. For the record, my list of names at this point include Chloe, Maya, and Zoey(how wierd is it that 2 of my names rhyme, I'm almost embarrased about that!) but my list is constantly warping.

In general naming children just stresses me out. I don't like the pressure. Maybe I put too much thought into it. I worry about the name fitting them as a baby, a child, and an adult. It has to sound decent with Dinger...which is no easy task! I worry that it has to fit with the other names in the family so it can just roll off your tongue, Ainsley, Owen, and____. And I worry that the kid will end up hating their name. Maybe that's because I never really liked mine. My mom knew from the time she was in high school that she would name a daughter Jessica. How sad that I never loved the name like she did.

So my question is, how do you go about naming your children? Do you have a list saved from high school that you use? Do you argue with your spouse about it? Am I the only one that hates it?

I guess this time around I might just have to wait until I'm at the hospital again, and hopefully the name will be finalized there.

BTW...please no feed back on our list of possible names (unless of course you think they are all adorable)....we don't need to add any fuel to the fire in either direction :)

I'm throwing in the towel.

Despite my best efforts to make this pregnancy my best ever...my aching body is winning.

I have officially (temporarily) canceled my gym membership. I went from being a regular worker outer to being a slacker worker outer...so why pay for it and add to my guilt right? I think my low iron levels, pulled muscle in my stomach, and the sheer size of my current self, have made me too tired and too sore, so I gave up! I'm still not sure how I pulled a muscle in my stomach while walking, but I did, and the doctor told me it most likely wouldn't heal until after delivery. So I'll walk Ains to school for a bit of exercise, which as sad as it is, is enough to make me sweat like crazy! Seriously, by the time I got home from my 30 minute walk this morning I was dripping sweat and my stomach ached so much I had to rest for another 30 minutes before I could drag myself off the couch. Eight more weeks of this...8! Okay, I actually have nine if I'm honest with myself and plan on being late...bummer. And for the record, my morning sickness has yet to completely go away. I long for the day I can wait to eat because I'm hungry and not because I feel sick. Have I mentioned I love pregnancy?!

First Day of Kindergarten!

Ainsley started Kindergarten on Monday...and as you can tell by her lovely pose...she was slightly more excited than nervous.

She has been waiting for this day for a long time. Unfortunately for her she still doesn't have a great grasp of time. Days, weeks, and months, can be used interchangeably as far as she is concerned. A typical conversation might go something like this.

A: So, school starts in 4 days?
Me: No, 2 weeks.
A: So, in 10 days?

There's really no rhyme or reason to it...not at all confusing.

We got there early enough for her to play on the playground for a while. The bell rang, the kids lined up,the parents watched, and then the kids went inside...while the parents watched. Ains gave her teacher a hearty "Hello!" on her way in the door, she was oozing confidence that day. She even informed me later that she was the cutest girl there.
The parents all hung about awkwardly in the classroom for a minute and then eventually left their little ones behind. I had a moment of emotion on Friday at the open house and was worried that in my pregnant state this moment that Ains and I had been waiting for for so long would be tainted by tears. But alas, she was so excited I couldn't help but be excited for her. And she has been so ready for school for so long that it was more of a relief that the day was finally here than anything else.


Unfortunately for Owen and I, our day wasn't quite as fun. Owen complained of an upset stomach all day, so we were just waiting for the puking to hit. I'm sure glad Ains had it last week and not during her first week of school! I was being all productive and making tomato sauce with the tomatoes from my garden, and peach jam with peaches from a friend. We picked up Ains from kindergarten and I was babysitting the kids that Ains picked up her illness from last week. I had just finished my "freezer canning" and my body was aching when Owen puked all over the carpet.

Poor kid was miserable for the rest of the day and into the night. Luckily all the kids that were here had been sick already, but I was a little insane trying to keep a one year old out of the puke mess long enough to get it cleaned up....ewwww!

So after a long afternoon and night, and a couple more days, Owen is finally recovered, Ains is still loving school, and I have since made raspberry jam, baked bread, cleaned the house, and gone grocery shopping...go me!