I Still Have This Blog

I remembered that I had a blog. Mostly, I realized the link to this blog is still on my Instagram profile thing. So I checked to see when I last updated and then thought I should maybe update again? Sure.

Soooooooo, my family no longer lives in Illinois. We live in Iowa now. So there's that. All of my kids are in school now, too! My oldest is in second grade, my middle is in first grade, and my youngest goes to preschool (because it's free in our city); so I get about three hours a day for four days a week to do stuff kid-free. I would have said "to do whatever I want" but that's not true. I mostly have to spend one of those kid-free chunks of time doing grocery shopping and another of those kid-free chunks of time doing laundry. I really don't know what I do for the other two chunks but one of those days I probably nap because mmmmmmm naps. And I think I probably just watch TV or read or something one day.

I think I'll throw in some pictures from the last however many months because people like pictures...

I like to beard our family photos. This one is on the bag I use when we go to the library.

Simon turned 7 in April. He had a creepy crawly birthday party.

Charlotte turned 4 in May and had a rainbows & unicorn party.

Jonas turned 6 in August. He had a Mario party.

Chase had a Michael Jackson birthday party in September.

Halloween: Batgirl Charz, Ninja Jonas, Enderman Sime

I creeped kids out with my Bearded Lady Halloween costume.

So that's my random update. There ya go...

Wanda and Peanut Butter Swift

Charlotte (age 3) and I (age a lot more than 3) were watching her favorite music video, Taylor Swift's Shake it Off. Then the Charz got the idea that if we put on a bunch of accessories, we can pretend to be "different Taylor Swifts" like how TS tries out different personas in the video. After we put on different headbands (it was mostly headbands, by the way) that made us look just like different Taylor Swifts in the eyes of my three-year-old, this conversation happened:

Charzie: We can change our names…

Me: To what?

Charzie: I can change my name to Wanda and you can be Peanut Butter Swift.

Me: Wanda and Peanut Butter Swift?

Charzie: Yes.

Me: Where did you come up with Wanda? Where did you hear that?

Charzie: God told me. This day. When we were at the store, God told me.

Me: God told you to change your name to Wanda?

Charzie: Yes.

Me: For real or are you pretending?

Charzie: God told me this day for real.

Me: OK. Wanda and Peanut Butter Swift.

Charzie. Yes. But we can change them back if we want to.

For whatever reason, and maybe this gives you a glimpse into the odd-ness of my family, Peanut Butter Swift didn't seem as strange of a name for Charlotte to choose as Wanda was. Oh, and apparently those names are Spanish, so we have to speak Spanish when we change our names.

A Halloween Story by My 3-Year-Old

We are a Halloween-loving household. During lunch, 3-year-old Charzie wrote a Halloween story. I couldn't resist sharing it, so here ya go...
   

Once upon a time, a guy was walking across a field and there were CREEPY CARROTS! He was scared and he ran and then there were zombies. He told his mom and dad and they turned into MONSTERS! Then a wizard came and turned everyone into BAD GUYS! Then they got turned back normal. (Who turned them back?) God turned them back, no, JESUS! Jesus turned them back to normal. Then the wizard died from a zombie, a zombie cat, a zombie robot cat. And everyone was afraid. The End. [Insert creepy laugh.]

Writing

Well, today is the last day of September and my previous blog was posted in the beginning of January, so as you can tell, I'm really on top of things...

Yeah...

I really enjoy writing. Specifically, I enjoy writing stories. Even more specifically, I like to make up those stories. Giving regular updates on what my family is up to (at least in blog form) is pretty boring for me. With Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it also feels redundant. Social media allows me to post those silly conversations, proud moments and daily craziness right away; then I feel like there's no need to expand on those things here. So I don't.

But I am writing, I promise you that. I get a little giddy just thinking about the story I have to tell, too. It is not a children's book. It is not a short story. It is not a book to encourage moms of young children. (I'm actually quite bored and tired by the mommy blogs anymore unless it's a blog of someone I know personally.)

I'm writing a novel. Or maybe a series, I'm not quite sure yet. I don't know if I can get the whole story out in one book. Or if it will be just one book and then do a spin-off book with a certain character or storyline from the book. I've been inspired!

Inspiration is a wonderful feeling. I've basically been wanting to write a great story since my freshman year in college. I must have started at least ten times, but then I'd determine that those stories were either lame or have been done before. Then sometime this past January/February, an idea just came to me.

Now, I'm not going to reveal what the story is, but it is definitely in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. And if you don't like that genre, you will probably hate it. And even if you do like that genre, you still might think it's a lame story. But I'm excited about it and my mom will at least tell me it's great. I concluded some time ago that I have an overactive imagination and it can actually be productive by making up characters, environment, imaginary physics and such for others to read and enjoy. I hope to publish some day, but I probably won't seriously start looking into that for some time yet. It is a goal, though.

So, that's the update on me. I'm writing. For real. And I guess I can post some kid pictures since you're used to seeing kid pictures on here.

Simon turned 6 in April and had a Skylanders party

Charzie turned 3 in May and had a Mickey Mouse party

Jonas turned 5 in August and had a shark party (at the end of Shark Week)

 Chase turned 33 in September and had an R2D2 cake because I found a sweet R2D2 cake pan at a thrift store. He's not a kid, but he does have a sweet cake.

There's no picture of me with my birthday cake because no one made one for me and I won't make one for myself. I do cakes and birthday parties for my family, but I don't do it trying to be better than other moms or make other moms feel bad for not doing it. I just enjoy coming up with cake & game ideas, executing those ideas and eating cake. Mmmmmmmmm caaaaaaaaaake. (Another reason I'm done with the mommy blogging world is when the birthday party issue comes up the blogs are often either showing elaborate/expensive birthday parties with styled pictures I find mostly ridiculous or the blogs bash those parties saying those moms are ruining it for all the other moms. I feel I fall more in the middle but could be seen as making other moms feel bad. I'm terrible at keeping up with cleaning & laundry, but at least my kids have fun birthdays!)

So if you want to see an inordinate amount of pictures of my kids, follow me on Instagram @weesher. If you want to read dumb stuff I say, follow me on Twitter @weesherweesh. If I know you in real life, we can be Facebook friends (but only if I know you in real life) if you search for me. I may occasionally post something or other amusing on here or maybe give a book update, but this blog will probably be neglected.

I will leave you with things I've been into lately...

Books: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. I am currently finishing the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons. I think I'll get into the Halloween spirit by reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein once I've finished.

TV: Doctor Who (I don't get BBC America, so I have to wait until the current season comes to Netflix or Amazon Instant Video), Classic Doctor Who (I started from the beginning of what they have on Netflix/Amazon and am currently on the episodes with the fourth Doctor, the one with the long scarf), Game of Thrones (HBO), True Blood (HBO- started this one over the summer when the GOT season ended and now only have a few episodes left of the series!), The Walking Dead (AMC- don't get AMC so we bought the series on Amazon, but we don't get to watch it until the day after it airs), Drunk History (Comedy Central), Impractical Jokers (TrueTV- we don't get this channel but watch it online sometimes).

Movies: I go to maybe two movies a year. The last movie I saw in the theater was The Lego Movie with my kids. I am pretty set on seeing the next Hunger Games movie in the theater when it comes out, and I'm totally cool with seeing it alone. I'm sure we'll watch lots of horror movies on Netflix/Amazon this October, too, after the kids go to bed. 

Sports: HAHAHHAHHAHAHHA (this is a joke because I don't watch sports, except my kids doing gymnastics class, and that is quite amusing- the boys do cartwheels like Oompa Loompas.)

Food: Entenmann's snack size (chocolate) frosted donuts, Eggo pumpkin spice waffles, Count Chocula, burgers with BBQ sauce, crab cakes, crescent roll sandwiches, cake, Breyer's lactose free ice cream

Kids' Activities: sending them outside to play, sending them to the basement to play, telling them to color rocks they find outside, gluing stuff they find outside to paper, Legos, reading books with them

Music: The Flaming Lips, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Beck, Lucius. I mostly like 90's alt rock with a bit of newer music. Alice FM is my favorite radio station.

I don't really know how to end this. Hopefully next time it won't be quite so long between posts. And hopefully next time I'll have made real progress on my book!

2014 the Year of Medical Stuff

We just might have someone in our family seeing some sort of doctor about every other day in January...

Let's see, Simon has some booster shots tomorrow and a dentist appointment Tuesday. Jonas will see the eye doctor the following Tuesday, then a dermatologist appointment the Tuesday after that (to check out a big ol' hairy mole on his knee, he was born with it), and then he has a dentist appointment the day after that. Charlotte will see the dentist the same day as Jonas.

How I felt

I had a crazy bloating episode on Christmas Day. Seriously, I ate two medium pancakes for breakfast and then my body filled up with gas. It was miserable; I couldn't eat a thing until the next morning when I had a small bowl of gluten-free Chex cereal. Then it happened again. I ended up going to an urgent care (we were visiting family in Kentucky) where they did an x-ray to be sure there was no blockage, and the doc told me my stomach and intestines were filled with gas. It was more than bloating; I had nausea and other, ahem, symptoms... That was the fourth time that month that it happened, but the other three times it happened in the evening and was gone by morning. This time it's lasted for over a week. I saw my doc on New Year's Eve and he ordered some bloodwork. I got most of the results today and they were OK (we're still waiting on the Celiac's test). So I see a GI specialist on Monday afternoon. Really, it doesn't seem to matter what I eat, afterward I bloat. It's not miserable like it was when it started, but it's quite uncomfortable. At least I'm up to eating three meals a day again and even one or two snacks. I lost six pounds in four days and it was kind of scary. I'm glad to say I'm currently holding steady and no longer losing weight.

Chase has been wearing a heart monitor because he's been having some episodes of rapid heart beats. He's been to prompt care, an internal medicine doctor and a cardiologist. The preliminary diagnosis is something long that I don't remember, but basically he has some nerves or something telling his heart to beat at times it shouldn't. He's started taking some medicine to hopefully take care of it; another option is surgery. The medicine has side effects that make him feel bad, but surgery is scary. He has an appointment to meet with the potential surgeon next week, and he'll see his cardiologist at the end of the month.

So it's looking like our 2014 is The Year of Medical Stuff or maybe The Year of Co-Pays. I'm going to try not to think of it and be thankful we have insurance. Also, I'll think about my trip with my sister to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter I have planned this month.

We're Still Breathing

It's been what, almost two months since my last post? That sounds about right.

If you follow me on twitter, you may have read:

According to my 2yo, I'm wrong about everything, always, even if I give her exactly what she asked. She lets me know with screams.
— Alisha Abner (@weesherweesh) November 14, 2013

I feel like most of my day is spent having small tyrants yell at me. When one makes behavior progress, another gets worse. But I guess that's just the way these things go.

Photo by Emily B Photography

These little things aren't tyrants 100% of the time, though. The other day 4-year-old Jonas "walked" at least a quarter mile of the walk home from school dancing like Jamiroquai. Seriously, when I asked him who he was being (suspecting his answer but not wanting to influence it), he said, "Jamiroquai." Lately he's been singing "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" by the Backstreet Boys, "Volcano" by The Presidents of the United States of America (this is his favorite to sing while sitting on the potty), "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" by Ylvis, and "Talk on Indolence" by The Avett Brothers (who he calls "Ado Brothers"). The kid has said for a couple years now that he has music in his bones. I've started playing rhythm/pattern games with him on his drums.

Jonas in his favorite sweater. Photo by Emily B Photography

Simon has a best buddy at school. He and his auntie have been to our house twice now. Everyday I ask Simon who he played with at recess, and the answer is always this friend. When I ask him what they played, 95% of the time it's Spider-Man (and there's often a game or two of "Chase the Girls" as well). I took this picture of them at their friend's birthday party. It makes me happy. Both boys have a framed copy now.

Best Buddies

Charzie, oh Charzie! This one is so incredibly smart, so incredibly adorable and so incredibly manipulative! She is an absolute joy one moment and will drive me to the brink of insanity the next. We had to take pretty much all of her toys out of her room to keep her from getting up to play during nap time. It is vital that I get her into bed for nap before 1:00pm, otherwise legendary battles ensue. She doesn't have to be asleep by 1:00, just in bed. But this girl completely melts my heart when she does things to make me happy. She will say, "Are you happy, Mommy? I want to help you and make you happy!" then she will give me a bite of what she's eating or clean up or whatever she can think to do.

Photo by Emily B Photography

Let's see, what has happened in the last couple months? Well, Halloween happened...

Boo-tiful Ghost, Swamp Creature & Skeleton

I made/adapted the kids' costumes. Jonas' make-up irritated his eyes and we had to go with a partially painted face with a bandit-type mask for actual Halloween since we had family portraits scheduled for a couple days later. The kids had fun with Halloween, but I sort of lost my love for my favorite holiday. The weather was dreary, we didn't really do anything all that special and the kids misbehaved pretty badly. But Chase & I had a pretty great couple costume (even if no one got it)...

Vampire Weekend at Bernie's

In case you need it explained, Vampire Weekend is a hipster-y band. Weekend at Bernie's is a movie from 1989 where a couple guys have a party at Bernie's house only Bernie is dead and they pretend that he is alive and partying with them. (There are sequels.)

Let's see, what else? I'll be discontinuing my job as our church's administrator, but I do hope to start doing the occasional freelance cake and/or invitation designs. I was on the ball and already designed and ordered our Christmas cards for this year; I just received an email that they've been shipped! And now you're probably pretty much caught up. So here are a few more pics from our session with Emily B Photography:

Accurate depiction of what it's like wrangling our kids for a nice pic

Check out Charzie's face

Sword sticks

Sword sticks

Okay, I guess by a few more pics I really meant a bunch more. Oh well!

Colorful School Days & a Park Poop

So my kindergartener has been getting into trouble lately at school. Mostly he finishes his work, gets bored and gets chatty. Really chatty. He had his first "red day" at school this week.

His school uses a color-coded behavior chart type of discipline/encouragement and here's a little of how it goes:

Green = good/neutral, everyone starts off on green

Yellow = bad, note home
Orange = worse (I was unaware that orange existed until this week), note home
Red = really bad & a chat with parents

So that's from acceptable to bad. But then there's...

Blue = better than good
Purple = super good, great even!
Pink = pretty much unattainably good! You win the behavior chart! Or something...

It's all pretty confusing. I think I really just got the hang of it this week, mostly because Simon has been a few different colors. I emailed with his teacher and we've hopefully found a way to help. Mostly, Simon (and a few other kids) will be given extra busy work allowed to practice their "word wall words" when they finish their work. I even let Sime pick out a brand new little notebook to take to school for this.

Another thing that will hopefully help is rewarding him if he stays at green or above all week. Simon's teacher suggested this. Since he had a bad last couple days, this morning I told him if he got above green today, we would celebrate. The kid got all the way up to purple (super good, great even!). So to celebrate we got McDonald's for dinner and had a picnic at the park.

Yay, right?! Well, so far this post has only focused on one child. Enter Charzie, my newly potty-trained two-year-old. She's been constipated/refusing to poop for the last three or four days. She had a few painful poos and got scared of going. I gave her stool softener. Then I got some prune juice. She wouldn't drink the prune juice. Then I found the right mixture of prune juice + apple juice + water so that she would drink it. She drank quite a bit of it today. I also gave her half of a FiberOne bar. Then she finally pooped! Hooray! She worked up quite the sweat and it was rock hard (yeah, too much detail, I know, but poop is a subject frequently mentioned here). So I was relieved that I wasn't going to have to deal with poop at the park now! Or was I?

Yes, yes I was. And not just Charzie's...

The kids and I were mid-McD's picnic when Charz announced she had to go potty. I thought it would be a quick pee-pee but it turned out to be a big ol' poop. This one was much easier to push out, I could tell. She had gotten like four days worth out in an hour! So we wiped, flushed, washed hands and went back to our McD's picnic. We cleaned up, took our toys & drinks to the van, then went to the playground. We'd been at the playground maybe five minutes when Charzie announced that she once again had to go potty, just pee-pee. Simon & Jonas also announced that they had to go potty, too.

Since the main doors to the bathrooms were open and there was someone else in the women's room, I let the boys go pee in the men's and told them to come stand outside the women's when they were finished. As I was helping Charz, I smelled something stinky. I looked down and saw she had some remnant poo in her panties. I don't think she even realized she had gone, it was more of a shart really (when you pass gas and a little something extra comes out...), but poo nonetheless... and I had left the diaper bag in the van. Then I heard Jonas' poop song, the one where he sings to the world that he just pooped. Did I mention that I had taken the kids out for this picnic alone? Yeah...

I yelled to Jonas that he would have to wipe himself because I couldn't go in the men's room. All the while people were walking by and going in and out of the bathrooms. I wiped Charz up as best I could with the cheap toilet paper. I got her undies and pants off. Thankfully her shirt was long enough to cover her. We washed hands and I wrapped her messy stuff in a paper towel and walked out to see Jonas standing at the door of the men's room with his shorts & undies around his ankles. He looked at me and said, "I pooped, Mommy."

So I picked him up, took him to the women's bathroom, wiped him, flushed, had him finally pull up his shorts, washed hands and headed to the van with both boys and a pants-less Charzie. Got her cleaned up and put fresh undies & pants on her and we went back to the playground even though I really just wanted to go home.

We were there to celebrate Simon's "purple day" and had only played for five minutes before Poop-fest 2013 happened. So we went back and played. Both boys bonked their heads. Charz threw a fit because she wanted to do things big kids were doing, but we stayed. And we saw some friends! Then we went home, I gave the kids a bath and got them all ready and put them to bed.

One would think I would have learned by now that at least one child always has a poop incident whenever I take them all somewhere by myself, right? But if I did, I wouldn't have as many amusing stories for you, then, would I?

Epic Win

Model Charzie

Guys... guys... guys, guys, hey GUYS! (I'm using the gender neutral, casual you version of "guys" here) I have an epic win in my house and I really needed it...

After 5 years and 4 months of having from one to three children in diapers, they are ALL POTTY TRAINED! My 2-year-old Charzie worked hard this past week, earned M&M's, ice cream, stickers & jelly beans, and she's been wearing adorable toddler undies during the day (pull-ups for sleep times). She wakes up from nap dry. She wakes up dry about half the time overnight. She'll pee on pretty much any potty. She's pooped on the potty for the last three days. AND two of those days she was sick and still used the potty! Oh, this mama is super-pumped! And I'm gonna brag on her.

Kitty bath

You see, a certain eldest child was three-and-a-half before he would consistently pee on the potty or poop on the potty at all. The middle one was potty trained before the eldest. We used all kinds of rewards/bribery/calendar-with-stickers tactics, but it was sibling rivalry + "dump dollars" from my mom that got the eldest one motivated. Being naked and a poop fascination motivated the middle one (and we were totally surprised when he just potty trained himself). Mini M&Ms for everyone + the promise of a big Hello Kitty toy and lots of excitement were Charzie's motivation. I think mostly M&Ms, though.

With having three kids, I can say potty training was truly different for each child. But the one thing that they all had in common was that they had to be motivated and/or feel like it was their idea.

The only outfit she'd willingly wear to church one Sunday

 Oh, we are so excited in this house! Next, we'll have to get rid of the pacifier & bottle. But we'll let her hold onto those baby things a little while longer...

Jonas' Super Rad Aquabats Water Balloon 4th Birthday Extravaganza

As of today, my Jonas is four years old. We had been planning on having an all-out party for him since last year he didn't get one due to our big move (we bought a house and moved in four days before his third birthday). We had thought he would have a Batman theme and were looking for someone to show up dressed as Batman, tights and all...

But right before I started gathering party supplies he told me he wanted an Aquabats party. I said OK and that I wasn't sure if there were Aquabats party supplies, but we'd figure something out. Turns out there are Aquabats party supplies but only online at one web site. Before ordering I made sure he actually wanted an Aquabats party, and he told me he wanted "an Aquabats WATER BALLOON birthday!" So that's what we did...

Invitation front

Invitation back

So the Aquabats would be an actual rock band who also happen to be super heroes. I was a fan in the 90's but sadly never got to see a live show where they dress in their super hero costumes and battle evil monsters while playing music all live on stage. They now have a TV show for kids on The Hub and there's a season on Netfilx. Rock band + super heroes = awesome in Jonas' book.

For Jonas' cake, I made it chocolate with buttercream icing and drew the Aquabat logo guy on it. I also made a bunch of funfetti cupcakes with cookie burgers on them (thanks Pintrest!) in honor of one of Jonas' favorite segments on an episode of the show: Burger Rain. (You can watch a video of Burger Rain at the end of this post.)

I altered some decorations I had from Charzie's Yo Gabba Gabba party (I'll have to post on that later) to make them Aquabats-appropriate. And we had fruit, veggies, chicken nuggets, cheese & crackers to snack on.

Decorations & snacks

I had ordered some official goodie boxes & fillers for our kid guests, and then Jonas helped me choose some extra stuff to stick in there, too.

Guest loot

We started out just hanging out and snacking. I had a water table set up for the two-and-under crowd. Then we really kicked things off with a water balloon toss.

Water balloon toss

Next, the kids got to take turns chucking water balloons at Snakey. Snakey is actually a monster from the show. I painted him on cardboard and covered it with contact paper. After they all had a couple turns, we had them line up and attack together. They thought it was awesome.

The boys chucking water balloons at Snakey

But even more awesome than that was when they got to use a water balloon slingshot to battle the Floating Eye of Death (another actual monster from the show, which I also painted & contact-papered). I rigged this bad guy up on the kids' fort. I tell you what, boys ages 3-6 were all about that slingshot.

This guy had some fantastic aim.

After defeating Snakey and the Floating Eye of Death, we had a water balloon and water gun free-for-all. Then it was cake time.

Cake time

Jonas blew the candle out at the wrong time and freaked out. I re-lit it, he blew it out at the end of Happy Birthday and all was well.

We had cake and ice cream (vanilla or "monster" which had M&Ms and cookie dough in it) and then opened presents. Jonas got quite the birthday loot! The big surprise was our big gift at the end...

Jonas discovering his drums

Yes, we're crazy and bought our four-year-old drums, real drums, for his birthday. Kid's got rhythm.

And of course, Jonas being Jonas, had to go and do this:

This picture sums up Jonas

Now watch yourself some Burger Rain!

An IHOP Adventure

So I was standing in the women’s bathroom at IHOP making sure my two-year-old wasn’t licking the floor or anything, when my almost-four-year-old opens his stall door announcing (in the sing-songy voice he usually uses when he makes this announcement), “I poooooooped!” We were not the only ones in the bathroom, and he was wearing only his shirt and socks...

Backtrack. I took all three kids (ages two, almost four and five) to IHOP by myself tonight. No, I am not brave, but yes, I am crazy.

I took the kids to IHOP because their daddy has been out of town since Saturday night. Before that he had been home only a few days after returning from another work trip. The kids need to be thoroughly distracted when Daddy is gone because if they’re not (and sometimes even if they are) they go nuts. I was already going crazy at home so why not go crazy somewhere else where other people would bring us our food and then clean up after us? Right?

At IHOP with Middle One 

My middle child, the mostly naked one in the IHOP bathroom, has the most difficult time. When he gets particularly upset he goes into what we call “Hulk Mode.” Once in Hulk Mode, it’s nearly impossible to talk him down and we just need to let it run its course. But sometimes, sometimes we can talk him down by giving him something to look forward to later. Something like IHOP. I can tell him, “If you’re going to throw fits like this, I can’t take you to IHOP,” and he just might calm down.

Pancakes would be the favorite food of all three kids. IHOP is a pretty safe bet for me to take the kids by myself. The servers have always been super nice and it is a sit-down restaurant where you sort of expect to hear loud children at the beginning of their sugar rush. You just don’t expect naked children loudly singing about their poop.

**NOTE: IHOP did not sponsor this post, though I wish they did. I'd love some free pancakes!**

Yo Gabba Abners

Chase & I put our family in the Yo Gabba Gabba theme song and it goes...

SIMON! He's smart and artsy!
JONAS! He's mad and funny!
CHARZIE! She's sweet and curly!
MOMMY! She does the laundry!
DADDY! He loves his iPhone!
Let's all come and play with the Abner fam today!
Yo Gabba Gabba, Yo Gabba Gabba,
Yo Gabba Gabba, Yo Gabba Gabba
Yo Gabba Gabba, YO!

Neglect

Yeah, I've been completely neglecting this blog. It's not that I haven't had ideas to blog about, it's more that I haven't felt like any of those ideas are worthwhile.

I'm tiring of blogging about what's been going on and just posting pictures of my super cute kids.

Before everyone and their grandparents were on facebook, this blog was an easy way to show my friends & family what I've been up to, but now they can just facebook stalk me or instagram stalk me or twitter stalk me and see that in real time or close to it. I'd rather write something a little more entertaining.

The problem is, I've been uninspired.

I don't think I'm going to change the world or become some sort of internet comedian or make it as a mommy blogger or anything. I just want to write something... else?

Since I'm uninspired, I'll just give an update with pictures of what's been going on:

Simon got glasses.
Jonas wants glasses (and will wear his sunglasses around the house).
We had about a week of sick kids.
We cleaned up lots of gumballs from our yard.
There are still lots of gumballs in our yard.
Simon turned 5.
I made him a bug cake & we celebrated with our church community group.
We also made a trip to Kings Island to celebrate again with family.
Chase has been playing music.
I went to a concert at a basement venue where I saw Lucius and Tall Tall Trees.
I hula hooped with a friend between sets because a hoola hoop enthusiast hangs out at the house where we saw the concert.
Chase bought me a Lucius shirt.
I waited too long to change Charzie's diaper & pee got on that shirt.
I'm working on Charlotte's 2nd birthday party.
It's Yo Gabba Gabba! themed.

Now pictures:

Simon showed me bugs in a book & I put them on his cake

Spectacled Sime blowing out his candle

Simon at Kings Island with his funnel cake

My grandpa poking a kosmoceratops with his cane at Kings Island

Simon & Jonas showing some dino-love at Kings Island

This one is almost 2!

The birthday invitation (front) I designed for Charlotte

Bat-Charz

Charlotte (just about 22 months old) was just acting tired but it's too early to put her down for a nap. We'd already read some books and I decided it would be better to let her watch some TV than to have her fussing now (from her being tired) or later (from napping too early and getting tired)...

Me: Do you want Mommy to turn on a movie for you?
Charzie: Yeah
Me: What do you want to watch? Princess? (Cinderella)
Charzie: No
Me: You don't want to watch Cinderella?
Charzie: No
Me: What do you want to watch?
Charzie: Batman!

My baby girl is borderline obsessed with Batman, and I'm not talking the modern cartoons or movies either. She loves Batman: The Movie starring Adam West. She asks to watch Batman at least once a day and will laugh maniacally if I turn it on for her. She talks about Batman, Penguin and Joker. She calls her room "My Bat Cave" and will also say that the arches from our entryway to the dining and living rooms in our house are the Bat Cave.

Charlotte actually watches the movie, too. She'll gather her blankies and some toys on the couch and just sit watching Batman. I'll hear her exclaim, "Oh no! Batman! Look out!" during parts of the movie where Batman seems be in peril. She will get up and play a little while the movie is on, but she makes sure to keep an eye on her hero.

I can only assume her Batman obsession started with her big brother Jonas being all about The Bat. But this girl is taking it to a whole nutha level. We might be in trouble here...

Valentine's Soaps 'n Stuff

So, it's Valentine's Day.  My kids love their friends and family and enjoy making things to give/send to them.  I'm kind of artsy and a bit crafty, so when the mood strikes and the kids aren't cranky and one or more of them are occupied or napping, I like to help them make things for their friends & family.  I don't think crafting with your kids makes you a good parent and the inverse of not crafting with your kids certainly does not make you a bad parent.  Other than making art using pencils, crayons, markers & stickers, we only do a handful of crafts a year (you know, because I have three small children which equals utter chaos most of the time most days).  This year it worked out for Simon (age 4) and me to make these cute little heart-shaped soaps to give to the kids' friends, their cousin and grandparents...

Cute right?  We already had the soap-making stuff (glycerin bars, soap dye & soap scent) because a couple Christmases ago we made soaps with tiny ornaments inside to give out.  As the kids and I were perusing Target a week or so ago, I came across these ice cube trays in one of the bargin bins at the front of the store:

I know melting crayons down into different shapes using trays & pans is a pretty popular craft right now, and that was the inspiration for this soap project.  When I saw the tray I instantly thought it was perfect for making little soaps!  And since we already had the stuff at home, there was no loading the kids up to make a special trip to get supplies, it really was the perfect Valentine craft.

I simply melted the glycerin in a big bowl using the microwave, Simon stirred while I added the soap dye & soap scent, then I used a ladle to pour the liquid into the tray.  It hardened in less than 30 minutes and was ready to pop out.  Simon & I used some plastic wrap to package the soap.  I tied it with some paper ties from packaging from some Imaginext toys the boys got recently (I saved the ties because I thought they would make some cute gift wrap options, glad I did).  Simon was the art director as I made tags on the computer.  Then I just cut the tags out with scrapbook scissors (because I cannot cut a straight line to save my life and the wavy scissors make that less obvious), punched a hole and tied the tag on.

I think our tag is pretty clever, if I do say so myself...

I felt the need to put "It's soap!" on the tag because I wouldn't want their friends to mistake it for candy...

The soaps are small, cute, smell good without too much scent, AND the kids love using them to wash their hands (3-year-old Jonas will purposely touch the potty so that he has to gets to wash his hands with these soaps!).  So they're decorative yet practical.  It's very likely that Simon and I will do this again next year for his kindergarten class Valentines.  How is it he's old enough to start kindergarten next school year?!?!

So the soaps were Valentines for the kids' friends.  A few weeks ago while we were at Target (different trip than the aforementioned one, we all love us some Target), on an impulse I got the kids some way awesome Valentines cups...

Target had this whole display of circus-y Valentines stuff.  If you really know me, you also know that I love love love the circus.  So I really couldn't not get these cups for the boys.

I especially had to get them because for Simon's 3rd birthday he had a circus party and I made Jonas into a strong man on the invitations & decorations...

So then I couldn't get the boys a cup without getting one for Charlotte as well...

Just look at that girl!  She likes monkeys and will often just sit on the floor saying, "Mon-kee soun, mon-kee soun... AH! AH! AH!"  So the monkey cup was fitting.

So I hope you enjoyed my super-long Valentine's post.  I'll leave you with a picture of Simon being the strong man on his cup.