My sweet physique

Ella is shaped like Aron so far. Not too much in the derriere region if you know what I'm saying. On Tuesday when I went to work, I got a call from my Mom who was laughing hysterically. Ella was running around the kitchen table in her shorts and tank top. As she was running, her shorts fell down because she doesn't have much of a tush to hold her shorts up. My Mom told her to wait a minute and she would come over to pull them back up. Ella replied "Nope, Grammie. NUDIE" and proceeded to toss her shorts aside and keep running. On the bright side, maybe she'll be one of those "When life gives you lemons make lemonade" type people. On the dark side, maybe she'll be a stripper (as my grandma likes to point out.).

It's been interesting to watch the different physical development of both of the kids. I'm not sure what I should chalk up to boys vs girls or just differences in kids in general. When Ella was learning to crawl, she was all about using her legs to push herself along. She would back herself up to a couch, chair, etc and then use her legs to push off of it and propel herself forward. Luke is different. He's all about using his upper body strength. He pulls himself along and likes to spin himself around on his belly by using his arms. Luke was trying to crawl forward and Ella was crawling around beside him telling him "Like this Lukie. Like this." Such a good little helper!

A Wedding Anniversary Par-tay, BABY!

My Aunt and Uncle's 25th wedding anniversary was on Sunday. I was their flower girl those many years ago (and was the cutest darn flower girl you ever saw let me tell you--a vision in pastel pink lace). They had their party at a local gated community's lodge overlooking the lake. It was very pretty there. Here's a pic of my Mom and Ella hanging out.

My Aunt's very excited because her son is getting married this Thanksgiving and Ella is going to be the flower girl for their wedding. We already have her dress and I hear that there was a flower girl tiara purchased for Ella. The ring bearer will be Myles. I'm no Diane Warwick or LaToya Jackson but the psychic in me says with those two kids involved it will be good times, my friend, good times.

The 3rd Annual Garage Sale and a Trip to the Urgent Care

The 3rd annual Garage Sale at my house went ok. On Friday it did nothing but rain but we still had a lot of Hard Core Garage Salers coming and buying our stuff. I didn't feel good still so I ended up going to an urgent care Friday night. Basically, who knows what kind of bacteria or whatever I had but the doctor who saw me said "Whoa. Your glands are really swollen." So, she prescribed a Z-Pack for me because I can't take penicillen. YIKERS! Just a warning, Z-Packs really pack a punch--so much so that it made me sick. But not sick enough to stop taking it because it also made my sore throat feel better (It even hurt to eat ice cream). I don't think I've taken an antibiotic since high school. Anyhoos, the garage sale trudged on without me. We had it on Saturday, too, and ended up making 350 bucks total! Woo hoo!

The picture above is one of the kids playing in the puddles in the driveway in the rain. If you look closely there is a Wendy's fork in Myles' hand. He was trying to scoop puddle water and drink it if you weren't watching him.

Popcorn bandit!

Ella loves popcorn so my Grandma made her a tin full of it. I gave Ella the tin to eat some. I walked away into the office and came back about 30 seconds later and this is what I saw. She may look like me but her eating habits are all Aron. Sigh.

I love me a good binky

It's funny how kids learn to prefer certain things from an early age. Luke uses a pacifier (we call it a binky) when he goes to sleep. He has 2 binkies that we use--one yellow one and one green one. Whenever I hold him to get him to go to sleep, I give him his choice of the yellow or green one by sitting them out in front of him. Every time, he chooses the yellow one. I wonder if he prefers the color yellow or if it was particularly comforting to him one lonely night. I think I missed my calling doing research because I tested my hypothesis (Luke will always choose the yellow binky) by alternating whether its on his right or left to see if he just prefers the object on his right or left side. Further still, I've made the green one closer to see if he would just choose the binky closest to him. Alas, he always chooses the yellow one even if he has to work a little bit to get it. He doesn't throw a fit if he has to use the green one (i.e. I can't find the yellow one) but given the choice, it's yellow over green every time. I wonder if this is just a phase. Maybe in a couple weeks, green will be where its at for him.

Anyhoo, we've been a house of sickness this week. Ella started it off last week then Luke got sick on Monday then I've been sick for the last couple days. Tomorrow is our big garage sale so we'd better all be healthy by then or I'm in trouble!

Princess Pouty Pants

My daughter has started to try a new tactic with us to get what she wants. Pouting. She must not have known me as a child. Otherwise, she would know that I am Queen Pouty Pants and she will never get what she wants by pouting with me. Her father is another story but whatever.

Soul Patrol! Soul Patrol!

I'm very glad that Taylor Hicks won American Idol last night but does anyone else think he looks like Ray Charles having a seizure when he sings? Just a little food for thought.

Future Bad Apple

That's right. That's a skunk tattoo. I told her to look tough so I could take her picture and this is what she came up with. I have a tattoo on my arm, too, but mine is a chipmunk.

I'm not sure if I should laugh or not...you make the call

Ella's ability to put together sentences is really coming along. It seems like just last week we were happy that she could put together 3-4 word phrases (like "I have more juice?"). She has gained the ability to put together bigger sentences with better grammatical structure. Unfortunately, she tends to use it for bad rather than good sometimes. She likes to talk about our cat and her potty habits. She likes to tell people who come over "Janey goes poop in box in garage. Not on floor." She's very mystified by Jane's ability to go potty in a box. I was getting ready to take Ella potty yesterday when she stopped and said "Ella go poopy in Janey's box?" Um, no.

Last night, Luke, Ella, and I were all playing on the floor in our living room. Luke didn't have a shirt on because I had spilled some of his applesauce on the front of it. I hadn't put a replacement on him because I didn't feel like running upstairs so he just had his jeans on . Ella stopped playing, reached over to Luke and smooshed his little pecs together and said "Lukie. You have little baby Buddha boobies." (If you want to have a little silly fun, try to say "little baby Buddha boobies" 5 times fast). Although, I was impressed with her ability to say that phrase and to come up with it on her own I'm hoping she never uses it again. Let's hope, shall we?

Luke's development has been coming along, too. He's now able to crawl backward. It's still a bit awkward but he's really starting to get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth. He really hasn't tried to go forward too much but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of time before he's talking in sentences like Ella, too. This could be a problem.

Ella was sick yesterday. She had a fever of 103 yesterday so I gave her tylenol. She threw up twice--yuck. 2 hours later, she was running around like nothing ever happened. She has some kind of freakish immune system--she rarely gets sick and it doesn't usually last long when she does. She's not quite back to her regular self yet and is kind of tired. No story hour today because I didn't want to infect the other kids (Sorry we missed Kortney!).

I'm a believer...Not a trace... of doubt in my mind...

Man, I love that song--who doesn't love SmashMouth, ay? Anyhoos, we took Ella and Myles to the local library last night and saw a children's theater group perform Henny Penny. For those of you not up on your children's stories, this is the one with the chicken that thinks that the sky is falling (aka Chicken Little, Chicken Little the sky is falling). It was very cute. The kids had a great time. Ella enjoyed every moment of the blatant silliness and costumes. The sky is falling--I'M A BELIEVER, BABY!

We happened to see someone we knew from high school there. Well, at least we think we knew this guy from high school anyway. We went in the building to sit down and 2 rows in front of us was this guy with his kids and wife who turned around and was like "ARON! MAN! Great to see you!" So, he and Aron sat around and talked a bit about what was new and did your general b.s.'ing kind of talk. When they were done, I turned to Aron and mouthed "Who is that?" To which Aron mouthed back "I have no clue." We're still not 100% sure--guess it's time to get out the old yearbook. It never fails--every time we go somewhere, someone recognizes Aron. Could be that he looks the exact same as he did in high school. Every time I go somewhere, no one recognizes me. I must look very different or am very forgettable--maybe a combo of the two.

Check out the cute pics of the 2 Henny Penny followers.

OH COME ON!

We had a busy Mother's Day. We decideded to try something different so we drove over to the Mohican area. Mohican is a outdoors-y nature-y kind of area with bunches of trails and horses. There's a really great place there called Landoll's Castle that did a special Mother's Day brunch. If you ever have a chance to go, it's very cool. http://www.landollsmohicancastle.com/ We went to church in the morning which ends at 10:00. Our reservations were for 11 so we had to hurry after church to get there on time. My Dad had told me that he would print out directions to get to the castle because we had never been there. Aron and I were the last ones to get out of church and my Mom and Dad, Jeff and Robin had already left to get to the restaurant. We started to leave and realized that we didn't have directions. We called my Dad and asked where our directions were. He told me that he had put them in our car before they left church on the driver's side seat. So I yelled at Aron "Where are the directions? Are you sitting on them? Get up! Where are the directions?" Aron got up (well, got up the best he could since he was driving at the time). They weren't on his seat. I looked all over the car and couldn't find them. Then, I got a call back from my Dad. He and my Mom had figured out that he had actually put the directions in someone else's car thinking that it was ours. He put them in someone's black minivan that was parked beside his car. HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO HIM THAT OUR CR-V IS NOT A MINI VAN. UGH! DAD!!!!!

On a more positive note, the food was quite tasty (think citrus grilled salmon and mini cheesecakes). On a more negative note, Luke really enjoys an icy glass of water so I let him drink some of mine. Unfortunately, he wanted more and I didn't recognize that fact soon enough. Yup, we're talking an entire glass of ice water dumped all over my lap because I left it within his reach. I should've known that would be how my day would go.

Now that's just ridiculous

Opposition has taken an ugly turn, folks. Ugly yet funny at the same time. Ella was watching her favorite show, Dragon Tales, on PBS yesterday. It's on at 5:30. There are 2 segments of cartoons--there's one episode then an interlude of singing and dancing then another episode. So every time she watches the show and it gets to the end of the first part she turns to me and asks "More of this?" Meaning, is there more of this show that will come on after the singing? Yesterday, I told her yes, there's more just like I always tell her. After the second part was done yesterday, she asked me if there was more. I told her "No, there isn't any more for today and the Jim Lehrer World Report is getting ready to come on." She said "Huh? World Report?" I told her "The news is getting ready to come on so go ahead and turn off TV." She crosses her arms and said "No Mommy want watch news." My 2 year old wants to watch the news? No offense to Mr Lehrer and his World Report but his news is even less exciting to watch than the regular 6 o'clock news because, quite frankly, its PBS. So I turn to Ella and tell her that I don't think she really wants to watch it. She crossed her arms and said "Yes Mommy NEWS!!!" So whatever, I let her start to watch the news. It took about 30 seconds of the news before she said "Done now Mommy. News off." I think Mr Lehrer has been rejected. Sweet.

They both crack me up

The best part of these pictures are the slippers Luke is wearing. They're lions. They're both going to be really mad at me someday...

My dear oppositional one

That's right, folks. Ella has learned that she has the ability to be oppositional. It was a sad day in my life but a freeing day in hers. Sometimes she's oppositional just for the sake of being oppositional--I should get used to this for the teenage years, right? When we were driving home from the graduation on Sunday, Aron and I told Ella that we were proud of her for being such a good girl at Annie's graduation. We told her that she was very good and that she did a good job behaving. She told us, "No, Ella not good girl. Ella naughty." We tried to tell her again that she was indeed a good girl and that she deserved to be told this because she was really good. She replied with "Nope. Ella naughty" then she crossed her arms. I'm not sure even where she's heard the word naughty because we've never used it to describe her. Who knows?

She's also started telling us that everything is not fair. If you ask her to pick up a toy, she says "Not fair, Mommy, not fair" then crosses her arms. Again with being oppositional, I asked her if she wanted a cookie. She told me "Not fair, Mommy, not fair." I'm not sure what's not fair about asking her if she wanted a cookie but whatever. She went potty and I asked her to flush and she told me "Not fair, Mommy, not fair." I informed her that it wasn't fair to Mommy to make her flush Ella's peeps so she needed to do it. Sigh. I think she learned this "It's not fair" business from a Clifford the Big Red Dog episode. They had an episode a couple weeks ago about playing fair and one of the characters crossed his arms after he said something wasn't fair. I may have to cut her off from Clifford. Who knew that cartoon could be a bad influence in my house? Double sigh.

I've been neglectful of my dear blog...

Sorry for the large gap in blog entries. We've been busy!


In the top picture is Aunt Annie and Uncle Kevin. In the bottom picture is Aron's Dad (Steve), Ella, Aron's sister (Aunt Annie), and Aron's Mom (Linda).
On Sunday, we went to Aron's sister's graduation. It was a beautiful event but long. There were 863 graduates--whew! That's a lot of names to read! As the names were being read, some people walked around, others sat, others did a combo of walking and sitting. We chose to walk around for a while. Ella and I went to see Aunt Annie who was sitting at the back of the graduates. We talked to her for a couple minutes but Ella was shy and didn't want to talk much. I let her run around a little bit more then we went to sit down again. Ella got tired of sitting again within 15 minutes so Aron decided to walk her around again. They decided to go back and see Aunt Annie again. This time Ella was more gabby with Aunt Annie so they stayed a little while longer. They left when it was time for Aunt Annie to get up and go get her diploma. Luke slept for part of the graduation and played around for part of it. Poor Kevin had to leave right after the graduation because he still had to drive back to his apartment in Connecticut--a nine hour drive--yikes! So, we ate yummy food while poor Kevin was on the road. Have I mentioned poor Kevin! This was one of the last times he will have to make the trip, though, because in a few weeks he will be moving to New York to live. At the end of June/beginning of July, Annie will be done with her internship and will be able to join him before she starts her masters program in New York. After graduation, we went to Kevin's grandparents' house for dinner. It was late by the time we were done with eating so we put the kids in their jammies and loaded them in the car for the 1 1/2 hour drive home. Whew! An exciting day.

LUKE!

Check out Luke's face in this one. He cracks me up.

On the road to Stubbornville. Population: 2

How could these sweet, innocent faces be stubborn, you ask? If you ask that question, you obviously have not hung around my dear sweet babies for long lately. Both of them have been testing Mommy's patience. Yesterday's battle with Ella was over applesauce. That's right. One little tiny container of Mott's Granny Smith Unsweetened applesauce. Luke was having some and she decided she was some, too. Sounded great to me so I opened one up for her. She looked inside it and said "Dirty" and refused to eat it. In all reality, the "dirt" was just those little specks of apple parts that get mixed in with the applesauce. Completely not going to harm her, I even ate a little to show her that Mommy was ok with eating the "dirt." She refused and had a fit about it. Being the mean, nasty Mommy I am, I told her that she wasn't going to have any lunch or any snacks until she ate it because she told me she wanted it and it wasn't really dirty. She decided to take the low road and crossed her arms and said "dirty." Ok fine, you wanna play hard ball with me, do you? I sat there and ate my entire lunch in front of her--complete with cheese flavored chex mix (a favorite of hers). The entire time she sat there telling me "Mommy! Ella STARVING, Mommy! Want Chex! Starving, Mommy, STARVING!" I told her that if she were truly starving, she would eat the applesauce that was sitting right in front of her. 45 minutes later, she decided to give in and ate the applesauce. I'm sure some day she'll be sitting in therapy talking about how it all started when she was 2 and her Mom made her eat dirty applesauce.

Aw yeah, kickin it story hour style

Check out my sweet windsock that we made in story hour!

Gratuitous book plug + my kids=blogging fun

Ok so I bought my friend, Kelly, kids' book. It's very cool! If you don't have it, you need to get it. It's called City Beats: A Hip-Hoppy Pigeon Poem. The illustrations are awesome--they're all made of polymer clay. Some of the pictures are quite intricate! Anyhoos, that's my plug. Go. Buy it. Amazon.com. It's yours for $15. There. I'm done.



Ella and Luke hung out with Granny Lindy today. She said that both kids were really good. They slept in until 9:15! When it's me with them, they get up at 7. Don't they know I need a extra sleep, too?? Geez! Ella was all about having books read to her today. Her current favorites are the 3 Little Pigs, 3 Billy Goats Gruff, and one about a chicken making bread--I forget what that one's called, though. She's all about those types of stories which are actually kind of morbid when you think about it. It seems like in every one of them, one of the animals dies or gets eaten by another animal. YIKES! It doesn't seem to bother her, though. She's one tough cookie, I guess. Must take after her mother.

Luke's continuing to foray into the world of solid food. He's currently enjoying cheerios, chex, and graham crackers. He's also really into drinking from a sippy cup. Typically, he enjoys ice water but occasionally I'll give him some juice. Not too much juice, though, because we don't need any diaper explosions if you know what I mean. Although, if I planned said diaper bombs for a day that I'm not here...like say a Tuesday or Friday...no, no that would be wrong...Grammie and Granny Lindy could use a little excitement...