Kin Konfustion

The other day, the kids and I were waiting for the FedEx man to show up in the car while we were parked in the driveway. It's a long, sort of ridiculous story, but the short version is that I didn't want to get the kids out because it was very close to the time he normally comes by. As soon as I got the package I needed to deliver it to someone...it was a Christmas card order so they needed them asap. I knew as soon as I got the kids out of the car and into the house, everyone would get tired and want a nap, then the FedEx man would show up. Then I'd have to get everyone back in the car to deliver the package. So we waited in the driveway. While we waited, Anna was asking who we were waiting for. I was telling her about the FedEx man, whose name is John. She knew him since he's been a regular at our house the past couple of months. I bet the neighbors think we're getting drugs delivered or something. But anyway, I was telling Anna about his job, etc. She started asking things like, "His name is John? ...like Reagan's daddy?" And I'd answer, "Yes, they have the same name. Reagan's daddy's name is Jon. He's your uncle Jon." We went back and forth and she seemed to be getting a little confused by all the different names of family members for some reason.

After 30 minutes of waiting in the driveway, I gave in. Grey had a dirty diaper and Anna was done. So we unloaded and went into the house. We were inside for about an hour when the FedEx man, John, showed up. Anna raced to the door as usual and as I opened the door Anna yells, "Are YOU my Daddy?!" I was trying to talk over Anna since I was mortified that we hadn't cleared all that confusion up in the car. I don't know if John heard her, but I'm not sure how he didn't.

John came again the day before yesterday and of course, Anna runs to the door. I open the door and again, "Are YOU my Daddy?!" He heard it that time and Anna's real dad (whose name is not John) was home. He yells back at Anna as I laugh trying to cover my embarrassment. John, the FedEx man laughed.

Today I turned "Bruce Almighty" on. It was on cable. Anna looks at Morgan Freeman and says, "Mommy, that's my grandpa....my other grandpa." What??

Mr. GQ

Elisabeth said that this is Grey's GQ pose. He's become quite the expert at pulling up onto the furniture. He's also a pro at smacking his head on things as he falls when his legs give out.

Fire Bugs.

They aren't as close as they look.

Gingerbread house.

...the intense concentration.

Our great friend, Teri, brought over a prebuilt gingerbread house complete with two bags full of decorations and little icing bags. I told Anna that she had to wait until her dad got home to decorate it. It was going to be a father/daughter project. I knew J would like to do that with her. So after asking me a gabillion times when Daddy was going to be home, or if she could go ahead and get started without him, he finally came home from work. After dinner they got started. It turned out very nice and Anna had a hard time leaving it alone. I think her finger was in her mouth licking off icing and other decorations every time I turned around.

J's fabulous wood pile "out back" made of pretzels.

Grey wanted to help.

Way behind...

Sorry folks, I'm WAY behind on posting. I'll have several new posts in a row soon. There are lots of pictures on my camera and computer that need to be uploaded, but I have been a little swamped lately. Stay tuned!

There are no secrets.

I had to give J his present early.  It's a long story...  but it came in two small boxes that were pretty obvious if they were wrapped in the original packaging.  So when I came back from the store and needed to wrap it somehow that he didn't know exactly what it was just from looking it after it was wrapped, I decided to do it the "nesting" way.  You know, the present, wrapped inside another present, wrapped inside another.  Anna helped.  She didn't really know what the gift was and I was careful not to tell her...or show her, just in case her dad decided to try to get it out of her before he opened it.  We wrapped the two small packages, packed them into a larger box, then wrapped it.  We packed that wrapped box into anther box, then wrapped it.  The boxes I happen to have were, of course, a diaper and wipes box.  When we got all the tape put on it (in places that didn't actually hold anything together, usually) and the purple bow that Anna chose (nice and manly!), we put it under the tree and waited for Daddy to come home.  As soon as he came home, Anna was ALL OVER the gift and was asking J to open it right away.  

Anna: DADDY!  OPEN your present!!!

Daddy: Are you sure it's not your present? (since it was purple and green, I guess)

Anna: NO!  It's YOURS!  I helped Mommy wrap it up!

Daddy: What's in the box?

Anna: It's a box, but there are no diapers in there!

Weird.

Lots of times, when everyone goes to bed, I need to unwind my brain and just sit in front of the tv and think about something other than kids, life, and/or photography.  So when I get caught up at night or when J just wants some darkness in the bedroom so he can sleep, I go to the living room and turn on the Science Channel, Discovery Health, or something like that...  Last night was no different and I watch something very strange.  Many times when I watch the Science Channel I end up rolling my eyes at all the talk about evolution or whatever.  But last night they had this thing on "Real Superhumans."  It was about people with genetic traits, or at least they thought, that were extraordinary.  

They had a man who could calculate enormous equations in his head.  And sometimes the equations weren't enormous, but the answers were.  Things like "what is 98,301 to the 12th power?", or "what's 39 divided by 4397?"  He could do it all in his head and name every number right of the decimal point.  Every number...in his head.  

They also had a man that was born without eyes who was a painter.  He painted landscapes, still-life, animals, and had a unique understanding of perspective that someone without the capabilities of sight could never be able to have.  He painted with his fingers and they showed him painting a seascape complete with waves crashing on rocks of a shoreline in the foreground and sailboats in the distance.  How in the world could he be able to do that?  

Another woman they talked about was one who had "combined senses."  I didn't know what that meant or even how that worked.  They described it as "seeing and tasting music."  Weird...  She says she can hear a note coming from anywhere, such as a dog barking, a rain drop, a skateboard rolling by.  She can see the color the note makes (which I totally don't understand), and even tastes what the note tastes like.  This is just bizarre.  They had an illustration, which I needed badly, about the time she figured out that she had this ability.  She said that she was sitting at an outdoor cafe with a friend when it started to rain.  As each drop fell onto the ground, onto a tea cup, a plate, on a plant leaf, she could hear the precise note it was making.  As she heard the note she saw a splash of color as it hit and tasted different things as she heard each drop.  She would hear a "G" see a splash of blue and taste a creamy taste.  (I don't know exactly if those are the combinations, but you get what I mean).  Crazy.  Then, of course, throughout the show, they were talking about being able to "generate" superhumans by locating the gene of which these people had in a lab.  Is that scary to anyone else?

...of all things...

This weekend while we were on our way back from the "trip", as Anna likes to call it, we stopped at a convenience store so I could get some snacks.  Anna loves popcorn and I saw this cute, vintage bag of kettle corn hanging next to the cashews.  I'm such a sucker for cool packaging, so I grabbed it.  This is probably the first time I've ever bought popcorn in a bag, since I think the whole idea of it is kind of gross.  It's just so "grandpa-ish", and frankly, it just doesn't sound good to me at all when you can have perfectly good, warm popcorn right out of the microwave.  Anna didn't end up eating this little red bag of kettle corn on the trip home so I saved it for later.  She was in her room the next day and asked for some popcorn.  I remembered that I had this bag and went to get it rather than popping another bag that she'd just eat about three handfuls of.  She tasted it, then asked for some "different popcorn."  She didn't like it.  I again wondered why I bought it in the first place and thought , "uh, yeah, it's popcorn IN A BAG....it's gotta be gross."  As I headed to the trash with it, I shook some into my palm and tossed it into my mouth.  It stopped in in my tracks.  It was SO good!  Could this be?  A non-grandpa-ish bag of pre-popped popcorn?  I didn't even like kettle corn either!  I inhaled the bag while I worked on some photography and after I tipped the bag up to get the rest of the crumbs the had settled into the seam at the bottom of the bag, I thought, "there is NO WAY I'll find this anywhere else since it came from a convenience store out in the middle of nowhere.  

The next day, the kids were at school and I was out looking for teachers gifts at World Market.  I turned down one of those weird food isles and there it was...  an entire section of these vintage red popcorn bags, all different flavors.  Well, not all the flavors were there.  It looked like others had discovered this delectable snack as well.  The kettle corn that I had loved was there.  I have no idea how much it is, but because the packaging is so cool, I'm sure it's too expensive.  I got one bag and it's sitting here, almost empty, while I write this.  (I got it yeaterday.)  I think I'll buy some stock...or just stock up.

Popcorn, Indiana

Baby food boycott.

Grey has a new trick.  He doesn't like baby food anymore...AT ALL, not even fruits.  I thought something was up when I gave him some bananas (in a jar) and he looked at me like I was crazy.  Anna ate anything I put in front of her, so when Grey started acting like this, I knew something weird was up.  Other moms say that it's normal for babies to decide that they like table food better, and who wouldn't?  It's just a new thing for me.  Last night he enjoyed some chicken parmesan with penne pasta, cucumbers, and some tomato.  He wore lots of it.

The REAL pioneer woman.

Yesterday was COLD and very windy.  The pyro in me longed for a fire to start and poke at...and burn things in.  One problem...no firewood.  My plan...to go into the forest out back and chop some wood.  Oh wait, I mean gather some sticks from the one dead tree that we cut down this summer.  We kept the wood to burn in our firepit thing outside, but never used it.  The pieces we cut were too large and wouldn't fit in out fireplace inside.  I went to get the chainsaw.  I bundled up, grabbed the best logs and started sawing.  We had the best fire ever.  I'll take a bow now.

I knew there was a reason...

As I was still annoyed by my decision to drive through Denton and not around it, we came across this creative place.  Mom said, "Huh, that's a weird combination."  I HAD to stop and take a shot of this.  I was in the far left hand lane, so drove up the road to shoot a 'U' and came back.  It was totally worth driving through all those stop lights just for this!  We didn't go in, but I thought about going to ask if they sold t-shirts.

Goof.

This was what Anna was doing while I shot some photos of the "treaf" on her house.

"Chwismas treaf"

Anna made a cute wreath at school on Tuesday.  We took it home and I set down it somewhere in the house intending on putting it up.  Later that evening Anna started asking about her "Chwismas treaf."  I had no idea what she was saying and we went back and forth trying to communicate.  I finally figured out that she was saying "wreath" but was getting "tree" and "wreath" confused.  I went to get the wreath and asked her what she wanted to do with it.  She said, "I wanna put it on my door..."  So I got the tape and headed to her bedroom.  I thought she meant her bedroom door.  She immediately started telling me that that wasn't the door she meant.  After going back and forth with her again, she finally showed me which door she meant.  She wanted it on the door on HER house.  So that's where we put it.  I saved it from the frigid wind storm this morning, thank goodness.  It would've been blown away by the 50mph winds.  Yuck.

"I'm SO excited ..."

Every time Anna sees Christmas decorations lately she says, "I'm SO excited it's Christmas DAY!" She still hasn't caught on to the difference between a "season" and a "day," even though we've tried to explain it to her several times; each time it being more of a let down than anything.  I think she'd rather us (and everyone else) keep all the Christmas stuff up year around.  But who could blame her?  J put up some awesome Christmas lights on the house with a big, glowing snowflake above our garage, and I put a smaller snowflake in Anna's window.  She thought that was pretty neato.  When we go to the mall, she points out almost every Christmas related thing.  She will probably be pretty sad when we have to take the tree down and move our furniture back.  I'm just glad that she will really have memories of this Christmas, including putting the star on top of the Christmas tree all by herself...with Daddy's help.  ;)

These are some of my new things I found in my decorations!  Pretty huh?  They got a little hot in the attic and melted to each other.  But they still look fine.  :)

The Couture of Laundry Soap.

A funny thing happened the other day.  My mom, who spoils me beyond anyone's imagination, heard me say something about how I needed some laundry detergent.  This conversation was around the time that I had two puking children, so the laundry room was working overtime.  She said that she needed to go to Sam's for some things and after a while came back with a bottle that I hadn't seen in my house, well, ever!  I was in awe of the fact that my mom bought me a Sam's sized jug of Tide..not that she wouldn't ever do such a thing, because she does things like this all the time, but because she bought TIDE! ...the couture of laundry detergents.  I was trying to remember the last time I bought Tide, and I don't think I ever have...ever.  Only because it's so expensive, and because I'm so cheap.  She laughed at me.  I covet that Tide.  I use it sparingly so I can maybe make it last longer.  Then when it's gone, we'll go back to having average smelling, but still clean laundry. 

'Tis the season...

Isn't it fun to get all the Christmas decorations out?  I love it...as do most, I think.  J got all the boxes down and put up the Christmas lights on the house, which look GREAT!  I looked at all the boxes in the garage, there really aren't THAT many...maybe 4, and started thinking about where certain things will go.  Most of the things I have are hand-me-downs...GREAT ones, all of which I am thankful to have.  Christmas decorations are unnecessary and overpriced, but also are AWESOME!  So I'm glad that some of my family members donate to the cause.  :)  I have things in those boxes that I remember from my grandmother's and great-grandmother's houses during Christmas.  As I was trying to remember what all I had stashed away, and trying to place all those items around our house in my mind, I started opening a box.  I didn't remember this particular box from last year, but it did say, "CHRISTMAS" in red letters all over it.  I ripped the tape off to find and Wal-Mart sack FULL of NEW Christmas decorations!  I remember now!  I hit the after-Christmas sales last year and had lots of new things!  Mostly evergreen and red berry garlands, but still, new things!  It was exciting!

Anna and Grey's Christmas List:

Anna: 

1: An attitude adjustment.

2. Having the ability to not blame Grey when I tell her to do something, or blaming him for not "letting" her do something she wants to do (such as taking a drink out of her cup, or something else ridiculous).

Grey:

1: A miraculous recovery from all of the different sicknesses he's had (non-stop) for the last few months.

2. For Anna to stop waking him up in the middle of the night from his perfect sleep because she's crying about something.  Something like "I have a bugger in my nose!!"

Beware.

I'm about to make THESE and I'm not sure that they'll make it to the church in time for our Thanksgiving dinner (because I might eat them all).  Please pray that they do and that others at our church can also share in the clogging of arteries.  My mom says that my dad could live off of them...but not the clogged arteries.  Close your eyes Erica, your blood sugar may go nuts if you even look at this!

Update: They made it to the church, and NONE of them made it to my mouth.  But it's ok, the CUP of butter that is used in the recipe sort of grossed me out when I was making them anyway.  HA!

Been Tagged...

1: I like the smell of burning flesh.  Like if I burn my fingers a little while building a fire...  I once had a pretty serious, but small burn on my hand and kept catching myself with it stuck to my nose.  I also like the smell of burned leather.  While in my sculpture classes (metal and jewelry), sometimes I'd "accidentally" burn my leather gloves just to get a whiff.  Weird.

2.  I've always wanted to be a meteorologist when I grew up.  Not the kind on camera, but the one of the geeks that sat and watched the radars/dopplers at the National Weather Service offices.  And be a storm chaser.  I even toured the National Weather Service once when I was in college for fun.  Too bad I can't do A LICK of math...  I took an Atmospheric Science course in college and it was the only good science grade I got.  I even got a bonus question about "vertical atmospheric lift" correct on a lab test.  It was asking what a certain equation would determine, which happened to be longer than a standard sheet of paper is wide. (sorry I stole this one, Erica.)

3. I am a pyromaniac.  Most of you know that...

4. I hate to brush my teeth...and four of my teeth are fake, but not because I don't like to brush them.  They were knocked out by a softball when I was in 5th grade.

5. I like the weird eerie feeling you get when you stand in the middle of the road.  I always have the urge to stick my hands in a saw blade...it's a mental war game every time I hear a saw.

6. I LOVE to watch people and try to figure out what they are talking about when I can only see their lips moving and their facial expressions.

7.  I bite my fingernails and chew on the bitten off part for hours...or until it falls apart in my mouth.

I think I'm the last of my friends to be tagged, therefore I don't have anyone else to tag.  :)

Wanted: NFOD

Or a "new form of discipline." We have several forms of discipline in this house.  The ultimate discipline is spankings.  If nothing else works, then that's what she gets.  Anna has decided lately that she's REALLY push our buttons and see how far we'd really go.  She has been in trouble for the majority of the evenings of the last couple of weeks.  We seem to always get to the ultimate discipline every time.  But then a funny thing happened.  She started acting like getting spanked was no big deal.  Over and over she'd misbehave, talk to me in like a 16 year old who hates her parents, etc.  I'd do all those things that lead up to spanking her and nothing would phase her...and now this.  I told her the other night that if she did that again (whatever it was...) then she'd get a spanking.  She did it, I reminded her that that was about to happen, she stood there, looked at me and said, "It's ok 'cause I not gonna cry when you spank me..."  I spanked her anyway, looked at her and it was like looking at a crazy serial killer with no emotion or remorse.  She took it and walked away.  Nothing.

Poor Grey.

But he really doesn't care...  For the record, this was Nana's idea.

The dead zone.

Anna goes in and out of a "death" phase.  She's back into it lately.  The other day we were making some pancakes and Anna was helping me put in the ingredients.  She cracked an egg, put it in the bowl, and said, "Look Mommy, it's dead now."  Weird and a little morbid, but true.  She has been killing the poor little bugs that crawl past her again....mainly to see them smashed and twitchy.  And during "sick week" while Elisabeth and Erin were here, Anna had a brief conversation about death with Elisabeth.  I can't remember exactly how it went, but it was something like this:

Elisabeth: (sitting on the bed while looking at Erin and Chas' photos on the computer) Anna, what are you doing?

Anna: (also on the bed making a shoveling motion) I'm digging a hole.

Elisabeth: Why are you digging a hole?

Anna: Because...

Elisabeth: Are you going to put something in the hole?

Anna: Yes...you.

Elisabeth: I'm going in the hole?  Why?

Anna: Cause you're dead.  

Erin assures me that the "death phase" is normal and that most kids go through it.  It's just SO weird.

Verification for comments...

Have you ever over-analyzed those jumbled letters that you have to type when you want to leave a comment on someone else's blog?  It's kind of funny...the combination of letters that you "randomly" get sometimes completely relate to either whatever you've put as a comment, or relate to the post you're commenting about.  Weird.  Sometimes the jumbled letters need to make a word (or a couple of words), and sometimes the funny part comes when you just repeat the letters to yourself.  For instance, here are some of the ones I've gotten lately and wrote down:

artbegr: (as a word) Related to a blog post by a local photographer who is just "getting started."

fivcup: (repeat the letters) Related to a blog post of a friend talking about potty training her son.

fawping: (as a word) It made some sort of "sound" when saying these letters as a word...kind of like when a tennis ball bounces then hits a racket.  I don't remember the post it related to, but I remember that it went with it...

dulthet: (as a word) Related to someone talking about a case of the "Mondays."

stixies: (as a word) Again, related to a blog post about giving up on potty training.

Does anyone else "get it?"  Or is it just me having too much time on my hands...how is that possible by the way?

YAY!

Wanna see one of the prettiest rocks ever?  

Congratulations Russ and Elisabeth!

Up from the depths...

"What woman?! I'm trying to eat these magnets!"

He tries to find me behind the camera.

These are the very few smiles we've gotten all week.  This boy has just been sick.  You name it, he's had it.  Well, not that extreme.  But we can now add one more thing to the lists of ailments, an ear infection.  Yep, one of the things that I hate the most.  We got a very gracious house call last night from our friend, Elizabeth, the pediatrician, who has been amazingly gracious to us all week.  She has been genuinely concerned about the kids all week.  She came over to take a look at Grey last night.  After digging large amounts of wax out of his ears so she could just get a glimpse of this eardrums, she looked at Erin, who was also there for support, and said, "This is what an ear is NOT supposed to look like..."  Nice.  She was SO great and called us in some antibiotics this morning.  It will be a few days until Grey really starts to feel better, but at least we may be on the downhill slide.  This, for sure, is still our enemy!  It's day 6 of diarrhea.  Please make it stop!

A little off the top...

You may have read about the haircut Anna gave herself.  Here is the evidence.  It looks like more than it actually is, and I must say that it could have been WAY worse.  But there is a significant difference in the way her hair goes into a ponytail now.  The damage is mostly on her right side in the front, but there is still a good five inches of hair left there.  It does not go all the way back into a ponytail and has to be clipped much more than before.  She needs a little "evening out" haircut, but I'm not so sure how much good it will do.  At least this didn't happen the day before one of the many weddings Anna is scheduled to be in.  She no longer has the privilege of using scissors....ever.

A Glorious Comeback.

Remember when poor Puppy took a backseat to Baby?  Baby has spent the last week in Anna's "crack" as she likes to call it.  That's the space between the wall and her bed.  I asked her where her baby was and if she wanted her since she hadn't been feeling well.  She said, "She's in my crack."  Needless to say, Puppy came out of hiding soon after Anna became sick.  He has been by her side ever since.

A little game of Catch-up.

Both kids are asleep so I finally had a little time to upload a few photos and post a few entries.  This was the calm before Anna's part of the storm...taken 4 days ago.

...life goes on and on and on...

I've always feared the day that Anna would decide to give herself a haircut.  Today was the day...  I'm just thankful that that girl has curly hair down to her butt....and she still does in some areas.

Life goes on...

Today was the day that J and I were supposed to leave for a much needed trip away.  J had a conference for work and they always exceed our expectations with accommodations, meals, and entertainment for us...a completely paid for trip (almost).  And it would have been great to see some out of town friends again that we don't get to see often.  But since the kids have gotten sick, yes I did say KIDS (plural), I'll be staying home this weekend.  

After the Wal-Mart/puke episode, Anna got sick as well.  It wasn't until the next day.  She was pretty mopey most of that morning and I just thought she was sad that I wasn't playing with her much since I was changing a diaper and/or clothes about every 5 minutes.  She was actually just feeling bad.  She didn't eat much all day and at about 2pm, she threw up all over her bed.  It was VERY traumatic.  I heard the weird and alarming couch/gag and ran into her room.  She was standing on her bed screaming and pointing down at the puke on her sheets.  I grabbed her and tried to make it to the bathroom without succeeding.  She threw up right at the door to her room.  She was flipping out.  This girl just doesn't get sick and it had been a long time since she had really thrown up...I'm sure she doesn't even remember it.

Erin, the lifesaver and one of the bravest women I know, came over to help out.  She took Anna outside, watered the plants, went on a nature walk and gathered things for a craft, and helped Anna "puke like a big girl in the potty."  Erin also brought over some Pedialite and some coffee for me...to, of course, keep ME hydrated!  HA!

Anna was sick the rest of the day.  She really was a big girl and ran into the bathroom when she needed to throw up.  She calmed down and seemed to feel a little better before bed.  She got up at about 2am needing to potty.  She sat down and said, "Mommy, I puked in the potty like a big girl today!"  She was so proud.  She slept well the rest of the night.

Grey has also been sleeping well, but is still sick.  Our genius friend/pediatrician, Elizabeth, told me that it's just a stomach virus and not the dreaded "Shigella" (sp?) virus that is going around.  That sounds very scary, and we are thankful that neither of them have it.  She did say that the diarrhea, which Grey has had for almost 4 days now and Anna started today, can last for up to a week.  Grey's poor bottom is as red as I've ever seen it.  He just doesn't seem to feel well at all...certainly not as well as Anna.  Anna is back eating and drinking normally.  I'm trying to keep things light for her.  Grey just doesn't seem to want much at all.  His poor legs are completely raw from the one legged combat crawl since I've been keeping him in only a long sleeve shirt because of all the diaper changes.  I hope he feels better soon.

J will be leaving at around 5am tomorrow.  He stayed today to help me out.  I hope neither of us get this bug.  Our hands are cracked and dry from all the washing and hand sanitizer.  I also hope that J doesn't get it while away.  There will be another trip for me to go on.  I'm not worried about it.  I was earlier, but am not now.  I thought that I totally NEEDED this trip after this crazy week, but I'll be fine.  God definitely slapped me with the selfish stick this week!  I have great family and friends that will come over even when I have puking children.  Thanks guys!

Long story short...

Grey had been doing fine the majority of the day and I NEEDED to go to the grocery store.  We all (me and the kids) went to Wal-Mart.  Grey was sitting in his "hip hammock" and Anna in the cart.  All was well until the very last isle before going to the register to pay.  Grey unloads another gallon of puke all over me, himself, and the floor.  With the basket full of groceries, me soaked, Grey with a greenish-white face, and Anna screaming because she got some puke on her finger, I pulled my bag out of the cart, grabbed Anna's hand and we were outta there.  Yep, I left the FULL cart right there in the middle of the frozen section.  I'm on the verge of a breakdown.

A fabulous ending...

...to the longest day ever would, of course, be a sick kid.  Poor Grey has been snotty for a while now.  He has gotten a nasty cough in the last couple of days too.  I have been giving him lots of "dry it up" meds for this because I'm deathly afraid of ear infections.  Because of all the meds (I'm guessing) he has gotten dehydrated.  He has no problems drinking his bottles and seems to feel fine.  But he started getting dark circles under his eyes a few days ago.  I looked at them more closely and saw that the dark skin was very dry and felt hollow.  So I thought he was probably dehydrated.  I obviously have NO medical training.  I decided that I'd cut back on the meds even thought I wasn't even giving him as much as I could have been giving him, and made sure that he was well hydrated.  The cough and snot continued(s)...

Late this afternoon, Grey was playing his typical roll of "McScreamy", which is usually caused by me not being somewhere in the room where he could see me.  I went back to him and tried several things that normally work to calm him down.  Finally I just sat him in my lap in the chair.  After getting very comfy he rolled over and a gallon of puke came shooting out of his mouth.  Nice.  I got him cleaned up and took his temp.  Normal...98.6 exactly.  I gave him a little medicine for the snot since I figured the puke was from having too much snot in his stomach.  I put him to bed and he slept for a very long time...about 2 hours, longer than he's slept in a while.  I went to wake him up so he'd sleep tonight and found that he had puked again in his bed.  After getting him up, he puked two more times...but not much since he didn't have much in his stomach.  Still no fever.  Then came the "squirts."  Yep, both.  So now after washing our hands a million times and starting the washer with a load full of nasty clothes and blankets, and lighting a candle, every one is in bed.  Except for me of course.  I'm sure I'll be up all night, thus continuing the longest day ever.  HA!  

Hmm...

I usually like this time of year...  Leaves changing, days getting cooler, nights getting colder...  But this time change is a load of poo!  The last two days have been the longest days of my life!  Daylight Savings Time??  Today just won't end.  I keep looking at the clock thinking my husband would be home soon.  Once  I thought that I should start getting dinner going and looked up and it was 2:30pm.  Anna woke up at 7:10 this morning, much earlier than the norm because "it's light outside" (as she pulls the sheers back from the windows in our bedroom), "it's morning!."  And Grey not far behind her.  Sorry I acted like it would be no big deal at church Carla.  I think it has become a huge deal with both me and the kids.  Sheesh!

The Grey Area.

Grey is 8 months old today.  He has NO teeth and he has only just begun to master the one legged combat crawl.  But he goes very slowly.  He made it to the tile yesterday and you would've thought he made it into enemy territory and needed air support.  He was not happy with the hard surface.

Some Hah-aween.

This is the main reason for getting this costume.  It spins.  Anna has worn it many times before Halloween and it will be a staple in her dress-up wardrobe.  She was a "kitty princess."  It came from The Children's Place and really was more of "just a dress" than a costume.  It had a mask that went with it that she didn't really like to wear for very long.  We got her another one that only lasted a few more seconds on her face than the first one.  It didn't even have a tail...Nana and I got a feather boa and I safety pinned it on the back for the tail, she had some feathery hair clips in her buns on her head for "ears" and had some furry bracelets that she decided not to wear too.  But she had a blast spinning!  That's all that matters.  She spent most of the day dizzy.

And here it is.  The homemade costume for Daddy and Grey.  Grey's was NOT homemade and cost way too much for the amount of time he wore it.  Maybe 15 minutes.  Daddy was a building and Grey was King Kong.  All Daddy's idea.  The building was very homemade looking....

Grey was very hot.

He ate the "fire" off of the building...and a few windows fulfilling his calling for the day.

We went out the usual hot spot for Halloween night which was my sister's house.  A bunch of other kids always come over and they all go out and trick or treat.  Thanks Tara and Allie for entertaining Anna!  She had lots of fun.

Grey did a little "looking" for candy himself inside Todd's nose.  

I painted a nose and some whiskers on Anna's face for trick or treating.  She didn't REALLY look like a cat without the mask, and wasn't going to wear it, but she thought a little "makeup" on her cheeks was pretty cool.

"Going to Hah-aween..."

Anna: Mommy, can we go to Hah-aween?

Me: Anna, it's Halloween all day today.  So we are already "at" Halloween.

Anna: Oh. Are we going to Hah-aween at Daddy's Oppice? (office)

Me: They are having a Halloween party at Daddy's office, and we get to go see some friends and get some candy.

Anna: OH YAY!  I'm gonna show Daddy my tail!  ...and my SPIN!

Me: He will love to see your tail and spin.  You'll have to show all our friends your pretty costume too!

Anna: Mommy, is Daddy gonna where his thing you made for him?

Me: I think he is.

Anna:  Mommy, are all Daddy's friends gonna laugh at him?   ...he's kinda silly.

Me: Yes, I think they will laugh.

Anna:  Mommy, are we going to Hah-aween?

(and yes, almost all of Anna's sentences begin with "Mommy.")

Caught.

As I was doing my hair this morning (yes, that's what I said...), this is what Anna was doing.  I promise I fed her breakfast.  She ate scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon mixed in AND a whole thing of strawberry yogurt.   And her usual chocolate milk.

I came into the living room and saw her in the kitchen floor under Grey's highchair eating his leftovers that had been swept into a pile.  I'm sure there were other things that got swept up with those Cheerios.  Yuck.  

Me: "What are YOU DOING?!  Are you STILL hungry?!"

Anna: "Don't you LA-AUGH!"

...and she kept on eating.

I'm SO good.

Check me out going upstairs on stilts!  Did I mention how GOOD I am?

G-Money in tha Tub.

It's one if his favorite places.  Poor kid had 3 mosquito bites on his forehead.