BIG NEWS

And no, I'm not pregnant. However, I'm really excited for May 2011 because I will have two new nieces/nephews! Babies are so wonderful!

Our big exciting news is..... Monk is potty trained! 100%! We've been working on it for a while, but he wasn't really interested. It was more, "If I think about it and am not doing anything better, maybe I'll do it for a special treat." But now he's looking super cute in his Batman underwear. He doesn't even wet during his naps (when I get him to lie down) or during bed time. I'm so proud. Of course, when in public he demands his "pwivacy" and won't let me in the stall with him. I try to watch through the crack to make sure he's not touching the toilet bowl or anything. EW.



Bruiser is 10 months now and I didn't get around to posting for 9 months so let's see.... At 9 months he was ever so peaceful and crawling like a breakdancing champion. He was very very fast. He was also a bottomless pit. I'm talking waffles for breakfast and a whole PB&J for lunch. Hungry little hippo.



At 10 months our little Bruiser is crawling normally, not eating so much (and by not so much, I mean he only eats a little more than Monk does.) He pulls himself up on EVERYTHING. Mostly me and the furniture, but also the walls. He's teething something fierce so I find big puddles of drool all over the floor but it just make me laugh. He is so peaceful and such a joy. He finds more things funny now and laughs a lot at Monk.



More on my Monkey Monk: He is SMART. And INDEPENDENT. He likes superheroes, trains, dragons and Scooby Doo. He loves to eat corn dogs and fruit. And he is unendingly sweet. He's very obedient and affectionate and pretty much perfect.



My boys are so wonderful! I'm looking forward to the end of this year because we have lots of Halloween activities and Monk's birthday and holidays and Bruiser turns 1! I love watching my boys grow up.

BaBy MoUtH

My sister-in-laws are both expecting in May! I'm so excited! It's so wonderful and special to be around a baby. And I like that I don't have to be pregnant and still get to cuddle and buy cute baby clothes!

So I was trying to explain to Monk that his Aunties are having a baby. I told him that their tummies will get big so the baby can grow. Of course he connected tummy to mouth. This morning we had this conversation:

Monk- You big Momma. And I'm little.
Me- You are little. But you're getting bigger and bigger.
Monk- Can I go in your tummy for just a little while.
Me- Ha, I don't think you can fit anymore baby. But you'll keep growing.
Monk- I just go through your mouth. See?

Then he tried to put his head in my mouth. What a sweet funny boy. I'm not telling him where babies come from yet though. We can have that conversation in a few years.

A Day in the Life of a Stay at Home Mom

BEFORE NOON ANYWAY

Bruiser's up! Time to roll myself out of bed no matter how many times I woke up the night before. And when I get there, he's standing up in his crib for the first time! It makes me smile because he's growing so much. "Mommy!" And then there's Monk who always sounds so happy to see me in the morning. "I want strawberry milk."

Potty then Breakfast time. I don't remember the last time I used words like 'restroom' or 'bathroom'. But Monk goes without me telling him to which is a big triumph. I make breakfast, clean them up and eat their leftovers.

Monk likes to watch movies about now so I turn on Netflix since I can't stand cable. He still wants to watch Spongebob but I refuse. He's a parrot nowadays and I don't want him to mimic anything on that show. We choose Wonderpets instead.

I lug Bruiser around as I unload the dishwasher and make the bed, pulling off the pillowcases since I need to do a load of whites. I have to make a run to all the rooms of the house to get the vigilante dirty clothes and dishes that forgot to put themselves in the right place. Just as I've sprayed the last of the Shout on Bruiser's crib sheet Monk runs in and starts to climb the dryer. "I'm all done now, you need to get off." "NO!" A few 'nos' later and he's off to time for not listening and yelling at me.

Time for Bruiser's medicine that he doesn't like and ends up spitting all over me. And then: "AUGH! My nose! Owie!" What on earth is stuck up there? He's really upset. He hasn't done this in a long time. Since I had to call my husband home to help me. So I lay Monk on the bed and turn on the light and dig out my tweezers. Tweezers won't get it so I pinch one nostril and cover his mouth and tell him to blow. Mystery object shoots right on out. I'm still not sure what it is but I drop in the toilet and wash my hands for the third time this morning. We've only been up for a little over an hour.

He wants to watch more TV. I feel bad since every article I read says he shouldn't watch more than a couple hours tops a day. He'll want a movie after his nap. If he takes one. Are those picture hung crookedly? Geeez. I guess it doesn't matter because he keeps messing with the volume button connected to our speakers. A few no's later and he's back in time out. No more movies! Bruiser wants his jumper so I get a few minutes of quiet. If quiet includes 10 requests for a snack and movie...

Time for Bruiser's nap. He's been a happy little guy this morning. When he lays down I can get ready myself. It's hard to put on makeup and do my hair with two little guys pawing at me. So just Monk is awake. Except I don't know what's into him today. he might need a nap too because he's being really disobedient.

I notice the window is open and I wonder if our neighbors ever hear me yell at Monk. It doesn't happen often since he's usually such a good and easy little man. But that would be pretty red-neck of us and Monk usually runs around naked. If I put a pull up or underwear on him he'll pee or poop in it. If he wears nothing he always goes potty but usually gets the bottom of his shirt wet when he pees, so NAKED it is.

In between cleaning up after him and his break down it takes me a full 45 minutes to do my hair (kind of) and put on makeup. At least I don't look like I've rolled out of bed. I promised my husband I'd never be one of those wives that goes to the store in their pajama pants.

I make Monk a PB&J on a hamburger bun and this makes him happy. So I let him watch more Wonderpets. Bless the Wonderpets a this point. And if he watches a little extra TV today it's for my own good.

And it's 11am. So I'll see if Monk will take a nap too. This has been a harder morning but when Monk finally settles down he wants to hold hands and I see that they are so beautiful and so funny so individual.

And Monk, of course does not want to take a nap but he'll play quietly in his room for a little while which gives me the chance to read a little and wait for Bruise to wake up. And his little smile when he sees me is priceless.

Happy Anniversary!

I can't believe we've been married for 5 whole years! That's longer than most celebrities. Combined, haha. Today we celebrated by going to Cedar Point which was so fun! It's nice to go out and do stuff together because it reminds me how much I love being with him. Which is why we got married in the first place! I have a funny and awesome best friend that I get to live with and have fun with every day!

Cedar Point was fun. We LOVED the Millenium Force and the new Dragster one. We rode that one twice. We picked a good day for it too because there were hardly any lines at all. So we got through all the rides we wanted to and didn't stay longer than 3pm. We had a good time people watching and trying to figure out why on earth people wore what they did. Why the dresses ladies? You're at an AMUSEMENT PARK. Then there were the strange and uncomfortable... One kid was actually in slippers. But the heavy wool ones made for winter.

We went out for sushi afterwards because that's one of our favorite food. It was DELICIOUS. Then we decided to try something new. So I ordered the Salmon Caviar sushi and he ordered the Sea Urchin sushi. OH NEVER AGAIN! I couldn't get the Sea Urchin off my tongue fast enough. It was beautiful presented in a cucumber flower, but it was grayish, poopish looking, COLD and slimy. Oh it was so nasty. My man started dipping his chopsticks in his soy sauce to drink as much as he could and I shoved a wad of ginger in my mouth to try and get the memory of the experience out of my mouth. The caviar was waaay better and totally disgusting. And I kept having nemo flashbacks.

So it was an adventure. We spent too much money on it, but it was funny and we had a good laugh. We went to my parents' house to pick up our boys and I tried on my wedding dress again. Monk said my dress was 'sooo bootiful'. It fit and that was nice.

It's been an incredible five years and I had no idea that such a short space of time could be so amazing. We went from a crappy teeeeeeeny one bedroom apartment with the bathroom down the hall of the apartment building to a beautiful home, nice car and most importantly, our two most incredible little boys who we love so much. Our lives are truly blessed and we are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for giving us so much happiness!

EI8HT

I'm so terrible sometimes at keeping up with my blog. It's not that I don't ever have anything to say, but some things I just don't want to put on the world wide web. I still have the second half of our vacation to put up. I'll get those up soon. I spent most of the week getting pictures of Bruiser from birth til now and for our family yearbook ready for scrapbooking. Prints are only .10 cents at Walgreens this week so away I go!

Last reported, Bruiser wasn't doing much of anything except getting up on his toes. I knew that this month would be a big one. Where he was bald, he now has HAIR. And gets funny bedhead. Where he could not sit up, now he does for long periods of time playing with his toys. What was once a funny push-up, looks like he's breaking dancing the snake as he CRAWLS across the floor. And he's getting fast too. While he used to eat mush, he now has WAFFLES for breakfast with his two NEW TEETH. From sweet baby coos, we now have DADADADADAs, BABABABABABAs, and MAMAMAMAMAMAs. And that was just all in one week.

I can barely keep up with my sweet boy. It's funny to set him down in the living room then turn around while I do dishes because there's a tiny baby at my ankles. He's still ever so much a Momma's boy. My favorite part about all these changes is that it's easier for him and Monkey Monk to play together. Monk kind of runs all over the place and Bruiser break dances here and there and laughs and laughs and laughs and soon they are both laughing so hard and then we are all laughing so hard.

Oh how I love my darling little boys!

VACATION, How do I get away? PT 1

We've been back for about a week now so I figured I would FINALLY update our blog and get some pictures up from our vacation. Wow! It was crazy.

We left Friday morning to head out to VA Beach where our favorite friends are living right now. We were making awesome time in spite of all the terrible rain until we hit West Virginia. Traffic was stopped all the time. Turns out, it's because all those people don't know how to merge, so they stop and creep, stop and creep up. It wasn't even because there was an accident until some lady slammed in behind up. So yup, we got into a car accident which is my biggest fear with my sweet boys but everyone was ok. We had to go to the ER even though everyone seemed fine because you just can't take chances with a Bruiser Baby.

The ER was backed up but the good thing was that Bruiser has a special card that lets him hop the ER lines so we got in right away. It still took about 4 hours out of our trip and we ended up having to stay in a hotel that night from being sore and tired. We left early the next day and got to our awesome friends' place!

Then on to VA BEACH!



Monk has been talking about the beach since his Sheila Grandma went on vacation to FL so it was fun to take him. We had a good time throwing ourselves into the waves and playing in the sand, well, until it got too sandy... It was still stormy so after a couple of hours they closed the beach and we headed back to de-sand-ify ourselves. Rachel and I went to go see Eclipse.



I'm a big fan of the books but so far the movies have been really cheesy and poorly acted. Sorry Twi-hards. Eclipse is my favorite of the series but I didn't expect too much out of it. Turns out though I really loved it and was pleasantly surprised. When Rachel and I got back from our girl date the boys left to go see the Last Air Bender.



Which they said was the worst movie they have ever seen ever, period. And my husband who hates all things Twilight says he wished he had seen Eclipse instead. Huh, score one for the ladies.

The next day we took off around the afternoon and went to Washington D.C. D had never been there before and since I used to go all the time when I went to SVU I was excited to show him. We got an awesome room for under $100.



I almost didn't want to go out and see the sights, but we didn't drive all that way for nothing. We hopped on the Metro and ran to the Holocaust museum. We got there too late to see the regular exhibit and were pretty bummed about that. We'll get to it next time we go. I love that all the museums are free in DC! Then we just walked the National Mall and I showed D where you could see the White House from on top of the hill. We didn't want to walk there since it was sooooo hot. But trucked it up to the Washington monument and the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial. His mom's godfather has his name on there so we looked it up. By then we were sweaty starving and headed back to the hotel. We really loved learning about the history there and seeing the memorials. D and I are closet art fiends so we love to see anything made with some thought and genius. The boys were wonderful and we ate a lot of ice cream from vendors. I also wanted to buy some knock off sunglasses just to say that I did, but I got ice cream instead...






The most important thing was once we were in DC we were finally out of all the rain and traffic that had been non stop since we left. That was the biggest relief out of anything. Plus on our way out we saw signs for the LDS temple and wanted to stop since it's so beautiful and D had never seen it. It was wonderful, then off we went to Massachusetts!



Stay tuned for Part 2...

7 months is old

So far no teeth, crawling or sitting up. And that's the way I like it. Right now, even though he seems so long and so big, in my mind I can still make him a tiny baby. I think this next month is going to change all of that.

Our Bruiser is quite adept at getting around though, so don't let the fact he's not crawling fool you. He can turn full circles on his little tummy and roll over, which is how he gets to things. He also gets up on his hands and tip toes like he's about to do a very graceful push up. That's way different than Monkey. When Monk was learning about crawling, he looked like he was trying to swim. Bruiser looks like he's break dancing.

Bruiser's feet are finally wide enough to wear the cute little flip flops his auntie bought for him. And he's teething an awful lot. His gums are so bumpy. The last few days he has drank more bottle than normal. He usually eats a breakfast, lunch and dinner of oatmeal and some fruit/vegetable and a bottle for naptime. It has saved me a lot on formula. He's easy and happy and healthy and very SHY.

He's been such a Mommy's boy and I really love it. I worked all week for D so he had to go to a babysitter for the first time and by the second day he would cry and cry and cry until I held him. That was very sad for Daddy who was trying to take care of him while I went running. Oh, and Bruiser loves animals. He gets really excited to see cats or our chickens. His arms get straight and rigid and he shakes them like he's having a seizure! But a big grin the whole time. I cannot resist those perfect dimples.

Monk is still being an awesome big brother. His curls are getting out of control with the humidity. He's more defiant lately and I really have been tryin to watch how I speak to him since I know that makes a huge difference. He's learning all of our full and grown-up names in case he gets separated from us. He forgets my first name so when you ask him I'm Mommy Bwooks. He does something funny every day and oh how I love this sweet boy.

Indianapolis Children's Museum

OFFICIALLY- this is the coolest place I've ever been to. The husband's company treated us to the museum and I was so excited to take Monk bc of the dinosaur exhibit. Little did I know that I would get more excited than any of us! When you first drive up there's a ginormous dinosaur breaking out of the wall, then there are two looking into the museum! Monk wanted to ride on one, but they were too big.
There five stories of awesomeness, but we went to the dinosaurs first. I got so giddy! I was nearly in tears because I was so excited to see the fossils, AND I GOT TO TOUCH ONE! AWESOME! I was running around all crazy wearing Bruiser trying to look at everything and D was a little more calm taking Monk to each site, since it's supposedly a museum for children.

Then there was the rock and roll section which was pretty cool. I saw Elvis' actual tiger suit. I got a little misty thinking about how much I wanted to tell my Grandma since I knew she'd get a big kick out of it, so I just remembered her with a little extra reverence in my head and checked out Elvis' guitar and the KISS costumes.
Anyway, I was so excited I was an emotional crazy kid who drug my poor husband and children all over the place. Go there. Go there and check out the 4 stories of awesomeness.

PS My camera battery died so I have a serious lack of pictures.

Lime Ricki Cute Giveaway

My friend Ki has awesome giveaways so I'm after a super cute bathing suit:

http://limerickimodestswimwearblog.blogspot.com/
www.cherryblossomsdesign.blogspot.com

DON'T enter so I have a better chance at winning :)

My friends need help!

I went to school with this girl waaaay back when she was just meeting her now husband. That was quite a few children ago. Please see if you can help her family bring their girls home!

http://fromthetrenchesofadoption.blogspot.com