Monkey Turned THREE!

As much as I tried to stop it, April 1 rolled around again this year. Which means my little boy turned three. I would have said my baby turned three, but he's far too eager these days to remind me that he's not a baby, but a big boy. Let's all take a moment and weep. The past three years have FLOWN by! I don't know if it was the many, many sleepless nights, the forever crying for the first 2.5 years of his life, or the months of projectile vomiting, but it seemed like just yesterday I sat in the hospital looking the the most gorgeous baby I had ever seen, and now here we are celebrating three years.

Monkey was LOVING Elmo at the time of his birthday! So how perfect would an Elmo party be!! I of course searched Pinterest for the PERFECT cake! That's my thing, well not really MY thing, it's the thing I do. I find thee perfect cake, and then pay someone to make it happen lol. I spent probably the better part of a week looking for a cake that I knew would be perfect! I came across this cake. Luckily for us, we have a super talented neighbor who makes thee perfect cakes. I KNOW! How lucky am I? I pretty much have the small town version of the cake boss 2 doors down. All I needed was decorations!

As mentioned, we live in a really small town, and the nearest city is a good 30-45 minutes away. With the price of gas and the limited free time we actually have, I tend to order a lot of things online. I searched online and found this party kit. I needed to order a few extra things to make sure there were enough for everyone, but it all came right to my door!

So now that I've rambled for a while, distracting you while I look for pictures from the party on my computer and not just from the instant upload feature google+ offers for my phone, I realize I've backed them all up on my external hard drive. So the cake will have to do for now, sorry folks.

The day was perfect for Monkey. He loves having everyone together and playing with all of his cousins. He sang Happy Birthday to himself while everyone sang to him, got covered in blue icing, and tore every last bit of wrapping paper off of his gifts. As fun as it is to watch them grow, learn and form into this little person in front of us, I really hope the next three years drag by.

In the words of Robert Munsch 'I'll love you forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.' Happy Birthday Monkey, I love you more then you will probably ever know.

Squishy Baff!

The nice weather is FINALLY here!! This past weekend was Victoria Day weekend. If you don't know what that means, it means summer has arrived!!! This winter seemed especially long for some reason. Maybe because it SNOWED on Mother's Day! Less then a week later, the kids were outside in swim suits or even less at times ;)

 Have you seen Squishy Baff advertised on TV? We've been seeing it for a while now, and Bear's been bugging for us to get some. There was no way I was wanting it in my house! But I'll admit it, it looked fun and I knew they would love it, I knew we had to try it. My brother gave us a little pool when Bear was a baby and it's been tucked away for a while because they've been too big. I thought that would be a perfect size! They had SO much fun with this! I picked up a 5 pack at Walmart for around $20. The best part about it being outside. If they don't get it all filled up with grass and dirt, it lasts and with this size, you only need 1/2 the package! I did use the whole package and it was reallllllly thick!

 They had so much fun jumping in it, laying down in it, and rubbing on themselves! It was realllly cold to start off with! After a while I think they were just numb lol. Thank goodness it was warm out! They played in it for probably a solid hour! I left it out, and they would come and go most of the afternoon. Ours was pretty grody when they were done, so I just dissolved it and dumped it. There was a lot on the grass so it didn't all get dissolved, but my husband raked it up and then shoveled it up...eww right! lol We will for sure do this again over the summer! I'm wrapping up today's post with what is probably my favorite picture of the two of them ever!! I said to my mom, it makes me just want to pinch their cheeks until they bleed!

What Else Has Been Going On!

Yesterday I updated on what's been going on with Monkey over last 6-9 months. Today is all about Bear! Bear is your typical 5 year old. He's pushing his limits and testing his boundaries. We live in a small town, like really small lol. My parents live across town and he's forever thinking he can just walk on over to their place or to the library all by himself. Ya, dream on kid lol.

He lost his first tooth in February! It was such a happy day for him, and a sad day for me. He's really growing up. He's been looking forward to losing teeth for probably a year now. Here we do 2 years of kindergarten, JK & SK. So last year when he was in JK and the SK's started losing teeth, he was wanting his to come out too! Finally in September he had a tooth that was a tiny bit wiggly. That was good enough for him! Finally after Christmas is was pretty loose. One day in February while he was eating an apple and not really paying attention to what he was doing, he bite into the apple just right and the tooth was pretty much out! He was a little freaked out because there was blood. Finally once he calmed down he remembered the tooth fairy would be coming! I had ordered one of these just after Christmas. I love that I can fill in the date. It's not going to mean much to him right now, if ever, but it will to me!

We're getting closer to the end of the school year for him. I'm excited to have him home with us for the summer. Just this morning I had to wake him up so he wouldn't miss the bus, I hate waking him up :( We're on a count down now, I think there's only like 30 days left? Something like that! YAY!!! Blow is a picture of him out for a little spin on his new wheels! I know, I know, he needs a helmet, and he does have one, just not on in that picture.

Where Have We Been?

It's been a crazy 6 months here in Mommyland. Well really, if I'm going to be completely honest, 9 months. Last summer was really rough for us with Monkey. Which in part is why I started this blog. I wanted to document all the fun stuff we did. That way I could look back and say, see, it wasn't all so bad. And I sort of wanted to prove to myself that I still had it all together and was being a great mom. Truth is, we were falling apart. Monkey was having sever meltdowns, temper tantrums that would last hours - no lie, HOURS! Sometimes we were puzzled as to what even started it. I would wake up in the morning praying to God to help me get through the day without reaching my limit.

Towards the end of the summer, I knew that we were dealing with something more then the terrible twos. I of course, like all mom's turned to Dr. Google. I spent probably a good month reading blogs, and advice sites on different behavior disorders in children before I even mentioned it to my husband. He knew that days at home were hard, but I really think he thought I was exaggerating. So after a good month of reading and realizing things that I thought were just Mason, like hitting his head off of walls, and jumping all day. Like not just jumping up and down playing. I mean legit jumping up and down all day, hopping through the house rather then walking, for entire days. I noticed that he wasn't doing these in playful manors, more doing it without realizing.

Long story short(ish) ;) I started reading about something called Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). In the fall Monkey had another speech assessment, he has a bit of a speech delay and they wanted to see what improvements he had made since his last one. While we were there, I talked to them about my concerns and they said that it sounded like I was on the right track. What a relief! I know boys will be boys, but this was just so much more.

Shortly after the new year we met with an occupational therapist to go over what we were experiencing at home. After talking with me for about 15 minutes she confirmed that it was SPD. Her and I chatted for about an hour while Mason played, melted down, and played lol. When we left, I had a whole list of suggestions for things to try at home. Slowly he started to hit his head less and less! YAY! Today, I can honestly tell you that I don't remember the last time he did it! His jumping has slowed down, to a more manageable amount. Which was one of my goals when he started Occupational Therapy (OT)

So that's where we've been! I'll be back tomorrow with an update on Bear! Below is a recent picture of my funny little man! I seriously adore this kid!

I SUCK!

AHHHH I just realized that ALL my pictures are missing with the exception of the photos from my last post! Here I thought I didn't need an album on my phone with the pictures that appear here on my blog (my phone is linked to my google account) I had NO idea it would remove allllll the pictures from my blog at the same time!!! AHHHHHHHH Seriously, not how I wanted to start 2013 ;) Please 'Bear' ;) with me while I try to reload them, this may take a few days.

CRAP lol Happy New Year by the way :)

New Years Resolutions 2013

I'm a bit of a pinoholic. It's okay, admitting is the first step, right? Anywho! My goal for 2013 is to do more projects that I pin. I mean we all pin everything with the best of intentions *sometimes* but how often do we follow through with them? Rarely, right? Whether it be something for around the house, something with the kids, or something to eat, I'm going to plan to do a pin project once a week and post about it. 

I also want to get my family, life and home organized! I'm going to be 30 this year and I feel like it's time to grow up and get myself together. My kids, as darling as they are, are picking up all my bad habits and it's driving me crazy cakes! I need to lead by example. I can't expect them to want to be organized and have clean bedrooms if they see me not cleaning mine. 

I also want to journal more for my kids and try to set time aside every week to scrapbook a little more. Family memories are so important to me, I want them to be able to look back and relive those moments. 

What are you going to strive for 2013? 

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season this year! It's hard to believe in 1 day it's gone. So much excitement, work, and thought for less then 24 hours! But I think any mom will tell you, those little faces make it all worth while! I've been away from the blog for a bit, mostly enjoying my kids and being busy getting ready for Christmas! Over the next few days I'll be doing recaps of some of our fun times over the past few weeks!

Today I'm going to start with bittersweet moment. Saying good-bye to 'Chippy', our Elf on the Shelf. If you've ever skipped around Pinterest, odds are you've seen a pin about these elves. For those of you who don't know, your elf comes to stay with you leading up to Christmas. Your family has to name the elf. At night your elf flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa. But you're not allowed to touch the elf or s/he loses their magic and they can't go back to tell Santa how good you've been. It's a great bribery for kids when they're at their wildest! 'Oh no! Did I just see Chippy move?' Works every time ;)

Every Christmas Eve we go to my parents house, where my Dad reads Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer and 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. This is a family tradition that goes back as long as I can remember. This year, when we got home from Grandma and Poppa's Chippy had left a Note for our kiddos. The letter told them that they cut it close, but they made it to the 'Nice List' He also told them that they each were allowed to hug and kiss him once! This was huge! We've had Chippy since I was pregnant with Monkey, so Christmas 2009 and they've been very good and never touched him. Needless to say they were very happy to be able to hug and kiss him good-bye.

Bear was soooo happy to be able to touch him, but was really nervous! He kept looking at me and then looking at Chippy. Finally he was said 'Well, if you say it's okay, then here we go!' He went in slowly and then once he touched him he was pretty quick to give him a hug, and a kiss. As he was putting him back, he patted his head and told him how much he was going to miss him and told him to have fun with Santa. Seriously, these kids melt my heart!

Monkey was equally as happy! I was very surprised just how gentle he was with him. He picked him up, very slowly, gave him a very gentle hug, gave him a small little kiss through his soother, looked at him for a little bit and then put him back. Sorry for the blurry middle picture, my camera thought it knew where I wanted it to focus more then I did ;)