Rain or swine

Well we've had both rain and swine around these parts lately! My school district is closed until May 11th because of a confirmed case of swine a mile down the road from my school and 3 other probable cases that are within close proximity of my school as well. Scary!

So I'm home with the boys for the next week and a half! I'm playing it safe and not sending them to daycare either. I see a lot of movies and craft time in our future!

The good news is that Nolan had three good days this week at school! YAHOO! Can you tell that we celebrated it by the picture below...a crown, gummies, AND chocolate milk. Almost as good as Christmas in a 3 1/2 year old's eyes! Let's hope he is good for me now that we're house arrest. :)

So we're keeping ourselves entertained and Campbell is doing most of the entertaining. He's trying so hard to walk and pushes everything that can be pushed even things we don't want him to push. He has ZERO interest in toys right now. Actually, the only toys he cares about are his push/walker toys. He's some really fun ones of him right now breakin' it down.

Momma's boy

I can hardly believe it myself. After months and months of hearing da-da constantly...we have a break through people! Campbell has said mama! Now he says it constantly and he totally knows that it melts my heart and he says it over the monitor in his crib and even crawls to me and then pulls himself up and says mama. I'm such a sucker...but how can you not be?

3 and A HALF

I have to mention why it's important to say that Nolan is 3 and a half. That half is VERY important. You see, that half has been an overnight shift of sassiness and independence that tries the most patient and understanding person in the world...which I fully admit I am NOT!

Oh where do I start about this week? I must say that I've been pretty proud of our disciplining and how it's working but once we hit that HALF mark our normal tricks up our sleeve are not working...in fact they're failing miserably! Usually if Nolan has a bad day a school, we take away his cars and puzzles and he's right back on track the next day. So when he had a bad day on Tuesday we did that but then he had even a worse day on Wednesday....stealing kids pillows at nap time and waking them up. Thursday was another rough day and three days with no toys is more of a punishment to us than him we decided! We even resorted to spanking although I can count on one hand how many times I've spanked him. I am so desperate to see what will work! So Friday morning we decided to not make such a big deal about thinking that he might be loving all this attention he's getting albeit bad attention.

I called at lunch time to find out that our son (oh this is so embarrassing) pulled down his pants at school and did a little dance for all his friends to see. I promise this is not behavior he learned from us! It sounds funny except when it's your kid and you do the walk of shame down the hall to pick him up. I was really upset about it and called our doctor to see what is causing him to be so defiant. He has a new teacher that started about 3 weeks ago and she seems very nice and very structured which is very good but we think that he's responding to this change. She helped me brainstorm too that we might need to take him off his allergy medicine that I coincidentally gave him the same number of days that he was pulling all these bad days in a row. We immediately stopped that and have had a wonderful weekend. I hope it was the medicine but only time will tell. Our doctor recommended not even talking about school this weekend-that we all need a break from it and we just need to have some family fun time. You know us...we are practically the inventors of forced family fun! But it actually wasn't forced this weekend-it really was fun!

Friday we went with some friends to an outdoor family friendly concert and both boys loved it. They had lots of fun activities for the kids. It was really good to talk with our friends because they all just shared stories of their 3 and a half year olds that make us think that Nolan is a saint! Saturday night we went to Central Market for Burgers and Bock and listened to Justin's coworkers band play and once again it was actually fun! We even got some yummy gelatto and here's proof of how much fun Nolan had.

In the midst of all this frustration with disciplining him. Here is a recap of hysterical things Nolan said:

"Mommy I wanna go buy a hula poop!" (hula hoop)
"I'm sorry for being disRECEPTACLE." (disrespectable)
"My mommy spanks me all the time!" ( to the church nursery worker!) He is such a liar!

We spelled his name on a little craft crown he made at the family music night and he said, "We forgot M SPOT!" He meant that we forgot to spell "Nolan M."

Pneumonia weekend

Many of you asked how Campbell is doing with his pneumonia. Let me tell you that he is one feisty guy when it comes to taking medicine. Nolan takes meds like it's a slurpee or something he found out of an Easter egg. Campbell on the other hand...it's like a version of WWF smackdown or wrestling an alligator. We don't dare give him medicine when there's only one parent home. In fact, we've thought about bringing Nolan in on the act to hold him down. Now they have flavoring that you can get put in your kid's medicine to "help the medicine go down." Why I didn't get this put in it is something I'm still asking myself. So we just took our last day of antibiotics and the steroid. HALLELUJAH!

You know the video of him giggling? Yea, not so much these past 5 days. He's been one mean little boogar. I won't hold it against too much though because he's so cute.

We had to cancel going to our church retreat this weekend but I think by Sunday we were all a little stir crazy and Campbell was doing a lot better so we decided to venture out to Main Street Arts Festival. It was fun even though we had to look at the art as we raced by to keep the boys happy in the stroller and it was close to dinner time so we were trying to prevent meltdowns. We had dinner at Mi Cocina. That waiter must have hated us. You should have seen the floor when we left. It was a pretty tense dinner. The music was so fast paced. I already feel like I don't have time to chew my food but this was just crazy. The music made me feel like I was part of Amazing Race: food edition. When we left Justin noticed I had dried mango on my face in a couple of places. We've never felt so uncool. How did we get through it? Just like we always do - laugh.

Laugh-a-lot

Campbell can really get his giggle going sometimes. Once we hear it we just love it so much that we keep on doing it whatever we're doing to keep him going. There is nothing better than a child's laughter.

Here comes Peter Cottontail

The Easter bunny had to put on his rain boots down here in Texas. I volunteered to do Children's Church on Easter Sunday. I saw this really cute poem that Nolan's school did called the Jelly Bean Prayer and what each of the colors represents. I waited until late Saturday night to go get jelly beans. Bad idea. I didn't realize people actually eat jelly beans! I just always threw those away when I found them in my Easter eggs as a kid. But after a late night run to Target I got the last bag! Whew! I'm in the middle of the Children's Church lesson and we're glueing jelly beans and I'm being so careful not to ruin any Easter outfits of the kids or I knew there might be mothers ready to jump me after church. Outfit crisis was successfully averted. I'm wrapping up and we're cleaning up and the nursery attendents tell me Campbell is having a crying fit in the nursery. Turns out he's exhausted and has not had a morning nap at all. Campbell is asleep in all the Easter pics he was that tired. He had all the Easter he could take and it was only noon!

Church lets out and I'm dealing with him and completely missed Nolan Easter egg hunting. They had to bring it inside because of the rain and the parlor was really crowded so most parents didn't get to see it. Luckily we went out to my sister's and brother-in-law's farm and he went to town in the sunny afternoon hunting eggs. He fell into some puddles a couple of times but didn't let that slow him down.

My grandfather, Big Daddy, came into town along with his girlfriend Mary Lou. It was so much fun to have them there to see the kids go on their Easter egg hunt. You can tell that I don't give Nolan candy very often because in minutes he had downed about 5-6 pieces of chocolate. My sister, Tonya, had hidden money in the eggs too and he just looked at it like, "What is this and where is the chocolate?!" We took him last night to buy a car with his Easter money and now he's catching on to this money thing. In perfect Spring timing, we got to see some new baby chicks on the farm. To see the rest of our pics, click here.

Someone please throw me a bone

Right now, I'm evaluating last weeks events and wondering how life got so crazy. Justin just found out that one of his skin spots that he had removed had some pre-cancerous spots and they needed to go back in and dig some more out. Fortunately, they got it all this time but he's on baths for the next two weeks and had a bandage the size of a pillow on his back for a few days. Can I tell you how funny it is to see a 6'4" man in a bath tub? I've had to help care for his back bandage. The sight of stitches just makes my heart race. I was expecting to see something that resembles Frankenstein when I pulled the bandage off but luckily it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Throw in that along with Justin going to the dentist for the first time and finding out that some bad news in the cavity department that just might make Nestle, Reese's and Willy Wonka laugh all the way to the bank. Oh, let's not forget my recent trip to Carenow for myself. I would tell you why but then I might die of embarassment. So let's just say that in the last year, my body has been poked and prodded by doctors way too many times in places that no one wants to be poked and prodded.

Throw all that in and the fact that Campbell has pneumonia, and I'm less than two weeks away from two TAKS tests and this week is one for the record books for crazy drama. I keep telling myself that I'm not trying to outdo the last drama (which there always is one) but it just happens! I took Campbell to Carenow last night. They are really getting to know us there and Web Check-in is the BEST invention EVER! I'm wondering why I'm waiting for over two hours for my pediatrician when Carenow can just call me and I have my own room within 10 min. Someone heard my plea!

I'm staying home today even though I have ZERO sick days because of maternity leave. I gave Cam his antibiotic this morning and a steroid for his lungs. Guess where it was 30 seconds after I gave it to him...all over me. If my saying is true that you're not a parent until you've been vomited on then I guess that makes me a parent 4 times over in the past month alone. He's FINALLY sleeping but sounds like he's smoked a pack of cigarettes. It breaks my heart. I'm determined for us all to get healthy but until then someone throw me a bone!

Easter egg coloring

On Easter Eve, we decided to color Easter eggs. It's actually the first time we've done it with Nolan and the first time that Justin and I have done it since we were kids! I think we were more excited than Nolan just because he didn't know what it was all about. Nolan quickly started enjoying it and was very particular about what colors he wanted. We wanted stripes but he was more for the solids. Always good to have your basics covered. We didn't attempt to have him eat them, we knew that would be too much to ask. Plus the smell of the eggs would have been too potent for me to handle! More Easter pics to come soon!

Bluebonnet Beatdown

You should know the drill by now...or at least I should.

1. I get this idea in my head that I THINK will be fun.
2. It usually involves LOTS of preparation in order to pull off the idea.
3. The idea is a total DISASTER and usually involves meltdowns from all family members.
4. Only bonus of the entire thing...the idea almost always ends with pictures that "look" like we had a good time.

When will I ever learn? Of all the FFF outings this has to be in the Top 5 for sure. I love bluebonnets. Some years they are gorgeous and everywhere. Other times they are more or less "mildflowers." Unfortunately for them, I decided to bring victims along on this FFF outing. My best friend, Angi, and her husband Chris came along with their precious twins.

First mistake of the night, we had no idea where bluebonnets were so we just went "looking" for them. BAD idea! We ended up driving for an hour. I was practicing every bit of deep breathing in the car to tune out Campbell fussing. We finally end up in my old stomping ground of Crowley and find more-or-less 20 bluebonnets. After all that trouble that we went through, I WAS going to take bluebonnet pictures darnit!

We get out of the car and Nolan begins his fear of the wind bit that he does...screaming, panicking, wanting to hold me. I broke every rule of what my pediatrician told me to do to get him to work through this phobia. I'm supposed to validate the fear and tell him how brave he's being. What do I do? Tell him he better suck it up and smile! Poor kid, the things I make him do.

Meanwhile, all of the babies are fussy (and understandably so!) but we just keep making them take bluebonnets pictures and feed them yogurt melts like they're dog treats or something. Meanwhile there's this random kid who's just wandering around and apparently wants part of the bluebonnet action and keeps getting in our pictures!

We finally decide enough damage has been done for the night and go to dinner with all the kids. Reese, Angi's little girl, spills water all over Angi. I think she was really trying to get back at us for the very terrible ordeal and putting her through that. In the end we all had a really good laugh about what a crazy night it was just for some dumb pictures...but those dumb pictures sure did turn out cute, huh?

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday Daddy! Nolan loves birthdays...LOVES them. Even if they're not his own. Today he called Justin and told him "you better hurry home so you can eat your birthday party." Gosh, he says the cutest things.

Nolan is just too smart for his own good. The other day he tells me all his vowels. Once again, I had no idea that he knew this. Then I asked him about other letters and he says the letter B is a "continent". Hey...CONSONANT is a really hard word to say for a 3 year old!

9 months!

Yes it's true, I can hardly believe it myself. We went to Campbell's 9 month appointment yesterday. I've become wiser in my years of motherhood. After the very stressful doctor's appt last time with both boys, I decided to just pick up Campbell from daycare and let Justin pick up Nolan. Good thing....once again (no big shock here) it was a 4:15 appt and I walked out of there last car in the parking lot at 6:30. Ugh. Why do I torture myself?

The newest thing we're dealing with this month is that Campbell has learned how to pull up on everything including his crib. This makes it difficult to lay him down half-way sleepy like we used to and walk out the room. Now if we do that, as soon as we walk out he just POPS right up and stands in his crib but has no idea how to get back down. So we go back and forth, back and forth laying him back down only for him to POP right back up again. Our solution, you ask? Get him completely milk drunk and make sure he's out cold. Yes, we'll probably regret it down the road in three months when we no longer give bottles at night but until then, it's working!

We're going on a week of diaper disasters so I told the doctor how our washer is almost smokin' from being overworked from all the laundry lately. She saved the day and gave us a lactose free formula to use for a few days until this tummy bug passes.

So here are Cam's stats:
Weight: 22 lbs 8 oz. (75th percentile)
Height: 28 3/4" (60th percentile)
Head: 46 cm (75th percentile)
Cute factor: off the charts