An early Mother's Day surprise

Every year at my school we have a Mother's Day picnic the week before Mother's Day. In years past I was either pregnant, on swine flu break or thought it would be too much to have my own kids up there. This year I thought I would take a chance and have Justin bring them up there for me.

How many brownie points does my sweet hubby score? He goes entirely out of his way to pick them up (really...I'm talking at least 30 min.), picks up a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of flowers including my favorites like gerber daisies and lilies with both boys in tow, picks up lunch for me, changes Campbell's shirt so he doesn't look like a daycare ragamuffin, and stays late after work to make up the time he missed...all for me!

Since it was going to take another 30 minutes to drop them back off, we decided it was better just to leave them with me the last hour of school. I was so nervous about how they were going to act but they were really great. That last 20 minutes of school was really rough with Campbell, but we made it. Another day when we were about 3 hours late on nap. They were both zonked before I even hit the highway.

My students loved them and since 95% of them are Hispanic, they couldn't help but just stare at Campbell's big blue eyes. One of my girls said, "Those girls won't stop talking about his eyes, Mrs. McDonald. Be careful, they might rip them out." Let's hope not.

I'm one lucky mama.

Frumpelstilskin

So we're out of the tantrum phase (one of them that is...our other one is just entering the phase and is a professional), but this is what we've done an even exchange of...pouting or frumping. We went to a birthday party after church on Sunday. This is at the children's museum where Nolan was splashed in the face with water in the water area of the museum (water...how dare they?) There was about a 5 minute cry session where Justin had to calm him down and talk him off a ledge. We were well into an hour past our nap time so what can we say...other than, "Well, it's been fun. See y'all later!"

Oh, and here are a couple of pictures just so Campbell doesn't get left out. Here's where I'm getting pictures of them in the backyard and I catch him trying to climb our back wall. I decided that we've had enough gray teeth and shiners in the past month and grab him off the wall.

And here is the Academy Award winning fit that followed...I see this daily. What I couldn't capture was that he went as limp as a noodle and I almost dropped him because he was arching his back. He finished up his final act in the grass. Wow. He's on a role lately. You know he had a bad day when the director of daycare comes up to me and tells me that he had a rough day. He hit and pulled just about everyone's hair in class right after he dumped his blueberries on the floor and did his own little rendition of I love Lucy when Lucy makes wine. There were even blueberry stains on the floor to prove it. Doesn't he know that he's not supposed to turn "terrible" until he's two?

I knew it...

Well I told you it was going to be bad when it came to our soccer pictures. Remember how all the kids were squinting because their retinas were being burned when they were told to look directly into the sun and smile? These might just be the worst ones yet. Need I say more?

To-do list

So every year about this time I start this summer to-do list. It usually contains the things that are impossible to accomplish during the school year. You know...organizing, scrapbooking, cleaning, reading and these are just to name a few.

Of course my list is ridiculous and not even humanly possible to accomplish, but I guess it makes me feel like I have high ambitions, except for the end of summer when I see everything I didn't get done. Well, at the top of list are two things...get this blog all purty (yes I said purty) and take some photography and Photoshop lessons. My husband is absolutely amazing when it comes to Photoshop (he's a graphic artist) but he's gifted and talented and I'm more on the special ed spectrum. So I decided I should probably stick with lessons from someone who uses it like I want to use it - B.A.S.I.C....not a word in Justin's vocabulary.

Justin has this awesome camera that I'm clueless on using. I'm getting more comfortable to use it without the automatic setting (watch out, I'm getting wild and crazy!), but still need some help. A friend who recently read one of my posts about photography told me about Jessica Sprague and the classes offered on the site.

It's self-paced and affordable (that's what I'm talking about). Hopefully, the boys will allow me time (nap time) to do these classes. I might have to do some at night when Justin's home to help. I'm so excited to really learn and try more. I can't help but feel a tinge of "I wish I could do that" every time I see amazing photos. I'm not wanting to be a professional or anything...I just want to be a poser and look like one!

In the meantime, here are a few shots that I even surprised myself on. I took them into Photoshop and did some very minor tweaking. Everyone gets lucky every now and then, right? 

Show and tell

Campbell definitely knows his body parts. Probably because the words "sit down on your bottom," come out of my mouth at least 40 times a day... mostly in grocery carts and bathtubs. Hey at least he's learning, right?

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Shiners and fevers

You know us, we do so well with traveling (insert sarcasm here). This past weekend we went to Camp Arrowhead for a church retreat. We were so excited to see a playground  when we pulled up and knew that would definitely keep the kids occupied for the weekend. That is until it was decided that we should have a monsoon all weekend long. I can't remember the last night it rained that long consistently. Guess it was bound to happen with all the beautiful weather we've had. Our nursery workers had to entertain all our kids in one room pretty much the entire weekend. Don't you feel for them? The boys thought it was so fun to have bunk beds and loved "camping."

Nolan is ridiculously ticklish. I mean I can't even give him a bath before he's hystercially laughing thinking I'm tickling him. Even worse, he has NO control over his body when he's being tickled...I'm talking completely body flailing spasms people. So an innocent tickling match landed him meeting a chair, and he got his first real shiner. The chair definitely won. It was nasty looking on Saturday and swollen, but this kid has some super healing powers and now it just looks like a scratch. So in the last couple of months, he's stabbed himself with skewers in his gums, stabbed an inch from his eye (skewers again), ran into a friend at school and got a gray bruised tooth, and now his first shiner. He's falling right in his daddy's footsteps who had three sets of stitches before he was 2.

Campbell was being pretty fussy off and on all weekend but we just attributed it to being out of his element. Saturday night, Justin slept with Nolan in the bunk bed and I had Campbell with me in the double bed. We both woke up feeling like we had been in a car wreck. Nolan has such horrible eczema on his ankles this time of year and he rubs his ankles together like he's a cricket all night long with a few kicks to Justin every so often. Campbell was pre-fever and just not sleeping so when I woke up the next morning it was one of those mornings where it felt like you slept 5 minutes.

He ended up running 101-102 for the rest of Sunday. I took off on Monday fully prepared to take him to the doctor. To my astonishment, he was fever free all Monday! That has NEVER happened. It's usually something crazy like swine flu or pneumonia when he shows any type of symptoms. For the first time ever he actually just got better on his own! Maybe we're growing up and finally building up a better immune system...one can only hope.

Kids say the darndest things...

Here's a few of my recent favorites that I don't want to forget. Man, this kid is funny!

1. Nolan's teacher was teaching the kids some words in Spanish and he tried his hardest to say por favor by saying, "4-5-4". My Spanish speaking mother is proud of his attempt.

2. Nolan: What are those cars doing there?
    Me: They're fishing
    Nolan: Cars can going fishing?

3. Me: Your teacher told me you want to be a policeman. Is that true?
    Nolan: Well (whispering as though it's top secret). I want to be Wolverine.

4. But my most recent favorite is what he calls tarantulas. It sounds something like "trilantrilia"...with about 3 extra syllables.

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5. And lastly, I hope that this doesn't offend anyone but it's Nolan informing me when Campbell needs a diaper change. This is my life in a house full of boys!

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