Where did my parenting manual go?

Oh yeah....that's right. The kids didn't come with one. Crap! Tonight I have been replaying in my mind something that happened today and wondering if I failed slightly as a advocate for my child. Jadyn is a good kid. She doesn't lie to me and she loves her brother. We had a conversation today about what she should do in a situation where someone is pushing her or hitting her. My advice was to ask them to stop and then if necessary come and tell me. For the record we have also told her that if someone is pushing if you ask them to stop-and they don't-she is ok to push them back. Don't need to argue that with anyone....it is just what we have told her.
Anyway....we went somewhere and the kids were outside playing. Jadyn came inside and said "Mom, someone is pushing Jaxon" I told her to tell that person to stop pushing Jaxon. She was good with that and went back outside. When she shut the door I heard someone else in the room say "I'm sure he wasn't pushing him". Here is where I think I failed. I didn't say anything. Someone else in the room said "I'm sure if she said he was pushing, that he was pushing." And I fully agreed. Jade doesn't lie. I'm sure she will sometime in her life, but at this point she doesn't lie to me and she also would not leave playing outside to come in-tell me some random lie, and then go back outside right after. The more I think on it, the more I am completely offended that the person in the room 1-basically said Jade was lying and 2- Made that assumption before even checking in on the situation. I am grateful Jade was already outside and didn't have to hear the person-who she likes a lot- question what she had said. I should have said something. Sometimes I feel like when we are in a social situation like that, I down play some of my concerns with the kids because I don't want to offend anyone, yet at the same time that makes me feel like my kids get the short side of the stick. I guess the hard part for me is that if someone came in and let me know Jade was pushing I would immediately go outside and address the situation and see what was going on before I said I didn't think it had happened. I also know that little Jax is going to have (has already had) times where he is the pusher. I would hope that if I am not there to see it, that someone addresses it. I do not want him to ever think pushing was ok and if I'm not around, I would be fine with another adult reminding him that it is not ok to do that. Ugh...it's like the mom from Back Yard Adventure who when I confronted her about her son biting my nephew said "Oh, I don't think so. He would hit someone but I don't think he would bite!" Seriously? Seriously?!?!?! How about you go talk to him and the 10 other kids that saw him do it before you decide what happened.
Sorry for the vent. I just need to get over it and learn from it. From now on I may just have to step on a few toes every now and then. I did tell Jadyn I was proud of her for coming in and letting me know someone was pushing Jax rather than pushing back. I don't want her to ever think I do not stick up for her.
Again....I think I need to just re-read this chapter in that Parenting Manual. :)

Video Below

I posted the video of Jax at the restaurant before I ran. It is below the door post.

Oh crap.....he learned to open doors.

Enough said.............

On the same note. He was alone upstairs for 5 min the other day. I asked Jade to check him. She found him with a marker. I took it from him. Since then I have found marker on the: tub, toilet, counter, walls, carpet, sheets, play kitchen, play microwave. Every day I have found it somewhere else! I thought I had put up all the markers. I'm not sure how he found the only marker I had left behind. At lease it was washable......

The dip master continues to amaze me

This was dinner the night before the race. Nothing like just slurping the dip right from the straw. At the end he tried to put his straw in my drink. Ewwwww!!!!

So full of mischief!!!

Yesterday I went to go throw a load of laundry in. The kids were playing in my room. I heard the water turn on. Jade yelled to me that it was Jax. I assumed he had turned the water in the tub on and was playing......with his hands in it. I walked in about a minute later to this:
Fully clothed, with shoes on. He was so happy and proud of himself. I didn't even realize he could crawl into the tub! Now I know!

The fun never ends

Seriously, the fun has continued around here. The kids had lots of days off from daycare. I really do love going fun places.

Monday we went down to Scott's game. Both kids were pretty good. Scott's team ended up loosing. I was sad they lost....I really was. At this point in the season I would love for them to just play all week. That said.....I was happy that BASEBALL IS OVER!!!! Seriously, the feeling in our house the day it ends is amazingly different. We laugh about it every year. I get about 50% happier! :) The kids had fun playing in the water and sand in the afternoon. Speaking of Sand....JAxon loves the sand. The only problem is he love scooping the sand OUT of the sandbox and onto the cement, or in the water table, the grass, whatever. It's one of those things that is driving me crazy and yet, at the same time, I am tolerating as it keeps him happy for a long time. I just always know that once he is done playing out there, he has to go straight to the bath!

Jade decided that She wanted to go sit down. I had Jax in the stroller so she just found herself a seat!

Then Jax and I decided to join her

It was 90 degrees that day. They were both hot and tired when we left.

Tuesday....more fun. We headed down to Liberty Park with my brother and sister and their kids. Jade was in heaven getting to play with little Zach. We were hoping the water was on in the little river path, but it wasn't. We headed over to the playground and they had their little splash park on, so that was fun. We ate lunch and the kids played. I had to follow Jax around the whole time because 1-He loves to run away and in a place like Liberty Park, it would be easy to do. and 2-He also has started hitting random kids every time we go to the park. Lovely. So needless to say, I was his little shadow while he played. Zach came home with us and ended up staying the night. The kids played outside for probably 3 hours in the evening! Ahhh.....the joys of Summer.

SuNdAy...FuN?

I can definitely not always call Sunday fun. Besides having really sore legs when I woke up, Jaxon is a nightmare in Sacrament. The past few weeks Scott and I totally dread it. This Sunday was no different. This week he decided to bolt right in the middle of sacrament. When Jaxon decides to run for it, he literally RUNS for it. And if he stops to turn around sees you coming after him, he runs faster and laughs, laughs, laughs. So he runs for it and Scott gets up to get him. He has to literally jog to get him....Jaxon laughs, Scott gets really mad. Sigh....still not sure what to do about my little man during church. I sure do love Nursery time though! :)
We went to my Dad's for dinner. Jade had a blast. She found about a million potatoe bugs! Jax on the other hand was a little difficult. I didn't want him outside because my dad was cooking with the dutch oven and even though we told him they were hot, I wasn't trusting him out there alone. We survived, and dinner was great. I took Meg's boys with me and my kids to the park and they all played, along with little Wyatt for almost an hour. They were happy...they had lots of fun....and Jax, he only tried to run away a few times! :)

SaTuRdAy FuN!

If I am being honest here, Saturday wasn't necessarily "fun" for me but it was for the kids. I didn't want to get up at 4:00 a.m. to get on the bus so I asked Brand to drive me to the start. That made it so that I didn't have to get up until 5:45. We got the kids up at 6:15 when we left and headed up to the start. We got a little lost so I was a little stressed for about 10 min. But, I walked up to the start up line just as they were saying "3...2...1...go!" It was perfect timing. No time to stand around waiting. The race went pretty well. The course is seriously so beautiful. I love it. I ran in to my running partner from last year around mile 9 which was nice. I hit mile 10 and I was feeling fine but I started getting tired quickly. Mile 10 felt REALLY long. I kept thinking I must have missed the 11 mile marker. There was no way I hadn't hit it yet. I hadn't had to stop and walk at all and was hoping to continue running, but when I saw mile marker 11 I decided I needed to walk. So I walked one minute and then started running again. I was just tired. I walked another minute in that mile and then ran again. I hit mile 12 and knew I was close. The problem with Mile 12 is that it is on city streets-and the finish line looks sooooo far away. Last year I was able to just keep running, this year not as much. I had to walk another minute on that mile as well. At the 1/2 mile marker I could see all the people lined up and I knew I just had to keep running. Knowing that the kids were waiting for me totally helped me.

The kids just waiting for mom

As soon as I saw Jade she slipped through the orange barriers and ran the last minute with me! I love that she gets so excited to run to the end with me every time. It makes me so happy! I finished in 2:06 and only walked 4 min of that. It wasn't a bad time, but I was hoping to finish in 2:00. Oh well. Afterwards the kids played for a little bit and then we headed home. On the way home things started going badly. I started feeling sick....really, really sick. It was awful. I was grateful that this time the sickness came after the race instead of during, but I was really miserable. I showered and then we headed up to the Children's Museum. It was next to where the race finished and I was so inspired by the Marathon runners that were finishing. How awesome!

So how was the Children's Museum? Well, I'm sure glad Brand was there. Luckily it was pretty empty and right when you walk in there were 3 train tables. Jax loved it and didn't want to leave for 90% of the time we were there. The good thing about that is there was a bathroom and a bench right next to them. Yeah, probably too much info. We were at the Museum for about 2 hours. Jax and I sat at the trains for about an hour and 40 min. Brand was nice enough to take Jade around to the rest of the museum since I didn't want to move! From the pictures, Jade seems to have had a lot of fun! ;)

So here are a lot of pics of Jade and only a few of Jax....since I was not up to picture taking.

Jade with the neclace and flower she made

Eating with Chopsticks in China land

Having a tea party in the house

Um....no idea on this one. A troll?!?!

Africa Land

School

Baby Doctor

Fireman

I finally made the trek upstairs with Jax. He loved these legos. He had no idea we missed out on so many of things!

Jade and Mr. President

The original plan was to then head to Lagoon....yeah, wasn't going to happen. Jade was sad about it because she wanted to go to more fun things. I told her she could go home and play in the water in her swimsuit. She was ok with that. We got in the car and she was asleep in 30 seconds....I wore her out! I stopped and got some more medicine and the gas station and by the time we got home I was feeling a little better. Whew.....that was rough! The kids played outside for awhile and got nice and dirty. After a few hours we brought them back in and bathed them. By then....I was so dang tired! Scott took the kids downstairs and I napped from 6:00 till 8:00! We got Jax fed and to bed and then Jade, Scott and I watched a show

Somewhere in there I googled my sickness problem. It has just confused me because I have gotten really sick on my past two races and I never get sick on my training runs. From the internet I think the problem is with the alfredo I at both times before I ran. Supposedly, for about 20-50% of runners, eating dairy within 24 hours of a long run can cause this problem. Several people mentioned eating pasta and alfredo the night before and then getting really sick. So......I will take the advice, avoid all dairy for my race in August and hope for a much better end result!

fRiDaY fUn!

So the whole reason behind this fun weekend was my 1/2 marathon I was running on Sat. It was in Ogden and because there was no way I was going to get up at 3:00 a.m. on Sat morning to drive up there, we got a hotel-just like last year. This year was different in the fact that Scott didn't go. Since he wasn't going I decided to take all of Friday off and have a fun day with the kids. We started it off by stopping by a friends house to see her new baby! So cute-just glad it is here getting up in the middle of the night and not me! :) J/K

We then headed up to Hill Air Force Base! Jaxon is obsessed with airplanes. He LOVES them. He is constantly on the go. All. Day. Long. But....if he hears or sees an airplane, he will stop whatever he is doing and say "plane, plane" so I knew that he would love to see all the planes. It was fun to see him so excited. I was surprised at how much I liked it as well. Seeing all of those huge plans was pretty amazing! Jadyn liked it too. We all had a great time and I'm glad we stopped there.

After the airplanes we headed up to the Ogden Dinosaur Park. Again....I knew the kids would love it. And again.....I was surprised that I did too. It was a lot of fun and I liked it much more than the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point-probably because most of it was outside, there was a playground for the kids, they could feed the fish and dig in the sand. They both had so much fun!

Brandee met us up at the Dino Park and we all headed over to the hotel. This is the part Jade was most excited about. For some odd reason, she L.O.V.E.S staying at hotels. She thinks it is the greatest thing ever! We were planning on going the Children's museum that night and swimming too, but the pool was closed. Jade said she still wanted to go swimming ("so she could practice her cannon balls!" Yes, she even offered to teach Brandee and I) so we found another indoor pool in Roy. We decided we had better pick up my race stuff first. The kids loved being able to climb on the trains at the Race pick-up.

I decided that since it was now 6:00, we should eat first so that I didn't end up eating too late. We drove for awhile and finally decided on Wingers. If you know Jax, you know that there is never a dull moment when you go to dinner with him. (I have pics, but it deserves a post of it's own) Let's just say we ate as fast as we could! :) We found the swimming pool. It was lame. We can say we won't be going back to the Roy rec center any time soon. It was just stupid. I mean they only took check or cash...no cards. Seriously, who does that now? Then we walked in and Jade just walked right over to the high dive, climbed the stairs and was about to jump off when I hear this shrilling whistle. The life guard says "WHHHOOOOAAAA, WHHHOOOAAAA!!! She can't jump off with her life jacket!" Well, maybe you should have been paying attention the 2 minutes before while she was waiting and then climbing rather than when she is on the edge of the freaking board. So she climbs down, we take off her jacket and she walks over to the little board.....waits in line....climbs the three steps....walks to the edge of the board and I swim to the middle to catch her. She is about to jump when we hear the shrilling whistle "WHHHOOOAAA WHHOOAAA!!! She can't jump off the board unless she can swim!" Hello you moron. Couldn't you have freaking said that either 1-when you yelled the first time, or 2-the past 3 min when we were taking off the jacket, or when she was standing in line or EVEN when she was climbing up. Did she climb back down? No. I simply was too annoyed to make my 4 year old, who had now climbed up twice, climb back down when they should have their freaking rules posted somewhere (they don't....I checked). I told her to jump and she did-and I caught her. Yes, another lady came over to tell us the rules again. I was fine to obey them once I was told. I just wasn't making her climb down twice. Anyway, I was irritated. Long story short, she still had fun swimming, so I guess it was worth it.

It was a busy day, but we had so much fun. Both kids were really good (ok, maybe minus dinner with Jax :) !) Jade fell asleep by 10:00. I was nervous about Jax and having him sleep in a pack-n-play, but after a little fussing, he was asleep by 10:30. Last year in the hotel he woke up all night long. This time was much better. Once he was asleep he was out all night. It really was a great day!

WhEw! WhAt A wEeKeNd!

Wow! We had such a fun and busy weekend! I think we packed as much into it as we possibly could! It would be too long to fit into one post, so I'll break it up a little.

We started our Fun on Thursday night and went to Gardner Village. Jadyn has always loved going here. Before we moved, we were much closer, so we went a lot. Not that we moved too far, but far enough that we don't go nearly as much as we used to. Needless to say, she was very excited to go back and ride the horses. This was the first time we let Jax ride. He really liked it too! Afterwards we fed the fish and the ducks, grabbed some fudge and headed home! The weather has been so fantastic. It was just so nice to be outside and nice that Scott was able to come as well.

Sleepy girl

When Jade falls asleep in the middle of the day (or at night for that matter) she is OUT. There is no waking her. You can turn up the music, t.v., or as you can see, Jax can try to bug her. She doesn't wake up!

Disclaimer: They had both just eaten ice cream treats from the ice cream man. Bath time was quickly coming so no, I hadn't wiped their faces yet. I promise my kids don't normally walk around with VERY dirty faces!

Parks

Last Tuesday, on my day off, we ended up at the park 3 times. It was fantastic. The weather was so nice and my kids were so happy. Here is to hoping to lots more time spent at the park and outside in the upcoming months! These pics are all by a new park close to our house. They just put this new lake in and the sand is awesome. It is really beautiful! I don't think they want kids playing in the water much but Jade ended up wet from her shoulders down before we went home!