She is entertaining

Mom: Jade, can you take your clothes and put them in the laundry room?

Jadyn: Mom, I have a great idea. You can be my assistant and I'll hand you my clothes and YOU put them in the dirty clothes. Sound good?

Mom (thinking): Wait...didn't I have kids so one day you can be my assistant? No, you are right-I pretty much do everything for you all. day. long. so you are right-I am your assistance!

Jade: Mom-I have a great idea. I want to share a room with you so I think I'll just move my bed into your room. We can all share right?

Mom (thinking): Yeah....why move your bed? You already share my room....share my bed....every night!

Jadyn had her markers taken away the other day after I found marker on my couch. The next day we had this conversation
(Yelling down the stairs): Mom can I color with my crayons and marker on my bed?
Mom (Thinking "Gosh, how nice of her to remember she had her markers away and asking if she can sit on her bed and color"): You can't use your markers, but you can color with crayons

Jade (overjoyed): I can?!??! Thanks mom!!!!

Mom (Thinking-Gosh, what a nice girl)
10 min later I walk in her room as she is coloring her bed with a colored pencil

Mom: JADYN!!! What are you doing? Why in the world would you color ALL OVER YOUR BED????

Jadyn (looking TOTALLY confused): Mom-I asked you and you said I could!

Yeah...she was asking the question very literally as in "CAn I take a crayon to the wood frame of my bed" No wonder she acted so excited and shocked when I told her yes. Seriously though-why in the world would she think it would be ok to color furniture. It didn't help that seconds later I realized she had also taken a glue stick to the bed and wall because "I asked if I could decorate and you said yes. Then I asked if we had tape and you told me to just use a glue stick!" Yeah....maybe on paper-not on the blasted furniture!!!! But....she had asked me!

The Fire Truck Bed!

This bed is famous in his family. Scott's grandpa built this bed for Scott's cousins. I think 3 boys in that family used it and then it was passed to Scott's little brother. Scott, his sister and his brother all have great memories about this bed. It has been being stored in their basement for like 20 years. Anyway....his dad wanted it out. It is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO heavy, so there was no way it was going to be shipped back to the cousins in California (although I talked to all 3 of them at his Grandpa's funeral and all 3 would take it back! :) ). I was not key on taking it at the time because we had just moved and our garage was to capacity with no where to store it. But....Scott was not having any of that. He wanted Jax to have it and said we would just put it up in his room. So that's what happened....and now....I am glad he made that decision. Jax and Jade both like to get in and drive! Mostly they like to climb on top of the bed. It has light on top-but it doesn't work anymore.

ANYWAYS.....the other night I put Jax to bed. 45 min later I could still hear him awake. Min later I hear him say "MOOOOOOOM!!!!!! I pooped! I need new on!" Over and over again. So....I went upstairs. He was naked, holding his diaper. Good thing he had only peed. Anyway, I changed him and then randomly decided to see if he would sleep in the big boy bed. (I was tired of having his crib in the middle of the room since he climbed out last week on top of his dresser.) 10 min later, he was asleep. Next day I tried him napping there. He first decided to climb on his bed, but then asleep. So two more nights later-he is still sleeping there! So I think we will go ahead and take his crib down this weekend. It will be nice to get not have two beds in there anymore. I have had to put everything up that he can get to so that if he does climb out he can't get in to much! I can't believe how big he is getting!

P.S. He has also started singing the past two days. I have NEVER heard Jax sing. The other night I asked him to sing with me and he said "Tinkle?" I knew he meant Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I told him to sing with me and he did! I was so surprised! It was so cute! Definitely different than Jadyn singing-boy singing for sure, but cute all the same. He can also sing "You Are My Sunshine!" Love him!

The Fair!

My dad mentioned last week that he had wanted to go to the fair. The kids and I have gone with someone the past 4 years. Every year I think I want to go and every year when I leave I say to myself "That was fun, but I think I can skip next year" and then I still go!
Anyway...we went on Saturday with my dad. I was afraid it would be a little busy, but we got there early enough that it wasn't. It was really nice. The kids enjoyed seeing the animals and riding the big yellow slide! We had a good time and it was fun to go with my dad. That said....I think I can skip next year! ;) Yeah right!

2009 (Jade makes this face in most pics now)
2008
2007

For the Record

Notice anything?

Yep, that would be a green binkie. In his crib. Tonight. So what happened? It was going so well right? No, 90% of the time it was. The 10% of the time that it wasn't going well was nap time. No binkie for some reason resulted in no napping. After days of no napping or staying awake for an hour and a half before falling asleep just wasn't working for me or for Jax. He HAS to sleep. So that, on top of the fact that my neighbor mentioned a 3 year old boy she had worked on in the dentist office. Because he had milk in a bottle at night, they had to work on all his teeth but 3! So-I made a decision. We would ditch the bottles and I would give him back his binkie to sleep with. I came to that decision yesterday after he was playing in his room for 40 min after I put him down. I gave back the binkie and he was out in less than 2 min. Seriously! The good news is that it is strictly for sleeping now. When he wakes up I put it in the laundry room on a shelf so he can't get it. There is no talking with it in his mouth, walking around with it all day, taking one (or two or three) with us everywhere we go. I am fine with the decision (so is Jax) and he doesn't miss the bottle at all (I knew that would be easy to get rid of). So there it is. After 10 days I gave it back! And to be honest.....I am totally ok with my decision! :)

Wish someone had a camera.....

to take a picture of my face when I walked in Jax's room today! So.....when Scott got home he asked me if Jax was awake? I told him he was still sleeping-had been for 2 hours. Scott said "Oh. Ok, well his light is on" Hmmmm....his light is on? Now that's odd. So....I walked upstairs to check on him. I hadn't heard any noise that past 2 hours and even walking up the stairs I heard nothing. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to see Jax walking around him room!!!!! What? 1- He was supposed to be asleep and 2- WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HE DOING OUT OF HIS CRIB?????????? UGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I have dreaded this day for a long time. I knew the time would come. He is a very active child and lets be honest-the fact that he hasn't figured out how to get out before now is a complete shock. I am just not ready for him to be out of his crib. At. All!!!! Seriously.....I just want to give the darn binkie back. He needs to take a nap everyday or we are all grumpy! And yeah...he didn't just crawl out. He climbed on to his tall dresser that is next to his bed and then slid down. DANGEROUS! The dresser is very unstable. When I walked in he had emptied out an entire bag of wipes, a good amount of the tube of diaper cream and had all his books of his book shelf! When I went in he knew he was in trouble. I put him back in and told him to show me how he got out. He said "It's too hard. I can't climb" but he did it anyway. When he got on top of the dresser I asked him how he got down. He turned around and started to slide off the dress "I can't reach!" he said. Yeah...well you figured it out the first time.
Anyway. Not sure what I will do at this point. He HAS to take a nap. He has a twin bed in his room, so sure, I could just move him to that, but we use his crib for his "big" time outs and to trap him in at nap. He went to bed just fine tonight. I am hoping to just put him in the crib at nap tomorrow and tell him he CAN NOT crawl out. Hopefully it will work, but my hopes are low.
As a side note, he was in the tub tonight and Scott asked what was on his arm. I looked closer and could see a BIG bite mark. Ugh....One can only assume that happened at Daycare today. Poor kid. I need to talk to his Daycare provider and see what happened.
OK....everyone cross your fingers that the "get out of crib at nap time" was a one time ordeal! :)

LAbor Day: Part 4

Mon: Had a great run in the morning and then took the kids down on the parkway and I roller bladed and pushed them in the stroller. Hate to say it again, but the weather was great. The kids loved going fast, and we just had a great time. We stopped at a couple parks along the way and ended up rollerblading for about 90 min. Afterwards we walked around Gardner Village and the kids rode the horses and then we headed home. I was hoping we could all nap, but it didn't work out that way since JAx cried the entire nap time-1st nap with no binkie was rough for him! We had a fun BBQ at Brandee and LEwis' later. For some reason Jade has been asking for me to cook her a stake lately. I told her that since we didn't have a BBQ she would have to take it up with Grandpa or LEwis. So...she did-at Lagoon. Lewis was nice enough to have us over. Jade definitely loved her steak and potatoes. She asked for seconds on both. Even JAx loved the steak. Shoot...I am depriving my kids. They had a fun time playing at Brands playgound before we headed home.

I'm sad to say that it seems Summer is over. Labor day is kind of the last hurrah! Glad to say we spent it doing lots of fun things!

Before we started on the parkway

How about this fashion style! Yep- I let her go out like this! :) She thought this was the COOLEST outfit EVER! Wow!!!!

Feeding the ducks!

Lewis and Jax

Again, just showing off her fantastic eye for fashion!

Jade has perfected this skill this summer!

Labor Day: Part 3

Sun: Picnic at Silver Lake with my family after church. We went with my family a few years ago (Scott said even before we had Jade) and I thought it would be fun to go again so I called all my family and everyone wanted to go. Again, the kids loved it. Jade had all her cousins there, so of course she was happy. Jax was happy if we were letting him run around-he wasn't too fond of being strapped in his stroller though, when everyone else was walking! It was so pretty up there and the weather was perfect again!

For a minute we couldn't see Jade and then someone said "I think she climbed up the rock!" What?!?! Yep-she decided-without telling or asking- to climb up this rock! The rest of the kids then decided it was a good idea and we spent about 30 min here while they climbed.
Jax loves Josh! Josh was nice enough to take Jax on a walk while the rest of us finished eating.

My siblings (minus one brother) and my dad

Labor Day: Part 2

Sat: Lagoon! Jade was sooo excited that Megan and her family came with us to Lagoon. She loved hanging out with Seth, Zach, and Sam all day long. She was even really good when Seth and Zach went with Lyssa and Ryan to go ride big rides for awhile. Brandee and Lewis also came. Jade thought that was great too-especially because Lewis LOVES to play the games (which I don't let Jade do) and won prizes every time he played. We were there from 11:30-10:30 and had such a good time. The weather was PERFECT!

Labor Day Weekend! Part 1

I will admit-we didn't do any laboring during the weekend. We pretty much played all weekend. It was so much fun!

Fri: Went to the park with some of my High School friends and their kids. Both kids loved it! Went to our Neighborhood pool that night-for the last time this season. The kids had a great time! They both love being in the water.

1st day of School! 1st Day of School! (and Dance)

Ever see finding Nemo where he says : "1st Day of School! 1st Day of School! Come on dad-1st Day of School!" because he was so excited to go to school? This is how Jadyn has felt about starting pre-school. I'll be honest- I am not sure if she was more excited about school itself or about the fact that it meant that she only had to go to daycare now 1 day a week! :) Either way, she was very excited. She is definitely ready. I dropped Jax off at daycare and then took Jade. As I pulled up to the preschool she had the door open before I could even put the car in park and said "Well....See ya later girlie!" and jumped out and started running it! :) What?!?! Don't you want your mom to go in with you? Aren't you a little hesitant about a new place/situation? Oh no. I got out of the car anyway and told her to wait for me (had to get a picture with the teacher right?) When I picked her up she was as happy as could be. She sat down on the grass, grabbed my hand, kissed it and said "Put it to your cheek. Now when you miss me when I'm gone you can do that and not be sad anymore!" (The read the kissing hand and did a little project around it) It was pretty cute. She told me that they got to play outside (she was VERY happy about that) and told me two boys had to go in timeout for crying. That was about the extent of the detail that I got! She LOVED it though and was so excited to go back the next day! I am so glad she is enjoying it-not that I ever doubted miss social butterfly was going to have a problem! Just today she told me she hopes to stay there forever! Wonder if she would love it when she is 12! :)

P.S. We also started dance this week. It has been a fiasco! We registered her in a place we have heard is very good. I paid a lot to register her, pay for the first month, and for two leos, shoes, and tights for her class. Here are things that happened at dance and tumbling that night

-14 girls with one teacher in dance class

- Jade upset because girls were butting in line, Jade giving her mean face to those mean girls. At the end of the night I even watched her scoot her little foot over to one of the mean girls and step on her toe! I laughed inside because I couldn't blame her, but I did immediately go and tell her that was totally unacceptable

-A tumbling teacher with 10 girls who says nothing about her being skilled in tumbling on her bio

-Having a "tumbling" class in their regular preschool room with only one blue mat, leaving about 30 of the 45 min class to the girls waiting in line to take their turn down the mat

-watching one little girl push this little girl in the head at least 3 times only to then hold the girls head to the ground-all while the teacher is not looking. I then yelled at the little girl from across the room because she wouldn't let the girl up. That `control. Not listening to a word the teacher said!

It was just a really bad experience and I was frustrated when I left knowing I could not keep her there, but not knowing what I was going to do. I spent that night and the next day wondering what to do and looking for referrals to other places. We tried a different place last night. It was sooooo much better! That class was full and a little too advanced for Jade but there is a class she can be in on Monday. So....we will go and try it and hopefully sign up there. I think I am out the money to the other place, but I just can't keep her there.

Binkie updates and the scooter

We have gone 5 days with no binkies! He has asked about it a few times but we just tell him they are all gone and we don't have any. I am so surprised he hasn't asked about it because it wasn't like he used it just for bed. He used his binkie ALOT!!! He has actually done amazingly well. There are definitely times I wish he still had one-:)- but not hearing him talk with one in for 5 days has been great. He is still sleeping really well at night and it hasn't caused any problems with night time. Nap time has been a little difficult. He has needed/wanted a bottle for nap time and two out of the 5 days he never fell asleep. Hopefully it will get better and hopefully we can take his bottle away in a month or two. So-Things are much better than I thought it would be.

My friend Melissa was cleaning out her garage the other day and asked if we wanted this scooter for Jax. He loves it and is actually figuring out how to use it pretty well. You can tell from the video that he is not all about sharing it either! :) Thanks Melissa!

Here we go...wonder if we will last

I didn't take Jax's binkie away all weekend. Just couldn't do it. He is such a moody little baby, I love his binkie as much as he does. But...last night we couldn't find one so nothing we could do but send him to bed without one. He was totally fine-no big deal. He was tired. I was very happy and surprised. He was fine all morning without one. And then-I put him down for a nap. He talked, he played and then he got mad. He was not going to sleep so he cried, he screamed. He was ticked. I left him in his room hoping he would eventually fall asleep. 2 hours later he didn't. He was grumpy all night. Probably from not napping and I was then sad we didn't have a binkie. He asked for a binkie on the way home tonight. I told him the binkies were broken and in the garbage-that we didn't have anymore. He said "Binkies are bye bye?" I told him yes. Luckily he was very tired from not taking a nap, so he went to bed just fine tonight. I am just crossing all crossables that he will nap tomorrow. He has to nap! The kid is so grumpy without one. I am hoping he will be ok tomorrow but I told Scott if tomorrow isn't better that I am giving them back to him during nap time. Not sure I mean it-I just need him to sleep!

Does He look ready?

To give up his binkie's this weekend? This was him before nap today. It's going to be a LONG weekend.

No....he doesn't keep them all in there. He was just being silly, but really....he loves them. Alot. He was freaking out at church the other day. I told Scott to give him his binkie and he turned completly silent. Our home teacher was standing there and said "Gosh...what's in there? Opiates?" He was kidding, but it definitely calms him down. Oh well....tired of him talking with it in. He will talk with it in and we will say "I can't undersand you" and he takes out his binkie, repeats what he said, and sticks the binkie back in. Did I mention it will be a long weekend? Maybe I should wait a little longer! :) Ugh.