Look Ma! Toes!

Abby found her toes yesterday. It was so cute, I went in after she woke up from her nap and there she was, holding her feet like the fun new toy they were. She was pretty excited. Of course, she has been doing it ever since when she is on the floor. She has yet to get them to her mouth, but that's okay with me. Of course, Alex thinks that he needs to help her suck on her toes. He enjoys chewing on his toenails right now. (pardon me while I gag)

Look at those chubby legs!

Toes are grand!

So while miss Abby has found her toes, Alex has found new ways to get into as much trouble as he possibly can. Here are some Alexander Antics photos I've gotten in the past couple of days.

Yes, he's on a chair with a ride-on toy.
Can we say accident waiting to happen?

Rain boots in the house? Don't ask me, he put 'em on.

He discovered he can help himself to things on the counter.
So here he is pouring a cup of cheerios for himself.

Nap Wars Episode V: The Crib Strikes Back

Well, the battle continues with Alex and the toddler bed change over. It appears that he doesn't know what he wants. He will take a nap in his bed one day and then want the crib at night. We did really well for a brief couple of days, but then last night he decided that he wanted to sleep in his crib. Now this is all well and good, but ten minutes after lying in his crib, he was ready to go back to the toddler bed again. I said okay and he was off to sleep in big boy bed. Was this the end of the craziness to the night? No. He jumped out of bed and ran out of the room multiple times. Three strikes and he was back in the crib again. Now I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work with the crib to big bed changeover, but it has not been such a smooth ride. Today he wanted to nap in his bed again so I suppose tonight we will try it again. Abby on the other hand is still being a gem when it comes to the sleeping trials. I believe she truly enjoys sleeping. Maybe it's a girl thing, because right about now, I could use some zzz's myself.

The Rest of the Family

Well, so far you've met my family...Alex, Abby, Josh and...well...me. Now let me introduce you to the rest of my family. As many may know, we have cats. Not just a couple, mind you, but rather five of them. You are probably saying, "Five cats?!? Are you insane!?!" Why yes. It is true. There are five furry felines living in our humble abode. It wasn't meant to happen like that, but they are here for the long haul. Three years ago, we lost our precious ferret Mace. He was the best pet you could ask for. I was beyond devastated when it happened because he was much too young to be taken from us (only 5 years old). My mom, God bless her, has always used the theory that replacing a lost pet with a new one right away will take away the pain faster. So she came waltzing over to our house with two adorable kittens. We fell in love right away and our family of two became four. It was one boy and one girl, brother and sister. Being the super Star Wars nerd that I am, we naturally named them Luke and Leia.

And here they are...Leia is the top one and Luke the bottom one.
They adore each other. We call Leia her Highness or Princess because she is so prissy.She only goes to Josh for attention. Luke we call the Hippie. He is so laid back...almost likea surfer-dude. I call him Lucas when he gets into trouble. So naturally I call him Lucas a lot.

Then, after them we of course had Alex. Now while I was pregnant with Alex, Josh and I had to live with my parents for awhile (thanks mom and dad!) and they live in the country. Well, country living usually means outdoor cats. And outdoor cats lead to kittens. This mother cat had kittens and she was very sick herself and unable to care for them after they reached about 5 or 6 weeks old. The kittens also became incredibly ill. They developed a horrible lung infection that traveled to their eyes. Their eyes were so infected that they became closed and nearly blind to the world. They were infested with fleas and starving. Being pregnant only made my love of these little critters so much more and so I took it upon myself to nurse the three of them back to life. The vet said that they had almost no chance of survival, but after a bath, some medicine, bottle feedings around the clock and loads of TLC later...they made it through and our family went from 4 to 8 over the course of the summer. Now Let me introduce you to Penny...

She has only one eye because the other one popped out after the infection destroyed it. Yes...I said popped out. It was the most disturbing thing to see happen. She had her first surgery before she was even 10 weeks old and did beautifully. She is Alex's best friend. She loves him and
wouldn't hurt him for all the cheese in the world. (She loves cheese...can smell it a block a way.) I called her Penny Angel for the longest time because I truly believe she was a little miracle from God.
Then there is Jasmine...
She has only 1 and a half eyes. It doesn't seem possible. I know.
But the infection made half of one of her eyes messed up. A film grew over
it and so she has limited vision in it. We affectionately call her Stinky
because she has a severe gas issue. She could bring you to your knees with a single fart.
And last, but not least, we have Logan.

He lucked out and kept both of his eyes. But he still has problems with one eye. It drains a bit from time to time. We called him Logan because he was like a little Wolverine (that would be on of the X-Men if you didn't already know). He growled a lot as a baby and fought for food like it was his last meal. Now we call him Chicken because that is what he is. He is scared of everything except spiders. He's my hero kitty because he kills all the nasty brown recluses in our house.

So now you know the rest of our happy family. It's great having five cats...most of the time. The litter and cat food bill is mind boggling sometimes, but they are worth it. And it's scary to think that if we had a bigger house, five cats could become 6 or 7. They are wonderful animals and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Nap Wars Episode IV : A new hope

Alex in his dino jammies

Abby smilin' for the camera

Yes, the title is a play on Star Wars. But this time it's not about Luke Skywalker defeating the deathstar, but rather about Alex and Abby's new napping mayhem. It's been an interesting adventure so far the last two years with napping. There have been successes and failures, smiles and tears. But This week I think we have new hope. Abby is the easy one. She has been a little sleeping blessing thus far. She has her off days, but they are few and far between. She sleeps now a regular three times a day for 45 minutes to one hour each and then sleeps beautifully through the night a whopping 10 to 12 hours. Ahh...what a dream.

Then...there is Alex. The anti-sleeper. Since birth, we have battled sleeping problems with him. He was still waking up every two to three hours clear up until his first birthday. Naps were torture for him. He would nap, but quite reluctantly. But in the last 4 or 5 months, he has been fairly regular about them. Right now he get one nap a day that lasts two hours roughly. When Abby came along, we were very close to getting him to sleep in a toddler bed and we were almost successful, until he saw that Abby was in his crib. The diaper doo-doo hit the fan and we had to move his crib back to his room and let him go back to sleeping in there all the time. He slept like a little pro once the crib was back in the picture. Well, this week he whined nonstop for an hour at night when we put him down to sleep and I would go in the room only to find him standing in his crib with his pillow in one hand and blanket in the other. He pointed at his toddler bed, (yes, it is still in his room with his crib...tight quarters), so I said ok and got his multitude of stuffed animals out with his two blankets and 1979 Star Wars pillow. I explained to him that he had three strikes. If he got out of bed three times, then he would go back to his crib. He said okay and believe it or not, the little monkey never once got out of bed. He went to sleep within 5 minutes on his own. He did the same thing for nap the next day and we shall see about tonight. My little boy is growing up. I couldn't have been prouder of him. What awesome little kiddos we have!

Trial by Toddler

I'm finding that an almost 2 year old can be very trying. Sometimes, yes, I admit, I come very close to pulling my own hair out. This is even after I get done trying to explain to Alex that 'we don't pull hair!' It's fun, but a little crazy at times. Today Alex showed me a thing or two about how surprising kiddos can be. I went in to the bedroom to change Abby and put her down for her nap (which she later decided not to take today). I heard Alex carrying on a conversation about something. I heard the word "chip" quite a few times. But he had just eaten lunch an hour earlier so I figured he was merely talking about his lunch. No...this was not what he was doing. He had somehow gotten up to the counter in the kitchen, got the bag of plain corn chips down, opened them up, took them into the living room to his bookshelf, made a pile of chips to eat on the floor and then proceed to take the chip bag back. He went back to his little book corner and read himself some books while eating his pile of corn chips. He looked at me, smiled and said "chip." What a little monkey he can be!

As if this wasn't enough, he decided that he would fast through dinner yet again. Could be the pound of corn chips he ate, could be the fact that he hates nearly all food in general. I'm not sure. But I always thought that children loved spaghetti. I did. I've tried all in my power to get him to eat what I make him, but to no avail. With a milk allergy, cooking in this house has become quite trying. I make almost every single meal Alex-friendly. Of course, this seems to always just get me down after I make dinner, because he NEVER eats what I make. What does he eat you ask? Tyson chicken fingers and green beans. That's about it. This Friday I will be trying to make an Alex-friendly pizza with some vegan cheese that I found. I've heard it tastes pretty good, but it costs a mild fortune. I've tried mac and cheese with the cheddar version of this stuff. I thought it didn't taste half bad. As for Alex...he thought it was ok as long as he doused it in ketchup. Some days I just want to give up on the whole trying new foods thing. But I keep on truckin'. My friend Mandy just got her little one year old, Wesley switched to whole milk. I think I actually started to tear up that I don't get to do that. It's just not fair to have to drink soy-milk. It tastes terrible in case you were wondering. To all you people out there with kids that have zero food allergies, I can only say one thing. Thank God that you don't have to deal with it. It's sad and annoying, trying, and aggravating all at the same time. One day i hope to be past all of this insanity. We just keep praying for his healing and that Abby doesn't end up with the same issues. Until the day God blesses us with healing of his allergies, I guess its chicken fingers and green beans with a side of fruit for this little monkey.

Happy Anniversary Mandy & Sean!

Me & Abby's feet meet!Me & my precious girl!

Alexander smilin'!

Today, my friend Mandy and her hubby Sean have been married for 7 years. So congratulations to them! It seems like only yesterday that they were dating. I still remember the memorable morning that Mandy and I were walking to our morning art class when she announced to me that they were engaged. I remember it well because I'm sure the entire neighborhood heard me screaming for joy for them. It was wonderful news. She married an awesome guy and I'm so glad they have had an awesome 7 years. So here's to you two and 7 times 7 awesome more years!

On to family fun. I thought I would post a couple of pictures I took recently. We have an official laugh from Abby now. She laughed for the first time on Saturday night. And guess who would be the one to make her giggle? None other than her big brother Alex! He was dancing in front of her and she thought it was pretty snazzy and laughed. It was adorable! i must say that the second time around with a kiddo is different. With Alex, I made him laugh first. Now the clown of the family is Alex. He cracks us up with this crazy antics. But we love every moment of it.

Gimme a Break!

Well, it's about that time again. Mommy needs a break! I had a long week without Josh. I thought that once he was home, things would slow down a bit for me and I'd have a moment to breathe. Hmmm...I suppose children think that mom's don't need breaks, because I don't feel that I'm getting a break yet. I woke up this morning with the intent on going to a few garage sales that I had seen on Friday. I figured I would just take little miss Abby with me. After all, one kid is easier to tote than two kids. When I packed the diaper bag up and put Abby in her car seat, I said to Josh, "See you later, I'm going to Mandy's too, so I'll be back in a bit." Mr. Alexander heard this, promptly jumped off of Josh's lap from watching YouTube videos of Billy Joel (he is a YouTube addict...Alex...not Josh), and ran to the door with me yelling, "Mommy! Manny! Manny! (that's Alex for Aunt Mandy) Bye Bye!" He put his shoes on and invited himself on my trip out. One large sigh from me later, and we were off. Josh was left to a three hour adventure time slot in World of Warcraft, and I got the kids...again. Don't get me wrong! I LOVE to spend time with my kiddos. I do it all day, everyday. I wouldn't change things for all the money in the world. But as many mom's will understand, sometimes mom's need a break. So, I believe that I'm about due for a day out. I have no idea what I'm going to do or when I'm going to get to do it, but hopefully I'll go out in the near future.Actually, I'm really just hoping to get out on August 15th. That is the release of Star Wars: Clone Wars. It's a new digital cartoon movie of Star Wars based on Anakin Skywalker before he turned to Darth Vader. For all who don't know, I'm a Star Wars fan...nerd...geek...whatever you want to call it. I can blog about that another time though. I have three passions outside of family and friends and they are Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. I used to be a midnight showing, stand in line for 10 hours for a good seat, total nerd. Having kids has obviously changed that, but in my heart, I will be standing there with all my fellow nerds awaiting that moment when they open the doors and play the movie. So that will be my next outing I think. I'm eagerly waiting for that Mommy's Day Out.