Wiggly Pre-show update

Well, it's a whopping 24 hours until we will be sitting pretty just eleven rows away from The Wiggles. I still can't believe I got such amazing seats for the small price I paid. Thank you Ticketmaster.com! I found out that the seats we have are called 'Hot Potato Seats' which means that each seat has a bag with a coloring book, crayons, and a Wiggles poster in it. Awesome! I know that the kids will be super excited to get these. This is the first official family vacation we have had. It's not much and it's not very long, but it's doing something that we will all enjoy. I know the kids are beyond excited and I've been told that the parents usually end up having more fun than the kids. Woo-hoo! I have a feeling that this concert will knock my Billy Joel & Elton John concert to the second place rank amongst awesome experiences I've had (not including getting married and having kids). So expect a post-show update with a million photos when we come back. It should be an interesting trip. We are leaving tonight when Josh gets home from work and driving half-way. Then it's up at the crack of dawn and off to the theater! I'll leave you with a few pics of the family (naturally excluding me...the photographer.)

Abby. That hair of hers is an unstoppable force. I can't control the curl.

Alex. My big eater. I swear that this kid has three stomachs. One for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for Dinner. They work on a rotation shift. Yes...he ate everything on the plate.

They were all wearing yellow so I figured it would be a blinding photo of my family. Cute though. And yes...Alex has a Wiggles shirt on and Abby is picking her nose. Just tellin' it how it is, folks.

Wiggles, here we come!

Every year, The Wiggles make a tour across the good ol' U.S.A. with their most recent concert. I never expected we would ever actually get an opportunity to go. But with the increasing love for The Wiggles from Alex and Abby (and me), I started thinking that it would be something we should look into some day. So a few days ago, I went to The Wiggles website to see where they might be touring this year. About ten minutes later I was one click away from purchasing four tickets to their show in Grand Prairie, Texas. I called Josh to see if he was game for a weekend trip to the great state of Texas and he said the three words I was waiting to hear. "Go for it." As the little timer for reserving really awesome seats was about one minute from expiring, I hit 'purchase'. And so...the split second decision was made. Honestly, if you would have told me four years ago that I'd one day be super excited to go to a concert meant for kids, I would have laughed in your face. That day is upon me now. Now you can giggle at me behind my back for saying what I'm about to say, but I really don't mind. I am so super excited! To go see these amazing guys from Australia perform will be a treat. Of this, I have no doubt. They have an amazingly refreshing sense of humor, awesome dancing skills, superbly written songs, and the greatest outlook on children and life that I've ever seen. Coming from guys with childhood development degrees, I am not surprised they have succeeded in gaining the love and affection of millions of children (and parents) around the world. So this Thursday, we're loading the kids in the van at bedtime and driving halfway to Texas. Friday we'll be there with our wiggly grins on and a camera in tow. I can't tell you how excited the kids are. They are already talking about how they will 'wake up Jeff', give roses to Dorothy the Dinosaur, give bones to Wags the Dog and play their guitars with Murray. To make my silliness just a little greater, I think I'm going to admit that I might just be a tad more excited to take this little family trip than the kids are. (Especially because I get to see Anthony in real life.) Everybody...get ready to wiggle!!

Pee-casso

Yesterday I got to experience something very...well...strange. Alex watched an old episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood on PBSkids.org (one of his favorite places to play). I was never a fan of the guy, but Alex has been watching him for three days now and is intrigued it seems. The episode he watched was about abstract art and the artist he mentioned was Picasso. (If you read the title of the blog then you see where this is going, perhaps.) Well, Alex is quite potty-trained of course so accidents are few and far between. So when he called me to help in the bathroom I was a bit confused. This is how the next two minutes went:

Alex: "Mama! I got pee everywhere!"

Me: "What?! What did you do?"

I proceed to go into the bathroom where I find him standing next to the toilet and zero yellow tinge to the water. He then points to the floor...and the wall...and the magazine rack...and the vent...you get the point. I stand there, jaw dropped to my pee-soaked floor and stare in shock. Alex is smiling. I finally get my wits back.

Me: "What on earth did you do?"

Alex: "Um, I just peed everywhere."

Me (trying to not explode): "What the heck did you do?"

Alex: "Well, I was just trying to do something mom."

Me (dumbfounded): "What in the world were you trying to do?!"

Alex (shrugs indifferently): "Well, I was just trying to do something and I peed everywhere."

I tried to tell him how upset it made me but I don't think he believed me. I came up with the fairly certain conclusion that he was attempting his 'hand' in abstract art. It's the only theory I could come up with. There was literally urine dripping off of everything...except the toilet. There's no possible way that whatever he was trying to do was unintentional.

Despite the absurdity of the situation, when he left the bathroom, I couldn't help but laugh.

Big Girl Bed: Fail

So the big girl bed for miss Abby was a fail. For two straight days she was a disaster because she couldn't sleep in her new big bed. After day two with no nap and after three core meltdowns, she just happened to walk past the laundry room and see her old bed sitting in there. She asked me, "Mama, is that me bed?" To which I replied, "Yes sweetie. That's your old bed." To which she replies, "Can I sleep in me old bed? I want me old bed!" I set it up in the front room just to see what would happen and she then promptly took off running, blanket and pillow in tow, to her old bed. I've never seen her move so fast. I swear it's true. I clocked her at 153 MPH. She got about two seconds of air time when she leaped into her old bed. She curled up, sucked her thumb, smiled at me, and said, "I want me old bed, mama." So the big girl bed is being stored at my mom and dad's house until she is more ready. And by 'ready', I really mean until we get a house where two beds will actually fit without becoming a toddler sized amusement park. She slept so well last night that I couldn't possibly complain about the switch back. Was it a massive waste of money? In theory...yes. But it will eventually become her big girl bed. I suppose through all her whining for a bed like Alex, she really just wanted Alex's bed. *sigh* Kids.

The walls are closing in...

Just when I thought our tiny little house couldn't get smaller, I was proved wrong. The past month or two, miss Abby has been having a bit of an issue with her bed. She has a toddler bed. Alex has a big boy bed. So guess who wants a big girl bed? If you guessed me, then you are way off. I already have a big girl bed. Abby has been begging for a big girl bed and is consistently attempting to crawl into Alex's bed to compensate for lack of one. Dilemma - the room they share is a tad bit on the teensy weensy side. It's a snug fit with one twin bed and one toddler bed. Short of getting bunk beds (can we say 'Emergency room waiting to happen'?), this room is not meant for two twin beds. Seriously. Two beds just don't work well in this room. But in a final attempt to keep Abby in bed at night, I bit the bullet. I bought her a new mattress, box springs, and a cheap hollywood frame to set them on. The beds will only fit in there one way. A great big 'L' shape with the mattresses only about six inches from each other. This = not cool. But, she was super excited about it and I was happy that it looked like it might just make things easier on bed time. That is, until they spent the better part of the day leaping back and forth from one bed to the next like two fresh trampolines straight out of the box. Ugh...you see now that having two monkeys for children can be trying at a time like this. I'm trying to teach them no jumping but this concept is not sticking well in their developing brains. So as I sit here and listen to them leaping from one bed to the other like mexican jumping beans on a concentrated sugar serum, I ask myself what it would take to actually move to a new house. Three bedrooms sure would be handy right about now when the walls feel as though they are closing in on me. I'll let you know how night one goes in the 'big girl bed'. Seeing as how I put them to bed over an hour ago and they are both still merrily playing leap frog in their beds, I have a feeling that the follow up blog isn't going to be pretty.

Bunny Burrow

You always hear and read about rabbits living in burrows under the ground. I never really thought that rabbits actually lived under the surface of the earth. I assumed that a good majority of them just hunker down in brush piles and bushes. I mean, have you actually ever been walking along and seen a giant hole where a rabbit pops out? I sure haven't and I've even lived in the country most of my life. Well, if you ever wondered if it was true and that rabbits do indeed live in holes under the ground, then you are about to have that question answered. I made a pen for our bunnies, Pickles and Nacho, last year so that they could enjoy getting out of their cage every day and experience a little hopping room. They started digging out the corners to escape. I filled in every attempt with bricks and rocks in hopes of thwarting their efforts. So they decided to just give up. This is what they focused their attention on.

Will I fill it in? Yeah. But probably not until one of two things happen. 1. We move, therefore taking the bunnies with us and not wanting the buyer of our house to break an ankle while looking at the property. Or 2. They burrow so far down that they pop their little heads out in the neighbors yard. I'm not sure how you approach that situation when you knock on your neighbors door. "Uh, hi. My rabbits burrowed a twenty foot tunnel under the fence and I was hoping that I could go fill that in for you." Crazy rabbits. I guess they aren't bored anymore.

Hay Haulin'

Every year around this time, I get the joy joy experience of working in the hay field. For all you out there who this doesn't translate for, this is when you go out in a big open country field and haul hay in for your livestock. I've been working in the hay field every year since I was a kid. I couldn't exactly toss fifty and sixty pound hay bales back then, so us kids were put to use rolling them around until they lined up so machines could pick them up easier. Of course we have no machines now...just pure old fashion muscle. The deal with bringing in your own hay is that you save a whole ton of money by doing it yourself as opposed to having it bought and delivered. Lucky for us, my aunt owns this particular field of prairie hay. I don't know what we'd do without her. So, as soon as I got the call from my mom, I gussied up in my holey hick jeans and faithful baseball cap and headed out to the wide open fields right smack in between 'Nowhere' and "Where the heck am I?". Lucky for us, my brother Jeremy had awesome friends growing up and they are still willing to aid us as hay hands in these situations. God bless them for being so wonderfully helpful. So in order to feed my three retired cows, one horse, and my pony (all whom still live with my folks), we had to bring in 250 bales for the winter. We also had to get 150 for my pal Mandy's livestock. And it wouldn't be fun to go out haying unless you pick the hottest day of the year to do it on. (sarcasm intended) I think the heat index was nearing 110 this past weekend. Ouch! Boy howdy! It was hot out there for sure! I swear at one point I was certain that I had teleported to the surface of the sun. I drank so much water that I thought I might have floated away. But as fast as I gulped it down, I sweated it all right back out again. I'm still fairly certain that I sweat off half of my left butt cheek. Not that this would be a bad thing, ya know? I'm sure I can even things back out with my next splurge of ice cream. So, several bruises, some sore muscles, lots of hay splinters and a tick bite later...we were done. All in all, it was nice to have it finished and know that my ladies (cows) are taken care of for the winter. As hot as it was and as hard as I had to work, it was actually nice to let Josh man the ship (kids) for awhile. I went two days without putting them to bed. This is the first time this has ever happened and they did great. Didn't miss me at all. (How touching.) Operation Hay Haul 2010 - Complete.