A Week in February

In Transition
February was definitely a month of transition. We went from the TLF at Randolph AFB (right by the flight line... that was fun) into a three day journey to get to Vegas. We stayed overnight at two hotels, dealt with a completely shredded tire about 15 minutes from our hotel the first night in El Paso (suck it, Texas!), traveled with a VERY talkative two year old, a very nervous drugged up dog, and a ferret who thinks it's funny to poop just as you bust out something to snack on. We finally made it to Vegas only to be stuffed into the tiny boiling TLF. Luckily for us we have some of the most amazing friends ever and Charlie and Stephanie let us crash at their place until we closed on the house. And after 24 days of constant change, constant moving, a few head injuries and one very stressed out me, we got to move into our new house! Oh and then I forgot the part about the moving into the house and unpacking! Actually, scratch that, that part went quite smoothly thanks to a little help from my wonderful inlaws and the chats on the phone with my awesome parents who constantly remind me that everything isn't the end of the world!

And so despite all the stress, the shredded tires, the stinky poop, and the never ending 9 hour-long narration of "Look Mommy, that's a cloud. What is that over there? Do you see that motorcycle? Hey Mommy do you like a dragon movie? I like a dragon movie. That's a good movie. Hey can we watch that movie? Why are you driving? Stop driving. I think we should turn right. Mommy, I want to drive now. Do you see Bazzy? Can you hear him? Did he poop? That smells bad. Where is Lovey? I don't see him. Mommy, can you get Lovey. OH NO! LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY! Mommy can you please get me Lovey. I can't reach him. Ahhhhh!" (at which point I literally had to pull to the side of the road to retrieve the beloved Lovey that had fallen between the carseat and the door) we have arrived safe, settled in quite nicely, and are enjoying our new house.

And without further ado, I give you a week in February:

Here is my tiny creature in February of 2010 at 10ish months old

I had taken him to Jitters and he was sharing a blueberry bagel with me while we sat near the fireplace. I believe he was already beginning his climbing adventures. This may have been right around the time D was teaching him how to go down the stairs without killing himself. Nevermind the incident where, as we were showing him this, he tried to stand and rammed his head into the wall...


Here he is February 2011:
Furthering his climbing and acrobatic skills much to our dismay. This is the day we realized that he was too big for his highchair. Or at least, this was the day we realized the highchair was no longer a useful baby product but rather a toddler death trap. We said goodbye to this device of doom shortly after this gem was taken.

And here is my sweet little boy this year February 2012:
This is my little monkey. This picture is special because he has no cuts, scrapes, bruises, gashes or blood on his face! Before you call CPS let me clarify something: My child is a freaking daredevil. He loves to climb on things. Other parents look at me like I am a leper on the playground because I am not hovering over my child making sure he doesn't fall off the ladder that he learned to climb about a year and a half ago while they are there to make sure precious 4 year old Tommy doesn't fall through the space between the rungs. He did, however, almost break his nose about three weeks after this but it wasn't because I wasn't watching him or because he was climbing something he shouldn't. It was mostly because he has my lack of coordination when it comes to walking/running on. the. ground! Seriously. He tripped over his foot and busted his face on a rock climbing wall. No joke. We're special. Today his injury was running into a BBQ grill because he was attempting to move a bike tire. Yup, I have the unfortunate height child right now. You know, the height where EVERYTHING is positioned just right for them to ram their head into when they turn around but it's just tall enough where they don't even see it coming!? Poor baby. At least he still thinks a smooch and a bandaid will fix everything (except for when the bandaid hurts him and I have to smooch whatever the bandaid did). Aw well. At least he's having a fun childhood.

A Time I Had

There goes the wagon

Again with the moving...
So yet again I have fallen behind in my posting and I am going to use a familiar excuse because, hey, it's true. We have been in the process of moving, yet again, and getting settled in our new digs. This time... VEGAS, BABY!

I will be doing my "week in February" and "week in March" posts in the near future. I also hope to do a few posts on life here in Vegas thus far. We shall see how that goes since I am a temporarily single parent to one of the most feisty, strong-willed, opinionated, super-climbing, daredevilish, sassy little almost-3-year-olds in the world. Not that I have many readers but to those who do periodically check to see if I have written anything, fear not! I will return.

For now I leave you with this (because it's so very true)

and A Time I Had

A week in January

I'm Alive!
OK So I have fallen into the trap of not blogging again. It doesn't help that we were recovering from the Christmas festivities and then livin' it up in Vegas for a little over a week without our spawn, I mean sweet little boy. My awesome inlaws drove our new minivan (don't even bother making fun of my shaggin' wagon, you can't tell me anything I haven't already thought of myself. Plus it's got room to haul all the dead bodies and by dead bodies I mean things like furniture and such) that we purchased for a great price from D's grandparents. They then spent a while taking care of Link, Bowser and Baz for us while D and I went house hunting in Las Vegas. We ended up finding an amazing house, getting our offer accepted and are supposed to close on it near the end of February.

All that said here's my monthly post on the cutest little man in my life. Since I sucked at getting a pic the first week of January this is about mid-month. So here's the worm in January of 2010 (not the year he was born but within the first year of his little life!)

He was hanging out at the back door sportin' daddy's funky hat. Here is is January of 2011. At this point he had perfected his climbing skills and was tackling higher surfaces, like the breakfast bar. He tended to get stuck under the ledge when the chairs were pushed in which was hilarious. He was just generally mischievous.

And lastly, January 2012. Here he is riding his trike around the block in the ridiculously warm Texas "winter."
A Time I Had

Santa Pictures

Santa/T-Rex, Same Thing
So anyone who has kids knows how fun Santa pictures can be. When I say "fun" what I really mean is "the time when your kid looks at you like 'why the hell did you make me come sit on this strange mans lap while you guys do weird shit to try and make me smile.'" True story. Our experiences with Santa over the last three years have been amusing to say the least. Link never ceases to totally crack me up when good ol' Saint Nick is concerned. And now I give you his first Santa picture experience in 2009 for his very first Christmas.

We went with our friends Aaron and Nicky and their little girl and Link's BFF at the time Alex. We ended up at Nordstroms and our Santa was AWESOME. Link wasn't completely convinced but he graced us with a wannabe happy face to start:
Then he started to get curious. Who is this strange man who has deprived me of my mommy for a whole 60 seconds? He has gloves. He might not be trustworthy...
Wait a second... you are NOT my mommy or my daddy. Who are you?!
OMG. What the hell?! Who is this big man who has me? And commence the classic "kid crying on Santas lap picture." Perfect!

Onto experience #2. Again we went to Nordstroms with our same friends... though this time D was deployed so I had little help in making him smile as our friends now had two little girls to attend to. 2010 was a bit of a different experience. 2010 was the year Link decided Santa was the same thing as T-Rex and that he would tolerate being on his lap BUT determined if he didn't move or change his expression that Santa would not know he was there and would, therefore, not eat him whole. So the majority of the pictures were of Link with a blank expression on his face holding a ball that he refused to surrender.

Finally by some small miracle the photographer caught two shots of a tiny little smirk. He was one. It's the best we could do. Thanks Inky.

That brings me to this year 2011. With remnants of his decision last year that Santa was the equivalent of T-Rex he graced us with some great pics. He was so psyched right before we saw Santa saying "We gonna go see SaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanTA!" and jumping up and down like he was going to attack and bear hug him when we entered the place. Wrong. He had to be coaxed over to Santa and then he gave us this gem:

Then it was as if he had to be convinced that this man was indeed Santa so he did a little investigating of the beard. He determined it was real but that still didn't make him warm up to the suited man.

Then the big guy took things into his own hands. This was the picture D and I immediately agreed would be one of the pictures on our Christmas card. The look on Inky's face is such a classic Link look that it HAD to be on the card!

After Santa helping and me doing a "candy cane dance," D making silly noises that usually make Link laugh, and the two of us bribing him with candy, chocolate and toys (yes, we are those parents) we got this one:

Still even after the small smile we went back to something that was so Link I can barely stand how awesome it is. He leaned back as and gave Santa his evil look as if to say "bitch, I know you're not the real thing."And those have been our Santa picture experiences thus far. I now look forward to it because I may not get the sweet awesome smiling picture with Santa but he definitely let's his personality shine through and makes me laugh. So, SUCCESS!

One of those days

Aaaaaand, go.
Ever have one of those days where the night before your kid refused to fall asleep and woke up early the next morning? One of those days when they had to have chocolate on their waffles even though you already told them no? One of those days where your planned walk got rained out and your kid screamed for 5 minutes because they wanted the car that belonged to someone else? One of those days that when you left your friend's house you took away the Angry Birds you had used to distract them from the car tragedy and they cried all the way home because they wanted the phone back because "that's mone, that's MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE?" One of those days that, when you arrived home, you had to hear about how your kid wanted to watch a movie and when you told them no they told you the dog wanted to watch a movie and when you told them no again they screamed at you for an hour? One of those days that because of this kind of morning you now have a headache? One of those days that all your kid wants for lunch is junk and you give them apples that they feed to the dog? One of those days where they refuse to take a nap and instead destroy their room? One of those days that they use "I need to go potty" as an excuse to get up from their "nap" and then give you the "you're so dumb that you fell for that" smile/giggle? One of those days that your dog continually wants outside so you let it out and they immediately stand back at the door and track in muddy pawprints? One of those days that you decide you will turn around by actually figuring out something delicious for dinner but then you go out to the freezer in the garage and the tiny little person that you gave birth to and almost bled to death for LOCKS. YOU. IN. THE. GARAGE? One of those days when you find yourself praying that your husband doesn't have to stay late at work because you are now locked in the garage with no shoes, no keys, no phone and no more hope!?

No?

OK then just me I guess.
Mommy needs a drink.
At least tomorrow will be better!
A Time I Had

The Ultimate Cure

I Need A Smooch
You know those days when your husband's alarm goes off and you wake up and can't go back to sleep. Then you realize you can barely move because your body feels so weak and everything hurts like you did a weight lifting routine all day long two levels above your ability while you had the flu. Then your sweet little kid runs in the room to tell you they have to go potty and you need to "wake up" and you are wondering how the hell you are going to just get the blanket off your body, let alone get out of bed and take care of yourself and a two year old all day long. Anyone know what I'm talking about? No? Just me? OK. These are the joys of having fibromyalgia. I tend not to talk about it too much on here but today is one of those days where I am wondering how I am going to get through the day. I don't have a ton like this, luckily. And I am hoping it doesn't get worse in the future. This is what pushes me for now. I know these days are rare and that this disease can be so much worse.

I suppose the reason I chose to blog about it today was because I sat down with Link and he was upset because his foot hurt. He informed me that he needed a smooch to make it feel better. He was very upset in the pain in his foot so I smooched his foot like a good Mommy. He was magically better. He usually is after a minor injury that requires a smooch to remedy. I will be so sad the day the smooch cure has no more effect. I am sure that when the smooches don't work, 32 bandaids will. Once the bandaid cure wears off he most likely won't be such a little boy anymore. So how am I going to get through this day feeling like I do? I am going to smooch every owwy Link has (which, with a self-proclaimed ninja warrior, is sure to be at least one decent head/facial injury and another 4-5 bumps, scrapes, bruises or just plain "I ran into the wall agains") and enjoy the fact that even though it hurts to move, I still have a sweet little boy who will smooch my head if I tell him it hurts.

A Time I Had

Baby Werewolf!

North Pole Breakfast 2011

Look What the Elf Dragged In

So Samus, our very own Elf on the Shelf, was sent from the North Pole with breakfast this morning. We came down stairs to a beautiful, very festive and quite delicious North Pole breakfast.
Samus was perched over the setup. She brought a letter from Santa and a blank letter for Link to fill out that she could take back so Santa would know what he wanted for Christmas.

She was even sent for snacks of her own.
Some powdered and some sprinkle donuts to nom on with us.


She hung up some fun decorations too.

This was the entire North Pole breakfast spread that we encountered when we came downstairs.
Link's place setting had some special Finn McMissle socks from Samus.
She set out drink options for D and I. Apple Cider or Earl Grey tea.
We also had snowflake cups for our "reindeer snacks."
Candy Cane milk containers. When you put milk in them and let them sit the candy cane disintegrates into the milk and we enjoyed some delicious candy cane milk.

Some mini "Santa" cakes (whole wheat pancakes made by using Christmas cookie cutters). They were reindeer, snowman, stocking, snowflake, candy cane and gingerbread shaped.
To go with the cakes we were sent some Mrs. Claus Merry Meats (turkey bacon). Perfect since the rest of the breakfast was so sweet.
Some "reindeer snacks" (white chocolate chips).
Then there was some snowman melt sent with sprinkles (vanilla yogurt).
What North Pole breakfast would be complete without some snowballs!? (powdered donuts)
And since Santa caught wind that Link was "slightly" into Cars he sent some Inky size mugs with hot Christmas cocoa.
Here's Link's reaction to the breakfast table. "Whoa Mommy, look at that!? What is it!??!"
Checkin' out his new mugs.
He jumped right up in Daddy's chair and dug in starting with a snowflake Santa cake.
Nom.
D enjoyed it too. He was nice to keep the worm upstairs for a tiny bit while "Samus" finished setting things up.
We're weirdos. Weirdos that had a yummy breakfast.
And here's a picture to prove I was actually there! Mmmmm candy cane milk.

This is definitely a tradition that we hope to continue. So festive, so yummy, so fun!

A Time I Had