Two Big Kids

Gem is really turning into a big kid. A couple days ago she lost her first tooth. She even let daddy pull it out with string, even after a few unsuccessful attempts. She wanted to keep her tooth, but we told her she had to give it to the tooth fairy. So the next morning she walks into my room and says "Mom, the tooth fairy didn't bring me a toy, she just brought me a dollar". She was not too pleased about that. Recently we have changed her jobs reward system. She used to get a small prize at the end of the week if she had finished her jobs everyday, now she gets two dollars if she finishes all her jobs. Let's just say that she isn't too fond of dollars. She has gotten one toy from the store with her dollars, hopefully she will find out that it is fun to purchase things with her own money.

Levi still finds some way everyday to do something mischievous, despite the fact that our house is in complete lock down mode. The other day he went into the bathroom and opened the hair goo, and put some in his hair, which I guess is fine, but he also put a lot on his clothing, his hands, and the bathroom.

Cardboard Train

The other day we made a train out of the giant mattress box, and I took a million pictures. I have kindly decided to share nine of them with you, if you aren't interested in nine cardboard train pictures then you might just want to move on.

Here we have various poses of Gem driving the train. I think her faces are pretty exceptional.

In other news June finally has her first tooth.

Is it finally spring?

I know we still have a few more weeks of cold before it will officially be spring, but these few days of pretend spring are pretty awesome. I can't wait until I can throw my kids outside after breakfast and then leave them out their until lunch, especially Levi whose new favorite thing is to sneak into the bathroom and turn on the water and "brush his teeth". Gem and Levi both enjoyed playing with the kite on Monday, I am sure that won't be the last time we use the kite this year.

Less Shenanigans

Here we have the children not causing quite as much mayhem, though Levi's face is covered in chocolate popsicle. They have been having fun playing in our huge boxes from our new mattress. We are moving our old mattress and bedding downstairs to make a guest room. That's right we are among the elite now, with an actual guest room. I also got new towels and rugs for the bathroom downstairs, I feel like we are creating a hotel room right in our very own house.

Will the madness ever end?

This is my son, and he is a crazy little person. This is not his crib (obviously because it has sparkly butterflies above it). Somehow he climbed into June's crib. I just don't know how he does it.

Not Even an Hour Later

Let me explain the set-up. Last night I went to sleep at ten, Levi woke me up at eleven with his crazy coughing until midnight. So I fall back asleep until at two Gem starts crying, it takes a little while to get back to sleep, at four thirty it's June's turn, and maybe I was back asleep by five. Then the kids wake up at six fifteen. So let's say I have a little bit of a headache, k really a lot a bit of a headache.

After Gem finished her breakfast this morning (around seven) I sent her to her room to clean it up. A normal human could do this task in basically one minute, but Gem is no normal human. At nine forty five, it is still a pretty big mess. So I look at her and say "Gem please finish cleaning you room, I am going to take a shower." So at nine forty five, I walk into my bedroom to shower. Gem and Levi are happily not cleaning Gem's room and June is napping in the baby room.

At ten o clock a mere fifteen minutes later I walk out of my room, to find Gem yelling at the top of her lungs. "Help mom, we can't get out of the babies' room". I don't even want to look, but I must. Inside that room is one not-sleeping June with her face covered in desitin, one culprit Levi, who has opened the new bottle of desitin and tried eating it and painting his clothes with it, and one accomplice Gem who had her hands covered in desitin and couldn't open the door.

Gem has now been confined to her room until it is clean, or one of us reaches old age, whichever comes first. Levi is still wandering around like the devious person he is, I haven't figured out what to do for discipline with him yet, and poor baby June the innocent victim is now scooting around crying because she didn't finish her nap.

It is now ten thirty my head still hurts, Tyler still isn't home from Connecticut (where he had a nice trip, life isn't fair), and I want to lock myself in my room and stay there until after bedtime.

Levi

These pictures are of my not even two year old boy, he and I have a battle raging. A battle to keep him alive. I try desperately to keep him from doing things that could end in his death, and yet he persists in doing these things. Despite what it may sound like from previous blogs, I do try to supervise him always. (Except of course right now, while I am blogging and making a grocery list, for now I am just going to assume he is somewhere in the house). Anyways so his new diversion is climbing up and down the bunk bed ladder. So far from what I have seen he seems pretty competent, but we'll see if he manages to break any of his bones.

Happy Birthday to Me

Well before I get started thanking everybody for the great day that I had yesterday, I just wanted to say that it was kind of weird that my birthday ended up being one of the snowiest days of the year.

Also a side note about our favorite son Levi and how he is driving me to the brink of a psychopathic rampage. Now when I give him baths he thinks it is funny to wait until I leave the bathroom and then he hops out of the tub and runs into the living room naked, looks at me and laughs hysterically then runs back into the tub. Then I have to go get him dressed and tell him we don't hop in and out of the tub. So far he isn't learning very quickly. Yesterday morning to start off my birthday, he was in the tub and hopped out and got a bunch of toilet paper, and then hopped back in the tub, and all the toilet paper disintegrated in the tub. Not a fun way to start a birthday. Also Levi can now open doors, he isn't even two and he can open doors. We had to get baby proof door handles for the laundry room ( I caught him trying to open the pinesol) and the storage room. One plus is it means he can open Gem's door (He loves to play with the doll house), so she will have to learn to let him play in there before he turns two and gets up-graded to the bunk bed with her. Every time he goes in there, she falls on the floor kicking and screaming "He will break all my things!!!" Then I say "No he won't" and then he goes in and breaks something. I am really a great mommy.

Anyways back to my birthday, I am going to do this in a bulleted list format. I will be thanking people anonymously, you know who you are.

• Thank you to the two people who texted and wished me happy birthday. Seriously how did you even know it was my birthday? Maybe facebook told you, it made me feel guilty that I wasn't positive what either of your birthday's were.
• Thank you to the good friend who called me, even though I didn't notice until six hours later. Thanks also for chatting with me first thing in the morning today, I enjoyed that.
• Thanks to the person who said happy birthday to me on facebook and words! That is twice the birthday wishes.
• Thanks to the person who magnificently wrapped fancy new sewing scissors, bobbin holders, and pin holders. And also thanks for helping Tyler know what to get me, I love them. And also thanks for not being mad that we moved the actual birthday celebration to Saturday.
• Thanks to the two people who took me, Tyler, and three crazy kids to lunch. It was fun. These same two people also got me new platters, serving bowls, spatulas, a bench scrapper (which I will use), and cadbury eggs (my favorite)! Also they gave me some shopping money, which I did not use for my oil change, because Tyler wouldn't let me.
• Thanks to the people who thoughtfully called me and weren't mad that I hung up, because the doorbell rang, Tyler was also on the phone, and I was serving dinner. Sorry! But thanks for knowing when my birthday is.
• Thanks for the people who made a card for me and brought it to the door, while I was on the phone.
• Thanks to the person who tried to text me, but got a wrong number and then was forced to email me. (A side note, I share my birthday with Aragorn).
• Thanks to me, for making a delicious mint ice cream cake. It was soooo good, that I refused to share with anyone, outside the people who live here.
• Thanks to Tyler for getting me a bathtub pillow and a waterproof kindle bag, and then letting me take a bath and use them. I was so happy about the waterproof kindle bag, it fit really snuggly and protected every square inch, unfortunately also the square inch where it has to be plugged in. Duh.

Anyway it was a good birthday and I guess I am a big 25 years old now.