Audrey's first tooth. Obviously we celebrated by getting her first toothbrush. By now she's got two teeth on the bottom and I think about to get some on top too. Better posting this late than never, right?
7:15-kids awake. Diapers, breakfast. A upset. E gives her pats. So SWEET! Find wasp in E's room. Kill it w/wasp spray. Read the can when finished and see it says not to use indoors under any circumstance. Freak out about fumes and open the windows as much as possible.
8:15-school w/E. LOTW-Rr, color-red, shape-rectangle, song-Row Your Boat, words-rain, rainbow, rabbit and robot. He LOVES it. "Easton so 'cited!"
8:45-E and A play eggs in the LR floor. E asks sis "Do you see orange? Good!" :)
9:10-watch Curious George 2 with E while A takes a nap. Watch a little, play a little cars, play a little tickle fight, watch a little more.
10:35-diaper and daytime clothes for E, shower and clothes for me.
11:20-E asks for "more preschool". Set him up with a snack and pom pom rectangle page. He really likes it and says "Easton put it!"when he puts one on.
11:30-Sis up from nap. Change and get her dressed for the day. Play in floor w/E and A for a bit. Find ants in kitchen. Same place as last year. Spend the rest of the day feeling like I've got bugs crawling on me. UGH!
12:15-lunch for everyone. Change both kids and put A down for 2nd nap. Upload pics to computer while E plays cars. He says he's "just busy mama." A doesn't sleep. She feels hot and is probably teething. I give her Tylenol and a bottle.
1:00-get diaper bag ready and kids out the door on time. Pick up J from work so he can watch the kids during my consultation w/oral surgeon about my wisdom teeth.
2:00-appt goes well. Dr Amos says he DOES NOT recommend taking them out at this time. The pain I've been having is most likely due to a very small cavity that is not yet able to be picked up on xray or from an old filling that is failing. This great news saves J 2 or 3 vacation days, me a lot of pain and our bank account $2315. Nice! We go to Sonic for Happy Hour Cokes to celebrate.
4:00-arrive home. Unload kids and stuff from car. Change diapers and hang out in the living room for a while. A is still fussy and feverish. E asks for a "teever" and keeps putting his hand in his mouth. 2 teething, cranky kids who missed their afternoon nap due to my appt.
5:00-J is working later tonight to make up for missing time earlier in the day. I give the kids fruit and veg for dinner. Both are whiney and cry throughout dinner. Time for Motrin.
5:45-sit down on the couch to feed A her bottle. E gets into my purse and into the lotion. By the time I catch him, he's smeared lotion over his face, the cabinets and a lot of the contents of my purse. Clean him up and get both kids changed and into jammies for the night. Both are already rubbing their eyes and still fussing.
6:00-J comes home. Hooray! We read stories, brush the kid's teeth and put them to bed by 6:45. Whew! Collapse in a heap on the couch and look around at my messy house but am too tired to do anything about it.
Not included in the above list: the 20 or so songs we sang today, the 50 or so messes my kids made (only slightly exaggerated), and the 2 or 3 times I had to put E in timeout for pulling the cat's tail or smacking his sister or the approximately 239 Cheerios I have stepped on today. I vacuumed them up but they'll be back tomorrow, trust me.
7:20-heat up dinner for me and J. Thank goodness I don't have to cook or do homework tonight! Will attempt to upload some pictures and blog tomorrow.
We had a busy weekend. Lots of playing outside, cooking dinner on the grill and getting stuff done. It was really nice. We did lots of laundry, cleaned a TON, planted the forsythia and lavender I bought last week, played ball with Easton, ate lunch on the front porch and just had a fantastic weekend. He was so cute today! He saw two birds in the sky and said "Hi birds!" Then he looked at me and said "Mama, catch it!" He put his arms out and tried to catch the birds flying overhead. Such a sweetie! I haven't taken any pictures all weekend. I was just too busy runnin after Easton and taking care of Audrey to get out the camera!
It's supposed to rain tomorrow so Easton will be heartbroken that he can't go outside but maybe he'll live. I'm trying to think of something fun to do inside. Maybe we'll make a tent in the living room and read lots of books. That sounds pretty fun to me! Maybe we'll even have a carpet picnic in our tent. We'll see.
Oh man...I had to buy Audrey a big kid car seat this weekend. I can't believe she's outgrown her infant carrier! She weighs 20.9 lbs and is 29 1/2 inches long. She'll be 10 months old a week from today. Of course I've already started planning her birthday party. Any excuse to plan a party and I'm a happy girl! I'm thinking of doing a "Pinkalicious" themed cupcake party. If you haven't read the book called Pinkalicious, it is SO cute! It's about a girl who loves pink and eats too many pink cupcakes. Every little girl needs a copy of this sweet book! (Hint, hint! We don't own that one yet!) There's also a Purplicious and a Goldilicious. Can't wait to read those. And can't wait to have Audrey's party! Has it really been a year already (almost)?! This past year has flown by in a haze of bottles, diapers, formula and many, many pots of coffee. I'm already missing my "little baby" but am perfectly content with my family as it is. No more little ones for this tired mama! (Although someone may have to remind me of that in a few years.)
I can't believe I was wearing shorts and running around outside while all of my family in Oklahoma was dealing with SNOW! On the first day of Spring! So glad all we're getting from that is a little rain tomorrow. I am NOT a fan of the cold/snow/ice. None for me, thanks! Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend!
Typical Audrey. Smiling with that wide open grin. And yes, she is (almost) always this happy. But boy when she's not, she sure lets you know. This girl can SCREAM! Don't let the pictures fool you. She's got a definite feisty side!
I love this last one. 
And one not so great picture of me giving "the look". :) 
Happy Spring!
The many faces of Audrey
We had a little photo shoot one day right after Audrey finished lunch. She sure was in a good mood! What a little ham! I love the one of her loving on her baby doll. Every time you hand it to her she does this. It's almost like she's giving it a kiss. So sweet!
Plus one funny picture of Easton playing in his new big boy bed. In this cardboard bus he's got 19 lovies, 1 telephone, 1 bucket of plastic food, 2 blankets and 2 sippy cups. I think he's ready for anything.
Took A to the pediatrician because she'd been running a fever so long. By the time we got there she was no longer running a fever. (YAY!) The doc listened to her chest, looked in her mouth and ears and said she has..........a cold. So glad it turned out to be nothing! But now I look like one of thoes hypochondriac moms who take their kids to the dr for even the slightest sniffle. Oh well. Better to be safe than sorry I guess. If she had an ear infection or something and I didn't get it treated I would have felt terrible. Took A to the dr on Tuesday and she seems to be feeling better today.
In other news, we got 4-5 inches of snow last weekend and are suppposed to get a really big storm this weekend. YUCK! First of all, why does it always snow on the weekend?! And secondly, I HATE SNOW!!! I once went about 10 days straight in the house with both little ones 24/7 and I just about lost my mind. Warmer spring weather can't get here soon enough! 
Audrey is sick. I HATE when little ones are sick! She's been running a fever off and on since yesterday evening. Tonight it got up to 102. Not a fun time around here. She was supposed to go in today for flu shot number 2 but we had to reschedule til next week. She has no symptoms other than a fever but if she's not feeling better by tomorrow morning I'm going to call the pediatrician. She's been eating ok. A little less than usual but not dramatically so. She's had quite a few bottles today but will drink for a little while and then turn away like she's not interested. She doesn't have any congestion as far as I can tell. I wonder if her ears hurt? She hasn't been pulling on them but if my ears hurt I sure wouldn't want to be drinking much. OUCH! Poor baby! I think I'll set my alarm tonight and get up and check on her to make sure she's OK.
Some pictures of the big snow we got here last weekend:
Easton and Yellow Bear in the snow
Audrey all smiles and bundled up in her warm snow suit.
Riding the Metro
One of the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
The Washington Monument
The White House
I can't take credit for this one. J's sweet cousin McKayla took this one. Great job!
This is a lap full of cute right here. Easton and Alexa waiting for Santa.
Easton reads his new Thomas the Train ABC book.
Audrey loves her doll
Alexa, Mason, Addy, Audrey and Easton.
Audrey and Easton Christmas 2009Oh, man. Coming back from our trip has really thrown Miss Audrey off her sleeping schedule. Not that we had a very rigid one to begin with but once we got home? Forget it! Tonight is the second night in a row we've listened to her cry herself to sleep. Ugh! I hate it! I know she'll be fine and won't be scarred for life or anything like that but I sure do hate to listen to her cry. Must have been all that rocking and cuddling all of her well-meaning family did when we were in Oklahoma. ;) Not that I wouldn't have wanted them to do that, of course but now she doesn't want to sleep unless we're holding her. Some nights we'll get her to sleep 3 or 4 times in our arms but every single time we put her in her bed she wakes up crying. I love holding and rocking her but lordy, I can't hold her while she sleeps...I'll never get anything done!!! So I polled my mom friends and got just the answers I thought I would. All but one mom said they let them cry it out. We had already decided this is what we'd do but I was glad to hear we're not the only ones who do this. We did it with Easton and it didn't hurt him any so I guess we're OK. :)
In other news, I can't find my camera. I saw it in the car seat when I got out of the car from our Oklahoma trip so I know we got home with it. But I can't find it for anything! Our bags are all unpacked, things are (mostly) put away and still no camera. And wouldn't you know it there've been at least half a dozen times since then that I've wished I had it handy. I have to find it!!! And SOON!
What keeps me from blogging lately:
I left the room where I was playing in the floor with the kids to go wash my hands. While I was gone I noticed it got awfully quiet so I asked "Easton, what are you doing?" He said "Sit Sis." What??? Yep. Sure enough when I got back in the room he was sitting right on top of Audrey. She wasn't unhappy or anything, just looking up at him like "Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" Little stinker! Then I said to Easton just one of the million funny things I never thought I would say. "We do not SIT on our sister!" This was followed just a few minutes later with "Easton, we do not MOW on our sister either!" He loves that noisy plastic mower but his sis sure didn't!
Halloween fun
Easton was a fireman this year and Audrey was a Tootsie Roll. (Thanks to Aunt Leslie for sending us the outfit!!) It was cool and sprinkling rain on Halloween night. It's a good thing Easton's "costume" was a rain jacket that looks like a fireman's uniform! All I had to add was a $4 fireman hat from Walmart and he was set. And Audrey borrowed cousin Addy's outfit from last year's Halloween and we were all set. We didn't have spooky Halloween food this time. Well, we had spaghetti and meatballs and I'm sure I could have said it was something gross like monster guts but I don't think Easton would have eat it if I did that. So we ate dinner, got the kids ready and sat around and waited. I guess everyone in our neighborhood decided to wait til dark but I was hoping they would start early so the kids wouldn't be out so late. We finally saw the first trick-or-treaters and headed out. Easton did not want to ride in the stroller or be carried at all so he walked quite a bit for a little guy. He had fun and we had fun watching him. He (of course) wanted to eat every piece of candy he got that night. He kept saying "More can-ee, more can-ee!" Thankfully he walked so much that he burnt off all that sugar in no time and went to bed as soon as we got home with no complaints. Audrey snoozed for a while until it started sprinkling and woke her up. Then she didn't want to sleep when we got home so we were up for quite a while. Little stinker!
Hope ya'll had a Happy Halloween! I know we sure did!
Easton loved his hat! 
I think he said Trick or Treat pretty much at all of the houses at first. And Thank You too! Then he got tired and just held out his bucket waiting for candy.
Augie-pie in her Tootsie Roll costume. Good thing it was warm! 
Looks to me like Audrey is looking to her brother to figure out just what the heck is going on here. Why are we all dressed up in these outfits and out WAAY past our bedtime?!
What an exhausting day today!!! I got up, worked out while I watched the Today show. The kids slept late so I had time to get my coupons ready and get my stuff together. The kids woke up around ten (TEN! Holy cow!). I got everyone fed, dressed and into the car. No big deal so far, right? We made it to Walmart and did lots of shopping. This was no small feat either. Easton was in the front of the cart, Audrey was in the bottom taking up the entire thing with her carseat. This meant I had to put things in my reusable shopping bags and put them under the cart, hang them on my arms, hang them onto the sides of the cart...it was probably really funny looking.
Then all of a sudden Easton had the mother of all meltdowns right in the checkout line. Oh. My. Goodness!!! Kicking and screaming and standing up in the seat of the cart. The checker was ringing up my stuff already otherwise I would have just left the cart with all the stuff and hightailed it out of there. It was that bad. But she was already ringing up my stuff so I decided to try to pay for my stuff and leave. Easton kept screaming and trying to get out of the cart and I was scared to death he was going to fall out of the cart and split his head open right in front of everybody. I tried talking to him, spanking his little butt, threatening him and then finally ignoring him. NOTHING helped. (Yes, Mom and Dad, I am finally getting my payback for all those fits I threw and yes, they really are a *&^$!)
The cashier called someone over to help me out with my stuff because there was no way I could manage to get all that stuff AND a screaming kid out to my car by myself. Thankfully the lady who came over to help me was nice. She was a mom herself so she knew what I was going through. Once we got out to the car, I put Easton in the car (not even in his car seat yet) so he could chill out and shut the door while I loaded the stuff into the trunk. By the time I was done, he had calmed down completely and suddenly my sweet, sunny funny boy was back like nothing had ever happened. Little stinker!!!
Then I went to change his diaper. Worst possible dirty diaper. Of course! No big deal. I can handle this. I changed the dirty diaper, got him buckled into his seat. By tthen, Audrey was screaming and I knew it was time for a bottle. I went to make her a bottle and...no bottled water in the diaper bag!! What the heck?! OK. No big deal. I unbuckled E from his car seat, locked Audrey into the car. (I was in the closest parking place and could see Audrey from where I was going.) and Easton and I walked up to the vending machine to buy a bottle of water. We got the water, buckled E back into his seat, made the bottle and realized Audrey was crying because she had a dirty diaper. I got her ready, reached for a wipe. NO MORE WIPES!!! AARRGGHH!!! I rummaged around in the console and found some napkins. She wasn't coming clean with just the cheap napkins so I had to wet them with the water I had just bought. WOWEE!!! Can you even imagine the shock on that poor girls' bottom! lol I finished with the diaper change with Audrey screaming her little head off. I calmed her down, gave her the bottle and we all just chilled out while she finished. WHEW!
Then Easton decided we all needed lunch. By then it was 3:30 and we’d been shopping at Walmart for THREE hours! We got Easton “unch” at Sonic and then we went to the grocery store for a couple of items that were on sale there cheaper than Walmart. On the way to Martin’s, Easton requested a song. He said “Brick House, mama. Brick House”. I had to laugh. OK, little man. 70’s funk it is. He loves that song and Lowrider. I didn’t realize how intently he was listening to the words until he said “36”. (The part where the guy says 36, 24, 36.) And Easton kept saying Brick House. Brick House. Oh my goodness, it was just the comedy relief I needed. Here ya go. One of Easton's favorite songs right now:
We had an uneventful trip to Martin’s except for the part where it was pouring down rain when we came out of the store. Luckily, Jason called and was close by so he came to help me get the groceries and the kids into the car in the pouring rain. I rewarded myself (and Jason) for our hard work by buying us some coffee. We came home, got the kids in bed, had grilled cheese, tomato soup and beer for dinner vegged on the couch for the rest of the night. What a day!!!<
Boy, it is really feeling more like WINTER than Fall here lately! I'm glad I get to wear my red wool coat but not at all glad that it's cold. That makes no sense but I do love that red coat. :) I'm freezing. We're supposed to get our first freeze tonight. Down to around 31!!! Holy cow, that's cold! My hands are like icicles as I'm trying to type this. I think I need some hot tea and a warm bath to warm up.
In other news, it's apple butter time around here. I've already made (and blogged about????) one batch of apple butter. I'm proud I (mostly) got over my fear of canning. All that hot water and glass and boiling apple butter...yikes!!! But I did it and it turned out great so I'm going to get together with two of my friends and make about a bushel's worth of apples into apple buttter. Should be an all day deal but I'm really looking forward to it.
I got an A in my Nutrition for Education class. I got the maximum amount of points on my final Power Poing presentation and got a 99% in the class! Do I wish I'd gotten that one extra point so I could have had 100? Heck, no! I was just thrilled to get what I did! Only 10 more classes to go til graduation!!! Hmmm...maybe I could get a new car for graduation! Our Malibu will be paid off around then and we DO need a bigger car now that we've got 2 little ones. What do you say, honey? :)
Today Easton decided to take the straw out of a cup of water he was drinking out of and play with it. He ended up scratching his eye with the straw. Now it's really red and irritated and he keeps blinking his eyes and rubbing at it. I'm easily grossed out about eye things because of all the gross eye stuff I've been through so I could barely look at it without feeling like I was gonna throw up. Poor baby! Audrey's got a check up tomorrow and I might call ahead and ask if the doctor can take a look at E's eye just to be safe.
Audrey's getting shots tomorrow. I HATE taking my kids to get shots!!! I made Jason go with me and hold Easton down one time just to see how awful it is. Not very nice of me I know but should I get to have all the fun? He was coming with me to the appointment already anyways so I just thought I'd share. You're welcome, honey. Now he knows why I am all teary-eyed when I come home from the doctor's appointments. Ugh! I hate that!
Today we did about 5 loads of laundry. Who knew it could take so stinkin long to fold a load of kid's clothes?!?!
That's about it for us. Nothing too exciting. Gotta get off of here and make some tea. I'm FREEZING!!!
(Santa, if you read my blog I could sure use some soft, fuzzy socks and a new pair of warm houseshoes, OK? All my fuzzy socks are really getting worn out and I had to trash my slippers because I'd worn a hole right through the bottom of both of them. Thanks! P.S. Sorry I didn't keep my house as clean as I wanted to but I'm sure with all those elves you understand, right?)
