State of the Family #13

Another 11 day break from the blog. . . maybe I am not quite up to this blogging stuff. . . or maybe I have 3 small children and don't often have time to sit and type! Especially in the summer when we are outside most of the time. Catch me this winter when I am stuck indoors with screaming children all the time!

Miss Thumb Sucker continues to do decent on her sleeping. She is pretty consistently sleeping until 5 or 6 am! Except for last night when she was up at 115 and 445, but she must have known I was going to blog today and wanted to give me something to complain about! ;) She also has another tooth! #2 broke through this last weekend but didn't seem to give her quite as much trouble as that first one. She is determined to figure out how to get to things out of her reach lately. Watch out world, she will be crawling soon! For now, she tries to scoot around on her butt and reach for things. Most of the time she reaches too far and ends up falling flat on her face, then in true infant fashion, tries to 'crawl' to the item, but as she is just learning usually ends up pushing herself backwards with her arms instead of pushing forwards with her legs. Then she gets mad cuz she is even farther away from the item she wanted in the first place. Either that or she reaches with all her might and falls smack into a table, doorway or some other piece of furniture and has to be rescued. Poor thing has a few battle bruises on her little forehead. Maybe one of these days mommy will remember her tendency to do this and sit her down far enough away from these things so she doesn't hit them when she falls!

Miss Firecracker is cracking me up. Her vocabulary never ceases to amaze me. And so often it all comes in complete sentences. For example she just told me, while lion and bear hunting this morning with 'clubs' (aka plastic bowling pins) that, "Mommy! There are lions all over the place!" Not just all over, all over the place! I need to keep a piece of paper and a pen in my back pocket to write these things down because I can't ever remember what she said an hour after she says it. Yesterday, I do remember that when I first walked into my dad's house to pick her and her brother up, the first thing she said to me was "Mommy, I didn't do anything naughty!" To which grandpa replied, "Not very many things anyway." She also uses words like actually, probably and not quite! I could be in trouble with this one and stories to come!


Noisy Man needs some Ritalin lately! Holy buckets the kid has been wired the last week. It isn't like he has been eating much sugar either. His diet mainly consists of cucumbers and tomatoes with a side of corn on the cob, zucchini and squash. Is there some sort of natural caffeine in these foods that I don't know about. So, naturally he has been quite 'regular'!! (He'll love that I posted that statement 15 years from now!) And, of course, when he is hyper he needs his name changed to Super Noisy Man. I just about can't take it! While quite energetic lately, his behavior has improved due to the full incorporation of our quarter system. We were using one before, but the system just wasn't consistent or visible enough. So now we have decorated jars on our banister and they have to pay quarters for offenses to whomever the offense was given and get to receive quarters if they are helpful, good and remember their manners. It has really seemed to work smashingly with Noisy Man and is slowly catching on with Miss Firecracker. We'll see how it progresses!

Daddy doesn't really have much to update, except that he is itching to go fishing but the weather, working on our deck (that would be and update I guess) and other weekend activities have prohibited him from getting to go. As for the deck, the wonderful man has probably spent more that 50 hours working on refinishing it. A few years ago we put on a color-tinted water sealant. Within 6 months it started peeling off and looking worn. Now, if any of you know my husband, you know that these types of things do not fly with him. So, after a year of dealing with it, he had finally had enough and started the process of trying to fix it. First came the power washer. . . that didn't work so he tried a deck stripper and power washer combo, no luck. Then the poor guy ended up using a belt sander for the entire thing. He even took the entire railing off and sanded it completely off. This guy never does anything half way. I love and hate that about him! :) Then, thanks to our neighbors, we found a paint for the deck that has a lifetime warranty, so he will never have to spend any more time tearing apart his deck. (Hopefully!) It has a funny finish to it, almost like that stuff they put in for pick-up truck bed liners. We are almost done! It really looks great too, almost like composite decking.

I am in toy heaven! Been loving my new ipod touch and just picked up my Nike + system for it yesterday. I ran last night, but didn't have a little pocket thing to put the sensor in so I was too afraid to take it with me and lose it. I ordered a pocket today and will be checking the mail 4 times a day until it comes. I am contemplating running the Omaha 1/2 marathon with the same friend I ran 1/2 of the Lincoln 1/2 with, so the craziness might begin again. I am not sure if I will do the 5 am thing again or not, as the evening runs have been working pretty well for me. It is just a matter of getting my dog into good enough shape to get her up to the miles I really want to be running. My dear, sweet, protective hubby won't let me run by myself. The dog is a requirement.
Until the next time I can escape from my children. . .