Reasons...

I have some random pics to post so I thought I'd do a couple of top 10 lists. I have to get the few birthday pictures that I actually took while attempting to not get blown away off my camera...soon, soon. Go look at Kim's blog for now...

TOP 10 REASONS I SOMETIMES CONSIDER PUTTING THE TWINKS OUT WITH THE TRASH:

1. Ethan blowing a raspberry on Nanny's arm right in the middle of prayer during church
2. Emma constantly tearing her pony tails down in order to put on one of her many tiaras. Evidently princesses or mermaid queens don't wear ponytails
3. The fact that every single day I put at least 50 books back on the shelves because the kids feel the need to "read" every evening in their beds.
4. The fact that our water bill has gone up considerably since the kids have figured out that with their step stool they can wash their own hands and brush their own teeth- 86 times a day
5. We have 36 scratched DVDs because some people feel the need to play with them, yet we watch Cars and Polly Pocket Pollyworld so often that I have them both memorized.
6. There are only so many times you can hear "Ethan pinch-ed me" followed by "Emma hitt-ed me" before your brain starts to hurt.
7. "But I don't WANT to eat [insert any food in the house] for breakfast/lunch/dinner"
8. How hard is it to understand "Don't dump all the shampoo/conditioner/body wash into the bathtub while your bathing to create bubbles?" Evidently pretty hard, because I'm about to buy stock in the L'oreal Kids corporation.
9. If I step on another matchbox car, have to dress another Barbie or Polly Pocket, or stub my toe on another play grocery cart/stroller/highchair, I might lose it.
10. HOw is it we can eat in a restaurant and they can stay seated and eat like human beings yet when we are at home it's like corralling greased pigs to get them to sit and the kitchen floor resembles a trough?

TOP 10 REASONS I KEEP THEM:

1. They're too smart for their own good and they'd find their way back anyway
2. because they're so sweet when they're asleep
3. because a kiss or hug for no reason at all is so sweet
4. because I love hearing what their imaginations come up with
5. because there's no one I'd rather nuggle with
   
6. because every morning they wake up happy and run down the hall
7. because their thirst for knowledge is amazing and heartwarming and makes me hopeful for the future
8. because they're like short little people with their own opinions and ideas and that amazes me
9. because they love to sing little songs and it's so cute
10. because they're mine

Here's one of Ethan Racecar Driver. Hate to tell him that his favorite driver Tony isn't having the greatest year...

Both at the character breakfast with Elmo
Ethan and Spiderman. Ethan's the one on the left, in case you were wondering
Emma with the really pretty Cinderella
Emma as a laughing pirate, with a bandaid on her head...

Checking out the Nascar

Auntie Lala just happens to work for a company that does different Nascar marketing, including for Kelloggs. For those of you not into Nascar, the Kelloggs car is driven by Casey Mears, whom Ethan believes is named Casey Mirrors. However, his knowledge of Nascar drivers is scary - he can see a driver on TV and know exactly who he is, including the random ones. He even knows the history of the Kelloggs car, and that Kyle Busch drove it last year. So of course we had to trek to Corridor G to see the Kelloggs car when Auntie Lala told us it was going to be on display.

He's pretty excited here, but not excited enough to put down the Nemo baseball.

Emma is always ready to cheese, although she didn't care much about the car. Don't you dig the pink cowboy boots? Ethan is ready to get in, he's tired of standing outside the car by this point.
One more pose...
Ethan driving...you can see the joy here.
More from Ms. Cheese.
Ethan also got to see the actual, will be raced at Martinsville Speedway Tony Stewart Subway car. Or as he calls it, the Eat Fresh car. However, we were not prepared because we had no idea it was going to be at Walmart so all we have is disposable camera pictures.

More later...

Am I out of trouble now??

I know that most of you out there in Blog World have probably stopped even checking my page...I'm really sorry! I'm going to try to catch up. I have a lot of blogworthy pics in the hopper, two different princess parties, a trip to see a Nascar car, birthday stuff...I'm going to catch up soon, I promise!

To whet your appetite (how's that for an English major word??) here is princess party #1. They estimate that about 1500 people were there, and I'm sure there were at LEAST that many. Here's Emma waiting patiently in the huge line...

Here's Emma and her friend from church, Bailey.
Emma and Jasmine...isn't this girl just the cutest thing? I remember having abs like that.
Emma and Belle. Some of these teen girls were just gorgeous.
More posts soon, I promise. I actually have a 4 day weekend coming up due to our annual kid checkup and Memorial Day so I'm going to try to update a bunch then!

Random thoughts from a toddler mom

No pics today, but soon, I promise. Emma and I have a Princess Party this weekend where she'll meet ALL the Disney Primpesses. I hope a soon to be 3 year old is an unlikely candidate for a heart attack. She survived meeting Dora so I'm thinking she's pretty strong.

Here are my random Hump Day thoughts:

- I'm pretty sure the number of times I can answer the same question in a row decreases exponentially throughout the day.

-How do you trick a kid into learning stuff who is completely uninterested most of the time? Ethan is very into his letters and spelling stuff and counting towards 100 and all that. Emma- not so much. Dancing around, jumping and singing are more her forte. She even knows when she's being tricked into learning with a promise of M&Ms at the end.

-I think I've given Emma nightmares because we watched the beginning of Bones the other night.

-why is the cold so much worse when I get it as opposed to when THEY had it?

-How do you get chocolate pudding all over your pants when you've been sitting at a table eating it?

-Would an indoor play area business really take off like I think it would? A friend and I have totally been discussing starting one. There is NOTHING physical to do around here when the weather is bad except Chuck E. Cheese, which ain't that great for smaller ones, and the Clay Center, which always has basically the same stuff and is expensive.

With dreams of small business success, I'll leave you. Happy Hump Day!

Birthday wishes...

So, we do in fact have the infamous bicycle in our house, after some Nanny run ins with the [insert nasty name here] at Dick's Sporting Goods who wouldn't bother to help her run it 50 yards to her car to help out someone with two almost three year olds. I mean, they were super busy DOING NOTHING seeing as how it was 11:00 on a Tuesday. Let's say they lived up to their store name that day. Here is the bike:
However, now Ethan has decided that this looks super fun and amazing:
I have to agree, it's a Sesame Street Bounce House and Ball pit, and unfortunately for Mom and Dad, some kids in the 'hood have it. Other kids have some super cool toys too, including a motorized Hummer, a motorized Lightning car (which Ethan fully believes that the kid will soon trade him the car for Ethan's bike, he's already ready to make the deal), trampolines and those giant blow up slides. However, it comes at the grand cost of about $250 on sale (over $300 most places I found it) and it's not really as big as the picture implies. But it is super cool. And in turn, it would make me a super cool mom, right? Unfortunately I'm not super rich.

I've been on a 'Net search and found this Little Tykes bounce house for significantly less, it holds more weight and it's bigger. How bad is it that I'm seriously considering this?



Sigh. How do you balance giving them everything you want to give them and spoiling them? I guess it's easy when your checking account looks like mine does, as I will not be getting either bouncer unless my yard sale this possibly rainy weekend brings in some serious cash. So they might stay bouncerless. Stay tuned. And come buy my stuff!

Cautious optimism

I may have found a bike at Dick's Sporting Goods. I'm cautiously optimistic until I see it in person.

Update on the Bike Situation

So....8 Walmarts later, still no bike. Technically 9 cause Neurotic Attorney looked for me too. I've officially now called 14 Walmarts and physically been in 2 others. Sigh.



My only hope now is the search in North Carolina that is ensuing and Toys R Us told me there's a shipment that may or may not have a bike in it. And I have one more Toys R Us to call when they open today. I also have an ad out on Craigslist and will check Ebay every day.



I blame myself for even showing him a bike that we did not have in hand, because now if you ask Ethan what other kind of bike he wants if we can't find a Lightning one, he screams, cries and says he wants a Lightning bike. I think I'm in trouble.