A test

Blogpress has been giving me problems since we got our new router... This is only a test

Pinterest

Can we just talk about Pinterest for a second? Seriously, how much do you love it? On my week off I an usually a Pinterest fiend and am making or trying something I've seen on Pinterest.




I made these ham and swiss sliders for dinner tonight. Amazing. You make a sauce with butter, mustard, poppy seeds, onion and worchestire sauce and drizzle it over the sliders and bake for 15 minutes, until the cheese is nice and melty. I am for sure making these again.



I also cleaned my shower with this little concoction. One part hot vinegar, one part blue Dawn soap. Spray and let sit for 30 minutes. I scrubbed my shower but it says you can just rinse it off! It is sparkling clean with no soap scum!




And lastly, how true is this?! There are multiple days where the caffeine in my Diet Coke is the only think keeping me from passing out into my bowl of Cheerios in the morning.

Happy Pinning!

From the other day...

A few days ago I was feeling extra tired after work and was relaxing on the couch. Sophia wanted me to get up and do something or look at something but I was just too exhausted. I said, "Oh honey, Mama is just too pooped!" She got quite, wrinkled her nose and said, "Does that mean you pooped your pants?!" It was one of the better laughs I have had recently. I love that little goose!

Two days in a row!

It's been fairly easy to blog so far, mostly because I have about 30 minutes each night while we are sleep training Charlie. I sit in a chair next to his crib and help him to learn to put himself to sleep. There is a lot of crying :(




Here is a picture I caught of Ju-Ju Bea. She is such a funny kitty. I'm pretty sure she has a love/hate relationship with Charlie. She loves to play a pouncing game with him. He will crawl around the house looking for her and she will hide until he almost has her and then she will do one of two things: One, she will pounce over him or two, she will run at him, her fur all puffed out, and then arch her back and get in his face. It is hilarious because Charlie is so determined to catch get but she is too darn quick!

Initially I thought she didn't like him but a couple if times she made me second guess. Charlie was SCREAMING one night and I was bent over his crib trying to get him to calm down. I noticed Ju Ju as she slinked into the room. A minute later I felt something on my ankle and looked to se Ju Ju with her paw pulling my ankle towards her mouth to try and give it a little nip! I had no idea what got into her and then... She did it again! I realized that she probably thought I was hurting Charlie since he was screaming his head off and she was telling me to knock it off! Fast forward a week and Joe and I were trying to hold our protesting son down while we gave him his antibiotics that he hates. Charlie is hysterical again and Ju Ju is pacing back and forth, looking extremely agitated. She jumps up on the ottoman Joe was sitting on and slowly lefts her paw and SMACKS Joe in the back! Apparently she is protective of Charlie!

She is also super patient with him. He always want to crawl all over her and pull her tail and she only meows in protest.



She is also obsessed with watching TV much to Joe's dismay. It drives him nuts when she climbs up by the TV.

Ju Ju is the first short haired kitty I've ever owned and maybe that is why but she looks so small to me! She has these dainty looking paws and only weighs ten pounds. She is such a loving cat though. She snuggles every chance she can get, again, to Joe's dismay. I'm really glad that Joe caved and let us add her to our family.

I need to do this more often

Charlie still has no teeth. 9 months old. I was struggling to remember when exactly Sophia got her first tooth and figured I probably put it on the blog somewhere. I read old entries for a little while and loved it! It was so fun to read about day to day stuff that would have otherwise be forgotten. So I decided I need to blog more often!




Joe surprised me with these new Tom's today. I love surprises. He heard me mention wanting a pair a few weeks ago and he got me them for Valentine's day! He really is the best.

Sophia has been so funny lately. She has really started to branch out when it comes to eating. She will try almost everything but that doesn't mean she will eat everything. I let her pick what she wanted for dinner and of all things she picked spaghetti carbonara. Except she calls it "bacon and pea spee-getti".

Charlie is adorable and charming as ever. He went in for his 9 month well-baby on Monday. Our guy is just a little one! He was right around 50th percentile for his head but only 25th for height and 5th for weight! He only weighed in at 17 pounds 6 ounces. He has had a chronic ear infection since the beginning of December and has been on three different antibiotics to get rid of it so that has seriously affected his wanting to eat plus it has caused quite a bit of diarrhea. When he does eat though, he can seriously chow down! He eats everything and has liked everything except, get this, banana. I thought every kid likes banana?!



The daycare that we send the kids to is really great. They have an amazing staff and are very structured. Even in Charlie's baby class they have art time. This is the first art project they sent home! I just melted when I saw it!

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully I can make this a habit so I can remember the little things.

Christmas 2011

Can I just say that Christmas is crazy with two kids! I felt like I was going a million miles a minute during the whole month of December. A trip to Disneyland, stocking stuffers, decorations, treats, Elfis (oh geez...) it was all I could do to just catch my breath!

One day when we were Christmas shopping, we got lured into a kiosk at the mall. This woman offered to curl Sophia's hair and she was sold! She loves having pretty curls so we bought a tiny clampless curling iron. Here she is with her Christmas dress on and her bouncy curls

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents house. We had roast beef, ham, home made rolls, roasted broccoli, etc. etc. It was delish! Then we snuggled into the living room and tore open presents. Both Joe and I worked and so we headed home early!

Christmas morning started with me waking up at 4:45, throwing on a hat and pants and driving to work. I worked until 9:00 and headed home to my most favorite people in the world who, luckily, really like to sleep. Sophia had only been awake for a half hour when I got home. She was so patient and waited in our bedroom with Joe and Charlie until she heard me open the front door. We met in the living room and opening presents commenced!

Charlie and I weren't feeling to hot so he mostly sat and observed which was fine. Sophia did enough opening for the two of them. In fact, she opened most of his presents!

Ju-Ju Bea was also incuded in the fun. She got a few balls with bells in them and a squeeky mouse with a bell on it's tail. She loved pouncing on the wrapping paper and shredding it.

Charlie's face makes me laugh. He was so mad when I took that candy away from him. How cute are those Christmas jammies?! Grandma Jan gives all the grandkids pajamas to open on Christmas Eve.

Sophia got tons of great stuff. She had such a funny list from Santa this year. It included a pottery wheel and donut maker! What four year old asks Santa for those things?

Joe spoiled me and got me some pearl earrings, boots (that I got to open in November!) and a gorgeous Hobo wallet. I had a hard time buying for Joe, as he is the man that buys whatever he wants when he wants, but I did pick up a few things. He got an ice cream maker that fits on my Kitchen-Aid and a personalized tactical pen with a few other practical gifts *ahem* beard trimmer and shoe rack

How adorable are these two babies! Victoria and Charlie in their matching girl and boy reindeer jammies!

Cousins!

I loved Christmas this year. I loved spending as much time as possible with family, playing games, eating great food, and just having fun!

Seven Months

On December 3rd, Charlie turned 7 months old. It was a crazy busy month full of Christmas fun, colds, and family and we enjoyed every minute of it with our Bug.

In December, Charlie had given up on the army crawl and was just as fast on his hands and knees as he was doing an army crawl. He still had the same focus though. If he was headed somewhere in a hurry, he would put his head down, obviously to prevent drag on his long blonde hair! Speaking of hair, the ends are starting to angle upwards, especially after tubby time! I think Charlie is getting curly hair!

In December we decided it was finally time for Charlie to be sleeping in his crib. He did not like his crib. He did not like it so much that he very quickly learned how to pull himself up to standing in his crib which was a problem. He was so young and able to stand (with zero balance) that he was falling and bonking his head constantly! Nights were a very difficult time. As sad as it was to hear him cry in his crib when he wanted to be snuggled up with Mama, it was adorable to see his little head peek over the side of the crib, looking out his door and into our room. He would spy his Mama and squawk until I would rescue him from the crib, or at least until I would come in for the 100th time, lay him back down and pat his bum until he fell asleep.

In December we decided it was time for Charlie to start eating solids regularly. I made him home made sweet potato and squash puree. He loved it! He also started eating oatmeal. He can down a bowl of food faster than his sister ever could. It was almost like he had to make up for lost time! He always acted starving!

This is a picture of his 'old man face' I LOVE this face! He usually did the old man face in place of a smile and sometimes it was accompanied by some humming. I feel like this little face sums up his personality exactly.

Another thing that happened in December was that Charlie decided he doesn't like his binkie anymore! Once day he was sucking on it, happy as can be, reached up to his mouth, popped it out, chewed on the side for a second and that was it. He was done! In it's place he has fallen in love with an old bear rattle. I got it from a consignment sale in a bag of a bunch of other toys but he picked that one out and loves it! One of it's eyes that is painted on is rubbing off so it makes the bear look like it is scowling. He holds that rattle in a death grip and doesn't like it to leave his side.

Charlie also started to notice Sophia. Following her, staring at her. It is such an amazing feeling as a mom to see your two kids genuinely love each other. One time I asked Sophia if, now that she had Charlie, if she wished that he would have been a girl. She looked right at him with a smile and said, "I only wanted a baby brother!" *Melt* The holidays were so fun to experience with two kids too. Speaking of holidays.... more of that to come soon!