A run for my money!

You know those child safety locks they make for cupboard doors? Well the last few days have proven to me quite how important those locks are.
On Friday, Gordon got into a craft cupboard in our kitchen, and shattered a large glass jar on the floor. I was sitting about 5 ft away from him and didn't stop him in time... He was covered in glass so i grabbed him and headed for the tub, while yelling to Madi to follow me because the kitchen wasn't safe. I got Gordon all rinsed off (without ANY cuts!) and Madi came in and showed me a tiny spot of blood on the top of her foot. She hadn't followed me, but had gone straight to the glass and WALKED through IT! As i put Gordon in the playpen I heard the CAT walking through the glass too!! So I had to grab her and rinse off tons of glass from her little paws too! (Oh she wasn't to thrilled to be in the water.) I locked the cat in my bedroom and rinsed Madi off too. She had one tiny cut on the top of her foot, from one of the larger pieces of glass that her foot went under, while walking through it.
All three of them were screaming from the corners of the house that I banished them to while I swept, and cleaned, and vacuumed, and swept some more.
What a nightmare!

That was Friday.

On Saturday evening while I was getting ready for a temple trip (standing at my bathroom vanity) Gordon got into the cupboard under my sink, found a large watch battery (about the size of a nickle) and Swallowed it! I was standing right next to him, Talking to him, I never saw him with the battery! (And WHAT was it don't in that cupboard?!?)
I had taken something else out of his hand from the cupboard and was taking him out of the room when I saw the empty battery package on the floor and he was gagging a little bit.
The biggest problem was that I didn't know if there had been a battery in the package before he got to it.
We didn't do anything about it right away.. he was acting normal and I had convinced myself that the package had been empty... But I couldn't stop worrying.
This morning I took him to the ER and had an x-ray done.


And there's his battery! It's laying sideways, so you can't see that it's a round, nickle size watch battery. But there it is!
Luckily the Doctor says it seems to be 'moving through' just fine and we should see it again in the next 24 hours.. We just need to watch him closely, and make sure he doesn't show any signs of it getting stuck. If he does we'll have to rush back in for more x-rays (or do the same if it's not out within the week) and have it removed surgically.

So, the moral of these two "bad mommy" stories? Don't procrastinate putting on safety locks!!!! Even if your 1st child never seemed to be interested in cupboards.. you don't want to find out the hard way that the 2nd child IS interested.

The first Birthday photo

Sorry for the poor quality photo, but just giving you a sneak peak (from my phone's camera) of the cute little Birthday boy!!
(and yes, he really did keep that hat on for almost an hour!)

It's Been a year?!

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY little G!!
I can't believe it's already been a year! I know that sounds really cliche, but I swear - that was the fastest year ever! Peanuts first year didn't even go this fast, wow!

Today started out pretty mellow, with normal "at home routine" except that the Birthday boy actually tried to sleep in! His big sissy came down to my room this morning about 7:30a and when I asked her to go upstairs to get dressed, "and do it quietly because your brother is still sleeping", she must have heard me say "go wake up your brother because he is still sleeping." Ha! She ran upstairs and burst into his room yelling! AH! I don't know why, but at least he was a good sport about it.
Anyway, after picking Sissy up from school, we took a ride on the local carousal! They both loved it, but I think the birthday boy was still a little sleepy - he spent the whole ride quietly clingy to the pole of the giraffe he was sitting on. We also bought him a suit so he has some pretty nice threads for church now!
After a yummy lunch and an imaginary nap (not sure why he didn't sleep - he usually does so well) we had some friends come over for playtime and cupcakes!
His reaction to his cupcake was totally unexpected! Especially for how much he Loves to put Everything into his mouth before even looking at it! He was very interested in it while we sang Happy Birthday to him, and immediately grabbed a handful of "frosting" aka whipped cream(less sugar). He then tried to wipe it off his hand... he picked it up, looked at it, but didn't seem to like the big mess it was making. I even tried to feed him a bite and he shook his head "no" at me! I had to shove my whipped cream cover finger in his mouth to show him that yes, it was yummy! He wanted me to feed it to him because of the mess it made when he touched it. It was pretty cute! I did get a video of all this, but I'm not sure how to upload it. I'll also get the photos uploaded to show his cute messy face! :)
We had a great time, and are So glad that Jena and her kids came over to spend the evening with us! Now only if daddy could have been here! Maybe we'll have a redo-party with him later... :)


Oh, and I wanted to post some things I love about My little Man...
I love the way I'm guaranteed snuggles every time I get him out of bed, or lay his blankie across my shoulder when holding him, even if it's only for 2 seconds.
I love the way he points at everything he likes, especially when he hears his sissy's voice but can't see her - he points to where the sound came from.
I love when he uses his sign for "all done".
I love when he folds his arms over and over again, even if he refuses to do it when we are actually praying.
I love his way-to-shaggy, but way-to-cute hair!
I love that he never gets tired of peek-a-boo.
I love that he has discovered his "cheese" face and scrunches up his nose when he makes it.
I love his dimple on his cheek.
I love his bright blue eyes.
I love that he tries to share his paci with me.
I love to watch him, watch birds. They are one of the most fascinating things in the world to him.
I love how much he loves baths! It's the best time of day, and he crawls straight to the tub any chance he gets.
I love that when he's tired, or just lovey he grabs my hand and rests his head in it... even when it means I have to push the shopping cart around the store with one hand while he 'loves' the other one.
I love that he has taught his sissy that life really isn't to busy for snuggles, and I get them from both kids daily.
okay.. I really could go on and on and on.. but i think you all probably get the idea. I LOVE MY LITTLE MAN!! I really can't believe how happy he makes me! Happy Birthday Bubba!

a little FYI for the Friends and Fam

Some of you may have noticed that I've been using a lot of nicknames, or nonspecific names in my blog posts lately. Just an fyi, we've decided to no longer use the kiddos names on the blog when it is open to the public to view. This may seem odd to those of you who just get all the posts in email form, but We feel a little better this way.
Oh and if you are seeing the blog, and you notice the "birthday tickers" on the right side of our page... Our little Girl has been nicknamed Ladybug Girl, from one of her favorite books, and her little brother has become Lyle the Crocodile, from another beloved book.
I know this is random, but sometimes - we can be a bit paranoid. I also know it isn't fool proof, but it's a start. :)

Happy Birthday Peanut!!

We had a fun, but mellow Birthday today for our little peanut! I can't believe she is already 3 years old!
Just a quick run down of her special day:

She got a new birthday dress and "Birthday Girl!" button to wear all day, and was Very excited about it!
She was able to take carrot cake cupcakes ( her fav) to school today to share with all of her friends, and had a ton of fun playing Birthday games and being sung to!
She got to stay up with mommy during her brothers naptime, watch her favorite movie(Cinderella) AND eat popcorn!
She got to pick what we ate for dinner, two nights in a row. last night she picked pancakes, tonight she wanted a cheeseburger and apples from McDonald's... which I was a little worried about, but I think she just remembered that it means dinner comes with a toy.
After brother went to bed, mommy and daddy sung to her and she blew the candles out on her cupcake/birthday cake. Which she then did 3 more times, "just because".
At the end of the day was her "big reveal" of her new bedroom, and a few extra gifts that mommy just had to give :) For anyone who doesn't know, we painted her walls pink (very pink), bought her a bed frame, & new bedding (she picked out a few months ago & then forgot about it) and we put a desk in her room that had her presents on it... I have more plans for the decor, but ran out of time for her birthday. It'll come eventually...
We all LOVE her new bedroom, especially the bedding! Brother and Kitty tested it out while she was at school to make sure it was all right and up to par. :)

Oh, and the present she liked the most? It is actually the Only thing she asked for, all by herself, no prompting, and completely out of the blue... a Stethoscope. Instead of getting a plastic toy, we got a inexpensive, but Real one and she LOVES IT!! She kept listening to our heartbeats, taking turns between "who wants to be next" as she put it, and between each turn, she would flip the stethoscope around the back of her neck like doctors do. She even tried to listen to the kitties heartbeat but kitty was purring to loud to hear it :)

Now, I had great plans to show off all kinds of cute photos from the day, but alas, we are having problems with the memory card that was used.... I'm Extremely Sad to think I might not get any of these photos back.. but We're still working on it! I'll post them the minute I can get it to work... Or if nothing else, i have a couple poor quality snaps from my cell phone camera I can try to load later. :)

Weekly Photo Project

I found this photo project at younghouselove.com They are a couple who have a sweet little girl, just a week older than my Little Pumpkin, and they blog about their adventures of DIY home improvements. I didn't read about the project until Gordon was already 14 weeks old, but I started him that day, and have gotten a photo (almost) every week since then.

What I'm doing is taking a picture of Little Mister every week, on the day of the week that he was born, in a plain white onesie, then Photoshopping the week number onto his shirt. So every Wednesday afternoon, you can find me on a ladder, screeching and squealing, and looking crazy - trying to get my Little Man to hold still long enough for me to flash a few new pics of him... but I think I end up with more pictures of him crawling away, than I do of him lying on his back. But we try. :)

Oh and one other problem that I've had with the project -that the DIYers over at younghouselove.com do great at- is that I haven't been using the same onesie every week - so you can't see it slowly getting tighter as the weeks go by. But I'm hoping that I can get it all organized and start using the same one consistently from now on.
Well, I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
Here's to hoping I can upload them all in the right order! :)

Conflicted

I know normally I write fun updates and things, but this time i write because I'm a little more confused than I thought I would be. about Santa.
We've taught Madi that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ and that is what we should be focusing on, especially this time of year. We are teaching her that we need to focus on giving and helping other people... but we get lost when it comes to Santa. I most certainly won't tell her " there is no Santa" or "Santa isn't real", but I also don't want to just blindly tell her that a man that she's never met comes into our house at night and leaves her presents - if shes a good girl.
This has come up because lots of people that we've chated with over the past few weeks have just outright asked Madi if she's excited for Santa to come, what she asked him to bring her, and if she has gone to see him. All of this Santa talk has confused her, because we hadn't talked to her about him yet. I fumbled when she questioned me about it, and John told her that Santa is a nice story. he didn't expound - just that he's a story.
I never thought I'd have this problem. To me, if you're Christian, you would obviously teach that Christmas is about Christ. But where does that leave Santa? We're trying to figure out how to make Santa part of the spirit of Christmas, and giving, and that he's a symbol of Christmas ... but I don't think it's working out the right way. Even in writing this out, I'm confused...
I'm not asking for everyone who reads this to tell me what to do, I'm just wondering if you've faced this question in your parenting, or how you have decided/dealt with this puzzle? And then I also hope that those who do offer advice, or are in contact with our children will respect that in the end, we will TRY to do what we feel is right for our little family.
I feel like I'm floundering and hope that someone out there will be willing to share what has worked, or hasn't worked for them.
Thanks you guys!