Here are some tantalizing pictures to whet your appetite for my first story:
Yes, the time has come to fashion a crib tent for our little monkey. But first, let me back up a little and give you the background. One day last week at naptime, I changed Grace's diaper before putting her in the pack n' play in the midst of her fussing that she wanted a Zoe diaper and not a Cookie Monster diaper. Well, I didn't listen to her and went ahead and put her down. Fast forward about an hour or so, and I could still hear her awake in her room and thought it was kind of odd because she usually falls asleep pretty quickly. Well, I decided to wait a little bit longer before going in to get her in the hopes that I might actually get a little rest at naptime. Of course, I should have checked on her WAY earlier, because when I went in to see what was going on, there she was standing up in the pack n' play with her pants and diaper off. As soon as I walked in she tells me once again that she wants a Zoe diaper. I fussed at her for taking her diaper off and put a new Zoe one on her and made her promise not to take her diaper off anymore because I don't want her peeing all over the place.
You may wonder where I'm going with all this, and what in the world does that have to do with a crib tent? Patience, my friend, I am slowly but surely getting there. Last night after a LONG day (we got our tree and decorated it for FHE -- and I'll get to that later), we finally managed to get Ethan to stay in his bed and I decided to go check on Grace to see if she had fallen asleep. What I found was a naked little jaybird laying in her pack n' play. This time however, she had managed to pee all over the pack n' play and her blanket, and I started fussing her pretty loudly as I pulled her out to get a new diaper on her and her jammies. Well, she started to cry as soon as I started fussing, and Ethan comes runnng out of his room to see what the commotion was and starts fussing ME in his most authoritative voice saying "Mom, mom, look at me (as he grabs my face to make me look at him). Stop talking to Gracie, you're being mean!" He proceeded to put his arm comfortingly around Grace and lead her back to his room to look at his new Christmas book while Scott and I tried to figure out where Grace was going to sleep since her pack n' play was now soaked. Luckily grandma had an extra pack n' play and we were able to put Grace back down.
Okay, we're almost to the point, now. Today, Ethan taught Grace how to climb in and out of the pack n' play. The result? About an hour after putting Grace down, I hear her door creaking open and out pops Grace! Thinking it was just grandma's pack n' play that was the problem, we took it down and put her newly cleaned pack n' play back together. Well, apparently she can climb out of that one too. And being the party girl that she is, she would not stay in it regardless of any threat we threw her way. We even dumped Tabasco sauce in her mouth and she just wanted more. This girl is crazy! Finally, finally, I came up with the idea of making a crib tent of sorts so that she could not climb out anymore. I safety-pinned a blanket to the top of her pack n' play all around the edges. Don't worry mom, she's not suffocating, all four walls of the pack n' play are mesh, and there are still open spaces around the edges of the blanket. She was NOT happy, but you know what? She was fast asleep within 5 minutes. She just needs to be confined or else she will party all night long!
Whew! That was a lot longer in the retelling than I thought it would be! The next set of pictures don't need a lot of commentary. These are from Grace's birthday Part Dieux. I ended up making her an Elmo cake, which was more red food coloring than anything else, and we went to the Build-a-Bear Workshop at the mall and let the kids pick out an animal to stuff. They both decided to go with a frog for some reason, but it was a lot of fun. My sisters, Sarah and Laura, both came along for the festivities.
Next up -- Thanksgiving Day!
The morning of Thanksgiving, the kids helped dad and grandpa rake up the leaves in the front yard. As you can see, Ethan loves a task and is actually a good little worker, and Grace loves to play.
It was so much fun this Thanksgiving to have ALL of my sisters with me! Emily and Jeremy drove up from Huntington Beach, and Amy flew in from New Orleans for the week. Jeremy's brother and wife joined us for the feast, and fun was had all around.
Here's a shot of the sistas before Amy left to go to the airport.
Here is evidence of Grace's budding sartorial abilities. She thinks she's really big now that she's 2 and continues to want to do everything by herself. Including getting dressed. On this particular morning, she came running into the living room -- having already taken her jammies off, because as we know she's really good at that -- with Ethan's reindeer pajama pants from last Christmas pulled almost all the way up (she just couldn't get it over her diaper in the back) and carrying Ethan's Robin jammie top wanting me to put it on her. After I obliged, she ran back to her room and got her (mismatched) shoes on all by herself. She was VERY proud of her accomplishments and yes, I did actually let her wear this all day long. Who am I to mess with freedom of expression.
Next up is my tribute to Christmas past, present, and future. Let me clarify. As a kid I HATED taking Christmas pictures. Without fail, each year, someone would end up in tears. I always swore I would NEVER make my kids endure the same cruel ritual. Well, the irony is that now that I'm on the flipside, I'm realizing that my mom probably hated it even more than WE did. Because even with only 2 children this year, trying to get a decent picture taken of us was a nightmare. We got home from church on Sunday and decided to squeeze the pictures in before lunch and naptime. In retrospect that was probably the first mistake. Ethan wouldn't smile half the time, wouldn't open his eyes and couldn't keep his fingers out of his mouth. GRACE was by far the hardest. She wouldn't stand up, she hardly ever smiled, and she hardly ever took her thumb out of her mouth. We really need to break that habit. The last picture we took will have to do for this year, but I'll keep you in suspense for that one. What I will post are a few of the rejects.
(please ooh and ahh over the stockings in the background, because they took me FOREVER to make -- in case you're wondering why there are 3, I went ahead and made one for Sophie, too)
Oh the joys of parenting.
Last night for FHE we went ahead and got our tree for 20 bucks in the Smith's parking lot. Its definitely not the prettiest tree, but it has a lot of character. We decorated it for our activity, and you would have thought Ethan had died and gone to heaven he was so happy. Grace really got into it this year, too, and it was actually pretty fun and not too painful an activity.
Here's Ethan momentarily more intrigued by the video camera than the decorating.
And here's the finished product. Its leaning heavily towards the back corner there, but I think it will hold up.
On a random side note, I'm a little concerned with how my children perceive my parenting methods. A week or so ago, Ethan was throwing a fit (which is happening WAY to frequently these days) at lunch time because he wanted a peanut butter and sugar sandwich and not a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I have been weaning them off the former for several reasons, but most importantly because the sugar jar is glass and heavy and on a bottom shelf and it hurts my back and my belly to reach down and get it these days. So, he's throwing this fit and I'm doing my best to try and calm him down and offer him alternate options when he starts talking to me in the meanest, bossiest voice, saying -- and I quote: "Mom, you have 2 choices. You can choose to give me a peanut butter and sugar sandwich, or you can choose to have a time-out. UNDERSTAND?!" Do I really sound like that to them? Hmmmm. Things to think about.
And finally let me tell you about our dollar movie outing that turned into the 25 dollar movie outing. At the beginning of the month, Scott was lucky enough to get flown back for several second interviews for internships for next summer. Because of the scheduling of these, he was actually gone for a WHOLE week. Monday through Friday. Yes a whole Monday through Friday of me dealing with our lovely children. The beginning of the week started out fine enough, but by the Friday I was only too anxious for Scott to return. His flight wasn't due back until late that night, so I tried to fill the day with as many activities as possible to make the time go faster. Cars was playing at the dollar movies, so that afternoon I decided to take the kids to see it. It had been there a while, and it was the first showing of the day, so I figured there probably wouldn't be that many people there who we'd bug. To start off, Ethan saw candy at the candy counter and really wanted some, so I figured, why not? The movie was cheap. So we got a big bag of peanut M & Ms and a couple of styrofoam cups so I could give them each there own stash. We were sitting for no more than a minute or two when Ethan spilled his whole cup and since the seating was on an incline we listened as the M & Ms rolled and clinked there way all the way down to the bottom of the theater, and I geared myself up for hearing Ethan throw a fit. I was able to sneak some of Grace's when she wasn't looking -- because this girl does not like to share her food -- and gave some to Ethan and this seemed to make him happy. However, this really nice person who was sitting a few rows in front of us in the theater went out and bought a whole new bag of M & Ms for them, which I thought was so nice. Anyway, once the movie started, it was like deja vu from the first time we tried to take the kids to see this movie. Grace would NOT sit still or sit on my lap and kept jumping up and running all around the theater. About 30 minutes in I couldn't handle it anymore and I figured the few people in the theater were hating us at this point anyway, so I got Grace and made Ethan leave. He was NOT happy because he was actually watching the movie. I finally got him to come by promising to go right next door to Costco and buy Cars for him so he could watch it when we got home. So, there you have it. A dollar movie outing that cost 20 times that. So here's a question for all you moms out there: How often a day do YOU give in to your child to avoid a fit? I'm afraid my average is not very good these days. I'll blame it on the pregnancy.
Anyway, I'm really almost done now. We're leaning heavily towards taking the Procter & Gamble offer for Scott's internship next summer. So come May, we'll more than likely be headed on our way to Cincinnati, OH. If anyone has any tips on the area, feel free to let us know!
Okay, hopefully the length of this post will make up for the month hiatus I took from blogging. Merry Christmas everyone!
Here's Grace in her new Christmas outfit (Ethan wouldn't even try his on)
Here is Ethan in the Costa Rican soccer jersey that he got from Uncle "Dodo" on his mission
