Ryan knew it all along....

Ryan has always had a few rules about names which I was informed of before we got married.
1. We will call our child by the name we give them. IE - Joshua is not Josh, he is Joshua.
2. We will not name a child anything that will foresee-ably get them teased or singled out. (IE Crystal Shanda Leer, and other wacky names you may have heard of.)

Well it looks like Ryan was right all along. Some researchers in Pennsylvania determined that Boys with unusal names are more likely to commit crimes as adolescents.
Check out the news article HERE

Terrific 3's???

I've been trying to write down some of the funny things Joshua has been saying recently. Here are a few of my favorites.

Morgan trying to play with Joshua's trains
Joshua: "Morna stop fighting me! Morna want can't have Joshua's trains."
(After that he started telling everyone to stop fighting him)

Mommy wiping Morgan's nose
Joshua: "Is Morna's face running?"

Mommy: "Joshua, think about going pee-pee and then maybe some pee pee will come out."
Joshua:" Shhhh, listen." (Hand cupped around ear so he can hear if he is peeing.)

As we are driving down the road.
Joshua: "MOMMY! MOMMY! You a good driver. Cause we don't want to crash."

On a walk around the block with Daddy after dinner.
Joshua: "Daddy, where the moon go?"
Daddy: "It's hiding."
Joshua: "Oh, it's hiding in the bushes."

He has become the master procrastinator. Anytime we ask him to do something, he says he needs to do something else first. Such as:
Mommy: Joshua, it's time to go potty.
Joshua: No, I need to hold woof-woof(stuffed puppy) first.
He comes up with every excuse in the book. At least he is learning the order of things, (first, second, next, last, etc)

He is also getting pretty defiant. At least 10 times a day when you ask him to do something he says "No I NOT!" Then if I have to resort to counting to 3 before I do it for him, he starts yelling, "No, Don't say it."

I think he's getting too clever for my own good!

Craigslist Yard Sale

I've finally gotten around to rounding up some of the toys and things that we don't use anymore. I put it up for sale on Craigslist.

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/cph/tag/1008817414.html

Even if you don't need any toys yourself, tell your friends and neighbors. :)
I'm pretty sure friends could get a good deal if they had their eye on something particular.
Hee hee!

New Nephew

I have a new nephew! This is Asher Wynn Tibbetts. He was born on Jan 19 at a whopping 8lbs 13 ounces. I guess it's not that big until you consider he was 2.5 weeks early.

We went and saw Asher and my SIL in the hospital the day he was born. He is so cute and squishy. (Thankfully, it wasn't giving me any baby pangs)

Here is the little sign I made for my SIL for her little family baby shower. This is her 2nd boy, hence the word Boys. It was a kit that I bought, but the letters were just painted white. SNOOZER! I decided to decoupage those bad boys and I love how it turned out.

Joshua channels Max Headroom

Who is Max Headroom? Click here to find out!

Train Pit bait and switch

You may or may not remember that Joshua got a Thomas ball pit for Christmas. Well I got a smoking deal on the ball pit and wasn't too worried when it said it only came with 50 balls. That's enough right?

WRONG! Here is what 50 balls looked like.
Not enough to even cover the bottom of the pit with one layer.

Thankfully, not all was lot. His grandparents saw how much joy this toy brought him, knew we were having a bunch of kids to our house on new years, and just plain wanted to be the best grandparents they could be. So..... they bought more balls. A lot more balls in fact. 500 more balls if we want to get all exact and everything. Here is the after shot.


You can buy this same ball pit on Amazon(their's does have 75 balls) for $70. I got mine online for only $15 at KB Toys. However 500 more balls cost $50.

Speaking of Joshua's train obsession. Here is the latest formation that his enabler(Daddy) set up for him.
It does cause some potty training issues however, because Joshua is insistent that he plays with the tracks BEFORE he goes to the bathroom in the morning.

I do like how Ryan enjoys when Joshua gets new track just as much as Joshua does. It also does wonders to keep them both out of my hair. :)

Pigtails poll

I was recently able to accomplish pigtails of some sort or another in Morgan's hair. The poll on the right asks how my readership feels about the the little teeny tiny piggy tails.

You can also see another picture of her hair in the post below.

Train Party Accomplished

Favors disbursed:

Train rode:

Carousel Spun:


Cake Decorated:

3 candles extinguished:

Presents Opened:

Pinata strings pulled:

Slides Slid:

Pigtails acheived:


A wonderful day was had.

Potty Training

Well we have officially started potty training. I'm trying the cold turkey method, IE putting him in underwear and working it out from there.
So far he has refused to sit on his potty seat. I do mean REFUSED. We've practiced having his puppy go potty on the seat, but no dice. No accidents, but it's only been a half an hour.

I'm not convinced that he's ready, so today may just have to be an experiment and we'll try again soon.

If any potty vets have some advice, please do share. Especially if you have potty trained a boy.

Joshua is 3!

I can hardly believe it, but Joshua turned 3 yesterday. We went to the zoo on his big day to see the animals and hang out with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa was working the later shift, which Joshua was ecstatic about. As soon as he saw Grandpa in the car he said, "Grandpa doesn't have to work anymore!!"

We did Stingray bay again which he LOVED. We were the only people in there. I also got smart this time and brought an extra shirt since I knew that Joshua's would get wet from putting his belly on the wall. It was pretty cold to be at the zoo at 9:30, but we had a great time.


The major highlight was that the bear got so close to us. He was right on the other side of the window playing with a box.


After a long time at the zoo we went to lunch at a sports grill called Sneakers that has a lunch buffet. It was an experience. There were hardly any customers. I kept waiting for Gordon Ramsay to pop out of the kitchen yelling, "Shut it down."

On the way home we got to see a very rare animal. It was the elusive "Morgan sleeping in car seat." She NEVER falls asleep in the car. Her lips look all nice and luscious because the dessert at the buffet was red jello cups.

Joshua's party is on Saturday, so that should be a lot of fun. He is very excited about it too. Every time he gets up in the morning or after a nap he says, "Go to party now?"

Now that Joshua is a Big boy, he is going to start potty training on Monday. I am terrified. We will see who cracks first.

Zoo lights on January 5th?

Monday night we went over to see the Zoo Lights. (I can't imagine why Joshua is having trouble with Christmas being over. :))
We loved that is wasn't very crowded. We may have to go after Christmas every year now.

To my great astonishment, Joshua's favorite part was Stringray Bay. Generally speaking Joshua is very timid and easily frightened. It took him a little bit to feel comfortable laying on his belly, but he really liked touching the stingrays.

Morgan gets her way, by force if necessary

I love having the Christmas tree up, and Joshua absolutely loves his "MissMiss Tree." We aren't typically in any rush to take down the tree. Morgan apparently decided that she was done with all this Christmas stuff at the start of the year. So on January 1st she pulled the Christmas tree over on herself. I was upstairs at the time but I got to hear all about it.

I wish we had a picture of the downed tree, but we do have a picture of our scratched up Morgan. Nothing too serious of course, just an X shaped scratch on the side of her face. I guess there is a good reason that our eyes are recessed into our skull.

She's clearly distraught over the whole ordeal.

I do feel bad for Joshua though. Everytime he comes to the top of the stairs he asks us where the MissMiss tree went. He is having a tough time in general with Christmas being over. He is also very upset that there are no more Christmas displays at the grocery store. The blow up Snowman was his favorite.

New Years Eve

We ended up having a little get together on New Years Eve for our siblings and what a blast. We only took like 3 pictures because we were having such a good time together.
I made lots of yummy treats . TiVo sugar cookies(I requested a free cookie cutter online), bean dip, knish(Thank you recipe exchange), fudge, oreo truffles with candy cane bits sprinkled on top, and meat rolls.
We played dominoes until a little after 1:00am.

The kids played a LOT in the Thomas ball pit and they also played Mario Kart on the Wii. The bigger kids raced and the little ones held controllers and thought they were racing.

I think that might have to become a tradition.

3 Christmases

There was that movie called 4 Christmases, well we had three; mine, ours, and his.
Christmas Eve was with my family and it was lots of fun. Prime rib for dinner, the true story of Christmas, and then lots of presents.



Christmas day we hung out at our house and opened some presents from Santa. I think everyone's favorite toy was the big Thomas ball pit. Morgan and Joshua both love that thing. I made a big ham for Christmas dinner, which was a first for me. With both our families in town, we usually spend the day with them.




Christmas number three, was on December 27 with Ryan's family. Everyone was there including new baby Kazuma(pronounced Cause-ma, the U is silent) Nanna: Correct me if goofed that up.


All of the little boys got the same big helicopter. It was so fun to watch them open it at the same time and get so excited.


Uncle Armando had some snow left on his camper that he shoveled off. The kids loved playing around and throwing little snow balls.

Now here is a link to a massive slideshow of the whole Christmas weekend. (All 200+ pictures)

ChristmasWeekend

Cookie Decorating / Tree Barrettes

My SIL Misty and niece Emily came over to make some hair bows and decorate cookies. Joshua and Emily had a blast. Joshua didn't want to eat any of the cookies unless they were free of icing. Yep, that's my little weirdo. Enjoy the slideshow.

Here is also a picture of some Christmas tree barrettes I made. I made them a different day, but it is all good.

Here is my hair model showing off the smaller tree barrettes.

Mrs. Claus/Visit with Santa

Ms. Morgan got the most adorable Mrs Claus outfit from her cousin Samantha, and I had Morgan wear it every chance I got. Here are some pictures of her visit with Santa(12/8/08) and pictures by Grandpa.




Look at what a flirt this cutie is!

Temple Lights

Back on December 11th we went and saw the Temple lights. It was a little wet, but still lots of fun.




Morgan, I'm sorry about the striped pants and checkered jacket faux pas. I wasn't thinking about the jacket when I planned the outfit.

I stood and waited several minutes for the curtains to open so you could see the Christus. I like how the wise men appear to be headed across the lawn to see the Christus, as opposed to the baby Jesus. From the artistic/photographic angle the picture could use some work, but I like it.

When Google ran the world

I used to think it would be awesome if Google ran the world. I like them a lot. However currently I can't upload pictures through Blogger, which also means I can't upload albums with Picasa. I shake my fist at you "Internal Errors."

So the Blog-a-palooza will be put on hold until I can post some pictures.
But oh it is coming, and it will be big time when it gets here.