At least once a day, if not more, there is conversation that happens with the kids that either makes me smack my forehead or makes me fall on the floor laughing. I often tell Wes that I wish I could just record every single day with these two crazies because of how truly funny our lives and conversations can be sometimes. Some mid-meltdown conversations may not seem funny at the time, but usually they crack me up pretty good afterwards. You know, after a glass of wine, no, a good book, oh wait, who am I kidding, a glass of wine.

Here are some good examples of recent conversations we have had that I wish were on tape....

Conversation #1: About an hour and a half into an eight hour drive heading to vacation in North Carolina:

Emma: "Mommy, when are we going to be there?"

Mommy: "In about six hours baby."

Emma: "That's a long time Mommy!" (cue Emma's whimpering and whining)

Mommy: "I know baby. Don't worry, we will find a rest area soon to get out and stretch our legs."

(About two and a half minutes later...)

Emma: "Mommy, where is the resting area? I really need to get out and scratch my legs."

Conversation #2: On the way home from school one afternoon with one very tired and cranky Squishy...

Mommy: "Jack, please put your listening ears on honey and get in the car:"

Jack: "NO! I no wanna go home!"

Mommy: "Jack, if you don't get in the car, Mommy is going to put you in the car. It's not safe in the parking lot."

Jack: "NO!"

(Jack throws himself on the ground on the sidewalk)

Mommy: "Okay, Mommy's going to put you in the car now."

(Mommy picks up Jack)

Jack: "NO NO NO!!! Do it all by self!!!!!!"

(Jack thrashes in Mommy's arms. Mommy puts him down wishfully thinking he will now cooperate)

(Jack continues to throw himself on the ground)

(Mommy picks him up, wrestles him into the car, gets smacked multiple times, Jack arches back, Mommy starts sweating trying to wrestle child into car seat and eventually wins)

(Jack has even bigger melt down, but is finally strapped into the car, Mommy secretly does happy dance because at least he is finally strapped in)

(Fast forward to fifteen minutes down the road when Jack FINALLY starts to calm down after continuing to melt down)  

Mommy: "Are you feeling better now man?"

Jack: "Yes. I a little bit happy now. A little bit sad too. No. No. No. A little bit frustrated with you Mommy."

(Mommy smacks forehead)

Conversation #3: During bath time one night when Emma's hair was extra crusty with syrup from breakfast, paint from school and no doubt other bodily functions from classmates...

Mommy: "Holy macaroni your hair is crusty today Sissy!"

Emma: "I know Mommy. What is it?"

Mommy: "I don't even know honey. We are going to have to use Mommy's hair conditioner tonight to get the knots out."

(Mommy gets the hair conditioner and sets it aside while I use all my might to try to shampoo all the crustiness out of Emma's hair)

Emma: "Mommy? Can I use the air conditioner now?"

Conversation #4: During Sissy-Brother battle #45,793 over who gets to use the pink lawnmower while playing outside.

Emma: "Jack!! It's my turn to use the lawnmower!!!"

(Emma then attempts the old smash and crab to yank the lawnmower from what is now Jack's death-grip)

Jack: "No Sissy!! It's my turn!!!!"

Emma: "Mommy!! Jack won't let me have a turn!! I really need that lawnmower!!"

Mommy: "Emma, did you ask Jack nicely if you could have a turn?"

Emma: "Jack, can I please have a turn?"

Jack: "NO! IT'S MINE"

Emma: "Mommy!!!!"

Mommy: "Wanna know a secret Sissy? If you start playing with another toy and pretend like it's really awesome, then Jack will want to play with that one and then you can use the pink lawnmower."

(Mommy thinks she's genius although probably not the best parenting tactic)

Emma: "Hey Jack! Look at this awesome shopping cart!!! It's so much fun!! Wanna switch?!?!"

Jack: "Okay Sissy!!!!"

(Mommy pats self on back for issue resolved without anyone being injured from hitting or smacking or throat punching)

(Fast forward to the following day when Emma is demanding to use the green pen that Mommy is using to fill out school forms)

Emma: "But Mommy, I REALLY need that pen!!"

Mommy: "Emma, I told you already. You can use it as soon as Mommy is done filling out these forms."

(Emma holds up a red crayon)

Emma: "But Mommy!! Look how awesome this red crayon is!!! It's so much fun to use!!! Wanna switch??"

Mommy: "Nice try Sissy."

And because it's been a while since I posted some pictures of the crazy little ones, here are some funny ones that were pretty recent (at least I think they are pretty funny). It had been a while since I broke out the camera, so on one of the recent warm days when the kids were out on a rampage frolicking in the yard/pool, I thought it would be a great time to get some updated shots.

This one cracks me up because sweet, little, innocent Emma was so into posing for the camera, that she didn't realize she was being photo-bombed by a water gun about to unload on the side of her head, courtesy of The Squishy.

In case you were wondering, this is what The Squishy's "No No No" face looks like. 

That little stinker REFUSES to let Mommy take a good picture of him.

In the words of R. Kelly, "I believe I can fly...."

Mine Emma Kathryn

Sometimes I can't believe how big my Emma Kathryn is getting. She amazes me every day with the things she learns and knows and comes home from school with. I knew she was getting to be a true "kid" and not a toddler anymore when she started talking about poop all the time. :) She now thinks its really funny to talk about poop and how yucky it is. And don't fear, Jack hops right on that band wagon and thinks its hilarious. Yup, he is going to be that kid teaching all his school buddies about poop.

Emma Kathryn cracks me up. For example, here a little snip-it of a conversation we had a few weeks ago...
       
          Mommy: "Emma, don't forget to brush your teeth this morning."

          Emma: "I won't Mommy. I haven't done my teeth yet this morning."

          Mommy: "I know sweetheart, that's why Mommy was reminding you."

          Emma: "I haven't done my morning toots either yet Mommy!!"

She is my princess. My morning toot, poop loving princess. :)

Typical Saturday Morning

Okay, so I couldn't help but post these pictures as my next "catch up" post. They make hysterical every time I look at them. Weekends tend to be pretty entertaining around our house these days. Weekdays are as well, but they tend to be filled more with tired babies and trying to squeeze in dinner and baths and coloring and snuggles all before bedtime. Our weekends lately have been pretty relaxing as I think we are all exhausted from the week.

Granted, we will still have our crazy weekends filled with lots of errands or birthday parties etc, but lately I have been loving the fact that life has seemed to slow down for us, even for just those two days once and a while. On those days, Emma usually starts out by asking Mommy and Daddy to have "a jammie day". To which I never refuse. If you know me, you know I like my comfy clothes. About 10 minutes later though, Emma is usually asking to wear a "beautiful dress".

So much for jammie day.

Once Emma is in her "beautiful dress", the accessories start piling on. First comes the necklaces, usually followed by some of her princess rings. Then come the sunglasses and asking Mommy for a pony tail (that's my girl!). She recently got wind of some of Mommy's headband-thingy-ma-jigs, so those are now some of standard accessories.

Case in point. This was Saturday morning. We weren't going anywhere.

Of course, little manly is not far behind. He is VERY into whatever his big sister is doing, so without fail, on go the sunglasses and necklaces. And yes, on multiple occasions, he too plays dress up with his big sister. At least he wears the blue princess dress. Although the Snow White dress really brings out his eyes. :)

Case in point. This was also Saturday morning. At least Jack stuck partly with jammie day.

I pity the fool!!!

And yes, I am fully aware that his hair is outrageous. We actually went later in the day to get it cut, then back again on Sunday to get it fixed again. Ack.

Now is where it gets good. You can't have kids dressed up like this and NOT break out the camera. So Mommy usually runs around trying to find the camera, and hoping that she can get the settings right before the babies lose interest in smiling (sometimes, they are actually into it without Mommy having to bribe them)!

This time, they were into it because they were sitting on a Dora potty. Go figure.

After taking some shots of them sitting down, I asked Emma to do a pose. She usually sticks her left hand up in the air, but this time, I got the cutest smile. I seemed to be having some good luck with the kids and pictures so why not keep things rolling right?

So naturally, I asked The Squishy to do a pose. And I'm not kidding. This is what he did....

You can put the boy in as many dresses and necklaces as you want, but he will always be a boy.

I don't know whether he then was embarrassed, trying to eat what just came out of his nose, or blowing kisses.

I think I'll go with blowing kisses. :)

Christmas in February?

I've only had about fifteen blog posts "drafted" for two months now! I guess it's about time to start catching up! Turns out, I hit my limit for adding photos to Blogger. So I opened up a Flickr account. As soon as I uploaded some of the pictures from our little family photo session, I maxed out the monthly limit. DOH! Now that I'm finally all straightened out (I think), it's back to playing catch up! First up, Christmas 2012!!

Let's start off by taking a peak at the most awesome Christmas present ever from the hubster....

BAZINGA!!!!

Yuppers. Mommy got upgraded.

::: giggle :::

Granted, I'm still learning about my new baby and still practicing so starting out was a bit rough and a lot of the pictures at the end of this post are proof of that (the Christmas Tree Farm pics are with my original DSLR). But hopefully things will get better as I learn more about my new 60D. So excited!!! Okay, here we go.

Like we have done the past couple of years, we continued with our tradition of heading to a local tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. This is such a fun tradition for us and it still seems new to me since I never did this growing up. In the beginning, especially with the kids, it was sometimes hard to figure out on big holidays like this, which traditions we were going to do. Wes and I had lots of different traditions we grew up with, so figuring out which ones we would do as a family was sometimes tricky. Having said that, I think we finally got the hang of it and I am absolutely loving taking both sides, smooshing them together, and making the traditions our own. I always have grand ideas on what this yearly trip entails (I know, big surprise there right?), but usually it ends up raining, or with a sick baby in tow. This year, we lucked out though. I snuggled up the babies with about 14 layers of clothes, only to realize when we got there that it was unusually warm. If that's the worst that happens, I call that a success. So as you can tell in the pictures, the kids starting stripping layers of clothes as the Great Tree Hunt of 2012 went on.

Jackson's first trip to the tree farm was when he was just about 8 months old (seems so long ago). He was strapped to Mommy with our Baby Bjorn and holy moly did my back hurt after carting around that 20lb toddler. Needless to say, my back quite enjoyed the break this year. The kids weren't exactly interested in picking a tree, but they sure did LOVE running through all the rows of trees. Jack was having a blast playing hide and seek, especially when he found 'baby trees'.

Just like last year, my Emma Kathryn was more into jumping on and off all the little tree stumps that were left in the ground. Once Jack got wind of what his big Sissy was up to, he was all over the tree stumps as well. Although he isn't the most coordinated toddler (God love that little man) and usually ended up tripping over them and landing on his rear end. That seemed fine to him, because he could then just roll around in the mud.  

Seriously. How beautiful is my baby girl?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, while Mommy was on baby duty, Daddy was hard at work cutting down the tree...

Although these trips involve all four of us, we usually seem to have to split up most of the time. Daddy takes care of the tree, while Mommy tries to keep the babies from, well, everything. So while Daddy was busy hauling the tree to the car and tying her down, the babies and I headed back up to the farm for some cold weather treats.

Here is where Mommy thought "OH! This is going to be the best picture ever! Both kids, sitting by the fire, trees in the background, etc" Yup. Not so much. Despite the strangers cruising around in the background, Jack would look at me, Emma would refuse. Emma would look at me, Jack would refuse. Mommy would then burn her rear-end on the giant bonfire behind me. Maybe next year. :)

After sitting down for all of 30 seconds, we headed over to the snack barn to grab a cup of hot chocolate and apple cider. Luckily, Jack was open to the apple cider since Emma wasn't a big fan and decided the hot chocolate was hers.

Then it was back to go watch the tree gets its grove on (i.e. get put in the shaker to shake the dead needles off). I did manage to catch this picture though. It may not be perfect, or at the right angle, but I absolutely love it. The babies were holding hands, Jack's hair is sticking up (LOVE) and they are stinky and sweaty since Mommy dressed then like it was 20 degrees out and it was probably in the 60s. Every time I need a little reminder about what really matters in life, I look at this picture. How is it possible to love two tiny little things so much?

Okay, so back to Christmas. We were a little late getting our tree this year, so we only had a week or so until Christmas...can you tell Emma was getting excited? Oh, and notice that chunky little hand gripping snowman in the background? Yup. The Squishy LOVED the Christmas tree. Needless to say many ornaments got rearranged multiple times this year. But he only broke two! That's not bad! :)

So far, our strategy for Christmas has been to buy the little crazies one big present for the both of them, and then buy them each the smaller things. Of course Santa usually takes care of most of the gifts, so this year, Santa lost his marbles had a great idea and brought the kids a brand new Mustang! Wowza. Is it wrong to be jealous of your kids Christmas presents? :)

I took a ton of pictures and videos of the kids driving around in their new car from Santa, and hopefully I can post a few. But for now, here's one quick iPhone shot. For now, Emma's the driver since Jack's a bit too little to reach the peddles, which seemed okay with him. He was happy as a clam to just be along for the ride. Luckily, Christmas Day was sunny and relatively warm so outside we went!

What still amazes me about the kids is that even though they got a MUSTANG for Christmas, they were more excited about their little boxes of goldfish that Santa brought them in their stockings. They wouldn't let go of those little goldfish all day.

As Emma was busy ripping through her presents, Jack just wanted to chill in his new ride. It even has cup holders for his milkies. :)

Santa, once again, overdid himself just like usual. The kids had an absolute blast though and were EXHAUSTED for days afterwards.

Emma modeling her new Dora slippers. :)

Jack kissing Rex. :)

Every year, I keep saying that "this year" is going to be the best Christmas ever. And every year it seems to top the year before. I can't help but get sentimental and think about how awesome Christmas next year is going to be. I am so incredibly blessed, and Christmas is the perfect time to remember that.

My Little Family of Four

As you can probably tell from the blog, we don't exactly have a lot of pictures of the four of us together. Scratch that. There is only one picture that I know of, from Jackson's first Birthday in March. DOH! The grandparents and great grandparents have been nicely pleading for us to send updated pictures for months now and finally, we can send some decent ones. When the kids went back to school this fall, they started just in time for fall pictures, so that bought me some more time with the grandparetns, but I was still dreaming about pictures of us as a family of four. I have been wanting professional pictures of my little family of four since the day The Squishy was born.

Prior to the babies coming into our lives (you know, back when I had a lot more time on my hands) I had actually started a wedding planning business with one of my coworkers. We did mostly day-of-coordinating but we were a full blown legit LLC. Little did we know, business was going to boom like it did and we ended up having to get stop because neither of us got rid of our regular day job (engineers) and it was too much to handle with a regular 45 - 50 hour work week before any of the wedding planning work started. However, it was one of the most fun and exciting things that I have ever done and I still keep in touch with some of the brides and vendors that I worked with. I still wonder sometimes if anything happened to my day job, if I would try that again.

Any who...where was I going with this? Oh yeah. Pictures...I digress. Since my wedding coordinating days, I have kept in touch with my all time favorite photographer, Jen Lowe of JLowe Photos. Not only does she take amazing pictures, but she is an absolute blast to work with. It's like getting back together with an old friend every time we see her. She is a mom herself, which makes her a dream to have around when trying to get pictures of the monsters babies. So, I couldn't dream of going anywhere else when it came to wanting pictures of my little family of four.

So without further ado, here is a snip-it of our little recent family photo shoot. Emma Kathryn at 3.5 years old and Jackson The Squishy Douglas at 20 months old. Mommy and Daddy are 29 years old, for the fourth year in a row. I know! Weird huh?

Disclaimer: We found out the next day that The Squishy had walking pneumonia yet again ::: head desk ::: and it was pretty cold and damp out that day so that explains the lack of smiles from him, Mommy's frizzy hair and Daddy trying to keep his hands in his sleeves.

One of these days...

I'm going to get a decent picture of the two crazies together. Unfortunately, that day is not yet upon us.

We decided to take advantage of some of the nice weather the other day and head out for some playtime in the backyard. It was pretty chilly, but warm enough to let the babies get out and burn off some steam. I've been back to dreaming in La La Land where I can actually afford to buy the new camera that I would love, but it at least inspired me to break out the one I have now since it's been a while.

One of the games that the babies like to play outside is chase. Where Emma takes off sprinting and The Squishy isn't far behind. At least for the first three or four feet when he then starts tripping and falling all over the place. God love that little man! He just eats some dirt and goes on about his business like it didn't even slow him down. Eventually, The Squishy decides to go off on his own and falls sprints his way to the fence in the back. Emma gets wind of this and then follows. Mommy then gets wind of it, and then proceeds to try to bribe the little ones to stand still for just ten seconds to snap a picture. Below is the little monsters version of "standing still".

Disclaimer: These aren't the best quality pictures but they sure do make me laugh when I look at them. :)

This is what happens when Mommy tries to take a picture one handed, while raising her other hand above her head and snapping and making a fool out of herself to get the kids to look towards the camera. Yeah. They raise their hands, make a fool out of themselves and refuse to look towards the camera. Guess I have to change my technique.

There must be something really important behind Mommy! I actually love this picture of The Squishy. Blown up, its crisp and clear and his eyes are amazing. I'm not sure what Emma is doing here though and how her glove got stuck to the side of her coat. :)

This is what happens when Mommy tells the babies to say "Cheese!" One of them usually does a great job, which causes the other one to stop looking at the camera and look at the crazy person next to them yelling about dairy products. Maybe I should clarify to the kids, that when I tell them to "say cheese", I also don't mean "stop looking at the camera like you were a half of a second ago and look somewhere else."

One of these days it's going to work. And work while they are awake. What are the chances it will magically happen just in time for Christmas cards this year?

Yeah, I don't think so either.