Wherein Lia Just Hangs Out

Observe:


She's watching Sesame Street. Her favorite.


And drinking juice. Her other favorite.

Fixer Upper

Max informed me today that he wanted me to buy him a "fixer upper." Trying my best to hide a laugh I asked him to explain to me what a fixer upper was. He looked at me like I was nuts, like I was really nuts AND dumb. "Something that needs fixing, mom." Oh. My bad.

Anyway, besides wanting to be a pirate, bus driver and garbage man when he grows up, he also wants to fix things. And hey, he's already got the outfit, so why not?

It's raining it's pouring!

And I let my kids play outside! With the El Nino storms coming and raining us in (I know, I shouldn't complain about 5 days of rain, but for kids and moms that are used to being able to go outside daily and let their kids run, it's tough!) Both of them thought it was pretty much the best thing ever. Lia especially. She would fall face first into a giant puddle, get covered in mud and gunk and get up laughing hysterically. The pictures aren't great because I only had my Blackberry outside. I didn't want to bring my camera out in the downpour.




That's mud on her face. She could care less.


The deepest part of this puddle was up to Lia's thighs. She would just try to run back and forth in it and fall over laughing.


Max definitely loved splashing in all the puddles. And I mean splashing. Everywhere.


I invested in some rain boots for her after this. If it ever rains again this winter it'll be a little nicer for her.



They had the best time. And got warm baths afterward, seeing as how Lia looked like this.

Oh boy...

For some reason these pictures make me slightly uncomfortable. Could be the fact that I'm picturing this sweet little girl 15 years from now on the back of some sweaty teenager's motorcycle speeding away. Sad. Ew. Shudder. And half that shudder is because I will actually have teenagers some day.



Sure, she looks cute now. But I swear, no boyfriends. And especially no boyfriends with motorcycles!

Max the Science Kid

Unfortunately Max really enjoys the show "Sid the Science Kid" on PBS. It is unfortunate because the show is annoying and slightly creepy. See for yourself in picture above. But it does teach Max how to investigate things. He loves taking his magnifying glass all over to investigate stuff.



It also teaches him how to build stuff. They had a show about incline planes and levers and Max built this to show me how the work.



Doesn't look like much, but he did actually show me how they work.

Now if only Sid could teach him how to wear clothes all the time instead of running around in your underwear. Or how to stop being so dang cute so that when I do have to stick him in time out I don't want to just squeeze him instead. If only PBS would teach life skills.

Look mom! We Share!

See?


Oh wait. Nevermind.

Wild Things

Our kids are kind of wild sleepers. Good sleepers -- as in they sleep through the night (well, mostly, Lia has some work to do on that one since being sick). Most of the time Lia wakes up looking like this:



She must roll all over the place to make it stand up like that.



And she loves to carry her hairbrush around with her and say "booful" while she whacks the back of her head in an attempt to brush.



Max rarely looks this happy when he wakes up. He's usually the grumpiest kid ever. If I play it just right and offer him just the right thing when he wakes up it will make him happy. If I fail, he's usually impossibly grumpy. Oh well, I can kind of relate. Sometimes I'm grumpy when I wake up, too.

Restaurant Table

We decided to get Max and Lia a little table and chairs set to eat at when we're too lazy to all make it to the dinner table. Yes, sometimes we eat in front of the TV. Big deal.

They love it. Especially Lia who doesn't quite get the concept of actually sitting in the chair the whole time to eat. But she does a good enough job. It took her a few days to learn how to get onto the chair without falling over.



Max likes to decorate the table with his pirate bandana. He says it helps him eat better. And he calls it a restaurant table.



For $15 at Ikea you can't go wrong. And if it helps Max eat better, I'd buy four of them. Maybe even five.

Sick again...

Yes. We were sick again. I swear, I thought for sure that after getting Swine Flu we'd be set for the rest of the winter. No way. Honestly, I'd been kind of waiting for some kind of stomach flu to hit our house. It had been a while. This time it hit Lia and Tyler. Hard. Luckily not at the same time. Lia woke up one morning at about 2am throwing up. She was so so so so sad! She had no energy or strength. It was like a completely different baby. I would try to stand her on her feet because she would want to get down and she couldn't even hold herself up. She even fell asleep on our laps. A few times. If you know our kids you know how sick she was to do that.






She threw up for about 8 hours, every 20 minutes and then it stopped. And for the next week and a half she would throw up randomly when something didn't agree with her tummy. And that's when Tyler got sick. Really sick. Knocked him out for a few days, too. Max only threw up once in the morning all over our bed. He hung out for a day and acted totally fine by the end of it. I was feeling nauseous but never really threw up. Thank goodness for little miracles! I think mine was mostly in my head after cleaning up buckets of barf for weeks. Ew. Shudder.



When we couldn't hold her because we were helping Max or making lunch or something we would stick her in her bean bag chair covered in a towel. She thought it was pretty neat sitting there with her lap top.



Poor baby. I'm just glad we're over it. Finally!! She can eat anything she wants now. (And she does. This girl eats like a horse). No more sickness! Oh, wait, she has a cold now. And she's teething. Sigh... one of these days...

Pet Monkey

I swear this girl is really a monkey in a cute squishy baby disguise. Her tongue is one of her most favorite toys. She climbs on everything. Sits on everything. Repeats everything. Goes just as wild as her brother (if not more).







One of the things she does all the time is take the baskets out from under the TV, take out just enough toys for her bottom to fit (not all the toys) stick her woof-woof in and sit down to play. She can sit there for a good 10-15 minutes without moving.









She's not very fond of bananas though. I don't think she likes the texture. But she sure is cute.

Whiskerds

Someone got a hold of a pen. And wanted to make himself look more like a pirate. Because, you know, he's the spitting image of Jack Sparrow already (don't argue with him about that). So someone decided to draw "whiskerds" on his face.



He figured he could just shave the off in the bath with the razor and shaving cream he got for Christmas.

More Art

Max is starting to really like to sit and draw and color. He's pretty much ignored that stuff until recently. Here are a few things he's done. I think this first one is a lion. Pretty good if you ask me! He even got the mane on there!



The second one I'm not quite sure of. I can't remember what he told me it was. Maybe a jaguar?



And he's getting pretty good at writing his name. He doesn't get it perfect every time, but he won't give up until he gets the M A X juuust right. My little smarty. I think this is what is motivating him to draw more. He likes to write letters and sign his name on stuff.



And one night we had a giant piece of cardboard left over from something and let Max (and Lia, too, although she really just likes watching Max do all that stuff) draw all over it. He then wanted to tell the camera what he drew and a story. He got a little camera-shy as you can see. But he sure is a cutie!

"Wild" Animal Park

Wild is in quotes because this short trip (and boy do I mean short) was exactly that. We had like 2 seconds of calmness until both kids started freaking out. Max decided to throw a monster tantrum so after about 20 minutes or so we booked it as fast as we could to the exit and went home. Sad thing was Max was having so much fun with Sienna and Chloe. Lia was digging her snacks. It just wasn't a great day for kiddos. Oh well! We still got a picture of the cuties in a clam. So not all was lost!





I really do hope these two get married when they are grown up! Adorable kids!

Hey!

Check out my baby! And a cool toy! But just look at that baby!

People Magazine's Celebrity Baby Blog

(Click on "celebrity baby blog" to see!)

Blast off!

Stomp rockets + Max + Lia + hilarity

My Brain

Remember those commercials in the 90's where they would show an egg and say "this is your brain" and then they would crack the egg inside a hot frying pan and say "this is your brain on drugs. any questions?" here, watch it.



Well, here's my brain. Not on drugs. Tumor free. Nice and bumpy and round. Not at all like a frying egg.

I love these faces!

These pictures were taken a few months ago. Still cute. Still making trouble. Still love them.