Mall (Rug)Rats

So, what is a girl to do when her husband is out of town for 4 days and it is closing in on the witching hour? (i.e. late afternoon between 4 and 6. Moms, you know what I'm talking about right?) Well, I needed diapers and i figured a trip to Target always entertains so off we went. And on the way we picked up my sister Jessie (Aunt J to the under 5 crowd) to help us be even more entertained on our outing. And help us she did! Are you aware how much fun you can have at the mall with a four year old? Seriously even at our mall which is leaning more and more toward ghetto interesting every time I go. (There is actually a store there with the name Authentik...yes it's spelled with a "k" and it sells gold chains and the like. Seriously.)

So anyway, first we bought the diapers at Target, and then, because he asked so nicely, we let Noah eat at Chick-fil-a. And while there, Liam promptly decided that formula was for the birds and made a move for my fried food.

See, he is grabbing with his chubby little fingers every time I try to take a bite!

After that we headed a few stores down where I let Noah get a chocolate chip cookie because he was such a  good boy and finished all his nutritious fried dinner! :)  Then, we walked around and found a store that sells all sorts of old school TV series on DVD and my sister bought this.....

Here is proof that she is at least as big a dork as I am.

Outside this store was a mini-carousel with a train on it so of course Noah had to ride that. Personally I thought he was a little old to be riding that contraption but he did not seem to care how ridiculous he looked going around in circles at half a mile an hour on a tiny little train.

Finally, on the way out we passed Noah (and Aunt J's) holy grail...the photo booth. Much to my chagrin I contributed a dollar to this endeavor and those two promptly posed with some crazy faces in the photo booth. Noah really wanted to do it again but we had no more dollars and it was approaching 7:30 and I figured it was time to stop goofing around at the mall and actually go home and get my children to bed. But I was very excited that we had spent a whole 2 hours completely distracted and had not asked for Daddy one time! Thanks Aunt J and the ghetto lovely Citadel Mall!

Because sometimes.....

....you just have to be naked!

Four Months

Somehow my baby is four months old. How did that happen?

We went to the doctor for his four month appointment yesterday and got all the important stats. (Well, they are actually very unimportant if you ask me, I am much more interested in the more intangible things like is he a happy baby, but I digress.) However, I was excited to see how much he weighed because he is kind of like carrying around a brick all day long! So without further ado....

weight: 15.6 pounds/59th percentile

height: 24 inches/16th percentile (yep, he's a Shealy!)

head: 57th percentile (This one is the least interesting stat to me. I mean why do we care what percentile his head falls in anyway?)

Now for the things I consider way more fun to talk about. He is such a fun baby! So laid back and always ready with a smile. I call him my little smile whore because he will flirt with anybody who pays him attention. He is also giggling - most frequently at Noah. He has great head control now and loves to play in the exersaucer where he is starting to grab at all the toys! His newest trick is that he can roll over both ways now. In fact, at night, we now find him rolled over and sleeping on his stomach when we go to check on him.

We are enjoying Liam soooo much. I remember while I was pregnant, I was constantly wondering/worrying about how it was possible to love someone as much as I loved Noah. The truth is that it is the easiest thing in the world to love this little guy every bit as much! And having a baby is so much more enjoyable this time around. I am not a newbie trying to blindly figure out how to care for another human being. I have gotten one child to age four successfully so I am not so worried about the little things, and that leaves a lot of time to simply relish in the joy that is Liam!

***HELP! Does anyone have any suggestions on how you fix the spacing in this post? I CANNOT get it to post with the appropriate spacing and it is driving me crazy!!

Noah

I am not even sure where to start when it comes to Noah these days! He is 4 going on 16, that's for sure! His attitude at times is bigger than Texas! Four is an interesting age. It is much better than 3 in some ways, like his ability to listen better, etc. He is easier to instruct at this age because he has more of a desire to please and be a "good boy". However, four is the age of 8 million questions a day and the sheer volume of words that come out of his mouth makes me borderline crazy everyday. I keep reminding myself that one day he will have nothing to say to me and I will be begging him to tell me things about his day so I am trying my best to patient with his questions.

Because he is always talking, he is constantly providing us with a good laugh. Some of my favorite things to hear from him are when he misuses words in a sentence. I have to try so hard not to laugh! For instance, when playing Candy Land he informed me that we needed to "read the constructions" to learn how to play. Also, instead of propellers on a helicopter they are "crapellers", and instead of his superman cape, it is a "cap". But, my all time favorite, is when he sings his prayer before dinner he says, "we bow our heads to thank you, all our men, all our men" (instead of ah-men, ah-men).

He still has a love for trains but at the moment his big obsession is dinosaurs. He loves anything dinosaur related, and our collection of plastic dinosaurs is growing by the minute! I frequently find the following set up around our house....

In that picture he had created "Dinosaur World" which, for those of you who are wondering, is a bit like Disneyworld. He even had cars lined up to see the dinosaurs but he informed me they would have to pay to get in!

We really love our little man and are amazed at how he observes and takes in the world around him.

Conserve A Plate Friday

There are many things that I wish I did better. I would like to run a faster mile, be a more patient mother, get really good at clipping coupons, I could go on.... Topping my list of things I need to be better at is cooking dinner. I. hate. cooking. dinner! Around 5:00pm every night I start getting anxious because (most of the time) I have no idea what I am going to feed my family for dinner. I then spend the next hour wondering how long I can get by without doing anything before Wes says, "Whats for dinner?"

So, last night was the same song and dance. The boys were both in bed, it was 8:00, and my (poor, hungry) husband asks the inevitable question. Instead of being reasonable I decided to spazz out and declare that I absolutely could not make dinner cause I hate it so much.

Wes: "Babe, its ok, chill out!"

Kelly: "Can we just do peanut butter sandwiches? Please?"

W: "That's fine, I don't care." (Just feed me something please!)

So I proceeded to make this for dinner.

Well almost, ours was on wheat bread and instead of jelly we had sliced apples, but you get the idea.

So I put the sandwich together, turned to my waiting husband, and handed it to him. He looked at the sandwich, looked at me and asked, "What is it, conserve a plate night?"

That's right folks. Not only did I serve my husband peanut butter for dinner, I didn't even put it on a plate! I am an AWESOME wife.

Our New Toy

Ever since Liam was born I have been wanting a double jogging stroller. And since this is me we are talking about here I have of course wanted the top of the line, Cadillac of strollers, this one in fact...

However, the above stroller sells for upwards of $500 and even I, of the spare no expense spending philosophy, couldn't justify that kind of expense. (petulant sigh). So, I have been a good little girl and have been checking out the nearby children's consignment store for a double jogger to appear. Of course that is one of the most popular items so when they come in they are snatched right up, meaning that it has been hard to find one...until this week that is!

I found a pretty good one - a jogging stroller that is actually designed to be used while running and not just to look sporty - that still seems in good working order. The fabric was faded and atrociously stained,...

....see? (yuck!)

But a little soap and water, and the scrubbing power of myself and this little helper...

....and it cleaned up, good as new! So I got my double jogger (for $80!) and now I can push both rugrats in the stroller together. Of course, at the rate that Liam is packing on the pounds, he may exceed the weight limit of the stroller before Noah!

Julie, this is for you....

So, our friends Julie and Devin have recently made a 6 month move to Hong Kong. The last time we saw Julie she was telling us all about it and Noah was very interested. Ever since he has asked to see pictures of Hong Kong and will ask, every now and then, "Is Miss Julie still in Hong Kong?" All of that to say, when I was going through some of Julie's facebook pictures I thought Noah might be interested so I called him over to see. He sat with me while I flipped through pictures of the skyline and of parks and he was really enjoying it until we came to the following picture.....



"Momma what is that?!"

I wasn't entirely sure but I took my best guess, "Noah those look like eels or something."

His eyes got big and he pointed to the screen in disbelief and said, "Do people eat eels?"

"Well, yes Noah sometimes they do."

I watched him taking that in. He turned back to the picture and started muttering to himself. "That is disgustin' ....I don't want to eat eels, they look like worms....." All of the sudden his eyes got even bigger and he turned to me with a look of horror.

"Does Miss Julie eat worms?!?"

All I could do was laugh and inform him that to the best of my knowledge Miss Julie does not eat worms - and even 6 months in China probably won't change that!