Thursday, February 25, 2010

What a morning

Today started off with both boys waking up before 7:00. I made Ethan some oatmeal which he ate like 4 bites of and then fed Jayden. Because we hardly had any groceries I decided that I'd go to ChickfilA and grab a free cinnamon cluster for breakfast. I figured since we were all up so early, it would be good to run my errands before Jayden's nap. So I quickly got the boys dressed, slapped some make up on and ran out the door. We both enjoyed our free cinnamon cluster and then I let the boys play in the play area. Because it was still early there were not any other kids in there so that was nice. After that we headed to Walmart to grab a few groceries. The boys did really well and we were in and out of there in 30 min.
Once we got home, I laid Jayden down for his nap and unloaded the groceries. I was so exhausted by the time I sat down! As I was checking my email, I could tell that Ethan was getting a little ancy for attention so I decided to give him a little project. I had gotten the idea from a website that a friend referred me to for craft ideas. Usually Ethan doesn't have that much interest in crafts but I'm trying to explore new things to see what it is that he enjoys. So this project consisted of some dried noodles, a bowl, and a couple of scoops. I told him what to do with it and then let him at it. It was a hit! He had so much fun pouring, filling, spilling, and eating the noodles. I could tell he didn't enjoy eating the noodles but he tends to just keep food in his mouth if he can't chew it. So if you're wondering why he's so quiet in the video it's because he has some noodles in his mouth lol.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Apples to oranges


Jayden 10 months old (2/2010)


Ethan 10 months old (10/2007)

I am super blessed to have such wonderful boys in my life. As Jayden is getting older and his personality is forming, I can't help but to compare him to Ethan. I've realized that my 2 boys are completely different. I love that they both have such unique qualities about them. It's so funny to see how different they look and act. Ethan is a spitting image of Ishmael and Jayden favors my mom's side of the family. At least that's what people tell me. I honestly still don't know who Jayden looks like but his pictures do favor mine and my mom's baby pictures.
They also act completely different. Ethan has always been super hyper and I could never predict how his attitude would be. Jayden however is very easy going and predictable. Of course he has his moments as do all kids but for the most part he's always happy and kindof quiet. He is aslo my cuddler and loves to hang on his mama. 
Jayden's milestones:
Right now Jayden is crawling around, pulling and standing up, eating finger foods, drinking a bottle, and almost sleeping through the night. He will eat just about anything you put in front of him. He loves green beans, pizza, puffs, cheerios, and of course whatever we're eating he'll eat.  Jayden loves to explore and spends most his time crawling around then with playing with his toys. He has just recently started mimicking Ethan by pushing the cars around. That's if Ethan allows him to play with them for a while. I've been teaching Jayden sing language for about 4 months now and he's still hasn't picked up on it but I want to say it took Ethan a while to learn. And by then he was talking as he did it. I was kindof hoping that Jayden could learn it a little quicker so that I wouldn't have to go through that stage where he can't communicate to me like Ethan did. That was a rough season =)
Anyway, I'm loving how my precious boys are growing up to be so different. They both have the sweetest hearts and lots of love to give. I love being their mother and just hope that me and Ish can mold them into great men of God someday. With that said, good night =)

Thursday, February 18, 2010

One of a kind

Ethan: 26 months old
New words and phrases he's saying:
See you later, Look, Big truck, blue car, hey baby, sleep, shh (when he sees someone closing their eyes whether its on tv or in a book), you ok? (to Jayden when he falls), Nanny, Papa, Ewe (whenever he sees a bug or spider, hears a burp or toot), Oh no!, Fly, Chair, door, ok, yes sir, pleas, thank you, sorry, milk, book, Boz, airplane, bus, cheerios, cookie, chip, cracker, banana, apple, soup

Some fun & interesting facts about him:
As soon as Ethan wakes up, the 1st words that come out of his mouth is "juice". He hands me all 3 of his blankets, puts his arms up and we head downstairs. I sit him in his chair, fix him either juice or milk, hand him his blankets and turn on either Sesame street or Mickey mouse. He drinks his juice while I prepare his breakfast. We do this same routine EVERYDAY. And if I ever try and change it up by changing his diaper 1st thing, he throws a fit. So..I wait until his belly is full and then we proceed with the diaper change.

He LOVES cars and right now is obsessed with the movie cars. He usually just points to the tv and says "Cars" so if I don't want him watching it, I have to quickly change his mind on something else. He has also got quite a collection of cars from the movie as well. Whenever he plays with his cars, he likes to line them up and push them around. He'll line them up on the kitchen table, the couch, the floor, the bed, the chair, and the toilet seat. Basically wherever I am, there they are. Sometimes it gets a little aggravating when we have to go upstairs because he wants to bring his cars with him. I can't just bring a few of them, I have to bring ALL of them. For a while there, I was stuffing them in my pockets and sweatshirt pouch just so I could have my hands free while carrying Jayden and holding Ethan's hand going up the stairs. It was quite a challenge. We finally got him a case where he can put all his cars in and this has helped so much. So whenever he wants to take them up or down stairs, he has to put them all in this case and we bring it down. The boy has lots of toys but majority of the time he just plays with his matchbox cars.

Ethan has been in his big bed since before Christmas. He had no problem transitioning into it and seemed to really like it. For a couple of months he did really well with staying in bed and not getting out. Well just recently he's been testing his boundaries. For the past 2 weeks he's been getting out of his bed at night and coming into our room. We have very squeaky floors so I can always hear him creeping in. He just stands there at the bed and waits for Ish to pick him up. Ish is usually out of it and doesn't want to deal with putting him back in bed so he'll let him sleep wi andth us. I'm ok with it every now and then but when it starts to happen every night I have to put my foot down. So when I hear him coming out of his room, I quickly get up and just pick him up and rock him a little and put him back to bed. He usually doesn't cry and goes back to sleep.

Things that I love that he does:
Tilts his head down when I tell him to give me a kiss
The way he laughs when he's watching a movie and thinks it's funny.
Dances whenever he hears music on his kid shows or a commercial on tv
Talks on his cellphone and laughs
When he says Mama and gives me a hug
Says he's sorry and hugs me after he's been in timeout

These are just a few things about my little man that I love about him. Hope you enjoyed my rambling on about him.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

To all my fellow healthy peeps...


I came across this recipe from the Sneaky Chef and had been wanting to try it for some time. It's called Easy Stove top lasagna. Right now I am very interested in pureeing vegetables or fruits and throwing it in a dish. I think it's a great way to eat vegetables. Not only am I doing this for my husband and kids but for myself. There are a lot of veggies I don't like and I tend to get very bored with the same options each night. So I have no problem with grinding up veggies and "hiding" them in a dish.

This particular recipe called for peas, spinnach and broccoli. I did all of them but also added cauliflower as well. So I pureed them in my tiny mixer-which doesn't work the best but it does get the job done.

After pureeing the veggies I added some tomatoe paste to make it brown and then added that to my ground turkey. Then you are to layer the noodles over the meat and then add the sauce and let cook for 30 min.



Once it's done then you add the cheese. I thought it turned out well and my husband had no idea that there were veggies hidden in the lasagna. (I never told him hehe) Over all I thought it tasted good. I like my lasagna to have more sauce so next time I may add more and it was also missing ricotta cheese which I think gives it a little more flavor but for being "easy" this recipe was great.

















Can we say, "pee-pee"?

I have been holding back on potty training Ethan because to be honest..I have no desire to teach him yet lol. Call me lazy or just too busy, either way I am planning on waiting. He's been showing some signs that he could be ready but not all of them. We had bought him a potty a while back just so he could play with it and get used to it. I ended up putting it away for about a month b/c he just really wasn't showing any interest in it. Once I brought it back out he's been sitting, playing, and noticing it more. One day I just asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty so we took his diaper down and he just sat. He laughed the whole time but did nothing. So like I said I haven't really been enforcing it at all and just figured he'll let me know when he's ready.
Well I had done some reading and heard that some parents' kids poop at regular times and they would just sit their toddler on the toilet and get them to poo in the potty. Ethan doesn't have a regular cycle but I do usually know when he has to "poo". He likes to hide! So he was getting behind the couch today and I just thought maybe I'd try it. So I quickly grabbed him and placed him on the toilet to see if he'd poop. The boy just giggled the whole time so I gave up and put him on his potty. I walked away to give him privacy and all of a sudden I heard the potty song playing! The only way for it to go off is if pee or poop touches the sensors at the bottom of the potty. I quickly got really excited and grabbed the toilet paper to get ready to wipe him. Well he wasn't ready to get off yet so I just assumed he was still going. After about 3 min he finally got up and when I looked in the potty, there was no poop..but pee pee!! I was so excited for him! He just looked at me like whats the big deal? haha I was trying to act out of the ordinary so he'd want to do it again so we'll see if it worked. Anyway, I think his favorite part was watching me poor it in the toilet and letting him flush it away.
So that's our 1st potty experience. Am I going to start potty training him now? Probably not. I think I may just do this method at least once a day and see if he'll show interest in it. I'm going to try and not stress myself out over potty training b/c it'll happen eventually.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Raleigh Visit

For the past few days I have been in Raleigh staying with my parents. Ish had a business trip in Las Vegas and didn't want to be by my lonesome especially since we got so much snow. So I packed my bags and headed to NC where it has not snowed yet!
Whenever I come to visit it's a little challenging to keep Ethan occupied. He has plenty of toys here but he seems to get bored much quicker than when he's at home. So you can imagine the challenges that come along with that. Ethan tends to want to eat and drink all the time when he's bored so he's constantly asking me for juice and when I say no the meltdown starts.
Well on Monday I decided to take the boys to the mall so that they could play in their play area. I just love having this option for kids. I really wish our mall was that cool. He played for a while and then we had lunch at Mcdonalds. He had so much fun running around in the play area. I love to watch him interact with other kids because he tends to gravitate to the older children. He'll just walk right up to them and start babbling something. It's the cutest thing. I'm sure the older kids wonder why this little boy is following them around but I think it's cute.
Well today's adventure was taking him to Monkey Joes. It's a huge play area with bouncy houses that consists of slides, climbing, jumping, etc. He had a blast trying to keep up with the big kids. It was exhausting for me because I had to hold Jayden most of the time. There were many times that Ethan couldnt climb the bigger steps to get to the slides and I would have to asist him. Thankfully I had a friend there to watch Jayden so that I could do this with Ethan a few times. There was one bouncy area that I was able to go in with both boys and let them roam free until the bigger kids came in and took over. This was my resting spot. I was so exhausted when it was all over. I will definitely go again but will probably wait until Jayden can walk and bring Ishmael with me.
Me and the boys have had a great time visiting my family and have enjoyed all the great amentities that Raleigh has to offer!
We plan on leaving in a couple of days if the weather cooperates!

Monday, February 1, 2010

A snowed in weekend

Saturday morning we woke up with 10in of snow covering the ground and it continued to come down all day. Because the wind was blowing the snow like a blizzard, I had no desire to go outside just yet. So I spent most of my day doing some cleaning and baking. And of course tending to the boys. Well whenver it snows Ish always makes up some excuse so he can go out and drive in it. He loves being able to use his 4wheel drive. Well this time his excuse was to go get some lunch for us and thought he'd take Ethan with him. I had no complaints there so I got to take a long shower (which I never get to do anymore) and Jayden got a good long nap with no interruptions.
After lunch I got the itch to bake some chocolate cookies. For some reason whenever it snows I always want to bake somekind of sweets. Ish likes it when I get in these moods b/c I hardly ever have 'goodies" in the house. My goal was to make homemade oreos and I was pretty excited about them.

Homemade oreos

So Saturday was definitely just a day that we lounged around and had plenty of family time. Ish and I attempted to finish the night by watching a movie together but we both fell asleep halfway through.

Well Sunday started off as another lazy day. I got to take 2 naps! It was so wonderful! When me and the boys woke up from our afternoon nap we decided to join Ish for some sledding. We got the boys all bundled up and headed out for the snow. We met up with some friends and had a great time going down the hill. Ethan's 1st time consisted of us all riding together on a sled and then we hit a bump and went in the air and landed hard on our bottoms. I think that scared him a little because that ended with him crying. Ish preceeded to go down with him again and he wasn't liking it but he took him down anyways. We thought he just needed some time to warm up to it. Well he did a lot of standing around and didn't want to even touch the snow. We're hoping he'll get more into it when he gets older but for now he had no interest. We were able to borrow a large tube to go sledding on and we made Ethan go down with us. He wasn't not happy that he was getting ready to go down this huge hill but after it was all over he was so excited.


Look at that face of his!


Overall we had a great time. I do wish that Ethan had been more excited about the snow but it'll come with time I'm sure. After we wore ourselves out from sledding we grabbed some KFC to go and headed home. What a great day and weekend we had being snowed in!