My Funny Valentines

The week before Valentine’s Day I had the great idea to dress the kids up in their new clothes from DeeDee & E and take some really cute pictures. In my mind they were gonna turn out SO cute and then I would make Valentine cards and mail them out to all our family….yeah, in my mind. In real life, as soon as I got ready to take the pictures Zane started crying and throwing a fit because he didn’t like Hollin’s polka dot rug in her room. So random! He was screaming over and over, “I.DON’T.LIKE.THAT.RUG!” When I finally got him calmed down, Hollin started crying. I think by the time I got both of them calmed down I was on the verge of tears. And then I couldn’t get both of them to look at the camera at the same time. Real life here. So here are some of the outtakes. Matt cracked up at that last one. Said that it looks like Zane is singing some soul music.Zane and I made some treats to take to his friends at Ms. Jeri’s house. This kid….he saw me with the camera and said, “You take my picture? I wanna look mad.” So here are his ‘mad face’ pictures. Are you dying? I am.Ha-Bear “helped” us, too. And, fyi, I could’ve made way more treats if a certain little three year-old hadn’t eaten half of the Hershey’s Hugs.Surprise, Surprise! Matt and I got to go on a date on Valentine’s Day! ‘Mr. Sandy’, as Zane calls him, insisted on coming over and spending the evening with Zane so that Matt and I could go to dinner. Sandy is one of the fellows that Matt works with. Zane loooves him and is convinced that the only reason he comes to our house is to play cars with him. Hollin went with us and Matt called her a statue. She never moved or made a peep the whole night. We ate at Madison’s Downtown and it was so yummy! It was nice to have adult conversation without having to worry about a spilled drink or a kid crawling around under the table.

four months

Baby Hollin is four months old! I probably say this every time, but she is The.Sweetest.Baby! She’s really calm and quiet. She loves attention. So easy to please. Honestly, ninety percent of the time, just making eye contact with her will earn me a big grin. Lately she’ll smile really big and then turn her head like she’s embarrassed. So precious. Although, I can’t seem to get her to smile when I have the camera because she can’t see me behind the camera. Her laugh is the best. She’s ticklish, but laughs the most at her brother. She is so lucky to have a big brother that loves her so much. She is the first thing he asks about in the morning. He wants to ‘talk to her’ and give her a good morning kiss. He asks several times a day, “Baby Ha-yin taked a pretty good nap?” I don’t think he even understands how much she loves him. I can tell she does. She watches his every move. Stats from her appointment today:

*weight: 14 lbs, 3.5 oz, 64th percentile

*length: 24.6 inches, 64th percentile

*head circumference: 16.9 inches, 93rd percentile (apparently she’s gonna have the Bell head, too!)

*Wears 0-3 month clothes and size 2 diapers

*She blows bubbles all.day.long.

*She coos and says “a-goo”

*She likes the pink & white blanket that’s in the chair with her. It’s really thin and soft. She holds it, chews on it, and covers her face with it.

*She is still a great sleeper. She usually sleeps from 10pm til 4am, eats, and goes right back to sleep until about 7:30am.I don’t know where these blue eyes came from, or if they’ll even stay this color, but I think they’re beautiful.Bless her little heart, I’m pretty sure that mommy holding her all evening makes her feel better after getting those yucky shots. She was a sad girl :(  Matt caught his girls smiling this afternoon.Here are a couple of pictures of her and Zane, both at four months. Their noses and chubby cheeks are the same, but that’s about it. Zane looks a lot bigger to me, but their sizes are almost identical.Just looking at that last picture makes me want to SQUEEZE both of them!   

fuel level low. miles remaining ---

don’t they look confused? with parents like us, it’s no wonder….

the car

Loading myself and two kids in the car to go somewhere should be considered an aerobic exercise. I haven’t figured out how to do it in less that four trips in & out of the house. 1.Take purse, diaper bag, drink,  and coat to car and crank it so that it’s not 20 degrees when kids get in 2.Take Zane to car 3.Take Hollin to car 4.Go back to get the things that I (inevitably) forgot plus the items on Zane’s demand list (ie, juice, granola bar, Lemons (the bad guy characters from Cars2, not the fruit), cowboy hat, gloves, etc.). So trips don’t happen unless they’ve been planned ahead of time. No spur of the moment car rides happening around here.

So I started planning in the morning for the CPR re-certification class that started at 5:30pm on the other side of town. The planning included getting Zane down for a nap on time so that he was awake and fully functioning by the time we needed to leave at 4:30. Matt wasn’t going to make it home before I left, so we planned to meet at his clinic to do a switch-a-roo with the kids. Of course this would be the day that Z’s nap ran late.

the parking lot

I told Matt that I was gonna be pushing it to be there on time because I had to wake Z up and I needed to stop for gas. “Can you make it here? We’ll just switch cars so that we don’t have to get the kids out and then I’ll take your car to get gas.” Sounds like a great plan.

Right after we switch cars, Matt stops in the parking lot right in front of me. I’m thinking, ‘c’mon move! i’m in a hurry!’ And then he calls me. My car is OUT of gas. Dead. In the parking lot. So Matt rushes to the gas station in his truck to get gas for my car.

As I’m sitting in the parking lot with the kids, about 100 yards from the building, Zane says, “That where daddy works? That where he sees sick people?……They got a baffroom in there?” Uh oh. It’s times like these that I miss diapers. I can’t drive up closer to the building. I really don’t want to walk up there…for three reasons: it’s cold, I don’t want to carry Hollin’s carseat that far, Zane is wearing pajamas and house shoes. Don’t ask.

So I did what any good Arkansan would do. Let him pee in the parking lot.

the wallet

Matt’s back with the gas. I’m headed to my class and I might make it on time.

My phone rings. It’s Matt. This can’t be good. Surely he didn’t run out of gas on the way to the station….

“Hello?”

“Do you see my wallet in the seat?”

Crap. So now I have to find him at some random gas station in Madison and drop off his wallet so that he can get gas before I go to my class. Then I sat through a red light twice trying to turn left…finally just ran the light and made it to the class about 15 minutes late. I had to walk to the front of the class to get a seat. It’s just as humiliating now as it was in college.

I am now re-certified in CPR. I am not sure it was worth it.

park

Two weeks ago the temps were in the upper 30s/lower 40s (heat wave, right?) so we bundled up and headed to the park. I must admit, this is the first time I’ve been to play at a park with snow on the ground!Zane L.O.V.E.S. to talk to his baby sister. He’ll look at me and say, “What my baby seester say?” and then I have to make up something and say it in a little baby voice. Here he’s saying, “Aww, you so cuuuute. I wike you hat.” I didn’t realize that the wind was blowing so hard, so we actually didn’t stay long. It was nice to get out of the house for a little while, though.Baby Hollin was snug as a bug in her stroller. But the wind was hurting my face!On the (sloooow) walk home, I pointed to a fire hydrant and asked Z if he knew what it was. “A fire sing.” (fire thing). So then we talked about fire trucks and fire hydrants all the way home.Almost all of the snow has melted, but it just started snowing again. I think we’re supposed to get a couple of inches today and more later this week. I hear Arkansas is getting some winter weather today, too. Which, for some reason, makes me miss our old house even more today. Zane had some fun snow days there last year. You can read those posts by clicking here and here.

thursdays.

Thursday is library day. In an attempt to fight off cabin fever, we started going to the local branch of the library a few weeks ago. They have a toddler storytime. I was super nervous about Zane, in a library, being still….and quiet??? and listening to a story. Thankfully, it is in a separate room and there is just enough structure and un-structure to keep his attention.A sweet lady (with way more patience than me) reads stories, sings songs, and plays with puppets. Very entertaining.

Zane is probably the oldest kid there and really enjoys it. He sings (yells) the songs as loud as he can. Dances around the room. Tells everyone that he brought his little sister. She usually takes a nap amongst the chaos and I just like having an excuse to dress her up.I love observing Zane in different settings. And can’t help but laugh when he runs up and says, “What we gone do next, Teach-uh?!” He has a really hard time leaving afterwards. No matter how well I think my pep talks go before we go to the library (‘We’re going to be a big boy when it’s time to leave, right? No crying today, ok!?’)…..I’ve ended up dragging him out screaming every week.

I’m still figuring out how to do things with two kids. Inevitably, he needs to tee-tee as soon as the class gets started. The easiest thing would be to put her in the stroller and take her in….but sometimes it’s an emergency situation and I have to act fast. So, last time I just carried her in with us. And this would be the time that he forgets to aim, my hands are full and I can’t help, and so I end up cleaning a bathroom. I had no idea one little boy could get pee in so many different places! I’m thinking a newly potty-trained girl has got to be easier, right? We shall see in a few short years.One final picture, just because you can see that her eyes are still blue. Gotta love that extra chin, too! 

 

ladybug

The sweetest baby ever. I love her even when she has her hands full of my hair and yanks with superhuman strength. Seriously, if that’s the worst thing you can say about a baby, you’re a pretty lucky mama. 

OOTD

 Outfit Of The Day.

Some mornings Zane gets up before Hollin and I. What can I say? We like our beauty sleep. He likes to get himself dressed. And he has an, umm…eclectic style.

Let the fashion show begin:

It’s hard to tell, but the blue seer-sucker shorts and spurs really make this outfit. This was signing day, hence the razorback shirt.”Cowboys like sharks, mama. They they friends.” We like how he uses ‘they’ as a possessive pronoun.Straight cowboy this day. Nothing fancy about the outfit, but check out the pose. Helloooooo Zoolander!

Never a dull moment with this kid. Hard work, but I got a few smiles.And then he was obviously done with the camera.