My Blog, My Kids, My Life

Life has been pretty crazy lately and I feel like I barely have had a second to breath. Let me see... all four of us got sick with the stomach bug about three weeks ago and it has been crazy ever since. The kids have had diarrhea ever since and that has caused them to have diaper rashes. They are finally getting better, but that didn't stop my little Lolo monster from being awake from 3-5am this morning, hopefully tonight will be better. Matt's mom had hip surgery a little over a week ago, so I have been trying to help out when and where I can, which has been kinda tough with two sick kids. A week from today the kids and I fly to Michigan. My mom is having surgery on March 7th to remove some mega bad hemorrhoids and also to remove part of her colon wall that has collapsed. She is in for a few painful weeks and I wanted to be there to help since my sister in-law, who is 31 weeks pregnant has been threatening to go into labour since 24 weeks gestation and my sister's mother in-law has just been diagnosed with a fast progressing malignant tumor on her pulmonary artery. It is inoperable and they were giving her a month to live, but she is responding well to the chemo. I friend of mine put it perfectly. It is like being on a train and wanting to get off, but you can't because the train wont stop. That is the story of my life lately.

Through the busyness of life there are good things happening that some times we tend to forget or look over as life passes us by. My daughter is beginning to speak a little better and she has stinkied on the potty four times today!!!!! She is doing great. I promised her a visit Chuck E Cheese if she went 2 whole weeks. She is really into it. I am so very proud of her. The kids are beginning to really entertain each other. They love to wrestle and play. Logan loves to body slam himself onto Grace and she loves when he does it. Logan has now turned 1 and Grace has turned 3. Logan is a healthy boy weighing in at 25 1/2  lbs and his sister is barely beating him at 28 lbs. I am so very blessed to have to happy healthy kids. We have already got our federal and state tax returns back, so that is a good thing also. Maybe it isn't that we need off the train, maybe we just need to sit back and enjoy the view for a bit.

Yes, those are the excited words coming from my daughter this morning. She did it all on her own and she knew what she did! She was so proud of herself. I am so proud of her. Her talking isn't all that great, but boy is she smart! She can recognize all of the letters of the alphabet no matter what order they are in! She mad my dad, I just had to take a picture.

Let me set this one up for you. I had to take Logan to the urologist on Monday. We were getting a consult to have him re-circumcised. My mother in-law was meeting me there to help with Grace so I could concentrate on Logan and be able to really talk to the Dr and ask question. Debbie was running late, like always. I get into the office, which by the way smelt like a retirement home, there are mainly 70 year old men there, some have there wives and some are alone. I check in and ofcourse have to fill out paper work. They have a little toy box, which is sitting right in front of the door, not a good place for it to be. My kids spot the toys right away and go to check them out. I sit in a chair right in front of them so I can keep a good eye on them. Right at this time a man and his wife are leaving. He comments on my children and how cute they are, why wouldn't he, they are mighty cute. Anyways, he said I want to take this one with me. He precedes to lift my son by the shoulders as I say, "be careful, he weighs 25lbs." He lifts him off the ground and says, "boy you are heavy, I am going to take you with me." OK, let me ask, in what culture is it OK to joke about this? I wasn't worried about him taking Logan, because lets face it, I am a 28 year old mother and he was about 70 and walked as slow as a turtle stuck in molasses. He put down Logan as his wife said they had to get going. So, they left and I was relived. I am still trying to fill out 3 pages of paperwork and I am still waiting on my mother in-law. While all this was happening another guy sat down next to me, he must have been about 70 also. Anyways, Logan was standing next to me. The guy reached over and picked him up. What the world? Is it just me this bothers? First of all germs come to mind. I don't want my kids getting sick. Second of all, in this day and age you don't pick up other people children, you might get tasered or pepper spray. Speaking of which, I need to invest in one of those. Not only the creepy factor, but my son is heavy and I don't want one of these older gentlemen to get hurt. Finally my mother in-law got there and was able to keep an eye on this for me.

For anyone interested. Logan will be re-circumcised Wednesday, February 6th. Be thinking of us. He will have to be put under for the procedure.

Grace and I were sick yesterday. So she was pretty mellow. We have some sort of tummy thing that we got from Matt's mom. Grace is feeling so much better today and Logan(who had lost his appetite and was spitting up), is feeling better to. I am still feeling queasy and crampy. Since the kids were sick yesterday, but better today they are out of control.

Grace had made herself a peanut butter sandwich, which was fine, but she took it back to her room, which was not fine. She decided to leave it back there and come out here. The next thing I know I see Logan crawling up me, I look down at him and he has peanut butter all over his face, body and hands. He looks up at me and squeals with excitement. I start to clean him up and he is still clutching a squished piece of bread as I try to pry it our of his chubby little fingers while he cries. I look down the hall and I see his masterwork. It was the great peanut butter sandwich massacre. There was peanut butter on the end table, the wall, Grace's door, her tea table, the table with her train on it, her toy chest and the floor of her room. In addition to that there was mushed up pieces of peanut butter bread all down the hall and all over Grace's room.

So I cleaned that all up and decided to "try" to rest. I saw Grace sitting outside of the bathroom door. I asked her where Logan was. She said that he was in the bathroom, she has shut him in there. So I get up to rescue my son. When I get into the bathroom, he is playing in the water in Grace's potty chair, as happy as he could be. It is all over him. So I had to sanitize him and change him completely. In amongst all that, Grace decides that it is time to pee pee on the potty.

That was all before 10:30am. Hopefully the rest of the day will be more peaceful.

I have been inspired to blog about our healthy meals. So here is goes.

This is very delicious. We love it. Grace and Logan ate it up, mushrooms, bokchoy and all. Logan actually ate 4 wontons! I made the crispy strips especially for Grace, they are her favourite part of wonton soup.

Friday the 18th was Logan's birthday. I decided that we were going to do a Thomas the Tank engine theme and that turned out pretty good. I made the cake myself, so it would be dairy free for my little soy boy. Thursday I spent all day baking the cake, making muffins, decorating the cake and muffins, I made hummus and roasted garlic. Oh yeah, amongst all that Grace bunt three of her fingers. I felt so bad. She screamed for almost 2 straight hours. I was at my wits end. I started crying because I didn't know what to do and Logan was crying because he was hungry. Grace wouldn't let me do anything to her burn. No water, no medicine, nothing. Finally I starting putting my spit on them and blowing on them and that made her stop, but was making me dizzy. So finally I gave her a paci. She stopped taking one at 7 months, but had one in while she was in the hospital for the whole cashew thing, so I thought I would try it. She took it and was happy! She didn't even have it and hour and mainly played with it when she did have it, but it was worth it! It gopt her mind off of the pain and onto Little Einsteins! She is doing much better now. She likes to keep bandaids on them, I think she like the attention it brings.

Friday I started cooking as soon as a woke up. I made chicken with polenta and marinara. It is polenta(Italian grits) with cheese. You put chopped up chicken on that and then top it off with homemade sauce! It is real yummy. I got the recipe from an online friend of mine and I have made it several times. Thanks MJ, we love it! It is Logan's favorite. It was a hit at his birthday. I think the only person that didn't like it was my grandmother, but she doesn't like anything remotely different. I think all the adults got seconds! I also made homemade bread with roasted garlic. Yum! Matt's Grandmother sent Logan balloons and the kids had so much fun playing with those. Logan got a lot of clothes. That is what I asked for with Christmas was just a few weeks ago, God knows he does not need any toys. He has gotten so big. He is wearing 18 and 24 month clothes now. I plopped him on the scale the other day and he showed him weighing 25 lbs. I can't wait until his appointment on Friday.

The party went well, but I was totally exhausted. I had done everything myself, because Matt had to work. When he got home he really helped though. He cleaned up basically by himself. My kitchen was a disaster, but he had it up to my standards before we went to bed. What a great man I have!

OK, now for pictures!

Gracie saw the lady come and deliver the balloons. I told her they were for Logan and when he woke up we would give them to him. As soon as he woke up she took them into his room and put them in his bed.

My little boy was born. Here we are 12 months later, with a little less sanity. I look back on the days when I only had one and was stressed out and overwhelmed. Boy, when Matt's mom takes Grace and I am left with just Logan, I don't know what to do with myself. Things seem so much simpler. I wouldn't change it for the world though! I love the craziness that is my life. I wouldn't know what to do with out it.

Logan is walking now. He still crawls some, but is really trying to prefect the art of walking. He can stand up in the middle of the room by himself now. That is something that he did over and over again the other day, trying to get it just right. He is so much different then Grace, they are like night and day. He loves to eat, but is still getting the hang of sleeping through the night. We had a better night last night. He actually slept through the night from 8:30pm to 5:30am them slept until about 6:30am and played in his bed for almost an hour! Way to go Logan! I can deal with that! I think that cutting out the lactose free milk has really helped. We have a different little boy on our hands then we have had since he was getting it. For now, he will just have to be our soy boy.

The family is coming over for Logan's birthday tonight. I have made a cake and am getting ready to start dinner. We are having Polenta with chicken and marinara. That is Logan's favourite dish. I am also making homemade roasted garlic bread(I roasted the garlic last night) and hummus.

I will post pictures later.

Yesterday was a crazy day. The Grace was off the wall, both literally and figuratively.

I started off by having to go outside for something in the 27 degree cold and Grace runs outside and down the road wearing only her PJs and crocks. So there I go running after her. I finally catch her and she says that she wants to do "Happy Feet" in the dirt, which really is red mud that at the time was hard and icy. I explain to her that it is too col and that we need to go inside where it is warm.

So we get inside and Logan was napping so I decided to e-mail a friend of mine. While I was doing that Grace got in the the fridge and carried me a full carton of 18 count eggs. I was just happy that she didn't drop them that would have been a mess. I get the eggs and tell her to go play. I look around and she had grabbed the container of powered Nesquick and a spoon and was spooning it on the ground saying, "I want to do Happy Feet in the Dirt." At least she is creative.

Matthew then asked me if I wanted to meet him for lunch and despite how Grace had been I decided to go. We went to this Mexican restaurant and Grace was bouncing around everywhere. Anyway, on the way home both the kids fell asleep in the car. Logan continued sleeping after we got home, but Grace woke up and was bouncing around in her bed. Boy that kid has energy.

Up until this point Logan had been pretty good. He woke up from his nap and it was over. He cried for the rest of the day. He had a rough night too. Boy these kids are giving me a run for my money. At least they are cute. It is days like this that I look for my sanity.

I wanted to dedicate this song to Kristen, Joey and Juliana.