So Drawing Is Not One Of Mommy's Strengths...

I drew a monster truck for Aikman one day and this was our conversation:

Monks: That’s a monster truck?

Me: Yes sir!

Monks: I not think so. That’s a tractor momma.

Well, excuse me.

Next day we are playing with play-doh. He asks me for a monster truck. I make one. I made the body and bed of it and then smashed two round pieces to be the giant wheels. I am all done and excited to show him and this is what I get.

Me: Look monkey!

Monks: Oh that’s Mickey mouse momma!

Really?

Weekend Update

This weekend was a busy one for us! Friday night, we went and did some shopping to get some décor for Pippa’s room. Yes, it has been 8 months already and most of her walls were still bare. I could not decide what I wanted to do in there until recently. Thank you Pinterest! I love you. We also picked up Phil and he came with us and Tia and Adrian met us at Hobby Lobby. We then went to dinner together and then went home to finish our projects. Devin and Aikman surprised me Friday when I got home with a small bench he made for her room to put a big bear and some dolls and other animals on. I was in love! He then painted it to match her other furniture. It is the perfect touch to the corner and even better he made it with his own hands from nothing. Yes, my husband is amazing like that.

Saturday we got dressed and went and finished our shopping. I had some frames to get and wanted to go to Kid’s Village and Target. We also had to shop for Tio’s birthday! I was really excited too about getting Monks a new bed. His crib was converted into a little toddler bed but I would like to get him a new one that doesn’t look so baby. We are thinking bunk beds. I figured they would be perfect for when Adrian comes over to spend the night or when Aikman and Pippa want to have a little sleepover together! We didn’t have too much luck. We found some that were cute but they only came in that light oaky color and his other furniture is black. I never knew it would be so hard to find simple bunk beds. We got home around 3 and put the kids down for a nap. Devin bought Aikman this little cheap water gun from Target and that is his new favorite thing. He loves to play with it and knows he can only use it outside so that is where he wants to be. He was so sweet with it.

Sunday I took the kids to the park and we played for about an hour or so. Aikman had to take his water gun once again and play. Pippa even played in the sand. She loves it! It makes me laugh because when Aikman was her age, he hated being outside. He would cry when you set him in the grass. He hated being dirty or having any type of branch, leaves or flowers touch him. Luckily, he outgrew it. It just made me laugh seeing her, with her giant hair bow and painted toes just kicking the sand and lifting it up. She can’t get enough of playing in it! We then went home and ate lunch and then took naps and in the afternoon we headed to Sam’s. It was mid 80’s and felt so hot so we decided to play outside and Devin set up the sprinkler for Aikman to run through. He had so much fun with that. It was so cute to see him and Apollo run through it. Devin even got in on the action. We then ate dinner and got ready for the week to start all over!



Monks and I eating lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings





About to help daddy with bench....



Ta-da! Of course these were Aikman's lions to test it out

 



Hiding from paparazzi. Lol. This girl loves the camera and got mad when we took her shades away.

 

At park

 



I got an action shot! Devin through the sprinkler....

 

Monks turn!

Little Nerd

When Aikman is done eating, he has to ask us if he can get down from the table. The other night he was finished and he said “I please get down momma?” I said that he could and I was stacking our plates and he was about to go in the living room. He turned to me as he jumped down and said “let’s go bay-bee.” I laughed so hard. He called me baby in a deep voice while dragging out both syllables. So silly.

I was asked the other day out of the blue what do donkeys eat momma?

Devin and I used to always joke around and call each other Lady Gaga. Yes, we might be a little retarded but it was always really funny. The other night I told Aikman something and I called him Lady Gaga. I then told him to call Devin it and as Devin stood in the bathroom shaving, Aikman ran to the door and yelled “You Lady Gaga Daddy!” It was hilarious. Last night I asked Aikman something and he answered me by saying no Lady Gaga. He called me it! Devin and I laughed so hard because we had not said it that day. He laughed himself and ran to his room. I told him I was going to get him for that. As we put away his clothes last night before bed, I whispered to him to tell Devin when he left “bye Lady Gaga, be careful!” Aikman then says, loud enough so that Devin could hear from the kitchen, no momma, I not call Daddy Lady Gaga! It was as if he did it on purpose like hey, she told me to say this but I am not going to. I called him a punk and said I would get him later when Daddy was gone. Lol. Goofy boy.

Aikman Interview

So I did this little interview with Monks March 17. Some of his answers were so sweet. I will do another one when he turns 3 and then every 6 months for the next few years. His answers are written just as he gave them.

What is your name? Ache-uh-men. I Ache-uh-men momma.

How old are you? Two.

What color is your hair? White. Um, not white momma, brown.

What color are your eyes? Brown.

What is your favorite food? Subway.

What is your favorite song? Money, Money.

What is your favorite treat? A dog.

What is your favorite color? Pink.

What is your favorite animal? Scar.

What is your favorite book? A car one.

What is your favorite store? Book stores!

What do you like to do with Daddy? Uh, I don’t know. I don’t know Momma.

What do you like to do with Mommy? I don’t know Momma.

What is your favorite movie? Lion King.

What is your favorite TV show? Race car shows.

Who are your friends? Pippa is my friend.

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play with ‘Pallo. I wanna play with ‘Pallo outside!

What is your favorite thing to play inside? My ball.

I wanna play with Aid-nin too momma.

Aid-nin is Adrian. When I was all done and folding the paper he just said he wanted to play with him. Precious cousin. J

My Little Lumberjack

Monkey loves to help with anything we are doing. Especially if it means helping daddy. Devin sent me these pics of him helping ny moving some wood that Devin had cut. He moved the entire pile by himself! How sweet is that? I love these pictures so much. He was so proud of himself for doing it all. I have the sweetest baby boy.



Preciousness!

 

Activities With Monks

I have been looking online lately for activities to do with Aikman. I feel like he gets bored sometimes and I hate just letting him play with his cars and Legos forever. I have found several easy, cheap and entertaining things to make/do with him. One we tried recently is the strainer and pipe cleaners. You give your child a strainer and let them push and pull pipe cleaners through the holes. Who would have thought it could be that fun? He LOVED it! We bought the stuff at the dollar store so for two dollars we got him something that keeps him busy and keeps him learning. We talk about the colors, count them, separate by size, the possibilities are endless. The first night we sat down with him to use it, he really played with them for over an hour. We call them snakes or worms and he keeps it all in the strainer on his shelf and then will tell you I wanna play with my snakes momma and goes and gets them. He loves to push each one in while the strainer is upside down and then they disappear and at the end he lifts it up and reveals all the snakes!

We still have several things to try. I have shaving cream paint for the bath, painting with pudding or cool whip, using magnets to move pipe cleaner pieces in a bottle, glow in the dark goo, homemade slime, painting with chalk outside, several arts and crafts, button art, a busy tray and a balloon pop surprise game. Everything to do these activities can be done with stuff around the house and even if we do need something, they are not expensive to buy at all. I am so excited to do these things with him in the next few weeks. He can learn and have fun, all while spending quality time with our precious boy.

Our Lowe's Adventure

We went running around the other day and went to several stores. Devin is on this big kick that he wants to build Apollo a dog house, which is great to me. He wants it to be his and Aikman’s project. We went pricing some supplies. At Lowe’s we also looked at several sheds. Aikman went in one that was red and had white trim. He stood in the middle and said look momma, I like a cow! Lol. I laughed so hard. He thought he was in a barn which is a cow’s house in his eyes. How cute is that? Aikman was so funny in the store. He asks what everything is we pass and so I would tell him PVC pipe or insulation or whatever he would ask me about and he would go oh, I want that or I like that momma, that’s cool! Like he even knew what I was talking about. Half the time I didn’t even know, I was just reading signs! He is also in love with riding lawnmowers. He always tells us how much he wants one.

I then told Devin I wanted to look at the flowers. He just shook his head. As soon as we walked outside, Aikman took a deep breath in. He said I smell it momma! I said me too, doesn’t it smell so good? He said yes. We then started to look at stuff and he said look momma, those like Gigi’s flowers! I am honestly not sure if he was referring to flowers we take to her or because she always had flowers around her house. Either way it was super sweet. That leads me to why Devin shook his head. My mom loved flowers and planting them…it’s just sometimes she would leave them too long and they would die before they got planted. Then she just had to buy more! J I am horrible with flowers. And plants. And grass. And anything you are supposed to grow. I couldn’t even make my Topsy Turvy work. How sad is that? Devin said why do you even look at these. Just like your mom, you will kill them. Lol. He reminded me of all the flowers my mom would have my dad buy when he was down and then some would get planted and some would get thrown away. It made me laugh. I said well I want to just try again. So that is my goal. Plant some flowers and make them live. No matter what. I have two planters on both sides of the driveway. I should have flowers in them! I can hang something somewhere. I have a small flower bed by my sidewalk. I figure it would be fun to do with the kids too. We can plant and water them and watch them grow. I did not buy any this weekend. The line was too long. Yes, already starting with the excuses. Lol. Have faith in me! I will do it. If not just for myself, at least to prove Devin wrong. J

Precious Pips

My precious Pips has been trying a few more solids lately. She makes me nervous having only four teeth, but she has done extremely well! I gave her some strawberries and chicken breast last night. She did better with chopped up strawberries versus holding a whole one. It was too slippery for her and it would fall in her lap. She would look down like hey! She also had some lasagna the other night. Well, kind of. I would give her just the noodle that I scraped some of the cheese and meat and sauce off of. She loved that so much! She would squeal at me if I didn’t have the next bite ready for her after she swallowed. Devin was standing in front of her highchair yesterday eating some pretzels and I told him to look at her. She was holding her hand up to him with it open just smiling at him like where’s mine? He told her she couldn’t have any and she just stared at him. When he walked off she began to cry so hard. She had real tears and was just hysterical. I then gave her one of her wagon wheel snacks and she immediately smiled and started to laugh and eat it. She makes me laugh so much. She can be so demanding at times and won’t stop until she gets her way. Sounds like someone I know….

Potty Like A Rock Star!

Let me just start by saying I am so proud of my monkey! He woke up Sunday morning and we changed his diaper. After that, we put on his underwear. We then hung out and played and when Pippa went down for her morning nap, we painted. I kept asking if he needed to go potty (instead of just making him go) and he would tell me no. I then noticed a little wet spot about the size of a quarter on his underwear. I explained to him we don’t pee in our big boy underwear and that if we need to go, we go in the potty. He told me he understood and we changed underwear. From that point on, we had a great day! He went pee 10 times in the potty yesterday! Ten times!! We got a star sticker each time and three gummy savers. We also put stickers on a chart we have hanging in the bathroom. We have a column for when he lets us know he needs to go, when he goes in the potty and when he washes his hands. I thought to myself when he gets maybe 10 stars we could buy him a present. Hey, if bribing helps, so doing it! He needs to associate going potty like a big boy as a huge deal (which of course it is)! Well after yesterday, he already had 10 so I thought maybe we could go to 20. Lol. I saw one of those bubble lawn mowers at Wal-Mart Saturday and it was only $19. I thought that would be the perfect gift for him right now! Anyway, when I asked him to go the first few times, he said no he didn’t have to but I made him and he would actually go. I was so proud of him. We figure since this is so much to take on right now, for him to make sure he learns to pee standing since that is how he will do it anyway. Why work and work to get him to sit and pee when he won’t do that normally? He is so cute too when he goes! I was one proud momma and my heart was swelling with love and excitement for him as he would stand, bend his knees a little, aim and pee! He then does his little shake and then would put his hands up and want a five and say I did it! I pee momma! We would high five and then wash our hands. He would then put back on his little underwear and wait for his candy and sticker. His aim got 100 times better as the day progressed. The first few times, I was just cleaning the floor and front of seat, but the last few all I had to do was empty the pot from the middle and wash it out. He also went three times on his own, just getting up and running to the bathroom. I always followed him and he would just be peeing with a huge smile on his face. He couldn’t wait to tell Daddy when he woke up! I did put two Pull-Ups on him that we got as a sample and they honestly seemed a little hard to get on and off for him so I was a little disappointed but he did love them because they were Cars brand and they have a tire on the front and if it gets wet, the tire disappears. The thought of Mater or Lightning McQueen losing their tire was not going to happen on Aikman’s watch! I am just debating now whether I should buy him a lot more underwear or a box of Pull-Ups. I did get corrected when I referred to the Pull-Up as a diaper. He would tell me this not a diaper momma! He is so right! I think if it makes him feel older to wear the undies, we will just buy him more packs. Oh my goodness, I will be washing mini underwear on a regular basis soon! How sweet is that?

I did have to laugh once when I picked up Pippa from her bouncy chair, I saw she had a small star sticker in the middle of her nose. Lol! I asked him about it and he said I give it to Pippa momma! Sweet boy.

I took the potty over to Tio and Tia's today so I am hopign he will be into it today like he was yesterday. Regardless, it was a huge step for him and we are so excited!

Park Adventure

We went to the park yesterday after I got off and Tio and Tia met us there with Adrian. We had fun and then had dinner at Red Robin.



Climbed all by himself!

 

She was so sweet siting by herself.



Peeking out of a tunnel

 

Tio made this with Pips and Adrian

 

I wanted a pic of all three cousins. Here we are trying to set them all up....

 

And here is our fail! Lol. Monks was feeling it at least.

Celebrity Sighting!

As kids, we watched wrestling growing up. I had a huge crush on Shawn Michaels. I used to want to marry him and Axle Rose. I recently found out Shawn Michaels now lives right outside of town and Tio was lucky enough to meet him at Genghis Grill. He of course has long since retired from wrestling and has a wife and two children. He got this pic.

I was so jealous. Just seeing the pic brought back memories. The other day in Target, I saw this guy from behind and in my head I thought holy sh**, omg, that is really him. Yes, just from the back I recognized him. He was that real! I immediately told Devin, who never watched wrestling but has heard us talk about him, that there he was. We walked down a few aisles and I saw him AND heard him talk. Same raspy yet amazing voice I remember. I really could not stop smiling, I am sure I was blushing and looked all goofy, and contemplated saying something. He was shopping with his family though so I hated to bug him. I think that was the excuse I gave myself because I just didn't have the courage to speak to him. I had a million things running through my mind. Devin then turns down the aisle he is on and we go past him. He looked at my kids. Both my kids. SHAWN MICHAELS LOOKED AT MY KIDS! Shawn Michaels, the Heart Break Kid, the giver of sweet chin music, my childhood crush looked at my kids. We clearly bonded. Lol. Devin asked me if I was going to say anything but I couldn't. I was too star struck. We continued our shopping and I could not stop smiling and Devin kept laughing at me and telling me how cute I looked. We were in the kids section and it was a wide aisle and Devin was on one side and I had the basket on the other side and in this entire store, guess who is walking up the aisle. Yep! I tried not to look like an idiot and when he passed me, he looked at me. He looked at me. In the eyes. Sigh. We made eye contact. I am pretty sure he knows I knew who he was by my face. Ahh, my day was made. If I ever see him again around, I hope i have the courage to at least acknowledge him and tell him I am a huge fan. Only bad part is now I have to constantly look my best when I go out. Lol.



This was the only pic I could get. Lol.



My Big Boy

As you know, we have been working on potty training lately. I know I have mentioned it is hit or miss. He does great one day and then the next won’t go in it at all. I was getting frustrated and I don’t feel Monks was frustrated like I was, but he was just obviously not caring about the potty too much. We have tried a few things and some work pretty well so we will continue with them, but we wanted to try just getting him some big boy underwear. At Target the other day, Devin picked some out for him and we tried them that evening. Aikman loves them and feels like such a big boy to be able to wear them. He never peed in them when he had them on, but that was only for a little while before bed so fingers crossed!

How precious are these pics? I really cried seeing him in them. Gosh, he is perfect!

Sweet Man!

I have not posted pics of my precious nephew in forever! He is growing so fast and I had the honor of babysitting him the other day while Tio napped after church and Tia finished recovering from having two wisdom teeth taken out. poor thing. We had fun and I can't wait to spend more time with him as he gets older. I am still torn on what he will call me. I think Devin decided to be called Uncle D so what should I be called? Enjoy his sweet face!



He is the spitting image of Mike, but I am starting to see some Jenny in him too sometimes.

 

Matching shirts! So sweet

 

Oh em gee. They are holding hands. Nothing could be cuter. I was told they were watching Pips play too so even better.



Time With Tia

Since the end of February, the kids have been going to Tio and Tia’s three days a week. Since Tia is staying home with Adrian, she agreed to babysit for us! We sat down, set a price and some expectations and it was a deal! They sure do have fun and I could not ask for more. Monks has asked though if he will be playing with Corbin, Larissa’s son, a few days so Larissa and I need to make sure to get together sometimes for play dates so they can stay in touch. Tio does shift work so some days he is there with them too. They have gone on walks, gone to parks, gone to lunch and the library! We had never taken Aikman yet and Tio took him one day and he loved it. He was very excited to check out books. I have also been given several masterpieces my monkey has colored and I hang them by my desk at work. My favorite is the shark Aikman drew me. It is a manila piece of paper with 11 purple crayon marks across the bottom. It’s the most precious thing I have ever seen. Tia said she asked him what he wanted to draw me and that he thought a second and then said a shark! He knows me too well.



Look at that sweet ride! Tio and Tia bought it recently so they can go on walks now with the kids.

 



Pips fell asleep jumping! Poor baby. Lol.

 



At the library!



Random Sweetness

Here are some random pics of the kids I need to post!



Playing one day on the floor side by side. Heads at opposite ends.

 



How precious are these? Aikman looks so much like Pete to me. They sure love their uncle!



Fell asleep after dinner the other night while I was cleaning up. I love the hand on her stomach.

 



At Sam's

At Target. That pic looks weird of her like she is falling, but Target has those weird baskets where the seat part is angled. Never understood it. She loves sitting in the basket now.



Day 3 Part 2

We headed home (mid afternoon) and the kids took their naps and then we played in the backyard. We decided for dinner to go to Fuddruckers, as Devin had never eaten there. I have only been there a few times but it’s awesome so we went. We picked up Gramita and headed to dinner. It wasn’t crowded and it was so nice to just eat and talk. Monks liked his burger a lot but I think he liked the milkshake Big Tio gave him more. He was so cute eating it. He also grabbed this pepper off Devin’s plate and I told him it was hot but he insisted. He ate about half of it with his meal. I swear that kid loves hot stuff. Pips also sat in a highchair for the first time in a restaurant. She was so cute just eating her puffs.

It was a great three days and we were sad knowing that in the morning we had to leave but we will definitely be back! Thank you all for such a great time! I used to love going in the summer to visit and so it is so special to see them interacting with MY kids now. Tia Net has always had this extreme niceness and generosity about her that no one I have ever met has. (Unless you talk during a movie! Lol. Just a little inside family joke!)



Look at that face! I love it!

 



Gramita and me!

 



That crazy pepper!

 

Yes, Devin got this AFTER his burger lol