What are the chances???!!

I just happened to be taking a picture at the exact right moment!!
What a stream Joren. :)

That will make you happy, right mommy, right??

Eirik took me on a walk yesterday evening. He drug me up and down the sidewalk running and jumping and chasing, and the things he was saying were just cracking me up.
"Mommy, you stay right here, I potect you. Look Right, Look left, no cars, we safe. Ok mom come ere. Wait! There's a dragon, a big, giant scary jagon (dragon). Don't worry mom, I potect you! Heyah, heyah, (sword and bow and arrow motions), there, it's safe mom, come on. Wait! There's a wolf, lots and lots of wolfs. pque, pque (shooting sounds). Oh no, the baby wolf is hurt. I be a doctor and help the baby wolf. Fix fix, there baby wolf, now you all better. Come on, I take you home. Here mommy, you hold the baby. Uh oh, uver scary jagon. " I said, "Eirik, I'll get this one so you can hold the baby wolf. " "NO MOMMY, that's my job. I potect you. You hold the baby wolf." Ok, Ok, little buddy. On the way home we picked up a baby dragon too and as we ate dinner on the front porch Eirik smeared a bunch of his food into the concrete for the baby dragon to eat. I've never had a baby dragon before, and even though it was "vreaaly vreally nice and cute", I made the dragon sleep outside anyway.

I asked Eirik if he had any good dreams and he said, "Yes I dreamed about armadillos in Africa!"
I taught Eirik the 4 rules of playing with friends. No hitting, to grabbing, no pushing and no playing swords. If I ask him the 4 rules he can spew them off in a hurry. One time he was in a real grumpy mood and he said to me "No hitting, to grabbing, no pushing and no playing swords bla bla bla mom. I break the rules. I'm a bad knight! I make a bad choice!"

Eirik knows all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make so we have started sounding out words. He's doing pretty well. I think he's starting to recognize words and get excited when things are clicking for him. He'll read pretty soon I think. When you ask him his name he loves to spell E-I-R-I-K Eirik. But he also says E-I-R-I-K Mommy so I don't think he really gets it yet. :)

We have a big set of animal flashcards and Eirik loves them. I think he knows the name of every animal in the deck now. It's so funny to hear a tiny 2 year old voice saying, "Ring Tailed Lemur, Philipine eagle, malayan tapir" He loves it though. I'm learning so much about animals by studying with him.
I showed him a book of Alaska and we went through all of his animal cards and showed him all the animals that live in Alaska. Later that day I had Paul ask him what animals live in Alaska and he listed off: Penguin, blue whale, humpback whale, polar bear, and puffin. Way to go Eirik!

Eirik HATES to get dressed. He fights me every time I put his diaper on. He says, "I can't, I'm too dizzy" while he furiously kicking and screaming. It's so frustrating. Today I took him to the store with no shirt or shoes. He was throwing such a tantrum that I either had to take him without clothes, leave him home (not really an option) or continue to fight with him and let him throw up because he was screaming so hard. (He dry heaved 4 times before I finally said, "fine go get in the car." So, it was no clothes. When we finally got to the store entrance and he was shivering I convinced him to put his coat on (to my relief). What a stubborn kid.

He also won't stay in his chair when we eat dinner. The other day I said, "Eirik, please come back to the table. Where are you going?" He said, "I'm going to a wonderful land mommy. That will make you happy, right mommy, right???"

This is halarious

Saturday Night Live Just Kidding Skit!

Fish anyone?

We had a little fishing party at our house this week.. Thanks Erin for the pictures. The boys loved casting their little poles and catching their little plastic fish over and over again. I love having this pond in our backyard.

Eirik's 2nd Birthday

Yeah yeah, so it was over 2 months ago. I really didn't post much about it though and it was so fun that I wanted to make sure to write about it.

I asked Eirik in Feb what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. He said Dinosaur Cake with no hestiation and everytime we talked about it after that it was always a Dinosaur cake. If there is one thing Eirik is, it is decisive! So we had a dinosaur party.

We bought plastic eggs and filled them with baby dinosaurs and candy and hid them around the house.
Then we had a dinosaur skeliton that comes apart and we hid the bones in rice so the kids had to dig for the bones. They really liked this. In this photo you can see Eirik with a handful of rice in midair.. yeah, they enjoyed the rice. :)

Then we played pin the birthday hat on the dinosaur and then had cake. Mmmm! Blue Dinosaur cake. Eirik loved his cake and still asks for dinosaur cake to this day.

We had some great guests:
Benjamin, Garret, Brinley, Keaton, Abram and Hyrum
Thanks everyone who came! Happy Birthday Eirik!

Stick collecting ...

Every excursion we go on lately is a stick collecting excursion. This one landed us 4 great ones! Good finds Eirik!

More felt fun

Felt is so fun to work with because it is SO forgiving! I found these adorable hair clips on a great Etsy site So I copied them. I know it's just awful that I didn't just order them. (Sorry louandlee!) Maybe my post will send you some business!

Line upon Line!

Two awesome friends of mine just launched this amazing card business. I have to put a huge plug for this because I am totally impressed! And not only impressed, I peed my pants I laughed so hard. Things like this make me so thankful that I run in circles with such incredibly talented women that always keep me on my toes and fill my up. Thanks ladies. You ROCK!

You can also find these guys on my widget on the right of my blog!

Happy Birthday Paul!

We were lucky enough to have our friends Kit and Basilio come bring sweety Rhoda out for Paul's birthday this weekend. We had a great time having a yummy BBQ in the backyard, whole smoked chicken, cornbread and baked beans with Paul's favorite Key Lime Pie for desert.
Then Paul and Basil took off for the Tiger's vs Yankees game downtown. They had a great time and so did Kit and I. We locked ourselves in the studio and got creative. Kit made a darling little hawiian skirt and onesie for Rhoda and I watched her be amazing and sat in a big pile of about 200 ideas and didn't really start anything, but ideas always gel better with Kit around, so there are lots of things in the works now.

We spent Saturday morning at a Mom2Mom sale (one of my FAVORITE things about Detroit) where there were about 100 moms all having "garage" sales in a church. I loaded up as usual on some great finds. I found Eirik a little keychain that makes car and spaceship noises and has his own keys. I also got a dinosaur encyclopedia and a tool belt just for Eirik! Yeah! He's going to love these things. I also got tons of great clothes for next season. Rhoda got a new pair of orangish red leather coygirl boots and the coolest cowboy and indian village ever! Eirik would have been jealous so he didn't get to see the loot.
I also had a lovely mother's day. Paul bought me some gorgeous roses and made me this BAnana Cream Pie from Abby's blog
Yes it was delicious! Go to the link to see a better photo of it. Yes I took this picture of myself. Hey, I wanted to document the pie and no one around here takes pics of me so there you go!
Thank you and Happy Birthday Paul (aka: Dreamboat)! You are on my especially good list this month!

All Aboard!

We had a fun play group at the park yesterday. What cute blondies!

Eirik, Benjamen and Preston

Neckwarmer / Collar / Scarflettes

I just found these very cool Neckwarmer / Collar / Scarflettes
on etsy. They are by Malam's Shop.
I look good in turtle necks, and I'm always looking for something to cover my bony neck. Hmmm. I love this idea.

LADIE'S MAN

We had a play date with Eliza. Joren liked it. :)

Joren tried his first rice cereal on 4/ 14. He grabbed the spoon right away and was more than happy to have the experience although he didn't much care for rice cereal. I wouldn't like it either.
I wish I knew how much of Joren's great behavior is based on how we have parented him and how much is just his adorable, chill personality. I wish I could go back and be less uptight with how I babied Eirik. I wonder if it would have made him more chill. But I sort of doubt it. Little J is just super content. He will sit and suck his binky for hours and as long as he can watch us, he is happy.
He learned to roll over yesterday and practiced doing it over and over again all day long. He is almost sitting and loves to stand and hold on to things. He's very focused and easy to read. He's SO fun!

My Sunbeams are Great

I found the following on Sugar Doodle. For those of you who aren't LDS, Sunbeams are primary children age 3 and 4 and I have the happy pleasure of being a sunbeam teacher so I thought this passage was particularly funny. Sunbeams

by Robert Armstrong, M.D.

I work part-time as a teacher of family doctors. The program provides training on psychiatric disorders and emphasizes the importance of emotional support. The new doctors are given plenty of time in clinic to visit with their patients and learn about their challenges.

One of our interns who has never lived in Utah and knows nothing about Mormons is still struggling to understand the cultural climate here. Last week he was interviewing a new patient and stumbled on what he thought was a raging psychosis.

Doctor: "Well, Mrs. Olsen, we've talked about your high blood pressure and your medications. Are you experiencing any particular stress in your life?"

Patient: "Oh, yes! It's the Sunbeams. They're driving me crazy."

Doctor (very surprised): "The sun beams?"

Patient: "Yes. I've never had trouble with them before, but this group won't sit still. They bounce all over the room, and run out the door and down the hall."

Doctor (reaching for a pen): "Have you told anyone about this?"

Patient: "Of course. I told the president."

Doctor: "Really! What did the president tell you?"

Patient: "She said Sunbeams are like that. I'm just going to have to learn to deal with them."

Doctor (concerned that he may be missing something): "I know people who are sensitive to sun beams. Do they cause you a rash or anything?"

Patient (confused): "A rash? No."

Doctor: "What's the biggest problem they're creating?"

Patient: "It's the noise. They just won't quit talking."

Doctor (astonished): "The sun beams are talking to you?"

Patient: "Well, yes. But mostly they talk to each other."

Doctor (scribbling furiously in the chart): "I see. Can anyone else hear them talking?"

Patient (after a moment of stunned silence): "You're not LDS, are you?"

Yes, Spring is here!

Isn't this just fabulous? It looks like too much work for me, but I could cheat and make it look almost as pretty for 1/2 the work. Here's the link.

This is one of my spring projects.
I picked up this frame (thanks to my friend Charyce who prompted me to snag it) at the Kirksville cleanup. It looked really cool over the winter with white metal snowflake ornaments hanging in the squares and I think it looks pretty sweet with orchids in these little globes from Red Envelope. (They were a gift a few years back from my friend Carrieann). I love decorating for spring. Maybe I'll get a few more photo up soon.

26 Months and screaming

If any of you think all I blog about are my boys, you are about right...
There are certain stages of a kids life that are really fun for moms, and others that are less fun. The defiantly throwing food stage- LESS fun,
the squealing and just learning to roll over stage- WAY fun.
The gender differentiation- "I AM NOW BOY" stage- LESS fun.
That's where we are now. Does anyone else think it's weird that boys like blue and girls like pink. If there is a choice to be made, Eirik will always choose the medium blue option. He won't use anything except his blue fork and blue knife. When we paint, he only uses the blue paints.
I never wanted to have guns in the house. So how do boys figure out weapons when we are SO careful about what he watches, where his influences come from and what we talk about? I have never even said the word GUN in front of Eirik, so what does he do? He makes up his own word for gun. "Bout" And for the few weeks before he learned the word "shoot" he said "I bout you" about every 2 seconds on an average day. He learned about swords early on and that's when the dragon fighting stage began. Then he learned about Bows and Arrows (Robin Hood) and then he learned about hunting and protecting things; like princesses. And, these little lessons have led to a full on battle that ensues the moment he wakes up all the way through his dreams in the night. He is all about protecting us from every scary monster, animal, and dragon and using his pretend weapons for any other opportunity that he can imagine. His horses all line up and go to battle and stomp things like scary animals. (He broke the legs off 2 horses this morning by stomping "really really" hard.) I have been the target of many, many, many slayings. We had to take away his swords because it was getting too out of control, but anything at all can be a weapon, like a 3 hole punch for example. I don't think he has ever seen a slingshot, but he figured out how to make one out of this stick he found outside and a string.
It's really hard to play with my son when every activity I suggest always ends up in some sort of shooting match and Mommy doesn't really want to play guns or hunting or shooting, and actually won't play these games. So poor Eirik has felt a bit neglected this week and I'm hoping he'll find a new obsession soon, like paper cutting for example or maybe dress up. :)

Now don't get me wrong. I adore my boys, but can I just borrow someone's daughter for a while so we can do crafts and make fairy's and draw flowers together? I am ashamed to admit, I couldn't help myself this weekend. I bought baby girl clothes at a MOM 2 MOM sale! What for?? I don't know! Just for the day when maybe I get to dress up a little girl in something besides dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!

This picture shows Eirik with his favorite tools. I get really freaked out when he wants to use tools and usually take them away which always causes a tantrum. He usually says something like, "mom, those are very very sharp, I use them very very carefully. Sharp things are very special to me. Tools are my favorite." So I taught him to walk with them points down, made him some board that he can practice using tools on, and I just try not to be too freaked out.

We've been talking a lot about good choices this month. We made his first sticker chart and he got some special horses since he filled it in with my little pony stickers. (he he he). He has started saying, "Mom, make a good choice, make a horsey choice." all the time. I don't know what this means. This morning he said, "Mom, you make a good choice, Make a lion choice, close your eyes and better hide from the berry scary lion choice!" He also loves to say, "I'm too dizzy" to anything that he does not want to do. Naturally, I hear, "I'm too dizzy" all day long.
He finally learned how to open doors- to my dismay. Now he loves to go outside and down the sidewalk by himself. Today I found him 4 doors down the street and he said, "There you are mommy, you got lost!" when I finally caught up to him! What am I going to do with him?
He loves to use keys. I told him that he could use my keys to turn on Joren's swing, so he has been trying to figure that out for a few days. I think he's on to me. I also told him he could use keys to turn on the vacuum. That makes vacuuming take a LONG time with him "turning" it on and off with the keys all the time. ;) He also loves to "drive" the car. He always heads for the front seat first and says, "I'm like Daddy now, I learn to drive now?" "Turn the music up. I love Rock and Roll!"