Doctor visit

I took the kids to the doctor today for their yearly checkup and they did very well. My mother in law is in town and with her assistance was able to wrangle both kids into the car and get them there in a timely manner. This is actually the longest time i have spent with them at the doctor and was afraid they would accuse me of child abuse to due to two freak accidents that had slightly mangled their normally beautiful faces.


Alex was first when he was trying to climb into a box and fell over and hit his nose and cheek on a scrap piece of wood while we were working on some modifications to their play set. Jack 's accident happened yesterday when he was out and about with Andy and his Mom in Old Town and for one second while Andy turned his head, Jack tried to climb forwards over the stroller using the shade as a balance. The shade collapsed and Jack tumbled forward hitting his chin and scraping his lip on the pavement and also running his front tooth into his lip causing a giant flow of blood. I only saw the after affects of his swollen chin that makes him look very cartoonish and his giant fat lip. Normally, his chin is more round and not quite so pointed.


So needless to say I was a little worried what the doctor would say, but since it takes forever to get an appointment I could not change it now. When the doctor saw both of their little bruised faces he just turned and said, "Is this normal?" Unfortunately, my answer was yes, because it seems that as soon as one hurt heals another one miraculously replaces it. Their poor little faces take the brunt of all their playing, clumsiness, and general inattention that leads to falling down, running into things, and dropping items onto themselves in such a way as to cause harm to themselves. Poor Alex has not developed a good sense of fear so he sometimes does the same destructive and hurtful things to himself over and over no matter how many times he is scolded or put into time out.

Back to the doctor visit, both were growing at a good rate and Jack passed his first eye and hearing tests with flying colors. He did everything the doctor asked him to do and was so good the entire time. Alex was a bit of a handful and we were referred to see a speech therapist to get an opinion on his lack of talking. He is a smart boy and understands everything I say to him, but refuses to speak words back to me. So we will see where that goes. They both had to get shots, Alex one and poor Jack had to get four. He certainly did not like the nurse after that and he kept crying to the nurse, "Please don't poke me again! Please!" It was the saddest thing in the world. As soon as he got the last shot and was covered in band-aids, he immediately asked if it was time to go.

As a treat for being so good we stopped at McDonald's and got some Happy Meals to go and took them to the park for a little picnic and some playing.

When sisters look too much alike

So I was putting in order all of the Scrap book pages I have finished for the year 2008 and Jack just happened to walk by and see a layout that I had done with the family photo that my sister had sent me in her Christmas card. This is that picture.


All I heard was Jack scream "Why are you holding that boy and not me?" and then he ran away crying. After a little coaxing and a better look at the photograph, Jack realized that the person holding the boy in the photograph was, in fact, not his Mommy, but his Aunt and calmed down enough to notice the tank in the picture. This was immediately followed by "Why wasn't I there?"

Update on our little Garden

So I have been trying a lot harder to get the plants in the new garden to grow, more so then I did last time when I let the weeds take over and then made a mistake by planting a yam, which overtook and choked out all the other plants. So the only destruction to this garden has been by a two year old who feels like it is necessary to run amok through the garden even though there is an entire yard to play in.

This is one of the surviving cucumber plants. Someone, I won't name names, but you know who you are, pulled two of the five out of the ground.
I am especially proud of the tomato plant partly because Andy doesn't like tomatoes and didn't want it to begin with and also because it is doing so well. It even has a little tomato growing already.
This corn was already grown when we planted it but has gotten much bigger. I would love to have fresh corn to eat right off the stalk.
These are corn too, but Andy grew them from seed so they are not quite as big as the others. They seem to be doing really well though. I think because they are in the part of the yard that gets constant sunlight.
Of course, these are the sunflowers growing in leaps and bounds. I think we may end up having to thin them out a bit so they grow bigger, but we'll see how they do.

I will be planting two more cucumber plants and hope they survive my two year old. Hopefully we will be able to get some vegetables soon. We did also plant some strawberries and onions. The strawberries aren't doing quite as well as I would like them to, but if they don't survive there is a giant strawberry field just down the road that we normally get our strawberries from, so we won't go without. The onions seem to be doing well, but it is hard to tell because the are under ground. The part above ground looks good.

This is the side of the house where we keep the garden. You can tell from the pictures that the ground is not very good for growing anything but weeds. It is filled with rocks and dry dirt with practically no nutrients in it. We put two bags of Miracle Grow soil in and mixed it up to give the plants a better chance. It is a very small garden as we save the majority of the yard for the kids to play. It is nice to have something green growing, especially when summer comes in full force and burns all the grass out and all we are left with is dirt.

We don't water the yard because it would need it everyday and it seems like such a waste when we are in such a water crisis. So we just let it die and the kids get to play in dirt for awhile until winter comes again and makes the grass grow. Sad that we are so backwards with the seasons. Things do better in the winter because there is rain and moisture and die in the spring and summer because it is so arid.

When 2 year olds attack

Alex is a good boy... most of the time. There are, however, times when he can be extremely naughty. Everyday we tell him to not climb the counters and get into things. Everyday we tell him to not play in the sink in the bathroom. Everyday we tell him to not to some naughty thing and everyday he... ignores us.

This is what happens when we don't watch him closely. Permanent marker on the walls. This is just one door, but it was all over the house. Thank goodness the good people of Mr. Clean created the magic eraser.

Nestle Strawberry Milk mix... harder to clean up than one might imagine, especially when a just the slightest bit of water is mixed in to make the mix crusty and hard and sticky like glue.

Alex was caught red handed, pink handed actually. The container was almost completely full when he managed to get the lid off and dump out three quarters of the container onto the counter and floor. Don't ask me how he managed to do it, but there was also strawberry mix in the cabinets and cupboards as well as some in the drawers. He stained both his hands and feet pink and it took me about two hours to clean it up completely.
This is Alex trying to escape from the back yard. He learned how to climb the fence and was trying to get over the other side, but realized there was nothing to climb down on. He did this again just recently and when he climbed down his shirt got stuck on the post and I had to come out and rescue him.


This was the absolute worst because not only did he create a big mess, but he got into Mommy's scrapbooking supplies and pulled out some very expensive finger paint like metallic shades and proceeded to put them all over not only himself but also the carpet and the coffee table.

This is the end result of all things naughty done by Alex. He hates the time outs and knows he can not come out until Mommy or Daddy says so.

Up a tree

So we have a small tree in our backyard that is normally covered by ants and pretty much unclimbable due to the constant ant covering; however, recently said ants have left the tree for reasons unknown and now Jack wants to climb the tree.
So Andy put Jack in the tree and soon after Alex wanted to join him. So up in the tree the two boys went and they were happy as clams the entire time. Alex, who is the more sensible of the two, wanted to get down after about a half an hour. Jack, however, wanted to stay up there 'all night long'.
It took a little convincing, but I was able to get the both of them out of the tree before the sun went completely down.