Another 1st!

Look at those pretty teeth! Abby had her first dentist appointment today and even though we have talked a lot about what would go on there I was still apprehensive about how she would act. But she did fabulous! She had a great time looking through all the books and magazines in the waiting room. She sat in every chair they had (we were the only people in there) and couldn't wait to go sit in the "special chair". She sat in the chair all by herself and let the hygienist clean her teeth, floss them and put on a sealant. Then the dentist came in and checked them all and he said her teeth looked great, no cavities! She has an odd number off teeth on the bottom so I assumed she was missing one but it turns out that she has an extra one...I knew she was special! Abby was most excited about getting prizes...a new toothbrush, floss, paste and a toy - she picked the bubbles, go figure! Since she didn't fuss or cry she also gets to pick out something special at the store. She told me that she wanted to get more Cinderella undies. And in a potty-training note, she wore undies to the dentist, not a pull-up, I was feeling brave but she stayed accident free!!! Way to go Abby!!!!!!

still going!

Day three of potty training is going very well. Abby was up three times in the night (12:30, 4 and 7) to go potty and actually went. Her diaper stayed dry all night and she was very excited to get undies back on. Donald came over this afternoon and she was thrilled to show him each pair multiple times. I'm so glad that she is so into the whole thing. She now goes by herself a lot too and tells me afterward! I think three days is definitely a trend and not a whim...fingers crossed that I'm right!

Potty Training: Day 2

We are on day 2 of potty training and things are still going well. She had no accidents yesterday and kept her undies dry all day today. She did get to go to the store with Jerry and pick out some new ones...all princess ones of course! She even told me that she had to #2 and did that also. She seems to be delighted with the whole thing so hopefully this lasts!

She does windows too...what a great kid!

Mad Skills

Guess what Mom lets me do when we're home alone together...feed myself. I think I'm a big boy now and I like all kinds of food. Since I always grab the spoon Mom let me take a crack at it and I've got some pretty mad skills! Some made it to my mouth but shoot, where's the fun in that? I thought playing with my oatmeal would be way more fun. Mom thinks I'm cute no matter how messy I get, she sorta rocks.

Potty Time!

Her Majesty has requested that she now use the "throne" for all "official business" AKA it's POTTY TIME!

I put her in a fresh diaper this morning and a few minutes later she was rooting around for a burp cloth for Trey and came across her package of Ariel undies. She brought them to me and wanted to put a pair on. I told her that she couldn't wear a diaper with them and would have to use the big girl potty if she had any business to do and she said that was okay. So I asked her every 5 minutes for the next hour if she needed to go pee and eventually she did. We sat down and lo and behold, IT WORKED. Usually we spend 10 minutes sitting there only to get a diaper back on and then pee. I was very proud of her and showed her some serious love and then doled out the much anticipated cup of M&Ms...really there were only about 8 in there but it looked like a lot to her. We have now gone 7 times in the potty, have kept everything dry and I am hoping like heck that this is the beginning of a trend...not a one-day-wonder. I think we may take her to do some undie shopping today!

Yes We Can

The picture is a little small but the crowd was very big :)

Pick One

I like to give Abby choices between two things for a variety of reasons. Mostly when it's about somthing she doesn't want to do, like go to bed. If she whines about going to sleep I ask her if she wants to walk upstairs or be carried...takes all the discussion out of whether it's bedtime or not. She's getting older and wiser everyday and starting to use my tactics against me. Here's our conversation from yesterday:

Abby: Mom, do you want to play puzzle with me? (it's a 100-piece princess one and her fave)
Me: No Abby, not right now.
Abby: Mom, do you want to bake cookies?
Me: No Abby, it's 9 o'clock, maybe later.
Abby: okay.

5 minutes later she comes back

Abby: Okay, Mom, do you want to do puzzle or make cookies? You pick. Okay, you pick, puzzle or cookies. Pick one.
Me: *holding back some serious laughter* You win Abby, I pick puzzle.
Abby: OKAY!!!

8 Months...almost

My baby is going to be 8 months old on Friday. On one hand it feels like time has flown by and on the other it feels like he's been with us always. Trey has changed so much in just the last week and I'm very much looking forward to the next month with him. I remember this being my favorite age with Abby and I'm thinking it will be the same with him. He's started pulling himself up on things (only from a sitting position) and he seems so interested in walking. I had some errands to run in B'ham today and we needed to go to Target so I thought I'd let Abby play in the play area for a bit sine she'd been so good today. Trey was loving all the kids there and I think as soon as he's moving he'll be right in the mix of everything. We were gone a totaly of 5 hours today and he only had a 1/2 jar of food at the play area but wasn't fussy the entire time! I saw a new baby the other day that was the same size he was at birth and I couldn't imagine Trey being that size, it's amazing what you forget. But I have thoroughly enjoyed each stage with the kids more than the last and will treasure the time they are small.

Happy Wednesday

I'm definitely glad that volleyball starts up again tonight. It's fun to get out of the house and do something I enjoy, without the kids, even though they are darn cute.

remind anyone of Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber?

Hallelujah, Abby was actually taking a nap so Trey got his bath in the laundry sink

trying to pull himself up...maybe we'll go back to the bathtub

tagged

Here's the scoop. go to your pictures, post the 6th picture in the 6th folder and write a little blog about it. Thanks Marlea!

Jerry and I not too long after we started dating. We look so young, and so skinny!

And for those of you who do this one, I also tag you - dare you - to stop what you're doing this second and take a couple pictures of your house to post...no cleaning first! (I stole this idea from someone else). If you're one of those obsessively neat people whose house is always clean, don't bother doing this as that will make the rest of us feel lousy :)

view into the main living room

my impeccably clean kitchen, you could eat off the floors - if you're tetanus shot is up to date

view from the front door...notice all the containers stacked so nicely. full of Christmas decorations waiting to be hauled to the shed

There you go, my house in all its, "I-have-two-babies, no energy and worked today" glory. I did vacuum yesterday so there's not as much pet hair as usual. But no way was I going to post a picture of my own room...it would make these rooms look spotless!

cutest little alarm clock

Every night I set the alarm so that I can get Jerry up in time to go spread the knowledge of physical fitness to tiny people. Why bother? As if there has been one day in the last month where I've been woken up by the alarm BEFORE being woken up by a two-legged, no snooze-button alarm. This morning was no exception. It was around 6:30 (woo-hoo, we're making progress!) when my hand hit a book over the side of the bed. I don't have short arms but in my sleepy mind I knew that they definitely weren't long enough to have reached the floor and hit the book that I dropped down there last night...so I opened my eyes and found ABBY! She didn't say a word, just stood there with her blankie in one hand and her princess book in the other, which by the way has a handle on it so it can be carried around like a briefcase - very cute. I have no idea how long she was standing there and it was a little creepy, cute, but still creepy. Hmmm, maybe since I won't watch her sleep she decided to watch me sleep. Boy do I love that she sleeps with her door open.

pictures, pictures, pictures

in her new sleeping bag, can you tell by the wild look in her eyes that it's bedtime?

pretending to sleep

sweet bubba

look at me, i'm on my knees!

I call his hair "duck fluff", isn't that what it looks like?

buddies for life - I guess this means no getting rid of him (rusty that is!)

hoping for a crumb to fall his way

chub, chubLots of Trey since Abby is not very cooperative these days and since I'm not making a card to send out I'm not offering her bribes either.

And a quick shout-out to some new family additions. My cousin Karla and her husband Greg had their second boy this month and my friend Kristen and her husband had their third child, a girl, who joins two big brothers at home. Congratulations ladies on a job well done!

Trey's tricks

He loves having deep, meaningful conversations with Rusty. They seem to understand each other. And I hadn't really noticed how chubby - very chubby - Trey's arms had gotten since he mostly wears jammies or long sleeved shirts. His legs are the same way too. How come that's cute on a baby and not on me? Oh well!

My Dinner-making Entertainment

Abby helping Trey enjoy his exersaucer even more. Notice the "calm down" at the end!

Apple Blueberry of my eye

It looks like we are finally on the eaten path (as opposed to off the beaten path, get it?). Friday was the first time Trey had eaten an entire container of food...apple/blueberry, yum. Abby was definitely a better eater at this age. She liked everything that came near her mouth and was eating roughly 3 jars of food at this age. Trey on the other hand has been very difficult to get food into. He seems to like most things that he's tried, he makes ridiculous faces like I've just crammed a giant lemon in his mouth but that usually goes away by the 3rd or 4th bite. He takes 2-3 days usually to finish a jar, at least he's a cheap baby. He's also into standing up, the ottoman works the best right now. I pile some toys on there and then sit back and watch. How nice not to have to constantly hold him up. I cannot wait for him to start walking! He has started to roll over now, finally. He's pretty quick with it but then gets made if he hasn't rolled himself near a toy. He hasn't started crawling but does seem to get places spinning around like a turtle on his stomach - at least how I imagine a turtle would spin around - do turtles even spin? Whatever, you get the idea.

Abby is still my once-darling little sleeper, turned newborn again. She has a hard time being alone in her room but is sleeping most of the night. She wakes up anywhere between 4 & 6...ugh. Sometimes it works out that she stays in her room and is quiet, sometimes it's not so fun. And lately Trey has been going down at a reasonable hour but then waking up after an hour or so, it's starting to feel like I'm giving him a very late nap. He's got roughly 4 new teeth coming in so I think that's his problem. Last night he fell asleep at 2:20, I guess that makes it this morning, not last night. So I'm on about 4 hours of sleep. Nice. I think if parenting had a "Time-Out" button, I'd have pushed it mulitple times this week. I'm sure I'll look back one day, many years from now, and remember them for their cuteness, and all the cuddles, and will hopefully have forgotten how I wanted desperately to push that button!

It was really nice yesterday having only one kiddo at home. Poor Trey has been on the back burner since his sister is so needy. Jerry and I were feeling a little guilty about not spending some good quality time with him. He's just so undemanding during the day and plays so well by himself that he doesn't get all the attention I'd like to give him. And he's changing so much right now, becoming more boy, less baby that I'm enjoying him a lot more.

We are also working on potty-training Abby, thanks Tanya for the inspiration to do it. I've been waiting for her to give me a sign that she's ready but she so far all she's wanted is the M&M reward. I've been putting her in pull-ups (they have princesses on them - BIG HIT!) during the day and we've been setting a timer for every 40-45 minutes and when it goes off we hurry to the potty and sit on it, reading some books. No luck so far but Abby seems to not be afraid of the potty like she was before. We only make it until about 3-4 before she's had enough for the day. Fine with me, I am just happy that we are making a little progress. Thinking about how much money I can save having only 1 baby in diapers is keeping me energized about it!

I Lied

I thought I'd get a lot of blogging done yesterday since Abby spent the whole day at Grandma Cece's house but Jerry decided to spend the day redoing his laptop, routine maintenance, whatever so my computers were commandeered and no blogging happened. Trey didn't go to sleep until 2:20 this morning and Abby was up at 6 so I'm hoping that a synchronized nap happens today and I can get some posted. I know, I built up the anticipation of posting some very witty anecdotes and then let you all down, sorry!

stay tuned

today will be a day of posts. I've written lots of them over the last week but have been just too darn lazy, I mean busy, to get them onto here. I know you are all waiting with bated breath for the latest Gardner happenings and I would hate to disappoint my two-man (woman) fan club!

I was that lady

You know the lady you see in the grocery store who's lugging around two snotty-nosed kids who look like they need a nap; who herself is looking like she hasn't showered, or slept, in a week; the one who maybe, just maybe would sell her kids for a dollar to whomever asked; the one you tsk, tsk over and say, boy lady, you shoulda just stayed home today? Yeah, that lady was me today. I had showered and done my hair but due to some incessant whining by one child and screaming by another, got sidetracked and forgot to put on makeup (doesn't make me look fresh-faced - makes me look haggard!) and left the house anyway. The kids have colds and the constant wiping and drying makes their noses all crusty and since Trey screams like I'm chopping off his fingers when I clean his nose I usually just leave the crusties on his. Off we went to get some coffee (favorite part of my day!), my paycheck and then to the store. Abby didn't want to walk through the parking lot and it was raining so I was not about to sit her in a wet cart so I carried her and Trey all the way in. Not fun considering I had to park in the back 40 since social security checks came in the mail and every senior citizen in the county was shopping too. Neat. I found that once in the store the only way to get Trey to stop crying was to let him chew on my pretty new purse, worth the sacrifice. Abby wanted an apple so we looked at every single kind before she decided on the galas, I let her pick one. Then she saw someone with a red delicious and just had to have one too...whatever, at least she likes fruit. So she held her two apples (plus the two oranges she also just had to have) all through the store. She picked the stickers off but didn't take a bite, thank goodness for small favors. We finally checked out and by the time I reached the car (a 45 minutes hike, I'm sure) I remembered that I only went to the store to get stamps (and my bank is IN the store)...what did I not get???? The stamps. I told myself it was okay since I could just go to the post office on the way home...which I knew I totally wasn't going to do since I was sure the kids would fall asleep before we got there. Just thinking I'd stop made me feel like I'd made an effort though. Maybe I'll get them tomorrow.

Abby had been up since 6 am, but since she'd gone to bed at 7 the night before that was okay. What was NOT okay was the screaming/crying/fussing that occurred when she couldn't decide what she wanted to do for an hour while Mommy went back to sleep. She ended up in my bed sometime before 7 and we lasted until 7:15 when Trey woke up. I knew she needed a nap and was equally sure that she wouldn't take one so I made her a big lunch and stuck Tinkerbell in when we got home and she sat quietly for an hour. I made cookies, bribed her with those to sit quietly for another movie and then she played nicely until Jerry got home at 6. With no nap she was running on fumes and down for the night at 7 again....I have to be up at 6 for work tomorrow so I'm sure I'll be seeing her before I leave.

As for Trey, I just love that kid. He was tired from getting up so early (thank you Abby for screaming loud enough to wake him) so he went back to sleep at 9. He's teething and maybe growing (or just knows that his momma needs one undemanding child!) and is sleeping alot. I had to wake him at 11 so we could get going. He fell asleep in the car on the way back from the store and when we got home he ate and went upstairs for an almost 3 hour nap. After I put Abby to bed I fed him and he fell right to sleep again. He's totally my favorite.

CKOTB

Who has the creepiest kid on the block? I do! Abby, in all her sleep-issue glory wanted me to watch her go to sleep. I mean, sit there on the bed staring at her while she went to sleep. What sane person wants to go to sleep with someone two feet away staring at them? NOT ME. And it's equally creepy in my mind to be the one watching someone fall asleep. I kindly told her that there was no way on earth Mommy was going to watch her fall asleep. We compromised on leaving her door partly open and the bathroom light on so she could see it. That seemed to work last night so I'm crossing my fingers that it will work again tonight. I'm off to bed now, hopefully nobody will come stare at me.

Oh how I love thee...

Isn't she lovely? I've had the same purse since Abby was born and during my glorious, child-free shopping excursion yesterday, I came across this beauty...and even better, she was under $15! Makes me love her even more. It's big enough to carry the countless items that a mother of two small kids needs and for the moment is crumb-free although I'm sure that will change shortly.

I really don't care much for shopping (except grocery shopping, I like that) but I had money (thank you to all those who donated this Christmas to the Megan-needs-new-clothes fund) and Jerry was home and willing to watch the kids, so off I went. I found some fabulous deals and discovered that shopping alone and with money makes the whole experience much more enjoyable. I came home with 2 pairs of jeans, a half dozen shirts, some tank tops a new lady garment and my beautiful new purse. I think that qualifies as a success. If only the money/no kid thing worked out more often!

All My Children

building another castle...she really only uses the square onesli'l buddy
sister showing him how you're supposed to play...bossy girl, wonder where she gets it from?
the rest of my children. they're never together in one place so I took a pic. don't mind the dirty paw-printed window...he'll lick it clean eventually

"Look at my doing!"

Jerry got a new calendar for Christmas that just happens to play Abby's favorite song...a little bow down to washington

she's worn out the song already

odds and ends

An update on the no-powie deal: she could care less about it but is still screaming her guts out every time we put her in bed and then again every time she wakes up at night. I gave in last night and asked her if she wanted it back and she didn't so her sleep issues are not about that which is a good thing I guess. She now wants her door open all night but that means the cats can get in there at night and lay on her bed which freaks her out and makes her cry...so cry with the door shut or cry with it open...I vote closed! She only screamed for 45 minutes at midnight before she fell asleep and was off and on with it starting at 6 this morning. Ridiculous. My sympathy is waning big time for it so it's a little easier to tune it out. Here's a list of the things she asked to have/do at midnight:

powie, finish watching Wall-E, watch cartoons, leave the door open, turn the light on, cuddles, a kiss, a hug, show me she was done fussing (obviously a lie!), go downstairs, take Dora toy out, read books, read nite-nite book just one more time, go to Grammy's, polka dot sheets, put clothes on, put clothes on - go to Grammy's - and play piano

All of these were repeated at least 3 time before she moved on to the next one. It actually got pretty comical after awhile listening to all the weird things she came up with, hoping one would get us to open the door. Okay, enough of the sleep stuff.

The other night we were eating dinner and she kept telling me that the bunny rabbit was going to get her blocks. I had no idea what she was talking about and asked her a bunch of questions to figure it out. Finally I told her we'd go check it out after we were done eating. I pointed out a bunch of things but couldn't figure out what the bunny rabbit was...I did narrow it down to the curtain/valance above the window and just chalked it up to a 2-year-olds imagination. About 20 minutes later I was sitting in the recliner and looked up and here's what I saw...

See the bunny shadow in the middle? When I asked her if that was it she gave me a big smile and said "YES!!!!" and then looked at me like "Wow, I'm glad you're not totally dumb!" oh kids.

She's also now obsessed with some bubble game on Jerry's pda and actually did a pretty good job at doing it herself. She's going to be more tech-savvy than I am by the age of 4...sad.

sleepy head

And in Trey news...he is now my favorite child. So easy and lovey and cute. He sleeps so well, if he wakes up at night it only takes him a couple minutes to get himself back to sleep. He's getting a lot of new teeth in but doesn't get irritated by it unless you try and touch his gums. He's eating food now...I found that he just likes a chunkier texture to things. And he's just so fun to watch. Ahhh, at least one of my kids is sweet right now!