Snippets of Fall

Did you know that Fall is my favorite season?  I didn't either.....until I moved to Nebraska.  You see, when you grow up in Pasadena you are only familiar with two seasons:  hot and not as hot.  Unfortunately, I hear that it is still the hot season there.  Like 100 degree weather in October.  I used to love that, but now, having experienced Fall in the Midwest, I don't think I could ever accept that kind of behavior from Mother Nature.

St. Louis Fall is proving to be just as beautiful as Nebraska's.  All the brick houses in our neighborhood add the perfect backdrop to the yellowy, orangy, and red(dy?) leaves.  I'm loving it!  (I definitely just sang the McDonald's theme song when I wrote that.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isn't it gorge?  I'd love for it to stay this way forever, but then we wouldn't get to my most absolute favorite time of the year:  Christmas!  So I'll just soak it in while I can.
 
Little side note:  Are you feeling bad for my bug after seeing his nose?  Don't worry, he's ok.  He was pushing his 'truh' outside when he tripped and somehow landed smack dab on the smeller.  He cried, yelled "ouchie, ouchie" and in .2 seconds wanted to go right back to his truck.  There was no time for mommy-love in all that ouchie-ness.  Such a boy.

Hope you are enjoying your Fall!

sleep & desitin

Have you ever had those days when your husband wakes up an hour and a half late and you catch your son snacking on a tube of Desitin diaper rash cream?

Well, that was my day yesterday. 

For the record, everything is fine with my boys.  And thank God Christopher is a boy because it took him less than 10 seconds to pop on some scrubs and head out the door.  Luckily for him, the attending doc wasn't even in the reading room yet, so phew, it's like it never happened (except for the fact that he ended up explaining it to him later anyway....)  You'd think having a baby would be a built in alarm, but if you get up before the crack of dawn, it doesn't always work. 

As for the diaper rash cream eating incident, let me set the scene.  We were in the basement.  I was cleaning up some sewing materials.  Jude was in his cell.....I mean, his side of the basement. Elmo was on, and yet it was eerily quiet.  Usually at this point there is a small child running around, jumping on the couch screaming, "Elboooooo, Elbooooooooo."  When it finally occurred to me that Jude was in fact up to something I looked over and saw a face and hands covered in white.  I immediately looked in his mouth to see how much was in there.  To my surprise, there was hardly any, but I freaked anyway.  It was the first time I called poison control.  Just in case you find your toddler, or friend, eating some Desitin, you are in the clear.  I mean, there could potentially be some diarrhea later, but not to worry.  Jude must not have eaten much because he didn't have diarrhea and wasn't fussy the rest of the day like they said he might be due to a stomach ache.   All in all, never trust a quiet toddler.

Just thought you'd like to know!

Lately

For the record, I was all ready to do a long blog post last week, but when I finally got the time to sit down, blogger wasn't working.  There was no cursor when I was writing, so I got annoyed and gave up.  Today it looks like there's a cursor, so before anything else goes wrong, here I go!

I'm going to start with Jude's most exciting day ever (to date). 

It was yesterday.

There was a block party.

There were kids.

There was.......................a...................

FIRE TRUCK.

Guys, big deal.  A very BIG deal in the life of my little one. 

Jude and Daddy heading for the truck.  I think Jude was either in complete awe at this point or screaming 'truh truh truh!'

Fireman Jude!

Fireman Jude reporting for duty....ready to hop on the truck

But first, he's gotta check out all the equipment

Do you see a little head trying to peek in?

Mason getting off the truck, Jude ready to jump on!

Jude in the TRUH!!! 

Daddy went in the truck with Jude.

Mommy waited for Jude on the other side.

Bye Bye Truh

 

We had so much fun!  Not only did Jude love the firetruck, he LOVED playing with his neighbor friends.  There are so many kids on our street, and they are pretty much all boys!  I wish I would've gotten a picture of them playing together, cause it was darn cute. I guess I was too busy chatting.  Go fig.  Anyway,  there's Lucas, who's 20 months and lives across the street, there's Mason, who's almost 3 who lives right next door (and his mom is pregnant with twin girls, due in December) and there's Tyler who's 6 months who lives right next to Mason.  I heard there are more young boys up the street too, but they weren't there.  It was literally a blast.  And Jude fell asleep early.  So added bonus!

Besides the block party, Jude is growing so much and getting so smart (please excuse the mommy brag).  He says so many words now and understands more than I think we want him to.  Just so I can sort of document what he says, here are some of his faves:

truck - truh

trash -trah

ball - bah

shoes - shus

elmo - elbo

apple - ahhhh pull

hi pumpkin - hi puh-kins

ouchie

acky

bath - bah

book - buh

hi - hi-yeee

There are the staples too: Daddy, Mommy and a few others that I can't remember right now.

Besides talking, I also love when he makes animal noises.  The kitty meow is his favorite.  It just sounds like a loud, squeaky "meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."  It's extra fun when we're in public.  We were in Target on Saturday and he grabbed this Hello Kitty Doll and literally started screaming "meeeeeee" over and over.  The perk was that Chris, who usually heads to the electronics while we're in the toy section (we have a system) was able to easily find us.  The downfall is that I had a boy holding a hello kitty doll screaming "meeeeeee" through the whole store.  Oddly enough, he swiped hello kitty duct tape from another aisle, so that suddenly ended up in our cart as well.  I had to give him credit for keeping with the theme of the trip. 

Another favorite is when he makes, "ooooof oooooof" doggie noises.  The best part is his face when he 'oooofs'.  To die for cute!  We're working on cow 'moos' now, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Besides animals noises, Jude's also been busy learning the parts of his face.  He knows his nose, eyes, mouth and ears, but thinks it's so funny finding them that he sometimes forgets which is which, and usually just ends up picking his nose and saying, "acky, acky."

My boy has some other sneaky tricks up his sleeve too.  For example, whenever he does, or is doing, something he knows he's not supposed to do, he'll try and make up for it by looking at us and saying "HIIIIYYYYEEEE" with the cutest little smile on his face.  A little naughty, isn't it?  But OH so cute.  This was one of those times when he was playing with a picture frame.

This is the time when he was repeating, "hiyeee hiyeee" over and over to make mommy not so mad.  It worked.

And last, but not least, the other day we had the most beautiful weather.  It was sunny and rainy.  You can't really tell that it was raining from the pictures, but trust me on this one.  Absolutely gorge!

 

And that's not all that we've been up to.  We've been working really hard on decorating our house and making it us.  Pictures to come!

Love to all!

Number Two

It's not what you think..........

Or is it?  (I guess I don't know what you think)

But,  I've been a little MIA lately.  There are several reasons to blame for the lack of posts including the fact that I'm trying to get our house in order, the fact that I'm constantly feeding, changing, chasing, and cleaning up after the small child, the fact that the normal household chores take so much longer than I ever imagined they would as a stay-at-home mom and the fact that I've been.........tired.

So tired.

The tired that requires a mid-afternoon nap when Jude finally goes down.  And since I can, I've been taking advantage of it.

Because pretty soon, things will change.

That's right ladies and gents, Number 2 is on the way!  He or she will be making their grand entrance at the end of March.  Chris and I are super excited!  Although I have to say, I'm even more excited now because I'm not feeling so blah anymore.  This pregnancy has been very different than the first one, and I finally got to experience the queasiness a lot of other women experience.  Luckily, I didn't get it that bad, just enough to suspect it's a girl in there.  We'll get to find out for real at the end of October.  I can't wait.

So there ya have it.  Now that I've been getting a bit of my energy back, I hope to post more, so don't give up on me just yet!  I miss you all!

Where ya been, Sept!?

Holy cowsers, it's September. We're approaching the best time of the year! I'm already getting antsy to decorate for fall, but what's new?

So what comes in September? A little college football of course! Always brings me back to when I was younger and we'd go to the USC games. We had 2 season tickets so my siblings and I would take turns going (to the ghetto) with my dad. We'd sometimes sit in our regular seats, and sometimes sit in the bleachers in the end zone. Not sure if you can do that anymore, the band might sit there now. Ohhh, that band! I think my favorite part was the halftime show they put on (I know, such a girl). You just can't beat the Trojan band.

But today, today is about Nebraska! I painted the town (or my nails) red for heaven's sake. We're missing it today. Feeling like there really IS no place like Nebraska. So for a few hours we'll yell at the screen (Christopher) and take in all the glory. Go big red!

(ps. I put my small child to work this morning...but he asked for it, so we're cool)

Rainy day

It's raining here today. Not the crazy midwest storm kinda rain, more like a nice California rain. I love it for several reasons, the top being the fact that Jude must've been confused this morning because he slept til 8. That extra hour/half hour was glorious. I feel so refreshed! I seriously need to get on those blackout curtains for his room.

Hope you're having a great day! My little helper and I are gonna try and tackle our basement. You know, find things that have just been laying around a permanent home. Which basically translates to me chasing around Jude and cleaning up his messes. The usual.

Summer

I don't know about you, but summer is still in full swing over here in the big Stl. And we're living it up!

I was forced to go outside and swim at like 9:30 this morning because my ever observant son saw his pool outside in the backyard via a good view from the kitchen door. I knew I should've put it away yesterday!

It worked out well for him though. He not only got to swim, he saw the garbage truck pick up the whole street's trash. And triple bonus, got a little honk honk from the "truuuuuuh" as he says. Don't think it can get much better for a little one who is all boy.

Totally loving this endless summer,but can not wait for Fall!