pooks walking

he did it and I finally caught it on camera!

holy crap!

timeout actually worked!?!

bubba has been a bear today. pushing pooks down, attempting to run him over with his ride-on firetruck, stealing and then hiding his sippy cup, etc. well after he tried to mow pooks down with the firetruck, he was on his 3rd strike. timeout.

[which usually timeout is a joke. not that i don't try, but it just doesn't work. he either keeps getting out of the chair (which is our rocker-glider in the corner of the boys bedroom), or he somehow finds a toy, or he actually enjoys it...you get the idea.]

well this time i told him that he was going to timeout. he's not allowed to hit or run over his brother.

i picked him up, took him to his room, and sat him in the chair. i told him he had to sit until mommy told him he could get up. so after checking on pooks (who was okay but his leg was all red), he'd been in there about 2 minutes. i went in and explained to him that when he does things like hit or run over pooks, it gives pooks an boo-boo. and he knows how boo-boo's hurt. i told him that he could get up if he gave pooks a hug and told him 'sorry'.

he looked at me like 'you've got to be kidding'.

but he slid out of the chair, went to the living room, found pooks, gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then looked at me. i said 'thank you, you can play now'. and he went back to playing nicely.

wow. sometimes i amaze myself.

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photography

i've made a commitment to myself to learn how to really learn the manual settings of my DSLR. so far, i've been using the auto modes, which are great. there are so many settings to work with (depth of field, macro, etc.) but we did spend more $$ so I could have the manual options.

i just walked around outside and chose random flowers/plants. let me know what you think, good or bad, i need all the help i can get!

(aren't these the funkiest little flowers? we have a huge tree out back and these are blooming on it)

oh and this one, just because its what i think of when I think "4th of July". independence day is grilled hotdogs, smoke bombs and sparklers!

corn on the cob...

the boys love it, and by ''boys'' i mean bubba, pooks, and B-LOL. pooks actually dug into the whole cob and would cry when B would take it away -just to turn it- then grin when he got it back. he's also learning how to use his spoon and was using it to eat steak, lol.

bubba is like a corn on the cob eating master. he's been eating it on the cob since he was like 15mos old. he's an ol' pro. here are the pics:

using his spoon:

oh and also my newest belly pic, 16 weeks and 1 day!

when did my baby turn into a toddler??

look at those teeth? that smile? he's walking, he's trying to talk...he's a Toddler now!

HE DID IT, HE DID IT!!!

POOKS WALKED!!!

*insert happy dance here*

i still cannot freaking believe it! this kid has been cruising furniture forever, but he won't walk. maybe once or twice he's taken a little step; from the sofa to the loveseat, etc. but tonight B stripped him down for his bath, but i wasn't ready yet (i was cleaning the tub). so pooks was having 'nakey' time in the living room when all the sudden B yells ''hon, pooks just took two steps''. well of course, i missed it. so i stood there a minute after B stood him back up again the little snot took about 6-8 more steps! naturally, they were towards the TV, but it was amazing. here is this 13mos old who has shown no signs whatsoever as to being remotely interested in walking and all the sudden out of nowhere he walks across the living room like he's been doing it for years! (okay, maybe months)

well, i grabbed the camera and of course, he refused. b would stand him up and he'd act like his legs were broken. lol, leaving them limp like he couldn't hold weight. i have one pic, right after it happened. B even brought out the Cheetos thinking he could bribe him to walk, but Pooks wanted nothing to do with it.

ANY day now I will be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to keep up with these boys!

boys will be boys...

b spraying bubba

bubba enjoying the ''rain''
bubba spraying the digger....
bubba spraying the flowers...(you see where this is going, right?)
bubba spraying pooks!
pooks does not like being sprayed.

;)

its a pool party!

well, i busted out the pool today. i figured it was finally not raining, not windy and warm enough too. they loved it. i have to say that bubba loved it alot more than pooks. pooks was tolerating it and pretty much clinged to the side, standing. bubba however was all over it!

just got in...

you can see pooks top teeth!
splashing around..how cool is my camera?! look at that water!
i told them to smile and say ''cheese''...my little hams
bubba being silly in his ''argh'' swim trunks (aka, pirates!)
ok, i was trying to get a pic of pooks, i have no clue why bubba is showing his butt! i didn't even realize it til after i took the pic and looked at the little preview on the LCD display
by now, i realized what he was doing, but got a pic anyways. i asked him what he was doing and he just laughed and pulled them back up. who taught my kid to moon??
and finally, how you can tell its time to go back inside. pooks was genuinely pissed off at bubba for pourting water on him...bubba was making fun of him!

A Peter Potty?!

Lol, thats what its called and its working miracles in our house!

a "peter potty" is available at your local WM...in our case it was on clearance for $21 from $35. it is a toddler urinal. i know, i know, that doesn't exactly sound appealing. to you and me. but to two year old bubba that likes being a 'big boy' and going '' pee pee like dada" this is the coolest thing to enter our house, in his eyes. and in all honesty, it is pretty cool, lol. it really flushes and everything. here is a pic: the blue thing at the top is a resevoir and so is the green one at the bottom. obviously you fill the top with water, and after bubba pee's he pushes the green button. water flows from the top, to the bottom rinsing out the basin. then you just empty the green tank. viola! very simple and very cool for a 2 yr old. so far today, he's pee'd 5 times, he went twice last night after we bought it and he was dry all night!! heck ya!! we'll work on going #2 after we master #1!

-----------------------------

okay, now that I'm done sharing the newest thing in our house, how about I share our newest pics? last weekend we were at nanaw's house (yet again!) and on saturday, we baby-sat baby diva. she is so cute and getting so big! here are a few pics of her with bubba. i didn't get any of her by herself, sorry!

being cheesy

a more serious pic.

oh and it should be known that baby diva smiles and giggles now! of course, she wouldn't do either once i started taking pics but she is becoming quite the little person! as long as i'm talking about not smiling for the camera, i have to share this one of pooks that i took this morning. it might have been too early for the flash just yet, lol.

and last but not least, a new belly pic. i called Dr.P's office yesterday and it looks like my ultrasound will be the last week in July. i have to be at least 20 weeks for him to get all the necessary measurements of the baby's stomach, femur, head, etc. so it looks like we have about 1 month til we know if its a sissy or a bro-bro. anyways, here is the little ones 'womb without a view' at 15.5 weeks!

i am not having twins!

i love the comments, i really do! i love knowing that people like keeping up with us and all the well wishes but we are not having twins. we are having one healthy baby, sex unknown (for now), due Dec 13th.

i am not having twins.

happy birthday to B!

today was b's birthday! yay!!

of course, he had to work but thats what happens when your birthday is on a weekday. while B was working, and pooks was napping, bubba and I made his ''cake''. if you know B, you know he doesn't like cake. so we made a cheesecake. okay, i'll admit it, it was a jello 'no-bake' cheesecake...hey i didn't have cream cheese and i wasn't goint to run to the store for just that! i'm a stay at home, not superwoman! i'm not waking a sleeping baby for cream cheese, lol

anyways, bubba loves watching people cook. in fact everytime i get out my mixer he says ''nanaw!?" because nanaw has a mixer just like it, and he watches her cook/bake too. he helped me add the milk, then he helped me up the speed. technically he also helped me clean up...by licking the spatula clean!

oh yeah, for b's birthday he wanted to go out to eat at one of his favorite restaurants then he wanted to take the boys to see 'kung fu panda'. so thats what we did. i must say the movie is very cute!! the boys behaved the entire time, there were no emergency food purchases, in fact bubba even told me in the middle of the movie that he had to potty! (YAY!!) he found the whole thing hilarious. he would hear the other kids laugh, so he'd laugh, then look at B and I to make sure we were laughing. he's so silly. pooks did well, even managed to steal and eat a few reese's pieces!

here are the pics. i didn't get any spectacular ones.

the decorations

bubba helping me showing ''Arf'' what we were making. (it was "hmmmm")
the finished product (after B blew out the candles)

oh and this pic was too freaking cute not to share. earlier today i was laying on the floor with the boys, watching backyardigans. all the sudden, un-related to anything, bubba rolls over and wants to kiss my belly. i bet he kissed the ''bebe'' at least 10 times. it was SO cute!

Happy Father's Day!!

so today was father's day...if you're a dad reading this.."Happy Father's Day." unfortunately i didn't get to spend the day with my padre, he is out of state working. i will see him this weekend though, so 'happy father's day' daddy!

speaking of dads, the boys had fun with B today. we actually went 2 hours out of town to my grandma great's 90th birthday party. we hung out with family, B got to eat fried chicken for lunch (i hate fried chicken), then we had cake, sang happy birthday and just relaxed. oh and we got a picture with grandma...a first with all of us there!

when we got back into town, we went used car shopping. B had almost $3k worth of hail damage to his truck, so we're looking at getting a new vehicle for him to drive. i must say, he is pretty excited! after that we came home, he took a little nap then played outside with the boys while i cooked dinner. steak, green beans and roasted potatoes was his choice. if i say so myself, it was delicious!

(no matter how hard i try, i cannot get a pick of b and bubba together, ugh!)

overall it was a good day...oh and tiger tied up the us open so now i'll have something to watch with the kids tomorrow! they love watching golf!

I'M OFFICIALLY IN THE 2nd TRIMESTER!

Can you tell I'm excited?!

For one, this is the trimester of fun stuff! I'll feel the baby move, then kick and punch. I'll find out the babie's gender. I know from experience that I'll finally look obviously pregnant (and not like I'm still carrying weight from being preggo with Pooks), but I won't be uncomfortably huge yet. I'll get to start buying clothes and picking out bedding. We'll get to have a 3D ultrasound done. We will narrow down a name. It's fun! Plus the fact that we've seen the baby, heard the heartbeat and made it to the 2nd trimester, drastically reduces the chance of miscarrying. Dr. P actually told me my odds of miscarrying were now ''1 in a million". Not that I have a history of miscarrying (because i don't) but its still re-assuring.

So without further ado, my first 2nd trimester belly pic!

*please ignore my pj's*

oh mother nature...

is a bitch.

is amazing and gut-wrenching and tragic all at the same time.

anyone who watches the news knows that tornadoes touched down all over the country over the last couple of weeks...add flash flooding, hail storms, lightning and it can be insane. lucky us, we experienced all of the above. fortunately, no one was hurt by any of it.

we all know i don't share names or place names, so use your imagination if you don't know where i'm talking about. just know that it comes out of nowhere and can change your life in seconds. it happened here, in an area where kids are raised having practice tornado drills, the tornado sirens test every single month, year round. i was raised to be prepared and know what to do, but i can't imagine not knowing how to protect myself and my family. even knowing the precautions, is no guarantee to survivial or safety.

i think i already posted but i was in my hometown the last 2 weeks for B's job. when we got there, it was hot but beautiful--unfortunately the kids got sick and we didn't really get to experience any of that! then it started with isolated thunderstorms, which led to flash flooding. the tornado sirens went off a few times but nothing actually developed. until this last storm....a tornado actually touched down in the town. being huddled in the bathroom with your sleeping kids, hoping that if something were to happen they would be safe--its terrifying! hearing the wind and knowing that its already hit the other side of town and is headed your way...its something i wouldn't wish on my worse enemy. i will never be able to take tornado sirens lightly again. before it was like ''so what, like one will ever hit here.'' i will never be so naive again.

here are pics from the last few weeks of mother natures wrath:

during the flash flooding and light hail

papa and bubba looking at the flood water

(they were in no danger as the storm had stopped)

the sky afterwards

how high the water actually got (look at B's truck)

someone's front yard

the following pictures are from after the tornado stuck, the next afternoon. crews had already begun cleaning up.

this was a huge hardware store

the small recantangle in the front is a vending machine that was inside the storemore damage...look at the debris and torn powerlines

here are a few of just trees and landscaping. it snapped trees like toothpicks