cars, cars and oh yeah, more cars....

is what the boys wanted and received for christmas. "Cars" bedding, toys, crayons, stickers, tattoos, lamps, sippy cups, floor rug--i'm sure that i'm missing something but that's besides the point. their obsession has been filled...a 4 year old pixar movie is what my toddlers love, so we went with it.

their room is decked out. they got new lamps and a floor rug from nanaw and papa (and even "Cars" shelf liner?!) and then Santa brought them new bedding. so their room is "Cars" everything!

the floor rug that they play with all their cars on

pooks' bed complete with poster
(i forgot to get a pic of his new "Mater" lamp)

bubba with his bed, complete with Lighting McQueen lamp

Christmas (Part 1)

okay so i'm going to have to split up our holiday festivities into several posts. WAY too many pictures. so for now here are pictures from Christmas day. keep in mind we had a total of 5 different get togethers...it'll literally take days for me to go through all those pics but here are a few...

opening presents at our house christmas morning was a lot of fun. the boys really ''got it'' this year but they were somewhat overloaded. they would open a present and be wowed and perfectly content with it. we had to coax them to keep going and to keep opening more. we didn't go crazy with gifts this year and it turned out to work in our favor! i honestly didn't take that many pictures...i was busy enjoying the kids and nursing peanut. b videotaped the whole ordeal so we do have it just not in photos.

as for peanut, well he didn't really have an opinion of anything! he mostly slept. in fact, i don't know that i even got a picture of him Christmas morning...i know he was sleeping in his swing, and i know papa took a lot of pics with his new camera so i may have more pictures to add/post later.

Santa came!

Our tree Christmas morning
(notice the boys' new playhut?)

pooks attempting to open his present from Santa

bubba surrounded by his stocking, presents and goodies

bubba opening his gift from Santa

pooks playing with his new cars

comparing cars, they each got one from Santa

playing together

nanaw opening her and papa's present, the boys' hand/foot prints

and finally, their ''big'' gift from their auntie--a wooden play kitchen. they got to open it on Christmas eve because i had already assembled it and it's heavy! originally it was going to stay in the basement until Christmas day but the sucker is solid wood so it became an early present!

i know that i have boys, i'm not trying to make up for the fact that i don't have a daughter--they genuinely like cooking and pretending. before they had the kitchen they would pretend to cook/eat invisible food. they like to stir and help me cook so it made sense. it took B a bit to come around but now that he sees how much they like it, he doesn't care. plus look at all the male chefs these days: bobby flay, emeril, rocco, etc. its not just julia childs anymore.

already bubba has made B a sandwich and a hamburger, he made me cookies and pooks loves to use the pots and pans that nanaw & papa got them. pooks also love bringing me the fruit--he can say banana and apple! bubba always says '' yike mommy?" ("Like Mommy?") whenever he's "cooking". its freaking adorable.

okay thats all for now, peanut is up! more later....

Merry Christmas!

i just wanted to pop in quickly and wish everyone a "Merry Christmas". or a "Merry Ho-ho-ho" as it's said in our house. (we also have "kee-ka" and "oooff-goff"....commonly known as Santa and Rudolph)

our family has been overly spoiled and had a great day visiting with family, eating awesome food and opening presents! bubba had a blast seeing what Santa brought them, pooks enjoyed eating the leftover cookie that Santa didn't finish and peanut gave mommy the most WONDERFUL present of all: 5 hours straight of sleep! (he slept from 12am-5am without waking last night) here's hoping its the gift that keeps on giving, lol.

i've taken about a billion pictures but i'm WAY to tired to upload and resize them tonight. i'm gonna grab something to eat them head to bed. hope that everyone has also had a wonderful day!

complete randomness

i realized that i haven't posted any pics in over a week! yikes, that is like forever on my blog. so i finally dumped my camera onto the computer and this is the resulting randomness:

here are a ton of baking/holiday pics:

pooks' enjoying puppy chow

bubba checking out the puppy chow

helping mommy make sugar cookies

making ''ho ho tee ookie dough'' (aka Christmas Tree cookie dough)

really concentrating on using that rolling pin

the chocolate covered mint oreos that we made friday morning....yum!

peanut inside his stocking that nanaw made him

looking at the Christmas tree lights

nanaw with all of her boys

(they were laughing at papa)

all of these pictures i took of peanut thursday afternoon. the older boys were asleep and he was wide awake, being silly.

a little smirk
(he smiled but i didn't catch it on the camera)

"what are you lookin' at?"

"what?!"

"no don't hurt me!"

i couldn't think of a saying, but worth 1,000 words regardless....

friday night we did some last minute Christmas shopping and then because the boys were SO good at the mall, we went ahead and treated them to McDonalds. they wanted to use chopsticks like daddy so thats how they ate their nuggets.

bubba really got the hang of it

pooks did not...but he had fun!!

why don't mommies get paid??

how does this not deserve a paycheck?

sixteen: the number of diapers i changed in 8 hours
seven: the amount of #2's in said diapers
three: the number of kids whose diapers were changed
two: the number of times that i was puked on yesterday by two of the three kids
zero: length of the much needed, highly anticipated nap that i so wanted but did not get

yesterday was a bit rough. it seems like all the young butts in our household were having some issues. luckily today the poop count is at zero and so far (knock on wood) i haven't been thrown up on. i'm hoping that whatever they were all hit with was a 24 hour thing cause mama needs a break!

Recipe for Puppy Chow...

i had a request to share my puppy chow recipe :) its basically the same one off of the box of Chex cereal but i always use a brown paper sack to shake/coat the cereal. its quicker, less messy and a whole lot easier!
-----
Puppy Chow

9	cups Chex cereal
1	cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2	cup peanut butter
1/4	cup butter or margarine
1	teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2	cups powdered sugar

Measure out cereal into a large empty brown paper sack. Set aside. In a big microwave safe bowl melt chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter for one minute. Stir. Microwave for 30 more seconds or until stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring to coat evenly. (do this quickly!) Add powdered sugar to bag, roll the top down to 'seal' the bag and shake, shake, shake! Once evenly coated, spread on waxed paper to cool.
------

i have to add 2 things: once you pour the chocolate mixture onto the cereal, try to work fast. the warmer the chocolate mixture is, the better the powdered sugar sticks to the cereal. and numero 2, if you use corn or rice chex then this recipe is gluten free (YAY!).

once the boys wake from there nap we're making this!

Mama called the doctor and the doctor said...

all 3 kids are healthy!

okay so i didn't call her but we (myself & Nanaw) took the boys in for pooks' 18mos check up and peanuts 1 month check-up. can you even believe that peanut is a month old already!? crazy, i know but true. bubba did not have a check up but obviously he went with us and i had questions about him too.

firstoff: peanut.

my cute little peanut is slowly turning into peanut butter---still technically a peanut but a little chunky! at birth he weighed 6lbs 13oz and today *drum roll please* he weighed a whopping 9lbs 2oz! he also grew an entire inch in length. overall he's a growing boy and looks great! his skin color looks great so there is no threat of jaundice, he uses both sides of his body, he has a great startle reflex and awesome neck/head control. he is a bit congested so we need to keep an eye on that, using a bulb syringe as needed and bringing him back if starts to have trouble breathing or eating. he goes back in a month for another check up and first round of shots.

on to....pooks:

pooks is 19mos old but this was his 18mos check up since one month ago i was having a baby. the first thing i have to say is that pooks does NOT weigh more than bubba-- contrary to popular belief. he was 31.5 inches tall and weighed 25.4lbs (which is 2 lbs less than bubba). developmentally he looks great. he uses plenty of words: mama, dada, hi, bye, go, car, hotdog, please, no, yes, snow, Elmo--just to name a few. he can stack blocks, he knows a few body parts, he understands commands (understands, not follows!) and he's a stinker which is completely normal for an almost 2 year old :) he did get one shot but he did quite well once he got his balloon. he comes back for another check up at 2 yrs old.

and finally:bubba

i had questions for Dr. S about getting him tested for allergies. while i think its quite obvious that he has either a wheat sensitivity or allergy i want to be positive. we've noticed great changes since we cut out wheat from his diet. we've slowly been adding it back in and some days there are no changes and other days he has meltdowns and belly aches. the other night he had pizza and was fine but for lunch yesterday he had macaroni and cheese and the afternoon was horrible. i just want answers.

i also wanted to make sure that there is anything else that may be contributing to his asthma. mainly i want to make sure he's not allergic to our dogs. while i don't think he would be (no one in our family is allergic to dogs) i also don't want to be unknowingly exposing him to something that's making him sick. nanaw, uncle matt and myself are all allergic to cats and nanaw is allergic to rabbits so its not that far fetched. anyways, he had to have blood drawn (thanks nanaw for holding him!) and we have an appt with the allergist on Jan 14th to go over the results. hopefully we find something out!

whew! the whole appt took well over an hour. weighing, measuring and checking 2 kiddos takes awhile, talking about everything took longer, and doing all of this after waking them from their nap then getting shots/giving blood--ugh--made it almost unbearable! needless to say it was a long day and i'm ready for bed!

it's Christmas time

i know i know, i haven't posted in days...i've just been super busy! the boys keep me crazy busy all day, especially since it snowed and we haven't left the house. they are going a bit stir-crazy. today, despite the fact that the high is 27 degrees, we're going to go to the store just so they can get out of the house for a little bit. let them burn off all this excess energy so that we can nap today ;)

when the boys are asleep i've been busy with Christmas projects/baking/wrapping. i finally have all the presents wrapped-woo hoo! it was bugging me that there were no presents underneath the tree and my laundry room that was full of shopping bags was bugging B, so that was a priority. then last night i made 2 batches of Chex mix and made a dozen chocolate dipped mint oreos (yes, they are to die for). today i'm hoping to get the puppy chow and the rest of the oreos finished. maybe i'll even get started on the pretzel candies...who knows! yesterday morning the boys and i made a crafty/art project for the grandparents. i just love the holidays!

Here comes Santa Claus,,,

today we fought the cold air to take the boys to see Santa. bubba was ready to tell him that he wanted ''car cars'' for christmas and that his brother wanted ''go-gos" (aka backyardigans). pooks himself wasn't so sure of Mr. Claus...actually pooks wouldn't' go near Santa. so i have pictures of bubba and santa, bubba with peanut and Santa and zero pics of pooks with Santa. oh well, you win some and lose some i guess! here they are...

bubba was very excited!

peanut was equally excited...LOL

and pooks was completely content eating the cookie that Santa's helper gave him after he refused to sit near the jolly old guy.

and because they are so damn funny, here are the out-takes...

bubba less than thrilled at having to smile again

and the final sign that we are done taking pictures...the infamous eye roll.
i swear he is 2 going on 16!

bedtime update...

i posted earlier today about pooks' new car bed and i was unsure of how he would do when it was time to actually sleep in it but he did great!

nap time this afternoon was a bit rough. pooks loved the bed but he loved climbing into and out of the bed even more. first he "needed" a book, then he "needed" a stuffed bear, etc. i gave him a kiss and told him to go night-night...then i hid in the hallway to watch. it took 3 or 4 times of reminding him to lay down and stay laying down, before he got it. the whole ordeal took about 10 minutes which overall i didn't think was too bad.

bedtime was even better. we did our normal story/book thing, bedtime kisses and i shut off the light. pooks' didn't get up at all. he curled right up and has been that way for over an hour-so far.
i just hope that if he wakes up tonight, he's able to fall back asleep on his own. as is i'm awake at midnight and then 3:30am with peanut and as much as i love pooks, i'd love him even more if he continues to sleep all night!

its been a busy busy morning!

it's not even noon yet and it has been hectic at the tic tac house this morning!

firstoff, bubba woke up screaming--coughing, wheezing and completely uncomfortable. i called the doctor to get him in...i was pretty sure it was his asthma but wanted to double check especially since its the weekend and this asthma thing is new to us. well by 8:30 when the office opened he was fussy, crying, wheezing and we had to suction mucous out of his nose. they said they could see him at 10:45am so i started a breathing treatment on his nebulizer. while doing that, i missed a call on my cell; of course it was the doctors office wanting to know if i could be there in 10 minutes?! um, okay. so B stayed with peanut and pooks while myself and bubba (still in his pj's) jumped in the car.

he officially has full blown asthma. he now has to have breathing treatments every morning and night-EVERY DAY, not just when he's sick. then when he is sick he has to have them every 4 hours until he's wheezing subsides. if his wheezing doesn't subside, then we have to do an oral steriod on top of the breathing treatments.

*sigh*

just when i finally get a morning routine down for all three kiddos, i gotta work something else into the mix! i just hope bubba starts to feel better soon...its so hard seeing him sick!

speaking of new routines, we're going to have an interesting night tonight because we got pooks' his race car bed! b picked it up last night but it stayed downstairs as they were already asleep. first thing this morning he carried it upstairs and started taking down the crib. (which pooks climbed out of again last night!) the boys had a blast! i made sure to take a lot of pics:

well this is new!

watching Daddy take down his crib
(yes, he cried!)

trying it out with his new pillow...seems to like it!

and their room now that I rearranged it. we obviously couldn't have pooks' bed right next to the toy bins, lol.

view from the door

view to the right

view to the left

bubba's bed

pooks' bed...we plan on getting him a "Cars" poster to go over it too!

i can't wait to see their room all finished after Christmas! knowing what we got them and what nanaw got them--its going to be so so cute!