HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANAW!!!

today is nanaw's birthday but since she is at the casino living it up visiting matt and rachel, we celebrated with her last night. if there is one food that i can make that usually turns out pretty kick ass, it's fried chicken. (which is mildly ironic since I don't like fried chicken) so for nanaw's special day i fried up 17 chicken legs, mashed potatoes with made-from-scratch white gravy, green beans, rolls and topped it off with an ice cream cake from cold stone. i think the boys loved it just as much as she did!

in the middle of singing 'happy birthday' pooks took it upon himself to blow out the candles

peanut after ''2 bites of just ice cream. i didn't give him the chocolate cake babe."really B? you want to rethink that? the evidence shows differently....

the whole gang enjoying the cake. (the chocolate ganache was enough of a reason to eat outside with bubba and pooks!)

i hope you had a great day Nanaw! have fun seeing harry potter tomorrow :) did you win on any of your scratch tickets??

need a good laugh?

then go to yearbookyourself.com. seriously, you upload a picture of yourself and then pick a year...they photoshop your face into a yearbook photo from that year.

case in point, me in 1960:

or B in 1962:

1998:

pretty neat huh?

things are looking up!

things are going much better around here! peanut's thrush is clearing up and mine is gone. *yay* hopefully we don't continue to pass it back and forth and it will clear up completely soon. overall peanut seems to be feeling much better. he is sleeping better at night (i wouldn't say ''great'') and while he shows virtually no signs of crawling any time soon, BOTH of his top teeth are showing at the gum line AND he's starting to pull himself up to stand. so apparently crawling isn't high on his 'to-do' list.
the little dudes are doing well. their current obsession is puzzles. they love working on them! true bubba's attention span is a bit longer than pooks, but pooks holds his own. we have a few large floor puzzles (think 2ft x 3ft) and yesterday bubba put one together all by himself! it was so great to watch him and he kept saying ''i can do it mommy." and he did it, he was so happy and it just made me realize how much he's grown up! all 24 jumbo pieces by himself :)
pooks' favorite part is taking the puzzle apart. the second bubba gets the puzzle finished, pooks is ready to tear it apart.

oh and nanaw, i didn't forget...i'm posting tonights activites tomorrow ;)

when it rains it pours...

sorry for the lack of posting recently, i'm tired! peanut was the epitome of health for 8 months and lately if it's not one thing, it's another. don't get me wrong, it's nothing big and for that i am immensely thankful!

first he was teething. he cut 2 teeth on the same day and for all of 2 days he was happy. then he came down with an ear infection. managed to get him into the doctor and he was put on a 10 day antibiotic treatment and it worked. i had taken him back to the doctor on friday and his ears looked great. no fluid, no dullness, his ears looked completely normal.

thursday, friday and saturday we were "sleep training" him. it's been a good 2 months (at least) since he slept through the night. we (I) was getting up anywhere from 3-7 times each night to comfort him. i was exhausted and becoming quite bit....bitter. a person has to have more than 1 hour of sleep at a time to feel rested!

because the doctor said his weight was good, he was healthy and there was absolutely no reason that an 8 month old should be waking that much at night to nurse, we went cold turkey on the night feedings. we ended up having to let him cry it out and it was working. true he would cry/fuss for anywhere from 30mins-almost 3 hours (on and off!) at bedtime but he was sleeping through the night and much happier. saturday night he slept for a straight 7 hours! it was amazing.

until sunday morning.

when he went to nurse, it hurt. i mean it hurt! at first i thought it was his teeth. i pulled him off and looked---white stuff in his mouth. great, thrush. (in this case they think the antibiotics were the cause) bubba had it as an infant and while somewhat of a pain in the ass to deal with, it's really not a big deal. you have to apply this anti-fungal medicine to their mouth/cheeks four times a day and boil all binkies and bottles. with bubba it took about a week but wasn't too bad.

because he used bottles.

peanut doesn't use bottles. peanut uses me. thrush is easily spread because it's basically a yeast infection. i don't think i have to spell this out. peanut has thrush in his mouth. he uses his mouth to eat from my breast. and viola i have a thrush as well. while we caught it early and neither of us is in a ton of pain, because it is so easily transferable we could keep passing it back and forth forever.

okay, okay, not forever but you get the idea.

so now i have a topical medicine, he has an oral medicine, i am now boiling binkies, washing bras and bleaching toys at night. because obviously, if he teethes all over something and i don't clean it, then he can just give himself thrush again. and again. and again.

doesn't that sound like fun!?

so i'm here. we're all fine for the most part and hopefully i'll be back to posting soon. i've been working on ironing out the details for peanut's first birthday (less than 4mos to go and it's right before the holidays so i'm trying to plan/budget now. plus i always make a big to-do over first birthday's) as well as trying to run a house and raise my kids. and be a decent wife to my also tired and equally stressed husband.
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in other news, pooks stayed dry in his pull up for almost 5 hours today, he also said his whole first name (instead of his nickname) and he was also caught not once, but TWICE sneaking fruit snacks (that he was told he was NOT allowed to have before lunch) underneath a table/barstool.

bubba is learning how to swing on a real swing at the park. he's all about the ''in...out...in....out" leg motions. he now knows triangle, square, circle, octagon and can recognize the letters b, m, w, e, o, and i regardless of where they are written/typed. did i mention he just turned three? when did he grow up?

more later, i'm off to bed!

hot dog on a stick...

the event that only comes once a year...and no i'm not talking about Christmas.

i'm talking about the county fair! where else do they call corn dogs, hot dogs on a stick?!

we love the fair. and i'm not being the least be sarcastic. we really do. the lights, the food, the rides, the animals, the rodeo, the food, the games. because we only live 3 blocks from the fairgrounds, the kids get to see the horses whenever we run errands. we went to the park on tuesday and they were watching "da wookers" who were putting the Ferris wheel up...every day since then i've heard ''i wanna go to the fair mommy."

now i know that a county fair is not every ones cup of tea. some people hate fairs all together. some people would rather wait for the state fair. not me. i prefer the county fair. i like to see all the 4-H animals and the rodeo horses. i like free parking and zero traveling. i remember going to the county fair when i was young (a little older than bubba, i think) and watching the pig races, riding the swings and begging to go on the Ferris wheel. playing the 'pick the duck' game and eating cotton candy. i want to be able so share all that summery over-priced goodness with my kids too.

so after dinner tonight, despite the fact that it was 94 degrees out with ZERO breeze, we loaded up the kids and finally went to the fair. in true fair fashion, we were lazy enough to drive (you know, all 3 blocks. in our defense we have 3 kids and it's a BIG hill) and the first thing we did when we got there was walk through all the 4-H buildings and see the animals. which by the way was a very good idea and we may have seen the cutest thing ever. seriously, adorable. bubba loved petting the goats but pooks did not. he would not get near any farm animal which was completely opposite of him last year.
this big ol' mama pig just gave birth yesterday to SIXTEEN piglets. SIXTEEN. and we were lucky enough to get to see her, plus the piglets and they 13 of those piglets were nursing--which bubba and pooks thought was so cool. in the words of pooks, "dat pig gots yots and yots of boobies! mommy, piggies dwink yots of boobie milk mommy." he watches for minute. "yike baby [peanut]."
told you it was adorable.

so after sanitizing our hands, we found a spot to sit down and dine on all the fried goodness that the fair offers. B has been talking about eating a huge turkey leg for the last 2 weeks at least. whatever, Neanderthal. i'm more traditional and couldn't wait for a funnel cake! the boys liked both, equally. although pooks did like all the powdered sugar, a lot!
after our snack, we walked around and took in the sights and smells. the boys played the rubber ducky game and each won a stuffed monkey. B and I played the skee-ball game but neither of us could score the 210 necessary points to win a prize. then the boys *finally* got to ride a few kiddie rides.

bubba took the motorcycle ride VERY seriously

but the cars were their hands down favorite. they actually rode them twice. while waving like movie stars.
peanut napped for a bit, then contently rode around in the stroller. he was more than happy to stare at all the lights, listen to the sounds and watch the people. he got pretty comfy in baby yeah yeah's stroller. (we're ordering his this week...i think i'm more excited than he is!)
after a bathroom break the boys rode the cars for the second time, as well as the carousel. well at the last minute pooks chickened out form the carousel so i rode it with bubba. i don't even remember the last time i did that, but he thought we were racing and apparently his horse beat my bunny.
by this time bubba was begging for cotton candy so we went back over to the food area. the boys shared cotton candy, i enjoyed a hot dog on a stick and B ate a huge ear of roasted corn. overall it was a huge success! no meltdowns, injuries or accidents but a lot of smiles and laughs and full bellies. bubba already said that he wants to go again next year!

i personally think the best part was on our way out of the park; i saw a family that was just sitting on the hill watching everything. the kids were probably 8 and 10 but they weren't running around with their friends, they were just sitting there, watching with their parents. while they weren't whining or pouting, you could just tell by looking at them that they were happy to be there, but wanted to join in so badly. we had a few leftover extremely, ridiculously overpriced ride tickets so i asked them if they'd like the rest of our tickets. they were SO excited! the kids happily took the tickets and the parents were genuinely thankful. the dad told us 'thank you' about 3 times and that we 'were just so kind'. afterwards (seeing the parents reaction) I realized that they didn't have the money. the kids were so sweet about it and i was so glad we were able to help. even bubba said ''now those kids get to ride yike us?" yep bubba, now they do.

i love the fair.

brothers

i have one brother. and honestly i would say that, for the most part as kids we got along really well. sure we had our moments. i can vividly remember because my parents NEVER let it go body slamming him against the dryer one time. and sure there were times where i may have got pelted by a ball "on accident". there was tattling and biting, slapping and wrestling but honestly for the most part i just remember that he was there. sure sometimes he was a bother, but mostly he was a brother.

i always knew that i wanted 4 kids. i wanted the oldest to be a boy because i wanted the kids (regardless of sex) to have an older brother. well here we are three kids later (and yes, I still want one more) and they have nothing but brothers. and honestly i could not have asked for a better big brother. bubba is a natural! so empathetic and caring and he acts so mature for a three year old!

obviously like anything in life, there are ups and downs. some days they fight like cats and dogs. biting, hitting, hair pulling, toy stealing chaos. already they can devour an entire frozen pizza together. they've worked in cahoots together (more than once) to pull off a ''no-no". but some days they get along so well that you can't help but stare. this morning was one of those days.

they were sharing and talking. they were cheering for peanut when he rolled over and high fiving pooks when he went potty. when we left for the park, pooks brought bubba his flip-flops and bubba told him "thank you" without being reminded. the kicker? when pooks said ''welcome why-an". or when we returned home after running errands; bubba and pooks were in the house and i had taken a sleeping peanut up to his bed. as i was unloading groceries bubba comes up to me and says ''mommy, you gotta get baby [peanut] out of the car...don't fo-get him."

pretty sure that melted my heart.

so in honor of brothers (mine of whom started a blog and will start MED school tomorrow) here are a bunch of pictures from this morning:

pooks and peanut (see his pearly whites!?)

bubba, all 3 years and 4 months of him

pooks, now 2 years and 2 months old

peanut now 8 months old

(and i must say, peanut can pull off the" i'm asian, have super thin hair and ed hardy shirt" combo FAR better than jon gosselin)

and lastly, all 3 brothers together.

say it with me...."awww"

guess who?

woke up this morning, said ''me go pee" then proceeded to sit on his potty, go pee, stand up and want to wear a PULL-UP? pooks! he's being going potty sometimes, as i mentioned here. yesterday he went 4 times and stayed dry over his nap. but up until this morning he wouldn't wear anything but a diaper. so as he's sitting here eating a bowl of dry lucky charms with a plastic fork because he insists on eating his cereal while watching handy manny and i don't allow milk in the living room, not that i allow him to watch tv while eating either but this is a compromise with a 2 year old he looks like such a big boy in his lightning mcqueen pull-up. because seriously, did you expect anything less than a "Cars" pull-up?

what a fun filled weekend!

this weekend just flew by! we did a ton but i didn't take a ton of pictures. not really sure why, but we had fun. guess you'll just have to take my word for it ;)

saturday morning we slept in (you know 8:30am is sleeping in for toddlers), then we headed over to the zoo with baby yeah-yeah and auntie s. it was beautiful out! 78 degrees in the middle of july? you have to take advantage of that! the kids had a blast and the animals were so cute!

baby yeah-yeah & peanut in the stroller

looking at the baby flamingos! who knew they were gray?

bubba and B feeding the goats (pooks would not go near them)

all the kiddos by the snow leopards

the sloth bear had 2 cubs, they were so cute!

...now the bears, pooks liked!

after the zoo we headed over to Panera for lunch then home for naps. during their nap, i helped auntie michelle clean up her house so she could turn in her key and officially no longer live here. it was a nice break from the little dudes but i wish she didn't have to move. we miss you auntie michelle! after their naps we ate supper (i can't even remember what we had, lol. must have been really good!) then we went grocery shopping.

let me tell you, taking 3 kids shopping and B grocery shopping is a task. all you hear is ''can we get this?" or "i want that". geez, who knew i had 4 kids? (just kidding B, i love you! and your sushi, beef jerky, frozen pizza....) took about an hour but it went smoothly.

this morning was a lazy day. we hung out around the house. we watch finding nemo and just spend the day being silly.

see...i told you! peanut was acting goofy!

giggling hysterically when i flipped him upside down.

overall we didn't do much. after naps bubba, pooks and I baked up 3.5 dozen monster cookies which turned out delicious. then i made supper (we had spaghetti...i do remember that!) and we all played outside. okay the kids and i played. B mowed the grass, washed the cars, watered the plants, sprayed for bugs, and then cleaned it all up. hey i have to keep him around for something! ;)

Babyfood tutorial

last time when i blogged about making peanut's baby food, i had a lot of feedback. some of you were interested in the how-to since you are pregnant or have little ones yourself. well, for that reason tonight while on a baby food making marathon i made sure to photograph each step. i myself am a visual learner so i thought photos might help someone out there. keep in mind that i made 4 different ''flavors'' and start to finish took 2 hours (including cleaning, peeling, dicing, steaming/mashing, and clean up). to me, that's not bad. i wait til the kids are in bed, put on my ipod, and jam out.

since peanut is *gasp* almost 8 months old, we are now combining foods. tonight i made plums & apples, peaches w/apple & banana, butternut squash w/pears and blueberries w/ pears. personally i usually add a familiar fruit (apples/pears are his fav) to a new food (in this case plums and blueberries) so he's more apt to enjoy it.

first up, plums with apple using the steamer. now normally i make enough of something to freeze and have multiple servings. but as i was going through our fruit, there was a plum that was starting to get soft so i wanted to use it before it had to be tossed.

step 1: rinse your fruit and peel it. then dice into small pieces and set in steamer basket.
step 2: once soft, remove fruit to either a food processor, blender or in this case a mini-chopper. (since i was making so little, i went with the mini chopper)
Step 3: blend until you reach the desired consistency. if you want it thinner/runnier add some of the leftover water that the fruit was steamed in (it's chalked full of nutrients). for thicker consistency, add little to no water and don't puree for as long.
okay, so that made 2 good size servings. in all honesty it probably could have been split into 3 servings but i wanted to conserve my little containers.

then i did peaches with apples and bananas using the steamer, mashing by hand and the blender.

Step 1: peel, clean and dice your peaches and apples. cut them up and place in steamer.
step 2: while the peaches and apples are steaming, mash a banana (or 2 in this case) by hand. cut each one into chunks, then mash with a fork. if you need to soften the banana some, you can pop them in the microwave for 20 seconds. then mash.
step 3: add your apples, peaches and bananas to the blender.
step 4: blend. i usually use the pulse button so that it doesn't puree too much. this is when i sneak a taste...i sneak a taste of everything i make him. surprisingly this flavor is really good, even though it's nothing i would normally eat all together.
step 5: scoop out into ice cube trays, then freeze. once frozen solid, pop them out and put them in a ziploc baggie. you can thaw them in the microwave, or just set them out an hour before you plan on feeding the kiddo.
for this batch i used 2 small bananas, 2 organic peaches and 1 apple. it made 16 cubes, and peanut eats 2 cubes at a time. so for less than $2 we have 8 servings of fresh, healthy, preservative-free baby food. one jar of a stage 2 "earth's best" baby food is $.70/jar. hmm....less than $2 or $5.60? that's a hard choice. not!

now for the butternut squash with pears, i chose to buy frozen organic butternut squash for 2 reasons. 1) being we live in kansas, squash isn't really plentiful in july and 2) this is easier, just as healthy and was on sale for $1.89 for 10oz.
step 2: steam the butternut squash for about 3 minutes, then add the pears. steam for another minute or two, just until soft. it really doesn't take but 5 minutes because pears are pretty soft already.
step 3: drop in blender and puree. easy-peasy and you're done.

lastly, i whipped up the blueberries. they were $2 for 1/2 a pint and i used the entire container.

step 1: start about 5 cups of water boiling in a saucepan. (no steamer) while that's going, rinse and clean your blueberries. make sure you remove all the stems and yucky bits.
step 2: drop the blueberries into the boiling water and decrease the heat. let the berries simmer until they soften. for me, this took about 7 minutes. using a slotted spoon, move berries to the blender. then puree with cut and diced pears. (in this case, i didn't steam the pears first...the berries were hot enough to blend up nicely with the pears) see how purple real, fresh blueberries are? doesn't quite compare to the jarred blueberries now does it?
tonight or tomorrow i'll make veggies. he'll be having white potatoes with broccoli, peas and carrots, and green beans. for more ideas, check out wholesomebabyfood.com. it's an awesome site!