Wonder Woman

Guess What?

Sorry, that was just a trick to get you to read my blog. I AM NOT PREGNANT (I know some of you can have babies 9 months apart, not me!), but I do have something that I wanted to tell everyone. I am now working for Birmingham Parent magazine selling advertising. I am so excited about it because I don't feel like it is just a JOB, I actually really like the magazine. It is a free publication and it is all over town, so if you go anywhere besides your own backyard, I'm sure you've seen it. I'm not fancy enough to have the "cool blog" that so many people read I can start selling advertising space, so why not sell it for something that a lot of people DO read. Birmingham Parent has over 80,000 readers and about 92% of those readers are female, um hello, that is a lot of people!!! I just wanted to get the word out and tell you that if you have any sort of business, website, or service to offer please consider advertising in Birmingham Parent. You can email me at lynlee@birminghamparent.com if you want to know more about it. And because I feel bad about tricking you, stay tuned for a recap of THE DAY HILL GOT A RAISIN STUCK UP HER NOSE.

AAARRRUUUU THE WHALE

This is such a random post, but I don't ever want to forget. A few weeks ago we went on our family beach trip to the Gulf. A couple days before the trip, Hill was telling me how she was going to swim in the ocean. I did my best to explain to her that she could swim in the pool all she wanted, but she wouldn't be able to swim in the ocean because of all the oil. Well, in her little mind, I guess oil and whale are the same thing. They do sound alike...sort of. She looked at me and said, "I gonna AAARRRUUUU that whale and send him back home to see his mommy, AAARRRUUUU!" The girl makes me laugh. I guess the comment should have caught me off guard, but I was quickly able to trace it back to Diego. So, thank you Diego for teaching my child about exotic animals, their noises, and that they are all in search of a lost family member. Kyle thinks it's funny to keep asking her about the oil, and every time we get an "AAARRRUUUU!"
And because I didn't take a single picture at the beach (bad mom), here a are a couple from the pool this summer.

The 4th

I'm behind on the blogging again, but I figured I needed to go ahead and post this one since it actually has a date attached to it. We had a great fourth of July just hanging around the house, then we walked to downtown Homewood for all the festivities. Hill loved the sights and sounds and was "super excited" to jump in all the inflatables.

Baylor was such a little trooper and chilled in the stroller, literally. I found this awesome battery operated fan at Babies R Us and besides it being one of the greatest purchases ever, I cannot tell you how many people stopped us and asked us about it.


Hill especially loved getting ice cream from the ice cream man, as you can see.


Baylor and I headed home about 8, but Kyle and Hill stayed out to watch the fireworks. She was absolutely delirious when she got home, but it was worth it just to see her so happy.

School's Out for Summer

I have fallen behind on my posts again, mostly because it takes me forever to upload photos. What am I doing wrong???? Is it because I don't have a fancy "mom" camera? Do y'all upload through blogger or through a photo hosting site? Anyway, we are full swing into summer and loving it, buckets of sweat and all. I have lots to update on, but I'll start with the last day of school. This was Hill's second year to attend Mother's Day Out at Canterbury UMC. It is a wonderful and organized school with caring teachers that Hill has had a love hate relationship with from the beginning. For about the first 6 months of her time there she would throw up as soon as she saw the church building, once we figured out it was self-induced vomiting, I would just change her clothes in the parking lot and take her on in (don't judge). The past two years we have been through the "class clown" phase, the biting phase, the excited to go to school phase, the "class bully" phase, the dragging to school kicking and screaming phase and the super sweet talk about school all the time phase. It has been interesting to say the least. While Canterbury has been wonderful to Hill, we made the decision to change schools next year for several different reasons. Going into Hill's last day of school, I was very sad. Sad that school was over knowing I hadn't enrolled her for the summer and sad that we would be saying goodbye to all of our Canterbury friends. I was in charge of bringing lunch for everyone to the end of the year party and let me just tell you , it isn't easy to squirt individual ketchup packets for each child while holding a squirming baby. We had just finished setting all the food up when Hill's class came in from the playground. The kiddos sat down to eat and following suit, Hill ate a few fries started crying, and got up from her seat to go lay in the floor. I was so frustrated that yet again, all of the other children were following the rules and she was acting out. I "kindly" told her to sit her bottom back in the chair and eat a piece of chicken. I squatted down next to her with Baylor (a move I would later regret) to make sure she ate her lunch and then it happened...puke, everywhere, all over me and her and the baby. Talk about a mix of emotions, the main one being guilt. Luckily, one of the other moms grabbed Baylor out of my hands while I carried Hill to the bathroom to clean her off. I grabbed Hill's things and we got out of there as quickly as we could, leaving a trail of throw up and "I'm so sorry's" behind. I guess it was only fitting that we left Canterbury the same way we began. There's nothing quite like going out with a bang. Look out Ascension here we come! These are a couple pictures I took of Hill pre-throw up. She even picked a couple of flowers to take to her teachers, wasn't that sweet?

Color Blind

Like every mom, I think my child is pretty smart. Hill can count to 16 (random number), speak in Spanish and Chinese (thanks to Dora and Kai-Lan), remember the words to every song she hears, and name all of the character's in her Bible when she sees their picture. She has also gotten pretty good at manipulation (kyle not me) and can spell her name "H-I-L-L, that spells Hill". All that to say, the girl still can't figure out her colors. We've been working on it for quite a while now and she can't seem to get it down. Every now and then she'll guess right, but I can tell that she really has no clue. On the mornings I take her to Mother's Day Out, we go through the coffee drive through and if she's been a "good girl", they will give her a sucker (I give them a thumbs up if I want them to give her a sucker). Anyway, every time I ask her what the sucker tastes like, she'll say "yum, it tastes like red" or "mmm, this tastes like blue", and 9 out of 10 times she's wrong. I guess I should probably worry too that she thinks flavor is the same thing as color. When we were outside playing yesterday, I asked her what color her eyes are, and from memory she told me they were green. She then said "daddy has red eyes, Baylor has brown eyes and mommy has polka dots." I do have a freckle in my eye, so maybe she got 1 out 3 sort of right. Last night before bed, Kyle asked her who was on her panties, she looked down and said "it's a black tinker bell", now that she was exactly right about. Needless to say, we still have some work ahead of us.

Overwhelmed

It is so hard to blog when there is so much to blog about. I guess I will just hit the high points then try to do a better job from here on out. Here's what's been going on with us...
Hill is hilarious! When she isn't making me laugh, she is making me crazy, but I wouldn't trade it for anything because she is so stinking cute. She is talking up a storm and the things that come out of her mouth amaze me. Here are a few of my favorites:

Me: time to go to church
Hill: Nope, church not like me

Me: time to go to school
Hill: I can't go to school today. I sick, "cough cough" I need to get in bed to rest

Me: I am so happy you were sweet today
Hill: I so happy you happy

Me: Good morning Hill (when I walk in her room in the morning)
Hill: Mommy, you found me!

Me: I fixed your lunch
Hill: I lub it soooo much

Hill: Ohhh Bader, you so nice (while giving Baylor a hug)

Hill: God our fader, we tank you, for our many bessings, All the men



She loves to sing and dance and we regularly hear renditions of "I wanna be where da people are" and "Da simple bare necessities, forget about your worries and your stripes". We watch the cartoon Robin Hood movie at least 3 times a week and Mrs. Spider every night before bed. She would play outside in the back yard all day if I would let her. We have always read to her, but she will actually sit still through a whole book now, and is constantly bringing us books to read to her. Her favorite book is the Jesus Storybook Bible, she especially likes us to read it to her while she is on the potty. You read that right, "potty". Hill is officially potty trained. It deserves its own post, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet and don't know that I ever will be. It was one of the hardest things that I've ever done!!! Hill is the best big sister and is very protective over her little "Bader Boy".

As for Baylor, he is growing like a weed! He is the sweetest baby and loves to snuggle and be held. Completely different from Hill. He will be 7 months old in a few days and the time has flown by. At 6 months, he was in the 60th percentile for height and 30th percentile for weight. He loves being in the Johnny Jump Up and he loves his sleep.

Bath time is a favorite but getting the boy dressed is almost impossible. He hates laying down on the changing table and will scoot himself off the edge. His tummy problems have gotten better but we still have a few kinks to work out. He belly laughs when we "tickle his turkey" but no one can make him laugh quite like Hill can. He thinks she hung the moon. I could go on and on about Hill and Baylor, but this post is already getting longer than I wanted it to be.


We went to the beach for a week over spring break and it was a nice change of scenery. Hill was in Heaven with all the new activities. Baylor got in the swimming pool for the first time and seemed to really enjoy it. It was a very hard week for me taking care of two in a new place, but they both had a blast and we all enjoyed the company of great friends!

In other exciting family news, Aunt Claire got engaged to soon to be "Uncle Dan" and Aunt Ashley had baby Allyn. Hill asks if she can call baby Allyn on the phone about every two seconds and when Ashley answers, she says "How your baby feel? Baby Allyn gonna tickle Hill! Can I hold your baby?" When they finally met for the first time, she realized that she would much rather play with Ella and Gray.


Let's see what else? Oh, there's a bird that tries to attack me every time I walk outside. Momma bird had some babies outside my kitchen window and Daddy bird is extremely protective and apparently sees me as a huge threat.

He dive bombs my head as soon as I step foot in the front yard. If birds holding me captive in my own house wasn't disturbing enough, a neighborhood cat has decided to make my front porch step its resting place. For those of you who don't know, I hate cats!!! No offense to those of you who own the fur balls, I don't judge you, well, maybe just a little. All that to say, maybe the cat will eat the birds then go somewhere far far away.

That about sums up the past few months. I think now that I've written the longest post in the history of America, my friends will stop threatening to take me off their blog roll and I will actually be more willing to update on a regular basis so I don't have to write a post that long ever again!

I'm Back

Our computer bit the dust about a month ago, so I've been without Internet access/email/communication since then. It was hard for me to justify to Kyle that I needed a new computer since the old one was apparently "the grossest and stickiest and most un-cared for computer" in the history of computers, according to the tech guy. Plus, I've actually been keeping up with the house work around here without blogs to stalk and Facebook to browse. I have so much reading to catch up on, but really want to try to do a better job updating my own blog. As soon as I get some pictures added to this thing, I'll do some posts. Can't wait to see what's been going on in the blog world, where do I even begin....

Need to Get Outside!

It might be a sign that you've been stuck in the house for too long and been watching way too much TV when your 2 your old shakes her brother's hand and says "Hola Bader(Baylor) Me How(Ni Hao)," then proceeds to do the Hot Dog Dance while shouting "My name's Hill, I like to dance," then runs off to help an animal in twouble.

Will Never Again Wish for Blog Material

I was just sitting here trying to think of something to blog about, but was lacking inspiration, so I gave up...until some blogging material just hit me. Literally, hit me, right on the cheek. Out of no where Hill climbed up on the couch, came in for the kiss, then licked the side of my face from top to bottom. GROSS! I screamed, woke a napping baby and now have a 2 year old chasing me around the house trying to lick me because she got the exact reaction she was looking for. When I asked her why she did it, she just gave me a evil shy grin.

Cooking

Hill has been doing lots of cooking in her new kitchen and she especially likes to make sure Baylor is well fed. According to Hill, his favorites are "chokwit me-ilk", "ice cweam", and "macawonies".

Talented

Hill loves to sing...




...and pick her nose

My Other Child

Hill is just SOOOO 2 right now and there is a lot to talk about when it comes to her larger than life personality, but I thought I would remind everyone that I do have another child. Baby Baylor happens to be 3 months old today and the only thing that is larger than life when it comes to my little man is, unfortunately, his poop. I don't want to get into all the gory details, but he is having some serious digestive issues. We are still trying to figure everything out and get him some relief in the very near future, for his sake and ours. Other than his screaming/explosion episodes that come about 7 to 10 times a day, he is the sweetest little baby. I prayed for a laid back baby after "Hill the Pill" and so far my prayers have been answered. He loves to cuddle and smiles all the time. He is growing too and is holding steady at 10% for height and 15% for weight. We are still aren't getting as much sleep as we would like, but he is worth it. I have to say that with the second baby, it is much easier to get through the hard times because I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. My light this time is the thought that there is no possible way Baylor will be as strong willed as his sister....right? Anyway, we all love him so much and can't imagine life without him. Happy 3 month Birthday "Bader"/"Bay Bay"/"Widdle Buddy"/"Bubba"!

Worst Blogger Ever

Don't feel like taking the time to write a post, but I was sick of seeing my Halloween post every time I signed on to read other blogs. Maybe I'll post again soon, no promises.