Go EZ Brown

I would also like too congratulate our son on a long awaited accomplishment: his first pee on the potty. We have not really been potting training but we have had the potty out where he can sit on it if he feels so inclined. Usually he says he wants to sit on it because he wants us to take off his diaper so he can run around naked. This morning we ran out of diapers (Oops my bad) so we put him in a pull up and he wore it for a couple of hours without peeing in it so I asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty and he said yes. He sat in there with a good book and I kind of forgot he was in there until I heard him say "It's slippery." That kind of scared me and some of the fear was warranted because yes he had peed a little on the floor, but he managed to get well over half in the potty. So let's see if we can keep this going. I am so tired of having to keep track of two kids in diapers. And most importantly I want to be able to drop him off at the play area in Ikea so I can shop in peace.

Go John Brown

Just like to give a shout out to my husband for getting an award at work. He was awarded for his help coordinating Dell's switch from using DHL to Fedex. He got a plaque like thingy and some gift cards. Not too shabby for the newbie and I take it as a good sign for his employment in this sucky economy. So congrats John Brown! (Now let's see if he actually ever checks the blog and sees this. HaHa)

Dang It All

I am a little upset at Old Navy right now. I was super stoked when I went on slickdeals.net and found a code for 50% off clearance at oldnavy.com. I checked it out and it was legit so I started shopping up a storm. I got stuff for Netta, EZ, John and me. In the end I had 23 things for less than 60 bucks. Not too bad if you ask me. So then I go to check out and I find out 6 things are no longer available. Ok disappointing, but not too bad. Well then as I am checking out it keeps freezing and then all of a sudden 6 more things aren't available so I essentially lost half my order trying to check out. So still we got a great deal 11 things for about 34 bucks before shipping, including two pairs of pants for John, which are hard to come by, but I am just a bit disappointed with the online shopping experience. I guess now I know that I have to shop as fast as possible because everyone and their dog knows about these kind of deals.

I'm Too Small

Someone on Diego must have been too small to do something today because all of a sudden EZ woke up from his nap and he was "too small" to do a lot of things. He asked for a cookie and I said he had to eat dinner first and his response was "I'm too small to eat din din." Then he started responding to questions with "I'm big enough". I told him to play bowling away from mommy and Netta since he just about hit me in the head with the ball and his response was. "No, I'm big enough." Then he became even more puzzling by mixing the two phrases and responding "No, I'm too enough." So apparently he goes back and forth between big enough and too small depending on what suits his agenda the best. And then sometimes he is not sure which answer will help him out the most so he just mixes the two. As his ability to communicate gets better and better he can be insanely frustrating with his refusal to cooperate, but at the same time he can be so frickin cute it makes you forget how mad you might have been before.

Pfulgerville Pfinds

I just started another blog for the ladies I know around here to share any cool thing they find out about or to ask for any help they may need. It is pflugervillepfinds.blogspot.com. In reality though anyone can post any good sales or anything they find that would work no matter where you live. In case you were wondering Pflugerville is the name of the city I almost live in here. I technically live in Round Rock, but we are in the Pflugerville School District and we got to the Pflugerville Ward for church. The ladies in Lansing, MI started one while I was there and it is still going strong and I still check it out. So yeah no matter where you live you should check this out from time to time and if you want to be an author on it so you can post things too just let me know and send me your email address. I think it needs to be a google address, but if you don't have one when I invite you it will help you set one up really easily.

Everybody Loves Baby Food

Netta was giving me a hard time about eating her vegetables and I was afraid I had ruined her by letting her have fruit too early, but lately just by mixing in some rice cereal with the veggies we have got her back on track. She now eats three solid meals, some snacks, and nurses three times a day. I have mixed feelings about solid foods. I love the freedom it gives me to leave Netta with other people, but at the same time sometimes it is easier and faster for me to nurse her than to feed her and let's be honest nursing poop is so much nicer than solid food poop. (If indeed poop can be nice.) So here is a recent pic of her after eating. I feel bad for her because as you can see it's hard to tell where the snot ends and the food begins. I am pretty sure she has allergies since she has been dripping snot ever since we got back to Austin with no other signs of illness. Poor girl. I had allergies when I was little and my mom referred to me as booger queen, a nickname I hate to this day, but I have actually found myself referring to Netta as it. Oops.

For some reason EZ has found a new love of baby food. Whenever I am feeding Netta he always wants me to give him some. I'll admit that the fruit is really yummy and I will sneak a little bit of that every once in a while, but everything else is gross and he seems to like it no matter what it is. The other night he refused to eat his dinner and I didn't want him to go to bed having just eaten goldfish or something so I was trying to think of what to give him and I remembered that we had some chicken noodle baby food. Now that stuff is really sick and the smell is enough to make me ill, but I thought hey let's give it a try and he LOVED it. Note in the picture that he is not wearing a shirt, but he is wearing shoes. He insists on wearing shoes at all times and the last couple days has been begging to run around shirtless for some reason. Who knows what goes on in his head.

You may have also noticed that EZ's hair is not quite as crazy as it usually is. I have been doing my best to trim the sides and back so it isn't too out of control. I am not brave enough to attempt to trim the top, but also not willing enough to pay to get it cut just yet so this is as good as it gets. (The following cute bath picture is so you can see how how much his hair has improved.)

What Is He Talking About?

EZ is not always that easy to understand. His girlfriend Briton, who is a year older than him, asked me "Why does EZ talk so funny?" and many other people have asked me "Do you understand what he is saying?". Sometimes I have no idea what he is talking about, but I have found that if I try to reflect on what tv shows he watched that morning then I have some clue into what he could be talking about and usually I can piece it together in the end. Lately, he loves to yell "That's it!". Sometimes it's when he is mad at me and other times it's just totally out of the blue. I noticed he started doing it over Christmas break and at first I thought "Is he really saying 'that's it'?" and then once I was sure he was I thought, "I don't say that when I get mad. Where the heck did he get that?". It was actually kind of embarrassing because it makes it seem like I yell that at him all the time. So finally it dawned on me that he was getting it from his favorite movie as of late. Any guesses? It's from Charlie Brown's Christmas when Lucy is trying to figure out what Charlie is afraid of and then when she says "the fear of everything" he yells "That's it!". I should have known right away since EZ watched that movie everyday up till Christmas and than at least twice a day at my parents' house (with the help of Grandpa Steve of course). Well then on the way home he started picking up pieces of paper and pretending to read them and then yell "First Prize?!". It took me quite a while just to figure out that he was saying "First prize" since he was yelling it like a crazy person and then I realized that was yet another Charlie Brown's Christmas reference. You know Snoopy is all into decorating his house and then Charlie walks by after being rejected because of his poor tree choice and finds a ribbon on Snoopy's house that says "First Prize" and Charlie isn't all that happy about it. Anyway, so the moral of the story is, if you want to figure out what EZ is talking about chances are it comes from whatever movie or show he is obsessed with as of late.

I've Been Tagged

So here are six random and maybe unknown things about me:

1. I think one day I would like to be a wedding planner or well maybe just an assistant to a wedding planner, but anyway you get the picture. Everyday in high school I would watch A Wedding Story after school. I had a job life guarding at the Courtyard by our house and I would almost be late because the show was on as I was supposed to be leaving for work I would have to wait till I saw the bride's dress before I could go. I love talking to people about their weddings, going shopping for dresses and rings and all that jazz, and I just think it would be so much fun to be a part of that all the time.

2. I speak Arabic and yes I have taught it for the last 4 1/2 years, but sometimes I don't like to bring it up because people then ask if I am fluent and I have to admit that I am not and even though I have been told I am good I still get seriously embarrassed and nervous whenever I have to really interact with people in Arabic. I think teaching 101 and 102 for so long and not getting to spend a lot of time abroad has just held me back from getting to a level where I can feel really comfortable using it on a daily basis. Had I chosen Arabic over a family obviously I could have gotten better, but duh my family rocks and I wouldn't have it any other way.

3. I want to have more kids and I kind of want to have twins next and just be done with it. Being pregnant the second time was not nearly as fun as the first time and I would like to be done destroying my waistline as soon as possible so I can finally fix it once and for all.

4. I want to be rich but not famous. I don't want all the hassle of being famous, but I want to be able to travel a lot and have a personal chef since I can't cook to save my life and I don't see myself getting any better at that any time soon.

5. I almost have changed my mind about wanting to be rich, because I will embarrassingly admit that I am watching the Real Housewives of Orange County and their lives are seriously messed up.

6. I always put added pressure on myself by stressing over silly things and creating deadlines that don't exist so to save other people from that stress I am not tagging anyone. (Don't worry Rachel I am glad you tagged me and this was really fun to write!)

Volcanoes are Everywhere

When we were on our way to Salt Lake City and close to landing, EZ kept saying "Volcanoes!". Of course it didn't sound exactly like volcanoes and it came out of no where, so without any context I hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about. Then I looked out the window and realized he was calling the mountains volcanoes. I thought it was pretty funny and then when we were on our way home from Pittsburgh and landing in Chicago for our layover he kept saying volcanoes again. Now Midway airport is in the middle of crowded neighborhood with no mountains, so I was really confused. Then I looked out the window and there was this factory with a huge smoke stack and a large smoke cloud over it. I couldn't stop laughing. I wonder if EZ is phased by the fact that he sees volcanoes everywhere. Probably not.

Oh and I appreciate all the well wishes I received for my second cross country flight by myself. EZ escaped once or twice and had to be captured by strangers and then wrestled into the monkey backpack, but overall it went pretty smoothly and no worse than the first one. Luckily I won't have to do that again for a while.

Grandpa Steve

EZ absolutely loves his Grandpa Steve and had a blast at my parents house over break. (He used to be referred to as Bumpa Steve, but EZ has finally figured out how to say it correctly. I am not sure if I am happy about that or not.) Anytime my dad left the house EZ would stand by the window like a puppy and wait for him to come home and whenever he wanted my dad to play with him he would say "Come on Grandpa Steve. Let's Go". It was so cute and I know my dad also loved having EZ around. He loved EZ so much that he had a hard time telling him no.

Exhibit A: EZ's pack n play was in my parents room and one night my day went up to go to bed and there was EZ still awake. He stood up and said "downstairs" so even though it was like 11:00pm my dad brought him down and let him play a little longer. They went back upstairs and some of us stayed up talking. At about 12:30 all of a sudden I see EZ run by me and my dad following behind. According to my dad EZ had escaped. But EZ can't get out of the pack n play so how did he escape? Well Grandpa let him sleep in the "big bed" with him and when Grandpa finally dozed off EZ made a break for it.

Exhibit B: EZ came to me and asked to watch Charlie Brown Christmas but we were watching something else and I told him he had to wait. So he responded by asking "Where is Grandpa Steve?" and then took off looking for my dad, who sure enough turned on the movie for him in another room. From then on anytime I told him no he would ask "Where is Grandpa Steve?".

Even though EZ got a bit spoiled, it was great to see him have so much fun and we can't wait till my parents come to visit us, so EZ can have his playmate back.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was quite the adventure. We started it out opening presents with Grandpa Phil. EZ actually got his presents back in Texas before we left, but we wanted him to have something to open so we bought a couple books and a puzzle for him. Netta didn't get to open anything, but I suspect she won't remember to hold it against us later in life. It was really great getting to spend a week with John's dad. His has been battling cancer and just a few weeks before Christmas things were not looking good at all, but his treatments worked better than even the doctor expected and by the time we arrived he was doing really well as things considered.

That afternoon John took the kids and I to the airport to head off to Pittsburgh while John stayed in Utah to spend a couple more days with his dad before heading back to work. After the fiasco that was our trip to Utah I wasn't very excited about flying across country by myself with two kids. We had a three hour flight from SLC to Chicago and then an hour flight from there to Pittsburgh. The first flight went pretty well and I was able to snatch an extra seat for Netta and take this super cute pic.

When we got off in Chicago things got a little dicey. They were really slow getting our stroller so I was waiting on the jet way holding Netta, two bags, and EZ by his monkey backpack/leash. Well EZ got loose and when I caught up with him he sat on he ground and refused to go back down the jet way to the stroller, so I just grabbed the leash and dragged him all the way back on his butt. Of course people didn't help and just stared, but I couldn't have cared less what people thought of me at that point. By the time we got the stroller I had 30 minutes to get us dinner and get to the other concourse. Of course EZ decided at that point that he didn't want to walk anymore so that was a bit stressful and I had to scold him by whispering threats in his ear as forcefully as possible. We finally made it on the flight and I guess EZ didn't like the AC vent blowing on his face because I looked over and found this (and he wasn't sleeping).

Thankfully my dad works for US Airways so he was able to meet me and the kids at the gate. When we got to the house there was a slew of presents under the tree for us and EZ's first one was a little tikes guitar. Well I have said before how much he loves guitar hero so he went crazy when he saw this present. He as so obsessed with it that he wanted nothing to do with opening the rest of his presents.

Netta also got some greats presents. She adores this mirror my mom got her. It plays this song "Who's that baby looking in the mirror?" over and over and over again. While the songs gets annoying after awhile, I still love it because it is pretty much guaranteed to distract her when she gets fussy.

It was a crazy day with all the traveling, but it was worth it to be able to have great Christmases with both sides of the family.