Everyone has excellents

Audrey has a potty training book that her Grandma from Arizona got her (aka Trav's Mom). It was a great learning tool when I was potty training her and it is still one of Audrey's favorite books to read. The girl in the book gets potty trained, but then one day she had an accident and got her undies wet. Her Mom responded with "Thats OK, everyone has accidents."

Audrey has taken that sentence and run with it (except for she says "everyone has excellents"). She used to only use it when she had accidents in her undies, but now she uses it for all sorts of things.

She will be climbing in the pantry and knock the oatmeal off the shelf so half of it falls on the floor.

>>>Audrey: "That's OK Mom, everyone has excellents"

She will poke Phoenix's chubby little cheek, causing him to cry.

>>>Audrey: "That's OK, everyone has excellents"

She will spill her cereal and milk all over the table.

>>>Audrey: "That's OK, everyone has excellents"

The good thing that has come from this is that it gives me time to think before I react and I am reminded that *most* of the things Audrey does like that are accidental (not so much the things involving Phoenix) so I can calmly reply "Yes, everyone does have excellents." (and yes, I pronounce it like she does to, it is too cute and I do not want her to stop!!)

p.s. Happy Birthday to my sister Leah!

GPS

Me and Travis have a GPS...three of them. We love them, and we ALWAYS use them. Today Audrey asked me if she can get a GPS for her barbie car (which she does not own a barbie car, but apparently she is planning on getting one). I have said it before and I will say it again...what am I in for when she is a teenager?!?

Allowance Negotiations

So Audrey is on the weekly allowance of 25 cents...given in the form of a Quarter. This is our conversation from today...

Me: Audrey, when you get 4 quarters you can trade them in for one dollar.

Audrey: And then I get a diamond

Me: Err....Uhh...not really

Audrey: And then I get a card (referring to a credit card). Lots of cards.

Me: Umm...maybe when you are older (and on your own!).

Isn't she too young to be thinking about credit cards? I might have to start rethinking this whole allowance thing. Audrey drives a hard bargain.

Vote for my Aunt!

My beautiful Aunt Gail is one of the finalists for Living The Dream on GMA, please vote for her (one vote per computer)! Me and her share the same dream, and it would be pretty much the coolest thing ever if she won. Her name is Gail Sylva and she wants to be on Dancing with the Stars.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Dreams/vote-gma-living-dream-finalists/story?id=10628119

Chuck E Cheese

Monday night I fulfilled my end of the bargain I made with Audrey to get her ears pierced. Me and Travis took her to Chuck E Cheese...basically her favorite place to go. She had a great time (as usual), and as usual Travis disappeared for a while with a cup of tokens in hand. We never eat there (the pizza is so bad that Travis, thats right, I said Travis refuses to eat it) so it really is not that much money to go there. Sorry both pictures are blurry.

A Very HAPPY Mothers Day

As you all know yesterday was Mother's Day. My first official Mothers Day was not great. I had just had Audrey, Travis had to leave to go to California 2 days after she was born, and it was hard. I got down to CA and I reminded Travis that Mothers Day was coming up (he was horrible at remembering holidays and such when we first got married). And then I reminded him again, and again. Mothers Day came and Travis completely forgot about it. Not good. Well, 4 years later my fabulous hubby totally redeemed himself.

He had me unwrap a present and it was a box to the kitchen aid hand mixer I bought myself a few weeks ago (my other one broke). I laughed in a let down sort of way (I thought he just wrapped an empty box as a joke) but then he told me to open it, inside was a note that said "sorry, this box is empty look in the microwave" so I went to the microwave and there was a present in there, I opened it and there was a note in the box that said "look in the garage" so I opened the garage door and inside was a Kitchen Aid mixer!!!! I have been wanting one of those babies for years (I spent a good portion of my teen years watching food network). It was so sweet and thoughtful of Travis, and I absolutely LOVED the little game he set up.

Audrey picked out a donkey for me. I told her she could sleep with it and she was very excited. I can really tell who she had in mind when she picked it out. ;-D

Phoenix gave me a really long hug that lasted a few hours (he would cry whenever I put him down).

Being a Mom is the hardest, sometimes frustrating, most rewarding job ever. It is such a privilege to have this opportunity to raise two precious little children. When Audrey wants to cuddle with me, or when Phoenix gives me a really tight hug it is the best feeling. I am far from perfect, especially when it comes to being a Mom, but I am improving. I want my children to grow up knowing how much I love them, and so far we are off to a good start.

Thanks Trav, for making this the best Mother's Day ever! I can't wait to see what you come up with for next year ;-) xoxo.

Audrey got her ears pierced!

Last October I started thinking about getting Audrey's ears pierced. She was going to be the flower girl in my friend Jill's wedding...and she still had her baby hair (I am still waiting for thicker hair to grow) so in attempt to make her look more feminine I thought a pair of pearl earring would be perfect. But Audrey saw an episode of Jon + Kate plus 8 where one of their daughters got their ears pierced and she was too scared to get them done. So I kept at it, bribing her with all sorts of things and about 2 months ago I found something that worked. Chuck E Cheese's. Then it was just a matter of finding two employees at Piercing Pagoda at the same time (usually only on weekends). We went about 4 different times to get her ears pierced but each time there was only one employee. Finally, last night there were two. Audrey wasn't too excited to get them done (OK, she was clinging to me and crying her eyes out) but she did pick out some earrings (purple hearts...the one pair that I was hoping she would NOT pick out) and the lady was really good about getting Audrey to calm down. She sat in my lap, I could some how feel her ears being pierced and she started screaming. Then we showed her how she looked in the mirror, she got 2 blue lollipops, and she was as happy as can be. Part of the bribing was that she could ride some of the quarter rides, play at the playground, and get ice cream (we are going to Chuck E Cheese's tomorrow). All in all, it was soo much better than I thought it would be. I am so proud of my little peanut, and she LOVES her earrings.

OBX Days 2 + 3

Our 2nd Day at the Outer Banks did not have a great start...Travis broke the number 1 rule...NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING RACHEL (for no reason). I got over it, then we went down to the beach. The weather was perfect, and the kids loved it. The water was a little chilly for my liking.

Look at my little man sitting all by himself! (he was way to stiff for the first 9 months of his life to bend enough to sit)

I took Phoenix back up to the room so that he could take a much needed nap, and Travis and Audrey played at the beach and then the pool for a few hours (Audrey said that this was her favorite part about our little vacation). Audrey took a nap and when both kids woke up we went the the Wright Brothers Memorial Museum. Interesting stuff. Audrey was on her worst behavior, so we cut it a little short. Travis wasn't feeling too great, so we called it a night and after a nice walk on the beach we vegged out back at the hotel.

The next day I took Audrey for a walk on the beach (in case you haven't noticed, we like walks on the beach) and then we packed up. Before we left the Outer Banks we made a side trip to the campground that me and my family used to stay at when we would come every summer. Camping at the Outer Banks is one of the high lights of my childhood, my Dad made it a lot of fun. It is nice to live a little more simply for a week (but not when you have two young kids...maybe next year we will camp).

OBX Day 1

Some of you may that on me and my hunny celebrated 5 years of marriage last weekend. We had originally planned to do a romantic weekend away (meaning away from the kids) at Disney World but a few months ago (when Phoenix was not being the easiest baby) we decided against that idea. So we came up with the plan to go to the Outer Banks, a mere 3 hour drive, and take the kids (at least it would eliminate the stress of trying to find someone to watch them). We left last Friday and the drive was quite enjoyable. Both of the kids were really good in the car (surprisingly!). We got a hotel that was literally right on the beach, we got a 2 bedroom place (which turned out to be an awesome idea) and we were about 50 yards from the ocean. I feel like we were so spoiled, it will be hard to go back to the usual (aka parking far away). So we obviously went down to the beach right away when we got there.

Then we went out to eat at a local steakhouse/seafood place.

(the waitress brought Audrey a bowl of cucumber slices...which Audrey LOVED!)

We told our waitress that it was our anniversary and that Audrey had a birthday a few days earlier, so at the end of the dinner she brought us 3 balloons (I would have preferred a dessert...but the balloons were a nice thought). Audrey immediately released them...

and they got caught around a birds neck (don't worry though, I am 95% positive that the bird was fake).

We were exhausted by the end of the night!

to be continued...

Audrey's Birthday

For the last two weeks I have been occupied with Audrey's Birthday party. I am glad to say that it is over, and it seemed like all of the kids had a good time at the party (especially Audrey). I put a lot of time and effort into it, but Audrey was involved in pretty much everything, and I know that she appreciated it all (she kept saying "thank you!"). She told me everyone that she wanted to invite, I picked the theme (or color scheme rather...I couldn't come up with a good theme). She chose chocolate cake with white frosting and a strawberry filling (I once made a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and I think that is where she got the idea from). I had to make up my own "recipe" for the filling because all of the recipes I found online tasted like strawberry jam, and I wanted a fresh strawberry taste. The cake turned out OK, I really prefer white cake though. I made Audrey a special birthday skirt, and the flower barrettes in her hair, they turned out almost exactly as how I had wanted them to, so I was pleased with that. For a gift I made her a fleece "coat of many colors" based off of the one that Donny Osmond sports in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dream coat. It was literally the fastest and easiest sewing project, it took less than half an hour. Before she would make me tie her most colorful blanket around her when she watched the movie.

I could not find some cute pink paper for the life of me, so I had to use the plain pink...but it turned out OK. I got this new thing that laminates, makes things into stickers, or magnets. So, I took advantage of the magnet maker and made a business card size reminder for each invite. I also used my trusty cricut for a few things.

Audrey was VERY involved with the cake making process...

Audrey had been wanting to go to Chili's for at least a month so we took her there the night before her birthday (the waitress said "Is it your birthday little man?"...I guess the pony tail, the pink shirt, and the pink jacket weren't strong enough indications of Audrey's gender).

I stayed up quite late (or early depending on how you look at it) getting the decorations assembled and up. Audrey was so happy when she came downstairs on her birthday.

Instead of playing pin-the-tail on the donkey I did a spin off and we played pin the bee on the flowers. I think it turned out absolutely adorable and the kids loved it. Hopefully by next year I will have enough cake decorating skills to do a more elaborate (and accurate) cake.

Here is the birthday girl with a few of her presents...

I know that Audrey had a great birthday, and I am already planning her party next year (a daisy themed non-tea tea party).