Stomach Bug for Mommy

I unfortunately got a short stomach bug this past Saturday. Ethan had it earlier in the week on Tuesday, then my mom got a hint of it on Thursday, and I woke up with it Saturday morning. It was definitely not fun at all! Luckily the throwing up part only lasted a short while that morning, but it wiped all of my energy out for the rest of the weekend and first part of this week. I am just now feeling pretty much back to normal today, thank goodness! So, in that regard, I don't have any new pictures to post from this past weekend.

This coming weekend, Ethan and I are going on a road trip with my old college roommate, Ginger, and her two girls (age 4 and 5). We are driving up to northern VA (about an 8 hour trip) to visit our other two roommates from college, Kelly and Julie. We try to all four get together at least once a year for a "girls" weekend. However, this trip will be the first one that we are including kids on. I am only bringing Ethan with me this time. I don't think the trip will be too enjoyable or stress free for me if I bring Caleb along too.

I hate to have to leave Caleb home and out of special things like this. I absolutely love and care for Caleb in only a way a mother can for her child . . . but the truth is that he is very challenging and can be hard to control and deal with in everyday situations in familiar settings at home, let alone being away from home and trying to deal with him and Ethan all by myself. Sometimes I feel guilty that I feel this way about my own child, but those who know him or have been around him for any length of time can probably attest to the fact that he can be difficult. I really pray that as his language hopefully progresses, all of these frustrations he has will be vented in better ways than screaming and throwing tantrums. It is very hard to have such different experiences with behaviors of two different children. I know that every child is different and has their own personality. It is just perplexing to me sometimes how Ethan has always seemed easy to deal with, and Caleb has always seemed difficult. I commented the other night to Scott that maybe we should have a third, so then Caleb would seem easy to deal with maybe?? Somehow I don't think we're quite ready for that challenge!

Just a few pics from our weekend

Caleb chilling out on his Elmo beanbag chair with his stuffed animals, including Elmo!






Sweet Face - Caleb watching Elmo















Ethan smiling nice for Mommy.














Ethan finally agreed to transition to a twin sized bed. He really was too tall for his old firetruck toddler bed about 3 months ago at least! We jumped on his interest, and took him to the store to pick out new "Cars" bedsheets, pillow, and comforter to help his excitement. He wanted to jump into bed so fast, without his usual stalling of brushing teeth, reading a book, asking for water, etc. etc. Hopefully he'll continue to be excited sleeping in his new bed!

When Ethan grows up

On the way home from 3 year old choir and mission friends at church tonight, Ethan and I had a discussion about things he wants to do when he grows up. And of course the start of the discussion was initiated by Ethan. First he asked if when he got bigger and could drive, if I would teach him how to drive to my work because he wanted to be able to come there and work. I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up and had a job. He said he would like to work on computers, like I do, but then after a moment more of thinking he realized he didn't have a desk at my work and wondered how we would solve the dilemma. Then he forgets that dilemma to tell me that he will sometimes have to go work at Papa John's pizza like Daddy. I told him that Daddy hopefully won't have to work at Papa John's forever though, and that he has another daytime job in sales. So then Ethan remembered Daddy's daytime workplace and determined that he would also do some sales like Daddy. I encouraged him to keep doing a good job of listening to his teachers in preschool and doing well in learning new things, and that would help him get into a school or training to have the skills necessary for doing the job he wants to do when he is older. Then not to get too far ahead of ourselves and to get his 4 year old mind off of deciding what he wanted to do for a job for the rest of his life, I decided to change the subject. I asked him what type of sports he would like to learn how to play more. I figured this would be a good time to ask, since he was in a conversational mood, which is sometimes hard to get him into at times. He said he would like to learn more about how to play baseball and basketball. Then I asked him which one he would like to learn the most out of those two, and he said basketball. Like other drives we have together just he and I, like on the way to preschool in the mornings, this discussion revealed more of his growing personality that I love learning more and more about every day.

Medium Blonde

Medium Blonde is what the box said . . . but somehow it turned out reddish blonde on me! Not exactly what I was expecting, but my hubby likes it, and I got a lot of comments at church this morning of people saying they liked my hair. So, hey, I'll go with it for now! At least 6 weeks anyway! (It's just the wash-out non-permanent color - I'm too chicken to do anything permanent!)

Oh, and I got a little happy with the scissors. I wanted to "trim" my long side swept bangs, but ended up with them very short. I still will probably push them to the side, because I'm not used to bangs!

Favorite times and cute smiles

One of my favorite times is when the weather is nice out, it stays light out later, and Scott is home and can play outside with the boys and I. Tonight we were going to originally go out to a park in our town and play there, but Ethan said he wanted to play in his backyard on his swing set. So, we did. It is nice getting to enjoy our own private park in the privacy of our backyard. I am so thankful we were able to re landscape the back yard and make it flat and playable last Spring. I'm sure we will enjoy it for years to come!

Static hair after a trip down the slide

Smiling nice from the overlook in the clubhouse

Workouts, Dove Chocolates, & Andes Mints

Readers of my blog might have noticed I've added "My Latest Workouts" and "Distance Totals" on the right side of my blog. I've been recording my walking, running, and elliptical workouts on this site called runningahead.com. It allows you to record your workouts, journal how you feel doing them, record regular routes, personal bests, and much more. You can even record which shoes you use, so it keeps track of the mileage on your shoes, so you know when to replace them. Best of all it is free! Although it is fun to record things there and have it link to this blog, it somehow is still not keeping me from wanting to eat my snacks of choice, which are Dove Dark Chocolate squares and Andes Mints. In fact, I am enjoying some right now as I type this! Perhaps I will start limiting myself more from these types of snacks as we inch closer to our beach vacation. We have just secured a week long beach vacation at my friend's beach home for the second week of June. So, I better get serious about getting swimsuit ready, since I only have 2 months now! I also like the site, sparkpeople.com. It is a completely free site also that even makes nutritious suggestions for meal plans, exercise programs, and more to reach your goal.

ABC Son and Father Duet

Ethan likes to see himself on video, so we asked him to sing his ABC song for us. He was sure to throw in some special spins at the end of the song, just to show his originality.

Then Ethan decided it was time for Daddy to sing his ABC song on video. Ethan held the camera for this one. So, here is the second part of the duet. Maybe someday we'll get them on the same video singing it together!

Friday Night Family Fun

Can you tell I just discovered how to upload videos to my blog? Tonight we had a fun family night, and I just thought I would share part of our fun with the Hullabaloo game. It is a kid game that Ethan received as a gift for his 4th birthday, and is really quite fun! It's one that can be played even with a 1 1/2 year old wanting to join in as well. We attended a birthday party for one of Ethan's friends who used it as a party game too. What fun!

Dancing Boys

Ethan and Caleb are really into dancing lately. Ethan's dancing usually consists of flapping his arms, jumping around, and spinning around. Caleb's dancing includes a lot of "squating" up and down. While they may not be the signature dance moves you are used to seeing on Dancing With The Stars or So You Think You Can Dance, here's a mother who's proud to share her sons' love of dancing with the world (at least those in the world who read my blog). And who knows, maybe one day, this love of dancing will get them a spot on one of the dance shows!