So true!

One of the girls I work with had this emailed to her a few days ago.  We could here her snorting and giggling to it while she was reading it, and I did the exact same thing once she sent it to me.  It's all just so very true! (I changed "cat" to "dogs" and "brother" to "friends" since that's what we have)

46 Reasons My Three Year Old Might be Freaking Out

Some of these are total guesses. Educated guesses, but guesses nonetheless. Seems like it’s hard being a kid.
His sock is on wrong.
His lip tastes salty.
His shirt has a tag on it.
The car seat is weird.
He’s hungry, but can’t remember the word “hungry.”
Someone touched his knee.
He’s not allowed to get in the oven.
I picked out the wrong pants.
His friend looked at him.
His friend didn’t look at him.
His hair is heavy.
We don’t understand what he said. (accompanied by "Ugh! Mom!" and a face-palm in most instances)
He doesn’t want to get out of the car.
He wants to get out of the car by himself.
The batteries ran out in his tablet.
His sleeve is touching his thumb.
He doesn’t understand how popsicles are made.
The inside of his nose stinks.
Chicken is gross.
A balloon he got six months ago is missing.
A puzzle piece won’t fit in upside down.
I gave him the wrong blue crayon. (or the white crayon won't color on the white paper)
The gummi vitamin is too firm.
Netflix is slow.
He jumped off the sofa and we weren’t watching.
He’s not allowed to touch fire.
Everything is wrong with his coat.
There’s a patch of snow within a 70 mile radius.
A shoe should fit either foot.
I asked him a question.
His friend is talking.
He can’t lift a pumpkin.
He can’t have my keys.
The dog is in his way.
The dog won’t let him touch its eyeball.
The inside of his cheek feels rough.
Things take too long to cook.
He has too much food in his mouth.
He sneezed.
He doesn’t know how to type.
The vaccuum is going to eat him.
His mom is taking a shower.
Someone knocked over his tower.
He got powdered sugar on his pants.
The yogurt won’t stay on his spoon.
EVERYTHING IS TOO HOT.

Feel free to share!

3 year old

I know I haven't posted in a good long while ... I've been super busy.  That's all there is to it.  I will endeavor to do better, but at least there's one now, right?  Right?  Lookin' at you, Dad.

Anyway, Paxton turned 3 years old, 3 weeks ago.  I'm not entirely sure how this happened, since it doesn't seem like 3 years have passed since this.  But, sadly, or happily, 3 years have passed and Paxton is most definitely not a baby anymore, and most definitely a little man.

We ended up having Paxton's birthday party on his actual birthday this year even though it was on a Sunday because we had my work Christmas party on the Friday, then Jay's work Christmas party on the Saturday and I didn't think I could pull off all 3 events within a 24 hour period.  As it was, it was still a super busy weekend and I arrived at work the Monday after feeling like I hadn't had a weekend at all.  The bonus to having it on Sunday was that my Dad was back in Canada in time to attend, so we only had to have 1 party this year.  Wahoo! (we usually end up having 2 birthday parties and 4 Christmases in December)

Thank you again to everyone who was able to make it for Paxton's birthday.  He didn't have a nap, so he was a bit grumpy, but it was a good time nonetheless.  And a big giant thank you again to Kristy for making Paxton's cake for him.  It looked AMAZING!  And it tasted really good too :)

At 3 years old, Paxton:

• has a really good vocabulary.  Dr. Herbert was very impressed with how clearly he speaks and how he speaks in complete sentences when I took him for his checkup .
• is fully potty-trained ... even at night!  Even though it was the worst week of my life back in August, I'm so glad that it's over with.  Dr. Herbert was also very impressed about this.
• has a cavity :(  We went to the Dr. Goth earlier this month and the cavity was discovered because he did so much better this year than last year (last year he refused to open his mouth for Dr. Goth).  The filling was a no-go since Paxton sat up after about 2 minutes, took his safety glasses off, announced, "I'm done," and climbed off the chair.  No amount of coaxing from me, Auntie Kinsey or Dr. Goth would get him back in the chair.  So, rather than scar him for life, we are postponing the filling until he's a bit older since it's not really bothering him.
• weighs 38 1/2 pounds and is 41 inches tall.  He's wearing 3T stuff now, but I think he'll be moving in to 4T stuff by summer.  I don't ever think he's big for a 3-year-old until I see him around other kids his age.  He must get it from his Grandpas.
• still calls his Aunties "Honey."  He's been doing it for a while now and loves to see "Honey Kinsey."  He's informed me that she's his "girlfriend" now.  Ahem.  It's pretty cute though.
• is trying to be Mr. Independent more and more ... and oftentimes to my dismay.  He's wanting to put his own clothes on (I came upstairs from wrapping presents yesterday and he had his Hulk jammies on, but the shirt was backwards and the pants were on backwards and inside out), brush his teeth (I still finish them off), get his own food out of the fridge/cupboards, get DVDs out (this is a constant battle since he knows he's not allowed to take them out of the case ... so he'll just "open" them and hand them over), etc.  It's so much easier/faster for me to still do things for him and sometimes I wonder if I'm putting him at a disadvantage because of my impatience, but I endeavor to let him do things on his own more.
• loves "The Grinch."  He's watched both versions about 50 bazillion times over the last few months, and it's his favorite bedtime story.  I think it's probably because he makes me stop at both points in the story when the Whos are singing and sing "Welcome Christmas" with him.  I almost have the whole story memorized and Paxton is getting there too.  He was reciting parts of it to me last night before I started reading it.
• loves to run, jump and generally be a busy boy.  I was thinking of putting him in gymnastics this winter, but with it being my busiest time of year at work I put it off.  But probably in the spring. 
• still tells me that snow it "yucky," but seems more inclined to play in it than last year.  We haven't had much of it so far, but now that we have a bit we'll probably be out in it more.  Jay's Dad bought Paxton a "GT racer" thing for his birthday so we'll have to hit up the Sugar Bowl one of these days to try it out.  I think I need to get him a helmet first though ... yes I know I never wore one as a child, but I'll probably get judged if I don't make my kid wear one.  And that just won't do.
• is a super huge fan of superheroes.  He loves "The Guys" (Justice League) and the Avengers and now that we've signed up for Netflix (yes, welcome to 2004 for us) he's getting in to Spiderman. X-Men and Fantastic 4.  Hulk and Batman are his current favorites, but he can name pretty much all of them now.   And I've learned far more about superheroes in the last 6 months than ever before in my life.  I can also name all of them now.
• is still a chicken fingers and fries maniac.  And hot dogs.  He goes crazy for hot dogs.  He'll also eat chicken breasts, but still isn't a fan of other meats.  Occasionally we can get him to eat ham or turkey if we tell him it's chicken, but roast beef and steak are usually no-go's.
• loves to sing.  He'll make up little songs while he's playing quite frequently and they usually have pretty hilarious lyrics.
• is a joy!  Even though he exasperates me on a daily basis I wouldn't change him for the world and hope he knows how much we love him!

Playing with Brocker-man at Grammie and Pa's house 

Cuddles with Mom! 

Oh sleepy boy.

Yes, Batman had to go with him to see Santa this year. 

Just reading, Mom! 

Cake!

Who says a zebra and a tiger can't get along? 

Mom, it's cauliflower! 

One day he will open his presents on his own. 

He really was super excited about his cake ... not the best pic of the excitement. 

Finally blew out his own candles this year!

Hulk, smash! 

I see this face a lot these days.

It was going really well ...

Mummy Cookies

So since I'm now addicted to Pinterest, I decided to try out some cookie decorating that I had pinned.

Mummy Cookies!

I know, super cute, right?  And it gave me an excuse to make gingerbread before Christmas!  I love gingerbread a little bit.  Mostly because my Aunt Connie has the best recipe ever!

Here's the post if you want to take a look, there are some super cute Halloween ideas, however most of them are far outside the realm of my decorating ability ... any of you who have been privileged to try my sugar cookies can attest to the fact that I will not be joining "Cake Boss" any time soon with my mad icing skillz.

So, I didn't actually read the post before embarking on this decorating journey.  I just went ahead and made gingerbread instead of Chocolate Mocha cookies like they used.  Then, because I didn't want to traipse around Lethbridge trying to find white vanilla baking chips for the icing, I just made my regular icing that I use for sugar cookies but added a bit more milk so it would be slightly runnier and easier to pipe out.  Also, I didn't want to buy "eyes" so my mummies are blind.

Anyway, so I made the icing and put it into a freezer bag as instructed in the post.  And this is where it all went horribly wrong.  I learned the hard way that when they say "cut a very small tip from one corner of bag" they actually mean "cut a very small tip from one corner of bag."  Not just a "small" tip.  So ... this is what my mummy cookies looked like:

NAILED IT!!!

Notice that I gave up after trying on the first few and just added a smear of icing down the middle to finish off the icing in the bag.  But, not one to give up (and also because Jay informed me he liked them better with the icing on them than just plain), I tried again.  This time I cut a minuscule tip from the corner of the bag and also looked at the picture on Pinterest a few times.  It took me a few tries to get the technique down, but the result was definitely better than the first try:

The last few I did were definitely closer to what I was going for, but they're not as good as the post picture.  Well, at least they taste good!

Pumpkin Festival

Saturday, September 29th was the annual Pumpkin Festival at Green Haven.  Jay had to work that day, so Paxton and I joined Jackie, Craig, Alexander, Cristy, Mark and Carter for a few hours of whirlwind fun.  It was my first pumpkin festival and I learned a lesson rather quickly ... be there right at 10 am if  you don't want to wait in line for hours for things.  We left to come home between 11:30 and 12 and there were a ridiculous amount of people there.  I can't imagine just arriving there at that time since I'm really one of the least patient people on the planet and would not have waited for an hour for Paxton to take 5 minutes in the petting zoo and announce that he was "Done."

Anyway, Paxton and I arrived shortly after 10 and joined the Days for some hot dogs and french fries while we waited for the Burris family.  We picked an excellent location to eat since the balloon animal guy showed up just as we were finishing so we only had to wait for about 5 minutes.  Paxton and Alexander both picked dogs for their animals (and by Paxton and Alexander I mean me and Jackie).  They were super cute and came complete with leashes since we couldn't have "wild animals like that running around" according to Balloon Animal Guy.

We decided that we would try yet again to get a picture of the 3 boys together.  We keep telling ourselves that eventually they will cooperate and we will have a great picture to cherish for years to come ... this was not that day.

 Well, at least none of them were crying, even if we couldn't get them all looking at the camera and smiling.

And this was the winner out of the ones that I got.

From the epic failure that was "Photo Booth September 2012" we headed over to the petting zoo.  Cristy had already been through so she and Jackie stood in line for the wagon ride while Craig, Mark and I took the boys through.  I even splurged and bought an ice cream come full of grain for Paxton to feed the animals for $1.  He was so grateful to me for allowing him to have this fantastic experience that he promptly dumped the contents on the ground before we even got in the animals' pen.  And then he proceeded to try to eat the ice cream come himself.  *Give me strength!!!*  Paxton did really well and wasn't scared of any of the animals; he petted all of them: sheep, goats, calf, donkey, pony, even the potbellied pig!  He was pretty interested in the bunnies, but there were a lot of little girls holding them and not interested in sharing.  And we were out of the pen in like 10 minutes flat.  *Cute side note: Paxton was telling Auntie Kiz about petting the animals a few days later and informed her that "the sleeps say 'Aaaaaaaa."  Translation: the sheeps say Baaaaaa."*

After the petting zoo we rejoined Cristy and Jackie to wait for the wagon ride.  However, between the animal pen and the lineup, Paxton's balloon dog had a tragic accident.  It threw itself in front of an oncoming stroller to save Paxton from being run down by the careless on comer (like seriously, the place was crawling with children.  Maybe you should watch where you're going since you almost ran over my not-so-small kid.)  Poor balloon dog, it wasn't pretty and took about 15 minutes for the air to slowly leak from its body.  Paxton kept asking me to fix it and I had to keep explaining that Mommy couldn't fix it.  I'm fairly certain he's going to be scarred for life now since, as I mentioned before, I was not going to stand in line for an hour to get another balloon animal.  Anyway, finally it was our turn to climb aboard the magnificent Clydesdale-drawn wagon for our fantastic 5-minute journey around the field.

The wagon coming back to pick us up. 

So excited!!! 

Horse butts.

After the wagon ride, it was getting close to everyone's nap times but we let the boys run around like crazies for a while first.

Jackie was trying to teach them how to play "Ring Around the Rosie" but it didn't work out so well.  Alexander was just a big fan of the "fall down" part, but we all had lots of fun laughing at them.

Independence

Having an almost-3-year-old has taught me one major lesson about independence: letting Paxton do things on his own (whether by choice or just because he's sneaky and I didn't notice) most often just means that I'm going to have a big and oftentimes disgusting mess to clean up.

*******WARNING******* the following is one of the disgusting ones.

I was making Paxton's lunch today when I heard the toilet flush.  This caused mixed emotions of happiness "Yay!  He went by himself finally when I was home!" (normally he will do this when he's home with Jay but makes me come with him) and simultaneously "Oh no.  How big of a mess did he make?"  Heading in to the bathroom I found Paxton standing on his stool in front of the toilet and doing a fabulous job of peeing everywhere but IN the toilet.  In addition, he'd pooped first (YAY!!!) but then had to slide himself forward on his seat so he could reach his stool and stand up ... so you can imagine what was smeared all over his potty seat and his bum and legs ... *sigh*.

It's the same reason why Paxton's still using sippy cups.  Every time I give him a regular cup, he ends up with half the contents down the front of his shirt.  There's no "gently" or "nicely" with him and tipping a cup back.  It's full throttle, slam it back all the time.  I even bought him some cups with the straw built in to them to try to ease the transition, but he still winds up with juice/water/milk down his front.  And then he inevitably freaks right out because his shirt is wet.  I'm really excited for him to learn some logic some day and be able to reason about what consequences his actions will have.  Until then, I guess I will have my cleaning supplies at the ready!

Halloween Pinterest Craft Day 2012

I have not been doing well at blogging this year, at all.  You may have noticed.  I never seem to have time for anything these days, and Paxton usually monopolizes the computer for watching movies (I know, Mother of the Year over here) so that also hinders my blogging ability.  However, yesterday was a day of such awesomeness that I absolutely, positively must let the world know about the goings on.  It was "Halloween Pinterest Craft Day 2012!!!"  Cristy and I decided that we didn't want to be "those women" who just pin everything and then never try any of the things we were pinning (mostly because our husbands would make fun of us).  So Halloween Pinterest Craft Day was born.  We picked out 3 different crafts and informed Jackie that she needed to come do crafts with us as well, even though she's not on Pinterest ...yet (insert evil laugh here).

We were a little afraid that we were going to end up here but we ended up with success!  I got all of the materials for about $20 each (we figured it was just easier for 1 of us to buy the materials for everyone so that we all had the same stuff) and much fun was had by all.  We all met up at my house bright and early at like 9 am, geared up for a fantastic day of crafting (except for Cristy who was feeling ill but still came and then the magic of crafting made her feel less like death as the day went on).

First up "Smelly Feet Plate"  Here's what it looked like on Pinterest:

I know, right?  The caption said "too stinkin' cute" and it really is.

Supplies:

• ceramic plate
• Sharpie pen
• white paint
• paint brush
• oven

I had to go to 3 different dollar stores to find orange ceramic plates because the first 2 only had plastic colored plates and we needed to put them in the oven ... and as we all know, ovens and plastic don't really get along too well.  We all got our boys' footprints on the plates ahead of time since they were not attending Pinterest Craft Day (took me 4 tries and a new Hot Wheels car to get Paxton's footprints.  Good thing the paint just washes off the plate when it's wet!).  We also decided that we were maybe not crafty enough to paint the words on so we used a sharpie instead (according to another Pin if you write on the ceramic plate with a Sharpie and then bake it at 150 F for 30 minutes it makes the ink permanent ... not that these plates will likely be eaten off of in the future, but we weren't taking any chances).  But I also was not smart and we only had 1 Sharpie to share between the 3 of us so it took a bit longer than it should have.  And also, a big "Thank You" to my Mom ... apparently after observing all your "fancy" writing during my teenage years, I was able to produce a specimen worth copying :)

Here's what we ended up with (good thing I washed my stove off before this event happened!)

Next up "Spider Web Frame":

This one was more difficult than the feet plates.  It is also worth noting that of the 3 of us girls, I am the only one who does not own a glue gun ... I'm not entirely sure how that works since I'm the one that grew up in Raymond, but it's a fun fact.  I think I need to invest in one before "Christmas Pinterest Craft Day 2012" comes around though.  Anyway, the blog for this craft had instructions on how to create this masterpiece which was good since I don't think we would have figured it out on our own just from looking at the picture. (It also shows you how to make a giant one on your wall if you so desire.)

Supplies:

• picture frame
• yarn
• glue gun (or tape)
• stop watch (if you have super impatient friends like me)

This really is pretty easy and despite us having an argument about whose spider web was the worst (ya we all thought that ours was the winner of that particular competition even though they all looked pretty good).  Apparently I am also the "Slowest Web-Weaver in the West" since it took me way longer than Jackie and Cristy to complete my masterpiece ... a fact that they were more than happy to point out to me ... repeatedly.  There were way more pictures from this one because some people had nothing to do but harass me about my slowness :)

It started off just fine with us all at the same place ... 

Jackie and Cristy pouting because I was taking so long (note that I had to stop my web-weaving so that I could take this picture for them. ahem) 

Cristy wishing she had a watch so she could tell me how long I was taking 

Jackie sleeping (and drooling) on the table because I was taking so long 

Jackie (awake from her nap) and telling me how long I was taking 

Ta-da!  All done!

Last but not least, we tackled "Dryer Hose Pumpkins"

This one we had to figure out on our own from the picture since the blog attached to the picture had been removed.

Supplies:

• "Metal" dryer hose
• Spray Paint
• Glue Gun
• "Stem"
• "Moss"

A Big thank you to my friend, Colin, owner of "Blooms flowers and gifts" for helping me find the "moss" and also to Jackie's tree for losing some branches in the big wind a few weeks back so we could have "stems" and also to Jackie's husband, Craig, for cutting up the branches for us :)

So the night before, I realized at about 7 pm that I should probably spray paint the dryer hoses so that they would be dry in time for us to use them the next day.  Let me tell you, spray-painting dryer hoses during twilight while trying to keep your 2 dogs and almost-3-year-old away so that they don't get loopy off the fumes/touch the wet paint is an adventure.  My house also smelled pretty awesome yesterday morning.  Anyway, we started off by cutting the hoses.  (Make sure you have some wire cutters handy if you're attempting this one, 'cuz scissors just don't cut it ... no pun intended)

Next we glue-gunned the ends together, inserted the stems and then glue-gunned some moss around the stems.  (as you can see in the Pinterest photo, you can make them into "pumpkin" shape first and then spray paint them, but in the interest of time we did them differently.)

And voila!  A pumpkin patch:

We didn't get a picture of all our spider webs together before, so they're in the background.

Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy!  And since our crafts didn't take nearly as long as we had anticipated, we decided that Cristy and Jackie needed some foam bats, ghosts and spiders just like the ones I made last year.

And some moustaches ... lol.

We're super proud of our craftiness and started planning what we're going to do for "Christmas Pinterest Craft Day 2012" already!