I have unleashed the lion

Today Mr. Genius' family went downtown.

We were planning on meeting them at the zoo after the boys naps.

Then Romeo woke up with a fever. So him and I stayed back.

That little bugger looks like he is faking it doesn't he. But he really is sick.

2 weekends ago was our neighborhood garage sale. So I drove around to check out the goods and I saw a radial saw that looked fairly new on someones driveway. He told me he was selling it for only $30! It came with the house and he doesn't know how to use it.

Well I took that saw faster then my boys can whine about what we are eating for dinner.

I have mentioned before that Mr. Genius didn't want to show me how to us the power saws for fear I would cut something off.

Well I have learned that sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness then permission.

So after Mr. Genius and Wild Man left I got out the radial saw and cut some wood!

This is when I would like to insert Tim Allen's grunt he would use on the Home Improvement show he was on.

I did it and as an added bonus all appendages are still attached!

I wanna see what else I can cut up!

Our own bed and breakfast

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but we have had a bunch of company.

The boys couldn't be more happy to have someone else to "showoff" in front of.

Last week, we had one of Matt's old coworker and his family stay with us. They have a 4 year old son who is just as wild as wild man. They had the best time together and Romeo just enjoyed having someone else to shadow.

Now we have Mr. Genius' Aunt, Uncle, and college age cousins visiting. They are learning about a world that includes Yo Gabba Gabba, Diego, Hot wheels, 4 am wake up screams (yes 4 am), and pure energy that doesn't need coffee. I believe our house is great birth control.

We just introduced them to Ikea. We are now mapping out their downtown visit for tomorrow.

Love having new faces in our house.

While sitting at Ikea waiting to put Wild Man in the childcare I got an email from Roeshel at thediyshowoff.blogspot.com. 

She was just letting me know that she was featuring my foyer on her blog!

Oh happy day!

Thanks Roeshel!

A Girl!

Well not mine...but my across the street neighbor had one.

After two boys and then a whoops moments... 9 months later she has a sweet baby girl to hold.

Today I got to take care of her two sweet boys whom my boys LOVE while baby E was being delivered. They entertained each other and it was actually an easier day for me.

Who knew that 4 boys would be easier then 2 boys?!

My boys taught N the importance of digging in the dirt.

Our boys are very close in age.

I still took Wild Man to school today...because he asked to go. I walked into the school with Romeo (almost 2 and a half), E who is 22 months but the exact same size as Romeo, Wild Man (4 yrs) and N (almost 4). Mind you they are all blond headed and do look a lot alike.

In that short walk to Wild Man's class I got no less then 3 comments of "Are they ALL yours?", not counting all the stares.

Now I know how to make a scene without even opening my mouth.

Baby Girl E and mom are doing great and I can't wait to hold her and smell that new baby smell!

Just another morning

This morning I went into the garage to empty out our recycling bin. ( I am slowly but surely learning becoming a tree hugger). 

Since my boys get up at the crack of dawn it was till fairly dark out and there are not any windows in our garage.

I turned on the light and it just blew out.

Lovely.

So I kept the door to the kitchen open to let light in.

Just when I turned around to head back to the kitchen I heard little footsteps running towards the garage.

I knew Romeo was looking for me so I called out that I was in the garage.

His little blond head appeared.

He smiled real big and said, "Bye, bye mommy."

And the shut the door.

Crap... it is stinking dark in here.

"Romeo can you open the door, please."

I hear muffled giggles.

"Honey mommy can't see...can you please open the door."

Then Romeo decided to show me his new trick.

He locked the door.


And I right then completely regretted not child proofing that door.

Mr. Genius was in the shower, I was in my Pjs, and I just remembered how Mr. Genius and I talked about how we need to put a spare key out somewhere.

So I did what I would like to think most parents would do in that situation.

Bang frantically at the door and tried to bribe anything I could think to get him to figure out how to unlock the door.

After about 5 minutes Romeo figured it out.

I was free and Romeo got some M & M's for breakfast.

So we were both happy.

Big Racer

Today was a beautiful day...but still insanely windy.

I thought it would be crazy to stay in on a day like this and I unfortunately couldn't get my rear end up to work out at 5 this morning.

Bad momma.

I wanted to do something free, that will wear the boys out,  a place we will all be happy about, and that I could get a work out.

Lofty goals...right?

Then I remembered the school that is up the road.

At the school has a running track!

Perfect!

I told the boys we were going to a really big race track!

And they were putty in my hands.

I wish I thought of this earlier!

I threw in the bike, scooter and two trucks in the van and we went.

They each took turns with what they took around the track.

Then Romeo and I took a break and sat in the bleachers to cheer Wild Man on.

I do not have any good pictures of Wild Man because he didn't stop the whole time. I just loved racing along the track. Then just when I thought I was going to have to fight him to get back to car...

Mission Accomplished!!

Yeah for free entertainment!!

I swear we don't talk that way!

Today I dropped Wild Man off at his preschool, which he loves by the way!

It is amazing how free you feel when you have one less child.

So Romeo and I ran some errands.

Since Wild Man's school only goes from 8:30 -11:30. I don't go back home, it just seems easier to stay out running errands or like today going as many places as I can to make a scene.

I decided to go to Goodwill. Because the Goodwill here is AWESOME!

Romeo agrees with me.

While I was comtemplated buying a accent chair for our bedroom for $13, Romeo found a big fire truck to play with.

This thing was HUGE. If Romeo laid down on the floor it would have been as long as him.

Romeo loved this truck and he drove it around the whole store while I shopped.

When it was time to go I tried to find creative ways for us to leave the big truck behind without a fight.

Unfortunately my creative juices have been used up with the projects on the house, so I failed at avoiding a meltdown.

Now let me tell you that Romeo has many talents. He is great at giving people hugs and kisses, he can unload the dryer faster then anyone, and he can know exactly how to get under he big brother's skin. But bless his little heart, speaking is not one of his specialties.

I am his mother and I do realize that I maybe the only person on this planet that can understand what he is saying sometimes. Because he may think he is saying the word hot dog but unfortunately it sounds more like he is asking for dodo bird then a hot dog.

So with this speaking impairment he can not pronounce the tr in truck he makes an f sounds instead of the tr sound.

So yes when my sweet precious son is asking for a truck, he is actually saying f*@k.

Lovely.

Also another very unfortunate thing about this is that although most every other word he says in not very articulate the word is says for truck is VERY articulate.

There is no doubt what he is saying.

So back to when we were in Goodwill today.

I tried my ever loving best to get him to park the truck under a table, in a "tunnel" of clothes, even in a big box of teddy bears.

Nothing worked.

So I did what I thought was the next logical thing.

Just put the truck up, pick up my son, and walk out the store.

So what does my little Romeo do.

Why he starts to scream f*@k over, and over, and over at the top of his lungs!

I am pretty sure that if everyone in the store didn't know that we were in the store before, they knew us as we were leaving.

December all ready?!!!

Holy Moly it is already December?

Boy this past month has gone fast.

Well we just got back from a whirlwind trip to TN for Thanksgiving.

The boys did GREAT flying back and forth. The best thing about the flights was that there was a play area for kids right next to our gate.

I mean that was a total gift from God above.

While in TN we had the boys birthday party at Bounce U.

It was so much fun! It was also an added bonus that I didn't have to clean up afterwards.

Since Romeo still doesn't have much of an opinion and worships the ground that Wild Man walks on, I let Wild Man pick the theme of the party.

Let me back track just a little bit. Last year the boys birthday was a Lightning McQueen party. I mentioned the day after the party LAST YEAR that I am sure that Wild man will still be all about the Cars movie and will probably have a mater party.

When I asked Wild Man what type of party he would like, he said, "Remember mom, we are having a mater party?"

Um, I think I need to watch what I said. Plus I need to think about everything I have done the past year and pray I have not done any perminate damage to my child.

So needless to say we had a mater birthday party at Bounce U.

Thanks mom for getting the cake, it was adorable and delicious.

We had to wake the boys up from their nap early for the party.

Wild Man stayed a little confused for the first half hour.

Mr. Genius' mom made the boy's shirts. She got mater fabric and put the age they are (or will be in 21 days). Thanks Teresa they were perfect.

The kids started bouncing on their way into the bouncing room.

Sweet Blake and Gabe. Wild Man may not have acting like it, but he was so excited to see you guys. He keeps asking when we can see you guys again.

 

 

 Notice Brady (the little boy in the red shirt standing in the front). Brady sat so content on the bench until he realized that he was getting his picture taken. As soon as he realized that he jumped up and ran away. It was so cute.

 

Getting ready for the cake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is a cute story.

See that cute little girl in the big chair. That is Hallie, my college roommates little girl, and my future daughter in law.

Hallie is 6 months younger then Romeo. When we lived in TN Romeo LOVED Hallie. He would attack her with hugs and kisses, which just scared little Hallie into lots of tears.

We think she got scared from feeling the chemistry between them.

Now 6 months later Hallie did the love attacks to Romeo. Romeo just didn't know what to do so he just ran away.

Hence why Hallie is sitting in his chair.

We had a great time seeing each other, and we can't wait to see everyone again at Christmas!

A quick sorry for not getting Griffin's picture. Our camera died right before you guys got there.

Thanks to bearing 2 fun loving little boys...

I now need to wear on of these

When I get on one of these.

Thanks boys.

My praying Romeo

We had some good college friends come to visit us this weekend.

We had a great time with Nate and Morgan. Which we forgot to take any pictures of them. Sorry guys. Morgan is a great singer and had some gigs here is our great city. 

On Saturday we meet up with them downtown to eat some pizza, then some cheesecake, and of course some shopping.

We totally wore the boys out.

On the drive home sweet Romeo fell asleep.

Isn't that just precious, he fell asleep doing his night time prayers.

Thank you Lord for children, they make you smile at any occasion.

Fall Leaves

When I was little I remember dad rake a big pile of leaves that would take it about an hour to do and then we would jump into them, build forts out of them or do whatever us kiddos would think up to do. Then when we were done, we would go inside eat a snack or watch tv and the leaves just magically raked themselves back into a pile.

I never gave it a thought about what happen to the leaves after we were done.

Then I became a parent. And I may not be the one raking the leaves, but I am the one watching the leaves being raked. And the one to encourage the one that is raking the leaves to continue to do so. 

At our TN house, we didn't have trees that dropped a significant amount of leaves that was worth raking, but at this house we do.

I was so exciting about letting the boys play in the leaves, and I am sure that Mr. Genius will be just as excited when the boys can be the ones to rake the leaves.

 

Here is Romeo saying cheese while admiring his leaf that he kept calling a spoon.

 

Then our weather man indicated rain, so we went inside.

 

(he hates it when rain hits his head)

So we went inside to cut open a pumpkin.

This was the only time Wild Man put his hand in the pumpkin guts. He thought is was gross.

But of course sticking your finger up your nose all day and showing off your treasures is not gross.

Boys are so complicated.

No fear

After a week of uncooperative children and a lot of kicking a screaming (I promise I will work on that) my brain had become mush. I gave up all hope of trying to entertain my little darlings. So we went to a gymnastics place that had an open gym time.

It was awesome!

I am sure we will be there a lot this winter.

I will have to say that my little Romeo was a spectical. All the moms there were in Aw of his fearlessness.

First they had this trapeze bar that swung over a pit of foam.


Wild Man ran straight for it.

And since little bro has to do whatever big bro does...

Sorry for the blurry picture, phones are not meant to take action shots.


Romeo just smiled as big as he ever had and giggle the whole time. While I stood behind him wondering if the foam could hold my weight when I needed to jump and save him.

He did great getting through all the foam.

Maybe we should make one of these in the basement.

But Romeo's next feat was even more amazing.

What is a little hard to tell by the picture is how tall the stand that Romeo was on.


It came to my shoulders.


Then the foam was lower then the floor I was standing on.


The reason he doesn't look happy is because he wanted me to stand right next to him and count to 3.


Not take a picture of my incredibly daring offspring.


The teenage years are now that much more scary for me.

We've been Boo'd!

Last night while we were getting ready to put the boys to sleep and get some halfway decent clothes on to go out to eat for our anniversary then someone rang our doorbell.

Mr. Genius went to the door to see noone but two cute little bags of goodies and a paper that said:

BOO!

To our good neighbors on our street.

Our homes' locations made us meet.

You now have been boo'd, but who could it be?

We'll never tell, it is a secret, you see.

We placed these goodies for you and yours.

Then we ran fast, after knocking the door!

Happy Halloween!

Place this boo on your front door

and make sure you have boo'd two neighbors of yours!

Today the boys and I went to the dollar store to pick out some fun treats to the neighbors we will boo tonight!

We did this in our old neighborhood but this year Wild Man noticed and can't wait til we can boo two friends tonight.

Wild Man has been asking constantly if it is dark enough to boo our friends, and he has been carrying the bag ever since he got up from his nap.

If this isn't already started in your neighborhood, you should start it.

It is fun, and something new to break up the day a little bit.

You can go to http://www.myfolsom.com/boo/ and print out the signs.

Playin with Griffinie

We are having lots of fun with JJ, Pop, Uncy Andy, Aunt Kat, and Griffin which Conner has decided to call Griffinie.

Can't wait to see Reid, Jenny, and Eli tomorrow!

Abrakadon't

I signed the boys up for a class called Abrakadoodle that was through the park district.*

*translation-the city

Why would I sign up for such a strange sounding class for my boys?

Um, it was free. 'Nuff said.

They are trying to get you to sign up and pay for more classes afterwards.

So the boys were in separate classes.

Romeo's class was first.

We were a smidge late because the boys and I were having the best time doing this:



Wild Man called it the "The two boy taco."

We walked in, then I had to get Wild Man occupied, so he would not want to do the craft that the little kids are doing.

I could tell the teacher was already not impressed with me.

Oh well, not going to be the teacher's pet this time.

They were sitting in a circle while the teacher was singing songs and then she showing the kids (and mom's) that we were going to be making a fly. Then demonstrated how to make it.

She then said to go and sit where ever you want at the table to start.

Romeo jumped up and ran to the table and started climbing in a chair.

The teacher came by and said, "Um, we won't sit over here cuz that was for activities when people showed up in the beginning of class."

Well excuse me. As I remember you said sit WHERE EVER!

Oh and we were just 4 minutes late.

Apparently this woman does some speedy activities.

The chances of us signing up for the extra classes are getting pretty slim at this point.

We moved to an "approved" area, and started making our fly.

Now just a few days ago I read this blog post on Baby Bangs. The jest of the blog was that she was so embarrassed because she did her sons project herself to make it pretty, rather then letting her son do what he wanted to do like all the other kids in the class did.

So I thought I am going to learn from this and guide Romeo on how to do some of the things but let him to what he wants to do.

I did put the wings on, because Romeo was getting frustrated trying to do it.

Here is what Romeo's fly ended up looking like.



Now for a 22 month old I was pretty impressed. But then again I did birth the child, so he can also belch really loud and I would be impressed with that too.

Our teacher doesn't have Romeo on the same pedestal as I do.

She came over and saw what Romeo did and trying really hard to hold back a look of shock.

All she could say was "Oh, we have a creative one."

I then looked up and all the other kids "flies" were perfect.

The legs were where they were suppose to be. They didn't color on the paper, only a few marks on the fly. The mom's were really doing the project while their kids just watched them.

Isn't that the point of kids doing an art class, so they can learn to be creative on their own?

Needless to say, we did not sign up for anymore classes for Abrakadoodle. Which is a shame cuz both boys would have really enjoyed it.

We almost had goose for dinner

Today we went back to island park to feed the ducks.

I have been saving my bread butts (does anyone else call it that?) since the last time we went.

We eat quite a few PB & J's in this house, so in just 6 weeks we have accumulated almost a whole sleeve of bread butts.

Anyways, this time we went to the park we started feeding with four ducks, then word got out of our great butts (OK sorry, last one) and within seconds there were close to 50 ducks and geese around us.


(see the ducks coming from afar)

The boys were having a great time.

Then we were just about done and then this goose in front of Romeo was the culprit.




Now Romeo was half throwing the bread and then half eating the bread and apparently this goose was getting impatient at Romeo eating the bread and not throwing it at him.

So this goose bit my precious baby. I think this was the same goose that bit Wild Man the last time we were here.

Now my boys are fearless.

Honestly Romeo thinks he is really 3 and a half like his brother and will try to do ANYTHING big brother does.

But when this goose bit his finger (on his good hand). My sweet baby's whole body started shaking and with his voice all shaky he said biiite, biiite and pointed to his hand.

Now I am not a member of PETA but I was ashamed to be from the same area as Micheal Vick and his dog fighting ring.

Now it was a good thing I had my time with the Lord this morning, but y'all I swear it took everything in me to not drop kick that goose to the other side of the river.

The only thing that went through my mind was...kicking an animal would not be a good example to show the boys.

So instead I snatched Romeo up and grabbed Wild Man's hand and we started walking away.

This in turn confused the ducks and geese and they all jumped out of the water and started chasing us.

I started going through the rolodex my mind what to do to when ducks attacks. Do you play dead like with bears or do you just run for the hills.

I opted for the walking very swiftly.

We must have made quite a spectacle because two bikers and a man that was walking on the trail stopped to make sure we were OK.

They were kind of laughing with how it looked for us to have 50 birds chasing after us.

Everyone is OK and we got home all in one piece.

When we got home, I gave the boys some unhealthy colorful yogurt to make for the scare we had.

I think Romeo liked it.



Gotta show a picture of my other baby. He always makes sure that we are even.