Disney World

Have you met me before? If so, you likely know that I'm into Disney. Not the movies, trivia, websites, weird facts, etc. Just the parks. I'm waaaaaaay into the parks. I've been dying to take the kids (and *ahem* myself) to Disney World for years. My sister lives in Georgia, so we got this idea a year and a half ago that we'd take a trip down there together. Fun, right? Yeah, we got it all booked, and I began my ridiculously long 500+ day wait.

Well, my wait was to end earlier this month. But alas, as you may have seen me mourning on Facebook, we had to cancel our trip.

Thanks, Z.

No, he's just a baby, it's not his fault. Even though it is.

You see, when we planned this trip, our family dynamics were such that I would have been toting along a 9-month-old, not a 10-week old. But as you probably know, that pregnancy didn't work out, and we got Zach instead, a little, er, behind schedule.

So anyway, we had to cancel because:
1) Zach is high maintenance. Seriously.
2) Swine flu. Blast you, swine flu!
3) The restaurants (and we planned to eat at many, as we had a killer deal with free *sob* dining) do not have any devices that hold babies who can't sit up on their own. Huh? Hello, this is kid central, people. Anyway, eating with a baby in my lap isn't my idea of a good time. When I was in the hospital after giving birth to Matt, I was dumb enough to eat with him in my lap. I spilled hot soup onto his face, which he promptly sucked up his nose. Yeah, having that happen once is more than enough for me.

So there you have it. The boys were quite bummed that we didn't get to go. I'm determined to go next December, however, so we're already on the countdown.

In hopes of getting the boys to be good/kick some bad habits/listen, I made them each a countdown chart to hang on the wall. They're each 16 x 20 and mounted onto canvas (we'll talk about that another day), so they'll serve as a souvenir once the trip is done.


Can you see that Mickey kind of has chicken pox? Well, the idea was that they would stick a sticker into each of those dots, and when they got all (185) of them, they had earned their way. Unfortunately, you could barely see them when I got it printed, and not at all after I texturized the photo. So we're just sticking stickers nilly-willy all over Mickey's head, instead.

Speaking of cool Disney stuff, if you have an iPod touch or an iPhone, check out the disney.com app. There's a character interaction section where you can put your kids onto pictures with tons of characters, and a few even offer personalized voice messages. I told the boys that Mickey and friends are reading our blog, which is where they get the pictures that they add themselves to before emailing them to me. And they are sure that the characters are sending them personalized messages for being good. It's great!

Anyway, we would have come home from Disney World yesterday, so now I can stop telling Chris where we would have been and what we would have been doing, each and every day. Now I'm looking ahead to the future.

Only 352 days to go. But who's counting?

Better

After much hating of my blog design, I finally took some time to change it. What do you think? Better, I hope.

Tooth

After a lot of wiggling and several yanks from Daddy, Jake lost his front tooth! I'm very happy that it came out on its own instead of with the dentist's help like the last two teeth. Way to go, buddy!

Smiles!

I got a picture of Mr. Smiles!


I love how he went from not smiling at all to a stiff, mouth-only smile to a smile that extends up to his eyes, all in a less than a week.

That smile melts my heart.

I have to tell you a story about this boy. He's got a special talent.

It turns out that Zach should probably teach his brother Josh a thing or two about potty training. Why? Whenever we put Z onto his changing table (or "poop station", as we like to call it) he, well . . . poops! On command! Almost without fail! It all started when he was a day or two old. If you changed one diaper, rest assured you'd be changing another about 30 seconds after you strapped on the new one. Apparently he's way into messing up new diapers. Now that he's a little older, he knows when we're about to change his diaper, so he goes ahead and, uh, makes it more worth our while. I'm not saying that he doesn't still mess up his new diaper. Sometimes I have to change him FOUR times in a row. I'm just saying that he's got skills. Mad pooping skills. It makes us laugh, every single time.

Love

Aww, brotherly love.


I think it's so cute when one of the big bros want to hold their baby bro. They don't get to do it too often, as Zach tends to cry when he's awake, and they are not huge fans of holding him when he's crabby.

Matt held Z for quite a while the other day , patting him and soothing him. And see the burp cloth on Matt's shirt? Yeah, that's because Z hurled. All over Matt's shirt (ahem, and neck). Ha ha ha ha!

For the record, Matt is obsessed with Zach, largely because he knows that Zach looks just.like.him. Seriously. I'll prove it soon with pictures.

As for baby news, after 8 weeks of waiting, Zach finally decided to bust out a smile for Mommy & Daddy! I haven't gotten a picture yet, but I'll post one as soon as we can catch it on camera.

Trouble

I know, I know. I've had a lot of posts lately that include animals. Nevertheless . . .

Remember how I said Matt was hoping that a stray cat would adopt our backyard? Well, he's in luck.

See?


It is safe to say that my boys are smitten.


Wait, there's more.

This darling little kitten is one of seven that is calling our yard home.

SEVEN.

If you know me, you probably know that I'm allergic to cats (and dogs, and birds, and horses, and cows, and you get the point). Really allergic. Asthma-causing allergic. Problems! I have GOT to find a way to get rid of (most of) them. I wouldn't mind one or two sticking around to take care of my mouse problem, but I can't encourage one to stay without encouraging them all to stay.

Anyone want a kitten? Seriously. Call me.

Top 10

You love Michael Bublé, right? Good.

Chris and I died laughing last night as we watched him deliver David Letterman's Top 10 list. Watch him after he delivers a line.

Watch it, you won't regret it!

Halloween

Our boys had a fun Halloween yesterday. They dressed as:

A racecar driver (for the record, this is the first time since he was 2 that he wasn't a pilot)


Luigi


Mario (we lovingly refer to him as "Marey-eye", just like he pronounces it)


and a hot dog


Sad to say, this is the first picture of all of our boys together!


We of course carved pumpkins


We also got to go visit my Aunt and Uncle, who were passing through town after picking up a new puppy in Colorado. My boys fell in love with Cooper, which you can obviously see is a recurring theme. Seriously, thank goodness that I can't have pets, or we'd have a menagerie already. See, look how cute he is:


P.S. Jake was wondering why Cooper looks like he's about to cry. Ha ha ha!

Here, kitty kitty

There is an ugly, wild mama cat that likes to hang out in our backyard. I don't blame her--we have plentiful mice, not to mention weeds that are 6 feet high (hey, I was pregnant all summer, so I let my weeds go nuts!).

Recently she had a kitten. Or kittens. Not sure yet. Anyway, we heard one meowing, so went to look for him, and found him at the neighbors' house, where he has decided to take up permanent residence (in his defense, the neighbors gave him salmon, so of course he wants to stay!). I am allergic to cats, and in general not particularly fond of them, but I just about died when I saw this tiny infant of a cat.

Cheeto didn't inherit his mama's ugly genes:


The boys just love him. (Obviously, Jake's had no practice holding animals.)


Matt is reeeeeeeeeally hoping that one of Cheeto's siblings will adopt our backyard.


I am not proud to report that when Josh was done holding the kitty, he threw him down. Oops, sorry about that.

1 month plus

This is a bit late, but here's Zach at one month, starting to get some cheeks:


We don't see those eyes of his all that often, so consider yourself lucky!

Now, on to the obligatory story.

Around here, we call this kiddo some version of " Z". Baby Z. Z Guy. Z-landia. Don't ask. Anyway, the point is, we don't say Zach a whole lot.

So yesterday, Jake said hi to Baby Z.

"Hi, Jack!"

Huh?

Chris and I both stared, and tried to hold in our giggles as he denied saying it.

I guess we need to work on the correct pronunciation of his name?

Build and Grow

I really shouldn't give away my secret, as I don't want all of my neighbors to steal the slots meant for my kids, but have you heard about the Lowe's Build and Grow Clinics? You (meaning the kids) get to go to these cute little workshops where they let you build some kind of toy, free! The boys love it.

And what's not to love?

You get to use a hammer with (somewhat) minimal supervision:


You become the proud owner of the coolest goggles in town (don't ask me why there are sweat beads on the inside of the lenses):


You get your very own apron (clearly Josh LOVES his):


Not to mention the cool toys you build, almost all by yourself:


To top it off, they send you home with a gen-u-ine certificate:


Like I said, what's not to love?

Now, did you notice anything strange?

I know you didn't. You weren't paying close enough attention. Admit it. So here, I'll give you a hint:


Can you read that? Yes, dear friends, my son did indeed bring home a certificate for a Truck of Fire rather than a plain old run-of-the-mill Fire Truck.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

In defense of the worker (not really), Chris said that he messed up and started writing "Truck" first, so he just made do by continuing with "of Fire". Um, see, the thing is, he left a decent amount of space in front of the word "Truck", so he really could have gone back and added "Fire" in front of that. But I guess it just never crossed his mind. Which, I suppose, is why he's in charge of the kids crafts at Lowe's.

Speaking of employees who aren't thinking clearly, I have a side story. One day Chris and I went through the drive through at Carl's Jr. Just inside the window, there was a bottle of some kind of syrup, with the "use by" date clearly written in permanent marker on the outside of the bottle: "Use by February 31st." Nice.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that I am going to use the phrase Truck of Fire instead of Fire Truck for the rest of my life. Classic.

Birth Announcement

My boys, aside from the new addition, are Daddy's boys. They only prefer me as long as I'm nursing them, and then they become severely addicted to Chris. Which of course, is great. But since I'm nursing Zach, he is addicted to me. The past few days he's decided that he can't be out of my presence. He'll wake up from a dead sleep if I leave the room. I'm not sure how he does it, aside from the obvious baby radar system that he's got. Last night he decided to stay up until 2 a.m. staring at me. I tried to put him to bed, but he'd have nothing of it. He ended up sleeping not only in my bed, but in my arms (yes people, I had to hold him while I was sleeping) all night. Two days in a row he's woken up just as I'm jumping in the shower. Ah, the days of having a newborn!

Anyway, I've gotten requests for more pics of Zach. So here you go: the birth announcement that I made.

(The swirls on the announcement are from 'I See Tulips' by Jen Furlotte www.pixelsandicecream.com)

I'll eventually post more of his newborn(ish) shots, but sheesh, can I tell you how stinkin' hard it is to take a cute (I'm talking about a lovely little posed shot, preferably naked) newborn picture? I really thought I'd get all sorts of cute naked photos and whatnot, but as of yet Zach goes crazy when I even remotely try to strip him down. And wedding rings hanging from his toes? He kicked them off. Gotta work on Plan B.

Family members, your printed version will be in the mail for you to proudly display on your fridge. Right? RIGHT? Thank you.

P.S. I do know that I have other children, contrary to how my blog appears since having Zach. They'll get some blog love soon, I promise.