Oh, look, I’m AWESOME!

Mommy got her Christmas card photo.
Who’s the bomb? I’m the bomb. Bow before me.

So, today it snowed.

Then it stopped and it all melted and went away.

Then Belly had the pukes and refused to nap.
(Did I mention she was up till close to two last night… ?)

Next, I let the Belly play with Christmas lights…

Yes, just so I could take pictures of her playing with them…

Got the boys (she screamed for Ryan from the time she saw the school till he got in the van). Worked on homework with the boys. Cleaned. Cooked.

Last, I took pictures of three kiddos together in hopes I’d get at least one good one. (See picture at top of post) Here are a few others of the three of them:

Eventually I WILL get it.

Attempt 1 at taking a photo for our Christmas cards = epic fail.

Oh hey! Let’s not have anyone look at the camera… or smile.

Would be decent… if I wanted a picture of just Ryan.

Yup, yup. Epic fail-ness. Guess I will pull out the camera and hassle them all to get pictures again tomorrow... and the next day, and the next, and the next.

I will eventually get a good picture of all three of my children together.

 

I don’t think…

I don’t think that I seriously have anything funny or witty to post today.

Seriously.

Me brain, it be tapped. lol Between Ryan and Belly my head is tired and done.

We put the tree and it’s lights up yesterday. Hopefully tonight we’ll actually decorate, it just depends on how Zach does with his homework. His homework was a journal to write in every day of Thanksgiving break. Did I know about it? No, not till this morning. Do I think it’s a stupid assignment? Yes. I get it, she wants them to write more to get practice, but come on, how many kids will even be home to work on it, and how many parents will remember it to take out of town with them. Screw that. I have better things to do with my kids during their breaks. But yeah… tonight we have to do a week’s worth of journal entries. Joy. I don’t even know what he did most of last week since he wasn’t even home for most of the week.

Yes, we are still teething. Yes, it still sucks.

Lastly, here is my black and white photo entry for the Paper Mama blog Photo Challenge this week:

Saturday Snapshots (11/27)

Something stinky this way comes.

Man, don’t you just love kids?
lol

So yeah I missed posting about everything I’m thankful for, but really I don’t need Thanksgiving to think about all I’m thankful for so I won’t waste a blog post on it. Thanksgiving was Thanksgiving. Zach, Belly, and I went to my dad’s family for lunch while John stayed home with sick Ryan. We get back and Belly is running a huge fever. We were worried she’d caught whatever Ryan had, but nope, we think it’s just teething. The facet of spit running down her chin and chest, the fact that I was up almost all night with her, and the 5 poopy diapers I’ve changed over the past two days (3 from today) are proof of that.

Which leads into this conversation I just had with Ryan.

I’d changed Belly not even two hours ago with a hugely poopy diaper and Ryan yells that Belly is stinky again. As I’m changing her this is what Ryan and I say to each other:

Ryan “Mommy, I guess you just missed some of her poop earlier.”

Me “No, Ryan, she just pooped again.”

R “Well gosh, tell her to quit pooping so much. Maybe she shouldn’t have any more food today.”

M “That’s not why she keeps pooping you nerd. It’s because she’s teething.”

R “What’s that?”

M “You know what teething is. It’s when a baby is getting new teeth. It makes them fussy and feel bad. And makes them poop a lot.”

R “When I was a baby, and I was getting tooths, I did not poop that much.”

M “Yes you did it.”

R “No, Bella’s just weird.”

(picture me shaking my head and rolling my eyes)
As I said, don’t you just love kids?

Your baby is ugly.

That came from my tactless 6 & 1/2 year old… the wonderful Zach Zoo.

That was directed at my best friend’s one month old daughter when we met her.

That is what he is telling everyone in his class about the baby.

How do I know he’s telling people in his class? It just so happens my best friend’s niece is in the same class as him. Apparently each time she tries to talk about her new cousin Zach interrupts and says that the baby is ugly. The niece, Faith, called my best friend at work yesterday, crying, because apparently it has been upsetting her very much that Zach thinks the baby is ugly, and her mom, my friend’s sister, is also very mad about it.

My friend, Katie, called me yesterday laughing saying she just had the funniest call that she had to tell me about before she forgot. This is when I heard about what Zach has been saying to Faith. When I asked Zach if he had been saying it, he shrugged and said “Well, yeah, cause baby Liz’beth is ugly.” Which makes Katie laugh louder.

It’s a very good thing my friend has a sense of humor. Otherwise, I might have died of humiliation. But then again, she does often say her daughter looks like a constipated monkey – in a cute way.

lol

Hand-me-downs

When I was pregnant with the Belly I was so convinced we would need to buy all new everything, especially clothes-wise. I saved some of the boys’ few gender neutral things (there were very few to start with), but even the grand total of those were like 10 outfits spread out in sizes under 2t.

The boys had quite a few hand-me-downs, primarily from my mom’s friend who has a boy just under three years older than Zach. (This would be Jared – Zach’s best friend) Even so, between Jared and Zach, what made it to Ryan was primarily consigned to play outside clothes. Since I was in school at the time I would always use my refund to stock up on new clothes for the boys. But there’s a little boy my mom watches who is about a year younger than Ryan, so to carry on the good clothes karma, I passed a lot of the still good clothes to him.

Out of each sizing of clothes I would keep 1-2 of my favorite outfits the boys had had as a sort of just in case. Plus I would set aside anything that had a special meaning. Fast forward a little bit and I find out I’m pregnant with the Belly. Even before I found out her gender I knew we would need more clothes. Then when I found out her gender the extent of new clothes we would need to buy just grew. I mean seriously, I couldn’t put her in boy clothes. My mom has old pictures of me and my brother and you can see where my brother and I would be wearing some of the same outfits at different ages. My mom’s favorite set of these pictures is where we have on the same set of corduroys and a sweater. Cute, yes. But not what I wanted to do for the Belly Pie.

Now we get to today (figuratively and relatively), and the Belly is going through growth spurts faster than we can buy her new clothes. Seems like a year of not growing a lot is catching up on her all at once. And luck of luck, it’s catching up on her as it’s getting cold so clothes that fit are very much in need. When she started showing a fondness for wearing her brother’s shirts as sleep-shirts and around the house-shirts I quit just tossing all clothes of one size into a bag for that little boy, and started saving some for Miss Pie to use, but even so they’re big. This weekend I started going through the boys’ closet (HUGE mess – has never really been cleaned in the two years we’ve been here) and I found the top to Ryan’s favorite pajamas when he was two. (bottoms are still MIA) I set it aside for the Belly, and when she woke up this morning poopy through her diaper I put it on her along with a pair of blue sweats. She might not look automatically like a girl, but hey, at least she’s warm. Plus, I get a little chuckle out of seeing her dressed like Ryan. lol