T Minus 6 Hours

Okay, so I've officially only have six hours before the official first birthday party. Of course Dustin decided to yak in his bed... so he immediately got a shower first thing this morning. Gross. I only have four hours before I have to be ready because my Dad will be here then because all of us have to run to the bank... kids and all. WOO HOO! I'm trying to guzzle down as much caffeine as I can in order to get motivated to start running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Thank goodness I already have all the presents wrapped. Dakota is at the base of the chair sort of whining. I just reached over and started caressing his head and hair. My kids are so amazingly beautiful. He's mad because I put him back on the floor after he posted his first blog which is detailed below.

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I think it says lot personally. Those are his first thoughts typed out on the computer. He's got a lot to say and some really good points for someone so young. Okay, I better get off my rump and get busy because the floors won't mop themselves.

Preparations

Well, tomorrow is Koots' big day. He already had his birthday which came and went without being too eventful. However, tomorrow's is Dakota's first birthday party. When Bug turned one we let him swim in his cake. So, sure enough we got him a cake large enough for him to swim in. I just got done wrapping all the presents for him and got done grocery shopping and picking up some party supplies. Of course, I had planned on making hamburgers and hotdogs for the people I invited which weren't very many. However, after seeing the weather report (sounds like rain) my Dad convinced me to do pizza. But, seriously I didn't even check the weather... my Dad did. So, I guess he's paying attention to details like that. Since i wouldn't be the one grilling, what difference did it make to me? LOL! I just figured I would have to buy the food and make the sides. It's not my responsibility to operate a grill. I bought the presents, will get the house back in order (thank goodness it's still in pretty good shape), give the kids a bath, make sure I take one as well, and then we'll have a party. Grill or grill weather didn't even enter my thoughts. I'm interested to see how Dustin deals with all the ruckus tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be jealous so he'll be opening the presents for Dakota I'm sure as well as helping blow out the candles. I'm definitely drawing the line at letting him swim in the cake. That's for the first birthday only and is of course the main attraction. Hopefully, his godfather will be able to make it to the party. Speaking of which I need to get him baptized. Dustin I had baptized when he was like three months. I was way more on the the ball. However, in my defense I have called our reverend like 3x with no response. Perhaps I'll have to find someone else to perform the ceremony. What an ordeal. Not looking forward to that. When I had Dustin baptized, the reverend that performed it was a family friend and even came to the house for the event. So, I guess now I'll be forced to call my church. Guck... wonder how much that costs.

Koots' Big Day

Tomorrow my little man will be one year old. It's so hard to believe that he's been hanging out with us for a year now. It flew by too fast. I wish I could rewind it and relive it. Of course I wish the same thing with my oldest. It's so true that they grow up too fast. A year ago today, Dustin was an only child. Tomorrow at 11:28 a.m. he'll be exactly one year old. They'll never remember this time, but I will. It's been such a wonderful and monumental experience for me. I love having my boys around. When I got home tonight Darrell hadn't given either kid a bath. So, it had been a few days for Dakota. And I'm pretty sure he had some left over jelly in his hair from last night's dinner. Needless to say, he got a good scrubbing and is down on the floor feeding himself his bottle. Wow! A year ago he hadn't even eaten any real food yet. He was still being a little parasite off me! Of course I was ready to evict his little butt by this time. I don't necessarily miss the last part of the pregnancy because you get so uncomfortable at the end. But, I miss the anticipation of getting to meet your new baby and hold them in your arms for the first time. What a wonderful and blessed gift that is. I definitely have to do that at least once, err maybe twice more. Got to wait for the financial things to get in place. But, hopefully in the future I'll be able to become a Mom at least one more time. It's such a blessing and a joy. Happy Birthday KOOTS, a wee bit early.



Dakota when I first brought him home from the hospital. He was a little over 24 hours old. AWWWWW!

On a Mission

Okay, so tonight after we got home from daycare and all that we ate dinner. Dakota is starting to try and feed himself so I had him in the high chair and gave him some bread with grape jelly on it. After awhile of me helping him feed himself and him feeding himself I guess he wasn't getting full enough. So, he started pitching a fit, so I had to finish feeding him baby food. I guess he realized it wasn't that efficient. In addition, I completely figured out one of the presents I'm going to get for Dakota for his birthday. I'm getting him bowls. Yes, you read that correctly. Darrell told me a story recently where Dakota had army crawled his way into the kitchen and discovered the dog bowls. Unfortunately for Dakota, Dad got to him before he realized his dream of getting the bowls. Life is full of let downs.

Well, now that he knows where the hidden treasure is. Dustin and I had spent the better part of an hour doing flash cards on the floor with Dakota. He mostly just watched. But, after we concluded our session I ran off to go to the ladies room. When I got back 3-4 minutes later Dakota was just finishing his army crawl into the kitchen. He grabbed the empty, plastic dog bowl, and voila!!! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! He had the bowl. So, I gave him a clean one (the same color, make, and model) and he's been playing with that ever since. Don't tell me he doesn't know what he wants to play with. My son is very goal oriented. I don't recall ever seeing Dustin display such a focus of intent. I figured for all that effort he should at least be able to keep his prize. Good job Koots!! You get that bowl! I need to buy some more plastic bowls anyway. Since he wants to play with them.... I'll just get him some for his birthday. At this age they always like kitchen stuff more than presents anyway. Dustin was a sucker for wooden spoons. Guess what he got for his first birthday? Don't worry! I'll buy him other REAL toys, but you should buy your kids the stuff they really want. Kids are so hilarious.

Speech Therapy

Okay, so I took the morning off to take my oldest son to the speech therapist. He may have to be in special pre-k because he has a speech delay. The first lady I went to did the testing and he barely participated at all. I'm pretty sure he flunked just about everything she wanted him to do. So, I got referred to this other lady at another school and that's where we went this morning. Instead of trying to get my son to perform tricks she asked me what he could do and went down several lists. I feel like when we get the results we will have a much more accurate picture of what he's going to need to get him up to speed. I'm pretty sure the first lady thought my son was an idiot because he would just stand there and stare at her. Of course, as I was explaining to this second lady... what he'll do for me and what he'll do for a perfect stranger are in two completely different ballparks. He's very intelligent but he definitely is behind on his speech and because his speech is behind there are some things he can't do. For instance, because he doesn't know the color red, or a square, he couldn't look at a group of blocks and give you the red squares. So, getting him to memorize and identify these things are on my to-do list. I've been working with him on flash cards for a little over a month and he's already improved in leaps and bounds. For instance we've been reviewing animals. So, I can show him a picture of a dog and then ask him what the dog says. He'll be able to identify both. So, by familiarizing him with the colors I can begin to ask him other questions that will deepen his understanding. Thus, we've made progress and for that I'm grateful. He has so much potential and I'm going to do as much as I can to make sure that he gets to where he needs to be. Hopefully my second son will just pick up all this stuff on his own. ;) Just kidding. In about six months I'll start having my second son be an active participant in the flash card game as well. He needs a little more developmental time in some areas first. But, the sooner we can get him on all that stuff, the better.

The Bestest Birthday Present EVER

Okay, so my Dad told me a few weeks ago that he bought me a really cool birthday present. Of course that lead me to thinking, "what could it be?" Torment!! For real... I'm not good with... "you have to wait." I considered several different ideas for how to hack into something and figure it out. HOWEVER, I wanted to be surprised so I actually DID NOT hack into anything. I was laying in bed one night thinking to myself that when I rule the universe (KIDDING) and am a big hancho in my own mind that perhaps I would use a certain software (DRAGON... I think it's called) to work and send emails while being on the eliptical. THAT'S IT I thought. It's a software that interprets your words and types them onto the screen. I thought that would be so cool. I could use it to write my book I'm planning on continuing after I finish my MBA. So, for days I was convinced that's what I was getting. But, then I thought... Book? Hmmmm... I read a lot of books. I read a ton of books. Even if I go to work and take care of the kids I could still read a book a day. It's ridiculous. Suffice it to say I'm a fast reader and when I find something I like I devour it. Then I thought E-Book reader. I was thinking, "if my Dad REALLY knew... even better than that software he would get me an E-book reader." I was like, "that would be so freaking awesome." To have a little handheld device to read books from. (I read books on my laptop a lot at night). At times I get really frustrated with my husband is on my laptop at bedtime and the book I want to read is on my computer. I'm like, "give me my laptop now!" Okay, TERRITORIAL MUCH? Anyway, I went over to my Dad's house tonight with the boys and I told my Dad my two guesses of what my birthday present was. When I guess the E-Book reader right he'd go ahead and let me have it. It's called a KINDLE. TOO FREAKING COOL! This is the BESTEST birthday present ever. I absolutely adore it. It's my new best friend. :) My Dad knows me so well I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present. He told me he had seen that software on TV and said it would be good for someone that doesn't type fast. Since I do type fast... I wouldn't need it. Good job to Dad for deductive reasoning. Of course I never expressed an interest in either product. And I'd MUCH rather have the Kindle than the software. I think it's funny that I even thought it might be the software to begin with. But, he said it was something that was right up my alley... and he was absolutely right. I COULD NOT have asked for a better 30th birthday present. THANK YOU PADRE!! I don't deserve you! I really don't. But, I'll keep you!

A Constant Battle

Okay, so being that I'll be turning 30 in less than a month you'd think by now I'd be able to have my sh%t together. You'd think? Right? How is it that my parents seemed to have it together when I was little? Of course then I got older and realized my parents didn't know anything. That's the teenage years I think... then once you get into your 20's, especially into your mid-twenties you realize that your parents never had it figured out but they just got by... but by then you realize that they have a wealth of information and experience to share with you. Even for all of that I wonder if my children will look at me the same way? Not sure. I do know that my house looks like a war zone. Having little kids that scatter toys from here to the end of the universe makes my house want to cry. So, today is my cleaning day and I've already cleaned the back bedrooms and bathroom. So, I guess that's a start. But, when I look at my main rooms (see below- and YES that is the Xmas tree... don't even go there) I just want to sit down and let someone else do it for me. But, for as long as I've lived in this house no one has ever showed up to clean my house for me.






Or I could just do what my Mom did and wait for my children to get old enough and make them do it for me. That's the reason I had kids... to make them clean my house for me between the ages of 10-18. It's cheap slave labor. I'M TOTALLY KIDDING. And how is it despite the fact that I gave the kids a bath yesterday they already seem filthy? Am I the only one that goes through this? Probably not. Now in my house we all have our designated jobs. The dog is the garbage disposal because this old house doesn't have one, the cat is a bug exterminator (only good for specific bugs), Dustin scatters his toys all over the planet, Dakota tries to play with said toys thus aggravating his older brother, hubby takes out the trash, does dishes, and the laundry. Mom? She does everything else including mopping, dusting, scrubbing, designated toy picker-upper, bathtime, brushing teeth, jungle gym, Bobot battery replacer (this could be a full time job onto itself), grocery shopper, and going to school. The adventures of Momdom never end. Of course, I shouldn't be blogging right now. So, I'm going to go clean the kitchen and see where that gets me. Perhaps someone will magically appear to clean the main two rooms... I can dream can't I?

Saturday's Fun

WOW! I'm amazed. Since I've integrated tickling into the flashcards with Dustin his memory is freaking AMAZING! This morning we worked on the flashcards with tickling in between each one to make it more fun for him than just getting a high five. He probably got 92-95% of them right. I'm really impressed with the progress that my son has made over the last month of us working on the flashcards. I'm not sure of what all they need to know when they go to Kindergarten however I'm becoming more optimistic that he'll be ready. So, I'm still worried about his attention span but at least I know an effective method of teaching him. Of course it takes A LOT longer to get through all the flashcards because he's being tickled in between almost every one of them. But, that's okay. Whatever it takes to get the job done!

Right now he's sitting in Dakota's walker. I took some pictures of him doing this on Xmas day and they are hysterical. For whatever reason he likes to hang out in the walker which I think is funny. Although he never actually uses it to walk which is a good thing because his legs are too long.





I sort of worry about Dakota because he only walks backward in it. He's taking after Dustin in that I think he'll be a late walker. He'll be a year old on the 21st of January and is only army crawling. Oh well, at least he's not up and into every yet like his brother is. So, I guess I should be grateful for that.

It's hard to be though. He's learned the high five although his accuracy rate of doing it 100% of the time is not completely there. But, I'm working on it with him. The mistake I made with Dustin at this age was that I didn't realize you were supposed work with them on things. Call it stupidity or my firstborn. I told my Dad that Dustin was our guinea pig because the lessons I learned with Dustin are helping me to do a better job with Dakota at this age. Which is always nice. I really enjoy being a parent. It brings me so much joy I'm always amazed by my children on a daily basis.

Dustin ate like four apples this morning... okay partially ate four apples this morning. I'm looking around my living room and seeing the new messes I get to clean up later. Like Dustin dumped his toybox contents unto the floor. Of course I'll make him clean that up because I'm cruel like that.

I'm really excited to spend some time with my Dad tonight. He's actually going to spend some time with some co-workers at Buffalo Wild Wings. Now, if you knew my Dad you would know what a hermit he truly is. So, for him to be going out socially is a huge deal. I'll be going with him as well as the boys. The purpose of this trip is to watch the Dallas Cowboys playoff game. Which I could give a crap about. The goal is to get there 1.5 hours before the game and then to watch the entire game. BORING! So, I told Dad we'd be the designated driver so he can hang out and have fun and not have to worry about that. But, after dinner I'll drive the boys home, hang out for awhile and then go back to get him. So, that should be a fun night for all of us. My Dad does so much for me and my family the least I could do was give him the opportunity to relax and have a good time with friends. Plus, I get to show off my kids to some of his co-workers and meet them for the first time. It'll be interesting to meet the people my Dad spends a lot of time with. I think he's amazing but they'll probably see him as the hardass he tries to portray. My Dad and I are so much alike it's really humorous. For instance, people view us as big and scary but when you really boil down to it we're just big teddy bears especially when it comes to our family. Although, there is something sickly amusing about people being afraid of you. When I was drinking I tried to act like the victim.... um that role never worked out for me because I've never looked or acted like a victim in my entire life. So, despite trying to convince myself otherwise I never pulled off that acting adventure.

Below are some examples of my Dad's nerdom. Which I can proudly say that I inherited from him. He bought a mini-Solstice to match his real life one. Here are the pictures of he took with both of them together. He freaking cracks me up.







I'm so grateful that my Dad lives so close by. It's nice that we get to hang out every weekend and on the holidays. It's so nice having family 3 miles away from you. I'm really glad that my kids will be able to form such a close bond with their grandfather. That's really important to me. Although, Dustin calls Grandpa "Bampa." And he never calls him Grandpa to his face. What's up with that? Over a year ago I made my own flashcards for Dustin which are just some of the cards we review in the tickling sessions and he'll say "Bampa" to me when we're going through the flashcards but he won't say it to my Dad. Wierd. He also does that with his own name. He'll say "Dustin" to me but won't to it for my husband or my Dad.

Below is a picture of Dustin and my Dad of Christmas day.



I'm really impressed with Darrell as well lately. He's been really stepping up to the plate and working with Dustin on the flashcards as well as a matching game. I tried the matching game with Dustin right after Xmas and I became crestfallen because I couldn't get Dustin to understand the matching concept. I thought it was because he couldn't grasp it. Turns out Darrell taught him how to do it in a few minutes. See? There are a lot of things that I guess I'm just not good at teaching him. Plus, this is good because Darrell is spending more quality time with Dustin instead of just watching him on the nights that I have "off" of parent duty. This is such an important time in Dustin and Dakota's life and it's awesome that my husband is being such a part of it.

Projects!

Well, I told ya'll that I did a bunch of projects for my Dad for Xmas. Well I decided I would share that here. Below are the items that I painted for my Dad's house for Christmas. You'd be amazed at how much time and how many coats of paint those things took to complete!



So, the story behind this project is that I bought these items for him seven years ago before I got sober. However, when I began painting the items my hands shook so much that I couldn't paint it well. So, I abandoned the project. Needless to say my Dad being the hardass that he is kept the items in his garage (and carting them from Phoenix to Denton in a move) all this time. Finally, in October I took the items back to begin their transformation. Suffice it to say, it was much easier to paint the blue and white with steadier hands that I now have as a result of sobriety. Phew! When he opened them at Xmas, he said, "hey I only had to wait seven years for these!" LOL! I'm sitting here in his living room right now while he rearranges his living room art to accomodate my new art work.

This is a picture of a tray I created for my Dad a few years ago at Christmas. It's one of my more favorite pieces.



The reason I'm excited about this piece is because I'm attempting to duplicate it for another gift I'm going to be giving in the near future. Sorry buddy if you are reading this. I'm too excited waiting for the first coat to dry on my new project. I'm excited to see the result. Hopefully it will turn out as well as my first one. However, with the next one I'm working on will have a clear coat of semi-gloss on it once I'm finished. Hopefully I can get all the steps done before the weekend ends. PHEW! Got my work cut out for me.

Random Shiznit

Because I'm so awful about posting sh%t on time. We did have a wonderful Christmas. My Dad is a Supervisor at the Fort Worth plant of the Post Office. I love to do arts and crafts. So, in addition to some other things I made him... I made him a clipboard (he always carries around a clipboard at the plant) so I printed out some pictures that I loved and decoupaged the pictures onto the clipboard so he could always have pix of the boys whenever he wanted them. Anyway, some of the pix I chose had photos of my hubby with them but none of me. My husband made a comment about that before I gave it to my father. And then my father said some of his co-workers had the same sentiment. So, last weekend I actually did my hair and went over to my Dad's house so we could take some pictures with me in them. I think they turned out pretty cute. Especially the one of the family which I've put as the header on my Blog. I also got some really good shots of Dakota.









Those are just a couple of the shots I got of Dakota. Ofcourse the little goober had boogers all over the world when I was doing his photo shoot. Wonder how much he'll hate me later on for those shots.

Last night I spent with the boys was a lot of fun. After struggling with Dustin to get him to do his flashcards I started tickling him in between every card he got right. WOW! You'd be amazed at how tickling improved his memory. Holy canoly. He got like 90% of the cards right. His vocabulary is really improving in leaps and bounds. I'm quite impressed with my little man. I didn't get any good photos from Dustin last weekend but I have so many pix of him I'm sure he won't mind that I focused primarily on Dakota.

Then last night, when I was trying to pay specific attention to Dakota after I had spent the majority of the night playing flash cards with Dustin I started tossing Dakota on the couch and tickling him. He likes be bounced up and down as well and was giggling uncontrollably. It was absolutely hysterical. Of course Dustin got jealous and wanted me to throw him up onto the couch as well. He's too heavy to be lifting up and down like that for any significant period of time. Although he likes to lay on the couch next to Dakota and then be tickled at the same time so they are both laughing together. What can I draw from this experience? The knowledge that both of my children are sadistic. I HATE BEING TICKLED! I hate it! So, since my children love being tickled they must be twisted. Obviously I'm twisted in other areas, so it's not hard to imagine where they got it from.

My hubby has started working as an Assistant Manager at another one of the locations of his previous employer's restaurant chain. While that's the good news... the bad news is that he's hourly... so he's worked WAY less hours in the past week than we are used to. So, that could be detrimental financially later on down the line. But, I guess for today I have a roof over my head, food in my tummy, and all that other jazz... so I can't really change or freak out too much about what's going to happen tomorrow. I mean I can but it won't change it. So, I'll just sort of let things happen as they go. Plus, I'm kind of tired today, so worrying about that crap seem sort of mentally exhausting and I'm really not willing to expend my energy in that direction. Maybe tomorrow.... but not today. Today is Friday. It's a good day!

A Rocky 2010

Well, it looks like things might be off to a rocky start for 2010. While I'm grateful for 2009 to be done, I'm interested to see what the new year brings. Last night I spent time with my husband and boys. After midnight I went and grabbed Dakota accidentally waking him up. I had to kiss in the New Year with someone afterall. He was more than happy to oblige me and was excited about the extra bottle he got out of the deal. While he was still all smiles I put him back to bed. I figured since I was pregnant with him last year it would be fitting that he be the first one I spend New Year's with. However, Dustin must have radar because he woke up from a nightmare and needed Mommy to help him get back to sleep so he got his New Year's kisses early as well. After awhile and when both boys were nestled in their beds I trodded off to bed.
Of course the rocky part of 2010 came this morning when Darrell got home really early from work. He got laid off. Hmmmm.... He's pretty raw from this experience and I could tell. Luckily I'm pretty sure he was expecting me to freak out. Instead I had the opposite reaction. Things will be okay. It's time for me to step up to the plate. I'm a good fixer. So, if Darrell is going to be home with the boys during the day for awhile then we should be able to swing the bills. Luckily, I'm now allowed to work overtime. So, with all that said there are a lot of things that go wrong in this life. However, when you are a family you have people in the boat with you. So, when the storms start raging you have those closest to you to weather the storm with you. That's the good news. This is going to be a rocky time and the boat will rock but with God's help it won't capsize. I'm grateful that we all have each other and will be there for one another. I love my hubby and especially my little boys. With God's help we'll pull together and collectively work together to pull through.