The Grossest Day of My Life

Today started out so nicely. The boys slept so well last night, slept in this morning and woke up just as happy as could be. I made my list of errands and we were out the door by 9AM.

Our first stop was Jake's office. We were waiting in the parking lot for Jake and I let Javen out of his car seat. He stood up said, "I hurt, Mommy, I hurt!" I tried to get him to tell me what hurt and all he said was "poop."

Oh great.

(At this point he's squatting.)

He then stands up, says "I hurt! Poop! Hold you, Mommy?"

I pick him up and he snuggles into my lap, placing his head on my shoulder. He then proceeds to throw up all over me, the front seat, and the door.

I quickly swing the drivers side door open and hold Javen across my lap with his head facing the parking lot pavement. He pukes again.

He doesn't want to be held that way. He wants to snuggle into my shoulder. He turns his head back towards me and pukes in my lap.

I jump out of the car (Javen in arms) and he throws up on the pavement again.

He stands up and proclaims, "I all better, Mama! I all better!"

"I'm so glad you feel better!" I tell him, dripping in his puke.

It's finally over. Jake calls. He's been on a sales call the whole time. I don't think he believes me when I tell him Javen just christened the mini van. I tell him to please bring some paper towels and a shirt for me to change into. Then he believes me.

(Liam was asleep in his car seat during the entire escapade.)

Jake has his tennis clothes in his car, so I change into his sleeveless shirt and athletic shorts. Outfit #2 for the day.

We get home and Javen is begging for a snack. I give him some water. He chugs it so fast that he chokes and sprays me to the point where I am now soaking wet. Liam crawls over into my lap. My lap gets warm. His poopy diaper is leaking. He's somehow managed to break his toenail and there is blood on the floor and then on my hands.

Oh well, I was going to change my clothes anyway.

Outfit #3.

Throw up, spit up, blood, poop...I think we've pretty well covered the bases today, right?

Today was the first time in his entire life that Javen has thrown up. Thanks for making it memorable, buddy.

Stick With What Works

I wore glasses as a little girl. I grew out of them in the 4th grade (a story for another time) and haven't needed any since.

My pregnancy with Liam took a toll on my vision and things haven't been quite as clear since he was born. I'm making an appointment this week to go get my eyes checked.

We were at CostCo today, so I thought I'd take a look at the glasses. I'm pretty sure I'll be needing them and the thought of contacts freak me out.

You'll never guess what I found! The exact glasses I wore as a child! The 80's are BACK!

1988 Diane

2010 Diane

I say, stick with what works, right?!

Are you done laughing yet?

No?

 It's ok, I'll wait.

You're welcome for that.

Love

I'm in love with this photo and the little boy in it.

I just ordered a 12x12 print of it. I've got big plans for this one...you know, the crafty kind. Sort of. You'll just have to wait and see once I finish the project.

Until then, just soak up the adorableness.

Pick One

It makes me grin from ear to ear every time Javen comes up to me with his big blue eyes, nodding his head up and down and says in a hushed whisper, "Mama, I wanna pick one?" Even though I know exactly what he's talking about I always ask the question "You want to pick one what, buddy?" It's worth it to play along just so I can hear his reply, "I wanna watch a Wovie! I wanna pick one!"

"Watch a wovie." Haha! Gets me every time.

Winnie the Pooh with Uncle Jeff

This week his top two "wovies" of choice have been old school "Winnie the Pooh" and "Fraggle Rock". Then Jake had to go an introduce "Alvin and the Chipmunks" to the scene.

Doot do dodododo...

Don't judge. If it's too hot to play, we watch wovies...I mean movies. He gets 2 per day. (Not that he even watches 15% of them. I think it's all about "picking one" and putting it in the DVD player all by himself.)

THANKFULLY we've finally had a break from the heat. It's been a nice cool 86ish degrees. Yes, you read that right, I said "cool." I can't remember the last time we saw temps around here get that low. It has been one H-O-T summer!

Since the weather has been so much nicer we've been watching less movies and spending more time out doors. Partly thanks to the new mini van (now I can actually take Javen to the park) and partly due to the fact that we met some amazing neighbors with children the same ages and Javen and Liam that like to play outside as much as my boys do. Liam even got his first ride in the swings at the park today! Guess who didn't bring her camera? Mommy FAIL. I did snap one on my phone, does that count? Now if I could only figure out how to send photos from my phone to my blog...hmmm...oh well. Here's one of Liam from earlier this week:

Speaking of my cute little Liam, guess who FINALLY slept through the night last night?! Went to sleep at 8PM and didn't wake up to eat until 5AM. Then he went back to sleep till about 7:30AM. Bliss. I probably just jinxed it by telling everyone. Shhh...it'll be our little secret until he makes a habit of it, ok?

In other news, I spent my entire Thursday thinking it was Friday. Which is a real let down considering how excited I was getting about having Jake home all day tomorrow. Has this week taken f o r e v e r, or what?

Hurray for the weekend. It's so close, I can taste it.

A Little Bit of Our Day...

Javen loves to color, draw and PAINT. We don't paint very often, but when Liam's taking a good nap and it's too hot outside to play, I break out the paints and let him loose!

So focused...

(I may have helped a little. I dare you to let your kid paint and not pick up a brush yourself. Impossible!)

Liam woke up a little early and spent some time at one of his favorite places...the activity table.

The w i d e stance and chubby legs get me every time...

Happy Thursday!

Green Life, Clean Life - Lets Talk About Laundry

My favorites...

Detergent: Biokleen

Hands down the best "green" detergent I've tried. Here's a trick...I don't have a HE (high efficiency) washer and dryer. Want to know how I can use half as much detergent and still have clean clothes? Baking soda. Baking soda is our bff when it comes to laundry. Biokleen detergent is concentrated so you don't need much in the first place. I use half the amount they recommend and add 3/4 cup (eye ball it) of baking soda. (Please tell me you know how CHEAP a 13 pound bag of baking soda is? Last time I bought it from CostCo it was under $6.) Around here we have some nasty hard city water, so a good laundry detergent is not something you can skimp on. If you go green, it is something you can save on! If you have nice normal water (like the well water I grew up on in Maryland,) baking soda and baking soda alone will work to clean your clothes. Cool, right? I realize there are ways to make your own laundry detergent, but I haven't quite ventured into that yet. When I do, you'll be the first to know.

Fabric Softener: 2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar to the wash cycle. (My machine has a spot to pour fabric softener that will release at the right time. So I just dump it in and let the washer do the rest.) Baking soda also helps in this department, but if you're already using it with your detergent, you're set.

Bleach: Brighten without bleach! 1 cup of vinegar to the wash cycle helps keep colors bright. Just make sure you don’t mix vinegar with bleach, when the two mix it makes some dangerous fumes. (Just stay away from bleach, it's SO toxic and even illegal in some Eurpean countries!!!)

Stain Remover: Hydrogen Peroxide (works great on blood, chocolate and probably other things too, but I have yet to try) Biokleen's all purpose spray does great on poop and food stains from baby clothes, which are the majority of stains I deal with on a daily basis. :)

Dryer Sheet: Put 10 drops of essential oil on a wash cloth and throw in the dryer. (Lavender, lemon, tea tree, etc) I haven't tried this yet, I've never been a dryer sheet kind of girl. I'll let you know if I change my ways...

Essential oil: Add essential oil during the wash cycle for brighter and disinfected clothes. (They’ll also smell great!) Clove, lemon and eucalyptus are good for getting rid of mold on towels. (I have yet to try this as well, but I plan on trying it one of these days...)

###

And the winner of last week's giveaway of the Biokleen samples is...

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1
Max: 6

Result: 4

Congrats Amy! I'll be emailing you soon so you can get your prize!

Jeff

Last week my coolest brother ever flew from Maryland to Florida, hopped in the mini van and drove to Tennessee. All in one day. Then he washed the van for us. Told you he was cool.

You missed a spot, Uncle Jeff.

Apparently Jeff didn't do a good enough job, so Javen had to go behind him and touch it up. (Jeff's face here just cracks me up. It was SO hot that the soap was drying about 3 seconds after he slathered it on. Javen was quite the "helper".)

We love you, Jeff!

We're not going to talk about how he helped Heather pack up the moving truck and move back to Maryland on Saturday. Right now I'm just pretending that didn't happen.

Beach Baby

It's beach week at i heart faces! This is one of my favorite photos from our trip to the OBX this summer...Liam's first dip in the pool. (We didn't spend much time on the beach on the account of Javen hating sand.) One thing is for sure, my boys love the water!

 For more great beach pics, check out i heart faces...

Mysteries

Last night I dreamed we were at the beach. I was asking my brother, Jeff to look at all the bug bites on my legs because they weren't going away, and seemed to be multiplying. (Side note: I do have bug bites on my legs in real life that have been sticking around for quite a while.) I asked him if it looked like some sort of poison ivy or oak or something. He told me in his all knowing biologist braininess that yes, in fact it was poison. TWELVE different kinds to be precise, but no, it wasn't poison ivy or sumac or whathaveyou. I got it from octopuses. (Octopi? Anyone know the plural of octopus? Jeff?) An octopus. 12 different ones.

Funny, you'd think even in dreamland I'd remember getting into a tangle with 96 octopus legs.

Speaking of my legs, I have no idea how, but every day a new bruise or 4 seems to appear. Is this normal for mother's of little boys? Could I be sleep walking and be playing in a midnight volleyball league? And if so, why aren't I in better shape?

In other news, let's talk about Liam and his love of music. He regularly sings himself to sleep and if there's a beat, he's moving to it! Even when I was pregnant with him, he would respond to music with lots of movement. Has anyone seen that episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel's baby (Emma) loves the song Baby Got Back? Here's a clip...

***If the clip doesn't work for you, click HERE to see it on youtube.***

Ok, so now that we're all up to speed, you can just substitute Liam for Emma and Lady Gaga's Poker Face for Baby Got Back. All I can say is, you go with what works.

It's HERE

I'd tell you more...but I have to go get to know our new MINI VAN. Never did I think I would be so happy to own one. Let the adventures begin...

Green Life, Clean Life: More Homemade Cleaners

Has anyone tried one (or some) of the distilled white vinegar cleaning tips I mentioned a couple of weeks ago? What did you think?? I've got some more all natural/homemade cleaning tips for you this week...

Here are a few different options for glass cleaner:

• Hydrogen peroxide (It's also a great stain remover on clothes. Works GREAT on getting blood out.)

• Distilled White Vinegar Spray
• Lemon juice

Furniture Polish/Duster:1 teaspoon olive oil + ¼ cup lemon juice + 10 drops lemon essential oil

I like to store mine in a pretty glass bottle. Just make sure you shake it up before you use it. Works best using a micro fiber cloth. An old t-shirt would work well too. :)

*There are many different ways to make this polish/cleaner. Just google it if you don’t like this one and try a different recipe next time. (Some use vinegar as well.) I'm pretty happy with this recipe though!

In other news, this is my 400th post! I thought to celebrate, I'd do a little green cleaning giveaway! Biokleen (one of my favorite green cleaning companies) sent me some samples of their products for the Green Life, Clean Life class that Heather and I taught last month. I have some extras, and they're for you! (The laundry stuff? It's AMAZING!)

To enter answer the following question in the comments section:

What is your favorite green cleaning product (can be either homemade or store bought)? Or if you don't have a favorite, what would you like to try?

Giveaway winner will be selected at random an announced on Wednesday, Aug 25.

Javen's Room...Arrrrgh!

About a year ago Pottery Barn was selling this pirate ship mast headboard. I fell in love with the mast, but not with the price. Well, guess what Jake's parents MADE for Javen's bed? (See below)

They even bought him new piratey sheets. (Modeled by Bobs. Javen HAS to have both Bobs in order to sleep at night. Yes, he named them both "Bob.")

Close up! How cute are these?!

So here's his new pirate bed next to the nightstand full of books (have I mentioned how much this kid loves to read?) and the curtains I made from a shower curtain.

On the wall  beside his bed I'm working on making a collage...this is what we've got so far:

My reluctant model sitting in Javen's chair...

This is an antique dresser that belonged to my Grandmother. It used to be in our master bedroom before I got my new furniture a couple years ago. We updated it a little bit with new knobs and spray painting the yard sale mirror and hardware.

Corner kitchen...

and paddle over the closet doors (getting a face lift soon so it will match the room).

I just love how his room is turning out! Thanks Papa and Grandma for the new pirate bed! Javen makes sure Bob sees it every night before they drift off to sleep...

Sum It Up

Last week was busy, to say the least. We had a great time visiting with Jake's Uncle, Aunt and cousins while they were in town. Javen still talks about "Juffin" (Justin) and "him" (sorry, Jared- he can't remember your name!) and how they all played trains.

A few days later Jake's parents came to town for a whirlwind visit. We always have a good time when Papa and Grandma come to town! Javen rode a big bird plane at Toys R Us, sat on a riding mower with Liam (no, it wasn't on!), rode the carousel with Papa and played on the indoor playground at the mall, got a new Percy train for his collection at home and had lots of ice cream and giggles. Don't worry, Liam got lots of lovin' too!

In other news, Liam is pulling up on EVERYTHING. Literally. Couch, toy box, walls, steps, our knees... He turned 7 months on Sunday and is already trying to walk. My word, I'm in trouble!

I've also been spending a lot of time getting ready for my first MOPS (Mothers Of Pre-Schoolers) meeting this September. I'm so excited to be joining such a great group of Mom's.  I'm in charge of the monthly newsletter, so I'm channeling all my creative writing juices to make this newsletter rockin.

That said...I've got some work to do...

Shades

This week at i heart faces the theme is shades. I love this photo of Javen, it's one of my all time favs! I just bought him these blue sunglasses (thank you, Target $1 section!) and he literally wore them ALL day long.

 Make sure you stop by i heart faces and check out all the other sunglasses entries!

Favorite Friday Photo

It's been a busy week around here (hence the lack of blogging)! I'll tell you about it soon, but our busy week has not ended yet, so I'm going to leave you with this photo. Heather and Javen watching the garbage man and his amazing truck on trash day. It's been the highlight of Javen's week for as long as I can remember...

Green Life, Clean Life: Repurposing!

Re-purposing is when you take something and make or use it for something other than it's original intended purpose. Like when I made pillows out of place mats or used old atlas maps to decorate in my boy's bathroom. My sister, Heather, is REALLY good at re-purposing. She does cool thinks like make flower wreaths from plastic water bottles or mosaic picture frames from old gift and credit cards. I should make politely ask her to blog about it. Then you'll see!

Speaking of Heather, she helped me with this project that I'm just in LOVE with. A couple of years ago I had saved up and purchased new bedroom furniture. In the bottom of the two boxes containing the nightstands were wooden frames to support the heavy tables.

The frames are made of 2x4's and particle board. The frames are about the same size, but definitley not identical. I KNEW these frames were destined for something greater than the dumpster. So I held onto them. FOR TWO YEARS.  What?! Sometimes crafty inspiration takes a while. I was maranating on it. Oh boy, I'm glad I did! Just take a look at what my brain finally came up with:

photo by Heather Varnon

photo by Heather Varnon

I had Heather cover the ugly wooden frames in tissue paper and paint them white. It was a snap for her to do this because she has lots of crafty supplies like paint, brushes and TIME. I have children. So she did it for me. Don't judge.

Then I went to Home Depot and picked up two "tin" panel backsplahes. Jake screwed them onto the back of the frame. What? I was holding a baby! I can't very well operate power tools and safely hold a small child. Safety First!

 We then hung them up over the dresser, (YES, I actually helped with this part of the process!). We didn't like them. They were boring. So I suggested we find some cheap lanterns to hang in front of them. Get some cute candles and we've got ourselves some custom art.

So what did my wonderful hubby get me for my birthday this year? Lanterns! He picked them out all by himself. (I know...he did such a great job!) Heather found some cute candles at Hobby Lobby and we were in business! (I'll have you know that I lit the candles all by myself.)

So yes, I had lots of help from Heather and Jake...but it was still my brainchild! I love how they turned out. I really love that we made them!

Don't worry...more green cleaning tips to come next week!

10 Days

Let the countdown begin! In ten short days we will be the proud new owners of a mini-van! I'm really excited to not only have a car (it's been over 3 months since ours drowned in the flood) but that our "new" vehicle will be a mini-van! Woohoo! (Did I just "woohoo" over a  mini-van? Pretty sure I did. Shhh...don't tell anyone about that. It'll be our little secret.)

Let's review, shall we?

First this happened. It was a sad day for our little Passat.

But because of this, I will now be like this Mom. (Who am I kidding? I AM SO THIS MOM ALREADY! Where my motherfathers at?)



And for those of you who came for a Javen and Liam fix, these are for you...

Surprise!

This week at i heart faces, the theme is "surprise!" I knew immediately what photo I wanted to enter...

 For more great surprising photos, head over to  i heart faces!