mMmmMBubbles!

When was the last time you treated yourself to a bubble bath?!

 I can't even remember the last time I was in a bath deep enough for it to reach my neck! Let alone one where the bubbles nearly covered my head. Ethan was trying so hard to keep his face above the bubbles. You can see in the first picture some of the concentration this took. :) Ayden was just excited to be there! He swam to the thickest patch of bubbles and chilled there most of his bath.

Someday I will have a huge bath or jacuzzi and once, just once I'll load the sucker up with bubbles. It will be amazing. I just know it. Don't pretend like you wouldn't want to be in a massive bubble bath all to yourself!

Anything can be a toy

We don't get paper bags around here much. Never, would be the appropriate word for how often we get them from the store. SO the one paper bag that changed that never, to a rarely, became an object of great interest and fun for us!

Observe. . .

We. Love. Paper. Bags!

Casualties of Disaster

It all started out as an innocent evening. I was cooking dinner. Went into the fridge to get some chicken out and rearranged some of the contents in the freezer. Ethan was sitting between myself at the stove and fridge playing. I glance over at the freezer door and saw that it was not closed all the way. And then. . . the ONLY glass item in there slid out like a bobsled cruising down its course, exploding on the floor with a terrifying boom.
Glass shards sprayed like shrapnel all over our floor. Poor Ethan was the closest to the mess and was sprayed with glass. Ayden of course had to see what happened and rushed over to the pandemonium, running over the glass shards. After I cleaned the mess I found glass sticking out of our wooden cupboards. Some pieces were flying so fast they embedded themselves into the wood.

Doesn't look bad there, but that's only about 1/2 the length of our kitchen and the glass chunks reached down the entire stretch.
Luckily for us the boys weren't hurt beyond just their feet. I was sure Ethan was coming out with some scratches on his face. He was of course the one that had the worst of it, but that didn't stop Ayden from milking his little cuts as well.

As I'm going to assume, you really can't see any cuts on Ayden's feet or Ethan really either. Ethan at least has the bit of blood dripping down his foot. But both boys had at least 3-4 places where the glass had cut them. Poor guys. And my poor fudge!

New Haircut

Its about dang time!

You can somewhat see the hair that is growing back after I had Ethan. Its taken nearly a year for it to get to the length it is in this photo.

I was trying to grow my hair out and the guy that cut it went a bit short than I'd anticipated. Thank gosh my hair grows pretty quick!

....aaaaand the backside.

I had to add a couple of photos on here of our dinner last night. We had turkey and spaghetti and as you can see here, Ethan did not want his spaghetti, only his turkey. So he "sneakily" disposed of the spaghetti over the edge of his tray. Little did he know, it did not get far.

Ayden on the other hand just sort of teased me the whole night! He'd stick his food in his mouth but somehow only one noodle would make it the entire trip. As in, in his mouth, chewed up and swallowed; the rest would just fall out back onto his plate.

I think once we get over this all sugar diet he's going for, we'll be in good shape to progress to foods like spaghetti, without eating just one noodle at a time.

Boogers and pretzels

Ayden is an exceedingly helpful little boy. He loves to please. He loves to make Daddy happy. He loves to make Mommy happy. We can't quite add Ethan onto the list yet.

Ayden is especially eager to please if he gets attention for it. "Ohhhh Ayden! Thank you sooo much!" I can get about anything I want if I say that to him. Almost too much of what I want sometimes.

Today as I was taking a shower, Ayden took it upon himself to feed Ethan and himself with whatever he could find and open. In this case, it happened to be pretzels. I came downstairs after showering and found both of them munching on pretzels all over the floor. I stuck my hand in the bag that Ayden was guarding and took a few out to eat.

He watched me walk over to the computer and sit down. He must have noticed that by the time I'd sat down that my pretzels were all gone. He quickly picked some up from the floor and brought them over to me, placing them on the desk next to my hand. I quickly told him. "Ohhhhh thank you SO much Ayden. That was sooo nice of you!" Hoping that I would get some more if I did.

I was not disappointed and received another Ayden sized handful of pretzels. Once I'd finished that pile he came over with one pretzel he was eating and gave it to me. He made about three or four trips to his pretzel pile on the floor before I noticed  his little finger stuck up his nose. . .

How long he'd been gold digging, grabbing pretzels and giving them to me is beyond me! BUT... and I cannot believe I'm actually admitting this, I still ate every little pile he gave me after I saw his finger stuck in his tiny nose. Never fear, the wet pretzels were swiftly removed from my mouth once it was noted that my own saliva had not made them moist! haha

Ninja baby!

I didn't get a chance to snag very many Christmas photos. So here's a few of the boys playing.

 You can see my WONDERFUL memory foam mattress in the background! LOVE that thing! Ayden is also playing with one of the toys he received from Christmas. The boys have lots of fun new cars to play with on their little track. I'm not exactly sure what Ayden is upset about in this photo, I'm sure he's bothered by something Ethan's done.

I'm not sure if I can adequately say that my boys are getting along better just yet- but they are playing more together. The only thing is, even though they play more together, the violence has also gone up. This happens to be one photo where they were enjoying each others' company. Probably because they're not after the same toy. :) I have a video of the boys just being cute right here. (Click) It was Christmas night and Ethan thought I was taking his pictures and was trying to smile for me.

Our oldest- like any crazy jealous and territorial 2 1/2 year old STILL, after nearly a year, has issues with our new addition to the family. aka "little brother" or "Eeenen!" We should really stop calling him the prior, seeing as when he gets older he's not going to like being called "little brother" At first the violence was non-existent because what can a one, two or three month old really do to get in your way? But as soon as Ethan showed interest in the toys Ayden had staked a claim on. . . game. over. It started with pushing and shoving mixed in with some shouting. Then escalated to kicking, which thank gosh was quickly squelched, especially since Ayden's signature place to kick Ethan was in the face. Now Ayden has morfed his jealousy and territorial rage into a slew of pushing, shoving, hitting and lastly biting. We're teaching him to verbalize his feeling instead of acting his feelings out... aaaaand of course thats not exactly going as quickly as we'd like, but we are working with a 2 1/2 year old here.

Ethan, almost from day 1 has had to be in defense mode when Ayden's come near, BUT just recently he's begun to fight back. His fighting merely consists of screeching like a banshee, which has turned out to be a pretty good tactical move, and then swinging his arms like frenzied baseball bats. Sometimes his methods work, most of the time they don't. Occasionally, when there isn't chaos in the house, Ethan will take it upon himself to provoke the chaos. Which always ensures in him getting chewed on, pushed over or put to bed.

 If you were wondering what type of chaos Ethan likes to provoke... Its right here. Sitting with big bug eyes, just waiting for something to get in its way. The something the chaos particularly likes to wait for, has two little wobbly legs and wild flailing arms.

This year has been the most involved my kids have gotten. They love their toys and still play with them, unlike last year, where Ayden had his toys played for about a week and then was distracted by other things. Yes he still plays with ALL his toys, but this year- maybe because of the competition- they've really enjoyed their new gadgets.

I usually work evenings and do not get the chance to put my kids to bed, so while on vacation I greatly enjoyed cuddling with my boys. I haven't rocked Ethan to sleep in a very long time and it was nice to cuddle with him. I have to admit I was about to fall asleep before him.

proof once again that they do get along some of the time. Even if what brings them together is smashing their feet against my bathroom door.

A few years back when Ayden was about 8 months old, McKay's dad went to Japan on a business trip I believe, he brought back this cute little ninja suit- I'm sure that's NOT what its called- you'll have to forgive my lack of knowledge regarding the garb. Ethan is now big enough to wear it and is quite the stud.

Ayden had to have some attention too. :)

Too bad this last one is slightly fuzzy.

Cups, water and a little boy.

I just need to mention that 2 1/2 year olds just don't get it. You're probably thinking "well duh", because I know I'm thinking it. BUT I had to say it!

Let me explain why I would make such an obvious statement.

My 2 1/2 year old, for reasons beyond my knowledge and logic, has decided to pour out his drinks all over the house. This morning we found a puddle of root beer on the kitchen floor that he purposely spilled. A little later in the day, McKay caught him pouring some water on the living room floor. AND again today, he poured his full water cup onto our kitchen table.

Why he would do this? I have no idea. Maybe it looks cool to some degree, I'm not really sure. I think what I really don't understand is why- out of the blue- he would start dumping his drinks around the house when he's been using regular cups for almost a year now.

My solution to this problem/annoyance. take away the big boy cups. If that's not devastating enough to him- like I'm sure it won't be. Then he'll have to get timeout or something to that effect each time he decides to annoy me by spilling water at random places throughout my house.