Dex-two-riffic

Sorry about the slide being SUPER long, Dex is so dang cute, I just couldn't narrow it down!

Dexter turned two years old yesterday! I can't believe he is already two! In honor of his birthday I thought I would list some interesting facts about the little guy.

Sometimes we think Dex was switched at birth because he looks SO different than Corbin and Ivy. (We don't really think that, he actually looks EXACTLY like Scott did at the same age.)

Dex is ALL boy! He is tough and picks on his big brother and can actually pin him to the ground to take whatever it is Corbin has that he wants! (this probably makes grandpa happy, if either of our boys are going to wrestle, its going to be Dex)

Dexter is the comedian of our family. He is super silly and will do almost anything to get a laugh.

Dexter started crawling at six months and walking at 10 months, but just barely started talking!

Dex didn't get sick from the time he was born, all the way until he was over a year old! (I think this is due to him being a spring baby, rather than a fall baby like our other kids)

Dexy's favorite foods are mac n cheese, spaghetti, cottage cheese, yogurt, string cheese, banana's, and quesadillas.

Dexy has a very high tolerance for pain. When he almost bit his tongue off he stopped crying almost instantly!

His favorite cartoons are Sesame Street (Cookie monster is his favorite, despite Elmo's popularity), Curious George, and Word World.

He has no fear (which is scary for me), he will jump from any height and try anything.

Dexter has crazy hair, he has two swirlies in the back that make it grow like a mohawk. It's so darn cute! I never wanted to cut it, it was super fun to play with when it was long.........everyone called him a girl so eventually it had to go.

He looks up to Corbin and tries to do everything he does.

Dex tries to change his own diaper, wipe himself, and put diaper rash cream on.

We love Dex and are honored to have him in our family. He is so cute and smart, and just plain awesome. He is growing too fast, and we wish he would stay little forever. Happy Birthday Dex, we love you!

Going Private

I've been contemplating making my blog private for a few months. I've had sitemeter on it for a while now, to watch who visits.......I'm a little creeped out sometimes.....So I think I am going to make my blog private very soon. I wouldn't worry about it if it weren't for my kiddos, but you know how it is.
So here's the plan, if you want to continue viewing my blog please write me a comment with your email address (even if I probably already have it, this way I can keep track of who I've invited), I will send you an invite when it turns private, that you will have to accept. If i don't even know that you read my blog, don't be afraid to speak up if you want to continue reading it (maybe I want to read yours too!). Don't worry about putting your email address down, because I have to approve all comments before they are posted, and I will delete all those with email addresses. I will wait about two weeks before I make the switch to give everyone time to send their email addresses and prepare.......so hurry up if you want to be in the loop. Thanks!

Sponge-Corbin Square-Dex

Corbin and Dexter have been "sharing" a room since we moved into our house 8 months ago, but not really. One of the two would usually end up in Ivy's room on the air mattress because Dex cries in the night sometimes. Anyway, now that Ivy is getting bigger it's getting closer to the time when she will actually sleep in her room (still a few months away, but I'm trying to make the change easier on the boys). It's time to make them sleep in their room together.
We've been talking about getting the boys bunk beds for months, but could never afford it. Well we finally did it, we thought it would make the boys want to share a room if we got them, and we found a pretty smokin' deal so.........bunk beds! We didn't actually bunk them, our boys are still pretty little, it'll be a few years before I feel comfortable with letting one of them sleep on the top bunk. Anyway, we put the boys to bed last night in the same room in their new beds, and they did it. They slept in the same room and didn't wake each other up.

Dexter's birthday is next saturday so we got him bedding to go with his new bed. We wanted to get sesame street stuff, especially Cookie monster, but unfortunately, we couldn't find ANYTHING sesame street! As a matter of fact, we couldn't find anything we thought he would recognize. We ended up settling for Spongebob, since that's what Corbin's bedding is. Corbin's is a lot cuter, because it's a Grandma Marde original, but Dexter's will do. Aren't they cute!


And now on a completely different note. Our family was able to go to church together for the first time since bringing Ivy home. We have been switching off, Scott will take the boys and I will stay home with Ives, or I will go, and Scott will stay. Ivy is at high risk for RSV, so we weren't allowed to take her yet. Well we decided that it's late enough in the season that maybe it would be okay, so she was able to experience church today. Can you tell how much she loved it.

3 Things.......

The original title of this post was 2 things, now it is 3...stupid blogger!
Why are you in a bad mood Rochelle, I'll tell you.....3 things....

1. I hate my printer! I needed to copy some paperwork today, but every time I want to use the printer, it doesn't work.....for some reason or another, it never works!! I turned it on put the paper I needed to copy in, made sure the paper tray was full, and pushed copy. It "prints" out a blank page. I try again, only this time in colored ink. It prints, but anything in black isn't there...it must be out of black ink, right? WRONG! Ink levels are full. It must need to be cleaned. I call Scott, since I don't know how to do it myself. He tries to walk me through the process. After about 10 minutes we still can't find how to clean the heads. So he connects into my computer from his work computer, and does it for me. It works! The printer grabs a paper........uh oh......paper jam! I fix the paper jam, and the printer tries again............uh oh........out of paper! Even though there is obviously paper in the tray, I add more. The printer tries again.........uh oh......cartridge jam! Are you freaking kidding me!! Its like the stupid thing is taunting me. you think you can print....you can't print.....you will NEVER print! Ha Ha Ha!! By this time I am about 2 seconds away from throwing it out the window, lighting it on fire, and dancing on its ashes, so I give up. I will not print today. I HATE that printer!

2. To let off some steam from the printer incident, the kids and I take a much needed walk to the park. When we get there we are surprised to see that no one else is there. I love it when no one else is there. We play....for about 10 minutes until another Mom with like a million kids shows up (not really a million, but like 7, crazy!). She immediately starts screaming at all the kids.........every 2 seconds.......one of her kids' name is Corbin. "No, Corbin, No! Don't do that!" She screams. My Corbin thinks she is talking to him. He climbs down from the ladder he is climbing, runs over to me and says, "But Mommy, I want to go up the ladder." I tell him to go ahead. He runs back to the ladder and puts one foot up. "No, Corbin, get down from there!" She screams again. Corbin looks at me very confused, he looks like he might cry. "Mommy, who said that, I want to go up the ladder." I say (quite loudly, to let the other mom know there are two corbin's present. Maybe she will yell quieter.) "That little boy's name is Corbin too, she's not talking to you. Go ahead and climb the ladder." The other mom apologizes for the confusion and resumes her screaming ways. We endured about 10 more minutes of confusion, and bigger kids being mean to my kids, until we decided it was enough and went home. We were all disappointed with our less than ideal trip to the park.

And finally.....

3. Stupid blogger erased my entire post! I wrote the entire story that you just read, went to post it, and blogger had an error and erased the whole thing. I had to re-write it. Stupid blogger! What's next?!

Breathing in Spring Air (plus other random updates)

I hate being cold, I hate snow, I hate shoveling the sidewalk, I hate driving on slippery roads.......I hate WINTER!! Goodbye winter.........Hello Spring!! I am so happy for winter to be over and it can't go fast enough. It's still a little chilly out, but its getting warmer. We have to wear our coats to the park, but at least we can go to the park!! I am so freakin' excited for warmth, sunshine, playing outside, going for walks, and all that good stuff that warm weather brings.
We're cashing in on spring a little early around here. Fun days at the park are upon us. Even little Ivy-girl is getting in on the action.





Lately we have discovered this little kitty out our back door. We have never fed this kitty, never pet it, never offered any love or affection of any kind. We've never even opened the back door, and yet, this kitty keeps coming back (usually around dinner, but often several times a day). I don't know if she (I say "she" because kitties seem feminine, but I don't really know) is just confused about where she lives or what, but we aren't really "kitty people", so outside she remains, meowing and staring as if we are supposed to love her. Sorry kitty, we don't.(ps. I apologize to all of you who love cats and think we are mean, but Corbin is a little allergic, and we just don't like them much.)


On a more positive note, Ivy is getting aquainted with her hands. She can grab hold of things now, and when she gets them, she holds on as if her life depends on it. Here are a couple pics of her developing her newest talent.


Here are a few of the boys building and playing in couch cushion forts, they love it. It's so annoying to have to re-put the cushions on the couch five hundred times a day, but I guess it's worth it for the fun they have. Cute kiddos!


And finally, we have the boys' newest haircuts. ALL the boys in our family have like super hair or something cause it grows SO FAST. I finally decided to use the clippers instead of scissors on Dexy's hair, cause I am just sick of cutting it. He still has his crazy rooster hawk goin' on in the back, but it looks a lot better now.

4 Month Checkup

Today was Miss Ivy's 4 month checkup. It's hard for me to believe that it's already been 4 months, she still feels like a newborn to me. The doctor thinks that she is doing very well developmentally, but he is a little concerned about her weight, surprise, surprise. Here are her stats:

Weight: 10 lbs (3rd percentile)

Height: 23 inches(10th percentile)

So yeah, she's small, still very close to newborn size, which probably explains my feeling like she's still a newborn. Anyway, to get her weight up the doc recommended we start giving her rice cereal once a day. I really hope that works, cause I'm getting sick of this weight issue!! Other than that all is well.

So since Ivy is now 4 months, I just thought I'd give an update on other stuff, besides stupid weight.

Ivy is very happy, she is always smiling and silly, and is hardly ever in a bad mood. She is holding her head up like a champ, and is working on getting used to laying on her side rather than her back. She hates tummy time, it makes her cry until she turns blue. Her favorite toy is her little monkey mat with its dangling monkey, zebra, and mirror. She likes to grab hold of the zebra, and gets frustrated when she can't get him. She still enjoys spending time with her pacifier, only now she gets mad because she can pull it out of her mouth, but can't put it back in. Her favorite person in the house is, of course, her mommy. She actually cries when I leave the room sometimes. She is fascinated by her crazy, out of control brothers. She could stare at them for hours while they play, fight and cry with one another. She is always happy to see daddy when he gets home from work, and loves for him to hold her for hours on end.

She is one sweet girl and we are happy to have her in our family!!

Some favorites

Today while I was taking the sheets off of my bed to put in the laundry, I thought, "I can't wait til I get to put these sheets back on my bed all crisp, clean, and fresh, and then climb in and sleep in their fragrant goodness." Because clean sheets are something I really love, they're one of my favorite things. It got me thinking of some other things that I appreciate, or that make my life easier or better in some way. So I decided to do a small list of some of these things (other than the sheets, since I already mentioned those).

• The double sliding doors on my minivan.
  
  I had a so called "minivan" before, but there was nothing mini about it, and it only had one sliding door (which didn't even open from the outside). It was old and used (1995 Ford Aerostar), but in relatively good condition when we bought it. But the fact that it was so old meant that it didn't have the double sliding doors. I don't know who invented minivans or why they decided they only needed a door on one side for the backseat passengers, but they were crazy! I am glad they finally wised up and added that second door. I know they also have vans with doors that open themselves with just a push of a button, but I am not that fancy, so I just appreciate my minivan with its manual, double sliding doors.
  


• Disposable diapers. I know we live in a time where being "green" is the way to be. Recycling, conserving, and re-using is on everyones minds, and I try to do my part to help our environment, but using cloth diapers...........I don't think so!! I don't know how anyone can live happy lives when they have to clean up the same poop twice! Once when you clean it off the baby, and then again when you clean the diaper. Kudos to those of you that can, but I can't. I don't have the time or patience to do that, plus Dexter is disgusting. He has the nastiest diapers ever and I am happy to take them out to the trash and never have to think about them, see them, or smell them again!

• The baby swing.That swing made it possible for me to post this very blog.
  Ivy loves to sleep in it for like an hour or two at a time, in turn allowing me to do other things, such as eat, shower, clean, eat, play with the kids, check blogs, did I mention eat? I love that swing.
  
  
• PBS Kids. I know it's terrible to put your kids in front of the tv too often, but sometimes, I just need a few minutes of peace! That's where PBS Kids comes in. They play cartoons, but not just your average mind-numbing super hero type cartoons, educational ones. I swear Corbin learned to count by watching sesame street! If I have to let them watch tv, at least they can watch something that will not only entertain them, but teach them something too!
  
• And finally, Walmart. Now I know there are people out there (Van) that think Walmart is the devil, but in our situation, it really is a life-saver. With all our medical bills since Ivy was born, and just the fact that we now have 5 mouths to feed instead of four, and Ivy has to get a special formula that is 30 bucks a can, we appreciate the money we can save by shopping at walmart. Money is TIGHT around here! They only sell Ivy's special formula at albertsons, not walmart, but at least we can save money on everything else that we need on a regular basis, which makes it possible for us to be able to buy her that expensive formula.

All right, that's all I have for now. All part of my new years resolution to be more positive and look for the good things in life (which I haven't been doing so well lately). I hope you enjoyed my list and maybe it will make you think of a few things that you couldn't live without.