Help... there is a monster in my house.

He is a monster...

• He throws
• He hits
• He makes messes
• He goes on hunger strikes
• He can throw a tantrum better, louder and more blood curdling than any monster I have ever seen.
• He does the exact opposite of what you say
• He says he doesn't feel good when he is asked to do something
• He says "I don't know how" to things I know he is perfectly capable of doing
• He laughs when he farts
• He screams louder and harder when punished... I swear the neighbors must think we beat him.
• He refuses to nap till 3 pm then won't go to bed till 10 pm
• He gets VERY cranky when hungry
• He negotiates
• He is intolerant to food dyes
• He wakes up way too early
• He lies
• He stares off into space when you confront him
• He wants gum "RIGHT NOW!"

PLEASE tell me that the DAY he turns four it all gets better???

Any one have any advice on how to get a three year old to pick up their toys willingly without mom holding their hand? Out of all of his MOSTERNESS, this is my current side ache. 

• He thinks the timer is some sort of chinese torture device
• The garbage thing does not work, because I cannot bring myself to throw away toys. 
• Toy time out does not work because he doesn't care and just plays with something else. 
• Putting him in time out does not work... heaven only knows why.

You wanna know what worked tonight... a cold shower in his clothes... he cleaned up his toys after that one. 

Please help... at this point I will try anything... hence the cold shower thing!

Told ya... winter power

I had no idea that this was going to happen when I made the previous post, but it happened. Our annual skiff of snow!! 

It happened on sunday, and melted by noon. And then it happened again today, and it is now noon and it is gone. 

It was fun while it lasted. 

I can never get a picture of the two of them together because little miss priss freaks out whenever her brother comes near her, and heaven forbid he touch her...

They wanted to ride bikes... cause that is what we do when we go outside... 

Love it for a few short hours, but so glad that is all it stays for. I LOVE LIVING IN OREGON!

Sunny... Nope!

Don't be fooled it only looks sunny. Its really freezing cold outside. The kids only lasted about a half hour. Hopefully a little vitamin d sunk in through the hat and gloves. January always teases us with a little spring and then reminds us of its winter power.

My sister is a bully.

Poor kid... He got beat up by his sister.

artista

Brother LOVES to paint. I have not let kem try it yet becuase she is still little, but I thought today would be a good day. So while K man was at pre school, I whiped out the paints and let kem go to town, and that is just what she did. 

She was pretty clean for the first few minutes, but I saw her fingers slowly drift towards the paint. I fully anticipated it being a full contact sport, hence the bare baby. 

She was ticked that I was taking a picture of her masterpiece. I am pretty sure it was because I had already promised a B..A..T..H. She probably thought I was going back on my promise. 


Looks like we may have another artist on our hands!

this is embarrassing...

This is kinda super embarrassing, but I don't ever want to forget it, so alas, I am posting these photos on the internet for the whole world to see...

I was in a really bad mood, and the reason why is definitely a topic for another post.

I have been wanting to do a new blog header, so we dusted off the computer camera and opened up photo booth. When we were done doing our family photos, Kroten wanted to do more. So we did a mommy-son personal photo shoot.

It was a blast. 

We laughed and laughed. 

I LOVED it. 

We will definitely be doing this again.

So if you are ever in a bad mood or need a laugh or need to get closer to your rambunctious three year old... Take a silly picture!! 

she must've thought it was chapstick.

Kem is super obsessed with chap-stick these days. Every time I whip mine out to put it on, she begs for it. She occasionally will get a hold of a tube and rip the lid off to partake of its gooey yummyness...

ALL...OVER...HER...FACE!! 

I had to explain to her on this particular day that this is not chap-stick...

I should have known... another story of failure.

I should have known that beans in cookies would be an atrocious ending. Why would you put beans in cookies? Seriously Kristen, you should have known this would be an epic fail from the very begining.

First you must know this. 

1. Cookies, and more particularly chocolate chips cookies, are a weakness for me.

2. Growing up, I could not make a good batch of cookies to save my life, and my brother teased me incessantly about this fact. I may or may not have a complex because of this.

3. It took me until about a year into our marriage to find "THE RIGHT" recipe. And now, there is no need to deviate from this recipe. It is tried and true, they are DELISH every-time, However, they are fatty mc fat fat.

4. One of my new years resolutions was to eat and cook healthier. 

That all being said... I tried substituting white beans for some of the butter in my FAVORITE chocolate chip cookie recipe. 

Sad story... they tasted like bark mulch from the playground. I am not kidding, they literally tasted like that... like I would know what playground bark tastes like, but I swear you would agree.

EPIC FAIL!!!

What ever you do... DO NOT TRY THIS. I beg of you, learn from my mistakes and do not put beans in cookies. 

Now that I think about it, why would you, why did I? This should never have happened. 

failure and success... resolution #33

First off I must say that out of the 50 resolutions that I have this year, one in particular is standing out to me, at least this week.

That is number 33, buy and eat more whole foods.

This one is sort of for myself, but more for the kids. I need to be more aware of what they are eating and incorporate more veggies and such. I am a busy mom and I have gotten in the habit of making lots of prepared packaged easy meals. YUCK.

That being said, I have been reading this super healthy kids blog and it is helping me a TON. check it out.

Tonight I was determined to do something creative and fun, so I was going to make Mediterranean meatballs over couscous. Sounds delish, right. Well, I did something wrong and it was an absolute FAIL!!!! So I crammed it into a meatloaf pan and began cooking it, but the children were starving, so I resorted to, yes a box. I whipped up some mac and cheese. :( 

However, the night was not a complete failure, because this is what I did... 

While the mac was cooking, I steamed and pureed some baby carrots and added it to the mix. And guess what... THEY DEVOURED IT!!! 

Pureed carrots are perfect for mac and cheese because the color is orange just like the cheese. I was not shy with the ammount of carrots, I added a lot. 

And to top it off, I tried another recipe called Purple Salad. K man always picks the purple cabbage out of bagged salad and eats it, so I decided to make an all purple cabbage salad and he loved it. 

All it is, is purple cabbage and carrots and a little ranch dressing mixed in. He ate his whole serving.

So the night was not a complete success nor a complete failure.  Im feelin' pretty good. 

The sunday I have been waiting for...

To truly understand what I am talking about, you must read this post from two years ago.

It was the best sunday I have had in 3 and a half years...

I have been waiting, patiently waiting, for this day for a long time.

This sunday was Kem's first sunday in the nursery at church.

I was totally anticipating the worst and was prepared for it to not go well. But it was heavenly. Kemiry did so well, I am so proud of her. She played and never cried. I think it helped that our good friend Amber was there with her to offer a familiar face.


I got to enjoy the last two hours of church with no distractions. It was fantastic. GOOD GIRL KEM.

Another highlight of the day was that it was Kroten's first day in primary. I was so proud of my little man, he went to class like a champ, wasn't scared or anything. 

He has been telling us that he does not want to go because he will miss the snack in nursery. I felt bad for him, but his teacher assured us that she would have a snack, and they did. Gold fish to be exact. 

Several people stopped us in the hall or texted us after church to tell us that the teacher was talking about having free agency and the POWER to choose. K man replied in front of the whole primary " I don't have any power, but I will buy some tomorrow." Apparently all the adults got a kick out of that, they are going to have fun with my smart little guy.

It was a wonderful sunday, and I hope there are many more just like it. I am so grateful for wonderful nursery leaders and fantastic primary leaders. I know it is a hard calling, but seriously, we could not live without you. :)