surfer baby...

Lily doesn't really hold her head up with her arms much. She does it like this. Hilarious! She looks like a surfer dude!

We have cereal...yum!

Lily had her first taste of baby cereal today. We found a whole grain brown rice cereal which she apparently loved. She just dove right in with her whole face! Cute!

Moms who know...

I just wanted to link to this awesome talk from the LDS Church General Conference that made me renew my committment to my family. I really don't need anything else in my life but my family, and I don't need to be focusing my time or energy anywhere else. It is sometimes trying and thankless, but also the most important, worthwhile, and fulfilling job I will ever have.

LDS Relief Society Pres. Julie Beck talk

Grateful...

So, you may or may not know about the "drama" I had with Zane's preschool teacher last year, but here is a short version. On the LAST DAY of preschool last year , his teacher told me she thought that he wasn't listening and wasn't "mature" enough for her 4 year old class. Yes, she waited until the last day (which is pretty late to try and get him in somewhere else btw). Whatever. I told her that Zane had learned all the songs, nursery rhymes, and all the letter sounds from her class. She said to me "Oh, really? I guess he is listening." DUH! Anyways if she just wants kids that will sit at a table all day and do worksheets (way too much for any 4 year old), it's not right for Zane, and she's not right for Zane.

So, I have to say HOW GRATEFUL I am that we have him in his new preschool! His teacher said to me today "Zane is REALLY smart. I just can't believe the questions he asks, it is very unusual for a boy his age". She said she only gets a couple of kids each semester like that. She said she can just see him constantly thinking.

I was so happy I just wanted to cry. Woohoo! A teacher that really appreciates him. A teacher that really has taken the time to get to know him and see him for the amazing kid he really is. Yay!

4 months old

Lily had her 4 month appt. today. She's actually 4 1/2 months. She is 27 inches tall, and 17 pounds! Wow.

The Dr. loves to see her. He doesn't get to see many chubby babies lately. He said she is one of his only babies in the 90+%. He kept saying "are you sure she only eats breastmilk". Also "aww, she has back fat" and "even her feet are chubby". Hahaha!

We love our michelin man baby girl.

Perfectionist...

So when I went to pick Zane up from preschool today, he was sitting down at a table with the teacher while she was "helping" him finish a project. He was cutting something out with scissors. He is still not perfect with scissors (what 4 year old is?) but he has this inate perfectionist that just comes out.

The teacher said to me, "yeah this is his third one, he's a little bit of a perfectionist". Ha, tell me something I don't know. Then she says, "and he gets easily frustrated, that's going to be hard for him when he gets in school." HAHA. Really, tell me something I don't know. She says "I told him it's just practice, that he doesn't have to be able to cut right on the lines." Yes, but this is Zane. Zane won't color because he knows he can't color in the lines. So, he prefers to just not do it at all because it wouldn't be acceptable to him.

This is the kid that when they roasted hot dogs at preschool, couldn't eat his because it was "Frickin' burned". His words, not mine.

We have to turn this power into good....what a job we have ahead of us...

our crew

My junk food vacuum I call Zane...

Ok, so I don't buy junk food crap very often, and this is why....

Zane. He loves loves yogurt. Few weeks ago, I bought an 8 count package of "yogurt slurpy innertubes", otherwise known as Gogurts, down at the Walmart. By the end of the day, all gone. No kidding, he ate all 8. He really isn't that unsupervised - which means he can eat really fast.

Well about a week later, I caved to his whining at the store and bought some Zingers (twinkies covered in frosting...really healthy). It was morning and Zane was buggin buggin buggin for one. I told him he could have one after lunch. So, he has ONE after lunch. Somehow by dinner time, he has eaten 5 more! Yes, 6 Zingers in one day. Can you say sugar rush?

Today (about 2 weeks after the Zingers incident) - I bought a pack of pop-tarts. Now, honestly, I bought these for me. Lately I have not been getting to breakfast, so I thought at least I could grab one of them, and it would be SOMETHING (ok maybe nothing is better). I purposely hid them so he wouldn't see them, because I know of this problem he has with impulse control. But I ended up making one in his sight, so I had to give him one. I thought I hid them again well enough, but apparently not. The pack of 8 is now down to 1. So that means he ate 6 pop-tarts today. Yup, 6. SICK!

I'm afraid I need to put a lock on the pantry and fridge.

More from the one-liner master

Ok, so yesterday Zane was with us at our church choir practice. After it was over, he went over to the pianist and was playing songs for her (fur elise...yes he can play the first part of that...and his "major and minor scales" - i have an amazing 4 year old I know).
Our pianist is a sweet 80+ year old woman. When he was done playing with her, he touched her arm and said "You are FLOPPY". HAHAHAHA.
I was on my way out the door when I heard this and just LAUGHED my HEAD off the whole way down the hall.

Baby Lily

Our baby girl born 5.31.07. 7 lbs. 13 oz. 21 in. What a doll!

Just a little excited...

I keep telling myself I need to remember to write this stuff down.. and I just remembered this one..
We had a family reunion a month or so ago for John's family. At the reunion all the kids go together to put on a "play" for the parents. At the beginning all the kids were supposed to go up to the microphone, say their name, and what part they were playing. It's Zane turn (one never knows what he will say... ) ... he says "My name is Zane, and I love my grandpa John!" Way cute..
So as the play progresses.. he of course is trying to be the center of attention. Standing out in the center of the action, looking out at the audience, the whole time. Then all of a sudden he blurts out "I'm just a little excited!!!" HAHAHAHA. Everyone cracked up.
This is our new favorite phrase for Zane... "he's just a little excited"

More Zane-isms...

So this past week...
Zane went over to the baby and *sniffed* her. I asked him what he was doing, and he said "She smells like RAINBOWS!" Way cute.
Zane was playing around with some old little girl hair clips I have, and wanted me to put them in my hair. I decorated my bangs and front of my hair with about 10-15 clips. He then looked at me and said "Mom, you look like a garden!" Ha!
Zane's fish Sienna died this past week. He asked me if he was going to be resurrected. I told him yes, and he said "will she be resurrected at our house?" Occasionally he will continue to ask if she is resurrected yet.
We have tried to explain to Zane about "stranger danger". He thinks it is ok for him to constantly answer the front door. Whether or not I am right there. I have come into the front room with people standing in my house before, when I didn't even know the doorbell had rung. We have told him that we don't want someone to take him away from us, and John has said that we don't want a "kidnapper" to take him. So he says "What does the kidnapper look like?" "What kind of car does he have?" too funny! (if you don't know Zane, he is OBSESSED with cars). Somehow this is all lost on him...we better keep a good eye on him!

Odyssey and Sienna...

It is almost Zane's 4th birthday, and since the arrival of his baby sister is coming right around the same time, we decided to get him his big birthday present early. He loves animals and has desperately wanted a pet forever, so we decided to start out with fish.
We have the tank all set up and now have two new gourami fish. We asked Zane what he wanted to name them. He pointed to one and said, this one is Odyssey and pointed to the other, this is Sienna.
Sound like cool names? Yes. But did you know that they are both models of Mini-vans, and Zane is absolutely obsessed with cars. He knows probably 25+ models of cars by sight and points them all out while driving (including the entire 2007 Toyota lineup - thanks to a brochure that we got after doing a test drive - and I'm not exaggerating, he knows them ALL). At least he didn't name the fish - Yaris Liftback and Caravan.

Baby girl collins - mom at 32 w 5 d

Ok ok already...

Sorry,... I've been much busier lately with not a whole lot of time to sit around and blog all day, sheesh give a girl a break.
So, some cute Zane-isms lately:
On the phone with Grandma one day, Zane said "grandma, come see me" and grandma said " I can't, I would like to but I can't right now" (she is 6 1/2 hours away) and Zane says "Because you are too old and sick". HAHA. Where does he come up with this stuff? I promise we have NEVER EVER said that.
Zane is in preschool. But don't ever talk about preschool. He insists "No, that's not my preschool, that's my CLASS". Whatever dude!
Last month, we went to Kohl's and were shopping around. He was planning on being "Tuck" (from Wonderpets) for Halloween this year, but I saw a cute Pablo (from Backyardigans) costume and asked him if he would rather be that. He told me no, he wanted to be Tuck. Flash forward a month later to last night. He comes into my room and says, "Mom, where is my Pablo?" I said "What?" He said "My blue Pablo". Me again, "What?" "My blue Pablo costume". Seriously I can not believe the memory on this kid.

moving over to myspace...

decided to get with it and get a myspace. i will probably keep this, but blog over there as well. love you all.

Smart kid!

We attended Madison's (my niece/Zane's cousin) baptism this past weekend. We let Zane sit up front with all the kids so that he could get a good view. He got so excited when it was Madison's turn. After she was done, he belts out "She went under!" Everyone laughed. Then, he squeals a great big "MY TURN!" Everyone heard him that time, and of course loud laughter. What a cute story to remember for HIS baptism. Too cute.

I Happy

Ok, so if you know me and you know Zane, you know about "meltdowns." Zane is very sensitive, persistent, determined, energetic, extremely intelligent, easily frustrated, etc. When you combine all of those, you get a great smart fun-loving crazy kid - most of the time. But when Zane has had enough, you know it. And so does everyone else within a 10 mile radius. Fortunately for us, at 3 years old now, we have figured out how and when to prevent most of the meltdowns and "losing it". We protect those "meltdown tip-offs" with our lives. Unfortunately, there are times, when you just can't avoid it. Today was one of those days.

We had to run some errands today, which on a good day for Zane, he can handle going to about 3 places a day. Today was NOT a good day. We went to 4 stores. Add to that a birthday party at the swimming pool (his favorite place) to go to this evening. Of course, we didn't want to keep him from that. He was tired, he had had enough today, we knew we would be lucky if we escaped the meltdown. At least the meltdown came after the birthday party - when we were leaving. Add to that, the fact that we were already about 30 min. late for bedtime (NEVER A GOOD IDEA-one of those meltdown tip-offs).

Breakdown of the hour immediately following the birthday party:
-10 min. to get him in the car
-10 min. of a screaming, yelling, kicking, mommy holding zane's seatbelt so he can't get out of his seat, ride home.
-10 min. to get him in the house from the car/garage.
-30 min. of "mommy rage", some "daddy rage", struggle to get in PJ's, destructo man in the bedroom (that's Zane throwing every single thing he can get his hands on at the wall or on the floor- mainly every book in his bookcase), a whole bag of pretzels on the kitchen floor, MELTDOWN.

Immediately Post-Meltdown (A very "touchy" place-not a good time to try to get him to do anything yet):

Zane calmed down enough to sit on my lap, and I was able to talk to him about what was going on. I told him to look at me (which he wouldn't of course) and asked him if he thought I looked or sounded happy. He said "no, you happy". I said , "No, I'm not happy, I'm very sad and very very angry. I'm so angry that I want to scream and yell at the top of my lungs. Why do you think I'm so angry? It makes me so angry when you throw pretzels on the floor. What do you think you could do so that I'm not angry anymore?" He said "Pick up the pretzels." And proceeded to pick up the pretzels. Yes, he really really did that. All on his own. When he came back, I said "Thank you, that's making me feel a little better but I'm still angry. It makes me really angry when you don't get on your pajamas when I ask you to. What do you think you could do so that I wouldn't be angry about that anymore?" He went straight into his room, and brought me the PJ's he had on just a moment ago, taken off and thrown in his room. Can you believe this is my 3 year old? Anyways, that same conversation went on a couple more times, and he was able to get right into his bed, and fell asleep within minutes. He got lots of loves and kisses from us tonight!

I am stunned, amazed, joyous, but most of all, as Zane would say, "I happy."

We have poop!!

After three weeks of potty training, numerous accidents, we have a poop in the potty! Zane did it all by himself, without telling me he needed to go. He ran out of the bathroom, I POOPED. Sure enough, yippee!! Aren't we pathetic to be so excited about poop! =)Zane got a new train to go with his GeoTrax trainset for his "big special prize." Way to go!

Ok so you really want to know about my day?

Today -- got up, went walking. That was nice, and probably the highlight of my day. About 9 am, took a shower, and noticed the toilet was "bubbling". Weird, oh well. Went to get a pair of pants out of the dryer....OH MY GOSH! Yes, the return of the raw sewage backing up through the laundry room drain, only this time there was a bonus! A whole pile of un-washed laundry on the floor to SOAK it all up! At least they weren't clean.

Go to get John from work to deal with the plumber. Left John to deal with the mess for a minute while we picked up Chardell and Sage to go to the park. Spent about 20 minutes at the park before Zane peed his pants. Struggled to get him home in his car seat. Hurried and picked up the house -- couldn't let the plumber think we live in filth. Nevermind the fact he was coming over to wade through our crap. Now about 1:30, still haven't eaten lunch. Chased Zane around the house and various yards while the plumber was "trying" to work on the drains -- all the while trying to avoid the putrescent (sp?) rotting nasty disgusting raw sewage smell infiltrating my entire house.

After two snaked drains, all to show for the $350 bucks -- a dirty cleaning rag the previous owner had flushed down the toilet who knows how long ago. Oh, but at least it's not roots! Now about 4:00 -- the cleanup of the LITERAL crap begins. Oh yeah, still haven't eaten lunch. Something about the smell just doesn't lend itself to cooking up a burrito! Once we hosed out the laundry room, of course Zane had to play with the hose. Sent him outside to get as dirty as he wants. Did I mention yet that I was heading to enrichment meeting tonight and planned on not having to change my clothes?

After a long struggle with John hooking up the dryer and now getting sick to my stomach, I go out to retrieve Zane from the muddy mess outside. Have you ever heard of red mud? Oh yes, red mud. Picked Zane up by the armpits, careful to not let a single bit of him touch me or my clothes. Made it all the way to the bathtub, red mud free, and BLAM he arches his back getting into the tub. RED MUD all down my khaki pants. Lovely.

Run to get some food. It's about 5:30. Didn't kill my son. Didn't kill my husband. House smells like poo. It's a good day -- but it's not over yet.