pick one!

Can't you two just pick to love each other all the time? Why do you have to fight and bicker and scream at one another all the time? Some days you can't wait to be together. Other days I want to put you both out in the yard with a FREE sign on you!

Look Whooo's Two!

By Saturday morning the decorations were hung, the cupcakes were being frosted and I was crying my eyes out in the kitchen while I danced with my baby. I held him in my arms and sobbed. He kept touching my wet cheeks and saying, tears momma, tears momma. Then I cried some more. My sister came over to help me decorate. Bear and Papa Milo had taken Parker ice fishing. I was a mess all morning. My sister and I talked about it and I think it truly comes down to he is most likely, probably, 99% sure, my last baby.

But I picked myself up off the kitchen floor and proceeded to go into full 2nd Birthday Party mode.

I made this rockin' banner weeks before his birthday...made my least crafty sister help glue them together too! First the banner then to assist with cupcake decorating, I really am breaking her in quickly! I cut out 13 giant owls on the cricut in 4 different colors and it turned out super cute!

With brother & daddy fishing we had the morning to hangout together. I pulled out his scrapbooks-yes he has more than one in his two short years of his life-for him to look through. I leave them out for the guests to look through at their leisure. He kept calling his baby pictures me and his big boy pictures Paarkarr.

Because it was his birthday I let him have a cupcake at 10 o'clock in the morning. Then he snuck another one. Because it was his birthday I didn't get mad, I took a picture.

By 5 o'clock people were gathered in our house enjoying some great food from the Spot on 53, orange or strawberry pop and the cutest cupcakes ever.
The birthday boy was a little shy in the beginning with all the people over but I didn't mind the extra leg hangs and begs to be held. I just carried on my hip right where he belongs. When people were eating he snuggled on my lap...I didn't mind that either.As soon as we lit the 2 little candles and set the cupcake in front of him he blew them out. We chuckled and then re-lit them, telling him to not blow them out until after we sing. So one round of Happy Birthday he blew them out again and smiled for everybody. Then proceeded to eat the entire cupcake one candied layer at a time.Parker was so excited to have his brother be two. Finally. The next morning he asked if Emmitt was three now? I had to put the birthdays in perspective for him. No Parker, your birthday is after Halloween and then it's Christmas, Emmitt's birthday is after Christmas. On Monday, Parker asked if Emmitt was going to be three at the daycare Valentine party?

The gifts...oh the gifts. He was so excited when he opened each and every one of them. Had we not had video I am not sure I would have a clue who got him what. But the most priceless moments have come from his new cowboy boots and a little Daniel and the Lion bible set. The kid is obsessed with lions and my mom found little characters of Daniel, a den and a lion. He walks up to me and puts Daniel on the table, puts the lion next to him, sets down the den and says IN! So he really does get it! The next morning he got up and kept asking for Jesus. Where's Jesus? Where's Jesus? I asked him if he was looking for Daniel? Yeah, where's Daniel? where's Daniel? We found him in the radiator!

This two year old will always be my baby and this four year old will always be my big boy. I am slowly getting used to that. Just Becky and the boys....me and my boys...all three of them.

Parker ear update

Parker is great! He no longer has tubes. There are no holes in his ear drums from the tubes. If he doesn't get an ear infection or start storing fluid on his ears he will not need another set of tubes! The risk of the fluid build up is down because he doesn't have the adenoid. He traveled both ways really well. The anxiety got the best of him in the doctor's office though, he freaked out and flinched every time the doctor came at his ear. It came down to Bear and I forcing him still and a whole 5 seconds of the doctor in his ear to pull the tube out. The hearing test nurse was right, the tube was just laying on the ear drum not in place. That was the left ear. The right ear was the one that the tube came out at the Well Child Check in January. That one was flushed out, both the nurse and the doctor made a face that they didn't approve of the flushing. But no hole in that ear drum either. There is a little piece of skin in the right ear that he would have loved to get out but said it wasn't worth the torture and that the ear will clean itself out eventually. No further follow up is needed...yippee!
Thanks for all the positive thoughts and prayers.

still birthday week

I love that I can give my daycare provider my camera and she can capture the fun the kids have when it's their birthday. Monday I brought the cupcakes and the kids got to enjoy them after lunch. She called to say they loved them and that they were super messy. I feel like I have redeemed myself a bit with the kids. I had made them whole wheat blueberry muffins last summer and they hated them! Anytime she makes muffins now they are all hesitant to eat them and question her to no end about who actually made them! And one of the kids told me the owls looked like a reindeer.

The Three Musketeers

This picture cracks me up...Yes Emmitt, chocolate is that good! His father does the same thing!Thanks Feffie for all you do! Even if he loves Paul more...

one year later...

I actually cannot believe I am writing one year later with the same news! Parker had his preschool screening Friday morning for 2 hours. We left there feeling really good about all of the testing. I had the exit interview with the nurse and she obviously neglected to read the charts correctly. A member of mine came in to workout and asked me how I was holding up. I said I didn't know what she was referring to. She filled me in at work that Parker has not done well with his hearing check again. He is definitely better than last year. But, the left ear (the one that still has a tube) hurt when she did the tympanogram. That is the test to check if he has activity in his ear. Well, in order to perform the test, the machine blows air in the ear and he jerked away in pain. So she referred us to go back to Duluth to the ENT again. The right ear had the tube that had been forced out during the ear infection/bloody ear in December. That ear has movement and seems to be "okay". So...we will be checking in with Dr. Glickstein on Tuesday the 16th in Duluth.
On another note...he did really well in his cognitive and language skills. His vision is excellent. He was on the low end (11 out of the range 7-27) for motor skills -skipping (I can't skip very well either), catching, jumping in one place, hopping... Just wanted to keep you all in the loop. Extra prayers for the little guy, he is most likely headed for another surgery for a new set of tubes!

little snitch

I made 2 dozen owl cupcakes for Emmitt's Birthday at daycare. Since his birthday is so close to all the Valentine hubbub, I thought I would make his treat day today.First I caught him snitching off the table so I moved them over to the stove. Then I caught him pushing his chair over there this morning. I came around the corner to see him face first on the cupcakes eating the junior mints off the eyes! He ate a total of 4 before I caught him. I just moved the trays out to the car at that point. Can't blame the kid.
I cannot believe that 2 years have gone by! It has really passed so quickly. We will be celebrating his birthday with a big owl party on Saturday. When you ask him how old he is going to be, he says two. When you ask him how old he is now, he says two. He is ready for two...

Waking up in Vegas

Rich, Kim, myself and Bear headed to Las Vegas for the weekend. What.A.Blast. We left for Duluth on Friday afternoon to take our time to get to Duluth, return some Christmas stuff in Virginia and enjoy a relaxing dinner together before heading to the airport. We flew Allegiant and got a great deal on a flight and hotel. Grand total of $632 for both of us. Wish that's all the whole trip cost us! We brought X amount of dollars with us to Vegas and had enough to pay cash for our parking permit and dinner. So it wasn't a total bust. We had a great time and enough laughs to last awhile.

Bear had never been to Vegas before. Rich and Kim have gone a few times before and have experienced it together. I have only been there for conventions. I can't say that I really even like the city itself, but it's worth seeing once. It was definitely worth seeing Bear's reaction each time we saw something totally outrageous!

We checked in at the front desk around 10:30 pm Friday evening and all Bear could say was, wow! Then he followed that up with I've seen enough girls wearing short skirts that shouldn't be wearing short skirts! I told him he was in for a lot more.

We couldn't have picked a better couple to go with. Rich and Kim are so much like us that it made the trip that much more fun. We all had the goal of not really planning on doing anything, not following an itinerary and just going with flow. That's exactly how the weekend went. Just do whatever. We could contact each other whenever we wanted to via texting-even if it was Kim's first few times texting!

We would split up for awhile and do our own thing and then meet back up and sight see together. We were always putting $20 each couple into a machine and taking turns pulling the lever, well I pulled the lever, they just pushed the little re-bet button. I always feel luckier if I pull the lever. We put money in a huge slot machine and when I pulled the lever I actually jostled the machine and it got stuck! Oops...

We did a few of the must see Vegas landmarks. We saw the Eiffel Tower at the Paris, we saw the water fountain show at the Bellagio along with Gardens. We ate at a buffet one night. We posed with the tin man who scared the pants off of me when I walked by. Funny part is that I just told the group that that is what he does! We walked and walked and walked the strip up and down, popping into all the casinos to see what they had to offer and lose/win some money.Of course my favorite Vegas tradition has been seeing my girl Davina. This was officially my last time seeing her out in Vegas. Can't wait for her to move back to Minnesota and be closer to us all. The first night we got to Vegas we checked in to our room and headed right over to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill at Harrah's where Davina works. She of course was just getting done and we got to see her in her hot little outfit one last time! We hung out, ate dinner and I enjoyed my Whiskey Girl drink (for $12!).Me and TK just kicking back. Davina may be taking a job at a new TK Bar in the metro area and assured me that when it has it's grand opening and Toby is there that I could be her special guest! YeeHaw!By the end of the weekend we were all exhausted and almost broke. We had seen many crazy and amazing sights in Vegas. This by far is one of the funniest things-I positioned Rich's hands just right...The best $60 spent was at the Terry Fator show. Bear and I were both floored by this man's talent and in awe of all that he could do. If you get a chance to see him, just go. Guaranteed laughs and amazement.What happens when you wake up in Vegas? You drink Bloody Mary's for breakfast that's what. Rich got us to enjoy betting on horses, dogs and all kinds of sporting events. It was pretty cheap and we got to sit down and rest...

I always have stayed at Paris or Bally's in the past for conventions and as we were passing through, I pointed out the huge slot machine, AKA the Tourist Trap, and guess who had to stick a $20 in there? My husband. We had just watched some tiny Asian woman blow $50 in this machine and debate if she should put more in. She realized that there was a line forming and moved over. Bear puts his money in and on the first pull it starts dinging away and the pit boss comes around the corner to tell him he won! We had no idea how much since it quit counting at one point. The look on that poor woman's face was priceless. She was in utter shock in knowing that that would have been her next pull! It only amounted to $150 but $150 is $150. We'll take it!I changed my ringtone to Katy Perry's Waking Up in Vegas and Kim was calling my phone just to hear the song play. Randomly one of us four would bust into song as we were walking along, at a machine, in our room, at dinner...whenever! It is certainly a trip I won't forgot. I've already started getting emails from the Mirage about another trip, assuring me in getting a great deal.

Ahhh, Vegas...3 days is enough, but we will be back someday.