Dalton-isms

D-"Mommy, can I take a shower with you?"
Me-"No, you're too old for that."
D-"Daddy, can I take a shower with you?"
Daddy-"Nope. But you can take one by yourself."
D-"But I just want someone to get naked with me..."

D-"Are Robert and Lindsey going to have a baby?"
Me-"Yes."
D-"Is Lindsey going to have a baby?"
Me-"Um...yes."
D-"Are they gonna get a crate?"
I don't know why he thinks people keep babies in a crate. I swear to God that we do NOT put our kids in the dog crates!

"Mean people hunt. And when they're nice, they cook."

You know when you're at the grocery store and you're going through the list, you might read off the departments you need to go to? Well, that's what I was doing. So I said, "Automotive, paper goods, baby..."
And D says, "Mommy, we already have a baby, remember?"

"Look! My head is hard like a rock!"

"I'm mad like a Razorback."

Me to Chris-"Do you think all kids this age are funny, or is it just Dalton?"
D-"It's just me."

Comes out of his room with a polo shirt on, the collar turned up and his fingers on the edge of the collar-"This shirt makes me look cool..."

"I have to go poop and pee...I'm full of food and cake and water and milk and tea and tomato juice."

In the grocery store...D-"Wait, go back, I saw something back there!"
Me-"Nope, I don't have time to go back, just tell me what you saw."
D-"Applejacks!"
Me-"How do you know what Applejacks are when you've never had them?"
D-"I saw them on a commercial."

UPS drops a package at the door.
D-"Is that for me?"
Me-"Nope, I think it's for me."
D-"What is it?"
Me-"I think it's new dishes from Gma and Gpa Bane."
I open it and he sees all the bubble wrap and says- "See!! I told you it was for me!"

He was asking for Michael to come over and I told him that Michael went back to school and wouldn't come over as much anymore, but that I might watch a baby for someone else a few days a week. "We're not going to keep it, are we?"

What A Fun Weekend!!

We had a great lazy, fun weekend! Lots of new pictures to post...we had so much fun just hanging around the house that I took over a hundred pictures this weekend!!

I don't remember what we did Friday night, so it must not have been too great, but I was making dinner and turned around to find this...


Dalton just decided to color, hanging out with Jackson! They're so cute!!

We did dig out a bunch of Dalton's old toys from the attic. Slowly but surely I've been bringing them in, a few at a time, from the garage to clean them up. Of course Dalton says "Hey, my *insert toy name here*!! I've been looking for that forever, it's my favorite!" Dalton used to love this little scooter car, and Jackson loves it too.

Saturday, while I worked adoptions from 10-2, Chris took the boys for walks/rides. They went up and down the road tons of times. Sometimes with Dalton riding his bike and Jackson in the stroller, and sometimes with Dalton riding his motorcycle (which just came down from the attic...I was actually going to sell it b/c I hate it!!), and sometimes with the boys in the wagon. It was Jackson's first ride in the wagon (I'm sorry I missed it), and Chris failed to take any pictures!

After I got home, Chris and Dalton washed the cars, and then Dalton and I had a fantastic water balloon fight!!

You cannot run from me child!!

Look at his face...he's having such a blast!

Here, he's double fisting it and gonna' hit me with two at once.

Jackson sat on the front porch in his stroller and just watched us and laughed. After our balloon fight, Dalton decided to push Jackson around the driveway. :)

What a bunch of hams I've raised! But seriously, how freakin' cute are they?!? Surely these are not my children, they are way too cute.

And I got some great pics of Jackson just being Jackson! He's still pretty well in love with his feet.

And look at all these teeth! He has four that have broken through now. I think it's funny that his side teeth on the top are coming in before his front middle teeth. The one in the same spot on the left side is just about to pop through, too. My little snaggle-tooth!!

He's got a big mouth, just like me. :) And always loving everything in life!

I hope this week is as much fun as this weekend was. Not too much on the calendar...no doctor appts planned (although if we hear back from health insurance on Jackson's helmet, we'll be going in asap to have his head scanned so they can begin making his helmet)...will probably have a play date or two...

I had another good run tonight with Cheri, and we're planning on going again on Tuesday. Other than these couple things, that's the only stuff we've committed to, so it should be a good, laid back week!!

Nothing Better Than A Baby's Laugh

I just love the sound of a baby laughing!! Got these short videos earlier tonight...When I watched them on the computer, there was a lot of crackling noise each time Chris was spinning the toy. I hope it's just our speakers going bad on the computer, and not the camera's mic!! You'll have to let me know...

I Survived...Kind Of...Sort Of...Almost.

Myself and one of my running buddies, Amy, went for a jog last night. We decided to run the Bville Dog Park Trail...which isn't what it's really called. Just minutes ago, I inadvertently found a map of the trail (which would have been soooo nice to have had before we ran) and it's real name is Slaughter Pen Hollow Multi-Use Trail System. Hmmm... Something about "Slaughter" in the title is getting to me.

So we met at 7:00, and walked the first 1/2 mile. We were under the impression that this trail makes a full loop back to the parking lot. Each 1/4 mile is marked on the trail. So then we jogged for a bit, then walked, then jogged, then walked. At one point we realized we were right behind the waste water treatment plant (yummy), but we were walking and didn't think much of it. But then the trail just kind of ended. We had come to a road, but at first couldn't figure out where we were. We were debating on whether to turn around when we saw other runners and bikers on the actual road, so we thought that the trail must pick back up just ahead of where we were, so we continued on.

We went under Tiger Blvd and figured out where we were, and a trail picked up, but by the way the trail jogged to the east, which was opposite the direction of where we wanted to go, we decided to turn around. It was somewhere around 8:00 (although we didn't have watches or phones, we knew b/c the sun was setting). So we went back the way we came. We realized that it was going to be dark soon...very few people were still on the trail. And three times in the last year there's been sightings of a black bear on this trail. So we figure, you know what? We need to get trucking if we want to make it back to the cars before dark!!

So we're jogging again...and more and more and more! At this point, we're hurting and we're out of breath, and then we're passing the sewer plant again, and we're huffing and puffing and breathing through our mouths and you can taste the waste! (Taste the waste...kind of Dr. Seuss like!!)

So it's getting darker and darker, and we realize that we're still at least a mile and a half from the cars. So we run a little faster. We're dying. We also realize that the people still on the trail are a bit "questionable", if you will, and guess what? Fear of being eaten by a bear, and/or bludgeoned to death by an escaped convict is a great motivator!!

We finally made it back...I had several missed calls from Chris, who I immediately called. He was pretty ticked off and said that he was about to call the police. I'm going to have to figure out a way to start taking my cell phone with me...guess I'll have to buy one of these pouch things that you Velcro around your arm (or something similar) to keep your phone and key. (We've been taking our car key off the ring and lacing it through our shoe lace to hang on to it!)

After all was said and done (and after we checked the trail map at the beginning of the trail that we completely missed when we started out) we ended up doing over six miles... Remember I mentioned that it seemed the trail came to an end when we hit a road? Apparently, that's where the trail ends! They just don't have it marked at all. And it was three miles to that point, and we went way past that three mile mark. In all, I think we jogged over two miles, and walked maybe another five? It's hard to know. I wish I had the little electronic pedometer, but we're too poor to buy one right now.

And to top it off...I officially have my first runner's blister! Wait...it gets better... Not one, not two, not three, but four blisters...And they've already broken and sloughed off, so I actually have three holes on the bottom of my feet (two on the right, one of the left) and a big blister on one of my toes. (Gross, I know, but I want you to know and feel the pain I am in...) Surprisingly, I'm not as sore as I was on Wednesday after our first run Tuesday night. I'm not that sore at all, which shocks me.

I had also laughed because before we started all this, Amy said "Hey, we'll be running 5K's before we know it..." and I told her not to get ahead of ourselves, that was a long way off! And then last night, we basically went the distance of TWO 5K's, in 90 minutes time! I guess her comment wasn't too far off.

I've made plans to go running again on Sunday night with one of the other girls, Cheri (Amy is in Dallas this weekend). Just for fun, I'm going to go by Rush Running in Bville tomorrow, where they will (for free) measure my stride and how I run, and tell me which shoe would be best for me (not that I can buy it...)

Maybe once I figure out how to take my cell with me, I can get a few mobile pics of our runs and post them. Until then, you'll just have to make your own image in your head...just imagine me collapsing at the finish line, and you'll be spot on!

I'm Still Alive

So, lots of stuff to update on! I got my jogging group together!! Myself and three other girls (I went to high school with them). Three of us went jogging last night, and I survived to tell about it!! I'm kind of disappointed that we weren't able to jog further, but for beginning, I guess it was okay. We went to the Bella Vista trail around Lake Bella Vista. And while we did the entire trail (1.8 miles), we only jogged maybe 4/10 a mile? We started out walking to warm up and stretch, then jogged for a bit. Then walked for a bit, then jogged, and then finished walking.

And you know what? I'm sore! But not the muscles I thought...I am sore mostly where my legs meet my pelvis. Weird. We're going again tomorrow night, but we're doing the Dog Park trail...

Who are these cutie-pa-tooties?


And...look who's finally crawling like a "real" boy!! Up on his knees...which also helps, because from there he can get himself into a sitting position!! It's super cute, b/c when he does this, I clap and go "YAY!" and then HE claps (which he also just learned to do) and laughs, and it's so fun! I'm still trying to catch this on video. He'll do it ten times in a row, and then I get the camera, and then he just looks at me like I've lost my mind. :) And now that he's crawling for real, he has LOTS of carpet burn on his poor knees!


Lindsey, a very dear friend of mine (she was there with me all day when I went into labor with Jackson when Chris was out of town), had her baby on Monday. Benjamin Robert is so cute! We went over there tonight...somehow we managed to only get pics of the baby, and the baby with us, none of Robert and Lindsey...not sure how that happened. But I cooked from 3:00 until 6:00 today...we took them dinner...chicken enchildas, mexican rice, and brownies. Nothing really healthy about that meal...

Who doesn't love to hold a two day old baby?!? I mean, how sweet is he?

I really think Chris is worried that this is going to make me start with baby fever really bad (and let's face it, it probably will!)

Well, Chris is all ready for Razorback football to begin, he just got his season tickets. But we say....Razorbacks?? Phooey!! We're ready for Husker football to begin!!

The other day Chris crawled up in the attic to get down all of Dalton's old toys for Jackson. J just loves them, and Dalton is excited too. He keeps saying "I remember this...I've been looking all over for it!!" Whatever!

It's Time For A Change

It's 3:17am...and I can't sleep. I am an insomniac in the very worst way. I've tried sleep aids...both natural and prescription. I've tried cutting out caffeine. I've tried everything, but I still can't sleep. I don't think I've gotten to sleep before 2 am in at LEAST 6 months. But still up early with the boys!! So I think it's time for a change.

I've been up thinking for hours. I'm thirty years old. Yes, that's right, folks, the big 3-0. I can remember back in my early teens when thirty seemed SO old. :) And here I am.

I have two kids, two dogs, four cats, and two fosters. I have my husband. I have a house (aka mortgage/money pit), two cars...I have insurance and escrow and health/life insurance. I have all these things that I used to think only OLD people had. But I don't really feel old. Inside, I still feel like a kid. I consult my mom for everything...when the kids are sick, I call my mom. When I'm sick, I call my mom. When I am making a recipe, I call my mom. When I need any kind of info, I call my mom. I am, at heart, a child. I enjoy coloring with Dalton. I like having cuddle fests, tickle fest, movie/popcorn fests.

My body says otherwise. I have lost all my pregnancy weight...if you go by weight, I am down to my pre-pregnancy weight. But my body is so different. My belly is big and flabby (I still look pregnant), my thighs are HUGE, my hips are in another stratosphere. Guess that's what happens when you have kids. I am so out of shape.

And let's not forget that I have been smoking for twelve years. TWELVE!! What in the world made me start this nasty, smelly, expensive habit, I'll never know. Oh, wait...I think it was peer pressure. But I digress.

It's time to start a new routine. I hope that my new routine will help me not only become healthier, but save money, and help me sleep! I've been "working out" regularly on Wii Fit. And it really is good...by the end, I am sweating buckets and tired and out of breath. But I need something more.

I'm going to start jogging again. I jogged years ago..and the furthest I ever got was jogging two miles I think. And it was all in air conditioning on a treadmill or at the indoor track at the Wal-Mart Fitness Center. I'm going to start jogging again, only outside, on pavement. (I am so clutzy though that I worry I will have a lot of scraped knees in my future). I think I'll jog in the late evening, not only because it's cooler, but because Chris will be home to keep the boys. Unless I want to spend a fortune on a double jogging stroller, that's my only option. That, or getting up at 5:00 to do it before Chris goes to work, and since now it is 3:26 am and I'm still wide awake, I don't think that's going to work so well.

I need a jogging partner. Someone to keep me motivated, and keep me company, and to hold me accountable for what I'm doing. Someone that will also depend on me to keep them going. Preferably someone who is also just starting to jog, so that I don't slow them down, when on the first jog I have to stop after 20 feet to catch my breath. :)

I'm also going to quit smoking. I have a quit date set (which I am not telling anyone, because it's seems when I blurt it out, I fail...).

Now that I'm THIRTY and SO SO SO OLD (ha!) it's time for a change, time for a healthier lifestyle, time to start doing what I should have been doing all along. And hopefully, I will be so tired after running that I'll be able to sleep (man, I really hope so).

So if you live in my neck of the woods and want to jog with me, let me know!! We can do it together!

Baby Food and Stuff

This past week was a big marathon baby food making week! I had purchased strawberries, apricots, and bananas from the store, and a friend of ours with a garden gave us zucchini and squash, and someone that Chris works with gave us home grown eggplant! Had to get it all made up before it went bad.



So I cleaned it all, peeled it, and cut it up. The strawberries and bananas and apricots could just be blended up without cooking. Jackson had never had strawberries or apricots, and he loves them both!!

I used my handy dandy immersion blender (that we got at Wal-Mart for under $20.00) to blend it all up. Then put it all in my Baby Cubes, which are FANTASTIC! They are these little cubes that hold 2 oz each (perfect size). They have tethered lids, so you don't have to search for them, or worry about them getting lost. They can go in freezer, straight into the microwave, and straight into the dishwasher. I love them!!

Then I used my handy dandy label maker to label each food, which was also purchased from Wal-Mart for about $20.00. I wish that Wal-Mart would pay me to be their spokes person!!


So, all in all, not a bad haul for only purchasing three fruits. With the 32 cubes of food I got out of it, it will last Jackson about 11 days. And it only took me about an hour and a half from start to finish. And man, what a savings from buying processed baby food!

And, just because they're cute, I can't NOT post pics of the boys. Here we are, just hanging out.

AND...check out who's finally sitting up on his own!!! All that physical therapy is finally helping...I guess it didn't really take that long. He still can't get up to sitting on his own, yet, but if you help him get there, he'll sit for a long time. He's sat for at least 2 minutes on his own without falling over. :) It's about time!! He's already 10 months old, which just blows my mind.

Party Like a Rock Star

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa Bane, for this super cool green, glittery, hair gel!!


Mom says that I am the coolest thing ever, and I gotta' say, I agree!!

But the best part is: Now I can party like a rock star!! ROCK ON!!