Uh-Oh, Mommy! The Phone...

Eric has officially said his first full sentence!! "Uh-oh, Mommy! The Phone..." He was very concerned that I wouldn't make it to the phone in time. Over the past week, we feel like his vocabulary has really improved. He's always had a set of words that he would use. But, over the last two weeks, and this week particularly, Eric has really started to mimic our words or repeat after we ask him to say something. I'm still working on "I love you" with him. He says, "wovie" for his lovie, so sometimes I can trick him into "wove you." However, most of the time when you ask him to say "I love you," he just looks at you and says, "bye-bye!" Oh well...

We also noticed that Rachel still has a few cute mispronunciations:
Chlocolate for Chocolate

Squirr for Squirrel (she just can't get that "L" to come out)

Bessert for Dessert

Froggery for Foggy

I'm sure there are more...

A Fence, A Party, Easter and More!!

Wow!!! What a week/weekend! We started off with Palm Sunday. Here is a picture of Rachel in her "new" dress. My mom found this in her dress closet and wondered if it would fit Rachel by now. My paternal grandmother got this dress for me when I was Rachel's age and it was my favorite dress! I LOVED this dress and now Rachel loves it too! She said she was just like Cinderella in her blue dress...or like Belle walking through the market in her blue dress! Sooooo, cute! And still one of my favorites!
Then, on Wednesday our brother-in-law, Mike, came over and started work on our new fence. We've lived in our house for almost four years and have yet to put the closing fronts on our fence. Now that Rachel and Eric are big enough to have a new playhouse, we figured it was time for them to be gated in!! This way mommy doesn't have to be outside with them all the time! So, Mike was generous enough to offer his new found welding skills and made us our own wrought-iron fence! It looks SOOOO great and here are some of the before and during pictures.

And...the best part...look how well it holds the kids in! HAHAHA!!! So, funny. Hopefully, her head will grow soon enough and someday it'll hold our runt in!! Too funny that the whole reason we got the fence, is now a moot point! :)

Then, Daddy had Good Friday off and we made the most of it! That morning we finally got to meet our sweet nephew Austin Mitchell. He is SO handsome and just the sweetest little thing! He was born on December 17th, just one day after Rachel's birthday! What a special little guy!!!

That same day, we (the McMullan clan) went to Chuck-E-Cheese to celebrate Eric's second birthday. Eric had a GREAT time as did Halle, Jake and Rachel!

We spent Saturday morning celebrating Easter over at the McMullan's. They hosted a very yummy lunch and surprised the kids with lots of Easter bunny treats! It was a lot of fun. Then we packed up the kids and headed to the Red & White OU Football scrimmage. Jake and Rachel had SO much cheering and just being cute kids playing together. Someone asked me how the team looks...honestly, I don't know. It was hard b/c I was cheering for both "teams." So, when one messed up, the other was succeeding! Too hard to figure...

Lastly, we celebrated Easter morning (the first rainy Easter I can even remember), by going to church with the kids and my parents. The sermon was wonderful, as always and we got to watch some very moving clips from the "Passion of the Christ" while our music minister sang an amazing solo to it. What a great way to honor the Resurrection of our Lord! It was awesome! We rounded out the day with an incredible Easter feast at mom and dad's where we also got to celebrate a few more Easter bunny treats and a yummy lemon flavored cake in honor of mom's BIG birthday coming up on Tuesday!!!

Goodness, our busy week in a nutshell...

Zumba (zoom - ba)

I'll start by saying thank you to my sweet husband (who is currently in deep-water...do not pass go, do not collect $100...go straight to jail, kind of trouble) for watching the kids for the past two Saturday's while I did mommy stuff for the entire day! I'm grateful to have a husband who willingly takes on the kids, the lawn, the grocery shopping, the soccer games, diapers, meal-times, naps-times and baths without me. I honestly think if I had a superior career, he would be an incredible stay-at-home daddy!

Okay, so Zumba. On Saturday, some fellow Y instructors (see above photo) and I went to a training for Zumba. It was a lot of fun and a lot of exercise. I'd say we burned off our fair share calories!! We learned way too many Latin moves and I'm still not sure if my hips understand that my shoulders are a part of the same body! I left there with a HUGE headache...maybe from about six hours of loud thumping music. Maybe from the overload of swirls, pivots, crosses, six counts, cha-cha's...maybe b/c I'm four months pregnant and didn't get my daily dose of protein and afternoon naps? Who knows. Either way, it was a good time and I envision a LOT of work ahead of us...Zumba is fun...but man, oh man...the instructor side of it is pretty intense! So, thanks to Tiffany for picking me up to drive us across town! Thanks to Donna for driving us to the city! Thanks to Tracy for showing us how to get there! Thanks to Dawna for getting in trouble with me!

So, if you are still reading, you might be wondering why my "sweet" husband is in such big trouble? I'll tell you why. Sunday morning is pancake morning and for those of you who don't know, Brooks is the cook of the family. He later told me that "every cook has a bad day." That is no excuse...he has no excuse. For those of you who do cook, let me ask you: How many times has your pancake mix had "spices" in it??? NEVER!?!?! That's right, because it doesn't! You see, since Brooks is the cook, I'm the maid, um, I mean I do the cleaning. So, before breakfast I mentioned that something smelled like it was burning. While eating I commented that I didn't like these as much and that I definitely didn't like how burnt the seemed. He tells me, "it's just a different mix." I ate, the kids ate, he ate. I added plenty of syrup to get it down. After breakfast I go to clean out the sink of dishes and clean up after Brooks and Eric's adventures in cooking. I notice that the bowl with the pancake mix has the previously mentioned "spices" in it. Although, I know IMMEDIATELY that those are NOT spices. What? You might ask? ANTS!!! I'll say it again...ANTS!! WE ATE ANTS!!! I'm so grossed out, I can't go on...go directly to jail, honey!

Egg Hunt

Friday night was our annual Egg hunt at the YMCA (or as Rachel calls it, the YCmay). The kids had lots of fun finding eggs. Eric still needed a little direction, but as soon as they said "go," Rachel was off like a bullet! She knew exactly what to do!! After was a fun indoor picnic dinner in the gym with lots of friends!! The girls had a good time chatting and the dads had fun playing basketball with the kids...I think we were the last ones there! Here are some fun pictures of the event!

Ms. Far and Oreo Cookies!

So, as you can see, Ms. Far (translation: Jafar from Aladdin) has tied up Rachel! AKA - Snow White! I came into our bedroom to see Rachel, um, excuse me, Snow White, face down on my floor "struggling" to get out of her make-shift handcuffs and a pretend mouth-gag! She found one of my hair rubber bands and put her hands through that and then clinched her lips closed to mimic the material tightly bound in her mouth!!! TOO FUNNY!! She wouldn't talk until Prince Daddy saved her and then she told us that Ms. Far had gotten her!

On a second note...notice the Oreo's. Our son...he is so much like his daddy. He will chose fruit over cake, carrots over cookies. I don't get it!! Well, for dessert tonight he got Oreo's. I suppose the entire cookie was not worth the effort...but the stuffing was! He licked the stuffing out of each cookie, put them back together and then gave the wet Oreo's back to me - noting that he was "all-done!!" So gross - and man, what a waste of a good cookie!! :)

Naked Buns and Band-Aids!!

So, I have no pictures to go along with this story. I felt like I would cross the line between cute/adorable/priceless and pornographic! For starters, I feel as though I need to justify my lack of supervision by explaining my position. So here it goes:

Twice a week I spend about three hours working from home for my dad. It's an amazing opportunity - one which I am ever grateful for! My main job is his "caller." Thus, I make phone calls to clients. Easy enough, right?! Well, not when you have two noisy kiddos running ramped throughout the house. So, Samantha, why then don't you do it when the kids are asleep? I do, for the most part. But, that being said, I'm making this human, and therefore I find myself tired and I want to squeeze in a nap every afternoon if possible. So, I start working while the kids eat lunch at noon and I get my first hour of questions and email correspondence out of the way. Then when Eric goes down at 1pm, I pop in a movie for Rachel (yes, yes, I can hear it all now...I use the TV as a babysitter twice a week. Shame on me! I'm sure she's doomed to grow up a real life princess now) and I start calling so that I'm finished by 3 - give or take!

Okay, so rewind now to 12:30-ish. I'm working on the computer and checking emails while Rachel and Eric are creating a fun game of diving off our bed onto the Tupperware bins. They find great joy in this game as is proven by the ever increasing high-pitch of each ensuing laugh! I enjoy that they are playing and not fighting. A few minutes later, Eric has found his way into the bathroom and two very excited (read: jumping and begging and squealing) kids run up to me and show me that he has found the Band-Aids. What the heck...I'm working, it's one of those days...yes, you can each have a band-aid. We put one on Rachel's finger and the other on Eric's wrist. They emerge back into the bathroom. From my computer I can see half of our tub. The kids LOVE to play in there - even with no water. So, they are playing and laughing and enjoying the tub. I continue working. Still working and working some more. Kids still laughing. I lose my rhythm for half a second when Eric hands me his diaper. I honestly don't think much of it. I'm still working, you know! Finally, something causes me to come out of my work coma and I look over and see two sets of naked buns peering over the tub! What on earth are you two doing??? My spokesperson (Rachel) responds quite confidently, "we are taking a bath!" There is no water, but they are pulling down the towels and drying themselves off and Eric, of course, is looking down to make sure that all is still in place - it is!

Needless to say, I LOVE seeing/hearing my kids enjoy each other. I love that Rachel's imagination is so vivid that she actually needs to towel off after her imaginary bath. I love that Eric is big enough to understand "play" and wants to play with his sissy. They are siblings...they may not remember this day and this playtime. But, the memories that they will share as brother and sister are so special. And I love that I get to watch them and be the silent record-keeper of so many of these priceless moments! Naked buns and a band-aid...yep, those are my kids!

Happy Birthday Eric!!!

Can you believe our sweet boy is turning two today!? Where does the time go? So, Eric Allan was born on March 26, 2007 at 9:23am! Today he is your typical two-year-old boy! He loves to run, wrestle, eat, play, tinker with tools and "fix" things. He loves to mimic his daddy by putting hair-gel in his hair and holding his daddy's electric razor! He especially loves when daddy will spray a little of his deodorant under his arms! He thinks that's great! He likes to be loud and has the need to RUN everywhere he goes. He is such a big helper and loves to be in kitchen with daddy or help mommy find her shoes! The kid is obsessed with shoes and seeing him in his dad's work shoes is hilarious! He's tall enough now to turn the lights on and off and he feels that is his job in every room. He is sweet enough to pull out the chair for sissy and he always wants to know where she is. He SO looks up to Rachel and even though he isn't always tolerant of her, he loves her to no end and I don't think he would know what to do without her in his life! He is more work than Rachel was...but, he's worth every second of effort. God created a sweet spirit and compassionate soul in our little man! Eric is the toe-headed cutie who bats his huge blue eyes at you and you can't help but fall in love! He is the little-boy love of my life! And as his daddy says every night to me - I love our little boy! Happy birthday to my favorite boy in the WHOLE world!! Mommy and Daddy and Rachel love you so much! Happy SECOND birthday, Eric!