Just Call Me - "The Pooper Scooper!"

Oh my sweet son! So, the past two days I have gone to get Eric out of nap time, only to find that his lower-half was bare! We went through a de-robing phase about two months ago and I thought we were past it. Not so...yesterday, I escaped the tedious task of changing all the bed clothes. Not today! I went to get Eric out of nap time due to some very high-pitched screams beckoning someone, anyone to come save him!!! He was squeezing himself into the corner of his crib pointing to "poo-poo" and crying for "wovie." You see, he pooped on his pillow, which in turn, got on his lovie. Not to mention, his blankets and animals. So, after cleaning up all the poop, I was able to strip the bed and gather everything for the wash. But then Eric realized I was going to take Puppy to the wash too. DEVASTATION!!! Above are the pictures of Eric pointing to Puppy in the wash and then begging me to get him out! Poor kid...but, as you can see...all is right in the world of Mr. Cool now!

Then, this is a sweet picture of Rachel from this afternoon. She wanted to play outside, but it was just too wet to play in the yard. I told her she had to stay on the patio. Almost an hour later she was still playing quietly on the patio - with her Ariel doll. Too cute!

It's Official...No More Diapers!!!

We are so proud of Rachel! She has now gone almost a full two weeks with no diaper at bedtime. Rachel has actually been potty-trained for well over a year now, but she still needed a "nigh-night" diaper. Over the Thanksgiving break, my dad was watching Rachel and forgot to put a diaper on her at nap time and that was the first time she didn't wet herself while sleeping...she's been nap time-diaper free since then! Then just before Easter she woke up with a dry diaper or two. We let her try it one night - to no avail. We waited a few more days and went through a few more dry diapers. And now, come Friday, we will have gone two whole weeks with NO diapers at all and NO accidents either!! What a big girl! So proud...not to mentioned thrilled that we will be saving a little bit on the diaper budget before it picks back up this fall!!!!

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!! :)