Sayer's par-tay

We had a joint birthday party with Sayer's friend Truman who is just a week younger than him. They're in our ward, so we figured we'd be inviting most of the same people anyway, so just did one big bash. Liz and I each made a soup, she brought fruits and veggies, I made homemade rolls and we each made a cake. Truman has a Lightening McQueen cake,

and I made Elmo pops, which I was SO proud of, for Sayer.

We didn't do much besides eat, talk and let the kids play. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who came and made it a special day for the little guys.

Here is some video of Sayer jammin' on the harmonica, opening his presents and singing happy birthday at his party. Please ignore my annoying voice throughout.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sayer's 2nd birthday

Don't worry that this post is almost a month old. I started it a couple days after his birthday (March 2nd) but haven't had time or desire to blog until now. Oh well.

We planned a joint party with Sayer's friend Truman for Saturday evening, so we didn't do much for the actual day of his birthday. Nate did pick up a little cake from the corner grocery store so that we could sing and celebrate just the four of us. It wasn't a very good cake, but the kids sure enjoyed it...

Don't mind his red, girl's turtleneck. He borrowed it from his little neighbor friend.

Oh, our little Sayer. What to say about him. He is a charmer, that is for sure. He is really starting to turn into a two year old... tantrums and all. He is getting so much more social with his friends and gets really sad when he is left out of playdates. My favorite thing is that he is talking so much more since we got rid of his binky. His pronunciation of words is so cute, and a lot times, Nate and I are the only ones that know what he is saying. But he is very good at saying everyone's names. Sometimes he will go through the whole list of everyone that he knows. He starts with Asher and Mommy and Daddy and continues on with all of our neighbors and their moms. It's pretty adorable.

He loves to read books. I am not able to sit down much these days, because when I do, Sayer will undoubtedly end up in my lap with a bunch of books. I love it most of the time, but it makes it very hard to get anything done, or just be able to relax for a minute. But I LOVE that he loves books. I was a little worried about that, as I didn't read to him much as a baby, and when I tried to when he was a little older, he wasn't into it at all. When he did get into books, he did it all on his own.

Sayer is getting into trains and trucks and loves Elmo, even though he has never really seen Sesame Street. But we have a lot of Elmo books, so that explains it. He loves to play with his big brother and learns so much about pretending and creative play from him. That is, until he gets physically or emotionally hurt. They have good days and bad with how they get along. He is getting more independent and is wanting to do things, like get dressed, by himself. "I do it" he says. He's not quite coordinated enough to get stuff completely on by himself, but he's getting there. He loves playing with friends and feels like such a big boy when he gets to go somewhere by himself. He has been going to a little preschool co-op in our building. The kids are all different ages, so it's nothing too formal. Sometimes I am teaching Asher's preschool, so Sayer gets picked up by my neighbor Debbie, who he absolutely loves, and goes all by himself like such a big boy. Everyone tells me he does such a good job without me there and gets involved with all the fun things they do.

Sayer is about 10 times better at listening and sharing than Asher was at this age. Not saying he's a better child or anything, but it was such a shock to me when I asked him to do something, and he actually did it. Asher never would have done that. With Sayer getting bigger, I am seeing a lot more clearly how strong-willed Asher really is.

We love our little Sayer so much!! He really is such a little sweetheart. He loves to snuggle and give hugs and kisses. He is a huge charmer and knows just how to get people smiling. He always acts shy around new people at first, but it's not long before he is climbing into their laps and snuggling with them. I have to admit, that this little guy really tugs at my heart strings. I just think he is so cute in every way, and just can't get enough of him. I also adore his precious little curls.

Nate told me the other day something that he remembered from Sayer's baby blessing that always stood out to him. It was that he would be a peacemaker in our family. I can definitely see that, and I hope he will be. Heaven knows we will need at least one!! ;)

Happy Birthday Sayer! We are SO happy that you are in our family!!

Welcome March!!!!!!!!

Yay! It's finally March!! I can't tell you how excited I am for this month to be here. For some reason, February just dragged on. I know that is hard to believe, seeing as how it's a short month... I think it's because I was expecting it to go by fast. But now, it's March, and there is lots to look forward to this month.

First, Sayer turns 2 tomorrow, which is just absolutely crazy. But I am so excited for the little guy to not be "almost 2" anymore. Speaking of Sayer, I stayed strong and he is now completely binky free. He had a rough first week, which probably had quite a bit to do with the fact that he got sick with ANOTHER cold right after I took it away. He struggled a lot more during the day than he did at night. He did take longer to fall asleep, but he is doing so much better, and only asks for it every couple of days, more just to test the waters I think. But he is all healthy and happy again these days. Not to mention that he is already talking SO much more. I knew the bink was holding him back.

Second, I am FINALLY 30 weeks today. This is actually a little depressing to me, as I feel enormous... much more enormous than I ever remember being at this point, and I still have 10 weeks to go. That feels like such a long time for this belly to grow. I have also just reached the point where sleeping is almost a chore because I am NEVER comfortable. But, other than that, I still have good energy during the day and am feeling great. Here is a belly picture that I actually took last week. I look super dorky, but you get the idea. I think I actually look a lot bigger today than in this picture. I guess I will have to take another one for you. So much for thinking that living in NYC would help me stay smaller during pregnancy. I guess when it is cold and miserable outside, you don't do as much walking.
Third, my mom and sisters are ALL coming to the east coast for a NYC/DC extravaganza! This will give me something to look forward to and hopefully take my mind off the 10 weeks looming before me, or at the very least, break them up a bit. For example: "in only 4 weeks, my family will be here, and I will be 34 weeks, then I will only have 4-6 more weeks to go!" (hopefully more like 4) See how that works? But either way, I am excited to see all my sisters as well as spend some time in DC sans kiddies.

And last but not least, March means we are closer to Spring and Easter!! It is still a little chilly and rainy in March, but I think we will also start seeing more and more sunny days, and as soon as this snow melts, you better believe we will be bundled up at the playgrounds. I am also excited for Easter too, which seems random, but my kids have been reading lots of Easter books and are really excited about it, so I'm excited for them.

So anyway, YAY for March! Happiness all around!

Is it early spring cleaning?

Is it early nesting? Or is it just post/mid-sickness gross out?

With our tiny, hundred year old New York City apartment, I find that I really have to keep on top of the cleaning. I don't know if it's bad ventilation, or musty moldiness that we can't control, but our apartment will start to smell if I don't stay on top of things. It could be the garbage in our kitchen, or when a certain little mr. misses the toilet when he is peeing and I don't notice for a couple days (gross, I know, sorry), or if something got spilled in the fridge, or if that same little mr. wet his bed and the sheets in the dirty clothes start to get overwhelming (again, sick. you gotta love kids)... whatever it may be, I am VERY sensitive to this aspect of our apartment. Every time I walk into the apartment, I take a big whiff to make sure we are ship shape. Well, having been sick and stuffed up for the past 2 1/2 weeks, I have not been able to tell whether or not things have gone sour. This, as you can imagine, is very distressing. People come over, and all I can think about is "i wonder what my house smells like" and "are they judging me?"

Well, over the past couple of days, I have been having moments where my smell comes back a little (not great, but sometimes it's there) and this morning coming home from preschool was one of those moments. It was not pleasant. So after I put this kids down for naps (which they both fell into VERY quickly, thank heaven) I went on a cleaning rampage. I got on my hands and knees and cleaned every inch of our bathroom, and yes, that is including the impossible to reach under side of the claw foot bathtub (with a 7 month pregnant belly, thank you very much). I scrubbed the living room/kitchen floors, cleaned out the fridge, washed the walls with soap and water, took out the garbage, and even washed and bleached the kitchen garbage can. I even dusted our faux wood furniture. Yes, it was amazing, and yes I am very pleased with myself.

So, for any of you that have come to my home in the past couple weeks, I sincerely apologize if it did not smell pleasant. No worries though, we are good to go now, so so feel free to come back over anytime! ;)

Can't even imagine...

Have you guys heard about this little miracle?? Go read about it, and make sure you have tissues near by. Makes me want to hug my sweet boys and never let them go. Also makes me eternally grateful for a loving and merciful Father in Heaven. Thanks Mrs. R for spreading the word.

Bye-bye binky

Sayer during our community room clean up. This kid loves to help clean and pick up toys. He had so much fun washing the legos, and didn't mind a bit that his shirt was soaking wet from the task

We got rid of Sayer's binky tonight. I have been telling him for a few days that we were going to throw his binky in the garbage tonight, and he has always responded with an enthusiastic "o-tay", so I thought I had sufficiently prepared him. Well, first of all, it was a hectic night with friends and tantrums, so maybe I should have postponed it a day or two. But I decided to just do it. I cut the tip off and let him have it. He promptly said "uh-oh" and cried a little, and stuck his finger in the little hole. He tried to make it work. Then I said we needed to throw it in the garbage because it was broken. He said "no". But, we eventually made our way to the trash shute in the hall, and he finally put it in there and we let it go. It was traumatic. He cried. He kept crying... for about 10 minutes after we put him in bed. Then it got quiet. Then we heard laughing and playing. Then Asher and Sayer got in trouble and Asher lost his sesame street viewing privileges for tomorrow morning. Then it got quiet again. Then there was more playing and laughing. Nate tried to take care of it. No offense to Nate, but he just doesn't have the authoritative voice sometimes. He came out and said they weren't tired and that they were both happily playing with toys in their beds and reading. I said "well that's not happening". So mean mom goes in, takes away toys and sippy cups and books. Sayer screams at me and then receives a little flick on the mouth. When I went to apologize and kiss him, I noticed that his face was covered in blood. Apparently he got a bloody nose at some point during the hour that he was crying and goofing around with Asher. (and no, it was not from the little flick I gave him, promise) I took him to the bathroom to clean him up and he kept asking "wha happen?" I tried to explain his bloody nose and that he couldn't have his binky anymore. It didn't help that he kept asking "why?" in his sweet little voice. I finally was able to lay him down, put his blanky over him and give him his baby bear, and walk out with no crying. He seemed like he finally understood that there was no binky, and that it was time to go to sleep. I didn't hear another peep out of them.

So, we'll see how it goes. Part of me aches to give it back to him. It makes me SO so sad to see him sad. But the fact of the matter is, he doesn't need it. He is at the point where he is starting to talk more, and it is becoming a hindrance. I have to take it out of his mouth when we read books in order to get him to answer my questions. When all was said and done tonight, he fell asleep just fine without it. The only problem is, he has it a lot during the day. It really is a comfort to him, and he always asks for it when he is sad or getting ready for bed. But he does have his baby bear, so it makes me feel so much better knowing that he still has something that he loves SO much to comfort him. Hopefully it will just take him a day or two to get used to not having both his baby and his binky together as a pair anymore. Hopefully I will be able to be strong and not give him one of the 2 binkies that I have hidden in the apartment. I can do it. Wish me luck.

**Update**
So, today was ok. During the day is turning out to be more difficult than at night, but he is doing well. We had a tantrum when he woke up, and another one later on in the morning, and then a little crying before his nap and bedtime, but he didn't even really have to cry himself to sleep, he just cried for a minute or two. Tonight went a lot like last night, but I think that has more to do with Asher and Sayer going to bed together, when they haven't been recently. Asher hasn't been napping as often, so he goes to bed at 6pm a lot while Sayer still goes to bed at 7pm. It works out nice. But when they go to bed together, they play and fall asleep later. But then they still wake up at 7 am, so they are both tired, so Asher takes a nap during the day, which means he goes to bed with Sayer. Get it. It's a vicious little cycle. Anyway, that's all. Here's hoping it gets a little better each day.

Snow days

We've gotten some good snow fall in the last week, which means that I was finally able to take the kids out to play! Asher loved it. Sayer, not so much. I think he would have liked it a little more if he had actual snow boots. Instead, he just has rain boots, that came off his feet with his first step in the snow. So that, coupled with his aversion to gloves, did not make for a very fun outing for him. He still looked pretty cute though.

Riverside Park snow outing:

Asher and I attempted a snowman. It did not turn out well. I blame not growing up in the snow. He loved making snowballs though. Would have done it all day if he could.

Sayer, enjoying the snow-plowed walk way

Pretending

The boys have been playing really well together lately. It's not perfect, but they are getting better at sharing and actually pretending together. It has been so fun to watch. Seriously, one of the best parts about being a mom, is watching your kids learn to use their imaginations and entertain themselves for hours on end. It's amazing. I love that these boys are so imaginative. I know a lot of it stems from so much reading. We have been reading SO much lately, which is mostly Sayer's doing, and as a result, they reinact the books and make up their own versions with their toys. It's so great. This is what childhood is all about, in my opinion.

Next to Normal

My sister Jillian is doing student teaching in DC this semester, and had a bunch of school off this week because of the snow and the holiday weekend, so she decided to take the bus out for a little visit. On Saturday, we went to try and get the Wicked lottery for the matinee, and of course, didn't get it. So we walked over to see if we could get Next to Normal tickets. When we got there, we found that they were having a lottery as well, and of course, we didn't get picked again. But we were able to get cheap tickets for that afternoon anyway.

This is a new musical from 2009, and they won the Tony for best musical score. I had heard clips and knew that it was pretty alternative and different from any other musical, but was still really intrigued, although didn't really know what to expect. Well, I loved it. It is kind of a sad story, and a little more intense than your average musical, but the story line was strong and interesting and creative, and actually seemed pretty real. The whole show flowed really well. There were a lot of songs which made it move seamlessly, the harmonies and arrangements were really cool, and the orchestration, which consisted of piano, guitar, violin, and drums, was great. Like I said, it's pretty alternative, so some of it was kind of rock-ish, but not obnoxious at all. The acting was great, I was totally drawn in, and it had a pretty good resolution at the end... pretty realistic I would say. I really, really liked the whole thing, and was pretty pleasantly surprised about that. I would definitely see it again, and would definitely recommend it.

On a side note... this was one of the coldest days that I have experienced in NY. It was probably because we were out walking around so much, and we had the kids with us for awhile, so we really noticed it. I felt so bad, they were so miserable. They never complain about the cold, so you know when they do, it is pretty bad. The wind was what really did it. It said it was 27 degrees, but with the wind, it felt more like 16 or something. Needless to say, I felt like a terrible mother for having them out in such frigid weather.

My kids

So, clearly, it's been awhile since I have posted all the fun stuff that we have been up to. I finally uploaded all of our pictures so that I could write the posts that have been waiting to be written. As I was looking through the pictures, I noticed a common theme with my children... they are almost always either half dressed, looking like little disheveled ragamuffins, or covered in some form of food. Take a look for yourselves...

Nothing like eating grapes on the table. Asher in his undies, Sayer in half pjs, half sweat pants. Yeah, we're a classy bunch.

Snot face, crazy hair, and a red cheek from running into something

Crazy hair

Covered in pomagranate seeds

Asher, playing his "guitar", shirtless

Mmmm, frosting! (By the way, he has no pants on)

Valentine's Day baking

I decided to make cupcakes for Valentine's Day for the kids to decorate as well as give to their friends. They were yummy. I used the yellow cake recipe from Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and it was perfect and easy. I will be using it again. I used my new pastry tip that Lizza got me to frost them with buttercream. I didn't have a big enough pastry bag to use, so I had to use a ziploc bag, which caused lots of air bubbles. The next ones will be better, but I thought they still looked much better than usual.

With the left over cake batter, I baked a little cake and made cake balls out of it. I got the idea from Bakerella. I thought they were delicious, even though they were a little rich. I think that's actually a good thing, because then you have to stop after just one!

My boys...

Trains are like magic

Enjoying trains with friends. Yeah, they all sat like that for about 20 minutes, mesmerized. I'd say that makes train pretty darn magical.

Crumbs

One day, Nate came home with these...

Crumbs cupcakes. Yeah, they were amazing. The one on the right (mine) was called half baked. It involved cookies, brownies, chocolate, vanilla, fudge, and cream filling. The one on the left (Nate's) is called S'mores. I don't know why people say that Magnolia's is the best, because really, they aren't anything special (the cupcakes I mean). But Crumbs... yum. Those are some cupcakes to talk about. Speaking of which, Nate just called to say that he was right by one down by NYU and asked if I wanted him to bring home a cupcake sampler... um, YES! I'll let you know how they are!!

Awesome Lizza..

As if coming to hang out with us in NY wasn't enough, Lizza had to go and make herself even more awesome by sending us a "happy package", complete with baby toy and blanket, a cake decorating tip that I have been looking for forever, red vines (which I had been craving for a long time... can't find them anywhere in this city. People don't even know what they are when I mention them. Crazy.) Ikea scrub brushes (I may have needed a new one) cars for the boys and mini scriptures with a camo scripture case. You're the best Lizza! Thanks again!