Did you know?

Did you know that  Miss Brielle has a personal stylist?

Did  you know that stylist also does work on herself, and then admires the finished product in the mirror?

Did you know that Miss Raya wakes up in the middle of the night calling for me when her blankets are  no longer arranged just so? And then I have to go into her room in order to straighten them to her specifications? I'm thinking about stapling the blankets to her body from now on haha.

And did you know that Raya had her first psuedo-spanking today? Yeah, I'm not a spanker, but when I saw her rip out a giant clump of Brielle's hair for no apparent reason I got royally PO'd! And when I asked her afterwards to explain why she did that she said "I pulled  it out...the end"  :-o  The end? I'm hoping she just didn't  understand my question and isn't  actually lightyears  ahead of her age is snotty responses haha.

Did you know that Brielle loves bratwurst? Last night we had  them and she insisted on having hers in a bun like everyone else. She held that brat like a big girl and ate away, only pausing to say "mmmmmmm" every once in awhile lol

Did you know that it's almost  October? Ummm, YAY! I'm starting to watch the weather  now  so that  we can choose the perfect day for our pumpkin farm visit hehe.

Did you know that we got new neighbors a couple houses down? Everyone out here is really nice, but everyone is older. The kids are all later elementary and older basically. *But* these new neighbors are young like  us! I've talked to the husband twice now but haven't met the wife yet. But  he said they have a 3 year old boy and his wife just had a baby girl a week ago....and his wife is a stay-at-home-mom! I will definitely be hunting her down in the future....perhaps she can become my neighborhood bff ;-) I'm a cool girl! haha

Did you know that I'm wearing a maternity shirt today? lol. I swear it doesn't  *look* maternity, and it's so comfy! I couldn't sell it with the rest of my stuff, I had to keep it :-P

Did you know I made about a million shirts this weekend?

Did you know that  Raya puts her underwear on backwards, without fail, almost every time? This  means she has the equivalent of a toddler  thong on most days---and she won't let  me help :-P

Did you know that Brielle calls her pacis "puppy" now, even after I removed puppy? lol...I think it's so funny when she goes to bed and asks for "puppy" even though she means paci.

Did you know that I'm the luckiest mom on earth?

Feel  free to share  your own "did you know" in the comments! :-)

Overtime

Please tell me I'm not the only stay-at-home-mom who gets a little bummed when Saturday involves being alone with your children LOL. You see, being a stay-at-home-mom is an awesome job. When I think about all  the jobs I could be doing right now, the perks of this one win out every time. But still, I look forward to my weekends just like anyone else. Weekends mean Lee home for adult conversation, family activities, another  person to help out with the kids, etc.

So today when I find myself home with the girls on a Saturday it's not nearly as "fun" as perhaps it might be for a mom who works outside  of the home. To me this is now an extension of my work week, but I don't get paid overtime! ;-)

Where's Lee you may wonder? He started tailgating with my brother at the football game at 6am and they will be gone alllllll day. Lee doesn't  even like Iowa football haha...but  my brother had tickets and basically begged him to go along. And so here I sit, it's naptime, on a Saturday, and I don't feel like being productive so I blog instead.

So tell me, if you are a stay-at-home mom what do your weekends look  like?


It doesn't help that the girls are being a challenge today. I thought we had a great plan by moving Brielle to the table with a normal booster chair, instead of in her highchair. But now the girls are sitting right by eachother on even playing field. Which means bickering...

Raya antagonizing Brielle

How can they be so cute, yet  so evil?! ;-)

Brielle has  thrown her  usual tantrums...

She randomly decided to put Raya's sandal  on...

Then she got furious when she couldn't get it on her foot

Rolling on the floor yelling at me in her baby swear voice that  I don't understand haha...apparently the shoe fiasco was my fault

How do *I* stop tantrums? I step on her :-P

...and I make her smell my stinky  feet ;-P

Raya was happy to fulfill the role of "good  child" during this time

Thankfully  by lunch time everyone was in a better mood and they  did  play nicely for awhile. I"m very thankful that I get to play dolls and barbies as opposed to trains and trucks, but  honestly even though I get to have all the fun girlie toys I can't say that playing any toy is exactly  my idea of a fun Saturday :-P

And lastly as a random tidbit--Raya's preschool has a "class  pet" that  travels to each child's house and then they play with him and journal about the fun they have etc. Well Raya got to bring this monkey home Thursday and we have him until Tuesday, her next class.

Raya was so proud to carry him out of preschool on Thursday...she thought she was hot stuff. *But* that poor monkey  was tossed aside immediately once the crowd of classmates weren't around to make jealous anymore LOL. I've been trying to get her to play with the monkey and do *something* that we can journal, but she hates him! haha. She's always been very particular with stuff animals and only  likes Barney and Baby Bop...she has never really attached to any of stuffed animals and so far all she's done with this poor monkey  is give him to Brielle and say "here sissy, you can have him!"

I forced her to pose for a picture with the monkey  though--guess we'll  journal about the fun he had playing with Brielle! ;-)

Brielle update

Brielle  is changing so much in the last couple weeks...I wanted  to do a quick blog post so that I don't forget these things!

Our little monkey!

* Brielle IS quite a monkey. I guess it was fitting t hat before she was even born I decided her thing would be monkeys, because this girl was born to climb! She is constantly up on my kitchen counters, she  can climb up on bathroom counters, she can climb the rock climbing side of her playhouse thingy, she climbs up into the van and into her own carseat, etc. etc. Basically there  is nothing she won't try to climb ;-)

* Brielle loves to tattle! That's one of her new favorite things. She tattles on the puppies, on Daddy, on Raya, and especially on Harper---even when Harper isn't here! hehe.

* Brielle is now  talking up a storm. Today we were in town and even strangers could understand her when she was telling me about the shoes she saw haha....it was pretty cute when the random people nearby said "I understood that!" and Brielle was just chatting away.

* Brielle has surprised  me lately with the "educational" stuff she knows! Frankly I haven't worked on this with her really at all yet. But she clearly has picked things up just from daily life. Last night she brought be a book and was point to shapes and clearly named "circle" "star" and "square". She can also tell you what  sound a cow, horse, dog, and sheep says. And she can name even more animals, like fish, duck, kitty, etc. She also loves to count (although she tends to say 4 over and over again for most numbers lol). She can "sing" the abcs, and get the tune right. She doesn't say too many real letters past A, B, C though ;-) She can point to and  name many body parts now  too, including ear, eye, nose, mouth, feet, head, and butt.

* Brielle LOVES Dora...it's definitely her personal  favorite. And she screams "SWIPER!" whenever she sees him and then says "swiper no swiping!" haha. She also screams "map!" and sings the backpack song.

*Brielle continues to be the queen of tantrum throwing. She throw so many more tantrums than Raya ever  did. She is STUBBORN.

* She is very possessive right now and everything is "mine!". Last night she pushed past me huffing and puffing yelling "no, mine!" ...and I was confused because I hadn't even talked to her and no one was trying to take anything. Well she marched right into her  room, grabbed her blanket, and pushed past me again--then gave me a dirty look and said "MY blanky!" and then marched down the hall again haha. I have no idea what prompted that, considering we all know  it's her blankey and no one was trying to take it :-P  Sometimes I like to mess with her for fun though---like today she was touching her neck and I said  "no, MY neck!" and acted like I was taking her neck. And she argued with me for a good 5 minutes as we went back and forth and she'd yell "no, MY neck!" hehe

* She's such a funny kid and I can't  believe she'll be 2 soon! I have had  her birthday theme picked out for awhile now, but have in no way started planning her party. I  saw a similiar  idea on Pinterest and thought it was so cute---we're going to have  a Terrible Two-Tu party :-) So there will be a fun tutu birthday outfit and probably lots of tulle decorations haha.

I'm not going to make her  birthday *shirt* though, because I want to order something like this (and it's too much wording for me to do applique---I will just order from someone who does embroidery

Source: etsy.com via Shawna on Pinterest

Haven't decided on a color scheme quite yet, but we might do a divalicious terrible  twos party and maybe  do zebra print or something with it...kind of a wild child + terrible  two-tu party :-)


Lastly today, some more random pics of the girls wearing their Old Navy animal hoodies today---it's cold here!

Raya was "whoo whooing" like an owl :-P

Hope everyone has a great weekend! It's off to dance  class for us now---later! :-)

Budding Actress

Sorry everyone...apparently Tired Tuesday exhausted  me so much that I didn't update yesterday LOL :-)

I've got to get working in the Etsy  sweatshop today so I'll try to keep my  rambling to a minimum here--but I wanted to show you all  what  a promising young actress Miss Raya is!

Yesterday I got a picture of her  throwing a tantrum:

And by the way, both girls were tantrum happy yesterday...ugh. At one point I muttered under  my breath "I'm  going to sell  you both on the black  market." ....and then I hear Miss Raya quietly say, "You can't  sell me  Mommy....because I love you and  we are FAMILY!"    Awwww....she can be so darn cute some times ;-)

So anyways, to snap her out of her  tantrum  I  showed her the picture of her  crying---which she thought was pretty funny LOL. So then I said let's play a game where I say something and then you make the face to go along with it! And my little actress got to work....

"Raya, do 'happy'!"

"Do 'crazy'!"

"Do 'sad'"

"Do  'surprised'"

"Do 'scared'"

She's  pretty good isn't  she?! haha

And  then she just started rolling  on the ground and  being silly.

She looks so OLD  here! Yikes. I think this angle got rid of all  her baby chub or something.

And here are a few random sisterly "love"  pictures...

This picture  cracks me  up! I  think  Brielle was trying to do that pose where she puts her head  in her hands ....but it wasn't very successful this time LOL. And god only knows what Miss Raya is doing!! ;-)

Goofy girl

In other  news, today we got rid of our highchair! Well, I'm letting my mom borrow it so that she can get  rid of hers (mine is one of those spacesaver ones that  is so much nicer than the big  highchairs!) ...and now Miss Brielle is moving to a small booster chair and Raya is moving to a regular grown up chair :-) Yay for  one more giant peice  of baby crap out of my house! haha

The main reason we made the switch is because Brielle would not stop climbing up the side of the chair to get into the highchair at random times of the day. I was worried she'd pull  the whole thing down on herself! Once she got to the top she'd just  stand up there because she  couldn't sit down with the tray blocking her way. The little  booster will be much safer now.

Climbin up!

This is the "leave me alone!" scowl she'd give  me when I told her  to get down lol

And then she'd keep doing it anyways!

And to end today, it's a preschool day  which means a "what Raya wore" segment! hehe

Raya is  wearing an apple sweater  dress and  leggings  from Old Navy! This  apple dress is infamous online among moms this fall season....it's the must have  item in everyone's closet haha.  I  will  warn though  that I  bought this during a sale when it was $10 cheaper than it is now, so if you like  it I'd hold  off until it goes on sale again! Also FYI, it runs insanely big. Raya  is a solid 4T, sometimes even 5T...and this  dress  is a *3T* ....the leggings run a little small though--we got a 5T in the leggings.

Brielle gets very jealous  if I don't  let  her  join Raya in her before  preschool pictures :-P

Striking a pose haha

Ok,  I'm done!

Officially DONE ;-)

Happy Thursday  everyone!