Weekend Moments...

This weekend was one of those rare ones where we had very little going on. It was fabulous! I love weekends like that where we can just hang out and enjoy spending some time together...oh yeah...and do lots of yard work! Here are just a few little highlights...

On Friday night, Logan had his very first Piano recital. I was so proud of our cute little man dressed in his white shirt and tie. He was the 2nd one up and he went straight up there and said, "I'm Logan Webber and I'm playing Christopher Columbus." My favorite part was instead of walking AROUND the piano bench, he just climbed over it by straddling it. It was awesome! He played his song really well with only a small mistake or 2. At one point, he looked up during one of his mistakes like he didn't know what to do, but then he kept right on going just like he was supposed to. My other favorite part of the night was watching him walk back to his seat with a huge satisfied grin on his face. He sat down and said, "YES! Perfect!" and then he said "I fixed my mistakes!" He had played the song better sometimes at home, but I was so proud of him for playing in front of all those people and for being so proud of himself. It was a great mom moment!

We spent most of Saturday working in the yard. I usually hate yard work, but I think I am getting addicted. Or maybe I am just tired of looking at weeds. Anyway, besides a little bit of whining from Logan which was quickly fixed by my threatening to send his Star Wars Lego Xbox game to the DI (He freaks when we send ANYTHING to the DI!), it was a great day. I especially liked watching my girls outside. Ry loves to get dirty! She is always in the muddiest place and isn't afraid to dig right in with the yard work, despite all her girlishness. She was especially fascinated with all the worms and had lots of "pets" by the end of the day, but she always put them back in their homes. She was very concerned about them. She also told us that she was going to do some rock art and we found a very artistic arrangement of rocks in the mud by our garden. I think we just might keep it! I need a picture of it - It really is quite impressive. I love all of her doodles and coloring and how much she loves to create!

Avery was as happy as could be outside. I just love watching her toddle around and all the funny things she does. She kept going into the garage and coming out with some very interesting things - like wearing the life jacket. My favorite part of the whole day was when she got one of my gardening gloves and sat down next to me and said "wee" for weed and starting trying to pull weeds. How cute! We ended the day with a bbq on our patio - the kids said it was "Webber's BBQ - the best in the city! - and it was a perfect night for it!

Lately, Avery is really into shutting doors and also very independent. She will just wander off to somewhere in the house and play...or get into trouble. I was putting something away in the bathroom the other day and all of a sudden I heard "Ba, Mama" (Bath, Mom) and I looked over and she was just laying in the bottom of our tub. (Luckily...no water!) She scared me so bad, but she looked so funny in there with all her clothes just hanging out with no water. Today, while I was getting in the shower, she was just standing there and begging to get in the bath, so I put her in with me and she loved it. The best part was her trying to look up at me and trying to not get water in her eyes. She looked so funny with her little squinted eyes!

And then there was another poop incident... This morning before church, I thought Avery was with Darren. I was downstairs doing my hair and he was upstairs getting ready. I went upstairs to get something for my lesson and heard her crying and found her shut in her room. She shuts every door in the house lately. She will go down the upstairs hall and close all the doors and as soon as she goes into a room she says "door" and wants it closed. But, she can't open them, so she had gotten herself stuck. I opened the door and she was covered in poop! She had taken off her diaper again and had poop all over her dress and hands! Luckily, I don't think she was eating it this time. We had to do a quick change and her 3rd bath in 12 hours and we were VERY late for church.

Tonight for dinner, we had some swiss chard from our Bountiful Basket. Logan put a little on his fork and said, "Ugh. What is this? Kelp?" We all looked at him a little funny and he said, "You know. That stuff from the sea." Oh how he cracks me up!

Confessions....

I have been working on blog books from previous years and I have realized something. I think I have become the world's most boring blogger! My posts have all become marathon posts of 1000 pictures and long journal entries that I am glad that I am preserving, but probably nobody but me cares to read. So, I am going to try and find a better balance of posting those things because I want them for our family history, but also posting things that are not full-length novels! Here is a funny moment from last month...well...at least it is funny now! Not so much then...

So, on to my confession.... I could confess many things. Like how I am completely addicted to PB Snickers Squared and pretty much finished a whole box of them all on my own. (If you haven't tried them, they are divine!) Or how if I start watching a reality TV show, I become totally obsessed with knowing the outcome and have to finish watching it even if I think it is completely stupid. But, this confession has to do with the fact that I am not a perfect mother.... Before you continue reading, please don't judge me too harshly on the contents of this next post because it will definitely demonstrate some serious weaknesses! Darren warned me against posting it, but I just couldn't resist. It is some serious blackmail material for the future. If you have a toddler, you will understand how quickly they can get into trouble. If not, you will probably think I am completely irresponsible, but here it goes anyway... I LOVE being a mom and I love just about everything about Motherhood. It has given me most of my proudest and happiest moments in my life. However, it is not always as fabulous and glamorous as I would like it to be and there are things that I could certainly do without. For instance, I could completely skip over potty training (which is currently making me crazy!) and still feel totally complete! Most of the things I could do without have to do with bodily fluids...poop, pee, and puke to be exact. Here is one such example of a not so great mothering moment...

A couple weeks ago, I was trying to get dinner ready and was chatting on the phone to a friend. The kids were playing nicely together in the family room downstairs - something that is a bit of a modern day miracle! So, I continued to cook and chat for a bit and then realized it was becoming REALLY quiet. I looked in the family room and counted only 2 little heads over the back of the couch and realized that Avery was missing in action. This is when you need your super-hero mom powers. You know that ones that allow you to do 4 or 5 tasks at once and still manage to know where all the little people in your house are and what they are up to. Well, mine must have been seriously lacking because one little person was missing and she was by far the most dangerous! Since I had just walked past the dining table and she wasn't standing on it ready to jump off, and I was just in the kitchen and she wasn't pulling a chair up to the counter to climb on it (her 2 favorite ways to get into trouble), I went to the bathroom, where she also causes some serious mischief. She LOVES to unroll the TP and to splash in the toilet. (Gross I know, but it is about to get a lot grosser...) I checked the garbage can, where she also spends a considerable amount of time. She is a regular dumpster diver and is always eating something out of there or throwing things away that I need and have to dig out later. Since she was in none of these places, I headed upstairs to check the upstairs bathroom. I didn't make it that far...

If you have been to our house, you know our staircase is kind of curved with 2 different landings. I went up to the first landing and FROZE! Miss Avery had completed a whole NEW kind of mischief! She had taken off her diaper, which is something she has started to do a lot lately. However, up to that point, she had never taken off a diaper that had anything IN it. This time was different... She had taken off a loaded diaper! And she was now using the poop to fingerpaint my lovely white handrails on the stairs. (which I kept finding traces of for 2 days after...) Also, her poopy bum was sitting on my carpet, but it gets worse....MUCH worse....

I debated about posting this photo, but they say a picture says a thousand words and this one says a LOT!
I guess you can't tell what she is doing from the picture, but the face just cracks me up, although not at the time. She looks SO proud of herself! Well...if you look closely, you will see poop on her fingers and also her face. Yes...she was EATING her OWN POOP!!! ughh...I just threw up in my mouth while typing that...Imagine what I did when I found her! I can finally laugh about it...through my gagging...but at the time, not so much... Darren couldn't believe I took a picture but I just had to. This has NEVER occurred at our house, so it was a first and her face was too funny, even with the poop! In my defense, I did take the diaper away while I ran for the camera and it wasn't far away. I was going to throw the diaper away, but I decided it added dramatic emphasis for the picture. What do you think?

Yep...that is a literal poop face!

So...we made a mad rush to the tub (after the little photo shoot) and got Miss A all cleaned up and washed her mouth out several times. I was still dry heaving... Doesn't she look cute all cleaned up??? I prefer her without a mouth covered in feces...

And...just for fun, Ry joined the tub. After I changed the water, of course. I love this picture because they look like two little best friends. I like to think of them that way, even though they really have a hard time with each other. I kind of feel bad for both of them... Rylee really wants Avery to be her "best friend" and says so all the time. The problem is that Avery isn't really big enough to do what Rylee wants her to do. So, Ry tries to MAKE her do them or HELP her, and that usually doesn't go well...Like the time that she "accidently" dropped her down the stairs... Poor Avery gets terrified any time Ry comes near her and SCREAMS bloody murder, which is not happy for anyone within a 20 mile radius! I think she uses it as a defense mechanism because I will come running and save her, even if Rylee hasn't touched her yet. Then Ry ends up in trouble and gets upset and so it goes every day....Someday they will be best friends, right? I just hope they both survive each other that long!

On a little side story, the other morning we lost Avery for a few minutes. (I know this is starting to sound like a bad theme...I am REALLY not that bad of a mom. She just can get into trouble REALLY fast!) We had just gotten up for the morning and I was getting dressed and I thought she went to watch a cartoon with Logan and Ry, but when I got downstairs, she wasn't there. So, I started looking around. After a minute, I started to panic. Our house is not very big, so its not easy to loose someone in. I had no idea where she could be. I was calling her and was pretty frantic. I had the kids and Darren start searching, too and no one could find her. I remembered that Logan had gone out for the paper to read the sports page (his morning ritual. I think he is a 60 year old trapped in a 5 year old's body, but that is another story...) so I started looking outside but there were no footprints in the snow. I was fearing the worst - She had choked on something and was unconscious somewhere or she had wondered out and someone had taken her (not likely where we live but you never know...) And then Darren found her! She was in her room reading books! When I was looking for her, her bedroom door was closed and since she doesn't open doors and didn't answer when I called her, I figured she wasn't there, but apparently she had gone in there and then shut the door behind her. It was the biggest relief! It was one of the most scary moments ever and reminded me how much I love my babies...even if they do eat poop!!!