He will do it himself

Much of our day is spent listening to Nathan request hot dogs, marshmallow cereal (marshmallow matey's, we go generic style), letter ceral (alpha-bits), or bananas. He doesn't eat the bananas, but he sure likes to carry them around. We regularly tell him no in an effort to maintain some sort of normal meal schedule. This has turned Nathan into a food thieving ninja.
If there are gummy bears in a night stand, they will be snatched up and slaughtered in seconds. If the groceries were a little slow to be put away, he will snag the straggling items and return to his seat of choice and take care of business. If there is a treat or snack item that was accidently put on a low shelf, its lights out. The fruit snacks never had a chance. Nathan is a growing boy and his appetite may be a little ahead of the curve.

The Whole Hand!

This morning Caitlyn made a club for Nathan's birthday, and no club is official without a sign.

Following our birthday family tradition we took some pictures of Nathan right when he woke up, but since he usually rises before the sun he is especially hard to catch.

A little later in the morning we practiced how old he is. I think he likes the "whole hand" thing.

Happy Birthday Nathan, we love you!

You'd think I had won the lottery

I love free stuff. So when I won a Costco-sized tub of Jelly Bellies (they were really imitation, but it didnt make any difference to me) you would have thought that I had won the lottery.

It wasn't all dumb luck that made me win. It was my skills. I was the closest guess to how many were inside ("were" is the opperative word here because they are mostly gone now)

My nephew won the other prize of cheese balls. I was happy to see that one go. I definitely had my eye on the jelly beans.

And just in case you were wondering... my guess was 1632 and there were alot of guesses. Not to gloat or anything

This never happens

If Nathan is calm and laying still, it means that he is sick. He has been wanting juice and movies all morning. He is totally thrilled with Lightning McQueen and apple juice.

Feel better soon!

Ho Ho Ho!

Santa has been here! The Santa that comes to the O'Louughlin house really prefers a good piece of peach pie over the cookies. Caitlyn thought it a very lucky situation that Santa likes pie and we happen to have some left over from a family party. Lucky indeed.

Merry Christmas!

Despereaux or Desper-"neaux"

This afternoon we went to see Desperaux for Caitlyns birthday. All said and done, she said she liked it, so that made the expenditure a little bit more bearable but seriously, this movie is horrible. Wouldn't recommend it for kids. There are some scary parts (for kids). Chad and I sat there thinking "Yikes, this is pretty intense", but really that wasnt the worst part for me. It was the overall lessons in the movie that I didnt agree with.

Sure, the mouse is cute, cuddly but thats about it. The lessons learned are coveting, envy, revenge, sorrow and vanity.

It starts out illustrating that rats have a lesser value than mice and therefore must live in the dungeon. The mice have a cute little village with a school and families and what-not. Oh, and all of the mice are light haired and the rats all have dark hair. All kids love a good racial stereotype right?

Lets now move on to vanity. If you have a young daughter that may be a little gravitationally gifted (chubby), do not take her to this movie. According to this movie you can only be a princess if you are blonde, perfect teeth, skinny, blue eyed and possess a nose that appears to have as much work done on it as a few vain movie stars. Meanwhile, the girl servant who feeds the pigs and scrubs the floors is plump, brown haired and snaggletoothed. She speaks with an accent to her voice that rivals that of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

This poor downtrodden young girl becomes convinced that she deserves to be the princess. The envy is portrayed in scenes of maniacal jealousy and stealing personal items of the real princess. It gets to a point where the brown haired girl is packing a meat cleaver away and preparing a rope to dispose of the princess. Seriously, I don't think we need to encourage kids that may be facing a more difficult social experience growing up that they can just "remove" their competition.

This is just all around an unhealthy display of how to deal with the lemons that life gives you.

1/2 out of 4 stars - because the mouse is so darn cute.

Happy Birthday Caitlyn

Today is Caitlyn's 6th birthday. Holy cow! She has been so excited all month about this. As with our tradition, we start snapping pictures even before the kids are fully awake on their birthday. Caitlyn is such a morning person. Here are her 6 year old morning pictures.

After she woke up, we had one little present for her. This girl absolutely loves dress up and anything princess. We got this set that has a "happy birthday" crown. She gets to wear this to school today. You would not believe the excitement over this. She really thinks that she will be the princess of the school. As long as she doesn't start trying to find a prince. She has her eye on a boy in her class. She told us that Tristan is a very handsome boy.

We are meeting Grandpa and Grandma O'Loughlin for dinner at Red Robin tonight. That has been Caitlyn's long time favorite restaurant. She says its because they have corn dogs and balloons. She must be part carnie. State fair here we come!

We love you Caitlyn. Happy Birthday!

Daddy's done it

Several weeks (or months) ago, we got a seat/swing that hangs from the ceiling. I decided to get it put up in Nathan's room today. It was no big deal. Went in easy.

Nathan loves it (as pictured).

Nathan kept trying to spin himself by pushing himself off the wall. I decided to help him by winding up the swing and letting him spin super fast. He was absolutely cracking up over spinning and being dizzy. I decided that he needed to try and walk after being spun so fast. He did very well the first time and stumbled around abit. That was funny. I needed to see it again. I wound him up, let him spin, and stood him up. Then this:

I had to push it too far. I had to do it one more time (even after Emily said stop). I feel like poop.

Chad

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So, I have been doing through one of those mommy slumps. I cant seem to get out of it. I just feel like everything I do is not enough, and at the end of the day I still have piles of laundry to fold. This morning I did something that made myself feel a little better as a mom.

I dropped Caitlyn off at school, kisses were blown and we exchanged I love yous. I always wait a few minutes just to make sure she made it over to her class okay, but this day something different happened. Caitlyn came running back to the car with a very distressed look on her face. I rolled down the window and she remined me that today she was supposed to wear a Santa hat for the Reindeer Run. Let me just preface my "disappointed in myself feeling" at this moment. On Wednesday I forgot to take her to gymnastics which was met with a bucket full of disappointed tears, and yesterday I completely spaced taking Nathan to his OT appointment. (I seriously dont know where my mind has been).

Back to the story... not knowing what to do at that exact moment to fix the situation I told her to run over and ask her teacher if she had an extra hat. While she was on her way over I looked at the other kids. Not many were wearing hats so I thought to myself -"is it really that big of a deal?" When she got to her teacher I could see her shake her head no and then wisk the class into their room while holding Caitlyns hand.

I knew she was disappointed.

I was on my way to the gym and kept debating with myself what to do. With thoughts like "this is something she'll remember you doing for her.." against "It's a hat, not a big deal!" Well, my better half won. I quickly turned around and made my way to Target to look for a Santa hat. NO SANTA HATS AT TARGET ~just in case you were going to go there looking for one. I got back into the car and a few more discouraging thoughts entered my head like "get to the gym before you change your mind about going." Then I said a little prayer. I knew we had a hat at home, but wear it was is your best guess. I said a prayer that it would be easy to find. When I got home it was sitting as plain as day on top of all the toys in the playroom. I hurried back over to her school and delivered it to her classroom. She was so excited to be one of the few to have her hat that day.

At least for this morning I saved the day. Im sure we will have a few run ins after school - which happens often with such a strong-headed little girl, but I hope she will remember the time her mom went back for her Santa hat.