More Snow!!

On Saturday night we decided to trek over to Mammie and Papa house to spend the night. We already knew that church was cancelled (due to this crazy weather) and Mammie had a great day of Christmas activities planned for Sunday. We had a wonderful "Christmas" with them. The boys got to open a little gift (Ninja wouldn't stop talking about presents the ENTIRE day) and we played a fun white elephant game. I love the holidays when the whole family can get together! Uncle Mister came home yesterday (on leave from the Air Force) and it's so great to have him around. The boys just love him!

Sunday evening Antonio and I debated for a long time about whether we would try to make it home or not. It had been continually snowing all day and the roads had become icy from some freezing rain. At 10:30pm we finally decided to try and if we didn't make it we'd just come back. It took a little while driving 25mph, but we did eventually make it to our humble abode. However, when we pulled out to our street we noticed that there was no way we could get our car anywhere close to the driveway. Scott parked down the road a little bit and left the car on while he went to start shoveling the driveway. I didn't take into account the parking issue when deciding on whether to drive home or not. Good ol' Antonio got a great workout at 11pm. These pictures are from when we got home last night, but we got about 5-6 more inches last night.

Working on clearing the driveway

Look at him go!

Finally got the car up the driveway

The snowpile just outside our front door. It's a lot bigger than it looks because it's covering a step.

Let It Snow!

It sure feels more like Christmas since the snow has arrived! It's been a blustery, icy, slushy, snowy week here in the area. I love the look of all the snow and the boys get really excited about it. Gambit loves to eat it, Ninja loves to watch it fall, and Daddy likes that he doesn't have to drive all the way to work because of it. They've already announced that our church services will most likely be cancelled tomorrow. I'm bummed because we have a great musical Sacrament meeting planned that I was really excited about (of which I am playing a small violin part in Away in a Manger). I discovered this week that my boys were ill prepared for the snow. Neither of them have appropriate snow pants or boots, but they braved the wet and cold in their sweats and tennies. I have since purchased some pants for Ninja, however I still have not found any for Gambit. Antonio has the next two weeks off from work so we are happy to have Daddy around for a little while. This coming busy season is going to be tough to get through with Antonio gone for 10 out of 11 weeks (5 weeks gone, 1 week home, 5 weeks gone again).

Onward, Ever Onward!

My awesome, little sister has decided to spend 18 months as a missionary for the LDS church. She received her call today and will be serving in the Chile Santiago East Mission. I am so excited for her and I know she will have many wonderful (and difficult) experiences. She reports to the training center in Provo on April 1. I will miss her terribly, but I am so proud of her and the work that she will be doing.

The Most Wonderful Sound

Aye Lub Yoo. Aye Lub Yoo. Aye Lub Yoo, Mama.


Awwww. Gambit surely knows how to melt my heart. He's on a roll with telling me he loves me, along with other people, his toys, stuffed animals, movies, etc. Those tiny little words make every long and frustating day worth it. What a sweet, sweet boy.

Seriously!? SERIOUSLY??

Really? I mean, seriously. The Gambit antics are just reaching absurdly ridiculous proportions. At least this time he didn't cause any bodily harm to himself (though I certainly wanted to cause some bodily harm). I should preface this and say that I truly love this kid. However, I do not find it fun, exciting, or remotely appropriate to clean POOP out of my carpet. Yes, human fecal matter in my carpet. I'm sorry, but that was not part of my job description when I agreed to this whole motherhood thing. Which, by the way, I'm beginning to think is all just a rouse to find out the many different ways that Mrs. Mom can lose her patience and scream and curse into a pillow. My poor children. I really feel bad for them for getting stuck with me.

Anyway, back to the wonderful world of poop. As I was cleaning downstairs (how domestic of me) I was thinking about how wonderful it was that the boys were playing so nicely upstairs in the playroom. I was enjoying dancing along to some music while sweeping the kitchen floor. You know, sort of like Mary Poppins or Cinderella. Gambit comes downstairs a few minutes later, sans any type of clothing or diaper. As I watch his little nakiness run around I see some mysterious brown marks on his derierre. "Oh Dear," I think to myself. "That looks an awful lot like poop." I immediately run to the source of said brown-ness and find a nice lump on my carpet. "Whew," I say. "Not exactly where I would like poop to end up, but at least it's a nice little lump that can be put in the toilet." Only then, to my utter horror, do I notice my staircase. After Gambit decided defecating on my carpet would be fun, he proceeded down the stairs to finish whatever devious task he had plotted in that tiny little head. Now, Gambit is very small for his age and has a hard time walking up and down the stairs because his legs are so short. He prefers to scoot down on his bottom. Do you see where I am going with this? All down my stairs are some perfectly placed poop streaks. All. The. Way. Down. This is one of those moments that I'm sure I won't be proud of in the years to come, but at the time I was seriously pissed. And a few profanities may have escaped my lips. I immediately clean up the stairs (that double as a toilet) and praise that man or woman who invented Resolve carpet cleaner with oxygen action.

Gambit did not have a very good rest of the day. Mommy was not too happy with him so he went to his Nonni's house to play. I think I scared him enough that this won't happen again. I do not deal with poop or vomit. Gross. Gross. Gross. I think the moral of the story is: if you have young kids that like to poop on carpet you need to invest in some good carpet cleaner, or perhaps an industrial strength steam cleaner and if you have young kids that like to poop on carpet, do not underestimate the power of duct tape at keeping a diaper on.

Another rousing episode of The Gambit Chronicles: I Love To Get Hurt. This child is a magnet for destruction and mayhem. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family and Antonio's family all together. Great food, great company, great pie (thanks Mammie!) and we managed to escape the day without Gambit having some sort of injury crisis. Well, until right when we were ready to go home.

He was running down the hall and tripped. He landed right on his lip/face onto the corner of a bookshelf or table or something. I don't remember all the details of his shenanigans anymore. I was in the other room and heard him crying, but he went to Antonio for comfort. (Fine with me, I was busy playing games online...haha!) Suddenly I hear Antonio loudly calling for me. In that I'm-trying-not-to-panic-but-get-here-now voice. I run down and Gambit is bleeding profusely from his mouth. Upon closer inspection I can see that his bottom teeth have made a major cut on the inside of his mouth and just a small part went all the way through. I have to give myself major props and say that in all these crazy moments I've always stayed calm and haven't lost my cool. The wannabe nurse in me always takes over and I'm able to take care of the situation without freaking out because my kid is screaming and bloody. I decide that it's not worth it to go and get stitches (even though he probably needed them, I knew he would only get 2-3 and I didn't want to deal with the ER). Antonio held Gambit in his lap while I pinched his cut back together and held it for a bit. Not such an easy task to do when the cut is on the inside of someones mouth. It finally stopped bleeding and we headed home. Luckily the boys were going straight to bed so I thought it would give his mouth a little time to heal.

Apart from a major fat lip (it looks like someone punched him in the face) he's fine. The cut looks pretty nasty, but it's on the inside so no one can see it. I'm pretty sure it's going to leave a nice scar. Battle wounds from childhood, right? Seriously, I'm so done with all the injuries. And it's always Gambit! I figure we've been pretty lucky with only a broken bone and some bad cuts, but I don't really feel like pushing my luck any further. I'm afraid when he gets to school the teachers are going to be able to tell that he was constantly falling and hitting his head. It's got to be doing some damage! Hopefully he was born with a thick skull. If not, this poor kid is doomed.

Am I a Good Mother? Are you?

I began my journey of motherhood just over 4 years ago. I remember sitting in the hospital room with my new little baby cradled in my arm. He was born in the evening, and it was late by the time all the excitement had died down and the visitors had left. I stared at him, amazed that such a perfect little child was, quite literally, a part of me. I told how happy I was for him to have this opportunity at life. How excited I was to be his mother, and how I was going to do everything right. I would read him the right books and give him the best education. I would constantly tell him I loved him and that he was special. I would follow my doctor's advice and make sure he got all his shots and antibiotics when he got sick. In short, I was going to be the perfect mother.

I'm still in my rookie years of mothering as my oldest is only in preschool. When he was about 18 months old I realized that my dreams of being a perfect mother continued to escape me. I tried, oh how I tried. But for some reason some new situation would always arise and I would quickly run to the "experts" to figure out exactly how to ensure my child have the best possible upbringing.

Everything seemed to come crashing down when my second child was born. My first was not yet two and I now had the responsibility of caring for and raising two very different and very important little spirits. How in the world could Heavenly Father trust me to do this? Gambit was a difficult baby. He never slept, he always ate, he didn't do things like "they" said a happy baby would and I was at the edge of the cliff. I dressed my sons in matching clothes and always made sure their faces were wiped. I put a smile on my face and beamed when people asked me about my kids. I pretended to love what I was doing for fear of being labeled a "bad mother".

At one point I finally realized this game of good mom/bad mom is just absurd. Are there bad mothers? Unfortunately yes. They are the ones who shoot up while their children are starving and neglected. They are the ones who turn their backs when their children are being abused. They are the ones who intentionally and willfully inflict pain on their children. But, that is not most of us.

Bottlefeeding your child does not make you a bad mother. Co-sleeping, or making your child cry-it-out does not make you a bad mother. Giving your child a pacifier until they are 4 does not make you a bad mother. Breastfeeding them until they go to preschool does not make you a bad mother. Vaccinating or not vaccinating, circumcision or not, cloth diaper or disposible, home birth or hospital birth. The list of the shoulds and should nots are endless. We fail to adequately acknowledge that there is no right or wrong in any of these relatively minor parenting decisions.

I've found that we mothers are most judgemental with each other. Yet, we are all in the same situation of mothering our children with imperfect impulses and desires. Sure, we may do things a little differently, but we are all doing the best we can with what we have, and we all love our children fiercely. We all look for validation that how we are mothing is "right". And we give that to ourselves by pointing out different choices that other mothers have made. I think it's time we put away our judgements and notions of what makes a good mom or a bad mom. None of us will ever be the perfect mother and I think deep down our children know that. More importantly though, Heavenly Father knows it. Yet He still seems to think that we should continue on this path of motherhood. He trusts me with His children, and that's all the validation I need.

Pictures of Gambit's injury

This isn't a very good picture. He was tired and his arm hurt, but this is the sling he had to wear for 3 days. They splinted his arm with a half cast to allow time for the swelling to go down before putting it in a cast. That was really hard to deal with. He was constantly trying to take of the sling and since the splint was only wrapped with an ace bandage, we had to wrap his arm in masking tape so he wouldn't rip it off.

A little happier with his cast. It's not a normal orange color like it looks in the pictures. It's a really bright neon color. At least I won't lose him, he practically glows in the dark!

Gambit Broke his Arm....

Poor little guy broke his arm on Saturday evening. He was playing horsey rides with daddy, but apparently Gambit isn't a very good cowboy. He fell off and bumped his elbow funny. I guess he doesn't have a future in the rodeo! We took him to the urgent care clinic because I initially thought he had nursemaid's elbow (that's where a ligament between the upper arm bones and the lower arm bones gets moved to the wrong spot). The PA there tried (unsuccessfully) to pop his elbow back into place. After the fourth try, and Gambit screaming bloody murder, he suggested we go to the ER. Ugh.

Off to the ER we trot and luckily it was a quiet night and we were able to get right in. The doctor looked at his x-rays (which were done at urgent care) and found a small fracture at the head of the radius (the bigger bone of the lower arm). Because Gambit's arm was starting to swell at that point, the doctor didn't want to put him in a cast just yet. They made him a splint and put his arm in a sling and referred us to an orthopedist to see a few days later.

Sat night through today has been hell. Gambit can't sleep which makes him cranky, and I can't sleep because he's not sleeping which makes mommy very cranky. And with everyone cranky Ninja decides that he wants to be cranky too. Not a fun time in our house right now!

We went to the ortho guy today. He was really nice, and I was really hoping that he would take off the splint and see that his arm was healed enough to just let us go. As soon as the splint was removed I knew they were going to put a cast on him. His elbow and arm was still very swollen and bruised. They took some more x-rays to see how the bones were looking. I looked at the films with the doctor and was shocked to see that the fracture looked much bigger than it did on Saturday. I don't know if it actually did get bigger or if they just got a better shot of it, but nonetheless it was very easy to spot. He's now in a cast up to his armpit for the next four weeks at which point we will go in to see if he can have a splint for the following2 weeks or if he'll stay in a cast for a total of 6 weeks. Oh boy! He got to choose his color so his arm is now a neon orange color...that was pretty funny.

So far he seems to be doing okay, but we haven't hit bedtime yet so I'm bracing myself for the worst. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and he'll actually sleep with the cast. I'll post some pictures of him as soon as I've got them uploaded. I'm too tired and lazy to do it right now.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINJA!!

Heavenly Hawaii

Antonio's firm got a client in Kuaui, Hawaii and he had to go there for a week to audit them. I decided to tag along and relax too! Antonio didn't get to do much because he had to work all day, but I had a wonderful time laying by the pool, walking on the beach, and reading lots and lots of books. My sister stayed with the boys at home and they had a lot of fun with her. Kuaui is such a beautiful island. It's very green and has lots of cool birds to see. Antonio has to go back in February for another week. I'm thinking I might just have to go again!

Pumpkin Patch

Continuing with our annual tradition, the boys and I went with my mother-in-law's preschool to the pumpkin patch. Daddy took the morning off and came with us too. I think the pictures are pretty self explanitory. The boys always have a blast there and really enjoy the fun stuff.

Tag - You're it!

Since several people have tagged me before and I never did it, I guess I'll participate now. Here are my TOP 5:

Things I was doing 5 years ago:

1. Having fun being a newlywed.
2. Working at a gym, and never working out there.
3. Supporting Antonio through school.
4. Getting adjusted to living in Vancouver.
5. Enjoying the last season of Friends.


5 Things on my to do list today:

1. Clean my kitchen and mop the floors.
2. Take care of an insurance claim that didn't go through.
3. Make sure my children don't kill each other.
4. Start packing for HAWAII!!!
5. Go get a birth control prescription filled...No babies!


5 Favorite snacks:

1. Fruit, any and all (except bananas).
2. Cheetos.
3. Yogurt covered pretzels.
4. Ben and Jerry's.
5. Raw green beans.


5 Jobs I've had:

1. Maid - in my own house.
2. Chauffer - for my own children.
3. Dishwasher - a never ending cycle.
4. CEO - or this house would fall apart.
5. Conflict Resolution Mediator - a job I'm called to frequently with an almost 4 year old and a 2 year old in the house.


5 Things I would do with one million dollars:

1. Buy a different house.
2. Buy a car.
3. Take the boys to disneyland.
4. Go to Australia with Antonio.
5. Ask my CPA husband how to avoid paying taxes on the earnings.


5 Things that made me laugh this weekend.

1. Brian Brookes' stories about fishing.
2. I'm sure Antonio made me laugh, he's always doing weird stuff.
3. Gambit's attempt at playing barber shop.
4. When Gambit said the cows smell..."ewww".
5. Ninja being a pirate with underwear on his head.

Gambit's Birthday Party

I just cannot believe that my baby is 2!! Where does the time go? Two is like the official entrance into toddler hood and kid-dom. There is no baby left in him except the fact that he refuses to even entertain the idea of potty training, something Mommy would gladly welcome! Here are some pictures from his birthday party. We had an indoor BBQ since the weather was getting questionable. He had a lot of fun!

PSA - Extended Rear-facing ROCKS!

This is my public service annoucement about car seat safety. I've been dubbed the "Obsessed Carseat Nazi" and it's a term that I bear proudly! Well, maybe not the nazi part. It's been estimated that approximately 80-85% of all carseats are installed improperly or are improperly used (that's not including all the children whose parents don't even put them in a carseat!). That is a scary statistic considering that car accidents are the number #1 killer of children aged 1-14. The solution? Education on car seat safety.

Sweden is the country that leads the world in car seat safety and innovation. The US would do good to follow suit. In Sweden, children are placed in rearfacing carseats until the age of 4-5 years old. The AAP's current recommendation is that a child may forward face when one year AND 20 pounds. Though it is important to remember that this is just the BARE MINIMUM. Most convertible car seats can accomodate a child rear facing to 33-35 pounds. It is actually very dangerous to place a 12 month old child forward facing because the bones in their neck are not strong enough to withstand the forces of even a relatively minor crash. A child can literally have their head ripped from their spine (called internal decapitation, not a nice thing to think about). The best practice is to keep your child rear facing to the upper limits of the car seat in which he/she is sitting. The following video from youtube gives an excellent explanation about rear facing. It also includes many pictures of older child sitting in rear facing car seats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2DVfqFhseo&feature=related
http://www.car-seat.org/ is another great site where you can get great car seat related info and questions answered. Many of the members are certified passenger saftey technicians.
I just found a great blog entry that also emphasizes the importance of rear facing for as long as possible http://carseatblog.com/?p=323

Gambit (who will be two on Sept. 25) is perfectly comfortable in his rearfacing carseat and I have no intention of switching him anytime soon. He can see out all windows (except the front one) and his legs are perfectly fine resting on the seat. If he needs to stretch them he'll move them to the outside of the car seat (kind of like doing the splits). Just a friendly reminder because we all want our kids to be as safe as possible. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any specific car seat questions.

Zoo Pics and Trip to the river

Brotherly Love

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Our zoo just had a new baby elephant born about a month ago. So cute!
For referrence on how small he is.

Our town has a little river that runs through it. There are lots of great place to play in the water and run around. We just discovered a new area and it is now our favorite.

My 8-year-old....I mean almost 4-year-old

Gambit discovering rocks

A rare moment of playing nicely together. Gambit looking all grown up