dye job

Yay, so we finally dyed our Easter eggs! I had them boiled before my surgery but it just didn't work out. Then yesterday we went downtown and Mike ended up getting a horrible migraine. Thankfully the clinic on base was open and he was able to walk in and get treated. Thank goodness! Anyway so they gave him 2 shots which made him pass out so I did the eggs with the kids by myself.



I even let them eat one. Ashley loved hers but Ben was more amused by his. He pushed it around on the table for a while and then threw it on the floor for Boca.


Yes, that is a bruise on his forehead....He did it to himself the other day because I couldn't pick him up after my surgery. So instead he banged his head on the wood floor. Great right!

Here is the egg-celent final product. Ashley added stickers and all so our eggs were all decked out!

Not walking yet, but close

Well Ben hasn't started walking yet but he is getting closer. He is getting more comfortable holding on to things and walking and he is starting to let go of things while standing for a second or two. So here he is pushing our kitchen chair around the house.

Catch Up

So Mr. Ben got his first taste of Oreos...He liked 'em and so did his face, hair, nose, ears and precious little chin!

Then we tried finger painting! Oh so much fun. Ben wanted to eat it so I had to keep telling him "no" which he thought was funny. But he made himself a pretty tray picture.

Ashley got to paint too, although she is a tad more advanced and gets to use brushes.

Here is a picture of Ben's easter egg from the easter egg hunt on base. He found two but threw one and another kid picked it up and ran off. But funny thing.....check out the background....it's PV's husband. I didn't even see them there but I caught them on camera. :)

Ick.....

Poor Ben has the *ick*. He puked yesterday morning in his crib (which Mike didn't notice when he got him up...I only found it when I went to lay him down for nap, sweet!). He's been a little clingy (for all you snickering "isn't he already clingy"...think more than usual). This morning he woke up poopy and I mean POOPY. It was directly to the bath for him. No amount of baby wipes could do the trick. He's doing okay now, eating breakfast as I type and seeming to enjoy it. I'm just hoping for a speedy recovery as this next week will be crazy.

I start classes on Monday and am having surgery on Friday so I will be out of the swing of things for a few days at least. I will be having my tonsils and possibly adenoids out. I am a little nervous but I am sure I will be fine. I've only ever had my wisdom teeth out (I was awake the whole time) so the going to sleep thing worries me a bit.

School is eh school. I will be taking Organizational management and principles of social research...I am sure it should be fine. October (completion of my degree) will come fast! I am so ready to be done. Just a few more terms.

I've got a new video of Ben walking with with the assistance of my ribbon storage cart but I have to upload it first.....

Doggie

Ben favorite place is the dog bed. He kicks Boca out of it constantly. Poor dog. Well not really because she has taken a liking to our couch. Anyway, the other day I caught him scooting across the livingroom in it. So funny!

First Clipper Cut

Yup, it's true. Benjamin got his first clipper cut today. His hair was getting a little silly looking. He had a patch of hair on top that was thin but about 3 inches long (mini comb-over...) and in the back the hair was thick and getting long. (Plus it was going over his ears, a big no-no in my book). Here's the Before pictures....


So we got him all set up in the chair and got busy. Not a single tear from the little trooper! I did it with the 1 inch attachment so it's definitely shorter than it was. Much better if you ask me!
And here are the after pictures: (I know it's hard to see the difference cause its blond baby hair) so cute:))

where to find...

Ok, stupid question here. I usually save these for my mom but since there are other GF shopppers I figured I might have better results on here.

I have a recipe I want to try that calls for Bran. I have looked at the commissary and walmart in the baking aisle. I figured it would be with the flour and other baking stuff. But no luck. So where should I look when I am in the market for bran?

scheduling conflicts

I scheduled my finals about 4 weeks ago for Thursday the 6th. I picked the afternoon session because Mike was on swings so it wouldn't bother his schedule too much. So then he got switched to Mids and now either way that time block cuts into his sleeping schedule. So I changed it. Great right! Um, no because I changed it for the Tuesday morning session. I thought it would be perfect but last night he informed me that he has some briefing or what not Monday and Tuesday. Great, nope it wasn't on the calendar and I don't think he told me about it earlier (even though he claims he did). I HATE calling on friends because my little sweetie Ben is such a screamer!!!! But I called the CDC today just in case and surprisingly they have opening for both of them. WOW, how likely is that. So hopefully they can handle a screamer.

The other day I had an appointment for the car to get worked on so I dropped them off at the drop in place downtown. They were both fine when I left but about an hour later (in the courtesy van on my way to Target) I get a calling saying that he had been screaming for 45 mins and they are sorry to call me but....So I ended up sitting at the little keepers daycare for the next hour because I had no car seats in the courtesy van to take them back with me.

He was just fine as long as I was there, but man this really sucks! Oh well right, he'll grow out of it. I really think it's just payback because I was the screamer when I was little. I seriously had issues being without my mom for ANY amount of time.

Ashley on the other hand hand had no problems what-so-ever...well not until we were leaving anyway. She threw the biggest fit because she didn't want to go home with me. Sad day! Oh well, that was def. a realization that the kiddies need to get more outside of the house time. The GF winter is way too long to be stuck up at home.




So the weather is actually warming up a bit so we have been able to venture out again. We went outside to play in the snow the other day which both kiddies really enjoyed and then yesterday we made it to story hour (and were sadly the only ones there)




P.S- T- it's sad that I felt like a slacker because it had been ummm 1 week since my last post. get with it!

Ugggh! What a day

Man, today was just one of those days. Well actually it started last night. I spilled a big mug of coffee all over my computer desk! Yippee right? Thankfully it missed the keyboard but it flooded under the tower and printer so we had to do some quick moves to keep everything safe. Needless to say, I called it a night shortly after and just gave up on doing my homework.

This morning... I spilled the rest of the mug that we had set on the counter while we were cleaning up. (yes, I slacked with my flylady last night cause I had a rough night, and man did it bite me this morning). So I got to clean up coffee this time from my counter and the floor! Nice.

Dinner time rolls around and guess what, I spilled my entire glass of chocolate milk (thanks for inspiration Ellen!) all over the table. AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. No more drinks for me! What a clutz

What, It's still winter?

Ok, so you know how I know it is time for winter to be over? Because everyday my house looks and feels like a tornado has swept through. We all need to get outside and run around but the weather has just been so nasty that it hasn't been possible. Here is a quick snapshot of my morning.

I woke up at 7:45 and went into Ashley's room to find this:


Oh what a joy. Apparently she couldn't find the right book, and she needed the rubbermaid that her legos were in to make a hiding spot. Sweet!

It also snowed again. Brrr. At least it is supposed to warm up a little bit. I really hope we are on the upswing....but then again it's GF were talking about. Winter is likely to be here for the next 6 months :( well atleast at this point it feels like it.

Bunny Rolls...well actually Bear Rolls

So here is a picture of the kiddies chilling on the floor. Totally of their own doing too! I turned around and there they were. How sweet is that! Yes, they are very close in size.

The other day I dug into my new cookbook. Blue Ribbon Baking with Marjorie. If you watch the tonight show you should know who I am talking about. Oh I love her! She is just the cutest little thing and she reminds me so much of my Grandma! Anyway Mike got me her new cookbook for christmas so I have been slowly sampling some of her recipes. This time we tried Bunny Rolls. Ours turned out more like Bear Rolls but what the heck!

I mixed them all up and Ashley got to decorate with raisins. Great task for her. She loved it and was so proud of her work!

Ben sat on the floor below us trying to bite my calves. So not fun. I am trying to break him of this but he thinks it is so funny. Oh boy.

The finished rolls turned out pretty cute too! And there were gone within 2 days cause the kiddies and I loved them so much. After the first day they were missing all the arms and legs because Ashley kept sneaking them. Silly.

Our new computer

Mike just finished up the building process of our new computer! Yay. Now we each have one so there is no more fighting over the puter! This one is really neat. I especially like the clear side so you can see all the part inside. It was his first time building a computer so he did lots of research before jumping in but now I am jealous cause his is so much neater than mine :D Oh well he likes to play games and he needs a newer one to do that. All I do is homework.....well almost.

Well, isn't it neat to see inside?

Ugliest Slipper contest!!!

I love slippers in the winter time. I do I do! I have had 2 pairs of slip on (backless) slippers that have worked fine up until this winter. I think I have gotten a case of the clumsys and have just about broken my neck about 5 times slipping in and out of them. This last time I hurt my knee and wrist and decided "I'm done with these!"

So I have been on the market for some slippers.

My slipper criteria:

• MUST have a back!!
• rubber non-slip bottom
• no ballet style
• under $20.00
  

I really thought this would be a simple find! I'm not too picky about how they look as long as they don't make me break my neck and they keep my feet cozy. I've looked and looked and looked and never did I think it would be this difficult! I searched online and found some really fuzzy ones but they were 50 bucks, ouch!

So we made a trip down to Wally World (aka: walmart) and found a slipper that fit all the criteria. They have a back, rubber non-slip bottoms and best of all they were on clearance. The only problem is they are UGLY!!!! They look like little sleeping bags on my feet. I mean they seriously look like they are made out of sleeping bag remnants! I showed them to Mike and his response was...."oh come on, you've got to be kidding me..." Nope, I bought em! $3.00 and 2 hours later my feet are nice and toasty! Now I know you are wanting a picture of these god awful slippers, but first I am asking everyone else to post a pair of their slippers too! I have decided that most slippers are really ugly anyway so come on lets see those ugly tootsie warmers!!!!

nothing much

Life has been pretty uneventful here lately. We've been staying home quite a bit because it's just too darn cold out there. This winter is really getting old to me. It just doesn't give me any encouragement to get out and do stuff. Ugggh, okay enough complaining!

I am half way done with my classes. I am really enjoying my management course but the same does not hold true to my statistics for social sciences class. Yuck!! Between those two classes, most of my free time is sucked dry. But I am halfway done! Only 4 weeks to go!

Ben is really cruising now. He has also gotten much better at sitting back down once he has been standing. That one took a while but now he's gotten it down. He is jabbering like crazy now. I often here him repeating me and actually making sounds that are very similar to those I just made. It is so exciting to see them learn.

Ashley is doing good but is having many more temper tantrums. It seems like all day long I am calming her down and redirecting her "energy". I am sure some of it has to do with being kept up in the house so I am planning to take them downtown to run some errands and maybe catch a few minutes at the play area at the mall. Let em run out their frustrations!

Oh and Mike stirred up a little "dust" at work because he didn't think things were running as they should and managed to get himself switched over to AME on mids, nice. (of course the two events were "unrelated". He starts on Tuesday...

ENT referral

Oh boy. So I've had a sore throat the last few days which I contributed to spending too much time on the phone with my dear friend E the past week :D But it was hanging around and starting to drive me nuts last night so I made myself an appointment at the clinic. The doc stuck the light thing in there and the told me I needed to go see the Ears, nose, and throat specialist downtown. He also said that I will most likely be undergoing a tonsillectomy. Whoohoo.

This was not a complete shock to me as I have had throat issues off~n~on for a few years. I seem to be super susceptible to strep and I have pitted tonsils that seem to egg it all on. So this should be interesting!

More

So here the video I got of Ben signing "more". He does it all the time when I prompt him but he hasn't really done it on his own without prompting yet. There you go Kerri!
And here is another video for grandma. Sweet little girl. Enjoy

he he he

head

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Ugggh, toys, toys and more toys!

After an influx of toys over the holiday and birthday season the Roberts household was overrun with disorder. Too many toys without suitable homes were causing a cranky mommy! First I ran out and bought a bunch of shoe box size rubbermaids to contain the sets (little people, mr. potato head, blocks ect). That worked but then I had an overflow of rubbermaids with still no home. Browsing the target ad online I found these storage cubes and thought, hmm this could work. Eureka! I remember seeing these in S.E.'s house in the play area, they're cheap, flexible, and easy to assemble. So I went out and bought 4 sets! I set up 1 1/2 in the living room to control the toy clutter there and then another 2 1/4 sets in Ashley's room.

Now all the toys have homes! Mommy is so much happier and sane. The kids love them too. And one of the coolest things is the big trucks don't roll off like they did off the shelf because of the grate pattern. And all the rubbermaids fit right in the cubbies as well. Ahh the simple solutions!

Random Stuff

I've been slacking on taking pictures lately. But I managed to snap a few. So Ben is pulling up on everything now and is starting to take a few cruising steps. He's really excited about it but still needs to figure out how to sit back down.



My fashionista for ya. She was all ready to go to the water park. Too bad she decided she was going on her own and she didn't consult the mamma.

cutest card

We had our hostess club last night and I love the card so much I had to share. It's so easy too!

Birthday Pictures!

Yummo cupcakes!



Ashley ready to blow out the candles! She called her cupcakes, "pancakes" all day.



Ben and his first cupcake!



He loved them. About 10 minutes later he was bouncing off the walls, well really the floor, but it was hilarious!



A new vacuum, and a real one that works! I have to admit this is probably a funny gift for a 3 year old but she loves it when I vacuum so I thought she would love it too. Plus she is always under my feet, grabbing the handle, cord or whatever and driving me nuts so hopefully having one of her own will let her chip in too!



So concentrated on picking up the dirt!



Ben got a big ole box of colored blocks. They are pretty neat cause they real wood and fun shapes. Both kids have enjoyed them so far.



My little Mariner!



Look he's standing. He's starting to do it a little more often. He's also at the very beginning stages of cruising. But he's starting to realize he can get places on two legs!

My Latest Stuff! thanks Bev

My Latest Stuff

Chocolate- Dove Dark Chocolate
Fav Music- hmm, don't really have a favorite right now
Book- Management: skills and application & Statistics for the social sciences
Drink- Diet Dr. Pepper!!!
Nemeses- sleep
Soap-Dove
Goal-stay up on my reading for school and keep the house cleaner
Habit broken-flylady
Gadget-new hair clippers! Mike got mad again at the barber on base and so now I am "in training" I did his hair last night and I think it looks fine, i even did the blending.....

It's birthday time!!!!!

So today is Ashley's 3rd birthday! Happy birthday big girl! And Tuesday is Ben's 1st birthday! Our little guy is almost 1, woweeee

We are doing a small joint birthday for both kids today at home. I really didn't want to have 2 birthday cakes in the house within one week! So I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and Ashley will get to decorate them with the sprinkles and such.

Then this evening we have tickets for the monster truck show downtown at the Alerus Center! It should be fun. Ashley is pretty excited but I hope Ben does okay with all the noise! Plus, it starts at their bedtime...so that should be interesting! Normally they are pretty flexible with bedtime if we have to bump it around so that's good. I will post pictures later

Oh yeah another thing too:

So poor Ben is really in a difficult stage. He has the whole separation anxiety thing going strong as well as the no sleeping thing. Uggh, no fun. He sits up in bed and won't lay himself back down so instead he sits up and screams! I am so exhausted! He's still in our room in the crib so I can't ignore it cause he's in my ears.

To rectify his non sleeping patterns I am moving him into the spare room. At least this way I can let him try to cry it out a little bit more without driving Mike and I insane. He's got to be able to soothe himself and I think having him in our room hasn't let him develop those skills.

So yesterday I set up the playpen in the spare room. I haven't moved the crib yet cause we have to take it apart to fit it through the doorways so it will have to wait until the weekend. But he ended up taking a nap and slept in there the whole night. He did wake up a few times and I had to go in there but I just went in there patted him on the back and then sat down in a chair facing the other direction. He was so much calmer when I was sitting there even though I wasn't looking at him or holding him. Plus I had a few minutes each time to read my school book so that's a plus too. Hopefully I will slowly be able to move out of the room so I don't have to wait until he is asleep. But baby steps are better than none at all!!! Now maybe he'll start sleeping better! Ppppplease! I really need my sleep!

Grandma's new house

Yay, my parents have been in a battle for this house and finally signed papers last night. Now they are back in the Gig! I think they move in by mid February! Yippee!



I will be so excited to go an visit! What a fun house to entertain it.



Click here to go see it:

hair do too

ok, so my little sister got her hair cut yesterday and got sweeping bangs. I was thinking tonight, hmm, might be fun. So I did it! All by myself because yes, I am crazy! They turned out a bit choppier than I would like but oh well, they'll grow back. Thanks for the inspiration Kerri!

I dressed myself!

We got a bag of hand-me-downs for Ashley today and she was so excited she had to try them on. I was busy with dinner so she did it herself! I thought the results were worthy of a photo!



If you can't tell she is wearing: bandana, sweater, velour zip up sweatshirt, pajama dress, jeans, skirt, big girl pants, socks, and last but not least her magic wand!

Ben still scoots!

So Ben is still not standing much. He has begun to pull up to his knees all the time and does it without holding on to anything too. But boy oh boy does he have the scooting thing down. It's so funny to watch!
Oh but the other new thing is separation anxiety. He's always been a momma's boy but oh my gosh this last month its out of control! He freaks out when ever I leave the house. Uggh