Eight Silly Monkeys

Yesterday Zachariah was sitting nicely in his play room reading a book. He looked at me and said "Mom, it has been weeks since you have blogged about one of my favorite books. Everyone out there is wanting more book suggestions. So why don't you get your lazy butt up, grab the camera and start snapping some pictures."

Then I whined and complained about how his t-shirt does not match his pajama bottoms and how I cant possibly put pictures up on my blog with him looking all mismatched like that. Then he proceeded to harp on me about blogging his stupid book. I got tired of arguing with my two year old, so here we are.

Besides the fact that I am a big fat liar and none of that actually happened, I am blogging about his book anyway. Because I needed a post for today and my creative juices are on a sabbatical. They left about 24 years ago and I see no signs of return. So this is what you are stuck with.

Ok. I will now stop the ridiculous ramblings. Forgive me.



Zachariah's book of choice is entitled Eight Silly Monkeys. It is super cute. One of Zachariah's favorite thing about this book is the fact that the monkey faces pop off the page. Now that I think about it, this may be the only reason he likes the book. Hmmm. Ah well.



The book pretty much goes along with the song "10 silly monkey's jumping on the bed". Except it changes it up every page. On one page it will say jumping, on another it might say spinning, eating, or another action. You get the idea.



See, here they are swinging! I just think they are the cutest little things.



Zachariah's favorite part is the very end. He LOVES the fact that they are jumping on the couch. It is one of his favorite things to do, so I think he feels a kindred spirit with the monkeys.



While reading the book Zachariah "counts" the monkey faces. And by counts I mean points to several and says "three" over and over. It is absolutely adorable.




All that to say... this book gets two thumbs up from Zachariah! :)

I'm Baaaack

For those of you who are wondering, I am back from my trip to Biloxi Ms. I had a great trip and it was so nice being able to see Wesley!! As usual, I took way to many pictures... so it is going to take me a few days to get a post up about my trip.

In the mean time, I am going to show you one picture of my brother. Just so you can all see what he looks like. You know, in case you forgot. It has been a while. :)



Doesn't he look so grown up? I guess the military will do that to you though.

More pictures coming later! Hope everyone has a great Tuesday.

Climbing

Lets just say that I am fortunate that this little monkey has waited this long to start his climbing adventures. And that his Daddy gets to deal with it this weekend. (Hee hee) :)








He is so excited when he climbs a new object. It is just plain adorable. And annoying, but I am trying to focus on the adorable part of it right now. :)


And yes, you do see a thousand dirty dishes on my counter. I am not sure why, but my maid forgot to come by that week. I am going to fire her the next chance I get, don't you worry!

Biloxi Bound

Guess what? I am leaving today to go see my brother! I am so pumped. I haven't seen him since he left for boot camp. Now he is in Biloxi and we will get to his the casino's together. :) You wanna know the crazy part about this trip though? I am leaving Daniel and Zachariah here.

Yep. You read correctly. I am leaving my son for three whole days. This is big folks. Real big. The longest I have ever been away away from him has totaled up to four hours. In two years I have only spent up to four hours away from Zachariah. And most of the times I leave him its only for two hours.

Typing this out I realize how crazy that is. But in my defense, its not like I don't trust anyone to keep him. The grandparents keep him once a week. At least! I just don't make time or plan to be gone for longer than two to four hours. Pitiful huh?

Well all that is going to change this weekend, because Mom is outta here! And as I said, I am pumped. Zachariah's temper tantrums have made it so easy to decide to do this. :)

I will be documenting the whole trip, so don't you worry. There will be tons of pictures to come once I am home!



Despite his two year old tantrums, I sure am going to miss this little booger.

Tu-Tle Outfit

Lets just face it. You are not going to see any more birthday party pictures on the blog. You will just have to mosey on over to my facebook page next week and check them out. For some reason I cannot stay on task to save my life. I apologize. But have no fear! I have a cute little story to start off your Thursday morning. :)


Preface: My parents (Nana and Pops) bought Zachariah a cute little outfit on their 25th anniversary cruise this year. Every single time we open his closet he pulls out this outfit and looks for a turtle. Let me go ahead and tell you that there is NO turtle to be found anywhere on this outfit. I have searched this thing over quite a few times. So either he is imagining a turtle or he thinks a turtle should be on there somewhere. I am not sure which it is.


Yesterday I told Zachariah that he could pick out what he wanted to wear for the day. Anything in the closet was fair game. Upon hearing th enews, he ran over to the closet and as soon as my hand was on the doorknob he yelled "Tu-tle! Tu-tle!". Then he proceeded to move every piece of clothing to the side until he found the "tu-tle" outfit. And then he admired himself in the mirror. For at least five minutes.


Look at his face. Do you see him ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at himself?



And then he has to turn to the side. He doesn't miss an inch when he is checking himself out. This kid cracks me right up.



He is so proud that he picked out and is wearing his "tu-tle" outfit. I am just a little worried that he will now pick it as his outfit for the rest of the week! :)

Bla

So I lied. I know I said that my next post would have more pictures of the birthday festivities, but I have been feeling like poo here recently. There is something about having a stuffy nose and head that just makes sitting at the computer less appealing.

But have no fear. I bought some ZICAM yesterday and it seems to be helping. As with most sinus issues, mornings and evenings are the worst parts of the day. Luckily Zachariah has found ways entertain himself in the mornings. As long as I park it in the playroom, he just plays around me. Its actually quite humorous to watch.


Here is where I have set up camp for the past few days. This is the only wall not clogged with toys or tables and chairs. So I just lay here and let Z bring the toys to me. Then around 11:00 my head has cleared enough to sit up and play with my poor kid. Though you can bet that housework is pretty much out of the question while I am like this. Oh darn. :)

Anyway. All that to say that I will be up and running again soon! Hope everyone has a more productive day that I will!

The Cake Eating

You have already seen the wonder that was the birthday cake, so now its time for me to show you the eating of the cake!


Zachariah was not to sure what to think of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him. It kind of weirded him out a bit. But then this weekend when everyone sang to my grandmother for her birthday, he acted like it was for him!


Silly boy.



And here he is blowing out his candles... or at least an attempt at it. The cake was still a mile away from him. I guess this was his test run?





Here is the first big bite of his scrumptious Blues Clues cake! I love the closed eyes. He must have been savoring every bite of that cake.





And because I can't get enough of cake eating pictures...

Oh, what? You want to see more???

Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.


And that concludes the cake eating portion of his birthday! Pictures of the rest of the party will be showing up on the next blog post. :)

The Countdown Begins

I would like to start off this post by saying how much I love my son. He is the cutest, funniest kid I have ever met. He constantly makes us laugh with his silliness and he amazes us with his smarts. I love him lots and I tell him and show him that every day.

That being said, after a full week of Zachariah being two I have finally come to the conclusion that I absolutely HATE having a two year old.

My sweet, loving child has turned into a mean hateful monster. Seriously, its like having Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in this house. One second he is happy and giggling playing nicely with me. The next second he is hitting me, screaming at the top of his lungs and flinging himself all over the room. Then a minute later he is back to being a happy camper acting like nothing has happened.

While I have only suffered a week of this horrific behavior, it honestly feels like months. It is really taking a toll on my patience and sanity. I am tempted to throw him a birthday party this weekend to try to trick him into thinking he is not two anymore. Either that or find a boot camp for two year olds. I can't decide which would be more effective.

I have one week down and fifty one to go. This is going to be a long year folks. And believe you me, I will be whining and complaining about it on this blog the whole entire time. :)

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go escort my son off of the table. Ahem.

The Cake

I have been a horrible blogger this week, and I apologize. I shot someones senior pictures this past weekend, so I am trying to get those pictures ready and to the family ASAP.

I have pictures from Zachariah's birthday party that I am dying to put up... but until I get time to edit those, I am going to show you his cake. Now why am I going to dedicate a whole post to a measly birthday cake? The answer is quite simple really. It's because this cake was the CUTEST cake in the whole entire world!

Ok, maybe not the cutest in the whole entire world. But it came close. I was super de-duper pleased with how it turned out.



It took me two days to make this sucker. I dedicated a whole day for making the all the different colored icing, then the second day was baking the cake and decorating. After the decorating was done I went to the store and found these adorable Blues Room characters and just plopped them on the cake! It was so easy to do! I will try and post a tutorial in the next day or two.


Except I wont. Because none of that actually happened. I did order the cake two days ahead of time though. That counts for something, right?

No? Didn't think so. Ah well. Can't blame a girl for tryin'.



Despite the fact that I did not even lift a finger in the cake making process, didn't it turn out cute?!? I was super please with it. Seriously, I did a little jump for joy when I laid eyes on this baby.




And check out Blue! Tell me that is not the most adorable Blue you have ever seen. Yeah. That's what I thought.

And you know what makes Blue even cuter?


The fact that it's a finger puppet. Yep. That is just pretty darn cool if you ask me.


As if you couldn't tell by the pictures and babblings, I was very excited about this cake. And Zachariah was too! He is STILL talking about it. Every single day this week he has come up to me and said "HAPPY, HAPPY!" and then say "cake!", "Booo" (for Blue), and then pretend like he is blowing out his candles.


That right there is just about the only thing that is cuter than the Blues Clues cake. :)

Another Painting Project

About a month ago Zachariah and I embarked on another painting project. Even though I have been horrible about blogging pictures of the projects, I have actually been doing one each month and Z has been loving it!

Mimi and Poppie recently did some rearranging and made one of their bedrooms into a playroom for the grand kids! So we decided to paint a picture frame that they could use to decorate the playroom. :) After I painted a base coat, I let Zachariah pick out the colors he wanted to use. Then we went to work!

(Note: With the exception of the base coat, Zachariah did this all by himself. I did not tell him where to paint, or what color to paint. Mr. Big Boy made all of the executive decisions)



First up was the color blue. As you can tell, Zachariah is quite serious about his painting. :)




After a brush change, came the color orange.




Then green...


You get the idea. It took a couple days to complete this project because of all the colors Zachariah wanted to use, but it turned out wonderfully!





Don't you think? :)

*sigh* I love when I take the time to let him be creative. I need to do that more often.


Birthday pictures coming soon!

2 Years Young

My sweet baby boy,

I cannot believe that you are two years old today. Seriously, that fact alone sends my jaw dropping to the floor and it sends tear streaming down my face. You are not my little baby anymore!

Your vocabulary is growing daily. You are running everywhere. You eat the same things Mommy and Daddy eat. You are showing signs that you want to use the potty. You have an attitude and you are not afraid to show it (I am sorry to say you got that from me). You are making friends. You help me cook in the kitchen. You help me clean the kitchen! You are brushing your own teeth (with a little help from Mommy, of course). You are not crying when we leave you in the nursery at church. You are forming sentences, therefore successfully communicating just about everything you need. And besides all of that, you are learning things that most three year olds still have not learned! I don't know about you, but to me all of these signs point to full fledged toddler-hood. :)

Zachariah, you have made me one of the happiest mommy's ever. You are incredibly silly, absolutely adorable, and the sweetest kid around. I can't even begin to imagine my life without you. You have made me and your "Da" some of the proudest, happiest parents in the entire world.

I truly cannot wait to see what God has in store for you, because kid, it is going to be big. You are going to do great things, and I am going to love watching every minute of it.

I love you bunches, little monkey. And don't you ever forget that.

Play That Funky Music White Boy

I don't know what is up with the titles of my posts here recently. But hopefully I will get all of these songs out of my head and return to normal here soon.


Last week, about ten minutes before the crying-in-the-mirror incident occurred, Zachariah was preforming for me. Well... he was technically just preforming for himself. But I like to say that it was for me. :)

When I go into my bedroom, even if it is only for a moment, Zachariah will run over to the clock radio and turn on some music. Then he will promptly ask for a "hang-gah" (hanger) to use as his microphone.


And as you can see, he will sing his heart out. And the only thing he likes better than singing into a hanger is watching himself in the mirror as he does it.



Sometimes he will give his little vocal cords a break and play the guitar.



And sometimes he will stop smack dab in the middle of a chorus to do a little dance, which never fails to crack me right up.



Or he will just stop and stare at himself... because he is a vain little toddler.



But regardless of when he does during his "vocal breaks", he always comes back with a vengeance when it comes to singing in the "hang-gah".

Cutest Helper In All The Land

Yesterday morning Zachariah decided that he wanted to push his chair from the playroom all the way to the kitchen. He quickly climbed on it, got to a standing potion and then asked if he could "ook" (cook).

I tried to tell him that I didn't have the patience for that at the moment, but it is hard to communicate that to a toddler. Especially when he is excitedly drumming his fingers on the counter. So I gave in and went to the pantry to find something that we could "ook". :)

I emerged with a bag of oatmeal cookie mix, and after checking the expiration date we went to work!



Let me just go ahead and say that I have the cutest helper in all the land. Whew. I am glad I got that off my chest. It was suffocating me there for a second.




And the cuteness doesn't stop there. The tip toes are by far one of the cutest things ever. I LOVE when he stands on his tip toes. And when he is standing in a chair on his tip toes!?! That right there is almost too much cuteness to bare.



Oh my. See? I told you. The feet are just too cute.


Ok, enough cuteness. Let me show you some not so cute cookies.




These are some of the deformed batch of cookies. Zachariah wanted to use our Noah's Ark cookie cutters, and even though I knew it was not going to be pretty, I let him use them anyway. If you use your imagination you might be able to see an ark and a bear in that picture. But only if you have a really good imagination.




Once we got that out of our system we made some normal shaped cookies. Zachariah and I snacked on a few as soon as they cooled off, and boy were they good! He was so proud of his cute little cookies! :)

Big Girl's Don't Cry

(I realize that I have a son, NOT a daughter. But that song is stuck in my head, so I made it the title of my post. I apologize for any confusion that might cause.)

When you were a kid, did you ever watch yourself cry in the mirror? You know the situation. You start crying because your mean ol mom tells you you have to clean up your room, even though you JUST cleaned it a month ago and can still see an inch of your floor peeking out from the so called "clutter". And then once you start crying, you get so entertained with watching yourself in the mirror that you just end up crying for longer than what is considered necessary.

You remember that, right?

What? No one else did that? Well... me neither. I just heard about someone who did. Ahem.

Anyway. Zachariah has started doing that very same thing. And it cracks. me. up.


I was sitting on my bed folding laundry (a rarity in this house) when Z tried to pull a plug out of the wall. I told him not to do that and he got MAD. I mean, ridiculously mad. The kind of mad that you get when your van stops working after only two years of driving it. Though I suppose that is a totally different post.




So yes. He got mad. And he stood in front of my mirror and cried.



And then stormed over to my nightstand, snatched a tissue out of the box and came back over to continue balling his eyes out.



All the while I am sitting on the bed taking pictures and trying my darnedest not to bust out laughing.


And is it horrible that while I am taking these pictures I am thinking "Ooo, this is going to make a fun blog post" ? I mean, seriously. That cannot be normal. I may need to seek out some therapy or something.

Happy Labor Day!

Is that something that is actually said? Does anyone walk down the street and shout "HAPPY LABOR DAY!" to passersby? I don't imagine that it is a real phrase, so lets just pretend I didn't say it, ok? Thanks.

Our labor day weekend was both exhausting and relaxing. While we had nothing pressing to do, we sure did wear ourselves out with the few activities that we had in store for the weekend. So since I am exhausted and in desperate need of a nap, I am going to end this post with a few pictures from our day.


Here is my adorably cute cousin. She was making sure to take good care of Zachariah today. It was nice knowing that someone was following him around everywhere. It allowed me to sit on the couch for a few minutes and have some actual adult conversation.



Zachariah got to explore my grandfathers garden for the first time today! This was actually a major highlight of my day. I hadn't been down there in years, so that was a nice walk down memory lane for me. I plan to go back down there to try and get some good pictures of Z next time we are over. There were some places that were just screaming to have their picture taken. :)



And then Nana played a little peek-a-boo with Zachariah in the butter beans! How cute is that?!



Oh, and did I mention that I made lemon bars? Yeah. I did. And they are delicious. A recipe will be coming in a week or two, so keep your eyes peeled!


Ok. That is all the randomness you will get for now. If I feel so inclined, I may post a few more pics of our day later on in the week. But you get the gist. We ate, explored, ate again, played pool, sat around so the food would digest, then ate some more.

Hope you gained as much weight as I did this weekend! :)

Laundry Basket Fun

I used to think that our laundry baskets were kind of dumb. I mean, the dryer, couch and bed usually hold all of our laundry just fine... so I am not sure why I ever purchased those pesky baskets.

That being said, I am sure it comes as no surprise to learn that my son gets more use out of these things than we do. Here are some pictures of Zachariah when he was first introduced to my laundry baskets. He was 6 months old in both of these pictures. (And so dang cute!!!!)


That was back in the day when he had just learned how to sit up. He wasn't even mobile yet! All he did was sit and smile at me. Boy did I have it easy back then. *sigh*

You know what he does with them now?


He not only sits in them,



but he also makes funny faces



...pretends to be a "tu-tle"



...then pretends to be an upside down "tu-tle"




... and sits on the tops of the baskets




...and then stands in one while wearing the other on his head.



I don't know, but something tells me that he is getting more enjoyment out of these useless laundry baskets nowadays. I am glad that my horrible housekeeping habits brings him some joy in life. :)


(Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I had to Google "nowadays" because I had no clue if it was even a real phrase.)