Two pictures

*** Disclaimer*** My husbands monitor is not calibrated, and because I am needing to use his computer to edit pictures I have NO idea what they are looking like to you folks. I know they look ok over here on the non calibrated monitor, but they could like like a pile of poo to all of you. So I apologize if my pictures are looking a bit off. One day everything will be back to normal. One day...

I just wanted to show you two pictures of my absolutely gorgeous child. Even while suffering from nasty bronchitis (yes, we went to the doctor today and he sure enough DOES have bronchitis) AND an ear infection he still manages to look like a freaking model. Gah. This kid just melts me!

Oh, and the soccer ball he is holding? He got it from the doctors office. He was pretty pumped about that! :)

Random Ramblings

Zachariah has been sick for the past two days.

And by sick I don't mean puke sick. I mean congested sick.

The poor guy cant breathe. He has developed a cough and he has a constant runny nose.

And he is clingy.

And tired.

And fussy.

And isn't sleeping very well.

And isn't eating very much. All he asked for/ate today was applesauce. Quite a few bowls of applesauce at that. So that makes me think his throat hurts. Well, that and every time he coughs he almost cries.

When he doesn't feel good he is pitiful and cute and cuddly.

I love the fact that he is cuddly, but I hate he is sick.

And this cough. Oh this cough freaks me out sometimes. It reminds me of his bronchitis that he had last year. And the year before.

Needless to say, we are headed to the doctor tomorrow morning. I need to get some meds into this kiddo.

And I wouldn't be shocked if I moved Z into our bed tonight. Which I have NEVER done before. So you know if I do it I am truly paranoid about him and his breathing/coughing.

Sorry I don't have a more interesting post. I am one heck of a tired mama right now.

Baby Shark do do, do do.

Last year for Halloween Zachariah was going to be a pirate. It was the CUTEST costume and he was in a major pirate phase, so I was pretty excited about him wearing it. Turns out he was terrified of the costume (you can see part of it here), so we returned it and he wore a Halloween shirt instead.

To avoid the same thing happening this year we let Zachariah pick out his costume and had him try it on IN the store to make sure he liked it. Wanna know what he picked?

A shark! Why a cute little pirate costume is more scary than a shark eating your head, I will never know. But I do know that he is going to be the CUTEST shark on the block!

Look, it even has a little dorsal fin on the back!

Watch out world! You have a cute little boy disguised as a cute little shark coming to eat all of your candy tonight!

And he has let me know that if he doesn't get lots of suckers, he just might chomp you.

Don't say I didn't warn you. He is pretty fierce.

Happy Trick or Treating everyone!!

Zac and Jack

Zachariah had his friend Jack over to play today. We have had play dates at his house quite a few times, but because I am a slacker of a mom it is the first time in their year long friendship that I have had him over to play. Needless to say, Zachariah was VERY excited about the whole thing!

We had a great morning that was filled with playing and play-doh making and because of the rainy day, some movie watching. The movie of choice? How To Train Your Dragon. I think the boys bonded over their love for the movie. They had each seen it before, so it was cute to see/hear them telling each other about what was going to happen next. :)

I don't think they could have been any cuter.

So yeah. We had a fun little play date today! And if I am not mistaken, the boys have already planned for our next play date to take place at the zoo! :)

New Toy

For my OCD child, bubble wrap is the greatest form of entertainment in the whole entire world. Daniel gave him a piece of that pop-able goodness on Saturday and he did not so much as glance at his toys all day. He was on a mission. Every free moment he had (even while sitting on the toilet) was spent trying to pop every single bubble on that sheet.

Dear inventor of bubble wrap,

Thank you.

Sincerely,

A very happy stay at home mom.

Just One...

More will be coming soon(ish) to a blog near you!

Tis The Season

...for eating pumpkin!

Love for pumpkin knows no bounds in this house, especially when it is homemade! Our three favorite homemade pumpkin treats are pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and swirled pumpkin cream cheese bars. I was in the mood to bake yesterday and I have been DYING for some of the bars, but since I didn't have any cream cheese in the fridge (and didn't want to run to the store) I settled for making some bread.

It's a rough life, let me tell ya!

When Zachariah got up from his "quiet time" (which is another name for toddler-who-is-skipping-nap) we set out on our bread making adventure! While I have had the pleasure of my toddler helping me make several things (broccoli casserole, pancakes, scrambled eggs, baked ravioli, muffins... just to name a few) I have never braved the bread making experience with him. But because of my prep work and a VERY easy recipe (no kneading required!) he did a great job helping and I kept most of my sanity. Which is a pretty big accomplishment.

His main job is stirring. Not because that is all I trust him with, but because that is all he wants to do. These days he just does not have time to put the spoon down to dump the flour in the bowl! Oh, and right when we were getting started he asked if I could "find his chef hat so he could be a cook". And then right at the time this picture was taken he started singing a song that he composed right there on the spot about being a chef.

Talent. My kid has it.

:)

Here is one bread pan right before it went in the oven! And the reason the hat is no longer on his head is because he was done stirring. Which, in his mind, means he was no longer a chef, so he couldn't wear the hat any longer.

And yes, he does crack me up on an hourly basis.

So! While we waited for the bread to bake Zachariah decided it was time for a bath. Well, I decided and he thought it was a good idea. It worked out wonderfully, because by the time his fingers were all prune-like the bread was just about ready to come out of the oven!

And here we are. Zachariah with his two loaves of bread!

And yes. That is a pink cat tattooed on his arm. And yes, he is completely naked. Sorry, but he smelled the bread as soon as he hopped out of the tub and seriously could not wait five seconds for me to clothe his naked butt before he drooled all over it.

Be still my heart. This bread not only looked and smelled amazing, but it tasted amazing too!

I don't know for sure, but I am pretty sure that this bread will be a staple around here for a while. :)

Hot Coco For The Win!

A few days ago I told Zachariah that we would have to bring out the hot chocolate if it got any colder in the mornings. Well, yesterday morning it was in the upper 40's and he heard me telling Daniel how chilly I was, so he excitedly asked, "Mama! Can we drink hot chocolate?!" Since this weather puts me in a fabulous mood (most of the time at least) and since he was pretty much adorable, I agreed. Under ONE condition though. I made Zachariah agree to let me take pictures while he enjoyed his hot beverage! :)

Oh, did I mention that this was Zachariah's first ever cup of hot chocolate? Well, it was. I mean, he may have had some at a family members house last year, but not that I know of. So unless I find out differently we are counting this as his first!

And I think its pretty safe to say that he enjoyed it. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that after I got done take pictures he finished off what was left in MY mug as well!

I love this cute little goober. :)

A Picture

On the night of Zachariah's third birthday we threw away his paci's. It was a sad moment for him, and it took him well over 2.5 hours to fall asleep that night. But it has been over a week and he has done really great.

Well, except at nap time.

We have always had a bedtime routine that we follow. As he gets older we have tweaked it a bit, but for the most part it has stayed the same. Change into pj's, brush teeth, sit on the bed while dad reads a bible story, lay down and cuddle with mom and dad for a minute or two (which usually involves a bit of giggling), then we say our goodnight's and leave. The routine is something we all look forward to and I love that we have it. I think it helps him get in the mindset that sleep is coming. He knows what to expect when we start doing these things, and because he knows bedtime is coming he doesn't protest or argue about it.

I am realizing that we need to start doing the same thing with nap time. In the past we would change his diaper, tuck him in bed and leave. His paci would put him to sleep in no time. We never really needed a routine. But now it is very apparent that we need one. He has only napped once since we threw the paci's away. Once in nine days!

Help me Rhonda.

Anyway, to make a short story long, we have started a nap time routine in hopes of getting those coveted nap times back. Part of this nap time routine involves story time, and let me just say that I am loving it. Especially when Daniel is here. (He will generally schedule his lunch break so he can be home and eat with us, play with Z for a bit and then be able to be here to see him off to his nap. Is that not wonderful?) Because we both like to read to Z we split the reading up evenly. Z likes for Daniel to read his book(s) on the edge of the bed and he likes me to read laying on his pillow with him. :)

I don't know if this new nap time routine is going to help at all, but I sure do love reading with my two boys!

My Son, The Hitter

I don't even know where to start with this post. I am somewhat of a hormonal basket case right now, so it may not make any sense... but ah, what the heck. I am just going to jump right on in and hope you can keep up. :)

We have been attending a certain church here in town for a little over a year. Just last week we joined this church, and that is actually a big deal for us. We don't just go around joining every church we attend. We have been searching for YEARS for a church that has a proper emphasis on Scripture, and we finally found one. Not only does this church have a proper emphasis on Scripture, but the people are for-real-deal-genuine. And if Scripture emphasis and genuine people weren't enough to make me giddy about this rare find, the fact that my son loves to be there and loves to go to Sunday School just makes me happy as a lark.

So... all that being said, there are a few things you should know.

1) Zachariah loves Sunday School.

2) Zachariah is one of the youngest in the Sunday School class and he loves it.

3) The teachers are fabulous. Z loves them. I trust them with every fiber of my being. Nothing but positivity coming from this Mama!

4) Zachariah has always been really well behaved for them. Everyone tells me what a sweet boy he is. How he shares, how wonderfully he gets along with the kids, how he participates... it makes me happy to hear such good reports about my baby!

I don't know what happened, but last week my well behaved son became a "hitter". He doesn't hit out of anger, he just hits for the heck of it I guess. And he has even done it right in front of me when I would come pick him up. He and another kid will be happily playing and all of a sudden he will just hit them. I think its mainly a playful hit, but its a hit nonetheless.

Since he is not hitting out of anger I can only assume he is hitting out of excitement. I have seen the hit and it's not forceful. It is almost like he just cant figure out a better way to communicate at that moment so he just gives them a little hit on the arm. And the fact that he does it in front of me makes me think that it is so innocent that he doesn't see anything wrong with it!

Tonight after church I was told that he hit so many times that he was put in time out. And guess what? After time out he hit again. What the what?!?! He HATES time out. So the fact that he would hit again after he has already been in time out makes me even more sure that he doesn't"get" that it is wrong for him to playfully hit.

I don't know what to do. He does not hit at home. He does not hit at his grandparents houses. He does not hit when we have play dates during the week. So why does he hit at church?

Yeah. I don't know either. But I really wish I could figure it out!

I left church tonight in tears. I actually haven't stopped crying since we got home, and that was quite a few hours ago. I blame a lot of it on pregnancy hormones, but the other part is pure frustration of not knowing what to do to about this whole thing. I know he could be doing worse things, and I know it is probably just a phase and it will eventually be fine... but not knowing WHY he is hitting is driving me absolutely bonkers.

Anyway. Thanks for listening to my Mommy woes. I hope to be back later this week with a less boring and more thought out post. I just needed to vent and get my thoughts together before I could move on in the blogging world. :)

Birthday Boy

Monday, my son turned three years old.

Holy freaking cow. That just blows my mind.

But then again, I think I was kinda prepared for it. For the past 3 months or so he has been acting very much like a "big boy" and not so much like a toddler. It makes me sad to see his baby/toddler phases fly right out the door, but it is very fun to see him turn into a little boy. And if he were reading this he would make sure to tell me that he is NOT a little boy, he is a big boy. :)

I don't have a ton of pictures to show you yet, and that is because his party is not until this weekend. But I do have two pictures from his birthday morning I can share if you want! They are pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

We started with pancakes for breakfast (his request). He called them his "birthday pancakes" and was VERY excited when he saw birthday candles sticking out of them. All through breakfast he kept thanking us for his birthday. It was THE cutest thing ever.

After breakfast he opened his gifts (which I will blog about later.), played with said gifts all morning, we went to the riverquarium (his idea), came home and played with his toys some more, went to Mimi and Poppie's house for a family celebration, ate cake, and came home and crashed. Even though it was not the official party day, he enjoyed the heck out of it.

He told me, "Mamma, I am so happy. My birthday makes me happy." It melted me. I just love this kid, and I love that he loved his simple birthday so much.

I'll be back soon to tell you how the party went! :)

Beach Trip 2010!

See! I told you I would get some pictures up this week!

Ok. No unnecessary babbling. Lets just dive right on in, shall we?

This is the view from the living room in our condo. If I could walk into my living room at home and see this every day I think my life would be complete. This view did not get old!

And we didn't just stare at the beach from the balcony. Our first full day there we ventured down and parked it in the sand for a while. Now, the ocean was NASTY. And by nasty I mean there was nothing but seaweed in sight. So we stayed out of that grossness, but Z really, really enjoyed playing in the sand!

And this is what happened when I asked him to look in my general direction and smile. Yeah. Not so much.

And no, I have NO clue what Daniel is talking about in the background.

And here is Zachariah's favorite cousin, Collin! See Zachariah, Collin smiles for the camera!

*sigh* We will have to see if Collin can help Zachariah out with the whole posing for the camera thing. :)

And what did we do after we were done playing in the sand? Hit the pool of course!

I'm not going to lie... this pool was pretty great. Half of it was in the shade and half was in the sun. I LOVED that I could choose to bake or not to bake. It was great. And grand. And lovely.

Oh, and we don't know that couple there in the sunny part of the pool. Our crew was in the shade at that point and these people creeped into my picture.

Rude.

Each afternoon when we would come back to the condo from our fun activities this is what Zachariah would do. He did not take a nap the whole time we were there, but he would definitely come close resting on the couch waiting for lunch to be fixed!

Ok folks. Hold onto your hats, because this was one of Zachariah's favorite part of the whole trip.

The skywalk. The convenient covered walkway that connects the condo to the parking garage. It can be called a skyway, catwalk, skybridge or skywalk. But in reality, it doesn't matter what you call it because Zachariah will only yell at you and insist it is a spaceship. That's right. A spaceship.

And this kid LOVED going in the spaceship. It was the highlight of every day. Anytime we need to go to the car (rain or shine) he would beg to walk in the spaceship. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Yes, we could have just walked across the street to get to our car. And yes, it would have only taken about 30 seconds to do it that way. But we very rarely did that. We decided to take the extra 2-3 minutes to ride the elevator up, walk through the spaceship, ride the elevator down and THEN walk through the parking garage to our car.

Because, lets face it, there is no way on earth we could refuse such an adorable and giddy boy the experience of walking through a spaceship several times a day. :)

And seeing him walk through the spaceship may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip too.

No, wait. This was definitely up on the favorite part of the trip list as well. We went down to the beach to take a group family picture and seagulls were flying EVERYWHERE! Zachariah was basically in heaven.

Every morning Z and I would take a walk on the beach before breakfast, and every morning he would chase the seagulls in hopes that he would be able to hold one. He never got upset when he couldn't catch one, but he was a little discouraged that he couldn't even get close to them. So you can imagine how giddy he was when they started flying very low and very close to him!

Watching this kid run with/towards/away from the seagulls was probably one of the cutest things ever. I mean, EVER. He loved every second of it. :)

And just in case you were wondering, here is our Titus Family group picture. :)

The morning after the seagull fun we started packing up to leave. It was a sad moment when Zachariah realized we were leaving the condo and heading home. We had packed everything up in the car and came back into the condo for one last look around to see if we had left anything. We decided nothing was left behind and started heading out and he quietly said, "I don't wanna go home. I need to stay in condo." and from there it was just downhill. For the first 20 minutes of the drive he cried about not wanting to leave the beach. It wasn't a bratty cry. He wasn't pitching a fit. It was a genuinely sad cry.

And that made me cry. I wont go into how long I cried, but lets just say that Z dried it up well before I did. Darn these pregnancy hormones!

And here he was, about half and hour into the ride home. My sweet baby was exhausted.

So yeah. We had a blast. And while it wasn't his first beach vacation, it was the first one where he was able to soak in and enjoy the wonder of the beach. It just made my year to experience this trip with him! And I owe that all to my wonderful in-laws. This yearly family beach trip is a fabulous tradition they started and it is because of their hard work planning this trip that we were able to have such a great time!

I guess that about wraps it up! Well, not really. I still have a post about going to Gulf World while we were in Panama City, but you will all have to wait for that one. I am beat! :)

Until next year...

Well, ok. Until the next post...

Z-isms

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to stop by and tell you that we are back. We have actually been back for four days now, but I just haven't graced the blog with my presence until now.

My bad.

Anyway! I have pictures and cute stories to share, but for now you will just have to settle with a few funny things Zachariah has been saying here recently (aka: I am trying to stall until I can get my rear in gear and go through my pictures).

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Here is a conversation we have EVERY time we eat Taco Bell:

Z: Is that poop?

Dad: No, its beef

Z: Beef? I dont like beef. Its yuk.

I walked into the playroom where Z & D are playing...

Z: Moooom. Go in da kitchen and make us some food!

Me: Are you kidding me?

Z: No. Pwease!

Z: I need to change my diaper!

Me: You will have to wait just a bit. Mommy needs to throw up.

Z: But I have POOP!

Me: Well I have VOMIT!

The other day Zachariah informed me that "mushrooms yook yike marshmallows in the grass!"

After hearing some ruckus in Zachariah's bedroom during what was supposed to be nap time, I go in there and ask, "Why aren't you taking a nap?" He responds with "I JUST readin my Bible!". Sure enough, he had his toddler Bible in the bed with him. :)

Me: Zachariah, you need to get dressed so we can leave! Z: Where we going? We going Mimi and Poppie's? Me: Nope. Z: RiverQuarium? Me: Nope. Z: Chick fil a? Me: Nope. We are going to Toys R Us! Z: *GASP* Toys R Us?!?! Maybe they have some toys? Me: Yeah baby, I think they might have some toys.

And last but not least, my favorite...

Due to some recent outbursts of Zachariah's, I was explaining to him how we need to be gentle and sweet to mommy's tummy. He said, "Like this?" And rubbed my belly very gently. I praised him for being so sweet and he got a very proud look on his face. He asked me why I had a baby in my tummy and I told him that God gave me the baby in my tummy. Then he lifted up my shirt a little so he could see my stomach, put his eyeball on my belly button and said, "I need to see it." I explained to him that we would not be able to see the baby for a while because it has to stay in my tummy and grow big and strong. He sat there with a thoughtful look on his face then leaned in close to my stomach and yelled, "BOO!" After giving him a questioning look he said, "I trying to scare it."

Ok! Now that I have successfully documented my sons cute little conversations I am going to go play with him. Stay tuned for beach vacation pictures! :)

Say It Aint So

In a little less than a month my son will be turning three.

THREE!

He is obviously moving out of the toddler stage and into the "boyhood" stage real quick like. And that makes me sad. But I have a few more weeks until I have to deal with this age change issue, so I am going to just ignore it now, ok?

I took this picture the other day. He had just woken up from his nap. He has adorable bed head, his paci in his mouth and his blue blanket under his nose, (along with gung-gung, this is something he does not sleep without). Ever since he was a baby (not infant, baby. like, 6 months old or something) he HAS to put his blanket or gung-gung under his nose in order to fall asleep. He also does this when he is tired/wishing he was going to sleep. I have no idea why, but it is just something he does. And I LOVE it. It is one of the cutest things ever.

Anyway. I am very glad I took this picture. This is something I want to always remember. It is part of who he was as a baby and part of who he is as a toddler, and no matter how old he gets I want to be able to look back and remember this exact face. This groggy, yet obviously happy face of my baby. I just can't get enough.