Adventures with the Ross Family

Have you ever had a day where the kids just couldn't mind?  After their quiet time, I took them outside to play.  But they argued and whined.  Julie kept wanting to go in the front and we were playing in the back.  It was 90 degrees out.  I wasn't having the best of time and it seemed neither were the kids. 

So we came inside and I thought they would play with their toys.  Instead, they ran around and fought.  And made a mess of toys, but didn't play.  It was driving me nuts.

And this is where I insert that I was drinking some NC Cherry Soda (aptly named Cheerwine) and I started feeling like if "wine" was in the name, they should probably put some in the drink!  Ha!

Anywho, I decided that I want my kids to sit in one place.  Eureka!  I had an idea.  I needed to return a library book this week and suddenly, I decided it had to be today.  Because I knew that if I put the kids in the car (with snacks and milk) they would sit and eat..meaning they would sorta behave. 

And that's exactly what I did.  It was a slice of heaven for 30 minutes.  Now I should mention that the library is only 10 minutes away.  But I took the longest route-and then some.  And it worked.  They snacked and behaved.  I got a little bit of the break I needed.  

Sometimes you just have to do what works.  But don't come to me for any parenting advice.  I feel as if I have sunk to a new low.  

In other news, I came across this at Walmart the other day and it was hit with Justin. 

He loves Key Lime Pie, I'm pretty indifferent to it.  But I did like the cookies.  Of course, the kids didn't.  It was "too sour" as Jax puts it. 

And lastly, the purse organization struggle still continues.  It's supposed to look like this:

(Notice the missing purse?)

Oh-here it is.  In the Mr. Potato Head bin.  That really makes sense.

Well, there's not much to report here.  I've been busy working on organizing and Spring Cleaning the house.  Yes, it feels like it's been taking forever.  But I've been in the mood and I try to move where the {Spring Cleaning} spirit takes me.  Which is space saving bags and command hooks!  Slowly, very slowly, the closets are looking better.  I'm loving the challenge over at Money Saving Mom.  It helps to keep me on track.

My self-appointed task this week was to organize Julie's closet.  I've decided that I want to hang her purses on command hooks so she can reach them and use them when needed.  (Which is all the time, apparently.)  She took one look at her purses lined up and told me no.  Then she took every purse down and put them in one of her toy bins.  So I explained to her that you can see them on the hooks!  and you can find one in a moments notice! and look how cool they are on the hooks!  To which she looked at me and said no again.  But I persevered and hung them back up.  Twenty minutes later I went back into her room and the purses were missing yet again.  And back in their unorganized state in her Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head toy bin. 

I can't help but think that this incident can not bode well for me when she is older.  Let's say...a teenager!  Yikes!

Meanwhile, we are gearing up for Jax to head to a summer session of preschool.  There's been some crazy excitement about going away for three hours-playing and learning...oh! And I'm sure Jax is excited too.  I kid.  Kinda.

He's just very ready to go out into the world and start being more independent from his family.  Which is sad that we are wrapping up the baby/toddler/preschool phase of his life and starting a new one.  And yet, it's exciting.  Tonight he gets to go over to his school and have popsicles on the playground. I love that each month the PTA puts on an event for the rising Kindergartners.  So smart!

This morning I overheard him talking to himself about school.  (He still has no internal dialogue at times.)  He was saying that after he is too big for Kindergarten, then it's 1st grade, then 2nd grade, then 3rd grade, then 4th grade, then 5th grade, then 6th grade, then 7th grade, then 8th, grade, then 9th grade, then 10th grade, then 11th grade, then 12th grade.  Then he commented, "Man, that's a lot!"  I didn't have the heart to tell him that he may also need to go to a college of some sort!

And last, but not least...it's Justin's birthday today!  After work, we plan on heading out to dinner.  I'm thinking BBQ unless Justin has something else in mind.  (But really, who turns down good BBQ?)

Well, off to make some Key Lime Cookies (Eh?  Not sure how those will turn out, but it's Justin's favorite pie) and Vanilla Cupcakes.  Because according to Jax, you have to have cake for birthdays!

Another month has gone by and this little girl is just growing up!

You know what is Julianne's biggest dilemma in life?  She doesn't have a enough hands to carry everything she wants to haul around.  Luckily, she has several purses now.  And a shopping cart.  Little bag lady is what I like to call her!

She still loves Dowa (Dora).  She's getting into Super Why and Sesame Street now.  But she still loves her Pingu!  But I'm glad she venturing into some other shows now.

Along with our crazy rock star singing at night, we also have started praying.  She has no idea why or what we are doing, but she thinks it's neat to have "chapel hands" and to pray.  I usually will pray a short prayer and then tell her it's her turn.  She will say, "wiofjkfaiiogfhlgklj.  Amen."  So, so cute.  I may not understand her prayer, but I'm pretty sure God does.

And as you can see, she loves to color.  I prefer on paper.  Or concrete as in the case with sidewalk chalk.  In all seriousness, she loves to color and will do that for a long time.  She is very proud of her work.  We recently have starting using stickers and while they are a bit tricky for her, she still persists!

She loves to paint as well.  She gets a bit messy, but loves the process of it.

Julie is a mess when she eats.  And that's perfectly normal.  But lately she has been decorating herself with food too.  Just the other day I caught her putting all her pepperoni on her stomach and then eating them.  I have no words...

Happy 26 Months Julie!

Justin had the day off and it was a gorgeous day.  We decided to head downtown to the museum.  Little did we know that everyone else had the same idea!  It was hard to find parking and it was just plain crowded.  We decided to head to the park instead.  We figured it would be crowded, but not like the millions of people pouring off school buses at the museum.

And we were right.  It was crowded.  But it wasn't too bad considering we were outdoors and there was a lot of room to run and play.

We let the kids run on the playground.

We rode the train!  (And Jaxson pointed out that it wasn't anyone's birthday!  It's a tradition to ride the train when we have a birthday, so Jax wanted to make sure we were aware of the fact we were birthday-less in our family today!)

We have since found out that Julie is not a big fan of the train.  She whimpered through the ride and wanted to be held only by me the entire time.  We may need to find a new birthday tradition!

Afterwards we let the kids swing.

Funny story-Jax is petrified of swinging but really, really, really wants to do it.  So he would sit on the swing and...just sit there.  Meanwhile, Julie is flying high and laughing like crazy.  At one point I tried to push him (thus showing him that swinging is fun when you know, you actually swing!)  But he freaked out.  Lesson learned on my part.  If he likes sitting on the swing-then so be it!

Before we left for lunch, we tried the boats.  Both kids spied them out while waiting in line for the train and I have to say, they were a hit with both kids!

I love how they put two steering wheels in so both kids could "drive" the boat.  But only one bell in the front of the boat?  Now that was just some poor planning!  'Cause both kids wanted to ring the bell all the time.  Luckily, they did share as best they could in that situation.

By then we were hungry and needed to leave before both kids had hunger/thirst/tired breakdowns.  We made it to the car just in time!

Julianne is 25 Months!

Julianne is really into Dora right now.  Jaxson watched Dora and Diego once and while when he was younger, but never really got into it.  But Julianne-now there's a girl that really loves Dora.  But she gets really stressed when Swiper comes on the screen.  She can't say Swiper, but will motion for him to stop.  It seems like I have to reassure her to not worry about Swipper.  And if you tell her, "Swiper, no swiping!" she will say, "Oh man!" just like Swiper does.  It's pretty cute.  

Julianne loves to sing.  Jaxson comes home from Sunday School singing all his songs and she wants to sing along.  We've taught her the motions and every night before she goes to bed-we SING!  She gives me the song requests and we sing Itsy-Bitsy Spider, Dora's Theme song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc.  At the end of each song, she asks for "more" and I take one look into her big blue eyes and say yes.  

What can I say?  I'm a softie.

We've recently discovered that she loves the Vanilla Cupcake Flavored Goldfish.  One day we ran out.  It was very traumatic and she had some great big crocodile tears over that.  I ended up calling Justin and telling him to pick some up on the way home from work.  I learned an important lesson that day.  Vanilla Cupcake Flavored Goldfish can make or break your day when there is a toddler in the house.

Julianne has officially moved up from the nursery to the 2 year old play area at church.  She was pretty hesitant about moving up and it took a couple of tries.  I don't blame her-she had a good thing going in that nursery area....they rocked her, played with her, and told her how fantastic she was.  But in the play area, they tend to encourage the kids to play in centers with each other.  Luckily, Julie knows that any lap is basically an invitation to sit and cuddle.  It's funny.  One Sunday when I came to pick her up, they told me that she really loves to cuddle.

Why yes.  I am well aware of that.

But Julie is adjusting well in there and has plenty of "friends" to play with. 

Julie is starting to play dress up.  She saw that Jaxson was a pirate and wanted to be one as well.  She grabbed the headband and eye patch and put them on the best she could.  Then she ran up to us saying, "Argh!"  She was a pretty cute, I mean scary, pirate!

Happy 25 Months Julianne!

Well.  She's two years old now.  What in the world....

Oh, she is such a cutie.  I've noticed that she walks on her tippy toes.  Is this a girl thing?  I like to think that she is preparing for when she wears wedges or high heel boots! Ha!

She LOVES to swim.  She is such a little fish in the water.  I was very impressed with her as she likes to jump in the water with the help of us and the life jacket!  She has no fear once she got used to the water.  She is totally Justin's girl.

She is talking so much more, but we noticed that she won't talk around anyone else but us.  She will act like she doesn't know how to say, which is unusual because she always know what she wants and lets us know too! 

Her new words are jump, bounce, map, and big ball.  I'm sure there is more that I'm forgetting.

She still doesn't move fast.  But I also have learned to say, "On your mark, get set, go!" and she will take off running.  And she is a fast runner when she wants to be.

She now really stands up to Jaxson and will fight about it.  I will usually hear,  "No Julie (from Jax)...and then she will shout no and fight right back.  She also doesn't like anyone playing with her toys.  She will say "no" very loudly and hold out her hand (in the stop gesture).  She means business!

She loves, loves, loves Dora the Explorer.  It has replaced Pingu which we were all grateful for.  She answers Dora and will sing along with the map.  It's pretty cute and fun to watch her interact with the show.

Happy 24 months Julie!

Seriously.  My kids were crazy today!  Do you ever have days like this?

In the bath, Jax decided he needed to shampoo Julie's hair.  He used my shampoo.  And yes, as you can guess, Julie had soap in her eyes and it was some major drama.

After everyone was (finally) ready, I asked Julie if I could get her picture.  Usually, she scrunches up her face and say "cheese!".  But not today.  She was adament that she was not going to cooperate and kept saying "no!"  (Talk to the hand.....)

As I was (trying!) to clean the house, I caught of glimpse of Jax rolled up like a burrito while watching TV.  Um, ok?

Jax had decided later on, to push Julie off her "perch" (the arm of the couch).  Of course, she falls and hits her chin on the TV stand.  Really, Jax?!  Really?

I found a paper airplane and a pan with a pom-pom in it when I opened the freezer.  I'm pretty sure that was Jax's doing, as Julie can' reach the freezer yet.  (Atleast, I hope she's not getting into the freezer yet!)

I needed to run to the store after nap times.  And boy, that was an adventure.  Jax chose a Yoda Easter basket at Kmart that he desperately needed.  I had to tell him no, and he did not like that one bit.   I almost left him in the store!  'Cause I'm not spending $17 bucks on a Yoda Easter basket.  Just sayin'.

But kudos to Kmart for putting those Easter baskets smack dab in the front of the store.  I bet no kid misses the Elmo, Star Wars, Princess, etc. baskets.....

We then proceeded to Food Lion and our trip was redeemed a bit because they had a little cart for Jax.  Lately, those carts have not been at the front of the store-just for Jax.  This helped out our trip a bit.

But, I have to be careful when he has his own cart...he becomes a shopping machine!  All sorts of random things end up in his cart!

I was thankful when Justin walked in the door.  Now I could send the kids to him and catch a breath!

I love my kids, but there are just some days that if I knew what the day would be like, I would just stay in bed! Ha!

It's Valentine's Day!  Jax was so happy because he couldn't wait to open a box that Alma had sent.  He had no idea that I had gotten them something as well.  He was pretty excited to open his gift.

Julie received The Little Mermaid bath toys and Jax got the Angry Bird Eary Bird set.  He was so excited since he wanted the Princess Leia bird.

I tried to get a picture of both of them, but this is the best I could do.  Julie was chomping on heart candy and Jax just wanted to play with his toys.

They played for a long time, but what really gets me is when Julie pulled up a box and sat in it!  Julie was watching Pingu while reading an Elmo book.

After naptimes, we went and got the mail.  I love how Julie has to accessorize just to go to the mail box!

Jax was so excited to get a letter from Alma!  He loves getting mail and boxes and get so annoyed when a letter or box is for someone else.

And finally, we were playing with our toys again.  The box had been cast aside and she was playing with Ariel!  (And getting soaking wet!)

It was a nice and quiet Valentine's Day!

It was a little bit of a dreary day on Monday.  And when I checked my weather app and saw it was 100% humidity, I knew it was not going to bode well for my hair at all.  And same for Julie.  She goes frizzy and my hair just goes straight flat.

So we needed to do something preferably indoors.

Anways, we decided to take the children to the mall.  Jax is in LOVE with legos and they have a lego store where he can drool all over the Jabba the Hut Star Wars playset.  (It's only $100!  And you can take Han Solo out of the carbonite!  And Oola is in their as well!)

Can you tell that I've heard all the selling points to this playset from a certain 5 year old?

And so we oohh and ahhh-ed over the playset.  And then we proceeded over to the lego table to build.  Because were were there on a Monday, the store was empty and we could play all we wanted!

Both Jax and Julie really got into it. 

I mean, really got into it!

Jax used the pieces to make a helicopter.

Here is Jax's finished helicposter.  As you can see, Julie only used the pink and purple legos.  And them sorted them out in a line.  Not sure what I should think about that other than she has fantastic taste in color choices!

I am so, so glad we live close to the mall where we have some fun stores to play in on those rainy days!

Julie is a bit of a dawdler.  She doesn't walk fast and she doesn't eat fast.  She is content on moving at her own pace.  But you know how you get Juile moving? These 8 little words do just the trick!

"Julie, I didn't get my morning hug yet!"

Jax says that to her every morning.  I'm not sure why he needs a morning hug each day, but this sure makes Julie run...in the other direction.  Cause to Jax, a hug means a huge-bear-hug-lift-her-feet-off-the-ground kind of hug.  It's a funny sight.  Most of the time she allows it but there are times that she just runs in the opposite direction

She is making up words and I'm suppose to know what she is saying!  She will come up to me and say, "fdsldu ogjd sfajkj gaslk lkjf?."  And I am supposed to answer that!  Usually I just say ok.  I never want to say "yes."  That could really cause for some misunderstanding!

She now says "Spongebob."  I'm such a proud momma.  She says Nah Nah for car.  If I tell her we are going somewher she says, Nah, Nah? and gets her shoes.  Num Num is food.  Among her other words or phrases is foul ball, one more, uh oh, momma, dadda all done,

She always is carrying something in her arms.  It usually is her dolly (that she diapers!) but sometimes it a purse filled with all sorts of stuff. Her crib is filled with toys.  Every time she goes down for a nap or bed, she makes sure she has toys to play with.  If I remember right, Jax did the same thing around this age.

She can jump with both of her feet off the ground.  She works so hard at it and practiced for a long time.

She sits on a perch to watch tv.  Her favorite show is Pingu.  And if we watch something else, she falls on the floor and cries.  She is usually over it in 5 seconds.

Happy 23 Months Julie!