Pa Dough

So i bought Vincent Play dough a little before his second birthday and frankly he didnt' want anything to do with it, that was said in so many words. However, now that's he's turned the ripe ol age of 2 1/2, he's now figured he's old enough. It's been awesome. So yesturday after getting turned down to swim at H2Oasis, either because they said they were doing their yearly maitainence or because they figured I would've frightened all this kids in my swim suit, either way they told us we couldn't swim so vincent was heartbroken! I took him to the library for story time only to get there to hear the last 2 pages! what a day. Then i found out the library video (the office, brittish version) was missing a disc. The worst part is: i never opened it! i never got a chance to watch it (like most other things)! so that put mom in a bad mood. However, when we got home, out of the blue he went to the cabinet and asked for the play dough and has been playing ever since!
I showed him how to use the cookie cutters and decorate his "little mans". He liked giving them eyes, diapers, and poop. I guess that's all he's known?

Heres the finished four, all complete with eyes and dirty diapers
the proud creater and his work, these were the naked versions. Last night he went to bed screaming for his little men, i told them they had to go to bed to and all he would cry, "men bed nope! in my hands!"
And this morning, he rolled out of bed and the first thing he asked for was to play with pa dough. I let him go at it for a minute and had to go get steve's lunch ready (argh, sticken flu season, he's putting in a lot of over time and working his day's off) and this is what i came down to. As you can see, every color is now intertwined with the adjacent color, play dough never stands a chance with two year olds does it.

Vin and mom's jog

Mile 1:  so now i know not to point out the color green, unless i want to see green grass pointed out every 5 feet, along with every green spruce tree and leaf a long the way

good, that's over with (i'm thinking)

Mile 2:  so now i know around not to show vincent worms, or he'll ask where?where?where? where? where? like a broken record

okay, that's hopefully done (again, thats running through the brain)

Mile 2.7:  crap, i showed him sluggs........ where? where? where?

Mile 3:  so now i know that i can't run and keep up with a two 1/2 year olds conversation with out completly just dying. It's not the running its the talking.  who knew?

The Lesson: sorry vin, looks like vera's going to be taking your place

vin's new friend

so vins been playing a lot at our neighbors house, the Jacksons.  His friends name is Jarrett and he is a few months older than vin so it works well.  This was what happened when the women folk left the boys and the dads home alone on a saturday.  They got pretty creative with the slide.  thought it was funny.....


vin on his ride (the trike) and Jarrett on his (the jeep).   so some are born a little higher class i guess:)  and if your wondering i have no idea who the other kid is, perhaps steve had to watch one of his illegitimate kids that saturday

duplicate

sorry on the last post for adding the same picture twice, i'm not on here long enough to know what i['m doing!  

more photos for grandma

Just thought i'd throw in more photos while i had some "free time", actually i just hear my moms voice in my head telling me MORE PHOTOS!  so here they are mom, love ya

the candy man can

This happened a couple weeks ago:  I walked into my room where vincent had been sitting watching tv when i found this.......apparently somewhere, who knows where ( i know , pretty sick) vincent had discovered some M&Ms and doesn't quite get the concept of how to eat them.  and screw the "melt in your mouth, not in your hand", try melt all over your face if your 2.  I asked if he found some candy and acted like i didn't know what i was talking about.  Hmm.... let me take your picture them and this is the sneaky look i got.  Pretty funny

then it was AHHHH!! don't touch sister!

we're back in action

okay, so i can't believe i'm finally getting time to blog but the good lord has blessed me with a quite house despite the fact i have double the kids: 2 two year olds and 2 babies.  If you saw me yesturday i was about to pull my hair out.  today is pretty good.  anyways, i just wanted to update with some pictures:

I'm so excited that she can actually sit in her exersaucer these days, she's so much happier, and so is mom....
Here is vin's sock puppet he named "hello".  I think it's because when i showed them how it worked i would make it say hello.  So thats about all he says it can say and so there it's name is "hello".  The picture doesn't show it though but this puppets got a rat tail.  pretty awesome.

so i have to apologize to those that are faithful readers to my blog, (the 3 of you) for i have been truly busy for this next weekend.  The annual Girdwood forest fair is alive and well this year and this is my first time having a booth there.  Unless you count last year where i got a booth, but then it got canceled.  so really this is my second booth, first time selling. anyways, needless to say i won't be blogging much till after it's all said and done.  However I will update on what we've been up too:  I (mel) took the kids out to Sterling AK this weekend where the Darlings had rented 2 very nice cabins.  We enjoyed a night of food and relaxing by the fire (well, however much you can relax with 9 extremly overly tired and sugered up kids at 11pm) and swimming at a lake the next day.  I have to saw i was very impressed by the lake!  While some of you know the lakes up are are glacier feed and EXTREMELY cold, this one was not and it was so warm!  the shallow area was great for little kids and they all had a blast.  we had 2 rafts and 1 canoe.  VIncent refused to get in any till mom did and then he loved it.  we floated in a raft or played in the water the entire 3 hours we were there.  it was up at the Captian Cook State park if you know the area.  (alittle before Homer).  anyways, i also had a sale at bella boutique a week ago on the 20 for summer soltace.  it was okay till we almost blew away, which kind of blew, hee hee get it?  sorry.  oh and one more thing i wanted to mention which i thought was funny.  About a week ago i received my 10 highschool reunion flyer.  And when i say flyer i mean flyer.  81/2 x 11 sheet folded into 3rds, taped and a stamp slapped on the back.  When you open it up there was a obviously dowloaded, pixelated logo of the "south sevier high rams"  and the rest said, and I quote"  you are invited to the class of 1999 10 year reunion....date.....place....cost and rsvp.    It was all in the same font and the entire text covered about 1/4 of the page.  I don't know about you but i thought these things were supposed to be alittle fancier than that?  Like say a whole weekend at a nice place rented out and catered.  No, it's a a park for a few hours and catered by probably some local family.  I mean, yeah, i have to give credit to those putting it together, i don't mean to be mean or bash their efforts, i just had to laugh when i saw the invites, brought me back to small town utah.  gotta love it.

ber bear

World Beard Competition

Ever since we have known our dear friend, Jeremy Beard Miner,  he has been "obsessed" with beards.  Well, it is his middle name.  So, this past weekend was one of the big highlights of his beard career (i say that in wonderment if he will ever retire, according to his wifes wishes).  It was the WORLD BEARD AND MUSTACHE competition.  And when i say world, i mean the WORLD!  There were hundreds upon hundreds of crazy staches and beards from all over.  And the crazy part is that it was here, in little ol' anchorage!  I met up with Jeremy's wife Laurelyn and we actually ended up in the parade downtown, sporting our unfortunealty freshly shaven children, no beards there.  
This here is Drew Danbury.  He is a musician, mainly in Utah i think. I saw him at a cafe in Pocatello once and loved his music.  So i knew he was coming this weekend to play at the beard show, but didn't know he was IN the beard show.  I was standing on the lawn with my friend Laurelyn surrounded by hair everywhere, when i look over and this is the exact view that i see.  It was recognition at first sight.  So needless to say i had to say hi. Laurelyn took a picture of me and him together, haven't gotten it yet.  Today at church though, Jeremy told me he saw Drew again yesturday and talked to him.  He told Drew i was his stalker.  Thanks Jeremy, i can always count on you!
Here are some of the more wild beards

May 18 2009

3 months ago you came into this world, my beautiful baby.  I never knew i had more love to give but you showed me I did.  you are my little angel.........i love you

Baby Blessing

Well we finally blessed Vera yesterday with Steves's family there.  He did a great job.  She was so cute too.  I guess when she went up with Steve she was asleep and during the blessing she woke up and started stretching.  I guess she was alittle hard to hold on to because she dress was so slippery.  Sorry Vera.  That could've been bad.  I love you little one......

she's my little doll
out of all the family ones i thought this was the best, Vin's face says it all
Finally, my first picture with my baby girl.  3 months later, come on mel......

cute shoes

My friend Anna made these for her little girl but they ended up being too small so guess who ended up with them?   that 's right!  how lucky are we?  aren't they so cute! yeah, vera's worn them everyday since.  Thanks Anna!

and the blog you've all been waiting for...

Vincents Hair Cut!

i honestly can't believe i've waited this long before i wrote anything about this somewhat lifechanging event!  yes, after two years and 2 months we finally had his hair cut!  Twice actually.  The first looked alittle girlish according to some (he wore a hat a lot) and this is the second attempt.  I still trying to decide if we should just go all the way with the boy hair cut.  Also i had to throw some more pics of vera since she is getting chubby

I mean check out that double chin!!!

uke too?

so the other day i got out steves ukulele and vincent about had a heartattack.  once he realized you could pull the stings and it made sound he would not put it down!  even though he pulled the strings out about 10 times further than they regularly stretch as if they were rubber bands istill  couldn't take it away from that smile. rock on vinny, rock on! and yes, he rocks the dragon rain boots too.  

vera's easter dress

So i finally got pictures of Vera in her dress.  Easter was alittle crazy, read below.  and so, i finally got her back in the dress and man did she rock it!

Here's to Mt. Redoubt

I know, this picture doesn't do justice, it's just one i found online but I was so excited that i actaully saw the volcano yesturday erupting!  I didn't think that you could see it from Anchorage, but apparently you can.  I was driving dimond blvd yesturday and you could see the Ak range really well.  I looked at the end of it and there was a mountain that seemed to be by itself and it had a big white cloud that mushroomed around the top of it.  I thought to myself, could it be?  na....... then that was that.  That night i was watching the news and sure enough, apparently it ws really big today that everyone could see the volcano erupting from anchorage.   and the image they showed was exactly what i saw, which is kind of like the photo above, that one is just alittle closer.    I think they said it's just steam coming out now, no more ash.  Let's hope.

Yoga anyone?

welcome to the downward dog.  I was doing my excerise video this morning and the last part of it has us doing some yoga to stretch.  I was doing the downward dog and looked over and saw vincent trying to do it too.  it was too cute too ignore so i stopped what i was doing and grabbed my camera.  I thought anyone who does yoga would appreciate this.  He actually has decent form for having really fat stubby arms and legs.  Go Vinny.

here's to baby skin

So i thought that the best picture of the two of them would be with out any shirts, their skin is just so smooth.   vin decided to add the blanket look, as i tried to get him to posse with her, just not happening. so this was the best i could get.

Cat in the Hat Easter

who wants a cat in the hat anyway?
Actually, contrary to what this picture may tell you, he was pretty excited about getting Cat in the Hat.  Although, i bought it a few days before at the new Kohls, and when  i got home that was the first thing he saw.  So really he wasn't too suprised.  But he did enjoy this Easter, it was the first for him to look for and find his Easter basket.  My Easter on the other hand was not so joyous.  Vera was up for a lot of the night so Steve let me sleep in.  He woke me up at 9:30, thinking church was at 1pm.  but oh how he was wrong.  it starts at 11 am.  so upon my wake up i realize what time it is, knowing i still need to have vincent find his basket, take pictures, make a big easter breakfast, get showered and my self ready, along with getting vincent dressed and Vera up, feed and dressed.  And to top it off, Vincent had already found Vera's basket while I was asleep and opened up the eggs and ate most of the candy while misplacing the toys.  wow was I alittle stressed.  Why does everyone else's Easter seem so peaceful and happy?  And the picture above pretty much shows how the mood was.  I think we were all ready to go at about 20 after 11, meanwhile i'm trying to get vincent's church bag packed and there's a basket caught under my skirt between my feet and won't come out until i kicked it across the room, much to Vincent's dismay.  Then to top that off, i trip over my skirt going down the stairs and kick off one of my shoes.  Needless to say i was a stressed sweat ball by the time I got to church.  So yes, Laurelyn and Marissa, in case you noticed, that was why.  But it all turned out good in the end. Oh, except for the fact i never got a picture of Vera with her cute easter dress or with her Easter basket.  She was sleeping almost all day and I didn't have the heart to wake her up.  Or the okay with Steve.  he likes it when their quiet.  But really the day ended well, and vincent got to spend it with his cousins.  we all went to Ronda's for an Easter program Steve's parents put on (good job by the way) and we had a great ham dinner.  can't beat that (or someone cooking for you).  

these are a few of my favorite things

most of the toys vincent owns he can live without, but these are the exceptions.  These are the ones he plays with on and off day in and day out. What's great about these are they each have their own names and most are named by the sounds they make, except for one, that would be figure 2.  And just to note, this is is second pair of pig and cow i had to buy since he left the first at church.  good thing they were a buck each at target.  thank you target.
Figure 1          This is his "choo choo".  This however was not a dollar but more like 15.   it's a long story of why i bought it but i was going to return it. I had it on my counter for like a month and vincent got his hands on it a number of times to take it out of package.  fortunate for him he destroyed the packaging enough that i couldn't rightfully take it back anymore.  so vincent please enjoy your $15 piece of plastic.
Figure 2   This is his "orrilla".  When pronouncing this, stick your tongue out pretty far when you say the "illa" part, then you've said it right.  He became obsessed with "orillas" when he saw the movie "Mighty Joe Young" on TV.  Don't ask me why.
Figure 3   This is his family of "sniff sniff", or pigs. Yep, one small, one medium, and one large. He mostly loves the medium and large ones.  I feel bad for the runt.  However, when he talks about a pig, he doesn't say the word, just make a sniffing noise to represent the pig.  When you hear him sniff twice, he's talking about a pig.
Figure 4      This would be his "boo".  Once again it's another animal he won't say the name to but will just make the sound to represent it.  However, like most sounds he has this one is alittle off too.   We tell him to say "moooooo"  and he say's "booooooo".  So he just calls them boos.  why argue?