Physically Assaulted with Love

I have a beautiful four year old with a lot of love to give.

As it happens, the way she feels the need to show her love is by jumping (typically knees first), climbing and hanging on those she is loving on. Being close to 45 pounds, this enthusiastic display of love often ends up with the recipient yelping in pain from a knee to the kidney, an arm choked around the neck, hair being pulled, nose being bumped or some other minor body injury. It makes me chuckle thinking about it now (as she is laying peacefully in bed) but in the midst of being assaulted it drives me wild. I’m not big on pain. I suppose she’s just an aggressive lover though. Beware future boyfriends! AHAHA! I’ve started showing her love the way she gives it, by tackling her to the ground and smothering her with kisses. It’s actually kind of fun and it’s obviously important to me that she knows just how much I love her. Maybe by showing my love for her the way she shows her love for other people will help her to always remember how fiercely I love her.  So what I’m saying is, go physically assault someone with your love. It just might be the best thing for them. Just watch out for their sensitive spots. You know what I’m saying…

Happy lovin’!

Fair Point Well Made

“Mom, when are we ever going to have a sno-cone again?” asks my four year old prior to dinner tonight. “Can we have one tonight?” she urges.

“Um, I don’t know,” I respond as I crack an egg.

“That pretty much means no.”

“Yeah, usually,” I sigh. The girl has me pegged and I feel the need to elaborate, ” But Lil, you may not have had a sno-cone lately but you have had cupcakes, cookies, chocolate, ice cream and a ton of other sugary stuff.”

I thought I was coming out on top of this discussion. Then she said, “Yeah, but Mom, everybody gives it to us!”

I felt that was a pretty fair argument. And really, I’m the fat ass who has been eating all the Christmas cookies in the house. Just because I feel sick to my stomach, doesn’t mean the kids have had a lot of crap too.

So this was dessert. Served in the shower.

I see the debate team in my daughter’s future.

Place Your Bets!

Only a 25-40% chance of snow by Christmas, you say? Beetee says, “No worries. Mashmallows will suffice for my snowball fight!” So who do you think will win in this matchup?

The contenders:

Two Jolly Snowmen—

and one Wild Thing—

Vs.  one rather mischevious elf—

 

 

The jury is still out on this one. Maybe in the morning a winner will prevail. We’ll have to wait and see what the kiddos think!

 

As for me, it’s WAY past my bedtime. Why I’m up staging these antics at this hour of the night is surely due to the few glasses of wine I was forced to consume at my annual neighborhood book social club’s ornament exchange. The holidays are rough, aren’t they? HA! Anyways, the cookies and bon bons are made and ready to go for my morning Christmas cookie exchange at my MIL’s. I’d better go get some beauty rest. I need it!

Cheers, people.

 

Hot Chocolate, Please!

Yesterday I made homemade marshmallows. Last night I made hot chocolate on a stick. I was letting everything set overnight and just look what this silly elf did. It looks like he got himself a mug and is waiting for a cup of creamy and delicious hot chocolate. Oh, Beetee!

Chirstmas Cookies – Round One

Me and my little helpers rolled, cut and baked 7 dozen Christmas sugar cookies and shipped them off to Texas. There are another 3 dozen cut and frozen ready to pop in the oven. I must say this was one of the best batches I’ve made in a while. The kids couldn’t keep the extra dough I gave them out of their mouths and my husband couldn’t stop eating the ones Lilly created, much to her dismay in the morning.

Have you begun your holiday baking yet? I’ve got some peppermint marshmallows, peanut butter and chocolate fudge with pretzels and hot cocoa on a stick that I’m planning on whipping up this weekend. They’ll make great gifts this year if all goes well.

I’d better get my butt off the computer and utilize nap time if I’m going to accomplish any of this!

But first, it’s Christmas story time on the couch in front of the tree with my little love bugs.

Happy holidays!

Boys and Their Toys

It was Black Friday. We were suppose to go shopping like we have every year for the past 5 or so years.  All my husband wanted was a helicopter. He and my brother got little ones last year on Black Friday and they were planning on a repeat experience. Our shopping efforts were thwarted however and the helicopter aquisition never happened to the dismay of my thirty-something year old man-child who was all but sulking throughout the remainder of the day.

Enter one very awesome SIL. After an evening of frolicking with his neighbor buddies, my husband came home to this beauty.

It was love at first sight, I think. There was even a declaration made to the effect of, “There’s no way I’m sharing this with anyone so you can all go (fill in the rest yourself)!” That’s the Christmas spirit!… So ever since that night I’ve had one happy man-child who enjoys terrorizing us all by flying too close to our heads, knocking papers off my countertops, riling up the kids and dogs and chipping drywall off the corners of my walls when he fails as a pilot.

Actually, it’s been a lot of fun. It lights up and the battery life lasts about 10 minutes before it needs to be recharged which is just enough time to thoroughly annoy the crap out of me. I’m impressed with its durability but I’ve been told it doesn’t handle as easily as it did in the beginning. I’m going to attribute that to the many crash landings it’s experienced.

All-in-all, it’s a great toy and keeps us on our toes as we dodge helicopter assaults once or twice a day.

 

Say, “Poop!”

It’s December. Time to get the ball rolling on a dang Christmas card! Today I put the kids in whatever they were willing to wear and tried to take a photo of the three of them that I could send out to the masses. I got the older two excited about taking pictures with a little toilet humor before going outside. Throw out the words poop and pee to kids and they giggle on the spot. I figured that would be a good strategy for a photosession.

Anyways, here’s how we fared:

First shot of the shoot: Ela wearing reindeer antlers and happy = win; other kids and angle of the shot = fail.

      

Fourth shot of the shoot: My boy looks good = win; everyone else = fail.

My toilet bowl humor strategy was short lived. Ela quickly got upset over the loud shouts of “POOP!” and “POOPY!” that were coming from the clowns to her left and right. Obvious fail.

We changed locations to cheer up the baby. Poo and Pee shouts continued which resulted in many pictures with these puckered mouths instead of big smiles. In the future, I think I’ll be more careful with the words I choose to make them happy…

Of course, when Ela smiles for me her brother is oblivious. Who gave him the bells to hold anyways? Oh yeah, that was me. Fail.

And there were certainly many of these histerical looks bogging up my memory card. I can’t help but crack up when I look at him. Obvious win!

And this my friends, photo #41, was the best one out of the 101 photos taken. The baby is missing a skirt and my boy may look like a dog chewing on a beloved toy but they are all looking at the camera with pleasant expressions. I wasn’t satisfied though so I kept snapping away.

I’m glad I did because I captured these eyebrows on my oldest. Wow! She gets those from her grandpa, a.k.a: Coach.

see…

After that look from Lil I knew it was time to move on. She wanted to take some pics in the backyard so I followed. Not Christmas card worthy but at least the older two are having a good time. They were laughing at my nose. Jerks.

Of course they wanted to take a picture in the cooler that was drying out. If only Ela was in it I’d send it, cooler and all. Since she’s not present I’m essentially SOL for the day on our Christmas card.

Oh well, at least I have pics like these to enjoy!

So, even though our Christmas card still doesn’t exist, I’m counting this session as an overall win.

Cheers!

He’s Baaaack!

I’m referring to our elf named Beete, of course! He’s back for year #2 in the Bailey household though it’s the first year that my boy gets it. What this means then, is that this is the first year I can use the elf to manipulate his behavior. I love being able to simply say, “Hey now, Beete is watching,” and their behavior becomes instantly better.

So anyways, Beete has been here for a little over 1 week and he’s getting a little stir crazy so the antics have begun.

What a naughty little elf! I look forward to their reaction in the morning.

(Thank you pinterest, FB friends and my husband for the plethora of shenanigans to come!)

Keeping Hungry Fiends at Bay

It wasn’t peas this time that had my 2 year old upset about dinner but rather plain old spaghetti. It was past 5pm, the kid was whining about being hungry as the noodles were cooking so I did what I could to save my sanity without ruining his appetite. I gave him a partially cooked noodle from the pot and had him throw it at the refrigerator where it stuck.

Voila! The whining ceased as his hunger was forgotten and squeals of annoyance turned to squeals of delight. His older sister was quick to join in on the antics too.

I quickly finished dinner leaving the noodles really long for a fun and messy meal.

It was all fun and games until Odin choked at which point I cut his into tiny pieces he could handle. Choking aside, I’m counting this experience as a parenting win. What fun have you cooked up lately or in the past to deal with a whining child?