"A man bringing me diapers?"

Well, the glorious day has finally come. Many of you might remember that I mentioned Julianna would be getting diapers covered by insurance now that she's reached age 5 and not potty trained. We all hope of course that she will use the potty before kindergarten this year, but it's nice to know that insurance does these things. So the order finally arrived today, after being delivered to my old address first by mistake, and then sent to our new house--we waited over 3 weeks to get them! The delivery man handed them to me, I shut the door, came inside with the big box, and Julianna said, "A man? A man bringing me diapers?" It was soooo funny! We discovered in the big box 8 bags of "Invacare" training pants (the picture shows 7 because Blake had to hold one). Over 100 pull-ups to last a month! And under the "Invacare" logo, it says, "Yes, you can." Yes, you can, Julianna! You can use the potty! You can! Someday...but at least in the meantime, I don't have to buy diapers! They are now delivered to my door! That's my story for today.

A cautionary tale--boys will be boys

Yes, I've been a "lazyblogger". That's my new term for slacking on blogging. I really just wanted all of you to bask in my mom skills glory for a while. Anyway, this is a post I've wanted to do, and now I finally have the perfect moment to do it.

Having a girl and then a boy has really taught me how different boys and girls are. Especially in the "mess" department. And because boys love to make messes, I think when you have a boy, you should also have a "warning" label attached, or a "caution" sticker, something like that. You know, those big stickers on blow dryer cords that have bold letters and warn you not to drop a plugged-in blow dryer in the water. So, here's what happened one day that made me decide to write my own warning label for Blake the Destroyer (this has been his nickname lately).

The culprit--an innocent buttermilk ranch packet from Jack N the Box. It was left over from a lunch Grandma brought one day and Blake wanted to hold it as he ate his dinner of hot dogs and peaches. CAUTION: DO NOT GIVE RANCH, BBQ, OR ANY TYPE OF SAUCE PACKET TO A TODDLER BOY. DISASTER CAN OCCUR.

SAUCE PACKET MAY EXPLODE DUE TO SQUEEZING AND GET ON CHILD'S CLOTHING, THUS MAKING A HUGE MESS FOR YOU TO CLEAN UP.

CAUTION: DO NOT WALK AWAY WHILE CHILD IS EATING A MEAL. IT MAY END UP ALL OVER THE FLOOR WHILE YOU'RE NOT LOOKING. AGAIN, HUGE MESS TO CLEAN UP.

CAUTION: BOYS LIKE TO MAKE MESSES. SEE FACIAL EXPRESSION OF BOY ABOVE.

Okay, Blake does have his soft side, too. See above pictures. He LOVES playing with Julianna, for the most part, and gives her hugs (that usually result in wrestling matches, as you can see in the second hugging picture) but they do start out as hugs! And when Julianna cries, he always goes over to her and says, "You OK, Nana? Don't cry." And he stays by her side until she's all better. And of course he is a BIG momma's boy. He loves to cuddle with me on the couch when Julianna's at preschool and watch the Wiggles. And I also love to lay down with him while he's falling asleep for his nap. So, that's my story for this week.

My mom skills at work

Julianna showing off her artwork--Disney princesses. She's getting much better at drawing. She took the above picture--notice her foot in the shot. These are the most meaningful shots of the whole post, by the way.

Our daily piano lessons, or piano banging. They are quite good at playing "forte" or even "fortissimo." And at times, they can do a nice "piano" volume when I beg (we're working on the pianissimo--and notice Blake's devilish grin.)

Juilanna discovered how fun it was to put one of those stickers you get at the doctor's office on her mouth. She kept it on for a good ten minutes. And that means it was pretty quiet for those ten minutes, at least from her. Below, Blake laughing at Julianna's discovery. He didn't last long with the sticker, though.

Blake's "Spiderman" pose in Joel's Spiderman shirt

When they're really bad, we tell them they have to sleep in the cabinets at the top of the stairs. They actually weren't opposed to the idea--they got pillows and made themselves comfortable (again, sarcasm--don't worry--this isn't a concentration camp here--hope I don't offend anyone by that comment, it just reminded me of one when I took the picture!).

Blake putting his knees in his shirt and trying to waddle around on his feet.

Julianna doing the same thing but not as well as Blake.

Blake relaxing in our new purple bean bag.

So, what do I do all day as a mom? Well, here are some recent pics of our very important, meaningful activities. (This is sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell!) We just have fun a lot of the time! Besides, pictures of important things wouldn't be fun to look at anyway. So here's some funny things the kids have done lately. Just a disclaimer--I really do many important, worthwhile things with them. I do have some mom skills, they just aren't pictured in this blog post. Or maybe they are--you be the judge.

A quick update

For those of you that read my "100 things" post, one was about how I haven't given a talk in church in a long time. Well, as luck would have it, a few days after I posted that, I was asked to give a talk...at the next Stake Baptism day. Right now I teach the CTR 8 class in my ward--the kids who get baptized this year. And the wards in our stake take turns organizing the baptisms. Our ward has February, and the (former) primary president asked me to speak. I have a few weeks to prepare. To me, it's better than speaking in Sacrament meeting! Should be fun. That's all for now.