Just one of those days!

Actually- I think I should start with last night. You see we went out to the Coeur d'Alene Street fair yesterday afternoon with Jer's parent's (where my parents also had a booth for their business- Labor of Love Creations). It was lots of fun to look at all of the booths (both good and bad) and of course to eat the food that can only be found at such events! My favorite was the chicken artichoke crepe with basil cream sauce- can you say YUM?!?! Anyway, when we got home, Roman insisted on washing his feet off before he went to bed, so I thought it would be fun to let him use my foot bath- compete with jets, Epsom salts, and Lavender Essential Oils. He loved it and what started out as a foot bath quickly became a full body endeavor! As he puts it "Mama, I washin' my hairs!" How can you resist that?!

Now onto today- aww yes, today! Well, to begin with- check out Roman's faux-hawk! Isn't it adorable?! I couldn't resist! Anyway, the day started off with lots of phone calls and general craziness and quickly became ridiculous as I ran my errands. First, at the bank drive through, I dropped the little container that you send your checks through with, which of course rolled under the car! So in front of rows packed full of cars I had to get out and crawl under my car to retrieve it! Just a little embarrassing, to say the least!

Next we went to JoAnn Fabrics to pick up a few supplies to make Roman some Ditto Daddy training pants (really cool training pants that look like boxers or boxer briefs- you can buy them pre-made or just the pattern- check them out here). With Roman's help we found some Cars fabrics to add to the stash of fabrics we had already picked out for his trainers. I am hoping that the combination of having underpants like daddy's, PLUS having his favorite characters on them will give him the motivation to make the final push into using the potty full-time! Just to reinforce our need to get the potty-training taken care of, Roman peed as soon as we got to the parking lot and of course his diaper decided to repel that pee and send it flooding down his leg and into his new shoes (which Grammy got him yesterday, by the way, and he loves! Check out the guitar and Lightning McQueen!)! As Roman calmly explained "Peepee mama. Keen up," I tried to use the wet wipes, I luckily hand in my bag, to the best of my ability so we could try to complete our errands before returning home.

Eventually we were able to relatively quickly get through the grocery store and go home. I gave Roman some lunch and tried to get some much needed work done on the computer while he was eating. I should have known by the intermittent sloshing sounds and otherwise silence that something less than wonderful was happening. Wouldn't you know it? Roman decided to wash those hairs again AND "wipe" down everything else is sight, with yogurt of all things! After a short but thorough bath I got him down for his nap and tried to knit as fast as I could to complete the hat for our friend's daughter's birthday party that we attended tonight, which of course I was not able to finish! But hey- I made a noble attempt and one woman can only do so much!!! When it came right down to it, I just didn't think that I could really finish off my day without letting all my friends out in the blogosphere share in my craziness and maybe even relate to it! Ever had a day such as this? If you have kids, I have no doubt!

Cars TotSchool

Just in the last week or so Roman has been soaking things up like a sponge and seems to all of the sudden be interested in learning his colors, numbers, shapes and letters. In an effort to foster this new interest, I have been trying to do more TotSchool activities. We made this Cars Totbook a month ago but it is just now that he has fallen in love with it! He keeps telling Jer and I, "I show you! Cars!" He loves pulling out all the number cards and looking at the letters of his name!

He has been counting numbers all by himself and even has about the first four letters of the ABC song down! He tends to think that EVERY color is Blue, but hey, we're working on it! I am just glad to see that he is interested!

Dad even got in on the action and read to Roman this week. Roman loves reading, but I think it is extra special when dad is the one with the book!
I am now in the process of figuring out our fall TotSchool curriculum. I am hoping to do a sort of walk through the Old Testament with some main stories and end up at the New Testament by Christmas. His Easter Lapbook was a big hit this year so I think we are off to a good start. This week we will be doing the Ratatouille book off the TotSchool site, however, as we finish out the summer. If any of you need great ideas for teaching tots, you MUST go to the TotSchool site! Carissa is brilliant when it comes to teaching tots!

Pieces of Art

Well, Roman and I both expressed our creative sides this week, just in different ways.

Mine...

A knitted sweater for a friend's baby shower.

His...

Crayon masterpieces using the back of our couch as a canvas! Sadly, this wasn't the first time he has deemed this spot as a perfect location for his creations, but luckily he used crayon instead of ball point pen (like last time) and it came out pretty quickly (you can see I had already begun scrubbing when I decided to take the picture). I became aware of the situation when things got very quiet and then Roman ran into the office squealing, "Mama! I write AND color!!" Uh-oh! Not a good combination, especially with that bright green crayon poised in his victorious fist! Oh well- he's two! At least he didn't brake something! And hey, I think he has a future as an artist- don't you?!

Just the 3 of us

The other day Jer had an interview over in Coeur d'Alene, so we decided to make the most of it and spend a little time together as a family at the lake. It was a beautiful day and a nice break from all the stress we have been under lately. Check out the fun we had!
Funny how the mama never ends up in the picture! Maybe one of these days someone else will be behind the camera!

Something Pink... and something brown!

Well, first of all, let's talk about the pink! Yup you guessed it- it's that little hat up there! You see, my adorable 8 year old niece, Natanya, has been up from Texas visiting our side of the family for the past two weeks and while she stayed at our house for a couple of days she wanted to do something crafty (the first thing out of her mouth every year when she sees me is, "Can we scrapbook?!). Well, we did do a little scrapbooking but mostly I tried to teach her how to knit. She lost interest pretty quickly but of course wanted me to finish the project- a hat for her 3 month old baby sister Sienna. I think it turned out pretty cute- fun easy pattern called a Baby Pip Hat. However, I am not so sure how much use Sienna will be getting our of it since they live in Texas! Oh well, it's cute anyway!


And then comes the brown! Well, while Natanya was over we stopped over at my parent's house so Jer could look at some work they want him to do in their house. While we were there the kiddos wanted to jump in the hot tub with Papa (my dad), who of course happily obliged. At one point Roman wanted to get out and, thinking he was done, we took off his shorts and wrapped him in a towel. Of course, after a few minutes he decided he wanted to get back in, but we figured it would only be for a few minutes so we just put him back in the hot tub with Natanya (Papa had already gotten out) without his shorts- big mistake!! Soon we heard poor Natanya screeming "POOP!!" The look on Roman's face said it all! I quickly snatched him out of the water and ran him to the bathroom as my dad fished for sinkers and Natanya jumped out of the hot tub and half way across the yard! Needless to say, baths for all quickly ensued and the hot tub was drained and cleaned. Luckily my dad had good humor about it and said, "He's just a little boy!" All in all, I am sure this is a trip that Natanya won't be quickly forgetting!