Sunny 9 for 2008 May

Sun May 04 2008 23:09 Gone, baby, gone: The bottles are gone. I took the kids to the dentist this past week, and he totally shamed me into taking Gunnar off the bottle. He is 17 months and I can live with the weening at this point, so I obliged. He hasn't done too bad if you count refusing to drink any milk whatsoever now. This boy used to go through practically a half gallon a day. Trips to the store every 3-4 days was not uncommon for me to take between my husband and kids' milk consumption. Aaron still drinks whole milk as does Lily.

Gunnar will occasionally sign milk and I am always there with a sippy cup for him, but he gets really angry. The bottle was a soothing mechanism for him. He still has his thumb, but no more bottles in bed. I think while I am at it I should take milk away from the night time routine altogether since the dentist tsk, tsked me on that too. Ah, whatever. Aaron's not all that concerned about it, so neither am I.

In that same vein, Gunnar has also been pretty mad at life because of teething as well. His molars are mostly all out, but now I see little canines pushing forth. He often stomps around the family room grunting "no!", his favorite word. He has been unmanageably clingy as well. The kid is about 30 pounds and hard on my back. The child is happy as long as I read stories to him all day long. He could read stories with me for a couple solid hours if I had the endurance for it. It is his most favorite thing in the world, besides me.

On Friday, I was feeling brave and bored so I loaded the kids and stroller into the car and went to Sea World for a couple hours. The kids were awesome and we all had fun together. I took them to the dolphins, and then we saw the tropical tank where the most beautiful fish are and sting rays. It was feeding time for them. We looked at the sharks, and the Clydesdale horses. I took Lily on her favorite ride, well the only ride she can ride really. She got to go twice in a row because there was no line, score! And then we went to the Shamu show where the kids sat captivated the whole time. Even Gunnar sat still. Maybe next time I can muster up the courage to take them to the water park. On the other hand, given Gunnar's abnormal fear of water, maybe I should save that until Aaron can go with me. I have to take advantage though while the weather is still nice.

Mon May 05 2008 12:53 Fierce times 12: I've got a little Christian Siriano at my house in the making. I laughed ashamedly when Aaron told me what Lily told him this morning while he was helping her pick out an outfit. Aaron was trying to get her to settle on some shoes and Lily said, "No, I can't wear those. They are out of style. No, those are out of style too. These are out of style and these are out of style too. I don't want to wear any of those shoes because they are all out of style."

It is probably the fault of the mother who has purchased all those shoes for her to choose from in the first place. *blush* What can I say except that I have a sickness. You know what is really embarrassing is that I was folding Gunnar's laundry and to make my life easier I was piecing together outfits and folding the shirt in the shorts so I can just grab a little envelope of clothes instead of having to dig and dig around to find something that matches. The boy literally has 3 weeks worth of outfits ready to go before I have to do laundry. Granted, someone in my ward gave me some hand-me-downs which was so awesome. It is embarrassing to air my dirty laundry like that (pun intended). Darn those Target sales and Children's Place 50% off sale.

I will say I am proud of myself for not buying the kids new Easter outfits. I am too stubborn to buy something that is not on sale. Nothing feels greater than getting Gunnar church shirts for $4.99 (reg 14.50) and sweater vest for $6.49 (reg $16.50) in addition to a 15% off coupon. Hey, at least I am good at it. So naturally I have to buy one in every color. Just kidding...kinda

Mon May 12 2008 13:46 Keeping busy having fun: This past week Michelle was in town visiting from College Station. I had great company having her around especially in the evenings. We played Rock Band a lot, and that girl is good! Playing the viola in HS helps. It was also her birthday and we went on a night out on the town. Lorna and I took her to the Melting Pot. I think that is my most favorite place ever. The chocolate fondue is the best, and the cheese, and the meat with gorgonzola sauce...and pretty much everything you order there.

I cannot say enough about how awesome Michelle is. She was such a huge help around the house too. She wanted to do a little shopping with me and so we went to Old Navy and Kohl's. The kids totally wore her out. She was such a trooper though and loved holding them and entertaining them even though we barely made it through two stores. i also took my mom out to lunch with Michelle for Mother's Day. We went to this new place in Helotes called Old Town Grill. It is so delicious. Afterwards, we walked down the street and walked through all their antique shops. I didn't find any diamonds in the rough, but this one place did have these old keys that were really cool except they were like 6-8 bucks a key. Forget that.

This weekend was Father-Son campout. I nudged Aaron to go on it, and he and Gunnar had a good time. He said Gunnar went down great and woke up happy. I think my little guy likes the outdoors. Lily and I had mother-daughter plans of our own. I registered her in her first race. It was a 50 yard dash, and of course I was there to run the 5k. It was called Jon's Run and it's a charity for infant and child loss. It was cool, they had balloons for people to write their babies' name on and at the end of the race, they let them all go in the sky.

The race itself was pretty miserable. I had a better mile pace time, but it was so humid I was dripping sweat just after warming up and stretching. By the end of the race I looked like I just got out of the pool. Again Michelle was selfless as ever, waking up at 6:30 with me and going downtown so that she could watch Lily while I ran. Lily's race was fun to watch. A bunch of 2,3, and 4 year olds standing around after the whistle was blown. Lily was super excited because she saw the shirt I got at my other race and when she got a shirt at this race she was very proud of herself. She also went wild with all the juice and Powerade they were giving away after the run. Cheesy Jane's was there giving away milkshakes. I passed, but Lily loved it. Every time we moved spots, she was like "I don't want to go to the car." And Michelle was an awesome photographer too. She got lots of shots of me albeit embarrassing ones.

And finally, last but not least--Mother's Day. True to form Aaron came up with the best gift yet again. When I saw on Erin's blog that they got a Nikon and I commented "our next big purchase is going to be..." little did I know Aaron had already researched and picked out that very thing. I have been wanting one forever. And now that I have it, I love it. It takes such great pics, you can't even compare them with regular digital cameras. I have been lusting after the Nikon ever since I used my brother David's when he moved here. Mother's Day was also extra special at church. After a couple years of waiting I finally got to see Lily go up on the stand and "sing" to me. She pretty much just stood there starring blankly, but it was still neat. We also went over to my mom's and had brownie sundae's/banana splits. Lots of laughs, lots of fun. Check the pic blog to see pics for this week's events.

Tue May 13 2008 22:39 School's out! for the summer...: Today was Aaron's last day of his 3rd year! Yeah, we made it. He did it. We only have one more left! Also, today is his birthday. He is gettin old...28! We went to Fuddruckers to celebrate with Jake and Erin, and Luke. Somewhere kid friendly. It's funny because we went there 4 yrs ago in Utah for their birthday. I think Aaron is going to play Warcraft tomorrow for the better half of the day. He deserves it.

Tue May 20 2008 22:46 playing catch up: So much to do, so little time. I am currently packing for our trip to Utah. (Sorry John and Susie that I haven't emailed you yet...maybe we can meet for lunch.) We are leaving tomorrow night and getting into town at midnight. I know. Don't ask me why we would do that to ourselves...because we're cheap. We are going to spend some QT with my dad and Jan for a couple days, and then head off to Eden, UT for a Smith family reunion. Wahoo! These are always so fun. I love it because Aaron's extended family is practically all girls, and awesome, fun girls at that. The whole extended family is actually all really great. I am so lucky to have married into such a sweet group.

So I have been packing, but I checked weather.com yesterday to see what to bring. I think one day the high is 60 degrees and the rest of the time the high is in the fifties. And it says it is going to be raining. This is good and bad news. The good news is we get to escape the debilitating heat this summer has already brought on. The bad news is that all the warm clothes for the kids have already been boxed up. So I went through the boxes in the closets tonight getting stuff together. Still so much to do...

Since Aaron is out of school we are playing a lot. We went swimming yesterday and today. We also went to Houston this weekend for Aaron's cousin Tyler's wedding to Andrea. It was a blast. Aaron's other cousin Kelly invited us to stay with them and it was really fun to have a mini reunion before the big one. The wedding activities were truly enjoyable and the kids were good sports. The drive up was not bad at all and the drive down was ok, but better than last time we went to Houston for Spring Break. Gunnar is slowly getting used to the idea of being in the car for a long time, and hopefully that will spill over into getting used to going swimming. So far he hates it and cries the whole time...it's that fear of water thing. He will even pacify himself by sucking his thumb which he never does while awake, but has oddly enough started to do it during the day lately.

Anywho, I need to post pics of Houston and Aaron and Jake's surprise birthday party we threw for them. See Erin's blog. It was great fun. I love being busy...the 'fun' busy kind. The only bad thing is I am so far behind on housework and blog reading.