Lies. All Lies.

**I started this post the other night before I was interrupted by children waking up/fusing in bed.  But now I'm almost afraid to post it because (knocking so hard on wood right now) she has been sleeping better.  Not great, but longer stretches at the right time of the night.  However, if I had to classify her as a certain type of sleeper, she would still fall into the "stinky" category. Whatever, here it goes**

Luke sucked at sleeping until he was about 18 months old, then again around 2.  We spent hours upon hours awake with him at the most ridiculous hours of the day.  I was cranky 24/7, there were tears and not just from the baby, it sucked.  During those months when we never got a full night of sleep I thought this would never end and I was doomed to a life of exhaustion.  But I wasn't, he grew out of it and finally figured out sleep is good, especially at night.  Good stuff.

Everyone swore to me the second child is the complete opposite.  To me this meant she would sleep, like all night and take awesome naps and just be the bestest little sleeper you ever did meet.  Lies.  It used to be 3 or 4 nights a week where we'd be up during the night but then there was the glorious nights of 6-7 hours of sleep straight.  A.mazing.  Unfortunately that isn't even happening much anymore.  Now she is up just about every night.  Like hey mom, look at me I'm all cute, I can crawl all over my crib, pull myself up, clap my hands and wave at you.  (all of which I absolutely melt over if the sun is out)  At 2 am, not cute at all.

It's frustrating and I feel like we're right back to Luke at this age.  Boo.  At least I know it will end eventually.  But if I have to wait until 18 months again, heaven help me and everyone else that has to deal with me. 

Luke is Three!

It's official, Luke is three!  Holy moly how did this happen.  He had a great time at his party last weekend and loved having even more birthday fun Tuesday night and last night on his actual birthday.  Here are a few snapshots from the past four days.

He loved his cake!

Lots of awesome presents.

Took a while to get candle #3.

One of his new favorites, Mater!

Birthday night opening his bike helmet and pads.

His new bike!

Woohoo!

I stole this next idea from a friends blog and asked Luke all these questions.  Here's what he had to say:

Favorites!

Color - red

Movie - Hotel Transylvania

Breakfast -Cornbread

Lunch -Peanut Butter and Jelly

Dinner - Pizza

Animal - horse

Song - Jolly Santa

Toy - Trains

Fruit - Pineapples

Book - The Little Engine That Could

Snack - Fruit Snacks

Drink - Juice

Place to Go - Strasburg Railroad

Who is your best friend? Ms. JoVaughn

What do you like to do outside? Play on the playground

What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  Monkeys, Puppies

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Potties (yes, his answer made absolutely no sense).

Some answers were fairly entertaining - as far as I know he's never even had cornbread and certainly not for breakfast.  But that's what you get when you talk to a 3 year old.  I think if I asked him the same questions in 10 minutes half the answers would be different.

It was a great yet exhausting week.  Happy 3rd Birthday Luke, Mommy and Daddy love you! 

CAKE!

My little guy is turning 3 this week and wanted a Cars themed birthday party.  I got all excited because that meant I got to bake and decorate a cake again!  I searched the Internet and found a cake that I thought I could actually create, gathered my supplies, and spent my last two nights in the kitchen baking, cutting, frosting, dying, decorating and wa-lah,  Luke's 3rd Birthday cake!  I can't wait for him to wake up in the morning to see it, he's going to be stoked! 

It was my first attempt at a two tier cake and with fondant.  I learned a bunch as I went but I think it turned out awesome.  The only piece that I bought was the candle, the rest I made from either fondant, frosting, or candy.  I used a picture of another cake as a guide but changed some things as I went.  I decorated a cake board then placed some of his Cars cars around the outside.  Ka-Chow!

The Next Picasso

Luke is really stretching his artistic wings lately.  From abstract models...

... all the way to coloring the couch.  Literally.

Any ideas what that thing is...

...a DINOSAUR, obviously! And he's darn proud of it too. Rawr!

Our "New" Bathroom

About a week and a half ago Zach was giving Luke a bath and noticed you could rock the toilet back and forth and the floor moved with it.  Not normal.  So I called Jim (my step dad) and asked his opinion on what to do.

Since that phone call a lot has happened.  Jim fixed the toilet, which involved ripping out 3 tiles on the floor.  So I had two options, put in 3 new tiles that didn't match the rest or replace the entire floor.  Not a tough choice, option B please.  So Zach and his dad replaced the floor last Saturday.

I painted quarter round yesterday, they installed it today (with the help of a new nail gun much to their delight!)  I patched and painted this afternoon with coat two tonight and wa-lah!  It looks like a brand new bathroom.  It's amazing what a new floor can do, especially when a week and a half ago we had no intention of doing anything to the bathroom.

finished product

the "before" shot, however they used a big bathroom rug to cover most of the grossness

I wish I would have taken a before picture.  The only thing I found was the picture from when the house was listed a year and a half ago.  However, this picture makes the floor look a million times better than it was.  It was old, gross looking laminate.  Now we have new, updated, stylish laminate.  We do plan on redoing the entire bathroom in a few years but this is a great fix until then.


Thanks to everyone that helped out!!

Peanut

Lauren had her 9 month check up today, she is a little peanut.  On the 20th percentile for weight coming in at a whooping 17 lb 2 oz.  But she's been consistently there so we just have a petite little lady.  All of this crawling is going to burn mega calories...

Don't mind all the banging in the background, that's Luke "driving" dump truck through the kitchen and under the table.  This house is never quiet :)

Facelift

For the past 2 months I've been thinking about a new blog (obviously very sparingly) but never actually made something.  I was going to, and still may, do something different.  But for now pictures are back up...maybe it's a yearly thing? not sure.  Anyway, I need a change so I fiddled around with backgrounds, settings, etc.  I'm tired so this is it for now, or maybe for always. 

Happy Monday all!  (although I reaaaalllly thought today was Tuesday...bummer!)