2010 Kidisms

Once again, I've been posting the funny things my kids say (the "kidisms") on the sidebar of the blog, but I want to keep them all together as a post too.  So, here they are!

January 2010
Anytime we say "oops" Miles says "oop-ee-doop."

Miles: "yeeaaaahhhh..."

Miles: "No. Wannoo." (as in "No, I don't want to.")

Tess calls icicles "ice-popsicles."

February 2010
Me: We're having Super Bowl Food for dinner tonight. Tess: But what are you going to PUT in the bowl?

Funny Miles mispronunciations: mung=milk. WhahAREnooee?=What are you doing?

Bryan to Tess: Why?
Tess: I don't know! I'm not Mom; I don't know everything!

March 2010
I love when Miles sings "Mary had a Yiddo Yam."

While we are driving, Miles loves looking for "backaball hoopts." (basketball hoops)

When we say "O-key, dokey" Miles replies, "gokey, gokey!"

Tess, upset that she only had 2 helpings of Teddy Grahams: But Mom, I only had 2 "mores."

Tess learned the words "incorrect" and "correct" from WordGirl on TV. The next day she said she wanted to ask me some questions to see if I was "incorrect" or "outcorrect."

April 2010
Miles calls his cousin Brooklyn "Muck-gun."

When Tess rides the motorcycle with Daddy, she loves to pull a “wheeler.”

Tess just said to me, sternly, "well, if you could peel your eyes from the computer screen for six weekends!" (I'm not quite sure what she meant, but I'm guessing she'd like some attention??)

Miles LOVES basketballs, (and any other kind of ball too, but especially basketballs). He has a shirt with a basketball and wants to wear it every single day. Every morning when I get him dressed, he says "backaball on my yut??" (basketball on my shirt?)

May 2010
I was folding laundry when Tess came over and wanted to help. I was folding our undies. Tess picked up a pair of Bryan's and said, "oh, look! These ones have a pocket!"

After being frustrated with the kids (while helping me cook), I wrote something that we needed on the grocery list. When Tess saw me, she said, "are you writing that you want new kids?"

Tess told Bryan "we have to wash my hair twice because of the air conditioner." (We just started using conditioner on her hair.)

Miles has a ball with Spiderman on it, and he appropriately calls it his "Spiderman ball." But now he has a kite with Spiderman on it, and it is called his "Spiderman ball kite."

June 2010
I was pushing Miles on the swing at the park and he kept repeating the words, "Mom, you head under wing!" I finally realized he wanted me to give him an "underdog" (with my head under the swing!)

July 2010
Tess was practicing counting to 10 in Spanish. She was stuck on nine ("nueve") and so I tried to give her a clue and prompted, "nu...?" She replied "Jersey??"

Anytime Miles wants a lot of something, it's "a whole pile." Just this morning he asked me for "a whole pile of milk."

Variations on the blend "TR," by Miles: TRuck=Buck, choo choo TRain=choo choo Main, dumpTRuck=dumpKuck, TRailer=Kailer, and my favorite of all: TRainTRack=MainKack!

August 2010
I've told Tess that all moms, dads, and teachers have eyes in the backs of their heads. She's always very concerned about mine...today when I pulled my hair up into a big clip, she said, "won't that scratch the eyes in the back of your head?"

While camping this week, we were looking at stars. Miles' favorite was the "Big Zipper."

During dinner tonight Tess suddenly blurted out, "my favorite princess is Hocapontas!"

September 2010
I love to hear Miles say "nursery." It's "noo-fee." Ahh, I will be sad when his speech gets clearer.... I'll no longer hear "I need a mink, Mom" and other such cuties.

October 2010
More Miles-isms: "I'll wait until it 'cool downs'."

When I was feeling sick he said, "I will feel you better!"

A rooster says "Cock-a-cock-a-doo!"

He's going to be a "magon" for Halloween (dragon.)

Me: Miles, let's go change your diaper. You have stinky buns.
Miles: I DON'T have stinky buns! I just have POOP!

November 2010
When things take too long for Miles' short attention span, he says it's taking "for longer!" (And his speech is "foh yonga!") This morning, he was waiting for the 7:00 on his clock and we heard him yell, "The 7 is taking foh yonga and yonga and yonga!!"

Bryan is growing a goatee, and he has about 2 days growth. Today at church, Miles said, "Dad, you have grass on your face!"

December 2010
Tess's class sang "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" for the school sing-along, and it was very cute. She knows every word and sings very well. At one point it says that a hippo is a vegetarian, so I asked her if she knew what that was. She said, "yep--it's a doctor who takes care of animals!"

Happy Birthday Miles!

Miles turned 3 on Tuesday. He had a great time opening his presents and eating his "Roary the Racing Car" cake. (He barely knows who Lightning McQueen is, because we don't have the movie Cars, but he watches Roary on TV and loves him.) He chose pizza for his birthday dinner and enjoyed playing with his new train set.

 There's that "camera" smile we know and love...

 Make a wish!

Some of Miles' favorites:

color: light yellow

food: pizza

drink: milk

song: This Old Man

toy: ambulance

stuffed animal: reindeer

friend:  Forrest

TV show:  Roary

movie:  Strawberry Shortcake

book:  No, David!

thing to do with Dad:  play Candy Land

thing to do with Mom:  play Candy Land

thing to do with Tess: play Candy Land

game:  Candy Land (why did I even ask this?)

animal:  giraffe

What do you want to be when you grow up?  a firetruck person

What is cool about being 3?  I don't know...just for fun!

Miles is a special part of our family.  He has such a sweet personality and he is usually very easy-going.  He is smart and funny and loves to give hugs and "mooshes."  His best friend is his sweet big sister and he looks up to her so much.  He copies everything she says and does.  We love you, buddy!  Happy Birthday!

Christmas 2010 JibJab

These JibJab videos are pretty silly, but my kids love to watch them over and over again.  So, here's a Christmas one.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/VC94xp3Ym7qFEzyR

The Holidays

We had a great Thanksgiving this year.  We were with the Jensens this time, at my dad's house, and it was wonderful to visit, eat ourselves sick, and play games, as always.  The really exciting part for me this year was telling our family the happy news that we're having a new little critter next June!  We let Tess spill the news to Gramma & Grampa Terry and we let Miles spill the news to Papa and family.  Miles doesn't seem to understand or care that there will be a new baby, but Tess is really thrilled and talks about it all the time!  Today we were decorating the tree and she made sure to put a baby-rattle out as part of the Christmas decorations.  I am due on June 16, 2011 and I'm so excited!  I've been pretty sick this time around; sicker than with the other two for sure.  And, what they say is true about your belly "popping out" much sooner with 2nd or 3rd babies...I'm about ready to break out the maternity clothes already, and I'm only 3 months along!

Here are some photos of the kids decorating the tree this morning...

 

 

 I'd like to call special attention to the lower left-hand side of the tree.  Notice, if you will, the beautiful arrangement of decorations that I like to call "the red blob."  That is the handiwork of our sweet 2-year-old helper.  I think there are 15+ ornaments on about 2 single branches.  Now there is a battle going on within me...the proud mom who thinks her baby boy is darling versus the anal perfectionist who looks at the red blob and cringes.  I think the proud mom will win out this year.

More Miles...

OK...I had to write about another funny thing that Miles did yesterday.  I let Tess & him pick a piece of Halloween candy and he chose Laffy Taffy.  Bryan was opening it, and a little chunk fell on the floor, so Miles quickly picked it up and began eating it.  He looked really upset and said, "It's not even chompy!"  I took that to mean that he was frustrated that it was soft--maybe he expected it to be hard, like a sucker?  So, I offered him a sucker instead.  He kept chewing on the Laffy Taffy for a minute and then, stressed, said, "Mom, this candy is GOSS!" (gross).  I told him to just come and spit it in the garbage can.  When he came over, I watched him spit it out....and it was a chunk of Laffy Taffy WRAPPER!  No wonder it was "goss" and "not chompy!"  Ha!

Miles...

This kid cracks me up. 

1- He got a cut on the tip of his finger yesterday, so he has the "double-bandaid," and he is constantly giving us all the bird. 

2- This morning he was saying the first and last names of everyone in our family (and middle names if he knew them.)  When he got to himself, he got confused and blurted out "Mom, I can't REMEMBER!!  What IS my name?"

3- Yesterday we had a funny experience:  In the mornings during breakfast we always read the newspaper...Tess asks for the weather page because she can easily "read" the pictures of clouds, sun, rain, etc.  Miles always gets the sports section because he loves to see the pictures of the people in action with their footballs, basketballs, soccerballs, etc.  Well, I didn't realize the impact this was having on him until we were watching TV yesterday afternoon and a commercial came on with Montel Williams as the spokesperson.  Miles looked carefully at Montel, then turned to me and said, "Hey!  That guy's a basketball player!"  It was so funny, but also pretty sad that the only black people Miles ever sees are on the sports page.  Only here in Utah....

Halloween 2010

We had a wonderful Halloween this year.  We were very worried when the skies opened at about 5:30 and the downpour began.  We figured that we could at least go "Trick or Treat" at the Mall, indoors, but luckily just as we got the kids into their costumes, the rain stopped and we even had a big, beautiful rainbow outside.  Tess was a butterfly this year and Miles was a "magon." (dragon.) 

(PS...I know that butterflies don't wear tutus, but a little girl's Halloween butterfly costume just isn't complete without one! :)

I tried to paint a dragon on Miles' cheek (Tess had a pretty butterfly tattoo on her cheek, so Miles wanted something too.)  Let me tell you--face-painting on a wiggly 2 year old is not fun.  The dragon on his face looked not-so-great, a fact that I couldn't deny when Tess came up and said, "Mom, you're not a very good artist."  Oh well.

Scary Hill

We had such a great time on Saturday.  We went to Cherry Hill.  I love Cherry Hill.  I loved it when I was a little kid and we would camp there and eat cherries and swim in the pool and ride down the blue water slides (before they had any other water-rides) and play miniature golf.  (I still think they have the best mini-golf course there is!) 


I've been there once with my kids, to the water park, a few years ago, so this was basically all new to them.  We golfed (that was a riot...we usually just told the kids to roll their ball into the correct spot at each hole because using the putter was pretty complicated for them.) 

We went on a tractor ride.  The kids played in Hamster Haven play area, Tess & Bryan did the rock-climbing wall (Tess scrambled right up; she is so light that the harness practically pulled her up, and then once she reached the top she didn't weigh enough to get down...so Bryan had to go up and pull her down.)

Bryan & I did the batting cages.  I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by how well I did...anyone who knows me knows about my serious lack of any kind of athletic ability and/or coordination, so I was shocked when I hit almost every single ball!  (I did miss probably 4-5 of the 25 balls, but for me that is awesome!) 

  

We also went to a magic show by "Bobber the Clown." He called Tess up when he had his carrot-cutting-contraption. He would put 2 carrots through 2 holes and chop them with a big knife; then he put Tess's hand through another hole and chopped down; luckily her hand was not chopped off, but I could tell that she was pretty nervous.

(My stupid camera battery died right during the big moment, so I went back up afterwards to ask for another photo--so this one is staged, but you get the idea.  Just imagine Tess's face looking much more freaked out!)

Then he called Bryan up and took a $20 bill from him, wrote his initials on it, folded it in half, wrapped it in a little envelope and lit it on fire. Of course the $20 went poof! up in smoke....later in the trick he cut open a kiwi (which a lady in the audience had been holding during this whole time) and guess what was inside the kiwi? Well, the $20 bill, of course! It was pretty impressive.

It was a great day!

Halloween 2010 JibJab

We did this last year and it was pretty fun to watch, so here is this year's version. Enjoy!

ps--did I tell you that we adopted Mr. T?

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

He's Baaa-aaack!

Well, tonight after dinner, Bryan went outside to do something, and guess who had returned to pay our little family another visit.  Yes, the spider from hell.  I call him the "crap your pants spider."  I saw him with my own eyes and then needed to change my pants.  Holy mama, that thing was huge, hairy, and beyond CREEPY!!  This time I was not about to let Bryan just shoo him outside.  I offered to sacrifice one of my flip flops to the cause, but really--can you imagine the splat of spider goo that we would have had to clean up afterwards?  So, instead Bryan decided that a good long shot of brake cleaner would do the trick.  So, after drenching the poor fella, we took some more photos.

Tess's "show-n-tell" theme for the month of October is "something I found outside."  Oh, yeah, she's taking that sucker to school on Wednesday.

Sweet dreams everyone!

Bigger, and alive...

Do you remember when I posted the picture of the huge (thankfully dead) spider at Timpanogos Cave?  I said it was the biggest spider I had ever seen (except for tarantulas).  Well, I stand corrected...

Look what Bryan found in our garage this morning. Crapping my pants... (And he told me he DIDN'T kill it--he just took it outside, so neighbors--watch out!)

Thankfully I didn't see it with my own eyes.  Wishing/praying/hoping that I never meet him in person; the pictures are enough to thoroughly freak me out.

Conversation with a 2-year-old

Today we walked Tess to school, and on the way back home, Miles & I saw two boys in their driveway saying goodbye to their dad as he drove to work. 

Miles: they are saying "goodbye, Bryan!"
Me:  No, their daddy's name is not Bryan.  It's Ed.
Miles:  Oh!  Head?  Like Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes!
Me:  No, Ed.  It's short for Edward.
Miles:  Oh!  Short for head-bird?  There's a bird on his head!  Ha, ha!
Me:  Sure, Miles.

A Perfect Day

Today I had my first babysitting swap. A friend of mine is going to swap babysitting with me one day a month to go and do whatever we want, kid-free! (I hope to use my days to substitute at Tess’s school, but today was just a “whatever” day.)

It was a perfect day. I dropped the kids off at the sitter/school. Then came home and got ready in total silence. Next, I drove to Logan with my BFF. (I didn’t drive the mini-van; I drove the car. Yippee!) I listened (loudly!) to a radio station that I loved, not the children’s sing-along CD.

In Logan, I went shopping. For clothes. For me. With birthday money. Awesome!

Then we went to lunch and had yummy, fattening Mexican food, with real Dr. Pepper—not Diet.

While my friend had a class on campus, I visited a few old haunts. I ran into my “head teacher” from when I taught preschool at USU, and I had a good long visit with my aide from when I taught Kindergarten at Adams Elementary. Then I spent a few minutes people-watching on the quad. (Man, did you know that they let high school kids into college now? It was so weird; everyone there was about 14-17 years old, I swear!)

We finished the day with some frozen yogurt.
 Now I have more yummy, fattening Mexican food to look forward to for dinner. (Bryan is gone tonight so I get my leftovers for dinner!) I have already decided that after the kids are in bed tonight, I’ll read my new novel in a big bubble bath.

I cannot think of anything more perfect than today. What’s your perfect day?

Zoo-wall-ogy

When we got the "big bed" for Miles, we decided that we needed to redo some of his wall decor.  I thought his new bedspread had a bit of an animal print look to it, so I decided to decorate with some wild animals.  I looked for framed prints, but couldn't find stuff I liked, stuff that would cover a large enough wall area, or stuff that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.  So, I remembered a trick that I learned from an old friend about putting fabric on the wall as decor.  I have done it in Tess's room and it worked really well, but the shapes were pretty small; the animals I had in mind for Miles' room needed to be BIG.  But I went ahead and gave it a shot with animals in fun patterned prints...it turned out great!  Here are the animals I did:

Mr. Monkey

 The King--Lion

 The Grrrraffe  (that's how Miles pronounces it, with a hard 'g' as in goat.)

 The Turtle and the Magonfly (again, Miles' pronunciation)

 The dangling snake...

 As you can see from this picture the animals are quite big.  Miles is really enjoying it so far; he even says "good night" to his animal friends before bed.  It's pretty fun.

Big Boy Update

Well, he didn't get out of bed and wander around; whew!  However, I was awakened at midnight by a big thud and much crying; oops!  He fell right out.  So, I dragged out the crib mattress and put it by the side of his big bed--then at least he'll have something soft to land on if/when that happens again!

Our Big Boy!

Well, we figured that it was about time to get Miles a big boy bed.  He's 6 months older than Tess was when we moved her to her big bed, and he's a lot taller than she was.  He was basically touching both ends of the crib, head to toe, so it was time.  But he loved his crib--he never tried to get out of it; in fact I have seen him climb into it before, so I know that he's capable of climbing out but he just doesn't have the desire.  Last night he actually was kind of sick before bed and threw up, so I was holding him and snuggling him because he had a sore tummy and he whispered up at me, "Mama, put me in my kib."  (Yes, it did make me a little sad.)

We knew he couldn't stay in there forever, so we went and got him a big bed today, along with some new bedding.  We surprised him with some Spiderman sheets and he was so excited about them!  He got kind of mad at us when we put on his bedspread because it covered up Spiderman.  Anyway, we just went in and peeked at him and he is zonked out, happy as a clam with Spiderman.  I hope that it'll take him a very long time before he can figure out that all he has to do is stand up and walk out of his room.  That is not a battle that I look forward to.  In some ways though, Bryan & I think that we may never have to fight that war like we did with Tess; he has such a different personality than her and he seems to not push his limits the way that she does.  So, here's hopin' that I'll hear his sweet little voice in the morning like I always do:  "Mom!  There's a 7 on mine clock!  Time a wake up!"   (And hoping that I'm not awakened by a little face, inches from mine, in the middle of the night....every parent has had that experience and it's quite terrifying.  You know the one--you're sound asleep, and your room remains silent but somehow you just know that someone is there, and then you open your eyes and see someone else's eyes boreing two holes in your head, just inches from your face.)  Although, I guess if it's this face, then it's OK...

Timp Cave

We hiked up to Timpanogos Cave this afternoon.  I had only been there once, as a kid, and Bryan & I have been talking about doing it for years now and we finally did it!  (We had reservations 3 years ago, when I was pregnant with Miles, but we had to cancel because Bryan & Tess ended up getting crypto from a swimming pool, which led to much barfing and pooping, but that's a story for another day!)

Anyway, we went today and it was wonderful!  The weather was not too hot and the kids did great.  We had the kid carrier backpack, but Miles didn't get in it at all on the way up, and on the way down he only got in for about 10 minutes before he asked to get back out and walk!  I was really impressed with both of the kiddos because it's a pretty steep hike.

Inside the cave is pretty cool (literally and figuratively!)  It was so interesting to see the rock formations, and to think about how slowly they form.  The guide told a story about a worker who started working there in the 50's who joked that he wouldn't retire until two certain rocks "kissed" (the rocks were called "Cinderella" and "Prince Charming" and they're only a few inches apart, one growing up and the other growing down.)  Anyway, this worker would measure the distance between the two rocks once every decade.  In 58 years, they only got 3/8 of an inch closer together!  Needless to say, he retired.  They won't "kiss" for a few hundred more years.

Bryan sneaked these pics of me with our critters on our way down.  Awwww...

I had to include this picture just because this is the hugest spider I have ever seen in my life (except for tarantulas.)  The finger gives you perspective.  I don't like spiders very much (who does?) and I would have been much too freaked out to have my finger that close, except luckily, the spider was dead and was currently being eaten by a whole bunch of ants.  (shudder...)

Kindergarten!

Tess started Kindergarten today!  A few days ago she was still not excited about school because she just wanted to go back to her old preschool, with the friends and teacher that she loved.  But we had "Back to School Night" a few nights ago and she finally got really excited about Kindergarten.  She went right in and found her spot at the tables and she didn't seem scared or nervous at all.  It's really weird having her gone and I think Miles is really missing his playmate; Mom just isn't as fun (or nearly as energetic about things like doing flips on the couch...). 

Here's Tess in front of the tree.  (They've both grown since last fall!)

Getting right to work on the 1st day.

On the way out the door on the first day--all smiles!