The A and M Experience

Exercise is good for the soul

2009-02-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

Scott got a new exercise bar. The kids love to help him exercise.

Megan likes to exercise also. She even grunts and makes faces as she does. She is actually pretty strong.

Newest Family Member

2009-02-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

Meet Brian!

Okay - I didn't choose the name. Scott started calling him that so Adam did and I can't get Adam to change his name. He is so cute and starved for attention I think. He follows me all around the house. Not sure what kind he is we got him at the Humane Society. We thought it had been long enough without a dog. The kids were acting afraid of dogs they met especially Megan. She was to young to remember Buddy. They both are getting used to Brian. Adam will even play with him. I have almost taught him to sit today. We think he is about 2-3 years old so he hopefully is out of the puppy "chewing" stage. We even think he is already housebroken. He hasn't hiked his leg up on anything in the house yet! We took him for a walk yesterday and he did so well on a leash. When we let him off the leash while we were at the park, he stayed right around us and didn't run off. The kids don't bother him. If he gets annoyed he goes to another spot. Here are some pictures of our first day with Brian.

Well, I can't get my upload pictures button to work so when I do I'll post the rest of these pictures. Sorry.

Christmas

2009-02-09T04:40:00.001-08:00

Christmas this year was the best yet. All of my sisters were home with their families. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve. Everyone came out to our house. We played games (of course). We had soup and sandwiches for supper (of course). Then we went to church (of course). Funny thing this year - so many people were confusing me and Carmen. So many people came up to me and said how much we look alike. After church we had Christmas with my side of the family. It was so much fun with the kids this year. I just smile thinking about it. Everything was exciting to Adam - even clothes!

Christmas morning was so wonderful. It was just the four of us. Their little faces looking at all that was under the tree and that Santa had eaten his cookies and drank his milk. These are the moments I want to remember forever. Megan went right along like she knew what she was doing. She just watched Adam and did everything he did. I just can't say enough how cute they were! I know they are my kids and I'm a little prejudiced.... Oh yah - I finally got a new wedding ring after losing mine in AZ. Its so pretty!

Later Christmas day we went to Scott's mom's house. Its always crazy fun there. We had a good dinner and then opened presents. Megan got a doll that makes sounds when you put the pacifier in her mouth. She also starts to close her eyes and it looks a little creepy. After presents we played games. We had so much fun.

Then on Saturday we had Christmas number 4. We went to my parents for our extended family gathering. The weather was so nice. Here is Adam, Sylvie, Aunt Mandy and Uncle Jeremy sword fighting in the front yard. Somehow Uncle Jeremy won this battle. I was so happy to have both my sisters here. Its so great to see them and spend time with them. It was wonderful to have Grandma & Grandpa there too.

A finally, just barely in January, we had our final Christmas celebration. Scott's Dad came down. He had some problems before and couldn't come any earlier. But we were glad to have them here. Max, Megan and Adam are seen here opening up an Elmo chair for Megan. I think all the kids helped all the kids open their presents. And that concludes our many Christmases.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrggghhhhh Pirates!

2008-11-04T04:17:00.000-08:00

Pirate Adam

How safe is that? Give a 4 year old a stick, blindfold him and tell him to swing it!

The whole pirate crew

Pirate Dad

Megan thinks she is just as big as the big kids.

Adam & Grant on the Pirate Challenge!

We had a wonderful day for Adam's birthday. Its crazy that he has better weather (warmer) than Megan at her birthday. As if you can't tell our theme was Pirates! Scott and I were up the night before making swords out of cardboard and duct tape - and nobody killed anyone the next day! I also made bandannas with a skull & crossbones and red sashes for everyone. I even found eye patches and earrings. Some kids wore them - others didn't. Our first game was the Pirate Challenge. Scott set up an obstacle course in the backyard. They loved it. Even after we had served cake and ice cream they left that to play on the obstacle course some more. Then we went on a scavenger hunt. I took pictures of different things around our yard and used those as clues since 99% of these kids can't read yet. Our treasure was the pinata. Everyone had fun with that. Then we had cake and ice cream. I made a pirate ship cake. All Adam wanted on it was a skull & crossbones. I've never put so much frosting on a cake before! When we finally got to the presents Adam did real good. He is learning to get the card first so we know who its from. When he opened Grammy's present, which was some superhero walkie-talkies, there was also some batteries in the bag. Adam pulled out the batteries and was sooooo excited! The look on his face was hilarious! It was a great day. I can't believe my baby is 4!

Big Girl Megan

2008-09-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

Yee Haw!!!

What? I'm not doing anything!

I just love to eat!

Megan is just growing so fast. She is doing everything brother does and she is on the go go go. She can almost run. She is just getting her 4th tooth. She doesn't want to be fed anymore, she has to do it herself. She is finally starting to look at books herself. She likes to dress up and talk on her cell phone. Her hair is finally growing too. I can actually put a clip in it now - not that she keeps it in. She also is getting her temper and starting to throw tantrums. What else would you expect from a daughter of mine?

Sooooo Excited!!!

2008-09-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

I just had to write a quick blog and then get to work. I am sooooooo excited!!!!! I just got back from buying an outfit for our anniversary night out and I bought a size 7/8 jean!!!!!! I haven't worn that since pre-Adam! I had almost given up hope. That's all!

Cooking for a month?!

2008-09-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

My friend Amanda and I have been doing once a month cooking for a couple of months now. For the past two months we have picked out around 7-10 meals and took one day to cook them. This brilliant idea came from a book she had. So this month we decided to go with this authors plan. Basically we ended up with 35+ meals. Oh - My - Gosh - was it a mess. I'm not joking when I say I think we dirtied every dish in her kitchen. This was last friday. I had to get up at 5:00 that morning because I didn't do all my "prep" work the night before because John McCain's speech was on at the RNC and I couldn't miss that. So at 5:15 I'm headed to good ol' Walmart. (Thank goodness they are open 24hrs a day.) Got home and started cooking just a little after 5:30. About 10am we took our kids to Mom's Day Out and I moved all my stuff over to Amanda's house. I felt like we were moving along pretty good - but then we had to pick up the kids. This is whats wrong with our plan. We don't want to pay for daycare (okay we're cheap - why do you think we are doing this to begin with) so we are trying to deal with kids, who we thought would take really long naps since they played so hard at Mom's Day Out. Yeah right. Adam never took a nap but he still did pretty good since he just likes to watch movies. So about 5:30 I am trying to get ahold of Scott to come get the kids. He makes it over and I send some food and the kids home with him. All the while we are still cooking. Amanda finds out her husband isn't going to be home till late so she takes her son over to my house for Scott to watch. Eventuall we break out the wine - it has been a really long day. So once we get done cleaning up her kitchen she helps me get all my food and supplies to my house and clean and put everything away. I finally set down at 11:30 PM! What this author says should take 6 hrs took me 18 1/2 hours..... I know I'm sounding like I'm complaining but I'm really not. I haven't had to cook yet and the meals have been pretty good. Once we get the hang of this I know we'll go faster. I'm sure it would go faster if we each cooked in our own kitchen but whats the fun of that?

Movie Time

2008-08-28T08:38:00.001-07:00

So I've found out that my friend Arica is now related to me. We are something like 3rd cousins twice removed by marriage or something. Anyway we went to see Mama Mia last Sunday. IT WAS GREAT! We laughed so hard. I had seen it on the stage when we lived in Tucson and loved it then. I'm trying to figure out if I can see it again before its out of the theater here. I know whats on my Christmas list this year!

First Day of School

2008-08-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

Today was Adam's first day of school. Once he got his backpack on he was pretty excited. This was the one day he actually slept past 7am and I had to go in and wake him up. Go figure. It was such a BEAUTIFUL morning we walked to school. As we walked we got stopped by the police. No we weren't speed walking, he just saw Adam with his backpack and we told him we were on our way to his first day of school. The policeman stopped and got out of his car to talk to Adam and give him a police badge sticker. Once we made it to school and in his room he found toys and kids to play with. I kind of hung around (I'm not sure why) but he was already busy so I eventually left. Neither one of us cried. I'm so proud of us! It was fun picking him up. He was talking about all he did. Of course they had a snack, played and sang Going on a Bear Hunt. I think we are all ready for him to take this step. Later today he had tumbling class. And in a little while he has a birthday party to go to. He is a busy little guy.

Mom & Dad

2008-08-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

Scott and I have been playing golf like crazy this summer. Well, he always does but now I have the bug. I try to go out at least once a week. I think next summer I might join the ladies league. Not that I am good but I really enjoy it. It's nice to be outside. I think golf courses are pretty. Even the ones around here. The club we belong to is so neat. We can take the kids. Adam is pretty good at hitting the ball. Megan even knows what to do with a club and a ball and she tries to make contact. Its been nice too because Scott and I have found something we can do together without kids. He has been teaching me. And no - it hasn't led to the end of our marriage. He is a pretty good teacher. I guess our philosophy is to just have fun and relax. We will be playing in a couples tournament next weekend. That should be fun. So anyone who wants to play with us let us know. We are always up for a game!

Like Mother Like Daughter

2008-08-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

Megan is growing and changing so much. She now has her 3rd tooth coming in. She weights 22lbs! I can even clip a bow in her hair. She is starting to get an attitude. (not like her mom or anything) She will scream bloody murder if she can't do something like get the backpack off the hook or get a certain toy out of the toybox. She is starting to pester her brother too. Twords the end of summer Megan really enjoyed the pool. She wasn't afraid of anything. So far she is still taking 2 naps a day but I am thinking about getting it down to one - if that will help while Adam is in school. She still is a very good baby that likes to dance, play outside and eat. I'm so thankful the weather cooled off so we can spend more time outside. She has eaten so many tomatoes this summer. She will eat cherry tomatoes by the handful. I love it! They are the easiest thing to feed your kid.

End of Summer

2008-08-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

I can't believe the end of summer is already here. It went by sooooo fast. I guess thats what happens when you get old. I can't believe it but Grammy and I took my baby school clothes shopping. He is getting to old. He picked out a Spider Man backpack. He had his first school physical: 3'3" & 31.5lbs. Still a little guy. I think he is ready to have this interaction though. We'll see how mom handles it!

Always something new

2008-03-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

Wow - just found this post that was saved as a draft 3/08. Its over a year old but I thought I would post it anyway. Not sure the video works though.

Megan loves to use her walker. She gets going pretty good. She would probably walk all around the house if she could just turn it. Another big milestone: Scott found her first tooth! She is just cutting it. She is way earlier than Adam. I used to think he would never grow any teeth.

More pictures

2008-03-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

Saving her snack for later
What? Do I have something on my face?
Thinks he can pee anywhere now!
Just today - all tuckered out!

So long --- no type

2008-03-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Valentines Day!
Look I can crawl!
Adam loves his snow boots!
Adam helps Megan get a snack. Mr. Handyman

Ya know I read all these other blogs and they are so clever and funny. I am just not that creative and our lives are just so darn boring! So here goes some catch up.

Feb 2 Megan said DaDa this morning while Dad was holding her

Feb 11 Megan stood up - pulled herself up all by herself. I was starting bath water and she grabbed ahold of the tub and up she popped!

Feb 17 Well, its official Megan is crawling. I had some time while Adam was out of the house to clean the floors. I set Megan down but she wanted to be held. The good mom that I am I just let her cry and cry and scream and snot. She finally got so mad she started to crawl! She crawled all the way around the couch. Real crawling - tummy off the floor!

Feb 17 Adam got removed from Sunday School this morning. So far he's been removed from Veggie Connections, Sunday School, and the library story hour twice. Man - the 3's are way worse than the 2's. I don't think its anything but him just being a 3 year old boy.

Mar 5 Adam had his first dentist apointment. He did so good. We went to a super goofy pediatric dentist in Wichita. He was really good with the kids. Adam sat in the chair so good and let them clean his teeth and give him a flouride treatment. He really liked drinking out of the water pik. Of course he got a goodie bag with an airplane among other things. We went to Yen Cheng for lunch afterward because Adam wanted chicken and rice. It was some good mother/son bonding time. I was so proud of him!

Mar 11 Megan is "cruising" now. She will also walk with her walker toy. Scott says she'll be walking in 5 weeks. We'll see!

Mar 12 Adam burned his leg on the exhaust pipe of dad's motorcycle. Poor kid. I don't think it is bothering him ( after the initial pain) now except when I have to put the medicine and bandage on. If I can just get him to quit picking at it. Yuck!

Adam has also starting tumbling class. He is doing pretty good. I hope it will be a way for him to learn to follow directions - oh and of course burn off some energy!

So that is the up date on the kids since my last post. I, like most every other mother I know, have been dying for spring weather to come. These past few days that the weather has been nice has been real uplifting for my spirit. As far as Scott and I nothing new except that we made a mad dash to TX a couple of weeks ago to get me a new truck. Scott decided the van was starting to fall apart so he found a good deal on ebay. He loves his ebay! It was a long drive for the kids but we made it thanks to portable DVD players!

Here are some random pictures:

One of these days I'll figure out how to do a different layout and how to edit my layout but for now I guess the pictures will be at the top!

Snow day

2008-02-02T03:41:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from our lastest snow. Man it was cold. Bitter cold. Adam loves putting on his snow boots. He will run around the house with nothing but them on. He got a new snow suit from Brenda and loves it to. The only bad thing about it is he stays so warm that he never gets cold and wants to go inside. Mom on the other hand only has some windpants and long underwear. I get cold pretty quick. Megan was so cute in her snow suit! All I kept thinking of was Randy "I can't put my arms down!" I sat her up in the living room so I could put my coat on and just a few seconds later she fell over. I brought the boppy outside so I could prop her up for a few pictures. I really had to wedge her in. I almost didn't think I'd get her out.

I shoveled part of the driveway and sidewalk in the morning and Scott finished it for me in the afternoon when he got home. He got to get out and do snow removal here in town. I don't know what it is but I love a clean, completely shoveled drive.

This was the first snow Megan and I have gotten to get out in this season. I don't think she thought to much about it except that she doesn't like it in her face. Adam was trying to hold onto her in the sled and accidentally got some on her nose and cheeks. We walked over to the park to sled. Adam is funny running and diving onto the sled or just in the snow. Megan even got to sled a couple of times. It was just so bitterly cold that we didn't stay out for very long. Man, I'm ready for summer!

Sorry a couple of the pictures are sideways. I got them on the page before I realized it and can't figure out how to switch them:)

Potty Training

2008-01-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

Just in the past few weeks Adam has taken to potty training. I found his hot button. Movies. He loves to watch movies and tv. So I designed a potty chart. He had to pee 5 times in order to watch one movie. Pretty soon he got the hang of it. We got all different kinds of stickers for him to put on his chart. Really we haven't had too many accidents either. We did have one bad day when we went to Wichita but I won't gross you out with the details.

So now I am looking for advice. Last week Adam got taken to the nursery during our usual Wednesday night Veggie Tales class because he wouldn't sit still and listen. So we had a talk about listening to teachers. Then Thursday morning I thought he would get some experience in by going to the story hour at the library. Well, 10 minutes into that they had to remove him because he wouldn't sit and listen. So when we we got home from there I cut out all tv and we listened to calming classical music and tried to do some different activities. I know he is only 3 but he should be able to sit and listen to a few stories. He does fine at night when I read to him. So thats our struggle right now.

Megan is doing wonderful. She had her 6 month checkup last Friday. She weighed 17lbs9oz. She is a very healthy girl! She is rolling all over now. She sits up very good. She will get up on all fours and rock a little. It won't be long now before I have to have everything picked up out of reach. She loves to watch Adam. He'll run through the house and she'll just laugh at him. She is still sleeping through the night. We have had revival at church this week and have gotten home late every night. I hope this doesn't mess up her schedule.

As for us, Scott is still working crazy hours at the ethanol plant, and I am just trying to keep up with his schedule. Boy we're exciting! Oh yeah - I just had my hmph birthday last week. Gotta love those!

Christmas Vacation

2007-12-28T21:30:00.000-08:00

The time has finally come. I am now attempting to blog. HeHeHe! I thought this would be easier to keep family updated with pics since I am so bad about sending them.

Christmas this year was so much fun! Adam is now of the age where he understands who Santa is and what he does. For about a week before Christmas he would wake up from a nap or in the morning saying that Santa was here and the reindeer were on the roof. He is still talking about Santa working at his toyshop today. Adam got lots of dress up clothes. He can now be a pirate, doctor, cowboy, construction worker, train engineer and any combination of those. He loves to use his imagination now. Its so fun to listen to him playing and to play with him. Megan really didn't care what was going on so much. She just enjoyed watching everyone and trying to put anything and everything in her mouth. We had Mom & Dad spend the night Christmas Eve. The kids got to open one present before we went to church (wonder what that was?!) After church we stayed up too late playing cards. Christmas Day we went to Jennifer & Lawrence's. What a party. There were so many people there. It was so nice to have Scott home for a whole week(except being called in on Christmas Eve for a few hours). He got some good rest which he has been needing for quite a while. I hope his job will let up soon. I feel kind of lost this week since most of our regular activities are cancelled. I'm ready to get back on schedule. I guess I'll see what the new year brings.