Kaitlyn's sensitive side.

This morning a few things happened that I had to blog about. They are just so sweet!
The kids woke Nathan and I up by playing loudly in James' room. I heard them talking about St. Margaret Mary school, but really didn't know why. I heard James say, "When I am 5 I get to go to school at St. Margaret Mary." Kaitlyn replied, "I get to go to St. Margaret Mary too!"
When I walked in and was talking with them, Kaitlyn pointed at their school toy set and told me, "This is St. Margaret Mary!" SO sweet.
Yesterday, the kids both went to school and both brought home the paper Scholastic book order forms. James, for some strange reason, grew very fond of these tiny booklet and wanted to keep it forever. It was on the floor of the family room while the kids were munching on Cinnamon Life. Unfortunately it was in range of Kona's back paw when the dog decided to scratch himself, and his claws ripped the corner off of the back page of the pamphlet. All hell broke loose in James' world.
He cried and cried and cried. I tried to explain to him that it was just paper and it wasn't meant for us to keep forever. "It's something that you can look at to order books, but then you're supposed to throw it away." I tried to reason to him.
Kaitlyn says to him, "James, are you sad?"
"YEEEES," James cried.
"You should have Mommy hold you." She told him.
SO SO sweet! She is becoming more aware of how other people are feeling! At a different point this morning when we were up stairs getting teeth brushed and I was changing a dirty diaper on Kaitlyn (YES- still using pull ups- that's a whole different story), James was mad at me and she told me, "I want to go give James a hug." Unfortunately she was mid-changing and I couldn't let her get up or I would have. She's such a girl!!! ;) I love it!

Potatoes Tomatoes.

Kaitlyn LOVES tomatoes. She doesn't like potatoes. However, she can't seem to get it straight that tomatoes aren't potatoes.
For months now, she has called tomatoes "potatoes". We'll say to her, "Kaitlyn, these are NOT potatoes, they are TOM-A-TOES." She repeats, "tom-a-toes." Yes, good job.
Next time, it's the same thing all over again. She knows too, she KNOWS that she gets it wrong and now is starting to try to get around trying to actually calling them what they are.
Tonight's dinner was a hodgepodge of things. I put together plates for the kids, James got zucchini leftovers from last night (with chicken and rice) and Kaitlyn got a diced tomato (also with rice and chicken). James doesn't like tomatoes, and Kaitlyn isn't so fond of zucchini, so I humored them a little and gave them what they liked.
Nathan had the pleasure of putting the plates down on the table in front of the kids. Kaitlyn got excited when she saw the bowl of chopped red things that she loves so much sitting in front of her.
She said to Nathan, "Are those potatoes?"
"No, Kaitlyn, they are not. Tell me what they are."
Kaitlyn replied again, "Potatoes!"
"No, try again."
"(insert mumble here)-ta-toes."
We laughed a bit under our breath, and then Nathan said to her again, "Tell me what they are Kaitlyn and then you can have them."
Then she busts out with, "Just trust me, Daddy."
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Seriously... potatoes/tomatoes.... what a cutie.

Polishing off the house!

This was a conversation between James and me on the way to school this morning....
James: "What are those trucks there, Mom?"
Me: "Those are landscaping trucks. They are bringing trees and bushes to plant to make that new house's yard look pretty."
James: "Our house isn't pretty."
Me: "You don't think our house is pretty, James? Why not? What can we do to make it pretty?"
James: "Make it sparkle."
Me: "How do you think we could make it sparkle?"
James: "Wipe it off."
Me: "Are you talking about the inside or the outside?"
James: "Both the inside AND the outside."

So apparently, to make your house sparkle, you need to wipe it off. ;) There is your DIY project for the weekend.

Look at me!

Kaitlyn has been doing one of those "copycat" things lately, and it absolutely cracks me up every time.
If she tries to tell me something and I'm not looking at her she says to me, "Mom. Look at my eyes." and then starts in with whatever she was going to say.
:) CRACKS me up.
I won't be reporting on the bad things she picks up that I do or say. ;) LOL.

She is making progress with "going" on the potty. It's still a hazy road that lies before us... but it's becoming a bit clearer. I just keep thinking, NO MORE DIAPERS! YESSSS!

In other news, James was officially accepted into St. Margaret Mary Catholic School! My heart swells with pride as we start this journey with Christ as the center of his education. How sweet HE is!

Kaitlyn and James see the Easter Bunny!

Dying Easter Eggs!

We had a lot of fun today dying eggs for Easter tomorrow. The kids really enjoyed it... I think Nathan and I enjoyed it a little too much too. ;)
This is the first time we dyed eggs at our house as a family!! Happy Easter everyone!

Easter is upon us!

James and Kaitlyn have been on spring break this week, but someone (Barbie-:)) posting on FB that their daughter had a dream that she died reminded me of something completely blog worthy.
Easter is coming, and The Methodist School that my kids attend are very good at telling the kids about Easter and what it means.  Jesus died upon the cross for us....
If you read back to one of my blogs a month or two ago, you'll read about how once I told James about my brother's cat having to be put down.  "Speedy died today," I told James.  He replied, "Upon the cross?"
Well, last week, probably because of all the "Jesus died upon the cross" talk at school, James asked me as we were getting ready to go upstairs to bed, "Mom?  When are you going to die?"  *Thunk* my heart hit the floor.  I told him, with my most honest sincerity, "James, honey, I don't know.  Nobody knows when they will die, but honey, you don't need to worry about that."  I'm pretty sure my mouth hung agape after he turned around and walked up the stairs.
Kid, you're only 4!  Why are you starting to worry about that already?  I remember when I was a kid and that feeling of anxiety of not KNOWING when my parents could die.  I would worry, worry and worry, that something bad would happen to them and they would die in a car accident or something.  Poor kid.  Him asking me that brought back all of those feelings of uncertainty that I used to have as a kid. 

James has packed our bags for us, and he's sending us out to live somewhere else.

James... poor James.  He was so tired today.  He must not have gotten nearly enough sleep last night.  He and I went over to my parent's house for dinner (crab! yum) and we didn't get home until 9.   He went to bed then, but got up a bit early for a usual morning around here, which was around 7.  Yes, I know several of you moms out there want to kill me right now because sleeping IN until 7 a.m. is a luxury to some of you, but just keep in mind the hell we'll go through when he starts Kindergarten next year. ;)
Anyway, he was tired.
He and Kaitlyn were fighting a lot this morning while our nanny, Mimi, was here.  She had told me about it when I got home from my amazing, kick butt workout at the Y *hooray*, and they were still bickering as she was telling me.  After lunch time it got pretty bad, so Mimi made the ultimate decision that both of them needed to go take naps.  This went over like a lead balloon for James. 
"I am NOT going upstairs!  I am NOT taking a nap!" was what I heard from his mouth when I was upstairs trying to print my grocery list.  Then I heard Mimi call my name.  "Meredith... he kicked me."
UH OH.  NO, you didn't James... :(
I hauled downstairs and put him on the naughty step immediately which sent his verbal rant up about 50 decibels. 
"I am NOT going upstairs to bed. Mommy is NOT a good girl.  Neither is Mimi.  Mommy is usually a good girl but NOT today.  I'm going to do something to them.  I'm going to send them to bed with NO dinner."
Oh the foreshadowing irony.
He didn't nap, but he did rest.  Kaitlyn didn't nap either.  Sigh.  But, at least they rested, and then later Mimi took them to the park to get the ants out of their pants for about an hour.  She said they didn't stop once... which showed on their red faces when they got home.
Enter dinnertime.  While they were gone at the park, I had made Broccoli Cheese soup and a Chicken and Rice Casserole (Paula Dean on FoodNetwork) that has lots of fun stuff in that is very good... to some people. :)
James has been complaining about dinner pretty much every night.  He makes gagging sounds when he sits at the table (although it's totally fake), and says, "YUCK!"
I had mentioned this problem to a few of my girlfriends the other day and got a few good pointers.  One was that I should explain to him that when he says that he hurts my feelings... like it would hurt his feelings if I said that I didn't like one of the paintings that he made for me.  The other was a much more stern recommendation....  She told me that if he complains, take his dinner away and ask him to leave the table.  I tried explaining to him about the "feelings" a few times before today, but it just didn't seem to sink in.
After about 10 minutes of all of us sitting at the table and James not eating and complaining, I did it.  I took his meal away and put it by the sink.  "Okay then, if you're just going to complain, you won't eat."  Of course he started howling and crying, and then I told him that he was excused and he had to leave the table.  Then he pipes up mid-blubber "... But I think I'm ready to eat my dinner now."
I looked at Nathan, and we agreed... too late kid.  You had your chance.  This sent him wailing and screaming off to the couch.  Then he started in with the verbal stuff again, telling us, Nathan and me, that we had to go live somewhere else and that he was NOT going to eat EVER again.  Ha! 
Nathan took him up to take a bath and put him to bed.  He cried through his whole bath.  He spent a while hanging out in his bed and talking, then started asking for me to come upstairs.  "Mommy, I'm hungry."
"Sorry James.  You didn't eat dinner, you just complained so I took your dinner away.  That will teach you a lesson.  Go to sleep." He talked me into, well, more or less I talked myself into, giving him a drink of water and tucking him in.
Humph.  I'm happy this day is over.

Only a month!

Okay, it's been ONLY a month since my last post. UGH.  I'm a loser.
However, I do have an excuse.. ha.
I have been facilitating a MOMS group and a retreat at St. Margaret Mary for the last 8 weeks, and now that it's over, I should have more time to blog and keep you all updated on what is going on in our lives.  Facilitating the group and retreats at SMM are a bit time consuming, then when you throw in a part time job, two kids and a husband to cook for and take care of, life gets busy.  No, I'm not complaining, I'm just "sayin'".
Kaitlyn is three now, and I do plan on posting about her birthday, plus pictures, so stay tuned.  She's still struggling with potty training, she's finally interested in actually sitting on the little potty, but we've only made a small amount of progress.  We were planning on trying to keep her in undies this weekend, but due to a last minute shopping trip yesterday/evening, and then her throwing up this morning (???) it's just not getting done.  She may have a tummy bug, so we're on a holding pattern for a while.

Kaitlyn's speech is getting better and better.  She is fine tuning her sounds, and when she talks she sounds like a kid instead of a toddler.  My baby... she's growing up too fast!  She is still Miss Independent, she has to do everything herself... and if you don't let her... watch OUT.  Tantrums'R'Us.

James is doing very well in school, he still loves it so much.  In fact, it's Spring Break this week, and I'm not sure what we're going to do with him! :)

Class Easter parties

Pics from the kids' Easter parties at school!
Kaitlyn had a class egg hunt in the courtyard. You should have seen the place, there were WAY too many eggs... and not enough hiding spots! Ha.



Kaitlyn and her class (she's in the middle on the ground):
James makes a paper maché egg, ONLY with green tissue, of course!
Mrs. Roach reads an Easter story to the kids... where is James? He must be in the corner behind Mrs. Roach... Hmmm.
James eating the frosting off of a cupcake. I made the treats for the class this year! Cupcakes and sugar cookies. I was up 'til midnight. Ha.

Blog? What blog?

Wow... sorry followers.  I'm slacking!

Kaitlyn's 3rd Birthday Party!

Our sweet girl turned 3 on March 15! Here is a video of us singing to her, and quite possibly, the world's longest "blow out the candles" session, EVER. ;)

We love you Kaitlyn Beth Wilcke... aka Kaitlyn Bef Wiwke. :)

Disney!!!

Here is a series of photos of our kids' FIRST trip to Disney!!! :) We sure had a great time! We went with the Devitt family. Ted is my cousin on Mom's side. He and Jen have two boys, Riley and Carson. They are SO adorable!


Waiting in line to drive the cars... although we had to actually leave the line since they shut it down due to pretty bad crash that required a stretcher. Yikes.

On to DUMBO!!!







I LOVE this shot of the boys!




An HOUR and a half later:

Kaitlyn's face when seeing Mickey and Minnie at the "Meet Mickey" house...

We meet Mickey and Minnie! Never mind James' need to go to the bathroom. :)


The Parade!

Look! There is Woody!

James is excited for the parade! Strange look on his face! :)

Kaitlyn holds her new Snow White doll.


Time to chill on the monorail.

... and ZONK. Success.

Bobble Head James!

I still have YET to post the pictures from our trip out to Disney with the Devitts for Kaitlyn's birthday. BUT, I do have this to show you!
This is James trying OH so hard not to fall asleep on the way home. Notice Kaitlyn's rumbling snore coming from the other side of the car. ;)
FACEBOOK PEOPLE: Click on "view original post" to see the video on my blog.

The Olympics and Lemonade

James has taken an interest in the Olympic downhill skiing when it's on the television.
I just turned on the television to see if I could catch some of the recaps of the figure skating, I wanted to see some of the gold medalist's performance.  Instead, cross country skiing is on.
James saw this and he was audibly excited, "Yippeee!" he said.
I thought about him learning how to ski and told him, "James, if you want to learn how to ski, you can learn when we go to Utah."
"No," he replied.  "I want to be a lemonade seller."
I laughed, hard.
"I want to be a lemonade seller like at the Farmer's Market... and then when I'm really really really hot, I want to ski."
That was followed by a chant, "Let's go to Utah! Let's go to Utah!"
:)

Off the charts!

Nathan measured James the other night after dinner because he's been eating a lot lately.  We thought that maybe he'd been in a growth spurt.  Sure enough, he's grown.  Remember, he's 4 and won't turn 5 until June, 4 months from now.  He's measuring 45 inches in height (he almost takes up the entire bathtub when lying down).  Nathan wanted to see how he was comparing to other children his age, so he looked up the percentage charts online.  James is OFF the charts for 4 year olds, meaning he doesn't even fall into the percentage range for 4s.  He is already at 50th percentile for 5 year olds and he's not even 5 yet!
Like Grandma Kathy says... those basketball scouts will be knocking on our door by the time he's 10.

Kaitlyn has an obsession with...drum roll please... cottage cheese.  She eats it every day and prefers it to almost everything except chocolate. ;)  Yesterday when we were at Publix I put more in the cart, and Kaitlyn was perfectly content to hold it in her lap.  Here are some photos for you of her latest indulgence.

Rah rah ah-ah-ah! Ro mah ro-mah-mah! Gaga Ooh-la-la!

We are in a ton of trouble.

Kaitlyn and I drove James to school this morning and since Kaitlyn is sick, she is staying home with me today.  On our way home Lady Gaga's Bad Romance came on the radio.  I immediately changed the channel since I'm not the biggest fan of Lady Gaga. 
AS SOON as I turned the channel, Kaitlyn says, "I want the RA RA RA song! I like that song."
"You want me to put that song back on Kaitlyn?" I asked.
"Yes!"
When the song came back on she was happy as a clam... she seemed to think that the melodic part of the refrain was a different song and wanted the ra ra ra part again, so I assured her that it would be back.  When it was on again she'd say, "There it is again, Mommy!"

So... we're in trouble because my two year old's two favorite songs are Tic Tok by Kesha, about clubbing, alcohol and sex, and Bad Romance by Lady Gaga about love and revenge.  AWESOME.  Ha ha ha.

Movie Night!

Nathan and the kids and I watched Peter Pan tonight.  We have never all sat down and watched a movie together.  It was so fun!  I even made chocolate malts for them... and for me, a protein shake (gah- I know... but I did put a little bit of ice cream in it and a small amount of malt powder).
I have not watched Peter Pan in a LONG time, it was like watching it for the first time.  In fact, it may be the first time I'd ever watched it from beginning to end. 
It was sentimental... our family, complete, sitting together, watching one of the most classic movies of all time.  THIS is what I never want to forget.

Foreshadow to Teenage Years!

For lunch, this is what James just ate:
- two mini cinnamon raisin bagels smeared with thick layer of cream cheese
- a cup of apple sauce
- a cup of green Jello
- a string cheese
- three handfuls (my handful) of chocolate Teddy Grahams

What am I going to do when he's a teenager?!?

Terrible Twos?

Kaitlyn lost it this morning. She loves her "lipstick" which is hello kitty clear lip gloss that I bought for her on clearance at Target. She really really loves it. She is obsessed with unscrewing the cap by herself and putting it on by herself, and it takes her a while to do this... as it should a two-year-old. Sometimes my patience for this runs thin....
We were running late this morning and needed to get out the door for school. She was still in my bathroom holding the tube of lip gloss and insisting that she put some on by herself. I told her that since we were running late, either A. Mommy would help her do it quickly, or B. She wasn't going to get any lip gloss. Ooooh that made her mad. It was the kind of tantrum that requires a bit of restraint to get her to stay in her seat in the car to get her buckled, and restraint from the belt to even think about putting her socks and shoes on. It was a tough one. I held my own though, and eventually she did calm down once we were driving to school.
I posted a blog about a week or so ago about how Kaitlyn likes Tic Tok by Kesha. Well... I turned the XM station away from my favorite station to see what else was on and whamo, there was Kesha. IMMEDIATELY, Kaitlyn says, "I like this song!"
I giggled and left it on the station (I'm a bit ashamed to admit I like the song too, even though the subject matter is SLIGHTLY inappropriate for a toddler's ears-ha). Every time the refrain would come on Kaitlyn would say, "Hey, it's that again!" She sure likes to jam in her car seat to Kesha. Ha.
She threw another tantrum while getting out of the car to go into school today too. Usually it's a piece of cake to get her out of the car and handed off to a school staff member to walk her to her classroom. Today, though, she acted like it was the first day of school again. I guess she just wasn't having it today.

When I picked up the kids at noon, I picked Kaitlyn up first and then swung around to the other side to get James. Mrs. Magough (is that right? Sounds like McGoo) put James into his car seat.
He looked at her and said sweetly, "I love you Mrs. Magough." It was precious. My sweet little boy!