Rock'm Sock'm Fun

Last night, our dear friends, Keith and Kris Dierkes came over for a late dinner and a few toddies. Audrey was in bed by 7:30 and our night owl, Grant, was in our room watching PBS Kids instead of sleeping so we figured we would play a friendly game of Wii bowling. Of course, Ms. Pro Bowler, Kris, creamed all of us! But fun was had by all. Well, after we had bowled two or three games and polished off 2 or 3 drinks, Grant decided to come out to see what all the commotion was about. Of course, he wanted to get in on the action so he challenged his dad to a game of "punchin"! Well here is a picture montage of how the match went down...
Alright, Dad...I'm ready to ROCK!

ding, ding, ding...FIGHT!

Grant gave Duke the one-two kablooie. Look at the fear in Duke's eyes as he tries to block the beating!

Ooohh, and now he's gonna fight dirty!

Oh, yeah. Take that you filthy animal!

KaPOW! 1-2-3-4-5...

...6-7...you're gonna looooose, you're gonna looooose!...-8-9-10!

KNOCK OUT! Just look at that smug look on Duke's face! He was so proud he just beat a 3 1/2 year old! Hasn't he ever heard of letting the little kid win so he feels good about himself? Guess not!

Grant had a blast, but ended up staying up WAYYYYY too late and getting up MUCH too early this morning. He was quite crabby today and we had a funeral in Brainerd so it did not make for a fun day today. Lesson learned.

Can't post without sharing a few of my little Toots! I got my new Canon camera so I have been playing around with it all week thus not having much time to sit on the computer. Anyhoo...these are just a couple of Audrey playing before bed time last night. Just climbing around, enjoying her nukie.

Uh oh! Mom just snagged my nukie!

You better hand it over of someone's gonna lose a finger!

Ahhh, I was just foolin'!

Speaking of losing a finger. Today we were wrestling around and I was tickling her and thought I saw a glimpse of something in her mouth. Lately I have been thinking it is weird that she had her 4 front teeth for so long, then she got her 5th one on the top next to her two front teeth about 3 weeks ago and nothing else. Well, I stuck my finger in her mouth to feel around and to my surprise, she has 3 molars and is working on a 4th! Holy cow! Not sure how I missed that. In the process of feeling around, she chomped down on my finger with her front teeth and almost brought tears to my eyes. Little stinker! Maybe her teething is part of the reason she has had such a runny nose lately! It has been 3 weeks of non-stop boogers! All I can say is ISH!

Just want to remind everyone to hug their kids tight and give them an extra smooch tonight. The funeral we attended today was for Duke's cousin's wife who suddenly passed away on Monday. She was only 31 and left behind a very loving husband and 4 beautiful children, one only 12 days old. Such a terribly sad story, but also one that makes a person realize that although times are sometimes tough, things can always be much worse. My heart goes out to the entire Long family. My thoughts and prayers are with you tonight and always. God bless.

Toilet Talk

Okay, I suppose you are wondering why in the world I would want to talk toilet. Well...because I want to brag. NO, not about myself on the toilet. Can you guess who???? And I am certainly not talking about my husbands bathroom manner. Nope, not Grant either, although I do wish he would gain some nocturnal bladder control. So who does that leave??????? I'll give you one more guess...

Yep, you got it! My Little Miss Toot went POTTY on the BIG GIRL POTTY tonight!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe less than a month ago I was posting her 1st Birthday pictures. Crazy! She has been learning so much this month and really beginning to show her personality.
She has also started responding to questions. I have noticed that if I asked her if she is hungry, she now nods "yes" and goes over to her high chair or if I ask her if she needs a diaper change she nods "yes" and walks into her room to be changed. So, the other day, Grant was going potty and I asked Audrey if she had to go. She nodded yes so I figured, "Why not?" and set her on the toilet with the little seat. She wasn't sure what to think and just sat a few seconds. Then tonight she did the same thing but sat there a little longer. Then, after dinner, I was telling Duke about her progress and I said, "Tootie, did you tell Daddy what you did tonight? Did you tell him you sat on the big girl potty?" Then I asked her if she needed to try to go potty again. She nodded and walked into the bathroom so I followed along and decided that if she was willing to sit it was worth a try. So she sat on there and was giggling and swinging her legs and acting all cute. Then all of the sudden I heard a tinkle tinkle!! Yippee! I was so excited and she thought she was the Queen of all Queens!
Duke and his siblings are each 15 mos apart and were all potty trained before the other one was born so I guess it is possible. Lets just keep our fingers crossed! Here is another picture showing how independent she is becoming...

Yes, she now eats with a spoon...or at least she tries. She actually did really well on Sunday with Mac & Cheese. Oh, and did you know that Tootie goes to school already? I enrolled her in a toddler ECFE class (4 sessions) so that she and I can have come special one on one time. She really enjoyed the first night and even got to see Claire, her neighbor/BFF (okay OFSF...only friend so far!). I brought my camera, but the battery died after 2 pictures (BAD MOMMY) so this is the best picture I got of here at school.

This is just a cute picture of her playing with and egg carton. Not sure why I bother buying the kids toys when they would rather play with trash!

Oooh, and check out the serious curls she is getting. This picture was taken after her bath last night. It is so cute and curly right away, but then it flattens out after she sleeps on it. Nothing a little mousse can't fix!

And last but not least, I figured I would treat you to a little video of Crazy Head Daisy playing in the laundry room. She loves to make noise and she figured out that if she beats on the washer it makes all kines of noise!

This is another video of her playing in the laundry room and just being her cute self!

Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into what Tooters has been up to lately. I better get to bed. Big day tomorrow, training in the Cities and Lori Line Concert tomorrow night. Yeah for a short week!

Halloween Mini Book

If you asked me 2 weeks ago if I scrapbook I would have responded, " I have in the past, but no, I don't have the time or the room for all of the stuff that goes along with it." So, I guess I was wrong. I decided to try doing a mini book (with a little persuasion from a gal named "Mo") She started up a side hobby of selling kits on ETSY and then posting a tutorial on her blog (mojoy). If you ever get a chance check out her blog. She is a super cool lady from Louisiana that I met through her nephews Jake's caringbridge site In June 2007 I had the opportunity to travel down to LA to meet Mo and the rest of Jake's family in person and to attend the 1st annual Shake for Jake (a fundraiser for the Jake Owen Raborn Foundation That is a whole nother story but boy, I am giving you with all kinds of interesting links tonight.

Okay, back to the scrapbook... I went through and scanned all of the pages of my book so that I could share it with you all. Hopefully you are able to see things okay, but I am guessing it may be a little hard to read some of the words. This is the cover (as if you can't tell!)


Grant really had a great time painting and carving pumpkins. He was in awe of the "guts" of the pumpkin. You should have seen his reaction when I told him we were going to eat the seeds. He thought we were going to eat them with what he called the "hair" on them! He actually started gagging when he looked inside the pumpkins and got a whif of the smell. Funny kid.

Just check out the look on his face after he scooped a handful of pumpkin guts out!

I think I shared a lot of the Halloween pictures with you already in a previous post so I won't comment a whole lot on them.

If anyone asked Grant what his sister was, he replied, "Mary had a little lamb."

And if they asked what he was he would say "I'm the Transformer Bumblebee" I screwed up and stuck the letters on the "right" way but you get the picture.

I bought those silly eyebrow/moustache glasses at the dollar store so that Duke could have a "costume" but Grant had more fun with them!

Grant and I baked muffins for him to bring to daycare for Halloween. He was my little helper and enjoyed licking the beaters.

Shortly before this picture, he grabbed the mixer and turned it on and a whole bunch of cake mix powder sprayed all over the counter! We cleaned it up and were able to get this really cute picture of him. And check out those muffins. You can call me Betty Crocker if you like!

Her is Miss Sis entertaining me while the boys were out trick-or-treating. I actually think Grant was the one trick-or-treating and Duke was actually trick-or-beering!

This is the last page. The picture actually pulls out of a pocket in the page. Cool huh! (I stole that idea from Mo!) I love that picture because Grant was all hyped up on sugar and the excitement of Halloween and the picture really captures it all.

Hope you liked my mini book. I am planning on doing a fall one from the pumpkin patch, etc and also a Christmas book. Now we really need a bigger house because now I need a craft room too!