July activities

I told myself I wouldn't make my posts monthly yet again I have!

At the beginning of the month, we went to Alabama and visited Brian's parents. The kids had a blast and Sydney keeps saying, "I want to go back to Grandma's house!" She had so much fun.

We splashed in Grandma and Grandpa's blow-up pool:

We went to a fun local library with lots of fun play centers for the kids:

Aww, Sydney saw this photo as I was posting and said, "Grandma Tuck! I really love Grandma Tuck!" Awww

We went blueberry-picking and got a whole bunch of them! We had blueberry waffles with blueberry syrup there in Alabama, brought some home and had blueberry pancakes for days!

We went to a fun water park:

And of course, celebrated July 4th! I know we are so blessed with our freedom in this country and that there are many dedicated men and women who have given their lives for that freedom. I feel very patriotic to this beautiful country when our Independence Day rolls around and I think of the history we have, of fighters, of those who hoped for a better world. It's not a perfect country, and I am still hoping for a better world, but there are traditions and past events to honor and respect and the lives of those who put the needs of others above their own is definitely one.

Once we got back from Alabama, it was back to the usual routine for us. I watched a friend's 3 children, 9 months, 7, and 9 Mon-Thurs in the morning. Sydney and Jonas had a blast with them. Always a lot going on when they were over!

My last day with them over was Wed and I have been slacking off since. When they were coming over I made sure the house was clean every day and I'm afraid I have let it go since! But I plan on getting out and about a bit more as with the 5 kids, I couldn't go places with our car. So I have plans to keep Sydney and Jonas busy!

Jonas has started showing interest in the potty. I still wouldn't say I am ready to potty-train him but he likes to sit on the training potty and have me hand him toilet paper to "wipe" himself even though he hasn't gone. He actually has done #2 on the potty twice now though so there's definite promise there! He loves this potty book we have, too so I'm hoping it means it won't be too difficult when we do decide to train him!

More. Jonas loves signing this when eating. Sorry this video is in the bath tub but I was snacking while watching them bathe and Sydney and Jonas of course wanted some so we thought we would record him signing it.

My nephew Brendon also had his birthday last Friday. He's 6 now and we got some fun shots of the kids singing and playing.

Brendon likes Spider-Man. Can you tell? He's wearing the Spider-Man gloves we got him that make webbing sounds as you flick your wrists.

Singing some Disney karaoke. 

Birthday Cake! Happy Birthday Brendon!

Yummy!

I love Jonas' curly hair but there are some curls right above his ears that give him a kind of Bozo the clown look that I am not a fan of. So, I thought for his first cut! I would trim those pieces of hair just a little. Brian took video when I would have preferred photos, and then the camera turned off while he was filming but this is what we got:

Jonas wasn't too bad and then I was cutting Sydney's hair afterwards but he wanted me to keep cutting his hair!

I MESSED UP big time on Sydney's bangs I was trying to trim and I don't really want to take a picture of them. I just hope they grow back quickly!! She was so good-natured about it though. She just looked in the mirror and said, "I look silly!" and laughed. Too funny. And graciously, no one at church today said anything.

Brian starts school next month! I can't tell if he's excited or not but he is ready for the work and knows he's leisure time will be limited. He turned 31 on the 14th but we didn't do anything special for his birthday. He had just had tooth surgery a few days before and was drugged up still on his birthday so we just had a cake and watched a movie at home. But we'll make it up to him!

I am having a really hard time getting hours to tutor this summer so the babysitting income has been a lifesaver for us but also my digital-scrapbooking income! Last month I made a little bit more from tutoring than I did from my business but this month, I'm going to make twice as much from my scrapbooking at tutoring and this month I have also made the most I ever have in 1 month from scrapbooking! I am really excited! I'm opening up a new store at a bigger online scrapbooking site and am very hopeful it will open up more opportunities and am just really feeling better about all the time I devote to this love of mine.

Sydney and I are already talking about her birthday (like mother, like daughter) and she's getting pretty excited. Pretty much anything Rapunzel will make her happy! :)  We're looking at a bunch of stuff and I'm hoping it helps her stay happy as she again got sad because it was Dad's birthday and not hers!

I'll try to post more often and not these once-a-month marathons! but enjoy!

Family Visits and Hole in the Ceiling

I've neglected my blog recently. ooops. It's been a fun month and a fun/interesting month to start the new year!

The year started out great with my parents and youngest sister visiting. I also had lots of cousins, aunts and uncles visiting as well.

It had been about 8 months since I saw my parents and a year and a half since they saw Sydney but affection for them came easy to Sydney and Jonas!

During their visit, I was driving home at night and saw there was something in the road, at least I thought I saw something. Before I knew it, I was running over it and it instantly popped my two left tires. I began swerving and it was hard to get the vehicle off the road and to a stop as I was going 60 mph when I hit what we later discovered was a tire hubcap. My older sister came and was able to take my kids home and my mom and grandpa stayed with me while I waited for the tow truck. As soon as I got off the phone to call my parents and let them know what happened, I said a prayer of gratitude because I knew we were protected. There could have been other cars on the road while I was swerving uncontrollably making the situation much worse but as it was, no one was injured.

The damage turned out to be more than just two flat tires. The bumper had to be replaced and the actual wheels on the left side, too. I am grateful for insurance. It took 2 and a half weeks for the repairs to be completed. But we have our car back now and I couldn't be more thrilled.

We got a nasty electric bill in December so we decided to finally do something about adding more insulation in the attic. My cousin's husband James came to help Brian as they rented a blower and blew more insulation in our attic. I must have jinxed them as I was talking to James before they started and explained that my husband was like Tim Taylor and he needed to be the Al. I didn't want any ER visits that day. Well, we didn't have an ER-worthy incident but we did get this nice hole:

As a loving, caring and sweet wife my first thought SHOULD have been concern and gratitude that Brian DID NOT fall through this hole. But instead I was shocked and mumbled some kind of death threat. But, we'll get this fixed soon. I'm mostly annoyed that it's probably not going to look seamless and as wonderful as it did before. And yes, I am grateful Brian did not fall through.

Jonas had his 15-month check-up and all is looking great! He is 24 lbs 10.7 oz (around the 75% percentile), 30.5 inches (around the 25% percentile), and his head was 18.8 in (75% percentile). He and Sydney were both so great during the visit the doctor said I had sweet children :) I should let them hang out at his house sometime. But seriously, they are pretty sweet and I think they get along really well.

Jonas is just a ball of energy! He babbles a lot and a lot of words have that "bah" sound! "Outisde?" "Bah!" "Bath?" "Bah!" But really he sounds out a lot of words. I had fun a few weeks ago when I was telling him "You rock" and he replied with what really sounded like "I Rock". Still haven't been able to get a clear video of that though. He climbs on everything: the couch, the changing table (he can climb to the top), climbs into the bath tub, etc. He tries to put his shoes on his feet. He turns book pages with ease (board books), and he loves giving hugs. He gives "kisses" but they mostly involve sucking on your skin. He's made a few marks with a crayon on paper and loves to dance! Brian and I have an XBOX Kinect that can follow some simple voice commands. Jonas tries to say "XBOX" when we say that and also, the Kinect follows your body movement and to trigger that, you wave your hand back and forth. Jonas will stand in front of the Kinect and wave his arms to try to wake up the Kinect. Techno-baby!

We had a little scare with Jonas when earlier this month he got several fire ant bites while playing in my grandmother's backyard. He had at least 20 on his hand. I quickly got him inside and stripped him. We poured vinegar on the bites and rubbed some painkiller cream on his hands. He really took it like a champ the entire time. I gave him Benadryl for several days to make sure he didn't have a reaction. I'm so glad he didn't.

Sydney is loving being a Sunbeam and does pretty well about staying in her seat. She is eager to learn and we are trying to master the shapes, colors, and some letters of the alphabet. She knows "s" (has known that one for months), "j" (J for Jonas!), "b" and she knows the letter "m" is what "mom" starts with but she is still working on saying it's name. She can mostly count to 20 and when she takes her time she can count 10 objects. We've also been practicing cutting paper. I watched a friend's 3-month old a couple of times in the last few weeks and Sydney has been all ga-ga over him and very helpful with fetching burp cloths, etc. It's really sweet to see. She is also becoming very skilled at navigating her way around Brian's I-Phone! Sydney also had her first dental visit this month! She did such a super job and opened up nice and wide for the dentist. And got a clean bill of health for her teeth! Super!

I took my second mid-term for my Independent Study math course and it is such a relief to have that part past me. I studied every day for 2 weeks. It will be a while before I found out how I did but I feel it went well. I still have one more unit and the final to complete and need to get it done by April 2nd so as not to pay for the extension. After this course, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I feel like my only option is to pay out-of-pocket for this pre-requisite courses  to get into my grad program of choice but with our house we don't have the money for me to do that. I need to do some soul-searching and really contemplate where I want to go with this and what I need to do.

And some additional videos for your viewing pleasure.

New Videos on YouTube

I've uploaded some videos from Christmas and some of Sydney dancing! Check it out on my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MomijiMei?feature=mhee

Our Little Comedian- Ton of Videos

Bad News: Our water pipes froze yesterday morning.
Good News: A few months ago, Meagan starting collecting water storage in juice bottles :) And our water is back on now. Thank goodness for sweet landlords!

Sydney has really had a crazy personality lately. She makes me laugh so much! She mimics a lot of the things you say and do so there are often fake laughs and crazy faces. One day she decided the laundry basket was fun to play with so we got some footage of her dragging that around the house. Unfortunately, she tried to put the basket on her head and that is what scratched up her nose (the plastic edges around the holes are a little sharp, I guess).No this is not a yawn.
Look at this sinister but stinking cute grin!


Take a close look at the computer screen. She was banging on the keyboard and somehow changed the monitor screen so that the image was sideways. It was so annoying! The mouse was still in the same orientation so I had to move the mouse to the right to go up on the screen. Brian found out that hitting control and then the direction keys fixed it. I don't know how she does these things...
But you still gotta love her.
Big beautiful smile!


Grandma Tuck requested some footage of Sydney climbing into the chair so here that is.


Sydney does a tippy-toe dance now when she gets excited. It's so cute! (no audio)

And this video is of Sydney pushing the laundry basket all over the house.

To those getting this as an email: If you could not see any of these videos, please go to my blog, http://tucklings.blogspot.com and view the videos there.