To nap or not to nap?

I can tell you what my decision is -- to NAP!

I had the day off today (trying to use my vacation time before I lose it) and had plans for errands and such to run during the day.  I figured that I would drop the boys off at school for a little bit and take care of my stuff.  A funny thing happened -- they didn't fight this morning.  :)  I was putting things away and they were helping and, most importantly, not fighting with each other.  I scrapped my plans and just hung out with them all day at home.  We didn't really do anything in particular, we were just together.  That was enough.  :)

Back to my original topic -- nap.  Joe has pretty much grown out of naps and I thought James had too but he started napping at school again.  He doesn't go to bed when I want him to when he naps but he's much more pleasant when he does.  On our lazy day today I let the boys watch a movie in my room for rest time.  I could hear that napping was not going on so I decided to go in and lay down with them.  One fell asleep.  You would think 50% would be good, right?  Wrong.  That one was me.

I figured naptime was done then.  I was wrong.

 Can you see the little bit of drool?  I love it.

Well . . . it's evident James could still use a nap.  Where is he you ask?  He sat at the table to eat a snack and this is what I found.

 

That's the view from under the table.  When you're tired, you're tired.  (Don't mind the crumbs.)

Spring Has Sprung??

I'm pretty sure I was wearing a winter coat last week and then I turned my air conditioning on yesterday.  Only in Minnesota, right?  I think spring is here.  Or is it?  I could go right back to the big coat or deal with the flip side of over 80 degrees with high humidity.  Whichever it is we've chosen to take advantage of the nice days we've been having.  This past Friday we went to April's house to go on a walk with the dogs.  We then had an impromptu barbeque dinner in the backyard and played with the footballs.  Super night!

Look -- we got to break out the shorts!  Those are some white legs.

Bugs, bugs, bugs!  Looking for and squishing ants.

MY LOVES!

Mother's Day!

What a weekend!  Friday night movie night was great.  We first went over to April's house to take a walk with her and Bailey since we had Jackson for the evening.  We had a nice walk and then an impromptu dinner on the grill.  Great company, great weather, and great food.  When we got home we had another showing of Tangled.  Pretty sure I fell asleep after about 15 minutes. 
Saturday was fantastic!  The weather was beautiful with the boys very excited to wear shorts.  We took a very long walk with Jackson with a stop at the park to play.  We came home and had lunch on the patio and then James actually took a nap.  :)  Low key afternoon and evening with another movie.

Mother's Day -- it had its ups and downs.  There were a few more downs than ups, but I'd like to focus on the positive instead of the constant fighting, "I'm 2 and think I'm 15" tantrums, and pure sassyness.  Back onto the positive.  I got to sleep until 8 today.  Woo hoo!  I got to take a shower without anyone interrupting me.  We got in a little play time at the park before it rained but didn't have time for our picnic.  We came home and had a little living room picnic.  We got to spend some time at April's house.  We ordered pizza for dinner.  We watched the Amazing Race together and the kids went to bed without a fight.  Focus on the positive.  Like this:

 

Massive Meltdown

I posted something on facebook about this earlier last week.  About the massive meltdown that James had while getting his hair cut.  My previous post (about Joe's haircut) mentioned how James had a meltdown that I was cutting Joe's hair and that he was not getting it cut at Snip-Its.  The kids are big fans of Snip-Its.  I decided after that fiasco to not try to cut James' hair myself.  I thought I could avoid a meltdown (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) and I don't trust myself to cut with scissors which is how James needs the top cut.  What an ordeal.

We got there and had to wait awhile and James was a perfect angel.  "Is it my turn yet mommy?"  "No honey, not yet."  "Otay."  Then it was his turn.  The screaming started as soon as they put the little seat belt on him in the chair.  Many forms of distraction were tried -- they all failed.  His face was beat red as he screamed and cried out "I want to cut my hair at Grandma Judy's house" repeatedly.  Um, didn't you have a meltdown at Grandma's house?  I literally had to hold his head while the judging eyes of all the parents in the store stared at me.  Trust me, I wouldn't have done it if he was actually scared.  I know the difference between the "I'm scared" cry and the "I'm two and I only want to do what I want" cry.  It was a long process but we made it through the cut. 

James calmed down, they both got their prizes and suckers and then James apologized to the stylist.  I turned to thank her again on my way out the door only to have her tell me that I hadn't checked out yet.  That's right, I made her listen to my screaming child and try to cut his hair while he was all wiggly and then I wasn't going to pay her.  Ugh.  I felt mortified.  I was so happy that James had calmed down that I forgot all about the paying part.  I made sure to give her a bigger tip.  (so much for the idea of cutting their hair on my own to save money)

James was pretty exhausted after all of that and he fell asleep in the car.  (Note to self -- no more hair cuts on days that he doesn't nap.)  He normally wakes up when I get him out of the car but he just kept right on sleeping.  From 6 pm that night to 4am the next morning -- just in time for the royal wedding (or the cartoons that I turned on for him while I kept on sleeping). 

I didn't get any pictures during the actual haircut but snapped a few when we got home.

My attempt

I have all sorts of pictures to go through from our Easter weekend in Fairmont which I'll get to posting later this week I'm sure.  I thought I would share a piece of our weekend -- my attempt at cutting Joseph's hair.  We normally go to one of those kid hair places that costs $16 per kid (2 in my house) plus tip.  Of course they get their hair done at the same time so that means tipping two people.  I don't mind tipping and I don't mind paying for a good hair cut.  I just mind because my finances have changed.  My mom and Arnie had some clippers so I thought I'd try on Joe.  Joe looks better with short hair because his is thick and gets unmanageable when it gets long.  James' hair is better with a little length and I'm a little scared to do his.  In true James fashion as soon as I started cutting Joe's hair James threw a tantrum about how I couldn't do it and I needed to take him to Snip-Its (the normal hair place).  I made James take a nap and went back to finish.  It took me forever because I was terrified of having a bald child.  He did not end up bald.  Relief for me.  I'm have some control issues and I'm very particular about some things.  This turned out to be one of them.  I'm trying to let it go and accept that I didn't do to bad for my first time.  Joe's not crying at his reflection and no one is laughing -- that's success I guess.

The before and after.  Don't mind the chocolate mouth -- he got a treat for being a good "patient."

Ick

 

November . . . . . . . . . pretty

April . . . . . . . . . . . . icky

Egg-cellent Evening

I can't believe that Easter is next weekend already.  It seems to have come up quick even though it's so late this year.  We hadn't colored eggs yet so we got busy doing it this evening after the boys came home from their dad's house.  They didn't come out looking very perfect but they're perfect enough for us.

We only had one pink one because I didn't read the directions about how to make the pink dye work effectively.  Oops.

We got the dye ready.

 

 We put the eggs in. (and watched)

 

We took the time to make silly faces while the eggs were soaking.

We tried to take a family picture. . . go figure.

 

All the while Donkey Kong and Princess Peach watched.  Mario and Luigi couldn't make it because they're currently lost and Toad and Yoshi are in the infirmary but that's another story.

 

Then we took out the eggs and admired our finished product.  Nothing flashy, just plain colored eggs.  You know, like we used to do back in the day.  Our one little enhancement was to write our names with crayon. 

 

All in all, a successful activity with no fighting.  :)  The best kind of all.  Happy Easter everyone!