My Kids Give Me....

Anxiety. Really, I should be medicated. Anyone know a good doctor, have a good drug recommendation? I won't tell, it'll be COMPLETELY anonymous, I promise! No, really, I love my kids to pieces, but sometimes I find myself having an out of body experience looking at a situation thinking. You've GOT to be kidding me. Like the time when Cam wanted to go play at our next door neighbors house and he just WALKED in their house like he owned the place, or how Drew finds it necessary to growl at me in public when he doesn't like something I say or do. Or, when Cam rubs sunscreen on the tile, or how someday we're going to have to have a wad of half-chewed up gum the size of a soccer ball removed from Cam's stomach. Seriously! It's funny, how even after all of these experiences, I have learned to let things just roll, and when I say roll, I mean I'm not hiding in the closet rocking back in forth singing It's a Small World After All. I think...I think, I'm on the path to enjoying the journey. In fact, I had an experience this morning that would have pushed my fragile self over the edge and came out happy and proud of myself (and my cute kiddos). TJ is out of town this week at scout camp and it's been hard for me to work out in the mornings like I like to do and have been trying to do to get healthy and all that stuff. Well, I took the boys running with me today. I had planned on putting them both in the bike trailer/jogger, but Drew really wanted to ride his bike. All I could think of was him stopping and asking for water, or to go back 57 times during the run. I chanted "I am a hollow reed," a couple of times and just decided to roll with it. And guess what, I made it through, I MORE than made it through, I came home really happy. Drew asked for a drink once and wanted to stop once (right at the end), and I only had to tell him to get out of the middle of the busy and dangerous road 4 times, and Cam was as happy as a lark. It was. Awesome. I was so proud of my kids! I was proud of me too, I had my ipod on (with the volume down low) and was able to enjoy the outdoors, have fun with my kids, enjoy my music and in general start my day off wonderfully. So, the moral of the story is, I STILL should probably be medicated, so that I can have more of these experiences...Naw, I'm just kidding, no the moral of the story is, is that maybe I can handle it, maybe I can have a third kid sometime in the near future. Maybe it's ok that my house isn't spotless 100% of the time. Life's good, cause I'm learning to roll.

Happy Fathers Day Schmoozie-pooh!!

Don't laugh, we used to call each other Schmoozie-pooh when we were dating...cause we watched Monsters Inc. on one of our first dates. Anywho, I just wanted to write down my feelings for today. I am so lucky to have the husband that I do. He works so hard for our little family, and not just at his job, which he loves and is amazing at by the way. He started a business a year and a half ago, and it's thriving. He absolutely has built this to be what it is today and I'm so proud of what he's accomplished!! He is also super-husband. He helps in the house, not just every mothers day, but EVERY day. He does dishes on a regular basis, makes the bed, does laundry (albeit he will mix reds, colors and whites in one load every once in a while...) sweeps the floor, helps with dinner, cleans up kids toys. And he also has an affinity and LOVE for gardening. Seriously, come see our square foot garden and you'll see. Thanks to him we get bowlfulls of strawberries EVERYDAY and have broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, peas, cauliflower, and MUCH more coming our way this summer. Most importantly though, he's a great dad. He loves his kids and they love him to pieces. He loves to cuddle with them, wrestle and have tickle fights. He does cute things like take them to air shows at Hill AFB, take them on the frontrunner, he'll take him with them while running errands. He reads books to them, teaches them, and is such a sweetheart. I love you sweetie, I hope you have a wonderful fathers day!!

luv, luv

p.s. and on TOP of all this, he runs. He isn't some lame jogger like I am, ...no, no he ran the Wasatch Back this weekend and ran a total of 26.2 miles in less than 24 hours!!! A marathon. Granted, he can't walk right now, but what an amazing accomplishment. I'm so proud of you honey!!

Storm talk

With all the stormy-ness that has happened this week, Drew has become the expert in meteorology.  On Monday an awesome storm came in and this is how Drew explained it:  when it rains, a mean witch makes the clouds come and then when they bump together they cry, and then the teardrops come down to the earth.  Then this morning, we looked outside and I told him it looks like its going to rain, to which he said, no mom, when it rains the clouds are blue...the clouds up there are just a bunch of white ones stitched together (said while rolling his eyes).  Seriously, this kid is just too much!!

Our Day...

This is how we started our day...Drew came downstairs with "underpants" on his head.  He calls them underpants now (he used to call them undie-wears) because his friend Ethan calls them that....and so does scooby doo.  It's very funny.  It was really dark in our house, so I pulled him to the back door to get a photo of him. 

Tonight Drew had a My Kind of Music concert.  MKOM is what my mother-in-law Karen teaches.  She has several groups of kids from pre-school age up through 6th grade.  I didn't get that many photos of Drew because we had to sit SO far back.  But, I got some C.U.T.E. ones of Cam.  

This is how our day ended...on a high note, get it....high note...Drews concert was wonderful, despite having to sit really far back (because of all of the people who save seats 5 hours early!!) and the heat, it was awful!  Drew was really cute, the songs were fun.  My mother-in-law did a really great job!  

Sweet Little Babies

Look at the stinkin' cute baby birds we found in our tree...

More Funnies...

Here's Cam attempting to say "yellow" for the first time.....FUNNIEST. THING. I. HAVE. EVER. HEARD!!!!!  

Today, while we were running some errands in SLC, Drew noticed the cotton from the Cottonwood trees floating through the air.  He asked what they were, but before I could answer, he said, "I think they're pieces of clouds, or, or, orrrr (he stutters when he gets excited) or they're little baby clouds."  It was SO cute!  I love that he'd think of that.

Stevens Family Funnies

Here are some of the funny things my kids have said, or did recently:

Drews new way of saying Thank You:  "I'm so proud of you mommy, good job for getting my cereal."  

Cam has a blister on his foot from his crocs but he calls it a blisterd...I don't know whether to think of it has a swear word or a name for poo.

Drew is very bossy, manipulative, and an amazing negotiator (I love him anyway...but he's way too much like his dad).  He should be an AMAZING lawyer or salesman one day.  When playing with Cam, he often says, "Camren (I didn't mispell his name, that's how Drew says it and I have to be exact when quoting), we've talked about this.  What did I say."  (The sad thing is, is that I say the same thing to him, he just thinks that he's an adult)

Whenever I give Cam choices, i.e., what would you like for Breakfast, what book would you like to read, which movie would you like to watch, etc.  He responds with a thoughful, "Uh, hmmmm."  In a very high voice, eyes looking up and he even sometimes taps his chin with his 1st finger!!  This kid is a crack up!!

Drew tends to have a hard time with arguing, stopping the arguing that is.  He asked me for some 'nilla wafers and milk on the way home from the grocery store today and I said, please wait until we get home and don't ask again or you'll have to wait until after quiet time.  (That's me thinking, I'll nip it in the bud...yeah. hugh. right.)  So, when he asked me again, I said, sorry buddy, you're gonna have to wait until after quiet time, to which he threw a fit and then said, ok mom, I won't ask anymore I promise.  This cycle of asking, then promising not to ask went on about 12 more times.  After the ump-tillionth time of asking I (was STILL not yelling-good job me) I told him to stop or he wouldn't get to ride bikes (the ULTIMATE punishment) and he stopped talking and would rub his stomach when he though I wasn't looking.  Seriously...he just WON'T ever stop!!!

My cute friend Jan made the cutest quilt for Drew, it has all of these patches and the is frayed around all the edges, even the ones on the inside of the blanket (I don't sew, so I don't know how else to describe this or what it's name is).  Anywho, Cam has become attached to this blanket and has one particular edge he has to have whenever he sleeps or needs comfort and he's named this edge fuzzy. It's the stinkin' cutest thing ever!!