Since there's nothing else to blog about...

Someday, maybe I will be able to go on one of Brandon's trips with him.  For now I just get to see the pictures he takes and be happy that at least one of us got to go.  Brandon has a talent for capturing nature at its most beautiful.  And it doesn't get much more beautiful than Belize.  It's been more than a year since this trip and I'm still jealous.

This is kind of turning into a photography blog. Sorry.

I warned you.  I have been doing a LOT of photoshopping.  And yeah, I know there are a lot of black and white here.  It's just an easy way to fix a photo if the colors aren't interesting enough. 

I love Charlie's expression here.  He makes this face all the time.  Mom actually took this picture-- it's not from an angle I would have considered but I like it.

Charlie looks scared for his life, as would I be if I had Violet as a big sister.

This one is Mom's favorite.

Overlooked

I have free reign over Brandon's computer for now, so I have been looking through lots of old pictures for ones to photoshop.  Sometimes I see a picture once but I don't realize for awhile how beautiful it is.  I guess that's the great thing about going through old pics.  

I think this one looks like a painting.  It was a drive-by shot we took while we were in Montana, and the blurriness and crooked horizon may bug some people (I know it bugs Brandon).  But for some reason I love those little imperfections.

Johnston Canyon.  The pictures we took there never seemed to do this place justice, but this one caught a little of the ice blue water and beaming light.

Another drive-by shot.  People think there isn't much in Idaho, and in some parts it's true.  But there is value in simplicity.

Rialto beach.  I was in one heck of a bad mood on the way there, but once I stepped out of the car and saw this beach, even my stubborn pride couldn't keep me from having fun.

Catching up on the cameras

I'm not a very good blogger lately.  I could blame it on having a second child but that actually just gives me more to blog about, so that isn't the reason for my delinquency.  The reason is that whenever I get on my computer, Violet whines and begs me to let her watch videos of herself.  I know, she is just like me.  And when Violet is not whining at me, my computer usually refuses to let me transfer photos from my camera.  And let's face it, without cute pictures of my kids, nobody cares about my posts.

So we shall start the weekly recap with Valentine's day.  Ours was about as romantic as you can get when you're sharing your bedroom with 2 kids.  (Yes, that is still going on.  Is it sad to say that I've just gotten used to it at this point?) But Brandon got me a nice new rug for our living room and he played golf with Violet on it all evening, so it turned out to be a good day.

 

 The next day, Violet decided that she would force me into potty training her.  Yes, the day after I get a brand-new rug.  Perfect timing.  And how did she force me into this?  Turns out, all you have to do to force your mother into potty training you is to take off your pants and diaper every chance you get and run around the house naked.  So I said, "Okay, but you had better go in the potty."  And she did.  I almost took a picture of it when she did.  Yes, a picture of pee.  But it's not just any pee.  It's Violet's first pee on the potty.

On Friday Violet went to her cousin's birthday party at Stephen F. Austin state park in the pouring rain.  It was just about the cutest party I had ever seen.  But what did the kids get excited about?  Running through the mud, obviously.  This is what Violet looked like when she was all done. 

We found some dirt in her ear at church today. 

 Am I forgetting something?  Oh, yes.  I have a second child.  No, really, sometimes I forget. He's that good.  Violet has been really cute with him lately and sometimes she snuggles up with him when he is on the couch and puts her blanket over them both.  She then gives him a stuffed animal and puts his binkie back in his mouth whenever it falls out.  She's a very loving sister.

 Also, she has figured out how to take pictures.  Hehe.

 And this last one is one I found on the camera from when Brandon's family was here.  She got to try a space helmet on at Johnson Space Station. I thought it was pretty cute.

I'm drooling

It was a good week to be a mom.  It started out with Charlie's baby blessing on Sunday and can I just say, I have never seen a more handsome baby boy in a little white outfit.  I practically drooled over it.

 When Charlie sleeps (which is a lot) he keeps us entertained with his little sleep smiles.  They're small and fleeting, but I caught one here.  Again, I drool in adoration.

 Mega drool.  I never want to forget these tiny little rolls.

 Little glimpses of a personality are starting to show through on him.  He can recognize me (or at least I'm convinced that he does).  His eyes follow me (roughly) across the room and when I come and play with him he smiles a lot.  He makes little happy noises and LOVES to cuddle. 

And my other child-- she is fun, too.  I take advantage of every holiday because she gets really excited about celebrating little things.   On Monday she helped me make a little Valentine's box and on Wednesday she went to a party and came back with it overflowing with love and candy. 

 Later that week it was raining so we stayed inside and made a tent in our living room.  I gave her a bowl of Craisins and a pillow and let her watch the Lion King.  She was one happy girl.

My monsters

Whatever happened to my newborn? He turned into a giant chunk of "I take up half the couch." Mmmmm... I love chunks.

And Violet? She is still insane. She convinced me to buy Oreos on Monday and the next day I found her with a bajillion of them on our coffee table, opening them and just licking the cream out. Lately she has been under the impression that I will buy anything she sticks in the cart. Maybe that's because it's true. It doesn't take much to convince me to buy Oreos.

She has been delighted by all the rain here. I can't blame her. I did the same thing when I was little.

Is it bad that I'm jealous of her legs and she's 2 years old? What am I going to do when she's 17?

I'm not sure what to make of this face.

The happy puddle splashing was just the calm before the storm. It's a good thing that I don't mind being stared at, because I've had to carry her to the car screaming quite frequently this week. She REALLY didn't want to leave those puddles.

The pictures on my blog tell a lot of lies.

I used to be honest. Down-to-earth. Realistic. But from the looks of my last post, now I'm just one of those moms who does nothing but post cheesy pictures of her kids and talk about how precious they are. Someone shoot me now.

So maybe I should tell everyone what the past couple of weeks have really been like. They started off with a 2-day stay in the NICU for what was really just a bad case of the sniffles. (Okay, so it was RSV, but there was no fever and his lungs were clear.) That was followed by our insurance company telling us that even though they charged us for Charlie's coverage, they didn't actually add him to the plan. (insert angry conversation with insurance company here.)

We came home from that and everything was back to normal for a few days. Then Saturday morning we noticed that Violet's carpet was a bit sloshy. As you probably know, sloshy is not a word you should ever be able to use when describing your carpet. So we had to pull her bed and everything else to the front of her room and pull up the carpet by the wall (the paint on the wall was also bulging with water underneath.) Apparently a pipe had broken in the wall. On Monday some workers came to fix the pipe by tearing holes in Violet's wall, exposing rusty pipes and moldy plywood, and leaving us without running water for the day. Luckily I have a friend a few units down, so I was able to run to her house and use the bathroom from time to time. The last time I used the bathroom, however, the workers finished and left while I was out... and they locked me out of my house. I had to jump the fence onto our porch to get back in, and after that we went to HEB to get some groceries. When that was done and I came back to my car, I realized that I had lost my keys and couldn't get home. (Not to worry-- I had a huge bag of Julios chips that I emotionally purchased to keep me company.) I sat searching my car for the keys with a screaming baby for about 30 minutes before I finally remembered to check the cart we had used-- by some miracle, they were still in there. After that I figured I had earned a BerryHill fish taco. (And that makes twice that I mention rewarding myself with food. Maybe next time I should reward myself with a strenuous workout.)

And right now our family members outnumber our bedrooms four to one. The emotional eating might be going on for awhile.