Tanner and Oreos

So for those who don't read regularly, Tanner is a gagger. He's having a hard time doing the whole chunky solid food thing. He's amazingly talented at maneuvering a small piece of carrot out of his mouth, but not chewing and swallowing. However, I'm thinking the kid is smarter than I'm giving him credit for. Perhaps I'm just giving him the wrong foods because when he got a hold of one of Lana's oreos this afternoon, this is what I found...

No that's not facial hair and yes, I'm aware that he needs another haircut.

Here's Tanner charging me trying to get his sticky, oreo encrusted fingers on me and the camera.

Cute little stinker!

Wow...

6 1/2 years ago when we lived in Greenville, SC they had only 2 or 3 spanish speaking members/investigators that needed translating. Paul took over those duties for the 2 1/2 years we were there. When we left Greenville there were about 8 regulars attending the meetings. Here they are 3 years later and they have now organized a Spanish Branch. How very humbling to have witnessed this from the beginning. Thank you to our friends back in Greenville for sharing this with us!

Things of note

A few things I've learned over the course of the last few weeks:

• Tanner is not a good teether. You know when he's teething when he starts grinding his teeth together and gets incredibly fussy. Also, I must have a good stock of Tylenol for nighttime or he will only sleep in 4 hour increments.
• Tanner is a good shopper. I dragged him all over creation for about 4 hours today and not one peep.
• Lana is one smart cookie, but she doesn't discriminate. She wants to be a princess for Halloween this year. Lucky for me she's happy with the $13 princess dress instead of the $50 one.
• Lana is a picky eater. Unless she's starving. When she's starving she'll clean her plate and probably some of mine.
• I need to be a better plan-in-advance person. The weather turned cold this week and it was only then that I realized my kids do not have any pants or long sleeve shirts to wear.
• Tanner can now say "mama", "dadda" and "Lana" which sounds just like "mama" but with his tongue sticking out.
• Lana has finally accepted that there is such a thing as a number 4. For the longest time when counting, she would always leave out the number 4. Today I heard her counting to 10 (trying to race Tanner across the floor) and was happily surprised to hear the number 4 in there.
• Do not put your bread next to the case of soda in the trunk. You will most likely end up with a flat loaf of bread. Anyone have any suggestions of what I can do with a flat loaf of bread?

Feet fascination

So Tanner has this strange fascination with Paul's feet. No one elses. Just Paul's. When Paul sits down on the couch, Tanner will go straight for the toes. Or when toes are unavailable, he goes for the shoes. It is a little on the funny side, but is being discouraged because lets face it, feet fascination is just gross.

FHE

Mondays are usually my clean-up-after-the-weekend day which involves pretty much cleaning the entire apartment and doing laundry. It is all day encompassing. Yesterday however, I took a break and while Tanner was down for his 2 hour nap (which is when I'm able to do the bulk of it) I played with Lana instead. By the time evening rolled around most of the apartment was still found wanting. Everything only half done. So instead of preparing our FHE lesson I was cleaning and folding and putting away while watching DWTS. Afterwards exhausted, I flop down on the couch looking forward to watching my tivo'd Chuck, Lana says "Mom, we need a lesson". (Need is a favorite word of hers BTW, I need a sucker, I need a cookie, I need candy.) Unsure of if she's actually referring to FHE I ask her "Lesson?" And she proceeded to tell me in Lana jibber-jabber language about how in another lesson we learned how we need to say sorry (which was actually 2 weeks ago). I am continually amazed at the things Lana learns as we teach her.

So our lesson last night was "I can be Happy".

We colored our happy/sad faces. Lana loved role playing with them and when it was time to clean up she took the pictures and placed them on each of our nightstands. It was extremely cute. So a big Thank You to Lana for helping a tired mommy and daddy remember to have FHE.

The Pumkin Patch

Dinosaur Sprinkles

For years, Paul has been asking me to find Dinosaur sprinkles for his birthday cakes and for years I have put forth only enough effort to look at Wal-mart or Kroger. Last year after hearing Paul's complaint, a friend of ours ran across some Dino sprinkles and picked us up a pack. So here we are, after so much disappointment...

Complete with Dinosaur Sprinkles.

And Lana enjoying the spatula afterwards.

Happy Birthday Paul!

I let Lana choose the picture we put on and she said she wanted the one with the "Ewephant". Thanks for being such a great husband and dad, Happy Birthday! We love you!! ~Michelle, Lana and Tanner

Priceless facial expressions

Caught in the act

Really no need for an explanation.

FHE

So we've been having some issues with listening the last couple of weeks. ie. drawing on walls with chap stick, hitting Tanner and frequently taking toys away from him. So our FHE lesson tonight was on "I can obey". We made puppets and acted out some scenarios with them. Somehow Lana ended up a boy and Paul ended up a girl, which ended up looking like an Umpa Lumpa but made for a good laugh.

$2.67 gas

A note from Paul
OK so I bought gas yesterday for 2.67 and I was thinking...man that's a good deal, that was until today when I saw it for 2.61! I feel very blessed to be able to build homes in a market that isn't struggling as much as others across America. It is very hard to watch the news nowadays and not get depressed. It is little wins like 2.67 gas that lighten the day. You know what is really sad...nearly 10 yrs ago I was driving my CRX, filling up 1 time every other week for less than 10 bucks...

Tagged...

6 unspectacular quirks of mine:

1. I can go months eating one type of cereal for breakfast everyday. However I can only do it with CocoKrispies and CocoPuffs. It would be so helpful if they were a weight loss food.

2. I hate monkeys. They're gross and dirty and if I had a choice, I would skip the monkey exhibit at the zoo. I also hate the movie/series Planet of the Apes. I think it all stems from 2 monkey incidences. One time on a field trip to Hogle Zoo the monkeys in the middle of the park were known to throw their poo at passers by. I, thankfully, was never hit but have always been very wary of passing by any open monkey cages. The other incident happened at the Atlanta Zoo. It's pretty disgusting so give you the option of reading or not. If you choose to read it, just highlight the following text with your mouse: We went into the gorilla exhibit (which was not thankfully an open cage). The one closest to the window would throw up into it's hand, lick it up and then throw it up again. I about lost my lunch right there.

3. I am efficient. If given a task I will find the most efficient way to accomplish it. If I am going from point A to point B and Paul takes the most inefficient way to get there, it bothers me. I am much better now about keeping my mouth shut however and just let him drive where he wants. Sometimes it ends up that he makes a wrong turn and he asks me why I didn't say anything. I just continue to keep my mouth shut.

4. I am naturally a very cluttered person (my dad will attest to this, probably too readily). However, I have become quite the neat freak from shear necessity after going from a 2300 square foot home to a 1300 square foot apartment. I literally go crazy (and quite grumpy) tripping over the clutter/toys/granola bar crumbs and am now constantly picking things up and putting them away. I guess there is a positive side to living in an apartment.

5. I am an internet junkie. I have a hard time going one day without hopping on the 'net to read the news, blog surf and a bunch of time wasting activities. I rationalize it by doing it (mostly) early in the morning before the kids get up and at night after the kids go to bed.

6. I used to like my hair. It curled nicely and straightened easily. That was until I moved from the dry desert to the humid south. Now all I have is a frizzy mess which is why I mostly wear it pulled up.

Now I tag Suzie and or Steve, whoever feels more inclined to do this!

Checkups

So we stopped in at the Dr.'s office today. I don't want to jinx it, but I do want to say what good luck I've had choosing Dr.'s because I tend to choose blindly without knowing anyone who sees them or anything like that. Amazingly they've all turned out to be great people and we've had good experiences. Our new doc here is young and a guy which is a bit of a change for me, having only had female docs, but good for Tanner. (Paul was definitely pro-male doc) I think however, that I will switch Lana to a female Dr. since she's not pro-doctor anything anyway. She cried the entire time he was doing the basics, which is nothing new. She has always done that. I blame it on the crinkle paper. That's usually what set her off when she was younger. I was extremely happy with my first experience here. Compared with when Tanner was born we waited 90 minutes in the last peds practice surrounded by sick kids and here I was with my 9 day old baby. (I still get mad thinking about that) Today the longest part of the visit was waiting for Tanner to pee into a bag, which was a new experience for me. Never had to do that with Lana. In fact I'm not sure Lana's ever had to give a pee sample.

Lana 3 year stats: 31 lbs. - talked to the Dr. about her feet. Looks like she has no arches and says he will talk with the podiatrist who also works in the clinic to see if anything should be done.
Tanner 10 month stats: 21 lbs. - he's moving very well, looks like he will be walking soon. Doesn't have as many teeth as Lana did at this age and is still gagging on thick foods. Everything seems to be fine down in his nether regions.

Sharing

And I didn't think she was paying attention to the Family Home Evening lesson we had on Monday.

We had ice cream cones for dessert last night and this is Lana sharing hers with Tanner. Once the ice cream gets below into the cone, she likes to eat it with a spoon. Hence why she has a spoon while eating an ice cream cone in the first place.