Car Wash

Yesterday, I decided to go out on a limb and see if the kids would help me wash the car. We are staying at my parents' house right now and when I get the organizing/cleaning itch, I usually have to stifle it and by the time we get home, sometimes it is no longer there! But I thought about it yesterday afternoon and decided cleaning out the car would be my Wednesday project.
When the kids napped, I cleaned out the inside of the car and when they woke up, I surprised them by telling them we could play in the hose water if they helped me wash the car.

I was surprised at how helpful they were. Of course, they were splashing and playing around half of the time but they did help me scrub.

 Their favorite part was when I would rinse the car off and I would "accidentally" spray them with the hose. We ended up rinsing the car 3 times and then scrubbing it again because they loved it so much. :)

 Petey thought it was so funny to step in the bucket and get her feet all wet.

Spidey was beyond happy to be helping me out and playing with water.

It ended up being the perfect "job" to do at the end of the day. The kids had a blast and I have a clean car. It teaches them some responsibility but they also get to have fun and play around. It was a really fun afternoon and I'm sure we'll be doing this again soon.

Black Bean Tacos, Mango Quinoa Salad, and Chocolate Popsicles

I wanted to start writing by apologizing for not blogging as often but then I realized that blogging is really all for me and I don't have any need to apologize.
Life sure is good about throwing curve balls at me and I feel like once I get used to one trial, Heavenly Father feels the need to give me something else. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, I know He is always there by my side to help e handle everything that comes my way.
So tonight, I wanted to leave you on a lighter note and show off some of my cooking skills.

I decided to make black bean tacos the other night. I would point you toward the original recipe I found on Pinterest but in the blog post was also a big fat F bomb and I'm not really into promoting profanity and since I actually changed up the recipe, I thought I'd give you my own rendition.

What you'll need:
6 corn tortillas
2 cups of shredded pepper jack cheese
1 can of cooked black beans
1 diced tomato
Olive oil

 

Now seriously, this is really simple. Mix all ingredients together except for the tortillas and the olive oil.

 Spread a little olive oil in your pan and let it heat up. Add a tortilla and spread some of the mixture from above on half of the tortilla.

 Fold the tortilla over and cook til it's starting to brown on each side. Mine needed about 2 minutes per side.

 Some of the mixture fell out and I just scraped it out of the pan and threw it on top of my tacos.

They were delicious and 50% of our family liked them! :) That would include me and my girly. Boss actually didn't get to try them and Spidey wouldn't even take one bite.

 Here are the kids' plates with half a taco and some mango quinoa salad. Neither kid liked the quinoa and I actually wasn't a fan of eating it cold but it wasn't horrible. My sister loves this salad so if you think you would like the recipe, here it is on Our Best Bites.

 It sure looks yummy! :)

Last on my list of recipes is a yummy and SUGAR FREE dessert. I took one package of sugar free, fat free chocolate pudding and made it the way it said on the package. I let it cool for 5 minutes in the fridge and then I mixed in half a bowl of fat free whipped cream. I spooned the mixture into little dixie cups, added a popsicle stick and stuck them all in the freezer.

 They looked yummy and the kids were counting down the minutes until they could have one.

 Can you tell they're excited?

 I love his big hazel eyes.

 The only problem was that the popsicles started to break so we put them in a bowl and threw the popsicle stick away. Of course, the kids still thought it was the best thing in the world. Isn't Spidey's smile the best?

And those crazy side curls on my girly are exactly what my hair does. Even though it annoys me, it looks adorable on her!

Hope you've all had a great week so far!

Potty Training at Night: Part 1

(She dressed herself this day and thought it was pretty funny that she was wearing her brother's tie. Also, that is the "stinky diaper face" she does in hip hop class. Hilarious!)

This little girl of mine is such a fun little kiddo. She is helpful, kind, and sensitive. And if you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that potty training her was not fun. We started way too early, pushed her into it, and she had consistent accidents for almost 2 years. Finally, a couple of months before turning 4, she decided staying dry was worth it and she started going to the bathroom all on her own all of the time. Phew!
She is now almost 4 1/2 and we've never even tried to potty train her at night. It just didn't seem like something that would be possible right now because her pull up is still wet every morning. But we have now decided to give it a chance anyway.
For 3 nights, we've had her in underwear and here's the low down.
Night 1: She went to bed at 8pm, I got her up at 11pm to go to the bathroom and when she was up at 7am, she was a little bit wet. Also, no drinks were given after dinner.
Night 2: She went to bed at 8pm, I got her up at 10pm to go to the bathroom, I got her up at 2am to go to the bathroom, and at 6:30am, she was still dry! She was so darn proud of herself!
Night 3{last night}: She went to bed at 10pm and I completely forgot about the no drink rule and she had had a lot of drinks before bed. So I woke her up at 11pm and 12pm and 1am to go to the bathroom. Seems fine and dandy, right?
Wrong.
Every single time I got her up, it took at least 30 minutes to get her back to bed because she was crying over scraped knees. I'm dead serious (She fell at the park earlier in the day.). I'm pretty sure the scraped knees were only part of the problem because she was so tired. I think she was just sick of waking up and was getting emotional. But I didn't really get to bed until 2am and when I tried to wake her up the next time, she started crying and wouldn't even get out of bed. And my goodness, I just wanted to go to sleep! So I did what everyone told me not to do and I put a diaper on her and fell asleep for the rest of the night.
So I don't really know what to do from here. If every night could be like "night 2", I'd keep going with this! But when I lose sleep, I'm not a very pleasant person. I think that's why God helped me out and both of my newborns slept through the night at only weeks old.
On the other hand, Petey does NOT like diapers and keeps begging me to buy her princess pull ups but I'm not really willing to spend double the money for something that holds pee just the same. This is kind of the whole reason we started nighttime potty training. I told her if she didn't want to wear a diaper, she needed to try to stay dry at night and be a big girl.
Also, I know 3 days isn't really enough time to see if she can do this. I think I'm going to give it another week and if it's just horrible and doesn't work out, she'll have to deal with diapers for a while.

But seriously, any advice is welcome and helpful. I know she may just not be ready for this but if this is just how nighttime potty training starts out and it gets easier, let me know so I can push through this hard time! I'll deal with the sleep loss if it means helping my girl stay dry at night in the long run.

The Unreasonable Threes

Spidey...Oh, Spidey. Isn't he adorable?

On Tuesday, we went to Petey's dance class and Spidey did not get a sucker. I forgot about it until we were in the car and driving away and the only thing that reminded me was the reaction that ensued. Seriously, just watch the video below.

And that wasn't even the worst part of his fit! His bottom lip was quivering, his eyes were swollen, and I kept an eye on him the whole drive home because I was worried he would throw up. It was crazy. And all of that for a tiny little sucker.
Oh the life of a 2 year old...

Let me change that...Oh the life of an almost 3 year old. 3 was much harder with Petey and I'm expecting it to be that way with Spidey. I don't believe in the 'terrible twos'. But boy howdy do I believe in the 'unreasonable threes'.

And even though I can't say they're going to be easy, they are most definitely going to be worth it. I'd take an unreasonable son over no son any day.

And just for a smile, I hope you enjoy this adorable video of my son.

And if you can't exactly tell what he's doing or where he's coming from, watch this little clip of Tarzan killing the Cheetah. My favorite part is the end when Spidey pretends to pick up the "lion" (in the movie, it's a Cheetah) exactly like Tarzan does.
Hilarious.

A Summer Park Day

We got a lot of rain last week and with rain comes cooler weather! Hooray!
On Friday, it was breezy and cool outside so I decided to let the kids ride bikes to the park. My goal has been to get Spidey riding the tricycle (even though it's pink) because he is getting a big kid bike for his birthday in 6 weeks.

Petey is showing off her muddy pants. Her bike fell over on the way to the park and she literally landed in the deepest puddle. It was maybe 1-2 inches deep and she got all muddy. Of course, I put her in nice clothes to go to the park (What was I thinking?!) but luckily, it all washed out.

Spidey had the time of his life climbing and swinging on these bars like his big sis does.

He was really excited to be getting sandy and muddy and not having me get angry about it. That boy loves to be dirty!

Another picture of Petey's muddy clothes. They were starting to dry by this point but she was still pretty dirty.

Spidey riding the awesome pink trike. :)

Petey is still amazing at riding her Pinkalicious bike and had a great time riding around on the basketball court.

Petey was such a nice big sister and taught Spidey how to climb up this swirly bar. She talked him through the whole thing and helped him reach the platform over on the side.

This boy LOVES slides. And dirt. And being outside. Best day of his life!

My favorite picture of my boy from the day. He was so so so so happy to have dirt all over his face and be out in the sun. We don't do this a lot during the summer so it was the perfect break from our normal routine.

And last, I wanted to include a video of Spidey riding the tricycle. This was literally his first day riding it and I'd say he did fantastic! It took Petey a month or two to start riding the tricycle to the park when she was his age but he got right on it and knew exactly what to do! I'm so proud of him.


And that's how Suze sees it.

Dancing in the Rain

When I was a teenager, I hated rain. Because my life back then revolved around my hair being perfect, I could not stand the rain messing it up and bringing out my frizzy curls.
I never appreciated what rain did for our land and the hot weather.

Now that I'm a bit older, I understand a little bit more how important rain is, especially in Arizona.
I am certainly grateful for the weather cooling off so we can actually spend time outside. 

Dancing in the rain is now one of our favorite things to do.

I've learned this with my trials also. How much time has been spent complaining about poor me? How much time have I wasted focusing on what I don't have?
I know it's ok to be sad sometimes but it shouldn't be something that runs my life daily.

I am grateful for trials. I am grateful for motherhood.

I am grateful that I have the opportunity to dance in the rain.

The Good Outweighs the Bad

I've talked many times before about the blessings that I get to call my children. You all know them, right?

These little peeps that look like angels?
Well, they're not.
I mean, they're actually a good little bunch and I feel so lucky to have the two of them with me all day, every single day.
Petey is the best little helper and has learned how to fold AND put away laundry. No, I'm not kidding. {Whoever said a 4 year old couldn't handle some bigger chore responsibilities around of the house was cray cray...because this little girl holds her own.}
And Spidey is a sweet little kiddo. He means well but lacks the responsibility of his older sister so he isn't as much of a cleaning helper but he helps when he can {More like, when he wants to...}.

But today? Where do I even start? Today was a mess. Both kids woke up cranky and I knew it was going to be a hard day. We had some little friends over to play and they played pretty well {Aside from Spidey being a bully to the girlies.} but the minute our playdate friends had to leave, Petey burst into tears and literally kept up the water works for about an hour.
What the...?
She calmed down for lunch and the kids began fighting so I decided to lay down with Spidey to try and get him to nap {Refer to previous post where I talk about him giving up naps...}. It didn't work...

So then with pajamas on my boy and a cranky but trying to be happy little girl, we went on a walk to the mailbox. Fresh air seemed to help for about 10 minutes before the fighting and crying ensued once again.

So being the smart mom that I am, we hopped in the car to go to the store...because every mom with cranky kids should go to the store. {What was I thinking?}

As you can assume, the store was a disaster. Spidey threw a fit in the cart and kept crying. Petey had her little attitude flare on and wasn't being nice and this momma was just trying not to yell at her kids in front of everyone at the store.

Then kids needed to clean their playroom tonight so they could get their favorite meal, macaroni and cheese. Here's the details in short:

Petey cried and kept saying it was too hard.

Spidey kept throwing toys everywhere.

So with a pb&j and a kiss, they were both sent to bed.

I often feel guilty for complaining about my kids. I know many women who just want to be mothers and I feel selfish when I complain about the hard days that we have. I even feel guilty because and I sit there and think to myself, "We want more kids? What are we thinking?!" but the good most assuredly outweighs the bad and all it takes is one little comment or hug and my kids have me smiling again.

Like when Spidey just needed his mom to rock him for a minute before bed.

Or when Petey tells me I'm the best mom she's ever had {because apparently, I have competition?}.

Or when Spidey runs around hitting a plate and a fork together and saying, "Go away, cats!" or "I need to find Philly. Philly!" because he's watched An American Tail 3 times today.

They make any hard day worth it.

And they make me want to do it all again the next day.

And that's how Suze sees it.