I swear, we aren't 'those' people.

We live in a cute little house, it's the last in a row of 3 identical houses. Every time I drive home I see the other two houses, with their clean lawns and clear driveways, and then I pull up, to this......

This picture doesn't even do the mess justice. I really don't mind much. Except that I know that everyone else who drives by must think that we are "those people". The ones who have 1 kid, and just can't say no to her, therefore ending up with a million toys. I promise, that's not us.

I look at that picture and I can pick out about 4 toys that are actually ours! The rest belong to all the neighborhood kids who bring them over to play and then they just stay, because whenever anyone wants to play, they come to 'BRADYLAND'!!!! (Thus named because it is squished between our house, and my brother and sister in laws house, both Brady's)

Our house is a bit of chaos, but it's also a lot of fun. I love the afternoons when all the mom's (about 5 of us) gather after nap time and sit to chat while the kids chase the chickens, swing, race cars, and fight. It's the best part about living in a neighborhood. I will be sad when winter comes and the hose gets put away, and all the wonderful outside toys go into storage (although I think I might just love being able to pull up to the kitchen door to unload groceries and kids, instead of parking 20 feet back to accommodate the play zone.)

So this is my disclaimer to everyone who might drive by and judge. Yes my yard is a mess, and yes it looks like we are that family who never cleans their driveway (although I do, everyday). But it's a community effort, and a heck of a lot of fun. People might whisper, and mock, but we are the ones smiling, laughing and playing at BRADYLAND, everyday.

More poop and sleep walking

I think we have now entered the worst stage of potty training ever. The stage where you realize you completely messed up potty training somehow and did everything wrong. Now you have to push forward and try to finish, just so you don't keep finding poop everywhere. Or maybe that's just a stage of our potty training process.

I think at this point I would be completely OK with changing Alex's diapers for the next 10 years if she would just leave her diapers on, and the poop alone. Yesterday I broke my oath to myself not to let Alex watch TV except on very special occasions, and made her sit on the potty chair for 3 movies while pumping her full of cool aid and sandwiches. It was semi-successful, more so than anything else we have tried, I'll spare you the details. It was actually a pretty good day, until we went to grandma's house and she once again removed a poopy diaper to play in it. Good thing Archie called her out on it and alerted the adults. I think my new approach, for everyone's sanity, is just to duct tape her diapers on until the day comes where she asks me if she can use the toilet. I have definitely joined the ranks of women who would rather go through labor than potty train.

Looking back I can see all the things we did wrong, hindsight is of course 20/20. I won't rehash all our mistakes, so I can keep a little bit of my motherly pride and dignity. I know everyone who has gone through this wonderful stage of life has their own opinion on how it should be done and honestly maybe trying them ALL was our mistake. I've probably learned more in this process than Alex, although I can't say I'm grateful right at this point.

To add a new twist to things, I think we have a sleep walker. At 11:30 Alex crawled into bed with us, naked and shaking like she was terrified of something. She wasn't acting at all like herself and had her hands pushed over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut. When I would move her hands from her ears, she covered her eyes. When Tyler asked if he could hold her, she jumped into his arms and clung to him like a little monkey. It was really scary! Thankfully Tyler thought of giving her a priesthood blessing and she immediately calmed down, lay down, and went to sleep on our bed. A while later she woke up and was her sweet little self. When we asked about it this morning she said that Winnie the pooh was talking to her in her room and she was really scared. I am just so grateful that we have the blessing of the priesthood in our home. What a wonderful gift and protection that is to our family. I do know that sleep walking seems to run in my family, so..... any tips on calming that down?

A week in review

Alex insisted that both her and Heidi wear their "Chuck" shoes outside the other day. It was so cute, I wanted to document it. Heidi did not.

This photo looks so staged, like one of those dramatic wedding invitations or something.

Tyler and Heidi really like each other.

Heidi is starting to fit in the bike carrier a bit better. This picture cracks me up. It perfectly captures Alex's attachment to Heidi, so possessive, so comfortable, the love, the friendship, I don't know how to explain it. But I can see in the way Heidi looks at Alex that she feels the same way about her.

We really like our backyard. Looking out the windows you would think we lived on a farm.

All the neighborhood kids LOVE the chickens. They are so patient and nice to all the children and don't seem to mind at all being chased around all day long.

We visited Bridal Veil Falls again this week with our Tennessee cousins. Unfortunately I didn't get ANY good pictures of the group or the kids.

This is a great example of what Alex and Archie deal with anytime we do anything even remotely picture worthy.

Alex wanted to follow her older cousins everywhere, so there was a lot of rescuing and helping back down the mountain going on. When we were talking about going to see the mountains, Alex informed her cousins that "I have mountains at my home".

I'm so glad Alex has someone her age to get into trouble with.

Speaking of trouble, this week has been a lot better. The only major event I can think of is when Alex some how got a permanent marker in the back of the car and drew all over. It came off the windows, but I don't have a lot of hope for the rest.

where does she come up with this stuff?

This morning Alex somehow got one of the screws out of her bed frame and then filled the resulting hole by shoving a crayon in it. I still can't find the stash of hidden crayons.

She also threw 2 of Daddy's books into the bathtub and tried to fill it up with water. Mommy got there just in time to save them from a thorough soaking.

This afternoon she woke Heidi up from her nap by crawling into her bassinet and sitting on Heidi's chest. Heidi just lay there looking at her like this was a normal occurrence.

Hopefully the last event of the day was when she bit Heidi's big toe. I asked her why Heidi was crying and she said "I ate her toes".

I find myself in a state of partial amusement and partial horror looking back on the last few days, and forward to the future. The terrible 2's really are terrible.

It could always be worse.

Update on yesterday's post.

Today, after a fun morning, of parks and groceries, we put Alex down for her nap. I had gotten some advice to try putting the potty chair in her bedroom, that way if she takes her diaper off, she might try and use the potty.

So I tried it.

10 minutes into nap time, I peek in the bedroom to find a bare bottom Alex. Only this time it was so much worse than I had ever imagined.

Picture this.

Alex, squatting in front of the potty chair, with a play cereal bowl sitting neatly on top, a toy spoon in one hand, kiddy tongs in the other, and poop...... everywhere.

I was stunned, I didn't know what to do, but honestly I just tried my hardest to keep myself from laughing! It was disgusting, the smell was terrible, poop was smeared over every inch of the toys (not to mention Alex's hands, legs and bum), but somehow it was hilarious and sort of cute. I guess she was just playing kitchen, and wanted something other than felt and plastic to go in the bowls. I suppose cute might be reserved for if it had been mud instead of poop, but wow.

Luckily Tyler was home from school. We cleaned her up and she promptly fell asleep. One of my less glamorous days, but a good one none the less.

The Joy's of Motherhood

I feel like I've been "spring cleaning" for 2 months now! I start on a room and end up pulling everything out and then Alex decides to help, and then I get interrupted. Then 2 months later everything looks worse than it was in the first place.

I finally decided I'd had enough of the toys constantly spread through the whole house and packed about 95% of them away. I figured my kids had too many toys anyway and decided it would be sort of an experiment to see what Alex would do.

Well, I asked for it. In the last 2 days Alex has drawn on the bed frame, drawn on the walls (It came off), drawn on the mirror, drawn on the couch, (I confiscated all the crayons but am still finding little hidden stock piles in her room), pulled the entire roll of paper from her easel into a pile on the floor, pulled EVERYTHING off her bed (including the mattress) twice, made a sandwich of Archie between the bed and mattress with her on top, cleaned out her jacket drawers and dragged the little plastic dresser across the room, cleaned out her clothing drawers and made a mess of the clothes, dumped the jar of tiny little elastic hairbands on the floor, taken her poopy diaper off without telling me and kept on playing with a dirty bum (thank goodness for extra long t-shirts on BOTH occasions), found where I hid the blocks and threw them all out of the box and around the room, scattered every piece of play food and kitchen equipment she could find all over the room, plus she still had enough energy and toys to still argue with Archie about.

Keep in mind this is only a list of the things she did while I was nursing Heidi, fixing dinner, and thought she was asleep during nap times. Thank goodness we've been outside a lot.

At least she is being creative.

But, in the last 2 days she has also, made me smile 100 times, played with and treated Heidi with such kindness and in such adorable ways it made want to cry from joy, listened and obeyed when it really mattered, played with the chickens, sung me a dozen songs, taught ME sign language, cleaned up when I asked her to, gone to bed without whining, helped cook lunch, said thank you without being prompted, fetched diapers, asked to have her diaper changed, sat on the toilet without whining, colored me a picture (on paper), eaten celery without being bribed, read me stories, let me read stories to her, snuggled up to me and let me hold her, brushed my cheek tenderly with her little hand, put on her own pants, asked me to put a shirt on her (a real victory these days), put on socks without being asked or begged, and made me look at her and think what a lucky mommy I am to have such a wonderful little girl.

On the flip side, this week Heidi has....

Smiled, slept, pooped, jabbered, cried, smiled, rolled over, eaten her toes, gazed at me with those all knowing eyes, and smiled.

As for my house, I have yet to give up on it being organized once and for all. But I've come to the realization that in order to have my house in order, be a half way decent mom, AND have the dishes done, I may have to give up on things like- free time during naps, hobbies, and sitting. We are also trying to get rid of all the junk clogging closets and sheds that are taking up the space that is needed for things we actually use, but don't want sitting in the middle of the floor all the time. This is why if you drive by our house it looks like one big yard sale all the time, we are in the midst of cleaning out the shed/house/making DI piles. Plus with all the neighborhood kids and toys, planter box garden and bikes, it just looks like a yard sale anyway. So maybe with a little luck I'll find a place for everything and get everything in it's place before the first snowfall.

chickens, swings and big girls

We went through Alex's old baby clothes yesterday. Since she was in a harness for the first few months, there are plenty of adorable little baby things that have never been worn. So we played dress up a bit.

I can't believe how big Heidi is getting.

Alex still loves holding her.

It doesn't seem that long ago that they were this big.

Heidi has such an adorable personality. I can't believe I'm saying this about a baby, but she is a lot of fun to hang out with.

Alex still hasn't gotten over the fun that the chickens bring.

The backyard we used to avoid has become a whole new and exciting world for her!

I think this is her favorite place.

And this is her second favorite place.

Oh summer, we shall miss you.