Grandpa

Nick's grandpa passed away early saturday morning, Nick and I drove to Salina friday evening when we heard he was not doing well, and I was so thankful that Nick got to see his grandpa and tell him he loved him before he passed away. His funeral was yesterday, it was a wonderful tribute to him, all of his children and grandchildren gave beautiful talks, and Nick's cousin sang a song that was so beautiful I cried through the whole thing.

I wish I could have spent more time with his grandpa, he was such a wonderful man and I absolutely adored him. He reminded me so much of my grandpa that passed away six years ago. While Nick and I were driving to Salina for the funeral, he told me some stories about his grandpa, I wish you could have seen the way his face lit up when he talked about him. He has so many great memories of him that he will always remember.

It was hard to see Nick hurting, but we know that he is in a better place now and he is watching over his family, especially his sweetheart Gwen, I hope that Nick and I can take the kids to Salina more often and spend more time with her and the rest of the family that we dont get to see as often as we would like to. Hopefully I can hear more great stories about his Grandpa.

We love you Grandpa Bennett!

Uh-oh

I put Ella down for a nap yesterday but the little stinker never even fell asleep. She just sat up in her crib and jabbered and kept saying "uh-oh" which is her new favorite word, she says it when there is not even a reason to say it. After listening to her jabber and say uh-oh and laugh, I went in to get her, obviously sleep was not on her list of things to do yesterday. When I walked in to her room, she was standing up looking over the side of her crib, she looked up at me and said "uh-oh" and pointed at the ground. When I looked down at the floor I discovered the reason that she had not actually gone to sleep. Her very most favorite teddy bear "munchie" had somehow fallen out of the crib and onto the floor, I have NO idea how on earth munchie could have ended up on the floor, it couldn't have been Ella because when I asked her how munchie got out of the crib, she just looked at me, shook her head and put her hands up and said "abadabadamu" which, roughly translated means "how did munchie do dat?" heaven forbid she take a nap, or do anything for that matter without munchie!

Fun with daddy

Nick had the day off yesterday, Jax was obviously thrilled that daddy didn't have to go to work. Nick had some projects to do around the house and Jaxson was right there next to him the whole time "helping" his daddy. Jax even got out his tools so that he could help daddy. However they did take a little break from all of their hard work, I was inside the house and I could hear the two of them laughing, so I looked outside to see what they were doing

they were taking turns doing "cool tricks" on the trampoline, Jaxson had a trick that he called a "rockstar" trick. It was so cute to watch the two of them play together, im glad I got to sneak a few pictures, and if you have ever seen a 6' 7" man jump on a trampoline, you can just imagine how hilarious it was to watch Nick!

World record

I think Jaxson may have broken the world record today. For what you ask? For the longest TEMPER TANTRUM ever thrown! Ok so that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but that is what it felt like at the time. Im not even sure why he started throwing the temper tantrum in the first place, and to be honest im not even sure he knows why. Im surprised that he even has enough energy to play and run around like a mad man after this melt down. I would be plastered to the couch for the remainder of the day after that. I wonder how many calories a person could burn while throwing one of these never ending tantrums? Probably several hundred, if thats the case im going to start throwing temper tantrums as my daily exercise routine, it sounds funner than the elliptical, especially if I get my way as a result.

After Jax was done throwing a fit, he immediately returned to the sweet innocent little boy that he is, he just decided he needed to test mommy and daddy's patience this morning. Ahh the joys of raising children.

14 months

I have had to force myself to come to terms with the fact that my little girl is no longer my little tiny baby, ok so she was never very tiny to begin with, but she was still our little baby, I think I have been in denial that she is growing up so quickly. I was writing something on the calender today and it occurred to me that today is the 7th, which means that my baby is 14 months old today. Seriously?? I cannot believe it, how did she get so big so fast? While I am having a hard time with the fact that she is not my little baby anymore, and she doesn't even need me to feed her anymore, she is VERY independent lately, I am loving watching her little personality come out more and more everyday. She is such a happy little girl, except when she doesn't get her own way, then she turns into an alien princess until she either gets her own way, or she forgets what she wanted in the first place.

She is learning to say several things now, her new favorite word is "shoes" which sounds more like oos, she has a bit of a shoe fetish, which of course makes me SO proud! Whenever you get her dressed, whether or not she really needs her shoes on, she will point at them and say shoes until she has them on her feet. This morning, as soon as she spotted her shoes, she started pointing at them and she wanted them on her feet NOW even though she was still in her jammies.

When she was sitting in her highchair eating breakfast this morning, she looked at me and put out her hands and said "es dada" (where's daddy) she kept saying this over and over while shoving her bananas in her mouth at a rapid rate.

While I was working out this morning I had the music on and she was dancing the whole time, it was hilarious and her big brother looked at her and said "awww sis, you are just so cute!" She just looked at him and grinned, and then started dancing again. What did we ever do without our princess?

So smart

Jax: Mom, look I just drawed a rectangle!

Me: Good job bud! You are so smart!

Jax: Dats because I go at preschool!

Me: I know, you are learning so much.

Jax: Yup I am mom! Watch what else I can draw, bump over bump, mom dat makes an M!

Me: Great job Jax! I am so proud of you!

Jax: (huge grin)Thanks mom. Hey mom, d'you know dat I can draw a whale?!?

Me: You can?!?

Jax: Yup! Watch! See mom! See how smart I am! Mom, I got a lot of learning in me!

I wish you could have heard the excitement in his voice, it was so cute, you could just tell he was so proud of himself! He loves going to preschool and coming home and showing me all of the stuff that he did at preschool, we have a special cupboard in the kitchen where we hang up the projects that he does at preschool, he loves to look at them hanging up and see what he has done.

He is getting so big, and while I wish he wouldn't grow up so fast, I love watching him learn to do things, and the best part is seeing how proud of himself he is. I love you buddy!

Not fair

Nick and I took the kids to the mall yesterday, I had told Nick about all of the naughty behavior our wonderful kids were having at the mall last week. He laughed. Apparently he thought it was rather comical, so I decided that if the kids acted like that this time I was going to walk away and let him deal with it, then I could be the one to laugh. For some reason our children were perfect little angels at the mall. NOT FAIR! Jax did not even attempt to crawl on the display window's table and didn't make his obnoxious noise in his sisters face. Ella didn't pull one item of clothing off of the racks, however I bumped into a table with jeans on it and knocked several of them off. Why did they behave like aliens last week and yesterday they were perfect? This time I even had backup but NO I didn't even need it! When we were in a store we looked at Jax sitting in the front of the stroller and this is what he was doing...

Nick and I were laughing so hard, luckily Nick was able to sneak this picture on his phone before Jax saw us looking at him. He must get those big guns from his daddy ;)

I think that I need to send Nick to the mall with the kids all by himself and then maybe he can see how they REALLY act at the mall.

Shopping

After the dentist the kids and I went to the mall, if you want your kids to act like aliens from another planet, just take them to the mall. The second you walk through the doors, the transformation begins. Jaxson immediately thought that it was time to do everything mommy asked him NOT to do, although he did eat all of his pizza. After the kids/aliens had eaten their pizza we went into a store so that I could look for a pair of jeans. Jaxson's reaction when we walked into the store was "OH MOM! Dis is a GIRL store!" I informed him that I was well aware that it was a girl store, and that I am in fact a girl and that is why I wanted to come into the store. He looked at me and said "MOM, your a WOMAN!" Ella's reaction when we walked into the store was to start pulling all of the clothes off of the hangers that were within her reach. Then Jaxson decided that it was a good time to start making REALLY obnoxious noises in his sisters face, not only was this making his sister mad, but people were looking at me like I was nuts. One lady in particular was giving me dirty looks, and stuck her nose up in the air and walked past me pushing a stroller with her son in it. I quickly returned the dirty look, and shortly after she looked at me like I had NO idea how to handle my children, her precious perfect little boy started screaming at the top of his lungs. HA! Serves her right for looking at me that way! In the dressing room Jaxson would not stop sticking his head under the dressing room door, and then trying to open the dressing room door. Thank goodness I stopped him before the door flew open. Then in another store Jaxson was laying on a table in the display window and when I went to get him off of the table, Ella started grabbing shirts off of a table as fast as she could, and then went for the display with all of the jewelry on it. Fortunately for the jewelry I stopped her before she could do too much damage. Im sure the whole mall was happy when the Martin alien children left!

Dentist

Jaxson had a checkup at the dentist today, he actually loves going to the dentist because he gets a new toothbrush everytime, and he gets to pick a prize out of the treasure chest at the dentists. He was a little disappointed today because they didn't have the thing that he wanted in the treasure chest, he stuck his bottom lip out and started pouting when we walked out of the dentist office, but he quickly forgot that he was supposed to be pouting when we got to the elevator and I asked him to push the elevator buttons for me. When we were walking out to the car Jaxson was telling me how cool it was that the dentist let him push the buttons to make the chair go up and down, and that he got to see a picture (x-ray) of his teeth. He was also very happy that he didn't have any "boo boos" on his teeth aka cavities. He was so busy talking about the dentist that I had a hard time getting him to get in the car so I could buckle him up. Once I finally got him and Ella into the car, Jax said that he was extra cool because HE got to push the buttons on the chair, and daddy doesn't even get to do that when he goes to the dentist! On the way home from the dentist Jaxson was full of questions...

Jax: Mom, daddy is smarter dan you, wanna know how I know dat? Because his head is bigger dan yours.

Me: Is that so?

Jax: YUP! Mom, if one of your bones fall off will you still be alive?

Me: yes

Jax: If ALL of your bones fall out of your body will you just be flat?

Me: probably

Jax: If your really hot and you drink lemonade, will it get all of the hottiness out of your body and make it so your not hot anymore?

Me: Yes, but it's better to drink water when you are really hot.

Jax: Oh, but lemonade tastes better mom. Mom, are my arms sewed on?

Me: No

Jax: Are dey glued on den mama?

Me: No, your funny buddy!

Jax: Well if dey are not sewed on and dey are not glued on, den how do dey stay on mom? When we go to sleep do our hands go to sleep too?

Me: (unable to answer because im laughing too hard.

Jax: If I sleep with my arms under me will it make dem fall asleep?

Me: Probably

Jax: Well den im gonna sleep with my arms under me so dat dey can get some rest because dey are tired.

Me: Are they?

Jax: Yup day are. Mom, did you know dat I can run faster dan dis truck?

Me: I didn't know that buddy.

Jax: I can because im super strong and super fast mom. Because I ate my bitamins dis morning.

Me: Thats good buddy

Jax:Did you know dat da dentist put some stinky stuff on my teeth to make dem strong?

Me: I did buddy, it's called fluoride.

Jax: Sloride?!? What da heck is dat??

Me: It's kind of like vitamins for your teeth, it makes them strong so they dont get cavities.

Jax: Oh, well I didn't like da smell of dat stuff mom.

Me: Im sorry buddy, but at least you got a new toothbrush.

Jax: I know! Dat's cause im super cool mom! I cant wait till I get to go back to da dentist, and dey better have the prize I want out of da treasure chest next time!