what is a mom to do

Ever since my parents and sisters left a week ago, Xander keeps asking, "Where did Buddy and Grammie go?"  He also keeps asking for "Uncle Katie".  I'm not sure why he thinks she's an uncle, but I'm pretty sure he is just getting "Uncle Rode" and "Aunt Katie" mixed up into one name.

I've been trying to be consistent with punishments, and since the "Supernanny" says to do time-outs.... Xander now has a time-out chair (it's a little rocking chair with "Susan" written across the back).  Now, whenever he does something naughty, he cries for a few seconds, then asks to have a time-out.  What an obedient boy, kinda.  

He also uses the time-out chair as a way to get out of his room during nap-time and bed-time.  It usually goes something like this:

Xander comes out of his room wearing his rain-boots and a big smile.  Mommy gives him the "naughty-boy" smile while laughing histerically on the inside.  Xander whines, then asks to have a time-out.  Mommy puts him back in his room in his big boy bed.

I also moved him into his "big boy bed" before moving Lil in there so I could have the crib to use as a threat if he wasn't staying in his bed.  When he comes out of his room 1, 2, 3 times, we put him in his crib.  "If you get out of your big-boy-bed again, I will put you in your crib."  Now he comes out of his room, and when I put him back in bed he asks to sleep in his crib.  Aye-aye-aye! 

Buddy and his Grandbabies

For Buddy, this is Heaven!!!

Portraits

While my sisters were here, we went to Kiddie Kandids and got portraits done.  After about 3 or 4 hours, a few breaks to nurse babies, and a few wardrobe changes, we finally got some good pictures.

the cousins

He loves his baby sister.

What a stud!

Lil in her blessing dress.

baby cousin, Olivia

Buffalo Wild Wings

I'm not a "wings" kinda gal, but my sister apparently is.  For Heather's "birthday" (we celebrated it while she was here since we were all together), we drove to Delaware (that's right, Delaware... don't worry, it was only about an hour away) to go to Buffalo Wild Wings.  Dad, Hez and Brian shared 50 wings!

Xander enjoyed his meal too, as you can see from the above picture!

Lil's Baby Blessing - 9/14/08

Brian blessed Lillian on Sunday.  We were lucky enough to have my sisters and my parents (oh and baby cousin Liv too) visit for the weekend.  My mom made Lil's blessing dress out of the skirt of my wedding dress.  Her dress was patterned after my wedding dress, so it looked very much like it.  It was beautiful!  Thanks Grammie!  Brian did a great job with the blessing, and he didn't even drop her!  (He was very afraid of that, because of the slippery dress.)  He was also a little flustered because she cried through the whole thing.  During the blessing, I kept getting annoyed at whoever was letting their baby cry because I couldn't hear the blessing... then I realized it was my baby crying into the microphone.  Oops!

Lil and Liv - together at last!

more portraits

While I was online getting our Kiddie Kandids portraits, I saw these and realized that I never posted these on our blog.  We got these pictures taken when we were in Utah in April.  There are two more to add to this group now.  Xander has changed so much.  It is always hard to get good pictures of a group of kids.  This was no exception.  Andria's girls were pros, but Xander didn't have a clue what was going on.  He kept trying to get up and walk away.  Or he wouldn't smile, or smile at me off to the side.  Silly boy!

videos

Xander decided he wanted to read this little book to Lil.  And no, it is not winter-time. Xander found a box of winter clothes and wore all of his winter hats all day long!

Soapbox Derby

Today was the Redbull Soapbox Derby in Manayunk.  It was also the day of leftover Hurricane Hanna in Manayunk.  It was pouring rain, and it was so crowded with umbrellas; you had to watch that your eyes didn't get poked out by any of them.  We didn't bring an umbrella; we just got soaking wet instead.  It was fun to watch the cars zoom down the hill, but it had to be scary being the contestants riding down the wet, slippery, "steepest 11% inclined road in history".  The only really bad injury we saw wasn't even one of the contestants.... It was a drunken man who fell off a big, slippery  boulder.  He slid on the side of his face all the way down, then landed on the front of his face.  It looked like he ripped half of his face off!  Yuck!  Speaking of drunken men, there were so many people carrying their cases of beer down the road.  It looked like a lot of work to me.

After watching about 3 cars go down the hill, we had to push our way thru the crowd to go home.  Brian & I could've stayed longer, but this wasn't the best activity for Xander.  We forgot about his super-sensitive ears, and he cried everytime the rowdy crowd cheered.  Brian had to hold him, or hold his hand (as seen below... and no, he is not possessed, just tired and scared).

Here are some of our favorite cars:

Rocky

Philly Cheesesteak

dogs and fire hydrant

"Married with Children" (Al Bundy's couch)

Ghostbusters

...and others included the Scooby Doo gang with a hippy bus, Mario and Luigi with a Nintendo car, an Amish buggy pulled by a red bull, eagles fans, phillies fans, a woman giving birth (in which the rider looked like he was being born), and many more.

Babysitting Group

We started babysitting group up again on Friday.  We combined with another small group, so we now have 5 families in our group.  That means we only have to babysit one Friday for every 4 date nights.  Woohoo!  It also means when we babysit, we really babysit!  NINE kids including Lil.  This week, we threw in Julien for good luck, rounding the number out to TEN kids.  I was a little nervous at first, but it turned out fine.  This picture was about as tame as it got all night.  It was also the only time they were all in one place, except for when they all crammed on our little porch to play in the even smaller sandbox.