Picasso, Jr.

20 Month Tricks

So Goo has been up to some new tricks lately, all of them leading me to believe that we'll be entering "terrible two" territory very, very soon. For example, a few weeks ago, I caught him climbing on something he shouldn't have been. Here's how the conversation went:

• Me (in my very best stern mommy voice): Goo, be careful.


• Goo (continuing to climb, scolding himself): Get down (or "geh dow", if you want to get technical)


• Me (trying not to laugh): You're going to hurt yourself ....
  
• Goo (climbing higher, again scolding himself): No, no!
  

*sigh*

Another "situation" we've been dealing with lately is putting down the toys when it's time to go somewhere. This kid never has a free hand - there's always a matchbox car, an action figure, or an ant (from his "Ants in the Pants" game) clutched in his grip. Whenever we leave the house, I try to get it down to one thing to play with in the car, and it's usually a fight. When we leave the car, though, and take away the one toy that's left - it's meltdown city.

So you can imagine my fear when I picked him up from daycare the other day and he ran to me with hands full. I stalled, talking to the fabulous L as long as I could, hoping he'd lose interest. Nope. No such luck. Bracing myself for a battle, I told Goo we'd have to leave the toys at L's. L walked over, asked Harrison for the toys, which he sweetly handed over. Seriously ?!? Since when ?!?

Again, *sigh*

One important thing to remember about raising a Goo, is that you can't take your eyes of them for one.stinking.second. This gets a bit difficult, while trying to maintain a normal life, where things like cooking, eating, dishes, and other housework sometimes require you to divert your attention for a moment or two. I did make the mistake last night of looking away from Goo while I was running his bath .... well, I'll let the picture tell the rest of this story.

*double sigh*

With all of my fake sighing, though, I have to say that this is SUCH a fun age. We've had to re-arrange some furniture to prevent Monkey McGee from seriously hurting himself, and we REALLY have to watch what we say, but we're having a blast. He's sleeping pretty well (except when we travel), and he eats like a champ, as long as 90% of his meal is meat.

Next up is (maybe?) potty training. There's some intensive potty training going on at L's, and Goo is all of a sudden very interested in the goings-on of the bathroom. We bought him a potty chair last weekend, thinking we'd have to do it eventually, and he may as well get used to it, right? You can imagine our delight when 2 days in, he used it! Genius, I tell you. Never mind that it hasn't happened since, we're still very proud. :)

Bad Mom - Super Bowl Sunday Edition

So I've been told I'm a bad mom for not updating my blog more. Shame on me. It's not like I haven't been busy, you know, being a mom, or anything like that. :P

In any case, we have been quite busy since I last updated ... so - here's my update-in-photos ... enjoy!

Christmas - Alternately titled - Yes, I know we all need haircuts.

We celebrated this year with T's family on the actual holiday and mine over New Years. We ended up getting stranded at the inlaws on Christmas day - gotta love life in ND!

My Birthday! Travis took me out for Sushi, while Goo hung out with the neigbor kids ...

... Who we, in turn, hung out with the next night :)

Travis attended a WWE event with his guy friends and brought Goo home a belt!

Goo colored on the fridge ...

The week before last, we hung out with my friend S's kiddos last week for a night ... (here are 2 of the 3, with 2 of my 3 :)

And finally, dressed Goo up, in a dress. :)

We went to a Sioux game (they lost, but we still had fun! Maybe those 2 foot tall drinks helped?)

Finally, today we hung out with our neighbors, who won an awesome SuperBowl party package from one of our local radio stations. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics today, but will instead leave you with one of Mr. MaGoo, playing Band Hero. :)

Aren't picture posts the best? :)

What Does a Turkey Say? Cluck? Quack?

Seriously - I have no idea what a turkey says. Good thing all Goo cares about is what monkey's say. (Ooooh ooooh, aaaaaah aaaaah - in case you were wondering).


Thanksgiving was quite the adventure this year ... we decided to have it at our place since we finally have room in the new house and ended up with 21 people for the big meal! Luckily, my new job has taught me how to delegate - so I wasn't responsible for TOO much actual cooking. haha


Unfortunately, my camera decided to crap out on me the week before Thanksgiving, so I had to swipe some pictures from Ashley's FB page. Thanks, Ashley!


Here's Goo with Grandma Tine ... he was a bit cranky that day - we found out later that he was starting to work on an ear infection, poor guy!

Here's Kari's kiddos being adorable ....

And 2 of Kari's, mine, and my super cute foster sister Cammi checking out something outside ...

Say it with me now - *Awwwwwwwwww*



Thanksgiving was followed with some 3:45am Black Friday insanity ... Kari, Ashley, Mom, Martine and I all piled into one vehicle and hit Kohls, WalMart, Target and the Mall all before 10am. My fabulous go-to babysitter Krysta came and stayed with the kiddos - what a good sport! :) Here's a shot of the line to Kohls - which wrapped around Media Play - at 4am. Craziness!

All in all - a very fun (if tiring) time was had by all. The ear infection is history, and the probably not cooincidental case of strep I developed the next week is on it's way out. Next stop - Christmas! ho ho ho

Pumpkins after Turkeys

Let's ignore the fact that it's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm just now uploading Halloween pics, K? :)

Here's the UPS man with Rainbow Brite ...

... and T and I as Jon and Kate. Which is funny because I'm nothing like Kate, right? Hardy har har.

And no, I will never, ever, ever be cutting my hair that short.

Finally, one more shot of the UPS (little) Man and his inspiration, his real dad uncle R.

Haha. Happy (incredibly late) Halloween, all!

5 Minutes of Fall

Wasn't it just 85 and humid? And now it's snow season. Nutty!

Thankfully, we were able to squeeze in lots of fun before snow season turns into blizzard season.

A few weekends ago, Goo got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa while Travis, Ryan, Ashley and I headed South for Scott and Alicia's big day.

Goo was great in the car - practicing his texting skills on my old phone ...


At the wedding, Travis was the best man and Ryan was an Usher ....

The wedding went off without a hitch - well, except for that one part where the minister spit on the bride, but we still had our happy ending ...


Maybe a little too happy, but I digress ...

The weekend after, I did something I never in a million years dreamed I'd do ... ran (ok, walked) a 5k.

I'm sure the "real" runners really appreciate it when people stop to take pictures on their cell phones, but it was just too cool not to document! My goofy friend Shannon "ran" with me ...


After a fabulous finish (47.17 - all but the last .17 were walked, by the way) - I went home and got ready for company! Grandma and Grandpa L came, along with Ryan, Ashley and the adorable Miss C.

We took the kiddos to the Children's museum, where they checked out the exhibits, painted pumpkins, and posed for pictures (or not). :)

Later that day the girls and Goo went to the mall where we did a little shopping and a little dino-land playing. Miss C informed me over dinner that she just needed some "girl time" - too cute!

After the kiddos were nearly ready for bed, goofy Shannon (see above) and her hubby joined us and we headed to the Haunted Farm. We met up with this guy:

... screamed (some of us more than others) and had a super fun time. We then headed back to the house and squeezed in some cards and some Trivial Pursuit (oh, and maybe some, um, adult beverages) until we gave up and finally went to bed.

Sunday we the in-laws headed for home and we headed out to the Buffalo River Pumpkin Patch with Shannon's family. Here's her "Bug" and Goo ... just 6 months apart, we imagine they'll be good buddies as they grow!


All in all, a crazy fun couple of weeks again - time goes too fast! Seems like that jolly old guy in the red suit will be here before we know it. *sigh* ... until next time!

We're Alive!

Here's the scoop since I last checked in.

At the beginning of August, we went to Medora with T's fam. We had a blast and were pleasantly surprised that Goo did really well in the car - sleeping from Fargo to Bismark both ways - we love that kid! We were a little squished in the Prius ... but more on that later.

I took a few extra days off and painted Goo's room and our master bath ...

We spent a couple of weekends doing respite for my parents foster kids, and got to host a little piece of my "little" brother B's 13th birthday party.

At the end of August, I spent the weekend with the class of 1999 - can you belive it's been 10 years already?! We had a dinner/bonfire Friday night and spent Saturday with kids and spouses - we hit the zoo and grilled. Fun times, fun times ...


Finally, the Tuesday after the reunion I had an interview for a promotion I REALLY wanted at work. Later that day we went to the walk in - did you know you can get swimmers ear without actually swimming? And that 4 molars coming in at the same time = a really cranky baby? Poor guy.

Thursday of that week (our day off from the walk-in) we drove to Wahpeton and picked up our "new ride" - my mom's mini-van. I'm offically a soccer mom. :)

Friday we went back to the walk-in, sold the Prius, and I got the call that I got the job! That afternoon, T and I drove to Grand Forks and picked up my favorite mother-in-law who spent the weekend with me and Goo while T and his Dad played in a golf tournament. Thankfully, Goo was feeling much better by this point, so we celebrated and shopped till we dropped.

Last weekend (Hey! I'm almost caught up!) T's brother and his family came for a visit, and my friend K, her sister and I went to Britney Spears in Grand Forks for her birthday. Crazy show!

This week I started my new job which I LOVE (yay!) and on Friday we headed out of town for T's Dad's "suprise" 50th bday party. Unfortunately, a rouge black baloon ruined the surprise, but we still had lots of fun! I forgot my camera (again) and tried to make up for it by loading you up with pictures at the beginning of this post.

In any case - WOW. We've been busy. Wouldn't have it any other way! I'd close with a promise to post more soon - but, who knows when that will happen again. So instead, I'll leave you with a picture of our cutie-pie Goo snoozing in his carseat on his way home from one of our previously mentioned escapades. 10 points if you can guess which one!!