Jordan's Second Birthday

I can't believe Mr. Jordan is already two years old! We had his birthday party at our house. As much as it pains me to say this: Our baby LOVES Barney the purple dinosaur. We've watched our Barney DVDs so many times I can literally sing every song, say every line, and do all the dances. As much as Fuzz wanted this birthday party to be sports themed--we went with Barney instead.

Being the mean mommy that I am I made a "no toys" rule for his big day. He has way too many as it is and our house is teeny-tiny... where would we put new toys!? Most people bought him books and clothes but there were a few that broke the rule (ahem, Ali and Gigi!!). Oh... and mommy and daddy may have broken the rule, too. Come on, we're his parents, we get to make and break any rules we please! We bought him a basketball goal just his size and he loves that thing.

Since I'm too cheap to actually spend money on party decorations I made most of them myself (while at work, shhhh). I cut out letters to put on our mirror and a big "2" to hang on our front door. Everything was purple, green, or yellow. I printed out and colored Barney and BJ coloring pages, cut them out, then glued them onto some sturdy paper to make stands out of them. I wanted to do some cupcake toppers as well. I printed out several Barney, BJ, and Baby Bop images in color, cut them out, and then glued them to some toothpicks. Viola! I made some chocolate cupcakes (using the Weight Watchers recipe that uses pumpkin so they wouldn't be so high-calorie!) and played around with the food coloring until I got the icing to be a respectable shade of purple. We hung up some green balloons, used a yellow table cloth, and that was it! It was the easiest decorating I've ever done. What was funny is that I recently painted our dining room purple so even the WALLS matched the them, ha!

I even made sandwiches, had fruit and veggie trays, and served drinks. AND we had ice cream. His party was pretty legit, right!? We gave him his cupcake, lit his candle, and sang him happy birthday while he frowned up a storm. I guess we scared  him with all the attention! Ali helped him open all his presents and then the kids went outside to play. We were so lucky that it was so nice outside!

All in all it turned out to be a great day!

Under Par

According to Microsoft Word, "under par" is an acceptable synonym for "sick." I figured that since many of my posts already contain the word "sick" in the title, I'd change it up a little this time.

Sleeping on the couch with Mommy

Crazy sick nap

So these past couple of weeks my kids have been "under par." Jordan caught some kind of stomach bug last week. I went in to wake him up one morning and there was puke all in his crib. Then he puked in the floor. And then he puked in the kitchen trash. And then he puked in the bath tub. And then he had diarrhea. Yeah, it was a gross day in the Darbison home! It's a horrible feeling when your baby is sick and there's little you can do to help them; if you're a mom you know exactly what I mean! Every time he would start to throw up he'd look at me and cry for me to hold him like that was going to make it go away and all I could do was hold his head and say, "It's okay, it's okay, you're okay..."

He was sick for about 5 days total and we went through and entire box of diapers and had to take apart his car seat (to wash) because he'd puked on it as well. And then he got a head cold and so his nose has been running and his ears have been draining, so we squirt his nose with nasal spray and put ear drops in his ears and the poor kid hates doing either one...

You can tell she does NOT feel fine! 

And then the weekend rolled around and I could tell within the first 20 minutes of seeing Ali that she didn't feel good either. I asked her probably 50 times if she felt okay and she kept saying, "Yes, I feel fine!" But then she'd want me to hold her and didn't really want to play or do anything else, just wanted me to sit with her and hold her. But she had a birthday party to go to the next day and she knew if I found out she didn't feel good then I wouldn't let her go, so she kept saying she felt fine.

Getting a little "work" done at her desk ;)

Then this morning we woke up and as I was getting ready for work she came to me and started crying out of nowhere. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I just didn't get much sleep last night." "How come?" I asked. "Because I had to get up and use the bathroom and there was gross stuff in my throat and I kept having nightmares all night long!" Enough said, I took the morning off work and took her to the doctor. The poor girl has strep... AGAIN. I have no idea what we can do to keep her from getting it. None of us have had it, so surely she can't be getting it from us. We buy her a new tooth brush every time she gets sick. We tell her not to kiss any boys (she laughed at that one, whew). The doctor said there really isn't much else we can do. :-(

Who's turn is it next? I've been battling allergies for several weeks now and haven't been able to breath without nasal spray for days, so, I guess it's hubby's turn? I hope not. I don't know if I can handle any more sicklies! USE THE STINKIN' GERM GEL, MY FRIENDS!

Quotable

I started writing down funny things people say about a year ago. Sometimes they don't make sense when I read them later because they're out of context, which makes them even funnier to me. My daughter has said a LOT of funny things over the years. I didn't record them all (there's no way I could keep up!) but I recorded a few.

Ali: "What in the dalmatian crickets is going on, here!?"

Me: "I wish I could dance."
Ali: "Well too bad because you're not on Shake It Up Chicago."

Me: "Are you hungry? Because I'm about to make you a knuckle sandwich!"
Ali: (After thinking on it a moment) "Can you make me a grilled cheese sandwich instead?"

Ali after going down the pool slide at Gmo's house: "Dude, face first!"

The next time she went down she didn't say anything afterwards. I asked her if it wasn't as fun and she replied, "It was fun, I just didn't share the joy at the end."

Ali, speaking to 1 year old brother: "You can't solve every problem with pinching somebody!"

And here's a couple from other friends and family:

Catie: "I love men when they carry things."

Taylor: "I'm pretty sure I just got hit on."
Me: "Oh really?"
Taylor: "Yeah, he asked me if I wanted any ketchup."

Taylor: "We saw a moose in the backyard. I coulda road that beast if I'd wanted to."

Hubby: "I never always don't take mine to work." (Say whaaaaa??)

Sister: "Carrabba's... I could just go and lick that whole place."

Little girl at my church: "Princesses love to sleep with poop in their pillow!"

Someday I'll be able to add Jordan to this list but most of what he says now is just funny because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. "Barney mas;dif a laksj dia lkja ieo YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If you can interpret that... well done! Since he got a little left out, here's a cute picture instead:

24 Days of Rosie

Our little "girl" elf (btw, they actually mark on the box now whether your elf is a boy or a girl so there's no guessing games... poor Rosie...) isn't as mischievous as some other elves. She's pretty sweet actually and always cleans up her own messes! I managed to take a picture of her every day this year, go me! Ok... so I missed one day... but that's still pretty impressive [for me]. So here are the 24 days of Rosie (technically only 23 but who's going to look that closely??):

Day 1: She appeared under the tree and ate one of our cookies.

Day 2: Caught in the sugar jar.

Day 3: Brushing up on the clientele.

Day 4: Tea party with Barbie and ZhuZhu.

Day 5: Playing dress up. 

Day 6: Rub a dub dub, Rosie in the tub. 

Day 7: Hanging out on Jordan's door.

Day 8: Bling Queen in mama's jewelry. 

Day 9: V-Smile! Playing Ali's game.

Day 10: Kiss the cook! Caught in Ali's chef hat.

Day 11: Hanging out! 

Day 11 (It must have been Christmas magic that kept her from falling... or maybe she used scotch tape?)

Day 12: She made me coffee! And it tasted pretty good :)

Day 13: Chilling in Ali's stocking. 

Day 14: Remembering what Christmas is all about!

Day 14.

Day 15: Hygiene is important! Brush em brush em brush em, it's healthy for your teeth!

Day 17: On the fridge wearing her new skirt from Santa Claus! (Maybe some of the other elves had been spreading rumors about her?)

Day 18: Eww. I guess elves poop too. But in a cup, Rosie? Really??

Day 19: Sugar angel!

Day 20: Goin' for a ride all jacked up on sugar. 

Day 21: Good doggie! 

Day 22: Hanging out on the tree with the gifts Ali gave her <3

Day 23: Don't forget to make Santa's cookies! We found her in the fridge, brrrrr.

Day 24: This was her last day with us before she left with Santa Claus. She left us all presents and had opened everything the kids (Ali) had given her. She even left us a note about how proud she was of us all and gave us a few tips of things we needed to work on. :)