Where Cama Mom?!

A lot of experts, friends and family, have said that the best thing to do when your toddler/baby makes a mess is to take a picture so you can laugh later, and this way you have time to calm down before beating them! After hearing this advice I decided to try this method. (I am sure you have all seen the Bradley body art pictures.) This method of dealing with things has worked up to this point. Bradley is still a live and well, despite what some may think after the last posting about Wal-Mart!

Yesterday I was working on the computer and all of the sudden I hear Bradley say, "Where cama Mom? Where cama Mom?" I turn and this is what I find!

I think Bradley has caught onto my method of dealing with the messes he makes. What do you think? I asked Bradley if he just painted himself so he could get his picture taken. He just smiled. He didn't even ask to color this time! Usually he does and just makes a mess the first time I turn my head. I think I may need to come up this a different way to handle things. Any suggestions?

Bradley + Wal-Mart = Disaster!

So last week I was reading about an experience that one of my friends had when she took her little boy to the store and he made apple sauce in the produce section. I got a good laugh at it and said to my self, "Self, I sure am glad I have never had to deal with anything like that!" I spoke too soon.

The next day I took the boys to the store to get some baby food for Daniel. We made one stop before Wal-Mart and that one stop was ALL Bradley wanted. When I tried to get him out of the car at Wal-Mart he screamed "NO, NO" and fought me the whole time. He ended up hitting his head on the car which left dirt on the side of his face. I put him in the basket of the cart and got Daniel out of the car and into the seat of the cart. Bradley stood in the basket, held onto the side, and cried and screamed the whole way into the store and all the back to the baby section. (He had big tear streaks down his cheeks through the dirt on his face.) I felt like every eye was on us as we mad our through the store. Then he tried to get things off the shelves as I started down the isle, so I sat him down with his back to the back of the cart under Daniel. (He is screaming "NO! NO!" this whole time!!) I picked up two jars of stage two baby carrot food and put them in the cart next to Bradley. As I was turning back to get more this thought hits me like a ton of bricks, "Bradley is going to throw the jar!" Before I could turn back and stop him, he grabs a bottle and hurled it TEN feet in front of the shopping cart where it shattered on the floor leaving a splash radius of about 3 feet of bright orange baby food!!

I was so frustrated that I grabbed him by his arms, held him at eye level, and in a voice just short of yelling told him that "If he touched one more thing he was going to be really sorry!" (As I have him suspended above the cart I see through my peripheral vision, a worker poke her head around the corner, look at the shattered bottle of food, then at me, then quickly retreat around the corner again!) I put him back in the cart with his back to the front away from the baby food. He didn't move a muscle! He even stopped screaming and crying! I offered to pay for the demolished baby food, but they told me not to worry about it, so I grabbed a couple more bottles of food and high-tailed it out of there.

That night when Andy got home from school I told him what had happened. When I told him that Bradley quit crying and didn't touch anything else during our shopping trip after I told him not to touch anything else, Andy asked me if I beat our kids and wondered if they were scared of me? I turned to Bradley and asked, "Bradley, does Mom beat you? Are you scared of Mom?" to which he answered "Yes." I turned back to Andy and said, "I guess I do."

Should You Be Afraid of the Dentist??

I know a lot of people are afraid of the dentist, but is there a legitimate reason for this fear? After carefully concidering the following information I have concluded that YES there could be a legitimate reason for the fear! Watch the clip below and let me know what YOU think! Should you be afraid?

Be very afraid!)

Happy Halloween!

We went to a couple Halloween Parties this last week and thought we would share some of the pictures of all the excitement.

Some of the Village People.
Oh John!
Bradley, Dad & Dr. Greckis as the Phantom of the Opera-tive.
Chance & "Chance"

Madison and Daniel at the playgroup Halloween gathering.

Madison is one of our favorites. When she was younger she reminded us a lot of Anna.
Kel-lee and Xander at the Dental School party.
What a cute little clown!
Lightning McQueen's Crew Chief needs a rest every once in a while.
Ward Halloween Party:
I was Daniel's assistant and Andy was a Big Game hunter...check out the tiger he shot!

The Photographer

Bradley has recently learned how to take pictures with our digital camera. We have helped him take pictures a couple of times and he loves it. Yesterday I needed to have a shower and get ready for the day, so I turned on CARS for him. I was about half way through my shower when Bradley came in, so I told him to go watch his show and I would be out in a minute. He replied, "Okay." I was shocked he left without much of a fight. Then as I was getting out Bradley appeared in the doorway with the camera and started taking. By the time I got the camera he had taken about 30 random pictures including ME in a towel!!! I decided to post his best work. Don't worry ALL of the bathroom pictures have been deleted!

This is a picture of his favorite puppy "Valpen".

The flash just about Lightning McQueen is Bradley taking the picture!
He had to get a picture of a pig just for his mom. Notice the small shadow of his finger in the top left hand corner. I should have kept a few more of the pictures with his finger in them because they are kind of cute. I am sure I will have a chance to save some in the future. He always seems to find the camera!

Hardy Boys...

We have been watching a little boy named Xander, or as Bradley calls him "Ander", once a week for about a month. His mom goes to school with Andy and his dad stays home with him. He is about ten months old and he is really good! (I love having him over because it helps me remember how little Daniel is. Xander is quite a bit bigger for only having about 4 mons. between them.) Xander loves to crawl after Bradley and he is fascinated with Daniel. This first picture is Daniel and Xander the first day he came to our house.


Daniel thinks he passes inspection.


These next pictures were taken the day Bradley
tried to feed Xander the marker top. I promise
they are non-toxic!!



He looks good in green.

Getting Ready For The Day!

Andy is good to let Bradley shower with his dad in the mornings so I can stay in bed for a few more minutes. Bradley absolutely loves it!! He loves to watch and his dad shave, brush his teeth and put on his deodorant when they get out. Quite often after Andy leaves for school I will find Bradley standing on the toilet shaving, trying to put on deodorant or reaching for his toothbrush. It is really cute, so I thought I would show you his almost daily routine.

( The razor cap is on, but you can still feel it vibrate!)
Getting a close shave.Open wide...to clean those pearly whites!

Raise your hand if your SURE!? I hope Right Guard will work!

Next Michealangelo...

This week Bradley has been practicing his artistic abilities. Most of the time it gets pretty messy. I try to keep a close watch on him when he has the markers out, but occasionally that doesn't matter. Unfortunately during one of his painting sessions he bit the top off one of the markers and dropped it on the floor. Xander, a little boy we play with once a week, happened to be crawling by and tried to eat the marker top! Luckily I caught him pretty quickly and green is an easy color to wash off. Some of Bradley's other paint jobs have not come off quite as easily.

There wasn't much green around his mouth and we did manage to get it off before his dad came to get him.
"Oh No! I've been caught!"
"I see you."
The scene of the crime.
"Yummy...goooood!"
"Loo how pretty Mom!"
Chocolate pudding works wonderful for painting too!

We have discovered that Crayola washable markers work wonderfully for face paint. There is no need to buy face paint for Halloween. Just use markers. To achieve the color you want just experiment!

For example, to get a dark army green just paint with black marker and then wipe with a wet wipe after it has dried for a few minute.

To completely clean the face, hand, feet, arms, legs, belly, etc... play in the shower with small tonka trucks for about 10-15 minutes using a mild soap just before getting out!

Pumpkin Carving...

We finally got our pumpkin carved. Bradley thought it was so funny when Andy stuck the knife into the top of the pumpkin. He wouldn't put his hand in the pumpkin to help clean it out. He did have fun drawing faces on his small pumpkin. We didn't carve that one.

"Cool!"

Check out those ears!
(On the pumpkin)
Bradley checking out the candle.
The boys loved it when we put a candle in it and lit it outside. Bradley was so sad to go to bed and leave it on the porch. I think carving pumpkins has become one of his favorite things to do. Daniel loves everything!

Sea World With Dad

Andy didn't have school on Friday afternoon so we decided to go to Sea World for the afternoon. It was fun! There weren't a lot of other people there so we were able to see everything we wanted. It was also a little cooler that day so we didn't die of heat stroke after 10 mintues! Here are some of our favorite pictures from our trip to Sea World.

Aligator Ally

I know the picture is small but there are about 10 Aligators on the bank!

Bradley laughed so hard at the Penguins as they swam in and

out of the water and climbed on the rocks.

Below is the seal & walrus show!

Bradley looking for "Dori" and "Nemo!" They added skulls and crosses in the tank for Halloween. You can see one just behind Bradley.
"Here's Brucy!" Bradley loved the sharks.
Since there weren't a lot of other people there Bradley got to stay and play in the water as long as he wanted. I finally had to drag him out screaming!
This Bradley's first ride at an amusement park. He thought it was super fun to spin. I got pretty dizzy.

Dolphin Cove: The dolphins kept coming right up to us wanting fish. We didn't have any, but there were quite a few around us feeding them.

If Bradley's arm was a little bit longer he could have touched it!

Finally FALL!

Monday morning we woke to cool weather and NO power! Bradley thought it was fun to eat breakfast by flashlight. However after a couple hours of no power he got really restly. We went to a friends house to play until naptime. I wasn't too sad about not having any power since it was accompanied by cool weather. YES, you heard that right, we have finally had some fall like weather! A cold front came in and the last two nights we have actually gotten down around 50 degrees at night. It will probably only last for the next day or two and then get warm again, but we are loving it for now.

I hope the cool weather will helped my tomatoes decide to start producing more. As you can see from the pictures the tomatoe plants grew straight up before they really spread out. They have had blosoms on them since the first part of August, but they have only recently started producing tomatoes. I planted these tomatoes plants from seed back in the end of March! It seemed like I have had to wait forever to finally get some tomatoes. They are all really small, but we have enjoyed everyone!

It's a jungle out there!