Doggie's Ball

Stephen got this adorable baseball glove for Christmas. Then he found this tennis ball in Brian's closet. My dad uses tennis balls as a dog toy so Stephen thinks that all tennis balls are "Doggie's Balls" The hat is also Brian's how cute is Stephen in it! Even Ethan got in the fun, tried on the hat and loved putting the ball back in Stephen's glove.

New Bathrobes!

Thanks mom for the awesome bathrobes, they really love them. (even if Ethan peed in his)

Merry Christmas!

We all got spoiled!

He sees you while you are sleeping...

Santa came to our house. When the boys wake up this is what they will find.

:)

More pics as the story develops

It's not all sunshine and rainbows

Yesterday Stephen was very congested. He won't take anything because he hates medicine. (just lately, usually he's fine) He kept doing this: cough, cough, gag, throw up. He threw up like 8 times; kitchen, hall, TV, in my new shoes, on his brother's back, in the toy room, kitchen again, couch. It was horrible throw up, smelled terrible. I'm not feeling great either, it took all I had not to throw up while cleaning it.

He got a very good night sleep and seems fine today, a bit sniffy, but fine. Thank you Heavenly Father.

Then today:

Ethan comes up touching his leg and saying "butt"

I look, he is leaking poo.

It's all the way down his leg, and on his arm, and face. I open the diaper and it's sloshy like total liquid. So nearly impossible to clean. I get him clean as I can then do the rest in the tub, let that water run out and make a fresh bath for two boys.

Stephen knows when he poops so I say, "do you have poop" he says no, I take a quick peek don't see any, pull his diaper down. POOP, it smears all down his leg and clothes. So I have to pick him up somehow and get him into the changing room to wipe the most of the poop off so he can go in the bath.

Get them all bathed, decide they can play blocks for about 30 min till Ethan takes a nap, I need to vaccume so I tell them to pick up toys first, which they do. I walk over to the fire place to pick up a rag and guess what I step in... cold poop.

so I get my foot cleaned off and go to clean up the pile and get on hands and knees to clean it and guess what I put my hand in? Another smear of poop!



Here is some good news:

Stephen understands I want his play room clean now. He will clean up his toys. I usually have to stand over him and remind him but he will DO it himself. I've even caught him picking up behind Ethan.

Grocery store

Stephenism (from last night)

M: I think we are going to the grocery store tonight
S: No mommy, the grocery store is poop.

later

M: lets put on your clothes so we can go to the grocery store
S: *sigh* well, go to the grocery store is poop, but ok mommy

I'm proud of you

Stephenism:

I make breakfast, it's ceral with a bowl and milk and a spoon. (you have to say it all in one breath)

S: Thank you mommy
M: You are welcome baby
S: mommy I'm proud of you
M: for what baby?
S: Mommy I'm proud of you making this ceral me eat.




Ethan is a bit sick today, just a cold (yes AGAIN) but he's sleepy and grouchy. Stephen colored by himself today and I hear him in there saying

I'm gonna color this, but no Ethie, I hope that Ethie brother feels better real soon!



AWWWWW.

no words just pics... maybe words later ok, words now

Snow at the party Brian's work put on for kids. You can see Stephen in the upper left corner in brown if you look.

Here's Stephen, he loved the snow.

Sassy on a rare visit into the house.

Ethan riding a duckie in the mall.

More snow.

Giant yard penguin

Stephen riding motorcycle in the mall. He has told every single person we have seen sense then about this ride.

Your attempts to resist the cuteness are futile.

This missionary made Stephen his companion. He even got Stephen to share his testimony.

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.

love is in the air.

Ethan fell in love with the baby girl in front of us in line at the grocery store. She fell for him too. Luckily their love affair got plenty of time to blossom because the line was LONG and SLOW. She was blonde and he called her "Baby" and she giggled and he giggled and threw his head back and, I'm not lieing, winked at her! Stephen said, "Ethey you are silly, dat girl" and the girl laughed more. There was no one else on earth besides each other. Then her mommy paid for the groceries and her daddy carried her out of the Winn-Dixie and it was over. Thankfully the joys of the park were just what Ethan needed to get over his lost love.

here is an unrelated pic of the loverboy:

Look at those blue eyes, how could the grocery store girl resist?

juice

S: what is it mommy?
M: What is what? *not really paying attention*
S: This? *points to pic in magazine I can't see it from where I'm sitting*
M: mmm?
S: Maybe it's fart juice?

Yesterday's cake...

Um.. I hope you didn't write down yesterday's instructions for cake.

1. that is too tall of a cake recipe for how moist it is.

2. with just pudding in the layers there is nothing to hold it all together.

3. ganache doesn't dry fast enoug h to form a shell around the rapidly crumbling cake and hold it in a cake shape.

4. it's a MESS.

here are photos: before any icing, just falling apart in the fridge

some of the mess I got to clean up

More mess for me

The cake after being iced with the ganache

Final disposition. I scraped it all into that 9x12 pan and put it in the fridge, it tastes awesome, so I'm going to serve it with bowls and spoons.

See the cupcakes in there? The cupcakes came out just fine. I will definately do this recipe again but as cupcakes only. Now on the cupcakes, I couldn't get the andes chip pudding to go through my bizmark tip (which I use to get filling inside cupcakes) so I slipped one andes mint candy into each warm cupcake, then spooned ganache on top. This worked fine. I would probably put the candy in when the cake is hot next time so it melts into it more.

Did I mention that it all tastes awesome though? It's really very good.

Today's cake

today we are making an andes mint cake.

Get ready to be tempted:

chocolate cake, 4 layers, they all have andes mint baking chips stirred in.
filling is chocolate pudding with, you guessed it, andes mint chips stirred in
All stacked up, following along?
Then instead of sugary frosting...
chocolate ganache poured over the top.

whole thing goes in the fridge, it's served cold.

garnish with a few andes mint candies if you are so inclined. Go ahead and stick them on when the ganache is still warm and soft.

notes: I used cake mix (cheater!!), two mixes will fill 2 8inch pans to the 3/4 point (can't go much over that or you will get ugly cake) AND make 9 cupcakes. It's good to make 9 cupcakes because you can eat them without cutting into your cake.


photos later, cakes are in the oven right now.

feeling better.

My tummy is still tender, but I'm feeling MUCH better.

We have a big Christmas party this weekend. I have tons of cleaning to do before then. ARRGG. Do you think our friends will love us just as much if I don't clean?

Anyhow here are some photos:

Afriad of Cake

We hear Stephen crying in his room.

He has nightmares so we go in.

He never opens his eyes for this conversation:


S: I hate it.
M: What do you hate?
S: I hate cake. (sounds scared)
M: Don't worry, I won't let the cake get you.

He falls back asleep as I give him his puppies.


Oh and on an unrelated note Brian and I have food poisoning and I think we may die.

New format and tags

Ok, there is a new addition to this blog

Stephenisms. If Ethan starts putting more than one word together and making sentences he will get his own tags. The tags are the lables at the end of the posts. I will type, "Stephenism" when that's one, then later you can click that and get ALL the cute things together.

These posts will be WAY more frequent than my normal postings because they come up almost every day. I tell my friends and they all say, "Erin you HAVE to write this down". So instead of that I'm gonna type them here and we can all enjoy them.

Ok, Stephenism number one:

Stephen is eating goldfish crackers in a bowl and comes up to me.

I want one of course (they are like crack)

I say, "Can I have a cracker?"

S: No

M: Please

S: I guess nope

M: Well then you are a stinker fart

S: Well then I'm a sninker fart, but you no have crackers


I guess he told me