3 minutes

I have been giving Ethan 3 minute time outs for his punishment, instead of the spanking. Which doesn't seem to be that effective. Well, sometimes when I threaten he'll listen. But spanking really doesn't have a great effect on him and I hate it. After talking with Katie who suggested trying the 3 minute time outs from Super Nanny, it had seemed to be a punishment that worked. Well it worked except it's a lot of work putting him back on the chair and keeping him there. We are not at the stage where he'll actually sit there by himself. The park that we go to is perfect for time out chairs because it's theme is Goldilocks and the 3 bears. I use the red baby chair as his time out seat when we are there. It seems he hates time outs, so I thought.
The other day Brandon wanted me to make cookies for his last day of class. While I was making them Ethan came up to me and said "3 minutes Mommy." I then told him that he wasn't in trouble and that he doesn't get 3 minutes because he didn't do anything wrong. He then freaked out saying "3 minutes, 3 minutes." I finally said "fine, if you want 3 minutes go sit on your chair." Which he did and I set the timer. After it was done he the said "can I have a cookie?" I hadn't yet even put my first batch in the oven yet, so I told him that he can have one when they're done.
Now everytime I make cookies and use the timer, Ethan comes up to me and says "3 minutes," while holding up 3 fingers. I'm not sure if now everytime he has a time out he's expecting cookies to come out of the oven.

Bath Time Birthday

This was a few nights ago. I heard Ethan singing the birthday song while he was taking a bath, so I grabbed the camera. He starts to sing but I think gets camera shy. Sophie picks up singing for him and rocks out with it. Go Sophie!

Beach Bonfire

I have a funny story about that sucker. We went to a bonfire at Huntington Beach with my sister Rachel, her family and friends last weekend. Ethan loved going in the ocean. Ethan and I walked down to the ocean to look at the water at night, and to also give him something to do. When we got there he kept telling me he wanted to go in the water. I told him he couldn't because no one was in the water and it was too cold. He still demanded we go in. So I said "If you go in the water I'm going to take your sucker away." He then held his sucker up and said "here, take it." He's a crazy little guy. We need to take him to the beach more often because he loves it.
The boogie board wasn't strong enough to pull anyone, so I got one of our big beach towels and piled kids on it. I couldn't pull them very fast because Ethan wanted every ride.

Sophie didn't like the water, it scared her. Poor thing. I held her most of the night. I also found out that night that she likes hot dogs. It's shocking to me because she doesn't eat meat. She's a vegetarian. Ethan's a carne lover, but doesn't like hot dogs. Funny.

Storytime

Brandon took these pictures of Ethan and Sophie. He found them like this in their room reading books. They both love to read and want at least one book read to them every night. They also love to pull the books off the book self, hence the top shelf of books.








Ethan has been learning his letters and he knows them pretty well now. We've never really pushed it but he's always asking us "what letter?" We have taught them by associating them with things he knows. Ex: E is for Ethan, M is for Mommy, D is for Daddy, N is for Nonnie, S is for Sophie, T is for train, and so on. We have a lot of letter toys around the house to help him learn. We have the magnets on the refrigerator and letters for the bath. My sister Rachel got him a Thomas train computer that teaches kids their letters and numbers. Ethan loves it and suprises us with how well he can work it and how fast he can type in the letters they ask.

Look at those Muscles

Ethan got some cool tattoos in his kid's meal and I gave the kids one for fun. Got some cute pictures. These are from a while back but thought they were pretty cute to post about.
She has such big blue eyes.









Ethan checking out his tattoo.













Did some silly noise he thought was hilarious to get him to smile.













Love this picture of them. They really love each other. If Ethan goes in his bedroom to play he always yells for Sophie to come play with him.










I told Ethan to flex his muscles and this is what he did.

Sophie's New Words

Sophie isn't talking in full sentences yet, but she is learning a lot of new words. Like: sticker, helicopter, airplane, car, truck, cookie, cereal, bike, hot, and more. On the end of all her words she says Mommy?! I want pop-pisol (popscicle) Mommy; or cawker (helicopter) Mommy. With her vocabulary growing she also is starting to throw the worst tantrums. A recent one lasted for almost an hour with her going bonkers. She wasn't hungry or thirsty and when I tried to give anything to her she would throw it at me. She wasn't tired because she had just woken up from a nap. She didn't want to be held and would flail around in my arms, but she didn't want to be put down either. I remember Ethan being a little like this and I would at this point put him in his crib for a while. Mainly to give myself a breather. But I tried this with Sophie and over the crib she goes. I've tried ignoring her, but she hangs and pulls until I have no choice put to give her attention. I'm not sure what to do. I don't remember Ethan acting this crazy, but maybe he did and I just forgot about it. She is definitely in the terrible two's stage already. One thing is she loves to throw a tantrum while I'm shopping. She either throws one because she wants to stand up (slipping through the cart seatbelt) or it's because she want to get out and run around. People think I'm hurting her with her fits. All I can do is smile calmly and quickly get out of there.

Other new "tricks" ;) are she can shake her head yes or no to let you know what she wants. She's really good at it. She also had her check up last week and the doctor said she is "slender" probably because she is so active. Her weight hasn't changed at all, she's still 20 lbs and her height is 31". She's doing almost everything Ethan does (just about) like climbing on the coffee table and jumping to the couch! She's been making weird faces and will copy the funny face you make at her. She loves talking on her "cell phone" like Mommy. She'll use anything with buttons: the remote, Brandon's calculator, or any toy that resembles one. It's funny when she says Bye. She just holds up her hand outstretched and says "bi". I should videotape it sometime. So I guess even with all of the tantrums, the new exciting things she does, out weighs the hair pulling times. She really is a cutie, just figuring things out.

Something's Bugging Me

We haven't posted for a while for 1 because there hasn't been anything going on to really post, 2 we forget our camera if there is anything to blog, and for another our computer is working so slow that it's a pain to do anything. We get spoiled with high speed which is slow right now. So now that I finally post, I go on and post a disgusting one. But hey it's my crazy life and the most new and exciting thing that is going on.

I woke up this morning to find a bunch of maggots squirming on the clean kitchen floor. What a horrible morning, let alone an awful week. I have been 'bugging' Brandon on slacking about his chore (taking out the trash). It's been put off for a few days and I knew I should of just taken it out myself. But stubborn me, I didn't and now look what I have to deal with while the kids run around. I hate bugs. Maybe my karma of killing all those bugs, or having Brandon execute them for me is coming back to me. Or maybe because I just hate bugs. I have dealt with maggots like this before. I once took care of the animals at my parents house when they went away on vacation and saw the same sight. There wasn't much trash in their trash can so they didn't take it out before they left, (I'm not sure I would have thought of it either) but the flies left there eggs. And lucky me, I cleaned the buggers up. The ones at our place I folded in a piece of paper and set them on fire out in the backyard. Maybe I'm also part pyro lover. By the way they pop when they burn for anyone wondering. Some squirmed away and so I grabbed the closest thing to smash them, the sand buckets. As I began to smash them, out comes a huge brown widow (that's right a brown widow) so I smash the heck out of that. Even with Brandon spraying the perimeter and inside of our house with bug spray we still have ants searching for food, other dead ants, and even diaper poop in the bathroom trash. I think it's time for an exterminator. Another reason is because we've only had one huge black cockroach near our front door, which I'm sure came in that way. But the other day I found a small black baby roach near the door again. A while back coming home we saw one outside from our bedroom window. I had Brandon kill it and this one was huge and could fly! I'm fascinated with bugs and don't mind observing them out in nature. Bees especially. But I hate having them in my home. I've killed 5 spiders today. One I'm hoping was the one that bite me yesterday. We went peach picking this past weekend and I got the same small bruise on my heel as the one on my thumb. Ethan and Sophie have small bites all over their bodies that look like mosquito bites. But I haven't seen a mosquito here and I they have clean sheets. Maybe I'm crazy but I feel I have had some bad bug luck lately. I know it's summer and the only thing I hate at all about summer are the bugs. But that is one of the reasons why I like winter because there aren't any.