2 years 1 month 2 weeks and 3 days

... Lord, please grant me the patience to make it through the terrible two's!!

Ares' Report Card

I'm trying to figure out how to turn a .pdf into an image so you can see his report card. My kid cracks me up - and obviously he cracks other people up to - my 'class clown'. Here are some of my favorite parts:

• ... such a smart boy and began talking so young, now it's one of his favorite things to do! (duh, he never stops talking, lol!!)


• ... so entertaining to hear what kind of things he has to say, I love it! (Obviously she doesn't have to sit in a car with him for long periods of time, hehe)


• Ares is super silly and adores to make his friends and teachers laugh! He is definitely going to grow up to be the class clown! (Oh, boy, I'm psyched.)


• ... one of the best listeners in class (we actually hear this a lot, whoda thunk?!).


• His smile lights up the whole room and his laughter lifts everyone's spirits. (He always lifts my spirits - my silly kid=)


• ... I can picture him as a doctor when he gets older. (And here, I thought he would be a left handed pitcher!)


• ... and then the typical 'joy to have in class and it wouldn't be the same in the room without him'. (No, it would be a lot quieter.)

He knows all of his shapes except for 'octagon', 'pentagon', 'crescent', and 'hexagon'. He knows 'moon' rather than crescent, and I'm not terribly upset that 'hexagon' is not in his vocabulary yet, lol. (I can't believe they even try to teach 'hexagon'!)

He knows 'sun', 'earth', and Saturn he calls 'spaceship' (because of the rings). *grin* He is a goofball. They are also working on Social Studies already. The U.S. flag and other national symbols. He knows all of his body parts, and all of his colors (even gray, finally!!)

Another thing we need to work on his how old he is. No matter how many times we work on it, when you ask him how old he is, he says "I'm a boy!!"

Happy Mother's Day (3)

I cannot believe this has been my 3rd mother's day! Crazy! Ares had a few tantrums, but, overall it was a good day. I woke up to a new Netbook! (Whoo hoo!!) and a nice travel coffee mug with his fingerprints spelling out the word 'Mom' with a heart. It's cute - he made it at school.

The morning was rough, with some tantrums and lots of family, but after his nap, we played outside all day, and went to the park. My 'scardy-cat' child is no longer afraid. Of anything. That scares me! He LOVES to play baseball, and wanted to play all afternoon. (Don't worry Dad-in-law, he played soccer all over the house in the evening, and this kid has some dribbling skills!)

Travels not-so-abroad

I've spent the past 3 days in Montana. I wasn't excited at all about going to Missoula, but WOW, is it a beautiful place! I didn't realize that it is surrounded by mountains! I got in around 1AM so it was dark. I woke up in the AM, went out to my rental car, and was in absolute AWE. Mountains, 360* mountains! Snow capped, beautiful, serene looking. After my meetings, I attempted (and failed) to hike up the 'Big M'. What a workout, it was amazing. I'm out of shape, I have terrible asthma in high altitudes, and it was freezing cold. (I wasn't expecting the cold, it was warm down on the valley floor. Then it snowed this morning).

Aunt Kassi (my cousin) watched Ares today. He told her 'There's hair in my mouth' and 'Aunt Kassi! I'm stuck! I need help!' when he was 'stuck' under the table. haha I haven't seen Ares since Friday afternoon, and I won't see him until tomorrow late morning. It's so tough being away from him for a few days. I wonder if it gets any easier when he gets older.

Gaga! Goo Goo.

I forgot to mention on the last post. Now that Ares is talking, he doesn't shut up. He talked the entire way to Grandma's on Easter (40 mins) non-stop. It was terribly annoying, lol, but at times entertaining, but REALLY annoying. Adam's taking Ares to Cinci this weekend without me. I told him he better get the DVD player ready, or he'll have to listen to Ares' chatter non stop. ('What is dat? Oooh, white truck! Big tires! Mousie's sleeping! Wake up Mousie! Green sign mommy. Mommy, why you sit there? Sit over there. Papa play cars.) And all of that would be said in the same amount of time it took you to read that.

And for the GAGA part!!

Best. Concert. Ever! That's saying a lot. I have been to many concert in my years, and I am a metal head girl, who LOVED the Lady Gaga concert. L-O-V-E-D it!

Adam bought me 2 tickets for our anniversary last year, but made me promise to find someone else to go with. I took Smee, and three hours before we left we decided to dress up. I worked all day, so Sarah went from store to store picking up things for our outfits. We had so much fun.

Unfortunately there was 2 hours between the opening band and her actually coming on stage, so she didn't start until 10:30 PM, which meant, on a Wednesday night, I didn't get home until 2AM which made for a rough morning at work. That, and the fact that we only got about 50 minutes of sleep, because we had 70 MPH winds outside that night and we kept turning on the TV and walking outside to make sure the siding wasn't coming off of our house. Our neighbors lost some siding (which sucks, seeing as our houses are brand new), our grills moved across the stone patio, and we lost some flowers, but aside from that, we were all very lucky.

Davis' Birthday

Ares went to his first birthday party this past weekend. It was Davis' 2nd birthday party and all of the boys from his class were invited. We've never met the parents of the other students' in his class, so we decided to rearrange the weekend to make it to the party. The boys all got along great, and the weather, for once was really nice - so we played outside.
Things I've learned:

• Boys are all the same. Dinosaurs are man's best friend.


• If there's a truck around, nothing else matters.


• Apple juice is the favorite among the kids, my son doesn't care, as long as it's liquid.


• My kid was the only one to finish his juice box - and he did it in 4 seconds.


• My kid is the scaredy cat when it comes to playground slides. He eventually went down it, but it took some coaxing. (more like he had to watch the other kids go down a few times first)


• All kids like cake and at least ate all of the frosting.


• My kid talks FAR more than the others. They were saying 'juice', 'please', 'more', 'truck', 'slide'... etc. My kid came up to me and said "Ahhhh! Mommy, the dinosaur eat my finger! Roooaaaarrrrr!" and then ran off.


• All kids like chips - except for mine which kept asking for pineapple and some version of the word 'cantaloupe'. It took a few seconds to figure out what he wanted.

I think everyone had a great time and all of the parents were very nice. Unfortunately, no one exchanged numbers!

Happy Easter, 2011 - 2 years old

Isn't he so dapper?

He had a great time with his second cousins

The first egg he found. This one was too easy.

As soon as he shook the egg, he exclaimed "Cars Mommy!".
How did he know?? Smart kid he is!

Great Grandpa Bill sent up some bubble wrap with his basket.

This was a BIG hit.

His basket consisted of Cars dive toys (that he can take into the shower), bubbles, toothbrushes and toothpaste (Buzz Lightyear and Lightning McQueen).

This Easter 'basket' came from Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug

He shook the egg, that was a see through green color, and exclaimed: "Socks!" How on earth does a kid know what a rolled up pair of socks looks like through an egg?!?

This one was harder to find. So hard, in fact, that we just told him where it was.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago we got some nice weather... haven't seen it since though!

Neglect

Sorry I have been neglecting the blog. I have been traveling for work (Orlando, Ft.Lauderdale and Tampa this week, Missoula, MT May 1-3), but I still haven't gotten the thank you cards out for Ares' birthday, because I'm so busy. Sorry all! Hopefully Easter pics to come soon! All of the video's I've taken recently won't upload!! grrr

Back Seat Driver

I hate the way Google formatted this post. It did not look this spaced out when I typed it. Stupid blogspot, i hate this program more and more each day. Here's some silly things my son has done: Taking Ares to work this morning, I went through a yellow light (might have been considered a little pink at the time). Ares says "Uh-Oh. Red is stop mommy." -Smart Ass.

Between his bottom two front teeth he always has a plaque build up, regardless of how many times we brush his teeth. So yesterday, I decided to attempt to floss his teeth. After putting the floss through 6 or 7 times, it got the job done. "More mommy". I told him that we were done, the floss worked and I didn't have to do it any more, and he says "put da string my mouth!". I guess it's good to start young. I had to tell him that we'll do it again tomorrow. He was OK with that, because for the next half an hour I got nothing but kisses from him and TONS of laughs. I let him stay up an extra 15 minutes so I could get more =) (He also loves to have his ears cleaned and his finger nails clipped - always has, but his feet are too ticklish - I hate that part.)

I hate boogers, I hate ear wax, I hate eye boogers, I don't love dry skin. I've learned to deal with Ares' eczema. He used to cry when I would try to pick at his ear if there were something there. The other day I picked at something in his ear, and he turned around a said "Now the other one". HA! I WIN!

Ares loves fruit and (some) veggies. He's starting to understand that they're not real treats though. Yesterday I gave him a bag of fruit snacks. He finished them in record time and asked for some more. Here's our conversation:

Ares: Fwoo sacks pees (fruit snacks please)

Me: No, you can have another package after dinner.

Ares: I want cake pees.

Me: We have no cake.

Ares: OK, den pizza pees (then pizza please, which is funny, because he doesn't really like pizza)

Me: We have no pizza, dinner's on the stove, we'll eat soon.

Ares: Cookies?

Me: *laughing* Wow, Ares, are you hungry?

Ares: No, *as he runs to the TV* Mommy, Cars TV

Me: No, we're going to eat dinner soon, no TV

Ares: *thinking* Bwuzz Wightyeeer? On da TV? (Buzz Lightyear, from Toy Story. He's seen the movie twice, I'm not sure how he can remember the characters so well.)

Me: Go play with your dinosaurs Ares: *running* Rooooaaaarrrrrrr

Like none of the previous conversation ever happened.

I'm starting to think that Mother Nature is like an old abusive boyfriend - we take nothing but crap, constantly, and when we've just about had it, they do something to make us so happy (80* Sunday), and then it's back to the same ol' sh*t all over again. (40* Monday/Tuesday). Grrrrr

Thankfully, this was last month, and not too recently.

Ares loves spending time with his Great Grandparents. He doesn't see them much, but he loves the attention when he does! Here we're celebrating Grandpa Schmidt's 80th birthday. That same chocolate cake in the pictures is what I believe put me into labor when I was having Ares a few years ago.

Ares sings soccer -

- with daddy, but if mommy starts to sing he says "No mommy. Daddy sing." I know I have a bad voice, but a 2 year old is not supposed to know the difference.




Whelp, I can no longer upload videos. You've gotta check out facebook for videos of Ares. this one was super cute, and only 19 seconds long, but it still will not post. BOOO GOOGLE!