Our hero...

When I was pregnant with Xander everyone told me...

"Oh, a boy! You're so lucky, boys LOVE their moms. Little girls love their dads but nothing compares to the love of a little boy for his mom."
I was so excited, and then quickly realized that the people who told me this were liars. Don't get me wrong, Xander loves me but when it comes to favorites... Zach is it. Xander adores his daddy and wants to be with him as much as possible and just like him in every way.



I'll be honest, there were some times when my feelings were hurt and I was a little jealous, but then I realized who better to idolize and have as a best friend than your dad?

Then came Blayne...
In the beginning it looked like I might actually lay claim to being the "favorite" with him, but as time has gone by it has shown that daddy is the true winner.



Blayne not only adores his daddy like his brother but also seems to respond more easily to daddy's instructions than to mommy's. Case in point...
A few days ago the boys wanted to watch a movie but they had made a large mess in the living room with their toys. I told them "If you would like the privilege of a movie, you need to clean up your mess first." They are usually quite good and don't complain about cleaning up but for some reason Blayne began whining and telling me "No Mommy!! No clean up!" I turned to him and as calmly as I could said "Blayne, you know the rule. If you make a mess, you clean it up. If you don't clean up your mess you will not get to watch the movie." He then turned to me and said:
"I ask Daddy."
To my surprise, he did just that. He walked up to Zach and said "Daddy, mommy say clean up. No clean up." To which Zach responded "Blayne, if mommy asks you to do something you need to do it. You made that mess, and now you need to clean it up." The response he received was "Okay daddy."
WHAT?!? No fussing, no whining, no temper tantrum, just a simple "Okay daddy."? My jaw may have hit the floor with an accompanying eye roll, but I was grateful for his amazing power over the kiddos.
Then last night something miraculous happened and Daddy became, not only my favorite, but my HERO.
For the last 7 months I have been trying to potty train Blayne and he is having none of it. Even my mentioning the word toilet began cries of "No, no toilet! Need diapers!" And the new little training toilet held no appeal. So basically I was resolved that I was going to have two in diapers. Last night as we were sitting around Blayne came and climbed up on the couch next to Zach and I, suddenly... there was a smell.
Just as I was trying to maneuver myself off of the couch Zach said to Blayne "Blayne, when you feel like you need to go potty you need to go to your little toilet, take your pants off, and go potty on your toilet." He got the same response that I always get when I give this same instruction, a quick and non-excited "Okay daddy." He then got off the couch and began walking towards his room, and I followed. As I turned the corner I got quite the surprise....
there was Blayne in the bathroom, pants off, and sitting on the little toilet. I was floored! I quickly walked over to him, praised him for doing exactly what daddy had said and suggested we take his diaper off. He gave me a 'whatever lady' look, and then daddy came and suggested the same thing to which he said "Okay daddy!" To the surprise of both of us he hadn't pooped yet and sat and did his deed on the toilet!!!! After 7 long months my child had finally done his business on the toilet!!! I was more than thrilled I was beyond ecstatic!!! (That was, until I realized that I was going to have to clean up this fun mess *insert dry heaving here*.) All it took was one talk from daddy.


Yep, our daddy is that amazing! Thanks Zach, and good luck with the potty training thing, I hereby relinquish the glorious duty to you.

Snowpocalypse

So lately here in Arkansas the weather has been a little finicky. It is having a hard time deciding what season it wants to be in and is causing some people to.... well, to put it honestly, FREAK OUT. We had seen this type of behavior before in Oklahoma and sometimes it's justified: I.E. Crazy ice storms, and sometimes it's just people overreacting: I.E. Exactly like this:



About a month ago we got a few inches of snow and even though the boys and I were unsuccessful at making a snowman (too powdery to stick), we bundled up and still managed to have a good time. We then came inside, had some hot chocolate and bundled up in some blankets.











Then just a week later the temperatures were in the 60s, we shed our coats, and the boys and I had a picnic outside and ice cream sandwiches for dessert.






Now fast forward to this week..... welcome to our 12-15 inches of snowfall!!










The forecast for this weekend and next week....

HIGHS IN THE 60s.
We'll have to see if that really happens. Oh Mother Nature... you fickle, fickle woman you!

WE LOVE MO!!!

So I had a four day weekend to take in January. It feels like I live at work in the month of December, so I get an extended weekend off in January. Codi and I decided to go do something fun, just the four of us. St Louis, MO. it was.

It is only about 6 hours away. We had to stop in Branson to go to our favorite store. Dicks 5 and Dime.

Then we had to go to Lamberts, the home of the thrown rolls. We saw it on the food network and had to go.

Then, we made it to St Louis. Words cannot explain how much fun we had there. The Arch was fun, but the "elevator" made Xander and prego Codi a little nervous.
We then found this amazing place, called the City Museum. Xander and I both screamed like little girls when we saw this place. The outside looked like this: The outside was full of planes, buses and tubes that led from each plane and bus. Blayne and I were the only ones who were not afraid of heights, and weren't freezing. .
The inside was full of caves, tunnels, and secret hiding places. You would find one hole in the middle of the ground and you would be crawling underground and then you would pop up on the other side of the building. There was a floor that had an aquarium, a floor with a circus, and a 10 story slide. It was too cool.



We then went to a Museum.

And another museum.

St. Louis was really cool.

But the night before we were going to drive home... it began snowing. By morning it had snowed about 8 inches. We stayed in our cabins about 30 min south of St Louis and had to drive on some back roads to get to the major highways. We said a prayer before we began our drive and we were on our way. We had only been driving 45 minutes, and only traveled about 15 miles, because the roads were very windy and VERY slippery. There was a little hill and I, not thinking, applied the gas a little and we began spinning. The car became quiet and we all held on tight while we spinned, thankfully we ended in our lane, facing the right way. I am not good at driving in the snow, so I asked Codi if she wanted to drive. Since she is from Utah, and is more familiar with snow driving so she took over. Too bad this was not snow, IT WAS ICE, and two minutes later we were in the ditch, with no way out. The roads were horrible, and no matter who was driving, they would have ended up in the ditch.

But since we said a prayer that we would be safe, we were okay and Heavenly Father placed us about 40 feet from a towing shop. I walked to the place and asked if they could pull us out. The man backed his vehicle up and attached the chains to our car. He then proceeded to pull our car out, when all of a sudden his big truck started sliding backwards...towards us!!

The man began screaming, saying: "Unhook your car! Unhook your car!" So I slid under the car and unhooked the chains. The truck kept sliding and the man jumped inside the truck and slammed on the brakes and emergency brakes. It stopped about one foot from hitting our car. Thankfully he got the truck stopped or he would have knocked our car on its side and possibly dragged us down the hill.

I asked the guy to hook the car up from behind, and pull us down the mountain. He did (and only charged me $20), and we decided to find another way home. We went about a mile, while searching the GPS for an alternate route, and realized it would take us two hours out of the way. Going up that hill was our only quick way out. While stopped on the side of the road and starting to get really frustrated... along came a sand truck/snow plow out of no where and it was heading the same way we needed to go. We got right behind him and started up the hill.

Earlier, while we were being pulled out of the ditch, there were about six cars waiting to make their way up the hill and by the time we had followed the sand truck/snow plow and made it over the hill, four of those six cars were stuck in the ditch awaiting their turn with the tow truck.

We highly recommend visiting St. Louis, but not when it is snowing.

Thanks for the planning Codi, but most of all... thanks for not freaking out when we experienced the snow hill of death.