Crazy Clouds

When we went outside this morning this is what the clouds looked like. I might think these look cooler than you do because I know what the real thing looked like, but they were crazy we've never seen anything like them before-so I decided to post them anyway.




We first saw them in the backyard; we wanted to get a better view so we headed to the front yard where the neighbors and random people driving by were also looking at the sky. I felt like I was in one of those the-end-of-the-world-is-coming movies where the people are all out side looking up at the sky waiting for it to come.

And in a completely unrelated event, regarding our actual life, our fridge broke yesterday (meaning the half open popsicles in the door were leaking onto the floor); so we headed to the stores. On the way to Lowes Alex thought that we should go to Sears to check them out first. The first fridge he saw ended up being exactly the one we wanted, for an unbelievable price, without waiting for Memorial Day sales. We still went and looked everywhere else and ended up going back to get it. They couldn't deliver it for a week but our amazing friends let us borrow their truck so we could bring it home that night (thanks so much). However, the fridge still isn't hooked up because when the city was redoing our water they denied us curbside access so we can't turn our water off...I guess I'll let you know how everything turns out!

Lazy Day

Today we've done nothing. I felt pretty crummy this morning (tummy ache and headache-I feel like I'm in grade school complaining of those) I didn't even want to get out of bed. I also don't look that hot; my kids, on the other hand, look fabulous and they have throughly enjoyed trashing the house while I lay and watch them. Here are some pictures and videos from the day.








I was trying to get Chio standing by herself but she lost interest in that and found something thing in the toy box.


I took alex to a Cinco de Mayo party a while back and today he reenacted one of the activities...any guesses on what he's doing?

Update: I didn't realize how dark the alex video was so I'll explain what's going on. alex was walking around with stuff on his head (in this video a basket and a hat pulled over his eyes) using the yoga ball as a pinata and the broom as the stick- can't wait for the next party.

Messy Face Girl

All yesterday I was trying to write an actual post to tell you about my morning (crazy) and I still only have two incoherent sentences; so instead I'll post this video of Chio with animal crackers all over her face- nice trade, huh?

Watch out for Chio's dance moves when I start singing and then at the end when I ask Chio if she's okay and alex says "Yeah". I wish that I wouldn't have turned it off right then though because he goes on to say "yeah, but my knees hurts because I fell down the stupid stairs but Ryan ate my cookie but the window's stuck." And then he had to go to time out because he can't say "stupid".

Parenting Tips

My friend Kimberly found the best parenting information sheet I've ever seen.
Whenever I have any questions in the future this is where I'm going to check.

Make sure that you check out this link. The really sad thing is, according to them, some of our parenting techniques are bad. For example:

My Mother's Day

I had a wonderful mothers day today! I hope that you did too! I heard one of the best mothers day talks I've ever heard- from a youth speaker. She got up and just read a whole bunch of rules and things her mother has told her in the past. It was so heart felt, innocent and wonderful that it just really touched me. And to finish the day I'm going to blog... with pictures ...my favorite thing to do.

I love to go walking, so after dinner we went on a walk around our neighborhood.

alex rode his bike.

We also took our family photo to go in our picture frame. My most favorite part is the actual process of getting the picture so here are all the pictures we took for our "new house picture, happy" as alex calls it.

(above is the one I think we're going to print)

The rest of the pictures are in no particular order. The first ones are the "garden" planting pictures. It took us forever to dig this garden because we made it from a patch of grass so we'll see how it goes. On this day it was so hot and humid you could literally see the humidity in the air; we had to take a popsicle break so that is why alex is covered in red popsicle-he'd already been given one bath in the morning so I figured I'd wait until the garden was completely done before I cleaned him up again because there's no keeping him from helping.

He was in charge of flower placement.




And we made lots of new friends. This is actually among the smaller of the worms that we found. We also found: a frog, a snake, tons of bugs, ants, etc.


In the back yard we hale this little path alex likes to ride his tricycle on and some times he takes a break to dig in this mud pit he made.


Hair brushing.

alex is sweeping the walls for me here, what would I do without him?

Someone's in my House!!!

I had quite a busy day yesterday. The story doesn't take place during the day so without getting into too much detail I'll say the morning consisted of running errands; various stores, the post office, the library, the bank - how I put so much stuff off I have no idea. Then we came home for a nap (for alex), unloading and straight to the church to decorate. After another trip to the store I came home made gobs of salsa, showered and dressed everyone (Chio, alex and I in 30 minuets) and went back to the church.

Now for the story, after clean up at the church was over I came home and it was way past dark. I pulled into the driveway and the front door was wide open. With two screaming kids in the back seat (yes, I had pushed the poor things way past exhaustion - "bad mom, no more") I deliberated for a long time before I saw the mail box lid had been left open when I knew I left it shut; I decided I would play it safe and I went a friends house a couple blocks over to get a brave man to check out my house.

Here is where the frantic day and getting ready comes in to play. My house was not clean: I had thrown a load of laundry from the dryer on the couch so I could put alex's sheets in the dryer; dumped a basket of dirty laundry on the other couch so I could use the basket (all the unfolded laundry in my entire house was in the living area); all the dirty salsa dishes were in the kitchen sink; the kids toys were wherever they put them while I was making the salsa; I had the clothes and dressing stuff (lotion, diapers, towels, etcetera, I had laid out for rapid dressing) strewn on Chio's floor; all this was coupled with the middle stages of unpacking a house. So not only was I embarrassed because I had to go and get some one to check out my house, I was doubly embarrassed to have him look through my mess.

You've probably figured out by now that no one was really in my house or I wouldn't have been talking about all this other stuff. When Alex called to say good night I told him what happened and found out he was the one that came home and moved little things around, unlocked various doors (and left others open), but didn't take anything or wait to accost us. He was showing the house to his partner. And while I am overly cautious (thereby frequently locking us out of things) Alex definitely is my counterpart which is why we go so well together!

Meditation for Stop Lights?

So little alex is sick again - or I guess I could you could say he's still not better. I'm posting again today because I think I'm headed to the doctors for alex again tomorrow and that always seems to take up the entire day.

I always forget how tired I get when I'm taking care of sick kids, it's really is draining! After I got them both down for naps I tidied up the house and did the dishes (pretty much the only chores I do on Sunday) then I sat down at the computer to "relax" (which means going through my email and reader). While I do like yoga, I'm not that into mantras and karma and such; that being said I decided I would try the steps in this blog as I was reading it. As suggested in the first step , I was "Pay[ing] particular attention to [my] feet and to the back of [my] neck" and the next thing I knew Chio was waking me from a deep sleep with her crying. Needless to say, I'm not sugesting this for driving! lol. As shocking as it may be to some of you Nields; I have a hard time falling to sleep, napping, staying asleep and sleeping through anything; I can't remember the last time I feel asleep without intending to no mater how tired I was. I wonder how many people are going to be awakened by horns at traffic lights as a result of this blog- or am I the only one it has this affect on? -- I just hope they put on their breaks! Try it and see what happens for you.

The Front Window Views

We moved in at the perfect time...look at the view from our front window.....of course people who don't live with a two year old boy probably aren't as excited as we are.


This is the other view from our front window...alex not sharing his toys.

What I HATE about my new house....

...Nothing.

I thought that would be easier than to tell you everything I love about it!

Sorry I've been missing for so long; the kids are still battling various sickness that keep evolving into something else.... and we just finished cleaning and getting everything out of our apartment yesterday. Now I'm in my element so I hope to have everything back to normal soon - including my blog.

Because I love hearing all the great things your kids say here are some alex quotes:

"I'm not a buddy, I'm a boy!"

And when Chio wore an adorable red knit hat which perfectly matched her red Sunday dress we got "Baby no baby, baby baby snowman" and then he would laugh hysterically. Translation: Rocio's not a baby, she's a baby snowman. This statement I'm pretty sure stems from his current favorite computer game here.

About Time For Some Pictures?

The internet (and that means phone, too) are being turned off tomorrow and are not being turned on until Monday so I thought that today I would get caught up on my reader which I have neglected pretty much since we bought the house. I logged on and found 167 items - gasp - among which even Adam had posted three times - double gasp - so I figured that a more achievable goal would be to write a quick update on us and to apologizes for not staying up to date on you. So SORRY, I'll catch up soon.

Our move is still going well I even had a chance to go swimming in our pool yesterday. What was that? You didn't know that we had a pool in our new house? Well, we didn't until yesterday ...and we had to rethink it because as fun as it would have been, the kitchen with a waterfall in to the dinning room just isn't the place for a pool. Suffice it to say that our sink repairing skills are still being perfected! lol. And no pictures of that but we have some:

Chio getting stuck on her yoga ball box.

playing on the computer with mom.

alex sharing his toys.

The kids waking up in the morning.

note: My celebrity sole mate is Brad Pitt.

I'm T...I..Double "er"...D

See? I'm so tired I can't even spell. So, the moving is going well - and by well I mean that we have moved over most of alex's toys and that is pretty much it. The good news is, because of this, alex loves the "new house" and begs to go over there all the time. The bad news is I have no idea how we are going to get this all done. I was hoping I could pack some boxes today and this is how far I got: I leave the kids in the living room while I go in to my bedroom to get the packing tape, alex pushes the baby over so I have to go and put him in timeout (timeout ended up being about 15 minuets because that's how long it took him to sit still for 1 minuet straight), Chio poops in her diaper so I change her, alex needs to go to the bathroom and wants me to sit in there with him so I do, while we were in the bathroom Chio knocked over alexs snack (by tugging on the table cloth) so he has a fit while I get him another one and has to go to timeout again, he sits down to eat his snack while I take Chio in with me to pack a box, I have to go to the bathroom so I set her down on the floor in my room and use my toilet, as I walk out I grab the packing tape and look over to see what alex is doing and this is what I see
.
Then I gave up. I decided that I would just clean the apartment which is easier to interrupt with the periodic "hold me" *tear* moments and I can still supervise my house getting trashed so I don't have to worry about the inconvenience of just happening upon it.

The story of the oreos.

When alex is sick I let him pick out one snack at the store that he can have after he takes his medicine if he drinks all the medicine, doesn't complain, doesn't cry, and doesn't spit it out. After taking both sick kids to two different pharmacies and still having no medication (one of the prescriptions we needed was rare) I sent Alex to get the medicine while I stayed at the "new house" with the sleeping kids and cleaned. Alex heard me talking to alex about the snack he was going to pick out and decided that he would get alex the snack for him. Coincidently, Alex picked out Oreos, his favorite (Alex's) and brought home two bags. My son is purely a social Oreo eater; meaning that he will eat them when dad is if there is milk dipping involved (how can you beat being allowed to play with food?) but that is pretty much it. Chio and I can not eat them (even though I want to and would love to and Chio has basically said she would too), we have to refrain. Which leads me to wonder if the kids were even considered in this purchase that was supposedly for them, and if Alex knew what would happen to an unattended bag and that is why he had the foresight to keep one bag safely in his car? .....So alex did end up throughly enjoying his bag to the point of its being empty and because of this I ended up taking one car load of stuff over to the house because I had to get the vacuum after this - I just couldn't stand it - and I didn't want to waste a trip.

Great News.....the kids have now been on antibiotics long enough that they aren't contagious and we're not sick, Yea! AND we can get people to watch our kids without getting their kids sick.

We Closed Today!

I was driving Alex crazy with how stressed out I was so Alex called and asked if we could closed today and they said yes. It's official, we're home owners (well, home loan owners). The really great news is that it turned out to be significantly less than we thought that it was going to be. We actually will end up paying less for our house payment than if we had renewed our lease here - can't beat that. I don't know how much I will be able to post in the next little while but wish us luck with the move!

Rocket Demonstration

If you liked this, you should look at the previous post for instructions.

Soda Bottle Rockets

I've been trying to get this post up since easter and today we finally got around to it. We didn't get a chance to go outside and try it out but I hope that you will because really a two year old in the living room doesn't do it justice - you can get some serious hight with these.

Credit where credit is due. There is a lady in my ward who is amazing. I can't get a hold of her to ask if it will be alright to use her name here so she will have to remain anonymous for the time being. She is what I would imagine Cathy being like in her ward- always a great attitude no matter what is going on, has a "cute" idea for anything and everything and a way to accomplish it, and everything will always be easy - even if it means no sleep the night before the event she's planing. I started thinking they were similar when I saw Cathy's boot camp preparations it looked like something similar to what this sister would do. She is the one with the knowhow for these and gives the helpful tip that bike shops have a lot of old tires that they are usually happy to part with. She asked a shop where she used to live if there were any that she could get from them for cheap and they complied by giving her around 300 for free - just make sure that there aren't any with big holes you can't plug up with duct tape effectively or any with that hole filler goo inside (not fun to have around your face).

Materials:

1. 8x11 piece of paper
2. 3 3x5 index cards or card stock cut to a similar size
3. masking tape
4. duct tape
5. scissors
   
6. bicycle tire
7. empty 2 liter bottle
8. 10'' pvc pipe

This is now my third attempt at writing this (both of the previous times I went to post and it erased everything) so it's not as detailed as you want-sorry. The pictures should help but if any thing isn't making since just call or email me so you don't give yourself a headache - my instructions are lacking - sorry I don't have more time.

I like to make the rocket before the launching device because it's easier to do when the bottle is not attached to the pipe.

To make the rocket:

1. Loosely roll the 8.5x11 paper around the PVC pipe and tape along the seam for the entire length of the paper with masking tape. You want it loose enough that you can get the rocket on and off the pipe easily but not so loose that the air will escape when you shoot it off.
2. Remove the paper from the pipe and pinch one end of the newly formed paper cylinder so it resembles the tip of a rocket. The first piece of tape should go right over the top so no air escapes and then tape all around the sides to get a good seal.
3. Hold the 3x5 cards together and cut fins. They can be any shape you want the important part is to have them all the same. Leave a .5'' seam to cut so you can attach them more easily. See picture to for how to cut.
4. Fold each flap a different direction and attach to the paper cylinder using tape.

For the launching device:

1. If the bicycle tire isn't already cut, cut it once all the way through.
   
2. Put one end of the tire over the bottle and secure with duct tape. Make sure you have a good seal and no air is escaping.(this is before the tape)
   
3. Connect the other end of the tire to the PVC pipe with duct tape and again make sure you have a good seal.(the end result...alex doesn't want to take the picture he wants to shoot it off)

To Launch:

1. Slide your rocket onto the PVC pipe.
2. Without holding onto the rocket hold the PVC pipe so it is pointing where you want to shoot it.
3. Stomp on the 2 litter bottle to launch. You have to make sure that you are stepping on the middle of the bottle. We left the wrappers on and told them to make sure they stepped on the wrappers other wise the bottles will crack and break.
   
4. Blow into the PVC pipe to get it ready to launch again.

Chio Crawling

As most of you know, trying to catch on camera the newest ability in your child's life isn't always a piece of cake. There are about six videos before this of Chio just sitting across the room smiling at me for three minuets without a hint of crawling. This is about her average crawling ability but there are times ( when we have left her alone in the room) where she will take off like a bullet; why this ability is reserved only for abandonment I have no idea- may by it's an off shoot of the fight or flight reflex.

General Conference Pictures

Our desk top is in our bedroom so all of us piled on our bed for General Conference, I can't remember the last time Alex and I were able to listen to Saturday and Sunday together we had so much fun. I thought it was amazing; I had all of the things I was wondering about addressed and I thought it was the best general conference I've ever heard - but then I guess I feel that way after all of them.

Pictures from that day:

alex took this one, it was pretty cold so we all bundled up - you can't see Rocio very well but she is between us.

These are the pictures daddy took of Chio:


there were a zillion more of the trying to eat you ones but I only put up two, I guess she liked conference because she did this for the whole time -like she wanted to say something, too.

..it's Alex what can I say? lol.

Cheerios

I finally remembered to get Cheerios from the store for Chio; she mostly would get a handful and then sit there and lick her hand energetically. We started out on the snack blanket in the living room, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to come and clean my bedroom with just Chio while alex finished his snack. That would just not do- alex brought all the snacks into my bedroom to finish and that is where we get these:

Kisses, Boys and Meltdowns

We're doing good, but lacking in pictures. In preparation for the move I'm currently getting rid of all the stuff we haven't used in the last year - I'm feeling lighter by the day (in a purely possessional sense) -so I haven't got the camera out of it's safe non-packing place (you never know how alex will help). So here's a quick written update of the munchkins instead of photos:

Rocio: Chio loves to give everyone big, long, slobbery kisses. However, up until recently, Alex was excluded from this perquisite. She used to act like she was going to get daddy, with drool hanging out her little mouth, but then as she got close she would look away dejectedly. Recently that all changed; she found an extremely smooth and soft (not bald) spot near the forehead area perfect for her kisses. When she made the discovery she was literally - giddy, I can't think of how else to put it. She starting giggling uncontrollably and her arms and legs were flaring with excitement. When she calmed down enough to keep a good grip on his ears (she holds onto my hair and alex's ears) his head was covered in her kisses and he had baby slobber all over his entire face - but they were both happy she had finally given daddy a kiss. I'm taking this as Chio casting her vote in with mine that daddy should shave more often than right before he leaves us for 24 hours straight, what do you think?

According to alex: alex knows he is a boy (not a baby), daddy is a boy (not a baby), all men and boys are boys (not babies), and there are some babies who are boys. He also knows that Chio is a baby and a mommy, mommy is a mommy and a baby and all other females are mommies and babies interchangeably; none of us girls are girls or boys. Recap: the poor kid already has misconceptions about women and he's only two. Conclusion: I need to be more specific with my explanations.

End of The Day Thoughts: ...I think there may be something wrong with alex because today he had two meltdowns; I really hope it's not a new phase because the only thing I do is ignore him, let him cry it out and then move on. The first time was when I told him to throw Chio's diaper away (an extremely common chore for him) he just threw himself on the floor and cried. Second, when we were playing with dinosaurs I had mine rhyme "snack" with "hat" in the song mine was singing and he threw himself down again screaming "no, back". I'm pretty sure alex can't rhyme but he was defiantly adamant about this and I frequently underestimate him so maybe. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better because I love conference; for some reason it just screams FAMILY at me and what could be better than that?

Inspired

About an hour before bedtime I returned home from the store and alex was not asleep as I had hoped. We went to the store to get salt, cumin, and Q-tips (all of which I did need) but the main purpose was to put my non-nap taking kids to sleep. I thought it was going to work really well too because on the way there I had to talk to alex in an extremely animated manner to keep him from dozing off. On the way home, however, the prospect of a skittle promised while searching for the Q-tips was enough to keep him up (he remembered I didn't give him a skittle after he went to the bathroom before we left).

I had to look at my options. Before we left we had done a pick up of the entire house so I was very anti getting out more toys and having to pick them up by myself (or have him "help" me again) so that was out. I had bathed both kids before we left and two baths in two hours for no reason is also something I frown on, no good either. I had a headache so I didn't really want to read for a full hour but I thought he might want just a few stories so I was settling on that. With the daylight savings light shining brightly through the windows and the neighborhood kids playing loudly outside I asked alex if he wanted to go to bed, "No," he said, "I want to run."

"Great" I said, and then I told him that he could run as much as he wanted from one side of the living room to the other. Being two, he thought this was the best thing ever. Chio, being 6 months, also thought this was the best thing ever and happily watched him do it. An hour later he was done running and I was done making tomorrow's dinner, prepping the dinner after that and cleaning the kitchen. I only had to go in a few times when Chio had moved into his running path, other than that it was just me and the kitchen. After he was in bed he was asleep before I had read two verses. Kids have the best ideas.

I'm now nursing Chio while I'm typing this and debating if I want to go and fold laundry...I wonder if alex has any ideas for that...