" I mating tsata cupcates!"

Yesterday afternoon, Ollie and I were reading his special story that made him when we threw away his binkies. In that story, there is a picture of him trying to eat a cupcake with his binky. As soon as we came to that picture, Ollie said, "let's make cupcates!" Since we were just hanging around, I decided to just go for it. We went into the kitchen, I pulled a chair over to the counter, and I actually let my not quite 2 1/2 year old help me make chocolate cupcakes. It was messy. It was kind of a crazy idea. And I'm sure that those cupcakes were highly contaminated with Ollie germs, but he was so excited every time I let him help me hold the beaters, dump in some sugar, or crack an egg (yes, he even cracked an egg - half of it onto the counter, but didn't get any shells in the batter which was quite impressive)! He had a great time and I actually had a great time, too. We ended up with sugar all over the floor, egg dripping off the counter, and batter basically everywhere, but I really did enjoy it. For some reason, I was able to just let the mess go and realize that we were doing many good things that didn't include keeping things clean. When we finished the batter, I let Ollie lick the beaters (a favorite of mine when I helped as a child and still to this day, in fact) while I filled the pans.
When my mom walked in (we were going to girl's night - dinner at Olive Garden and saw Crazy For You at Tuachan), Oliver joyously exclaimed, "I mating tsata cupcates!" Grammy whipped up the cream cheese frosting that I had softening and we gave them a try before we went out. We even made delicious chocolate cupcakes while we made memories!

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Dexy is now getting into the "Daddy Tricks" madness.

Here's Ollie singing up the water spout. Right after I stopped filming him, he started singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider," but I couldn't catch it. It was just funny to hear him sing, "the itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout," up the water spout!

This is Ollie's hodge podge shopping list.

Today's Moments

I don't normally do this, so sorry that's there's going to be no pictures, but for some reason, I just really want to remember what happened today (I guess at this point it was technically yesterday, but to make the story telling easier, I'm going to call it today). Yesterday, Brian found out that he could take Ollie down the hydro-tub at the St. George City Pool as long as Ollie was wearing a life jacket. All summer long, it's been Brian's dream to take Oliver down a big waterslide, but no where in Northern Utah or in the whole Dallas/Fort Worth area would let you take kids down their big slides. So, when Brian found out that he could, he got very excited and told Ollie that tommorow they would go down the waterslide. Oliver seemed like he was happy about getting to go, but he didn't act nessecarily super excited. You can therefore imagine our surprise when shortly after 7 o'clock this morning, Brian and I felt Ollie climbing onto our bed. He then crawled right up to Brian and said, "go on a waterslide." This is my child that generally sleeps until 9 or 9:30 and rarely ever wakes up before 8:30! It was so cute and clever and funny that he had made the connection and realized that now it was tomorrow which meant that he could go on the waterslide! I didn't even think that he was that excited about it, but apperantly he was! We then spent all day explaining to him that the slide didn't open until 3:00 pm, which meant that he would have to wait until after nap time. He, however, didn't take a nap and right at 3 o'clock Brian took Oliver to the waterslide. I stayed here with Dexy who was taking a nap, but I heard that Ollie LOVED it and that both he and Brian had a fabulous time! We'll have to go again so that I can see the joy on his face. But for today, I was actually glad to stay behind in a quiet sleeping home and even got a little nap myself! I'm glad that they had such a good time and it was just so cute that he came into our room 10 seconds before the first thing in the morning, all pumped and ready to go down the waterslide!

My other story is sad, but it's still a little funny. Once I explain, you'll see why. After dinner, I made some very yummy banana muffins. Dexy had actually eaten a pretty good dinner, but the whole time I was making the muffins he was just beside himself. He wanted one so bad! It was crazy how he knew that I was baking something delicious and he just couldn't wait. The timer went off and I opened the oven and went to pull the muffins out. My boys have often come up to the oven to watch me take out baked goodies and neither one of them has ever touched it or even acted like they might touch the oven. They are both so good about it, that I just remind them that it's very hot and tell them, "don't touch" and they don't. But tonight, Dexy came over and I told him it was hot, so he started trying to blow on the muffins (when I tell him, "hot," he blows on his food to cool it down - it's really cute). I pulled one pan out of the oven and when I didn't give him a muffin right away, he just couldn't resist any longer and he grabbed for one himself! It happened so fast. I couldn't even kind of stop him. He grabbed the hot oven rack with his whole hand, took a long stillted inhale, and then let out a shriek that could burst your ear-drums. My parents were over for dinner and my mom was right at the sink, so she turned the cold water on and I grabbed Dexy and put his hand in the water right after it happened. We were running water on it and trying to ice it and Dexy was just screaming and screaming and screaming. There was snot dripping down his face and tears every where. My poor baby! He was just so upset and then we realized that he was still trying to reach for the muffins that were now on the cooling rack. My mom said, "try giving him a muffin since that's what he wanted so badly in the first place." So, I took a muffin, peeled off the paper liner, broke it into fourth and handed him one. He took it, immediately stopped crying, hopped off of my lap, and happily trotted off to eat his long awaited banana muffin! After that, his troubles were over! It was funny how that's all he wanted and once he had it, burned hand and all, everything was fine. And tonight after their bath, I checked Dexy's hand and it didn't look too bad. I think it won't really even blister and he's going to be just fine. And if not, I'll just give him a banana muffin!

My Cute Boys in Action

Here are just a couple of videos of my boys doing what they do best, being super adorable! This one is Ollie singing "Chain Gang." I love how he even makes the grunting 'hoo' noise!

Ollie in the Chain Gang

And this video is of Dexy's favorite kitchen activity. If I'm in the kitchen working, he comes right in, opens the cabniet and gets out the collinder. It's not only a helpful cooking tool, but a fabulous piece of head gear as well!

Dexy's Collinder Helmet

Suspicion Confirmed!

This evening, we went to the first half of my 10 year high school reunion as a family. It was at Green Springs Park. There was a playground, a little splash pad, lots of grass, and lots of yummy food. It was fun for me to see some of the people that I hadn't seen for, well, 10 years. We were having a good time, until I saw Brian take off down a grassy hill. I knew then exactly what had happened - Ollie had rolled down the hill and Brian went to catch him, but didn't make it in time. I have had a very strong suspicion that Oliver is allergic to grass. I've never had him tested, but I just knew that he was. And boy was I right. He rolled down a grassy hill in nothing but swim trunks and this was the result.....

...rash, rash, rash! His skin looks like he'd been lashed a thousand times by a teeny whip. These pictures don't really do it justice. He looks like a reptile! We stopped and bought some allergy medicine and then gave him an oatmeal bath as soon as we got home.
He faced also looked whipped and even his eyes were going puffy.

After the initial 5 minutes of screaming, Ollie handled it well. Dexy, of course, was all smiles.
Happy by the end of his bath. But then there was more screaming as I slathered his whole body with hydrocortisone cream. He was glad to get his jammies on and go to bed. We'll have to assess the damage again in the morning. He did a good job, though. What a champ!!

It's a Jungle Out There

OK. Not really a jungle, but there has been some wild behavior and uncontained urination and that's kind of like a jungle, as well as the singing of those lyrics, so it works. Thirty seconds after my last post, when I said that Ollie had been getting much better with the markers, I walked out into the living room to find Ollie with red marker all over his mouth area and red war markings on the wall as well. Seriously, I hit the publish button and walked right out there to find him vandalizing with the markers! Spoke to soon I guess. Brian keeps telling me to not let him use the markers until we can get washable ones and he told me again as I was attempting to remove the marker from Oliver's face and he was wiping it off the wall, so I walked over, picked up the marker tin, and turned it out over the trash can. It was not great thinking on my part and it was rather sad to hear Ollie say, "NO, Mommy! Don't throw in the garbage!" But, I was tired of hearing that I shouldn't let him use them and, I guess, more tired of the marker everywhere. I just told Ollie that I threw them away because he colored on the wall and himself instead of on the paper and with that, he was over it. I know he needs the practice, though, so don't worry - I'll buy him some more. I'll just make sure that they're washable! I, unfortunately, didn't get a picture. It looked really bad, though (I at first thought he was bleeding profusely from his mouth), so I guess that's a good thing.
The next day we had a similar "just one of those things" event, but after that, the day actually went rather well. Like I said, I'm trying to just buckle down with the whole potty trianing thing (particularly now as Brian has decided to go to school full time and money is tight - one less kid to diaper would be helpful). So that morning, Friday, the boys woke up and I changed Dexy and then asked Ollie if he was ready to do all of his pee-pee in the potty. He said yes and has been excited about the new big boy undies we bought him. We took his diaper off and put on the undies and then he took about 3 steps to go play, stopped, and wet himself! We had just put them on! But, I explained that big boy undies aren't like a diaper and you can't pee-pee in them and we put on a clean pair. He seemed to understand and I had learned my lesson, so from then on out, I took him to the potty about every 20 minutes, and he did so fabulously!! Not another accident all day. We even went to see Derek and Cristina (about a 15 or 20 minute drive) and there were no accidents on the way there, while we were at their house, or on the way back! What a stud, huh?! I did still put a diaper on him for nap and bed, but other than that, he wore his big boy undies all that day and all yesterday! I was so proud! Since we spent a lot of that first morning at home, getting him use to the potty, he had to find a way to entertain himself. Brian has been watching a lot of MONK lately (started on the first season when we got here and is already on the sixth) and Ollie, who loves music, has picked up on the theme song. He sang it all Friday morning to entertain himself between trips to the bathroom.

Now he's even better than this. He's got the lyrics down pat! But, back to the potty issue. Today, we didn't do the potty thing really at all. We don't have any training pants, but he couldn't go in just undies to Church, so he had to be in diaper. And by the time we got home from Church, it was nap time and then the day was almost over. But, we'll be better tomorrow because he's been doing very well!