*Rockband Rockstars*

My friends will probably kill me for posting this but it was just too priceless to turn up. And by the way, the next couple of posts will be backwards in order as I couldn't wait to put up this post first. Saturday ended up being one hilarious day. I love those days when you don't really have anything planned but end up having so much fun. The morning started out like any other Saturday. I woke up early and headed over to Kari Kardio for our Saturday morning step class. After burning lots of calories and even tripping on some girls' feet behind me and falling to the floor it was a fun class indeed. Leah convinced me and Terra to do a Mock run of her lower body class that she will be teaching on Tuesday. So it was decided that at around 2:30 everyone would come over to our clubhouse. Sometimes I love it when we have guests come over last minute because it gives me every reason to actually clean my house. I finished cleaning the entire house in a record time of 2 hours and even managed to mop the floors! Yes!! After everyone arrived, all the dads got the kids together and took them to the pool while we did the lower body class in the fitness studio. 45 minutes later we were done with our resistaball routine and headed over to the pool to rescue to guys. The kids stayed in the pool for about 20 more minutes and then we all headed to our house to eat some sandwiches for dinner. All the guys left for sweetbay to pick up some more junk food/beer/and desert while leaving us with the kids, we called it payback for leaving all the kids with them at the pool. When the guys came back, Glenn immediately busted out his new Rockband game that he's been dying to play. His rockband game for XBOX comes complete with a drum set, microphone and Guitar. You are supposed to pick out a song and then have to play it with the instruments. When he first brought this stuff home the other night I of course rolled my eyes at him as I thought it was just another piece of nonsense that he will use for about a month and then it will just sit and collect dust as most of his "toys" do. But man was this stupid game a freakin' blast to play. We all took turns singing, drumming and playing the guitar and had so much fun. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. We're currently in the process of downloading some new country songs as that was Terra's request and trying to find some hip hop for me! Leah was in her glory with all the Bon Jovi and other rock bands that were in the line-up. The next video cracks me up every time I see it. The best part are the kids in the background getting into all kinds of mayhem. First Carly and Aidan are fighting over the wagon, then she puts him in a headlock. Scott tries to break up the confrontation but being sure not to miss a strum on his guitar. All the while Aidan is butt naked because he had said previously that he had to go "oopie" and proceeded to take his underwear off in the bathroom. Then he decides to stand up on the side of the wagon completely naked. And we were all oblivious to what was going on because apparently we are AWESOME ROCKSTARS!! LOL!! I couldn't even tell them what was going on in the background because I was laughing so hard, also being the reason I put the camera down before I stopped video taping.

For obvious reasons we are making "Rockband Nights" a frequent event here at the Midnet residence! Let me know if you wanna join us for a Rockin' Good Time!!

Potty Training Fun

I'm proud to report that Aidan is officially potty training!! This kid has been having some great accomplishments happening lately that it really makes me realize how fast he is growing up. When I originally tried to get him interested in the potty I had bought one of those fisherprice singing ones and he was having no part in that thing at all. So I gave up for a few months as I wasn't going to push the issue. Then I decided to get those little potty seats that go on the big toilet seat. He liked it much better than the fisherprice kid potty but still didn't have any interest in going potty. I guess I felt that he just wasn't ready, and really neither was I! He still wasn't talking too much at that point so I felt that even if he wanted to start potty training he wouldn't be able to verbally tell me. So potty training was put off a little while longer. Now, that he is finally starting to talk more and in a way that I can understand what he's saying, it's made potty training this time around much easier.
The other day was the first day that he spent the majority of it in his big boy underwear, which by the way, are the most adorable things I've ever seen! His size XS Hanes boxer briefs are just too much for me and make me smile everytime I pull them out of the drawer! In the morning I had him in a pullup while we were at the gym. The gym daycare is packed right now because it's summer and all the kids are out of school, so I didn't want to bother the girls in there with Aidan's potty training requests. He stayed in his pullup until I was done with the gym and then I put him in his underwear. I ran a few errands and then headed home. No accidents! When we got home, I got Aidan out first and told him to go inside so he can go potty. By the time I got Rylan out and carried everything into the house Aidan had hid behind the end table and peed all in his underwear. When I told him that he can't go pee pee in his big boy pants and that he has to tell me when he has to go "oopie" (which he says for poopie, and pee) I could tell that he was disappointed in himself. So I took him to the potty and made him sit there explaining that he only goes pee pee in the potty. Of course nothing else came out because he had already releived himself all over my living room floor. So I changed his pants and put him in a new pair of underwear. He wore them the whole rest of the day and had no more accidents!
That evening my parents came over so Glenn and I could go to our kickball game, which I might add, we totally dominated, winning 15 to 1!! Vegas here we come! I told my mom that Aidan is peeing in the potty and showed her all his potty gear and where his seat was at in the closet. I explained that when Aidan says he has to go "oopie", make sure to tell him to go get his potty seat. I think it's so cute that he knows that is his responsibility. He goes in the closet, grabs his seat and puts it back when he's done. I've found that he really loves having little tasks like that each day.
The whole potty training thing is sometimes really comical to me. I decided to put his little singing potty in the back of the car for those emergency times when getting to a potty would be virtually impossible. Well, good thing I put it in there because the other day when we were at Target we were checking out and Aidan was telling me "oopie" at the checkout and then was saying "cold, ca ca ca, cold" (from the leap frog DVD). When I looked down he had peed a little bit in his underwear and was saying that he was cold from being wet. I couldn't go to the restroom with all our groceries and hold Rylan while Aidan goes potty. The whole public restroom thing grosses me out anyways so off to the car it was. We got outside and I sat Aidan on the potty in the car. It must have been a really funny site for all the drive by onlookers to see my son sitting on the potty in the back of the car while I'm cheering for him and clapping "good job, Aidan, Yay!!". Oh the things we do for our potty training toddlers!

On top of his talking, potty training and sleeping in his big boy bed, he also demonstrated the other day that he can identify every letter of the alphabet, tell me what the letter is and also what sound it makes. Seriously, I owe all his alphabet accomplishments to the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD. I'm not big into letting them watch T.V., but these DVD's are just awesome and they absolutely love them!! We sat on the couch the other day and got his doodle pro out. I went through the whole alphabet asking him what letter it was, and then what sound it makes. He got every single one right! At first he was acting shy and wouldn't tell me, but as soon as I started to ask Rylan, who would of course answer me, Aidan piped right up and started talking. It's so funny to see both of their personalities play out. Aidan always tries to act shy, but as soon as someone is about the steal his thunder, he then decides to show off all his skills. Rylan generally will do or say whatever it takes to get some attention. He is definitely going to be my more challenging kid. He has the attitude that he's going to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. But I on the otherhand, am determined to change his attitude right away. He can be quite a handful sometimes. And it seems as though we take far more visits to the Dr. with Rylan than with Aidan.
Speaking of Dr. visits. I had to bring him in to see the Dr. on Friday. I had noticed around lunch time that his left cheek was a bit swollen. All day I kept thinking that he just looked a little different to me, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. When I finally realized that it was his cheek I made an appointment for him right away as it was friday and I would have much rather pay $20 to see the Dr. then $200 to go to the ER. The next appointment was for 2:00 so I booked it and showed up around 1:45. We saw Dr. Troast who said that his glands were swollen and that his left ear was a little red and he had a slight ear infection. So he prescribed him some antibiotics and sent us on our way. Rylan will have to go back in 11 days for his follow up/15 month well baby visit. We're a little late on the shots as he will be 18 months on July 11th. Late seems to be my arrival time on everything these days! I'm blaming it on the Florida summer heat that is slowing me down. It's so freakin hot outside I break a huge sweat just putting the kids in the car. Good thing I hang out in my sweaty gym clothes all day anyways so it all just kind of blends together! (sorry, that was kinda gross).

Random Rambling...

I'm so addicted to this blogging thing that it is starting to consume my life. So right now the boys are in bed (on time, finally) and I get a few moments to pay mind to my addiction. This past weekend flew by. It always seems like I have this whole list of things to get done on the weekends, but unfortunately they never do (boohoo!) Like the unfinished storage system in the garage, Aidan's wall hangings, filling picture frames with pictures (I have empty frames on display..it's incredibly sad!) Cleaning and organizing the spare room, going through all my clothes and getting rid of stuff that doesn't fit. All that obnoxious stuff that takes all my energy to even think about doing it. I feel like when I was working my house fell apart-props to all those working mamas out there. It's not easy! The laundry never ends, the dishes pile up, and I was just too exhausted to do ANY of it. So now that I'm unemployed again, or at least not getting paid for my full time job anymore, this week is devoted to my home! I have however, given up on cleaning. I've hired my sister to come over and get me caught up again. She's coming on Thursday to give my house a deep cleaning, yipee!! I would love to have that picture perfect home where everything has a place and it's always organized, but I've come to the conclusion that it's just not going to happen. So instead of frustrating myself with this perfect image in my head, I'm just going to be happy in my filth! LOL. I also am devoting this whole month to spending lots of quality time with my boys. Sometimes I feel like I'm so busy doing all the maintenance things that I don't get a lot of time to have "fun" with them. So I've planned to do something fun together everyday this month. And that includes a trip to SeaWorld's new water park Aquatica at the end of the month. This place looks amazing! I can't wait...My waterproof camera case is on it's way and should be here in the next few days! We've had something really fantastic happen the past few weeks. Aidan is FINALLY starting to talk. Most people know that his speech has been bothering me for some time now. I was really starting to get worried because it seemed as though everyone's kids around me were talking except for mine. And I know that all kids do things on their own time, but it's really hard to accept that when it's your kid that won't talk. I know that he was understanding everything we were saying to him, he just had no desire at all to speak. It was so incredibly frustrating. He would say something once and then never say it again. But now he is your average motor mouth. He is repeating everything I say (Yikes!) and will repeat things I tell him to say after I correct him on the right pronunciation. I Love it. It just melts my heart when he says "I Love you". He has such a mild mannered personality which he definitely gets from his dad. But when he doesn't want to do something he can be quite the stubborn brat. Which I will own up to and say that he gets that from me. But all in all, he is our sweet Aidan Schmaidan who brightens up a room with his smile :) Our little Rylan is a riot! He is so super sweet! Sometimes out of no where he will lean over and give me a kiss. Usually it's on my knee or hand or some random place that is in his reach. He is easily amused and can almost always be coaxed into smiling even during his worst temper tantrums. He also is starting to communicate a lot with us. His favorite words are "please, milk, NO, queen (for lightning mcqueen), Mater, ball, tree, hot, MMMM, spoon, fork, cookie, pop (for lollipop), Dora, Boots, backpack, Diego and he recognizes about half the alphabet and can say their sounds. Thanks to Leap Frog's Word Factory DVD. He learns so much from his brother and tries to copy him all the time. My wish is that those two will be best friends, especially because they are only 13 months apart in age. Below are some pics from the past few days. We blew up the water slide, went to the clubhouse playground, got their hair cut, made a father's day craft for Dad, went to Kate's 1st birthday party, and had some fun goofy moments.

Tired of Bowling on a 2:0 winning streak...UPDATE on Kickball

As you might have read, Glenn and I are on a kickball league. It is so much fun! If anyone is interested check it out at http://www.kickball.com/ They have divisions all over the country and it is a total blast. Well I thought that this was just going to be a fun leisurely game of kickball where a bunch of adults get together to have fun and goof off. WRONG! I'm sure somewhere in my little competitive soul I knew that this wouldn't be the case. But like an email from the director said "The games are ON". Last night was just a kick away from a rumble. We must have played a team that was really wanting to go to Vegas because they were pretty tough! Team "Makin A Run" even went so far as to say that their teammate was not out because our guy touched the wrong plate (there are 2 plates at every base, one for the runner and one for the outfielder" Mind you, our guy was practically standing there for seconds before she even arrived at 1st. So she would have been out anyways! So the game went pretty fast and at first they were beating us 1:0. But we made a come back with Glenn's awesome bunt and some good plays by our "allstars" who above making some good plays, also made some silly mistakes. But I'm proud to say that we came out on top AGAIN with a 6th inning win over "Makin A Run" 3:2. Thinking back I had to chuckle as I remember both our teams yelling at the Ref for making some bad calls. LOL. Each team has members who have to ref a different game. That poor guy probably thought it was going to be cake. He probably figured he could just have a beer or two before the game and have fun. Little did he know we would be battling it out on the kickball field!

Warming up before our game. Yes, we were one of the only teams out there actually warming up...I told you we take this kinda seriously!

The Losers...Team "Makin A Run"

Rock, Paper, Scissors...we lost


Leah and I were kind of acting like little groupies when we found out that one of our favorite talk radio hosts was playing on the "WINK WINK Nudge Nudge" team. Mandy Connell from the Wink News radio 1240am Hosts Daybreak in the mornings and she's awesome! I call her the Nancy Grace of talk radio. So of course we had to get a picture with her. I'm not ashamed to get a picture of anything. She was so nice and sounded exactly like she does on the radio. She said it was nice to see some young listeners as most of her fans are 70 year olds. She also said she was leaving in the morning for NY where she was going to some event and was going to be presenting an award to another one of our favorites Laura Ingram. SWEET! "Tell her we love her too"!


Winners!

Stay tuned for more updates as our kickball season progresses!