Yes, he threw a tantrum about THIS!

My brother Jared has a gift.
A gift of persuading and convincing people that certain ideas are not just good ideas but brilliant ideas.
This gift was often the instigator that got his friends into trouble in high school; mind you, it rarely got him into the trouble as well.
He likes to use this gift of persuasion for his own entertainment --- what can he convince someone else to do?  And not only what can he convince them to do, but what can he convince them is, in fact, a brilliant idea?

Jared also uses this gift on his own niece and nephew (my children) (although Jillian is much harder to "sell" the ideas to).  And Jared's gift worked like a charm on Landon one day......so much so that he threw a total, meltdown-tantrum about THIS.......

Yes.  That's poop, dog poop, on the shovel.

Check out those facial expressions.

Landon = "Yes indeedy!  I'm shoveling poop!  Stinky, smelly, dog poop!  I'm the luckiest three-year-old around.  And to think, my daddy almost made me go home before I had the chance to do this job!  Thanks Uncle Jared for letting me do this job for you."

Jillian = "Whhaaaaaaatttt?????  Poop?  THAT is what you're so excited about?  THAT is what the fuss was all about?  Ugh. Gross.  You're dumb."

Look at the care and attention he takes in carrying it.

Oh boy!  Found another pile!

About to throw it over the fence.  

In attendance of this wonderous job -- 

Rocky - the dog who's too dumb to poop in the woods

Jillian - who's still trying to figure out what's so great about this

Oh Yeah!!  Job well done.  

Thank you Uncle Jared, for convincing him that poop shoveling is an awesome job.  Just remember that your children will be younger than mine, and Jillian is much more like you and I than Landon is, when it comes to manipulation..........and that Landon's other Uncle is Bear, who eats ants and grubs.  We'll see who convinces who to do what in ten years.  *mwahahahahaha* (evil laugh sound)

My Favorite Things About Potty Training

This is a simple post......

1. Less diapers to change.  Which leads to less trash to take out.  Which leads to a better smelling house.
2. M&Ms are in the house.  And since they don't get M&Ms often, they're happy with ONE M&M as a reward......so as long as I can use self control a one-pound bag will last us awhile.
3. Both 1 & 2 save money.  

Beach Trip -- a late posting

Back in the early part of June we went on a week long beach vacation.  It was a giant family vacation.  The house had 6 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, huge porches, and a private board walk to the beach.  The furnishings of the house reminded me a lot of the church-retreat camps we would go to with our high school youth group, but the amount of space the house offered was awesome!  Four generations of Sparwaths (my mom's family) were under one roof.  So crazy and so fun!

Jillian thought it was funny to wear my Nana's hat.

She didn't like sitting in the sand, so she sat in beach chairs or squatted most of the week.

Landon and Josh building a sand castle.  I cannot even explain the amount of self control it took for Landon to wait ALL day to crash/wreck/smash it.  

This is one of those pictures that it's not until you load it on the computer do you see what you really photographed......the positioning makes it look like Jillian is kissing Josh's butt.

My brother attempted to braid my twelve-year-old cousin's hair.

The beach set-up.  

Jillian LOVES water, but was sooooo nervous about the waves, that this is the closest she got all week.....on the last day!

The crazy-spacious camp-like house.  The porches were so great.  So much room for the kids to run and be loud, without getting all sandy or bothering the rest of the family.

My parents' dog Maizy came.  She gets so anxious when she's away from home that she can't eat.  Jillian was the only person who could get her to eat all week.

Family boat ride!  Oh....making memories......  We're on one boat, the rest of the family is on the boat in the background.

The other boat got stuck in very, very, very shallow waters.  My brother and Uncle hopped out and had to push it off the bottom, to deeper waters where it was safer to use the motor. 

Ooooohhhhhh, the memories.

Tradition has it that we build forts on the beach 

and have a water balloon fight.  

Boys vs. Girls

This year, instead of forts, the boys made trenches about 5 feet deep.  

Sparwath family dance party, glow-stick-bracelets and all.  

This picture doesn't do justice to the dance moves this kid has.

The view from the house.  

Giant house. Fourteen people and two toddlers. One dog.

Three people and one dog from a condo down the street (more family).

Lots and lots of memories!

Children are like Dogs

Well, at least mine are......and here are few points to examine......

My children lick windows.

They chase laser pointers.

They play fetch.  And will even obey the command "sit" before you throw it.  Aaaannndd will even obey the command "drop it" when they bring it back to you.

Obedience training is necessary for both dogs and children. And it's the same basic principles for both.

They mark their territory.  There are marks all over the walls, pee in my carpet (I have cleaned the spots I've found, but potty-training toddlers are sneaky and I'm pretty sure I missed a few spots), bite marks on my furniture and pen marks on my furniture.

They destroy things when they're bored or made at you.

Sometimes a leash is the only way you can be assured they won't run away.  Yes, we used a monkey-back-pack "leash" with Landon while I was pregnant.  He is super fast and impulsive and I was too big to run and catch him.

Just Some Every Day Life

Here are a few glimpses of some Every Day Life....

Riding on a boogie board thru the house while we packed for vacation.  Seriously provided for over 20 minutes of entertainment for them.

PB&J!!!  See it on her face? 

On her tummy?

On her thigh?

On her toes?

On her booster seat?

Who doesn't love this face?!

This is her "smile for the camera" smile.

Building a tower of diapers, random hats and all.  

Jillian likes to climb onto things, perch, and observe Landon.

To Remember #8

1.  Jillian licks windows.....like a dog.
2.  Jillian is still quite obsessed with shoes.  Anyone and everyone's.
3.  Josh was driving around with the kids when he suddenly heard Landon yell, "Dad!  Stop the car!  I have a truck in my bum!"  He had been playing with a hot wheels truck and somehow managed to get it under his bum while strapped in the car seat.
4.  Jillian says, "Wha-dee" for "water."  We went to the Aquarium, and what did she continuously yell out?  "Wha-dee!!!!"  We went to the pool, the beach, the lake, etc, and she constantly yelled "Wha-dee!!!"  She L.O.V.E.S. water.
5.  My children love to "Roar" at one another.  Jillian hasn't quite figured out when the game is okay to play though......she's even tried to play it in the middle of Mass.
6.  Jillian is quite the instigator and antagonist (she gets it honestly.....from her mother.....who got it from her mother.....).  One time at church, an older British lady even commented, "Oh!  She's naughty!  Look at how she's putting her foot on her brother's leg, and she knows he doesn't like it!"  I think my favorite part of this event was how the lady said, "naughty."  :)
7.  Landon has become quite the staller at bedtime.  One time he said, "But....my story says, 'When mommy leaves, I get scared.' " (this is from the tv show, 'Super Why').  So I said, "How about we change the words of your story?!  Now it says, 'When mommy leaves, I go to sleep.' "  He looked at me with an expression that said, "Touche mommy, touche."
8.  For quite sometime now, Jillian has been sooooooo MAD about having to go to sleep at nap time and bed time that she launches anything onto the floor that's in her crib.  She SCREAMS and cries and begs.  E.V.E.R.Y. time she's put into her crib.  And suddenly, last week, she decided that she wanted to cuddle with her babies and a blanket.  So much now she doesn't want to rock in the rocking chair, but points to the crib.  If Josh or I rub her back and sing while she lays down, she looks up at us and says, "night night!"  One time I persisted with the singing and the back rubs (just to see what she would do....yes, I was antagonizing a bit) and she looked up at me and said, "Mama.  I want to go night night."  Then waved bye-bye to me.  Sheesh! At least she's not screaming anymore.

OUR Birthday

It's been a crazy couple of weeks....okay....month.  So I'm just now getting around to posting about my and Landon's birthday.  We have the SAME birthday, so I refer to it as "OUR Birthday."  

We had a party for Landon at the house where the kids got to eat frosted cookies and sprinkles.  Not sprinkles ON frosted cookies as I had envisioned.  Sprinkles were a side dish to the cookies as it turned out.  

Then, on OUR birthday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium as a family!  Kids under three are free, so Jillian was free.  You get in free on your birthday, so BOO-YA, two more in for free!  All four of us got in for the price of one!!  And my Uncle Paul is an Atlanta cop so he got us some free parking in one of the safer parking decks in the area.  Of course I packed snacks and drinks and skipped the over-priced snack bar, so the whole event cost us one ticket price.  (Can you tell how excited I am about this??  Awesome birthday present to me....an entire family outing for the price of one!)  On top of the price, we went in the afternoon on a weekday, so the place was practically empty which made it way more enjoyable!

After the aquarium we went for dinner at my parents house were we shared a cake my Nana made.  

As always... here are a few pictures to help document the events!

The preschool partiers, eating their cookies and sprinkles.

Yum, sugar!

Honestly have no idea why these two sassy girls were so frowny.  But here's my interpretation of the picture---

 Evelyn was a bit overwhelmed when she arrived.....so many people, sprinkles NOT on the cookies, etc.  And Jillian was also overwhelmed with so many people, plus, she was given a cookie with Chocolate frosting, when clearly the vanilla frosted cookies would have been less of a fashion disaster (notice the chocolate all over her shirt).  They held hands to cope with the anxiety.

Outside the aquarium, hanging out in one of the Police Cars.  SOOOO cool to a three-year-old!!  He even got to press the buttons for the sirens.

One of the first big windows we stood next to.  They were quite amazed to see all the fish swim by.  See how Jillian is a few feet back from the glass??  She was very nervous every time these giant fish swam by and would step back from the glass. Landon of course felt no fear. 

This is at the super big wall of the big tank.  It's got raised and tiered seating here because so many people stop and look for so long.  As I mentioned before, there weren't too many people when we were here, so we were able to get a bunch of shots of JUST our kids in front of the glass.

Landon talked and talked about seeing sharks.....and here's one UP CLOSE!

She got over her fear of the big fish.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this picture.  

An attempt for a picture of Birthday Mama with kids...... I just wanted one picture from the whole day to document I was there since I was the one behind the camera the whole day.

And the last picture, as we're leaving.  SOOO  T-I-R-E-D.

An attempt at blowing out the candles together.  It's tough to do with an excited, overly-drooly three-year-old.

The best shot of us, on OUR birthday.

And the best comment all day.......when we told Landon to tell Uncle Paul about the Aquarium he said, "We saw a dinosaur.  And that kid said "fat."   Whhhaaaa????  True, the other overly-outgoing kid Landon made friends with at the big tank did say "fat."  An apparently memorable comment.  But there were NO dinosaurs.  There were sharks, stingrays, penguins, whales, dolphins, sea horses, crabs, otters, Nemo and Dori fish, but definitely no dinosaurs.  Geeezzzzzzz.

It was a good birthday for us both!