Maybe There's Hope

Nana (and PawPaw) kept the boys overnight so we could attend our wedding. Apparently they got a very good report card...they got along, they slept all night (they are VERY partial to their own beds) and they even attended church Sunday morning.

Here's a few snapshots of them at their sleepover:

hugging each other (YES, that is a hug).....

smiling together..........

even bathing each other........Too cute!!

We've noticed that they are really starting to play better together. They make each other laugh and they definitely have their own language. Maybe there's hope that ONE day they will love and appreciate the bond that they share.

Cade apparently took advantage of Nana's puzzles.

And one more that I just couldn't resist..........crocs for toddlers!!

OK, they're actually Airwalks from Payless Shoe Source, but aren't they just adorable! At Buy One Get One Half Price, I couldn't resist. AND the boys LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them. They were always trying to wear Brittney's or NaNa's anyway.

Feeling Old ... Part II

You can look at my profile here on the left and see my "story" but let me explain it to you a little better.

Steve and I dated our junior year of high school. Through the whole teenage process of life, we broke up a couple of times during that year. We were "officially" broken up when Steve's accident occurred on Sept. 30 1988. I received a call from a friend in the middle of "that" night to let me know of his condition. It wasn't good at all. He had completely severed his spinal cord and destroyed vertebrae C6 and C7 and would be a quadriplegic. He even had a hairline fracture on C2 which is what controls your breathing.....thankfully he never needed a tracheotomy as he already had enough on his plate.

This was the start of our senior year and it was the talk of the school. EVERYone was up at the hospital for months and months. Then rehab came and people were still coming for weeks and weeks, then days and days, then all of the sudden it was a handful of us. In the end it was his family, one of his best friends of all time even to this day, and ME.

(I promise this is going somewhere.............)

When I would go to visit Steve in rehab, there was a guy (Alan) there with his family ALL the time. They were so much fun!! His wife (Marsha) would bring up games and their kids...Steffanie 13 and Alisha 8....would entertain their dad (and themselves) . It really helped Steve to cope with what he was going through. I thoroughly enjoyed this little family. Turns out they lived on the other side of town (45 minutes to an hour away from us). Once Steve was released back into the real world he kept in touch with Alan. They even went as far as creating a wheelchair rugby team that same year. Rugby became Steve's (AND Alan's) outlet. (Quad Rugby was featured in a documentary last year called Murderball.) They felt alive again! Marsha and myself even became certified referees and traveled all over the United States with the team. Needlesstosay all of us bonded very quickly. People in similar circumstances, even with the difference in age, tend to do that in order to cope.

Let's fast forward to the PRESENT:

Last night we attended little Alisha's wedding!!!! Let me rephrase that!!

WE ATTENDED THE WEDDING OF THE LITTLE 8 YEAR-OLD BRATTY DAUGHTER OF OUR BEST FRIENDS THAT WE MET IN 1988!!! Alisha was Brittney's age when we met her!! Alisha was ALWAYS around her mother and me at "rugby" events. She was a little tag along whom I just adored. There was 10 years between us, but we didn't even care. We often joked that we were sisters and we'd call Marsha MOM.

Time just flies by TOO quickly.

Here's a few pictures........ Since the wedding was at 7:30 and our boys go to sleep at 8:00, we figured it wouldn't be a good idea to take them along. So, the "older" Kearleys had a late night and the boys had a sleepover at Na-Na's house. It was so strange to wake up on my own terms this morning! AND the house is awfully quiet right now!

Alisha was BARBIE herself! The little girls loved it!

Boy have we come a LONG way!

Alan and Marsha.......such proud parents!

Brittney STOP growing up...right now!! Before we know it SHE'LL be getting married!

Trampoline Children!

Santa Claus brought Brittney a trampoline a few years back because she was SUCH a good girl.....I guess when she was 4. For some reason Santa and his elves only had time to put up the base of it. Santa left her a really nice note that said something like the reindeer were getting tired and he had a lot of other deliveries to make. So Grandpa Iser came to our rescue and completed the installation of the safety net (what an ordeal!).

ANYWAY, I never felt like Santa got his money's worth out of the thing until recently. Brittney has used this thing SOO much to practice all of her cheerleading and tumbling moves. PLUS the boys absolutely LOVE it!!


Jace is very coordinated and has perfected the art of jumping, jumping, jumping and then SPLAT right on his bottom....on purpose! It's hilarious to watch and the giggles are just contagious. Cade then tries to imitate his brother ... with little luck though. Cade is just a little bit behind on his coordination. He makes up for it with his "smartness" though. We always say that Jace will be the star quarterback and Cade will be doing his homework. That's horrible for me to say!! Watch them TOTALLY prove me wrong later in life.

Anyway.........the trampoline is a great "energy burner" but I definitely recommend the safety net. Jace would be a dead man if it wasn't for that thing!!

How Many ???

How many times in one day that Jace "bonks" his head: at least 3

How many times in one day that Jace or Cade skins their knee: 1-2

How many pop-ices the boys eat on a daily basis: at least 8 (4 each...we cut them in half for them)

How many pop-ices the boys COULD eat on a daily basis: probably around 20

How many fits are thrown once the boys are cut off from pop-ices: 2 ... short and sweet fits usually if distracted properly

How many pop-ices I just loaded into the freezer this past weekend: 200!!!

How many fingers are stuck under the bathroom door while Nana's in there: ALWAYS 20

How many binkies Cade has in his crib on a daily basis: at least 3 (one in his mouth, and one for each hand)

How many naps the boys take: ONE...believe it or not! Sometimes they need "quiet time" in the afternoon though.

How many minutes the boys "chit-chat" back and forth after they wake up from nap-time: approximately 20

How many poopy diapers show up DURING the "chit-chat" hour: usually 2

How many poopy diapers in TOTAL for the day: usually 4....can sometimes be as many as 6

How many diapers on a given day: I've totally lost track

How many shoes of Brittney's were in the living room tonight: 3

How many times I asked Brittney to take her shoes into her room: 2 (amazingly)

How many times we did spelling words with Brittney today: 2 (she only missed one tonight)

How many times a day I pry the remote controls away from little fingers: at least 4

How many times a day we watch The Wiggles: at least 10

How many Wiggles songs get stuck in my head while I'm at work: 1 and it's ALL day long

How many hugs and kisses we get from all 3 of our kids in a day: countless.......and worth every bit of the work that goes into raising them!!!!!

Have a great day!

Before and After.......

Being home all day on the weekend really gives me a new respect for Stay-At-Home-Mothers. I really and truly do NOT see how you do it each and every day. I LOVE my kids SOOO much but all day every day would just wear me out. As busy as we've been at work, I still like to go just to take a breather.

Let me just give you a little peek into what goes on around here.

Here's what the "playroom" looks like after a day with 2 toddlers........(the playroom USED to be my formal living and dining room....phhttt, forget that!) I guess this would be the BEFORE.

Then there's what I do every night (or else make Brittney do it as a chore which she just LOVES ha ha).....I clean it up and start another day.

I feel like I'm stuck in the movie "ground hog day". I just keep doing it over and over. I guess I will until the day they leave for college or get married.

Been There....Done That!

Third grade is apparently SO much more awesome than 2nd....didn't you know that? I mean, now Brittney can play on the "big" kid's playground and not the "baby" one.

Her first day of school went smoothly and she was SO glad to be back around all of her friends. I didn't think her teacher was "grandma-ish" at all. She IS a grandma but she's a young grandma. She's VERY energetic and the kids really seemed to love her.

Here's a few pics.........

These are all obligatory pictures that we take every year............

Brittney by the fireplace................

Brittney and mom................... (my god she is getting tall!!!)

Brittney and her teacher..............

On to day two now! Hopefully the enthusiasm will last throughout the year. The teacher is making big points already because they're allowed to bring a "nutritious" snack tomorrow to eat DURING class. That's HUGE!!

I get to drop the boys off at mother's day out tomorrow. I usually don't get to do the dropping off because it's from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and I'm already at work by then. So maybe if I'm lucky I'll get some cute pictures of the boys before they start screaming. I hear that Jace has a little girlfriend and her name is Jacey....isn't that adorable. Jace and Jacey sitting in a tree....K-I-S-S-I-N-G........etc. etc.

First Day of School Worries

Tomorrow is FINALLY the day! As busy as we tried to keep Ms. Brittney for the summer, she has been truly ready for school to start for the past couple of weeks. All of her exciting events seemed to fall toward the beginning (YMCA Camp) and mid-part of summer (cheer camp and Seaworld trip).

The past few weeks has involved lots of quality mother-daughter time...you know the usual stuff. Haircuts, shopping for school clothes, shopping for lunch kits and backpacks (you know that you HAVE to have a new one every year even though the one from last year is still good. And the year before that even....I mean c'mon don't you know what's cool for an almost 9 year old).

Speaking of being almost 9....which will occur on Sept. 23...we HAVE to start planning her party according to her. How dare I let things like work, house cleaning, or trying to start exercising more often get in the way.

She was really cute tonight. She could NOT go to sleep and kept coming out to the living room where I was watching TV. I swear I can remember those days. I don't think I EVER got a good night's sleep the night before school started. She had her outfit all lined up to wear...even down to which purse she was going to take. (She may have to guard her purse from her brothers. =)

(She finally went to sleep and I went into snap a quick picture of her.)

She got to meet her teacher last Friday afternoon and THAT was another whole day of planning and waiting. In comparison to her 2nd grade teacher who had just graduated from Texas A&M and it was her first year to teach, this year she has a "grandma" type teacher who has been teaching for years and really does have grandchildren herself. I have to say that I like that! A little experience under your belt doesn't hurt when you have important things to teach these kids today. (Did I really say that? I'm really aging myself.) I haven't officially met her since Steve took her to "meet the teacher" but I'll update you tomorrow on what I think.

Now, the pictures you are about to see may shock you! I know they shocked me when I looked on my camera tonight. Apparently Brittney and NaNa have been torturing my little boys when I'm not home. I did NOT know about this Steve or Jace and I'm sorry ahead of time........but boy do I have some blackmail pictures of him when he gets older!!!!!!

Yes, this is my daughter dressing my SON in her bikini bathing suit.

AND, she even added a bow! (I must admit, he looks kind of cute in blue and green.)

Then there's CADE.........

This pretty much sums up my future class clown.

Obsessions...........

All 3 of my kids seem to have a few obsessions that are truly unique from each other.

Let's start with Jace....

He really seems to have an obsession with SHOES. It really doesn't matter what kind. He likes any slip-ons, tennis shoes, crocs, you name it. He REALLY enjoys shoes that have a hard sole so they make noise when he steps. When my mom comes over every morning to babysit, Jace is the first to highjack her shoes to play with. I guess I'm going to have to work on his manners.


His next obsession is cats. His little "lovey" is a stuffed cat hand puppet that meows when you push his mouth together. He MUST have it to go to sleep. As you listen through the door of the room at naptime, you can hear the peaceful sounds of his cat (and the quacking of Cade's duck). Another cat he likes is the one on Baby Einstein. He will come RUNNING from anywhere in the house when the KittyCat from Baby Einstein is on the TV. He can even anticipate WHEN the cat will be on next.

Now let's move on to Cade....

He has a couple of obsessions. The first one is his love of purses. Steve is just SO proud about this one....ha ha. The first time he held a purse was a deliberate effort on my part. I thought it was cute and I love to give Steve a hard time about "his boys". Cade seemed to really enjoy the fact that the purse was staying up on his shoulder. So he walked all around the house just kind of giggling.


His next obsession is when he eats ANYthing that comes out of a wrapper, he MUST have the wrapper. For example, they love to eat Quaker Oats Oatmeal-On-The-Go bars. When you take it out of the wrapper to hand it to Cade, you MUST give him the wrapper. Any fruit snacks must be opened and then given to him in the wrapper....Teddy Grahams, Goldfish....you name it. It's all the same. If you don't, he'll start to squeal. And then the minute you remember to hand over the wrapper to him, he immediately starts his little snickering. What a spoiled little toot!
And now on to Ms. Brittney.....

Her obsession is obvious....it's any kind of tumbling, cheer, dancing or singing. Whenever I get the chance to sit down and watch TV, it's usually done so while cartwheels and roundoffs are being done on the rug in front of the TV. You can also regularly hear her singing on her karoake machine or doing handstands against the closet door. I don't think she EVER sits still. She's always got some "new" cheer or dance routine to practice and I get to hear EVERY 8-count.



I truly love all of their little quirks.......my house would be awfully quiet without them.

Not Much Going On...What a Nice Change of Pace

Well, let's see....this weekend was pretty quiet.

After a 3 and a half hour nap for Jace and a 3 hour nap for Cade on Saturday, we set out to get them haircuts. (That length of a nap is just unheard of for Jace especially. Cade has always required more sleep than his brother but has learned to adjust to his rowdy room partner for now).

Jace was born totally bald (unless you count peach fuzz) and Cade was the one with the head full of brown hair. Cade has already had 2 "real" haircuts while Jace has sat along on the sidelines cheering him on and probably thinking...better him than me! Well, it was Jace's turn for an official cut. We let him go first and he did GREAT! Even though Cade should be the seasoned veteran, he still needed the assistance of the binky. Cade STILL likes those God-awful binkies that they sent home with us from the hospital. You know, the kind where you can see the entire inside of your child's mouth while he's sucking. He refuses to take any other kind. I can't object too much b/c it's an instant fix and he only requires it when he's sleeping or in a stressful situation such as a haircut.

Anyway, we successfully completed our haircutting mission, so we figured let's test fate and go out to eat. We were literally 5 minutes from the house so we figured if the troops got too crazy, we would just hit the door and never show our faces again.


(Let me just give you a little history on our dining out record....there is only one other time with just the 5 of us...at Cracker Barrell...food was everywhere...antiques had to be moved off of the tables...butter was eaten right out of the dish...not a great time, but not too bad).

So the boys can still sense our fears. But the kiddos proved our fears wrong and did great at dinner. It was mexican so since our boys are BIG eaters, they were in heaven at the constant flow of chips and queso, rice and fajitas. Matter of fact when we were leaving Cade STILL wasn't finished and had to take a few chips out the door with us. Only one dish was broken during our dining experience and we apologized profusely. (Note to self....remember to bring a plastic bowl or plate in diaper bag when attempting to go out to eat. It will probably come in handy).

The Wonderful Sounds of Toys!

I don't know about everyone else, but are you as tired as I am of the obnoxious noise making toys out there today? We have a LOT of toys in the house...my husband would like to say we have WAY to many, but we won't go there right now. (That would require me going through all of them, making piles of toys to give away to people we know with little kids and a pile of toys to give away to charity. Then I would have to actually take the stuff or call somewhere to get rid of it....entirely too much work just by thinking about it. I need to have a garage sale, but I just don't see that happening any time soon).

Anyway....there are a few toys that seem to have minds of their own around here. Our dear friend Judy, grandmother #3, gave the boys a little Fisher Price grill. It's so cute and the boys love it. It has wheels to push around, they can act like daddy does when he grills, it talks and the boys like to watch the crazy eyes blink and the mouth move. Well, let me tell you about my "parental" view of this grill. One morning (at 1:45 a.m.) as I was pleasantly sleeping, I was awakened by a strange noise. Now, I consider myself a slightly heavy sleeper. I guess b/c I'm pretty dead to the world after a long day of work and then dealing with everyone and everything once I get home...you know the routine. I couldn't for the life of me make out what it was I was hearing. I got out of bed (Steve was sacked out in bed and HE'S the light sleeper) and went into the playroom. Well, the batteries were dying in the grill so it's speech was slurring....the "grill" part was lit up with it's "red fire" .... It kept saying (in a very demonic voice)...."DOOOO YOOOUUUU WAAAANT MOOOORE MUUUSTTARRDDDD????" I couldn't and still can't find an on or off button for this damn toy. I had to throw it in the laundry room, shut the door and cover it up with a blanket. Problem #1 solved.


There is yet another toy that tends to drive us insane too. (It drives Steve more insane than myself to set the record straight.) The boys got a little ride-on toy for their 1st birthday from Granny. It has two buttons that play nursery rhymes...twinkle, twinkle little star and do you know the muffin man? Well, over time the muffin man button stopped working. It's been a well used toy and it's even been left outside over night and left outside in the rain. So needlesstosay, it's just as possessed as the grill when the batteries are getting old or it is drying out from being wet. There was one night when we were attempting to go to sleep and all of the sudden we heard "do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man...do you know the muffin man who lives on drury (sp?) lane?" So I go and move it into the trusy-dusty laundry room thinking..."I can outsmart this toy." NO GOOD, it was echoing underneath the door and off of the tile floor. So outside it goes..... STILL NO GOOD. Our master bedroom has a window that overlooks our back patio...so it was almost IN STEREO for us now. So, I make a third trip to throw the stupid toy into my car, in the garage with the door closed. Thank goodness that fixed problem toy #2.

Now Steve heard it another night (I didn't hear a peep) and took matters into his own hands. When I woke up the next morning, I saw the car upside down on the couch, underneath all the couch pillows. I had to snicker just a bit.

One more item that I have been taunted by is one of the boys battery powered toothbrushes. This happened just this morning. I had just pushed snooze on my alarm...I was just waiting to get out of bed and I heard something. It was kind of just a humming sound. I really thought it was Steve using his electric razor. I turned to his side of the bed...nope, he was still asleep. So, I got up and went into my investigative mode. I ended up in the bathroom at their little Sesame Street toothbrushes. I guess the batteries are low in one of those too. I just turned it off and decided to get up early now that there was no more snoozing for me.


I get annoyed enough at these toys when they are in proper working order with fresh new batteries...how dare they interrupt my sleep when the batteries start to go down. So, to sum it up....I don't want "any more mustard, I don't know the muffin man, and I don't need to brush my teeth". Any questions?