This weekend when Andy and I were on our way home we stopped at Target for some things we needed and found a water table on sale there. Rory has played with one at her friend, Emma’s, house so I knew she’d love it.

I was right. Its seriously the best $30 I have spent on a toy!

She has played with it every day since getting it and thinks its just the best thing. She loves to take the little water tower apart and put it back together … because she is a little engineer like her daddy. And she loves to poor water out of it all over the place, of course!

She discovered she could put the monkey “to bed” in the leaf thing and swing him and she does this over and over and over now. She was so hilarious doing that.

And, naturally, my little climber had to get IN the water table.

As for Ryder, she’s just a mess these days.

You know that moment when the baby starts getting into everything and makes gigantic messes everywhere and you realize its only just begun? Well I’ve had that moment.

But I’ve also had that moment of “OH HOLY CRAP I HAVE TWO GIGANTIC MESS MAKERS IN A ROW” and there might have been a nervous breakdown involved.

I mean, I’m going to have to go through the terrible two’s TWO years in a row! Somebody call the medic!

Anyways. Back to the little tornado named Ryder.

I always bring a blanket to sit her on outside. And she’s very rarely ever on it. She’s a scootin’ fool, y’all!

Rory shared some of her toys and it was the sweetest thing. She usually says something like, “Wook Wyyyydur! Want it have a turn toys now?”, which is translated to, “Look Ryder! Want to have a turn with the toys now?”. Precious. Those little moments are what keep me going strong around here.

Ryder is pretty fond of making funny faces. Her best ones are the stink-eye and the scrunchie nose.

Stink-Eye

Scrunchie Nose

Stink-Eye

See?

And she also likes to say, “talk to the hand”.

Or is that a presidential wave?

Ok, I must go. Rory just ran in with an empty box of Kleenex and its brand new. She says Ryder did it, but thats quite interesting since it was up on the table?

Hmmm.

]]> http://theharrislife.com/the-water-table/feed/ 2 http://theharrislife.com/grandparent-detox/ http://theharrislife.com/grandparent-detox/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 18:19:41 +0000 Tiffany http://theharrislife.com/?p=5123 Continue reading →]]> Today has been A DAY with trying to get back in a routine. Honestly, its just trying to get back in control of the discipline situation since we were gone all last week. Grandparent detox, as I call it. Ha!

We are all tired and crabby from vacation, but man I am glad to be back with my girls!

So we stayed in our PJs until almost noon and read books and watched a movie, went to the park, and the rest of the day I plan to let Rory play outside in her swim suit and new water table.

Ryder seems to believe I’m going to leave her and never come back again, so she’s been uber attached. Hopefully it’ll pass soon!

She’s become quite obsessed with books and its hilarious because she says what sounds like, “oh wow!”, everytime I hand her one. Ha! She also points at the pictures and says what I think is “that” (dat). She’s getting so big!

Ryder is also obsessed with Rory, of course. They have played so well together today and nothing warms my heart more than that. Rory LOVES to make her laugh so she’s constantly trying to act silly or playing peek-a-boo with her.

As for little Miss Rory, she’s as fun and smart as ever but she is BUSY and getting a picture of her actually looking at the camera is almost as challenging as getting one of the Loch Ness Monster!

Oh, and she’s as sneaky as ever too. This morning I heard a bunch of grunting and chairs moving in the kitchen and when I went in she asked for some cake. I told her no because, hello, it was 8:30 am and she refused breakfast. Well I was feeding Ryder and hear some noise in there again and when I went in there she had pushed her chair with the booster seat up to the counter and had eaten a TON of cake. She was so proud too, she just kept giggling and saying, “I got the cake, mom! I got the cake!”. She keeps me on my toes, that’s for sure!

If you haven’t heard, my phone got stolen in Vegas, so I’m currently waiting the new one to be delivered. Its been a mixture of pure torture and bliss being so disconnected without my phone. But since we don’t have a land line I’m so paranoid I’m going to need to call someone because of an emergency so I’m ready for it to be here!

I will tell y’all all about our Vegas trip tomorrow! We had a blast!

Have a great Monday!

We’ve had just one of those ‘blah’ weeks that seems to be never ending. The girls both are having some major allergy issues so they haven’t been feeling their usual fantastic selves, but they’ve still been sweet.

Ryder is now into EVERYTHING. She’s going to give me a run for my money just like Rory does. She loves to empty out everything and make the biggest mess she possibly can.

Speaking of messes, yesterday I took Rory to the doctor thinking she was really sick because she has a crazy cough at night. (Turns out its just allergies. Who knew?!)

Anyways. We were in the waiting room and she tooted a little while trying to climb up into the seat next to me. Instead of being quiet about it she puts her hand over her mouth and giggles and says, “Oh gosh! Oh gosh! ‘Cuse me!”.

The child LOVES to point out toots.

Have I ever told y’all that ONE TIME I said, “WHO FARTED?!”, while on a plane from CA to MS when I was two years old? It mortified my parents since they were stuck on the plane with these people for hours.

So they absolutely LOVE that Rory points them out all the time.

Payback is humbling.

And Rory pays me back a lot.

So since we’ve all been having allergy/sinus problems we’ve not been getting ANY sleep this week, of course.

BUT that’s ok because THIS TIME NEXT WEEK we will be in Vegas having a fun kid free few days. Oh how glorious the sleep with be!

Andy’s parents are coming on Monday and we are leaving Tuesday. We are so thankful that we have parents we trust enough and are so nice to let us have time to ourselves.

Oh, and as a thank you to his parents, I decided I’m going to go cold turkey and potty train as soon as we get back while they’re still here.

I figure I will have extra help with Ryder and cleanups and most importantly, more people cheering and doing the “pee pee potty” dance.

They don’t know that yet, though. Aren’t I the best daughter-in-law EVER?!

Ha!

So its going to be an exciting week! Andy and I need the rest for sure since seriously the ONLY time we get a good night’s sleep is when we get away together.

And we’re calling a re-do on our last trip to Ohio because a) Andy still had to work and had to study for a huge test and b) we got a terrible bout of food poisoning.

If you could see me right now you’d see a giant grin on my face just thinking about sleeping, eating, laying by the pool, sleeping. Ahhhh! I can’t wait!

How about we end this meaningless post with Rory’s ADORABLE school pictures?! Heather from HB Photography took the pictures and they are so cute! Her little girl, Keely, is in Rory’s class and Rory loves her so much!

Anyone else shocked that Rory didn’t strangle the bunny to death?! Anyone? Anyone??

]]> http://theharrislife.com/oh-thursdays/feed/ 2 http://theharrislife.com/spaghetti-and-baths/ http://theharrislife.com/spaghetti-and-baths/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:13:59 +0000 Tiffany http://theharrislife.com/?p=5069 Continue reading →]]> This week I gave Ryder spaghetti for the first time.

To say she loved it would be an understatement of epic proportions.

She couldn’t get it in her mouth fast enough! She ended up eating every single bite and I gave her a lot thinking some of it would be thrown away. It was hilarious to watch her scarfing it down! She’s gotten so good about eating when it comes to real food. Bottles are still a struggle, but what’s new?!

After the spaghetti mess I threw both girls in the tub and gave them a big bubble bath. I tried and tried… and failed and failed to get their picture together. Again, what’s new?

But both girls absolutely loves baths and especially bubble baths so it was a lot of fun!

And as if Rory didn’t look enough like Andy as it is… check her out with a goatee!

I swear they are twins.

Ryder loves the bath too. She’s such a stinker though. She will face dive into the water and thinks its hilarious. She also LOVES to splash Rory and I right in the face.

Don’t let that innocent face fool ya!

She really is a little stinker, just like her big sister!

How impressive is her scar… or actually, lack of scar?! Isn’t it amazing how faded it is already? Part of me is sad because that’s our battle wound and such a sweet reminder that we WON the battle. But my heart is scarred with it too, so it’ll never leave even after hers fades completely.

Unfortunately, and you can kind of tell from those pictures, Ryder isn’t feeling so hot today. I’m betting my money that she has an ear infection.

And an even bigger bummer is that the ONLY doctor that can see us is the doctor we switched from. So I’m all kinds of nervous about the appointment and trying to figure out what in the world I’m supposed to say when confronted about the whole thing.

I hate confrontation. I was hoping I’d never see the man again for as long as I live! ha! And there’s no chance of him not remembering me because we were up there every single day it seemed like for MONTHS. Plus, hello, how many girl Ryders are there who’ve had heart surgery?! Dear goodness. I’m hoping to just be able to explain in a nice way that he just wasn’t aggressive enough for us and be able to have a nice visit. I LOOOOOVE his nurses so much and have missed them. Seriously, I was up there practically every day so I felt like they were family and that was the hardest part of my decision to move doctors.

We have such a huge weekend planned so I have no choice but to see him so I gotta suck it up and be a grown up I guess. ha!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

(PS: Don’t forget to enter the giveaway! The more you do/comment, the more chances you have to win!)

Not to mention that I’ve had some major technical difficulties the past couple of days.

So, you’re in for a giant post now.

You’re welcome, Mom.

Since I last bored you with every detail of our life talked to you, we’ve been on playdates, threw baby showers, had a lot of family time, been embarrassed at the WalMart, and went to the doctor.

First up for discussion, playdates.

Last Wednesday, my friend Misty invited us over for a playdate. We let the kids play in the water and they had a blast. Well, all but Ryder anyway. The kids are all older than Rory by a year or two but she fits right in and thinks she’s their size and its so cute. (PS I was going to blog about this last week, but my friend Kayla never blogged about it and therefore I had no pictures because I left my camera at home that day. So really its her fault for my blog break!)

One of the bigger kids that was there brought a frisbee from home and all the kids eyed it all day. Well he sat it down for a minute, so Rory sprung at the opportunity to play with it!

He was not too keen on her plan of sharing and decided to get it back. Well, Miss Little Rory is quite the determined two-year-old and put up a major fight against this six year old. In fact, she almost won! Look at the look of determination in her eyes! ha!

Ryder, on the other hand, hated pretty much the entire playdate.

She hated getting lotion on and being outside in general.

She wasn’t really a fan of her hat.

She was absolutely furious when I put her in the pool.

Needless to say, I think Rory is our tomboy and Ryder’s going to be our girly girl.

At least one of them had fun!

This weekend I helped throw a shower for a sweet friend of mine, Stephanie! It was so much fun! We have been praying for her and John to have a baby for as long as we’ve known them (about two years!) and are so thankful God has answered our prayers! They are going to be wonderful parents!

On Sunday I tried to get pictures of the girls in their cute dresses before church but they were not having it.

So I decided to get just Ryder. Well, she wasn’t into either and just kept pointing that little finger and me and shaking it at me. Little stinker.

On Monday morning we had another playdate at my friend, Angela’s, house! She had all the supplies for us to make homemade sidewalk paint and Rory had so much fun! They also played in the sand and did a bunch of fun stuff. I somehow lost the pictures on my camera of them painting the sidewalk ? who knows what happened.

Ryder DID enjoy this playdate! I put her in Angela’s wagon and she played in there and had a blast the entire time! She relaxed and played and was so cute.

So I’m definitely getting a wagon as soon as I can!

Today I took Rory to the doctor to see what to do about our sleep… or actually our no sleep. So we have a plan of action and hopefully it’ll work!

She was a sweetheart today for sure. She pointed out every letter for Dr. Cutrell today and sang lots of songs.

Oh, and didn’t even call anyone out for tooting which was a first!

My friend Lori kept Ryder while I was at the doctor forever and I’m so thankful for her! I’ve been so blessed with great friends in Paris and I don’t know what I’d do without them!

Happy Wednesday!

PS: Check back tomorrow for a giveaway!

Instead she learned how to whistle and did so from 3:00 until Andy’s alarm went off at 5:20.

And if Rory wakes up at 3, so does mommy. Because heaven forbid she let someone else get some sleep even though she refuses to.

Ryder now sleeps through the night and it’s wonderful. Well, it’d be more wonderful if Rory did. But Ryder wants to sleep 7 pm to 7 am and if she gets woken up before she lets EVERYONE know how unhappy she is about it.

So, naturally, Rory woke her up at 5:30.

I had two grumpy, tired babies and after dealing with that for 3 hrs I decided we HAD to immediately vacate the house for sanity purposes only.

So off to Sherman we went to go to heaven on earth, Target. The kids slept the entire way there and the silence was BLISSFUL. And thanks to their naps, they actually were wonderful while out shopping. We went to ChikFilA for lunch and I let Rory play for about an hour and a half. We would’ve stayed lounger but a kid (like 9 yrs old) punched Rory right in the eye because, well, she just felt like it. Yes that’s a direct quote. So I left because I really didn’t want to get in a fight with the mom since she refused to watch her kid.

Ok sorry for that tangent there….

We had a good weekend of just catching up with laundry and church.

There’s always so much cuteness on Sundays.

You know, that stinker of mine named Rory seems to be getter smarter by the day. In fact, I’m afraid she’s going to be smarter than me by age 5. But, have you met her father? I’m totally not surprised because she absolutely inherited his engineer mind.

Girlfriend has my social personality and Andy’s engineer brain…. that’s a scary combination, y’all.

Anyways.

Lately Rory has been picking up on everything we say, and as I’ve told you, that can be scary!

The funniest thing that she’s picked up on is something Andy says…

You see, Andy NEVER calls me by my name at home. He always says “babe”. When he needs me for something he calls, “hey babe!” until I come or answer. When I’m upset he says, “what’s wrong babe?” or something like that. And if I’m mad/upset with HIM (which of course never happens… Ha!) he says, “babe… babe it’s ok… babe don’t be mad at me” with that begging tone, if you know what I mean.

So Rory has picked up on it. If she wants me she no longer calls “MOMMY!” anymore. Instead she yells, “hey babe! Babe! ‘mere babe!”. And even better, if I’m upset with her she says, “babe…. babe. baaabe….”.

I must admit that it’s hysterical. And it’s gotten her out of trouble. She’s such a mess.

Last night we were in the car and I was a little peeved at Andy about nothing important and Rory calls from the backseat, “say sorry to babe, daddy!”. Haha! We’ve been getting SO TICKLED about it.

Children.

Sent to embarrass you and make you completely and utterly CRAZY.

And sent to make you laugh so hard you can (temporarily) forget about the many, many sleepless nights.

1) Ryder’s getting so big. She’s really loving the table food we’ve been giving her and the only thing she hasn’t liked is tomatoes. She absolutely loves all vegetables though. (See, I’m smart! I know tomatoes are a fruit! Impressed??)

When we put her in the big highchair all she will do is slouch down and get mad about it so I decided to try her in the “big girl chair” as Rory calls it.

She thinks she’s so big now and is so proud of herself.

This is her “hehe look at me, I’m so big” face. Also its her excited face.

I know, she’s strange.

This is another version of her excited face.

2) Ryder’s learned a new trick. When we say “bye bye” she does this:

Just an arm stretched out towards someone. That’s her wave. I think its super cute.

3) Rory’s been a bit of a stinker lately. I know, I know- shocking right?! She has, yet again, decided sleep is her utmost enemy and she doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Who’s child is this? Andy and I both LOVE sleep.

Needless to say, its been a rough week so far. I’ve taken away all sugar except natural sugars in fruits, etc. She no longer gets juice or chocolate in her milk. And she’s not afraid to tell you how unhappy this makes her.

I’m also trying to take away her naps but today she laid out on the living room floor and passed out so what can you do? I’m just not going to let her nap long, I guess.

Of course, when nights are sleepless then days are full of behavior issues. So days are long and nights are longer and I just want to go to a hotel and sleep for 3405 hours straight to catch up from TWO YEARS of no sleep.

Sigh.

I love her though, stinker and all.

How ironic is that picture with her in front of the sign. When I first looked at this picture I was all “yes! exactly! obey your parents you little heifer!”…. now I’m all like “ok ok I know, be patient”. Dang. Don’t you hate pesky reminders to be good???

4) Yesterday I got Rory a new bathing suit at the Walmarts and she wanted to wear it RIGHT THEN but I told her we had to pay for it first. So I turn my back for a second to inspect some eggs before selecting them and turn around to find my child BUTT NAKED on aisle one.

Children are sent to us to keeps us humble.

5) Since Rory loves to be naked I decided to put “big girl panties” on her when we got home. Oh how excited she was! She had ZERO accidents the entire afternoon and evening!

We were outside playing and all of a sudden she started to grunt a little and I KNEW what that grunt meant.

So I started yelling in an encouraging tone “OKAY LETS DO THIS! ITS POO POO POTTY TIME! COME ON! POO POO POTTY!” and well it totally freaked her out.

So she SCREAMS all the way to the pot and then screams the entire time she’s ON the pot. But we’re past the point of no return on the poop situation, if you know what I mean.

So I’m yelling to her “OKAY! READY! 1, 2, 3 PUUUUUUSSSHHHHHHHHH!” over and over.

And then it occurred to me that potty training and toddler poop situations are EXACTLY like coaching labor! A whole lot of waiting, going, yelling, and pushing.

Man, I am deep.

I am pretty sure after all of that I will collect lots of new readers and will surely win a blog award.

Happy Wednesday!

But Rory came in when I went to go get Ryder after she woke up and deleted it.

And I’m too tired to rewrite it.

We’re working on it and one day, hopefully sooner than later, the child will sleep.

I sincerely apologize for all the posts on our sleep issues and going on and on and on about how tired I am.

But, thats my life right now and its consuming me.

So, to change the subject, let’s do some Rory-isms.

1) Me to Andy: This is my car so you can’t do that in here.

(I won’t tell you what he did to save him the embarrassment.)

Rory from backseat: Mommy! Ew share car with daddy!

ha!

2) In the middle of Walmart-

Rory: Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!

Me: Yessssssss, baby? (impatient tone…)

Rory: Ew hear dat?!

Me: What is it?

Rory: I TOOOOOOOTED WEALLY LOUD! WOW! I TOOOTED MOMMY! WOW! OH GOSH! WOW! I TOOTED!

I’m paying for all the embarrassment I caused my parents.

3) Rory: Mommy! Toooo heavy! Too heavy!

Me getting ready to leave the house: What’s too heavy?

Rory and Ryder: *gigglegigglegigglegiggle*

I walk in and Ryder is missing from where I left her in the living room.

Rory: Mommy! Mommy! Wook! Ryder came to play!

So, in other words, Ryder was heavy when she carried her into her playroom.

4) Rory: Mommy! Mommy! Wook! Wook! (look) What’s dat?!

(she’s holding out a giant booger)

Me: THAT stays in your nose.

Next day- Rory: Wook Mommy! Dat stay in nose!

(holding another giant booger… that she thinks is called ‘that stays in your nose’)

Ha!

These kids of mine are crazy, but I love ‘em!

Which is our normal life so why do I expect anything different?

Andy, the girls and I had a wonderful weekend at home. We cleaned some, napped some, went on a date to see The Hunger Games (!), read a lot, watched a lot of tv and movies, and played outside.

Oh! And Rory caught her first fish! She had THE BEST TIME EVER fishing with her Daddy. It was precious.

Of course I forgot my real camera, so phone pictures will have to do.

Speaking of “real” pictures….

I’ll have you know my children are also ganging up against me to make sure I don’t get a single picture of them acting like sweet, precious girls.

Which would actually be lying to all of you because clearly they are little butts.

Okay, act as silly as possible!

Quick! Look confused!

Now, pretend to be cooperating and look off right before she pushes the button!

See? They are totally conspiring against me.

Today is gorgeous so I took the girls outside to play.

Which is not an easy task, friends. But being that I’m super mom, I obviously have a handle on it.

Case in point. Rory would never eat anything like dirt and therefore have a dirt mustache/goatee in every.single.picture I take when we go outside.

And Ryder would never decide to play Angry Birds while I push Rory on the swing.

Please dear Lord tell me I won’t have another eater-of-every-object-known-to-man?

Nope. Just a put-everything-in-my-nose child. No biggie.

Ryder still loves to read, by the way.

And yes, I still worry about her eyesight.

On a serious note, I must go now.

Rory just ran in naked again declaring she “pee pee potty mommy! yay! pee pee potty!”.

Unfortunately she “pee pee pottied” in a play bowl from her play kitchen.

Don’t worry, I got this. I’m supermom, remember?!