The potty training super hero

TAKE THAT!!!!
AND THAT!!!!

Here to rescue you from all your potty training emergencies such as:
1) Squirting your mom(who knew???I guess I should have)
2) #2 sticking to your bum and you jumping up in excitement because you went stinky....thus causing a serious emergency....poop on on the carpet.
3) Thinking you need to wipe because girls do (maybe boys should...it sure would make restrooms smell and look nicer)

Catch-up

Just playing a little catch-up here. It's all in the name of my posterity. These events are quite old. About a month or more. I can't even remember. Jason's brother and his family came into town at the beginning of July. We visited Stone Mountain where the sweat flowed freely, the kids still have not stopped talking about the laser show where, in Ella's words, "the horses came alive (referring to the carvings on the mountain) and they ran and there were swords and fireworks". That's a perfect summary.




We even got to ride the train around the mountain. It's about a five mile journey that took about 30 minutes. You do the math. It was slow....but soooo fun. The is Lincoln and my other child Jason, watching in excitement as the train approaches to pick us up for our ride.
We also managed to visit the famous Georgia Aquarium. Another highlight for the kids.
Here we are with my sister-in-law's niece and nephew.
Link wishing he was a crocodile..or alligator...whichever. I can never keep them straight.
Looking up at the sharks in a tunnel where you are surrounded by all the sea life. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Allred! We had so much fun!

A foreign experience

After suffering through the harsh dryness of the west (post about that chaos to come), my feet somewhat resembled the grand canyon. I tried home remedies. After all, I pride myself in giving my own pedicures...why pay someone else when you can do it yourself? A spa treatment such as that is a luxury I indulge in only once in a while. After about two weeks of being back on the east coast, I saw little improvement in the coarseness of my feet. And, to add insult to injury, my right toe started getting a little puffy and sore on the edge, indicating an impending in-grown toenail (my first). I gave in. Off to the spa with Lincoln.
Immediately a cute little Asian lady (I am not being demeaning...they are so cute....and I cannot fail to mention that they have AMAZING little figures) came to my aid. I showed her my inflamed toe and she had a look of excitement on her face. I was excited too. It was hurting to exercise. Then, she took out a basket of metal instruments that looked like they belonged in the operating room of the hospital instead of a sap. I immediately braced myself. This cute little lady really started operating on my toe. At first I was able to muffle my yelps by biting my lip or just making hideously ugly facial expressions. Then she took out this tool that look like a knife on the end. The lady (who is not so cute any more) shoved that thing so far down into my toenail that I swear she was digging for a kidney. This is the moment when my screams were no longer muffled. I yelled. I yelled VERY loud. All the cute little Asian looked at me in disappointment while the other customers looked at me with sympathy. I guess my little expression of pain was NOT appropriate. I suppose my little lady friend wanted me to harness my inner kung fu warrior or something. She continued to dig and stab and take chunks off of my toe. I continued to yell and writhe (literally) in pain. I endured several smearing looks from all the employees there. My friend stood up and spoke in her native tongue to her coworker. I didn't have to speak the language to know she was not fond of me, my toe, or my yelling. Then that coworker (apparently the resident in-grown toenail remover) sat down and did her magic. They both had the same method- they would poke, stab, prod, cut, etc. and then ask me innocently, "Does it feel better?". After this second lady sat down and after she had asked me that about three times I finally lied and said, "yes". I guess that was their indicator that they had retrieved the offensive material out of my toe. They stopped. What normally takes about 20 minutes had taken an hour due to the out-patient surgery I endured.

PEDI COST: 16 + tip (I know, it's a bargain)
SURGERY COST: Only humiliation and pain. That's all.

Do you believe in magic?

This week has been a tornado of events. I feel like Dorothy with things flying all around me and out of control. Link would be Toto, always running off and Ella is the nice witch, just because she's pretty. Ok, enough of that. Anyway....We got back from our THREE WEEK trip (I hesitate to use the word vacation b/c us moms know that when you go out of town- especially if your driving 60 hours across the US- without your husband, it's MORE work to be away from home than to be home) on Tuesday night at 9:30 pm GA time. My kids at this point are probably suffering from vertigo or something b/c we have been back and forth between every time zone possible. So they crawl in bed and I have to wake poor Ella up at 7am (5am on her little body) to go to her first day of Pre-K. Waking her up on this particular morning was proving to be VERY difficult. As soon as I said, "it's time for school" she perked up and jumped out of bed. This is how excited she was to go to school. There were no tears from her, but I must admit, I was a little weepy...It was sad for me to let go of the reins in a way...my little child becoming susceptible to other peoples' philosophies and other kids' bullying. That was the hardest thing for me....letting go of Ella's innocent little mind and allowing others to put their foot print on it. Anyway, she loved it. Every minute of it. She even said, "Mom, I met someone today". It was weird to hear that phrase b/c i automatically thought, "she'll probably say that in another context in 20 (hopefully) years." That night Jason gave her a father's blessing for the new school year. We've explained the priesthood before and have compared it to magic...of course...what else could it be compared to? :) The next night at dinner prayer Ella thanks Heavenly Father for "the magic".
PS- I would just like to note that the puffiness you see in my face in this picture is due to my pregnancy. Certainly, it has nothing to do with eating fast food for three weeks.

When Dad's take their sons to baseball games unsupervised

What happens when Daddy's take their sons to baseball games unsupervised??? Funny you should ask that.....see this is what happened.
Jason and Link went to Braves game about 2 weeks ago...unsupervised. :) Link was sitting in the unstable stadium floppy chairs. You know the type. It was flopping. Link was picking his nose or digging for gold...who knows. He's got his finger up his nose a lot these days. All the sudden, his precarious balance on the front of the the floppy chair is threatened and he gets slammed to the back of the seat in mid nose pick. Thus, his finger jammed up his nose. A fair amount of crying was reported by Jason. He was hysterical again when I wiped his face when he got home. The next morning he was sniffling a lot. He told me there were bugars (how do you spell that...it's not the spell check...go figure) in his nose so I gave him a kleenex to blow and nothing came out. The next minute he was sneezing and lot of stuff came out all over the kitchen chair. I looked closely at a brown clump and observed something very strange. There was a peanut in the snot. A PEANUT! So this is the conclusion: Link was playing and putting a peanut up his nose when his balance was compromised and the peanut was shoved up. Poor guy...he slept all night with that jammed up his nose. It reminds of me the Simpson's episode where Homer had shoved crayons up his nose when he was a baby. This was the explanation for his stupidity.

These are the only pics taken on the fourth, given generously by Uncle Ben. Jason is definitely the best uncle ever. I don't know one niece or nephew that doesn't adore him. Above, he is here with his favorite baby- Ainsley.









Link...you look like you belong on the exotic beaches of Italy. I forgot hims swimsuit that day and only remember his uber-classy swim diaper with froggies on them. What a stud. He wears it like a champ. I forgot to blog about this. Ella is taking swimming lessons and is doing a stellar job. I am proud of her. She loves her teacher, Christine. She really thinks she is swimming all by herself. She doesn't even realize that even though she's making great progress, she's got a long way to go.

The reward for not screaming her head off.

A Mother's Intuition

A mother's intuition-I have found- means nothing. For months now (five to be exact) I have been so sure I was going to bringing another Allred lady into the world. I was so sure of it I even bought the most beautiful blessing dress in the world for the little intended one. Well, obviously I was wrong. We are expecting a little boy at the beginning of November. My OB insisted I wait until 22 weeks (TORTURE) to find out the sex. That left me way too much time to find really cute things on clearance that I just couldn't resist...pink things. Oh well. Not that I am disappointed. Really, I am not. I was just so sure b/c of my symptoms and things like that. I really didn't care which I had. I am thrilled to be having another little joy because to be frank, I can't handle the drama of one little girl- much less two. Tell me what names you like!!!!!

This is too cute. This was Ella's response when I told her I was having a boy:
E:Mom, can we name the baby Sally.
Me: Honey, it's a boy. That's a girl's name.
E: Oh. I wonder what it's face is look like. I wonder what color it's eyes is.

Cute little girl! I have been wondering the same thing! We can't wait.

More as promised....again

Ok, so I guess I am a little dramatic. I really thought I lost my pics, but Emily helped me find them in the....wait for it...recycle bin. DUH. So I guess I am a fan of this "green" movement because I am a huge fan of recycling if it means getting my pictures recovered. I am going green. :)











Grandma Becky took all the grand kids out for ice cream (with coupons of course) after a traditional trip to El Charro, followed by a gumball (last pic).


After Link's party on Saturday we had our eyes set on Florida. The cousins were in town and so it was perfect. We all packed in (seriously...you should've seen the car) and drove down. The kids' favorite part of the trip was when cousin Gabe and the Sophia and Lillian would catch little tiny fish in the ocean with a net and then they would put them in the little pools for the kids to torture. It was a fish cemetery by the end of it. Fun times.

More....as promised

I am sure the Allred fans would be thoroughly disappointed if I did not post more pictures, as I had promised. Here's a feast of pics from Link's b-day and other cousin fun.
OHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYY GOSH. I was in the middle of shrinking pictures and accidentally deleted ALL of the pics from Link's b-day, our recent trip to the beach, etc. Depression hurts....yes, it does. I think I am going to cry.

Happy Birthday Lincoln!

How cute does Ella look in this picture. Strike a pose! She's in the red dress in the middle.

These are just some of the pictures I have from Link's B-day celebration on the 14th. I know, I know...I have been the worst blogger ever. What a hypocrite I am. I hate bad bloggers! :) Anyway....as you can tell, we had a firetruck birthday complete with a tour of the local fire station. It ended up being quite eventful because one of the genius foremen thought it was would be cool to turn on the siren and honk the horn right when 16 3-year olds walked up. Screaming ensued and most kids wouldn't even let their mom's put them down. One guest, Toby, had to go home ( I just added the pic of Toby in terror...I shouldn't laugh, but it was funny...and sad b/c he went home!). He could not recover. I have great pictures of the terror. Later, I promise. The highlight of the party for me was when Jason and London volunteered to be "fires". They taped yellow and red crepe paper streamers all over themselves and ran around while I screamed, "Put the fire out!". The kids had water guns and water balloons with which they put those flamers (don't read into that pun) out. :) It was hilarious and soooo much fun. More pics to come....stay tuned.

My brother Jeremiah and his girlfriend, Amy, and Julie came to visit for ten days. We ate A TON and played a lot. Here are two of the events that we did. We had 8th row at the Braves game. Don't ask who they played or what the score was....I don't know. But the funnel cake was tasty.







Then we went down to Palm Coast to mom and Dad's beach house for about four days. We even got a short visit from Amanda and Jonah. Shell seeking was the highlight.
Then Jason and I drove to Alabama to go cruise Florida. Don't ask. We were intended to go to the Bahamas. We ended up really enjoyed Key west though. This is in front of Ernest Hemingway's home.
A direct descendant of some of his famous six-toed cats. Really. It happens to be taking down an innoecnt bird in this picture. But six-toed nonetheless.
The house again.


Bringing sexy to the beach. :) I know I know. Irresistible.

I thought this structure was really cool. It featured a garden inside.


The famous Banyan trees that adorn Key west. They grow horizontally instead of vertically. They were soooo cool.
Truman's little white house. Almost every president and several other nobodies( like Thomas Edison...you may have heard of him) have stayed here. There was a ton of history here so Jason HAD to stop by.
Our dining table group. I am the tan one in the middle. :) We had so much fun just relaxing and eating and sleeping. Did I mention Jason won the ping pong tournament??? I HAD to mention that to make it look like we actually did something on our cruise. That was in between naps. And our kids got the ultimate care from Grandma Allred. She even had their laundry done when we picked them up. That's what I call babysitting!