Andrew and Aaron video classics...

If it is possible, Aaron loves vacuum cleaners even more than Andrew. H kinda reminds me of a dog chasing a car. This video isn't the best representation of that, but it is still pretty funny, I think.

Aaron loves Andrew's trike. I was so surprised at how well he held on! Listen closely to how Andrew talks to him..."Is that fun, Aaron?" and "Use the pedals!" It is so cute!

This is my absolute favorite home video from the last 2 years. It is from February or March, and I never posted it, probably due to various technical difficulty. My little Mozart!

Catch up day...

Two months after my last post, it has been a fun, fun summer for the Shenk boys! Here is a picture gallery of our last couple of months!

Daddy's helper!

At the end of June, we took a family vacation with several members of the Shenk family. We had a great time in the mountains of Gatlinburg, TN. It's kinda hard to take pics with two small kids around, but here's a few of my favs. Later, I will have to add the pics of the mama bear and three cubs we saw along the side of the road...my sisters-in-law both got better shots than we did, so I'll get copies from them!

Andrew is 2 and as always, is such an outdoorsman. He LOVES to splash at the YMCA pool and at home in our back yard! Aaron is 9 months old and crawls, pull himself up, and is even walking along the edge of the coffee table and sofa! He has two teeth, but he didn't have them yet in these pics - I LOVE LOVE LOVE his smile!

Blonde Story

So, no offense if you are blonde, but I've learned that I just have to know when to laugh at myself. Today I got home from work and the kids whent straight to nap. (I get off at noon on Wednesdays.) I was eating a Wendy's ceasar side salad as I checked over my email, when my fork slipped and I spilled romaine lettuce and parmesean cheese all over my keyboard. I continued to work for a minute, then realized I was getting parm under the keys, so I went and grabbed the vacuum cleaner. I have a little dust buster thingy, but it doesn't work. Anyway, I didn't put any attachments on the hose or anything (they were lost long ago, anyway). It was just going to take five seconds, right? So, I turned it on and began to suck up all of the lettuce and bits of cheese. Suddenly I realized my R was missing. OH CRAP! I had to turn off the vacuum, remove the bag and dig around in the dirt until I found it. As I type this, I am making a mistake about every 5 seconds, because it won't stay on. I'm just glad this didn't happen at work. That'll teach me to multitask!


I have been having some trouble uploading video, and I finally figured it out. This one is from a couple of months ago, but still worth watching, I think!

ANDREW IS TWO!

The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse birthday party we had on Saturday!

Super Mom!

If you're a mom, you have those days. The ones where you feel like you aren't accomplishing anything, you aren't contributing anything valuable to the world, and you are lost in mommy-land 'till who knows when. BUT you also, hopefully, have the days where you feel like a super hero and you want to shout I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR! Well, yesterday was one of those days for me (the kind where I get to roar). I hope you allow me to pat myself on the back a little - sometimes if you don't do it, no one will, right? Well, yesterday we went to the zoo. And by we I mean me, Andrew, and Aaron. Now, lots of moms take their kids to the zoo without Dad, but today was somehow different. Was it the fact that we got through our visit without spending a dime? (We ate a healthy lunch that I packed and didn't buy a single snack!) No, I think it was the visit to the elephants that boosted my ego. You see, the zoo recently announced the birth of a new elephant. They even more recently began allowing the public to visit the baby and his mama. We made it to the main entrance of the zoo around 10:15, and I saw the sign that said the baby elephant viewing is from 11:00 - 1:00. I kinda wanted to hit the aquarium first, but decided we would probably NOT have a good time if we had to wait an hour for the baby elephant. So we headed there first. As I approached the elephant area, I saw that they had created kind of a maze for people to stand in line - like at an amusement park. We started on the path, and quickly made it to the entrance of the elephant house. A few other families were there, and everyone was parking their strollers outside the door. It became clear to me that we were going to have to go inside to see the new little guy, and that strollers were, apparently, not allowed. It was only 10:30, so I gave Andrew a snack, made Aaron a bottle, and began to make preparations to take both children into the elephant house without our stroller. At about 15 till, they started letting people in. I got Andrew out, strapped on his little backpack (it has a leash!), and started to get the front carrier out. Then I changed my mind. Aaron had just started his bottle - I'd better hold him instead. We got ourselves situated, and found our place in line. Now remember, my stroller was parked literally about 10 paces from the door. After 10 minutes of waiting, we actually got into the building. I assumed we would walk up to the glass, ooh and aah at the cute baby and be on our way. No. It really WAS like an amusement park - you know, you wait, and wait, and you get inside and think you are almost there, then you see another maze of people still waiting in front of you. Apparently mama and baby usually do a lot of walking, so lots of people get to see them as they go by, but today they decided to stand still, so only small groups of people were getting by at a time. Picture me, in line in this little building. In one arm I am holding a baby, in the other I am clutching his blanket, Andrew's hat, which he decided not to wear inside (how polite of him), AND the bottle which I am feeding the baby. My purse is on my shoulder, and around my wrist is the tether that is attached to Andrew's backpack. Andrew is wrapping himself around me like a dog around a tree, so I have to keep spinning around in circles to unwind him. As we make our way around the little maze, I look ahead, and I see two families that have strollers! You CAN bring in a stroller! GGrr! Well, I tell myself that I would have regreted bringing in a double stroller into this small space, and continue unwinding myself from my son. I am not a fan of big crowds, so I was a little annoyed about the outcome of this adventure, but my kids didn't mind one bit! Andrew was WONDERFULLY well behaved, as was Aaron who happily sucked on his bottle and grinned at me around the nipple every time I looked down at him. He really is SO precious. The docents were very helpful and one of them who saw my balance wavering a little guided us to the glass. FINALLY Andrew was standing still! He stared and stared at the adorable little elephant as it suckled at its mama. With the tether looped around my wrist, I was able to tuck the blanket and hat under my arm, reach in my purse and grab my camera. Thank goodness for modern technology - every thing is so small these days I only need one hand for my camera! Aaron was still smiling in my left arm as I took pictures with my camera in my right hand. After about five minutes, I said "Okay, say bye-bye!" And Andrew called out in his sweet little voice, "Bye-bye, 'phant, 'ee you!" As we walked to the exit, I spied the two strollers near the door. Aaa - who needs a stroller? ROAR! (Okay, I was, relieved to get back to ours.) I looked down at my watch - it was 11:15. Yes, it could have been MUCH worse. We saw the cute elephant and survived the crowd and the line in under an hour with no meltdowns and no lost children, sippy-cups, or pacifiers. After the elephants, we met up with my friend Trish, who brought her 2 year old daughter Ava. VERY helpful having a friend when you have two boys who need diapers changed. THANKS, GIRL! OH, and did I mention that my friend is 7 months pregnant? ROAR! (That's for you, Trisha!) We peeked in at a tiger who was hiding in the shade, and Andrew enjoyed a visit to the petting zoo before we had our lunch. We headed back to the car around 1:30, and both boys were sleeping soundly by the time we even got out of the parking lot. I think I'm gonna really enjoy this zoo membership. I'll have to be sure to visit the lions next time - ROAR! Heehee.

A Fish Story

I have a friend who always has hilarious strories about her kids. Just normal everyday events that just seem extra funny to me for some reason. Same goes for my sister. Every time I talk to her she has some crazy thing that just happened to her or her kids and I laugh for an hour at her story. Like the time she used her bluetooth headset for the first time and she freaked out in the parking lot at work, because it vibrated on her ear and she thought there was a bee in her hair. (Sorry, Jenn - had to tell that one!) This story is like that. There's nothing super dramatic, but it's the kind of thing that happens and I think, "Do things like this happen to everyone or just me?" So anyway, here's my fish story.
We have an aquarium. Its pretty big - about 29 gallons. A couple of months ago, our bottom feeder died. We waited several weeks before we finally decided we better get a new one. I took Andrew to the pet store, and we picked out the "algae eater." Very fun. This was about two weeks ago. The water and the tank were very green, so we treated the water, and the fish began to do his job- the glass began to get clearer. About a week later (last Tuesday), I found 2 neon tetras dead. My husband commented on how strange it was that they both died on the same day. I agreed, so I went to the tank to really take a good look. If you know anything about aquarium life, you might have heard of a disease called ich (pronounced "ick"). It is a parasite that gets under the scales and looks like little white specks on their body and tail. It is no problem if you catch it early, but I clearly had not paid close enough attention to our tank. Every fish was covered from nose to tail in it. They looked a little bit sugar coated, including their eyes and a couple of them were just kinda floating along - not dead, but not swimming happily, either. "OH NO!" I told Phil. "I think we're too late - all of these fish are going to die." Sure enough, the next morning I got up, and three more fish were dead. One was the bala shark. The picture above came from Wikipedia, but ours looked just like that. I have had that fish for about 8 years. I didn't measure it, but I estimate it was a good 5-6 inches long. The thought of pulling that sucker out of there made my skin crawl, but it had to be done. I thought if I just scooped it up into the bathroom trash can I could just dump it in the toilet and not even have to look at it. Well, it wasn't quite that smooth. It took several tries to get this thing through the narrow opening in the lid of the tank. I also had to scoop two other fish out (they, fortunately were much smaller), so the whole time I was whining, "Eew...Eew...Eew..." Andrew was looking on this whole time, apparently very concerned about where we are taking the fish. I run in to the bathroom with the trash can and try to get them all into the toilet with out looking at or touching them, again whining, "Eew...Eeew...Eew..." Just before I flush Andrew looks up innocently and says, "Mommy...Shishy go potty?" Trying to keep from laughing at him, I say "Yes, baby. Say bye-bye, fishies." As I reach over an flush the toilet, he looks in and says, "Bye-bye shishy, see you!" I laughed at how cute that was, washed my hands an went on with my day. The next day, two more dead fish. I avoided scooping them out the whole day. I got busy shampooing my carpet. When I was done with the carpet, I went in the bathroom to dump the dirty water down the toilet, and when I lifted up the seat, there it was. The eyes of that dead bala shark were staring up at me from the opening in the bottom of the toilet. I was HORRIFIED. Never did it occur to me that the fish wouldn't FIT! I must be WRONG! So, I flushed again. Nope, he popped back up. EEW ... EEW... EEEEEW! Thank God He blessed up with a house with three bathrooms! About two hours later my husband came home, and in what I'm sure was the worst whiny-wife-voice he ever heard, I told him of my plight. "I'll take care of it, " he assured me. That night before bed, I asked him if he got the fish. "No," he said, "I'm going to have to find something to grab it with first." The next morning when I got up, Phil was already at work. I peeked in the toilet to see if it was gone. Still there. EEEEEW! All day I tried to psych myself up enough to pull that fish out of the toilet with a pair of little plastic tongs that I found. I just couldn't do it. I laughed at my ridiculous self at one point, and thought I might go in and take a picture of the fish peeeking up from the toilet to share on my blog, but I couldn't even do that. I kept that door closed all day and used the other bathroom. At the end of the day my husband finally came to my rescue, and removed the poor thing. He put it in several layers of plastic grocery bags and put it in the trash can in the garage, awaiting the next pick up day. My hero.
Sadly, all of the fish are now dead, including our new bottom feeder. Andrew, I'm sure, doesn't understand this at all, but simply states, "Mommy, shishy go bye-bye."
Yep. Bye-bye, shishy.

Potty Time

Andrew got a potty for Christmas. It is just like the one my niece uses at my Mom's house, so he was immediately enthralled. For a while - like weeks - he asked to go to the potty every time we took off his diaper, and had a big fit if we didn't let him go. I got the little round cushion seat for the big potty and a step stool and we seemed to be well on our way. Then Aaron, Andrew and I all got terrible colds. I was exhausted (even MORE so than normal) and Andrew didn't feel like putting much effort into anything, let alone potty habits. Since then we have kinda pushed it to the way side. Last week I began a three week vacation from work - HOORAY FOR YEAR ROUND SCHOOL! I decided we were going to hit potty training full force again. I lost my motivation on the very first day. I am just not ready for the commitment it takes to ask him every hour if he has to go, to make him go before we get in the car, after nap, etc., etc... Going back and reading what I just wrote, I am actually feeling a little lazy - but throw a 6 month old in the mix and its a different story, right? Maybe I should start smaller that ALL of that. ANYWAY, the last few days Andrew has been doing "big kid" things. He can take off his clothes. Recently he actually brought a diaper to Phil and announced "Daddy, I poop!"; and today he took off his pajamas and his diaper and said to me - "Mommy - GO POTTY!" Okay. Its time. Mind you, this is a kid who won't be 2 for another 3 weeks! I should be jumping for joy! Okay, I'll do a couple of jumping jacks or something - maybe that will motivate me a little more. I'll just try to keep thinking of what a relief it will be when I only have to buy ONE size of diapers at the grocery store and my diaper changing time is cut in half at home!