Hurricane Joey

We have breaking news coming into the newsroom tonight.






It appears that between the hours of 2pm and 3 pm this sunny afternoon, a freak Hurricane ripped through the living room. Deemed Hurricane Joey, the wreckage produced massive amounts of scattered blocks, an emptied out diaper bag, train tracks leading to nowhere, and couch pillows tossed about. Left in its mist this Toddler of a storm left large traces of fingerprints all over the window and TV.

Upon arriving home from her afternoon workout, Joey's Mom was completely puzzled how such a freak storm hit so unassumingly. It was then discovered that directly in the path of Hurricane Joey was a resting Uncle Cody who did not notice the Hurricane's approach until it was too late. After being hit mid range with a flying block Uncle Cody was able to maneuver the Hurricane into his waiting room for a much needed nap. The aftermath, although messy, resulted in a quick clean up. The only set back seemed to be a lack of Windex so the fingerprints remain for another day.



This is reporter Bloggy McBloggerson reporting live from Mom of the Year's residence in Tacoma, WA

Tattle Tale?

Today I realized that Joey is such a tattle tale. But...not in the way you think.

The kids rats himself out!

Apparently he hasn't gotten the memo yet that you keep your lips zipped until someone else tells on you.
Not my Joey though, oh no; he is becoming a little Honest Abe at heart.

Today for instance I dropped him off at the Fred Meyer Playland so I could some grocery shopping because he SERIOUSLY ran from one side of the store to the other. All the while me chasing (slowly) behind him. I really didn't want to make a big scene and run sprints at the store. I did however catch up to him sitting on the couches, which apparently was his plan all along. After that nice ordeal...and everyone staring at mel I promptly checked him into Playland. I gave him the nice "reminder speech" to be a good boy and play nicely and walked away fully knowing that the attendant would probably not have good news for me.
After some leisurely shopping (I had an hour to myself) I went back to pick Joey up. The first thing out of his mouth...

"Joey a BAD baby!"

All I can think is....GREAT! I am not shocked or surprised because it's not news to me, but hey wait....did Joey just rat himself out? Now that is a surprise!

Of course Joey goes into no further detail then that and all the attendant could tell me was that he was very impatient...which means that he was demanding and wanted to be the center of attention. You can't fool me on little words that have make a large bite!

I then broke the news to the attendant that Joey is hyper all the time and let me tell you, she gave me those "sad, poor Mom eyes"! I don't know how I am supposed to take that, but whatever.

Anyways, I have started to think about it and Joey is always telling on himself. When I come home from Volleyball or running errands Joey always has the news to report first hand that he in fact was not well behaved. I just got back from working out and Joey told me, "Cody a bad baby". Which translates into, "I was not good for Uncle Cody."

So until Joey catches on I will take him being honest, unless he tells me I am smelly or something, then we will have to talk. I figure this phase is just incidental and I shouldn't push my luck and hope that Joey is always honest with me. I give him a year and half and he will start telling on others and keeping his lips sealed on his many a doings.

WFMW's

Kristen over at We Are That Family host a really awesome link up at her website on tips and advice on things that work well for her. Topics revolve around household tips, cooking, cleaning, raising children and crafts. She has an amazing blog that follows the life of their family. She has the strongest convictions and from what I read a SuperMom!

My WFMW!

Keeping your garbage can clean and organized.

Garbage cans tend to get sick and disgusting super quick, especially when you have a kid in diapers. Even after you take out the trash the smell tends to linger and with apartment living any smell is never a good smell.

I have a large garbage can but not the luxury of having a large kitchen so the can is placed underneath our lame excuse of a counter bar. This means that any unsightliness goes majorly noticed and Joey thinks that the garbage can is a toy. Not the kind of double bonus I like to brag about!

To keep things clean and organized I store the trash bag roll and a can of Lysol spray inside of the can itself. Just like this...


When I pull the liner out to take the garbage out I have everything in one place and I don't have to search for another bag in the deep abyss known as my under sink cabinet. The Lysol I use is also an air neutralizer so it disinfects and also kills odor in the surrounding area. A bonus to this method is that b/c the trash bag roll and the can take up a little bit of room on the bottom you can never overfill your trash and not be able to tie it shut.



And this is What Works For Me!

P.S. I never thought I would be taking a picture of my trash can!

Mom of the Year Moments

I have stories.

Lots and lots of stories.

I shake my head as I write this because like all, I have had some not so proud "Mommy Moments".
I think at one time or another every Mom has been initiated into the "Mom of the Year" club. If you haven't please call me and tell me how you have managed to elude this distinguished club!

The phrase, "Mom of the Year" showed up in my vocabulary early on in motherhood. At it's finest moments they are usually caught for everyone to see. I can tell you about the first time I was initiated into this fine club. During the middle of the night, Josh came downstairs to me frantically trying to soothe a crying, 5 day old Joey only to catch me trip over the infant seat and fall on the couch with Joey in hand perfectly unscathed b/c some how my "Mothers Intuition" kicked in just time to know how to fall gracefully with a newborn. Did I mention that I just had a c-section and was unable to move from the position I landed in?

From then on I became a contributing elite member of the "Mom of the Year" club.
If you haven't caught on yet, my blog title is sarcastic. I wanted to be clear in case anyone hasn't caught on to that yet. OK good, so let's move on.


Span ahead to when Joey was two and half (we'll skip those two years in between for posterity) and you will find that I have a very active and curious toddler on my hands. During a vacation in Lake Tahoe I got Joey those amazingly cool Color Wonder Markers that only work on Color Wonder paper. I let him color in his carseat while we were on extended drives to keep him busy and happy. (Do you see where this is going?) Things are going great one evening, when on our drive to have dinner, Joey starts hysterically crying. I have no idea why. He seemed fine and after I got him calmed down we were on our way. It wasn't until I took him out of his carseat only to discover bitten off marker tips. SERIOUSLY! I diligently searched for every single tip and matched with it with every marker I could fine. Through deductive reasoning I determined that he had scraped the inside of his nose with a rigid edge of one the markers because he kept saying, "nose hurt" and that made perfect sense to me especially since he was a little snotty and I could see nothing up his nose.
Fast forward a week and a half and we are back home when I notice Joey's nose is making a whistling sound every time he breathes. He mentioned something about his nose hurting a few days prior but I figured that the scrape inside was still healing and I didn't see anything still. So of course like any good Mom I wait until he takes a nap to do detective work. With my flashlight and suction bulb in hand I go to inspect the situation. As I look up his nose I say to myself, "what is that white thing I see"? "Is that a big booger"? I try to suction it out, but to no avail it doesn't move. It's at that moment that it registers with me! A MARKER TIP! Are you kidding me?????
I quickly take him to his Pediatricians office because they are so awesome to get me in at the last possible appointment of the day only to find that they cannot remove it with the instruments they have. We are referred to an Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor but wouldn't be able to get in until the next day. By this time I feel terrible. How could I have not noticed it before? How could I make such a huge mistake? But having self pity was not the answer. After attempting to get the marker tip out of his nose by ENT Doctor by strapping Joey down to a board, we were still unable to get the tip out because Joey was struggling too much. So as a last resort Joey was scheduled to have surgery to have the marker tip removed while under anesthesia. The surgery required no cutting at all and took no longer then 20 minutes start to finish, but I sat in that waiting room feeling like a fool. To this day Joey still will not allow anyone to touch his nose.


I can look back now and laugh about the entire ordeal. I mean how can I have even expected that by giving Joey a marker it could break off in his nose. And furthermore, why did Joey have a marker up his nose in the first place? After that adventurous day, Joey is no longer allowed to have any sort of pointy object or coloring utensil unsupervised. You understand why, Right?

So, my name is Keana and I am the Mom of the Year!

And trust me I have more stories to come and many more that haven't even been written yet!

Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday

Is it bad that I associate Fat Tuesday with eating everything under the sun in preparation for eliminating all the bad stuff on Ash Wednesday?
I think not, OK so maybe it's a bit bad. =)

For all you Catholics out there, tomorrow is the start of lent.
In a quick definition look up of Lent I turn to Wikipedia.org

"Lent, in Christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Conventionally, it is described as being forty days long, though different denominations calculate the forty days differently. The forty days represent the time that, according to the Bible, Jesus spent in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan."

Ah temptations temptations. They usually come in the form of food for me. Typically each lent I give up the junk food. It's the one thing that I find hard to stray away from and am always tempted to eat. So this year is no different.

However, I also see Lent as a way to improve ourselves in the eyes of Jesus and to strive in different ways to be more like him. To me its almost like a New Year's Resolution, but this time its for Jesus.

For Lent, I promise to
1. Lay off the chips
2. Sacrifice my needs and wants for the ones I love.
3. Become a better Mom and find new ways to teach my little man, especially about the Bible.
4. Permanently stop making excuses for not achieving the goals I want to achieve and
doing the projects I want to do.
5. Prove to myself that I can be a "Mom of the Year," in my own eyes, at least.

These goals mean a lot to me because I always find myself being tempted and lured not do the things I know are important. I can ask for forgiveness of my sins and let me tell you, Jesus does forgive, but it doesn't mean anything to ask for forgiveness if we aren't willing to make the necessary changes in ourselves to be resolved of our past mistakes. The 5 goals listed above should be something I strive for at all times in my life, not just during Lent. But the promise of Lent and the Love of Christ allows me to find new beginnings and hope to achieve the much needed changes in my life. The end of Lent and the Resurrection means a renewal in Faith and the rebirth into eternal life; and the most wonderful thing about Christ is that he is always there, open arms and all.

So I ask you, even if your faith does not practice Lent, what would you do to renew faith and resist temptation?

How can I be a Mom of the Year?

In setting up this blog my intentions are two fold.

Not only is it to share in the lighter side of mommyhood, but I also want to dabble in all the aspects that contribute to being a successful Mom. My blog is intended not only for stories, but also for ideas for creating family fun to running a household, from creating a budget to making a house a home (decorating).

I live by the three F's.
Family, Faith and Frugality.

Obviously the first 2 are of the utmost importance, but I have found that being frugal in certain parts of my life have made the other parts that much richer!

This blog will hold a plethora of ideas. It may seem a bit sporadic and disorganized, but what better way to take on this journey then to just to dive in head first and get going?

Meet Joey

Pretty cute isn't he?

Don't be fooled.
I have that kid!

That kid??

Oh yes THAT KID!

You know the one I am talking about!
That kid that throws the hugest, most unbelievable, most embarassing fits in the middle of frozen foods aisle.
That kid who decided to jam a marker up his nose only to have the tip break off and then require actual surgery to remove it.
That kid who ripped off all the wall paper from his nursery during nap time.

He is that kid who makes you worry and fret over his number 2's in his diaper for days because he can't find where he put that penny he sneakily took from you.
But he is also that kid that makes life worth living. That kid who makes you look forward to things yet to come and who always keeps you laughing. That kid is why I look forward to building a life around family and faith and all things good. Because of that kid I feel blessed and extremely loved.

Oh how I love that kid. I really do. He is my proudest accomplishment, my favorite person and the one gift that has given me the most amazing feeling of all. Love.
He is also why I am able to dedicate a part of this blog to the most wonderful and outrageous "Mother of the Year" stories. We will get to them...trust me.

For now go check out Kristen's story at We Are That Family. She it witty, funny, and is well spoken on all topics revolved around That Family!