Really?!?!? The Vala Pants Blog: Worse and worse...

I am becoming worse and worse about updating this blog, and I truly feel bad about it because I love having photos and little snippets of my kids lives because you really do forget so many of the things you want to remember. ARGH! Must try harder. Our laptop has also reached a "beyond repair" status, and I so hate trying to blog from my iPad. excuses. Anyhow, here are many photos from the past couple months. We had Isaac and Sam's birthdays in the past couple of months. We now have a 5 and a 2 year old who are hilarious, lovable and stubborn little guys.

We were on spring break for Isaac's birthday, and he asked if we could "just" have special breakfast cereal, open presents, watch TV, eat raspberry chocolate birthday cake, go to the aquarium, eat dinner at Famous Dave's, but only eat corn on the cob, and stay up late. Not too much to ask, right? This kid is high maintenance sometimes! :)

This kid got a lot of Legos for his birthday and has been busily occupied since :)

Isaac wanted us to take a picture with his Angry Bird face paint he got at the annual March of Dimes walk we do with one of his BFFs, Quinn.

Don't Judge :) I read a blog called Parenting, Illustrated with Crappy Pictures that I just love. There was a post awhile back in which the author had an epiphany -- get her otherwise stubborn child to practice handwriting by showing him how to write words like "poop." I tried this with Isaac and it sure worked! It's not a silver bullet, of course, but his interest has grown. So we practiced a whole sheet of writing "dog poop, cat poop, zebra poop, dad poop, mom poop, Sam poop," the list goes on. Then Isaac had the brilliant idea to write a sentence and have dad illustrate it. See above "Bob the Builder poops his pants." Sorry Bob fans. Above that "bobcat poop." I think the bob in bobcat must have given him the idea for Bob and the poop incident. Sigh...parenting boys...a new adventure every day.

Isaac had a huge fifth birthday complete with all his friends from school, and a few good buddies from outside of school. We had Creature Encounters come and share theirs reptile/insect/tortoise buddies with the kids, which was a big hit! Lots of pizza, Pirate Booty, Juice boxes happily passed out by the birthday boy, and fun! It was great, but definitely the kind of birthday that happens once in a childhood :)

Isaac was so cute and brave with all the creatures. He didn't hesitate and was very polite about everything. I loved it.

Cool as a cucumber. This white snake started crawling up Isaac's shirt and he just said "um, guys, um, the snake is crawling into my shirt...um, guys?" hehe

Isaac had to hope along with this snake that coiled itself around his leg.

I was so not planning on holding or even touching a snake - but look at that! Done and done. I should have had it on a bucket list somewhere so that I could check it off.

Easter 2014

Sam's actual birthday. It was a school day, but we celebrated with cake and a couple presents. He loved it :) He tore into the cupcake with his hands, but I don't think he ever even tasted it. This kid, like his brother, just isn't into food - junk or otherwise. I cannot believe Sam is 2. Time has flown by incredibly fast, especially with the second child. He jabbers and jabbers, and we can understand most of what he says, until he starts talking too fast or in his own language :) He loves singing, digging, throwing, and bathing himself in rocks and/or dirt, Spiderman (he calls him shook-a-man,) Mr. Noodle from Elmo, telling people they are silly, being read to, Day-Z, cuddles, hugs and kisses, and listening to mom or dad sing rhyming songs to him on the changing table. His favorite foods are pistachios, raspberries, pumpkin soup, fruit leather, dutch babies, and bread. He throws some pretty epic tantrums and is stubborn as can be. We love him for all that he is, and just the way he is :)