Boppers picks up the ladies

So my almost 2 year old, has officially become a ladies man. He has girlfriends everywhere we go. He has one at walmart, one at the pharmacy, and everywhere else.

I mean what can I say, he is cute and very witty for a 2 year old.

He know even has pick up lines..."hellwo ladies, woo woo" then he gives them the magic wink with both eyes.

If this is any indication of whats to come, then we are in big trouble. Ive already told him that if I didnt like the girl he brought home, I was going to tell her to go home. No hoochies in low cut shirts and booty shorts allowed at our house. Hopefully he will be a better judge of character and we wont have to deal with him bringing home a girl like that.

Well Boppers just walked into our room (he was supposed to be asleep for the night) so Im gonna have to call it short tonite. More to come about "No Hoochies in our house rule"

To cloth diaper or not...

I have a friend who just found out that she is having twins. She is contemplating the differences between cloth and disposables and needs some advice from other mommies.

We used disposables for Boppers (yep we helped make a hole in the ozone layer) so I gave her my pros and cons list for those but she is wanting to know the pros and cons of cloth diapers.

She is a single mom and she is only 20 years old (yes she is gonna need lots of prayers and support). So becides cloth being cheaper in the long run, what are the other benefits and dont be shy what are the cons as well?

Also, if you have any other tips and advice for her about twins, single mothers,etc please feel free to comment or email me jlbhowell@gmail.com.

Thanks girlies, I told her that yall rocked and could totally give her advice.

My baby is getting big...

Today I came to the realization that my baby is almost 2. It just hit me like a ton of bricks.

What happened to this sweet tiny little baby? Where did the past 2 years go??

I blinked my eyes and he was stitting up. (yes that would be spit up on his outfit, hello I told you I was a reflux warrior)

Then I went to sleep woke up and he turned 1.

Now he is getting ready to turn 2. ~tears, tears~ Everybody always told you that your kids grow up so fast but you dont believe them until you have kids of your own. Then you look back and say they were right. I dtry to take tons and tons of pictures so I can remember everything but then sometimes I leave the camera at home (kick myself). We have thought about getting a video camera but were not sure if we would use it enough to justify buying one.

How do ya'll capture all your lil ones precious moments?

Wordless Wednesdays

Today I am going to show off my pictures of our wonderful Hilton Head vacay! Oh I wish we were still there.

On our way to the pool.

Playing at the mall

Family pic the night b4 we left

Its 100 degrees outside, dont leave your kids in the car~ A mothers rant

Today I am on my soapbox so please excuse me!

So here in TN it is so stinking hot! Everyday it has been in the upper 90's with the heat index above 100 degrees. No its normally not this hot in this part of this area in mid-June (which means I dread what July and August has in store for us).

So heres my soapbox speech, Parents and guardians of children, PLEASE whatever you do, dont let your children play in the car or leave them in car for any amount of time. I am so upset bc while watching the nightly news, it was like a list of young children that had died in cars bc of the heat.

1. Toddlers Death in Car
2. Child dies in Hot Car

Those 2 were both just within an hour or so drive of where I live.

I mean, what are parents thinking??? Thats the point, I dont think they are thinking at all. You know how hot it is and would you want to be left in a hot car. Then hello dont leave your little child in the car!!!!

Ok Im stepping down from my soapbox for today. But promise me, peeps use common sense when it comes to your children!

Sweet Moments on Fathers Day

So I have to tell you the sweet moment that melted my and Hubbys heart.

With Sunday being Fathers Day, Boppers and I got up early and were going to surprise Hubby with donuts and choc. milk for bfast in bed. So we start getting ready and I had told Bop that today was Daddys special day and that we were going to surprise him.

So after getting ready, Bop goes into our bedroom and opens the drawer to pull out one of Hubbys old wallets. Then he goes to the drawer where we keep our spare change and fills his wallet up with change. While doing this he tells me that, he pays for daddys prize (aka surprise). I know, I know he gets his sweetness from me lol

But wait it gets sweeter, we go to the store and get our donuts. I set him on the counter to pay and he pulls out his wallet and begins counting his change (2, 3, 6, 9 ok so we need to work on numbers) and the whole time he is saying " I pay, daddys prize".

Oh man, I wanted to burst into tears right there. Boppers knew he loved his daddy and HE wanted to do something special for him. That was the best gift we could ever give Hubby bc Boppers did it himself.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Friday Blog Hop Time-Its a Social Parade

Thanks everybody for stopping by my blog today! Please leave me a comment if you found me from a Blog Hop so I can follow you back!! Hope you enjoy!

Mommy Separation Anxiety

First off today, I just wanted to thank all my followers today for being such awesome bloggy friends.!!!

Ok so, Boppers has been going through some severe Mommy anxiety for the past couple of months. Not to sound like a "bad mom" but its a blessing and curse. Now I will explain that statement.

Its a blessing bc I love the fact the he wants and needs me so bad. I am so thankful that he is "mommys boy" and I wouldnt have it any other way.  I love making his boo-boos better and cuddling with him at night b4 bedtime.

But, sometimes I just wish he would let his daddy change his diaper or fix his cup. He screams and crys everytime I drop him off at daycare even though I know 10 min after I leave he stops crying and plays. I cant get anything done around the house, I even have to cook with him on my hip (which really wears a mommy out).

Not to mention, I am also kinda concerned bc he wont even play by himself. I have to be down in the floor with him. I dont want him to become super dependent. Or be that 12 year old kid that is still hiding under mommys skirt.

Sorry folks I had to vent today bc sometimes I just get overwhelmed.

Wordless Wednesdays

The day after we got home from vacay we went and got Bops new pup pup, Hoss. He he had to hold him the whole ride home.

We ate at the famous Paula Deen resturant. It was good but not worth the long wait.

He loved "cooking" in the sand. We made cheese everyday lol

This was Ben's 1st experience at the ocean. At first he was sort of timid but then he didnt want to leave the "wa-wa"

Exczema

Ok so while we were on vacation, Boppers had an outbreak of exczema. All under his arms, on his thighs, on his chest, and even on the palms of his hands. I dont know what caused the outbreak, could be the heat (but oh wait its hotter at home than it was at the beach), an allergy to something, who nows???

He has had exczema before but never this bad.

 This is what his hands look like, yuck right??

It itches so bad that it wakes him up at night. The dr gave him some cream and prescrition of a benedryl type med to help with itching. But I dont want him on all this meds, so does anybody have any tips about exczema??

Back to the real world

Hey everybody!

I am finally back to the real world today after a week long vacation in Hilton Head, SC! To follow up on my previous post about my fear of the really long car ride with the Boppers, He did great!! We left out Saturday morning at 2am hoping he would sleep till like 7 (his normal wake up time) and this would have 5 hours of driving in behind us. Well, that didnt work lol. The lil toot only slept like 45 min on the whole ride of 10hours. I think he was so excited about the beach and there was so many things to see (i mean he might miss something wonderful if he fell asleep right??). Other than not sleeping, he did better than I could have asked for.

We stopped about every couple of hours and let him run around. So our normal 10 hour drive actually took us like 14 hours. But that was ok bc in that whole time we only had like 1 meltdown. My tip for fellow mommys who are fixing to travel with little ones is 1st stop and let them stretch their legs and 2nd I took an old back pack and filled it with little toys, snacks, and coloring books so when he would get tired of something I would just pull out another surprise.

Oh and did I mention we didnt even turn on our dvd players!!

Well anyways Im glad to be back home so I can sleep in my own bed but I do miss the beach!

Meet a new Blogger...mommyofaladybug

Babies Babies Everywhere


We have a one year old. She is the best thing God has ever done for us! She is our world. Now the questions becomes, When is the next one to come? I used to always say I never wanted my kids to be to close in age. My sister and I were 2 years apart growing up and had an awful relationship. I didn’t want my kids to go through that. Then in the last 2 months we have a new niece, a best friend had a baby, and so on and so on. Its babies babies everywhere!!!! It gives you (me) baby fever! All I think about now is babies. Then to myself I start saying, “Is it to soon? Would they get along? Maybe it’s a sign!.....” So how do you know when it is right to start planning for another child?

I tried to talk to the husband and see what his thoughts were and he says the infamous husband saying, “Whatever you think honey. I will go along with it.” In my head I am saying but will he really or is this his way of telling me ok drop it I said what you wanted me to now next topic. Haha I love him but that he does sometimes.

Then I talk to friends … Friend # 1 says, “Another One? Really? One is enough!” (She has a bad pregnancy and delivery that makes her think that way. She isn’t against kids or anything. Lol) Friend #2 says, “Oh now! My brother and I were a year and half apart and we got along great and were so close.” Friend #3 says, “ At least 2 more years. They need to be spaced out. Think about the future. Cars, Proms, and College.” So friends = no help! Everyone has great points (Except for the just have one. I definitely want another one!)

So then came family… Family = DRAMA Enough said!!!!!!

So the lingering question how soon is to soon to have another child after your first one?? Blogging may be the best way to get a helpful answer. We will see….

Awesome guest post from JessaZG

CRAFT RAGE: A LETTER TO PRECUT FOAM STICKER SHAPES




Dear Precut Foam Sticker Shapes,



Hi, how are you? Good? That’s nice. Anything new? I heard your selection

of shapes and themes has extended, congratulations if that’s true.



Enough with the small talk, I am writing you for a reason. As you well

know, the two of us have never really been close. I’ve always been

standoffish about how you look and feel, not to mention the colors you are

available in (do you even know that there are these things called earth

tones? Why do you insist on staying within the obnoxious neon color

range?) Adding to that my issue with stickers, I will not call it a fear,

I am not afraid of stickers, I don’t like them, I never had. To say I fear

stickers would be to say I run from them, I do not run, I just ask very

nicely, yet firmly, that no, I would not like a sticker. I have a good

reason for not liking stickers too. Have you ever looked at the back of a

sticker? All that hair and dirt and uh, ew. Just ew. No thank you.



Sorry, back to the topic at hand, I don’t like you. There I said it. I

have always danced around the issue with parents and teachers because they

chose to buy tubs of you in various themes to use for craft projects, but

I am done playing. Precut Foam Sticker Shapes, I will no longer be

indifferent to your existence, no, I will say it loud, I think you are

horrible.



You are horrible the way Heather (the brunette one) in Heathers was

horrible. A scheming popularity climber joyful at the death of your craft

friend glitter, you step in and put on the red scrunchy of being colorful

and so easy to use and you convinced people that you were the way to make

a project easy and look good.



You take advantage of mothers and teachers who want a child’s craft to

look the way the real thing looks. To take away the game of guessing if a

drawing is of a dog or a tree. You and your precut smugness have taken

away creativity!



Okay I may be going a little to far in saying that, but seriously, what

use are you? How do you improve art? What do you teach kids other than how

to remove the backing from a sticky thing? No matter how hard I try, I

cannot think of one thing you do to improve a craft project.



Now I know most kids like stickers (me being the exception as previously

discussed) God knows why, but children are drawn to sticky things like

moths to the flame. Sticky things, glitter, led lights and nail polish.

But that does not mean their sticky fetish should be addressed through

overpriced poorly colored pieces of foam.



Do you know how mad I got when one of the kids gave me her art folder from

school and 85% of the work was paper with a bunch of foam stickers? Do

you? You are assisting in project laziness and I’m sorry, but art projects

are not that hard to think of. Really.



See Precut Foam Sticker Shapes; see how ragey you make me? Can you taste

my pointless rage? My problem is that people are going with all these

prepackaged crafts instead of just letting kids at it to do their own

thing. I hate that there is this Martha Stewart mentality of things

needing to look nice (but I don’t hate you Martha, YOU are my hero, we

would get along, call me?) If you want something to look nice do it

yourself. If you are concerned about junior using crayons or paint or

markers because you don’t want those things to end up on the wall,

SUPERVISE THEM or better yet, MAKE SURE THEY KNOW WHERE THEY CAN AND

CANNOT WRITE and have a can of paint around to patch things.



Sorry, I totally got off topic there. This letter is to inform you, Precut

Foam Sticker Shapes, that I will no longer keep my hatred of you quiet.

You suck.



Regards,



Jessa zg

Life before children..

So we are on vacation on the beautiful Hilton Head Island and having the best time ever!!!

Well, we are with another couple and they are newly married with no children. Hubby and I have been cracking up at the differnce between us and them. We are usually up and going by at the latest 8:00am (we are at the beach by 9) and well 9 rolls around, then 10. Finally the other couple wakes up. I dont even remember the last time I slept that late.

Now its time to get ready to get dressed and go out. I can get Boppers and myself dressed and ready to go (showers and everything) all before they even have their clothes on. If I had that much time to get dressed, I dont know what I would do with myself.

Ohh the days before children. I wouldnt go back to those days for anything (ok maybe I would like some more sleep) because Boppers is the best thing that ever happend to us.

Guest post coming soon!!

leaving for the Beach!

We will be leaving for the beach at 2am Saturday!!!

I have 2 guest bloggers that will keep the blogging going while Im relaxing on the beach. Your going to love them!!! One of them is JessaZG. She is so freaking awesome and oh so talented. If you havent already checked out her art, you need to go buy some. http://www.jessazg.com/

The other one is one of my close friends here in this small town I call home. She has never blogged before but I am trying to get her to start. I told her that all cool moms should blog. So we have to show her how awesome the bloggy world is.  She has the cutest lil girl you will ever see, too.

If you dont already follow me on Twitter (@rockingthevan), you should start bc I will be tweeting the whole way about how Boppers is making it in the van for almost 10 hours. I also promise to post some pictures up while we're there of how wonderful the beach is (jealous???).

Hope everyone has a good week!!

Steriod Meds

Ok so if you didnt already know my lil guy has severe asthma and allergies. And because of this he is sick a whole lot. (it happens when you are allergic to life).

On to the point...well he has been on so many steriod medications, I am worried about it affecting his growth (since he is only 23 months old). He has been on an oral steriod for about a month and today he had a steriod shot (that makes 2 he has had this month). Thats alot of steriods for such a lil guy.

But he has to breathe so we have to keep his airways open. So what do we do?? Does anybody out there know of any non-steriod meds we could use?

~He also takes pulmicort (asthma controller med), singular, allegra, and prevacid (for his reflux) oh yea and a cream for his exczema. Yep my child is a druggie.