Beth's Blog

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2010-06-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

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My boys

2009-02-20T05:30:00.001-08:00

Rowan's pictures

2009-02-20T05:26:00.000-08:00

Here is some more Rowan art.

Grossology

2009-01-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

We went to Grossology a couple of weeks ago.
Here is Ezra crawling out of a giant anus. Rowan sliding out of a stomach.

House Showing

2009-01-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

So someone finally came and looked at the house yesterday, I think that is the first time in two months. I had 20 minute notice, but I had already really cleaned the house. We stayed here but went outside. When the couple and the realtor came outside Rowan ran up to all three of them and gave them hugs...and then Marley did.

Hawk

2009-01-04T13:40:00.001-08:00

We have been feeding the birds in our 'hood for about three years now, we have quite a large mix of different birds. Well apparently all of those birds attracted a hawk, I saw him swoop down at my birds the other day. Since then I have been hearing him a lot. Then just the other day Ant looked out our bedroom window and there he was.

New Blog

2009-01-03T07:02:00.001-08:00

I started another blog. Its more of a personal blog with more writing, and things geared towards moms. Check it out www.manicmother.com and sign up to follow it!

Happy Birthday

2009-01-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Auntie Beaner! Thanks for being the best Aunt ever. Hope your birthday is wonderful and filled with excitement. I love you!

Rowan's pictures

2009-01-01T12:35:00.000-08:00

Rowan's Grandpa Kevin bought him a kids camera for xmas. He loves it. It doesn't take the greatest pictures but I think that can be expected from a kids digital camera and since a kid is taking it, they are not holding it still. He has already burned through the first set of batteries.

Cousin Zachary

Aunt Larraines foot

Grocery store

I told him to take pictures of apples for me

Happy Birthday Rowan!

2008-12-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

4 years ago today, I gave birth to you. Although giving birth was quite terrifying, once I saw you I forgot all about that. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, blue eyes and a full head of white blonde hair.

You make me laugh every day. I love the way you see the world right now, you say the cutest things. You also try my patience everyday (which I don't have much of.) You made me grow up, and you have made me such a better person. You made me realize that I am capable of so much more then I ever thought. Thank you for being you, I love you.

29 years ago

2008-12-27T16:17:00.001-08:00

29 years ago today my mom gave birth to me ( thanks mom).

My life has had its ups and downs, more downs then most.

But since becoming a wife and a mother I have never been happier.

Thanks for making me Mom and Dad.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-26T13:41:00.001-08:00

Christmas started off for us at 6:30 am. We were not able to get many good pictures of them since they would not sit still for more then a second. Rowan got a Gator sweat band and wrist bands in his stocking. One of his favorite gifts was a whoppee cushion....farts are so funny.

All he asked Santa for was Transformers...this was his favorite.

We went to Anthony's sister's house for the family Christmas. This is Ezra's I am about to do something naughty pose.

And this is just him looking handsome....look at those curls!

Christmas was great this year, it was so much fun to see both boys enjoy it.

2008-12-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from Florida!

My little poet

2008-12-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

The wind was blowing the leaves today and Rowan said "Mama, look the leaves are dancing." I thought that was so cute.

Christmas 2007

2008-12-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

This is us around Christmas time last year. We have all changed a lot. Anthony has a lot less hair, I got smaller, Ezra got bigger, and Rowan got rid of his bowl cut.

Only down south

2008-12-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

Southern people never to fail to amaze me, they really do have a lot of different cultural things they do. Yesterday a friend told me people down south eat chicken and waffles together. I guess fried chicken, syrup and starch tastes good together...who would have thunk? I think I will pass on that one and stick to my Midwest casseroles and meat and potatoes.

Hope

2008-12-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

Mortgage rates dropped again! They are now the lowest they have been in 37 years....so go buy a house (preferably mine.) Maybe there is hope after all.

Ezra

2008-12-15T05:34:00.001-08:00

Anthony photoshopped this picture, it looks so neat.

My Christmas Elf

2008-12-11T05:22:00.000-08:00

Rowan is so excited for Christmas this year. Every morning he turns on the lights on the trees. He also will plug in the lights for my Christmas village. When I ask him about Santa he says "My Santa, will bring me toys." (He thinks everything is his.) I had to go to Walmart for a few groceries last night so I took him with and we went up and down the aisles looking at all the Christmas stuff, and we had to have reindeer antlers. After we were done I cranked the Christmas music in the car and took him for a drive through the historic area of Gainesville. We found a handful of houses with really awesome lights. He would say "Look Mama, a Christmas house! .....Wow!" Its really fun to see him get so into the holidays. Poor Ezra is already sick of the reindeer antlers.

Christmas tree

2008-12-08T05:57:00.000-08:00

We got our tree the night before Thanksgiving and decorated it Thanksgiving morning. I am just now getting around to the pictures.

Lollipop

2008-12-08T05:18:00.000-08:00

I stopped to get a treat for Rowan for being a good boy, and he picked out some lollipops he got Ezra a little one. Ezra thought he was such hot snot with his lollipop, he ate the whole thing.

My Christmas wish

2008-12-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

All I want for Christmas is for someone to buy our house, or to magically acquire enough money to pay off our mortgage. I was just looking online and there are 20 houses at least for sale in my neighborhood alone. I don't regret buying the house, I can't imagine raising a family in an apartment for the last 4 years. When we bought our house the market was still good, how were we to know? How did we go from a surplus of money when Clinton was in office to the biggest deficit ever. Thanks W, I blame him for the recession. Hopefully with someone new in office things will change. I am so sad I can't spend yet another Christmas with my family. Waiting sucks.

Gingerbread houses

2008-12-02T05:15:00.000-08:00

Rowan and I made our gingerbread houses over the weekend. I love the way they make your house smell. Rowan had a great time doing it, he woke up the next day and wanted to make another one.

Elf on a shelf

2008-12-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

We started a xmas tradition last year. I saw the idea in a catalogue they were selling these elves with a story book. I found the elf in a xmas store last year and we made up our own story. We tell the boys that he is watching them for Santa to see if they are good boys. We then move him every night and put him in a new spot and Ro comes and finds the elf in the morning.

2008-12-01T06:53:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite pictures of the boys and I. Its when we were walking back to the car from the gardens. I love how Ezra is facing the camera and smiling.

Stiff

2008-11-30T06:04:00.000-08:00

I don't consider myself morbid, but the human body fascinates me. This was a pretty good book, it never got too wordy or technical. My favorite things I learned were:

1. Male and female hearts beat differently, when a female heart is transplanted into a male it will still beat like a female heart.

2. Before modern medicine they came up with all sort of inventions to tell if you were dead for sure. My favorite was the man who invented a machine that repeatedly pulled your tongue, because if you weren't dead you would for sure wake up after having your tongue pulled so many times.

3. After decapitation you can still move your eyes for 10-12 seconds.

4. They have the technology to do head transplants.

5. They are trying to market a machine that freezes you, then breaks you into a bunch of tiny pieces. They then take your pieces and make you into compost and plant a tree w/ you. (I would like this done if it is available when I die.)

Give thanks

2008-11-26T09:28:00.001-08:00

I was trying to think of something I was thankful for, besides the obvious friends and family. So I am giving thanks to disposable diapers....what a great invention.

Towhead?

2008-11-25T04:24:00.000-08:00

So I often got called a towhead as a child . The boys get called towheads all the time. I know it refers to someone with really light hair, but Anthony was wondering why people say that, and I had no clue. So here is what I found.

"A towhead also refers to a person with light blond hair. This is based on the hair's resemblance to tow which is coarse or broken flax prepared for spinning. It also refers to someone with 'tousled' hair--(disheveled)
In colonial times, families grew their own flax to make into fabric for clothing. Transforming the flax into thread was a complicated, involved process with many time-consuming steps. After the flax was harvested, it was soaked in water for several days to soften it so the inner fibers could be removed from the stalk. To separate the long, thin fibers from the shorter, coarser ones, the flax was pulled through a bed of nails or combed in a process called "towing." The shorter fibers that were extricated were of a lesser quality and were called "tow." This led to the term "towheads" to describe people, particularly children, whose hair resembled these strands."

Photos

2008-11-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

We took the fam to the gardens to try to get a good picture to put on an xmas card. Wow you would not believe how hard it is to get 2 little boys to both look at the camera. Here are some pictures that didn't make the card.

Florida bugs

2008-11-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year where the bugs do a mad dash to try to get into your house because it is getting cold. So the other night I went into our sunroom, I turned on the light and went over to my bookshelf. On top of my bookshelf I see a huge bug (at least 2 inches big) I say out loud "Oh hell no." Mostly because I knew I had to kill it before it got away. I hate big bugs. So I smashed it with one of my books and let out a scream and ran away. There was guts on my book and coming out of the bug. It was so gross, I had Anthony get it into the trash. It filled the room with this weird smell, I thought it smelled kind of like fake green apple smell. Everyone in the house hates bugs its always an argument who is going to have to smash them. I have even given Rowan a complex about "beetles". Florida has some of the hugest, grossest bugs ever. I think if you can see its poop, its too big. Flying cockroaches, and spiders with body's that are 2-3 inches big. I will not miss these bugs when we move.

"Florida Woods Roach.The Florida woods cockroach (Eurycotis floridana) is a large species of cockroach, which usually grows to a length of 1� inch to 2 inches. It is black in colour, and has a wide, glossy body, and appears at first glance to be wingless, however it does have very short wings just beneath its head, which are useless for flying. The cockroach, when disturbed, often emits a strong, disagreeable odour, somewhat reminiscent of amaretto. The Florida woods roach looks remarkably similar to the female Oriental cockroach, and the two could be mistaken for each other to the casual observer."

Rowan's drawings

2008-11-17T09:40:00.000-08:00

This one is my favorite....it is Grandma Julie. I guess he remembers her hair in the morning.

This one is of Marley if you look closely you will see he has a tail, ears, and four legs.

This one is of me and Ezra.

Hello

2008-11-17T05:53:00.000-08:00

Ezra only really has a few words, or at least only a few we understand. Last week he found that play phone and kept putting it to his head and saying "heh-wo". And then he would start talking like he was having a conversation with someone. He is growing up so fast.

Rowan Art

2008-11-14T09:51:00.001-08:00

Pimp Doggy Marley

2008-11-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

I had walked out of the room to put some things away and when I came back I found Marley laying on the floor with this hat on his head. He is so good with the boys, they really rag on him. He gets upset every now and then, but when he tries to nip at them it doesn't hurt them since he is missing his front teeth.

2008-11-11T06:39:00.001-08:00

Ted

2008-11-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

Rowan has his blanket that he calls ba-ba as his security object. Ezra has a teddy bear, that he calls Ted. He sucks and chews on his nose, tail, and ears....its really gross. I have to wash it every other day. It has its first hole that I will have to sew. I make him keep it in his room, but every now and then he sneaks back to his room and grabs it. He loves this bear soooo much. He sleeps with his arm around it. It is the only thing he has that is completely his and it means so much to him. If only he didn't suck on it.

Ro

2008-11-05T11:41:00.001-08:00

-Rowan says some of the cutest, silliest things now. Some of my favorite sayings are "Yikes", "Aw man", and "P-U stinky."

-When the boys were taking a bath the other night he was watering Ezra's head with a toy watering can and he told me Ezra was going to grow a flower out of the top of his head.

-His dad has told him in order to grow big he must drink all of his milk so he drinks some milk and then tells you over and over that he is bigger.

-There may be more not so cute things he says and does though. Rowan is very stubborn. He likes to say "NO, MINE", "No Ezra Kai!".

-He tells me he "needs" things all the time like "I need milk." and then I say excuse me? and he will then say puhleez.

-He likes to bark like a really high pitched chihuahua.

-He can be down right nasty to poor little Ezra. He will push him right over and scream in his face. Some times I put him in his room and then he screams bloody murder and tries to rip the door off it hinges. But most of the time I watch to see what will transpire. Ezra gets upset about it only some of the times. I know they have a life time of feuding ahead of them.

-Rowan listens better at home then in public...which is so frustrating. He thinks he can run anywhere he wants, he does not understand the boundaries. He still thinks the world is his oyster. Taking them in public is soooo much work.

I know much of this is related to his age, and I hope it will pass.

I voted.

2008-11-04T06:45:00.001-08:00

Holidays

2008-11-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

I love the holidays, and I get really into them. With Halloween over that means only 28 more days until we can get a xmas tree. I am wondering how I am going to keep a one year old away from a tree with bright lights and shiny things. I also get to make a new ginger bread house. Both Rowan and I made one last year, we both really loved doing it, so I decided to do it every year. Here are pictures of our houses last year.

Halloween

2008-11-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

We took the boys to Boo at the Zoo again this year. Ezra was Blue from Blues Clues (its his favorite show.) I got Rowan this awesome full suit Clifford costume, but he did not want to wear it. He insisted on being a "pantfire" (vampire), which was last years costume. They got tons of candy. We then went to a friends house and let them run around with other little kids. We were going to go trick-or-treating but by then it was 7:30 Ezra was fading and Mom and Dad were over it. Taking one kid out is a lot of work but taking two is down right exhausting.

2008-10-31T04:58:00.000-07:00

Mancuso pumpkins 2008

2008-10-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

We decorated our pumpkins on Tuesday. I let the boys paint each paint one. Rowan covered one pumpkin in paint and it came out camo green, the second pumpkin I gave him some google eyes and feathers. He put on the eyes and then painted the smile on. Ezra did not have much interest and once he started throwing his pumpkin to the floor he was done.

2008-10-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Alternative uses for dental floss

2008-10-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

I found Ro hiding under the table the other day, and I thought oh no, he is pooping his pants. That is what hiding under the table used to mean (now he just does the poop dance.) Instead I found him unraveling my dental floss. I took it away from him, but I left all the string sitting on the table. Later that day I found this. He is never lacking in imagination.

Go Gators!

2008-10-26T17:32:00.000-07:00

Anthony got free tickets to a Gator football game. Anthony has been wanting to take him to a game for a long time. They got to the stadium, got their popcorn and drinks and found their seats. The seats were row 3. Anthony said he sat down looked up and then to the sides and he started to cry and said he wanted to go home. The stadium is huge and was packed since it was the homecoming game. Rowan is a very tough little boy and rarely cries, although I think I would be tempted to cry as well if I were in a stadium with that many rowdy people. So Anthony found some seats that were further away and they watched the game from there. They only stayed about half of the game. When I picked them up, Rowan said " I was scared, and I cried." But the giant foam finger and smile on his face told me he had an awesome time with his Daddy.

Boredom

2008-10-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder " why did I not finish that college degree"? Being a housewife is a great job but my brain feels foggy from lack of use.

Just so you know

2008-10-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

When we were little my dad used to take us to Byerlys (and Mr. Dougnut) and he would let us get an ice cream cone. I would always get bubblegum ice cream. I still love it today...but its hard to find. Baskin Robbins sometimes has it. But now thanks to Breyers it is in the grocery store. I have only been able to find it at Super Walmart. It is amazing and takes me back to when I was a little girl.

2008-10-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Halloween 2007

Last year for Halloween we took the boys to Boo at the Zoo. The students decorate the zoo with different themes and hand out candy to the kids. Rowan was a vampire and Ezra was a pumpkin. We were going to go trick-or-treating but it started to rain, so we didn't make it. We look forward to it this year though.

Pumpkins

2008-10-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

We went and got our pumpkins this weekend. The boys loved it they kept wandering through all the pumpkins. Rowan took it upon himself to rearrange their pumpkins.

This is great !!!

2008-10-09T11:58:00.001-07:00

Ezra

2008-10-09T03:28:00.000-07:00

Things I love about Ezra:

- his smile is infectious

- the way he walks

- he loves his teddy

- he does not give up

- his love for Rowan

- he eats a wide array of food (unlike my other 2 boys)

- he is really smart and loves to imitate

- I can't help but be happy when he is around

Rowan

2008-10-08T08:37:00.001-07:00

Things I love about Rowan:

- he gives me hugs and kisses now

- he uses the potty

- he says please, thank you, bless you, and scuse me's

- he helps entertain Ezra

- he loves helping me

- he tells me he loves doughnuts, but still won't say he loves me

- he is a good kid for the most part

- he has a very vivid imagination and can entertain himself for hours

Beach

2008-10-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

The Beach

We took the boys to the beach yesterday. They had an amazing time. Both Ezra and Rowan were fearless of the water. Ezra wanted to walk all the way down the beach. Rowan kept wanting to go deeper in the water, he went in up to his chest with his daddy....and went under twice. We drove 3.5 hours to spend an hour and a half. It was so worth it. Although it was non stop action for us, it was awesome to see how much fun they had.