1st Day Of School Update

We're a little late in the school year, but as a 1/2 year bday gift, I enrolled Sam the Man in the "Minds In Motion" program at our Early Childhood Devlopment Center through our school district. January 23rd my little baby was 2 1/2. He has grown and developed so much in the past couple of years that it is sometimes mind boggling. The past year has been the most fun for us watching him develop his vocabulary and begin to pretend. The tantrums I could live with out but realize that is all part of parenting. He's not physically grown much in the past six months but I think his brain is doing most of the work these days and his body is taking a rest finally.

Sam's Likes: His paperwork that we had to turn in had a few questions about his personality to help the teacher strick up a conversation. A few of his likes that I had listed were the usual boy obsession of construction vehicles, normal two year old interest in animals, but my favorite is my son's love of marching bands. He knows about every brass instrument that you can play and even that they are brass instruments. He is very passionate about music and can proudly say that he gets that from his momma. :) My boy can find a way to use any object he comes across to make music and figure out how it can make a sound.

Favorite Books: Used to be Peter Rabbit and Bob the Horse. We have read these two books so many times Brant and I could recite them from memory. Since then we've moved onto Brown Bear which Sam can recite from memory.

Potty Training: I'm proud to say that I dropped him off in his Big Boy Undies today. Thomas the Train. We're only going on week #2 but he is doing awesome and couldn't be more proud. I'm sure he'll have his accidents here and there but happy with the results so far. Went over our terms and practices with the teachers this morning. Let her know Sam did a #2 this morning so she will not have to deal with that and he's a sitter when he potty's and feels then need to take off both shoes, pants, and undies to get the job done. My immaturity always makes these conversations difficult for me.

Dislikes; Consist of sharing anything but food with anyone. He may react by hitting and throwing tantrums which I like to tell myself is normal. I place my bet on 4 weeks that will pass before he comes home with a pink slip for that.

Morning drop off went perfectly. He proudly strolled in with his back pack. Hung it on the Red hook that he picked out. We directed him to the toilet and let him know I'd be back before lunch time. I barely got a kiss and a hug before leaving because he was too busy playing. I'm sure he hasn't even thought about me since, and here I am writing my blog about him, holding back tears on how big my baby boy is. I love this little guy with all my heart!

Cleaning Lady Tells All!

Yes that's me! We recently had to let go of our cleaning lady due to the new job role I have taken on.  (insert your spoiled rotten comments here). It was a sad day but we remains friends and she was very understanding. That being said, those dirty job duties fall back on me. As I was mixing up my favorite cleaning solution yesterday, I thought it would be nice to share my secret with others b/c who doesn't like to save a buck here and there right?

It's a little product called Simple Green. I learned about it from technicians in my previous job who used this to soak parts that were covered in old dried up ink and was always told it worked miralces. I found out that the all-purpose cleaner was available in 1 gallon bottles at Home Depot, so I tried it. The mixing instructions are listed on the back for the job requirement. General cleaning is 1oz to 1 cup of water per the instructions. Now I will admit that I do 2 oz to 1.5 cups water b/c that what fills my empty Lysol Kitchen Cleaner bottle. I've been using it for a couple of months and happy with the results. It works great on dried up food on the counter and smells great. Recently I ran out of Scrubbing Bubbles for the bathroom and switched to this as well, and have even used it on my toilets.

I know it's early but let's do the math: Paying $10 for a bottle equal to 128 oz, I'm essentially only paying 15 cents for my new cleaner as opposed to $4 or $4.50. One gallon could make up to 64 bottles of cleaner which could save me around $250 over time! That's a steal! This product can be used with laundry and tougher jobs like lifting grease and oil which is listed in the instructions as well I just haven't tried those yet. Another great thing is that there are no harmful chemicals used so it's better for the environment and will not agrivate those with allergies.

This mom wins again!

Day Off = Pay Off

Yea yea yea. Once again I haven't posted since May. Just to bring everyone up to speed; quit my job, stay at home mom, best decision I've ever made in my life, Sam turned 2, we get to play all the time, hope to do this more often, yadda yadda yadda. So my original intent was to work part-time but decided against that. For the time being, my son still goes to the sitter's two days a week to be with his friends and get away from me. Now I know that many people are wondering what the hell do you do with your time two days a week with no kids and no job, right?
The first few weeks I spent catching up on many projects I neglected for three years. I also became reaquainted with my kitchen. MostlyI'm doing all my chores those days so that when I'm with my son we have nothing to do but play, learn, and meet new friends. Today, however, I've started the first of many DIY projects. I have a passion for that as well as organizition, creativity, being a mom, and blogging about it of course. So today I was able to put them all together!
My son is a lover of books and we frequent the library. Unfortunately it was starting to take over his room. I went on a search and found a way to get a stack of free pallets and then turned to etsy and pinterest and was able to find this link with some simple instructions to take back his nighstand.

DIY Pallet Shelves

After a little blood and sweat, but no tears, I think they turned out great!

Mountain of Books

BEFORE:

 

FREE GIFT FROM MY PALLET FRIEND:

 

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS AN ELECTRIC SAW!

 

FINISHED PRODUCT 

 

 

The reclaimed wood gives them more character which fits well in this household. Eight cuts with a hand saw took up most of the morning but it was totally worth it. Most importantly, it was TOTALLY FREE!!!!!! Can't wait to see what else I can make. Stay tuned for more ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle......



 

Chores

Once upon a time, there was this super excited new mommy that couldn't resist spreading the joys and accomplishments that accompany parenting, so she started this wonderful little place to share her stories. Well then, she returned to work and it took a backseat. Then she started recording and spending time making these ridiculously cute movies to cherish forever and ever. Then she picked up fairly nice camera and started dabbling in some photography spending every spare second clicking and reading and reading and clicking. By spare time we're talking about an average of about 2 hours out of an entire week.

What I'm trying to say here is that I haven't forgotten about this little space. I still enjoy writing about a bunch of nonsense, but I'm just too busy playing outside. Maybe if I'm lucky, one day Mister Maternity Leave will return and we can spend some more time together.

In the mean time I've trying to get past editing videos as well as photos and just share some raw footage. There is a little boy in this house that is always eager to help. He honestly has chores to do each morning which consist of simple tasks like feeding the doggie, giving dog and cat treats, and putting Elvis in the kennel. He loves to help with the laundry, get the mail, and even insists on flushing the toilet for you. Something I probably shouldn't share is that he really enjoys putting the adult beverages away in the fridge and it's really helped him learn to count. He currently is obsessed with mowing the grass and learning about the people in our neighborhood that mow their lawns. He has all the names down of all the men who do yard work around us and where they live and talks about them usually every day.

So I've learned that any time I need to get anything done I turn to my beloved leafblower....

Happy Festivus!

We hope everyone had as much fun throughout the holidays as we did. Christmas and New Year's had us running all over the place, skipping naps, eatting way to many sweets, and mommy and daddy endulging in a few too many glasses of wine. Worth every second as we had so much fun. Having one year under our belt now and a Christmas to compare too......... this year was soo much better. Last year around this time we were on breathing treatments and sleepless nights. This year the Samster was Rockin & Rollin'!

Once again, to save the time of writing I've compiled the home videos to make yet another Rademeyer home movie with some highlights. Happy New Year to you all!

Language Arts

And we are back! Thank you folks for sticking with us through that short five month intermission. I used to be pretty good about updating this little diary of our life and then I went to work and struggled keeping up. Well then my son became very mobile and I found myself looking up the password just to get in this freaking thing to tell my story. This little post sat in draft mode for over a week before posting. With the holidays approaching and lots to do I just couldn't let the last five months go without notice. For again, our son and reached some major milestones and we have entered into a whole to world of Toddler-hood. We have a tiny little tot residing in our home. Our bouncing baby boy is now literally bouncing, and running, and talking, and shouting, and dancing, and we have never had so much fun!

Over the last five months, our little Sam has been a busy little bee. He has added so many words to his little vocabulary and we're beginning the long challenging road of communication. Most days it is really making my life much easier. He's signed his first baby sign when he was out of milk: "More?". Luckily he says the word and signs so there is no question to me what he wants but others may dissagree if you're not with him every day. It's just that I have been drilling those signs in his head for the past year so you can imagine the joy I felt the first day he raised his arms in the air to tell me he was "All Done" with dinner and instead of whining and lauching pee's overboard. He's quickly learning how to boss Doggie around too as he points and says "Goooo! Weigh Dooooooown". This week he has discoved what Up & Down means which becomes an exhausting little game. A week went by when we were pretty sure he was saying shit but we did our best not to acknowledge that silly sound and it quickly resided.

Someone has also discovered that there is a little something that lies between his two little legs that he can pull and makes him giggle. One evening I let him run around naked to try and get some air to a diaper rash. Big mistake. He ran in circles around the kitchen table holding his "pee-pee" and would stop to spred his legs and show it to me while he pulled on it and laughed some more. It is the first thing he looks for after entering the tub, and the first thing he looks for every morning when we get dressed. He's also discovered that there are two nostrils on his face that his fingers fit in and one day pulled it out with a little surprise. He spent the next four days digging for gold and just waiting to show mommy what treasures he could find. This little boy loves nothing more to explore every little nook and cranny of every little object, room, and body part he can get his hands on. I think I may get more excited to wake up each day and see what he finds. As long as it's not boogers.

My little pooper is becoming a big boy. Now on to Discipline 101. I made Brant go with me to Discipline meeting held by our Parents As Teachers goup whom I love more than ever. It's my safe place where I can go and say with an honest face, "So when I say to my son that it is not nice to hit mommy, he then slaps me in the face again and giggles, what is the best way to react"? and people take me seriously.  You can't exactly put a 1 year old in time out and expect him to stay there. You can't really have an intelligent conversation to explain why it is not nice. To that point you can read so many books like "To Spank or Not to Spank" or "What Your Child Really Knows about No" and the list goes on and on and millions of opinions. It's way more overwelming than safety proofing a home. There are days that I think I've taken in so many opinions that I can't even keep them straight. At first when he would slap me I would hear 20 peoples voices run through my head in the next 20 seconds, get completly confused and wind up looking at him and saying "Shit". In summary Discipline in my head is comparible to the world of Photoshop and there are so many tactics and programs and viewpoints out there that I'm not sure what direction to turn. So it's a learning experience. On that note stayed tuned as I'm sure we will have many many many more interesting stories to tell in the near future.....and onto some recent footage. Sorry for the lack of editing, just trying to make it easy....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLTfu253ao4

Happy First Birthday Sweet Sammy!

Dear Bloggers,

My oh my how I have missed you. Used to be once a month and now I over two have gone by. I'm not proud of it and have no excuse; I apologize. Now moving on to the fun part. Yes our little man finally turned the Big Numero Uno July 23rd. I can't really believe it myself. A whole year has gone by and this once tiny, fragile human being we created has turned into a jumping, shouting, laughing, temper tantrum throwing little person. He's grown into quite the little character with likes and dislikes, and a sweet little dance move of his own that we have labeled "The Hot Feet". He has certain foods, songs, shoes, and now sippy cups that he prefers. The daily challenge now is learning how to communicate to each other what those are, or aren't, all the while still having the time of our life!

We opened our home up to 36 adults, 15 children ranging in ages 2 to 12, two babies, and one little birthday boy. On a lovely day in July with the heat index hitting 117 degrees. It was a bit swealtering outside but he didn't seem to mind one bit. We all enjoyed our day celebrating the first year of this sweet little guy and Mommy and Daddy could be prouder!

I'll keep the blogging short and instead share a sweet little film I put together of most of our proudest moments we've share together in the past year. Get Comfy and Enjoy!