The Terrible Two's

Being the mother of a two year old is a whole different ballgame, or so I am finding out. It is so amazing to watch Avery’s transformation from a toddler to a little girl. Even though she’s only two, there are times her understanding of the world around her amazes me. She watches whatever Jeff and I do very closely and doesn’t miss a beat. She remembers that every time Mommy goes to the bank she gets a sucker and the minute we pull up to the drive up she starts telling me that she wants a sucker. She knows that there is a cart at the grocery store that looks like a car and that’s the one she wants. The minute we pull up to the grocery store she says she wants to ride in the car. All the sudden she remembers things. She’s getting to the age where distracting her does not make her forget that she wants a cookie, it just delays the request a few minutes. I can’t pull a fast one on her anymore. Like when she used to ask me to watch Elmo and Mommy was sick of watching Elmo so I’d slip a different movie in. A few months ago I could pull this off with no problems but now, once she sees the movie isn’t Elmo, she freaks out. There is no fooling this kid.

Her independence grows every day along with her stubbornness. Ave’s always been independent and stubborn but it was so much easier to deal with before she could talk back. She isn’t a big tantrum thrower but if she does not get what she wants she makes it known. It is such a challenge figuring out the right way to deal with a strong willed child. I would not, however, ask for her to be any other way. I know that in a few years when she is in school, I will not have to worry about her getting bullied or worry about her settling for less than she wants. In the future these characteristics that I find so challenging during her terrible twos will be great assets to her. For that I am so lucky. My daughter will never be pushed around or bullied, that is just not in her personality. My challenge is finding the right way to raise her so that her personality has balance and she learns that she can not always get her way and that sometimes she will need to give in. Yet, I am up for the challenge and I cannot wait to see what a beautiful independent sassy girl she grows up to be.

Avery's photo shoot.

On Sat Avery got her pictures taken at Sears. I stole these off the Sears website so one is sideways and they're all small but you get the gist. When we first got to Sears the girl taking the pictures slammed the background down and scared the crap out of Avery. She ran behind my Mom's chair and wouldn't come out. Luckily another photographer who was fantastic with kids worked with her for about ten minutes and got her to warm up. We ended up with some pretty cute shots. Here's my favorites.

Weekends in the Funk!

Since Jeff was in Germany Ave and I traveled back to Great Falls the last two weekends to hang with the family. Mandy and Hadyn were up from California so I finally got to meet the little guy. He is SO cute and a little chunkers. Jess and Dawn had a bar-b-que at their house which was super fun since I miss out on a lot of family get togethers.


Playing with cousin Michael's snake.
Hanging out in Micheal's room with all his toys!
On Sat we were lucky enough to get invited to my great friend Rosanne's daughter's fifth birthday party. It was at Great Falls Gymnastics. The kids got to run around for an hour and Avery had a blast. It was the funniest thing ever. There were like 20 kids all under five years running around like crazy! Avery loved it.
Here's a picture with the birthday girl Hayley ( on the rope) and her sister Samantha is up on the blue block on the right. Avery liked watching the older kids.


She loved swinging it was so cute.

"me" and "us"

Jeff is in Germany right now. We dropped him off at the airport Sat morning and we will pick him up Sunday night. As much as I hate having Jeff out of town in some regards it is kind of nice to have a break from each other. I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in “us” that I forget about “me”. It takes him going on a trip to get the “me” back and to appreciate the “us” more.

Jeff and I have a habit of spending all of our free time together. Don’t get me wrong I love this habit, but it does makes for a lot of compromises. When Jeff is out of town I don’t have to compromise and I do things like watch, “So you think you can dance” or other shows that I would either not watch in order to hang with the hubby or I would watch but wonder the whole time what hubby was up to. Weird I know but that’s just the way I am. I love me some Jeff time to the extent that I don’t give myself enough Lacy time.

Being a working Mom and a wife makes for hectic days. Most days I am content running a thousand miles a minute but there are times when I would love to just walk away for awhile and do nothing. With Jeff out of the country, once the small one is in bed, I have a few hours to fill with whatever I want. It is kind of a weird feeling to just have time to fill. Something I’m not used to. By the end of this week I’m sure I’ll be sick of finding things to fill my spare hours, the house will be spotless, I’ll have read a book and watched a movie or two. This is probably the reason why I travel back to Great Falls on the weekends. As much as I love Avery, talking to a two year old just isn’t the same as talking to another adult. Yesterday I even told her about my day, she probably thinks Mommy is crazy.

So as much as I appreciate the “me” time I am getting this week, I miss the “us” time and can’t wait for Jeff to get home, preferable with a suitcase full of German chocolate!!!

Brady's new ride

My little bro got a new car. He cracks me up! It is a pretty sweet ride although he won't be able to use it in the winter. He said that people yell out stuff at him while he's driving down the road like, "sweet ride." To funny. You do feel pretty cool riding in it though. Congrats on the new car Beeds, I know you've wanted one for a long time.

My Boss's Kids Make for a Long Summer

You know it's summer at my job when the boss's kids start blaring the TV. I hate my bosses kids. Ok hate might be a strong word but I cringe whenever I see them in the store.

For those of you who have not seen my office it sits directly next to the owners office with a glass door as a divider. The owners office has a wide screen TV complete with digital cable that can be seen through the glass door from my desk. As you all know glass is not the best material for sound proofing. So for the past two summers I have sat in my office, trying to do my work while listening to a TV blaring or even better kids fighting. When I'm bored it's really hard to not watch whatever movie the kids are watching and some day I say screw it, if I can't concentrate on my work I might as well watch "Goonies" for the sixth time.

The owner has three kids, two boys and a girl. Generally they are sweet kids but the owner has led them to believe that everything in the store is thiers including; all office supplies, my desk and his office. I'm pretty sure the store goes through hundreds of dollars in office supplies due to the little runts "borrowing" things and forgetting to bring them back. We're all pretty sure there's a huge stash of office supplies somewhere in this building that is yet to be discovered.

So right now I'm listening to classic rock videos on VH1, trying to not get totally annoyed and fighting the urge to say screw it and just watch the vidoes (80s videos are pretty funny!) It gets really interesting when a customer comes in to finance a bike while 80s music BLARES in the background.

I'm praying that the kids have daycare or day camp or something this summer because if they don't it's going to be a long summer and I really don't feel like labeling all of my offices supplies... again.