Biking at the beach

We actually wore them out! Usually we can't keep up with them but today we won :) We bought a new bike trailer so that we could pull the boys behind us while we went biking. We all had a very good time. We started at the Santa Monica Pier and biked to Venice Beach (it isn't that far). Then back to Santa Monica again. We had a nice picnic lunch on the beach and then walked around the pier. On the way home, we had to stop at In-N-Out Burger for a chocolate shake. Simply put, it was a fun day.

Here comes double trouble!

OK so I think I may be in trouble the next few years. William is into everything and is non stop. Harrison is laid back and just loves to smile. But that may all be an act. I think he is going to be the brains behind their antics. He is sneaky. Today he has been driving around in his walker getting into things. He pulled the broom out from in between the refrigerator and cabinet. And he can fit his little arms into the cabinet doors. We have child proof latches but his arm fits in between. And he has this little smile on his face while he is doing it :) Yesterday he ran so hard in his walker that he ran into William and knocked him down on the floor. And he was laughing as he did it.

Today we were playing in Harrison's room and William decided to push Harrison's bottom down every time Harrison got up to try to crawl. I can't remember what he did wrong but at one point I sent him to time out (he has a naughty mat in the corner of his room). Well being as smart as he is and he didn't want to miss out on playing with mommy and Harrison, he ran to his room, picked up the naughty mat, brought it back to us and put it on my lap and sat down :)

On another note, it is so fun to watch them together now that Harrison is active and moves around. I know I have said that before but it just keeps getting better. Since their car seats face each other in the car, they play in the car together. I had music on in the living room this afternoon and William grab Harrison's hands and swayed back and forth with him. I am so happy we had two boys so close in age. I think they will be best friends.

Mexican Vacation

We are back. We just spent 5 beautiful days in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We stayed at The Royal, an all-inclusive adults only resort. It was so nice. I have to admit that my boys have me trained and I couldn't sleep in BUT I did get to sleep through the night without waking up. It was nice though not sleeping in because we got to enjoy the day more. Our typical day was eating, relaxing at the pool and eating some more. The pool even had a swim up bar so we had a few fruity drinks. The eating part was good and bad. It was nice to eat all of the good food but is it really possible to gain so much weight in just 5 days? So these first pictures are the views from our room. The first is the view from our front balcony.
This is the view from our back balcony looking straight out.
This is the view from our back balcony if you turned around.
I have to admit we are so bad about taking pictures while on vacation but here are a couple.

It was so nice to get away from the daily grind. We did miss our boys so much but it was nice to have a vacation by ourselves. Thank you Mom and Dad Archer for watching the boys. We appreciate it so much!!!!

William peed in the potty!!!!!

Of-course he waited until I wasn't around to see him do it but he did. Grandma Archer said after his bath Tuesday night, she was taking him to his room. She was holding him and he was squirming to get down. She let him down and he ran to the bathroom and sat on his potty and went pee!!!!

We were only gone 5 days but they seem to change just in that little bit of time. I have never been apart from my babies that long. Today we are having a great day dancing around the house and playing. Harrison is chasing us in the walker and all are laughing really hard. I missed my babies!!!!

Dolly Parton is awesome!!!....???

Seriously? We were on the plane headed back from Mexico. I was reading a magazine and Scott was listening to his Ipod. With a very serious look on his face, Scott turns to me and says, "Dolly Parton is awesome!" And he was not kidding. He listened to her greatest hits most of the way back. I would expect to hear a comment like this from my dad who is 71 years old, not my husband who is 29.

Harrison's 6 month well baby check up

Harrison had his 6 month well baby check up today but he is not well :( He didn't get his immunizations today because he has an ear infection- poor little guy. He hasn't been eating or drinking. He has had a high fever. Urgent care said he was just teething but truth be told, the poor little guy has been suffering an ear ache. In regards to his stats, he is 18.75 lbs and 27.5 inches tall. Both pretty much in the 50th percentile for his age. The doctor did say he is VERY strong for his age.

My Coral Beauty

It has been a little over 5 weeks since I started this project and it is coming along great. There is still a lot to do but you can get an idea of where we are right now. I didn't take good pictures -too early in the morning for me to think :) The first picture is of true Percula Clownfish. William has discovered the new fishy in the right corner...a coral beauty. She is so colorful. And of-course he likes the starfish climbing the front of the tank.
Here is a closer picture of the Coral Beauty.
He is hard to see but if you look in the middle of this picture, it is a blue damsel with a yellow tail. We have four of these. They hide a lot. Right now I just have live coral bedding and live rock. The rest are artificial decorations. I still have to add live coral and invertebrates. I am excited to add those. It is a work in progress but it is fun. Every morning, I get a cup of coffee and Will gets his cup of milk and we sit in front of the tank and watch them eat:)

Mr. Personality

William had his 18 month well baby check up today. He was a little late considering he is 19 months old but we had to wait to get into a new doctor. Anyway, he was all talk....until his shot and getting his blood drawn. At first, he was talking to the doctor and nurses. After the shot, he didn't want anything to do with them anymore. And Harrison thought that if his bubba was crying that he must have to as well :) Will weighs 26.5 lbs. He is in the 50 percentile (basically he is avg for his weight). He is 34.5 inches tall. That is the 85th percentile (he is very tall for his age group).

Our weekend was good. We really didn't do anything special but it was a nice family weekend together. Saturday, we walked to breakfast. There is this cute covered wagon restaurant with outside seating close to our house. After that, the boys and I went shopping for some "nemos." Since I started my salt water fish tank, I thought I would have Will watch "Finding Nemo" so he could get excited about our new fish. Well he was. We bought a pair of Percula Clownfish and a starfish on Saturday. Now one can see finger prints on the fish tank:) After that, Scott bought me a manicure/pedicure so it was nice to get pampered for a little bit (I needed it). We went out to eat as a family to a Japanese restaurant that night. And of-course Will met a new girlfriend. Sunday, we ran A LOT of errands and then took the boys to the pool for a little bit.

I don't know if I am too strict but William really hasn't watched any television for the first 19 months of life. I started feeling a little bad because other parents would bring up television characters and he had no clue of what they were talking about. Since we moved into a smaller house, we have two extra televisions so I put one in Will's room. I bought some educational DVDs and he loves them. That is all he watches though. I will have to ease into the TV thing. I think playing with toys is better for him and his imagination.

We go to Mexico soon and I am so excited. I am very excited to sleep in!!! I can't remember the last time I slept in. Scott tries to give me a break with the boys on the weekend but our house has paper thin walls and I can hear everything. And let me tell you that Will takes after the Payne side of his genes and he is not quiet.

Missing her boyfriends

Miss Belle is really starting to miss her friends from Utah. She had a few friends that she played with on our daily walks but none like her two boyfriends a couple houses down from ours, Drake and Mac. They ruled the cul-de-sac. It was so cute. Most every day, the boys would come down to the house to get Belle. It was like little kids coming to the door for their friend. Belle would know each time they were outside. They would run and play through the cul-de-sac and wrestle in our yard or theirs. She just loved them. Now that we moved to California, we try to give her as much exercise but we don't have a big yard nor has she met friends like Drake and Mac. We take her for daily walks and I usually take her to the park to run and play every other day. But she still misses her friends. Will has a stuffed animal named, "Bobo" that he keeps in his room. This morning Belle took Bobo to the living room and napped with him. I caught this picture.

Our first call to Poison Control....

Ugh! How are kids so fast?! I was checking the chemical level on our hot tub and when I turned around William was spitting out a Bromine tablet. Of-course I got all of it out of his mouth and he thought it was funny but I didn't know if he swallowed any. I called Poison Control and they said that the Bromine actually burns on the tongue. He had to drink a lot of water but everything turned out just fine. I was really impressed with the Poison Control center. They were really nice and called back after a few hours to check on Will.

Santa Monica Beach and Pier

We had a family day yesterday. We took the boys to the Santa Monica Beach and Pier. I was surprised how long we stayed. We ended up staying for over 5 hours. We were all beat by time we came home. Not too mention Scott has a nice little burn from the sun. It was very relaxing. We ate lunch and sunbathed at the surfers area of the beach because it was less crowded than the swimmers area. Scott and William built a little sand castle while Harrison and I relaxed.

Harrison was so tired he fell asleep :) After the beach, we walked around on the pier. Ok I have a small complaint about California. So I have been craving a funnel cake for a long time (remember Steph, we looked when you visited in May). With me talking about it, Scott started craving one too. Now anytime we go anywhere, we wonder if there will be funnel cake. So we got lucky yesterday...so we thought. The Pier had a Funnel Cake Factory. Scott and I were so giddy. We ordered one and started to induldge. We both looked at each other after the first bite wondering if we talked it up so much. It tasted old and stale. But I just saw her make it. Then, I saw the dreadful sign, "We fry our foods in Fat Free Trans Oil." What the crap?! Why fry something if it is going to be fat free? Are you kidding me? These health conscious Californians. What are they thinking?!!!!

Archer updates

My Miss Belle turned 4 this week. I can't believe we have had her almost 4 years now. Time sure does fly by. She is such a good pup to us and she is really good with the boys. She avoided them once William became mobile but now she is becoming good friends with William. I have a feeling it is because he will share his food with her (she is not allowed table scraps). Now they play ball together and both have a good time. William gets a kick out of her when she gives him paw. He will follow her around and ask for it. And Harrison loves her tail. He always tries to grab it when in reach.
And he's off..... Here is my little one trying to crawl. It is hard to tell since I took the picture of him on a red rug while wearting orange shorts. But he is up and off. Ahh, a typical man. Sitting on the toilet reading a book :)
Ok this is actually funny. William has an obsession with shoes. On his dresser, he has a shelf designated for his shoes. It is funny because when you can't find your own shoes, you can go into Will's room and they are very neatly placed with his on his shelf. He picks shoes up from around the house and puts them away. It is nice sometimes because when it is time to go somewhere I will tell him to go get his shoes. He always brings me a matching pair for himself to wear. It started with that. If he sees me not wearing shoes, he will go find a pair and bring them to me and make me put them on. I say make me put them on because if I don't, he will follow me with the shoes and grab at my feet to stop me until I do put them on. Now, no matter whose shoes he finds, he likes to put them on himself and walk around in them. You can hear him coming from a mile away when they aren't his shoes. As you can tell in the picture, these tennis shoes are a little too big for him :)

There isn't enough caffeine in this cup of coffee

I am so tired! I did not sleep 10 minutes last night...seriously. Harrison woke up at 11:30 and I thought he was just hungry. Boy was I wrong! Harrison is a pretty happy kid most of the time. He doesn't usually cry for any reason. The crying started as soon as I went to him and it did not stop. After an hour and a half, I thought he was teething so I gave him some teething tablets. After 3 hours, I thought he needed some Tylenol for whatever was wrong. After 4 hours, I gave him some gas relief drops thinking he had an upset tummy. 5 and a half hours later, still crying. I am not talking about a little whining. I am talking full blown screaming on the top of his lungs with no break, crying. I have never seen him do this for even a minute let alone 5 and a half hours. We tried everything to console him but nothing worked. I thought maybe he was having an appendicitis. At this point, I was really worried so Scott took him to the emergency room while I stayed home with Will. Scott came home an hour and a half later with the diagnosis of TEETHING. I feel so silly that my son had his first E.R. visit for teething. But 8 hours later....still screaming and crying. But everyone in the E.R. thought he was the cutest baby ever even with the crying. I know Scott is just as tired as me but I know he was excited about going to work this morning. I must of been really lucky with William because I never experienced anything like this. And if this is just the beginning of Harrison teething, I am in so much trouble. Now I know what all of these moms meant when they talked about teething nightmares. 8 and a half hours later, Harrison fell asleep in his swing. I am sure he is so exhausted. Will woke up so I obviously didn't get a catnap in. I told Will to be quiet so Harrison could sleep. But of-course he was concerned so he had to go up to Harrison and stop the swing to give him a hug and a kiss. I never been so scared to hear the screaming start but luckily Harrison woke up and went right back to sleep. Now every time Will walks by Harrison's swing, he grabs my hand and goes, "shhhh."