"String Bean"

"String Bean" is what Harrison was called today at his 2 year well baby check up. He is 35 inches tall (70 percentile) and 25.6 lbs (less than 19 percentile). So basically, he is very underweight. At William's 2 year check up, he was 35.5 inches tall and 29lbs. So Harry is a lot skinnier than Will was at this age. It is very hard finding food (healthy food) for these boys that they will eat. They do love steak and roast. I can always count on them to eat those items but anything else, it's up in the air. Both boys were given antibiotics today. William has a nasty cough. And get this...Harrison has another ear infection! And it is a bad one. William and Harrison had their ears checked today and both of their tubes have fallen out. I am not surprised that Will's have since it has been two years but Harry just got his last year. And it looks like he may be going back again-yuck. William was also referred to an Pediatric Orthopedic doctor. He still walks on his tippy toes (all of the time). His Achilles tendons are short.

I've heard of moms who make special cookies or desserts that actually have vegetables in them for picky eaters. If anyone has any special recipes, please be sure to send them my way so I can fatten up my baby. :)

Happy 2nd Birthday Harrison!

I can't believe my "baby" is already two years old! Where has the time gone? I got to say that I am one lucky mom. I feel so blessed to have two adorable, funny and loving boys. Scott surprised us and took the day off of work today. So in turn, we surprised the boys and took them back to Knott's Berry Farm.

First of all, they woke up to Christmas times 2 :) Remember the easel I blogged about at Christmas? Well the parts that were missing finally came in the mail the other day so Scott woke up early this morning and put it together. And Nana and Pawpa bought the boys a new table (that just so happens to match the easel). It also came in this week. And then there were the remote control cars that Gramma and Grandpa bought the boys for their birthday. So the boys woke up to the play room being filled with toys. It felt like Christmas all over again.

Harrison loves Snoopy whereas William wants nothing to do with him. We were holding him back from riding rides I guess.

I took so many cute pictures today. So many to chose from...

Happy Birthday! We came home and had Harry's sporty cupcakes and decorations. He loves his sports!

He was really excited about his basketball hoop. You know the hoops you hang over the bedroom door? Well he wasn't making any baskets so Scott hung it on his crib. He loves it. Obviously it is back on the door because he will not go to sleep if he can play ball. He also adopted a "FurReal" Panda. It is so cute. This panda makes all sorts of cute noises. It takes a bottle (slurping), asks for hugs, giggles, whines, etc. It's pretty cool and I am pretty proud of myself for finding it on clearance at Target :)

Oh and how can I forget. I don't know how we do it but we have some luck when it comes to games. Check out today's prizes. All 6 of them! And it only costs $4 because we are that good! Ha!

Oh how I can't believe Harrison is TWO! I love you Harry Bugs. Happy Birthday!

Lesson Learned

Parenting tip: 1. Never tell your children you are going to ChuckECheese before you evaluate the situation. 2. Never take your children INTO ChuckECheese before evaluating the situation. 3. Never ever take your children OUT of ChuckECheese before getting to play!
So obviously our plan for lunch was to take the boys to ChuckECheese. As we were pulling in the parking lot, William asked where we were going and I told him. That was my mistake. As soon as we walked in, there were probably hundreds of people inside. I never seen a place so packed. There were literally lines for every game/ride. That's not fun to me so we left. Both boys cried as we put them back in their carseats. Talk about feeling like a bad parent. We ended up having lunch at T.G.I.Fridays. The boys were really good and William actually ate all my lunch. Afterwards we went to Kookie Krazy. It is this cute this bakery where you get to chose your dough and mixins. Then you get to "make" your cookies. Or in our case, eat most of the mix ins beforehand.
Before: Then they bake it and afterwards the boys got to decorate even more.
After:

When we got home, William asked me AGAIN about ChuckECheese! Then we all took a nap! How nice. Well actually I couldn't fall asleep. I complain about having William share our bed but isn't this so cute?

It's cute but you get an idea of how he sleeps with us. He has to be touching someone and he about pushes us off of the bed. But at-least he is cute while doing it :)

Toddler Talk

It has been raining non-stop. We have already gotten 5 1/2 inches today and the next two days are supposed to be bad. William looks outside and says: "Mommy, it's possibly raining." Where did he learn possibly? And obviously he doesn't quite understand when to use it. It's still cute in my book.

At lunch:
William: "I'm eating all my food. I'm proud of you mommy."

Laying down with Harrison at nap time. William wanted to hold Harrison's hand to help him fall asleep :)
William (after studying Harrison's hand): "Your hand is beautiful Harry. Can I smell you?"

After getting in trouble today:
William: "I just want to behave mommy."

Happy Birthday William

Me: "What did you get for your birthday Will?"

William: "Lightning McQueen! You know the famous race car? KaChow!" You think he has seen that movie enough?

You may be asking yourself, "didn't he get Lightning McQueen for Christmas?" And the answer is YES. But that LMQ only lasted 24 hours before he broke it. So we invested in a diecast metal LMQ and Mater. It is so funny because it doesn't get old. He has been obsessed with Lightning McQueen for a year. While Will was opening one present, Harry was opening LMQ. Of-course Harrison doesn't understand that it is William's day. And William didn't understand why Lightning McQueen wasn't Harry's since he opened it. He kept giving it back to him and saying he wanted one too :) (and yes we shorten Lightning McQueen to LMQ around here).

Our day was fun and off schedule. I woke up and decorated the cake. It took me longer than I expected but I was winging it with how I was going to decorate the cake. We went to a late lunch/early dinner at Big Z's. It's like a ChuckECheese. Then we came home and had cake, cupcakes and ice cream. And opened presents. Well not all of the presents. They stopped at Mater and Lightning McQueen. Grandma and Grandpa's present is still on the table. And all of his cards. I guess we will call it a birthday week since he probably won't open them tonight. Now they are watching....can you guess? CARS!

Monster Jam

Last night we surprised William with an early birthday present. We took the boys to Monster Jam. I didn't realize that picking "best available" seats on Ticket Master meant that we would get front row seats! Grave Digger was parked right in front of us so Harrison could not stop pointing at him. They absolutely loved it. All the dirt, noise, trucks, crashes, etc. They were in heaven. Afterwards we went to Sonic Drive In. There is one in Anaheim where the Monster Jam was. We haven't been to Sonic in over two years-yummy. And you know it is a celebration when there are two toddlers in the back seat eating Jr. Sundaes at 11:38pm! They crashed right after the sundaes. We didn't get home until 1am. We don't really like keeping the boys up that late but hey, it was a celebration! Unfortunately we missed church this morning because we got home so late. Now I have 18 extra cupcakes in my kitchen!!!!

Of-course Grave Digger brought it and won the whole competition. It was awesome.

El Torro Loco. The boys loved the horns.

And Monster Mutt did really well too. He put on quite the show.

Crash!

Will had four layers on! See Grave Digger in the background?

Can I pull your pants up now?

That was the question I kept asking the boys as they came up with a new game. They pulled their pants/shorts down and would try to walk and loved when they would fall.

Bye Bye Archers

We are back to reality this Monday morning. After a few weeks off of work, Scott has gone back. Now I need to get back into my schedule. I have eaten a bit out of control with the holidays. I had worked out some but nothing like my routine. It will be nice to get the boys back into a routine too since they are all over the map with their sleep schedules right now. I'm sad that I won't get to spend as much time with Scott.

I'm not one to make New Years resolutions because honestly I probably wouldn't keep it. But I think I picked one I can achieve. My New Years resolution is to be in better shape by summer than I was last summer. I was in good shape last summer but I would just like to be better. Besides my daily walks with Belle and the boys, 3 day work out at the gym and 2 days at Cardio Barre, I am taking a dance class on Tuesday nights starting tomorrow. I am pretty excited about it. I will be one step closer to becoming a back up dancer-ha. And I think I talked Kelly (Scott's sister) into running a half marathon with me so we have training for that. And I really need to find a job. I haven't been looking az seriously since Scott was off of work because we were always doing something. We really took advantage of his time off. I really think I need to expand my search too. Not just looking for a bartending gig anymore. I need to find anything that entails part-time evenings and weekends. Sigh.

The Archers left Sunday morning. Saturday we took a drive through the citrus trees and mountains of Fillmore. It was a beautiful drive. Afterwards, us girls spent the day at the outlet mall to come home to a nice family dinner. It was a very nice visit. Now I think we are all facing going back to reality with all the holidays and visits over-sad :(

Family fun at the beach

It was 80 degrees here yesterday. I'm not rubbing it in. Okay I am just a little bit :) We hit the beach yesterday for a picnic and people watching. Check out our family pictures.

Harry playing in the sand. Little Harry that is.

Great Grandpa Harry playing in the sand :)Grandma and Grandpa Archer. He swept her off her feet 34 years ago and he still has it.

Me and my hubby.

The "original" Archers

The siblings.

The "Girls."

Grandma and William playing in the water. She literally had to drag him out of the water.

Four generations of Archers.

My Archer family.

All of us.

Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament

Thursday night, Scott and I went out for an overnight date night. We went to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Anaheim. Neither one of us have been to one before. It was really fun and the food was good. The horses were amazing. They were beautiful. We cheered for the black and white knight. Here was the Prince.

Here was our knight fighting the nasty green knight (ours lost of-course).

Here are the white horses giving a bow. Isn't that amazing? They are so pretty.

Afterwards we went out for a few hours. Then we stayed at the Radisson Suites. Our room was nice and what was even better is that it was only the two of us in the bed. No toddlers with feet kicking us in the back or neck. Date night was fun!