A whole lot to do

I am sure most of you have noticed my lack of presents recently. I have been super busy and just can't seem to find the time to blog and I am having trouble thinking of things to blog about. I guess a lot of my thoughts often come to me during my work day but this past month work has been crazy insane and my full focus is required if I am going to keep my head above water.

On top of crazy work tasks, my life has been really full of craziness. Hosted my first ever Thanksgiving this year. Wow is that an undertaking. I was going to take lots of pictures also and totally forgot. My husband is redoing our dinning room. Was supposed to be done for Thanksgiving but I am not holding my breath for Christmas because he is so slow.

I am also sewing some gifts for Christmas. Can't wait to finish, take pictures and share. All the little girls are getting purses and my first one came out fantastic. I am also making a Mickey Mouse Fleece blanket for Thomas. I have to find the time to do that one also when he isn't around.

Have not started Christmas shopping yet. My girlfriend is going with me on Friday and I am thrilled because I love spending time with her. We went to a Daughtry concert in Kentucky a couple weeks ago and I had a blast. Great concert to see! We got a hotel room because it was a far drive home for me. We stayed up until 2 in the morning just talking away. I swear we could talk none stop for days and not run out of things to talk about.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday season.

Where Is My Mom's Manual

I grew up in a house as the oldest child. I can remember my mom always being way harder on me than my little brother. It often created a major rift between me and my mom because I felt so unfairly treated. I think for this reason I was a daddies girl but also I think he saw how much harder my mom was on me and he had to compensate for it with me.

Today, I have two boys. It was just Luke and me for the first 4 almost 5 years of his life. We were very close and I did everything for this child. We were really tight and then his baby brother was born. Now I had to find a way to divide myself between two children. Something that truly is not as easy as one might think.

As Thomas has grown, I have found he gets the majority of my attention and Luke not as much. I have also found that I am so much harder on Luke. I yell at him more because he is supposed to know better. He should do more for himself and should be more grown up. When he doesn't do these things I become very frustrated with him and I am often really hard on him.

This really bothers me because I am treating Luke just like my mom did me. I now see her side of it but it still doesn't make it any better for Luke. I have to remind myself, yes he should know better, and yes he can do these things for himself but he is still only six years old.

Recently the two of them together have pushed every button I have and I end the day frustrated and flat out exhausted. I don't want to be like this and I have got to figure out how to be easier on Luke, but he can't just get away with things either.

So my question to all you moms with two or more kids. How do you divide yourself among your children? How do you make sure they feel equally loved by you? Its not that I don't love them equally but I do not manage my time well between them and I am a lot less patient with one over the other.

DADDY WATER

When Luke was two he could not tell us he wanted Fruit2O flavored water. His dad loves the stuff and drinks it often but I don't like it and drink regular water. Because he couldn't say Fruit2O Luke called it "daddy water" and he was very specific that he did not want "mommy water" as it was just water. Soon we were all referencing flavored water as "daddy water".

Even now at the age of 6 Luke calls it "daddy water" just as we all still do.

Then the other day Thomas's babysitter asks me, "what is daddy water". I just laughed because clearly flavored water will always be called "daddy water" in our house.

Crazy about Hat's

Someone has a new found interest in hats.

Especially the kind that are way to big for his little head.

Bye-Bye Bottle

Right now I really have nothing new to share or post about. Since I can't seem to think of anything new and exciting I will share some good news that happened last month but I never found the time to post about it.

As you all remember my husband and I took our weekend trip to Nashville, TN.

(Side note: I still owe you all pictures for that but can't find my adapter to get the pictures out of my old camera. This is why I don't like to use that camera but we did so until I find the adapter they are stuck inside my camera.)

Anyway we took our trip and my parents watched my boys. My wonderful mother decided she was going to try and break my son of his bottle habit. This was one of those things that I needed to do but I was so afraid to do. His habit was strong and I wasn' t up for that all night fight, the crying and the saying no.

Well my mom took a bottle to her house but hid it and anytime Thomas asked she said it had gone bye-bye. He went for three days and had no bottle. I was so impressed and thrilled but I also new that he would push me harder for it when I came home.

Sunday night we return home and he instantly asks me for his ba-ba. I tell him it went bye-bye and we had a 45 minute melt down but I new I had to hold strong.

He still asks me almost every day for a ba-ba and I have to tell him it went bye-bye. He has come to accept this and the ba-ba is no long in the picture thanks to my mom. The best part was we actually broke him of the bottle before he turned two. I thought for sure I was going to have a two year old walking around with a bottle.

My biggest issue with taking it away is he will not drink milk from a cup for me. He still refused to drink milk for me in a cup. The good news is he will drink milk in a cup at the sitters and at grandma's houses.

Have you had a hard time breaking your kids of something?