Top Mommy Blogs

Some of you may have noticed the Top Mommy Blog badge on my blog.  I was thrilled to discover that Life on Peanut Layne was accepted and added to this top mommy blog directory!

If you wouldn't mind, I would love it if you would please vote for my blog when you visit.  My goal is to make it into the top 200 featured blogs, but I need more votes to do that.  All you have to do is click on the brown pic of the juggling mom to your right and that's it!  You do not have to fill anything out, or sign up for anything.  Just a simple click of the pic and you're all done!

Thank you so much to all of my followers for your support!

Why I think laundry hampers were probably not invented by a man

I love my husband dearly, but I will never understand why he puts his dirty pants on top of the laundry hamper instead of just lifting the lid and throwing them in?   Also, notice where his dirty socks are in proximity to the designated laundry receptacle, lol!   Yep, those are his black socks on the floor, conveniently located NEXT to the hamper, lol!

I know I know, there are much bigger things to worry about, but it seriously drives me batty!  I'm constantly having to ask him "Are these clean or dirty?"  What really kills me is when he replies back all snippy and will say, "Clean" or "Dirty" with that duh tone in his voice, as if i'm supposed to know that a perfectly folded up pair of pants is clean or dirty (and no i'm not going to smell them, lol).

When i'm not able to ask him the status on something and I take a gamble and toss something in the washing machine (thinking it's dirty because it's sitting ON the dirty laundry hamper), then I get, "Where did you put my jeans?  I can't find my jeans!!! Someone took my jeans".    When I reply back with, "I washed them so they are in the machine" I get, "Why did you do that?  Those were clean!!!"

Is my husband the only one who does this?  Please tell me i'm not alone here ladies!

Who took my sweet boy and replaced him with...

baby T-Rex?   Seriously this kid is one step away from driving mommy to the funny farm!

This is what happened after my husband told him it was time to come inside because it was getting late (this tantrum cont. on for quite some time but I had to stop recording so I could shut the windows, lol).   *Make sure you don't have your volume turned up all the way or you'll blow out your eardrums-you'll thank me for this.  Makes you wanna have more kids doesn't it?  LOL!!!!

http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee446/PeanutLayne/?action=view&current=1fe64f23.mp4

Peanut has recently discovered his newfound independence.  He's the baby of 5 kids, so he's really trying hard to be a "big kid", but he is the baby so i'll admit he's a bit spoiled and demanding (he gets it from his dad…heehee).  He can throw Legos like nobody's business and if you're not careful you'll get a handful of Duplos thrown in your face (which hurts like a mother f@*ker by the way).    He can climb better than any monkey in the zoo.  We have found him on the top shelf of our closet (still trying to figure out how he got up there), behind the TV, in the sink,  on top of our dressers (yes they are latch secured to the wall), etc.   The only place I haven't found him yet is hanging from the light fixtures.  Luckily he can't read yet or I guarantee he would be hanging from the chandelier by this afternoon.   He has smacked the TV before when you wont turn on his show.  If there was an Olympic medal for shot putting a remote, he would win the gold.

His latest trick is drinking from a regular cup so no more sippy cups.   He wants to sit in a regular chair at dinner and not on our bench.   He HAS to open the front door now or he goes crazy.   He must walk from the front door to our minivan without being carried or he flips out.    When you get to the minivan, he must climb into his car seat by himself.  If you try to lift him into his seat, you get to experience what I like to call the dying salmon flop.  He will lift his arms straight up in the air and slump to the ground like a slug and then flop around on the floor of the van like a dying salmon out of water.   Lifting him up during the dying salmon flop is nearly impossible, trust me on this!

Yesterday after another octagon cage worthy wrestling match with Peanut  over not wanting to get in his car seat (and just moments before I was about to place him on the front yard with a "Free 2 year old ready for a new home" sign), I noticed something very strange….it was quiet!  I look back and this is what I see……

Awwww, a sweet little sleeping Peanut.   

Oh and yes that's dried sand on his face-don't judge, 

I didn't have time for one of my famous diaper wipe baths, lol! 

Here are some of my other favorite Peanut pics.  

You can see he has a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. 

Peanut perched on top of the desk. 

Apparently the chair wouldn't do

 Oh that twinkle I was referring too…..trouble!

 He climbed in himself…

 Oh how I love this boy, even when he's naughty which is often, lol!

 Yes, i'm a mean mom for grabbing my phone instead of rescuing him first, lol! 

Why I Hate Playgroups!

Meetup is the Match.com for Moms. I don't know if it's just me, but every single time without fail, all i've found is duds at these mommy playgroups.

 I've narrowed down the 5 most annoying types of moms who seem to circulate the Meetup circuit.

1.  The Passive Aggressive Mom: We all know this mom. She is the one who uses a super annoying sugary sweet voice in place of her child's because she's too chicken sh@# to say how she really feels. Take this for example, "Wow Connor thank you for sharing your toys. You are such a nice boy. I'm so proud of what a nice boy you are. Don't you share you toys so well? It's too bad other kids don't know how to share. We should teach them how to share". After about 5 minutes of listening to this I find myself wanting to grab a toy out of Connor's hand just to see him cry. Mean? Yes. Sorry Connor but I really want to punch your mom in the face! 
2.  The One Upper Mom: Enter annoying mom type #2. It becomes blatantly obvious after just a few short interactions with this type of mom that they have absolutely no life and desperately want approval and acceptance from other moms. However, they go about it the completely wrong way! Meet the One Upper. She is the mom who has to top every single freaking thing that comes out of your mouth. If your 4 month old has a tooth, her baby has 10. If your child can count to 20, her little darling can count to 100 (in Spanish). Her baby is the cutest, smartest, most brilliant little angel on the planet. There isn't anything this child can't do absolutely perfectly. It doesn't matter if you never actually witness them doing anything other than sitting in a stroller drooling on a toy, because they truly are the brightest, smartest little baby on the entire block. Enough said about this mom. Super annoying. 
3.  The I'm Still Stuck in High School Mom: This one is a no brainer. We all know this type of mom. This is the snobby, stuck up, "I'm too cool to be your friend" type of mom. I cannot tell you how many meet & greet playdates i've gone too, only to get there and discover that not one single mom will give me the time of day. What a waste of a morning that could've been better spent at home in my comfy PJ's, stretched out t-shirt with no bra. Some moms suck. Grow up already!!!! 
4. The Judgy McJudgerson Mom: First off there is the car seat judger mom. It's okay if you are one of these (I forgive you). It's the attitude that if you don't spend half of your husband's paycheck on a particular name brand carseat for Suzy (who by the way is just going to smash her fruit bar into the strap handles), you are a crappy, no good mom who doesn't give a flip about your child's safety that I have trouble forgiving. Mmm hmmm. And please I don't care what you say, my 110 lb, 5 ft 2 inch tall 12 year old is NOT riding in a rear facing carseat!  This type of mom extends way past car seats. This goes for the type of mom who feels the need to judge every little parenting choice you make from what type of food you feed your kid, to what type of diapers your child wears (and don't you dare admit you use those horrible disposable diapers). These are the moms that you have to hide the bottle of formula that's sitting in your diaper bag, or the one you don't want walking by your minivan when the door opens and the McDonald's cups fall out. I could go on and on all day about this judgy Mcjudgerson mom. Yep, yep. 
5.  The Bat Sh*$ Crazy, there is no perfect category for this mom: I have a personal story for this one. A few years ago when I attempted to be a regular member of a local Meetup group (hey I tried), I came across Amber. Amber is a perfect example of the bat sh#$ crazy mom. I RSVP'd yes for one of her baby playgroups. The requirements for this playdate was your child had to be under a year old to attend. My dear husband was supposed to be home that day, but ended up having to leave (I can't remember if he had school or an appointment with a client, but whatever).   My daughter who was around 3-4 years old at the time (way past the age acceptance for this playgroup) got really sick. I had to change my RSVP to a "No" the night before the playdate since I had no one to watch my sick, older child so that I could bring my son to this baby playdate. Well this apparently was not okay with Amber and she doesn't just stop there. She sends me a super snarky email that goes something like this, "Please don't bother RSVPing for anymore of my future play dates again as you have taken up a spot and then cancelled at the last minute. I wasted money on snacks for your child (please I ask you how much food was my not quite one year old son REALLY going to eat, lol)".  I emailed her back and said, "No problem. I don't really want to come to anymore of your play dates after this. My daughter was sick and I didn't want to bring a sick child around a bunch of babies".  You would think that would be the end right?  Instead this just fuels the fire and Amber starts sending me these crazy emails about how I constantly RSVP to her groups and back out at the last minute. Um, it only happened once crazy! Apparently she had been gossiping behind my back and I had backed out of a different play date months before (again because of an illness) so that makes me a serial repeat offender in her eyes. Whatever! She tried to go over my head and emailed the owner of the playgroup that "i'm harassing her". I told you this chick was BAT SH$@ CRAZY! Well of course the group owner emails me and since I was smart enough to save all of the ingoing and outgoing emails I happily forwarded them to her so she could see just how bat sh$# crazy Amber really was.  The owner agreed with me and was very apologetic about Amber's behavior, but unfortunately all of that drama left a horrible taste in my mouth and I really had no desire to hook up with this group again. Years later out of morbid curiosity I logged onto the group's message board and it looked like Amber was still hosting her cozy little group of "babies" who were now toddlers. Amber apparently had another child and was going through a divorce. That's all I have to say about her :)

Target Toy Clearance Sale

I know, I know it's early to be talking Christmas already, but when you have 5 kids it's difficult to try and wait until the last minute to shop (talk about a shock to the bank account). Thanks to getting the inside scoop on lots of fabulous summer sales via popular message boards, I have started shopping early and scoring some pretty good deals (and no I don't get paid to blog or talk about stores or products in case you're wondering).

This week Target is having their annual 70% summer clearance toy sale! I didn't really see that many toys that my kids had to have, but Bo's is kind of nearing the end of the toy phase and wants clothes this year. It's a great place to find toy deals for the boys though as they are 4 and 2 and pretty much like anything at this point, lol!

My 2 very favorite sale finds were these Toy Story items:

Full Retail Price Approx $75
Price I Paid for Both=$25

If you haven't gone to Target yet, hurry and check it out before everything is gone!

Having Fun with Instagram Today

Peanut Modeling

 A Boy and His Best Friend

Dirty Summer Feet

Brothers

Silly Boy

Mom Why Do My Socks Smell Like Banana's?

Yesterday was the first day of soccer camp for both girls.  Neither J nor myself played soccer when we were younger, so we are both pretty clueless about what is needed to actually play.   When I picked up my 12 y/o DD from her first day of soccer camp she quickly informed me that she was supposed to have long knee type socks to cover her shin guards….ooops!  Apparently the coach asked her, "Where are your socks?" and she answered back, "On my feet" and all of the kids started laughing, lol!  We honestly had NO idea that you were supposed to cover the shin guards, lol!    So after dinner J and I ventured out to Big Five Sporting Goods and found some long black "soccer socks" or whatever they are called. 

Last night after the kids fell asleep i'm standing at the bathroom sink when my husband pops his head around the corner and nonchalantly says "Oh by the way. I put one pair of Bo's soccer socks on top of the bowl of bananas in the kitchen and the other pair is on the top shelf of our closet".   WTF?! 

We looked at each other for a second and burst into laughter.   Even the hubby was making fun of himself for randomly separating 2 brand new pairs of soccer socks (that came in a package together) and putting them in ridiculously strange places that would never be found (and no people he didn't do this on purpose either), lol!   I'm still shaking my head as to why he thought this would be a good place to keep her socks, but at least he told me so I wasn't frantically searching through the house like a maniac at 7:30 am.   

It makes perfect sense now why my husband can never find anything that's not physically attached to his body!  Thanks to my hilariously awesome hubby for giving me something to blog about today :)  

Surviving Disney with 5 kids!!!!

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but hey I said I was going to take a break from blogging and darn it I meant it, lol!

We recently went on a fabulous family vacation to Disneyland in mid June with my sister in law and her family.    Both the hubby and I were a nervous wreck about how much work Peanut was going to be since he's only 2.5, however, he was fantastic!   He loved the rides and screamed out "Wheeee" at the top of his lungs.   I'm telling you this boy has NO fear whatsoever and is the bravest little daredevil i've ever laid eyes on, lol!   Our 4.5 y/o son "M" was the most challenging, along with our 7.5 y/o daughter "Bo's".  Despite the rough patches (and believe me we had some rough patches) we had a lot of fun and wish we were still at Disney.  We spent 3 glorious days at Disneyland & California Adventure.  I'm not going to lie the first day was rough.   Oh what the heck, i'm just going to type out a brief Disney trip report (cause you know you wanna read it, lol).

Day one: We rented a stroller for Peanut, but figured M would be okay without one (not a good choice, but sounded like a good plan at the time).   We started off at Disney's California Adventure Park (DCA) because we were staying at the Grand Californian (amazing, gorgeous, fabulous resort by the way), and we had easy access into DCA park.  We headed over to grab some fast passes for the new Cars ride (which I didn't get to ride and i'll explain more on that later) and then headed over to Toy Story Mania because we are a Toy Story loving family.  M was fine the first 30 seconds of the ride but quickly decided he wanted off.  It was dark, loud and had neon flashing lights and it was just too much for my sensory kiddo.  He was screaming at the top of his lungs and trying to open the handle bar to jump out of the ride…EEK!   Luckily it was very noisy on the ride and no one else heard the commotion, lol!   After the ride he was done with Disney and we had just started so yeah you get the picture, lol!   He was throwing himself on the ground and saying he wanted to go home.  He was screaming & crying and refusing to go on any rides at all (there was just NO convincing him and we tried it all).   The hubby and I sent Bo's and the teens with my BIL & SIL so they could at least enjoy themselves while J and I stayed behind with M & Peanut.   J and I took turns going on some smaller rides with Peanut.  He absolutely loved it!  He was squealing with pure delight and grinning from ear to ear.   After each ride was over he waved to everyone around him and shouted, "Bye bye, bye bye" over and over again.  So cute!!!!  M continued to be a turd.  There was just no changing it, lol!

Here's M on the first day…
he's clinging to the fence and saying, 
"I just want to go home"

Soon after we met up with the rest of the group and it was time to head over to Cars Land to use our fast passes.  The fast pass line was about 30 minutes long.  It was quite obvious M was not going to make it as he was in full meltdown mode at this point so I decided to take him & Peanut back to the room and my BIL offered to help me since he wasn't feeling very well and needed a break.  This is where things get ugly and i'm still quite humiliated over the way things went down. M refused to walk with us to the hotel.  He sat on a bench and refused to walk. I was pushing Peanut in the stroller so I couldn't carry him, plus M is 55 lbs.   My BIL pushed Peanut in the stroller and I tried to put M on my back.  M with his low muscle tone slid right off my back and both of us flew backwards onto the concrete and I took a nasty spill onto my back, landing on top of M.   My hip bone (and butt) slammed into the concrete and I felt immediate pain.  M appeared to be okay, except for his fingers were a little scraped.   My BIL switched and handed me the stroller and he lifted M up.   M went into full meltdown mode and was kicking and screaming and shouting "Leave me alone.  Put me down" at the top of his lungs.   I followed quickly behind BIL and gave that, "Don't F with me" look to all of the shocked onlookers, lol!   We pushed our way through the crowds and somehow made it back to the hotel.  I honestly don't know how in the world my BIL managed to carry him that far.   M was kicking and screaming like a maniac and flopping around like a freaking fish out of water in BIL's arms and did I mention he's HEAVY!   I was so impressed with how calm he remained throughout the whole ordeal.  I mean here he is on his vacation and he's carrying someone else's child across a busy, crowded park while getting kicked, punched and screamed at by a crazy 4 year old throwing a gigantic meltdown. If I was him I probably would've put him down and said "He's all yours", lol!!!!  So a huge thank you to my awesome BIL for not abandoning us in the middle of DCA, lol!!!!    We got back to the hotel and I had a chat with M about his completely unacceptable behavior in our room.  He spent some time on the bed in time out.  Soon after the rest of the group was finished with the new Cars ride (which they said was okay but not spectacular in case you're wondering).   We took a break from the park and let the kids go swimming which seemed to perk them right up.  By this time I was really feeling the pain from my nasty fall onto the concrete and my hip & butt was pretty bruised.  Getting into the water was just what we needed.   After swimming for a couple of hours we got dressed and took the kids back into CA and saw some of the shows.  Peanut & M loved the Disney Jr show.  It was so cute and M's favorite "Jake" from Jake and the Neverland Pirates was hanging out outside of the theatre so M got a picture.  He was SO excited and made sure to tell everyone that he got to meet Jake.   After dinner it was back to the room and we put the little kids to bed.   J and I switched off with babysitting duty so we could go on the big rides while the other one stayed in the room and watched the little ones.  

Day Two and Three: We took the kids to Disneyland and we had high hopes for day #2 but the kids were just whiny and fussy (wait I should rephrase that…our youngest 3 kids were whiny and fussy, lol).  We did have M in a stroller this time so he was much easier to manage, but then Bo's upped the ante and was being a stinker.  Sometimes it feels like we just can't win, lol!   We split up into groups on the 2nd day and my BIL & SIL were gracious enough to offer to stay at the hotel after lunch to take the younger kids swimming so that J & I could finally go ride some of the big rides that we couldn't ride with the younger kids.   We jumped on that offer and had a fabulous time walking around Disneyland with the teens & my nephew.  It was a really awesome day. Disneyland is just so much fun :)   The third day was spent at both Disneyland & California Adventure. We took the kids over to Tom Sawyer's Island which wasn't quite what I remembered from my childhood trips to Disneyland, lol! We figured we could just find a bench to sit on and relax while the kids ran around and played…WRONG! There were steep hills and sharp rocks and loose dirt.   Peanut & M both fell down and hurt themselves right off the bat and then Peanut ran head first into one of the rock caves and practically cracked his noggin open.  I was a nervous, sweaty, yelling mess and felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown from the stress.  Yeah, this was not my favorite part of the trip, lol!  However, the rest of the day went much better.  J & I took the younger boys back to the Disney Jr show in the afternoon and once again M got to meet Jake and have multiple pics taken with him.  We mostly stayed together as a group and it was just so much fun.  In the evening we discovered the Redwood Creek playground at DCA and it was just awesome! I could go on and on for pages about this place, but I will spare you the details.  If you do go to DCA you MUST find this playground and let your kids run wild.  It's so much fun and it was by far the highlight of the trip for the younger kids.   Just when it seemed like the kids were FINALLY getting into their Disney groove, it was time to go home….sigh :(    Despite all of this,  I will say that this trip gave us a renewed sense of hope though that we CAN successfully travel with our 5 kids.  We are even talking about taking them back to Disney (not sure if we'll attempt to do Disney World or Disneyland again) in 2-3 years.  We just had so much fun and all the kids can talk about is how badly they want to go back, lol!  The kids did so much better on the long car trip than we ever thought they would.   Seriously, these kids were troopers! We had many LONG days of driving.   Our longest day of driving was about 12 hours.   We did take breaks to eat and go to the bathroom, but that's about it.  Thanks to the help of portable DVD players, we survived! LOL!  We've been home for a few weeks now and just trying to settle back into our normal routine.  

This is what happens when your 4.5 year old son fails to understand that the sword doesn't actually come out of the base….you can watch the progression…
Notice he's smiling here? 

Hmmm, starting to get a little frustrated here, lol 

Countdown to meltdown in 3, 2, 1….

Brothers Forever…

Peanut 

Disney Divas! 

Wow, it's our teenage son and he's smiling!  

Disney IS the most magical place on earth! 

M meeting Jake from the Neverland Pirates

The whole fam…notice M in this pic? lol!!!