2 Peas in a Pod

Joey and Jeanie are such two little peas in a pod! They enjoy playing and causing trouble together!

In this video here there is red sheet that Joey has pretty much adopted into his play things... he has us sit on the rocking chair and tighten up the sheet with our feet on his chair... he then climbs up our legs and when he reaches our face he lets himself slide back scream as he goes acting as if he lost his grip and was falling down a cliff. It is really quite hilarious! He is getting so funny with his pretend play. You also hear the Wii in the background with Super Mario Cart playing. Joey is obsessed with 'making' us play it! He chases us around with the Wii wheels crying, "wace wace!" (race). I guess he just likes watching the different vehicles move!

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Poor Jeanie kept getting the sheet stuck on her head! She loves pulling stuff over her head! Any article of clothing or dish towel she finds in her reach she tries to put it on and keeps pulling it onto her head! She is such a cutie! She tries so hard to keep up and put up with her crazy older brother. She adores him and laughs at so much of what he does! I love the age gap between these two. Sometimes it has been VERY difficult, but it has been worth it!

Park time!

I am very often taking and posting pictures of our happenings at the park... so I apologize if you get bored with those! Joey is always just to cute and funny that I can't really resist trying to keep those fun moments forever and sharing them!

Our walk to the park proved to long! Both tykes were totally out by the time we got there!

Enjoying our snack break!

I tried and tried to get video of Joey preparing to go down the slide with his, "un, two, twee... GO!" When I had the camera out he would only say parts or had to be reminded. I tried several times and also got some more really fun videos of him playing... but I had to refrain from posting them all since that would take tons of your time to watch my little tyke play at the park! This is my favorite segment though- I would have to call it the quintessential Joey at the park. Busy busy busy having fun fun fun!!!! (Not that anyone needed a reminder that Joey is busy :) )

I realized the other day I don't let Joey have much 'artistic' outlet anymore. After our permenant marker and crayon on the couch and walls incidents all of our pens, markers and crayons are so well hidden that I don't even remember where they are. I am not sure if we will do this particular project again but we had a lot of fun. We took some shaving cream and dropped in a few drops of food dye and Voila! We had a 'paint'. It still did dye his skin for a few days but it was fun to play with. We originally started painting using q-tips... but Joey got really creative and started dipping rocks in.

Wonderful dirt

This group of pictures are all taken on the apartments property. As mentioned before they are very much in the middle of some big overhaul of the property and what is going around the property now is lots of piles of cement, dirt, and Joey high weeds. With all that... Joey actually seems to be in heaven with the property in its present state!

I think this mirror and shed are actually just over the property line and belong to the neighbors behind. Jared took these photos with his cell phone... I think they turned out rather neat!

I mentioned before that Joey was in heaven with the piles of dirt... well, it seems like his two new buddies in the complex are pretty much in heaven with it to!

makeup artist

Well here is an embarrassing moment for our normally masculine little boy. I guess while I was in the shower Joey found and used some of my makeup. When I discovered my eyeliner and blush missing I found Joey skillfully applying some to his own face. Instead of hooting and hollering like I normally would I went ahead and grabbed the camera... which to Joey it seemed like even greater punishment.... He DID NOT want his picture taken and the moment instilled forever. "I'm so ashamed..."
-Joey

Picture stay!

A few days ago we were hanging up pictures. Joey observed us holding pictures against the wall and discussing their placement. We went and had dinner and afterward Joey got started on places pictures again! Silly boy!

Just some fun pictures of the kids!

Poor Joey, He was so exhausted and hungry with all of he moving and such! He fell asleep eating a pop tart! And as for how he is sitting... for months he had refused to sit in a high chair anymore... but since this was the only chair available he was all to happy to be in it and just lounged back. I wonder if having the dining area be away from the main area has helped him eat more... before he was always distracted and would rarely eat even if it was something he asked for. Now he seems to be a bottomless pit!

In the last post I talked about all the big trucks outside our apartment. Yesterday I went ahead and found the box that had Joey's trucks.... he was so excited and played with them with new gusto and understanding! In this picture he is yet again asleep! If you knew our son... he does not just lay down and nap or rarely sit still for much of anything. He is like a toy top, just goes and goes and goes and then, falls over!

We are almost moved in. I wanted to take a picture but Jared plans on coming home and putting up shelves and hanging a few more pictures... So I will wait to post pictures until that is done!

Room with a view!

As I mentioned in a previous post they are working on the road and pavement in our apartment complex. Right now they are excavating a trench... I am assuming to run stuff over to the new town homes. Most of the work is RIGHT in front of our apartment. Caution tape only about 7 feet from our door. They have all this large machinery and trucks. The kids have been LOVING watching them work. (Good thing as it prevents us from venturing outside to much!)

Not so Teanie Jeanie!

Little Jeanie is growing so fast! She is always trying to keep up with her busy big brother! She chases Joey all over the apartment, stealing toys away or back from him!

Although Jeanie is actually about average weight she is becoming quite the little tank! One time as she lay in her car seat and her second chin was pushed up by the belt Grandma and Grandpa Stoker observed that she looked like Hiemlich from A Bug's Life. The more I look at her the more I see it! It a cute and adorable way of course!

My heavens does this girl like food! She laughs with delight anytime a meal is put before her!

What a sweetie!

I could be wrong but I swear I have heard her say Joey's name and Hi! She is always jabbering in a way that Joey never did! Already picking up the phone and yacking into it. I think she will catch up to Joey speaking wise really fast! She is already almost as heavy!

Murphy's law

Well the move did not go smoothly at all and not at all how we and planned and imagined. We most of choose pretty close to the worst day to move. May 2- We choose the date since our lease ended on April 30th and this apartment available on May 1st. Due to being right smack in the middle of finals and other things we had only a few people to help us move. Jared and I went ahead and loaded the truck the night before with a little bit of help.

Having a few helpers was difficult... but it probably would have been okay had it not been for the weather! It practically never rains here and the day we move there was down pour after down pour. Which again would not have been to bad on its own, but as part of the remodeling here they had taken out all of the asphalt to prepare to repave the lot. It wasn't just mud... but a cakey clay like mud! We had brand new carpet in our apartment so we had to lay down towels all over and forbid the 'outside' helpers from coming in. It took a lot of work to finangle the furniture down the steps and around the stairs but we got it in! But due to hurrying because of the rain and only having a few people as 'inside' helpers pretty much EVERYTHING ended up in the family room! So we had a hard time digging it out, some how things that belonged in that room ended up at both ends of the room, so we had to move them to another wrong room to get to the other stuff.



Thank you to everyone again that helped with the move! Thank you Mom Stoker, Sean, Nate, Dad Reece, Mom Reece and Emily Ekker and family! Your all amazing!!! You helped us so much!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!

Now... of course a move is never smooth but we have more Murphy's law at work.

Our new apartment had to be practically gutted after its previous tenants. I am pretty sure the owners worked their tail ends off trying to get it ready for us in time! It is practically a new apartment! (new carpet, new NICE tile, new toilet, bathroom vanity, new paint, new blinds... ect) They also had to bring in a different stove and fridge. (Love the fridge! Its huge!) Unfortunately they were not able to bring them in until after we had moved in, so they had to work around all of our boxes and stuff everywhere.

I also made the mistake of not understanding what I was told when we switched the utilities. So we did not get to have gas until Monday afternoon due to my dumb scheduling. (that meant NO hot water! ewww!)

Once we got everything set up we went to hook up the dryer, and the plug and the outlet did not match. No biggie but it put a hold on the already large and ever growing mound of laundry and muddy towels!) We went to Lowe's and got a new outlet the next day and Jared installed it. Now I could start on the laundry! I throw almost all of our icky towels into the load.... and then when it started to send the water out water went everywhere! Apparently the pipe that it goes down is severally clogged... and I was almost out of towels to clean it up with! LOL. Luckily Jared got creative and grabbed our extra vacuum hose and attached it to the end of the washers hose. Then set the end of the hose into the sink. So it is a good little temporary fix until it is taken care of. They have tried snaking it several times but will need to hire a professional plumber.


Although this is quite the little rant (I can have those once in awhile right?) we are actually quite happy about our move. The layout of the new apartment just works a lot better for us. Our bedroom is so much more roomie! I think square footage wise both the old and new apartments are similar, but the other one had a lot of wasted footage going to a walk in closet, laundry room and bathroom. Also a few more closets to use! We still haven't found a home for everything just yet... but we plan to have a yard sale in a couple weeks to get rid of some of our extra stuff! One thing I don't understand about our apartment it keeps having a nasty smoke smell. I understand that we smell it when we run the furnace since that is still the same, but everything else is new! I wonder if it is brought in through the windows, or somehow from our neighbors, we are constantly spraying air freshener. I hope it is not affecting us and that it will work itself out somehow!