Today's Checklist

9 AM: Get rice cereal sneezed in my face....Check
11 AM: Shower with tired screaming baby in background......Check
11:02AM: Shave legs with new razor and get tiny cuts everywhere......Check
11:30AM: Let baby suck on and then puke on necklace while still around my neck....Check
1 PM: Get grease all over my hands from trying to fix Cole's bike chain......Check
2 PM: Get peed on during pee sample collection from Alli's physical.....Check

All in a day's work.

3 is BUSY

When you have a baby squaking in the background....things just seem a little more hectic. That's when I enlist the kids' help. Most often the squaking comes from a hungry baby....and the kids have been looking forward to feeding Kaitlyn babyfood for months....so I let them. It helps me, and they like it. It does have it's drawbacks...their aim isn't always great. This cracked me up the other day.

Knock Knock Peeky Peeky

Just a little sneak peak at what I've been working on...I'm hoping to complete the room before the kid is a year old...sheesh!

Sympathy teething??

Um, so this Valentine's Day Allison decided it would be sweet of her to have sympathy teething with her little sister who has a tooth on the way, so she decided to grow one herself.
In the same place no less... before losing one...Oops. Hopefully she can wiggle one loose to make room so we don't have to get it pulled!!!! Who woulda thunk! Sisters...Siiiiiisters.
Happy Valentine's Day!Here's Mr. Cole after enjoying one of Nana's secretly delivered sugar cookies...And little miss love herself.

Birthday and a Date Night

Allison was my angel baby. She was by the book. She hardly ever cried. She only whimpered when she was hungry. She took a bottle. She took a binky. She went to everyone. She slept 8 hours at night at 8 weeks, and 12 hours at twelve weeks. She loved to be swaddled all the way until she was 11 months old! She took two 2-hour naps a day until she was 18 months old and has since taken 2 or 3 hour naps since....that's right, she'll still nap a few days a week for that long!
When I got pregnant with Cole, I was a bit nervous about how close in age they would be. Thankfully, Allison could communicate really well before Cole was born and I could meet her needs pretty easily. But then Cole was born, and so were Alli's tantrums. I found days where my blood would just boil at her meltdowns. I remember one day in particular, we left early from the park because she ran away from me into the street. She screamed so hard on the way home, I had to pull over half way and get out of the car to cool down. I remember feeling sad because I loved her, but I really didn't like her. She used to come into my room in the morning and just be so grumpy at me and the day hadn't even started. She LOVED her daddy...he could do no wrong (and still can't) and our relationship struggled. Until I found a key to it's undoing. And you'd think that since I've found the key that I'd use it all the time, but I just have to keep reminding myself. First, I started acting really chipper about everything...especially in the mornings...then I PRAISED her for every good thing she did....and it was then that she began to blossom. I still need to be better because I see how much good it brings out in her.
Now she is a smart, thoughtful, creative little girl. I love it when she gets this deep bout of laughter when she's being playful...I wish I could capture it in a bottle. She loves to help out...especially with the dishes, or doing odd chores like organizing things or putting stamps on envelopes. She loves to sing sing sing.....and she's actually really good at it. She also loves to dance to music...but she doesn't like dance classes. She's really into gymnastics. She finds an easy escape with markers and a coloring book. She loves to tell Cole what to do--he makes the perfect dog or monster, or daddy when they pretend.
I'm SOO SO happy we are at a new stage.


Sometimes I think- I have a 5 year old, what?! I can't believe how big she's getting....and how much she's learning. It seems like she's mastering one thing after the other day after day--tying shoes, learning to whistle and snap her fingers, writing letters, sounding out words...anything she puts her mind to, she learns it!
One tradition we had growing up in my family was date nights. My parents went out EVERY SINGLE Friday night on a date. But once a month, my parents took one of us 4 kids on a date with them. We got to choose where we ate and it was just us. We got to go on our birth month and then 2 other times during the year. I really looked forward to that individual time, and I'm so excited that my kids are getting old enough to where a date night would mean a lot to them. Alli turned 5 this year and she is a January birthday and we figured...what better way to start off the year than with a new family tradition. So we told Alli that we were taking her on a date and explained to Cole that he would have his date next month. She chose Oggi's to have stuffed stix. So off we went. She was so cute and excited. While we waited for our food, we let her open her birthday gifts from us. We ended up sitting near another couple with their 5 year old daughter. Her dad had won a few stuffed animals at the vending machine and I mentioned quietly to Dan that maybe he ought to give it a try. I think the dad saw what we were thinking and I saw him whispering to his daughter about giving one of her stuffed animals to Alli because it was her birthday. So the little 5 year old girl, hopped down from her seat and handed a stuffed teddy bear to Alli and wished her a happy birthday. It was the sweetest thing! Then, 3 teenage boys from another table nearby came over to our table and asked Alli if it was her birthday. I answered for her since she was too shy, and so they proceeded to sing happy birthday to her!! I mean teenage boys! It made her blush....and it made my day. After we stuffed ourselves with stuffed stix, Alli got a little ice cream birthday dessert and we headed home. She had been asking for a certain dessert for her birthday that I couldn't quite understand, and I finally figured out that we was asking for a snow cone. So right before bed, the birthday girl got a little homemade snow cone and then her birthday was complete. Here she is sporting her hew sparkly pink converse...And her new night gown
I think I'm gonna love five. It's definitely been a better age for our relationship in general. Just when things seem to be going great...she's going to head into Kindergarten and be away from me for half the day :( It will be bitter sweet.
This is where the joy is at....

One, Two, Buckle my Shoe

Or should I say tie my shoe....that's exactly what Alli just did. We worked on it a tiny bit during Joy school last school year but it's been a long time since we had practiced. So I showed her how ONCE, and this is what she did...

(I'm a little embarrassed by my brown socks....Dan tells me my socks should match my shoes....but I have a feeling that only goes for when you where slacks.)

Bringing in the new year

Last year on New Year's Eve, we were frantically trying to find plans to celebrate the coming of the new year....so we called our friends the Parks and had a ball. So this year, we decided--what better way to bring in the new year, than with our great friends the Parks! So we called and asked if they would spend New Year's Eve with us again, and they so kindly obliged. We put the kids to bed and played games together until the countdown. Of course we're always laughing until it hurts, and this night was no different. We poured our sparkling cider, counted down to the New Year, and shortly after, called it a night.

Next morning, (after the boys ruined their bodies at yet another round of Turkey Bowl....or should I say new Year's Bowl) we hit the road to play in some snow. We picked up Audrey so the Parks' oldest daughter had someone her age to play with. We drove for a really long time and as we drove through the cottages that were supposed to be surrounded by snow, we got more and more worried. We drove so far, and at this point were sitting in traffic to get to what we hoped would be snow. After making a pit stop to buy some sleds, we finally arrived to see some dirty patches of snow and spent then next 20 minutes bundling up the kids. We trekked our way down through thorny bushes down the hill to the crowded spot. We slushed through mud and icy snow until we decided to give the small patch of snow a try. The kids didn't seem to mind and made the best of it.




Then Dan spotted some others walking a bit further up the hill and sledding fast down this icy section. I wasn't thrilled about the idea, but up he went with Allison and the sled. I was nervous. And for very good reason. The only way to stop really was to skid onto the dirty bark.
So Dan preps and gets ready to go....and then hits the ice, starts to lose control, and when the mediums changed and they hit the bark, Dan and the sled stopped... and Alli kept going and face planted right into the ground. decided she liked watching better than sledding.
The chilling part about it all, is I got it on video and as I re-watched it, I noticed she literally came millimeters from hitting a large rock the size of her head. It actually looked like she hit it in the video. Instead, she hit the bark, which DID make her lip bleed a little. My stomach dropped at the thought. I immediately said a thank you prayer for her protection. It HAD to have been divine intervention. I KNOW it was. Dan was so sore from the morning of flag football, and had THIS to add to it. (I guess he and Alli ran over a huge rock before skidding to a stop...and the rock decided to kiss Dan's thigh--OUCH!) After that, Alli
About an hour or so later, we trekked back to the car and peeled off some layers...in Dan's case, (as we discovered later) he peeled off one layer too many... and we drove back into town and decided to eat dinner at Red Robin. Dan had double-layered ski pants on and had removed the top layer...only to discover while sitting in the foyer waiting to be seated, that what he had left on, were more like black long johns. He lifted the flap in the front, trying to figure out why there was a flap on his pants, and he quickly realized what it was..., and so did another girl waiting near by. We all got a huge laugh out of that one when we were seated and Dan informed us of his realization....and the girl's.
We ate to our hearts content, and then regretted it after reading the summary book of calories. GROSS!!! We discovered that in the meal that Dan and I SPLIT....it was 6000 calories. No wonder our country's fat. Then we headed home with tired kids....and it was so late, we forced the Parks not to drive all the way home and stay with us another night. I whipped up some fantastic mini pizzookies and we fell asleep to a movie.