Wordless Wednesday

 

 

 

What a great long weekend!!!

WOW!!!  Two and a half days off, plus the weekend seriously felt like two great weeks!!!  I'll post more pics later, but will give a rundown.  I felt like we got so much done.
-We had dinner at my parents on Thursday
-Thursday night Keith's parents came
-Keith and I ventured out around 10 on Thursday night to enjoy some black Friday deals!  Keith was debatable if it would be worth our efforts since we didn't have a game plan.  I thought - hey, we have nothing to lose!  So any deal we find, SCORE!  The sad part is the main reason I wanted to go out was just a good time for Keith and I to go out together and do a majority of shopping.  Plus think about it- which is more challenging - shopping with a double stroller and a single stroller in general mall traffic - or racing through extremely heavy mall traffic with NO stroller(s)???  OPTION B!!!!  ALWAYS OPTION B!   It's never easy to shop with two strollers, plus throw in the baby might cry at any minute so hurry / boys are willing to jump out of stroller at the sight of any sort of candy + many complaints factor.  I'm really happy with the status of my Christmas shopping - still some things to get, but hey we are still in NOVEMBER!!! plenty of time.
-Saturday I went shopping for a while with Susie and then we spent the majority of the day putting up lights outside and decorating inside.  Including some Pinterest inspired lighting.  The boys were SO MUCH FUN this year.  I will be sure to do a seperate post on them.  I can tell already this will be a really awesome Christmas for them!  So much fun!
-Saturday Adam, Sarah and Oliver spent the day at our house and we had this AMAZING stuffed pork loin for dinner.  YUM.
-Sunday we tried another church.  This week we went to Hope in Ankeny.  Keith's parents kept all the kiddos home, so it was nice to be able to focus a bit more.

Overall, it was such a great weekend!  We were so productive, had lots of fun with family!  Hope all of you had a nice holiday weekend as well.  And maybe scored a deal or two as well!

 

 

 

 

Who me???

YES… you my sweet little baby did not want anything to do with sleeping all by yourself without having at least one finger connected to mom or dad!  Keith kept saying she is wanting to be held all night, we are going to have to have her cry it out.  Me, it must be somehting else, maybe she isn't feeling well.  She and I slept for about two hours in my bed last night, then when Keith came to bed she was in a super deep sleep and about two seconds after she was in the pack and play - she was AWAKE!!!  So we decided to give the crib a try, which meant me sleeping on the floor in her room.  And it turns out that was a cold and uncomfortable night of sleep - but I wouldn't really call it great sleep when you are up every 40 minutes!!! Ahhhh….I guess it's all part of the parenting ballgame. Hopefully she will be game for sleeping on her own tonight.  I guess at daycare they said not only was she not so happy when she wasn't held, she would get a bit mad if they weren't talking to her:)  Guess she was spoiled this week.  

We didn't have a turkey day outfit, but I had been itching to get these cute little stockings on her - LOVE THEM!!! You'll be seeing more of these.  

 

Olivia 5 months

I just can't believe how fast Olivia is growing up on me!  I'm going to try and make sure I take a video at least once a month.  Any day now she will be rolling herself from wall to wall.

Christmas time is here!

 

Does the ER have a loyalty card program?

Wednesday was a BEAUTIFUL day - for real, 70 degree temps in November.  That is hard to pass up.  Thanksgiving the next day - two days off work!  Awesome!  So on Wednesday I left work early, ran a few errands in Ankeny and was on my way home to put up Christmas lights - score, our slacking of making this happen on any other nice day was a fail and we were surprised with one nice day in November to make this happen!  Then...the daycare number showed up on my phone.  Hmmm.....probably not good!

They told me Dylan had hit his head, he wasn't bleeding much anymore, but probably needed medical attention.  Luckily Keith was home putting up lights and I was on my way.  So he was off to pick him up and then I got home about the same time they were getting back.  I had hoped to skip the ER and visit our clinic, but no such luck with the holiday weekend. 

Dylan was in a pretty good mood through it all - lets not forget we are VERY familiar with the place.  And he LOVES going.  Sad right!  My mom and niece Morgan met us at the ER, so we had some good company while we waited.  That's the downside of the ER- you wait A LOT!

Dylan kept the staff entertained.  He did pretty well, the cleaning of the wound was probably the worst part - he told the nurses to "be careful".  They all got a kick out of that.   Once they evaluated the cut, they determined one staple should do it!  Morgan, being 12 and all.... yells out, "STAPLE, that's going to hurt."  And my poor little Dylan turns around with a frantic face!  Big TIP - all this business is half mental.  So I had to talk him back into Morgan is a wimp and he is tough and would be TOTALLY fine!  So he did pretty well, he curled up on my lap and I held him tight and we did our, squeeze mom's hand when it hurts trick.  He did squeeze hard a couple times, but not too bad.  

The worst part was later that evening he was playing with Olivia and put his head into her tummy and little miss grabs everything in front of her got a hold of his hair  - pretty close to the staple and gave it a good yank!  Then he cried pretty hard.  

The good part about having a staple in your head (for me).....NO WRESTLING!!!  I've been enjoying this one.  

Oh- and a lot of people asked how he did this.  A bit of an odd one.  I guess not for a 4 year old.  Both of them are into holding both hands onto a car and then running around and driving the car on the ground.  I guess he was watching the car, not where he was going - and must have been going REALLY fast and right into a pole.  OUCH!! Little guy had to hit it hard to crack his head open.  So note to moms- don't let your boys do that.  Carter actually got hurt doing the same thing a few weeks ago, he was doing it on the sidewalk and his hand slipped off and had scratches about everywhere!

We go back on Wednesday to have it pulled out!  I'm sure it won't be our last!

Phone dump

Here is Olivia in her bed - not many pics of this.  She does like watching her mobile.  One of these days we will get her up there!  I never thought i would still have my almost 5 month old in my room still!  Which, if our rooms were on the same level, she would be in her bed.  But right now, I don't love going upstairs in the middle of the night. 

Do you ever take a second out of crazy madness of the every day to soak in a good sunrise or sunset?  The sun goes down so fast every night, I barely get to see it.  

Look at my girl getting so big!  I barely put her in here any more - 1) those legs barely squeeze in  2) she squirms herself out and that seems dangerous, right! 

Hello ladies!

I built this with the boys one night- not so shabby, right Keith!

 Attempting to score some "cool" points with Carter driving a go kart.

Keith gave the boys an important job.  Fill and chill with ice!  They were all over it!

AHHHHH....I think all parents can agree, these are some of our favorite moments.

Put Dylan to work breaking down boxes.  He had a blast - don't forget, he is our trash manager!

Never dull moment

And then I get 1 upped by a 4 year old.  SNAP!

Reviewed our well report info from the doctor.  I especially like lines 3-6- I thought we were seeing the light, then I was enlightened by this.

Alec checking on Olivia

I can't get enough of these!!!!

Poor girl!!!  We thought we were starting to get better.  Then the past few days she's been fussy and not wanting to drink her bottle - back to the doctor we go.  We are thinking her initial ear infection did not clear up.  Keith said the doctor looked in one ear and said, oh she has an ear infection, then looks in the other ear and says, ooh that's really bad, I'm surprised she's not crying more.  Poor girl:(   We have a new antibiotic- I hope she feels better soon! 

You are probably thinking this is a bad idea.  You are probably right.  But Keith was gone one night and I managed to feed Olivia and make dinner while they were fully entertained.  And the plates kept everything pretty clean until they started pouring things like that black bowl into that little bottle.  Keith was NOT impressed when he got home.

Similac has these fancy little containers.  Yet- that foil is about impossible to tear and you can waste formula tearing it takes about 5 attempts. So message to you Similac brand manager, just wondering if you have ever attempted to open your product?  Or considered opening it one-handed as if you might possibly be holding a crying, hungry child?  Just wondering?  

On a side note- any of you Pinterest creative folks - there must be a great alternative use for these cases - I feel as though I shouldn't be throwing them away.  Perhaps it's the pack rat / box hoarder in me that struggles to toss them.

I thought Stella was being a really good big sister, Keith is thinking she wants the boppy!

Not sure about where you live in, but in here in God's country (Iowa), we have been experience 70's in November.  No complaints here!  We went on a "really long" bike ride last weekend.  

Alright Pinners - I tried this one.  Not bad- it only took me about 5 minutes to create - they played with it for about 20-30, but did have fun.  So might be worth a try on a rainy day. 

GIVE ME THAT BOTTLE!  Olivia sure knows her bottle these days.

And the fun of a girl!

Here is how my morning goes - I had clothes picked out for the boys.  An orange shirt and a green shirt.  The sporty type because I would hate to have Carter wear anything fancy with a button.  So he doesn't want that.  He wants to be different - I said GREAT, do you want orange or green.  No. Ok. Pick out what you want.  OK, so he goes to one of his go-to shirts. The red T (surprisingly not the green gorilla shirt). Finally wake Dylan up and he puts on the green shirt.  Comes back from the bathroom and informs me it's too big.  Now Carter provides him much guidance to the closet and he highly suggests he wears the other red shirt - like his, not different, but LIKE HIS.  However, Dylan really wants to wear a yellow shirt because that is his favorite color.  He lands on an orange shirt, which Carter reminds him is not yellow.  Dylan says it's "like yellow".  OK, OK - lets go.  Then he sees a Thomas shirt and takes off the orange and puts on the Thomas.  NAHHH.  Why wear Thomas when you can wear the same red shirt as Carter.  Me- Dylan, it is cold out, do you want to wear a long sleeve shirt under your t-shirt.  I sold him on the sleeves part all right.  He added this blue jacket for a short period of time.  I'm pretty certain he took it off before we left.  EX HAUST ING.....and we aren't even at 8:00 yet.

I got this Dad

Olivia giving Dad excel pointers.  (I taught her everything I know!)  Watch out world.

 

Church

Little Miss Olivia needs to be baptized! I'm sorry to say that we do not have a church we belong to, so we have been trying out some new ones.  Last Sunday we went to the Ridge in Ankeny.  Anyone have any churches in Ankeny they really like?