My fifth and final JTM Holiday Party!

It's almost always a fun night out if somebody gives me a microphone, and this DJ even gave it to me early in the night!  Unfortunately, the party guest list shrank very quickly with a huge blizzard on the horizon.  However, several people toughed it out and had a great time!  I did have plans to close the place down, but Keith convinced me to leave around 12:30 because our babysitter had to drive to Burnsville and I was going to take a cab, but figured it would take a couple hours once I even called them with all the snow.  So I did ended up leaving earlier than I had planned, which was probably a good thing.  It was crazy how quickly the snow was piling up.  The annual JTM holiday party will definitely be one of my most missed Minnesota outings. 

Toddlers in Training

A few things lately...

A few things the boys have been up to....

I think they are missing their daddy!

Dylan is going through this phase where he wants to go potty on the little potty, then the big potty, then sometimes again on the little potty and some how manages to have enough potty for all three! 

Dylan is also doing this thing where he says "baby" and wants to be changed on the actual changing table.  I don't mind this, because that is much easier than chasing a diaperless boy around the house and pinning him down to get the diaper on. 

I've been calling Carter the tank lately, he has been such a big eater.

We had this big box of fruit snacks in the basement and every time we go down they want a pack, I'll give them one and say "all gone", "no more."  So now when we go down, they say "all gone" - I guess they think that's what they are called now.

Both are saying a lot, but Carter really starting to say a lot.  One morning I said, "OK if Carter's happy, Mamma's happy," so he kept repeating "Carter happy, mom happy." 

Carter LOVES books! The kid can't get enough and just sits and listens so well and really gets into it, I hope he continues to love story time.

I would prefer to have a couple of basketball players, but may have a couple of wrestlers.  You should see these two go!  I've seen some pretty serious take-downs, reversals, escapes, you name it!  Usually never ends well though. 

We've been singing jingle bells a lot lately in the car, mostly because I don't know the words to that many songs, but they love the "hey" part! 

OK, that's it for tonight.  Tomorrow night is the annual JT Mega holiday party, it was an epic night last year, but since it is my last one,  I'm thinking we will need to take things up a notch or two!

SNACKS.....

Dylan has been driving me crazy lately with the snack cupboard, he wants in there constantly!  Could they consume anymore snacks in one sitting.  And he wants anything, the green bowl is dry oatmeal and they actually ate it! 

Boys at daycare

On Tuesday I picked up the boys from daycare and Dylan was cruising around on this scooter, he looked like he was five!

Missing Daddy

Keith moved back to Iowa on Sunday!  So far he seems to be liking his new job and is adjusting to everything.  I think he is missing the boys a little bit and I think they are missing him too.  Hopefully tonight goes well!  I was so exhausted last night, I was in bed by 10:00.  On Monday night Dylan got out of bed 5 times between 12 and 3:00.  He wanted to come sleep with me, but I know how that goes, it gets earlier and earlier every night.  So I stayed strong and didn't give in, but did end up sleeping on the floor in their room. 

Keith's mom came up on Monday to help out, so it has been great having extra help with breakfast, dinner and cleaning! 

We had the carpets cleaned yesterday, which was driving me nuts because the floor was soaked all night and I hate when my feet are wet!  Then I didn't really have very many places to play with the boys because I didn't want them to get all wet and have the things in our house were sitting in the entry way / kitchen while the carpet was drying.   It was finally dry this morning, so I'm much happier.

The boys discovered a new closet tonight! 

The little house....

We have been telling the boys we have a little house in the driveway.  The little house started as a POD, then a U-Haul.  Things were going so fast, Keith and I didn't talk through all the details and we went ahead and ordered the POD and had it delivered.  We wanted to clear all the clutter out of our house and get rid of anything we won't need for the next six months.  The POD was a great idea because then we wouldn't have to move things in and out of storage.  But then after we talked through things, we figured out it was going to cost about $1200 just to get our stuff to Iowa and cover one month of storage, then every month after that is about $170 and we have no idea how long our stuff will be in storage.  Probably three months minimum.  So, we opted to spend a couple hundred dollars on a U-Haul and a little extra loading / unloading work.  And of course, thanks to my parent's basement, for holding all our junk!  Everything else will stay at our house until the house is sold and the mover move everything.  We still ended up having to pay $75 for the POD, but much better than two or three thousand dollars!

The boys thought the little house was pretty cool!

Great Christmas idea for a two year old.....

GET OUT ALL YOUR BABY TOYS!!  We have been spending a lot of time in the basement packing and the boys have been having a blast getting into their old baby toys.  Carter sat in this jumper for like 20 minutes!  How I miss these toys that "trap" your baby!  I think I could use a two year old trap.  So funny with Carter in it, he is such a tank, it just sunk!

Basement from drab to fab....maybe?

 So far in an attempt to get our house on the market, we have quickly learned not only is the housing market bad, but very few homes have moved since April and December tends to be the worst month of the year.  One big downside of our home is that we have under 2,000 finished square feet.  On the positive, our basement is a great size giving the next owner an opportunity to practically double in size.  We currently have a finished bedroom and bathroom downstairs right now, but the rest is unfinished storage.  At this point, we will never see a return on investment to finish off the basement, nor do we have the time.  But I found this really cool, free program called floor planner to design floor plans, or even just layouts for parties, events or decorating.  It's super cool and really easy to use, I did these "visions" of our basement in a few hours and it was really fun!  Hopefully these will help buyers see great possibilities with our home! 

Here are a few pics I grabbed as I went....

Carter!

Work Gear

Some people wear rubber gloves to clean, my boys wear rubber boots.  They were being so goofy, they would stand by the fridge, laugh, run to the door, laugh, run back to the fridge, laugh some more... you get it! 

Carter looks like a giant compared to Dylan in these pictures.  Dylan has been nibbling like a bird lately and Carter has been eating about anything you put in front of him. 

Moving crew hard at work

What a busy week, it went by way too fast.  We only have two more days with Keith here and have not made as much progress on the move as we had hoped.  This week was pretty busy. 

Monday:  we left work early to meet with a realtor, then I drove to Iowa that evening

Tuesday:  Keith met with another realtor, I spent the day in Des Moines meeting with some people and got home around dinner.

Wednesday:  I had to take Dylan to the doctor, Keith was out until 7ish with a group from work doing a little bit of celebration.  Carter had a 12 hour bug, he had thrown up a few times right before I got to daycare, then again in the car on the way, then again in the bathtub.  Luckily he was good all night and fine the next day.

Thursday:  Keith went to the city to schedule another required inspection, which you have to go in to schedule, they won't do it over the phone and they were able to squeeze us in next Friday! Kinda ridiculous.  I was home late, a group from work went out to celebrate an engagement.

Friday = tired!

Wordless Wednesday

Mommy Confession

After five straight days Keith finally managed to get these yellow undies off of Carter!

I bought a pack of big boy underwear for them and had intended on using them for stocking stuffers.  The moment they saw them they thought they were pretty cool and wanted to wear them.  Since we were at Grandma's house, we just put them over their diapers.  Since then Carter has not only wanted his underwear on at all times besides bath, he wants the yellow pair.  We tried to sneak them away several times.  Tried to convince him of a nice blue pair or a really cool red pair, but he demanded yellow.  Hopefully he forgets about them tomorrow morning or else I need to go buy several pairs of yellow underwear.  And if you ask him what color they are, without question he will get really excited and say "yellow, yellow undies".  He's so proud of them!