Interesting Holiday Weekend

For Memorial Weekend we headed up to the cabin. It started out great, my kids were pretty good in the car which is always an added bonus. Then Friday night around 11, papa went to check on all the kiddos. Stephen was sitting up in bed with puke all over him and the bed. He continued to puke about 4 more times until 1am. Once we got a bucket and showed him how to get it in the bucket, it wasn't so bad. I had a rough night though. Every time I heard him move, I jumped up ready to catch the next round of vomit. So that was Friday. Then Saturday, LeAnne and John got sick. They seemed to have it a little worse though, coming out of both ends all day. By this point everyone was bracing themselves, wondering who was going to get it next. Sunday Grandpa got it. I think everyone was ok on Monday, and now today Grandma caught the bug. I am still doing ok, so hopefully it misses me all together.

Other than the pooping and puking, we had a great weekend filled with ATV rides, fishing, swinging, and playing in the sandbox. Another relaxing weekend up at the cabin!

Check out lots of pics on flickr!

11 Months

We are officially one month away from Aria's first birthday. Everyone says it will go by fast, but it is going at warp speed with two kids. Aria is FINALLY sleeping through the night consistently. I believe she is only days away from walking by herself. She was taking 2 steps today before realizing no one was holding her hand, then crashing to the ground. Still no teeth that can be seen. I swear I will wake up one day and she will have a mouth full of teeth. She was really crabby and whiny today, so maybe those suckers are fixin' to bust through. It doesn't stop her from eating french fries, lasagna, apples, grapes, ravioli... pretty much anything that is on my plate has become fair game for her too. Oh... I think I finally got her to get over her hatred of shoes. I got her some really cute Nike's yesterday that she can't get off on her own. She is readjusting to crawling, standing, and walking with them on. I even left them on during her nap, I am sure it was absolute torture for her. But at least she is used to having shoes on her feet, and just in time for walking.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I am sure it will be amazing just knowing that I have the most amazing kids in the world. But I can't help but be a little sad given my current situation. Good thing we will be busy busy most of the day.

Happy Easter

Of course I forgot to bring my camera with to Milwaukee for Easter. I am waiting to get some pics emailed from my Mom and possible my sister too (hint hint guys). Overall I think the kids had a great time, and so did the adults. We started off with an Easter egg hunt at Auntie LeAnne's house, that went perfectly. I highly suggest color-coding eggs for the kids so there are no fights about who got more. Next we headed over to my uncle's house for the BIG family get together. I am always a little stressed at these get togethers. It is really hard to keep track of a 2 year old and keep a 10 month old happy when there is 27 people everywhere. But again, everyone had fun and ate a lot of yummy food.

Not Much...

It feels like we have been so busy, but when I think about it not much has been going on. With the occasional having another couple over for game or movie night, not much interesting to post about. On New Years we went to a friends house that we haven't really seen in about a year. They have 2 boys very close in age to our kids so that was a lot of fun to see them play together. Aria was a real trooper too. She stayed up until 10ish and was perfectly happy with all the attention she was getting and all the commotion of the boys playing. The adults played Wii (I secretly want one now), so we all had a great time. Stephen stayed up until 1 when we finally went home. And special thanks to Aria, who slept through me putting her jacket on, in and out of the car seat, jacket off, and straight through until 7am. Mommy really needed that.

I have been working too since Robin was off all week. Well, I don't know if you can call googling the Bahama islands that we are going to for fun stuff to do, scooter rentals, snorkeling sites, and secluded beaches really working. Oh... I was scheduled to work on Christmas day (no big deal since we were done with everything on Christmas Eve.) So I get there, and about 45 min later someone else comes in. (Typically at this house there is only one staff person on duty at a time.) So they tell me to go home, "Great I have to call my scheduler first." Long story short, I went home after 45 min, and got paid the entire shift holiday pay. What a nice Christmas present!!

The Bahama countdown begins: 22 days

This is our Cruise ship: The Norwegian Sky

Merry Christmas!

I just up loaded all the pictures from Christmas onto flickr, so check them out. It was the best Christmas yet. Stephen was totally into it. All he wanted to do was rip open every single present he saw. Aria had a great time too, riping some paper then eating it. Lyhna was super excited about her new art easel. Stephen loves his new nerf gun with laser pointer. I spent all morning playing with every new toy with Stephen. It has been great.

8 Days to go...

... Actually 7 for us. Santa always comes the night of the 23rd around here, because Lyhna is so special that Santa makes 2 trips for her. I think I am about 85% done with Christmas shopping. I could get the rest done in an hour or 2, without children or spouse. It takes twice as long if I don't go myself. I am really looking forward to Christmas morning around here. Stephen can't wait to tear open the presents under the tree. He points to every present under there and says "Open that one Mommy?" He already got into Wes's when I was in the bathroom, he is so quick. And little Aria is crazy about paper, so that should be fun too.

We are slowly getting closer to sleeping through the night on a regular basis. Aria still throws me for a loop every now and then. It is pretty typical for her to get up around 11:30 and 5 these days. I can totally handle that. It the nights when she gets up and 12, 2, 3:30, 5 that kill me. She is nothing like Stephen at this age that's for sure.

Well, it is nap time now and I am going to take advantage. I will finally eat something today, and wrap some more presents, maybe make a batch of cookies too. That depends on how long the munchkins sleep of course.

Snowed In

Holy crap! When the weather man said a minimum of 6-12 inches of snow over night, he wasn't joking. There is easily a foot of snow and it is still coming down, possibly another 6 inches today! Of course Lyhna has a snow day.

I posted some new pictures today too (St. Nick and first foods). Lyhna got pizza playdoh, glitter lava, a Tinkerbell book, and lip gloss. Stephen also got playdoh, his own keys, and undies. Finally, Aria got bibs and food. Both of which she was very excited about.

Happy shoveling everyone!

The Holidays are here...

My Wine Man

(I love it!!)

Thanksgiving was great up at the cabin. It gave great insight of what is to come for Christmas. Only half of all the grandkids/great-grandkids were there and it was chaos, but in a good way. Dinner was great of course. Unfortunately deer hunting didn't go as well. I guess the men didn't see much, other than a baby that was injured already. Robin put it out of its misery. We did craft hour with the kids. Of course Stephen wanted no part of it, but the girls loved it. There was lots of reminding to share, but no time-outs!

I put up the tree today and some of the other decorations that I have. Stephen was a great helper with the tree. We are still working on not touching the ornaments now that they are up. I need to get a good picture of all the kids for a Christmas card. I am really slacking this year. I meant to get a picture up north over Thanksgiving, but that didn't happen. So the wheels are turning my brain to come up with something creative for the picture this year.

I am planning on making a gingerbread house from scratch this year. Maybe this week sometime. Robin even expressed some interest in doing it too. He will be the architect and I will be the decorator. I am sure there will be some interesting pictures of that to come.

I survived...

...My first weekend of hunting by myself with 3 kids. Daddy came home deerless, but that is perfectly okay with me. I spent "widows weekend" with my family in Milwaukee. I got the super family discount at Kohl's thanks to Gramma Popcorns lifetime discount. So now I am completely done with Aria ( I could have gotten her nothing and she wouldn't care), Lyhna is almost done (just need a couple toys), and I would like to get Stephen some little plastic dinosaurs then he will be done, Robin is done, Wes is done. All that is left is grandma and papa, my niece, and our exchange gifts for my family. Not a bad start before Thanksgiving.

It seems that we are getting farther and farther away from sleeping through the night. Maybe Aria is going through a growth spurt, or getting some teeth soon. She is back to getting up 2 time a night now, at midnight and 4am for a bottle. At midnight I just gave her the nookie a couple times but she definately wanted a bottle. I was really annoyed by this last night. I thought she did this Saturday night was because we weren't at home and she was in the carseat. I hope this doesn't keep up.

I just realized last night that my little Stephen isn't so little anymore. When I told him to go potty, he did without a fight. When he was all done he came running out saying "Mommy, I pooped!" Sure enough there was a big stinky turd in the potty. Normally I have to watch for the poop signals then tell him to go, not this time. Then, when it was time to get his jammies on he said "No Mommy, I do it." Wouldn't you know he got his pants on all by himself, and the top with very minimal assistance. When did all this start happening? I feel like I will blink my eyes and he will be moving out. Thank goodness he will still be my little buddy for a few more years.

Fancy Shmancy

I finally found Lyhna & Stephen's Christmas outfits. I was very disappointed with Targets selection for both boys and girls holiday stuff. Thank goodness for shopko. They will be super cute and all three will coordinate. I've had Aria's since before she was even born. Got to love The Children's Place outlet clearance sales. I got 2 different outfits for $1 each. I can't wait to see them all dressed up. Christmas will be very interesting this year. Three babies 6 months and under, 3 toddlers all 3 and under, and 5 big kids.... C-R-A-Z-Y!!

A Good Start

***Updated Below***

Yesterday we hit the doorbusters sale at Toys r Us and did really well. I think we got a pretty good start on our Christmas shopping for the kids. We ended up mostly getting Stephen stuff, so he is probably half done. My nephew is almost done too. So I feel really good about that.

Stephen is in a funk today. I couldn't get him to eat lunch, and now he is totally fighting his nap. He has been crying for about 15 minutes. I will not go in there and let him out. We are going to a friends birthday party tonight, so he definately needs to take a nap.

***45 minutes and one poopy diaper later he is still crying, not sleeping!!***