Photo Overload

No, I won’t be over-loading you with photos in this post.

Lately I have become ever increasingly paranoid about “losing” the blog.  That one day suddenly all of it will be gone.  And since I have printed hardly any pictures, have written down nothing in a baby book, everything contained in this blog is it.

So I set off this week looking at options for printing the blog, turning it into a book.  Basically, I, very uncharacteristically, am procrastinating party planning.  So while I’ve got a gigantic “To-Do” list, that did not contain “print blog”, I now suddenly have spent countless hours, stayed up way past my bedtime, working on this new project.

Finally I settle on a middle ground….create and “print to PDF”, so I can figure out real printing options later.

I make 2008, the year the blog started, only 54 pages from April through December.  Next, I make 2009, a full year, which comes in at a whopping 253 pages.

Then I go to make 2010.  It is taking forever to create….what is going on?  I’m tired, it is past my bedtime, come on computer!!!

“Error message:  you have 1,689 photos, our site can only use 1,500 photos”

whoa.

Why Blog?

I have MANY reasons for blogging.  A few of them that first come to mind are: Grandma and Papa who live far away and don’t get to see the boys as often as I know they’d like; a modern day baby book to capture all the milestones, the funny stories, the FUN we had and to capture it before my memory (ever too quickly) fails me;  and I have TWO pictures of MY childhood and I am hell bent on making sure things are different with MY family.

But, I read something the other day that really hit home with me, another reason for the blog…..if you notice lately, I post a lot of blog posts all at once, mostly because I am busy and tired by the end of the days, but really, when we are having a really rough patch, the pictures and the stories help me think of the good moments in between all those tantrums and back breaking days.  They help me reconnect with how truly lucky and blessed I am to have these little people in my life.  They help remind me that they do really love me, even when they have a tough time showing it.

So the blog is as much for ME as it is for family, friends and the boys to look back upon when they are older.  Thank you modern technology for saving me thousands in therapy sessions!

PS, I felt like doogie howser typing this.

Sunday Afternoon

If Finn gets 5 (out of 7) stickers on his bedtime reward chart, he gets to choose a treat that we all get to go together on Sunday afternoons.  He so far has chosen either Yogurt Tap or Dairy Queen.  This week, for the first time, Finn got all SEVEN stickers!  I mean it was an awesome bedtime week!

 

So, off we went to Dairy Queen!

Who eats an ice cream cone with a spoon?  Riley.

And then we went to a “fountain” to play!

Kellen in his giant hat….

See how happy he is?!  :)

  

A little dip for Kellen too!

 

And the big boys!

   

And rock climbing!

Bubbles, Bubbles, On My Toes…

The boys took their first ever bubble bath tonight! 

First EVER?  you ask….well, Finn has eczema and his skin is just too sensitive for bubbles.  But I found some hypo-allergenic bubbles and was sure to lotion him up well afterwards.

The boys thought it was SO AWESOME!

        

Riley checking out the suds all over him!

 

This one is my absolute favorite!  I love how they are laughing so hard at each other and just having so much FUN!

 

Finn’s beard!

   

Brothers

The boys were super excited when they woke up and Kellen was hanging out in momma and daddy’s bed.  Here is the cuteness!

  

Riley giving the stink eye….

Kellen:  A little help here, mom?

 

Holding Hands!  :::heart melting:::

He’s on a roll…..

 

He’s been doing this for a couple of weeks now and it honestly didn’t even occur to me to grab the camera until a friend of mine posted a video of her baby doing the same thing!

Don’t worry Kellen, I’m on it now, all future milestones will be captured!

Things are looking up….

The new AC is definitely working!

And we got news that Finn got into the school we wanted to send him to for pre-k!!!!  This has been weighing on us heavily, and it really is the best news!  The school goes through 8th grade which will be awesome when we have all three boys in the same school!  School starts August 1st, which is just right around the corner, and a little shocking.  Now time to shop for his school uniform!  Eep!

Oh, and, I just saw a double rainbow.  Pretty sure that is double the good luck!

3 month comparison

Lately I have been seeing ALOT of Finn in Kellen, and other people are noticing the same as well.  I still think he looks a little like Riley, but he’s looking more like Finn every day.  So I went back to look at the older boys 3 month pictures and thought I’d share them all here!

Kellen is 3 months old!

3 months old, and all I get is this lousy t-shirt!

There is no well-check visit this month, so no updates on height/weight. But trust me, he is huge! He is mostly wearing 6-9 month or 6-12 month clothes now!  I mean, look at those cheeks and juicy thighs!

He celebrated turning 3 months old by sleeping through the night!  Put him to bed at 830, he slept until I woke him up at 7!  He was sucking on his hand, but still sleeping, and I hated waking him, but I really needed to feed him!  And he’s done it for the last three nights in a row now!  Rock Star!

He has started laughing a lot, mostly when I change his clothes, he’s super ticklish. 

He has been rolling from his belly to his back when I put him down for tummy time!

He has started holding toys and he watches, laughs at and talks to his toys hanging on his car seat.

He is the happiest baby! He smiles and coos all the time! And when he wakes up he doesn’t scream or cry, he just kind of makes noise to let you know that he is awake. He’s just sooooo sweet!  I’m kind of in love with him!

Summer FUN

We signed Finn up for 3 different weeks of summer camp at the Y this summer.  His first week of camp was “Little Scientist Camp” where they learned a lot about the weather and volcanoes! 

The first day they painted and learned about mixing colors, the next day they made snowflakes, the third day they made the weather wheel in the middle, the fourth day they made a volcano and had it erupt and the last day they colored pages of tornado, volcano and the water cycle.  And he got a Super Scientist Award certificate!

 

And coloring at home, our Mother’s Helper, Siena, made this adorable picture!

I just love to see Finn’s quiet time creations so I’m throwing this picture in here too!

I love how he even used a fire truck book in the line-up!

And the hits keep on coming….

So after sleeping in the living room together as a family and waking up butt crack early, we ate breakfast on the living room floor, talked to the AC guy who said he’d be out some time after 5pm, got dressed and the boys watched TV while I started to pack up some of our stuff for the gym and errands….and to have a complete and total meltdown. 

When I went outside to grab the car seat to reassemble it with the clean cover, I found the seat COVERED in THOUSANDS of tiny ants.

Meltdown.  Hyperventilating.  I hate bugs and now seriously all over my child’s seat? 

So I hose it down, but now the straps are soaking wet, I can’t put him in that.  Thankfully we have a back up seat in the basement so I grabbed it, assembled it and put it in the car and finished packing our things.

We head to Target, a very uneventful, and COOL trip!  And then we head to the gym so I can get Kellen’s membership card since he can go in the nursery now…..the card machine is broken.  So I went upstairs with him (the big boys in the nursery playing) and I sit in one of the cold dark empty studios and gather myself….and then fed Kellen before heading off to pizza for lunch, where….wait for it…..their AC is broken.

After a very sweaty lunch we headed to uncle Buzz’s house for a nice cold nap!  And then we hit the pool while we waited for the AC guy to call us to tell us he was on the way.  Find out he won’t be to our house until probably 7pm.  So I decide to just pack up and make dinner over at Uncle Buzz’s and we’ll spend the night there.  Packing up stuff for burritos for dinner when I realize I don’t have the spanish rice.

please.make.this.day.end.

It did end…..with news that we are getting a whole new AC unit.

A Father’s Day to Remember

Kellen, who had been sleeping well for the last week, did NOT sleep well the night before Father’s Day.  But I still got up with the boys and we got to work making daddy’s breakfast!  The boys were big helpers, they placed the biscuits on the pan for baking and they helped crack the eggs for scrambled egg(shell)s!  They helped put the cheese on the egg and cheese biscuits and helped carry the tray to daddy in bed!  And don’t forget the presents!!!

Before Father’s Day I had asked the boys what they wanted to get daddy for his special day.  They said they wanted to get him a hat and a T-shirt.  I picked out and ordered the T-shirt online, it says “Dad, since 2007”!!!  And we made a field trip to REI to pick out a new hiking hat for daddy!  (That trip was a nightmare.)  Daddy and his boys with his Father’s Day gear!

And his super cute card I made!

 

Then we got ready for church, had a great morning, even got to see my friends’ baby baptized at church and Kellen stayed in the church nursery for the first time.

Then everything went to hell in a hand basket.

We had decided we would go to Fox Bros for lunch.  We got there about 11:45am and there was a boat load of people waiting and our wait time was 35 minutes.  The place was packed, but thankfully we were able to wait inside instead of out in the sweltering heat.  But the boys were in no mood for waiting today.  They were starving.  They were cranky.  They were climbing on daddy like a jungle gym.  For 40 minutes.  I perched myself precariously on a little stool to nurse Kellen while we waited.  Finally we sat down.  Finn didn’t want to eat.  He had also complained the whole way to the restaurant that we couldn’t get a hold of uncle buzz and so now there wasn’t going to be anyone he knew there.  cranky.  tired.  hungry.  hot.

We get home, a little after 1pm, and it is sweltering hot in the house.  The AC is not working.  :(  We nap in the heat and pack up and get ready to go to the fountains at piedmont park.  Drive all the way there to find they are closed due to contamination.  So we called our pool to make sure it was open and drove there and swam and had a lovely time.  But once we get home, it is just so damn hot, and we realize that we had left Riley in his swim diaper from the park to the pool and he had peed.  Swim diapers, for those of you who do not know, do not actually hold any pee.  They are purely for holding poop.  So, if you pee in one, the pee goes right through.  All over the car seat and the car.

As we’re  heating up the grill, getting things going for dinner, notice that there are about 100 ants crawling all over the kitchen floor.  really?

we ended up borrowing an AC unit from friends of ours.  as the food was finishing on the grill, I took off to our friends to retrieve it.  I got the better end of the deal I’m afraid.  An hour in the car with the AC blasting and no children while Todd was sweltering at home trying to feed and bathe the boys.  Now THAT is a dedicated daddy!  Thankfully Kellen slept through his feeding time until I got home.

We put the pack n play in the living room so Kellen could sleep next to the AC unit.  We’ve got fans all over the house and blowing from the living room into the boys room so hopefully they will cool off eventually too.

And he is sucking his thumb. 

And mommy has heard too many tragic stories and so I couldn’t stand the boys sleeping in their hot room even with fans blowing, so I moved them to the living room and we had a slumber party. 

This day is in no way any indication of how much we love, cherish and adore our awesome daddy!  I don’t know another dad who is so hands on, loving, caring and genuinely so happy to be with his family!  We love you Todd!

Fountains!

Piedmont Park has a new fountain area that we tried out today with Uncle Buzz!  LOVE!  It is easy to get to (once you know where to park and where you are going, ha!), is the perfect size for little ones and nobody really knows about it yet so it is not crowded or crazy!  Riley kept sticking his face in the holes when the fountains would stop and kept getting nailed in the face and would laugh hysterically!  Sadly I couldn’t get it on video though, but I’m sure you can imagine!  lol!

 

Video!