An Awesome Weekend

We had an amazing weekend. It started off with Todd and I going to Heartland Lodge with the Multisport Club. Todd and I had decided to do this trip without kids so the boys stayed with his parents. We got to stay at this amazing lodge here....

and sleep in the comfiest bed ever............

Can you say Jacuzzi baby??? Woohoo!! A very relaxing way to end the night, complete with wine and strawberries thanks to Todd. If only I had one of these at home....

This is the view of the other lodge from the porch right off of our room.

This is one of the spectacular views we saw from our hayride.

This is a picture of everybody that went. We were the only ones that didn't bring our kids. Were we smart or stupid??? We enjoyed our time together but also spent a large majority of time with 9 other kids!! They were great kids though and we sure missed ours. We will definitely bring them with us next time because they would have had a blast. We did biking, running, mushroom hunting, a hayride, bonfire with s'mores, and had the most amazing spread of food at every meal. They feed you like a king there!! Everyone is already talking of doing it again at the end of August sometime. It is such a beautiful area with so much to do. It was definitely a relaxing and fun weekend.
When we got back Sunday we were supposed to have a cookout at Dad's cabin but the rain and cold took care of those plans. Matt and Beth decided to have us over to eat at their house instead. That made the boys VERY happy b/c I knew they were upset about not going to the cabin. We had great food and great times. Just watching the 6 cousins together is the best entertainment there is. The weather got nice enough that the kids were able to go outside after we ate.

Here is a picture of Ty and Aiden driving the gator. They were so cute driving around the yard like big guys. It makes you wonder what kind of conversation these two year olds were having.

Video of my future mountain climber. He's climbing up so he can go down the big slide with his Aunt Beth.

I had posted a picture awhile back of Drew and Grayson. Noah saw it and wanted his picture taken too. Doesn't the cat look so thrilled to be in it?

Aiden's Fortune

I've been dying to post about this but lost the fortune for awhile and couldn't remember the exact words. But I found it today, so here goes the story. Not too long ago, Aiden and I took my mom out to eat at Taste of Thai for lunch. Towards the end of our meal, Aiden informs me that he has to go poop. We dash off for the bathrooms and he ends up going pee instead. After we get back to the table, I open Aiden's fortune cookie for him. This is what it read..................
Now I know I have a sick and twisted sense of humor, but that's funny!! I'm still snickering over it.

At bedtime tonight, Todd and Aiden were singing their bedtime songs. Todd decided to tape them as a surprise for me. One is the 'ABC' Song and the other is "Are You Sleeping?" (I guess that's the name). That's Todd and Aiden's special song they always sing at bedtime. Aiden and I have a whole handful of songs that we do at bedtime. Can you see who the parent is that gets suckered into staying in his bed the longest?? :) Enjoy!

(It's such a shame the kid has no stuffed animals!)

Words of Wisdom From a 9 Year Old

Drew: "Mom, I just realized that if Noah and I didn't didn't lie in bed and talk so much at night, that we would fall asleep a lot quicker."

Brilliant, my son.

Reality Check Please

We had to take the boys shoe shopping the other day. Aiden was ready for a size 9, Noah had outgrown his soccer shoes and a new season was starting, and Drew's shoes, which weren't very old, looked like they had gone through WWIII. I assumed Drew would still need a 4 or 4 1/2 but they were too small. We measured his foot and he needed a size 5. No big deal....I look up and realize the kids section ends at 4 1/2 and then we are to the womens shoes. Hmmm, that's wierd. I'm looking around trying to find a size 5 when it hits me like a ton of bricks. The size 5 is over IN THE MEN'S SECTION. I think I felt a little faint, honestly. Sure enough, there is a sign that says Men's Size 5. When did this happen?? To make it worse, the size 5 sandals he tried on fit perfectly but the shoes were too small. I couldn't find them in a 5 1/2 and when Drew suggested a 6, I just couldn't even go there. I had to leave. Luckily we found him some shoes later in the day in a size 5.

When you look at this picture you probably see a handsome, grown up looking 9 year old holding his cat. But when I look at it, most of the time..............

I still see this................. A sweet little guy....with a cat.

The Baker

Aiden and I decided to make Lemon Crinkle cookies to take over to my mom and dad's for supper the other night. He helped to pour and stir and then I was supposed to roll the dough into balls and he would roll them in the powder sugar. Before we got to that part, he leaned over the bowl of powdered sugar and blew really hard. It exploded all over his face, shirt, counter and chair. All I could do was laugh. He seemed to enjoy it too. I cleaned him up and then we finished the cookies.........they were delicious!!!

What do you think of Aiden's new shirt?? "My Mom Rules"

Yeah, he kinda likes me.

Since I'm an American Idol fanatic, I thought I'd leave you with this video. I am a HUGE David Cook fan and this is my favorite song by him so far, though he's been amazing every week (and sexy too! woohoo). Who would have thought "Hello" by Lionel Richie would make such a cool rock ballad??

My Sweet Baby Is Home

We took Grayson in on Tuesday to get declawed. He had to stay overnight which made me sad. I missed cuddling with my furry little guy. I also have to admit I missed having him get into his kitty mischief that he is already known for. But he is home, he seems to be doing ok, and we got plenty of cuddling in yesterday. As you can see from the picture above, he's got it pretty good around here.

So now he can get back to doing all those things that he loves to do around the house.............

Wiping the counters off............

Reading his books.............

Doing the dishes..................

Getting ready to do a load of laundry.................

Ahhhh, life is back to normal now that Grayson is home.

***We are working at trying to keep him off our kitchen counters. Just didn't want to gross you guys out thinking he hangs out there while we cook!

Busy Weekend

Saturday morning started off bright and early with Aiden and Hives. No, Hives isn't a friend, it's this annoying crazy breakout that hits my boys every now and then. Usually I can come up with some explanation for them but not this weekend. He broke out 3 times Saturday and 2 time Sunday, basically every time his Benydryl wore off. Saturday morning was the Bridge the Gap to Health Walk/Run. Todd ran the 1/2 marathon and did awesome. It was his first official one so I was proud of him for doing it and finishing in 40th out of over 100 men. My Aunt Janet, cousin Kris, my friend Johnna and I all did the 5k Walk. Johnna tried to talk me out of it b/c it was so cold but I'm so glad we stuck it out. Yes, it was in the 30's, very windy, and yes, we did have snow flurries, but we kicked butt and I actually broke out in a sweat. It was a lot of fun. Here's a pic of the 4 of us after the race. I look scary as hell which is why I made the picture so small. :)

I think that's my husband jogging over there on the other bridge. I saw 3 guys that looked like him so hopefully one of them was him! :) Running back and forth across the Mississippi River is awesome, even when the wind is blowing so hard that you have tears coming out of your eyes and your cheeks are numb!!

After the race, I had to hurry home and shower and head to work for the day. When I got off of work, Todd and I met Scott and some of his friends at the KC for a Trivia Night. It was a lot of fun. We didn't do too great, we found out you had to be really old or a huge history buff to get a lot of answers right but we laughed out butts off at some of the creative answers we came up with. It may scare you to know that I DID know the answer to "What musical instrument does Spongebob Squarepants play?" Yeah, it scared me too. I yelled out "Ukelele" before I even thought about what I was doing.

Sunday was my niece Ellie's baptism. She looked so beautiful in her Grandma Chele's baptismal gown....she even had pink toenail polish on her itty bitty toes. What a doll. Todd was her Godfather and he was so excited and proud to be!! This picture was taken after wards at her party after she had changed out of her dress. Grandpa John was snuggling with her and got some cute smiles out of her. If you look closely you can see her necklace with a cross on it that she got. A precious gift for a precious girl.

What a wonderful weekend in spite of the nasty weather. Good weather forecasted for the week. I hope we get every last bit of it. The boys get out of school in 5 weeks for summer vacation. Seems hard to believe when we haven't had much of a spring yet!!

A Favorite Movie Clip

Whenever I start to feel slightly crazy....like I did last week, I always think of this movie clip from National Lampoon's Vacation. It never fails to crack me up and definitely represents my mood at times. We always joke that when our whole family goes on vacation, we are the epitome of the Griswold's. (sorry for the language in this, I can't edit that!)




Gotta get ready for work. I have a lot of stuff to post about my weekend. Hopefully I"ll get to it tonight sometime. Have a great monday!

New Me

Ok, I am SOOO over my post from this morning. That darn roof will get fixed, I've actually enjoyed a cozy rainy day at home with Aiden, made a yummy lunch, had fun playing with my little guy, colored my hair, and watched American Idol Gives Back from last night. THAT definitely changes your perspective on a lot of things!! What an awesome and inspiring 2 1/2 hours of TV that was!!

When I was making lunch today, Aiden was sitting in a chair by the deck window and watching the rain. He started singing to the rain so I caught a couple of quick pics. I think this one was "Itsy Bitsy Spider".

This is my little guy gazing out at the rain pondering some of the biggest mysteries of the universe......."A purple dinosaur....why?", "Hiding the candy bowl...really? You think I can't find it?, and "Why can't I say 'oh dammit'"?

I also took this cute little video of him. I still can't figure out how to rotate the video. Sorry for the neck cramps!!

Last but not least, a clip from Alvin and The Chipmunks. We watched this about 4 times over the past 5 days. It was definitely a hit in our house. My boys were sad to return it to Blockbuster yesterday but today I discovered that clips of all the songs from the movie are on YouTube so the boys got to enjoy some Chipmunk fever before school today. This was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

These things happen in 3's.........

I'm giddy, delirious, crazy, insane, I'm not sure what. Who would have thought my day would start like crap once again.....all before 6:30am??? I think I may have mentioned back when we were remodeling our kitchen that we discovered a roof leak when we had the walls torn down. We were feeling so lucky that we discovered it THEN instead of after we had installed new walls and cabinets. We gave it a temporary "fix" since it was the dead of winter with the plans of fixing it when it got warmer. Guess what?? It wasn't good enough. (insert half crazy laugh here) All of this crazy rain is leaking through our roof, down the inside of our walls and coming out of the ceiling in our basement. I am sitting here typing as I listen to the drip, drip, drip sound of water hitting the bucket. Bless my hubby's heart, he was almost late for work so he could crawl around up in the attic to put buckets to catch the water until he came home. I don't even want to know what it will take to fix this or the cost.
I promise next time I blog I will have something witty to say, a cute picture, a heartwarming story.....something better than the whining and complaining I've done the past couple of days. This nasty weather, unending sickness, and other crap is getting to me. UGH. Todd is doing a half marathon this saturday and I am doing a 5K. The weather forecast??? A high in the upper 30's with a chance of flurries. For real??? It's the middle of April Mother Nature!!!

I'm Freaking Out Here

Yesterday's post was meant to be sort of funny. My day wasnt bad, just a little frustrating in the beginning. Today is not starting out well. (thank goodness I didn't waste time on a to-do list!). It all began with cuddling in bed with Aiden this morning. He tells me he's going to "choke". His word for puke. He then proceeds to puke chocolate milk all over himself and my bed. Remember those sheets I changed and washed yesterday because of his bloody nose? Yep, I'm washing them again today. Kid got another bubble bath this morning. What the hell?? He can't be sick, nobody else is allowed to get sick. He's had rotavirus twice this winter. ENOUGH!! I'm done!!! Luckily he's running around like a monkey and seems to be just fine. We'll see.
Then I see an ambulance pull in the driveway across the street. The thing is, it didn't have it's lights or sirens on. That really scares me. The lady that lives there is about 92 and lives on her own but I see her daughter and grandson there. I'm freaking out that she passed away and trying to figure out other reasons why the ambulance would come without lights and sirens. She's such a sweet lady and so good to my boys. She's always doing something for them at every holiday and just loves when we come over to visit. The boys hadn't left for school yet so Drew was worried too, my sweet sensitive one. So I'm watching for them to bring her out on the stretcher when I remember that I left Noah's cup of milk on the counter. Crap, I run in the kitchen but I'm too late. The cat had helped himself to some and had spilled it all over the kitchen counter in the process. There are milky paw prints on my bar stools, the counter and the kitchen floor and the milk had gotten all over the paper and a puzzle sitting there. I get it all cleaned up, run back into the living room and see that they had just put her in the ambulance so I wasn't able to get a look at what was going on. Darn. They left and her family followed soon after. I hope I see someone over there today once I'm dressed and presentable so I can go see if she's ok. I'm worried. All of this, and it's only 8:45am. I can't wait to see what the rest of my day is like! :)

Just To Show How Kids Can Change Your Plans

I had my "To Do" list all ready for today. I had stuff to accomplish and wanted to have some fun with Aiden on top of it. But here it is almost 3:00 in the afternoon and I've only accomplished a small part of that list. Why??? Kids.
6:00 am Aiden wakes me up and says he needs new pj's. He had wet through his so off we go to change his diaper, PJ's, and bedcovers. There's one load of laundry I hadn't planned on doing today.
7:45 am Aiden wakes up in my bed and comes out with me and the boys. I notice he had a bloody nose so I get him cleaned up and then go in to inspect my bed. Hmm, bloody pillow, sheets, and COMFORTER! Another load of laundry I hadn't planned on doing today. I also hadn't planned on changing the sheets on these beds as I JUST CHANGED THEM ON THE WEEKEND.
8:15am After taking the older boys to school I come home and Aiden informs me he has a poopy diaper. So much for going on the potty like he had been. Little did I know that this one would be a messy one too. It's all up the backside, in his clothes, and of course......I get it on the carpet. I pop him in the shower to clean him up, clean the tub and then let him play in a bubble bath. He's now clean and dressed, I have the first load of laundry going (of the laundry I HADN'T planned on doing today) and had the carpet shampooer upstairs to clean the poopy carpet.

Can you see where I'm going with all of this?? But lucky for me, I DID get the dishes all done, make home made soup with Aiden and play with him for a bit. Now I'm off to remake the two beds that had to be washed and get to washing the clothes that I had planned on washing today. Oh, and I still need to hit the grocery store because it rained all morning long and the thought of pushing a crapload of groceries and a toddler in the pouring rain across a flooded parking lot did nothing to entice me. At least I have my supper menu planned!! And I'm just crazy enough to sit down and make another "To Do" list for tomorrow! :)

Funny Shit

I am a HUGE cat lover and get a kick out of cute animal pictures. This one made me LMAO!!!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

This week has been full of a little bit of everything. I'll start with the Bad, so everything else makes more sense!

BAD: Noah started running a fever Tues night and by Fri was still running a fever and his coughing was getting worse. I took him to the dr. and like I thought, he had pneumonia again (he had it in Oct too). It didn't seem to be as bad this time as it was only in one lung but he feels much worse this time, probably because of the fever. So he is on Zithromax and although he's had one dose, he's actually feeling worse today because now he has sinus congestion kicking in which makes the cough worse, plus that dang fever is still hanging on 4 days later!
Another Bad (with some Good mixed in), cuddling with Noah in your lap (good), and having Aiden get jealous (bad) and saying "No, I'M your sunshine" (good). Although it was sweet, he has been so rotten this week with Noah being home sick and not getting my sole attention like he's used to. I did enjoy having some special time with Noah during Aiden's naps though. I hate that he's sick, but I sure do miss him during the days and enjoyed having him around.

GOOD: Drew melted my heart this week. Wednesday night he was out with Todd and Aiden and asked to stop at Walmart. He's my little shopper. This time though, he wasn't shopping for himself. He used his own money to buy some new Pokemon toys for Noah that he knew he'd like all because Noah was sick and Drew felt bad for him. I got teary when I saw him come home with such an extravagant gift (He spent $15 of his own money, which is a lot for him). I hugged him and told him how thoughtful and sweet he was and that if Noah didn't act too excited, it was b/c he was feeling really miserable right then. Well, it really perked Noah up and he was thrilled. That made Drew's day to make Noah feel a little bit better, even for a moment. And my heart was touched that he did something so selfless for someone else.
Another Good, watching Alvin and The Chipmunks movie and falling in love with the adorable Alvin, Simon, and Theodore even thought you know they are just computer generated animals. It's also awesome finding a movie that all five of us can sit and watch together and enjoy.
One more Good, when I got off of work Friday I ran into my Aunt Janet and she was on her way to meet my Aunt Jer and Aunt Jane for lunch and she invited me along. We ate at the Thai place down from where I work. I had always wanted to try it and it was soooo yummy. Aunt Janet treated me to lunch which was incredibly sweet of her (Thank You!!) and I enjoyed some time for myself before going home to a sick one, an onry one, and Drew who has been an angel this week, thank goodness!!!

UGLY: Watching your sick child have coughing spasms so bad that he can't catch his breath and he ends up throwing up from choking. It broke my heart. Also, doing everything in your power to get a first dose of antibiotics in your child's system and wasting a couple doses mixing it with various things. Even uglier, is wanting to strangle said child because short of strapping him down and forcing it down his throat, you don't know what else to do. End result, mixing it with honey makes it go down smooth. Duly noted for next 4 doses.



I'm so glad the forecast is for nice weather this week. I'd like all the boys' coughs to disappear once and for all and get Noah back to his old self. I really jinxed myself last week when I said the only thing we hadn't had this winter was fevers and sure enough, ole Noah got it not too long after. He's definitely had it the worse of the 3 boys this winter.

The Lion Whisperer

Last night our school had a family night at the public library. We took all three boys for a puppet show, snacks and fun with Leo the Lion. Now we've met Leo the Lion before. On that day, Aiden was excited to see him but scared to get too close. It was like there was an invisible wall that he hit if he got within 3 feet of him. So last night he got a little worried look on his face when they said Leo the Lion was going to come out. But he overcame his fear quickly this time, too much in fact. I called him The Lion Stalker. He would not leave this poor lion alone. And the lion sat with the kids throughout the puppet show. (see picture #2) Poor Leo. At one point, Todd went over to try and get him away from the lion to give him some breathing room. Aiden replies "Weave me awone! Go over and hold mom's hair!" as he points at me. Anyone that knows Aiden knows he has an obsession with my hair. I guess he thought that would appease Todd. Afterwards, we got to get our pictures taken with Leo which was big excitement and we even got our own miniature Leo the Lions to bring home. Aiden now has a thing for lions.
By the way, the puppet show was Wizard of Oz. When the Cowardly Lion came out, Aiden points to him and says to Leo. "That's you!"

I tried to capture his kiss to the lion on film but with the delay, I got this.

Poor Leo huddled against the wall with his fans crowding in around him.

Noah and Aiden with Leo. Drew thought he was too big to get his picture taken with a fake lion.

The Poop Hit The Pot

It ain't no April Fool folks, Aiden has pooped in the potty every day for a week now!! Of course he'll still go in his diaper too but it's all about baby steps people. This morning he pooped AND peed in the potty so after we took Drew and Noah to school we celebrated with breakfast from McDonalds. (or Old MacDonalds as Aiden calls it) I had a coffee and he had Cinnamon Melts. Of course I felt it was my duty to help him eat some of them. Sinful is all I can say. MMMMM. I'm being very laid back about potty training this time around, lazy might be a better word for it. Potty training the first two was hell and I'm not ready to go back there. He's shown an interest much earlier than they did and I just follow his lead. He kind of goes hot and cold with it but it's still progress. I figure this summer will be a good time to really kick it and have him potty trained well before his 3rd bday. The other two were already 3 by the time they got over their stubborness and decided to do it.
And what's up with 40 degree weather on the first day of April?? I wish THAT were an April Fool.