The Burggraaf Blog

Despair

2012-01-14T07:10:00.002-06:00

"Jake, the cookies are all gone." Picture me doing the signs for cookie and all gone.

Christmas 2012

2012-01-07T15:38:00.005-06:00

Boy, was Christmas really 2 weeks ago already? Let's see if I remember how things went...

Christmas Eve day we drove to Mike's aunt and uncle's house to celebrate Mike's grandpa's 92nd birthday. We hadn't been there since Jake was born, so it was nice to see Mike's grandparents, 2 aunts, and uncle again, as well as Kevin, Cynthia, and Katherine. It was tricky to go there with Jake. It's a little more than an hour away, and Jake still naps twice a day but does not sleep in the car- never has, and we wanted to make sure he got good sleep in so he'd be a good boy in church that evening. We were able to have him take a short nap at home that morning before heading down, and we got home just in time for Jake and Drew's afternoon naps.

Our church had services on Christmas Eve at 11, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Really, none of those times are great for us at this point in Jake's life. Given the length of the church service and the time required for parking and getting seats together, all services basically run into nap/bedtime or mealtime. So we opted to go at 5:00, and Mike's mom volunteered to usher at that service so she would be able to save us seats, which is always a huge help. Between all the services on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, there were over 26,000 people in attendance. Wow. Anyway, the service on Christmas Eve was amazing, as usual, but longer than tolerable for a one year-old. Even with the dinner I packed for him to eat throughout, Jake got pretty antsy by the end. I look forward to 2 years from now, when I think going to church will finally be pretty easy again.

After church we were all starving, and it was almost 7:00, so we picked up some Arby's and ate pretty quickly before getting Jake in bed. Then Zach, Drew, and I decorated some cookies. Yes, I'm in my pajamas already in this picture.

I had to say more than a couple of times, "No, Drew! You can't eat the sprinkles right out of the bottle!" or "No, Drew! You can't lick that knife and put it back in the frosting, even if Aunt Becky and Aunt Sandy do that!" Ok, my sisters don't really do that, but they do love the frosting. Personally, I'm more about the sprinkles.

Once the cookies were all decorated, it was definitely past bedtime, but we'd had such a fun time that we didn't mind. We picked a couple of cookies to leave for Santa, and the boys said goodbye to Herky, our elf, who was sitting up on our tree for his last night.

Once the boys were in bed, we got the soufflé and caramel rolls for the next day's breakfast made up, and when we felt sure the boys were sound asleep, we got to work on filling stockings. The stockings are too heavy for the stocking holders once they have anything in them, so we had to just lay them on the ground by the fireplace.

We did pretty good as far as getting things done in a timely manner and the next thing we knew, it was Christmas morning. Zach and Drew had had a sleepover in Drew's room, and I had set their clock back 15 minutes so that I'd have time to get up and nurse Jake and change his diaper before they actually got out of bed at 7:00 (or 7:15, really). It worked perfectly. They were excited to check out their stockings. We got a picture of Drew with the cars he asked Santa for, but somehow we did not get a single picture of Zach with his AT-AT Walker, which was what he had asked for. I think we got video of him opening that, but I'm feeling too lazy to attempt uploading it right now.

We had a nice, lazy morning. Curt and Linda stopped by for a few minutes to see the kids' gifts before heading to Curt's family's Christmas celebration. It was such a gorgeous day that after breakfast I went for a run outside, and later on Mike went out and golfed 9 holes. Who would think those 2 things were possible here on Dec. 25th?!

That evening Kevin, Cynthia, Katherine, and Sam came over to celebrate with us. We had homemade pizza (a new Christmas tradition, maybe?), Christmas cookies, and opened gifts.

Once the kids were all in bed, we 6 adults sat at the table and played Taboo. It was lots of fun, and my college friends will be pleased to know that though the group may have changed, the results didn't- the women won easily. And the guys could NOT claim that it was because we were sober and they weren't, as none of us were drinking.

It was a very lovely Christmas, and we were happy to not be traveling and to have a chance to share parts of it with some family.

Just Some Random Pictures From December

2012-01-02T20:36:00.010-06:00

Despite my intentions, I haven't been very good about blogging lately. So here are a bunch of random pictures from December in no particular order.

Zach and Drew have their own "spots" when they watch TV. Jake is catching on to this, and has decided that when those two are watching something on the loveseat, he should sit in the middle.

He doesn't sit still very well, though, so he usually ends up just annoying his big brothers. But that's a little brother's job, right?

Jake can be a very silly baby. One night while we were reading before bed, he decided he should read with his little blanket on his head. He just sat there as I read the books just like this, so I had to get a picture.

Another night before bed, Jake was too quick for me to get him dressed, and he crawled off and started playing with his pillow pet.

One afternoon recently, Jake just had a terrible nap. He couldn't breathe because he was totally stuffed up, so he was just very upset. Mike ended up going up to his room and holding him so he could sleep. It was sweet. Jake hasn't slept in our arms for months, so this was pretty sweet.

Way back towards the beginning of December, we went and visited Santa. We've gone to the same mall with the same Santa since Zach was about 18 months old. Last year Zach brought Santa a special rock he had painted, and Santa seemed to like it. So this year, when it was our turn, Zach right away said, "I'm Zach. I'm the one who brought you a rock I painted last year." Oh, please, play along, Santa, I thought. This first picture is when Zach was saying that to Santa.

Santa said, "Oh, yes, I remember. I still have that rock!" Whew! I was glad Santa said that, though I figured he didn't really remember or still have the rock.

This picture totally shows the comfort level of each kid as far as Santa goes. Zach is totally comfortable, Drew is mostly comfortable, but was ok having Zach be closer to Santa, and Jake was pretty content to watch from my arms.

We did decide to try to get a picture of all 3 boys with Santa. Here's how well that went.

I just love how Zach is holding Jake's hand and trying to talk to him. Such a sweet big brother (to Jake, anyway).

As we turned to leave, Santa looked right at me and made eye contact. I could tell he was going to say something, but I had no idea what. He leaned in a little closer so just I could hear, and he said, "I want you to know, I really do still have that rock. It meant so much to me that he brought me something." Awww, that was sweet. Zach had wanted to take something to Santa this year, but we sort of sprung the visit on him one afternoon when he got home from school (so we could avoid a line), so he didn't have time to prepare anything. I definitely think the boys will take something next year, though!

After visiting Santa, we went to the play area. Jake was much, much happier there.

Here's a cute picture of Mike and Jake some morning after Jake woke up.

The force is strong with these three.

Normally they're not dressed so similarly, but it was a rainy Saturday and these seemed like the perfect comfy outfits.

Here's Jake enjoying the tunnel Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Dick gave him for his birthday.

Jake was on an important call on my phone,

which is probably why he was so upset when I took the phone away. He sure lets you know when he is unhappy!

Here is Drew showing me his bowling ball face. He also does a great shark face, but I don't think I have a picture of that.

Just a cute one of Jake before Drew's preschool program. The next day Jake had his 12 month check-up. Turns out he is 20 pounds exactly, which bumped him up from the 8th percentile to the 12th percentile. And to compare, at 12 months, Zach weighed 21 pounds exactly, and Drew weighed 22 pounds exactly. So Jake is the lightest still, but also the tallest. He is 31 inches tall, which is the 83rd percentile. At 12 months, Zach was 29.3 inches tall, and Drew was 29.8 inches tall.

Jake is walking more and more now, but still mostly crawls. I think he is getting braver, though, and is trying to walk more often. He can get 6-10 steps before he falls over, but often it's more like 4-5. He still has just 1 little tooth, which he loves to have me brush (Santa put a toothbrush in his stocking).

Jake is great at going both up and down stairs. He loves to pretend to talk on the phone, and he's trying to figure out the remotes. He knows they somehow make sound come out of the TV area, but he hasn't quite figured out which buttons to push exactly. He has his own signs for help (hand over mouth, going "bah bah bah bah") and I think he tries to sign for the dogs. He says mama and uh-oh. He likes to put on shoes, both his own and other people's. Here he's trying on Drew's shoes and having lots of fun.

Jake also is getting better at using a spoon. He loves to try using a spoon whenever possible, so I try to give him lots of opportunities. Basically, if it's something I'd feed to him with a spoon, he and I both use a spoon and we trade off putting bites in his mouth. He loves pudding!

Jake really loves playing with his brothers' stuff and playing with his brothers in general. They find some creative stuff to play, that's for sure.

With the nice weather we've had, we've been able to get outside for quite a few walks with the dogs and even some swinging and sandbox playing. Jake loves to swing!

The nice weather has been great, but I worry we'll be paying for it come April. I am ready for a little snow, too.

Next up- Christmas pictures. Maybe I'll get them posted by Valentine's Day...

Drew's Preschool Program

2011-12-28T22:00:00.004-06:00

Catch-up time again. Drew's preschool program was a couple of weeks ago. It was great, and he did such a good job. It was interesting to watch him singing and doing movements compared to Zach, who had his own music program at school earlier in December. Drew seems to be our little performer. He does a much better job at age 3 and a half of staying with everybody and doing the right moves at the right times than Zach does at age 6 and a half. Here are some of my favorite pictures from it.

There's Drew, right in front in the navy and white striped sweater. He was happy to see us in the crowd.

This is Drew really getting into We Wish You a Merry Christmas, where the kids would swoosh one arm across their bodies in a movement that Drew told me is the sign (as in sign language) for "We wish you a merry Christmas."

And here's Drew with his favorite girl, Nessa. Nessa is Drew's teacher's daughter, and she is in one of the 4 year-old preschool classes. Drew rides to school with his preschool teacher, Nessa, and Nessa's little sister Landry. Nessa and Drew play together before the rest of the kids get to school, and they sure do seem to be good buddies. I just love this picture. They are so cute! Drew's teacher made a joke when we took this picture that it will be their engagement picture. Too bad Drew has that silly face going on!

One funny side-note- click here to see a picture from Zach's 3 year-old preschool program back in 2008. By pure coincidence, he was wearing the same exact outfit (ok, not the same shoes) that Drew wore this time. I hope it fits Jake for his 3 year-old preschool program in a few years, too!

ONE!

2011-12-13T20:33:00.007-06:00

Can you believe it's been a whole year since this freaking adorable picture was taken???

That picture was taken right before we left the hospital, and I love it. I really still am trying to accept the fact that my baby is ONE. Where did the last year go? It's been a great year, and I feel well-adjusted to having 3 kids. One of my good friends just had a baby, and I will admit, I do miss that sweet, snuggly, sleeping all the time (but only while being held) stage. However, on the other hand, Jake is learning so much and changing so much, and that makes him so much fun. It's just amazing to see his brain working and to see things click for him. For example, We have the book Oh, David by David Shannon, and on the page that says only, "P.U.," I always put my fingers on Jake's nose like I'm plugging it. So now when I get that book out to read, Jake immediately puts his hand up to his nasal region (he doesn't always get right on his nose). He also is starting to make animal noises. He likes to do a monkey (which involves a lot of leg-kicking, for some reason) and a cow. He's taken a few steps on a few different occasions, but isn't walking unassisted yet. Mike and I have a bet- I think it will happen by Dec. 27th, and Mike doesn't. We'll see who wins.

Jake's birthday was nice and low-key. He woke up in a happy mood.

He enjoyed feeding Mike some breakfast. One of Jake's latest tricks is getting into the pantry and getting out a small container of applesauce. Then he makes his "help me" noise until I put him in his seat, open the applesauce, and give him his own spoon. So far he's not very successful about actually getting any applesauce in his mouth, but he tries hard. He is definitely getting good at communicating what he wants, that's for sure.

Zach and Drew wanted me to make a candy-cane shaped cake for Jake that could also be a J. I wanted to make a snowman cake because it'd be easy, but I went with what the boys wanted. And I regretted it. It was a pain to frost. And then I realized that if we flipped it around, it'd be a backward J. Great. In the end it turned out ok, though it's not my best cake ever.

I made the shape by using a 9 inch round pan and a 9x13 inch pan and then cutting each in half and "pasting" them together, so there was enough to make a candy cane and a J. Whew! There was also enough batter left over for a few cupcakes. Considering we only had Mike's 2 sets of parents over for Jake's party, we had a lot of cake left over. I threw a huge chunk away today, actually.

Jake enjoyed trying to open a couple of presents, and Zach and Drew were incredibly good. They didn't take over or overstep their boundaries at all.

But he had to take a little break to take an important call on my cell phone.

Then it was cake time. He really loved us singing happy birthday to him, but I had the cake and Mike had the camera, so we didn't get the first rendition on video. Somehow he knew to blow out the candle, though he couldn't really do it. I was nervous he was going to try to grab the flame, so I helped him blow it out pretty quickly.

I gave Jake a big slab of cake. In hindsight, I know I should have done a couple of things differently. First, I would have stripped him down to his diaper, though I think he would have been cold. Second, I would not have used red frosting!

So here he is all nice and clean.

Checking things out...

Big brothers getting in on the action.

I cut the cake into some smaller pieces, and that helped to sort of get Jake more interested.

These next two really kind of crack me up.

Now he's got it figured out!

Want some cake?

All done and sooooooo big!

Somehow I managed to get him out of his high chair and into the bathtub without getting red frosting all over me. And I washed his clothes and don't even see stains! What a fun birthday!

I forgot to take his 12 month picture before giving him the cake, so I had to take it the next day in a different outfit (as opposed to the "Birthday Boy" onesie he was borrowing from cousin Myles).

What a great (and fast!) year it has been!!

Nope

2011-12-10T15:22:00.005-06:00

Some of the photos that didn't make the Christmas card this year, even though they're pretty darn cute.

I like this one because it's obvious they are all cracking up. I was making all sorts of crazy noises and faces, really working for those smiles.

First time they all took a bath together. I was giving Jake a bath, and Drew asked if he could get in. Then Zach walked in and said, "Can I get in, too?" It was kind of sweet.

These last 3 might be my favorite, but I guess they just didn't work on the Christmas card I wanted.

Catching Up Again

2011-12-03T21:10:00.009-06:00

I'm behind on blogging... again. I know I had better get myself caught up before Jake's big birthday next week and Christmas shortly after that. So this will be brief.

Here's Jake after enjoying some yogurt one morning for breakfast. This may have been the day I give him his own small spoon to try out. He likes to try it and knows what to do with it, but doesn't have the motor control yet to actually scoop food and get it to his mouth.

A couple of weeks ago I took Zach and Drew to the club to make gingerbread houses. It was fun to get some time with just them and me, as I don't often get that. We met up with our friends BJ & Susan, who were their with their girls, Anna and Lucy, and their nieces and nephew and Susan's parents. We all had a great time.

Drew working hard.

Mike grew up with Susan and her family, and we have hung out with Susan's sister's family before (most recently on Halloween), so the kids were all pretty comfortable with each other. Zach and Jon, who is just a year younger than Zach, had fun discussing and comparing their houses.

I made sure to get a picture of Zach and Drew with their houses. I am happy to report that I have finally let go and no longer feel the need to help the boys have pretty, symmetrical houses. It was very relaxing to sit back and just watch them make their masterpieces exactly as they wanted them.

We went straight from the club to the mall so I could run a couple of errands, and Drew had a tough time following directions and ended up not getting to play in the play area with Zach. That was fun, sitting outside the play area with Drew, who was very mad at me, while Zach played in the terribly crowded play area mostly to make a point to Drew about me meaning what I say.

Jake continues to show similarities to both Zach and Drew. He loves balls and throwing them (like Zach), and most recently, he likes to push cars along (like Drew).

Drew and Jake even pushed cars together one day last week. Drew constantly is driving cars, and on this particular day, suddenly Jake grabbed one and crawled off after Drew with it. It was pretty sweet to see them play together.

For Thanksgiving we spent the day at Mike's mom and step-dad's house with his parents, his grandpa, and his brother Colin. We always do our Christmas with Curt & Linda on Thanksgiving. Here's Zach displaying one of his new gifts.

And Drew with a funny look on his face.

Pa and Curt seemed to be getting a kick out of this new remote controlled car one of the boys got.

Jake modeled his new reindeer hat for us.

Over the holiday weekend we got our tree put up. Zach and Drew were very excited to decorate it. They put most of their ornaments all in one area on the tree, so later I had to move some. Now the ornaments seem to be shifting up on the tree, so that Jake can't reach any of them.

After the tree was decorated, it was sit-on-Dad time.

Zach had Fine Arts Night at school last week. Here he is lined up with his classmates at the start of the show.

He had a special job of playing rhythm sticks (I think that's what they're called) for one song. That strikes me as a little funny, because during another song, the kids sang and clapped out a beat to the tune of We Will Rock You, and Zach appeared to have no rhythm whatsoever. He was constantly either behind or ahead of the rest of the class. It was quite funny and cute.

Here are Zach and his best friend Ximen (pronounced Shi-men). Ximen lives just a few houses up the street from us, and they ride the bus together and are in the same class. If Zach doesn't walk in the door after school and ask if he can play at Ximen's house, then I know something is wrong. Actually, I don't think that has ever happened. He and Ximen love to play together.

Speaking of Ximen, Zach brought home a bunch of stuff from his writing folder a couple of weeks ago, and the paper pictured below was one such item.

You may not be able to see the writing very well, but it says, "Frum Skye," at the top and "Ximen in love with Zach," down on the lines. It's hard to read because it's written in purple ink and because the paper is very wrinkled, as Zach took it from me when I asked him about it and crumpled it up. He then was nearly in tears about it, saying that there are 2 girls who are "really mean" and make fun of him and Ximen. Then I asked if he likes Ximen, and he insisted he didn't, thinking I meant like like, when really I just meant like. When I got that point across to him and he answered that yes, he likes Ximen (as in he enjoys her company and playing with her), I told him it doesn't matter then what anybody else says, and that if he and Ximen like playing together, they should. It was one of those sweet and somewhat heart-breaking moments that I know we'll have more of, where Zach gets teased about a girl. My little boy is growing up.

Not sure I like the autocorrect on this new computer. If there are weird words in places that don't seem right, I blame it on autocorrect.

I'm Back! For Real This Time

2011-11-22T21:36:00.012-06:00

Wow, it's been a while. Let me explain- our hard drive on our computer crashed and we weren't sure we had all of our pictures. I thought I had been backing things up to our external hard drive, but apparently I wasn't doing it correctly, so they weren't there. A few days of panic, despair, and tears ensued, with us believing we had lost all the pictures from 2008-2009 (including Drew's birth and first year of life), but through Snapfish and this blog, I believe we'll be able to recover most of those pictures. Whew. However, the past month has been incredibly busy and transferring things to the new computer has been a total pain. In addition to the pictures, our iTunes library has required a lot of work. We were able to recover all of the songs we had purchased over the years on iTunes, but all of the songs we'd downloaded to our song library from our own CDs have to be reinstalled, so Mike has been doing a few CDs each night, trying to get us caught up. Technology is wonderful until it fails, right?

So much has happened in the month that I've been AWOL. We've gone from a 2007 MacBook to a 2011 MacBook Pro, and with the updated iPhoto and everything else, I'm still getting used to everything. So I have no idea how these photos will upload to the blog. I may not get them in order, so just bare with me. One thing is for certain- I can now upload 5 pictures to Blogger in a fraction of the time it used to take me to upload 3 pictures. Amazing.

Jake loves to climb. He is constantly trying to climb up on anything and everything. Recently, Mike was with him and he did this.

Here are some oranges I carved for the boys right around Halloween. I first scooped out all the flesh inside, cut it all up, carved the faces, and then loaded the orange pieces back in. The boys loved them. I did them a second time the night we went trick-or-treating and made different faces for all 7 kids.

Who needs toys when you can play in a plastic bin or with pots, pans, and a wooden spoon.

A couple of weeks ago we got our first snow. It was only a few inches- 3 to 5, maybe, but Zach and Drew were so excited. They were both out there in their snow gear before Zach's bus picked him up at 8:20. I joined Drew after I put Jake down for his nap around 9:00, and we stayed out until after 10:00.

Before going down for his nap, Jake enjoyed Drew throwing snow at him.

When I went outside, I asked Drew if we should make a snowman, and he said, "Yes! The snow is perfect because it's very wet and sticky!" So we made this lovely little guy with crazy acorn eyes.

For Mike's birthday, he treated himself to a very nice putting green in the basement. So now everybody's putters are down there, and they are one of Jake's favorite toys to play with. As I posted on Facebook, I guess it's just an innate desire for Burggraaf boys to want to hit a little white ball with a stick, because Jake could do it all day long. I'm still waiting for the first time he swings the club and whacks himself, a dog, the wall, or, most likely, me.

When Jake isn't hogging their putters, Drew and Zach like to practice their short game, too.

Mike and I went to the Zac Brown Band concert recently with our friends Troy & Jen and BJ & Carey. Going into the concert, we actually only knew 1 song by this group (we're not big country music listeners), but we like that song a lot, and we knew that given the company we'd have, it'd be a good time. And it was. Great music; not too twangy. I like how a lot of country songs tell a story, and Zac Brown didn't disappoint me with some of his.

Here are Troy and Mike, with Mike wearing Troy's daughter's hat. Oh, wait, I think that's actually Troy's hat. Gotta love a cowboy hat with Mike's purple golf shirt.

Troy & me before the concert.

Carey and Mike before the concert.

Drew, Jake, and I have a standing date on Monday's at the grocery store. Last week Drew didn't feel like pushing his own little cart, and the truck carts just don't work because they all have broken seat belts where Jake needs to sit. So after walking for a bit, I convinced Drew to just ride up top with Jake. Our normally 1 hour + grocery trip only took 45 minutes. I think maybe Drew will be riding up top a lot more often. At one point, towards the end, I looked up to see Drew kissing Jake on the head. The next thing I knew, Jake kept leaning on Drew, snuggling up to him. It was very sweet. You can tell this is towards the end of the trip and that Jake was near the end of his rope because he has his binky, which I usually only give to him at nap and bedtime.

Wow, the order is definitely messed up. Anyway, here are Zach and Drew at trick-or-treat night at Living History Farms. They went with Mike a couple of days before Halloween, and I stayed home with Jake.

Zach got to have a special outing with Dad the next day to the Hawkeye game, just the two of them. Lucky for Zach, it didn't rain on them this time, and the Hawkeyes won. I think he really enjoyed the one-on-one time with Dad and felt like a big kid, getting to sit with Dad, Uncle Will, and Will's brother Rob.

The cabinet locks are out! Jake loves to open the cabinets and see what he can find. I have a feeling it's only a matter of time before he figures out how to get the locks off. Then we're in trouble.

Sometimes I don't lock the pantry. It's ok, because for the most part, I don't care if Jake empties it out. The only problem is that he has a tendency to grab the bag of pretzels and sort of mash them up, and that's not so good. Last week while I was busy getting Drew and Zach breakfast before school, Jake got into the cabinet and was exploring. The next thing I new, he out out he bunnies and was having a little pre-breakfast snack.

Jake continues to expand his palate. One recent hit was basic spaghetti (only we rarely use actual spaghetti noodles).

Jump back a few weeks. Zach, Drew, and I carved pumpkins.

They both wanted scary faces, and they told me the shapes to make the eyes and nose, and how many teeth they wanted. We roasted the pumpkin seeds and they were perfect this year. YUM! We didn't carve the pumpkin Zach grew out in our backyard because it was still a little green. We've now picked it, but haven't done anything else with it. I should do something with it, but I'm not sure what.

Here are the boys on Halloween. Last year at Target we bought a couple of costumes after Halloween for 50% off, and Zach picked a fairly expensive Hulk one that I told him he could get only if he used it for Halloween this year. At the time he agreed, but over the course of the last year, I felt kinda bad about making that deal. However, I didn't want to buy another costume, so I was thankful that when I suggested being Marvin McNutt (one of Zach's favorite Hawkeye football players), Zach was totally on board. Drew originally wanted to be Buzz Lightyear, but again, I was loath to buy a Buzz Lightyear costume, so I suggested being a firefighter and having Jake be his dalmation, and he loved that idea. Another bonus for me- we already had both costumes! So, we spent zero dollars on Halloween costumes this year- yippee!

We went over to our friends BJ and Susan's house on Halloween and trick-or-treated with their girls, Anna and Lucy, and with Susan's sister's family. Here are the boys with Lucy and Anna as Supergirls.

And here's the whole trick-or-treat crew. Drew as a fireman, Kate as Dora the Explorer, Zach and Jake, Lucy, Anna, Abbey as Supergirl, and John as the Green Lantern (??).

The kids had a blast trick-or-treating. Abbey (6.5 years), Zach, John (5 years), and Anna (4 years) were fast and ran from house to house, while Drew was sort of in the middle, and Kate and Lucy (both 2 years) took up the back. Drew was so cute. At each house, he'd stop on the porch after getting his candy, turn to me, and shout, "MOM! MY FAVORITE! A ________!!" It didn't matter what it was; it was his favorite each time. Then, whereas the older kids would bolt off the side of the porch and run across the lawn to the next house, Drew would walk down the steps, take the walkway to the driveway, walk down the driveway to the sidewalk, and go to the next house. At one point I finally told him, "Drew, it's ok if you cut across the lawn tonight." He was just so sweet and had so much fun.

Jake was a very good sport, too.

Jake turned 11 months old on Nov. 10. At 11 months, he is just such a fun little thing. He loves to clap and shake his head when we say no. He's inquisitive and seems to really be figuring things out. He loves to see how things work. He also seems to have a bit of Drew's dramatic side (sigh).

Great, blue font. Sorry. Jake isn't walking yet, but he stands so well without holding on. Zach and Drew seemed to walk before they really felt very comfortable standing for long periods without holding on, so this is different. He did take 2 steps the other day, but nothing more than that. I think he'll be walking soon, but I don't know if it will be before his first birthday in a couple of weeks.

Here's Jake copying the silly face Drew used to do. I love it!

Ok, sorry for the absolutely unorganized, random post. I hope to get back to regular posting soon and maybe things will actually be in order again.

Thank Goodness for Family!

2011-10-20T21:57:00.010-05:00

Last weekend my sister Sandy, brother-in-law Will, and nephew Anders came down for a visit. On their way down from the Twin Cities, they stopped to pick up Mike's sister Katherine and her fiancee Sam, who happened to be on fall break and needed a ride home. It worked out quite well for them to all ride together, and it sounds like Anders enjoyed having some new friends to talk to in the backseat of the car. It was also nice for Mike's parents and Sam's parents to not have to drive up to St. Olaf to pick up Katherine and Sam this one time.

We attempted a 3 boy sleepover in Drew's room after everybody got here on Friday night. Zach and Drew were already in bed, and Zach was asleep, but Drew was still awake. We could hear Anders and Drew talk a little, and then they quieted down. It wasn't a terrible night, but we decided not to do a sleepover again on Saturday. We decided everybody needed a little bit better night's sleep than they had Friday.

Will and Mike headed out early Saturday morning, Will to the Hawkeye game and Mike to Wartburg for a weekend with his college buddies, so Sandy and I were on our own with the 4 boys. While I took Zach to his soccer game, Sandy stayed home so Jake could nap and Anders and Drew could play. Once Zach and I got home, we dropped Jake off at Grandma Linda and Grandpa Curt's house, and the 3 bigger boys, Sandy, and I headed out to a pumpkin patch. In the past few years we've gone to this really big, really popular pumpkin patch south of town, but we didn't feel like making that long of a trek or dealing with massive crowds, so we decided to try out a different place nearby. It was another beautiful October day, and we weren't disappointed.

Right after we got there, we decided to head out into the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins. Drew found a nice pumpkin pretty quickly and his mind was made up (guess he takes after Mike), whereas Zach, a little more like me, found one, but wasn't sure it was the one, and had to search around a while longer before finally being convinced (with a lot of help from me) that it was the one.

I think Anders picked his pretty quickly, too. The boys also helped me pick a little pumpkin for Jake. Trying to get a good picture of all 3 boys and the pumpkins, gourds, and squash we picked provided these funny (mostly thanks to Anders and Drew) photos.

After picking pumpkins, we decided to let the boys ride horses. There were a variety of sizes, and Zach, being the first one, felt a little unsure, so he picked a small horse. Technically, this is probably a pony, but I don't really know.

Drew was up next, and although he first said he wanted a big horse, then he decided he wanted a small horse like Zach, but then changed his mind to a medium horse.

Anders, ever fearless, knew he wanted a big horse!

Sandy and I chuckled at the fact that the older the child, the smaller the horse. The minute Zach got off his little horse/pony, he asked if he could ride again, but on a big horse this time. We were only willing to let each kid go once, though, so he'll have to ride a big horse next time.

The boys and Sandy went on the wagon ride while I took the pumpkins to the car. I had a little mishap in doing so. The car was parked on a downhill, the wagon got to rolling too fast, I tried to turn it as I got to the car, it tipped, and pumpkins, squash, and gourds started rolling everywhere. Thankfully a nice family helped me gather up my harvest so that I didn't lose anything under the others cars. It was a little embarrassing.

The boys also rode the barrel train, played in the bouncy houses, crawled through the hay (or maybe straw) maze, and played in the corn bin. While the boys were playing in the corn bin, I heard Anders, channeling Johnny Cash, shout, "MY NAME IS SUE! HOW DO YOU DO??"

We got done in time to eat a late lunch at home, and get all the boys (including Jake) down for naps. Sandy and I were happy to have a little bit of time with no little boys or their little boy energy buzzing around.

After naps, Anders showed Drew his guitar skills

and gave him some love.

Once everybody was up (I think we had to wake Drew up), we got the boys going on frosting the sugar cookies I had made the day before. I wasn't sure how it would go, but we kept it simple and it actually worked quite well. I asked the boys what color frosting they wanted, and they each got their own bowl. Well, Zach actually got two, because he wanted orange and black frosting. We also pulled out some Halloween sprinkles, and they boys were all set.

We decided I had to get a picture of Drew's cookies, which had a little dab of frosting and ton of sprinkles. I guess it's hard to tell in this picture, though.

Sunday morning was the morning of my half-marathon. It was a little stressful having Mike gone and knowing I was leaving Sandy with her own 3 year-old and all 3 of my kids. I knew Sandy could handle it, but I also know how crazy mornings can be. I was being picked up by friends for a ride to the race right around 7:00, so the plan was for Sandy and the bigger boys to come down to the race, and I knew that that would mean getting the boys ready quickly. Drew and quick in the morning don't exactly go hand-in-hand, on most days, anyway. I'd had a big talk with Drew the night before about getting dressed right away when he got up. I was able to nurse Jake just before I left, but Zach and Drew weren't out of bed yet. Thankfully, I knew that Cynthia and Katherine were coming over to help Sandy out with the boys; one of them would stay home with Jake so he could nap, and the other would head downtown with Sandy to figure out where along the race course to try to watch for me.

The race went well. Two years ago, when Sandy and I last ran this half-marathon and had a little problem finding each other (read about it here, if you forgot), I finished in about 1:46, so I kind of wanted to meet or beat that, but I also thought that was unlikely, given the fact that I've had less time to train now that there are 3 kids and time to myself is kind of a hot commodity. I felt good going into the race, and I enjoyed the run, for the most part. I ended up finishing in 1:48:38, which put me 37th out of the 465 women in my age group, and 607th out of 3,992 runners total. Unfortunately, Sandy, Katherine, and the boys just missed me at the 10 mile mark, and again at the finish line. I did see some other friends who were there cheering along the course, and it was really nice to have a little support out there from people I know. It was a bummer to not see Sandy, Katherine, and the boys, but I really appreciated their efforts. I know it couldn't have been easy getting around with all the road closures, finding parking, and getting all 3 kids walking fast enough to get to where they needed to go. Amazingly, it didn't take that long to find them after the race was over.

The rest of the day was a pretty lazy day, as I was a bit tired. One of my favorite moments was Drew and Anders laying on the couch, looking at the imaginary fireworks Drew was describing on the ceiling. I think Anders maybe started describing them, too, and it was just so cute to hear them pretending like they were, with such animation in their voices.

I'm not sure where I was when this took place, but apparently Mike gave all the boys (except Jake) a horsey ride at some point.

As I sit here and think about last weekend, I realize how lucky I am to have such supportive family members. When I mentioned to Sandy a month or so ago that Mike was considering getting together with college friends the weekend of the half-marathon, she immediately offered to come help out. And when I asked if she and Will could pick up Katherine and Sam on their way down, she didn't hesitate. Further, I think I've said it before, and if I haven't, I've certainly thought it before, I am very lucky to have 2 great sets of in-laws who help me out tons. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without their help. Between Curt & Linda watching Jake on Saturday so I didn't have to cart him around the pumpkin patch and Cynthia and Katherine helping out on Sunday with all the race stuff, I feel like the old saying about it taking a village to raise a child really holds a lot of truth. So to all of you who helped out last weekend, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it!

To close, I have to leave you with possibly my favorite moment from the weekend- Anders singing a little Johnny Cash for us. Anders loves Johnny Cash and plans to be him for Halloween, and I think he's got his act down pretty darn good. Enjoy!

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Conversations

2011-10-14T21:40:00.001-05:00

A couple of conversations that I've had with the boys or overheard in the last week or so that made me smile:

First, Zach was telling Drew about a rock I painted to look like a turtle that is in Zach's room.

Me: Actually, Zach, I painted that rock long before you were even born.

Drew: Was I born, Mom, or was I underground?

Zach: No, Drew, before we were born we weren't underground; we were up in the sky! That's where heaven is.

Drew: Oh! Did we play together up there?

Zach: No, we didn't.

I love how they both had such defined ideas of life before they were born.

Then, last night as I was putting Drew to bed, and we talked about the fact that Aunt Katherine and her fiance (I'm not sure I have mentioned the change in their status on the blog before; we're very excited) are coming home this weekend.

Drew: Mom, have I been married?

Me: No, you haven't. But maybe you'll get married when you're older.

Drew: No! Only girls get married!

Me: No, girls marry boys and boys marry girls. So when you're an adult you can get married.

Drew: I don't want to get married!

Me: Why?

Drew: I will miss you too much.

Me: You can still see me when you're married.

Drew: I can?

Me: Yep. Dad sees his mom, Grandma Linda, all the time.

Drew: Oh, okay.

Then he said something about one of his preschool teachers and marrying that didn't make any sense. Really I loved the beginning of the conversation most, when he asked if he'd been married.

Drew is very interested in death right now. He talks a lot about when Maggie (our oldest dog) dies, and he has big plans to get a pig when that happens. A recent conversation in the car as we arrived at home:

Drew: Mom, when you and Dad get dead, Zach and I will have to go to daycare. (No mention of Jake.)

Me: Well, Drew, probably when Dad and I die, you'll be all grown up and you won't need to go to daycare.

Drew: No, but who will take care of us??

Me: You'll be an adult, honey; you won't need anybody to take care of you.

Drew: Hmm... (Not real convinced.)

And then this morning, at the breakfast table:

Drew: Mom, I don't want you to get dead.

Me: Thanks, Drew.

While playing with a trash truck and marbles, pretending the marbles were the Toy Story 3 characters:

Drew: They didn't believe in their hearts it was a good idea to get into the trash truck.

And while praying tonight:

Drew: And thank you, God, for the pleasure, and for our mom and dad.

Brought to You By...

2011-10-10T20:34:00.015-05:00

Today's mish-mash of a post is brought to you by the letter A and the number 10.

I decided to start doing sort of a letter of the week type thing with Drew. He knows all of his uppercase letters, but this way we can work on lowercase letters and on the sounds letters make, which he knows surprisingly well (I think), too. Though we are not going in alphabetical order, we did start with A, mostly because of it being that time of year when apples are so delicious. So we talked about the letter A and what sounds it makes and what words start with A, and then we did a little project. I wrote a large uppercase A on one piece of paper and a lowercase A on another piece. I carved an apple to make a couple of stamps (including a backward lowercase A, which I then had to fix), and Drew got to paint the A's.

Then Drew painted the apple seeds white,

and we used them as the teeth on this little alligator.

Here are the finished products. My idea is that maybe I will put all the letters into an alphabet book when we're done. We'll see, though.

Later that afternoon/evening, Drew and I made little apple desserts using canned biscuits, cinnamon and sugar, and chopped up apples. They were supposed to be like apple pies. Unfortunately, Drew didn't want to eat much of his dinner, so he didn't get to have any of the dessert he made! He really wasn't even more than mildly bummed about it; he must have known the desserts would only be mediocre. Probably won't use that recipe again!

While Drew has a lot of pre-reading skills mastered or nearly mastered, writing isn't as easy for him. When Zach started preschool at age 3 and 3 months, he could write his name, though it was of course a little rough looking. Drew, however, hasn't been too interested in trying to write his name, and has struggled with holding the pencil/crayon the correct way. However, being in preschool and working on the correct hold seems to be paying off. As Drew finished making Aunt Sandy's birthday card (he picked 40 stickers for her 40th birthday), I asked him to write his name on it. He held the marker almost perfectly, and wrote his name in the clearest manner I've ever seen! To my eye (but maybe nobody else's), it looks like he has actually written the correct letters, except maybe the W, which is pretty tough. And, to Drew's credit, I think the letters D-R-E-W are a little harder for 3 year-old hands to write than the easier lines of Z-A-C-H.

Now for the number 10. A couple of weeks ago I did a 10 mile race called Capital Pursuit. I did this race for the first time a couple of years ago, and I really enjoyed it. I have been training for the Des Moines half-marathon, though I only just signed up for it 2 days ago. Participating in the 10 mile race is a nice way to get a long run in in a much more interesting manner than just going out and running on the trail on my own. Although I have loved my long runs this year- the weather has been perfect and the leaves lately are so pretty- it's nice to change it up sometimes.

My sister Sandy and I have a knack for arriving at races a minute or two before they start (something I recently learned my sister Becky also has a knack for- guess it runs in the family- ha ha- get it? I'm hilarious, I know). We had been out with friends the night before the Capital Pursuit and I don't know what my deal was, but I guess I got a late start that morning. It was the classic case of trying to do too much ("Oh, I can get Jake dressed so Mike doesn't have to," sort of thing) and not realizing how those minutes added up. Then add to that the fact that speed cameras have recently been installed on the interstate here, and I didn't know where they were but was paranoid about getting a ticket. Had I known we were still just in the warning phase for the cameras, I probably would have driven a bit faster. However, I didn't know that, and so I drove accordingly, and then couldn't seem to figure out where I needed to go once I got downtown. (I don't know the streets very well there- I know the landmarks.) I ended up just parking somewhere and running (nearly sprinting) in the general direction of where I thought the starting line was. As I turned the corner and saw the starting line about a block and a half in front of me, the gun went off and the racers started coming my way. I thought, "Hmm, this is new- arriving as the race starts. I'll have to tell Sandy about this!" and I jumped in with the runners and was off, mittens, watch, and car key in hand, and shoes not tied anywhere close to right. I'm a little OCD about how my shoes are tied when I'm running- they can't be too tight or too loose, and at this point I had one of each. I dealt with it for about 3 miles and then had to go to the side to fix them, only to do it wrong and have to fix them again about 5 minutes later, as crowds of runners jogged past me. The second time they still didn't feel quite right, but I couldn't stand the thought of stopping again and being passed by so many people, so I decided to just deal with it. It was fine.

I was able to find a friend from my kickboxing class around mile 5. She was slightly ahead of me, and it took me about a mile to catch up to her. We then stayed pretty close by each other the rest of the race, talking some, but not tons. She would go ahead of me a little and then I'd catch her, and then the last mile I went ahead of her and she wasn't able to keep up. Here's the kicker- she is 53! Yep, 20 years older than me and we basically run about the same pace. She's one fit 53 year-old, let me tell ya.

Mike always makes fun of me by saying that in races I have competitions with people who don't know I'm competing with them. He says it like it's a bad thing, but really, it's more of a mental game I play with myself to push myself. People pass me early on, and I think, "Ok, I'm going to pass you later and finish before you." This girl in the green shirt and hat in the picture below was one of those people. I passed her right at the 9 mile mark, and then she caught back up to me very briefly, but then couldn't keep up. I was booking it hard the last mile- it was my fastest of all 10 miles at 7 minutes and 20 seconds, I think. Oh, I'm in the all black with sunglasses in the picture.

This is a small race, so they don't do chip timing. I suppose that worked in my favor this time, because I never technically crossed the starting line. I was happy with my time. I finished in one hour, 21 minutes, and 38 seconds, which was about 2 minutes faster than the last time I ran it. That really surprised me, because I feel like I was in better shape 2 years ago than I am now. With 3 kids now and one of them being a baby, I just don't have as much time to devote to running. I ended up finishing 8th out of 57 women in the 30-34 year-old age group and 46th out of 255 female runners, with an average pace of 8:10 minutes per mile.

It was great to see Mike, Zach, and Drew at the finish line (Jake stayed home with Grandma Linda to nap), and thankfully it was easy to find them right afterwards. This series of pictures kind of cracks me up, purely because of Drew's face in each one.

The boys were excited to run the kids race, but we had some time to kill, so we messed around in Nollen Plaza while we waited.

After a while, Mike said, "Oh, they just said the kids race will be starting soon," so we walked up to the finish line area. Just in time to see the kids (not our kids, though) run their race. I could not believe we missed it. I felt just terrible. Unlike my race, in which I could easily jump in and not miss a thing, the kids race lasted about 20 seconds, so missing the start really equaled missing the whole thing. But, trying to stay positive and head off any sadness from the boys, I quickly said, "Well, here, you can have your own race!" in my cheeriest voice possible. I set Drew up in one place and Zach a bit behind him and shouted, "GO!" while Mike aimed the camera. These pictures also make me laugh, because it looks like Zach is talking trash to Drew, or at least totally enjoying passing him. At least they both look like they had fun.

And they got medals at the end, which I think was the main motivation for one or maybe even both of them. So, all was not lost. However, Zach did tell Grandma later that it would have been more fun running with the other kids. I still feel bad about it.

In other 10 news, Jake turned 10 months old. Here he is in his cute Wartburg onesie from Troy & Jen. What you can't see is his cute butt, which says "Knights" on it.

Jake has discovered he LOVES the basement, just like his big brothers. However, unlike his big brothers, Jake can't play downstairs without a parent, so when Zach and Drew go down there without him, this is what he does.

Now that Jake is 10 months old, we decided it's time he starts earning his keep around here. His main chore is to help empty the dishwasher... and the cabinets... and the games under the coffee table... and the toys from the toy trunk... and anything he can get his hands on.

I have about 3 Halloween decorations (I know- I really go all-out), and one of them is a little wooden wreath of jack-o-lanterns on the wall right at the base of the stairs. Jake loves it, so every time we come down the stairs, he grins, makes a funny noise, and "points" at it. This is how he points now.

This picture totally resembles Drew's "silly face" that he used to make when he was about Jake's age.

Only 2 months until Jake's first birthday- yikes!!!

We Love the Hawkeyes

2011-10-02T21:01:00.010-05:00

Fall is here, and that means it's time for Hawkeye football! Once nice thing about this time of year is that I don't have to think twice about anybody's outfit for Saturdays, at least not beyond what Hawkeye gear will be worn that day. And it's always pretty obvious that my family isn't the only one like that; anywhere I go on Saturdays in the fall I see people in their Hawkeye shirts, unless they're wearing their Cylone stuff, but I just ignore those people. :-) It's something I think is kind of neat- it's like a common bond among many strangers, and there's just something comforting about it for me.

The boys have some pretty cute Hawkeye stuff this fall, as you will see in these pictures taken over a couple of different weekends a few weeks ago.

Actually, first here's a picture Zach took of Drew pretending to take a picture.

And here's one Zach took of Jake.

This is probably my most favorite picture in a very long time. It seems Apple changed things and now I can't order pictures from iPhoto unless I update something, and that is a bummer because I really want to print a copy of this picture to frame! I know, I could print it some other way, but iPhoto is (or used to be) so easy and convenient! Hopefully I get it figured out, because I do love this picture.

I also clipped some other pictures (of course there were lots of group shots that aren't really worth keeping) to get these great individuals I also plan to print (sometime, somehow) to put up in the house.

A couple of weeks ago I was going through the bins of baby clothes to get out some new stuff for Jake, and I though most of the clothes were hand-me-downs from Zach and Drew, there were a few new things in there were gifts. One such item was this cute vintage Herky onesie I got Jake on sale for his stocking when he was just 2 weeks old. I'm so excited that it fits him finally (or already- sometimes it seems like it's been a long time, and at other times it seems like I just bought it). Jake wore this onesie when the Hawkeyes played Pitt, which was quite the game. If you missed it, let me give a very brief recap- the Hawkeyes were down 24-3 at the end of the 3rd quarter, but came back to win 31-27. It was a very exciting 4th quarter. You can see from these pictures of Jake that at the tender age of 9 months, he is already an involved and animated Hawkeye football watcher, just like his dad.

Jake and I were both very happy that the Hawkeyes pulled off that win, as it meant Mike was in a good mood the rest of the night. Coach Ferentz, we'll take some more wins like that, please.

Another Soccer Player in the Family

2011-09-29T22:00:00.005-05:00

Drew started soccer a few weeks ago. He's in a program called Grasskickers, which is really just clinics for kids ages 3-5 (or maybe 6). I think most of the kids in Grasskickers are not on regular rec. league teams with this soccer club. I had asked Drew a month or so ago if he wanted to do soccer, and he said yes. Then we got Zach's soccer and football schedules and realized that he would be having soccer practice Tuesday nights, football practice Thursday nights (in the past football practice and games only were on Sundays, so not twice a week) , soccer games on Saturday mornings, and football games on Sunday afternoons. I like to go to kickboxing classes on Monday and Tuesday evenings, so suddenly I realized that if we put Drew in soccer on Friday nights, we'd have something going on literally every day of the week, which I didn't want. I thought maybe Drew would just forget about soccer if I didn't mention it again, but that did not happen, and I didn't feel like I could suddenly tell him he couldn't go, especially since he was excited and interested in it, which is something that hasn't happened in the past. So, I signed him up and started going to kickboxing in the morning at least on Wednesdays, so that our Wednesday nights are free. Plus, Grasskickers is only 5 or 6 weeks long, so it will be over soon.

Just like with preschool, the morning of Drew's first soccer clinic, he woke up and said right away, "It's my big day of soccer, today!!" The day before we had gone out and Drew had picked out his own soccer ball, which was kind of a fun experience for me. He picked the red one and then said, "Oh, no! It's Cyclone colors!" I assured him that just because it was red didn't mean it was Cyclone colors. I was worried his next choice would be the neon yellow one that said Kaka (a Brazilian soccer player) on it, and I was not about to let him pick a ball supporting Brazil, one of my least favorite teams! Thankfully I was able to find Zach's first pair of cleats for Drew to wear, and after purchasing Drew some new shinguards (the ones the salesman suggested so they wouldn't be too big), and realizing they were huge, we decided Drew would wear Zach's shinguards and we'd get Zach a new, bigger pair.

The soccer fields are out amongst a bunch of farms, and it is always cool and windy out there. I was worried the cold would affect Drew's attitude, but it sure didn't. He was so ready to go and have fun. They played a game to warm up where the kids were trying to grab each other's tails (pennies tucked into the back of their pants), and the last person with a tail would be deemed the fastest runner and the winner. Drew immediately said, "I'll be the fastest runner because my cleats have these super grippers on them." The coaches (a couple of high school or college aged girls) learned Drew's name very quickly.

The last thing they did was scrimmage, and the one coach kept trying to get the ball to Drew so he'd have a chance to score. Finally, right before time was up, it worked, and he did get the ball in the back of the net. He didn't make a huge deal of it then, but he talked about it a lot after that. He thought it was pretty cool to score a goal.

Drew had so much fun and was not at all shy. I think some of that is due to being in preschool now and to the fact that Zach is at school all day, and Drew has to figure out how to navigate the social world (small as his is at this age) without the comfort of his big brother to fall back on. I really enjoyed watching him play and thought it was so great to see him just having fun.

A Very Brief Update

2011-09-25T22:03:00.003-05:00

I have a few things to update you on.

First, Zach sort of remembered the whole sleep-walking/potty incident that I posted about last. When I asked him the next morning if he remembered anything happening the night before, he said, "No, what?" When I said, "You pottied on your floor." He said, "Oh, yeah. I sorta remember. I kept stepping in it." That was weird, because as far as I knew he never stepped in it. So when I asked for clarification, he said he got up a couple of times after that to go to the bathroom and stepped in the spot then, which I had tried to soak up and treat with some carpet cleaner, so it was still damp.

Second, at Jake's 9 month appointment, we found out that he is still skinny. He really doesn't look that skinny, but he's also not a kid who has rolls on his thighs or anything. He weighed 17 lbs. 13 oz., which put him in the 9th percentile, down from the 11th percentile a month ago. But he gained 2 lbs. 3 oz. in the last 3 months, and the pediatrician said average is 2 lbs., so that was good. He also grew 2.5 inches in the last 3 months, putting him at 29.5 inches, the 82nd percentile. So he's long and skinny, I guess. As a reference point, at 9 months Zach was only 28 inches long (42nd percentile) and weighed 18 lbs. 6 oz. (18th percentile), and Drew was 28.5 inches long (56th percentile) and weighed 20 lbs. (40th percentile), so Jake is the longest but skinniest, I guess.

Finally a couple of funny things Zach and Drew have said recently:

-We've been teaching/playing So Big to Jake. Yesterday at lunch we must have recently done it, and then moved on, but I think Zach was still playing it with Jake. Then Mike was getting after Zach to quit messing around and just eat his lunch, and Zach said, "How irritating is Dad? Sooooo irritating!" in the perfect So Big kind of sing-song voice. It was pretty funny.

-At the breakfast table on Friday morning, Drew said, "Zach, will you miss me when I die?" Zach replied, "Well, Drew, I'll probably die before you, because I'm older than you." Drew talks about death a lot lately. He's asked if when Maggie and Foudy (our 11 & 10 year-old dogs) die he can please get a baby pig. And when that baby pig dies, he wants to get another dog. Anyway, after asking Zach that, he said, "I don't want to die, ever!" I told him that everybody dies, talked up heaven, and explained that he probably wouldn't die for a long, long time. A few hours later, he said, "Mom, one time you gave me something that will make me die." Confused, I said, "I did?" He said, "Yep. These," and he pointed at something on his placemat. Still confused, I said, "What?" Drew said, "You gave me these colored Cheerios (here was a picture of Froot Loops on the placemat he was using) one time at church, and they'll make me die because they have so much sugar in them."

-I'm trying to find new finger foods for Jake to eat since he's pretty much done with eating baby food. Today I opened a can of organic great northern beans. Zach and Drew like black beans, so I gave them some of these great northern beans with their dinner. Drew ate one and said, "I like black beans, and now I like vanilla beans!"

Dazed and Confused, But Still Funny

2011-09-22T22:13:00.004-05:00

So Mike and I were just sitting here, watching the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, when we heard footsteps coming down the hall. Zach came stumbling out from the hallway, looking a little dazed and confused. Mike and I both kind of started giggling, and one of us asked, "What's up, Bud?" Zach kinda laughed and just leaned into the couch where Mike was sitting. Mike told him he needed to head upstairs and close his eyes and go back to sleep. As he did that, he sort of patted Zach's butt and then said, "Are your shorts wet?" I looked and a little more closely and thought they did look like they could be wet. So we asked Zach if he maybe wet the bed, which is something that I'm not sure has ever happened in Zach's entire life. He sort of said no, but was still pretty out of it. So I went upstairs to his room to feel the bed, and Zach followed. When I got into his room, I could see a couple of random wet spots on the floor and a kleenex that looked like it was maybe slightly used. I was instantly reminded of an incident in college where a guy friend of mine (he shall remain nameless, but he's known to have neon eyebrows and his wife occasionally reads my blog), after a night of too much fun at Joe's, possibly mistook my couch for a toilet. Anyway, I asked Zach if he pottied on the floor and tried to clean it up, and he very casually said, "No," like someone might answer if you asked if they wanted sour cream on their taco or something. So I called Mike up to see what had happened, grabbed a dry pair of shorts for Zach and told him to change since his were wet, and I got a towel to clean up the carpet, which was definitely wet. Zach climbed into bed and seriously was about out already when I realized he never had gone into the bathroom, so I made him get up and go in to try to squeeze out any remaining drops. He went into the bathroom to potty, and as I walked by I noticed he didn't lift the seat. Oh great, I thought, I literally cleaned that toilet today, and now it's gonna have pee all over it! Mike was standing there with Zach, and the conversation I heard went pretty much like this:

Mike- Zach, why are you wiping your tush?

Zach- Confused, blank stare, while still wiping.

Mike- Did you poop? Did you sit down to potty??

Zach- No... confused look

Mike- Why are you wearing two pairs of shorts???

Zach- Confused look

Mike & me- Snickering

The poor kid sleep walks like this and has no idea what's going on. The funny (or maybe alarming?) thing is that at Jake's 9 month check-up yesterday the pediatrician (a college friend) and I were discussing Zach's sleepwalking, and he suggested putting a gate at the top of the stairs so that Zach doesn't fall down them or walk out the front door or something. I'm wondering if that's something we should consider. It's all fun and games and good blog material until somebody gets hurt, right?

And I'll let you know later if Zach remembers any of this in the morning.

9 Months

2011-09-15T15:06:00.005-05:00

Jake had his 9 month birthday last weekend. I truly cannot believe in just 3 months he'll be one already. I was just looking back at the pictures on my iPhoto account, finally ready to order some (I mean, he's only been with us for 9 months, I guess we could put up some pictures of him), and looking at those early first photos of him left me a little sad. He is so much fun these days, but I do miss those early days of snuggling him nonstop. This first photo shows a tiny glimpse of what he's like these days.

Yep, he's very silly. His personality is definitely starting to come out, and I'm wondering if we will have another Drew on our hands. By that, I mean that Jake is starting to have his own ideas about what he wants and when he wants it. He was trying to crawl into the shower yesterday to get to the drain cover (yuck), and Zach grabbed him and moved him to the carpet. The second Zach put him down, Jake turned and bee-lined it right back to the shower. He also is doing the old arching-his-back trick when I'm holding him and he wants to get down. It's really fun. And it happens often, because he just wants to be down in the action, participating, rather than watching from Mom's arms.

Jake basically does regular crawling 98% of the time, but every now and then he throws in an inch or two of army-crawling for old time's sake. He pulls up on everything he can. He loves to pull up to standing at the piano and plink around on a few keys. Lately he also thinks it's fun to pull up and work on the computer.

Tonight while I was making dinner, emptying the dishwasher, and trying to help Zach with his homework (all before Zach's football practice- sheesh!), Drew and Jake were playing independently. I turned around, and there was Jake, standing on the open dishwasher door, holding onto the top rack and checking things out. I wish I'd taken a picture, but I was in a hurry to get him down, so I just didn't take the time. We were really lucky in that neither Zach nor Drew were big climbers, so I feel a little worried about our odds of going 3 for 3 on that.

Jake continues to get more and more interested in his brothers. He loves to get in on the wrestling that occurs quite frequently, and thankfully, they're pretty careful about how rough they are with him. I have also seen him crawl over to both Zach and Drew in the past week and attempt to pull up on their legs, so he definitely feels a connection with them. I think with Zach being at school so much now, Drew and Jake are forming a closer bond than they had before, and that's nice to see.

At this point Jake is making the transition from baby food to finger foods. He likes bananas quite a bit and really seems to like grilled chicken. He also is a big fan of carbs, so he enjoys little Gerber Puffs, Cheerios, bread, waffles, and mini-Goldfish crackers. I've also given him steamed broccoli & carrots, peas, green beans, black beans, corn, asparagus, peaches, and kiwi. Tonight I pureed some strawberries to mix into some whole milk yogurt for breakfast, and I think he'll like that. He definitely likes to feed himself, but he's also been quite naughty lately about throwing food onto the floor. Little stinker.

Jake definitely has become a sleeper I can't complain about. He goes to bed between 7:00 and 7:15 most nights and is up between 6:30 and 6:45 most mornings, though once in a blue moon he'll sleep until 7:00. He naps around 8:45/9:00 for an hour and a half or so and again around 1:15/1:30 for another hour and a half or so.

Let's see, what else do I want to remember about Jake at 9 months? Oh, he seems to sort of dance when music with a good beat comes on, and I think he's starting to catch on to So Big! Hopefully one of these days I'll get a video of it, but we're still working on it. He loves to be outside and wants to be in the action whenever possible. I'm pretty sure that once this kid can walk, he'll go straight to running, just so he can keep up with those big brothers.

We go to the doctor in a couple of days, so I'll post his stats then. Now it's time for bed!

Drew's First Day of Preschool

2011-09-08T21:42:00.005-05:00

Drew started preschool on Tuesday, and so far, so good. I think I was more nervous than he was, mostly because aside from grandparents' houses, I don't think I've ever dropped Drew off and left him somewhere without me or Mike there as well. When Zach started preschool he had had play dates without me around and had gone to Vacation Bible School without me. Plus, I'll be honest, Zach tends to be a little easier to get along with and has always been more of a go-with-the-flow kind of kid than Drew. But, after our initial tour of the classroom and meeting of the teachers last week, Drew seemed pretty excited about starting preschool.

Zach didn't have school on Tuesday because of a teacher work day, so he was able to go with to drop Drew off on his first day. Drew is going to the same preschool Zach went to, and I love the fact that even though more than a whole year has gone by since Zach has been there or seen the teachers, yet the director greeted Zach by name as we walked up and commented on how tall he had gotten. She also greeted Drew by name, which was also impressive. Going back into those preschool rooms with Zach made him seem so much older, too. Drew showed Zach right away where his cubby is, and then they explored the room a little together, with Drew showing Zach some things and vice versa. The associate teacher in the classroom is the same one Zach had for his 3 year-old year, so that's neat, too. She was happy to see Zach again as well.

Normally I will just drop Drew off in the drop-off line, but for the first day I wanted to walk him in. So after checking out some stuff, I told Zach we needed to head home. I wanted to make a quick exit for Drew's sake and because Jake was definitely ready to get home for his nap. I gave Drew a hug and told him good-bye, and Zach, Jake, and I headed to the back door of the classroom. As we started down the short hallway that leads to the main hallway, which was somewhat crowded with other parents, I heard, "Mom!" and saw Drew coming out of the room, and I thought, "Oh, no. Here we go." But I was pleasantly surprised to have him say, "I love you." I told him I loved him, too, and good-bye again. About 1 minute later I heard, "Mom!" We turned around and there was Drew again. This time he came out and gave Zach a big hug. That got me a little choked up. It was just so sweet. He came out one more time before we got away, and this time he just said good-bye again. So I think he was a little nervous, but thankfully the drop-off went well.

When we picked Drew up, he was happy and said he had a good day. He could tell me they read The Kissing Hand, he went potty and washed his hands in the little sink, they had apple juice and little teddy bear crackers (Teddy Grahams) as a snack, that he got to be the counter that day and counted that there were 6 gingerbread men, and that they didn't get a lot of time to play on the playground, but that he played pirates out by himself at recess. That seems like more information in one day from Drew than I ever got from Zach in two years of preschool! His second day of preschool (on Thursday) he was able to tell me it was Jarrett's birthday so they had cupcakes (he guess his was "caramel flavored, maybe"), he was the line leader to go home, and he sang me the song they learned that day, remembering all the words and getting the melody well enough that I could tell it was to the tune of Frere Jacques/Where is Thumbkin. I wonder if the details will always be so forthcoming from Drew. I hope so!

Here is Drew with his preschool bag. We have to purchase the bag from the preschool, but then we can decorate it with the child's name and whatever else. Drew originally wanted Bolt, the dog from the Disney movie of the same name, but I couldn't find it anywhere, so he "settled" on Lightning McQueen and Mater. Mike played Susie Homemaker last weekend and while I did bunches of other stuff, he ironed on the cars and the letters of Drew's name.

Here are my three boys and me just before leaving to take Drew to school. I can't believe this picture turned out as well as it did.

While Drew was at preschool that first day, Jake napped, and Zach and I enjoyed some one-on-one time (a rarity now that he's in school all day) by reading a chapter book (it's fun to have Zach old enough to enjoy longer books), having a snack, and just hanging out. I had promised the boys that after preschool we'd feed some geese and have a picnic, so we headed up to the little lake/pond at the mall, where we know there are always geese and often ducks. It was a perfect, sunny day, and as we got to the water's edge. there was just one duck. The first bit of bread went in and suddenly we were bombarded by geese, ducks, and fish.

There was one bold little duck who knew that the best way to get bread was to get out of the water and get close. You can see him in the above picture, just at the right-hand side. He had just climbed out of the water.

Zach tried holding bread in his open hand and see if the duck would come get it, but he kept moving and spooking the duck, so it didn't work out. I was ok with that.

Drew thought about trying to hand-feed it also, but ended up just putting his bread down. This duck just kept getting braver and braver!

Jake was pretty interested in watching the ducks and geese from his stroller.

After feeding the birds, we found a bench and sat to have lunch. I was a little annoyed because another mom and her 1.5-2 year-old son came over by us and started throwing bread to the birds, so of course they got out and came up by us while we were eating our lunch, expecting us to toss them food as well. It wasn't a big deal, but she had the whole lake to choose from, so why pick right where we were eating? It just seemed weird. I would have tried to have chosen a spot away from where people were eating if I could, and we were about the only other people there, so it's not like the place was crowded. But, whatever. The birds pestered us some but not too much, so no harm was done.

Oh, while it's on my mind- two quick cute things Drew has said lately:

1. Instead of accident, he says asskident, i.e. "I spilled my water on asskident." It's pretty cute.

2. He also told me the other day that he saw a volcano on Dinosaur Train, and that volcanoes "interrupt" when smoke comes out of them.

3. He also has told me that he can't play with girls at preschool, and that I'm the only girl who's fun to play with. Then he quickly added to that list the two neighbor girls who are friends of Zach's and our friends Anna and Lucy. "They're my best girlfriends," he said about Anna and Lucy.

4. Finally, my nephew Anders turned 3 this past week, the day before Drew turned 3 and a half. I called to talk to Anders when the boys weren't with me, and when I told Drew that night that Anders had ridden on a train on his birthday, Drew got really upset, saying, "That really hurts my feelings that Anders went on that train without me! I wanted to go!" I tried to explain that Anders didn't do it to hurt Drew's feelings and that we were too far away to go on the train anyway, but he just kept saying, "That hurts my feelings! Anders hurt my feelings!" Then I said it wasn't Anders' idea, it was his mom and dad's idea, as something special for Anders' birthday, and Drew said, "Then Aunt Sandy and Uncle Will hurt my feelings. Was there a station for that train? I want to go to that station and on that train. That wasn't fair!" all while big tears were rolling down his cheeks. The next morning he found his play cellphone, and he pretended he got a call from Anders, who was calling to apologize for asskidentally hurting Drew's feelings by going on the train without him. It was all really cute and pretty funny.

Labor Day Weekend 2011

2011-09-05T21:04:00.002-05:00

It has been a fun and busy Labor Day weekend. Activities included the first Hawkeye game of the season, dog-sitting, a birthday party, a sleep-over at Grandma & Grandpa's, an almost 9 mile run, playing outside, getting ready for the first day of preschool, and hanging with friends.

Jake was able to take some time to relax and play the piano, though. He makes lovely music and is so proud to be able to reach and play all on his own.

On Friday evening Mike, Zach, and Drew hopped into the car and headed over to Pa's house. At 88 years-old, Pa is still doing very well. I'm sure he loved having his only grandson and two of his three great-grandsons over for a visit. The boys enjoyed playing with Pa's toys, both old (toy tractors for Drew) and new (Wii for Zach), and they enjoyed snuggling with their great-grandpa, too.

Saturday morning the boys and Mike met our friend BJ and his daughter Anna and headed to the first Hawkeye game of the season. First they were tailgating for a couple of hours, though. It seemed to be bring-your-kid-to-the-game day for many folks, perhaps because Iowa was playing Tennessee Tech and was expected to blow them away, which they did. Drew and I put together some little snack cups for him, Zach, and Anna to have while tailgating. They were very proud in their new McNutt jerseys, too.

Zach made sure I bought black jerseys since that was what he knew Anna had. Here are all three kids being goofy. I think they might have had just a bit of sugar while tailgating.

They had a great time tailgating, and then the rain started. And apparently it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. Mike said about a half-hour before the game started, they were huddled under someone's tent, and Drew said, "Let's just go home now." They did go to the game... for a quarter. It rained the whole time they were there, and though they had rain ponchos, they still were soaked by the time they left. I think they left at the right time, though, because shortly after halftime they had to delay the game because of the rain. That would not have been fun to sit through with a couple of young kids.

While the big boys were away, Jake and I were home, dog-sitting Mike's step-brother's great dane, Teegan. I've met Teegan before at Mike's parents' house, and I knew she was a gentle giant, but having her in my own house really showed me how GIANT she is! Maggie is a pretty big dog with long legs, but next to Teegan, she looks like a little lap dog! I feel like all the pictures I took don't really even show how massive she is, but I tried.

Teegan lives in Texas and had never been to my house previously, and she and I have only met on a couple of occasions, so she was pretty sad when Mike's step-brother Colin dropped her off and left for his cousin's wedding. She spent the first few hours going back and forth from the front door to the back door, looking for her owner. I was afraid to let her out to potty because I wasn't sure she'd come back, and it was raining, and I had these visions of me, carrying Jake, chasing a dog that weighs more than I do around the neighborhood. Thankfully she always came back when I let her out. This first picture shows a little bit of how much bigger Teegan is than Maggie.

Teegan can easily rest her chin on my kitchen counters, so I had to make sure I never left any food out. I like this picture because of the way Jake is looking up at Teegan.

Once Mike and the boys got home from the game, I enlisted their help in getting a picture of Teegan, Maggie, and Foudy next to each other to also show the difference in their sizes. This is a good one because you can also see how she compares to Zach in size.

Later that evening, Mike, Zach, and Drew took Teegan back to Curt & Linda's house. Mike said it was a bit of a challenge to get Teegan situated in the van.

All the dogs got along just fine. Maggie seemed to avoid Teegan, and otherwise they really just ignored each other. Oh, Foudy did growl at Teegan a little when Teegan walked by Foudy as she was chewing on her bone. Foudy apparently didn't realize that her 43 pounds probably wouldn't stand a chance against all 150 of Teegan's pounds.

On Sunday I talked my friend Melody into going on a long run with me. I'm still on the fence about running the Des Moines Half-Marathon in another 5 weeks or so, but I'm training as though I'm going to do it. It was a beautiful day for the run, and since Mel did a little too much tailgating the day before, I did a little extra running to allow her a little rest time, and I ended up running about 9 miles. It was the longest I've run in a long time (since before being pregnant with Jake), and it felt awesome. It was also the first time I've done a long run with anybody other than my sister Sandy. I sort of felt like I was cheating on her or something. Usually I just run by myself, and it was definitely fun to have somebody to talk to and the miles went by very quickly.

Sunday afternoon we headed over to Curt and Linda's house for Mike's step-brother's daughter's birthday. Alice will be 2 in 10 days, but since Colin doesn't live here, we won't see her on her birthday, so we celebrated early. I think Alice wasn't sure what to think of all those boys being around, but she sure did enjoy her ice cream, cupcake, and her presents. We were happy to celebrate with her.

That evening Zach and Drew got to have a cook-out and sleepover at Grandma Cynthia and Grandpa Kevin's house. Today was just a day to catch up on errands and to see our church friends, and tomorrow Zach has the day off and Drew starts preschool!! Hopefully there are nothing but good stories to share about that!

First Grade!

2011-08-25T21:09:00.005-05:00

Zach started first grade on the 17th. We started the day with some blueberry coffeecake, which I decided last year might have to be a tradition. The only problem is that Drew isn't a big fan, which I can't figure out, because he loves blueberries and he loves cake. I think Uncle Will must have gotten to him...

Anyway, Zach doesn't look that thrilled in these pictures, but he was super excited for school, especially for 3 recesses. It could have been the sun in his eyes, but it was probably because I wouldn't let him ride the bus to school on the first day. It was his first day of all-day school, and darn it, I wanted to take him! He said as he wistfully watched the bus pick up the kids across the street, "I'm sorta sad you're taking me to school today... and sorta glad." I'm pretty sure he put the last part in there so as not to hurt my feelings.

I tried to get a picture of all three boys on the front steps. See for yourself how they turned out.

Nope, not a single framer in the bunch.

When I taught 5th grade at a school very nearby (but not the one Zach goes to), the first day of school was always crazy. Even at 5th grade, tons of parents dropped their kids off and took their kid's picture with me. After the open house at Zach's school on the 15th, which was jam-packed, I expected the first day of school to be the same way. Wrong. We got up there and I was one of the few parents there- it was kind of weird. I was a little nervous to be leaving Zach for the whole day, and he seemed a little nervous, too (I think the gigantic crowd at the open house left him unsettled). However, as we got to school, I saw quite a few other teachers I used to teach with who are now at this school (this is just the second year Zach's school has been open), and just seeing the familiar faces and knowing they'd be there with Zach helped me feel better. Most of the people Zach doesn't know, but I think it helped him, too, to know that quite a few of the adults (including the principal) are Mom's friends.

Zach's teacher is in her second year of teaching, and reminds me so much of my early teacher-self. She loves running, has 2 older sisters, and apparently has a dog she loves to tell stories about. That was comforting, too.

Zach did ride the bus home on the first day, and that went just fine. A friend up the street who is in Zach's class also rides the bus, so the two of them sit together and seem to have a lot of fun. She rode the bus last year for kindergarten, so she has a little experience with the whole routine. The bus drop-off/pick-up at school is literally right outside of Zach's classroom, and in the neighborhood it is across the street and up a couple of houses, so it's all quite convenient.

To top it off, if you live more than a mile from the school, you don't have to pay for the bus service, and we live 1.1 miles away. I would like to walk/ride bikes with Zach to school, but with Drew and Jake and nap schedules and everything, right now it just doesn't work. Maybe in the spring or next year. And at some point, hopefully Zach can do it on his own. Mike and I rode bikes up to the school last night for Curriculum Night, and it was a quick, easy ride. Zach has actually ridden his bike up there before with me while I was running, so I know it's not a problem for him.

After school on the first day, we went to the pool. The bus was supposed to drop off at 3:55 (school gets out at 3:40), but on the first day it didn't drop off until 4:30, so we got a later start than I had planned. We had dinner and played around, and celebrated a great first day of first grade. Here's Jake with his buddy Lucy.

So school is going well so far. Zach has already had a sick day, though, so there goes perfect attendance! He woke up on Tuesday not feeling great and did his somewhat regular eat breakfast, throw up, take a nap, and then be perfectly fine deal. It's weird, but thankfully it only affects him and not Drew or Jake (knock on wood). Zach assures us he is working on listening and making good choices (he struggled a little last year with too much talking). He knows 2 kids in his class (the neighbor girl and a boy from preschool who Zach has always liked but isn't our first choice for a friend), and that was comforting for him right away. I'm hoping he quickly makes lots of new friends and has a great year.

I so clearly remember my first day of teaching after Zach was born. It was the first day of school of my 6th year of teaching, and Zach was 11 weeks old. I quit at the end of that school year to stay home with Zach, and now he's gone off and left me! I can't believe my little boy is a first grader!

End of Summer

2011-08-21T21:31:00.007-05:00

Ahhh, summer. It was good while it lasted. As I think back over the last couple of months, I'm not really sure where all the time went or what we did. Mostly I feel like the summer was spent working around Jake's naps, which left little time to do a lot of fun stuff. But, we made our own fun, I guess. I have captured some moments on my phone, so the pictures aren't that great.

There were lots of bike rides/dog walks, which generally serve a myriad of purposes- exercise for the boys and me (though going around 3 blocks doesn't really count for me), a change of scenery for Jake (and all of us, really) when he's getting fussy, an exciting field trip for the dogs, and a break in the day when I am especially ready for Mike to get home and to have a little reprieve from the 6 & under crowd. On one path we take regularly, there's a house with a few big rocks in front, and the boys like to stop and stand on them.

On one of our walks recently we discovered some big machines working, so we stood and watched for a while. It was pretty cool- there was one big compactor-type machine flattening out the land and one bulldozer scooping dirt, and then at one point, the compactor came up and the bulldozer got behind it and pushed it the whole length of the area, which was far and out of sight for us. It was neat to watch the teamwork. Plus, one of the drivers waved at the boys, which I always think is nice.

Sometimes on our walks we veer off onto a path that goes back towards Zach's school. There's a bridge over a little creek, and the boys like to throw rocks into the water. I thought this was a kind of cute picture. Probably would have been cuter without the bike helmets.

One day the boys were out in the garage & driveway using sidewalk chalk. I wanted to make things a little more fun, so I looked online for some other ideas of things to do with sidewalk chalk, and two ideas I got were to soak the chalk in water for a while (makes it much richer looking on the cement) and to mash it up with water to make chalk-paint. So we did both. It started out as the boys and me painting on the floor of the garage, and then the boys asked if they could paint on the walls. I thought, "Hmm, it said online that it just washes off with water, so that should be fine." About 10 minutes in, I started thinking, "But will it just wash off the walls, or does that only apply to cement & plastic, or other non-porous surfaces? I'm not sure Mike will appreciate the walls of the garage being painted like this when he gets home... Crap... I guess if we ever move, I'll have to paint the walls of the garage... crap."

Mike wasn't thrilled when he got home, but agreed that I will be responsible for painting the walls should we ever decide to move. Until then, our garage is a little more interesting than most people's, I guess.

The boys also had fun "washing" Drew's old car/stroller thing. Unfortunately, they failed to clean up their supplies as instructed, and we had to skip going to the park like we had planned. We've had some struggles with listening and following directions in this house lately, and I have found that following through on my end sometimes stinks (we missed a trip to the pool as well) for everyone, even though I know it's important.

After the car washing (but not cleaning up, though I didn't know it yet), the boys were excited to realize we were having a smoothie for a snack that day. We love smoothies, and though I don't follow a recipe, my standard is a mix of frozen blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries, a handful of spinach leaves, ice cubes and some water, and either yogurt or silken tofu, depending on what I have on hand. Oh, and the most important ingredient- a few chocolate chips. They are delicious and healthy (even the chocolate chips are semi-sweet, so they're still healthy, right??), and the boys love them as much as I do.

This is Drew's typical post-smoothie face.

Zach's isn't quite so messy.

A day or two after the chalk and no cleaning up incident, we did make it to the park. The boys were excited because we decided to go to a different park than the two closest to us. Zach enjoyed the monkey bars.

Drew and Jake enjoyed this musical feature, which I think is pretty neat, too, and unlike anything I've seen at any other park.

And I even managed to get a picture of all 3 of them on the slides.

Though it has been difficult to get to the pool this summer due to Jake's schedule and the fact that it is a challenge to manage 3 kids ages 6 & under at the pool by myself, we did manage to go a fair number of times for an hour or two. It really helped that Drew got more comfortable in the water after his swim lessons. We also tried to take advantage of going in the evenings, when the pool was definitely not busy and we had a slightly larger window of time and Mike could go along, too. There have been many evenings where Mike, Zach, and Drew went to the pool and Jake and I stayed home, and that worked out well, too. At the end of last summer, Zach was jumping off the diving board and swimming pretty well. At the beginning of this summer, though, he was pretty nervous about being where he couldn't touch, and Drew would only jump in where he could touch if he was holding an adult's hand. Here's a video of where they are now to show you how far they've come.

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The last few days of summer were spent just kind of playing around. Everybody seems especially fascinated in the vacuum hose. Drew and I played firemen for about an hour with that as our fire hose one day, and Zach and Jake played with it, too. If only they could safely and effectively use it around the house...

Jake decided he is old enough to start using the laptop,

but then decided to just be silly instead.

Then he practiced standing some more, which has quickly become his favorite thing.

I pulled out an old toy that everybody seems to enjoy.

I have so many good pictures of Zach and Jake; too bad I can't get a really good one of all three of them!

Bring on fall!

Jake at 8 Months

2011-08-13T13:44:00.005-05:00

Jake is already 8 months old, and I feel like rather than inching toward that first birthday, he's barreling toward it. As I uploaded pictures to iPhoto last night, I caught sight of a sweet picture of Jake right around Christmas, when he was just a couple of weeks old. He was so little and sweet, all snug and tight and swaddled. It just baffles me how it feels like we were just there, swaddling him, helping him sleep all the time, and dealing with all that newborn stuff, and now he is pulling up, army-crawling all over, and I lay him down in his crib and he puts himself to sleep, no swaddling, shushing, etc. How does it go by so quickly??

Jake recently experienced another baby rite of passage- his first time in the Tupperware cabinet. He hasn't yet figured out how to open the cabinets (other than the little plastic one on the play kitchen), but I have a feeling it's only a matter of time before we have to break out the cabinet locks again.

Jake is still army-crawling, though he is getting up on his hands and knees and taking a couple of steps forward on his hands and knees. After a couple of steps, though, he usually drops his tummy and resorts to army-crawling. I cheer like crazy when he stays up on all fours, though, hoping that soon he'll catch on and that will be the default mode of transportation. Jake loves to crawl over to the plant and grab the leaves, but I think he definitely is learning that Mom always tells him no when he does that. I swear he grabs for a leaf and looks for me. It's amazing how early they learn that kind of thing. I just read that babies start to learn cause and effect as early as 2 months, so I suppose he does know he'll get my attention by going for the plant. He also likes to crawl on the shelf that is under our little end-table, where he can find lots of computer cords and my knitting stuff. Like the plant, that also garners Mom moving Jake to a different area. He really likes to crawl under anything he can, and frequently goes under the kitchen table and chairs. This is okay, except that he often ends up hitting his forehead on the horizontal bars of the kitchen chairs because he hasn't learned to duck his head far enough yet. Going under his exersaucer is fun, too.

Jake reaches out to touch the dogs more and more, which usually results in lots of licking. In the picture below, Maggie either wanted to just cuddle with Jake, or she wanted the blue dryer ball he was playing with. Knowing Maggie, I think it was probably the latter.

Jake seems to really enjoy swinging in the swing in our backyard. He (and Foudy) also like it when I blow bubbles. I think Jake prefers to suck on the bubbles bottle, and Foudy prefers to chase bubbles.

The other day Zach and Drew were out on the deck, sitting on the bench, and the big door was open but the screen door was shut. Jake crawled over there and quickly realized that he could not get out there, and he was definitely mad about it. He laid there, looked up at his brothers, and fussed, making it very clear that he wanted to be out there with them. The next day he crawled over to check out Maggie on the other side of the door.

One of Jake's other new skills is pulling up. Last weekend I set him down next to a toy that is meant for standing at, and I quickly put something away in my bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom a minute later, Jake was standing at the toy. He's not very stable yet, so I make sure to stay close-by when I think he's about to pull up. He also is getting up on his knees a lot to reach things. As a result, we moved his crib mattress down to the lowest level this week.

A few weeks ago I took Jake to the doctor for a weight check. At his 6 month appointment, the doctor said to come back in 6 weeks to check his weight since his percentile had dropped. Thankfully in that 6 weeks, Jake gained 1 pound, putting him at 16 lbs. 10 oz. From the 6 month appointment to the 9 month appointment, the average weight gain is 2 pounds, so he was right on track. However, he dropped from the 75%ile at 9 weeks to the 39%ile at 4 months to the 17%ile at 6 months to the 11%ile at 7 months 19 days. He's still on the longer side at 27.8 inches, which puts him at the 62%ile. The weight thing bugs me, but I'm trying not to get too worried about it. I explained to the pediatrician that I was nursing him 4x a day (every 4 hours) and feeding him solids 3x a day, but that at the 2 middle nursing sessions, Jake was distracted and not that hungry. The pediatrician suggested taking out the middle feeding of solids so that Jake would take more calories from milk. Breast milk has an average of 20 calories per ounce, and baby food generally has fewer calories than that. My sisters and I always seem to have small kids, so I guess we must naturally make skim milk, right? Anyway, it seems like Jake is doing a little better with nursing, but it's hard to tell. The kid is just so busy, too. He hardly ever sits still, and I figure that since he rolled over and got mobile so early, he probably is burning a lot of calories. I'm very curious to see what he weighs at his 9 month appointment. Hopefully he gains another pound or more.

The other major milestone we've met is that Jake has just recently dropped that third, late afternoon nap. It's kind of a mixed blessing. It's nice to have more awake time for him in the afternoon/evening so we can do things, but it also takes away my baby-free dinner prep time. As a result of taking out that last nap, Jake needs to go to bed a bit earlier, so now he typically wakes up between 6:30 and 7:00 (I'm working on pushing his wake-up time back to 7:00 by not going into his room until then, hoping that will naturally get him to sleep a little later), takes his first nap around 8:35/9:00 (generally right at 2 hours after waking up, which is why I'm trying to push him back to 7:00 for waking up), sleeps for an hour to an hour and a half, takes his next nap around 12:45/1:00, and wakes up between 2:30 and 3:00, and then is in bed by 7:00. All in all it's worked out to be a pretty good schedule, although it is sometimes tough to squeeze in any errands or anything between 11:00 and 1:00 and also feed everybody lunch. Once Drew starts preschool a couple of days a week, I'll need Jake to not take his nap until at least 9:00 (that's what time I drop Drew off), so hopefully he'll start consistently sleeping until 7:00. It would be great, too, if his nap and Drew's nap overlapped a little more (Drew usually goes down at 2:00), but right now I'll take what I can get.

Well, speaking of naps, I think Jake is awake from his afternoon nap right now, so I better go check on that little pumpkin. He's just such a sweet, happy baby, and I'm trying to be sure to enjoy each stage since I know Jake is our last. Oh- through a former student who volunteers with refugee families in the area, I was able donate 3 boxes of baby clothes, our Bumbo seat, activity gym, and bouncy seat to an Ethiopian family with 3 boys under age 4. It feels so great to have helped out that family and to be rid of some of our clutter. I'm looking forward to continuing to purge stuff every few months as Jake outgrows clothes, though some items (particularly those that all 3 boys wore) are a little tough to say goodbye to.

A Good Time Was Had By All- I Think

2011-08-11T21:39:00.003-05:00

Last weekend Mike and I got together with our college friends for our somewhat regular summer get-together on the Mississippi. We dropped the boys and dogs off at Grandpa Kevin and Grandma Cynthia's house on Friday morning, and we were off. We got up to our friend's parents' cabin at lunchtime, hung out with Troy, Jenny, Arch, and Jenn, and waited for the other two couples, BJ & Carey and Dave & Laura, to arrive. Once everybody was there we headed out to the sand bar to relax, play some corn hole, and just enjoy the sun and water. It was great.

Saturday morning we all went to a nearby town for the Divorce Open, a little golf tournament we set up for all 5 couples where couples compete together in an alternate shot format. For example, Mike hit off the tee on hole #1, then I hit the next ball onto the green, and he putted in. It's called the Divorce Open because of the teamwork required and the bickering that could ensue. In our case, Mike is obviously a much better golfer than I am (maybe if I had a free lunch hour every day to golf I'd be decent, too... that's a joke... sort of), so I provided him with some more challenging shots than he's used to having when he plays by himself. A couple of the girls playing had never golfed before, but they were good sports about giving it a try. Either way, it was a lot of fun.

Later on Saturday we went back out to the sand bar, and then headed up the river to some bar/restaurant for dinner. I didn't have my camera along, but I did have my phone, and here are the prize-worthy photos I took both in the restaurant and on the way back to the cabin. Prepare to be impressed.

First, Carey, Dave, and Jenny.

Now me and Soup (a.k.a. BJ) with one of his Cajun shrimp that he kept raving about. Obviously he doesn't get out much- it was breaded, fried bar food. How good could it really be?

Then Jenny and Mike, who this group all calls Bird or Birdie- it's a college/callege (inside joke) thing.

Here's Arch rubbing Soup's nipples. Don't ask. Arch's wife, Jenn, is in the purple dress. Somehow she managed to avoid all other pictures I took.

Laura, Dave, and Jen.

Dave, Jen, Mike, and Laura. It appears as though Dave isn't necessarily thrilled about the placement of Jen's hand on his wife's leg, but I think it was pretty innocent.

Alas, those are the only pictures I have from the weekend. Thanks, friends, for a great time! It went way too quickly, and I am bummed it's over already. There were of course some inappropriate comments and some spats here and there, but I think we all left the weekend still friends, and personally, I know Mike and I can't wait until the next time!!

Things That Go Bump In The Night

2011-07-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

Lately Zach seems to have been somewhat of a sleepwalker. Ever since he was potty-trained at 2.5 years, he has consistently gotten up at least once in the night to go to the bathroom. Drew often gets up once a night to potty, too, but not as consistently as Zach. It's easy to tell who has gotten up, because Zach tends to stomp into the bathroom in his sleepy haze, and he opens the toilet loudly. Drew, on the other hand, amazingly travels to and from the bathroom a little more quietly. At nighttime Zach also leaves the lid up and doesn't flush, but Drew puts the lid down and does flush, and then Drew often shuts his bedroom door a little loudly. So it's common for us to hear Zach get up either shortly after we've gone to bed, or sometimes even before we head upstairs to go to bed. That was the case both Monday and Tuesday of this week. Monday night I heard Zach get up while I was down in the living room, probably close to 10 o'clock. When I went upstairs a little later to go to bed, I checked in on him, and he was dead asleep in bed, but his closet door was open and the light was on. And on Tuesday night, Mike and I woke up around 11:30 because our bathroom light was on, and neither of us had gotten up.

Those two nights were weird, but not too crazy. Other times Zach has gotten up to potty and then wandered into our room very confused, and we basically send him back to bed. On Wednesday night, Mike headed upstairs to get ready for bed first and immediately called me up and instructed me to bring the camera. He had noticed that both Zach and Drew's doors were slightly ajar. This is what we found.

Zach is curled up on the left, and Drew is stretched out on the right. This is Drew's bed. We're not sure how Zach climbed in and over Drew without waking him up, but he appears to have done it.

We contemplated moving Zach, mostly because we were worried Drew would wake up and, being in one of his moods, yell at Zach for sleeping in his bed. Or the possibility was that Drew and Zach would wake up, get into a fit of giggles, and really struggle to get back to sleep. Neither of those situations would be that big of a deal, except that I really didn't feel like being woken up in the middle of the night. However, we ultimately decided to just leave Zach there and see what happened.

Before we went to bed I snuck in for a couple more pictures. I'm really bummed this next one turned out so blurry, because I thought it was very cute how they were laying in basically the same position.

When I got up at 6:00 on Wednesday morning, I went to check on the boys. Both boys' doors were shut tight, which was a clue to me that something had changed since I'd gone to sleep. Sure enough, Drew was asleep in his bed, and Zach was asleep in his bed. When Zach got up, I asked him if anything weird had happened in the night. At first he said no, but then he remembered and said, "Oh yeah! I woke up and I was in Drew's room!" I asked what he did next, and he said, "Oh, I just got up and went back to my own bed." Drew never had a clue about any of it until I showed him the pictures.

I half expected Zach to end up in Jake's room on Thursday night, but thankfully he stayed in his own bed and nothing strange happened.

The Champ

2011-07-28T21:44:00.004-05:00

Zach participated in the Mighty Mites golf program at the club this summer, so he was invited to play in the 3 Hole golf tournament earlier this week. The tournament is divided into ages 5-6 and 7-8, as well as by gender. There was only one little girl in the 5-6 year-old group, so she played with the boys.

Last year Mike was able to go to the tournament with Mike, but this year we didn't have enough advance notice for him to schedule around it at work, so I went, and Grandma Cynthia came over to hang out with Jake and Drew (Thanks, Cynthia!!). I felt a little out of place since I don't know all the golf etiquette, but I surprised myself with what I did know. I guess I've been listening to Mike after all! For the bulk of the tournament, I was the only mom along, but then one mom who was with the older group joined her daughter in this group.

There was a 10 stroke maximum on each hole. On the first hole, Zach got on the green in 5 but then 5-putted, so he got a 10. I don't remember the second hole as well, but I know he got another 10. On the third hole, he hit it into a sand trap, then from that sand trap over the green to the next sand trap, then onto the green, and he 2-putted for a 5!

In 3 holes, Zach hit at least 3 sand traps, maybe even 4, which is funny because on the way to the golf course I was asking him if he remembered tips the golf pros had given him during his golf lessons, and the one he told me had to do with hitting it out of the sand. He also wanted to wear his tennis shoes (as opposed to his Crocs) that day, in case he hit it in the sand. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was purposely trying to hit the sand, but I actually think he has worse aim than I do. In fact, that was one of the things I was really trying to help him with that day. While I (and probably most golfers) hate hitting my ball into the sand, Zach enjoys it, and also enjoyed repairing the sand after hitting his ball out of the sand.

It was a close round, but Zach came out the big winner. He was excited about the medal and about winning, but more excited about the pizza, juice, cookies, and little bag of treats that all the golfers got after the tournament.

It was such a fun day, and it's so fun to see how far Zach has come with his golfing skills. I'm pretty sure I only have a couple more years (at best) of being better than him, which is perfectly fine with me.

Introducing Dr. Mike

2011-07-24T21:03:00.008-05:00

Last weekend Mike finished up work on his doctorate degree- woohoo! When Mike graduated from physical therapy school in 2001, he had earned his Master of Science in Physical Therapy degree. It was an intense program that was just a few credits less than the number of credits in a doctoral program, so couple of years later, schools added the extra classes to the course load and changed the degree from a Master of Science in Physical Therapy to a Doctorate of Physical Therapy degree. So, Mike was one of the last classes to have the MSPT distinction. There's no requirement that physical therapists with their MSPT go on and earn their DPT, but since Mike holds positions in both the American Physical Therapy Association and the Iowa Physical Therapy Association, and he teaches classes to the DPT students at his alma mater as well as other PTs, he felt it was important for him to earn his DPT. So over the past year, he has worked hard in a program perfect for him, as it was targeted at private practice owners and offered quite a few business classes, something Mike had never taken in college or PT school, but were useful considering he owns his own practice. Much of Mike's work was done online, though he was required to go to California for 3 different on-site visits. The last time was earlier this month, and included a couple of days of class and then graduation.

Mike flew out on Wednesday evening so he could start class early Thursday morning. Since this was a great accomplishment and since Mike and I celebrated 10 years of marriage earlier this summer, we decided we would join the two things together and I would meet him in San Diego for a little get-away weekend. So I flew out on Friday morning, which happened to be my third Friday in a row of flying on an airplane. Let me tell you, after flying to and from Denver with all three boys, flying by myself was blissful. I like flying, but in the last 6 years, I've flown by myself about twice; every other time I've had at least one toddler or baby with me. Security was so easy, I didn't have to worry about limiting water for any little boys so they wouldn't have to potty on the plane, and I knew that once on the plane, I could sit and read or sleep or do whatever I wanted without having to entertain anyone or keep anybody quiet or happy. It was great! Getting everything ready for the trip was a little stressful. It's no easy task packing for myself, all 3 boys, and the dogs and making sure I had all of Jake's milk for bottles and and the appropriate baby food for all of his meals, etc. Since Mike was already gone, I had to do all of this after the boys had gone to bed, and it was exhausting. After getting everything packed and all set up for Grandma Linda and Grandpa Curt (who so generously watched the boys and dogs for us while we were gone), I was off, but not until I bought a book and some Jelly Bellies (my favorite treat!) at Target on the way to the airport.

Once I got to San Diego, I got to go wait in line forever at the car rental place and then find my way to the hotel Mike was at for his class. Friday night was his graduation, which was short and sweet (an hour at the longest). Mike was the first person in his class to get his degree, and I wasn't sure if it'd be ok for me to go closer to get a picture or not. I also didn't take the big camera lens with me, so these pictures are the best I could get.

There was a professional photographer there taking pictures, so when they lined up for the whole class photo, again, I didn't feel like I could get right in front. So please excuse the pole from the photographer's light.

The final component of the program was a group project, and over the last few weeks leading up to the final trip to California, this project definitely caused Mike some headaches. His group consisted of three classmates, Raj from Detroit (I think), Dimitri from NY, and Cheryl from CA. There were lots of conference calls and some difficulty getting everybody on the same page for the project, but in the end, they pulled it off and had a great presentation prepared for their classmates, according to Mike.

We had the option to stick around after the ceremony for appetizers and drinks and then to head to a restaurant with Mike's classmates for dinner, but, honestly, we weren't interested. We're not anti-social, but I didn't know any of these people at all, and Mike figures he won't talk to any of them again now that they're all graduated. Instead, we headed to the nearest movie theater and saw the latest Harry Potter movie, which did not disappoint.

Even though graduation was Friday night, Mike still had 4 hours of class stuff to attend on Saturday morning. Weird, right? That's what I thought. So while he was off listening to some speakers, I utilized the hotel work-out room and spent some time on the ellipse machine while watching the Women's World Cup third place game. That afternoon we headed up to Torrey Pines State Park for some hiking and some beautiful views

A very nice park volunteer helped us out by showing us a neat trail and giving us a history of the area, and then he took our picture for us.

That evening we checked into our new hotel, the Hard Rock Hotel, which was slightly more hip than the Residence Inn Mike had been staying at. Maybe even a little too hip for us, or at least too young- I think we might have been the only people staying there that have graduated from college. We thought about going to a fancy, expensive restaurant for dinner, but opted instead to go to an old favorite, Ye Olde Spaghetti Factory, instead. Then we walked around the Gaslamp Quarter and eventually settled in at a fun piano bar for much of the night.

The next morning we walked over to a restaurant that had gotten great reviews, Richard Walkers Pancake House. There was a pretty lengthy line outside, but we got into it anyway, and it moved quickly. Once we got inside, we could see why. The little restaurant was packed, and people were sitting so close to each other. Our table was against a wall, and the hostess literally had to move the 18" x 32" table out so I could squeeze in, and then Mike and I sat about 6 " from the people next to us. We had some strawberries and cream as an appetizer, and then Mike had french toast and I had a waffle with strawberries, and we both had freshly squeezed orange juice. It was all incredibly delicious, but it also was our most expensive meal for the whole weekend! We spent over $50 on breakfast for two! Yikes! After breakfast we walked around town for a bit before going back to our room to watch the heart-breaking women's World Cup final between the USA and Japan. After the game we headed out to Coronado Island, where we acted on a tip from some friends of mine and rented bikes to ride around. That was a lot of fun, and the weather was gorgeous. The whole time we were in San Diego it didn't get above 75 degrees. That night we decided to eat dinner at Peohe's, a Chart House restaurant right on the water in Coronado. We took it easy and just got appetizers and salads, and when we got back over to the Gaslamp Quarter, we walked around some more and got some ice cream, then headed back to the hotel to watch a movie and call it an early night.

The original plan for Monday was to take advantage of our time in San Diego by doing something before our afternoon flight. However, on Sunday night, we decided that getting back home after 11:00 at night and jumping right into the swing of things (work for Mike, all 3 boys for me) early the next morning didn't sound so fun. Unfortunately, to change our flights, it was going to cost us upwards of $450 per ticket, so that made the decision pretty easy. We tossed around the idea of going to Sea World or the zoo, but both were so expensive (Sea World is $70 per person!), that we decided since we didn't have a full day, it wasn't worth the money. We drove out to where some paragliders jump off the cliffs, but it was too early in the day and nobody was out yet. So we went to La Jolla and walked along the beach. It was fun because we got to see all the little kids in surf school. I think Zach would have a blast with surf school. I actually stood and talked to the mom of the little girl in center of the picture below, and found out she is 5, and that the camp goes all week from 9-12 each day. That would be so fun!

We got to the airport in time for our 3:55 flight, and then it was late. We were supposed to land in Chicago and have about an hour layover before our 9:55 flight home. However, at about 9:35, when we were still on the plane to Chicago, I started to get pretty antsy. The flight attendant assured us that our next flight knew we were on our way, and she told us our gate number and showed us where to go on a map. We landed 20 miles away from the airport around 9:50 and taxied for about an hour. Ok, maybe it wasn't that far or that long, but it honestly was the longest taxiing on an airplane I've ever experienced. All I wanted was to get home, and I was getting very stressed. The flight attendant didn't even have the courtesy to ask the other passengers to please let us off first, so we did our best asking for that, but we were still behind a bunch of people taking their sweet time. We bolted for our next gate, Mike with his carry-on suitcase and laptop bag, and me with my purse, breast pump and an insulated lunchbox filled with breast milk (a.k.a. liquid gold) and about 10 pounds of ice. Partway to the gate I stopped and took off my flip-flops so I could run faster, and I couldn't believe I was running through O'Hare Airport barefoot. Gross. That darn breast pump (it's a backpack) kept slamming against my back so that I had bruises the next day. We arrived at the gate to find it dark and empty. Tears ensued, but eventually Mike calmed down. Ok, the tears were really mine. It must have been 10:10 or so when we arrived at the gate, and I looked a little later on my phone and saw that the plane took off at 10:13. We truly just missed it, and I kept oscillating between being so incredibly pissed at American Airlines, being completely depressed about not getting home, and being worried that there wasn't any milk in the freezer for Jake for the morning. Mike and I spent the next almost 2 hours calling car rental companies there at O'Hare and talking to the car rental shuttle drivers, seeing if we could get a one-way rental that night. I even pulled out the old, "I have a sick baby I need to get home to," hoping that I'd get some person who had a heart and could hear this heartsick mom begging for a car. No luck. One person finally told us we could rent a car and drive it home and turn it in here, and just face the possible charges for returning it to the wrong place. We were told the charges could range from $50-$1000. Not worth it, especially considering it's a 5-6 hour drive from Chicago to our house. So, we finally gave up and started calling hotels, which also seemed to be totally booked. We finally took the first room we could find, and we arrived there after midnight. By the time I had pumped and Mike had talked to his mom about canceling patients for the next day (she works part time for him), it was after 1:00. We never ate dinner, so I was hungry and tired, but of course struggled to fall asleep. That 5:00 a.m. alarm came pretty early, though. Oh, and I didn't have a suitcase, so I had no pajamas or clean clothes for the next day, no make-up, no hair products, etc. I got a toothbrush and deodorant from the hotel, but still had to sleep in my contacts. So, after less than 4 hours of sleep and in the same clothes as the day before, I was by far one of the most haggard-looking people at O'Hare on Tuesday morning. Oh, and for that short 5 hours spent in the hotel (we left on the shuttle at 5:30), we forked out $275, none of which was covered by American Airlines, even though they made us miss our second flight. The one blessing in it all was that I had planned to put all the milk I had pumped over the weekend in the lunchbox in my suitcase, because then I wouldn't have to worry about dealing with it at security. Mike, however, was worried that it might sit outside too long in Chicago, where it was over 90 degrees, so he convinced me to carry it on instead. If you've ever breast-fed a baby, you know that breast milk is pretty much liquid gold, and you understand what a travesty it would have been for all my hard work to be wasted by sitting out in the heat too long (like overnight). So, even though it was a pain carrying that milk while sprinting through the airport, I am so glad Mike (who originally suggested 4 days of pumping and dumping- did he learn nothing with the first two kids I nursed?? Pumping and dumping is for extreme cases only!) had the foresight to convince me to carry it on.

So we finally arrived home at about 9:00 in the morning on Tuesday. Zach was at VBS, Jake was fed and ready for a nap (there was milk in the freezer!), and Drew was happy to see us. Mike's mom, who unexpectedly had to spend the night at our house, was ready for work, even though she probably got about as much sleep as us. We felt terrible about the inconvenience for Mike's parents, but were so thankful they were around to help out.

It was a great trip (until the very last part) and it was fun to get away- that was my first time away since Jake was born in December, and I needed it! Thank you so much to Curt and Linda for taking care of the boys and the dogs and making it possible for us to go. And congrats to Mike for completing that doctorate degree!

Threats from a 3 Year-Old

2011-07-24T14:44:00.000-05:00

Drew still has plenty of opinions about everything. A couple of times this summer when he hasn't liked my disciplining him, he has threatened me with statements such as, "I'm going to have Dad put you in a time-out if you tell me I can't do that!" Or, shortly after my parents visited, he said, "I'm going to have Grandma Ruth put you in a time-out!" My favorite, though, was just a few days ago. Drew, Jake, and I were going to our church to pick Zach up from VBS. We always tried to get there about 10 minutes early so that we could see the closing songs in the main part of the church. Drew wanted to take the small Woody and Buzz toys along, and I said he could. At the last minute, he realized he didn't have Woody's hat, and he wanted to grab it, but I told him no. Woody's had really doesn't stay on very well, and I told him that I didn't want him to lose it at church, so he could not take it. As he always does lately, he asked me about 100 times (no exaggeration here) if I would please go back home so he could get the hat. He gets like this, where he just asks and asks and asks, and I start by saying no, and then I repeat myself, and then at some point I say, "I already answered that question; the answer is no, and I'm not going to answer it again." Then Drew asks again and I ignore him and he gets really mad. So then I repeat myself, "I already answered that question; the answer is no, and I'm not going to answer it again." I try to stay very calm even though it's so annoying to be asked the same question a million times. Anyway, this day, he was getting really mad, and he finally said, "Mom, if you don't go back (as we are about to turn into the church parking lot) and get Woody's hat, when we get home I'm going to throw you out of the house........... with Zach's help." It was like as he was saying it, he realized he couldn't do it on his own, so now he was dragging Zach (who was at VBS this whole time) into it. I had to sort of chuckle about that. Then, as we were parking the car, he made the same threat. And as we walked into church, he said, "As soon as we get home, Zach and me are gonna throw you out of the house." I said, "Who will make you lunch?" Without missing a beat, Drew said, "After lunch... and after my popsicle, I'm gonna throw you out of the house with Zach's help." That kid's always thinking.

This Summer (Updated)

2011-07-23T13:32:00.010-05:00

It feels like it has been a crazy summer. There's only 3.5 weeks until school starts for Zach, but it feels like it should still be June. July has gone especially quickly, I think because the boys and I were in Colorado and then home for just a few days before Mike and I were in California for a few days. Throw in activities like swim lessons and VBS, and the days really go quickly.

The boys had swim lessons at the end of June. Zach seemed to have lost some of the skills he had acquired at the end of last summer, but I think he is gaining them back. He definitely has more confidence when he's swimming in an area where he knows he can touch the bottom. He had fun with lessons and enjoys swimming, so that's the important thing.

Mike and I weren't sure how Drew would do with lessons. This was his first activity that didn't include me, Mike, or Zach. I signed him up with Mary Frances, who was Zach's teacher last year, because she is great and Drew already was familiar with her. Drew surprised us by really doing great with lessons. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was the only one of the 4 kids in his class who didn't have at least one day where he just cried and was uncooperative. There were a couple of days where he was somewhat crabby, which was due more to the fact that the temperature outside was about 60 degrees (no joke), so I couldn't blame him for that.

Drew is much more comfortable in the water right now, which is good because when we are all at the pool, I have to hold Jake and can't hold Drew very well at the same time. So at least this way he has enough confidence to have fun in the water where he can touch. He was afraid the first week of lessons to put his face in the water, but then basically just made the decision to do it, and since then has no issues with it. And, despite the picture below, Drew did really well with his back float as well.

If you've read this blog much or know Drew, you know he is a huge fan of the movie Cars and of Lightning McQueen and Mater the tow truck. The boys were excitedly awaiting the premiere of Cars 2 in late June. There was one catch, though- in order for Drew to see the movie, he had to fill up his sticker chart for bike riding. I'm not sure if I've written about this before or not, but Drew had worked up a big fear about riding his bike that was pretty ridiculous. I don't mean a 2 wheel-bike- well, I guess I do, but with training wheels. One day he'd have a good ride, and the next day he'd either refuse to get on the bike or he'd get on and scream like we were torturing him. So I decided we would do a sticker chart, and he'd get a sticker for every block he rode on his bike, because I knew all he needed was a little more practice and he'd have the confidence to do it. He has only fallen off his bike a couple of times, and I don't know if he's ever even drawn blood, so I don't know what the initial fear was. Either way, he managed to get all of his stickers in time for opening weekend of Cars 2, which was great because we scored 4 free tickets from a friend of Mike's. The movie itself was only ok, but the boys liked it, and they really liked the popcorn.

I'm trying to be good about working on reading, writing, math, and other stuff this summer with Zach so that he is ready when school starts. One day recently we worked on math stuff at snack time. Zach did addition and subtraction problems with Goldfish crackers.

Drew worked on counting and identifying numbers with Craisins and dried blueberries.

One day Drew talked me into buying some watermelon at the grocery store (didn't take much convincing). That kid loves fruit, but watermelon might be his favorite of all foods. After cutting all the fruit out, the boys made sure I didn't miss anything.

We also celebrated Grandma Cynthia's birthday right before Mike left for California a couple of weeks ago.

Jake turned 7 months old on July 10th, but since I've been so behind on blogging lately, I'm just now getting around to posting the pictures.

Jake continues to get faster and faster at army-crawling, but I wish he'd just pull those legs up under him and crawl normally, because it's kind of gross to pick him up and see all the dog hair all over his tummy. Guess I could just sweep and vacuum more, but who has time for that? He is now nursing 4 times a day and eating 3 solid meals a day, and I'm trying to wean him off of his 3rd, late afternoon/early evening nap and into just 2 naps a day.

One of Jake's new favorite games is grabbing my fingers and pulling up to a standing position from sitting, so I suppose we should move his crib mattress down since he'll probably pull up on his own any day now. This morning I was in his room and he was able to get himself from laying down to sitting up, which I've never seen him do before. He also can get his own pacifier in his mouth now, which is nice. He's just such a good tempered baby; he still really only fusses when he's tired or hungry. I gave him his first finger food a couple of days ago- just a little puff that melts away. He struggled a little with picking it up, as his pincer grasp isn't really in place yet and the things are so sticky they get caught in his palm. But, once he got it in his mouth, he did ok. I'm not offering them a lot- just one or two at the end of a meal while I finish eating or something. Zach has told me a couple of times that while Mike and I were in California, "Jake learned to express himself." He does love to babble, and it's so sweet to listen to. He makes some silly faces sometimes, which reminds me so much of Drew's silly face that he used to make. I love it!

Here's to hoping that the last few weeks of summer are as fun (and maybe not quite so busy-feeling) as the first part!

I Survived (Updated)

2011-07-11T21:20:00.015-05:00

Holy cow- it's taken me about 2 weeks just to upload pictures and get a title for this post about the boys' and my trip to Colorado. Now it's way too late and I'm starting the writing- STUPID me, but oh well.

On July 1st, I took my first solo trip with all three boys to Colorado. At 6 months, Jake is the oldest of all three boys for his first plane ride. Zach flew at 8 weeks; Drew flew at about 12 weeks. I was nervous, but felt that Drew and Zach would probably be fine; it just was a question of how Jake would do. Would he sleep during the whole trip? Would he be awake and happy? Would he be awake and fussy? Well, he fell asleep a little before we boarded the plane (which was leaving late), and woke up right before we took off. He wasn't unhappy on the plane, but I did have to work a little to keep him happy. Zach and Drew watched a movie and were a piece of cake. I got off the plane feeling relieved that one of two plane trips with all three boys was done.

The boys slept pretty well at my parents' house the first night, and the next morning we headed up to Winter Park for the holiday weekend. Zach and my nephew Cam rode with Grandma and Grandpa, and my sister Becky, brother-in-law Tom, nephew Myles, Jake, Drew, and I piled into Becky and Tom's car. I had a feeling that since I was in the back with the 3 little boys I'd be on entertainment committee, and I was for a bit, but then they all fell asleep. First Myles, then Jake, and finally Drew.

Becky has a friend who was letting us stay at her house in the mountains, and it was a very nice house. We were very comfortable there. This was the view from a little park down the street. Oh, it was so good to be back in Colorado!

Zach cracked me up- it's been a few years since he's been up to the mountains (we're always so busy when we're visiting that we just don't get up there), so he wasn't sure how it would all work. He asked me the night before we headed up, "So, will we, like, walk up the mountains?" I said, "No, we'll drive our cars." He said, "Whoa- I bet that will really slow our cars down!"

Here's Drew, Cam, and Zach enjoying some time together. Yes, Zach is older than Cam, but Cam is quite a bit taller.

Becky, Tom, Zach, Drew, Cam, and I headed into town for some free ice cream, balloon swords, groceries, and more playground fun that afternoon. That night we grilled some burgers and hot dogs and relaxed. Well, we relaxed until bedtime, actually. The house had 2 stories, with 3 bedrooms and a loft area upstairs. We decided that we would get the little boys (Myles and Jake) to bed first, as they were sleeping in pack-n-plays with their parents. Once they were asleep, we thought we'd separate Cam, Drew, and Zach by putting one in each bedroom until the adults went to bed, at which time we'd move the sleeping cherubs to sleeping bags out in the loft, and they would snooze the night away peacefully. We told them the plan so they wouldn't be confused if they woke up during the move or after. So they went to bed easily. At 10:40, we were ready to hit the sack, so Becky and Tom moved Cam and I moved Zach and Drew. I was hoping they'd pretty much stay asleep, but they didn't. I think Drew got up to potty. I went to sleep. For an hour. I awoke at 11:40 because Drew was crying. Turns out Zach had hit him. Zach hit him because Drew insisted Zach was sleeping on his (Drew's) sleeping bag, but it really was Zach's; it just looked exactly like Drew's. So I got that worked out, told the boys they HAD to go back to sleep, and went back to my own room, where I was really hot and worried non-stop that Jake was too hot in his pack-n-play. I finally slept some, only to wake up around 1:00 to "Nah-nah boo-boo, you can't get me!" I went out to the loft to find Cam across the room staring at a clock, and Drew nearby laying on top of a life-size bear cub, and Zach appears to be asleep (to this day, I have no idea if he was faking me out or if he really was asleep- I'm guessing the former). I decided that I wasn't messing around any more with Drew, so I pulled his sleeping bag into my room and threatened him within an inch of his life if he woke Jake up. I also told Cam he needed to get back into his sleeping bag and I did not want to hear from him again. Drew went to sleep on my floor and, aside from me still being hot and worrying about when Jake would wake up for the same reason, things were good. For an hour. At 2:00 I woke up because Zach and Cam were making noise. I went out to the loft area pretty much spitting fire. I was so tired and so sick of these little boys messing up my sleep! Zach and Cam were trying to figure out how long until they could get up, because they were sure it was almost time. After informing them that it was nowhere near time to get up, I chewed both boys out, moved Zach's sleeping bag over away from Cam's, told Cam if I heard from him again I'd be moving him into his parents' room, and said for the millionth time that there was to be NO MORE TALKING!! I went to the bathroom, and as I came out, I heard a quite whisper, "Zach... Zach..." "Cameron, I said NO TALKING!" Cam said, "Oh, I didn't hear that." I have no idea if they talked anymore or not, but I didn't hear them. Then Jake got up for the day at 5:45, so it was a rough night for me. He was cute and happy (and, to be fair, he was still on Central time, so it was 6:45 there, which is his normal waking time anyway), so I couldn't be mad at him.

Later in the morning I found out that Becky and Tom had also been up a couple of times between 11:40-1:00, with Becky nearly putting Drew in the laundry room at one point and in my parents' room as well. It seems Grandma and Grandpa were the only ones who slept really well that night, as they heard nothing.

We decided that we would go hiking that day, and the kids were really excited to "hike up a mountain." They had it in their heads that they'd be hiking to the top of a mountain, and we had to keep explaining that that takes all day and is too hard for kids to do. Becky had read that there was a good, beginners-type trail nearby at Snow Mountain Ranch, so we drove up there. Unfortunately, once we got there, we found out that it was going to be $15 per person for everyone except Drew, Myles, and Jake. Turns out the $15 basically pays for a day-pass at the ranch, and the only way to hike those trails was to get the day-pass. We weren't planning on spending all day at the ranch, so instead we left the ranch and basically drove around wasting precious time looking for a new trail to hike. Myles is like his mom and seems to pretty much fall asleep any time he's in the car for more than 10 minutes. I actually got a cute video of him snoring away, but I don't feel like going to all the work to get it posted on here. Sorry.

So after driving around for a while, we decided to stop and eat lunch. Jake was beyond tired, so I was doing my best to keep him happy and maintain my own sanity. After lunch we basically headed back to the house so Jake and Myles could sleep, and after some play time, Drew took a nap as well. Becky and I then took Cam and Zach to a nearby rec center for some swimming fun. It was great, and probably one of the highlights of my trip. I honestly don't even know the last time I got to spend time just doing something fun with only Zach. It was awesome to just go and have fun with him, with nothing else on the agenda at all. It was also fun to spend the time with my sister and nephew. There was a slide we went down about 50 times, and Zach even braved the diving board at the request of his younger cousin. Becky and I were asked if we were twins, which isn't that uncommon, but always kind of makes me laugh, because I don't think we look that much alike.

We returned home to find Drew, Myles, and Jake well-rested and happy. Jake had also successfully taken his first bottle in forever. That was one mission while in Colorado- have my mom and/or sister give Jake a bottle every day until he was taking them well. The kid surprised us all and did well from day one. Drew had napped for about 3 hours (no big surprise, given his antic the night before), and since we hadn't had Cam and Zach nap at all, we decided they'd go to bed early and in their own rooms. I wasn't taking any chances the second night, so I figured out that I could fit Jake's pack-n-play in the laundry room and put Zach and Drew both in with me, on opposite sides of my bed. So after some much-enjoyed stories from Uncle Tom, I think Zach fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Meanwhile, I wanted to take some time to give Drew some one-on-one attention, so he and I did a sink-or-float experiment outside on the deck. I had to think of something quiet and easy in a house without a lot of toys or resources, and Drew thought that was awesome. Just like earlier with Zach, I felt really good about having the time to devote 100% of my attention to Drew. When I did put Drew to bed, I did threaten him that if he woke Zach up or talked to him before 7:00, he would not get to have any candy at the Fourth of July parade the next day. That threat seemed to do the trick and we all had a good night's sleep!

Monday we went into Granby for the parade. Here's Jake hanging out with Grandma Ruth.

And playing peek-a-boo with his hat.

It was challenging to get a good picture of all 5 little boys. It didn't help that the only camera I had the whole trip was my iPhone- the real camera was on the surprisingly short list of things I forgot to pack.

It was also challenging to get a good picture of just my own three boys.

I thought this picture of Zach, Cam, and Drew walking with Grandpa Dick was pretty cute.

Myles stayed awake in the car this time, but after we got back to the house we packed up and headed back down to the city, and unfortunately we ran into some traffic issues, so the normally 1.5 hour trip took us about 3 hours.

On Tuesday, my parents took Cam, Zach, and Drew to the real pirates exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, and then they treated the boys to some McDonald's. The boys thought the exhibit was pretty cool. Before they returned, a few of my old friends arrived at my parents' house for a visit. First to arrive was Angela, who is a lawyer and mom of two. Ange had her second baby boy in March, so he and Jake are just 4 months apart, although they appear to be pretty much the exact same size. I think from the picture below, the only way you can tell Jake is older than Will is because Jake is sitting up and Will is leaning back, as he's still a little young for sitting up unassisted. Two happy little guys, though, that's for sure!

Ange also has a little boy named Ben, who is almost 5 months younger than Drew. Ben is very social, and Drew is not (well, it depends on the situation), so I was curious to see how these two got along. Once they realized they both love the Cars and Cars 2 movies, they got along pretty well.

Ange and I became friends right around age 3, so it was really fun to see Drew and Ben together and think about us at that age. It's crazy to think that we're that old already!

My friends Ana and Malia came over, too, but I didn't get pictures of them. Ana just finished her residency and starts up her new life (with normal hours!) as a pediatrician in a few weeks. Malia is an airline pilot with Frontier, and she brought along her little cutie Alex, who is about 15 months old. I could just squeeze Alex's little (big) cheeks all day!

It was lots of fun to catch up with my girlfriends and to see the kids together. Ben and Drew even enjoyed cooling off with their feet in my parents' little pond for a bit.

The boys all seemed to need a little down-time, so I put in Mater's Tall Tales (a Zach and Drew favorite) and let each of them pick one cartoon to watch.

Tuesday night Ana and I hit up one of our old haunts- Red Rocks Amphitheater. Ok, it wasn't necessarily an old haunt, per se, but we did go to a few concerts there when we were in high school. It's pretty much the coolest place ever for a concert. They do this cool thing called "Films on the Rocks" or something, where they show old movies on a big screen there. This particular night, the movie was Top Gun, a true oldie-but-goodie. I haven't seen that movie from start to finish in over a decade, so it was awesome to just sit and watch it in an awesome atmosphere. Even though it was rainy and kind of chilly, the crowd was into it, and it was so fun. Ana and I had a great time.

The rest of the trip included some fun on Grandpa's drum set,

playing on Sadie's pillow,

and fun at various parks. Becky and I also got to watch some World Cup Soccer, and Zach and Cam got to have 2 sleepovers at Cam's house (Drew was very sad to miss out on those, but he did get to have a movie night with Grandma, Grandpa, and me, and he got to play with Grandpa's trains, which he absolutely loved).

Look at how cute my nephew Myles is!! I love this picture.

Drew missed naps more often than he took naps in Colorado, and overall that worked out ok for us. One day on the way home from Becky's house, though, he just couldn't stay awake.

The plane ride home was definitely more challenging than the ride out, unfortunately. We were traveling right at nap time, and this time, all three boys needed the sleep. Zach fell asleep before we even took off, as did Jake, but Drew just wouldn't give in. Instead, he was crabby and needy. It was actually kind of a pain that Zach was asleep, because I could have used his help, as he was sitting in the aisle and Drew at the window, and I was across in the other aisle seat. Anything Drew needed I couldn't help with, because I couldn't reach him and Zach couldn't pass things to me because he was asleep. Drew was thirsty, but I couldn't get up to get his water because we were about to take off; he was hungry, but I couldn't open his snack because I couldn't reach it (the nice lady behind him opened it for him); he couldn't hear me, but I didn't want to talk loudly for fear of waking Jake up. Once I did talk loudly enough for Drew to hear me (probably to tell him why I couldn't get his water), sure enough, Jake did wake up, and it was not nearly long enough of a nap. Then I had to work really hard to keep Jake happy, and I even fed him baby food (very dangerous, as he can be a bit grabby and I was worried I'd end up with pureed mixed vegetables all over me). Zach finally woke up and got the DVD going, but the DVD player quit part way through the flight. Thank goodness I had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode on my phone that the boys could watch. I had a young guy sitting next to me, to whom I jokingly said at the beginning of the flight, "I bet you're wondering how you drew the short straw today, right?" but he was really nice and friendly and talked to Jake and stuff, so that was nice. As we were descending, the real fun began, because Drew's ears started hurting, and therefore so did the crying. The lady behind him offered him gum, but he said, "No! I'm not 4 or 5 so I can't have gum!" I told him he could try it this one time (I was desperate, and taking drinks from his water bottle- which I had finally managed to get- wasn't helping), to which he replied, "No, I'm not ready for gum yet!" Then, after some more crying, he said, "Putting gum in my ears won't help them!" Zach took the gum, though, which ended up being cinnamon, so I'm glad Drew didn't take it. I think that would have made him even more upset. Drew was full of his classic one-liners as the plane landed, and he cried plenty. At one point he was being a brat to Zach about sharing the arm rest, and Zach started to cry, too. I told Zach that Drew was in the wrong, but could Zach please, just this once, just keep his hand off the arm rest to make things easier for me. Such a good boy- he sucked it up, quit crying, and said ok. As we finally landed, I apologized to and thanked the people around us for their patience. They were very understanding and kind, and even told me I was very brave and deserved "Mom-of-the-Year" or at least a massage for traveling with 3 little ones by myself. The flight attendant, who had a very clear view of us while we were landing, told me as I got off the plane that I handled the 3 of them better than some parents handle one, so that nice. Oh, the crying continued as we walked through the airport, and Drew was complaining of a tummy ache, which he had complained of earlier that morning. While he was waiting for us, Mike heard someone walking by say, "There was a little boy crying on the plane because his ears hurt." And at baggage claim, the lady who was behind us said, "Drew, are your ears better? We were famous, or maybe infamous is a better word. Oh- the guy sitting next to me had commented at the beginning of the flight that I was lucky to be the mom of 3 boys and that he was one of 3 boys as well. At the height of Drew's crying towards the end of the flight, I laughed (it was that or cry, and I'm not much of a crier) and asked the guy where he fell in the line-up of 3 boys. He said, "Well, I wanted to tell you, I'm the middle and my name is Drew." Again, I had to laugh. I said, "I hear the middle is the most challenging." He said, "Yeah, I'd say that's probably true."

Anyway, poor Drew ended up having a fever that night and the next day, so I have a feeling that played into his less-than-awesome plane ride. But, we had a fun trip and of traveling on my own with all three boys, at least I can say I survived. Thanks for putting us up, Mom and Dad, and thanks to my parents and Becky & Tom and fam for such a fun trip.

Party Surprises

2011-06-26T21:00:00.008-05:00

I think I mentioned in a previous post that Zach got sick the day of his birthday party, so we had to reschedule. So, instead of having his party just a few days after his actual birthday, it was about 10 days later. We had paid to reserve the shelter at a nearby park on the date of the original party, and I really did not want to pay for it a second time. Thankfully, the day of the rescheduled party, nobody else had the shelter reserved and we could just set up and now worry about it. It's one of those things were on most days, we could probably skip the reservation and be fine, but you know the day you want to have your function there and you don't reserve it, either the park will be packed or somebody else will have reserved it and you'll be out of luck. When we arrived at the park on the make-up day, which also happened to be Father's Day, there was not a soul in sight. Whew!

So we got to the park and quickly got our stuff set up. I'll admit- I didn't put a whole lot of thought into this party. With Mike being gone the whole week before the originally scheduled party, and my parents being in and out of town, and just life in general, it wasn't nearly as planned-out as Zach's pirate party last year. But, I also think part of that is due to the fact that when I asked Zach about games he wanted to play at the park for his party, he said he just wanted to play on the equipment with his friends and not do any games, so there wasn't much to plan. And finally, since my sister Becky had a Star Wars party for my nephew in March, and my parents brought out her supplies when they came to visit, I felt like I had what I needed without having to put much thought into it.

So, as the boys arrived, we got them set up with Star Wars tattoos and Jedi robes and light sabers. Then we basically set them loose to play. We told Zach he could invite 6 friends since he turned 6, and he decided on 2 friends from preschool last year, 2 friends from kindergarten, and 2 other friends. Zach wanted to invite a girl he went to preschool with, who was the only girl at his pirate party last year, but we talked him out of it. It's tough because I definitely want Zach to have friends who are girls, but I know poor Sydney felt a little out of place last year at the pirate party, and I'm sure she'd feel the same at a Star Wars party. We asked Zach how much fun he'd have at a princess party (not much, he thought), and used that as reasoning to stick with just boys this time around. Then we discussed setting up a playdate with Sydney some other time. One little guy, Zach's best friend from kindergarten, came to the party and wouldn't leave his mom's side. Then he ended up going home. Mom was actually going to take him to the doctor, because she thought maybe he wasn't feeling well. Zach was bummed that he didn't stay. Here are the rest of the Jedis with their light sabers.

The boys really did just want to run around and play. Mike did instruct them on a Jedi obstacle course at one point, just to give a little more direction to their play.

Drew mostly jumped right in on the playing, but he felt he needed his own obstacle course since he's "just medium" (his words), so I made one up for him.

Halfway through the party we had a delicious dinner of pizza and watermelon. A bunch of six year-old boys eating pizza is an interesting thing. I definitely had a couple of thoughts like, "Well, if Zach doesn't stay friends with that kid forever, that'd be okay," like when one kid was belching really loudly or another wouldn't listen to anything Mike or I were saying. But, I suppose with 3 boys of my own, I'm destined to deal with plenty of that kind of thing over the next 18+ years.

After dinner we did our gift exchange. In the past, I've asked people not to bring gifts, but nobody ever follows that request. Or a couple of people do, but most people don't, and then the ones that did follow it feel bad because they're the only ones who didn't bring a gift. So this year I decided to do something different. I got the idea from the mom of the little boy who left the party early. Instead of kids bringing gifts for Zach, I asked that each child bring one gift, no more than approximately $10 in value, wrapped but without a name on it. Then I had Zach pick a gift first, and then he drew a name out of a cup, and that boy got to select one gift. Then that boy drew a name out of the cup, and so on. Once all the boys had gifts in their hands, they could open their present and see what they got. I had a separate gift for Drew, just a little car from the Cars 2 movie, so he wouldn't feel left out. So this way, instead of doing cheap party favors that are just junky, and instead of Zach getting a bunch of gifts, every boy went home with one decent gift. The kids loved it, and I loved it. Zach still got something, and it seemed like everyone was happy with what they got. There seemed to be a lot of water guns/sprinkler toys. Oh, and the boys could trade after they'd all opened their gifts if they wanted to. I think I will always do this from now on- I really liked it.

After opening gifts we decided to have cupcakes. It was a bit windy, so the candle in Zach's cupcake didn't stay lit very well.

As the boys were finishing up their cupcakes, our special guest made his appearance. This was Zach's face when he saw the guest come around the corner.

All the boys were excited. Drew might have been most excited.

I had set it up for Darth Vader to come to the original party, and then had to call him to cancel when Zach was sick. So then the rescheduling got a little tricky because Darth Vader was busy on Saturday, which is why we ended up having the party on Father's Day. He said he'd arrive at about 4:45 to be ready for a 5:30 appearance. When he wasn't there at 5:05, I decided I'd better call. Seems he had gone to the wrong park, so I had to give him directions from his location, and by the time he got to the park it was 5:20, and he made his appearance at about 5:55. The party ended at 6:00, so he was just in time. I guess it takes a lot of time to get all that gear on.

The boys enjoyed talking to him and asking some questions, and Zach received a certificate and was made an honorary member of the Imperial Army or something.

Here are all the boys with Darth Vader. Zach said later he wasn't that surprised that Darth Vader showed up. He knew there were some Storm Troopers at his cousin's party in March, and he had said he really wanted someone to come to his party, too, so he thought maybe this would happen. I tried to get more than just Darth Vader, but apparently nobody else was available. The guy who came as Darth Vader is a member of Vader's 501st Legion, a group of volunteers that dress up as Imperial Army members and Darth Vader and make appearances, mostly for charity work. We agreed to make a charitable donation in their name in return for Darth Vader coming to the party.

We also got individual pictures of each boy with Darth, except for one little guy who didn't want to get too close. I'm going to use those for thank you notes (another idea from my wonderful sister).

Drew was not one bit frightened by Darth Vader. He kept saying something like, "I can't believe Darth Vader's at Martin's party!" (See previous post if you need explanation on the Martin part.)

As I was directing kids for pictures with Darth, suddenly this lady jumps in and puts her arm around him and says, "Can I get in on a picture?" It took a split second for it to register and for my jaw to hit the ground as I realized this lady was in fact one of my very best college girlfriends whom I had not seen in probably 5 years. "SARAH FREED!" I shouted, "What are you doing here?!" It turns out Freedo (there were a million Sarah's, including myself, at our college, so we often went by last name) was driving through town on her way to northwest Iowa to visit her parents for a week. Freed lives in Indiana and has 3 kids- her oldest son was born 2 days after Zach, her next son was born 2 months before Drew, and her newest addition is a 6 week old daughter. Freed's brother lives not far from us, so they decided to pick up some dinner and eat it at the park. She said she knew I lived around there, and then once they sat down she thought maybe she saw me, and then she heard Mike's voice and knew it was us. To say I was shocked is a total understatement. It was fantastic. So while Zach's fever may have been a pain in that it caused us a bunch of rescheduling (and a lot of cupcakes to eat initially), I'm so glad he had it, because otherwise I'm sure I would have missed out on seeing my friend.

The party ended up being a success. The kids seemed to have had fun, and it really was pretty low-stress for me. Now I get a little birthday break until it's time to plan Jake's first party in 6 more months.

Brothers

2011-06-18T21:35:00.005-05:00

It has been great to have Zach home for the summer, and Drew has really enjoyed having his big brother around to play with. I read recently that siblings fight an average of 3.5 times an hour, which adds up to 10 minutes of every hour. Zach and Drew are probably pretty close to that average, but it depends on the day. They do play really well and get along well for the most part. One day recently, Drew and I were talking about friends, and Drew said, "I have one friend, and that friend is Zach." My dad also overheard the boys having a conversation when he was here where Zach said something along the lines of, "...that's because I love you, Drew," and Drew's response was, "I love you, too, Martin." (Martin is the latest of names that Drew calls Zach, I am Aviva or Abiva (not sure which), and Drew wants to be called Bro. These are characters in a cool show they've watched on PBS called Wild Kratts.)

Now that it's summer, one of the things the boys have been into has been sleepovers.

During the school year, sleepovers are pretty much only allowed on weekends or when we have company using Zach's room, but during the summer, the rules are different. If there's nothing big going on the next day, we don't mind a sleepover. The boys do well with it, though Drew normally has a harder time settling down than Zach. I think part of that stems from Drew taking naps in the afternoon and Zach not, so Zach is much more tired when 8:00 rolls around. Last night they were sleeping in Drew's room, and I was listening to them on the monitor. After a while, I heard Zach say, "If you don't turn off the light, I'm going to go tell Mom and Dad." Then Drew said, "No, I'm going to go tell Mom and Dad." Good one, Drew. At one point Mike went upstairs and Drew had his cowboy boots on. Last week when we went to go to bed, I peeked in on the sleepover boys, and found Drew asleep with his slippers on.

One of the coolest things is that Zach is getting better and better about reading, and he can read books to Drew now. Reading to Drew builds Zach's confidence and helps Drew get even more interested in reading himself. Drew already loves books like crazy, but this makes him more interested in learning how to read, I guess.

Tonight before bed, Mike, Zach, Drew, and I were all reading together, and the first book Drew picked was an easy one, so Zach read it to us all. The second book was Frosty, The Snowman, and Drew insisted that it was his turn to read, so he and Mike tag-teamed it, and Mike read some words, and Drew "read" some others. It's so great to have kids who love books. It makes me sad to think of kids who don't get read to every day (or ever), and how much they're missing out on.

Mike and I had our tenth anniversary last week. To celebrate, we took the boys out to dinner at PF Chang's (which went better than I expected), ate outside (something I love to do), and then walked around the little lake at the mall. It was a nice night, and a perfect way to celebrate with our boys. We even got some cute pictures of them by the water.

I included this next one because I think it's funny how Jake is reaching for Drew. I was a teeny bit nervous about Zach holding Jake on the rocks next to the water, but he handled it fine and nobody fell in.

There were lots of geese in the water, and at one point we saw some people who we sort of know from our neighborhood, and they gave Zach and Drew each a half piece of bread to feed to the geese. Right after I took this picture below, that goose reached up and snatched a piece of bread right out of Zach's hand when he wasn't looking. It was hilarious.

It was one of those great days/nights where Mike and I reminisced about our wedding 10 years ago and how much our lives have changed in that time. In 10 years, we've lived in 2 apartments and owned 2 houses, had a few jobs including Mike's current job as a P.T. and small business owner, had 3 kids, owned 2 dogs, owned 7 different cars (whoa!), gained more family members than we've lost (primarily a bunch of nephews), and taken a few trips. It's been a good 10 years, and spending our anniversary with our 3 sweet boys doing nothing too special was very special in and of itself.

Six and Six Months

2011-06-15T21:42:00.014-05:00

I've been lazy about blogging lately, and now I'm behind. Last week Zach turned six, and Jake turned six months. Time keeps flyin' by.

I decided to start off Zach's birthday with some Star Wars pancakes. In our house we have two kinds of pancakes- "dad's kind" are basically buttermilk pancakes, and "mom's kind" are the thin, Swedish pancakes my family always had when I was a kid. The boys prefer my kind, and so do I, but they end up being kind of a lot of work for me, because they get eaten so quickly that I barely get to sit down for the whole meal. Anyway, I thought that I'd try something new for Zach's birthday, so I used a recipe for whole grain pancakes using wheat flour and oatmeal, and I added chocolate chips, because every thing's better with chocolate chips. They were very think and I had a little trouble getting them out of their molds, but the boys loved them. I feel really bad I didn't put a candle in Zach's pancake, but I was flustered because they were taking so long to cook and I just forgot. He didn't seem to mind, though.

Since my mom was here to help out while Mike was out of town for a week, she took Zach and Drew to the zoo on Zach's birthday. It was a hot, sunny day, and they had a good time. Drew asked me all winter and spring if it was warm enough to go to the zoo yet, so he was pretty jazzed to get the opportunity last week to finally go again. Jake and I hung out at home and ran a couple of errands. That night we went out to eat at the club, and since Zach was getting a free sundae for his birthday, Drew got to have a special treat, too.

The boys could pick just about anything to be on their sundaes. Zach wanted M&Ms, Oreos, and caramel, but Drew just wanted sprinkles and a cherry on top. They gave him 3 cherries, which really made his night!

Zach didn't really want to pose for this picture, but he was a good sport about it.

Mike was set to return from Washington, D.C., late Thursday night. However, because of some bad weather all along the east coast, his flight was delayed and ultimately canceled, so he did not arrive home until Friday night. Zach's birthday party was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and Friday afternoon Zach started complaining of a headache. He ended up having a low-grade fever, and we decided we'd just wait to see how he was in the morning before doing anything about his party. Saturday morning he woke up feeling great, so I baked the cupcakes for his party. Mike, Drew, my mom, and Zach went to Zach's baseball game at 11:00, and I stayed home so Jake could nap and I could frost cupcakes.

Zach made some catches,

and had a hit,

while Drew happily ate a snack. (Sorry about the blue font- can't change it.)

They returned from the game with Zach not feeling so great, and after finding out his fever had returned, he took some ibuprofen and went straight to his room and took a nap. After a tiny bit of hemming and hawing, we decided that we had to cancel the party. What a pain. I had it all set up that Darth Vader would be there, I had paid to rent the park shelter, the cupcakes were made and frosted, etc. But, we knew Zach wouldn't be able to enjoy himself if he was sick, and we didn't want to get all the other kids sick, so we had to do it. Zach woke up from his nap feeling good, at least until I told him we had canceled his party, and then he started crying. I felt terrible, but I know it was the right thing to do. We still had the grandparents over, so at least Zach got a little bit of a party, and I was able to reschedule the party for this weekend. It was good we did cancel it, too, because at some point either Saturday or Sunday, Zach's temperature spiked to almost 103 degrees, and on Sunday he took a 3 hour nap. Obviously he had some sort of bug, and I would have felt terrible had we passed that on to any other kids.

A few pictures from the family party:

Trying on the new life jacket from Grandpa Kevin and Grandma Cynthia, so he can go fishing with Grandpa.

Opening a bat and baseballs from Aunt Sandy, Uncle Will, and Anders.

A cool new scooter from Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Dick.

Blue again- no idea why that happens or how to fix it, and I don't care enough to waste my time trying to figure it out.

Drew loves Zach's new Buzz (from Grandma Linda and Grandpa Curt) as much as Zach does. And Zach loves the Y-Wing fighter Mike and I got him. I got it back in March, which shopping for Drew's birthday present, because it was on sale for half price.

Drew was also happy to show the new Francesco car he got from Grandma Cynthia and Grandpa Kevin. Francesco is in the Cars 2 movie that comes out in a couple of weeks. (We've read the book, so I feel like we already know the main plot of the movie as well as the characters, and often when Drew is riding his bike, he is Lightning and I am Francesco.)

Zach doesn't look like a sick kid in this picture. Even though he hardly ate any dinner (homemade pizza- you know he was sick if he didn't eat much of that!), he did eat a cupcake.

I like this one just because it has all 3 boys in it.

Now for Jake. That kid is so stinkin' cute, but I am soooo ready for him to nap better! I know it was this way with Drew until sometime between 6 and 7 months, so I figure things will change any day now (fingers crossed). It's common for Jake to take a 40 minute nap, then wake up unhappy but unwilling to go back to sleep. Then about 2 hours later he needs another nap. It makes it very difficult to go do anything, because usually in that 2 hour window Jake also needs to eat, and often times so do Zach and Drew. I'm feeling a little sad, thinking about the freedom the boys and I had last summer to go spend hours at the pool, and right now, that just isn't an option for us. Plus, it's hard to get anything substantial done in 40 minutes, and I think if Jake would sleep longer, he could have longer awake periods, and we could all have more fun.

Jake is army-crawling all over the place. Its' really fun to see his curiosity in action now, as he motors around from one place to the next to check things out. He loves to touch my painted toenails, and he's very interested in vents as well. Today he discovered a doorstop he could boing, and he liked that, too, just like Zach did as a baby.

Jake was doing well with solids, and I even make some of my own baby food for him. He was doing great, but lately he hasn't been doing as well. I think part of the problem is that he's tired in the evening from not napping well, and so he doesn't really focus well on eating. I just started trying to give him some fruit in the morning, too, and that's been kind of hit or miss. Today it went pretty well, I think. He still isn't doing great with a bottle, which is frustrating. It means that I am never away from him for more than 4 hours, and I'd say that's even a stretch! I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I was away from him for even 2 hours. Most weeks I'm away from him mostly just to go to kickboxing class or to go for a run, and lately it seems like life is too busy to squeeze much of either of those in. But look at those baby blues- they do melt my heart.

Zach and Jake have such a sweet connection. Jake's face lights up when Zach talks to him. I know it's delusional to think they'll always have such a sweet relationship, but I do hope that the age difference between them is great enough that they will not fight much. I don't particularly remember fighting with my sister Sandy as a kid, and she and I are also 6 years apart. I suppose when Zach is 16 and Jake is 10, Zach probably won't have much time for Jake, but we'll see. For now, I'll watch with a happy heart as Zach and Jake bring each other joy. Wow- that sounds sappy.

I really cherish any pictures I can get of all 3 boys together, especially if I can get one of all 3 smiling, which is no small feat. This one of all 3 in their jammies is pretty decent, even though they're looking over at my mom instead of at my camera. I just love how you can see they all have the same hairline.

This one kind of cracks me up because Drew looks so pensive, or like he's posing like someone years older than him would do, but I really don't think he was trying to pose. Jake's face is funny, too.

While my mom was here, I was able to get a couple of good pictures of her and Jake.

In addition to army-crawling, Jake is also now sitting up like a champ. It's nice to be able to set him down on the floor and not worry too much about him falling over. He's not very graceful about getting down if he wants to go explore, but that will come.

To take these 6 month photos, I enlisted Zach's help, which is definitely why I got these huge smiles. I LOVE these pictures, and I love knowing that Zach helped produce those humongous grins. That is one little guy who really loves his big brother!

At Jake's 6 month appointment yesterday, I found out that he weighs 15 pounds 10 ounces, which is exactly what Zach weighed at 6 months. Drew weighed 17 pounds 10 ounces at 6 months. What's odd about that is that Jake was the biggest at birth and Drew was the smallest. I'm kinda bummed that Jake hasn't doubled his birth weight and that he's gone from the 70th percentile at birth to the 17th percentile at 6 months for weight. He was 27 inches long, which puts him in the 68th percentile, and also makes him the longest of the 3 boys. So I guess he's long and skinny. He doesn't look skinny to me, and the nurse practitioner wasn't really concerned about him not being bigger. I guess at least he's gaining weight. We just don't have big kids in this family, and I'm okay with that most of the time.

This all reminds me that Zach also had his 6 year check-up last week. Try not to fall off your chair in shock, but he's not big, either. Zach is not quite 45 inches tall, which puts him in the 37th percentile. Weight-wise, Zach was 43 pounds 6 ounces. Back in November he was up to 44 pounds, but when he got so sick this past spring, he dropped 5 pounds and is just now catching back up. It seems like my boys eat really well, so I don't know why they're always on the small side. I guess they have kick-ass metabolisms, like their dad. Lucky boys!

One last picture- Grandma Ruth and 3 of her 6 grandsons. It was great to have my mom's help while Mike was gone. Zach was really sad that Grandma would miss his Star Wars birthday party, but he was very happy she was here for a whole week. My dad had been here for a couple of days, too, before heading back to Colorado to check on the house and get some stuff done, and that was fun, too. Thanks for coming and especially for all the help!!

First Days of Summer

2011-06-09T21:07:00.007-05:00

Wow- it's summer already. It really feels like it was just Christmas and the dead of winter. Although it didn't seem like that horrible of a winter, I'm still so happy to have summer and the warmer temperatures upon us. Because of a couple of snow days, Zach's school didn't get out until Monday, June 6. It's so crazy to think that he is done with kindergarten! He had a great year and loved school. We went with the half-day kindergarten program in a neighboring district because we weren't sure if we wanted Zach starting school and being the youngest in his class, or if we wanted to wait a year and have him be a little older. The idea with half-day was that if we felt like he wasn't ready yet, we could move him to our home district next year and do full-day kindergarten. The half-day program he was in had the same curriculum as the full-day program, minus the extra recesses, rest time, lunch, and some of the specials. So we felt like it was the best of both worlds- Zach would get the full curriculum and everything he needed to be ready for first grade, or he would have a great primer for full-day kindergarten next year. But, given Zach's teacher's recommendation and seeing how much he has learned this year, we have decided first grade is the right fit for Zach for next year. I am excited about it, but I think it will be a harder transition for me than this year was, because he will be gone all day long. He's ready, though, so I'm excited for him.

Here is Zach with his teachers after his last day. The teacher in the black shirt was his main teacher, Mrs. Hallman; the other two were associates in his classroom.

So Tuesday was Zach's first official day of summer vacation. We celebrated by having our friends Susan, Anna, and Lucy over. Susan's husband was of out town, so I know she was having some long days. Mike was also out of town, and my mom was here helping me out, so we thought it'd be fun for all of us to get together.

Once Zach got home from golf, the kids hit the pool and the sprinkler. Then we had dinner, and they were back in the water. It was very hot out, so it was the perfect night for it. They had so much fun, and these pictures are great proof of that.

Here are Zach, Lucy, and Drew trying to run away from the sprinkler.

Anna and Lucy have the same swing set at home, but they've never put a pool at the bottom of the slide. The girls loved the water slide idea, though, so I have a feeling BJ and Susan will be following our example soon.

Jake played with Grandma while I took pictures of the big kids.

I love this picture of Zach, Anna, and Drew. They all look so happy.

We couldn't quite get Lucy to stand still long enough for a picture, so this was the best I got of the four of them.

Anna and Drew- not sure where Zach disappeared to.

Anna and Zach pretty much light up at the mention of each other, which is good since they're already betrothed to one another. After I took the pictures above, Anna started saying she wanted a kiss from (or maybe to) Zach. Zach wasn't so sure at first- I think he's hitting that girls-have-cooties stage. I said, "Oh, come on, Zach- just let her kiss you on the cheek." Anna said, "No! On the lips!" And I said it was up to Zach to decide what he was comfortable with. So then they both had this funny, awkward moment, during which I snapped this picture. This will be great at their wedding in 20-25 years.

Then they decided a hug would be best. Good choice, kids. And like a true little brother, Drew was squirting them with a hose during their moment.

After a couple more runs down the slide and some dessert, we decided it was time to end the party. Susan and the girls biked back home and I got the boys showered and in bed. Everybody was exhausted after all the fun.

Let the Fun Begin!

2011-06-06T22:02:00.005-05:00

With the nicer weather we've been having the last couple of weeks, we've been enjoying lots of time outside in the sunshine. I love it, and so do the boys!

They've done lots of swinging, and I couldn't resist getting a picture of all 3 boys in swings at the same time. Jake's still a little small, but he loves swinging gently.

We have also filled up the pool a couple of times. I made Zach wear a t-shirt on this particular day because he had a strange rash on his trunk and I didn't want to put sunscreen on it. He wasn't thrilled with the idea, but he was a good sport about it.

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On Sunday I took all 3 boys to the pool at the club for the first time. Jake didn't care for the water in the little pool because it was too cold, but he enjoyed being in the big pool with me. Drew can touch in the big pool, but the water comes up just above his shoulders, so he's pretty nervous about that. As a result, he spent most of his time on the edge of the pool since I was holding Jake. I felt kinda bad for him, but I also want him to get used to standing on his own when he can. I have a feeling, though, that his swim lesson teacher will have her work cut out for her with Drew later in the summer when lessons start! I was nervous about going on my own with all 3 boys, but overall it was a good experience. Because Jake is still taking short naps, he needs them frequently (like every 2 hours), so I told the boys that if Jake is going with us, we won't be at the pool for long. Probably the biggest pain was getting everybody out of their swimsuits and into dry clothes before Jake lost it due to exhaustion. We didn't follow protocol and instead of going into the locker room to change, I just held a towel around Zach and Drew while they got dressed. I don't think anybody minded, though. Jake looked really cute in his swim trunks, swim shirt, and big hat, but I felt like our time was so valuable that I didn't want to waste a minute of it taking a picture. Now I'm kinda bummed that I didn't, but I guess I'll get one next time.

Now for a tangent. Jake is doing really well with sitting up now. Here are some cute pictures I snapped of him showing off one day last week.

Foudy's always willing to pose for a picture, too. What a good dog.

Still Worthy

2011-05-29T22:10:00.005-05:00

These are a bunch of random photos taken over the last month or two. For whatever reason, they didn't make it into their own blog post, but I think they're still worthy.

First, some new tulips I planted last fall. I just love tulips, and back when we moved into this house, a whole 8 years ago, my sister Sandy and I planted like 140 tulip bulbs. Now those tulips are small and more scarce than they originally were, so last fall I planted some new bulbs in two big bunches on either side of my hydrangea bush. I think they're very pretty.

For Teacher Appreciation Week (which was a few weeks ago), Zach and I decided to make cookies for his teachers. So Drew and Zach both helped me make some sugar cookies, and it was really fun that everybody could participate. Here I am rolling the dough into balls, then Drew would roll them in sugar, and Zach would flatten them with forks. It was fun, and a good project to do together because I wasn't being too anal about what they looked like (I like things I bake to look pretty), and the boys couldn't really screw them up.

One Sunday morning, Mike, Jake, and I were upstairs on our bed and we saw Zach and Drew run out of their rooms and down the stairs in their swim trunks. Playing in swim trunks is nothing new for those two, so we weren't surprised, but we were mildly curious as to what they were up to. A bit later we went downstairs and saw them outside, attempting to fill up the pool. It was about 60 degrees outside, but they didn't care.

One day I returned from kickboxing class to find this scene. I thought it was pretty sweet.

A random cute picture of Jake and Mike. I love that huge smile on Jake's face.

I think here Jake probably was blowing a raspberry at me. He loves to do that, and it's so cute when he does it. I can't help but smile.

One day before school last week, we were all just playing on the floor, and then Jake put this ring in his mouth, and Zach, Drew, and I all got a good laugh over it.

Drew's not really the arts-and-crafts sort of guy, but one day last week I talked him into finger-painting. He hadn't done finger-painting in a long time, so it was almost like a new experience for him, and he liked it. He didn't even get mad when I put a little paint on his nose. Then he decided to add a little paint on his own.

Last Saturday we had plans with our friends BJ, Carey, and Charlie to get together for pizza at our house. At the last minute, Carey and I decided we needed a mom's night out, as the dads had had quite a late night out the night before. So Carey and I met at a restaurant for some delicious food and drinks, and Mike and BJ got to hang with the 4 little boys. Zach just loves playing the big brother role (especially when the kid isn't really his little brother), so he really enjoyed having Charlie here. Drew is still figuring out how to share and co-exist with younger kids who might want to play with his stuff (including his big brother), but I think a good time was definitely had by all. I love this picture of the 4 boys- Charlie looks like he fits right in!

Wake Up Call

2011-05-29T21:48:00.002-05:00

I woke up Saturday morning (after a very rough night with Jake) to calls of, "Help! HELP!" Immediately I thought, "Oh, no, Drew! Don't wake Jake up!" So I quickly got out of bed and checked the boys' bathroom, where I saw Zach washing his hands. "HELP!" I hear again. So I hurry downstairs, and this is what I find.

Yep, Drew was sitting in the pedestal sink, sans pants. Turns out he wanted to get a closer look at the water. Before helping him out, I had to grab the camera, so here he is saying, "No! No!" but I couldn't resist.

Mobile!

2011-05-23T07:47:00.000-05:00

Jake is almost five and a half months old, and he's already mobile! Ok, so he's just barely scooting forward in an army crawl, but still, I think that counts. It will be interesting to see how long it is before he's really crawling and getting around. Zach army crawled for a while before he did a regular crawl, so it may be a month or more yet. Jake does get up on his hands and knees more and more often, though, so maybe not.

Anyway, I got a little video of Jake showing off his new skill. He loved it I would clap and cheer for him- it's cute to see his huge smile. However, you may want to turn the sound down or off, as my voice sounds pretty annoying on this video, especially when I am clapping and cheering. And if you choose to leave your sound on, consider yourself warned.

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Happy Bears

2011-05-22T21:59:00.003-05:00

Drew and Zach played at Grandma Cynthia and Grandpa Kevin's house today. Drew took a great nap there, although he said he didn't like the bear that they had for him to sleep with. I asked him later why he didn't like it. He said, "Well, it's a happy bear, and I don't like happy bears." I asked, "How did you know it was happy?" He said, "It had a happy face." So then I said, "Why don't you like happy bears?" He said, "Well, because happy bears are just annoying to me... but Puppy is not annoying!" I have no idea where this annoyance comes from, but I think it's pretty funny, and pretty fitting for Drew. You just never know what will bug him next, which can be frustrating and adorable all at the same time.

5 Months Old

2011-05-10T21:57:00.006-05:00

Jake turned 5 months old on the 10th. As I sit and rock with him in the rocking chair in his room, he seems so big to me. It's getting difficult to cradle him in one arm anymore, and it just blows my mind how quickly he is changing. Mike's dad's family says something about newborn babies being "tapioca"- something that was first said when Mike was 13 and his little sister Katherine was just born. I guess because she couldn't do anything, like all newborns, Mike's dad explained to Mike that she was just tapioca. This comparison has come up with each of the boys being newborns, and lately when I've looked at Jake, I've thought, "You're not tapioca anymore!"

I'm sure I won't remember everything I want to say about Jake at 5 months, but I'll give it a shot. He loves to suck his toes and does it quite often. It makes it very difficult to change his diaper or get him dressed.

At his 4 month check-up, the pediatrician said we could start rice cereal. We waited a few weeks and started it last week. Jake did really well. He

Is There Anything More Precious...

2011-05-10T21:39:00.003-05:00

Than a sleeping baby?! I uploaded the pictures from our camera and my phone, and I found more than a couple of pictures of Jake sleeping. It reminds me of when I was a kid, and I'd take a million pictures of my dogs because I thought they were so cute.

First, sleeping on Dad, with his mouth open, Grandma Ruth style.

Then, on a cooler day after dropping Zach off at school. I gotta admit, I love the hood.

This picture and the following video show how Jake occasionally sucks on his own tongue. I don't see it often, but one day last week, after getting home from picking Zach up from school, he was asleep and was doing it. So I quickly took a picture on my phone and then grabbed the video. The video doesn't do it justice, but it gives you a little idea of what I'm talking about.

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And this is the most recent sweet sleeping picture. This was taken yesterday, after I got home from kickboxing class, and Grandma Linda was here with the boys. Zach and Drew were playing on Linda's iPad and Jake was just snoozin' peacefully.