Heart and Sole 2012

Dear Sweet Emmie M arrived in town last week and the boys are over the moon thrilled to see her again.  Saturday morning Oma, Emmie M, Sean and I walked the Heart and Sole.  It is a fabulous women/girls only walk/run for women's heart health.  This year we just did the three plus mile walk (in the past I have done the five mile run, five mile walk and three mile walk). 

The weather was perfect...overcast.  We all know how horrible the sun can be and it was thrilling that we did not have to deal with that!  The walk went well.  Sean behaved the whole time and did not seem to mind being in the stroller for so long (he usually won't sit still long).  Perhaps it was the EMS motorcycles driving by all the time that entertained him, or just watching so many women run and walk.

Josh, Opa, Jack and Ewan greeted us at the finish line.  Fun was had by all.  I even won a door prize (I also won a prize many years ago)!  Guess it is my lucky event!!

I'll update more about all the fun we are having with Emmie M.  So much to write and so little time!!!

Oma, Sean and Emmie M pre-walk.

Ewan running with us to the finish line!!

At the finish on our way to get our red roses.

Flashback Friday - Chicago, February 2011

In honor of Emmie M being here for a week's visit with all of us, here are photos of her meeting Sean for the first time last year at the O'Hare airport on our way to Salt Lake City!!

She arrived yesterday and is enjoying some quality time with Sean and Oma at the Deuce.  They will come see the rest of us this afternoon.  Jack and Ewan cannot wait!!!!!

Happy Birthday To Me

Friday was my 39th birthday.  It didn't start out very well.  Seems the kids pulled out all the stops....shouldn't they wait til my 40th for that?!  It began with Sean waking at 2:30 in the morning.  He is teething and gets up now and then for now reason (well other than his mouth is probably in pain of course).  I finally manged to  put him back down around 3:45.  He still cried.  So Josh decided to go ahead and bring him into our bed.  He was FULL of energy and ready to go.  I WAS NOT!!  Josh left for work and I put Sean in bed at 5:30.  He cried again but eventually fell asleep.  I got about an hour of sleep before Jack woke up.

Jack knocked on my door and woke me up around 7.  He said he peed in his bed.  I cannot remember the last time he ever had an accident.  He picks my birthday of all days.  The day I'm already sleep deprived.  I absolutely HATE changing the sheets on the top bunk!

So finally the big boys and I head down for breakfast.  Then it is already time to head up and get dressed and ready for school.  Despite being told to remain quiet, Jack and Ewan are LOUD and wake up Sean.  Mind you I would have had to wake him shortly anyway, but still.

Sean is crying and screaming.  Not at all in a good mood.  Everyone gets dressed.  I try to give Sean breakfast.  He wants nothing.

We pack up and head to school.  Jack enjoys a morning of school and the rest of us head to the gym.  I took out my frustrations on the elliptical and kicked butt!  I hit my record of 184 WATTS and 1340 calories burned per hour.  I maintained this for maybe five minutes and then did my usual of 150-160 WATTS and 1150-1200 calories per hour.  I did my weight routine and finished up on the treadmill.  So at least part of my morning was successful and "relaxing", or should I say QUIET.

We picked up Jack from school and headed home for lunch.  It was a lunch like any other.....messy boys, lots of chit chat, bickering, pigging out....  Then it was time to pack up their bags so they could go to the mountains.  This part went well too.

We played outside and then Oma and Opa came to get them just before 2 in the afternoon.  That was when my real birthday began!!!  Thanks for the best gift every, something money can't buy.....peace of mind and SILENCE!!!!!

I headed downtown to the permit office and it went smoothly.  Hopefully we'll have a permit for the garage soon.  Then I went home and enjoyed a piece of my birthday cake and watched one of my shows on the DVR.  It was pure bliss.

Josh got home early.  Even better!  We headed out for drink before our dinner reservation.  We went to Flying Saucer.  Haven't been there in years!  It was nice.  Then we walked around the Vista.  We still got to the restaurant early but they were able to seat us.  Our food arrived almost instantly.  I had some delish crispy duck breast with mashed sweet potatoes and a strawberry wine sauce.  Josh had tempura lobster tail and risotto. 

It was a perfect night.  So nice to be just the adults again.  We really do need to do that more often. 

Saturday we headed up to Charlotte.  Had breakfast on the way in Fort Mill.  Great little restaurant.  We looked at granite....4-5 different places.  It was almost granite overload.  We tried to narrow it down, but there was such great stuff!  Colors you do not see here in Columbia.

We went to Cabo Fish Taco for lunch.  One of our favorite places in Charlotte.  I had some yummy tuna tacos with a pineapple kiwi wasabi sauce.  And finally we went to Trader Joe's to stock up on  all our favorite groceries.

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning and getting stuff around the house down.  It rained Sunday which ruined some of Josh's plans (like working in the garden and on the bar).  I went to the gym and grocery store.

Shortly after 3pm on Sunday it was back to reality.  The boys came home.  The silence ended! 

Thank you Oma and Opa for such a wonderful weekend.  I know the boys had a ton of fun in the mountains with ya'll.  There are not many grandparents who will take THREE ACTIVE BOYS under the age of five for a weekend.  You are the best!!!!!

Flashback Friday - May 2011

Sean before his first short haircut.  Amazing how much a different haircut can change a little man!!

Blue Balls or Pink Balls

I will warn you, while this story is extremely entertaining, it is about Jack's "manhood"!!

Yesterday we played outside after lunch, like any other day.  My goal is always to wear them out.  Their goal is to get as dirty as possible while having lots of fun and getting into trouble.  Yesterday we were somewhat successful, as in they got dirty and had fun.  Sean was the only one tired.

After this round of play and Sean's whiny for nap they stripped off all their clothes on the deck (no way do I let them in the house in those clothes).  We headed upstairs to clean up and get Sean in bed.  Jack went to the bathroom and announced he had another bug.  I knew what this meant....a couple weeks ago he had a bug, as he called it, on his testicles.  He removed it himself before telling me about it.  Needless to say it was a tick, not just a regular bug.  So we told him to always tell Mommy or Daddy if he found another one.

The time had come that he found another one.  I put Sean to bed and went to inspect closer.  It was indeed a tick attached to him.  While I had him laying on the bed I also noticed another tick, even smaller, under what would have been his underwear waistband.  Why do they always get into his underwear, and HOW???

I got the tweezers out and needless to say Jack freaked out.  I explained several times that it would not hurt.  I can't really blame him, what grown man would want tweezers down there?!  So I gave in and told him we could paint the tick with nail polish and hope it would come off by itself (I didn't completely expect this to work, but at least it would relax Jack a little more). 

So I got the blue nail polish and told him we would use it since he likes that color.  His response, "my favorite color is pink.  I want pink nail polish."  You can imagine the sight, Jack with pink nail polish on his waist and his balls.  What a sight!!!  Obviously I did not take any pictures, though someday I will remind him of this and embarrass the heck out of him!!

Of course the ticks stayed in.  By this time, however, Jack was playing with the tweezers and was more comfortable with them.  I removed the nail polish and the ticks.  I cleaned him up with alcohol and hope for the best!!!

Flashback Friday - October 2008

With my birthday and Emmie M's birthday coming up the boys are very much looking forward to eating cake!!!  So here is Jack with his first cake (lemon with raspberry filling and lemon cream cheese frosting).

An airplane cake of course!!

How long does this song go on??  Let me eat my cake already!!!

So worth the wait!

Back On Track

I am a little late posting, but Sean had his 18 month pediatrician visit a couple weeks ago.  He is back on track to being on the upper end of the height chart!  I still think his previous visit had an inaccurate measure anyway.

He is 34.25 inches tall (90-95%) and weighs 26.5 pounds (50%).

Sean is more and more a little guy.  He really tries hard to keep up with everything his brothers do!  If only he would talk more....though once he starts I know I will wish he would stop!

Strawberry Picking

This morning the boys and I went to pick strawberries.  The weather could not have been better.  It was probably in the upper 60s and sunny.  So with some sunblock on we were good to go. 

Anyone who knows Jack well certainly knows that he LOVES strawberries.  So this was a piece of heave to him.  He put maybe three berries in the bucket.  He ate the rest of everything he picked!!  Sean and Ewan enjoyed eating some too, but at least they helped put a few more in the bucket.

It was fun to see Sean enjoy his first year of actually helping pick berries.  Last year he was in the carrier and more work than anything else.  This year he was able to pick and eat too.  He did pretty well picking only ripe red berries.  Good lesson in learning his colors!!

Water Table Season Begins

It's been a busy weekend....there are several posts!  Whoever thought weekends are for relaxing certainly didn't have much to do!  It's been crazy busy, yet fun too.

Today after lunch we brought out the water table.  Last year it was also Easter Sunday we brought it out for the beginning of the season.  Seems I should have brought it out earlier....Oma was asking what Sean needed/wanted for Easter.  Well it should have been a new water table.  We are missing a few pieces (though not critical) and can't get it completely clean.  It's been well loved and I guess we'll love it some more!

Sean loves to splash water so this was great fun for him.  Of course they eventually put dirt in there and had themselves some very dirty/muddy water.  Boys will be boys! 

Easter Morning

The bunny came to visit the boys.  They were thrilled to find goodies in their baskets.  Jack and Ewan are over the moon excited with their Leap Pads.  Sean likes his crayons and tub toys.  And of course they all like their chocolates!

After breakfast Daddy his eggs in the backyard and the boys found them all (with just a little help).  Mommy and Daddy weeded the garden.  Ewan and Jack helped for a couple minutes.  Someday maybe we can get them to help longer!!

Sean checking his basket.

Sean enjoying a coconut Dove egg!

Jack multi-tasking:  reading a book on his Leap Pad

and looking for chocolate!

Ewan ready his book.

Getting ready to hunt eggs.

FINALLY A Long Weekend

Friday Josh had off work and it could not have come soon enough.  Since he worked the previous weekend it was 11 straight days of work for him.  That also means 11 straight days of me alone with the boys for LONG days!  Needless to say we all needed some family time.

Friday was relatively calm.  We had breakfast at home.  Then I took the boys for a walk while Josh did taxes.  We have some southern boys....they kept complaining about how cold it was.  It was in the upper 40s which was indeed chilly compared to the 80s we've had lately!!

After lunch I took Jack and Ewan to the gym for some pool time.  After we played and worked on their swim skills I took them to the babysitting room and got my own workout.  We went home and then enjoyed a little down time before we headed out to Lowe's and Home Depot to look at faucets for the kitchen and then dinner out and flying planes.

Saturday began with our usual farmer's market breakfast.  We do so love to eat there....the biscuits and gravy are a favorite as are the grits and scones too.  We got some goodies for dinner and headed home.

I took all the troops to an egg hunt in the neighborhood and Josh went to get wood for the kitchen bar.  The boys all had great fun hunting for eggs.  Sean knew what was going on right away this time; as soon as he found his first egg he opened it to see what was inside!!  When we got home I emptied all the eggs and put the loot away....Sean cried the whole time because he wanted to eat more candy (he already his his limit of two at the hunt)!

That afternoon they played hard outside.  Sean finally took a late nap but the older boys stayed outside and played or tried to help Daddy work on the bar (nothing as fun as having the table saw and other tools out)!

Jack and Ewan designed their own mountain bike circuit in the yard.  Jack wants to practice to he can go mountain biking with Daddy sometime.  They did pretty well.  They both crashed once or twice but it did not slow them down much!

We had a YUMMY dinner of lime cilantro pasta (from the farmer's market) with butter and cheese (both also from the market), salad with strawberries and a ginger pear dressing (lettuce from our garden) and wild sockeye salmon (also from the market, via Alaska obviously).  YUMMY!!!

 Obviously it was a busy couple days and the boys slept well that night!!!

Let the hunt begin!

Run for the eggs.

Sean is having lots of fun!

It's almost worse than Halloween!!  Notice the good stuff

separated out for Mommy and Daddy.

Stuntman Ewan!  ER here we come!!!!

Having fun on their mountain bike course.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

YUM YUM!

Flashback Friday - April 2009

Here is Jack hunting for eggs in the Children's Garden three years ago!  Time sure does fly by.  He certainly does look a lot like Sean at the same age.

Egg Hunt

Yesterday our play group had our annual Easter egg hunt and potluck lunch.  Needless to say the boys had lots of fun, in particular Jack.  Sean followed me while I helped hide eggs for the bigger kids.  This came in handy for him....while the big kids were hunting eggs Sean ran off to find the eggs they missed!!  He was proud of himself!!!!
The little kids were all adorable trying to fill their baskets with eggs.  Sean knew what was going on; as soon as he found an egg he opened it and tried to eat the treat, wrapper and all!

Jack is in a league of his own.  After nibbling on lunch all the kids were off to play, mostly in the sandbox.  Well I know my Jack well so I already  put all our eggs away, he did not know where.  Yet somehow every time I checked on him he had something in his mouth.  I am not sure where he was finding them or whose eggs he took, but he ate LOTS of candy.  I really do not want to know how much sugar he ate yesterday! 

It was a rough time...meltdowns about getting into trouble with the candy, no naps for Ewan and Sean, coming down from sugar highs.  It was a long day for Mommy!!