Friday, February 28, 2014

A little bipolar baby

59/365
Here's my partner in crime this evening.



He's teething. 
And a hot mess. 
It's a contest to see which of the three bubbly incisors will come in first.

He did well at Kindermusik today, but was bipolar at lunch with Grandma... and the rest of the day, well...
Did I mention he's a hot mess?


Thursday, February 27, 2014

No Mommy, I don't need a nap

58/365

Sam was back to eating normally this morning with no complaints of tummy aches.  So we did our thing and went to Kindermusik this morning.  He played some video games and had lunch.  When I asked if he wanted to nap while Jake and I did, he said No.  But while I nursed Jake on the couch, he pulled up a pillow and blanket next to me.  We moved our party to the bedroom, and as Jake continued to fight, merp, and cry, I hear Sam from the other room, "Mommy, that baby is Not Sleeping."  No he wasn't.  20 minutes later, I stepped into the loft to reboot the computer again, to see if it would help our internet come back on, it didn't, and the internet had been down all day.  But This was what I found.


He is so sweet when he sleeps.  He's into his 3rd hour for this nap. 

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Blue-green boys

57/365

The boys were home sick today.  Sam had the pukies at 4 am and again at 7.  Amazingly, he warned me enough both times that we were able to get him into the bathroom with minimal mess.  Chris refused his tacos last night (unheard of!), and woke up with rosy cheeks, a warm forehead and complaining of a tummy ache.  I thought it was going to be Ugly when I kept them both home.  However, that was it. That's all there was.

There was just a whole lot of tv and video games for "sick" boys.


This was how they spent their day, armed with bottles of gatorade.  The puke bucket is next to the couch...blessedly, no one had to use it.  But then they decided they needed their favorite colored blankets to match.   Green blanket obviously for Sam to match the pillows and gatorade, and blue for Chris.


Jacob tickled me in this photo as he was going for the empty red jug of gatorade, while wearing both green and blue.  Oh yes, he's totally the brother of these boys. 




Jake pulled himself up to the couch while the boys were playing video games.  He just stood there, sweetly, for about 10 minutes.  I couldn't believe it.  He thinks his brothers are Awesome. He couldn't take his eyes off them, or off the tv.  They were all pretty hypnotized.  Jacob shuffled a little bit back and forth during his stand, but never really took a full step.  But he's This Close to cruising.    




But not yet.  Today, he still goes Boom. 





Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The 10th month

56/365

My baby is 10  months old today. 


He's been outside my body longer than he was in.  And it was rough in.  But we are all on the mend.  And Jacob is perfectly healthy...and yet, I still don't feel as strong as I was a year ago.  It gets me thinking about the impact on me.  My sister and I were talking about a friend's traumatic birth story and how this story correlated having a traumatic birth with PTSD.  It had never occurred to me. Chris's was.  But I don't think that I got PTSD from it, and from everything that happened after.  It was rough, I won't lie, but we were very blessed that we had family close to help out, and visit, and we had been off for the holidays, and we could just Be with Chris as he needed us.  Sure having emergency surgery and being in the NICU isn't what we expected for our first born baby, but we just rolled with it.   It didn't gang up on us until Christmas, and we prayed and prayed and got through it.   Things turned around then, and we had each other.  But we'd been flexible about the birth.  I wanted to go natural, but my body just wasn't going to comply.  I was ok with that.  I'd had about 10 years experience of my body not doing what I wanted with my back. 4 years on the uterus alone.   I think it's a problem with women today getting locked into a birth plan.  They want their perfect vision of candles and bathtubs, beautiful music, and bringing the baby into the world THEIR way.  It doesn't always happen like that.  I don't know anyone that actually had a successful birth like that.  I'm sure they exist, I just don't know them.  I think it's Vital that women are prepared, that they are knowledgeable about all the things that can be happen during a birth.  Jacob's birth was actually the easiest of all of mine.  He was a scheduled c-section.  With both Chris and Sam I labored a bit first.  Chris's was worst, as it was 24 hours of induction and labor before the c-section.  And Sam I only labored for a few hours.  With Jacob, it had just been such a rough pregnancy that I was relieved when it was over. And thankful I could breathe again.   And that my blood pressure wasn't so bad.   I so desperately want to be fully recovered.   Now spring is coming, he's been on the outside more than the in, I feel like I can move forward too.  Time to go for a walk. 


My loves on a quiet evening

55/365



Hip Hip Hooray, the boys are behaving today. 
It was a Riley day, we had to take Chris in for therapy, and Sam had an ultrasound.
It made for a busy morning, and a busy day taking children to school and whatnot.  Such that by the end of the day, I wasn't really in the mood to leave the house.  I love to take Chris to karate most of the time, but I really just wanted to get my jammies on and do nothing.  So I did.  I hung out for a while with the youngsters in our household.  



But the boys and I had our own little party.  
Jacob got a hold of the noisemaker that one of Sam's friends gave him for her school birthday. 
Luckily, he couldn't figure out how to make noise out of it. 


Nor could he really ruin it, as Chris already had done his darnedest and I'd reinforced it with tape.

So, Sam and I played with the baby, which made Prinny go nutsy, and we started a tickle fight, and it was Awesome.


Princess Pitface! 
Sam thought it was hysterical as I rolled my R's on Princess and talked in my snootiest voice for a dog who is far from snooty.  She was running around like a nut while we were playing on the floor which only made us laugh harder.



My sons are their most beautiful when they are laughing.  
But it's hard to capture a moving target. 


But that was my evening, laughing until my tummy hurt, and until Sam begged me to stop, and started up again.  I love those kinds of evenings, and I love these sweetboys even more. 

Sunday, February 23, 2014

He's done

54/365

Eric let me play this afternoon/evening, and when I came home, this is what I came home to, a conked out baby and my husband finishing off the open pink moscato.  A sign of the day.  It was a busy one, church, and cleaning, and then some party playing.


My friend Amy recently began selling Thirty-one bags and Premier Jewelry (Let me know if you need either, I can hook you up!) and I wanted to show my support and hold a party.  So I did!  I had 10 people come.  And Eric was wonderful and took the boys to the Avon McDonald's with a Playplace (which is the boy's  Favorite thing) to play and have dinner while we had our party.  I meant to take pictures, but completely got distracted.  Then he came home, I nursed Jake, and Amy and I went out for Mexican for dinner alone in ab attempt at getting caught up.  I don't know, we would have spend days and days together and still not get fully caught up, but it was so good to have some Girl Time.  Quality Time.   Time to actually have conversations, and not be interrupted.  It was really nice.   There were snacks and talking, and wine in the middle of the day.  And I got some jewelry out of the deal too. ;) I'm exhausted, sore, but it was so good to see everybody; I hadn't seen some of these gals in a while, it makes it worth it.

I'm so Thankful my husband gave me the opportunity, I could tell he was pretty exhausted too, I really appreciate it. Thanks Eric!

Happy Valentesidentimas Day!

53/365

I'm sure you're aware of this holiday.  It is a make up day to spend time with family and loved ones, especially after feels like we've been in the house so long with the crummy weather, we don't know what to do.  So yesterday, we did a bit of everything.  After Chris had karate make up (for bad weather this week) we met the fam for lunch.  It was 50 degrees outside!



One of the prettiest days we'd had in a while.  We had warm days, sunny days, but still windy, or with rain, or blue sky with cold.  But this was a nice day and we didn't have much cooking, so we made plans with those we hadn't seen in a while.


Eric decided to go outside and do some work.  The recent winds had left a ton of sticks on the ground in the yard.  He came back inside, and shouted up to me, perplexed, "Someone leave a perfectly good teal taper in our yard!  Why would someone do that?" (Like he was confused that someone would go around town leaving random candles in people's yards) I said, "It's the snowman's nose."  Oatmeal the snowman was so big, that the baby carrots we would have used were only big enough to be eyes.  So he needed a proper nose.  And a giant taper candle was what I gave them.  Now the snowman is gone, and there was only a taper left behind, and Eric completely forgot.  


Then Eric took the Christmas lights down.  Hooray! 
It's all good, they were down before March right?!  It was the first day decent enough that he didn't have to worry about putting the ladder in snow, or slipping on the roof.  It was really dirty up there though, how does a roof get so dirty?!   Then he got a really wild hair, and broke out the grill, to cook this year's first round of grilled chicken.  It was so Yummy!  I've missed that good char flavor!    We invited our friend's the Julius's over for dinner.  It had been so long.  We'd done the Olympics party, but in my infinite wisdom, I'd forgotten to give the girls their Christmas presents.  So we finally got to do our gift exchange.   Finally!  And the children's minds were blown. :) 


Emily had asked for an Elsa doll, she didn't know we had one waiting for her from us for Christmas.  But when she started asking her Mom this week for the doll for her birthday (which is 3 weeks away, in March) we decided it was a Sign we needed to celebrate our Christmas...even if it was a bit more of celebrating Valentine's and President's day than Christmas.  Whatever, there were presents, the kids were thrilled. 


Chris was amazed.  Mike had gone to the comic book store and picked out some cool superhero comics.  Chris immediately disappeared.  When we found him 2 hours later, he had almost finished the first comic book. 


Sam was excited about his Jake and the Neverland Pirate toys, but he put them down to play My Little Ponies with their girls and their ponies.  After they left, he broke into the guys, and he was playing Hook all morning.  


The last thing I got Emily was a tiny pack of makeup, just eyeshadow and lip gloss in a little sparkly holder.  She was so excited, she couldn't wait to put it on.  She asked me to help her!  I was so thrilled to get the chance to help, for me to get to help a little girl with her own makeup for the first time was a first for me too, and I loved it.  I love that I have so many sweet girls in my life, that I don't have to miss these firsts since I have boys.  The boys have different kinds of first, but Emily made my day when she let me put eyeshadow on her for the first time.  She's growing up into quite the young lady, not sure if we're all ready for it.  These kids grow up way too fast. 

Friday, February 21, 2014

For Ts

52/365

Look who's standing up! 


Yeah, he'll stand for Tastykakes! :)

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Pretty boy Sams

51/365

This afternoon, at naptime, I asked Sam if he wanted to take a nap while Jake and I did. He said No. So, I sent him to his room to play during quiet time. 

This was what I found just outside my door when I woke up.


Yeah, sure he didn't need a nap.

When he woke up from his nap, his eyes were bright and cheeks were rosy, I just thought I'd just take a quick picture or two. I shouldn't say he looked pretty, but he is kind of pretty. (Shh...don't tell him I said so.)


Who can resist this smile?


He's been fighting chapped lips this winter, but we're all thawing out, so they are finally getting healthy.


His eyes are so intriguing.  There's a little bit green, a little bit brown, and full of sparkle.


He really has the prettiest eyes.



Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Bright Sunshiney Day

50/365

Today was a wonderful day for Jacob and I to get back into our groove.  We needed to make a Costco run, and being just the 2 of us, it was perfect time to meet up with our friends Kathleen and John.  We haven't been able to play very much lately with the weather being so blucky. Today it got warm again, up to 50, and it was sunny all day.  There was still a bit of black ice, making it slick in some places, but it was pretty.  And it was very nice to get outside without a coat.


Since we were meeting at Starbucks, we decided to get drinks.  Well, if we're drinking Jacob and John were drinking...but John drinks out of a bottle.  Jacob had no idea what to make of that.  He has the greatest expressions.  I'm thinking he was not a fan of the bottle, then again, he never has been.  This baby likes boobs, either to drink from, or hang onto, what can I say?  

But he was having a fine time at the Starbucks with us.  

He figured out how to clap...


...sort of. 
When he gets tired, he's been known to wipe his hands together in a very 'Out out d#$@ spot' sort of way, but in the above video he's smiling not crying...therefore he's clapping.  Clearly. It's also hard to tell sometimes if he's laughing or crying, they both start out with kind of a "meh, he, he, he", and really the only way to tell the difference is to look at his face.  This child should never play poker.


After our shopping adventures, he was ready to go home and go to bed.  He was tired.  Tired but sweet. 
That's a mighty fine blue sky.  I've missed days like this. 

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Thawing

49/365


This was my view this morning as I put Chris on the bus...gorgeous! 
Blue sky, frosty trees.  The tips were ice covered again, just a smidge.  Jake wasn't going to let me go get the zoom lens to find out how much though.  So this one was just a simple shot, unfooled around with. And yet, since it had snowed a bit on top of the ice, it wasn't too icy outside.  The trees just had the slightest shimmer.
The best part of all, the temperature was rising, so the ice was melting. :) 


This was the ice on the back stoop railing. 


The sparkle on the trees in the backyard.  Not for long....

We had to run around town, go to Riley today for Sam.  But by the time we got back it was Warm outside. 
53!  
I hadn't seen over 50 degrees in I can't remember how long.  I was roasting in my jacket at lunch, and now I knew why!  No more coats for us, it was warm and spring-like outside.  The snow is still on the ground of course, I could see some brown grass out in the fields, a rather nice springy site.  Someone mentioned we're due to get another storm on Thursday...oh no, more snow!  What a tragedy....no a Rainstorm.  Tornados even.  Really!?  Okie dokie!  I'll take a nice healthy spring storm!  We've had way too many winter ones. 

On the way home, I had the windows cracked, because Sam and I were toasty, and that fresh air, even if it was a bit chilly, just felt so good!  


Funny that the sun was still sun dogging out, even when it's 50 degrees. 


I loved this picture I shot out the car window.  My fav unedited. 



Monday, February 17, 2014

Semi-sort-of day off

48/365

Today has kind of been a bonus day off.  It wasn't intended to be.  It is President's Day.  And Sam had school and Chris did not.  So Daddy took Sam to school, and once Chris and I got dressed we moseyed over to Starbucks.  An ice storm was making it's way in, and though  I thought Chris and I might go downtown to the Indiana State Museum and have tea, he voted for Starbucks and video games at home instead.  Much more weather appropriate.  Don't I have a handsome date?!


So we went to Starbucks, chatted with our friend Sarah from church who works there, and then came home to play.  While we were playing, Sam's school called.  They wanted to close early for the ice storm.  So we went and snagged Sam.  The big boys played indoor recess for a couple minutes before we left. 



While they were playing, I got a call from Daddy, they were sending him home early to work from home for the rest too, because of the weather.  He got a nice commute in before the bad weather hit.  So then the boys and I went to Arby's for some lunch.  They have spy toys right now that the boys are really excited about.   And we came home and had an Olympics on the floor picnic.  The boys love to eat lunch on the floor in front of the tv sometimes.  And on this day off, we did.  Though Daddy did have to spend the rest of the afternoon working, that was a nice trade to be able to have lunch as a family.  Total bonus! 


And then the rain/ice/sleet/snow began to fall, and froze where it fell, and I was very glad we were all home safe and sound.  


I hadn't realized how worried I was about Eric and Sam not being home with the weather arrived, but having them both at home by lunch, I was happily relieved, then overcome with exhaustion, and had to nap.  
Luckily, Jake was happy to oblige.  


Lazy Dayz

47/365


My baby is growing.  
He technically doesn't/shouldn't fit in the swing anymore.  
But it's the only place besides my arm or my bed where he'll sleep. 
And on occasion, I like to sleep baby-free. 
Eric let me have a couple big naps all by myself this weekend, to make up for all the sleepless time.


Plus, from this angle, he kind of looks like he fits. 


He had a rough night, a rough morning, and let's just remember how sweet they are when they sleep.


Sunday, February 16, 2014

Valentine's Carry Over

46/365

Another big day yesterday,  first you have to know that one of the gifts that we got for the boys (that I forgot to mention) for Valentine's Day yesterday (picture below) were new snow sled discs in their favorite colors.  Sam adored his green one, and Chris was stoked about blue.   They couldn't wait to use them, unfortunately, they had school and the weather was still gross while it was light....


But today, we carried over our Valentine's celebration.
Eric made heart shaped biscuits and gravy from scratch, and we ate at the table covered with happy flowers.  

The first place we had to be was at Christopher's Belt Promotion. 
Sam was super excited, as it was to the Green belt, being Sam's favorite color.  The little ones were bonkers and griping about being hungry, so I missed most of the ceremony, and was out in the hall when Chris actually got promoted, Grrr.   Eric took this picture for me.  


 But another big thing we did yesterday was take the kids for photos.  Jacob is about to turn 10 months old, we finally got him in to get his 9 month pictures taken.  Close enough, right?!  We got a couple good shots, and a decent group shot, but it ended being about the same as his 6 month shots, just not as expensive. ;)

They aren't coming out until the end of February though.  

In the mean time, I got a couple of close up pictures of the flowers that Eric got me for Valentine's Day.  


This was the mini-rosebush, with tiny red buds on it.  


And I had never seen a rose so purple before, I think I love it!   These are totally unedited, so you can see what an awesome color this is! 


I don't know what this flower is called, but I've seen them in fake plastics.  *Turns out it's called Waxflower*
But it's beautiful, even prettier in real life than in plastic.

After pictures and lunch, we came home and the boys wanted to play outside with their new discs.  Eric let me be the one to go outside and 'show them how its done'.  So I did.  But either the snow was too soft, or I was, I didn't slide very well.  Eric took this picture of me sliding with the boys.


The boys definitely were better at it than I, but the soft snow inhibited our speed. 


We took a few trips down the hill, then Chris threw his disc all Captain America style into the snow.  


I "raced" Chris to the bottom of the hill behind the pine trees, only I didn't get very far very fast, and I kind of collapsed.   This was my view, a little bit beautiful.  


This was also my view as I did a snow angel, the snow felt remarkable on my always sore back. If it wasn't so darn hard to get back up and around, I'd go lay in the snow every day.   Chris kept racing down the hill, I use the term loosely, because the snow was so soft, he didn't go far or fast, but it was still fun. 


Selfie in the sun. :) 


Then we got up, and made a dash for the fort the kids built in the back with the last snow, which is still there.


Snow Fight! 


Chris saw me flip the saucer to throw snow, and decided he needed to do it too. 


Sam just liked to bean me with a snowball.  


We weren't out very long, but it was Fun.