Damage Control

Don't let these two fool you...they may be cute....but they are pretty much always up to no good..ha:)

 Since the Missy has gone back to school...seems like I have been doing a lot of "damage control" around the house.  For instance...take my monthly wall calendar... It used to be covered with a nice sheet of glass until a few days ago when I was carrying Sam to put him in the car, and he took his arm and gave the calendar a nice hit causing it to fall to the floor and break in a thousand tiny pieces.  So until I can find a replacement glass...I've tried to temporarily tape it in place (which is not working too well).

And on to exhibit two....this time the culprit was Mr. J.... Apparently he saw a tiny seam in the bathroom wallpaper and decided to try to "fix it" on his own.  I didn't notice it for a few hours...and honestly thought maybe Sam had done it...but J confessed once we promised we would not get upset if whoever did it was honest and admitted it to us.  I guess I was getting tired of that old wallpaper anyway...it's really one of the only spots in our house that we haven't redone....so maybe J was just helping me to speed up the redecorating process:)

After all this craziness.... and after reading about this idea on a favorite blog of mine... I decided a "Calming Bottle" be just what we needed at our house with these two crazy boys.  The idea behind the "Calming Bottle" is that it is supposed to help kids calm down when things get crazy.  I figured it was worth a shot....So we washed out an old water bottle...added some hot water... a few tablespoons of clear glue and some colorful glitter. 

We turned it upside down

Gave it a good shake...then sat and relaxed until ALL the glitter settled back down.

Even Sammy had a turn...

He looks pretty relaxed to me...wow...maybe it really does work!

And on to other news....J's FOUR-year old preschool orientation was this morning.  I was so excited to have a little "mommy and Joseph" time today and he was so excited to see his new classroom and find out who would be in his class.

I LOVE this little guy...and love how he is always willing to pose for me.  When we arrived at his classroom... my heart sank as the teacher informed us that mommies would just drop the kids off and pick them up in an hour:(  I had no idea we didn't get to STAY for the hour.  But...J...always my little socialite....did perfectly fine and said he loved every minute of it.  He even remembered the story his teacher read to him!!!

Now what is his sidekick going to do next week when J is off to school for real???

New Beginnings

Well...we made it through her first day (It was actually yesterday...and I'm just getting around to posting these)! I'm glad her day was better than the pictures that I took....UGGGHHHH.... we were in such a rush....I just couldn't get good ones fast enough...

Loved that her teacher was willing to take a pic with her!!!  She seems so nice:)

The first day is always hectic and stressful...but Sophia came home HaPpY...and that's all that matters!!! It might just take me till mid December to get the boys back on the early to rise schedule!!! (They were both real treats yesterday,  and now Sammy has decided to come down with a full blown case of the snotties...uggghh. ) We have truly learned to cherish the days where this little guy is healthy...they are so few and far between....and when we get a full night of sleep....wow....now that's just like a gift from God!!!   Back to my BIG third grader.... I hope so many things for this incredible little girl this year.  I have no doubt her accomplishments will continue to amaze us....She has always been incredibly smart, sensitive and respectful.  But I hope she remembers to also enjoy herself along the way!!

Summer Recap

Well it's here.  Lunch is packed....the littles are in bed.....(not sure they are sleeping...as Sammy has already cried once).  New shoes are out and ready.  Tomorrow we will be back to our early early schedule...uggghhh.  Well...we are keeping our fingers crossed that all will go as planned.  Missy came down with a pretty bad little cold today (you know...Sammy didn't feel right about just keeping it to himself).   We had some tears at dinner over stuffy noses...and that little girl went to bed with one red, red nose (from her incessant blowing today) and pleading for the vaporizer.  She is sooo excited for the first day tomorrow and soooo worried she will be sick and miss it.  So we are praying extra hard that she wakes up feeling refreshed and ready for a new year!  I mean, really, it just wouldn't be a school year at our house if everyone were actually HEALTHY...geez!!!

I found some pics on my phone I haven't posted from our summer so I thought I would bid farewell to summer by posting a few.  Not gonna lie....it was not the summer I imagined.  The fractured pelvis put a little damper on all that I wanted to accomplish.   And even more disheartening is the fact that improvement has been minimal:(  It hit hard today when we were out playing and my sweet neighbor had to run all the way down our street to chase the ball my kids lost because I couldn't do it.  Recovery will take a lot more down time...time I don't want to take...but nonetheless will need.  Guess I should take it easy and just start making even more grand plans for next summer...because these kids definitely deserve it!!!

Sooo here are the last few weeks in a nutshell...

Sophia is always willing to share her fashionista skills with Sammy...and he LOVES his new look!

Getting a little silly before our Lorax movie night!

If you still haven't seen the movie...SEE IT!  It has a great message....

We read "Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand"  last week after bringing it home from the library.  The story is about Alex Scott, a little girl diagnosed with neuroblastoma shortly before her first birthday.  When she turned four she had a lemonade stand to raise money to help find a cure for childhood cancer.  When she passed away at the age of 8 in 2004, she had already helped to raise over one million dollars.  Sophia loved the idea of us having a lemonade stand to help children who are sick like Alex.

Our sweet neighbors were more than generous in their contributions...and it was a glorious day!

Even little Sammy helped out a bit:)

We raised a little over $20 dollars in just a short time!!!

Farewell Summer 2012!

Here she goes again...

growing up on me a little more.

A new school year is peeking around the corner...  I am not ready...

but I think the THIRD grade is already calling her name.

Today was just orientation day.  We get one more day of summer vacation before the real stuff begins on Wednesday.  We met her teacher, found her desk....(in the front row) and organized her supplies a bit.  Now if we can just get rid of her teensy little cold that little Sammy so kindly shared with her! Yep...just three days off of his second round of antibiotic for strep and he already has the sniffles and sneezies...  What are we going to do with this little guy?

Well...thank goodness we get ONE more day till this GROWN-UP girl has to hit the books!

Movin' right along....

We hit the 18-month milestone today... and  OHHHH how I wish I could slow time just a bit.  Our littlest man is growing up before our eyes and there will be no stopping him.

At 18 months he still struggles in the speech department...but I am seeing many visible signs of improvement.  Yay! Yay! and Yay!  It probably took me a good month to figure out one thing he would say over and over.  What sounded like whaddaa whaddaa turned out to be "What's that?"  So now his favorite thing to do is point at something and say "What'sthat????" Over and over and over....  But I'm so happy he is so inquisitive and wants to know what everything is.

(Most of the rest of these pics are ones I just found on my phone from the last few weeks...)

And as for fine and gross motor....well....no problems there.  He CAN and WILL get into anything he wants... no matter how high, no matter what kind of lock, etc:)

Since our 15 month appointment Sammy
1. has a new found love for hamburgers and apples
2.  is becoming pretty fond of Thomas the train
3.  can say EEEEEEA for Sophia
4.  has learned to take off his pants in his bed in the morning
5.  loves to hand me all of his 3 blankies in the morning...one by one just to hear me say "Thank you"
6.  will finally go to sleep if we put him in his bed awake at night:)
7. Still loves the song Row Row Row your boat
8.  Still can not part with the infamous BROOM:)
9.  Still likes to give us a few wake up calls at night:)
10.  Loves to see an airplane in the sky
11. cries every time I put his shoes on (he's now moved up to Joseph's Keen's that J wore just last summer). I think his dry and cracked little toesies may have something to do with this crying
12.  Has the CUTEST smile with the cutest teeth
13.  Whines almost 98% of the day... but when he laughs....boy does he laugh...sooooo CUTE
14.  Can crush a fishy cracker into more pieces than you can imagine and hide them in EVERY little crevice of his carseat...cupholder, car mat, etc....I think he just likes to humor his Daddy and give him something a little extra to do at the car wash:)

His 18 month stats are nothing short of impressive:

Let's compare to 15 months:

15 months                                                      18 months
head circumf:  20 1/4 in >95%                      20 3/8 inches >95%

height:             35 in >95%                            36 1/2 inch >95%

weight:            28lbs 13.4 oz >95%               30 lbs 13.2 oz >95%        

( I just glanced at a few of J's previous stats..guess what ...he wasn't 36 inches until 3 YEARS and he was only 33 lbs at 4 years!!)  Too funny!

Love this phone pic I took of the boys.  They almost look the same size....and Sam thought wearing my sweater was too fun!

The well-check ( or what I thought was a well-check) went WELL...until we did a repeat strep test just to make SURE he didn't test positive (other docs have told me he may be a carrier for strep b/c he has had it so often....and may be passing it to Brett )  So...since Sam had been off his last round of meds for his latest case (strep test from before our Omaha trip did actually culture out to a positive:( ) for over a week....Dr. W decided to do another test when he was well...and GUESS what...IT came back positive too!!! So back on the meds we go.....and we will need to figure out what is going on..... GEEZ....poor little guy:(  But KUDDOS to Dr. W who was able to peek in his ears quickly (normally at least a 10 minute screaming fest), AND complete the throat culture even though Sam had a mouthful of CHEEZ-ITS!  Wow....pretty impressive!

I can't believe how fast this time has gone, and I can't imagine what our world would be like without him.

Weekend Getaways...

are always more than an adventure for us....

This may well be my longest post ever....but I have so many pictures of our trip to Omaha and the zoo....and I know when I make a book out of my blog some day....the kids will all appreciate these...so yes... I am going to post all of them!!!

Some might call us a bit crazy for not canceling this little weekend getaway with a Mama suffering from a broken pelvis and a Daddy who came down with strep throat hours before we were to leave.  But.... I guess we "took one for the team":)  The kids were so excited about going to the zoo....When  B went to the doc Thursday nite and found out he did indeed have strep for the 4th time in the last 4 months, Sammy and I decided to have a date with urgent care too..just to be safe.  (Every time B has strep, Sammy usually has it too...we learned that after a not so pleasant surprise on our last trip to Saint Louis).  Sam had no fever and strep test was negative. Perfect.  J had recovered from his bad allergy episode...so we decided we would leave in the AM.  

The drive was smooth...and we made it in time to drive straight to the zoo, get lunch and start our sightseeing! 

First up were the zebras...Sammy thought they were dogs and kept saying "oooh,oooh"  (his version of "woof, woof")

And below were J's favorite...the spider monkeys...And if you look closely...you can see the skyfari "gondola" ride....Yes....on our last day at the zoo....somehow B convinced me to ride this HIGH above the zoo with S and J...They loved it....I have never been so scared in my life.  I'm kind of a pansy when it comes to heights...and of course I was more than worried that squirmy J might just move an inch and fall out!!!

Sea lion feeding time:)

The lemurs....To see them you actually go in a gated area behind closed doors.  As soon as we ventured in... the zoo keeper yelled "loose lemur" and sure enough he was right by our feet!  Talk about up close and personal!

It was HOT....and Sammy was content with his water!

S brought her own (well, my old) point and shoot and went crazy taking her own pics of everything.

And lots of pictures of the gorillas...because they were my favorite...we spent a LONG time just watching them.....Of course they were behind glass..so picture taking was hard...but, still, you could get very close to them!

It looks like he is just thinking..."Those humans....they're just nuts.."

And because I've always had a thing for feet...

Tigers

It was fun watching how excited Sam was to see the animals!  And J's hair as you can see was wet because, thankfully, there were little water spray areas that let the kids cool off!

And the size of this snake...HUGE!!!

Snack time

Leave it to J to be silly..

A perfect day for ice cream!

I can't remember what this guy was called...but isn't he cute?

The penguin exhibit was really neat too!

Upside down jelly fish....the aquarium at the zoo was amazing....we thought it was AS good...if not better than Kansas City's new aquarium...and MUCH cheaper!

We decided to save the train ride and maybe the gondola ride for the end of the day. Do you remember our zoo train experience in St. Louis...yup...it poured and we were forced off the train.  Since then...J has desperately wanted to have the full train ride experience.   We figured we would be hot and tired at the end of the day and it would be a good break from walking which was extremely hard for me....  But we were so busy...we lost track of time and by the time we got to the train...it was CLOSED:(.  We had stayed almost till close without even knowing it...we told the kids we would try to come back the next day after we hit the Children's Museum... So this was the end of the first day...and you can tell..the troops were too tired for a good picture...

We were up bright and early Saturday morning....and after a good breakfast, we headed for the Children's Museum.  This was hard with Sam because he wanted to do everything that he was too little to do, and it was hard for us to chase him and still keep an eye on the others.  The kids had fun...but we decided this still didn't compare to the Magic House.  It wasn't as clean....but there were definitely some fun spots.

Getting to create yourself and your future profession...

The pizza parlor

The ball room....Sam's FAVORITE...we took him out of the stroller and he went NUTS...running everywhere...throwing and chasing balls!  He screamed BLOODY MURDER when we had to leave that room!

Thank goodness for the firetruck with real siren sounds to divert his attention!

After a trip to the Mall to buy S some much needed new tennis shoes (This girls feet grow sooo fast!!!)....we headed out for lunch and back to the zoo!

As we were driving....I saw a few clouds in the sky... I told B that knowing our luck...it would probably rain when we got to the train.

Well....as soon as we purchased our 2nd days worth of zoo tickets (mainly so we could squeeze in a train and gondola ride) what do ya know???? Sprinkles....and within seconds...thunder and a heavy downpour.  Grrrr

So....when life gives you lemons....

We headed to the butterfly/insect building.  The kids LOVED this....you were in the room with the butterflies just flying freely.

Sophia was excited when one landed on her...but it was too quick for me to get it in the picture...

Next up...the giraffes....you could really get so up close to them.....I wish I had just a 1/4 of their height.  It's incredible!

And guess what?  The skies cleared....and we finally got a FULL

ZOO train ride!

Sammy LOVED it!

We ended our visit with a trip to the jungle exhibit which was PHENOMENAL (except for the free flying bats:(  )  And last but not least....a skyfari ride that went MUCH to high for my liking...and much to low to the water....but definitely gave us a beautiful overview of the zoo!!

Besides a nasty episode of poor J getting carsick on the way home (we can't seem to make a round trip without some sort of sickness:(.... ) it was a fun-filled, and quick little getaway!