Thursday, August 29, 2013

She's feeling 22 ooh ooh!

Yesterday we celebrated my sisters 22 birthday.  Her real birthday is today, but yesterday worked out better for a few people, so we went with it.

A few snap shots from the party!!

I made the cake. 
 I know you're impressed!! lol


stinker




Jack and Audrie are thick as thieves lately!!



Kelsie requested a breakfast supper for her birthday dinner.










Yummy red velvet cake with cream cheese icing!!!



Happy Birthday Sista!!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

sick boy and paper airplanes

I had a very sick boy all last week.  Austin ran fever and suffered from bad diarrhea for 5 long days.  He was miserable, which made me miserable because I couldn't really help him.  I was mentally exhausted and stressed by the end of the week, but by Saturday morning he finally stopped running fever and started perking up.
I'm so extremely relieved and happy to have my happy healthy boy back.  Now I'm just crossing my fingers that Abigail and Jack don't catch this nasty bug going around.

Sunday afternoon Austin asked me to make him a paper airplane.  So I made him the easy traditional paper plane, but he wasn't very impressed.  So I hit YouTube and made this fancy paper airplane.

I was very proud of myself.  

Before long the entire family was involved in paper airplane races.

 Jack's paper plane was pretty mangled!




Trying to get planes to stick in the flowers became the new game.


It was a fun afternoon of family fun.  

I highly encourage any families out there who are sitting around the house bored, to get some paper and make some planes. 
 I promise everyone will have an awesome time.


Friday, August 23, 2013

Jack's 2 year old update!

I haven't done an update on Jack lately and boy is he changing every single day.  He says and understand almost everything now.  He is a smart little cookie, too smart sometimes.

Lets start with the statistics....

Weight: 28 pounds

Clothes: 2T and some 3T shirts

Shoe size: 8

Favorite Foods: He will eat almost anything, but his new favorites are donuts, popcorn, ramen noodles, mashed potatoes, cereal with milk, oatmeal, apples, ice cream, and so many other things.  He likes his "nacks"


Speech:  His speaking abilities are blowing me away.  Not that he's a genius or anything, but after Austin struggling so much and barely speaking 10 words at this age, Jack seems like a genius to us.

Jack never says yes, he always says OK.  For example...

Me: Do you want a cookies?  
Jack: OK

Me: Do you want to go outside?
Jack: OK

Me: Did you go poo poo?
Jack: OK

Me: Do you like ice cream?
Jack: OK

It's pretty funny!

Jack almost never says just NO.  He likes to say "No, I don't want to!!"  For example...

Me: Do you want to take a bath?
Jack: No, I don't want to!

Me: Jack eat your food!
Jack: No, I don't want to!

Me: Jack it's time to go night-night!
Jack: No, I don't want to!

It's not always so funny!

Basically Jack is like a parrot right now.  He mimics everything that everyone says.  It's like we have a constant echo in our house.  Even when a bad word might slip out of my mouth, whoops!!

copy cat


He is starting to talk in sentences more and can understand almost anything you tell him.  

Personality: His personality is shining through more and more everyday.  He reminds me more of Abigail than Austin.  All of our kids are very hard headed and stubborn.  Aren't we lucky?  I just wanted at least one laid back, easy going kid, but I guess that's not in the cards for me.  On the bright side, it makes for some entertaining family time.

scared to death to take a picture


Jack is basically at that age where he wants what he wants and even though his speech is great and he understands most things, there is still no reasoning with him.  He's not quite at the age where he understands why he can't walk in the grocery store, or run in the parking lot without holding our hands.  He just thinks we aren't letting him have his way.  I'm hoping in the next six months he will start getting a little easier to reason with and understand more of the reasons behind why he can't do or have certain things.  

He is definitely getting easier, but I would not say he is easy!  He is like a little shadow that follows me around all day.  He hardly ever plays by himself, wherever I am, he's there too.  It can get old, but I know it won't last too much longer.  I have to go looking for my other kids to make them talk to me.  They are 5 and 7 and will basically play and do there own thing all day, if I don't go and bug them to spend time with me.  

Jack is a big time Mama and Nana's boy!  When we are both around he usually prefers Nana over me, which is fine with me, gives me a little break from my shadow!

Favorite things:  

Jack loves playing outside.  I think he would play outside all day if he could.  Unfortunately we live in the most miserable place when it comes to weather.  It's usually way too hot to play outside unless it's first thing in the morning or really late evening.  

Jack's favorite TV shows are Sid the Science Kid, Aquabats, Lego Movies, Yo Gabba Gabba.  

Jack enjoys playing on my phone.  He does pretty well with the ABC games that are on his level, but of course he tries to play other games that are way too hard for him and he just gets frustrated.  That's basically his life with two older siblings he thinks he can do anything they can do and when he can't it's pure angry frustration.  

Jack loves cars, trucks, trains, and tractors.  If he's playing with toys it's usually one of those four things.

Jack likes to sing the songs Itsy Bitsy Spider, Head and Shoulders, Jesus Loves Me, and ABC song.

Napping: Unfortunatly napping has been a struggle lately.  If he sleeps any later than 7:00 am then he will not take a nap.  I always lay him down for at least an hour so that I can have a break, but he doesn't always sleep during it.

Health: Jack has had an ear infection every month for the past 6 months except for the month of July.  Plus it usually takes two rounds of antibiotics or shots to get it to clear up.  We have an appointment with the ear, nose, throat doctor at the end of the month and I'm thinking that tubes will be in our future.  Other than ear infections, which make him super cranky, he's been very healthy.  knock on wood

Learning: He's learned so much in the past few months.  He can sing parts of his ABC's and he can sort of count to ten.  It goes something like this, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 4, 9, 10.  I'm not sure what the deal is with the 4, but he tries and insert it in random places when counting.  Just today while at the grocery store he pointed up to the sign above the cereal isle and said four, and sure enough I looked up and it was a four.  Such a proud Mamma!!

He knows most of his body parts and some shapes.  We are working on colors.

Potty training does not seem to be in our near future.  I'm thinking maybe next summer we will start tackling that!

Oh and last but not least he is in love with sunglasses right now.  I love it!!








Even in the midst of the terrible twos, I still love my little guy to the moon and back!!!!





Tuesday, August 20, 2013

the not so little babies

We still call them the babies, but they aren't so little anymore.  

Audrie came over to play last week, and they were so funny together. 
They just thought it was the coolest thing how I laid the blanket out like that.  





 Audrie's hair is in that stage where the bangs are too long to hang forward but wont stay tucked behind the ear.  

Oh and little miss won't leave a clip or pony tail in for very long.  


I was very impressed with myself for getting this fine little hair into a braid, but of course about 10 minutes later when I wasn't looking she pulled it out.  





Ok, Ok enough pictures already!!!!

Monday, August 19, 2013

a rescue mission for Patrick

Friday evening Brent and I decided to take the kids to the mall to play in the play area and get some ice cream. 

 Fun Friday family time!!

Austin recently got a sponge Bob Lego Kit, that included a tiny little Patrick Lego figurine!  He was very insistent about bringing it into the mall, so I warned him to be very careful with it and not to lose it.  

Well shortly after entering Sears, he almost lost Patrick's little arms, but luckily we quickly recovered them.  

Our first stop was to the play area and he kept track of his little Lego Patrick very well.  Upon leaving the play area we stopped to wash our hands with the hand sanitizer and I held his Patrick for him.  When he was finished I handed it back and that was the last time I remembered seeing him in the mall. 

We stopped at the coin drop thing.  You know where you drop the coin and it rolls in circles down what looks like a drain.  My kids love dropping coins in there.  Then we stopped to ride a little pony carousel ride, that wouldn't take my dollar so they couldn't ride it after all.  Then we got our Dippin Dots and ate it in the  food court.  

As we were walking back out to our car it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't seen Patrick since the play area over half an hour ago.  I asked Austin where Patrick was and I felt the outside of his pockets and couldn't feel anything.  Austin immediately started crying and saying he no idea where he was.  He couldn't remember where he put him.  

So we loaded all the kids in the car and I gave Austin the whole spill about not bringing toys in the store anymore, because once you lose a toy in the store you usually can't ever find it again.  

He was very upset, but not out of control upset.  

Austin loved that little Patrick and it was breaking my heart that he was upset about it, so I made Brent drive me around to the entrance near the carousel so I could run in and look for Patrick.  I literally re-walked over half of the mall to no avail. 

 Patrick was no where to be found.  

Patrick was lost forever, or so we thought!

Once we got back to our temporary home and started running baths for the kids, Austin comes running in to the bathroom yelling "Good News Mom!!"

Patrick was in Austin's pocket the entire time. 

 I swear to you, I felt the outside of his pockets and there was nothing inside them as far as I could tell, but I must have missed it.  Either that or we've got some Toy Story action happening and Patrick found his own way back to Austin. 

I really don't care how it happened and I don't mind at all that I walked half the mall looking for a tiny Lego Patrick.  I would do it again in a heart beat.  

Austin's happy, beaming face that night was well worth the trouble.






Thursday, August 15, 2013

first day of school

Wednesday was the first day of school around these parts and boy were we excited!!




the fogged up lens was killing me

Austin's fake smiles are also killing me!


Wow, third grade sounds sooooo old!!  
I believe this is going to be a great year for them!!

While the kids were at school, I was taking Jack to the doctor for the second time in a week to have his ears checked.  A week ago he was diagnosed with an ear infection and he's been taking antibiotics since then, but a few days ago he started pulling at his ear and telling us "ear hurt". 

I think it's pretty awesome that his language is developing so well and he can let us know when something hurts, but I hate that his ear is still hurting after a week of antibiotic.  

So now we are on round two, with a new medicine and counting down the days until we get to see the ears, nose, throat specialist and figure out when we can get some tubes put in.  

He's had ear infections every month except for July, since February!! 
 Poor guy can't catch a break!

I'm also thankful that I'm not working, which makes dealing with Jack and his sick times so much easier!!

This is Jack leaving the Children's Clinic! 
 He loves wearing sunglasses right now!!