It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Wow have I been crazy busy lately! Turns out when you have 2 kids, 2 and under, completely mobile, and sick to top it off, not much gets done other than daily necessities. Somehow though, I have managed to get Christmas shopping done, cookies made, the tree decorated and get to the gym a few times in between. I love Christmas but I am ready for things to slow down a little!

The boys have both had ear infections and sinus infections that they are taking forever to recover from. Just when we finished up the 10 13 days of medicine they are both getting icky coughs and runny noses again. It is a never ending battle to keep these boys healthy! Samuel has been wheezing like crazy lately, I can hear him breath from across the room. We are taking him in today to get checked out.

My to do list today looks something like this:

• Make sugar cookies
• Make peanut butter cookies
• Make dinner rolls
• Sweep kitchen
• Vacuum entire house
• Try to disinfect EVERY toy we own
• Wrap presents
• Get the boys to take some sort of nap
• Get Sam to the doctor on time
• Fold the mountain of laundry waiting for me upstairs
• Clean the bathrooms

That is just the start of it... Oh fun fun :)

I will be back soon(ish) to post a much needed picture update and some fun pictures from Christmas.

I hope every one has an extremely blessed, relaxing (is that possible?), and FUN Christmas! I'm off to change yet another poopy diaper before we hit the road to the Doctor.

Love Love ♥

Happy birthday little man

Joshua turned 2 on December 3rd. My oh my how time has flown by.


This sweet little baby

Has turned into this handsome little man

He has turned into a handsome little man that loves "Tommy" (Thomas the train), Strawberries (pretty much all fruit is "Strawberries"), and his little brother. I couldn't think of 3 better things to be totally in love with.

Joshua got to start his day off with his first present, A brand new table just for him! (well, and Sam when he gets old enough).

He loves it! He even ate his birthday breakfast there. The little stinker wouldn't let me get a good picture though. Such a goof ball!

My big boy even blew out his candle all by himself!

Oh Joshua, you are growing up way to fast! I don't know if I am ready to have a "big boy". I can handle babies just fine, but you are getting SO independent. One of your newest phrases to say is "Do Self". I'm not a big fan of this phrase. But I know you need to grow up, and I am so proud of the big boy you are becoming. You are so loving, extremely silly and love to make other people laugh. On second thought, I am ready to have a big boy, you are getting to be so much fun and I can't wait to experience new things with you every day! I can't wait until you can understand how amazing our God is and how much he has blessed you with little boy. But for now, you just keep liking Thomas, getting SUPER excited every night when Daddy gets home from work and giving me big sloppy kisses first thing in the morning. I love you so much and can't wait to watch you grow up.

Love Love ♥

Mommy

my baby...

Oh my goodness my baby is officially mobile! He can crawl like a pro and makes sure I don't ever forget it. Every time I turn around he is getting into trouble or heading for the stairs. This was the mess he made when I was doing the dishes yesterday. I was just watching him cause trouble :) he had fun haha

He is getting way to big!

love love ♥

First Time for Everything

It snowed yesterday! It is way to early for snow in my opinion. But it's Minnesota, and Minnesota doesn't care about my opinion. So me and Joshua took advantage of the decent weather and played in the snow (it was like 25 degrees out, not to bad!). He has never really played in the snow before. Last year he was too little to enjoy it. We had so much fun!
At first he wasn't too sure.. "What is this white stuff flying through the air?"

"Ok Mom, I will help shovel"

"Hmm I wonder what it would taste like..."

"ICE!!"

Have I mentioned that Joshua loves ice? He was in heaven with "ice" falling all around him :)

Love Love ♥

6 Month old Sammy

Really? My baby is 6 months old today? This little man, that I feel like I waited an eternity to meet has already been in our family for 6 whole months?!

Where in the world does the time go.

My oh my how you  have changed in six months little boy. You are no longer a newborn.

 You are sitting up like a pro, rolling EVERYWHERE imaginable.

 Getting up on your hands and knees, and even doing an army crawl to get places once in a while.

You have the sweetest smile I have ever seen, and you smile all the time. Even if I wake you up from a nap, you will smile at me right away. I love your little dimple.

You have so many people that love you Sam. You brighten my day every day. I am loving you more every day, I love watching you discover new things and try to keep up with Joshua.

I love you Samuel! I can't wait to see what God is going to use you for as you get older.

Love Love ♥

Every Day Adventures

I have always dreamed of being the "fun" Mom. The one who makes every day, ordinary things into adventures! My kids aren't really old enough yet to do a lot of the things I would love to do with them. So I just try to turn a boring thing into something that gets a smile or a laugh.

Last night Joshua got to finger paint. He LOVES paint of any kind, but when I TELL him to put his hands in it his eyes just light up. Being the bad blogger mom I am I forgot to take my camera out and get pictures of the painting. He are the finished products

He loves hanging everything on the fridge lately. Can ya tell?


But I think he almost had more fun washing his hands after we were done painting. Joshua loves the water, so I take advantage of a good mood whenever I can and let him play in the sink or the tub when I know he isn't gonna cause trouble. Last night after painting was a great time! I had to empty the dishwasher and wanted to sweep the kitchen so he spent 20 minutes sitting in the sink playing.

So much fun!! I hope you are all having a great Monday.

GO VIKINGS!!!

Love Love ♥

I love my veteran :)

Happy veterans day!

Being so familiar with the military community I really do appreciate all the sacrifices made by our military members and their families. Ryan and I were apart for about ten months when we was in Japan and that was the hardest ten months of my life! Plus we were both away from our families for three years while we were in Japan, and then another nine months while we were in Texas.

There are so many of our friends who are in for life and have been away from family for years and will be for many more years to come. I couldn't imagine being away with the boys growing up. But I appreciate all of those who make sacrifices every day so we can have the basic freedoms we do.

Here is a picture of me and Ryan right after he graduated from basic, he was 17 and I was 16

Thank you all of our military men and women who have served and are currently serving now. I couldn't even begin to list all of the people I know in the military right now and deployed right now. Thank you thank thank you!!!

Love Love ♥

Circus of the Heart

November is National adoption month. If you have read my blog much, or know me you know I am passionate about adoption. I have 7 younger brothers and sisters that have been adopted. My parents started adopting when I was about 8 year old, and the most recent one was just about a year ago. So they have been adopting for 14 years. Every year there is a little festival put on by Minnesota Department of Human Services, this year was in Oakdale MN.

Joshua and I went with my family while Sam and Daddy stayed home. Sam still can't get rid of this cough so he hasn't been going out much lately. Joshua had SO much fun though. He loves doing things with his Aunt's Megan and Lily. Well he loves doing things with all his aunts and uncles but him and Megan are best friends!

There were all kinds of games, some icky snakes, and yummy snacks!

Thanks for a fun Day Grandma and Grandpa! Love, Joshua

Love Love ♥

Goodbye Yellow

Our house is yellow. EVERYWHERE. Apparently the people that bought it and fixed it up thought yellow was a neutral color. It's not. I am SO sick of yellow. We are slowly (but surely) getting rid of this icky yellow that has been surrounding me for the last 10 months. We started off in the boys room, it ended up being red, white and blue with a Cars theme. This is changing soon though, its going to just be blue and white and it's changing to Thomas! Joshua has never seen cars, I just thought it was cute. Now that he's a little older, he loves Thomas and trains and its not to much work so its getting changed.

Next we did the bathroom, after the whole thing got torn apart I had the honors of choosing a color (NOT YELLOW) to paint. It ended up a light brownish and I love it!

This last weekend I finally got the paint and painted the entry way/stairway coming in the house. I have been wanting to do it for so long, but life is just to crazy! So Saturday night I taped up, did a couple coats of trim and the first coat of paint. It had to dry for a while so I planned on doing the second coat Sunday. Sunday evening Ryan and Joshua ran to the store while Sam was sleeping so I decided to finish. Worst. Idea. Ever. I had barely started when I was walking down the stairs with a roller full of paint, slipped and fell halfway down the stairs. Seriously, so painful. Ryan happened to pull into the driveway while this was happening so he walked in to me laying on the stairs in much pain.

The results of falling down the stairs:

I almost went to the doctor for my toe, I couldn't walk on for a while and that made me nervous. But since I don't have insurance and they don't do much for broken toes anyways I decided to wait it out. I'm still limping around a little but the swelling has gone down and it's straight again!

At least the entry way got painted though :) that was my goal all along. Ryan ended up finishing it on Tuesday. It took MUCH longer than I had planned on. 

I Love Love Love this color. It is much more neutral than the yellow it was before. Now to paint the rest of the house... After we change the floors and put in a new patio door. YAY!

Love Love ♥

Halloween 2011

We aren't huge on Halloween around here. Not super crazy decorate the whole house and act like its the best holiday in the world excited about it. But we have fun with it :) We pass out candy to cute little princess's and superheros that come knocking at the door and we go around and collect a few pieces of candy of our own. This year was no different.


We started off the festivities with a quick trip to the pumpkin patch a week before Halloween. We all got pumpkins and couldn't wait to carve them. But we did. Until 2 days before Halloween to be exact. I usually like to do it a few days before, but with Halloween landing on a Monday this year we waited until the weekend. 


Saturday when Sammy laid down for his morning nap (I know, I know I deprived him of the pumpkin carving experience) we got the pumpkins out and carved away! Joshua wasn't quite understanding that it wasn't for eating and ended up with a few bites out of his pumpkin 

And some orange pumpkin all over his face. He said "mmmm" every bite then spit it out and looked disgusted. 


But eventually he caught on and joined us in scraping out the "pumpkin guts" He wasn't to sure about the ooey, gooey, kinda cold pumpkin guts but stuck with it anyways. 

After carving our pumpkins at home Joshua and I went to my parents to help them carve theirs and Joshua got to paint his little pumpkin he picked out at the pumpkin patch. He loves painting (and trying to eat the paint) so he definitely liked the idea! (he was spelling his name in the picture that is why he has the "O" on his lips he says O-S-H, kind of forgets the J but its all good)

Then Monday was Halloween! He (obviously) doesn't remember last year at all and was kind of confused about the whole dressing up thing, but once he realized all the candy he was getting he was happy! Here is cute pirate Joshua

And my sleepy "sweet pea" Sammy

Apparently I didn't get very good pictures of him, hopefully my dad got a few!


Here is another one where you might be able to see him a little better.

Joshua loved running around my parents neighborhood with his 4 youngest aunts (the under 13 crowd) 

We had a ghost, a couple princesses, a mouse, a pirate and some peas! 

He also wanted to eat EVERY SINGLE piece of candy he got. He didn't understand he was supposed to "save it up and see how much you can get" (in the words of Lily)

I think he had a fun night, and hopefully next year he will be able to say "trick-or-treat" on his own and will have even more fun than this year! I hope you all had a great weekend and Halloween (yes I am aware it's Thursday  this week has just gotten away from me!)


Love Love ♥

A (quick) trip to the pumpkin patch

We have been meaning to get to the pumpkin patch for a couple weeks now, and we finally got there on Sunday! We planned it for Sunday because that was supposed to be the warmest day of the weekend and we aren't fans of the cold. We got to the pumpkin patch around 11:45 and started off on the inside activities.




The big corn pit with a slide (seriously Joshua was in heaven)

And we stopped to look at some spooky Halloween decorations (by spooky I Mean, no one was scared of them and the babies LOVED them). My little sisters got their faces painted, and I failed at taking pictures. Oops.

Sammy stayed nice and warm snuggled up in his stroller (oh yeah, it wasn't warm, did I already mention that?)

Then we headed out to the chilly pumpkin patch, where it started raining approximately 2 minutes after we got outside. Awesome. Needless to say we didn't stay long, we got our pumpkins and got out of that chilly weather!

Ok, maybe we stopped to ride a tractor or two along the way

But mostly, we got our pumpkins and got out of there!

  Joshua and Megan always have to get a picture together when we go somewhere, that's the fun part of having an aunt your age. (not really, the fun part is playing with each other ALL THE TIME). But I love pictures of the two of them together :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful fall season. We are still sick here... we just decided to brave the chilly weather to get pumpkins! Then afterwards brought Joshie to the doctor and it turns out he has croup. So we have him on meds, and he is taking nebs every 4 hours and tylenol for his fever. We  hope it leaves soon!




Love Love♥

Sick Babies (again) and a haircut!

I feel like every other post I make is about the boys being sick. It is getting old. Real fast. Joshua had a cold for a while, then Sammy got it, then they both got better and I got it. Now it has started all over again. And to top it off Joshua has been wheezing and having a really hard time breathing today so it looks like we might be making a trip to urgent care today! He is taking a nap now, after a neb (it pays to have siblings with asthma :). So we will see how he feels when he wakes up and then decide if he needs to go in or not.

I hate sick babies. WAY more than I hate being sick. Seriously, If I could take this from them and have it myself I would do it in a heartbeat!

We haven't been taking many pictures lately. I guess its not my top priority when we are all nasty feeling.







So you get a few cell phone pictures :) One of Joshua clapping. Seriously, clapping is his new thing. He claps and says "YAY" constantly. It started with the potty training, I would say yay every time he went. This turned to him praising himself, and everything and everyone else we see haha. He cheers for Deuce when he eats, for me when I change Sams diaper, and even for Sam when he rolls over. He is our own little personal motivator.

And one of my big 5 month old Sammy! He is doing so good sitting up on his own. This outfit he is wearing in this picture, Joshua wore when he was about 14-15 months. Sam is a beast. 5 months old, weighing like 2 pounds less than his 18 month aunt, and wearing 12-18 month clothes. I guess I just grow em big :)

Yesterday I did something I have been wanting to do for way to long! I cut my hair. I cut 12 inches to be exact and donated it to locks of love. I didn't think I would miss it, but I do. It has been SO long since my hair has been this short. Seriously, I don't even remember when. But I think it is starting to grow on me. I took a shower, dried and straightened my hair all in about 25 minutes this morning. Before it would have taken me at least 25 minutes just to blow dry it. Major plus with two kiddos who don't like me doing anything for myself!






crazy right?

I hope you are all having a great day! We are getting ready to watch the vikings game, hoping its a good game and not a total disappointment like last week.

Love Love ♥