Happy Birthday Neila-Susan!!

Tonight we had a surprise birthday party for Neila-Susan. It worked out perfectly and she was 100% surprised, we have had it planned all week so I was glad we were all able to keep her in the dark from it. I invited our friends Elizabeth and Jason too so we had a really great time. I made chicken enchiladas and corn cake along with a chocolate birthday cake so we had lots of yummy food! Maggie and Carson helped her blow out her birthday candles and did so wihtout getting any spit on the cake, which was nice. :)















After we stuffed ourselves the guys went downstairs to play Joe's "golden tee" arcade game and us girls took the kiddos up to the playroom. They were having alot of fun until Owen fell off the top of the slide right on his head. Poor guy has had a rough week with diarrhea, a raw butt, and now that is over he just about breaks his neck!
Nick and Neila-Susan are going out tommorow night for her birthday so we are keeping Carson for the evening. We are trading off so Joe and I get our date night next friday night.

I forgot to tell in the last blog about my good news, I was so excited and thankful. God has been so good to our family and just when I begin to doubt or try to find something bad he shows me that he will provide for us in EVERY way. I had been a little bummed about our neighborhood and not seeing any little kiddos out. Well last week we were all outside playing and Joe took the kids in for bath. I was cleaning up outside and a mom came walking by with 2 little girls. We began talking and turns out she lives right down the street and is also a stay at home mom. Her girls are 21 months (exactly owens age) and 5 years (just about a year older than mag). She and I really got along and she told me that next door to them is a little 3 year old girl. We went down to there house a few days later and played and had them down yesterday for the afternoon. So anyhow, I am really excited about meeting them and am sure we'll spend quite a bit of time together since the kids really seem to get along.
We also want to send out a birthday wish to Matt, since today is also his birthay!! Hope your liking Kansas, and Happy Birthday!

Catch-up

Okay, so I have been a horrible blogger latley. I have gotten several complaints :) which is nice I guess since I get to see how many people enjoy my blog! We have been trying like crazy to get the house put together without totally neglecting the kids!! It is much harder to move in with a 1 & 3 year old as opposed to a newborn like when we moved to Illinois. We got the basement finished and it looks great plus gives us even more room to enjoy. Now that we have the extra space and storage we just have to get things sorted and in order. We have been having tons of fun though and making lots of new friends.
Joe and the kids have been having fun while I have been out too. I took a night to myself a few weeks ago and it seems he and Maggie used Owen as a coloring book. The markers were supposedly washable, but he scrubbed and scrubbed and the next morning when I went to get him I found my little boy with a faint set of glases and a beard still. (I didn't get home until late so I had no clue what they had done until then)






I worked my first Saturday last week and it went well aside from the other nurse that I worked with doesn't have the best work ethic and left the office twice for me to fend for myself even thought it was only the 3rd time I have ever been in the office. The doctor I worked with is a friend I have made through Neila-Susan though so she was there to help me out if I neeed it. Joe and the kids headed out early too making a trip to Walmart and Lowes where they talked daddy into getting them a Dora sand and water table. They spent the day outside getting sandy and having fun.




















We had Joe's whole family up a few weeks ago and got to meet Matt's girlfriend, Whitney, which was nice. We had a "march madness" party saturday night with them and Nick, neila, carson, and neila's mom Susan. We had tons of great food and alot of fun. Carson is getting so big and enjoyed hanging out with Maggie and Owen as they taught him how to climb stairs.



















Before long he will be running around with them having fun. The kids and I spent last week in West Virginia visiting. We had fun seeing everyone and got to meet our friends Josh and Tab's new baby Emmaline. She is adorable and we can't wait to get to see her again. Karri and I met up one day at the park in Nitro and let the kids play while we tried to catch up some.


Joe got to spend last week down in Florida working, next time the kids and I are going to go with him to help out. :) This week has been pretty busy for us. Monday Neila and I took the kids to a photographer here that was doing Easter pictures with real bunnies. Maggie loved it and could barley keep her hands/eyes off the rabbit. Owen liked it too but he didn't have the same effect on the rabbit, especially after he nearly pulled the hair out of it's back. The pictures turned out really cute and I loved the photographer so we will for sure be going back there. Afterwards we headed to Babies R Us and a few other stores to shop around a little. Yesterday our MOPS group had a mommy and me picnic and play day at church. I went back and forth on whether to go since Owen has had a stomach virus (diarrhea) for a week now but decided to go. Maggie had a blast playing with the kids and made one little buddy in particular. Her parents own a horse farm here in Shelbyville so I am hoping maggie may get invited sometime to see the horses since I know she's eat that up. We stayed about 2 hours and in that time I had to change Owen 8 times! Today they both had Dr. appts. that were supposed to be their well child checks (that they haven't had in forever) but since Owen has this virus we made his a sick check. I really liked the doctor alot, she was great with the kids. They did great and Maggie was her usual super patient. Owen was totally cute and cooperative also until they took blood to do a cbc on him. He got so upset that I think this could turn him into one of those kids who screams when you enter the dr. office waiting area! :) After that he just cried and kept saying, "momma, I ready, I ready", and asking for his daddy. Maggie was a little nervous when they took her blood after seeing the fit Owen threw but saw that it wasn't that big of a deal and didn't even cry.
Maggie is in the 100th % for heigth and 85% for weight, so I guess she got her daddy's genes. We only did a weight on Owen today, but he is in the 60% for weight, weighing in at 27 pounds. Owen's blood showed that he in fact has a virus that hopefully will clear up soon! The funny thing is Maggie's blood showed she has the same virus only has no symptoms so I guess she has a great immune system that is able to fight it off better then Owens. They both got a clean bill of health overall and Owen goes back in a few weeks for his well child check which I am sure he will enjoy. :) Well, I am off to clean some while the kiddos are napping but I hope to be a better blogger soon.

Fun in the sun

We have been enjoying the nice weather so much. The evenings have been great so we have either been going on bike rides or walks. Last night Joe and Owen found a huge lot where they are expanding our subdivision where there were probably 10 huge Caterpillar machines. Since Cat is why we have bread on the table (:) we decided to get the kids (and Joe) picture with some of these monster machines.








Owen thought these were so cool and was ready to get on any of them (even stand on the huge one after his daddy did it) but Maggie was a little more reserved at first, but once she watched Owen she wanted to jump in. They had a lot of fun playing there and Owen thought he had hit the jackpot with these machines plus so much dirt. Needless to say when we got in they really needed baths.


This picture of Joe is for Charles in Mossville. This machine was actually huge but we both thought it didn't look nearly as bit in the picture.


Today was pretty again so I took the kids to the park in town to play. It was pretty muddy but they had fun on the swings and just running around. I needed to get Owen out of the house since I am trying to get rid of his bottle, right now I am just going to let him have it at nap and bedtime and then let that one go also. Anyhow, today was day 1 of denying it to him and he cried about 90% of the morning. I would give him a cup and he throws it across the room screaming "noooooo, ba-ba ba-ba" Anyhow, once we got outside it seemed to help him forget about it and he had fun. When we got home we had spaghetti for lunch and Owen really enjoyed himself.





I can't seem to get him to eat with his fork and spoon, at least not efficiently. Maggie could eat her entire meal with her silverware at this age without a mess, so it is somwhat frusterating that he still grabs handfuls of food with little attempt at his fork. Oh well, I guess he'll get it eventaully!
So it looks like we may have a bit of a biting problem with Owen....yesterday after MOPS we went to Kroger to pick up a few things and all of a sudden I hear Maggie scream and look over and Owen is taking a hunk out of her arm...for no apparent reason. He didn't appear to be doing it out of meanness....but regardless he needed to be punished but since we were in the middle of Kroger I wasn't about to spank him there and add to the drama. So we checked out and I let Maggie ride the horse (which he loves) and told him he couldn't ride because he bit Maggie. I thought maybe he'd see his consequence for the biting was missing out on the fun but he just looked at me and bit his own finger and said, "no bite." I told him he couldn't ride and he smiled and said, "okay mommy, I yuv you." So I am not sure if he got the point at all.....but I don't think missing out on the horse effected him much.
Here is a picture of Maggie's "war wounds"


Joe is taking half days tommorow and Friday to get some things done around here and help with the kids so I can get some stuff done also. His family is coming down for the weekend so we need to get the basment in order so we have a place for everyone to sleep. I also need to get going on organzing and cleaning the house.....the kids and I have been having so much fun doing stuff that i have put the house on the back burner. The "OCD" part of me is dying to get everything clean and in order.....but the mom part of me knows that my "babies" won't be babies forever so I need to have fun with them while they are small and just mop the floors tommorow.

Another week....

The weeks seem to fly by and I am not sure what we have done with all the time. The carpet guys are coming this week to lay down the carpet in the basement and then it will be ready to get everything out of our garage and front room and moved in down there. This past weekend was alot of fun. Saturday, Neila, her mom , and I headed up to Indidana to the outlets to shop for the day. They have all the good kids outlets and we were so excited that they just opened up a gymobree outlet too! I got lots of great deals and really cute clothes for the kids and even got a bit of stuff for myself too. We ended up spending the entire day there and didn't get home until about 9. It is only about a hour and a half away so we hope to make that trip more often! The kids had fun with Joe for the day running around, going to Lowes and helping paint some too!












The weather has been awesome here, it is in the 70's today. Yesterday we were supposed to go to this mom's group in Louisville that I found out about, it starts at 10 so when Maggie still hadn't woken up at 945 I figured we wouldn't be going.I thought she must be sick or something but when she finally woke up a little after 10 she was as happy as can be, so I guess it's just the time change she is getting used to. Since Owen and I were all dressed and ready I decided to get her ready and head out to get a list of things done. I had things to return to target and walmart, needed to go to the bank, library, post office, and had another box of clothes to take to "once upon a child" to sell. We had alot of fun running all our errrands and things didn't get too crazy until Target (our last stop) which was TOTALLY my fault anyhow since it was after 2 and they both are usually down for nap before 1, so I felt like our day was a success regardless of the fact that when we were checking out at target Owen dumped a whole bag of popcorn in the buggy....which then spilled all over the floor. This was right after the checkout lady yelled at maggie for "stealing" a coloring book which I had actually already paid for and told Maggie she could get out of the bag and hold. So since one way to majorly tick me off is to jump onto my kids (especially when we don't know you) I declined to notice the enormous mess Owen left (and trailed) as we left the store. A funny maggie quote today was when we were trying to find somwhere to eat lunch and she kept saying she wanted to eat at "cornflakes". I told her I had no clue where that was and finally she said mom, you know, the chicken place. I started laughing and said, "ohhhh, u mean chick fil a." She said yea!! With the slide. We did'nt go there though since it was on the other side of town and I wasn't about to drive all that way when Maggie doens't even eat the food there but just wanted to play on the playground. She is so funny and I told Joe we are going to have some explaining to do to the teacher when she starts preschool if she doens't get better at saying her "QU" sound. It comes out "F" sounding instead....so when she tells you to be quiet it is more like "be faggot" and quack quack (like the sound a duck makes) comes out "fack fack"....which also sounds questionable. She can make the right sound if I sit with her and help her but when she is just talking qucikly, like she always does, it comes out with the F sound so I am sure people wonder exactly what goes on in our house when they hear her in public! haha

Owen got a new pillow for his bed and Maggie picked it out for him, Thomas the Train. I looked in on him the other night adn thought he looked so cute (and big) so I took this sweet sleeping picture.











This morning we went to the MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) group that meets at our church. I met several really nice moms that live nearby and the kids both had lots of fun. Owen went right into his classroom and didn't cry at all, which is weird because it's the same class he goes to at church and he always cries when we leave. Maggie on the other hand always loves her sunday school class but she threw a fit when I left her, even though the lady keeping her class was her sunday school teacher! who knows? I think kids just like to keep you on your toes never knowing what to expect. She had a blast though and made friends with two little girls in her class. It figures that their mom isn't really someone I would have picked to hang out with out of all the moms there....but she played really good with the girls so I may set up a playdate since she enjoyed herself so much. I was glad to see them getting to play with kids since I have been a little bummed that there are no kids (that I have seen) out in our subdivision yet. It doesn't help that we moved from the greatest neighborhood ever in Illinois, (with the greatest neighbors) where there were tons of kids for them to play with....but we have been taking walks and Maggie asks if any kids live at all the houses and I wish so bad I could say yes. But the houses on both sides of us are still both for sale as well as a few other homes being built so I am hopeful that we will get a great family with kids here.

Mommy to Nurse

So I did my orientation this week at the Dr. office I am going to be filling in for some. I only ended up doing 2 days becasue it is all pretty much stuff i have done before so I really just needed to see how they ran things there. It is my friend Neila's office so it was alot of fun being there with her all day and everyone else there was really nice too. Mom came down on Monday so she could stay with the kids while I went. It was nice to get back into doing some of the nursing stuff but after day 1 I was SO happy that I am a stay at home mom. I missed the kids alot more than they did me though.....Maggie said she wanted me to work everyday so that I could bring her home a pink sucker and she could stay with MiMi. Owen was happy to see me, although he didn't seem too bothered when I would leave in the mornings. I had my eyes opened quite a bit just from 2 days at working at a Pediatrician's office. 1 out of every 4 kids that came in those two days were overweight, some even considered obese! These weren't all teenagers either, some were as young as 3 & 4! I have heard so much talk about the childhood obesity problem in this country but hadn't seen it upclose like I got to this week. It made me so thankful that I have such healthy little eaters and makes me see how important it is to keep them eating so good. (and to clean up some of my bad eating habits so they don't pick them up!) The saddest part about it is that it isn't these littles kids fault....it is their parents. It takes more time to give their kids healthy foods and I guess they just don't want to fool with that so they give them "convenience foods"....chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese.....and then the poor kids have to pay the price.
I also feel the medical field needs to clarify so much to the public. Several mom's came in to the office wanting the new vaccination (Gardasil) for their daughters. Most of them went on how great this was because cervical cancer runs in their families and now their daughters will be protected from that. This is not in fact what this vaccination prevents....it prevents against HPV (which is a sexually transmitted disease). HPV can lead to cervical cancer....but only if you have first gotten this STD. So to me it is just a open opportunity to help teen girls have one less fear about having sex at a young age, and nothing to do with the cervical cancer. I just think the public see's it as a drug to prevent against cervical cancer and like many other things they aren't given the entire story. Since it was my first day on the job I didn't feel like it was my place to give my side on this vaccination, but I did do my part in trying to prevent it from becoming mandatory by calling in to our state representatives. Anyhow, I guess this blog has turned into my opinions on several topics....but it is my blog, right?
I had fun though, and am not sure when I will pick up a day yet. I told her to let me know if they need me on a saturday sometime soon, so we will see. The kids both loved having MiMi here and they went to the library and took several long walks which they loved. I obviously haven't been around sick kids for along time since after my first day there I woke up the next morning with a sore throat, headache and major congestion. We saw quite a bit of flu and strep so I am hoping I didn't pick one of those up and that it is just a virus. Mom left this morning to go back home and after begging to go home with her, Maggie finally let her go. Tonight we are headed to Bahamma Breeze for dinner with Nick, Neila, Carson, and Neila's mom Susan. I havent' seen her in awhile so I will be glad to get to catch up with her. Oh yeah.....congratulations Josh and Tab on their new baby girl Emmaline being born! We cannot wait to get in so we can see her.

Having fun in Ky

The first 5 or so days of the month are always closing time for Joe at work which means we know that he is super busy adn work and usually gets home pretty late. Thursday he had told me was going to be pretty crazy so after the kids got up from nap I decided to pack up a picnic dinner and head to the mall, where they have a big pirate ship playground inside. As we headed out toward Louisville the rain picked up majorly and a few times I thought maybe we should go back.....but the evenings are so long when Joe isn't there so I thought we needed to get some different surroundings to get us through the evening. The kids had a blast and played about an hour and a half on the playground. There were some older kids there who were really wild (their mom's had dropped them off while they got their nails done) so at first I was really annoyed because they kept knocking my kids over running around. Another mom there with a little one called a security guard to come over and he sent them back to their mom's since they were over the age limit anyhow. So after that it went much smoother.










They came and went between playing to get bites of their dinner and after that I had a few returns to make. We got home just as Joe did so they had a little daddy time and then off to bed.
Yesterday morning after we were up and going I realized there were a few more things I needed for around the house so we packed up and headed to the Summit (the outdoor mall) to shop around some. The kids were really good so we headed to Chick Fil A for lunch. They have a playground there that is just the perfect size for toddlers/preschoolers (not huge and intimidating) so Maggie adn Owen really like it. There was some other playgroup or something there because there were lots of little kids their age so they had a really fun time. Maggie made friends with 2 little girls her age there and they played up in the tunnels most of the time. When we left maggie said, "mom I liked playing with my black friend and white friend." I said, "maggie, what do u mean (because they were both white). She said, "you know, one had black hair like me and daddy and the other had white hair." So I guess she is now calling people by their hair color??? Great! We got home right at naptime so I had a little downtime myself to relax some.


Yesterday evening we had a fun visit from Kirsten, James, and Carlyn who were in town for a funeral. They got to the house right after naptime and the kids played in the playroom awhile and had so much fun.

Carlyn loved the slide and was really good at it!







She was so adorable, she would go down fly off the end crashing on the floor and just crack up laughing. Maggie kept calling her "carson", since she is around carson (neila's baby) so much I guess she gets the names mixed up. We went to eat at Don Carlos, a mexican restaurant here in town that Joe adn I like alot for dinner. I told them had I been a good hostess I would have made us dinner (right mom?) I promise I will next time Kirsten!


















It was so nice to have them visit and let the kids play together. We are hoping they will move their way over here to KY too so Maggie and Owen can have Carlyn to play with and I can have another mommy (I trust) to switch off on babysitting!! When we got home Joe was getting home from work, Maggie and Owen were so happy to see him and of course drug him upstairs to play "crazy" (as maggie calls it. I don't know what all went on up there but there was lots of yelling and laughing and at one point I looked up at the catwalk and saw Joe pushing Owen in maggie's doll stroller as fast as he could! Owen went to bed shortly after their crazy playing but Maggie seemed to have a hard time winding down. At about 930 we could still hear her in her room playing with her dolls in her bed. We haven't done much at all today, Joe had to go into work this morning and it's actually snowing pretty hard now so the kids and I have just stayed in and played. They are napping now, and we are going to head out this evening to look for carpet for the basement so we can get that all finished and livable! Mom is coming down tommorow for a few days so I can go get oriented to the office I am going to be filling in some for. Maggie is so excited to see MiMi and has lots of things planned for them to do already. (she got her own library card so she can't wait to go there and get some books....she loves mom's library and can't wait to show mom hers)

Well, that is all that is going on here right now....keeping busy....and by popular request........here are some pictures of the house. Like I said, it's still a work in progress as far as getting to "put together" but this will give you an idea. Even better....come visit us and you can see it yourself!

The kitchen:



















The foyer and great room:



























Joe and I's bedroom and bathroom:


























Kids playroom:





















Owen's room:














Maggie's room:

















View from upstairs down to foyer and laundry room:





















That is it for now, I will show you the rest once it is more in order.

Preschool Preview

It's hard to believe it is already March and we have been in our new house for almost 1 month now. It feels like home, but we still have quite a bit to do before it is officially done and the way we want it. (painting, putting away, basement finished, hanging things) We went to register Maggie for Preschool this morning. We finally got our blinds in that we had ordered so Joe put them up last night. They are total black-out so we all slept in past 8 this morning and sign up started at 845 so we got there a little late. We got to go around and look at all the classrooms and meet the teachers. They have 6 different classes and all of them were so cute. Maggie was in heaven and met several kids there (they are already in preschool). She began playing in one room and said, "mom, I think I'll just stay at preschool today." So she is really going to enjoy going.

After registration, we went to McKinleys which is a little cafe downtown and the kids got doughnuts for breakfast. I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the kids rooms and kitchen while they played great in their playroom. By the time I went to get them for lunch I realized that all my cleaning while they played had been pointless since they totally destroyed the playroom. I think they got every toy possible out and threw it on the floor. So I guess that will be my project during naptime.