Snaggle Tooth

Finn is teething like a mad man. Right now he has three teeth that are just about completely through. He only has one of his top teeth, hence the nick name snagel tooth. I can see about 4 more just about to break through. It's so funny because when Jack was Finn's age, he had about 10 teeth and I never knew he was teething until a tooth popped through. This is NOT the case with Finn. But what are you going to do? I loathe teething.

Finn...do you have any teeth coming through? Hmmmm, let me think about it.


Why, yes. Yes I do. (is it just me, or does this tooth look abnormally large)?


Here is a better shot of snaggle tooth



Happy Teething Finn.

In other news, Finn has been Jack's shadow lately. And for the time being, Jack LOVES it. The boys have so much fun playing together up in Jack's room. Jack has been doing a lot of jumping off of things and running laps around the entire house. Finn just laughs his head off. One night after dinner, Jack put matching hats on him and Finn and I caught them jumping on his chair up in his room.



Here, this one is better



There are some days when I wish my house had more pink in it and that I could learn to master pig tails and braids, but when I see the bond my boys have and will have forever I know that this is how it's supposed to be for us. Just me and my boys!

Chart Ideas

Remember when I made this activity board? I was pretty proud of myself. I didn't really research any to buy, I just sort of winged it. And it was a HUGE hit with Jack. It still is. I made a rookie mistake though and hung it way too low. When Finn started walking (or running I should say) he would b-line it right over to the board and take off the pieces and eat them. Needless to say, our activity board started to look a little trashy. I decided to check out the Lakeshore Learning website. I was amazed! They had SO many great ideas and fun charts. So yesterday morning, I had a sudden burst of energy and I bundled the kids up and brought them to the store. I was also looking for a birthday gift for the Blair girls.

I was an Elementary Education major for about a year, and there is still something in me that is very much teacher like. I get giddy when I buy new notebooks and crayons and making charts and lists is a daily occurrence in my house. I have multiple three ring binders full of information - some necessary, some not. Anyway - I found an awesome gift for two preschool aged girls, and I also stumbled across a new fun little calendar/activity board for Jack. And it was only TEN dollars! What do you think?

Jack is definitely a fan. I left our activities from the other chart up too and will probably add more to this.

Also in my last ECFE class, our parent teacher rocked. He raved about activity charts and how kids really love structure and knowing what is going on and happening during the day. So one class period the parents made this:

You hang this black strip on the wall, add some velcro and interchange the squares to your daily routine. I haven't started using this yet because I'm not done cutting out the laminated pieces and putting the velcro on. I also haven't decided if I want to use this as a nighttime chart, or a daily chart. And I don't know where to hang it up. Maybe in Jack's room? It is SUPER easy to make. We used contact paper to laminate, glued the white printed out pictures onto construction paper. The teacher said the you could hang the black strip up and down, but it's good for kids to start learning to read things left to right too.

I will definitely be highlighting this one:

Anyway, just wanted to share with some of you other moms how easy it is to make charts and also how awesome Lakeshore Learning is. Jack did become a little OCD with his charts and changing the day every morning after breakfast, but the kid knows his days and weather!

Setbacks and Milestones

Right before we left for our trip, Jack was having a few small accidents with potty training. He would get his pants wet, just a little bit, and then tell me he had to go to the bathroom. It wasn't enough to make a puddle or anything, but enough to where I had to change his pants and underwear. I started to get really lazy the week of our vacation and put him in a pull up during the day. He'd still go to the bathroom, but his pull up made it easier to just swap out if he got it wet. I wasn't going to push it because I didn't want our parent's to have to deal with multiple loads of laundry a day while we were gone. Well when we got back home, my mom informed me that Jack is no longer potty trained. HA. He refused to even wear a pull-up with my mom and wanted only his diaper. I wasn't upset at all, I had anticipated a regression with potty training, but I knew it would be a pain to start back up again. It's a total power struggle. Jack knows exactly what he's doing and that he should be using the bathroom. So I'm going full force again this week. It's a good week considering we are off from ECFE.

We did however hit a "milestone" this weekend. Jack started his new swimming lesson session two weeks ago. I'm proud to say as of this past Saturday, Jack is now in the pool all by himself during the lesson! It makes me so proud sitting on the side seeing my little (big) boy behaving and listening to instructions and just growing into his own person. I think we'll probably enroll Finn in his own class again this summer when prices are cut way down. Finn is such a hoot, seriously the kid is so dramatic. I just had to throw that in there.

I have two other exciting pieces of information. 1) Tom's hockey coaching is going to be over in about a month! 2) I'm enrolling Jack in preschool within the next few weeks for the fall! Is this really happening?

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 2011

As I said before, our vacation was fabulous. We had an awesome group of people and the condo we stayed in was high class.

Tom and I dropped the boys off at the Starkey's house Friday night. Our flight was leaving at 7 AM on Saturday and we were getting picked up before 5 AM Saturday morning. When we went to bed, we set our alarm for 3:30. Well neither one of us heard it and we woke up to Tara calling my cell phone telling me she was in our driveway. Who knows what would have happened if we weren't getting picked up! We were able to get out the door in 10 minutes though and we got to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

Here are Tara and Brandon all checked in.

Tara and Jackie in the security line at MSP. Brandon looks a little tired.

Tom texting about pond hockey on the plane before take off.

The flight was about 3 1/2 hours and it wasn't too bad. We got our luggage no problem and then hopped in a taxi van and took the 5 minute cab ride to the condo.

Here is a view of the condo from the beach

Here is the balcony

Here is the dining room

And here is the living room

The guys (and Tara) then went to the supermarket and stocked up with food. Tara minored in Spanish and she was a huge help. She also was told by the pool boys at the condo that her accent was better than a lot of the people who lived there.

Here they are at the supermarket.

Basically our days consisted of waking up around 8:30, some of us went for runs or played tennis. Sometimes we'd just have coffee on the balcony. Then we'd throw our suits on around 11 and head down to the pool. We could bring our own cooler of beer and liquor too, which was awesome. They had a little snack bar and their burgers were amazing! Seriously, I had one every day.

We'd head up to the room about 4 or 5 and get ready to go out for dinner and the rest of the night.

I think everyone's favorite night was our second to last night. We went to restaurant right on the beach in downtown PV called La Palapa. Our table was outside in the sand and the food was amazing. We were able to see the sunset and take some great pictures too. Then we walked to a super fun dance club too. They played some awesome music. There was even a bachelorette party going on that night. I believe the woman and her crew were from Canada. Here are some pictures of that night:

How awesome was this view?

Eric Hall is The Situation from Jersey Shore.  Seriously.

And here are just some fun random pictures of the trip.

I would recommend going to PV to anyone. There wasn't one time where I didn't feel safe. And our boys were just fine without us! We were super excited to see them though when we got home. I thought it would be weird being in Mexico and not staying at an all-inclusive place, but actually it was really nice. We could explore a little more and eat at a variety of places. And to be honest, we didn't spend an outrageous amount on food and drinks. And the cabs were cheap if we were headed downtown. I have lots of recommendations of places to eat and see if you are thinking about taking a trip here - so just email me! Sorry for the picture overload! Now, it's back to reality. This week we are off from ECFE and a new class starts the first week in February.

Molly's next trip is..........VEGAS!!!!! I'm headed there in April with some girlfriends and I'm SO EXCITED! (Tom will be in Vegas in two weeks for "work" - I'd like to arrange for my "work" conference to be here every year too, oh WAIT.