Memorial Day Catch Up

I love long weekends! I especially love them when we don't have much planned and can just go with the flow. Saturday was such a fun day for us. Tom had two tickets to the Twins game in a suite and he decided to take Jack with him. Jack was SO excited and had a blast. Tom said that Jack wasn't his typical "slow to warm" self. They sat up at the bar in the suite and he immediately said to the bartender "Excuse me, do you have any juice?" and the bartender responded, "Why yes we do. Would you like Orange or Cranberry juice?" Jack responded "ummmm, cranberry please" - ha. What a riot. It was so nice to spend some one on one time with Finn too. We went shopping and had a dinner date at Chipotle. It was so nice just pushing the single stroller and not having to constantly yell at Jack to stay by my side all while answering the million questions he's asking. And I just have to say that Finn was an angel. I've decided that it might be Jack that causes all of Finn's temper tantrums. ha. I'm just kidding, but it was so nice to enjoy my time with Finners. We played outside when we got home, and I have to admit - it was a little boring without the big brother around.

Daddy and Jack at the Twins game

We had the bride and groom to be over and Alissa and I tested champagne on late Saturday night. YUMMY!!!! We talked about the wedding and just got even more excited for their BIG day in just 5 days!

A little while ago, we decided it was time for Jack to be completely done with pull-ups. He has been potty trained for over 6 months now, but we would still put a pull up on him at bedtime and he'd still ask us to poop in a pull-up. I took his pull-ups away at naptime a few months ago and we had two days of accidents before napping, but after that, he was golden. I figured it would be the same way with pooping and bedtime. And it has been. It was hard telling him he couldn't have a pull up to poop in, because we didn't want him to hold it in. But at the same time, Tom and I both know Jack and we knew that it would take ONE time for him to poop on the toilet and that would be that. And guess what - that is exactly what happened. He flipped out when we said no. We tried forcing him to sit on the toilet, but that was not going to happen. And then we pulled the bribery card. Tom was going to Cub and we told Jack he could go with daddy if he pooped on either the toilet or the Elmo potty chair. And he did it! And he was SO proud. At nighttime he still gets his sheets a little bit wet right away in the morning, but we are working on it. Jack is the type of kid where if I would put a diaper or pull up on him right now, he would pee in it. Just because of the convenience of it. So if he has one on at bedtime, guess what? He's going to pee. So at some point, we'd have to deal with this same situation - why not just do it now? I can't even begin to tell you what a chore potty training is. Seriously. It's was about a year long process for us. Finn, get ready - you're up next.

I am OBSESSED with Shutterfly and their digital scrapbooks. I made Finn his first year book right after his first birthday. It cost me about $100. Which yes is a lot of money, but I probably spent more on Jack's actual scrapbook of his first year. Plus I made Finn's in one night AND I used 10 times the amount of pictures. Not to mention I didn't have to print them out. Well Shutterfly was having a 50% off sale on their largest books last week, so I jumped on that and finished Jack's third year (age 2) book. And to my surprise they had added all of these new embellishments to make it look more scrap-booky. Jack is obsessed with his book too. We have read it at least 50 times to him. So now I can officially say I am caught up with the boys' and their scrapbooks. Jack isn't going to have one for his second year, because the whole second half of that year was my brother's accident and I really just didn't take a lot of pictures, etc etc.

Jack's Third Year Book, from his 2nd birthday up to right before his 3rd

And finally, I just finished this book.

This makes me laugh

This video was taken a few weeks ago and I forgot about it. Finn is a man of few words, but lots of screams and grunts. So far he has said a handful of words (Jack, sock, ball, sunshine-that's a funny one to get him to say-, etc). He knows what a few animals say (duck, puppy, pig, cow). But it's rare that he will answer me before Jack does. This video sums up what it's like over here on most afternoons. Please excuse Finn's chocolate face and my super annoying voice. Jack and Finn are so different, it cracks me up. I think my favorite part of the video is when Jack just casually says "crash" and the stacked motorcycle falls down.  I love my crazy boys!

Turning our black thumbs green (or at least attempting to)

This weekend we did some planting. We planted new lilly plants on our walkway to the front door. We planted a few rose bushes on the side of our house where there used to be a ton of weeds. And I planted my salsa garden outside. I do not have high hopes for this salsa garden, but it's worth a shot. We got everything done Sunday morning before all of the rain came down, so we were pretty excited about that. And after the storms passed and after a delicious dinner, we got some DQ. Jack was so funny eating his dilly bar. One funny thing Jack said to me the other day was "Mommy, I wish we had a pool like Grandma Woney does." And my response? "Me too, Jack. Me too."

Interesting way to eat a dilly bar

Five Years of Marriage

When thinking about the fact that we've been married for FIVE years today, it just doesn't seem possible. On one hand, it feels like just yesterday we shut the church doors and I got to walk down the aisle to Tom where he saw me in my wedding dress for the first time. Besides actually getting married, that might have been my favorite part of our wedding day. And even though at first I wanted to hold off seeing Tom until the actual ceremony, I am so so so happy we didn't. I felt that it was such an intimate moment for us and it was kind of nice not having 150 - 200 people watching us. Back to what I was saying before and how that moment feels like just yesterday...on the other hand, I really can't remember what it feels like not being married to Tom. Like somehow, it's been this way forever. And I mean that in the best way possible.

So on this special special day - I am proud that we have been married for five years and proud of what we have accomplished together. Our love has only gotten stronger with each passing year and every day I discover new reasons why I love my husband so so much. We make each other better and we make each other laugh. A lot.

Bike Riding

A little run, a little Tim, and a lot of love!

On Saturday morning Tom ran the half marathon. I opted out of it this year and just ran the 5 K. Tom finished with a better time than last year, 1:51 or something. And I finished the 5 K in 29 minutes. That might sound not very fast to most of you, but for me it's a great feeling averaging less than 10 minutes for a mile. Maybe I'll do the half next year. Maybe not. I don't know! Here are some pics! All these pics taken from my phone. Even though I'm not in any running photos - I swear I ran.

Chuck finishing with another ridiculous time

Tom about to cross the finish line. Talk about an action shot!

My aunt finishing her first half marathon

Dean is like, 13 miles is really no big deal at all

On May 20th, Tom and I will celebrate being married for five years. Can you believe it?! I know five years seems like nothing compared to our parents, or even our grandparents - but hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?

When thinking about how we should spend our five year anniversary, I had a fantastic idea. I wanted to take care of all the planning. So many times, Tom surprises me with little gifts. Adding something fun and exciting to our house. Buying me a special something just because. Tom is definitely the spender in our family. He has to force me not to buy all Target brand clothing. I like to go shopping with him because he's the type of person who is like, just buy it Molly! Where I'm as cheap as can be (thanks Dad). haha. Anyways back to our anniversary plans. My plan was to keep EVERYTHING a surprise. I wasn't even going to tell Tom the date that we were celebrating. This is huge for me because I have a really hard time containing my excitement about things. Well that and I have absolutely no patience what so ever.

A few months back I had heard on the radio that Tim McGraw was coming to St. Paul. I then saw that the date was May 14th. This is when the lightbulb went off in my head to take the reigns and to plan our celebration. So I bought two tickets, coordinated with my mom to watch the boys and I was going to keep everything hush hush. Easy enough right? Wrong! A few weeks later Tom got an email from his aunt saying they wanted to celebrate his dad and grandpa's birthdays on May 14th. Tom forwarded me the email and told me to mark our calendar. Shoot! So unfortunately, I was not able to keep the date a surprise. I couldn't tell Tom that we couldn't go to his dad and grandpa's birthday party without a reason. So I just told Tom, sorry we can't go to that - this is the night we are celebrating our anniversary.  At this time I still thought it would be easy to keep everything a surprise. Wrong again. Fricken K102 radio announced every five minutes that Tim McGraw was coming to concert on May 14th. I knew Tom listened to that station and I knew he would eventually put two and two together. And on Thursday night, he broke the news to me, he knew we were going to the concert. The good news was that he was still excited. The even better news was that he didn't know where we were staying over night or where we were eating dinner.

I ended up booking us a room at the St. Paul hotel and making dinner reservations at The St. Paul Grill. We LOVED this hotel. Neither one of us is very familiar with St. Paul. Since we grew up in a Northwest Suburb, we are more familiar with Minneapolis. But let me tell you - I love St. Paul. It's gorgeous! 

Not the best shot of the hotel - I was in the car. ha

Beautiful chandeliers throughout the hotel 

Bedding decor 

View from our room

View from our room

After getting settled into the hotel and freshening up, it was time for dinner and the concert! Dinner was fantastic. We had bread and bruschetta for starters. Beer cheese soup. Tom had the New York Strip and I had the lobster. Split some potatoes. And finished it up with our favorite dessert ever, creme brulee. We were both hurting we were so full. We had to do 2 laps around the Excel center before we sat in our seats because we thought we were going to explode. 

So excited!

Celebrating Five Years!

Tim McGraw was everything we hoped he'd be, and more! Our seats were incredible. They ended up making a second stage in the very center of the floor. And since we were in the 6th row on the first level, we could almost smell him!  He came out from the top of a section and walked down the stairs. That was so neat to watch! I wish I could have touched him.

The Band Perry

Luke Bryan

Waiting for Timmy

Can you see his black cowboy hat?

Hello, lover

And here is a little video I took, for the other Tim McGraw lovers out there! The sound is muffled for the first 5 seconds because my fingers were over the speakers!

We had a wonderful, wonderful weekend! 

Spelling Book

Jack is obsessed with his spelling book. As you will see in the video, he's not very gentile with the letters and pictures. His first book was a hand me down, but was in pretty good condition. Jack got a little too excited one night and the wiring got all messed up. Good ol amazon.com was selling it used for $.01! Can't beat that. So his new spelling book came in the mail today and he was so excited! I highly recommend this book to anyone with preschool aged kids. It's called I Can Spell Words With Three Letters by Anna Nilsen.

P.S. - I was having major issues with making my blog settings private. They weren't showing up in the blogger newsfeed and I was getting numerous emails about people who I invited not being able to read. So until they make things a little more convenient for those of us who'd like to keep things a little bit more private - I'm staying public. Creepy stalker people - stay away!!! Fun, "normal", blog readers - WELCOME!

Poop Goop

About a week ago, Finn got diaper rash. It was the first time he's had diaper rash and he's 17 months old. But this is probably because the kid poops rabbit turds and not normal poops. This is an entirely different issue... Anyway, typically with a normal diaper rash, you throw a boat load of Desitin on the affected area and it heals up in a day or two. Not the case this time around. I seriously bought almost every brand of diaper rash cream at Target. Don't believe me? Take a look...

Quick snapshot with my iPhone. Seriously, anyone need any diaper rash cream? I'll send some to you for FREE

Over the weekend we tried letting Finn air himself out. This resulted in about 5 new pee stains on our carpet by the way. We tried switching diapers. We tried everything and nothing was working. Since it had been over a week and since his skin was actually starting to break, I decided it was time to call in the professionals (if that's what you want to call doctors). I waited for an hour for our stupid pediatrician's office to call me back. I was literally in the car driving to the office when I got the call back. After hearing our story, she told us it's best to just bring Finn in so they could take a look (duh, why did I even call in the first place)?

The boys were actually great at the doctor's office. Maybe it's because we've been there about 20 times this year already. I brought snacks and the boys were laughing together in the waiting room. Anyway - the final verdict is that Finn has a yeast infection! No wonder my little man has been so crotchety lately. So, we got some super powerful cream for his bum called Poop Goop! ha ha. What an awesome name. And some hydrocortisone ointment. She also said that the cortisone ointment should help with his chapped cheeks. Score!

I also decided yesterday it was time to take Finn's nuk away when he is not sleeping. I've already noticed him chattering more. I feel like Jack was talking way more at this age, but Jack also talks for Finn all the time. I will say "Finn, what does a puppy say" and Jack, from across the room will scream "WOOF WOOF WOOF" and Finn will just start cracking up. ha.

It's a gorgeous day here today - the boys have been playing on the deck for over an hour already! And thank you again to whoever invented poop goop!

CF Walk and Mother's Day!

We had a gorgeous morning for the CF walk! It was actually HOT! Thank you again for all of the donations!

My beautiful niece, Ari.

Finn not wanting to sit still...weird!

Sisters!!!!!!!

Teri, Ari, and Eric

Ari's super cute shirt

My friend Jen gave the kids pinwheels and bubbles - they were lifesavers. THANKS JEN!

I've had a wonderful Mother's Day so far today! On Friday night I surprised my mom with her mother's day gift. Tickets to Jersey Boys!!!

Our seats weren't the greatest, but I guess that is what happens when you buy tickets for a show on the day of the performance. It was still an awesome show and we had a great time!

I got my Mother's Day present a few days early. Hello white iPhone 4, I love you!

The boys painted ceramic mugs (coffee mug for Grandma Starkey and wine glass for Grandma Loney) at the store Color Me Mine. Well I should say Jack painted them. I meant to take some pictures of Jack painting, but if you've ever painted with a three year old you will understand why I didn't have time to snap any pics! The grandmas loved their gifts and I will definitely be going back to that store to paint my own stuff!

Thanks again to everyone who made donations towards CF, it really means a lot to us! And Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful moms out there!