A little picture catch up

I've been a horrible photographer the past 5 months, or maybe even more. With the house on the market, there were just too many other things to worry about besides taking good pictures with my dSLR. Here were a few I shot in the "spring" -

I love Jack's face in the following pictures:

Hockey series:

I'll do it how I want, when I want MOM!

   Stick handling, through the legs

And tonight, this little guy took 4 steps!

I know there is a perfect caption for this picture - I just can't think of it right now. "get in ma belly?" haha

 

Summer Thus Far

We had a rocky start to our summer vacation. We all came down with Pink Eye. Well everyone minus Tom. Jack missed his second to last day of school, but got on the drops quick enough to participate in his preschool graduation. Here is Jack and his very best friend this year, Addisen. Jack loves Addisen so much.

Jack and Addisen

The weather was ridiculously bad and we spent way too much time in front of the television. I was going insane after just a week of all three boys home ALL DAY LONG. Finally, Jack started t-ball, on Monday and Wednesday mornings. I don't have any pictures of him yet. We had to miss all this week because of Vacation Bible School, and his first week his second session got rained out.

Finn on the other hand started soccer this Monday. Here he is with his best friend Callen.

Finn cried the entire 45 minutes. Jack was at VBS, and I had Leo with me. So I carried 25 pound Leo on my hip and kicked the freaking soccer ball with crying Finn. It was a BLAST. Oh wait. I hope he warms up to it, otherwise it's going to be a long Monday for 5 more weeks. I guess there is a reason Maple Grove doesn't provide activities for 3 year olds haha. This is through Brooklyn Park.

Leo doesn't seem to be in any hurry to walk. he does however do the bear walk to protect his knees. A part of me is desperate for him to learn how to walk so he's not so whiney, I can just tell he's annoyed with sitting and crawling. But the other part of me does not want him to walk because it won't be a walk, it will be a run. And I will be constantly chasing him and he will constantly be falling. Etc etc.

The older boys went with Tom to the cabin to put the docks in back in May. They had a blast. I enjoyed only having one child for the weekend, although Leo was very very needy without his two older brothers to entertain him.

And finally, in the past week we have been able to get in the pool! This past week I went over to my parent's house at Leo's nap time and was able to sit out with the older boys. They were so easy! They were in the pool by themselves the whole time. It felt almost like a vacation for me! We will definitely be going back there every single nice day possible!

I have so many more pictures on Instagram! Everyone who doesn't have that app needs to download it NOW.

SLACKER!!!

I'm ready to hop back on the blogging bandwagon. I need to actually start taking pictures of my children and again and maybe if I commit to blogging it will help me be better about it. I totally missed Leo's 11 month post and here we are less than 2 weeks out from his FIRST birthday! ahhhhh.

We sold our house and are moving in a  little over one month! It's about to get craaaayyyzzzyyyy around here, but I am so pumped. I am going to take some pictures soon and do a nice little (huge) update on ALL of the boys.

I know you are all super excited! Just wanted to let you know I'm still here, are you???

Leo at 10 Months

This is such a ghetto picture of Leo! haha. And it's over a week late! Whoopsie!  Anywhoo - at 10 months and one week, here's what is happening!

Leo is popping his two top teeth! Hooray. It's been in the works for over two months now, so I am happy to see some progress. He hasn't been terribly fussy and not really waking in the middle of the night, so that's wonderful. If he does, I'll just give him some ibuprofen and he dozes back to la la land.

He wakes up around 6:30, sometimes if his brothers are quiet enough he will fall back asleep until 7:15 or so. But usually Jack and Finn want to rush in there and scare him with all of their energy. It buys me some time to get myself slowly up out of bed. I'm happy that Leo is a happy riser. Finn used to wake up by screaming bloody murder because he was so angry. That was so ridiculous. He still is a whiney little child when he wakes up!

We had to buy a real high chair for Leo because he was rocking in the booster high chair on the chair. It was only a matter of time before he tipped over the chair. So I just bought a brand new one, hoping I can sell it when we are done. It definitely solved our problem. The tray looks like a spaceship though. It's HUGE! I hate having the extra clutter, but if it's going to keep my child alive, then I do what I have to do.

Leo usually eats cheerios, peanut butter toast and bananas for breakfast. Sometimes pancakes or waffles if we make those. He has his bottles in a sippy cup now (4 a day) and it's SO awesome. I will switch to whole milk probably next month. I'll keep Leo in his high chair for as long as possible in the mornings. I will usually attempt to shower while he's in here too (can you see now why the rocking was a big deal?) ha.

He will usually take two naps a day. The afternoon one is typically the best one.

For lunch he will eat sandwich meat, or the crust of the older kids peanut butter sandwiches. And a fruit and some more cheerios if fatty is still hungry.

Dinner he just eats whatever we have, unless it's steak.

Leo is the best eater in the world. He eats EVERYTHING and he eats it ALL!

He is slowly standing on his own for like seconds at a time. He pulls himself up on everything and will walk if we hold his hands. Soon he will be running. Yikes!

He loves crawling up the stairs. Hasn't figured out how to turn around and go down them, but when I pull him down the stairs showing him the way he should go, he just thinks it is a game and laughs hysterically.

He is already obsessed with my phone, and he loves Finn's big woody doll. He sleeps with a jellycat bunny, a blanket and as many nuks as I can find.

I'm excited to get him into my parent's pool this summer! I think he will love the water!

Only two more weeks of preschool! I signed Jack up for t-ball and Finn up for soccer. Should be a fun filled busy summer. Hopefully I survive!

Back to Private - sorry!

So I had to make my blog private again. It's annoying, yet I know it's for the best. Tom officially accepted a head hockey coaching position and I'm sure people are googling his name trying to find out who he is and where he's from and all that jazz and the last thing he wants is for people being directed to my blog, which he thinks is silly in the first place. Oh Tom. haha. Anyways, I completely understand where he is coming from, and I agree, so back to private we go. My goal has never been to have a million followers or anything like that - or even comments - but it is way more fun blogging when people do comment and you feel like it's not so one way directed, if that makes any sense at all?

So anyways, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Tom has been uber busy planning for his summer programs for the hockey team and getting acquainted with all of the fun politics that come along with high school hockey - BLAH! We also listed our house on the market two weeks ago. And although it's only been two weeks, I feel like it's been two years. This is such a frustrating process. Having three kids five and under plus a psychotic black lab thrown into the mix makes things really interesting around here. We've had about 21 showings at our house and about 98% of the people hate our lot. No second showings yet. Basically, I'm just extremely frustrated and annoyed. I don't do well not being in some sort of control, so this is very challenging for me.

In other exciting news, I'm going to visit a BFF on Thursday - Sunday! Woop whoop. Ready to relive our college days. I'm also looking forward to SLEEPING! Finn is back to his nighttime shenanigans and it's really starting to piss me off. He comes into our room in the middle of the night, sometimes it's only like 11 PM and he's all whimpery and he says, "Mommy, my tummy hurts. My back hurts. Hold me mommy, hold me." UGH! Sometimes I just throw him into our bed, which is exactly what he wants. Other times, I go lay with him in his bed. The kid does not need sleep to function - it's ridonkulous. And Jack has allergies or something right now. So he's coughing and sneezing like crazy. And Leo, oh Leo. He's fine. Just getting into EVERYTHING and waking at the butt crack of dawn. And not napping.

Is this getting too negative? HA. I'll stop. No pictures to post right now - once again, I've been so lazy with my nice camera. I've got to stop being so lazy with that stuff!

Alright lovely readers, all 3 of you. Have a good day.

It's Happening

On Tuesday night I got an email from our school district saying that Jack had been entered into the lottery drawing for his kindergarten selection. I got extremely nervous because I wasn't planning on it being overbooked and them needing to conduct a lottery. I kept thinking, we need this. We need all day. Jack needs all day. I need all day. But deep down I knew whatever ended up happening would be for the best. Fast forward to this afternoon and I got an email that said, Congratulations, we are pleased to share that your students name has been selected in the lottery! I was ecstatic! I rushed downstairs to tell Jack the good news. He was so excited. He was asking if it was Saturdays and Sundays too. I had to break the bad news to him, that no it's just Monday - Friday still.

But then tonight after we read his Boxcar Children chapter book and said his prayers, he asked about riding the school bus and if our neighbors would ride with him. He got all giddy in bed and asked when his new school was starting, along with a bunch of other questions. As I laid down with Finn on the bottom bunk below Jack, I got a huge lump in my throat that I was not expecting. How is it possible that my first baby will be attending school in six months? How am I going to be able to watch him step up into the bus and let him go? How am I not going to cry like a baby watching that bus drive away with the most precious cargo in the world? It's like you want them to grow up and start school and get out of the house for a few hours, and then you realize that the exact thing is about to happen and all of the sudden you want to take it back. For five years I have been his stay at home mom and in a few months everything is going to change. It's not that I don't think he's ready, because he is. And I know I am ready to let him go too, I am just starting to realize that this next stage is a pretty big one. My son is entering school. And I am so nervous about that. But I can also say that I have zero regrets about the sacrifices and the choices that I have made thus far. I don't get a paycheck every week, but every night I get to listen to my son read me a book and my heart is full because I know that I taught him that. For five years I have basically given up my entire life (that is a little dramatic) to raise Jack, everything that I have done these past five years has hopefully been enough to prepare him for his time now as a student. Has it been worth it? Absofreakinglutely.

My First Chicken

I've never roasted beef before. I've never roasted a turkey before. And I had never roasted a chicken until last Thursday. Something about buying an entire uncooked chicken or turkey is kind of intimidating. But I knew my girlfriend had done it plenty of times, and I knew with her help I might be up for the challenge. So I texted her before I went to the grocery store and she said she text me through it. She gave me so many tips that she had learned from botching up about 3-5 on her own. Lucky me!! I was quite nervous, but figured whats the worst thing that could happen? Worst case we'd just order some take out.

Here's the thing...I'm not a bad cook. Actually I don't think I give myself enough credit. I can follow instructions to a T and for the most part, most of my dinners turn out. Here's what I lack...creativity. I don't know what ingredients are good with what, so I can never just whip anything up. I don't have much of an imagination when it comes to dressing up food and going out on a limb. But give me a good recipe with good reviews, and nine times out of ten mine will at least be edible! Another thing that I don't give myself enough credit for is even attempting good, family dinners. We have a sit-down dinner at least 5 nights a week. I don't make "kids meals" the kids eat what we eat. If they don't, then that's that. My only exception is if the kids say the really, truly don't like something and I see them take a bite and they are literally gagging themselves then I will find some sort of substitute. Like buttered bread or something not fun. The worst days are when I slave and slave over a meal and Tom and myself are the only ones who eat it and all three kids are crying throughout the entire meal. Those are the dinners where Tom and I look at each other like WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE WE DOING!?!?!

Back to the chicken....

I was most nervous about the cavity search. What was I going to find? A bag fully of the goodies? A bunch of disgusting guts that I needed to pull out? Clean as a whistle? I just didn't know. When I brought the chicken over to the sink to open pandora's box, I got nervous. Like spreading it's legs felt just wrong. AHH. But I opened her up and she was clean. Ahhh, I breathed a sigh of relief. I rinsed her off inside and out and then quartered up a lemon and squeezed the juice all over the chicken. Salt and peppered her up generously. Then popped her in the oven at 400 degrees.

TA DA! I ended up cooking it for about 1 hour 45 min. I had to cover it with tinfoil just a little bit so it didn't burn, but oh she was so juicy and done to absolute perfection. I couldn't have done it without my cooking mentor. Next up on the list....not sure. Suggestions? Maybe I should buy a cookbook and cook all of the recipes like that movie Julie and Julia. If only I had the patience, I might think about doing a challenge like that. I'd definitely ruin and waste a lot of food, no doubt.