Great Plains Field Trip 2016

This March, I got to go on a field trip with Tommy's class and Tessa's class to the Great Plains Nature Center. It gets kind of hectic because their classes go on the same field trip but on different days, so I usually end up taking off two half days. But it's worth it to get to spend one-on-one time with each kiddo.

Both days that we went were pretty chilly. But it was nice to go and not be sweaty or hot the whole time! First, we looked around the museum. Then each class got to meet Sally the salamander (which Tommy LOVED...Tessa, not so much). Then we went on a nature walk around one of the paths.

Here's my time with Tommy's class....

And here's my time with Tessa's class....

I loved my day with each kid and really enjoyed watching them interact with their classmates. It's fun since that's not something I get to see on a regular basis. They were both still a little shier than most of the kids, but they still had fun and were able to laugh and play with everyone. I'm excited to see these groups of kids grow up together!

It's been awhile....

It's been quite awhile since I blogged last. Which I hate and love. Hate it because I completely forget all the little things that happen if I don't write them down. Love it because it means my life is busy and full!

Let's see.....since I last wrote about something other than a holiday, there hasn't been anything TOO exciting going on.

This hottie had a birthday (I won't share how old he is........but he was born in 1982, so you do the math).

 

Right before his birthday, we started turning our garage into a master bedroom. And it's finished now, but oh man, that was quite the project! We did all the finishing work ourselves (and by we, I mean mostly Nick). We laid the floors, painted the walls (FOUR COATS OF PAINT), stained the trim, hung the trim, framed out the windows, installed the lighting.........the list goes on and on. And my hubby worked his tail off several weekends in a row to get it done. 

And we LOVE IT!! It's nice to finally have a place to relax after all of that hard work! 

I still have to put the finishing decorating touches on the walls, but it feels like a mansion compared to our tiny bedroom we've been in! Our house is really old and was built over 100 years ago, so the rooms are big enough for a bed and that's pretty much it! I LOVE the character of old houses, but they aren't much for storage space. This room is a little farther away from the kiddos which is great for us, but has proven to be a little challenging for Tessa Grace. She had a ritual of getting up in the middle of the night EVERY night to go potty and to stop into our room and say "Love you mom." It was very rare that she missed a night! The 2nd night we slept in our new room, we could hear our old bedroom door open, then the bathroom door, then our bedroom door again, then the swinging baby gate we have open, then her walking down the two stairs and then our current bedroom door opening. Ha! It was pretty comical to listen to, but she didn't think it was very funny that she couldn't find mom and dad. Last night, though, she didn't come into our room at all, so hopefully she's adjusted now.

Hmmmm........what else.......

Oh, we had some INSANE drama with Thomas James at his 5 year check up. I thought he only had to have a tetanus booster at 5 years. I didn't realize there was a whole set of shots he had to get. The night before his appointment, he asked me if he'd have to get a shot and I thought I'd go with the whole, "honesty is the best policy" thing and let him know that yes, he'd have to get a shot. Well.....honesty is NOT always the best policy. He fuh-LIPPED out. Like cried off and on for 2 hours about it. He finally fell asleep, but woke up and instantly started talking about it again. I promised ice cream if he did good (like any good mother does) and he calmed down a bit. I explained it would just be one shot and it would be over super fast. We got to the doctor and got through the whole visit and then the doctor said the nurse would be in to give shots. And she walked in with a TRAY of shots. And poor Tommy........his eyes got huge and he started bawling. She wanted to do it in his legs, so I was trying to get his pants off and he kept running away from me and screaming, "MOMMY!!! Don't let them do this to me!!" I can laugh now, but oh my........I was so sad and mildly embarrassed. Then I started getting mad because he reFUSED to take his pants off so I basically had to lay on him while the nurse helped de-pants him and then gave him all of his shots. He cried the whole time and just kept screaming , "No, mommy, NOOOOO!" While I don't condone his behavior at all, I get it. I remember getting my kindergarten shots and hearing them say, "You don't have to have any more shots until you're in high school!" and then thinking every year of school that I was one year closer to having to get another shot. And for a kid, they don't have a clue WHY their mom is letting some stranger "hurt" them. It's sad to my momma-heart to think that he thinks I'm just letting someone hurt him. When it was finally over, he calmed down and I made a few jokes about him being stronger than Iron Man and he was right as rain again. And we got ice cream!

Tommy also had a dentist appointment because he's woken up crying several times lately saying that his mouth hurts really bad. I was worried about how he'd do, given the whole "shot situation" and his history or previous dentist appointments (which you can read about here). I prepped him for it (that they were just going to be looking and would probably take an x-ray). And he did GREAT! SO great.

He got to play a monster truck video game until his name was called and that made his day.

He looked so big (and so little) in the dentist chair...

I was so relieved and proud! Quite the change from our last dentist appointment. The dentist said that in the spot where he had previously had a tooth pulled, there was a nerve ending and since Tommy didn't have an adult tooth coming in yet, there really wasn't anything there to protect it, so it could be easily irritated. He also said it was swollen, so to give ibuprofen for a week to get the swelling down and then just use it as needed until a new tooth grows in. So nothing serious, but at least we know the cause of it! They dentist also said one of his bottom teeth was loose, so I'm bracing myself for the drama that comes with Tommy and blood!

That pretty much sums up the last few months. We're getting ready to sign up both kids for t-ball. Tess is close to finishing her first year of preschool. The elementary school just called me to schedule Tommy's kindergarten screening.

And you can find me in the corner, rocking and crying my eyes out because my babies aren't babies anymore. 

Easter 2016

Easter this year was super simple and low-key.....just the way I like it. I can laugh at myself now with how obsessed I used to be with making sure my kids had cute Easter outfits and that they matched and we had a picture of them smiling together. This year, I found some clothes in their closet, threw them on and was grateful we got out the door for church!

Granted, I had a few cute outfits in mind, but when we woke up and there was snow on the ground, those went out the window and it was plan B.

And these are the only pictures I got all day :)

We celebrated Easter with my family on the Saturday before. They all came over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. The kids had a blast (as usual) and ate way too much candy and the adults ate waaaaaaay too much food. On Easter Sunday, we headed to celebrate with our church family. After church, we went to Nick's parent's house. Our Easter egg hunt that day was inside since it was so chilly and snowy! It warmed up by the end of the day, so that was nice. And the snow was a good reminder of how Jesus died on the cross for our sins so we could be made clean again!

Christ is Risen........He is Risen Indeed!

Valentine's Day 2016

For Valentine's Day this year, we did another 'picture valentine.' It was a lot easier getting a picture this year than it was the last few years! They're FINALLY getting the hang of holding still and smiling. 

My valentine cuties! Love them! They handed these out to each kid in their class. I took one of them together to hand out to family, but totally failed in getting it to anyone but grandparents. Oops. 

Nick scored some major points and surprised me by having these delivered to my work.......

They were so pretty and they lived FOREVER (which is HIGHLY unusual for any plant/flower under my care). 

Glad I got to spend Valentine's Day with the loves of my life!

Tommy's 5th birthDAY

Tommy's 5th birthday turned out to be a little bit of a mess. I had scheduled to have the day off and planned a surprise mini-birthday party after school was over. I hadn't told him anything about it, but I had invited one of his favorite friends from preschool to go bowling along with the the kids/cousins that Brooke baby-sits. He kept saying he wanted a birthday party with all of the kids in his class, but he gets so painfully shy that I was afraid if I had one, he would get awkward and weird and not really enjoy it. So I was keeping my fingers crossed that having just one favorite friend would go over well!

However.......his birthday was on a Wednesday and at some point during the weekend before, he starting having some asthma issues. And he was so junked up that he would cough and cough until he got sick. We bumped up his nebulizer treatments and he did okayish. Then him and Tessa started running really high fevers. He missed one day of school and was sick all the day before he was supposed to go back (he goes every other day). It was one of those "feels great on ibuprofen, but as soon as it wears off, he crashes" illnesses. I took them to the doctor and he had a respiratory infection and she had an ear infection.

But on the morning of his birthday, he woke up fever free and feeling SO good! I was SOOOOO glad. I decided to send him to school and go ahead with his little surprise party. I THINK I was more excited about his birthday than he was. We started out the morning with our annual room full of balloons........

My normally hard to wake up boy popped out of bed! We took his temp and it was normal. I listened to his chest and it sounded decent.  So I declared him safe for school and he was SO excited! We got around and he opened a few presents.....

 I asked him to hold up 5 fingers and got this gem of a picture..........

He's such a nerd. 

It was his day to take snacks to school and he had BEGGED to take chocolate chip cookies. I totally didn't feel like baking since I had spent the day before at the doctor's office and the weekend up playing nurse. So I totally went to McDonald's, bought enough cookies to feed his class and wrapped them in cute little birthday baggies. And he LOVED it. So that made me feel less guilty!

After we dropped him and his snacks off at school, Tessa and I went and did a little shopping until it was time to pick him up. We got to school and told him his friend was coming home with us and he was SO excited! I packed them up in the car, drove to Brooke's and picked up the rest of the kids and we headed to Gambino's for lunch. I wasn't so sure how well lunch would go with 6 kids, but they were SOOOO good. Well-behaved, not too noisy....it was nothing short of a miracle.

After lunch, we drove to El Dorado to go bowling. Tommy has been begging to go bowling for awhile now and I kept putting it off, so he was super stoked to see the bowling alley! And the kids had the BEST time. I tried MULTIPLE times to get a good picture, but this was the best one :)

  

I got to spend some time with my little Beezers!

 

Tommy was LOVING being with the kids and bowling. This was his signature bowling move.....

It worked really well--he ended up bowling a pretty decent game! Of course, bumpers never hurt....

After bowling, we went back to Brooke's house and the kids all played pin the tail on the donkey and had cupcakes and opened presents.

The kids all had such a good time playing together. I'm so glad we invited one of his friends and they got to bond a little outside of school! After cupcakes, we took his friend home and went back to our house for a little nap. We were worn out! Then when dad got home, we opened some more presents and enjoyed a quiet dinner together.

 

 We had gotten him a train table as his main present, so I kept telling him I was SO excited to give him his BIG present. We had it all set up downstairs, so when it was finally time, we headed down there to show him. I was pumped because he LOVES trains. We let him open a wooden train set first and told him to take them downstairs, so he did....

 

He saw the train table and I said, "LOOK, BUDDY!!!" He grinned really big, looked at it and said, "Cool!....where's my big present?"

Yeah. Talk about a let down. But after we explained that WAS his big present, he was still excited. We built his train tracks and got all the trains out and him and Tessa played on it for at least an hour! 

Unfortunately, he started running a fever again that night and was sick for a few more days. We ended up having to cancel his family birthday party that weekend. I felt so bad for him. He got a little teary-eyed when I told him, but we didn't want to get anyone else sick and he still wasn't 100%. But we made up for it by taking him to Chuck E Cheese with my family a few days later and celebrating with Nick's family about a week later. He ended up having so much fun at all three parties and certainly a spoiled, well-loved little boy!

Happy birthday, Thomas James!

To my son on his 5th birthday

Thomas James-

I can't believe you are five years old. You went to sleep as my sweet little four year old child and woke up my handsome five year old boy! Sometimes I find myself just stopping and thinking, "I have a five year old son. WHAT? A FIVE year old. HOW? WHEN?" It used to drive me nuts when people would same time flies, but then I had you. And boy, has it flown. A few days before your birthday, I said, "Tommy, I can't BELIEVE you're going to be five! What am I going to do with a five year old?" You said, "Don't worry mom! I'll still give you hugs and kisses!" And I cried.

You are turning into such a little man. I love it and hate it all at the same time. You say things that make me laugh almost every day. You've become much more responsible and helpful around the house. You're still a ridiculously picky eater, but you come by that honestly (mom's the same way!). You would eat a ham sandwich every day for lunch and dinner if we'd let you. You love your little sister but pick on her like nobody's business. You two are either hugging or punching each other--it's always from one extreme to the next!

You do NOT like me to do your hair. And every morning I tell you I need to fix it, you roll your eyes and say, "Fine. But DON'T make it a mohawk!" You're still shy around others and at school, but are making progress and being much friendlier! I'm SO happy about that--you're such a sweet boy and I feel like you have so much to offer people, but you're always so shy, so I'm glad you're finding your voice (which has certainly NEVER been an issue at home ;). You've started telling random people at stores hi and waving at everyone you see.

You are obsessed with our chickens and there's one chicken you always pick up and hold like a baby. And oddly enough, that chicken seems to love it.

You LOVE being outside and always, always ask to go with dad. Even if he's just going outside for a few seconds, you beg to go with him. You help him gather eggs and work in the barn. You recently got to go on your first big "hunt" and you guys got a few birds!

You are 100% boy--except for when it comes to getting hurt.You love dirt, trucks, remote control ANYTHING and talking about poop, farts and butts more than any human I know. But when you get hurt (and I'm sorry to say this), you are the BIGGEST wimp. If you get a splinter in your foot, you limp all day. If you bonk your head, you need ice EVERY time. If you pinch your finger, you insist on a band aid. I pray often for your safety and our sanity.

While you thoroughly enjoy doing "manly stuff," you also like cuddling with mom and reading books together. You've just started complaining about going to the store with me--you used to love it, but now you say, "Awwwww, man! I HATE the store!" You're grounded from your tablet at least 3 days a week because you're pretty mouthy, but we're working on that. I affectionately call you my little sour patch kid because you can go from SUPER sweet to SUPER sour in 30 seconds flat.

A few things you say that crack me up are:
"That is not wepropriate!"--meaning that's not appropriate
"Don't look at my privacy!"--meaning you're naked and don't want anyone to see your private parts
"Really?"--in a totally sarcastic voice, meaning in adult language, "Are you freakin' kidding me?"
 "________ is so disgusting, I can't even blink!"-- You're constantly talking about things you dislike so much                    they make you blink

Son, you can make me happier than anyone and drive me crazier than anyone else can in the whole world. My love for you is so strong, I can't even blink! Your sweet smiles, your sweaty hugs, your crocodile tears...all of it is wrapped up in the most perfect 42 pound, 3 1/2 foot tall blond haired bundle. I can't imagine life without you. I love you buddy!

New Years Eve 2015

On New Year's Eve 2015, we had a RAGING party at our house. Consisting of wine coolers, my sister and my brother in law and my cousin. Let me tell you, it. was. EPIC.

We prefer to stay in because we want to avoid any drunk drivers and....well, we're old. So we invited our family over and my mom watched the kids in the basement while we stayed upstairs and ate and played games. We usually play Taboo or Uno or something along those lines, but the guys really don't enjoy word games or card games (or anything that requires too much thinking). So this year, we mixed it up and played pictionary and Jenga! And I learned something about my marriage........

Nick and I can NOT play pictionary together and expect our marriage to survive. Just not possible. We are both competitive and get super frustrated with each other WAAAAAAAY too easily. A little dumb, yes. But it made for a tense game of pictionary. Now Jenga is every man for himself. And the guys rocked it. We had some serious Jenga towers going.

At midnight, we kissed each other and our kids, played games for a few more hours and then called it a night.

It was such a great night with such great people!