Left my babies

OK so the older 2 are far from babies but I did in fact leave all three of my kiddos with a sitter this morning. Surprisingly I did NOT cry. The lady they are with is an amazing mother of 3 kids herself that we know from church. I know they will be totally safe there. I just hope they behave and that the baby doesn't cry ALL day.

But I should be thrilled that they are there because it means Tom might have a job lined up. He is there today to show them he knows what he's doing driving a truck. But they wouldn't talk pay until they knew he was qualified so that will be a deciding factor as well. Since its about an hour drive and gas is almost $4 a gallon he will need to be making a decent hourly rate to cover that cost plus the cost of a sitter in order to make it worth it!! And the other possible negative is that he would be paid as the company gets paid for the jobs he works on so pay could be spotty. But I'm trying to remain positive and hope that it ends up to be a great deal and maybe, just maybe it could mean that I could eventually end up back home with the boys, even just part time!!

But for now I'll try to take it one day at a time...

...but you know that it would be easier to take if the days were more like they were last week. Last week one day hit 80 degrees, we were busting out the sunglasses and sunscreen. Now this morning I had to dig out the boys heavy coats and hats again.

Gotta love living in Illinois!!!!

this pic is from last Wednesday

A Busy Weekend

This weekend was a busy one!

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and heading off to meet a friend of mine from high school that I reconnected with online when we were both pregnant over four years ago. We live just over an hour away from each other but hadn't gotten together. But now we've both had our third babies and decided we just needed to find a date and do it. So we met at Home Depot! OK I know, it doesn't sound like your typical moms get together, especially with a combined 6 kids. But they have a kids workshop there where kids can use "real" tools (this was the highlight for my boys) to build something. They had a bunch of things to choose from, boats, cars, trucks, planters etc. Timmy chose to do a boat and Johnny picked a fire truck. I "helped" Johnny build his while he held on to the hammer. It was sort of like the blind leading the blind. Colette helped Timmy but I was surprised at how well he did on his own. Of course he did smack his thumb pretty good with the hammer. But when we discovered that a piece must have been put on backwards or upside down so that a pre-drilled hole was missing for a eye hook, Timmy created his own hole and we were able to finish it up.

Here's a picture of the fun:

All four of the "big" kids

Timmy with his boat

Johnny with his fire truck

Want to take your kids? Click here for info.

After everyone had finished their projects, minus one MIA wheel for Corinne's car, we packed up and had lunch at Culver's. It was definitely not the quietest lunch we have ever had but the kids seemed to have a good time together. So we've decided we definitely need to get together again, but next time there will HAVE to be an activity involved that will allow them to run off some energy!

THEN

After we got home, we regrouped, ran tot he store and headed to a birthday party for one of the boys (MANY) cousins. Everyone got together at Pizza Hut for some pizza and cake. OK NOT everyone really but some of the family...

Then the girls went to Libby Lu for some girly time. As a mother of all boys, I had to go and check it out. So Tom and one of his brothers and his brother in-law walked around the mall with our boys for a while. I didn't get a picture but after the girls get all "dolled" up and pretty. They come to the doorway of the store and dance together. It is sooo cute.



By the time we got home we were all ready for bed!!! Of course Bryan was ready to party so we were up for awhile.


Then we "slept" in Sunday morning and went to church at 10:15 instead of 9:15. After church, we went home for a couple hours and let the boys relax a bit before going to my moms house. Unfortunately, we had a funeral to go to on Monday so Timmy and Johnny spent the night Sunday with Gramma and Grampa. So all the boys and I went over there for dinner (Tom was busy working, painting a house.) It wasn't exactly nice out but the boys took some time to ride their motorcycles anyway. And grampa rigged up a way for Johnny to be able to cruise as fast as Timmy can on his motorized one. I'm not sure its safe at all. And Timmy seemed to intentionally send Johnny flying while I stood and watched by taking a tight turn at a fast speed. But here they are riding around the cul-de-sac.





And here's Bryan. I wish I could say he was this peaceful the whole time but its so not true!

My son...the funeral director?

Last night I pulled into the driveway after work to find the boys outside playing in the yard, a pretty regular thing this last week as the weather has FINALLY started to get nice. And as I opened the van door Johnny comes running up to tell me that they had an ant funeral. As it goes with 4 year olds he was immediately distracted by something else. Later, after the boys were in bed, I got the full story from Tom. Apparently Timmy killed an ant. Then suffered from some guilt and decided he needed a proper burial. He dug a small hole and tossed him in. Then filled the hole in with some dirt. Then he collected a couple rocks and places them on top. Finally he picked some grass and told Tom that he had gotten some flowers. After arranging the flowers he invited those in attendance to come and eat dinner and said "I hope you enjoy the shrimp."
What weird little boy I have!!!

A Day at the Park

Yesterday was a GORGEOUS day, the type of day we've been waiting for here in IL for months.

So we took advantage of it and headed out to the park.
Timmy and Johnny had fun digging in the sand for dinosaur fossils, climbing the new "spiderweb" thing, and playing catch with dad. Bryan enjoyed a nice nap in the fresh air.
And we all got a bit of color, because I never can remember to ring sunscreen that first nice day. But I DID try my best and thought I'd kept Bryan covered (and sweaty) the whole time but even his little cheeks look red. :(

But here are some photos from our day.

My Angel

OK, so I admit Bryan is NOT the perfect baby. He is much fussier and needier than the other two were. But he's still MY angel, and I have the photo to prove it.

And some others that I think are super cute too.

My little Houdini's

Last night the boys went to a Magic Class at our Park District. There they learned a few tricks and were given the stuff for a couple of them. They said they had a good time and they couldn't wait to get out of the car to show me.
Timmy immediately ran to his room to prepare a trick as Johnny dumped all his goodies out on the living room floor. LOL I asked Timmy to help him prepare too and they both came out with a trick. While Timmy needs a little practice for his to flow believably he at least understands what is supposed to be kept secret. As opposed to Johnny who did everything out in the open! But it was still sooo cute. I will have to try to get some photos of them. But of course now they want a hat, cape and wand! And they want to go back as they do 4 classes a year each with different tricks.

Here she comes...

...OK so she isn't Miss America...YET!

But she is Little Miss Illinois and moving on up. And last night I got a chance to re-do the photo shoot that didn't go so well do to the the blazing sun and strong winds.

Here's a few of my favorite shots. Too see more check out my Photography page on MySpace

Thanks again to Hailey and her mom for letting me do these photos. And GOOD LUCK!!!!

Bathing Beauties

OK I'm really not allowed to call them beautiful anymore, they prefer handsome. And I KNOW that someone will feel the need to point out that someday they will be mad at me for sharing these. I'm well aware of this, I HOWEVER feel its my duty as a mother! OK maybe not my duty but my right. I earned the right to take embarrassing photos of my kids because I have to put up with all the crazy things they do, right???



So here they are Timmy and Johny in all their bubbly glory :)

How exciting!

Just a little plug for a friend of mine. She is a super funny writer and just got her first book published. I haven't gotten it in my little hands yet but I think I can VERY safely say it will be a great read. Its available on Amazon for preorder now.

Our New Family Endeavor

For the last several year our family (and extended family) have been involved with the American Cancer Society event Relay For Life. While it has been a ton of fun and is an amazing cause, last year we decided that will would not have a team at this years event. While our immediate family plans to attend the event we will not be dedicating so much time to planning and fundraising efforts as in the past.
But still feeling a very near and dear connection to the fight to find a cure for cancer, this year our household has decided to get involved in a silghtly different way. The first year we participated in the Relay there was an amazing little boy there who was going through treatment for cancer. Aside from his adorable little bald head, you would have been hard pressed to know he was under going such difficult treatments as he was a totally upbeat happy little boy. The following year, he was selected to be honored as the Jr Honorary chair of the event. He attended that years kick off event where it was announced that he was selected and he still was as happy as ever. However, he never made it to that Relay in July. Instead in his honor we walked a Super Hero themed lap because of his love of all things super hero. As the mother of little boys (also in love with super heros) it did (and still does) break my heart to think about what that family was going through.
So this year Tom, the boys and I will be helping to raise money for The Super Jake Foundation. The way we've committed to do this is to help with the Super Jake Hero Bash which will be held on November 8th at the Hilton, in Northbrook. Tom will be the DJ for the evening and the boys and I will be helping with whatever we can!

Bryan's Baptism

This past Sunday was Bryan's baptism and it went very well. He slept through the actual baptism but then woke up and was social with everyone that had come to see him. Everyone thought he was adorable in his tux (of course).

With Pastor Stu, being baptized.

With his Godparents, Uncle Tim & Aunt Bonnie (Tom's brother & sister)

With Tom & I

With Grandpa & Gramma Hintz

With Grandpa & Gramma Nugent
With Great Grampa Gapko & Eleanor

Most Huggable Baby Week 1

Most of you will probably have heard about this from me directly in email but just in case...


Bryan is in a Most Huggable baby contest for a local radio station. The contest runs for 4 weeks, with one weekly winner week and then a final winner chosen from those 4 babies. Voting for this week began today. Anyone can vote, though you do have to register on their site (they DO give you the option whether you want to recieve info from them) and each individual can vote once per day.

I'm hoping that all my friends/family will take a few minutes each day to vote for him. And possibly ask any friends you know who'd also be willing to vote.


The link for this week is here: Baby Contest Polls - 93.9 WLIT-FM

And for the record

And just for the record, I must not have been knocking on REAL wood last week because I am once again back to living like a zombie. Bryan has been super fussy the last couple days, spending the later part of the evening screaming no matter what we do. He's been up until at least 1am for the last two nights and waking twice before 8 am.

No More Happy Meal toys!

Tom just called me. apparently my kids think they are squirrels or something and have been storing their TOYS for winter. Tom walked into their room to get something and noticed Johnny about to drop a toy spoon into the heat register. When he looked there were already items in there. He said he dug a ton of stuff out but could not reach it all and will have to pull apart the vent from the basement to reach the rest but there were lots of toys, tech deck skateboards CDs in there that he could get too. Like there isn't enough stuff in our house that is torn apart!
I am just not sure why they would do that. After the first time, when you realize that toy is now gone why would you keep putting stuff in there!?!?!?!?!
So now Tom says absolutely no more McDonald's happy meal toys and there will be no more toys at all that will fit in the slot of a register. I suppose its helping us get an early start on getting the toys baby proofed again...but geez it's always something at our house!!!!

>>>Knock on Wood<<<

Yeah, I'm definitely knocking on wood before I post this one.

But it seems that my monster eater baby may actually be getting into a bit of a schedule at night. OK its certainly not my IDEAL schedule but it's worlds better than waking 3 times between midnight and 7 am. But for the last several nights he has eat at about 10/10:30 and although he refuses to go right to sleep, he isn't eating again until about 5 am. It would be even better if he'd be willing to sleep from 10-5 but we'll get there, I hope. But at least at this point he's going to sleep around midnight. And at least this way Tom stays up with him while I go to be around 11 and then I deal with the 5am feeding and we're both able to get a semi decent amount of solid sleep. Its amazing what a difference 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep makes.

But I better knock on wood again, just in case!

Mixed Emotions

Why is it that sometimes even when we get what we want, we're still not happy about it!?!?!

I have known several other moms that have gone through this same experience, so I know I'm not alone and that its not simply some postpartum hormonal thing. But today I took Johnny (turned 4 in December) to our school districts Speech Therapist for an evaluation. I actually took him last year as well but then they said he was doing fine for his age. But nothing has has really changed since then so when we went to his pediatrician for his 4 year check up, the Dr again suggested an evaluation. So anyway, today was his appointment. We arrived just as all the preschool students arrived and filled the hallway where we were waiting for the therapist. So when she came down to meet us, Johnny really wouldn't talk to her. I don't if he was overwhelmed or still nervous that I had been lying to him and that he might actually be getting more shots at this "appointment." But I started to worry that he may not cooperate for this evaluation. But once we got into her room where it was quiet. He pretty quickly opened up. They went through a book of photos of a puppy with many different items and she asked what the items were or what the puppy was doing. It took about 15 minutes and he stayed focused and answered all her questions very well. And just as I suspected, he does now qualify for speech therapy. Just wanted I wanted, right? So why am I so bummed about it??
I don't know but I do know he needs it and she was very sure that he would progress very quickly once we get started. He will go 2 times a week for a half an hour. But because we have to take him there and its only during school hours, it will wait until the fall. There are less than two months left of school and I just don't see how I can fit getting him there into my schedule and still spend anytime at work. Hopefully by the fall we'll have 2 working vehicles and it won't be an issue at all. In the mean time she is going to get some information together for us to be working on at home until the fall.

ouch

You know I didn't really think that 30 was anywhere too close to being too old to have a baby, I mean really Tom is 46! But toting Bryan around is kicking my butt. I have GOT to start working out to get into shape or he's going to kill me. Last night when I went to move him from laying in my arm to up on my shoulder, something snapped in the other shoulder. And it still hurts like crazy today. I've been trying to work it out and it will feel OK but then when I am just trying to do normal things it will hit a position that practically brings tears to my eyes. Hope this passes FAST!

I don't know that this does him justice, he got crabby before I could get a full body shot that included his big ole thighs but thought I'd include a pic to show what my Big guy looks like at over 16 pounds!

Shopping

Since we scheduled Bryan's baptism I have assumed he would wear the outfit that both of the other boys wore. It was a cute little white tuxedo my mom had bought for Timmy. He was a pretty big boy himself and the thing says its a size 6-9 month so I figured I was pretty safe. But the night before last I pulled it out to try it on. I immediately notice its has a spit up stain on it I hadn't remembered but figure I still have time to get it cleaned. But then when I try it on there is just no way its able to button around chubbies chins!
So yesterday I head to Baby Depot, which is where my mom got the original tux. Apparently these things are sized a bit different because for them a 9-12 month size is for 16-20 pounds. So my 2 month old will be wearing a 12month size outfit. And the only thing they had in that size was a tux with tails and cumber bun! Its super cute but its a bit much, especially compared to what I will be wearing. But I went ahead and got it. I tried it on him when I got home. The cumber bun is too big and the pants could be hemmed a good 6 inches. But it will work and he looks sooo cute.

Oye

OK so I've obviously known for awhile was outnumbered gender wise. And it's been awhile now since I've realized that boys are really and truly just wired different. They have a sense of humor, those of us of the female form just don't seem to get. But I have to admit I was still a little surprised when my newest little man reminded me of this the other day.
I'm sitting in bed with the older boys reading their bedtime stories when I begin to heard some odd noises. Upon further review...it's my oh so graceful husband belching at my 2 month old son who is in turn laughing the first real laughs of his life. YES son #3 finds gas hysterical ALREADY!
I am definitely going to have to get a female pet or something!

##edited to include a photo of his enjoyment of gas##

Timmy and Johnny news

My big boys seem to have adjusted fairly well to their baby brother. They both enjoy him and for the most part are fairly patient with having the attention divided one more way. Our biggest struggle with Timmy is that he doesn't smother Bryan with all his love and hugs.

Aside from that the boys haven't been up to a whole lot until recently.

Timmy is in his last year of preschool which he absolutely loves and was not happy when he had to take a whole week off for spring break. He is such a smarty pants too. He keeps busy at home by coloring and working on work books pretty often. Of course he spends a good amount of time driving his brother crazy and also spending time with his new love, my old N64 video game unit, which Tom hooked up to an old TV and put in their bedroom. They have had V Smile games for a while but this is the first time they've played much "real" video games. But whenever possible he'd rather be outside or out at a play land, where he's really gotten to be quite social and makes friends where we go with other kids (or at least tries). But he is still a constant ball of energy and tends to drive us a bit nutty on a daily basis. For that reason and in hopes of him finding some self control, both boys started martial arts last week. They are going here Master's Martial Arts if you're interested. They instructor has a doctorate in Theology so its martial arts with a Christian twist. The boys seem really excited about it so we'll see how they do.
And next month they will both start T Ball practice, which is always a good time to watch!
Aside from the above, Johnny is pretty much home. He has not yet started preschool. Although he swears he wants to he can't until he figures out the whole potty issue which we're still struggling with. He's not exactly where I'd expect him to be with writing or recognizing letter etc but its certainly not a lack of intelligence. He's a smart guy, just not too interested in learning that stuff like Timmy was. He's much rather curl up with you and be read to or watch a movie together. He is still having some issues with speech too. There are several sounds that he just does not make and as he's starting to talk more and more and faster and faster its actually getting tougher sometimes to understand him. So we're going back for another speech evaluation this week at the school.

Bryan at 2 months old

My BIG boy was 2 months old on March 29th.
And he went to the Dr for his two month check up on April 2nd. He is off the chart for his weight now at a whopping 16 pounds. And let me tell you, if you hold him for any length of time you will feel everyone of those pounds!!

He seems to be right on track for all of his development milestones.

He is tooo cute and is really starting to smile and develop his own little personality. Unfortunately that personality is much needier than either of the other two boys ever were. He does NOT let us put him down too often. During the day he even prefers to be held while he sleeps. Luckily, he is getting into somewhat of a routine at night. Not that he's sleeping anywhere close to through the night. But on average he goes to sleep somewhere between 11-1 and sleeps until somewhere between 3-4am. He gets up and eats and once he's gas free (this sometimes takes close to an hour) he will go right back to sleep until about 7 or 7:30.

dang it

A friend of ours from church has a daughter who is too stinking cute. So cute, in fact, that she just won Little Miss Illinois. Now she's off to the national competition and for that she needs some new photos. Because her mom likes the photos I take of the boys she asked if I would take these photos for her. I was totally honored and excited to do this. So this Sunday we went to this cute little park by our church, which is also where we went to do wedding party photos when Tom and I got married. She looked super cute and was so tough in the chilly wind in her sleeveless dresses. But I am so disappointed with how the photos came out simply because of how bright the sun was! We're going to redo the photos because these just aren't the quality she needs, and aren't exactly what I need to be doing if I'm ever going to seriously get into photography.

But I'm hoping maybe if I post these I can someday (hopefully sooner than later) look back and be so proud of the progress I've made and how much I've learned in this area.

Of course she is still adorable and a fabulous model as you can see...