This afternoon went smoothly too. Rosemary, Jack, Liv and Leif all napped for 2 1/2 hours. I ended up waking up Liv and Leif so we could all go outside because the rest of the kids were getting restless.

Liisa (4), Jack, Leif, Liv(4) and Rosemary

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It ended up being a really nice day. I knew the forecast from a week ago that said rain was bogus.

Jack and Brooke just finished with dinner as Barb's working late. I'm waiting on Jared to bring me my dinner as I'm done cooking for the day :o)

Today's been going pretty smoothly so far. Jack, Rosemary and I were outside when Brooke and my cousins got here at 10. We played outside for a bit and then came in to get ready for lunch. Lunch went well. Naps started out kind of tricky but are going good now. Jack's in our bed, Rosemary's in Jack's bed, Liv and Leif are in the spare room and Lucia, Liisa and Brooke are having quiet time in the living room. We'll all go back outside once all the kids are up. Lizzie's not coming now but Charlotte will be here at 3:30.

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 Today's the day that I have 8 kids coming over. Lizzie and Charlotte aren't here until the afternoon but I'll have 6 kids in addition to Jack for the better part of the day. So naturally Jack decided last night was a good night to attempt an all night tantrum fest. We took turns dealing with him for like an hour and a half and then Jared fell asleep in there with him and that was the last we heard of him. Booger.

I'm making mac n cheese w/ cut up turkey dogs for lunch. I already cut up a package of turkey dogs and peeled several oranges. Thank you Warren for all the fruit!!!!!!! I even have enough chairs/booster seats/highchairs all set up around the table so they can all eat together. 

The forecast for today still doesn't include rain. Hallelujah!!!! 

 Well today started way too early. Jack woke up at 5 and I just kept putting him back in his bed and he just kept getting out. Jared tried getting him back to sleep for a bit too and it just wasn't happening. He went to bed easily and didn't wake up at all before 5 but still....I wanted to sleep a bit later than that. 

Sunday we ended up going for a very short bike ride. Jack did not want to ride in the buggy at first but once we got going he was fine. My mom wanted us to meet her friend Dawn and her little redhead. I forgot the name but Dawn was the only one home when we got there. She's pregnant too and due in like 2 weeks. She asked if I'd be interested in watching her baby this fall for a few hours in the mornings! I said possibly :o)

Then we went to Rosemary's birthday party. It was fun but we weren't dressed warm enough. I think the temp dropped 10 degress on our way there. Fortunately I packed pants and a long sleeved shirt for Jack. He looked pretty cute in his new sandals. At first he hated them and cried and just stood there and wouldn't even walk in them. But then I kept saying how cool they were and he got over it. He was even running in them before long. He took a couple of diggers at the park and scraped up his knee a bit but he was fine. He was pretty excited about the little wiener dog at the party. He had fun running around with Rosemary and her cousin Grayson. 

Sunday night he slept pretty bad. He went to bed easily but woke up at 1 I think. I was trying to get him back to sleep for close to an hour and but it wasn't working. He just kept sitting up in bed and crying. He didn't try to get out of bed but still.....I think maybe he didn't feel good. Jared spent about an hour and a half trying after I did. It was a long night. 

Yesterday morning my mom and I took Jack and Brooke to Como Zoo. It was a really nice day but kind of chilly in the wind. Jack and I both got sun but probably could have brought sweatshirts. I'm not really on the ball with dressing appropriately these last few days. I was really wanting Jack to ride the carousel but it's closed on Mondays for repairs I guess :( We walked around the zoo for like 3 hours! Jack really liked it. We haven't been to the zoo since last fall. I was telling him yesterday morning all the animals we were going to see that day and I'm sure he thought I was talking about in his books or something and not in real life :P Once we got there and saw a real live pink flamingo he was like "whoa!". The wolves were right up the fence pacing and howling. That was pretty cool. The tiger was pacing and kind of close to the fence too. He really liked seeing the monkey's and the gorillas and one even had a baby! It was really cute. I really want to take him to the Minnesota Zoo soon because they have a lot more animals. That would be a lot more walking though. We'll see. 

We got home about 2 and all napped until almost 4. Jack wasn't ready for bed last night until like 10. Today we'll be napping earlier since we got up so freakin early. Hopefully Brooke will be ok with that. 

Friday my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Gerry from Hibbing have a funeral to go to so I'll be watching my 4 cousins in addition to Jack, Brooke and Rosemary. I'm not sure how late they'll be here. I'll also have Lizzie and Charlotte in the afternoon! I'm not sure about their ages but I think my cousin Lucia is 8, Liv and Liisa are 5, and Leif is a few months younger than Jack. I think it'll be fun for Jack to have a boy over to play with. The older girls will be a big help so I'm not worried about handling that many kids. They're not coming over until about 10:30/11 so that'll be right when we have lunch and then Jack, Rosemary and Leif will nap. The other 4 will have a quiet time in the living room and maybe we'll have a movie for them. Once all the kids are up, I'm hoping we can be outside :o) 



 

I got laundry put away, kitchen floor swept and mopped and some banana bread in the oven. Hopefully the POS oven won't burn it. 

I was going to have all 4 kids over today but now Rosemary's not coming. She hasn't been feeling too hot and is possibly getting teeth. Hopefully she feels better before her birthday party this weekend. 

It's supposed to be rainy all day so I can't even have the kids outside :( We played outside yesterday for almost 2 hours. It was really warm out.

We went to Applebee's last night for dinner. Then we stopped at Cub and got some cheesecake to bring home. It was delicious and I ate way too much :o) Jack loves cheese and wouldn't even try a mozarella stick! I peeled the breading off and told him it was a string cheese but he didn't believe me.

Tonight is movie night and we're watching There Will Be Blood. We also have Walk Hard but I don't think we'll be watching it tonight. 
We're also going to be implementing a new sleep routine for Jack starting tonight. We gotta start using some tough love and teach this kid to fall asleep without us should he wake up and to initially go to bed for either of us....and without physical comfort. It may be a long night but it's gotta be done. Hopefully it'll only take a few nights before he is used to it. 

The cast of this season's The Real World is a "hot mess". Especially Joey and Brianna. Yikes. Why would that dude even go on this show if he has a history of alcoholism? Ya ever seen this show dude? People booze it up quite a bit. His roomates are kind of dicks for peer pressuring him all the time too but he just shouldn't even be in that situation. Brianna is raunchy. Is she actually a stripper or does she just wear a lot of stripper clothes? We missed the first episode. Greg is a snob. And he calls everyone else stuck-up?

Last night's Survivor was pretty good. I'm glad it turned out the way it did :o)

 Happy 2nd Birthday Rosemary!!!!!!

Jared woke me up this morning to tell me Jack had woken up and come down stairs and woke him up. O_o WTF???? How'd he get out of his room??????? He woke up one time last night and I went in and put him back in his bed and he was back to sleep shortly after that. I guess it's possible I didn't close his door all the way but I just don't know if that's the case. His door would have clicked loudly into place had it been slightly out of place when I was shutting it. It's happened many times and I've cursed myself for not shutting it more quietly and risking waking the boy. I can't imagine he can work a doorknob already though. I know he can get the screen door open but his bedroom door????? Holy crap. If that's the case.......that's a new development I'm not sure I like.

Putting him to bed last night SUCKED!!!! He was hating it! He didn't seem like he was hating being in his big boy bed so I'm not totally sure what his problem was but he laid in his bed and cried himself to sleep. I was sitting right next to him. I offered him my thumb a few times but he pushed it away. I sat there so long my leg went numb and my back was starting to hurt so I ended up laying down on the floor. That's when he sat up and tried to get out of his bed. Which confirms that if I were to have left the room....he surely would have got out of bed and been crying even harder. I laid him back down and he stayed laying down but kept crying. Half hour of crying. Good times. I think maybe he had a stomach ache since he hadn't pooped all day. Who knows. I even was trying to keep him up a bit later in hopes that he would poop....doing bicycles with his legs like when he was a baby. Eventually, I had to put him to bed. He definitely had a ton of poop this morning though :/ I hope he didn't spend too much time with it in his diaper.

We went to The Eagle's Nest yesterday with Barb and Brooke. If I had laser beams for eyes....I totally would have incinerated a little boy yesterday. There was a big kid area and a 3 and under area. We spent our time in the 3 and under area of course. There was lots of cool stuff and Jack was having fun. He was kind of playing with this little boy and sort of following him around. I would guess he was maybe 4. Then all of a sudden the kid ran across the room.....then ran back and shoved Jack on his way by. I was like ok.....I'll be keeping an eye on that kid from now on. Then a bit later I see the kid throwing books way up in the air. Mind you, there's babies crawling around this area too. Where's this kid's mom? Nowhere to be found. One of the books lands in this little area that you have to climb through a hole to get in. It was like a big square panel with a circle cut out and kids would climb through the circle hole. Jack's peering in to see where the book landed.....and the bottom of the circle is probably at his hips.....that kid comes up behind him and starts trying to push him through the hole!!! By the time I get over there....he's successfully pushed Jack through this hole and Jack is bawling. I grabbed the kid by the arm and said "HEY! You DO NOT push!! That is NOT ok!!!!" He looked a bit startled and ran off. Little prick. His mom was nowhere to be found and didn't see it. Nice. So it took me a bit to calm Jack down but then he was off having fun again.

He discovered this other sort of big tunnel that I kinda think shouldn't have been in the 3 and under area. If he were to have gone all the way in and then decided he hated it.....It woulda been a pretty lame time for me to crawl in after him. Fortunately he didn't get too far in before he decided he hated it. But at this point....6 big kids (we're talking like over 7 years old) push past me and pile into the tunnel barreling past Jack. This really helps the situation. Then they decided they don't like the tunnel either (hard to believe.....it's in the 3 and under section ya tools) and barrel back out. Finally I'm able to get him out. More calming down. He's pretty clingy at this point and losing interest in playing at this place anymore and occasionally asking to go "bu-byes".

Then he's sitting in this fire truck sort of box thing that you can sit in and read books. It's near the window and all along the windows are a carpeted shelf. The truck had 2 seats in it and Jack kept climbing up on the seat to sit on the edge of the truck with his feet on the seat. I was about to make him sit down on the seat and he fell :/ Wedged himself in half .....sandwich syle....in between the truck and the carpeted shelf thing ...... getting carpet burn on the back of his neck. Good grief. So then we decided to pack it up and go out to the snack area where there's tables and have some carrots and crackers. Poor kid. Not exactly the day we had planned.

I was a bit annoyed with how many big kids kept coming into the 3 and under area. Jack was in the ball pit for a bit and was kind of ok with it. I was about to take a pic and realized my battery was dead. I went over to my purse and swapped it with a charged battery and by the time I get back a couple of big kids had piled into the ball pit and Jack was not happy. He had no interest in going back in there after that. Even when it was just Brooke in there. I did get one pic of him in this Little Tikes tree house thing that was pretty cool:

That's the only picture I got! Hard to believe, I know.

I have Rosemary today and then Lizzie and Charlotte this afternoon. Looks like we're gonna be stuck inside today. I might let Jack and Rosemary watch Jack's Curious George movie.

I vacuumed the living room and swept and mopped last night after dinner so all I have to do today is laundry.....and maybe wipe down the bathroom. We'll see how I feel. I feel kind of sore. I did some cutting for my mom yesterday morning for about 2 hours. My knee has been kind of hurting ever since. It better snap out of it before the 7.5K tomorrow!

We watched Survivor last night. Holy blindsides!! We also watched Grey's Anatomy. Why is George living with Meredith's sister????
We also watched The Real Housewives of NYC reunion. I hate Ramona. Ugh. She acts like a child. And she's dilusional. And Alex and Simon.......good grief.....they're dilusional too. Yea right they were misrepresented! They're totally all about social climbing! Weirdos. Why was he even on there???? He's not a housewife!

Edit:  We do have some of those safety door knob cover child-proof things. I just wasn't thinking we'd need to pull them out yet :P

Jack has been randomly counting today. He'll do 1-4 then skip to 6-10. He's also been singing the ABC's a lot but he says A B C Q R S T U V. He's gettin there.

He's been saying "careful!" when he falls down too. It's pretty funny.

He'll say bless you and bring you a kleenex now when you sneeze!

He's all about eating with utensils now! Hooray!

I made a cake this morning and my POS oven over cooked it. I hate that oven. I even cooked it at a lesser temp. It's still good. I tried it :o)

Jack, Rosemary and Lizzie had fun outside today for a while. Then Rosemary stepped in some standing water in the lid to the sandbox and got her sock and shoe all wet so we came in :P

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Jack and Rosemary have been having fun today.



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Thank you everyone for the Happy Anniversary wishes! We had Olive Garden last night and watched American Gangster. It was pretty good.

The kids and I played outside yesterday afternoon for like an hour and a half with chalk, cars and bubbles. Then the sky started to get dark so we picked up and went inside and not a minute later it was raining. Then about 15 minutes later the sun was out again. It was weird.

Rosemary, Brooke and Jack munching on granola bars

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Happy 3rd Anniversary to Jared and I!!! 2 kids in 3 years.....yea, we're on the fast track :o)
The kids had fun playing out in the driveway yesterday with chalk. Lizzie brought over her stuffed kitty that's been named Kiki :P
Jack and Rosemary have been napping for about an hour. Brooke should be here at 1:30. We might play outside again today with chalk. I can't wait for the backyard to dry up! They're going to have fun with Jack's little sandbox, picnic table, slide/fort, slide/swing, tool bench, lawn mower and grill! Not to mention his pools when it gets really warm.
Jack's been having fun with Rosemary today. He keeps calling her Lizzie though :P

First time with chalk!

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The kiddos are having fun today. I got a few cute pics...of course :o)
Right now they're all napping! Hooray!
They've all been eating like little piggies today too. Jack and rosemary split a banana and a granola bar this morning, then wolfed down a bunch of cheerios. Jack and I had already had oatmeal this morning with raisins and blueberries in it! Then at lunch they all had shells and cheese and grapes and tomatos.

Brooke helped me make chocolate chip cookies today. She's a good little helper.

Brooke got her hair cut and looks pretty cute. The kids kept all climbing into the same chair together so that's when the camera came out. Jack and Rosemary did it before Brooke got here in the chaise and then they all piled into the green chair later.

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Got a house full today. I took a few cute pics this morning before Brooke got here:

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I'm going to start watching 2 more kids next month. They're daughters of a friend of my Mom's. I think their ages are 4 and 7. It's just going to be for a couple of hours in the afternoon 4 days a week. 

Jack and Rosemary have been having fun today. Unfortunately Jack only napped for about 40 minutes again. What gives? Rosemary is still napping. Brooke should be here in about an hour.

playing with his Sesame garage



coloring with Jenks

 

 No Brooke today. Barb's mom is home today so Brooke wanted to stay home. 
Jack has a doc appt this morning to get her ears re-checked and have his 18 month appt even though he's 19 1/2 months. 
I called my mom to see if she wants to do something fun after the appt like go to the Conservatory and she said that would be fun but she'll let me know after the appt. She talked to Mary Alice who also wanted to do something fun today because she has Rosemary. So Jack might get to hang out with Rosemary today! We'll see. 
Jack and I took a nice 2 hour long nap yesterday. It was awesome. I got plenty of sleep the night before but was feeling so sleepy. After my nap I scrubbed the kitchen floor. It needed it BAD! 
Amy & Erik & Simon are probably coming a few weeks after the baby is born! Yippeeee!!! :o)
Jack let me touch up his lopsided hair cut just now. I think it looks much better but still isn't perfect. Oh well. It'll be less noticeable when it grows a little. 

He's got a blue mouth from the fruit snacks I had to bribe him with to let me cut his hair.


We watched the finale of American Gladiators last night. I knew those 2 would win. They were savages. We also watched Big Brother. That Jen is such a spaz. She's making lots of enemies real fast.I really don't like Allison. She was making such a huge deal out of having to keep their secret and being bullied into playing the game a certain way. What a load of crap! All she had to do was keep her mouth shut....that's it. Noone was making her play the game a certain way or anything ridiculous like that. And the whole fake lesbian story she started with that other lady?!?!?! What's the point??
There's a pretty funny video on Perez Hilton/Youtube of Amanda and Josh having a pretty big blow-out. She's totally this season's Jen. Such a wingnut.

Was Project Runway not on last night? I forgot to tivo it and now I can't find a replay of any that I haven't seen. We watched Moment of Truth last night. Ugh. Not a show I like to watch live. I'm so freakin annoyed with the long dramatic pauses. We watched the end of Deal or No Deal too. That show is so frustrating. People get so greedy they end up screwing themselves out of a pretty good chunk of money cuz they can't stop. If we ask Jack Deal or No Deal he says Deal!
I have Rosemary all day today and Brooke is coming at 1:30. I kind of want to paint some more onesies. I'll have to do it while Jack and Rosemary are napping and before Brooke gets here. We'll see. I really like the blue Simon and the train best. I might do some more with animals on them. All the onesies we painted at Amy & Erik's shower were bigger sizes and all of these are newborn size so he'll be able to wear them soon. I got to hear his little voice on the phone yesterday!!! I can't wait to hold him!!!

cuddle buddies

   There are more pics of my sister Amy and Erik and baby Simon over in her journal sugabeats go check em out!

 Just me and Jack today. Barb's off today so no Brookester and Rosemary wasn't feeling so good last night so she stayed home. 
I ended up sleeping with Jack for part of the night again. I'm not really complaining because I had to pee like 3 times before I went in there and not again after. However, Jack greeted me this morning with a nice headbutt. Little turd. He was eating some toast this morning in the living room and when he was done he took his plate into the kitchen and put it on the counter by the sink! Such a good boy :o) Lately when you ask Jack what a baby says he says "waa waa". It's really cute. I've been trying to get him to say "love you" in response to what does mama say and what does daddy say. He's not quite there yet. My favorites are when you ask him what a kitty says (Neowwwwww) and what a rooster says (cocka doo). He can also do cow, horse, sheep, bird, wolf, owl, monkey, elephant, puppy and I'm sure there are some others in there but I can't remember. He's pretty selective about when he'll do them though. He's been putting his toys away lately and I love it! I usually have to ask him to and he will but lately he's just been doing it on his own and cries when he can't get his books in the book shelf properly!!! He'll even pick up Daisy's toys and put them in her toy basket :o)

cool dude



cuddling cousins