valentine's day

now that the little dude is in preschool we're having to do the whole valentine's day treats & cards thing. when i saw the felt fortune cookie project in the february martha magazine, i immediately flagged it as something i wanted to do with him. we made them quite a few weeks ago. they're filled with a fortune and 2 hershey's kisses. here are the results.



then we bought some gift bags and filled them with the fortune cookies, pencils, a valentine, and lots of confetti (or sprinkles as the little dude likes to call them) he couldn't wait to give them away at school yesterday. he even learned how to lick his first envelope after signing each and every card for his classmates.

special day

this past weekend we had a special day with the little dude. we dropped baby brother off at grandma & papa's house for a day all to ourselves.

we headed down to milwaukee and started off with lunch at maggiano's. the little dude got the biggest chocolate milk on earth, onion strings, raviolis, and ice cream for dessert. (as is evident in the brain freeze photo at the bottom!)


then we headed off to the betty brinn children's museum for their curious george exhibit. the little dude had quite a blast! we couldn't get him off of the "play" train to save our lives! here are some pics. (fyi papa: that's the little dude sorting mail in the bottom photo!)

5 months

my little man : chubby cheeks : ticklish tootsies : soft heart : giggly : sitting up : eating real food : holding toys : talking up a storm : loving his big brother, music, & his bouncy swing : inquizitive : growing so fast

storm of the century

here in south-eastern wisconsin, we're still digging out from the storm of the century! wednesday we got a crazy 16.5" of snowfall in 24 hours! there's only one other storm in history that was worse. (1924 brought 18 inches in 24 hours) it was completely insane. people were stranded on highways behind accidents that couldn't be cleared and the national guard was out on snowmobiles helping people who were stuck.

here's a photo during the storm.....this isn't even all of it!


here's a photo i took today of our poor bush just covered in snow and icicles.


needless to say, the kids had a snow day and even daddy (who works for a bank) got half of the day off!

take a guess

if you had to guess what the following photos illustrated, what would you say?




young boy visits zoo and learns to roar like a lion? nope.
young boy likes to show off his tonsils? nope.
young boy screams at the top of his lungs for fun? nope.

these are in fact pictures of our young boy showing of his bright sparkly teeth! now most kids would give a big (closed mouth) smile to show them off. not this kid. he likes to give you the "bigger picture"!

the little dude had his first trip to the dentist today and did a superb job! he sat and watched mommy get her teeth cleaned first and then hopped right up in that chair for his turn. they were even able to get x-rays which they said they typically don't even try with 3 year olds! he was such a good boy and i'm so proud of him. he was a good little helper with the hygenist and got to suction the water from mommy's mouth! he thought that was the coolest thing ever! he had no cavities and got a special glider plane as a treat. (as well as the goodie bag he's holding full of fun dental stuff like a new toothbrush, floss, & toothpaste)

pbskids.org

a little backstory: our kid is obsessed with pbs. as in the public broadcasting service. he watches curious george a lot and therefore hears all of their "commercials" about visiting pbskids.org. recently, pbs is his answer for everything.

mommy: where did you learn that?
little dude: pbs

mommy: where did you get that from?
little dude: pbskids.org

basically the kid will answer any question you ask him with "pbs" somewhere in there.

fast forward to this past weekend:
daddy convinced me that we should get a fish for the little dude. knowing that the poor guy will never have any pet with fur or feathers because of my allergies and asthma, i reluctantly gave in. the agreement was that he could get one, but i would no be in charge of cleaning the bowl. (the hubby and i had a couple fish pre-kids and i had the nasty job of cleaning out the stinky fish water and i wanted no part of it again)

so we go to the pet store to get the little dude a fish. when asked what color fish he wanted he said "blue". luckily when we got there, they had some blue betas that fit the bill. easiest fish in the world to take care of. perfect. we'll take it. we pick up the essentials to house and feed the fish and head home.

the conversation on the way home went something like this:
mommy: is your fishy a boy fishy or a girl fishy
little dude: a boy fishy
mommy: oh! a boy fishy. what do you want to name your boy fishy?
little due: pbs.
(mommy and daddy turning to each other and laughing hysterically)
mommy: that is a perfect name for you fishy honey. pbs it is!

so here he is.....pbs in all of his glory!

i want to crawl in a hole and never come out

for those of you who know me and my complete full name, you'll be as mortified as i was to see this. you'll want to scroll down to the list of characters names after reading the description.

life after the flu

after a week of feeling like death, i can finally say that today i'm feeling a little more human. i still have a little cough that's hanging on, but other than that, i'm up and about.

as for the baby, he still has a nagging cough. we also found out, after a trip to the dr. on monday, that he has asthma. my poor baby. of course he inherited this lovely ailment from his fabulous mother. i've said all my life that i wouldn't wish asthma on anyone.....not even my worst enemy. go figure that my baby would end up with it. i hate the thought of him missing out on all the things i've missed out on in life because of it. we don't know how bad it is at this point. i could just be something that acts up when he gets a chest cold, or it could be like mine where it affects a million aspects of life. (ie, pets, outdoor activities, exercise, etc.) the poor little guy even came home with his own little nebulizer and has been getting treatments every 4-6 hours since monday. only a day or so more and then we can hopefully be done. he tolerated them really well at first but, as time has gone on, has learned to hate them. (as is seen below) he's also been taking some steroids which have been making him very hyper and impossible to lay down for naps.


as for daddy and the little dude: daddy survived with only a slightly stuffy nose and a little sore throat. the little dude seems to be falling more in line with me and the baby. he was doing really well for awhile, with only a runny nose, but now seems to be getting a cough to match ours.


this is how we've lived for the last week. i had too many medicines for too many people to keep track of, so we each had our own post-it on the kitchen cabinet to keep track of who had what medicine at what time. i'm pretty much finished with mine, but still need them for the kids since the baby has 2 meds to keep track of and the little dude has been having daily doses of tylenol.

i'm alive

although i don't completely feel like it yet, it has been announced that i am, in fact, still alive. i'm slowly recovering from the worst flu i've had in my entire life. i felt like death. unfortunately, so does my sweet little baby. more on that later. hopefully i'll be back to 100% by the end of the week and have some energy to post something real. ta ta until then.

my son : the songwriter

just a little ditty that my little dude was singing at lunch today:

jingle bells, jingle bells
all the way
with a horse, horse there
and a horse, horse there
e-i-e-i-o
old mc donald had a farm
e-i-e-i-o

that's what he said : part 3

and now, for another round of "that's what he said!". . .

[when referring to some newly discovered dust bunnies] : "mommy, mommy, look at all that fuzz dirt!"

[when singing his favorite song to his baby brother] : "you my are sunshine. . ."

[when asked if he had to use the potty] : "no, i just went 50 miles ago."

[when asked if he wanted vanilla or mint chocolate chip ice cream at grandma & papa's house] : "i want va-mint!" (and so, because it was at grandma & papa's house, he got both!)

me + you = the sweet life

aaahhh. that's me taking a nice deep breath!

i have been running around like a mad woman for the last 4 months with a very colicky baby and a business that needs much attending to. (not to mention a 3 year old who's decided that listening is no fun anymore.)

after a rather short discussion, the hubby and i agreed that i couldn't do it all by myself anymore. we broke down and hired a nanny/babysitter. this was her first real week and i feel like a different person. it's quite the little arrangement we've got. she comes to our home for about 3 hours a day to help with the kids. i'd love her to be here more, but we've agreed that 3 hours per day is about all we want to shell out for childcare at this point. she's 24, married, with no kids. the little dude loves her. he can't wait for jenny to get here every day to "play with me". what's even better is that she expects to work for her money! when the little dude is off at school and she only has the baby to watch, she insists on working around the house if the baby is napping. today she washed the inside of our windows without me asking her to do so! she's done our dishes a few times and informed me today that our swiffer wet jet needs new batteries!! it's a little awkward to have someone doing your work in your house while you're there, but hey, i think i'll deal with it!

another great thing is that she's also interested in helping with my business. my current office assistant works part-time. during the busy times of year it gets overwhelming for her to keep up, but she has another job that provides her insurance so she's not able to work for me more than she already does. so jenny has been in the office with us a few times this week when the little dude is napping. (we just bring the baby with us for those few hours and tag team taking care of him.) it's a win/win for everyone. jenny gets the added hours that she wants without us paying her out of our household income. i get another office assistant who also takes care of my kids while she's working! i think i'm getting the best end of the deal since she's doing the work of 2 people while she's in the office!

i feel like i'm a much better mother with her help. i'm not stressed out to the breaking point and have much more patience with the kids. don't get me wrong, i still have piles and piles of work that's stacked up over the last 4 months, but at least now i feel like i can start to make a dent in it.

sixth project....finished

the latest st. jude project to be shipped and added to their shopping site are a set of valentine's cards featuring patient artwork. we designed 5 cards based on the illustrations of 5 different patients. the backs of each card feature the original artist's name as well as their age and diagnosis. they come packed in a set of 10 with matching magenta envelopes. (you can click on the above image for biggie bigness!)

it's that time of year again

i've been known to set some pretty thorough and extravagant goals and resolutions in the past. for example, 2006 & 2007's (and if that wasn't enough, i added a few more later!)

this year i'm going to tone them down a little and focus on a few key items. mainly because i am so overwhelmed and busy with a new baby and a booming business that i don't have time to go to the bathroom some days!

#1. fix better dinners. after baby #2 arrived, dinner kind of went out the window. dealing with a colicky baby all day left little time for any meal planning or preparation at all. since i've recently hired some new help (more on that later), i'm feeling more capable of at least making sure that we have at least 3 food groups covered at every meal.

#2. loose the baby weight. pretty self explanatory. just some effort on my part.

#3. get my office organized. we've been in this house for 2 years now and i've never been happy with my office. i always say that i'm going to get it organized during our slow times of the year, but those times are so few and far between they end up being filled with other things like babies and life.

#4. keep on top of my business accounting. in general i think i'm pretty good at keeping up with my daily bookwork for the business. however, there are a few things i'm not great with so i put them off and put them off. by the end of the year it's overwhelming and now i'm suffering trying to get it all set for my accountant. hopefully with the addition of the new help i mentioned earlier, i will have some more time to dedicate to thorough accounting.

so that's it. four (hopefully) attainable goals for the year. there are many, many more i would love to add to the list, but i'm trying to be realistic. if i get past these four, i'll think more about the others later.

the greatest gift

no, not love, silly! jewelry!

my lovely friend kelli sent me the greatest christmas gift of the year!


a few months ago i picked out the necklace with the circle "joy" charm and the swarovski crystals of my boy's birthstones shown above. (click for biggness) so many times mommy jewelry is so overdone and ugly....i was glad i had found something simple that i enjoyed.

fast forward to christmas, when my bestest friend kelli, who is miles and miles away, picked out the second necklace with two circle charms containing my boy's initials! so simple and dainty! my kelli knows me like the back of her own hand! and how great do these necklaces go together? especially since she didn't even know i had the first one?

if you like the necklaces as much as i do, you can check them out here: joy & initials
(looks like "joy" is sold out, but she has others like "wish", "dream", & "laugh".

4 months

rowan had a half hour stint of squeals and smiles today so i took advantage of the rare opportunity and shot some 4 month photos. his little dimples kill me! i just wan to eat them up! enjoy!

he's going to hate me.....

my child will someday loath my existence because of this photo!


the funny thing is i had nothing to do with it. daddy and the little dude were taking down the christmas tree for me while i tried to catch up on some work. i heard some whispering going on in the other room and then the little dude came around the corner wearing this......the christmas tree skirt. i couldn't resist taking a picture. so just remember little dude, your daddy did this to you....not me!!!

everyone loves papa

it was my dad's birthday just after christmas so we went over to celebrate with some cake and ice cream.


here are all the grandchildren ready to help papa with his candles. (austin, rowan, finley, emma)


mmmm......nothing like a cake that 3 kids spit on trying to blow out candles! (just kidding kiddos, you did a great job!)

sledding

the little dude has his first real sledding experience over the holidays after we got buried with some fresh snow. he had been pulled around the yard in his sled many times, but had never really gone "downhill" before. so daddy took him out and he had a blast. as he said: "again, again, again!!!!"


here he is coming in from his sledding excursion.


and here he is showing me how packed with snow his mittens were from falling off the sled!

after he got in the house and un-bundled from his many layers, we enjoyed a lunch of soup and hot chocolate.

rice cereal

after baby rowan's 4 month check-up the other day, the dr. gave us the go-ahead to try some rice cereal. the little guy likes it to say the least! we literally have to strap his hands down while feeding it to him otherwise none of it gets in his mouth because he's too busy trying to intercept it with his hands. here are a few pics.


his first taste of something other than milk......mmmmmm.


and this is what happened before we figured out to put his hands under the straps of his bouncer! he wouldn't keep those darned hands out of his mouth!