Return of the Blog Slacker!

Well here I am again updating my blog after a short hiatus!
This weekend Jake's out of town siblings made it home to visit. We spent Saturday night eating and playing an awesome game called Quelf. I introduced them to this game and I think everyone would agree with me when I say that I think it was one of the best times we have spent together while playing games! I have some great pics from the game that I will share with you all!


Matt contemplating is card!!


Katrina giving us a "show!"


Bryan looking for a stapler.


Gavin with his aluminum foil glove for the whole game!


Mark making an oragami animal singing like a mad scientist.


Jake singing and dancing while Katrina does the chicken dance.


Gigi laughing at Jody's reaction to her car. "Sing Happy Birthday to the Prime Minister of Quelf in your best Marilyn Monroe impersonation!"

On Monday (yesterday) we went to the depot for family day (normally the admission is $10 for adults and we got in for $2...a mighty fine savings if you ask me!) Anyway the boys has a blast and Kaleb walked around like he needed to take everything in before we yanked him back home. Ian loved the little carts they had because he could walk around unassisted. (He can walk and secretly when he thinks we aren't looking I have seen the child walk...sneaky, sneaky!!)


Kaleb using the back-hoe at the Children's Musuem.


Ian ramming all the cars in his way!


My boys sitting in the most colorful chair that I have ever seen!

Life is Crazy!

My bosses have changed to another real estate company so my work life has been crazy. We have to change everything over to Prodigy Real Estate from Weichert formerly RE/MAX. (It is a mess.) What a pain; but it will be a great move for them this year and hopefully if they make their goal they are planning on leasing me a car (which makes me want to work even harder.) So with that I am working from home (on crazy cold days), from our cramped office and my car! It's been so stressful but I had a welcomed break when we went to AZ. So on top of all that I still need to include some pics of that trip for all to see. Jake took so many that I am having a hard time picking my faves but I will include some tonight.

My boys are great. Ian is still not wanting to walk. Secretly I know he can (he has taken steps) but is waiting for the right time to impress us all! Crawling is faster and with an older brother probably safer. Who knows when Hurricane Kaleb will rush by and knock you over! Kaleb is so awesome. He is such an excited little boy and has so much going on in his head. He loves crocodiles and pirates (courtesy of Peter Pan) and I always get to be Wendy, Daddy is Peter Pan and Kaleb is Captain Hook. Ian gets a bum deal and gets to be Swiper Fox (courtesy of Dora) because he comes by and steals all Kaleb's toys! What an imagination!! I am slowly picking up my scrapping and stamping. Hopefully I can get my goal going of a page a day! So far I tend to do a lot of organizing and not a lot of actual scrapping.

For Lent I am refraining from buying any scrapbooking stuff because I have a ton that I already need to use. I feel that it will help me be more aware of what I have and get going on what I need to do.

Well I must return to work leave you readers with some snapshots of my life. ENJOY!

Kaleb

Here is a random pic of my sweet boy Kaleb. I seem to have blogged about Ian a lot lately so here is Kaleb's moment to shine. I will blog about our awesome trip to Arizona and include some pics we took as soon as I get the chance.

New Year Resolutions...

Well I hate New Year Resolutions because I feel like I never fully complete them. One of mine in the past has been to lose 40lbs of chocolate, marshmallow and creamy Carmel and I haven't been successful but maybe this is my year. Another one has to record a CD of me singing my favorite songs because I have close friends and family ask me to do one for them. Maybe this is my year for that too! I always say I am going to start school and finish what I started. I want to teach children so maybe this is my year! We'll see what happens. I always have ambition in January and February and it fades by March. I need someone to be on my tail at all times but people like that cost money!! WISH ME LUCK!

Our New Year!

With the new year upon us I thought I would blog about what we are planning for 2008. Please be sure to read the whole blog (no skimming) as it is pretty interactive.

Well on January 9th we are leaving (along with 9 other family members) on a trip to visit my dad's brother Tom in Arizona. Kaleb is pretty excited to ride on a plane although I'm sure he doesn't know that it requires mostly sitting. (Any tips from parents who have traveled with small children?)

In February we are celebrating Jake's dad Mark and Andrea, Jake's sister's birthday. (I'm not sure on all that punctuation!!) Mark and Dianne will celebrate their 7th (Jake did the calculations!) anniversary on Feb 29th. Happy Valentine's Day and Groundhogs Day!

In March we have my 27th birthday as well as "niece" Cadence's, my sister Amanda's, and our nephew Garek's birthday to celebrate. A couple of times that month also we will be thinking of 2 special NC boys on their birthdays! Most importantly we are celebrating Easter and reflecting on what that personally means to us. On March 14th I will be in my living room watching the greatest Hockey team to ever play, in my opinion, against the MN Wild. The New Jersey Devils are going to be in my home state, Yippee!! Maybe 2009 or 2010 will be my year to see them, LIVE!

In April we have a lack of birthdays so maybe it will be a welcomed break! We will celebrate our 4th anniversary this month and another big event of April will be nephew Gavin's 1st Communion!

In May we start off the month celebrating Kaleb's 3rd birthday and then my mom Maryjo's on the 23rd.

June is my dad, Gary's birthday as well as Jake's golden birthday. We are photographing a wedding for Jake's co-worker this month in the cities.

In July we will celebrate Jake's mom, Dianne as well as his sister Katrina's birthday. Happy 4th of July! We have a wedding that I am singing at this month.

In August we will celebrate Jake's brother Matt and nephew Gavin's birthday. My parents will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary this month also.

In September my brother Dave turns 24 on the 6th and Andrea and Bryan celebrate their 2nd year married! Happy Back to School!

In October my best friend Anne turns 28 on the 5th.

In November besides Thanksgiving and shopping on the biggest shopping day of the year (which will be the 11th annual for me) we have a tentative New York trip scheduled.

December brings Ian's birthday on the 10th, brother in law Bryan's bday on the 13th, our friend Stoke's bday on the 15th, Matt and Gigi's 10th anniversary on the 19th, Christmas and all it's glory, Gigi's bday on the 30th and "nephew" Liam's bday on the 31st as well as New Years Eve. We are also debating between a Christmas or a New Years party for 2008 and can't decide. (What are your suggestions?)

That is 2008 month by month. According to this we have many birthdays to celebrate and probably others I am forgetting. If I have forgotten you and you are slightly offended or even extremely offended drop me an email and I will add you to my growing list. We would like to add spending time as well as visiting with family and friends and other big celebrations that we might have this year so send us your reminder and we'll add that too!!

Enjoy your New Year I know I will!!

Happy Birthday Ian

My baby boy is 1 today and as I sat at work today I remembered that one year ago today I was holding a defeseless little boy who needed me to protect him. Now he is moving around like crazy getting into everything he shouldn't and not wanting to give up nursing (we still do in the middle of the night~so much for sleep.) I am so proud to have such an amazing little boy as well as his brother too! We had a great party yesterday for Ian and Kaleb was so helpful opening his presents! He thought that they were all for him. Well Kaleb deserves them for being patient (most of the time) with Ian when he takes his toys.

LIFE IS AMAZING!!!!

My celebrity look alikes!

NYC

I am adding another thing I would like to do in my life and it is travel to NYC to see Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and everything Christmas NYC has to offer. I was supposed to go this year with my family but some circumstances came up that were out of our control. We made a vow that 2008 is the year and now both my parents have to work Thanksgiving. So I think that I still might go with my sister and make it a "Sister's Vacation." FUN!!! I will make it there someday and I hope that it is soon before life is too busy to make it. That's my blog today.....quick and to the point and with 1 cute baby boy picture!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am a very thankful person today and as we ate and laughed I was reminded of all the things I am thankful for.

I have a loving family which includes my boys, Jake, Kaleb & Ian, wonderful parents and siblings as well as a awesome family of in laws! My life wouldn't be complete without any of them and as we are all separately celebrating this Thanksgiving I remember how much we miss them when they are not here. I have a stable job and great friends all over the United States. I have a warm house full of love and a car that, although threatens me at times, is drivable! I am thankful that God has blessed me with so many wonderful things and many more (too many to mention!!) I hope all of you reading this is reminded of what you are thankful for.

I am gearing up for my 12th annual shopping excursion tomorrow. I don't have much to get but I still can't wait to see all the people and get home to my boys. We are decorating the house tomorrow which should be very interesting!!

The Results

I placed 2nd last night and very happy about it. The woman that won attends my old church and has been doing Karaoke for awhile and deserved to win. She won $500, a nights stay at Grand Casino, 2 tickets to the concert, Opening for the Rockin' Road House tour and two meal vouchers. As a finalist (top 10) we each got tickets to the same show and 2 buffet vouchers at Grand Casino (where the concert is taking place.) Most of you who know my husband knows that he was just about to pee his pants with excitement when he found out that I won 2 meal tickets.

I called the winner this morning and gave her my two tickets to the show so she could take her kids (5 of them (including a foreign exchange student)) as well as her husband. She said that she has spent most of the morning trying to round up tickets to take them. I felt that I wouldn't enjoy the show as much as her family would seeing her up there and I would have wanted someone to do that for my family when I opened for JoDee Messina..."do unto others." Thanks to everyone who wished me luck.

Update

Well I have finals tonight for a karaoke competition in Duluth. If I win I get to open for Mark Chesnut, Joe Diffey and Aaron Tippin at Grand Casino for the Rockin Road House Tour. I also get a night stay and Grand Casino, $500, Front row tickets to the concert as well as 2 buffet tickets! I am pretty nervous and have been every time I think about singing. I usually sing the same song, "Broken Wing," by Martina McBride (it's my signature song) but recently Jake has been telling to "break out of my shell" and sing something different. Well, my other option is "Forgive," by Rebecca Lynn Howard but I am afraid that I don't know it well enough to really perform it. I have been practicing in the car though. Here is my thought. What if I sang "Broken Wing," and after the competition my friends usually make me sing more before I leave I could sing "Forgive." I think that is what I'll do. Writing always helps me solve problems. Thanks for reading my crazy incoherent thoughts and giving me advice as to what you think I should do.

Impromptu Photo Session

The other day while Kaleb was away playing in Chester Park with Auntie Manda Ian and I had a photo session with a bushel basket and leaves. Now some of you may know that when Kaleb was a baby (5 months old) I scooped the guts out of a pumpkin and wiggled him in there. The results were fantastic. Well I wanted to do the same for Ian. My sis-in-law Gigi had a great idea of doing a bushel basket and leaves instead of the pumpkin. So we mixed it up a bit. And I think the results are fantastic again! The model was handsome and very cute as well very easy to work with. He wanted to make it as quick as possible. (I think we dumped over in the basket about 12 times.) He as you can see in a couple of the pics did not like the leaves touching his back. Enjoy!

I'm a Snowman...ROAR!!

We ventured to Boo at the Zoo this weekend. Kaleb was a snowman and Ian was a fez monkey. We went with our friends Anne, Stokes, Cadence(a Peep) and Liam (a bat). We started the tradition for Kaleb and Cadence's first Halloween and took their siblings along for their first time this year. Cadence had a baby brother on Dec 31st of 2006. So all of our kids are really close in age.
Anne has been my best friend for roughly 7 years. We met at Blackwoods where we both worked at the time. We have shared a ton of things together. Her and Stokes were married November 1st, 2003 and we were married April 17th 2004. We both were pregnant with our kids at the same time. Cadence was born March 7th, 2005 and Kaleb was born May 5th, 2005. Well the next year we were pregnant within a month of each other and had our babies in December. (Ian on the 10th and Liam on the 31st) Liam was supposed to be born in January but he wanted to share a birth month with his friend Ian as well as his Papa Stokes. We have shared so much together and year after year it keeps getting better and better. We have learned a lot about life from each other and plan on spending the rest of our lives as best friends. Could it get any better than that??
I've included some pics of the kids all dressed up. Kaleb loved being a snowman and thought that snowmen were supposed to be scary so he "roared" a lot!! Ian was pretty indifferent about the whole situation. He was just content riding in the stroller watching people as they walked by. One of the pics is of Liam sleeping by a pumpkin. He was asleep in the stroller and they wanted some pics by the pumpkins and he wouldn't wake up!! Enjoy!!

Our Weekend

We had a busy weekend with work and our annual SWAIN Cross Country Invitational. My dad is the director of the high school cross country meet for the Duluth Public Schools and as his daughter I have been selling t-shirts for as long as I can remember. So now that Jake and I are married he looks forward to the first weekend of October as much as I do. Unfortunately we don't have any pics from the event due to the less than favorable weather. But I will add some of the boys for fun.
On a happier note I finished Harry Potter on Thurs night. I actually was shaking for the last 5 chapters unable to predict what was going to happen (there was one point where I shut the book and thought maybe I would not read it but I pressed on) and that it would be to my dislike. It was better than I expected. In fact I was very happy with the ending but now am sad that it is over. It honestly makes me sad that I have no more Harry Potter to read. I can't wait for the last two movies and to buy the whole series for myself (I've been borrowing my in-laws copies) and for Kaleb and Ian to read someday. Now I must find something else to read while I pump. I did find an old copy of "Mr. Poppers Penguins" that I might read again just for fun. Maybe I'll embark on a Roald Dahl adventure after that.

Here are the cute boys. The first one is of Kaleb and his Papa (my Dad Gary) doing Wednesday night at the races earlier this summer and with his ribbon. The next two are of Ian and the final one is of Kaleb and his friend Cadence. She was born a little less than two months before him and she has a new brother that was born 21 days after Ian. His name is Liam. Enjoy!!

Harry Potter

Well as it states in my profile I am reading Harry Potter. I am now approaching the end of the last book and I am pretty sad. I get so excited to read (it helps me through the time when I pump breast milk for Ian) but then I don't want to read because it means that the end is approaching. I never thought I would but when the 7th book came out I was not going to let anyone ruin the ending for me and up until now I have no idea how it is going to end. (Which I would like to thank all you who know how it ends and didn't spill the beans.) I can't put it down. I stay up and read until 1 or 2 in the morning.
It actually makes me cry to think that I won't be visiting Hogwarts or Harry anymore. I have come to love the storyline and all it holds so much. I sound so corny and a few years ago I would be the one laughing at myself for how I feel about this series and guffawing at the fact that I am reading it. "Who has time to read 7 books about a little boy?" I certainly didn't think I would but I had to make time and through it all I have connected so much with the whole series. So if you haven't read it....DO IT! I totally recommend it to anyone who can sneak 15-20 min a day. It has been a journey for me that I will never ever regret.

A sad weekly blog...

I am sorry to report that I am not going to the Wild/Devils game on March 13th. Jake checked on tickets and we would have to spend $160+ to see them and they are almost sold out too. As much as this dream of mine should not have a price limit I decided that there are more important things right now like buying groceries!!! Maybe the 2009-2010 season they will play here again. Maybe this is my punishment for forgetting to include it in my first list of things to do before I die. KARMA!!! So as a tribute to my fave player and my team here is a pic of Martin Brodeur!!

As I have said before as life is as boring as having two boys and that is where we sit. I've included some pics of them for your viewing pleasure. The first one is of Kaleb on the potty. For those of you who may think he is telling me that he is stinky you are wrong. That face he is making is his NEW smile. When we say "smile so I can take your picture," he makes that crazy "man I am stinky" face! The next one is Ian laughing at his brother. The last two are cute bath pics of the boys. Ian finally likes the tub.

Christmas is only 97 days away!!! Get Ready!!

My weekly blog is being written later and later every week so pretty soon (if I don't shape up) it'll be a monthly blog that is really long.
Not much has happened lately although reading Jenny's blog, Fall is coming!!! I love fall when the leaves are changing (maybe because Jake proposed in the 25th of Sept. at Enger Tower when the leaves were changing) I love winter too! I love being snuggled inside when it is freezing outside sipping hot chocolate and watching it snow. I thoroughly enjoy Christmas (who doesn't?) It is for me better than my birthday. (Some of you don't know but just about every other year when I was a kid my birthday party was cancelled because of a snowstorm in March. My birthday is March 3rd and this past year we were all going to paint pottery at the Pottery Burn in Hermantown and I HAD TO CALL AND CANCEL because of a crazy huge snowstorm.) Anyway back to Christmas. I enjoy everything about it and actually start planning it 3-4 months in advance. Now I have been chastised my whole life for listening to Christmas music all year, wanting to keep the tree up (haven't convinced Jake yet as to why it is a great idea) and buying anything "holiday" that I can get my hands on. I also love Christmas crafts and this year Kaleb is going to make gingerbread houses with me. I've never done one and love the fact that we'll do one together for the first time. He loves Christmas too, as much as a 2 yr old can, and requests that we listen to my favorite Christmas song "Dominick the Donkey" all the time in the car. We can't do it in the car with Daddy so every morning when I drop him off at daycare the whole ride over is dedicated to "Dominick the Donkey!" I just love that Italian Christmas Donkey.
So I'll post some pics of the boys from Sunday when we just lounged around and spent time together. One of them is of my brother Dave's new kitten, Simba the 2. We had a family cat that we put down in February and when Dave acquired this kitten for free she looked just like her namesake. In fact when my sister and I saw her we both teared up a bit.
Ian now signs "more", "milk" and sometimes "please." He is such a cute little boy. I'm not just saying that because he is my baby; it's the word on the street!! He is "commando" crawling all over the place now and hates to be on his hands and knees to get places. He pulled himself up last night for the first time and of all places, the bathtub!!
Kaleb informed me that he is going to school now instead of Grandma Dianne's. He wants her to be his teacher and Grandpa Mark is to watch all the kids. He has started to want to watch Christmas movies when it's time to relax. You honestly can't get enough "Christmas Story", "The Grinch", "Rudolph" and "Polar Express." I'm rubbing off on him a little I think. He's not a big fan of "Home Alone" though. When the robbers are getting hurt in the end he has too much compassion and we shut it off!!
So here is my weekly insight and wisdom as well as a little update on us! The first picture is from Wed. When I came home from a play with my friend Anne, I encountered 3 boys asleep on the couch in various positions. Kaleb was actually half on the couch and half hanging off. The next pic is from one of our RE/MAX softball games. (I had to include it. He looks so cute~again the word on the street!) The next 2 are hats that we found to try on Ian for winter. He would make the cutest elf wouldn't he!! Next is a cute one of Kaleb. The next 2 are kitten pics and the final one is of Kaleb and his messy, messy face which happens to exactly how he likes it! ENJOY!!

My weekly post...a bit late though!!

This past weekend we went to my friends Briana's wedding. I sang two songs and Jake took some pics from the balcony. When we got to the reception usually I can't wait to start dancing but this time I wanted to leave and pick up the boys and go home. Jake said that that means that I am officially old! I can't help wanting to be with my babies. Yesterday I was fortunate enough to scrapbook with my sis-in-law Katrina and then we were treated to dinner at Perkins with my family for my brothers birthday (he's now 23) that really makes me feel old.
Ian is a waving and clapping fool now. He also is starting to fake cough for us just like Kaleb did. Kaleb is also still doing great potty-training but we still have our share of accidents here and there. His new favorite book is "Green Eggs and Ham" and can basically read the story to me. He calls it his "Sam-Hi-Ham Book!!"
I wish I had more to report and update everyone on. But as busy as out life gets we still are pretty boring most of the time.I've included some pics from the wedding as well as the boys.