Road Trip 2008

Here are the pictures from our trip to Ruston, Louisiana. All together we stopped at 11 college campuses. It's an obsession my husband and my dad share. MUST GET COLLEGE T-SHIRTS FROM EVERY COLLEGE IN THE COUNTRY!!!

Family squinting in the sun- Memphis

Jack and O-bee-o
Consulting the map

Memphis

National Civil Rights Museum. The hotel balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King, JR. was assasinated. It was a VERY impressive museum.
Doing some hill work during a gas and snacks break. Gotta stretch those legs after being in the car for so long!
Back yard where the wedding took place- notice the blooming Dogwoods!

Stephanie and her dad

My cousin, Ammen, and Stephanie
The house where the wedding was- the bride grew up here
"The Couple" My Aunt Barbara started this tradition when Brandon and I got married. Whenever one of us cousins gets married, she embroiders our names on the couple. It'll be busy this season- 3 weddings!

Warm and sunny family picture

Jack LOVED the ice in the beer tub!

No, he's not in a time out. Just mad cause he has a dopey haircut.

Jack and Daddy

We stayed at Hampton Inn's wherever we went. Jack was so used to hotel life that he automatically knew where to get his cereal in the mornings!

Jackson State University

Eating some Chick-fil-A at Mississippi State

The only item he wanted to buy- from Ole Miss

Taking a break in the bookstore at Ole Miss

A little dancing on campus!

Here's baby sister's room. We still don't have any bedding or stuff to put on the walls...

I go back to school on Monday. It feels like I've been gone forever! Jack went back to school today- he was hysterical when I dropped him off. It's hard to be with your Mama 24/7 for a week and then be shipped off to school again. I went into school myself this morning to get some stuff done. I love working in my room when the school is silent! When I picked Jack up at 4 he was happily eating his snack at the table with his buddies. He ended up having a great day. Just like I told him he would!

We had all of our mail from the past week dropped off today- and there was a big package from our buddies Jackson and Charlie! What a fantastic surprise! The best part was when I put the batteries into the remote control tractor they sent for Jack. The kid actually jumped up and down screaming and laughing when he saw how I could make the tractor move with the remote!! It was so fun to watch him be that excited over a new discovery. Thanks buddies! We miss you tons and can't wait to see you this summer!!! :)

One more thing- I actually used my gift certificate to the spa that Brandon got for me 2 Christmases ago. I went in for the "Maternity Retreat"- A full body polish (salt scrub), 50 minute massage, and pedicure. HEAVENLY! I really hope I get to go back for another massage before the baby arrives! I haven't felt that good in months!!

Wisconsin Sucks

We're back! It was a fantastic road trip- many details and pictures to follow.

How cruel it was to treat ourselves to full out SPRING in Louisiana and then come back to snow and cold around here.

When are we moving south?

Daddy-O to the rescue

Brandon rearranged the furniture in baby girl's room so now it looks much better! As I sat in the blue chair (which ended up fitting!) I had my first "HOLY CRAP WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!" moment.

She's SO going to be here before we know it! And just for the record little baby- YOU BETTER BE A GIRL!!!! We are NEVER painting that room again! It was a pain in the butt!

I'll put pictures of the somewhat completed room up tomorrow.

Pictures!

Here are the pictures...

Real Men Vacuum
New polo shirt for Jack!

Look at that dirty face!


Plotting against Mama?

27 Weeks

Baby Girl's wardrobe is growing!

It's a bluish/purple

The blue chair just isn't fitting as nicely as I would have hoped

Dr. Appt

We had our monthly doctors appointment today. Everything is going well. My blood pressure was up a little bit- but still considered normal. Just another excuse to sit around and relax I guess! The baby's heartbeat sounded great and we have our tour of the birth center scheduled for the middle of April.

My next appointment is in 2 weeks!! Can you even believe I'm already at the point where I have to go in every 2 weeks???? I really can't believe it! I go back on the 31st and during that visit I have to do the dreaded glucose test. Last time I failed and had to endure the 3 hour test. Let's hope I pass this one with flying colors!

Jack and I went on a little shopping spree today. He needed new jeans (3T!) and a polo shirt for the wedding. We also stopped by Motherhood Maternity so I could get some new stuff. I got a new pair of jeans, a skirt, several shirts, and a dress that I'm going to return. No sense in wearing something that only succeeds in making you look even BIGGER!!!

I'll post pictures later tonight- I finally remembered to charge the battery to my camera!

2 Glorious Weeks

My spring break is finally here! I have 2 whole weeks off of school. Plenty of time to rest, relax, and drive all the way to Louisiana!

My cousin is getting married next weekend, so we're driving down along with my parents for the big day. I can't wait to see everybody and I sure hope it's WARM!!!

Report cards were due a week ago- so that is always a stressful time. Making sure you say just the right thing in the comments, give the kids just the right grade that's appropriate for them and what they can do...always a hard time for teachers. Once that was over we moved right into conferences. Another stressful time. Trying to get everything together to show the parents, thinking about what you want to say- and more importantly- how to say it! How do I tell a parent that their child isn't quite as brilliant as they had led me to believe at the beginning of the year? How to tell them that he's actually just a really bright kid who is still challenged by things like subtracting with regrouping? Yet another reason being a teacher is one tough job! Even though, all of my conferences went well- the parents are happy with how things are going in 2nd grade. It's so nice to hear how the kids love coming to school and are so happy in my class. Love that!

I have big plans for the last quarter of school in terms of getting these kids ready for 3rd grade. We'll really be working on spelling those high frequency everyday words correctly in their writing, mastering those addition and subtraction facts, improving even more on their reading comprehension, and about 50 more things I want to accomplish! I can't believe the year is winding down so quickly. As I was looking at the calendar, the last day of school for the kids is June 4th but we have to be there through the 9th for meetings, getting things organized for the summer, etc. Since baby girl is due on June 13th... I better have everything ready by May 31st just in case!!! I really don't want to be scrambling at the end to get things wrapped up- or even have to come back later to finish things.

Jack still went to school today- no mommy guilt here! I deserve a day to myself to get the house cleaned, take a nap, take the dog for a long walk, and just take a mental break. I'll pick him up a little early so we can get his hair cut though. We've been taking him to a place that specializes in kid haircuts- but it's crazy expensive and the last haircut he had wasn't that great. This time I'm just going to try Supercuts or something. We'll see how that goes!

I'll have Brandon take a picture of the baby bump tonight- I'm suddenly huge! Even the teachers at school were like- "you've really popped out!" And there are still 13 weeks to go. Hmmmm....

She's really kicking and moving a ton- even Jack has felt her kick now. He loves to come over and bring baby sister his oh-bee-oh (that's what he calls yellow blankie and my mom- since she's the one who made yellow blankie) and his pacifier.

About that pacifier... anybody want to take care of him for a week so we can be out of town when the pacifier is taken away???!!!! I had thought we'd take it away at 2, but he still really actually uses it at bedtime. Maybe when he's closer to 3?

Monkey Hear, Monkey Say?

"Oh My God!"
"Oh Shit!"

-Jack, age 2

Watch what you say! He's ALWAYS listening.

Lesson learned.

Taking a brain break

I'm taking a break from working on report cards to tell you about my new plan for getting Jack to stay in his flipping room and go to bed!

First of all, he loves the big boy bed. Really, truly, absolutely loves it. And for the most part, I love it that he can get up when he needs something in the middle of the night and come find me. Even though I need a ton of extra sleep these days, it's still kind of nice to wake up to "Where deedee go, Mommy?" in the middle of the night instead of waking up to crying. How wonderful that he calmly comes in to get me to help him find his pacifier when he loses it about twice a week.

Ever since he got the big boy bed, our routine is that we'll read books, then tuck him in and lay down with him for a few minutes. Brandon tends to instantly fall asleep himself when he does this, but I always stay awake and try to leave while Jack is still awake so he doesn't depend on us to help him fall asleep. Over the past few nights though, as soon as I walk out of the room, I hear little footsteps and the creak of a door opening. As soon as he sees me headed his way (to calmly and silently put him back into bed, just like the book suggests) he slams the door and runs full speed back to bead laughing hysterically all the way. Um, isn't he supposed to be crying when I come to put him back in bed? Why is it suddenly a game?

So tonight I shut the door behind me completely (so the latch clicks. Not locked, just closed). Since he can't open the door when it's closed like that I waited to see what would happen. There was about 5 minutes of doorknob jiggling from his side of the room. Then a few books came sliding out from underneath the door. And then silence. I have no idea if he's asleep- it's awfully quiet in there though- and if he's in bed or perhaps on the floor?

I'll give it 10 more minutes and then go in to check.

Back to report cards.

**Sound asleep. In his bed. Good boy!**

ps. Only 100 days left! I remember when it was WAY over 200!!! Wahoo!!!!

A New Cousin!

We have a new baby cousin to celebrate! My cousin Liz had a baby boy last week! We can't wait to meet Elijah at the wedding in June!!!!

Hmmmm...

How would you do?

2 Year Appointment

Jack finally had his 2 year check up yesterday. Here are his stats:

37.5 inches tall
35 pounds


He is obviously big for his age- but his height and weight are in proportion to each other, so nothing to fear. He's basically just super tall and solid as a rock. That's my boy!

The doctor was glad to see that he's speaking in 4-5 word phrases, knows almost all of his colors, knows how old he is, can jump off the ground, can run, can go up and down stairs (even our scary steep ones!!) all by himself, and can draw a circle if you draw one first and ask him to do the same. She still suggests no peanut butter for another year (are you kidding me??) and to start making him take "no thank you bites" when he refuses a food. Tonight we tried it with green beans- and what do you know! That no thank you bite turned into about 5 beans being eaten cause he realized he really does like them!

Besides the usual check up stuff- he had to have another lead test. This one was a finger prick instead of the horrible blood draw we had to deal with a year ago. The first finger the nurse pricked barely bled at all- so they had to do a second finger. Jack sure was excited about that! After many tears and saying "ow!" over and over, she got enough blood and he got 2 bandaids to show for it.

We'll see the doctor for sure in another few months when baby sister shows up!

Holy $#$%-- Edited

He went to bed 30 minutes ago (I'm assuming he had fallen asleep, he was really tired??)- and just stuck his little head out of his bedroom door to tell us he had to pee. He sat on the potty, and what do you know- HE PEED!

This is all very, very, strange!!!!

*** And he just got up AGAIN to pee. Is this more of a curse than a blessing? The kid needs to SLEEP! If only his bladder could hold more than a tablespoon of pee at a time!

2x potty + 1x floor

He went once on the floor- didn't make it to the potty on time, and then twice in the potty. Pretty good for an hour of playing diaper free after drinking a whole single serving container of milk at dinner!

I think we're just going to take it slowly with this. Not push too hard, if at all. When we're home and thinking about it, we'll work on asking him if he has to go. I think his little bladder is still too small to take on the control and frequent trips to the bathroom that a full blown potty training routine would involve. I'm just so glad he's interested in it, and excited when he gets to flush the pee pee down the toilet!

That's twice now!

After our shower tonight... he was standing on the bathmat in his towel when he said "pee pee". I said, "if you have to go pee pee, go on your potty!" So he said "Oh!", dropped his towel and ran for the potty. After sitting down and positioning his little you know what behind the shield- HE PEED IN THE POTTY! A real pee this time! Not 10 drops, A REAL PEE!

Holy cow!!! Tomorrow we're going to experiment with having him play without a diaper on for an hour or so and see what he does. It should be interesting!

Stay tuned to the potty chronicles!!! :)

Guess Who?

Guess who went pee pee on the potty tonight??!!! That's right, Jack!

He had just gotten out of the shower and was running around naked when all of a sudden he started saying "pee pee". Since that usually means poop, I freaked and tried to get him into a diaper. He was running towards his potty that we keep in the playroom (he's just been playing with it for the past month) so I just followed him and sure enough, he sat down, and peed a little bit in the potty!!! Holy cow!

He was VERY proud of himself and helped me flush the 10 drops of pee pee down the toilet and rinse out his potty.

So, pretty much he's totally potty trained now, right???!!!! :)

I wish!!!

Puppa Love

Looks pretty innocent, right?

Hmmm... that alien guy looks pretty tasty...

Alien extraction
I love you anyway Puppa Sinney (Finley)

Date Night

Last night Brandon and I got dressed up, went out to dinner, and went to see this show. It was fabulous!!! We had a great time all by ourselves. How wonderful it is to eat dinner as slowly as you want!!Thanks Moe Moe and Bampa for the tickets and for babysitting!!!

Pictures

Here are a bunch of pictures from the past few weeks....

Me at 23 weeks

(is it just me, or do I look WAY bigger than I did at this point last time??)

Jack on top of our snow mound next to the driveway.

Too much snow!

Jack and our buddy, Jess, from Kansas City/Chicago

Checking out the choo choos- last year I had to help him walk around the dome. This year he ran around like he owned the place!

Bad hair day/yummy brownie mix to lick!

(Notice my best Christmas present EVER! A Kitchen Aid mixer from my parents!!!!)

Jack had his 2nd day in the 2 year old room at school today. His new teacher is Miss Yolanda. There were some tears yesterday morning when he had to leave his beloved Miss Nikki and head upstairs with the other 2 year olds, but today he did just great! No tears at all and he is learning how to drink out of a regular cup!! He gives Miss Yolanda big hugs goodbye- a good sign!

Get your butt back in bed!!!!

Instead of taking a nap he's reorganizing his closet. Apparently there isn't room for the humidifier box in the closet and a better spot is the hallway. Don't make me come in there!!!!!

Baby Girl

We had our 22 week appointment today. All is well with baby girl. Her heartbeat was nice and strong and I'm measuring right at 22 weeks.

Snow Day!

Our 3rd snow day of the year!! Wahoo!!!

Bring on the 12-18 inches of snow!!!!!!!!!!!