Tid Bits

(**This is a long one, but there's lots of pics at the bottom!!**)

Life has been slowly getting back to normal here over the past few weeks. Bodie hits 11 weeks old today. It's hard to believe he'll be 3 months old soon. I have these moments of sadness because I'm 99.9999% certain he's our last baby and therefore have many thoughts like, "this is the last time I'll have a 2 month old." Hahah! Self torturous....I know. He has been an amazing baby and I'm getting close to finding my "groove" again. Hahah! Not that I ever had this ship running like a well oiled machine, but it ran fairly well.... most of the time. I like schedules that are kept and a little bit of predictability. This week we haven't left the house so we can get Bodie on our regular schedule. I let him develop a habit of napping in the baby swing. We're heading to PA for 2 weeks, next weekend, and I didn't want to have to take the swing along with me. So breaking him of that habit was part of my mission this week. After a few rough days, no more naps in the swing! Yeah! He's been napping in his crib all week, and the time line is better too. He now wakes up around 7:30am, goes back for his morning nap at 8:30-9am, sleeps til around 11:30am. He then naps again with the big boys from 1 to 3pm or 4pm. Then it's bath around 6 and bed around 7. It's amazing how nice it is to have them all nap at the same time in the afternoon. I can workout, shower, prep for dinner, hear myself think.....hahahha! It's nice! We also have been working on him taking a bottle. After weeks of refusing it, one night Tom tried again, and he just took it like he's been doing it forever. Wwhhhheeewwwww! I was worried about that one! Plus now Tom gets to help feed him which he loves doing!
Of course, since we love chaos, Ty decided he was ready for a big boy bed this week as well. He's been begging to sleep in a bed forever and we've tried it a few times and he just stays up and plays so he landed himself back in his crib. But last Thursday he was throwing a full on hissy fit wanting to sleep in the bed at nap time so I let him. Once again, it turned out to be a disaster. (We had Jack and Ty sharing a room so Ty not sleeping = Jack not sleeping which then = CRANKY boys!!!) So after around 30 minutes of going in and making Ty lay back down I put him back in his crib. Well, he proved he was part monkey because in 2.6 seconds he was up and over the side and his tiny hiney was running back to the big boy bed. GAME OVER!!! So I waved the white flag of motherhood and rearranged the guest room and that is now where Ty is sleeping. I was pretty sure this would backfire in many ways. Jack and Ty have been sleeping in the same room for months now. I assumed they would miss each other. Apparently that is NOT the case. It actually seems like the bed time routine has smoothed out a little. In time, when Ty gets this -going right to bed- thing down, they'll be roomies yet again. But for now our little set up is working and I'm so proud of Ty!
And we can't leave Jack out of the chaos either....we've been trying to get him potty trained overnight too.He's 100% during the day but doesn't always make it overnight. He's been wearing pull-ups to bed for a while now and we think they're letting him be lazy. So last week we used our last pull-up. There was a short period of time where he was waking himself up to go through the night but it's been a long time since he's done that. So when Tom and I head to bed we wake Jack up so he can go to the bathroom one more time. It's been over a week and last night was his first accident in his sleep. Poor guy! He's not waking himself up when he needs to go but we're hoping by him not wearing a pull up he'll get the idea. He really hates when his stuffed animals need to get a "bath" so that should help too. :-)
So putting Bodie on a new schedule, getting him to take a bottle, Ty in a big boy bed, and no more Pull-Ups for Jack has been what's keeping me busy lately. I feel like I am starting to function normally again, and feeling human is always nice! Hahaha! Tom and I are going to get to celebrate all these feats of ours with a little R&R next weekend. We're heading to Ohio for 24 hours, for a wedding for one of our close friends! Tom's mom is flying down here to watch the boys for us. The last time I was away from my family was when I was pregnant with Ty and working in CA. I had a business trip in NC for a week. So this will be the first time I'm away from Ty and Bo overnight. I'm a little nervous, only because Bodie's so little and Ty's pretty stubborn. I know Sandy is highly qualified, having raised 3 boys of her own, but I just hope the boys are good for her. I'm so excited about the wedding! Not only will it be great to see our friends get married but I get to wear a dress and makeup and NAIL POLISH!!! I've rediscovered a love of nail polish! hahhahaah! Its really the little things!!! Then after the wedding, the boys and I are going to head to PA for 2 weeks so every one can meet Bodie. Sandy is going to ride with me to help with my traveling circus! HAhaha! Then my mom's going to help me drive back to KY and fly back to PA. I'm so grateful to have our parents! I can only imagine how it would be trying to get into a bathroom stall with 3 children at some scary rest stop in West Virginia on the way home. Hahaha! Like I said....SOOOOOO Grateful!!
So that's the latest and greatest from here. It all doesn't sound exciting but in our little world it is! :-)

Playing Head-Bandz

I discovered the "Instagram" App for my phone...love this!

Why wouldn't Ty stick his head in the Bumbo??

My boys (instagramed)

Jack and our neighbor Brook's hermit crab.

The recliner is no longer big enough!! :-)

The double decker bus tour...

Ty LOVES holding Bo.

Sporting the snow boots in 115* weather.

He's so smiley! He was trying to fit both hands in his mouth!

I love instagram!!

A week with Oma & Pop Pop

My Mom and Dad (AKA: Oma and Pop Pop) drove down from PA to spend some time with us last week. This was the first time that they got to see Bodie, who is 2 months old today. We had such a great week! The weather was great here, no rain, hot and sunny. We spent a lot of time in the kiddie pool and running through the sprinkler toy. We went to the zoo one day, I was pretty sure I started to melt walking around there. It was HOT. We tried to cut it a little short but we couldn't leave without Jack seeing the vampire bats and snakes. Jack has that place memorized and knew that we walked right by the herpaquarium. He could be a tour guide there for sure!

It wasn't all fun and games though, my poor parent's definitely earned their stay. They spruced up the outside of our house too. We got rid of mulch and some grass and laid rock and planted some more trees around the front of the house. It looks really great and I'm so appreciative of their help! Having 3 crazy boys hasn't helped me be very productive on many days to say the least!

Half way through the week my mom and I sent my Dad and Tom to Chicago for the weekend for their Father's Day gifts. They got to see 2 baseball games at Wrigley. For one of the games they had seats 8 rows behind the SF Giants dugout. I was really jealous!! They had a great time, other than getting caught in a torrential down pour at Navy Pier one night. And my mom and I had a blast being entertained by the 3 monkeys. Jack even got to go to another movie with my Mom. They saw Cars 2 and he loved it! (a whole bag a twizzlers and all...hhahhahah!)

Of course I've spent this week detoxing the boys from the attention they had with Oma and Pop Pop. They were definitely spoiled! All the boys had to do was say "Oma" and my mom was melting all over them! Hahah!! I wish we could see family more often!!

Thanks Mom and Dad for spending the week with us! We had a great time! I love that we're at least close enough to drive to see each other now. The 3 boys and I will be heading to PA in a few weeks to visit everyone else and we can't wait!!

It was HOT, so there was a lot of time in the pool!

Oma and the boys

Watching Wall-E

Our day at the zoo...




He was so proud of his red dragon!

Bodie passed out on Oma, and Ty couldn't let him have all the attention.

Bubbles!!

Oma and Pop Pop brought a sprinkler toy along...it was a huge hit!!


Nothing beats a story and popsicles with Pop Pop.

Helping Oma with the landscaping.

Bye Bye Mulch!!! Hello pretty rocks!


What's more fun than real wheel barrow rides??

Ty would NOT cooperate for pictures on the morning my parents left.

Here's Ty running away from the camera! My bribe of M&Ms didn't even work!

The Ty-less group shot! He's so stubborn! :-)

Swing set

The boys got a swing set for their birthdays. I've been looking at play sets for MONTHS trying to pick the right one and of course get a good deal. (Thank you to Boobie and Umpa, and Uncle Tim and also to Wal-mart and your free Site to Store shipping!) It's insane how expensive it can be to buy one that comes with installation, which was a bummer. So the task fell to Tom to build it. Poor Tom, for not being that guy who loves tools he's had to build a lot of things lately. I helped with a few parts but 95% of it was Tom. He did a great job too. Since it was raining here when the play set came in, he built most of it in parts in the garage. Then we moved the big pieces outside and assembled it into 2 big parts. When my parents came into town last weekend they helped us move it to it's final location and put it all together. My mom even added some accessories to the swing set, a telescope, a wheel and a swinging Tarzan bar. The boys LOVE it, and I love it because it's right there in our back yard and we don't have to pack up everyone and find a playground. The highlight for Jack is going down the slide first thing in the morning when it's still covered in dew. He flies down the slide like a rocket and finds it hysterical when he launches himself about 5 feet away from the normal landing spot. Ty loves climbing up the ladder. He's up and down that thing constantly. It's definitely a good addition to the yard!






The boys took off running when they saw it set up in the yard for the first time.