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.

7 weeks....almost

Bodie will be 7 weeks old on Friday. He doesn't feel that old to me. My days seem to be flying by. He's such a great baby! Tom and I have been very blessed with our kiddos. They're great eaters and sleepers. Sleep is so important!! Hahah! Jack slept through the night at 6 weeks, Ty was at 8 weeks and Bodie wins with starting to sleep through the night at 5 weeks! I feel like he's been consistent enough that I can talk about it out loud without jinxing it! (but I'm still going to knock on wood!) Bodie goes to bed around 10 or 10:30 and will usually wake up between 6-7am. I really don't know how we got so lucky! His day time schedule is pretty great too. He's usually up for about an hour and half and is napping for 3-4 hours in between.
Bo's also starting to get a little personality too. He has an amazing smile! Of course I haven't been able to capture his big smiles on camera yet, but I did get a few little ones. His feet and shoulders are ticklish. He LOVES bath time and staring at himself in the mirror. He always calms right down when Tom holds him and seems to really like being outside. Like every newborn, he knows exactly when I'm about to eat dinner because he wakes up screaming. hahahah! He definitely wants to be fed ASAP when he wakes up and his angry cry is pretty scary. And just like Jack...he loves the swing!
Bo is a great baby! He's let me feel like a human again pretty quickly. I've been fortunate too because I didn't have any postpartum blues with him. I had them with Ty and Jack. I didn't realize that it could be possible to not feel all crazy and sad after having a baby. I thought it was how you were supposed to feel after giving birth and letting your hormones balance out. But I never had the down moments after Bodie. It's been really great not having anxiety attacks and crying to Tom every night for weeks. I'm not quite sure how he put up with me after we had the first 2 boys. He is such an amazing husband and Dad!! Tom-I love you and thank you for everything you do and put up with around here! :-)

Jack and Bo (Ty was napping)

A little smile

His common serious face. :-)


And since Ty wasn't available for the new Bodie pictures here's 2 videos of Ty holding Bodie the other day. The first one is just Ty being entertaining. We've been trying to get him to roll his tongue. When we asked him to stick out his tongue he just keeps his lips closed and hums, like his tongue was really sticking out. Of course when I'm videoing him he does it right. Hahah! Then the 2nd video is of how he wouldn't give Bodie back to me without putting up a fight. He had a bear hug of a hold on him too. Hahah!

Gone fishing...

Tom and I took the boys fishing for the first time yesterday. We met one of Tom's co-workers at a little lake in E-town. I haven't been fishing in over 20 years and I believe the same goes for Tom. We had such a great time.

The super hot weather broke here over the weekend so it was a cool 80 degrees and overcast which was nice. Ty wasn't into fishing so much but throwing rocks into the spill way was all he needed. Jack fished for awhile and actually caught a blue gill. His attention span didn't last too long. He'd cast his line, then go help Ty throw rocks then when something bit, he'd come running back to reel it in. His little Transformers fishing rod did pretty well. I think Jack's favorite thing was making friends with the worms. Hahahah! He would dig a worm out of the container, play with him for a little bit then give him a new home in the cup holder of the folding chair. One time I looked and there were 4 worms in the cup holder. I was actually really surprised that he was all over the worms like he was. Ty's more fearless than Jack, but not when it came to the worms or even the fish. Jack touched all the fish we caught and even threw back a few of the blue gills. I was pretty proud of him. He does have a huge interest in all kinds of animals and bugs. He had a great time! Ty loved helping me reel in the line but would take off when we'd catch a fish. He wouldn't hold a worm either but did spend about 20 minutes chasing and picking up ants. Of course he was as gentle as a 2 year old could be so my apologies to that ant colony. :-) Tom started out a little rough with his first cast going straight into a tree and having to break his line free. hahahaha! He did redeem himself though. First off, he surprised me with baiting his own hook. If anyone knows Tom....he doesn't do well with needles. I don't think he could let his boys see their mom hook a worm and not their dad. Hahahah! So this was a pretty big deal. Of course he was also the lucky fisherman of the day with the biggest catch. He caught a large mouth bass that was around 18 inches long. I caught a large mouth as well but it jumped off my line as I was about to pull it onto the dock. Bummer! Those were the only bass we saw, everything else we caught were little blue gills. We threw everything back but I think Tom would have mounted that bass he caught if we kept him. :-)
We had such a great day! I can't wait for all of us to go fishing again!

Bodie letting me know he wanted to fish too.

Prepping the rods

Throwing rocks

Ty picking up ants

Hooking the worm

Jack's first cast.

Ty helping me reel

Ty's alter ego...Elton John having a snack.

The first catch....and Ty's snack all over his sweet little face.

I love Jack's face in this picture!!

His friend Wormie #1.

Tom's big catch. Can you tell how excited he was??

Jack's big catch.

I think they were recapping the day's events.