Tanlines? What tanlines?

I cannot keep clothes on this boy. One minute he's fully clothed, the next he's free as a bird.

I may or may not be addicted to baby tushies. There are just so many nooks and cranny's to them. I need help :o)

Hazing: Mama style

So Baby Cole went from a snotty nose on Monday to fever-snotty nose-Mama can we see each other every hour of the night? Friday, so we made a little visit to the doctor today. I LOVE my pediatrician. He was my pediatrician, he knows my family and I love him. End of story. Except it's not because in order to get to see my lovely pediatrician I go through hazing. Every. time.
    So we get in, sign in quickly and sit in their lovely spacious waiting room. There are toys galore (which the boys are not allowed to even look at because hello? germs much?), lovely windows with tons of natural light and two tvs that play Toy Story 3 non stop. Basically Fin wants to live there. Wouldn't you?

So we typically sit there for about 5 minutes before a cheerful nurse calls us back to our room. Which is about 5 ftx5ft. And has no windows. And then we wait...

I swear they put us in there and immediately shut off the air conditioning. EVERY TIME we go we have to sit in that little tiny room for at least 20 minutes and it's horrible. Both boys are bored to death and couped up and we just sit there and listen to a million screaming kids receiving shots. It's like chinese water torture.

To pass the time I spin them on the doctor's stool and throw cotton balls and tongue depressors at them. Yes, I do firmly believe in getting my co-pays worth :o)

Do you see the space with which I have to work with?

Right when we typically reach our turning point where Fin is banging on the walls, we're all sweating and Cole wants to nurse out of boredom then we hear that welcome "knock knock" on the door and my hero Dr. Steel walks in. We love him but the whole experiance is enough to make me want to treat my kids' illnesses old school with a good healthy dose of leeches and castor oil.

For my Mama heart...

Just a sweet moment that I want to remember...
Last night it was just the boys and I for dinner so I decided to use a Qdoba coupon and give myself the night off from cooking. I took the boys out in the pouring rain, got our food, got both settled in their booster seat and high chair and sat down to eat. Except Cole was boycotting (loudly) his highchair and ended up crawling all over me and fruit punch was spilled and black beans were thrown until I was more than a little frazzled. Fin seemed oblivious to it all and just kept chatting away to me about the pool, his friends, and why he loves root beer. He just seemed so grown up and my little buddy. When we were cleaning up the table Fin slipped his little hand in mine and said "I liked talking like that for a little minute". And I loved that night.

The elephant in the room

Overall Pat and I have a pretty harmonious relationship. We try not to sweat the small stuff and we "learned" during our first year of marriage how to communicate about disagreements without it leading to an arguement. Because really, who wants to argue? It also helps that if we are disagreeing about something we usually end up laughing because it's hard to take ourselves seriously :o) However there is an obstacle in our marriage that truly might take us to counseling. Enter exhibit A...

We will call him "bane" as in the "bane of our marriage". Bane entered our lives about a year ago when Fin threw our old remote in a bathtub. Pat ran to Walgreens to get a new one and came home with this monstrosity. When he took it out of the bag I laughed thinking it was a gag gift. But then no other small remote followed. That was it.  Pat responded to my cries of "you CAN"T be serious" with the age old man statement of "but it was on sale". To which I replied..."FOR A REASON!". Back and forth we went. It seriously was like having an Ipad without anything cool about it. It was heavy, had enormous buttons and was the length of my arm. We had a legit fight about it which ended in me refusing to use it and Pat using it every chance he got while declaring his love for it. Of course he loved it, it was his size!
    A few months later we got satellite and had to use a new remote (score!). Bane fell by the wayside until this past weekend when I was organizing and moving some furniture. I found Bane while Pat was at the gym and quickly ran outside and threw it away in the outside trash. When Pat came home I proudly showed off my ornanization. Pat applauded me with a smirk on his face and said, "It looks awesome but I think you're missing something" and pulled the dang remote from underneathe his shirt. He found it in the outside trash while throwing something away.
    I will never be rid of that thing...it's like a cockroach that you can't kill. But try I will! I have big plans for Bane next month when Pat's gone on a business trip. It may or may not involve a long drive on a deserted road.

Prayer

Breaking up the usual lighthearted posts to ask for prayer for this sweet boy. I've followed his blog for a long time now and this little boy needs every prayer possible. He has EB which is a skin disease where almost every part of his skin is covered in blisters and raw open wounds...for no reason. He's completely blind now b/c of blisters growing over his eyes. His teeth are rotted and he has no finger or toe nails. It is just a horrible disease. His mom cares for him 24/7 with the help of her parents. She is going through a divorce now since the father left the family recently unable to deal with everything. I just cannot fathom this pain.
     Tripp seems to be nearing the end of his time and is in just indescribable pain. I'm rejoicing that soon he'll feel no pain just the love of his Father, but at the same time cannot imagine what his mom is going through. This has been her life for 2 years. Every second of her days and nights have been with him. How you survive that loss I don't know but it makes me hold my boys so much tighter. So please pray, and hold your sweet children with a grateful heart, even if your house is a mess and your laundry is building up.
Here is the blog to follow the updates--> http://randycourtneytripproth.blogspot.com/

Pat-a-palooza

Pat-a-palooza has officially begun. This is what we call Pats birthday every year because somehow it lasts a good week long. Today we celebrated him all day long and had such a sweet time as a family.

We started out bringing Pat breakfast at his work this morning. Fin LOVES going to John Deere, "helping" Pat work his lift and looking for "dead turtle heads" in the pond. He really thinks when the turtles stick their heads out that its just random little heads floating. How morbid is that?!?

We got nice steaks for dinner (nice as in not 4 dollars from Target) and had Pats parents over for dinner. I made a feast of twice baked potatoes, creamed corn, marinated mushrooms and crescents. Pat made blue cheese steaks. I could eat this everyday. And weight 300 lbs.

Fin loves his Pa-Pa.

The boys love Grandma because she is the life of every party. Who else can say that about their Grandma? Case in point she brought Spiderman Pez and Rainbow M&M cookies when she came over tonight. And a boom box. Which we then proceeded to have a dance party with.

Birthday boy with his boys. I don't know why Cole looks like a giant baby here. He looks bigger then Fin.

Tomorrow is day 2 of Pat-a-palooza. My mom is watching the boys all.morning.long and I'm taking Pat to a skeet shooting course and then we're eating lunch out. Without interruptions. And kiddie menus. And high chairs. And "please dont stand up in the booth and dance to this music". We are pumped to say the least. And grateful to my mom.

How we beat the heat

We like to treat ourselves to 2 dollar frozen mochas at the Wake Zone. Decaf style :o)

Cole is none too happy that he was not given a drink. I told him I'd make him a milk smoothie, mama-style.

I also find it helpful to drag out my southern drawl and bat my eyelashes at my husband while protesting that I'm too pretty to be sweatin' in the kitchen. Sometimes it works but it's worth the try!

Just some helpful tips :o)

Sequence of Events

Fin frantically "fixing" things on his tool box before Cole finds him.

Guess who's here? What is that? Is it edible?

Some use it for screws, some use it for snack.

Alright well let me just show you how to use this drill...I do watch Handy Manny.

I'm bored, what else can I find that's dangerous to play with?

It's been really funny watching the boys learn to share toys. You would think the almost three year old would have the hard time but actually it's Cole! If he sees something Fin has that he wants he yells like a foghorn in his face until Fin drops it out of self defense. It really is the loudest monotone noise you've heard. My easy-peasy baby has developed opinions lately and it has thrown us all for a little loop.

Detox

So we've been attempting to detox from the beach. Last week was glorious, filled with sand bars, fuzzy navels and should I eat a second sandwhich or 5 mini snickers? dilemnas. My biggest problems were hunting down 3 boys worth of sandy swimsuits and moldy towels. Also I discovered Nutella which I then proceeded to dip my breakfast, lunch and dinner in. So yummy. This week is a different story though.

7 loads of laundry later I feel like we are settled back in, however begrudgingly. The boys and I miss having Pat around during the day, Fin misses all his relatives, Cole screams hysterically whenever he sees his carseat, making for some fun errand trips around town, and I have a line of (unspeakable name) ants marching around my kitchen taunting me. Emerald Isle, take me away!

O well, hopefully these pictures can hold me over until next year.

Pat and Fin on a crabby hunt. I don't go on those jokers unless I'm wearing sneakers. I don't trust 'em.

It's a good thing he's so darn cute b/c I have no idea what to do with his hair. I call it his "pastor hair".

Nanny always has "chewies" for Fin.

Who me? Eating sand? Never happened.

How stressful is this?

Cole and Pops are best friends. I die.

We are avid bocci-ers. And yes we did have our own measuring tape this year. Look at that form.

Uncle Rob buried Fin. Its the most stationary I've ever seen him.

 *Sigh* all good things must come to an end. This week we are preparing for Pat-a-palooza. What is this you ask? Well my husbands birthday is Friday and somehow his birthday always becomes a weeklong event. I'm not complaining because there are usually a lot of desserts involved. Now if you'll excuse me I must go dip my head in a vat of Nutella.

Excuse me, have we met?

Along with having fabulous family time this week, Pat and I have so enjoyed getting to reconnect and have a lot of one on one time with each other. My family has been so gracious helping out with the boys so we can do things like have a date night, go out in the water together, and even *gasp* have a conversation with no interruptions.

Monday night we went out on a date at a waterfront restaurant. It was GORGEOUS.

We were a big fan of the food.

What a sweet face he has.

Our view as we ate.

We obviously hated the food.

Banana pudding parfait. Get in my belly.

Fin entertained the folks while we were gone. What will he do next week when 800 people aren't hanging on his every word. He's in for a rude awakening.

Another day during naps, Pat, Sage, Will and I went Jetskiing. It was SO much fun. This is Sarah and I with our jetski ready faces. Game on.

                          We will all be in mourning when this week is over, but what a blessed time we've had.

Vacay Baby

Well we are on vacation at the beach this week with my family. It has been heavenly. It would be completely perfect if Cole wasn't boycotting sleep. It's either because of the teething or he's offended about sleeping in a pack-n-play in a laundry room. Either way, he is letting his opinions be known.

Not all my family could make it. This is the who we're staying with. We have dubbed them "the core".

We've mainly been doing a lot of eating and resting and eating some more. Pat's favorite part of the day is noon when he makes himself a fluffernutter appetizer sandwhich and then makes a huge sandwhich with at least 3 different meats on it. Then he grins, chuckles, and digs in.

The boys have been spoiled by Nanny cuddles, Pops singing theme songs them, and playing with the Aunts and Uncle Will. Isn't my mom beautiful? No one would know she's a grandma!

Fin's been enjoying a pool table downstairs. He plays pool 2 year old style, by gathering the balls and rolling them down the stairs.

Cole spends a lot of his time wishing he knew how to play pool. He's been frittering away his time crawling and looking for electrical cords to chew on.

Don't you worry, despite playing hard all day and staying up late at night doing crabby hunts, we're still up at 6am! Hence my rough morning look.

We've taken lots of long beach walks...

and had lots of post nap cuddles.

Thank goodness we still have half a week left. Now if you'll excuse me I have some homemade chocolate peanut butter fudge to demolish.

The Cows called us

Today was one of our favorite days of the year: Cow Appreciation Day at Chik-fila. I didn't know about it until this morning so we ran home, threw on some white shirts and spots and headed out with my neighbor Merideth and her 5 kids. I was a little resentful that I had to dress like a cow. I feel like since I'm nursing still that should qualify me as a cow already. Too much?

Fin Loved the whole event and looked so darn cute.

Cole with the lady neighbors. He's a dalmation cow who hasn't gotten his spots yet :o) Really I knew that if I put spots on him he would just eat them anyways.

                                                             We can't wait until next year!

Damsel in Distress

Fin saw me trying to stuff my vaccuum into our overcrowded closet and told me to hold on.

Five minutes and one full fireman costume later he came to my rescue and insisted on doing it himself. Thank goodness I'm surrounded by men, I don't have to fret now when I need to change the toilet paper roll or open the fridge (another newly aquired Fin skill).

Cuz you gotta have friends...

As we recover from fireworks and sunscreen and s'mores from the weekend, I've been in a reflective mood lately. If tomorrow was Thanksgiving and my dad was doing his usual "pass the bowl of mints around and take 1 (or 7) and tell people what you're thankful for this year" I would say I am thankful for this being the year of friends. Ever since I've had Fin I've been praying for friends for both my boys and I for this stage of life that we're in. I didn't know any stay at home moms when I became one and felt like there was one big giant club of moms that already knew each other. This year though I've really seen the Lord bring sweet friends into my life, allowingboth Fin and Cole to have playmates and me to have people to talk to who don't throw tantrums or ask me for a snack constantly :o)

Fin's forever friend from the get go has been his cousin Emma. She lives down the street and they are one week apart. Emma is stinkin hilarious with her little (big) personality and comedic flair. Her mom Kerry is pretty funny herself and Fin and I both love playdates with them. Kerry is someone you can be so REAL with about parenting and she never makes you feel bad for venting or being honest. A real life text convo we had recently was I texted her saying "Is it bad that I want to throw myself off the deck after hearing Fin cough every other second?" She replied with "Is it bad that everytime my daughter sniffs I want to blow an airhorn in her face?". Love it. Love her

Annie and her parents live two doors down from us and we've just gotten to know them the past 6 months. We love having sweet Christian friends so close and enjoying hanging out in each others backyards and joking around together. Annie calls Finley her "Fin friend" which makes her sound like a Quaker. So funny.

This is Fin on a lunch date with his friend Zeke. Zeke's mom Jess is someone I went to highschool with. We never had many classes together in school so were never very close but have reconnected recently and I'm so glad we have! They moved back to this area and Fin considers Zeke his little buddy.

What you can't have friends when you're 9 months old? Coley LOVES him some Dash, Emma's dog. He follows him around growling with excitement.

Lastly is the friend to all of us. The friend that is always there for you with free kids cookies and beautiful clothes and decor to drool over. This friend is Target. Don't my boys look thrilled to be looking at sheets with me?

But really, does anyone need a friend when you have this sweet face smiling at you like you hung the moon? Yea I didn't think.so.