A great vacation week

I had such a great week off with my kids. We stayed busy going bowling, cooking, playing games, shopping, going to Bounce, out to lunch and celebrating my birthday and our niece Tessa's birthday.
A few months ago we went bowling and the kids had a great time, so I thought we would try it again. When we got there the parking lot was packed. I thought for sure they wouldn't have open bowling and I would have very disappointed kids. I was right, when we walked in, it was so crowded. There was a high school bowling competition. All of the lanes were taken, but the last four. The woman behind the counter said we were more than welcome to use one of those lanes. Perfect! The last time we went both kids wore their shoes to bowl in, but this time they wore bowling shoes. Jackson thought they were fabulous. They were a florescent orange with a light yellow strip. Aubrin's were red and blue. When I went to put them on her she said, "Mom, I not wearing those." I asked her why and she replied, "They don't look pretty and they not match my shirt." OH MY GOODNESS!!! What have I created at the age of two. After a few minutes Jackson and I talked her into wearing them and in the end Aubrin thought they were pretty great.

We also spent an afternoon at Bounce. Aubrin is getting much more daring on the trampoline and was even willing to work with one of the coaches for a few minutes. I think I see gymnastic classes in both of their futures.

On Thursday we had a low key birthday celebration for me. My mom and dad stopped by for a bit on their way to Chicago to see Erin and her family. We sang Happy Birthday and they brought yummy cupcakes. After Todd got home from work we had dinner and a yummy cake that Jackson and I made earlier in the day. The kids gave me a fabulous necklace with both of their names on it. LOVE it. Todd surprised me with a Pandora bracelet with a few charms on it~ LOVED that too! On Friday night we went out with friends and family to a piano bar. It was a great night out.



Today we celebrated our niece Tessa's birthday. I can't believe that she is three already! She was so excited to have all of her cousins over and open presents. Krista surprised me and also had a cake for me. It was such a nice and thoughtful surprise. Thanks Krista!
Back to work in the morning. I get so spoiled being home with my babes for a week... 6 weeks until our spring break.

Benihana

I am so happy to have the week off and spend some extra time home with my babes. It's great that Todd had yesterday and today off. So sad that he can't join us for the rest of the week. Whenever we have time off we try and plan a few fun outings with the kids. We have been wanting to take the kids to dinner at Benihana. We thought the kids would get a kick out of someone cooking their dinner in front of them and doing tricks with their food. Todd called this morning and made reservations for 5:00, but the lady said they didn't open until 5:30~ so 5:30 it was. We thought for sure it wouldn't be busy because it was a Tuesday and on the earlier side. When we pulled in we were a bit early, but that was okay because both kids were sleeping and a few extra minutes would do them both good. It was a non napping day for Aubrin today. It seems to be a trend when I'm home. She is just so concerned about what I am doing downstairs without her! When we pulled in we noticed about 8 other cars sitting in the parking lot filled with people. Were all of these people waiting to eat dinner at 5:30? Who would have thought on a Tuesday night? Once the doors opened we made our way into the restaurant. I am so glad we made a reservation. When we went in we found out if you don't make a reservation you have to sit on another side of the restaurant and you order and are served like a typical restaurant. If you make a reservation it holds a spot for you at the cooking tables. Thank goodness we thought ahead! The place was packed.

As they took our group back to the table- our family, another couple and a mother and daughter, I could tell that a few of them were thinking, "Oh no, we are stuck at the table with the two kids!" When we sat down I reassured them that Jackson and Aubrin are great restaurant goers.

The kids were both excited to see that their menus turned into chef hats. Jackson wore his, but Aubrin decided hers was better next to my purse on the floor. Before going I checked out the menu so I could give the kids their options on the way there. They were both pretty set on chicken and steak. Once our chef started cooking, Jackson couldn't take his eyes off of the food being flipped and chopped. Todd and I knew he was loving every minute of it, but he is so intense when watching or learning something for the first time. The look on his face was so serious. Aubrin thought it was pretty great as well, although she was asking the chef 100 questions and dancing to the music they had playing.

Todd and I were both so pleased to see that Jackson and Aubrin tried everything, and liked most of it. I was surprised to see that they both liked the shrimp appetizer. Aubrin loved the dipping sauce. Todd and I also loved our dinners too.

After dinner both kids had a small bowl of ice cream. I'm glad that Jackson and Aubrin didn't prove me wrong to the people we were sitting with. They were both great during dinner!

When we were driving home Jackson said, "I think I want to practice cooking when I get home." Sure enough, his coat wasn't even off and he was up in the playroom getting food together to make for us. He got all of the food and put it in his shopping cart and brought it downstairs. Then he had Todd, Aubrin and I sit at the table so he could cook in front of us. I know at dinner when he was watching so intensely he was thinking how he could do it at home. I love his imagination.

I'm glad we went and gave them a different and memorable experience for dinner.

Big Girl Bed

For the past three months we have had major sleeping issues in our house. With both Jackson and Aubrin, sleeping has always been a beautiful thing. At two months old they both started sleeping 12 hours a night. So when Aubrin started having sleep issues a few months ago, it was new territory for Todd and I. Aubrin has been having night terrors. I don't mean one here and there, more like 3-5 a night. Although, in the past couple of weeks we have had a couple of nights that she slept ALL NIGHT!!!!When I go into her room she is still asleep but crying, shaking and her little heart is pounding out of her chest. With her waking up so much during the night, she is not getting good sleep and is a bit cranky during the day. Aubrin doesn't remember having bad dreams when she wakes up. Although after one of her dreams she was alert and said, "Mom, there is a purple bear in Jackson's room and he is using my Chap stick." I guess that could be scary to a two year old! Aubrin also is a fish out of water when she sleeps. She starts at the top of her bed, a few minutes later she is at the bottom, then moves back to the top. Todd and I thought maybe she was also waking up at night because she didn't have enough room to sleep- at this point we are questioning everything. So about a month a go we decided to put her in a big bed. I started looking for bedding for her. I found a couple different ones and let her pick out which one she liked best. I also knew that this might be a tough transition so we waited until this week because I am off of school. So if sleeping didn't go well it wouldn't be as bad because I wouldn't have to face 26 five year olds the next morning.

Aubrin and Jackson worked hard to take some of the pieces of the bed out of the boxes. Aubrin asked Jackson if she could borrow some of his tools so she could help Todd take her toddler bed a part. Once her big bed was up, Aubrin could not stop smiling. She said, "Mom, I'm going to sleep all night in my bed like a big girl. Will you be so proud of me?"

Going to bed tonight went great! I hope the rest of the night goes just as well!

A weekend of specials...

On Friday Jackson had his Happy Heart celebration at school. He started working on his valentine's earlier in the week so he could pace himslef to make them for all of his friends in his class. Jackson did a great job counting out all of the Swedish Fish for the bags, writing his name and putting all of the heart stickers on. I signed up to bring fruit to the party, so the night before we spent time cutting hearts out of watermelon- I highly DO NOT recommend this! Good watermelon is hard to find in February so we had to cut several before we could get some keepers! They turned out cute, but it was a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be.

On Friday I spent the morning in Jackson's class. He had a great time with is friend Maddie painting and making crafts. At the end of the party all of the kids sat in a big circle and handed out their valentine's. Jackson was so excited to get "mail" from all of his classmates. After his party I dropped him back off at home with Sheila and Aubrin and off to work I went.

After work Todd dropped the kids off at my school and the three of us drove to my grandma's to celebrate her 85th birthday. Todd had to work and my dad was out of town, so we met my mom there. My grams was excited to see us and spend the evening with all of us. We just had a simple night of pizza and cupcakes, but it was so nice to be able to share he special day with her.

On Saturday morning my mom came over and we took the kids to Bounce. She had a great time watching the kids play on all of the equipment. We always have a great time when we go there. It's so nice to have a place to go to in the winter so the kids can get all of their energy out. Jackson's favorite part is playing with the parachute. After Bounce we dropped the kids off at home and I took my mom out to lunch in Milford to celebrate her belated birthday.

That evening we had a party to go, so my mom said that she would stay and watch the kids and sleep over so we could stay out and not have to worry about getting home. Todd and I had a great evening out visiting with friends and celebrating the health and recovery of our good friend Anthony.

The next morning when the kids woke up we did our annual valentine heart hunt. Since Valentine's Day falls on a Monday, there was no way we would have time to do it before I left for work tomorrow. So the kids hunted for the 24 hearts that I hid around the house. Then we enjoyed a valentine breakfast with heart shaped waffles.

It was a crazy busy weekend, but we got to spend time with a lot of special people.

Child of the Day

Jackson has been looking forward to today for the past couple of weeks. Child of the Day at school is a pretty big deal at our house. As we all know, Jackson is a planner. So he has known for weeks what he was going to bring for snack and had a couple ideas for show and share. So when he came down with the flu this weekend he was of course very concerned about going to school and missing is big day.

Why is it that children always throw up in the middle of the night? On Sunday morning at 1:30am I was coming out of Aubrin's room after calming her from a night terror and I hear, "Mom". I went into Jackson's room and he asked me to lay with him. He said that his belly hurt a bit. A few minutes later he said we should go into the bathroom because he thought he was going to be sick. My poor little guy was right. Although, he only threw up a little and right after he seemed to be okay. I took him downstairs and we set up camp in our bed. Jackson slept the rest of the night. He woke up later in the morning and was feeling a bit better, but he said his belly still hurt.. We started slow with crackers and water- GREAT! A bit later he asked if he could have pretzels...not so great. After that he slept pretty much the rest of the day with no more vomiting. On Monday morning when I left for work Jackson was still sleeping. When he got up he told Sheila that he felt better. She went into the kitchen to make him something to eat and when she came back he was sleeping again. Again, he slept the whole day. He then realized that he missed school and was a bit devastated. As the day went on our little guy started to perk up. He said,"I need to get better if I am going to be child of the day on Wednesday."

Last night we got Jackson's snack ready and his show and share. He decided to take his baseball bag filled with his bat, glove, helmet and balls. Sheila said that he was so excited when she dropped him off at school. When I got home from work he told me that he let all of his friends hold his bat and that he told them how he goes to baseball practice with all of the "big boys."

After hearing about his day, I told the kids that I had a surprise for them. I put a bag in the middle of the living room and told them to take a peek. Jackson was so excited when he pulled a very large plastic bag filled with fish out and Aubrin was equally excited when she pulled a bag filled with snails out.
An extra science kit was delivered to our school today and these little friends needed a home. I gladly said I would take them for the kid's tanks. Aubrin, very carefully used a spoon to drop a few snails into her tank and Jackson dumped the rest into his since his is so much larger. Aubrin also picked out a few fish for her tank and again the remaining ones went into Jackson's. We found a fish that didn't make the transfer from bag to tank, so Jackson thought we should flush them. As we stood around the toilet he said, "I'm so sorry for you fishy~ bye-bye."
Jackson and Aubrin were very excited to stay up a little later so they could show daddy the new treasures in their tanks.

Snow Day

With the "Big Storm" coming, we knew yesterday that school would be closed today. It was so nice to be able to tell the kids that we would be home in the morning when they got up and also not to get the phone call at 4:30am.
This morning when we got up we were having a bit of a lazy morning playing and drinking coffee. Todd decided it would be a good idea to get outside and start his first round of snow blowing. After Todd being out for a bit Jackson decided that he wanted to join him. Aubrin on the other hand wanted nothing to do with going outside. She said it was way to cold out. Aubrin thought it would be a wonderful idea to get into my make-up and make her eyes look "beautiful". While we were playing Aubrin had an accident and wet her pants. Aubrin NEVER has accidents. I didn't make a big deal out of it and we just moved on. 20 minutes later she had another accident. I thought this was weird, but again, didn't make a big deal out of it. A few minutes later Aubrin said that she needed to use the bathroom. So we went into the bathroom and sure enough my little peanut had a bit of blood in her urine. UGH!!!!!!! So I called my pediatrician, but they were closed because of the weather. I called the on call doctor and she said that I needed to take her to the ER. It wasn't an emergency, but if it was a urinary track infection it needed to be treated before she got a fever or it got worse. I was a bit surprised by all of this seeing as Aubrin had just finished up meds on Sunday for a urinary track infection. After being on medication for 10 days I would have thought it would be gone.
Thank goodness I only live a mile from the hospital. When we got to the ER we were the only ones there-PERFECT! I filled out paperwork and we were taken right back. Aubrin had to go to the bathroom in a cup and was such a trooper! The doctor came in and right away I knew it wasn't going to go well. It was a male with a deep voice. As he was asking me questions I could feel her hold getting tighter around my neck. He started to examine her and she said, "I don't really like boys. Can I have a girl?" I think it caught him by surprise that my little lady was so vocal. As the exam went on I think he decided that a female doctor may be better as well. Finally 2 hours later.... a female doctor came in and told us that her urine tested positive for a urinary track infection. They gave her some meds and we were on our way. They recommended that I go and see our pediatrician in the next few days and also to see a Urologist. As we were driving home Aubrin said, "Mom, that was not a very fun field trip you took me on!" Poor girl!
As we pulled in the driveway Jackson was outside with Todd playing. He was having a great time sledding down the hills in the backyard.

As the day went on and Aubrin was feeling better, we decided to make cookies. I can remember walking into my grandma's house and smelling that sweet smell of cookies baking in the oven. I also remember standing on my tiptoes to reach into the bowl to dip my fingers into the cookie dough. Jackson was so excited to use his baking set that he got for Christmas. As we were making the cookies Jackson said, "Mom, where is the package?" I am not usually a "from scratch" kinda gal, so he was referring to the package we usually take the cookies out of and then place on the cookie sheet. The kids had a great time measuring everything out and stirring all of the ingredients. It seemed like a lot of ingredients, but again, making cookies from scratch is not typical for me, so I just went with it. Wow, did we make a lot of cookies today. When I talked to my mom I asked her about grandma's recipe and she told me it was tripled!!!! No wonder I was baking cookies for 6 hours! Although, smelling those cookies brought back some sweet memories for me this afternoon. I hope the kids enjoyed it as much as I did.