Full Moon Today?

Wow, we had the strangest day!  It was one weird thing after another.  We finally surrendered to it at one point and began laughing so hard we were crying.  Is there anything better than laughing so hard you are crying???  It doesn't happen all that often but when it does you almost feel like every little weight sitting in your shoulders has been instantly lifted.  I digress...

At first glance you could say that nothing really went right today.  As I thought more about it, the day was actually great because every instance that seemingly didn't go our way, actually turned into something good.

We kicked off the day with Jack and Dad going to hockey.  Jack spent 5 minutes on the ice during the 1/2 hour pre-lesson practice and decided he was done and wanted to go home.  Corey did not have high hopes for the lesson and was bummed about it.  The lesson started and Jack kicked it into high gear - well, maybe more like low gear - but the point is he was moving and wasn't the last kid to finish each of the drills.  He kicked some butt and for the first time did not earn his Mrs. Towiggins nickname.

We quickly changed clothes and headed out to grab some lunch at Mc. D's before Griffin's birthday party.  Timing was tight as we had exactly 25 minutes to get there, eat, and head out for the party.  Half way there, I realized I left my brand new phone on the hood of my car.  Oh no, not again!!!  I did this once before and it was smashed to pulverines by a passing car.  Immediate u-turn and the hunt was on to find my little red wonder that has become my left arm.  Alas!  We spotted it in the middle of our busy road.  Surprisingly, it was untouched and in perfect condition.  Whew, dodged a bullet there!

All went well with lunch so we headed over to the party joint.  As we walked in I announced to the greeter that we were there for Griffin's party.  I knew something was amiss when she looked at me like I was crazy.  Are we at the wrong location?  Do we have the wrong day?  Have we completely lost it?  Dad got on the horn with Eric and asked "isn't the party today?" and Eric replied "no, it's tomorrow, you're there right now?'  We left with our tail between our legs and the still wrapped present in tow.  Oops, my bad!  Let's chalk it up as a dry run for tomorrow, when the REAL party is.

The boys were a little disappointed but were such troopers about it so I decided it would be fun to treat them to a movie.  My gut was telling me that taking Mosh to a movie was a baaaad idea, but I didn't have the heart to make him stay home, so off we went.  Gnomeo and Juliet, here we come, and in 3D no less!  So, a side note to the movie industry, 10 previews is probably NOT a good idea for a kids movie.  Josh had polished off his pretzel and was ready to head out by the fourth preview.  What to do... what to do... text to Dad "wanna come get Josh?"  Dad to Mom: "Really?"  Mom to Dad: "Movie hasn't even started yet and he's a maniac."  Dad to Mom: "Be there in a few."  I was able to snap one quick (pardon the badness) photo with his 3D glasses on before I sent him packing.  Our fellow movie go-ers were loving me as the blinding flash was causing them to see spots.

Jack and I both loved the movie (although you wouldn't guess it from this photo) and it turned out to be some very special bonding time for the two of us.  I will treasure every minute I get to hold my little man's hand and cuddle him while he giggles at funny scenes he's really too young to fully understand.

While we didn't have a care in the world, Dad was home with an extremely cranky, teething Jamison and our little, short attention spanned toddler.  It was time for Jamison to sleep so Dad slapped on Toy Story for Josh to keep him occupied and headed upstairs to get Jamison to sleep.  Since he was preoccupied for a few minutes, Josh found it to be a good opportunity to help himself to the heart-shaped Peeps lingering from Valentines.  Apparently, he had fists full and no shortage of marshmallow in his mouth.  This kid is so smart!  Not sure what "good" came out of this other than Josh was FINALLY able to indulge in the much anticipated marshmallow hearts he's been longing for.

Cheers to a strange, interesting, and hidden-treasure filled day!  Oh, and to laughing so hard you cry.

Bath Time, Happy Time

No one likes bath-time more than this kid.  Forget Disney, the bath tub is his happiest place on earth. 

Oh, and check out those eyelashes!

Being 5 Rocks!

Yes, it is the third Jack Birthday post so cover your ears - or make that your eyes - if you've already seen enough.  Our little man turned 5 so it's quite the big deal around here.  We celebrated with multiple parties so I must share one more.

Anyway, back to business.......... JT is five!  He had a very specific plan on how he wanted his Birthday morning to play out and began prepping us Friday night.  He was going to stay in bed until everyone else was up and downstairs.  We were all to gather in the kitchen - with ALL the lights on - and greet him with HAPPY BIRTHDAY just as he was walking down the stairs.  His plan was executed without a hitch and seemed to play out just as he had imagined.

The family was coming over to celebrate so when Jack and Dad headed off to hockey, Mosh, Jamestown and I headed to Party City to get some balloons.  We bought one large Buzz Lightyear balloon and 8 additional balloons of assorted colors.  This wasn't exactly the easiest outing because I not only had to manage a 9 month old and a two year old, but also a whopping bouquet of balloons in what felt like hurricane force winds.  After stuffing all the balloons into the back of the mini-van, we headed home excited to surprise Jack with our purchase.  Joshi was begging to carry the balloons into the house so we made a deal that I would carry them just to the door and he could carry them inside.  As Josh headed in with the bundle, I ran back to the car to get Jamison.  Suddenly I heard Josh crying inside, a LOUD, panicky type of cry.  We ran in to find Josh sitting on the floor with balloon carcass' all around him.  He let go of the balloons and as soon as they hit the ceiling, they started popping like corn.  Easy come, easy go.  Joshi and I made a decision to look on the bright side - we still had Buzz, two white, one green, and one red balloon and will bid a fond farewell to our four fallen friends.

It was a small, relaxed shin-dig.  A good time seemed to be had by all, especially our two little tornado's named Jack and Joshi.  Someone forgot to tell them about the "relaxed" theme because they were anything but.  You could say they were two little crazy peas-in-the-pod all day.  But hey, why not, Birthday parties are fun stuff!?!  Speaking of fun stuff, Grandpa even came all the way from Florida to join in on the celebration.

Hey, I want that!

We did all the usual birthday stuff including munching on good eats, opening lots of presents, dressing up Jamison and Evan in matching clothes, and singing to our newest little five year old.  He wanted us to sing "happy birthday to you, you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey and smell like one too" but we went with the traditional version.  Jack picked a hockey cake for the event and it was very cute - it was sure nice to have something other than Batman or Spiderman.  Jamison and Evan even had their first bites of cake!  J looks like the cat who ate the canary.  

The grand finally of the day came in the form of projectile vomit.  Joshua had something going on with his tummy and just as everyone was gathered to leave, he blessed them with a healthy dose of his insides.  Boy, does he know how to clear a room.  Poor kiddo.  I wonder if he ate too many sweets?

Jack actually asked today "when am I going to turn 6 Mommy?"  361 days in counting.  As far as I'm concerned, time is going far too fast!

We Won the Lottery!

No, not the PowerBall or Pick 5... the Kindergarten lottery!  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a good waiter so I've been faithfully checking the mailbox every night since January 26th.  Today, we FINALLY received the fateful letter announcing Jack's acceptance into our first pick. Hooray!!!!  We are over the moon!  

As my good friend Heather said "you'd think we were waiting to find out if he's going to Harvard or Stanford."  Well, maybe someday we will be awaiting that letter - but we'll definitely take this in the meantime!

On another note, is there anything sweeter than sleeping babies?  This is our house right now - just in time to sit down, watch Grey's Anatomy, and share our big news with you.  Sweet dreams!!! XOXO

Jack's Family

Meet Jack's family.  He sleeps with them, cuddles them, and carries the whole load downstairs every morning.  If he forgets, he says in a panic "UH, I FORGOT MY FAMILY!" and immediately fetches them.  When I ask him what their names are, he looks at me like I'm crazy and says "nnnoooo, they are Penguin, Baby Penguin and Bear" - like naming them is such a SILLY concept.  What, do kids not name their animals anymore?!?  

Penguin and Bear gave us a scare recently when they woke one morning looking like they had fought the battle of Gettysburg overnight (an unfortunate side affect of Jack's dry, winter bloody nose.)  What do we do about this?  Throw them away?  Give them a good scrub?  Give them a bath?  Bear was the worst and actually spent some time in the laundry room garbage - until I retrieved him and decided to tackle the challenge.  After a lot of scrubbing and a nice long bath Bear and Penguin were saved!  Jack's family was reunited at last - and he was one happy Daddy!

Big Party - Part II

As if the 200+ pictures I took wasn't enough, we were lucky enough to get some more gems from Jackson's (Jacks good buddy from school) daddy.  He was happily shooting away at the party and it was clear he caught some good ones.  Here they are.  Thanks Brad!  

The BIG Party

Our first born is 1,820 days old!  If you don't have a good-will hunting brain, that equates to 4 years, 51 weeks, and 1 day - which means he is about to hit a big milestone - the BIG 5.  

His birthday isn't actually until the 12th, but we celebrated early with 16 of Jack's closest friends at an adorable little art studio.  They specialize in the "Action Jackson Party." You may have heard of the famous painter Jackson Pollack?  No, I hadn't either.  Apparently, he is the commanding figure of the Abstract Expressionist Movement and holds the current record for the most expensive painting ever sold.  I don't think Pollack's paintings hold a candle to some of the masterpieces created by JT's very talented little buddies.

The kids seemed to love it!  Where else can you throw paint all over the wall and not get in a load of trouble?  Our little bell of the ball especially loved it.  He was eating up all the attention but still managed to keep his dude demeanor.  He is such a laid back cat it's almost impossible to get him razzed - he definitely takes after his momma in that respect.   

Spiderman also attended in the form of a cake.  It took Jack about 2.8 minutes to get all 5 candles blown out, he got there eventually.  I'm guessing there was about as much spit on that cake as there was frosting, but it was still delicious!

We also had a fun little "candy buffet" for the friends to pack their very own goody bag to go.  I called Corey last week and said "I have a brilliant idea" and his reply was "oh no, what is it (yes, he has heard this from me many times before, so he becomes a bit leery)???  "A candy buffet!" Turned out he liked this brilliant idea. :)  

Jacks little brothers got in on the action jackson too!

Thank you to all of Jack's great friends and their beyond fabulous parents who made the trek out on a Saturday afternoon to help us celebrate our 1,820 day year old sweet child named Jack.  It feels like just yesterday he rocked our world with his arrival and we fall in love with him again each and every day.  

We can't wait to celebrate many more birthdays and often daydream about what his future holds for him.  If Angelina is right, they will be making their way down the isle together as shown by the Birthday card she hand created for her little love.  I think this is quite possibly one of the sweetest things I've ever seen!    

It's a Bird; It's a Plane; it's SuperBaby!

Who is this SuperBaby called Jamison?!?  I've never seen anything like his mad skills.  He is just over 8 months and can already crawl, pull himself to standing, crawl up an entire flight of stairs (with a spotter, of course), stand for a few seconds without hanging on, and charm the pants off a hippo.  Jack didn't walk until he was 15 months, Joshua at 12 months and this kid will be a 10 month walker for sure, if not earlier!

I talked to the day care center director yesterday and she said he would be moving to older infants around 9 months.  We've been going to this center for 4 years, 9 months, and 3 days now and I've NEVER heard of a baby moving to older infants any earlier than 10.5 months.  He is showing all the signs of "it's time to move" already including climbing over the bookshelves, eating food from UNDER the highchair, and playing with the garbage can.

It makes me somewhat sad that he is growing up so quickly but it is sure fun to watch him crawl into the playroom and hold his own with his crazy brothers.  Joshua still thinks it's fun to ride him like a horse so there is always one eye watching the madness.

On another note, Jamison had his first surgery on Tuesday.  He got tubes in his ears and while he was under they performed a bronchoscopy to see what the whistle in his throat is.  They didn't see anything abnormal but they called the amount of mucous in his throat "impressive."  Never something you want to hear from a Doctor.  They started him on Prevacid thinking the mucous is caused by reflux.  What a little trooper!