Weekend Recap

What a great weekend!Well, minus the ear infection...third ear infection, mind you... Ugh. So over those. However, I'm in the search for a non-surgical solution. And, based on what I have been reading (here, here, and here) those ear tubes are over-prescribed. So, we (Jason, our awesome pediatrician, and I) are working on a solution. Don't get me wrong, if he needs them, then we will get the procedure done. Austin's problem is that he just keeps getting these ear infections then moves quickly into perforation of the ear drum. But, then he heals perfectly fine. His ear just don't like the water. For now, our little guy will use the Ear Band-It System as our solution (well, as soon as Mr. UPS brings it). Until then, no pools for him...

Other than that little boo-hoo over the weekend and little sleep... We had a great one!

Jason and the bigger boys had a day out together on Saturday! They we to Lowe's to build a dragon. specifically to build Toothless the Night Fury. Awesome! 

While they were doing all of that, Austin and I got our grocery shopping and a few projects done around the house.

I finally recovered - ahem - child-proofed my chairs. I saw this post a while back and finally tackled it. Only spent $24 and 2 hours to make sure my chairs are no longer trashed.

Insert happy mama dance!

Now this... I cannot explain... Do you have a room in your house that just doesn't want to stay clean no matter what??? Just me?? It's really getting on my nerves. So now I have on my calendar (I use this one - it is awesome) to do a pick up of this spot every week. Seriously. Maybe that will help. Everything just gets thrown in there. You come in from the garage, and this is where it all goes?? I really can't stand this room. Next house I WILL have a separate mudroom and laundry room. Not doing this again.

I still can't stand those cardboard boxes. But, at least I know what is in there now...

Of course once all that was done and everyone was back home, it was time for some major snacking.

What's better than having a icy pop?  Having your big brother help you get the rest of it out, of course!

Oh, and watching the big boys have an icy pop is pretty fun, too. Yes, he likes to stand. Everywhere.

And, we can't forget what yesterday was...Father's Day! This guy is one amazing dad...a super dad, of course! We love you!!

We hope everyone had a great weekend and a great Father's Day!

Five on Friday

Welcome to Friday!!In an attempt to keep this blog as updated as much as possible for family and friends who wanna sneak a peek into our new lives as a family of FIVE (!!!), I thought I'd share five (ha, that's kinda coincidental...perhaps) things with you from this past week. So, let's get this thing going!

{ONE}

You know I have to start with the tiny one... And, guess what?! He is a month old today! A MONTH OLD ALREADY! What?!

Yep. He is one month old already. Crazy how time flies, right? We have an awesome routine and going strong with it. Oh, and this morning he totally woke up at 5am. That's right. Jason did his night time feeding (he always does that midnight-ish one and I do the 3-ish in the morning one) and BAM! A month old and he slept for his mama. Keeping my fingers crossed for tonight! He is quite awake during the day now, too! He love checking out the Christmas tree and he likes his brothers talking to him. He has even smiled at Andrew a few times now. So sweet.

Also, side note: Today my bestie is going to have her baby girl! Please say a prayer for a quick, easy, and safe delivery!! We can't wait to meet our new little friend!

{TWO}

This was the first week the boys got to wear their Christmas gear! So stinkin' cute! I am dying over the reindeer booty. Sorry, I just love it. So cute! 

Ok, and, just so we are clear...Andrew DOES have on a Christmas shirt, but he had to wear his class shirt. You will see why in number three. ;)

See? Cute little Christmas train! And, yes. He LOVES to feed Austin. He did this for Alex, too. Love it! He is one awesome big brother!

{THREE}

The boys wore their Christmas gear for a special presentation at school. The Singing Santa came for a very special visit. It was pretty cool. This is THE Santa, by the way. If you are local, you may have heard of his visits to the malls and such. Very cool.  

 

The boys even got a chance to talk to him to tell him what they wanted for Christmas. And, yes, the orders have already been put in - phew! That's definitely checked of the list...

{FOUR}

This is also the first week of Advent that we are celebrating. So, we have been working our way though "The ADVENTure of Christmas" this week (Thanks, Pat and Terri!). 

 This is a great book for this time of the year! SO much information!

 We learned about the Star - Read a story, put the star on our tree, and made star cookies. Yum!

 We also learned about the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree. Here are the ornaments that have been made this season (so far):

Austin's baby hat and bracelet from the hospital.

Andrew's blue guy and Alex's green guy (painted the inside and added googly eyes)

Alex's ornament from school - Mary and Baby Jesus

Andrew's Start ornament from school.

Andrew and Alex colored some gingerbread men that we will add their pictures to once I get to that.

 Last night, we read the story of St. Nicholas... 

 And, this morning we celebrated his feast day! The boys each got their "gold" coins and a Hot Wheels car. Jason got his special holiday Nerds candy :) 

{FIVE}

Ok this is more of a "What the what?!" thing...

 

I mean...really? DIET Hot Chocolate... "Sensitive Sweets" with just 25 calories... Really? It's the Holiday Season, people. Just stop it. Get your sensitive sweets on January 1st like everyone else - and then drop it by the 3rd week since resolutions never actually seem to work out. LOL Come on... Diet hot chocolate... I mean, puh-leease... 

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Well, there you have it! Updates for this week's adventures! I am hoping that we will get to go out this weekend. Maybe go see the ZooLights or Christmas Parade...? We'll see. Have a great weekend, y'all!!

 

Thanksgiving for Five

What a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving we had this year! I must say we really enjoyed our holiday just the five of us. It was perfect!

Tiny turkey's first Thanksgiving!

Our 3 turkeys!

Delicious food!

Football!

Christmas decorations!

It was so great to celebrate this holiday together. We had a few "firsts" this Thanksgiving, too!

This was my first time EVER to cook a turkey. I always talked with mom while she was preparing everything or we were playing games at Jason's family's home. Well, with her awesome turkey tips, I did it! Thanks, mom!!

Hello delicious!

But, before we get to the feasting, here's what the men took care of while I was in the kitchen and catching bits of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (which was so weird, by the way...what was with the...ahem...red boots? Not exactly family friendly these days...) and snapping pics of the living room progress. 

Top half: Unpacking and setting up the tree and Christmas toys

Bottom half: The sun rising on the Holy Family - love it! Austin's first Christmas ornament!! The two in the back are Andrew and Alex's. I put their baby hats from the hospital and their bracelet in an ornament. So sweet :)

 Now, you saw earlier in this post that they were wearing their Thanksgiving shirts... Well, the Packers were getting ready to play, so they needed to be fan ready. Those are their game faces... LOL Austin was informed that he needed to be wearing his Packer gear, too. There are some funny men in my house. 

Game over and it is now time to feast!! Mmm. Mmm. Delicious!

And, yes!! I carved my first turkey for the first time! LOL AND!! I even got the wishbone out for later! 

Though...later meant the NEXT night. It wasn't ready just yet. The boys had a ton of fun with this. Mom even sent a picture of my 2 younger brothers breaking their wishbone. Andrew and Alex thought that they were cool stuff to be just like Sean and William. Oh, and Alex won! He got he bigger half. Cuties! 

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We hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving, too! 

Next up: Austin will be ONE MONTH OLD this week!!! And, the boys went to a special school event that featured The Singing Santa. Very cool! More posts to come soon :)

Weekly Rewind: October 13-19

Last week was filled with Autumn Goodness! Here's what we were up to:

{SUNDAY}

 

The boys and I made some of these yummy pumpkin treats! Wanna make them? Just grab some candy corn pumpkins, Hershey's hugs, and butter snap pretzels. Super easy to make - promise! (For some direction - go here)

 

 Of course, you can't have Halloween treats without some Halloween movie/show! I took back old school and put in my Bugs Bunny Halloween dvd. The boys laughed at it quite a bit which made this mama super happy! It is one of the best things to be able to share something I did as a little kid with them AND they enjoy it just as much! 

 Later that day, we ran out of dishwasher detergent. Bummer. But, I had this little pin tucked away and thought I'd try it out. Yep, I made some dishwasher detergent. And, let me just say that the dishes really are cleaner than with the store bought stuff. Plus, that LemiShine makes my dishwasher smell pretty fabulous, too. If you want to make this or read more about it, click here to check out this recipe and more.

Of course, finding these ingredients took a couple of trips into a couple of stores. See, I was trying to avoid WalMart at all costs. And, well, they were the only ones with the Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda. I hated that I had to go in there... I have not physically been into WalMart - no joke -  in 4 years.  WalMart is always so gross when I go...it's never clean, the customers are "interesting" and not in a good way, there are a thousand checkout lane but only 2 are actually open, it is just....ew. I hate it. Not going back. So, I got myself a prize for not wanting to scream in the store. Seriously. I know, I know...some of you like it. And, more power to ya. But, nope. I'm sending Jason next time (if I have to...). Otherwise, I'm going through Amazon... Besides, WalMart is NOT the cheapest. We are Aldi/Farmers Market shoppers :)

{MONDAY}

 Monday is cleaning day at the house. Where I go all out and get the whole place in order for the week so I don't have a ton to do later. Apparently the boys wanted to clean their kitchen up, too. What cuties.

 After I was pretty much done, they wanted to make another fort with their chairs and blankets. 

 Good times!

 And, of course, since the weather was amazing, we headed outside for some snack and some reading! Gotta love some spooky fun!!

{TUESDAY}

 

 Speaking of spooky fun, check out their lunches for this day! HA! Awesome. 

{WEDNESDAY}

 These two are going to make the BEST big brothers!! They kept some of the baby bottle party favors from the diaper shindig last Saturday for their babies. Andrew told Alex that he needed to teach him how to feed the baby because he fed him a bottle when he was a baby. Super cute!! Andrew is one amazing helper and big brother trainer!!

 We were the "cool parents" Wednesday night and let the boys stay up a bit later than bedtime so they could watch a new Halloween show on TV. Toy Story of Terror!! It was so cute and pretty funny. We were all giggling at it, even Jason. Did y'all watch it?? 

{THURSDAY}

 Our little tree is finally ready for Autumn!!

We had another Halloween movie checked out from the library that was super cute!! Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie. We are big Winnie the Pooh fans. Such a cute little movie!!

{FRIDAY}

 Super awesome helpers!!! These boys crack. me. up. 

Austin really wont be able to use this until he is 4 months old, so I was just going to keep it in the box until it was time. But, Andrew insisted that we put it together right now. He said, "that way it will be ready for him when it is time, mommy/" Such a smarty... Ok... So, we opened it up, busted out the directions, and got to work. The 2 pics on the right of the collage is where there are "testing it out" to make sure that all the toys work properly. LOL So funny. I am telling you...these boys are going to be AMAZING big brothers! I can't wait!

 Pizza-Popcorn-Movie Night!! Tonight's feature: "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"

And, just like the Bug Bunny show pictured on Sunday, the boys LOVED this show. They loved it so much that 1) I really have to buy it now because this is the library's copy and 2) they watched it every day since Friday to yesterday...at least twice a day! The uncontrollable giggles were the greatest thing to hear. Want to know which part they were laughing so hard at??

Snoopy vs. the Red Baron - they LOVE this part!!

(if you are viewing this in an email or on your mobile phone - please click through and view via the actual website to see the video)

{SATURDAY}

YUMMMM.... I made a lasagna in the crock pot and it was awesome!!! If you have never made a lasagna in the crock pot, you have to try it. Here's the recipe I used --> click here!

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Well, that is that! It was a great week! See you back here soon for a new post (some top 10 humor and things) and our menu!

Have a great day!

 

Weekly Rewind: September 23-29

Well, I do believe that my wacky week and a half long headache is gone. So, it is that time again to share what we have been up to! Here's a look back at the fun we had as September came to an end.

{MONDAY}

This is how we roll...

 ...down the hill, bumping into each other...

  Good times!

 {TUESDAY}

 This is NOT what you want to find in your laundry room at 545 in the morning as you are trying to get the ironing board out without waking the rest of the house up. Meet Mr. Grasshopper...er, locust? He flies...And, he somehow found a cozy spot in my laundry room. Of course, it was 545 am and I wasn't sure what it was at first, so everything came crashing down. Jason really thought that I was dreaming this. Well, we were almost late to school due to me making sure this little guy was caught and shown to the world. HA! I was NOT dreaming... 

{WEDNESDAY}

We headed to the zoo!!

 It was breakfast time in the primate house. Love that guy on the right :)

 Banging on some Djembe drums and being silly with masks

 {THURSDAY}

Picked up a TON of fall themed library books on Tuesday. This one is Alex's favorite one! When I "read" (no words - just pictures) it to the boys after school, Alex CRIED at the end!! If you haven't seen this book, it is SO cute!! The little bird is lost and the cat helps him find his way back to his bird family. They become friends along the journey South. Well, they find the little bird's family and must say goodbye to each other. The cat needed to get back home anyway. Well, as they hugged goodbye, Alex just busted out in tears and wanted them to stay together. It was so sweet. I told him that the bird would come back and this was just a little vacation until it was warmer back home. Oh, my...love that little guy.

Jason "read" it with him, too. You can see his little hand on his face... The cat is on the page waving bye to the birds. He was sad again, but no tears this time. But Alex said, "Cat goes home... (sniffles)" Really, it is a super cute book. I might just have to get it to add to our collection of fall/Halloween books for next year.

{THURSDAY}

 My view from my doc's office. Nice, huh? Yep, another appointment. I'm going every 2 weeks now... Fun. Oh, and this time my doc was out of town - which I knew so I chose the doc that delivered Andrew... But, let me just complain a bit for a sec (because that's what I do now apparently)... My blood pressure NEVER cooperates with the nurse. I have to ALWAYS have it taken at least twice before leaving. So, I let this nurse (the nurse to the doc that delivered Andrew) know this before taking my blood pressure. And, yep. It was not being nice. So, we wait to take it until the end of the appointment. And, it was ok, but not perfect. But, it was in the range it ALWAYS is in when I leave my doctor. So, it is like 1:45pm. It's Thursday. I pick up the boys in about an hour at the latest. Well, the nurse and doc didn't like what they saw...maybe they should look at my file BEFORE what they say next. The nurse comes back in and says, "Well, it's a little high so just hang out in here for a bit and we will try again." Anyone that knows me knows that I am now beginning to get anxious that maybe I am not going to get to that car rider line to get my little men. Ten minutes go by and she tries again. Again, I'm beginning to get nervous. It's now about 2:10pm... Sure the school is about 7-8 minutes away, but still! Well, my blood pressure is a tad higher...shocker! So she doesn't say anything and goes back out to talk to the doc. I can kind of hear them, but not really. Maybe they were talking about me...maybe not. But I hear "labor and delivery" and "33 weeks" and some other bologna that I DON'T have time to hear about right now - I have kids to pick up. I am the ONLY one with the cars seats and they are in the parking deck. Grrr. Anyway, I'm still pregnant and Austin is still chilling out for now. I got the boys in time and, yes, I now have 2 extra back up friends in case this happens again. Which, knowing my doc...I'm sure it will. He is such a tease...I wonder if he had anything to do with this... Kidding. Kinda.

{FRIDAY}

 Playing tackle football with Daddy. Yes, TACKLE football. Don't worry about Alex he can take care of himself. He is starting to catch up to Andrew in speed, too. Andrew better watch out LOL

 Alex's turn to be the QB

{SATURDAY}

New project for Austin!  It is all done actually! I made him this Cozy Baby Afghan over the weekend. It was super easy to make and it went by really fast. Just 3 colors and a mega crochet hook (I used a Q hook - it is huge! Biggest I have gone was K hook one time). It is SO soft and cozy! The colors are from Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Rust, Dusty Blue, and Beige. It is hanging over the side of his crib now! Love it!!

 Apple Cider Floats for Jason and I after the boys were in bed. They were ok. I liked them fine, but I feel like it needed something else... Jason wasn't a huge fan. Oh, well. There are more fall treats to be made!

{SUNDAY}

 It was National Coffee Day today (9/29), so with my handy dandy Dunkin Donuts app, I got my freebie iced coffee and donuts for these men in my life :) Yummy! Gotta love a good coffee that is also FREE!!

 

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And just to check up to see how things went around the House last week...

 

Last Week's Goals:

Family Goals:
1. Pick up fall book from the library I got ALMOST all of the ones I wanted. We read through all 15 of them twice, too. So next week, we are going back for more!
2. Put together big brother and daddy bags I am SO glad to have this all done! Andrew and Alex are going to be surprised to see that Austin has a little something for them! I will share what I did for them soon!
3. Go on a family adventure this weekend! Maybe something like this? We will be doing something THIS weekend instead! :)

Personal Goals:
4. Wake up at 530 everyday this week.
5. Keep reading through Catholic Mom's Cafe and A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy
6. Catch up on my fav podcasts in the car while boys are at school and I'm out running errands. I'm back to listening to the Simple Mom podcast and the Inspired to Action podcast. These are great! I'm almost caught up with these! And, I even came across one at just the right time! These days I'm having a bit of a patience problem (what? me? noooooo..... lol) and Kat with Inspired to Action had the perfect solution the day before I knew I was going to being a mommy monster... Gotta love those days...

Home Goals:
7. Paint the frames for Austin's room. I can never remember to tell Jason to get the frames out of the attic for me... Along with the Fall wreath... Brain freeze...
8. Make another Fall treat! I made Oatmeal Pumpkin Cookies over the weekend. I am thinking of making Apple Cider Floats this weekend!
9. Clean up front walk, trim bushes, weed the beds, etc. Oops...I'm sure my neighbors love my "harvest" look I have going on. LOL Oh, well. This weekend!

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And for this week's to-do list:

Family Goals:

1. Pick up more fall/Halloween books from the library AND have a reading picnic!! Fun! 

2. Work on the "Our Father" with the boys.  

3. Go on a family adventure this weekend!

Personal Goals:

 4. Rise and shine 530 am!

5. Sanitize and organize binkies, bottles, and other items needed

6. Read Catholic Mom's Cafe and A Catholic Mother's Companion to pregnancy. 

7. Listen to the rest of the podcasts - find some new ones!

Home Goals:

8. Paint the frames for Austin's room and get print outs done

9. Fall treat! Sweet and Salty Fall Snack Mix OR Scarecrow Crunch

 10. Yard work! Some serious yard work...

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 Happy Fall, y'all!