Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today is Nathan's 30th birthday- Happy Birthday Nathan! He didn't get to celebrate much this morning as he was awake (much earlier than the rest of us) to go to work. The kids and I spent the day planning though, and we had a blast playing together all day. We went to Publix to get Daddy a balloon, James HAD to get him one that sings. He had seen those kind of balloons there about three months ago, and remembered them when I mentioned that maybe we'd go get Daddy a balloon for his birthday. I'm telling you, he's got Daddy's memory, that's for sure- which is a GOOD thing. Ha.
When Daddy got home from work, he got to play with the kids, the BEST birthday present in the whole world. We had "Dance Party USA" going on in our family room while the balloon sang, and sang and sang and sang! Kaitlyn told Daddy while in the middle of shaking her booty, "Dance Daddy!" So cute.
Rich came over to have dinner with us. I made Nathan's favorite casserole, Chicken Curry with broccoli and Cheddar, but I added a bit to it this time. I'm not so sure he was that enthused about my additions, but whatever, he told me to do what I wanted, so I DID. ;)
For his cake, I got him a cheesecake. We love cheesecake. LOVE cheesecake. I got an assortment of toppings for him to choose from, cherry topping, lemon topping and caramel topping. He chose the caramel topping, which proved to be a great choice. BTW, Whole Foods' caramel sauce is TO DIE FOR. We sang to him as I brought his caramel-drizzled cheesecake plate (decorated with "Happy 30th Birthday Daddy" written in red sparkling cake decorating goo) to him, and then noticed, after the candles had been blown out, that my camera wasn't recording. Everyone was a great sport, and we had a do-over. So Nathan got to blow out his candles twice. Ha. Nathan escaped in time for me to put the kids into the tub and into bed, to go play a few rounds of Golden Tee at the local watering hole, Spatz. He has to work tomorrow, so he should be home soon, hopefully. Ha. It's been a fun day, playing with my kids and celebrating Nathan's birthday.

Today also brings me great sadness and loss. My cousin Maureen Green Casey passed away on June 1, and her funeral was held today in Madison, South Dakota, where Maureen grew up in a huge family (she had 12 siblings). She had been fighting ovarian cancer since late 2007, and it took our sweet Maureen from us. See her obituary here. I was lucky enough to get to go to Phoenix last January (for a photography conference) and see the Casey family and to photograph Maureen, Katie and Aiden. I snapped a photo of Mike with Maureen too, at a restaurant that their son Connor works. When I was there in January, Maureen had just found out that her cancer had returned and her counts back up. She was waiting to find out if she would be eligible for a drug trial through Mayo clinic. She was so positive, upbeat, honest and trusting in God's plan. When photographing Maureen, I remember looking into her eyes through the camera and seeing such a beautiful soul, such a beautiful woman. We will love you Maureen, forever.





Here is a bit from yesterday....
I went to the airport last night, after a week to myself at home, to pick up my family. The day couldn't have been longer, but thankfully, I had several things to do to keep me busy until it was time to drive up to Sanford. I made the Target and grocery run, then went to mass at 6, ate dinner at Panera (and ran into a couple that were both teachers at Bishop Moore when I was there- Mr. and Mrs. Thanski), and then headed out. Nathan had tipped me off via text that they were either on time or early, and thanks to lovely technology, I was able to check their flight time on my iPhone. Sweet- EARLY!
I was eagerly awaiting their arrival while standing at the bottom of the escalator, but near the elevator since I knew they had a stroller with them. To my happiness, and surprise, when that elevator door opened up and I saw James' monkey bag roll out first, I knew they were coming. I intentionally fell to my knees and put my purse down for the biggest, sweetest, most gut-wrenching hugs EVER. "HI MOMMY!" Kaitlyn said. I was all teary-eyed and sappy, but it had seemed like they had been gone FOREVER. Then I got to hug Nathan, my loving husband, who so willingly took the kids on the trip by himself. :)
After the tears re-absorbed back into my eyes and I could see clearly again, I noticed that Kaitlyn didn't have any pants on. Luckily, her new Iowa State shirt was long enough to just barely hide her diaper. Apparently there had either been a very large pee-pee or she had gotten Gatorade all over her shorts... we never really will know what happened. Ha.
I'm so thankful that they had a good time in Iowa, but even more thankful that they are now home. :)

Excerpt from Beth's blog! :)

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Tired

James spent the night again with us last night. Bennett LOVES this. It means that he gets to sleep in the office in the big bed. And it takes him forever to get to bed because he is rolling around with all of the room he has. Really cute!

Anyway, I got all three boys to bed and was sitting down to read my book. I expected Harrison and James to do a little talking and giggling, but I wasn't prepared for "Mom!" "Mom!". I got up and went into the bedroom.

Harrison - "Mom, I am really tired and want to go to sleep. But James won't stop laughing."

James - (giggling) "I'm sorry Harrison, you are just so funny!" (more giggling)

As I stifled my laughter, I politely asked James to try and be quiet and shut the door. Harrison was asleep about 3 minutes later. I guess he was telling the truth!

Narrated by Beth at 1:14 PM

James' Three day Threes

James just wrapped up another school year at The Methodist School for Early Education. We LOVE this school. It was rare that James didn't bring home a craft or piece of art, so I have a pile of 50+ pieces of art sitting here that have accumulated over the last year. I saved them all so I could go through at the end and pick out a few favorites to keep. The school helps this decision by laminating the ones that are super special. I scanned these, but since my scanner isn't big enough, I had to paste them together in Photoshop (tried to recreate them perfectly). I'll rest easier knowing these are on the blog, just in case our house burns to the ground or gets ripped up by a hurricane or something, because I NEVER want to forget these special things that James made. I love you more than words, James.
Make sure you click on them to make them larger in a new browser window; trust me, they are worth reading! :)

This one below was my Mother's Day card:

Naughty Spot!

I'm putting myself on the naught spot. Sorry for the lack of blogs lately, things have been a bit scattered around here lately.
Nathan and the kids are in Iowa until Sunday, so I've been home, and when they aren't around there isn't much to blog about.
I've been enjoying talking to the kids on the phone, although with James, he just says hi and goodbye... he's too busy to talk to Mom, and Kaitlyn loves to chat. According to Nathan, she paces, as I do, when on the phone, walking from room to room and back again. Tonight she was telling me, "I'm talking to Mommy, Mommy!" As in, "I'm talking to YOU Mommy!" So cute! I miss them and want them home, like yesterday.

I caught Kaitlyn cuddling with Kona!

Photos from Austin!

Here is the link to the gallery if you would like to see photos of our trip to Austin for Sutton Powell's baptism.
Click here!

On our way home on the plane!

Sugar Pie Honey Bunch

Check out this photo I snagged of Kaitlyn last Friday as we cruised Park Avenue. :) What a doll! I love her so much!

Untitled: for lack of a better title.

There are certain blog entries that I hesitate to put on here. The purpose of putting these memories into writing is not to embarrass the kids by any means. Keep that in mind as you read this story, and laugh, because it's one of those stories that we need to get our minds out of the gutter. ;)

This morning was pretty slow, and in fact, the kids woke up rather later than normal, well, Kaitlyn at least. I always have my alarm set for the days that James has school just in case the kids sleep in. Today was one of those days. There is a certain phenomenon that occurs when my cell phone alarm goes off... I SWEAR Kaitlyn can hear it. I don't know how, really, the volume is always down low, but she wakes up when my alarm goes off. Maybe it is interference between her CD player and my phone, I don't know, or it's ESP. Ha.
So Kaitlyn woke up when my alarm went off, but James stayed asleep for a while. It wasn't too much longer when we had to go back upstairs to wake up James so we wouldn't be late for school. I told Kaitlyn to go into James' room, quietly, and tell him good morning. So she did, but to our surprise, he was already awake, with his quilt pulled up high over his head. He was hiding. Kaitlyn, of course, always having to do what James is doing, climbed up in his bed and wanted to hide too. In the course of Kaitlyn getting up into his bed and getting under the covers, Kaitlyn found Monkey, James' sleeping friend. She continued to hold Monkey and cover herself with the quilt. So now both kids are under the quilt with Monkey. You can probably guess where this is going.... I hear James say, "Kaitlyn? Are you holding my Monkey?" and then he says, "Kaitlyn, are you looking at my Monkey?" Ha ha ha!
I giggled inside, but of course didn't make a big deal about it in front of the kids. It's just one of those stories that's just too funny to pass up sharing with everyone!

Mother's Day Tea at Methodist

James' class had a Mother's Day Tea on Friday. It was sooo much fun, the kids were adorable and so proud of all of the gifts that they had made for us. We were spoiled! The kids made us so many nice art projects, like a "key to my heart", a treasure box full of things that went along with a poem. The first photo is of James holding up a paper bear for "bear hugs".
We had great snacks, and the kids spoiled us with songs. James was the best, loudest singer of the group! That's my boy. I love you James.

Two black cats... Rosco or Saki?

We're finally getting somewhere with Kaitlyn and her bedtime routine. She only gets out of bed 5 to 8 times now before she collapses in defeat and lays down. She has a wind-up musical bear that she winds up a little, lets it play, winds it up, lets it play, etc. It's very cute, but more importantly, we know she's in her bed when it's playing.
Kaitlyn has a tough time distinguishing between our two black cats. Saki is black, but has white whiskers, white paws and a partially white tummy. He also wears a red collar that jingles. Rosco is all black, he maybe has 10 white hairs on his chest that aren't noticeable unless you look REALLY hard, does not wear a collar, and is hardly ever around (he loves to sleep in the laundry room). James could tell the cats apart from the beginning when he was just starting to talk, but Kaitlyn can't seem to work out the details. She knows we have both a "Rosco" and a "Saki" but she seems to call Saki by Rosco's name most of the time. She'll say, "Rosco!" and I tell her, "No sweetie, that's Saki," and she'll repeat, "Saki!"
Tonight Kaitlyn made Nathan and I laugh out loud. She was downstairs with us (James went to bed at 6:30 by his own choice!!), and both cats were in the family room sitting around. Rosco was on the ottoman and Saki was on the couch by me, only about a foot and a half away from Rosco on the ottoman. She walked up to Rosco and say, "Oh hi Rosco!" then turned to Saki and said, "Hi other Rosco!" I'm not joking. I was even lying on the couch while not feeling well and laughing my head off. I quizzed her for a few minutes on which cat was which, but she never really was 100% sure when telling me her answer. Most of the time she'd let me suggest... "Which cat is this? Is it Rosco?" She just can't seem to tell them apart!!! She is such a smart girl, it's amazing to me that this hasn't clicked in her brain yet. She is so precious to us!
On a sad note, my beautiful cousin Maureen is seriously ill. She is battling ovarian cancer and soon will be leaving the hospital and going home for hospice care. Please, please, pray for her and the rest of the Casey family. She is such a honorable, wonderful, devout Catholic woman, it is really hard for me to understand why this is happening to her. God bless you and be with you, Maureen. We love you.

We'll miss you Grandpa!

Here are some of the great pics I have of Lee. We will miss him!!

Recent Photos

Kaitlyn and James were playing with the light switches until I suggested a nice game of "peek-a-boo", then they were all over it!

Kaitlyn in her "big girl" crib without the high rail- now she has a guard on it, and guess what... she does this...

Jump for joy I'm out of the crib!!!

Kaitlyn is two now, but hasn't mastered the finger skills necessary to use sign language. ;)

My beautiful family!

James giving Daddy a "piggy-bank" ride. :)

NUTELLA FACE!! He wouldn't eat it the other day because he didn't think it looked good, then I reintroduced it as chocolate frosting and he'll never turn back now. That's my boy!

For all of the photos, see my SmugMug Gallery.

Early to rise.

Today is Thursday, Nathan has been gone since Sunday. I haven't been all alone, I must admit, I had my nanny work on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. That was a nice relief for me, especially on Wednesday since I had lots of doc appointments (no big deal).
It always feels strange here at night without Nathan around, it's somewhat liberating since I get to watch what I want to watch and when I want to watch it, but otherwise it's pretty lonely. If we didn't have an alarm system, I definitely wouldn't be able to sleep as hard as I do without him here to be our guardian. Kona too. ;)
Kaitlyn has been getting up in the morning, climbing out of bed and venturing into James' room to either wake him up or play with his toys. Today was no exception, except for the fact that Rosco went into Kaitlyn's room at 6:30 AM and was meowing at her. Looks like she got a taste of her own medicine. Apparently Rosco wanted to play with Kaitlyn and her toys. Of course after I panicked when I came out of a deep sleep and realized that the meowing was coming from Kaitlyn's monitor and thought about running upstairs before he woke her up, I heard, "Oh hi Rosco!" in my sweet little girls' voice. "DANG. Now she's really not going to go back to sleep" I thought, and figured out it was time to rise and shine.
I did haul upstairs when I heard Kaitlyn banging toys around in James' room though. Last night he went to bed with a fever, and I knew he wouldn't care to be woken up at 6:30 AM (about an hour early on our schedule). I hurried to get Kaitlyn out of there and told James to go back to sleep. He did, thankfully, since he still was feeling feverish.
One benefit to our early rising this morning was that I got to take James into the doctor's office for walk in hour at 8 AM. He was "diagnosed" with viral tonsillitis, but they are "cooking" a strep test just in case. We'll get that result tomorrow.
Daddy gets home tonight!! Wooo hoooooooo!

Dreaming of Italia and toddlers staying in their cribs.

My parents took off for Italy on Tuesday, so things around here have been a bit crazy (having them here in town is just a huge comfort, even if they are at their house all alone-ha). It seems as if when it rains, it pours. Nathan's grandfather, Lee Wilcke, passed away yesterday morning. It was expected, as he has had cancer for the past 8 months or so. It's still very sad when it happens, but at least we know that he's resting now, pain free, and living with God. We'll miss you Lee... and I'll see that Kaitlyn becomes a supermodel just for you! :)
So Nathan is leaving tomorrow for Iowa, to celebrate Lee's life with his family. I can't go unless we ALL go, so that's just not going to happen. We got to fly up to Iowa in December to see Lee when we knew he'd be enduring chemo but with a skeptical outcome. We are very happy we made that trip and got to spend a few hours with him.
I also read on Maureen's blog that she's had to have surgery to put tubes into her abdomen to help her bowels work. She has said that it's not good news, which scares me so much. She is such a beautiful ambitious woman, and she deserves to live a happy, healthy and long life.
Now on to the children....
After a few attempts by Kaitlyn to break out of her crib (nearly pushing herself up enough to fall out), we decided to take the front rail off of her crib and put a guard rail on it instead. This meas that she can, and DOES frequently, get out of her crib by herself. Unlike James, who was so young to know he could actually get out of his big boy bed by himself, she was up and out of there as soon as we first put her in it. This saga continues. We used a technique with James that I saw and also read about in the Supernanny show/book. To sum up, you tell them goodnight, give hugs and kisses and put them in bed. The first time they get out, you remind them that it's bedtime and put them back into bed. The second time and on, you don't give any eye contact or words and "simply" just keep putting them back into bed until eventually they give up and you win. It's a lot easier said than done, I'll tell you that much. I've been doing this with Kaitlyn for about a week now, and she really has been doing well, only getting out of bed at most about 5 times. Yesterday, however, was waaaay different. I put her down for her nap around 12:45 and she continually got out of bed until 2:30. Yes, you read that right. She got out of bed around 30 to 40 times! I was so frustrated and irritated that I tried being a bit firm with her, but it didn't help, it made it worse. I'd put her down, tell her, "You go to SLEEP KAITLYN!" and she'd reply with "Okay, Mommy," and close her eyes. I'd walk out, and up she'd stand and out she'd come. To top things off, she'd see me peek into the crack of her door, and she'd say, "Wheeere's Mommy?" GAH! It's funny, I admit, but it wasn't yesterday!
That whole time, I'm also dealing with James not wanting to nap. "Mommy? I have to go potty! Mommy? I can't sleep! Can I come out yet?" I finally just bit the bullet and sent James downstairs to play while I stayed with little Miss Mexican Jumping Bean and kept putting her back to bed. I could hear James singing downstairs and playing with Kaitlyn's Irish doll. So finally, after Kaitlyn fell asleep and tears of happiness were pouring out of my eyes (ok, not really, but nearly) I got to go downstairs and sit on the couch. Ahhh, relief. Kaitlyn slept until 4, when I woke her up. I knew that would create havoc on our night time ritual... and I was right.
Since I had been home all day nearly going crazy, Nathan took over bedtime. Kaitlyn did surprisingly well staying in bed after the two hour session at nap time. James fell asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow since he didn't nap. It was about 9:30 PM when I heard James crying and coughing. "OH NO! He's throwing up!" I thought as I raced upstairs to help him. I ran into his room, flipped on the light expecting to see vomit and have to change sheets, but instead saw Kaitlyn, holding Lovie and her musical bear, sitting up on James' bed up by his pillows. James was crying in confusion, not knowing what was going on and blinded by the bright light that I had turned on. Kaitlyn BETH!
I put her back in bed, told her to "STAY HERE. Go to SLEEP. GoodNIGHT."
"Okay Mommy." I walked out, and up she stood and out she climbed. I put her back. She got out one or two more times, I put her back into bed a few more times. And FINALLY she stayed and fell asleep. One of her biggest clues is this: if she's talking, she's in bed, if she's quiet, she's climbing out.
Ugh. Yesterday was exhausting. Hopefully today will be better and when Nathan leaves tomorrow I'll be rebooted to deal with the kids by myself until Thursday. Anyone want to babysit? ;) Just kidding.

Kids? Go put yourselves to bed...

Oh wouldn't that just be awesome?!? That is what Nathan told the kids tonight after dinner. James replied with, "But I want to put YOU to bed."
"Really? Ok!" Daddy said back. James grabbed his hand, "pulled him" off of the couch and gently lead him to our bedroom and then told him to lay down. The whole time Nathan was trying to razz James by saying, "But I don't want to go to bed!", and all James would reply with was, "But it's almost night time."
As I was perusing facebook, I heard a beautiful rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" bellowing through the downstairs hallways. It was so sweet, it almost made me cry.
A moment later, James came back out to me (sitting on the couch), and told me that he had put Dad to bed so he could get some rest.
"I want to go to bed too!" I told James. "But you have to carry me."
James said, "You're too big, so I have to hold your hand." Fair enough... fair enough.
He led me to bedroom saying, "Let's go to Mom and Dad's bed now." As soon as we got there, he told me, "Now lie down and I'll sing you Twinkle Twinkle." Daddy was already laying on the bed and Kaitlyn was in there keeping him company... quietly I'm sure.
"But I want Jesus!" I said (side note: Kaitlyn calls the song "Jesus Loves Me" by the first word: Jesus). James said, "Well we're not very good at that one so we're going to sing Twinkle."
"Ok, that's good with me." I replied.
James piped up with Twinkle Twinkle again, letting his voice bellow throughout the downstairs hallways. I grabbed Nathan's hand and held on to the moment, not wanting to let go. I looked at Nathan, he was looking at James and smiling. Oh... heaven on Earth.

Easter Weekend Photos

Rosco the cat

There are just too many! Lookie here:

SmugMug Gallery

Can I go first? Roaaaar!

Oh what a day....
I'm sitting here at the computer in the office on a Friday night, listening to James sing, "One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!" Yes, that's right. He has a boot in the bathtub, it's part of an Elmo fishing toy that we got from the Hope family for his birthday a while back- and it's still a big hit in the tub. Along with the boot is a beach ball, an apple and a cowboy hat. One night he was playing with the boot and asked me to sing the "boot song". Not knowing at ALL what he was talking about, I started in with the aforementioned song. It has been a hit ever since. Tonight after the boot, it was the beach ball that was going to "roll all over him". ;)
Really, all these kids do is make us laugh. Despite the few points of the day where I could really use some alone time, I spend the rest of the day enjoying the kids' banter and quick wit. Tonight while I was doing dishes, James came up to me and asked (get ready for the heart attack), "Is there anything I can do to help?" HUH? Who are you and what have you done to my son?!?! Ha ha. Actually, according to him, he was pretending to be "Super Reader"... which I'm still not sure what that meant. ?
Kaitlyn has been using the word "first" after everything she says. "Shoes on first?" "Good nap first?" "Mommy, hold me first?" It's nonstop. I was telling Nathan tonight that it reminds me of that novel Flowers for Algernon when the main character uses punctuation all over the place in his diary, in all the wrong places, just because he knows about it. With Kaitlyn, however, it actually makes sense... most of the time.
Another "first" going on lately is James' obsession with doing everything FIRST. "Can I do it first?" Hence, this is probably why Kaitlyn has been adding this word to her vocabulary so frequently. Of course James doesn't want to go first when it's something he doesn't like! Figures.
We have a lioness living among us. Kaitlyn has been roaring lately. Yes, roaring. She roars at James when she's mad, or when she just wants to roar (for instance, when she's babbling in her crib at night before she falls asleep... or in the middle of the night, like at 3 AM!). It's hysterical, yet slightly annoying. ;) James gets upset when she roars at him. "Mom! Kaitlyn just roared at me again!" Ha ha ha ha ha.
A few other things Kaitlyn is into lately are: putting on her sandals all by herself, running away from me at bedtime (not uncommon!) and getting upset when I leave her room and throwing (LAUNCHING) "Lovie" down to the floor. She has also learned how to play the "nite nite" game. This would be when I'm laying down on the bed or the couch, she says, "Nite nite!" to me, I close my eyes, and she gets really close to my face and giggles until I open my eyes. Other times after "nite nite" she'll yell, "good morning!" and when I startle awake, she and James laugh until they get the hiccups.
Like I said, these kids really only make us laugh all day.

Awesome dude!

After a long weekend of eating horribly fattening but delicious food, I thought that I'd get up raring to go to the gym this morning. Alas, I'm still sitting here at the table, perusing Facebook and drinking coffee. Two things are holding me back from going to the gym: I'm being lazy, and all of James' bedding needs to be washed.
I was woken up by my husband this morning with a sweet hug and a kiss, telling me goodbye before he headed out the door for work. As I was drifting back to sleep, he popped back in and told me that James was awake and playing at the top of the stairs.
"Oh just 10 more minutes" I thought, but as soon as the guilt set in, I got up and headed upstairs to see my beautiful brunette boy staring at me through the gate bars. I gave him a kiss through the bars, opened the gate and hugged him. Then... I smelled it. The unmistakable scent of urine, seeping from his pajamas. Ick.
I went into the bathroom to investigate the situation, and sure enough, on the floor lay a crisply DRY overnight Huggie diaper right by the bottom of the cabinet. "Uh-oh" I thought, "This is going to be worse than I thought."
The bed was soaked, all the way from the blue surfing-monkey quilt down to the plastic underlayer of the mattress pad. Even the "waterproof" (crib sized) bed liners that we had under his sheets were soaked through, which amazed me.
So apparently James had gotten up to go potty last night, stripped his diaper off, went potty, put his shorts back on and went to bed... sans diaper. He's been mentioning that he has wanted to try to sleep without a diaper, so I'm not sure if he meant to leave the diaper off or if he really did just forget. Both scenarios are possible!
So instead of going to the gym this morning, I'm feeding my laziness and hanging out in my pj's while I wash all of James' bedding. Poor kid... that must have been AWFUL! Did we ever hear him complain? No.
Nathan and I were talking this weekend about James and mentioning the funny things that he says and does, just to make sure that the other spouse has been kept up to speed. We ended up laughing so hard... enjoying the stories that each other told and reflecting on how beautiful, smart, fun and amazing our James has become.
One of the things that Nathan told me is that when Nathan was putting James' new "Tough Boy" jammies on James the other night, he asked James if he was a tough guy/boy. James replied with, "NO! I'm a nice boy!"
I was telling Nathan that I absolutely love it when I make Kaitlyn laugh until she can't breathe... Nathan went on to tell me that he wasn't going to make James laugh really hard anymore since, a few times now, James has hiccuped so hard that he's thrown up a bit in his mouth. I asked him, "You mean he actually tells you that he has 'thrown up a bit' in his mouth?"
"Yep!" He said. Too funny.
On Friday evening, when we were having dinner at home with the kids, I told James that I had a surprise for him. I went on to say "Tomorrow night, you and Kaitlyn are going to spend the night at Grandma's house!"
He replied with, "Get OUT 'a here! Really?" with a beaming, huge smile.
A minute later, after talking about it a bit more, he said, "Awesome, dude!"
Ha ha ha ha.

Where are those kids?

Bubble maker!

James took this shot!! :)