Cry it out....

UGH, we have reached the season where my sweet little wee one is becoming a bit of a stinker! In his defense, he has gotten 2 teeth this month and had a double ear infection when we went in for his 9 month check up....but man, I am not used to this from him!

The last 3 nights in a row, he has been up during the middle of the night. Of course I am the one who gets him cause my hubby is a "light sleeper" and doesn't even hear him. (Obviously Matt isn't really a light sleeper....its just our joke cause for years he said he was one, until he had kids and never hears them in the night!) Love ya, honey! ;-)

Anyhoo.....so yeah, the last 3 nights have been a little unpleasant seeing as I have to be up at 5:30am to work the next day! And the other new thing is bed time. Before, we would do our bed time routine...bath, watch George with brother, book, prayers, bottle bed. I would lay him down, he would roll over and go to sleep. NOW, I lay him down, he rolls over, and promptly stands up and cries at the edge of crib for Mommy!! I keep telling myself maybe its just the ears or the teeth, but I am not so sure. So I am trying to do the old C.I.O. method but i give in and go back in but am holding strong at not picking him up out of the crib (and THAT is tough to do when he is so sweet looking!), just pat the back and shush.

Guess time will tell if this is a thing from here on out or just for now! Fingers crossed for the latter!

In the meantime, I am counting down the days till our beach vacation, we head out on Monday for a week at the beach and I CAN.NOT.WAIT! Now if I can just get through today and tomorrow!! :)

The Boys

Markey

Z Man

Backlog

Oh goodness, I am so behind on blogging! Life has just been busy these days I guess! Here is a quick rundown of what we have been up to as of late:

*fired nanny #1 after 8 sick days in June (and I only work a 4 day week...)

*hired nanny #2 (she is GREAT and we are loving having Maria with us, thanks Ashley!)

*Mark is crawling/cruising everywhere! Found him halfway up the stairs this week! Zach walked at 10 months, Mark turned 9 months on Monday...I think the end is near!

*Zach is just a ton of fun these days...and the imagination is in full gear. From tigers in the bathroom to hiding in tents, we spend a lot of time pretend playing now!

*Work is work....

*Took an impromptu trip to Dallas this weekend to visit my extended family. Grammy LOVED seeing the boys and we loved seeing Jan, Jeff, Sarah, Lec, Rikki, and the gramster! We did a lot of swimming and Z jumped off their diving board!

We head to the beach for our week long family vaca next Monday, I cannot wait! If only I can get though this work week first....

I will update with some pics soon too! Hope life is well in your world!

nanny #2

After the complete chaos with nanny #1....we decided we still like the idea of having a nanny and decided to give it a go again. This one came highly recommended from a friend who used her for 2+years until her kids were going to school. We met her last week and hired her the next day. She came over today to see the boys again, go over processes, see where everything was, etc and it went well! Z was a little shy in the beginning but when she left he gave her a big hug and kiss so I think it went well.

I am definitely looking forward to the boys being able to sleep in again without all the hubbub in the mornings, although I will miss seeing them both. But all and all, I think this is what's best for our family so we shall see. Fingers crossed this goes better and Maria will be with us for awhile!

Noah's Ark Pool

We had an awesome day today!! After what seems like WEEKS of rain, we had a bright blue and sun shiny day so mommy packed up the troops and headed to Noah's Ark! I had been wanting to check it out for awhile but knew it was probably something I couldn't handle on my own so thankfully all parties involved were up for the adventure! :)

We headed out a little later than I planned, but it didn't matter...we had a BLAST! Basically, there is one section that is just for the young kiddos. There is a big Noah's Ark in the middle of the pool with 3 slides on it, a crawl through, and water sprayers, plus another slide, mushroom, and climbie thingies. The "pool" is about 6 inches deep through most parts, perfect for young ones running amuck..or crawling everywhere!! There is also a giant regular pool with a shallow end, slides, diving boards, and basketball goal. We went back and forth a couple times and both boys did great. We ended up playing for almost 3 hours and probably could have stayed longer but I knew the boys were tired even if they didn't say so :-)

Both boys fell asleep on the way home of course but only Mark really ended up taking a good nap from it. They both went to bed very easily though, fingers crossed maybe they will grace us with sleeping a little bit late tomorrow! :)

Big happenings

We have definitely had a lot going on at our house as of late!

The most recent of course was the drama with the nanny. We let her go on Monday so that has been a big relief. Not a fun experience but had to do whats best for our family and calling in sick 7 days in a month was not going to cut it! Anyhoo....a friend referred us to someone else and she will start next week. Hoping this one will work!!

And on more exciting news....Z is pooping on the potty consistently! He has this thing, weird I know...but he would always need to poo around 6, and often go outside to play and that's when it happens. So Friday around 6, he wanted to go outside and I told him he either needed to put a pull up on to go outside and play or go sit on the potty. The boy does NOT like to wear pull up so potty it was...and sure enough, the #2 came! And ever since then, he has been pooping on the potty! GO Z!! He even pooped at our friend Kathi's house on Sunday. So impressed with my little man, pottying and not even 2.5 yet! :) Hopefully it continues!

And on the Mark front, the boy is all of the place and FINALLY getting a tooth. He was quite the little crank this weekend, but I felt a tooth on July 4th so am hoping that was the case. He was so fussy yesterday and up at 3am. That makes for a tired momma. Wondering if that's the only one right now or more to come? And he is still all over the place. I get a kick out of Zach calling for him to come....envision a little boy calling a puppy and that is Zach and Mark! Pretty cute!

Anyway, that is it for now! Hope you all had a great 4th. We had a fun time at the Tinkerbell party and then Sunday @ the Hallers!

Lets hope for a good rest of the week to come!

Family Pizza Night

We have been enjoying the fact that Zach is really into movies these days. After a long week at work, I decided to try out dinner and a movie with the Z Man! Mark is clockwork...he goes down at 8pm so we had time with just the z. So we started the movie around 730, pizza showed up before 8, perfect! We ended up watching The Country Bears from Starz On demand. Was trying to find something G rated and that's what we ended up on. Zachary LOVED it! Good grief, I think its worse than Snow Doggies, but man, the kid LOVES talking animals!! It was so much fun, eating pizza as a family, watching a movie, singing and dancing. So cute! It was fun to not have to hustle bustle on the weekend for bed time and Z was happy to stay up and easy to go to bed too!

He woke up Saturday morning in the best of moods and ready for....you guessed it, The Country Bears! HAHA!

We enjoyed a Saturday morning at Ella's Tinkerbell party, too. It was a smaller group but it was GREAT because the kids played so well together that us mommies got to actually TALK! I had left Mark at home to nap with Daddy so it was just me and the Z. Boys played on Jackson's new play set, kids decorated wings, and Ella & Z had stroller races around the house! Good times were had by all. Thanks Ashley for the fun morning and yummy food!

The boys and I had to miss the Crellers BBQ as Z was still napping at but Matt went ahead and enjoyed some time with our friends. Apparently I missed out on some good times on the slip and slide, I am sorry I had to miss it! :( Z finally woke up and you guessed it....we watched the Country Bears before heading to bed, HA!

Matt and I are watching Julia & Julie tonight, good to watch something besides talking animals! :)

Tomorrow we have a BBQ planned at the Hallers with the book club crew. Looking forward to more time with friends and the kiddos...good weekend so far!

Hope you are enjoying your 4th as well...happy birthday, America!

Curiouser and Curiouser

Yes, that's what I would call our current situation with the nanny....every time I think it cant get any more strange, it does! Oh lordie...I just want my car seats and house keys back at this point! I wonder if its an age thing or just the nanny? I would never be so flippant about a job, and not realizing what a bind she has put us in. 7 sick days in 5 weeks. Had I not had daycare as a back up, I would have depleted whats left of my vaca. And still haven't talked to her in person...everything is via text. Ai yi yi!

Not sure where you live but its been monsoon here thanks to Hurricane Alex since last night. Really putting a damper on the outside activities we have planned! BBQs tomorrow and Sunday could be very interesting if we can't actually be outside....

What are your plans for celebrating America's birthday? Whatever they may be, I hope they are good! Happy 4th of July!