A week in pictures

BEACH

Tomorrow we head out for our week long beach trip...and it cannot come soon enough! Work has been crazy and I was on call this weekend....literally working most daylight hours! I did manage to sneak away on Saturday for a baby shower for my friend, Holly, at Sugarbabies Cupcake Boutique. She is expecting her baby boy on Mark's 1st Birthday! And then today mom, Zach and I ventured out to Wal-Mart to grocery shop for the week! He was such a good boy for the 2 hours we were there! But then it was back to the house for....you guessed it, MORE WORK! I did get the boys clothes packed but that's about it. Luckily I know the boys wake up early so I will just finish packing in the morning.

The beach house is not pet friendly, unfortunately, so Esther girl has headed to the Blochs for some TLC. They recently lost their little Murphy dog so Kari graciously offered to take in our girl for the week. I hope she does okay! And my other kerri will be checking in on the Max kitty at the house. Lucky to have such good friends!

Anyway, hope everyone has a great week and I will update when I get back! :)

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!