Mouse in the couch?

No, we do not have a mouse in our couch, but Max seems to think so! We have had lots of mice out in the yard and Chloe has found each and every one of them. They have also found their way into our egress (sp?) windows so we can look at them from inside. This has triggered an obsession with mice from Max. He now thinks there is a mouse in the couch! It is the first thing he says to Chris each night when he walks in the door from work! Just when we think he has forgotten, he remembers and brings it back up and won't stop talking about it! I guess this means he has an imagination...
UPDATE on the mouse: Max is feeding the mouse now. This morning he asked me if he could give the mouse a piece of his banana and this afternoon I found a piece of cereal by the couch. this is crazy...

My parents just got back from a trip to Panama and brought Max some new underwear along with other souvenirs. No..he is not close to being potty trained, but Grandma Pat couldn't resist. We got a picture of him modeling, so I thought I'd share!



Mya is just like any second born in that she wears lots of hand-me-downs from Max. I got out some bigger clothes the other day and found the old "Go Tara" shirt. My mom had them made for us when my sister Tara ran the twin cities marathon. I put it on Mya today and it fits! Some friends have been asking me to run a half marathon in Des Moines at the end of May and so I thought digging this shirt out might inspire me, but it didn't:(



In other news... I guess Chloe thought that I should be done breastfeeding, because this morning she ate part of my pump! (she didn't just chew it up...actually ate it)I was teetering on being done anyway, but I didn't really want Chloe to decide!

Also, I didn't realize that I had control on changing the settings on the blog to allow everyone to leave comments..not just those with google accounts. So...now anyone can leave a comment if you wish! One more thing...a friend told me about this website blurb.com where you can download your blog into a book and get it printed off either in hard cover or soft cover. Maybe you bloggers out there already knew about this, but in case you didn't, I thought I'd share!

Will you be our Valentine??

Random update

This week has flown by even though it doesn't seem like we have been doing much! This update is sort of random, so here goes:

Chloe figured out a couple weeks ago that her invisible fence collar wasn't working. We changed the battery, but she was still getting out of the yard. We knew we had someone coming to fix it, so we would just keep our eye on her when she went out. Well, yesterday I sort of forgot about her for awhile and when we went out to get her, she was gone. I packed up the kids and drove around, but didn't have any luck. So, I called Chris to come home and he went driving around also. We ended up talking to some utility workers who said they saw her up by some new construction near our house. When we drove up there, she just sat and stared at us. I was starting to panic a little...wasn't sure what I'd tell little Max where she was the next time he asked for "toey." So, last night the guy came and fixed the fence. She received some corrections, but at least she'll be staying in the yard now! Here is a picture of Chloe the first night we brought her home.

One of the things I will miss a lot about Cedar Falls is this thing called indoor park at the rec center. Tuesdays and Thursdays they open up the gym and you can pay $2.50 per child to run and play with all of the equipment. Max loves it there and it's a great way to burn energy in the winter! Here are a couple pics.



Little Mya Pat has been a stinker the last few nights waking up every couple of hours and needing someone to come and hold her to get her back to sleep. This morning I felt inside her mouth and sure enough, there are some teeth coming in. She's a bit behind her big brother in the teeth category. At this point, he had 6 teeth and 2 more starting to cut through!Mya has been enjoying the johnny jump up and Max loves to spin her around. Here is a video. Sorry it's the wrong way.

Rockin'

Well...it won't be too long until we have to get the baby gates back out and put all the little toys away. Mya is rocking back and forth on all 4's. Here's a video.

SOLD!

We had quite a day yesterday. We sold our house after being on the market for 3 days and we bought a house in Dubuque! We put our house on the market on Thursday and we had 1 showing on Friday, 3 on Saturday and 15 people went through the open house on Sunday. By Sunday night we had an offer and then it was the back and forth game for a little bit and we settled Monday morning. We were happy to get it sold, but of course now think we priced it too low:)

As for the Dubuque side, we put an offer on a house Friday night only to have our offer shot down and the owner said they would not go lower. So, we tried to not think about it over the weekend and decided to go back to the drawing board at the beginning of this week. Monday morning when Chris was in Dubuque, he received a call from our realtor who said those owners decided to take our offer! I'm super glad now that we didn't go higher with our offer over the weekend. It is a house in Asbury that does not have a finished basement. We have accumulated too much stuff to not have a finished basement, so we are meeting with a builder tomorrow morning to go over some plans and hope to have it done by March 1st. Our closing date is March 6th, but we are hoping to move it up a bit.

I'm very relieved to have our house sold and feel very lucky in today's market. It will be so much easier on me to not have to get the house ready for showings each day. I will keep you updated! Here's a picture of Max and Mya one day last week when it got above 30 degrees:)

Forts and boy stuff...

Beth has been having fun letting Max get into her jewelry the last couple days, so I thought it was time to help him build his first snow fort. I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to get the ice off the driveway the last couple of days and Max has enjoyed helping me. He did a good job of taking the snow off the banks and putting it back onto the driveway... So it looks like our boy finally likes the snow. I was pretty worried earlier this winter when I set him down and he just cried. That was tough to swallow considering I was sure he would be the Nastar champion (ski racing) his dad never was by the age of 2. ;)

First of many forts to come. Good thing my grandpa taught me the right way to strengthen a fort with candles on the inside. Lessons passed down make you smile.

What we've been up to lately

This week has flown by! We had -34 degree temperatures a few nights ago which led to a pipe freezing and many many hours spent inside! Lucky for us, this morning it go to 22 degrees which felt balmy! I went to Dubuque again today to look at a few new houses and check out ones we saw last week. I think we have it narrowed down to 2. Chris is working in Dbq on Wednesday so he'll check them out again and we'll most likely make an offer later in the week. Our realtor here in Cedar Falls came through last Thursday night and basically told us we need to take our stuff and divide it in half. He said to make it look like we don't live here while still living here....hmmm easier said than done!! I just hope we priced it right so that we get a buyer right away and don't have to mess with a bunch of showings and open houses. That's what is new on the moving front.

On the kid front...Mya will be 6 months old tomorrow! She is sitting up and pulling her leg up like she wants to crawl when she is on her tummy. She has eaten cereal the last couple nights so that was exciting for us after she refused it for almost 6 weeks straight! I had to water it down a ton in order for her give it a shot. She has also been sleeping better during the day and night. We have decided that Mya will do things when she is ready and not a second earlier. Should be fun when she is a teenager!!

Max is starting to put some words together to form small sentences. Yesterday he was looking for his blanket and came out of his room and said, "I found it" He has also been really fun around Mya lately. In one week he has tried to suck out her nose, clip her finger nails and pick her up to play Rosie (ring around the rosie). I got there in time to stop all three from happening:)

I think the hair cut gods were trying to tell me something, but after 2 canceled appointments, I finally made it to the 3rd one. It didn't come without problems though. The babysitter I had scheduled called 20 min. before my appt. and said her car wouldn't start, so I had to bundle the kids up and take them to a neighbors in order to make it on time. I told the stylist to do something different, so now I have bangs for the first time since high school! I wasn't sure about them at first, but I'm starting to like them more each day. Chris has been really busy trying to keep up with two jobs. Looks like it will be this way for awhile. Enjoy the warm front this week if you live in the Midwest:) Here are a few new pictures.
My three favorite Vikings fans


Max trying on my jewelry


The best picture I have of Mya sitting up.



A video clip of Mya laughing at Max

Big News!

Nope...not baby #3:) Our big news is that Chris got a new job in Dubuque (still with John Deere) so we will be moving in the next couple of months! It's bittersweet for me because I like it so much here in Cedar Falls. We have great friends here that we will miss a lot. The location has been great with only being 1.5 hous from Decorah and 3 from the twin cities. Dubuque will be just a bit farther to Decorah and 4.5 hours to the cities.

I can't say that I was surprised though as we knew this would come at some point. It played a factor in my decision to stay home this year, because I didn't want to be in the middle of a contract when this opportunity came up and then have to stay here with the kids until the end of the school year or have Chris turn the job down. The move is going to happen pretty fast. We are going to look at houses tomorrow and realtors are coming to look through ours next week. I'm REALLY looking forward to having the house ready to be shown each day...ha ha. I'll just be following Max around all day picking up after him. It will be a ton of work to get this all to happen in a short time, but we'll just take it one day at a time!

One of the biggest things I'm worried about is what to say to Max when he asks to play with his friends Tate and Dida (Adria) 25 times a day like he does now!

I've been tagged!

My friend Diane has tagged me, so now I have to blog about 7 interesting/weird facts about myself! Here goes:

1. I would rather watch a movie I have already seen than to watch a new one.
2. I am the daughter of a banker and have absolutely no clue how to balance a checkbook.
3. I shop online so much that I have my credit card number memorized.
4. I've seen every episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8 (makes my life seem like a piece of cake)
5. I like doing laundry, don't mind folding it, but HATE putting it away.
6. I went to UW-Eau Claire for 3 days and then transferred to Luther.
7. I love to polka.

Kelly Escorcia---You're it!

I should have known...

When you have two kids and one of them gets sick, the next one is bound to get it, right? Well, it hit Mya yesterday. She woke up and had an enormous amount of snot coming out of her nose almost nonstop. I called the pediatrician's office and they said we better bring her in. Good thing we did because the little bugger had a double ear infection and RSV. The day was horrible. She only had her eyes open in 1/2 hour increments and the rest of the time was sleeping on either Chris or my shoulders. That's how we spent last night too...we alternated shifts of taking care of her.

Today seems a little better. I was really worried yesterday about dehydration, but she's eating a little better today and has had some wet diapers. Of course now that Max's virus has run its course, he is bouncing off the walls with endless energy. His appetite is back too. Yesterday afternoon for a snack, he ate a piece of peanut butter toast, a banana and a container of yogurt. I think he's feeling better:)