Tate and Adria

It is seriously going to kill me the first time Max asks for Tate and "Dida" when we're in Dubuque. We see these guys at least 3 times a week and many weeks it's more than that. Tate will be 4 in June and Max thinks he's best thing in the world. I'm sure Tate gets annoyed with how many times Max can say the name "Tate" in a 2 minute span, but he puts up with it:) Adria is 8 weeks younger than Max and is this sweet little girl who gets thrown in with the boys, but she can hold her own!

Joe and Tracy have been good friends of ours since the Quad City days playing softball and partying it up. We moved to CF in February of '06 and they moved here just a few months later. (Joe also works for JD) I have bounced millions of parenting questions off of Tracy, we have gone on hundreds of walks around the 1.1 mile loop, and had countless play dates and venting sessions! (and trips to Panera, but we keep those a secret from Chris and Joe:) I know we'll stay in touch because I don't want Max to ever forget about his first friends!

Happy Birthday Grandpa David!

We hope you have a wonderful birthday Grandpa! Here are a few of our favorite pictures with you! We Love You! Max and Mya

Bankie

What would parents do without security objects such as blankets, pacifiers, stuffed animals, silkies, etc. I for one would be in a world of hurt if Max's blanket ever disappeared. Chris has voiced several times that he wishes it would go away or "accidentally" get left somewhere. However, when it comes down to is, I know he would do anything to recover it if something ever happened to it.

The problem with the blanket at our house is that it stinks so so bad! Max chews on it whenever he is holding it (which is most of the time) If it is sitting on the floor and you walk on it, your socks will get wet if you hit it in the right part. Do you know how much I hate wet socks?? I can't even read a book to him without holding my breath so I don't smell it. I was thinking in the shower this morning that I have washed it at least 3 times a week for 1 year. That's over 150 washings!! I have tried numerous stain sticks and bleach, but nothing can get the smell entirely out. You're probably wondering why we don't have a second one as back up? Well, we do, but Max wants no part of it. He knows exactly which one is his blanket and if we try to trick him, he cries.

Maybe the worst part of this blanket is that Mya wants it now! She'll do anything to get her hands on that blanket. She and Max have had many laughs playing tug-o-war with this disgusting blanket. She even puts it in her mouth!! We have since given her the back-up blanket and she seems happy with it. She hasn't yet attached herself to one particular security object, but when she does, I just hope she doesn't suck on it!!

Here are a few pictures of the infamous bankie!

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