You have got to be kidding me!!

For those of you who know me and my kids pretty well...what is the first thing you think of when you think of my kids and car seats??? THEY HATE THEM!! Seriously, Mya screams when the van door opens just because she thinks she is getting put in that horrible seat. Max hasn't slept more than 45 straight minutes in the car in his entire life. Mya has cried so hard she has puked. We even took money out of our 401K to buy them the cadillac of car seats in hopes that that would make the ride smoother. No luck. Chris and I have had many conversations about why this is...we have no idea. We actually cringe when we think about traveling with them. Not ideal when we have to travel to see both of our families.

Why do I blog about this you ask?? Recently the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with some new recommendations. Kids have to face backwards in their car seats until they are 2 years old AND 35 pounds!! Holy Cow. I have been counting the days until Mya turns 1 and 20 pounds (the old standards) so we could turn her around and hopefully make car rides more enjoyable. At this rate...she'll be facing backwards until she's 6!! Technically, Max should still be facing backwards. Can you imagine? There is no bloody way we are turning him around...he has finally stopped crying when we put him in!!

Apparently it's 5 times safer to have them face backwards. It's hard to argue with those numbers, but this is one time I wish I didn't have a conscience. The pictures I'm putting in do not match the blog. We prefer not to have any evidence of the way they normally act in the car.




**I got this information from Tara Thomas (at KWWL.com) on her blog. Just go to the main page and then click on her blog.

The Sunshine State

Last Friday Chris and I ventured out on our first vacation away from our kids! My brother and his wife Amanda planned it about 2 weeks ago, so I didn't have much time to worry about it which was a good thing:) We went to Orlando, but didn't take in one tourist sight the entire time! The vacation consisted of the following: laying out by the pool, cribbage, shuffle board, laying out by the pool, getting $100 for listening to a time share presentation, free throw shooting contests, water volleyball, applying sunscreen, laying out by the pool, laughing, tennis on hard courts and clay courts, checkers, reading, eating sushi and laying out by the pool some more! (Oh....there were a few adult beverages in there too:)

We had a rough time getting there on Friday. There were severe storms in Orlando when we were going to land, so we circled for awhile and then decided we didn't have enough fuel to keep circling, so we flew into Jacksonville and sat on the plane for awhile until the weather cleared and we fueled up. When we finally arrived in Orlando, we had been on the plane for 6 hours! We got one drink and one bag of pretzels the entire time, so you can imagine the mood of the passengers at the end of that flight. The flight home went much smoother. We arrived back in Minneapolis 30 minutes ahead of schedule so that sort of made up for it!

Our kids did fine without us. They were happy to see us, but within 15 minutes of leaving to go back to Dubuque, Max said he wanted to go back....ouch:) It's back to normal already this morning! Here are a few pictures from the trip.




This is what your back looks like when you get pegged with an overhead:)

No, David

In honor of Max being 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days old (see side ticker..I don't keep track of that myself:) I thought I'd share storytime with you all. Chris normally puts Max to bed, but I have been stepping in the last couple nights and have been pretty impressed with how well he is "reading" books. One of his favorites is the book No, David. Here's a video of him reading it. It starts off a little slow, but picks up.

double digits

Mya is 10 months old today! Here is a run down of what she has been up to lately.

#1) Can climb the entire flight of steps.

#2) Loves to touch my hair the entire time she's drinking a bottle
#3) Walks along toys as she pushes them
#4) Walks along furniture
#5) Still annoys her brother to no end
#6) Saying mama and dada---although not always appropriately
#7) Getting tooth #7 on the bottom right side
#8) Can hold the bottle by herself although chooses not to. See #2.
#9) Can open drawers and cupboards
#10) Loves to jump on the trampoline and in her crib ((hmmmm...wonder where she learned that?)
#11) Prefers to crawl around with something in her mouth. a pacifier would be an obvious choice, but that would be too simple and ordinary.


#12) Waves bye-bye although not always appropriately. You can see her waving the most when she's in her high chair trying to be cute so I take her out and thus she won't have to eat.


I can't believe she is already 10 months old. When Max was little I remember just wishing him to be the next age and next stage. I have been guilty of that with Mya at times, but not as much. I feel like I have enjoyed each stage more with her mostly because if it was a bad stage, I knew it would eventally end! Mya is a sweet little girl who I fall in love with more every day!

Elmo's World

Today we went to the Arboretum here in Dubuque for a Kids Spring Fun Day. The theme was Shrek and since Maxwell is not a fan of that big green ogre, we did not get any pictures with him. On a positive note, at least he is starting to pronounce Shrek better. A few months ago, it came out like a four letter work starting with F. Just ask Joe and Tracy. One night he kept on saying the name when we were out to eat. Of course they thought it was hilarious, so he kept on saying it! He did get his face painted and got to sit by Elmo. He thought it was pretty cool until Elmo tried touching him. See pictures below. Max's friend William was not a fan either...as you can see from the pics:)

Trip to HyVee

UPDATED: Thanks to Kelly K. for telling me how to FINALLY get pictures off of my phone! When I told Chris this morning that I knew how, guess what he said to me? "I've known how to do that for years!!!!" I could have strangled him. I have written that in my blog more than once that I wish I could get the pictures and I guess it didn't "register with him." (in his own words)
A few things I learned from my trip to HyVee yesterday:

A. Don't let your 9 1/2 month old daughter hold the shopping list. Especially if you're the type of person who has no idea what is on the list and without it spends 3times as much money.

B. Don't bribe your 2 year old that he can go to the park after the shopping trip if he's good and sits down nicely in the cart when the clouds are threatening rain.

C. Don't trust the seatbelts in the cart. Mya was fastened in and when I turned around from getting something off the shelf, she was facing the other way standing up. I have a picture on my cell phone to prove it. but a lot of good that does since I don't know how to get those pictures off.


Here's the picture off of my phone. She is not standing anymore in this picture, but you can get the general idea:)

D. Don't let your dog ride along and leave the windows down for her when it's threatening rain.

Also...do you remember when I told you about the free cookie at HyVee? Well, I recently discovered they give out a free helium hyvee floral shop balloon to anyone that wants. Guess who wants that every time now along with a cookie! You guessed it.

The Beloved Park

There is a really nice park 1.7 miles from our house (don't ask me why I know that) that Max absolutely loves. I use it as a bribe all the time. (if you sit in the cart nicely, we can stop at the park, etc.) It is right on our way home from basically anywhere we go, so many times I take an alternate (longer) route home just to avoid the whining and crying if we're not able to stop. Here are a few pics from a recent family picnic!

WWF--M&M style

Wrestling whoever will let her is Mya's favorite thing to do these days! If Max is not in the mood for this, it abruptly ends with many tears. However, when he is in the playful mood, they have a lot of fun together. 9 times out of 10, she wins:)






Mya: "That was a piece of cake!"

Mother's Day

I can't believe today was the 3rd Mother's Day I have celebrated. I just love being a mom and am so thankful that these two little ones are in my life.



Apparently they think I'm doing an okay job, because this year Max and Mya got me a new lens for my camera and a scanner so I can take some old pictures and make them digital! Here are a couple pictures from the weekend taken with the new lens.






Hope you all had a great weekend and for all of my "mom-friends" out there...Happy Mother's day to you!

Black Eye

Mya has a black eye. I'd be willing to bet it isn't going to be her last. I'm not even exactly sure how she got it. I know it involved Max, Chloe and a chair. Use your imagination from there...



We had a good weekend here. Finally the weather was nice on a weekend for a change. We attempted to have a garage sale. Chris and I are officially the laziest worst garage sale hosts ever! If we got sick of it, we just closed the garage for awhile! We ended up getting rid of some of our junk treasures and made $40, so that was good.





Grandma Pat came down to help with the garage sale, but mostly ended up playing with the kids and planting flowers for me instead! I was glad to get those things done and appreciated the help.