Maybe he should work on Saturday more often!

Joe had to work on Saturday, which I was initially really bummed out about, for obvious reasons. Saturday is for FUN, not work. We managed to combine the two, though, when Joe invited us to Boulder to visit the job site. I used to take Patrick to the job site every week when he worked in Fort Collins and we lived a mere 5 minutes away, but it's kinda tough to justify a 30-minute drive when I know Joe's busy so we won't see him and there are plenty of construction sites we're passing on the way. Since it was just him in the office, though, as soon as we showed up he walked outside with us and we got to see some MAJOR groundwork - a huge bulldozer and two backhoes were working so hard! Really, it's unusual to see that much work going on at a time at any job site, and we were lucky enough to only be about 20 feet away! Patrick was in heaven! Eli was asleep in the car, his own little version of heaven. We watched the cars for about 30 minutes, then went to Taco Bell for lunch (Joe and I hope there is a Taco Bell in our heaven), then went back and watched MORE bulldozer action! It was definitely worth the trip down.

When Joe finally had to get back to his desk to get some work done we tagged along - Eli had just woken up and needed some time to stretch before we got back in the car for the 30 minute drive home. In the office Patrick drew on Joe's giant white board - he'd never played with dry-erase markers before and he was LOVING it! Even after an hour of art he was mad that we were leaving. Eli was ready for a nap, though, so we loaded back up into the car and BOTH boys fell asleep on the ride home - yesssss! Eli stayed crashed out in his car seat and Patrick slept for an hour in the car, then and hour in his own bed, then half an hour in my lap, and finally woke up because daddy was home! So I dreaded Joe's day at work for nothing - we got to see him, eat lunch with him (which we never get to do), watch giant machines with him, and before we knew it he was home again!

The evening flew by, as evenings always do, and Joe and I picked up "Surrogates" to watch that night. We really enjoyed the movie, though it's parallels to "I, Robot" were a bit of a let-down. Still, you know that any day that begins and ends with machines is going to be above-average :)

I could always sleep anywhere, too

Patrick usually sleeps in his own bed for naps (every now and again, like right now, he'll fall asleep in the car and I let him nap there), but for the first time ever he slept in an unusual place - the hallway. He woke up after an hour, started crying and came to his door like usual. I was being silly and crawling around on the floor so he crawled over next to me, I put my arm around him, and we layed down. 2 minutes later he was fast asleep. 2 minutes after that I had the camera and this cute picture:

scrub-a-dub

Patrick always wants Eli to join him in the tub, and Eli loves getting bathed, so our evenings are usually spent in the bathroom scrubbing these two cuties. Patrick is very good at pointing out that they both have "wieners." Ahhhh, my naked men :)

Happy birthday!

Last week was a little crazy with a fantastic zoo expedition on Monday followed by a horrendous night up with an attack of croup, followed by a week of staying home so we didn't contaminate any other poor souls with croup (whoever gave it to US should be made accountable! Seriously, STAY HOME!), but things have been looking up lately!

For one, we went to the Aquarium! Instead of getting presents for Patrick we spent Saturday morning checking out wa-wa's (fish) and rogs (frogs) and ssssssss' (snakes) for as long as he darn well pleased - a present that we ALL enjoyed! Plus, his grandparents got him things, so we were pretty well off the hook :)

Today was wonderful because it was actually his birthday! And just in time, he learned to say "two" (as much as I'd prefer him to build up that vocbulary, he'd prefer to not to, and he really had the final say). This morning he slept in (not because it was his birthday, of course, but the coincidence was fortuitous) and we had pancakes for breakfast and this afternoon we baked a cake together. Not just any cake, a FROG cake because he's so fascinated by frogs at the moment. He was THRILLED, I never imagined an amphibian confection would be such a hit. We also made cake-ball "ants" to go with it, since (in his little mind) no frog is complete without ants to eat.

He liked the ants but wouldn't eat the cake because the frosting is green. He thought it was some sort of vegetable.

Unwrapping presents - it was lucky he had any presents to unwrap! Joe and I are both terrible about wanting to open presents as soon as they appear. Waiting is for sissies :)

DANG I love these guys to pieces! What a lucky girl I am

Side effects

Construction projects with babies/toddlers around have some unexpected side effects. First, awesome forts from discarded materials (in this case, a pocket door). Second, bizarre hair products, like drywall mud.

squeaky floors and babies

Wait, what do squeaky floors have to do with babies? Generally nothing, but this isn't "generally," this is my life :) Our house has 2 bathrooms, one in our basement that you have to walk through the laundry/utility room to get to. The other is upstairs and off the main hall but ALSO attached to the master bedroom with a pocket door. Both worked awkwardly as a main bathroom for the house, and we weren't very happy with that. Joe was especially unhappy one day with the pocket door that led to our bedroom and he broke it (whoops). We were BOTH getting CRAZILY unhappy with the attached bathroom because the floor was getting SO LOUD and SQUEAKY it was almost worth going downstairs in the middle of the night to use the other non-squeaky bathroom because we were (or I was) deathly afraid of waking up Patrick. And that's just ridiculous. The longer we've lived here the louder and larger the squeak has gotten until finally it didn't matter WHERE you placed your lightly-treading foot, the was a giant CREEEEEAAAAAAK from the floor. Suddenly that bathroom got launched to the top of our "To Do" remodel list... and with perfect timing!

Here's where babies come in: on Friday we received a nice check in the mail from my OBGYN, a refund of all the money we'd paid for my visits and ultrasounds for Eli. Just the way it worked out, the doctor's office didn't file any of their claims until the final claim - the hospital bill from having the baby - so I just had to pay as we went and wait until Eli came so the insurance could get their paperwork. Once they got it, though, we'd already met our deductible thanks (or no thanks) to my heparin, so we got all our money back! So Friday night Joe ripped up the ugly faux-wood linoleum and screwed the sub floor back to the joists, so we had NO MORE SQUEAKS! Then Saturday we got busy - ripped out the pocket door, removed the oddly-placed wood medicine cabinet (yuck), took down the giant stained mirror, took out the 70's-style wood towel bars, re-framed the wall, hung drywall, took out the vanity, took out the toilet, broke the toilet (oops), laid new floor (that was all me!), bought a pedestal sink, and got all the doo-dads we need to finish the job. We started with this: And now we've got this: It'll be a busy week, but by next weekend we should have a whole new bath! That giant square recess in the wall is for open shelves, it'll be pretty freakin' sweet, just you wait.

Tough love

I've heard most toddlers lose interest in the new baby after a while, but not so with Patrick. No, not so. This is the wrestling match I have to call off at least 5 times a day... after I take pictures of it, of course.

Smilerson

It's what I call Eli, cause he's so happy. Finally caught it on camera!

So blessed!

Today was Eli's blessing at church, which ended up a little more exciting than we planned. We set the date and filled out the paperwork with our bishop, who ended up being sick and gone today and we ended up being a little late so I couldn't confirm with anyone on the stand that they knew we were supposed to bless him. Turns out, they didn't know! After another baby was blessed they were getting ready to go on with the program so I had to sneak up to the front (not so very sneaky, it is IN FRONT OF EVERYTHING) and say "wait for us!" For a split second I thought about saying "forget it, we'll do it next week or next month" but Eli was all dressed (you know, the most important part), we'd asked a few friends to stand in on the blessing, Kari and Jonathan were at church for it, and we HAD filled out the paperwork! He was getting blessed, by golly, even if I had to announce it myself! Fortunately it didn't come to that, they just plugged the mic back in and we were in business. But what a day, I'm glad church isn't normally so exciting for me.

See? All dressed.

EVERYONE got dressed nicely, I just HAD to butt in!

We love having Kari and Jonathan visit, even if we're put on babysitting duty while they go to a Broncos game. Too bad the game was awful!

3 in 1

1. Merry Christmas! (Twice!)

2. Happy New year!

3. Happy 2 months, Eli!

Christmas #1 happened at our house this year with Joe's parents and older sister (and only sibling) visiting. Their visit wasn't actually about us or Christmas at all, it was because Joe's grandpa passed away and the fuberal was in Denver, but the timing was actually quite perfect so we took the opportunity to celebrate. Debbie entertained Patrick with their big red truck, Gina provided a warm comfy place for Eli to crash (he's always in search of new locale), and John helped Joe work on his car, which is working its way toward its final end more quickly than slowly. I was a little worried about tantrums on Christmas day because Patrick likes to open one present and play with it and it alone, and he gets ticked if you try to put it aside so he can open another. Fortunately we took their pre-Christmas visit slowly, and it really helped him get into the gift-opening mood, so he was an old pro by December 25th. No gift-opening tantrums! (Pictures, though, that was another story). For the meantime, though, he LOVED his new books, see-n-say, and Mr. Potatoe Head! We had a wonderful visit with them and it helped us to look forward to next year when we'll be celebrating at our house on purpose. Oooooh, scary!

Christmas #2 was at my parents house in Grand Junction (the only place I've ever celebrated Christmas Day, you can see why I'm a little scared) and all of my siblings were there! Hooray! It was an occasion for photos (the ones with the tantrums), since the last family photo we had was, I believe, about 6 years ago and only 1 sibling was married and nobody had kids. The new photo is significantly busier, with 4 sibling spouses and 6 kids, the oldest being not yet two, and the youngest being 4 days old. Cuh-razy. I tried to take as many photos as I could on my own camera to catch the moments, but there were just so many people and I'm much more about the moments than the camera, so I didn't quite reach my goals. But oh well, I'll steal from everyone else!

Anyway, Christmas morning started off fairly early, we just all got up when the kiddos got up (which is always fairly early). My dad kept Patrick and Kalena entertained chasing a flashlight beam while we waited for everyone to be up and decent. Eli and William, the newest kiddo, didn't get the memo and slept through the festivities. Patrick obliged in opening Eli's presents for him.

Amelia seemed a bit bewlidered by the whole thing.

Kalena was definitely into it! So was her dad. Christmas is unbelievably even better as a parent!

Eli was awake later in the day to watch the kids play with their new things

like this tunnel/tent combo. They LOVED it!

All in all, from our house to the western slope, we had a WONDERFUL Christmas with our families!

Now I'm going to need some awesome ideas for Christmas traditions for toddlers so I can look forward to our own Christmas (close to) as much as I always look forward to going home. Merry Christmas to all, and to all 2-month olds a happy new year!