The Ladies Man....

Life continues to be nuts around our house....I really look forward to getting settled in our new house so I can stop obsessing about the logistics of showing our house (lots of logistics with a boy and the 2 cats and 1 dog) and the constant back and forth during the week. Things are so crazy that I completely spaced buying Valentines for Paul to give to the kids in his class at school....what a goober I am.....only reason that it even occurred to me was that they sent home a cute Valentine's Day bag filled with stuff from all of the other kids. So, if any of the parents are reading this (which I doubt very much that they are) - Paul is not the goober...his mom is the goober that is way too busy right now to even THINK about Valentine's cards....even though this was his first Valentine's day at home. Argh!

Paul is REALLY into reading right now. Since we say things like "do you want to read A BOOK", he calls books the equivalent of "abba". He is really enjoying flipping through books on his own as well as having us read to him - before bed or even as soon as he gets up in the morning or from naptime. It's really pretty cute.

Here's Paul in his rocker - "reading" to his favorite monkey......

Paul snagged Jason's ski cap the other day and put it on his head and then started shuffling around in daddy's shoes. It's funny how much fun the boy can have just trying to walk in our shoes. Who needs toys?!?

What a cutie pie!

Check me out mommy!

We had a busy house-showing weekend. A private showing on Saturday and the an open house on Sunday afternoon. We headed out to GranJo's on Sunday with the whole crew. She made us a very nice lunch and then Paul went down for his nap. We hung out trying to be quiet since Paul had some trouble falling asleep in a strange place and in a pack-n-play to boot!

Mommy - thanks for my Valentine's Day cookie!

Here's my little man wearing his "The Ladies Love Me" t-shirt...thanks Mimi! He was having a blast playing with the jumpy smiley face man. It's always the random toys that he loves.

And GranJo was nice enough to grab the camera and snap a shot of mommy and Paul playing with choo-choos on the floor. I am usually the one snapping the pictures, so I am often missing from the pictures that we do have. It's not a great shot of me, but we were having a lot of fun!

We had our home inspection at the new house today - everything looked pretty darn good. There are a few cosmetic items and one minor drainage issue with one of the downspouts, but nothing serious or major to correct. This is great news! We are still targeting a closing in mid-March. We also met with the professional movers yesterday morning - we are both feeling a bit better after meeting with them. They will pack most of our things, load them in a truck and then unload them at the new house. It will take about 3 days total which isn't too bad.

Our life is about lists at this point - keeping track of what needs to be done and what has been completed already. The next few weeks will fly right by and before you know it, we will be moved and in unpacking mode! Can't wait!

It's been a week!

Oh what an interesting week it was!

I spent the majority of the week out of town and was VERY busy at work this week. As many of you know, we have been struggling to make a decision on how and when to make the move to DM. We have been unable to sell our home and really weren't interested in owning two....but on the flip side, the weekly commuting and spending so many days and nights away from my favorite boys has really been taking a toll. Soooo.....as soon as we found out that we were approved by our lender to hold two mortgages at once we decided to make an offer on a home in the DM area that we have liked since last fall. It's almost as though it has been waiting for us.....on the market since August and very value priced! The layout is great and we really felt like it was going to make a wonderful home for our family. Sooooo......we made an offer and they accepted it! We'll plan to close and move in mid-March.

We are super excited but nervous at the same time....we certainly aren't thrilled with the whole owning of two houses thing, but we are very excited to get settled and live together full-time as a family. There will be plenty to do over the coming 4 weeks! This weekend will be busy on the homefront - a house showing on Saturday and then our realtor is holding an open house on Sunday. Let's hope that the wheels are turning and this house sells soon!

Mid-week, I got an email from Jason including the following photo. Paul was down for a nap and Jason heard some rustling in Paul's room.....when he peeked in, it turns out that he had accidentally closed a cat in Paul's room when he put Paul in his crib. Since the door was open at this point, Jason grabbed the camera and snapped this picture. Isn't it funny how Paul is curled up the same way as his favorite monkey......

Later in the week, Paul's Mimi had a big birthday......she told me on the phone that all she wanted was to see a big 60 inked on Paul's belly. I must admit, I didn't think that would go over well at daycare the next day, so we compromised and had Jason ink up one of Paul's shirts instead. The plan was to have Paul wearing it while video-chatting with Mimi, but that didn't work either. So, here are the pictures of his cuteness! The drool clearly smudged the Sharpie a little but with a smile like that, who cares?!?

It certainly feels like the tide is turning and maybe we can move ahead towards a lower stress life! So bring on the packing, coordinating, touring of a new daycare facility, etc, etc, etc......

Feeling a bit better.....

This is Day 3 of the strong antibiotics and the nebulizer and Paul seems to be coming around. The pediatrician said it would take a few days and we seem to be right on track. He woke up in a good mood after sleeping for 13 hours last night with minimal coughing during the night. We skipped church since he is not really quite ready to make an appearance outside of the house yet.....so, we bummed around in our loungewear for the morning while mommy did lots of laundry and cleaned up around the house. Generally trying to get things ready for the boys to go it alone the better part of this week. My plans have changed a bit and I am now headed to DM earlier in the week rather than later - but of course there is a big snow storm coming with 24 hours of snow predicted starting Monday morning through Tuesday and accumulations of 8 to 10 inches. So, I am going to head out this afternoon and have a stress free drive instead of driving in the early morning tomorrow and wondering what weather I might encounter on beautiful I-80.

Needless to say, it's tough to leave my boys with Jason's back still not at 100% and Paul on the mend. Hubby is being a great sport and I am sure everyone will be just fine. Paul is napping, I am going to pack and get cleaned up and then hit the road. This will probably be the most nights away from Paul that I have ever spent.....not a fun thing to think about. I will most likely come back on Thursday (but possibly Wednesday later in the afternoon depending on weather and workload). This only reinforces our push to get moved even though we haven't sold the house yet. This week should tell us if that it possible or not....and while the idea of owning 2 homes in 2 different states does not thrill either of us, it would certainly be nice to be able to live as a family all together all the time.

Thought I would share some video from just after lunch today. Paul has starting cheering when he sees us bring out the nebulizer - who would have thought?!? He really enjoys "breathing like a dragon" and watching Elmo, Pororo or other things on the computer in the kitchen during his treatments.

Here he is rowing his little boat - not sure how much breathing he was doing during this one, but I think with the thing stuck in his mouth at least SOME of it is being inhaled.

And here he is twinkling....

Have a great week everyone.....and let's hope my boys are feeling ALL BETTER when I come home!

My Poor Pathetic Boys!

We have 2 boys in the house that are under the weather.....and I don't like it one bit! Jason's back started to act up earlier in the week and after much cajoling on my part, he went to see a physician this morning. He's got some nice pain medication and muscle relaxers and hopefully will start to feel a bit better soon.

As for Paul - it's been a LONG week. He started feeling cruddy on Sunday night/Monday. He started coughing a bit on Sunday but I wasn't terribly concerned.....when I picked him up from school on Monday, they mentioned that he had been coughing quite a bit all day. That night, his coughs started to sound like a barking seal.....on Tuesday, Jason took him to see the doctor who diagnosed Paul with croup. So, he was on prednisone for a few days and we expected him to start feeling better......yeah, not so much.

Paul continued to run a fever and while his croup cough went away, it was replaced with a very deep chest cough....and of course lots of snot to boot! He just feels miserable and we feel bad for him. Things just kept getting worse and worse.....so we headed to see the doctor again this afternoon. Now Paul has an ear infection and might be on the cusp of a little pneumonia. We raced from the doctor's office to Trinity Home Care Products to buy a fancy nebulizer for Paul's breathing treatments....and then to the pharmacy to fill his prescriptions.....and then home for dinner.......and then his first breathing treatment.

Pathetic boy snuggling with daddy.....

We weren't sure how Paul would handle the nebulizer treatments - they gave us a pediatric mask and told us to hold it up in front of his face - yeah, that didn't go over well at all. So, we used the adult attachment and he did really well with it. What a smart little man we have!

Mommy, am I doing this right?

Paul got to watch Elmo while doing his big boy breathing treatments.....

Here's my big boy doing his very first nebulizer treatment - the machine is kind of loud so I thought he might have been scared...he did so well! We'll be doing these 3-4 times per day for the next few days and then hopefully decreasing after that. Let's hope he continues to be a good sport over the next few days.