Target Field...

Finally! It only took us until May 27 to see Target Field. However, we did it up right. The last game of a three-game Yankees series, the weather could not have been any better and the Twins won. Ron and I had a great time and are absolutely in love with Target Field. We can't wait to be back and next time with the kids.

Thanks mom for watching the kids for us so that we could watch the Twins beat the Yuckees!

Goals for 2010

Back in January I wrote up some goals for the coming year. I thought now was a good time to check in on them and see how we are doing....or not doing.

Personal:
Less soda intake. I would like to decrease to drinking one can of soda each day and increase my water intake.
Failing. Miserably failing. If I don't have at least one can of Pepsi a day I may die. I have been drinking more water now that it's been warmer out, but still nothing tastes better than a cold can of Pepsi.

Put more into friendships. I've been spending the last three years growing my family and not putting a lot into my friendships. I hope to put more time and energy into maintaining my friendships.
We are getting better at this. It's still hard to fit in time for friends with so many family commitments but we are making more of an effort.

Pack a lunch. I don't need to eat out to eat with friends. I need to pack my lunch and still get up from my desk to eat it.
Failing. I pack my lunch sometimes and it doesn't sound better than going out to eat, so I leave it in the fridge! This is a bad habit. Part of it is just really wanting to get away from my desk and be out in the world for lunch.

Household:
Create less food-waste. I want to encourage our family to eat leftovers or to make new meals with leftover ingredients.
Getting better. Not great. I tire of food quickly and don't enjoy having leftovers. I have gotten better at making smaller quantities so that we don't have so much leftover.

Buy in bulk. I'd like to make my Target visits last longer. Why only buy one box of diapers when I know we will go through many, many more? I am needing to go to Target once a week, my goal is to spread that out a little more. Buy a few packages of wipe refills, not just one!Yay! Doing better here. I can almost make it two weeks without going to Target.

Parenting:
Broaden Jackson's diet. I'd like to introduce a new food every other week and get him to eat a more grown up diet. I've been staying safe and feeding him kid-friendly food which I'm afraid will turn him off to adventurous foods.Success! Jackson is eating things like hummus, olives, parsnips, zucchini, cauliflower, pita bread and risotto. He is willing to take one bite of something and knows that if he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to eat it. Tried but won't eat: sprouts, tomatoes, cucumber, pizza, beets, mango and avocado.

Encourage Jackson to help with chores. Currently, to get chores done I send Jackson to hang with Dad or watch a show. I'd like to be better about getting him involved even if it does take longer to do the chore.
Jackson really likes pulling clothes from the dryer into the basket. He is also pretty good at dusting with a wet rag. We've really been working on bringing dishes to the counter after a meal and wiping up his own spills.

Get Addie signing. We did really well working with Jackson to use sign language and it made life easier. I want to do this same thing with Addie.
Addie is waving bye-bye and clapping for "more". We'll keep working at it.

Plbttt...

King of corn...

I'm not sure I get it. Wait, scratch that. I totally don't get it. But here is the story: Ron's softball team has this crazy ritual, the player who hits the most "corn balls" has to wear a ridiculous hat. Is "corn ball" a technical term? I highly doubt it, but their definition of a "corn ball" is a pop-up ball. Why not just call it a pop-up, you ask? I don't know, because they are men? And men are weird like that. It's the same reason the back's of their shirts say things like; STINKY, RONNIE HO, BICHTITS and SLAPNUTS.

But I digress: Last year the king of corn wore a king hat. Kevin was the king for most of the season and Jackson was both intrigued by the hat and afraid of Kevin (which I don't get because Kevin is super sweet and friendly with the boy). This year the king of corn wears a sombrero! And guess who was king this week... and who got to wear the sombrero after the game...


King of Corn and Brandon


Prince of Corn

Random Thoughts

How does one go to the grocery store for milk, come home with Doritoes, processed lunch meat, hormel no bean chili, wonder bread and no milk? I don't know. But you could ask my husband.

Garage sale, a success! A $663 success! And what's even better? Our house is free of a lot of junk! A lot. Ron made two trips to Goodwill and one to Savers with the leftovers. We still need to make a run to Half Price Books and we'll be done.

And the road to accumulating more junk begins.

Our bedroom has four baskets full of clean laundry. There is not room to get into the bathroom around the laundry baskets! I don't mind washing clothes, drying clothes or folding clothes, but putting clothes away is punishment.

I want to live in a warmer state. For many reasons, but this is the reason that I think about today: Our weekends are already booked for summer. Booked. There are so many fun things to do in the summer that we jam as many of them as we can into 12 weekends. Why can't we live somewhere that we have plenty of time to do all of the things we love?

On one of the hottest and most humid days of the year, I am day-dreaming about baking a cake. My brain does not function like others'.

The Yuckees!

A Which What Who...

Jackson and Addie have been having fun with the nanny, Nicole. They have been spending a lot of time heading to the park and playing. Jackson is also working with Nicole on weekly preschool activities that I plan out. This last week was the letter K; they made kites and learned all about kangaroos. We also got out the dress-up bin and have been having a lot of fun with it. Lately when I come home from work this has been Jackson's attire:

A toad...

We have been spending a lot of time in the yard lately. And we've been finding critters all over. Jackson likes to hunt for worms. When we find one we need to search for more so that there can be a mama worm, a daddy worm, a big boy worm and a baby worm. Last week we found a grub at Grandma Pam's and this week we found a toad!

On a bicycle built for two... wait, three...

Not a lot of time to write, because I need to get myself off to sleep. We had a lovely weekend and enjoyed so much time outside soaking up the sun. I'll write more and add more photos from our weekend later. But for now, I wanted to share a couple from our first bike ride of the season tonight. So far Addie is not a lover of the bike ride, we hope with practice she'll take to the activity her parents love so.

Addie, 9 months...

Stats from the doctor appt:
Weight: 21 lbs. (85%)
Length: 2'4" (67%)
Head: 18" (79%)

Wordless Wednesday (almost)...

This is Jackson at 9 mos. I'm posting this because in a few short days I will be posting a photo of Addie at 9 months. They are such DIFFERENT kids!

Random Thoughts...

Addie has decided that she doesn't care much for formula. Is this why she has stopped biting me?

Rain, rain go away. Come again another day. Jackson wants to play! We have completely forgotten how to play inside and we are running out of activities to keep busy.

The new nanny started today! Nicole will be with us through the summer and we are thrilled to have her.

Addie isn't quite crawling yet, but she is rolling. You can put her down on a blanket and in moments she's made it to the ground and scooted/rolled to the other side of the room. It's all happening quick!

We had our friends' girls over this weekend. Four kids under 4 at our house was an adventure! I think we handled it relatively well and Ron and I worked as a team to combat the group. It is never good to be out-numbered.

I miss Spring Break! I really enjoyed not having to do homework every night of the week and now that I've started back up again I'm struggling to get myself back into the groove. This term is Service Marketing online.

Lately

What we've been doing lately ...


Building puppet theaters.


And having puppet shows. Jackson likes entertaining an audience and the shows are pretty short!


Addie is trying REALLY hard to start crawling. We've gotten the baby gates out and ready to attach.


Chasing bubbles has been a lot of fun and it's allowing Jackson to wear off some energy. Addie really likes watching them float by too.


Watching dad play softball. Ron has had a couple of early games, so we've packed up dinner and eaten at the ball field. One of the games ended early so Jackson was able to get out on the field and throw the ball around with his Dad.


Taking a bath together for the first time. The kids really got a kick out of doing this. Addie isn't super stable sitting up yet, so it's a challenge, but it was still fun.

Wordless Wednesday (Argh Matey!)...

Visit the dentist...

The Berenstain Bears go to the Dentist and so does Jackson. I picked the book up at the library to help prepare Jackson for his first visit. As we snuggled up to read it at bedtime, I quickly realized that the book would need to be modified for our purposes since there would be no YANKING of teeth to happen at the dentist!

Jan and Stan, what were you thinking?

Jackson visited the dentist for the first time yesterday with Ron. He watched while Ron got his own teeth cleaned and then hopped up in the dentist chair. "Which moved like Grandpa Joel's bed!" He came home with a bag of goodies and great stories of his cleaning with Pam and Dr. E. I'm so glad his experience was a good one.

A reunion of sorts...

Katie and Jesse brought their adorable son Liam in for a visit this weekend. We were lucky to have them and enjoyed our time. We packed a lot in. On Saturday Joanna was able to come by with her kids for a playdate and lunch. It was crazy with five kids and four adults, but we managed. We also got in a stop by my dads, a trip to The Children's Museum, dinner with Mom and Bill and a bonfire. Whew!

Jackson keeps talking about our house being five whole hours away from Katie, Jesse and Liam's house!

It was a great time and we are now looking forward to our visit their way later this summer.


Jackson turns himself into a turtle at the Children's Museum

Katie and Addie


The men bonfire


Beautiful Ava swings


As does Liam


And the babies check each other out

Why take them one at a time?

When you can just do this...