Daddy is home!

We are so happy to have Dan back home! We picked him up from the airport tonight and the boys totally lavished love upon him. "I missed you, Daddy!" "I love you soooo much, Daddy!" "Please snuggle with me, Daddy!" "Hold my hand, Daddy!" I think this might be my new favorite photo.

Sammy and I got to spend some quality time together today, which was awesome. I love that sweet, sassy, silly boy. Elijah had a great day! He started off the morning by getting dressed, using the bathroom and brushing his hair and teeth ALL ON HIS OWN. Without any prompting or grumbling. I didn't quite know what was going on, but I loved it! Then he asked me to give him a spelling quiz (he has a spelling test at school every Friday).

And then he offered to clean the kitchen floors. Uhh, what the heck?!

And he had a GREAT day at school! His first great day since early last week!

I'm off to cuddle with my hubby! Thanks for checking in and have a wonderful weekend!

Mama business = serious business

Did you hear that? I just sighed a HUGE sigh of relief. I'm done working in Cannon Falls for the week, so the scrambling is done for now. Dan gets home tomorrow night and I can't wait to squeeze him! It has been a totally crazy week for the little boys and me. This single mom business is no joke! I have a new, great respect for single moms. They are my heroes!!!

My limited patience and the boys' total craziness have been feeding off one another all week. Things that are usually a piece of cake have suddenly become chaotic. I don't know if it's chance or Dan's absence or both. Putting the boys to bed the past few nights has been filled with stress, which has never been an issue for us. This morning on the way to daycare, Sammy realized he had forgotten his sunglasses. It was raining, so I assured him he wouldn't miss them. The entire ride to daycare involved screaming (like, ear-clutching SCREAMING), punching the door, punching the air toward me and yelling potty words that I've never heard come from his mouth. Three of the past six school days for Elijah have been "bad" and the other three were "ok." Elijah has reverted to waking up at 3:00-4:00am, which I don't get. He's also been having a hard time falling asleep at night, which isn't like him at all. I'm praying all of this is just a result of a major change in family dynamic/routine and that it'll go back to normal...tomorrow.

Tonight there was supposed to be a carnival at Elijah's school and we were all really looking forward to it. There were going to be games, a raffle, yummy food, friends, etc. As Elijah and I sat in the car outside daycare while picking Sammy up (torrential rains had swept in, so I was trying to wait it out), I received a recorded call from the school. The carnival was canceled due to inclement weather. Oh man, I knew Elijah was going to have a really tough time with that news. I gently shared it with him and tears immediately squirted out of his eyes. I mean, literally, they flew from his eyes horizontally there was so much pressure and sadness. It broke my heart. I hate seeing my boys genuinely sad! When I got back into the car with Sammy, both of us TOTALLY saturated from the rain, I told the boys we could replace carnival fun with another kind of fun. We'd move pizza-movie night up a night! The boys loved that idea and I actually saw a smile on Elijah's tear-stained face. "Thanks, Mom! That made me feel happy again." It sounds like they'll try again with the carnival next week!

We are so excited to see Dan and to hear about his adventures! The boys and I have missed him so much and we're looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend together. Next week = a follow-up appointment with E's awesome neuropsychologist, more work in Cannon Falls, Dan's and my 8-year anniversary, possible skydiving for Dan and hopefully more rest, normalcy and happiness for all of us!

Thanks for peeking in! Happy early Mother's Day to all of you wonderful mamas!

Great start to 2014!

1,620 miles later, we are home from another incredible road trip. Our trusty Camry got us to Indiana and northern Michigan and back home. We spent five days with my dad, stepmom, brother and my brother's sweet girlfriend in Indiana. We all had such a fun and relaxing time! We took tons of naps (uhmm, every day) and we played in the snow a lot. Our first day involved a Christmas celebration that the boys adored.

Isn't Uncle Joel so cool.

Joel and Bree are the perfect gift givers. Sammy loved his pirate telescope and Elijah LOVED his Lego RV.

Something I did not capture any pictures of was our trip to a state park to go tobogganing! Oh my goodness, what an adventure! The toboggan track was 70 years old and went 30-40 miles per hour. I knew Sammy wouldn't dig it, so he sat in the chalet with Grammie at first and then Gramps. Our first trip down the icy tracks involved me in the front, GRAMPS in the middle (so proud of him for doing this!) and Dan in the rear. We got our speed up to 31 mph! Wooo! Elijah even willingly went down himself three times! Once with Uncle Joel/Bree, once with Grammie and Bree and the last time with Dan and me. I was so proud of him! I could definitely see his anxiety building up before each "race," but once we were moving he had a blast!

We had tons of snuggle time on the couch in the house we rented in Indiana, which will be perhaps my favorite memory of the trip.

Dan started a fire a couple days in a row. It was COLD, so we needed warming...but we also wanted to be outside, enjoying the fresh air and newly fallen snow.

Our lucky boys got to make and eat s'mores by the frozen lake!

Some silly Elijah faces..

Does anyone see Dan? I think he went inside. Oh wait..

I LOVE this photo of the boys with their Grammie and Gramps.

More snuggle time.

Another photo I love! Elijah and Gramps!

Bree and I made an awesome snowman in the freezing cold. Sammy named him "Sammy."

Fun times inside.

Story time with Gramps.

We sadly departed our rented Indiana home and said good-bye to Joel and Bree. I miss them! We drove up to northern Michigan to attend my niece Emily's wedding. We stayed right on Lake Michigan. It was beautiful!

The boys were ring bearers in the wedding. They did great and they looked even better. Look at these handsome boys!

We are back home and adjusting to the normal routine. Kind of. Tomorrow is our school-has-been-canceled-because-of-the-cold-temps day and Tuesday Elijah is having surgery on his ear. We are dreading it, but it is necessary. Thanks for checking in! Wishing you all the best!

Fitting it all in

Once again, our "weekend" with Dan is done. BUT! He only works for two days this week and then we leave for a little road trip. I don't know how this is going to go with our little screamer, but we are going to try it and pray that we have a great time. We will be heading up to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan for a family reunion on Dan's dad's side of the family.



I have been trying to focus on the little bits of progress that Samson is making and that really helps me see things more positively lately. His gas issues are slowly improving, his naps are slowly improving and he is having much more quiet-alert time where he is a happy little boy. Thanks to the most wonderful sleep book on the planet, we are finally starting to see some good patterns with his sleeping. We didn't discover this book until Elijah was four months old and totally sleep-deprived. Once we found it, though, we were able to implement some things that I believe have made Elijah the awesome little sleeper that he is. We have already started implementing these same things with Sam and we are seeing that he has some really healthy sleep patterns developing. We LOVE this book and highly recommend it!

This week has already seemed a little bit crazy. Our car needed some maintenance before our big trip this weekend, so the best mechanic in the world is doing those repairs as I type (Hi Trev!). In an attempt to be as balanced (and tired) as possible, we have crammed in a ton of things in the past few days. In addition to our trip this weekend, we have some exciting travels coming up in the next few weeks that I'm really looking forward to.

Sammy's morning nap has lasted an hour and a half with only EIGHT MINUTES of crying. Wonderful!!!! I'm going to try to get a few more things done before he wakes up. Thanks for checking in!

Iowa weekend

We had a wonderful weekend in Iowa with my college roomies (minus one) and some of their families. The three of us came home very tired, but I think that is a sure sign of a good time.



We spent a lot of time at my friend Katie's, and Elijah loved exploring her house. He had fun checking out the pumpkins, calling out repeatedly for Bob the Cat ("Bob! Bobby! Cat!") and closing himself in their fireplace (don't worry, it was off and he was safe).



Katie and her husband, Drew, made us a ridiculously delicious and elaborate feast, as they do every year. I can still taste the juicy flavor of the smoked chicken. Mmmmmmmm.



Missy and her family drove up from southern Iowa and it was fun getting to know her kids better. We even got to splash around with them at the Kings Pointe waterpark!



We have a fairly normal week ahead of us. Oh, aside from the fact that a child at the daycare Elijah goes to caught the H1N1 virus. Dan canceled some work to keep Elijah out of d/c as a precaution, so we will see how the last part of the week plays out.



Here is the wonderful hostess of the weekend, the beautiful Katie!

The rest of our CA trip

We made it to the San Diego Zoo while we were in California, and it is such a beautiful place! The very steep ups and downs gave us a nice workout, and the animals were fun to watch. Elijah's favorites were the elephants and the giraffes.



My mom (who is an extremely talented artist) made and framed a colored pencil drawing of a giraffe that is hanging on the wall of the bedroom Elijah and I slept in while we were visiting. Every morning at 4:00, the first words out of his mouth were, "Hi Faffe! Chomp chomp! Fee!" Translated: "Hi Giraffe! Chomp chomp! Tree!" Because of this, his love for the giraffes at the zoo didn't surprise me much. His intense love for elephants was a little bit unexpected.



At the end of our Zoo journey, my mom bought Elijah a stuffed Mama and Baby Elephant. Also, a stuffed Mama and Baby Giraffe. I really had no idea how hard he would fall for these. He has a million stuffed animals at home and has never given them the time of day. (Look how exhausted he looks here.)



The morning after we went to the zoo, the 4:00 Elijah Talking turned into this: "Hi Faffe! Chomp chomp! Fee! Hi Mama Eh-phunt! Arrrrrrr!" Repeat thirty times. He is still, five days later, loving on these stuffed animals big time.



We also spent an afternoon at Seaport Village, down by the ocean, but my camera batteries died so I don't have photos to share from that adventure (therefore still sharing zoo pics). Elijah got to ride on a huge carousel, which happened to completely frighten him for a while before I could convince him to please let go of my neck before he choked me since he was going up and down on a horsey that he was very tightly strapped to.



Then we saw someone standing along the boardwalk randomly dressed up in a Mickey Mouse costume. I had no idea Elijah would be so star struck! He said, "Ickey!" enough times that we went over and said hi to the mouse and we even gave him a high five. While walking back to the car, and for the next fifteen minutes in the car, he said, "BYE ICKEY!" a total of 1,452 times.



We also visited Coronado Island for a bit (camera still dead), which is a very cool little place. San Diego is a BEAUTIFUL city.

Back at my mom's place, we did a lot of relaxing and hanging out and EATING and gazing at the pretty fountain in the parking lot. My mom is in the process of moving, so Elijah became good friends with one of the empty boxes that she hadn't filled up yet. There's that security thing again! Once we put him in the box it was pretty hard to get him back out. Oh, and do you see that little yellow mirror on the floor right behind him? My mom uses it to put on her make-up. Well Elijah seemed to think it was a microphone, so he liked to hold it up to his mouth and sing pretty songs for us. I have no idea where he gets this stuff!



Our vacation went really quickly and before we knew it we were packing up to come back home. I'm hoping we can get out to visit again soon (and this time bring Dan).



The stars didn't align for us on Tuesday morning as we prepared to fly back home. Our flight was delayed two hours because a runway was closed down for construction at the Minneapolis airport.

Then I went to the agent at our gate to get our seats changed since Elijah and I were assigned seats in different rows. The young man with the sparkling personality told me he couldn't help me. I happened to know this was crap, so I asked him again and showed him my 2-year-old little boy. He repeated the same line and this time added, "You can figure it all out once you get on the plane." I was so tired at this point from getting up so stinkin' early every morning that I lost it. I started crying and had to walk away for a bit.

Once on the plane, the flight attendants were appalled that I hadn't been helped at the gate. We then started the most complicated and embarrassing Airplane Shuffle I have ever seen, with a hesitant couple moving here and one guy moving there and another gal moving up there and another couple squeezing in over there. Thank you, Unhelpful Ticket Agent! My wonderful hubby, who is known for sticking up for the people he loves, called the airline the next day and made sure somebody heard what had happened.



Like I said in my last post, Elijah did AMAZINGLY well on both airplane rides. He sat like such a big boy in his seat with his seat belt fastened the ENTIRE FOUR HOURS. I had a handful of people per flight tell me they were amazed at how well-behaved my little boy was. Good job, Elijah!

This weekend is shaping up to be an unexpectedly busy weekend for Elijah and me, and Dan will hopefully be working a bit (while freezing his bum off). I hope everyone has a nice, safe weekend!