Big Boy Blue

We painted the boy's room last weekend "Big Boy Blue". I also finally got wood letters painted for their names. The room is small so I couldn't get the beds and names in the same picture. I put the names up pretty high in hope of them staying there.

Fun Outings for Next Year

I keep hearing/thinking about places I'd like to take the boys, but then I never actually make the plans to take them there. For example, I just couldn't wait until A Little Surprise opened up. Well, it's been open for about 3 months now and have I taken the boys there once? No. So I brainstormed some places I'd like to go and decided to come up with a calendar. I have outings planned for every Friday ranging from local park days to fun destinations (the Children's museum, pumpkin patch, etc.) I also put down going to story time at the library on Tuesdays. We did the baby story time last year and loved it. Now it's time to move up to toddler story time - we'll see how it goes. :)
Anyways, I put all of this down on a Google calendar so that I could share it with you all. I would love for you to join us on our outings. Just email/call me so that we can look out for you guys and also let you know if we can't make it at the last minute. It seems like whenever I plan anything it either rains or one of the kids is sick. :(

I hope that you can join us!

Mei's Family Outing Calendar

New Plates

I found the cutest plates at Target. They are up front in their $1 section. They also have a cute "girl" pattern. Besides these they also have regular plates, cups, silverware, water bottles, and place mats.

Big Boy Bed

We went out last Saturday and bought Johnny a Big Boy Bed. I'm afraid that any day now Jacob will decide to climb out of his crib. We were lucky with Johnny because his crib converted into a toddler bed so it was not big deal when he decided he was too big for his crib. We had toyed around with the idea of getting the boys bunk beds, but I'm just not ready to deal with ladders yet. So we just bought Johnny a basic twin size bed in a plain metal frame - no head board. Then we will move Jacob into Johnny's toddler bed. I found the cutest sheets online at Target that come in twin and toddler sizes. So Jacob and Johnny will have matching sheets and comforters. Yea! Before Johnny was born we had painted his room half green half yellow and put up a border with baby animals in the middle. Well that is just too babyish for my "big boys". So last night I started taking down the border. It was easier than I thought. I went out to Home Depot today and got some paint samples. So looks like we'll be painting on Saturday. I'll post more pictures once we get the beds set up and the walls painted. Next project - turning the play room into a nursery.

Bathtub Art

Yesterday at Target I discovered crayons for the bathtub. The boys had fun with them this morning. The only bad thing is that one of the crayons fell down the drain. The crayons come with a plastic cover and you can push them up to "sharpen" them. But they aren't very secure in the cover so they kept falling out. Hopefully it'll just dissolve and not end up clogging the pipes. :)

Eating Lunch is so Exhausting

I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, looked over and Jacob was asleep! I told John about this later and he asked "what did you do"? I said "took a picture of course". :) He hardly woke up while I scrubbed the ravioli sauce off his face and hands. Then he went down without a fuss for a three hour nap.

It's a Baby!

I had my first OB appointment yesterday for Baby. I'm at 9 weeks and 3 days. That means only 9 more weeks to go and I can have my ultrasound and find out if it's a boy or girl. I can't wait! I hope that I'll be able to go out and buy pink and purple clothes with lace and ruffles. :)

Everything was normal. On the scan you could see the heart fluttering, but it's too early to hear yet. I think next month I should be able to hear it. I did have to switch doctors from last time. My doctor with Jacob moved to Wisconsin. I went to the same practice and just randomly picked a doctor. I lucked out! I really like her. I'll be delivering at Banner Thunderbird again. That's at 59th Ave and Thunderbird. It's only 10 minutes from my mom's house.

One troubling thing that did come up was that this medication that I was one during both Johnny and Jacob's pregnancies has now been listed as one that you can't take while you are pregnant. I had normal pregnancies and deliveries with both of them, but now I'm worried about any long term affects. I'll have to do some research. The doctor switched my to a new medication, which I hope works as well as the old. One good thing is that with this new medication I can breast feed. To be honest, when I was told that I would not be able to breast feed before, I was relieved. At that time I knew no one who breast feed and it seemed a little weird to me. Now that everyone I know seems to breast and not bottle feed I'm more comfortable with the idea. I am still pretty confused by the whole thing though:

How does the whole pumping thing work? If you pump then doesn't it take awhile to fill back up? Won't the baby get hungry? I just don't get it.

Also they sell all those special clothes to make it easier to feed. Are those really necessary?

Do they really want to eat like every 2 hours? If so how on earth will I get any sleep?

Are Johnny and Jacob going to freak out seeing me breast feed?

I know that I'll end up trying to do it, since I've decided that it is better for the baby than formula. I just need to figure this thing out. I think I'm going to take a class at the hospital. I also want to find a "breast feeding mentor". Someone who would be willing if needed to come see me at the hospital and then come over when I'm back home if I need help. It's been my experience with Johnny and Jacob that sometimes you get really nice and helpful nurses at the hospital and sometimes you get ones who make you wonder why they ever chose nursing as a career. Neither my mom or sister breast fed their kids so I'm out of luck there. I just have horrible visions of my baby starving and no one there to help me out. Dramatic I know.

Anyways, I'm really excited and I can't wait until 3/5/09. :)

Feeling Left Out

I'm having a pity party this afternoon as I look at everyone's blogs. Everyone seems to have kids starting school! I wish we were there. It all looks so exciting! I need to remind myself that this time when my kids our young goes by so fast. I have 20+ years of school ahead of me. :) So I'm going to go curl up with a book while my boys are napping. Then when they wake up I'll pull out the foam blocks. Johnny loves to build towers and then blow them down like the "Big Bad Wolf". It's so cute! He's only 2 once. :)

Play Dough

As I was reading my curriculum for this week's lesson I saw that the suggested craft was playing with Play Dough. I have lost my sheet that tells me exactly what the craft will be each week. Sometimes we do what's suggested in the curriculum, sometimes we don't. I figured there was no way we were going to play with Play Dough. I mean these are one and two year-olds.

Well, when I got into my classroom there it was - the Play Dough bin. Oh no! I had visions of toddlers eating it, putting it in each other's hair, maybe even up their noses. But I braved on. I did move the picnic tables onto the tile floor so at least we wouldn't destroy the carpet. Am I sounding pessimistic enough for you?

We were having a great class today. The 2 year-olds are starting to sing parts of the worship songs along with doing the hand motions. It is so cute! Then one of the suggested activities was to have the kids take turns walking on a balance beam. (The theme for the day was sharing - like how Jonathan shares his clothes with David) Now the curriculum suggested using a wooden board on top of a couple of bricks. Uh, I'm not that brave. So I just taped 3 lines of masking tape on the floor and with a little imagination we had our balance beam. The kids loved it! And they took turns. :)

And now here we are - craft time. Play Dough. Oh boy. But guess what? We had a blast! In the box there were these body parts that you can attach to the Play Dough - eyes, lips, arms, etc. So my helpers made a lot of creatures with the kids. In fact I think my helpers had more fun than the kids. :) And besides Jacob no one tried to eat the Play Dough. Although he liked to put the plastic body parts in his mouth best. Clean up was a breeze as well. Don't you love baby wipes?

So all that worrying for nothing. I think God had a good little chuckle over me today. I am so blessed to be these little one's teacher. I think I am learning more from them than they are learning from me. So bring on next week's craft - no matter how messy I think it'll be. :)

Our Room Sharing Tale

I just read Monica's post on her room sharing fiasco and decided to post about our situation. Jacob and Johnny have "shared" a room since Jacob was born. This was due to lack of room in our house. We have 3 bedrooms, but John needs one of them for his office since he works from home. We do have a den, but it's right off the great room/kitchen, so it doesn't make a good office or bedroom. (Although it might have to be a nursery come spring :)) Anyways, both Johnny and Jacob have a bed in their room. However, Johnny never sleeps in his. Right after Jacob was born he slept in his bassinet for about 3 months. Then we moved him to his crib. This worked out well because we would put Johnny to bed and then after he fell asleep we would put Jacob to bed. Well then Johnny decided that he was too big for his crib and with a crash let us know that it was time to convert it to a toddler bed. This worked for about 2 nights. Then he realized that he could climb out of bed and come visit Mommy and Daddy. At first we thought it was cute and loved to have him sleep with us.

Well that's been over a year now that he sleeps with us. For naps he even sleeps in our bed. I have to lay down with him until he falls asleep. I would love for him to sleep in his own room. So what's stopping me? Laziness on my part. Last night for the first time ever when I put him to bed Jacob started crying. And crying. And then screaming. I got him up and took him and Johnny into our room to watch TV hoping they would fall asleep. Yes I've gotten into the habit of using TV to get Johnny to sleep. Well after half an hour they still weren't falling asleep. I decided it was time for Johnny and Jacob to both fall asleep in their own beds. So off to bed we went. It took 45 minutes for Johnny to fall asleep. I had to sit next to his bed and push him back every time he tried to climb out. Jacob cried a little, but mostly stood in his crib staring at us. Johnny cried and screamed and finally fell asleep. Both of them slept through the night.

So onto tonight. I decided last night that I would do the same thing. Get them both to go to sleep in their own beds at the same time. So 8:00 rolls around and what do I do? I don't feel like sitting next to their bed for 45 minutes. So I just put Jacob to bed (no crying tonight) and Johnny is still awake in the family room. I'm so lazy! Oh well I'll go put a DVD in our bedroom at 9:00 and hopefully he'll fall asleep. Once he's out he's dead to the world. I should be able to move him into his own bed without waking him up.

There's always tomorrow, right?