It's been a while

Sorry that I have not updated lately! It's been a busy life with 2 kids and a full-time job. I'd like to say that I'd be around more but I go back to full time school on Tuesday. I will be graduating May 18, 2009. I can't wait!

We had some pictures taken this weekend of the family. We also had some pictures taken for Jack's fourth birthday. It is so hard to believe that he is four. Time truly flies by too fast.

So, here are the pics for you to view. Let me know what you think!

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

We actually have 2 big announcements!

John has officially been offered a position at the company that he has been at for almost 5 months. He was taken in as a temporary position, but they believe that he is worth keeping. After 2 years of him being laid off, our family could not be happier.

Second, Kiley has her first tooth. I am unable to show you at this time because it is truly just sliver in her mouth, but when it's big enough for pictures, I will be showing that puppy off.

To celebrate our 2 great family events, we had what we call "Family fun day." We went out for lunch and then ventured on to play miniature golf. Needless to say, I did not do so well. I blame it on the fact that this was the second time in my whole life, that I have played this game.

I took some picture of our family adventure. We had a GREAT time. Jack loved it and wanted to play another game when the 18 holes were completed. He did OK for being a 3 y/o with a golf club. There were no missing eyeballs and no contusions to anyone's head when we were finished.

Here is our smiley girl. She was just happy to be able to see new scenery, I believe.


Tiger Woods in the making?








He believes that he is Phil Mickelson.


I have to admit that I am no Annika Sorenstam. This is the waterfall that I lost my ball in at the 8th hole.


Here is my ball in the water. My Phil Mickelson would not save it for me. I had to share his ball the rest of the game.


We must end this story with a picture of Lil Miss Hollywood.

Quote for the day

Me: Jack, it's quiet time. I don't want to hear another peep out of you.
Jack: Peep!

Can you believe that he continued to "peep" me all the way out of his room. Can you say smart alek? I'm in T-R-O-U-B-L-E!

What's new

Well, I have not been able to get on the computer at home long enough to post any new pictures. We take pictures everyday. Jack is obsessed with pictures. He'll sit/stand/whatever next to Kiley and say, "Take our picture, mom!" He usually does this at 7am. Now who the heck is awake enough to take a good picture at 7am. Not me! I must have coffee before picture taking.

Lil' Miss Kiley is sitting up on her own. Well, at least until her big bro knocks her over. That's his favorite thing to do. Well, next to trying to suffocate her with his favorite yellow blanket, throwing hard balls at her HEAD, basically beating her up every chance he gets and completely ignoring me when I tell him to stop doing anything. I truly feel for my lil' girl, but I know that she is my daughter and she'll remember. "Paybacks are hell, buddy!"

Jack is Jack! What more is there to say. I'm sure that you can tell by the above that he has been completely TERRIBLE this week. There are days that I feel that I am looking in the mirror. Whenever he gets in trouble, he'll yell back at me "You're bad!" then he'll stomp off to his room, slam the door and yell back at me some more. This is my entire childhood. The fact that he does this now, truly scares me.

I'll do my best to post some pics this weekend. I know that everyone loves to see my beautiful children.

I'm a Rock Star!

Need I say more?

First day at the beach

I realize that I am VERY late at posting this, but life is busy. I had a 2-week course that I took and that took all of my computer time up. I really don't know how I'll keep everyone updated when I go back to school full-time in October. You'll just have to wait every 5 weeks for updates because that is how long each class takes.

The Sunday of July 4th, we took the kids to Gem Beach, near Sandusky, Ohio. I can honestly say that this is the most fun in a long time.

Jack was so much fun to watch. He caught on to the water right away. He started to jump the waves and everything. He was so stinkin' cute.

He is so smart he learned the number 1 rule for going in the lake. Can you guess what it is? Well, he's our conversation on how I figured out.

Me: Jack, you haven't been to the bathroom in a while, do you need to go?
Jack: Hee hee
Me: Jack, do you have to go potty? I'll walk with you now.
Jack: Tee hee! I peed in the water, mommy.

You can never say my kid is stupid. :)

Here are some pics from our great day. Unfortnately, I am the picture taker, so there are no pics of me. I guess you'll have to talk to my husband about his lack of picture taking abilities. ;)

Jack eating a cookie that Mrs. Quinn gave him. He would eat cookies all day if he could.


My studly husband showing off something. Jack is still eating his cookie.


My Alabastar Princess


I wish those teeth would come in. She's going to gnaw her fingers off.


He's sitting in the water. Hmmm? I wonder if this is where he is peeing?


Jumping over the waves.

Our new baby!

Sorry that I have not been updating the blog the last couple weeks. I started my 2 week college course and I've been busy. If Jack would let me on the computer at home, I wouldn't have a problem, but he insists on playing the computer when I am on. Boys!

Well, if you're reading this then I am sure you are aware that Kiley was very sick this past winter. She has been diagnosed with some common airborne allergies, with one of them being our beloved dog. JD has been my family for 8 years. If it really came down to it, I would say "goodbye" to my beloved dog, but we are trying our best to keep him.

Since we are trying to keep him, we have schedule every other week grooming sessions for our happy little dog, JD. When I say happy, I hope you realize that I am truly joking. The phrase for JD in our house is "Oh, he's just a grumpy ol' dog." Jack even says that now. It's really quite cute. Today was JD's first session. I was hoping to get him shaved, but he would not have any of it. Poor Terri, the groomer, called me and said she would just be bathing, drying and cutting his nails. I don't care what she did, the dog looks FABULOUS! I don't think he has ever looked this good.

In other efforts to make our home "Kiley friendly." We have been on the look out for a good HEPA filter and vacuum. We are still looking for the filter, but we have found our vacuum. We truly did not want to spend this much money on a vacuum and we are actually embarassed that we did so, but we did. We bought the Dyson model DC17 Absolute Animal.

Believe it or not, it truly is worth the money. We used our old vacuum over the carpet really well and then went over it again the "animal." I cannot believe how much was sucked in to the canister. It makes us feel really dirty, whick we are not dirty people. It's really scary what lives in your carpets. :(

As soon as I get a chance, I will post pics from our trip to the beach yesterday. Jack had a great time.

Goodbye to Dr. Mann

Today was a sad day for our family. We had to say goodbye to our fabulous pediatrician. She has decided to venture off to private practice land on the "Evil East Side." She has been a great doctor to us over the last 4 years and especially the last 6 months with our lil' Miss Kiley being so ill. She let me bother her by calling her cell number and I even had her home number for EXTREME emergencies. I usually would just send her a text message because I always felt like I would be interrupting her "family" time.

We all know how valuable that time is to a good mother.Family time is the reason that she has decided to leave the great county hospital that we work at. She wants more time to be a "mom." With this rationale, I cannot argue with her decision, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it. :)

I worked with Andy when she was a resident at the "world famous" on the pediatric cardiology floor. I was one of the "bossier" nurses (if you can imagine that,) but we hit it off great. In fact, I taught her everything she knows. Well, maybe not EVERYTHING! LOL! So, when I heard she was a pediatrician for the health system that I work at, I booked Jack's first appointment with her, immediately.

Kiley had her 6 month appointment today with Dr. Mann. According to her scale, she weighed 1.5 oz less than she did on Wednesday at the allergist's, but I'm thinking that their scale is off. Kiley is pretty much in the 35 th percentile for heighth and weight. Luckily, her head is only the 20th percentile. I have always been afraid that my kids would end up with that melon that is so famous amongst the West Side Irish Americans.

As a farewell, to Dr. Mann, we gave her a plant for her new office and a picture of Jack and Kiley. Now, I, personally, think that the picture of my children is the best gift of all, but I tend to be partial. Here is a picture of our last visit to Dr. Mann. I am posting it below for everyone to see.

Good luck, Andy! Our family wishes you nothing but the best. If our insurance ever changes, you better run, because we will hunt you down and demand that you be our doctor again. :)

Kiley update

I just realized that everytime I write something, it's about my little imp son, Jack. I do have another child. In fact, she is the most delightful child.

Miss Kiley had an appointment with the allergist this week. It was a LONG day for both of us. Her appointment was at 8:30 am. However, we didn't get out of there until 12:00 pm. UGH! We did receive some OK news, though. She does have some airborne allergies, but they are not too bad. She is allergic to dog & cat. The doctor told us not to get rid of the dog, just yet. He gave us a few suggestions to see if we can eliminate some of the proteins in the air that cause the allergic reaction.

My poor little baby girl had to have the scratch test completed on her lil' baby back. She received 18 little scratches. Due to her "shitty Irish skin (SIS)," she reacted to everything initially. They had to do a second negative control because she even turned red from the negative. LOL! My baby girl did really good though. She only fussed a bit. The doctor was super nice. We go back to see him July 30 to go over some labwork that they drew and to see how she is doing.

They did her weight and she is gaining. She weighed 15 lbs, 3 oz and she is 25 1/4 inches long.

She was so tired from the day, that she crashed about the babysitter's that afternoon.

Thank you to everyone that has sent many prayers her way over the last 6 months. She is definitely a trooper with everything that she has gone through.

Only one Jack and two Kileys

Saturday, John & I took the kids to have their pictures taken. The majority of the pictures were taken of Kiley for her 6 month pics. It is really amazing how much I lack with Kiley. When Jack was a baby, he had pictures taken every month. I searched everywhere for the coupons to get the best deal. Well, poor Kiley has not had her pic taken since January. LOL! However, we need to take in to account that she was ill ALL of February and most of April.

On with my story.....
I purchased one of thos cheap plastic photo holders to place three of the pictures in. I figured that I could take it to work. I had all ready placed the pic of Kiley and Jack togther and just one of Kiley. I had every intention of going downstairs and rummaging through Jack's 3 y/o pics from last October. Time just had not been on my side yesterday, so I had not finished this task.

So when Jack woke up this morning, he looked at the picture frame and sighed.

Jack: Mom, there are two Kileys and one Jacks.
Me: Yes, mommy is going to put your picture in it as soon as I go downstair.
Jack: Well, you need to go get it. There's only one Jack, mom!

So, I went to the basement and picked through the pictures.

Jack: That's much better, mommy. Don't do that again.

Here are some of the pictures that were taken this Saturday:

Penis in my pants

So, each morning Jack wakes up and he goes to the bathroom. While he's in there he takes his pull-up off from the night before. He doesn't put on underwear right away, he just pulls up his pajama bottoms and he's on his way to breakfast.

They other morning, he did his same routine. He, Kiley & I are at the table eating our breakfast. Jack is rather ancy and he is having a hard time eating his breakfast. Finally, he tells me what the problem is:

Jack: Mom, I can't keep my penis in my pants.
Me (trying to keep a straight face): What do you mean?

Jack is pressing his penis down to stay in his oversized pajama shorts. Naturally, I am shocked when I look over to see my 3 y/o son "popping a tent." My face was probably beat red from embarassment.

Me: "OMG! Jack just leave it alone and it will stay put."

I wanted to tell him that this is just the first of his penis not wanting to stay in his pants. I figure if he takes after his parents, he'll be in trouble a lot with that penis of his. ;) I don't want my baby to grow up! :(

Teething baby

Well, Kiley is teething to beat the band. I wish those bad ol' teethers would come through, all ready. She is so stinkin' fussy. She's normally a very happy baby, too.

I had to work last night. John puts the kids to bed at night. I guess it was a BAD night. Kiley made herself gag and threw up all of the avocados she had eaten for dinner earlier (reminds me that I need to post pics of her first meal.) I guess she did this twice. John ran out of crib sheets because I forgot to put the clean ones away. Go figure! I can't believe that he couldn't find them on my bedroom floor. The nerve he has.

Anyway, when I came home at midnight, John was pretty frazzled. He said it was a bad night. Jack informed me this morning exactly how bad it was. Here is our conversation:

Me: "How was your day yesterday?"
Jack: "Daddy yelled at Kiley, mommy!"
Me: "He did? What did he say?"
Jack: "He was mad."
Me: "Why?"
Jack: "Because."

Well, he was fine ratting out his father. LOL! He was never able to tell me exactly why John was mad. He told me later that JD pooped all over the floor. That's enough to make me yell at just about anyone.

My husband is a wonderful father. I'm pretty sure that he was not yelling at my 6 month old daughter. He was probably yelling at the situation. He tells me that while he was trying to clean Kiley up, Jack came in to the room. Jack knocked a bunch of stuff on to the floor. This caused John to step on the stuff and break our baby wipes box. Then he stepped on to a Kleenex box and crushed it. This is all happening while Jack is racing his car around Kiley's small room and Kiley is crying because her teeth are ripping their way through her small lil' gums. My assumption is that John just yelled out of pure frustration. Just the thought of being in that situation makes me want to yell. LOL!

Mini me!

This morning while we are at the breakfast table, I was on the fun with my husband. Jack overheard me telling him that our dog, JD had woken me up this AM at 7:10 am. I was mildly distraught because the kids actually slept in until 8am.

Jack got out of his chair and started to look for JD. He was upset when he couldn't find him. I informed him that JD was outside. So, Jack opens up the back door and this is what I hear:

"JD, you bad dog! You woke mommy up! Don't ever wake mommy up, again! Do you understand? JD, are you listening to me? It wasn't very nice of you to wake mommy up! She needs to sleep! You will be in a lot of trouble if you wake her up again. BAD DOG!! "

Ah, isn't it amazing how your children can point out your evil side without telling you directly. I swear that was me yelling and not my 3 1/2 year old son.

Baby foods

I am sad! Plain and simple! My daughter will be 6 months old in 2 weeks. I have been enjoying this baby for months and loving every minute that I have breastfed her. I have cherished all of our moments together because I know she is my last baby! Well, that dreaded day is fast approaching and the time has come to feed my baby real food.

To be honest, I'm still not convinced that I want to feed her. Do I really have to? Are food aversions that big of a deal? She's really not acting all that hungry. HMMM? I could freeze the avocados that I bought and save them for another day?

I may have to sleep on this. I just enjoy my baby SO MUCH that I'm not willing to give her up. Although, my husband has just reminded me that she will eventually grow up and I cannot stop it.