Summer Idle

Not a whole lot going on around here. No more summer school for me, but lots of loose ends to tie up before maternity leave. Ben has summer classes through the end of July, and thank goodness the kiddos are at preschool until fall and then in the fall EVEN MORE PRESCHOOL and of course kindergarten.

Lots of pool days.

Some getting the old house ready for my brother to move in.

Lots of park.

The pool really knocks them out

Little Jack. He still scoots down the stairs.

No matter how many times Jack goes to the bathroom before we leave, he has to exit the park and walk home to poop within minutes of arriving. Weird.

Clearly, we are still having some lawn problems. The landscapers think there is mold in the soil because it has been so hot and humid. So, even if we sod at this point, we'll still have issues. Instead, we are raking and reseeding pretty much all the time. Also weed whacking the tall ones.

Harry always moves the coffee table about 3 inches away from the couch so he can put his big little feet up.

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Ben and his mini-me walking into the splash park today to celebrate our nephew Jacob's 1st birthday.

When people see Jack decked out in his long sleeves, extra long shorts and UPF hat, they probably assume that I am over protective. This might be true. BUT, Jack has NO
PIGMENT. And we go to the pool every sunny day. And he is not tan/burned at all. WIN!


In fact, his legs are blindingly white and despite eating this cupcake in the sun, he still looks like a ghost!

Ben had fun playing with the kids. I was the only adult who didn't wear a swim suit and I almost died of heat stroke. And I made fun of Ben for wearing his swim clothes and then felt dumb when I realized that everyone else was ready for water.

Harry had the best time ever. He was in the water for over 2 hours, and he never stopped moving (he also has slightly more pigment and enjoys 3/4 sleeves, slightly shorter shorts, and time in the sun without his hat.)


I have not been out in the sun without my rash guard all season, and I have been pretty pale. Until today. Even though I had on sunscreen, I got "brown as a berry" in no time. I am the opposite of Jack and have the classy bra strap tan line to prove it.

I am also experiencing horrendous back pain. The other day, I told my OB that I felt amazing-- and I did. Then BAM! Horrible back pain pretty much all the time. Thanks, Baby. But, on the pregnancy is awesome side, I had a huge burger, fries, and a chocolate shake for lunch.

Consumption

To make a long story short, we seem to have gotten rid of a ton of baby stuff. Like most of the stuff we liked. And so, we had to go to Babies R Us today and buy so much stuff that people asked us curiously if this was our first baby even though we had a 3 year-old and a 5 year-old with us. Maybe they thought H and J were just practice kids we were borrowing?

We even had to buy a freaking stroller because we left our Combi outside the gates to see Obama last fall and forgot to go get it ever. OMG. We are so stupid and wasteful sometimes. Also? I didn't even WANT to buy a Combi, but it was the only stroller (including a Snap N Go) that works with our awesome Combi infant seat. Hoping to use it through the winter and get a BOB in the spring. Sigh.

Keep in mind that we STILL need a Bjorn and a bouncy chair (probably our 2 most used items from Jack, which explains why they didn't make the move-- they were BEAT. But still. Ugh. Also I would like one of those baby gym things-- between H and J, ours was seriously discolored from baby vomit. But I wonder if it;s a practical toy for Baby #3-- will he just get killed by his brothers while trying to use it? (But H is gone all day at kindergarten, and J has 3 preschool mornings a week, so maybe he'll get to be on the floor free from harm sometimes?)
We had the crib, toy box, swing, and dresser, and that was pretty much it.

I bought this cute crib bedding set at Target after deciding for the 3rd time that I could not pay Pottery Barn Kids prices.



Why the F did we ditch our old Pack n Play? (I mean, the one we bought for H got recalled, but J had 2 --2!!-- that we didn't keep, making this PnP #4. WTF?)

Some assorted stuff for the nursery wall and a brand! new! diaper genie! because I absolutely could not convince Ben to go cloth.

I think this quilt is so cute, but I don't really know what to do with it. Hang it on the wall? (And yes-- baby has a name and that name might contain a W)

Got a couple of Miracle blankets and enough Aden + Anais muslin swaddling blankets to burrito wrap and army of babies.

We bought Boppy and baby bathtub #3

Oh! Got rid of BOTH my double electric pump and my Avent hand pump. AND all the bottles. Bought the hand pump and a bunch o glass bottles, breastmilk storage bags, nipple cream, breast pads. My HMO gave us a coupon for 1/2 off a double electric pump if we buy it from a sketchy store on the south side as part of their pro-BFing campaign, so I'll definitely pick one up. Ugh.

And we bought this to go on the playroom floor, making our house look like we run a daycare in the basement.

But it's good for wrestling.

Happy 4th!

I know I haven't blogged in awhile when Ben asks me if I am still doing that blogging thing. Yes. Sort of. See, summer school is almost over. I have been doing a couple of projects on the side. Ben and I still don't have a cleaning routine for this house which means we are just sort of always cleaning everything.

Lots of stuff happened since last week.

A freaking adorable preschool 4th of July parade.


We go to the park at least once a day.


My family came in to celebrate the 4th. My dad christened our new cream walls and light basement carpet by gesticulating wildly and knocking a glass of red wine all over the wall and floor. Jon is really good at blotting carpet stains, and it turns out that 1/3 cup bleach mixed with 1/3 cup water takes wine right off the walls.

Our neighborhood hosted a bike parade (which we missed despite living across the street from the lineup spot) and picnic. With face painting.

Pops on the driveway. Note in the background that all of our grass died. The landscaper says our soil is moldy and they're going to reseed. Which means we'll have the annoying sprinklers that seem to burst on the minute we open a window, step onto the patio, or exit a car in the driveway for a little bit longer.

Right now, this is what we see out the living room window, but I bet it will be rows of houses before we know it.


Last day of summer school tomorrow! And then I won't see the inside of a classroom until January.

32 weeks pregnant on Saturday and large.

About to go devour some Oreos.

Randoms

So, we have pictures on the walls in the living room/kitchen (but nowhere else). I spent a pleasant 45 minutes after the kids went to bed last night polishing my dishwasher and mopping my new floor (it's weird to love cleaning so much; I know this). Our grass is growing in like cute little green peach fuzz (in fact, sitting on the deck right now, I run the risk of being totally soaked whenever the sprinklers decide to come on, but that is a risk I am willing to take for some chirping birds and crickets and rising sun).

We're settling in.

The kids are good for the most part. Jack is totally fine, sleeps late, runs downstairs to play by himself. Harry, though, is awake by 5:43 everyday and is scared to be in another room from us, let alone another floor of the house.

This house is loud, too, and our new appliances make all sorts of strange grunting and rooting and beeping noises, which freak him out.

Ben conquered a tiny ant problem we noticed the day we moved in.

Come to think of it, Jack has peed his pants a lot.

Both kids love the park and being able to play outside whenever they want, and they watch maybe 20 minutes of TV a day, as opposed to hours and hours and hours like they used to.

We finally stopped eating at restaurants for every meal (seriously, we ate out so much I never want Chipotle or Noodles or Panera again) and actually went to the grocery store and bought real food again.

Weeds and the Big C started, and we managed to watch them even with our one DVR and one digital box.

I think we're going to like it here.

OMG. Moving.

The good news is that all this laundry is clean. The bad news is that I don't know where the hell to put it.

The movers also kept asking me where to put stuff. My default answer was "Storage room?" followed by "Guest room closet?"

This is what my kitchen looked like after a whole day of unpacking boxes of dishes, appliances, food storage containers, wine glasses, pots and pans, assorted kitchen bullshit like a bag of frozen peas that are still all the hell over everywhere because they ROLL:


We had some minor problems. The water heater, for example, was accidentally unplugged. Since I usually wash all of my clothes on cold anyway, I didn't notice this until, um, bath time. Since both of the kinds were filthy and naked, they had cold sponge baths, which went over HUGE as you can imagine. In the afternoon, when I was doing dishes, I noticed that the water was cold, but I thought maybe I just accidentally turned on the cold water. Would have been nice to figure out the hot water thing then.

The guy who hung our basement TV assured us that the cable company could hide the wires in the wall when they came out to hook up cable. But they couldn't. So the TV guy has to come back next week. And in order to schedule this appointment, Ben had to go to the store and talk to a human after I spent a million hours on the phone with robo customer service. Also, the cable company screwed up our order, and we only have 1 DVR box and 1 digital box, which means we have to watch plain old cable in our bedroom and the guest room. Also, no premium channels and no On Demand and no on-screen menu!! I thought this was HUGE DEAL for a low blood sugar hour or so, and than I was like, "WTH is your problem, Princess?" So I got my shit together on that that one. Although, I might actually call and order another box today because sometimes I want to watch Entourage in bed, you know? (Also, the DVR is 80% full of kid TV, and I might miss an episode of Hard Core Pawn.)

I made the bathrooms look cute (although the basement on still sucks a little and needs something on the walls besides towels.)
Ours

Jack's

Harry

I was holding a stack of kid bath towels and thinking OMG where do I put this when I noticed something behind the bathroom door-- a hidden linen closet-- such a nice surprise!

So far, H and J's room is a tiny version of their old room, minus all the toys


Here are (most of)the toys: (we hadn't unpacked quite everything yet when we took these pics).



Luckily, there is a park down the street, so we have a place to run the kids until our grass comes in. Which, at the rate it's growing, should be next summer.

New House Day!

Things we bought yesterday:

1 house
1 mattress set
2 TVs
3 basement tables
Miscellaneous TV hook-up accessories

It was a shopping kind of day, which as funny because it was the most gorgeous day we have had all spring and any other sunny, humid, warm day would have seen me decked out in my rashguard at the pool. But I spent all day yesterday under fluorescent lights a little chilly from air conditioning.

We have never bought a mattress before. Our current mattress which is on its way to the guest room (I apologize in advance for any back problems you develop staying with us) was part of the furniture I bought when I was in grad school at Miami of Ohio. Furniture I ordered sight unseen and totally untested from a catalogue. It's a basic Sealy, and it has been okay, really, for the past 10 years. But 10 years is about all you can expect to get from a basic mattress that gets slept on every night. So we found ourselves lying on a bunch of sample beds in 4 different mattress and furniture stores yesterday.

I almost freaked out when we were seconds from a memory foam purchase because while the guy was checking the delivery date, I did a quick Google search on my phone about mattress toxicity. OMFG. Ben was super pissed because he loved him some memory foam, but I couldn't handle it. Finally, we found a really awesome mattress that felt like a firm, supportive, contoured cloud. In mattress speak. Never having shopped for a mattress before, I was skeptical that we'd be able to tell if we liked one from lying on it in a store, but after sampling tons of mattresses- at least 2 dozen (SCABIES!)-- we were able to clearly identify the one we liked and know that it felt different than any other model from any other store. We WANTED to like this other, cheaper mattress better, but we just couldn't.

Mattress shopping was kind of gross, though. I just couldn't stop thinking of all the people who lad laid down on it (and the pillows) before me. Blech.

Then we picked the kids up at school (Ben actually had to leave me at the Best Buy check out lane, run to pick them up, and then come back to get me and electronics because that's how much we shopped)(thank you, summer preschool for having flexible openings!) and took them to the new house where they ran around like crazy and hid in all the closets and just generally delighted in the fact that they could wear shoes in the house. (But not after today because today, I am cleaning the new house which makes me so happy. And yes, the builder had a cleaning crew, but it is not white glove clean by any means, but it WILL be after today-- I LOVE to clean).

Jack tried to break in through the front door after no one answered his ring (because we were all outside trying to program the garage door entry pad thing which was harder than you'd think).

They didn't ever smile together, but still, they sat next to each other

They love jumping off the giant landscaping boulders in the side yard:


This is me tickling Harry. I include it because of the dumpster-- it used to be in our front yard, but the builders working on the house next door moved it just exactly inches off our lot. Thanks, guys. We were worried it would be an eye sore or something. (Actually, even though it is an eye sore, it might be really nice to have a dumpster outside when we move in for things like TV boxes and other huge garbage) (Also, Harry is super, super, super ticklish-- he melts into a giggle puddle-- it;s hard to not tickle him).

After we finally figured out the garage door opener, we took the kids to Toys R Us, where they had so much fun picking out Power Ranger Samurai zords (?) and Star Wars guys with their gift cards from Bomma and grandpa Jack (thanks! and happy 91st birthday!). Here they are posing on a bench after dinner.


I would say that after tomorrow's binge I will never shop again, but I am actually headed to Target to buy an obscene amount of crap in just a little bit. Ah, moving.