king size bed

What can I say? They really are enjoying the big bed.

Snow Chair & Bounce House

Because the weather has been anything but predictable and it has been snowing more than I would like, Natalie got a new toy for the house. Blog world, meet "Jump-o-lene", "jump" meet the blog:

Yep, our house is a fun house, now equipped with toys - I'm next going to invest in "skinny" mirrors.

Now, back to that snow issue - not too long ago there was enough snow in the back yard to build a snowman and a killer snow chair. This is Natalie's "Queen" chair. She also has a little crown she likes to wear and when you say, "Natalie are you a princess?" she says, "No mama, I Queen!" We are all just living in her world.

3 Months

Philip is already 3 months old, well actually he is closer to 4 months now, but figured I would post these photos anyway.

As a "birth" present, my Aunt gave Philip this adorable little rocking chair. I decided that it is the perfect chair to use to take his monthly photos.

At 3 months, he weighs 13 pounds 2 ounces and I'm not sure how long he is because he is always either being held or kicking his legs around too much for me to measure him. And he is super cute and fun and I love him!

This whole monthly photo thing is something I had wanted to do with Natalie, but forgot or didn't have time or something. Now, she is at the age where yearly photos make more sense - so starting in November, I'll try and remember to take her photo :) Until then, here she is in all her 29 month glory. It just so happens that she and Philip were both born on the 10th of the month (as I planned, ha ha ha - cue wicked laugh).

Wine Box

After my recent trip the liquor store, Natalie found great joy in playing with the empty wine boxes. I guess this what people mean when they say kids have more fun with the boxes than the toys inside? Because Natalie doesn't like playing with wine, but loves these boxes. And I guess I'm not a kid any more because I don't get as much joy from the boxes, but man do I love me some wine!

Cabin

Two weekends ago, before I got sick, we made the trip to the cabin for an over-nighter.

Natalie went up with my parents earlier in the day on Friday and Phil, Philip and I came up once we were both done with work. We had a great time, Natalie "played" chess with Phil, went on a few walks around the cabin to explore, played in the little bit of snow that was left, carried fire wood, got slivers, and very little sleep. All in all a pretty good time! Plus, Phil got to play golf on Saturday morning, which is always a treat.

Sitting in the chair together

playing chess

Chilling in the bouncer

Once we got home on Saturday, we "washed" the car. It was covered in mud and after I decided to wash it at home rather than the car wash, we realized that we didn't have soap, so I used dish soap, not such a good choice, but most of the mud came off.

That night we went to dinner with friends and then got some much needed sleep!

Flu

Two weeks ago, I had to go into the office to work. After a few nights of very little sleep, two very long days, being couped up in a room with a sick co worker, coupled with forgetting to take my vitamins I started to feel sick. By Tuesday of last week, I was feeling pretty off, so I made an appointment with a new doctor, but by later that afternoon, I had convinced myself that it was just a cold and didn't need to go to the doctor, so I cancelled the appointment. That night we had Godfather and Auntie over for dinner and I felt a lot better. Now I see that was the calm before the storm.

Wednesday morning, I woke up and literally couldn't get out of bed. Phil took the kids and I stayed under the covers. I had the chills, but I knew I had a fever, my head hurt when I moved my eyes around, and I had to cough, but my chest and throat hurt so bad when I would. I finally decided to drag myself out of bed and down to get coffee...which was sure to be the cure. Well, standing up I realized that I was so achy I could barely stand, which meant that I had to hold on to the wall to stand up. Perfect! I got some coffee and promptly called the doctor and scheduled an appointment at 1:45 that afternoon. After two meetings, I cleared my schedule, and decided i needed a shower and sleep. I showered in the hottest water I could stand and then tried to fall back to sleep. Woke up 30 minutes before I had to leave for the appointment and tried to put my shoes on without falling over. I joked to Phil that if you had seen me you might remark, "how did that homeless woman get such a nice coat". I looked pretty much like a street person.

I got to the doctor, got back into the room where the nurse took my temperature, 103, and then took my pulse rate. She stopped, looked and me and said, "wow, that is one of the fastest heart rates I've ever taken." Pretty much at this moment, I thought they were going to rush me to the emergency room. However, they didn't - they made me wait for the PA to come in. She said she felt like I had a lot of things going on, but most likely the worst symptoms were being caused by the flu. So they swabbed me for that, which involved sticking a long brush thing up my nose - I don't recommend it. And even though I had gotten a flu shot while pregnant, the swab came back positive. The doctor gave me Tamiflu and I went on my merry way.

I went home, started taking the Tamiflu, and tried to fall back to sleep. Phil got home and wiped everything down with Clorox wipes and we waited for my parents to bring us dinner. They came over, my mom helped me change the sheets on the bed downstairs and get it ready for me to sleep. We ate dinner, I fed Philip and then everyone left. The next day, I had two meetings then took the rest of the day off and tried to sleep...but couldn't, so I rested my eyes. My parents brought us dinner again and helped us wipe everything down with Clorox once again. By Friday, I was starting to feel a little better, so Phil and I decided to get take out and stay close to home. We had a nice night, until I realized that the reason my nose was hurting so much was because I had fever blisters all inside my nose and around the edges. It pretty much broke me, as if the flu wasn't bad enough, now I had to deal with this. Not only are they painful, they are contagious - one more thing to protect the kids from and they are not attractive. It was a blow I wasn't expecting.

I crashed that night and felt much better on Saturday. Other than the fever blisters and an occasional cough, I'm pretty much back to normal. The crazy thing is that I normally don't get sick. In the over 5 years since I've know Phil, I've only had a handful of colds and I've never had a fever and now in the course of two months, I've been sick twice. Clearly, this is what lack of sleep will get you!

Good Weekend

The weekend started with a trip to the liquor store and ended with a trip to Ikea. At which store do you think I spent more money?

******Update******

The liquor store beat Ikea by about $10 - or a six-pack for Phil.