cute little brother

i am trying to get more pictures of maddux, but he is still sleeping most of the day. and when he is awake his sister and brother want to touch and hold him (or i am changing diapers and feeding him) which makes it impossible to get pictures. everyone agrees that he is a pretty cute little brother. love.

boys' tummy time

maddux had his first tummy time on sunday and the other two boys had to get in on the action. love.

daddy day at betty brinn

this morning we got the house in order (just in case a showing request came in) and headed out for a morning with daddy at betty brinn. it was a mad house! the funny part was that the adult to child ratio was the complete opposite of what it normally is - there must have been at least 5 adults to every child. there would be a one year old being tailed by a group of 5-10 adults with cameras. it would have been amusing if i wasn't trying to follow my own children through the crowd with a stroller. we still had a great time.

both kids were really happy to have daddy with them and i was glad that daddy got to join us at least one more time before we leave. madelyn wouldn't stand still long enough for me to get a decent picture of her so there are only pictures of mason. he wasn't as comfortable with mr. potatohead as he had been with rosita last time but at least got close enough for a picture.

i don't know if daddy would say that this was more or less fun than his birthday yesterday because we did absolutely nothing yesterday and daddy spent all day in his pajamas. today he had to get dressed and deal with a crowded childrens' attraction... love.

stair sliding

and this is how madelyn and mason gave grandma several small heart attacks during her visit. love.

happy thanksgiving

today was our first thanksgiving with just our family since the kids were born, so it was a little different. it was also different because all my recipes and small appliances are already packed which limited our meal options. i also made the smallest turkey i ever have (10.5 pounds). but it was still a very nice meal and we had a great day spent in our pajamas.

we watched the macy's parade and football and relaxed (obviously i worked on blogging while the turkey cooked). surprisingly both kids took naps today; mason slept for his normal two hours and madelyn slept close to four. she has been really tired the past few days and even went to sleep at 5:30 one night (sleeping until 7:30am the next day!). i think between being sick and having company, they are both pretty worn out.

they were inspired by the parade and played "cymbal band" for a lot of the day. mason would even follow madelyn around as they marched in their own parade. i don't really think that the video captures how the sound can make your ears ring. enjoy.

when we sat down to eat our thanksgiving dinner (which madelyn insisted needed fruit because that is what they had at her school "feast" on monday so i opened a can of mandarin oranges as her contribution to the dinner) we asked the kids (okay just madelyn) what they were thankful for; madelyn said that she was thankful for baby maddux and friend. mason did point to maddux when we asked him so i think that he was thankful for maddux too.


madelyn often shushes maddux when he cries and tonight mason got up from the table to "shhhh" maddux when he started to cry. it was so cute. i wish that i could have reached the camera to get some video because mason has never shushed before. he curls his lips out in an exaggerated way like when he says "choo-choo" (again i need some video or picture of this). he just went over to maddux laying in the swing and kept saying "shhhh" very softly and crazy enough maddux would stop crying for a few moments each time. i really can't express how much mason shows his love for maddux. it just makes me melt with love to watch them. madelyn is cute too but there is just something about mason's silence that makes it extra special to see it so clearly.


eating dinner reminded me to mention a few things about mason. he loves holding hands to pray and even closes his eyes and/or looks down. madelyn has always struggled with holding hands to pray because she wants to use her hands to eat, but we never even said anything about it to mason. we just offer him our hands and one day he started putting his hands out first. he actually first started with holding madelyn's hand. i just think that it is sweet.


mason also loves to use a napkin to wipe his face while eating. sometimes he will walk around after meals still wiping his face with his napkin. he will also use a napkin to wipe off the table. we even had to move the wipes off the table because he will take them out just to wipe the table.

matt and i have so much to be thankful for but we feel extra blessed this year. God has been so good to us and, as always, meeting all our needs and some of our wants. we hope that you all had a wonderful thanksgiving with your family and loved ones today too. love.

"exercising"

so madelyn often tells me that she and mason are "exercising" in the exercise room while i am working. i can hear them so i rarely get up to see what they are doing for their "exercise". although i have seen them bounce the balls and do "yoga" on the mats.

matt found them "exercising" yesterday and asked me if i had seen them exercise before then suggested that i bring the camera. the video below shows what i saw. i think that madelyn is the only one actually getting any exercise. love.

waukesha christmas parade

after the mall and open house we had just enough time to run home, grab a few supplies (hat, gloves, blankets, chairs, etc.), and get matt before heading to the waukesha christmas parade. we had been worried that we would get rained out but other than being cold and damp out (misty) the weather held out. we were able to find a great spot close to where we parked which is always great when you are carrying chairs and kids in a crowd. if you look closely you can see maddux' white hat sticking out of my jacket which is zipped over him riding in the moby wrap. his neck is already so strong that i didn't need to tuck his head in! not that i wouldn't tuck his head in if i was doing more than just sitting with him.

and because what would be a parade without an over priced gift from a street vendor; grandma and big pop bought both of the kids light sticks (i just don't know what else to call them). the problem was that they were longer than the distance between us and the people sitting in front of us and quickly became unintentional weapons. thankfully there weren't any casualties and the kids had a really great time with them as it got darker. i think that we have gotten our money's worth too with the amount of use they have gotten after the parade. madelyn turns off the lights in the playroom and asks me to close the blinds so that she and mason can give us a "light show".

after the parade (which we all enjoyed), we headed back to the car and mason wasn't interested in going willingly and did his "dead weight" act. grandma carried him since he chose not to hold hands and walk nicely but he kept with the dead weight plan which works when you weigh just shy of 30 pounds! i think grandma was starting to struggle with his limpness by the time i took this picture next to the car.

we had a nice dinner at a seafood restaurant (another gift certificate that we needed to use before moving) and then took everyone home to rest and sleep after a very busy day. i think we might have worn big pop and grandma out on their visit. they just happened to come on a weekend with lots of activities. i just hope they had fun. love.

picture day

maddux is quickly out growing his "little brother" onesie so i decided that we had to go get pictures done at jcpenny during big pop and grandma's visit (and it was our first chance after the light blanket therapy). maddux' hospital pictures were just awful. and they tried like 4 or 5 times to get some with his eyes open. the nurse said that she was really having a difficult time because he was too big to fit in the frame too. so we really wanted to get a "newborn" picture done now that he was opening his eyes more. unfortunately, jcp redid their photo site and i can't download the previews any longer, but i was able to figure out a work around so that i could post some of my favorites - where there is a will, there is a way...and remember, mason had spent the night before vomiting. i have included one that shows the look on his face when i decided that he was done with pictures.and since we were already at the mall with presentable appearances, i thought that we would take a stab at a picture with santa. i also thought that it would be nice for madelyn to tell santa about our move to ohio since that has recently come up as a concern (having christmas at "our house" in wisconsin, not if santa would be able to find us). madelyn sat and chatted with santa for a bit while i got mason and maddux out of the stroller. i am not sure what she asked for but it sounded like she was just saying yes to whatever santa suggested.

the photographer thought that mason was going to cry for sure, but we got a decent picture with both older kids looking at the camera and no one crying. the official, purchased picture is better than this one i snapped but scanning it is more trouble than it is worth right now - you will just have to take my word for it.

once we were finished with pictures we went to get some lunch and do a little shopping. matt was hosting an open house on sunday and needed us to stay out for a few hours. mason finally gave into sleep after lunch and he really, really needed to get some rest. we thought that it was pretty funny that he managed to keep a very tight grip on his water cup the whole time too.

while he slept we went to barnes and noble for madelyn to play with the train table while i nursed maddux. it also allowed me the opportunity to find a book i needed to get for christmas (we don't just go there for the train table, we actually do buy things on occasion). everyone was pretty tired by the time we were finally able to go home and make the quick stop before heading off to the christmas parade! yes, we had a very busy weekend (for us any way). more on that in the next post. love.

by the way, this is my 800th post. love.

veggietales live

saturday morning i had a special surprise for the kids - veggietales live! daddy stayed home to prepare for an open house he was having on sunday and it's a good thing that he did because as we were pulling into the parking lot i got a text requesting a showing in the next hour! we had left the house a mess and i called matt over and over until he picked up. he was vacuuming and couldn't hear the phone ringing. when i did get a hold of him he freaked out about doing a showing so soon. somehow he made it happen. most of my parents' things were shoved into the guest bathroom cabinets and all the odds and ends on the kitchen counters were put into matt's car. that is part of why i haven't been blogging; my camera cord was on the counter and i could not find where it had ended up and matt wasn't totally sure. he was able to find it in his bedside table the other day and i could get to our pictures.

and why wouldn't i want our pictures when madelyn was smiling so sweetly in them (note the heavy sarcasm)? even though the picture doesn't show it, madelyn was really, really excited! she figured out the surprise as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. her school was giving away tickets so she knew that there was a show, she saw someone in veggietales apparel in the parking lot, and put it all together.

mason slept through some of the show. he was excited once the characters came out (particularly junior) but i would say about 15 minutes of sitting in the dark and he dozed off. i was hoping that we were going to get him before nap time but he has been trying to nap earlier and earlier in the day and just couldn't resist being cozy on big pop's lap. happily, he woke up after the intermission and stayed awake for the rest of the show.

madelyn, grandma, and i went to check out the merchandise during the intermission and, to madelyn's delight, grandma bought her and mason blinking lights sticks (branded with the show information) and some veggietales bandz bracelets. the bracelets have been a huge hit and i think that she has worn them everyday since then.

the show lasted long enough that we were able to go home afterwards because the buyers were done with the showing. they liked the house but want to live in another city here. they did say that they would consider it because they know other families in the neighborhood and really liked our basement.

veggietales was a hit and madelyn took lots and lots of pictures since daddy had to miss out. she and mason have enjoyed looking at the pictures while i was reviewing them for this post. here are a few of madelyn's shots:

maddux came too, but he slept the whole time. love.

christmas tree lighting

now i will get back to big pop and grandma's visit. friday we just hung out around the house while madelyn tried to get over her stomach bug vomiting. once we figured out that she was fine as long as she didn't eat or drink anything we decided that we wouldn't go out to eat after all. it just seemed like it would be too mean.

instead we decided to go to delafield and check out their christmas tree lighting. the write up sounded fun but i thought that it was a little disappointing. and it was pretty cold out too.

we actually missed the tree lighting but enjoyed checking out the hand made ornaments. there were fruit loops on pipe cleaners shaped into candy canes, pinwheel pasta glued together to make snowflakes, and birdseed glued onto heart shapes. madelyn and i thought that we might try to make some of these for our tree in ohio (i don't plan on unpacking all the christmas stuff but we will just get a small tree and make some ornaments).

maddux seemed to do really well with the cold all bundled up in his stroller. although he did startle when we came out of the heated chocolate store back into the cold. (yes, we got some expensive chocolates and at least mine were really good.)

i don't know that the event was worth the outing, but it was nice to get a little fresh air. and madelyn did well even though she would not participate in any pictures. love.

2-weeks

maddux is two weeks old today! i can't believe that it has only been two weeks. matt and i were talking about it last night saying that it feels like it has been much longer that maddux has been a part of our family (that is a really awkward sentence and probably a run-on). i actually didn't take any pictures of maddux today (i was working on loads and loads of laundry and holding a very clingy little boy) but thought of some other points of interest about him to post.

maddux has been sleeping 5-8 hour stretches at night. i put him down for the night between 10 and 11 and he gets up only once before 8am. last night he did a cluster feed (three feedings every 1-2 hours) before going down for 7 hours. it looks like he is going to be a sleeping champ like his big sister and brother.

generally he eats every 3 hours and eats like he has never had a meal before. i am interested to see how much weight he has gained at his next check-up. he has started wearing 3 month sized clothes and i think we will be moving him up to size 2 diapers in the next week or so.

and i am pretty sure that maddux is smiling at us. he makes eye contact and smiles. he even smiled at madelyn. his expression is sort of like when you see an old friend and smile at them in recognition. maybe i can get a picture tomorrow... love.

mason too

just a few quick notes on mason too:

- mason likes to interlink our fingers and hold hands while we are snuggled up on the couch. it is just so sweet. most kids just do a 'crossing-the-street' style hand hold, but mason definitely prefers fingers woven together.

- he isn't a formal 'talker' but it seems like he is saying "maddux", "this", "that", and "yes" in addition to the "ma-ma" and "da-da".

- i am just in awe about how gentle he is with maddux and how interested he is in what maddux is doing at any given moment.


mason is such a blessing and a huge source of joy (and exhaustion!). love.

maddux update

it was pointed out to me that i never updated on maddux after his visit to the doctor last wednesday morning (thanks, kellie). his biliruben levels were low enough and he had put on enough weight that he was able to get rid of the light therapy blanket! it was really perfect timing since we felt pretty certain that big pop and grandma were going to want to hold him and i had planned for us to do a lot of things outside the house after spending all week at home.

maddux had put on 5 oz. in three days - much better than the one ounce a day the doctor was hoping to see. and she doesn't have to see us again until his two-week well check (scheduled for next week due to the holiday).

last friday his umbilical stump fell off too. i feel like we have a real baby now! he needs no special care and can wear more than a diaper, socks, and a hat. it is actually a little weird to be able to dress him. he actually outgrew some of the clothes before we reached this point. in fact, that is part of the reason mason had to suck it up for pictures on sunday. i needed to get pictures of the kids together before maddux outgrew his "little brother" onesie.

and madelyn and mason love him! they are so cute with him too. i need matt to take a picture of when i change maddux' diaper because both kids climb up on the changing table and 'comfort' maddux while i get him cleaned up. it started with mason but madelyn quickly got in on the act. mason loves to sit with me when i am feeding or changing maddux so that he can pet his head, point out maddux' nose and ears, hold his hand, and touch his toes. and big pop confirmed what i thought i was hearing - mason says "maddux". i can't really explain the sound his makes/says, but it ends "icks" and it is clear that he is trying to say "maddux". love.

sickos

like we needed anything else in our lives right now, but madelyn, maddux, and matt have each taken a turn with a stomach bug going around here right now. so far maddux and i have managed to avoid it.

it started with madelyn on thursday night. she told me that her stomach hurt, i asked if she needed to go to the bathroom, she said yes, and headed to the bathroom (this conversation happens from time to time and isn't that odd). but then she stopped in front of the fireplace and emptied her stomach before grandma got to her and carried her the rest of the way to the bathroom. i think madelyn's was the worst because she was first and kept asking to drink water or eat something (2 crackers max). whenever she ate or drank it came right up. she often would get to the point of nothing but bile. mason would follow her into the bathroom and hold his head over the toilet too with pretending to spit (the way he does when brushing his teeth). if it wasn't so gross i would have taken video because he was so cute doing what he thought was a silly game. madelyn got up five or six times to get sick (matt slept through all of them) but she finally got to sleep around 3:30am. it was good that she finally settled down because i had run out of clean sheets and pillows. she was sleeping on a towel with a folded towel for a pillow. it has been a little over a year since the last time she was this sick (i think it was before mason was born). thankfully, it only lasted around 12 hours, there was no fever, and she was fine by the time we were ready to go out friday night. this led us to think that it was food poisoning from chocolate milk she had drank with lunch.

saturday night we were paged out of church for mason. matt went to see what was up only to find mason in a borrowed shirt because he had vomited "everything in his stomach" - so madelyn didn't have food poisoning. we decided that we would take him home and leave grandma and big pop at church with madelyn for movie night. apparently mason hadn't really vomited everything in his stomach because he vomited quite a bit in his carseat while we pulled into the driveway and tried to get him out of the car. i stayed home with mason and maddux while daddy went back to church for big pop, grandma, and madelyn. once mason's stomach was empty he fell asleep sitting on my lap. while he was still vomiting i was pushing his head over the toilet so that it wouldn't be such a mess. i think that is when he figured out that madelyn had not been having fun when she was 'spitting' in the toilet. matt and i decided that madelyn would sleep in our bed with matt while i slept in madelyn's bed to help mason should he need to vomit anymore. thankfully, we now knew not to offer any water and mason didn't vomit much after he got his stomach empty. he would heave and sort of leave a very small puddle of drool on his sheet. since he sleeps laying the short length of the bed i would just slide him down to a clean spot. around 2:30am he came over and slept the rest of the night in madelyn's bed with me. i did have some trouble with mason and maddux both being awake at the same time around 5:30am so mason sat on my lap while i fed maddux. thankfully, mason was getting back to normal in time for our photos on sunday (there will be a separate post).

matt came home from work on monday and stayed home on tuesday too. he suffered more from a lack of calories than anything else (since we had learned you can't allow any fluids or solids with this bug).

it looks like we might be done with this thing - i hope. love.

thumb sucker?

it may look painful, but maddux contently sucked on his thumb for about 10 minutes tonight. and i got a picture. love.

saturday out of the house

on saturday (november 6) my mission was to keep the kids out of the house while matt finished cleaning and staging it for the listing pictures that afternoon at 3pm. this was going to be a feat because first i could barely walk and second it would mean no nap for mason. so off we went...

first stop was home depot for the kids workshop. madelyn was disappointed that daddy wasn't going to be joining us but was willing to make a go of it anyway. we made a spice rack while mason watched from the stroller. thankfully it wasn't very crowded and mason was able to be right next to us. here is some video of madelyn at work.


next i took the kids to lunch at panera. panera is one of my favorite places to take them because they offer organic options and it is nice to get them something other than chicken nuggets. the problem with panera is that i have to leave them alone at the table to go and get the food and fill my drink cup. i can usually get a table where i can keep them in view as i take care of our meal and beverages. lunch went really well and it was a nice way to kill some time.

after lunch i took the kids over to toys-r-us for their chirstmas toy book demo day. madelyn was excited to try the remote control caveman that seems to be everywhere this year. mason was terrified of it and started to cry when it did a somersault. madelyn also tried out several 'block' products. some of them had too many small pieces to be considered for this phase of life but maybe when the youngest gets past putting things in their mouth. we were able to take care of some christmas shopping and madelyn was so distracted by all the toys that i was even able to get one of her presents.

we still needed to stay away for a little over an hour so we headed over to the mall to spend some time with the barnes and noble train table. plus, i was able to rest in a chair for a while. you would think that these kids didn't have their own train table at home. mason really had a lot of fun but the lack of a nap was starting to weigh on him. he had fallen asleep every time i put him in the car but i kept having to wake him up to sit in the stroller or cart because i couldn't carry him like i normally would.

both kids fell asleep the second we headed for home. i guess i wore all of us out but i managed to keep the kids away long enough for matt to take care of everything for our listing. love.

betty brinn with big pop and grandma

big pop and grandma arrived on wednesday afternoon and matt and i left them with the kids so that we could go to dinner for our anniversary (we had a gift certificate for a restaurant here that needed to be used), do a little christmas shopping, and stop by sams to pick up birth announcements - super romantic, right? what can i say? matt and i are both pretty practical and we took maddux with us. it was just nice to be out together.

on thursday matt headed to work and i took the kids and grandparents to betty brinn children's museum. we picked a good day because there weren't any school groups and there was a 'special announcement' from a local bank about a new exhibit (i never heard what it was). as part of the announcement there were free t-shirts, gift bags, cookies, juice boxes, rosita from sesame street, and activities for the kids.

first we spent some time in the little play town. it has been a while since we have gone down to the museum and there were a lot of new things to see.

i was looking forward to checking out the temporary mr. potatohead exhibit. it was very nice and the kids really liked a lot of the activities but it was not at all what i was expecting from the write up i had read. there was a mr. potatohead table where both kids (and grandparents) played for a while. mason went around the table putting a hat on all the potatoes. i think that the coal conveyor belt was his favorite (at least i think that is what it was).

we had a great time and i am hoping that i get to take the kids a few more times before we move. love.

good bye, miss sarah

on november 9 (my due date), i took the kids to their last music class with miss sarah. everyone was surprised to see me still with a belly but i was happy that we got to go to our last class.

madelyn sits right next to miss sarah and acts as her 'helper' the whole class. this was the first session mason did, officially (aka paid), with miss sarah. he really liked the class but did spend most classes sitting on my lap.

every session there is a different puppet. this session the puppets were little finger puppet horses. both kids really liked singing songs with them.

madelyn has always been a hoarder in class; she would make sure that all her friends had some too, but any extra ended up with her. mason on the other hand only takes one of what ever is offered - even if he is offered two.

madelyn is showing me how she can wear all the horse colors at once before dancing back over to reclaim her spot next to miss sarah.

and here is mason taking it all in. he would get up and get his own instruments and puppets without any prompting from me but he didn't really dance, clap, or sing much. he did remember songs from class that madelyn would sing at home though and would get excited when we started any of those.

we have loved going to miss sarah's music class and were so luck to have her offer classes in our neighborhood for about a year. we are really going to miss her! i will definitely be looking for a new music class once we move to akron. love.

acting out

so one of the things that has happened is that madelyn has started acting out - or maybe i should say acting in... she has been super sneaky about it. i think that it is a reaction to either moving or maddux' arrival but it is very much on the down low. she doesn't cry or throw fits (other than the normal stuff but even that has decreased). instead she does thing that she thinks we won't notice.

when we bought a bag of tootsie roll candy at sams for trick-or-treaters i found a corner of it opened. i asked madelyn if she opened it and she told me that mason did it (even though he was asleep when we got home from sams and was still napping). a few days later matt found the scene in the picture in a cabinet under the kitchen sink. it looks like she didn't actually eat any; she just chewed them a few times and spit them out.

she has also started to bite on her finger nails. i can't remember what else she was doing because it seems like she has started to ease up on the sneaky behavior and lying. it seems like this was all fairly short lived. and i really just can't remember now that i can post about it... love.

UPDATED: i thought of another example of her "acting out"... she stopped wiping and/or flushing the toilet regularly. this was never a proplem in the past, totally new.

we're on the move...

...to akron, ohio! and very soon. we are planning on moving december 15. it has been totally crazy trying to pack, finish up to-dos on the house, carpet the basement, get the house listed, have a baby, find somewhere to live, and keep it all a secret before matt told his staff - which he was finally able to do today.

matt told his boss a while (he was super supportive) and we went ahead and told our neighbors before the 'for sale' sign went up in the front yard. we got our first offer after two showings and less than a week on the market. but they had a very unreasonable term that was apparently a deal breaker for them and they walked. we have another option that we are currently pursuing. we are really hoping to have the house sold before we leave the state.

the plan is to move into an apartment while we figure out the area and school districts. once we have a feel for the area, we will begin the house hunt (or build). so the packing has been a little more interesting because we have to pack for the apartment and for keeping in storage for 1-2 years until we get into a new house. we have already packed up most of the kids' toys and moved things over to a storage unit here so that we can get the house ready for showings more quickly (and not have the house filled with moving boxes).

i am sure that i will have many more posts on the details of our transition over the next couple of weeks leading up to the big move but at least i have confirmed what many of you have already guessed. i have a few other posts that have been waiting for matt to get everything squared away at work before i could post them so here they come... love.

maddux after dark

here is a picture of maddux down for the night in his light 'blanket' and miracle blanket. once i lay him down i thread the hose through the crib bars and plug him in. i have been experimenting with the wrapping each night to figure out how to lay it out so that i can still alternate the end of the crib that his head is on so that he doesn't get a flat spot.
and here is a picture of the glow. it has occurred to me that he might not know what to do once the loud fan on the box and the 'blanket' are gone. although i might do a happy dance. love.

maddux pictures

today we unplugged maddux, put a shirt on him and attempted to take a decent picture for birth announcements. what you can't see is mason hanging from my arms and madelyn popping back and forth behind my head trying to make him smile while matt watched and laughed before pulling mason off me. here are some of my favorites. love.