while mommy works...

...the kids will color.

a day like any other

matt and i don't really celebrate valentine's day so we didn't do anything romantic today. and it is hard anyway when you don't have any babysitters in the state and your kids are sick. 

mason joined us in bed at 5:30am (third day in a row) with a burning fever.  a long cool drink of water and some motrin helps him to settle down for another hour or so and matt got up with him at that point. 

we had put out a book and candy gift for each of the older kids and madelyn couldn't wait to tell me all about them.  she was so pumped for valentine's day!  we had picked out her heart outfit (blue), painted her nails with glittery pink polish and red hearts, written her name on all her cards, and packed up a bag with treats for her friends at school.  she could not wait for the school's party today.

(the heart is what she brought home from school last week.  it's nice to know that she loves her brother.)

so since mason was still a mess, i decided that i would go ahead and call the doctor's office after dropping madelyn off.  today was day four of giving him motrin for his fever and he just looked so pitiful.  they weren't able to see us until the afternoon.  so home with a clingy and crying boy to try and get something done while we waited to see the doctor.  it turns out that he has a double ear infection!  poor boy.  i had a feeling that was going to be the diagnosis; i actually thought that it was just going to be his right ear though.

besides mason looking so poorly, he has been super clingy.  he really wishes that i wasn't nursing maddux; that much has been made very clear.  since we don't currently have a couch  to cuddle on, i made up 'beds' on the floor for the kids when we got back from the doctor's while they watched a veggietales movie.  and mason fell asleep for his second nap of the day.

i don't know why this always happens, but i was dealing with non-stop screaming, crying boys who just wanted to be held until about 5 minutes before daddy got home.  daddy gets their best, mommy gets their worst.  that was in mason's most recent dose of motrin kicked in and maddux finally found madelyn entertaining.  i was running late with dinner (imagine that - given my day) and mason was in a pleasant, helpful mood.  in fact, he got right to baking the cookies for me.  wasn't that sweet?

  

daddy brought home mason's antibiotics and i am feeling very optimistic about tomorrow.  happy valentine's day!  love.

the happy boy

i just thought that i should post a few recent pictures of maddux.  love.

playing blocks with help from madelyn and mason.

first time sitting up while holding my hand.  i had some trouble getting to the camera and he started falling but i still thought it was cute.

this one is blurry but this is how he looks most of the time (smiles, not blurry).

we love saturdays with daddy!

not that we did anything particularly special today, but madelyn and i get all excited every friday talking about how daddy will get to stay with us all day on saturday!  today's plan was for daddy to take madelyn to lowe's for the build and grow workshop (a music box), then go to the zoo for lunch (that we packed), and then drive around and look at lots while the kids slept in the van. and even though mason looked awful (poor kid had a 102 degree fever), we thought that some fresh air and sunshine would be best for all of us.  we had a great day together and accomplished everything we had planned.

maddux sucking his index finger happily.

daddy playing with madelyn on the rope bridge.  i don't think that she was having as much fun as daddy was shaking the bridge.

it was a little colder than we were expecting - even with the sun - so we didn't see the whole zoo.  it was still well worth the trip just to get a little walking and fresh air.  and the kids just love a picnic lunch!  not that we don't eat the same lunch at home everyday, but eating it somewhere else always makes it extra special.

i told her that she had to wait until daddy was with us to try it because i couldn't spot her and watch the boys at the same time.  on our way out she excitedly told me that she knew how to climb the rock wall now and she is really good at it!  i think that she is just laying the groundwork for being able to do it next time when daddy isn't with us.

madelyn climbing the rock wall in the jellyfish exhibit. 



all three kids fell asleep, as planned, and matt and i had a few hours to drive around a new part of town and revisit some other lots we are considering.  one of the builders have 6 model homes built all together so we stopped there to walk around and get ideas before our meeting with a builder tomorrow.  (we aren't 100% sure that we are building, but we are going to explore it as a possibility.)  madelyn was so excited to look at houses - she really likes open houses and we haven't been through too many.  she had so many cute comments as we walked through each house - "it's a little dark, but it could be okay for us" or "i think that this room might work for mason".

mason wasn't as crazy about walking through the models.  his motrin was wearing off and he was starting to really feel poorly again.  it didn't help that he went to have some alone time in a laundry room. i actually found him standing with his face in a corner, but i must have been standing too closely because he went to the opposite wall and did his business in his diaper.  we walked through each house relatively quickly and snapped a few pictures of features or colors we liked.

we had a fun and relaxing day away from the apartment.  we even saw some sunshine!  love.

originals

i have mentioned before about madelyn's original songs.  while this isn't the greatest version she was singing that night, it gives a taste of what i mean.  this one originally had several verses and that was why i got the camera.  she even "wrote down the words" so that she could sing it for daddy.  obviously, she couldn't read her own 'writting'.  enjoy.

on another day i overheard her telling mason that she was building the wall of jericho and got the camera.  usually she is more accurate in her retelling of bible stories. madelyn normally tells about how the people marched around and then yelled and blew their horns which is what i was trying to get at with my questioning.  she keeps getting it a little confused with the visuals from the veggietales movie - josh and the big wall.  that is the part about one block jumping down or wiggling.  still it's cute.  love.

mommy's little helper

mason loves to help me.  when he hears me open the closet doors to the washer and dryer, he runs to the kitchen to get the stool so that he can help.  and he does help too.  his favorite task is emptying the lint trap.  he is surprisingly good at getting it out, letting me clean it, and getting it back in on his own.

he also likes to use his stool to help in the kitchen when i am cooking.  i have been pleased at his general excellent listening in the kitchen about when it is okay to touch and when it isn't.

now clean and dirty dish differentiation isn't coming along as quickly as i would like.  he tries to put away the dirty utensils in the drawer, so i have to keep an eye out for that.  thankfully, he is pretty good about respecting the dishwasher door lock - even though he can open it.

laundry-related note: mason knows that he wears two socks, so he picks out two pairs in the morning when we ask him to get his socks.  when we only put on one pair he is insists that he needs the other one and signs "more" while crying - because he needs two.  silly kid.

mason is all boy - physical, energetic, hungry, and full of little boy sweetness too.  love.

nail polish and potty training

mason has every sign for potty training readiness - he points to his diaper when he goes to pee and poop, he can pull his pants (and diaper) on and off by himself, he can follow multi-step instructions, he wets and poops his diaper predictably, he is dry after sleeping, he takes interest in sitting on the potty, etc.  so i went out and bought fun treats and drinks, arranged a list of things for matt and madelyn to so for a few hours, and got to training mason.

he was really, really excited about wearing underwear.  and he did a great job going through the motions, teaching a baby doll, and cleaning up when he would have an accident.  what didn't he do?  go in the potty!  he kept getting mad that it was in the kitchen and not in the bathroom, so i moved all of our supplies in there instead.  i think he was just not feeling 100%.  either way, after 4 hours and no successes in the toilet, i put him back in a diaper for nap time.  no big deal.  we will try again in a month or so.

one of the errands i wrote down for madelyn and daddy was to buy the princess nail polish she had picked out for when she stopped sucking her thumb.  and she requested that daddy paint her nails with the ariel (purple) polish as soon as they got home.  the nail polish stayed on about as well as you would expect for princess nail polish applied by daddy, but madelyn was very proud of it none the less.  she did, however, ask me to do the re-painting a little later that afternoon (once the ariel polish had all peeled off).  not daddy.

we aren't painting her nails with the mavala polish any more and she is very over sucking her thumb and biting her nails.  she is picking her nails now, but at least she is only ruining her nails and not her teeth.  you've got to choose your battles.  love.

daddy's finished product.