sweet two

My sweet little baby boy Jude is now two. I guess that means he's not a little baby anymore, huh? We celebrated on Valentines day with Grandpa Gerry (his favorite person in the world) and Grandma Shari, and of course, our little family of four. We had some pizza, cupcakes and gifts. It was pretty perfect. We even let him have his "daddy pop" -aka MT Dew, for dinner. Ironically enough he went to bed early, even with all the sugar.

Daddy left for Montana on his actual birthday- poor kid will probably never have both of his parents together on his birthday- so we got up and had a good breakfast and headed up to Alexandria despite the awful weather to hang with Grandma and go to the water park. Our plans got slightly derailed when we came to find out that Arrowwood Resort didn't have day passes on holiday weekends. It definitely slipped my mind that Monday was Presidents Day. We stayed at my moms house and had another favorite of Judes- spaghetti and to top it off.... a John Deere ice cream cake. He only ate the yummy gel frosting and whipped cream edges.

Sunday we headed to the water park where Jude and I enjoyed going down the water slide... on repeat. I bet we went down about 100 times, and that I am not exaggerating about in the least. It was great. Our hotel room was beautiful and we enjoyed everything about our stay. I will definitely be bringing the boys back to enjoy Arrowwood again this summer with daddy when there's more to do outside for little ones.

Our Monday was a doozy. It took us just about three hours to get home from Alex. The conditions didn't get bad until after Paynesville- the drive I know like the back of my hand- it took FOREVER.

We did a quick session with Renee from Dassel to get a few head-shots of Jude of his two year pictures. We got a few goodies with Sarah, but he wasn't too excited to do any solo ones. The mini session was great! It lasted about 20 minutes and was $30 which is a steal of a deal for a two year old.

I'm pretty sure my heart melted on the first and last ones.

Here's some of Judes favorites/milestones:

-He can obviously walk. It took him just past one to be able to walk. Now he gallops and my heart goes pitter patter every-single-time.

-He's not the greatest talker. His words consist of: ball, book, boots, kitty kitty, Bella, Lilly, blankie, tractor, go, mama, dada, more, baby, no, ya, milk, juice, uh-oh, nack-snack, phone, spoon, cow... I mean we're not adding any sentences together. Jude's always been a little delayed in the speech area. It will come.

-loves anything that moves. Tractors, trucks, buses, dump trucks, ect. You know, the usual boy things. Shrieks with delight when he sees Maddy or Lilly. 

-CANNOT live without his blankie. 

-loves swimming, bath time, playing in the sink.
-bananas, eggs and spaghetti are his fav foods.
- daddy pop is his most desired beverage. He constantly has a sippy full of something- water, milk, juice.
-Papa Gerry can make any day the best day ever.
-Fights tooth and nail with his big bro, Gavin. But then the next second they will be laying in bed reading books together. He follows Gav around more than Gavin really cares for.
-Jude is so even tempered. He gets frustrated when I don't know what he wants, because of the lack of words, but hardly ever slips into the "temper tantrum" mode.
-He helps mama around the house. Listens like a champ. If I say, "Jude, go bring your toys to your room" he will do it.... Immediately! I hope that never changes.
-Sleeps great! He goes to bed around 7:30 and gets up at 8. Takes an hour and a half nap from 1-1:30 to 3. It might be my favorite time of the day :)
-Looks just like mama when mama was little.
-Doesn't care much for tv. He likes Mickey and Jake but will only watch the show for about 10 minutes. He will, however, watch almost an entire John Deere movie.
-He hates to be in the car. Almost immediately he will fuss.
-Spends countless hours destroying my fridge and splashing in the sink.


We are so lucky to have little Jude Andrew. I couldn't imagine life without him. I cannot wait to see him grow.

gap

I don't know where you mamas buy your little ones clothes but for me the one stop shop has always been the Gap. So convenient and super close in St Cloud. There's always an abundant of little boys clothes for Gavin, I mean myslef, to chose from, and quick! Well little did I know that the St Cloud Gap has turned into a factory store and everything for little boys is.. well... junk. I don't really love the St Cloud Gap anymore. To be honest I've been there once since it turned into a factory store and have no intention of going back. I would much rather drive to Ridgedale or spend the afternoon at Southdale (my favorite mall) and even hit up MOA (WITHOUT kids). 

On Thursday I put three different outfits on Gavin. All three were too short. I can only assume Gav gets his height from his Papa Scott because no one around this household is extra tall. Gavin is up to my belly button and he is only FOUR!... what? By the time he's in middle school I'm pretty sure he'll be taller than I am. Which isn't too terribly hard to do because I am only 5' 2"... I lie and say I'm 5' 3" sometimes (shhhhh). Gavin has always worn a larger shirt than his "age" because he torso is SOOOOO long. But now we're going to a 5T in jeans as well. My little growing boy. I love that he's getting so big and growing up so nicely but it is kind of pricey to have this little boy going through so many clothes, so fast. Thank the Lord I have a sweet little boy who gets all of his older bros hand-me-downs that are still in mint condition. 

Anyways enough with the rambling. Today I decided to order some new jeans and a few shirts for Gavin via gap.com. I have no time in the upcoming weeks to head to the cities and Target seems to be pretty limited on little boy clothes in this winter/spring awkward time. Which by the way is probably the only other store I love for my boys, and to be honest... myself. Who doesn't love Target? So I filled up my cart and headed to the checkout. As I was looking for my card I noticed I still had a giftcard from TWO Christmases ago that I assumed had a few extra dollars to take care of the winter hats I ordered for the boys that they don't need (but they were so adorable). I typed in the numbers and pin code and BAM! $100 left on the card. Thanks, mom! Seriously it was a pretty awesome way to start off this Friday. So of course I did what any other person would do... filled up the cart even more and didn't tell Dan I found a giftcard. The boys should be set till spring. 

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!

the potty

I have been dreading this..

Potty training.

I knew it was time to start the never ending process of introducing "the potty" to Jude when he decided to take off his diaper in the middle (or beginning) of the night in his crib. Which means.... A mess when I get up. Not really a mess, just to clarify, but a soaked blanket or three.

He has followed everyone in this house into the bathroom more times than I can count so I knew he would be okay sitting on the potty and washing his hands, ect. But I wasn't too sure how the connection between a little mans pee-pee and the actual potty-ing would go.

Gavin was SO easy to potty train because it was just him and I here. It took just about two weeks to get him to always use the potty and only wear pull ups at night (ps, I forget about potty training at night... ohhh I just got stressed). Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

So we got out the leftover package of Thomas the Train undies that Gavin never wore and put them on last week. Day one, SUCCESS! I thought to myself, "wow, I have an amazingly smart little man". And then day two and three were just about as awful as they could get. Many soaked undies and messes to clean up on the floor. Dan has little to no time to deal with the messes so I'm always the one wiping up that yellow mess on the floor. Thankfully we have very little carpet in our house. I've never been more grateful for our tiny house. Today we are golden. No oppsies thus far. We sit on the potty every 30 minutes and read and hand out smarties left and right and sing as well. It's a beautiful time. Our bathroom can fit two people (one adult and one small child) comfortably, because it's teeny tiny, so when we put two small children and myself in there it's quite cramped. Plus, then Gavin thinks he needs treats for going potty--- ummm I don't think so. I remember a very specific maid of honor speech that was something along the lines of, "I was easy to potty train because I wanted to be just like my older sister" and I went with it. So all three of us hang in the bathroom and clap and scream for everyone who goes potty. It really is wonderful. Whenever I find myself getting annoyed I have to honestly check myself and think Jude wants to be just like his brother- go with it!

Now that we're on day four I'm going to try really hard to stick to our routine of using the potty. And eventually being brave enough to venture out of our house without a diaper or pull up on. But until the next two weeks are over (when my baby turns TWO- OH MY GOSH, REALLY? TWO?) I'll keep up with the potty training and undie wearing at home and pull ups when we're in public.

Crossing my fingers for a great, dry day :)

An annoucement

I really am into my blog these days... have you noticed? I went months and months and months without typing a dang thing and now I'm posting at least once a week. They might not be the most interesting posts but hey, I get about 20 views a day so I guess someone cares whats going on in our life.

I am proud to announce I have the best husband ever... I think?
No seriously. He is good. I am completely astounded by his abilities. He is SO crafty and precise and amazing. I am so grateful for his craftsmanship because I can't imagine how expensive it would've been to hire someone to do this nasty work for us. He is fab! Of course sometimes I do want to smack him silly and put the wrath of Sam on him- what wife doesn't feel this way? haha!

Dan has been so determined to finish our bedroom. A project that ultimately started because I was sick of looking at Jude's changing table and cluttered mess in his room. We are near the end goal. A little later than we had hoped but we ran in to more obstacles than expected. We found an abundance of glue on the natural hardwood that we're assuming has been in the house since it was built (the exact year, I really have no idea but it's old), so we had to scrape it off. Sanding the floors took longer than expected as well because it was a holy disaster having dust all over everything in our room... By the way, I'm still washing clothes and non-stop dusting. We also wanted to bust out a few walls but came to the realization that under all the walls is... nothing- no wood.  I had high hopes to expose the chimney and paint it a beautiful color white, but again.. between the plaster and rock nothing. It's a SERIOUS disaster. So the walls, closets, everything  we have has to stay. It was a huge bummer but I'm okay with it. We won't live here for the rest of our lives. We had also decided to un-popcorn the popcorn ceiling but that was SO messy and I was really growing impatient.


So here is a little snap of what it looks like right now... (excuse the crappy iphone pictures- I have no clue as to where my camera is).

our bed goes right in the center, with the window as it's center point

Again, horrible pictures- I know- I plan on finding my camera tonight while I am cleaning our attic storage and cleaning the massive amounts of sawdust/dust/everything off of the storage area. 

But yes, white floors. Every single person I've spoken to about painting our floors white has looked at me like I am crazy. You should have seen the looks I got when I was in LBC. 

I think at least three or so people have asked me..

"Have you ever seen pictures of painted floors?"

DUH! 

"Where?"

...pinterest. HAHAA!

The looks I received after that varied from person to person. Obviously all the ladies who I said that to were so excited, I mean it was like they were ready to hop on their phones and type it in. And the men, rolled their eyes. Dan did too. And to be honest, until he did the first coat he really wasn't too sure about it. 

I found these images while pinteresting floors for kitchens- which I still haven't found our ideal flooring--- 

pinterest

pinterest

I have a little bit of work to do on the floors to get these cracks more visible so bare with me. The wall color is way off, too. It's an extremely pale grey. Dan is trimming out our windows and closets (we have five, they're all small) tonight so by Friday, or Saturday everything will be finished.

This is the plan for our stairs. Minus the board and batten walls, which could actually be really cute- but not a project I am up for as of now.

So there's a little preview. If I follow through with my plans of finding my camera I might even post some before and afters for ya.

I'm also excited because we might actually finish our stairs before he goes to Montana snowmobiling. I might not be going on a tropical vacay this winter but I am getting a much needed house-lift... I'll take it!

this sh*t is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s

.. thank you Gwen Stefani for teaching me how to correctly spell bananas.


Since day 1 with Jude we knew he was a picky little eater. In the hospital we couldn't get him to drink from a bottle or a boobie. He quickly got the hang of a bottle and went to town, right when we got home. Nothing is different now. He is a picky little thing. He dislikes almost all the same foods that Gavin does and has a love for certain foods- I wonder when he'll get sick of them.

Like bananas. I buy almost two bundles of bananas a week. A WEEK! Jude eats just about every single one of them. It's his favorite breakfast, snack and side. This morning, as we are heading to preschool- and late might I add, he is screaming in his car seat for bananas. "Naaaanaaaaaaaaa's, maaaaa, nnnnnaaaannnnnaaaaas!" It was far past annoying. He then proceeded to scream as I am opening up the door to get Gavin out for preschool for all of the other late moms to hear. He screamed the entire time I was in the preschool.. (yes, I leave him in the car when it's terribly cold outside, call the cops) and the whole way home. Jude isn't much of a temper tantrum little boy. In fact, he almost never has a tantrum; I would say the only time we see that 'throw yourself down on the floor and kick your heels' side of Jude is if Gavin has taken a toy away from him or I don't give him "nanas". Gavin, on the other hand, could schedule a temper tantrum into his day on the hour, and sometimes does.

I made him some eggs (his second favorite breakfast food) and he was almost overjoyed to see the yellow food on his plate. That was until he realized that they were eggs and not "nanas". It's been a long morning and it's only 9:30. I am going to finish my few things here and then head to the store to get those beloved "nanas" that we're having massive temper tantrums over. One month and counting until the terrible twos are scheduled to actually start.

need out

i need to get out of the house. i am using my blog to communicate with everyone........ probably not the best idea.

for those of you who read this (by the way i just typed whore) and didn't realize it.. who+re(ad) haha. opps, delete. here's a little funny for you.

gavin said to me yesterday while we were stamping the abc's into play-doh...

"junk abc's. mom, i'm never going to use these abc's". seriously had me rolling. he struggles with the "l, m, n, o, p" part- says it as one word so we have to point them out and say them individually.

anyways, about an hour after that he looked at me and called me a bastard (his fathers favorite word) so he got a little mouthful of vinegar.

it was a happy friday. enjoy the weekend!

house goals

We are near the end, friends. 

One final floor sand, paint and trim. Oh.... and the stairs. I always forget about the stairs. So I guess we're about half way done then?

I went to LBC to pick out paint and trim colors; very excited about the colors I chose. I got Dan to agree on them, which I never thought would happen. He would prefer a dark color and I, of course, would love something that is just outside of the "white" category. I let Dan chose the living room color and I'm still not exceptionally happy about the outcome. It's a nice color, but about three shades darker than the color I had brought home. It will do. Our living room gets amazing natural sunlight, and with the white trim and light colored decor its beautiful during the day, I'm in love.. but at night I'd like to rip down the walls. It's better than the white with boarder that had up for the first months of moving in. And better than the just plain white walls Dan was happy with (men).

Our house goals for 2014 are:

-(Obviously) to finish the upstairs bedroom. I'm really hoping two more weeks. 

-Finish Jude's room.. which will be easy- just redecorate it, move shelving around, put shelves up. It would basically just take one solid day. Move in the bed. Right now every free hour is dedicated to the bedroom so it will have to be on the back burner. 

-Repaint, putty and move things in Gavin's room. Bring in his new dresser, ect.

-(drum roll please)....... THE KITCHEN. I've been very patient about this kitchen. It won't happen until spring/summer when we can move in with my mom for a week or two. School needs to be out so Gavin won't miss that. Plus, there is no possible way to remodel a kitchen with two little boys running around, needing to be fed.

-Repaint the shutters. They are currently this awful faded maroon color- anything but that will be awesome. It's so easy and so cheap, I can even do it solo as soon as the snow is gone. 

A big house goal for 2015- 

-Basement. Add a bedroom, bathroom and storage area. Something easy to do but very time consuming. Plus, that's where the majority of the toys are so I have no idea where that mess will be relocated. 

-Change all outdoor doors

-All new interior doors as well

-New kitchen appliances

-Windows, all around. So I'm thinking summer 2015 for that. 

If we follow through with these plans there will be NOTHING in our house that is original to when we moved in. We can't really "remodel" and take walls out/move things around because our house is so tiny but a face-lift and new added extras will make our house look a lot better. Plus, something we can do together. I am pretty proud I'm actually taking part in some of the process. I am even getting pretty good at using the sander.