My sweet Sam

Sam and I had a few quiet minutes together the other day while Molly was at a friend's house, so I googled some fun questions to ask him. I like hearing his answers on the fly, without anyone else chiming in.

1. What is something I always say to you?
Pick up your room.
I say it, but no one seems to hear it.

2. What makes me happy?
Helping you
He has such a sweet HEART!

3. What makes me sad?
That we don't listen
Amen

4. How do I make you laugh?
Saying jokes
Hilarious, because it appears they never catch on to my sarcasm.

5. What was I like as a child?
A sister. Because you're a girl. And girls are sisters.
I love how his mind works. This makes sense!

6. How old am I?
31
Dammit that is one thing he knows- everyone's ages.

7. How tall am I?
very tall
Tell that to the BMI chart please.

8. What is my favorite thing to do?
taking us to happy places
I do enjoy that.

9. What do I do when you're not around?
Work- dishes, laundry, mop the floor, feed the babies
Hahahahahahaha (sadly true)

10. What am I really good at?
cleaning the dishes
Your father would disagree!!

11. What is something I'm not good at?
folding the clothes
Your father would wholeheartedly agree!!

12. What do I do for a job?
You do everything. 
PREACH.

13. What is my favorite food?
pizza
It's the way to my heart.

14. What do you enjoy doing with me?
helping you
And with a happy heart, he always does.


Sam has always been so tenderhearted and kind, so much so that when he gets an attitude or throws a fit, I almost wonder if he's sick. Who is this child? I expect this kind of behavior from your sister, but not from you.... I mean.... uh... Why don't you go sit by yourself til you can change your attitude. Yeah, that sounds like something a good parent would say. So let's do that.

Love being this boy's mama.

The first tooth

Sam has had a loose tooth since before Steve left. I am historically grossed out by body parts that aren't firmly attached to their intended areas. I was so hoping it would fall out before Steve left (so he could deal with it), but no such luck.

One morning before school, Sam was standing next to me talking about how wiggly his tooth was. I looked briefly, just to get a handle on the timeline of this situation and saw his adult tooth popping through behind. Completely nauseous from the sight, I texted Steve. He told me that it would come out when it was ready. I began to text back that if I had to assist I was going to barf all over both of us, but before I could even hit send, I heard a plink on the floor.

I turned to Sam and asked what he dropped. He bent down a picked up a piece of a Cheerio (the size of a tooth) and exclaimed, "Ahh! This is what was bothering my tooth so much!"

This might have been plausible had it not been for the fact that Sam hadn't eaten breakfast, and also he no longer had a tooth in his mouth! I said, "Sam! Your tooth! It's gone! Did it seriously just fall out?! OMG!! I was JUST telling your dad about this!! We gotta find it!"

So we were all on the floor with the flashlight under the couch, searching through the (seemingly dozens of) discarded Cheerios pieces to find the tooth. Finally found it and immediately facetimed Steve to show him.

Sam was SO PROUD. And could there be a more perfect way to lose a first tooth?! With Molly as his witness, this was the most calm, gentle tooth loss one could hope for. So hopefully the precedent is now set- wiggly teeth are nothing to worry about or be scared of. Just don't involve Mom in any way because she's a weenie.

I had a tooth pillow that I had gotten either right before Sam was born or right after, and cannot BELIEVE that it has somehow survived every purge and move, AND I was able to locate it when needed. Truly some divine intervention there. I looked around on Pinterest to see if I was missing any cute (and easy) tooth ideas and saw that there was really nothing I was interested in doing. Mostly because whatever I do now, I will have to do every time someone loses a tooth from here on out. That's 79 more teeth I gotta perform for. No thanks. BAR IS SET LOW. SUPAH LOW. So come Tooth #80 I am not cursing Jenn-excited-over-Tooth-#1.

I know some folks go all out and stuff like, actual green money under their kids' pillows for tooth loss, but I did the math and absolutely not. Multiply by 20, times four, carry the 1, and factor in the inevitable cost of braces we are bound to incur and there is no way this tooth I'm going to toss in the trash is worth more than a quarter. But the first one is worth a little more because I'm not a total monster.

terrible cursive equates to whimsical and fairy-like, yes?

Then I went to bed and left the tooth sitting on the table directly next to the note. Luckily I was recapping for Steve via text after I got in bed and realized my mistake. I have no intentions of keeping any baby teeth, but when it came time to throw it away, I just couldn't. I blame literally everything these days on my out-of-control hormones, but this tiny little piece of him grew inside of me and now he's big enough to start losing teeth?! That realization coupled with the fact that Steve was missing yet another first and I just stuck it in the top dresser drawer. "So Steve can see it." Steve can throw it away after he marvels over its tiny size and weird shape and hopefully by that time I will be well over the fact that my baby is growing up a bit. (Yeah right, but a girl can dream!)

Sam, Sammy, Samuel, Cool Joe

A brief snapshot of Sam, age 6 (which sounds impossible given that he was born three weeks ago)

1. What is your favorite color? orange
Last I heard it was blue or green, but maybe that was getting overplayed.

2. What is your favorite toy? cars
Judging by the amount I find on the floor each night, I'd say this is 100% true.

3. What is your favorite food? pizza
Whose isn't? I would add that a close second is all the free ice cream he finds outside in the form of clean (looking) snow and random icicles.

4. What is your favorite game? Uno
He's good at it too!

5. What is your favorite animal? Brown Bear
His stuffed animal!! This melts my heart.

6. What is your favorite song? Down By The Bay
If insanity had a tune, this might be it.

7. Who is your best friend? Molly
I'm really surprised he didn't pick his friend Colt, but I think it's sweet that he loves his sister.

8. What is your favorite thing to do outside? playing with Colt
There's Colt.

9. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? nothing
Quite the opposite of his hoarder sister

10. What is love? valentines
This question is kinda deep so I like that he answered so simply with whatever he felt was most relevant. Other acceptable answers would be: pizza, hugs, macaroni, cake, kisses.

11. What do you want to be when you grow up? a grown up!
DUH!

12. What does Mommy always say to you? pick up your toys
If you know this, then why must I keep saying it?

13. What are you really good at? playing baseball
And basketball, and football, and ice skating, and running, and and and

14. Where is your favorite place to go? Colt and Maverick's house
So much freeeeeeedom!!!! Wide open spaces!

15. Where do you live? Minnesota
He named our town too. I edited it down to the state though.

16. What do you want for your birthday this year? new monster trucks
Yeah because we sure don't have enough of those already, huh?

17. What makes you laugh? someone tickling me
Also anyone farting, talking about farting, planning a surprise farting, etc.

18. What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy? read
And lately HE has read to ME! It is so CUTE.

19. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy? play monster trucks
I would venture to say "anything" though. He is Steve's shadow.

20. What makes you happy? when someone be's nice to me 
The way little kids talk amuses me to no end. He's starting to talk more and more like a big kid though and is losing his little kid "accent" and grammatical sort of nuances like "be's" instead of "is being".

Sam is one of the most kindhearted little boys I know! He does his best to make sure everyone is included and I miss him a lot when he's at school. He amazes me with how much he can do independently, and while I shed tears at how fast time is flying by with him, I really can't wait to see the man he becomes.

COME ON, SPRING

I am normally one to really relish winter. Growing up in southern Alabama, there was really no such thing, save for a week or two where it dipped into the 40s (ooh, brrr!), so moving around to different places that experienced seasons, I could not have enjoyed it more. It always seemed the cool weather left too quickly though, and Minnesota is the first place I have definitely gotten my fill of the cooler temps. Most of the country seemed to experience some sort of (admittedly, concerning) heat wave in February and pictures of people running around outside or having picnics or playing in tshirts floated all over my instagram. Minnesota did not get the global warming memo and continued on with temps in the 20s. But! One day it was sunny and about 33*, so we lugged out the bikes and stroller and tried to make the "warm" weather count!

Blurry, but look at the joy on her face!

Seuss week at school continued and one day was Wacky Day, so I let the kids pick out their own clothes for school. This is usually a sufficient amount of whack, so I thought their ensembles would be golden. Instead, they came out like this.

Uhhhh.....? This is fairly normal. Most days if they beat me to the dresser, they will have shirts on backwards, mismatched socks, skirts on under a dress, short sleeves in -2* weather, and definitely a rainbow of color all over their little bodies. So this seemed pretty tame. I asked if they wanted to wear something a little wackier and tried explaining the point of the wacky day to them but they were pretty set on their outfits. Whatever!

Sammy from 5 years ago!!! (sobs)

Fun fact- if you have Amazon Prime, you have access to the greatest photo storage ever. FOR FREE. There is an app (you can also open it on your computer from the website), you download it, open the app, grant it access to your photos, let it upload, and then it organizes everything by date for you!! It also has this nifty "On This Day" feature that makes me want to cry my eyes out because I see Baby Sammy With All The Hair and wonder where the last five years went. Anyways, I can't keep that sort of thing to myself any longer. The downside is that there is limited video storage, but if you pay $60/year, you get unlimited.

This is an affiliate link and clicking on it might earn me enough pennies to one day justify a tiny fraction of my Amazon purchases.

Molly and I had some clearance rack success and managed to pull off a twin moment- hard to do when one of you is shopping mostly the maternity section.

Will has recently adopted a real crap sleep schedule (as has been his "thing" since birth, basically) and he refused a nap until I came up and laid down in Sam's bed with him. I seriously almost passed out myself, but remembered what a cranky beeyotch I'd be if I slept an entire 20 minutes at 3:30 in the afternoon. If the nap ain't eight hours, I have no business taking it.

He's pretty cute though, huh?

The weekend arrived and the forecast claimed it would be mid-40's with sunshine so we hightailed it out to Rick and Monica's house to get their kids outside with ours to run around and burn all their energy.

Turns out it was 41* but with the biting wind, it felt like 5*. Didn't seem to bother the kids one bit though.

We lasted about two hours before Will and I were about frozen solid. Sam and Molly came home and went straight back outside to play basketball across the street and stomp all over our mud yard. Will woke up from his nap and wished he could run around with them too.

We had pizza for dinner and then the kids got early showers and watched a movie with some popcorn.

Like how I try to distract you from the crummy photography with some sparkly nonsense? Is it working?

First Sunday of Lent and Molly took note that the priests are now wearing PURPLE (HALLELUJAH FOR THE WARDROBE CHANGE, AMIRIGHT SISTER?!) instead of green.

I mentioned it on IG, but I am really ready for spring church clothes. We have been trying to mix it up with the few winter church clothes they have for months now. Every combination just seems bleh. Molly's sundresses are staring at me and I want to see Will's chubby little legs again!! I need to do a blog post on how our entire family basically has a capsule wardrobe now (mostly out of necessity not because we choose to) because kids tend to have an insane amount of clothes.

The weather yesterday was beeyoooooooootiful and I was itching to get out there the entire time I was making this birthday cake. Steve took the kids for multiple walks and bike rides and I tried to bake as fast as I could and get the house cleaned up so we could go party that afternoon.

I tried a new buttercream recipe (as I've said before, I'll try almost anything labeled "the best") and it did NOT disappoint. It was simple, quick, easy, and best of all, tasty. I highly recommend.

The cake did not disappoint either. It's a good thing we left the few leftover slices at Monica's house because I know for a fact that would have been breakfast.

After cake though, it felt like my birthday when I noticed a sunset through the trees.

We live "in town" and the way our house sits, we do not get to see sunrises and sunsets. Sad, right? I didn't see any sunsets in NY either due to the way our apartment and the others around us were situated. I am very much a natural light person, so this bothers me. This one filled up my sunset tank nicely though.

It was so much more vibrant than these pictures even show. I kept tapping my phone screen in different places hoping it would focus on just the right spot to correct the colors to what I was seeing with my eyes, but it never did. Oh well. Still gorgeous.

Today is supposed to be super warm again (in the 50's!!!) but very cloudy/muddy. I think a thrift store might be calling my name... Molly has decided she wants to have a deer themed birthday party (oh mylanta....) and I've finally nailed down details. Just a matter of finding deer-related things that are not covered in camo. (Jesus take the wheel.) A week or two ago, we were all ready to plan a horsey birthday party. We had the space and the friends who were willing to bring horses TO the party! It was going to be so CUTE. Now I am trying to find a pinata that does not look like we are fixin to drain the blood and guts out of a deer strung up by its feet. Again, JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.

Blood is red, violets are blue, Valentine's Day is stressful, give me chocolate

A visit from the lip-less wonder, I mean, Wonder Woman. For some reason now when she smiles, she curls her top lip up and it just disappears. If you ask her to smile with her lips, she just puckers them out. No winning with this one. She is awfully cute though.

Another Sunday spent walking Will around the church. Bless his heart, there isn't much to keep him occupied during mass, and we are at yet another church that doesn't have a cry room. (Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy)

We ended up over at Rick and Monica's house to go sledding and brought some hot dogs along because nothing makes these kids happier than hot dogs. Except maybe pizza. And macaroni. The usual little kid favorite food groups. The grown ups had some venison that Rick bagged this past November. A-OK stuff, although the texture takes some getting used to. The boys got haircuts before heading home and doing a quick clean before school in the morning.

Will has learned early that he will get some snuggle time and extra attention if he sits still for books.

Took advantage of the big kids being in school on Monday and ran errands in Fargo. That included a stop at Dollar Tree for some Valentines balloons. The kids go nuts over helium balloons so I got a few and hid them so that it would be a surprise the next morning. Since we have no real closets, it was tricky finding a spot to hide them. Three got smushed into our closet behind my dresses and the others ended up in a linen closet in the bathroom. Risky since they are into everything, but luckily no one found them!

Molly made out the best with flowers and a candy heart (filled with gummies). I got the candy heart at Dollar Tree and dumped the chocolates (because she doesn't like chocolates) and filled it with some butterfly gummies instead. She was thrilled by this and the gummies are already gone.

Sam got a monkey balloon and a Star Wars tin of suckers. Despite having never seen Star Wars or knowing anything about it, he is mildly obsessed with it, which I think is pretty funny.

Out of a four pack of conversation hearts (from the Dollar Tree), I had enough "winners" to set out for three people. I'm not sure if that's because conversation hearts are just terribly printed or if it's the Dollar Tree ones, but either way, I'm not sure anyone actually read the ones I picked for them. These were for Steve and I also got him a few Reeses hearts. Reeses are my love language so I assume that must be true for everyone else as well, barring a peanut allergy.

I absolutely HATE how dark it is in the mornings still- makes the whole house feel like a cave. I need natural light!! Anyways, aren't these cuties a bright spot? Will is wearing a shirt that tiny baby Sam used to wear. Wahhhhhhhhh

Molly saw that you can add stickers to instagram stories and while seemingly restrained at first...

semi normal

...girlfriend got carried away real quick.

On a scale of 1 to zoo, how obvious is it that she likes animals?

The afternoon seemed to go downhill quickly as Will's nap schedule was off and Molly had a question or comment about everyfrigginthing and then I made cupcakes and forgot to spray the liners, which, in reality, is no big deal, but at the time it just felt like ONE MORE THING snowballing on that downward slope and I was over it. Can't even make cupcakes! Worthless! The cupcakes actually peeled off quite easily, so all was not lost and we continued on with the day. There was a brief moment of silence.

Very brief. Will took another horribly timed nap, confining us to the house for the rest of the day. We had big plans to drop off cupcakes to some friends and gather eggs with them, but it quickly turned into "what crap can I scrape together to make up a passable dinner?" The cupcake disaster avoided, I had a slight boost and decided to try and make it seem Valentine-y.

Steve's mom would cut their sandwiches into shapes for them, and in an effort to not have the request thrown at me all the time, I told them that was her special talent and only Mom moms can do that. Kids are gullible so when this was presented to them at dinner, you'd think I just presented them with a fine surf and turf meal. Just to keep the illusion going, I told them how long I slaved over these shapes and that Mom mom taught me a few of her secrets, but I'm no pro. Aka this won't be the usual!

Best news of the day is that Will is not allergic to peanuts!!! He tried peanut butter for the first time and had absolutely no reaction, so I am breathing a huge sigh of relief for him. He was none too impressed with my sandwich though and threw the last bits on the floor (peanut butter side down, of course).

I've also been lugging around these paper heart straws for YEARS now, so Steve made pink smoothies for us so we could use them. And in a wine glass! Everyone was feeling fancy. Steve and I had salmon, garlic quinoa with brown rice, and roasted carrots. PB&J seemed perfectly acceptable and romantic to me though.

After dinner, things went downhill quickly. (You- I thought we were already at the bottom of the hill, how much longer can we roll downhill???) Will was playing with the big kids in the living room when I heard a crash and a cry. I ran in there from the kitchen (all of 3 feet away) and Sam and Molly said Will tried to stand up but fell and bumped his head. He tends to cry a bit when he goes from standing to sitting unexpectedly so I wasn't too concerned at first. Then after getting him to calm down, I noticed he had some blood in his mouth. Then, A TON OF BLOOD in his mouth. Which he sweetly shared with me.

This pictures doesn't do it justice- I looked like Jackie Kennedy post-assassination, minus the good hair and pretty clothes. I figured he just bit his lip when he fell and once he wiped his blood on me, I passed him off to Steve for a quick bath. Right as his bath was ending, his mouth started bleeding again. Looks like he bit his frenulum (little piece of skin between lip and gums on the top of the mouth) and it was just going crazy.

my poor bloody baby

His lip swelled a bit and after a few minutes, he didn't seem bothered by it at all. This did not stop me from freaking out though. Monica (former trauma nurse) informed me (after being bombarded with multiple blurry, bloody photos) that this had happened to her sons multiple times and while it is a free-bleeding area, it would stop soon and he'd be fine. Nothing an ER doc could do for it besides give a little ibuprofen and ice. He went to bed nicely and slept through the night, luckily. Woke up this morning and his lip isn't even swollen! I was prepared for the worst.

So anyways, not the greatest Valentine's Day, but not the worst either. Looking forward to some WINE next year though. Days like these really call for it!!