life with the lieutenant

Ahh, averaging one post per month. The sign of an incredibly successful blogger. The only reason I am blogging now is because ("is because" feels like poor grammar, but I'm only halfway through my first cup of coffee so I DON'T CARE) my gracious mother-in-law offered to have the big kids for a sleepover last night. I'm not gonna lie- I really miss them even though they're only a mile away. The house is so freakishly quiet and Will is so easy and here I am, drinking coffee after an honest-to-goodness shower. I can probably go back to bed now because I don't think I can be anymore productive than this today.

But what has gone on in the past month?? Everyone loves a good recap, right? (Wrong) Fair warning- this is going to be lengthy.

• Our boiler broke. This left our thinly-insulated home with no heat and we could not deal. Kids were sick, I was sick, Steve was in danger of coming down with a man cold. We cannot risk a man cold, so we packed it up (along with Odie) and headed over to my in-laws' house.

Doesn't everyone wear their winter gear indoors??

She is convinced these ear warmers are a headband/fashion accessory.

Much warmer. And the toy selection is better here too.

Testing out Pop pop's hats

• We ended up spending an entire week with my in-laws while the new boiler was being ordered and installed.

 

Took the resident third wheel to Vinnie's for an amazing sandwich

Tested out snow gear for the upcoming blizzard

Had a one month well-check. (Spoiler alert- he is perfect)

Watched the snow fall

Built some fires

Hung out with that cute kid in the mirror

• The day before our new boiler was to be installed, the blizzard arrived.

Odie: Nope. Nope nope nope nope. Gonna drop my deuce on the deck.

• It's been ages since I pulled out my real camera, but I couldn't let this snowfall come and go without documenting it a bit.

I'd commit a few serious crimes to obtain hair like hers.

• You can imagine who thought winter would never come, and thus, never bought her kids proper snow gear....

this 5yo wearing a 2T snowbib

• The new boiler wa$ in$talled and we made our way back over to our house after the roads were clear to dig our house out and give the in-laws a break.

Sounds about right

Back to sleeping like a baby

Finally built that snowman

• Will was cleared for a bath! 

• Steve turned 28! I mostly forgot about this until the night before! Best wife ever.

And it turns out Molly wore the exact same thing to Steve's birthday breakfast last year. (Don't ask me how I can remember that and not my own husband's birthday. The brain is a complex and mysterious organ.)

 

• Molly's cheese face:

As someone who takes 8 million pictures per week, you can understand how this pains me, yes?

• Me: "No. SMILE."

THAT'LL DO.

Too cool and fixin' to go to school

Birthday dinner

I love these crazies

• Will officially turned one month old on Steve's birthday. Decided to get my act together and am going to try to document these monthly milestones. No way in hell can I keep up with stickers, so we'll see how this more creative (read: lazy) technique goes.

I have never wanted to eat a baby so badly.

• After coughing and hacking for a month, I finally went to an urgent care center to find out my life expectancy. Obviously Will came with, and after I had been taken back to a room and was waiting for a doctor, he wanted to eat. Naturally, this coincided nicely with a breathing treatment and a blood draw. I wanted to ask the nurse to snap a pic, but you will just have to envision this yourself: me flat on my back, Will- lying on top of me, albuterol mask- on my face, needle- sticking out of my arm. I also got a chest x-ray so I was decked out in a hospital gown. Clearly a cute look. After receiving a diagnosis of "probably bronchitis" (so reassuring), I went home to everyone else hacking up a lung too. We proceeded to visit everyone else's doctors to make sure no one else had "probably bronchitis" too. 

Yes. Even the freaking dog had a cough. $200 later and nothing actually wrong with her.

• Fortunately, the kids just had a cold and Odie needs to stop licking mostly-empty yogurt containers. YAY.

Ahh we can relax knowing that we don't have to take any medicine!

Bathtime sillies

Goofball

"Why am I in this contraption and not in your arms."

All dressed up to go to Mommy's postpartum check up

• My parents came up for a visit and to meet Will for the first time!

• We had cheesesteaks and birthday cake, played cars, built with Legos, and learned what a cotton boll is (kids).

Celebrating the January birthdays- my mom and Steve

• Molly was Star of the Week at school, which helped soften the blow that my parents were leaving.

A 3-way nap in the rain that afternoon

Ohmygoodness woman, I can't straighten my legs in this onesie anymore.

He keeps growing and it hurts me.

Too bad that third baby is so neglected!

• At some point it snowed again.

 

Now that we have heat, we're all, "Bring on the snow! The cold never bothered me anyway."

• Until the temps in our house started dipping again. WOE. We called the plumbers/heater guys (who, luckily, live two doors down from us). They came over and basically told us that our boiler is working fine, but our house is so horribly insulated that the heater will not be able to put out enough heat to actually HEAT the house. Apparently this is a common problem in our area due to these older homes only being insulated with a thin strip of styrofoam. HUH. Back to the in-laws we go. But this time, just for the day, since our upstairs seems to retain slightly more heat than the downstairs.
• When we were in Korea and they were like, "Wish we could see you!" I wonder if they ever thought they'd see this much of us.
• But where were we? Oh yes. Come on, spring.

• I normally post photos of Molly with Will, which apparently leads some to think Sam is not interested in him, but that couldn't be further from the truth! Sam is so gentle and sweet with him. Will definitely does not have time to get lonely around here.
• Homeboy is now in cloth! They fit him well and prevent all sorts of blowouts.

• Sam skipped a walk one day to hang back with Will and me. He built me this "jet" and explained that he colored his nose blue with a crayon. "I look good." Sure do, bud.

• He also posed for a few more pics. Too hilarious not to share.

Posing with the plastic pig

Olan Mills style with his "I"

• Is helicopter sistering a thing?

• One day we had to drive to Ft Dix so Steve could get some uniform stuff sewn on and a few other supplies for unit's AT. 

• While we were there, we stopped at the PX to have lunch. As we were walking back to the car, I somehow made my way to the front of the slow-moving caravan. (A first. Definitely a last.) "Come on, slow pokes! Let's get back to the car before we ACTUALLY freeze to death. I'm not dying in New Jersey." Oh but New Jersey fought back. In the form of black ice. Mama went down. Hard. Steve later commented that I fell so gracefully. "You didn't even spill anything out of your purse." Yes, that was totally intentional. Actually, I think we can thank centrifugal force, or something along those lines, because I vividly remember slinging it in a circular direction as I flailed my arms and ultimately slammed it straight onto the ground. I uttered a nice string of curse words as I limped back to the car, trying to not scream responses to every (stupid!) question the kids asked me. 
• "Why did you fall?" I needed to get a closer look at that ice covering that one stupid patch of ground that I needed to walk on! 
• "Are you ok?" No! I'm not! I want to scream at winter! I can't even make sense of my feelings right now! 
• "Why are your pants wet?" Idk if you noticed, but I ALMOST DIED BACK THERE. DID YOU SERIOUSLY MISS THAT?!
• "Mommmmmmmmmmm......... my leg hurts." YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT LEG PAIN EVEN FEELS LIKE. DO NOT SPEAK TO ME, CHILD.

Yes, it is best that you all go to sleep and let me wonder how old people ever survive falls and go ahead and order my life alert necklace.

• WOOSAH.

Cute baby to look at. I'm all better.

• Getting ready for mass on Sunday. I literally waited to change into my church clothes as Steve was warming up the car and the big kids were buckled in. I changed Will, got into my clothes, and picked him up to go downstairs and get in the car.

OF COURSE. (Also, just now noticing that there are Christmas cookie cutters next to the scale. They are waiting for someone to take them to the attic, but in the meantime, they seem to be reminding whoever steps on the scale as to why the numbers might be elevated.)

Post-mass cheese

I love how much she loves him.

Pirate, Scuba Diver, Jesus

• The kids had their Valentines Day parties at school. A quick trip to the Dollar Tree and a few clicks around Pinterest and we were done.

Highly recommend these paper containers for baking gifts

teacher gifts- banana bread

• Everyone was excited for Ash Wednesday mass- because unlike Communion, everyone gets ashes!

CUTIE

• My parents sent some Valentines cards for the kids and included Dollar Tree gift cards. Pro tip: you wanna make a kid feel like a baller, give them a $5 Dollar Tree gift card. Let them pick out whatever they want AND let them swipe the card.

Sam picked 40 glow sticks

Molly picked a princess puzzle

• As is my theme lately, I completely forgot about Valentines Day (apparently after the school activities were completed, my brain checked out) until the morning of. I looked at instagram and saw the Pinterest-perfect breakfasts that all the good moms made their children, complete with themed gifts. Luckily Valentines Day is not a real holiday, and I also found some crafts that some kind soul sent us while in Korea (and we never made them!) and I found in the basement the day before. I also found waffles in the freezer, so it instantly turned into a special day.

Ah, one day we won't have power tools casually hanging out in our dining room.

Molly took some creative liberty with the ear placement.

Time for church! And I can't believe that I didn't have a red dress for Molly to wear. That has to be some sort of girl mom fail.

Funny story about this onesie- I bought it before he was born, thinking Valentines Day was soooooo far away from his due date. Once he was born and I realized how tiny babies actually are, I realized that a size 3-6mo onesie was huge! So I found a 0-3mo heart onesie. Then Valentines Day came around and he had outgrown everything 0-3mo. So back to Plan A. It's even cuter on him than I imagined while pregnant.

• And some random pictures that I don't have special stories for:

watching the snow fall and ready to cheer on Auburn

The big kids let us sleep in one morning and had they not deposited their evidence in the recycling bag, they probably would have gotten away with it.

Another sink bath- and a backsplash! Official after photos to come soon... hopefully.

Got rid of my piano- not an easy process, for me or the two guys that came to lift it and load it in the snow.

Happy baby!

If I take a picture of anybody else, Sam usually comes up and asks to have his picture taken too. Cutie.

Prettiest pink garbage truck you ever did see

Molly has Will taking calls for her. Idk if you've heard, but she's pretty busy coloring everything purple.

Morning time is happy time

sorting

The tiniest Starbucks cup I have ever seen. (For reference, Steve's cup is a small. Mine is a sample and the size of my thumb.)

Date night with two of the most handsome men I know. (My other handsome man was spending the night at his grandparents' house, and no doubt delaying bedtime and requesting another snack, another drink, another book, another kiss....)

• I seriously cannot believe February is coming to a close. The end of this month and most of March will be busy and full of traveling, holidays, and Molly's FOURTH birthday (hold me). Hopefully I'm back around here before all of that happens though. Anything is possible, people.