A 5 year old and a(n) (almost) 1 year old.

Ok, so I pretty much suck at updating the blog and I swore I would be good about it. Ugh - I guess that's what you get when you work full time, have two kids, are a wife, a homeowner, etc. You get the picture. However, I really will try to be better at keeping my little outlet up to date here. Again, so much to share and am trying to do this while appearing to work (shhh.....).

Jack celebrated birthday #5! We had a HUGE party with all of Jack's friends. I think that we counted and there were 18 kids and 12 adults, or something to that effect. It was awesome and it was fun. The crowd pleaser was the Scooby Doo pinata which was chock full of goodies. Jack had a SpongeBob cake and loved being the center of attention. Wonder where he gets that from....ha ha.

At preschool, they made a big deal of his birthday and he got up in the front of his class and had to share a couple of things about himself. Funny part....he was going through a list of his immediate family and said: "Dad, Mom, me, Lauren and Gabby. But my dad wishes Gabby would go to a different home." I nearly choked and you could tell the teachers were trying not to laugh.

More to come, but just wanted to share a couple of pictures. We had our family pictures taken November 1st by Heather Tidd of BumbleBee Photography and she took our family pictures when Jack was 3. She is AWESOME and we loved walking around downtown and just took pictures in different spots.

Ladies and Gentlemen...we have a crawler! And a clapper.....and a waver!

Wow, Lauren is barely 8 months old and she is already crawling! Seems like such a little peanut to be getting around all by herself but she is doing it and doing it well. She loves to follow her big brother around as he chases the dog around the house. When she's done crawling a few steps, she sits down and claps. It's sooooo cute! If you say "Yay, Lauren!" she'll clap. If you say hi to her, she'll wave to you. She is so happy, smiley and is such a fun little baby. She is getting some stranger anxiety but is fine if I am still in view. The second she is in someone else's arms, she is ok, but needs to know her mama is right there.

Loving life with a fun, sweet preschool boy and our angelic little baby girl! We are so blessed!

Jack and Lauren had their pictures taken at Target in June ('09). I am so picky about pictures and so I was nervous about going to Target. However, they totally exceeded any expectations that I had. I love them! Plus, I was seriously able to walk away paying 1/2 (or less!) than what I usually pay. Both kids did a great job and the pictures of them together and alone are priceless.

Making up for lost time!

I feel that I constantly need to add little snippits to make up for lost time. I wish, wish, wish I would have started this 5 years ago so that I could have a record of things from when Jack was itty bitty. I have the standard baby book, but there's not really any room for stories, favorites, sayings, etc. So - here are a few of the most recent:

Jack's Favorites:
TOYS -
Thomas the Train. He LOVES anything and everything Thomas and Friends. He knows all of their names, numbers and facts about each train. He has about 100 of them but he knows each and every one he has. He knows which ones are diesels and which ones are steam engines and who is a "nice" engine and who is not. He loves to act out scenes from the Thomas movies - Diesel 10 chasing Thomas and Lady.....the trains running into each other, etc. He always wants us to build tracks together.
Cars - he loves Lightening McQueen and friends from the movie "Cars". He is definitely not as into this as he is Thomas, but it's 2nd best.
his bike, hot wheel and scooter - now that it's nice out, he is always wanting to go for walks and ride one of these. He is just learning to ride his Razor scooter and it scares the crap out of me. He'll go zooming down the driveway. He's so proud....and I am 2 seconds away from a heart attack. He wears his helmet but if it was up to me, he'd be in full body armor.
FOODS -
pizza, chicken nuggets (McDonalds) and chicken rings (from White Castle of all places!), yogurt, Go-gurt, fruit snacks and basically anything in the junk food group.
ADVENTURES -
Thankfully, he loves his family and truly enjoys hanging out with his mom and dad but especially with his Grandparents. On Wednesdays, he and I ride up to Rosemount together and we meet Papa (Grandpa George) at Starbuck's. Especially good for me, because there's usually a white mocha waiting for me but wonderful for Jack because he just loves these days. He and Papa usually do at least 5 different things ranging from going to Como Zoo, going to the airport to watch airplanes take off and come in, eat at White Castle, go to the Cathedral to light a candle and lately they have been going to Hidden Falls to throw rocks in the river. They have also been going to Adams School which is where my dad went to elementary school and playing on the re-vamped playground. After a long and eventful day, my dad and mom bring Jack back to Northfield and there's usually an ice cream stop at Hogan Brothers or DQ on the way.
Jack and Lauren are also lucky enough to have their Grandma Lisa watch them for about 4 hours every single day from about noon to 4pm. Jack looks forward to hearing that garage door open and then he knows it's party time. Grandma always comes with a treat in hand and that's the first thing he asks - what'd you bring for me today? He loves to go to garage sales with Grandma and they also go tool around in Faribault and to parks in Northfield. Grandma will take him to the humane society (or the "kitty store" as Jack calls it) so that he can see the animals. Usually once a week, they have a sleepover and Jack is so comfy and at home at Grandma's place. Jack and Jade recently took a boy's weekend trip up to Mcgregor and they did "boy things" including fishing and golfing. When I heard Jade was taking him golfing I thought "good luck with that!" but he was a total gem. He got to hit the ball and do some putting and drive around in the golf cart. Luckily, it was our friends that were golfing behind them so they didn't care that Jack was running around. He caught his first fish all by himself on Lake Minnewawa. I know they had a blast up there and it was so awesome for Jade and Jack to get away together.

More later....geez, there's just so much!!

We had a great weekend - busy, but very fun. My good friend Ellie got married in New Ulm and I read in her wedding so we did some travelling back and forth on Friday and Saturday. If you've never been to New Ulm (as we hadn't) it's a very cute, quaint little town. I was prepared for a lot smaller of a town but it's really pretty big and spread out. Jade and I went down for the rehearsal and dinner on Friday and then came back home. We then drove back on Saturday and took both Jack and Lauren with us to the wedding. In true Jack fashion, he was a hit on the dance floor. He was just enthralled with Ellie in her pretty princess dress. I think he might have told at least three girls that he loved them at the reception. It was pretty funny - I think this was our first taste of our little boy being a bit girl crazy. I swear, at 4 1/2 years old!! He met a bunch of little friends and they were running around like crazy and dancing. Lauren was a total gem and was happy being passed around between my friends from work. She fell asleep for about 1/2 hour on Jade's shoulder and then woke back up to party. Finally, both kids were spent and we were back in our room a little before 10pm. Normally, I can't imagine leaving a wedding or a party that "early" but with kiddos, the focus is definitely different. It was a beautiful weekend and a beautiful wedding.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now, but have finally gotten motivated to do so. My main motivation is that Jack is now 4 1/2 and Lauren is 7 months and so many wonderful things have happened (and a few not so wonderful things as well) and I have little to no documentation about them. I hope to someday make this into a type of book or record for Jack and Lauren to look back on many years down the road. So, I hope that you enjoy reading this along the way. Please feel free to post!