MEA (Long) Weekend

 Dan had a super busy weekend and I NEEDED to see baby Kye in Mandan, so the kids and I packed up and headed for Jamestown.  We headed out Wednesday afternoon, got to Jamestown around 7:30, and bummed around the house for the first two days. 

 Papa and Lynn came over to the buffalo city on Friday to visit for a few hours and they also brought Svea and Kieran each a new bike.  Svea loves the neighbor kids' bikes so she was so excited to ride her new one!  I don't think the smile left her face the whole time Papa and she were out there. Super fun and cute!

 I tried getting a pic of the kids and the Grandparents, but only one child would cooperate and then not even very well.  Kieran loves his paci and gets pretty ornery without it.  We try our hardest to keep it away from him during the day, but sometimes he gets so fussy.  I imagine with a busy almost 3 year old we give in more quickly than we did with her.

 I wish Kieran would have looked, but it's still cute!  Thank you Papa and Lynn for coming over and for the gifts.  We've read every Clifford book at least 4 times and Kieran has had fresh, clean, and super warm jammies all week!

 Gaga reading to Kieran before bed..."hey, Ma, watcha doing?"

 On Saturday I headed to Bis/Man to see Jill and Matt's new baby Kye Carter Morrison:)  He is so precious and sweet.  I got to hold him a ton, interact with him, and just watch him.  Grandpa Ron helped the kids decorate some pumpkins.  Mom was with the kids most of the day and I got home right before Kieran's bedtime.

 It feels like yesterday Kieran was this small:)

 Jill looks awesome and is a great Mom!!!  Matt and Jill are going to be wonderful parents!

I teared up when I got there and when it was time to leave:(  I probably won't see him again until next summer and he'll be 9-10 months already....sigh!  It was a fun visit though.  I got to have lunch with my cousins, Dad, and Lynn.  I got to see my Aunt and Uncle Connie and even snuck in a visit with Matt and Lacee when I dropped off some shoes and coats for Livia!!!  Matt answered the door in a one piece Cookie Monster suit.  It made the visit that much more special!  Ha...things are crazy for them, but they are slowly getting adjusted to their new normal in Bismarck.  I loved getting to sit and listen to Jill tell all about  the night Kye was born too!

 Beautiful pumpkins designed by Bay-ya!  Yes, she still calls herself that...we are working on it:)

 On Saturday night I went out for a few drinks with my good friend Amber.  It turned into all night and we had a blast.  I haven't gotten to sit down and talk to her without her 4 girls or my 2 kids running around since my bachelorette party/wedding!  It was great! She's lost a ton of weight since July when I last saw her.  I barely recognized her!

Kieran was being so silly when we were there.  Each night he got really hyper around dinner time and was giggly, laughing, and boppin all over the place.  We would put the cardboard pieces down on the floor (used to darken Svea's bedroom) and he would just march forever, which is his version of dancing.

I was exhausted when we got home and could barely stay awake on the couch for awhile.  Dan was tired too....he couldn't sleep while we were away...go figure, when you have the house to yourself and no little ones to wake up then you can't sleep:(  He had a wedding on Saturday and went to the reception, worked, and watched tv shows that I am not as interested in:)

So far this week Svea had her last swimming lesson and Kieran is now mooing like a cow and can say cow! I can't stress how obsessed he is with books.  That is what he did the whole way and back from ND is just read his books! Dan is getting over the flu (he's already been out from work for two days) and we are praying he gets over it soon and the kids don't get it.  We have a big birthday party this weekend that we all need to be healthy for:)

While Daddy Was Away....

 We read to our baby in our underwear:)

 We played the drums on the Cheerios box!

 Oh, so much fun!

 My Mom only had to work one day while we were there and this was the day that she did and came home for lunch:)  We stayed busy so the day went quickly.  We visited an old classmate of mine who has FOUR little girls!  Wowzers!  At first when we got there Svea wouldn't even look at any of them and when it came time to leave I had to drag her away:)  Amber is the one that the high school secretaries would confuse us in high school and TWICE Svea went running into Amber's legs for a hug thinking it was me...ha!

 Our little ham!

 One of my favorite parts of Mom and Ron's house is the yard.  Tons of shade, nice grass, and sun when you want it.  We played out in the grass for many hours while we were there!

 Caught them off guard!

 I was trying to get a cute picture of Svea on the front porch in her pretty summer dress, but she was too tired:)  I love their front porch!

Can I talk to you a minute about frozen yogurt?  Jamestown has a new place called Tutti Frutti.  Maybe you have heard of it before?  Well I am just short of obsessed and have to talk myself out of having EVERY DAY while I am there.  Out of eight days I believe I talked myself INTO it four times.  Ok, so it gets worse.  Then, I found out that they also have a Cherry Berry.  Have you heard of that one?  Ok, double obsessed!  Then I was checking both of their facebook pages daily to see which flavors I liked better and that helped make my decision on which place to try that day.  arhghghg......My new criteria for any new town we ever move to is one of those and a Target. I've got to stop talking about it now or else I may drive up to St. Cloud right now to get some since we have a Cherry Berry:)

Mission Trip Complete

 Thunder Bay was a hit!  Dan said it was THE best Youth Works experience on the books and he's been to thirteen of them.  The work was great, the kids were awesome, spending time with his brother was fun, and even the food was the best he's had so far:)

 He had lots of stories to share when he got home and is still pumped up about some of the experiences.  These two pictures just about sums it up how much fun they had!  He said our kids were great, but Stuart's kids from his church were just awesome people and he was so impressed with them all.  I'm so happy it was a great experience!!!  We got to skype with Dad twice while he was away and the first time Svea told him she wanted him to come here.  I think she wanted a hug.  Thank goodness for skype since we couldn't talk on the phone or text. I could text him, but he couldn't text back, but we could facebook message.  Anyway...creative communication.

 I was so thankful we went to Jamestown for the duration of Dad's time away.  We had a great and relaxing time in North Dakota.  My Mom and Step-Dad help me out SO much with the kids and I am able to sneak away and go on a walk here and there with an old friend or run to Wal-mart for supplies alone.  An old classmate of mine, Megan, lives a couple doors down and one night after putting the baby to bed I hopped out the door and we walked the half a block to the park and did the loop twice, which is a mile around one time.  I should have took a picture of the park.  It's my favorite one in Jamestown.

Anyway, we ate WAY too much ice cream, cookies, and snacks, but they all tasted so good.  We swam in the backyard, went on walks to the park to play, visited the buffalo (of course), finger painted in our underwear and diaper (the kids:), and had quality dinners and time together.  In this picture Svea had found a puddle from the sprinkler and said on top of giggles and squeals, "This is so much fun....come in here with me"! 

Thank you to Larry and Darcy (our neighbors) and Jackie/Kayla for taking care of our animals and mowing! Thank you Gaga and Grandpa Ron for having us and putting up with our mess for a whole week.  We loved making memories with you!!!  Thank you for keeping me sane while Dan was away.  I'll never stay home alone when Dan is gone on a long trip ever again.  This was 100% easier than two years ago!

While away Kieran walked for the first time!  He took two steps and was waving bye!  More to come.....

Jill's Baby Shower

While I helped host a shower for Jill's and her baby boy Dan and Kieran went to church at Calvary, which is the Bjork's church.  He didn't see them since they were up at their lake, but my Aunt Connie and Uncle Scott switched to that church about two years ago so he sat with them.  I guess Kieran sat for the whole 1.5 hour service, napped for 20 minutes, drank two ounces of milk all day, and played like a champ while away from Mom.  I'm very proud of him.  By the time I saw him he was ready to sleep and slept the whole way home.

 Me, Jill, and our other cousin Katie.  We have one other female cousin Amy on our Carter side:) She has dark hair like me and make me feel like I belong a little bit better amongst all of the blond hair people:)  Ha!

 You Are My Sunshine was the theme for the shower since this is a sign Jill already has for the baby's room.

 Jill with her winning "child".  We cut out pictures of Jill and Matt to combine to make our guess as to what the baby will look like.  It's meant to be funny and it did get lots of laughs!

 Jill with a handful of her friends.  Most of these ladies went to Las Vegas and it was fun to see them all again. 

 Aunt Connie and her youngest...having a baby!

 We all hosted the shower...my cousin Katie, Joe's wife Andrea, myself, and Josh's wife Cindy.  I love these guys.  I am so thankful I grew up with all of them and they feel like sisters.

 Fun with baby Lydia and Quinn!

 Kieran "horsing around"!

a little more...

 This was such a good picture of Dan I had to post it.  Never mind that Kieran is crying and angry:)

 When my Mom was wrapping her gift for Jill, Svea wanted to wrap a present for Auntie Jill too.  Remember, she is obsessed with Jill and was so proud of her present.  I showed her this picture of Jill holding her present and she got a huge smile on her face.  It's just the invitation wrapped up with a scrap of tape in there somewhere.  Fun stuff!

Kieran having a blast flying through the balloons...he cashed about 12 seconds later;)

Congratulations Jill and Matt, we can't wait to meet baby boy come September!

Jamestown Part 2:)

After the 4th we headed back to Jamestown for another weekend:)  Of course we had to go visit the big buffalo.  We didn't get as much excitement from Svea, but there were still some squeals of delight. 

We actually were able to see the "live herd" as well and saw White Cloud the albino buffalo that roams the property surrounding the area. In fact it was White Cloud's 17th birthday the weekend we were there.  Not that you needed to know that, but that brought a big old celebration and other things for us to do around the town.

 I thought this was such a cool picture.  She said the buffalo had ice cream on his chin and he needed to clean it.

 Got to pet him you know!

 It was close to bedtime for this guy so he enjoyed lounging in his car seat and taking in the views.  I can't believe how big he looks here!  Eeek...we almost have another toddler at our house and it makes me want to cry.  I keep soaking up each moment that we get together nursing before bed just staring at him because I know I won't get too many more like that;(

 Crazy cowgirl! We also checked out the whole old town village, but we missed when everything is open again.  One day we'll get up there and have ice cream from the old fashioned general store! Dan enjoyed the old church too!

 Good morning sweet boy!  Kieran had a few morning where we slept super late.  He didn't sleep very well while we were there, hence the reason why I am on operation "sleep through the night"  It's got to be done and I keep putting it off.  SO....after 4 nights of "getting tougher" with Kieran I am happy to announce that he slept from 7:30-1:00 last night and then cried off and on for 45 minutes.  I do go in every once in awhile and hug him.  He stands in the crib and clutches my neck while I rub his back and whisper to him that he is ok.  Then I lay him down and he cries some more, but usually falls asleep much faster after I go in.  Breaks my heart.  Ok, so anyway, then he slept from 1:45-5:00.  I then fed him (I'm not going to cut him off cold turkey since yes he is used to eating at night like a newborn.  Then he slept from 5:15-9:00.  This is a BIG improvement from the first night when he was up at 11:00, then we were up together for 2.5 hours in the middle of the night, and then he was up at 6:00 and I fed him, then to sleep until 9:00.  See, big improvement:) Mom is basically the one that needed the "sleep training".  The best part that makes it so much easier is Svea is sleeping through everything!

 We hit up a parade on Saturday morning.  This is our third one this summer and Svea gets the concept now.  "Throw candy at me please", we heard her say at some point while we waited for it to start!

 We hit up the pool some more. Kieran LOVED it!  He would crawl from toy to toy and crawl out of the pool.  It was the crawling back in that we had to help him with otherwise he was fully prepared to go face first right in. We love Svea's little body suit swimsuit.  It's a 2T and saggy on her butt.  Ha!

 The front of Mom and Ron's new house.  I love all of the flowers and that leads to another story.  Svea had a fascination with all of the flowers around the house and was obsessed with going out with Gaga to pick them and then make bouquets.  She was so proud of her flowers.  It was precious to watch them do that.

 Grocery shopping outside....don't you have fake plastic food hidden all over your yard?

 Dan and I got to go out on a date night on Saturday night.  We went and got some frozen yogurt and then a drink, but halfway through the drink I got a text that Kieran was crying and they couldn't get him to sleep. He is also teething (got his first two teeth the weekend before and was cutting a third/poor kid) so we rushed back. It was fun to get away for a whole hour though:)

 Dan, Kieran, and I headed to Bismarck on Sunday for my cousin Jill's baby shower.  More on that later, but here are some random shots just hanging out around the house. It was a fabulous vacation. I love the new house and all of the fun things we can do with the kids there.  Dan and I would workout during nap time and we'd all hang out in the backyard in the afternoons.  It was perfect! 

Thank you Mom and Ron for having us and helping take care of our kids! I love how intent Kieran looks here.  He is really starting to get into books more now!