You're not coughing

The other night Lily was sick and threw up in her bed, then mine and I finally spread a blanket for her to lay on in case she threw up again. Thankfully she didn't throw up on that blanket. She's been carrying it around w/ her and having me spread it out so she can sit on it and she MUST have it spread out when she goes to sleep so she can lay on it. I didn't quite get why she was doing this. Since her throwing up night (which started w/ boughts of coughing) she has been talking about 'more coughs coming' and I finally figured out that she is associating the coughing to the throwing up. I'm sitting here getting a shipping label ready and the kids are playing in the living room. Lily has her little blanket spread out and Jason wants to sit by her on it and she said, "you aren't coughing"... poor thing. She must be carrying that thing around in case she barfs again! :(

It's been amazing me lately the things they say and remember, their imagination and own ideas. They are growing up so fast!

Tom's home from Taiwan today around 3pm and we can't wait!!

They are like labradors!

They NEED their walk! My kids are like labs.. if they don't get their exercise they go BONKERS! We've taken to "walking" them in the evening (and sometimes during the day too!) and it seems to help our evening routine go a bit smoother...

We went on a "flashlight walk" tonight b/c it was dark out at ... 4:30pm. Lily was running and saying "this is fun! Running is fun!" and Jason joined in. They loved using their flashlights in the dark! We walked them all around the neighborhood and up the biggest hill around this hood and still it took them a while to fall asleep!





Lily gets little bits of one on one mommy time while Jason is sleeping. This afternoon she just wanted to snuggle w/ me. It was so sweet and nice to just sit w/ her... usually she is competing w/ the whirling dirvish! :)

We're SUPER!

The kids are obsessed w/ the Incredibles so mom and I went and got some felt and made them some masks... which didn't last too long so I'll have to make some revisions and make them again, but man they were good while they lasted!





The outfits are completed w/ blankets used as blankets. Today Jason wanted to 'be Super' outside. It was so fun to watch the kids run around saying "I'm super sissy/Jason to the rescue". We got less funny looks w/ the capes then we did when Jason wanted to be super w/ his mask the other day. :)

Today we did a fairly normal (but still a bit embarrassing) midwest winter activity ... we went to the mall playground. The kids had more fun this time than I think they've ever had there. Lily was a show stopper getting up on top of one of the structures and jumping high and far off of it then falling and rolling and laughing hysterically. I couldn't believe how far she was jumping. She was having a blast though. She out climbed and out ran her brother. Then she ran the entire length of the mall. When we got home I thought surely she would sleep... nope. Instead she and I took a nice long walk. When Jason got up he wanted to walk so we headed out again and we walked to a construction site where they were repaving a road and watched them for at least 30 mins... Lily made it through the whole day w/ all that activity w/o melting down. Is this the end of naps? UGH! She hasn't been napping very often lately, but she goes to bed pretty easily... that's a bonus I suppose.

photo update...

not a lot of time for words as kids will be up soon and I'm supposed to be cleaning, but here are some pics.

We went to the apple orchard last week




Abby Cadabby piggies


Flying w/ daddy


gma and gpa sent some fun little gifts that the kiddos love! A wallet for Jman and a purse for Lily.. both contained some money (which J is keeping close tabs on.. his entire $1), an id card and photos.



(sorry it's blurry the kid is in constant motion)

lazy Saturday


big trip to the zoo







they love the carousel



Another great weekend coming to a close. We are enjoying our time w/ daddy this month!

two silly monkeys

Tom spends a lot of time w/ the kids on the weekends and today I think he hit the wall. He said watching the kids is like watching two retarded monkeys (I mean no pain or insult to anyone by this comment!). :) He said this as they were acting like crazy wild maniacs as we tried to have family dinner. As the kids ran around the table screaming Tom and I fell into hysterics laughing over his comment. Which of course made the kids scream and "perform" even more. I am NOT exaggerating. :)

It has come to my attention that Lily is in desperate need of a new stylist. I am quickly wracking up many photos that will cause her ulcers when she is in junior high and highschool and may possibly cause her to lose all of her friends should they get out around say 7th grade. Here are just a few examples:

yes she left the house in this:


And this: (sorry it's blurry.. it's hard to get her to stand still)


Lily has also decided that she will only nap occasionally and when she REALLY wants to. When she doesn't nap I still have things to do .. normally in the kitchen so she usually hangs out on the counter while I'm doing my thing. She didn't leave the house in this outfit, but it's a pretty good one too.. Who dresses this kid anyway!?





And here is a photo of Jason and Lily helping Tom make pancakes this a.m. I've been so impressed w/ how much Tom lets them help lately. We are trying to embrace this stage. They did a really good job helping today, but when we won't let Jason help w/ the hot stuff he gets really mad.





We are watching Mama Marie's dog Daisy while they are on vacation in Palm Springs and Jason is LOVING it. He feeds her and lets her out in the yard when she needs to go potty.. tells here where to go, what to do and what not to do. Jason and Lily follow her around giving her hugs and kisses. Today Jason said he wanted Phoebe to come stay at his house. I was really sad... I'm not positive that they remember Phoebe as their own dog that lived at their house, but we still talk about her so they still talk about her some. He was unprompted today and we were talking about Daisy when he said he wanted her (phoebe) to come home. Walking Daisy is a challenge only b/c both kids want to hold her leash, but not at the same time. We walked her w/ great success yesterday a.m., but this evening when all of us tried to go (tom and kids and I) there was a total melt down and we had to come home and throw the ball for her instead.

this is Daisy Dog:


And here's a photo of J and I as I was trying to distract him from harassing his sister while she was swinging w/ daddy.


Lily swinging w/ daddy.


And Jason joining in on the fun.. look at that smile!


Jason is still a mama's boy for sure, but the kids have FINALLY entered the DADDY phase. Lily ALWAYS wants her daddy and Jason wants him unless he's hurt. I am LOVING this! :)

It was nearly 80 degrees here today... I'm hoping that this stays for a while, but I'm still scared for winter.

My little helper

I have yet to get a photo ... b/c I'm busy referreeing ... Jason loves to help me in the kitchen. Last night we made chocolate chip cookies and this a.m. we made lemon thumbprint cookies. These are more test recipes from Feeding the Whole Family (I can't say enough about how wonderful this book is. Make sure you get the revised addtion!! I didn't even realize that I had the original one already when I checked this one out of the library until someone called it to my attention)... so far so good! This a.m. we used our left over nut meal in the Lemon Thumbprint cookies and they are YUMMY! They remind me of the holidays b/c my mom always made thumbprint cookies at Christmas time. I'm already imagining making all of these wonderful cookies this winter w/ the kiddos.

I'll work on getting a photo of J in the kitchen w/ me. So far Lily isn't too interested.

and the beat goes on...

Fall is HERE.. winter is COMING and I want to cry! I love love love this weather, but just thinking about the winter kinda makes me want to hurl. I have a little internal panic attack every time I even allow myself to think for just a second about 4 degree temps w/a -20 wind chill factor. I remember my hands nearly freezing having to expose them to buckle the kids into their chairs.. and now they like 'wander' when we go to the car... hopefully they won't cry when I make them go to the car and they will be all business about it!! ANYWAY!

Jason fell and had an 'owie' and needed to have a bandaid.. he showed me just where to put it:


Jason and Tom don't look anything alike huh?

Our friends the O'Donnell's needed some emergency baby sitting this evening so Sean, Ian and Jacob came over for a few hours. They all played in the yard until dinner was ready, played in the yard some more and then watched a bit of The Incredibles, but surprisingly (or not so surprisingly the only ones that were that interested in the movie were Lily and Tom). It went MUCH better than I thought it would. Really I envisioned 5 kids running around screaming at the tops of their lungs while Tom and I stood their stunned! ha ha The kids all played well and Jason seemed pretty stoked to have some older boys around to play with! :) Dinner was much tamer than I expected to. The kids all stayed in their chairs and ate and the O'Donnell boys even asked to be excused... wow, is that what 5 and 3 years old is like!

Some people have this many kids on their own.. I can't even imagine... two's good!

Imagination

The kids imagination is really taking off!!!!

They routinely ride 'the bus'
Jason getting in the 'the bus'


Today on our walk Jason was spraying water w/ a stick (at first I thought he was using it as a gun - b/c I hear all boys do this regardless of whether or not they have ever seen a gun - so I had to ask him what he was doing):


And here is Lily making a crocodile get me




And some other photos






The chill is in the air and I think it's here to stay. It was in the 80s last week but is supposed to be in the 50s/60s this week. :) Fall is here!

Piggies

these actually stayed in for most of the day.. it was so nice to be able to see her little face.


And Jason wanted ponies too, but I recently cut his hair so this is all we could muster..


That's it.. that's all I got. Today was better than yesterday, but I am ready for Tom to come home. He probably won't be home until after the kiddos go to bed tomorrow night, but Tom has already been informed that HE will be putting them to bed on Sunday night... I'm heading out for WHATEVER for the afternoon on Sunday.. part of the evening will be a new strength training class for female triathletes. :) Oh, and happy hour afterward.. that's my kind of off season!

I'm doing a 10 mile 'test' run tomorrow. If I can hang I'm going to do a half marathon trail run at the end of October. I think I can do it, but we'll see.

Been a while..

Oops. It's been a while. I figured you were tired of hearing the details of the poops happening in the Mount household.

Anyway... things are still progressing. Lily seems to have it figured out unless she has had a lot of water or is really distracted. I can't remember the last time she pooped in her pants. Jason seems to be regressing the last couple days... I'm not sure what's up. He's either really tired from so many nights of interrupted sleep and a missed nap or he's just well not quite there yet. We'll get there.

Tom's gone again .. left on Friday night. I was lucky enough to get out for a nice ride w/ some friends yesterday while Lori Fons and her daughter watched the kids. It was wonderful! Today was a good day...

After my two weeks "off" to potty train the kids and to just be off and try yoga season I'm back in the saddle. I'm doing a test 10 mile run next Sat (provided I can find a sitter) to decide whether or not to run a half marathon on Oct 25th. Turns out when I'm not exercising I'm kinda cranky and just off.... so back in the saddle and working on my plan for the winter months... AGAIN, hoping for improvement on my swim, in my core and much strength training. I'm starting a women only strength training for the triathlete program on Sunday... it's every Sunday for 9weeks. I'm excited for some sport specific exercises and to meet other women in my area in the sport!

Here's a quick shot of the kiddos.. they HAD to eat outside tonight. It was so nice today. I'm proud of myself for making two things (so far) from scratch w/ whole foods from the book Feeding the Whole Family (I"m trying out this meal planning thing). So far both the chili and the pancakes were a hit! :)

Green Juice

My latest thing - though I'm still a big fan of the green smoothie - is green juice. Send all those vitamins and minerals right into your system w/o all the fiber to bog you down. And if you can't tolerate the taste of the green juice you can use it as the base for your green smoothie... then you don't have to put spinach etc in .. just your fruit and call it good!

My favorite green juice is 4 stalks celery/5 leaves to one head of greens (above are dandelion greens)/one cucumber/4 apples (the more tart the better)

I put some water in the bottom of the blender (preferably the vitamix) and add the celery. Blend those up real well. Add the greens and blend - sometimes you have to use the plunger thing to push the greens down. then add everything else - pre chopped of course.

Then I dump the mush in a nut milk bag and strain it. This makes enough for me to have an entire quart and the kids to each have a pint. They LOVE it. They were asking for it this a.m.



And some photos of the kids picking the last of my tomatoes that didn't get a chance to ripen... which unfortunately was most of them.

Is it 7:30pm yet?

I'm SO ready for Tom to come home. I"m not sure what's up here, but all was going well and suddenly the kids are just losing it every 10 minutes. Do they miss their daddy? I DO! Think Tom will be offended if I go to the coffee shop for like FOUR hours his first day back?

Breathe!!!!!

About lost it today...

both kids crapped their pants today... at the same time. Imagine.. one getting cleaned up and while you are up to your arm pits in crap the other kid is playing in the toilet the "washing" their hands all while you plead w/ them to just GET OUT of the bathroom. It's all you can do to not scream at the top of your lungs and grab the clean kid and toss it out of the bathroom...

Only sharing to 'keep it real' so you don't think my kids are all great at potty training and to not only share the good stuff as to paint a not so real picture.

I had a long day today... so that's all I got.

Oh wait, I'll share this. Jason woke up from his nap and I went up and grabbed him and took him in my room. We snoozed together for another 30 mins all snuggled together. Those are the good times... they make the poop tolerable. :)

No poops in the pants today!

I was getting really frustrated w/ poops yesterday, but am happy to say that all the Mounts pooped in the potty today! :) YIPPEE!!!!! Lily wasn't happy about it, but she eventually did it. Jason pooped FIVE FREAKIN' times today! I'm not exaggerating. He woke up saying his back hurt... didn't hurt by the end of the day! :)

No more updates really... it's gotten colder here.. in the high 50s. Tom comes home the day after tomorrow and the kids start their first art class tomorrow. :)

These kids are smart!

So Lily did her poop on the potty last night.. and I am still OH SO proud of her, but today she pooped on her chair.. :( A few minutes later Jason ran into the bathroom and pooped on the potty so I gave him a date and a sticker - more to incentivize (is that a word?) Lily than to reward Jason - and as I was giving him his sticker Lily asked for one and I told her she would get a sticker when she pooped on the potty .... her response: "I pooped on the potty last night."

Indeed she did... and she got no reward - besides my VERY EXCITED praise. So she got a sticker too...

So smart of her!!!

Wasn't going to blog tonight...

but I am so proud of Lily I have to document it.

We had a good day today.. lots of fun w/ friends and a pretty decent potty day. Lily had a couple of accidents and Jason only had one and well, a half I guess. :)

I had to wake them up to go to my hair appt today so I put them down for bed a bit early.. I heard Lily opening and closing her bedroom door and thought, "Crap she totaly isn't going to fall for this early bed stuff." So I went up there to check on her and she held her butt and had a pained look on her face. I assumed that she had pooped in her diaper and I started heading to the bathroom to get a diaper and she ran in ahead of me and went straight for the potty.. I usually make them sit on the potty after an accident.. when I took her diaper off NOTHING! She hopped right up on that potty like a pro and went poop. She wouldn't poop all day today. (after waking up w/ poops.) I am so proud of her for 'telling' me she needed to go instead of telling me she already went - as she had been doing. I just can't believe how quickly things can turn.. (well, both ways really).

Jason was great today. His one pee accident was right after I had him on the potty and he wouldn't do anything, but in his defense all the other kids were headed outside and he really wanted to go w/ them. He peed not moments after we got out there. Oh well. And I caught him mid poop and got him on the potty to finish.. his 1/2 accident.

All in all it's going well and we are getting out of the house... w/ many visits to the potty... all fine by me. I gave away the last of our diapers today so we wouldn't be tempted to go back when the going gets tough. :)

Watch out world.. we're big kids now...

I'm sure I will stop talking about this at some point!

Tom comes home on Wed and I'm sure he will be amazed!

We (well I) are excited to watch Ironman Wisconsin this weekend... our Sunday will revolve around naps and IM! The athletes run by only blocks from out house and I'm going to try to see the bike out portion w/ the kids. :) My TNT coach Chris and his girlfriend Jackie are both doing it this year so it will be fun to try to see them on their voyage!

Not so super fantastic...

but not awful.

I hit the gym for some yoga this a.m. and the kids didn't have any accidents in the day care... until I talked to L a bit too long about going to the potty so she just went. We almost got out of there in the same outfits we came in. :) J had no accidents today! YIPPEEE!!! but he didn't poop today so tomorrow could be ugly... a good learning experience for all! Lily had a few accidents. We are making forward progress! :)

Why is it that the days (okay there have only been 2 so far) that I do yoga I turn into an Ogre (ala Shrek) ... I thought I would be all zen and chill post yoga. I wonder if I get even more irritated b/c my zen is immediately snatched from me post yoga? ha

The kids were to bed late last night, up early, short naps... we were having such a good run, but it had to be broken eventually. I was up late listening to Palin and chatting w/ a friend on IM so we were all a bit cranky...

On to tomorrow.

Super Fantastic Day...

Lily wearing her baby on her back just like mommy.

We had a super fantastic day today. I still am dumbfounded by how much fun we are having. Tom's travel times are usually very hard form me, and I do miss him greatly this trip, but we are hanging in there pretty tough. Is it my lack of personal agenda??

Our friends Sam and Abbey came over today for a "potty party". Lily had just done a big poop on the potty (I know I said I wouldn't bore you w/ these details anymore, but I was just so darn proud of her!!!) when they got here and Jason proceeded to drop a big load on the floor ... twice.. which is not the example we were hoping to set for the other kids. Oh well. Sam and Abbey didn't seem to scarred.

After the potty party we had some lunch and the kids were down for their naps by 1:30pm... and here comes the piece of the puzzle that probably contributes the most eo our super fantastic day... Jason napped for 3 hours and Lily napped for 3.5 hours. I had to go wake her up at 5pm.. who knows how long she would have slept. Apparently potty training makes them sleepy!

And the best part of our day was going to a TNT send off party. It was a great party and all, but the best part was that this was our first outing as newly potty training kiddos. We went to Red Robin and they did GREAT!!!! Not one accident! :) Lily asked at one point to go to the potty, Jason flushed and was startled at how loud it was, but said, "I'm not scared anymore mommy.", and the last time we went to the potty before we left Jason even pooped in the potty. (I have to add that that boy is a pooping MACHINE! He pooped in the potty again before bed... EE GADS! Where does he keep all that stuff?) I am so proud of them I can hardly sit still. I also realized on the way home that this is the first time that I've taken them out in a situation like this all by myself. I felt pretty good.. okay not pretty good... I feel GREAT about 1. just doing it 2. being calm about it... so calm I didn't even really realize what I was doing and 3. that it was such a success. I've found w/ kids that sometimes you just have to take yourself out of your comfort zone. I have learned so much about my kids and myself through this whole process.

Tomorrow is another day and I know that it might not go as well as today, but we are making great progress... in more than just the potty training.

I am a lucky woman. Great husband, great kids and a sweet gig! :)

D4

It's 8:15 and I'm seriously getting ready for bed. FYI.. in the midst of potty training is not the time to skip your mid-day coffee!!!

I'm tired of talking about/thinking about/worrying about poop/pee. It really was a good day, but I"m tired of detailing it and rehashing it. Both kids pooped on the potty.. amidst accidents. I will spare you the oh so boring details.

It was 90 degrees again today... supposedly it's going to be in the 70s the rest of the week thus introducing us to an abrupt fall. I'm jonesing to turn over the kids' wardrobes.. don't ask me why.. it's part of the seasonal change I guess... brings on the next step.. I don't know.. it's just something I like to do.

Tom is in Germany now - he was in London. I love hearing from him and talking to him, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of his trip this time around. He called from a lake side eatery in Friedrichshaufen (no clue how to spell that and too lazy to look it up). He told me where he was and what he was doing and - as I always do - I responded, "I'm in Madison, Wi, it's 90 degrees and I was just about to mop the floors." I have a really sweet gig here don't get me wrong, but I am insanely jealous right now... I want to be in Europe! ha ha

Anyway... we had a lot of fun today.. here are some photos.

We made crowns and the kids put stickers on them. The activity only took about 2 mins, but they loved it and wore the crowns off and on all day. I'm looking for things to do around the house that I can do w/ them and not want to slap myself silly bc it's so boring! ha

Jason saying CHEESE for the camera




Sharing the monkey bars


Playing in mommy and daddy's room before naps. (Why do I look so disgustingly tan... I haven't been in the sun that much since training ended.)

Note that Jason got in on the nail painting today. :)