Wes turns 1!

How do I already have two toddlers in my house? I swear Wes' first year flew by even faster than Izzy's first year!

His day started by waking up to Izzy's popping one of his balloons by mistake in the living room. Between the balloon pop and her crying, he was up for the day. Once he was changed and had a little milk in him, we threw him back in his crib with his multicolored balloons. He LOVED them.

Mom these are fun!

Balloons are my favorite!

The morning was spent telling Izzy to share and trying to manage the chaos in the house. Izzy was seriously perturbed that the day was not about her and kept stealing Wes' toys/balloons/you name it.

My parents arrived around 12pm and we all had a cheeseburger, grilled corn, caprese salad lunch before going inside to open presents. My sister and her husband couldn't make it because she had to work. I felt bad that Wes didn't get a bigger birthday party, but let's face it, he is the second child. Plus we are in the rental house with minimal furniture, he doesn't really need any toys/things, he isn't going to remember it anyway. Poor second child.

Wait are these for me?

After that, it was time to sing "Happy Birthday" and eat some cake. CP got a ridiculously big cake for only 6 people.

I was lazy and obviously did not decorate or make Wes' cake.

Wes clearly hated it.

I am tired but I have decided that I need more cake in my life

Izzy enjoyed the cake as well

After cake the kids went down for naps and I took my parents to our house to see the renovations. My dad agreed that a lot of work still needed to happen. :-( 

Then CP and I hopped on a train and had a night out with law school friends (a couple that lives in the Chicago area with us and then a couple out from Denver for a wedding). I felt a little bad that we went out the night of Wes' birthday, but our friends were only available Saturday night and thankfully he won't remember that we ditched him. :-)

But seriously, how is Wes already one? It does feel like forever since my c-section and since he was born, but still. Crazy!!

My poor two boys

It's Friday and I'm exhausted after this week.

Buster

All week CP has been running errands and buying needed items for the house while he waits to start his new job on Monday. One of those errands was an appointment for Buster at the surgeon's office. Back in February I noticed that he was doing some weird walking and that he was having trouble going up stairs and jumping into our cars to go to daycare. We had xrays done and found out that he had partial tears of his ACLs in his hind legs.  Since then we have tried to keep him fairly quiet with no long walks and definitely no running with me. The rental house has been good though because it is a ranch so he hasn't needed to go up and down stairs and we ended up putting a lot of rugs down so that he had an easier time walking around and getting up from laying down.

About a month ago, I started to have to make him walk on the grass during our walks because he was dragging mainly his back right paw while walking. Sometimes he would come home from a walk bleeding from his nail because he had dragged it too much. He also started having a lot more trouble getting up from laying down (one or both of his back legs would slip on the floor and splay out to the side), he changed his stance for peeing, and one of his back legs often would get caught on the other leg like he didn't have control of it. We decided that this was not fair to Buster and even though he hadn't completely torn his ACL, he was likely in pain and needed to start the surgery.

We were all set to get Buster into the $4400 surgery (gah) Tuesday afternoon, when the surgeon called and said that Buster's liver test came back a little elevated. It could just be because he didn't eat that morning as it wasn't too off, but it could mean that he has some sort of kidney disease. But the surgeon also said that based on his appointment with Buster, he felt like we should see a neurologist to get Buster checked out for some sort of nerve disease or cancer of the spine. He said that it is improbable that two partially torn ACLs would cause all of the problems above and that he may not need the ACL surgery if he has a growth on his spine. After some debate because seeing a neurologist (especially if he has to have an MRI) is going to be expensive, we made the appointment for next week. 

Right now I am trying not to think about it too much because we don't have any answers. But everytime Buster scrapes his paw on the floor while walking or has trouble getting up from laying down, I wonder if it is because he is in pain from something on his spine. Or if he has cancer. We will hopefully have more answers next Friday, until then Buster is getting extra attention from me.

Wesley

Meanwhile, poor Wesley's first birthday is tomorrow. He came home from camping with a bunch of mosquito bites which at least one other parent at daycare was worried about (and remarked to a teacher). We kept joking about Wesley's chicken pox with the teachers during pickup/dropoff this week. Then CP got a call yesterday afternoon that his teacher noticed that he had a few more red bumps on his stomach that he didn't have earlier in the week. CP ran Wes over to the doctor (note: we currently are insurance-less until Monday) and it turns out that he has Hand Foot & Mouth disease. *face palm* I didn't put Wes to bed Wednesday night (CP did) and didn't see him in the morning as I had left for work at that point so I had no opportunity to see extra spots and CP doesn't remember seeing any either. I just feel so terrible that he has mouth sores and isn't going to be feeling great for his birthday. (Fingers crossed Izzy doesn't get it!)

Wes as I was putting him to bed last night

My poor two boys....

House update #3

I'm going to be honest....I really thought that more would be done by the end of June in terms of our house considering that the project was supposed to be done by July. But here we are only 16 days away from moving back into our house and I am convinced that they won't be done by the 28th (edit: I started putting together this post on Tuesday and the schedule got updated last night. They are now scheduled to complete everything by August 7th). 

Regardless, here is the progress that was made in the month of June:

The new HVAC trunk lines started to get installed. When we moved into the house we bought a new HVAC system and it definitely worked, but some rooms were cooler/hotter than others depending on how far away from the system they were (the HVAC system was located in the front of the house in the basement so all of the front rooms got the most heat/AC). With the renovation, we decided to re-do all of the lines and add a second floor thermostat so that Wes didn't freeze in his room every winter. The system will also be located in the middle of the basement so that we don't continue to have the issue of uneven temperatures. This is not the "fun" stuff that you want to spend money on.

Framing and subfloor in for the kitchen.

Then came the insulation for the kitchen

Insulation for the family room

Insulation for the basement

Siding for the expansion out the back of the house

Dry wall for the family room

Dry wall for the kitchen

Dry wall for the basement

Drywall for the 1st floor bathroom

Primed 1st floor bathroom

Primed ceiling and walls and the new wood floor in the family room!

Bathroom vanity installed

The day we left for MI (June 30th) I show up to check out the house and find two inches of rain in the new basement. Turns out someone unplugged the new sump pump and forgot to plug it back in....then we got a bunch of rain. *sigh* They had JUST FINISHED the walls.

The standing water on the new drywall.

Needless to say, I quickly called our general contractor who then had pump the water out, rip out the bottom foot or two of the new drywall and insulation, run major fans to dry everything out, and redo the work. ARRRGGGGHHHHHHH.

We certainly didn't end the month on a high note.....

MI Vacation pictures

Last week we had a nice time at my parent's place in MI....after we finally arrived. I was out too late the night before at a ladies' wine night and despite getting the on the road fairly early, it took us 4.5 hours instead of the usual 2 or so hours. Ugh.

In the five or so days we were in MI we got in a lot of beach time and a lot of time in the backyard with some new outdoor toys for the kids. Buster got to enjoy lots of outside time and extra petting from my parents as well. CP and I took the kids to St. Joseph one day which is highly recommended if you are in SW MI. Wes was asleep before the fireworks on the 3rd, but Izzy wanted to stay up. My mom and I drove her to a nearby golf course to watch the fireworks and she lasted for about two minutes before saying that they were too loud and she wanted to go home. Maybe next year. I was able to get three solid runs in which made me pretty happy, despite the fact that I had to wake up early on vacation to get them done.

The other big excitement of the week is that Wesley has his first molar. I can't believe he got a molar before some of his other bottom front teeth (he still only has his two front bottom teeth), but at least that one is done!

Festive Wesley really liked playing with this ball

Serious Pie Face game. Izzy and CP were the only people to not get hit (my dad got hit three times!). Izzy thought the game was hilarious.

Enjoying a chocolate covered strawberry

St Joseph, MI

Izzy loves the carousel

This picture makes me giggle

Wesley did a pretty good job playing with the sand instead of eating it at the beach

Beach boy

CP starts his new job next Monday and this will likely be our only vacation of the year because of money and no vacation time so it was fun while it lasted!

Camping adventure with the kids

I didn't camp as a child. My parents were not interested in sleeping in a tent so while I got dirty playing with frogs and in the mud elsewhere, my first time sleeping in a tent was not until right before college (crazy, right?). CP and I did some camping in CO and NH but it has been a few years since we have been camping...and now that we have the kids it is a whole different ballgame!

We decided to camp at Mauthe Lake Recreation Area with friends of ours that have a boy in Izzy's class at daycare and a girl who is about 8 months older than Wes. Everything takes 10 times longer when you have kids so we didn't do all that much in the time we were there, but the kids still had fun.

We got to the campsite before our friends so we pitched the tent and CP started to cook dinner while I took Izzy to the playground to burn off some energy. It was gorgeous out....

Ready for our first camping adventure!

Izzy working the binoculars

The beach

The gorgeous Mauthe Lake

....until about 6pm when torrential rains started while CP was trying to cook dinner and when our friends just arrived at the site. All 8 of us huddled in our tent eating dinner and trying to stay out of the rain.

Hiding in the tent from the ferocious rain storm

Saturday morning everyone woke up at 5:30am (ugh). CP made breakfast for everyone and after eating, we headed down to the beach to play around in the water. 

Wes getting acquainted with the lake life 

We had lunch near the beach, then got ice cream at a local store before heading back up to the campsite for quiet time for the kids. I took a short nap and then Wes and I headed to a grassy area  to play while CP and Izzy slept. That night the kids roasted marshmallows for s'mores while Izzy had everyone tell scary stories around the fire.

Camping is tiring!

The kids luckily slept in Sunday morning so we were able to get a few more minutes of sleep before eating breakfast, packing up everything, and then heading down for some beach time before leaving the park. We stopped at a supper club on the way home for lunch (a very WI thing to do) and had an easy drive back to IL. Buster was very excited to be picked up from boarding and the kids thankfully went to sleep pretty early!

I would say the first camping trip was a success. We may not do it again until next year simply because it's hard with Wes not walking and not being able to sit in a booster seat. We didn't bring a high chair so we either held him for meals or had him sit in his stroller. It will be nice to not have to bring his Pack N Play as well. Unfortunately Wes came home with the most mosquito bites out of everyone in the family, but he doesn't seem to notice them. Meanwhile, I have been itching all day.....

Stitch Fix review- box #1

Hey everyone! I feel like it has been forever since I have posted and I have so much to talk about, but I wanted to get this post up so that I could get some feedback on the items that I received. I think that the stylist did a pretty good job considering I had less than 10 items posted on my Pinterest board. Let me know what you think about my first box!

First blouse I tried on was a Paper Moon super cute pattern and fit well. I can wear it with jeans or capris at home or wear it to work so it was a solid piece.

Verdict: Keeping

Second shirt was too big in the midsection. I don't like tight things because of my c-section pouch, but I also don't like billowy shirts because they don't do me any favors. The shirt was also too big in the arm holes  and my bra showed.

Verdict: Will be returned

I wanted to keep the next shirt because I thought it could be a cute top over leggings, but it was too big and not flattering. Sometimes I think that I can pull off horizontal stripes but this was not one of those times. I did like the feel of the fabric though- it was super soft.

Verdict: Will be returned

Next up was a pencil skirt that I had requested in the fix for work. The material was stretchy which I like so that my movement is not too restricted. The pattern was also cute. The skirt is super comfortable and while I think that it is a little expensive for what it is ($78), I liked it enough to keep it (I'm wearing it to work today!).

Verdict: Keeping

Finally I tried on the maxi dress. I absolutely loved the pattern. When i first tried it on I wasn't sure I liked where the waist hit because the bottom part seems to stick out in a bad place on my body (i.e. it makes my stomach look bigger than it is). But I walked into the kitchen and Izzy dramatically inhaled and said "Mommy I love your dress! I want that dress when I get bigger." Even CP said that it looked nice and even looked better than the other maxi dress I have in my closet. What do you guys think? I like how I don't have to worry about my bra showing at all and I do really love the pattern. Maybe I just need to get some spanx and do a better job of sucking in my stomach??

Verdict: still not sure

As I said, I'm pretty impressed that my stylist (Monica) did such a good job with the patterns, colors, etc. because I am pretty picky about my clothes. I had heard that SF was not great for those of us that are not stick figures, but so far, so good. Either 2 or 3 out of 5 isn't bad and it was certainly fun to have a box of clothes to try on when we got back from vacation!

If there is anyone out there that hasn't tried SF and would like to, click on this link which will give me a $25 credit when you sign up. 

Friday bullets

I have been pretty lazy recently, but here I go with bullets again!

• This weekend CP and I are going to be KID-FREE for the first time since our 5 year anniversary trip to Santa Fe back in October of 2014. We aren't going far- just downtown Chicago- but I have been looking forward to this weekend for MONTHS as a way for us to slow down and reconnect. Tonight we will be checking out Little Goat Diner (one of Stephanie Izard's restaurants- she is from Top Chef) for dinner. Tomorrow we have Hamilton matinee tickets and dinner at Mercat a la Planxa, a tapas restaurant that CP picked out. We will probably try to fit in an arts festival at some point as well. Sunday we will meet up with my parents (my mom will have been with the kids all weekend), my sister and her husband for brunch and will have to resume parenting duties at that time. But we are looking forward to some kid-free time!!
• Wes had a successful ear tube surgery on Tuesday morning. We got up super early and he was a bit cranky until after his afternoon nap, but overall was a trooper. I am crossing my fingers that this means he won't have very many ear infections going forward.

Prior to surgery. I sent this picture to CP and titled it "living up to his Chunk nickname"

• Yesterday morning on the car ride into school Izzy started talking about death. Ummm she is only 3.5 years old?!? It was sort of an awkward conversation because I think that the entire concept is over her head and I also didn't want to scare her. After a few minutes I was able to distract her when we drove by a water fountain. Man, these long car rides to/from our rental house and daycare make for interesting conversations to say the least.
• I made my first cup of coffee EVER yesterday while I was working from home. Luckily there were still some espresso coffee grinds from the last time CP made his coffee so I was able to use those to make a single shot cappuccino with milk froth and some hot chocolate mix for a homemade cafe mocha (I got CP an espresso/cappuccino maker for his birthday earlier this month). HA! I was pretty proud of myself and it wasn't half bad.

After drinking most of my concoction 

• A little more than one more month in our rental place and I am ready to be OUT. Insulation in the new rooms is complete and drywall is up, along with the siding on the new sections. Hopefully now things will start to speed up!

Have a great weekend everyone!