Playing Catch-Up.....Again

My intention is to keep up with the blog, but in reality, having two kids 16 months apart and working full-time, coupled with a dog that seems to always present new issues, needing to cook, clean, do dishes, and laundry, the blog ends up as a bottom priority! Dan is great at helping out and has his own list of chores to do, but it's still overwhelming at times. I'm still trying to find that balance that includes time for myself, but I'm struggling with that! If I get any free time, it's spent doing chores, but I'm trying to work on that :) If anyone out there has issues on how to keep the sanity, I would love some advice! There are days that I literally feel like I'm losing my mind!!!

Despite my whining, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love spending time with my family and can't get enough of our kids! I know that this time goes fast with them at this age and I don't want to look back and regret anything. The housework will never go away and it's not a big deal if we eat a frozen meal instead of something from scratch :)

Anyways, below are four new blogs for your enjoyment!

Grandpa Engel's 95th Birthday

Dan's Grandpa Engel is going to celebrate his 95th birthday on Wednesday (29th) along with Dan (his 32nd). His grandpa moved up to Minnesota when Dan's grandma died a few years ago. Dallas brought him back down for a visit this weekend and the family threw him a birthday party open house. All of Dan's sibilings were there along with all the grandkids. Since Dan's mom's house is getting crowded as the family grows, Dallas, Teressa, Carter, and Audrey stayed with us for the weekend. Carter is almost three and Audrey is only a few weeks younger than Bailey, so it works out perfect. Jacob and Carter had a blast play together. It was literally "monkey see, monkey do"! They were so cute to watch playing together. There were a few episode when they didn't want to share toys, but that is what kids that age do and it was a good learning experience for them. Bailey came down with a cold Friday night, but she was a trooper on Saturday for the party. I just hope that she didn't start an epidemic with all the other kids! The good thing about her is that she isn't chewing on toys yet, so hopefully here germs were contained! All-in-all it was a good time visiting with his family.

I didn't get many pictures taken at the party because it was a bit crazy trying to keep up with two kids, but I did manage to get a few snapshots!

Grandpa Engel, Dan, Jacob, Bailey

Beth, Dan, Jacob, Bailey

Grandma and Bailey

Bailey and Audrey

Jaoob and Carter pushing each other on the ride-on toy

Playing with the wagon

Decatur Visit

Last Saturday we ventured down to Decatur to visit family. We are fortunate that my family travels often to Bloomington to visit us here, but it was definitely our turn to make the trip there. It was a sort of power visit! All in a day, we visited my grandma (mom's mom) in the nursing home, visited my Aunt Janet (mom's sister) and Uncle Dave, visited my grandparents (dad's parents), and then spent the afternoon at Dad and Debbie's new house.

It was great to visit with family and introduce some of them to Bailey. My dad and Dan surprised my grandparents by trimming their bushes in the morning while I took the kids around visiting. Afterwards, Debbie cooked an amazing lunch for us and we ate out on their deck. The temperature that day was in the 70's so how could you not spend it outside! The have an enormous yard and endless amounts of flower gardens. I also took some picture of these because they were so gorgeous. They are so good with our kids and Jacob and Bailey love spending time with them as well!

My dad is closing on the house that we grew up in this week. It's sad to see it go, but at the same time it really hasn't been the same since my mom died. It's great that my dad and Debbie get a new start in a new home. It is so warm and comforting there that I realize that it doesn't matter where you are, it's the company you're with that matters :)

Grandma Miller with the kids

Aunt Janet with Bailey

Debbie walking with Jacob around the garden path in their yard

Jacob riding the tricycle on the path

Grandpa sitting with Jacob on the swing

Grandpa winning major points with Jacob after feeding him an ENTIRE bowl of sherbet!

I'm going to sneak these two picture of Bailey in (taken the next day) because I take a lot of action shots of Jacob, but not much of Bailey!



Some pictures of their flowers!

Quilt

My Grandma Mesnard surprised Bailey a couple of weeks ago with a beautiful quilt. She is incredible at making quilts and also made Dan and I one when we got married. The quilt she made Bailey has a few nursery rhymes on it. We are just so touched that at 85 she was able to make this and it will be something that Bailey (and us) will be able to treasure forever. We gave Bailey her middle name, Grace, after her so they will always have that to share as well!

I am so glad that my kids are getting the opportunity to know her and just what an amazing lady she is. She has been a great influence in my life and I feel so lucky that we get to see her (and my grandpa of course!) so often. Below are some pictures of Bailey and her Great-Grandma with the quilt!!

3 Month Pics

I'm only a little late posting these! We had Bailey's 3-month pictures taken on July 3rd. We had Jacob's taken at that point so I wanted to also have Bailey's taken as well. I'm not sure we will be going back anytime soon! Jacob was a nightmare to deal with in getting him to sit for a picture, let alone smile. The few pictures you'll see are about the only ones he would smile for. We were also rushed by the photographer which really frustrated us. After 10 minutes (including a room change) she abruptly stopped taking pictures with no warning to us. She said that they were overbooked and couldn't give us a full sitting time. No one mentioned this to me when scheduling it and it was never mentioned when we got there. If I would have known that I would never had wasted time fighting with Jacob in the beginning. We were there for Bailey and the poor girl only got a few individual shots and no outfit change like is the norm. I think until the kids are older and are easier to coax into sitting for a picture, we'll just take our own in the meantime.

Here are the few pictures that turned out!!

Week Recap

It has been a great week overall. We decided to take the kids to the St. Louis Zoo on Monday, since there was a bit of a break in the extreme heat we were having. It was great to get out of town and do something fun for a change. I feel like our lives have gotten so monotonous in the endless things that have to get done and taking care of the kids. Having a second child definitely has made our lives much crazier!

Dan and I had Friday off from work, but discovered that the daycare was open that day. Yay!! We took advantage of the opportunity and went out on a date during the day. We got the kids' pictures taken in the morning and then dropped them off to daycare. We went out to lunch, saw a movie, and ran some errands. It felt like the old days before kids. So nice!! We definitely need to do this more often. I did feel guilty that we could have spent that time with the kids, but we don't ever get the opportunity to have time to ourselves, so this was great and very needed.

That night, we went to one of our friends' houses for a dinner cookout and had a good time. We blew a tire on the interstate on the way to their house. I can't tell you how fearful I was for Dan to be changing a tire a few feet away from cars driving 65+. The amount of cars that don't get over for you is frightening. I was so impressed that Dan knew exactly what to do in changing the tire. I am so clueless!! There were three families at the cookout and all of us have been great friends since our college years. We fed the kids first and someone made a comment about the scene of all the kids (six) sitting around the table and how things have changed. Really makes me feel old!

We spent 4th of July mainly indoors. There was a children's parade in our neighborhood park in the morning where the children ride bikes/scooters or ride in wagons that are decorated for the 4th of July. We woke up to rain in the morning, but at the time of the parade, it had let up so we headed over. Of course by the time we got there it was raining pretty steady. We stuck it out and probably win the
"bad parents award" for taking our 1 1/2 year old and three-month old out in that. Ugh!! Bailey was in the sling and stayed completely warm and dry and Jacob rode in the wagon and was mostly dry with the golf umbrella I held over him. It was disappointing because the longer we were out, the more the wagon decorations curled up and fell off. It looked pathetic at the end!! We spent the rest of the day playing with the kids and catching up on things around the house. Sometimes it's nice to be forced inside and just hibernate with the family. Due to the rain, we decided not to take the kids back out in it for the fireworks since it would be miserable AND super-late for them. Hopefully next year we'll have better weather. The good news is that the rest of the week is supposed to be gorgeous!

Well, please check below in the other blog entries for pictures of our trip to the zoo, 4th of July, and some other random pictures. I will also be posting a 3-month blog on Bailey soon!!!

4th of July

Here are some pics from the day....

Wagon pre-parade and the rain

Waiting for the parade to begin

Attempt at getting the kids together (Jacob is impossible these days with pictures!)

Jacob waving his flag in Bailey's face

Bailey

St. Louis Zoo

We took our annual trip to the zoo hoping that Jacob would have a great time since he knows a lot of the animals and their sounds. He did okay. It was hard for him to see the smaller animals, but he did seem to recognize several of them. He didn't exhibit the excitement I thought he would, but it was also very tiring and hot for him. Bailey was so tired of being in the car seat from the ride down that she was only content being held. Since I didn't want her exposed to the sun, I put her in the sling, which was hot for both of us! It was interesting having two little ones there, but they did pretty well despite it the heat and long day.

Due to the heat, I was worried about keeping the kids hydrated. I nursed Bailey several time at the zoo. I can't believe that I did that out in public, but you do what you gotta do!!! We gave Jacob lots to drink throughout the day. When we got home in late afternoon, Dan pulled Jacob out of his car seat and discovered that his shorts were soaked. Not just wet, dripping wet! The car seat was drenched too. Initially we thought he dumped a drink on himself, but then quickly realized that the poor guy hadn't been changed in five hours. Talk about feeling guilty!!! He never even cried about it in the car, but it does explain why he didn't sleep very long on the ride back up.

I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few good ones that I got....

Looking at the elephant

Bears

Pointing to something exciting!

Pose with the gorilla

Giraffes (note Bailey is cut out of the shot, but she's in the sling)

Leopard


Sleepy children on the way home (you can see Bailey in mirror)

Miscellaneous Pictures

Here are some random picture from the last couple of weeks. I really need to take more of Bailey I think!!

Jacob swinging

We've graduated Jacob to his booster seat for meals. You can see here that he thought it was cool to lounge with his feet up. Lots of work on teaching him manners!

Kids playing together

Jacob playing with the soda boxes. He loved walking on top of them and placing his books on top of them for some reason.