Birthday Week Finale

What comes at the end of every March?  If you guessed Spring Break, you'd be right!  Oh, and Aidan and Aubrey's birthdays.  A whole lotta excitement packed into a one (or two) week period.  We continued the double-party tradition this year and invited friends and family over for a celebration the weekend before the actual birthdays.  I decided to take a walk on the wild side and have a painting wall.  One-, two-, three-, four-, and five-year-olds are really careful painters, right?  Well, these kids were.  Not a drop of paint on the floor or walls.  They were awesome little Picasso's.  I would definitely do it again.

Cousins

The birthday kids, plus mom and dad

Chocolate Cars cake and banana cupcakes

The beginning of the painting wall

Mid-point

The End

Ready for some cake!

Hmm, do I like it?  (the answer was "no")

Chow down

Rise and Shine

I've loved getting up this past week knowing that within a half hour the sun would be up and shining. With Kyle's new job came a new routine in the morning...I get up and get ready, then wake up the kids and dress them while Kyle makes breakfast. It's working so far, we'll see how this week goes now that it's going to be dark again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about Daylight Savings Time. In fact, this is the first time I can remember being happy to "lose" an hour. Why? Because Aidan and Aubrey have been waking up anywhere between 5:30am-6:30am. Can't a girl catch a break?!? I just want a few extra hours of sleep on the weekends. Voila! Turning the clock ahead an hour this morning meant that the kids got up at 7:30am. Lovely, even if I didn't truly get any extra sleep.

Back to the Grind

Kyle decided that being a stay-at-home dad was just too easy.  Why should life be simple and enjoyable when it can be crazy and chaotic???  Enter the job search.  Kyle has been half-heartedly job hunting for the past few months.  He periodically sent out resumes when something interesting popped up on Craigslist.  Finding a job that was going to be flexible with the hockey season proved to be too much, but now that the season is over, it's time to get to work.  Kyle interviewed at, and was hired by, a small environmental company just a few miles from our house.  He will be handling their accounting and whatever else needs to be done at a small company.

I don't know who is more excited; Kyle because he gets to interact with adults, or Aidan, because he gets to go to daycare.  I'm thinking Aidan is more excited.  Aidan has been talking about daycare non-stop since Thursday.  He wakes up at 6:30am in the morning to tell Aubrey that daycare is only XX amount of days away.  He talks about it while we are grocery shopping, and it's the last thing he talks about before going to bed.  I hope it lives up to his expectations!

The bonus in this whole situation is that it requires minimal effort on my part.  I leave at 6:30am, so Kyle will be in charge of getting the kids up, ready to go, and transported to daycare.  The new job is currently 8am-1pm, so that means Kyle also gets to pick the kids up from daycare and get them down for naps when they get home.  I see this as a win-win for me.  Aidan and Aubrey (and Kyle) get intellectual stimulation and I don't have to do anything!

Ask me in a week if everything turns out like I am imagining.

Quick Trip

The kids and I packed our bags on Friday and hit the road down to Madison.  We spent a fun-filled 48 hours with Kali, Kyle, Reese, Nana, and Poppa.  As always, the Madison Children's Museum was a big hit.  So much more toddler-friendly than the giant children's museum here in the Twin Cities.  It is so much fun to watch the kids interact with each other.  Aidan and Reese are two peas-in-a-pod; constantly on the go, moving from one activity to the next.  Aubrey, on the other hand, gets immersed in one activity and is content to play for lengthy (in toddler time) periods of time.  Aubrey was fascinated with how everything worked at the museum and wanted to build and take apart.  Here are a few of my fave pics from the weekend.

Ball drop

Mad Scientist

Maybe she'll help me garden this summer?

Just out for a drive

Cousins

First time on skates this winter 

He's a natural

 

RSV is no f-u-n

The Finn family has spent the past week quarantined in the house while we have each battled colds. Turns out Aubrey had RSV, and that's why she couldn't breathe and ran a fever for 5 days straight. A trip to the doctor, some antibiotics (for a pesky ear infection on top of the RSV), and a brand new nebulizer...what a week.

The one thing I have taken away from this experience is that I am SO thankful that we didn't have to go through this 100 years ago (or present day in a poverty-stricken country). Imagine living in a small house, no electricity, it's the middle of winter, and your child has a high fever and can't breathe. I'm sure parents did/do the same thing that Kyle and I did, just sat up all night and rocked their sick child...but they didn't have a nebulizer, medicine, or a hospital five minutes away.

 Aubrey is on the mend, although still exhausted from the whole ordeal.  The one perk for her week at home has been the daily princess dress.  Since she doesn't have the energy to leave the house, we just slip a pretty princess dress on top of her pajama's and she's set for the day.  Style a la Courtney Love.

Stitches

Stitches seemed to be a theme in our house last week.  I spent a few hours getting crafty with the sewing machine and Aidan ended up with his eyebrow stitched together. Thankfully the two had nothing to do with each other.

Aidan was invited to a Chronicles of Narnia themed birthday party.  Boys were supposed to be kings and girls were supposed to be queens.  We've got a lot of princess gear in this house, but are short on king attire.  Thank you Joann Fabric for having a sale on felt last week.  For a grand total of $6.99 I bought a yard of red felt and fuzzy trim.  Then came the hard part.  I had to break out the sewing machine manual to figure out how to thread the darn thing.  Not that it was hard.  It had just been a long time.  In the end, the cape turned out nicely (although I doubt it will stand up to much rough housing).

The other stitches came on Tuesday.  I walk in the door after work to hear, "Mommy, I got stitches!"  Aidan sounded excited, so I guess cracking his head on a bookcase at the YMCA and spending a few hours in the ER wasn't traumatic.  Taking a band-aid off, on the other hand, brings tears and screaming.  You'd think that would be the least of his worries.  The stitches come out tomorrow.  I think we'll take the band-aid off before we get there to avoid all that commotion in the doctor's office.

King Aidan, stitched up from his most recent battle with the bookcase

I Work Out

I'm not implying that my husband needs to work out, but this video is just too funny.  I could see this really working for Kyle.

Sanitize

It ain't the holidays unless someone gets sick, and since there were two holidays within the span of a week, we got double the sickness.  Aubrey came down with an ear infection and pink eye on the way home from IL on Tuesday and Aidan got a double ear infection on New Year's Eve.  Happy 2012, indeed.  Aubrey feels fine now; Aidan is on the mend.  I cannot fathom what people did before antibiotics.  I've been washing and sanitizing my hands like I've got OCD in the hopes that I don't catch whatever is making the rounds in our house.  *knock on wood*

Other than the sick bugs, the holidays were fantastic.  We spent time with both of our families, the kids got lots of toys that they are having a blast playing with, and best of all, I actually found some time to relax!!!

Of course there are more pictures that I know what to do with, but here are a few of my favorites.

Say Cheese!

SO excited to get Tickle Me Elmo from Santa!

Reese would have rather worn a  sweat suit on Christmas Day

Watch out, Hells Angels, Aidan and Aubrey are coming your way

Princess Aubrey is holding court

Trying to get a decent picture of the two of them

Love this picture of Aidan, Aubrey looks a little special

FINALLY!!  We all smiled and looked at the camera at the same time!!!
Success.

Merry Christmas 2011

In lieu of a Christmas letter this year, Kyle put together a montage of 2011. (mostly because he didn't have a lot to say about being a stay-at-home dad)  We hope you had a wonderful 2011 and we wish you a happy and healthy 2012.

Love,

Kyle, Courtney,
Aidan, and Aubrey

Santa Baby 2.0

Grandpa Finn saves the day.  (again) He was quick with his camera and snapped this picture  before the screaming ensued.  Just goes to show, kids will do almost anything for some candy.