While You Were Sleeping

Last night a few hours after the kids had gone to sleep, I heard a noise in Maddi's room that sounded like her getting out of bed. I expected to hear her start screaming and crying having a night terror, but I never heard anything so I assumed she just got back in bed. Later when I went to bed, I went to her room and shut her door because we always leave it cracked for her when she goes to sleep and then shut it when we go to bed. Then I went to my bathroom and brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. The tv was on in our bedroom, so I went to grab the remote from the foot of our bed and then glanced over toward Brett's side of the bed and nearly jumped out of my skin when I found THIS....Maddi sound asleep in our rocking chair! It FREAKED me out to see a person in our room, but when I realized it was just Maddi Girl I was cracking up. I guess when I heard her up in her room she was sleep walking into our bedroom and walked over to the rocking chair and made herself comfortable. A lot of times when she has night terrors we will bring her in our room and rock her and talk to her to try to get her to wake up. I guess she just decided to sooth herself this time in the rocking chair.

This is not her first time to sleep walk, in fact she does it every few months. This morning we asked her about it and she has no recollection of it at all. Funny thing is that yesterday afternoon I watched a show I had taped on Oprah a few weeks ago about Night Terrors and other sleep issues. I was interested in learning about it because Maddi frequently has night terrors and sleep walking. I'm pretty sure that if the tv had not been on in our room Brett and I would have just crawled into bed in the dark and never even seen her sleeping in the chair. Imagine our horror when daylight came to find her snoozing away. Never a dull moment in our house, even while we're sleeping!

5 for Friday

1. Cade had his friend, Jack, over to play today. As you can see from the pictures, they had a blast playing with water guns. It was in the low 70s but crazy windy so it felt nice to get wet, but not soaked.

2. I love Spring. It's so nice to see green grass again and flowers blooming. It's such a breath of fresh air. I never really appreciated it so much as I do living here where we actually have a winter season and you just can't wait to see something other than snow. The people who lived in our house before us planted so many bulbs that are springing up and growing. It's fun to watch it all come up and see what it's going to grow into.

3. Gas prices are insane. I paid $3.89/gallon for gas yesterday. I can remember being in high school and filling my car up with $5.00 of gas and driving all week. Of course it was a small car and I really only went to school and friends houses close by, but still. Wow, I sound so old saying that!

4. I love a clean dog. Cocoa went to the groomer today and now I'll give her attention. What do they do at the groomer to make her smell so much better than when we give her a bath at home? She smells like a wet dog when we bathe her. I need to learn the groomers secret to actually make her smell clean and not so much like a dog.

5. Duck tape is the hot fashion trend for spring. You know you hear about using duck tape for all sorts of random things. Well, Maddi had warts on her fingers last year and we had them lasered off because lasering is supposed to be the most effective way to remove them. It was somewhat painful for her and downright discusting for me to watch. I had no idea she would have holes in her fingers where the warts were removed. A year has passed and now some of the warts are back. Instead of lasering again I went online to see what the other options are. There were all sorts of articles about using duck tape to remove them. So Maddi is now sporting duck tape around her finger, it's quite a fashion statement. After talking with other parents, a lot of people have used duck tape to remove their kids warts with success.

Now what?

Those of you who are parents know that your kids keep you on your toes and you never know what to expect and things don't always go as planned. Tonight I had one of those "ok, what do I say to that" moments.

The kids had their bath and were getting pjs on and Cade came in our room with a winter hat and boxers on.

Me: Take the hat off because it will make you hair crazy tomorrow.

Cade: I don't care if my hair is crazy and it's my hair and I can decide how I want it and it's my hat and I can wear it when I want. (Don't you love the mouth on this kid? sigh.)

Me: Ummm....no, I'm the mom and I tell you what to do and you don't argue with what your parents tell you.

He went back to his room and took off the hat and came back to me and told me he is sleeping in his sleeping bag tonight.

Me: Ok, whatever.

Cade: This time though I'm sleeping on the floor with it.

Me: No, you're sleeping on your bed with it because you won't sleep good on the floor.

Cade: I'll put down pillows and I'll sleep good on the floor with pillows and my sleeping bag on the floor. It's my sleeping bag and I can do whatever I want with it.

Me: I'm the mom and I said no and don't argue with me. When you are an adult you'll understand and you'll tell your kids the same thing and your kids will think they know everything like you do now.

Cade: I do know everything. Ask me a question of something I don't know.

I'm like, whatever, I'm not getting into this with a 5 year old. "Mom, ask me something I don't know the answer to." Ok, fine, what's 500 plus 649? Cade said, "Give me a minute." A few seconds later he comes back and says, "it's 1149." What?!? How does he know that? Me and Maddi were amazed that he knew the answer. I guess I lost that arguement that he doesn't know everything so I need to make the rules. Gotta love a 5 year old!

Another Fun Weekend

Saturday morning Maddi didn't have dance and Cade's soccer game wasn't until 4:00 so we had a nice lazy morning around the house. Then we got dressed and headed to Uncle Julio's! The kids are showing off their tortillas. It was delicious as usual! We ran a few errands and then it was off to Cade's soccer game.
Here is our #29 in action warming up before the game.
Here he is talking while warming up. I wish I could plant a microphone on him to hear what he says during the game. He's always talking to his teammates and the other team.
After the game he was super dirty. Hard to tell from the pic but even his nose and mouth have mud/dirt on them. I asked why his hands and face were so dirty and he said "I was kicking the ball a lot". Yeah....and....back to the first question...why are your HANDS AND FACE DIRTY?
Sunday Maddi had a competition. She was playing around with some of the girls while they were waiting for production. They did well and scored well, but they didn't get top 10 this week but they had fun and that's what really matters. There were some really good groups and it was fun to watch.
Sunday night we had dinner on the patio and the kids and Brett had fun throwing the football around. It was such a beautiful day in the 70s with sunshine. Maddi came over to me and said she really doesn't like throwing and catching balls but she's doing it because daddy wants her to. How sweet is that? She is such a pleaser! I told her it was good for her and it makes daddy happy.


Here is a little clip of Cade's soccer game.

Four for Friday

1. How cute/funny is this self portrait?!? Cade brought this home from school today and was so proud and I had to contain my laughter. It's so cute with the nose holes, ears, teeth, etc. He obviously got his artistic ability (or lack there of) from his mommy. Brett is actually a very good artist. Things like this are priceless and even I (who throws most things away) will keep this for years to come!

2. Maddi is home from school AGAIN! Ugh...I am so annoyed. She went to school this morning and then I had a voicemail from the substitute school nurse saying that Maddi told her teacher she threw up last night and if in fact she did I need to get her because they have a policy that you have to stay home within 24 hours of throwing up. Well, she did throw up last night, but she is my pukey child. If she eats too much junk or something just doesn't agree with her stomach, she throws up and is running around again normal. That's what happened last night before bed. This morning she was running around, eating, totally normal. So, I told the office she is going to miss a whole lot of school if we have to follow the 24 hour puke free policy. Not that she throws up every week, but it's not a rare thing. The office told me to talk to the real school nurse about it when she gets back. I guess the other option is to make sure she doesn't tell anyone when she throws up from a weak stomach.

3. We had an earthquake in Illinois this morning around 4:30am. We didn't feel it but they say in city in the high rises they felt it. It was in Southern Illinois somewhere, not too close to here. Weird. Who knew Illinois has earthquakes?

4. Maddi has a competition again on Sunday. Cade has his first soccer game Saturday. Well, hopefully he has his first game. His first two practices and game were rained out. Supposed to get rain again tomorrow in the morning, but his game is at 4:00 so hopefully they'll play. I'll try to take some pics of the dance and soccer and post them this weekend.

Four for Friday

1. I just have to say that as much as I love my little Cade and I am so thankful to experience having a boy and a girl....boys STINK! Cade had 3 neighbor boys over this afternoon and they were playing outside. Keep in mind it's about 40 degrees with lots of wind so they're aren't out sweating in the heat of the sun. They came in and were playing in the play room and it just stinks like little boys! Not like body odor or anything, just little boys who've been outside. When Maddi has friends over it's just not like that. I am totally not looking forward to having a house full of teenage boys who REALLY stink. I am so thankful for Cade but I am so thankful that I only have ONE BOY!

2. Maddi lost another tooth today. It's the top side one next to the front teeth and she looks so weird! It makes her front teeth look huge because there is a big hole next to them. If the other tooth on the other side falls out she'll look even more strange with just her two big front teeth and holes on either side. Tooth fairy has been busy around our house.

3. It's April 11th and we are to get snow tonight, tomorrow and Sunday. Just as things are starting to turn green and flowers are popping up here comes the snow. Spring, where are you?

4. My kids have been to school a total of 6 full days in the last 4 weeks. Why, you ask? I took the kids out of school the 4 days before Easter to go to Texas. Then it was our Spring Break. Last week was the first week back and I took them out of school Thursday to go to the city with Todd and family. Wednesday and Thursday this week were early release for Parent/Teacher conferences and today they were out of school all day for no apparent reason. Maybe next month they'll go to school!

Out of the mouth of Cade

Don't let this sweet, innocent face of Cade fool you! He has a mind of his own and says whatever he thinks. (I wish he didn't get this trait from me!)

Yesterday when I picked him up from school and asked how it went he said, "It was horrible. Amro talked the whole day when the teacher was talking and we had to put our heads down on our desk. All because of Amro. He's horrible. He should just be home schooled!" I have no idea where he came up with that. We do know Alex and Clara, who live in the city and are home schooled, but it's not because they are "bad" kids.

On Tuesday and Friday mornings I take the kids to a neighbor who takes them to school because I teach an aerobics class when school starts. Maddi informed me that on Tuesday Cade went off on the friend and her grandmother about how she is spoiled and doesn't appreciate anything because she always whines for whatever she wants and she gets it. If she keeps acting that way she is going to go to the devil. I was MORTIFIED! I called the grandmother and apologized if Cade was rude to them and she had no idea what I was talking about. Whew. At least he just gave a piece of his mind to the friend. Apparently she wasn't too bothered by it because she didn't start crying and tell her grandmother or anything. We are trying to teach Cade about how the world doesn't revolve around his wishes and obviously he understands and wants to spread the word to others that act like him. I explained to him that it's not our job to judge others and God will do the judging and telling someone they will go to the devil is not his job.

Oh, he reminds me of my brother Cody and is so passionate about many things and will argue his point until you're tired of arguing with him. In the end I guess it's a good trait, but at this point in life it sure makes parenting interesting!

Spring Break

So I'm a little out of order, but that's they way I am. The kids Spring Break was the week following Easter and my niece, Maison, was here to enjoy it with us. It was still pretty chilly here in Chicagoland and we even had some snow. Here are a few pics of some of our outings over Spring Break.


While Maddi was at dance, Cade took Maison down to play in the basement. They were playing really well and they came up to show me that Maison was a princess. She was so proud and thought she looked so beautiful. Cade had helped her get dressed up like a princess. It was SO sweet. It should be noted that Cade would much rather have me put his clothes on him every day than dress himself so for him to help Maison get clothes on was a huge surprise. This was early on in Maison's visit when Cade enjoyed having a 2 year old around and was sweet to her and didn't argue with her all day!
We went to watch Horton Hears a Who. The kids enjoyed it and it was Maison's first movie at the theater. The movie wasn't great, but it had a good ending.
Maison's first taste of snow. She LOVED to EAT the snow. There wasn't a whole lot to play in so I guess that's why she was really only into eating it.
I think she ate as much grass as she did snow!
One night Cade and Maison enjoyed reading a story together. He let her look at the book with him but he would not share his pillow or blanket. She had to get her own. Even though Cade is 5 1/2 years old he still acts like a 2 year old at times. Cade had to learn a lot about 2 year olds and having another kid in the house who was "the baby". They enjoyed each other at times, but were very easily annoyed with each other a lot of the time.
They were playing airplane. Maddi was the pilot telling them to fasten their seatbelts, etc. They took turns being the pilot wearing the head phones. It was so fun to see the 3 of them play together. Maddi just loved having a little one around that she could mother and Maison loved having big kids to keep up with.
Cade was playing games on the computer which started the whole "airplane" game with the headphones. Playing games on the computer is one of Cade's favorite ways to "chill out". It was a fun Spring Break that went way too fast as usual. We all have such fun memories of Maison spending our Spring Break with us.

The city with 5 kids!!!

So my brother, Todd, and his wife Breezy and boys Blake and Case flew in Tuesday. I watched their kids Wednesday night so Todd and Breezy so could have a night to them selves in the city (which they really need with 3 kids under the age of 3). Thursday morning I loaded all 3 of their kids plus my 2 and we road the train into the city. Yes, I took 5 kids on the train by. my. self. I was a freak show for the 40 minute train ride with everyone wondering why would anyone have so many kids so close together, are they all mine, etc. The kids were AWESOME. People were very helpful with getting the strollers on/off the train and overall it quite easy. Not that I'd do it every day, but this once was very smooth. I woke the kids up, changed their clothes and got them in the car so the kids all ate breakfast on the train and by the time they were finished eating and getting antsy, we were there. Todd and Breezy met us at the train and we had a fun day downtown with them. Cade, Maddi and Case are in this picture above.
This is Blake on the train. The twins are so chilled out which makes everything so much easier.
Here is Maison on the train. Notice I didn't get up out of my seat to get a group shot because that would have caused even more of a scene than we already were. Now that I look back on it, I should have had someone take my picture with all of us sitting together. We were in the handicapped section (I WAS handicapped with 5 kids to one adult) so the boys stayed in their strollers. I could not have done it without Maddi and Cade each pushing a stroller and I carried Maison. I must say that all 5 of them are such good kids!
While in the city we went to the Lego store where Cade got a new Lego set, then we went to the Hello Kitty store where Maison got lipgloss with a bag to carry it in and a backpack. Then Todd took the boys back to the hotel to nap and Cade got played Legos while me and Breezy took the girls to American Girl. Maddi got a Bitty Baby and Maison got Bitty Baby twin boys like her bubbas and a stroller to push them in. The twins in the picture are not her twin babies.
Breezy, Maison, Maddi and Cade enjoyed the subway ride to lunch at Uncle Julio's Hacienda.
They thought they were so big playing around the subway station while we figured out how to get the strollers out of the turnstyle. Traveling with strollers makes you appreciate how difficult it is for handicapped people to get around in wheelchairs.
Uncle Todd with Maddi girl and Maison at the restaurant. After lunch me and the kids headed back to the 'burbs for dance and soccer practice and school on Friday. Todd, Breezy, and the kids stayed downtown and went to the Cubs/Astros game Friday. Todd was so excited to see Wrigley Field and cheer on his Astros.

We always have a blast with all of our families together. Saturday night in the hotel the kids were playing (or beating him up or something) with Uncle Todd on the bed. So many fun memories!

More with the Stanley Family

Saturday night we stayed downtown at the Park Hyatt on Michigan Avenue. My brother, Todd, and his family were in town this week and he was kind enough to share one of his hotel nights with us. We had a very nice room with an awesome view of Water Tower place right on our patio. The room had a tv in the very large bathroom so last night when the kids went to bed Brett wanted to watch tv but didn't want to wake the kids. He moved the chair from the room in to the bathroom and watched tv in the bathroom. Classy, huh? This morning when the rooster, I mean Cade, woke up at 6:00 am sharp Brett sent Cade in the bathroom to watch tv so the rest of us could sleep and then Cade ended up watching a movie with Maddi on the computer.
Cade, Maison, and Maddi are watching all the people below at Water Tower and enjoyed saying hello and waving to passers by. We were on the 3rd floor, so it was close enough down for people to see the kids and say hello. They were having a blast.
We found a park one block from the hotel. Pretty funny since Todd, Breezy and the kids had stayed there all week and totally could have used a park to let the kids burn off some energy and we found the park hours before they flew out of town. Oh well, now we know where a park is. It was such a nice sunny spring day. Look closely and you'll see Maddi, Cade, Maison, Blake and Case going down the slide all together. The kids had such a great time playing together this week.
When we were leaving the park and walking back toward the hotel we realized the building right in front of the park was a fire station. The firemen saw us walking by and invited us in to try on gear and check out the fire truck. The fire station was built in 1904 and it was really cool to see the firetruck photos on the wall from the last 100+ years. Cade was thrilled to put on the firemen gear. I had heard sirens all night long and they confirmed that they had 4 calls last night. I said I heard one at 1:20 am and he looked in the log and sure enough there was a call at 1:22 am. He said they were all drunk calls, no fires last night.

After the fire station we walked a long way to eat one more meal of pizza to get Todd his fill of deep dish Chicago pizza. When we finally got to Lou Malnati's we found it didn't open until 12:00 and Todd and the gang had to catch a plane at 2:00 so we walked back toward the hotel and ate at Pizzeria Due. Then Brett took the Stanley Family to the airport. We were so sad to see them go. We had so much fun with Todd, Breezy, Maison, Blake and Case this week and didn't want to see them go!
While Brett took them to the airport me and the kids stayed downtown. We went to the Lego store to get a piece separator because we forgot to get one the other day when we were there. We found this "copper cowboy" out on Michigan and the kids wanted a picture with him.

Then we went to Lincoln Park Zoo to enjoy our 65 degree sunny day. It was BEAUTIFUL outside and the zoo was great. All of the animals were active (I think they were loving the first warm day in a while) and entertaining. The lion even roared 4 or 5 times for us. Pretty scary if you ask me. The primates were hilarious with putting bags over their heads, tackling each other, chasing each other, and a male was even making himself happy (if you know what I mean...)! Then we headed back to the hotel to get our car (I was quite proud of myself for driving downtown and I didn't even get lost once or go down the wrong way on a one way street) and headed home to ride bikes and play on the swing set. Tomorrow it's back to life as we know it without Maison. It will be very quiet and easy, but we sure will miss her!

A Surprise Reaction

Tonight while the kids were taking a bath Brett pulled a washcloth out of Cade's mouth. Apparently it was enough to pull Cade's loose tooth out! When I was drying him off from the bath I saw blood coming from his mouth and a big old hole in his mouth. I knew he had a loose tooth, but it wasn't terribly loose. We couldn't find it on the floor so we looked in the tub and luckily it hadn't gone down the drain so we figured it must have come out with the washcloth incident! Cade has been wanting the tooth fairy to visit him so he can have money like Maddi's been getting for her teeth. But now all of a sudden he is TOTALLY freaked out and cried himself to sleep about loosing a tooth and the tooth fairy coming. He thinks he can't talk without his tooth, so he was mumbling that he's afraid he'll smash the tooth when he lays on, he's afraid he'll wake up when the tooth fairy comes and so he won't get money, and he also says he's just afraid of the tooth fairy. I thought he would be so excited to loose his first tooth. You just never know how kids will react. Granted he's exhausted from a fun week and weekend with the Stanley family so this could add to his strange reaction to losing a tooth.

I am so. terribly. sad! I am already having a hard time with my "baby" growing up and now that he's got a big ol gap in his mouth he looks like a really big boy. I just want him to stay little and quit growing so much. I love our kids at their ages and I just really don't want either one to grow up anymore.