Bring vacuums, mops and rags ...

I'm taking ANYONE up on offers to come over to my house on Monday and help me clean. :( Yes, for once I'd actually invite people into my house while it's a mess. They started putting in our hardwood floors yesterday and our house is pretty much a disaster. All linen and bedding upstairs will have to be washed and every surface upstairs (as well as most downstairs) is going to need a good wipe down. I had thought as long as we had the bedroom doors closed it wouldn't be that bad ... boy was I wrong. Though I'm sure it didn't help that they must have had the doors open at some point as they decided our bedroom carpet was a good place to put the baseboards. We all ended up camping out downstairs last night ... Ryan and I in the family room on an inflatable and Riley and Paige in Riley's downstairs room. Thankfully we're out of town all weekend so the dust can settle.

Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday around 11:30. Ha ha! :)

Naked baby butt

As I was setting up for a shoot I have tomorrow, I thought I'd try naked baby butt pictures of Paige. She'll soon be too old for this so I figured I better get it in now while I could. (URRRR, I'm not sure why these keep showing up kind of pixelated ... )

And of course ... my little man model ...

An apple a day ....

Saturday was a fun day spent with Auntie Tammy and Cousin Weston. It was fun watching Paige and Weston interact with one another.

We spent part of the day at the apple orchard. We looked at the rabbits, goats, chickens and pigs that they have, took some pictures and bought some apples. We then came home, went swinging at the park and came home for dinner. I'm proud to say, Weston actually ate my chicken. :) He's probably the highest critic I've ever cooked for ... and he actually managed to get a few pieces down without gagging. Weston, you're welcome at Auntie Kristin's house anytime!

Here are a few pictures from the apple orchard ....

If I have time, I'll post the "outtakes" from this shot sometime ... a 3.5 year old and two 10 month olds ... yeah, near impossible ... but quite comical.

This one is strictly for Grandma Fern ... Grandma, instead of cutting Weston's hair, Tammy's just going to do this. :)

Do toes get a bath in jail?

Sorry for the title ... but I couldn't come up with anything creative for the picture drop off below.

Not much is new here. We have auntie Tammy and cousin Weston coming down this weekend because uncle Clint is going north. Should be fun!!

Here are a few pictures from my new camera. I'm in love with it ... so much that I told Ryan the first night that I wanted to take it to bed with me. :)

Riley waiting for us to come home

from talking with the neighbors

so he could take a bath ....

Riley and Paige started taking
baths together now.
Paige LOVES taking baths
and Riley enjoys having someone
to play with in there.

Hi Paige!

"Hi Paige"

"Hi"

It's happened. I'm not sure if she fully understands, but Paige has started saying "hi" when you say it to her first. I thought I was imagining it at first, but she's done it for Shelley a few times too. It's the cutest sweetest little voice. *swoon*

My "date" with a younger boy at the playground ...

Yesterday after church, Riley and I took a walk to his school to try out the playground equipment. There isn't a ton to do so after a few times down the slide and a race across the field, mommy took a break. I took a seat at the top of the slide, looking backwards towards the rest of the slides and fun things. I sat and watched Riley run like he had all the energy in the world ... and then he did something I'll never forget. He came over, made room for himself on my lap and said, "Mom, let's just sit here and talk." *Sigh*

So we sat at the top of a slide, on the playground of his new school and chatted about how excited he was about being a "big boy" ... about how he was going to be learning new things ... and we even sang a couple songs. As I sat there playing with his hair, I realized that this is probably one of the last times that he'll ever want to do this with me. Soon he'll be too embarassed to sit on his mommy's lap where someone, especially one of his new friends, may see him. Soon he'll be telling me to leave his hair alone.

What happened to this little boy?

A Picture Story ... staring Miss Paige Caroline ...

If I could just get this stupid sock off,
I'd have something to suck on ....
Ah ha! Got it!! Now I can slobber it up.

Hummm, that's not the way it was supposed to work.

Maybe if I smile really nice for mom she'll get it for me.
"Hey Mom, do you think you could put it on for me? My toes are getting cold."
And then I could try this all over again.

He's not Mommy's little boy anymore ...

He can't be this old already can he? Wasn't it just yesterday he was digging into his first piece of cake while we sang "Happy Birthday" to him for the first time?

Wednesday Riley had his first day of preschool. He's going on Monday and Wednesday mornings with his good friend, Isaac, from daycare. These two boys are three weeks apart and have been together at Shelley's since the beginning.

Tuesday night I went into Riley's room to give him a smooch good night ... and he looked at me and said, "MOM, I'm going to SCHOOL tomorrow!!" I'm not sure how he got to sleep because you could see the excitement in his eyes as he lay covered by his b-b. Wednesday morning I woke him up ... it's the easiest he's ever gotten up. Daddy dressed him and we all ate some breakfast ...

Riley ate with his backpack on ....

Then brushed his teeth with his backpack on ...

And of course we had to take the traditional picture in front of the house ...

Sitting with his sister ...

hummm, those pictures look horrible for some reason ... :(

At this point I decided not to embarrass him and the pictures were done (I'll sneak some classroom pictures at a later date when it's not so obvious). We headed off to Shelley's so we could drop Paige off. All the way over there Riley was going over how Paige had to go to daycare and HE could go to SCHOOL. He was so proud of himself.

Once we got to the school building Riley walked right in ... not afraid of anything. We found his classroom, put on his name tag, and finally the teacher opened the door ... and he was off!!! The kid must have some kind of radar for cars and trucks because in a room full of activities and toys, he walked INSTANTLY to the bucket of cars. We spent time exploring the room and meeting his teacher. The kids sat down to eat a snack while the teacher took mom's and dad's over to the other side of the room to give us information on the year. At some point during all of this, Riley found a big paper clip amongst the toys or something and walked right through the parents saying ... "Teacher! Teacher! I found this in the toys." Ha ha. After their snack time, the assistant teacher took all the kids to the gym. Riley was first in line at the door. While I was so happy that he was adjusting well, I was a bit sad that he didn't need us for anything. :) After the kids came back, we all gathered our stuff and headed out. It was a short first day ... more just to get them used to everything in the room.

Riley was very proud of the fact that he'd gone to school that day. And the thing that impressed him the most? The play cars. That's the first thing he's told all the grandparents about. :)

She is a TRUE Zahradnik!!!

All weekend long I wanted to make a big meal for Sunday night. It was something I started right after Riley was born ... make something for dinner that took more than 20 minutes. By Saturday night I'd come up with the meal I wanted to make ... dumplings, sauerkraut and a pork roast. To those of you who know the Zahradnik side, this would probably come as no surprise to you as a meal choice. For others ... I grew up eating dumplings and sauerkraut. It was a traditional family meal for my dads side. I LOVE sauerkraut.

Unfortunately, Ryan and Riley have not come to love it like I have. Ryan will eat the dumplings with nothing over top (a crime in my eyes) and Riley ... well, Riley decided last night that he'd eat dumplings dipped in ketchup. Ugg. However, the big test last night was to see if Miss Paige would eat it. She hasn't refused a single thing we've given her thus far (including walleye that Grandma Fern gave her) but I was a bit afraid at what she'd think of her first bite of sauerkraut. I chopped up one of the small dumplings that Riley had rolled out, put some kraut on top and let it cool ... then plopped it all on her tray. I had my camera ready to get a shot of the "what the heck is this look" ... she picked it up, put it in her mouth .... and went back for more without a second thought. No puckering of the face, no pushing it off her tray ... in fact, she started to prefer the kraut over the dumplings. WHOO HOO!! I have finally produced a true Zahradnik girl (as if her moodiness and short temper wasn't a clue anyway).

By the end of the meal, she had sauerkraut in her hair, on the floor .... basically everywhere. I didn't care though ... she'd eaten it and that was all that mattered.

I did warn Shelley this morning about her dinner last night ... telling her to watch out for what may come out the other end. Hopefully it won't be too bad ... for Ryan and I realized that in the daycare diaper bag are all summer clothes still ... and today the highs are in the 60's.

And as a side note ... Ryan, self-proclaimed sauerkraut hater, when asked how the pork roast was said, "It was good." ... at which point I smirked ... I had slipped a little bit of sauerkraut juice into the roast pan. Ha ha ...

San Diego Recommendations?

If anyone has any recommendations for San Diego, I'd appreciate hearing them! Whether it be a restaurant, attraction, or gorgeous location for a photo op ... let me know!

Ryan and I will be going out there (sans kids!!!) at the end of October for 5 days.

LONG Post ...

Yes, a long post is what you get from me when I don't write for 15 days. I have a lot to say so I'll break it down into categories.

Labor Day Weekend
We headed up to Warroad on Friday afternoon for the long weekend. Made good time on the way up ... just under 8 hours ... and the kids did pretty well. Of course once we got up there they didn't want to go to sleep because they'd been cooped up in the car. :) We had a great weekend ... Ryan got to go golfing with his dad twice, Riley got to play at the park every single day, Paige learned a few new things (more on that later), Ryan and I got to go out on a date (dinner and a movie) and I got to give Fern "crazy" paint choice ideas. We came back on Tuesday to try to avoid the Labor Day traffic.

Riley
The biggest news in Riley's world right now is that he starts school next Wednesday. :( He'll be going to preschool on Monday and Tuesday mornings with his good friend, Issac from daycare. He's super excited ... and I'm about ready to cry. We got a letter from his teacher, Mrs. S. ... and Shelley says she's a great lady. I really just have no idea where the time has gone.

I continue to be impressed and amazed with how much this kid is learning. He's got an amazing sense of direction (you could put him just about anywhere in Rochester and he'll tell you where we are and what stores/restaurants we've been to near there), he's extremely observant ... to the point of driving me up a wall sometimes because I can't sneak anything past him ... and his memory is outstanding. (And yes, I know I sound like a typical mom gushing about her child.)

Paige
Well, Paige has had an interesting few weeks. A week ago last Tuesday, we took her in to the doctor because she had a slight rash and some blisters on her toes. We figured it was Hand, Food and Mouth but wanted to be sure. We were right. She had a very light case of it ... blisters only on the feet with red spots near her mouth and on her hands. Daddy got to stay home with her this time because mommy is starting to run out of vacation. It really didn't seem to bother her all that much.

While we were in Warroad, she learned two new things. She now shakes her head back and forth when you tell her no. It's the cutest thing, not just a simple head shake, it's like half of her body moves with her head. LOL Grandma Fern also taught her how to climb up stairs. She thinks she's pretty hot stuff now ... the only thing is that she doesn't know what to do if she wants to go down ... so she just lays back. Not a good thing.

One thing is for sure ... Paige is ALL GIRL!! She's always been a bit of a drama queen. Just putting her down on the floor when she wants to be held can send her into a fit that would make any outsider think we'd just taken away her only source of food. However, she "found" her girlie scream while we were in Warroad. It's a high pitched, full lung capacity happy girlie scream that just about made great grandma need to turn off her hearing aids. It's really hilarious to watch her .. she makes herself crack up laughing.

So there is the "short" version of the update ... now for some pictures!!