The Cozy Coupe Makes Its Outdoor Debut!

(And, Other News From the Weekend!)

On Friday, Josh FINALLY got to hold Baby Liam!!!  Josh got a nasty cold, and didn't want to risk getting Liam sick any of the times we have seen him.  Jackson, as always, was THRILLED for an evening of Baby Brother time :)  Brandi cooked us an AMAZING dinner of Korean BBQ Lettuce Wraps!  We were all quite impressed, and well fed! 

 Such a snuggle bug :)

On Saturday, we just hung out at home.  In the evening I made the dough for home-made English muffins (to be baked on Sunday) and got the St. Patrick's Day Oreo Truffles ready to go for Sunday.

On Sunday, I worked hard on each component of homemade Eggs Benedict (recipe coming later).  We finally ate "brunch" at 2:00 (new time)!  Yikes!  Josh jumped in and did all the whisking work for the hollandaise sauce, and it was THE best hollandaise I have ever had.  Our late brunch was delicious, it was just a lot of components to coordinate...

After cleaning up brunch, I got to work on the dessert for that evening: St. Patrick's Day Oreo Truffles (or Shamrocks, as Josh labeled them).  I will post the recipe for this later too.  But, here is my dipping and decorating station ready to go.  I also have a picture of the shamrock sprinkles I made from scratch :)  

These were a yummy complement to the Slow Cooker French Dip sandwiches Joe and Susie brought over--it was a delicious evening!  While the guys were working on dinner, Susie and I took Rachel and Jackson outside to play.  This was the outdoors debut for the Cozy Coupe, believe it or not!  I bought this a LONG time ago, and Jackson has been having lots of fun riding it around the family room.  He also uses it as a golf cart for his golf clubs :)  Susie and I were so proud of the kids because they took such good turns.  It was a great way to work up an appetite for dinner!

Front Porch!

***UPDATED PICTURE***

4259 Talon Dr. is waterproofed from all of the rain we got!  Umbrella?  Check!  Towels?  Check!  Water wings Chicago-style?  Check!

Jackson and I visited the house yesterday on our way to Brandi's, and I was thrilled to see our new porch!  Well, actually I knew it would be there.  We received a copy of the appraisal at the beginning of the week, and the picture the appraiser took for the front of the report showed the porch.  There were some nice pictures in the packet...  Anyways, the house looks great, and we are looking forward to our pre-dry-wall inspection on Monday!

Jackson was THRILLED that Mommy un-lost his frog boots yesterday!  The back story is that I bought these boots to also serve as snow footwear.  I hated to spend money on a pair of snow boots just in case.  I figured we'd have plenty of uses for rain boots, however.  Well, Jackson LOVED these boots while we were in Evanston for the holidays, but they didn't stay on very well, and annoyed all grown-ups involved.  He kept asking for them, and I would just tell him I didn't know where they were.  I know, I'm terrible--LOL  Anyways, I got them out yesterday since it was pretty wet, and he was so excited!

Poke-A-Dot!

I came across Poke-A-Dot: Old MacDonald's Farm in November when I was looking for a book to give as a Big Sister present.  The book I had in mind wasn't available, but once I started browsing at the bookstore, I saw this and knew it would be a hit (well, I was hoping...turns out I was proven right--THREE times!).  I have given this book as two Big Sister presents and to Jackson as a new fun thing for traveling.  I used the Old MacDonald one on our trip to Evanston at the holidays, and I am planning to use Poke-A-Dot: 10 Little Monkeys on our plane ride next week.  

Both of my mom friends said their girls LOVED the bubble popping and didn't put the book down!  This definitely was the toy that kept Jackson entertained for the longest chunk of time in the car.  We have also taken it into restaurants, and it has worked well there too!  Due to its great success, I am linking this post up to both Things I Love Thursday and Kid Konnection :)

For more Things I Love Thursday, visit The Diaper Diaries.  For more great kid books, visit Kid Konnection on Saturday at Booking Mama!

P.S. I'm not thrilled with my formatting lately, and I am trying to figure it out.  Just try to look past that :)

Sheathing

I took this picture to try to show how BUSY our little cul-de-sac was last week!  Jackson and I drove by to visit the house last Tuesday, and one of the houses is all finished on the outside, another is having its exterior put up, one foundation is being prepped, and our house is sheathed!  The framing is finished and the exterior is all wrapped up--thank goodness since it rained HARD ALL DAY on Sunday :(  I wanted to go take our poor house some towels... ;)  Anyways, here are the latest pictures!  The builders are hard at work on the plumbing and electrical.  We are going to go visit this weekend, and then next week we will have our pre-dry-wall inspection!!!  We are getting SOOO excited!  I've also been doing LOTS of browsing in stores and list-making at home as I decide how we want to decorate...  Thankfully my birthday will occur between now and closing--I think all I'm asking for is Target giftcards!  LOL

A Little Update

Jackson still ADORES Baby Liam :)  He was super excited to see Baby Brother and KK on Sunday :)  Jackson asked for many turns to hold Liam, and then he started dictating who got a turn next.  He also began asking for the burp cloth on his shoulder while he had his turn--SOOO cute!!!


Anyways, Jackson is learning SO many new things right now!  He has developed a love for puzzles, and he has a set that he likes to do each day.  He has always loved books, but now he likes sitting down with them and telling a little story in his own words.  He is pulling out books we haven't read in ages and remembering things about them.  He is also loving each round of library books we check out.  The stories are sinking in and he definitely makes sure we know which ones are his favorites!  Jackson has SO many more words and is stringing them together into longer sentences.  The phrases we hear most often right now are: Jaxie self, Oh, oh, oh, oh, ok!, Oh, yup!, No thanks, Baby sad (he can hear any crying baby wherever we are!), Bampa next? (he likes to call people and say hi, and since Mimi is our most frequent call, he then asks for Bampa), C'mon Paxie (or insert any other name), and of course, requests for snacks and tv shows :)  It is so funny to listen to what comes out of his mouth, and to watch the accompanying facial expression.  I'm finding that I can explain a lot more things to Jackson, and actually see some example of it sinking in.  I think we are going to have an awesome flight to Chicago next week since he can get excited about an airplane ride and seeing Mimi and Bampa!  That's what I'm hoping for, anyways...


We are hard at work on numbers, colors, and letters.  Jackson is definitely showing some interest, but he isn't diving into all of that just yet.  He has clearly been throwing his energy into his words, which is great, since I felt like he got a slower start on those...  I can't wait to see what he learns next!

Library Loot 2

I am still on a mission to document as many books that we check out from the library as possible.  I am by no means going in order, but I do want to get back into the swing of sharing books!  I didn't get to take a picture of the group we just took back to the library, but here are the titles with links providing pictures and more information.  The reason I'm starting back in with this group is because this is the first set of books that Jackson seemed to really pick out some "favorites."  


Baby Loves Peekaboo! by DK
1,2,3...Count with Me by Naomi Kleinberg
Just a Dump Truck by Mercer Mayer
Little Quack Counts by Lauren Thompson
Busy Doggies by Jon Schindel
Skippyjon Jones Color Crazy by Judy Schachner


The above set of books were all board books for the car.  Jackson has been asking for books more often in the car.  I thought a fresh batch would be exciting, but they actually didn't go over as well as I had hoped...


The books below were pretty well-loved all around:
Honk Honk!  Beep Beep! by Daniel Kirk
Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton
Trucks Roll! by George Ella Lyon
Arthur's Tractor by Pippa Goodhart
Bounce by Doreen Cronin
Who Hoots? by Katie Davis



Russell and the Lost Treasure by Rob Scotton
We have checked out the original: Russell the Sheep, and then my mom bought a copy for Jackson based on the recommendation from her manager at work.  He LOVED it!  I immediately checked for more Russell books, and I came up with this--there are a couple more too!  Jackson loved reading about Russell :)





Little Bo Peep Can't Get to Sleep by Erin Dealey
I didn't think Jackson would "get" this one (and I still don't think he did), but he repeatedly picked it out for story time.  I, personally, love it, and think it's a cute spin on a classic nursery rhyme character.  I especially love that the illustrator is the same as one of Jackson's new favorite books, Too Big (I stuck it in below as an extra).  The illustrator is Hanako Wakiyama, and her style is great!

Too Big! by Claire Masurel
Susie, Joe, and Rachel gave Jackson this book for Christmas, and he LOVES it!  I do too :)  It is such a sweet story!  It's not a very mainstreamed favorite, either, so it would be a great gift idea for book lovers!

Visit Kid Konnection at Booking Mama for more reviews and recommendations relating to children's books!

Fun Weekend!

Last week, I looked forward to Saturday all week!  Scott's parents are in town hanging out with Baby Liam and his fam, and they were nice enough to hang out at the house so Brandi, Scott, Josh, and I could go out on a date!  It was glorious!  We let Jackson and Kaitlyn have a playdate and some dinner before laying them down for bed.  Then we left for Silverado (a Great American Restaurant), and had a great time at dinner!  We kept appreciating how nice it was to have un-interrupted conversations!  LOL  Date Night was finished off with Shamrock Shakes at McDonald's :)  Before we went the the Buerstatte house, we actually stopped by Talon Dr., so Josh could see the framed house!  Nothing much had changed, but we thought it was really cool to see the stairs in this first picture, and then I got a better picture of the bay window that is in our dining room.

On Sunday, we went over to the Yanceys'.  Josh and Joe cooked a delicious dinner while Susie and I took Rachel and Jackson outside to play.  They played SO well in the yard with the lawn mower and wagon.  It was really nice out, and we all enjoyed the fresh air.  We moved inside after a little while, and silliness ensued :)  Jackson also got ahold of the camera and made good use of his creative outlet...

Monday was technically the weekend for us too since Josh was home from work (he works a compressed schedule, so every other Monday is a day off for him).  Jackson was pretty hilarious all day.  I have been trying to get him more interested in songs--both to listen to and to sing.  Some of his friends have favorite songs that they sing themselves, and it's just adorable!  Jackson climbed up by the counter today and started pretending to blow out my huge pillar candle.  He was saying, "Happy!  Happy!"  I asked him if he wanted us to sing him "Happy Birthday," and he said, "Yup!"  So, we sang "Happy Birthday" quite a few times.  I asked him if he wanted to do "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" next.  He was pretty pumped about that (we had practiced that last week).  So we did that and he was starting to say the body parts.  We tried to take a video, but each time we'd start "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," he would start shaking his head and asking for "Happy."  I didn't know how fast I would get tired of that song...  I like the pattern we had going, now we just need to expand Jackson's repertoire...