a nice break

friday night we went out with some friends from college - we hadn't all gotten together in a really long time, we had a blast. in light of our date night - michael's mom kept boden for us.....all night long - and the next day too - woo hoo! while we love boden and he makes life brighter, it's fun to have a whole day for just the two of us once in awhile.

we slept in, spent the morning at bread company reading our bibles, drinking coffee, eating incredibly unhealthy pastries that tasted delicious, scrapbooking, and reading; then shopping, lunch, napping, watching basketball, and finally church.

these days are fabulous because they are so refreshing - we need that once in awhile. and for a long time i had a very difficult time asking for a break because it somehow made me feel like a failure, like i couldn't do it. lies, lies, lies. i'm so thankful that God has shown me that this just isn't true - and that we all need a break once in awhile to refresh us and give us a new perspective. and it's good for our kids - when we're stressed out it affects them too. i am so thankful that we have loving family who is so willing to take boden for us and take such good care of him. (mom & dad, i know you would take him too - 6 hrs is just a long drive for date night :) )

so, thank you bubbe & zeyde - we so enjoyed the break and we know boden did too!

nebraska visit

it seems every time i post i'm having to do a big update. maybe that's because i'm the worst blogger ever and am too lazy (i mean busy) to update my blog.

anyway - we have had a lot going on. boden and i went to nebraska for a week in the beginning of march to visit family and friends while michael went to virginia beach for a week of class at Regent. we had a really nice time - although boden ended up with a double ear infection the day before we left and didn't really get better until the day before we came home. poor little guy - he was up all night that friday night and we couldn't figure out why. at one point michael went in to his room and boden was saying "mess, mess" but michael didn't know what he was talking about so he just put him back to bed. we found out in the morning that he was talking about all the drainage that was coming out of his ears because of the tubes he had put in the month before - in the morning light we noticed it on the sides of his face, his clothes, and his sheets! after a few days of ear drops that weren't cutting it we had to get some antibiotics and by the next Friday he was feeling much better.

even though he was sick, we had lots of fun and got to see so many friends and family:

sweeping the floor at caela's house:


lunch with grandma jeanne in the step-stool high chair:


tea party with jacie at jozlyn's house:


helping poppa bring in the trash can:


hanging out with grandma brandt:


reading with nana:


playing wii with neighbors claire & cooper:


boden was hilarious playing wii - we gave him the dvd remote and he totally thought he was playing too. he was jumping all over the place yelling "go! go!" the adults had fun with the wii too - caela and i played some tennis and i don't know when was the last time i laughed that hard.

we had a fun trip - but of course, we missed michael. he had a great week in virginia (minus the blizzard the first part of the week) and was blessed by a family member of friends at church who offered up their spare bedroom to michael for the week so he didn't have to get a hotel room.

locked out

we've had some awesome weather here lately - today it was over 80 degrees! we went to the park for a walk and played at the playground - boden loves being outside as much as we do. he cries when we make him come in.

tonight, while michael was online in his greek class, i decided to cut boden's hair out on the back porch. he did pretty good - this is the second time i've cut his hair on my own - and i think he thought it was fun - especially when he threw a few of the clipper guards off the porch (we live in a second floor apartment and had to go out the front and walk all the way around back to go get them!)

anyway, i let him down out of the chair and while i was wiping up the hair and putting the clippers away he was playing around going in and out of the house. suddenly, i turned around and he had shut the sliding glass door...and then i heard a "click".....oh no...he locked me out!!! i just burst out laughing - mostly in disbelief - but also because i didn't have a clue what i was going to do. i didn't have my phone. we live on the second floor and there is not an exit off the porch (other than scaling the wall -lol). michael was home, but he was in the bedroom with the door closed and headphones on. when he's in class, he doesn't usually hear much of what's going on and he doesn't come out until class is over...at 8. It was 7.

i tried getting boden to go knock on the bedroom door and get daddy. he mostly just kept knocking on the sliding glass door at me. he did actually go knock on the bedroom door once, but really quietly and only 1 knock - i knew that michael probably didn't even hear it - and if he did, he probably wouldn't come out for that. and my banging on the door wasn't really working. i also tried getting boden to push the lock lever up...he's 20 months old...he didn't really get it. what in the world was i going to do? i just kept praying that somehow either michael would hear me, or maybe someone would walk by and i could get them to go ring my doorbell. it was 7pm and 70 degrees...why in the world wasn't anyone outside?!?!

eventually, the poor little guy started getting upset. he couldn't understand why i wouldn't open the door. i was starting to get a little worried that he was going to run off and get into trouble or get hurt or something. he started crying really hard and i was feeling horrible that i couldn't do anything about it - comforting a child through a glass door is not easy! thankfully - after about 10 minutes of crying (and 30 minutes of being locked out)- michael emerged from the bedroom to see me sitting outside on the porch. it was funny to see his face when he realized what was going on - he hurried and picked up boden and opened the door. i guess he had taken his headphones off to go to the bathroom and heard boden crying but wasn't hearing me say or do anything about it so he decided to come out and see what was going on. THANK YOU JESUS! i can't imagine what would have happened had this been an evening when michael was off studying at starbucks til 10pm!

so - lesson for the day - never let your toddler be inside while you are outside - they are much smarter than we think!

crazy week

on wednesday, michael went to kansas city to IHOP (International House of Prayer - not pancakes!) he had an awesome time and i'm sure he'll share more about that on his blog. but, while he was gone, we had some excitement in st louis. on wednesday it was in the 60s, so i took boden to the park before lunch - we had a great time playing - we had so much fun i didn't even stop to take any pictures.

we got back from the park and i made some lunch and by the time i put boden down for a nap 30 minutes later, i had a full-on migraine. if you've never had a migraine before, i pray that you never do, but for those who have, you know how horrible they are. i used to have migraines in middle school & high school rather frequently and then they trickled off in college. it's been at least 4 years since i've had one, so i no longer have any medication to take when then come on. silly me tried to fight it with tylonol & ibuprophen. i tried to lay down, but couldn't even lay still enough to relax and within 20 minutes i was throwing up...and couldn't stop....for 2 hours. i didn't know what to do since michael was out of town and boden was asleep. finally i called michael and told him what was going on and he called his mom and she came up. she lives an hour away, so by the time she got there it had been a good 3 hours of this. i just looked at her and told her i needed to go to the ER.

by the time we got to the ER i was shaking and couldn't remember basic things - my phone number, michael's birthday, my doctors name - yikes! it was scary. thankfully they quickly got me hooked up with some meds and several hours and several doses of morphine later i was good as new - except the part about being all doped up. i couldn't go home alone with boden in that state, so we went and crashed at michael's parents until he got home on thurs night. it took a good 24 hours before i finally got the yucky dopey feeling out of my system, and my brain just felt 'sore' for about a day. i'm so thankful deronda was able to be there to help me -i'm not sure what i would have done without her!

it was crazy and i pray that i don't ever have another experience like it ever, ever again. as far as the doctors can tell it was just a migraine possibly triggered by stress and/or lack of sleep (someone tell that to my son who likes to wake up in the middle of the night please!)

.................................................................................................

then my sister, molly and her boyfriend, john came to visit us in st louis. we had fun cooking good food, playing games, watching movies, and just catching up. on saturday we went to the city museum downtown. i can't believe i've lived in st louis for almost 5 years and have never been to the city museum. it was so much fun! i don't even really know how to describe it other than i giant playhouse for kids (and adults) of all ages. they have caves, tunnels, slides, and ladders of all kinds made of all kinds of materials. they even have a "toddler town" with a huge pile of blocks, little slides, and a toddler ball pit - which boden could have played in all day. all i could think about was how much snot was probably smeared all over those balls. yuck. i mopped him down with antibacterial wipes after that. it was really just a ton of fun - if you've never been - you should definitely go - you could spend an entire day there and never get bored.

here are a bunch of pictures from our day - and this is only indoors - there is a whole bunch more outside too!

(click on the images to see them bigger)

......................................................

i was going to update about a few other things too, but this ended up taking me too long and now i've got to get going. i'll try to update the rest in the next couple days.