Where does the pollen go?

Back to work.

All week I've been singing "gotta go back, back, back to school again" "woah oh, i gotta go, back to schooooool....again!" Is everyone singing along?

What? You don't immediately recognize lyrics from Grease 2? It was the High School Musical of our time! Well, you know, HSM with extremely overt sexual references. Wait, not even references. Just a lot of sex. My bff Adrienne and I had every single song from Grease 1 and 2 memorized (we even wrote the lyrics in a spiral notebook) and would sing them dramatically.

Ahhhhh, the (not at all) innocent days of our youth.

Bygones......
I'm back to work!

I got this.

Kinda.

Every morning I have at least three setbacks and I think of them as lessons. I’ve compiled my top ten “lessons” in hopes that I will become the master of getting everyone out the door looking pretty and prepared!

10. If you think you can get it done in 2 hours, give yourself 3.

It seems inevitable that there will be kinks in the system. As much as YOU’VE got your crap together, one of the kids won’t. Allowing for these kinks means you need to be up at 4 and ready by 5. Lunches packed, bags packed, bottles made, etc, all by 5:30. Kids up and dressed, loaded and out the door by 6:15. At work by 7.

9. It USED to take you 15 minutes to blow-dry your hair.

Now, secondary to how many times you turn off the dryer because you swear you heard a baby screaming, it takes you 25 minutes. 30 minutes if two of those times, you not only turned off the dryer but ran to put an ear to the door.

8. Breathe through the rage when your husband’s alarm goes off 15 minutes before he has to be out the door.

Resist that flash of urgency to throw whatever it is you’re holding at his head when he comes in to kiss you goodbye. DO try and find time in your day to think of ways husband can start helping with the morning routine without producing even more kinks.

7. Remember why you didn’t do some things the night before.

When you’re cutting up strawberries, spreading peanut butter, pouring similac…you will say “Why didn’t I make lunches, bottles, backpacks last night??” It is because you turn off in the evening. You get dinner done and kids bathed and asleep, and then you power down. You enjoy wine, your back porch, DVR’d television shows, and time with your husband. You do not want nor need to be in mommy-mode every time you are in your home. Don’t change You Time just to cut 20 minutes off an already hectic morning routine.

6. Remember that you really should do SOME things the night before.

Make sure your work clothes are cleaned, ironed and all accessories accounted for. If over a glass of wine you think, “my cute red heels would make that outfit more fun tomorrow”, you should physically locate said heels. Don’t mentally visualize them in the back of your car and be fine with that. Go find them. If you choose not to, you will have it set in your head that you are wearing them and spend a completely unacceptable amount of time looking for them in the morning when you realize they are not in the back of your car.

5. Be slightly aware of the level of gas in your car.

Jaime, just TRY and be SOMEWHAT aware.

4. Don’t grab another cup of coffee.

Remember that you can have one at 7:30 when you are starting work. And then again at 10 when you feel like you’re not going to make it. There is no need to grab one at 5 – right in the middle of your routine – like an addict. You already had one at 4. Promise you, you’re not going to fall asleep in the next 3 hours. The 5 o’ clock cup will make you jittery and result in you having to pee at the kid’s school. It's awkward.

3. If you are needing to make a sacrifice, make-up can be applied later.

Just get yourself clean and move on to the kids. However, be sure to grab ALL make-up that is to be applied once you’re at work. Failure to do so will result in 7 AM trips to Walgreens to buy drugstore lipstick that you will inevitably hate.

2. Do NOT get dressed until your kids are in the car.

I’m serious. Stay in your robe until the car is running and everyone is loaded in, then run back inside to slip into your outfit. Don’t get silly and think, “I can at least have my bra on…”. You can’t. You WILL be spit up on or snotted on or peed on. You will.

1. Stop thinking that when you get to your office, you can sit back, sigh and relax.

Honey….your day is just beginning.

check out the hook while my dj revolves it

I’m obsessed with Sonic Ice.

I know, I know….you’re all thinking “oh me too! I love Sonic ice!” There is even something on Facebook …“I like Sonic ice”… that you can click if you do, in fact, like it. I get it. I’m not original in liking the little pebbles of goodness. But, as I often do, I take the like to the level of addiction. I go to Sonic every single day. Every Day of the Week I go and get a large diet coke with extra ice. If I’m not content with the amount of extra ice, I push the button again and order a large cup of more ice.

Yesterday, I was down by my work picking up a prescription and got to pull into my old Sonic! (you know ---back when I used to work --- before 3 weeks of bedrest and 10 weeks of maternity leave?) I pushed the button and heard “Large Diet Coke Extra Ice!! Did you have your baby???” It felt good to be back. Back at my pharmacy, back at my Sonic, back by my hospital.

That being said, for a woman who is SO ready to go back to work…I’m so NOT ready to go back to work. I’m due back on October 5th, but am going to dip my toes in tomorrow and 3 days next week. Get used to the water before I’m drowning in a full schedule of patients on the 5th. Jenna has been going to school for weeks now, but tomorrow will be the first day I leave baby Jake.

When I went back to work after Jenna Kate was born, Kevin was staying home with her. It was so easy to go back. I mean, of course it was hard in many ways. It was hard to work a 10-12 hour day after not getting more than 4 or 5 consecutive hours of sleep. It was hard to come home from that 10-12 hour day of work and be immediately passed a baby to relieve Kev. But emotionally, it was so easy to go back. I knew that the only person that would know my baby better than me that day – would be her father.

I love Grace Crossing and thank God that we found such a wonderful church school. One that has before and after-school care and an infant class! It was the answer to many prayers. I love the women that will be watching Jake and loving him and changing him and feeding him and rocking him all day. But I’m just sad. I’m sad that soon, I will pick up my baby at the end of the day, and someone will tell me what he did that day. And it won’t be his father.

I’m really ready to go back, but I humbly ask for prayers tomorrow.

Life to Date:
August brought my annual college girls weekend. Last year we decided to do it here at my house and had a lot of fun. Since I had a 5 week old at the time it seemed best to do it here again. Jenna went and lived with Gaga and Papa and Kev took care of baby Jake. As always, it was perfect. Lots of drinking, lots of talking, lots of drinking and talking.

Go to Beth's Blog for a cute recap of her trip down....
http://vanosdel.blogspot.com/2010/08/texas-trip.html

Labor Day Weekend brought together 5 couples that are nothing but trouble. The ten of us are headed to Mexico together next summer, a trip long in the making, and this last FIA weekend made me even more excited for the trip. I don't have any pictures to post. All things done and seen that weekend are never to be published on a family-friendly blog. For the sake of mentally reliving the weekend when we're 45, I'll say this: poker, fiesta, skinny dipping, sandman, jager, geckos. Sandman.

I got to meet my nephews last week. It was heavenly…not only to meet the awesome, awesome little men, but to be with Jo. We could have a glass of champagne for breakfast, a glass of wine for lunch; we were up to our eyeballs in babies…but we were in it Together.

A nice summary of our days...Coloring books, binkies, bottles and champagne.....

Noah (with Jenna's baby)...
Jensen....

Jake napping....wine drinking.....

I thought it'd be funny to put the twins in the same bouncer. I mean, they were on top of each other for 9 months. They didn't think it was funny......

My littles went to their 2 month and 2 year well-checks yesterday. Jacob is off the charts (above 90th percentile) in height and weight. Not surprising at all – but nice to hear that his height (2 feet 5 inches!) offsets his weight (15 pounds!) and averages him out to just being a ginormous 2 month old! Not an overweight 2 month old! Jenna is still steady in the 50th percentile of height and weight… with a really big head! :)

I have really awesome babies. I want to remember how great they are right now.

Jacob is the best baby ever in the history of babies. He is always smiling and laughing and just rolls with whatever the day brings. He really never fusses and he’s sleeping for 6-7 hour stretches at night. He watches it all…takes it all in. He looks just like my husband and seems to be taking his personality; calm, sweet, leveled. And I see some of the "fighting-mad-Kevin" when I'm a little slow to make his bottle.

He melts my heart.

Jenna Kate is a million things rolled into one little redhead. She is a parrot – repeating anything that is said – which is funny and dangerous. She is talking in full sentences and declares everything she likes, “AWSHUM”! She has an attitude and rolls her eyes at me. She’s mean and feisty and then sweet and loving and apologetic. She loves Yo Gabba Gabba and Nemo. And her Bebe Jeke. She demands attention and I hear “Look at ME!” at least 5 times a day. She’s smart and charming and makes me crazy. I love her so much that sometimes I feel like I’m going to burst.

Football season has begun. Potty training has begun. Heading to Austin this weekend to meet Becky’s new baby, Jonas, and play with Cristie, Addie, Marian, Finn and Eloise. I’m heading back to work. Life is crazy and good. Really good.

Beautiful Boy

So - I have two blog drafts sitting in my dashboard, but they require uploading so many pictures. And it all seems so long ago now. It's just boring stuff like birthdays and birth. Maybe I can just touch on some highlights and then move on to present time? Great. Thanks for being understanding.

The highlights of the end of my pregnancy were The Jones Family and July 2nd.
Cristie, Marcus and baby Addie came in town to take care of me. They brought food, they brought presents for my kids, they cooked, they cleaned....they just made everything better.




July 2nd is just a great day. Always, even as I'm getting older, I childishly love my birthday. It's not about presents or anything like that...I just love the feeling of a day where everyone is nice to you. It's just all about me.
Narcissistic? Yes. But it's not like you didn't know I've got a teeny bit of that in me.

It's not about presents...but speaking of presents....





Then there was the 4th. This year, Landon decided to ride his scooter in the parade.

We told Kate she was in the parade, too. She wasn't. But look how cool she thought she was...

So then I had Jacob Kyle on July 13th. Thirteen has always been a neutral number for me; I wasn't afraid. After all was said and done, I got to carry him a lot longer than I expected--38 weeks. Which I'm so thankful for...although I ended up being ginormous!

The morning I left to have the beautiful boy:

From this angle - you're thinking things aren't so bad...

Then...BAM! Nothing more I can do to prepare you for this one.....

Jake was big - 8 lbs, 9 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. He looked like Kevin from the get-go. I'm okay with it - I have a redhead who looks pretty identical to what I looked like as a child (minus the red) and I personally think Kevin is really cute.

A week later, we celebrated Kevin's birthday and I finally got up the courage to have some wine. Haven't looked back since.
9 days after Jacob's debut- my other baby turned TWO. No party (still to date) secondary to baby-chaos, but I have a huge box of the makings of an absolutely fabulous Ladybug Picnic. It'll happen...swear.


Then, on July 28th, my twin nephews were born. I don't even know how to describe the feelings of that day. When my baby sister, my best friend in the world, my "soul mate" .... gave me 13 pounds of nephew. They were healthy, happy babies - - and Jodi and Anthony are perfectly parenting! Go to Jodi's blog to watch them grow.....

http://jodiandanthony.blogspot.com/

So then, just like that, July was over. My family expanded by three baby boys, a lot of us turned another year older, and I reignited my affair with wine. It was such a good month!

Nothing's sweeter than summertime....

When I realized how many pictures I needed to add to this blog, I decided to break this up into 2 parts. Part I......

Summer - - My absolute favorite time of year.

This has been a great June! I don't recommend being 8 months pregnant in June when you live in Texas but, alas, I have somehow managed to do that for a second time. ?
The pregnancy (and bedrest) has hindered what all I can do with Landon Gage this summer, but he has been an awesome kid and appreciated his annual camps even more this year.
He started the summer with a Fishing Camp. It sounded random and just something to fill his days when we signed up, but it ended up being great and we'll definitely do it again! He learned to bait his own hook, get a fish off the hook....and just sparked a love for fishing that we are so happy for him to have! Then it was a week of VBS at Fellowship. I can't say enough about this awesome church. It is WAY too big and "new" and totally not my style. But it has grown on me and, most importantly, Landon would rather go to that church than just about anywhere else!

And finally, the "Water Kamp". Bentwater hosts him for one week of absolute FUN and I get to pick up a completely WORN OUT kid at 4:00 everyday! I love water kamp.

The next bunch of pictures is really just for me to remember a really fun night. I've been pretty good about bedrest but I'm not really a big rule-follower. So the other night, when Kevin suggested we take the kids out for a "last outing before baby", I jumped on it. We didn't want to go all the way to The Woodlands, and so opted for Conroe's version of Chuck E Cheese --- Incredible Pizza. It ended up being just as costly of an outing - with Conroe's finest as it's employees and patrons - but it was a great night.

These pictures all turned out too dark - but they made a "special exception" and let Jenna ride with Kevin in a go-kart race. She LOVED it.

There are very few pictures of Landon - as ALL he wanted to do was race. We just let him do it all night - while we were in toddler-land -- and he finally won FIRST PLACE. He was so thrilled!

Jenna Kate was very typical. She acted bored and was just really unimpressed with the rides that other 23 month olds would surely love.

I mean look at this enthusiasm......

We finally left the little-people area and she found this dance game...Loved It.

And the whack game ....which she thought was hilarious...

L took a quick break from the karts to ride bumper cars....

And the last batch of visual memories....ISR classes. I mentioned last post that we have Jenna Kate in Infant Swim and Rescue classes. They aren't traditional swim lessons, they are water survival lessons. Does she like it? No.

The only happy time - taking out her earplugs when it's OVER...

Summer is my season...granted, I do it better when I'm not pregnant... this has been a great one so far!