TTT: Season 3, Episodes 25 AND 26

I know, I know.
I missed last week. Believe me...I heard about it from more than one source! And it still makes me blush just a little bit to know that there are people out there who knowingly go to check on our blog every Thursday without the blaring link on Facebook. You are all to kind to care for our family like you do!

Anyhow, two weeks have passed since I last wrote. Two action packed, totally chaotic, but immensely fun weeks! I did remember to write last Thursday; I just didn't do it. Because the next day I had eight orders to finish up, "closing ceremonies" for Vacation Bible School to attend, tons and tons a food to cook for arriving guest, oh, and a house to get ready, too. So I opted for sleep instead of writing. And the boys had been at VBS all week anyway, so really, I didn't have too much to talk about other everything I had accomplished with just Grant and me. And I could hear Mark singing Toby Keith's "I Wanna Talk About Me...." over and over in my head. So I just let Thursday pass on to Friday and swept the ol' blog under the rug.

But I'm back! And I've got a ton of pictures to unload on you. I think the photos will serve well to tell the stories of the past two weeks. Really, I know there are way too many, but editing anything out would just be impossible. So here we go!

Father's Day! Mark was on-call that morning but we greeted him with presents when he got back home. One of which was a Texas flag for his developing man-garage. See our mengy looking children? We remedied that later that day.

Gotta start a Father's Day race with a good three point stance. I think Rudy jumped the gun.

After eating Mexican food for lunch, we stopped by the barber shop next door and got hair cuts for the big boys. And no, we didn't leave Rudy's in a chili bowl. Had to get a picture of it though! We later had dinner at my parents and celebrated with Pa. Apparently I didn't take any pictures. :(

First day of Vacation Bible School! I was a little worried as this was the first time for the boys to do anything without Mama or another family member...ever. I know. Probably time to cut the cord a bit! The part that worried me was that our church's program ran from 8-3 every day. That's a looooong time for little guys! Especially Rudy with no nap. They were both put in the 4 year old class so Rudy could be with Kolbe and their teacher was a good friend of my mom's that I feel really comfortable with...we see her at mass weekly and she was a perfect fit for the boys. They loved it!

But Rudy looked like this every day once we got home! He still definitely needs his nap!

On Friday night, Uncle Brian, Aunt Cristi, G-ma, and Papa Jeep all arrived for our Birthday Extravaganza! Saturday morning we all woke up and went to the Rob  Fleming Aquatic Center...one of The Woodlands pools that has a full out adult size water slide, a lazy river, and a good kiddie section too. We had a blast!!!

The birthday boys getting a little swimming in!

On Saturday night, my mom came over and watched the boys so that all the adult Asmussens could go out for a nice dinner at Brio, home of my favorite meal...the gogonzola steak. Mark's dad, aka Papa Jeep, was turning sixty on Sunday and I was turning thirty on Monday so we got to do a little pre-celebrating sans kiddos. Here are the original Asmussens!

And then with the "outlaws" included!

Kolbe did a great job of decorating cupcakes for our Sunday birthday parties!

Love, love, love this picture! Papa Jeep and Baby Grant turned sixty and one (respectively) on Sunday!

I'm going to post a whole series of pictures depicting Grant's take down of his birthday cake. It's just too good to miss! 'Cause even though this shot is good, it doesn't fully do it justice. At one, Kolbe was afraid of his cake, Rudy kind of poked and prodded but didn't do much. But Grant more than made up for their passive behavior. He was a monster! And though the cake ended up looking like mass destruction, Mark and I were guessing that he actually ate roughly 4-5 real bites. It was hysterical! He loves to make a mess!

Papa Jeep, Brian, and Cristi had to leave Sunday night, but G-ma is with us until this weekend. We headed over to my parents' house on Monday to celebrate my birthday a little more and enjoyed pizza, German chocolate cake, and margaritas. Nothing like turning thirty with both sippy cups and maragaritas on the table and a baby on your hip! I'm one blessed lady.

The pretty stacker rings that the boys gave me for my birthday...Love them! And love that Mark set up his own etsy account to order them for me! Mark also got me a Dyson. And I've run the vacuum at least 4 times in the past few days. I also got a neat chest for the top of the stairs that I'm working on decorating. It was a great birthday!

We have loved having G-ma here this week! She is so helpful and the boys just have a blast with her. And Grant has definitely fallen in love with his G-ma!

We've had so much fun that yesterday, even Kolbe, Mr. I-Don't-Take-Naps-Anymore, dozed off for a little snooze with his G-ma.

So as you can see, we've been up to so, so much and have been loving every minute of it. There are so many more pictures floating around out there that I haven't lifted off of everyone else's cameras so maybe later this week I'll make up for my missed post with a second photo post to include all the other good ones. I have to tell you all, we are such a blessed little family. Life is so good!

TTT: Season 3, Episode 24

1. It's been a pretty long day here at the Asmussen Ranch. It's safe to say that we've come down with our first (and hopefully only!) summer cold. Coughs, runny noses, watery eyes...just a whole bunch of the plain-ol'-don't-feel-goods. Kolbe and Rudy try to soldier on as if nothing is wrong, but Rudy has nearly no voice left and Kolbe voluntarily got in his bed during quiet time...he said to read books...and ended up taking a full nap. When Kolbe naps, you know he doesn't feel right! But Grant has definitely been the worse. Poor fella. His little nose is like a faucet. And he rubs his eyes constantly because they're watery. And on top of that, he's got two little red spots on his bottom gums. Possibly time for a few more teeth. Hopefully this all blows over pretty quickly, because we've got a lot going on in the next two weeks! Vacation Bible School next week, then the birthday weekend extravaganza (Mark's mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law are all coming to town to celebrate Grant's first, my thirtieth, and Mark's dad's sixtieth!), and then a week with G-ma. Can't be sick for any of that!

2. So last week I went on a rant about Mark working long hours and just feeling totally spent with taking care of the kiddos. Luckily, we had a fantastic weekend and Mark was able to take the boys several times and give me a break. So I got to start the week with my batteries recharged. And reading back through my rant, I realized that I probably sounded a bit cuckoo. Because the truth is, I've got it good compared to most people. And so does Mark. Mark finally has a job that he's enjoying, co-workers who treat him really well, and a lot of room to grow and learn with what he's doing. Not to mention the fact that the dreaded pager is a thing of the past and he's on-call way less frequently than before. And hello! I'm getting to live out my dream job in a great house with great children. My husband works hard for us so we can have all of the things we need and many of the things we just want. Life is good. So good. I've got a blessed life and have absolutely no room to complain. So I won't. That is, until the next time I feel totally overwhelmed. (but I'll try not to!)

3. Last week I also mentioned needing to take some sort of action with my little shop. I don't even know why I call it a little shop any more. Being honest, it's not little. Not little when it comes to just one person running it. It went from "steady business" meaning six to ten orders a week to "steady business" meaning six to ten orders a day. And though I try, I feel like I've reached the point where it's just too hard for me to keep up with it without sacrificing time or the quality of the time I have with the boys. I've never wanted my shop to become one of those shops where it takes multiple weeks for orders to ship. I've been running on a seven day production time for months now and that's the longest I want to go. But it's reached the point where I'm intentionally not renewing listings because I know I can't take any more orders for the day. And I always wake up the next morning to several "convos" (as they're called on etsy) saying "I'm trying to order two changing pad covers from you and it says they're unavailable. Are you still making them?" Responding with "Yes, but I purposely didn't re-list because I knew I wouldn't be able to get your order done within the next seven days" seems crazy. So anyway, I'm sure you get the jest of what I'm getting at. I've reached the point where I either decide to keep struggling along, find a way to cut the business off/ slow it down, or find someone to help me with it. And I've decided to go with the last option. I'm shutting the shop down for a week while Mark's family is in town, but when I open back up I'm planning to have a new helper in place. I've got to work on creating a job responsibility list and finding someone to fill the spot. I'm hoping to find a high school-age girl who can come by a few times a week for a few hours at a time to help with cutting fabric, folding, tagging, and packaging orders, printing shipping, and keeping up with the inventory. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully I'll be looking back and saying it's the best move I ever made for my not-so-little shop.

I'm sure you've all heard the saying that when you have kids and it suddenly gets quiet, something bad is probably going on. Kolbe has finally reached the point where that's not always the case. He often disappears now and can be found coloring or writing all on his own. He's turning in to a real boy. Bittersweet.

We had a whopper of a storm the other day. I was on my way to my parent's house and as I left the sky was dark so I checked the weather ap on my phone and it said we only had a 30% chance of rain. But by the time we got to my parent's it was full-on chaos. I was supposed to be in that turning lane above. Not so much. So many trees fell in The Woodlands. They were everywhere!

Last Friday I was working on some laundry and asked Kolbe if he'd fold and stack all the wash rags while I got Grant down for his nap. Twenty minutes later I went down to my bathroom and found this. How awesome is my kid!?! He said the stack kept falling over so he just laid it sideways. Ha! Usually I just fold them in half once and then in half again...he opted for the three fold process, making them look like tiny spa towels, and I simply couldn't bring myself to change them. They went in to the drawer just like that. He was so proud. And so was I.

My precious little baby and me! (I'm going to keep calling him that as long as possible, because it's definitely fading away way too quickly)

Peekaboo, Grant!

Two brothers sliding at the mall playground (that's probably where we picked up the cold!)

The Woodlands has thirteen different pools and we're on a mission to hit them all by the end of the season. This one was a lot of fun! This entire play structure area is only a foot and a half deep so it's super easy to let the boys go wild without having to worry too much about them.

Kolbe during his voluntary nap...they're all about the swimming and now all about the goggles! I walked in and found him just like this.

Trying out their new goggles in the bath tub!

TTT: Season 3, Episode 23

1.       It’s been hot here for a while…ok, let’s face it, it never did get cold…but the real summer heat has officially set in. Like the walk-to-the-mail-box-and-come-back-soaking-wet kind of heat. I only wish I was exaggerating on that one. It’s really, really miserable. Luckily, this year we got pool passes for the thirteen different pools in The Woodlands. We skipped out last summer since I had just had a C-section and also had a non-pool friendly newborn. But this year, it was a must. And so far we’ve been three times in a little over one week. The boys love it. And I do too! It gives us something to do…something that burns energy. Sure, it’s kind of difficult with Grant. He’ll sit in his baby raft for about twenty minutes, let me lug him around the pool for another fifteen or so, and then he’s ready to be cut loose. So for at least the second half of our trip, I’m posted on the edge of the shallow end where I can quickly grab either of the bigger boys in the water and I can also monitor Grant crawling around by the spray ground. But hey, it keeps us cool, keeps us active, and keeps us happy! We attempted to go to the park on Tuesday. Bad idea. Never again. At least not until late September-ish.  The second bad decision on that one was taking the wagon. By the time we got home, I was drench from A) walking in the blazing, humid heat and B) pulling a good sixty plus pounds behind me. I was literally shaking after we walked in the door and stood in front of the fridge, doors open, for several minutes. If you’re looking for us this summer, it will either be at a pool or indoors. Sorry, nature. See you this fall.

2.       It’s been a long week. And do you know what makes a week long at our house? Mark’s work schedule. Man, it’s been ridiculous lately. Part of it was that he was on call this past weekend, which I must add is still way better than his old job, but it did mean that he had to go round on patients Saturday and Sunday mornings. And when they service something like six or seven hospitals and there are lots of patients at each, rounds take a long time. And then beyond that, he hasn’t been home by dinner a single night in the past week (other than Saturday and Sunday). I know that doesn’t mean much to some people, but eating together is important to us. It’s kind of like our family time. And heck, he hasn’t even made it home before the kids went to bed on a few of those nights. So I sound like I’m complaining. And I guess I am. I realize all weeks aren’t like this, and right now it’s just really busy. But man, oh man, are weeks like this hard on the both of us! He’s exhausted physically and mentally by the time he gets home, and I’m just completely spent on the whole childcare gig by the end of the night. I love taking care of my babies, but I’ll be the first to say that I have no desire to be a single mom of three babes, four and under!

3.       It’s nearly half way through the year so I thought I’d check in on my 2012 Bucket List.

(1)(2)- Drinking more water and trying new foods are still a work in progress. We still have not gone to get Thai food. But we’re planning to go to a Brazilian steak house for my birthday. A place that serves only meat? I’m in.

(3)- I’ll admit it…I’ve kind of fallen off on my daily devotionals. And I did well the first quarter of the year! I need to move them out to the family room so I don’t have the Mark-is-already-asleep-so-I-can’t-turn-on-the-light-excuse.

(5)(6)- I’ve definitely made at least one thing for our home each month, and I think I have the curtains covered too! Granted, I didn’t make the family room ones and have since decided that I don’t want any in the boys’ room (the new paint stands out plenty on its own); I’ve got the kitchen and game room down.

(8)- The house cleaning schedule…I posted about that a while back and have still been trying to maintain it. The only part I really don’t like is that, while everything is getting periodically cleaned, it’s never all clean at once. There’s something about having that totally clean feeling that’s nice. So may have tweak this one.

(9)- No trip with just Mark and me yet, but I did go to see him in San Antonio for one night!...with Grant…

(10)(11)(12)- Kolbe reading, Rudy letters/numbers, manageable discipline plan…I’d say we’re getting there on all of these! Kolbe is starting to sound out words and understand how the letters represent certain sounds. Rudy is golden on the letters and numbers. And it’s really something we haven’t had to work much on. He just “gets it.” No numbers past ten, but he can nail the letters every time…unless he’s being a turkey. And with our money jars, the boys’ behavior has really been pretty good lately. I can’t complain!

(13)(14)(20) are all suffering- Rosary? Not nearly enough. Volunteering with kids? Nope. Spa day? Uh, no. Maybe after summer when my feet are totally abused from wearing sandals non-stop.

(17) Donate items at least 6 times during there year- I’m excelling at this one. I’ve already been six times and it’s only June. It feels so great to get rid of “stuff” and have a more polished home while helping someone else in need.

(18) No little family trip yet, but we’re headed to Austin in October for my cousin’s wedding. Thinking we’ll make this it!

(4) The budget, (19) writing letters, (7) blogging, (15) actively listening, (16) less cell phone- are all somewhere in the going-well-trying-hard-doing-my-best-working-on-it-daily category. Hopefully by year’s end I’ll have legitimate results on these that I can be proud of.

(21) And last but not least, my shop. Oh, the shop. It’s almost humorous to read “meet my yearly business goal for my shop.” It’s only June and I’m on track to meet it by early August. Guess I should have aimed higher! We’ll talk more about that next week…I think I’m to the point that I need to take action.

A little light on the pictures this week! Didn't figured you'd want to see a shot of me standing in front of the fridge with the doors open or trying to break in to Mark's car because the boys locked the keys in there. :/

Waiting for adult swim to be over so they can jump back in!

Grant has been a champ at using a straw since around 8 months. Now he's even mastered the more tricky Camelbak straw!

The ill-fated trip to the park. Kolb got to ride with Grant on the way they're and then Rudy got to ride with him on the way home. Lucky me, I got the pull there and back.

Un-edited pic of Rudy upon returning home from the park. And he was the one riding in the wagon! Not pedaling the bike! It was ridiculous, I tell you. Call me a bahumbug who never leaves the house; I don't care. WAY too hot!

South Padre Island, May 2012

The last time we went to the beach, Kolbe was eighteen months old and Reagan was just three months old. Three years later, we finally went back, this time with a four year old, a three year old, and a ten month-er. And we definitely had a blast! Both of the older boys are at the age where everything about the beach is interesting and exciting. And though Grant was bound and determined to eat the seaweed, he really did well too. My parents and my brother Dave were there with us and we loved getting to spend time with them as well. The only thing that would have made the trip better would have been if Mark, Mike, Casey, Jackson, Kennedy, Andy, Abby, John, Will, and Pat had been there as well. One of these days we'll figure out a way to all reunite for a good ol' Hefferly Family beach trip. Until then, we're going to keep going back every chance we get!

Welcome to South Padre Island! (yes, the seaweed was pretty heavy, but the tractor came out every day to clean it up)

Going on a walk with Pa

Pa and Rudy would scoop up wet sand and put it in their sand bucket...then, the tiny little clams that just appeared to be shells would burrow back down in to the sand.

Mr. Grant enjoying the pool!

The condo we stayed at had a great playground. The boys loved it!

My handsome, brown-eyed Rudy

Swinging with my big baby

Swinging Superman style...with his Superman shirt on!

And here's Batman, too.

Beach baby, beach baby there in the sand...

Pa dug Kolbe a beach chair in the sand

Feeling the waves with Pinkie

Rudy was the only one brave enough to let us bury him in the sand!

Working on a sand castle with Uncle Dave

One of my favorite pics! These two boys love their Uncle Dave. They spent each night at the beach watch Looney Tunes with him on his computer.

Scaling the poolside lounge chairs

Kolbe took over Grant's baby float...and got in to some shenanigans with Pinkie!

Look closely or you'll miss it...there's little Grant in front of Kolbe standing all by himself. He's quite good at it...just don't ask him to take any steps or it's immediately back to crawling!

Here's to a happy summer! Until next time, Padre!