Preschool, Daddy the Firefighter and a Wedding

Well, it was a fairly busy month here in the Northweather household. First big story on the list is Ethan started preschool (ok, it was summer Parents Day Out, but it got him prepped for real preschool in August!) I was pretty scared for his reaction, but he was a champ. He was mad that I moved his playdough cap and that was the big drama of the first day!

Here he is eating his breakfast before school. His attention is on Go Diego, Go.

Standing in front of church/school. He was wearing his backpack; he thought he was pretty awesome.
And here he is at his assigned chair. There is the infamous playdough that I misplaced the cap on and about threw him into a tizzy. Looking at this, I just can't believe how he has grown.

This is just a random pic thrown in from a Sam's Club visit with my friend, Betsy and her kids. Those shopping carts are big enough to fit three small children, and with the meat display in the back, it's a priceless pic.

Another big thing that happened was Johnathan going to Firefighter school in Texas for Bayer. He is an official Fire Brigade dude, which means he's the guy that has to go back INTO the explosion instead of running out like a cougar (as I would do.) Makes me very nervous, but he wanted to do it!

Ethan pimpin' John's fire outfit. The helmet, very heavy. I think it was bending his neck.

Ok, this looks like a pic out of horror movie. Really, it's just John in his gear and that reflective crap took over the pic!

Ethan and his "girlfriend" Kennedy at her 4th birthday party. He likes the tall gals. They are soaked because a huge rainstorm came through and it was an outdoor party. Perfect recipe for kids to act a fool and play in the rain.

And finally, Melissa and Rusty's wedding. Great time, too much wine, and Lacy actin' a fool. Hard to believe. The wedding was at the Villas of Kansas City, which was a beautiful place to have a wedding!

The B's and I before the wedding. Did I add it was 300 degrees outside and our makeup was melting off our faces?

Longhorn and Ex-Longhorn girls posing pretty. Again, hair falling and makeup melting off. At least by this time, we all had drinks.

Bree and I. Love cleavage shots.

I mean, really, how cute are these two? It's pretty scary when someone makes John look small, but McNally indeed does.

John and I. He absolutely loves taking pictures (and by love, I mean loathe.) His eyes ALWAYS close when he smiles in a picture. It's a phenomenon I can't quite figure out.

The freshly married couple. I LOVE wedding pics paired with bubbles.

The face I make when it's probably time to take the glass of wine out of my hand. But, it was a really fun night and one of the few occasions you'll see me step out in a dress. Gotta love weddings and booze!

OG Playgroup and Parks!

Well, it's nice to actually have something to blog about, with pictures, no less! I've been trying to shed my "stay in the house all day like a vampire" and get out and enjoy the nice weather. Ethan has been very happy with this switch. We did venture to Penguin Park a couple of weeks ago. While Ethan had a blast running all over the place, I got stuck talking to a woman who wanted to tell me her WHOLE life story. Do I have "Psychologist" written on my forehead that I'm not aware of? Anyhoo, here's some pics from that "adventure.

Ethan posing with the elephants. He was a little bit hesitant to climb up there, but he held the dudes ears for dear life!

Little onry Ethan. He just looks like he's about to do something bad. Fortunately, he didn't. Perhaps it was because he knew I was watching.


I love this picture because it is one of the few natural pics my son gives nowadays. Usually, you tell him to smile and he yells cheese, looks darn silly, and is typically looking away. Great way to get a good shot. Of course, I had to catch the good pic of him "behind bars' because genius mom told him, "act like your in jail!"

The wobble bridge. Very reluctant at first, but as long as I kept my fat butt off of it and shook him like an earthquake, he liked it!

And the germabus. How many kids have had their dirty paws on that steering wheel, coughed on it, or sneezed on it? I'm surprised I didn't have my antibacterial wipes carrying them around, but I will say, I sprayed him practically from head to toe with antibacterial spray when we got in the car!

Yesterday, we got to meet with the whole playgroup (Minus Emily, Mallory and Chloes :-( at City Park in Liberty. The kids were beside themselves seeing everyone again! I'm surprised Ethan didn't run into a wall at the house when I told him we were gonna see his playgroup friends, because he was running around like a MANIAC! On with the pictures!

Here is the OG gang (plus Luke, who was a second born, but real close in age to his bro) From L to R: Lucy, Luke, Preston, Zac, Oliver, and Ethan.

And here are the first boys in the group. Man, how they have changed since all of them were crawling 2 years ago!

I love this pic because I told the boys to smile, but instead they looked at each other to see if the other one was smiling. Silly preschoolers!


The picnic luncheon L to R if you can follow my lead: Nanthida (mom) Zoe, Lucy, Luke, Zac, Melana (mom) Ethan, Oliver and Preston. Now, see if you can match names with faces!


Ethan, Oliver and Lucy on the wobble bridge. No adults to knock them off. Takes away from the fun.

This pic looks like it should be in a baby magazine. I also just saw a pic of Hallie Barry and her lil baby in this exact same pose on MSN (but this one is much cuter) Zoe and Nanthida.

Introducing the newest members of the clan, Milo. He is Oliver's brother and an absolute dead ringer of Oliver!

Me pushing Ethan and Lucy on the swingset. In the background on the right is a bratty little girl that was trying to gank swingsets from the little ones. I had to set her straight.

One more group pic. These kids have grown so much over the past 2 years (3 for Ethan, Zac and Mallory (not pictured) It is so true when people tell you even in the most hectic of moments with your kid in the grocery store "treasure these moments, because they will be grown and gone before you know it. They are right.

And, I'm very happy to report that Ethan got used to his new big boy bed and sleeps in there everynight. We do have the occasional wondering into our room, but he's pretty easy to walk back to his room and cover him up (mostly because I think he is sleep walking, and trait from his dad.) This is Ethan and Great-Grandma Maxine who bought the bed for Ethan. Thank you Grandma! If it would have been left up to me, he would have been sleeping in his toddler car bed until college!

Twin Beds and Anniversaries

So, it's been a very, very long time since my last post. Nothing too greatly exciting has been going down here lately, just the daily grind, as usual. One big step has happened, though. The big E is FINALLY sleeping in his own bed after 3 very long years of us having a "family bed." I must say, the first couple of months of Ethan's life, him sleeping in our bed was a godsend to me because I could just breastfeed and go back to sleep. Also, itty bitty babies don't move around so much. 2 year olds move a lot around. 3 year olds can knock your jaw out of place with flying limbs in their sleep! The final straw came when John went to sleep on the couch last week because Ethan was moving around so much. The next night, I took it into my hands and laid down the law (I also bribed with Dollar Tree plastic bugs!) And, surprisingly, it worked out pretty well! He, of course, got up a couple hundred times to run around the living room, because isn't that what all normal kids to before bed everynight? Then, he wore himself out, and I didn't hear noises from his room. He was ASLEEP! And, he was super happy receiving his "bugs."

So...we had one of those stellar toddler racecar beds that are super comfortable to sleep on the trunk if you are not taller than 3 feet. My grandma graciously offered to buy Ethan a twin size bed because she didn't like him "being so close to the ground; it's too cold." I just liked the idea because if we have to sleep with him (stormy nights!) we actually fit on the bed. We head to Nebraska and pick out a nice, basic twin size bed, and I dress it up with Lightning McQueen bedspread and sheets. When our precious child walked in to his room to see his surprise, he looked around his room like he didn't even see it. Really? You can't see that your bed has grown? Anyway. Here he was looking like it was going to be a great night!

Don't let that innocent smile fool you. He FREAKED out about this new bed. I don't know how moving from a small cramped bed that has a plastic mattress to a taller, cushy matressed bed would make your world crumble, but his did. I ended up sleeping with him this first twin bed night, because John is on mornings this week. Tonight, we shall see how bedtime unfolds. And hopefully, the promise of some Dollar Tree plastic bugs will win over! Cross your fingers.

John and I also celebrated 6 years of wedded bliss on the Plaza at the Best Western (only the classiest joints will do for us.) We ate at the Melting Pot fondue restaurant. We have ate there 1 time before; we now both agree that we like the cheese fondue appetizer and the chocolate fondue dessert. The "dinner" portion of small chunks of meat that you boil? in the pot is just not too appetizing. Their is something about dipping filet minion in a boiling fondue pot of grease that doesn't appeal to the appetite. But the had some wonderful $400,000 dollar margaritas, so that makes up for everything.

Probably the only picture that turned out halfway decent, the server snapped it of us. She took pity on us when she saw us trying to take pics from the back of the booth, as featured below.

This was a self-portrait with the camera sitting on the back of our booth. (I'm pretty fond of the timer feature on our camera!) Luckily they sat us at the very back of the restaurant in the corner of the room. It was intimate; we weren't around anyone else!

And this one, probably my favorite picture of the night. As most of you know, my child does what I affectionately dub the "stroke face" when he is in distress or just in deep thought (or taking yearly family portraits, whatever.) So, I have now got a shot of his father doing the exact same face. And here I thought I was the one that passed this clever trait on to him!

So, there you have it. A couple of milestones in our little Northweather family. Perhaps I can try to post at least once a month now instead of quarterly!

The Big E Turned 3!

Wow, where does the time go, seriously? I just am still in a state of shock thinking that in 2 years, my child will be in grade school. Ok, enough of the sounding like all mothers do when they get sentimental, on with the party! This year, we only had family because our house can house like, 2.5 people, comfortably, and his I was in denial that his birthday was fast approaching! John and I were hussling like mad people trying to get the house finished up before the party, but we pulled it off. Unfortunately, for about 85% of the party, our birthday boy was a GROUCH! He stayed at Grandma Northweather's the night prior, so he took a nap on the long ride home from Belton (he is like his father; the minute his butt hits a car seat, he's asleep!) So he didn't want to eat and the whole family was starving, so we were all wolfing food down and I'm sure a couple of people had heartburn that night!

Then, we get to the presents. Some, he was indeed happy about. But others, he got angry about. Seriously, a 3 year old gets angry that he's getting toys? How did I get so blessed? At one point, he opened a toy up, announced to me, angrily, "I told you I already had a mack truck" and chucked it across the room." Wow, there's a moment I'm so glad got on film! And then, I got him Handy Manny tools, and he screamed "I hate Handy Manny and his tools" and was mad again. By this time, I've chalked it up to not enough nap and I that my child is way spoiled.

Fortunately, there is a light at the end of this birthday tunnel. His mood turned around with cake time, because mom made him a bang up chocolate chip cake (they don't make the choc. chip cake mix anymore, so genius me made it with a bag of chips, and they all sunk to the bottom. But, the cake tasted good.) And he had his little 16 month old cousin, Mason, there to play with him, so he was happy by the time everyone left. Just the luck. So, on with the pics!

This was one of the toys he was very pleased with. I didn't get snapshots of the toys that flew across the room!

Ethan and cousin Mason. It was so cute to watch Mason imitate his big cousin Ethan and think all of the toys were great. At least someone appreciated the presents!

My first attempt at making Ethan's birthday cake. The last 2 years, I've went the Wal-Mart route, but Ethan loves chocolate chip muffins, so I wanted to make it extra special, and I even found Ethan candles at Party America. Bonus! Oh, the theme was Cars, if you couldn't tell.

And the Ethan candles threw him off a little bit, because normally all he has is the one candle that says 1, 2, 3, etc. on it. So, with a little help from Dad, we got those darn candles blew out!

It's tradition every year since his first birthday that he takes a photo with everyone that came to the party, but quite frankly, I'm just too lazy to post all of those pics. But, I'm just vain enough to post our family pic :-)

And there you have it. Our little family, and finally a happy birthday boy. I love you, E man, and could you do me a favor and stop growing so fast?

Stuck with me for an ETERNITY (band)

Well, haven't had too much to write about in the past couple of weeks. But, I thought I would write a blog about my new wedding ring. By now, everyone in Clay County knows about it, but I don't care. I have a story behind it. Next week, I'll write about Ethan's 3rd Birthday party, so just listen to my ring story!

When John proposed to me 6 years ago, he had a gorgeous carat 1/4 engagement ring for me, and it was a beauty. We went to Jones Store (it was not Macy's yet) and got an 88 dollar band with some itty bitty diamonds to go along with my engagement ring. I was happy. We couldn't afford anymore because not only were we planning a wedding and paying for most of it ourselves, and we were in the process of buying a house. Yeah, smart, young couple, huh?

Anyhoo, I had always LOVED eternity bands, but they were not popular at the time and no stores carried them when we went to look (we couldn't have afforded one anyway, so I guess it didn't matter.) The idea of never having to turn my ring around to see the diamonds was just a concept that seemed awesome to me (ok, it takes very little to make me happy, I admit!)

Fast forward, I rarely wear my engagement ring for fear of harming Ethan or anyone else for that matter. Or worse, loosing my diamond out of it when I'm at work or doing housework!!! That would be devastating! I still wear it on special occasions and think it is just beautiful, but it's too showy for everyday life for me. I have a garage sale about 2 years ago, and at the end of the day, my 88 dollar band that John had put on my finger the day of our wedding was gone. I was devastated. Not for the fact of the expense of it, because I am a sentimental person. This was the ring that held our vows to each other for life, and now I will never be able to pass it down to future children/grandchildren. Well, I got past my mourning stage, we went to Wal-Mart, "upgraded" to a ring that looked almost exactly like my original, and went about our life.

Fast forwarder, the Wal-mart ring was fine, and we always said we would upgrade when we got older. Well, I don't want to wait until I'm older, and so I mentioned to John that I really wanted an eternity band for our 6 year anniversary coming up in April. All of you who know my hubby knows his reaction "go pick one out and get it!" He's pretty easy to convince. We went out and were blown away by prices, but not knocked down. So we went to Kay jewelers where John got his wedding ring, and they of course, didn't have eternity bands. But they had special order catalogs. The lady opened up and I turned to the page where I found my beautiful eternity band that is gracing my wedding finger as we speak. We had to special order it, and I about died while I waited for it to come in, then the fateful call came. We rushed out to Metro North mall (if that's what you can call it) and I was like an ADD kid about ready to jump across the counter waiting for her to take it out of the bag! She took it out, and I'm pretty sure Journey started playing in the background! I was in love. Now, those of you who have seen the band have said "oh, it's pretty" and I know what you're really thinking is "this is what she's been waiting for? I was expecting a fat ring." I am a very simple gal when it comes to jewelry, and this ring has diamonds all around, and they are flush with the band. It's a perfect ring for me. I love it. Below are two pics I took, but it really doesn't do the ring justice. In fact, it just looks like gold band almost in the pics.

Here it is, hans solo, which is how you will see it 98.7 percent of the time. Yes, those are diamonds, and they go all the way around. And they are beautiful!

And here it is with my overpowering engagement ring. Yes ladies, I know this is how you would prefer to wear it. Again, simple gal!

So there you have it. The not-so-cliff notes of how I got my eternity band I have always wanted. After six years and birthing your clone, thank you, Bub for letting me wear it before our actual anniversary in April. I will love you for an eternity (you all can either say awww or puke at this point.)

***UPDATE*** I was going through my tank top drawer about a month ago, and guess what I found...my ORIGINAL wedding ring! I now wear it on my right hand.

He's the one they call Dr. No Pull!

So, I went to get my wisdom teeth pulled Tuesday, fully expecting to be stuffed with gauze and pumped up with Vicoden (yes!) I arranged for my dad to watch Ethan, and my mom drove me because I would be groggy. I filled out insurance paperwork at the office, I was READY!

They take my ex-ray, I hop in the dental chair, get my "bib" on and the oral surgeon walks in and I ask him if he thinks all of my wisdom teeth need pulled or just the cavitied one. He looked for a moment at my large ex-ray staring at us on the flat screen tv in the room, and said he was concerned that if he pulled the bottom two, since I was older and not a teenager, that he could hit a nerve since my teeth were fully grown in, and it could paralyze my lips for who knows how much time, or maybe not at all (and we all know if I can't talk, we have some very serious issues!!) Wow, ok. Well, I'm feeling a little less confident at this point. So then I ask if we could just pull the cavitied wisdom tooth that I came in for originally anyway. He asked me which tooth it was! I'm not the dentist, dude, and you have my ex-ray staring you in the face! You can't find a cavity??? Anyhoo, he gets his little dental mouth mirror out and looks around my mouth and says, "well, I guess it could be the top right one that has a little decay on it, but nothing serious." Are you kidding me? Is this guy talking me out of making insurance money or what?

So he asks me if I want to get them pulled because they are hurting. They aren't, my regular dentist has just been on my butt for the last 4 years to do so. He said all dentists are like this, and that I don't have to do anything I don't want to. I just sat there; what am I supposed to say? So he says, "if they start hurting, you know where I am and we can pull them easily. You're a bright and intelligent girl, and I think you know the right thing to do." He then proceeds to pat me on the shoulder and walk out of the room!

The nurse looks at me and says, "what are you thinking?" I said, "I truly don't know. I expected to sit in this chair, get teeth yanked, and go home drugged out. I'm so confused, but I think I don't want to do this anymore!" She pulls my little "bib" off of me and walks me to the waiting room where my mom goes, "did you have 1 pulled? no. Did you have all of them pulled? no. Did you have any pulled?" I then proceeded to tell my mom let's just get the heck out of here and I would explain on the ride home. We then went to Sonic where I pigged out since I hadn't ate or drank anything that afternoon, and pondered what had just happened.

So, I still have my wisdom teeth. According to the doc (who's name has been kept private to protect the innocent) said I might live with them forever without any problems. So that is what I'm going to do! All hail wisdom teeth!

And since there are no pics for this blog, I'll just add one of me and Bub on our awesome trip to Cozumel, pre-Ethan, wisdom teeth and all!

Teeth and Toddlers!

We hit the ground running Wednesday from the dentist to playgroups! Ethan's second dentist appointment was yesterday, even though it was his very first teeth cleaning (the first visit they just get them used to sitting in the chair and count their teeth. Good idea so they aren't terrified of the dental chair like many adults!) He was a champ and wasn't scared a bit. They polished his pearly whites all up with "strawberry" and the dentist checked the chip on his front tooth that he got at a year old (backstory: he sleeps with us, he woke up, sleep crawled to the end of the bed, fell off before John and I even realized what was going on, smiled at me the next morning, and that's when I realized he looked like Floyd off of Dumb and Dumber. Ok, the last part is exaggerated of course, but it freaked me out that he had just got his cute little teeth and now will have to live with this chip until it falls out!) Whew, let me breathe now. Ok, couple of dental pics:

This is the dental hygienist, Debbie, who was MY hygienist when I was 6 years old until I was 18!
And this is Debbie's husband and dentist, Dr. Jerry, who also was my dentist, of course, from 6 to 18 checkin' out the E man's chompers. The bright light made this picture a little hard to see, but you still get the idea.

After the dentist we went to playgroup, where we threw one of our own, Emily, a Happy Job party (we look for any excuse to throw parties and eat!) She is going to be working at Liberty Hospital and she is the first of us to join the full-time work force. I have a pretty good feeling I'm next in line since I only have one kid and he goes to kindergarden in 2 years! Anyway, it was great and we were actually able to get a couple of decent shots of the whole group with my camera that has a timer (LOVE IT!)


We were actually able to shove all the kids to the other side of the room to get just a mommies pic and toast Emily (she's the one in the red sweater in the back.)

And then, of course, here is the whole group as it stands now. You know how hard it is to get all those kids to look at the camera at the same time? It's impossible! One of the girls, Megan, is ready hatch her second, and everyone else, excluding me, has 2 kiddos. I want to give you an idea how much this group has grown. Below is a picture of us when we first all got together 2 years ago and each had 1 child:

And below is us today, all with 2 kids, or incubating the second one, except me of course:

Pretty big change in just 2 short years, huh? But, that's how we roll! We'll miss you during the playgroups, Em, but we will definitely have evening playgroups, even if it's just for the mommies :-) Good luck on your new job!

And Megan would probably kill me if she saw that I posted this, but I think her little tummy is so cute! She is literally due next week. Then their will be 11 kids up from the original 6. Wow. It's still amazing to me how fast our little playgroup has almost doubled!

Excuse me while I kiss the skylight!

We had a busy week here at the Northweather household! Wednesday we had a small playgroup at Zona Rosa and the kids got to run some energy off (always a good thing.) Emily and our crew went to catch some lunch at Jason's Deli afterward (great pastrami sandwiches!!)

Ethan, Preston and Mallory in a leaf. Yep, just a leaf!

And what play area would be complete without a large bear and a honeypot?

Ethan and Mallory looking precious at lunch. (seriously, what were they plotting?)

And partaking in their favorite part of the meal: FREE ICE CREAM!

Friday and Saturday, of course, I always put in my 8 hours (total, that is) of hard work at Longhorn and catch up on the weekly gossip with the LH posse. In addition to this, I also did a paint job that had a bathroom with a skylight that reached to Heaven with my mom (we both are not fans of heights) so that was great fun climbing ladders we both despise! There was a little fun to be had in light of all the "work" I was putting in, though. I took Ethan to a Parents as Teachers event where the kids got to do creative things? I guess is what you would call it. I caught a couple of quick pics, but it's hard to keep track of your munchkin when there are a million other ones running around like banchees!

Aahh, yes, the wonderous fun of shaving cream smeared on a table. Not sure what this teaches kids, but Ethan loves to make messes, so it was up his alley!

We made "snow angels" which I thought was a super cute idea and I'm going to hang it in his room so he can see how big he was when he was (almost) 3. I had him draw a face on it, and believe it or not, this kid can draw a face. Now, it might look a little scary, but he does the eyeballs, nose and mouth! Love my little boy genius!

Here he is super involved in stamping. He actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought he would, so Momma will be making a trip to Michaels to get her boy some stamps now!

And that about wraps it up. I will end with saying that, as I write this blog, my boys are asleep in the front room and I got a nice candid shot that neither are the wiser to. I love sleeping daddy/son shots: