Silly boys

Big Bear- not so fun

When looking for kindling for the fire at night, it is not advisable to rely on the flashlight feature of your i-phone.

Big Bear Fun!

Tim and I are taking advantage of our new found freedom. We were invited to join my friend Beth and her husband, Joe, up in Big Bear. Because we now have local living grandparents that are kind enough to watch the boys, we were able to say yes! We had a great time. We enjoyed the spectacular views and having uninterrupted adult conversation. We imagined buying a place up here one day. The pictures are from when we took a chairlift to the top of a summit and hiked down. We got a little lost but enjoyed ourselves.

Knew it was coming

Guess what- I am sick. To be predicted because I would never give up kisses and love from my boys even if they are sick.

I've got a sore throat, can't swallow, chills, fever, ear ache, grouchy, and even talking hurts. Now I feel guilty that I should have been nicer to the boys since I know how they must have felt first hand.

I just want to go home and rest, but I have deadlines. Grrr.

Update: Just got a call from the pre-school. AJ has a fever. I am so happy we have the grandparents as backup now. We just have to get them some booster seats so they can transport the kiddos!
Update 2: Took AJ to the Dr and we both were positive for strep! My mom says this is the best sickness to have because it clears up real fast once you start the antibiotics. I do feel better today after one pill, not 100%, but better. Hopefully we didn't infect anyone else. So far Tim is ok.

Bad day

I should have known today would not go well. It is never easy to work from home with a sick kid and I had two kiddos that were banned from pre-school today. The boys were so crabby today. All Adam did was whine. He must have had 5 time outs in the morning. PJ was a little better but had just melted down at dinner time. Apparently he did not have enough Trader Joes White Cheddar shells in his bowl and flipped out. So AJ scooped his shells into PJs bowl while crying that PJ is taking it all even though AJ is doing the scooping. Then AJ melted down that he had an empty bowl, etc.... PJ is in a timeout right now as I write.
If the children's disposition wasn't enough, I started to have work problems. A project that I am on is having this impossible secure website that I have to get my e-mails off of. The attachments don't work most of the time and I can't seem to get the secure website to work properly. So I spent over 4 hours dealing with computer problems which to add insult to injury turns out has to be non-billable because the my billing rate is burning through the budget. I am suppose to have an associate help me out, but we have no associates available and tight deadlines. So I just had to carve back 0ver 15 hours worth of billables in the last pay period alone. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Just had to vent. AJ is in a time out now. I need a strong drink.

Timing is Everything

So Tim's parents have left WI and are en route to San Diego for a 6 month tour of duty. We are very excited to have the extra help. Now we will have help for when we are on business trips, have sick kid days, and even will be able to have date nights! Tim's parents even offered sleepovers for the boys. Tim and I have never had a night in our house alone without the boys. As Brian says, our lives are not going to be the same and it is going to be really hard to go back to our old lives.

As luck would have it AJ came down with a fever yesterday and got kicked out of pre-school. Now I am doing my exhausting working from home while dealing with a sick boy dance. At least he is sleeping. Oh wait he just woke up. I am thankful that we just recorded a new Scooby Doo episode.

This morning was trying. PJ was very upset that he had to go to school without his brother. (mainly because his brother gets to watch Scooby Doo.) PJ has a very bad temper when he starts feeling out of control. He told (screamed at) us he was not going to school and was going to run away. He informed us that he was not going to get dressed either. Then to top it off he melted down because we didn't have the same brand of cereal bars and therefore they didn't match. Oh, the grandparents are in for some fun!

Sundays in the Fall

AJ is pretty excited about this season.

Also included are digital pictures taken by Adam.

PJ Surgery

PJ had his lasering surgery today. He was very brave and only got scared when the anesthesiologist came in and when they took him away to go on the "spaceship". He picked strawberry this time for his mask flavor and they didn't need to give him an IV. Yeah! His recovery was quick and he charmed juice, 5 Popsicles, toys, books, and even ice-cream (chocolate) out of the nurses. They sure think he is such a cutie. We had to stay a little later because he had to finish his Popsicles and was disappointed to learn that he couldn't take the leftover ice-cream to his brother.
He made me take him out of his gown right away!
It gets a little "coldy" after 5 Popsicles.

Miramar Air Show

We finally made it to the Miramar air show this year. We waited this long because we thought the boys could actually enjoy it this year. I think we waited so long is because we did not want to have to deal with the pain of strollers, bottles, or diaper changes. I am glad those days are behind us.

We met my coworker, Beth, and her husband, Joe, who is a lieutenant officer works at Miramar as a fly guy (he is the "Goose" guy in Top gun) . So we got all the inside scoop on the planes and equipment. Pretty cool. The boys loved matching the planes in the program to the ones they saw up close. They even had the Budweiser horses to look at. Fun times.

Beth, TPJ, PJ, AJ and Joe.
Big Tire!

Adam and Baby Ethan Quesnell

Warning to My Boys Future Significant Others

Dear Future Significant Other of My Son,



Congrats on finding such a great catch! You've found a funny, loving, smart, creative (just not so much with drawing/painting arts), and generally happy guy. However, he has terrible bathroom etiquette. I have tried to teach him to pay attention and aim in the water, lift the seat up, put the seat down, flush the toilet, etc. He just will not listen and continues to urinate on the bowl, the seat, the lid, the floor, and sometimes the walls. I am forced to clean the stinky bathrooms almost every other day. Please do not blame his mother if you have to do the same.

Love,

His loving mother

What Not to Wear

As you can probably see in most of my picture posts that the boys are always wearing the same colored shirts (we really do have others to choose from). Each morning I pick out their clothes, but they typically insist that they wear either a red shirt (P) or a yellow shirt (A). Fortunately, we only have about 3 days worth of this until we are out of these colored shirts to wear. (then it goes to the blue dino shirt (P) , and blue Cars shirt (A), and then to green frog/dino shirts, etc...)

Since I did laundry this weekend, we had all the shirts available to choose from. But to celebrate the weekend events, I picked out the Brewer shirt for AJ to wear (P already found a red shirt he wanted). AJ threw a fit when I tried to dress him and went into his drawer and took out a yellow shirt. I asked him why he wants to wear yellow shirts all the time and that his daddy would really love to see him in a Brewers shirt. He told me that he loves the yellow shirts and it is his favorite color. After that, PJ told me he had a secret and whispered that he will wear the Brewers shirt tomorrow for his Daddy.

Mommy has a 3 year old sense of humor

Went to Bev and More today and had to buy this bottle.

Housing mess and financial crisis

Now that I am on the topic of politics, I thought I would comment on the housing mess and financial crisis. I was listening to NPR this morning about the release of the administration's $700 billion bailout plan. Fine, we have a mess and this is what the experts tell us it is the only way out. I am not happy about paying for it, but what can we do. What got me fired up is the politicians criticism of the plan. If I have to keep hearing again that we need to provide funds for those who are loosing their homes I am going to scream. Since when is having a home a right? I think having a home is a privilege and I am very happy to finally be able to live in one after years and years of apartment living. I am angry that I had to pay (borrow) way too much for it because of people inflating the housing market through their choice in loans that led to them overextending themselves. Now I have a house that is worth much less than I paid for it in early 2005 and I get to pay more taxes to bail out the folks who inflated my housing price. Hooray. I wonder what is the point of striving to behave financially responsible? I guess we are fools.

Healthcare

I went with my mom to a AAFP (American Academy of Family Physicians) foundation dinner last week, which was lovely. The main speaker was Mr. Huckabee (who was previously a presidential candidate). Even though I am not really into politics, I enjoyed his speech and funny enough, it got me thinking about politics. He spoke about his experience with his family physician has transformed and as he said "saved" his life. He was able to loose weight and manage his diabetes through diet and exercise with the help of his doctor. What really got me thinking is when he brought up the topic of childhood obesity. It makes me sad that children (who we feed) are having to battle the bulge and that American children (and adults) are getting fatter and fatter. Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember reading about this problem years ago. I just want to know how we fix it. Actually, I don't want to know how we can fix it, but what steps are occurring now to rectify the situation and what are the outcomes. Maybe that is why I can't get into politics. I hate the rhetoric about identifying the problems and proposal of solutions. What I want to see is what work is actually being done, how have we evaluated the results, may it be good or bad, and see what our next educated move is to solve the problem.

Baby name suggestions

So I asked the boys what names are they going to suggest for their new cousins. Here is their list:
poo poo, pee pee, diaper, bottom, gina, penis, bad belly, diarrhea, privacy, and poop nut.

Nice work.

Twins Are In

We just found out that Tim's sister is having twins! I know she just wanted to be like her older brother. Copycat!
Honestly, I can not believe the news. Although I joked with her that her baby was really babies, I am shocked that it could really be true. Check out the odds... My boys are the first and were the only blood related grandchildren to Laurie and Carl Jette. Now their next grandchildren (No 3 and 4) are going to be twins as well. Insult to the statistical injury, is that Josh (Jenny's husband and the in utero twins father) has 6 year old, identical twin girls from a previous relationship. So this means that Carl and Laurie will have 3 sets of twin-only grandchildren. Amazing.
The funny thing is that identical twins are not suppose to run in families (just occurs in 1 in 250 to 300 of all births). And if P and A are identical, like I think that they are, then their twinning (egg splitting) was due chance. Even if they were not identical, it the amount of eggs that are dropped is strictly a maternal side and inherited event (a Kostick and not Jette event). Jenny's ultrasound today showed 2 placentas at 12 weeks so that means that she might have fraternal twins (it still could be identical if the placenta split). So if she has fraternal babies, then it might run in the Jette side. If they are identical then, the last 3 births to the Jette family have been identical twins (assuming I am correct that P and A are identical). Amazing.

Legoland

My mom and I went to Legoland with the boys and had a blast. The boys enjoyed all the rides, especially AJ. PJ got a little nervous on the big pirate ship and just closed his eyes and needed to be held tight until it was over. He did the same thing during the dragon roller coaster ride (their first roller coaster ride). After the ride I asked if he liked it and he said no and that he did not want to ride that again. AJ on the other hand loved it. A fun afternoon!

Lock drama

Ok- so we have the modified lock on the boys bedroom door. Apparently, it is too good of a lock because I got locked in. Debbie actually got locked in the other night and called us from her cell phone to get out. I should have known it is that tough!
I went up to try to get the boys to nap (Oh and yes I fell for the line that they told me that they would go to sleep in the same room). Well, my hands were all lotiony/balmy/oily from making some face balm and such products and I couldn't open the door. Tim was asleep downstairs and couldn't hear me to get out. Nice. Luckily, my hands de-greased a bit and I escaped. Hopefully, the boys will go to bed early since we didn't get a nap.

Bad bad boys

The modified lock has been replaced. The boys again would not stay in their room, but their latest shenanigan pushed us over the edge. After clearly explaining to them rules for nighttime and even instilling a bonus reward system for proper behavior, we still had escapees. We finally thought they were behaving as things got very quiet upstairs. Then I hear little voices, "Mommy, I got to show you something". So I went upstairs and first noticed that their room smelt very good. I initially thought that this was because of their bath before bed. I was wrong. I looked at the window and it was covered with something and there were attempts of finger painting in it. The boys had smuggled out an almost full bottle of oatmeal baby wash into their room and emptied it on the window, their hair, their body, sheets, pillows, beds animals, blankets, wall, curtains, and floor, EVERYWHERE! It was so bad that I had to throw them into the shower to wash it off. Tim immediately made a new lock for their door.