Quick Catch Up!

Blogging has not been a priority with all the craziness with trying to sell our house.  Cleaning lately is taking priority.  I'm also working really hard on spending less time on the computer and phone during the day and more time with the kids.  Even a small amount of quality time is worth it!

However, I'm anxious that this year will be a blur and I want to remember the little things so here is a quick catch up.

Emily (5 months!)
*on formula for sensitive tummy - trying new diet (no allergens) and hoping to nurse her agan
*much much happier
*giggles when tickled
*loves toys - color red, things to chew on, and doll
*loves books and starts turning pages
*reaching for food
*rolls over both way
*gets up on all fours and tries to scoot
*cries when mommy walks away
*wakes up once at night (around 2 or 3) to eat
*still sleeps in carseat
*loves her brothers
*sneezes and coughs scare her

Sam (23 months!)
*talks so well
*has the sweetest voice
*says "I'm okay"
*insists on doing everythng (putting on clothes, buckling seatbelt) by himself
*opens fridge on own constantly
*kisses Emily all the time
*loves to play with animals, tractors, and balls
*sings songs (Abc, old mcdonald, wheels on the bus)
*throws hands up in air when say "hold on!"
*loves to read books
*can count to 20
*loves going to the zoo
*Emerson is his best friend

Max (4 1/2!)
*As lively as ever
*plays wiffle ball and going to start t-ball
*loves Sunday school
*enjoys riding bikes at school
*interested in Star Wars
*starting to draw more respresentative pictures
*wants to write notes
*loves to play with cash register, trains, and cars
*new obsession is worms and ants
*trying new foods like meat!
*talks about feelings and how mommy hurts his feelings when I'm "mean" to him
*enjoys playing with kids his age
*adores Emily and is a really big helper with her
*Max and Sammy get in endless mischief together!

525,600 minutes, 525,000 minutes so dear....how do you measure, measure a year?

 A lot of dear moments have happened since  last blogged.  A friend had open heart surgery, our brother had quadruple bypass surgery, a best friend had a baby boy, a dear cousin celebrated the birth of her daughter, a strawberry party, and Easter!  The past few weeks sure had its minutes so dear. 

Today has been full of minutes too...some dear...some not...but I'm going to share my day with you.  If you want to relate, empathize, or tell me about how your day had even more intense minutes, please do!

All these moments happened after I was awake with Emily about 6 times last night.

*Unknown time:  Woke up to Paul shaking me..."wake up, I have to go fix a work problem"  I thought, "no, I need to fix a sleep problem!"  but I instead mumbled..."ok, go to work".  The children woke up bright eyed and chipper.
*7:00 - turned on Curious George in my room and put the boys on my bed.  Popped in Emily's paci in and her in crib.  Attempted to shower.
*7:15 Stepped out of shower to hear Sammy say, "Hair cream!" and realized that over half of my vaseline jar was now in his hair.
*7:17  Jumped back in shower...this time with Sam and washed his hair three times.  Emily is screaming.  Sam's hair is delightfully shiny and still full of vaseline.  Gave up and spiked it.  Managed to get myself dressed.
7:30 Brought down one naked Sammy, one mad Emily, and one hungry Max.
7:31 Found Max and Sam in the bathroom.  Max sat on the toliet with lid closed and Sam was on his potty chair.  Max requested breakfast in the bathroom.
7:35  Chased Sam around and finally pinned him down to get on a diaper.  Emily is still screaming.
7:36 Quickly poured the boys their cereal and nursed and changed Emily.  There was 5 minutes of total silence while all three children ate.  It was heavenly!
7:45 Time to put clothes on all three children.  I don't remember this part of the morning but all three of my kids have clothes on so I must have succeeded.
8:15 (yes, it takes 1/2 hour to clothe all three children)  Shoo kids into playroom and throw away dirty diapers, wipes, and put pj's in laundry
8:30 Sit down to play trains - get Max involved in trains, Sam's reading a book, and Emily content on floor.  I estimate it may last 5 minutes.  So I ponder, what to do with my sacred 5 minutes?  My choices:  eat breakfast, make coffee, throw a load of clothes into washer, blow dry hair, put on makeup, or just sit.  I decide to eat breakfast.
8:35 Eating oatmeal and sipping freshly brewed coffee when I hear the first protest.  Put Emily in bumbo chair.  Gulp down rest of oatmeal and chug coffee.  As I finish, boys are fightng over who gets the green bucket (there is also a yellow and blue one...untouched).
8:40 Resolve conflict - continue playing trains.
8:45 Smell a diaper change is needed and find the culprit - Emily.  Go change diaper and apply diaper cream.
8:50  Find Sam in the kitchen climing on a chair to help himself to a snack in the cupboard.  He grabbed a bag of croutons and poured the entire contents on the picnic table.  Max comes and starts eating croutons with Sam.  I am okay with this as Emily starts fussing again.
8:55 Clean up croutons.
9:00  We have a playdate at 9:30 so I start the process.  I check all diapers again...clean.  Time to go upstairs and get socks.  Pull out coats and shoes and give the boys instructions to put them on.
9:05 I pull Sam down from sink.  He climbed up to wash off his pacifier because it had crouton crumbs on it.
9:15 Still putting on coats, socks, and shoes.
9:20 Time to put Emily in carseat but Sam is already in hers and refuses to get out.  Emily starts screaming so decide to feed her quick.
9:25  Sam took off his shoes and coat and put on Max's shoes instead.  Max is throwing a fit about that.
9:30 Get right shoes on boys and start the process of loading them in the car.
9:40 We pull out of driveway.  Max asks for a snack in the car.  I tell him we are driving for 2 minutes.
9:42 Arrive at playdate...realize I forgot the present we brought for a birthday.  Drive back to house and back to playdate.
9:50 Unload children and have a wonderful, much much much needed playdate with a dear friend and her children!
12:00 Return home.
12:05 Emily is crying and Max and Sam and racing to the fridge for food.  I shoo them in the living room and throw together a quick lunch while poor Emily cries.
12:10 Max, Sam, and Emily are quiet again...for 5 minutes...eating
12:30  Rock Emily to sleep
12:40 Put Sam down for a nap and Max goes to his room for quiet time.
12:45  Make my own lunch and sit down to blog.  An hour later my blog is finished.  In that hour, I put Emily back to sleep 3 times and found Max in my room sneaking the touch pad (tsk, tsk!).  However, I successfully ate my lunch.
1:45 Drink some coffee and clean!

There are a lot more minutes to this year!  And I am blessed for each and every one!

Episode 2: The Middle Child Syndrome

Sam has decided he's taking matters into his own hands.  He has been very good about accepting the fact that he has to share his mama with two other children.  Really, he's just decided to do everything on his own, which is great!  Today while cleaning up (I was preoccupied), Sam decided to help himself to some lunch...chocolate ice cream and an apple.

While I wasn't watching, Sam retrieved a bucket of ice cream from the fridge, pulled over a chair to the counter, got a measuring cup and spatula and ate his icream and apple!  "Mmmm....tasty!"  he kept saying :)  Later that night, he had a dirty diaper and got out his changing mat, diaper, and wipes and laid down. "Mom!  Change my diaper!"  he yelled to me in the other room as he laid down!  Ha!  Poor lad!

Over it was a great day!  We had a fun playdate with a new friend who has three boys about the same age as my kids.  Max and Dane (the 4's) had a great time together and Max was thrilled about his new friend. 

Here's some pics from our unexpected snow days:

Emily spent a lot of time in the Bumbo.

 Max loves to make Emily smile.

 We got out Easter Eggs and filled them with treasure (puff balls).

 It was a bit frustrating for Sam but he sure was delighted when he could fit two halves together!

 We always have to put the bowl on our head!

 We then used kitchen tongs to "clean up" and pick up all the puff balls and eggs and put them in the bowls.

If anybody wants to come and fold and match all those socks in the background, feel free! :)

Season 2 Episode 1: Ironic

Baby Emily is currently in her carseat wide awake where I laid her after she fell asleep in my arms.  Remembering that she had tooted a bunch during story time, I carefully carried her over to the changing table to change her diaper after she had fallen asleep.  Of course she woke up.  Now she's looking at me with her big wide eyes and huge grins begging me to pick her up and play.  As much fun as that sounds, it's time to go to sleep Baby Emily!!!!

Today was a day when nothing constructive nor productive was accomplished.  It was not a glamerous day as a SAHM.  I decided to keep Max home from preschool since a freak snow storm came upon us and I was warned by many not to leave my house if not a dire emergency.  Today ended up being just one big, giant mess with several meltdowns.  I finally reached my threshold of patience after the following happened:

*Sam dumped out the entire container of cookie cutters in the playroom.
*I discovered a full gallon of paint in Max's shopping cart he was zooming around (no disaster there - thank GOD!)
*Sam got into our Crayola paints and brought them into the living room (disaster averted again...praises!)
*Sam dumped out my coffee on the carpet - ugh -- big mess
*Sam snuck upstairs and flushed our toliet multiple times
*Emily decided to stay awake for most of the day and not nap
*Max wanted to do a project...multiple times...and continued pulling out ribbon, tape, cotton balls and scattering them around the house
*Sam ate a red marker
*Max pushed and provoked Sam the entire day
*The boys refused to share
*Emily cried some more
*Sam took out everything I put away
*Max took out a small bag of Quaker bites, opened it in the living room, then proceeded to stomp on it.
*Sam spilled his cereal over the kitchen floor and continued to stomp in it
*Sam screamed the entire time I nursed because two of the railroad tracks would not fit together.  Max passively refused to help. 
*Max (accidentally) moved a chair on my toe (OUCH!)
*Sam sprayed our kitchen with water
*I stepped in the water with socks on my feet (absolute pet peeve)
*I currently have a very awake baby (that is absolutely adorable) but 100 things on my to do list!

So, during this time today, to keep sane, I wrote a new song...a spin off of Alanis Morisette's "Ironic"

A mom of two turned twenty-nine
She looked at her husband and got pregnant the next day
It's a pacifier in your orange juice
It's a babysitter cancelling two minutes too late
And isn't it ironic...don't you think

It's like baby spit-up on your favorite sweater
It's free formula when you've already paid
It's the good advice (from moms) that you just didn't take
Who would have thought...it figures

Mrs. Clean It All was afriad to hire help
She cleaned her whole house and kissed her kids goodnight
She waited her whole long life to hire the carpet cleaners
And as the cup of coffee fell on the carept she thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
And isn't it ironic...don't you think

It's like baby spit-up on your favorite sweater
It's free formula when you've already paid
It's the good advice (from moms) that you just didn't take
Who would have thought...it figures

A traffic jam on your way to preschool
An out-of-order sign on your kid's bathroom break
It's like ten thousnad toothpicks hitting the floor at a time
It's find the coffee shop of your dreams
And then seeing the "closed" sign
And isn't it ironic....don't you think
A little too ironic....and, yeah, I really do think...

It's like baby spit-up on your favorite sweater
It's free formula when you've already paid
It's the good advice (from moms) that you just didn't take
Who would have thought...it figures

Ellen - this is just for you!!!!!!!  Brings back great memories :D  You can add your own verses!!
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Season Finale: The Snow Storm: Part 2

We woke up Friday morning to Paul saying, "Kristie, get up, I have to go to work."  Boo!  We were really hoping for a snow day with daddy home all day but we reluctantly got up and let him to go work.  It was okay, though, because we still had lots of fun up our sleeves!!

 

First we had to paint a snow storm.  Black paper and white paint created our snowflakes, snowmen, and snowballs.  We declared today a stay in your jammie day.  Sam didn't get the memo.  Max LOVED wearing his Perry jammies all day.  He kept say, "Uh, mom, look, I'm still in my jammies!" like he was going to get in trouble.  Then he'd just giggle.

 Of course we had to bring our snow inside!  I filled up pans with snow and brought out their animal bucket to make animal tracks. 

 Oooops - out of order - we were still painting here!

 Ahhh, yes, back to the snow.  We put on our gloves and went to town playing in the snow.  Nothing like gloved hands and bare feet!

 Max of course dismissed the animals and ran to the playroom to grab his cars.  He made tracks in the snow with his cars and played that his cars got stuck in the snow. Emily loved watching the boys play.

 More cars and a giant centipede!

 The centipede made great tracks in the snow.

 We received a disappointing 6 inches (or so they say).  It looked like a lot less!

 Then the dump trucks and diggers came out to haul up the snow.  We all had wet feet and socks for the whole day.

 I cleand out my pantry that afternoon and found 5 or 6 boxes of open cereal that was stale. Ooops!  I almost threw it away but then decided it was time for the boys to cook.  They played with pots, bowls, measuring cups, and the cereal for HOURS!

 Yes, it made a giant mess.  It was a great feeling having wet feet and stepping in crumbled Shredded Wheat!  (sarcastic tone)

 Whoa....we have a dishes problem.

 There were a lot of dishes to wash by the end of Friday.

Sam helped sweep up the cereal.

 However, that of course dispersed the cereal even more so we just left the mess, put on our snow stuff and dove in the white fluffy stuff!

 Somehow (I don't remember how) I washed all the dishes before Paul got home!!  Emily must have napped :)

So that wraps up season 1 of The Kolsrud Life as a sitcom.  It was full of laughs, messes, noise, and absolute delight.  Please join us for season 2 as a major life change may be approaching...!!

Season Finale: The Snow Storm: Part 1

It's here!! The day we anticipated for about a week ever since we heard Ed tell us to prepare for a possible 20 inch snow storm. The house just becomes a buzz as we buy groceries, stock up on diapers, and watch the weather every 15 minutes for updates. Since the snow wasn't planned to start until the afternoon Max did have preschool.  (I have no idea why the text is blue and underlined but I can't fix it and I'm too tired to care!  See, these winter storms throws everything off!  Okay, I think its actually showing up orange on my blog...who knows!

Max was so excited for the storm that he woke up extra early that morning and fell asleep on the way home from preschool.

 

Emily slept too!

 I surprised Max and Sam with an indoor lunch picnic.  They got to eat lunch and watch Daniel Tiger's neighborhood.  They were in paradise!

 Max had to keep busy waiting for the snow and decided to make some play doh pizzas.

 No snow yet!

 There's nothing like cozing up on a warm blanket and reading on cold and blustery days.  Emily was contemplating the theological controverises surrounding Jonah.

 And its started!  Flurries!  Daddy came home early and we were so excited until we realized he still had to work from home!  Boo :(  However, we were glad he was home safe and sound!

 Max made sure my Keurig coffee holders were full and stock...absolute necessity for blizzards.

 And then the REAL snow storm began!!  We built trains and threw cotton balls all over.  The trains slipped all over the tracks so we had to get out our construction vehicles to clear the tracks.  What fun adn what a delightful snowy mess!

 Sam's job was to load up the dump truck and dump out the snow under the couch.

 After an hour we got tired of trains so we got out the blue tape and made tunnels out of boxes.  We drove our cars on the slippery roads and cleared the snow with our snow plows.  Max had a major pileup of cars in the tunnel because they couldn't see!

Sir Toppin Hat (how do you spell his name?) says, "The snow is causing confusion and delay!"

Pile up in the tunnel!  Yes, that is Spiderman duct tape which makes our tunnel extra awesome.  Thanks Uncle Matt!

 More snowy fun!

Episode 17: There's a storm brewing!

What. A. Day.   We don't need the TV, Internet, or radio to tell us that there's a winter storm coming.  Ed Wilson may be out of a job soon as my three are pretty reliable weather barometers.  Overall it was a good day...just busy, busy, busy!  Were were going to go with friends to the Botanical Center but unfortunately our friends have the stomach flu.  I decided to keep the kids in this morning since they were pretty content with playing with their toys.  We spent the morning doing our calendar time, playing trains, mechanic shop, and animals.  Max enjoyed being the mechanic shop owner and asked everybody what tools they would like to buy.  I purchased a screwdriver, hammer, and wrench for $2!  He would ring me up on his cash register and the give me and all my children stickers for being so good.  Trisha later picked stickers off the back of my sweatshirt during our afternoon playdate.  The stickers required no explanation...Trisha just accepted it.

Emily loved staring down the animals until Sam told her the alligator would eat her.  Then the tears came.



 Max joyfully played mechanic shop.  His rates are truly unbelievable!

 Sam lined up his animals according to "hurt" or "no hurt" (meaning meat eaters verses plant eaters)

 

 Emily sat in her Bumbo watching the animals from a safe distance until Sam and Max attacked her.  The boys love their sister and she doesn't even cry when these squeezes occur.  Sometimes I forget that Sam is only one.  I told him he was in charge of Emily this morning and asked him to watch her on the couch while I ran upstairs to grab a clean onsie.  I came downstairs to find Sam playing with his ball...hmmm...lack of judgment on my part!

 We had to get ready for the snowstorm by drawing snowmen.  When Lincoln and Hudson came to our house on Monday they colored AMAZING Polluck worthy masterpieces.  I decided I needed to majorly step up art education at our house.  Max drew a great snowman!

 Then he wanted to write the word snowman.  I helped him sound it out and he spelled it correctly!  (That is a W in the middle)  We did receive his cousin's valentines today.  They are a year younger than Max but boy, they sure can write!  Max and Sam have some major work cut out for them!  We've been slacking!

 I caught Emily sucking on her two fingers after her nap :)  She took two naps in her pack and play!  She's doing much better today.

 As many of you know, Emily struggles with nursing and usually only eats a bit.  Well this morning she was having a relaxed and good nursing session.  Sam had grabbed Emily's pacifier and stuck it in his mouth and then quickly asked if he could wash it.  I think it was just a ploy to get to play in water.  Since Em was nursing so well, I didn't stop him from pushing a chair over to the sink.  Then I turned around and witnessed this.  Sam's explanation, "want sprayer!"

 And the answer is yes.  I sacrificed a dry kitchen to take the time to grab the camera and shoot the picture.  Yes, Sam did push the sprayer and spray all over the kitchen.

 We then went upstairs for nap time.  Sam is doing GREAT with potty training and will often take of his pants and diaper to go potty in the toliet.  He loves it.  Well, I was changing his diaper before nap and exclaimed that he was dry!  He then gave me this sly smile and sure enough...spouting stream of potty shot up.  I said, "STOP THAT POTTY!" and rushed him to the toliet next door.  He happily stood on the stool and went potty in toliet.  "Yay!  Good job, Sammy!" said Sammy.

After rest time, we loaded up in the van and went and played at Lincoln and Hudson's house.  What an awesome way to end the day!!

 

This photo must have been taken while I was at the grocery store tonight :)  This is what it takes to get beauty rest around here!