Giggling isn't always a good thing.

Wow didn't expect to start my Monday off this way.  Where do I even start this blog and when I saw this small mess get bigger and BIGGER I had no idea where to start that either.

Lyddia got dropped off this morning and usually she runs upstairs to greet us all still in our pjs, but Kensington and Remington thought they would greet her downstairs instead.  Nothing too out of the ordinary.  They were giggling and playing well downstairs so I didn't call them back up immediately to get ready for the day.  As I brushed my teeth and made our bed, it was time for me to get the kids dressed.  I called them back upstairs, (thank God they didn't listen and what a blessing I should have acknowledged at the time) but they didn't come.  So I marched downstairs and had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Today was the day the girls could have learned some swear words, but I think they knew how naughty they were so they blocked me out.  Not a proud moment for me, I did not keep my cool.  My first view was Remington with a bottle of sunscreen popped open, all over her hands, feet and mouth!!!!  I have seen it all over her mouth before because she likes to dig into Haylee and Lyddia's bag and grab their sunscreen out.  She loves opening things with her teeth, of course I attempt to stop this behavior, but this morning I was upstairs.  Then I see the toddlers with some on their hands but mounds on their feet and a little on the floor.  Okay, not a big deal.  I was calm still at this point.

See Remi with the sunscreen bottle?  And just look at Lyddia's face, she's SMIRKING!

Then she had the balls to say "look" and pointed out more of their "artwork."

I was LIVID!!!! Oh my goodness.  How on earth am I going to get this off.  The kids kept walking around so I needed to act fast.  I threw the toddlers on the table on their butts because their feet were covered.  Little miss Remington went into her high chair and I starred at this mess and thought I was done discovering sunscreen until I turned and looked towards the front door.

 They were just ice skating in sunscreen.  See that glare spot?  The sun is beaming off more sunscreen on the floor there.   The toddlers know better.

So I got a bucket of water and a whole roll of paper towels and started to clean it up.  Water and paper towels only got what was on the surface off and smeared it into each i-n-d-i-v-i-d-u-a-l groove of the wood floor.  I started to panic.  I texted my neighbor a picture because she's a clean person like me and I asked her for ideas to clean this mess up.  She mentioned a soft tooth brush and lots of elbow grease.  I called my grandma in tears too get over her ASAP.  Short minutes later they both walked in the front door and didn't know where to start.  At this point I had all three kids eating the most crappy breakfast they have EVER ate but they were still on their butts and mouths shut!

We added dawn dish soap to some water and started scrubbing every single individual piece of hardwood floor with a sonic care tooth brush.  At this point I didn't care they were ten dollar tooth brush heads or that I just put knew ones on.  (Learn from me, save your old sonic care tooth brush heads...at least for me).  Less than an hour we had the floor all clean and all the kids cleaned.  My grandma bathed them and couldn't believe all the sunscreen they had in between their toes.  My neighbor also couldn't believe how nicely it came up because when I texted her that picture she didn't have much hope.  I did acknowledge what a blessing that these two little helpers came and saved my Monday morning and my wood floors.  I needed them this morning and so did my kids :-)

Could have used back up chargers for them bad boys today.  Wow, do I need to clean my hardwood floors with a toothbrush from now on?  Those are dirty!  Someone warn Cole not to ask why his toothbrush is dead tonight!

As I am calm now writing this, I need to be thankful that;

1. No one was hurt.

2. Dakota stayed out of this mess.  Not a single mark of sunscreen on her. Wow, good dog.  She must have known that what they were doing was naughty.

3. No child walked on a rug or the carpet.  Don't know how we would have tackled that one.

4. Haylee wasn't here.  She would have told her parents some new words she learned form Aunt. Not at school, but from her Auntie. Also Haylee would have yelled for me to get downstairs the second Remington got into the sunscreen.  She's my second set of eyes and sometimes its annoying but I need to "reward" her more times when its a good thing.  

5.  My helpers.  My neighbor responded "thats what neighbors are for."  Cole would really love to live out in the country and have more land but as you do live farther and farther from your neighbors, you aren't as close with them.  This neighbor's husband saw the picture I sent her and said "go help her and I'll stay home with the daycare kids."  So sweet.   

Happy Monday!

I'm back!!!

If you don't follow me on instagram or Facebook, the Konrads have some exciting news to share.

Snap, Crackle, Pop....the baby makin didn't stop!

Baby Konrad due March 11th 2017.  This is why I stopped blogging for awhile.  The second I found out I have been miserable and very tired.  I usually blog when all the kids are napping and for the last seven weeks, I've been napping too. Which isn't uncommon but I've been napping every single day.

So here is a timeline of someone who should know the signs by now...

I was walking with a neighbor on June 26th and her dog poop bag stunk.  It was the first time since my last pregnancy that a dog poop bag bothered me.  She told me to go home and take a test.  So I did and it was negative (but I was really two weeks pregnant).  Maybe too soon to show up or its because I peed on the stick around 9pm.  

July 5th I was at the zoo with one of my friends and I was having a hard time pushing the stroller.  I told her that I did eat breakfast but I wasn't feeling good and that I was light headed.  I just wanted to tell her in case something happened and there she is with my four kids.

July 13th miss Remington Rae turned fourteen months.  We were already starting to wean her off a bottle so when I woke up this morning with a gust of energy, I decided to boil all her bottle parts and pack them up.  Does anyone else dread washing all the bottles at night?  Cole and I will do rock, paper, scissors a lot to decide because we dislike it that much.  It only takes less than five minutes but its the last thing we want to do.   

So I started to boil the first set of bottles, I was feeding Kensington breakfast, and vacuuming the hardwood floors.  I continued to clean them with our Bona spray and noticed I was short of breathe and huffing and puffing.  I had to stop and catch my breathe a couple of times and I was like...what is going on?  I ran upstairs, grabbed another pregnancy test out from under the sink and tested.  I didn't wait the three or whatever minutes it tells you to wait.  I saw the first line immediately and as the wetness slid to the left I said to myself "there's a faint line" and said out loud...."THERE'S A SECOND LINE!"  I looked in the mirror and smirked that I was pregnant.  Wow!

I heard Remington in her room waking up and I went in get her.  Hugged her longer than normal and told her mamas pregnant :-) I'm not as sad for her as I was with Kensington because with Kensington I got pregnant before she was one and I felt like I never let her be the baby.  Now with Remington, I'm sad that she will be the middle child.  I don't know any middle children that don't have middle child syndrome.  Yes, its a thing and it makes me sad so I will have to leave reminders throughout the house to give attention to Remington.

Now how on earth am I going to tell Cole.  At the time he was having a really rough month at work and stressed out a lot.  He puts a lot of pressure on himself so I was hoping for a great reaction, but anticipating a "what?  how? (um we weren't blocking and he knew that), I'm going to have to work even later now."  So as he was eating dinner and I was packing up all of the dried bottle parts right next to him and I told him "well we won't be needing these for nine months."  I know he heard me but it took his brain a second to register it.    His response couldn't have been better and he was happy also.  Now he can't wrap his head around three teenage girls (if the third is a girl) running around the house demanding things.

Fire Station

We just took a trip to see an old family friend at fire station #1 in St. Paul this week.  Its been at least three years since we last visited him because he has only meet Haylee.  It was a huge, new, and beautiful building.  He will be moving to another station so I think we will go visit him again because the girls loved it so much.  It was a lot of work with the four of them though.  Constantly moving and checking out how cool everything was.  First timers had me moving.

It was a busy day at their fire station when we were there.  At one point all the trucks were gone on calls and we were chilling in the kitchen enjoying snack time. 

This is them watching a fire truck pull back into the station.

Our friend Greg drives the ladder truck.  Its a beautiful new rig that he will take with him to the next fire station when he relocates.  

The girls really wanted to go down this from the second floor but I guess someone unexperienced just broke their leg doing it so Greg said they could just climb up it.

  My girls loving on a "pup-pup."

 I told the girls today that they may get red fireman hats.  They didn't have any but they didn't know what they were missing.  They were very happy and content with stickers, color crayons and a coloring sheet Greg gave them.  They all were coloring on the way home.

I'm not sure if just anyone can get a tour of a fire station.  We have always known someone who works at one but I'll look into that. Thank you Greg for the tour.

US Bank Stadium

This weekend the girls and I had the opportunity to go check out the new Vikings stadium for worker appreciation day.  My dad got us tickets.  My overall thought about the whole thing was:

1. WOW the stadium is unbelievable.  So big and will be so loud/fun.
2. I'm glad they get a trial run of a big event (Luke Bryan concert) before the first opening game.  There are a lot of kinks for them to workout and my kids weren't the most patient kids this weekend.

 We waited an hour and ten minutes to get into the stadium.  We all had to enter through a metal detector and they only had one section of doors open.  It was a slow process and my girls were melting in the heat.

 Kensington was not happy about taking a picture after she stood outside in the sun for an hour and ten minutes.

 Remington was so hot she wanted her shirt off and she let everyone know that.

 Me and my girl.

 Don't tell daddy but go Vikings!

They had this blow up thing for kids to run through with a football.

Kensington had a lot of fun and acted like she knew what she was doing, and then...

 theres Remington.  Riding the offensive player like a horse.  Silly girl.

 I told her this was Marcus Sherels locker.  She didin't believe me.  We are #teamsherels

Some tips if you attend a game:

1. Bring your sunglasses.  Its going to be bright in there during the games.

2. If you are bringing kids, leave your stroller at home.  There aren't many visable elevators.

3. Take the light rail for lack of parking ramps.

4. Arrive early to the first couple games because it will take a long time to get in.

14 months old

Little miss Remington is 14 months old today.  I don't believe it, I still tell people she just turned one. She is so sweet.  Ever since she can walk she walks up to you, turns around and backs her butt into your lap.  She loves to sit in peoples laps.  She also loves giving open mouth kisses to her little buddies  (her sister, Haylee and Lyddia), but not mom or dad.  Her face brightens up every time she sees her sister after naps or bedtime.  She loves books.  She greets daddy at the door when he arrives with a big shy smile but then wants him to pick her up.  

She can be a stinker too.  Every time we get her out of her crib, she has thrown out her pillow, blanket, her five nucks, her saranoni blanket, and her stuffed animals and smiling from ear to ear.  She loves to poop right after you change her morning diaper, but when I wait to change her, then she doesn't do it.  She loves to stand in the bath tub while eating the bubble wand.  She loves to throw a tantrum for not getting the object she wants.  She will whine at my feet in the morning for my automatic tooth brush and she doesn't get it until the two minutes are up, but she's consistent for two whole minutes.  She wants her sisters juice cup even though her cup has the same thing in it.  She wants a juice box like the big kids and will whine until she gets her way.  Forgot about hiding a popsicle or freezy pop from her.  She can't share, she needs her own. 

Rem Rem we love you.  Keep being you. 

This is a day in Remington's eyes. 

 I'm  probably naked because I ran away as my mom was changing me.  She came around the corner and this is what she found.  Just look at her me.  Legs crossed and relaxed on the couch.  Now I will whine because the drop is too far for me to get down, but I can get up.  Wink Wink

I'm buckled in the stroller at the zoo so mom doesn't have to chase me in the wrong direction.  

I'm hiding the goat brush before mom takes it away after saying for the thousand time, no eating it or gentle brushing the goats.

 Being 14 months is exhausting at the zoo.

OOO and after nap I like to dig into Haylees bag and find all her goodies.  Today I found her goggles and put them on my head myself and then after that my mom busted me in her cupboards looking innocent. 

I love to wear jewelry, backpacks, shoes and purses anytime I can.  Reminds my mom of a little girl she used to watch named Tatum.  What can I say, "I like to accessorize." 

See this bib?  Yeah, mom thought that little thing would keep my red popsicle from getting on my shirt.  Proved her wrong.  It went straight into a bucket of Oxiclean and my hands still have red dye on them today.  Might do this again for halloween.

What will 15 months be like?

Como Regional Park Pool

Saturday morning my mom and I took the girls to Como Regional Park Pool tot time from 9:30-11am. It was a total of $12 for us to go, totally worth it.  I packed snacks and drinks and threw them under the stroller.  Not sure if you can bring those in if you don't have kids but they do have concessions there.  

 We were the first ones to arrive.  Place is empty.  I recommend arriving right at 9:30 or even a little bit before to get a chair.

This picture was taken at 11am when all are welcome to the little kid slides.  Notice it is busy but no big kids.  The big kids have enough to play on for their age, so they stay away.  Which is nice so the little tots aren't getting knocked down.  

The slides are amazing there.   Can't stress that enough.  They have a total of four slides the little tots can go on.  I would go down slowly and have Remington follow me.  She loved going by herself.  Even Kensington got brave enough to go down by herself and realized she's tall enough to land at the bottom without going under.  

Blurry because it was a video but I wanted to show you the middle slide.  

 I love her so much.

 She enjoyed the squirting fountains up on the walkway.

 We were waiting in line for the lazy river and I thought these two were wrestling.  I looked down and Remington was giving her sister a hug.  Awe.  So sweet.

She loves the lazy river.  

Great day at Como Pool.  Go check it out.

July 11th

July 11th is a special day here at our house.  A year ago today marks the day Remington got baptized.  Remington was a struggle her first six weeks and I recall worrying she would scream during her whole ceremony.  She didn't, she was great and actually loved having the water poured on her head.  

Happy little 8 week old.

The baptism dress she is wearing is very special to our family.  My mom wore it, my sister and her two girls, I did and now my two girls.

 Look how sweet Kensington looks.

The pastor told us to light her candle on this day every year as a reminder and a celebration of the day she was baptized and became a member of the Family of God. 

Sweet little Remington.  Wow a lot has changed since June 11th 2015.