Vegas Vacation - Just what we needed!

We decided we should sneak in one last free flight for Mason before he turned two so we head to Vegas for 6 days over the Martin Luther King holiday.  The boys did awesome on the flights, they are quite the good little travelers. This time we stayed with Frankie's Grandparents who live in North Las Vegas, it was so much nicer than them having to drive back and forth to the hotel all the time.  It was an awesome little Vegas vacation and we went at just the right time as the it was full sun, blue skies and temps in the mid to upper 60's every day while we were out there and the temps back here in MN were so far below zero they were setting records.   The boys absolutely loved spending everyday with their Great Grandparents.   Our first day in Vegas we just hung out at the house... sitting out on the patio soaking in the sun and listening to stories from Grandma and Grandpa.  It is fun to hear about the past and all that they have experienced in life.  On 

 Friday morning we headed out early and took the boys to Circus Circus... Colton couldn't wait to get back there to win some prizes.  The boys won more stuff animals than they knew what to do with and we watched a couple circus acts including the flying trapeze which I have to admit kinda scared me.... there is no way you could pay me to fly through the air at those speeds and heights! 

 After Circus Circus we went to down to the other end of the strip to see some of the other casino's like New York New York and of we had to take Frankie to M&M World cause he didn't get to go with us last year!  I bought the boys some awesome matching M&M shirts - so cute!  Also I have to say that the Vegas is seriously beautiful once you get away from the strip - Mountains all the around - I couldn't resist taking pictures every time we got in the car!

Saturday Morning we went out to see Hoover Dam.  We first went up to the high bridge that connects Nevada to Arizona.  The bridge has a walkway along the one side so you are able to walk out to the middle the bridge and soak in a stunning view of the Dam and the river down below.  The bridge is extremely high and it takes all I have in me to walk out onto it.  Colton has no fear of heights apparently as he walked right out there with no problem!  Mason stayed back at the car with Grandma and Grandpa as neither of them like heights and I wasn't too sure about taking my 23 month old out onto that bridge.  After taking in the view from the bridge we went down to the damn to get a closer view and enjoy a little snack (we never left the house without a little cooler of water and a bag full of chips, cookies and granola bars)!

  Spent that afternoon just hanging out the house - again relaxing on the patio and soaking in the nice warm Vegas sun!  Seriously, the weather was more than amazing while we were out there!

Saturday we went down to Fremont Street and then headed over to The Rio to watch "The Show in the Sky".  This was a free nightly show in which Mardi Gras type floats hang from tracks along the ceiling and make their way around the casino and through beads to people hanging out in the balconies on the second floor.  The boys thought this was awesome and they collected more beads then they needed!  Mason was having the time of his life with the loud music and flashy lights... he was a dancing machine!  He was actually drawing a little crowd and one lady even asked if she could take a picture of him.... maybe we have a future Vegas performer on our hands!

Sunday we just hung out at the house most of the day!  Frankie, Grandpa and I were able to sneak away to the Casino for a couple hours while Mason napped and Colton and Grandma played endless card games!  Sunday after dinner Frankie and I took the boys for a walk to the park.  They were so happy to be able to run and play outside... only 4 more months until they can go to a park in Minnesota!  While we were at the park the ice cream man showed up... seriously, best day at the park ever if you ask the boys!

On Monday we decided to do a little mini golfing.  Now I when I think of mini golf I think of wind mills, laughing clown obstacles and colorful golf balls - well I was wrong.  We went to a beautiful Golf Course and played a round of 9 holes on the putting greens!  Now this was the first time I have ever set foot on a golf course and I have to admit it was kinda cool, maybe someday I will golf a chance (I said maybe)!!  The course was absolutely beautiful, I could have spent all day there just taking pictures!  

As you can see we stayed very busy on vacation and we also spent lots of time just hanging out and relaxing!  It was a great vacation and we can't wait to go back.  Of all the pictures I took I think this next one is my favorite, these are the memories and moments that made the trip absolutely amazing!  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for letting us stay with you guys and for taking us everywhere.  We love you guys and miss you lots already!  See you in August and Colton is already asking when we get to go back to Vegas so we will work on planning our next trip!

Happy 2nd Birthday Mason!

Two years ago we were introducing our little man to world and now here we are celebrating with a talking, walking, loving, trouble causing machine!  The last two years went by so quickly and there has never been a dull moment.  Mason has developed into quite the little toddler.  He is full of life, loves to eat, loves to read and play with his trains, he loves Mickey Mouse and his blankie, he is still obsessed with his nuk (although that is about to come to an end) and he is always trying to do anything and everything that his big brother is doing!  His vocabulary has really exploded over the last couple weeks and has become quite a little copycat - time to really watch what we say in front of him! He still loves to snuggle specially before bedtime which is something this mama is gonna take advantage of for as long as I can.  He is a mommy's boy and I love it!  He is such a great kid and we can't wait to continue to watch him grow and watch his personality . 

Mason we love you lots, thanks for making our little family complete. Happy 2nd Birthday Little Man!

Single Parenting is not easy!

So Frankie has been traveling for work lately, not something that has been normal for him in the past but looks like it might be more common in our future.  In a 31 day span (from Dec into Jan) he was in Seattle for 16 days.  It was hard.  It was hard to not have someone else available to assist in parenting issues, bedtime routines, preparing dinner, homework, morning drop offs at school and daycare (Frankie always drops off the boys) and just comforting and loving our boys!  The first trip was 10 days long and by the end of the trip I was wondering how anyone does the single parenting thing without losing their minds.  It is hard to be the sole person responsible for two little kids as well as hard to not have a companion to talk to once the boys are in bed.  I survived the first 10 days and was happy to have him back home in time for the Holidays and get back to our normal way of life.  Well shortly after Christmas we found out he was heading back to Seattle right after the New Year, ugg I wasn't ready for business trip number two that fast but we didn't have much of  a choice.  This time the trip was only 6 days so I figured it wouldn't be as bad but I was so very wrong.  He left on Wednesday.  Thursday morning Colton woke up in pretty rough shape, he had been fighting a nasty cough that just wouldn't go away for 5 days.   I made some early morning phones calls and decided to let Colton spend the day with my dad because I knew he couldn't go to school. That night I took Colton in the clinic - verdict, Strep throat!  So I made plans for him to spend the next day at home with my dad as well being as he was contagious and couldn't go to school.  Friday morning I woke Mason up only to find out he had a fever - you have got to be kidding me!  I took him to daycare (she was willing to take him even though he had a fever) and then on my way to work made some calls and my mom came to the rescue saying that she would go pick up Mason from daycare and take him back to hang out with Colton and PopPop.  I got to work and immediately called our doctor and made an afternoon appointment for Mason - verdict: Fever of 102 and doctor decided we were not even gonna waste time on a Strep test, just gonna treat him for it being as big brother has it.  Great, two kids on meds - fun times.  I went to my parents and enjoyed dinner with them and then took my sick boys home.  This was what my Saturday looked like: 

By Sunday the boys were on the mend... slowly but surely and I was just hoping that I was going to be lucky enough to not come down with it myself.  We picked Frankie up from the airport Monday night - happy to say we survived another week of single parenting!

Now throughout all of this I have learned a couple things:

1.  I am not cut out for single parenting and also not sure I could be a stay at home mom.  One full day of being stuck in the house with both kids and no adult interaction was enough for me for a while!

2.  I couldn't have survived those 16 days without the help of family... mostly the Grandparents!  My mother in law, mom and dad were so much more than helpful - they were there to simply make sure I was okay (sometimes just talking to someone else can be comforting).  They fed us meals, helped care for the boys and like I said just checked in on us daily to be sure we were surviving.  

3.  I am incredibly proud of Frankie and the career he has established for himself. If you had asked us 5 years ago where his career would take him I don't think either of us would have said traveling and doing training for a catering company.  He has put in many long days, weeks, months and missed many of family events but it has gotten him to the place he is today as a Corporate Area Chef.  And now after proving what he can do with his accounts/sites here in Minnesota they company has asked him to do the same with the sites in Seattle, WA.  I guess they realize what a valuable employee he is which is awesome, hard work pays off and I am very proud of him and completely support him as he takes on this new challenge in his career.  And I am sure that as we settle into a routine the weeks when he is gone will become less overwhelming and more of a normal way of life!

4.  My boys are so versatile.  They adjust quickly to Daddy being gone and Mommy being in charge.  To having to get up over an hour and half earlier than normal in the morning (we were out of the house by 6:20 every morning).  They did awesome with spending nights at Grandma and Grandpa's on Sunday nights so that my dad could bring Colton to school and my mom could watch Mason as Monday is usually Frankie's day off so we don't have daycare for him that day!  And as soon as Daddy is back home they jump right back into their old routine as if it had never changed.

Resolutions or just a few goals!!

So I have never been one to set a New Years Resolution, mostly because I knew that I would never stick to it.  This year is no different, I do not have a New Years Resolution for 2013 but I have decided to set my Top 10 Goals for 2013!   I am hoping that at the end of the year I can look back and say that I was able to accomplish at least a couple of the goals I set for myself!  So here my list.

Top 10 Goals for 2013
1.  Finally lose this last 18 pounds to be back at my wedding day weight - I have really stalled out over the past couple months but time to get back to it and shed these love handles what seem to think that we are the best of friends!
2.  Continue to take as many photography classes as I can so that I can fully understand my camera and how to capture the "perfect shot".  Also would like to do more photo shoots in 2013. I already have a Senior Portrait Session and a Family Session scheduled for next summer and I just had someone approach me about doing some pregnancy photos (very nervous about that one)!  I also want to purchase and figure how in the world to use Photoshop.  Yes, maybe goals for my photography obsession.
3.  Go Camping More.  We spend many weekends each summer at the lake with my parents or my mother in law but I would like to try to get in a camping trip or two this summer to some Minnesota State Park that we haven't explored yet, you know tent camping, hot dogs over the fire and more mosquito bites than I could ever tolerate - yup, true camping!
4.  Get Organized!  We have several closets in our house that are the kind that you cannot open without covering your head because you don't know what might come flying out at you.  Yup, time to get organized and purge some of the crap we have accumulated over the past 9 years in this house.
5.  Finish household projects.  We need to finish our kitchen - we put in new cupboards in half our kitchen almost 5 years ago, time to finally finish the other side and put in new floors in the kitchen which we have been talking about doing since we purchased the house back in 2003.  Seriously 10 years of home remodeling projects and we still are not done, how sad is that!  We also need to finish off the second bathroom we put in the basement 6 years ago.  We need to finish painting it and install a linen closet!
6.  Disconnect more!  This one will be very difficult for me as I am always checking my phone for Facebook updates, new Instagram Posts, Scramble with Friends moves or blog updates!  I am going to do my best to just disconnect, especially when hanging with my boys - I have caught myself playing on my phone and not fully listening to Colton or paying attention to Mace when he is trying to show me a new toy and that just isn't okay - time to focus on what is going on right in front of me instead of in some virtual world!
7.  Update the photos in our house!  I take so many pictures of the boys yet there are only about 4 pictures of Mason in our entire house!  Everything is still just Colton, Colton and more Colton as I haven't taken the time to print new pictures. I don't want Mason to grow up thinking that Colton is the favorite and by the looks of our house right now that is what anyone would think!  And while we are on that subject, I need to get get making Mason's yearly photo books as well.  Colton has a giant scrap book for his 1st year and then a giant 12x12 Shutterfly photo book for each year after that!  Mason has nothing.  I really need to get on that as I am 2 years behind already, eeek!
8.  Get Potty Training!  I would really love Mason to be potty trained before Summer.  I am done with diapers and wasting all that money every week and having to haul a giant diaper bag everywhere we go! We have been working on it already but not as consistently as we need to be, time to get focused.  He is a smart boy and can totally do this.
9.  Stop Eating out so much!  We have gotten a lot better than we used to be, mostly because Mason hit a stage where he only lasted about 90 seconds in a high chair before wanting to get down and destroy the place.  None the less, I would like to really focus on more home cooked family time meals around our kitchen table (which I would also like to replace). And of course more meals at home means more grocery shopping and even more chances for me to use my coupons!  Yes I fully intend to master the art of coupon clipping this year as well!
10.  Biggest goal of 2013 - set a budget and stick to it!  I would really like to get some bills paid off this year - the medical bills are seriously never ending.  Frankie and I need to get some of these bills taken care of so that maybe, just maybe, we can start to think about building our dream home in 2014.  We knew when we bought our current home back in 2003 that it was just a starter home and I believe at that time we said we will stay here for 5 years and then move on to bigger and better things.  Well here we are almost 10 years later and we are still living in our starter home.  We have started a family in this home and while we fit just fine in this house and have made it the home we want there are some things that we would really like to upgrade... like a bigger yard, an attached garage and a HUGE kitchen so we can entertain more.  The only way for us to build our dream home is to eliminate debt so a budget it is... now to figure out how to make us stick to that budget will be the challenging thing but I know we can do it being as the reward is totally worth it.

Okay there they are, my Goals for 2013.  I know I may not accomplish them all but I am hoping to do my best to at least give each one an honest attempt!  Looking forward to a great year and many good times.

Good-bye Twenty Twelve

I was more than ready to say Goodbye to 2012, it was a good year but I am ready to see what 2013 has to offer!  We celebrated New Years Eve with friends and family at my parents house.  Frankie was our personal chef for the night and he delivered like always, we feasted on Halibut, Shrimp Cocktail, Mac and Cheese bites, Pigs in a blanket, New York Strip with bearnaise and mushroom sauces, Twice Baked Potatoes, Scallops and Cheesecake, Carrot Cake, Strawberry/Pineapple Angle Food Cake for dessert!  We are all stuffed after the 2 hours of eating but it was totally worth every bite!  After dinner we settled in for drinks, good laughs, pictures (of course) and even a game of train.  It was a great way to send off 2012 and to bring in 2013.  I am hoping 2013 has many good things in store for us - mostly good health,  lots of love and laughter with friends and family!