Bunked!

Some big changes happened at the Otown Grimmius house this past weekend. The first involved stacking two beds on top of each other, and the second involved a little boy (no...a big boy!) sleeping on the lower bunk without a dooza (or "doohas")!  OMG!  It's all happening too fast for this mama.

Tanner I sent the boys to St. Peter on Saturday so that we comb the Twin Cities looking for just the right bunk bed set.  After our hopes were quickly dashed (but bellies full from Swedish meatballs...) at IKEA, we checked out a few other home furniture places and were feeling discouraged.  Nothing a little Google magic could fix!  I plugged "kids bunk beds Bloomington MN" into the google and voila -- up popped Totally Kids Furniture and Toys. Turns out it's an old warehouse packed full of kids bedroom furniture.  Their specialty?  Bunk beds!  Our purchase was made within 15 minutes.  It was love at first bunk.  Well, we did see a triple decker bunk bed that was pretty awesome....so I guess the one we bought was technically love at second bunk.  Still love, though.

The boys returned home on Sunday and brought a construction crew with them.  Thanks again Uncle Will and Grandpa Dave!  We appreciate your handy work.  And thanks again Grandma Doreen for helping keep the boys (young and old) under control!

First job: taking apart Weston's crib.  Say it ain't so!  Ugh.  My baby is growing up.

Second job:  laying out the pieces.

Third job:  putting the pieces together.  Sorry - no pictures.  The camera lady ran to Target during this phase.

Fouth job:  Assembling the new dressers.

Fifth job:  Putting clothes in new dressers.

 Sixth job:  Playing on new beds!

Seventh job:  Sleeping in new beds!

They did well!  Miles has never been one to get out of bed at night.  If he needs something he just calls out to us.  As a 5 year old, he still yells, "Mom! I'm awake! Can we get up and play?" in the mornings. Weston on the other hand...although he never once tried climbing out of his crib, I still peg him as the kind of kid who would climb in and out of bed 186 times in an hour if given the opportunity.  He surprised us last night and stayed in bed from start to finish!  Of course Miles did climb down from the top bunk once to come tell us that Weston needed something (it was in the first 5 minutes of going to bed).  I'm pretty sure he only did it because of the ladder on his bed.  It is pretty awesome, so I don't totally blame him. 

Eighth job:  Eating a pre-breakfast snack of chocolate chips in celebration of sleeping so well in the new beds!  That's right.  We bribed.  And it worked. 

I don't know what to say about Westy falling asleep without his dooza last night.  He hasn't used one for nap at daycare in over 18 months, but at home it has been an absolute necessity for naps and bed time.  Or so we thought.  He fooled us!  Tanner said something to Weston last night about how sleeping in the big boy bunk bed also means no more dooza.  I overheard the conversation and laughed out loud.  No more doozas?  Riiiiiiight.  Well....we experienced a miracle in this house.  I sure hope things go as well tonight because I'm not sure we want to use up our miracles on doozas.

Sweet dreams!

Cupid and a Locksmith

Happy Valentine's Day!  As you might have suspected, it was an adventurous one in O-Town.  It started early with the discovery that Cupid visited our house last night.  Say what?!  Yeah!  He did!  The good thing is that Cupid is not mischievous like leprechauns.  Instead of sneaking in and causing trouble, Cupid flies in to spread his love.  He wrote a love note to the boys on their bathroom mirror, gave them some toys and even a little candy, and left behind a beautiful trail of paper hearts.  Miles was delighted and Weston was...well...utterly confused.  "Cupid? No mama. SANTA."  After eating a few pieces of candy, he decided maybe we were right and hopped on the Cupid bandwagon.

Our typical routine in the morning involves Tanner helping the boys get dressed ready for school while I stumble around in a sleepy haze.  We all end up leaving the house at the same time - the boys for work/school and me for a run.  This morning was no different, except for some extra sugar running through our veins thanks to Cupid.  As usual, I returned home from my run and proceeded to enter the code on the garage door opener so that I could get into the garage, get into the house, get into the shower, get into decent clothes, and then get my rear into work.  Unfortunately the garage door must not have felt the love from Cupid this morning, as it decided to open approximately 4 inches...then pause....then drop down again.  I tried again.  Same thing.  I stopped it part way down and it went back up the 2 inches it had just fallen.  I repeated this multiple times, even reaching down to jiggle the door a bit in case something somehow got trapped somewhere.  Nope.  Nothing was working.  As much as I would like to report otherwise, 4 inches of space is not enough for this mama to shimmy through.  Certain parts would have gotten stuck (although probably not my head. or chest. but that's another blog post in itself.).   I was locked outside of the house.  While trying to decide which neighbor would most likely be home and awake, Ole Olson (the son of older Ole who was a student teacher under Grandpa Charlie's guidance years ago) came driving back down street -- I'd passed him a few minutes earlier as he was leaving.  Turns out his daughter forgot her valentine treats for school so they had to return home to get them.  I think Cupid was intervening!  Ole gave me his phone so that I could call Tanner for help.  Tanner arrived home about 6 minutes later and tried opening the garage door himself.  No luck.  I suggested he just give me the key so I could get in, and we'd hassle with the garage door later.  Turns out he doesn't carry a house key with him.  That's sooooo not cool.  After looking in the solution kit (as Miles would say), we agreed that he needs to carry a house key, I need to tuck one in my running jacket, and we need to give one to a neighbor (or five).  All things we should have been doing or done long ago.  Shucks.  Long story short: Tonna Locks came to the rescue.  The locksmith popped our side service door and we were home free.  Well...almost.  We'll be home free after a $195 change-a-roonie to the garage door system tomorrow.  Gulp.  I don't fully understand what happened but the guy coming to make it all better tomorrow sure knew as soon as Tanner began describing the problem.  Something about springs.  And something about how the type of system we have has a lifespan of 8-10 years.  That's not very long in my book.  Shucks again.

Anywho, the day got better after we went to work and returned home!  These pictures make it look like Miles stayed in his jammies all day.  He did not.  He does, however, put his jammies back on within 3 minutes of getting home every day.  The apple of my eye sure didn't fall far from the tree...

Here he is enjoying the stickers from Cousin Linda.  Thank you, Cousin Linda!

The boys had fun sifting through their goods.

 Too bad they didn't hardly get nothin'.  Geesh.  Look at that haul!  Lucky boys.

Weston's first pick was a ring pop.  I tried to get him to choose something else but he insisted on the ring pop.  He was assigned his spot at the kitchen table and then I realized why he wanted the ring pop.  It was like a really awesome DOOZA!

We hope Cupid (not a locksmith) brought a little love to your heart today, too. 

xoxoxo

Valentines Rule!

We had a snow day in MN today.  It was a fabulously lazy Sunday.  Wish we had more of them!  If it weren't for Weston bonking his mouth and getting a fat lip tonight (thereby requiring us to reload our ice cream supply), we wouldn't have ventured any further than the slushy end of the driveway (we made it that far - up until the fat lip - only because it was in the mid 30s - warm - and raining and so we had to go puddle jumping before the snow returned. Sigh.).

It turned out to be a productive day.  I assumed my position in the kitchen (like that, mom?! Didn't think so. Ha!) making a roast in the crock pot and a loaf of crusty bread....we love cooking and baking on days like today.  I say "we" because the boys bounce (literally) between my station in the kitchen and their fort in the living room, stopping over to help stir/pour/sample or beg for a snack when the mood strikes them.  Tanner keeps us all company, also bouncing between the kitchen and living room, and does his fair share of sampling and pretending to be a puppy dog in the kennel the boys have constructed.  Except for the occasional pushing, hitting, and screaming, it makes for a happy day. 

We also managed to whip together valentines for the boys' friends at school.  Weston won the prize for easiest -- his teachers simply told us to bring ten valentines with his name in the "from" box, and they'd take care of the rest.  Done!  Miles decided he wanted to get a little more creative, so we turned to google and came up with these (can't get the picture to rotate correctly, so you'll have to rotate your head or computer!):

As you can see, he worked really hard on them and is excited to share them with his friends.  Surprisingly, it only took two shifts to get them done.  I thought for sure we'd get just few done and then have to finish the rest in a mad scramble on Wednesday night, but he powered through - and not even one complaint about a sore hand!  This kid loves his art projects.

And here's cute little Weston McFattylip.  Poor baby. 

Time to prepare ourselves for Monday. Waaaaah.

Game time

What better to do during a Super Bowl snafu than blog?

It was a semi-adventurous weekend in St. Peter, starting with the celebration of Uncle Charlie's 34th birthday on Friday night. He arrived late to his own party after having to straighten out some mischievous behavior at the college that resulted in several dorm rooms being saturated with water. Turned out to be a good lesson for the Potts/Grimmius preschoolers who were eager to eat cake and wanted an explanation for the delay... Throwing balls inside a dorm (or house) is not okay! You might hit a sprinkler on the wall and cause a flood! And even more important, lying about it is not okay! It's better to tell the truth! And for goodness sake, help clean up the mess! Whew. What a lesson. Here's the birthday boy getting ready to enjoy his cake. He deserved an extra helping.

We had a mostly lazy day on Saturday. It was fabulous. We took long naps and then played at Ethan and Owen's house for a while. The boys played basketball -- the three bigger ones were on Team Obama.

The youngest was the Official.

Speaking of official, Tanner reffed a couple of games in Mankato that night. Miles and I bundled up and went to cheer him on. He called all shots perfectly, so there was no heckling from any fans...at least not that Miles noticed, anyway :) That's all that counts.

And speaking of official again, Westy continued to play the role throughout the weekend.  He was working hard to perfect his arm movements!

Sunday morning started out a little busier with some wine-making chores. First the boys had to clean the big jug with a fat scrubber deal (I don't make wine and therefore am not up to speed on the correct lingo) --

Then they helped grandpa Dave transfer a batch from a big pail where it had been brewing to the newly cleaned big jug. One wrong move and wine would spew everywhere -- good thing the kids took their job seriously!

Grandma Doreen then put them to work cracking eggs for the egg bake. You really have to earn your keep around that house :)

Before we knew it, the Super Bowl had started and it was time to dig into some game-time nachos.  As has been a long standing Grimmius family tradition, the usual supper time rules don't apply during the Super Bowl.  We get to eat whatever sounds good, and - perhaps even better - eat it in front of the tv.

This picture makes me feel the itch to do a little decorating in the living room.  Hmmm.  And maybe get a photo in that frame hanging on the wall.

Anyway, with the Super Bowl came a good excuse to make brownies.  The boys weren't as excited about them as I thought they'd be....but I won't take it personally.  I'll just finish off the pan and show them who's boss.

Happy Super Bowl!  May the best team win!