mommy is mistaken

 This past weekend we took a trip to Omaha to celebrate our niece, Callie's first birthday.  While there we took a trip to the zoo for Kase's first visit, as well as some hotel swimming!  I had some BIG hopes that this was going to be a great weekend filled with great activities!

Someone was WAY too excited at 5:30 AM!!!

One would think that he would fall asleep after being awake so early, right?

one

would

think

little stinker was awake for the entire trip!

 

All of the animals to look at and all Kase wanted to do was play in the playground.  We literally had to strap him down in his stroller and bribe him with a cookie to get him away from the slides.

You may be thinking, "Aww, Kase is so excited to be by the monkey he can't even look at the camera!"

But that would be wrong.

Buddy was TERRIFIED.

After "the monkey" incident, he spent the remainder of the trip glued to Keith's shoulder.

While Daddy loved the snuggle time, it was not so pleasant in 100+degree heat.

The aquarium (our last animal exhibit) provided some brief happiness for Kase.  His favorite stop was...the fish. THE FISH.  Regular, tiny, pet-sized fish.

The penguins also provided some good entertainment.

We think it was maybe because they were small animals rather than the typical large zoo animals.

If you've been to the Omaha Zoo you know what comes next in the Aquarium...the over-your-head tunnel.  Here's how Kase went through the tunnel.

Many times throughout the zoo visit Kase would say "I safe with Daddy." Precious :)

The  last stop of our zoo visit was Kase's favorite by far...the train!

This was one of very few smiles we received from Kase all day.

Like I said, this was the end of our zoo stop.

He had been up since 5:30 AM.

He had not taken a nap.

And he fell asleep on the train!

After a nap and a Sietstra family supper, we went swimming in the hotel pool.

Don't let this smile fool you either...he was NOT a fan.

He was much more content sitting or walking on the side of the pool.

I'm sure a lot of his swimming dislike was because of the many, many rambunctious kids who were also swimming!

We tried again in the morning, but he wasn't real interested.

Callie's party was in the afternoon, and provided us with the most humbling parenting experience we've had.  I had big hopes that Kase would be awake and happy for his cousin's first birthday party.  That he would giggle at her getting messy while eating her cake, would watch contently as she opened her gifts, and would play nicely with the other kids who were in attendance.

Boy was I ever wrong.

Our first mistake was waking him up early from his nap.  We tried ice cream, cookies, blueberries, ANYTHING that would make him be happy...nothing worked.  He proceeded to cry scream for the next hour.  I'm sure the other party guests appreciated having to talk over my child's screaming.  Thankfully, they were all parents, so they've all either been there.  Like I said, what a humbling experience.

We thought the drive home would be terrible.  Again, boy was I ever wrong.  He was a perfect angel and traveled great.

It was a weekend filled with moments where we were proven wrong!

Maybe one of these days we'll get the hang of this parenting...maybe :)

what a weekend!

 Whoa!  What a weekend in the Sietstra household!  We packed the weekend filled with activities/events/celebrations...and we're EXHAUSTED.

First, we celebrated the sixth anniversary of this special day:

Was it romantic, you ask?  Well, our 5:45AM morning-breath kiss was pretty romantic...I guess ;)  Why 5:45AM?  A football fundraiser required Keith's presence all day on Saturday, and he needed to be out at the golf course at 6:00AM.  We do plan to have an anniversary date sometime in the very near future...maybe even to a grown-up restaurant!

Our second celebration was the 2nd birthday of our sweet, sweet baby big boy.  We had some family and special friends over for a farm themed birthday bash.

It was so great to be surrounded by so many people who have invested so much love and time into Kase's life!

I came up with the idea for this cake sans Pintrest.  It is possible to be creative without Pintrest! ;)

Our final celebration was one I think surprised many, many people.

 Many of you know of our battle with infertility.  We struggled with it for 2 years before we found out we were pregnant with Kase.  This time was no different, yet very different all at the same time!  It was no different because we were not able to get pregnant without medicine.  However, I think it was different because of the attitude that I personally had.  With Kase, my attitude was "I NEED to be pregnant NOW."  This time, I adopted a more relaxed, laid back attitude.  We had an "in God's time" attitude, not a "my time" attitude.  And...Praise the Lord...we are expecting!!!  Lord willing, we will welcome a baby to our family somewhere around January 14 (right in the middle of basketball season...yikes!)

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Baby!

naptime

I stopped at home during my work errand break today.  It was close to nap time, but I needed to drop something off for Keith.  I walked in and just saw Molly so I knew it was pre-nap relaxing time (one of my favorite times of the day with Kase).  Slowly I walked to Kase's door and noticed that his CD was WELL into his sleeptime CD.  Hmm...what's going on here???  Take a look:

Both of my boys...snoozing...shirtless.  Too cute :)

Firefighter Kase

  This past Halloween I bought some costumes in the after-Halloween sale (70% off is a great way to find some dress-up clothes for those kiddos!).  One of the costumes I bought was a fireman.  Up until now, Kase has only really been interested in the hat.  But tonight, I brought out the coat!

After he got over the excitement of how cool he looked, we ran around the house with his little fire truck (bottom picture) looking for the "smoke."  We ran to different rooms, Kase would say "Where's the smoke?"  Don't worry, Firefighter Kase was on site to spray the smoke with his pretend fire hose!

It's been so fun to watch Kase's imagination develop!

messy yet fun

I have way too many terra cotta pots.  WAY too many.

So, I had the idea to have Kase help me hand paint a few of them!  Call me crazy, but yes, I did hand my not-yet-2-year-old a paint brush! :)  I wasn't quite sure how he's respond.  Mommy's ideas can either be a hit or a bust.  I was anxious to see how this one turned out...and...

IT WAS A HIT!!!

Kase had so much fun painting.  He loved using multiple brushes, multiple paint colors (I cut him off at 6 colors), and didn't want to stop!

"Yook (Look) Mommy, messy hands!"

Then we went to our local greenhouse to pick out some flowers for our newly painted flower pots.

Like any little boy, he was more interested in digging in my bag of potting soil than helping with the flowers!

(Yes, that is dirt covering my child's face.)

Who taught my child to smile like this?!?! :)

He's pretty proud of his project! And so is Mama! I think they're the cutest little pots and love that it adds some personal touches to our barren weed-filled landscaping.

"I paint the flowers Mama"

wordless wednesday

i'm a big boy!!!