A Peek at the Poulsens

I never thought I'd say those two words in a sentence, but that's what this week has been: happy and hot ! My mom is finally home (for at least a few weeks) from her summer travels, YAYAYAY, so we hung out with her twice this week. Yay for Mimi time! I will forever be grateful that both our parents live close. Natalie is still not napping anymore - I guess that's not new news - but she always gets really excited when Stockton gets up from his nap. I think she misses her built-in play buddy. One afternoon I found them like this after his nap:  She couldn't wait to go find him : )  The no-nap fallout has provided some contentions between Mommy/Natsby (no break for Mommy = more impatient and no nap for Natalie = more ornery, so it's a bad mix). One night I was tired of our bickering so I took her on a coveted "Mommy Date" to try to ease some of the tension. We went to Yogurtini (and Natalie had more fun moving the chairs around than eatin...

My best friend from high school, Kat, lives in Omaha and has two little girls close in age to my kids, and now that she's not working we've started getting together on Thursdays. It is so fun to look forward to every week! This past week it was our turn to go to Omaha, and Kat took us to this awesome place that has rotating exhibits. Currently it is a giant open room with innovative toys, foam blocks, wood dowel rods, magnets, things to climb on, spin, draw, and just generally run amuck. It was incredible! And FREE!  We were a few minutes early so we explored around the building and found some fun things to climb on. It adds an element of fun to be in the Old Market - I have always loved being "downtown" in any city! STOCKTON HEAVEN Stockty was in absolute nirvana - it was seriously his dream come true. A whole huge space with fun things and no one to stop him from exploring it all as fast as he can. When I lost sight of him I just looked for the fastest mo...

they knock off all the pillows so they can jump Our lives are fun and messy. The kids rampage the house -  toys everywhere, more blankets than I remember owning, finding markers out of thin air, spills and crumbs and rips and holes. Sometimes I feel like the only thing I'm doing all day is feeding these creatures and constantly tidying up. And it's great! Natsby is always doing some sort of project Natalie isn't really napping anymore, which I have many feelings about. It was hard for me to give up the precious Jessie time that I'm always going on about, but it is fun to have some quality time with just my Natsby. It's frustrating because she is often more difficult in the hours leading up to bed time, but then she goes to bed much easier and earlier. It's a trade-off. And, she's POTTY TRAINED! Woo! She hardly ever has accidents, wears a pull-up at night and sometimes when we're going in public, and even though she doesn't like pooping...

That's pretty much every outing we take, nowadays. We always congratulate ourselves as we head out the door, and then when we come home we're like "why did we go out." Ha, it's not that bad, but Stockton is a RUNNER and it is so hard to keep him contained! He just books it as fast as he can (which is actually reeeeally fast) as soon as his feet touch the ground. He doesn't like being held when he knows he could be running, and I can only keep him happy in the cart or stroller for a little while before the wanderlust sets in again. So basically our outings when I have Austin with me consist of one of us doing the actual errand/shopping and the other one following Stockton wherever he wants to go. I've taught Natalie to just chase Stockton when he's running, so at least they stay together and aren't going in two different directions. Yesterday in Target Austin took Natalie to the bathroom and I put Stockton down for ONE SECOND to just set Jack...