Just found out today and picked out the first outfit ... Baby Boy Baril will be here in Feb ...

did I mention?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Jack uses his manners now (mostly when he wants food) but is it possible that I love the actual words more than the actual manners?

"Mice" means please (don't ask me what happened to the "pl-ah" sound or the "ee" sound)

"Dee Dee" means thank you (sometimes pronounce "day day")

i've heard little girls his age pronouce these words perfectly, but it's so much cuter when he uses his own interpretation of the word...

A Morning at the Baril House

I love my mornings now that I don't work day hours at the restaurant.

I have FINALLY started getting up early to be able to get a chapter or two in of reading before anyone else is awake... (it's hard to start school again with good habits when my previous studying habits were crappy!)

After a little bit of reading, I usually get a head start on breakfast before Jackson wakes up. Usually it's just Jack and I in the morning, eating Special K (his favorite cereal, don't ask...) or waffles or yogurt and fruits, but Tues and Fri we have our peanut (Lauren) to prepare for as well. She's a first grader now so she needs to a good breakfast to stay focused (she has picked up on the family's ADD problem!)...

Today, I only got in 1/2 of a chapter before I heard Jack stirring. We had 3 different alarms going off, one for Miche, one for Weston, one for Lauren, so it is no surprise that he woke up early. I barely had finished my cup of decaf (I miss caffeine) before he starting getting edgy... I decided to make some deliciously sweet vanilla toffee waffles with peach yogurt as an extra sweet sidedish. Lauren ate quickly and then she and Weston headed off to school/work. Jack finished his in record time (must've had a crappy dinner the night before!) and sat peacefully at the "breakfast nook" as I call it until I finished my breakfast.

After we stuff our faces, I like to check my email and look at my lesson plan for the day/week/month. Today, I was following up on an email when I noticed Jackson sitting peaceful in the corner even though there was nothing to do. I took some pictures in the hopes that I will capture his innocence before it is gone forever... he's growing up too fast!

He doesn't use a highchair much anymore; he'd rather sit on his knees on a chair and eat at the island in the kitchen. I made a special place for him on the counter next to his high chair (mainly b/c there is nothing "cool" to play with, throw on the floor, get food on, etc.) - it's his own special place to sit as a big boy. Although I had to get the giant Webster dictionary out for him to sit on, it works out pretty well for him.

(Why are my photos so grainy when I post them on the blog?!?!)

I hate that I'm ranting and raving about how old he's getting... He's still so young and this is by far my favorite age for him to be, but I can't help but think how "old" he is going to be when the new baby comes. Will I still have time to notice the games he plays when no one is watching or the new words he suddenly starts to say? (Yesterday we drove by Granite City and he pointed and said, "Papa!" ... what a smart boy!)

I guess that's the life of a mom... worrying about her child growing too old too fast. Hopefully tomorrow I will just sit back and enjoy the morning without all the worrying!

Until later...

My Buddy...

now that i am back in school for the fall semester (finally!), i was reflecting on my summer and found some cute pictures of jackson that i thought i should post.






my little man is getting so old! he picked the shells out of jars at the lake and was telling us a story about them... cute! he also loves to swing his head back and forth while "singing". sometimes he does it until he is dizzy and falls over, which is funny, but it's his way of getting attention.

it's these things that he does that make me feel like he is getting too old too fast. when i mentioned this to weston, he said "you'll get another one soon enough". but i don't feel like it'll be soon - i have to wait until feb, and jack will be 2 then!

i'm going to cry the day that happens...

the hidden golf ball...

as i sat on the hospital bed at innovis, weston asked me, "i think i lost my golf ball. is that it under your eye?"

we made a quick trip (is 1.5 hours quick?!) to the innovis ER after i woke up at 3:00am with a few problems. after a horrible stomach ache that left me feeling like i wanted to die, i started sneezing over and over. i quickly realized that all the pressure from my sneezes wasn't leaving my face (quite an awful feeling if you ask me), and when i looked in the mirror i discovered where it was building up!




i'm not sure if it was the trial contact lenses i had put in earlier that day or a new food allergy i will need to discover; all i know is that weston is the best person to have around in an emergency... he somehow arrived home within minutes of me alerting him (that was the good part) and then proceeded to make fun of me and play games on his phone in the ER (this is the best part). at least i got a safe ride there, right? (i have to give him credit: he did stay up unti 5:30am after a being at work for 12 hours on a grueling Friday night.)

needless to say, the staff at the hospital had no answers as to why this happened. after finding baby's heartbeat and discovering that he/she was okay, they sent us on our way and told us to come back if it happened again (duh?!)

ah, the joys of my mysterious allergies...

a new post... finally!

wow, last post on Mar 2nd... that made me feel awful! I feel like I haven't had a chance to breathe in the past few months.

after the flood "scare", we spent a lot of time cleaning and rearranging the house (everything had been on our second floor for a month!)... our computer never made it back to it's original home, so i stopped spending as much time on it. needless to say the blogging went out the window.

well, i'm here with good news, double good news. first, I hope to be back in business with the blogging (for anyone who has missed the pictures of jacks)... and second, i will have another little person to blog about (pictures will start sometime in jan!) yay!



weston and i started trying for another little peanut to join our family, and 6 weeks after we discussed it, we found out she was on the way (did I mention I'm 89% positive it's a girl?)... so here's to another 9 months of healthy eating, vitamins, sore feet/back/legs/ribs, and LOTS OF SLEEP; only 6 months to go!

coming soon... summertime pictures of jacks - he's SO OLD NOW! hopefully some of my followers check back so the posts aren't all for nothing :)

family sioux game

"How do you know the Sioux won?" Weston asked Lauren after the game.

"Because they had 4 points and the Tigers only had 3" she said.

I was surprised that she could track the points and remember the score two hours after the game had ended!

Weston and I brought Jackson (13mo) and Lauren (5 1/2) to the Sunday game as the Sioux attempted to beat the CC Tigers after Saturday's tie game. We decided we might need a helping hand to keep the kids entertained and under control, so our friend Kayla decided to join us. I realized at the end of the game that bringing the family was more about letting them experience the game and less about getting to actually watch the game with them!

Jackson tagged along with me last November to a game with my cousins Tangy and Ronnie, and I think Jackson, although sleep deprived and in a sleepy haze, enjoyed the game more than the two of them combined (Bison fans just giving a hockey game a chance... need I say more?). I was a little uneasy about how Jackson would handle yesterday's game, considering that we've all been sick for 3 weeks and that he would be needing his second nap right around when the game was starting... He did wonderful, even without a second nap for the day, and spent a lot of time babbling, waving his arms around, and checking out the crowd.





Sunday's game was the first UND hockey game for Lauren and she loved every minute of it. She enjoyed jumping around and cheering "Go Sioux" and enjoyed all of the junk food just as much! We reminded Lauren several times to be wacky and crazy if she wanted to get up on the big screen... and OF COURSE she made that happen! Right before OT began, it was time to "Twist and Shout" with the fans. Lauren danced around like a crazy woman and helped Jacks stand up and 'twist' on my lap. When I looked up at the screens, they flashed to us for the remainder of the song before OT began. WOW! My mom had always told me that the camera's couldn't film our seats due to the fact that they've never seen anyone in our section up on the big screen. Nothing like bringing the kids along to put section 111 on the map!!



Thankfully it was a 3:37pm game as it ended up being a late night for the kids - they crashed on the way home. Weston was equally tired due to the fact that Lauren favored his lap to her chair and Jackson tended to join them every ten minutes; even with all the distractions, Weston still managed to watch more of the game than I did...

All in all it was a great night for everybody. Can't wait to do it again soon...

i love love LOVE iGoogle...

knock knock
who's there?
interupting cow
interupting cow wh...MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hahaha, i love it!
does anyone else love love love iGoogle? weeks ago, when i logged into my google account, it offered to let me customize it to my own liking... one thing i opted for was 'joke of the day', hence the knock-knock joke.

google, you give me something to wake up early for!

on another note...

i see my little munchkin learned how to open the pocket door to our 1/2 bath. when he sees me go in there, i usually hear a scramble and 2 hands and feet scurrying across the main floor to get to me ... today i heard all of that and suddenly the door open and a smiley little face with a runny nose was peering in!

i had a good laugh about that and thought it was blog-worthy. i have always wondered when i would have to start using the lock on that door!

and why can't they just learn to blow their noses, or at least learn to keep it from running down their face? how can you keep up with the runny nose of a 1-year-old?!? i know people say "nothing is impossible" but i think they may have been overlooked this (whoever 'they' are)...

Diving for Dale...

Click here to see WDAY coverage of an event titled "Dive for Dale"
The Dive took place in Hitterdal MN where my uncle Dale and his wife Linda raised their children. Dale was involved in a fatal car accident exactly one month before the plunge on Feb 21st.


I have 'taken the plung' before at MapleLag Resort on Little Sugarbush Lake and found it to be a cheap thrill, so I'm sad I wasn't able to make it out Lake Flora in Hitterdal. But it's nice to see so many of Dale's friends made it in the water to honor him.

Love you Uncle Snake! We miss you every day...

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal." ~From a headstone in Ireland


My Uncle Dale (far right) with 2 of his 3 brothers, my father Mac (far left) and Steve (middle)

jackson turns 1 ... and eats his first cupcake!

jan 29, 2009... jackson turns 1 today!

i can't even to begin to explain the horrible day he had ... i think i can safely say it was the worst day of the little man's life :( on the monday the 19, i decided to get rid of both a bottle AND formula. it was that same week that we had a death in the family, so with the stress surrounding him and no bottle/formula to comfort him, naps were nonexistent! he spent the week entertaining close family and friends and was so stressed out, he had to change clothes 3 times a day (if you know what a mean...messy pants magoo!)

by the time his birthday rolled around on the 29th, he was sleep deprived, over stimulated, and trying hard to fight the squirts off! my mom and dave stopped by that evening to drop off some birthday cupcakes and watch him make a mess of them, but i wanted to get him to bed early so we had to put them off until the next night. after 2 hours of screaming and squirming, i finally got him to sleep. when it was all over, i realized that i had never had to try so hard to get him to sleep... except for one night when he was four weeks old, he's always been the easiest baby to take care of. needless to say, i hope he doesn't remember his first bday!









the next day we celebrated his birthday with a few gifts and the long-awaited cupcake feast :) i was lucky enough to catch a few videos of him early on the bday evening (which i posted and PS: sorry you have to listen to me talk/sing), but the pictures of the cupcake feast were actually taken the day afterwards.

happy bday my little man. thanks for the greatest year of my life :)

jackson's 2nd superbowl party/1st bday party...

the tradition begins!

weston and i wish we could have a bigger house because we LOVE to have people over and spoil them with delicious 'weston' food. other than hosting thanksgiving for our families, we've decided that each year jackson will celebrate his bday on the superbowl. here are highlights from superbowl XLIII...

jackson received his first jersey for superbowl in 2009 (if we had thought of it in 2008, it could've been his second jersey ... but with jacks at five days old, we had a thousand other things to worry about). this year he donned a Steelers jersey, Polamalu 43. i know, i know, cheer for the underdog, right? if we had thought about this soon enough, we could've gone online and dug up a cardinals jersey for infants. but there was no time for shipping, so go Steelers! (I later thanked Sport City for only having Steelers jerseys in stock - the other tradition we'd like to start is picking the winning team for Jacks to wear)





jackson woke up early on the 1st to get cleaned up and ready for visitors! (i had to explain that so i would have a reason to insert the cute bath video. sorry you have to listen to me talk on it!) we celebrated the bday party 1st by inviting family and friends early in the day to watch jacks open presents. Weston disappeared at 10am to go to Granite City to make the delicious feast, so i was stuck trying to entertain 20+ family and friends with growling stomachs! we opened presents to distract the crowd - i was surprised by jackson's ability to concentrate on opening about 5 gifts in a row (opening means tearing the paper a little while i finish unwrapping and give "ooo's and aaah's".



when the gifts were opened, we had lunch with friends and family. lunch included a lot of great superbowl eats: buffalo wings with ranch, bleu, and celery (of course), pulled pork with homemade mole, guac, corn and black bean salsa, etc to load your tortilla with, meatballs with cheese and marinara for meatball subs (although the jimmy johns bread didn't arrive until superbowl time), chips, salsa and white sauce from the red pepper in GF (YUM!), and lots of candy and treats for dessert.



oh yeah, and cupcakes! i'm not a fan of cake, so i decided to make red velvet cupcakes with vanilla frosting and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting... turns out i made one horrible cupcake! next year i'll remember to put more frosting on so they aren't so dry :) overall, the bday party was a success. jackson was in a great mood and was a great entertainer for the crowd. he took a LONG afternoon nap and rested himself for the next part of the day: SUPERBOWL XLIII.

we had a completely different crowd for superbowl this year; friends from Doolittles and Granite City decided to skip the bday party and instead come over when the beer was chilled :) typical restaurant workers! a few of our friends brought their little ones to help occupy Lauren and Jacks during the game, although 1 year olds don't really play with each other, do they? more like: sit next to one another and steal toys! Lauren waited patiently for her friend to come over and had a blast all night. i guess there isn't much else to report on... everyone knows what happens at a superbowl party, right? superbowl XLIII offered some 3D commercials right before the halftime show, so a friend of mine brought the 3D glasses from the grocery store.



other than the LAME 3D show, it was your typical superbowl party with too much food and too many bottles of beer left for weston and i to drink later...

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Jacks is concentrating on learning to use his medical kit so he can fix up his Godmother Joanna so she feels much much better :)
the stethoscope is actually more fun to eat than to hear heart beats with, but soon he'll figure it out!

oh no, should i start saving for medical school already??

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I know this is mean to post for the world to see, but look at this little boy coughing - it looks like he's auditioning for the monster role ... RAH!

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Okay last post of the night ...

When I said I found the cutest PJammers for Jacks, I LIED. I had not yet discovered how cute these button down sets are!

Thanks Papa Weston for finding the cutest pjs on earth! You can see them well in these pics ... See what I mean?

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I just tried my first blog post from my Blackberry ... And it finally worked! I'm definately going to get hooked on posting on my blog during slow afternoons at work. It's so much easier to find time to pick up your phone than to sit down at the computer. Plus, I have a tendency to immediately find something to buy online (what's my problem anyway? Weston says I have a shopping problem, but I'm still in denial) ...

Here's to many new blog posts in 2009. Good luck to me!

Photo Caption: "It's not my fault you forgot to lock this cupboard." Cute little Jacks!

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This is the ultimate Jacks pic ... The infamous Listerine incident. I didn't understand why it suddenly smelled so minty until I stumbled upon this wonderful sight.
PS: he's crying b/c he felt bad for spilling, not because his throat burned from chugging mouthwash.
The caption should read: 'But I had stinky breath!'