Twelve on the twelfth

Ok so Abbey threw out the idea of posting twelve pictures on the twelfth of every month, that serve as a snapshot of your life at that moment. Today was the twelfth and a perfect day to catch a snapshot of our very fun life right now. This is my first attempt at a Picasa collage. I am not really sure why since it is insanely simple, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Here is a brief explanation of my twelve on the twelfth. The first picture is of Zane and is favorite playmate and zoo buddy, Jamey. Today it was pushing eighty degrees outside so of course we met Michelle and Jamey at the zoo. Turns out the zoo isn't nearly as fun when everyone else has the idea of going as well. All the animals hide and some people just don't follow common zoo etiquette, such as forming a line in front of the orangutan so everyone gets a chance to see him, not just pushing your stroller in there, very rude. However, as the picture below that one shows we did get to see Zane's favorite animals, the hippos!!! 

I got Abbey's tweet about the twelve on the twelfth challenge just in time to grab my camera and capture Zane waking up from his first nap of the day. His new thing with nap times is that he doesn't want to wear pants during his nap. He is such a boy, but I get it I wouldn't want to nap in jeans either. The pictures of him with the blue shirt and disheveled hair are him sleeping/waking up slowly, from his a.m. nap. He tends to be very sweaty when he wakes up, even though he sleeps without pants, in a room where the heater vent is mostly closed, and without covers. You can see he has a lot of friends in bed with him at all times. Today his friends included Mooly, Bull, and Ro Ro the hippo. As soon as he woke up he remembered that I had told him we were going to the zoo and ran around the house saying "the zoo" and "lets go." Priceless!

The picture of him in his car seat captures perfectly Zane's most recent food phase. Up until recently he only wanted to eat puffs for snacks. This was fine, though puffs are annoyingly messy. While in Oklahoma Zane fell back in love with Clausin baby dill pickles. One night at Mom's house he ate four baby dill pickles for dinner. So we bought some when we got home and this is his new favorite snack. He always asks for one before we head out of the house, some times he even gets a little bowl out of his cabinet to carry it in. Today he held his pickle and munched away on it all the way to the zoo.

Once we got home from the zoo Zane took off his daytime clothes and threw on an over sized t-shirt for his nap. Who doesn't love an over sized t-shirt to sleep in. This particular shirt I had to buy in the OKC airport when we had been through all the shirts in the diaper bag. In case you can't read it, it says "I blew through Oklahoma" and has a tornado with farm animals being blown away on it, classic. I wish I had gotten the shirt that said "Oklahoma, what happens here happens everywhere" but I missed it and they have moved on to the cow tipping shirts, which are ignorant because no one actually tips cows, but I digress. The picture of him with his blanket, binki, and no pants is before heading off to nap number too. This nap took us forty five minutes to finally give into, but then he slept for two hours when I had to wake him up at five for garden planting fun. 

That brings us to our last funtivity of the day, the first round of garden planting. The garden planting really deserves a blog post of it's own, but you can see from the photos that a good time was had by all. Zane helped plant, got a ride in the wheel barrow, helped daddy with his grilling, helped water our new plants, and got nice and dirty. You probably can't tell from the little picture of him in his car, but he is rocking the dirt mustache.

The other two pictures are classic evening shots from here at the Korenak household. Zane has recently taken to thoroughly enjoying his "Choo Choos" downstairs and after dinner every night he requests to play with them. He now keeps the trains on the track and as the picture shows has even figured out how to put the tracks back together instead of ripping them apart and throwing them everywhere. Sounds like someone is in desperate need of a train table for their birthday. Then after bath time there is always play time in his diaper. Tonight's entertainment of choice was his Mickey ears. We often watch Mickey Mouse Club house during our morning couch cuddle so he actually knows what they are now and loves them! 

That is a perfect snapshot of our lives with our soon to be twenty one month old. Lots of outdoors time, naps, silliness, and always having a good time. 

Five on Friday

1. Spring has sprung here, with trees budding out, beautiful weather, and my favorite the thing, Easter decorations!! It kind of look like the Easter Bunny threw up in my house, with Easter Eggs, bunnies, and Easter grass everywhere, but I love it. My big egg wreath went on the door today, then I threw open the windows and brought out the eggs. I did get a new bunny, though it isn't as fat or adorable as my previous one, it works well on the mantel and I made another Easter egg topiary so everything is balanced. Here is this years Easter mantel. I love a good mantel lay out and this one could be my favorite since it is so springy and happy. Notice how all things are symmetrical and even, just how I like it.

 2. Zane and I had a few errands to run today, but mostly the highlight was beautiful weather which means park time. I wish we had a huge back yard or acres of land for him to explore like at Grandma's. However, that isn't the case, so instead we try to frequent a number of different parks. Today's park was the Fenton park complex. Zach had a business lunch so we didn't get to meet up with him today, but Zane and I had snacks and played outside after our shopping was done. There were two little girls their with their Grandparents so Zane had some play mates. I think we will have to bring a picnic and meet up with Daddy next time.

3. While restocking on shiny eggs for my second topiary I found a fun little fold out chair for Zane. It was only $13 at Micheal's and just his size. Here is maxing and relaxing in his new chair once we were home from our errands.

4. After snack time outside Zane and I went to work cleaning out our big flower bed/soon to be garden in our back yard. I cleaned out all the leaves, cut back our big grass, bagged up all the yard waste, then started weeding/turning over the dirt in preparation for planting. Zane loves helping and wants nothing more to be part of the work. So his job today was throwing out all the weeds that I pulled. He would "count to three" (random sounds that I think were suppose to be one, two, three) then throw whatever little piece of weed or grass I gave him out of the flower bed. We even found a worm while we got nice and dirty in the flower beds. For those of you wondering what when it is time to plant different things here is a link to my mom's blog post with all you need to know about starting your own garden.  It is really meant for Oklahoma weather, but MO weather is basically the same, I just plan on pushing things back a week or so.

5. Lastly, we rounding out our spring activities with a classic St. Louis Spring/Lenten event, a good old fashion fish fry. I had never heard of or taken part in a fish fry until moving to St. Louis. This is probably because I grew up in Oklahoma where I was one of about three catholic people in my high school, so needless to say Catholics were the minority. St. Louis is the polar opposite with Catholics being the big majority. A lot of kids go to Catholic schools here and instead of Baptist churches on every corner there are Catholic churches, each with a weekly fish fry during Lent. Zane did amazingly well at his first fish fry, standing in line patiently, and even sitting in his own chair like such a big boy. I don't think he ate any fish, but he did enjoy the green beans, apple sauce, and of course his mini cupcake for dessert. For all my St. Louis friend wondering which fish fry I went to this week, I attended the Seven Holy Founders fish fry in Afton and I highly recommend it!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Zane and I are back from our quick weekend visit to Oklahoma. The older I and my child get the farther away from home I feel. The trip home seems more challenging each time. Zane is getting so big that he isn't comfortable on my lap in the plane, but can't be trusted to stay in a seat by himself. The ipad was helpful in passing the time in the airport and once he woke up at the end of the flight, but getting him to sit still is a big challenge. I found myself pondering how I would possibly make the trip alone with a hypothetical second child and I think it would be pretty much impossible. Sad face :(

2. Once we finally got to OK we had a great time celebrating Aunt Abbey's birthday, playing with cousins, and relaxing at the farm. Zane was completely obssessed with Grandma's chickens, checking on them frequently throughout each day. He also loved chasing grandma's cats, swinging, and playing in lthe wheat field. All fun farm activites!

Here is Zane, reporting back on the two chickens that are pretending to sit on a nest. Little do they know that there is no rooster and actually there aren't even eggs underneath them. Not intelligent animals.

 Zaney enjoying the Grandma's swing, don't worry Sunday it was in the 70s so the winter coat and hat could come off.

 Grandma, Maggie, and Zane exploring Maggie's wood. The entire time Zane was trying to get back to check on his chickens.

3. Maggie and Zane made quite a pair this visit. If one wasn't in trouble for being mean to the other one they were getting in trouble together, specifically jumping on the kids air mattresses, with monkies, and bonking their heads. They were adorable to watch together, with lots of hugs, usually after Zane had spent some time in timeout for hair pulling or hitting. He is a work in progress, what can I say. Some how I didn't get any pictures of the two in action.

4. It was 75 degrees outside today while I was sitting at work. This depresses me. I want to be outside, at the park, all the time. Of course it is suppose to rain my two days off this week, but I am hoping to fit in a zoo trip or some sort of fun outside activity this week.

5. Zane has a few sentences that he uses quite frequently now. "I want more," I want juice," and "I don't know" they are all kind of mushed into one word, but he does use them corretly. He also said variations of Grandma, gma, all weekend which was beyond adorable. He really needed to know where his grandma was at all times mainly so they could go check on the chickens together at a moments notice.

6. Zane continues to have absolutely no fear, of anything. I took him to play on the hay bales at the farm, thinking that he would sit there and want to get down. I don't know why I thought that, since he isn't scared of heights, or the possibly of falling off a ledge. He ran up and down the hay bales, which was one of my favorite activities growing up, but is very frightening as a parent. He did almost slide to his death, but Uncle Able was there to catch him. He was probably more scared because I screamed than about possibly falling 6ft to the ground. Needless to say after this incident the throwing the rocks of the bridge outing on Monday was extremely terrifying for me.

7. While in Oklahoma we also took a fun trip over to Mr. Riesen's farm. Mr. Riesen was old when I was little so you can imagine how old he seems now. However, he loves children and teaching anyone who will listen about all the various creatures at his house. We saw a lot of turkeys, chickens, peacokes (beautifully sitting around in trees), chinese feastants, ducks, sheep, cows, and three new donkies. Zane was in heaven. He tried to pet all the animals, including the rather mean looking dogs and turkeys. The kid loves animals and feels like he should look them all in the eye when he says hi to them. The kids all got peacock feathers from Mr. Riesen when we left, which of course led to peacock feather fights/tickling.

If you look closely you can see the big, beautiful peacock in the tree.

 Brendan and Zane checking out Mr. Riesin's chickens.

 Zane tried, unsuccessfully to pet this turkey.

 And here is the peacock feather sword fighting, great fun.

8. My new glasses are finally in, of course they came in while I was out of town, so I can't pick them up until Thursday. I am so excited not to have to wear my contacts to work, they really don't last fourteen hours at a dry hospital very well. I honestly don't remember what they look like, I made the decision quite hastily while Zane was loosing his mind in the glasses store. I hope I still like them come Thursday, we shall see.

9. Since it is officially March my spring decorating will also start Thursday. I have my egg wreath made, which will go on the front door ASAP. My adorable fat little easter bunny broke while in storage for the winter some how, which is depressing, but I'm hoping Pier One has a new fat bunny for my mantel. I can't wait for spring clothes, easter egg hunts, and the smell of spring flowers. Hopefully there aren't any more snows in our future. I am keeping my fingers crossed that spring is really here!

10. Lastly, this most recent visit to Oklahoma really made me wish my dad was around to know little Zaney boy. We took Zane to look at the cows at my Uncle's house, which he thoroughly enjoyed.Zane loves "working" outside, helping carry hay or food to various animals, and would have loved "farm work," as Brendan us to call it, with Grandpa. He is a little outdoors man and dad would have loved seeing him enjoy the farm so much. It doesn't help that Zane looks so much like him. I suppose it will get easier with time, but for now it just seems like I can't stop thinking about all dad is missing. For instance, how much would dad love these pictures of Zane leaning against a fence, looking at the cows and calves.

Luckily he has a hood on in this picture or it would literally look like a miniature version of my dad.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Where to start, I am currently in a battle against not getting a cold/terrible cough. I am O.D.ing on vitamins, airborne, and green tea. Today is my only day off this week before flying home Friday so hopefully I feel better soon. I also have a terrible back/neck ache that I can't seem to fix which isn't helping. What I wouldn't do for a muscle relaxer right now.

2. On Saturday I headed over to IL for a mommy's day out, sans children, with my friends Michelle and Karen. We did lunch and then got a mani/pedi before I headed back to the show me state. The girls convinced me to paint my finger nails, which I never do, so currently I am sporting purple finger nail polish. It is good to get outside your box now and then. Karen posted our outing on facebook, which led to me being very confused as to how everyone knew what I was doing Saturday. Still not getting on that band wagon, I didn't really like everyone knowing where I was.

3. Sunday it was gorgeous outside so we took a family trip to the zoo. Usually Zach doesn't get to come with us on our Zoo adventures so it was very nice to have him come along. We saw all our favorites, ate a surprisingly delicious lunch, and finished our day with a ride on the train. A great time was had by all, as usual.

Zach and Zane by the hippos!

 Zach and Zane with the elephants.

 Mommy and Zane on the train.

 Our attempt at a family photo!

4. Zane's new favorite thing this week is the little milk cartons of gold fish crackers sold by the check out lines at Target. During last weeks shopping trip I forgot to pack snacks and picked one of these up on a whim. He absolutely loved it and was beyond careful while caring it around all day. He held onto it carefully in the car, not one fish spilled, then walked around with it all day at home. Who knew entertaining him was so easy. During today's Target trip he saw the fish milk cartons again and I couldn't not get him one. Here is Zane, playing outside, all the while holding his little fish milk carton. My genius idea is to keep the little milk carton, refill it with the new space adventure gold fish, and then take it with us on our airport adventure.

Playing in his house

 Sliding down his slide

and backing up his car

5. Zane and I are getting excited about our upcoming trip to Oklahoma. We are going to celebrate Abbey's birthday and enjoy some fun farm time at Grandma's. I am dreading the flight, per usual, but such is life.

6. Did you know that the Pope has a twitter page. Is that really what the church thinks people mean when they say it needs to modernize, because it isn't. Just saw the story about that from last nights Daily Show, very entertaining.

7. Here is little Zaney in his daddy's robe. It is the perfect size and oh so cute. Zane loves showing off his manly chest, this outfit is perfect for that.

8. I finally bought the Nancy Cassidy kid songs CD set. I have known for a long time that it is a wonderful collection of all the classic children's songs, but had forgotten about it until Abbey mentioned it on her blog the other day. I ordered it on amazon.com, got it two days later, and we have been having dance parties downstairs ever since. I highly recommend it, though I did notice that the itsy bitsy spider is not on either cd, which I thought was strange.

9. I am reading a great book called, Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. Zach bought it for me for Christmas and it picks up where Pride and Prejudice left off, but then obviously there is a murder at Pemberley followed by an investigation, but all involving Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice characters. I loved Pride and Prejudice, the movie and the book, so it has been fun revisiting those characters. I haven't finished it yet, but I would recommend it to any Pride and Prejudice fans.

10. This evening was Korenak family movie night, with the movie being Dumbo. I couldn't remember really any of Dumbo, since it wasn't one of the Disney movies we watched repeatedly as a child. My opinions on it as an adult are that there are some strong racist under tones, such as the black men who put up the circus tent in the rain not having any facial features, which was really strange, and the racists crows. Other than that it's a fun movie, though pretty sad that dumbo can't be with his mommy.

Easter Crafts

I had two things I wanted to make for the upcoming Easter season and over the past week I have finished both, which is quite impressive if I say so myself. After Michelle and I's failed attempt at a craft day I was left to craft alone, during nap times and after bed time. I thoroughly enjoy using the other side of my brain from time to time and for the most part it is a great stress reliever. I do have to force myself outside of the box a little, for example it was a struggle to not put all the eggs on the wreath facing the same direction and with some sort of color patter. I managed to glue an exorbitant number of eggs on two different art projects with no pattern at all!

The first project I did was an Easter topiary. I'm not sure that topiary is the right word, but it was between that and Zach's suggestion of "volcano" so I thought topiary probably described it slightly better. I guess I could have gone with egg volcano. Anyway, I digress. Here is how I made my festive Easter topiary. I do plan on making another one, because really having just one throws off my need for things to be balanced and the first one was oh so cute.

Supplies:

• Styrofoam cone
• Easter grass (I found the paper kind looked better than the plastic kind)
• A lot of small to medium sized eggs - the ones that are sold in a package, with string on them, I guess for an egg tree (Michael's and the Dollar store both had very cute ones for cheap)
• A lot of glue sticks 

The how to is pretty self explanatory once you see the picture. You glue the eggs on with grass in between and around them. I did find that it was easier to glue grass around the bottom, a layer of eggs, then a layer of grass, so on and so forth instead of trying to shove grass in between all the eggs. It was also helpful to have a few different sizes of eggs. I had some of the little bitty ones that are also meant for an egg tree, which were great for filling in the holes at the end. Here is the finished project. 

The second project was an egg wreath. I am sure you have seen multiple versions of this on pinterest as of late, but here is my take on it. 

Supplies:

• Styrofoam wreath - I got the 18in square styrofoam wreath
• Tons of plastic eggs of multiple sizes
• Tons of glue sticks
• Yellow acrylic paint and paint brushes

I started by painting the entire wreath yellow so you would see yellow in between the eggs instead of the white styrofoam. The styrofoam really sucks up the paint so it took almost the whole little bottle of acrylic paint. I then, completely randomly, glued the large size eggs around the front, outside, and inside of the wreath. After the base layer was done I was doubting the cuteness of the wreath, but after adding some different sized eggs and a few glitter eggs with ribbon on them it actually turned out super cute. It is probably the largest wreath I have ever made and by far the most glue sticks I have ever used on one project. Of course I couldn't resist putting a fun Easter bow on top. Here is the finished project.

What do you think? Cute or does it look like the Easter bunny threw up on it? I am torn between those two thoughts. 

Gratitude Five on Friday

I saw this quote the other day on Pinterest, " What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday." I found this to be a pretty powerful quote and I feel like a do a good job being grateful for things in my life, but in a lenten effort to be more grateful for what I have in my life, I thought I would do gratitude Five on Fridays. Here goes...

1. This week I was extremely grateful for the amazing weather we have been having. It was sixty five degrees yesterday and Zane and I spent pretty much all of his waking hours outside. We found a great new park near our house, Tilles Park on Hampton. It has three different play areas, one for big kids, one for intermediate kids, and one for babies. There are multiple swings and all sorts of room to run around, explore, and spot numerous dogs out for walks. I feel like we will be spending a lot of time there this spring/summer.

2. My healthy baby boy. This week at work was very difficult and at times very sad for some reason. There were numerous situations where I found myself close to tears thinking about what we have been through and overwhelmed with how grateful I am that my son is healthy, happy, and running around like a crazy person. I saw a lot of families on their worst days this week and it made me hug my little boy a little longer afterwards.

3. The friends I have made here. I have been blessed with having a lot of wonderful people come into my life through my work. I know I complain about it a lot and I wish I could spend more time at home with my son, but the truth is I have made some wonderful friends there. They are people that have been through the worst part of my life with me, holding my hand all the way, and now it is nice to be able to enjoy the friendships during happier times. Tomorrow I am having a girls day out with two of my friends for lunch and pedicures, how fun!

4. My basement: Pretty much on a daily basis I am thankful for this. It is a place that even on the coldest, rainiest, day Zane can run free without the worry of breaking anything. It can get extremely messy and if I am not feeling like cleaning it up at that moment I can walk upstairs, close the door, and ignore it. I know it sounds silly, but I don't know how I am going to live without a big basement if our next house doesn't have one. Where will I store all the baby clothes, decorations, luggage, and toys? Who knows, but for now I am grateful for that space.

5. Rounding out the things I am grateful for this past week is my bed. I love my bed, even if I hate my actual bedroom. It is so comfy and was probably some of the best money Zach and I ever spent. My sheets are super soft, my new duvet cover is heavy and warm, and don't even get me started on my amazing $40 pillow. That is probably the second best money I ever spent. I often don't get a lot of sleep and for some reason I still have a terrible time falling asleep, at the beginning of the night or during the night if I get up, but while I am laying there wide awake, for no apparent reason, I am grateful that my bed and pillow are so comfy.

Of course there are much bigger blessings in my life, like my husband, family, home, jobs, ect. but Friday Gratitude round up doesn't have to be just about the big things in life.

Ten on Fat Tuesday

1. Yesterday was one of those days when I had a great, fun day planned for Zane and I, and he was having none of it. I am not quite sure where my happy little shopper went yesterday, because Mr. Grabby pants was out in full force. Zane cried like a crazy person through all of our errands. I do not know what was wrong, besides he was bored in the shopping cart. He tried to stand up in the shopping cart, which of course didn't end well, he threw things out of the cart, and wasn't friendly at all. Once we got in the car he was fine.

2. After feeling bad for dragging him through a couple different stores I thought he might like to play with the trains at Barnes and Noble. Really I shouldn't have done this because he in no way had earned train table play time, but I had such high hopes for our afternoon I really wanted to end it on a high not. As you might guess, it didn't end on a high note, so much as him not sharing his trains, and leaving in full melt down. I did take a few pictures of him playing with the trains before any other kids got there and tried to play with his trains... gasp! Not a great mommy day. Here he is looking charming.

3. One of our errands included going to spend our Best Buy gift card that I have had for months. This little trip to Best Buy reminded me why I buy everything on Amazon.com. I was looking for Finding Nemo on DVD, a very nice lady there told me they were out of that movie right now but could order it for me and I could pick it up in a couple weeks. To which I said, "I will just buy it on amazon.com and have it in two days." So I let Zane free to pick out a movie from the kids isle. He picked Babe, something I wouldn't have thought of, but the cover will all the farm animals was a winner. We watched it last night and it is such a fun movie, I had totally forgotten about!

4. Over the weekend Zane apparently got extremely close to climbing out of his crib. So the new room redesign, so he can be moved to his big boy bed, is under way. The theme I think is going to be Little Explorer, which leaves it open to exploring all sorts of things such as space and the sea. I have pinned all sorts of ideas, including this crazy room which went on my, "In my dream home" board, not the little boy room board because it obviously isn't realistic. But how fun would a room like this be, there is a slide in the middle of the ship that comes out in the kids walk in closet, of course.


5. This one is for Zach's mom. Yesterday, while putting all of Zane's baby clothes in my cedar chest, we came across the famous sailor suit from Zach's childhood. We aren't sure if this one was his or his sister's, Zach seems to remember his having white on it, but either way we tried it on and here are the adorable results. The shorts were the right length but the pants were way to big on his skinny belly/bottom.

6. How is it Lent already? I of course work tomorrow, so I won't be able to go to ash Wednesday mass, which is just as well as it always makes me highly depressed. The chaplain does come around the floor and give us ashes though so I won't go to hell, just kidding :)

7. I was surprised that I didn't have a picture of Zane on Spot for his 20 month update, so I corrected that problem yesterday, with this adorable photo!

8. Today I got the pictures from Zane's 18 month (ish) photo shoot at the city museum. They are all wonderful, as usual. I always feel like we take a zillion photos and then there are only like sixty on the CD, but I am glad that she does the sorting out of the ones that aren't any good for me. Here is the link to the kordak photo gallery with the pictures. They really capture my little, now 20 month old, boy. Hope that link works. 

9. Today my friend Michelle came over for what was suppose to be a fun play date with our boys and craft time for her and I. It was a bit of a disaster. Her son was, I think, slightly terrified by Zane's over friendly nature. He wasn't being mean, which was good, but he was trying to tickle him, hug him, and was overly excited about showing him all his toys. Needless to say we didn't get any crafting done and Michelle had to leave with a sad little boy. I felt terrible that they drove all the way here and we didn't get to have the fun afternoon we had planned. We need to have craft day, without the children, I think. Sad face

10. On the craft note, I am planning on making an Easter egg wreath and little Easter egg topiary. Both very cheep crafts, since you can by a ton of plastic Easter eggs for nothing. Yes, I am starting them early, because as number nine proves, crafting is much easier said than done. I am off this weekend maybe I can get something done then.