Well we made it home safe and sound on Sunday night. After our fun weekend. On Saturday we met up with Lisa and Jessica for some fun. We went to that store, Second Debut and another store that sold "designer" clothes at 70% or more. I almost bought a christening gown for any possible future daughters, i was talked out of it. It was only $8.50, come on guys! I tried on a few dresses for Jason's cousin Patty's wedding, but since i actually already have 4 dresses i could wear i didn't buy any. At Second Debut i found a Coach Wallet, which the man in the store said was a fake because it was made in China, but doing a little research the wallets are made in china! It also has the zipper(YKK) that Coach uses and nice stitching. So it may or may not be real. The zipper pull was missing though. After that we drove down to Punch Pizza and had Neapolitan pizza. Jason actually liked it too! It had yummy basil on it. After that we went to Wild Rumpus and Sebastian Joes. We played at Jessica's house too! For dinner we went to Convention Grill and had yummy burger, fries, ice cream and Hot Fudge. It was very good! Then everyone came back to the Hotel for a swim. Hayden was all "Nick watch me" "Lisa watch me" "Dad watch me" "Mom watch me" yikes! He loves everyones attention. He was a very good little boy this weekend too! On Sunday we woke up and went to Ikea. We found a Dining Room table we LOVED. Its nice because its just one solid piece of wood for the top, thats what i want. Its really dark and watch our woodwork perfectly. We are thinking this may need to be purchased in the near future. We are thinking that we'll buy 4 chairs right away and the next few times we go we'll pick up the rest of the chairs. We are going to get one leather chair for the head of the table, Jason liked it! After Ikea and me running into a teacher from school, we went to Menomonie to see Emily. We just hung out in her dorm room and watch ice cream cake. We hit the road and got home around 9 because we met my mom and dad for dinner. We saw a Black Bear on Highway 53 it was neat. Its nice to be home and time to start another week! Pictures to come soon!

Fun with Jessica

Hayden woke up this morning looked out the window and said " Why is there snow on the ground, doesn't know it's Spring?" Poor kid! We keep telling him we'll play golf with them, and t-ball when the snow goes away and it just keeps coming back! Not much snow either! Just a dusting and we are actually in Bloomington at the Staybridge Suites. I've stayed her a bunch of times with my parents and brought my boys back. The rooms are very nice and all rooms are a "suite". We don't have much planned for the weekend but i am sure it will be action packed! Yesterday we first went to Jessica's house and those two played, and super well! They were very good sharers. Then we went to the Mall of America. I of course found a smokin' deal on a winter coat for next year for Hayden. Its a wool peacoat with toggle buttons and a food with a fake Sherpa lining for $6.97! Its a $42 coat! I was happy. He also got a new swim suit. I found a swim shirt(Rash Guard) on clearance for $4.99 down from 10.00 and then we went and found matching bottoms that were on sale for $10. Hayden was SO excited. I love it, my boy gets excited about new clothes, he is totally my son! Jason of course rolls his eyes. I went into Janie and Jack. Its the Upper end of Gymboree. I was impressed with the prices of their clearance items, made them affordable if i was splurging but so many of the items i have see sooooo similar at Gymboree they just put a turtle on them or something like that. They did however have the cutest hats for boys. I didn't buy one but i will differently watch their online clearance for them. Okay anyways after Mommy was in shopping heaven the kids went on some rides at the new Nickelodeon Theme park at MOA. I didn't know Nick had taken it over. It was cute with big Dora and Boots faces on the ferris wheel and Diego Bus. Spongebob roller coaster, you get it. Hayden bounced in Spongebob's Pineapple, both kids+the mommies rode in Blue and Magenta. Lisa, Jason and the kids rode on some Big Rigs, the kids rode on Dora's blue train(the name is in Spainish but i have no clue how to spell it!) and then the mommies and kids rode on Swipers Sweepers. Which were little cars that kind of whip you around the corners. We all loved it! It was actually fun for a kiddy ride. And something that i liked there was that parents did not have to pay for going on the rides with the little kids. Most places make the parents pay too. We had a Food Court dinner Hayden and I shared what he wanted, Chinese. Well actually we had Japanese but don't tell Hayden. He loved the Sesame Chicken(the only Chinese food Jason will eat!) and devoured the rice. He is becoming an adventurous eater, which i love because i will try just about everything. Okay better go wake up Jason who has a cold, poor guy. But he was a trooper all day yesterday. I keep pumping Tylenol Cold into him. Today we have many options! Ikea, Wild Rumpus/Creative Kidstuff, Denny's bakery, Convention Grill, Grand Old Creamery or is it Ole?, indoor playground, Second Debut( i found this place online last night, its all the high end stuff Goodwill gets they put it into a swanky store and sell it and what they say is Goodwill prices, well see! Maybe i can be like my mom and get a Coach purse at Goodwill! Wink, Wink mom! Tomorrow we are heading to Stout to see my sister. We may have to stop at Nelson's Dairy on the way through Stillwater! Have a good weekend! Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures the rest of the weekend because i didn't on Friday.

Okay instead of telling you all the bad things about the week i am just posting the good!
We went to the Depot on Saturday with Cousin Jacob. Lots of fun! But those two have very different taste in what they like.
Our grass is Green!
We have buds on our plants/bushes. Which is very exciting because we are always certain we killed them off last year.
I worked a TON this week and didn't really get burned out. So i guess there could be a future with a full time job for me.
It was Sample Sale week! Yeah for me! I have a whole new wardrobe.
It was warm enough for me to wear Sandals to work and Hayden got to wear his Crocs.
We are heading to the Cities next weekend for a much needed weekend away.

Watching the balls fly through the air with the help of air pressure.
Hayden the Builder

Look at Hayden's face he looks sad. Whats wrong with my baby??

Hmmm whats up here??

Driving the Snow Plow Train

My boss Jodie is expecting a baby girl in June/July. She is having the hardest time coming up with yet another girl name. I gave her my baby name book and highlighted and noted all the names i thought she'd like. I did good too! I put my top 3 all time favorite girls names in the front cover, Anna, Sophia, and McKenna. I plan on using Anna and Sophia (Anna Sophia Smith, ASS! Yikes! This future girl needs another middle name!) But she loved McKenna and her parents are dead set on Anna. But then they all fell in love with another name.

She has a 2 year old daughter, McKenzie and she keeps asking her what her baby sisters name is and she tells someone a different name each time. But they semi agreed along with her husband on Taylor(a Kasie highlighted name!). While they were at dinner on Monday a former student of ours served them and asked about the baby's name. McKenzie told her, her sister's name was Carlin. Jodie had never heard that name before, nor as she knew, McKenzie. But Jodie kind of liked it. Well as the night went on Jodie fell more and more in love with the name Carlin. I think its beautiful name too. So the freak that i am looked it up online and it means Little one of Charlie. Which is Jodie's dads name and she wanted so badly to name her daughter Charlee but thought it would be too confusing. So the name is perfect. It however hasn't been finalized for her future daughter. But i thought how crazy that the 2 year old picked the most perfect name from out of nowhere.

Mommy Tip!

I love clothes, shoes, and accessories! I love dressing my boy like the little model he is. But i hate spending a lot of money and time taking care of all his clothing. So what do i do to make this easier on myself? First all i buy stuff at the end of each season for next year. If i have a clue what size he'll be in. I buy 2 of things i love!(i do this with myself also). But of course only at a very discounted price. But my favorite tip is that i NEVER, EVER put his "good" clothes in the dryer. I hang all of his nice pants and name brand shirts on the giant clothesline that was left in our house. This helps with stains, fading, and detail peeling. The stains don't set and will almost always come out in the next wash. I also am now a firm believer in Tide. Tide with anything is better than well anything. I love generic things, but this is the one thing i found i can't buy generic, even the expensive generic isn't anywhere near the greatness of Tide. Hope you enjoy this tip!

Jason's work shirts NEVER go in the dryer either! I bet you all can imagine whats on his shirts.

I hope everyone survived the mini blizzard we had on Friday. It wasn't as bad as it was suppose to be, at least here in Superior. We decided to bunker down at the Holiday Inn Express in Superior for the night on Thursday, since Jason and I both didn't have to work on Friday. We had fun. We were upgraded to a suite because nobody wanted to be on the lake side of the hotel, we didn't care. It wasn't even that noisy. Everyone at the hotel was freaking out about what they were going to do, we just kind of laughed it off. We swam and hot tubbed for a while and then got dressed and had dinner at Perkins. Came back watched a little cable. Hayden had his own sofa sleeper and just watched the storm come in. I am really glad we did it, we had fun. We may need to do this once a year on a snow day. We paid lots of attention to Hayden and made sure he had fun. To see if it was attention he has been seeking. We still don't know what is causing the crying. He had 2 major crying fits/tantrums. Thursday and Friday. Just the littlest thing sets him off and then nothing really makes him stop either. I think he just tires of crying. But Saturday and so far today we are good! Yeah!

Saturday i was able to get away for a Pampered Chef party at Angies house. I bought my favorite stoneware baking pan. I swear it makes the best lasagna ever. It sets it just perfectly. I see lots of lasagnas in our future! I bought a frosting spreader and stoneware scrappers too! Not all that exciting but i don't care its what i wanted. They also had little lemon cakes and boy were they heavenly. I am completely into citrus right now. Anything lemon i love. Including the Weight Watch Lemon Cakes, only 1 point and they actually taste like cake. Yummy!

I am going to be working a TON at WITC this week. Everyday but Friday. I will go to work at SHS and then go right over there until 8. I will probably be exhausted by Friday. Oh well. They don't really have anything for me to work on there either so i am thinking i am going to bring work from SHS over to work on.

Jason and I are going to Arizona in May! Yeah! Just for a short little visit to see Sarah and Casey and their new baby who is due on the 15th of May. Hayden will stay home, probably. I can't wait to see Sarah's house and School and everything.

Today we are heading to Washburn to the Dairy and then to Iron River for Pizza.

Crying. Ahhhh i even hate the word. Why is that children cry when my 3 year old can very easily tell me whats wrong, is that not why i taught him to talk? As of lately all Hayden does is cry when things don't go his way. At first i thought it was not sleeping, then i thought maybe he didn't feel well, but now i just don't know. Something is not right. I googled my thoughts and came up with some good tips for Mom and Dad. Be Consistent, Don't Give In, Don't Bribe(i love bribery!), ignore until he stops, punish him until done. But i don't know. The first 3 i will try. But i can't ignore him, something is obviously wrong, and punishing him doesn't seem right to me. But we'll see. Jason was Super Dad last night. Hayden cried when i went into Target, all the way home, and another half hour when we got home. He likes to take off his seatbelt now in the car when crying or mad. This doesn't work. We pull that car over so fast and put that back on him. But when we got home Jason held Hayden until he stopped crying and took a few deep calming breathes. I kind of laughed it sounded like they were doing yoga! Hayden didn't like the holding but Jason just kept telling him to calm down, he didn't once give up. Go Jason!
On Monday night we left Jason's parent's house and he cried all the way home and for about 2 hours when we got home. He finally stopped crying when he was naked and lying on the kitchen floor with a mound of pillows and the, Buffy. Jason did it not me. But he just kind of held it to his chest and it comforted him just having it. After crying and a bath we were all in bed around midnight. Have i said anything about not sleeping? My child doesn't sleep. Not nearly enough. We have let him sleep in bed with us the last 2 nights, only because we fall asleep before we can move him. He is still a baby really, he needs lots of sleep and not getting enough. Poor Guy. So hopefully we can find our issue and nix it. We want peace restored in the Smith house.
Going on walks to the park, and baths seem to help. Mommy going to work, getting dressed, laying down with fringes, and Barney DO NOT HELP! Mommy going to work has been an issue this week too. Crying and clinging on to me. He wakes up in the morning and tells me he wants me to stay home and watch him all day. I feel bad of course but work is my peace this week. Oh wait it is only Wednesday isn't. Wish us luck for the rest of the week, as Jason has him both days, all day!

Hmmmm. Here is a night in the life of Hayden.

Mommy and Daddy are busy in the living room. They told me to go play. And on the way to my room to play i saw the Tupperware full of pizza sauce. And then i had this great idea to finger paint with it. Glass is always a great canvas, don't you think?

Okay. After they made ME clean it up, they again told me to go play in my room. They think i should just play with all my toys, i am THREE i don't like to play toys, i like to do things i am not suppose to. Here is where i compromise with them. Naked Army. Apparently my mom edited this photo.

See after i was a stinker all night long i get what i wanted in the first place. To go play outside. Anyone up for a walk to the park?