all bundled up and ready to go

we got snacks, drinks, jack's sock and jared's pillow (yep, a sock and pillow are my boys "paci")! i love it for many reasons...
1.) they are not attached to A particular sock or A particular pillow, although white is a preference.
2.) they can be washed again and again and again and again and again and again. as i've mentioned in a prior post, i'm more of an extreme-opposite-type-person. i'm a clean freak in some cases and dirty in others. i don't care if my kids backwash in my drink, and i'll bite their dirty feet (it doesn't look dirty, but after i tickle-bite, i can taste dirty....ok ewwwwwwwwww, did i just type that?.....maybe i do need help :). however, i HAVE to wash my sheets AND comforter weekly and i have "germaphobe sanitizer" in my driver's side door, in my passenger side door (for when i'm not driving and b/c chunk gets tired of handing it to me), in my diaper bags, in my purse, in my kitchen, in jack's room, in jared' room, in the living room, in my office at work and hmmm.....i'm sure there's a few other places i'm missing. but my son can eat off my floor that i only mop once a week. ok i'm done proving i'm a freak...back to my first sentence in #2, my son's "paci's" can thankfully be washed again and again and again and again...i'm a freak about washing things. throw covers, yep i do try to refrain from washing them weekly. next reason...
3.) (incase my freak of nature distracted you...these are reasons why my son's "paci's rock) these can easily be replaced if forgotten and most people have them at there homes :)
4.) it keeps them from having to suck on a paci all day. they are thumbsuckers (both boys got mighty ticked if you tried to give them a paci as newborns...however, once they started crawling, they thought it was THE.MOST.FABULOUSLY.INVENTED.TOY.EVER b/c it perfectly fit in their mouth while still allowing them to discover the world on their hands and feet!
5.) one reason it stinks though is because you can't, hmmm...how shall i put it?, give their thumb away to a needy child, throw it away for candy, lose it, replace it with a toy etc. etc. etc. however, i'm not concerned, they are thumb suckers when they are sleepy, needy or bored. dentist says it's no problem until their like 4 or 5...but at that age, we'll be able to reason w/ them, so it's all gravy baby!

ok so this post was simply going to be a picture post, but i've turned it into another rambling one...anywho, my main point was to say...when i realized after cutting back to 32 hours that i was no longer going to be able to do my 15 min daily jog at work (not to mention the week i cut back my hours, my company opened a "life center" where you can take all sorts of exercising classes for 30 mins a day, 3 days a week, during WORK HOURS (not your lunch or after work) AND you can wear "yoga-type clothing" to work that day!!!! HOW AWESOME is that?) but again, i wasn't going to do that considering i was only working 32 hrs in the office and planned to keep my 40 hr responsibilities. so (focus jenn, focus), once i realized this, i decided i would buy a double jogging stroller and take the boys to the park a few days a week. this has turned into 7 days a week and i love it! the boys love it! and it's guaranteed exercise for both of us! so here's some pics of the boys bundled up, snacks, sock, pillow, drinks etc. (yea you know what my header implied i was going to write about) :)

this picture (awful quality b/c i could only snap when i was jogging, he wouldn't do it if i stopped) has a precious story behind it. i've been jogging w/ the boys for 8 months now (which in jared's defense, i usually had the sun shade up) and jared just realized last week that he could look back and see mommy while being strolled. when he learned this on halloween night, he literally looked back at me every 3 seconds and said "HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!" w/ a big 'ol grin. Each time he did this, it was as if it was something ***new*** It was priceless and made my heart melt. Now that it's no longer *new* per-se and filled w/ complete shock and amazement, he now can focus and tries to share his snacks w/me.

he's not walking yet, but my mom said he took one step today...i told her of course the little turdnugget will decide to do it while we're in st. louis this weekend!

now that my sweet jared has gotten over his feverish/cold funk, he talks to EVERYONE! and not just casual chit-chat, but some for real, serious talk, pointing, eyebrows, big eyes and all. oh how i wish i understood his babble. it's serious stuff i tell ya.

 and this last one is for giggles...jack has a reward chart and once he gets 8 stickers, he gets a prize. i spent $50 bucks @ the dollar store a few months back and invested LOTS of exciting prizes...this is a "grow in water" snake. when i put it in the water and backed up, i thought to myself that looks a little real...imagine a smaller image on a blackberry. so i snapped this shot and emailed my folks and bro stating "OH MY GOODNESS! I RAN JACK'S BATH WATER AND HAD TO CHANGE HIS POOPY DIAPER. LOOK WHAT I FOUND WHEN I CAME BACK! HOW DID THIS GET IN MY HOUSE????????????" I just knew my bro and dad would say whatever and my mom would freak. in fact, when i showed chunk he asked why i wanted to pick on my mom. well, my brother called and emailed saying "what kind is it? google the color pattern to see." haha! i fooled the one i doubted the most could be fooled! my dad fell for it, but my mom quickly told him she saw the snake today in the prize bag! My brother showed his due-in-two-weeks-wife, Karen, and she said "I can never take a bath again!" LOL. Anyway, in Erv's defense, this picture made him think of a discovery channel show where a pet snake had gone into sewer pipe and managed to slime his way into someone elses toilet! The lady stood up from using the potty and bam! there was a snake coiled in the bottom of her toilet! i love me some snakes, but not when i'm vulnerable and caught off guard!

ok nighty-night...time for some shut-eye :)