Father's Day

Father's Day was always something that I didn't understand growing up. My father was never a "dad" and surely not worth celebrating. When I was younger I used to get irritated at my friends that couldn't play on Father's Day... I was never around a man that was a good father. I loved both of my grandpa's but neither was a prize winning dad. I truly never knew what a good dad was until I had Jon, and Nathan became a dad. Wow... I know I'm biased but Nathan is THE BEST dad I have ever known.
I watch him with Ethan and see how easily it comes to him... well that's now, that surely wasn't the case 9 years ago :-) Boy was he nervous with Jon! I have a picture (some may know of this picture) and it's one of my very favorites. It's a picture that my mom took of Nathan right before he went into the delivery room when I was having my c-section with Jon. I guess he looked like a wreck and my mom told him to give a pose and he did a muscle man pose, in his smocks! The funny thing is that just minutes before that he and my mom were yelling at me to push Jon out! I was pushing and pushing and had been for at least an hour (was in labor for 24) and I finally looked at Nate as he held my hand and I told him I was going to die. He looked at my mom with a really serious face and said "is she really going to die?" my mom of course said no Nathan she is not going to die and then turned to me and said Brigette you're not going to die, now PUSH!
After a c-section the dad runs off with the nurse and baby/babies... I LOVE those pictures! He had no idea how he was going to hold both the twins at once, and he did so right away! He said that he had to be sitting though :-)

I am so proud of the father Nathan has become. Yes Nathan is a 10 year old in a 30 year old body most of the time, but it can be a great asset. He keeps us all laughing and running around. He's that guy that runs into garbage cans and knocks things down just to make us laugh, and it does.
Nate was a great dad for Jon's first 7 years but I really don't think that he realized what a little girl could do to shake that up. Alyssa left the hospital weighing 4.11lbs. And that little doll just melted into Nathan. She was the easier baby so for the first 2 weeks or so he mostly took care of her. She slept with him. Their bond is beyond what I ever thought a father/daughter bond was. Aly adores Nate and her smile shows it every time she sees him. When she needs someone to comfort her, Nathan is sometimes the only one that she'll go to. She has to have her shots first because she has to have daddy hold her, while I hold Jake. Nathan told me once he had a daughter his love for his kids changed. "There's something extra special about a girl".


Let me also add that of course Nathan isn't perfect and I do see the flaws... When I'm able to get out of the house for a couple hours I have to make sure I put all of the food the kids will eat out on the counter, or else they eat frozen pancakes all day long. I also have to change their clothes or they stay in their jammies all day long. I also have to pack up their shoes or else they are barefoot everywhere they go.
So Father's Day Nate wanted to shoot off his rocket. He got it for his birthday last year and built it probably 6 months ago and decided that Sunday was the big day. We didn't want the twins to go so him and Jon went. Here are the pictures.

It looks like they had a great time! They rocket made it safely home and I can't wait till the next time so we can all go.
As most know, Nathan is all about the food!!! So Saturday night we bbq'd lobster tails, shrimp ka-bob's and flounder. It was great! I also made him his favorite snacks on Father's Day, shrimp dip and cheese and salsa dip. Taco's are for dinner tonite which is also his favorite so he's a happy very full man!
I love you Nate!

Jacob's First Haircut!!!

After all of the nagging I finally decided that it was time to cut Jake's hair. I found a place that looked really kid friendly and made an appointment for today. It went really well!

Jake chose to sit in the firetruck and LOVED pulling the bell. I think he was a bit awe struck at first but she immediately handed him this fake cell-phone that he literally just sat and held. He would get this serious face and then just go back to acting like he was driving! It was way too cute!!!



Jake's before picture

Little Aly was having a great time being destructive and trying to throw their toys in the garbage and then just throwing magazines on the floor. Good grief! The place we went too was really cool! It had a ton of stuff for the kids to do and for the kids that are too old to sit in the chairs they had regular chairs and tv with video games hooked up. If Nate wasn't so cheap, he'd get his hair cut there!! For Jake's first hair cut we got a nice little certificate and of course some of his hair for the baby book.
























All in all Jake did GREAT!!! He fussed a little with the clippers but not even normal Jake fussing level...


















When we took Jake out of the firetruck (after a little fit) he then went walking around and Aly was SOOO funny! She just kept following him around pointing at his head and saying hi Jakey! It was adorable!!

They got stickers and Jon got a lollipop, they all walked away happy. Well except Jake who didn't want to leave :-)

Jake trying to eat the hair gel :-)

Last week

I am so glad that last week is over! I've been meaning to write this post for a couple days but my mind just wants to forget.

Dentist-Let me start by saying that I am a HUGE baby when it comes to pain. I had braces as a kid but up until a couple weeks ago never had a cavity. I guess it was my time. I have one really bad tooth, not sure if it will need a root canal but geez why is it that you go to the dentist with no pain and leave hurting. Is it REALLY necessary? Okay it is but still, OUCH! I was suffering all last week with pain from a temp crown they had put in. They redid it Friday (the cement work was sloppy) and am having pain again today.. UGH!

Thursday June 4th... It started early! We had to get Ethan to his eye doctor by 8:30am. It's a 40 minute drive and getting 4 kids ready for that is quite a task. We then forgot the double stroller so had to go back 10 minutes into the trip. We would have made it but then got lost, thanks mapquest. I tried to call but got the machine since they weren't opening till 9a (they were squeezing us in). We ended up only being about 10 minutes late, but I hate being late so I felt really bad!

We got right in and they immediately saw the Nystagmus (the moving of the eye). I love his doctor, I saw her a couple years ago. They then dialated his eyes and checked his optic nerve. Everything looked great... except it had no pigmentation. Ocular Albinism is the diagnosis. Same thing that I have. I was in the room with just E since Nate was with all the little ones but I was devastated. I knew it could happen but it was such a slap in the face. There is nothing worse then "mothers guilt", and boy do I have it. None of my other kids have it, thank god! We don't know what this means for E yet. It will take some time for us to see just how bad or good his vision is.

Ethan was great during the appointment and so were the twins and Jon for that matter! I ended up having to go straight home since my tooth was KILLING me!

Turns out I had some cement pressing into my gum and the only thing that helped was cold stuff. So I sent Nate to the store that afternoon to get me some ice-cream and the kids some juice. Well he left and not 5 minutes later I hear a HUGE gush of water. I actually thought it was the washing machine until Jon came running in and said he hit the hose thing. Sure enough, he ran his bike right into the water fixture and knocked off one of the spouts and it looked like a huge waterfall, going right into Nate's beautiful garden!! Did I mention I was taking vicoden and lots of it?! I found the main water thing and turned it off. There was still a nice stream of water coming out so I had Jon get a bucket to make sure no more water went into Nate's plants. I wish I could have taken a picture of Nate's face when he drove up and saw us standing out there. It took Nate 2 trips to the local plumbing place and 2 hours worth of work to fix it. Of course this had to be during the Lakers game--oops! He did fix it and at about 8pm my tooth stopped hurting. It was a LONG day!!

Saturday we met Nate's parents in Auburn (about an hour drive) for a late lunch. We met at a park and it was a lot of fun! The kids LOVE to explore, well at least Aly does. Jake tends to stick to one thing, this time it was Jon's scooter. The weather was beautiful! We then went to Chevy's to eat, it was GOOD! I miss having a Chevy's nearby! Ethan had a hard time but it was nice being able to take turns holding him.

Jon and I before Lion King

Sunday Jonathan and I went and saw Lion King with my best friend Barb and her 2 kids. It was AWESOME! The creativity that goes into it is amazing!

We then went to Jon's favorite restaurant for lunch, Islands. It was a LOT of fun!

Michael and Barb at lunch :-)



That was my week... phew! This week has not been so bad :-)

So we got our pictures back from the photographer! It was so much fun to do these and LOVE how they came out!! Take a look for yourself!!

http://www.poehlman.photoherald.com/ The password is brigette. It won't be viewable forever so get your sneak peek now!

Jonathan is 9 years old

Jon at 1 day old (with my mom) and then at 4 months old.

WOW!!
I'm going to go back in time 9 years....

Talk about surprises! Jon was a huge one! I had no idea I was pregnant, so I went to the doctor and sure enough I was pregnant. I told my mom it was gas and went home :-) I had to figure out what I wanted before I told anyone. Fast forward 7 months or so and Nathan and I were living with my mom. I was extremely over-due and so I had an appointment to be induced on Tuesday May 30th. Of course Jon had to make his entrance on his own time so my water broke at 5am Sunday May 28th. I immediately went to the hospital and was put on pitocin and induced for close to 12 hours.... I was FINALLY given an epidural around 7pm that night and sometime around 4am I got the go ahead to start pushing. I did for almost 2 hours (after the epidural had worn off) and was told that Jon's head was kind of stuck. So c-section it was! He was born a little bit before 6am on Memorial Day May 29th and was 7lbs 15oz. He was perfect and absolutely adorable!

Jon is a cool kid. A very quirky thing about Jon is the names he gives things and people. He has done this since he was VERY young and as I look back I think he did this from the very beginning. He's always had his own vocab. My best friend (also a pre-school teacher) informs me that this is "not" normal kid behavior :-) Yeah I could have guessed Jon wasn't normal! So if you hear Jon calling for Mr. Oaks or Marge--that's Nate and I. Aly is Little pickle and Ethan is double E. He calls the babies -- bears. He doesn't do it to be funny or to get attention, this is just his way. I absolutely adore him. Yes he drives me crazy and yes I can get VERY upset with him, but he is my Jon and will always hold a special place in my heart as the big brother and the only child for 7 years.

So for his birthday he wanted a sparks scooter--it's a scooter that when you stop it gives off a couple little sparks. He also wanted a Star Wars computer game. He loved his gifts and it was a lot of fun torturing him. We gave him his gifts first thing in the morning (a pair of shorts and a new tube for his bike)... after we got the twins down for their first nap we gave him the good stuff. He was thrilled! He's been riding his bike and scooter all weekend.

I'm also going to post some pictures of a frog that Jon was playing with and also the twins got to hold their first frog. I HATE frogs.. but am realizing that I'm getting much better.




We're all loving the summer weather and the kids love hanging out outside. We're looking forward to a very busy week ahead. Nathan has a dentist appointment tomorrow-- I really hope it goes better then mine last week, I'm still in pain--ouch! Ethan's eye exam was moved to Thursday so we'll be there really early! I'm so thankful we were able to get him in earlier and I'm anxious to hear whats wrong. And then Sunday Jon and I are going to see the play Lion King with my best friend and her kids. That should be a lot of fun!!
Jake and his walker... It took him at least 30 minutes to get that far!


I couldn't forget sweet Aly!

Sorry no new pics of E this week! I'll make sure I get a couple good ones for next week!