We made it…..one year.  My tiniest pal, I mean amigo, turned one.  We did it.  I started with 3 kids under the age of 3, survived potty training twins and made it through a stretch of changing nearly 2.5 dozen diapers a day.  It was time to celebrate and who doesn’t love a good fiesta?

I love a good party and a good theme.  I love my kids more than corn loves poop so when it comes to them, I do have a tendency to go overboard.  I know, I know – it is for a party he will never remember but you only turn 1 once so we might as well go all out.

I made sombreros for all the kids with their names on them for a fun party favor to take home and they also double as buckets for the pinata loot and all the candy crap and cookies we had for them to take home.  We had chiclets, gummy chili peppers, gummy sharks, chupa cups lollipops, chile pepper shaped cookies, Hershey bars with a fancy label and the best favor of all – mexican jumping beans.  It is amazing what happens when insomnia and google collide at 3 am.  Like I said, I love a good theme.  My amazing friend Mandy who owns thispretty.com made the birthday boys birthday shirt along with matching shirts for the whole family.

We had a taco bar and I cooked all the food myself so I did not have to pay for catering.  Damn, that was a lot of work and a lot of chopping.  I do love to cook so that saved me some in the money department but not so much in the sanity department.  I did ground beef and shredded chile chicken along with rice and beans for 45 people.  I should have broke into the Corona when the cooking commenced.  Next time…..although I have decided that when the twins turn 4 we will be heading directly to the local bowling alley where I do not have to clean up or worry about if someone will open up my medicine cabinet and see my super plus tampons or old hemorrhoid cream that I refuse to throw away.  Hey, you never know.

I also printed out the first 11 month pictures that I took of him and hung them up under his Abbey Road street sign.  It was pretty cool to see how he got a bit more buttery every month.  Ah Butters, you are my dream come true.

L.A. actually had the best time I think.  He told me last night Abbott’s party was so cool because “all of my friends came and he got a tractor and a truck to share with me and I ate so much candy that my tummy hurts a little.  But just a little Mommy, I could still have a lollipop after I brush my teeth.”  We have amazingly generous friends and family who brought him some pretty cool stuff even though I said “no gifts” on the invite.  I even managed to get 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of Tito’s vodka for his birthday.  Talk about a great gift!

So we made it Abbott.  We made it to one and you survived.  We all survived.  There are many times when I look at the clock and realize it is 10 am and feel like it should be 7:30 pm.  They have been times when I went to bite my nails only to realize I had poop stuck under them.  There have been times where I let my kids play with a box of maxi pads simply because they were not fighting and were quiet for 30 minutes. “Mommy, why are all the stickers the same?”  “Mommy, this looks like a bug, can you draw eyes on it?”  Sure I can.  I whipped out my sharpie and turned those pads into giant caterpillars and we stuck them to the ground like a line of marching ants.  Whatever works, right?

So thanks for hanging in there Abbott.  I could not love you more if I tried.  Happy birthday to my tiniest giant pal.  Here’s to many more fiestas, lots of laughs, a few tears, several wasted sanitary products and most of all, lots of love.  XO – Mommy

The timing could not have been more perfect – one kid comes home sick from school with a case of the trots, poop soup, Hershey squirts, brown snake shake, whatever you call it in your house.  Wait, I guess some people might actually call it diarreah.  Not us, we don’t really call anything by it’s correct name over here.  So the bathroom got to this point today and it was usable and that is amazing.  After 3 months or “10 Days” in Mark the polish contractor terms, we have a functioning bathroom.  It got quite the break-in today and L.A. logged (see what I did there) several hours on the toilet tonight and it could handle it all.  As he says, “Mommy, that toilet can hold a lot of brown snake shakes”.  Even Abbott scooted his chair up to get a closer look.  We all spent quite some time in there this evening.  When we ripped up the floors, we decided as long as we were going that far into it we might as well have the floors heated and it is amazing. Such a simple and inexpensive thing to do.  Highly recommended if you are redoing floors in a bathroom.  Eden was tripped out by the fact that her toes were hot in the bathroom so she tip toed around that place all night and I was tripped out that I actually had a bathroom, for the most part.  It has a flushing toilet, a sink to wash your mitts and a tub that will never be used.  Never.  Who ever heard of getting a bathtub just for show?  Only idiots do stuff like that….”Hello, my name is Jenn and I am an idiot.”  And if you take a bath in my vintage tub I will rub a rusty cheese grater over you eyeballs then sprinkle a bit of Tobasco in there as a finishing touch.  I am not sure what I will use it for but I will keep your posted.  So tomorrow we get paint then light fixtures, towel bars etc…then it is really truly a bathroom.  I will believe it when I see it but I must admit that I see the light at the end of the stinky tunnel.

On a side note about my kids calling things odd names.  I got a call from the teacher one day telling me that L.A. fell at recess and hurt his chin.  She said he got very upset because he had never heard anyone just call it a chin.  In our house, you guessed it – it is a chinny chin chin.  No way around that one.  My kids refer to their eyes as their peepers, shoes are referred to as kicks, they call the phone the horn – “Be quiet Eden, Mommy is on the horn,” a nose is a snoot.  It is amazing how they just pick up on what we say as adults and then roll with it.  My all time favorite was when Eden told her teacher that “Mommy puts tampots up her butt.”  Yes, tamPOTS…up…my…butt.  Wow.  I just smiled at that one.  All I could do.  Let her wonder.  For all I know their poor teacher thinks I walk around with Tampots in my butt while braiding my chinny chin chin hairs since I cannot pluck them, due to my buttery tweezers.

Our parenting is maybe not the norm because we probably have too much fun, buy too much crap, let them stay up later than they should be but they are only young once and it seems to flying by.   We are a fun family and tend to go overboard when we do things…..this is a character flaw I got from one of my best friends – my dad.  My dad has a nickname and it is “Excess Ed” because he likes to do it up,  that rubbed off on me.  If I am going to do something, just do it right.  For Abbott’s first birthday party, we are having a fiesta that will not be complete until I have real live mexican jumping beans for everyone, chiclets and Chupa Chups lollipops imported from Mexico, gummy chili peppers, personalized candy bars and personalized sombreros for all the tots – complete with stick on mustaches.  I have my amazing friend Mandy who owns This Pretty and does the most fun and customizable shirts.  She is outfitting all of us in fiesta wear for the shin dig.  Everyone from Arno and I and my pals, the birthday boy naturally but we also got the grandparents in on it too,  I am a firm believer that everything goes smoother when you wear a uniform, just look at Hooters.  The party is this weekend and I have been wrapping Mexican jumping bean apartments with care instructions, bundeling up gummy chili peppers in tiny cellophane bags, and the chiclets in bags.  The funny thing is my kids are not allowed to chew gum so they will get so excited to get the treat and then I will rip it from their hot little hands,  Our rule is that you have to be 6 to chew gum but you can get your ears pierced whenever you want.  As soon as she asks I will burn rubber to Claires.

Wait, how could I forget about the pinata?  I googled how you can convert it to a pull string one so kids pull a string versus whacking it.  This could be a total shit show because you know the first little booger is going to step up to the plate and pull the one string that will unleash all the candy……then we will have about 14 disappointed and hysterical kids who ended up with something lame like a pixie stick while some 5 year old is up there with the full size Snickers and the bottle of Grey Goose..  I still have to come up with a back up on this one so suggestions are welcome.  Help.

To celebrate our new bathroom, we pulled out ALL the stops for dinner.  We have been waiting for months for his day so what better way to celebrate that with lobster tails, crab cakes, sushi and cavier.  Or you could celebrate Gerbrecht 5 style with….wait for it….wait for it – English Muffin Pizzas.  Now think about the last time you had these?  Then immediately run to the store and get all the fixings.  They. Are. Amazing.  It does not hurt that it takes about 32 seconds to throw these bad boys together.

First thing you have to do is put a little Pam or butter or oil on the tinfoil, which I put over the actual cookie sheet.  Makes cleaning up WAY easier and I hate cleaning.  This too will ensure the bottom gets cripsy.  I can tidy like a beast but real deep cleaning can give me the heebie jeebies and there is no cure.  Back to the pizzas – Top them with your favorite stuff so everybody gets to make their own so the kids LOVE that part.  The key is to spread a little buttery substance before you hit the sauce.  We use Smart Balance in our house…..so slap  a spread of that, little garlic salt, them pizza sauce and toppings, pepperoni in my house (blech….I prefer sausage.  Always.  In everything from pizza to my parties to my bed).  But my pals like pepperoni so I take one for my favorite teamSuper smart thing to is that we write our name on the tinfoil so you never have to fight over who made which pizza.  Trust me, before I came up with this genius concept, there was pizza stealing, pepperoni counting and way too many tears to be shed over an english muffin pizza.  No tears – all joy.  Those are my rules that apply to these little guys.  Do yourself a favor and make them.  I know it has been about 23 years but dust that english muffin box off and give them a whirl.  You will not be disappointed.

We have T minus 4 days till the fiesta and lots of work today….any suggestions are appreciated.  Just do not attempt to ask me to pluck your chinny chin chin hairs with my buttery tweezers.  Not gonna happen.

As I sit here staring at my bathroom that was supposed to be done in “10 days” and is still not done (mind you it started on Nov. 2) I am reflecting back on how I made it through this house rehab for the most part unscathed.  We are nowhere near done but unless HGTV shows up at my door, I need a break.  I need a break from contractor’s in and out of the house all day long.  I need a break from dust.  I need a break from picking stuff out and second guessing every choice.  I need a break from people screaming in polish.

If you have never rehabbed a house and lived through it.  I have one piece of advice.  Don’t do it.  Maybe one day my attitude will change but right now I am still a little scarred from the experience.  If our marriage can survive dealing with budgets, strangers here all day long, trying to agree on selections and living in a construction zone – we can make it through anything.  My husband is a saint as I nearly cracked a few times.  I must say that I am very happy with the way things turned out but next time I would not live through it.  Next time we will move in AFTER the work is done, the house is clean and I do not have to live with 687 millipedes.  On a side note, those things are so damn creepy and can you imagine if they had to wear shoes?  It would take them an hour to get their shoes on and then get ready to scare the shit out of me.

My poor kids ate more Happy Meals on the back steps and had more peanut butter and jelly picnics in my bedroom than I care to count.  They took it in stride and actually made a couple friends.  Ranko the painter is their favorite – or should I say “Uncle Ranko” as they refer to him.

One of my favorite things that happened was when the roofer saw me butt naked, right out of my bathroom window.  I just stood there – frozen.  Kind of like what they say you should do if you come upon a bear in the woods…..just stay still and he might not notice you.  He noticed me all right.  I still to this day do not know if it was a positive or a negative experience for him.  Depending on his level of desperation, it really could have gone either way.

Here are a couple before pics: (If you love oak and hunter green you will be very sad we changed the 1983 vibe we had going).

The original kitchen (with my saintly friend K who helped us through this mess).

After we ripped out everything from the kitchen sink to every hair on my head, we ended up here…..

I always wanted a white kitchen to match my crazy white dog.

So now we are patiently waiting for the “10 days” to be up so we can use the bathroom downstairs.  In the meantime we will relish in the good times – like replacing all your windows in the middle of December, having boiling hot water in our toilets one day, running to McDonald’s to use the bathroom only to pee in the carseat on the way there and having water pour through the electrical fixtures at 2 am.  Sometimes I feel like I lived through the 1988 comedy “The Money Pit”.  It was such a great movie that I decided acting it out in real life was in order……after all, who doesn’t love showing the roofer your flat ass?

But who is really counting…..hell, by the time I complete this post school will probably start in 10 hours.

We have crafted and cooked and watched and sled and painted and snuggled and read and pizza partied but it’s time.  It.  Is.  Time.  My pals need to go to school to be around their friends and tell their teacher about all my bathroom habits and what really goes on at home.  They need to have someone else tell them no for the next few hours.  I will miss them dearly but tomorrow I get to hang with my main squeeze – Abbott.  The Real Estate market is slow right now so I get heavy kid time.  One on one kid time is amazing and I looking forward to it more than ever with my giant baby.  We just sit around and smile.  That’s is what we do.  He is like Elf – smiling is his favorite.  And don’t forget he looks like a giant owl.  He has those giant eyeballs and can spot a dime across a forest or better yet a Target.  Maybe we will just cruise around Target tomorrow finding spare change.

We had great plans this am when we woke up….we were going to make homemade cookies and craft and NOT watch TV.  The reality of it all was that we sliced open a log of Pilsbury sugar cookie dough, sliced that log up, gave each pal a bag of M and M’s and let them go to town sticking them in the premade dough.  We baked them and ate them.  We actually pulled chairs up to the oven to watch them cook.  Hey, don’t knock it, it passed a good 12 minutes and it was nice and toasty.  Then we watched TV….a lot of it.  Oops.  We also ate chips.  A lot of them.

Cookie log time

We couldn’t decide what to do next and I was getting nervous we were going to have to come up with something productive and educational and then “ding dong” – the doorbell rang and they delivered my husband’s monster new snow blower which happen to come in a giant box.  Problem solved.  3 kids, one giant box…..hours of fun.  Sign us up.  They cruised a few hours in that box straight up until dinner time where I actually served their dinner.  Velveeta shells and cheese cleans off of cardboard quite nicely.   Who knew? Then they marched up for a bath and bed.  Not a bad day really, all things considered.  Not what we planned but I will take it.  That log of pilsbury dough is not half bad either.  Don’t knock the log until you try the log.  Now getting them up for school tomorrow after an 18 day break could be another story.

And if you need me tomorrow, my giant owl and I will be spotting dimes and smiling at Target.

Wow.  Negative 18 when we woke up this am.  Seriously.  It was kind of hard to wrap my mind around it so I stopped my husband from walking the dog because I said I wanted to feel what -18 felt like…..that was my first mistake.  Holy.  Balls.  I will tell you what it feels like – it feels like a million angry bee’s are biting you with Ben-Gay on their stingers.  Wait, make that two million angry bee’s.

So with negative 18 degrees comes kids stuck in doors all day……ALL day.  Not even a breath of fresh air hit their lungs – except for when I came in from the angry Ben-Gay bee swarm.  It had me appreciating the days of summer, hell, even the days of 12 degrees.

It also got me to thinking about all the things, like getting outside, that are completely underrated and simply just do not get enough credit for existing.  Just being there…Things like:

The bathroom door lock.  Such a little thing but so awesome.  When your kids fight over who gets to flush your pee down the toilet, it is nice to be able to shut the door, turn that lock and whiz in peace.  Generally not peace as there are usually 4 tiny fists banging on the door but I will take what I can get.

Good Breath.  This is one of those things you do not appreciate until you have the unfortunate experience of talking to someone who has horrible breath.  I am talking that knock you out and kill a cactus breath.  I talked to someone the other day who had breath that smelled like an angry outhouse on fire.  It was that bad.  It sort of hurt my brain it was so terrible.  I was trying to talk and not breathe at the same time which is very hard to do.  I ended up sounding like Pee Wee Herman.  (On a side note, if you ever talk to me and I have toilet breath, just tell me).

A Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.  When was the last time you had one of these?  You forget how good they are.  When I make them for my kids I hover over them like a vulture just waiting for scraps.  I will even take the stale crust.  If you have not had one lately go ahead and make yourself one.  You will not be disappointed.  I recommend grape jelly and smooth peanut butter on wheat….but not that wheat bread that has full bird seeds and oatmeal bits, just plain old wheat.

A king size bed.  If you do not have one of these you are missing out.  I forget how awesome it is until I sleep in one of those double beds with my snoring husband and two baby alligators.  Some day my kids will actually spend the entire night in their bed but for now, Every morning, about 3 am, my pals come hand in hand and fight over who gets to sleep by me.  If they had their way, they would sleep on top of me.  At least when you are in a king size bed you have an extra inch or two to move.  In a double bed we are stuffed in there like baby dills in a jar….almost like a game of Jenga trying to fit in the damn thing.

A good set of tweezers.  Have you ever gone to tackle those pesky chin hairs or try and tame your unibrow using a terrible tweezers?  You feel like you are tugging on a buttery whisker that is mocking you with every tug.  A good set of tweezers can be life changing….especially when you are italian.

A pee diaper.  You know the kind, the opposite of the poop diaper.  When you get all ready to change a giant dump, you open it up and wah-la – just pee.  We call those “ghost poops” in our house.  You swear it is going to be the kind where the poop resembles mustard and is half way up the back and you undo those tabs one by one to be surprised by whiz.  Simply whiz.  It is like winning the lottery.

Good salami.  The fancy stuff that is about half an arm and a leg a pound – has to be genoa.  Sometimes I cheap out and get Hormel or whatever is on sale at the deli then try and have it with good cheese and crackers. It is like gnawing on an oily nub of cat food.   No thanks.  I regret it every time.  I am pretty darn frugal but there are a couple things that I pony up for and salami is one of them.  So are pretzels, milk, crackers, juice, bed sheets, lotion and baby wipes.  Everything else is up for grabs.  Store brand Honey Nut Cheerios?  No problem there.

Tiny hugs.  These are the best kind out there and today I got about 83 because we were in close quarters all day.  When they are running all day and in school this number drops dramatically.  Today I got them out of nowhere and several “I love you’s” just out of the blue.  These are the absolute best parts of my day.  In our house we like “Holding Hugs”.  That means you have to stand up and hug them tight, tight, tight and they wrap their little legs around you and you rock side to side for a good 30 seconds, sometimes longer if you got the groove going.  There is nothing better in this world than a “holding hug” from one of my pals who tells me I am their best friend and I am so pretty.  You feel like Costanza from Seinfeld trying to leave on a high note – because nothing can top it.  I think nothing can top my kids though.

So, with school cancelled tomorrow we get to do it again and it is fun!  A whole fun free day to do stuff with your kids is amazing but when you have to do it at home, your options become  a bit limited.  No one wants to come visit b/c they do not want to leave their cozy house either.  We already have cookie baking on deck along with foot painting (not finger – “FOOT” painting).  This was all L.A.’s idea.  There were several mentions of scrambled eggs so I am sure I can fit those in….just no more Dora.  I will kick her right out the D-D-D-Doora with my giant winter boot.  Mickey Mouse Clubhose I can get down with or Despicable Me 2.  I just need Coffee for me and french toast sticks and egg nog with apple slices to get my pals morning going…..should be smooth sailing from there – until I need to use my tweezers.

Well, we did it…..we started a blog.  I figured that my kids were doing such a grand job raising me that I needed to start documenting everything they teach me and everything we learn together.  It’s not easy, it’s not pretty but we sure do have fun.  Welcome and enjoy the ride…..we sure do.

Ah, my pals…..I started with two pals and almost a year ago got the best surprise I ever could have asked for – My giant baby, Abbott.  Nothing better than him.  For real.

Little Arno and Miss Eden are nearly 4 years old and have kept me on my toes since the day they roared into this world.  It is no secret that we struggled with fertility issues and went through countless procedures and finally had success after our 4th round of IVF.  They say practice makes perfect.  I say practice makes perfect – and naughty.  When you want something so badly, seeing it come to fruition is the best, most amazing experience.  Ever since I was a young child I remember telling people I wanted to be a Mom when I grew up.  It took some time but here we are – on this amazing ride.

THE GERBRECHT 5

Little Arno or L.A. as we call him in our house is my firecracker.  He is my silly, naughty, hysterical guy that truly keeps me my toes.  It is not unusual to hear from the living room while I am cooking dinner – “Mommy, I am not being bad in here” as he is attempting to give the dog a haircut.  He tells me countless times a day that I am pretty and that he loves me so much.  As my dad says, “What a little schmoozer” but boy does it work.  He melts my heart and tests my temper to the absolute limit but I would not have it any other way.

Miss Eden is my sweetheart, my girlie girl, my wearer of bows and lover of ALL things Minnie Mouse.  She is my sharer and so sensitive that sometimes it is heart breaking.  She adores her brothers – does EVERYTHING that L.A. does and gives Abbott about 48 hugs a day.  She loves being the only girl but has on occasion cried because she does not have a “wenis” like her brother.  I tell her that she is one of the lucky one’s and that in no uncertain terms does she want to walk around with that thing hanging between her legs.  I shudder at the thought and often tell Abbott when I change his diaper that I am so sorry I gave him nuts.  I did not mean to.  Girl power all the way over here.

Abbott was our SURPRISE baby.  The best surprise and the best behaved baby that ever lived….he smiles all day long and rarely cries.  He really is extraordinary in more ways than one.  You always hear those stories about people who could not have kids so they adopted or went through IVF and then BOOM – a baby.  Well, that was us and we still to this day do not know how it happened.  Well, we KNOW how it happened – because I am a sexy beast, but beyond that we are clueless.  I went to the Doctor for what I thought was a urinary tract infection and the nurse walked in and asked me if I was ready for a big life change.  My exact words were – “I have had a urinary tract infection before, they are not that big of a deal.  I certainly wouldn’t call it life changing.”  Little did I know that my guy was swimming around in my stomach getting ready to add to the chaos at home.  Fast forward to Jan 31, 2013 and there he was – “Baby Jenny” as we called him.  He was my identical twin when he was born, not so much anymore.  My niece thinks he looks like an owl and I have to agree.  The cutest, sweetest owl you ever laid eyes on.

I should also disclose that we have a hairball named Enzo.   A crazy loveable Jack Russell who realistically may be a few olives short of a martini.  He tends to bark at his tail….AND chew it.  He is allergic to grass and barks at lights.  Just add this to the mix.  A dog who is allergic to grass and has a beard that he likes to rest on your knee whenever he gets the chance.  He really is so cute and my pals love him.  He is a key element to our crazy family.  Ever since that day I saw him eat his own turd, I got down on my knees with open arms – “Welcome Home.  You made it.  You disgusting little guy.  I have a seat saved for you.”

My husband, Arno, is the saint that puts up with all of our madness between working non-stop as a Real Estate broker and an attorney.  He was the start of my dream come true.  He is the hardest worker I know and he takes the world’s longest showers.  I get in there and clean my pits and bits and get out.  He prefers to take his sweet ass time – especially when there is crying or a shitty diaper.  He also has a great head of hair and will help a stranger on the street.  He has a kind soul and is patient.  He also always lets me pick what we eat when we go out and always shares meals with me.  That might be the best part.

And a quick bit about me…..Jenn.  I am from a family of 7 kids, all of whom I am very close with and adore.  When I am not “mom” I am a Real Estate broker.  I have been working in Chicago for the past 15 years and I love my job.   I really enjoy helping people find their dream home and sometimes feel like I am living in an HGTV program.  What’s not to love?  I get to look through strangers houses.  I have past clients who have turned into amazing friends which is an added bonus.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in Green Bay WI by the world’s most amazing parents.  My parents truly are my best friends and I talk to them every day, sometimes many times a day.  I love Mexican food, The Packers, the 80’s, sleeping in and laughing.  Laughing is the best.  You know when you laugh so hard your face hurts?  That is my favorite.  So is cheese.  I love cheese a lot, munster in particular.  But more than cheese and the Packers, I love my family.  I love everything that makes them quirky and loveable.  I love being a Mom….love everything about it.  Not scraping poop off of nuts but other than that – everything.

I also like crab rangoon. A lot.

The best way to keep track of all 3 of them is to put them in the tub.

This is a standard picture of all 3 of them in our house……

At Lambeau field….and no, I have no idea what is on my head. I only know it came from Russia.

And here we are…..the Gerbrecht 5 – the best thing to ever happen to me. Eden, Daddy, L.A., Mommy and Abbott.

Eden was called for holding and LA for a face mask.