The wacky world of the Klauer Klan!

So just an update of things going on around the Klauer House. My brother is back in Bagley for the summer so our mornings are a wee bit more slow.. Now that we don't have to get up and rush off to drop Kody off at school.. On the flip side I need to find the internal motivation to go to the West side to go work out.. Kinda wishing they would build another Princeton club somewhere closer.. Not that they are really far now.. lol.. Been a pretty fun week so far..

Monday- Nick had off for Memorial Day. So we hung around the house working in the yard and cleaning up our massive amount of laundry... Geez that pile grows exponentially. And of course it usually sits in the middle of the hallway waiting for someone to go down stairs.. I can't wait till our downstairs is done so we can be up and down all day playing in the toy room and stuff. I also can't wait to cut a hole in my bathroom floor for our laundry shoot that way the laundry is not tripping people up anymore.. :D Well Monday also Isaac decided to unload a whole bottle of baby vick's and vaseline into his hair and all over the carpet, changing table, knobs.. Let's just say it is EVERY FREAKING WHERE! So a ton of hairwashes later still gross.


Tuesday- Tuesday was my cooking with friends group.. Fun Fun.. We made 35 burritos for the freezer that we divided up.. I took home 16. But they are full of yummy goodness. Now I can make my own and freeze them instead of buying the already made stuff.. Homemade is always better in my book. Well at Shannon's house I picked up some corn starch for Isaac's Hair and got some yummy fresh herbs from her garden.. I can't wait to plant a few herbs in my window sill.. Sounds like a fun project for the boys and I. Just need to go get the supplies!

Wed- Well it is only the morning! Not really sure what we are up to today.. Maybe some coloring or painting. Isaac is watching the Imagination Movers while the cornstarch is sitting on his head. After the show I am going to toss him in the shower again and see if we can get more of this out of his hair.. Slowly but surely it is coming out just patience right now.. As for other stuff.. More Laundry... More Vaseline clean up... We are having some yummy homemade mozz/parm chicken. I am still working on the recipe in my head... If it turns out yummy I will put it up later.. yum yum...

Well have a good day I need to finish my Chai and get a cleaning.. I am hoping that we are going to paint the living room this weekend.. I will keep you posted. :D

I am so excited we have finally got some color in our house. Friday we cleaned and taped up our bathroom and then when the boys went to bed we painted our once white boring bathroom a nice bright blue. We also opted for a more kid friendly theme. Isaac helped pick it out.. We were either going to go with a cute Safari animal theme which had more muted colors or the underwater adventure theme.. As you can see Isaac was all for the fishes and the octopus.



Before Shots!!!



Taped up and ready to paint!



Painted time to Clean up!



Me Cleaning up! Thanks Nick!



Our Awesome Clean and Decorated Bathroom!!! LOVE IT LOVE IT! Now on to the rest of the house..

Well it is the last week of school for Kody so we will be switching our schedule a little.. Isaac thinks he doesn't need a nap and boy does he... Some days are just wacky without the naps.

Yesterday I bought the first can of paint it is a really pretty blue for our bathroom. We are hoping to clean and remove everything and tape tomorrow and then paint tomorrow night once the boys are in bed. Other than that not much going on.. We are having my favorite recipe from Girl Scout camp and it makes a ton.. When it was just Nick and I and Isaac I would divide it and freeze one before baking.. But now I make the whole thing.. Enjoy

Tator Tot Casserole

2lbs Ground Beef
1 onion
1 10 3/4 can Cream of Mushroom
1 10 3/4 can Cream of Chicken
16oz Shredded cheese
12 oz Sour cream
1 bag tator tots

Brown Onion and Ground Beef, Drain, then layer the ground beef/onion mixture, cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, sour cream, Shredded Cheese and top with Tator tots. Put in oven for 1hr at 350.

Geez! What a morning. I had a busy to-do list today.. And on the top was finish the fence. I got one gate up and then a family friend Chris came over and helped me with the last 2 posts and 2 gates.. Thank goodness! Unfortunately it was too cold for the boys to be outside so I thought I would let them play inside with the toys and check on them every few min or so.. This worked well until close to lunch time and then the craziness started. I came in for a check and Isaac and Noah were covered in head to toe eggs and water and so was the floor.. But as annoyed as I was I had to take a photo to laugh at it later and for everyone else to laugh now..

Ok let's first start with last night. I went out to a Ladies Night put together by my friend Ally.. I got to meet 6 new awesome ladies while hanging out in a tea room at Ginza of Tokyo.. Super fun.. We got there about 6:45 and hung out till 9pm. Of course the main topic was our kids but it was still nice to get a way. I got to try a new type of sushi roll that I haven't had before.. It is called Vegetable Tempura Roll.. Oh My goodness Yum! It is fried avacodo and Sweet potato wrapped in Rice and seaweed with sesame seeds on the outside.. YUM YUM! Of course accompanied by my all time favorite Chicken fried rice on the side.. Those 2 little items and I was stuffed to the gills. So Good Food, Good Company, All round Awesome time!!

This morning though I decide I was going to try to get my shopping done for the weekend today so that I don't have to fair against the crowds by myself with the two boys.. Talk about a losing battle from the beginning.. Isaac was not having these shopping trips and I was determined to get it all done.. Made for a crazy morning. We played games and played helper and tried to have him ride in the cart but wow what a fight fight fight all the way. But I would like to point out that after a quick trip through Sam's club (love that place for my bulk items, and love it more that I am on my mom's business account so I can get in at earlier times than the regular crowd) , and a longer trip to Woodman's that we did survive and got everything but maybe one thing for the coming week.. YIPPEE score the shopping is done!

This week is coming to a close and we have one more week hosting my brother up for the school year. It has been a busy and crazy school year but we have all survived and it was nice to be able to provide him a place to live so he could go to St. Ambrose Academy up here in Madison.

On another front we are still working on the potty timer potty training for Isaac he is doing good and is usually pretty excited to go in an go potty and now that we can pause his shows with the new DVR he is even less resistant if he happens to be watching a show he likes. We still have a few accidents and don't quite have a way to switch him from the timer to him letting us know when he needs to potty. But hopefully come June 24th he will be completely potty trained as per the requirement for his swim lesson classes.

This weekend is going to be just the boys and I so hopefully I can get some of my list done of To Do's I want to do but I am not 100% confident that is going to happen.. They keep me way busy!
Have a great weekend.

Well it has been a crazy week. We still haven't finished the fence due to the rain hopefully we can get out there sometime soon and get it finished up.. My uncle and Cousin came up on Tuesday to work on the basement they are predicting about 2-3 more work days till our ruff in inspections and then 2-3 days to finish up for the final inspection.. Pretty exciting I can't wait till it is done.. Here are some before photos of our basement.

Ok so second one for today but the first was about the weekend. Well I am 17 weeks pregnant today and since Easter I have been battling insane headaches that usually escalate to migraines by the end of the day.. Mostly due to my handsome little boys who have recently discovered that if one squeals the other one will follow suite until it is at an unmanageable volume. But how can you tell kids not to be kids or that mommy is suffering a headache please calm down. Yeah right.. So I have gone from Tylenol to Tylenol with Codine to now I have been prescribed Tylenol with Vicodin.. Seriously.. I didn't know you could take these while pregnant but I guess you can. Weird.. But like all medicine I don't take it unless absolutely necessary and only if it works.. So we will try this and if it works than ok if not I am pitching it with the 24 out of 30 tylenol with Codine I had. Yup I took only 6 doses and they didn't work so I was done with that.
On to more fun our Cable has been sketchy lately so I finally called Charter and complained. Well for all the trouble we are getting DVR for free for a year.. So we are excited to test out what the DVR is all about.. Haven't had one yet but sounds interesting.
As for Dinner we are having my FAVORITE BAKED ZITI recipe so I thought I would share it.. It makes a ton (see below). Well have a good day everyone!

Katrina's Favorite Baked Ziti

1lb Dry Ziti
1 Onion, Chopped
1lb Lean Ground Beef
2 (26oz) jars Speghetti Sauce
6 oz sliced provolone cheese
1 1/2 c. Sour Cream
6 oz Shredded Mozzerella Cheese
2T Grated Parmesean Cheese

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil. Add Ziti.
In Larget Skillet Brown meat and Sautee Onion. Add Speghettis Sauce and simmer 15 min
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Butter 9x13 pan. Then layer 1/2 ziti, the provolone, the sourcream, 1/2 the sauce mixture, the remaining ziti noodles, the mozzerella cheese, the remaining sauce mixture, and top with the parmasean cheese.
Bake for 30min...


It is OHHHH soo YUMMY
Enjoy!

Wow What a busy weekend. Friday we started our first big solo home improvement project. We are building a nice picket fence for the front yard for the boys.
This is the front yard before fence..

Ok well Thought I would share this with everyone.. It is a cheap yummy way to get warm chocolate cake any day of the week without having to pay a ton of money for the Betty Crocker Warm Delights.. It does work Isaac and I made them and Nick made one a few days later.. Yum yum

Well there is a ton of stuff going on in our world and our friends seem to be getting further and further away.. So as a way of keeping up with everyone/ remember thinks I want to remember I have decided to join the big world of blogging. lol

So I am 16 weeks pregnant as of yesterday.. We are going in for our Ultrasound on June 5th around 10am.. We had picked names but more have jumped into the hat so we are still kicking around names we like. Hopefully the Ultrasound will shed some light on name.

We purchased our first house October of this year and we are busy bees making this house a home. We are currently in the process of turning our 2 bedroom 1 bath into 4 bedroom 2 bath. We just added to our single tandem drive way to make it a 2 car side by side. We are saving up for a 20' x 20' slab with drive way est about $4,500. That is definitely on the back burner since we have more pressing ideas at the moment.. i.e. finishing the basement, and buying my pantry to match my cabinets.. We just bought our fencing this weekend and yesterday I called Diggers hot line.. We are currently waiting on 2 more utilities to come mark the spot so on Thursday afternoon we can break ground.. :D I have also got an idea of where I am going to start up my garden next year and have recently picked colors to start painting my white boxes with.. so tired of living in the sterile white environment.

As for family:
Nicholas is still working with Alliant Energy and we are working on making his paycheck go further, by stocking up on stuff at our favorite Sam's Club and then making a lot more of our food than buying the processed stuff. I recently came across a granola bar recipe that I can't wait to try if it is yummy I will be posting it online to share.

I am still working the best job ever hanging out with my kids all day. Once they are in school however I am going to be heading back to school. I have been doing a lot of research lately on what it would take to get my teaching certificate then I may continue on for a Masters in Education. My target is 6-8 grade Math and Science but we will see.

Isaac is on day 2 of timer potty training.. And he is doing amazing, now if we can just get him more into going when he needs to and holding it we will be golden.. I think this whole process has opened my eyes to waiting longer with Noah.. I think once Noah hits 3 we will talk to him about it and see if he is interested.. Trust me if they are not interested it is not going to happen.. Hence the 6+ month battle we have been on with Isaac. Isaac is also going to be starting Shrimp 1 swimming lessons come June 25th. I can't wait to see how he does he loves the water. I regularly hear "Mommy please can we go waterpark?"

Noah is my bubbly smiley guy that is still hanging out in the stranger anxiety stage.. He is my huge Momma's boy and love to cuddle.. He jabbers all the time like his brother and love to follow Isaac's lead on whatever is going on.. For example they are running laps around the table right now giggling and yelling.. The fun never stops here. We had to switch Noah over to Cloth diapers a while back because of his sensitive skin (gee I wonder where he gets that). The diapers are seriously not that hard and a heck of a lot less expensive. Plus, once we got the diaper sprayer things are super duper easy..

Well that is a long update on the family and I will keep posting and put some photos up as they come.. :D Enjoy!