Surviving 2 Boys And A Little Girl

Work Work Work

2010-02-26T12:55:00.000-08:00

I have been working part-time solely from home for the last couple of years, but I recently got the bug to go back to working out in the world with people again instead of just a computer. Nothing against my kids but I also needed to get away for a few hours to talk with people who aren't going to whine and cry in the middle of every conversation:)

I thought it would take some time to find a job but within a week of me sending my resume to about 10 companies I got hired on with 4. I am a per diem employee and they call me and ask if I want to take a case. It is a very flexible job in that I can go visit the people anytime I want.

I did end up telling one of the companies I wasn't interested because they did not fully approve of me bringing the kids into the office to turn in my paperwork whereas the other three said it was not a problem at all. I have only been getting cases from 2 companies so far and have been a little busier than I anticipated! I am hoping to complete around 10 visits per week total for now.

I have a family friend coming over and watching the kids Monday mornings for me, my sister is going to watch them on Wednesday mornings and then my hubby is home Fri, Sat and Sun if I need to make more visits. I am still doing my internet job at home which is about 10 hours a week but will be going to about 25 hours in a couple of weeks so I am going to be very busy, but so far I am really enjoying it!

One Year Olds...

2010-02-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

Either I have forgotten how difficult the boys were at this age, or Little Missy is way worse than they were! I'm pretty sure I have just blocked it out, though. She has been so much work for the last couple of months. I'm pretty sure a lot of her problem has been her teeth and she keeps getting sick. In the past 2 weeks alone she has had one head cold and a stomach virus twice!

It sure is a good thing she is so cute and cuddly sometimes to make up for it:) Anyways I am 200% sure that I do not want anymore kids and am very glad that my hubby decided to get fixed months ago even though I wasn't positive I wanted him to. He told me I would thank him someday and I do:)

Beach Day

2010-02-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

This month the science center class was called a day at the beach. They learned about sand and dug for sea shells.

Then they discussed fresh water and salt water and played sink or float with both and discussed the differences in buoyancy (for 4 year olds they really seemed to understand the topic quite well suprisingly!)
Then they learned about difference sea creatures and got to look at some in the tank.
They were able to hold a sea urchin, sea star and some crabs.

He is finally used to going to events without his brother, although he still misses him terribly. He is counting down the days until Big Man will be home everyday this summer to play with him!

Open House

2010-02-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

Big Man had open house night at his school. He had to complete a Bible project and the older kids had a science fair. He decided to recreate the Israelites crossing the red sea. The Israelites are the colorful people and the Egyptian army is portrayed by little army men. He wanted the army men to be under water in the middle of the sea with signs that said "help me." I told him I wasn't sure everyone else would think that was as funny as we did!

When we were there are little girl came up to me and told me another little girl in the class was in love with my son. I just laughed and then on the way home I asked Big Man if he knew that the girl loved him and he said Oh Yeah, but I'm not really sure yet if I love her though. We were trying so hard not to laugh! I told him that's o.k. he isn't allowed to love a girl until he is 30 other than his mom and sister:)

Poser

2010-02-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

Little Man is constantly asking me if he looks like someone and tells me to take his picture. Here is was asking if he looked like a soccer player.

Here he was asking if he looked like a pretty princess:) His brother had been teasing him all week that he looked like a pretty princess and Little Man was getting mad. Then all of a sudden he wrapped himself up in his sisters curtains and decided it was o.k. to look like a princess LOL!

Sports

2010-01-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

Way too early on Saturday mornings you will find us at basketball practice. Big Man is in the white shirt with his arm up after just shooting (he has great form doesn't he!!) He is surprisingly good considering he has never played before and he is having a great time which is really all that matters:)

I sit on the side and hope that watching her brother will keep her occupied for an hour.
She enjoys watching for about 5 minutes and then wants to be entertained and chased all over the gym.

Little Man is doing gymnastics since he isn't quite old enough for basketball and enjoys showing off his stellar somersaults.

Again, she will only watch about 5 minutes and then I have to take her outside to spare everyone's ears from her loud screaming that takes place when she is bored!

She loves being outside and will just wander around trying to eat whatever she can find. Maybe someday I will actually get to sit and enjoy watching the boys:)

Thankfully she is much better and much happier and can you believe she turns 13 months on Sunday!

One Year

2010-01-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

So it has been almost a month since she turned one and had her pictures taken, but hey I've been busy!

She did so well and was done with her pictures in 5 minutes, which is about as long as her attention span.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen my happy smiling girl in about 10 days. She has been sick and these last 10 days have been the worst, I think, since she has been born. Every night she was waking up for hours, like from 1-4 in the morning and would not go back to sleep. That doesn't go over well with Mommy when she has to be up at 6:30 to get everyone ready and Big Man to school! I took her to the Dr. last week and she said that it was likely teething causing her sleeplessness. She has a bottom tooth and a molar working their way in. Not what I was wanting to hear. I waited another 5 days and she still was crazy so I took her in yesterday and she had an ear infection. Never has anyone been as excited as I was to find out that my daughter was infected. At least there is a reason for her crankiness and so there is a chance it may not be permanent, yeah!!

She started her meds yesterday and I was hoping for a quick recovery but today she still had fevers and was cranky. She did sleep all night last night, however so I am happy:)

More Fun Over Break

2010-01-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

So I took the boys skating at the least crowded skating rink I know which is at my old church. They were having a seniors birthday party (seriously there were 70 year olds skating with birthday hats on!) when we first got there, but they soon took off to go eat cake and we had the rink to ourselves. Big Man got the hang of it pretty quickly and was able to skate around without holding on and only had a few hard falls.

Little Man did much better skating on the carpet, but would get out there and hang on to the railing as well. I think next time I take them he will be ready to really skate! They both had a blast and all I can say is skating is definitely a good workout, I was quite sore the next day.
We also went to the park and played. I think that stomp rockets are one of the best toys around. My boys love playing with it, but the rockets go so high and far sometimes that they can't play it at home because they get lost in the neighbors yard or on the roof!

Preparing for the big jump...

Little Miss (I'm trying not to call her my baby anymore since she did just turn one, but it is hard!) just practiced her walking and enjoyed watching the boys. Yes, she wears dresses to the park and just about everywhere else as well:)

On New Years Eve we went to the zoo and they had snow brought in and Radio Disney was there doing some fun stuff.

The baby was fighting her sleep and then gave in midway through eating a cheese puff. She actually held on to it for about 45 minutes too while sleeping before she finally dropped it!

Little man has been practicing his photography skills and wanted to make sure I put one of his pictures on the computer so here it is...I never get to post pictures of myself since I'm always taking them:)

Now we are back to the real world of school and work. I enjoyed his break but am glad that school has started again. I think my boys need the time apart, I know I need a break from their bickering and fighting:)

More Scenes From Christmas

2009-12-30T17:47:00.001-08:00

My cousin works for a large company in their airport hanger taking care of the corporate planes. On holidays they let them bring family in to play on them so my Dad took the kids on Christmas day to see them. Here they are walking up to the airport. Ever the Gentleman, Little Man loves helping his cousin whenever he can!

I was not there, but from what I understand this is the newest plane that only cost a mere 40 mil or something!

Hanging out on the wing.

Big Man said it was a little scary up there!

They thought it was "totally awesome" that they got to sit in the cockpit.

Wish they had seats like this on the planes I ride in.

Checking out the outside.

After they all had to sit in a tree, I thought some of these were pretty funny so I had to include them.

It looks like he sat on a branch the wrong way or something!!!

At least Little Man looks relaxed compared to the other two:)

Hunting and Guns

2009-12-28T19:27:00.000-08:00

I loved this post from my sister-in-law so I thought I would link to it since I'm too lazy to write anything on my own tonight. If you aren't into hunting and guns just bypass. My kids are still asking when you are going to cook them the ducks, squirrels and quail Carlee??!! Next time Little Man says he wants to shoot 50 cal too:)

http://carchica2000.blogspot.com/2009/12/duck-hunting-and-so-much-more.html

Catching Up

2009-12-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

Since I'm sure all of my loyal followers have been wondering what I have been up to in my exciting life, I'm going to do a quick recap of the last few weeks. We went to the light parade. The kids had a blast with their friend Payson and we froze while looking at the lights!

My dog got an ear infection and a terrible sore on her face (you can kind of see it below her ear). You wouldn't think that having to give a dog three medications twice per day would be a big deal, but it was not very easy to do...

Big Man had his Christmas concert and sang a few songs

and played hand bells (they were sooo cute).

Then the baby got croup and an ear infection. Her breathing got so bad she had to get a steroid breathing treatment and then take them by mouth as well. Obviously she enjoys her breathing treatments.

Big Man had his class party and Santa came to visit. Little Man was in heaven that day because he got to hang out with the class for the entire day and do whatever they did. Here he is telling Santa he wanted a dinosaur for Christmas (and he got one).

Here is Big Man telling Santa he wanted Rocky the Robot truck (which he also got!) My boys both totally believe in Santa.
They had a little gift exchange.

and decorated Gingerbread houses.
Then we had a party at my MIL's house for my Hubby's, nieces and the baby's birthday.

Here is the baby grabbing the hot candle.

She was not interested in playing with or eating the cake no matter how hard her Daddy tried!
The next night we were at my FIL's house. These are just some of the kids cousins!

Four generations with my hubby's Dad and Grandmother. Too bad none of my kids look happy at all:)

Christmas Eve we went to a candlelight service and then to my hubby's Grandma's house. Yes, my baby is walking all over!

Christmas morning she looked like a little Miss Clause showing off her teeth. She just got two more of them last week...needless to say her sleep has been hit or miss that past week which only adds to my exhaustion!

She loved her first Christmas, though, and I hope everyone had as good of a time as we did.

So between all of the events that we were involved in, the present shopping, wrapping and putting together my daughters kitchen (by myself and it did take forever) cookie making and craft doing it has been a very busy month. No chance of relaxing this week either because I'm trying to take the boys to do some fun things while Big Man is off from school this week. I think we will be going rollerskating, seeing the 3-D shark movie at the Science Center, going to the zoo and playing at the park if anyone wants to come with us!

Gingerbread Day

2009-12-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

Gingerbread Man Missing (originally posted on school blog)

Middle school teacher the likely culprit…

Gingerbread Man Day is a time-honored tradition, one that the kindergarten class participates in every year. This year, on Wednesday, December 9, that tradition was forever altered when the main star of the show, Mr. Gingerbread Man himself, went missing halfway through the festivities. Kindergartners began the day by making small gingerbread men – rolling the dough, cutting the cookies, and preparing them for baking.

I don't have any pictures of Big Man cutting out his cookies but I thought his best friend was a cute replacement!

They also created a giant gingerbread man as a class by giving him yummy, decorative details such as licorice hair and candy buttons.

Then they left their gingerbread man in the classroom while they went to recess. Upon their return to class, the students were shocked to discover that the gingerbread man was nowhere to be found, and so they set out to hunt down the whereabouts of “Gingy” and bring him back to his rightful place. The students searched everywhere, sometimes finding a trail of crumbs that would lead them to their next destination. Upon searching the art room, the Principal's office, the playground, and numerous classrooms, they finally had an encouraging tip from 5th grade, who saw Gingy make his way to the 6th grade room.

When he was questioned, he seemed hesitant to give the kindergartners information, but they finally extracted the next clue from him by learning that Gingy had made his way to the 7th grade room.

The kindergartners were shocked to discover that Gingy had indeed been discovered by the 7th grade teacher – who promptly bit off one of Gingy’s legs. When questioned about the incident, he responded, “He just looked so delicious; I couldn’t help myself!” Nevertheless, the kindergartners triumphantly returned Gingy to their classroom, missing leg and all. Rumor has it that kindergartners might be pressing charges against him to serve lunch detention, but reports are not yet conclusive.Here’s hoping the rest of Gingerbread Man Day went a little more smoothly.

The kids had a fabulous day filled with all sorts of Gingerbread crafts and fun. They also thought it was hilarious that they got to bust in to all the classrooms and offices searching for the Gingerbread! I just love his school:)

Shopping Accomplished

2009-12-05T09:03:00.001-08:00

My Christmas shopping is 99% done. I did almost all of it at Amazon.com, what a great site! This is what I'm getting the baby. I know she is a little too young for it, but the boys will have a great time with it for now.

Then we are also getting this. Technically it is for the boys, but I think my hubby and I will enjoy it just as much:)

The Hunters

2009-12-04T15:53:00.000-08:00

My hubby just returned from an 8 day elk hunt (a long 8 days I might add!) Unfortunately he didn't get an elk but he did get a nice beard.

It was freezing where they were hunting and it looked like this.
The boys went hunting with their Grandpa, Uncle and Aunt and they had better luck and shot 2 squirrels.

So no elk dinners but we have squirrel. Oh yeah I can't wait:)

Christmas Pictures

2009-12-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

I wasn't sure they were going to be able to get a picture where all three kids were looking at the camera with a decent smile, but they did! My boys are sooo hard to take pictures of now. So if I were going to send out Christmas cards (which I probably won't get around to) this would be the picture, so pretend I mailed it to you and enjoy the picture and Merry Christmas:)The baby was wonderful for the pictures.
She just kept smiling and laughing and was her usual sweet self. Sometimes I still can't believe I have a little girl, especially one as cute as her! I'm not at all biased...

She quit smiling for Santa, though. I guess he is kind of a scary looking guy for a baby:)

We are getting into the holiday spirit around here. We went to zoo lights last week which was fantastic as always. This week is the light parade and gingerbread house making. If you haven't tried the Dairy Queen candy cane blizzard you really should, it will definitely put you in the holiday mood. I think I am addicted, is it weird to think about a blizzard all day long??!!

Necklace

2009-12-03T19:57:00.001-08:00

I forgot to mention in my last post that the necklace the baby is wearing is a Baltic Amber teething necklace from Inspired by Finn. It is suppose to help with teething problems and I do think it is helping! The baby has 4 teeth now and she was absolutely terrible for weeks with the first ones, like non-stop screaming and waking about 10 times at night. She is about to get 2 more teeth and she is still pretty happy and not having a hard time sleeping at all anymore. It could be coincidence, but I'm not going to take it off to find out:)

11 Months Old

2009-12-02T20:07:00.001-08:00

I am going to miss my baby as she is quickly becoming a little girl.

She has so much to say now and likes everyone to listen to her.

When I Grow Up...

2009-11-20T21:34:00.001-08:00

I want to be a husband. It would be so wonderful to get up and only have to worry about getting myself ready and going to work. I would then come home to dinner that I didn't have to cook and a pile of dishes that I didn't have to worry about. No worrying about bills, grocery's and cleaning house. Yep, that is what I want:)

I was reading a Thanksgiving book to my kids the other day and it was discussing how on the first Thanksgiving the women were busy cooking and serving while the men played games and talked. That is basically how it is still for the holidays in my family. By the time the holiday gets here I am exhausted from staying up late or getting up early to cook something and then having to clean up.

It got me thinking...I'm sure that there are men out there who do cook and clean but I don't know many! It seems that even when the women make money they are still expected to do all that as well. I'm also sure that there are women out there who truly enjoy cooking, cleaning and laundry, but I am not one of them. A dirty toilet or a huge pile of dishes has been known to make me cry. I've told my husband many times that once our kids are a little older (and can behave going out to eat) I will cook maybe once a week. No cooking= no dishes=heaven.

So, since becoming a husband isn't an option maybe my wonderful husband will be nice and get me a regular housecleaner for Christmas to clean up after his messy children and offer to pick up dinner on the way home from work occasionally. Maybe, Please, Pretty Please!!!

Big Green Tractor and the Zoo

2009-11-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

We went to the zoo last week and I am so impressed with what they have done to the farm. It was closed when we were there a couple of weeks ago and they have done a lot of work. There was grass where dirt use to be and there are better toys and the playground is shaded now!

My Little Man sure does love his cousin and she loves him too. He was more than happy to share a tractor with her! I can see him in a few years singing to a girl riding on one of his tractors: I'll take you for a ride on my big green tractor, we can go slow...

They have a cow in there now that you can milk and water squirts out. Big Man talked for the rest of the day how he could milk with 2 hands. That was my favorite part of the zoo. I'm not sure why but I just think a milking cow is cool...maybe it is because I feel we have a lot in common as I feel like a milk cow most days:)

My niece reminds me of a posing model in this picture. She is too cute and very photogenic when she wants to be, the boys not so much usually!

My sister took this picture and told me: See they really do love each other. It is nice to have pictures where they look so nice and loving with each other, since most days it is the complete opposite when they are together. I will say that they are getting along much better lately so maybe there is hope for them!

My nephew just cracks me up all the time. He always has this big smile and the most hilarious laugh. You just can sit and laugh together, then he spits up everywhere and laughs some more:)

The baby obviously didn't do anything cute or funny since I have no pictures of her at the zoo. She just hung out and took in the sights. She has a few teeth working their way in right now and is not sleeping well and is just generally cranky. She did have her check up this week and she weighs 21.7 pounds and is in the 50% for weight. I can't remember her height but she is only in the 25th percentile for height. Her head is in the 95%, but with her mound of curls it looks even bigger:)

Rest of Halloween

2009-11-09T19:29:00.001-08:00

I know...finally I'm getting around to posting the rest of the Halloween pictures. Here is Big Man and his costume for Awanas. Anyone guess what Bible character he is? If you guessed Goliath you are correct. I told him Goliath was not a nice Bible character and he certainly wasn't a hero, but that was who he wanted to be. I think he looked pretty good! His blood looked redder in real life.

The obligatory pictures before trick or treating.
The girls were both little ladybugs, but the baby's antenna's would not stay up.

The following is why niece is never happy to see the baby! My little girl is forever poking her cousins in the eye.

Ready to trick or treat!

They had a great time and got tons of candy. The only thing they wanted to eat were chips and a piece of gum when they were done, though. That night at about midnight Little Man woke me up crying at midnight and was upset and said he didn't know why. So, I was just laying with him when he sat up and threw up on me! I would have blamed the candy except he didn't eat any. Anyways, we had the stomach flu pass through and now we have another cold or allergies passing through right now. I have not felt normal in over 3 weeks! I have bought every supplement that is suppose to boost the immune system and am hoping I don't get sick again for a while because I have a lot to catch up on!

Getting Ready For Halloween!

2009-10-30T21:30:00.001-07:00

The kids had a fun filled day over at my Mom's today. Here they are making cookies.

Then of course they had to sample them!

My nephew is getting so big and he is so happy now (finally...we were a little worried for a while!!)

My hubby did the honors of cutting the pumpkins after he made us a wonderful steak dinner.

Getting his design just right...

And here are the finished products. This is a nice bat pumpkin.
And here is a nice winking pumpkin. They look very cool when they are lit up. We also had Big Man's parent teacher conference today and he is doing so well in school! His lowest grades are in music and art, go figure:)
Of course the baby had to spend some time terrorizing her cousin! At least he thought it was funny as she is trying to poke him in the eye and putting her fingers in his mouth. She had her final day of testing with the cardiologist yesterday and her heart is perfect.We don't have to go back for an entire year, hurray! I don't think there is anything harder than trying to get a baby to lay still for test after test.

Now I need to get working on their costumes for tomorrow!

Teeth

2009-10-27T19:26:00.001-07:00

So...we are still alive but I still don't feel well. It has been 11 day and I just want to get better! Big Man still has a terrible cough, and the baby is extremely cranky, coughing and wheezing. I don't think it is the flu, but it is definitely something nasty. Somehow my hubby and Little Man escaped the illness and I am very glad about that. Taking care of the two and myself has been enough.

Moving on now, if you look closely you can see the baby's first two teeth on the bottom. They are the most crooked teeth I have ever seen on a baby!

Her hair is growing so fast now and is very curly. Poor baby...crooked teeth and curly hair. Well, at least she has pretty blue eyes:) (No offense to anyone with curly hair, but I have curly hair and HATE it!)

Fever And The Police

2009-10-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

This is what a 104.3 fever looks like...he has been sick ever since coming home from school Friday. At first I thought it was the flu with the sudden cough and high fever but now I'm pretty sure it is croup. We went to see the Nurse Practitioner on Saturday because he was having a hard time breathing and he has been taking steroids and getting breathing treatments and seems to be breathing a little better tonight. He normally hates being touched and will probably deny it, but the last couple of days he has only slept if he was holding hubby's hand. It was so sweet. Hubby was so good and has stayed up with him the last couple of nights taking care of him. I'm really hoping for no more fever tomorrow, 3 days is enough!!

Thankfully he didn't get sick before he had the letter C show and tell. He had to go and outdo every other kid and bring real cop cars. He was also able to get the best looking officer there is to come and talk with them as well:)
The kids were so excited. They were pushing every button, talking into the loudspeaker and making the siren go. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what was going on!

So, do you think he will be in the front seat in the future...

or the back seat. We aren't too sure ourselves!

The class put on their little badges and wanted to get their picture with the officers.

We also had to inform them that this is not the way that we ever want to see them on a police car!

Crazy Sock Day

2009-10-14T20:31:00.001-07:00

It wasn't enough to wear one pair of crazy socks, but he wanted to wear two different socks as well. He is still loving school and I found out today that he has signed up to do cartwheels in the talent show on Friday. Seems everyone at school knew as well as the other parents, but not me! We will see if he actually goes through with it, but he is practicing and excited:) When I was going through his backpack tonight I also noticed he got his first love note from a girl. It was a pink heart with his name and then name of the girl that wrote it...totally cute, he was very proud.

Little Man Is 4

2009-10-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

We had our family and neighbor kids over on Sunday for a little party. My hubby's cousin has a party company and brought over his bouncer for the kids to play in. They were so worn out by the end of the night which was wonderful!

Peek-a-boo
My little nephew isn't looking so much like a baby anymore.

Kissing cousins

He was so embarassed when we were singing to him, but he finally got over his embarassment enough to blow out his candles.

She loves chocolate cake as well!
For the morning of his actual birthday I made him chocolate chip waffles and we sang to him again. You can never have too much birthday:)

Manners Tea Party

2009-10-08T20:05:00.001-07:00

Here are the Kindergartners lining up for their big entrance! They were so excited to get to dress up for school instead of having to wear their uniforms.

The next pictures came out terrible because it was too dark and I was too far away, but I still think they are precious. I wish I had my video camera there it was that cute to watch. Big Man and his girl were the first to come in. He walked her to her chair and didn't seem to mind or get embarrassed that there were 15 adults standing there videotaping and taking pictures!
He pulled her chair out for her and scooted her in and then handed her the napkin and sat next to her. That repeated 3 more times until all of the kids were seated.

We adults served the kids and they mostly used their proper manners (please and thank you.)

It was obvious they had been practicing and they were so proud! Isn't their jungle room so cute.

One thing I really like about this school is that they teach traditional manners where boys are always expected to open the door and escort the ladies. Big Man came home from school a couple of weeks ago and told me that he had to run an errand for the teacher with one of the girls in his class. He was telling me that it was his job as the boy to protect her and make sure nothing happened! I thought it was so cute. I think our society is severely lacking in Gentleman and I hope that my boys will be Gentleman and take care of their ladies:)

Crazy Week

2009-10-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

This past 10 days have just flown by, too bad we weren't doing anything exciting! Hubby decided he absolutely does not want any more kids, and so he had minor surgery on his male parts last Monday to be sure about that. So, I to listen to him moan, groan and whine for a few days...personally I think it should have been more painful so that he could have a small glimpse of labor pain. Speaking of labor, I am very happy I won't be having to go through that again:)

I have also been working more than I have in years and that is wiping me out. I am supposed to be on the computer approximately 32 hours/week until the end of October and then I will go back down to about 10, whew! Otherwise just keeping up with Big Man's school activities is taking up the rest of my time. I never did blog about his green eggs and ham party that was a lot of fun, but today they had a manners tea that was so precious. I will hopefully post pictures of that tomorrow.

The baby also got her second tooth today. I had forgotten (or blocked out) how much I love teething babies *eye roll*. I don't know why she finds it necessary to let me know 4-5 times every night that she is teething, but she does. As much as I do enjoy the extra cuddling I am extremely tired and I do hope that she will let me sleep tonight because I have a lot of work to do around the house. My Little Man is turning 4 and we are having the family over this weekend to celebrate. He is so excited because Hubby's cousin is bringing over his bounce house, Yeah:)

Now that the weather is turning so beautiful we are spending more time outside. The baby loves going out in the wagon and of course loves being with her cousin as well.

We didn't even plan their cute orange outfits or to bring hats!

The Rest Of The Weekend

2009-09-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took the boys to the Botanical Gardens. They have done a lot of remodeling since we were there last year and it is really nice!

The butterfly garden was filled with many butterflies of course.
We got to witness a lizard stalk, attack and eat a butterfly. The boys thought that was pretty interesting.

I'm not sure how butterfly's mate, but these two were stuck together and flying all over. Little Man said: Oh how cute, a mama carrying her baby:)

This morning my Mother-In-Law took the boys to see the implosion downtown.

As Big Man explains it, it went bang bang bang and then there was a lot of smoke.

Little Man was a little scared by all of the noise, but he wouldn't stop talking about it.

Tonight the boys were building houses out of blocks and were pretending to blow them up. I'm sure that trick is going to be around for a while.

Busy Day

2009-09-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

When we picked Big Man up from school today we drove straight out to lake pleasant because the boys were going to get a ride on Cecil's boat. I'm not sure if Little Man has ever been on a boat before, but they were both so excited! So I followed behind them to take the boys back into town since hubby and Cecil were going to fish afterward.

Hubby took them around for about 20 mintues and then the boys got off and we drove back. For me it was not worth the hours of driving for a 20 minute boat ride, but to the boys it was worth it, though, and that's all that matters!
We got back into town and dropped Big Man off at his Grandma's house and he went to the D-backs game with my brother and sister-in-law and my neice. I stole this picture off her facebook because they look so cute and because he is awake here.

This is him last Friday at the game. He was having a horrible night and so cranky. I knew he was very tired by the way he was acting. He stayed awake for the entire game and the fireworks but fell asleep during the extremely loud Mercy Me concert. When we were walking back to the car he said: Why did they have to start playing lullaby's for? They put me right to sleep! LOL. And just so you know, he picked out his own clothes...

Hubby was working so I had taken the kids by myself to the game and met up with the rest of my family. I don't think I will be doing that again because when it was time to go (granted it was 11:00) neither of the boys wanted to walk since they were basically asleep. So, I had Taylor in the front carrier and Little Man on my shoulders and thankfully my Dad walked us to the car and carried Big Man part of the way. I was definitely getting some strange looks:)

She Is Going To Be A Tough One

2009-09-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

The boys have started including the baby in their wrestling matches. They think it is fun to roll around with her.

She obviously loves it too. She will go up to the boys and throw herself at them and they will fall backwards like she tackled them.
Any kid she sees on the ground, now, she will go up and try and lay on top of them or push them around and just laugh. I hope that she isn't going to be the church nursery bully!

She got her first tooth last week as well! She is growing up way too fast.

Strawberry Shortcake

2009-09-23T14:26:00.001-07:00

Wherever I am, she is right there too attempting to help.

Whether clean or dirty she will lick whatever she can pull out. And yes if they are clean I still proceed to put them away, so you are warned if you are coming over to eat at my house!!
Tonight is only the second night in her life I am going out without her. I know, I have no life...or maybe it has something to do with her still not taking a bottle! My Mom, sister, sister-in-law and I are going to see Legally Blonde the play at Gammage and going to eat at Olive Garden to try their new gluten free pasta dish-Yum. I hope hubby has fun with the 3 kids, actually I just hope they are all still alive when I come home:)

Photo Shoot

2009-09-17T20:03:00.002-07:00

My friend April came over and took some photos of the baby for her 8 month pictures. Here are just a few of them...I think she did such a great job!!

She is going next week for her calendar photo shoot so I hope she is happy there and they can get some good pictures too!

Double Whammy

2009-09-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

Big Man got sick this week. At first I thought he had a cold, then yesterday when getting ready for school he started puking and spent the rest of the day in the bathroom. Now I feel like I have both a cold and the stomach flu. It's not terrible, but just bad enough that I don't want to do anything which isn't good when you have 3 kids at home. Having Big Man home the last 2 days has made me so thankful he is in school. The mess is so much worse when he is here and the boys constantly fight. I also told my husband to never agree if I say I want to homeschool. Just trying to complete the pages that his teacher sent me for make-up work made me want to go put my head through a wall. Trying to get him to complete his homework 3x per week makes me a little batty as well! It really is only the handwriting stuff that he fights and for homework they have to write 1 or 2 letters 36 times each along with a phonics or math page. Anyways...enough of my complaining he is going back tomorrow and I'm so happy. My Dad is going to drive him which makes it an even better day because I don't have to get us all up and ready. I can all tell tomorrow will be a much better day, now if I can just find a way to block all exits from the living room so the baby can't escape while I lay on the couch all day and snooze :)

Lego's

2009-09-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

If you didn't make it the Science Center's Lego exhibit you missed out! The kids had a great time dressing up as knights and princesses and building with Lego's.

They had an area where you got to pretent to fight each other that the boys loved. I know this has a specific name but I just can't think of it right now!!
The rest of the Center was pretty cool. Here is Little Man laying on a bed of nails.

I'm going to be pretty sad when the library no longer has the culture passes since I get at least one per month:)

Out Of The Garden

2009-09-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

I have been getting lots of zucchini's so far this year! I just had to take a picture before I shredded them and baked. I have been making fried zucchini, a chocolate zucchini cake, zucchini bread and morning glory muffins with my stash. Yum!!

So Big

2009-09-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

Look at how cute and big my nephew is getting at 3 months!

Moving On

2009-09-06T22:03:00.001-07:00

So I have totally neglected my blog lately as well as many other things and I'm trying to get back on track. Here are Big Man's second first day of school! I love his new school, he loves his new school so it was definitely a good choice.

You can definitely tell it is the first day with all of the cameras. It is a very small school, I think there are 70 kids total so all of us parents see each other every day. I know that there are a couple of athletes kids that go there, probably no one I would recognize except for a certain famous boxer with a crazy tatoo on his face. Twice last week I walked up to the school in his vicinity. Kind of a strange feeling:)
I may have all ready posted this picture, I really can't remember, but it is just one of many I take of Big Man building things. I think he has some engineering tendencies because he will say I'm going to build this...and he will go build whatever he says quickly with blocks, lego's, or whatever these are called. This is a giraffe.

My baby is doing so good. She is much happier now, although you can't tell in this picture! She is definitely trouble as she has been increasing her crawling speed daily. Her favorite thing to do when she is free to roam is to go down the hall and look at herself in the mirror for a while and talk and smile at herself. When she gets done with that she will crawl in her room and play with her shoes. She is definitely a girl.

She enjoys terrorizing her brothers and destroying anything they are playing with and she loves to play with the dog. It is a good thing the dog is patient. She just lays there and lets babies do what they want.

I don't know why, I just like this picture. It was after a long time of fighting with her to lay still after her surgery while the Dr's were adjusting medications to sedate her. Once they got everything figured out she just looked so peaceful. I would say that she is 99% healed. Her incisions look so tiny and are almost healed. It is amazing to me that they fit a camera, the device that is now in her heart along with the tubes and whatever into the holes. We have to go back in 6 weeks to make sure the device hasn't moved and then every year to check to make sure that as her heart grows the artery still remains blocked.

Now it is time to get back into reality. All I can say is it is a lot of work to get Big Man to school everyday. By the time I get all 4 of us ready, get his lunch ready and get him to school by 8 I am exhausted and feel like half the day should be over! Tomorrow we are going to enjoy the holiday from school and work and go to the Phoenix Children's Museum (thanks to a cultural pass of course!) My hubby has never been there and he is so excited to go with us and play instead of having to go to his boring job:)

Discharged

2009-09-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

We are finally out of there! The baby didn't really wake up until about 10 last night. She was sedated a lot longer than we thought she would need to be. They kept turning it down in order for her to wake up a little because she wasn't breathing enough and even after that it still took hours for her to come around. We had to stand over her and poke her and try to rouse her to breathe, it was very stressful! Then last night she had a fever and her heart rate was high (190's) so they gave her more meds and were watching her closely. I didn't think we were going to be able to leave today, but she was fine this morning and all of her tests results were perfect so we got to go. I don't think the baby could have handled having all of the cords attached to her any longer. All morning she was pulling them off and picking at her IV.

My sister had called me the night before the test to tell me an old friend of hers from school had posted on his facebook that his son was having heart surgery the same day as the baby and to look for him. Since there are only 2 places in AZ that do pediatric heart surgery's I was looking for him and he ended up being in the room next door while we were in pre-op so we got to talk there and we had rooms close to each other in the ICU as well. It was neat to know someone else there as well. His son was doing great when we left so that was good!

Thanks everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers and for watching my boys. We really appreciate it. I am so relieved this is over and feel like now I can move on with my life:)

Still Recovering

2009-09-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

She is still doing pretty good...still has not woken up yet, though, because they are keeping her sedated. Once she is awake I will be happy because her breathing rate keeps dropping too low from the drugs and stressing me out!!

She's Out

2009-09-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not allowed in yet, but she is in the ICU and doing well!

So Far So Good

2009-09-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

For not having any food and being extremely tired she did awesome this morning. She just played in her crib with her new doll. They were able to draw blood, it was horrible and I couldn't watch, but at least they got it. She just went in about 10 minutes ago and they gave us a pager so we don't have to sit in the waiting room. So we are just trying to waste time and hope the next few hours go quickly!

Specifics

2009-08-27T20:50:00.001-07:00

I have had a lot of people asking me what specifically they can pray for regarding the baby's upcoming surgery so I decided to post them here...

That they will be able to draw enough blood before the procedure to get her blood type. In chubby babies it can be difficult to get the blood that they need. If they are unable to get it they will have to get it when she is under anesthesia which will add 1-2 hours that she will have to be under. The labs are to make sure the correct type of blood is brought into the room in case of hemorrhaging.
That she will not hemorrhage. There is a risk of it happening during the procedure if a vessel is ruptured or after from the incision site.
That she will be calm after after waking up. If she is too upset and not laying still enough they will knock her out again in the ICU. She has to lay pretty still for about 6 hours:(
That her defect will not be too large to fix with this type of procedure. Because I do not want to have to go through this again!
That the boys will do fine without my hubby and I as they do not want to be away from us and are worried about the baby.
That the 3 hours will go by very quickly!

That is everything I can think of right now:)

Mobile

2009-08-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

On the same day she learned to pull herself up and to crawl! She is all over the place now. She can only pull herself up on lower items but when she does it she is so proud of herself!

Only 10 more days until her surgery:( We had our last appointment with the Dr last week and everything is set to go. She will be in surgery for about 3 hours and the Dr is pretty confident he will be able to fix her defect. He did caution me that her defect now sounds pretty large and that if it is too large he may not be able to fix it and she will have to have a more invasive type of surgery. So, we are really hoping it is not too big because I really want this all to be done with!

Dropout

2009-08-21T21:24:00.001-07:00

I withdrew Big Man from his school this morning and we went bowling instead. When hubby and I were looking at schools for him we knew we wanted very small class sizes, like 10-15 kids max. This year the school we signed him up for had a record number of 21 kids in the class and that was just too many for us. My sister, a former public school teacher, just laughs at me because I think it is too many! I felt horrible going there today to tell his teacher and the Principal. His teacher was tearing up even though I tried to be so nice and reassured her many times that it was nothing to do with her. She told me how very sad she was because he is such a good kid and one of her best students (hopefully she wasn't just saying that since she will never see him again!)

We enrolled him in the school that we have always wanted him to go to but didn't choose it this year because I wanted half day Kindergarten. Since that didn't work out we are going back to our original choice. Luckily that school wasn't starting until Monday so he won't have to go in after it starts. He is pretty excited since there are only 8 kids in the class. Unfortunately his new school is about 3x as expensive as the old one, but we think it is worth it and thankfully we got a lot of it paid for in tax credits. It makes me a little nauseous thinking about the cost of three kids in private school and I've all ready told hubby he may need to get another job to pay for it:)

She All Ready Loves Dolls

2009-08-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

I just can't get over how cute she is, and that she is all mine!

Not Such A Baby Anymore

2009-08-13T16:07:00.001-07:00

She is 7 1/2 months old now and is learning new tricks about every day. She can lift her hands when she wants to be picked up, can go from laying on her stomach to sitting, can crawl a couple of feet randomly when she gets her legs synchronized and tries so hard to pull herself up but only manages to pull herself up far enough to make it hurt when she falls. She is going to be way to mobile soon and is going to keep me on my toes trying to keep track of her!

She still has her pretty blue eyes, but I'm not going to be too sure that they are going to stay until she is a year old, though. Little Man's eyes were blue for so long and then changed so we will see.
She had a check-up yesterday and she weighs 19 lbs and 4 oz, which puts her in the 75-90%. Her height was in the 25-50% and her head was in the above 95% range.

Her heart still has a murmur and in the Pediatrician's words sounds totally freaky! She has a follow-up appointment with the Cardiologist and an ultrasound of her heart next week to prepare for the repair which will take place in 3 weeks. It's a good thing I am incredibly busy right now so I have no time to dwell on it:)

One Down

2009-08-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

179 more to go until summer. When I look at this picture all I see is my little brother as this is how I remember him looking in Kindergarten!

He was so excited this morning when he was getting ready. On the way to school he told me that he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to smile at school until he got use to it and that today he was just going to look around anxiously. His use of vocabulary cracks me up sometimes. When we got to school he was a little nervous I could tell. Hubby and I walked him to his class and then we walked out onto the playground until the bell rang and then he said he was fine and that we didn't need to stay so I just took one more picture and left.
No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get him to smile again. On Wednesday mornings they have Chapel first thing and he has an 8th grade chapel buddy who he sits with and who shows him how to act and what to do. Big Man thought it was pretty cool that a big kid was talking to him.

When I picked him up he was all smiles and said: I had so much fun and can't wait to go back tomorrow, but I didn't learn to read yet:)

Goodbye Xandie

2009-08-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

It has been weeks it feels like since the party but I'm only now getting around to blogging about it! It was nice to get to see everyone in real life instead of just reading their blogs. I can't say that I'm thrilled about Xandie moving away but at least I'll have a cool place to visit:) Looking at this picture I only thought my baby was pretty big, but if you compare her to Lise's baby they are pretty similar in size and he is only 3 months!! He is such a sweetie too. There we so many kids there and the boys had a lot of fun playing with them. I think Christine's son Mickey stole Taylor's heart right away.

Unfortunately he had to go and whack her when she wanted to play with his ball and then she refused to sit with him for the rest of the evening. It was really hilarious:)
So Xandie & Marissa, maybe Christine, can you guys believe it was over 7 years ago that we would go to the Monastery and talk about getting pregnant and having kids! Time has gone so fast and it is so fun to see your kids as they grow up:) Now enough time on the computer I have to go get everything ready for Big Man since tomorrow is his first day of school! I keep pretending to cry when he tells me how excited he is and I joke around and tell him how sad I am that he is going to be gone at school and he keeps telling me to stop it. Then tonight he was very serious and said Your not really going to cry at school in front of everyone are you, because I would not like that at all. So...I guess I will have to try and keep my emotions in check until I'm in the car!!

Last Trip Of The Summer

2009-08-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

We went on one last camping trip before school starts up to Payson with my Hubby's family. The kids had such a fun time playing with their cousins. The first day they played with the remote control trucks and made ramps for the trucks and their bikes.

He couldn't quite get the momentum to get over it like his brother.
Far away Grandma planned a treasure hunt for the kids and

she got GrandMarc to draw a neat treasure map. Looking at the map for guidance...

The skull and crossbones!

There it is.

Where they ever excited to find the treasure.
It was filled with all sorts of fun things.

They are still playing pirates and the only books they wanted me to read to them today were about pirates.

Also in the treasure box were wooden ships that they (well mostly GrandMarc) put together the next day and painted.

The day after that we spent some time at the lake where the kids froze but had a great time playing in the water.

Then we went back and gave the kids some owl pellets to disect. I wasn't sure if they would really get into them, but they thought it was pretty cool digging out all of the bones and trying ti determine what kind of animal the owl ate!

The bone collection.

We think this was a rat jaw. Chomp chomp!

It was a fun time and I think we are going to make it a yearly event!

Baby Dedication

2009-08-04T21:40:00.001-07:00

The baby and my nephew were dedicated at Church last weekend. It was a fun time and of course all five of the kids had to have matching outfits! My Aunt came to the service and took some really good pictures of all of us.

When they were announcing her she would not stop eating her shoe. The entire congregation was laughing at her. We would pull it out and she would put it back. Aren't those shoes just the cutest! I wasn't sure I was going to find something for her to wear them with and was glad when I realized they matched the dress.

Here is my sister, her hubby and my nephew.

Growing

2009-07-31T22:12:00.000-07:00

Like all babies my nephew is growing so fast. My boys still don't like him much at all:)

Toothless

2009-07-31T11:20:00.001-07:00

Grandpa's Pool

2009-07-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is the stock tank that my Dad bought for the kids to swim in. If you aren't familiar with a stock tank it is what farmers/ranchers use to hold water for their animals. It makes a perfect pool, don't you think! We had one exactly like this when I was little. I remember it being huge, but my parents say it was the same size as this one.
Of course the kids have to slide into the pool.

Right now she is more than happy to just watch and swing.

My Camera Is Back!!

2009-07-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am sooo happy I'm dancing around the house taking pictures! Unfortunately the kids were all ready asleep when UPS delivered it, so I'm taking pictures of them sleeping. So here is my beautiful little girl with a head full of sweat. I keep a fan on high and the air turned way down to try and keep her from sweating but it doesn't seem to help. I'm hoping after her surgery and her heart is normal that she will not sweat so much. The Doc told us they don't know why heart defects make babies sweat so much, but I hope it goes away after the surgery!

Speaking of sleep, or the lack of, the baby is totally opposite to how she was as a newborn. Back then she would not sleep in the car at all but was sleeping awesome at night. Now she sleeps great in the car, but not so good at night! She has decided that after a couple of hours of sleeping in her crib she wants her human pacifier instead of this plastic synthetic one and will scream like she is being tortured if I even attempt to give her the plastic one. I quit nursing the boys at 6 months so I definitely didn't have this problem with them. It really doesn't bother me too much, though. I think I am so used to not getting any sleep and still somehow function. I don't think this princess is going to want to quit nursing anytime soon either, since she still won't take a bottle. Again, it doesn't really bother me either since it's not like I have much of a life where I need to leave her. I think that hubby is hoping that she won't ever take a bottle since that means that he will never be left with her:)

This Week's Accomplishments

2009-07-22T19:58:00.001-07:00

2 out of 3 kids can now wipe their own butts, YEAH!!! I have some great quotes from Little Man as he was learning but I figured that not everyone would think they were as funny as I do and that some wouldn't be able to handle the graphic ways my kids discuss poop:)
2 out of 3 kids can now buckle themselves in the car with no assistance, another YEAH!!!
I have done 3 P90X videos this week and hope that I will be able to move without crying soon.
After this week our summer swimming and activities will be done and Big Man has become an incredibly good front stroke swimmer recently. Too bad he will lose all of his skills since he probably won't swim again for 9 months.
Big Man is set to start school *sob* as I have bought all of the needed supplies and uniforms. His teacher is coming to visit us at home next week. I'm not sure how nervous I should be about that. I'm pretty sure his is the only school that does home visits since I have never heard of that happening before.
Big Man's new adult tooth has appeared and is growing fast. I would take a picture of it, but my camera has yet to be returned to me. I don't understand what could take a month to fix but hopefully it will be delivered soon as I feel naked without it.
The baby has mastered eating pureed baby food and loves it. I have enough homemade pureed carrots, sweet potatoes and acorn squash in the freezer to last a month.

That's my life in a nutshell, I'm sure you're jealous:)

Summer Funk

2009-07-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

The excessive heat we have been having has put me in a permanently terrible mood! I just looked at the 7 day forecast and it has only depressed me more. I sit out at the kids swimming lessons with a spray bottle filled with ice water, and I'm still miserable. Just getting loaded into the car leaves me completely soaked with sweat. A couple rooms in my house are not able to get as cool as I like, so today I ordered some screens for 3 windows and then a type of house window tint to keep out the heat/sun light for my family room. I hope it works, too bad I didn't think about doing it last winter before this heat!

The kids are doing great at swimming. They are sooo dark. I've stopped putting sunscreen on them they are so tan. I think the heat has affected their moods as well because I feel like they are a little more crazier than usual. I have been making them go to bed very early they are so cranky at night. It feels kind of strange to have all of the kids asleep by 7. Normally I would be thrilled to have hours to myself, but I'm just so exhausted I just lay on the couch and do very little.Here is my water wrap. The baby will just sleep away in there on the days we stay after lessons and swim. I feel like an old lady in my big hat, but I don't want the sun on the baby and I don't need any more age spots on my face! I have no idea what that look is on Big Man's face. He was probably being his usual weird self:)
The baby is just as smiley as ever these days. She is rolling both ways all over the room and is trying so hard to pull herself up. It won't be long and I will have to get out the baby gates *sigh* I really hate those things. I'm hoping things are better next week because hubby and I are suppose to be starting the P90X workout on Monday and I am going to need a lot of energy for that. Time to finally attempt to lose the weight 3 kids have put on me:)

Camping Pics

2009-07-12T20:33:00.001-07:00

We went camping outside of Payson last weekend with my parents and sister and her family. We were suppose to stay for 3 nights but only stayed for 2 because there was a little mix up with the campsites, but it was still worth it to get out of the heat. The first night there the boys were sleeping in my parents trailer and my Mom woke up at 5 in the morning to Little Man puking (talk about me gettin lucky with that one!) Here is a picture of him sitting outside minutes after puking. He sure doesn't look sick. He puked probably 8 more times that day as well. We had been making him sit outside, but he wanted to take a nap so he went inside my trailer to lay down and as I was walking over to him with a bucket he puked all over my bed as well! So much for my luck. Other than the times he was puking he seemed fine, kind of strange.

Here is my blue eyed baby. I'm beginning to feel pretty optimistic that they are going to stay blue now that she is 6 months old. I'm expecting her to pop out a tooth any day as her gums seem to really be bothering her. (Speaking of teeth, thankfully the tooth fairy did not forget. It was close, though, as the tooth fairy went to sleep and awoke in the middle of the night to complete her duties!!)
While camping the kids spent a lot of time in Uncle's new hammock. The baby loved it. We could put her in there, swing it a few times and she would go to sleep. Almost made me want to get one to go in my living room!

It was my sister's first time going camping with kids. Mimi had so much fun getting dirty and I can tell she is going to enjoy camping.

As for me after camping for a couple of days with 5 young children (one of whom was puking!), I just felt like I needed another vacation that included a hot tub and room service:) We have yet another camping trip in a few more weeks. After that I think I will likely be ready to let the trailer rest for a while.

Toothless

2009-07-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

Big Man lost his first tooth! Yesterday when he was talking to me I noticed that the teeth on the bottom front did not look right. I looked closer and the tooth wiggled and I immediately thought there was something wrong, like some gum disease or something. Then I was thinking that he was just at the dentist, wouldn't she have noticed if something were wrong. Then it hit me... that he is old enough to start losing his teeth and it must be time! He kept wiggling it and then when hubby left for work this morning he told him that it would be coming out tonight. So when hubby got home Big Man watched Sponge Bob and hubby worked on it with floss and tweezers (what he was doing I have no idea, but it looked like minor surgery!) After an hour hubby tied thread around it and pulled it out. It didn't hurt Big Man one bit so whatever hubby was doing worked. He doesn't want the tooth fairy to come until tomorrow night because he wants to show the tooth to his friends tomorrow, I hope the tooth fairy doesn't forget:)

Happy 4th

2009-07-07T21:04:00.001-07:00

We had a very busy 4th of July week! On Thursday the kids and I went to downtown Glendale where they had a patriotic concert in the park. The music was really great, but man was it hot! The next day the kids went to my parents and decorated the trailer for a little parade they were going to participate in around the neighborhood. I think they played more than helped decorate, but they had a good time.

Early on the 4th my parents and I took the kids up to Prescott where we met up with some friends and watched an awesome parade. There were tons of horses, guns and tractors so the kids were very entertained!

Our favorite Senator, almost President, was also there. He was walking down the street and came over right up to Little Man and asked if he could shake his hand. Of course he would not even look at him or even think about shaking his hand *sigh*.

There were tons of flags so the kids got very good at standing and taking off their cute hats.

They really do love parades.

The baby was great too! She didn't even cry when they shot off guns right in front of us.

After the parade and lunch we came back to town, met up with Hubby and went out to his Dad's house for a few hours and then went to my parents for their little parade. Little Mimi was really happy that night, but I didn't get it on camera!

She is at the tongue sticking out and blowing rasberry stage. She thinks she is hilarious!

Here are the kids on their nicely decorated bikes as we went around the block with the tractor and trailer as well. They had a lot of fun and then came back and went swimming in Grandpa's new stock tank (aka swimming pool).
The next day we left to go camping in Payson. For having done so much driving they did great and we had an interesting time camping, but that is another post:)

Another Dr Appointment

2009-07-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

Went and met the Dr at St. Joseph's hospital today and LOVED him. Everyone was so nice at the office. They even took us over to see the ICU where she will be staying and again everyone was great. They explained everything they will do and spent a ton of time with us. So as it stands right now we will go back the end of August to do another ultrasound of her heart and make sure that it hasn't miraculously closed on its own. Then around the first week in Sep she will go in for the procedure. Probably stay only one night in the ICU and go home. Once it is done she will be checked again every year until she is 4 or 5 and then shouldn't need anything more at all, Yeah!! It sounds so simple and nice, but I'm sure the 3 hours she is in there, away from me, will be the longest 3 hours of my life. I wonder if they can give me some drugs too:)

Garden

2009-07-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

Here are my 2 zucchini plants. They just started flowering today, so hopefully we'll have baby zucchini's soon!

These are the cucumber plants that are trying to take over everything! They have climbed up and over my shade cloth that I put out to to protect them from the sun and have started spreading out as well.We ate this cucumber last night. I couldn't believe the way Big Man went on about how good the cucumber was and he never realized how much he liked cucumbers etc... It was pretty funny coming from a kid who HATES all vegetables. He ate most of it, though, by himself and can't wait for another:)
Here is one of 3 jalepenos that are growing well. I'm thinking I will make salsa this weekend with them. I'm not sure the kids believe me when I tell them we can't pick it and eat it like the cucumber, but hopefully they won't do that because I don't want to listen to the crying if they do!!

Here are my pumpkin and butternut squash plants. I had to keep replanting these because something was eating them. I put chicken wire around them until they were bigger and so far that seems to have worked on keeping the bird/cat away from them. On this part of the border I did a lazy man's garden and just pushed the rocks out of the area that I wanted to plant and dug it up. In the winter when it is cool, if I'm still into gardening as much then I'm going to completely remove all of the rocks so that I can grow even more and it will look so much better.

Slave Labor

2009-06-29T21:39:00.001-07:00

One day they will be doing everything for me, and I can't wait!! Right now I have them clearing out rocks for more garden space. (What is crazy is that they really do enjoy working on it!) I tried to take pictures of the garden but they didn't come out since the flash isn't working. My cucumber plants are huge, like 9 feet in the air. I have a lot of little cucumbers and one big one that we will get to eat in the next day or 2. I have about 4 jalepenos growing that will be ready this week to eat and we have eaten basil that we grew. I also have zucchini, pumpkin, butternut squash and watermelon plants that are growing big but haven't produced any fruit yet. I'm clearing space for a couple different types of tomatoes, bell peppers and more cucumber plants that should produce in the fall. I never knew I would enjoy having a garden so much. I wake up and the first thing we do is go look at our plants to see how big they have grown. I know I am way more excited about them than the kids are, but they do enjoy them as well:)

It Is So Fun

2009-06-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

To have a little baby around again!

He is 2 weeks old and growing too fast like they all do. He is over 9 lbs and doing well.
I just love his little mohawk.

I think he just wants to be left alone to sleep, but he is just too cute to leave alone.

He looks just like his Dad, only with dark hair.

Rest Of Trip

2009-06-25T20:16:00.001-07:00

The baby sure loved Grandma Gail! I can't get over how big my baby is as I look at this picture...she will be 6 months this week and still seems to be growing fast. The Dr has told me not to give her any more food for now, possibly until after her surgery, as solids put more of a strain on the heart. Who knew! So, anyways I am feeling a bit like a milk cow for the time being as she is always hungry. We are going to St. Joes hospital for another appointment this week and will see what the Dr there says. I have been told that he is the best so I'm hoping that I will like him as I wasn't totally thrilled with her last heart Dr. He had only been out of Medical School for a few years and appeared way to young to be fixing my baby's heart! I know I am biased but I can't help it...I want someone who has done this procedure many many times.
Our last day camping the boys and hubby put together the rockets they got from their Aunt & Uncle last Christmas. They were so excited and we had the perfect meadow right behind the campsite to set them off.

We had to do the countdown several times before the first one finally took off, and boy did it take off! It went so high no one could see it for a good 15 seconds and then we saw it floating with the parachute.

The kids running off trying to find the rocket. They got their excecise as they would go get it and bring it back and then we would do it again! It wouldn't be any fun to have them run across the field only one time:)

Drowning

2009-06-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

In Laundry.

I cannot seem to get caught up and it is taking all of my free time! We are going camping again in 2 weeks and I think I may just get everything done only to do it again. Camping for 8 days is something I don't think we will be repeating again soon. I think we will stick with 3-5 day trips.

The boys are doing Vacation Bible School this week and are having so much fun. As most of you probably know I am totally neurotic and wouldn't even think of just dropping them off without watching everything for a while to make sure everything seemed o.k. Well...let me just say it was total chaos. They put a 13 year old boy in charge of a group of preschoolers and it was his duty to move the kids from room to room for the various activities. He would say o.k. kids follow me and would just start walking and not checking to make sure that the kids were following etc... I immediately decided I was going to stay because I didn't want my kids to get lost. Long story short 2 of the kids in his group did get misplaced (the director would not use the word lost!) At one point one of the kids told him he had to use the bathroom and he pointed toward the door and said it is down at the end of the hall (it was a long way away). These are 3-5 year olds! Thankfully the director realized it was a little more than he could handle and so today there were 2 teenagers in charge of the group and the girl definitely had a much better idea of how to handle little kids so I left for a little while. Tomorrow (and for the rest of the week), though, I am looking forward to dropping the kids off and having a whole 3 hours with just the baby to get things done. It almost seems to good to be true that I will only have one to deal with:) I think I am going to like having Big Man start school.

Also, my new camera isn't working. The flash won't pop up and the pictures are coming out really dark. When I get some free time I'm going to have to deal with that too:( So for now you are going to have to imagine my sweet little baby who is sitting up so good now without support!!

Just to make you smile here is a sweet picture of my niece that my sister sent me tonight. Isn't she so cute!

I've Decided To Take A Break

2009-06-18T21:20:00.001-07:00

From my napping and reading to finally post some pictures!

This is the first campsite we stayed at on our trip outside Payson. It had electricity and nice paved roads. We are now outside of Williams with no electricity just in the middle of the forest. It is roughing it as far as I'm concerned!

The boys have found and tortured many insects and amphibians on our trip. We have seen a lot of animals at our current campsite including deer, elk and cows walking through the forest and through our campsite.

She does love camping and seems to enjoy just looking around at all of the trees.

Little Man has been a bit off today. He kept coming up to hubby and I and asking us to tickle his back and saying he needs to lay down. We even went out for ice cream tonight and he didn't want anything! Poor guy, I don't know what is wrong with him:(

Big Man had lots of fun in the dirt making a monster truck track. He is one kid who does not mind at all being totally filthy. Isn't that what camping is all about? Who am I kidding, I let him get filthy at home too:)

We have a meadow right behind our campsite where a herd of cows are usually grazing that we have been taking walks and bike rides through. The cows are pretty funny as they are walking through the forest they will come to our campsite, see us and then start running. I don't know why but seeing a cow run just makes us laugh because they are not the most graceful!

We went to a cowboy show in town tonight on the steets where they had a little shootout. It was a lot of fun seeing the cowboys, the boys were a little scared of them after the show, though.

We'll be up here for a few more days and then it will be back to real life. Tomorrow there are a bunch of friends and family coming to camp with us so the kids will have some playmates and it should be a lot of fun.

On The Road Again

2009-06-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

We are up north camping this week. I'm too lazy to post any pictures right now, but we are having a great time relaxing, reading, bike riding and fishing. The weather is absolutely beautiful and cold. In the middle of the day we are all wearing long sleeves and jeans and still have to stand in the sun to be warm:)

Out With The Old, In With The New

2009-06-11T20:52:00.001-07:00

Sport that is.

I would be lying if I said I was going to miss baseball. Three times per week with three kids, usually by myself, was a little too much work for me!

Big Man sure did have fun, though. He improved so much over the season and he had a great time. He misses it and now thinks that since baseball is over that it is my duty to play with him in the back yard every day. Thankfully, though, the boys and neighbor kids have figured out how to play by themselves and have made pretend bases and hit off the tees and do their thing. They even lined up all of the extra chairs they could find around the house for bleachers so people can watch them. It is really cute!

We are now in our second week of swimming. For the last 2 weeks they have gone 4x/week for lessons and most days we stay after and swim too (and yes I did have to get a special water wrap for the baby as well!) Their good friend, Hunter, who played baseball with Big Man also signed up for swimming and they have been having so much fun.

Today was the last day in the session so the kids got to jump off the diving board for fun.

Or in Little Man's case, tossed off.Big Man was the only one in his class who jumped on his own and he let everyone know that we saw today.
He was even able to swim over to the side by himself. It took almost the full two weeks to relearn how to swim, but he is doing good now. After swimming I think we are going to try Karate. The boys are all ready practicing their karate chops and hiyah's!

She Sure Looks Perfect

2009-06-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

And soon enough she will be. After a day of testing at the Cardiology office she has been diagnosed with Patent Ductus Arteriosis (PDA). It is a mild congenital heart defect where she has an extra artery that will have to be closed surgically since it did not close as it should have at birth. According to the Dr it is a heart defect that is on the far mild end of the spectrum so that part is good. Having to have heart surgery, not so good for me! They are going to try and go in through the leg as they said she has a medium sized PDA and as long as it is that size or smaller there should be no problems. If they can't go in through the leg they will go in through the side of her chest in between her ribs to cut off the extra artery.

They said she is one of the healthiest babies they have seen with this condition as usually the babies are very sickly and small because it causes mild heart failure. They want to get it done before the winter season hits because with this condition the babies always have fluid in their lungs and therefore get sicker with colds and end up with more wheezing and pneumonia and just take longer overall to recover. Since she all ready had wheezing last winter with a cold that sounds like a good plan to me as I don't want her to be that sick again this winter. So, as long as she continues to thrive we will go back in August for the surgery consultation and then schedule the surgery from there.

Sam Has Arrived

2009-06-08T21:18:00.000-07:00

Born last night at 7 lbs 11 oz. He is so sweet and has the best squacky cry!

The proud Mommy. After what she went through last night I can't believe how good my sister looked today. Why can't babies just come out without pain.

Little Mimi has no idea how much her life is going to change:)

My boys were so excited to go see him. They went up to the hospital 3 times today because they just couldn't get enough of him.

The boys. They do love babies. After last night I can definitely say I will never have another one. Never. I'm not even sure I want to be in the same room as another birth! My hubby is so relieved to hear me say that:)

Party Time

2009-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

My brother in law has Guitar Hero and I have been wanting to play it so my Brother, Sister and their families came over along with my friends Eric & Marissa and their cute kids. The kids had a lot of fun pretending to play the game and playing with each other and we all had a lot of fun catching up with E & M!

Special Teeth Medicine

2009-06-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

When Little Man's front teeth came in I noticed that they had dark spots on them. I thought he had some horrible disease but the Dentist said they were just enamel defects and that there is no protection in that area so he will get cavities there. On his first birthday they tried to fix them up as much as possible to prevent cavities, but they still came. His teeth have been looking worse and worse so we finally decided to have them fixed. I had been telling him he was going to the Dentist and they were going to give him special medicine to drink and then they were going to look at his teeth to see how it is working. He doesn't let them ever clean his teeth or anything usually so I was a little nervous as to how he would react. Hubby took him and Big Man in at 6:30 in the morning and he drank the special medicine really well. It takes about 45 minutes to work and he became a little crazy on it!

I got there about 7:30 so hubby could go to work and he wanted the baby to lay next to him. As long as she was there he would close his eyes. He would open them occasionally and say: I need to go home, Mom, I need to take a nap. We tried so hard not to laugh at him and his slurred speech and crazy talk!

After he was sufficiently sleepy they took him to the room hooked up the nitrous and papoosed him. He didn't mind it at all. He kept laying there with his mouth wide open. She would say were not quite ready you can close it, but he was ready for the Dentist.

He obviously doesn't remember much, but he keeps saying how nice the Dentist was and how he wants to go back for more of the special medicine that makes him dizzy. If anyone needs a good Dentist, I love mine, I have known her since High School. She is the daughter of my schools Health Occupations Teacher that I know some of you had:)

How Can It Be?

2009-06-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

That my little girl is all ready 5 months old. She is growing up way too fast!

She went to her check-up today and she weights 17.5 pounds, so not as big as I was thinking but still in the 90% for weight. The NP was just commenting on how healthy and beautiful she was and then started listening to her heart and kept listening and listening and I knew something must be up. Then she said I'm going to borrow her for a minute and left the room and went and had 4 other Dr.'s listen to her chest in the hall. She came back and informed me that she has a type of murmur that they have never heard before and that if she wasn't so fat, healthy and pink we would be going to the hospital because it sounds so strange. She gave me the name of a Pediatric Cardiologist that we will be seeing next week to determine if it is a normal fine murmur or a congenital heart defect and tells me to try not to worry too much. Yeah right. Needless to say I fought the urge to take her to the ER anyways because I want an answer like now, but I will be patient until we see the Cardiologist. Everything I have read on Dr. Google is not very positive stating that most murmurs heard before 6 months are not normal murmurs but I'm still hopeful.

Splash

2009-05-31T21:17:00.000-07:00

We took the kids out to Desert Ridge last week to play in their splash pad and have lunch. The weather was so nice in the shade with the water spray. It took little Mimi a while to want to go play but once she did she loved it and had tons of fun too. We are definitely going to be going back as soon as my sister recovers from having a baby, who will hopefully be coming soon (tomorrow maybe? I'm getting anxious!!)

Good Babysitters

2009-05-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

The baby loves watching the kids play and the kids love trying to get her to laugh. Works out good for me!

The number of kids I have has multiplied now that school is out. On average there are 5-6 kids here during the day (including mine). It doesn't bother me at all, though. They get along so well and stay entertained. **On second thought maybe I shouldn't write about how the kids are so entertained because then hubby may start to wonder why I still can't seem to get anything done around the house!!

So Big!

2009-05-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

Very soon she is not going to need the boppy behind her in case she falls.

Why I Don't...

2009-05-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

Let him pick out his own clothes when we are going out in public. Some outfits are much worse than this, but these I got pictures of:)

Above is what he refers to as a school outfit. Why you need a medal around your neck at school, I'm not sure. Below is what he calls a "selling" outfit. I believe that day he was selling candy sand. Because Daddy tucks in his shirt he thinks that he needs his tucked in as well. We discuss not needing to tuck in shirts e v e r y s i n g l e d a y. He also doesn't believe me when I tell him that long socks are for pants.

My Little Garden

2009-05-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

It has been almost 6 weeks and most of my plants are still alive. I have basil, cucumbers and jalapenos. I have planted seeds for watermelon, green peppers and zucchini. The cucumber plant is out of season so I'm not sure how much longer that will last but it looks pretty so far:)

I also decided to start a compost pile so that I could get some good compost for the fall when I want to plant more vegetables. The city of Phoenix has old bins that they cut the bottom off for you to buy for $5 to use as a compost bin. Can't beat that.
When I move it around I can see some black soil in there so I think it is working. I have decided no more pine needles, though, as they seem to be taking forever to compost. Most of what I put in is fruit and veggie scraps, egg shells, paper and grass.

Raindrops Falling On My Head...

2009-05-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Bubbles, rainboots and puddles...can it get any better?

Water Day At Grandma's House

2009-05-20T20:43:00.001-07:00

It was irrigation day at Grandma's, so all the kids got on their suits to have some fun. I can remember doing this as a kid. We use to have so much fun playing in the water. It kind of grosses me out now, but I still allow my kids to play in it:)
Little Mimi had this look on her face for several minutes after stepping in the water. She had so much fun. Her little brother is due any day and we can't wait to meet him.

The boys ran around like crazy with their beach balls having a blast.

Then it was time to swing in the backyard, another favorite activity.

It was baby's first time swinging and she had a huge grin the entire time. She is chubby as ever. I sat her on the scale at my mom's and it said 19lbs. I don't know how accurate that is, but either way she is a chunker!
After lunch the kids played with the sprinkler in the backyard.

Then they all took a bath to clean up. When should kids stop bathing together? I have no idea.

The rest of the day they played inside. My boys still aren't aware that tea parties and dolls are girlie:)

Another One

2009-05-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Because you can never have enough carriers (insert hubby rolling his eyes now, he just doesn't get it!)... after reading THIS I decided I had to have it. I have been wanting an Ergo ever since I became pregnant. I saw this pattern and I knew this was the one. She is finally old enough to sit in it comfortably and I do love it as much as I thought I would.

Summer Has Definitely Arrived

2009-05-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

Since it is so hot now, everything the kids do outside tends to include water. Every day I have at least one load of wet sandy laundry!
The kids will turn anything into a pool.

And of course swinging in your underwear while the sprinklers are on will definitely keep you cool:)

Drool

2009-05-15T15:00:00.001-07:00

Awake or asleep she is constantly drooling! This is her typical sleeping position. Hands by her side, mouth open and a circle of drool around her head:)

I Need Another Vacation

2009-05-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

2 # Days it took me to prepare for trip
4 # Nights we were on trip
3 # Days taken me so far to unpack from trip

13 #Loads of laundry done so far

4 # Of outfits baby has ruined with her poop lately

8 # Days we are suppose to be camping next month

Camping is sooo much work, but we had a great time while we were there. What is better than having a water war with your brother and cousin.

Of course she has to wear her Camo as well.

I have a feeling they are going to get in a lot of trouble when they are older:)

Is this even legal??

Wildlife Expo

2009-05-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

The boys went to a wildlife expo in Payson, while baby and I stayed and relaxed at the campground.
It was all about animals, fishing and hunting so of course they were into it.

It was the first time the boys shot a bow and arrow and hubby said they did really well, so I bet I know what they want for Christmas this year!

There were lots of animals to look at and touch.

Including this enormous python...I don't know if I could have gotten that close.

Brrrrr It's Cold Outside

2009-05-08T21:04:00.000-07:00

We packed up our trailer and headed north for a few days. It is about 40 degrees outside right now and I love it. Better than the 102 it was when we were leaving town yesterday. Baby loves camping as much as the boys and she wasn't too bad in the car either on the way up.
The kids are having a blast with their cousins and Grandma and GrandMarc.

Just hanging out in the forest is cool to them.

They have been riding their bikes around the site and having fun trying to scare me by putting their legs up or standing on the seat and yelling for me to look at them.

I took a few pictures and quit looking because their lack of fear scares me!

But Mom She Was Hungry

2009-05-06T23:08:00.000-07:00

He thinks it is incredibly unfair that only girls can have and feed babies, but that doesn't stop him from trying!

Missing

2009-05-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

Sweet 3 year old who is always smiling and happy has disappeared. If anyone sees him please send him back home because his Mommy misses him. A strange 3 year old has shown up in his place who is always angry, whiny and constantly crying. I don't want this new boy, I want the old one:)

Girlie Girl

2009-05-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

I do hope she wants to be a girlie girl because it is so much fun dressing her up! I got my new camera so of course I spent the day taking pictures, mostly of her because she is just so cute:)

The boys think she needs to wear a dress, shoes and jewelry every day. They fight over picking out her dress and it is usually a fancy dress:)

She is getting to be a lot of fun. She is awake a lot more and loves attention. She is also trying to talk and likes to stick out her tongue.

She rolled over once, but she hardly lays down except to sleep so I don't know how good she is at rolling over and I'm not encouraging it. I like her staying in one place.

Here is her napping spot on the couch. I couldn't possibly lay her down in the bedroom where I can't see her, so she sleeps on the couch:) When she gets tired I just lay her down and she will watch the boys for a while and nap, wake up and watch and then nap some more. She is definitely a keeper!

They Are So Happy

2009-05-03T12:22:00.001-07:00

To have a tub again! They ask to take a bath at least twice a day.

Even The Dog Adores Her

2009-05-01T20:52:00.001-07:00

Waiting

2009-04-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

My new camera was ordered last week so I have been waiting for it to come not so patiently. There are many things I want to take pictures of! We planted a little garden in pots, I don't know what you would call that...but we are growing tomatoes, jalopenos, cilantro, basil and cucumbers. So far so good, I just hope to get one fruit off of one of the plants and I will consider the garden a success:)

Big Man is going to school tomorrow for Kindergarten Round-up. At the school he is going to next year they invite all of the kids to come to school for one day with the current Kindergarten class to see what it is going to be like. He is SOOO excited. He has had me read him the invitation a couple of times per day that describes what they are going to be doing and he can't wait. We searched for years, basically, to find a good school and I think we found one because they seem to go above and beyond what a typical school does. It is a very small school with only 120 kids from K-8 and they have a teacher and an aide for K. We were wanting a small school with a half-day Kindergarten and everyone there seems so nice. This year they had 11 kids in the K class and they seem to have a lot of fun. We will find out next year if we made a good choice! Me, I am not so excited about having to get him to school on time, but I'm thinking I will be able to talk hubby into taking him at least half the time (love you hubby xoxo!)

Other than that, life is just going. It appears that my neighbors are feaful of the swine flu because it seems that no one is going to school this week. 2 of my neighbors kept their kids home today and another one said they are not going to school tomorrow. They were all over playing at my house today, though, so doesn't that defeat the purpose of isolation. Oh well, I am not exactly worried but I do make my kids wash their hands a little more frequently.

Hopefully I will be able to report back soon with something exciting and some pictures. (And Lise will you please blog about your baby, I want to hear the details and see pictures!!)

4 Months

2009-04-28T22:11:00.001-07:00

She loves her stand up toy and will sit in for long periods at a time playing with her toys. She has just recently been able to start grabbing things and trying to mouth them. She has also discovered her hands and will just stare at them and try to eat them. A few weeks ago when she was sick she weighed 15lbs so she may be close to 16lbs all ready. I just got out her 6-9 month clothes as most of her 3-6 month clothes all ready don't fit her!

Yum Yum

2009-04-26T09:23:00.001-07:00

She has been acting like she ist still starving after she eats so I have been trying to give her a little cereal in the afternoons. Some days she likes it, other days she doesn't. She doesn't really like taking a bottle either, though, so I'm hopeful that she will begin to eat more food soon!

Grandpa's New Swing

2009-04-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

Of course they have to ride it together.
They can't use it like their suppose to either:)

Babywearing

2009-04-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

I have decided that I am definitely a babwearing fanatic. I wear my baby at least half of the day and sometimes more. I have people (mostly people I don't know!) telling me all the time that I am spoiling, or smothering my baby, or that it is a bad habit to wear her so much because she will never sleep in her own bed if I don’t lay her down. It really doesn't bother me, though. I just laugh and say that it is my survival tool. She is happy and that is all that matters, and she does sleep wonderfully at night in her own bed.

With Big Man we were very scheduled. He only slept in his bed and I was afraid of spoiling him and holding him too much. That worked well then, but he probably would have been happier if I had worn him! When Big Man was born my hubby and I both were so overwhelmed and exhausted. We did nothing but take care of him and try and keep him happy. It is almost embarrassing to admit, but we actually had a housekeeper come clean for us and we had an extremely small house! Now I wonder what the heck was wrong with me, but I know the problem is you can't hold a baby in one arm and get much done. I did wear him in the Baby Bjorn at times but it was so uncomfortable he would not be in there for long.

Now that I have two older kids I need to have a happy baby that can sleep anywhere when needed, and my wraps are perfect for that. I did a lot of reading on babywearing when I was deciding on a wrap and everything I have read shows that babywearing really is the way to go and I wish I had known about it with the boys. It is so nice to be able to take care of my other kids and clean and cook (if I want to!) and keep the baby happy.

My hubby is afraid we are going to go broke buying wraps and slings and mei tai’s since I am constantly looking them up and making a list of one’s I want. I need one to go with every outfit, though, don’t I?

I Should Be Cleaning

2009-04-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

My house is very cluttered, as usual. Instead of cleaning, though, I am swaying back and forth in a chair with my baby that wants to be held close reading blogs. I came across this famous poem and it made me feel a little better about myself so I though I would share:

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,

Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

Hang out the washing, make up the bed,

Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,

Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew

And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo

But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo

Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?

Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Where's My Bailout

2009-04-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

I am so sick of people not paying their bills! My neighbors are months behind on their mortgage but they manage to go out to eat every night and today they went and bought a new, huge flat screen t.v. They just assume that the Government is going to help them refinance to get a lower payment if they get behind. It is so frustrating that those who are irresponsible with their spending are the ones who will get a good deal from the Government, not those of us who never go out to eat, have very old televisions and make sure to pay our bills.

Enough ranting for one day, back to watching my $20 estate sale t.v.

Summer Movie Fun At Harkins

2009-04-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

The cost of 10 movies: $7

The cost of popcorn and drink at each movie: $11

The fact that hubby will be taking them every week: Priceless!

***I'm not so sure he shares my enthusiasm:) These tickets went very fast last year. Today is the first day of sales so get them while you can!

Anyone Else Gluten Free?

2009-04-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone probably knows someone who has gone on a gluten-free diet for health reasons so pass along the information to the gluten free fair so that they can learn about all of the good and new foods that are available! (click on the flyer for a larger view)