'WOWZA!!" Wednesday

This is what we did today. . .

It was a blast. They were so well behaved and we had such much fun creating, imagining and running around.

And then when we got home, this is what my kids insisted on doing. . . .

Seriously, they ASKED to vacuum. I didn't force it upon them or anything, really! Now if only they picked up their toys with such enthusiasm. Oh well, I'll live in the moment. I am one blessed mommy!!

State of the Family #22

Lots going on, but I am going to try and be brief. . . I'll let the pictures tell the stories!

Miss Thumb Sucker is walking all over the place now as long as she doesn't have on shoes! I put shoes on her and she just doesn't know what to do. It is kinda funny. The splint hasn't slowed her down a bit, that is as soon as we got it trimmed back far enough that she could still suck her thumb! Heaven forbid we lose our nickname. She also became a candy thief and thought she was quite funny when we were bagging up some treats for her upcoming birthday party. She is also eating like a small horse! I think she out-eats her big sister at most meals. She was quite intrigued with her first tractor ride with G'pa Gary and really had a good time. Peek at the base of his hat in the tractor pics and you'll see where the red comes from. His is a little faded due to some greys, but. . . .

Miss Firecracker is going on little sleep this last week for some reason, and she is like her mama. When we don't get sleep, watch out! So it has been a little rough around here with her. She is in a girlie mode too. Always wanting to wear dresses and lip gloss, boas and her dressy shoes. But like a friend of mine said, she is a tomboy with a tiara because she is right on the floor wrestling with her brother and playing tractors in all her pink and glitter glory. She loved the tractor and combine rides we took on Sunday with G'pa Gary. She actually fell asleep in the combine for a little while. This was the first time she got to ride in the combine and really had a great time.

Noisy Man continues on his no-nap streak and still wakes up at 6:30 am or earlier every day, with no exceptions for the weekend. Anyone know how to teach your kids how to sleep in? I would really like to know! He was all over the tractor and combine rides as well and was quite upset we couldn't stay all day and camp out in the combine like one of the other combine drivers' daughter was doing that day. His preschool teacher came last Friday for our home visit and gave us quite the insight! Really, it was just what we expected. He gets a little loud at times, LOL wonder how he got his nickname. He loves to play in the kitchen and they have to set a timer for him when he is at the computer. Yep, that's my boy. He also really only plays with the girls. Oh dear! I am in trouble all ready. They are going to start him and a few other kids on reading, so at least he is doing great there. I also need some tricks on teaching him how to recognize his numbers, we have done a lot of different things and he still doesn't know much past 4! I guess we'll keep working on that one.

Daddy continues to have good luck in the duck blind, which is great because that makes for a happy daddy! I bought him some new running shoes on my shopping trip so hopefully he will keep up with me on the treadmill.

I had a blast on my shopping trip with my sister and my aunt down to Kansas City. Got lots of great deals and even came home with some money! I am cramming to get everything planned for Miss Thumb Sucker's birthday party and also had a blast riding the tractor with my dad. It has been a VERY long time since I have done that.

State of the Family #21

Oh dear. . . almost 2 weeks again and there has been a lot going on around here. God is good and God gets us through that is for sure!!

Miss Thumb Sucker of course had her little mishap with brother, that ended with her arm in a splint. But she had some other fun stuff going on as well. She got to go on her 1st adventure to the pumpkin patch and was quite the trooper. She was along for the ride and hardly ever made a fuss. Which is amazing considering she did not take a nap until almost 3 o'clock that day! She is transferring to the sippy cup pretty well these last few days and only nurses at night and in the morning now. Still an almost walker, but not quite all the way there yet. She will take 6 to 7 steps as long as the destination in mind is relatively close, and of course exciting to get to. She didn't like the 2 days she couldn't crawl at all after she hurt her arm and before she got the splint on. She would be stuck in one spot unsure of how to move and just get MAD. It was kind of cute actually, but pathetic at the same time. She also started saying "puh puh" for puppy and "ba" for ball too. She has 2 more teeth on the top poking through as well, which is what I am hoping the early mornings have been coming from.

Miss Firecracker absolutely LOVED the pumpkin patch and everything it entailed. She was AMAZINGLY well behaved. Probably the best one out of the whole clan of 5 kids! I don't remember a single whine or fit from her at all. She was ready to go and even stopped to take pictures like a pro. She has also been talking non-stop lately. Don't get me wrong, she has always been quite the chatterbox, but the last week seems to be continuous. So far, it hasn't driven me nuts, but I can see if she keeps it up it just might. Right now it is just darn adorable all the things she comes up with. Today it was quite revealing all that she thinks she knows about Heaven and Jesus. . . she isn't naughty there, Jesus lives there, and she is going to go there all by herself like a big girl. There was much more to this little conversation that didn't make sense at all to me or her (when I would try to answer some of her questions to the best of my ability) but heck, Heaven is a hard concept for most seasoned Christians, let alone a 2-yr-old. I need to keep a record of all the crazy things that turn in her little mind!

Noisy Man hasn't had a nap in over 2 weeks. . . I think that covers it for him. OK, maybe not quite. He dropped his sister and cried harder than she did when he realized that she was really hurt. He was truly just trying to be helpful and keep his sister away from the toys he knows can hurt her. Thankfully, both have seemed to recover pretty quickly. He was all over the place at the pumpkin patch and not quite so well-behaved as his sisters. Mostly before lunch though. Pictures were cramping his fun-to-be-had style and he must have been hungry, cuz the rest of the day he was really quite agreeable. It is fun to take him to the same pumpkin patch for the 5th year in a row and see all the new things he can try every year. The first year we took him I think the only thing we did was take pictures of him! He also got to have his cousins come spend the night with him the night before we went and he thought that was great! I am getting anxious for our parent/teacher conference with his teachers this Friday! I hate not being able to know exactly what he is doing every day, and he isn't exactly a wealth of information when asked about his day at preschool. It usually goes a little like this; me: How was your day? NM: good. me: What did you do? NM: Played. . . . and so on and so forth. I think he learned this from my father. One word answers. Drives me bonkers!!

Hunting season (ducks that is) has begun and daddy is in 7th heaven! They have a new spot thanks to some friends of ours from church and they have had a great season so far. He actually shot his limit of birds by 10 am last Sunday. I think this is the first day he has bagged a limit in over 4 years. He has "burn" days left at work and is planning to burn them in his duck blind! He is also continuing to enjoy the treadmill almost as much as me and is getting his endurance up quite well. Maybe by next spring I'll convince him to run the Lincoln 1/2 with me!! Yeah right! He was a trooper as the only "dad" at the pumpkin patch as his sister's hubby had to sit out for harvest and his dad was still laid up by ACL surgery. Secretly, I think he really likes going anyway.

Me, I am still here. Praying through it all. I just don't see how mothers of young children make it in this world without God to lean on! I forgot to add into both the girls' spots that they had croup as well this week. So we have been hacking away around here. I had to say good-bye to one of my best friends after a depressing NE football game on Saturday. I ran a 15K in the Governor's Cup last Sunday and did great until mile 7 where my body decided it had had enough. My legs started cramping (I haven't had a cramp in my legs since High School) my lungs were burning and I felt like the little water I had during the race was going to come right back up. The last 2 miles were not pretty, and the rest of the evening was even worse. I'm not sure how I drove home without having to stop and I spent the rest of the night on the couch. Even got a slight fever. The next morning had a RAGING headache and was very, very thankful for an awesome hubby who took a couple hours off of work to let me sleep in. Then I got to spend the next 2 1/2 hours at the Dr.'s office diagnosing croup and getting Xrays! Not to mention all this time I should have been enjoying myself at MOPS! OK, now I am just complaining. God is good, isn't He! I am thankful I was able to enjoy a full day with my family at the pumpkin patch, able to even survive through 9.3 miles and still be able to walk at the end even though I felt a little worse for the wear. Thankful that my son cares enough about his baby sister to want to keep her safe, and that it is just a splint. Thankful that I have 3 amazing children I get to stay at home with and most of all thankful that they make me want to pull my hair out some days because that means they are healthy, normal kids! God is definitely good!

Tell All Tuesday

Brother tried to move me out of his legos and dropped me. . . Now I have some kind of a "buckle" in my forearm. . . just a step below a hairline fracture and have to wear this splint for 10 days.

Weary Wednesday

Truthfully, it should be weary first part of the week. Miss Thumb Sucker is throwing me for a loop again. Waking up at 5:30 every morning which is just enough time for me NOT to be able to go to back to sleep after I am done feeding her before my alarm goes off at 6:15. She is genuinely hungry most times though. I have found that if she isn't hungry I can lay her back down and she will go back to sleep, but if she wants to eat. . . there is no going back to sleep. And letting her cry it out is not an option at 5:30 am because it wakes the whole house up and there is no going back to sleep for anyone. Believe me. That is what started this whole weary week!

My other weariness is nursing. I have absolutely loved nursing all of my kids until they were a year old. Noisy Man I even did morning and night feedings until he was 14 months. Miss Firecracker 13 months and with Miss Thumb Sucker I am SO ready to be done! Perhaps it is because I have either been nursing or pregnant for the last 5 years and 3 months! Perhaps it is because she is a mean and restless nurser. She pinches me and pushes and pulls and wiggles and even bites every now and then. Why do I feel so guilty about wanting to be done? I think, honestly, part of it is a fear on my part as well about the fact that I won't have a bodily need for 300-500 extra calories per day any more and might blow up like a balloon!! YIKES!

State of the Family #20

Wow, 20 SOFs. . . OK so it isn't that many, but it sure is fun to look back and see what has all been going on. Now if only I had the time to do that. :)

Miss Thumb Sucker is days away from walking. She is taking a few steps here and there and will stand on her own for quite a while. She loves it when she can grab your fingers and have you walk her around the room, and she loves to push things around. You can tell she is just longing for the day she can chase after her brother and sister. She had a short bout of thinking that she didn't want to chew her food. It seemed that if it wasn't pureed or soft, she decided not to eat it. It would go in her mouth and then, after a couple chews, come pouring back out. Thankfully, that was short lived when she found out she got hungry pretty quickly when she didn't eat. I was glad for this, cuz I do not want to be buying or making baby food forever. Still waiting for some more teeth to come in. She only has four. Maybe this food thing was caused by some teeth troubles. Time will tell.

Miss Firecracker is on a "When I get big. . . " kick. Everything she knows she can't do now she is going to do "When I get big." The quotes become quite amusing as she decides exactly what she is going to do when she does get big. Some examples are not taking naps, pushing mommy in the stroller, drink coffee, and many others I can't ever seem to remember when it comes time to record them. She has also discovered the joy of hand-me-downs. We have been talking about Halloween costumes, and this year she will be an elephant, which is a costume Noisy Man wore a couple of years ago. Evidently, she doesn't want to be an elephant for Halloween and has her own ideas. Every time you ask her what she wants to be her answer changes, but momma will have her frugal way and, in the end, the poor girl will end up being an elephant. It is an adorable costume and I'll be darned if I am going to let it go to waste!

Noisy Man is on a Lego kick. He has had some legos that daddy brought out of hiding from his childhood, but the other day we hit the jackpot at our neighbors garage sale and found a huge box for only $5! Every waking hour he wants to be playing Legos. The kid has some creativity, I'll give him that. But he gets so frustrated when his sisters interfere. Miss Thumb Sucker, obviously, cannot be around the legos, so he has to move to the kitchen table to play when she is awake or put them away. This, of course, is a big inconvenience and aggravates him to no end. To top that off, Miss Firecracker is allowed to play with him, but all she ends up doing is breaking things apart and taking the hats/helmets off all the little lego people. I'm not sure which sister annoys him more in his lego world!

Daddy loves that Noisy Man is so into legos, but he isn't thrilled that they aren't able to play as 'gently' with the contraptions he built as he would like. He is constantly fixing things and putting them back together. He act annoyed by this, but secretly I think he loves it because it gives him an excuse to keep playing legos. The chill in the air and the distant quacking of ducks has daddy itching to get out of the house and into the duck blind. I think their first time out will be this weekend.

I am in 7th Heaven, as my new treadmill was delivered last Friday. It is so awesome to be able to go run whenever I want. OK, so not whenever, but I have many more options of time to run than before. Like, during nap time or after bedtime or even when it is dark or raining outside! It is good to be able to run whenever cuz I am signed up to run a 15K in less than 2 weeks! Yikes! That could be interesting. I have also been keeping myself busy trying to do some of my own freezer cooking. I can't do the regular freezer cooking group during the winter because of Daddy's pickiness, but I know I am totally going to miss being able to grab supper out of my freezer. So, I have been trying to do some on my own. So far, I have done meatballs, Stromboli and cinnamon rolls. Not that cinnamon rolls would make a great supper, but who can resist cinnamon rolls. And, as a side note, if you haven't tried the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon roll recipe you are missing out! It is amazing. I leave the coffee out of the frosting and have used both maple and vanilla to flavor it and they are both great! I highly recommend it and will never use another cinnamon roll recipe again!

Until next time. . .