For you, Mom

My Mom has been begging for me to put up a video of our little ladybug crawling. I should call her our little inch worm because that is what she looks like.

It's not the best video we have of her doing this inch worm crawl, in fact she is so much faster at it now and it's pretty entertaining to watch. This is the only video that would up load on here, so this will have to do, sorry. At the end you can see her little bum go up and down it's my favorite.

So here ya go Mom.

T-Shirt Weather

We love nice weather.

LOVE IT!

Our definition of nice weather: T-Shirt Weather. Ya know? Not too hot, not too cold all you need is a light jacket! (what movie? Any one?)

My only concern about moving out West is that our seasons of "Nice Weather" will be shorter. The winters out West last slightly longer than out here in the Mid West. But what will also be shorter and more bearable out West will be the heat of the summers. No humidity! This humidity thing kills me every year! So it's a take-your-pick kind of situation.

We've enjoyed nice temps already this year (a good couple of weeks worth) and we took advantage of every minute of it!

Unfortunately it did not last :(

Please Nice Weather come back and stay for a while and tell Humidity to keep hibernating, we don't miss him, in fact he can have a break this year if he wants :)

A day of enjoying the nice T-shirt weather with neighborhood friends

I need to take more pictures of my older two kids :) She's just so dang cute I can't resist snapping tons of photos of her.

it's a boy thing

When ever J boy hears the garbage truck coming to empty the dumpster, which is visible from our front window, he races to the window and watches it as it lifts the large stinky brown dumpster in the air, empties it and then lowers it back down. His body is glued to the front window until the truck disapears out of sight around the corner.

Big trucks, tractors, cool cars, tools, dirty stuff.......It's a boy thing.

Well you can imagine his pure JOY when this thing came to our neighborhood in perfect viewing position for my four year old boy.

A Tree shredder as he calls it.

What boy would not love to watch a tree go in one end and tiny pieces of tree shoot out the other end?!

Even if it is a little loud.

Contained.....kind of

This little lady is loved, no doubt about that.

How could you not love her? Look at those eye lashes, touching her eye brows. Not fair.

But I have found she has started to annoy....

"Who me? Annoying?No way!"

Now that she is mobile she's a little more annoying to her sister and her brother. Especially when they are trying to play with toys they don't want her to get to or that she is not allowed to play with.

So to solve the problem.........

They put her in a bag!

Too bad her chubby little body cannot be contained in a paper gift bag.

Look at those thighs, they are bust'n out of there!

Green was the Theme

I need to document E's Birthday Celebrations before it gets too late and I get too lazy.

Green was her theme.

Yes she now thinks it's cool that she was born on St. Patrick's Day. When asked what she wanted her birthday party theme to be, she declared "Green". Okay, green?! What do you do for a green party?

I'll show ya......

You decorate the entire room in green
(lucky for her I love green, and that is what color my kitchen is painted)

You and your guests dress in green

You eat green food

You do green crafts

You eat green cake and green ice cream

I'll admit it, I didn't make her cake GASP! Oh no, I'm one of those moms! Well to those of you who judge......whatever! It was wonderful, I didn't have to make a cake I just picked it up and that felt great. AND it tasted way better than my "from a box" cake.

You let 10 kids go crazy in a small town house....

Good (GREEN) times!

On her actual Birthday (Thursday the 17th) C and I were able to have lunch with her at school. C just had a test in the morning and was able to rush over to E's school to join us for her birthday lunch.After a fun lunch with her family and two friends we headed down to her class to sugar them up with cup cakes.

Loving the attention as they sang to her

Putting on a show, little miss Center of Attention

When I was little and, really, all growing up my Mom made sure our birthdays were special days and I want to carry that tradition on in my own family. So E got her requested breakfast, lunch and dinner and was treated like a little princess.

I've decided now, though, that we'll do "big" party's every other year from here on out. Big party, meaning friends, themes etc. The years we don't do big parties they will just do small family only ones. I don't think I am the type to go all out every year on every kids' birthday. With more than two kids, it just ain't gonna happen.

BUT

We sure do love our Big Girl!

To my Birthday Girl!

My "Love letter" to You, E girl on your 7th birthday:

Me: "How come you are so beautiful?"
You: "Because you made me that way!"

You are such a joy in my life. I remember holding you for the first time and just crying/tearing up with Daddy because you were beautiful and amazing and we loved you instantly! You were definitely not an easy new born and through all those tough times I believe my love for you grew stronger and stronger.

Being my first you have put up with me so well. You're learning, I'm learning and I couldn't have asked for a better 1st child to "learn" life's lessons as a Mother with.

I love that you have an amazing love for your family. Not a day goes by that you don't express how much you love me/daddy/your siblings. Many times a day you are saying "I just love my family so much" and it is so pure and genuine and sweet. You're so affectionate with your family. You love to hug and kiss and snuggle any and all of us.

Your silliness is contagious. You get wound up and goofy and sure enough your brother joins in and then Lou lou starts "screaming" happy screams just to fit in and be like her big sissy.

I love your zest for life and living things. You love nature/the outdoors. You love exploring and learning new things and I love that about.

I love that you are so much like your daddy in many ways. You are an artist just like him. You enjoy nature and outdoors like daddy. You like soccer, and bike riding and I see how proud he is of you and it just melts my heart. I love that you want to be like your Daddy, and why wouldn't you?!

I love that you are a Momma's girl. When you are sad or hurt or scared you run for the safety and comfort of your Momma's arms and I love it! I love that you tell me you missed me everyday after you get home from school and you always wrap your arms around me daily and tell me you love me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

My sweet big girl, you are so grown up but don't ever forget you'll always be my little baby E.

(Our tradition on your birthday morning, green eggs and Pancakes)

I Love you I love you I love you!

The Kids: E girl

I don't like to say it out loud, but she is so grown up. It's hard to accept the fact that she is a "big girl" and will only get "bigger". I have a hard time letting go and that will, no doubt, drive her crazy when she's a teenager.

What's New with E?

*She is a great 1st grade student getting all good grades in school (all A's and a B in spelling). She excels in Math and she's getting so good at reading! Her favorite subject is Art, which is sad that they rarely do that in school any more. In fact her art teacher has been gone for a couple of months and she misses going to art class, sad.

Dressed up as Cindy Lou Who (form the movie) for Dr. Seuss Day at school

*She's lost three teeth and has three more loose teeth. She's going to need braces! Good thing her daddy is going to be a dentist soon.

*She is no doubt the best, most loving big sister to a little sister ever. She is always playing with Lou lou helping me keep her happy and just always loving her, it's so cute. When E comes home from school Lou lou is usually napping and E can't wait for her to wake up, and usually tells me how much she missed her baby sister that day. Now if only she felt that way about her brother!

*She is such a good friend to all the kids in her class. She is little miss popular and it's because she is so accepting of all the kids, even the ones that drive ME crazy :) She is so sweet that way, befriending the ones that need it the most. I'm proud of her for that!
Her Likes:

*She likes to wear make-up, jewlery and "cute" "fashionable" clothes, and paint her nails. Sadly she does not get this for me. She will be one of those teenagers that gives her Mother make-overs because her mom is so "plain" or not fashionable enough or whatever.

*Like I said before she likes art. Mostly drawing/sketching. She's such a good artist and I tell her that all the time. Where ever we move to I have decided I am getting her into an art class or two, she would do so well and would love it! Sadly since almost all schools have cut almost all their art programs (because of lack of funding, yeah I government really cares about the education and future of our children! Okay okay getting off my soap box...) I'll just have to find something for her elsewhere.

*She likes getting presents in the mail. When ever we get a package (especially this month) she'll say "what did I get this time?" ha ha. Silly girl.

*She is head over heals for her baby sister, like I said.

*She also enjoys riding her bike and just being outside exploring, digging in the dirt, making "nests", climbing trees, catching bugs.......etc.

*Her newest "love" is bird watching/drawing. She likes to see new kinds of birds and draw them in one of her many note books she has laying around.

She doesn't like:

*half the time, her annoying brother

*doing homework. Ugh, it's such a battle!

*tomatoes, bell peppers, or anything "spicy"

*going to bed alone in her room

She is so goofy and fun to be around, our house would not be the same with out our E girl! She is such a good child and we love her so much!

The Kids: J boy

Besides him peeing in not so good places around the house My J boy has been a pretty good boy these days and my big helper. He loves to help me out with Lou lou or anything I ask him to do. He is and always has been my little buddy.

His likes:

*He LOVES riding his bike. The other day Daddy took he and E to ride "in the woods" as they like to call it a.k.a Mountain biking on a very easy trail and they loved it and had a blast. He loves to be like his daddy and has begged to go riding in the woods with him for a long time now, I'm glad he got to finally go.

*Iron man. He's obsessed with him and it's funny because he's never seen any iron man movies/cartoons ever.

*His "best friends". He has some great friends, two little brothers just his age (one just older and one just younger) who live down the road from us and he loves spending time with them, and BEGS every day to go over to their house.

*A girl. yes he has his first crush and it's been good for him. She's "soften" him up a bit.

*He likes helping take care of his baby sister and making her laugh.

*He likes playing with/fighting with/bugging/laughing with his older sister. They have a love/hate relationship and I'm getting sick of it. I just wish they would only love each other, is that possible?

*To hug and kiss and snuggle me. That is a new development, I used to have to beg for a hug or a kiss. I tell ya, that little girl has been good for him.

*Watching YouTube videos. He could watch funny/cool videos for hours it I'd let him.

*He loves to help me cook or bake, I can see him getting into that when he's older.

*Shopping with me. He loves it, which is a good thing he used to hate it.


He doesn't like:

*Car washes. He hates them. In fact he is terrified every time (which isn't often) he is in one. He shakes and cries. I feel so bad for him and don't know how to help him get over it.

*doing "home work" If it's a craft or I'm just playing with him he'll do school type things but if it has to do with his pre-school, nope!

*putting on his shoes. He pouts and cries and doddles when it's time to go some where and he has to put his shoes on. It takes him twenty minutes to put his shoes on, unless he really wants to get out side, like to go ride his bike then, it only takes twenty seconds!

*And last but not least, he doesn't like when I take pictures of him when he comes down stairs wearing his sisters Leotard. He definitely won't like that I put it on the blog either ha ha!

Phrases hear by J boy:

"Hooray!"
He adds this to any sentence when he wants to express his pure joy, which he has a lot of joy lately and says phrases like this, often: "Hooray we get to go outside" or "Hooray, it's time for a snack." you get the idea. "Hooray!" for everything. It's cute.

"Ding ding ding, you guessed it." He says this when I've have guessed what he wants for lunch or guessed what he wants to watch etc. silly kid, don't know where he got that from.


I love this kid! He is so fun to hang out with everyday. I think I'm going to have a hard time sending him off to kindergarten. I don't want him to ever grow up but if/when he does he's gonna be a Momma's boy :)

Another year older and wiser too

So it's official.....I'm 30, which makes me old or maybe just wise. Honestly I don't feel any different than 29. I do feel a difference from 20 and 30 and the only way I can describe it is T-I-R-E-D, tired! I'm much more tired. I must have less energy or something, it's probably because I have kids who suck the energy out of me or it's because I don't work out enough....or both.

Well my birthday came and went and I almost forgot about it, yep. And now it's on to my sweet E girl's birthday this week. I kind of like that we have close birthdays, it's fun!

It's true, I almost forgot it was my birthday and I'm pretty sure my husband did, but to give him credit we did all my "Birthday Celebrations" over the weekend.

The only reason I remembered was because I got a phone call from my brother, and though he does love me we just don't call each other that much. So when I saw it was him calling I thought "why would he be......oh yeah it's my birthday." ha ha, sad but true, I forgot it was my birthday.

Yesterday was.....eh. I was tired and a bit cranky which is how my Mondays some times go. This is why I wanted my birthday celebrations to be over the weekend, Monday's are rarely good days and I decided Monday birthdays kind of suck!

But I had a great weekend! Friday I chose to do the cake and family celebration knowing Monday would be crazy with FHE and just regular Monday chaos and then Saturday was date night. So the kids had fun Friday night with balloons, and singing, and strawberries on Angel food cake with lots of whipped cream on top, YUM! Then Saturday night we got ourselves a babysitter and C and I headed out on the town, kind of. We went out to a nice restaurant where I ate some Yummy Salmon (I know you're jealous Mom) and enjoyed being with just each other. That is pretty much all we did, that and wandered Barnes and Noble for a while after, which was actually kind of fun. It was a good weekend for sure!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Here's hoping for another great decade.

Now, I'm off to buy myself some birthday presents :) yippee!

The Kids: Lou lou

I've been meaning to update on here about the kids. Not a whole lot is new with them but I figure I need to update for family's sake.

So we'll start with Lou lou, oh our sweet little baby girl, she is growing up too fast!

What's new with lou lou?

*She's 10 months old, already! She's my big baby, she's been wearing 12 months sized clothes for three months now.

*She scoots around on her tummy like and inch worm butt up in the air then down again, it's one of the cutest things ever.

*She "talks" or repeats the words: Bye bye (with a cute little wave), bo bo for bottle and ball, Dada, adun (all done), mo (more) I caught her "yelling" EEEEEEE! for her sister the other day.

*She's trying to cut her first two teeth on the bottom and she's torturing me/us in the process. Poor baby I do feel bad for her, but COME ON already we need some sleep.

*now that she can move she loves to "follow" people around, especially her siblings. I can hear her in the future "wait for me guys!" she'll be a little "tag-a-long".

Her "likes":

*She loves FOOD any and all food (as long as it is not baby food but food we are eating, she'll eat it if we are :)

*Hair, she loves it. Mostly my hair (since she really doesn't have any herself) and pulling it, yanking it, sucking on it, she loves my hair and it drives me crazy.

*Teeth, she loves to have me lay on the floor next to hear while she digs in my mouth scratching at my teeth and fillings. Hmm wonder if that is a hereditary gene or something :)

*Laughing. She loves it when her brother and sister make her laugh. She also likes to tease Daddy to see if she can get him to make her giggle. It melts my heart.

*Dancing. As soon as she hears music with a beat she starts bopping up and down, even to church hymns.

*collecting lint in her mouth. I know, it's gross but I vacuum all the time I swear. If there is lint anywhere she'll find it and so will I, when I discover her chomping on something and dig out a fair sized soaking wet lint ball, SO gross!

*Copying sounds we make. She loves to "yell" when the kids are wild and yelling. She likes copying the kids when they make "tooting" sounds. Any sound we make she will try her hardest to copy it exactly.



She doesn't like:

*Baby food. Why eat that crap, I mean stuff when you can have the good stuff?

*Sleeping through the night. yaawwn.

*Teething. In fact she has been my grumpiest teether so far. She is miserable which is why she doesn't like sleeping either.

*Some strangers, Mostly women which is odd. She is the opposite of E as a baby who would go to anyone who looked at her.

*When I tell her "no no". She has started throwing little "baby fits", yay!

The many faces of our little lady.

We sure do love this little lady and how fun she is to have in our family.

Because you may be wondering

Many of you (especially family) know that this is C's last year of school. We have been out here since 2006, coming up on 5 years! Man I cannot believe it has been that long, it went by so fast.

I remember when he got in to the Dental School here (after we moved out here to help make that possible) and he started his first year, a year after we come out here. He was excited, I was excited but I thought "This is going to be a long four years." I was wrong. It flew by! Well for me anyway, I'm not the one who was going to school the last four years.

And now, here we are coming up quickly on his Graduation (In May) and I almost don't want it to be over. It's not that I don't want him to be graduated and done but the unknown of our future kind of scares me a little. I'm so used to being a "poor student family" that I don't know life any other way, ha ha! I know that sounds strange to not want to be out of this stage of life but it has become a familiar comfort to me. I know, of course, once we are established in "real life" as I like to call it, I'll definitely not miss the poor student life but for now, it is all I know and it is scary to know there is a future for us but not know what it holds.

Anyway just pouring my feelings out there a bit.....

Many of you (friends) have asked me questions like "Do you know where you're going?" or "Does he have a job lined up?" etc. So I'm writing this post to update on C and his schooling/career.

First of all, YES he will graduate in May! He has met all his requirements and is completely on track to graduate, yipee! Not that we were worried about it, he's a smart man who made really good grades! He passed his second round of written National Boards already, another requirement done and over with, hooray! And he has dates set for clinical boards coming up in April.

As far as how long we'll still be here, well it just depends on when he can finish up his clinic points. For those who don't know, Clinic (where he treats actual patients) points are needed before you can finish school. He has so many points to get in each area: fillings, crowns, root canals etc. He has to have these done on REAL people or patients as they are called :) So you can imagine the hard work and time it takes to get all the requirements done with in two years (the time they are able to work on real patients) it's not always easy and it can be stressful. So even though his points are probably not going to be all completed by May he will still graduate. After that he just stays in clinic until he reaches his point requirements, which we are guessing it'll only take him until June to get them all in.

So June/July-ish we will most likely be moving away from this place we now call home. And though it is our home and has been for the last 5 years, we have decided and know we won't stay here. It's just too far from family for us and it doesn't fit our life style. So out West some where is where we'll be, or at least that is our goal. As for where exactly we'll be? We don't know yet. We are in the process of Job hunting and it's not uncommon to not have a job lined up at this point, for dental students. Yes, some people do have jobs lined up already but we are not worried about not finding something that fits us, we will find it!

So that is it in a nutshell.

Of course the process of graduation, boards testing, more boards, job hunting, finding a place to live, moving etc. etc. is all stressful and necessary but we (mostly C) are plugging along nicely and doing our best to get through and survive these last few though months.

And I want to say that my husband is amazing! These last 5 years (and lets not forget the years of undergrad he completed) he has worked and worked and worked SO hard to provide for his family and it hasn't always been fun or easy but he has done it willingly because he loves us. And for that, I am so GRATEFUL! I am grateful for him and all his hard work on behalf of us, his family. He truly is an amazing Man/Husband/Father and I am so proud of him!

Family Pictures

A while back I saw that JC Penney had a sale on a picture package, it was basically the package you are offered with the school pictures, the "cheapest" most popular package they have, but for a more affordable price. I have decided, though that I hate the school pictures, they NEVER turn out that great and it's one chance, one shot to get a first grader to look good for a picture, yeah right. At least at JCP you have a whole session to try and get the best picture of the kid(s) as possible. And the packages the school offers are WAY too pricey for what you get (which is basically crappy pictures).

So I decided to take advantage of the JCP special and get E and J boy to have their school pictures taken there instead. I think they turned out great! Way better than anything the school would have done.

Please excuse my bad scanner with all the dust and lines on it, nice!

Well, of course I think I have beautiful Children :)

Of course we could not leave sweet little Lou lou out, so we went back as a family to get pictures together and to get some of our cute baby girl.
Enjoy!

My husband had these, what we like to call, "Precious Moment Eyes" when he was a baby/child and I love that my children inherited that trait.....

All three of my babies!

J boy was being some what of a pill that day and even though he is not looking at the camera it's a cute picture that captured his personality.

Last but not least the whole family!

I sure am blessed to have these wonderful people in my life! I sure do love them!

Oooo that boy!!!!!!

Have you seen these stickers on the back of peoples cars? I have, and I've always thought they were kind of dumb. Stickers on cars aren't my thing in general, but I've always disliked these.

Well today this was my son. Only he was doing that over the top of the Bannister of our stairs down onto the landing. His face was almost as "mischievous" with a little more laughing-hysterically-no-clue-how-BAD-this-really-is-to-be-doing, look on his face.

I was dumb founded. I could not believe he'd actually think "Hey, this is a good idea!" No, no he just plain was NOT thinking.

I was on the phone with my sister at the time and boy was he lucky I was, because if I wasn't well his punishment would have come A LOT quicker and with a lot more force! Meaning I would have swatted his little naked butt, enough to sting so he'd remember to NEVER even think of doing something like this again.

BUT I did not swat him. I stood him in the corner for the remainder of my conversation with my sister, which was torture enough for him. Then we had a conversation on WHY this was bad, very bad, another torture session! Then I took all his "tokens" away for the week, grounded him from his new Batman DVD for a week, grounded him from his bike for today and/or as long as I feel necessary, and hmmm I think that was it. After looking at that list of consequences I bet he'd rather I swatted his little hiney!


Ooooooo that boy!! That crazy little 4 year old boy whom I so want to like today, but am having a hard time. It's a good thing I love him so much!