Two Funnies to Me

Weather Report on the radio Monday:
"Well folks, the weather will be warm today with the high being in the mid-to-high 90s.  Later in the week we have a cold-front coming in.  The high on Thursday is fixin' (ok...so they didn't use fixin', but they could have) to be a high of 80.
I've gotten used to the weather here, but the weather reports still crack me up. And I believe they are wrong about today's temperatures because at 9am it was 76 degrees.  We'll see.


Next scenario:
I was visiting with a new friend at Miss L's preschool.   She mentioned she served a mission in Germany.  I told her I served a mission in Missouri.  She said, "Oh I had another friend who served in one of those Northern states, but I can't remember which state."  Maybe this was only funny to me but it cracked me up she thought of MO as Northern. 

Tidbit:
We have not gotten official word that we are moving to Louisiana.  We thought it was a for sure thing but apparently it's only about 80 percent sure.  When I know, you will know.

Munchkins:

 They spend hours every day in this chair going around and around.  They spin each other, they spin me, they giggle and giggle.  So worth the wear and tear on the chair.  I especially love when they get out of the chair and try to walk away.  He he.  Dizzy kids are the best.


Awkwardness:
This picture was sent home with M from preschool last May.  I laughed so hard when I saw it and it has been on my fridge ever since.  I think it is the funniest/weirdest Christmas photo ever.  Can it get any more awkward?  Santa looks like a stuffed-five-year old.

 And here is Damon's growth charts just for my record.  I don't want to create a whole new post so they will happily be slapped here at the end of this one.

Growth:

Weight Loss

I have struggled this time around with weight loss.  It just wasn't coming off like it was before.  With the exception of my trip to Utah I was trying very hard to stick to my WW points and exercise properly and it just wasn't coming off.  I THINK I have figured out what the problem was.

I have been doing it online this time around and I have decided that is not for me.  I just couldn't get to the website often enough.  I'd get on the computer and get side-tracked by facebook or blogger.  So...I went and bought all the handwritten materials and BAM! the weight starts coming off.  I obviously keep better track on paper then on computer.  I also started counting fruit as one point even though it's supposed to be free.  But I was eating a ton of fruit. 

Anyway, wish me luck that I found a solution.  I've gone back to exactly what worked last time and I have high hopes that I will finally see results for all my effort. 

I have no idea what weight I should have as my starting weight for tracking.  I'm 40 less than I was at my heaviest ever. I'm 10 lbs. less than the heaviest I've been this year.  I hope to loose 25 more lbs before I get pregnant again.  Wish me luck!

Cheesy Peesy Pretty Princess

Every day after I finish Miss L's hair she walks out and says, "Mr. M?  How do I look?" 

And he almost always tells her, "Oh, Miss L, you look so pretty!" 

It makes me smile every time. 

Except for those rare times where he is not in a great mood and he says something...not so nice.

If her daddy is here, she hunts him down as well and gives him the flirty eye, "Hi, Dad,"  she'll shyly say. 

It's one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

And Daddy showers her with compliments. Over and over again.  He's really good at that.  It's one of the reasons I married him.  He makes you feel like a million bucks. 

She is my sweet pea.  My poo obsessed Princess.

 
 I adore her.  I love how confident she is.  She can act so shy but this girl knows she's got it going on.

 In fact, I think she was upset today when she walked into the school and they didn't fawn over her.  She's not used to that.  Everyone in this house can't stop talking about how pretty and awesome she is.

I so wish I could freeze time.  She is in a stage now that I am enjoying so much.  She's funny, sweet, feisty, and a little less mischievous (which is a nice break).  All-in-all she's just amazing.

Living in the Moment and Our Week in Pics

I try very hard to live in the present but sometimes I struggle. I have a big nostalgic side.  I miss my kids as babies.  I am sad they are growing up so fast.  And yet, I enjoy it too.  I love watching them learn new things and I get to experience childhood again through their eyes.  It's an incredible journey.  It makes me so grateful for my blog books.  I get to at least see it all again, even if it makes me a little sad.

Mr. M is loving school.  He came home with a project where he and his family were supposed to decorate an oatmeal can. He could not wait.  I had some fun ideas and I asked him to wait until after dinner, but he just couldn't do it.  So I mixed up the paint and let him go at it. He decided to make at tiger out of it.

 Just so his teacher wouldn't think the family opted out, I went back and added a tail and some feet which prompted him to add some arms and other things.  The rest was all my little buddy.  He was so proud.

Miss L didn't want to miss out on the fun.  She is also loving school.  I am very pleased with her social progress.  I am a little excited for when we move because I am not putting her back in preschool so I'll get to have her home more with me. But for now, I love that it is helping her to open up. 

 

Mr. M is not mistaken when he says that all Miss L talks about is poo.  She never seems to talk about anything else. 

Miss L: Mom!  I drew a pic for you!

Me:  You did?  Tell me about it.

Miss L: It's poo!

Me: Oh Miss L, I don't want a pic of poo.  That's gross.

Miss L: But Mom, it has a straw in it!

Me: Nasty, Miss L, that's even more gross.

Miss L:  But mooooommmmm, It's girl poo!

So for your viewing pleasure....Girl Poo with a Straw in It.

And now after that delightful story, I'll share a recipe. :)

 These are simple little cookies and the kids had a blast helping make them.  I would (and did) cut this recipe in half unless you are serving a lot of people.  It makes 12.5 dozen.

1.5 cups sugar
6 tbs butter, cubed
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1 cup marshmallow cream
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup chopped salted peanuts, optional
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pachake (14.4 oz) whole graham crackers

In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, butter, and milk.  Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil.  Cook 4-5 minutes longer or until thickened and bubbly.  Remove from the heat, stir in the marshmallow cream, peanut butter, and peanuts if desired, and vanilla.

Break the graham crackers in half.  Spread about 2 tbs filling each on half the crackers; top with remaining crackers.

These are really sweet but really good.  Weight Watchers points plus value: 4 per cookie.  Unless you fill it as full as Miss L's cookie.  I'm pretty sure this was worth more than 4 points:

And I can't do a post without mentioning the little guy.  He is struggling right now.  I'm not sure if he is teething or what but he cries a lot, sleeps less (although not too bad), and wants me to wear him as a permanent attatchment.  It's a good thing he is so darn cute!

This is what I said a couple of months ago about Lil D (on the sidebar). 

Everybody Loves Damon. This kid can smile. He smiles easily and it lights up his whole body. He is a ham. He loves his siblings. He loves to squeal and laugh and grunt and groan. He doesn't talk back yet. He rarely throws fits. He's just starting to get into things. What's not to love!?

It's changing to:

Everybody Loves Damon. This kid can smile. He smiles easily and it lights up his whole body. He is a ham. He loves his siblings. He loves to squeal and laugh and grunt and groan. He doesn't talk back yet. He often throws crazy fits. He can tear the house apart in seconds. But we love him anyway!

School Days

I was really sad for M to start school and thought I would miss the relaxed routine in the morning.  But actually I really like it.  I have to get up at 6am in order to not have a crazy morning and sometimes I wish I could sleep in, but overall it's been great. My kids are early risers anyway so it's worked out well for all of us.  And Caleb gets up with us and goes in to work early which means he gets home earlier and we love that.

Some days M has a hard time getting up.  I wake him up at 6:30 (Lib and Damon are almost always up at 6am on their own).  I went in the other morning to get him and this is how he was sleeping.  It cracked me up.  And he stayed like that for ten minutes.

 We had a couple of cool days and it was fun to pull out Lil' D's warmer clothes.  I thought he looked so cute in this and remembered M wearing it too.  I chased him around trying to get a good pic but he's so quick they were all blurry.

 This kid is a bruiser.  He loves to sit on or against babies that are immobile and the dog. He thinks he can do anything.  Since he started walking I took off the ladder to Lib's bunk so he wouldn't climb it.  One night M wanted to sleep up there and we put the ladder up and forgot to take it down.  Sure enough I found him on the top bunk the next day.  Scary!  It's taken back down for good now.  M will just have to climb up the side of the bed.

 M made this for his teacher before school ever started. Then he loved it so much he couldn't give it to her.  I thought it was really cute but didn't want to save the ginormous thing forever so here's a pic. 

 M and D got haircuts yesterday.  I had them go a little too short on top for both of them.  I could have just buzzed it myself if I wanted it this short.  Lesson learned.  Hopefully it's long enough to be cute for school pics next week.  If not, I like the pics I take better anyway.

 I told the chick to do D's as short as M's and she freaked out.  She said he'd look completely bald so I let her do what she thought best and I'm so glad.  This is too short so what I said would have been really bad.  But it'll grow back.  Until then, we'll miss the faux-hawk!  He looks like he's in the military with it like this.

Yesterday after school M told me,

"Mom, did you know we have two sides to our brain, a smart side, and a not so smart side? Except L she only has two not so smart sides."

Me, "M! L is smart!"

"No she's not, all she talks about is poo."

Lighthouses

I've had some requests to post how to make the lighthouses we made this summer.  Here's the link:
Cute, Simple Lighthouses

12 Month Stats

Lil' guy is just that...a lil' guy.  He is by far the smallest baby I've had.  At his 12 month check-up:

He weighs 21 lb 1oz (23%)
He is 30 inches long (55%)
His head is 44.7cm (9%)

He's awesome and I think I'll keep him.

Thoughts on Being a Mom

I don't usually have time to read others' long posts so I don't expect anyone to read this but I've had a lot of thoughts running through my head and I want to write them down for journaling purposes.  And in no way do I mean this as a put-down to others who do not choose to or cannot be stay-at-home moms.  I am just writing about what is important to me.  These are the things I want to remember on a bad day of parenting.

I love being a stay-at-home mom.  I am so grateful I have this opportunity.  There are times where I forget that I chose this and that I am blessed.  But most of the time I am just simply grateful to My Heavenly Father and to my hubby that I get to be here with these precious little people all the time.

I was walking home from school yesterday with a new friend and she shared with me that she's had a huge upheaval to her life and she no longer gets to be a stay-at-home mom.  She is heartbroken. My heart hurts for her and for her little ones that she doesn't get to have the life she wants and the life she hoped to provide for her kiddos.

Previous to this conversation another mom had asked me, after I told her I used to be a teacher, "Are you going to go back to work when your kids get older?"  I told her that I am not sure but I am leaning toward not.  Someone has to be that mom that can be the room parent, and PTA, and room parties, to give missionaries a ride, to volunteer where needed.  There has to be some people willing to do that and hopefully we will continue to be stable enough financially that I can do that.  I can be that person. She said, "I admire you stay-at-home moms.  I could never do that.  I've been off work for one month and I am loosing my mind.  I don't have enough to do.  I'm bored."

I was thinking, "Are you kidding me?  I am rarely, if ever, bored. I am always behind.  There is always more I could be doing." I said to her, "There is so much to do if you look for it."

Five minutes later I run into this mom who would do anything to stay home with her kids.

It just made me so grateful for my life.  So grateful for my husband.  So grateful for my children.  I chose this.  I love this.  I love being there when my little boy gets home from school.  I thrive on doing those "old-fashioned" things like having warm cookies and milk when he walks in the door.  I thrive on sitting quietly and reading books to them.  I thrive on providing memories for them that will last a life time.

Grandma S

My mom drove home with us from Utah.  We had a great time!  And the extra set of hands was priceless.  My kids loved the extra time with Grandma.  Miss L never really warms up to people unless they are at our house.  I'm 100 percent certain she wishes Grandma lived here.

 She's so pretty.

 Grandma is OBSESSED with long hair.  She would never let me cut my hair and she still gets a little upset when I take it short now.  She begs me not to cut Miss L's hair.  Lucky for her, I don't think Miss L's hair has the right texture to be short, it would just lay there limp and and scraggly.  I did, however, take her for a haircut while Gram was here and had to get one last pic of it long.

 She wouldn't let me take an after pic but we had about three inches cut off.  It looks a lot better but Miss L and Grandma can't wait for it to grow back. Now if only Grandma could convince Cabe to let Miss L get her ears pierced.  Grandma is relentless and Caleb is stubborn so I'm not sure who will win.

Miss L sobbed when Grandma went home.  We took her to the airport and as we drove away Mr M said, I'm gonna miss her and Miss L said, "I'm gonna miss her too."  And the tears just started falling.  It was so sad.  I had to pull over and get her out and love on her.

We miss you, Mom!

Little D's Pirate Party

I let the kiddos decide what kind of party we would have for D.  M really wanted a pirate party just like his he had when he was three.  Miss L agreed.  So a pirate party it was.  We had our Texas family meet us at the park where we enjoyed pizza, ice-cream, and an awesome pirate ship cake. 

Here we are when he was still dressed and clean.

 Here's the cake made by Ashleigh:

 I hunted all over town for days to find pirate people for it.  We finally found Scooby Doo pirate characters.  M loved it.

Right before giving him cake I gave him some juice which he sqeezed and it went everywhere.  He was drenched.  Not my brightest moment.  I don't think hes ever had punch so he was loving the sweetness.

 When we got home I found ice-cream everywhere.  While I was distracted serving up and taking care of things he was dropping Scooby characters, cake, and ice-cream into every place he could find.

 And he was off to explore again..this time with new toys to help.  He never stops moving.  He reminds me so much of M at this age.  He even bloodied his toe right after we got there and never stopped to acknowlege it.  He's a busy-body. We love this little guy!

Los Animales

On Labor Day we had nothing planned but wanted to get out of the house.  Cabe said he knew where we could see some unique animals in Odessa.  So off we went.  This is where they were:

We just walked along the side of the road to see them.  

 The kids were excited to see reindeer!  (Bottom left picture.)

 The bottom pic in this one was to show you that lil' guy.  The little deer were killing me.  I just wanted to cuddle them.

 We could actually touch these guys if we wanted too but I've heard Zebras are mean lil' buggers.  The deer on the right was only about a foot tall.  He was unbelieveably cute.

Pretty cool for a free, short activity.

Random Happenings

Miss L has been really into doing my hair lately.  I was blow drying it straight for awhile so I let her play with it a lot.  Now that it's curly again, she's having withdrawals.  Now that's her excuse for me not doing her hair, "Mom, you can't brush it, I'm wearing it curly today."

 We had a tick infestion for months.  It was horrible.  We finally have it taken I care of, I think (knock on wood).  But I was a nervous wreck.  I was constantly checking the kids hairlines and nooks and crannies.  Every speck on the wall had to be investigated.  It was driving everyone else crazy.  So Mr. M made these signs for his door, "No ticks allowed!"

 Miss L went on a playdate to her friend's house and came home with these little treasures.  We do the senses flashcards every day after M does his homework.  She feels so special having homework too.

The first week after M started kindergarten was very hard on me emotionally.  After we would walk him to school we'd come home and play for a half hour before putting Lil' D down for a nap.  We sure missed Mr. M but it was fun to focus on these little ones more too. D loves to put things in the bucket and then throw them out over and over.  How is it that at this age every little thing they do is so cute?

 Dancing:

 She had a hard adjustment the first week to M being gone but she's doing great now.  Mr. M talks a lot and I had no idea Miss L likes to talk so much too.  I'm raising a bunch of chatter-boxes.  Now I know how MY parents felt, and I apologize. Sometimes what they have to say is so adorably cute, other times I'm begging for just five minutes with no chatter.

 Last week we had light whip cream on our papaya.  It was our first experience with papaya and we didn't love the taste of it, but covering it in whip cream made it nummy!  Then I decided it was mustache time.  So all of us, except Dad the Party Pooper, sported mustaches.  Lil' D thought the whole thing was hilarious.

 Ha! I love this face!  She's such a silly.  I'm just glad she'll let me snap pics here and there.

You might notice her black eye.  In one of the children's books we read they made a cake and it included the recipe so we decided to bake the cake.  I turned on the oven light so they could watch it bake.  Mr. M rushed up and either shoved Lib's head into the stove or stood up and hit her with his head, I'm not sure which but she had a huge swollen eye and it's still black now, two weeks later.  It's slowly but surely getting better.

One night I told her to get her jammies on.  This is what she came up with: 

 Our friend had a birthday party last week and Harlin the Magician/Balloon Man was there.  He made this Tigger and I thought it was so good I had to take a pic.  Miss L got an Ariel that was also pretty good.  I'm always excited when Harlin will be at an event.

 This was so much cuter in real life but I loved that all three kids wanted to cuddle up to Daddy.  Lil' D gets jealous these days and it's rather cute. 

 It cracks me up that a year or two ago this kid hated his pic taken.  He's a big fan of it these days.  He is constantly begging me to take pics.  Sometimes I have to tell him that I want to just enjoy some moments without a camera stuck to my face.

It's been a busy, exhausting, exciting, and fun couple of weeks.  I am so pooped at the end of the day with all the running kids here and there and doing all the many things a mom/wife does. I remember when we were in college a lady said to us, "You don't know what busy is."  Considering I had just finished a semester where Cabe and I were taking 22 and 21 credit hours respectively and working full-time, I thought she was crazy.  We were busy, but not the same kind of busy.  These are peoples' lives in your hands.  There is so much more to worry about.  So many more people who are effected by your decisions.  I remember being tired in college (especially the sememster I was pregnant) but again, it was nothing compared to the exhaustion I feel at the end of the day.  And I only have three kids right now!  It only gets crazier from here.