Valentine's Day...

I've decided that the little holidays of the year are lots of fun with little kids...I know that they all have some kind of age old story that make them what they are and some aren't the most positive or great story -- but I don't know the stories and don't really care what they are.  It's just fun to get out of the normal routine for a day and celebrate something fun - like loving each other and showing them that we do...

A few days before Valentine's Day a package showed up from Florida!  The boys love, love, love getting these packages and were super excited to find some candy and more VCR tapes and awesome books with 3D glasses!  We also loved the cute little dinosaur slippers!  Thank you Grandma Michele!!  Then the few days before Valentine's Isaiah  went and picked out his Valentine's day cards for his classmates -- he was all set to get Transformers but then when he saw the dinosaur ones that change from the dinosaur to the fossils he changed his mind.  He did a great job writing all of his friends' names and his own name on each one!  We then attached a heart shaped sucker that he picked out for each friend.

I did send a few Valentine's out from the boys...but only a few so if you didn't get one, here's one for you! 

 Mark went to Isaiah's class Valentine's Day party on Valentine's Day.  They had lots of fun and Isaiah even made me a sweet little heart valentine...I love it! :)  I encouraged Isaiah to wear red to his party, but he really didn't want to so the closest he would do is this orangey colored shirt -- are we beginning to be defiant already?? ahhhh!

 Isaiah was excited to come home and check out all the Valentine's he received from his friends.  My favorite was the one that said "orange you glad it's Valentine's Day" attached to an orange :).  We celebrated as a family with an early dinner pizza party with a heart shaped pizza.  This tradition goes back to 1998 when Mark and I met and had our first date with my parents - a heart shaped pizza at Happy Joes. We did visit my parents and then off to watch daddy play his basketball game at church. 

Mark brought me home a beautiful rose after his game, what a sweet surprise!

It was a nice day with a very simple but fun celebration!  

little lion

my little lion.

Isaiah decided about 3 months ago that he no longer likes to take baths (or showers) because he gets much too cold when it's time to get out.  He has thrown an all out fit for the past several months whenever it is time to take a bath - that's been a lot of fun :) - unfortunately the attitude is starting to rub off on Levi too.  I can only hope that when it's warm again this will go away.  Once the fit is over and they are in the tub (which they still take baths together) they do have fun playing for a bit until it's time to cry again when the thought of getting out comes up.  Not even their fun bath towels (thanks grandpa & grandma!) make up for the misery of being cold when getting out.  ohhhhhhhh the drama of a 5 year old!

tales of the working mom

About 2 weeks after Titus was born I realized that things in our home were going to be (even more) non-stop crazy (for the next 18+ years) and that I was going to need to take very slow steps back into the working world.  Mark's business was booming over the holidays and school winter break and the outlook of it slowing down is no where in site plus life with 3 boys (plus Caiden) is 3 full time jobs alone, but work is a requirement for our finances so I went back to work on Monday February 20. ( If you don't know, I work a job-share position at my work.  The jest of it is that me and another employee share ALL of the benefits of 1 full time position - the 40hrs, the insurance benefits, the vacation, etc - we each get 1/2 of what a full time person would. ) February 20 marked 10 weeks off work so I'm using the rest of my 12 weeks by working half of my normal hours or 10 hours a week for 4 more weeks.  I must say it hasn't been too bad going back into it and I'm extremely glad to be taking it this slow (if you've got maternity leave in your future, I suggest it!).  I've been back to work a total of 3 days now and...

Day 1

I had everything set to go the night before work-bottle in the fridge, clothes set out for the baby, etc and felt confident things would be okay.  I called home mid-morning to ask how things were going and Mark said, "good, but I couldn't get the shirt you set out on Titus so I put on a different one." No big deal.  He then sends me a picture message of the baby...and I got a good laugh.  See why...

he's in a size 2T t shirt

Day 2

Mark wakes up as I'm getting ready for work and obviously is not feeling well.  He can barely talk, is coughing constantly and just looks under the weather, but I don't feel like I can call in on my second day back from maternity leave so he knows he just has to get through it.  All seemed to go well that morning - the kids were fed breakfast & lunch and he got Isaiah and Caiden to school.  Baby was happy and Levi was good too.  I go to pick Isaiah up from school to find that he's in Levi's size 3T pants which look an awful lot like capri's on Isaiah.  hmmm

Day 3

My departure was a bit more like I expected from the start - Levi cried as I left and I just had to go.  (I was expecting him to have a hard time with my return to work).  I had a long meeting at work and didn't get a chance to call home until noon - things were going good, Isaiah was staying home from school today because he had what Mark had (we had a very sick weekend at my house and Isaiah had a fever the night before so we knew he wasn't going to school).  I get home to three happy boys and a happy husband - everyone is feeling much better (not quite 100%).  Then Mark says, "I'm pretty sure I put Titus' outfit on backwards, but he doesn't seem to mind so I just left it." :) ...

(notice the feet especially)

What is it with him and clothes? haHA :)  love him.

brothers.

Over the past 6 months or so Isaiah and Levi have become such good friends.  They just absolutely love each other.  This is not to say that we don't have daily fights (over silly little stuff like toys or who wants what plate/cup etc) but more love and friendship comes with these two.  It's just so sweet.  One day the boys decided we needed to make something to eat out of their cookbook and they stood together in the kitchen deciding together what we should make. 

 (they picked the oatmeal cookies but decided we should have chocolate chips over the raisins! yum.) 

love these 2 big boys!

40 bags in 40 days

I read a post that I stumbled across from somewhere, I can't even remember now how I got to it, but it was the authors routine to go through her house during Lent (40 days) and get rid of 40 bags of stuff - stuff she doesn't use, love, junk, clutter, garbage. She talked about how Lent was a season to self reflect and sacrifice, to improve self control and give to God.  It's a way to really look at what you have and really consider what you need versus what you have. I thought it sounded like a GREAT way to celebrate lent and would make a huge difference in our house that desperately needs to be simplified.  Plain and simple we have too much stuff and I have a really, really, really hard time of getting rid of it- I use the excuse that there is a very slight chance that sometime in the next 20 years I may want to use it/see it/wear it so I just cannot get rid of it. So I'm taking this challenge, and thought my blog would be a good place to post my list and cross things off as the days go by -- mainly as a form of accountability so that anyone could look to see if I am following through.  So here's my list of 40 places for me to get rid of a bag of stuff these next 40 days.  I've decided to make the list and allow myself to pick one number off the list each day and not necessarily do them in order.

1 - Our room2/27/12
2- Our closet
3- Under our bed
4 - I&L's room2/29/12
5 - I&L's closet
6 - T's room2//28/12
7 - T's closet
8 - hall closet3/3/12
9 - upstairs bathroom2/24/12
10- dining room3/6/12
11-hutch
12-TV stand upstairs 2/22/12
13-kitchen - upper cupboards3/2/12
14-kitchen - bottom cupboards
15-kitchen - drawers 2/23/12
16-refrigerator - inside
17 - refrigerator - top & cupboards3/9/12
18 - porch3/12/12
19-computer desk3/1/12
20-computer room
21-laundry room2/26/12
22-spare room
23-spare room closet
24-utility room
25-basement - right side3/4/12
26-basement - left side 2/25/12
27-basement closet
28-basement bathroom
29-tuck under garage
30-main garage floor
31-main garage up above
32-yard-front
33-yard-back3/10/12
34-yard-side
35-truck
36-van
37-file cabinet
38-coat closet
39-kitchen upper cupboards part 2
40-TBD


So here goes nothing, think I can do it??

monkey hat

My friend Lo brought Titus a cute little sock monkey hat that her sister had made when she came to visit in the hospital.  I got so many ohhs & ahhs from everyone everywhere we went when he had this hat on.  He just looked adorable.  I'm sad to say that he officially outgrew the hat the beginning of February. 

Now & Then 

Can you believe how much his head grew in just 7 weeks?

 here are a couple from the hospital

But no worries - the hat has been replaced by another very cute one...

faces of 1.28.12

the faces of the almost 7 week old.  1.28.12

Christmas Craft 2011

My Christmas craft of 2011 was finally complete a few weeks ago.  I decided it would be fun for all the grandkids on my side of the family to make a Christmas wreath picture on Christmas Day.  I was sure they would love to get their hands messy in paint and then put it down on the canvas.  Well, I was wrong, way wrong!  By the end of this project all 5 kids were crying or screaming!  haha.  We did, however, get 3 pretty cute wreaths - one for my mom, my sister and me.  After the paint was good and dry and many weeks went by, I finally did the finishing work on them and they are done!    I think it will be a fun memory for many years to come!

traffic jam

One of Isaiah and my new favorite things to play is traffic jam.  Here's a few pictures of how it's played...

The cars just go around and around and around.  Sometimes there are crashes and the police cars and fire trucks have to come help at the crash scenes and occasionally the airplanes fly off or land in at the airport in the middle.  

Levi may join in sometimes too, but he's much less interested and is quickly bored with the game.  :)

Gotta love the creativity of my boys!  

happy birthday Izzy!

Isaiah's buddy Izzy turned 5 the end of January and had a gymnastics party to celebrate.  Isaiah had lots of fun running around the gym with lots of little kids his age!  He even tried out the rings and the bars!  Titus and I stayed to watch the fun and chat with the other moms while Levi enjoyed a few hours of alone time with Grandma and Grandpa!  What a fun birthday party--Happy Birthday Izzy! 

how old are you Levi?

 Levi looks so cute when trying to show people that he is 3.  He has to work so hard with both hands to get his little fingers to stay up and once he gets it he gives a big grin.I know it's only a matter of time before his hands will have the strength and coordination to do this on their own and I think the day he can do it without using both hands I may shed a little tear.  Because I don't want to forget this sweet little thing, I captured some pictures of him showing me he was 3 one day...

sweet boy.

strong little neck!

Titus really likes being on his tummy.  I remember the other boys liking it too, but I would say he likes it more.  He doesn't fuss when it's tummy time and will go for quite a long time.  His big brothers enjoy laying with him too.  Here's a few pictures from tummy time on 1.28.12 - a few days shy of 7 weeks old.  His neck is getting so strong! 

by the way - notice Isaiah's outfit - this has been his main outfit for the past 2 weeks - and when it's dirty he's got another sleeveless sports outfit to wear in it's place...silly boy.  and you can hardly see them, but Levi has his swimming trunks on.  You'd think it was summer by the way these boys dress!

money.

Isaiah has become very, very interested in money lately.  He loves having money and he now really wants to spend it on new toys.  This is so opposite of what he was at his birthday time in September.  He received some money as gifts in September and did NOT want to spend it.  We went and looked around the toy department for a l.o.n.g. time and he finally decided to purchase a toy that was about 1/3 of the amount of money that he had.  He now thinks he needs to go to Target and buy a new toy just about every day.  After several days of this we had along talk about how we don't simply spend all of the money we get and that it is much, much more important to use our money wisely.  We talked about how God calls us to give back to Him some of our money - which can be done by giving to the church or helping those who need it, that we need to save our money for bigger things and then we can also enjoy our money and spend some of it too.  We decided to divide our money into separate banks rather than keep it all together to help understand.  We did a "give" jar together and then each of the boys have a "save" and a "spend" bank.  The boys both understood this and even seemed to really like the idea of giving more and saving some, but unfortunately this is such a hard, hard thing for most people to do - especially when you are 5 years old.  

Isaiah did take some of his money to Target with me and he did buy all on his own a Cars 2 matchbox sized car and has since asked to go again to spend more of his money, but it's been decided he needs to wait a bit longer.   

Hopefully we can continue to have these conversations with our boys so that when they are older they will make sound financial choices all on their own.  From what I see in my job, I have a very clear picture of how hard and stressful life can be if you don't understand the importance of managing your finances responsibly! 

the big 3-0.

 Mark turned 30 on January 21!  As we approached his birthday, Isaiah decided that when it's your birthday, it's not just on the day of your birthday - you get the entire weekend to be in charge.  And not only are you in charge and get to decide what you want to do, you should also get presents all weekend long.  (Sounds to me like he's got big dreams for his birthday in September! :)  He was very serious about this and decided that Mark got to do whatever he wanted Friday the 20th.  Knowing that his birthday was Saturday and that the few employees he had at the time were completely busy meaning that he'd have to work from 9am-11pm, I took Isaiah's idea and went with it.  Mark got to sleep in a bit on Friday and then the boys surprised him with his first gift - blue headphones.  I love the top right picture with Levi kissing his daddy's forehead!

 After Mark got up and moving, we decided to give him gift #2.  A much needed new winter coat.  Mark had fun posing in it.  haha

 We had lunch and Isaiah had to go to school and Mark had to head in to work.  He worked late until 11pm or so and then headed off to work first thing on his birthday, but not before we gave him the big gift -- an Ipad!!  He'd been wanting one for business stuff for quite some time and he was headed to a laser tag conference for the next week that I knew he'd want it on, so I figured, you only turn 30 once.  The boys and I did surprise him at work with birthday balloons and dinner.  Isaiah picked out one that said, "You are how old?" haha.  He was able to sneak away for about 10 minutes to enjoy his Subway in the car.

He did get to have the entire day Sunday the 22nd off work to celebrate - we went to church and then my sister came to visit so we spent the day at my parents house celebrating - and he did sneak away to play basketball at the rec center for a few hours with friends.  We had a low-key relaxing evening as a family that included a traditional chocolate peanutbutter cake--each year I try to come up with a new recipe and I must admit, I really liked this years cake!  yummm.  Maybe for 31 we will have a big bash??  I'll have to work on that!

snow

When the weather got cooler the boys just about refused to play outside, even when it wasn't that cold, they still wouldn't go.  But as soon as the snow hit the ground they were all about being outside and have since spent hours and hours out in the snow this year!  The favorite things are sledding down the "hill" that we have on the side of our house which is actually a second set of stairs but works great for them to sled down and pushing the trucks around in the snow.  They also are always up for a good snowball fight - but only if they are the ones doing the throwing! :)  It's nice that they are big enough to play together and by themselves outside and I can stay in with the baby and watch from the window.  I have gone out several times with them too.  You will see in the picture below our snowman they named Frosty.  The boys also made a little one with my dad too (not pictured).  Looking through my pictures, I've obviously not done a good job getting good snow pictures so far this year.  Next time they are outside I'll definitely have to get some good ones! 

 The last time my sister was up here she brought Liahna's snow gear and the cousins had a good time playing out in the snow for quite awhile too.

As nice as the weather has been this winter, for the kids sake I hope we get at least one more good snow!

who's who take 2

I was informed by someone (ahem dad) that the pictures weren't fair with Levi being in black and white and Titus' head turned a bit so I promised him I'd try it again.  Here are all 3 boys again - not the exact same age but all within a few days of each other.  Now can you tell who's who?

no coats in January!

We went straight to the park one January day after school.  It was so warm we didn't even need coats!  This was officially Titus' first trip to the park since he actually got OUT of the carseat!  The boys had fun on the playground but then decided they needed to look for interesting things around the trees.  I think they would have spent hours doing this, but we had to head home before it got dark.  We are loving this mild winter! 

first bottle

Titus enjoyed his first bottle (3 oz of mommy's milk) last night with daddy.  Mark was so very excited and Titus drank it pretty well.  I will admit it was just a bit sad for me, however, I'm reassured that he will survive when I head back to work in 12 days.  What a good boy!  

who's who?

I think it's so funny to hear everyone's comments on who looks like who.  Everyone has an opinion and it seems to be different from the last persons.  I've had people tell me that Isaiah looks exactly like me.  I've had people tell me that Titus looks exactly like Mark.  I've had people tell me that it's great that I finally have a baby that looks a bit like me since the others look just like Mark.  I've heard that Levi has the same features as Mark.  I've been told Isaiah and Levi look just alike and I've also been told they look nothing alike.  I think any combination that you can put together I've heard.  So let's hear what you have to say about the boys.  Here is a picture of each of them EXACTLY (to the day) the same age - 7 weeks 5 days old.  See if you can tell who is who... I think it's pretty obvious, but based on the variety I've heard about looks, I have no clue what you will think? And while you are at it, do you think they look like Mark or me?

 and just for fun, here is me at 4 months, so a bit older, but fun to compare...

I'm still digging for a picture of Mark as a baby, I'll keep you posted...if you happen to have any Michele, feel free to send them my way! 

all 3

Isaiah desperately needed a haircut (and Levi could use one too) and of course Levi doesn't have a shirt on, but here's just an every day glimpse of my 3 baby boys...  the first week of January. 

love them.

1.3.12

Not sure how I'm going to sort through the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that have already been taken of this sweet sweet baby.  But here are a few good ones from 1.3.12.

laundry soap

I started making homemade laundry soap several months back.  I'd been wanting to try it for years, but I just never got motivated enough to do it.  I was reading an article about the health risks of fabric softener one day and ran across a very simple recipe and decided it was time to try it.  Not only does it contain far less chemicals than the typical laundry detergent that you buy, but it is also much, much cheaper!  I'm still using the original ingredients that I purchased months ago and all together they cost under $15!  I see no change in how clean our clothes seem and I rarely have to pre-treat anything.  I've had several people ask me for my recipe so I figured here would be a good place to post it!

the ingredients: 

* 20 Mule Borax laundry booster
* Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
* Ivory bar soap

I had trouble finding the Borax and the washing soda at Target so I did have to go to Wal-Mart for that.  (bummer!)

the recipe: 

Step 1 - Shave one bar of Ivory soap with a cheese grater.  (I use the smallest part so the flakes are tiny).

Step 2 - Measure 1 cup borax and 1 cup washing soda and pour into container you plan to store the soap in

Step 3 - add the soap flakes and mix, mix, mix...done!

It takes a grand total of about 5 minutes and it makes me enough soap to last several weeks.

how to use: 

1 tablespoon per load unless very soiled then use up to 2 tablespoons.
(I almost always use just 1 tablespoon, but occasionally if I stuff it full I will use a little more).


I do have an HE washing machine and this recipe is safe to use in this type of washer as the ingredients, like the HE detergents, produce very low suds.