Learning to ride a bike

Josh asked us to teach him how to ride his two wheel  bike today so we took him to the school parking lot and he did so well for it only being his first time. I'm just so impressed with Josh. I've discovered that he is such a gifted individual, he can do anything he wants in life because he puts his all into it. On a side note I know he isn't wearing a helmet but we haven't found one yet. I promise Josh will have a helmet very soon.

point reached

A man came home from work and found his 3 children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn around the garden, The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and no sign of the dog, walking in the door, he found ...an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, the throw rug was against one wall, In the front room the TV was on loudly with the cartoon channel, the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel... She looked up at him, smiled and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?' She again smiled and answered, 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world do I do all day?...
''Yes," was his incredulous reply..
She answered, 'Well, today I didn't do it.'

 

I found this story on facebook and it made me laugh.

So true we wives do so much that goes completely unnoticed for our families but if we were to do absolutely nothing for a day our homes would probably look something like this times ten.

It is good to be a mom but its even better to hear the words Thank you from the ones you serve daily.

Which I might add my husband is very good at.

This is not a reminder to Jason but to other men to remember to say thank you to your wives for all that they do for the home.

Sin

Eden's Pediatrician has decided that Eden has out grown her sensitivity to dairy and has asked that I slowly start to introduce dairy back into my diet so that her body can get use to it through the limited amount of breast milk I have left. So today was the first day that I truly partook of cheese in over 8 months. Let me tell you it felt like I was breaking the word of wisdom with every bite and that is not a good feeling. I guess I too need to slowly put dairy back in my diet for my mental sake. Granted there are still things I will not put back in my diet like covering everything in cheese I'm not a big fan of cheese anyways maybe next time I'll try something a little better than cheese, you know ice cream sounds more enjoyable. At least Eden didn't show any signs of discomfort from the food I ate today that is a vast improvement.

Family Picnic

Saturday was so beautiful that it would have been wasteful not to enjoy the outdoors. Jason and I decided that we would eat outside the boys decided if we ate outdoors then it just had to be a picnic, so we pulled out the picnic blanket and the basket, made sandwiches and some other yummy food and ate in the shade in our own backyard. It turned out to be the best picnic ever.

 Family picnic

 don't mind the lack of makeup or the fact I look like I didn't brush my hair. The picnic was after the gym.

 Eden all ready to chow down some food!

 Eric the ever busy little man getting his share of the food. All by himself. That's his big thing right now, he has to do it by himself.

 Josh was trying to do good for the ants by feeding them cookie but instead he was squishing them. It's just ironic that he was wearing his bug shirt and playing with bugs. The bad part was he kept trying to give the bugs to me. We all know I don't do bugs.

 of course being that it was 87 degrees out, we just had to run through the sprinklers.

 And top the fun with a drink of juice.

That was a super fun afternoon. I love it when April feels like July!

Beautiful day

The weather has finally brightened up and we went out to play in the sun. The kids were so happy to be outside that they even let me take a picture of them but in all fairness I let Eric take a picture of me and Eden.

 My new favorite picture of Eden!

 Now that is the smile  that I love on Eric it has a sort of mischievousness about it.

 You know us we just have to have the sunglasses.

 This was Eden's idea of wearing her sunglasses.

 Eric's relatively good shot of Mommy and Eden.

not to bad may be we have a budding photographer in the family.

I look scary in this pic, but I thought my husband would get a good kick out of it as well as my parents.

summer clothes

Josh insisted that today he was going to wear shorts because all his friends wore shorts yesterday and he didn't get to. I started in on my speech about how I don't know how his friends mommies feel about them getting cold but his Mommy cared about how warm he  was, then my husband gave Josh the go ahead to wear shorts and my speech was null and void. So then Eric wanted shorts too naturally, Eric picked out his outfit and well he grabbed his brothers shorts you know the brother that is three and a half years older and guess what the shorts fit. Except for being just a little to big around the waist those shorts worked. Thank goodness we are seeing the growth specialist next week because I don't know what will happen to Josh's self esteem if he stays three foot tall for the rest of his life.
Eden also got to put on a cute little summer outfit and as always It was sooooooo adorable. I think I'm in love with my little girl.

Fresh Eggs

Our family's routine each morning is to get up whip up some egg whites and some bacon and eat breakfast as a family. My husband also always has cereal with his eggs. He's really skinny so he needs lots of calories. But his mornings eggs were just a little different. Some of our friends have an insane amount of chickens at their house and they gave us a dozen fresh eggs. Fresh is usually always better and in this case it really is better. Eric got a real kick out of the fact that the eggs were pink and brown, He called them the Eater bunny eggs. I did break my rule about always eating egg whites. We ate the whole egg minus the shell of course and it was yummy!

 Eric and his classic cheese smile.

Monkeying around

Yesterday after school was just one those days where you really need to get to work but your motivation is just not there so instead of doing my chores the kids and I played with Josh's monkey mask. Eden loved to pull it down and you guessed it, eat the mask which Josh in utter horror would pull back up on her face. The kids loved the game especially Eric who got just a little to much joy out of seeing a monkey mask on his sister.

It's really hard to catch Eden with a smile on camera, but she was smiling the whole time during the game, especially when Josh would say, "nooooooo don't eat it." That would bring her to little giggles. I think she would try to eat the mask just to hear her brother say "noooooo don't eat it."

Style

I admit that I'm a bit of a control freak and when my kids walk out the  front door every day I want them to look a little well put together. I mean I'm not going to refuse them to go to school if they have wholes in their pants knees because frankly I can't afford new pairs of jeans every month and well every pair of jeans Josh owns has wholes in the knees. I do insist that their clothes match so as a result I have dressed my kids every day of their lives but as my husband reminds me frequently our six year old must learn to dress himself and take responsibility in small doses and that includes getting oneself dressed for the day. I mean how many adult men have their mommies still dressing them?

So I asked Josh to please dress himself, it took some coaxing but he did it. When he walked out ready to go to school I had to really control myself from bursting out laughing because he is at such a tender stage but as he explained to me everything on his outfit matched which it did. We did make one small change to his outfit before he left for school and that was exchanging the shorts for pants, which Josh was more than happy to do. I'm proud of him for making a good outfit choice on his own. Lesson for me  next time is to make sure that there are enough pants choices in his drawer and to teach the rules about clothes like no tube socks with shorts and winter vests should probably go with pants.

The picture before the pants change and the real reason we changed the shorts for pants was it is still just a bit to cold for shorts.

Eden/ Nine months

Eden is nine months old today. I have no idea where the time went. She has become such a big girl almost over night. She can sit up and play with her toys and can eat ground up meats and has a vary dramatic stubborn personality but can also make anyone smile on the spot. She has six very sharp teeth that she would not stop using on me so as a result I had to ween her earlier than expected, but she is a very happy little girl. I will tell you that weening my baby early was one of the hardest choices I have had to make as a mom. I always prided myself on being able to nurse my babies the whole twelve months, but when you are getting chewed on and it is cutting you choices had to be made. I loved that one on one contact that comes with breast feeding but I have also discovered that Josh loves to feed his sister and would not have been given that experience had I continued to nurse her. We'll find out how big Eden is next week at her Dr.s visit. I do know that she weighs about 15.5 lbs and is wearing 9 month clothes.

New Carpet

Jason finally broke down and purchased a new area rug for our living room. Our old one was very abused after going through three babies, two of which suffered form acid reflux and no amount of washing would get all the stains out of it. I love the new rug it is young and fresh and full of color. Now the next step is to put wood flooring in our living room and get rid of the nasty carpet all together because in the long run it will save us in carpet cleaning.

 Josh and Eric were both being difficult,

but not Eden she was all smiles.

Night Out

Thanks to my Inlaws we had a gift card to go to dinner at Red Robbins. It was a real treat to not have to cook or do the dishes for a change. All was really good the food the service and the kids were for the most part very well behaved. As Jason and the boys were finishing up their ice cream treat Eden and I were cuddling. Problem was my glass which was full of lemonade and ice was to close and when you put a nine month old baby close to it well you guessed it the glass and it's contents landed in my lap. Before I could even register just how cold the sugary bath was I had a bus boy, the manager and waitress all at my side cleaning me and the table and floor up. Now thats what I call great service. I just hope next time I wont get a cold bath.

 And I would cuddle with this girl any day.

Because she is so stinking cute!

The stay at home Mother

There has been a lot of hubbub lately about stay at home mothers who have not worked a day in their lives and know nothing about the economy in general. Well my comment to that is, "that's a load of something else."
I'm a stay at home mother and I've been such for over six years, but before I go into that let me tell you about me as a little girl. When I was six years old I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. My answer was, A mother. My teacher tried to tell me that it wasn't a suitable career. My mother who by the way has worked every day of her life in the work force and raised three children quickly came to my aid and told that teacher that being a mother was the most noble thing I could do with my life. I always knew that I had my mother by my side and she supported me when I chose to stay home with my children. As did my father who put his career on hold to take care of us when we were little so we would have a parent at home. So now back to me being a stay at home mother. I went to school and took care of our oldest son Joshua. It took me a little longer to earn my degree given I had a very busy baby boy but I did it. As did my husband who also earned his degree in public administration. His passion is politics and he gave me the same passion for our country that he has. I haven't worked a 9-5 job since Joshua was born and that was over six years ago but don't look at me or other mothers and tell us we haven't worked a day in our lives if we have children. Our job is this, to make sure that our children are raised to become contributing and hard working citizens of this country to be physically and spiritually prepared for what ever might come their way. That means a clean home and clean food to eat. That means doing late night home work with a child who may be struggling in school or sleepless  nights with an infant who is teething. That could also mean pretend games on the floor with a toddler. I'm a teacher, nurse, house keeper, cook, friend, counselor, spiritual guider and what ever else they need me to be. I'm also companion to my husband and a partner in our own personal economy in our house hold. I work hard and my income and salary is shown through my children in how they treat others and live their lives. If I can raise my children to become better individuals than I or my husband are then that is worth more than any salary job in the world.

These are my children and their lives and futures are more important than any career I could ever have, and when it is all said and done I can honestly say I am the one who raised them not a stranger from a daycare.

Eden's Tutu

Grandma gave all the grandkids a gift for Easter this year and Eden's gift was an adorable pink tutu. I think she looks adorable in it.

Eden and Mommy enjoyed dress up time with her pink tutu. 

Thanks Momma Kjar.

funny kids

 Happy girl! this outfit only lasted about an hour before it took a bad turn with a bad diaper. So glad I took a picture of her when I did.

 I love it when Eric actually lets me take a nice picture of him.

and of course Josh didn't want to be left out.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a very special day for us to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ. The kids were dressed in their best and we went to church. After church we had another Easter egg hunt this time with the eggs we colored Friday night. We also had a family feast (my salad rocked). It was a very good day. I love being surrounded by family.

 I was having a really hard time getting Eden to look at me, but she looks so pretty in her Easter dress.

 Josh and Eden

 Dilyn and Eden

 none of my children would look at the camera, but for just a moment I want to say I think my children are so beautiful. They are such a wonderful blessing in mine and Jason's lives.

 After church the hunt was on again. Josh found his eggs.

 Eric with his

When I asked Eric to look at the camera and say cheese this is what I got.

Day before Easter

For our family the day before Easter has been just as packed full of things as Easter. I think it should also be considered a holiday. The Saturday before Easter is when we do our family parties, Easter egg hunts and all around good fun. This year we spent the holiday with Jason's family. very early Saturday morning like 3:30am Jason and his dad left to go snow shoeing. the rest of us lazed around and went to the park with the kids to play. When the men finally came back we all went over to my sister in laws house to have a family barbecue and easter egg hunt. We even got the chance to chase a couple of chickens. The food was good as was the company.

 cousins ready for the hunt!

 Eric found lots of eggs

 As did Josh

 Jenna came up with this fun chicken game. She tied paper to each chicken( she has two) and then the boys had to chase the chickens and if they could catch the chickens they got a prize. Josh caught his chicken really fast but it took Dilyn and Eric a bit longer.

 The chickens were really nice and calm around the kids.

 Josh with his loot

 After the chicken chasing the adults got a little crazy and released the inner child in themselves. except me but that because I really don't like getting wet.

Eden slept through it all. Next year she is going to have so much fun with these crazy boys.