Life in February

It's Friday!  Yay!  We are still freezing here in Michigan and Eli was really hoping school would be cancelled.  I assured him that it was unlikely due to the fact that they have missed so much already.  Despite that, this morning as I packed lunches he said "Mom, are you just packing those IN CASE we have school?"   So funny.  What can I say? He's a dreamer that one.  I tried to encourage him with the fact that it is Friday and he has 2 days off after today.

I logged on to my computer this morning to post today and the computer that has my pictures on it will not connect to the internet and the computer I am currently using does not have my camera program installed anymore, apparently.  So I decided to post a pictureless post anyways.

Adds and I grabbed groceries this morning and are now home hibernating.  The wind chills this morning were between -5 and -15 so I had to fight to even make myself go out to do that.  I cannot wait for Spring.

Last night we visited a woman from church in the hospital that had her daughter at 28 weeks.  We hoped to encourage them in the journey that is the NICU with a sweet preemie.  We got in the car and man it hit me.  I remembered all the fear that was wrapped up in those first hours, days, weeks and months.  God's grace was so sufficient.  His hope was ALL we had.  No one could reassure us that they'd be "fine".  It was not a given.  I truly pray that type of grace and peace over this family.

We also have a friend that is 33 years old and has 4 boys, ages ranging 3-12 who has been diagnosed with cancer.  And I have yet to mention here that my nephew Teddy is undergoing radiation for his tumor that returned and continued to grow despite a year of weekly chemo.  It's been a rough winter and this world can take the joy right out of you.  I am so thankful for our relationship with Jesus Christ that assures us that none of us are long for this world.  This life is but a vapor.  Our home is not here.  I need that reassurance today as we see so few answers for all that is  taking place in the lives of those we love.  God is good, all the time.  Painful as this world sometimes can be.

Just some things....

Addie's been out of diapers since before Summer but I just found these in the top of her closet and passed them onto my sister which means there is not a. single. diaper. in. my. house.  WHAAAT?  Crazy.  First time in almost 7 years.  And once Jared and I found out we were pregnant with twins we started buying diapers at most grocery trips SO it may be more like 8 years.  (In hindsight I wish I had a picture of the stockpile of diapers we had.  We were prepared, to say the least.)

I let Addison pick the toothpaste recently and Eli was none too pleased.  I explained that Addie has NEVER picked and she always uses their kind, yada, yada.  To which he replied:  "OK as long as it is not pink and sparkly".  "Eli, just because it is Addie's pick, that DOES NOT MEAN it will be pink and sparkly"  says wise Mom.  Except that when we went to use it, it was in fact, pink and (of course) sparkly.  I laughed so hard at his sheer terror.  :)  Good times.

Here she is re-enacting their favorite scene from "Night at the Museum" (second one),  "Boom, Bang, Firepower!"  The thinker is flexing his muscles.  She cracks me up.

She absolutely loves to be chased.  She cackles.

I was getting a picture of Addie's Cubbie uniform and Eli wanted to a picture with his new library book.  Eli is such a reader.  He reads everything he can get his hands on.  He wanted binoculars for Christmas so he can bird watch and I just reserved a book for him at the library about Michigan Birds.  He is going to be so excited.

And that's a little of what is going on here.

Winter, Winter, Winter

Weather has been at the height of all conversation in "these here parts". We are freezing! It has been crazy cold and the boys got another day off on Friday due to the extreme cold. Next week is supposed to be the same so I am not sure what will happen with school on those days.

The upside of being a stay at home mom is that I am not out in it a ton. I do the dropping kids off, picking them up, grocery shopping, errand thing and outside of that I am in my warm home. I'll be honest I feel a little spoiled. I'm still ready for spring though, don't get me wrong. The positives that are coming out of this are that I am home a ton which is translating to some Spring cleaning (really early and in below zero temps)and cleaning out. I have also had more time to make some new meals and bake some yummy/healthy treats for the fam. And I have been working out regularly on the treadmill because, I have time. This all makes me realize that even when the weather warms up, home is a good place to be.

The downside is that this weather means Jared is working a lot and I am home on a Saturday without him. Bummer. The kids are missing him a little but again it is only for a season and then it is back to the flexible schedule that we enjoy. We are also battling colds and hoping we don't get the dreaded stomach bugs that fly around at this time of the year. So far, so good.

Meanwhile the boys are playing video games more than usual, given the fact that they are unable to go outside OR to school and Addie seems to be intent on undoing any and every bit of cleaning I have been doing. She is at that 3 year old, "I like to dump things!", stage!

Alright, I am off to tackle the basement messes while watching a movie with the boys. Oh yeah and Addie wants to play a game. Ahh, the slow pace of Winter (insert: eye roll).

Winter Days

Addie and I our back to enjoying our alone time. In truth I am not sure what is easier, dealing with Addie when she has full run of the home or having all 3 kids home. I love having all my kids home but I really try to savor my Addie time. Now that the boys are in first grade and on their way to becoming 7, (physical pain from that last statement)I know how fast this time goes. I should add that, even with that knowledge it doesn't make it easy to focus on her. The rest of life pulls at me regularly, as it should. I find that balance is needed between our entire universe revolving around our kids and giving them the attention they need. Moving on. Deep thoughts with Becky (Jack Handy reference in case you missed that).

Anyways, it is downright balmy in Michigan. We are no longer suffering from wind chills well below (-30, WHAT?) zero. I was recess Mom today and as we stepped outside on our way to the gym one of the kids said "Man, it is warm out here!!" I had to laugh. It was 35 degrees out. I was amused by his enthusiasm but just yesterday my sister Missy and I went for a walk outside and dodged snow, puddles and large icy surfaces just to get out into the warmth of 45. What can I say? we are Michiganders through and through.

So here are some of my Addie pics from the week. The girl knows how to completely destroy a room in mere minutes. And she had a lot of fun with Eli's glasses.

She is napping right now, which is a blessing because she woke up at 6:00 a.m. The boys are almost ready to be picked up from school and on go these days that are flying by way to quickly.

It's a hard-knock life

This pouty little girl......

with her big, sad, brown, eyes

has to wear a sweater and pajama pants with her "ballerina dress" (so that she doesn't freeze to death). Mom ruins all the fun.

Poor child.  Rough life. :)

Adieu Christmas Break!

Jared and I thought Alex was channeling his inner Frenchman here while enjoying his baguette.  Hence the Adieu!

The kids have LOVED all this snow SO MUCH.  They were outside today despite the fact that the wind chill was below zero.  Ugh.  I fought it for two days straight because it was insanely cold but today it was in the upper teens (ie heatwave) so I relented and they enjoyed every last second of it.

We ended up getting an extra 3 days of break due to the cold and snow, which has been so great but tomorrows the big day and Mama has plenty to get done. Addie-adds and I will be hitting the grocery store for sure.  Stay warm!

A New Year

AND I return from the longest blogging break in the history of this blog. Oy. Moving on. We are coming to the end of Christmas break and were given 2 extra days due to the snow and well below freezing temps. The boys are dying to go outside and play in the snow. It is 2 degrees out. 2. That doesn't include the windchill which I believe makes it about 20 below.

It has been such a nice break. We stayed home a lot and had time with friends and family. We sledded and played in the snow. Jared took an entire week off which was wonderful.

Currently, they are each on a device of some sort. Alex is beating me 47 to 1 in tic-tac-toe on the ipad. The only issue is I only played 1 game. Ha ha. I am now attempting to move all my 2013 pictures over to a hard drive. I kept up for the most part this year with organizing each months pics at the end of that month. I do, however have November and December to do but that is to be expected. So 2013 almost complete. Now 2011 and 2012 are a different story so I have my work cut out for me. Luckily, I have a long cold winter ahead in which to do some of these nagging tasks.

The boys are headed back to first grade tomorrow. They continue to love their school and their teacher, Mrs. Miller. They are doing well academically and we are proud of their efforts. Addie is still home with Mama. We just started gymnastics 2x/month and she is looking forward to soccer in the Spring. She is every bit of 3! I remember 3 with the boys being the absolute hardest age. I thought now only having one to go through it with would be a breeze. I was mistaken. As was the case with Alex and Eli she is also so hysterical at this age which I am positive God knows is necessary in order to endure this season in the life of a child.

As for the rest of the day, I plan to take in a movie in the basement, snuggled up with all 3 of my babies and this laptop if I stay motivated. :0 I fear that this ole laptop may be on its way out. It connects to the internet when it feels like it and the keys work if you are lucky. I am hoping that moving my camera hardware onto the desktop in the basement will alow me to blog consistently because I will have a more reliable internet connection.

Here's to 2014.

Summer Snapshots

Last week I shared some of what has been going on here but didn't add pictures so I though a Summer collage would be good. It was at this point I realized 90% of pictures I take are on my phone. I am roddfam5 on instagram by the way. So here are few times that I busted out the dslr.



1. The boys baptism. Alex and Eli and Pastor Tom
2. Summer basketball. So cute and fun despite the sweltering gym.
3, 9 & 10 are from the 4th of July. After attending a party with friends we headed home early and did sparklers and caught fireflies, just the 5 of us. Great summer memory, for sure.
4 & 11 Summer puddles! Need I say more.
5. The kids dressed up in Jareds clothes and shoes for a picture that we framed and gave him for Father's Day. Adorable!
6. Addies 3rd birthday at Mimi's.
7. Girlfriend is officially potty trained. Amen!
8. My 37th B-day.

Such a great Summer. School starts in 1 week and it feels like Fall here in Michigan so I guess it is almost time to say goodbye to the long days of this season we call Summer.

Motherhood

Between the end of the school year and Summer now in full swing it feels like I'm taking a crash course on Mothering. The birth of our third child, sweet little Addison definitely upped my parenting game. It was so challenging to find out how to parent another completely unique personality. And to be honest I'd forgotten quite a bit of the logistics. It truly was amazing that in a mere 3 1/2 years I'd forgotten all the secrets I'd learned while raising twin infants. Anyways, back to the present. I have all three kids home now and I have been looking forward to this since January, practically. It is fun. I love the decreased amount of "have to's" that can tend to dominate a day and it's schedule. I love soaking up their unique personalities. I am however also seeing all the little attittudes that creeped in throughout the year that require a lot of patience and a few adjustments.

7-31-13 I started this a while ago and wasn't sure where I was heading with my thought process but thought I'd share it as it was.

Summer, Summer, Summertime!

So Summer is dwindling down for us in our neck of the woods. 3 weeks from today the boys go back to school. Crazy. They are excited but also want to be 1/2 dayers (not a first grade option). :)

I have a few minutes this morning because we were all heading out the door for Alex's OT appointment and it was cancelled. I was annoyed at first and now it kind of feels like we were graciously given an hour of down time. Love that. Funny, how that works. We have plenty of down time in the Summer but when it's unexpected, ahhhhh.

Summer's been fun and we still have a little Summer list of things we would like to do with the kids. Alex wanted to add Disney World to the list. Ha Ha. Funny.

Addie turned 3 on July 11th which is insane. We had a great little party at Aunt Mimi's. Fun was had. Food eaten. 3 year old spoiled rotten.

Also in big news the boys swam on their own a couple of weeks ago at Aunt Mimi's pool. Kim is a great swimmer so I aked her to show the boys a few things and the next thing I knew they were swimming. Alex took to it immediately while Eli was determined yet a little too "kicky". He was a bit panicky, however he settled down and got it too. Very fun to watch. We are moving onto: tying shoes and riding a bike without training wheels. When you have coordination/fine motor issues these thing FEEL huge. So exciting!

The boys and Addie have been painting. Both boys declaring they are going to be artists when they grow up.

We just finished with VBS at church this week where Eli got saved AGAIN. We explained once saved nothing can remove you from God's hand. He gets it and I think it is sweet that he wanted to MAKE SURE! I think anyone who grew up in church gets that.

They were both baptized at the beginning of Summer. We were proud that they both took this step of obedience to God and wanted to show everyone that they are believers. Poor Alex could barely touch and his feet kept floating to the top of the baptismal.

We started Occupational therapy for Alex and Physical therapy for Eli. Thankfully it is really close to us and right across from Greenfield Village where we LOVE to visit regularly.

We enjoyed our annual trip to the lake this year. The boys fished and we took turns canoeing and kayaking. I READ BOOKS! Yay.

So as we wrap up these weeks before school, we go out with a bang and have lots of fun things to do, in true Summertime fashion.

2013 Grads!!!

The boys did such a great job at Graduation.  It was such a blessing to watch them show off what they'd learned.  Loved having family and friends come out to love on them too. It was a great night.

Congratulations boys!  Mom and Dad love you and are SO proud of you!!!!

As if turning 6 wasn't enough.....

THESE came home from school last week!!!!!

We only experimented with the Caps.  Mama can't handle gowns quite yet.  It's kind of like a 12 step program for ridiculous Moms.  :)

I asked them to pose with their caps.

This was Alex's response

Eli's Response.


This is why I crack up when people ask:  "Do they act the same??"  Ummmm no.


Congrats Boys.  Only 23 days to go.

6 years old!

It is official.  Last week on the 18th the boys turned 6.  So crazy. Many times in the past couple of weeks I have had the thought "6 years ago at this time I was .......".  It's very strange.  Instead of focus on the sadness that they are no longer sweet little babies.  I will talk about some of the upsides to 6.

They got Ninjago books.  Oh my.  Reading these books to them is a form of torture but THEY LOVE THEM.  

1.  They clothes themselves (to some degree).
2.  They feed themselves (to some degree).

I had to make 2 birthday cakes because Alex wanted "banilla" and Eli wanted chocolate.  If you look at the 2nd pic closely you will see that Addie became a bit impatient waiting for the cake to be cut.  :)

3.  They sleep through the night (to some degree).
4.  Going out for the night without them no longer involves 2 typed pages of instructions (not exaggerating) and so much prep that by the time you get out the door it hardly seems worth the 2 hours you manage to be away without worrying about them.  Now were are out the door in 30 seconds and kicking up our heels in the driveway (I may be exaggerating a little).
5.  On Saturday Mornings (when we have no place to be) we can send them to the TV and doze a bit until the sun comes up. (They still wake quite early).
6.  No middle of the night feedings for two.  Not sure how I survived this.  I still remember the nauseous feeling I had some nights.  I was literally sick from tiredness.  Ugh.
7.  No middle of the night arguments with Jared.  (See above).  It didn't happen much at all and now it makes me laugh BUT we had a couple of good ones.  I'll never forget when he asked me to shut the bedroom door because the light was in his eyes.  (I love you honey!  and in case this seems like a dissatisfied wife's rant it is not.  He was SUPERDAD then and continues to hold his title. However, we were BOTH exhausted!)
8.  This age is hysterical!  Eli was asking some questions recently that made me squirm.  It was kind of like I may have to have "the talk" with a 6 year old.  In fact at one point I said "That's a good question for Dad" (This coming from a Mom who wants Very open and honest communication with her boys.  Not my finest moment.)  Anyways, it finally boiled down to him saying "So when a Mom and Dad fall in love God gives them a baby?"  "Yep, pretty much" was my response.  To which, he replied "Hmm, that's pretty impressive?"

Poor Eli is not animated AT ALL.  Such a wallflower. ;)

9.  You can have logical conversations about how to treat others and it challenges YOU in the process.  Love that.
10.  You get to live a sort of childhood through them.  Don't worry not in a "Toddlers in Tiara's" kind of way.  For example, this weekend at the water park Eli realized that he was big enough to ride the water slide BY HIMSELF.  He was nervous and scared and brave and it was just really fun to remember what that felt like.

There are SO many other beautiful things about parenting that I can't even begin to touch on and while this list is mainly just silly, I am so blessed to have been given the gift of Alex and Eli for this past 6 years.  I have been taught more through them than I could ever have imagined.  They have changed our marriage, our lives, our relationship with God ALL for the better.  They will always be our miracles.  We love you guys!

Random Silliness

Some days we eat peanut butter like Pooh Bear eats honey.  :)






Yum!

Cousins

We had some cousin time over the Easter Holiday too. My favorite part was the Disney Dance Party.  Eli was really into it which was SO fun to watch.  Lots of video was taken I assure you!




Getting ready for the Easter Egg Hunt!




These Beautifu Girls were singing us some songs from their Spring Concert.  Very Entertaining!

Amanda came over and dyed eggs with us.

Addie ate slimy egg/water/dye goo.  Yum.  She survived!

Easter

We had a lovely Easter.  We packed a little too much into the weekend with a room re-do (lesson learned) but still managed to calm our hearts and minds and worship with our church family on Easter Sunday.

The Easter message that my pastor preached was so, so, good.   I think it will always stay with me.  It was one of those.  Here's the link.

Now without further ado.  Here is my, albeit LAME, attempt at a family pic.  You'll notice Jared and I aren't in them.  He looked great.  Every pic of me however is not so great.  Just call me vain because I am NOT posting them.  BUT here are my cute kids!  :)  That makes up for it right????





Yep these are the best I got.  It was a bit cold and NO ONE was excited about taking the pictures.  I'm glad that pictures of the kids with perfect smiles are not what Easter is all about because I would be in SERIOUS TROUBLE.  :)  They are precious nonetheless.  Hope everyone had a good Spring Break.

Oops almost forgot to discuss Eli's hat..... first and foremost let it be said that the boy pulls it off!  Am I right??  Secondly he walked into the store with Aunt Linda and I and went straight for this hat.  He wanted to get it so that he could be like Indiana Jones.  Nuff said!!  When I thought Alex might want one he was quick to tell me "NO WAY!"  He did however pick out the shirts AND he wanted them to match, which I thought was kind of funny.  Love these kids.  As for Addie's wardrobe she picked that out.  Her main request was a "PINK DRESS!!!"

My Crazies

Eli likes to mix things up a little from time to time with a tie.  It's pretty random and adorable of course.

Me capturing his fashion turned into a little sibling photo shoot.

It went downhill fast.

Love these crazies.

Addie at 2 1/2 - ish

Funny Girl!

Still loves her books.  Here she is with her cousin Andrew.

LOVES to play outside.  She always has.

Likes to pick her clothes.  Her current obsession is tights.  Like every. single. day. if possible.

Is not ashamed to twirl to show off her fashion choices.

And as of today has officially started potty training.  She picked out "Tangled" underwear and wanted to come home and watch "Tangled".  I brought the potty out and while I was on the phone with my sister she went on the potty and has gone another time since.  Crazy!  I am not naive enough to think it could be this easy but wouldn't that be nice????

That's a bit about my Addie-girl!