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!