11 years

4 kids, 2 houses, 3 cats, 3 hermit crabs, 1/3 of my life. I wouldn't change a thing :)

John Paul isms of the week.

At Great Wolf Lodge with godfather Patrick aka Paddy. We go over to the snack bar for lunch.

Jp: Mommy is daddy here?

Me: no, daddy's at work.

Jp, loud enough for everyone sitting eating lunch to hear: No, I mean my other daddy I just met today!

Me: That's PADDY!

At vbs when I picked him up after volunteering for the day.

Jp: Mommy, in your classroom do you let people pet Sarah?

First solid food

I mashed up a banana ;)

Happy Half Birthday!

Sarah Gianna is 6 months today!  I can't believe it.  It seems like she's been here forever but also that she just got here, if that makes any sense at all.  I looked back over Madeleine's and John Paul's 6 month posts and they were both sitting up on their own!  Sarah is nowhere close, although I know she could get it any day now.  In fact yesterday was the first time she rolled across the floor.  Let me say for the record I do not mind one bit that she isn't crazy mobile yet.  :)

Sarah is either tied with Leo for the best sleeper so for or THE best sleeper so far.  She is a fantastic napper, takes 2 two hour naps a day.  Whenever she is tired, I just put her in her bed with her paci and turn on her mobile and give her her special silky blanket and she puts herself right to sleep.  She goes to bed for the night around 7:30 or 8 and sometimes wakes up around 4 to eat, but sometimes makes it to 6 or 7.  She is so sweet and easy going.  She only likes her mommy though! (Has that in common with M and JP and L at 6 months!)  I love to wear her in wraps and wrap her every day.  She can see over my shoulder and I can get things done and have hands free for the other kids.  Lately she has started to enjoy hanging out on the floor with her siblings and some toys.  Everything she reaches goes straight in her mouth.

She is the first kid I haven't fed any solid food by now.  She doesn't seem very interested yet but I'm sure I will give her something here soon.  She is definitely not wasting away!  She is a champion nurser and is pretty quick about it too!

She absolutely loves her siblings.  They can always make her smile.  They all love her so much and fight over who gets to talk to her/ watch her/ play with her/ give her toys.  Madeleine thinks everything she does is hilarious (especially grabbing people's hands and trying to eat them!)  

She was a fantastic traveler last weekend.  I found myself looking back several times to make sure she was in the car!  She was so quiet and slept through both nights of our trip.  I remember being scared to take Madeleine anywhere at this age and get her out of her routine, but times is changed over here.  Tomorrow we are going on a one day road trip - just me and the kids.  I'm not worried about her one single bit.  

We are so blessed to have this beautiful sweet baby girl.  I heard that once you have 3 kids, adding more is no big deal.  So far that seems to be the case.  Ask me about that again when she starts crawling and getting into everything!

Family reunion 2013

Pretty much everyone who reads this is also my fb friend so I won't post many pics, just a few stories.

So we headed down to Mammoth Cave Kentucky on Friday to get together with most of mom's (7) siblings and several of their kids and their kids.  Ken decided he didn't want to stay in the park with everyone else (small room with 2 beds and 4 kids didn't sound that much fun) so he got us a suite in the Marriott in Bowling Green about 30 minutes away.  It's a good thing too because Leo would have woken everyone up if we weren't able to keep him separate.  Who knew HE was gonna be the difficult one on the trip?  I guess I should've had some suspicions.  I asked for 2 cribs and we had a bed in one room and a pull out couch in the other.  We put Sarah to bed in one of the pack n plays in the bedroom, then when she was asleep we put John Paul in the bed and instructed him to BE QUIET and if Sarah woke up he was in BIG TROUBLE.  (He did fabulous both nights with this set up - we totally wore him out!)  THEN..... we tried to put Leo in the pack n play in the little kitchenette where he could see us.  Wow that was not happening.  He freaked out so much he almost made himself throw up.  He was, for some reason, genuinely terrified to sleep in there.  Then we pulled the couch into a bed and tried to get him to lay down.  He would not. stop. talking.  I have never heard anything like it.  The kid who takes a 2 hour nap and is asleep by 8 every night wouldn't go to sleep both nights until after 11:30 when he crashed.  He was pretty cute with his talking though.
"Piwwow!  Right DERE."  "Hi Mommy!"  "Nice Mommy."  "Hi Daddy!"  "BIG bed!"  etc etc etc

And here's how he slept. With me.

His feet are on my pillow.  

Madeleine was in heaven.  She got to stay with Grandma and Papa and she caught frogs, caterpillars, inch worms and bugs to her heart's content.  We saw deer, wild turkeys, and all kinds of birds.  We went on trails, in a cave, saw waterfalls, played frisbee and catch with lots of cousins, and had a great picnic.  These are some of my favorite memories growing up and I hope the kids have that too.

2 pairs of little boy underwear got thrown in the dumpster.  

They had a great time taking a bath in a hotel.  

We went on an awesome hike on Sunday with Uncle B and Aunt F, and we couldn't have done it without them for sure :)

Leo kept saying, "Want Bob!  Shoulders!"  And he loved it up there.

And on the way home we stopped at this beautiful little church in Louisville just in time for 5:15 mass.  Leo was a hellion as usual and at one point ran out in the aisle and started running toward the altar.  Ken had taken John Paul to the bathroom and I had Sarah in the sling so I had to get out and chase him.  There were two sweet older ladies behind us who kept smiling at their antics, and at the end of mass they said they love seeing families like us, and we are so blessed.  That is for sure.

Best homeschooling book ever.

Last year I had the good fortune to meet Rebecca from Shoved to Them blog.  We had both donated something for an auction for an orphan, and we started talking and hit it off.  I told her I was about to start homeschooling my kindergartener, and she helped me through the entire process.  She helped me with exactly what curriculum to pick, by listening to what Madeleine's interests were.  She likes science?  Get this book.  I'm terrified to teach math?  Get this program that teaches how to think mathematically.  (And bonus, I get to start over with kindergarten math and learn to think that way too!)   She was exactly what I needed at the time and I truly believe God placed her in my life for a reason.  Later on, she said she was going to write a book on homeschooling and asked me to read each chapter as she completed it.  It was to be a question and answer book too and I also got to ask her each question I had about each topic she was writing about.  The book was the best book on homeschooling I've ever read.  I would recommend anyone starting out or anyone thinking about it or even anyone who knows someone who homeschools to read it.

It came out on amazon this week.  This morning it was number 3 on the bestseller list.  I'm so proud of her!  Now go buy the book!!

Summer

Yesterday we went for a walk around our downtown and stopped into a little antique shop.  The kids were fascinated that all the things in there were once special to someone else.  All the dishes were used by other families, all the little baby clothes and shoes were worn by other babies, the dolls belonged to other little girls, the cars were played with by other little boys.  I didn't have much money but I picked out an old book that had stories for children.  When we got home, I put Sarah to bed upstairs and when I came down, M had found this perfect shady spot in the yard and was reading it to her brothers.  So I brought their lunch out there, and they had a picnic.

Sometimes I feel like they are missing out on things, like things we can't afford (M wants to take gymnastics, I think all kids need to be in swimming lessons, etc) but then days like this I think they are having a pretty great childhood.

New Header?

It only took me like 2 hours to figure out how to do that, and the poor 4th child isn't even in it.  Oh well!  It was time for a change.

I want to get back to blogging more.  I feel like facebook has taken over and I don't want that to happen.  This has been my online baby book for almost 7 years and I don't want to slack off for the poor 3rd and 4th child.  But it's 11pm now so this isn't going to be that exciting, but here's a few things that happened this week.

Madeleine asked why we weren't doing school anymore after a 5 day break.  Um.... it's summer vacation Honey.  Mama needs a break.  She said she was ready to start first grade so I bought her a first grade workbook from costco and she is doing several pages a day.  For fun.

John Paul is somewhat motivated to learn how to read, especially now that we came home from the library with a stack of superhero easy reader books.  (The boy is obsessed.)  So he has actually got the reading lesson book (Teach your child to read in 100 Easy Lessons) voluntarily and asked for a lesson every single day this week.  Sometimes twice a day.  Well, OK!

Leo is in undies full time but he still doesn't understand that you don't go number 2 in your pants.  He demonstrated this lack of understanding at the children's museum yesterday.  I amaze myself what I can do with a baby strapped to my back.  He is also talking up a STORM, saying 4-5 word sentences, and is becoming more and more understandable (to people other than me and his speech therapist) by the day.  He is listening in on the reading lessons too.  He also knows every single letter and he can count to at least 14.  That one might be smart.

Sarah is pretty much the best baby who ever lived.  When she's tired I lay her down in her crib, turn on her mobile, pop in her giraffe paci and she goes to sleep.  She wakes up in such a happy mood.  She takes 2 good naps a day, sometimes 3, and goes to bed by 8 each night.  She can go days without ever crying.  She weighs about 16 1/2 lbs, is quite a good roller, and loves to hang out in mommy's wraps.  She is the smiliest baby EVER.  My friend calls her the invisible baby whenever we go places with her because she just looks all around, smiles, sleeps when she wants to, but never cries or fusses.  (unlike one of her brothers, who makes up for that in a BIG way.)

We still don't have a stove.  Did you know you can make hard cooked eggs in a veggie steamer?  Yes you can.  It hasn't really been that bad so far.  Ken loves to grill and we've used the crock pot and tomorrow I might bust out the old dusty waffle maker just for fun.

I am loving taking pictures.  Now my kids are so used to it they usually don't give me big cheesy grins anymore, so I've gotten some pretty great shots!  I'm taking a class in a few weeks and I love to read about and try different techniques.  An acquaintance saw a few of my pics on Facebook and asked if I'd take pictures of her son for his 2nd birthday.  I did and she LOVED em.  She wants me to take pics for her again and said several of her friends were asking who took the pics.  She also gave me an awesome compliment.  She said that every time she looks at previous professional pictures they've had taken, she doesn't have any good memories attached to the pictures.  Instead she remembers trying to get everyone dressed and out the door, and it being a big hassle.  But when she looks at my pics, she remembers gleeful bubbles and yogurt raisins and her son being relaxed and happy.  I thought that was so great.  And she ordered some really big prints of some of my pictures.  So glad I could do that for her!

It had a good run.

Our 1968 stove that is. The other night, ken and I were sitting in the family room after the kids went to bed and we heard a loud POP and then flames and smoke started shooting out of the front of our stove. Ken quickly put out the fire with the extinguisher and turned off the breaker and I called 911. She instructed us to get the kids out of the house.  5 fire trucks and a policeman showed up in about 3 minutes, complete with sirens at 9:30 at night. They checked out the stove and said we were safe to go to sleep. The kids got fire hats and got to see the truck. Soooo glad this happened while we were awake and everyone is safe.

Now we are having some issues (stove is not a standard size so we either special order a 27 inch drop in stove or we get a standard and rip out cabinets.) meanwhile I'm using the crockpot, steamer, grill etc. 

if anyone has any ideas for breakfast, lunch or dinner with no stove or oven, let me know!

No pictures in this post you'll be happy to know.

First of all, Madeleine is DONE with kindergarten!!!  I'll post more on that later but I'm so proud of her (and me!) and so excited that WE DID IT!!!!  This year has been amazing and I'm looking forward to first grade.

But right now I wanted to share a little story of a boy who is about 90% potty trained.  This is a story about the 10%.  You've been warned.

So Leo usually does perfect at home.  He's been in big boy undies for about 3 weeks now and knows the drill.  He kind of freaks out about "going" in public though.  He hates automatic flush.  He's scared of going when we are out and has to REALLY have to go before it happens.  Then, he HAS to stand up which usually means he either stands on my feet or I have to hold him up with one hand and aim with the other.  This usually happens with a baby on my back.   There's a mental picture for you.

So last night, we went to hear Ken's band play at a Mexican restaurant.  We were sitting outside, and I noticed Leo had to "go."  So I took him inside and as soon as he gets in the bathroom he starts yelling, "Stand up!  Stand up!"  So I was able to hold him up and he went.  A little while later, the same scenario.  He stood up, I aimed, only..............

It wasn't pee.

Let's just say, for the rest of the night, there was a tiny pair of Mickey Mouse undies in the trash can and a little boy going commando.

One kid in diapers!!

Last week I decided that I was done changing a certain toddler's diapers.  I had talked to a friend who potty trained her boys with this 3 day method at 28 months and 23 months.  John Paul trained himself around 25 months and after trying some not so successful methods with Madeleine, she basically trained herself at 33 months.  So this was kind of new for me.  Basically you switch the kid to big boy underwear and tell him we are done with diapers.  Watch him like a hawk for 3 days and run him to the potty whenever he starts going, then give him a snack.  Sounds simple enough, right?  I started on Tuesday last week, hoping he would be good for John Paul's party on Sunday.  Well, for the first several days he was TERRIFIED of actually going on the potty.  Not sitting, just going.  He would scream and cry and throw a big fit every time while I tried to calm him down.  Ken thought I was traumatizing him but I thought that if I could help him get over this fear, he would have it down.  So on Friday and Saturday he seemed to be doing better with the fear.  Sunday was JPs party and since he REFUSES to go when I want him to, we had to just stick him in the car and hope for the best.  I stuck the potty seat in the van.  When we got to the playground, he saw it and wanted to go play right away and went in his pants as soon as he started playing. He hated it.  I changed him and cleaned him up, and  he hasn't had an accident since!  He is in undies full time (except at night) and I am loving it!!!  So proud of him!

Birthday boy!!

Some of my favorites

I'm loving my camera. I probably take between 100-200 photos a day ;)
Here are some of my recent favorites.
Any tips?

So far so good!

4 months

And it's baby boot camp time. Something has gotta give with these sleeping habits. As of today the cradle and cosleeper are gone and the crib is in our room! We are going to attempt to have her sleep there for naps and night. My back is killing me from sleeping on 6 inches of bed space with a giant baby attached to me all night.
Took a few 4 months pics, wasn't totally happy with any of them. Leo was crawling all over me while I was shooting ;)

Easter pics and first joke

All the kids learned their first knock knock joke from daddy last night.
Kid one: knock knock
Kid two: who's there?
Kid one: interrupting cow
Kid two: interr......
Kid one: Moooooo!!!

But Leo says it cutest.
Knock knock. Cow. Moooooo!!!

Easter Eve

Heart. melt.

John Paul asked to hold Sarah today which he has never done. I put her on his lap and he started talking to her and petting her head. I said, "Sarah, your big brother loves you!" And he said, "I really DO love her, mommy."

One year ago yesterday

Leo had his cleft palate repair.  I'm so amazed at how far he has come.  He is speaking so much more lately, he knows every one of his abc's, and he is such a great eater.  What a wonderful blessing he is to our family!  I'm still praying he doesn't need a second surgery.  Only about 20% of kids need it but his cleft was pretty wide, so he could be one of those.  We won't know til he's around 4 though.

Today we went to the Children's museum and I saw a little boy who was about 3 with an open cleft lip.  I asked his mom if he had a cleft palate too and she said yes.  I told her Leo had a cp and had surgery a year ago.  I told her all about it, showed her pictures, and she was able to see him and how well he is doing.  I told her he didn't mind the arm restraints and did so much better than we had expected.  They even have the same surgeon - for both the cleft and ear tubes!  She had just adopted him from China 5 weeks ago and he had had nothing but rice/formula bottles since then, and barely had been out of his crib!  He's THREE!  I gave her my phone number and told her to call me with any questions.  I'm so happy to have been able to help out and put her mind at ease.

Kids enjoying (hopefully) last snow

And I'm enjoying my new camera!