A first for Jacob

So today I decided to let Jacob play with Play-Doh.
Yes,I may very well be absolutely crazy.

It actually went really well.

Yes...that is a pink My Little Pony Play-Doh accessory
that Jacob is playing with...he's not picky!

I put our coffee table in the kitchen (like I have for Play-Doh in the past) and covered it with a plastic tablecloth that we use for the kids' arts and crafts.

After reminding Jacob a couple of times
"We don't eat Play-Doh"
the boys played wonderfully for about an hour!

Yeah for me!
Josh was a very good little helper.


I have decided to get the boys a little more involved with their creative "building" side, and take some time away from their rough-n-tumble "destroy everything with in my sight" side. Tuesday and Thursday mornings we have some free time (after we go to the "Y") and so I'll bring out the crayons, scissors, glue and paper,
maybe some paints too if I'm feeling particularly wild.

The one-on-one (well one-on-two) time will be good for all of us and then my kids won't hear me say "go play" quite as often...

Don't judge... you know you say that too!

Who knows how long it will last,
but it will be nice for them to break up the
"days at home with mom" a little bit.

Wish me luck!

Out of the mouthes of babes...

I am so glad that I have a daughter that tells me she'd rather read than watch a movie...

Especially since Josh told Craig "Dad... you're not just smart, you're K-Mart smart"

_______

Today Jacob came up to me, crawled up on my lap and said...
"I'm gonna crush you...I'm gonna squeeze you!"
and proceeded to give me the best bear hug ever!

.....yep, he's ALL boy!

My 2010 Goals...

So as the new year approaches,
I've been thinking about some of my goals for 2010...
so here they are.

1. Craig and I wand to fully fund our emergency fund with 3 months worth of living expenses... we are HUGE fans of Dave Ramsey and have been following his financial "plan" for about 2 years now...currently we are about half way to meeting this goal...

2. Save up and pay cash for our deck replacement... a hefty chunk of money for sure... but I know we can do it... Craig and my dad and probably my brother in law Mike (right Mike?) will be helping Craig with that this spring/summer!

3. Be more consistent with reading my Bible daily... this proves to be a HUGE challenge for me (my three wonderful children rarely give me 30 minutes of uninterrupted time)! Working nights really messes with schedule and my ability to get up in the morning, you know... before the kids do, to have some alone and quiet time... and I am not home every evening for that quiet time. Regardless, I am determined to get through the entire Bible (which I have never done) by this time next year!

4. Work out more! We have a membership to the "Y" and the kids love going... I just have to DO IT! I have a very good friend who gets me motivated (thank you Deanna)... unfortunately she does not live with me... :) In addition to working out more, I want to be more active with the kids...go on hikes, bike rides more and whatever else. Now that Jacob is older, this is much easier!

4. Re-join Weight Watchers... UGH! I hate watching what I eat... there, I said it!! But I do want to be a better example to my children of living a healthy lifestyle (I keep telling myself that) I hope to loose 10-15 pounds, my scale is out of batteries and I think I'm weigh about 150ish#... gosh that sure does creep up... I feel good at about 135# so I'm aiming for that number. Yes, I'll be blogging about that too!

5. Keep up on my kids school binders. I'm doing memory binders for each year they are at school, including scrapbooked pages (I've gotten into digital scrapbooking, artwork, school assignments and other memorable documents... I think they will really like looking back and seeing what they were doing at these times.

6. Getting back on track with my own scrapbooking. I lost almost 6 months worth of scrapbooked pages when my desktop died...SO FRUSTRATING! But I hope to get totally caught up (about 4 years worth) by the end of 2010.

So that about sums up my goals for 2010
...in a year, we'll see how I did!

Happy New Year and Good Bye to 2009!

Well, as most of you know 2009 has been a VERY rough year for us...

In January (the 15th to be exact) Craig blew out his knee playing indoor soccer... he ended up having surgery in March and it took till about September for him to be completely recovered...Yeah, that was fun.

Next we took Josh to get tubes placed in his ears in May, as he was having chronic silent ear infections, and was basically going deaf before my eyes! After seeing a specialist and Josh failing his hearing test, we went ahead and decided to get the tubes placed. Josh did great with this and can hear very well know, although he often chooses NOT to listen! :)

This summer we lost Craig's Mom to lung cancer (pneumonia actually), and that has been severely devastating as anyone can imagine...

September came around and my sweet almost two year old decided to tip his kitchen chair back and give himself a concussion, with a small brain bleed thank you very much! So Jacob and I ended up spending the night in the hospital for observation.Yeah... He too is just fine... maybe he will listen now when I tell him NOT to tip his chair back... hopefully. Mommy can't take much more stress!

Then in December Josh had what we thought was an Inguinal Hydrocele (basically a hernia, but with fluid coming through, rather than bowel). Anyway, Josh had surgery on the 23rd of December, and did really well. The surgeon determined that it was actually a cyst, not a hydrocele, but none the less, it was taken care of...

My boys have had a rough year! I kinda want to send Jamie to school with her body padded in pillows and her bike helmet on... but I won't. Sigh...

We are all looking forward to a new year, fresh and God willing without injury!!!

I do have to say that even though this year was so stressful and pretty gloomy, our lives have been completely blessed by God!!

We both are working and have made huge strides with our financial goals, we are DEBT FREE, with the exception of our mortgage! YES!

Our children are happy and actually very healthy and doing very well at school!

Craig and I have found a new appreciation for each other after some fairly rocky times in our marriage. Sometimes I can't believe we've been together for almost 12 years!

God is SO good to us, we know that we are in his hands and that he is in control...we are so very blessed by Him!

So Happy New Year! May God bless you and your families!

I KNEW they were too quiet...

So this afternoon I let the boys play with their new flashlights from Grandpa Steve. I tend to keep these out of their toy rotation and save them for special occasions when Mommy is needing a bit of quiet time...anyway, Josh told me that he needed a tent, so he and Jacob could go "camping".

I reminded him of the Thomas the Train tent Jacob got from his Grandpa Roy, I told him if he covered it with blankets it would get nice and dark inside. So off he goes...

Jamie then decides she'd like to play with her flashlight too and so off she goes, only to come back yelling "Mom! the boys are NAKED!"

"What?!" I reply

"Like no clothes on, not even underwear or a diaper!"

(crap! I really hope Jacob wasn't poopy when that diaper was taken off! - he wasn't...)

But Josh and Jacob are buck naked with their flashlights and Jamie is asking me "Mom!? What are you going to do about this!?"

My natural reply was "Take a picture?"

So I did.

I have to sensor their boy parts and get my laptop to recognize my camera (my desk top died :()But eventually you will see pictures of their glorious play time...

I put a new diaper on Jacob, and told Josh to put his underwear on, and turned the light back off...

Thanks for the great new Christmas presents Papa Roy and Papa Steve!
What a great memory!!

So we've very unofficially started potty training Jacob... He totally
digs his new underwear, but hasn't quite mastered making I to the
potty in time:)

A slow process for sure, but I'm really loving the thought of NOT
buying diapers!

Okay, so I totally just posted this from my iPhone! I love that thing!!

Three princesses went to see a movie...

Brielle, Lauren and Jamie (and their mommies) all went to see The Princess and the Frog about a week and a half ago... a late post but worth the wait... I love this picture!!

Joshua's Surgery

Well, Josh had surgery this morning, we checked in at 0630, which was way to early in this night nurse's opinion!

Josh did great and was driving a toy car around the pre-op waiting room for an hour or so. We talked to the anesthesiologist, and the circulating nurse, and then finally Dr. S the pediatric urologist. They gave Josh some Vistaril (I think) before surgery, and then took him back to the OR.

I got a report that he fell asleep easily and his IV went in easily, as well as the caudal block. About 20 minutes later Dr. S came to get me saying that everything went well and that she was done. It turns out that he actually had what she called a hydrocele cyst, not and actually hydrocele. Basically what that means is that there was no open communication between the scrotum and the abdominal cavity... good but unexpected.

It took him a while to wake up, but he did really well. A little grouchy and a little funny. I was getting him dressed and he started singing the theme song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse... "come inside it's fun inside... it's the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" the nurse and I were totally cracking up!

We got him wheeled out to the car and he argued with me about EVERYTHING on the way home. He kept asking me why he had a band-aid on his hand..."that's where your IV was, Josh" I think I told him this about 6 times (gotta love Versed!)

We got home and on the couch and fed, and then I'm doing dishes and hear an awful lot of playing coming from the living room...
"Josh, you better be resting on the couch!"
"I am mom"
still hearing a LOT of playing, so I peek around the corner and see Josh stumbling around the table (still wasn't totally un-numb from his block)
"Joshua! Get back on the couch... your legs aren't even working yet!!"

Then he was hurting (really?) so I drugged him...

I'll keep you updated... I'm supposed to keep him from running or jumping for the next week! Ha! That will be a Christmas Miracle!

Jacob's Christmas Program

This year was Jacob's first Christmas Program at "school". He was actually really funny and started swinging a microphone stand around with another little boy... comic relief, Ha!

The latest from Jamie Sue

"I went to somebody's house. I got a puppy and nobody took it.
First I was scared."
(we had a white elephant gift exchange at
my aunt and uncles at Thanksgivings.)

"I heard on the phone we are going to the dentist some day.
I can't wait until we go to the dentist."

"Last night I went to Elsa's house to check if it was safe.
We played reindeer."

"When I woke up I was very tired.
I barely got every chore done, then I went to school."

"My dad is silly. I'm silly too. My brother is silly.
My mom is silly. We are very silly. We like being silly."

I went to Toys-R-Us. I go LPS's (littlest pet shop).
I got six LPS's today. I can't find my LPS's. I bet I can find them."

"I heard me and Mom and Brielle and Steffany are going to
Princess and the Frog.
We are excited to go to Princess and the Frog."