4 years ago...

...we were blessed with TWINS. 


Let me tell you, each day has been amazing, exhausting, overwhelming, full of love, crazy, wonderful...the list goes on. Unless you have twins, you can't fully understand the joy of having them - or the trials and struggles of having them. 


Never for one moment have I ever considered changing it.


Today, they turn 4.


I look back and now I think - 'thank goodness they can....' fill in the blank here - it could be 'go potty', 'get their own shoes', 'get their own drink of water', etc.


Anything to show their independence because let me tell ya, as the mama of multiples (and 2 other kiddos), independence is  beautiful and freeing. Freeing for ME.  


It allows me to find ME. I still struggle with the guilt of finding ME, because it requires time. Time for me to do things for ME.  But, I do have the most amazing husband who knows that his life will be better if I have the time to do that. So, without complaining, he gives it to me. He's smart like that.


So, to my little people on their 4th birthday....


Happy 4th Birthday to Micah!!!!  

This boy is one of my biggest challenges, despite how absolutely cute he is. He is frequently moody if you do not follow his exact plan (usually just morning - but it can carry into other times). The plan isn't always the same so we have yet to figure it out, and yet some days he doesn't care and is very happy. It's like a mini-vacation on those days :).


He is funny and sweet. I could sit and listen to him talk about things all day long. His mannerisms are sweet and entertaining. And his laugh, oh that laugh. It is infectious and not the loud laugh - but a laugh-in, like he's pulling the silly inside. 


He takes his sweet time in just about everything he does. Eating. Walking. Getting ready for bed. Getting ready to leave. He is side tracked easily because he just doesn't care. He  cares about what he wants to care about, but not always what others care about - lol! He has been known to tell me "I'm mad at you mom, you said I was making you late". Truth hurts baby ;)


He loves trucks of all kinds. He loves loading trailers up with cars, and 'stuff'. He loves anything green. If it is a green truck, life could not be better. He loves to ride in his daddy's black truck, and really loves helping in the yard.  


Happy 4th Birthday to Ainslie!!!!

This sweet thing is our resident 'cat'. She is shy until she isn't. She is finicky until she isn't. And if she doesn't want to talk to you, she won't. Doesn't matter who you are. Even if you are her mama. Or her daddy. Just like a cat.


She is full of color and creativity and spunk. She loves to sit at the table and color pages and pages of anything I will print off for her. She loves dot-to-dots the most. She loves to dress herself in anything colorful - especially if it doesn't really match. 


She is drama up and down. She totally overreacts to things that don't matter. I guess that's what girls do? I don't know, I have 3 other boys and this is all new to me.  Like having an entire load of laundry called "the pinks". I never had that with the 2 big boys.


She is a little mama and tattles on her brothers keeps her brothers in line. She loves to have polish on her nails and gloss on her lips!  


She is very smart and likes to talk about things that she knows. Even when she's wrong. She loves to learn and she loves songs and music. She loves books to look at and loves to be read to. Her favorite color is pink and purple. Not pink. Not purple. Pink and purple. 


She loves food and rarely stays at the table longer than Micah. The girl loves her some meat - and never leaves any on her plate.


I cannot imagine life without either of them. The Blessing of twins is indescribable. 


I am one lucky girl!

Sometimes, the answer is in the question

I have hesitated posting this.


It might be embarrassing.


And since this year, I again missed the deadline to apply for Mother of The Year (and I'm pretty sure you have to be nominated...by your kids...), I think it's ok to rat out my kid share a little information about A-Dog that nobody knows.


First lets preface with the fact that this child is very intelligent. 


The extent of homework help he gets from me is "well, did you Google it?" Because that is my solution for everything I don't know.


Which is a lot.


But he doesn't usually ask for help and thankfully he never requires me to nag at him about doing his homework, he just does it.


However, to say that common sense is not his friend is an understatement.


Seriously.


Sometimes it is just shocking.


From simple things like why you wouldn't swing a frozen bag of bread around like a jump rope to him squeezing and shaking the new mustard so hard, perplexed because it won't come out (through the safety cover under the top). The list is long.


But one day he asked for help on Geometry. How hard can it be? I took Trigonometry, Calculus and beyond.


What's a little Geometry?


The question was "The measure of a supplement of <1 (angle - I don't have the angle sign) is six times the measure of a complement of <1. Find the measures of <1, its supplement, and its complement. Explain how you found each measure".


Easy peasy lemon squeezy.


Let's Google that.


What is a supplement?


He has to restate the question, answer the question and then explain how he got the answer.

I realize you can't actually read it, but I will tell you mostly what it says. Notice it is all crumpled up...because after I read it, I made him he realized he should start over.


"The way I found my answer was pretty simple.  In the question it stated...blah blah blah...so, first I sat looking at the question thinking about what the question meant and what it wanted me to do. After about 5 minutes I understood the question and pulled out a piece of paper."


I tried to explain to him that she likely didn't want his 'play by play' of how he decided to answer the question, but actually how he derived the number answers.


It's all common sense. ;)

Side effects of Homeschooling a 1st grader

Yesterday I went to the grocery store. 


I almost went alone.


Until I didn't.


And 2 little people decided to come. (Mini P and Monkey)


As we were driving there I noticed smoke - probably a small fire. Not big. Somewhat close, but not likely to turn into some catastrophic event or anything.


Then Mini P shouts out "look, I see SMOKE!"


Me: "Yes, there is a fire over there"


Mini P: "I think it is a VOLCANO!!!!! See? It has smoke coming out of the top"


Monkey: "That's a VOLCANO???"


Me: "No, it's not a volcano. It's a small fire"


Mini P: "Maybe it's a TOR-MA-DO!!!"


Monkey: "Sis is that a tornado???"


Me: (does anyone listen to me???) "No guys, it is just smoke from a fire."


Monkey: "A fire? I think it's on Pinetop"


Me: "no bud, it's not Pinetop, Pinetop is 5 hours from here"


Mini P: "maybe the it's in San Diego"


Me: (are we are the grocery store yet???) "No, San Diego is even farther"


Mini P: "I think it is Egypt! The fire is in Egypt!!!"


Me: "No. It is a small fire. Maybe over by the McDonald's"


Then I turned up the radio in back. I thought some good music would distract them enough to end that conversation. It worked.


I like that they pay attention during school time, and I like that they can repeat things they may or may not have learned.


Like the game they like to play what word am I thinking of - it starts with a 't' and ends with a 'd'...except they can't read.


Or spell.


That's almost as ridiculous as "what is that?". 


When I have no idea what they are looking at or talking about. 

What ever happened to October?

Next week is Thanksgiving. I have about 50 people coming out to the house for a Thanksgiving feast. I can't help but wonder what happened to October. 


Or September for that matter.


I think that there was some baseball...

on two different teams.


Every Saturday in October (and 2 in September). 4 games each day. 


He was at the park from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 at night. It was exhausting for us to watch so much baseball him to play so much baseball.  I mean, seriously. Who does that? He enjoyed it, but is so glad it's over.


Thankfully they were back to back games. Sometimes (like every other week) we got lucky enough to have 2 games on the same field. Otherwise after each game we'd (or the person that stayed with him - since we did try to rotate it) packed it all up, moved to the next field and get re-situated. Most games were in the same complex - but there were days we had to reload the truck and drive across the street. That was fun. (Not really, if you could hear me, you'd really hear how sarcastic I was being and I may or may not have rolled my eyes).


We also went to the mountains for a few days:

We had Halloween:

Charlie Brown with hair

Tinker Bell with the wicked witch smile

Ninja ready for a fight

Superman about to take off

This is the first year that Monkey has dressed up willingly. This costume was in the dress up bucket...it was A-Dogs. We've lost the mask, but no one really likes the plastic masks anyway. I refused to buy him a costume because he always pitches a fit about wearing it - so, I opted to choose my battles and this wasn't one of them.


We have more candy than you can imagine - and it will be headed out the door very, very soon!


A-Dog turned 14. For some reason, I feel like we never blew out a candle or anything. His birthday started with 2 baseball games and ended with Trunk or Treat at church that night. I know over the course of a week or 2 he had birthday shopping, birthday frozen yogurt, birthday Dairy Queen, birthday dinner out, birthday presents, birthday sitting in front of the van and me in back with the kids (I did NOT appreciate him pulling that one)...so, I guess if he didn't get birthday cake and candle - it should be ok.


Time flies around here and every once in a while I download photos off the camera and think - "WOW, that's great, we did take pictures of that!!!"


I know you are all dying to know about the rocks in my yard. I mean, who wouldn't want to know about the 21 tons of landscape rock my husband ordered. He has big dreams and forgets that he has no time.  


BUT, just wait. You will see what we've done with them!


Cheers!

2 things that don't go together

It seemed like an ordinary enough day. 


I slept in until 7.


I had only 1 kid until noon.


I sat quietly alone until 7:45ish by myself.


What?


What is that you said?


That doesn't sound like MY ordinary day?


I suppose not. 


I suppose an ordinary day is more up and showered by 6:15, twins up by 6:30, A-Dog and my sweet husband out the door by 6:50, wrestle with the twins and Agent P about their 1 TV show for the morning and their breakfast, get kitchen cleaned up (or not) before we start school at 8:00am.


So, it was nearly normal....or no where near actually.


Then my nice relaxing morning got shot (pun at end) when I remembered that Monday night, I was in bare feet in my bathroom and stepped on a cholla cactus thorn - and my foot still HURT. Bad.


Here is where you might think to your self - what the heck are those people growing in their bathroom? No, we do not have plants and cacti in our bathroom.


The beginning of that story is from Sunday night when A-Dog ran himself smack into a cholla cactus at a friends house - but somehow managed to pull all the thorns out...sans ONE. ONE LITTLE THORN. That he left in my bathroom when he used it for a shower.


That I stepped on.


I took it for the team.


No one wants a 6 or 3 year old to have that in their foot.


So I stepped on it. And part of it remains in my foot.


3 days of hobbling was enough, so I sought professional help. (yet another picture you don't need to see - it's the bottom of my foot...)


Upon arrival there are signs everywhere that say "FLU SHOTS NOW HERE". Lovely. 


You see, I am the last person in the house who had not gotten their flu shot. Frankly I don't like shots am too busy.


But, alas, I set a good example and got my flu shot. I did warn the kids to look away. No one needs to see mama wince and have a grimacey face or (gasp) cry.


Then the Dr. look at my foot. Decided to throw an antibiotic at it and hope that helped (rather than numb it - with another shot - and dig it out). I wholeheartedly agreed.


Then asked when my last Tetanus shot was. 


You can see where this is going right? Or left. In the left. Since the flu shot was in the right.


Then - and this is going to get a bit PG-40....so stop reading if you need to...


Then she scolded me for not calling the office when I turned 40 so that she could order a mammogram.


OH, did I forget to do that? Wow. Wondered what I had forgotten to to this year...I am 40...


So, there it is. I stepped on a thorn, and next thing you know I'm getting a mammogram. 


I'm sure everyone that goes in for a cactus thorn comes out with an appointment for a mammogram....

A-Dog turns 14

It hardly seems possible that he is 14. 


Weren't we just celebrating his 7th birthday?

Seems like it.


And now look at him...

So, here it goes.


Dear A-Dog on your 14th Birthday - 


Happy Birthday! You are growing up so very fast, some days right before my very eyes. I keep wondering when time will slow down and it keeps going faster. You have changed so much in the last year.  You are learning to take responsibility for new things and take on challenges that you are not asked to. 


Thank you for always being proactive about your school work, projects, meetings and involvement. I am so grateful that you do your homework without us having to hover and nag. That is an amazing quality to have and I'm glad you have it! 


I'd like to say thank you for always helping Dad outside in the yard. But you and I both know that would be a lie. We are very aware that the biggest punishment that we could ever give you would be yard work ;). 


You are a really awesome person and people are lucky to be your friend. You are loyal and trustworthy.


We are ridiculously proud to be your parents and thank God that he lent you to us to raise! 


A-Dog we love you more each day!!!