GROWING

My baby boy is growing up, and it makes me happy, excited, and sad all at the same time.


So very many emotions....

I am happy as it is so fun to see him grow, learn new things, and change from a baby into a toddler. I am excited as soon I will not have to deal with early morning wake up calls, poopy diapers, splashing around in toilets, and the whole getting into everything stage. And at the same time I am sad about there being no more early morning wake up calls, poopy diapers, splashing around in toilets and the getting into everything stage. I am sad that this is the last time I will see that first smile, that first step, hear "mama" for the first time. All those "firsts".

This is our last baby. For absolutely sure this time - couldn't even happen if we wanted it to. And believe me, there have been a few moments of temporary insanity where I have said, "I sure wish we could have one more." But like I said, we can't [by our own doing - ahem- snip- snip] and this o.k.

It is time to start a new chapter in our lives. I take comfort in the fact that we will be happy, excited and sad about many other stages in our children's lives, so I won't be missing out on any of these emotions. It will just be different kinds of happy, excited and sad. And I look forward to it all.

MOMENTS

3 of my 5 little bugs were watching T.V. together this morning. Lucas and Liv were all snuggled up with their blankets and throw pillows from the couch, with Nathan comfortably sitting in his Bumbo chair.

It's little moments like this that help me forget about all the fighting over toys, name calling, and whining, and help remind me that they really do love each other. And that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

ON RUNNING ERRANDS, CHOCOLATE BARS AND SLEEPING

We decided to run a few errands this morning with all the kids in tow. This is never, ever a very fun task as you can probably imagine. Who would enjoy making a trip to Costco and Wal Mart with 5 kids in tow? Not I.

But as I have said many times before, the Mr. works a ton, so when we have time to spend as a family I take it, no matter how that time is spent. So we made our way to Costco, shopped around for the stuff we needed, and managed to get out of there unscathed. Imagine that.

Unfortunately as we were en route to Wal Mart, the kids started melting down: "Mom, he won't stop bugging me!" "Mom, Lucas is poking me and won't stop!" "Mom, Ava is bossing me around!" etc, etc. And when we drove up to the front doors of Wal Mart so that I could hop out [alone] to run in to grab a few items, an all out melt down ensued. "I want to go in!" "Pleeeasseee Mom, can I just go in with you?" "MOM - TAKE ME!!!" etc, etc. Needless to say, I happily slammed the door to the car and made my way in to the store all by myself.

While in the check out line waiting for the slower than ever check out girl to finish with the person in front of me, I remembered that I had actually told the kids they could come in the store with me. Oops. Last minute the Mr. decided to just drop me at the front door and me, being the Mom who will take any opportunity for a few minutes to myself [even if those few minutes are spent at Wal Mart] did not ask any questions and went with it. I made a promise and I did not follow through.

So what did I do? I bought them chocolate bars to make up for it.

Needless to say, when I got back to the car and flashed those chocolate bars at them, my transgressions were quickly forgotten. Not to mention, the car ride home was incredibly quiet as they all focused on the chocolatey goodness in their hands.

All was well. Until we pulled into the garage and I turned around in my seat to find this.

It turns out all the crying and protesting she did must have really tuckered Miss Liv out, as she had fallen asleep midway through eating her treat and made quite the mess.

Kids, aren't they something?

ON RACHAEL RAY, AND AAMODT'S APPLE FARM

I am feeling lazy this afternoon and rightfully so after spending the morning stripping beds, putting laundry away, doing a few loads of laundry, making a pot of beef stew -yum, yum, yum, and cleaning up the kitchen.

So I am now sitting on the couch watching Rachael Ray who is, by the way, speaking with a specialist about Menopause. It's a cooking show and she is spending 15 minutes talking about Menopause. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised, as a few months back I saw an episode where she had yet another specialist on talking about urine. Yes, urine. More specifically the different colors it can be and what those colors can mean. Did I mention this was a cooking show? Weird.

Anyway, I am getting tired of her, so I have decided to ignore the T.V. for now and post some pictures from our fun day at the apple orchard this past weekend.

WORTH THE EFFORT

I mentioned a while back that the kids had decided to pool all of the money they had gotten as birthday gifts, all the money they had saved up in their piggy banks, from doing chores, and all that jazz in order to buy something big. Their idea of something big? A trampoline, a hot tub, an in ground pool, an electric scooter,they had so many ideas.

I ever so slyly pushed them toward saving for the trampoline as I thought it was an attainable goal. They seemed happy with this choice and went about continuing to add to their savings.

Last week they asked me if we could go to the bank to see how much money they had. So we all packed into the car, extra large durable ziploc bag full of coins in hand, and headed to the bank. While we waited for the bank teller to give us a total, we decided to make a guess as to how much we had. Lucas guessed $101, Anthony said he did not know, Liv knew nothing of what was going on, Miss Ava was still at school, and I guessed $150.

Finally the lovely teller returned with a total - $178. Combine this with the cash they had at home and they had saved $380 dollars. Heck, $380 is a lot of money to this 33 year old Mom, can you imagine what the kids thought of that much money? They had a look of such pride on their faces; and I have to say Mom was incredibly proud as well. To think they had decided all on their own to share their money with one another, and continue to save and work hard together to get something they all wanted. They get their trampoline and learn a great lesson in the process. Win, win in my book.

Of course, after they found out they had enough money to actually make the purchase, they would not leave Dad alone. "Dad, can we go get our trampoline today?" "Dad, how about now?" Dad, when do you think you will have time to get our trampoline?" "Dad, you know we have enough money for our trampoline now, can we pleeeeeease go get it?" He finally relented and headed to good 'ol Sams Club to pick up the kids ever coveted trampoline. And of course after he got it home and into the garage the kids did not waste a minute starting in on him again: "Hey Dad can you put the trampoline together?" "Maybe after dinner can we do it?" " Dad, I really want to jump on our new trampoline." "Pretty please can you do it now?" "How about now?" This time Dad relented within hours, and put the trampoline together. Now that's one smart man I married.

As we were putting the finished touches on it before we would let them jump, Ava said

"Wow, this is so cool."

"You really like your new trampoline, don't you?"

Yes, but it is so cool that we saved up all our own money and bought it."

The Mr. and I both smiled.

Finally the trampoline was ready for all of our little monkeys to jump on. The Mr. and I sat back and relaxed as we watched them happily bouncing around together.



Miss Liv was out of her mind happy to be able to jump, and of course, Miss Ava was found laying on the trampoline pouting as she could not jump high enough with Liv on it. Woe is me, woe is me.....

She finally came around.


As we were heading in for the night, I overheard the kids talking about saving up for something else. I jumped into the conversation asking what they wanted to save for. Their response? "A hot tub!" Dad and I both looked at eachother thinking the same thing - now that would be something we would love. And of course, also that is going to take a whole heck of a lot longer to save up for than that trampoline did. But we decided not to ruin their excitement and said, "Sure, that sounds great! Maybe Mom and Dad will even help save for that one."

THE HONEY DO LIST SEEMS TO GROW AND GROW AND GROW

Living with 4 little kids makes it pretty much impossible to keep this house looking nice and put together.

Our off-white carpets (I have yet to understand why the previous owners of this house would have installed white carpets in a house where kids resided) are totally ruined. So ruined you can't even attempt to clean them any longer. Our walls are smudged with little handprints, dried splatters of chocolate milk from spills I missed, and some nice wall art done with crayon courtesy of Liv Grace. Our couches have been peed on, puked on, spit up on, drooled on, eaten and spilled on. Our wood floors have dents and nicks from the kids racing, and dropping heavy toys on them. The list goes on and on.

Most recently we have noticed that the two drawers that house all the kids arts and crafts and electronic equipment (PSP's, chargers, Leap Frogs, etc) were starting to show some wear and tear. Well, not just some, a lot. The whole front of both drawers were pretty much ready to fall off. The Mr. has talked about fixing them for some time now, but just has not had the time to get around to it. And unfortunately, I think it is too late.

Yesterday Ava went to get her PSP out of one of the drawers when I heard a crash.

"Mom! Look what happened!"

I turned to see what had happened - When Ava went to pull the drawer open the whole front of the drawer, handle and all, ripped off of the rest of the drawer, and landed on the floor in front of her. Turns out one of the drawers decided it could not hold out any longer for the Mr. to come and make the repair.

So now I have a drawer that houses all of the kids electronic toys, phone chargers, and other such things open for the whole world to see. And knowing my husband (love him dearly), and his track record as far as fixing broken things goes, it will stay this way for a very, very long time.

Just another thing to add to the Honey Do list. What can you do? Nothing, really. Just wait, and pray that the Mr. will get to this project (and the many more that can be found on that list) sooner than later. And I can remind myself that one day, these kids will be grown and won't have the propensity to break, stain, or ruin everything in their path. One day.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Liv had her first taste of the time out chair yesterday, and she really did not seem to mind it all too much.

Hopefully the more she lands herself in that chair, the quicker it will come to her that it is indeed a form of punishment and is not meant to be fun.

Speaking of Olivia, I finally got around to getting out and purchasing her a winter coat.

I think she wears it well. No?

Both Ava and Lucas have really been into practicing their writing skills. Here is Ava's latest:

Seems she is into writing full on sentences about what she enjoys doing with her free time. Not quite sure why she scribbled over some of her writing.

Lucas seems more interested in writing his feelings down on paper. Some sweet nothings for his family. He decided for some reason to be very formal with my note, and call me by Maria. He stopped after writing a note to Daddy, claiming that he was just too tired to write any more. I am sure Ava and Anthony do not mind.

Very nice notes -- You think he may want something?

Oh, and this is where you will find Anthony pretty much every waking moment we are not out of the house doing something.


That's right, smack dab in front of the T.V. with either Wii remote or Playstation remote in hand, jamming out to video games. And the Mother of the year award goes to [drumroll]..... NOT me. Anthony is way over the top, crazy-obsessed with his video games. It seems if I were to permit, he would play them from sun up to sun down. No jokes here. I have to get a handle on this, pronto - otherwise I fear he may turn into a video game playing zombie.

We decided to paint pumpkins yesterday, and I think they turned out quite nice.

Lucas went with an all yellow theme. I had told Ava I would start on hers while she got ready for dance class. Turns out she liked my paint job, especially the hair, and decided she wanted me to just do it for her. Which was just fine, as I was really enjoying myself. Oh, and notice how there are only 2 pumpkins? Anthony decided he was in no mood to paint his pumpkin and would rather plant his rump right on the couch to play his video game. And I let him as I just did not want to fight with him over painting a pumpkin. Again, the whole mother of the year award thing does not apply here.

And finally, I could use a night out on the town.

And that is all I have. Just a few random thoughts, things to share.

SUNDAY FUNDAY

The story of our day out at the apple orchard and pumpkin patch, in pictures.

How is that for packing all kinds of fun into one day?