The Monster in Me

I must admit there is a monster in me. Sometimes I don't have the patience to deal with whiny, crying children, or 2 year olds who won't sleep at 3:00 in the morning, or kids who won't cooperate and get coats or jackets on (because it is still cold outside GGrrrrrr), or just plain anything because my tummys getting big and it is getting harder to breath and is quite uncomfortable, and I feel my house is an unorganized mess. (it would be better if it was an organized mess, but I feel it isn't)

So the monster in me comes out......in all of these situations I have let out a low sounding throaty growl and this warns the kids (or myself) that the monster is ready to come out. So they better hurry up and obey or go to sleep or that I better do something about the mess.

Kids have quickly obeyed. From getting coats and shoes on to helping clean up toys, to a 2 year old who will stop whining and crying in the middle of the night and curl up next to me (scared) and finally go to sleep. When all else fails, Is this mean?

I do admit though and Megan told me this last night, that I don't get mad or angry and yell very often anymore. Brent also commented on how nicely I handled Sarah when we were on vacation and she was up and crying from 1:00am to 4:00am, and the trains were waking us every hour, the monster in me definitely growled a few times and that is how she finally fell asleep, scared in my arms, at that moment I was grateful for the monster. (I was bad at the beginning of this pregnancy, I think I didn't have a patience then) I think the answer is because this little monster in me warns us all that things could get ugly if situations don't change quickly.

So for now I am willing to keep the monster in me and hope she doesn't come out to often and that a certain little 2 year old will continue to be a little afraid of her coming all the way out......

Birthday FUN!

Joseph turned 5 yesterday! What a fun 5 years it has been. He was 8lb 5oz when he was born and he started growing and growing and won't stop! He is a joy in our family, he has a great sense of humor. He can have a quick temper but at the same time is quick to give me and his little sister hugs. He Loves playing with his big sister and loves playing ball and boxing with his dad. He is a smart boy and learns quickly, thanks to big sis he sounds out words now. We are so blessed and happy to have him as our "not so little" boy anymore!

Joseph is the bottom right picture (click on the pictures to enlarge and see them better)


Last night at his birthday party my memory card was full so I put in a different card and it had pictures of Joseph in it when he was a baby!

He is about 6 months in this picture.





At my brothers wedding a couple years ago, showing us he is 3.


He has always loved making funny faces, especially with his sister. And he taught little sister some good faces to make also!

Another one from when he was a baby, about 6 months and Megan was about 3 and Brent hasn't aged a day!

The much awaited birthday party at Rainbow Play Systems. It was Awesome. The kids played we had pizza, opened presents, played some more, had cake, played some more and then it was over to quickly, according to the kids.

We will definitely be back there some day, not to buy one (hello EXPENSIVE) but for their open play time mon-sat. 10-8. So FUN!

Blowing out the candles. I think Sarah was trying to help. (when she gets hurt or upset we tell her to take a big breath to calm down, so she was all ready to help with her big breath!) He really wanted cake and brownies. There was no way I was making both so I made Texas sheet cake, a good mix of cake but more to the size of brownies. He also really wanted caramel on it so we did little squiggly lines on the frosting. (THANKS Sandy for giving me the recipe, it was soooo delicious and Joseph Loved it!)

The whole party gang eating pizza and making funny faces.

I wish we had a tire swing! So much fun!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSEPH, WE lOVE YOU!!!

Nails and bed time

I painted my toe nails sunday....I won't tell you the weird positions I had to bend in to reach my toe nails. Quite uncomfortable. My belly is getting big and in the way.
I have never painted Sarah's nails and I haven't painted Megan's or mine for years, so Sarah thought that was pretty neat. The kids were in the bath tub when I painted them so she immediately wanted out to have hers painted.
She has really enjoyed having painted finger nails and toe nails. :) She walked around for the first hour with her hands out and not using them often like they were still wet...it was pretty cute.

Another first for Sarah....she started sleeping in her new bedroom! This last week has been a little bit of a nightmare at bed time with her. I knew it probably would be. We have had our little bedtime routine since she was an infant so adjusting to something new....... well you can imagine.
With Megan and Joseph now in bunk beds in Joseph's room, now Megan and Joseph's room, that left Megan's old room, soon to be Sarah's new room. We have been talking to Sarah about this, that it was now her room. So this last week Sarah has also been taking late naps...which means she wants to go to bed late, around 11:00. Plus we have been back and forth between her new room and the crib. She would get all excited to sleep in her new bed and then when she was finally tired enough she would get mad and hit me and cry and throw a fit. So eventually I would take her back to the crib.
One night of this I laid her on the crib put her blankets on and she says "Oh, I am soooo happy" and was asleep in 2 minutes. So cute but so frustrating.

So a couple nights ago she laid in the crib for a LONG time and wouldn't go to sleep, she finally sat up and said to me "I want to go sleep in my room"

(with all 3 kids I have always sat in their rooms until they were asleep when they are little and then when the next baby was born I would continue for awhile but conviently have to go do something else and they would go to sleep by themselves, it has always given me some special quiet one on one time with all of them from about age 1 to 2 1/2)

Back to the story, skeptical me I didn't believe her. So I ignored her first few requests to sleep in her room. She wouldn't give up though. I finally told her she HAD to sleep, no playing if she wanted to sleep in there. She said okay.
So we went in her room and she laid down. Pretended to feed me food and herself food for a while and finally turned over, curled up with her blankeys and went to sleep!!!
I couldn't believe it. I think I half slept that night waiting for her to wake screaming in the middle of the night in a weird room. She didn't and she slept until about 9:00am. :) (I think recent hotel stays helped)

So last night I didn't even give her a choice of where to sleep I just put her on her new bed. We read books and I told a few stories and she was asleep a lot faster than the other nights.
I actually got to bed before 10:30. Which is at least an hour earlier than most nights this last week. (makes a bit of a grouchy mommy when little sleep is to be had)
She did wake screaming this morning at 6:30 but I laid with her and she slept again until 8:30.

So now I need to move all Sarah's clothes to her room and start going through all of our infant boy clothes and put them in the nursery and get the crib back ready for a new born. Lots of work. I figure I have about 8 weeks to get it done. Sounds like enough time but will it be.....?


Stay tuned for Joseph's birthday party fun coming up on thursday!

Spring Break Acation(this is what Sarah called it)

For the first part of spring break we went to Brent's parents. His sister was there visiting with her husband and 5 kids. It was Great to see all of them. It had been almost 2 years and we had a lot of fun talking, playing ping-pong, playing the wii and just hanging out. Hopefully it won't be that long before we see them again!
I didn't get many pictures because the batteries died. I should have gone next door to Walgreens and just bought batteries, but I didn't even think about that. Blame it on the pregnancy forgetfullness....

For our 2nd part of break we headed to Kansas City. It was between Omaha or Kansas City, we bid on a hotel in KC and it got accepted so that is where we headed. They had some fun things to do so here are the pictures:

The kids standing in front of the waterfall in the hotel lobby.
There were coins in the water Joseph wanted to pull out and go buy something with! (he wasn't allowed to :(



The also had a 70 years of OZ exhibit that we went to twice because the kids loved it so much.

Riding the witches broom and Sarah by the flying monkeys

Sarah as a munchkin Megan as a munchkin

Off on the air balloon they go

Checking out the Oz's instruments

The kids had a lot of fun, playing in munchkin houses, going down the slide in the Oz's chambers, swinging on monkey bars to get away from the flying monkeys and making the witch melt.

We also went to the crayola store and the kids colored and colored. The next day we ate at the Crayola Cafe. That was fun too! They all got their own crayon shaped cup to take home and a placemat to color on.

Our favorite place we ate at though was Fritz's train restaurant. Sooooo COOL! We called in our order at the table. Then they put your order in a bucket and send it on its way to your table on a track that runs around the place. The pictures are a little hard to see. It took Joseph a long time to eat, he was to busy watching the train drop everyones order off at their table.

The train has a little shelf connected to it were the bucket goes...

Then each table has a shelf and a stopper, so when the bucket hits the stopper at the right table the bucket drops on the tables shelf and the shelf lowers down to the table. This was a lot of fun to see, half the fun was seeing how excited the kids were about the whole thing. I would highly recommend this place for the fun it was.

Our hotel room was a room with 2 double beds. I don't have a pack'n'play so I was going to ask the hotel for a crib or just sleep one of the kids in a sleeping bag on the floor. (Gotta think of sleeping arrangements before even leaving home!)

We arrived to our room and we had these two arm chairs in the corner. I saw them and thought "Those just might be sqaure enough and soft enough to make a "crib" for Sarah to sleep in"

So as you can see that's waht we did. I always bring 2 extra blankets just in case and that is what was used for the sheets. Sarah LOVED it and when the other kids would get in her "crib" she would get upset. She slept pretty darn good!

Next off the zoo. We arrived at around 11:00 and it was a bit chilly, but as the day wore on it became beautiful. I even got a tiny sunburn!

This orangatan (?) was pretty cute!

Megan was the only one brave enough to pet the wooly sheep.

Sarah in the stoller. She finally realized I brought her blankeys with us and was pretty happy.

By the sea lions

The meerkats were pretty active and fun to watch.

We had a good time at the zoo. Sarah never wanted to cooperate and get in the pictures with Megan and Joseph. It was a nice enough zoo, but there was ALOT of walking. ALOT. And since it is barely spring some animals were not out yet due to cold weather still, but we still had fun.

That was our great spring break. Now it is time to get back to a schedule and work and school. I enjoy vacations, but there is nothing better than home and all the comforts within.

Sleep

What do you get when you combine a hotel room, with 3 kids, a 2 year old who wakes up at 1:00am (who doesn't go back to sleep until 4:30am and will only sleep on the floor with you laying right next to her), a train track that is a block away and trains that pass by every half hour of the night blowing their loud whistle? A VERY BAD night of no sleep!

This was our 1st night of spring break vacation visiting family. Not so fun. The next night I noticed a large floor fan in the hall of the hotel by our room. I suggested to Brent that we borrow it and see if the noise from the fan helps us sleep and drowns out the noise of the train. (our kids all have fans in their bedrooms for some white noise) So we did....and we did sleep better. It was a nice enough hotel but we will NEVER stay there again!

It was great seeing family and I wish I got more picture but you know how it is sometimes.....You have all kids lined up posing for a fun cousin picture you go to take the picture and it says "change the batteries" !!!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned for more spring break updates....Kansas City here we come!

BIG...HUGE...EXCITING!

We have bunkbeds!!! We ordered them a couple weeks ago and were expecting them at the end of March, after spring break. They came in early and were delivered and set up yesterday! The kids were sooooooo excited. You can see the excitement on Megan's face, Joseph is making a silly face and Sarah is absent in these first few because she was still sleeping.

Climbing up the ladder. The ceiling is not far from the top and the fan and light are a little in the way. Hopefully they will watch out....

Sarah had to watch at the door just about the whole time they put it together. Then she would lay on it, even before the sheets were on and say "night...I need a kiss" I would give her a kiss and she would pretend to sleep. Even though Megan and Joseph are the ones sleeping on it, she loves them just as much.

We just bought new bedspreads today for them and this is the finished product! We also have a new 6 drawer dresser that matches the beds. The great thing about these beds too, they are full over full and when we want we can seperate them and use them as regular full beds!

N-e-v-e-r e-n-d-i-n-g

Scene: it is 4:00pm, all toys are in their proper holding places, floors are vacuumed and mopped, there is a load of laundry in, mom is on the couch (her back hurts), one daughter gets home soon, the other 2 children are watching a movie, dinner soon.
Now it is 5:30pm Scene: toys are ALL over, dinner dishes are getting dirty, mom is tired and thinks "did I just really clean this place and now it is such a mess?!?!"
Forget it......I am never cleaning again!!!!

Scene: it is the next day and mom finds herself picking up more toys and thinking the carpet could stand to be vacuumed. This time thinks "I really need to make the kids clean up this mess and teach them how to vacuum!!"

Story of my life.