Our Family Picture

Faith drew this awesome family picture! Ashley is on the far left, I'm in the top middle with Faith next to me on the top right. Jamie is on the bottom left with an eerie resemblance to Beeker and Caleb next to him. She did such a great job and even drew our mouths sewn shut!!

I'm trying really hard to keep things up to date. But I'm also trying really hard to find time to shower each day. Neither is completely successful.
Let's see.... soccer is back in full swing. Even though Caleb lost his first game, it was so much fun to watch! I love seeing him running up and down the field and trying his very best. So much fun to see! We have soccer practice twice a week and in a couple of weeks Lacrosse practice starts again. So we'll fit that in as well. And Faith starts dance on the 12th. Sweet little Ashley just goes with the flow.

I've been working with Faith on pre-school and she is doing amazingly well. I am beyond proud of what she knows and learns. They are truly like sponges at this age. Its so awesome and so much fun!
We worked on sequencing today. She had to cut out four squares and then glue them onto the paper in the proper order. This particular story was about a family grilling and having a picnic. We had already done one story together so I left her to do this one on her own. When she was finished, she very proudly called for me to show off her work. It was all perfect except for one minor detail. The first picture showed the man putting burgers on the grill, the last picture showed a fire on the grill. I do believe the fire should have been the first but in this house, it often comes after the food is on the grill. So I decided not to say anything.

Faith said to me earlier today, "Mom, if you go a lot of places you learn a lot of things!" I told her she was exactly right. She then says "Mom, you must know a lot about the grocery store."
Nice.

Another week

So we successfully completed the first week of school and it was a good week! Thank goodness. Caleb is thrilled with his teacher and even boasted "I Love Math!".  My heart melted a bit and I did feel a tear in my eye.

I'm starting Pre-school with Faith again. I do it myself in order to keep her with me one more year. One more year. That is just so hard to believe. I'll have a kindergartner and a 6th grader next year. Wow. Okay.. now I'm just getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, I've been making new flash cards for Faith and working on simple math problems. She is such a smart little girl. Its amazing to see! She is really okay knowing her friends are in a classroom for pre-k and she is with her mom. She wasn't sad and that made me happy! She did ask if she could call me Mrs. Teacher.
Her friends have also all joined a soccer team. She isn't able to participate and we are once again reminded what her life will be like and the simple things she will miss out on. But again, she is so strong and is completely okay with it. I had thought I would need to keep it from her but decided that would cause more harm. We talked again about her "special" heart and how she can't do things that her friends can but that they won't always be able to do what she can! She just smiled and nodded. And then asked if she could wear her cheerleader outfit to their game. I love that girl so much!

Ashley is now mobile. I say that with a bit of excitement and a lot of sadness. I know that the baby days are now numbered and soon she won't want to be held because the floor is much more exciting. And I know that soon she will be walking and then running and then I'll be writing about pre-k for her! It all goes by so fast. But for now, we are quite entertained watching her army crawl from place to place. She looks like a wounded soldier attempting to save her self from battle. The grunts she makes while dragging her chubby little body across the floor just makes it all the more funny!

Our house has become quite diverse. Caleb is down stairs playing the Xbox while Faith is dancing around doing cheers and singing and Ashley is huffing and puffing her way over to the dog to try and get a feel of his fur. Such a span of differences. It makes me happy. My kids make me happy. I can't think of many other things that would make this a better life.

Backpacks, Trapper keepers and suds.....

I hated not updating about Caleb's first day of school. It was fabulous, by the way. He's a big fifth grader and says he rules the school! Loving it!
But in my typical, forgetful fashion, I forgot my log on to this site. Ugh. I finally had time to have them send me a reminder for my log on. I'm sure they wish they had a notification that read "here you go, dumbass. Here is your log on information. Again." They were very politically correct though. Thank goodness because after the past few days I've had that might have sent me over the edge.

So Caleb got off to school perfectly great on Monday morning. It always cracks me up how the first couple weeks of school its so easy to get him out the door. Then its a battle each and every day after the "newness" wears off. I guess it doesn't really crack me up though. More like it makes me want to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs. That wouldn't be politically correct either though.
Caleb was adament about getting a new back pack for school. He gets a new one every year. And this drives Jamie crazy. We are not those parents who go out and purchase a whole new wardrobe for our kid to return to school looking like Mr. GQ. He gets new shoes (only because his feet are just a tad smaller than canoes and he NEEDS new shoes) and he gets a couple new shirts. Later, once its cooler, he will get new jeans and winter items. But this too is simply because he needs them and refuses to stop growing. So in my opinion, buying a new back pack each year is not a big deal.
Jamie has a different opinion.
We argue about this every new year. I remind him to "pick his battles" and he reminds me that he can think of better things to spend $30 on. Blah blah blah.
This year, Jamie won. Mainly because I didn't have the energy to battle but it also seemed Caleb didn't have much fight either. He made a few comments about being the ONLY one without a new backpack. Whatever.
At the end of his first day, he excitedly came home to report he didn't want a new back pack, he wanted  trapper keeper. Well, they aren't called trapper keepers now. I don't know what they are called but every time I called it a trapper keeper Caleb gave me that look as if to say I was the dumbest person alive. Which, of course, made me say trapper keeper much more than necessary. I find it fun to make him squirm. I don't get a lot of other entertainment.
Off we went to Target. They didn't have the perfect trapper keeper. We plugged on to Walmart. Nope. Not there either. I suggested Office Max and after an exaggerated eye roll, he agreed to give it a try. Fail. At the end of the evening, the kid ended up finding his dream trapper keeper at Walgreens. Walgreens. Not the place I was imagining doing my back to school shopping at. But whatever. It was cheaper than a backpack and everyone is happy.

Faith tagged along on this trip and kept begging for a Strawberry Shortcake lunch box for when she goes to school. Since she has one more year and I know that Strawberry Shortcake may not make the cut next year, I opted to hold off on any purchases for her. She was quite sad about that. But a couple of stickers made her forget her woes.

Back to my few days of forgetfulness. Maybe I was distracted with my baby starting fifth grade. Or perhaps I was over tired from the 7 month old wanting to play at 3am. Who knows. But on Sunday, after taking my shower, I noted that my hair felt strange. An odd, sticky feeling that I complained about for the majority of the day. Just ask Jamie.
It wasn't until I was getting in bed that I realized what was wrong with my hair. Turns out when I took me shower, I lathered up my hair for a good shampooing and then it slipped my mind to rinse the soap out. That's right, folks. I just left the soap in my hair. Seriously. This is what happens after the third kid. I've heard of this happening after the second too, but regardless, its the kids fault. No doubt about that.
And needless to say, I was already lathered up and ready to go for my shower Monday morning. I guess I saved some time in the end. And surprisingly, Jamie didn't make fun of me quite the way I had thought he would. At least not to my face. Maybe he was afraid of sending me over the edge too. Or maybe he was a little embarrassed for me. I'm over being embarrassed. Like I said, its not my fault. It's the kids.

Summers almost over....

This year is just flying by. It seems life is flying by, really. I remember when I was little and "old" people would say "seems like just yesterday". I would shudder at the very thought of being like them. Well, its happened. Seems like just yesterday....we were starting school for fourth grade. Seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the last day of school.....
Today we pick up my big fifth graders school supplies. I'm one of those moms who buy the supplies from the PTA. I claim to be supporting the PTA but in reality, they save my hide. So instead of battling crowds at big retail stores and finding the best bargains, I pay a small fee and the PTA does it all for me. Nice.

So with a week until school starts we ventured out this weekend to attempt some back to school clothes shopping. Turns out every single other person within a 500 mile radius was thinking like us. All we managed to do was learn that my 10 year old wears a size 9 in mens shoes. We left after that and decided to try again this weekend minus two little girls. This kid also needs new jeans. Size 14. He's 10. And he's almost as tall as I am. Yes, we are accepting donations that will enable us to feed and clothe this rapidly growing boy!!!

Faith and I were supposed to go see Cinderella at Starlight Theater last week. Well, of course, she was sick so we ended up missing the show. After many tears and a very broken heart, I found another production of Cinderella being performed in Leavenworth at a small, historical theater. So she and I had a date night and went on Friday night. After the show, Faith looked at me with those huge blue eyes of hers and said "Best night ever, mommy!"

Its moments like that which remind me what an amazing journey I am on as these kids mom. I'm so grateful that I was chosen to be the one to navigate through life with them.

On another note, Faith has chosen a nick name for Ashley. We all have nicknames. Caleb goes by CJ quite often and Faith has many! Faithers, Faithikins, Faithie... So it seemed only appropriate to have one for sweet little Ashley. We are now calling her Slimy Germy hands.

Slimy Germy Hands is a mere inch away from crawling. She does the whole up on all fours rocking back and fourth and then face plants onto the floor. Even without moving on all fours, she is all over the place. She rolls around like a rolly polly and is pretty content with this method of transportation. She's doing the normal baby things such as seeing the only item in the room that is not okay for her to play with and making that her target. Of course, once she actually gets to it, we move it. We are slowly removing all non-safe items that SGH can get hurt on. We aren't as crazy about baby proofing this time around as we were with Caleb. Not sure if its that we aren't as concerned or if we are just too lazy.

Summers almost over... so I'm going to make this week really count. Each day is a perfect day for making memories so we are going to pack this week full of them! I know soon I'll be saying "Seems like just yesterday my sweet boy was starting fifth grade"......

I'm baaacccckkkk!

After taking a much needed break from blogging, and after much harrassment from friends and family, I've decided to start a new blog. For those of you who remember, our previous blog focussed primarily on Faith. For those of you who are new, I'll bring you up to speed on what life is like now... as a family of five.

That's right. Five. We multiplied yet again. January 19, 2011 we welcomed our sweet little Ashley Marie to our family. Ashley is an amazing baby. She is such an answer to so many prayers and a beautiful completion to our family.

Big Brother Caleb turned 10 in April and is preparing for 5th grade this year. I can't even believe my sweet baby boy is starting his last year at elementary school. I feel like it was only yesterday that I sat in the lobby of that school bawling and sending him off for his first day of Kindergarten. Its truly baffling how fast time just slips by.
Caleb is such a busy kid which means I am a busy mom. He is involved in basketball, soccer, baseball and Lacrosse. And luckily, most of them overlap which sends us in two or three different directions some days! It's all fun though. And we love watching him grow in his athletics! On top of these activities, we are extremely proud that he is a Webelos II and will be crossing over to Boy Scouts in February. He loves all the outdoors that comes along with this journey and is lucky enough to have had his dad see him through every step of the way.

Faith was just a smidge over the moon about becoming a big sister. That is so strange to still say. (or type) My baby girl is a big sister. Just crazy! After praying for 5 years and asking for another baby, this little miracle bounced into our lives. She turned 4 this passed April and is one of the smartest and funniest 4 year olds I know. Even though I'm biased.
We still deal with Faith's heart issues and those concerns are never far from our minds. If you are bored, you can read about that whole ordeal and her diagnosis in our old blog. http://www.babysites.com/sites/faithjanene/default.asp?page=myjournal&seq=1
She is doing beautifully though. Active, strong and stubborn. Great aspects to have with the challenges she is faced with!
She just completed her first year of dance and will be starting again in the Fall. I hope the teacher lets her be the Princess who twirls on the stage like she talks about all of the time.

So that's about where we are now. Crazy. But so happy and the closest thing to perfect I could ever dream of.

I hope to do better with updates on our new family blog so hang in there and be patient with me. We always have something interesting happening in our home and I'm excited to be able to document our memories this way. And I'm excited to be able to share everything with all of our family and friends who live so far away and we miss so very much.