Today is the last day of September. Fall has definitely been in the air this week too! We've had some amazing weather and have spent as much time outside as possible. If you come to visit, you'll be able to tell this by looking at the inside of my house. Oh well. I'll get to it one day.
We've done a lot of park days, a lot of walks, a lot of bike riding and even a great zoo day. We love the zoo!! I've actually lost count to how many times we've gone this year. Hoping to get a few more visits in before Winter too. Such a great place! And this last visit seemed especially fantastic. The animals seemed to be enjoying the weather too. They were upfront and friendly with all of us. Performing for us at every opportunity. So cute!

Now the kids are talking about Halloween. Faith keeps saying she wants to be a witch. Caleb was saying he wants to be some sort of Warlock. I think we should do a theme. Faith should be Princess Leia, Caleb could be Darth Vader and Ashley should be Yoda. How cute would that be!??! Caleb excitedly added that I could be Chewbacca if this scenario played out. I didn't ask why he chose Chewbacca. But I did make an appointment to get my hair cut. Perhaps its over due.

On another note... check out Baby Girls shoes!! So cute! These came from my sister Michelle. I squeezed the Chunky into them and this might be the only time she can wear them. We had to squeeze into these jeans too. Sometimes we have to suffer to be cute. Boy is she cute!??!! I love this baby so much. 

Which reminds me... Caleb asked me which kid was my favorite. I explained to him that I love all three of them the same and how even though I worried how I would do that, God made moms and dads special so that this love just grows. It just happens. After my long explanation, he says to me "If you tell me who your favorite kid is, I'll tell you who my favorite parent is." 

Hmmmmm....... I don't know if I want to know that answer. Stinker.

Spaghetti night at our house!

Spaghetti night means....

Happy Baby!

Happy Dog....

That's right. Dad let the dog lick the baby clean. Don't worry, mom gave the baby a bath afterwards. With baby soap and water, no dog tongues. (or anti-bacterial soap) And in case you didn't hear, this is the same dog that licked poop out of Ashley's high chair just yesterday. So. Gross.

Dad slept in- addition to Sick Baby :)

When I took Ashley to the hospital yesterday morning, Jamie and the other two were still snoozing. I waited until after 7am to call Jamie yet he was still sleeping. I found that incredibly odd since I don't ever get to sleep past 7 when I'm home alone! Those two wake up before sunrise!! I called him back at 8:15 and he was still catching up on some zzzz's. I told him I couldn't believe Faith especially was still asleep!
When I got home, I learned that she hadn't been asleep.
She woke up, saw daddy sleeping and ran to Caleb. Our sweet boy kept her in his room so daddy could sleep in a bit. He put cartoons on for her and fed her breakfast. Granted, breakfast turned out to be tic-tacs, but whatever. You get the point. Super sweet kid.
Last night, I finally mustered up the energy to clean the kitchen a small bit. After doing so, Caleb say "Mom. I can't believe you just cleaned the kitchen. You were up all night with Ashley and haven't had any sleep. I'm so sorry. I haven't done anything to help. If you had wanted the sink cleaned, you should have just told me and I would have done it for you."

He is going to make some woman an amazing husband one day. Makes me smile.

Sick Baby

After three kids, the night I saw last night was new to even me. Our sweet Ashley woke up at 11:30 throwing up. This poor baby threw up a total of nine times before her and I headed to the Children's hospital at 5:30 this morning. As I loaded her in the new van, I thought to myself "Well, so much for the new car smell". Turns out, she didn't vomit any more and is doing great this afternoon.
She just had 1 ounce of formula mixed with 1 ounce of pedialyte. She has had 8 ounces of pedialyte and gave me an evil look when I came at her with more so I decided to reintroduce formula. So far so good.
Praying that no one else gets this lovely bug. I do not handle puke well at all. That is actually an understatement. People used to tell me that I would get better when it was my own kid. Not true. I'm still just as grossed out and completely freaked that the very idea of vomit. Really hoping there is no vomit. But I know there will be. With three kids, its almost impossible to not see a little more before the weekend closes.

Jamie took Faith with he and Caleb for Caleb's Lacrosse game. I was bummed to miss his second game but knew Ashley wasn't well enough to be around others and I can't seem to keep my eyes open. He loaded the two in the new van with a portable DVD player for Faith to watch some movies while Caleb played.

He just sent me a text and said "Your daughter failed to mention she didn't have any shoes with her. Had we been in the old car, there would have been two or three pairs in here!"
So regardless, Faith not having shoes appears to be my fault. I can't imagine why this wouldn't be my fault. Makes perfect sense to me.

I needed that laugh.

Cars, Vans and all sorts of fanciness

We are not fancy car people. We are parents which pretty much sucks the fancy right out of you. But lately, we've gone through some cars.
Let's see.... we got married in 1998 and also purchased a Nissan Altima for me. A sensible family far. And since we didn't have a family yet, it made sense. Then in 2005, we decided we needed to upgrade to a mini-van. When I say "we", I mean me. So we got a Dodge Grand Caravan. Of course. Jamie was adament that he would not drive a mini van and would only ride in it if I were riding as well. And he would prefer not driving it. He got over it. And then we had another kid.
Then, we did the unspeakable. We got rid of the mini van in 2010. Faith was almost 3 and we were not having more children.
Wrong.
So my Suzuki XL7 was suddenly way too small for our now huge family and we were once again in the market for a mini-van. (remember the we means me) But after a trip to the zoo last week and the kids fighting the entire way home and driving Jamie and I totally nuts, he told me to make it happen.
Fast forward to today. We made the treck to the car dealership with about 114 snacks, juiceboxes, bottles, video games, books and an endless amount of toys.
And four hours later, we drove off the lot leaving behind a trail of cheerios and fruit snacks along with a lot of men who are most likely thankful that they either have grown children, no children or grand children who only visit on ocassion. We buckled the kids in and were quite pleased to have the space of a mini-van once again. Oh, and its another Dodge Grand Caravan. But a snazzier version of what we had. We have breathing room. And the kids all have their own space.
So we drove home. And Caleb and Faith fought the entire way.

Ashley Marie 8 months old

She won't be 8 months until the 19th but I realize I had a moment now to write a bit about this sweet baby girl. Since I have yet to buy her a baby book like her big brother and sister, this is the only documentation I will have of her existence!
Ashley is so much fun! She is the happiest baby I have ever seen. Well, since Caleb was a baby. She reminds me a lot of Caleb, actually. A lot.
She is crawling every where and just today started doing so with her big ole' belly off the ground. Thank goodness. I'm tired of putting lotion on the poor baby due to rug burn! She is also pulling up on every single object, even the dog.
She has 6 teeth with the 7th about to make its great debut. She uses these teeth to eat every. single. thing that we eat. She is a beast with her food. Cracks us up. Especially since this is the baby that lost so much weight prior to discharge from the hospital and they had me tube feeding her in fear of her not having enough calories. They should check out her chubby thighs now! Girl ain't missing any calories.
She also finds it quite soothing to chew on our furniture. We have been through 2 dogs, 1 cat and 2 kids but this child is ruining every piece of wood furniture we own. There are teeth marks on everything.
Just last night I was discussing arsenic posioning with a friend. We were talking about aresenic found in apple juice (another rant for another time) she reassured me that  my bigger concern should be what she is getting from the wood furniture.

Ashley was an amazing sleeper. She still is, for the most part, but wakes a lot more than an 8 month old should. I don't make it any better since I stink horribly at this part of parenting. Well, I stink horribly at a lot of this parenting gig but this one especially. In the middle of the night, when she is screaming, I think of two things only. #1 being "Holy crap. I am so stinking tired and if this kid doesn't stop crying I'm going to cry too." And #2 being "This is my last baby. I love rocking her when I can hear nothing but her breathing and feel her breath on my chest." Then I cram a bottle in her mouth and rock her back to sleep. One reason is so I can climb back into bed, the other because I know this is such a temporary stage and I know that its the last time I will be up during the night with a crying baby. I feel like crying now thinking about it.

I can't believe this baby is 8 months old. Well, almost. And now my sweet baby is eating the coffee table so my time is up.

My girls

I came across this picture this morning.

This is Faith September 2007. She is 5 months old here.


Then I found this picture.

This is Ashley. She is 6 months in this picture.

The Birdhouse

So a few months ago, during one of my late night feedings with Ashley, I heard strange noises in the wall. I told Jamie about it and he passed it off as my sleep deprivation. After it continued, I expressed my desire to have Billy the Exterminator visit.
Then one morning, I came down stairs and saw this.....

That's right. It's a hole. This hole went from the living room all the way to the outside. I could look out of it and see the trees! I didn't. I was terrified a bird would peck my eyball. And I was terrified one would get in the house and attack my family. Terrified. I completely flipped out. I called Jamie and didn't recieve the same urgency vibe that I felt so I took it upon myself to handle the situaiton. And I fixed the hole.

Jamie says I over reacted. I say I was protecting my children from the disease infested varmits that gnawed their way through our wood siding, 2x4s, insulation and drywall.

And in case you are wondering, its repaired now. By a professional who used more than duct tape. Thanks to our trusty contractor find who remodeled Caleb's room, our birdhouse is no more. Buh Bye Birdies.

Calebisms.

Driving down the highway today, we passed an old school bus. But it had been repurposed and was no longer a school bus. It was a Chiefs Fan bus. It looked as if someone has spray painted this poor bus with a horrible shade of red missing random spots and not adding second coats in others making the red seem more pink. The bus looked as though it had been retired to the junk yard. Perhaps some crazy KC Chiefs fan saw this bus and saw a real gem. But I saw it to be more of a hazard to anyone on board this bus. Once you got passed the spray painting horror, you see the large sign on the side that said BIGGEST KC CHIEFS FAN. Yea. We already got that. Then, as if this sight barreling down 435 wasn't enough, as it passed us, we see the grill that is hanging on to the rear of this bus with a bungee cord. This grill was most likely in the junk yard with the bus. And it was not a tail gating grill. It was a grill. A full size, family mans grill. Rust and all.
Just as Jamie and I were about to burst out in laughter at this site before us, Caleb just made the situation a tad better. From the back seat, he excitedly leaps forward to attention and screams "LOOK! It's the Chiefs bus!" Without missing a beat, Jamie reassures him that he believes the Chiefs bus is probably a little nicer and it might have aircondition and an operating door. He gently let Caleb down.

So Jamie and I held our laughter in order to protect Calebs feelings.

We soon returned to our previous conversation which, of course, was surrounding September 11, 2001. Today is the ten year anniversary and it has been brought up many times today. Caleb, very matter of factly, says "So.... the people that attacked us, were they the Japanese?" BUT.. he pronounced Japanese like you would Chimpanze. Japanzes.

We couldn't hold our laughter any longer. Poor kid.

We did give him the correct information on 9/11. And he is not angry with the Japanese. Or the Japanzes.

September 11th

So earlier, my often air headed 10 year old asks me "Mom, why is everyone making such a big deal about 9-11?" I respond by telling him that its a huge deal. I told him that almost 3,000 people died that day. And I tell him how America was forever changed by these unspeakable acts of terroism. I explain that so many people were forever affected and so many lives were changed all because of this one moment in time.
He looks at me and says "I know all of this, Mom. What I don't understand is why everyone is making a big deal out of it now. Don't people think about this every single day? It seems like we are celebrating something bad that happened and maybe we should do things every day to honor the people who died and show respect to the people who went through so much. It just doesn't seem to make sense to only make a big deal out of it once a year or once every ten years."

Not so air headed.

He actually made me speechless.

Ten years ago, Jamie and I had just moved to California. We had just settled in our tiny, comfortable apartment and were a very happy family of three. Caleb was just over 4 months old. A lot has happened in ten years.
Of all the changes that we've seen personally, the biggest is that 4 month old. He's becoming quite the young man. I couldn't be more proud.

I love being a mom....

This is what we do while we wait on Caleb to return from Lacrosse practice.

And we look so cute doing it!!

Why do we always seem to take several days to recover from long weekends? We had a fabulous Labor Day weekend with cooler temperatures, late night bon fires, a nice bike ride, trip to the park and a visit to the zoo. Of course, I had to drug Jamie, Caleb and Faith with allergy meds after being outdoors for more than five minutes. And Jamie had knee issues walking around at the zoo. And back issues. And I heard a lot of whining about too much walking. But it was fun!!
Caleb had today off school for a teacher in service day. They've only been back to school for three weeks and the teachers needed a day without the kids. Makes sense.
So I told Caleb that we were going to get some chores done this morning. I say "Your room is going to get cleaned really well." His response (totally straight faced) "Sounds great! Who is going to do it?"  The thing is... he wasn't being sarcastic, he really had no idea that I had any intention of making him clean his room. I should have known we were going to have issues since this is how the process began. Trying to get a 10 year old boy to clean his room the way I see appropriate isn't an easy task. Did I mention 10 year old boys are gross?

Faith actually cleaned her room too. She even cleaned the boogers off the wall. I know this because she told me so. The sad thing is, this is not the first time shes told me this. We obviously have a late night habit that I need to find a way of breaking.

Sleep?

I'm tired. I'm not sure if this baby is attempting to make me crazy or if I'm just old. Either way, I'm tired. And she is finally sleeping. At the moment.
Last night was a rough one though. After an hour and a half of her screaming and me attempting every single trick in the book, I finally went in and just rocked her. This was not our first rocking session, but this time I decided to try something different. Wait for it... I took my shirt off and wrapped her in it. A friend of mine had suggested stuffing something of hers down my shirt so it would retain my smell and then let her sleep with it for comfort. In a moment of desperation, I just took my shirt off. So we rocked. She snuggled my shirt and fell asleep so I carefully laid her down. I then walked out of her room, passed my confused husband and into our room where I put on a new shirt, climbed into bed to crash and was then awoken by Faith. Seriously.
So I'm tired. And cranky.
But Ashley is sleeping with my shirt again tonight. Whatever works. Right?

And Caleb is now playing the trumpet. He could either do choir or band this year. He chose band. He and Jamie were "jamming" together earlier. Jamie on his guitar, Caleb on the trumpet.

My ears feel like they are on fire.