Send-off fun

Mom went back to Haiti this past week. You can follow her journey at lorihaiti.com. She is also posting on Instagram as lorihaiti.

Last weekend we spent time with our family as sort of a "goodbye party." Mom and I took the boys to Bass Pro to visit the fishes and the turtles (Benny's request) and climb on the boats and stuff. Then we took them to pizza house for a good old fashioned Springfield, MO lunch. On Sunday we had a party at the 'rents house to send her off.

She is only going to be gone a month this time, but we already miss her very much. Some pics from last weekend:

Facebook stories

Sometimes when my kids do something funny, I post the story on Facebook. Usually the funny things they do are impossible to explain, since thy involve physical comedy. I'm putting pictures of some of my fave Facebook posts here to keep them for posterity sake.

Updates

Posted some updates to the blog today, when I realized that I hadn't posted since November. I am trying to keep this blog to help me remember things, and wanted to share some of our stories.

Mood swings

Last Monday it was really warm outside, so we had a little bonfire at dinner time. Cooked hotdogs for dinner over the fire and ate them outside. Very fun for little boys, right? Ok, so the boys were having lots and lots of fun. Then Benny decided he wanted to go inside and watch cartoons. I said, "yes, you can watch your cartoons, but first you need to take a bath." He immediately went from giggling to crying hysterically. In the middle of his fit, I reached for my phone to take a picture of his very sad face (because I am a kind and compassionate mom).

And, now, here is the sequence of events:

Hunter the artist

Below is a picture that Hunter started yesterday at preschool. I posted a picture of just his name last night because it was so impressive. He finished the picture this morning, and told me the story. I will paraphrase:

This is a blue sky with a black storm cloud, it's stormy and cold. There is a bright sun. He drew our family. To the left is uncle Ray. I asked him "who usually comes with uncle ray" and he said "well, uncle Zak, but he isn't in the picture." (I was actually going for Aunt Anjalesa, but whatever) Ok, so next is his daddy, who is wearing a hat and mittens. They are different colors because he likes both purple and green. Next is Hunter, then mommy, mommy has short purple hair because she is a girl, but is also wearing a hat and mittens. Next is Benny with a flower for mommy that he picked.

I sure love that kid.

10 things my kids taught me

Life is pretty stressful right now, with work very busy, holiday travel and the like...just thought I would take a few minutes to reflect on the lessons my kids have taught me. Sometimes it is fun to record these things as I think of them, and I have been keeping this list on my iPhone notes as I think of them. I have 10 now, so here you go, blog:

1 - no matter what happens, if you do not need to be up early, the kids will bounce into your room starting at 6 am, but if you need to be somewhere at any point in the morning, you will have to drag at least one (if not both) of your children out of bed.

2-kids generally repeat what they see, and very rarely do as they are told. If what they see modeled for them is contradictory to what they are told, they will copycat what they see. My kids have good manners and short tempers. At least it helps me identify my own bad habits.

3-I can survive, and even function fairly well on no sleep.

4-as your family grows, love multiplies for all its members, including the new one. It's quite a miracle.

5 - if I have a kid who is super grumpy, it is probably hunger. If feeding doesn't work, the bathtub probably will. If not, call a grandparent, that's what they are for.

6 - if my kid eats a diet of only fruit snacks, grapes, Mac n cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, string cheese, and drinks instant breakfast, I can make it all better by making sure he takes his gummy vitamins at bedtime. I would have balked at that entire sentence about 5 years ago, now I LIVE IT!

7 - no matter what the parenting books or other people say, there is nothing that can beat a mom's intuition. The times as a parent I questioned my intuition, and followed something else, things didn't go quite right.

8 - the more time I spend with my kids, the more I want to spend time with them. The less time I spend with them, the less patience I have.

9 - potty training happens when it happens. The more stressed out everybody gets about it, the harder it is.

10 - kids grow up too fast.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!!!

I decided to decorate for Christmas this year right after Halloween was over. That is TODAY!!! I absolutely love the way my house feels and looks during the Christmas season and want to enjoy it for 2 months this year.

Very exciting!

I ordered a new (bigger) tree from amazon, which isn't here yet, but I set up our old one in the basement. Other than that, our halls are decked.

There are not words for how excited this makes me!!!