This week’s Shutter Love theme is laughter! How can you narrow down all the great laughing babies/kids pictures for that??? I decided to go with this one, just cause it’s one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, and I just love this kid’s glee in getting to “swing.” 
You can look at other laughing photos by clicking on the button below. Happy Tuesday!
SUMMERTIME, and the livin’ is easy!! 
Here are the pics I mentioned from my P&S camera. Enjoy!
We had a “play date” at the park in town and invited extra little ones to join us. It was a fun day! Here’s our crew starting out.
At the park, oodles of fun!! BTW trying to “keep track” of 6 children amongst so many can be a challenge. At least whenever I looked for mine I simply spied the Lime green! Good tip, dress them the same in a BRIGHT color!
Myles and Benton were swingin’ buddies!
I think my kids would swing the ENTIRE time if I let them. I have to work hard to convince them that something else on the playground would just be SO fun!
The aftermath of a long day of fun!
Our fun-time adventure. The boys are certainly not used to staying up that late. They had a good time though minus the drama that ensued when the lights when out and Qade started screaming at the top of his lungs. He informed me frequently through the rest of summer that “Fun-time is scary!” Ha ha!! And yes, Myles does have 2 fingers up his nose! What in the world???
Another fun “pool play date!” Woo-Hoo!! Gotta have some of that in the summertime!
Finally convinced a couple of them to actually SIT in the water! Ha ha!! Before they were just pouring it on the grass!
Buddies watching Big-Ball! It’s so fun that our kids get to be “camp kids.”
After a busy summer, isn’t this the way we ALL feel? 
I slept in today! Woo-Hoo!!! The lads were going to go to the great-grandparent Noggle’s house today with Daddy and Grandpa for breakfast, but apparently yesterday really wore poor Myles out, and he just couldn’t wake up. Qade went though and polished off 3 pancakes along with other stuff I’m sure! They all had a good time working on cutting up some trees for Grandpa “Junior” and Qade kept Grandma “Pat” entertained, and even managed to stay dry!! Yay!!
We’ve been digressing in our potty training on the weekends for some reason. Actually just on Saturdays! Hmmm… strange. But today has been good so far, so I’ll keep knocking on wood and maybe it’ll keep improving. Surely!
Stuart has managed to “catch” a bug and isn’t feeling so swift today. Poor guy! It’s not surprising really with him now teaching full time and coming into contact with all manner of ickies in the form of high school students. I was just hoping it wouldn’t start so soon!! Anyway, he and the lads are having a nice afternoon nap that will hopefully help him feel better. He STILL went over to Grandpa’s to cut trees and still has plans for pulling down a couple around our house that have “got dead” in the last year. Doesn’t like to cut himself any slack. I told you that he comes from a long line of “non-relaxers” after all, right?
I’m going to eat an almond snickers here soon. I just pulled in out of the freezer where I had forgotten it’s been living for awhile. But I found it today and am completely going to enjoy it!
Baby girl is causing lots of heartburn recently. Last night I woke up twice and had to take Tums. *sigh* Not fun! Supposedly that’s going to mean that she’ll have a lot of hair. I thought that was just a myth, but my mom recently told me that she was watching this show called “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” (which totally boggles my mind that they could find enough people in that situation to actually make a show of it!) and they do pregnancy trivia questions at the breaks. Anyway, apparently the indigestion= hair myth is actually TRUE! Though it makes me wonder about where the “facts” come from, cause I can’t imagine HOW in the world there could be a connection.
Myles and I went through and organized the boy’s clothes this morning while the rest of the “men folk” were working. Grandma Noggle brought over a couple of bags for the boys with all her bargain finds! So we had fun!! I pulled out all the clothes that they will need for this Fall/Winter and put them in the drawers, still leaving plenty of the shorts and t-shirts for the rest of the hot days.
I had just an inkling of that Fall-fun feeling as I was looking at long pants and sweatshirts. It was fleeting though. Sad in a way because Autumn has ALWAYS been my favorite time of year ever since I was very young. I’m not looking forward to it this year though. Last winter and the subsequent LATE spring and LONG “mud season” was rough for me. I think it’s honestly the closest I can recall to really being depressed. Ugh! I don’t even like to think about it, and I certainly don’t want to relive it!! The short, cold days with less sun aren’t even remotely appealing right now. Our house tends to take on a “cave like” quality when I’m shut up inside for long stretches and then with the constant mud it was nearly impossible to get the lads out for even a little outside time. BUT I should be hopeful. No two years are the same, so maybe this time it won’t be SO bad. I still want to enjoy Fall, I’m just really not ready for it yet. Summer flew by far too fast for my liking.
I’m refreshing my memory on the E.A.S.Y. routine from the Baby Whisperer before our Lass shows up. I’m a huge fan of structure and routine for the health and sanity of all kids, regardless of age, and for the parents as well. I appreciate this one the best of the books I’ve read because it stresses the point of it being a routine and not a schedule. Trying to put an infant “on the clock” and make them mold to that seems rediculous to me, but hey, if it worked for you then hurray!! Whenever I ‘recommend’ any parenting book to people who are asking, I always throw a caveat in there about how there are SOME or even MANY things that are good in such-n-such a book, but that you really have to be discerning and eat the meat while throwing away the bones. And something that may be a “bone” for me, may be “meat” for you. There’s no way you can take different children from different families with different personalities and force them all to comply to the same “method” and have it work. No way, Jose!! I mean, things work differently for each of my own children even. Just a little rant there. I “take issue” though usually not outwardly, to parents who have a “we’ve got it all figured out” attitude and when asked about it they proudly produce some “miracle method” that they adopted from some HUMAN and have attributed all of the “success” they have with their children to it. I’ve seen it tried, and I’ve seen it fail, and I’ve seen “perfect” families crumble to ruins still doing their utmost to cling to the “method” that will ensure they have perfect kids. Yikes!! Parenting can be a daunting task, and I believe that we need to seek wisdom from people who’ve been there and who’s kids have “turned out” well. More importantly though is spending time in prayer for our children and for wisdom from God to know how to reach them with the truths of His Word.
And that was all totally free. I told you sometimes my fingers run away with me.
I’m sure my snickers is defrosted enough to chomp by now, and I’m equally as sure that you’re probably tired of reading this exorbitantly long blog post. So I shall go for now. I had some pics that I wanted to share to keep that summertime feeling alive, but they aren’t uploading very quickly, so you’ll have to wait. Sorry.
Happy Weekend!
This weekend would be a great time for lil baby to make her debut since Stu’s parents are here to “ride herd” should we need to go to the hospital. That means it’s almost a given that she won’t show up. Not to be pessimistic but it’s how I roll. Ha ha! No problem. I don’t mind “baking” her a bit longer. I was reminded today of some of the consequences of babies showing up early. It’s the 2 year birthday for a friend of mine’s son who was born premature. He is a healthy happy boy doing so well, thank you, Jesus, but as she said herself it’s been a roller coaster ride. I remember the updates from her little boy as one day he just spontaneously stopped breathing just weeks after they had him home. She said it was the fastest she’s ever removed a child from a car seat! Thankfully doctors were able to help him and cope with the situations, but he had to be on oxygen for most of these past 2 years and has only in the past few months been able to stop using it at night. God is still good in every situation, but I’m sure had that mommy been given a choice she would have preferred to “cook” the little one a bit longer than to have to be under constant anxiety for him in one way or another over the past 2 years. So even though I’m impatient, I’ll be content to wait a bit longer and hopefully have a ‘fully baked’ baby when the time comes. Isn’t it just so easy to get ahead of ourselves, or worse ahead of God?? Just a thought.
I wasn’t intending to wax elloquent, but sometimes when I sit down to type a post, things just flow from my brain and leak out of my fingers as I type without even realizing it! Nice little word picture for ya there.
Today my amazing MIL brought me the “tub” of little girl clothes that she has been collecting from the clearance racks of various stores. We both agree that shopping for little girls is WAY FUN! So we had our own little “shower” of 2 and I got to Oooo and Awww over the cute clothes, with random comments al la Danielle tossed in as well. I suppose I should get used to little girl chatter! Anyway, that wasn’t the ONLY fun we had around here with “Grandma Noggle” as all the kids were calling her! She took all 4 (brave woman, but then she’s a teacher, she knows kids!) for a walk and then for playtime outside. Yay!!! An unexpected little break in the day for MOI!!!
I took full advantage of the break too, and managed to get the laundry well on it’s way, dishes loaded, and floors swept! Can I tell you how SHOCKED I have been at how having 2 extra little bodies eating at our table has added significantly to the mess??? I shouldn’t be surprised, because my own two can really lay it down, but I have to say the carnage under that table by the end of lunch is monumental!!! Especially on “Ramen Days.” Those noodles really get away from little utensils and fingers. But it’s all good! Most of the time our morning snack is eaten outside, brilliant, Rachel! And as often as possible I’ve been giving them their afternoon snack out there as well. Hey, there are a couple of hungry ground squirrels and about a gazillion ants that can make use of the “mess” that the kids may leave behind. Myles biggest issues is when he falls down and gets dirt on his crackers or whatever then makes his way over to me to request that I, “Wash it!” ha ha ha!! I mean, why does it bother him?? He puts dirt and sticks and rocks in his mouth on PURPOSE most of the time, why should a little organic stuff on his peanut butter cracker upset the lad?? Don’t know, but it humors me!
I’m baking bread today. Stuart loves my homemade Hawaiian bread, and I like it too!! I pretty much got lazy and gave up baking it while I was pregnant, so my poor man had to go back to eating the sub-par store bought stuff. I’m trying to make up for it now though and have some always on hand to make his lunch with. I didn’t do so well this week though so today I’m making DOUBLE. That’s 8 loaves!!! Should last us a little while anyway. I’ll keep em’ in the freezer and take it out as needed, but thought I should get a jump on it “just in case” our little Darlin’ shows up sometime soon. (Not impatient though, I say!) I also have 2 bananas that are begging to be made into banana bread because the fruit flies are driving them (and me) crazy!!! So I will likely do that this afternoon once the monkeys are all up from their naps. Don’t want to use the mixer or anything loud that my deprive me of a few moments freedom from “how come?’s” and “why?’s” and the like. Ahhhhhh, don’t you love Fridays??
I have a little confession to make. I’ve been informed, several times, by Danielle’s mom (and her) that she is an extremely picky eater. She told me from the get-go that she “doesn’t eat crusts” on her sandwiches. Hmmm…. well, I refused from the get-go to take them off for her, so she has been leaving them on her plate, along with what I consider a significant portion of the sandwich. This bugged me… don’t ask me why, but my frugal side just got it’s dander up to see her toss away all that FOOD! Ha ha ha!! Since the girls have been coming over, I dole out cookies (usually vanilla wafers) at the end of lunch to the children who have FINISHED their food. Well, at first I was giving our picky one cookies as well even if she left her crusts. Today, I decided enough was enough! I don’t give cookies to my own kids when they leave food, even Myles who went to nap today with a major case of meltdown because he didn’t get a cookie, but refused to eat his sandwich! So I told Danielle that she should ‘try’ her crusts because she might like them. After all it was MY faaaaavorite part of the sandwich (which IS true, BTW). She replied that she ‘doesn’t like crusts’ and I told her that it was fine if she left them, but she wouldn’t be getting a cookie because we would like to stop wasting food. Hee hee hee….. Guess what happened. She ATE all of her crusts and DECLARED that she liked them!!! I praised her to the skies, gave her a fist bump AND a cookie. Hey LITTLE girls are not the ONLY ones good at manipulation.
Happy weekend all!!
It’s Frrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiidaaaaaaaay!! Woo-Hooooooo!! No one in this house is excited about it, I’ll tell ya that.
I had a hard time with this week’s fix-it photo. The longer I worked on it the more the child’s expression just made me feel sad! Plus it was pretty blown out so there were limits on what I could do with my limited editing knowledge. Still, I came up with some “fixes” though I don’t know if they made it better-er or worse-er! Ha! I ended up having fun though, so that’s what counts. I generally use the program Aperture when I’m editing. It makes it simpler for me to not have to deal with layers, though as I worked on this photo I thought I probably should have used my layer editing program instead. Oh well.
Here is the original image:
My first edit:
Second edit:
And just for fun!
I seem to have a hard time getting the code for the iheartfaces buttons. But you can click on the link and it’ll at least take you to their page if you want to see more edits.
So this is what my foggy brain is working through, and my lagging energies are attempting to accomplish today.
1. Clean and sanitize CHECK
. Bottles and baby items
. Pump
2. Finish packing hospital bag
. Pack Baby’s diaper bag CHECK
3. Finish sanding Baby’s dresser (Unfortunately I can’t seem to find the correct grit sand paper disks so I wasn’t able to work on this while we were “playing” outside this morning. Very frustrating!)
4. Set up Pack n Play and Feeding station w/ rocking chair upstairs. (I haven’t done this yet because I was working on….)
5. Clean infant car seat and Pack N Play Mattress CHECK (Have any of you scrubbed a pack n play mattress before?? I probably wouldn’t have had to do it except that I neglected to make sure there was always a sheet on it while Myles was using it at camp. And you remember me talking about how dirty he got EVERY day, right?? I never did get sheets that were meant to fit that thing, so today I’m going to measure it and make sure I have a couple. Trust me it’s easier to clean the sheets than it is to clean the mattress!! Still I’m pleased that it’s done, and think that I at least made somewhat of an improvement in it. And the car seat, well, it had been leant to my nearly-nephew for his trip to Canada and around AZ last year. I forgot what a burbler he was, but I was reminded when I took the car seat cover off! Whew!! Old baby burble really smells gross, just so ya know. It’s all clean and sparkling now though. The mattress and the seat are sitting outside drying and once that’s done I’ll….)
6. Find bassinet attachment and baby blankets in cellar (Then I can get it all set up in our room)
7. Re-thread car seat belts and car seat cover. (There was a huge drama over this task the first time I took the seat apart to clean it when we just had Qade. For some reason this particular seat is EXCESSIVELY hard to rethread. I’m hoping that some of my acquired “mom skilz” will pay off this time around and I won’t have to resort to screaming and cursing. Ha ha!)
8. Put Baby’s clothes in bins according to age (because I obviously don’t have the dresser done and am tired of her little clothes, cute though they be, piled up all over the house!!!)
So there you have it. At least the parts that I have thought of yet. As you can see there are very FEW check marks which means that I still have a LOT of loose ends. Loose ends are a bane in my life. I get to the point where I just can’t concentrate on any one job because so many of the other taks’s loose ends are flying around in my brain. Not to mention my brain is just bad enough right now on it’s own. Things are starting to come together a little bit though, and I’m sure with some effort on my side I can check several of these off before I go to bed tonight.
Speaking of bed, pray for me if you think of it. I’ve been sleeping lousy, no surprise there, for the last quite some time, and it does take a toll. I think it one of the cruelest tricks in nature to not allow you to sleep BEFORE the baby comes, cause it’s quite certain that you won’t be doing much sleeping after! Ha ha!! Anyway, I am ready for little girl to arrive, but have to remind myself that the “deal” I first made with her was to come Labor Day weekend. *Sigh* So I guess I’ll hold out for another week and hope she remembers her end of the deal!
Happy Lime Green Thursday!
Some conversations are just too embarrassing for mommy to put down for all the world to see. Especially when the lads have to get toted to Mommy’s doctor’s visits!;-) But some are very sweet and others are very funny, or even both! I’ll share one of todays pre-nap conversations for your own amusement!
Qade and I started this little thing at camp this summer where I will lightly rub his arm from his wrist to his elbow. He often will come sit on my lap with a, “Tickle my arm and my elbow, please” request. On his right arm there is a tiny lighter colored dot that is his birth mark. He will ask me about this mark many times even though the answer is always the same.
Q: Where is my birth-mawk?
M: On your arm, right there.
Q: When did I get it?
M: When you were born, it’s your birthmark.
Q: I’m going to get born again!
M: You’re what?
Q: I’m going to get born again in your tummy.
M: (Laughing) No, you can’t get in mommy’s tummy, you’re too big!
Q: Is my baby sister bigger?
M: Yes, she’s getting bigger.
Q: Can she come out yet?
M: Soon she will.
It humored me that Qade, on his own, used the phrase “born again.” It’s something that he’s been talking about ever since I told him that there was a baby in my tummy. He seems to think that somehow he can be a “baby” again and be born again. He has mentioned it several times that when he is a baby he’ll do such-n-such. It’s cute! I also told him that the baby in my tummy had to grow and get bigger and then she would come out and live at home with us. That’s why periodically he will ask if the baby is “bigger” yet. I have a feeling he is going to do well with being a big bro x 2!
Hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday! Toodles!
Okay, so I certainly think this is better, though I’m still not convinced it’s “the fix” but it’s a start perhaps. Hmmmmm…. life can be so complicated! I’m working on adjusting my mental picture of what I expected this room to look like, but it might take a little while.
I need serious help here from my creative friends. These “dots” just are not working out as nicely as I anticipated. *sigh* The biggest problem with these right now I think is the size. I really was expecting larger dots. I told you I was putting them up with sticky-tac and that’s good because I’ve already moved them around. At first I was going to try them on two walls. Here are the photos. Keep in mind that because they aren’t actually “stuck” up there yet some of them are kinda curled. It looks even worse on these photos than in real life. I have no idea what I’m going to do!!
But it looked like a room with a bad case of chicken pox or something. They just aren’t big enough to cover that much space. So I took them all and put them on this one wall. Now there’s a big blank spot because that’s where the dresser and a Giraffe poster is going to go. Still, they just don’t look good to me.
So I’m begging for any suggestions or insight some of you may have on this, and in the mean time I’m going to leave a negative feedback on Amazon for these, because it’s really quite pathetic in my way of thinking!!
Well, I’ve decreed that this week is going to be a “non-school” week in order for me to get a little bit more done around here. I will be providing the basics of child care (which around here consists of making sure no one gets clobbered or bossed to death) and then attempting along the way to get the baby stuff DONE!! This past weekend just wasn’t long enough for me to complete my more-than-I-can-chew list, sadly.
Today while the munchkins were playing outside and between crises I continued to work on sanding the dresser. Believe me there were an abominable number of crisis to deal with today. Good grief. I can only sand with the compressor for probably less than a min before I have to let it rest, and it seemed that each time I lifted my head SOMEONE was crying or screaming. My goodness!! Nap time is a very welcome friend today! I have 3 more drawers to sand, and then I need to go over it all again with a finer grit sandpaper. I’m hoping I can get the drawers done this afternoon and start on the second sanding by tomorrow. In the mean time I’m going to fill some rubbermades with some of the baby clothes we have so that I can start to make sense of things. Right now everything that is SUPPOSED to end up in little girl’s room is strewn about the “family” room in no particular order. Living in upheaval makes me kind of crazy!
Also on my list of things to do today is wash what’s left of the newborn stuff and a few items that have been given me. I realized yesterday that I hadn’t dug out any of the burp clothes and such that were so much of a necessity with my very spit-upy baby boys! I nearly panicked when the thought occurred to me! Ha ha ha! Never mind that I don’t have a “bag” packed for the hospital or that I haven’t cleaned the pack n’ play and found the bassinet attachment yet, if I don’t have burp cloths ready we’re in BIG trouble!! I was so SURE that she was going to decide to make her debut last night simply because I wasn’t READY!! Ha ha ha!! And even though I felt totally panicked, instead of getting up and doing all that stuff all night long (which might have prompted her arrival) I just rolled over in bed and made a “decision” that today (and the rest of the week) would be “get ready for baby time.” Do you ever crack yourself up? It amuses me how spotty my common sense can be sometimes. Especially with the added benefit of mommy and pregnancy brain! So I’m in the process of packing my bag today as well. We’ll see what happens with the pack n’ play.
While I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my two lads in tow after my appt yesterday I had another of those “panic” moments… don’t ask me why this is happening, I’m not usually so hyper. This time it was about the fact that we have NO girl blankets!! I had this vision in my head that our sweet darling little girl would have to come home from the hospital swaddled up in one of her brother’s blue blankets! Wouldn’t that just scar her for life? Well, I saw a couple fleece blankets for $4 so now I can rest easy knowing that she has at least 2 pink blankets! Ha ha ha!!! Oh well, I have no excuse for myself really. I have insane moments now and then, and I’m sure that I’m probably not the only one.
I’m working today too on putting up the “dots” in baby girl’s room. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed in them. There are 72 or something like that of them, but MOST of those are teeny-tiny ones. *sigh* So I’ve cut them all out and am now putting them up with sticky-tac in order to be able to move them around. I have to see how it’s going to look before I commit to actually peeling-and-sticking them on the wall. Hopefully Stu will be able to advise me tonight when he’s home. I’d rather not order more, but if it comes down to it, I suppose I will rather than hate the walls that I’ve been so excited about. Oh the crisis of life! I’m quite humored actually!
Hope you are having an equally hilarious day!