Morning at the park

The little boys and I had some free time this morning while Brandon was at his testing so we went to the Sports Complex to enjoy the park.  It was only 45 degrees though so it got a bit chilly.  Logon had to put on Austin's coat that was in the car and Austin had to put his spring coat over his sweatshirt...BUT they had LOTS of fun.

 

Afterwards we went to L& M Fleet Supply to check out the baby chicks....now only if I could get Dave to let me have some.  The meat chicks are only .99 Cents each...of course there ain't much meat on them yet!

Logan and Austin were deep in conversation about their super heros...specifically Batman, Robin, Bat Girl and Wonder Woman.

Austin: "wonnerwomangirl can't hold big house up, only little house"

Logan: "what, I can't understand you."

Austin:wonnerwomangirl can't hold big houses up, only little ones"

Logan: "STOP SPEAKING CHINESE, I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT!"

"SLOPPY JOES?! NEVER!"

Apparently Logan has something against Sloppy Joes. When I told him we were having sloppy joes for dinner, he said, "can I have lunch instead?". No, you cannot have lunch, I am making dinner and we are eating sloppy joes.

"Sloppy Joes?! NEVER!"

After I forced him to take at least 1 bite, he said he would but would never eat them again. After one bite, came another and another. Mmmm, those sloppy joes aren't so bad, now are they?

(Yes, we eat shirtless. No shoes either. We are rebels like that.)

He did pretty good for saying he would never eat them!

Kids say the funniest things!

At the Musk Ox Farm on Mothers Day.

Logan is the one smack dab in the middle of this picture.

Me: "Logan, you look so much like your daddy!"

Logan: "well, you look like a boot. An old lumpy boot."



Me: "gee, thanks."



I sure do love that kid! Even if he says I look like an old lumpy boot.

Easter Eggs

We colored Easter Eggs for the 2nd time this week.

All the eggs from the first batch got eaten up.

Here is Logan with the bowl of freshly colored eggs.

And Austin, our main egg eater.

And Brandon, getting creative with crayons.

Musical mattresses

Toddler beds: Pros - lightweight, cheap, convenient. Cons - lightweight, don't last til they are 18, easily movable by even the wimpiest of toddlers.

Logan does not like sleeping in his own room by himself, so he often will drag his mattress over to our room and sleep there. Well, Austin is in that "monkey see, monkey do" phase and decided he wanted to drag his mattress over too. He sleeps with us everynight still but he still has his own toddler bed in their shared room. Once they got their mattresses all set up next to our bed, they weren't exactly in the mood to close their eyes and go to sleep, so I had to keep telling them to go to sleep. They didn't, so I kicked them out of my room. I told them to take their mattresses and go sleep in their own room.

Logan: "I AM NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER SLEEPING IN YOUR ROOM AGAIN!" (There might have been a few more "evers" but you get the picture.)

Austin: "ever, ever in your room." (The monkey hear, monkey do syndrome.)

Dave: "wow, that was easy! Think they will keep their word?"

They grab their respective mattresses and proceed to attempt to stomp out of our room in a huff, well Austin can't wrangle his fast enough, so.....

Logan: "Austin, move OUT of the way!"

Austin: "YOU ELP ME!"

Logan: "I think we can fit a tow truck in here."

They finally get their mattresses back into their own room and they don't want to sleep on top of them, they want to sleep under them. Dave and I were laughing hysterically by this point, so I had to get up and get a few pictures.

Austin attempting to get his mattress set up to sleep under it.

Logan underneath his mattress.

This was all good and fine, until Austin thought it would be much funner to jump on top of Logans mattress. Logan was not happy when he got pinned underneath. I went back to bed...Austin followed asking for "ma-nahs" and then Logan came back, with his mattress in tow, to our room.

10 minutes later, all was quiet.

Cookie Time!

YAY! Its time to decorate cookies!! (I fully expect a huge mess.)

Lots of yummy, sticky frosting!

LOTS of yummy sprinkles, too!


And last, but not least, you have to lick the knife!!
Makes me wonder who licks the knife in the bakery?

Austin and Logan had a blast decorating cookies. They both decided that daddy needed more than a couple nicely decorated cookies too. Logan served his up to daddy, daddy ate them willingly. Then Austin got off his chair with plate in hand and promptly fell, 1 cookie landed on the floor. Upside down. I helped him pick it up and said it would be just fine. (I am the only one who saw!) He then tripped again and 2 cookies landed on the floor. I helped him pick them up again and said, "they will be just fine" and then Austin headed straight for daddy with his fine confections and said they were all for daddy. I laughed! Hard!

Safety first!

For some reason, whenever daddy drives, both boys INSIST on wearing some form of head protection. :o)

We had an issue with our septic so we ended up renting a small excavator so Dave could fix it. The boys LOVE riding with daddy and most of the time fall asleep.

This time Austin fell asleep. Thats Pioneer Peak out there above the trees.

Logan looks a tad bit uncomfortable as Austin rests on him.

Brotherly love....or not.

Austin's favorite past time is stealing whatever it is that Logan has. I don't even think he really wants to play with it, he just wants to steal it and hear Logan scream and give chase. Austin will run, grinning from ear to ear as he looks back at Logan screaming and crying. If Austin can get a parent to chase him too, its even more fun. Anyway, Austin unsuccessfully tried to steal Logan's new book. Logan gave up a good fight and won.

If Logan isn't fighting off Austin, he is helping Austin fight off Kallie who is also a toy thief extraordinaire. She often takes toys from Austin, of course Austin also equally steals from Kallie too.

Since its Logan's Day....funny picture

Logan fell asleep as he was getting up onto the couch. Man that is hard work!

Logan's Birthday Party

The pictures are sorta in reverse order. Anyway the first one is after he opened presents and we are doing the whole cake and singing thing. The race car helmet was fitting I guess. The last one is of the food. Showcasing the race car sub sandwiches. What an awesome idea my mother-in-law had with that. We had a great time. Logan enjoyed his day and his presents.

Logan's birthday cake

Here is Logan's race car cake. I am pretty proud of how well it turned out. I have been preparing the red and black frosting since Thursday and Fri to get them dark enough. So they sat on my counters in bowls and I just stirred them occasionally. It worked great. I guess that is the trick to the deep colors. If I had not prepared them in advance, they would have been purple and pink, just like what happened with Brandon's last birthday cake....my bad! I will post pictures of Logan at his party soon.

Logan got his birthday presents from Grandma Denise!

Logan's birthday is tomorrow, December 21st., but Grandma Denise sent her package and it got here 2 days early so I just went ahead and let him open it. He yelled out, "TRACTOR!" right when he saw it. He was so excited. He got a John Deere remote control tractor with a little dude that rides along and a pickup truck and trailer, a skidsteer and a backhoe. He LOVES his birthday presents. THANK YOU GRANDMA DENISE, I LOVE YOU!! Love, Logan.

P.S. Nevermind my grubby looking hair, I just got back from the gym and was all sweaty!

Misc things...

Homeschooling is going great! Much better than I anticipated. I think Brandon is enjoying it too. He especially likes getting done with school before his sisters get home for the day. He works hard to accomplish that and brags about when he finished. He is also enjoying his Tang Soo Do (Martial Arts) and gets to do that 2 times a week. He will start beginning Band next week and wants to play the drums (yay me!). Logan and Austin enjoy having their big brother home all day with them. Brandon does his "recess" time with Logan.

Speaking of Logan, he is slowly getting better at potty training. Right away this morning I got him to sit on his potty and he went right away. He had a dry diaper so I am guessing he had a full bladder. He was excited when we clapped for him and he got his candy. Austin likes the attention he gets when he is sitting on the potty, so has started to sit on it and show more interest. He is not aware of the candy incentive though, which is a good thing.

Speaking of Austin, he doesn't much care for when people leave him to head outside or downstairs. He will yell and scream and eventually throw (actually gently set himself) on the floor and throw a mini-tantrum. He gets his little feelers hurt so easily and wants to be included in what everyone else is doing. He especially gets upset of the girls head downstairs and don't take him with. Autumn will occasionally take him with her so he at least feels included.

Speaking of Autumn, we went on a horse ride tonight with Sue. It was a lot of fun and both the horse I was riding and Sue was riding had foals with them. We had these 2 babies scampering through the woods with us and then they would slow down and eat and play and then shoot up past us again. I really like riding and wish I could do it more often. Kristen babysat the boys until Dave got home when we left.

Speaking of Kristen, she is excited about the school year and making new friends. Her guidance counselor at school says she cannot work on her other classes to graduate early until she finishes and passes her current classes. It kinda takes the pressure off so the earliest she would be done is this summer or next December. Either way she is excited to be able to finish early. So far her classes are all going good this year and she is meeting new people. I really hope and pray she meets some good quality people so her year is more enjoyable!! She got her permit a week ago and will hopefully test for her license in about 6 months, then she can drive and Dave and I won't have to transport her and Autumn to school.

Speaking of Dave, I haven't seen my husband since I have been home tonight cause he is upstairs....I suppose I should mosey on up and find him. Later dudes!

Austin potty success....yes I said Austin!

Well...maybe Austin will teach Logan how go potty like a big boy! Austin peed on the potty chair last night right after I put him on it. We all got excited and clapped. Austin didn't care, he just wanted to put his foot in it.

So far today Logan peed in his diaper before I could get him on the potty. I still let him sit there for a while just in case. Then I put him in underwear and not more than 5 minutes later, he peed in those. I again let him sit on the potty and he is now in a clean pair of undies. I am guessing the next episode will contain poop and I am NOT looking forward to that.

Potty training is so haaaard! (In the most annoying Fran Drescher voice possible)
ETA: Nope, not poop - more pee again!! Geez, it was just 6 minutes ago that he peed in the last underwear. Either this kid has a tiny bladder or he holds it for clean undies.
I wonder if it would be considered child abuse if I just had him sit on the toilet all day and fed him there?

Forgot to mention....

Logan is no longer nursing! I had been telling him in MN that when we get home he won't need "MaNa's" anymore and he will start to potty train too. Well the last time he nursed was August 6th, the night before we left MN for home. Its been 10 days now without nursing and he is doing great. He has asked for it on occasion, but no huge fits or anything.

A few days after we got home and he was asking to nurse I bribed him with a fish. So Logan is the new proud owner of a goldfish (#2 cause the 1st one fell asleep permanently!). He feeds his fish everyday. He doesn't tend to spend too much time other than feeding it though....I guess its just kinda boring when you can't hold it and feed it 12 times daily. Like I said, we are on fish #2. Our first fish feel asleep a day after the fishy warranty expired. Had I known it was sick and gonna die, I may have hastened its expiration in order to get it replaced for free. Instead I paid 10 cents for a feeder goldfish that most closely resembled the deceased one. Good thing Logan is only 2. I was able to do the switcheroo on him without him even noticing.

About the potty training....not going so well. He will sit on the toilet for what seems like hours, get off and get his underwear back on and then proceed to wet them or poop in them. He of course lets me know AFTER the fact. I have even tried bribing with candy and so far he hasn't earned any. I have to admit I am not all that consistent with it so far and have let him wear diapers 64% of the time. I am just hoping one of these days when we try again, it will be the magic day. Maybe I need to buy him his own kiddie toilet. Right now we just have the little padded kid seat we place over the regular toilet seat. If there is anyone out there with suggestions, please share. We have stickers and candy as well as fun underwear.

After over 2 1/2 yrs, my boobs are not all that tough!

I still have not gotten the whole "latch" thing down while nursing at night....especially with those big chompers my kids have! Holy cow it can be quite "eye popping" when Austin wants to nurse at night and I am all relaxed and partially asleep and the latch is just NOT right. Hurts like you-know-what! Its hard to see where his head is in relation to my boob when it is pitch black dark in the room too. In the beginning of the night when he is just falling asleep, he is fond of going back and forth too. He pulls off and rolls over, only to roll back a few seconds later and want more "ma-na's". He does this about 4-6 times before I decide I have had enough and cover up to go to sleep. I AM NOT A SNACK BAR! I am so glad that Logan sleeps through the night and doesn't wake to nurse.

I have been nursing since Logan was born over 2 1/2 yrs ago and have been nursing 2 (tandem nursing) for over a year now. I am hoping by the time the boys are done that I am covered as far as protection from breast cancer, diabetes and all those other things that are supposedly benefits of breastfeeding! I know I will need some major repairs on the boobies so that I don't have to tuck them into my shoes when I go out!

Toddler Speak

"Mitchshell"
"What?"
"Mitchshell"
"My show?"
"Mitchshell"
"My ball?"
"MITCHSHELL!"
I just don't know what the heck he was trying to say. After a few rounds of 'guess the toddler words', I give up and just nod and smile. Or say "oh" or "that's nice" and hope one of them covers it and he is satisfied. This one is certainly NOT as clear as the "BUCKLE ME!" one a while ago. Usually the parents of young little tikes are the ones that are able to translate for others when their toddler speaks, I am afraid that I am NOT a good translator. Although I do understand some things and the cutest of them all lately is when I am changing his diaper and he proudly taps his privates and says, "my pee-pee, my bawls".

Why, why, why, why...but why?!

I actually didn't totally realize how much I said, "Because I said so" until after starting this blog. And I find myself trying to give other answers, but when you keep hearing, "why?" after each answer you give, it breaks you down a bit and you have to reply with something more powerful! And then you still get a "why?". I really dislike that word. I know all the experts would say its great when kids ask why, they are being inquisitive and learning so much and nerve pathways in the brain are growing and connecting and if they don't use them, they lose them. Well from my perspective, my kids can stand to lose a few! If I could just have 33 less "why's?" a day....we would be doing good and I wouldn't even be writing about it.

Do you really know where your kids get their "brains"? They steal them from you with every little question and why that follows...it slowly (or not so slowly in my case) eats at your brain, so while their brain is growing, yours is shrinking! I know you have heard of "mommy brain"....it starts with simple little things like losing your keys or forgeting the diaper bag at home and grows into forgetting your kids at the grocery store (or the shoe store in Logan's case). I have resorted to counting heads (like a daycare) in order to make sure I have all of them with me when we are out. And I know you might be saying, "well, you do have 5 kids!" and that is exactly correct....I have 5 - FIVE - kids eating at my brain all day everyday!! It's amazing I am not sitting in a rubber room at the psych hospital right now. And I am sure as daddy would be explaining to Logan that mommy is at the hospital right now cause she went nuts, Logan would say, "why?"! And he would look totally innocent saying it too!

By the way, if you don't believe me, think about your own parents and their current capabilities. For example, my mom cannot operate a DVD player and has difficulties setting up her answering machine. Things that I often say "a monkey could do". I am sure as children my brothers and I stole that part of her brain with the constant nagging.