Memorial Day 2011

Most of you probably don't remember this, but last Memorial Day we stumbled upon the Horse Tail Falls hiking trail. It's close to Multnomah Falls for those Oregonians reading this. We decided to hit the trail again this year.

The kids enjoyed the hike and swinging on the trail signs.

Ian had the easiest hike of all, strapped to Daddy's chest. Don't let the facial expression fool you; he fell asleep about five minutes in and slept the entire time. (Four month stats for the boy: 15.7 lbs (66%) and 26.something inches long (92%), on par with the rest of the kids. We grow them long and lean.)

The best thing about hiking with kids is you get lots of rest stops along the way for photo ops or just to look at cool rocks and ferns along the path.

Luke was running down the trail on the return trip and bit the dust...literally.

The kids' favorite part of the trip? Walking along the railroad tracks that back to the parking area and throwing rocks into the pond on the other side.

We're going to make it an annual trip, so come hike with us on Memorial Day 2012!

Oregon Coast 2011

We had a great time spending the week with the Stoddard clan in Lincoln City for the annual Oregon coast trip. We know we had fun because of how fast the week flew by. We played on the beach, ate some smores and ate some sand, watched an excavator move big rocks around on the beach (Luke's favorite), played some golf and even kicked back to watch movies in the theater room. (I think we need to make a theater room a requirement for future beach trips.) As we rolled out of town all three kids were asleep like logs within minutes. Nice. Here's a little photo slideshow with some excellent photography work by Grandma Shirlene.

Which is worse?

To have your hair growing in poofy and curly in some spots, and apparently not growing at all in others....

Or to have your mom end up shaving your head bald while trying to "just even it out a little bit?"

Methinks the second. Sorry dude!

Have a happy day!

Ian sure is!

My Kids Are So Creative...

My sister came last week for a visit, which was spectacular. But I haven't got all the pictures organized yet, so I can't blog that. For now I just wanted to share the special art project my kids collaborated on while I was in the bathtub yesterday morning. Behold their masterpiece:

I know you are all extremely impressed and jealous of the talented little artists I am raising.

Blog Stealing

I've been thinking about this post for a while, every day really, when I start to get frustrated with something at home. But then I was blog hopping and read a post from my sister's friend from high school who has four kids and her son is autistic. I felt pathetic for wanting to post about this. However, I've still been thinking about it so I'm posting it anyway.

I've found myself getting increasingly frustrated with how cluttered and dirty my house gets now and how quickly it happens. I don't consider myself a neat freak in the least, but my when my kids' empty every dresser drawer onto their floor every day (literally) and I trip or get stabbed in the foot by small toys and train tracks wherever I walk, it gets to me. And when I am frustrated I am not the nicest mommy or very fun for my kids to be around. I was reading a friend's sister-in-law's blog (who has four young kids, two are twins and her husband is a doctor and gone a lot....again, I feel like a wimp but oh well) and found this that she posted on her blog by someone named April Perry. I stole it.

"How we feel about our lives depends on the relationship between our expectations and our realities. One way we can understand our potential and the nature of family life is to accept the fact that the world is made up of opposites. If it seems like the world is against us some days, and that we’ll never “reach our potential” or create the “perfect” family life, that’s okay. In order to enjoy the good, we need to experience the bad.

We wouldn’t know how beautiful an entire eight hours of undisturbed sleep is if we hadn’t had nights where we saw the clock change every single hour. When we become mothers, we need to expect opposites and realize that we have the capacity to grow and nurture our families—even when times are tough.

If you wake up in the morning saying, “Well, I know I’ve got my work cut out for me today. Hard things are definitely going to come my way, but with the help of Providence, I am ready for them,” then when hard times DO come, you think, “This is what I expected. And look what a great job I am doing!”

On the other hand, if you wake up thinking, “Today better be less crazy than yesterday. This is my itinerary, this is what I need to get done, this is what I want to happen, and if anyone gets in my way, there’s going to be heck to pay!”, then when the challenges come, we scream, “I've been cheated! Today turned out horribly! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

I'm really working on trying to change my expectations after reading that, because it's so true. The days I get most frustrated are the days when I have a list of things I want to get done and a timeline of when I want it done. So from now on I'm going to expect my house to look like this by 9 am every day:

And I'm going to expect that my kids will be in cahoots when I have a phone call to make and two emails to respond to and start "cooking" with all my silverware and many of the bowls in the cupboard....

And I will not be surprised if I return to my room from putting away the kids laundry (which now resides in their closet on a shelf that they cannot reach, I'm not ready to expect the empty dresser daily yet) to find that a certain little boy has done this in my bathroom.

When I first started thinking about changing my expectations I felt kind of like I was just giving up, but the more I've though about it I've changed my mind. I will expect my children to be normal, curious, mess-making machines. I will also expect my children to help me clean up the messes they make (and probably not willingly either.) I will expect to hear whining every day and "mommy, get me (fill in the blank)" 50,000 times a day. But I will also expect them to say rephrase their request in a normal voice and with the word "please" inserted into the sentence before I will comply. You get the idea.

One day last week we just sat around all morning listening to acoustic music, dancing, and reading books together. The kids trashed the house. I didn't do any laundry or sweep my floor which was littered with dried-up macaroni and smashed pretzels. And it was okay. I didn't feel stressed out. I just enjoyed being with my babies and tried to remember what they said and how they felt in my arms as I held them, because I know it won't be long before they grow up. I wish I could say every day I had hours or even moments like that but I'd be lying. I'm learning to let go of some of my expectations and adopting new ones that will allow me to enjoy my kids and motherhood more...at least that's my goal. Wish me luck.

Ian at Two Months

I can't believe my sweet Baby E is already two months old! However, it does seems like forever ago that I was pregnant and weirdly enough, I kind of miss it. It seems like with the other two kids I wished away the newborn stage; I was excited for them to start smiling, and rolling over, and laughing, etc, etc. This time I don't want him to grow up at all. I guess I just realize how fast kids grow up now and I want time to just stop!

He had an appointment with the doctor this morning and got two shots, which he was not happy about in the least. He's packed on three pounds in the last six weeks (now 11.8 lbs) and has grown almost three inches too (24.25 inches now)! He's still a lightweight compared to the babies on Tyler's side of the family but about on par with our kids.

When I was home last week I had some pictures taken by the same person who took the family shots at Christmas. He was tired and not happy to be having pictures taken, would not go to sleep so we could get cute sleeping baby shots, and was not having being naked at all! Nevertheless, I think we still got some good pictures. I sure love this little man of mine!

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Last night as we were travelling home from our Spring Break vacation (more to come on that plus some pictures soon) we were delayed an hour by an accident on the freeway. After some Googling on our phones, Ty figured out that it was a fatal crash a few miles ahead of us that was holding up traffic. Lydia and Luke couldn't figure out why we were not moving on the freeway, so I explained that it was a sad day because there was an accident ahead and somebody had died in the crash. They asked a few questions like if it was a boy or girl, and where the dead person was. I told them that their body was on earth and would be buried, but their spirit had gone back to be with Heavenly Father. A few minutes later Lydia asked another question about where the dead person was and then said "it's actually a special, special day Mom." I asked her why. "Because her spirit is back with God again, so it is a special day." I love the simple faith and understanding of my little girl.

New this week....

My husband went to play church basketball last night and left looking normal. It's been a pretty calm season. He's only sustained a ripped shirt and a few bruises, and hasn't had anyone ask him if he "wants to take it outside right now" like last year. He returned from last night's game looking like this:

(It looks more impressive today, this was a mere hour after it happened.) If you get grossed out easily, try not to look at the next shot.

Some guy jammed his finger in Tyler's eye socket, breaking a bunch of blood vessels and giving him double vision for a while. A different teammate got his other eye with his fingernail. Apparently church basketball in Hillsboro involves some vicious, bloodthirsty opponents!

Last week I was upstairs feeding this guy, who thinks he needs to eat all day long. Lydia and Luke were in the backyard playing when I went up to feed him, since for once it wasn't raining! I heard them come in and out of the house and turn on the bathroom sink a few times, but that's pretty normal since they get dirty playing in the dirt and think they need to wash it off before they can put more dirt on themselves.

Lydia came in and asked me if I wanted to go to their picnic when I was done. I agreed, thinking they were making mud pies on the kitchen set on the deck and it was a pretend picnic to eat them. Not so! These two set up this picnic all by themselves, including washing the fruit before bringing it outside to eat (I was a proud mama that they remembered to do so!)

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon picnic of apples and strawberries together (Luke had politely taste-tested my apple before giving it to me) and chatted about springtime and what we want to plant in our garden in a few weeks. Luke also informed me that "when I was a baby I popped out of you and drank your milk. But now I'm not a baby; I'm handsome." That's right little man, you are, most especially with your jammies on backwards and wearing your sister's boots!

I love these two so much and I'm glad that I had them as close together as I did. I love that they have a playmate when I'm busy with the baby and can't play with them. They still fight about things but they've really gotten so much better at playing with each other since they started sharing a room. Sometimes it's bad that they have a little buddy though; they dream up some naughty things to do when I'm not paying attention. I was lucky this time and I hope there are many more picnics to come with my favorite kids!

Our New Life

Their faces pretty much sum it up: mostly happy with moments of uncertainty about how we're handling the adjustment to our new addition. Even Ian seems like he's not sure about this whole "being in the outside world" thing yet, as demonstrated below.

He goes between grumpy and surprised, with a lot of this in between....

complete with the "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" model pose.

Sometimes he gets so sick of this place it makes him want to vomit...okay, so it makes him vomit.

(Remember this? I fear my days of eating dairy and chocolate may be numbered. Again.)

The rest of us aren't to the point of throwing up, but we've become rather lackadaisical about personal grooming and dress standards (excluding Tyler, who actually has places to go and people to see every day.) I'm lucky if I get showered before 3 pm, and even luckier if I get dressed in something other than pajamas and/or lounge-wear. (I keep telling myself it's just because my regular clothes don't fit quite right yet...how long can I keep using that excuse?) The kids wear all kinds of weird outfits, and even go to the store in them occasionally, because I either don't care enough to make them change or I haven't done the laundry so they don't have any matching clothes to wear besides pajamas....well, at least Lydia's pj's match. The shoes though, not so much :)

It's been raining A TON here, and yes, we've even seen some of the white stuff too, so I've remained holed up at home. The kids brought home a cold from somewhere (most likely church) and now the baby has a stuffy nose, so I'm trying to avoid exposing him to more germs and exposing my kids to places where they can bring home MORE germs to sicken Ian, so we've been trying to keep things interesting so that we all don't go stir crazy.

We've been watching more movies than I care to admit lately, but we've jazzed it up a bit by having indoor picnic lunches while we watch our movie. It's the new fave at home.

This was the entertainment we came up with today. I used to put my tights on my head and run around when I was little, so I thought I'd pass down the awesome tradition to my children as well.

In all seriousness, so far the adjustment hasn't been as bad as I feared. Ian is a great baby who sleeps pretty well at night and is generally pretty content. It helps that I don't have kids who have to be somewhere at certain times, so we can pretty much do whatever we want whenever we want to do it. We all adore our little Ee-Yon, as Luke pronounces is (think of the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding), or our Sweet Baby E as I like to call him. (Another side note: trying to teach your preschooler letters and sounds, and then throwing a name like Ian at her that is not spelled phonetically and trying to explain why it's not pronounced Eye-An....difficult.)

Even Luke has decided that our new life is not so scary after all.