First "Real" Haircuts

A girl from church that I visit teach does hair, and since Lydia and Luke both needed hair cuts, and Luke's turned out soooooo well last time when I did it, I decided to have her cut their hair. Lydia enjoyed getting her hair shampooed and cut, but she didn't appreciate having it dried with the diffuser. She even got a little updo done after it was dried since she like to be "fancy."

It's kind of hard to tell in the pictures but Luke's little curls are gelled and spiked on top. He keeps reaching up to feel them, and he informed me "Mom, I can't sleep with my hair pointy like this!" I know I'm biased but I think they look pretty stinkin' cute with their new hairdos!

Update on Ian

This little guy is trying to cut some teeth. His favorite teething toy? His feet.

His favorite time to eat his feet is when he is getting his diaper changed. Diaper off--foot (or feet) in mouth.

We caught this little bit of video tonight. He's been scooting himself backwards for a little while now, and can sit up for brief periods of time unassisted before he face plants or gets his belly on the floor and can't get himself sitting upright again. I was hoping he'd break the mold from his siblings and be content to just sit up and look around for several more months.

Looks like I may not get my wish.

Update on Luke

Look who's wearing big-boy underwear all the time now!!!

Once he decided he was ready (and a few Skittles and Starburst helped too) Luke was pretty much potty trained in a few days, including wearing underwear at night. He's had just a few accidents, one of which was in the parking lot at Home Depot. I turned around to find him standing by the van, legs spread, not moving. "Mommy, I pee peed in my pants! I made a terrible mess! We have to clean it up!" I was really happy he let the floodgates loose in the parking lot and not in the van.

I am certainly enjoying not having to change his diapers, especially since his intestines apparently cannot hold fecal matter for any length of time, necessitating multiple BMs a day. Yuck.

He has since mastered the art of peeing standing up, and had his first experience peeing in the roadside bushes on our way to Bend last weekend for Tyler to ride his 100 bike ride on Saturday. (Way to go Ty!) We found him outside in the back yard of the house we were renting with pants down peeing off the steps. I'm sure it won't be the last time we find him urinating outside when a functioning bathroom is five feet away.

Update on Lydia

Each of the children has passed a personal major milestone in the last little while. Lydia's has to do with her first round of swimming lessons, which started last week. This little lady has been less than friendly with water (especially if it touches anything above her neck) for the majority of her life. After two days of swimming lessons, check out what she can do!

The gentleman teaching her class came highly recommended from people in our ward and I have to say it's been worth every penny. He teaches second grade during the school year and is so positive and energetic with the kids, and inspires confidence in them. Now I just have to figure out how we can get to the pool more often with the three kiddos so she doesn't lose her newly found confidence in the water!

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.