Wednesday, December 31, 2008

A Month In Review - Part II




Playing In Grammy's Backyard!
I could just eat him up with those precious blond curls!!! He was sitting in a tree in my moms back yard...my brother Kevin always puts them up there and they LOVE it!Callen with his cousin Isaac...they are just a couple months apart in age and LOVE playing together!
My brother Kevin showing off his monkey skills to my boys, something I'm so glad he has done you can imagine! :-) Truly my boys all adore him and he is great with them...I couldn't ask for more!
Corbin and Cade sat up in that tree for about 10 minutes while I finished feeding Cohen so I could come and see them up there!

A Moment To Cherish!!!
Corbin still loves to hold his baby brother...he actually asked me one day if Cohen was still going to be a baby when Corbin was an adult like me (with these precious longing eyes!). I of course had to inform him that no, his brother would be growing up too, but that he would probably have a baby of his own one day. He asked how he was going to do that? I told him how he was probably going to get married one day and they would probably have a baby eventually. He then said what just melted my heart even more..."but Mommy, I don't want to get married when I get older, I want to stay with you forever!" Of course what my heart wanted to say was 'of course you can baby! You'll be mine forever!', but instead my mind knew what I had to say and I told him, "don't worry about it right now sweetheart, you may change your mind when you get older. Until then, Mommy will be your girlfriend!" Oh how I pray I never forget these moments!

Kids say the darndest things!
-So this past Sunday we were all getting dressed for church and Callen says "Hey Mom, I did my butt all by myself!" Don't you know I turned around so fast to see what in the world he was talking about (because we don't use that word in our house) just to find him holding his jeans out and pointing to the button with a huge smile on his face! Such a cutie...he has always had to get me to do that for him in the past. Of course later that day after going potty he had to show Chris as well and said the same thing and we just giggled and giggled!
-Then I was tying his shoes on Monday and he sat there just singing his little heart out "Bingle Bell, Bingle Bell, Bingle All The Way!" What's funny is it's not like he doesn't know how to say a 'j', he just for some reason thinks that's how that song goes. I think I almost ate him up right there on the spot!
-Last week after lunch one day Cade was following me around telling me he needed to go poop. Here's the amazing part of the story...I kept just saying ok baby, then go. He really started begging me "No, I need to go poop in du pahie", so I asked him if he wanted to go on his football potty in his bathroom and he said with much excitement "Yaaaa" while running in there. We got in there and as soon as he was up on that potty he started to peepee a whole bunch with a huge smile on his face!!! Oh, and I had just taken a DRY diaper off of him so he knew he needed to go and held it! I could hardly believe it. Now for the funny part of the story...after he was done I asked him if he was done and he said "No". He kept looking down and pushing and saying "it's not workin' MaMa, it's not workin'" so I would ask him again "are you done?". He kept telling me no and sure enough in a second, here came just a tiny bit more and he got the biggest smile on his face and said with great enthusiasm "it's workin', MaMa! It's workin'!" We went through that whold senario about 4 times before he actually said he was done! :-) It was all I could do not to crack up but I just smiled and told him how big of a boy he was now!

I wasn't ready for....stitches!
Of course what mother ever is, right!? Warning...if you have a weak stomach, you may not want to read this. :-) It was two weeks ago today actually, and Chris was still at church. The boys had been playing football in the living room and I had gone to put something up in my bathroom. As I came around the corner I saw Callen hit the corner or the wall (where the metal brace is)...he hit it so hard it threw him backwards on his back. He was screeming and holding his forhead and I just sprinted to him because sometimes a mom just knows "this is bad". Sure enough, whithin the few seconds it took me to get to him, carry him to the tile (assuming there would be lots of blood and hoping we could avoid getting it on the carpet) and pull his hands off of his head the blood had already run all the way to the back of his head into my hand that was holding his head. At that point I knew this was going to be an ER night. So we got the blood to slow down and I calmed them all down as well as I could and called Chris to meet us at Baylor Grapevine so I wouldn't have all four of them by myself. Callen was a champion at the ER. He started off by saying to the nurses that he liked the hospital and it was fun there...I knew that would only last for so long but wasn't exactly sure just how long. Well, turns out...longer than I thought. Chris took the other 3 boys out when it came time to do the stitches and I stayed with Callen because I had promised him when it happened that I would hold him the whole time. The nurse came in with a thick, long, white blanket and wrapped him up like a burrito and layed him down on the bed and pretty much layed over him and held his head still. They asked me to hold his legs...great! I knew what was coming and was dreading the whole thing!!!! The doctor covered his face and began to give him shots directly in the wound (and this is where Mommy almost passed out because of flashbacks from when she had shots in her face after shattering a whindshield with her face as a junior in highschool...I could remember the pain all too well!). The crazy thing is...Callen didn't even move or whimper! It was UNBELIEVABLE!!! He did about 4 shots (as the nurse was telling me to lay down, she knew I wasn't taking that well) and then he and the nurse both turned around and looked at me and said "that was amazing! The hard part is over!" So they thought...about 15 seconds later he lost it, and I mean lost it...screaming at the top of his lungs for us to let him out, that's right, pain wasn't what was scaring/bothering him, it was the fact that he was wrapped up and had two people on top of him. Once the doctor had the stitches done and we let him out though he was totally fine again and got to have a popsicle! And he never messed with them and was even better when we went to get them taken out 7 days later! I just pray that we don't make this a habbit, but I'm sure with 4 boys I've only scratched the surface...with only 4 times to the ER with them so far. Praise the Lord it wasn't worse!Sitting in the ER waiting to get his stitches, he wanted Mommy to hold him the whole time!It was quite late when we got home so he was out. I let him sleep in my bed that night to make sure he was ok...he was very excited about that!Sorry this pic is up side down? This is him showing off his stitches, and believe me, he had to show everyone!A close up of the wound...it left a pretty good scar too...he'll be able to show that thing off for years to come! Boys love that kind of thing I hear! :-)



Eating us out of house and home!
Well, as many of you may know, I've teased over and over that all 4 of my boys are "eating me out of house and home" while they are in that nursing stage (which, funny fact for the day...I have now been pregnant or nursing for 6 years straight this month!!! Yep, you read that right, not even a days break in there, that's even amazing to me!). Well, it's not getting any better as they get older and believe me, it won't until they all move out (but let's not talk about that now 'cause I'm LOVING haveing them be little for now!)! These boys can E-A-T!!! Boy can we go through the food...already...and they are not even teenagers going through growth spurts and playing sports yet. Yikes!!! We may need to invest in a grocery store or at least a mild cow! :-) Here's a small list of some of the amounts of food we go through on a regular basis already:
5 gallons of milk (or more) a week
3 loafs of bread a week
1 lb of strawberrys in one meal
1 whole cantelope in one meal
1 box of waffles in one meal
64+ oz of juice in a day
(and they are still 5 and under, one only eating baby food still!) Donations accepted...Just kidding! :-)Yes, he's got his mouth full, something he shows me ALL the time!
Callen is my little dramatic eater...must make a show of it somehow! All of us giggling at him doesn't help! :-)This little guy just spits his food at me...
and then laughs at me when I react (of course he thinks he is just blowing bubbles, doesn't quite get that when there's food in his mouth those bubbles are loaded!


Am I running a circus?
So sometimes truly this is what it feels like. It just almost seems like every time I turn around one of them is doing something else silly, crazy and/or daring. We do have a lot of fun though...never a dull moment around here! :-) Here are a few pics to give you a taste of what I turn around and see on a daily basis, I truly LOVE these boys!Callen with both of his legs through one leg in his shorts...he told me he had a skirt on...once again, he will love me for taking a pick of this!
Callen put the Darth Vador helmet on Cohen one night...that sweet child really is going to be tough as nails!Poor thing, climbed up on top of the pile of clean laundry and fell asleep 'cause there was no room for him on the other couch with Corbin and Callen.Cade LOVES to play with Mommy's shoes, this is one concoction of an outfit he came up with one day! He's gonna love me for always taking pics of these moments! :-)Cohen, covered in cherios that his brothers had spilled on the floor...he had crawled all over them while trying to eat them and they stuck to him!Cade, in a pirate outfit with a monkey hat, playing my moms piano and singing at the top of his lungs!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Month In Review - Part I

For those of you who follow or check our blog regularly, I'm sure you've noticed there hasn't been anything new in a while...I'm sorry!!! Life has been full of taking care of my sweet husband and four precious boys. Can't complain! So below are the things that stick out the most in my mind when I think back on the last month of our lives.

**this will be in two parts because I'm such a blabber and obviously have too many pictures that it won't let me post it all as one**

Our Little Barber:
That's right, one of my sweet boys is trying to follow in the footsteps of his mother. You see, I've been cutting our hair for almost 11 years now (although I'm taking a break from doing my own now and that's nice for a change). It has saved us a lot of money, considering how many of us there are and how much hair we have in this family! :-) So of course, I've got several pair of hair cutting scissors in our bathroom. Well one night about a month ago we were all in my bathroom getting vitamins and brushing teath (actually, this was the same night as the seriously, are you kidding me blog...this is the rest of the story you've been wondering about). The phone rang and I knew it was Chris calling so I ran in the kitchen to grab the phone. As I came back only about 2 minutes later I rounded the corner to see long (about 3 inches no lie) locks of brown hair scattered around on my bathroom floor. I know as a mother I should not panic when things like this happen but you just have to know how much I LOVE these boys long hair!!!! I ran over to Callen (yep, you know it was my little Curious George!) yelling "no, no, no, no, no! Where did this come from?" as I'm running my hands through his hair all over his head trying to figure out where the hair came from. By the way, he had the hair cutting scissors AND Chris clippers in hand, but the clippers were not plugged in so I was pretty sure he had not used those! Fortunately, he had cut his hair right on the 'cow lick' so it was not extremely noticable unless you were actually looking for it. He also cut it on top a bit but I just gave him a haircut to try and even that up a bit. My worst fear and the reason for totally flipping out was that I just knew I was going to have to shave his head and I knew I was going to lose it if I had to do that! Praise the Lord!, He protected us from having to do that this time...notice I say this time, trying to prepare myself for the possiblility of this happening yet again one day, although I pray this was our only experience with...a little barber! You know I had to take pics, so enjoy giggling!This is what I walked around the corner and saw! Now you understand why I flipped out!
This was the face he gave me when I asked him what he was doing!
This is the top of his head where you could see a chop in his hair.
This is where he cut it almost all the way to his head, now it's already grown back out to about an inch long...his hair grows soooo fast!
This was after clean up and Cade insisted in being in a picture with "Talwen"...that's how he says his name! :-)


Trunk-or-Treat:
This year for Halloween we were all Pirates...well, Cohen was our pet monkey, but the rest of us were pirates. I chose this theme because I hoped to think of something that all the boys would enjoy doing so we could have a theme on Cohen's first Halloween but I knew that was going to be difficult because they are at an age now that they want to pick what they are going to be. They all went for this though since they were going to get to carry guns and swords and stuff! Thanks to some of our good friends we didn't have to buy all of this but were able to borrow obout half of it and I pieced the other half toghether from thrift stores and dollar stores. I think they turned out pretty darn cute considering we only spent about $20 total on all 6 of us!!! Can you believe that? Here are some pics from Trunk-or-Treat at our church. Kim and Bobby showed up with a surprise for the boys...they brought Polo dressed up in a pirate costume as well! She was sooooo cute!!! We had a lot of fun!The whole pirate gang!
The cutest pet monkey ever!!!
Posing for mommy!
On the hayride with Aunt Kim and Uncle Bobby :-)
Cade playing hockey, he actually made all his shots!
Corbin playing football...and he got one ball through the hole!
Mommy & Daddy with their little monkey....right before we had to take it off because it was tooooo hot!
Cohen and his friend Griffen.
Callen, Corbin, Grayson and Michael.
Polo the pirate! Soooo cute!

Messy, Messy, Messy!?!
Sometimes I feel like that is all my boys ever are...well at least Callen and Cade that is. The problem is, they really don't mind being messy, in fact, they actually think it is fun to make a mess and get extremely messy while doing it! So what's a mom to do but take a few pics when it gets really funny and/or amazing! :-) And believe me, many times it truly is amazing to me that it does not bother them to be this messy! The first 3 pictures were taken on halloween after we had made some brownies in different halloween shaped and covered them in powdered sugar for the cake walk. They were enjoying the leftover powdered sugar to the fullest! The next 4 pictures were taken one day when I let them play in the mud...which they ALL LOVE to do!!! Corbin licking the powdered sugar off of his arm...we wouldn't want to waist any!
Callen licking the sugar off of the cutting board he was using!
Cade's face after licking sugar off of his cutting board...he just knew he was so funny and cute!
Corbin only really got his hands muddy...he always has been my cleanest child!
Callen had dots of mud ALL over him, from head to toe...he was truly loving that mom said "yes" to playing in the mud!!!
This was Cade's face...truly caked in mud, how he did this without eating any or getting it in his eyes I will never know...didn't bother him though, as you can see below...
...where he is threatening to come and get mommy with his nasty hands! Don't worry, they didn't go in the house like that...they got sent to the back yard where they were stripped down and hosed down before going in to take a good, long bath!!!

Antiques & Canton:
Most of you know that my first love in decorating is shabby chic antiques and of course one of the greatest places to find stuff like that is Canton. My parents were gracious enough to keep the 3 older boys while I went with Lauren and Sarah and we had a blast! It was a bit crazy out there because we had no choice but to go on a Saturday (which I will never do again if I can help it) but we found some GREAT stuff. Can't wait to go back again in the spring!!!This is a BEUATIFUL mirror...the picture doesn't do it justice! The original price tag on the back said $298 and I got it for $25!!! No lie, I was soooooo excited!
I found these awsome old pieces of wood and bought several of them. This was one of the bigger ones that I put a SLAH piece I had on it. LOVE it!
These are two of the smaller pieces of wood that I put smaller iron pieces that I had on them...I plan on hunting for more wood and iron pieces and selling these!...truly love them!
This is my Christmas present from Chris! I've been looking for a fireplace screen like this for 2 years now and when I saw this one, I fell in love with it. Then I saw the price, which was a 1/4 or less than any others like it I've ever seen, and I knew I wasn't going home without it!

6 Months Old and Growing!!!
My sweet Cohen is getting so big I can hardly believe it! He is officially crawling now...at only 6 1/2 mo. old! He sees something he wants and goes after it. Gone are the days of being able to just lay him on the floor and go do whatever, 'cause now not only will the boys accidently step on him but he will also dissapear and go get something he doesn't need! But believe it or not, he is still in his bassinett...I know, I'm a bad mom but he still sleeps so well in it, in spite of being the size of it, and I can't wrap my head around him not being in my room any more. This last baby thing is harder than I thought it might be, but the Lord is good and has given me the sweetest baby possible. We have the sweetest moments together and I'm cherishing every one of them!!! He says MaMa, DaDa and BuBu here and there, he eats cereal, fruits and vegetables like they won't be there tomorrow and believe it or not, he is already eating table food as well...crackers, cherios, hard boiled eggs, french fries and whole green beans to name a few. Lets just put it this way, he loves food as much as his brothers ever did and I'm sure will be on full blown table food by 9mo at the latest. What a joy he is in our lives!!!Playing in my exersaucer-like seat
He loves it!
Sitting straight up in his rocking seat...first one to figure that out and he did it at 5 months old!
He just pulls up on his toy bar and then takes it right out, he is so strong!
Also at 5 mo. he figured out how to turn completely over in this chair...while being buckled in might I add! We were all eating breakfast at the kitchen table and he wanted to see what was going on. I turned around to check on him just to see those sweet little blue eyed peeking over the top of the seat and could hardly believe it! He is smart, strong and determined!
First time on a kiddy ride (at Incredible Pizza)...Daddy put him on it and he LOVED it! He is going to do everything way faster than all the other boys because he has 3 older brothers he wants to be just like!
It's sad I know, he's as big as his bed...time for the big bed mommy!