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!