What a Day!

That's a 16 on the radio...

And I thought it was going to be dull!

First, we talked to Daddy for almost an hour on Skype, yay!  Then, after lunch, I decided to pack us up in the van to go to work to pick up my beautiful roses my wonderful husband had sent to me at work for my birthday (and I stupidly forgot to mention yesterday).  Of course, this turned out to be the very worst part of the day's storms.  After getting what I considered pretty wet, we were on our way.

As I pulled into the road that takes us out of our neighborhood, I caught a spooky glimpse of a face sitting patiently under a tree staring at me.  I backed up, but couldn't find the creature.  I opened the door to search a little and found a sweet dog right at my door, begging to come in.  I let him in the back of the van, and then I wasn't sure what to do.  He had a collar and a flee collar, but no tags.  I drove to the vet across the street and asked them for advice.  They gave me the address and number for animal control.  I was going to go there, but it was bugging me to think that someone very near owned him, and I was going to take him so far away just because I didn't know who it was.  (Skip to **** to get past the long version of the dog story - I'm going ahead and writing it all out mostly for Brandon's sake.)

So I asked a guy in the neighborhood that I know has dogs (Billy) if he'd seen anyone walk this one before.  He had no clue, but told me about someone in the neighborhood that might take him in for me.  That person wasn't home.  So I was thinking of people to call, partly to give me the directions to the Human Society - someone told me they are no-kill now.

I called Brianna and told her the situation and she really wanted the doggie.  We decided I'd take him home and leave him on the patio, since the rain had finally let up some, and she would find out if they'd be able to take him.  So a neighbor lady (Linda) helped me get him back there, and she went to buy him some food.  Oh, and by the time we were all inside to stay, every layer of my clothing was soaked through.  ALL OF IT.

He was such a good dog!  He knows commands, obeyed everything I told him, even watching me to wait for the next command.  He shook my hand and laid down for me to rub his belly.  He seemed pretty healthy too.  He was desperate to get out of the scary weather, so I let him in.  He wouldn't let me bathe him, so I had to keep him corraled between the bottom of our stairs and the bathroom upstairs, with all other doors shut.  He was really scared of the storm, but didn't make a peep at anyone or anything, except when the neighbor knocked on the door.  Then he made one small sound, not loud at all.  And he was great with the kids the whole time he was stuck in the van with them.  He was obviously a great pet at some point.  The concensus of opinions though is that he was dumped off.

Anyway, Brianna had to do a lot of research on whether they'd be able to take him in, and in the meantime, the neighbor decided to take the dog for me, and then take him to animal control in the morning if we didn't find him a home.

*** Brianna and Chris decided to leave him alone, even though she really really wants him.  So he'll be going away in the morning.  The neighbor will go back to the shelter after her vacation to keep him if he's still there.  She's also planning on putting up posters around to let anyone looking know where he went.

I wish I could have kept him until we found someone to keep him, but not with three small kids, and I couldn't even leave him on the patio with all the rain today and upcoming days.  I'm sure he'll be fine - he's a great dog and will have no problem finding a new family, if not his old one.

So the kids were so patient driving around our neighborhood for a long time this afternoon, trying to figure out what to do with this doggie.

And what a day for potty training!  I am being very safe in my estimate in saying I helped with at least 24 individual peepee or poopie trips.  They let me know everytime they had any feeling to go.  And they went everytime!  I don't know where they got it all!  And they barely went in their pullups all day.  So eventually they'll get back into only going every few hours, but for now we're pretty busy.  I'm very proud of them.

Amongst all this craziness, Jen and Brianna and I were coordinating meeting for dinner tonight.  That worked out really well.  All the kids had a great time and behaved very well overall.  Then we came to our house for birthday cupcakes Jen made.  They were delicious, and the kids all went nuts.  Mr. Caleb walked all around, having a blast!

The gang's all here!

Cool firefighter dudes

Caleb shared so well...

Uncle Chris brought a few moments of quiet with a story

Despite all this NONSTOP insanity ALL DAY, I felt great!  God provided so much grace, I felt so level.  It was exhausting, and frustrating at times, but I never got that feeling of loss of control of my emotions.  He is so good to me!  And my kids, because they didn't have to deal with any of my insanity.

I really love all of our family, and never forget how blessed we are to have each of them.  Thank you guys for a wonderful evening!

No, I didn't get my roses yet.  I'm going to do it tomorrow for sure.  (Insert french accent there.)

Big Birthday

Yes, I am now old.

I had a nice day.  They took me out to lunch at work, gave me sweet gifts, and made me yummy cake.  Emily even made me a spare cake to take home and share with the boys...  I almost cried then, big shock!

We made it to church really late again.  I need to come up with a better plan for Wednesdays.  Totally worth it, as I knew it would be.  God is SO speaking loud and clear lately!  Mostly more about growing closer to Him, being molded by Him when things are hard.  Also about seeking Him for the sake of knowing Him alone, no other agendas involved.

I'm really digging reading C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce.  I love his writing, and it always gives me a perspective of how small I am, and how my ego should be infinitesimal because I'm here to search Him out and do whatever He calls me to do: big, small, simple, or mind-blowingly difficult (seeming).

I wasn't sure what to expect from bedtime tonight.  They were awoken early, didn't nap, even though Grammy tried three times, and had birthday cake just before bed...  Mixed signals?...  Either they slept quickly or they're working on their stealth ops maneuvers.

Despite all that, they really were good boys tonight.

Oh, I just realized why Baby Bear is so wired tonight!  I had peach cobbler for dessert at lunch, then candy, then birthday cake!  Sheesh, this might be a long night!

Skype

Awesomeness. That's how I describe Skype. It's the saving grace for our family while Daddy's away. On my days home, we get to do video calls to him almost each day.

We got to talk to him for a long time this morning.  He got to watch the wall while each boy took turns going to the potty.  The baby really enjoys seeing him and smiling for the camera.

He says he's working his butt off.  His words.  He's the sheetmetal guy on a big project they've started, so he's got a lot to do.  When he's not running from camel spiders.  He's so funny.  Love you honey bunch!

Baby Bear is officially rolling from back to tummy, mostly in bed.  When I finished last night's post, she was fussing a little in bed.  I didn't go up for a while, and she was back asleep, sweetly on her tummy.  I don't know why it's so cute to me, I guess just because it's new.

We went to lunch at McDonald's and then did some shopping at Walmart.  Our new Walmart has HUGE aisles, so the boys really go crazy running around.  They got some good energy out.

After their nap, my mom came over from work to play with the kids.  I got to catch up a bit in the kitchen and make dinner, and generally feel stress-free.  It was wonderful, and made for a really nice evening.  She couldn't resist helping me in the kitchen after dinner, and I'm not complaining.  Thank you Mommy!

Day 13

Today was weird.  I was pretty spastic, whether in a good mood or just fidgety.  I'm pretty sure I drove my friends nuts at work, and that's even though I didn't say half the things I thought of to say.  They are very patient with me.  It's probably because I'm only there two days a week.

The kids had a good day at Grammy's, then we went to Zaxby's for Kids Nite (cheap dinner for them), and we got a free Redbox rental.  We watched Bolt (so-so for me, but they were glued), then they went to bed pretty well.  And the baby just let me lay her down fairly awake, with no peeps from her yet!

Here's a picture of my sweet innocent boys, just before one of them committed his first deliberate act of murder.  I took several shots of them watching this worm in Grammy's backyard the other day.  They were so cute talking about it and asking me questions about it, even discussing amongst themselves.  I imagined how I'd write how cute they were, and curious about God's creatures.  Then, well let's just say I had to use some pool water to remove the evidence on Steven's cool yellow car.

Peace, I'm outtie.  Oh poop, she's fussing for me.

I knew I'd posted too soon...

So, Baby Bear's fussing with sleepiness, I'm dressing Bubby after his bath.

He wants to comfort her, so he calls out to her, "Don't cry Baby Bear, Daddy go to work."

I asked him to repeat it, and I didn't miss-hear him.



Seriously?!?!?! The cuteness?!?!?!?!

Day 12

Happy birthday sweet girl! Not this sweet girl - today was Mady's first birthday party, and I was going to make this post about that, but I don't have the pictures from it yet, so I'm going to take this opportunity to catch up on sharing twin cuteness.

This is them as I started to write this post, so sleepy from two days of no naps, watching Wipeout.



When we pulled up to the house last night, Popo was sleeping. He woke up just enough to realize he had a cracker left on his lap. So, totally asleep, he munched it up. Here's the video, almost impossible to see: - dangit! It's totally impossible to see, so nevermind. Sheesh.

Oh, they had a cute conversation in the van today on the way to church. Of course, it's not going to be as cute without their voices. We were discussing various things about streetlights being different colors (they like to discuss with me what color they are and how we're going to stop and go and whatnot):

Popo: "They're green and orange."
Bubby: "Popo say they're green and orange." "Mommy, Popo say they're green and orange." "Popo, you say they're green and orange?"
Popo: "Green and orange, yes I say they're green and orange." "Mommy, I say they're green and orange."
Bubby: "Mommy, Popo say they're green and orange."

Got it.


When I just asked them what they wanted me to write to Daddy on the computer, this was the result:

Bubby: Went to church today, Daddy. Ummm....
Popo: Say... umm............ Daddy paint... Popo, Bubby, and Mommy (actual names were used)

I think he thought I was asking him what he wanted me to draw for him. Not sure.


Oh yeah, less on the cute side... All they've agreed to eat today was cereal, apple, half a piece of bread, birthday cake, ice cream, and goldfish.

Independence!!

I can't think of any non-cliche ways to comment on being blessed to live in America. So just know I'm happy about it. :) Except the fireworks around me keep scaring me.

We had a lovely time with family at my in-laws' house. We swam in the pool a bit, played in the house and the yard, and had a yummy yummy dinner. Bubby repeatedly jumped out of my hold in the pool proclaiming that he wanted to swim. Thankfully he had floaties on and couldn't get too far from me.

The cousins all had a great time today. They really love being together. I love that they get to be together.

Baby Bear had a rough patch, severely fighting her nap. I think it was a combo of the excitement she thought she'd miss and the excitement she had last night. She was a little off.

We came home after dinner to get to bed. They took a nap on the way home.

Oh, and as we left, Popo had a wipeout on the sidewalk (AGAIN), so he was a cripple because of his bandaid from then on. It's so funny how they think a bandaid is a cast. Once we got home, he proudly proclaimed his accomplishments with a grin, despite his disability. "I walked far!" (across the living room)... "I walked up stairs!" (holding the wall with both hands the whole way).

Mixed in with the lovely times and memories was also a lot of stress. I got pretty stressed out, causing depression, this morning. I am truly exhausted with trying to keep up with the boys'... uh, rambunctiousness. They are into everything, and being very disobedient. To wear me down even more, I'm working on my potty training routine. This involves making scheduled trips to the potty, which sometimes involves arguments about them not wanting to go. And they're going so much in their pullups now, there's barely anything left to do on the potty.

Anyway, I was a mess. I actually didn't feel up to hanging out with everyone, but I knew it would just be much worse if I kept us at home.

Everyone helped me out so much at the house. I had a good time, but eventually had a little breakdown when asked how I was. You'd think people would learn by now that if you ask me that, I will tell you how I am, and if it's not good, I will almost definitely cry! :) I'm blessed to have family that is so much better at helping me out than I am at helping anyone out.

I'm going to go get everything ready for church now. I'm serving in the boys' classroom, so I'll need my rest.

Uncle Steve reading to the boys, and Baby Bear's first Independence Day!

Baby Bear's first minutes in her new Bumbo, then her last few... Mmm, crunchy!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Surprise!

We had a great time at the ballgame tonight! My parents came out with us for a Jacksonville Suns game, followed by great fireworks.

We purposely got to the game a couple of innings late, because an entire game would have been a long time to keep the kids happy. The Suns were down 3-0. Right after we got there though, the tide began to turn. They had three homeruns, with the final score being 5-3!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We got to see April, the boys waved their personal homemade American flags, we all had hot dogs, Baby Bear lost a pound or two sweating while I fed her, Dad and I trekked the boys over to the playground just in time for them to kick us out for fireworks prep, and we watched a really great fireworks show. Okay, now I'm caught up. Oh, and we had a great parking spot.

During fireworks, Baby Bear sat in my lap, ears covered by me, enjoying the show! She didn't seem bothered at all until part of the finale, probably because she could feel my heartrate increasing. Bubby loved it all, and Popo liked it, but was fairly scared, as he likes to admit. Mom and I turned to check on him (he was sitting in Papa's lap), and he put on his "I'm scared to death, but trying to be a big boy" smile. It still hurts me to picture him. But then he got a little better.

We had a great day overall. We had a successful outing to Target, then lunch at Firehouse. Then I even got a couple minutes' sleep at naptime! I'm not sure what we're going to do for the holiday tomorrow. Honestly, tonight's show was so good, I might be okay if we don't see one tomorrow night.

We're almost a quarter into Daddy's big trip, yay!

Now, none of these were edited, it's almost midnight people. Deal with it. (Okay, I'm actually telling myself to deal with it.)

Day 9

We had a pretty good day today. We hung out at home, talked to Daddy for a long time on Skype, visited with the bug guy when he came (yay!), played a bunch, eventually napped, went to the library, had a yummy sneaky dinner, then read a lot together.

I love my sweet boys. And my sweet girl was pretty extra sweet today too.

I tried to use sweet potato puree as "dippy dip" for their fish sticks for lunch. Surprise, surprise, it didn't work. Popo tried it a little, but Bubby didn't go near it.

Our dinner was cut-up hot dogs in homemade "healthy" macncheese with cauliflower mixed in it. It was super yummy, as Popo can also attest to. Bubby, however, only took his mandatory little bites and decided that was enough of that. So frustrating! I will definitely be making that one often though.

They were such good boys at the library. They've discovered the puzzle stash they get to play with while they're there, and they're doing a good job obeying about putting each one back when they're done with it. They each chose a Thomas the Train book to take home, I picked a couple more for them, and two for myself on potty training.

I'm at my wits' end on that topic. They know how to do it, basically completely by themselves. They do a great job when left naked. As soon as you put anything on their bottoms, it's all ignored. And I'm feeling a general boredom from them on the project altogether. So I'm turning to the "experts" for some confidence and ideas. So far, I'm getting a little of each.

Tomorrow we're going to go to Target for some stuff. We were supposed to do that after the library, but I was wise and chose not to cut our timing too short and got us home for a decently-timed dinner for all of us.

I love watching my priorities change, on both a minor and major scale. I'm learning how to organize my time and efforts throughout the day to get things done and stay mostly sane. But I'm also feeling my general heart's desires shift. It's very exciting to sit and just watch God do that in me. I'm so quick to jump into a passion for some new thing, only to have it fizzle out eventually. This is different, it's not even a specific desire or plan forming in me, just a general shifting. And it's all His doing. I just feel like letting out a huge, peaceful sigh...

Okay, off to bed to rest up for our super-exciting, late-night weekend ahead! I'm so excited!

Which one of these two looks better - neither one is unaltered...

Popo relaxing while reading and watching tv

Bubby's photo of Baby Bear

Popo's photo of Bubby

Day 8

I love church.

I got us all there, very late. The boys had a great time in class, and Baby Bear and I watched the rest of the sermon in the nursing room. Well, I watched. She ate dinner.

As usual, it was a great sermon. God's really teaching me a lot about what difficult times are for, and giving me perspective on just how small I am. And as backwards as it seems, my insignificance is so encouraging. I feel like He's preparing me for some tough times, which I'm okay with. Right now.

Oh, Popo broke my heart this morning. When I went into their room to wake them so we could get on the road to Grammy's house, before I even thought he'd really woken up, he shot up and asked me: "Go get Daddy?" As I was reminding him that we won't see him for a long time, and encouraging him that maybe we'll see him on the computer tomorrow, my helpful, explaining Bubby reminded him: "Daddy far far away, right, Popo?" in this sweet patronizing tone. I'm so thankful there's two of them.

I'm so thankful the work week is over. And I can't wait for the holiday festivities to begin. July 4th is one of my favorites. I'm gonna take the kids to a baseball game Friday night (hopefully with my parents), with fireworks being shown after. On Saturday night, we are going to view the downtown show from the 15th floor of my mom's work building, right by the river. It's gonna be great to have a neat view like that, and be indoors.

Day 7 - Nice and Chilly

Yes, the A/C is fixed! He came promptly at 10 am, and was very nice. It was the ideal kind of problem: just enough so you don't feel like you should have been able to fix it yourself, but not so big you totally couldn't afford it.

I'm getting kinda sick of tantrums, can you believe it? Basically whenever they awake, be it morning or naptime, someone or sometwos have to squeal for a while. And Bubby's just been a bear at bedtime. I don't think I handled it well tonight.

Sometime I'll post an example conversation with a psychotic 3-year-old. Not that most haven't heard one before...

But most of our day was great. We all had energy and made each other laugh and cuddled for the first half of the day. I am blessed with really sweet funny kids.

Once again, I'm too tired to remember what else I wanted to write about. I'm not sure that's gonna change since I can't get on here to review our day until it's over and done, which is never early!

Day 6

Okay, our A/C unit seems to be kaput. We spent the night with no A/C, it worked during the day (while we were gone), and now it's dead again. It's 10:30 pm, and it's 83 degrees in my house. In the cool part. The repair man is coming sometime tomorrow.

And the bug guy is coming Thursday. My pillow was attacked last night (before I got into bed, thankfully) by a huge pincher beetle that had used his time machine to travel here from the dinosaur ages. That's the only thing that explains its size and appearance, as well as how the heck a two-inch monster got into my closed-up house. I couldn't kill it with a shoe! It got flushed down the toilet.

I got my new glasses today! I think I like them and I think they'll be more durable for a momma. The boys say they like them, but they are well trained mini-men that know when they are supposed to say something's pretty. Here's a tiny picture with the webcam. I don't have the energy to get the camera and load the picture up.


She sure knows how to work it for the camera. Any size/shape camera, and she knows how to bust out the smiles. As soon as I turned this on, she was gazing at herself on the screen in awe. Me too. At her, not myself. :)

Day 5

The boys are starting to show signs of concern over this situation with Daddy being gone with no signs of return. I know this is just the beginning.

We had a great day today, with church going well, fun breakfast-lunch, decent naps for all the kids while I got a lot done, and then crazy grocery shopping. We got to see and talk to Daddy a couple times on the computer, that was way cool.

I'm exhausted so I'm making this short, I just wanted to post this update for Daddy. We love and miss you so very much.

Aunt Nene's twin boys and girl, with our twin boys and girl, too cute!

Day 3/4 for Daddy

Hi Daddy! We had a really great day today at Nana's house. You would have loved it. Aunt Nene, Uncle Joe, Dennis, Douglas, and Katelyn all visited for the day.

We had a good breakfast and lunch, and ate most of it up.

Then we begged for our nap. Everyone thought it was so cute that we were tired enough to ask for it, but eventually they realized we were asking for our nap so we could then go in the pool. They told us after our nap that's what we'd do! So after a few minutes in bed, we came running out of the room together, joyously proclaiming that we'd woken up and nap was all done. Mommy had a hard time convincing us we needed more rest, but we obeyed eventually.

Then we woke up and went in the pool for a little bit. It was lots of fun. Then we ran around and played in the house all afternoon and evening with lots of cousins. Nana gave us a bath, and since there were no clean pjs there, we wore some awesome Sears robot shirts that are made for even bigger boys than us! We are in bed now, loving these shirts to death. We can't wait for church tomorrow.

We love you and miss you very very much! Oh, Baby Bear's been really cute lately too.

So Far Away

We are short one member of the family for a little while. Daddy flew away overseas for 7 whole weeks this Tuesday! We are anxious to see how God gets us through it, but confident that He will. His faithfulness is just too consistent!

This is my family together for the last time for a while, when we dropped him off at the airport. It was hard because the boys were eyeing me to gauge my emotion, so I had to grin and bear it for them.




My wonderful husband and our wonderful families threw me an early surprise 30th (eek!) birthday party this weekend, since he won't be here for the big day (sigh). It was lots of fun, except I was falling over exhausted. It was so sweet of all the dads there to share their big day with me.

My kids continue to be the most shocking and amazing ever. Today was a little rough. We all had cabin fever and the boys fought alot. So they yelled at each other, then I yelled at both of them, then we started all over again. Just when we got ready to go play in the sprinkler, it started pouring! Tomorrow we're gonna make sure we get out and about. It's just so hard when it's so dang hot.

Some pictures from recent weeks:

So Far Behind

I feel like a lot has happened since my last post that I'd never remember it all to note here. But I also feel like I'm missing something if I don't. Sheesh, the pressure. I guess I'll just ramble for a bit...

Today was interesting. The kids and I had nothing specific to do today, so Bubby came up with something for us to do: go to the doctor's office! The very first time ever I left Baby Bear laying on the floor and walked away - to help Popo wash his hands - she was tripped on by her brother.

It was the scariest thing ever. She just started screaming, and I ran in to see her curled up on her side and beet red. I not-so-politely asked Bubby what happened and he indicated that he'd stepped on the top of her head. I was freaking holding her and crying. Once I could see through the tears (mine), I could tell the right side of her face was pink and puffy. I couldn't tell if her eyes were dilating consistently, so I called the doctor's office and the nurse suggested I bring her in, just in case.

She checked out okay, as long as I observed her throughout the day. I think she was a little off today, but nothing scary. She just ate, slept, and needed cuddling more than usual. Bubby still insists he stepped on the top of her head, it's cute.

We had just been at the doctor's office yesterday for her four month well visit, believe it or not. She also checked out fine then too. She's 25 inches long and 13lbs 2oz.

Umm... Oh, the kids and I went for a big beach day with Nana, Aunt Nicole, cousin Mady, and Miss Debbie last Friday. It was great fun, and I'll post pictures when I get them from my mom. We got a lot of great shots. I slathered the boys with sunscreen, but apparently missed a couple awkward spots, so they look like I randomly burn parts of their bodies with an iron or something. I feel horrible about it. I didn't put anything on my skin, so now I'm leather-skin-lady. And the baby got just a touch of pink on the right side of her body, even though we thought we kept her covered up. Again, I felt like the worst mom...

The boys are doing pretty well with potty training. We spend most of our time at home in big-boy undies or naked waist-down. Out and about we're doing pullups, and for bed we do regular diapies. Most all the time, they do peepees in the potty. Lately we've been having some accidents, mostly from laziness and having too much fun doing what they're doing. They sometimes wait until a diaper of some sort is on them to go poopies, but we're making progress. Bubby's doing really well with both, and Popo's coming along.

Okay, I could go on forever. I'll take a break.

Withdrawl

Our camera is off at Best Buy's super-secret repair shop again for random black screens and stuff. It's been gone for almost a week now, and it hurts! Last time this happened we got a disposable camera to get by. We still haven't developed that roll, so we didn't bother buying one this time. I wish Best Buy would hurry up and just replace our camera (warranty) so we wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. I have become so dependent on taking dozens of pictures every day.

I took the kids to the park for lunch and playtime yesterday. It was wonderful! They obeyed me, tried new things, and played with some new people. Baby Bear slept the whole time, so that helped a lot. It was interesting though... While I was desperately wishing I could document it with photos, it was kinda nice not to have the pressure of catching everything. I could just run around and enjoy them. Blessing in disguise again.

I miss my family. They've been taking turns being sick for weeks and right now my mom's still really bad. They miss the kids and my kids miss them. We'll have to have a big party when it's all overwith.

Some pictures from our trip to the beach last weekend. The camera broke during it, so there aren't that many. The boys had a great time playing with the sand - there was plenty to share! The baby slept through a lot of that trip too. When she was awake, she wouldn't open her eyes because it was too bright. It was too cute.