Take the good.....

Tomorrow we have Halloween parties and parades galore for the kids. ....of course they all start at the same time and I am just one me. Just when you think your children are all growing up, they want Mom to watch them walk the parade in their Halloween costume. Life is good.

Wordless Wednesday

In honor of the snow we got this week.... although this picture was 3 years ago.

(Don't you love Tarryn holding a carrot up to her own nose?)

Lessons

There is a song from the Signing Time series with words that truly capture how I feel about each of my children. "You've taught me in your lifetime, more than I've learned in mine." I'm often amazed at the things I am learning from my children. I'm amazed that in order to do this amount of extensive learning you have to be past "school age" and your teachers are younger than you. Possibly because they don't pretend to know more than you. ...well most of the time anyway.

Sunday as Brandon and I were relaxing on the couch chatting about our weekend, Kellan came to us with (in his mind) an emergency.
"I found da arrow. Now I need da other arrow." Holding a pretend arrow in one hand and pointing at Makade's bow that we keep on top of the entertainment system with the other.
"Why do you need it buddy?" We asked as if we didn't know the answer.
" 'cause I NEED it!" Was the reply.
"Well it needs to stay up there because we can't play with it in the house and it's too cold to go outside."
To which Kellan responded, "Oh. Okay. I get it myself."
Standing on the couch (which is a good 6 feet away from the t.v), he reaches as high as his 3 year old body will stretch and jumps over and over again. "Almost!" "I get it this time." "Reeeeeach!" were just some of the words spoken with each attempt. Brandon and I watched with amusement as the little guy tried and tried. And just when his body language was showing he may be ready to quit by shoulders slumping and head hung down, he stopped determindly; stood tall once again and announced, "I can never give up."

Both Brandon and I looked at each other and shared a moment of awe that our 3 year old son could remind us that even though things may seem hard or even impossible, if it's something we truly desire or believe we need then we should never give up. We should continue on; steadfast, strong, and determined.

...I'd like to say that Kellan reached his goal of retreiving the bow. That we offered to aid him on his quest. Truth be told, as soon as another of his siblings called his name and used the words, "Come play," Kellan lost sight of his goal and jumped off the couch to find something better. But that's okay because our lesson was learned. Now just to apply where it's needed.

Wordless Wednesday

We may want to choke the kids now and then, but at least we can do it with a smile. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Kellan and Dad the Storm Trooper bobble-heads

Copy cat

When your husband has been traveling in and out of the country for the past 3 months there are some things that just don't take precedence in your life while single parenting 5 kids. Watering plants, weeding, changing batteries in smoke detectors.... Somehow these things tend to work their own way of letting you know they are there. Weeds take over, plants die, and the smoke detectors make it known at 3am.

We have had various detectors go off while Brandon has been away on his last trip. Today however, a detector decided to make an appearance during the middle of the day. *gasp* After a good 5 "BEEPS" into our afternoon shout-out, Kellan started asking 30 seconds after the sound, "Mom, when is it going to beep?" and as soon as he'd ask, it would "BEEP". This went on for nearly 15 minutes until Kellan started getting annoyed.

Hearing Kellan marching down the hall, I thought he must be getting frustrated with the noise as the rest of us were. Imagine my surprise when I realize Kellan's frustration wasn't coming from the noise exactly, it was understandably every time he'd say, "Beep." the smoke detector would replicate, "BEEP!" so Kellan would yell, "Stop copying me BEEP!" As if we don't have enough sibling tormenting going on in our household.

Et tu, smoke detector? Et tu?

Wordless Wednesday

Another blast from the past with the kids at a hidden waterfall somewhere in our state.

I adore each one of the children's face in this!
(M=5yrs, C=14mos, T=7yrs)

First Crawling Casualty

Caught red orange handed!

He's Crawling! ....and doesn't sound to happy about it.

Javen has taken that next step in life. He's decided to become mobile! No more sitting around waiting for us to pick him up and move him to our desired designation. No more being left behind waiting for someone to hand him something to slobber or chew on. He wants to get into the mix of things! ....and that means no more delays in baby proofing the house. Where does time go?! Can it really be that he's 8 1/2 months???

On a side note: Apparently taking a few crawling paces makes a person hungry! We met Grandpa for dinner and Javen ate everything (for the record this was watermelon, peas, corn, mashed potatoes, fishy crackers, french fries, and I even gave him 1/2 a rice crispy square to celebrate) on his plate and then when he still wasn't satisfied, he simply ate the plate!