Welcoming Spring!

With the new warm weather and not much pollen (yet), we are heading out more and more.  We’ve discovered that Josiah is a boy’s boy!  He loves playing in the dirt and more than that getting muddy and covered in it.  This is funny because if we are eating a “finger” food, he requests a wet washcloth beside him to clean his hands every five seconds.  Not so outside though!  All bets are off when it comes to the mud and dirt.

Being that Ceili Rain is a “Spring baby” she hasn’t been outside much.  She’s just not been able to get used to being out on the grass…so we are now beginning her introduction to the outside world!  To help, she gets a walker toy so she move about on the grass and get used to the feel of it!  She enjoyed it but not when I had to divert her around the holes!

Yummm…grass!
I throw these pictures in here just for sport…you enjoy getting that neck exercise don’t you?
So, the rest of the kids enjoy playing in the dirt and mud but they use tools and are “very” careful with their hands.  Ace didn’t tell me what he was making.  Liam made a cake for me.  It was chocolate.  He has my heart.  Zoe made a house with a door.

Facebooktwittermail

Rockin’ to TruDog

Ace Dancing to TruDog 01 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.

My kids love TobyMac…but more than TobyMac, they love his son Truitt or “TruDog.”  TruDog has a track on each of TobyMac’s albums and each one is fun and funny.  The latest on the Tonight album is absolutely hilarious to anyone that has more than one child!  Trust me.  My kids are hoping that one day TruDog comes out with his own album soon.

In the meantime, they’re content to “get down” to TruDog on TobyMac’s cds.

Ace Dancing to TruDog 02 from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.

Oh yeah…that’s my Aceman!  He’s super flly!

And I did not password protect these videos.  Hoping that we don’t get any “negative” or inappropriate comments on the videos or it’s back to password protected!  So play nice.

Facebooktwittermail

Potty “Train”ing

Since I was so serious on Friday and gave you much to think about (or to ignore…you choose).  I’d thought I’d be a little bit goofy this morning and talk about what all mothers of toddlers/preschoolers talk about…the toilet.

Josiah’s been pretty well potty trained since October.  That’s a given…but with the crazyness of the pregnancy during the first trimester adding in a stomach bug and another stomach bug…we’ve had a bit of a regression in the potty training area.  Not a big deal…we’re just taking it in stride.  A couple of weeks ago, once I realize the ummm, “bug” was starting to dissipate from his system, we took him out of pull ups during the day and back into undies.  He was pumped but still having a little trouble remembering to go (and he still does some times).  So for motivation, we got M&Ms.  One for #1 in the potty and two for #2 in the potty.  Simple.  That works but it doesn’t work great when he doesn’t go potty in the potty and doesn’t get them often.  However, he came up with an even better way to potty train himself.

Last Sunday, I took him to potty after a little “incident” in his pants.  I was telling him, once again (but calmly), how he needed to use the potty and not his pants.  He said:

“Thomas not happy.  Thomas got poopy on his face.”

Aha!  We hit on what works for Josiah.  So, I started talking to him about keeping Thomas (or superman or monster trucks or whatever undies he has on) happy.

Now, every time he goes to the bathroom he tells me whether Thomas is happy or sad.  Then we talk about why Thomas is happy or sad.  It’s too cute and too funny.

I told his teacher about it Wednesday night.  She asked him if Thomas was happy.  He stopped for a minute and thought about it…then smiled and said yes and then started to show her how happy Thomas was!

And one last Josiah and undies funny.

Josiah is in training pants at night.  Usually, first thing in the morning as he’s starting to wake up, he goes in his pants.  He also doesn’t like being wet on the bottom.  After he gets out of the pool he waddles around.

One morning he came waddling into the kitchen from bedtime.  I asked him if he had pooped and he said he had.  So we waddled off to the bathroom.  I told him to let me check and see what it looked like before he took his clothes off. I pulled back his pants to discover he was commando.  No training pants in sight.  He’d slept all night with no undies on!  Oh, and he hadn’t pooped either (thank goodness)…he was just wet.

I called Mark to ask him about it and tell him that Josiah was commando.  He said, “Well, I didn’t get him dressed last night.”  I told him I didn’t get him dressed either.  So, that left Josiah to blame!  He had dressed himself and forgotten the training pants!

Facebooktwittermail

Reading Buddies

When Grandmere comes to visit…

I think the kids plot out and pick out just which books to read when and where and for how long.  Having one grandmother who is a librarian and the other an English teacher, our kids were destined to enjoy books and enjoy them with their grandparents.  I really think they would be happy with sitting in Grandmere’s lap reading a book the entire time she comes to visit.  She has read to them from the time they could sit still long enough to listen and they love it!

Thanks Grandmere for having a warm lap to climb in and for warm arms to love on and read to us!  And thanks for trekking up between storms (and trekking home in them) just to see grandkid #11 turn one!

Facebooktwittermail

Ceili Rain is One Year’s Old!

 It’s official!  We now have a one year old!  Ceili Rain turned one last week and we celebrated in style this past weekend.  It has been quite a year with the little miss.  She has been such a treat and blessing to us.  The best sleeper yet…and our rested selves is probably why Mr. Bryant is on his way 🙂  She is very busy and very active.  She loves to be where the action is and wiggles and squirms until she get there.  Her crawl is more like a hop/scoot but she gets where she wants to go.  She’s pulling up and cruising and will even stand for a few seconds before diving into someone’s lap.

Here are her stats:

19 lbs. 7oz. (25%)…that’s an upgrade on the curve and not quite tracking with Super Wy (who is five months younger than her).
29 inches long (50%)

And here’s what happened after we talked with Dr. B and the nurse came to give the shots:

When it came time to get shots, Liam and Josiah stood near Ceili Rain’s head.  Josiah reached up and touched Ceili Rain and said, “It’s okay, Ceili Rain.”  Liam admonished him.

“No Josiah she’s going to get shotted!”

When I told them it was okay, they both started patting her head and trying to love on her.

Josiah did not like her getting shots and said, “Ceili Rain got shots and hurt.”

Sweet little CeiRai has some pretty protective brothers!  This will play to our advantage some day (insert maniacal laugh here)!

 We are so blessed to have our CeiRai.  She has definitely filled all of our lives with laughter and joy!

Facebooktwittermail

Quick Update

I’m anxiously waiting on Mark to get video up so I can post a great video of Ace dancing to TobyMac.

But, in the meantime, we’ve been busy celebrating a little one’s birthday!  Yep, Ceili Rain, our little princess amidst the princes…has turned one.  We celebrate in grand style with her best buddy, Megan. 

We are starting a busy four weeks with swim lesson for three boys among other things.  My goal, today, is to get pictures up so that all can see our CeiRai’s celebration and what else we’ve been up to.

So, stay tuned…life here will be up and running shortly.

Facebooktwittermail

I’ll Pay

Friday, we treated the kids to a meal out at our favorite pizza buffet place.  We go at least once a month.  The pizza’s better than frozen and there a few but not a ton of games for the kids to play if we have time.  We also decided to take them to a toy store and let Zoe and Liam spend their birthday money.

Liam gathered his money together and refused to put it in his pockets.  Mark finally convinced him to let him hold it so it wouldn’t go missing.

All the way to eat, Liam kept saying, “Daddy, I’ll pay for our pizza.  I’m going to pay with my money.”

Mark and I were able to finally get him to understand that that meant no toys.  “If you pay for our pizza, which is a nice thing to do, you won’t have any money to buy a toy at the toy store.”

Silence…then…
“Ohhhhh.”  Pause “I’m not going to pay for our pizza.”

Mark and  I just giggle at his antics in the car.  The other night, he decided to tell a story but refused to do so until we were all quiet…and whenever it was quiet for awhile and someone would ask for the story he’d tell us he couldn’t tell it until after that person was quiet.  This went on the whole ten minute ride home and almost ended when he caught Mark smirking and laughing and he pronounced he wouldn’t tell the story now because daddy laughed.  Mark’s got to work on his cough/laugh!  I didn’t get caught because of my perfection of the cough/laugh.

Facebooktwittermail

It’s War!

Actually, it’s not.  In February, when there was a warm snap (thankfully), we ventured out to a battle reenactment.  It was a Civil War battle that was fought near where we live.  We met some friends there and had a wonderful time.  I was expecting some rinky dink reenactment with not much going.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised…in fact, we didn’t get to see everything they had set up.  Tents selling Civil War memorabilia and of course, wooden swords and guns (the boys were in heaven).  Zoe and I wanted to go to all the tents selling dresses…and we did hit quite a few (to which I kept telling Zoe I could make those same dresses for her if she wanted).  The battle was pretty neat and managed to see (and feel quite a bit).  We, being our first time and arriving late, chose to sit near the cannons.  They were extremely….extremely loud.  We knew they’d be loud but we didn’t realize that we couldn’t see, for the most part, when the cannons would go off.  So when a round was fired the first shot just made you jump.  Each time.

So here’s the pics from our day:

Zoe and Laura learned out to make rag dolls out of strips of fabric.  The seamstress had an extremely old machine that she used.  It was really neat to see and made me grateful for my new digital sewing machine!

Guess what all the boys liked!?!  They were filthy by the time we left but they had a blast.
The Confederate General (I think).  He was basically standing around telling people to not plug their ears and close their mouths at the same time when the cannons went off.  If you did…it’d hurt…really bad.
In history, a few weeks ago, we were reading about the American Revolution and General Washington trying to train his troups.  We read about a volley but I don’t think the kids quite understood what I was talking about.  I tried to explain it but nothing beats seeing in front of your eyes.  When the infantry marched out, they got to see several volleys!  That was pretty cool.
As we were leaving, we were all thirsty (and tired) so we found a place selling…
lemonade and other cool drinks (none with alcohol) in some really fun neat bottles…did you think we were turning our kids into whinos?!
Yep, Ace in front of the Confederate flag downing some nice ice cold lemonade.  It was fun.  You can pick out your bottle and then get refills.
Start ’em early!
Taking a quick break before guzzling some more.
And this is just a fun picture of Zoe!
I know there was a lot wrong and right about the Civil War.  I don’t think History should be ignored or disregarded because it makes us feel bad.  There’s a lot about the Civil War that is not discussed much in classes and I am so grateful for a father who taught me a lot about why the Civil War started (slavery was one of the issues…and just one) and the men who fought it.  He also taught me to be appreciative and somber because this was a war where families were separated and destroyed.  Not a pleasant exciting time.  We tried to drive that point home to the kids as we left.  We didn’t want this to be just a fun event but a chance for them to understand history in a more real way.  If you get a chance to attend a battle reenactment, I hope you do and remember the sacrifices that families from both the North and South made for their beliefs and loyalties.

Facebooktwittermail

Mommy’s Helpers

Getting back to normal last week brought on some much needed cooking!  Monday I had two meals (well, three really) that needed to be prepared.  One was for that night and the other two were to stick in the freezer.  They all required shredded chicken.  My volunteers eagerly pulled and tried to sample the chicken.  I have to say that Josiah was the most concentrated chicken puller I’ve seen in a while.

Focusing!
By the way, I made these Chicken Crescent Squares but time was running short and so instead of making the crescent dough into actual squares, I just put the filling in the dough and made it into a braid.  I also made my yummiest comfort food…homemade chicken potpie (no processed canned stuff here…homemade pie crusts, homemade sauce, fresh veggies…yum, yum, yum).

Facebooktwittermail