Family Fun

Last Saturday we cleaned like crazy with the bribery of the beach.  It's amazing how well kids work for a good bribe.   Then we left for the afternoon so the house would actually still be clean 10 minutes later. :) There are few places that are relaxing with 3 little kiddos....the beach is one.  Mike and I just sat and watched for the first 30 minutes, then joined in on the kid fun.  I look forward to many more Saturdays like this.  I'm sure I will always take too many pictures.

Stolen

My camera disappeared and I found a few new pictures.  I have a little photographer on our hands.

Where's Luke?

Peek A Boo!  Luke LOVES Peek A Boo.  It's the only way to change his diaper with minimal wiggling.  Any time you say, "Where's Luke?!"  He smashes his hands to his face and it's not always on his eyes. I love babies!

This Girl....

Is a gift just for me.  I don't know what I would do without her. The other morning I was having a particularly difficult time getting out of bed.  I heard quiet, but happy noises and knew Isabelle was up, so I just enjoyed snoozing a little longer.  After about 30 minutes, she plopped a large plate on Mike's side of the bed containing a piece of toasted bread smothered under a pile of cinnamon sugar.  "Mom, I fed the boys and made you breakfast."  I got up a little while later and found Luke had a clean diaper and all 3 children were dressed.  I walked into my cinnamon sugar covered kitchen still smiling (I love "i'm helping" messes!!!!). She apologized for the mess and then started cleaning up.

She so thoughtfully tried taking the boys and dog for a walk and the Luke's face episode happened.  She was crying so hard. "I'm sorry!  I was trying to be helpful!"

Daily she amazes me with her attitude.  She loves being a happy helper.  She used to want to be a mom when she grows up, but she has changed it recently to "I just want to be helpful."

I'm also loving her daily makeovers.   If you know her well, you can hear that loud infectious laugh behind this face.

What happens when?

The Ipad gets put where it belongs?

Luke climbs on the basket under the desk and screams like he actually has the right to play with it.

What happens when a helpful, thoughtful 44 pound girl attaches a 90 pound dog to double stroller with a couple of 20-30 pound little boys strapped in to go for a walk?

Poor Luke face plants on the cement and after the bloody face and teeth were all cleaned up, this was what was left.  It looked so much worse the next day.

I Love 3!

I remember a post about Isabelle soon after she turned 3 similar to this.  The last month, I've been having the same thoughts about Michael.  My troublemaker, pesky 2 year old, has grown up into an adorable, mostly obedient, helpful 3 year old.  I cannot get enough of this kid right now.  He's so silly and I love listening to his funny enunciation.  He is still trouble when it comes to the hours of 8pm-7am, but he's so stinkin cute the rest of the time, I'm over it. He LOVES to sing and dance to music.  He's imaginative and plays so well even when I know he'd rather be watching TV or playing something that plugs in. He's just growing up.



He made a hammock out of his soccer goal. 


Isabelle gave him a make over....note the steak of eye shadow above his eyebrows.

Never Too Old

My mom does "business" trips.  They are when her children have babies or move.  So it was time for another business trip.  It was fabulous!  We worked alot, but still found lots of time to play.



After 3 hard days of work, we took the whole day off to play.  We hit up the Jacksonville zoo.  It was a fabulous kid zoo!  The giraffe's are amazing.  The chimpanzee's had a toddler.  We stood watching mom, dad, and what looked the chimpanzee equivalent to Luke play for a long time.  It was adorable.





We also did 3 puzzles at night while kids slept.  Mom and I love a good puzzle.  We are puzzle buddies.


But mostly we took rooms that looked like this....


To look like this....


I'm still going through decluttering more, but my house is LIVEABLE!!!!!!!!!  Thanks Mom!

Much Needed

Today it was a beautiful 79 degrees.   It was a peaceful, sunny, gorgeous day.  I spent the day here....


with my kiddos and good friend Michelle and Isabelle's "best sister" Addy




We finally made it to a beach for the day.  Luke loves to stand where the water can reach his toes, but frieks out when the water does touch his toes.  Michael played in the sand and shells the entire time and only complained "I don't like the ocean" twice.  Isabelle was in heaven with everything, just like always, at a beach.  I didn't realize how much I needed a peaceful relaxing day. I think I can handle many more trips like this.

Dancing Luke

Luke got this fridge toy for Christmas.  He is obsessed with it.  He carries it around constantly pushing buttons and dancing.  Toddler dancing cracks me up.  Normally he's holding it dancing, but Isabelle had to get in on the camera action.

And A Happy New Year....

For New Year's, our good friends have a party in their cul de sac.  They put their TV and Wii in their garage, everyone brings food, fireworks, chairs and bikes for kids to go crazy.

Most of the pictures with fireworks turned out blurry with all the smoke, but oh well. Isabelle really got into the fireworks this year. 



Isabelle, Ella, and Addy.  These three are hilarious.  Ella is 8 but her and Isabelle play perfectly.  Addy is the youngest in a family of boys.  Isabelle and Addy have dubbed themselves "best sisters" since they don't have any sisters.  They have lots of play dates and have a blast together. 


Poor Michael....he was so excited talking about fireworks all day, but he got plowed in the street by a big kid and bonked his head bad enough for a concussion very early on in the evening. He didn't want anything to do with the fireworks. You know he's not feeling good when that happens!  So I spent the night snuggled with him in my lap waking him up every so often.  Mike got him out to do a couple of things, but he didn't last long.


It was a fun night with friends.  It got a little chilly towards the end, but we just scooted towards the firepit and enjoyed spending the night outside!

Backtracking

I'm finally taking "me time" breaks to blog.  We are at a liveable point, I can do that now!!!!  Warning...this is long.  For the most part it was all a fun or funny adventure.  I do want to remember most of it. :)

While we lived in the hotel, we spent lots of time at Lowe's and Home Depot or other places for the house.  It was almost a nightly adventure.  Picking out paint, light fixtures, locks, smoke alarms, carpet, oh how the list goes on, and taking what we bought to the storage unit.  The night usually ended with tears from someone, me sitting in the car with overtired children while Mike finished up and then they were all asleep by time we got home and I had to change them and get them ready for bed while they cried because they were tired.  It was awesome. :) We smarted up.  We brought technology.  Got kids ready for bed before we left and things got better.


We went to my parents for Thanksgiving (future post) and when we came back to Jacksonville, we found a furnished 2 bedroom apartment. It was SO nice!  It was a much happier place.  They had a playground for the kids, there was a TABLE to eat meals, and the kitchen had more than just 2 pans and service for 2.  I wish we had found it sooner.  Oh well.  This is the only picture I have there.  My camera charge cord got lost for the entire time we were there.  SO sad. :(


CLOSING DAY!!!! it was a Friday morning.  Isabelle was at school.  The boys were perfect (well for the first 30 minutes).


We stopped for lunch and made a stop at the storage unit and went straight to the house.  Now remember at this point, there are holes in walls, no lights installed except bathrooms, no carpet, and no appliances, this house has been empty for almost 2 years....We got straight to work. I started cleaning bathrooms and Mike started patching holes.  Luckily the kids had been so couped up for months, they were easily entertained.

Luke played with this cup with a trickle of water in the bottom forever!  Anytime he started to cry, I put a tad more water in.


After the bathroom was clean, the kids played for hours in it. I had no idea how entertaining a bath tub without taking a bath is.


That night a few people from the ward showed up and helped tape the entire house and get everything prepped for painting.  Saturday more people from the ward came and helped paint all day.  One friend came and took all the kids.  We were so blessed with so much help!

That night after everyone left around 8, I looked around and the color on the walls was not the color in my head.  It was horrible.  It wasn't darkening up as it dried like the sample patches we had painted.  At this point we had 7 rooms painted.  I looked at Mike and cried, "It's awful!  My house is seafoam green!  It looks terrible!"  Mike was so patient.  He said, "Ok, let's go pick a new color."  To Home Depot we went.  We picked 3 new colors to sample.  We walked back in the house and I looked at it and I liked it.  I kept looking around.  It was nice.  It was completely different from what I thought I was getting, but I liked it....then I LOVED it... We went ahead and painted the samples of the 3 new colors, and I didn't like any of them.  I asked Mike, "Will you be upset if I say I like the one already on the walls?"  To which he was quite happy!  Much less work!  Looking around, I still love it.  :)

Sunday morning we moved out of the apartment and officially into the house. We worked like crazy that weekend.  We borrowed some air mattresses and I found a little fridge on Craigslist and went camping in our new house.

The kids were fantastic.  They did better than expected for being so ignored.  They played with the few toys we had.  This bag of foam blocks and a bucket of Legos.  They were worth their weight in gold!  Luke only got into the paint 4 times.



Luke became quite the climber.  Any unattended ladder would have Luke at the top of it before you could even turn around.  He would also climb up the ladders Mike was on too. SO annoying.


Monday morning started "Blitz Week" for Mike.  It is his busiest week of the year.  No exaggerating, he left the house at 7 am and wasn't home until 10:30-11pm at night.  This was the whole rush on painting and why we were hoping to be in the house a week earlier. Oh well.

Camping at home


Monday night after getting home at 11pm, Mike helped me finish up all the painting in the rooms getting carpet. That was the night I also smashed my finger with a hammer.  I may or may not have passed out and been laying helpless on the cement with 2 rooms to finish up trim painting at 12:30 in the morning.  I've decided I either need to stop being dumb, or a wuss, but being a dumb wuss has left me lifeless on the floor too many times.

Tuesday was CARPET DAY!!!!!!!!  I didn't think ahead with having 3 kids in the house around carpet layers....we tried going to a park, but it was right after a downpour.  So we went to Arby's for lunch, and hit Wendy's on the way home. And then we sat in the truck in the driveway for an hour. I introduced the kids to frosties.  They approved. :)  Luckily our awesome neighbor let us come over and watch a Christmas movie for the end.



The kids went nuts once we had carpet!


Michael was literally running circles in the playroom.


Other entertainment for the rest of the day.


Wednesday was MOVING DAY!!!!!  It was a happy happy day.  I always say, "it's just stuff."  Well, when you are without stuff for 8 weeks when you're thinking it's going to be closer to 4-5 you really do miss it.  All 3 children had outgrown some of the clothes I had packed.  Not to mention, I did not pack enough warm clothes.  They were in shorts in 50 degree weather a little more often than I like.

The kids had a blast jumping into the moving paper as I unpacked. They called it their paper jump.  It got set up and cleaned up multiple times a day for the first week-ish.

The kids also went crazy on the couch.


The noise in my house was hilarious.  Giggles and squeals and excitement.  It was a huge relief  to finally be settling in, for real. We have had some fun adventures along the way.