Lost

I got lost in my own blog tonight. It was so fun to look back. I'm so glad I've recorded our 6 years of child years.  I've made books from my blog and my kids love to look through them.  As I scrolled through, I just enjoyed the trip down memory lane.  While all these pictures on already on my blog, I just couldn't resist doing a little look back post.  Thanks Kellie Yeates for talking me into starting a blog when Isabelle was a few weeks old!  It's been a good thing for our family and a good hobby for me over the years.  Amazingly enough, the more kids I have, the more I have blogged.  I thought for sure it would go by the wayside at some point.  Instead it's been a constant. 

I wish so bad I could make this one picture.  An all time favorite of Mike and Isabelle.  6ish months old in San Diego

Isabelle's 1st birthday and the disastrous Bat Cake.  Look how young we all are!

Toddler Isabelle loving 3 day old Michael

She's not as funny now, but man she was an absolute crack up until a year or so ago. And "THE" sunglasses which got lost in the Spokane mall.  Sad sad day!

Michael fresh out of a bath as a little baby.  We used to see Jill ALL.THE.TIME!  Miss her!

 Michael's first birthday.  Poor sad tummy had plain yellow cake that kept him up all night.

Chubby Luke at 3 months

Luke's 1st birthday.  The cute monkey cake we had to do at 11 am at Derrick and Missy's, aren't we quite scraggly looking?!

Toddler Michael.  Seriously cannot get over his little face!  He was SO cute!

Luke's little sideways dimples that still melt my heart!

I forgot how awesome her curls were! 

 There were so so many more I started to add, but I had to stop myself.  I'm glad I found a hobby that I love and that benefits my family as I record our family history! 

Busy Week

Apparently it's been a busy week.  This is the only picture I have from the entire week.  I did lots of babysitting and made meals for people.  Apparently I make people feel comfortable at my house, which is a good thing, but my house has been full ALL WEEK! I've had over 15 kids in and out of my house this week (not my own), 6 teenagers and at least 8 different adults and even a 2 extra dogs here and there.  I know I've missed some people, but you get the idea.  I feel like this week hasn't been my own at all. I was able to do a little more organizing and cleaning out, but mostly I'm just cleaning up a completely trashed house.  With people coming and going, a house gets messy no matter how hard you try to stay on top of it! 

We also had a rough week with Isabelle.  She finished up an antibiotic for her last UTI on Monday and by Thursday she had another one.  Poor thing. Another trip to the dr. And we are trying a tablet form of an antibiotic because it's free....oh the things you do for money.  It's been an interesting adventure, to say the least.  She's getting better at taking it, but it's still an "event."

Today my upper back "went out."  I never understood that term, until I bent over to put Spencer in his crib and almost dropped him in as my back literally stopped working. A heating pad and Ibprophen are proving to be wonderful inventions.  Hopefully I'll be on my feet again in no time. 

My kids cute little faces, funny expressions, and big hugs and kisses make even a busy week still feel like a good one. 

Florida Winters

While it is colder here than a typical Florida winter (we have actually used winter coats on more than one occasion), it's still a wonderful time of year!  No matter where you live, you have a beautiful time of year.  We are soaking up our time to be outside before it gets too hot. We go on lots of walks.  It works out great when Michael is at school. The other days are a little trickier.  We play musical chairs alot, and when Spencer is done being jostled in the carrier and no one wants to play red light green light next to the stroller, we end up with this. 

Gratitude

Mike took my van for it's 5,000 mile whatnot and I had his car for the day....I got everyone's seats to fit again and then get them buckled, and then....they started touching each other! I don't miss these days AT ALL.  Thanks for my awesome minivan, Mike! 

The Garbage Disposal

Luke will eat ANYTHING!!!! And LOVES to eat. I think every picture I take of him, he has food.  Anytime anyone has food, no matter how recently he ate, he climbs up in your lap and says, "I wan some!"  I was eating celery and he said, "I want BIG celery."  He ate 3 of these.  He loves meat, but really will eat absolutely anything.  When everyone else rejects it, Luke will eat it.  We have started calling him the garbage disposal. 

On Saturday I took the kids to a drive thru and then took them to the park. It was a gorgeous day! It was so funny, we got all set up at a table, Isabelle and Michael took a bite or two and were off to go play.  Luke and I sat for a good 30 minutes while he ate every single bite before going to play. Don't mess with Luke and food. We will be in trouble when we hit teenager eating with this one. We should start saving a small fortune now. 

Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines day was fun, but low key day. There was nothing red or heart shaped.  Started off with a play date with friends.  We decorated sugar cookies and had snacks and had kids play. We came home and I cleaned a bunch.  Mike surprised us by coming home early and bringing pizza for dinner! He brought me roses. He normally brings me chocolate, but thanks to Spencer, he improvised. :)  He brought the kids their own 3 pack of strawberry gum.  You have no idea how big of a deal this was.  The pictures show it all, 3 seconds form hands to open. Luke has completely eaten his entire package, yes, in 2 days. This is what happens when you have big siblings that actually know how to chew gum. 

Nothing New

Nothing new with this kid, he just cracks me up and he was being silly when I had the camera out this week. He seems so much older to me.  Being a younger kid, he is exposed to so many more things than my other two were.  He's independent, and cute.  He also loves his "other mother."  If he gets in trouble, he goes to Isabelle to tattle on me, "Mommy put me time out!"  She loves to put him to bed and get him up in the morning and after naps. It's pretty cute. 

Someday....

Someday I won't have my very messy house spotless at 9:30 in the morning and have it look even worse by time Mike gets home.

Someday I won't deal with any one else's bodily fluids.

Someday I won't spend 2 hours helping children write their names on Valentine cards while trying to cook dinner and do dishes.

Someday I won't clean poop out of the bathtub.

Someday I will be able to sit down before 9pm.

Someday I won't step on Legos.

Someday I won't walk into a room and find a mess that you wonder, "What in the world was going through your head when you did that?!" and "Holy cow!  That is a big mess in a very short amount of time!  I left a minute ago!"

Someday no one will knock on my bathroom door for the 2 whole minutes I'm in there.

But then again, Someday I won't get to play monster with a ziploc and pattern block papers and listen to my kids giggle with delight while bouncing a baby on my knee.

Someday I won't get to read to my kids and snuggle with them in their beds.

Someday I won't get the help them learn to write their names.

Someday I won't hear, "Mommy!!!!!"  5,732 times a day

Someday I won't get hugs and kisses all day long.

Someday my house will be too quiet.

Someday they won't be fighting over getting to sit in my lap.

It's definitely been one of "those" days. There are plenty in my phase of life I think, but I can still be grateful for these kids that drive me crazy beyond belief some days. Now that my house is quiet and picked up again, I can't help but laugh, and laugh hard, at the scene at my table during Valentine cards....Never a dull moment with little kids around. All in all, I'll take it. They do make me happy.

Isn't She Pretty?!

Apparently even with 2 older brothers, there is no being saved from "The Big Sister."  Seeing him with a bow, I couldn't help but wish I had another baby girl just for a second.  I let Isabelle keep it on for a while.  He looks a lot like Isabelle did at this age.  4 months is so happy.  I love this age!  He's just such a good little baby these days. 

Stage II Kidney Reflux

Last week Isabelle had some testing done for her kidneys. The end result:  She has stage II reflux and a massive bladder, which means she doesn't go to the bathroom often enough, oh and ANOTHER uti. We have a few treatment/procedure options and trying to figure out which will be best for her. They said she could grow out of it around puberty time. 

The day of her testing she had a procedure in the morning.  She had to be there at 8 am (downtown during rush hour, awesome), but then after her appointment, she had a dr appointment with the urologist at 1 with not enough time to go home in between.  Trying to figure out preschool, a nursing infant, and babysitting all day for a toddler, was pretty much impossible, but Mike saved the day! He just worked "from home" that day.  He was able to take her and be gone all day and I didn't have to take Spencer to hang out at a children's hospital all day during flu season.  It was definitely a win/win.  For her VCUG test, they gave her "silly juice."  She wasn't out, just completely drugged up.  Mike said it was hilarious!  He took some videos, but the sound didn't record!!!!  All the videos before and after the 2 he took with the silly juice have sound, but not the crucial 2.  I was SO bummed!  He said she did awesome. The dozen doughnuts and carton of ice cream they came home with said it all.  She got spoiled for being a little champ.  Mike kept up on work and took the iPad for her entertainment in between.  He took her to lunch....Dunkin Doughnuts....how about that for a Dad move?  She thought it was awesome.  They got home close to 4 in the afternoon.  It was a long long day.  I'm so glad Mike was able to help.  And I'm also glad we are getting some answers.  Now just to figure out our action plan.  

"Super BAll!"

Super bowl Sunday...Mike got the kids excited for it all weekend.  We got invited to a couple of parties, but the other parties we've been to, the food is always good, but we don't get to actually watch the game due to socializing and chasing kids around someone else's house, so we declined on all of them and held our first family Super bowl party.  I'm sure it won't be our last! The kids kept calling it the SuperBall.  Our kids actually watch football decently well for their age.  We had way too many snacks, but they loved it!  Luke LOVES football.  Every time he gets to buy something with his money, it's another football.  His latest addition is a Miami football.  He calls it "Hitball."  Which is quite fitting.  So in between stuffing his face (he is definitely our eater) he was throwing his ball around, "Hitball!  Super ball!" He's got a good little arm. I still managed to miss alot of the first half, which is about par with 4 little kids.  Luckily here on the east coast half time was bed time, so I got to watch the second half, although wasn't much of a game.  Poor Broncos. 

Part 2

  This post really should have been included in the last one. This was during our perfect morning. Spencer was in my lap and would not stop watching the boys.  He was smiling at them, making noises at them, and bouncing on my leg.  It was like he was saying, "I wanna play too!  Tag me in!" Spencer has really started making noises.  His cooing is pretty constant when he's happy.  I never tire of new baby noises! He looks so much fatter sitting versus laying on the ground.  He has definitely started packing on the pounds.  He's a chubby one.

Luke can't say his f's.  He puts a p instead.  Finger is peener, fight is pight, and food is pood. "Help!  I'm Pawing Down!" I didn't realize how many words start with f.  He comes up with some funny sentences. He is still in love with Spencer. Michael has started taking more interest in him.  They want to add him to their games just as much as Spencer wants to join.  All too soon I will have 3 super heroes fighting all the bad guys in my house.

I Will Forget

The other day was the best morning.  The boys were playing so cute. They had busted out the super hero outfits again.  Apparently Michael thinks Batman is a bad guy, which I found funny.  Spencer was sitting in my lap watching and just dying to join in. We had lunch and they were talking and singing, the thought crossed my mind, "This is just perfect. I don't want to forget this," (my house was clean too.  haha!) And then as I listened to them talk, I realized I probably will forget this.  I don't remember how Isabelle talked when she was two.  I've already forgotten how Michael talked when he was two.  Luke is adorable to listen to. His staccato sentences with no f, l, or k sounds and extra p's, w's and t's and his love of singing. It's ok that I will forget all the details of the morning, but I can remember that in the moment it was perfect. These little boys make me so happy.

Poor Baby

So poor little Spencer is turning out to be even more allergic to milk than Michael was.  He doesn't seem to itch like Michael did, but he does have a way worse rash.  I have had the HARDEST time giving up dairy this time!  Last time, I decided and then I was done and never cheated.  With Spencer I was pretty sure he was allergic when he was just a few days old, but kept "experimenting" (let's be honest, justified cheating).  Finally two weeks ago, I had a dairy heavy cheat and he broke out into this horrible rash! His head and face were completely covered in weird gross skin, had a rash all over his torso, and then eczema spots all over his body.  I felt like the worst mom (I tend to be a stress eater, I'm not surprised it happened, just frustrated that I let it).  So I started doing our eczema treatment we did for Michael.  Spencer's still at a young enough age it's an "event" bathing him.  So after we got all the lice routines for the night (bathing, blow drying, changing sheets), then I got to bathe Spencer.  It's been a long few weeks. Anyway, after a few days of the routine, even without the prescription steroids, we saw a HUGE improvement. His red spots are gone, his weird skin on his face and head is normal, and all his eczema patches are greatly reduced.  He's a happy baby again!  And.....I've actually been dairy free since.  It's been easier (sort of).

Meet Izzy

Yep, I did this to her hair.  She has renamed herself Izzy.  It's her short name for her short hair, she said.  She says she will go by Isabelle again when her hair grows back.  She's even started writing it on all her papers at school. And that part I'm not sure she will ever go back to, "MOM!  Do you know how much faster it is to write Izzy than Isabelle?!?"  She was ecstatic to figure that one out.

So what happened do you ask?  Well, apparently there is such a thing as Super Lice that are resistant to the 2 main chemicals used to get rid of lice....you think I'm kidding, google it....Not kidding....not funny.  So just as I think we are lice free, she started itching again, only to find eggs again!!!  I had been doing every single "old wives tale" under the sun.  I was inspecting her head pretty much any time she wanted to talk to me.  "Let me check your head."  Wouldn't find anything for a few days, and then boom! EGGS! I went into panic freak out mode again and again shampooing, combing, washing, vacuuming.  Never found another actual bug, just more eggs!!!  Luckily it still hadn't spread to anyone else. On Tuesday night, we had the FOURTH incident.  That's when Mike found out about Super Lice. This time I tried a different chemical on her hair and I chopped it.  Honestly it took every ounce of self control I could muster to not completely buzz her head (which we did to the boys so far there is no way anything could attach to their hair strands.)  I was SO incredibly frustrated. Tuesday night and Wednesday, I was so tired and so frustrated. So tired of the constant washing, drying, vacuuming, blow drying.  I added "lice repellent" shampoo, spray and waxy stick and Lavender oil to the routines.  We have now gone 6 days without a single egg....this is the longest we have gone. I think we actually got it this time.  I pray every day that we actually got it this time.  Once I know we are 100% lice free, I will definitely be taking a trip to get her hair cut....it's a pretty bad hack job.  Add it to the list of Florida adventures that will be funny some day.