Laundry, Laundry & More Laundry

I have spent the weekend catching up on laundry before the boys and I head to Florida on Tuesday. Every time I fall behind on laundry and get caught back up, I swear that I will not get behind again. In order to do that, I probably need to do at least 3 loads a day! We have way too many clothes!

E is so excited to go to Florida. Everyday he asks how many more days until we leave and after I tell him he says, "I am so excited, mommy." Mike is getting ready to go on his mission trip with the church. They are going to Guatemala. I am sure it will be a great experience. The boys would rather he be going with us to Florida.

The other day while E and I were outside he told me he loved Jesus and God the most. I said that is good...that is the way it is supposed to be. He said he loved Jesus the most because Jesus died on the cross for him to be his Savior. Today he asked me if bushes really burn. I said they can, why? He said they were learning about Moses in church today. I told him I was proud of him for listening and paying attention in class. I love hearing him talking about Jesus! He also told me the other day he wanted to be an orthodontist when he grew up so he could fix people's teeth. He has been very interested in braces lately...ever since Isabel was here. Later the same day he decided he wanted to be an animal man on the show Zaboomafoo and work with animals.

Well, I don't think that J will need surgery. His nose is still swollen but the ENT said the inside was fine and that it appears crooked because of the swelling. He told me to come in on Monday if I wanted him to look at it if I was still unsure and then he could do surgery if needed later in the week. I told him I would be in Florida later in the week. He suggested making an appointment anyway and I could always cancel it. When he left the room, his nurse came in with pre-op papers. I said, "We are having surgery." She said, "He said you were scheduling it for Monday." So needless to say, I have a surgery schedule for 1:30 tomorrow for just in case. Which I really don't want to go to the hospital to have the doctor look at it to find out he doesn't need surgery....the day before we fly to Florida.

We went to watch Mike's indoor soccer game tonight. They had a double header..we were able to see the first game before we had to leave for bedtime. His team is getting better with each game...they won their first game tonight!!! At the end of the game, the fans decided we would make a tunnel for the team to walk through as they came off the field. It is fun to watch them play...in between watching the kids.

Broken Nose?!

Well, I am finally going to post on the weekend festivities as well as what we have done so far this week. On the 4th of July, Mike bought ALOT of fireworks. So he put on our fourth of July show...it lasted for almost an hour. It was really good!! We had a few friends over to enjoy the fireworks. He had everything from ones that just stay on the ground and light up to the full blown "real" fireworks you see when you go somewhere. I think he and his brother, Bill, enjoyed "playing" with the fireworks as much as we enjoyed watching them. Again, it made me think about what we were doing last year on the 4th...this year was less eventful!

On the 5th we celebrated little Liam's birthday! He woke up in the night around 3am (like usual), but this time I actually enjoyed it because I picked him up and said "happy birthday, munchkin!" That is what I call him since he is my little guy. He really is turning into an older baby...interacting with his brothers and trying to make us laugh. He pretty much stands whenever he gets the chance, but he has yet to figure out how to get back down which makes bedtime fun with mommy going in a few times to lay him back down. Anyway, back to his birthday party. His party was great! We had our close friends over. It was the perfect size party. With the older boys, the parties were bigger and seemed more chaotic. L's was really quite nice. The older kids that came mainly played outside on the playset. The theme of the party was little cowboy. I found the cutest plates a while back with a little cowboy on them with the number 1. I pretty much decided then that he would have a cowboy theme. I thought he was adorable in his overalls and red bandana. And E's old rocking horse just completed the look. I ended up buying foam cowboy hats for the older kids to decorate. That is the hat that J has on his head in the picture in the other post. They put foam stickers on their hat when they came to the party. L actually had 3 "little" friends at the party. I think the highlights for the party for L were his balloons and cake. He enjoyed the cake for quite sometime, but when he decided he was done, he was done...as you can see from the crying picture I posted! It was a really nice day...as Mike said before the party, it was a big day. Not just because of his first birthday but because of what it meant and what we had gone through to get to this point.

E has swim lessons again this week. He is enjoying them and can't wait to go to Grammy and Papa's to practice. He told Grammy the other day that she could swim with him. It makes for a hectic week but I definitely think they are useful and worth it. After this week of lessons, I have pretty much have the weekend to get ready to go away for two weeks. That means I need to do ALOT of laundry since I am behind...as always.

Yesterday, J decided to pull a weight bar down on his face. His nose instantly swelled up and is now a little asymmetrical as the doctor put it. I took him to the doctor today and was told that we need to go to the ENT tomorrow to see if it is in fact broken and to possible get it reset. That should be fun! He also has to get some blood work done to see if he has a immune deficiency that is causing all of his sinus issues. He is going to have a rough day tomorrow! I think that I am going to do something special for him after the doctor's. Lately I have been feeling really guilty that he is not getting enough of my attention. It is so easy to just "lump" him in with E. He really doesn't get an opportunity to be with me by himself very often. E does in the afternoon while the younger boys are napping. I need to make an effort to carve out time each day where it is just J and mommy time.

Well, I know that the boys have said many cute and funny things that past few days but of course I can't think of them now. Isn't that the whole point of this blog! I really need to do this everyday probably more than once a day to truely capture it all. Maybe I should write the stuff down on paper and then do the blog later. I will need to work that out. At least I am writing something down...I am one step ahead of where I was a month ago, right!

Happy Birthday!!!

It was Liam's birthday today. I am going to post photos for now....I am too tired to write anything...I can't think clearly right now. But I know that Grammy and Papa were anxious to see photos of the birthday party so here are a few...

Zoo

Yesterday the boys and I went to the zoo. We have yearly passes so I thought it would be a good thing to do for the morning that wouldn't cost us anything since we already have passes. It was perfect weather for July...high of 68! Since we go to the zoo frequently, we have our usual routine that we follow. This time we changed it up a bit. When we first got in the zoo, we went to the nocturnal house. We saw a barn owl, an anteater, bats, flying fox, and other night animals. We like this house a lot! I think that was the new favorite spot for the boys. I liked the owl the best and the bats the least!!! We then went to the insect house which was another new spot for us. We spent a lot of time in there. E liked this room and was excited that he was able to final see what a scorpion looked like. For some reason he has been talking about scorpions for the past few weeks so it was nice to finally show him one in person. And yes all the insects were alive. We saw a Japanese horned beetle. This thing was HUGE...at least 3 inches long and about 1 1/2 inches wide with a big horny hook thing on its nose. After these two new stops for us, we saw the usual animals and had some lunch. We did see the African animals this time...we usually miss them for some reason...these are Mike's favorite. Another new stop for us was the children's zoo where the kids could play a little bit sit on statues of animals and pet big turtles that were walking around. After that we went to the petting zoo, where they feed the goats. This was a treat for the boys. They have never done that...J thought it was funny and E thought they were soft to touch. Mom asked me if L likes to see the animals, and I said "I don't know..actually most of the time I have the strollers pointed toward a wall or bush so he is out of the way." Poor guy!!!

Today I ran errands to get ready for L's birtday on Sunday. I had to buy him presents and get lots of groceries. We were out of almost everything. I ordered his cake and his personal "smash" cake. Once again it made me think of how quickly the year has gone by. Tonight when we put the boys to bed, Mike told them we would do fireworks tomorrow night. As he was leaving the room he said, "At least we know that mommy won't go into labor this year." That made me think that technically tonight a year ago was when we went to the hospital. I was reflecting on the fact that everything was in such perfect timing. God's timing. His hand was in all of it...down to what time arrived at the hospital. Had things been 10-15 minutes earlier or later, things could have been drastically different. Today I was thinking about how I felt when I came out of surgery. How scared I was and how releived Mike was. I remember he was just standing at the end of my bed telling me it's ok, you are ok, the baby is fine. Of course, he had already lived through the fear of me in surgery and L being born so early. But he had also seen L already and saw that he was breathing. He saw me in the hopsital bed alive and ok. It was all catching up to me at this point. I was scared before the surgery but more so when I woke up. Awww, the Lord is so awesome! He had me and L in His hands the whole time. He knew exactly what was going to happen. I remember right before I went under, I prayed, "HELP ME, LORD, I am scared." Boy did He answer my prayer!!!

Well, anyway on a lighter note, I will leave you with another one of E's quotes of the day. I was pushing him on the swing tonight telling him that he needed to adjust his attitude a bit because it was more pleasent to be around him when he was happier. He said, "I don't want you to send me away." I said, "I would never send you away." He said, "Yes you would like you said you are going to send Booker away." Booker is our dog who has had diarreha the last two days...which has left me cleaning it up 4 times. I told him that he is my son and Booker is just a dog. I would never send him away. It is amazing what goes through kid's heads!!

Hearts Sing

I haven't posted in a few days. I really need to do it every night because I can't remember what I did two days ago! The weather has been really pleasant the last few days. The boys and I enjoyed the park on Monday night since Mike had a meeting. It was nice just to walk around the park and see the ducks. They enjoy walking on the trails more than they do actually playing on the park. Yesterday I worked out in the morning. My friend Kelly and I exchange babysitting so we can each work out. She comes over with her baby and watches the boys for me. Then I come home and she leaves to work out. It is very nice to have someone like that...gives me a chance to have a moment to myself and stay in shape. I am very sore today after yesterday's work out.... After that the boys and I played outside on our swing set.

Today started out rough. I has one of those days where I didn't feel like a very good mom. I felt like I was doing a lot of yelling. I hate when I get like that, and I am sure my boys do as well! They have probably learned to tune me out. Sometimes once I start, I get on this downward spiral. It seemed like the boys were on a roll and did not want to listen to me....or at least didn't want to listen until I yelled loud enough. I know there is a better way!! I do love watching them play together, though. E & J really do play well together. I love listening to them laugh and pretend together. I am very impressed with how well J pretend plays for his age. The other day they were playing cars together. E said, "Hey dude, do you want to come to my house for dinner?" And J said, "Yeah dude." E said, "Get your family and come in my truck." J took his pointer finger and his thumb and pretended to pick up a tiny person off of the table and "put" them into E's truck. He then took he fingers and got "person" out of his truck to put in E's truck. I think that is impressive for a 2 1/2 year old to pretend that much!

Mike's garden is going well! We are starting to get a lot of cucumbers and zucchini. I am hoping to make some zucchini bread. That is something we did last summer a little bit with our surplus. Just when I was getting into it, though, we were done with our zucchini growth. It makes me think about last summer and what we were doing. I can't believe it has been a year since I was on bed rest and L was born. We are having his party on Sunday...a cowboy theme. I am excited but sad at the same time. I am not ready for him to be one. It seems like once they are one they grow up so fast and out of the baby stage...and I love the baby stage.

Tonight while I was putting the boys to bed, I read them a story and then started to sing them "Amazing Grace." I was laying on the floor singing and E came and laid on me with his ear on my chest. He said, "I can hear your heart beating..." Then he said, "I didn't know hearts could sing!" Priceless!!! I love it...I gave him a huge hug!