2 things

Here is a picture of two of the many things I accomplished today! The kids and I decorated our house for Easter, and I sorted, cleaned, and found a home for all the stuff that was piling up on this counter! This island is the first thing you see when you enter our house and I wish it always looked this empty, but it doesn't it is our catch all. Everything gets thrown on this counter like cell phones, toys, cups, papers, odds and ends. I think you get my point. But, not today! Today it only has this Easter basket that is holding what is left of the juicy, fresh off the tree oranges from Arizona that we got from Helene a friend of ours. My goal is to keep this counter empty. I wonder how long it will last. My guess is a day.

Shoes

Yesterday Ezra tried out his very first pair of "real" shoes! Yep, it is official no more baby soft bottom slipper like shoes for Ezra, just big boy shoes for our Little Man. I like to have my kids be steady on their feet walkers for at least a month before I put real shoes on them to walk around in, and yesterday was that day! He didn't like them at first. In fact he got really frustrated with them and tried to pull them off. We went to the Library and gym yesterday and after about 5 minutes of him walking around clumsily he was used to them and they didn't seem to bother him any more. Now that he is 16 months he is officially a toddler and not a baby. It makes me sad how fast he is growing up.

New Rule

This morning I made a new rule. By looking at these pictures of our Princess can you guess what the new rule is?

Well our new rule is that Blankies can't come down stairs. They need to stay on the stairs, or upstairs. I told Owen and Ava that I didn't care if they had them while they played in their rooms, or while they looked at books up in the hallway by the new book shelf, or if the blankies were on the steps. They just couldn't come on our main level of the house. Owen's only concern was about vacation. I told him that yes if we take long car rides or go on vacation they could come with. So far he has not had any problems with the new rule. However Ava is struggling a little bit. She sat on the stairs for almost an hour this morning with her blanket before we left for the library, because she wanted her blankie but didn't want to be upstairs. Then when we got home the first thing she did was go to the stairs to check on her blankie. I have a feeling that she might spend a lot of time sitting on the stairs with her blankie. I am hoping after a few days she will get over the need to have her blankie with her at all times. Ava also asked "what about Ezra's blankie"? I told her that he is still little and maybe when he turns 2 he will have to follow the rule too!

The Messy Foods

I usually try to feed my children all of the messy food like spaghetti, apple sauce, and yogurt as long as possible to avoid them making a huge mess. But, Ezra put a stop to it in the last couple weeks. Whenever I tried to feed them to him he would turn his head or clamp his lips shut. He really wanted to eat what I was offering him but he just didn't want me to be in control of the spoon. I have given up and now he does it all by himself. So a mess he is at the end of some of our meals!

The day I took these pictures we were eating a very late lunch and it was way past Ezra's normal nap time so you might have noticed his tired eyes in the pictures. By the time he was done with his lunch he could barely hold his eyes open.

Book Shelf

Saturday morning we put together a book shelf to hold most of the Kid's books. Owen did most of the work to put it together. He is becoming quite the builder. Daddy just had to check to make sure that he got all the screws tight enough. Then when it came time to use the hammer Ava decided she wanted to help too!

Here is the finished product it sits in the hall way upstairs by the kid's bedrooms. We didn't have enough room for all of our books so I went through them all and filled a big tote with books that I don't like and all the duplicates that we have. Then I filled a toy bin in Ava's room with the rest of the books that didn't fit on the shelf. A second book shelf will soon be needed! All 3 of the kids have been spending a lot of time in the hall way looking at books. Most of these books have been sitting in totes in our basement because as Luke and I got sick of reading the same ones over and over again we would put them in the basement and buy new ones. But, now that we took the ones out that have been in hiding for so long it is like we have bought all new books. The kids are in book heaven.

Thank You

Of course we would get a snowfall that looked like this when Luke was out of town for work. Luckily for us Papa John came to our rescue and took care of the mess for us. We would have never been able to get out of our drive way if he hadn't. Thank You Papa John!

Snow Day

Owen's Preschool class was canceled this morning because of all the snow that was dumped on us. Last night when we went to bed about 85% of our yard was grass with about 15% of little areas here and there with patches of snow. Then this morning when we woke up 100% of our yard was covered in inches and inches of snow. "Not again" were the words out of Owen's mouth when he looked outside. However, both Owen and Ava ate a very quick lunch because they were really excited to go out and play in all the snow. Crazy how we can go from wearing light weight spring jackets one day to having to wear hats, gloves, boots, snow pants, and winter jackets the next!

Happy 3rd day of Spring!

Holy Bible

Book Review:

Holy Bible - International Children's Bible is an excellent version of the Bible for Children. It is written in a way for children to understand what they are reading. This version of the Bible also has 3D colorful pictures throughout the Bible to give an illustration of certain stories that the child has read. It is written for children at about a 3rd grade and older age group. But, could easily be a Bible that parents can read to younger children.

I really liked that as I read Owen could understand what I was reading to him unlike grabbing a normal Bible that has difficult words for even me to understand. I also thought the 3D pictures were amazing. Owen spent a long time just flipping through all the pictures. He would bring it to me and show me things that he thought were really neat. I believe that when Owen is at a older reading level he will really enjoy reading this Bible on his own. I think that this is a great children's version of the Bible I would easily say that if you are looking for a great Bible for your 3rd grade or older child this would be a great choice.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

My Husband

This will be one of those post where I get a "that wasn't necessary" from my wonderful husband, but I am going to write it any way! Just because I am so proud of him. Luke received a promotion at work! As of last Wednesday his new title is "Welding Supervisor." Boring title if you ask me, and even though Luke didn't ask me I let him know that it should have a much fancier name. So now he is the direct supervisor of all the welders at his job in our state and parts of two of our neighboring states. His office will still be in the same building as his other one so that part didn't change for him, but all of his other responsibilities sure did. With this promotion also comes the dreaded training and classes to learn how to do his job in the correct, most safe, and efficient way. Which to our family equals him being out of town a lot more than we are used to. Thankfully he should only have to put longer hours in and travel a lot for the first year. Then after that he will have a much better schedule that he will be in charge of setting for himself. I really dislike when Luke is not able to be at home with us at night (not that he enjoys it either) so this first year will be challenging for me. As much as some people may enjoy having a whole bed to themselves I do not. When Luke is out of town even for just one night I can't sleep. When he is gone for a week I am a very tired, sleep deprived wreck by the time he gets home. However, I am choosing to look beyond the traveling and focusing on all the positives that come with this promotion because that is really what matters. Like I said I am extremely proud of Luke for receiving this well deserved promotion. He is an amazing, dedicated, hard working, husband, father and employee! I love him so much and he makes me proud!

Spring

Our family is so excited that it is officially Spring! We are ready for warmer weather so that we don't have to wear hats, gloves, snow pants, boots, and jackets to play outside! A few more days in the 40's and our yard will be snow free!

I Tried...

We watched Olivia and Charlie for a couple hours the other night while their parents went on a dinner date. We decided to call it a pajama party just to make it more fun! I got the great idea to try and get a perfect picture of all 5 of the kids sitting on the couch together. Well it was a great idea, but it didn't work the way I wanted it to. It is not an easy job to get 5 kids ages 5 and under to all look at the camera at the same time! Surprisingly Ava was the only one looking at the camera in every picture, however her face doesn't appear like she is enjoying the photo shoot! Here is what I got before Owen said he was done!

Pictures

Out with the old...

and in with the new!

Bowling

Last Saturday we took the kids bowling. I was unsure of how it was going go being that Ava has never gone before but the trip turned out much better than I thought it would! Ava's first time was a success she had a blast as did the rest of us and she even beat her Daddy. Yes, she beat him because she used bumpers and that metal ball launcher thingy but who needs to know that. She was proud of herself for beating both Owen and Daddy! Ezra sat contently watching us in the stroller while we played our game. Owen started out using both the bumpers and that launcher thing but quickly decided that throwing the ball himself with just the help of the bumpers was much more fun! Both Owen and Ava were bummed when our game was over and it was time to go they wanted to keep playing. We thought about it but in the end we decided that it was better to leave after one successful game and not find out if they really could last through another round or if Ezra would loose his patience being confined to the stroller for so long. Talk of another trip to the bowling alley is what I hear often from both Owen and Ava. I might be brave enough to take them by myself during the day while Luke is working some rainy day!

Daddy...

Does interesting things like this when Mama is gone!

Wordless Wednesday

Ezra's Hair

I love the way Ezra's hair naturally stands straight up after he takes a bath. It has an extremely cute wild look that makes me smile when I look at him! His Daddy's hair does the same thing but he always puts moose in it to avoid the cute wild look. I have to admit the cute wild style looks much cuter on a 15 month old than it does on a 29 year old but don't tell Luke I said that! Unfortunately once we put Ezra's winter hat on him his hair goes flat so people don't usually get to see it sticking straight up, and that is why I decided to post these pictures of our Little Man.

suckers and packing

Thursday morning I decided to try and get caught up on the never ending laundry. First I separated all the clothes into appropriate color piles and then went ahead and started the first load. After I got the first load going I went to the kitchen to get breakfast started. In just that short amount of time (5-10 minutes) that I was in the laundry room my independent princess took the opportunity to help herself to a chocolate sucker. Since she didn't want to share with Ezra who evidently really wanted one too she gave him a vanilla one to enjoy.

So when I came into the kitchen I found the two of them sitting on the floor together happy as can be sucking on their yummy suckers! I guess I can't blame them they are the best suckers I have ever had! We received a box full of them in the mail on Wednesday from Sarah a friend of ours who lives in California! Thank You Sarah for the delicious suckers all of us love them!

If you were thinking to yourself well where was Owen while all of this was going on. I found him upstairs in his room packing his suitcase. According to him he and his Daddy were going on vacation to Little Boy Resort just as soon as Daddy got home from work! He told me they were going to play with Dillon's Lego's, go ice fishing, and he couldn't wait to see his friend Jordan!

Unfortunately that trip didn't happen, but hopefully we will get up their soon because I really miss our friends at Little Boy Resort too!