Cleaning

Right now, I am upstairs, in my room, sitting at the computer. I was about the fold the laundry, but as I listened to the boys downstairs I wanted to write a bit about them and how the play together so when I am old and gray I can read this and laugh.

It all started out with buying the fabric. too cute. perfect for curtains in the boy's room. Oh and wouldn't it be so cute to paint the wall a nice pale dusty blue? Yep. So over the past few days I have painted their room, made curtains, pillows, painted a kids table and chairs, frames, and letters for the wall. Busy few days. Today I finally got the bedding I wanted for their beds and was very excited to put the whole room together. However, being the boys that they are their room was a complete mess. I wasn't about to clean myself for the 100th time, so I told them they HAD to clean it or else. An hour went by, no cleaning. 2 hours, no cleaning. Finally as they played in the blankets rolling down the stairs and jumping off the couch downstairs, I began to clean their room.

They came in and out getting teddy bears pillows, and who knows what else to play with in the couches. I kept reminding them that were supposed to be helping me clean and would they please pick up those toys. THey ignored me. As you can guess, trouble was coming. I finished putting their room together, bedsets and all and called them up. Then I told them that I was very disappointed with their choice to not clean or help me and that they were definitely going to be punished by sitting in their beds for the remainder of the afternoon. They got in their beds, I gave them each a book to look at and went on with some chores. They began to once again goof off in their beds and I really didn't want them to wake Sophie up from her nap so I went to their room and told them that if they would rather clean the entire kitchen and do the dishes, then they wouldn't have to sit all afternoon in their beds.

They thought that was a good idea. They did the dishes quickly enough and were very good about rinsing all the dirty dishes out and loaded up the dishwasher nicely. Then it was on to sweeping and mopping the floors. Thy were excited about that. they shook out all the rugs and I gave them each a broom to sweep with. Then I went back upstairs to get come laundry done.

As I listened to them work together I couldn't help but just laugh. I heard them "racing across the kitchen floor", calling out "ready, set go!" "foul! that was a foul!" "time out time out" "okay let's get to work." then smack smack smack with the brooms (I'm pretty sure they were sword fighting) Harrison laughing "that was funny!" Both of them singing, "we are the cleaning boys! cleaning boys cleaning boys!"

Then they told me they were all done sweeping and it was time to mop. Now the real fun has begun. I'm not sure what is going on down there, but there is endless laughter, James saying "this is slippery!" And Harrison saying "hey, you got my head! now i have to get more underwears!" Why he needs more underwears because James got his head is beyond me. I'm sure they are making more mess at his point than cleaning, but it is all tile, so I am not too worried about it. I just love hearing them laugh together, "work" together and just being brothers. Harrison just pranced down the stairs in a fresh pair of underwears, and as I watched him walk back into the kitchen he slipped and landed right on his bum. I think I am going to give them each a towel now to dry that floor up for us. :)

Kids. How can you not love them?

Happy Birthday Sophie!

So, I know I already blogged that Sophie turned one, but here are the pictures from the day so you can see just how darn cute that little thing is. These pictures are completely out of order, but that is okay, at least they are here.

I think this picture is just too darn cute to ignore. She just had her pigtails pulled out and her hair is all sorts of crazy cute.

I'm sorry she isn't smiling in this picture, but I have to say, she really LOVED that pie. She had the pie plate in her face licking it out. as you can see, it is licked clean.

I just like the close up of her cute chubs.

Fruit snacks! Yeah we give exciting gifts.

Harrison, James, Sophie, and their cousin Aubrey here for the celebration. The kids all loved their mini pies. We had pies for everyone. And all the kids got little mini cherry pies.

Enjoying her pie, and using a spoon for the first time actually.

Oh yeah, see here she is, licking it out. YUM!

James and I helped her blow out her candle, James was so worried she was going to touch the flame he held her hands back. Funny boy. But then we gave her the pie and she wasn't sure what to do with it. Then I gave her a taste and it was all over.

Opening more presents. She got.... fruit snacks, books, a big pink ball, and a little riding toy.

She had a little crown that she hated to wear, but wore it the entire time she ate pie. I think she was enjoying the cherries too much to care what was on her head.

Just a cute picture.

Here she is all dressed up the morning of her B-day. That toy was her main gift from us and she seems to really like it. She presses the buttons on it and laughs and claps her hands. It is cute.

I love this picture. I wish it weren't so bright, because I love her happy little face. Oh, that is one of the dresses I made. just FYI.

This actually is not her birthday, but was a cute picture, so I wanted to post it.

One day Sophie and Harrison decided to cook with me. So here they are with their bowls and spoon and sophie thought it was the greatest thing. They had a great time.

One Year Old

Last Sunday was a very bittersweet day for me. On the one hand it was my daughter's first birthday. On the other hand, my sweet baby girl Sophie turned one year old. A year? An entire year has passed? How is that EVEN possible. She is just my baby. My cute chunky monkey baby. that just giggles and adores you and sleeps half the day. But no, the day had to come. She turned one. sigh. I would start to cry every time I would stop and think about her birth. The moment I first saw her. I can see it right now. So beautiful. The moment I first held her and just laughed and cried with joy as I held my little baby girl and thanked my Father in Heaven for a beautiful healthy little baby once again.

She was a mere 6 lbs 10 oz. had gorgeous thick dark hair and eyes that were open and alert, taking everything in from the moment she was brought into this world. And now here it is, a year later. She still has incredibly thick dark hair (which I absolutely LOVE) She is curious about everything. She jabbers all day long. She will copy just about everything you say to her. She loves to growl at you. She loves to be chased and runs as fast as she can until she is laughing so hard she plops down on the ground and rolls over laughing. She loves to wrestle. She was definitely meant to come to a family with two big brothers.

Her brothers absolutely adore her. James from the very first moment he met her. Harrison, well it took a little warming up but he did, and they get along quite nicely. We used to call Harrison the little policeman because anything Sophie did wrong he would immediately tell her no, and then come tattle to us. He still does this to an extent, but mostly has discovered that Sophie is just as mischievous as he is, so they get along fine.

Sophie loves to try and dress herself. She empties drawers and baskets and carries the clothes around the house trying to put them on her head. For some reason her favorite item of clothing is the boys underwear. I always catch her carrying that around and I really don't know what her obsession is with it. Stinker. She also likes to carry things around in her mouth, like bottles, sippy cups, little toys, kind of like a dog would. That always makes us laugh. She wanders the house yelling "MA! MA! MA! MA! MA!" I'm not gonna lie, I LOVE that she likes her mama so much. She can also say, "Hello, Uh Oh, what's this? James, Dadda, and Ball"

Sophie likes to do things...perfectly. Really, she wouldn't consistently crawl until she could do it just right. No army crawling for her, just straight up crawling. Same thing with walking. She took her first steps a couple months before she would actually walk. We would catch her walking here and there but as soon as she saw you she would plop right down. Then one day she had perfected it and so began walking everywhere and hasn't crawled since.

Sophie loves loves loves her bed, brown blanket, bumpers, and bunny. If she doesn't have those things she will cry until she gets them. And then she will go right to sleep. She won't sleep without that blanket. She got them messy one night and so I put all her bedding in the wash, put new sheets on, and gave her a different blanket. That absolutely would not do. She cried until the bedding was washed, put back in her bed, and then she slept soundly. Butthead.

Sophie has fire. She looks really sweet and innocent, but she has fire. I am glad of it though. I like that she won't let people push her around. I like that she will let herself be known and heard. She does all that now. You take a toy away from her, she will quite literally yell at you. not cry, yell. okay it is more of a squawk, but you'll hear about it. I do let her know what is and isn't appropriate in the getting angry dept, and I know her terrible two's will most likely be hell. But I know that one day she will be a great woman. Smart. Confident. and Gorgeous.

Sophie is smart. REALLY smart. I can't believe how smart she is. I feel like she is constantly learning things, and wanting to learn things. She is always taking everything in. She learns thing so quickly from her brothers and she figures out how to do thing so quickly it constantly amazes me. When Ben blessed her, he said that she would excel academically. I have no doubt about that. She will.

The other thing about Sophie, she loves to laugh. She loves to be silly with her brothers. She loves other babies and kids. She is very social. She always gets so excited when she sees another baby/toddler. I love it.

What more can I say? I love my baby Sophie. I love holding her cute naked chunky little body while in the shower. I love how much she likes going for a run in the stroller with me. She loves it. She is just a pure joy in our house. We are all in love with her and love having her in our family. We love to play with her and have her laugh her head off and chase us around. We love her chunky little legs and her stick straight hair. We love how she jumps back into her blankets laughing when you go to get her out of bed in the morning.

So Sophie, we love you. and Happy Birthday!

Conversation with Harrison

Me: "Oh, Harrison, you got pudding all over your pants"

Harrison looks down at his pants, looks back up at me and replies, "Oh, it's just poo."

Yeah I am still laughing at THAT one. Oh, just poo, well then THAT is okay...

Just FYI, I was right, it was pudding.

Talking

Last night I made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies and we sat and pigged out on them as we watched the oscars. I ate mostly cookie dough as I prefer that to the actual cookie, but I really was pretty good about not over eating on the treats. However, the boys pigged way out on both cookie dough and cookies, and then this morning snuck down to the kitchen and ate at least 10 more cookies! Little terds.

So then this morning while we were getting breakfast I said to Ben "man my stomach just feels rotten" To which James responded "yeah, because of all the cookies you ate!!!" we laughed really hard about that. And then later I was saying how I could not fall asleep all night (it always takes me about 2 hours to go to sleep) Sass James piped up again saying "Yeah, because all you could think about were cookies". Wow. I laughed so hard. Stinker boy.

Sophie, on the other hand has just recently been saying her first words. She calls me "mama" on a regular basis. And says "dadda" here and there. But today she said a very distinct "hello" And she continued to say it as she "talked" on the phone. So cute! That little girl is growing up way too fast it scares me. She is now walking everywhere she goes. She took her first steps a little over a month ago. She learned how to walk very quickly but just wouldn't do it. And then this last friday, she just decided to walk, so she did. And now that is all she does. Funny baby.

This morning while I was getting Sophie ready she was jabbering like she was telling me a great story, and every now and then she would throw in a little fake laugh. It was just about the cutest thing I have ever seen, and would have recorded it but knew that if I took the time to go get the camera, she would stop and I would have missed out on it myself. While we were watching the oscars lat night she would pretend to laugh whenever we did, and then clapped with the audience. I love kids. I love seeing them discover the world around them. I love seeing their chunky little thighs hanging out of their dress (this is only cute on babies). I love the way they cram food in their mouth. I love mad they get over such simple things, it makes me laugh. I love how they are born as their own person, and their personality is right with them from day one. I love the way they love. Their instant forgiveness, friendship, and desire to be good. I love it.

Another story of the day...

Today we were driving down the freeway in the carpool lane when I heard a sudden rush of air. Thinking that harrison had opened his window I went to close it and press the lock so he couldn't. I realized that no matter how many times I pressed that button to close the window, the air was still rushing in. James then asked why the inside lights were on. Sure enough I looked at the dashboard and there was that little light showing me that Harrisons door was open! I was terrified! There was no room to pull over, and you have to understand harrison, he just leans on the door and falls out as soon as you open the door. I told james to not bump Harrison and I just kept telling Harrison to not touch his door while I got the car pulled over.

I finally got through the traffic and to a place where I could pull the car over and shut his door and put the child lock back on. Not sure when THAT was switched off, but it surely was. I was so grateful though that he didn't fall out the car as we were flying down the road and that he was good and just sat still. He is such a clumsy kid I was even afraid to have him move over because he would probably just fall! I am always amazed at the many times we have been protected. When things have been just fine and we have been able to continue on. when really, something terrible could have happened. I know there are constant angels guarding us and watching over us, and I am always eternally grateful for that. James was so sweet though, after we got back going he said "mom I held onto Harrison's hand so that he would be safe". Such a sweet good big brother. He will always take care of his little brother and sister. He was born a leader.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's day was fantastically fun! Ben had a 4 day weekend, and so after I was done at James' school Friday morning we took Harrison and Sophie and went to Kneaders for the most delicious (and probably fattening) french toast ever! Harrison and Soph liked it too. Then we got stuff for the kids and picked up James from school. We then were off to Gmas for a little Valentine party with all the cousins. The kids had a super fun time decorating bags and cookies and exchanging valentine's. When James got home from school he was so excited to show us his big box of candy he had gotten. We had spent the day before covering and decorating a box for his Valentine's and I had told him it was going to be filled with stuff at school. And it surely was. He then dumped it all out and gladly shared with Harrison and Sophie.

Anyways, Saturday was a super great day. We once again didn't have a babysitter so we just did things as a family (yeah we are in some real need of a date, it has been weeks!) We took the kids to Boondocks for the day and seriously had the funnest time. They played in the Kiddie Cove for forever ( I think they could live there and be perfectly happy) Then played some lazer tag with Ben. Then we just played arcade games for forever. James amazed us all at his driving talent there. He was REALLY good. It made me a little nervous for when he actually does get behind the wheel of a car. Harrison, of course, just wanted to play the Basketball games, and he was in heaven. But after it all, we gathered up our tickets and the boys picked out some prizes.

Then we went on home where we built a fire in the backyard and roasted Marshmallows, & hot dogs. We had a fantastically fun day. Oh and we watched the Olympics with all that. Then of course we got the kids to bed and I got the house cleaned up and put out some Valentine's we had made for the kids. The next day they loved their little bags of treats (James actually helped me pick out some suckers for Harrison...so sweet!)

After church we were going to make a big breakfast, but we were all way too tired and just plain lazy. Plus there was a nice dinner already cooking for us, so we just snacked and watched the Olympics, played some memory with the kids, ate candy, and just took it easy. An excellent day. Plus, Ben wrote me the sweetest card (it made me cry!) and got me new running shoes. YES! And we got each other the exact same candies. So funny. So, yes, we had a very great Valentine's day.

Delicious Potato Soup

So a couple weeks ago I bought a Ham on sale for about $7. I love ham. Seriously, I love to just sit and tear off a slice here and there and just eat it. Yum. We were having Ben's parents over for dinner one night and so I cooked up the Ham and ate it. We had Sandwiches. Very tasty. But after dinner we had tons of ham left so I cut it all up and put it in different containers and such to save for other meals later one. Wow. I got about 8 different meals with that stuff. It was great! So I think $7 for 8 meals isn't bad. I guess i had to buy stuff still for the rest of the meal, but it still seemed good to me.

Anyways, by far the best meal we had with the Ham was surprisingly the Potato soup I randomly decided to make. I have never made it before so I just googled it, found a high rated recipe and cooked some up hoping it would turn out well (especially since I was taking half to a family for dinner!) I am so happy to say that it was SO delicious! Ben and I couldn't stop eating it! The boys even loved it, and our neighbor liked it too. So it is definitely a winner recipe and will probably be one our regulars from now own. As you know, when I find something I really like I love to share it and let people know about it, so I am posting the recipe so if you ever have leftover ham and some potatoes...here is a very tasty meal! Enjoy

Delicious Ham and Potato Soup!

Ingredients

3 1/2 Cups Peeled and Diced Potatoes

1/3 cup diced celery

1/3 cup finely chopped onion

3/4 cup diced cooked ham

3 1/4 cups water

2 Tablespoons chicken bouillon granules

1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1 teaspoon pepper

5 Tablespoons butter

5 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 Cups milk

Directions:

1. Combine the potatoes, celery, onion, ham, and water in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the Chicken bouillon, salt and pepper.

2. In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whick in flour with a fork, and cook, stirring constantly until think, about 1 min. Slowly stir in milk as not to allow lumps to form until all of the milk has been added. Continue stirring over medium-low heat until thick. 4-5 minutes.

3. Stir the milk mixture into the stockpot, and cook soup until heated through. Serve immediately, and Enjoy!

What I did Different:

I used red potatoes, and did not peel them. I didn't have granules, so I just used bouillon cubes instead. I don't even know how many I put it, just until it tasted right. And when I mixd the milk into the butter/flour mix. It didn't get all that thick so I finally just threw it in the soup and called it good.

Okay that is all, and I hope you try this out!