looking on the bright side...

one good thing about being fat is that the ring around my waist provides an excellent seat for the baby.

kindergarten...

blows.


i have thought about this for a long time. we have been preparing for years. literally. i have checked out so many schools, applied for charter schools, and even taken part in a few tours. i have been checking the mail daily for any lists so that i can be sure to buy all of the necessary supplies to make sure that my little lady is prepared for her first day. in all of this preparation i realized one thing: i am totally not prepared.

she may have an adorable back pack with matching lunch box.
she may have a box of crayons, safety scissors, and pencil box.
she may have beautiful dresses and the most perfect pair of school shoes ever.
but she won't have me.
and she needs me.


or maybe i need her.

in my mind, once harper walks through the doors of that old building and puts her bag in the little cubby bearing her name she will transform into mini skirt wearing, black eye liner bearing, little sailor swearing adolescent that will no longer want or need me around. sure, some may say that this is a far stretch. but is it?

this 5th birthday is, in my mind, the official end of the baby years. she has graduated into childhood and i am not sure i am ready for it. well, i know i am not. my camera is full of pictures because i am not sure if each moment will be the last. will this be the last picture she makes for me? will this be the last time she falls asleep for a nap? will this be the last time that i can trick her into eating tomato soup by calling it red soup? i am constantly reminded by people that it all goes by so quickly and i feel like this kindergarten thing has me digging my heels in refusing to let go.
it is only just now that i question the system; why do we send our prized ones off to an establishment outside of ourselves with the trust that they will be educated and shaped into the adults that we imagine? should i just sequester my family away from the world and its influence and maybe, just maybe, i will be able to keep a hold of the precious innocence for just a bit longer? then i think of the calling to "be in the world, but not of it".
there is a world out there that needs positive values to counter set the negative ones that are bringing such chaos into the lives of those who live by them. there are people that need to be reconciled to God. sure, harper may not be the one little girl that can change the world, but maybe she will be....or maybe she will change one person's world. whatever it may be, she is not mine to hide away. she is a gift. a true, beautiful gift that i am not ready to share but i know that i must...
i have told kyle that he will need to take the day off of work.
and i have made a list of things i will need to do to make sure that i am ready when it is calvary's turn to head on out to the big bad world.

1. check out schools.
2. make a list of my top priorities.
3. find out the admission requirements for each school and complete list.
4. make a doctor's appointment to get the kindergarten physical completed.
5. have a certified copy of the birth certificate.
6. have a copy of social security card.
7. have proof of residency.
8. have a truck load of valium.

beach shots...

a prayer...

calvary's breakfast prayer...

"God is great...
God is good...
and birds are crazy."

oliver jack is 7 months old...

we made it to another milestone. oliver jack officially turned 7 months old yesterday and we marked the occasion by putting him in his high chair for the first time. he absolutely loves it. he sits at the end of the table with such an expression of pride and delight and it makes me laugh.

he is still a super sweet baby and even though people keep telling me that he might make a turn for the worse he is maintaining a wonderfully laid back disposition. i am praying that he does not make a dreadful turn and i am faithfully believing that his disposition is an answer to prayer...not a result of little r's hanging out in the lower corner of the punit square.

he has tipped the scales at 20lbs.

he has not started crawling yet but he is quite mobile without the conventional all four's method. rolling, pivoting, and scooting has worked well enough and i am not in any hurry to see this busy little man take off.

although he is very much still cheekin' and squeakin' and we enjoyed his laid back persona for many reasons at our latest beach trip, he has been taking teething rather harshly.

one of his flaws is that he does not seem to be able to manage pain as well as harper and calvary.

he has had 2 ear infections that have caused him to be quite sad but the doctor only rated them as a 3 on a scale from 1-10. this inability to take pain like a champ has resulted in a very sad teething process. it breaks my heart because i look at him and just know that he is in pain. harper and calvary never really struggled with sleeping while teething, but oliver jack is waking up screaming in the middle of the night and refusing bottles (which is an obvious personality change by the looks of those thighs :) ). i am hoping that these dirty culprits break the skin quickly and stop reeking havoc on his little body.

we are enjoying every (well almost every) day as a family of 5 and i am sad to know that 7 months of his life has already passed by me. having harper approach her 5th birthday makes me painstakingly aware of how quickly it all does pass (even though i heard it almost every day for the past 5 years).

be careful when you force your children to get their picture taken with inanimate objects...

one hand was planned...the other was not.

me versus the coupons...

i have waged an internal battle against coupons for about the last 6 months. i have never used a coupon in a grocery store. never. now, do not get me wrong. the bed of money that kyle and i sleep on is not always comfortable, but it keeps me from having to flex those coupon clipping muscles. actually the money bed is very comfortable...it is laziness or probably better yet, lack of organizational skills of which i blame my schooling that keeps me from clipping the night away.
i look on with jealousy (or awe) as others have saved big money by using coupons. betsy, leslie, and allison have all shared the benefits of coupons and while i listen i feel like a dog chasing a car. a really, really fast car. i just cannot keep up with all of the double coupon days, spreadsheets, and price matching hoopla. i smile. act as if i understand, because they clearly believe that it is all as simple as pie. a pie that they were actually paid to buy by the grocery store because it was on sale for half price and then it was double coupon day and they had a coupon that they clipped from a competitor's circular. i am beyond impressed, but i just do not get it.
i have devised my own money saving system that has seemed to work and a new article i just read let me know that i am not alone in my anti-coupon disorder. however, i too can save money!
here are a few ways that i save money.

1. i shop at aldi. i love aldi. their fit & active brand is really delicious and they offer a wide variety of products from cereal to ice cream treats.

2. i try to limit grocery trips to 2 times a month. this forces me to make due with what i have in the cabinets instead of simply going to the grocery. every time we get to a old mother hubbard status in the kitchen i feel like i have accomplished something great. i look at my bare cupboards with pride. thankfully, i am blessed enough to replenish those cupboards when they are bare because i do realize that there are people in this city, state, nation, world that cannot do the same. to me it is a game...to them it is their life. (which reminds me: i need to take the canned goods to the second harvest food pantry)

3. i buy the cheap brands.

4. i travel to different stores to get the cheap brands...example: i go to target for diapers and baby food, walmart for toiletries, and harris teeter and food lion for awesome sales on produce.


with these steps i am sure i have made good use of the money with which we have been blessed. i may not have a cabinet full of 65 tubes of toothpaste that i paid $.25 to get, but we have what we need and have managed to maintain a little of my sanity. the latter of which is priceless.

for those out there like me:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Lazy-Way-to-Save-on-fool-780282098.html?x=0&.v=1

a brief hiatus...

kyle and i were on a much needed vacation this past week and it was so fun...

vacation with three children is not exactly like vacation with no children and by not exactly i mean not at all...but where relaxation is non existent fun is uber existent...

i am in the process of uploading all of the pictures and hopefully i will get the blog updated in the next couple of days...

a lot happens in 7 days...

my top picks...

i was thinking the other day that technology and innovation changes so much (things have changed so much from harper to oliver) that i thought i would be neat one day to look back on the things that i could not live without and see how many of them seem outdated, overrated, or better yet, recalled.
so here is my list of things that make my life so much easier....
in no particular order of course.


1. Combi Tri Fold Stroller:
i have used quite a few strollers and i absolutely adore this one! my maclaren double stroller is also a gem, but this one is perfect for one baby. i can open the stroller with one hand and, because of the carrying strap on the back, i can easily carry it if the need arises. mine is rather old and worn looking, but i forgo buying newer flashier models because of the simplicity and ease it brings me...which, trust me, there is not much simple or easy about life with three little ones...

2. Target Brand Diapers:

my children pee alot. i mean a whole lot. not much has been able to hold the load, especially overnight. i was a die-hard white cloud fan because i learned with harper that the pricery models would not quite cut it overnight. i found the white cloud brand and it was love. but then they stopped making them except in the training pants...which are not worth the money...so i started having to splurge for oliver jack's disposables. that is when i found the target brand diapers. they cost less than 15.00 for a huge box and the super cute polka-dots kick all of those goofy characters right in the...well...bum.

i hope with next baby we will sign up for a more environmentally friendly service like healthy bottoms. the service is convenient, economical, and healthy for baby and earth. i was one step closer to this option with oliver jack, but cloth diapers are a little scary to me. but until then, i am a super fan of target's up and up diapers

3. Bumbo:

i must admit that i am not thrilled with the "babysitter" adage the company has given their product, nor am i thrilled with their color choices, but the bumbo has been a figurative life saver on many occasions. my trip to the beach would have been much less restful if it were not for the bum hugging shape of the bumbo chair. i would have had a baby on my lap for many meals. i would have had a crying baby while folding laundry. i would have had no where for margo to sit while i diapered my baby. i would not have been able to go on my 5 mile run. just joking about the last one. i cannot run 5 miles. so despite all of the chair's less than admirable traits, i must admit that i am a bumbo fan.

5. Swim Ways Spring Float:

i tried a less expensive float. disaster.

i tried this float. delight.

the end.

5. Munchkin Mesh Fresh Food Feeder:

i became aware of this product before oliver jack was ever born through betsy's blog. it looked like such fun that i thought "i wish they had that when my kids were babies." so i decided to have another one just to try it out. and it was worth the price of labor and delivery just to see the sight of squished up blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, bananas, tomatoes, and green beans. oliver jack just loves feeding himself and i like knowing that he will not choke and die.

6. Baby Mum-Mum

i mentioned these earlier in another post. they are great. we love them. they look like giant rice krispies and oliver jack loves them.

i DO exist...

i subconsciously (or consciously) leave pictures of myself out because i am constantly thinking that maybe i will lose weight and look better a few months away, but i have recently realized that i have thought that since i have had harper. i am not exceptionally good at math, but i do know that 5 years is longer than a few months. so i decided that i will hide no longer. my children need to know that i was present in their childhood....so here's the proof.

is your baby ready for a high chair?

development for children varies vastly from child to child and sometimes it is difficult to decide when the time is right to move forward into unknown territory. leaving those "baby" elements behind can be quite challenging and upsetting for parents. not wanting to move on prematurely, parents can risk delaying their child developmentally. for this reason i have devised a check list of sorts to help a parent realize when their child is ready to move to a high chair.





1. the child is interested in solid food.





2. the child can sit up without assistance.





3. the child looks like this in a bouncy seat...

this concludes this parenting tutorial. any questions?

(no babies were harmed in the making of this tutorial. sure, most mothers would react first to grabbing their child and harboring their safety...but after two others, my first reaction is to grab the camera.)

the innocence of youth...?

the other day we went to a yard sale that some friends of ours were hosting. harper has become quite a fan of yard sales and i have seen a side of her that has surprised me. it does not surprise me that she has a desire to acquire stuff and hoard stuff...but it does surprise me that she is such a little swindler. at the yard sale i mentioned earlier harper made a bee line for an old barbie and the rockers tour bus. this thing must have been awesome in its hay day in the 80s. the exterior is a bright pink with flourescent splatter puffy paint and it even hosts a removable tape deck with a microphone so that a young girl can rock out to 80's hits like john cusack in say anything. it brought back an obvious aire of nostalgia and i was entertained by the idea that harper would enjoy many hours of innocent fun playing with a toy that brought my own generation the same sort of fun...



so imagine my surprise when i walked out to help kyle with some burgers he was grilling and this was the sight i found...







all that is missing is bret michaels, some empty beer cans, and a seperate bus full of disappointed dads.