Church with little ones....

We are a church going family. I love going to church....but every time we walk in the doors and get settled and ready all I can think in my head is "how long before someone has a meltdown?" We have a great church where the older two go to sunday school, they have a nursery for the little ones, it's so kid friendly that even if your kids were goofing around no one would look at you funny. But I have a huge problem where I expect too much from my kids. I expect them to be on their best behavior and sometimes when I do that I forget one little thing....."they are kids!" Today the two older kids went to Sunday school, and since Tys is afraid of strangers and Bella's so little we kept them with us in the church. Today they surprized me big time.....the two little ones fell asleep in there. My husband and I were able to listen to the whole sermon. I don't think we've been able to do that since before the kids were born. One thing I have learned though is to always be prepared. I always have snacks in the diaper bag, ones that aren't noisey so they won't disturb anyone. I usually have a book or small toy, and we always sit towards the back so if one of the kids do act up we can take them out for a minute or two. It's not hard to take kids out and have them behave, you just have to do it enough so they realize what you expect from them, and you also....like me....need to drop your expectations from being so high the kids will never reach them. They are kids.....and if you make it through a couple hours without anyone hitting, screaming, or fighting then it's been a good day.

School Clothes Shopping....

When I was growing up, the day we reserved for shopping for school stuff was always one of the funnest days of the summer. I used to be so excited about it and always had tons of fun. We would always go to McDonalds (which at the time was gourmet dinning to me!) and spend the whole day trying on clothes and picking out all our favorites. I mean come on...who wouldn't love clothes shopping. How about the parents that have to see the bill! Wow I never realized how fast it all ads up. And we shopped a lot of sales. I can only see the bill getting higher every year as the kids get older and each want more expensive, name brand, clothes. My 6 year old already only likes Air Jordan, Sketchers, and Echo. We bought 3 pairs of new shoes for the 3 boys yesterday, like 10 pairs of pants, 2 sweater jackets, 5 shirts, and a new dress for little Bella. I thought we did pretty good. We made it a fun day for them, we took them to the food court in the mall and let them get whatever they wanted (Big surprize it was McDonalds). I think back to school shopping will be something they'll always remember too. The good thing this year though is the 2 younger boys we can still talk into getting the cheaper shoes by saying how cool they are! Our oldest already thinks we're nuts and he has his own style. We're obviously not the "cool" parents we think we are. Well, as long as no one has a major growth spurt this year we should be set with shopping. Here's hoping!

Terrible Two's

I've been giving the terrible two's a lot of thought lately. It seems with each kid they have gotten worse. You would think that with each kid I would get the hang of it better and it would seem simpler. Well that's not the case. I think with my 3rd though I've finally figured out the reason behind the "terrible two's." I think 90% of his fits that he throws are not because he is being a stubborn brat, but because he has something he wants to tell us, but he isn't able to speak them to us yet to where we understand him. I've been trying harder to listen to him, and help him explain what he wants. But I can tell when I'm in a hurry and stressed out I don't try as hard and that seems to be his "bad" days. I'm sure we'd get frustrated too if we wanted something and couldn't tell people what it was and no one understood us. Maybe by the time Bella starts going through her terrible twos I'll finally have the hang of this and be able to pass through that phase in a breeze.

Eating habits of a 2 year old.....

I'm not sure why it is that some days Tys eats 2 helpings at each meal, and other days he doesn't seem to have more than 2 bites full all day long. Getting a toddler to eat food is like trying to tell a bird not to fly.....all but impossible. And getting him to sit through a whole meal at the table with us, forget about it. I have learned a couple things through through these two years with him.
1. He likes food that can be dipped in something....and yes he will dip everything from french fries to strawberries in ketchup.
2. If you tell him not to eat something, it will surely be the first thing that he eats (works even with veggies).
3. Ketchup counts as a vegetable!
4. Even if he learned on Yo Gabba Gabba to "try it....you'll like it" he doesn't believe it for a second and any new foods will be left on the plate or fed to the dog.
5. Anything declared healthy by mom is automatically yucky!
I'm sure this will continue to be an adventure feeding him, but maybe I'll just luck out and it's a phase that he'll eventually outgrow and eat good like his brothers. Hopefully not as good since they are literally eating us out of house and home here. 3 teenage boys in the house......wow that's going to be a lot of completely different food issues huh?

13 days......

Well it's day 13 in the countdown. Today I took all the kids to a splash park playdate. They had tons of fun, and we got chased by lots of bees. Now 2 out of 4 of them are napping and the other two are watching Spongebob. Nap time really is the most peaceful time of the day. I'm shocked I can still get all 4 of them to nap at the same time each day. I decided to start not making Sean nap anymore since he goes back to school in 2 weeks and they don't take naps in 1st grade. I started reading chapter books to my boys yesterday too. They're old enough to where they actually can listen to a story and use their imagination while I do it. They loved it, and I loved getting to spend some time with my boys. No progress on the potty today. Tys didn't even want to sit on it. We'll get there. Tomorrow we're shopping for some school stuff and I figured we'll let him pick out some new undies and he may get more excited about this process.

Countdown to back to school

Summer is officially coming to an end here. My son goes back to school in 14 days. It's crazy. He will be a 1st grader. No longer the babies of the school. Part of me is ready for the long boring summer days to come to an end and get back in the swing of school and starting of sports (he's starting football this year). But another part of me thinks he's growing up too fast and now it's first grade, tomorrow it'll be college. So I've decided to make the rest of his summer vacation something to remember. Make it all about the fun and not be so strict. Today we went outside and had a water fight with the hose. Maybe just one big fun thing a day. It didn't cost any money, but according to my son it made me the "best mom in the world!" Which totally made my day. I love hearing comments like that. So I'm going to try to get comments like that more often. 1 fun thing a day for the next 14 days! Well I guess today I did 2 because when we came in I gave them each an ice cream sandwhich. I know I'm horrible, but secretly I wanted one too and knew I couldn't sneak one without being caught. Anyone else want to do this with me? 14 days....it's not that hard. Make the effort. Go camping in the living room, or have a movie and popcorn night. Summer's almost over and then it'll be homework, projects, sports, pta meetings, and bake sales. Let's do something fun now before the craziness of the school year starts up. I'll keep you updated daily with my "fun thing of the day" and please tell me yours too!

It's Potty Time!

Well we're officially on the road to one less kid in diapers! I think Tys is going to be kind of hard to train though. He's more stubborn than the other two boys were. But we're off to a start. He's gone 3 times in his little potty in the last 2 days. The only bad thing is that he will only sit on his potty in the living room in front of the TV and he has to have Yo Gabba Gabba on. I think I'll be singing "Party in my Tummy" until the day he goes off to college. But for now I see lots of messes to clean up from accidents, and more than enough time spent at home with a 2 year old running around naked with me following asking if he has to use the potty. He'll get the hang of it. He has his brothers to cheer him on and a sticker chart that's slowly filling up with stickers. It's going to be a long road.......but there's a light at the end of the tunnel, the day I don't have to buy 2 packs of diapers at every grocery store trip.

Being a mom is the most wonderful thing I've ever done with my life.....it's also the toughest. It's so wonderful though that I've became a mom 4 times over. This is the toughest job I've ever had, but on occasion in between the fights, cleaning up messes, cooking tons of food, and arguing about naps my kids surprize me and hug me out of nowhere. Or like today announce "You're the best mommy in the world" just because I declared it a no nap day and we were going to go outside and ride bikes instead. There's always something to talk about when you're a mom. There are always stories, and problems, and funny moments that happen throughout the day so I decided to write about it. My life is crazy raising 4 kids and I'm sure throughout the years it'll get even more nuts, but at the same time I'm sure many more memorable moments will happen to write about.