"Leaving on a Jet Plane"

We are flying out today. As usual I did not get done nearly the stuff I wanted to. I am sleep deprived and praying that the plane trip goes well. I have art supplies, games (electronic, card and travel), blankies, tags, snacks  water bottles to fill after we get through security all packed and I will still inevitably forget something. Hopefully, security will go fast and we will not be on the news because my children decided to say something that the guards took as a threat. I can already see it happening. My oldest will be joking with number 2 and they will make some inappropriate comment about being a hostage or a terrorist or whatever. They will think themselves the funniest boys on the block until their mother screams at them because now they are being escorted to the holding area. Now you know one of the reasons why I am sleep deficient and one of many nightmares that make me wake up suddenly. If we miraculously make it through security, and survive cooped up on a airplane for over 7 hours with four young boys, are able to drive over an hour and a half in the middle of the night to my brother's house, we should have an awesome time. I say should because have you ever been in close quarters with 4 little boys for an extended period of time? I am not too worried about the oldest, but number 2 gets grouchy when he is tired. Number 3 does well if he gets a fair amount of attention. If he does not get that positive attention, he is one of those lovely children that will then get the attention anyway he can. Plus, he is my wanderer. I can see it now; we will miss our flight because he has meandered off to another gate and was so fascinated by watching the plane traffic. He will not notice his parents frantically searching the airport for him. Then there is Taggy. Now as long as he has a tag, is in eyesight of Mommy (or sometimes Daddy now) he should be fine. (Once again, the dreaded should statement.) However, if he decides that he has to be held constantly and have his favorite toy in just a certain way or he will cry endlessly like we are horrible parents for not submitting to his baby authority. He will cry in such a pitiful manner that everyone else will think we are terrible parents who beat him mercilessly or just wonder what we were thinking having all these boys and then choosing to take them on a airplane when we cannot control them even a little bit. ;-P As you can tell, I am not stressing not one little bit. I could go on and on about all the scenarios that have already flashed though my mind and given enough time I will definitely come up with quite a few more scenarios and something tells me none of them will come close to the reality. Until I can update you on what actually happened please, please, I beg of you please keep us in your prayers!!

Balls!

Let me set the stage for you: My oldest son and I are at Target. We are out quickly couponing before we leave tomorrow. I am looking for the Travel Hungry Hippos game, and the candles in the Christmas section. I am not finding either but the search continues.
All of sudden, quite loudly, I hear "Wow! Look at those balls! I don't think I have ever seen balls that big before." I am now quickly scanning to see what he could be talking about. I have two women looking at me. Continuing to scan a bit more frantically, (Let me remind you, Christmas section, not Sporting goods, not toys, Christmas Section) I really could not figure out what he was talking about.
Finally what felt like 10 years later, he points and says, "See, they are huge balls!"
OH, the ornaments, the really big looking ball ornaments.
The ladies are trying not to show any emotions.
I quickly validate his statement before he says anything else, "Oh, those Christmas ornaments are big."
As I am getting the looks, I question out loud, "Was I the only one ... I was pretty sure he had no idea but..."
The younger of the two women laughing quite loudly now replied, "Your face was probably what was the funniest."
It more than likely was since I panicked. I knew that he had no idea what he was innocently implying but there was no way I could tell other people that. Instead of not worrying about what others thought, I did the exact oppisite of what the Lord tells us to do and worried about what the world thought. I would like to say lesson learned but I am a slow learner. Look at my blog post about "Do not Leave Your Laptop Unattended" if you do not believe me. Still it is a little funny to tell other adults when the children are in another room.

Surprises!

I love getting things for my children. I usually control myself pretty well since Brad and I have chosen to live a simplistic life style. (I try, I am not great but I try.) However, I have the perfect excuse now to give them the gifts I have collected, a 7 hour plane trip actually two 7 hour plane trips. I am filling their bag with new movies, leapster/v-smile games, art supplies, card games etc. I am soo excited!! Now the hard part waiting...

Chickens

Have you ever seen a chicken running around with its head cut off? I have. If you care to see a human acting the part, then come over and visit while I try and finish getting ready for our trip. Due to lack of stress in my life, I also made doctor appointments for two of my kids and and an assessment test for my husband the day before we leave. Obviously I did not think I was doing enough. Add that on to me taking care of my MIL and the endless errands I still need to run and I am sure I am a shoo-in for this part. To lighten the mood and just because it is funny you can see animated chickens dancing at this linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8eC377h4A4&feature=related
They have tons more but be forewarned some are a bit graphic. ;P

Simple Christmas

Tonight we gave our kids their Christmas gifts. We are leaving in 3 days and will not be back until after Christmas. Now, Brad and I agreed last year to cut way back on the amount of gifts our kids get for Christmas. They each received 1 special gift specially chosen for each child. Then the rest of the presents are family presents which include 1 board game,1 electronic game, and 1 movie to share. That is it. We will still do stocking stuffers in Maryland and they will get some "plane gifts" (that is for Brad's and my sanity though!) and of course they will get gifts from family members but Brad and I will not buy anymore. This is hard for me since I love to buy my kids gifts. It is so much fun to put the thought into what they like and find the good deal and then the anticipation of their reaction is exciting too. I almost ruin birthdays and Christmas each year since I have such a hard time waiting to give them their present. This choice was not made for fiscal reasons. I tend to buy their gifts all year so we don't take the monetary hit that most families do at Christmas time. We have realized that we live in a small house, and stuff accumulates fast here. The boys are very spoiled by our family members and we do not want Christmas memories to be mostly about wanting all this new stuff. This is the second year and they seem so much more grateful and excited about the smaller amount they are given than in previous years when they each had a huge pile. Thankfully, I do not have the clutter that came from previous years too! The primary reason for this change came because we feel it is important to take the stand now about what this season is really about. I want my boys memories to be about the part they played in our church's Christmas Play, or the time spent making gifts for our friends and family or the lights show we drove through instead of making the all important list to Santa (insert eye roll here). We want them to remember that we have already been given the most precious gift of the all. Brad and I will never be able to top that gift no matter how much shopping I do :) and the best we can do is show them this gift and continue to raise them in the ways of the Lord pray constantly they will never depart. Merry Christmas!!

Ready to Lend a Hand

My MIL came home from the hospital yesterday. She had total shoulder replacement surgery and for right now her shoulder range is limited. The little boys were in the van when my husband took her home and my four-year-old was able to help take care of her. When it was time to go my child that likes to be anywhere except home wanted to stay. While a little unsure of whether this was a good idea, my husband tentatively agreed with the condition to call if we needed to come pick him up. He gave Matthew a talk which included an admonishing to be good and told him he needed to assist Nana with whatever she needed. When leaving Brad one more time asked if Matthew could help his Nana out, Matthew got the hugest grin on his face and said "Yeah, I will help Nana!" He did great too! Although Nana did say that he tried to bring her medicine about 6 times in 1 hour. He probably just wanted to make she was not in any pain. :)

Laps

I am sure many of you with boys know that they are quite different from girls. One of the ways, that I find that they are most different is their level of activity. I find that most boys cannot sit still as long as girls. The way they play shows this exuberance. Little girls sit down and play dolls or Barbies or even house. Boys, on the other hand, have weapons and have to run around playing war, or ninja and seem to have preference to hitting, shooting or stabbing each other. This is not to say that little boys cannot sit down and listen. They just tend to be more energetic in their play than most girls. This is not usually a big deal in our house. We have a pretty big yard and lots of outside toys. The problems come in when they get in trouble and the "fun" stuff starts to get taken away. When their Wii, Leapster and Didj's are taken away, they might be a little sad but it tends not faze them too much since they do not spend a tremendous amount of time on them. This might be due to Brad and I looking at these activities as treats. When their outside time gets take away, they are much more upset. Unfortunately, not only they are upset but so is the whole household since they really need to expend their very quickly pent up energy. In talking with a friend about this problem, she proposed making them run laps in our back yard. She went on to tell me at first they do not mind running them but after a little while they will look on it as more of a punishment. She has talked about this idea before and while I love it I keep forgetting to try it. Sure enough, the first couple of times they were all so excited that my littlest who was not even in trouble begged for his older brother to get him dressed and put his shoes on so he could go run too! Not only that, but they were running extra laps too. Now, when I was growing up I hated running(although I might be focusing on high school where sweating was to be avoided at all costs). After a few times of sending them outside to run their age in laps, I noticed that they were not running any extra laps (except in the morning) but they were slowing down a bit too which cause us to implement another guideline. If the laps are not "ran," then they do not count. Also, the little boys were not jumping at the chance to go "run" too. We have used it for three days now and while it is not a cure all; it has helped tremendously. After they come in, (and get a drink sometimes) they are better prepared to concentrate on the assigned task. This idea will probably be used frequently from now on as this gives them time to get some of the ants out of their pants and allows my boys the ability to focus again. I think within the next week we will be completely on track again, in chores, and school. Woohoo, anything that works effectively, right? Now why did it take me so long to implement this idea and even more so how did someone with all girls know the perfect boy fix??

2-Year-Oldism

-Yeah, poop, I wanna poop! - He wants to watch Winnie the Pooh. I wish this was about potty training. ;)

4-year-oldism

-"Look how big my tummy is!"

Me: "Wow, that is big."

-"YEAH, it is almost as big as yours!!"