Photo & Prompt Challenge: Day 23

How did you come up with the name for your blog?


Since the birth of our first child, I have slowly been out numbered by males in my house. In the beginning, we had two female dogs and a host of other animals (think reptile variety here, snakes, bearded dragons, frogs etc...) so if you count those my husband originally was just trying to keep up. I think he has this unknown huge competitive streak and wanted to make sure that the females would not dominate his household. :) We had child number 2 and while I originally wanted a girl was enthusiastic that my two boys would grow up together and have that brotherhood bond. Then by the time the third "baby" came around, I did not want a girl because having one sex is easier in so many ways, I.E. toys, hand-me-downs,1 room etc... We also no longer had dogs so I think by then we just had gotten accustomed to the boy thing. :) The fourth just confirmed we were meant to be a family of boys. 
When people comment about all my boys, my boys are quick to respond that Mommy is the girl in our household or that our house hold just does not "do" girls. Trust me we have come with quite a few one-liners to the many responses we get when we go places with "eeek" 4 BOYS!!!
I do explain a little in my profile on the side and originally was going to use the title BoysRUs but that was much more common than I thought. I guess my lack of creativity was once again showing. As my best friend, Randi, likes to tell me I am not very "fun.";p
I thought my title was a little more "fun" but when trying to find my blog I have noticed you come across a lot of sad circumstances of people being held hostage. I obviously am quite content in the male takeover of our household and just try to keep up in the vast differences of the male brain. ;P

Pants

"Mommy, can you put his pants back on?" asks Matthew. He needs me to put his transformer back together.

Cold

This morning Seth climbs on me whispering, "Cold, cold I be cold." In his cute toddler voice. Of course, I had to move the covers so he could cuddle with me. I love this cuddle time and will miss it so much when he grows up.

Photo & Prompt Challenge: Day 4

An Experience That Made Me Who I Am Today
I can think of so many things that have shaped me. I think the biggest thing was...

I married at the ripe old age of 19. I was a teenage bride and have felt like I had so much to prove for so long. I am finally growing out of that feeling but it has taken a long time and is a gradual process.

Photo & Prompt Challenge: Day 3

Photo & Prompt Challenge: Day 3

My Favorite Shows

If you know me, you know I am not a TV person. It took us almost a year to hook up a TV in our house. We had a new flat screen for almost 2 months before my husband took it upon himself to put it together. It just is not a priority to me. With that said, I do watch it when I am folding clothes or late at night when I cannot focus but for some reason cannot sleep. Thankfully there is Hulu that will catch some shows and let me watch them later. Sometimes much later. Shows that I like are crime/forensic or medical based. Here are a few...

Photo & Prompt Challenge: Day 2

The People That Make you World go Round

These funny guys right here are my world. I actually started this blog to keep some kind of document about our lives that my children could look back on. I stink at baby books and never actually bought any after the one for my first child never was used. I hope someday they will appriecate the effort. The other people I do not have a picture of right now is my parents. I grew up in a solid family. We had our problems but very stable. I love my family and know they would do anything for us. My MIL is above average too! J/K Somehow I was very lucky in that area as well. She definately tries her best to keep our family running smoothly. I am very blessed and could go on....

Photo & Prompt Challenge: Day 1

It's Gravy, Baby! is hosting a fun 31 day challenge for bloggers to post answers to different questions about themselves. I can't promise I'll remember to participate everyday, but I thought it sounded like fun and maybe I am being prodded into it a bit. Since I do not want to Day 4 quite yet I figured I would "catch-up" over the weekend!

So here goes.. A Photo of Yourself and 10 Facts!

Not the best one but one I could find quickly. This was taken during our trip to Maryland over Christmas in front of the Native American portion of the Smithsonian. Don't let my son's expressions fool you either they had a great time they just wanted to play on the structure not take a picture. :)

Ten Facts

1. I am 30. My husband tells me I am now old. I remind him he is older but he has to tease me I am not young anymore just old. 

2. My dad was the one who married my husband and I.

3. I was married and had my first kid before I could legally drink. Yup, we did not serve alcohol at our wedding and for the first year and a half I could not go on a beer run for my husband. Funny thing, my dad would forget constantly and ask me to go get wine occasionally to go with dinner forgetting his married teenage daughter could not buy it. 

4. Funnier thing I do not even drink beer or wine.

5. I will not drink wine because a) I hate the taste. (My nose is literally curling as I write this) b) The stuff makes me nauseous. (Something to do with the way it is fermented is the best guess I have.)

6. I will not eat mushrooms. I used to love them but having to drink medicine to throw them up to make sure that you did not ingest poisoned wild mushrooms and then charcoal to settle your stomach down turns a 5-year-old love into something to be avoided at least the sight of them no longer makes me nauseous.


7. I used to strive to be an "ideal" family and now I rebel against it. We have 4 boys and no we are not trying for a girl. 


8. We live in a small 2 bedroom house with those 4 boys and for the time being I am not interested in moving into a larger house.


9. I am scared of birds. It does not really matter the type. I am scared of the little ones and terrified of the big ones. I'll blog about the story some day.


10. I would just like to say it is much easier to write about my boys.  I wanted to be a nurse growing up, changed my mind to a doctor, changed again to an accountant, changed it yet again back to a nurse. I am now currently in the process of getting everything ready to start in the summer to finally "grow up."

The Pukies

The pukies are different than having the sickies by, you guessed it, the mounds of regurgitated food coming up. At one point it was a tasty eatable morsel, (or at least you hope it was eatable you never know with my kids) now it can smell up the room in less than 10 seconds making you wish you had not eaten for the day or maybe the week! This is being posted about because we now have 2 children sick with the pukies. It has already cycled through one and now we are on to the second. I am really hoping that no one else gets it.
The first happened while we were waiting for my MIL who was in DMV. Of course we were waiting outside in the van and my child threw up all over the van.
Super!!
The night before the older kid's Science Fair. Thankfully my parents stepped in and ended up doing the entire Science Project with both kids. Thanks Dad and Mom!! I left the sick child home and loaded up the other ones. We went to the Book Fair first (Yes, busy week at the school) and then headed over to the Science Fair. We brought their projects out, set them up, signed in, collected their T-Shirts and then just as I was making the rounds through the different vendors (Our Science Fair is a combo Science/Vendor Fair) my youngest started puking!
Super!!
Thankfully my best friend was there with her mostly empty cup to let my child puke into! There was only a little on the floor and us. I feel a little seasoned as a mother when I am actually quite grateful I only had a small amount of puke on me and the little one was not too bad either. Oh, and I actually just put clean clothes in the diaper bag two days ago so I was able to change him immediately. The small things I tell you, it is about the small things!

Proud Moments!

LONG STORY-If you want the whole story ie the girl story read this version if you want the nitty gritty details or the guy version scroll on down to the Short Story. :)
Yesterday was a long day. It started off with me leaving the house before 8:00 in the morning with 4 boys in tow (not planned but the littles woke up and wanted to go, as always.) I went by the gas station so I would be able to take Erik to his mandatory writing test that was out in some part of town I have never been to before. As I am leaving the house, I thought I should go back and get the paper so I will have the address just in case. Then I thought, eh I'll be fine. I looked on Mapquest. It is right off Fair Oaks and I am already running late; I just need to go. After driving up and down Fair Oaks 4 times and calling everybody I could think of who might have an idea of where this place was because nobody was answering their phone and 20 minutes of sheer panic, I found the testing site. (Note to self, next time just take the 30 seconds to go back and grab the paper!!!) Now mind you I could not sleep well the night before so I am going on about 4 hours of broken sleep. I then had to drop Jeremiah off for his classes and go to my MIL's to clean. Since I did not want to drive all the way out there again to pick up Erik just to come back and then drive way out there again to take my MIL to Winco, (same general way out there.) I woke up my MIL so I could take her to Winco after I picked up Erik to cut down on gas usage. Now if you know my MIL, you know she is NOT a morning person. I might have woke her up at 9:15am so that I would not have to make that extra trip all the way out there(Are you noticing a theme, yet? Add in I do not not even kind of like driving!). Actually my son woke her up, quite persistently too!! He told her she had to wake up and opened her blinds so the sun would come in thereby forcing her to get up. :) He does all this in such a charming way that you can not get mad at him even when you really want too! Just as we are ready to walk out the door, Taggy pees through his diaper. In his defense his diaper was on crooked and going up his "crack" but really? of all the the timing. UGH!! And of course there is not an extra outfit in the van. Just Great! I called my mom and thankfully she has extra clothes so instead of driving to go pick up my child I am now driving in the opposite direction to my parents house so I can put some pants back on the baby. I am so glad they live so close to my MIL much closer than driving all the way back to my house. As I am driving to my parents house, I get a call from my son informing me that he is done with his test early and to come pick him up. I apologize profusely and let him know he is going to have to wait because of the said earlier incident. He takes it really well and waits patiently for me to come get him. He is very understanding when I finally get there even though I am 20 minutes late picking him up and he is the next to the last kid there. We travel onto Winco and within 5 minutes of being in the store my MIL offers to pay for coffee if I am willing to go get it since she is exhausted and she could tell I was as well. (Like I would ever turn coffee down!) I went to the nearest Starbucks and get coffee for Linda and I and hot chocolate for the kids. Taggy finished his drink before we even left Starbucks! I then took the rest of the drinks back to the store and passed them out. Matthew did not have his drink for even 5 minutes before he dropped his cup thereby spilling all his Hot Chocolate all over the floor. Poor guy, he did not even get to take one sip of it before BLAM! all over the ground. As one could expect, he was quite distressed over the incident and while voicing this profound disappointment not too loud yet but working his way there Erik rushes over without any kind of prompting and tell his brother he can have his chocolate milk. I can not even begin to express how proud I was of my son right then. (My heart was bursting a little OK a lot) I could not believe that he so unselfishly gave up his treat just to help his little brother feel better. He did not offer to share his treat with him but instead gave up his entire drink to help sooth his brother's feelings. It's time for a big AWWWW and a How Sweet! (It is moments like these that I treasure!) Now if you are still reading then feel free to skip the next part since its just the facts not all the details leading up to this treasured moment!


SHORT STORY-My MIL sent me to go get coffee while we were grocery shopping. I came back and not even 5 minutes late Matthew spilled all his hot chocolate on the ground! As Matthew stood there working up to a full blown howl my oldest rushed over and told Matthew he could have his chocolate milk. Nobody asked him to do this; he just saw how upset his brother was and wanted to make him to feel better. I can not even begin to express how proud I was of this thoughtful gesture of kindness.