Have you ever noticed?

That as you have more children you tend to worry about less things.

No, that is not poop and, no, he did not get into it himself.
There is a great reason he is so happy!

Have you guessed what he ate. A chocolate and peanut butter cookie. His dad gave it to him and no, no that is by far not his first cookie. (Side note: Erik did not even get cake on his 1st birthday. Yes, I was a mean mom!)

Wall Art

Matthew loves his Mam-ma. She is his "favorite." This was taken when I was frantically cleaning the house, due to an upcoming inspection.

Now mind you what they are scrubbing off is the "Art" that he so lovingly put up there on one of his many rampages. Notice how he does not seem to be doing much of the scrubbing. (Hmm, maybe that is why he loves her so much.)

And just when you are sure that your house is truely marker free, one finds that there is another wall to scrubb. I am not sure what I did with all of my time before I had kids!!

It's a ??

Okay, before everybody starts asking, no, I am not pregnant. I know there are those of you out there that think I will forever be either pregnant or carting around a newborn but you are wrong, for once. I am going to rant for a minute, though. I only post this because one of my dear friends is pregnant and sometimes I get tired of the comments. She already has 5 boys and will be perfectly happy having another one. She is not "TRYING" for a girl and she and her husband will more than likely have more children after this one. I think this is great. I am only saying this for people who need to get over the fact that some people decide and want to have a large family. Even if not consciously decided in advance to have a large family this does not give the right for people to make comments about the number of children anybody has. I am at times shocked, irritated and sometimes absolutely horrified at some of the rude comments sometimes even seemly innocent comments that some people seem to think is their job or duty to make. Here it is in black and white. I am busy. I do have my hands full and, yes, I know how babies are made and different ways to try and prevent having more babies, but that does not mean I will alter the size of my family based on what someone, especially a stranger, tells me. I have four wonderful and for the most part very happy boys! Contrary to popular belief, I have not been "trying" for a girl. I am not only content having all boys but very, very HAPPY. In all reality, I hoped I would have all boys. At one time, I did have to come to God and pray about the unrealistic hope that I would have the "Perfect" family of one boy and one girl. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with that but more with my ungodly ideal. I hoped for a time that my second pregnancy was a girl but when my husband and I found out we were having a little boy I cheered so loud that the workers had to explain to the people at the Expo what just happened. (We were at a baby fair and after deciding we were too impatient to wait another three weeks for my ultrasound appointment we paid to find out the sex of our unborn baby then and wound up with an awesome looking picture of his face! We are a huge fan of the 3d ultra sound machines!!) Again with our third and fourth baby I was so loud with my excitement that I had people come into the room to check on me! Please do not take this the wrong way. I would have been just as happy having a girl. Babies are blessings whether they are male or female. While at times I am overwhelmed with my brood, I would not change anything nor do I wish I had a girl. I praise the Lord for his kindheartedness to let me raise these wonderful creations of His. I have been told by more than one person I am a boy’s mommy not a girl’s mommy. While the first time somebody said this, I am not sure I immediately agreed but after meditating on it and praying about it, I could not agree more. The Lord in His infinite generosity has blessed me with four wonderful boys and I am thanking him everyday for these blessings. So if you see me at Wal-Mart with my brood please if you are not offering help and do not have anything nice to say just keep on walking!!

I Love DADDY!!

Overheard:

"I uh DADDY!"

It happens to be after 10:00pm and the 2 year-old is somehow still up. He would be trying to charm his way into Daddy's heart so that he can convince daddy to let him stay up or failing that to at least stay in the bedroom with him.

Daddy recorded him (He said it many times.) then left the room thereby crushing his little heart. He starts cry for daddy. Daddy tells him to go to bed. Oh wait, this tactic is not working. He starts crying for mommy. Mommy tells him to go to bed. Still crying for mommy. (Clearly mommy is a bigger softie.)

Less than 5 min. later. Silence. Uh-oh good silence or bad silence. No one wants to check.

30 min later gets hit in the head since he fell asleep with his head inches away for the door.

Another late, late, too late night in the life of the toddler in this house, who has been staying up way, way, way too late.

Still Gone

Okay so even though I have been meaning to tell of the happenings around here it does not seem to be happening. I have tons of cute pictures but do not seem to find the time to sit down upload everything and write a cute little note. I have grand intentions unfortunately poor follow through. This could be why none of my children have a baby book. Well, hopefully I will get out of the rut and up load those pictures and you can see some of what has happened in the last month!

I didn't do it!!

Well, we figured out how he sliced his finger open. The excuse of the laundry basket did seem a little flimsy (esp. since the said laundry basket in question was pretty flimsy!) but I keep on thinking that my children are going to learn that telling the truth is always much better than lying to cover up. The culprit those mean nasty scissors. BTW my children have had "The Scissors Talk." They are not allowed to use them with out permission and supervision. This does not prevent them from rebellious behavior that will ultimately hurt them whether by physical means, mental or spiritual in the end. This one as the last one just happened to be physical. We are still unsure if he was cutting the sippy cup valves and bottle nipples at the time of the slice which would be why he lied to cover it up or if he was just testing how sharp they are. (Of course, he has to use my scissors and not the less deadly, more kid friendly kind!!) Either way big punishments came when Dad and Mom were enlightened of the situation. We have tried corner time, grounding, loss of privileges, spankings, hot sauce, Asian hot sauce(it's even hotter but he still likes it), to no avail. We keep hearing it is just a phase but you know when in the middle of said phase there does not seem to be an end. At this point, I am opinion to suggestions.

Where have I been??

I have realized that I have not posted in a while. Not for any good reason other than normal busyness around the house plus the added busyness due to holidays etc. I have not even taken any cute pictures of the kids to comment about. It seems like our house has fallen into survival mode which is never fun since you are, at least I am, stressed out all the time (okay not quite ALL the TIME) and I forget to enjoy my life during this season of small children. Just to give some perspective in less than 24 hours we have had the car we are borrowing (while we attempt to figure out what is wrong with our van) alternator go out, woke up to a four-year-old peeing on the carpet in my bedroom (this is after he peed in the hallway last night), one big tantrum and a few small tantrums, a finger slice open, children screaming, giving attitude or flat telling me no (which we all know does not work well for Brad or I), a tornado (of small children wrecking the house faster than I can put things away, not clean, just attempting to keep general order) amongst other things. Right now I can turn to my left and see the kitchen chairs in my living room, since my oldest child was distracted from his chore of sweeping to help daddy clean off the car battery, amongst the normal living room debris that has not been cleaned up since the last sweep around 11am. This has been our normal lately so suffice to say I will try to do better but will DEFINITELY not make any promises!