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!!"