They're killin' me!

I started a reward system for the boys. They earn and lose beans according to their behavior. Currently Ashton is working for 25 beans that will earn him a playmobile astronaut. Well, I taped up ziplock baggies up high on the wall with their names written on them to hold the beans. Sounds safe enough right?
While the boys were watching Between the Lions I went into thea's room to look for something. I came out and there's Landon...eating something. He spit it out when I told him to and sure enough, there come all the beans. He had gotten a chair and pulled down the bags.
The real kicker...Landon dosen't even like beans.
He also managed to pull down a piece of the blinds covering our sliding glass door and almost turn over thea's stroller (she was saved by a stranger in subway) in the same day! Well...it's only 2 so who knows what else is to come. I caught him before he dumped out the huge costco bag of baking soda this morning...that would have been bad.

My new look :)

Well, sort of a new look! I got my hair cut and a new pair of glasses this week. With my hair short I feel so much lighter! My hair was almost down to my waist and I never had the time to dry it or make it look nice. This length is much more manageable and according to Dan looks a lot better. Apparently I'm trendy now. I actually could dry it this morning without spending 3 hours in the bathroom...hooray!

Thea is 4 months today!

Our baby is getting so big. It's hard to believe. Today she is a chubby, talkative, alert 4 month old!! At storytime I put her on a blanket and she was just babbling away to me. She is the most laid back baby I have ever seen.
Right now she's wearing 3-6 month clothes, can hold a sitting up position for a couple of sections, and can touch some toys on her saucer. She hasn't quite figured out how to reach up and grab the toys on her toy arch over her carseat, but I watch her move her arm around and concentrate so I know it will happen soon. She can find where we are by our voices accross the room and responds to her name.
I will post some pictures when Dan gets home with the camera!

Turning things around

After a really rough first part of the day I think things may be turning around. The boys were terrible in the thrift store this morning. Landon stood up in the stroller and it fell over backwards. Ashton ran into the dressing room and shoved the door open and almost hit an employee who yelled at him. (ahhh embarassing) Well, I sent out an email begging for help and got a response from a good friend (thank you S!) suggesting to have Ashton start helping more and making sure to pick up at night. Now these things sound so basic and in the past I did them a lot, but lately...not so much. So tonight I had A help me unload the dishwasher and put up his laundry. I was so excited to see him take the initiative on his own and start putting his clothes on hangers. I didn't even know he knew how to do it! It helped a lot. It kept him from making more of a mess, I was able to interact with him and we got our work done. Took a little longer, but was much less frustrating and we were both happy afterwards. The house is also picked up for the most part which makes me less depressed!
My goal tomorrow is to vaccuum all the rugs and scrub another section of the linoleum. We also have storytime...perhaps I can get my booty out for a walk before we have to leave. I always feel so uplifted after exercise.

Goals for tomorrow:
Wake up before kids...(6:30)
Take a walk
Get to the PO and then storytime
vaccuum rugs and scrub floor

I'd better get to bed. good night.

Please pray...

Please pray for our friends Travis and Amy. Travis's brother died yesterday while serving in Iraq. He was 21 years old.

Feeling a tad discouraged

I'm getting so frustrated with myself lately. Like nothing is ever getting done. The house is a mess, the boys aren't getting enough attention, but I'm running around constantly doing...I don't know what...surviving?? Dan's complaining that things look like white trash around here and I find him scrubbing floors which makes me feel like the worst homemaker ever!! Then he runs off to bath the boys and put them to bed. I told him I need a rewards chart like Q has to make sure I get basic things done around here. We are trying hard to declutter. There's so many things that I want out, but because they are nice things that we didn't hardly use and paid good money for I want to try and sell them. Too bad this takes forever and requires me taking time to take pictures, post them on ebay/diaperswappers/craigslist and then take them to the post office. I also have to store them until they sell. I wish I could just give it all away! If anyone wants some brand new Mary Kay for rock bottom prices let me know. Talk about a stupid waste of money.
Enough of a rant from me. I should be praising God that we have money to buy things and that I have a computer to sell them on. Perhaps I should put everything in some bins and just sell it at the next navy wide garage sale. hmm...so tempting.
Ok, I hear Dan putting the sheets on our bed. At least I got them washed right?? yeah, i know...not good enough

Some pictures from our mini vacation

Dan took a few days of leave and we went to downtown Waikiki and stayed at the Hale Koa. It's a nice hotel on Waikiki beach that's for active and retired military. We ate at this amazing buffet on Father's Day that has a huge aquarium. We got to sit right next to it and watch the diver come in to feed the fish. We visited the Sea Life Park, the Bishop Museum and played at the beach. It was quite the whirlwind vacation. I met this amazing couple by the beach that were 78 and 84 years old. They are on no medication, the husband survived an anurism (i'm sure i spelled that wrong), and looked great. She told me that they eat a ton of garlic and extra virgin olive oil. Not a lot of meat and lots of brown rice, beans, lentils, etc. They also swim every day and walk often. It was really inspiring. She also uses homeopathics, herbs and a cookbook that tell you what to eat for whatever is wrong with you. Too bad I was eating a nasty bacon cheeseburger from the snack shack. Talk about embarassing. While they were visiting Portugal her husband fell and hit his head. They went to the hospital and recieved amazing care. The specialists were sleeping at the hospital so no one had to be called to come in. He went home with 3 perscriptions that cost $23 all together and were all homeopathic!!!!

We had fun...the boys were wild, though. We're going to start up a "bean" reward system. They can earn and lose them according to their behavior. I think I'm going to try and paint them gold to make it more fun looking. I think losing their beans may have helped keep them on track this weekend. Now I just need to decide what they can "buy" with their beans and how many beans will buy what. Any ideas??

Books

The boys love books so much. Here's a list of their favorites.

Quintin Age 8

The Boxcar Children series
The Little House on the Prarie series
Series of Unfortunate Events series
Encyopedia Brown
If You Lived at the Time of Squanto

Ashton Age 3

T is for Terrible, by Peter McCarty
Oh My Oh My Dinosaurs! by Sandra Bounton
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, by Laura Numeroff
A Mother for Choco, by Keiko Kasza
Chewy Louie, by Howie Schneider
The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper
Jesse Bear What Will You Wear? by Nancy White Carlstrom
Frog and Toad, by Arnold Lobel
Katy No-Pockey by, Emmy Payne
Sam Finda a Monster, by Mary Labatt
Boom chicka Rock, by John Archambault
The Biggest Snowball Ever! by John Rogan
The Bears' Vacation, by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Froggy's Day with Dad, by Jonathan London
Rainbow Fish. by Marcus Pfister


Landon Age 23 months

Where's Spot? by Eric Hill
Toes, Ears, & Nose! A lift the flap book by Marion Dane Bauer
Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
No David! by David Shannon
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Eric Carle
Trucks by Byron Barton
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle
Digger Man, by Andrea Zimmerman & David Clemesha
Dig, Dig, Digging, by Marager Mayo and Alex Ayliffe
Chugga-chugga Choo-choo, by Kevin Lewis
Dinosaru Roar! by Henrietta Stickland and Paul Stickland
I Love Trains! by Philemon Sturges
My Truck is Stuck. By Kevin Lewis

ER fun

Yesterday was not so great. I had had a headache for a couple of days and then started to get sort of tingly and numb in my fingers and toes on my right side. It was hard to lift things and it hurt if I tried to use my arm. Then when i woke up the pain and numbness got worse and my right eye was watering. The right side of my neck was really stiff also. I don't have a doctor here so I called my OB. I felt so silly calling him about a headache since that's not really his "end" of things, but I didn't know who else to call. He told me that it was probably nothing, but if I didn't have a doctor to go to I should go to the ER to make sure it wasn't something neurological or meningitis. (Thank goodness he's a nice doctor and didn't' get all annoyed with me) Dan was on duty and had to switch days with someone so he could come home. Again...I felt bad making him have to leave work and then have duty on a Friday. Luckily, I was blessed with a nice guy and he was happy to leave work to make sure that I was OK. Well, some blood work, a CT scan and 5 hours later I was diagnosed with a headache and sent home. So yeah, i felt really bad then. At least it was nothing!! It would have been much worse if it had been something terrible.

If I had to start buying my cloth diapers all over again..

So this post is for when/if we have another baby and I wonder which cloth diapers I should get. We have bought so many different kinds and put so much money into it and I just wanted to write myself a list of what I would do if I had it to do all over again!!!

6 x-small fuzzi buns and disposables for the first few weeks. Disposables for until the cord falls off and to mix in with the xsmalls. They are not in that size long at all so I woulnd't want to invest in 12 of them.

15 small fuzzi buns
15 happy heiny microterry contoured inserts (after i sold the inserts that come with the fuzzi buns)
4 joeybuns babykicks hemparoos to use as doublers for overnight

15 med. fuzzi buns
15 happy heiny interts
4 hemparoo med. inserts for doublers.

3 yards of flannel material to make wipes and small doubler squares.

Next time this will be SO much easier!!! I'll just have to decide whether to buy them new or used. Actually, i think i'll save Thea's and Landon's so that I won't have to buy at all.

Thea rolled over today!!!

I put Thea on her stomach today and watched her lean, lean and then roll over!! And she got a huge smile on her face. It was so cute. She rolls to her side while on her back, but I think it'll be a little while before she rolls all the way over. But the way time is flying I'm sure it will feel like no time at all.

Being treated like a queen

Dan made sure I had the best birthday ever today. I was allowed to sleep in as late as I could (which turned out to be 7am) and then take a long shower with no interruptions. Then I got to go shopping!!! With no one complaining and Dan even humored me and told me which outfit I should get for Thea. I was good and just got one at the gymboree outlet and only spent $12. I also got to do some sewing. 2 broken needles, 7,000 rethreading needle, and lots of frustration later I finished a fitted diaper. Funny considering it called the "quick and easy fitted"...lol. I learned a lot though and it fits Thea. Hopefully i'll have better luck with it next time. I'm really hoping they will work out for her!
I told Dan i've officially moved into my "late" 20's. It's funny to think that Dan and I met 6 years ago today. I still feel 21!!! Love you, Baby

ps-I got a brand new AWESOME diaper bag that will fit my bulky cloth diapers, mama stuff and my wrap...and is still super cute and Dan preordered the next stephanie plum book by Janet Evanovitch. I think it comes out June 20th. I am so excited to read it. Been waiting all year for it!! The best gift was that I do'nt have to cook for 3 days!! YEAH!!!!!

Waimea Falls visit

We love this place. It is so beautiful. Dan took Ashton, then Quintin out to swim under the falls. It's 30 ft. deep so the boys held onto their strong Daddy's back and got to get up close to the falls. Quintin hadn't been there before and he was thrilled. That kid enjoys life to the fullest. I wore Thea on my back for the first time. She fell asleep after about 5 minutes, so she must have been pretty comfortable.

It's happening, she's getting bigger

Thea rolled onto her side! (june14th) Her left one to be exact. She was lying underneath her playmat and when I came back she was on her side. It should make me happy, but it breaks my heart. My baby girl is getting so big!!!
Last night we put her in her saucer for the first time. She reached out and touched a toy. Another first! She seems to really like the saucer, and it's a lot of fun for the bigger boys, too. I may have to sneak in and take the batteries out during nap time. One can only listen to "the wheels on the bus" so many times before going crazy!
Yesterday we went to the doctor and she weighed 14 lbs. 8 oz!!! No wonder she can fit the med. fuzzi bunz now. I just can't believe how fast it's going by.

Update...

Q's room is clean! Finally! Every toy is labeled and it's home is labeled and hopefully this time his room will stay clean. Now if I can just get the rest of the house cleaned out.

Ashton was so sweet today. Dan downloaded Twila Paris's "Days of Elijah" which I love. We were listening to it and he said, "i like this song...about Jesus". I told him that Jesus loved him. He said,"I love Him, too". Praise God! I want so badly for my children to know my love and God's love.
Tomorrow Dan starts his leave. We're so excited to have Daddy to ourselves for a few days.

oh...and will someone kick me??? I'm starting to get the baby wants again. Ridiculous considering there's a baby sleeping peacefully right behind me!

Cleaning House

Today was the day to start cleaning Quintin's room. I knew it was messy, but I had no idea the extent of it!!! He often has to clean his room and lately it just wasn't looking clean so I decided I needed to get in there with him and organize a little so that it would be more neat. Well holy cow, every drawer, every backback, the suitcase stored under his bed, closet and desk were packed full of CRAP!! I mean, ripped up paper and kleenex shoved in drawers, random little toys shoved into the bottom of bags. Basically, every time he was cleaning his room he would just shove everything out of my eyesight. I was furious. 2 1/2 hours later of cleaning we still haven't even vaccuumed or bagged the sorted toys. 2 Huge black trash bags full of trash are by the door. I quit asking what he wanted to keep and just started throwing everything away it was so bad. I told him that if he was just shoving things wherever and not taking care of them they must not be that important. There were dirty clothes shoved in with his clean clothes in his dresser so now I have to wash everything because they stunk. I have a laundry pile up to the ceiling from all the crap we found under his bed.
So...this was sort of a setback as I had hoped to spend a lot of one on one time with the boys today. We're taking a break right now. I'm feeding Thea and Q is reading to the boys. I think we'll head outside for some fresh air before lunch. Hopefully we can get his room in order today. I am going to be much more diligent in checking his room after he "cleans" it.

Mommyville

Every so often I have one of those days where I go to bed and think, "I was home with my kids all day, but when did I spend any time with them?" It's an awful, terrible feeling. I'm sure that I corrected them for things they did wrong during the day, but not so sure I said a lot of encouraging, loving things. We had a doctor's appointment this morning and they were so good for me. Afterwards I let them play in the sprinkler, but got caught on the phone with a friend for way too long. I made sure to read individually to the boys before they went down for nap, but that 10 minutes was not enough. Tomorrow I'm determined to play with them and look them in the eyes and talk to them. Also tickle them and play baseball. They are so precious and they are growing up so fast! I look at Thea and can't believe how big she is already. They're little for such a short time. I need to make every minute count. If anyone has any ideas on how to prioritize your time let me know! Ususally if I plan our day the night before I do much better.

Our day

We had a fun and busy day today. After breakfast we sang our morning songs and had storytime. Landon was so cute saying, "sing, 1,2,7" which is his way of counting right now, and "sing, sunday, monday" for our days of the week song. I'm glad he's picking them up. He can sing the first several letters of the alphabet and some in between also. It's pretty cute to listen to. After reading books we walked up to the mini mart to get Q's hair cut. He wanted a spike and Miss Theresa was nice enough to spike up his hair for him and told him to practice spiking it all the time to get it to stand up right. It looks so much nicer now! It was getting way too long. Then we watched a movie about China and headed off to the pool. Those boys love the pool! I was huddled into the one spot of shade I could find by the baby pool nursing Thea most of the time. We also ate lunch there so I didn't have to clean up at home! They took wonderful naps when we got back. I like keeping them occupied. So much less getting into trouble happens!

I made my first diaper today during naptime! It's awful looking and way too small for Thea, but I'm super excited anyways. Now I know what not to do and hopefully can make one that fits next time. If I can make my own that work then I can save a ton of money on cloth diapers. And hopefully sell the ones I have now! Right now I am hoping to start selling flannel wipes on www.diaperswappers.com. Not as a business or anything, but just every once in awhile for a little (very little) bit of extra money. It's fun to pick out fabric and sew, too. See pic at top of post

Dan's name got tossed out for an IA. We should find out this week one way or the other. As far as IAs go, it's not too bad and only 4 months long. However, we were not planning on this at all, so it would be quite an interruption. It's wartime though.

The Hunger Walk

Today our family did the hunger walk in support of the Hawaii Food Bank. It was Quintin's idea actually. Everyweek he would hear about it in church and ask if we could participate. This morning before we left I was telling the boys how we were donating money to help people who don't have food or any money to buy food. Ashton ran off into the kitchen, came quickly back and asked where his money was. I got his bank down for him and he told me he was going to give it to the people who didn't have food. It just melted my heart! I helped him pick out some quarters (he also wanted a penny) to give and when we got there he put it up on the table with our donations. I was so proud of him for wanting to be generous. The other boys jumped on board and got money from their banks to give, too.
We had a great time. After the walk there was some entertainment. One of the churches had a group of kids dance to hip hop/gospel music and Quintin thought that was about the coolest thing he'd ever seen. There was also a big dinosaur walking around and the boys were very excited about that.

Tonight we're getting pizza (ahhhh YUCKY dairy...don't tell ann) and watching Night at the Museum, which has become one of our favorites. Quintin gave me a huge hug and told me he loved me when I said "let's get pizza". Dan threw the frozen sausage back into the freezer and said "yeah!!!" Apparently giving up diary is more of a sacrifice for them than for me.

I'm looking out the screen door to see that all the diapers have flown off of my portable clothes line (the double jogging stroller) so I'd better go get them off of the ground. God's peace and love to all!

Summer vacation has begun!

Today was the first day of summer vacation for Quintin. He is so excited to not be in school anymore. We got some books from the library and we all got on the floor and found some fun science experiments and gardening projects to do. Quintin didn't even realize he was doing reading and writing when I had him find projects he wanted to do in the book, then write the name of the project, read and find the supplies we needed and write them down. We have a fun book for kids on container gardening that I got for Q for Christmas. Now that school is out we will hopefully have time to garden! I have all sorts of activities in mind...too bad he will have to be at his mom's most of the summer. We are hoping/praying/planning to homeschool next year so I can save them for then!

So I am currently trying to sew a wetbag. I decided stupidly that I didn't need to follow a pattern...um...talk about wasted material and time. It's kind of funny actually. I can still salvage the material a little I'm sure, but I really need to learn to follow a pattern! Perhaps I should look for a sewing class while Dan is home to watch the kids.

Babywearing

I have discovered a new love. Babywearing. Not a snugli or bjorn (those were nice, but nothing I was overly excited about), but a wrap and a mei tai. How I wish I had known about the benefits of babywearing when colicky Ashton was a baby. It would have made such a big difference. Not to mention allowed my hands to be free instead of always holding him! Landon also would have benefited so much...he was such a good baby that with all the chaos of Dan's deployment and ashton still being so young he seemed to always get left in the swing. I love having Thea snuggled up with me and she seems so comfortable. Such a feeling of closeness. It's super comfortable for me and a much more natural feeling than my snugli was. I got my first wrap off of ebay for $30. What a great investment!! Just this week I received two Mei Tai's. One I got off www.thebabywearer.com. I traded some fuzzi bunz for it. The other I bought off of www.diaperswappers.com. Great deals and I have no problem buying them used! I need to have Dan take some pictures so I can put them up. I tried to take one of myself with the delay timer, but I just couldn't get it right.

Dan's new car!

Well, the guy showed up at 11pm and Dan bought the car! It's a hunter green 1980 BMW. I can't remember what the numbers are...525i possibly? I don't know. Dan loves it and the boys love it. It's sort of a fun/classic type car and is soooo much easier on the eyes than old blue was! It cracks me up that it was made the same year I was born.

Fairwell old blue

Dan's car died. Well, actually it just won't go into reverse or 5th gear. We're not too broken up about it. He paid $800 for it 10 months ago. Considering the cheap insurance and good gas mileage, we think we got a great deal! It was up to 262,000 miles. Isn't that amazing?? Go honda! He's supposed to be buying another car tonight. The guy was supposed to meet us up at the NEX at 6:30. Then he told us he was going to be late so he'd drive it to our house. He called earlier saying he was on his way and now it's 11pm and we're waiting on Mr. Flakey. I'm pissed, and I think Dan is, too. Especially since he has to wake up at 4am for work.
I will have to tell you the end to this story another time. I'm exhausted and can't wait up any longer.