Beautiful (Birth) Day

Today was a great day! I don’t know if it was because it was my birthday and I decided that I was going to have a great day and so I did or if it just turned out that way. The weather was BEAUTIFUL day, I think it got up in the 80s and there was this wonderful wind. I got to go eat lunch with my love at one of his favorite places to eat. I got to hang out outside with the babies as they played. I got my floors cleaned. I got to go over to my mom’s house for a wonderful dinner cooked by my Walter. She gave me 30 things to open. Some of them where silly like new washcloths and some of them were very nice like new jewelry which I love but don’t have enough of. It was definitely fun opening 30 different things. I got to talk to all of my siblings on the phone, and I got so many well wishes on my facebook page. I also got to come home and read this great blog that my sister wrote featuring me of course.


What did you get to do today?

the candle says 30 (18 with 12 years experience)

My 5 kids with me (notice the new earings, thanks mama)

P.S. I love having curly hair on days when the wind can run its strong fingers through it, whip it all over the place and leave it looking awesome.

My birthday wishlist

A list of what I want for my birthday as per requested by my husband. Here it is in no particular order.




A raised garden with veggies that we will actually eat in it

A worm composter, I know that is a weird birthday present but I have been asking for one for about 2 years now.

Cowboy boots, I hear they are life changing

Somebody to come spring clean my house for me

Cute workout clothes

The fence fixed (this was at the top of my list for a loooooong time, but now it is done YEA!)

New workout shoes, the ones I have now are 2 years old and I wear them as everyday shoes

New everyday shoes that are not grubby tennis shoes

Somebody that knows something about makeup to take me shopping for makeup that will actually look good on me, oh and show me how to put it on… You think I would have figured this one out by now.

To get a haircut by someone who knows how to cut curly hair and can just look at me and know what will look good, because obviously I’m clueless in this department as well, and I never get the haircut I want because I don’t know what I want.



That is all I can think of for now, I may add more later, I know it is kind of late but he has all week.

Starting off my birthday week with Sunday

This week I am celebrating my birthday. I am taking a friend’s approach and celebrating all week long. Every year we have is precious and special and not to be taken for granted. So we should take a week to celebrate that we have made it through one more. Right?

So I started celebrating last night. My best friend Ryan and I went on a girl’s night out. We went to Andales, then to Starbucks and then we drove around visiting all kinds of places that close early on a Sunday night, while we waited for it to be time for our movie. We went and saw “when in Rome”. Which is a typical chick flick, but we both thought it was very funny (mostly slap stick type stuff) and it had a great cast.




Before I went out with Ryan I went for a walk with my family and we went to this little park and I was able to play with my camera and try to take some art, these are the ones I liked the best. What do you think?

You can't tell, but Hosea is actually giving a Micah a push

I liked this one because it actually does have all 5 of the kids in it. (you have to look real close to see Micah)

It is hard to get a picture of this kid when he is not being goofy

My LOVE

He was so happy to be outside

Up close with Micah

Josiah king of the playground

my love and me

Which is your favorite and why?

My silly dog

My silly dog.

People Watching?

We went and walked around La Fortune again today. There was no creepy guy in jeans walking around so that was good. But there were these two silly ladies in jeans pushing a double stroller with three cute kids in it. The silly thing is that they would walk for two minutes and then run for one and then switch who was pushing the stroller. Sometimes it looked like the one with the stroller was chasing the one with out and sometimes it looked like the one without the stroller was chasing the one with it. As you may have guessed the two silly girls walking/running La fortune this morning were Ryan and me. We really need to get some workout clothes. That is going on my birthday wish list, cute workout clothes. With jogging a 1/3 of the way we only cut 10 minutes off our total time, but it was a pretty good workout, especially pushing that stroller with about 70 lbs in it. I am sure I will be feeling it in the morning.

Three Things Thursday

Three things I’m looking forward to next week.

1) MY BIRTHDAY!!!! Need I say more?

2) Micah’s surgery (read about it here), not excitedly looking forward to this, but it is going on next week and I’ll be glad to have it behind us.

3) A new start to a new month. I love new beginnings.

What are your 3 things?

Suspicious Minds

Today I walked around La Fortune, it was kind of chilly with a light sporadic sprinkle, but the company was good. I went with my BFF Ryan and the babies. For those that don’t know the walking path is 3 miles and it is a little hilly, but not too much. While we were on the back side of the park, about 1.5 miles from where my car was, we noticed a guy walking behind us. Now this is not out of the ordinary we saw a few other people walking, jogging, strolling, but what we noticed was odd about this guy is he was dressed in jeans and a light jacket, I know really odd right, no not at all unless you are out walking a 3 mile park, not really working out attire. So we slowed our walk down and let him pass us, because it made us kind of nervous with him behind us. He kept walking and nothing strange happened after that. We started talking about him and then we decided that it is sad that we live in a day and age where a man can’t walk by himself in a park in jeans and not arouse suspicion. This was pretty double standard of us, as we were both in jeans and not wearing workout clothes, but hey we were going to the mall afterwards.

Tank Top Tuesday

A couple days ago while in my closet I realized that I needed to come clean and tell you all about my apparent addiction. The title of this blog might give it away. That’s right folks I am addicted to*……no not Tuesdays, that is silly, it is tank tops that I can’t seem to get enough of. I am not real sure why I am so in love with them but if the first half of my closet is any indication, I am smitten. I wear them nearly every day. Even in the middle of winter, I am usually wearing one under any given shirt I may be wearing. Just how many of these do I own, I don’t really know. But I do know that I counted the hangers that hold them and there are 25 hangers. Some hold only one, while others are saddled down with 3 or 4. Why do I need so many? I have no Idea. But I can tell you one thing I am wearing two today because the weather called for it. And I can NOT wait until I can break them out and where them every day and not just under things.





*My oldest brother would inform me at this point that I have no clue about addictions. Thankfully he is right (this time).


PS I am almost at 3000 views! So let me know if you are lucky number 3000! (scroll down to the bottom of my blog page)

R-A-N-D-O-M spelling

Somewhere along the way Judah started spelling random words in his sentences. For example he will say something like


“Mom, the B-A-B-I-E-S are on my bed.” or “M-O-M when are we going to eat?” or when asked to do something “Y-E-S –M-A-A-M.” I ask him why he spells out some words and he says it is because he likes to spell, however he doesn’t always spell correctly so I have to correct him. Jeremy and I used to spell words we didn’t want the kids to hear like I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M, but Judah caught on to that pretty quickly so now we spell really fast and backwards and sometimes even then he catches it. That probably is where it started. Josiah does not spell random words thankfully, however Avrah has now started, which is very funny because she can’t read or spell so her letters are just really random. Tonight she said “Mom the baby is taking off his P-I-R-S-L-D-Q.” Translated (Diaper).



Also Hosea went pee in his potty for the first time!

Guest Movie Review

Today I have two guest writers. We went to see “Diary of a wimpy kid” last night with the big boys and this is their review of the movie. They have read all 4 books and were so excited about the movie.


Here is their take on it.



JUDAH-Age 8 ½


It was good. It’s about this kid named Greg, for short but his real name is Gregory. The movie was about Greg surviving middle school. Rowley is Greg’s best friend Rowley is not really middle school ready, Greg tries to fix him. Greg breaks Rowley arm on accident and Rowley starts hanging out with Greg’s back up friend (it doesn’t tell you that in the movie but it does in the book). What was your favorite part of the movie? The best part of the movie was the end, when Patty secretly gets the cheese touch, it’s funny. Wait I forgot one thing, I also feel like Greg.

JOSIAH- Age 6


He (Greg) was in middle school, and his brother Rodrick told him all the things he needed to know about middles school, but Greg did all things that Rodrick told him not to do. Greg wanted to be famous. He wanted to get a job in middle school, he was a safety patrol, Gregory touched the cheese and Rowley ate the cheese. Who was Rowley? Rowley is Greg’s friend. They went up into Rodrick’s room which Rodrick told them not to. And they have a wii. Was Gregory a good friend? Gregory wasn’t a good friend in the middle, but he turned out to be a good friend in the end.
It was a great movie. I liked the part the part when Fregley showed his secret freckle. I liked the part where he chased him with the booger.

*italics are me

Three Things Thursday

Three things you will almost always find on my kitchen table.

1) The trash can. The babies love to throw stuff away, sometimes stuff that isn’t necessarily trash. Also this keeps the dog out of it.

2) A chair. Judah does his homework in there so there is a chair but when he isn’t sitting in it, it has to be up on the table, otherwise the babies will push it over to the counters and get into things they shouldn’t.

3) The dog’s food and water. Once again things I cannot keep the babies hands out of.





What are your three things for Thursday?

Our Texas Vacation

When we lived in Louisiana our best friends were Scott and Jessica Swizzle. When we became friends with them they had one daughter who was 4 and were pregnant with their son. Jessica was a teacher and when she had her baby she had to go back to work when he was only 4 weeks old, so I nannied for her until school was out. I would watch him and then take him up to her at lunch time so she could nurse him and I would also pick up her daughter from pre-school and take her home and watch them until she got home from work. It was great experience and practice for me as I was pregnant with Judah at the time, Judah is six months younger than R. Jess is the one who introduced me to “Baby wise” a couple weeks after I started working for her; she gave me the book and said she wanted to try to do this. So I read the book and started implementing it. To this day she still says that I am the reason that he is such a good sleeper. Anyway, we moved 3 months after Judah was born. After they got out of the military they moved to Oregon and we were back here in Tulsa and we never got it together enough to actually go see them. Although we did see them once after we moved before they moved away from Fort Polk. We hadn’t seen them in 8 years and I hadn’t talked to her in about 6, although we kept up with each other on email, she had another daughter 18 months after her son was born and they hadn't met any of my kids except for Judah when he was about 8 months. They recently moved to Mineola Texas which is only about 4 ½ hours from me, which is totally doable! So since it was spring break J decided to take Monday off and we would go down on Friday after he got off work and we would stay the weekend and come back Monday. We got down there way late on Friday and stayed up way way too late catching up. The kids of course were up with the sun, which made for a very loooong day. It was a blast though. In my haste in packing I forgot to pack the babies shoes, so first thing we had to go to the store and buy them some new shoes, we found them some boots on sale, which we thought was fitting since we were in Texas. They are super cute and they love them.

Of course I had to buy the big boys and Avrah boots too. The weather could not have been more perfect, it was sunny and in the 70’s.

The big boys spent the days fishing.

Josiah

Jess taught me how to groom her horse Banjo

 and we all got to ride, don't worry I stayed on this time and did not get hurt.

Bailey and Avrah on Roxy (Avrah loved it and did not want to get down!)

Judah on Roxy

Josiah on Banjo (he also loved it, and was really good at it)

Cowboys?

Jeremy and the babies didn't get to ride but they were having their own adventures.

On Sunday we went to church with them and then went to a nature preserve and had a picnic, since there spring break was last week and the kids had to go back to school on Monday we decided to go ahead and leave on Sunday afternoon.
We had a great time and can't wait for them to come up here and see us too. Here are some more pics.

An outside play pen?

Love both their faces in this one.

Pure joy! Micah loves being outside

I loved this one even though it wasn't in focus and he isn't looking.. it just looks artsy to me. I changed nothing about it

Hosea

Micah

I'm back

Oh hello, are you still there? Patiently waiting for me to get back and write something worth reading. Well this may not be it. I am back at home and cannot wait to tell you all about my trip. But I have waited too long tonight and so all you get is this short little update that lets you know I am alive and well and back home. What’s that? Oh, you want a picture? Well ok

Isn’t this view just beautiful!

Vacation!

So I am on my way on a little mini vacation. To see some friends of
ours from army days, we haven't seen them in like 8 years. I will post
more about them another day.

Here is a picture of my leg from yesterday, 4 days after the accident.
When I took this picture I noticed another bruise down by my heel and
my ankle is all swollen. Lest you worry about me, let me just tell you
that I am fine, there is no pain unless something hits it (inevitable
with 5 kids). It hasn't slowed me down at all, the only thing it has
stoppede from doing is shred, but I have been out walking.

Thursday’s Three Things That Thrill Me

1) Time spent with BFF, while exercising.

2) Breakfast for dinner. Scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and toast doesn’t get much easier or yummier. 5 out of 5 kid rating!

3) Spur of the moment vacations. More to come on this one, if I don’ t blog this weekend this would be why.

How about you? Anything thrill you this Thursday?

Tilapia pockets are better than pizza pockets

I blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah…went on a walk with Ryan…blah blah blah, went to Target, blah blah blah. Made dinner. THEN I got to go get a mani-pedi with my Mama (Thanks Mama). Highlight of my day of course! Made it home in time to help out with baths and put my kids to bed.


Here is a yummy fish recipe that we had tonight. Enjoy

Tilapia pockets
2 lbs tilapia filets
3 zucchini sliced (I diced them)
2 yellow squash sliced (also diced them)
1 can corn, drained (I bet you could use frozen, if you don’t like canned-which I usually don’t)
Chunky salsa (we did medium, but probably should have done mild, the kids said it was too spicy)
Aluminum foil,
Non stick cooking spray, (totally forgot this one, but they turned out to not need it)
Garlic salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 350

Tear a large square of foil for each member of your family/piece of fish. Place a fish filet on foil. Divide and place zucchini yellow squash and corn on fish. (What I did was cut up all the squash and zucchini and put it all in a bowl with the corn and then just spooned it onto the fish on the foil) Sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper. Top with 1/4 cup (I just used a big spoon full) salsa. Seal each pocket place on baking pan. Cook for 25 min.

ENJOY!

Imagination is a wonderful thing

What do you think they were imagining this stool was?

Hosea in front Micah in back

Micah in front Hosea in  back

Issues

Judah: “Mom, I’m having issues”
Me: “What kind of issues”
Judah: “Well there is my knee issue, and my teeth issue, and my hands issues as you can see.”


Poor guy, he scraped his knee on Sunday, his back molars are coming in and now his hands are all chapped and dry, so he has issues.

I was asking the kids what the best part of their day had been; Josiah’s was that there was a new kid in his class.

Judah went bowling with his PE class today so I thought that may be his favorite part of his day, but he said no it wasn’t , because he lost the game. He also went to Jiu Jitsu today so I thought maybe that was, but no it wasn’t that either. So what did he decide was his favorite part? “The whole day”.
I love that kid.

Bruised but not broken

Last night Avrah got to spend the night with her cousins Abby and Ashy. They live about 45 minutes away. Judah got to spend the night at a friend’s house too. The house sure was a lot quieter without those two. We had family over for lunch today.

Hosea and Uncle Hat (what Solo calls Uncle Judah-my brother)

Then we went to pick up Judah and then we headed off to Pryor to pick up Avrah. Jeremy’s brother’s family has their own Sunday ritual of going 4 wheeling in the spring and fall and going out lake in the summer, so that is where we found them out 4 wheeling. It was such a beautiful day today and the kids where having such a fun time on the 4 wheelers.

Hosea on a 4 wheeler

Hosea and Micah

Don’t worry these two didn’t ride one that was on.

I on the other hand got to ride something more alive than a 4 wheeler. I got to go horseback riding. I haven’t been in a while, since it seems like I was pregnant or had a small baby for a long time. So I was glad to actually get to get back up on one. I was doing pretty well until we decided to go a little faster than a walk. Now the stirrups on the saddle on the horse I was riding were too short for me, so they told me not to put my feet in them, but when we started going faster I decided to go ahead and put my feet in them so as not to bounce around so much. Well somehow the horse I was riding on didn’t want to stop once we got going, and no amount of me pulling up on the reigns was slowing him down so a mixture of me being up in the stirrups and to far forward over his head and my inexperiencedness (not a word I know) caused me to slide over to the side out of the saddle and slide down to the ground and he stepped on my leg. He did stop as soon as I fell off though and I didn’t get dragged so that was good. I got up and dusted myself off and got back on him and rode him back. Yea me!

Here is what my leg looked like though

I’m pretty sure it isn’t broken, just bruised like my ego.

I must have it!

What a busy Saturday. Pancake breakfast at the American Legion, then off to Pryor to spend some time with Grandma Dian up at her store. We had Subway for lunch and which brings me to the point of today’s blog. We recently bought some of these

This is on my *must have* list if you are pregnant with or have twins . Why? Because as your baby or babies get older and you go places, most people may have one high chair but they rarely have two, and if they happen to have two they probably have two babies that use them. My children also need to be sitting down and strapped in to eat; otherwise they roam around and just make a mess.

*NOT ME or MY CHILD!

These particular ones fold up really small and fit into the stow-n-go compartments in our van. There are ones that fold down smaller but they don’t have trays and that is was really important to us.

These ARE my children!

We usually put these in chairs, but as you see on the floor works too.

Isn't this a great picture of Judah. He doesn't really photograph well so when I get a good one of him I have to show it off. This origianlly had the other two in it but they were both making strange faces. 

sock hop and curry chicken wraps

I had some really fun news I was planning on telling you guys about today, but it didn’t pan out like it should have, so that is kind of a bummer but stay tuned because hopefully next week I will be able to share it with you. And please people stop thinking I’m pregnant every time I say I have news (you know who you are), I’m not and only ever will be again by the hand of God. Alright moving on to what we did today.

Tonight the boy’s school had a sock hop where they got to dress up like the 50’s it was all in support of their book fair. While we were in line to check out at the book fair Josiah looks up at the cashier and says “I know you are just doing this to make more money.” As if that was a bad thing.

Here are some pictures. I totally forgot my camera so these were taken with my phone. And there are a lot of Josiah sitting by this wall because it was so cute, he really looked like a rebel, because when we first got there he got really shy and didn't want to go dance or do anything and then he saw like 5 of his friends wearing basically the same thing and then he jumped up and ran off to play with them.

My sad little rebel

Don't you think he could totally fit into the 50s (well I don't know personally but I think so)

he is NOT doing the princess pose, this is more like would you please get out of my face with that already

And here is Judah "dancing". Yes with his hands in his pockets, poor guy it looked like a mix between tap dancing and Irish lord of the dance dancing. Funny but not so much for him, we will have to work on this one.

We had creamy curry chicken wraps for dinner they were delicious and I’m pretty sure everyone liked them, we were in a rush and now a days it is kind of hard to say what the babies ate and what they have fed to Leia. Here is the recipe, don’t be scared of the curry.

Creamy curry chicken wraps

½ cup low fat may

1 teaspoon curry

2 pkgs already cooked chicken strips ( I got the grilled Tyson ones that are cubed) ( you could just cook the chicken yourself also)

1 can drained pineapple tid-bits

2 oz sliced almonds

2 stalks celery, chopped fine

Lettuce leaves for wraps (we put the kids’ in whole grain low carb tortillas)



Mix mayo with curry; blend well combine with remaining ingredients. Load lettuce leaves (or tortillas) with the chicken salad and serve.