School, sentences and sweetness.

I am continually amazed by my children.

For the record. I don't want to feel like I'm bragging about how aweseome my kids are and take any credit for it. We are seriously blessed big time by our kids' temperments and how healthy and bright they are. Plus, I know that most everyone thinks their kids are pretty special, I am just taken back by the things that they do for one another and for others.

That's not to say that two little someones don't act out. They certainly do, and we have the bruises from bites and punches to prove it, but within minutes of a bite or a punch or a shove, the culprit (Aaron) is sweetly hugging the victim (Nathaniel) and saying, "'Orry, Bubba..." while Nathaniel either responds with a punch or an "I forgive you..." (playing out last night for you).

Aaron, my little non-verbal boy, has exploded with full sentences the past two days. I am proud to say that his first sentence was..."No! Kitty, don't you bite me, okay?" (This was after a few minutes of harrassment on Aaron's part when Socrates finally moved to bite him). From that point on Aaron's been full of, "Mommy, more juice, please!" and "I'm cold! I want a towel!" Okay...

Aaron also started at the preschool today. He was so brave! He jumped out of the van, ran to the gate, waited while I opened the gate, rushed through the door, tried to put his lunch in someone else's cubby, ran through the classroom out to the playground where he immediately attached himself to my leg. It didn't help that every single child in Nathaniel's class came running over to say hi to Nathaniel's little brother. At one point Aaron was climbing my leg. He eventually warmed up (after trying to eat his lunch at 9am, seriously, he was so excited about having a lunch box!). He decided to hang out with Nathaniel for outside play time. We'll see how the day goes, especially for nap!

Finally, Nathaniel has been super sweet lately, and very helpful. He helped Sam plant more seeds on Sunday (and got a whole dollar for it!). Then, yesterday, I was doing dishes and sweeping and mopping and doing some other general cleaning. While I was doing dishes Nathaniel dragged a chair over to the sink and said, "Mommy, I want to wash those for you!" So I let him wash the plastic cups and the silverware. Then he grabbed the broom and tried to sweep for me (which is hard when the broom is twice your size) and then while I mopped he would spray the floor for me with the cleaner. At one point my back was aching and Nathaniel said, "Mom, let me pop your back." and began to rub my back. He also took a rag and cleaned the front of the stove for me! Then we made lemonade together and sat and did a puzzle together and chatted about different stuff. His Cubbies lesson was on heaven and asked what he thought would be in heaven. He said apples, people (then asked me if grandma was in heaven. I told him no, that all of his grandmas were still alive...then he asked me if Uncle Ian was in heaven, then he said, "No...Uncle Ian is still alive too...") and chocolate chip cookies. :)

We also talked about my great grandma Smith and the yummy things she made (applesauce, frozen strawberries, etc.), and he was super interested. It made me really treasure the afternoon I spent just hanging out with Nathaniel while Aaron slept. While we cleaned I told Nathaniel that when the baby is born I won't be able to do as much with him at first, but that I would still make time for him. He is super excited for the baby to be born though, and even ran and put stickers on my belly saying, "This one is for you, Mom, but this super awesome one is for Benjamin!"

Yup, we're pretty blessed.

Processing a moment in history.

Yesterday was a super long day for me. Between church, a youth luncheon, worship team stuff and a going away party for some dear friends who (like many people around us) are moving due to employment stuff, I wasn't able to sit down until about 8:30 last night. When I signed onto the internet I saw a ton of facebook statuses about bin Laden's death.

I was shocked and yelled for Sam and we rushed to the t.v. (which never comes on at night, so it was a treat for the kids to watch t.v., even if it was the news). As we were turning on the t.v. I commented, "You know, it's great that they finally got the man who masterminded 9/11, but I don't think we should be rejoicing. As far as we know, he wasn't a Christian, which means eternal punishment."

I just can't celebrate eternal punishment for anyone.

Was Osama bin Laden evil? YES. I am not sad that he was finally found. I'm not even sad that he had to be killed in order to be taken captive (as far as we know. Maybe that was the plan all along, but I rarely question military involvement because I know that we will never be given all of the information that they have, for people to sit there and say otherwise are incredibly naive...).

On the other hand, watching the t.v. and watching the President's speech I was thrilled and a little apprehensive. I'm thrilled that FINALLY this evil man was captured. He was not innocent at all. He masterminded an attack on our soil, killing thousands of people. He changed our history. He made it so that SO MANY families were affected. I wrote in my journal on that fateful day that I knew Sam's future was going to be changed by the events that took place on 9/11. So, while I was not thrilled that he was killed (because how much more justice would have been done if he had been captured and imprisoned and brought to justice that way, even though it probably would have led to death as well) I was thrilled that he is no longer out there.

As we sat with the boys watching the t.v. I explained as best I could what was going on. We have a book called, "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers" that we bought when we went to New York last year. I asked Nathaniel if he remembered that the towers were no longer there, and then explained that the man who they were talking about on t.v. was the man who made it so that those towers weren't there. Then we told them that they needed to remember this day if they possibly could. We'll see if that helps :).

Finally, we did our story reading and our family prayer time as usual. We prayed for bin Laden, as weird as that may sound. We prayed for God's mercy and that bin Laden was able to know God truly before he was killed. We don't ever want our kids to rejoice in the death of someone, no matter how evil. Especially if they did not know Jesus.

Disclaimer: I hope people who read this realize that we are not saying that his death was bad or not justified. It's just a loaded event. It's hard to process and hard to know how to process such a thing. While it's good that he's gone, I wonder if we've made him a martyr and I wonder what will happen next. But, no matter the outcome, he needed to be brought to justice for what he has done.

He's "mart!"

This picture has nothing to do with the post, but when I was getting stuff ready for the baby the boys grabbed the pacifiers and pretended to be babies. It was pretty cute. :)

We tackled potty training pretty hard core with Aaron the last few weeks. I tried to make it as stress-free as possible both for him, and myself. I simply put the underwear on him and made sure to take him to the toilet every 30-60 minutes. From day one he was pretty successful in that he had minimal accidents (maybe one or two) but that was purely from the effort of getting him to the toilet in time.

It's really great because his baby sitter is completely on board with us and doesn't mind him coming in underwear even if he's not completely trained!

This morning I put him in underwear right away after taking off his overnight diaper. I had dishes to do and diapers to wash and other general house "stuff" to take care of so the boys watched Curious George while I did those things. While I was washing dishes I heard the pitter patter of little bare feet into the bathroom and the toilet lid going up. I dashed into the bathroom quick (because Aaron can't get himself on the toilet by himself) and Aaron was saying, "Mart! Mart!" (I think it's because we tell him he's so smart when he uses the toilet?). I asked him if he needed to pee and he said, "Yeah! Mart!" and then he did (on the toilet).

I know this is just one part of many on this journey, but it's wonderful that at 26 months old he's telling me when he has to go. That's a BIG step in training.

Oh, and he FINALLY got his words last week. Of course, it was during my super busy week at work while Sam was home. I opened up the van door on Saturday to get Aaron and he looked at me and said, "Blankie, ground!" (Everything is said with exclamation from this boy). He has yet to get his connecting words, but the nouns are definitely there, along with verbs. Whew, I thought he would never learn how to speak for himself, which is ironic considering his name is Aaron (who was the spokesman for Moses...).

Other than that, things are going really well. Nathaniel is reading really well now. He's sounding out unfamiliar words pretty well, trying hard to remember all of those darn "rules". Let me tell you, it's pretty funny listening to someone try to sound out the word "face" by breaking it down sound by sound and thinking it's a hard c sound. :)

The pregnancy is going great. I'm trying really hard to stay active, but with Sam home it's increasingly easy to be a slug on the couch in the evenings rather than keep up with the boys. We had a rummage sale at church for the youth group last weekend and I was surprisingly NOT sore on Sunday afterwards, even though we put in a ton of hours (more than 24 in three days). I'm trying to save my energy when I can and do just what is needed to be done (like vacuum and laundry and sweeping, although sweeping is getting harder...). I'm still really hoping to have a successful VBAC. My doctor is being wonderfully supportive and we have the agreement that I'm not going to try to be a super hero/martyr. I will try my best but I'm not going to refuse medical intervention if I need it. My health and the baby's health is more important. I think not being induced and having Sam here will really help me overall though.

That's about it here. I'm trying to keep up with this blog, although most of the people who read this also are friends with me on facebook so any pictures I post are usually up there...

Hope everyone is well!

My thoughts on being a mom to boys (so far).

The more apparent my pregnancy becomes (i.e., the less I just look fat and the more obvious it is that there is someone taking up residence in my body), the more random strangers feel comfortable coming up to me and making small talk/rude comments towards me.

It's really weird because it's a lot of assumptions based on our choices that Sam and I have made as parents/reproducing adults and a lot of pigeon hole-ing that has been done.

For one, a lot of people assumed that we decided to have a third child because we had two boys and were trying for a girl. That is not the case in the slightest. I would like to think that if we had "one of each" that we would still have chosen to have a third child. I can't say what drives us to have kids, except that we have yet to feel "done" having kids. It's weird and complicated and hard to explain. So, when the ultrasound results came out, many of my close friends and family were awesome with their responses of "Hooray! Another boy!!" Even if they were secretly thinking, "Ohhh...a girl would have been nice for them." they didn't say it out loud. Bless them.

It's also weird when people automatically assume that we were disappointed to find out that we were having a third boy. I have said from the beginning of this pregnancy, "I just want a healthy baby (and a nice and easy delivery, but I'll take the healthy baby over the easy delivery)." and I really meant that I just wanted a healthy baby. So, when the doctor waved his magic wand over my belly and pronounced this baby a boy, I was more concerned that the femur measurements were developmentally correct and that the heart had four chambers, etc. than I was concerned about whether or not the chromosomes were XX or XY. In fact, a few weeks before the ultra sound I started to panic thinking that the baby might be a girl and thinking, "Holy Crap, I don't know what to do with a girl!"

Needless to say, giving up sarcasm this week has been incredibly trying for me because in the past two days I have had 4 random strangers comment on us having a boy. No, strike that, 5. One of those strangers was awesome though, saying what a blessing children were and how exciting it was that I was getting another boy. I thanked her for her kind words and told her that I was excited.

The other 4 people have reacted strangely to the news of a third boy in our family (like it directly affects them or something). I've gotten the, "Oh...weren't you hoping for a girl?" comments the "That's why we stopped at two, I am terrified of having another boy!" comments and the "I bet you are sad because you don't get to play dress up and buy dresses." comments.

Seriously? I love being a mom to boys. I get to dig in the dirt. I get to make poop jokes and know that my kids will laugh hysterically. Our toys consist of cars, trains, blocks, and nothing that involves teeny tiny accessories. As they grow, we get to raise strong men who will *hopefully* have a good work ethic and will respect women.

I have toyed with the idea of telling strangers that we don't know what we are having, but then I will have to hear the "Oh, I bet you are hoping for a girl!" comments all over again.

Maybe I will just turn the question around and ask something super personal of them. Or respond with, "I bet your parents really wanted an (insert opposite gender of person asking question here) when they had you, huh?"

But, that's sarcasm.

I think I drank the Kool-Aid.

We have started the cloth diapering adventure this week and I am absolutely LOVING it. First of all, I bought BumGenius 4.0 cloth diapers, which are called "All In Ones" because the cover and the liner come together in a package and the liner goes inside the cover. They are also one size fits most (7 pounds-35+ pounds) so they work for Aaron right now and will work for baby boy #3 come May. And, as an added bonus, the diapers have snaps instead of velcro, so they will last a lot longer.

These are the colors I purchased. I have three of each color. Aren't they great?

I took this picture to show the versatility. The green one is snapped to the smallest size, while the blue one is open so you can see the inside. The insert is hidden nicely away and really easy to get out by simply grabbing it out of the back (where the least amount of pee and poop is) and pulling it out).

I've really been loving how easy it's been to do this. The main thing holding Sam and I back for cloth diapering was not having our own laundry. But, I admit, I was leery of trying it because of the whole having to wash the diapers thing. I mean, poop that I can't just throw out? I gag at simply the thought. But, after a few poopy cloth diapers it really isn't so bad. I simply dump what I can, give it a quick swish in the water (holding the liner which doesn't get wet if I don't dunk it) and then throw the whole thing in the wet bag which hangs in the nursery on the closet door. When it's time to wash the diapers I simply grab the bag (which doesn't leak at all and holds the odor in), take it to the washing machine, flip it inside out (dumping the soiled diapers inside) and do my wash (one prewash, one hot wash, an extra rinse cycle).

I know I sound like a crazy woman, but really, I've been bitten by the cloth diaper bug. I have bought 20 of these things and I need Sam to change my password on the cottonbabies web site because I am in danger of spending WAY TOO MUCH money on these. It doesn't help that they have sales AND for every purchase over 100.00 you get a free pair of leggings (which are being saved for the baby).

The one down side is that Aaron loves the cloth diapers so much that underwear has been usurped. *sigh* I suppose we'll start again when the baby is born and I have a few weeks of being home to work with him.

But really, who can resist this cute little cloth diapered booty?

This is the wet/dry bag that the diapers go in. I could put the clean diapers in the front zipper part, but I have them in a little basket on top of the dresser, right next to the changing pad and the wipe warmer I purchased (with cloth wipes, yup, I'm addicted!)

Photos!

Aaron's actual birthday. He's eating a banana muffin.

Elmo cupcake with friends for his party.

Aaron getting ready to open presents. There was a Packer football in this one.

Taking a whack at the pinata.

Nathaniel with brother Bear at Disney's California Adventure (Aaron freaked and wouldn't join the picture).

We went for a hike and found a Redwood Forest!

The boys happily hiking with their sticks. Right after this was taken both boys managed to poke themselves with the sticks. Nathaniel on his side, Aaron in his eye. They were okay though.

It's been awhile...

It's been awhile since I've had time/energy/motivation to update the blog. I know I have pictures somewhere on my camera too to highlight all of the stuff that's been happening (like little Mr. Aaron turning 2), but that means finding the camera. I think it's hanging on the hooks by the door...I'll have to do a photo update after a text update. Lame.

Life has definitely been crazy here since the last time I posted. February literally flew by. The beginning of February I took 11 students up the mountain to a very warm winter camp (it was in the 60's and no snow was to be found. Since then it has snowed almost 3 feet up in the mountains. Not fair.). The day I got back from that we threw Aaron a birthday party/Superbowl party to celebrate (boo) the Packers making it to the Superbowl. I was way out of it and barely remember any of it because I was incredibly tired from camp and was also unpacking, doing laundry and repacking to catch a 7:00am flight the next day to Indiana to be with family as my grandfather had passed away the week before.

I managed to fly out to Indiana right as snow was starting to hit, so I got to drive about 2 hours in snow to be with my family. Even though I missed the funeral by mere hours (along with some beloved cousins who I only see when someone dies), it was nice to be with my mom and siblings and aunts and sit with my grandmother. It was super hard to be there though because I kept expecting my grandfather to be there, either sitting in his chair watching t.v. or puttering around in the kitchen. He wasn't one to simply sit still and since he hadn't really been sick up until right before Christmas, it was super hard for me to not expect to see him.

I flew back to California on a Thursday night and Sam turned around and left at 4:30 the next morning to fly to Washington for a conference. Then he came back on Saturday but was gone for drill all weekend as well. That next Friday I went up to the mountains again with the high school group to help out a bit. And now February is over.

Whew. I'm glad it's all behind us now, although with the close of February bring March and planning for summer stuff and the looming birth of baby boy #3 (no name yet). It's all slightly overwhelming!

But, on the kiddo front, everything is going fairly well. Nathaniel is taking violin lessons and is doing quite well when he actually practices (it's hard for him to practice when I'm not around because Sam doesn't know anything about violin and doesn't sit in on the lessons). He got good sound out of his violin today, which made me happy. We are still working on his attitude. He is quite whiny at times, and I'm sure that he's just super tired, but he won't nap. He goes many days in a row without t.v. because that is his big consequence for not listening. He reads really well now, but when he's put on the spot, he freezes and won't do it. He is a super timid kid and adults intimidate him, so when a teacher asks him a question, or he has a question for the teacher he freezes up and immediately says, "I don't know." We're working on it. I know he can read because he corrects me when I'm reading by pointing to a word I skip and telling me I skipped it. Also, he can spell because yesterday I spelled ice cream to Sam and a minute later Nathaniel said, "I want ice cream!" after working out the letters in his head. With kindergarten testing coming up this month I am a bit worried. It's all unfounded because even if he knew nothing, he would be fine in kindergarten because they teach all of the stuff. It's just me being paranoid I suppose.

We register him for kindergarten next month. He will be attending Bethany Christian Academy, which is the school that is on the campus of the church I work at. It's such a blessing to get the private school education at the discount we get it at. I get to know that my kid is getting good quality education and he's right there where I'm working. It makes me happy to know that he won't fall into the cracks in a huge class of 36 kids with a teacher who is really a glorified babysitter because she/he can't control the large classroom and is also dealing with a high percentage of children who do not speak English. We don't live in a great school district, so I'm glad for this opportunity for our kids.

Have I mentioned I can't believe that Nathaniel is starting kindergarten? It is so crazy!

Aaron is a little cutie-pie trouble maker. He is a stinker, but he does it with this "I know I'm cute" look on his face, which makes it doubly hard to come down on him. But, he does get his fair share of time outs and spanks for not listening or punching his brother (mostly punching his brother...). At his 2 year check up the pediatrician mentioned that he should be speaking two word phrases by now and seemed concerned that he wasn't (as was I). But then, after interacting with him told me that I don't need to worry, that he just needs to be given the space to talk. He is super sharp and follows directions and knows stuff, he just has a chatty older brother who speaks for him. All the time. So, after a week of giving him more talking space (asking a question and waiting until he answers, encouraging him to speak, etc.) and telling Nathaniel to cool it and let him talk, he is speaking really well. And, he is a stinker about it. When I give him warnings when he's in trouble he jumps ahead to the counting and then spanks himself and giggles. *sigh*

He's working on the potty training really well. When I put him in underwear he will go into the bathroom before he pees himself and when he's in a diaper he goes to the toilet right after he poops. It really is just going to take me spending the day with him working on it. I've spent a couple of days, but haven't had the time to be super consistent. Small goals here.

Aaron starts preschool in May. He is going to go where Nathaniel goes, which is also attached to the church and is super discounted for us as well. It will be nice to have him settled in a new place before the baby is born. Then, for the summer, if I can't handle having all three kids home or they need to get out, I can drop them off at school (which is also daycare) for the morning to play and I can get a bit of a break.

The pregnancy is going well. February was super stressful so I had a lot of braxton hicks contractions. It was more of a nuisance than anything. But, I am almost 30 weeks, which means 10 more. As of now the baby is head up, so if nothing changes I will have a c-section. It's not ideal, but I'm not stressing about it right now.

As for our family? Sam and I are often two ships passing in the night with the busyness of Sam's day job and his night job teaching online and my own work with the youth plus parenting. But, I'm so blessed with a husband who isn't afraid to put all of the work on hold so he can spend some time with the family. He was awesome to hold down the fort most of this month even in his busyness so I could do what I needed to do. He even put together Aaron's party, including ordering a bounce house, making all of the food (no store bought dips for Sam, it was all homemade guacamole, hummus, salsa and other yummy stuff) and getting decorations. He's a keeper. :)

We're trying our hand at being a bit more "granola". We are getting a box of organic fruits and veggies once a week from a local farm through a fundraiser at Nathaniel's preschool. It's so yummy and we are eating a lot healthier now with fresh veggies and fruit. We also are trying our hand at cloth diapering for this new baby. We'll see how it goes.

That's it here. I am hoping to get this thing updated a bit more. Life continues to march on and this is actually a good way to keep track of what is happening with the family as I go back and re-read older posts.

Blessings to all!