Disappearing Luke

Memory Books

Over the years I've wondered how to turn my blog into something physical.  I hope blogger doesn't disappear anytime soon but it worries me that all of these memories I've recorded online could somehow disappear!  This blog has been almost the only records I've kept of my children's childhood, so somehow turning them into baby books/photo albums/memory books has been a priority for me.  There have been several options I've considered, but I think these books have worked out.  I've created photo book from several websites- usually whichever website has a free book promo, sale, or a Groupon- and given each book a theme.  Initially I intended to just repost my blog word-for-word into these books, but after spending too much time editing I decided to go with the theme route and fill in text boxes with details from my blog.  I love them!

In the photo above, starting at the top, the books are: Beth's pregnancy and birth, our trip to St. Louis last summer, our family's 2011 birthdays, Christmas 2010, Jack's birth and baptism, our beach trip 2007, beach 2009, Luke's 2nd birthday, and our Punta Cana trip from last summer.

While these books are very important to me, the kids love to read them too.  Usually once a week they get them all out and sit looking at the photos.  I do worry that pages will get bent or torn but I know if one book ever gets completely destroyed, I can always order another one since they're all saved online.  (I don't want to, but it's nice knowing the option is there!)  It's made me think that I should create one or two for each of them to keep in their bedrooms, each book filled with special memories and photos of people we don't get to see very often.

I love the alternative to traditional photo albums because this way I don't have to print out photos and somehow add the text.  It's just very simple, convenient, and a fun way to relive some of our most special moments!

Photos of the Week

day 1: peace

day 2: skyline

day 3: something i wore

day 4: bird. no birds around here so... day 4: cat

day 5: fun!

day 6: me

Part one of my May photo-a-day challenge!

Photos in May

I've chosen to follow this May challange:



I've missed taking photos lately with my DSLR and have been relying on my phone to grab quick pics here and there.  Some of my favorite blog posts I've done in the past are random photo posts, documenting a day or things I love about our home, so when I saw this challenge I thought it'd be fun and would get me using my camera more often.  I have some photo ideas in mind for a few of them but for the most part I'm going to try to make them as organic and random as possible, without setting them up, so to speak.  My photo from yesterday was perfect, I love it!  I think I'll post a week's worth of photos at one time since there's no way I'll be able to upload them every day, but we'll see what happens.  My goal is just to take one pic a day! 

Beth's Circus Book

Vegas, Baby!

A few months ago, Ryan told me that he was planning a secret trip for the two of us.  He told me he didn't plan on telling me the date until he absolutely had to, so when a potential client emailed me with an early May due date I had to get the date of our trip out of Ryan!  April 20-23.  I tried to get hints out of him regarding the location, but he wouldn't budge!  Then, one day, we were talking about a concert and Ryan accidentally spilled the beans.  He was so angry at himself but I was psyched- Las Vegas!  We went to Las Vegas nearly 7 years ago for our honeymoon as a last minute trip- we were supposed to go to Mexico but a last-minute hurricane in the Gulf changed our plans.  But, this time we were staying on the strip!  He didn't let anything else slip, and I didn't even know where we were staying until our cab drove up to the hotel.

We left early Friday morning to catch a morning flight, and we both prepared for the trip by bringing long books for the 3 hour flight- I read the final book in the Hunger Games series and Ryan read the first book.  We weren't much fun on the flight, each reading our books the entire time!

When we got to Vegas, we caught a cab and took the quick trip to our hotel.  The Monte Carlo!  Ryan's trip for us revolved around a conference he was attending, the same conference he attended in 2010 when we went to Miami together.  His conference was Monday and Tuesday, and we had most of the day on Friday through Sunday to spend together, and my flight came home early Monday morning.  He and I stayed on the 27th floor with a view of the strip, and once we checked in, we did what all parents probably do on the first day of vacation- we took a nap!  A real, honest-to-goodness nap!

Just arrived!  Ready for vacation to begin!

Pantry Redo

Ryan and I have been working on our pantry redo for about a month now, it's been a stop and start project!  Our pantry was still the old nasty flat yellowish paint that dominated our entire home and I wanted to put cabinets in and make it "girly."  Hey, it's my laundry room and pantry, and I wanted one little super-girly room in the house!  It's not done yet because I am being pretty picky about what I want to finish it off with, but I have some ideas!

So to start things off, I didn't get a picture before we started to work, I remembered after I had removed the first wire shelf and most of the contents of the top shelf.  These shelves were (mostly) functional but definitely not pretty.  They had to go.  You can also see the beautiful paint color.

  

Next we have the opposite side of the room.  This is mostly our school stuff, games, craft supplies, puzzles, and other random kid's stuff.  The top shelf is my liquor cabinet. :-)

Ahh, much better, everything removed. We took off the hideous light fixture too, complete with dead bugs, which added more light to the window-less room.  I hope to get a mini-chandelier, if I can find one for a great price!

Brothers

This is what happens when brothers play nicely and quietly together while Mommy is doing her hair in the other room.  They get dog food from the container, throw it all over the playroom floor, scoop it up with their play cups, and pour it into an empty prune juice bottle.  At least they were playing nicely and quietly.

Easter Pics

 I got some pictures of the kids after mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, last weekend.  They were more than willing to oblige after I promised donuts to all!  I think this may be the best photo I have of them from at least the past several months, I love it!  Don't they all look so grown up?  I wish Ryan and I could have jumped in the photo with them but Ryan was at a ministry fair so we will have to try it again some other time!

Easter Egg Hunt

 Easter is a season lasting 50 days so we have plenty of time to do the activities we avoided didn't get around to doing before Easter Sunday!  A few days ago we had an Easter egg hunt with some plastic eggs.  No goodies were inside but they didn't care, they had so much fun finding them and then taking turns hiding them for each other!  Jack figured it out after a few minutes and had a fun time cracking his eggs open.

Happy Easter!

 Alleluia!  Happy Easter!  Our family had a busy one as usual, hosting a few guests and attending our annual crawfish boil on Saturday.  Beth and I attended alone this year as Luke and Jack are still pretty spotted.  I don't think they're contagious anymore (with the chicken pox) but they are still a little on the grumpy side, though not really itchy (thank goodness!).  We didn't want to take any chances and bring them, so Ryan was a mighty fine man and offered to stay home with them while Beth and I went to the party.  Today, for Easter Sunday, Ryan went to the 7 am mass and I went with Beth and our family at the 9 am mass, once again because we didn't think it'd be a good idea to bring the boys out!  They didn't get to wear their Easter shirts and we didn't get a good family Easter picture!  I think I'll plan out another Sunday for us to all wear our Easter clothes again and try to get a good family picture.

Easter baskets full of books, coloring books, crayons or markers, sidewalk chalk, and gummy bears!  No chocolate this year because I didn't get my act together in time to find some!  I think this marks the first Easter in my life to not have a chocolate bunny!

Three exicted babies to dig into their baskets!

Checking out their loot!

Luke

Luke is almost 3.5.  Wha wha whaaat?  He has gone through and recently come out of a growth spurt... I say "come out of a growth spurt" because it's like he was a tea kettle, slowly simmering.  For months he was simmering... he discovered how to test my every boundary and push every limit I've ever placed on him.  It wasn't a great time for him and me, I've realized that he and I are a LOT alike in some ways and it's made it very difficult for me to discipline him when he can get into my head!  It's like he knows what I'm going to say and he knows exactly how to ignore me while annoying the heck out of me!  It's kind of crazy that over the past month, the steam from his tea kettle has been released and he's now functioning very well at a new level.  He and I are both functioning well together.

How do I know that he's over this growth spurt?  For one, his physical body has grown.  His foot grew about a size and a half and his body has thinned out and looks more like a big kid and less like a toddler.  In fact, I was wondering if Jack had gained some weight or something because their body builds are very different right now!

Chicken Pox!

Bethie G. got the chicken pox!  She started with a fever on Monday, March 19 and broke out with her spots on the next day.  She was seriously itchy for only a couple of days and then after that it's been pretty easy for her.  I found the best "medicine" was distraction, luckily we had some beautiful weather so we spent a lot of time outside riding bikes and we kept on going with her schoolwork because she wanted to.  She really felt fine the entire time which sort of surprised me!  I also used pure lavender oil to stop the itching and gave her some watered-down lavender oil in a spray bottle for her to use whenever she wanted.  She took lots of showers and had a few oatmeal baths (gluten-free oatmeal steeped in a pillow case!).  I also gave her some children's Claritin for her first two nights because she wasn't able to sleep, but other than that we just let it run its course.  I am happy she will have a natural immunity to it because contracting chicken pox as an older teen/woman can potentially cause fertility issues and I don't want her to have to deal with that.  Right now she has a few scabs left (today marks three weeks since her fever) but I'm certain this is the end of it.  The boys haven't gotten sick yet but I don't see how they won't get it! Hopefully their cases will be as easy as Beth's was!

Bluebonnet Photos

Last Sunday we traveled out of town!  My parents left the country to Italy and on a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate their anniversary, so to help out we stayed with my two youngest brothers for a few days until they got back.  We had a fun time while we were there, Ryan came with us so we made a vacation out of it!  On our way there we passed a huge field full of bluebonnets so we pulled over to get our annual photos.  The sun was way too bright and the kids were sleepy, but it was the best we could do this year!  Here are some of the best ones, unfortunately I'm not thrilled with any of them...I plan to play with these in photoshop and clean them up a bit and maybe that will help.

St. Patrick's Day Picnic

Last Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, and we brought the kids and a picnic lunch to a nearby state park.  I can't believe how close this beautiful park is but we've never gone!  Ryan and I decided we needed to go at least once a month to see how it changes over the year, but while it's beautiful right now, my allergies are killing me.  In fact, for awhile there I was certain this would be the year that my allergies actually do kill me!  It's a price to pay for the kids to experience outings like this... They loved it!

The Next Step

March is more than halfway over and I am already seriously thinking about next year's school.  I've talked to lots of experienced homeschool moms about the ins and outs of home education, why they've chosen to do things certain ways, and gotten some tips about how to be a successful mom, teacher, wife, and housekeeper.  (Simply put, several of them have said just hire a housekeeper. ;-)  This year we started off using the Mother of Divine Grace kindergarten curriculum but (and I think I've mentioned this), we both got a little bored with it.  Beth likes to do a lot of hands-on activities, and I want to take advantage of the way she learns and encourage her to love learning. 

I'm soooo close to designing our own curriculum.  I feel like I just need a little urge from a friend or The Spirit letting me know I'm making the right decision!  I want to be able to include Luke in our lessons, so that I can teach both him and Beth on their own levels.  For this reason unit studies seem really appealing to me, but what I have in mind doesn't exist in a formal curriculum. 

I'm glad it's March and I have some time.  It's been my goal to finish my doula training packet and then I'll start work on our curriculum, whether I find one or design one.  This past week marks the one-year anniversary of my training course last year!  I am nearly done with my packet I have to send off to become certified, I only have to print off my essays, proof-read everything, make copies, and mail it off!  My goal is to go to the post office on Friday!

Lying Around

a new dress up costume... dr. luke.  he wore this for three days straight.

 We spend a lot of time in our playroom, on the floor.  We play blocks, trains, little people, do puzzles, build towers, and usually combine them all into one giant fun mess.  It's my goal to have the playroom cleaned up at the end of each day because I find that they actually won't go in there and play unless it's clean, and they know where to find each toy.  It's a lot more work for them to go in there and start playing when it's already a mess!  But, it doesn't get cleaned every day and that's okay too. 

This day we were gone in the morning so the playroom was still cleaned after rest time.  Usually that means they have plenty of room to dance, but we were having a lazy afternoon and enjoyed rolling around on the floor instead.  And, if we're laying on the floor, 99% of the time Finley comes to join us too!

Out With The Old, In With The New

This past week we sold our little green Mazda Protege!  I bought it in college from my first roommate and it's served us well since 2003, but it was time to go.  Ryan has had a few major components fixed so we felt justified in actually selling it and not just giving it away, ha!

He's been scouring the internet looking for a new-to-us truck.  Yes, a truck!  My poor man has been longing for a truck since the sad day he had to sell his Ranger in 2008.  Well, tomorrow is his lucky day because he'll be driving down south to pick up his 2004 black Toyota Tacoma!

 

He's so giddy, it's cute. :-)  I'm happy that we'll able to fit a couple of carseats in the back and finally be able to haul our own stuff again!  I should probably take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped us haul something over the past four years... It's been greatly appreciated!  I guess we can start paying favors back now!

Growing Up

 My little Beth is growing up so much lately!  At the start of Lent, we implemented a (very basic) chore system, and Beth has taken it to the next level.  Every day she begs for a chore and, well, there's only so many days a week to clean the windows!  I've been coming up with odd tasks for her to do but she loves helping Mommy with chores.  I should add that we're paying her a dime per task (Luke too, when he helps out) and teaching her to separate her money into three jars- spend, save, tithe.  We'll use the tithe money during Lent somehow and she's still thinking about what she's saving her money for!

All of this, plus probably a bit of her age and other factors about her temperment, means she's going through a "phase" right now.  It's not a bad phase, but I just can't think of  better word to describe how she's sort of changed in the past few weeks.  She's become more-than-ever eager to do things on her own, things like prepare a snack or breakfast, get out her school supplies, or fold a pile of clothes all by herself.  Especially kitchen items though, so much so that I've rearranged the pantry a bit so that she can reach some breakfast and snack items, and I've very much reassured her that she'll be more than welcome to cook on the stove and wash ALL the dishes in a couple of years!  That day can't come soon enough for her though! 

getting snack ready for me

Happy Leap Day!