Popcorn Lover

Our family LOVES eating popcorn, and mostly from the stove.

Isaac has become indoctrinated into this tradition.

I was trying to et a video of him eating it, because it was so adorable, but he was too enthralled with the video camera.  Every time I tried to tape him he stopped eating and came over to check me out.

Either way, it is still pretty stinking cute...

Take One...

Take Two...

Splashing it up

We took the boys to an indoor water park last night for the evening. 

It is a very fun place, but a bit pricey so we don't go very often.

However, I had a few free admission coupons that were going to expire and it sounded like a fun thing to do on a cold December evening.

During the school year they have a special called "Mommy and Me" swimming and offer an amazing deal Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9am to1pm. It is $5 for mom and $2 for each child 4 and older. The boys and I have gone quite a few times and in fact, I took them a handful of times last spring when Isaac was so small. 

It is nice and warm inside and all the water rushing around provides a perfect white noise for a sleeping infant to enjoy.

So, it was especially fun taking Isaac for the first time when he was going to be enjoying the water and not sleeping.

He wasn't too sure about it at first, but quickly warmed up to it!

One of his favorite activities is taking a bath and splashing. So this was right up his alley!

Elijah rarely slowed down long enough for me to shoot a picture let alone remind him to walk!

We weren't sure if their swimming lessons made much of a difference, but I noticed they were both braver and would jump into the pool and go right under!  Elijah looked pretty rough by the end of the night, as he kept his eyes open every time.

I told him to close them, but he said he wouldn't be able to see if he did!

I don't think anyone stopped moving the whole time we were there...except when we ate Pizza.

Isaac checking out the water.

All 4 of my boys playing!

Too bad these two look nothing alike!

It's hard to see, but Jonah is under all this water!

There is a GIANT bucket that dumps water every 20 minutes or so.

A loud bell rings before it dumps warning everyone to get out of the way, 

or in Jonah's case to get under it!

Isaac enjoyed watching everyone else play, just about as much as he enjoyed playing himself.

Some good friends of ours joined us for some fun in the water.

We are going to have to meet there again!

This was Jonah giving me a thumbs up after the big bucket dropped!

Isaac and I even took a few trips on a tube around the park in the lazy river.

Sweet Claire enjoying the water too!

Double Trouble on the slide!

All smiles at the splash park!

We will have to check it out again sometime soon!

Keeping Jesus Safe

The boys and I put out our nativity tonight.

Elijah has been bugging me for the past week to get it out, and I just hadn't taken the time.

The boys love playing with it and it is always fun to see where baby Jesus ends up.

We were talking about what it would have been like to be there when Jesus was born.

My heart aches for Mary as I can only fathom what she experienced in the stable, giving birth to Christ the King, in the hay?

Was she scared? 

Did she fear for her son's life? 

After we set up the nativity I put a few things away and came back to see this scene:

I smiled to myself and asked the boys if their transformers were visiting baby Jesus.

They both whipped their heads around, and very quickly corrected me...they were keeping Jesus safe from the bad guy who wanted him dead!

Of course! 

Adorable!

They were confident that Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and the other Autobots could keep baby Jesus safe from King Herod.

While they continued "playing" I prayed that I would not forget the moment when I discovered transformers keeping Jesus safe.

Counting down the days

 We made these adorable wreaths at MOPS a few weeks ago.

There are 25 items wrapped in tissue paper with a few sentences and a bible verse that tells the story of Jesus and his birth.

The boys have been enjoying opening an item each day and reading the verse.

It has been fun watching them making the connections themselves.

They have recognized many of the stories we have read (Jesus turning water to wine, feeding thousands, healing a blind man, etc)

It has been a fun way to keep this season focused on Him.

They have also been able to use their bibles to look up the verses too!

They are curious about the items and have been trying to guess what they are.

Jonah asked me if I wrapped Jesus up for the last day!

Wouldn't that be great?

Just a little bit of this

While the reality of winter has hit us with chilly days, beautiful flurries, and blowing winds, we have been enjoying our cozy Christmas tree and cups of cocoa or apple cider.

We have also been enjoying a little bit of this...

Isaac tried malt-o-meal for the first time and LOVED it!!!

(It's hard to see in this picture, but he had malt-o-meal everywhere)

You can't have malt-o-meal without toast!

Isaac adores his big brothers and is quite entertained by watching them play.

He does get pretty excited when they include him in the play.

These two are still such good buddies.

It has been hard watching Elijah get so sad when Jonah is gone at school...

...but so sweet watching them reunite at 3pm each day!

They usually have a full night of playing planned out by the time we pull into our driveway.

Lately I have been struggling with feelings of inadequacy, as a mother, friend, homemaker, wife, etc)

Satan has been getting the best of me.

When I have been feeling overwhelmed, the Lord has sent many reminders to get me back on track.

I am working on letting go of control over my to-do list, and focusing more on quality time with my family.

I have also realized that I need to spend more time being silent before the Lord.

While I am waiting patiently at the feet of Jesus I am praising the Lord for these 3 boys who I have been entrusted with.

I mean how can a girl feel sad when she gets 

sticky, slobbery, all-boy hugs and kisses from these 3 cuties?

Turning 6 twice

Jonah's birthday is December 29th.

While he is super excited for his big day to come, he was severely disappointed when he realized it will be over Christmas break!

Next to being the helper for the day, celebrating your birthday in school is a pretty big deal.

So, I convinced him it would be even better to celebrate it last week and it would really be like having 2 birthdays.

Well you can't bring any baked goods to school, everything must be purchased from the store.

(I think for sanitary reasons)

Jonah was disappointed by this, but decided we could just go order cookies instead of making them.

He wanted frosted sugar cookies with his name on each one ;0)

We headed to Target one day after school to order his cookies only to discover that Target only makes large individual cookies that are frosted. 

Or you can buy a GIANT chocolate chip cookie that is heavily frosted...

...so that is what we did.

Jonah was very excited to share it with his class...not so excited to pose for this picture the morning he brought it!

His teacher thanked me after school for the treats and said she also took a picture of Jonah before cutting it up.  She said Jonah told her "my mom made me do that this morning!"

Oh, kids...

So Jonah turned 6 at school and has a few more days before he thinks he will turn 6 again at the end of the month.  At that time, I am told he would be ok with a real cake and some presents to celebrate!

Good to know.

Happy  First 6th Birthday to You Jonah!

I Love You!

It's beginning to look like Christmas

I LOVE decorating our house for Christmas!

It is even more fun now that the boys get so excited.

We are a real tree family and broke tradition and got our tree a little early this year.

We weren't going to get one since Isaac is into everything, but the big boys were quite sad and Richard was confident Isaac would be ok.

So we got one last weekend.

The boys were fascinated with the cool air pouring down the tree after we took the netting off.

Isaac was curious, but fortunately the "pokey" long needles are just enough to keep him from touching it for more than a few minutes. 

Not sure how long it will last, but for not it works.

Elijah has been my Holiday decorating motivator this year, encouraging me to get out the decorations as soon as each "holiday season" starts.

However, Jonah was probably the most excited this year to get the lights on the tree.

He was practically seizing with excitement as we were getting ready to decorate the tree.

(For those who have never gotten a real tree, you have to let it sit for about a day to warm up and open up  before you can decorate. So the suspense of decorating the tree had to be postponed a whole day after we purchased it! That is almost a week in toddler time)

The boys were so excited to decorate, which makes it fun, but also a bit stressful for my control freak nature.  I thought I made great improvement from last year though. That was the first year they had "helped" us decorate.  

I am not going to lie. 

It was difficult for me to let them A) touch all the ornaments, B) put them on the tree themselves and wherever the wanted, C) and relax while doing this.

However, I did organize them last year when I was putting them away, so all the ornaments that were able to be handled by the boys were in one box.

The boys had a blast putting all the ornaments up, and I didn't move too many of them!

Isaac kept his distance while we decorated and fortunately found his reflection in the window quite fascinating and thus distracting while we continued to decorate.

We only had a few ornament casualties this year.

Minnie was sliced in half...

(but I was successfully able to perform surgery on her and she is safe at the top of the tree)

Unfortunately, the third wiseman in the picture below (with the white scarf) wasn't so lucky.

He was decapitated by Elijah.

His head was too small to glue back on.

I was afraid this would cause tears, but Elijah's reassured me it was okay to hang it up because "the other guys still have their heads.  They can just show the third guy where to go."

Good point.

Our tree is definitely dominated by superheroes.

Surprise, surprise right?

The star on top has always been put on by one child, taken off, and put on by the other.

We decided this year to do things a little differently.

The boys flipped a coin to see who got to do it this year, and Jonah won the coin toss.

So we will rotate each year, which should work great since Elijah will take a turn next year and Isaac should be able to handle it the year after when he is 2 1/2!

Another tradition we have is naming our tree each year.

Evie was one of our first trees, then we had Sophie a few years ago, and last year it was Lucy.

On the way to get the tree this year I asked the boys what we should name the tree this year.

Elijah excitedly suggested, "Michael!"

(In case you forgot, Michael is Elijah's imaginary friend that is still a part of our lives almost daily)

You can read about him here if you missed it. 

Jonah protested for a bit, but we did all agree that would be a great name for our tree this year.

So here's Michael...

Beautiful huh?

Sure brings a smile to my face throughout the day as I pass by him.

I especially love the warm glow he provides our living room in the evening!

After getting the tree decorated we talked to the boys about why we have a Christmas tree.

The symbol of everlasting life and how that relates to Christ.

They did a great job listening and participating in the conversation.

Hopefully we can keep Jesus the reason for the season as we get closer to the big day!

Stripes

I have always been in love with stripes.

Especially when they are on a pair of cute little legs such as these.

I am afraid these stripey legs are going to be walking around before too much longer.
They have started doing a little cruising on the furniture, but not too much.

Mostly they just enjoy crawling around.

That is just fine with me.

I will enjoy them however I can get them!

Turkey, Turkey, Gobble, Gobble

Jonah was very proud of this Thanksgiving project he made at school.

It is quite adorable.

He has been repeating it over, and over, and over, and over again.

(A great way to practice patience)

So...we recorded him saying it.

Here he is...

Seeing Double

One of the comments I hear most frequently from others is how much our boys look alike.

Jonah and Elijah have also been mistaken for twins ALL the time since they look alot alike and are only 20 months apart.

However, recently I have found myself doing a double take throughout the day.

I will walk into the room and see Isaac doing something or wearing a certain outfit and have a flashback to Elijah wearing the same thing or doing the same thing.

It is quite eerie, and amazing at the same time.

See for yourself...

There are some distinct differences, but still impressive how much they look alike.

Two super cute giraffes.

I am curious to see how much they look alike when they are teenagers.

Eeek! I don't like thinking about them all being teenagers.