Only about 6 or 7 months behind...

I am forever behind on this blog.  Just when I think life will slow down, it speeds up 50 extra miles!  This is just a quick update.  The 3 boys are all busy with scouts, soccer and baseball coaching (we did fit school in there some where). The twins are adjusting to 3rd grade really well and Cooper is taking his adjustment to learning French in school really, really well.  He loves, loves, loves it.  He comes home singing little french songs (to help him remember things) all the time.  Easton is currently as of today getting potty trained along side the puppies, Coco and Hershey.  I figured if I'm potty training them, I might as well potty train him too.  Needless to say I will be shampooing the carpets as soon as everyone is done potty training.  If I could have one wish it would be to have more hours in a day.  Since that's not going to happen I'll slowly catch up on the our blog and everyone else's blog in the next couple of weeks....haha, when life slows down.

The back-up plan...

Time for a little closet organization. This was a brilliant idea for our boys closet. It may not be a new idea to the rest of the world but for us it has been a life saver! The 3 older boys love to share a room together. But sharing a room means a TON of clothes all over the place if there is no damage control done. So here it is, My interpretation of DAMAGE CONTROL.
A long time ago I saw these little square canvas buckets at one of my favorite stores, Target. At the time I thought these were the perfect way to organize the 3 boys clothes. Besides the fact that we intentionally didn't buy them dressers for their rooms. I just remember when I was a little girl the funnest thing to do was to make my bottom drawer of my dresser into a baby cradle. I would fill it with pillows, blankets and baby dolls and when I got bored of that I would make it my cradle. My dresser was strong but not that strong.  I loved my bottom drawer so much that it literally broke to pieces. And when the bottom one broke I just made the next logical move...on up to the next drawer. As you can guess that one broke too. And luckily my parents were okay with it since it was a hand me down dresser from my older sister and I was the youngest.  So when it came time for the twins to have their own dressers I had to come up with a quick and brilliant back-up plan, hence Target. The canvas buckets worked for a while but it soon got to the point to where the clothes were put away but all mixed up into the wrong buckets and it took them forever to do it. So this wasn't organization at it's finest. I knew I needed a new way of doing things. So here goes... I wanted labels but I needed labels for the twins and Cooper. So they each have p.j.'s, socks, underware etc... The buckets with the 2 people on it are for the twins and the buckets with a single person on it means it's for Cooper and the buckets with 3 persons on it means it's for all 3 of them. Voila! I fold their laundry and put them into a laundry basket and they unload them in the canvas buckets and hang them up, finally on their own. It's great, they know exactly where everything goes without me having to hound them all the time. On the mommy scoreboard this was a win for me and for them. I rarely have good ideas but this one has worked even for 5 year old Cooper. There are times when it's time for Cooper to put his laundry basket full of clothes away and he is done in minutes and there are other times when it will seriously take him DAYS to get to his laundry basket. But their room is their room and they are responsible for it as well as the basement (since it basically is a huge play room). And that is a win for me being one step closer to not being the "Maid".
These are the steps they have made.
Step one: separate the socks from the shirts, pants and p.j.'s.
One day I asked them why they were making a mess and Elijah told me that they were organizing the clothes before they put them away. They said that it makes it easier. All I had to say to that was, "Oh". There are very few moments when they make me think that but they were right in their own way.

                                  Step 2: One does the hanging and the other does the buckets.
                      Again, they worked this one out themselves. If it works for them, it works for me.

And Coop does his mostly with a good attitude :)

Rustin's little update.

Rustin's update is much like Elijah's.  Since the two are inseparable, they kind-of have the same things in common.  Not to mix that up with the same personality, in that respect they are very much different.  They may be twins but they have very different personalities. Rustin loves, Bay blades, playing with friends, playing Sorry and uno and making forts, just to have Easton tear the oh so fragile things down (really how sturdy can a fort be when it's made out of blankets and pillows or cardboard?).  He too is in cub scouts and had fun building and racing his car with his Dad.  He likes the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books too.  He is into "Scary Movies", whenever we ask what they want to watch, his reply is, "I want a scary movie", Scooby Doo is getting bumped off the "Scary List" everyday that he gets older unfortunately.  The Indiana Jones movies safely classify as scary movies for him.  I still make him close his eyes during the super gross parts, like when they are ripping hearts out of people's bodies, yeah that's a little too scary for his age.  His new found love is Netflix, when the weekend comes rolling around they know it's time to start calling dibs on the good movies that they want to watch.  And with 3 kids calling dibs you've got to be quick or be last on the waiting list.  He hearts Netflixs!
It's baseball season so half of the week when we aren't playing in games the boys get their baseball bag and head across the street in the big field next to the pool to play some baseball.  Brooke usually goes with them when he's home to pitch to them while I alternate pitching to Cooper and Easton.  But when we can't go they pitch to each other and for the most part that goes really well.  But there are many times when testosterone gets in the way and they start yelling at each other to pitch better or to swing at the ball, then it starts going south.  Like the rest of the boys, he is ready to be a fish in the pool! 
This little story happened a few weeks ago once upon a time when the weather was nice and not a monsoon outside.  Brooke was restaining the play set while I was weeding.  As he was painting the boys were climbing on the slide and one of our neighbor girls and her friends walked by.  Brooke seized the opportunity to tease Rustin for a little bit because he knew he had a crush on her.  So he said out loud, "Hey look Rustin, it's your girlfriend Megan!"  So here Brooke is thinking that he's doing a little embarrassing but instead Rustin said out loud, "OH SNAP!!!  Megan, I love you!!!"  The poor girl just covered her face with both hands and ran off.  Brooke Says, "Rustin just stood there like a man...so proud of himself for proclaiming his love to the girl of his dreams... [Brooke] on the other hand [didn't] know whether [he] should be absolutely and extremely proud of him or if [he] should be quite concerned that at such a young age, he is so forward with the "ladies"... we'll have to see.  I just tell Rustin that girls have cooties, some day that won't work any more.  So Brooke's little recon mission of embarrassing Rustin backfired in a funny way.  Our lives would definitely not be the same without our "RED" personality of a son Rustin.

Elijah's quick update.

Elijah is our gamer.  He and his dad love to try to beat each others scores on Tiny Wings, Ninjump and Doodle jump (it's their way of bonding, ha ha).  Along with video games, the new hot game that he loves is Uno, as they are currently playing as I write this.  I love that it's a new game for them but that it's an old classic for us.  He also loves the game Sorry.  He is into Bay blades, playing with friends, fort making and baseball.  He is in cub scouts so he recently made his first pinewood derby car (mostly his dad), but he had tons of fun choosing the shape racing his car.  His favorite movies are the old Indiana Jones movies!  He loves, loves, loves them (probably inspired by his Uncle Todd's Collection and his favorite ride at Disneyland that's all about Indiana Jones.  He is also into Harry Potter (the boy takes after his mother's heart on this one).   His favorite Books are the Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  He has finished the collection and loves the first movie and is patiently waiting to catch the second movie when we can.  This boy loves A.R. (the accelerated reading program). He is constantly trying to read as many books as he can so that he get to the higher level (that's where the gamer part of him comes out). He is too excited to end second grade so that he can officially be called a 3rd grader!  The kids all have funny stories to tell, but as the scatter brained mother that I am, I'm not always quick to write them down but this short little tail was a classic.  The boys shower down in the bathroom down by their room and they are responsible for putting their clothes and towels away (I always try to tell myself that I am not the maid; truth be told I really am as most moms are).  Well this night Elijah must not have put his towel on the hook the night before like he was supposed to do.  Rustin comes upstairs laughing his head off saying, "Elijah used his underware to dry himself off."  After Brooke and I laughed we asked him why he used his underware to dry himself off, he said he didn't have a towel close  by.  Time for another shower!  Seriously where is the common sense, of all the articles of clothing they have he chooses underware.  Oh well at least when he goes off to college I won't have to know about it.  Ignorance is bliss right.  Life wouldn't be the same without him.  He is patiently waiting for the pool to open across the street, it's too temping having to look at it everyday when he goes to the bus stop or out the front door and with all this rain I am not as patient as he is.

Coop's up date.

*These updates are mostly for Grandmas and Grandpas.  Mom and Dad, I'll have to get to the twins when I have some more time.
My little blonde hair blue eyed boy.  Where he came from, none of us know.  We always joke around and say he's the milk man's, haha.  No, he's all ours with my stubbornness and Brooke's kindness he's all ours.  For the most part he loves to please, his teachers, his friends, his brothers and mom and dad.  If ever he gets candy whether it's at the store with dad or from school he always saves some for his brother's, always.  In his prayers, Cooper always asks heavenly father, "That we can be nice to each other, and not fight."  He's a peacemaker in our family. 
He loves playing with his friends, especially Cabe, Rhett and Abbie along with all the other neighbor kids.
He is rediscovering his love for baseball, since the season just started up last week again, he has a really good coach and loves all of his little friends on the team.
He's becoming a good little reader and speller.
Even though we have 5 rooms in the house all 3 boys are all in 1 room downstairs and they like it that way!  Some days when they have been fighting all day (some times it's one of those days), after they go to bed they just start talking and giggling.  It's like now we can rest from driving mom crazy all day and really show that we like each other, go figure.
If there's one thing Cooper is not, it's a morning person.  He detests waking up in the morning.  His biggest complaint from kindergarten was me not putting him in afternoon kindergarten.  I asked him, why he wants afternoon. He said, kids get to sleep in and they get to do more fun things in the afternoon.  That one, I'm pretty sure is false. 
He's great, so I think we'll keep him.

The little Stinks update a.k.a. Easton.

Where do I begin!  He is a busy little boy with nothing but mischief up his little sleeves! 
His newest found love is washing his hands.  He loves, loves, loves to wash his hands.  He loves it so much sometimes he'll just use liquid soap and walk around the house with soap in his hands until he gets caught.
 So much so that he'll leave the water running when he's done and I am none the wiser until hours after the fact and hear the faucet running and think... Easton (I think that's happened at least 4 times in the past 2 days now)!  Luckily he really hasn't discovered the plug until today and I about died when he did as he was playing with the sink while I was getting ready.  I just thought oh...no to myself. So I am going to have to keep a closer eye on him so he doesn't flood our house, which with him the possibilities are endless! So probably about this time last year I was worrying about him playing in the toilets, now at least my sinks are clean so when I see his sleeves all wet I don't shudder and think about the toilets!  Almost lastly, Easton hearts my foamy hand sanitizer.  If it's out, he wants some to rub on his hands.  I am beginning to think he's a little o.c.d. as I write this.  At least he has clean hands, Amen!
He loves books (that'll have to be a whole other post).  He won't go to bet until we've read about 500 books all in one night.  He's just figured out how to do the male version of batting his eyelashes to me and it works nearly every time.  I am a sucker and my 2 year old figured it out!
The Beast-- Easton's new nickname, any time he wakes up in the morning or from his naps the first person that hears him says, "Uh-oh, the Beast is awake."  Not that he's mean, he's just a Tasmanian devil and overly loves his brothers things or projects they work their little hearts out on... to pieces.  So now the say, "Uh-oh the Beast" and just giggle.
He loves saying...
"So good." mostly when he's eating.
"Guys" is now a reference to the twins.  I have oftened wondered if he knows the difference between the 2.  I think he can see them and know the difference but when it comes to pictures and I point to his brothers, he just says, "Guys".
"Hooper" is his way of saying Cooper.  One morning he woke up and said, "Nuggle Hooper".  It was too cute.
"Nuggle" means to snuggle.  Now do you see why I can't resist reading a million books before bed. :)
Anyways, the little stink is a cutie, with his cowboy boots always ready and hair way too long that it really should be cut.  Too bad he has a mom that can't part with his locks right now. 

Festival of Colors 2011.

This past weekend was a Buddhist holiday, those Buddhist's know how to throw a party.

You buy the chalk and start throwing it everywhere.

My boys just looked at us like, "It's okay for us to throw chalk at eachother?"

"Yeah, it's okay, so get dirty, you've got a lot of chalk to go through."

I didn't have to ask them twice, they got busy and Cooper got down to the music.

Easton was having fun throwing chalk and dancing.

Um... so this is my 2nd child, Elijah crowd surfing (Brooke was with him every step of the way and there was no alcahol served so until they are adults this is the only time I will let my children crowd surf). Everyone was very watchful of the kids while they were surfing. They actually all went (each at seperate times). Rustin was the frist (I didn't get my camera out in time), Elijah went next and Cooper wanted to go too. His picture is farther down below. The crowds were cheering for all the little kids. So if you asked them what their favorite part of the whole day was, you'll hear them say, "crowd surfing" hands down. Breanne, Preston and some of their friends came down for the weekend. This is Cooper's picture crowd surfing, he's up toward the front so you can't see him too well.

My boys love being dirty, so for them this is the best family picture.

Glad my husband isn't such a stick in the mud and is willing to have a good time.

Easton looks like a little orphan boy.

Coop loved, loved, loved it.

My colorful Elijah.

My purple Rustin.

The boys wanted to go through their temple, so they did. It's good to expose them to different kinds of beliefs, different people believe different things. That's what makes this world so great, we were so glad we could share this with them.

Me and Breanne.

We washed off in some hot springs close by. I kid you not, this water was crystal blue and we all turned it muddy muddy brown from all the chalk on our bodies, hopefully it has recovered from us by now. We had to drain it a little bit because it was so bad. We literally had chalk in all kinds of places.

We saw some kayakers while we were soaking. This place is awesome!

Us in the muddy, muddy water. We'll have to come back and soak in the blue water some time soon.

Kiss me I wish I were Irish.

Happy St. Patty's day! I made some wheat waffles and dyed them green. The boys called them booger waffles, sounds yummy I know. We do this every year, paint their hands or faces with a four leaf clover out of green food coloring. That was a tradition Brooke's family did growing up. I guess I could have used marker, but this is just something fun and a little different. For their lunch I dyed their soup green, so when they opened it up they got to eat green soup, they loved it. We finished the day with corned beef and cabbage (at least Brooke and I love it, the boys not so much).

Southern Caribbean cruise.

Once again this was a work vacation, we took some of Brooke's guys and their wives to the Southern Caribbean as a thanks for coming to work with us again kind-of thing and just between you and me, Brooke will take any opportunity to, "get away". We flew into Puerto Rico the night before. Not the safest country to be in but beautiful weather. We had security guards watching out for us while we were in the hot tub since it was right next to the beach.

*Just a warning, I am not wearing make-up in most of these pictures, just so you know.

*The highlight by far on the boat was during a game called The Quest, Brooke and a bunch of other men were parading around in lipstick, a bra and women's high heels. I didn't get pictures of that on my camera but there are some on Brooke's phone though. F.Y.I. that's the only time Brooke has ever worn a women's bra, he looks pretty good in a black bra. All for the team right.

We took a walk and actually ended up in the slums of Puerto Rico, thanks Kevin. You tell me why our slums can't be this nice looking. I actually got chased out of there cause I was taking pictures of the nice slums (they should be flattered, it's not like I wasn't taking pictures of the drug deals they were taking care of). They actually film a lot of rap videos and stuff in this area (so why are they so concerned about me taking a picture of them). This wall wasn't in the slums but in the Paseo del Morro, I just thought it was a cool pic.

We were only on the boat for one full day, this was dinner that night.

The lovely Mark and Deborrah Timms.

Jared and Tamson Dannis.

Casey and Brian.

Kevin and Reese (the not dating or married, the single guys).

Brooke and I, sorry I have no idea what is going on with my bangs.

The married, the dating and the single all together now. Vacations are always fun when there's other people, especially fun ones.

First stop... Barbados. Our cab driver actually had us stop to feed some monkeys on our way to the beach. They were the cutest little things, very social and soooo playful with each other.

I tried to feed the little ones first as best I could without having the more Alpha one's step in the way. I felt like a momma duck trying to feed the babies. When they took the banana pieces, their hands were soooo soft and they really were gentle.

They were super playful.

This was Crane Beach in Barbados. Uh, yeah... no handicap access coming this way. There were crabs literally everywhere on the rocks, especially down by where the water was washing up over the rocks.

Way nice beach, we saw some guy, "crab fishing" on the rocks.

The rocks had so many crabs on them that it seemed like the rocks were moving. Brooke tried to catch them but those little suckers are so quick.

More crabs.

This was one of the scary parts of the day. Some little boy got sucked under this big rock, luckily the 3 lifeguards were able to pull him out and hand him back to his mom and dad. So sad.

We ordered some coconuts and they literally climbed a coconut tree behind them, cut a coconut off the branch and chopped it open for us, now that is service.

If this was all I did the entire week was sit on my can, I was okay with that! I just wanted to bake in the sun all day everyday. Since guys like to "do" stuff and that's the way they bond, we did a little of both.

We nick named this the bat cave, you walked in and it had a staircase. At the top was a locked door that probably led to private property.

Our cab driver stopped and got us some sugarcane. It was soooo good, I could have eaten that stuff all day long.

This Island was St. Lucia. We wanted to go hiking so we ended up hiking one of those peaks in back of us. Grow Piton was the one we hiked. It was literally 2 miles straight up and 2 miles straight down. There were very few switchbacks that lasted all of 2 or 3 feet.

Let's just say Brooke and Kev didn't know what they were signing up for when we talked about doing this as you can tell. I couldn't help but laugh about all the moaning and groaning going on, it was too funny, they were my entertainment. I think this was only a quarter of the way up. Kevin is not on the ground for show, this really was how he was when we stopped.

Obviously he regained his strength since he's up in a tree.

This was at the top on one of the view points, it was really hazy.

Cool tree.

The second view point was way clearer, this happens to be the 2nd peak, the guide said it was the smaller of the 2 but way steeper, you have to rope climb on parts of it.

Brooke looks like he's doing a little bit better.

I tried to get an idea of how steep the trail really was but this picture doesn't do it. It was so steep our guide stopped 1/2 way up and had to stop because he'd already done a tour before us and thought he could do another one. So we kept going and realized he really wasn't going up anymore. He really meant he was done and wasn't just taking a break.

I have never sweat so much before in my life, I literally rung my shrit out 3 times just dripping.

Our group.

Part of the city.

On most of the islands all of the children wore different colored uniforms.

They had a landslide back in November that was really bad, it took out houses and a family.

Our boat, we really should have missed our port time on this island. We were supposed to be on the boat by 4:30 and we showed up at 5:00. The boat only stayed because there was another large group that was doing a tour through the boat that was running way late. None of us double checked the port time, we just assumed. NEVER assume. We were just super lucky.

Our waiter.

Birthday boy Brian!

The Island of Antigua. For all you Bacholor fan's out there they came to this island for one of their episodes. We stopped at a sugar mill on the way to some beaches.

We stopped here at Devil's Bridge.

Did some snorkeling.

and wanted to eat all of the lobsters in this cage!

All I can say is YUMMY! I will take all of these and dip them in endless butter!

You know the snorkeling is good when you walk a foot in the water and see schools and schools of fish all around you. Brooke likes to scuba dive but I am a chicken and just snorkel. I have a fobia of equalizing the preassure in my head. You would think it would be from the sharks that swim freely all around you but it's my ears! I am so lame! I have decided that I do want to be certified just so I can get over my fear. Just thinking about it scares me.

Our prizes from some singing, complete the song game. I got a lame key chain, a gay guy beat me to the microphone and finished a chick song and got the last ring, couldn't he have been straight, then he wouldn't have wanted the ring. I was wearing heels, that's what killed it for me so I took them off.

St. Maarten, we've been here before so we knew what we wanted to do. We just rented some scooters and beach hopped around the island. The island is half french and half dutch which translate to topless or nude beaches every single one of them. I felt fully covered up just wearing a bikini. The weather wasn't too great so thankfully the locals kept most of their tops on. The only small downer was the flat tire we got 20 minutes after we left the rental shop. We knew we had all day so we just sat patiently waited. I just kept thinking, if we were in the Amazing Race we would not be so happy about our perdicament.

Orient beach, half of it is topless the other half is full on nude.

Half way around the island on this strip they have the best little resteraunts.

The first time we were here we ate at this place, you can't see it too well but it was sooo good. This time we went to the resteraunt in the back on the other side.

It was sooo good, I am still dreaming about the shimp kabobs!

Great view from the table.

One of the other beaches.

This is Satho-beach or more famously known as airport beach. The airport is literally right across the street from the beach. There's a sand storm when the planes fly in and and another one times 100 when the planes fly out.

This big liner was preparing to take off, so they kind-of make a U right here and stop with it's rear facing the beach before they take off. This pilot wanted to have fun with us that day so as he was making his U he smiled and waved, like he was saying, "I'll get you good today.".

This was the result. All these guys think they can make the cut (Brooke being one of them).

So here's Brooke covering his eyes...

Then here's Brooke running away... wait it gets better.

This dude was the only one crazy enough to stay behind and he dropped to the ground.

The end result. We I took some pictures and e-mailed it to him. He said he came a lot of miles just for this beach.

Not so much sand when there are no planes.

Just got the wing in this picture.

St. Croix, this beach is really good for scuba diving and snorkeling but it was super choppy that day and windy so just layed out. Time to get back to the kids, we couldn't have done it without great friends and family to help watch the kids while we were away.

*Since Brooke doesn't blog, this is all from my perspective, but he'd tell you he had a blast too.