Take Care Good Knight

Sometimes my kids simply amaze me, there are things they do, that if I'm not paying attention I will easily miss. Take this morning for example; Mom is frantically running around trying to get kids ready for the day and Jaya off to school. Kids need to be dressed, shoes need to be found, and lunches need to be made, a typical morning. That is till I happened to notice that Eden was reading to Kale. This may be something that happens quite often but I'm not sure because I don't always notice these little acts of kindness my kids show each other. I'm glad that today was not your typical morning and that I had my eyes on.

Daddy's Doughnuts

A couple of days ago when I logged on to allrecipes.com I saw that saved in my recipe box was a recipe for homemade doughnuts, Oh boy that sounds delicious I thought, but then moved on to making dinner.
Darrin must have spied the same thing on Sunday because after our naps he said he wanted to make homemade doughnuts. Needing an excuse to pull out the fryer we got to work.
They turned out delicious, we ate too much dough and too many doughnuts that night, but by morning we were ready to eat again, love that breakfast was already ready.

DELICIOUS!!

4 little candles

Dear Eden,

Happy Birthday! I've had you in my home for only 4 short years, yet it feels like an Eternity has been spent with you. When you are gone your presence is missed, you are such a light in our home that cannot be replaced. I have loved teaching you Joy School this year and seeing your shy, yet quirky personality shine through.

So far you have been the most persistent child we have. When we say no, you just keep on doing. I think the total of times you have cut your hair on your own is up to 5. I really hope this year you will stop that. We have learned that time-outs rarely work and spankings definitely don't work (I think you said to me after I spanked you once, "that didn't hurt.") So what do we do to discipline you? Well I found that you will do almost anything for gum, even stay in your bed at night, which is probably the hardest battle we have had with you. You have also decided that you don't need to wear your seat belt in the car, and we are figuring ways out to bring in the gum motivation, I will keep you posted.

You think it's hilarious to talk about poop and pee, and Dad is constantly reminding you that princesses do not talk that way. You LOVE clothes, dresses, and shoes, very typical girl. You have the most beautiful curly hair and you insist that it be "flat". You will spend minutes brushing, wetting it down and brushing it more, so that it will not be curly. I still can't figure out why you have not embraced the curl, but alas, I guess even at a young age we want what we don't have.

You have my color of eyes (hazel/green) and i love that. You love to cuddle and are always up for a story, watching a movie or even taking naps if it means I will cuddle with you. I treasure our naps, even at age 4 I am not willing to give those up, there are many reasons but one of the main is that I love to hold you. You love to get your back scratched also. Your communication continues to amaze me, the fact that you can tell me what you did at friends houses and where you forgot things, or placed things is astounding. Maybe I just haven't realized how old you really are, but I do feel like your super smart inside of that little head of yours. You love to be with your big sisters and you love to be a big sister to Kale. You will carry him around and you have been officially dubbed his bath buddy. You keep a very good balance of torture yet love for him, I think you are a perfect older sibling for him.

You love to help me cook, mainly because you want to taste everything, but if I keep a very vigilant eye on you while we cook, you are actually really good at following directions and you are an amazing stirrer!

You are a pretty good eater, probably my least pickiest child (besides Kale) but you don't like mushrooms (I think this stemmed from Dad's influence.) You don't like peppers either, swimming without floaties, or bedtime.

I wish I could wrap up your entire 3 year old self and someday show you exactly how you were and show you that amazing personality and daughter you have been, but for now this little glimpse through a letter will have to do.

I love you Eden, thank you for picking me to be your mom, you have so blessed my life.

Love,
Mom

Some new things I LOVE

On Saturday Darrin dropped me off at a local home furnishing/decorating store called Real Deals, my friend Carla owns it and it's just amazing. I had no kids and just time, to browse everything. I could have spent hundreds of dollars, and days filling my imagination with all the decorating possibilities, but I ended up limiting my selection to 3 new items. The cookie jar, it's companion, and the orange vase. I LOVE them. I have never decorated for Valentines before and it was the perfect centerpiece for our heart pancake breakfast this morning.

Happy Valentines Day!

Day of rest

I am OBSESSED with photography and my Internet right now. I am constantly finding myself putting aside, dishes, cleaning, and children to work on something which I view as "more fun".

This morning I woke up ready to make a change. So it being Sunday, I thought to myself, can I really have a day of rest, when I don't do anything with photography for one day? Of course I can...I should have started a count as to how many times I thought and almost went "Oh I should go look such and such up to see what's going on (something about photos) because it was numerous times. My one exception to the rule was that I could do my own personal family blog, because that's my family history. It was a tough experiment, to say the least, but I did achieve my goal.

What's my goal for tomorrow? Well...I am going to see if I can wait till 1pm, when the kids lay down for a nap, we will see, I have a feeling two days with limited use, might being going a little far.

Pack Rat

The last few days of changing Kale from his pajamas to his clothes has been filled with surprises. I will pull a little foot out of his sleeper to find it stuffed full of toys, I am not talking about soft toys, I have found little pet shops, plastic dinosaurs and more. The other day I found baby carrots, the small plastic kind (refer to photo below). I am not sure if he knows when I put on the PJ's that he's going to go to bed, and needs some toys to play with or what, but he has been hoarding toys. Sounds like an uncomfortable nights sleep to me.

Will I ever learn to love you?

I am determined to make this relationship to work...my nemesis the laundry. It has nothing to do with washing and drying, it's all about the folding, or more commonly the hanging of the clothes. I have designated Monday's as my laundry day, it works better for me to just get it all done in one day versus little loads every day. Alas, no matter how hard I try I always still have piles to be hung up on Tuesday. Maybe I should just accept defeat and realize it takes me 2 days to do laundry. What I really want to know is will I ever get to the point that I really don't mind laundry. Has anyone experienced this dread of laundry and turned it to joy? Maybe joy is too strong, but I want success stories people, are there any?

Saturdays

I love it when Darrin is home. I love to have a day where I can catch up on housework, and if I choose to do that then I have an extra set of adult hands to distract and help the kids. Most Saturdays I am never as productive as I hope but just that I have the day to think about doing stuff is nice. Last Saturday was one of those days, Darrin was outside cleaning up and I sent the kids outside. Jaya rode her bike, Baylie stayed inside playing in her room, and Eden and Kale jumped on the tramp. It looked like so much fun, I stopped the housework and grabbed my camera.

I really appreciate this photo because the only sign of motion is in Eden's skirt, it's the evidence that she had been jumping, but nothing else shows it, love that!

The POWER of sunshine

Sunshine: It's not too be treated lightly, it's amazing what a few good days of warm sunshine can do to your soul. It's so refreshing.

Shore Excursions

BELIZE - Hiking through the jungle, and then cave tubing, we even got to eat termites! You better BELIZE it!

GRAND CAYMAN ISLAND - Sting ray swimming and snorkeling. This was probably my favorite excursion, because I was so freaked out about the sting rays but they turned out to be very nice, although I never did get brave enough to feed them. Plus while snorkeling we saw a moray eel, creepy.

ISLA ROATON, HONDURAS - Monkey House, Zip-line, and Snorkeling - I LOVED this island, it was by far my favorite, the beaches were beautiful and when we snorkeled there were tons of fish just swimming all around.

COZUMEL, MEXICO - Moped and Beach Hopping - this was a great day. Darrin and I spent the day just the two of us. We rented a moped and explored almost the entire island, well the beaches at least. We snorkeled, ate, slept on the beach, it was a GREAT day.