Friday Favorite: "Spring" Cleaning

It must be getting to be spring, because suddenly my desire for cleanliness and organization (which all winter has been a vague wish that the house was clean and organized, and that someone else would do it) suddenly became a fixation with NEEDING to clean and organize, and being frustrated when I can't. 

This is what it looked like outside the day I started my "spring" cleaning

The thing is, I actually really enjoy cleaning, organizing and de-junking.  Just not so much with the kids around.  Katherine had the big boys over last week and I was able to get so much done, even with the baby. When they came home quotes like, "trying to clean the house when kids are little is like trying to brush your teeth while eating oreos," and "trying to clean the house while the kids are little is like trying to shovel snow in an avalanch" kept coming to my mind.

I swear, those boys can get into, spread around, dismantle, and generally HELP so much!!

I was able to get their room done, though, including de-junking their toys, rotating clothes, cleaning their mattresses with baking soda and lavender, cleaning out closet and drawers, and behind their bed. Seriously, if I am ever missing something I will look behind/under their bed first thing, because that's probably where it'll be. Their room was the very worst so I feel really good about getting it done.  Too bad they aren't as keen on keeping it clean as I am.

The boys room looked like this in the middle of my cleaning frenzy.  Yikes!

All clean behind the bed.  That took a while!

Baking soda and lavender oil on the matresses.  Thanks pinterest!

 After their room was finished I moved onto my room.  The problem with this room is I've had to do it little by little since Elijah sleeps in there and I can't work while he's sleeping.  I much prefer just getting in and getting it done, but since lately he's become persnickety about where/how/sleepingingeneral  there isn't much I can do about it.  So right now my room is in a semi state of organization.  Hopefully I will get it finished by spring cleaning time next year.


And just to add onto last time's post here's another sleeping picture of Isaac.  He must have needed a nap this day because he fell asleep while watching a show and then continued to sleep through Elijah pulling his hair, my piano lessons and then when I was trying to wake him up so he'd sleep at night he said in his sleepy voice, "Mom...I just want to rest!"

Sleepy Head

In the past few weeks we've found Isaac asleep in several funny places.  The first one was after church.  We had all been eating and talking in the kitchen when I suddenly realized that Isaac was being very quiet.  We went looking for him and it took us a few minutes to realize that he was under the baby blanket in the living room.  I thought he was just hiding, and so I started acting like I couldn't find him, but uncharacteristically I didn't hear any giggling or see any wiggling in response.  It was then that I realized he was actually sound asleep under that little blanket.  Haha!

These next two were both times that he was supposed to be asleep in his bed, and Chris and I had gone upstairs and then came down a while later to find him asleep playing with legos under a blanket:

 and another time asleep in our bed obviously having been looking at books:

Friday Favorite: Elijah's Pick

It's hard to believe our Elijah baby is almost 8 1/2 months old.  I hate that this baby stage is going by so quickly, and it seems even quicker with him because he is so anxious to keep up with his brothers.  He started crawling a few weeks ago and was starting to pull himself up on things even before that.  Neither of the other boys were even close to this mobile at his age so it's a new experience.

I just want to kiss that face!

Some of Elijah's favorite things right now (in no particular order) are:

1-Mom

2-Mom holding him

3-Waving

4-Mom nursing him

5-Bathtime

6-Playing games with Mom

7-Crawling everywhere

8-Sleeping with Mom

9-Standing up

10-Mom rocking him

11-Playing the piano

12-Mom carrying him in the mei tei (back or front-he's cool with it)

13-Clapping

14-Shopping with Mom

15-Bananas

16-Watching his brothers and laughing like crazy at their antics

17-Dancing (Soooo cute to see him bend his legs up and down and wiggle with the music!)

A funny little story: Last night a little while after I had put Elijah to bed, I was upstairs and started hearing him crying.  I knew Chris was downstairs and figured he would take care of it, but the crying went on and on and got louder so I finally went downstairs to investigate.  Sure enough, Chris was in the room with him trying to calm him down. 

 I stood at the door (semi-open) and listened to Chris talk to him when he suddenly said, "you little stinker!" and came out.  He looked at me standing there and said, "He keeps crying at the door.  He started crying louder when I came in and then just keeps craning his head around and crying at the door."

As soon as I walked in, Elijah stopped crying, gave me a big grin and acted all excited.  All I did was sit down in the rocking chair and hum a little tune and he settled himself right back down and was asleep again in about 5 minutes.  Little stinker!

Here's a video of Elijah's bath tonight.  He get's so excited when I turn the bath water on and then starts splashing like crazy the minute he goes in.  And yes, he does fall toward the end (oops-my bad for holding the camera!) but notice it doesn't phase him a bit.  Crazy kid!

Friday Favorite: California

Definitely a good day when you find this song* waiting for you first thing in the morning:

 

Especially when you feel the same way about the guy who sent it to you.

And it only gets better when you turn around and see this written on the chalkboard:

Especially when you've been somewhat on edge and hard to please the last couple of months little while.

The only thing that could make the day better is if your kids would stop fighting and running around like maniacs.

But that's probably just a little too much to ask.  :)

*I may or may not have a slight crush on Mindy Gledhill.  Her music just makes me happy.

Who wears short shorts?

Isaac does!  We were graciously given some hand-me-down shortie pajamas which instantly became Isaac's favorite.  The first time he came out in them he had them pulled all the way up his belly so they were super super short.  I didn't stop laughing for a long time and I still get a good chuckle every time he wears them.

 

This kid really values his comfort.  He would choose to wear elastic waist shorts and old stained t-shirts every day of the year if I let him.  Even in the dead of winter he will often change into comfy shorts by noon, or whenever we come home from being out since I refuse to let him wear them out when there is snow on the ground.

 

I'm not sure how, but I managed to produce three mammas' boys. I swear, I'm not even that nice to them!

 Last night Chris and I tried to go out on a date.  The only one that was going to be home that night was Ben, so I asked if he could watch the kids for a while.  I figured I could just leave the big boys with a movie, and Elijah likes Ben a lot, so I thought he would be fine.  Well, it's a good thing we had just decided to go shopping* because Ben called after we had been gone just under an hour and told us through wailing in the background that Elijah had been pretty inconsolable for a while.  So we finished up and went home.  As soon as I took the baby from Ben, he was completely happy and we went downstairs to finish watching the movie with the boys.  Elijah was SOOO pleased with himself at having gotten me home that he bounced up and down on my lap smiling and laughing, making faces at Chris etc.  

   

Once the movie was over I handed the baby off to Chris so that I could read to the boys since it's pretty hard to read while a baby is constantly grabbing pages. As soon as he left my arms the hysterics were instantly turned back on.  It was pathetic and yet comical.  Chris did everything he could to calm him down and make him happy even coming and sitting him right next to me on the couch, but nothing helped. Finally he told me to give him the book and I should take the baby at which point both William and Isaac started freaking out saying that they wanted MOM and ONLY MOM to read to them!!!

So what else could I do but grab the baby (who shut off the water-works with miraculous speed) and continued to read the best I could. This next picture pretty much sums up how I felt, and really what my life is like a surprising amount of the time. I told Chris he might as well climb on too because there was still plenty of room.  See-both of my knees were actually empty.

 After I finished reading and we said prayers (in the position of the picture above) Chris grabbed the big boys and took them to their beds.  They both threw tantrums as big as the baby had been throwing a few minutes previously.  From their room came wailing and wailing and wailing as they cried for me to come sing to them.  Chris told them enough was enough and that he would sing if they would stop crying. They didn't stop, so he said goodnight and walked out.  I just sat on the couch and laughed.  Because seriously...there's a limit.

*Be jealous ladies. Not only did my husband WANT to go shopping with me on a date (it was his idea I swear), but he also told me that for his birthday I should just get myself some new clothes.  Like I said - be jealous.


We had preschool over here this week and on Tuesday one of our activities was shaving cream finger painting.  The kids LOVED it! I was surprised at how much they loved it.  I couldn't get them to stop playing with it.  The letter for the week was O and the number 8, so we practiced writing them in the shaving cream:

Inevitably, the kids ended up having the most fun giving themselves "zombie hands".  Here they are showing them off.  The mess was actually pretty containable until they all went into the bathroom to clean up and then it was shaving cream on the walls, floor, cabinets, sink, bathtub, toilet.  You name it, there was shaving cream on it.  It was worth it though, because they had so much fun.

 

When I was a little girl my parents made me a shirt that said, "I can do it BY MYSELF".

Well, William is my son in that way, and I have been trying harder to let him be more self sufficient instead of making him let me do things for him.  Here is the breakfast he made for himself this morning.  I did spread the butter on the english muffins, but other than that I think he did it all.  Yes, I did supervise the use of the stove, but I let him do everything. Not bad for a 5 year old, I'd say!

  I tried to get a picture of him with his food, but he was being so silly that this was the best I got:

 And of course, Isaac wanted me to take a picture of him eating too.

Friday Favorite: Sausage Legs

I love these squishy legs!  So edible. Mmmmmmm!

Also loving that William has been such a big help with Elijah lately.  He even played with him for about 20 minutes the other day because I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I felt so much better after getting that little nap! Unfortunately, between Isaac and Elijah both being sick for about the last 2 weeks and Chris starting into finals, I am definitely feeling the effects of sleep deprivation.  William has been a huge help and I am so grateful! Too bad I'm not cool enough to realize that I am focusing on the tree instead of the boys.  This was the least blurry picture I got so it'll have to do.  Blurry or not, they are pretty cute :).

The Puzzler

Isaac is a puzzle whiz kid. He absolutely loves doing puzzles and he is really good at them. He also has a surprising attention span and memory for it considering his age and somewhat squirrely self.  He especially likes big floor puzzles, but really any puzzle that is somewhat challenging but still doable is fine. His tongue sticking out makes me smile :).