Big girl.

We've been all about Birthday talk round here lately. As I've been making stuff for the kids' party, Madelynn has been all into it, and of course asking me questions, and making requests for her party. She is sooo excited about having a party!! (I just hope people show up) ;) So of course, I've been talking to her about how she is growing up so big and strong. So tonight at supper, she stood up in her booster chair (not a common occurrence... but it was too cute to stop her) and as she slowly stood up she said "I gettin bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger" until she was standing straight up then she said "I'm big like you mama, and you kay kay, and you nay nay." Its just so neat to see her get the concept of growing up and turning another year older. Guess from here on out the parties get FFFUUUNNN and memorable!!

The Princess Madelynn. :)

Question??

I got a question... and I'd really like some feed back from ya'll!!

Like for reals!! Tell me your opinion PLEASE?!?!

Like I've said before, Stetson really REALLY likes to eat. I've always had the mentality that if your kid is hungry, feed them. BUT, seriously when he eats, he will eat and eat and eat until I make him stop.

Should you put a limit on how much your kids eat, or should I keep giving him thirds, fourths and fifths till he's actually content and not screaming for more food??? Like I said, I'm all abut feeding your kids when they're hungry, until their little hearts and tummy's are content, but it serisouly gets old constantly feeding him.

Is he starving?? Do some kids need more food than others?? HELP!

The Heartbreaker.

I know I've told you all about her... the one who flew down the slide and busted her lip good enough to make a trip to the ER. The one who, when she was 3 months old, spiked a fever so high that she had to be hospitalized ... where we found out she had Kidney Reflux... where she has now put mounds and mounds of heartache on us with the torture she has been put through testing for this, and testing for that. The pretty little girl who trips and falls 32 times a day. The one who walks around with bruises on her noggin and bruises on her body. The one who makes my heart beat 10 times faster when I see her running cuz I know there's an 80% chance its gonna end bad. The one who runs into walls, chairs and doors.

Ok, know who I'm talkin about?? If you've been following my blog you know I'm talking about my Payton Elizabeth.

The precious little angel girl has been at it again, and we have now officially checked ER visit #2 off the list. My baby girl woke up soooo hot ...so I got some tylenol in her and the fever went down. Nat, our 2 other babies and my 2 youngest sisters went to breakfast at Ihop and I got to stay in bed with Payton all morning. It was very pleasant. :) We fell asleep together and I awoke to fire in my arms. Of course, thats a rude awakening to anyone.... but especially when its your baby. So I jumped outta bed, took her temp with an ear thermometer.... and it wasn't too high... but kinda high... then the instinct kicked in and I just knew that wasn't right so I took it rectally and sure enough it was flying higher and higher.... and my stomach turned. Once it hit 104.5 I just ran to the bath tub and threw her in the cool water....

do you know how torturous it is to have fever and not be covered up to you neck in blankets?? Well how bout being naked then thrown into the tub full of cool water. blech. I can't even stand to think about it. It pretty much broke my heart into a billion pieces and as tears rolled down my face, I splashed my baby girl with cold water. .. all the while my stomach is turning and turning... praying that her fever would go way down.... and it didn't

I called Nat and told him to get home cuz I felt like we needed to go ahead and take her to the ER.

I've always thought parents take their kids to the ER waaaay to soon before trying to tend to them at home so I've always been really cautious when deciding whether or not to go. (obviously) we've always tended to things at home with the kids but with Payton and her Kidney Reflux, I wanted to get her there to be checked out so we could rule out kidney and UTI's

About 3 hours later, after being roomed with a nauseated woman who vomited approximately 10 times while we were there. The torture of yet another catheter for urine. Payton mocking the poor lady vomiting. Payton laughing every time the poor lady vomited. Payton s c r e a m i n g through the process of anyone laying a finger on her we found out that the urine was normal, perfect.... just what we wanted . Woo Hoo! Then the Dr attempted for the second time to look in her mouth, and wouldn't ya know, her tonsils are super swollen and red. So we left with Tonsillitis!

You would have never known it, nor would you know it right now. I honestly didn't believe the guy when we left... but I looked for myself and sure 'nuff its true!

We left at ease and so grateful we weren't gonna get into anything with her reflux. Only by alternating tylenol and motrin have we been able to kept the fever down so now were PRAYING no one else gets this junk!!

Miss Priss.

Madelynn is Hi-lar-i-ous lately!!!! I spend most of my day cracking up at some of the stuff she says. I want to remember them forever.

Todays Madelynn-ite:

Along with 'Jesus Loves me' and 'I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart' and family prayer time, Madelynn has now asked to sing The ring of fire by Johnny Cash at bedtime... yep, my child is the one who wants to, and sings Johnny Cash songs all throughout the day, and now at bed time. Its pretty hilarious and its now just become the norm.

I also asked her to sing 'Twinkle twinkle little star' to me... which just so happens to be one of her favorite songs, one that she sings all the time.. and she said "I to wittle mama" It was sooo funny, cuz thats been her excuse for a lot of things... that she's too little.

love, love, love those almond shaped, blue eyes she's got.

I created something.

... and it could be good, or it could be bad! We have a second living area that was built onto the house at one point in time... and its now used as the guest room/office area. not really offic-ey, but rather there's a desk in there that holds all the junk that I need to file and a few other deskey type things. So basically, unnecessary and wasted space.

I've had an itch lately. A crafty itch. Right before we moved out of our house in Angelo, and into my parents house I got all crafty and got to know my sewing machine and junk.... and I've always LOVED scrapbooking so, making things with paper and stuff like that also......

So...

I....

Used the space for ALL my craft stuff.

mmm love that crafty mess!!

I know its not ideal, using a computer desk and all... but we got plans... BIG plans. My honey is gonna build me this magnificent craft room in the future. Waaay future. Poor guy's got a looong list of "honey do's" :)

and my heart bubbles just thinking about it. I've always had everything kept up in my closet, and lets face it, when you have to pull everything out, and then clean and put everything up every single day after naptime... lets just say I'd rather just leave it all in my closet. For Mother's day I got my stuff out to make cards for my moms and its been sitting beside the couch since then... just looking... and staring.... and BEGGING me to do something with it.

Me, being the over-achiever, planner, perfectionist that I am.... I started looking around at a few crafty blogs I like to read... and I started looking at Birthday Party stuff. I know, I know my kids birthdays are 1-2 months away. But I couldn't help it!!!!

So my heart started racing, and my palms got sweaty... and my brain started running a million miles an hour with ideas... then the whole craft room thing.... and I went wild! Actually, before I went wild I made this loooong list of things and ideas I had and needed to go to Hobby Lobby ASAP to put it all into action. (I'm just the type of person that has an idea in my head and I have to do something about it or it will never leave me alone) Then I was like --What the heck... I have hundreds of dollars worth of craft stuff right in my closet-- So I started going through everything I had... and my heart bubbled some more, and my mind went even faster and I've created everything with stuff I've had, and stuff I've found laying around outside. Its been pretty awesome to use my imagination with stuff that I have to create a (i think) pretty awesome party for my babies.

A few things:

(just cuz he's cute.... and isn't he looking more "boyish" and not so much like a baby...)

Haircuts.

Whew, is it hot or what?!?! Well actually its a tad cooler here in New Mexico than it is in Texas, but still HOTT!!

The other day we were outside and the girls hairs were down and blech! I just knew they had that yuck feeling you get when your hairs down and long and its hot and sweaty outside.

Know what I'm talkn about??

So I knew hair dresser mom had to come to the rescue.

Ha! Ya right... I'm just a wanna be hair dresser mom.

But oh well, saved 30 bucks and my girls' haircuts aren't perfect. I'll take it.

Madelynn

Before:

After:

Madelynn's hair is like mine. Thick, annoying, wavy and looks blah if it don't put some product in it. She has lost most of her curl that she had when she was a baby. :( So now its just wavy. I hope that hers will do like mine did and get a little curl back when she gets a lil older.

Payton

Before

After:

seriosuly, is that she not the cutest thing you ever saw??? I knew she would look adorable with a little bob. She has the kind of hair that you can do that with.

They're soooo much cooler and got a nice new summer hairdo thats off their necks.

Auss girl.

When we were at the pet store that fateful day back in March, thinking about getting a puppy. We first got (who now is) Aussie out to play with and I could tell she was different. You could just tell that she wasn't gonna be your average dog. So me, having 3 kids, age 3 and under, didn't wanna take the plunge in buying a potentially "different" dog. I couldn't tell you what was "different" about here... but I could just tell that she wasn't gonna be the average dog. So then we got out (who is now known as) Axel out to play with, I was like oh ya! This guy will be a good dog for us.... and we left him at the pet store while we did a little more shopping.

As we were out and about Nat convinced me to get BOTH!

Then I found out that that feeling I had had of her being different was right on. Simply because she's not a dog. She thinks she's a 4 legged human.

Nat made the mistake of letting her get up in our bed the other night.... and she has not forgotten about it.

Can't you just see it in her face...

"but, can't I just please sleep in your bed.... please, Please, PLEASE!!!!!?????

The process.

Madelynn just started actually going potty on her own... like a month ago. She's just now been able to get on the potty by herself. That was another reason I wasn't ready to start potty training Payton, because I wanted to enjoy not living in the bathroom for 4 seconds before I had to start the process over again.

So, as you can imagine my shock as my 22 month old baby girl potty trained herself, I was just as equally shocked when the little monkey girl climbed up on the toilet no problem and did her business. Oh yes, she did! I'm a pretty proud mama!

Anyways, this is the process of her getting on the toilet, with all the time it takes her to get on the pot, I'm surprised that she can hold her pee when she's that close to the toilet....

success!

Nap for mama...

= blog time for mama.... cuz I can't sleep! I have always had a love/hate relationship with naps (unless I'm pregnant.... then its a love/love relationship!!)

I was just telling Nat that I feel so behind on "catching up" with all these things I have floating around in my head.

Sooo.. I guess I'll start out with the most obvious...

Father's Day!

Woo Hoo!! Ya'll know me, I'm a holiday FREAK! I love 'em. I want to go all out and make it a special memory.

For me, the day started out normal: 1 finds a mountain dew from the night before and chugs it... followed by the 2 oldest pouring out a 2 lb bag of shredded cheese and eating it for breakfast... ya know, just the norm. ;)

and yes, I took pictures of it...

... and through all this I just wanted to get the little hooligans to surprise daddy with their Fathers day shirts. (Yes, I'm the cheesy mom who buys those $4 shirts at Wal Mart for holidays.)

In case ya'll didn't know, I love, love, love my honey! I never ever want him to doubt my love and appreciation for him. I feel so honored that he sees me fit to stay home and not bring a dime to the table while I stay home and take care of his kids. My heart just swells with the way I get to live my life. So I'm always pretty excited to get to honor him and all he does for us on Father's day.

Nat's a pretty hard guy to buy for cuz honestly, nothing is special to him.. he doesn't have a "favorite" anything... So when he says little things that he likes, or wants, I hear them.. and I remember them, and I think I've gotten pretty good at hitting his buttons, so to speak.

So... he ha(d) this favorite glass cup. Just a huge cup that he love(d) and dr(a)nk everything out of. It (was) Daddy's cup. Notice I'm using passed tense when talking about this cup. The other day I had just got this glass outta the dishwasher and it was still a bit warm, and as I filled it with ice and got him a DP outta the fridge... I walked over to the table, started pouring the DP and as I was pouring I verbalized what had been going through my mind since I pulled the cup outta the dishwasher. "I wonder of this cup is too hot to be pouring this ice cold DP into..." and before I finished my sentence.... CcccCrrrrRRRaaaaAAaaccccCCkkkkK! sure nuff... Dr. Pepper starts pouring out of the side of the cup. Nat was kinda upset. So I made up for it and got him 2 even BIGGER cups. He was pretty excited about them.

I also bought this ring for him. A long time ago I was looking at some kinda similar to this and he said how much he would love to have one.

My whole world.

Mmmm I just love all of them.

I also made this video for him... and I can't get it to upload here, so you can watch it here. It was a pretty big success. I think we both bawled our eyes out. I made it and watched it over and over, but seeing it on the big TV with the music up loud.... uhhh it just got me!

I just see the look on his face in every single picture and Its pure love, joy and perfection in his eyes... and how could a mama ask for more for her babies?!? Such a blessing to have a daddy who adores his children like Nat does.

.....and we all know I wouldn't be here if it weren't for another pretty awesome man in my life. Once again, not being able to be with my dad on Father's Day was pretty sad. But I'm extremely thankful for him, who he is to his kids and the great example of what a man should be. I feel pretty blessed to have been raised by my dad... who truly is the greatest dad EVER!!!

A few tips.

From one mom's heart to another:

- Mothering (mothering meaning: disciplining, loving, nurturing, feeding, handing sippy cups, being the referee of fights... and so on and so on.) while driving is worse than texting and driving so DON'T DO EITHER! Just embrace the chaos as you drive! WOO HOOO!!!!!

-Giving in to the "sample lady" who's sampling ice cream at the grocery store, when your son is a crazy ravenous beast when it comes to food will result in a V E R Y loud and long remainder of your time at the grocery store so think twice. It will also result in your children being covered from head to toe in chocolate ice cream..... and lastly it will result in taking 30 minutes to walk down 1 aisle as you assist each child with their ice cream.... oh, and everyone will stop and stare at you. so.... JUST KEEP WALKING!

-Don't run out of formula.... and if you do and plan to stop at the store to get some, don't forget to pack a few bottles.

- Don't, under any circumstances, make fun of that crazy lady in Wal Mart.... cuz that's ME!!!!! The one who's kids are dirty (from the ice cream, of course) mis-matching (cuz the diaper leaked and the only extra clothes in the diaper bag were totally mis matched) and screaming (cuz 1. the ice cream ended way to soon. and 2.They were all 3 woken up to be somewhere and were all ready for a nap).... So, there is an excuse for that crazy lady, with the crazy kids.

-Gummy worms are not called gummy worms... they're called Rattlesnake gummies.....

We've succeeded in pounding into our daugter's head the horribleness of rattlesnakes!

Yay for successful parenting.

- and lastly... enjoy the time while you can cuz I just bought my LAST can of formula, and I just bought my almost 3 year old a size 3t shirt cuz she pretty much can't fit into 2t any more. :(

On my camera right now.

Although I'm pretty convinced that no one reads this thing any more, I'll continue on for my sake. :)

We've just been into all sorts of randomness lately so I'm just gonna let the pictures on my camera tell the story of our life the past few days.

My littlest sister came and stayed with us for a whole week (and we've REALLY enjoyed her being here with us) so my parents came down to pick her up and stayed a few days!!

They also brought the biggest cousin... and the kids really enjoyed some cousin time.

Our dog thinks she's human and needs to be up in your business 24/7. She's pretty sweet.

and of course, Nat loves every minute of it.

more couin-ness

BECAUSE I'm on Nat's computer, and it is a pain in the butt to move pictures around so these are all backwards.

We had a little fun with guns... (should the word "fun" and "gun" be used in the same sentnce?!?)

and they used my pot plant... They killed all my flowers. They were beautiful and vibrant before they were used as a target... ;) As much as I LOVE flowers I just can't keep them alive to save my life. Oh well... I enjoy them while they're around. I've been banned by my husband on buying any more plants.....

and in between the shooting, me and Aussie had a photo shoot.

this dog ALWAYS has something hanging out of her mouth. Its quite funny.

Dad's turn.

and just because this is an Awesome picture...

Love love love my little man's chubby lil hands.

Cash!

my kids love each other.

Remember our turtle Franklin?? Well Nat found Franklin again the other day.... then I decided we might have a franklinita on our hands when I found an itty bitty franklin. It's soooo adorable. But quite possibly a bit more frisky than Franklin was

Whew! Are you bored yet??

Then we found a frog/toad???

(no picture, but.........)

... my 22 month old is officially potty trained... or rather she's potty trained herself. I feel like I can't even take credit for potty training her. My mom said that's how I did. 2 days and the deal was done. So I think we'll be settin well knowing she'll be a genious like her mama. ;)

and this picture is just pure awesomeness!

Can you see why???

not sure if I've ever told you but I love love love where we live. I love the peace and quite. I love that our neighbors are far away. I love that we can do whatever we want and no one will know about it. I just love it. I'm just not a city girl. I"ll take the city for a little shopping but I just love comin home to my little country home. If you're livin in the city, you can't always do awesome stuff like this:

The previous owners left us a pretty awesome picnic table and were lovin it this summer!!!

.... and well, as much as I love it out here.... I highly dislike that we've now spotted 2 coyotes out here this week. The same night we were outside having out little picnic, Nat, the girls and the puppies were outside and.... as we've lived out here 3 months and not seen one... our guards were down and thank God the coyote wanted nothing to do with them!

The fire pit and the mower were right beside the carport and the coyote ran right behind the mower. Nat hurriedly got the kids and dogs in... and wouldn't you know, 2 days later we saw another one out by the well house (where this on had come from) So.... grrrrr. I'm kinda bummed about this. That was the #1 thing that was a turn off to me for this house. So when we moved here and never saw one... and still never saw one, we thought we were good. Not any more!

and my little man took his first 4 steps! He's been walking really good behind his little push car so I knew he was gonna try something new pretty soon and sure enough! He hasn't tried again since then!! Can't wait till he can walk.

and lastly... One day we were reading a book and Payton made this face:

and said "keee" for the longest time we had no clue what she was saying, then one day it dawned on me she was saying "scary" so this is her scary face. and I love that we got a picture of it cuz its one of those things I don't ever wanna forget.