I am all packed up Mom!

Isaiah is packed up and ready to go! Aphia keeps asking if we can put Isaiah in the boxes that are strewn about our house and so we do!

But I cling to the wise words of my MIL when she encouraged us to still do something fun each day. Or sometimes take time to do nothing at all- which is what this blogging time is to me! Since it's only 10:30 and I've packed 4 big boxes today already.

So here we are at a park in Monticello that we like to go to. We enjoyed grabbing some Taco Bell for a picnic dinner, then having some much needed "down" playtime with the kids.

The next time I post we will be in our NEW HOUSE!!! We are so excited! Jonah asked me if we would be done packing after we moved. I told him yes, we would be done, but then we would have to UNPACK. That can be a much slower process however, that I am really looking forward to doing in my NEW HOUSE!!!

"EYES"aiah

The eyes on this little baby boy just might be the death of me. When he looks at me, I crumble to bits. I am in big trouble.

Day at the Museum

A couple weeks ago I decided to be brave and take all three children to the Children's Museum. Jonah had a two week long spring break and so toward the end, when we were all a little squirrely, we took a field trip!


We packed our lunches and headed to St. Paul for a day of fun! I was really happy with how the day went- I really was not sure how they would all do, but it was great! We left our house just as Isaiah would normally nap and he slept the whole way there making for a pleasant arrival!

We made our first stop to play in the water exhibits, blowing bubbles and playing with the Lock and Dam.

After the water, we headed over to the Dinosaur exhibit- definitely a favorite! I think of Mrs. Teranadon (from the show Dinosaur Train) singing, "I think I'll name you Shiny, Tiny and Don," when I look at this next picture of the kids sitting in a dinosaur egg nest.

They got to dig for fossils amongst cut up, old, rubber tires!

And here's Jones and Phi, sitting on the Trodon.

We ended the day with some face painting. It took ALL day to convince my type A boy to paint his face. And this is all I got from him!

Aphia was more adventurous with picking out colors, but still wanted me to paint it on her.

There were a few other exhibits that ranked in the top, but I don't have great pictures from them. Jonah was NOT a fan of the huge Queen Ant in the life size ant farm and Aphia did not want to crawl through the hollowed tree that was a tunnel. They LOVED the "town" that had a bus, grocery store, doctor's office, post office, home, and tv station!

A special hat tip goes to Ann for letting me borrow her stroller :)
You'd think that with three kids, I'd have one conducive to doing something like this. Well I don't. I sold my old regular stroller last summer because Jeremiah wanted a jogging one so he could rollerblade behind it. So I have that and an umbrella type, but the umbrella doesn't lay back and the jogger is not good for manuevering around smaller spaces. Thus my hunt begins for another stroller.

Easter

Easter Fun!

We had a marvelous Easter Sunday! The kids woke up and wanted to immediately look for their Easter baskets. Jonah said to me the day before, "Mom, don't hide it behind the couch, that's too easy!" So I was trickier this year and we had to play the "hot & cold game" for him to find it. It was in the oven. Now this produced a new dilemma for The Sheriff. He knows he is not allowed to touch or go in the oven, so when he realized it was in there, it took a good minute before he worked up the gumption to actually put his hand on the handle and pull it open to reveal his basket! I thought it was quite comical! He is my rules boy 'til the end!

We had carmel rolls and cinnamon rolls for breakfast and went to late church. They both wanted to be in the sanctuary, so we let them. Aphia actually sat better than Jonah did! She ate graham crackers and drew in her new notebook for the entire sermon. Jonah was a bit more squirrely but caught the part where, "That guy [pointing to our pastor] said he doesn't think we're all going to die! [making a point about how he believes that the rapture will happen soon and very soon!]" Then he pointed to him again and waved his finger in the "No, no." way because he uses a lot of "sign language" in church so he is quiet. I told him I'd explain to him later, which I did.

We came home and had Grandma Judy, Auntie Becca and Addi over for late lunch/early dinner. They brought all the food and it was SCRUMPTIOUS! MMMM HMMM! We had an Easter egg hunt in the back yard, which lasted a full 2.3 minutes before they were bored with it. After that round of company left, Grandma Lollie called to see if they could pop over, so her and Grandpa Jeff and Auntie Gina came over for a bit. The kids decided that Easter is a great day to eat too much candy, resulting in a 2:00 a.m. vomiting episode by Jonah. Super fun. And we had an awesome time chatting with the kids about why we have Good Friday and Easter and what it means for us. I love their hearts and their questions and their conversations about Jesus. It's awesome!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend as well!

The shot below is the "monthly" picture. Although I might not be great at posting them, I am good about taking them at the right time each month!

They Call Me the Wanderer

I'm sorry that there have been no pictures on here lately. My internet is sometimes ok and sometimes totally bogus. Lately I've been able to watch "Chuck" on hulu (which I could almost never do before), but I can't upload any pictures to here or Facebook. It gets all the way to the end and then aborts the upload. SO FRUSTRATING!

But that is not the point of this post.
This is. I wander. I am lost. I do not know where to start. I am not mad or sad or frustrated about this (most of the time), it is just the way it is. If you looked into our home, there would be ample amounts of time during the day that you would see me aimlessly walking around. Let me explain.

The other night I had finished up bathing, diapering, and jammying Isaiah. He was playing happily on his bedroom floor and I started to walk out of the room. As I was walking out, I looked back at 2 baskets full of clean clothes and said to myself, "Walk right back in there and PUT THOSE AWAY!" Then thought, "What was I going to do otherwise? I don't know. I was going to go wander around the house because I do not even know where to start with everything." Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with all that there is to do with our house, three kids, a husband, a dog, a yard that I just zone out and wander. I become totally ineffiecient and waste time doing piddly little things instead of focusing, honing in, and tackling big things that need to be done. I spend time lost in the haze. I need to regroup. That is what I have been focusing on today. One thing at a time. Tackle it for 5-10 minutes and walk away. Find another thing, tackle it for 5-10 minutes and walk away.

It has been a good day! I have gotten a lot of stuff done. Today the kitchen and living room don't make me want to hide in a hole. I brought out the children's spring/summer clothes and went through them to bring upstairs and put in drawers. I worked on another fun project that I cannot disclose at this time :) And I wrapped up the laundry... which I started on Monday.

And look at me now, I have had the past 10 minutes to blog. Fun.

It must be spring! This energy and renewed sense of wanting to clean and organize is a sure-tale sign! I even asked my sister-in-law, Becca, if I could borrow her label maker when she comes over on Sunday.

I'm going to go meander on over to flylady.com and then check out some other organizational websites. What does spring do for your mood? Do you get in the cleaning, rearranging, organizing mode? What have you done so far this spring?

Resolved (and an Isaiah update!)

(I'm not sure why there are goofy links on some random words in this post, but I didn't do that, and I can't figure out how to make the blog knock it off. So don't click on them.)

In the past couple of weeks, much has been resolved with our little Princess.

Going back, you might remember the post I had (I wish I was savvy enough to know how to link you to that old post... maybe someone can tell me) about her and her breath holding. Well we talked to her pediatrician a while back and right off the bat Dr. N pinpointed exactly what we were describing as "breath holding spells." She gave me an info sheet on them and what I read was Aphia TO THE T! What she does is most definitely a behavior issue rather than a medical one. Our info sheet said that these spells "are not dangerous, and they don't lead to epilepsy or brain damage." It also said under the treatment part, "Have your child lie flat to increase blood flow to the brain. Apply cold washcloth to your child's forehead until she starts breathing again. Give your child a brief hug and go about your business. A relaxed attitude is best. If you are frightened, don't let your child know it. If your child had a temper tantrum because she wanted her way, don't give in after the attack."

Aphia has not had a breath holding spell since I posted about it last time. I've seen her get so upset that she could possibly go into one, but if I'm able to keep her talking, telling me the problem she keeps breathing and it helps work on communication skills. It is a huge peace to have the knowledge that there is nothing wrong medically.

Next up: the potty accidents. She has been potty trained for a long time, but was having bouts of accidents. She would be totally fine for weeks, no accidents and then all of a sudden, she would wet herself constantly! And I mean wet, wet. Not some little pst. I was getting VERY frustrated! Brought her in to see Dr. N, once again and we were able to deduce that there was indeed no UTI or bladder infection, but rather her bowel was so full of POOP that it was pushing on her bladder, leading her to not being able to control that. Poor girl! Stop being so retentive! When she gets backed up, it puts pressure on her bladder and she has accidents. Simple solution- poop and you will control your pee. Easy Peasy. (Except for when she gets so HOPPING mad, has a tantrum and is being disciplined... then she just wets herself to be a snot.)

And finally: Those HOPPING mad moments. We have had a few of these lately. Ok few is a small exaggeration. Let's see... she's awake for approximately 13 hours a day, except for naptime so 11. I'd say that for the last week or so 9 out of those 11 have been horrid with her. Gah! She has been R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S. On Saturday morning it all game to a big, old, nasty head. I literally threw my covers up over my head and hid, not wanting to get out of bed to deal with her AGAIN. LONG story short- in talking with my mom I was able to say, "By George, Watson, I think we have solved the mystery!" My mom suggested that it is her blood sugar levels. All of her big tantrums seem to happen when she is hungry. They almost always fall right before meal or snacktime. Since Saturday we have stayed on top of her eating habits, which are actually pretty healthy- Thank the Lord! We get breakfast right away, she has a mid morning snack and prompt lunch. After nap, I make sure that Jonah is playing downstairs so she can get up in peace and immediately have a snack. Occasionally we wait until Jeremiah gets home from work to have dinner together, but that is after 6:30 and so more often than not, I feed the kiddos before that. And by golly, since Saturday she has been a peach! Any glimmer of a tantrum is easily warded off with words and no screaming... On either of our parts :)

On Saturday I was able to take her out to lunch and shopping. We had a GREAT time. We needed that time with each other to remind each of us, that this past week is not going to be how our life is together. We do like each other and enjoy being together :)

God is always at work in my heart for various reasons. The relationship with my daughter will be an ongoing process of refining each of us- BY FIRE!

ISAIAH Update:
Today is a BIG day for our big boy! He has been fussy the past few days and I figured with all the drooling and rosy cheecks he was teething. Sure enough, today a little tiny bit of his first tooth popped through! Then a while later as he was laying on the floor, on his back, kicking away, I glanced over at him to see him on his tummy! I told Jonah and Aphia that he had rolled over on his own and Jonah said, "Well I guess he wanted to have some tummy time!"
(Jonah got his first tooth and rolled over all in the same day also- 6 days before he was 5 months old. Today is 4 days before Isaiah will be 5 months old.)

Angels to Protect Them

Every so often I have these pictures in my head. I don't want to say "visions" because that makes me sound weird and off beat, so I'll say mental pictures. I'd like to share one that I had last night.

Aphia kept mumbling/crying in her sleep. At first we didn't know what it was because when we would go into her room, she was quiet. Then after a while, we knew for sure what was going on, and that it was truly her. One of the last times Jeremiah and I went in, we layed our hands on her and prayed for peaceful sleep for her. When I went back to bed I continued my dialog with God asking him to send his angels to guard her against anything that was not peaceful. A couple minutes later I heard her start to wimper again and got this seriously awesome picture of 3 beautiful angels standing in front of her bed, glowing and standing guard, protecting her. We had seen a group of Celtic singers a couple nights before on tv and Aphia was completely enamored with them. Nothing could break her gaze from the beautiful singers in their gorgeous gowns... The angels may have looked a bit like these ladies :) In that moment she fell silent and not another peep was to be heard from her for the rest of the night. I thanked God for answering my prayers and keeping her peaceful.

I feel that there are plenty of times during the day when her little 3 year old world and mind is not at peace. Whether she wants a toy that someone else has or wants to do something that is not allowed or does not want to do something she has been asked to do, life as a 3 year old can be tough. The least I can do is pray that she have a fighting chance at a completely peaceful and restful night.