a little girl time

this weekend the boys went with jerry to spend the night camping out in mawmaw and pawpaw teipen's backyard. they worked very hard clearing out a spot out by the woods where they made a fire and pitched their tent. abram and i went down yesterday to spend the day with them and got to hang out and watch the boys, plus dru & hanna (their cousins) ride the "big red tractor", the orange tractor, and the 4 wheeler all day. hanna fits right in with the boys, but when she saw me getting out my nail polish to paint my toenails, she quickly came right to my side. she was fascinated with all of the color options she had to choose from and decided on bright purple for her nails & toes. i didn't realize what i was getting myself into when i agreed to paint them...those nails are tiny! i always thought i'd love to paint a little girl's nails, do her hair, and other girly things, but i soon realized this is all much harder than it seems. i found myself re-doing a few nails here and there as she decided to move or i overestimated the amount of paint. she didn't complain over my less-than-perfect job and soon was my buddy. i decided to try to braid her hair next...bad idea. i started out okay, but by the middle of her head, her baby fine hair had already escaped my tight grip. it was a fight between her moving around, me not having enough fingers, and her fine, silky hair and i totally lost. two cute barretts fixed her up and she had had enough "girl" time and i had too. i must admit, boys are much easier. although they definitely don't have the patience to sit through a manicure, they are so easily occupied with dirt, motorized vehicles, and finding great sticks that i find myself very thankful right now that i have boys.

smelly stuff

today i took the boys to the hendricks county fair which was a lot of fun. we hadn't been to the new fairgrounds, so that was a nice treat to actually have clean bathrooms & an organized fair ground. the boys, of course, found the tractors to be the most fun of all. there were tons of them and if they would've let them sit on all of them, they would have. fortunately for my sake, and abram's, they only let you try out 4 of the tractors. otherwise, i was a little worried because the first barn we went in was the horse barn and caleb's words were, "mom, it's stinky in here". he had a horrible look on his face and for those of you that don't know, caleb has a very sensitive gag reflex so i was a bit concerned. i assurred him that animals just smell that way and that even though he thought it was "stinky" the animals were clean and he'd be fine. he made it through all of the barns without any incident and seemed to like the rabbits the best. he wondered when we could have a rabbit at our house. eli was quite disappointed that the rides weren't up and running during the early hours of the day, but my wallet was not at all upset. we decided to eat lunch out instead of spending a fortune on fair food, so we headed over to pizza king to see the train deliver our drinks. the boys were having a great time when i noticed abram grunting. i knew what that meant, but since he rarely makes a mess of his poopy diapers, i wasn't in a hurry to change him. after a few mintues though i started to smell something, sorta like the barns we had just left at the fair. i thought maybe someone had something stuck to their sandal, but then i looked over and saw abram with brown stuff all over his outfit, in his hands, all over his legs, all over my keys, his toys, etc. i must say that i was completely unprepared for such an event since i thought we were just eating a quick lunch and heading home. i didn't even bring the diaper bag in which obviously was a big mistake. you'd think after 3 kids i would know better! i looked at eli and admitted to him that i had no idea how to handle this situation. it's not like i could just leave them all to run out to the van. so i used every napkin in the place and wiped as much off as i could and then very carefully snuck out of there. a bath, new clothes (for both of us), and disinfectant were ordered up and we were ready for a nap. lesson for the day...always be prepared!!!

the party

19 kids were at my house yesterday for abram's 1st birthday party...all under the age of 5!! all i have to say about that is "wow"!! the party was fun though and celebrating a 1st birthday is always interesting since you don't really know how the baby is gonna react to the attention, present opening, cake, etc. abram was a little overwhelmed during the gift opening time as he was completely lost in a pile of presents and kids trying to get at his new toys. he found one toy that he really liked though and tried to focus his attention on that while his brothers opened his gifts for him. he LOVED the big doggie that his brothers got him as he's been loving on theirs for awhile now. the boys knew exactly what they were getting him for his birthday long ago when he started to grow attached to their doggies. he's already doing the lightning crawl to get to it everytime he sees it and then wrestles and growls as he rolls around with it. the dog is at least a foot longer than him! the cake, or rather, cupcake time at the party was rather uneventful. abram didn't really have any desire to try to mess it up or eat it. i ended up tearing it apart for him and forcing a piece in his mouth just to say that he at least ate a bite. he was ready to go outside after the party and got a gator ride from his big brother. he played with his buggy for awhile and then was ready to pass out with his thumb and blankie. after spending a few hours making a video for his party of him from birth til now to music, i completely forgot to show everybody it since i was so distracted by all of the excitement of the day. i remembered while some of my family were still here, so i at least got to show them. hopefully my dad can figure out how to email it, so that i can try to show it off to everyone else. oh, and i DID get the scrapbook done!

happy 1st birthday, Abram

today my baby boy turned 1 which is so incredibly hard to believe. oh how quickly the "baby days" go by. on his birthday, abram decided it was time to take off and he is now officially a toddler. of course his version of walking is a few steps at a time with 4 or 5 being the most before falling, but he is very proud when he does fall and even claps for himself. it's precious. i actually had to go into work today. after a year and a half of being home full time, methodist has maintained my nursing position and so i've decided to go back just one day a week. i'm so far behind on everything though that i had to take a computer class to learn our new charting system. lots of fun! jerry managed all 3 children at home by himself for about 9 hours which is his first time for that long. they were all alive when i got home and happily playing in their jammies that they had worn all day :) i could tell daddy was worn out though. if i could have made a penny for every time i thought about the boys all day while i was gone, i probably would've made more money than i actually did working for the day. there's definitely no place like home!

2 wheelin'!!

well, he finally did it...eli finally decided to take off and ride his bike without training wheels. it's been a long time comin'. since the beginning of the summer, jerry decided to test him out and took off the training wheels to try to teach him. what eli didn't realize at the time when he agreed to "try" it was that jerry wasn't gonna put them back on...ever. eli wasn't too happy about this as he totally enjoyed riding his bike and was completely confident with those little helper wheels. eli and jerry are both lions though (as the book Taming the Family Zoo talks about) and this factor made it almost impossible for them to agree that daddy letting go of the bike while eli practiced was okay and falling was part of practicing. eli pretty much just gave up on the bike idea and has been a big wheel master ever since. until wednesday...i told eli we were gonna practice so that when we take our walks at night, maybe we could ride our bikes together instead. his big wheel normally goes on the walks, but it's been sounding a little scary lately and i'm afraid it's gonna bust a wheel off and i'll be stuck carrying a big wheel and pushing a double stroller with over 10o lbs of boys. so, after eli asked for a popsicle, i told him he could have one after he practiced with me. he agreed and after a little talk about balancing the bike and a reminder that steering a bike is pretty much the same concept as steering a big wheel or his gator, off he went. one push from momma and a little confidence building along the way, he finally got it!! he did fall, but i quickly helped him, encouraged him, and off he went again. i knew he finally felt what riding a bike is supposed to feel like when he was yelling "who hoo's" and "look at me's" to all of the neighbors as he dodged mailboxes and cars. he did almost take a neighbor's mailbox out once, but for the most part is a little dare devil now. i'm so proud of him, not just for learning to ride his bike, but for trusting mommy and daddy, and most of all himself, that he could do it. falling IS part of learning and he realized that...it just took awhile...a lesson we ALL could learn from :)

scrapbookin' fool

over the past 5 years, i have tried my hardest to keep up with scrapbooking the lives of my boys each year. by the time abram came along, i was pretty much caught up but quickly learned that with 3 children there was no way to "make" time to devote to my pasttime. well, within the last month i realized that my goal of having abram's scrapbook done by his 1st birthday was probably completely unrealistic and i had pretty much decided not to even try. fortunately for abram, the mommy guilt of treating the poor 3rd child unfairly by neglecting my scrapbooking responsibilty overtook me and now i have become a scrapbookin' monster. every chance i get i'm busting my butt to get a few pages done. i'm up to 3 months old and i'm totally focused and determined to get this book done by his birthday party on the 21st. i ordered the actual book today and will hopefully have it filled by the time we're watching him devour his 1st birthday cake. wish me luck!!

lacquer anyone?

after a long wait, our new shelves in our living room have finally been painted. i was told, or rather, warned by the painter that the lacquer spray paint would be very potent and that we should definitely find somewhere to be besides our home for bascially the whole day. so i ventured out with the kids to the park where we were so incredibly hot that we had to walk on the trails in the woods in order to maintain a body temperature of under 100 degrees. here i am with a buggy for abram (that he LOVES) and then eli & caleb walking in their sandals. we did great on the beginner trails, as we have done these many times before. but as we were walking on the first one, there was a little side trail that looked fun where you could see the road, etc so i decided to brave it and try it out. little did i know this was an advanced trail that basically went straight down. imagine a mommy with a baby in a fisher-price buggy thing, a 2 year old screaming at the top and 5 year old about to lose it too as he pretends to be unafraid of the sudden drop. mind you, i have on 2 dollar flip flops and instead of walking down the cliff, i pretty much slid down with the buggy in hand trying to keep abram from flipping over or me from landing on top of him. then i left abram at the bottom and climbed my way back up to get my sceaming 2 year old as i held eli's hand and once again slid down the cliff. of course once we all were safely on level land, we all laughed about it until i looked up and realized that somehow we had to make it back up. thankfully, we ended up back on a trail that was more our speed and gradually made our way to the top. i will admit though that at one point, i thought i might have to use my cell phone to call for some back up! well, we left the park and then ventured to our friend's pool and spent the rest of the day relaxing and keeping cool in the horrible heat, until...we got the phone call that our house was fume-free and we could come back. HA!!! have you ever smelled fresh lacquer? just imagine putting cotton balls of finger nail polish remover up your nostrils times 100. it was nauseating to say the least. i was so afraid my reactive airway children would end up hospitalized, not to mention myself. jerry didn't seem to mind and said that it was simply a smell, not actual fumes. well, besides the fact that every time i woke up at night i thought someone was attacking me with finger nail polish remover, we all survived and now have beautiful book shelves. my advice to you...don't plan on returning to a home that has been painted with anything that requires a gas mask to paint. painters should have to be tested before they're allowed to drive after dealing with those kind of fumes. oh, and don't trust a husband that calls and says, "honey, it's much better now. you're safe to bring the kids home...it's just a 'smell'. " if you can taste it, it's not just smell!!

the great outdoors

the things i learned from our camping trip...
1. 5 year olds are totally infatuated with making/maitaining a fire.
2. daddy's are just as infatuated with making/maintaining a fire.
3. wading in a creek is a blast with little boys.
4. daddy's are very proud of catching crawdads with their bare hand.
5. no matter how clean a shower is, you still don't really feel "clean" at a campsite.
6. playing tracball is frustrating at first, but lots of fun once you've mastered the curve ball.
7. i have the best in-laws in the world.
8. a 2 year old can't take a nap in a tent.
9. kids can fall asleep mid-sentence when telling ghost stories at night.
10. "ghost" stories can turn into dinosaur stories when the story tellers are under the age of 5.
11. it's a lot easier to go down all of those steps to get into mccormicks creek than it is to go up.
12. being away from tv's, radios, computers, etc for a few days is very cleansing.
13. camp fires don't make wheezing babies breathe any better.
14. no matter how hard you try, you always come home constipated.
15. a captured secada that is confined to a bug catcher will die, but little boys think he's "just sleeping a lot".
16. chigger bites on a penis leave a little boy scratching like a dog with fleas.
17. finding the perfect walking stick is an art.
18. sidewalk chalk can become face/body paint.
19. mommies get a lot more reading done with no household chores to do.
20. i have the best family in the world.