Quotes

Conversation between me and Alan I want to keep :)

Alan:      We’re coming up on the 7^th anniversary of eating at IHop in the middle of the night.

Me:        Oh yeah, after the Spring Dance. 

              I was so in love.

Alan:      And your love for me has only grown.

Krystal:  It has only grown. Some parts of it. Some parts are Dead.

Alan:      I like to keep mine pruned.

The fam minus Olivia at a recent costume party.

Bedtime laughs

Sometimes my Mom abilities need some fine tuning!

Tonight at bedtime I was trying to sing the boys a song.

Me: "Row, row, row your butt........ Wait...."

Adam: "You said butt! Row, row, your butt! Hahahaha."
Matthew: "Row, row, your butt!" "Hahahahaha""
(Repeat x35)

Me: "No, no, let's sing it right!"

"Ok!"

Adam: "Row, row, row your BOAT, gently down the Butt!"

I give up :P

Reflections

So last night, Alan and I did our whole bedtime routine with the boys, and I put Olivia to sleep. We pretty much thought we were done, and that it was time for some couple time. Then....

Adam poked his head out of his bedroom door.
Alan: "You need to lay down, Adam"
Adam: " I need to talk to Mommy."
Me: "What is it Adam?"
Adam: "I still need to love you."

(This is what he says when he wants to hug me/ cuddle with me.)

I gave him a nice long hug, and turned to get up...
Adam: "I still need to love you. Okay, Mommy?" (Arms out.)

(That is really hard to resist.)

Me: "Okay"

I gave him another hug, then started to leave. 

Matthew: "Mommy! I still need to love you."
Me: "Okay."
I gave him a cuddle, then started to get up.
Matthew: "No! I still need to love you."


I went ahead and laid down next to him, and held him. Adam moved his pillow closer and scooted closer to us, so I reached one hand out so I could hold his hand. At first I thought, "I need to get out of here, I have things to do!" Then I thought, "Why am I in such a hurry to leave? What else do I really need to do?" I decided to just relax and enjoy these cuddles. Nothing seems to make my two 3 year olds happier than when their Mommy loves on them. So I just enjoyed the perfect moment. 

Until...

Alan poked his head into the room.

Alan: "Krystal! Krystal! I need my apples!"

(Yes, I slice his apples for him. But he does do his own laundry, so that's a bonus right? ;)

Me: "I'm busy, Alan'."

(A few minutes later..)

Alan: "Krystal! I need my apples!)

(This actually happened a few times. But the kiddos really didn't want me to get up. Eventually Matthew fell asleep. )

Me: "Okay, okay!"

(I told Adam that Daddy was hungry so Mommy had to make him a snack...)

Then, before I could cut the apples, Olivia started crying..

So I picked her up, and immediately she calmed down and smiled at me. I nursed her back to sleep while rocking her. It was the sweetest moment. <3 p="">
Then, I got Alan's apples, and brought them to our room.

Alan: "Finally!"

(You kind of have to know Alan's sense of humor. He was half joking. But he really does like his sliced apples and his wife, free of kids, in the evenings :P) 

But seriously... we wives and mothers can't win!! No wonder we feel guilty that we aren't doing enough, there are so many things pulling at us. In addition to the 3 kids and the husband, there was also a dirty kitchen and laundry. (But I can ignore the latter two when needed.)

My other thought is, I can't believe that these three kids (And my husband too, but in a slightly different way!) rely on me so much, and love me so much. I mean, NOTHING makes my kids happier than a hug from Mommy. I sometimes wonder, "Do I deserve that kind of unconditional love?" (At this age at least, they are very forgiving.) It is truly a huge blessing and a huge responsibility to be that important to a tiny, developing, impressionable, fragile person. Sometimes it takes my breath away.

I pray for the patience and wisdom to do a good job.

Daylight Savings Time

Why, why, why do we still have DST?? It messes us up twice a year. The boys have been getting up BEFORE 5am :( And I get up at about 12 (and haven't fallen asleep before then the last two nights, even though I tried!) and then at 4 or 4:30 to feed Olivia, so I have only been getting that 4 hours of sleep. I am confused because they are getting up OVER an hour earlier than they were before? 

These pictures were taken at 5:15am, after being up almost half an hour already! Ugh!

Adam

Matthew

Yes, they are cute. But they are much cuter when Mommy has had more sleep. We need to form a Mom's Against DST group :)

(Also for the record, Olivia woke up at 8:30am yesterday. See why I am always saying how easy she is. :P)

5 Months

 Miss Oliva Ruth is 5 months old today.

Some of her new tricks include rolling from back to front, sitting in the "tripod position" by herself and trying really, really hard to use words like the rest of us. (She makes all kinds of interested noises. Like she's really trying to form a word, but doesn't quite know how. We call her our little zombie :P) I have a feeling she will be a young talker.

Also we moved her to her own room about a week ago. I miss having her right there beside us in the pack n play, but she was starting to wake up/get upset when we would turn the TV on at night, so she is probably happier now. And we don't have to tip toe around. We have a video monitor in her room, so I can see exactly what she's doing :)

She wakes up about twice a night, and sleeps in until about 8:30. She goes to sleep around 8pm, but only takes about one longer nap and one short nap per day.

She melts our hearts every day. Mom, Dad and her brothers love her so much!

Preschool at Home

So we are contemplating homeschooling the boys. We haven't made any final decisions, except that we are going to do preschool at home. I have been having fun with it, and it is so rewarding to watch the boys learn and enjoy our "preschool" time. Sometimes we just call it our "activity" time.

I have found a lot of printable activities and ideas that I like at the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog. (All of the activities my kids are doing below are from that site.)

And recently I have found some nice printables at this site.

Olivia usually hangs out on a blanket or bouncy chair next to us, or we do preschool while she's asleep.

The main activities we do are:

Do-a-Dot markers (use markers to stamp a letter/number shape or to find a specific letter on a worksheet)

Magnets (Make shapes, count numbers)

Coloring

Tracing

Some freehand writing (They can write A, M, H, T and O... and probably others, on demand)

Cutting shapes/designs/freestyle with scissors

ABC's and 123's (They know their ABC letters and sounds, and can count to 20. We are working on having them identify the number 1-20..which is why all the activities below are number oriented.)

We usually do their preschool activities on the days we stay home and don't go anywhere. I really love having something ready for them to work on, since I was running out of activities for us to do together. With the added bonus that they are learning fine motor schools and letter/numbers/shapes,etc.

We also try to go to story time at the library at least once a week, (Love story time!) and check out books for us to read throughout the week. Our other favorite (educational) destinations are the zoo and the museum. We have a season pass to the children's museum, and we are going to see their new Curious George exhibit later this week!

Olivia Turns 3 Months

Well she turned 3 months about 6 weeks ago, but I am catching up on my blog posts!

The biggest thing we did in her third month was take her to Las Vegas. Yep, parents of the year.... :)

Alan has gone to the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention for the past 3 years, so Olivia and I joined him for the weekend. Olivia was such a good travel buddy! We took my mom too, for babysitting while we went to a few shows and restaurants. My mom, Olivia and I traveled by ourselves on the way there, since Alan went early.

Olivia's first plane ride. She did awesome! We cloth diapered her the entire time, and just changed her diaper right there in the chair. There really was no place to change her in the airplane lavatory.

  

My mom and Olivia

In the beach pool at our hotel.

Did I mention the boys were not invited?
They stayed home with Alan's parents :)

At my favorite buffet ever.

Gordon Ramsey's BurGR.

 Brotherly love:

Adam hugging his baby sister

...And going in for a forehead lick (yuck). Sometimes they have too much love!

They always want to be touching her.

Mom & daughter

 And a few my 3 month "photo shoot" of Olivia:

She has continued to be a very laid back baby. 

We have been battling some baby acne with her, but I finally realized she was spitting up after I laid her down to sleep, and getting some spit up on her cheek. After I started staying up and changing the blanket under her about 5-10 minutes after she fell asleep (it always had spit up), the rash started to clear up (finally!) I was going through about 5 or 6 blankets a night. She is a very "spitty" girl! 

She only wakes up 1-2 times a night, and hardly cries except when she's tired or hungry. Her brothers absolutely adore her!