Directions Part 2

The second part of tiring seven kids out in a short period of time is as follows...

We took the whole crew to check out one of the new area spray parks and see if it measured up to all of the hype. And holy cow did it ever?!?!?

It was just about perfect. The spray park was based around a fishing theme with sprays of water coming out just about everywhere. It was adjacent to the parking lot so we were able to park right nearby. Al and I brought lawn chairs, sat down, and let the kids get to work. They ran and jumped and played for 2 hours without any adult help. Even Lucy and Shane enjoyed the water. The water was cold, but the spray park was connected to a very large playground so whenever the kiddos got too cold they could play on the playground until they warmed up again. There were picnic tables in the shade, so we were able to sit down with everyone and enjoy the picnic lunches that we had packed earlier in the morning. I couldn't believe how much fun we all had for FREE!!!!!!!! We will be going back to this park on a regular basis!

Directions

If you need to tire out 7 kids to the point of exhaustion in 18 hours or less here are some foolproof directions....

Step 1
Have them pretend to be migrant workers and pick 10 pints of 2 different kinds of berries in 85 degree weather

Step two to be continued......

The Darndest Things...

Yesterday the boys were playing with their cars in the driveway and Shane was watching from his nearby playpen. I ran upstairs to turn the oven on and when I came back down less than 3 minutes later the boys had taken Shane out of the play pen and loaded him into the back of their power wheels jeep. Obviously I completely freaked out and when I got done telling the boys how scary that was and how we never ever pick a baby up like that Wyatt said "But Mom, Shane really wanted to go on a ride with us. He's so happy now look.". And there he was sitting in the back of the power wheels jeep with a huge smile on his face ready to hang with the big guys.

This morning as I was cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast I could hear Wyatt saying "abracadabra" over and over again. Finally I looked around the corner and saw that Wyatt had the ram rod for my smoothie blender and was pointing it at Shane. I asked what he was doing and he said "Mom, this magic wand is not working". I said what is it supposed to do? and he said "Something magic with Shane." It still makes me laugh.....

Wyatt calls his eye ball an "eye drop" as in "Mom, Sam spit right into my eye drop"!

Wyatt also thinks that Shane's soy milk is "soil milk" and comes from the ground!

All of the little language imperfections in my 4 year old will come to an end soon enough and I know that if I don't write them down I will never remember all of the cute little funny things that I listen to every day. As they say... The days go slowly, but the years go fast!

Photo Magic

One of the best things about spending time with Aunt Al is that she can get my boys laughing and all looking the same direction for some great pictures.

Visitors Yipee!

Aunt Allison brought Jackie, Cameron, and Lucy to town for a visit. The kids had a great time together! My kids were so excited to see their cousins that you could almost feel it! Even Shane and Lucy bonded. We have some big plans for tomorrow so hopefully the kiddos sleep in past 6 am!

Lunch

Today we hit the Costco sample ladies up for lunch on the go. The boys got a healthy lunch of chicken strips, tortellini, chips, and juice all while we were shopping this morning. There was something from each level in the USDA food pyramid. I didn't even have to mess up my own kitchen and my kids were fed and ready for bed by noon!

Is it just me or do the sample ladies always seem mildly irritated with people that want to eat their food though? Does the food that they sample come out of their earnings? I read somewhere that sales increase 800% on foods being sampled that day in the store. Shouldn't they be happy about us samplers? I am confused.

On another note if somebody wants to get me a present I have an idea. I need three shirts that say "No, we are not triplets!" in sizes 4T, 4T, and 5. It would save me a lot of time in the store. I could avoid repeating myself 90 million times. Maybe a little shirt that says "Yes, I'm a boy" would come in handy too. I need that one in a size 2T.

Strawberry Time!

I took the boys to a local farm yesterday to pick strawberries. It was the first day since Memorial Day that it hasn't rained and we were out of the house before 9am! The plants were loaded with strawberries. I couldn't believe how many ripe berries there were. We ended up with 12 pounds of strawberries!

Sam was my best picker. He is practically a little migrant worker. He never stopped to eat any strawberries until his basket was full either. He only picked the really red berries that didn't have marks on them.

Wyatt and Jonah ate more than they picked and kept knocking their baskets over by accident. They picked white, green, and red berries too. I had to do some major purging of their berries before we took the wagon down to weigh our baskets. Afterwards Wyatt told me that he doesn't want to eat berries that we buy at the store any more because he only wants to eat the kind that we pick ourselves since they taste so much better.

Shane ate Teddy Grahams and watched us all pick while he sat in his stroller. He really enjoyed the wagon ride up to the strawberry patch and jabbered away and pointed at everything we passed like a little tour guide. He didn't seem to like the taste of the fresh picked strawberries though and kept throwing them on the ground. Maybe it is an acquired taste?

Now I am scouring through strawberry recipes in my free time. I bought canning supplies so that I can make some strawberry-rhubarb preserves this weekend. I need to use up these berries before they go bad!

Everybody had a good time because today the kids wanted to go back strawberry picking again! I told them that we would have to wait a few days before we hit the strawberry patch again. Mommy's got some canning to do first!

Sleep Antics

Jonah and Sam have been sleeping in big boy beds now for almost 1 month. It has been an interesting process to put it mildly. I could write an entire blog about these two and their bedtime antics.

For the past few days they have been wearing a different pair of pajamas every time I come into their room to survey their sleep progress. The old pajamas are nowhere to be found and when I ask them about it they act weird and confused...

Me: "Where are your pajamas Sam?"
Sam: "What?"
Me: "I said where are your pajamas?"
Sam: "What???"
Me: "Pajamas! Are you wearing new pajamas again?"
Sam: "Huh?"
Me: "Never mind. Go to sleep!"
Sam "O-tay, Mom"

Every morning Jonah is sleeping on a big pile of underwear! He acts equally confused and perplexed when I ask him about it. So I have finally given up trying to figure out why they are doing what they are doing. I am picking my battles.

So, yesterday morning when I got up and the boys were all talking about this "big mess" in the bathroom I had to go check it out! Shocking! There were towels dripping wet in piles on the floor and I am still not sure if it was sink or toilet water on them. The hair dryer was on the floor plugged in to the outlet. The toilet was clogged with toilet paper. There were several bottles of liquid soap on the floor. And there was poop in the toilet! I picked that battle! Hopefully the boys will think twice before trashing a bathroom like that again anytime soon!

And just when we thought things couldn't get any stranger when John went to check on the boys tonight he found Jonah and Sam like this...

Change of Plans

This weekend didn't go quite how we planned it....

First there was the computer virus that consumed everything. Our computer was at a complete standstill. John spent all of Friday night working on the problem. He didn't make any progress until he called our brother-in-law Marc on Saturday to help walk him through a fix. Even with Marc's help it took until Sunday night to remove all of the garbage that managed to get past our firewall. It is hard to believe that some people have so much free time on their hands that they sit at home and make up viruses to infect total strangers computers!

Then I accidentally backed the van into the car in our driveway. That was super fun! The best part is that when you finally manage to forget about doing something so colossally stupid, the kids will bring it up again and again and yet again. "Mom, why did you wreck Daddy's car?" "Mom, why didn't you look before you backed up?" "Mom, are we getting a new van now?"! The studies that show the dangers of driving while on the phone have clearly never looked at the dangers of driving with children that just will not stop TALKING!!!!

Next on my fun list of "don't try this at home" was giving Shane cocoa. Apparently he is allergic to Cocoa powder which is made from ground cocoa beans. We figured that out after giving him a single bite of a cookie containing cocoa. He ended up vomiting and then had diarrhea for the rest of the night. So now we have to stay away from milk, peanuts, and cocoa powder. The good thing is that Shane hasn't let his food allergies keep himself from being the chubbiest guy we know. I am convinced that he is approximately 70% body fat!

We also had some garden casualties this weekend. The deer got ALL of our cucumbers, squash, and melons. Even with a fence they leaned it over and ate the tops off all of our little 6 inch plants that were started from seed! We were not happy. I went out tonight and got a deer fence to lay across the top and then I bought new seed to replant the deer food. If that doesn't work I may have to see if I can round me up a hunter to get rid of the problem once and for all!

I have been doing some research lately and I am 100% sure that the rash I had a few weeks ago was poison ivy and not from the laundry detergent as I previously reported. With the good soil and all of the rain that we have had it turns out we are quite successful at growing poison ivy in our garden right along side our rhubarb. It appears that the source of the poison ivy in our garden is a 40 foot vine growing in the apple tree in our neighbors yard that is only a couple of feet from our garden. So, now that I have it all figured out I am petrified to go near the garden at all! I see leaves of three in my sleep. Why can't the deer eat that?

So there it is. Our fun filled weekend highlights. I don't want a repeat of that anytime soon....well most of it anyway.....

Little Frog

Guess who learned to swim without a life jacket when we were in Michigan? It might not be perfect form, but it's a great start!

Memorial Day 2010

John is getting the kids excited about fishing. Yesterday he and Grandpa Bill took them salmon fishing and then today they went fishing for blue gills. They all had a good time and we got an awesome home cooked fish meal courtesy of Daddy!

Hot Weather Fun

Hmmmm what can we do with this extra pool water?

I know, let's water the garden!

May News

The rash is definitely better today! I have been feeling a little worn down the last few days and I think that my body is fighting off this rash like it was some kind of foreign invader. I finally have more energy today! Weird!

Our garden is finally fenced in! None too soon either..... tonight there were three rabbits poking their noses around the fence looking for a way in! The cucumbers are coming up like crazy! And of course there is tons of rhubarb. I have already made strawberry rhubarb pie and rhubarb cake. Next I am going to try rhubarb relish and cook it with some pork chops! Yummy! I am most excited about the beans but so far only two of them have made their way through the ground! Those suckers better come up...Wyatt was the one who put the beans in! I don't know how we would tell him that they didn't work out!

We had a baby bird disaster today. It was so sad. There is a nest of finches in our front porch light and the babies were finally grown up and ready to leave the nest. But one of the babies got his foot caught in the light on his way out and had been flopping around upside down. I am not sure how long he had been there by the time I saw him, but he was exhausted. I got a ladder out and tried to get him out without hurting him, but when I finally freed him it was obvious that he was dying!

The boys were watching the whole thing so I told them that I was going to put the bird in a tree to get him off the ground until he felt better and could fly away. Then after he died I put him in the garbage when the kids weren't looking and told them that he was gone and must have flown away. I felt so bad! I was like his surrogate mother. I watched him grown up forever right in front of my eyes. I really wished that I had seen him sooner and could have freed him before it was too late!

We are going to Michigan for Memorial Day weekend and staying with Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill. The kids are sooooo excited! "Is it Thursday yet?" "Is tomorrow Thursday?" "When is Thursday?" "Can I take this with me to Grandma and Grandpa's?" Wow we can't wait!

Creature of the Night

When I was in first grade I got a haircut that was so bad that I wore a hooded sweatshirt to school every day. With the hood up.

I'm thinking that I may have to start doing that again......

TGIF

I feel like my rash is getting better. John doesn't agree. But, I am convinced that if I go to the Dermatologist they will ask me if I have changed anything lately. Then I will have to tell them about changing the laundry detergent. Then they will say. "Ok, switch back to your old detergent and put hydro cortisone cream on your face. Come back in 2 weeks if it hasn't cleared up. That will be $300. Thank you very much!"

So I am trying the hydro cortisone cream and I went out tonight and got some dye-free color-free laundry detergent. It probably won't get any of our clothes clean, but at least I won't look like the phantom of the opera anymore.

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I took the boys to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese this morning. I haven't been there since I was a kid. It was fun. They even had a little carousel that Shane went on and LOVED! He kicked and yelled when I took him off it.

The boys loved having tokens and getting to choose what games to play. They loved winning tickets even more. I let them trade in 102 tickets for 10 suckers that they had to split between the three of them. Wyatt got 4 suckers because he's 4 years old and Jonah and Sam each got 3 suckers because they are 3 years old. They were happy. I was happy!

The boys took a great nap and then we hit the park this afternoon before some evening storms rolled in. I found a great place to take a picture of the boys at a nearby park. They have some huge truck tires stuck halfway in the ground and the kids can climb or sit on them. Today Wyatt was sitting on one holding Shane and I realized that the background was wooded and thought it would be a good prop for a picture of 4 boys. Of course, I didn't have my good camera with me, so I will go back and give it a shot one of these days. Unfortunately it probably won't be this weekend because it is supposed to rain until Monday. Drats!

The Ranch

Life back on the ranch has been busy! Jonah and Sam are sleeping in big boy beds now and nobody is getting any sleep. Wyatt has been leaving his room at night and going into the twins room to play with them at bedtime. He managed to figure out how to work the lock on his door (which is on the outside so that we can lock him in) and get out of his room using only his fingers!

I was fed up with the whole situation. Kids running around all night. People waking other people up that were already asleep. Me and John having to run upstairs thousands of times a night. So tonight I got a new lock for the outside of Wyatt's door and everybody got locked in tonight. They were all asleep by 8:30 pm! Yipee!

I am also dealing with a rash on my face that seems to be getting worse by the minute! At first I thought it was acne but now I have no idea! I it so itchy that I want to rip my skin off! I realized tonight that while I was gone John switched laundry detergent so that my be the problem. But I was also working in the garden on Sunday and am worried that it may be poison ivy. My rash showed up on Tuesday night and apparently it can take up to 5 days for the poison ivy rash to show up after exposure! Who knows I may have measles or herpes!

Well unless you can get a rash from sleep deprivation......

Mommy's Home!

I got back home yesterday around dinner time. The kids were thrilled to see me and I had really missed them too! For some reason they all looked much smaller to me in person than they do in my mind!?!? Their voices sounded like little babies too! Weird!

We spent the day today outside enjoying the nice weather and finally got the garden planted. Next on our agenda is getting a fence up around it to keep all of the animals out. We already lost a tomato plant to an animal and it was only in the ground for 2 weeks!

Jonah and Sam are in big boys beds now. I can't remember if I wrote about it before but we converted them over last Sunday... just in time for Grandpa's visit! Bedtime has been tough for them for the last week. Jonah and Sam are still having trouble staying in their bedroom and in their beds. I expect it to take a while until the novelty wears off.... But so far it looks like we could have set up one bed instead of two because most nights they end up like this!

Florida 2010 Day #3

We finally realized that we can use Al's phone to take pictures, so that everybody can feel like they are right here with us in Florida. Isn't that nice of me?

Here we are at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant. We didn't get to see Wolfgang himself, but there were plenty of pictures of him on the walls. It was almost like he was there watching over us as we ate dinner!

Then we ran across this trio in Downtown Disney. We fantisized about how different our lives could have been. When we were younger Al played cello, I played violin, and Aaron played oboe. We could be living in Orlando performing on the boardwalk every night together as a little family trio. Our cd would sell like hotcakes and we could call ouselves "Wiggin with the Davis'". If only things had gone differently for us.....

Next we checked out the lego displays in Downtown Disney. Somebody had a lot of free time on their hands.....

Finally we checked out another outlet mall. The stores closed at 11pm and we literally shopped until we got kicked out of the mall by the cleaning crew. It was so nice to shop at night after the crowds thinned out a bit!

The highlight of our day, though, was watching the Space Shuttle take of this afternoon. We could see it from our hotel. The fire from the rocket engines was huge when it took off! It went up so fast it was hard to believe! After it was up the shuttle left a trail in the sky that lasted for 30 minutes or so. It was the very last time that this particular shuttle will be going up. It is retiring after this flight, so it was a historical event as well!

We are looking forward to a morning of fun together before we get to see our kiddos back home tomorrow night!

Florida 2010 Day #2

There is a saying that applies to most moms that goes something like this..."the days go slow, but the years go fast". It is so true. Sometimes repeating that is the only thing that gets me through a tough day with my boys.

It turns out when you are on vacation the saying goes "the days fly by and before you know it another one has slipped by again"!

I honestly have not been so relaxed in years!

I am having such a great time.

Let's just hope that tomorrow goes by a little slower.....

Florida 2010 Day #1

My first all girls weekend in 4 years started today. Al and I are in Orlando for 4 days. We are going to enjoy relaxing together without any kiddos around!

I got to Orlando on time and Al was already waiting with the rental car. We checked into our hotel and immediately left to do some serious shopping.

We checked out the local outlet mall and got lunch.

Then we walked around our hotel grounds for a couple of hours and checked everything out. We found the spa and made 10 am appointments for 2 massages (thanks Mom!) tomorrow morning. How great is that?

Next we worked out in the fitness center.

Finally we went out to dinner and I got some SERIOUSLY great fish!

It is going to be a relaxing few days and I am so excited!

I took a few pictures tonight, but brought the wrong camera uploader cord, so there may not be pictures for a while.

I called home and John said that Grandpa survived, so I am relieved! The first 24 hours is the hardest!

Next on the agenda..... book, bed, and some sleeping in!

Hello Warm Weather

I am leaving tomorrow for Florida. My Dad is in town watching the boys while John is at work. I have complete confidence in Grandpa, but I am going to pray for him while I am gone....

Mom and the Boys

My favorite Mother's Day tradition.... a picture of Mom with her boys!

Happy Mother's Day 2010!!!!

Tonight John asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. He just realized that it's this weekend. And I'm pretty sure that he hasn't thought about Mother's Day since last year and he was starting to panic.

Meanwhile, I already have John's Father's Day gift bought and wrapped. I will probably take the kids to the $1 to pick something out for him as well. Then, we will wrap all of the gifts and the kids will make homemade cards for Dad to open. I will get an ice cream cake for dessert. And it will be a big celebration.

So to kick off the Mother's Day celebration I told John that I want a new cell phone. I listed the features that I wanted it to have and even cut out some pictures for illustration purposes. Then, he said "I'm not getting you a new cell phone, pick something else" or maybe he said "dream on" I can't remember.

Strike One!

Then I said that I wanted a new pair of NICE jeans for Mother's Day! I told him what kind I wanted and where he could buy them. He said "You're going to go pick out a new pair of jeans and say that they are for Mother's Day and that's it? No, I don't like that idea either."

Strike Two!

Finally I said that what I really wanted for Mother's Day was a nice big garden with vegetables and herbs right in our own backyard. So, John said "Ok, I'll go do that right now".

Home Run!

And he shoveled and rototilled and composted for hours and got it ready to plant tonight and it is perfect. So in the end that's what I'm getting for Mother's Day and honestly I couldn't be happier! Well, a little ice cream cake wouldn't hurt.....

Survival of the Fittest

I often joke about how at least half of my job as a mom is to keep my boys from killing themselves and each other. They have the most hair-brained schemes that you can imagine. There are so many times that I walk into a room just before something bad happens!

I will find them about to climb a tower constructed from some books piled on a bucket sitting on a chair. This does not seem remotely dangerous to them.

Or I will find them tying things to the back of their bikes to drag around the driveway. Things like hammers or a big floor jack or even an empty gas can. Cuz you know that's safe.

Then there is the scene that I happened on this week. And I find it truly amazing that my kids are still alive. The boys all got up in the morning and went into Wyatt's room together and shut the door. When I woke up and went into Wyatt's room to check things out Wyatt said "Mom, come in and see this burn!"

I was all "What? Burn? What are you talking about????!?!?!?"

Then he said "Close the door, it has to be dark!"

Naturally, I obliged.

Then, as I stood there in utter shock, Wyatt grabbed the plug for his fan and plugged it into the outlet, but then started wiggling it around really fast so that it made a spark. Then he said" See, it's a burn in there."!

I am not quite sure what I would call this particular skill set, other than dangerous, but it looks like this little guy has the same genetic makeup as his big brothers....holy cow!

The Finished Project

The rock project is done and I am loving the way it looks. Rocks sure look a lot better than mulch. Hopefully the kids will stop loading up all of the new rocks and hauling them all around the yard soon! Otherwise we may end up having to repeat the whole project again in the fall!



John painted the bathroom this weekend. The color is called something like "chestnut brown", but I like to call it "cover the hand prints on the wall brown". When we went to pick out the paint color Wyatt picked out a paint strip with 2 different shades of pink to take home. Now he keeps telling John that those are the colors that he wants his room painted...they are called "Sleeping Beauty Pink and Pretty As A Princess Pink"!

Anyways, I can't even begin to tell you the things that go on in the downstairs bathroom. The kids TRASH the bathroom every day. At the end of the day soap is everywhere. The soap bottle is full of water. The towel is dripping wet in a heap on the floor. And the walls are black with hand prints.

So last week, I replaced the soap dispenser that sits on the sink with a wall mount dispenser and things seem to have improved. The mess is more contained and the bathroom still looks good that the end of the day! Now the downstairs bathroom is my favorite room in the house!

Pants On Fire

I did some more work on the swing set this week. I added a flexible tube from the top floor of the swing set to the ground. The kids can send balls or cars from the top down to someone waiting at the bottom. Then they can climb back up and do it over and over again. The boys love it. And I love it because it keeps them all together in one place when they are outside


Then yesterday Wyatt decided to fill the whole tube with sand from the sand box so nothing could go down. Then he lied about it to me and blamed the whole thing on Sam. So he was not allowed to eat dessert for 2 days.

So we have had BIG desserts for the last 2 days. Popsicles are Wyatt's favorite dessert. Oh, so sorry my little liar. You don't get one. You must be related to your Aunt Allison. She was a highly skilled liar in her day. She probably missed dessert more than a few times when she was four years old too. Maybe she has some sympathy for you, but I sure don't!


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Wyatt's fine motor skills are improving a ton lately. He can write 20 letters now! Only 6 more to go. He is fascinated with writing notes to people. He tells me what he wants to write and I tell him how to spell it. Tonight he made a sign for the playroom that says "Put Toys Away". We hung it on the toy shelves as if that will make a difference?!?!? Whatever gets him excited about letters and writing though is fine with me. I am not sure who we are going to send this one to though.....