Blah

That's how I'm mostly feeling these days. Blah.

In my Thanksgiving post I mentioned that we had gotten the flu over Turkey Day. Now add to that two different colds (one immediately following the flu and the other just a week and a half ago, that one complete with fever and everything), some random fevers with the kids, and some sort of stomach bug that Tryn and Kye had last week that I now have this week. Oh, not to mention that I couldn't walk very well for a week because of my back.

This has been the worst winter for sickness ever! I literally think someone has been sick in this house with some sort of something since Thanksgiving Day. There may have been a day or two where we were totally healthy, but I honestly can't remember those days. The irony of it all is that last winter Tryn was actually going out of the house for school 5 days a week and being exposed to many more germs than our homeschooled selves have been this year.

Last week, when I was already tired of all this sickness, I accidentally wished that we could have a few more good snowfalls before spring (and it RAINED here, like a lot, last week!). I'm retracting that wish and am now wishing for Spring to arrive ASAP. Along with that wish, I also want to clarify that I would like Spring to force Winter to take all the yucky sickness with it.

I keeping thinking, "Okay, now we've had everything. We can't catch anything else, can we?" And it seems that there are just 100's of sicknesses waiting to infest our bodies and take over the world. Ahem.

I will stop my rampage now. I will stop complaining. I'm just tired of being sick and being surrounded by sick people.

Bring on Spring! Or else, take me on vacation. :) Either one will do.

On to more positive things. Time to, hopefully, put this all this sickness behind us.

The Year and Psalm 116

I am feeling incredibly thankful and blessed these days. In light of the New Year and reflecting over the past year, I realized that this is the first year that I can remember where I spent New Year's Eve celebrating the previous year. Usually I spend New Year's Eve thinking about things I wish I could have done differently, thinking about past decisions, trying not to regret what I haven't gotten done, and just feeling anxious in general. 

This year though...this time I just feel so excited about the ways that Steve and I changed and grew last year. I feel so thankful for the things that we learned, the hard things we dealt with. I did a lot, I grew a lot, and it was a good year. It wasn't just an easy year. We had some definite hard moments, defining moments, and it still was a lot of work. However, the Lord has been good to me.  

The thing that I have realized is that in all my floundering, all my good and bad decisions, all the things I should have done differently, all the ways I could have been better, the Lord has been good to me. Despite myself the Lord has been good to me. 

I called on the Lord, and He heard my voice and answered my call. And though that doesn't make life perfect or everything bad go away, it sure makes the journey a lot more manageable. Exciting even. I can see the ways that God has worked in our lives this year and I can confidently say that good things really do come from God.

The Lord has been good to me.

Psalm 116

¹ I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
    he heard my cry for mercy.
² Because he turned his ear to me,
    I will call on him as long as I live.

³ The cords of death entangled me,
    the anguish of the grave came over me;
    I was overcome by distress and sorrow.
⁴ Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Lord, save me!”

⁵ The Lord is gracious and righteous;
    our God is full of compassion.
⁶ The Lord protects the unwary;
    when I was brought low, he saved me.

⁷ Return to your rest, my soul,
    for the Lord has been good to you.

My Year...

I love to do this at the end of every year, it's my favorite New Year's tradition. It's maybe actually my only New Year's tradition :) The reason I FB all the funny things that my kids say during the year is so that I have them written down somewhere. It's easier to organize them into a compilation at the end of the year this way. Although, "My Year in Status" app has not been updated since last year and it is still extremely tedious. But totally worth it because someday the kids will be able to read these. And for now I will read these. And laugh, laugh, and laugh some more. I love my kids and our life together. :)

Oh, Turkeyland and Christmas Tree

I for sure thought this blog was not going to happen today. And then my lower back, which will forever hate me for making it bear the weight of three children, decided to flare up again. It does this from time to time. It got progressively worse with each pregnancy until with the last one the problem never completely went away. I am not sure what the problem is exactly, but it makes me hobble around the house and I can barely pick up Kye. Or bend over to pick up anything for that matter.

So, instead of cleaning my house for my ladies group tonight I am doing things like soaking my back in hot water and sitting on the couch...and blogging. It so happens that this morning Kye discovered for me that a mouse had chewed a hole into my rice bag hot pad. Not only do I not get to use the hot pad on my back today, Kye also decided to evenly distribute a layer of rice all over the living room floor for me first thing this morning. I did get some vacuuming done today too, I guess.

I have digressed.

Turkeyland. I love Thanksgiving. I say that every year and I will say it again. I LOVE THANKSGIVING. For so many reasons that you can probably find on my previous posts about Turkey Day. I just wanted to highlight on the fact that for the third year in a row someone has had the flu around here on Thanksgiving.

Isn't that terrible? On one of my most favorite holidays.

Actually, two of the years it has been me. This year and two years ago I had the flu - and I got it on Thanksgiving Day after completing meal preparations. Two years ago I actually ate the whole meal and felt fine until a few hours later. This time I didn't feel awesome from the start, realized something was up when I sat down for dinner and didn't want to eat it any of that yummy food, and then fully realized what was going on a few hours later when Berlin threw up on me and in front of our guests. Oh my.

Last year it was our friend Dave who was over for Thanksgiving who ended up getting the flu by the end of that day. And this year we so nicely gave him our flu so that he had it a few days after Thanksgiving this time.

All that to say, we didn't get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving this year like we always do. Even when I had the flu two years ago we went out and got the tree because I was the only one who was sick and I didn't want to give up our tradition. This year, however, both of the girls were the most sick and so we stayed home and went that Monday instead.

Berlin will forever love to be outside, no matter what the weather is like. 

Kyeson, on the other hand, pretty much hates winter right now. I've said before that he really loves to be comfortable. Well, picture him as the living example of the little brother from "A Christmas Story" who gets bundled up and can't put his arms down. That's Kye in his snow gear. And it makes him so mad.

 I totally get why he is uncomfortable. Take this for example. He sees a stick on the ground that he gets excited about and, naturally, he wants to pick it up.

 Well, imagine bending over to pick up that stick and then just slowly falling forward until your forehead is resting on the ground and you literally can't move. You are stuck because your mom and dad put so much clothes on you, and you can't get up. That would make me mad too. Shhh. Don't tell, but we laughed really hard about this one. :)

 If that were me, I would probably sit down and have a fit in the middle of the tree field too. Especially if I sat down and couldn't get up again.

 The perfect tree!!

 Cutest little girlies ever!!!!

 Oh, we just love Christmastime around here. :)

Life on This Tuesday Morning

Apparently having three mobile children, homeschooling, starting a photography business, trying to work on a substantial writing project, and starting a women's small group have been the death of my blog this fall.

I am pleased to say that the photography business is going swimmingly and I am about as busy as I can handle being right now. In fact, a few weeks ago I had a few photo sessions every week and, while the sessions themselves only take two hours at most, I was feeling totally swamped with all the editing and website updating that needed to get done. I had to slow things down a bit so that I could feel like I was actually going to enjoy the holidays.

Lately most days are spent trying to keep the house from looking like three little tornadoes live here instead of three sweet little kiddos. There are lots of crafts, painting, coloring, book writing, and toy time going on and those things all involve lots of mess and clean up. The kids are having a great time and I feel really excited about the fun childhood that they are having...I just need a vacation from feeling like I am constantly cleaning the same things over and over. And over and over and over again. Haha!! I am totally blessed beyond measure. I just need to train the dog to pick up toys maybe. :) 

Also, having a one and a half year old little boy is so much different than when I had one and a half year old little girls. I have to keep an ever watchful eye on that little guy because he is constantly doing things he is not supposed to be doing. Such as finding the one marker that the girls missed picking up and carrying it around the house with the lid off. Daily true story. I also can barely type a sentence on the computer without little fingers getting in my way and trying to push as many buttons as possible in a 5 second time span. Maybe a solid reason I don't have much time to actually write a blog anymore.

Anyway, this morning Berlin inspired me to pull out my camera and I ended up taking a bunch of pictures of Life on This Tuesday Morning. 

 Yes, the little man child still uses a pacifier. No judgements. AND, the little bugger had a fit every time I pointed my camera at him so I have all blurry pictures of him. Bummer.

 A new development in our house is that I let the girls watch "First Position" over the weekend. It's a documentary on Netflix about kid ballet dancers. It's really interesting, especially for anyone (such as myself) who wishes that they could be a dancer in another life. :) Well, the girls just thought it was about the coolest thing and since they have worn their dance outfits constantly. I'm not kidding. I even discovered this morning that Berlin had her dance outfit from yesterday on underneath her footie pj's and she slept in it all night. They have them on underneath their clothes right now that they put on to go play in the snow. I have seen so many "dance shows" since this weekend.

That's all. If I find a few more minutes to blog tomorrow I might post the "getting the tree" pictures that I just discovered are still on my camera...but...we'll see. :)

Projectland

I love to do projects. Mainly I just love to be creative and make things and so when I say I like to do projects it's kind of like saying I like arts and craft time. But a little bit more then that. I posted this picture on Instagram of a project that Steve and I decided to do when he had some time off a few weeks back.

Piano stairs. Heck yes. 

A year ago when we moved into this house I undertook the project of "fireplace art". I thought why buy something for above the fireplace when I could make something? It took me awhile to make it. To be fair, Steve told me it was going to take me awhile to make it and I said, "Pssh. No way!" It DID take me awhile to make it though, haha!! The four pieces of art represent us and our story, but you'd have to see them in person to really get it and see the detail. Anyway, I am happy with the way it turned out.

 And most recently was this project. Let me tell you, Pinterest is full of awesome ideas but they are not all what they seem. This seemingly super easy Pinterest project idea took me days to finish when I thought it would take a few hours. I am happy with result and the super large piece of art for our upstairs hallway that only cost about $20 to make...but I was almost in tears a few times during the making of said project due to the amount of hours put in vs. some really annoying results and redos that took place. I won't tell you the whole story, but I did actually write a comment on the blog where I found this idea to warn others about what they were getting into. :)

Anyway, I like projectland, even when it doesn't go exactly the way that I think it will. My next project is probably going to involve a really old window that I found at a garage sale that I have sitting out in the garage. Just waiting for the right inspiration about what exactly to do with the window...I'm open to suggestions. Even Pinterest ideas. :) 

Man Child

Alright. I haven't written an update on Kye's progress as a human being in a long time. He has changed so much and has developed so much more of his personality in the past few months!

First of all, I am pretty sure he gets away with sooooo much more than the girls ever did. I guess that's what comes from being the baby of the family. Even tonight I was noticing that he doesn't listen as well as they did at that age, but I think that's because we don't enforce it as much. I told him to "come here" and he ran away and hid in the corner and would not come out. I remember the girls doing the same thing when they were younger, but I never let them get away with it. Tonight I decided I better not let him get away with it anymore either.

Kye is getting more and more verbal, but I've noticed that if I ask him to say a new word in a normal voice he won't always try. However, sometimes I can get him to say new things in a whisper. He will say "up" all the time if I whisper it to him, but he has only said it out loud one time ever. A few nights ago we were all sitting at the table, Steve and the girls were working on a puzzle and Kye was sitting on my lap. He was quietly playing with some plastic toy playdough scissors and so I whispered in his ear, "Can you say scissors?" And he whispered back, "Scissis." I was totally surprised. All in whispers he said mama, dada, Piper, scissors, ball, baby, oh boy! (which sounds like oh biya!) outside, all done, up, thank you (which also totally surprised me because Tryn, our earliest verbal child, couldn't say thank you until she was almost two years old) and he tries really hard to say Berlin. He still won't try saying Tryn yet. Oh, and the way that he communicates that he wants Mr. Monkey, his bff, is making a little sound that is similar to the sound that Piper makes when she is whimpering. So when he is looking for his monkey he walks around making little whimpering sounds with his soft chubby hands turned palms up with a quizzical look on his face and it just melts my heart every time.

Oh, haha!! Also, Kye loooooves his dad. As soon as Steve gets home from work Kye wants to be where ever his dad is or do whatever he is doing. If Steve is in a different part of the house, say going upstairs to change clothes, Kye will either have a fit because he didn't get to tag along OR he will stand at the bottom of the stairs and yell, "DADA! DA! Dada!" until Steve answers him. The yelling parts, not the fits, are hilarious.

One of my most favorite things right now is the fact that he has realized that he can communicate that he wants to be picked up, even though he won't say "up" out loud. What he does instead is he comes up to me and lifts up his arms and then with all of his little might and energy he lifts his body as much as he can. He gets all the way up onto his toes, as if stretching and reaching for me with all his might is going to lift him right off the ground into my arms. It's too darn cute.

He also loves to be outside (what boy doesn't?!), loves to play upstairs in his big sister's room, loves music, has started dancing or clapping when he hears his favorite songs, loves to be at home (as in gets stressed when we spend the night elsewhere and is never more happy than when we come home after being away for a few days), loves trucks and getting into anything (especially markers) that his sister's leave laying around, and he loves food. Well, he loves food that he likes. He still won't eat many veggies, but gosh this little boy can sure eat a lot when he likes what he is eating!

He is changing all the time, but one thing still remains the same. He is still The Most Loved Boy in the World.