Busy Days

This is what my living room looked like after having a 5 year old, two 4 year olds, two 3 year olds, and a 1 year old for the better part of the afternoon and some of the evening.






This is Wyatt

Abby



And Gabe and Austin, future buddies to get into trouble.

Peaches

Forrest just loves peaches, so I gave him his first one to take a crack at, and once he got past the initial dislike of the fuzzy skin he loved it.

Doggy Sitting

I recently took my mom's dog for a week and thought I'd post a few pics of her with my kids and such. Her name is Tina, and she is the biggest mommy I have ever met :)

First Haircut

He did not want a hair cut that day. We didn't even get it completely done, but at least it's not hanging in his face anymore.

The time has come.....

Our little Forrest is now a walker......

B-B-Q

Man oh man, nothing says summer like a good BBQ on a weber. We have been doing a lot of them and while our food isn't necessarily better than others, I just had to share some pics of our food and the kids playing in the sandbox behind it, and tippy waiting so patiently for us to "drop" some for him. :)



Had to share Forrest's new funny face lol (we love it)


Our food on the grill, yum.


My proud hubby with his grill :)


Connor playing in the sand box.


Tippy waiting for us to "drop" some food for him :)

Happy Birthday Gabe, Stacie, and Rylin

My birthday boy (5th), he eats I swear. He just doesn't seem to have any sticking to his bones lol

Happy Birthday you guys!!! Hope your days are good :)

Happy Birthday Little Fatty-Boo

So the 21st was the baby's 1st birthday. He had a lot of fun, we had a small quiet gathering and he loved the attention. I just thought I would share some of the pictures that were taken at the party.



His cakes.



The party set-up



He was a little scared of the wrapping paper :)



Grandpa Carl



Auntie Emma



A little bit into the cake



The end result from his cake.

New Family Member

Midnight Rose



This is my favorite picture so far, its so clear.


I just wanted to post this one for my oldest daughter Katie. This is her new 6 week old lionhead bunny, Midnight. She is just cute as hell, and Katie is absolutely in love with her, I'll have to post a picture of Katie holding her when I can get one taken :)

Forgotten Pictures

Happy Birthday to my youngest daughter, Josie. She turned 7 on the 28th of April, I remembered to get pictures but forgot to post them so I wanted to do it now while I had the free time. Love you baby!

Fun Times and Friends

Rylin thinks she is just the coolest turd around since she can jump on the trampoline :)


All that jumping makes for a thirsty girl.



Boys love mud, it's so typical, but still cute :)



Notice the broken plant? That is the handy work of Connor earlier that day.

Findings

So yesterday I found a dead baby bird on the ground behind my back porch. I picked it up and threw it in the trash so none of my kids stepped on it. Then later that evening I found another one, I got my glove on and went to pick it up, and it moved. It was still alive. My boys were very concerned, and my farmer husband told me to throw it away and that the mama bird wouldn't care for it since it smelled like human. So I reluctantly threw it away. I couldn't seem to get it off my mind, I kept going back to see it still breathing and flopping around. So I had the genius idea to google it, and found out that birds can't smell really. So I put it back, well a few hours later it fell out again. It broke my heart to think that it was going to die cold, alone and hungry :( So I picked it up and brought it inside, made a little make-shift bed with a warm washrag under it for warmth. I waited 5 minutes and then came back to check on it, well it was perked up and ready to eat :) I looked it up and with the suggestion of canned dog food, (which I don't have) I grabbed canned cat food and took the gravy off of it into a dropper. It took it right down. Then it ate several more times before I went to bed, then prayed for the best. Woke up this morning to find it was still alive :) So here's hoping for the best. Yes I know it's illegal to keep it, but I'm only going to keep it till it starts to fly, then we will release it.

Random Thoughts

So I sit here reading other blogs about how much our children have grown and am forced to look at my own, Katie will be 10 at the end of this year and already has a cell phone (my own doing). However with the hours her dad works on his weeks with the girls it was a needed device, and while I didn't sign a contract, it still makes me nervous to have so much faith in her usually scatterbrained personality that she might just prove my fears wrong. I am really hoping that she can shock me with her maturity and how to properly handle it. My youngest girl just turned 7 last week and, well what can be said for Josie? She is just Josie. :) I do love that girl, but man can she test my patience daily lol. She decided it was finally time to get her ears pierced, so off we went to Claire's at the mall in Ames, and when they actually do it, she didn't flinch. Not a muscle. She made me so proud, considering she can be a bit chicken-ish at times. Hard to believe that my girls are 7 and 9 already, that's 3rd grade and kindergarten. Then there is Gabe, he is in preschool, and man is he more than ready for kindergarten. After kindergarten round-up he actually told his teacher that he didn't miss her at all that week :( I felt so bad for her. Connor will be 3 this fall, man has time flown for him. Walking, talking (NO! is his favorite phrase), climbing, eating, eating, eating, and just getting into every no-no that he can imagine. He is such a sweetheart too, but man is he ever so feisty. Forrest will be 1 less than 2 months :( Makes me so sad to think that the first and most treasured time with a tiny baby flies by so fast. He has learned to crawl (with a kickstand), now standing in his crib, starting to figure out how to stand with furniture, eating solids (and loving them), he is becoming less and less of a cuddler and more of a "basher" lol. But wow does time fly, I keep telling myself that at some point time has to slow down, for us to try to enjoy each other more, but everyday only seems to go by faster. Seems like it was only yesterday that my first was born, and now we are a family with 5 kids. Amazing how things change in life.

Re-reading

Does anyone know how to change your outlook on life from 'half empty' to 'half full'? I need to do this to make my hope of non-smoking come true. The problem is that even though I could overcome all the breastfeeding issues, I can not seem to make my brain/body accept that it doesn't need to smoke to feel better or complete. Where as making my body accept that breastfeeding was vital and not going to be dismissed was so much more work and yet I completed it. I just don't get why that tiny piece of tobacco, chemicals and paper seems so much more complicated than a breast pump, pills, pumping, nursing and arguing with my pediatrician? Or why the breastfeeding held so much more of an incentive for me than to quit smoking, which by the by, would also be better for the nursing relationship that I have fought so hard for. It would not only be better for me, but for my little fatty-boo :) So now off to re-read "The Easy Way To Stop Smoking" and hoping that it might all sink in this time to help with my not so positive outlook on this topic.

Days of Spring

So these pictures were from several days ago on one of the nice days that we could get outside and run off some energy. I was mostly just snapping pictures to take up some time and hoping to get some good shots in general. I got tons of pictures but am only sharing two on this post, because there is a lot of repeated pictures of the baby as he is the only one that moves slow enough for me to get good pictures lol. So I slipped yesterday, day one of trying to be a non-smoker, and felt bad but yet still crave more. I really hate this being unable to decide where I am on it, but yet here I sit, another rough day with more not so good news, and still craving a smoke to make something, anything really feel like normal. I am so scared of failing, and letting people down, but most of them are ok with me making the decision to still be a smoker. They are ok to admit that maybe it's just not my time, and that maybe I will just have to try again at a later time, when it feels more right/ready. So I don't know, maybe this blog should have been named something else so that if I failed it wasn't a constant reminder? Hmmm, thoughts to be pondered? But anyhow, here's the pictures.




This is my middle son, he hardly ever holds still for me to take a good picture. It's always approaching the camera and saying "cheeseburger" lol



The nice days of spring, this is my youngest son enjoying the swing on our porch. This is one sure fire way to make him ready to take a nap. No matter if he just woke up or if he's been up for a couple hours, this swing has a certain sedative property that I, as an adult, doesn't understand lol

Feeling weak

Man this sucks, becoming a non-smoker is very hard!!! I keep finding myself wanting a smoke to make my day feel better, and need to figure out how to want to want to quit. Does that make sense to any of you? My husband seems to understand, which helps a little, but not completely. How about the rest of you? Does it make sense?

First one

I AM NOW A NON-SMOKER!!! This is a mantra that I keep repeating to myself today. Today is my first full day of being a non-smoker, not an ex-smoker but a newly reformed non-smoker. So yeah, of course while I am proud of my choice to make this change, it is very difficult as well. So much of my daily schedule revolved around when I would step outside on the porch. Now that I am not doing that I seriously feel like I have so many more hours in the day that I need to fill. Maybe we should move to a farm, that would likely keep me busy? LOL (That's for you Kate). Oh maybe I should introduce myself, I am a stay at home mom to 5 little ones from 9 years down to 10 months old. We live in central Iowa, where the weather changes faster than a bird can fly, and for the most part we love it here. The winters can be harsh to cope with and the summers can be on the other end of spectrum and still hard to deal with. I have been married to my loving husband for almost 3 years now and this new leg of the journey is one that we are attempting to travel together. We have had many adventures together already, but something needs to be saved for later posts to keep you reading lol. Just going to close off saying that man I miss my smokes, or at least that's what the little monster in the back of my brain is saying ;)