Memories

Here are the rules:
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It does not matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It’s actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game and I’ll come to your blog/email and leave one about you.

Let's see what happens

Why do I even TRY to look good?

I got my hair cut last week. I bit the bullet and actually went somewhere nice, somewhere that you need to make an appointment in advance and that doesn't cost just 30 bucks to get your hair cut. I was excited. I was determined to not forget myself amongst my four boys, but to make sure that I put some time and energy into me.

Well, I'll just say I was a little disappointed. The woman that I went to is what you would call "an artist". She asked me what I had wanted, and really I had no idea, but hoping that she would have some great inspirations, I told her to do what she thought would look great. She took a step back and looked at me for a long minute, then without another word, she started cutting. Several times I thought about asking her what she was going for, but nope, I kept quiet. She kept chopping and chopping. I started getting nervous, but then again thought, "She's the professional". When she was finishing up she asked me how I liked it. I was somewhat honest, for once, and told her I didn't like it. She asked why not and I told her it was because it reminded me too much of my mom's hair. She then took her scissors and cut my bangs short, making it look even worse then asked me if that helped!

She told me that most of the cutting she was just testing out how my hair would lay and react, so I guess she really didn't have an exact style in mind. I did have Grant with me, who I actually had to feed while getting my hair cut, causing all this cut hair to get stuck to his face - poor kid. And she knew I had 3 other boys at home so I think she thought I should have an easier hairstyle. It is really easy and I do appreciate that part,but just because I live with boys doesn't mean that I want to look like one. Another thing that bothers me is the way she styled my hair made me feel like it added ten years to my age. I am only 25, but almost everything in my life makes me feel older (the kids, my body going through 4 pregnancies). I embraced that I still looked somewhat my age, but now I feel that I look 10 years older -great.

When I got home my kids just looked at me. Mikey grabbed the back of my hair and said, "Mom, go..go..get a bow and put in your hair". He has been having some gender confusion with my haircut. He asked me, "Mom, you a boy or a girl?" This is his way of having me ask that question to him, so I did and he replied, "a boy". He has started realizing that I still am a girl, but he told me the other day "you have boy hair". Yea, made me feel beautiful.

Anyhow, here's my hair. I fix it a little different than the lady did. I have gotten some compliments on it, one friend says it looks very "hip". It feels very European to me, which I like the European styles when they are toned down. It is a lot easier to do, and keeps me a lot cooler. I don't mind going to bed with wet hair, it actually feels nice now. I do think it looks quite cute with a headband - but because I have a bigger head I can only handle wearing a headband for so long before I get a headache from it. I am planning on sewing some headbands of my own so that I can make them a little bigger.

Another disappointment is that I had this same haircut when I was 4, and I doubt my mom spent the same amount of money on it.
I guess my hair isn't all that bad, and the great thing about hair is that it grows. So, I'm trying to enjoy this cut, but I will be quite upset if my resurrected body has this haircut.

Frat Brothers

My sister has nicknamed my boys the "Frat Brothers". This is because when she stayed with us, she realized that every night Roger and Mikey would spend a couple of hours playing in their room after bedtime. I admit, it gets pretty wild sometimes, but I figure as long as I'm getting my time with them to "bed", I don't care if they sleep or not. There are some mornings that I think for sure I am going to go into their room to discover their bed torn apart and the dresser turned on it's side. But I'm always surprised that the room isn't in the shape that it sounded like it should be. My mom says she expects to find empty beer bottles lying around. The biggest shock, and yes it shocks me almost every night, is that after their done playing, they always find their bed and get under the blankets.

William's room is just down the hall. I know he hears what goes on at night, we all do. You know he feels like the kid that wasn't invited to the party that everyone is enjoying, but you can hear it, and what's worse is that you're stuck in a confined bed with bars around it.

We have family prayer in Mikey & Roger's room, then after we have everyone kiss and I take William into his bed. After the prayer is over, William starts crying for he knows what is about to happen. He loves hanging out with the boys and doesn't want to be left out.

The other night, after prayer, Todd convinced me to allow William to sleep with the boys. He even brought up a cushion for William to sleep on. I figured that since it was a Friday night, why not. We explained (as much as you can to a one year old) that he had to stay in the room if he wanted to sleep in there. He was excited.

About an hour later I was coming upstairs and I heard a noise. William was trying to push open my bedroom doors. I picked him up and realized that it was quiet, meaning the boys were asleep. I went to go check on the boys, and sure enough, they were asleep, with Roger sleeping on the cushion. I figured that William had been good, so I lied him down next to Mikey. He got the cutest smile. By the way he was acting and the look on his face, I figured he was thinking that surely I had made a mistake by putting him in that bed, but if he didn't say or do anything, I wouldn't realize that I was putting him in the wrong bed. Kids always think their parents aren't very smart, and in reality, we aren't.

Later I went to check on them, and this is what I found. Soo cute.

They slept well, until sometime in the middle of the night, William had woken up and started crying. He left the bed and was walking toward a light I had left on in his room in case he had woken up. It was good to know that he's still my baby and doesn't have to spend all his time with those wild boys.

Happy Birthday Roger

Today is Roger's Third Birthday!!! I can't believe he's already that old, yet I can't believe he's only been with us for three years. These last couple of weeks I've been telling Roger that his birthday was coming up and he was going to turn three. He would refuse this and insist that he was two and he would not hear of me telling him that he would be three. I am so happy to have him in my life.

Roger is always very concerned about his brothers. He cannot handle seeing them unhappy. Upon hearing his brother crying, Roger will often give his brother the toy he is playing with, even when it is not the reason his brother is crying.

Roger is my boy that needs little sleep. He is usually the last to sleep and one of the first up. The last six months he has been coming into my bed in the morning. I actually love it. He's very sweet and tender. He'll scratch my arms and give me big hugs.

Roger is his own person. He doesn't like being controlled in anyway. I always have to remember to allow him to make decisions for he will usually make good decisions when allowed to make the choice. For example if I tell him to clear his plate or if I ask him if he'll clear his plate, he is much more responsive if I ask.

He has great coordination and a lot of natural athleticism. He catches on easily to physical stuff. When running he can dodge things without slowing down. He loves being active.

Since he had cake for his birthday party, I put candles in our breakfast - overnight french toast

He is my little sweet boy. He will constantly tell me, "I love you very much", and will even wink at me!! He mastered the hand sign of I love you, and will often flash it for me. He has the cutest little "I love you smile". He does make the cutest faces sometimes - it really makes you wonder what he is thinking.

He has a deeper voice for his age, and there is nothing I love more than to hear his little giggle. He will always giggle when he's getting what he wants, so it is difficult for me to say no. When I do say no, he says "You go away Mom". We now put him in the corner for saying this. But he has found other ways of getting around it. He has told me, "You go to a store, Mom". Oh, well.

We sure are glad to have little Ro-ger in our home. He is so wonderful and we love him so much!

Another Birthday Bar-B-Q

In celebration of Roger's birthday next week, we had a barbq on Friday. It was a lot of fun, with good friends and even better food. It was very relaxed and comfortable - which I usually shoot for. The best part of the party was Lana, my sister.

If you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend getting yourself a 12 year-old. She is amazing. During the party she took care of most the kids. She had them playing games on the trampoline - and even got them to take turns with little to no screaming. It was nice for all the parents to enjoy having conversations with other adults and to not have to worry too much about their kids.

Lana came to our house when my brother Roger came, and she stayed after while my parents are in Israel with LeNae. She has been such a great help. She does the dishes, even cooked some meals. One time she had dinner and the table all set nicely when I didn't even ask her to do anything. The boys have loved having her - but then who doesn't love Aunt Lana.

Roger's favorite part of the party was the cake. He enjoyed making it, and loved helping decorate it. After making Mikey's first birthday cake (years ago) Todd gave me a really good compliment about taking time and making our boys' birthday cakes so now I'm kind of stuck making their cakes instead of buying one. But I did want to make Roger's cake fun for him. So, I grabbed a few of his favorite toys (he loves little animals he can carry around) and put them on. Roger loved this and had me put even more toys on, then I let him decide where to put the candles.

Lana made fun of me for not putting "Happy Birthday" on his cake, but instead putting "Roger". I told her that Roger recognizes his name, so it would be exciting for him. I was right and when I cut the cake, he insisted that he got a piece with the "R" on it.

By the end we had the women inside the house talking, nursing, and cleaning (okay, maybe it was only Stephanie cleaning) and the men were outside talking business and sports while Lana was getting tired from entertaining the kids.

4th Weekend

We've had a very fun and very busy "Fourth Weekend". Roger - my brother- and his wife, Tavia and kids came into town, along with my little sister Lana. This is the first time they've visited us in Ohio. They have a 6 year-old girl and 4 year-old and 2 year-old boys. Needless to say there were a lot of kids. Together we had six kids 4 and under.

Thursday we watched Wall-e at a drive in movie. While there the lady parked behind us went to the offices to complain about us. (We had 7 little kids, what do you expect?) It was fun, and it was my brother's family first time at a drive in.

Friday morning Mikey was in a parade with his softball team. It was a little early for Roger and his family, so it was just Todd, our boys, and I who went. The boys loved the parade, especially the candy that was thrown. Roger found great joy in being able to sit on the curb of the street and chase candy on the side of the street - the street is usually a BIG no-no. When we saw Mikey, he was in the back of a truck, just playing with his toy giraffe (which has been this month's favorite toy to carry around).

After the parade we went to a carnival in town. The boys loved it and had a blast. Roger got nervous on the big Ferris wheel, but Mikey loved all of the rides. It was really fun to watch the boys find so much excitement in the rides.

After resting from all the fun, we went to the beach. The waves were crazy, and the lifeguards even crazier. When we were getting ready to go home we found out that they were going to be shooting fireworks from where we were, so we decided to stay there and watch them. Todd and my brother Roger went back to our house to get some dry clothes for the kids, so Tavia and I had to fare with all the kids by ourselves. It was pretty hectic, but we survived. I wasn't quite sure it was going to be worth it, but seeing my boys reaction to the fireworks was fun. Mikey kept on saying that it was a party. William was scared of the fireworks. Luckily he just let us hold him with his face turned from the fireworks.

Saturday we went for a bike ride. Two days before I had Grant we rode 10 miles on this bike trail that you can catch the train going one way, and bike back. It really is so beautiful. The trail goes through the Cuyahoga National park and runs along some parts of the old Erie Canal. Most of the trail is shaded, so when we were sweating from the exercise, at least we were kept cool in the shade.

It was quite the ordeal loading up the kids, bikes, bike trailers, diapers, drinks, food, and husbands. When we got there, the train was 1/2 an hour late. We were a little frustrated, but then when we later learned that it was because someone had suffered a heart attack on the train, we were quite merciful. The train ride was fun, if you like having to nurse your baby while having your "older baby" climb all over you. We did meet a father and his two grown sons that were biking to California from New York. They had been riding for a month, and were going to be riding another 3 months.

My boys all fell asleep during our 13 mile bike ride, but so did my bottom. Mikey's head was leaning on the fabric that rubbed against the wheel. It even rubbed a hole into the fabric. William shared a trailer with Grant, who we kept in his car seat. This caused William to not have very much room. But he was a trooper. I think Mikey and Roger had told him stories of when I was training for my marathon. There was a miserable 14 mile run in the snow that was so cold it froze Roger's bottle. William probably felt relieved that his nose wasn't frozen.

We stopped along the ride to feed Grant. The boys were all running around and having fun. Colton, my nephew, found a tiny frog. Being very sweet he gave the frog to Mikey. Mikey was thrilled with it. He played and played with it. Then when he showed the frog to Todd & I, we found that the frog had died from him squeezing his hand too tightly. Oh well, another chance to learn about the resurrection.

Sunday we blessed Grant. It was a little different not having mine nor Todd's parents there. But we did have Roger and his family, and my little sister Lana, so at least we were supported. The blessing was really nice, and gave us another glimpse of just how amazing our baby is.

We spent Sunday evening hanging outside. Jackson and Roger both got stung by bees. You would think that after seeing Jackson get stung, Roger would move away from the area, but no. I guess we never learn.

One Month Birthday

I cannot believe that my baby is already a month old!! He really is so precious, and I am so in LOVE!!! His schedule still isn't consistent, but unfortunately lately when it's time for bed, he is suddenly very alert and not sleepy. But he does let me stay in bed until about 8, with Todd's help by taking the other boys downstairs. I am getting more adjusted to his waking up and my non-sleeping routine. I should be okay until month 4 or 5, but you'll probably hear about that later.

He's still eating very well. and I am hoping that I'll get a chunky baby. He's lost a lot of his hair, now he is bald bald bald. Even Mikey said, "Remember when Grant popped out of your tummy he had hair...and now he don't".

Grant is transitioning out of the newborn phase. He's more alert, and is slightly responsive. He is trying to respond - he's getting his lips to form a smile, he's trying to gain control of his eyes, and he was making a cooing sound for my mom just the other day.

He really is a gem, and I'm so glad that we have him here with us.