Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a fun day today wearing GREEN!!! I've been so excited for the boys to wear their St. Patrick's Day shirts ever since I bought them a few weeks ago. My older two and sometimes three used to match ALL THE TIME. They were always perfectly coordinated and if they didn't have matching outfits I would at least put them (and sometimes ME!) in coordinating colors. I know, I'm a total nerd. But I LOVED it! Fast forward to 4 boys and now it is a total challenge for them all to match and I think this is actually their first set of identical shirts, I still try to color coordinate them a little but I'm losing my touch...or just REALLY outnumbered, who knows! Plus, Joshua is getting older and seems to be happier with the "cool" shirts like guitars or flames or skateboards than he is with matching his younger brothers. Sigh. Oh well, they LOVED matching today so it was lots of fun. Last Friday Josh was assigned the "show and teach" task where he is in charge of teaching a craft/project to his class. We did the pins that Sam is wearing in the picture. We went and got Sam out of class so he could come and make one too. They had so much fun with them, especially when it came time to pour the glitter on top of the glue. The whole class just LIT UP! It made me realize how much fun kids have with this kind of thing and that I really need to do more of this at home. He has SUCH a sweet class, they all seem to really respect and like each other which I think is kind of rare for 3rd graders.

Since there's no fun in dressing up with nowhere to go, as soon as Daddy came home we loaded up and went to eat at Cafe Rio. YUM! I was quite festive with my green salad (really, it's the ONLY thing I order there) and Mark with his burrito smothered in green sauce. :) The boys loved their free kids quesadillas and we loved that we were on our 10th punch on our card so we got one meal for FREE! Then, as luck would have it, Daddy went the wrong way in the parking lot and we got all turned around and somehow ended up in the McDonald's parking lot which called out for us to get ice cream cones for our FHE treat. I probably gained 5 pounds tonight! GRRRrr. We came home, had a lesson from Daddy about families and the importance of staying together, took pictures and went to bed....well they all went to bed. I'm still up and blogging as you can tell. Anyway, we had a fun day wearing green. I really should study up on this holiday, but all I know is that it has something to do with a guy named St. Patrick and perhaps something about driving out snakes?? I'm not sure how that has anything to do with the color green, leperchauns, pots of gold or four leaf clovers...but hey, at least none of us got pinched today!

This is the first picture we took at home. Daddy had just told them a dumb joke that they thought was HILARIOUS!

ROOMS

I don't think I've posted pictures of the boys' rooms (except Will's) and I want to remember them at this stage forever so I took advantage of a clean house the other day and snapped away.

This is Gabe's room. I actually liked it a little more when it was a nursery because his crib bedding matched so perfectly. I was worried about the day when we moved the crib out and I'd have to find "boys" bedding in pastel colors to match his walls. I thought about this AFTER I'd painted of course... :) This quilt couldn't have been more perfect. I've called him my "little monkey" since the day he was born with all of his jet black hair on his head and down his back so I've always collected ANYTHING and EVERYTHING monkey for him. A friend of mine bought this set from Target for her son's room and the minute I saw it I KNEW it was what I needed for Gabe's. It had the lighter colors of his wall in the quilt, mixed with darker more boyish colors as contrast AND to top it off, was COVERED in monkeys!! The only problem was it was a discontinued Target line and my only source to find it was Ebay. GRRrr. I watched auctions for it for WEEKS, and they always ended WAY over $100 plus $25 or more for shipping which I just didn't want to pay. FINALLY I found one that was "buy it now" at $65 with free shipping AND a free coordinating pillow and light switch cover! I was SOOOOO excited. I also made the three pictures on his shelf which say "beautiful little monkey" in the darker colors to tie in the darker colors of the quilt. I do like the way it turned out a lot, but keep wondering if I should shade the outside edges of the stripes in the darker shades to make it look a little more rugged. ANYWAY....sorry you had to sit through the novel...this is just stuff I want to remember later! :)






This is Josh and Sam's room. It used to be the 4th car garage area, but was finished as an extra room that has been used as a storage room for the last few years. When Mark went on his MBA trip to Paris last May I used the time to pack up EVERYTHING in the storage room (the stuff is actually stuff that belongs to my mom) labeled everything and moved it into the garage, had a yard sale AND painted book shelves. I truly don't remember another time in my life that I've worked so hard for SO LONG. Mark was gone for ten days and I don't think I rested the entire time. I never got more than 4 hours of sleep each night AND I was 6 months pregnant! It was SO exhausting but SO SO SO worth it. I think I was fueled on determination and the fact that I could picture the way I wanted it to look and I was so excited to reach that point. The fact that I was "nesting" probably didn't hurt either. :) Also worth mentioning, the shelves with the blue curtains on either side is their closet. There wasn't a closet in the room so I had to improvise and make one. I love that they have their OWN space and each side has 3 levels of curtain rods so I can organize their summer/winter/church clothes a little more effectively. The shelves in the middle are for organizing the clothes that they will wear during the week. This gets done some weeks and others it doesn't....truthfully MOST weeks it doesn't get done, but at least it's a goal! :) I really couldn't have done it all without the help of my sis and her family. Jeff came by and helped move and secure shelves, Shar and Erika helped pack and move boxes and Elise stayed the ENTIRE day of the yard sale and played with the kids AND cleaned my house! LOVE them!!!

My favorite part of decorating their room was adding the art/computer area. I think I made about 15 trips to Lowes by the time the 10 days were over picking up shelves, and getting the wood for the peg board and the art/homework table. I picked up the totes and trash bin from Ikea which I think is what sparked the idea to make the table. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way it turned out and the boys love it too. They've really been great about keeping it clean and organized and it has been perfect for giving them a quiet place to study when things are going crazy in the house. It really is a good room for them with lots of space to play.

Look who found his feet!!

Will has discovered his little piggy's in the last few weeks and just loves to grab onto them. It's SO STINKIN' CUTE!!!

SIX MONTHS!!!!

HOLY COW! Where have the last 6 months gone? I absolutely cannot believe this wonderful little baby is already half a year old!!!

We went in on 2/27 (sorry, I'm WAY behind on the blogging front) for his 6 month checkup only to find that he had a horrible ear infection. I had mentioned to the Dr. that he'd had a little trouble sleeping the past few days, which I attributed to him cutting two of his top teeth. The Dr. literally gasped when he looked in his ears and said "oh wow, his ear is REALLY infected, it's actually GREEN inside!" POOR BABY!!! I wanted to cry! Gabe ALSO had an ear infection (surprise, surprise) so we left the office with a mild antibiotic for Will (since it was his first time on it) and a kick-butt antibiotic for Gabe (since it was his THIRD time on antibiotics IN A ROW!) We went back last Friday for their ten day checkup and they had both healed perfectly, whew! Their Dr. is so good about checking everyone's ears all at the same time. He's never asked me to make seperate appts. for the other kids and always asks for updates on everyone else on every visit. He's also extremely positive and laid back. We just love Dr. Jackson!

Anyway, we got Will's 6 month stats on 2/27 but had to wait until last Friday for him to get his immunizations.

Here's how he's shaping up!

Weight: 15 pounds 4 oz (10th percentile)

Length: 27 inches (75th percentile)

Head Circ: 44 (50th percentile)

The Dr. says he's "Tall and Skinny" and growing perfectly! We just LOVE this little boy!

No worries...

Well, since Kandis FINALLY posted a comment on my last post I guess it's time for a new update. Hee,hee. :)

A few of you have expressed concern regarding my heart after reading my sisters post about me going in for an echo cardiogram. I just wanted to post and let you know that all is well and normal. It made us nervous for awhile because it was acting so weird - it started skipping beats (A LOT) just before our AZ trip so I went into the ER where they gave me an EKG and monitored me for awhile before sending me home with instructions to get a Holter (sp?) 24 hour heart monitor the next day. The weirdest thing for me was lying on the hospital bed and watching my heart beat, beat and then flatline, beat, beat, flatline....EERY! Anyway, I wore the monitor and when we got the results back the Dr. said there were about 2200 premature (skipped) heartbeats during the 24 hour period. He said sometimes this is a cause for concern and sometimes it is completely normal and just the way our heart or other muscles in our body act sometimes (like when your leg decides to twitch off and on out of the blue, etc.) He wanted me to get an Echo Cardiogram just to rule out a virus that might have settled in my heart which could have caused permanent damage. Lucky for me, it came back completely normal! The skipping has almost completely subsided also. It was pretty constant for a solid 3 weeks, but now only happens once or twice a week. SO, no worries - but thank you so much for your concern!! It looks like I'm going to stick around for awhile longer! :)

Conversation between 5 year olds

Okay, so Sam has his little friend over today. The same friend from this previous post. They are turning into quite the buddies these two. I took them to Wendy's to get some lunch because I just didn't feel like fixing anything today. We're on our way home when I overhear this conversation:

Sam: Hey Brodey, guess what? (ALL of Sam's conversations lately start with "Guess What?")

Brodey: What?

Sam: Um, me and my dad watched this funny movie, and guess what the guy does with a ball?

Brodey: What?

Sam: He gets blood on it, so he paints a face on it and starts to talk to it, it was SO funny.

Brodey: Oh.

Sam: And guess what else?

Brodey: No, wait a minute, STOP! What was the name of the movie? (I thought that was so cute)

Sam: Oh, it was called "Castaway"

Brodey: Oh, hee,hee. Kind of like "Flushed Away"! And guess what happened in Flushed Away?

Sam: What?

Brodey: The guy gets flushed down THE TOILET!

Sam and Brodey simultaneously: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

....BOYS!

I'm GREEN?!

I took AD's color personality test and my results came back GREEN. I didn't even know there was a green. I thought it was just Blue, Red, White and Yellow. I just saw that my cousin Carla's was Black so this is obviously not the same quiz that I'm used to. On the other one (I wish I knew the exact name) I was mostly yellow with a bit of blue. I always wished I was White though because that is the color of the Peacemaker and I'd like to think of myself as a peacemaker. Oh well, we are what we are....right?! :) SO, what color are YOU?

What's Your True Color?

My Result: Green

You're green, the color of growth and vigor. Good-hearted and giving, you have a knack for finding and bringing out the best in people. Green is the most down-to-earth color in the spectrum — reliable and trustworthy. People know they can count on you to be around in times of need, since your concern for people is genuine and sincere. You take pride in being a good friend. For you, success is measured in terms of personal achievement and growth, not by status or position. Rare as emeralds, greens are wonderful, natural people. It truly is your color!

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=colorogt&c=50652