Spring Clean

This beautiful weather gives me the urge to clean and de-clutter my home. My garage sale is scheduled, and now I get to start going through each room of the house getting rid of the stuff that we no longer use. I am working on the hall closet, and I am amazed at how much stuff gets shoved into our "catch-all" closet in a years time. I found a random pacifier, some Glade plug in refills (with no glade plug-in), a few random cleaning products that I forgot I had, and a basket full of projects that I never finished! The sad thing is that I am only half-way done with the closet. I am procrastinating doing the bottom half of the closet because I am terrified of what I will find on the floor. On the bright side, maybe it will be a treasure that I have been missing for a year or two instead of just dust bunnies the size of my shoes.....
I was also surprised when I looked in my closet at all my clothing. At the end of last year, I cleaned out my closet of all the clothing that was backward on the hanger. After reading an article in Real Simple Magazine, I started an experiment with my clothing. The article suggested a way of purging your closet of unused clothing by hanging up all clothing up on hangers in the closet facing the same backward direction. Once worn, and washed, its to be hung up on the hanger facing the opposite direction. This is to be done for a one year time period, and at the end of the year, the owner of the clothing will be able to see what exactly has been worn or not. (I actually had to do it for a 2 year time period, because there was a pregnancy in between.) After the 2 years were up, I went through my closet and mercilessly pulled out anything that had not been worn, bagged it up, and sold it on Craigslist. My closet was nearly empty, but at least I had a good idea of the clothes that I actually wore. Long story short, at the start of this year, in an attempt to be "green", I made a new years resolution not to buy any new clothing for 2009. I only allowed myself to shop at 2nd hand, and thrift stores. Soooo, when I looked in my closet yesterday, I was shocked to see that it has filled up again with clothes. I haven't broken my resolution, but I am surprised at how many thrift store finds that I have scored! Looks like I might be starting my experiment again soon.
Well, wish me luck - I still have 75% of the house left to clean before May, and although that seems like a ridiculous statement, please remember that I have 3 little ones who demand 90% of my attention during the day.

Double Dose

Here comes a barrage of blog entries....
I had a second cup of really strong coffee at lunch, and I am raring to go! I don't usually allow myself two cups, but after today, and all my accomplishments, I might have to do this more often.
I hope that I can go to sleep tonight!

Binky Free!!!

Its our one month anniversary of being binky free! Yipee! Cannon is the only one of the three that has taken a liking to a pacifier. I thought it was cute, until he turned 2...

Then the binky became more of a hindrance than a help. Besides night time problems, it also gave him nasty breath, some teeth issues, and a slight lisp. We had to find the "one with the green and the blue" in order to appease him during bedtime rituals. We were also being woken up in the middle of the night when the binky fell behind the bed. It wasn't so fun and cute anymore...

Anyways, Rich decided one night to ask him to sleep without it. (It didn't matter that I had already tried 5 or 6 times to have him take quiet time without it.) For some reason, Cannon agreed, and we have been binky free ever since. I can't believe that it went so well... Probably helps that he got a new toy from the binky fairy, and a few lollipops for making it through the night without the binky.

Maybe next we can tackle the potty training...

The last binky. He almost chewed through it, and I was a basket case every night that he went to bed because I was worried that he was going to choke on the piece that was going to break off.

Nuggy #1 - He wore out the silk pads on the feet rubbing them as he fell asleep. Luckily he is happy with Nuggy #2...

Part Girl, Part Gopher

Brynn has always had an affinity for chewing on things. I blame Rich. It started when we began reading books to her in the evening. In order for her to sit through a story, Rich would give her another board book to chew on while he read to her. She destroyed many a book that way.
She moved on from board books to her crib. ( I hear this is normal.) I put the teething rail on the rail of the crib in order to deter her from chewing it up. This only resulted in her trying to chew through the plastic to get to the wood.
I didn't realize that we had a problem until she moved into her new room. She started to figure out that there were a lot of wood things in her room to "chaw" on. Her new toddler bed was the first thing that I noticed.

Then I noticed some marks in the coffee table.

Then the dining room chairs.

Then the door of her room. Then the blinds. (I tried to fix them by painting them over with white paint. It also allows me to see when she decides to chew on them again...oh yes, its still happening)

Then the toy box.

I am hoping that none of these objects are coated in a lead based sealer...

Note: She did try some other things too, but was discouraged from them after vomiting them up. Poison Control knows us by name, and its almost embarrassing...

Desiccant (the little moisture control packets in shoe boxes) - Even though these clearly state "Do not eat", they don't do any harm. The nice lady at Poison Control assured me of this...

Fluoride - can cause a heart attack if the amount ingested is enough. We were a few drops shy of this. Brynn barfed a bunch, but really enjoyed the Tums (used to absorb the fluoride in her tummy) that she got to take.
Sunblock - not harmful. May cause nauseousness...

Antiperspirant - This is the call that I got the most interesting response from. After the lady said, "Hello Angie, what did Brynn eat today..." I told her about the deodorant. Apparently most children do not enjoy the taste of antiperspirant. They usually take a lick, or a small bite, and the numbness and tingling on their tongue is enough to deter them. Not my child. She ate almost 1/4 of a container. It causes no harm, but can make them sick to their stomach, and oddly enough, very thirsty.

I really hope that this "stage" is one that she outgrows sooner than later. I mean, come on, she is almost in kindergarten. Am I going to be the mom who gets called in cause her child is eating school supplies????

Getting Dressed

Cannon has started to demand to dress himself. This is fine with me, but sometimes his choices make me wonder...

How many shirts does he REALLY need to wear at a time?????



This isn't even his record. I had to pull 7 shirts off of his sweaty little body the other day. That was a bit of a nightmare, especially since he didn't want me to take them off of him, but he couldn't figure out why he was sweating so much....

10 months old

Maeve hit the 10 month mark (about 1 week ago - oops) and she is such a funny kid. Most of the time we find her climbing up on things. She popped out a top tooth, and there is no sign of the other one yet, so she looks a little "hillbilly-ish". She refuses to eat baby food anymore, and I am scrambling to remember what I fed the other two when they moved onto "real" food. She loves any attention from the older two, and follows them around the house like a little adoring puppy. She brings joy to the family, and to my life.

So fun!

I heard the kids happily chattering away the other day in their room, and this is what I walked in on. Who would have thought that a bed, some blankets and each other could make them so happy. Ah, the simple things of life. They are such a content bunch.

New (to us) car!

We did it! We bought a minivan. I am ok with it. We can all fit, the kids can't fight over space anymore, and hopefully its going to last for a VERY LONG TIME!!!! (We will be paying for it for a very long time....)
A real picture is coming soon.

F is for....

Flowers, Fish, Freezing, Fountains, Friends, Family, Felix, Fresh Air, Fruit, Finger foods, and Fun. I think that sums up our day.


Making Family Flowers with our hand tracings. (I love hand print crafts.)




We met up with some friends at a local flower nursery. It was frigidly, freezing cold. The sunlight is deceptive.

We picked out our favorite flowers, and tried to find the ones from our birth months.
Brynn loved the Bleeding Heart, and her flower of the month was a Water Lily.

Cannon picked out this primrose, and his birth month flower was the Lily of the Valley.


The kids couldn't get enough of these huge Koi fish.


The fountains were a nice background noise while we were at the nursery.

You can see how this place felt about children running wild....

We then headed to the fish store, where the kids enjoyed looking at all the fish (in a much warmer atmosphere, thank goodness...)

Meet the newest member of our family - Felix!

We ended the day with fruit and finger foods.

Here is our verse of the week. I am going to have to memorize this one too!

Galatians 5:22
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things.

Where have I been????

Sucked into these books. All 2444 pages of them. Whew.

The Letter E

We did the letter E on Monday. It was fun, but due to rain, and some severe coughing in our household we didn't go on a "field trip".

Coloring Eggs to go in an Easter Egg basket.

Snack of eggs.

Cannon had to concentrate to get all the shells off of his Egg.

Group effort for our lunch of Egg salad. (Egg whites only of course...I can't stand the yolks, and the kids have adopted my yolk less traditions.)

Our new pet. Emily Elizabeth. Poor girl. She died a slow and horrible death because I couldn't convince the kids to let her go free.

Enchiladas for dinner.

Our verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:11. "Encourage one another and build each other up just as you are already doing."

Daddy Week of Vacation

Rich had last week off, and it was amazing. We had so much fun. Normally when he is off work we are off doing something, but this time, we fought the urge to busy ourselves and had a "stay-cation". It was perfect. Exactly what we needed.
On one of the days we went hiking. I was so surprised that the kids could keep walking, and walking, and walking - especially since it was all uphill. They loved it, and they loved the picnic lunch at the playground as well.

Hanging out in the "tree house".

The giant cargo net to jump around in.

The "halfway" point on our little hike.

Me and Brynn. Isn't she cute in that hat?

Cannon and I. Always something in that kids' mouth...

Maeve survived the hike in the backpack.

Rich and I. Ignore how bad my hair looks, and the fact that my cheeks are flaming from the hike.

The super cool mosaic wall at the playground. I love mirrors outside. I think that they add such an amazing element to nature.

The fam. Could I, just once, take a good self-timer pic??????