sweet boys

My sweet boys. They went to Addi's very first dance recital. They told her they were excited to go and were very encouraging. They got a program for the recital and asked that I could keep it in their "special boxes" which are the boxes we keep programs and special items for memories. I thought it was very sweet. Glad they are so supportive of their sister!

De-onreyintator

Honestly, I have no idea how to spell this. We have a De-onreyintator at our house. If you ever watch Phineas and Ferb (disney cartoon), the bad guy has lots of "intators" that he makes. Well, when our kids are onrey, we have a De-onreyintator to get them out of a bad mood. That really means that get to be tickled by Jeff. Sometimes it does well, other times not. However, it frequently visits our home and seems to work.

Freaking out

Oh, and one other thing. Addi was playing hide and seek with Jeff yesterday. She hid, he found her. He hid in the exact same place, but she went through the house and couldn't find him. She went downstairs looking for him and he wasn't there. She came upstairs and said "I am totally freaking out" because she couldn't find him. She's four. She eventually found him, and laughed and laughed. 

text from Kelli

I got this text from my friend today about carpool. It cracked me up and so I had to save it:

Clayton kept kicking Zach as we drove home. I told him if he did it again he would have to walk home in bare feet because he chose not to put shoes on when we left. Of course he did it again so I told him I was going to pull over. Addi said, "Don't worry, Clayton. My mom is mean too." Then Nate says under his breath, " Not that mean. Our mom has never made us do anything like that!" I didn't want him to cross the street so I stopped at the bottom of our street and told him to get out. He wouldn't so I had to get out, go around and physically pull him out....all to run up the sidewalk 3 houses! I am just "so mean!" (Sarcasm) We all laughed as he ran up the street. Even he was laughing:)

Addi

Each of my kids have a journal. We aren't very good about writing in it, but I can occasionally get them to write things in it. When things aren't too crazy, I make them write in it at least once a week, especially in the summer. 

Today, Addi pulled down her journal to write in it. She isn't quite reading yet, so her writing is generally lines that she draws. After all, she is only four. I was listening to her write in her journal today. She "wrote" (really said), My name is Addi and I can do whatever I want". It made me chuckle. As challenging as she can be at times, I hope she continues to have a determined spirit and will be able to accomplish whatever she wants.

And then there was tonight. We say family prayers every night together. The kids each take a turn saying their prayer, and then we said a family prayer as well. I've also told the kids to thinking about what they are saying since Nathan can get into a rut and say the same prayer verbatim every night if I let him. So, Addi said a very long prayer where she was thinking about what she was saying. Parts included "and Jesus loves prayers",  as well as "please bless us that we will get to go lots of places, but not too many places so we don't get to be spoiled brats", among other things. Jeff, Nate and I were doing the best we could to not burst out laughing. I have tried very hard to make sure the boys don't always give into Addi so she doesn't become a spoiled brat. Apparently, she has been paying attention. 

Santa Claus

For Christmas this last year, Santa brought the boys tablets for their Christmas gift. They weren't ipads, but they were tablets. Addison got a fisher price princess castle. Nathan, who is nine, has said a couple of times that he believes in Santa Claus. His reason for believing in Santa Claus is because he thinks I would NEVER spend that much money on a Christmas gift. I told my dad this a few weeks ago and he thought it was absolutely hilarious  I'm trying to decide if this is a good or a bad thing.

Her Sniff

Another thing I have to write down before I forget. Addison had another one of her respiratory attacks again last night. She's three, but we've been dealing with it for the last few years. She'll get a cough/cold and it will get into her lungs. She'll have a really tight, barky cough for a couple of days and have a hard time breathing where we need to do nebulizer treatments. It's usually bad for a day or two and then it clears up.

Anyhow, she had another attack and we had a bad night last night where she woke up a few times crying becuase she couldn't breathe. It was a long night for mom and dad. One of the times she woke up crying she said her sniff wasn't working and she needed her sniff to work. Poor thing was congested and couldn't breathe. We did a breathing treatment and now her sniff works again.

She is doing a ton better today and hopefully we will be done with this round.

challenges

I have a reminder today of how blessed I am and, although life is not perfect, I am very blessed. We have certainly had some challenges over the last few years and sometimes they have overwhelmed me. However, We are still very very blessed. I listened to an excellent talk on Sunday that has stuck with me about trials. One of the things he said was that, although they have had some challenges over the last few years including job losses, he knows what his trials are and can see him. It's better to know your trials than to not. I'll take the challenges we have over someone else's. I spoke with someone today who is about my age and has had a lot of health issues. She is currently facing some very large challenges. My heart goes out to her. I know we have our trials hand-picked for us. It was another very stark reminder that I am very blessed and that, although life isn't perfect, I'm very lucky with what I have.

Nightmares

Apparently this is the week for nightmares. On Wednesday morning at around 4:00 a.m. Zach came crawling into our bed clutching his teddy bear tightly. He said he had a bad dream and at first he didn't want to talk about it. Later on he did tell me about it and it was a about a big snake chasing him and trying to eat him. I would be scared too! Poor guy.We cuddled in bed for a while and  was eventually able to get him back into his bed as long as I left the door wide open. I could have left him in our bed, but I had to get up around 5:00 a.m. since it was my work day. He's had a few bad dreams in the past and crawls into bed with us at least once every six months.
Thursday morning at around 2:00 a.m. I had a nightmare about horrible storms that hit the earth. These were end of the world kind of storms. At one point we were at a soccer game (because that's all I seem to do right now), and we saw an approaching storm that was north of us. I heard someone with us say that the clouds turned purple and well, "there goes Canada". Anyhow, strange dream.
Now, Friday morning, at around 2:00 a.m. Addi comes running into our room and crawls into bed, clutching me tightly. She said "Mom, I don't want our house to get fired". Poor thing! She had a dream about our house catching on fire and was absolutely terrified. She asked us a couple of times about how houses catch on fire and we had to reassure her it was just a dream. She is still sleeping in our bed. She and Jeff did still all of the covers so at least they are warm.  I had a dream when I was a kid about my house catching on fire that I still remember to this day. Poor kids!!!
Here's hoping that three breaks the streak and we are done with nightmares this week.