Yes, after a few months of being quiet I suddenly feel like the fog is lifting and I want to talk again.  So if you’ve noticed that I’m suddenly blogging again…you aren’t mistaken.  I’m just doing it a bit differently and still kind of ‘going with the flow’ of whatever is on my mind, or when I have time. In other words I’m back but things might still look a little different.

I can’t say that the process of what I’ve been dealing with lately hasn’t been without side effects. My normally happy and optimistic nature has been…well…not so happy or optimistic much of the time.  The idea of sharing what I was going through was very difficult for me.

Honestly not because of pride, but because it felt wrong somehow that my normally encouraging and uplifting blog would be tarnished by difficulties beyond my ability to completely explain or handle in every day life.  To be in a place in my life where I didn’t feel like I had anything encouraging to offer was foreign and frustrating for me.

I’m not going to tell you that I’m back to “normal”, in a way I’m not sure if I ever will be. I don’t mean that in a negative way, but everything we go through in life will shape us and transform us just a little (or a lot). But the constant haze I was in seems to have faded a bit, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible and while I still have bad days, there are good ones now too.

Thank you all so much for standing by me through this…I have great friends, many of which simply email me when they read posts here and I appreciate you all.  I wish you all great blessings today!!!

Hugs…

On Monday I shared about the Beautiful Baby Contest that’s being held on the “LIVE! With Regis and Kelly” show. As the mom of 6 boys there have definitely been times that it’s been difficult to get that elusive picture of them.

So I thought I’d share just a few of the things I’ve done over the years to help the process. I cannot say that any of these ideas are anything but simple nor can I say that they work 100% of the time, kids will be kids, but they will up your chances of getting a great photograph.

General tips for photographing children…

• Make sure you don’t try to photograph a child during their naptime.
• Make sure they aren’t hungry.
• Bring/prepare favorite toys, stuffies or other items that will make your child happy and/or keep their attention.

(more…)

As you can imagine, there’s a lot of interesting events, conversations and happenings in life with 6 boys. All of us have things we swear we’d never say to our children…and most of us have caught ourselves saying them anyway.  But recently I have discovered that there are quite a few things I have said in my term as a parent that I never in my wildest dreams could’ve imagined I would need to say.

So here’s just one of those things…..

“Don’t pee on your Brother!!!”

Have a great day

As many of you know, we have had our fair share of sleep problems with the twins. They still end up in bed with us at some point in the night more often than not. I cringe to admit that because I honestly never thought that would be the case for me since my older children slept through the night so well.

The last few nights however, they have stayed in their bed through the night. But we are finding them to be particularly quirky. They don’t lay one way, they like to sprawl out all over the place. They share a full size bed which is plenty big for the two of them, but they do not want to go to sleep in it without a brother with them. Tater gets the privilege of joining them to sleep each night, but he does so happily and it works out for all concerned.

All of our children are very different of course, but several of them will have this or that similarity. Three of our children are particularly imaginative and have very interesting dreams. They are the most likely children to have nightmares as well, so much of the twins’ sleeping problems could likely be linked to if they are going through a fearful stage that’s being reflected in their dreams. Either way though, every morning the twins get up early and the first thing they want to do is tell us all about the dream they had the night before.

Sometimes these dreams are absolute doozies, sometimes they are fairly simple. But you can always expect a simple run down of a dream from Bug and a long drawn out step by step story from Monkey.

I love watching my kids sleep. They may drive me crazy sometimes, but watching them sleep is peaceful and quieting. Sometimes Monkey will cry a bit in his sleep before I go to bed and I’ll go in and stand near him to calm him. Then I’ll just watch a while.

So today it’s about finding the quiet peaceful sleepy moments that amaze me about my kids. And even though they cry in the night sometimes, or go wild during the day, each one is so uniquely amazing and wonderful.

Gone are the days where I carefully plan and schedule posts. Now I simply blog as I feel inspired by life. I have decided there is a time and a place for both.

I know I’m not alone as a mom who finds that the most joy can be brought about by the littlest things that happen each day. It can be a hug, a giggle, a story, a kind gesture or many other almost imperceptable things. But if you look close you’ll catch them.

This was clearly shown recently when CJ our oldest made a completely selfless sacrifice to try and benefit me. It was so kind, so completely loving that it brought me to tears.  I was amazed by this young man once again.  I’m so thankful for him in so many ways.

So today, I’m looking for the little things and praying that I can offer little things to everyone around me as well!

I talked a bit last week about being in a holding pattern and making a more conscious effort to find the good in each and every day.  Today the Twinkies are 4 years old and although there are many descriptive words I could use when talking about them and what they have brought into our lives, there are two that stand out most… amazing and funny.

We are forever amazed by the things that these two little boys are capable of.  This amazement isn’t anything new though, they have been shocking us with their minds and abilities since before they turned one, it is simply incredible. But as they get older, their thoughts are so much more amazing even.

Each and every day they say or do things that are worthy of a true ROFL (roll on the floor laughing).  From the incredible dreams that they have to the random thoughts that they share, they keep us on our toes.  Even though I’m describing them basically as a pair, they are very much individuals and proud of who they each are.

Yes, life is extremely chaotic sometimes and they tend to have more than their fair share of complaints in life a lot of the time. They are stubborn, strong willed, opinionated and even mouthy.  But through all of that they have also brought so much joy and laughter and they love hard.

They get offended if they don’t get a hug and blow kiss from Daddy before he leaves for work each morning.  They get upset if their big brothers are gone for too long and especially if CJ is spending too many nights with grandparents.

Through everything, we are thankful for these little bundles of energy that keep us on our toes and bring us amazed laughter every day.

The twins are quickly approaching age 4 and their latest love, especially Bug is to cut their hair. Bug did this twice within about a month and I did what I could with his hair buzz cutting it and trying to still keep it looking cute.

Then about 2 weeks ago Monkey decided to do it as well but instead of cutting a reverse mohawk as Bug has Monkey cut it straight across the front close to his head. Equally terrible looking lol, but Icould work with that a little more… until yesterday.

As most of you know, I have been cutting all my guys’ hair since shortly after my husband and I got married.  This has saved us a ton of money and headaches over the years and it’s a quick job to do at home.

I had cut my husband’s and 3of the other boys’ hair the day before and apparently I had left the clippers box on the counter. Yes you guessed it, in their infinite wisdom, the twins found that box (though the height of the counter is at forehead level) opened it up and proceeded to clip hair.

Now, the crazy part is that, as usual, they were only in there for a few moments before Salesman and I heard and registered the noise in the kitchen. As we investigated, sure enough we found that Monkey had taken the clippers to the front middle of his head and had a crazy looking front only reverse mohawk look going. Bugs had only a tiny section cut out of the front as well, but it was enough to require a full shaving.

As CJ begged to shave them it is the first time that I’ve ever been able to say yes lol. After all what more could he do to them, they already looked terrible. So excitedly CJ prepared the clippers and a twin and began shaving. The twins weren’t thrilled with the process, but they hated afterward when they saw themselves completely sheared down to the scalp.

They kept asking for us to put the hair back on (which we all fell on the floor laughing over of course) and informed me that CJ is never to cut their hair again. To which I replied that as long as they did not cut their hair again I would make sure CJ didn’t have the opportunity to cut their hair again.

This turned into an excellent way to try and keep them from cutting their hair again. Knowing that they would look as they do now and endure another haircut by big brother may very well be my ticket out of the crazy haircut stage.

We will see……

The conversations with the Twinks never cease to amaze me.

Waking up yesterday to Bugs insisting that everyone “Rise and Shine” as he turns on every light was mildly amusing.

Followed on his heels by Monkey announcing, “I don’t get an awwowance, and I don’t have a job!” *big Monkey sigh*

To which I replied, “well you are only 3 so it’s ok that you don’t have a job or get an allowance.”

Monkey: “Well, yeah, I’m 3-2 years old and don’t have a job or get an awwowance!” (he always says he’s 3-2 years old instead of 3 lol).

Well there’s no arguing with that I guess.

As I tried to login to post yesterday, I discovered that my blog was down.  So I took that as a prompt to move on and let it go for the day.  Not sure what the problem was since everything seems to be just fine today but I’m thankful that it wasn’t anything major because I hadn’t backed up for a while and I’d feel terrible if you all had to re-enter the contests.

Life got put on hold again this week as we have had more creeping crud.

On Friday last week I received a phone call from the boys’ school.  It was the health room gal letting me know that Lion had a nasty little infection going in his left hand.  A half hour later I picked him up from school and dragged him to the doctor.  All the while wondering how on earth a simple cut or splinter could cause that nasty of an infection overnight.

An hour of kicking and screaming at the doctor’s office later (they had to clean it out and such – it was awful), a bandaid was applied, stickers handed out and a prescription ordered.  Two days later I received a call to stop the antibiotic they had prescribed since the infection was Strep not staph as they had presumed.  So on to a new prescription he went…. SIGH.

Yesterday CJ was a mess, his head was so stuffed and painful he could hardly move until I’d loaded him up on meds.  Since none of the other boys were in school that day the Twinkies and Tater went to visit my parents and overall it was a pretty low key day.

That afternoon though CJ still wasn’t feeling as well as I’d like and the presence of a fever in addition to some neck pain had me a little concerned so I decided to take him in.  Something he was determined not to do.  You try convincing a 14 year old who is almost 6 feet tall to go to the doctor when they don’t want to… it isn’t fun!

But as we were getting ready to go, Salesman told me his throat was hurting pretty badly, so last minute I decided to take him as well.  After a small check-in ordeal at one of the local walk-in clinics, the boys were checked out.

Turns out CJ just has a lot of sinus stuff going on and needs to take preventative measures to keep it from turning into a sinus infection.  The cultured Salesman’s throat right away and by the time the doc was done checking CJ the results of the 5 min Strep test were ready… and very positive.

Oh Joy!

I have 6 sons and in the 14 years that I’ve been a parent not one of my children has ever had Strep throat.  Something I was quite happy about since there are so many of them and it is so contagious.  Today I might have one more child to take to the doctor…and tomorrow, well, I don’t want to think about that lol.

So, there you have it, we are officially in the middle of the sickies and I can only hope that you are not doing the same in your house!  Have a GREAT Thursday ladies!

I have recently realized (though I have no idea why it took me so long) that my Twinkies talk non stop.  They are just little chatterboxes.

I could almost write a Dr. Seuss type book with their antics…something along the lines of “here, there and everywhere” would be involved because it doesn’t matter where we are going (or not going as the case may be) or what we are doing (again..or not doing) they will always have something to say about it.

I’m not sure exactly when they decided they know more than any of the rest of their family members…all of whom are older than them, but they are positive that they do.  Preschoolers that are unequivocally smarter than the rest of the world are a force to be reckoned with…or feared…or both.

This is the position I find myself in daily.  What crazy scheme will they try today?  Will they have a story to tell or someone to tell off?  Can I possibly keep up?

I have never questioned God’s sense of humor in blessing us with these two adorable little creatures, but that doesn’t mean that I always get it.  None of my other children were capable of getting ahead of me more quickly than these two.

And when there are two of them ahead of you, you are in trouble.

But I digress…

I talk a lot about their funny little sayings and their conversations.  Honestly though that is just a small portion of the interesting life with my twins.  There’s always the climbing of walls, seeing how quickly we can take something apart (or away from a brother) and the ever present search for anything artsy we aren’t supposed to touch without mom being right there to supervise.

These items include, but are not limited to: scissors, tape, crayons, markers, pencils, erasers, etc.

We recently had what I currently refer to as “the incident” with scissors.  Yes, the timeless tradition of cutting one’s hair was exacted by our loveable Bugs a little over a week ago.  Unlike most other children who participate in this ritual of preschoolerdom, my son decided to cut a perfect line, at scalp level, straight up the middle of his head instead of across the front.

He ended up with some sort of odd looking reverse mohawk…nothing short of hideous.  It took me far too long though to work up the nerve to whack it all off.  But I did and he is now a tough little soldier…still with a little baldish streak up the middle of his head lol.

Now the only thing left to do is take a picture and scrapbook it for posterity.  Because there is no way I’m letting him forget it when his son decides to do the same thing!  This is one of the beautiful things in parenting…I think I need to remember it more often!