Cleaning cleaning cleaning!

It's the story of my life! Lol!! It's ok, really - I'm so happy to get to stay home with my kids - I truly don't mind that it's a never ending job. I think the hardest part may be teaching the kids to clean up their own messes. It is sooooo much easier to just do it myself! I finally decided something had to be done w/Laynie. (At 8 years old, Jared pretty much has it down, thank goodness!) She just would NOT keep her room clean. You could literally go in her room at any given time and not be able to see the floor, because she drags EVERYTHING out at once, rather than just having one thing out at a time. So the other night I decided to give her a reasonable amount of time to get it clean, set the timer and told her when the timer went off, anything that wasn't put away in its proper place was going into a plastic bag and staying in my room until further notice. Mind you - I have her room set up so it is VERY easy for a 4 year old to clean. I don't feel like I'm asking her to do something unreasonable at all.

Well, when the timer went off, I gathered 2 Wal-Mart bags of things that were either not put away at all, or put away in the wrong place, and those 2 bags are in my room. I told her if she can keep her room clean for 7 days, I'll let her pick a couple of things out of the bags to have back. We're on day 5, and she's doing FANTASTIC!! I've been helping her remember that before she gets something new out, to put away the first thing she was playing with. She's doing so well with it - I'm really proud of her! Hopefully we can keep it up!

Pictures!

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids decorating some sugar cookies we baked. As you can see, they had lots of fun with all of the icing!

Since we were going to be traveling on the days before Christmas, we got to have our celebration a bit early - the kids each got a few gifts - here are their snuggies. Princess for Laynie, and Cars for Jared.

And here they are modeling them!

Levi got a few baby toys, and some bibs - as you can see, he wasn't overly impressed! (Though he did have fun opening them!)

By far, the kids' favorite gifts were their Pillow Pets - they wanted them so bad, and we were so excited to be able to get them for them. It was all Laynie talked about for WEEKS before Christmas - "I reeeeeeeeally want a pillowpetunicorn!!!" (She'd say it really fast like that every time - so cute!) We saved these gifts for last - kinda let them think they were done opening presents, then I "remembered" that there was ONE more gift for each kid on our bed - they came in and were so excited!!

At my parents' house, we got to spend some time with the newest members of the family - cousin Jasmine, and cousin Ethan.


Jazzie girl!!!

Precious Baby Ethan w/his Auntie Lala!!

And of course, we can't leave out Bella-boo! Not the best pic, but you can see her adorable Christmas outfit!

Snow in GA!

Well, technically this is not our first snow of the year, but it is our first snow that we're HOME to....."enjoy." Anyone who knows me knows I HATE snow, but I do love watching the kids have fun with it! Here are a couple of pictures of them playing outside today - they had so much fun!

My Laynie Girl

Not too much to write about today, but Laynie said something funny yesterday I thought I'd share. I was sitting at the computer browsing through some pictures of some college friends of mine on Facebook, and she climbed up in my lap. She asked, "Who are those people, Mommy?" I replied, "Oh, just some friends of mine." She very innocently said, "You have friends?!!" Lol!! Just goes to show that her little 4 1/2 year old world doesn't extend much past herself at this point. Gotta love her!

Crazy!

Of course I'm sure my life is no more crazy than anyone else's but that's my excuse for not updating my blog in 3 months....not that anyone really cares, but I do wish I could stay more on top of things.

How do moms do it all? I'm seriously trying to figure out how I'm supposed to get everything done, and I only have ONE kid home-schooling! I have to admit sometimes it's a bit overwhelming. Is it too much to ask to want a clean house, clean, well educated kids, and healthy meals on the table? If anyone has it all figured out, please let me in on the secret!!

We had a fantastic Christmas! Michael didn't get to have any extra vacation days (other than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) so we had kind of a rushed trip home to MO but we did get to see both sets of parents, so that was good! The kids had such a good time. This year was Laynie's first year of getting to GIVE her own gifts, so she was super excited about that! At my parents' house we go around the family (youngest to oldest) taking turns giving one gift at a time. That way it's not all madness, and you can actually see the reaction each gift gets. We absolutely LOVE doing it this way! Laynie was so excited to give her gifts, she kept asking, "Is it my turn? Is it my turn?" It was sweet! :)

Anyway, we're home now and trying to settle back into a school/housework/baby schedule - haven't quite gotten there yet but we MAY be close. When I get a chance I'll post some pictures!

Well, I wrote "update blog" on my to do list for today, and I won't feel like I've accomplished everything for the day until I can mark that off, so here goes!

Of course Levi is getting way too big way too fast! He has brought our family so much joy! You just can't help smiling when he's around. He's even cute when he cries! We love him so much! He's a good eater and already over 16 pounds - whew! He loves to smile and giggle and blow spit bubbles! :)

Jared is well into his 2nd grade year of A Beka video school. It's going very well. We still have him do additional reading assignments to keep him challenged, and he's doing great with those as well.

Our little Laynie girl is doing fabulous! Full of spunk and drama! We love it that she's such a girlie-girl!

We're gearing up for some crazy times schedule-wise. Michael got an assignment with the army that will require quite a bit of traveling, so we're looking forward to going with him as much as possible. (One of the countless benefits of home-schooling!)

I'm very excited about getting to go to the 2010 Christian Womanhood Spectacular in Hammond, IN. My pastor's wife is speaking at one of the mini-sessions, and I always look forward to hearing her speak! It's always such a treat to get to go!

Well, that's our life right now in a teeeeeny tiny little nutshell. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to elaborate a little more in the near future!

Oh my!!!

So, obviously it's been way too long since I last posted here. I haven't neglected it intentionally, mind you - it just happened that way! Obviously MUCH has happened since mid-March (the last time I posted here.) To put it in a nutshell, I've had another niece born (Kyleigh Alyse), the fifth member of our family made his grand appearance (Levi Grant), and my best friend, Bethany had her 2nd baby girl - Claire Elizabeth! It's baby central around here! I also have 3 more friends who are expecting, as well as my sister! Add in there, VBS, and a trip to Missouri (Michael had a class at Ft. Leonard Wood, so the kids and I stayed w/my parents) and you have our summer! I have so many pictures I could post, but for now I think I'm going to limit them to our family's new arrival.

On June 25th, I began having relatively regular contractions - nothing too painful, just a bit uncomfortable. So Saturday morning we went to the hospital - around 9 a.m. the contractions began coming much closer together (about every 4-5 minutes) and they were definitely getting painful! At about 12:30 or so I was allowed to get into the tub to labor there for a while - I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone who is trying to give birth without an epidural. I really wish I could have been in it longer. The hospital where I gave birth is not approved for water births (bummer!), so the nurse was very clear with me that as soon as I started feeling pressure to push, that I needed to get out. Well, I'd only had about 3 contractions before I started feeling pressure, so I didn't get to stay in too long. At that point, they were telling me I was only dilated to a 7-8 which seriously upset me because I REALLY was ready to push! I breathed through a few more contractions then told the nurse she really needed to call the doctor because my body was pushing even though I was doing all I could to stop it. The doctor came running in basically in time to catch Levi! He was out in one big push (praise the Lord - good baby!). At 1:07 p.m. June 26th 2010 he was born - 9 lbs, 5 oz!!! I could not BELIEVE how big he was!! Jared and Laynie were 7 lb. 13 oz, and 7 lb. 9 oz., so I was NOT expecting anything much bigger than that. Also, I actually gained less weight with Levi than I did with either Jared or Laynie, so I had no reason to think he would be so big - I was just in shock! Needless to say it was love at first sight - he is absolutely precious beyond words. Something interesting - there was a "true knot" in his umbilical cord! The doctor said he must have been doing somersaults in there! Obviously it did not hinder his growth, thank goodness! Jared and Laynie just love their little baby brother - they're so sweet with him! He is by far my most laid back baby - very content! Here are a few pictures.

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Headed out the door!




All ready to go!


He's here!


Levi Grant


Mommy and Baby Levi



Daddy with Levi



Levi and big brother Jared



Levi with big sister Laynie



Daddy with all 3 kids



Family pic!