January 2016

Sunshine!

Much of my day consists of this view.  So.Many.Games.

Sierra's first time bowling (at a birthday party).  She beat all of the boys too :)

A teeny tiny bit of snow!

Hmm wonder where the mischievous snowball thrower gene comes from.

We are going to Disneyland!

Jaxon answered these on his own.  I wrote the answers, of course.

Some hard to read ones: Learn to Read Chapter Books, Be better at Jump Rope. I am Proud of Helping Others, My Best Memory A Hotel, I want to Go See the beach.

It's a new year.  They go by so fast.  Sierra is still enjoying school.  Her friendships change on and off.  She'll go through stages of playing a lot with certain kids and then changes it up.  This year I don't see her having as strong of friendships as last year but she plays with a lot more kids.  Last year every time partners were picked there were one or two girls that she always went to and they came to her.  This year doesn't seem to be like that.  She enjoys playing with the boys and sometimes is the only girl throwing the football with the boys at recess.  She's learning that girls can be a little more tough to deal with.  They get upset really easily and sometimes she says it's hard to play with girls because someone's feelings are always getting hurt.  Sometimes hers are the ones that are hurt too, so there is constant talk of what is really hurtful, and what are things that maybe we shouldn't let bother us so much? And how to deal with both of those kinds of situations.  What are things we should tell the teacher about and what are things that aren't that big of a deal?  There is so much to learn!  It's hard but it's life.  Someday she will need these skills in the workplace and to foster relationships.  So I try to help her think things through but also encourage her to make her own decisions and decide how to handle situations when I'm not there to help her.  I'm constantly worrying if I'm giving her good advice or not. But I love having her come home and tell me proudly how she handled a tough situation.

Jaxon continues to grow and grow.  He's a little string bean.  It is still a struggle to get him to eat new things but we are continually working on it.  Now he will usually at least taste things.  It may be the tiniest bite possible, but at least he will put it in his mouth!  He's weighed 39 pounds forever.  Somehow he continues to get taller and not get any more meat on his bones.  He's still in a board game phase and we spends hours every day playing games.  He's had a hard time adjusting to Sierra going back to school and is in a very dependent stage.  It's been a bit exhausting as I am used to him being able to play by himself for bits of time during the day while I do the dishes or vacuum.  Lately he follows me around with his cars while I'm trying to vacuum the floor.  If I take a step back, he's right there.  I've almost fallen on him several times.  While I'm eating my lunch he pulls on my legs until I let him sit on my lap.  He's so tall now that it's pretty hard to eat over his head.  He even pulls up a stool while I sit on the pot.  Seriously.  It's like we are revisiting the early toddler days.  This too shall pass.  I know it will.  And some day I'll hold these memories dear.  I know I will.  But at the end of the day I really need some space.

I won a trip for four to Disneyland last April and we finally finalized the plans this month.  The trip doesn't include airfare but does include 3 nights hotel at the Sheraton and 4 two day passes to Disney and California Adventure.  Now I love winning, and I love a free trip, but I have to admit that if we were to pick an age to take the kids to Disney, I think we would wait several years.  Our freebie expires in April though, so after being given a great book about Disneyland I was able to figures out one of the lowest seasons and we have our dates set for the first week of March.  My parents are going to go too.  Sierra is thrilled.  Jaxon doesn't really get it but he's excited because Sierra is.  I'm really trying hard to be excited.  Isn't that terrible?    I've been to Disney once as a teen.  It was great, but I remember long waits, lots of people, and pretty scary rides.  I'm sure we totally missed the kiddie section, but I just have a hard time picturing the kids being able to stand in lines forever for everything.  And then there's the whole plane ride, and getting to the hotel, and getting to the park every day.  Man.  I'm a stick in the mud.  So I'm trying really hard to get excited and make this a wonderful memory for us all.  I think I can.  I think I can........

December

Sierra had the whole Santa thing figured out at 2, but she keeps the spirit alive for her brother

 

Playmobil Advent Calendars are awesome.  Except when you are 3 and try to open them all while Mommy is making dinner.

We still miss our Zoey.

Helping with some Christmas baking

Christmas tree decorating!

 

I got to watch so many performances over Christmas break!

Pepsi Lights

The wonder of Christmas

Jaxon was pretty excited on Christmas Eve :)

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

If you can't tell... he's pretty stoked.

Sierra lost 3 teeth over Christmas break.  The poor girl has a hard time eating!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.  Well, summer is actually the most wonderful time of the year as far as I'm concerned, but Christmas is a close second.  :)  The kids have been ready to decorate since the first of November so they had a ball decorating.  We spent a good part of the month sick just like always.  Christmas break and cooties go hand in hand.  Sierra got some sort of food poisoning the day before Christmas break started and didn't feel too hot for the first several days of break.  Luckily it was fairly minor and she was the only one that got it. 

Despite the germs, we had a pretty great break.  The kids got along so well.  It was amazing!  They played and played.  We played board games, they put on concerts for me, played dress up, did crafts, and read books.  We mostly stayed home but did visit the library a few times.  My sister hung out with us for a couple of days too!  It was great to not have to worry about going anywhere and just being able to enjoy being home.  I'm so grateful that the kids got along so well.  It doesn't always happen that way.

Christmas was busy like always.  With two families close by we usually end up pretty busy.  It was well spaced out this year though.  On Christmas day we had all morning and afternoon at home which was really nice.  We went to Jesse's parents for dinner that night and then spent time with my family the next day.

The kids woke at their normal time on Christmas morning and we all snuggled in our bed for a bit like we usually do on the weekends.  We read the Christmas story, sang happy birthday to Jesus, and headed downstairs for presents.  The kids were excited but always take time opening their gifts and are so thankful.  We are so blessed.  Merry Christmas everybody!  Wishing a new year full of blessings to you all.

November

Amazon delivery day keeps this kiddo busy for at least an hour!

We've been playing games like crazy around here!

Happy birthday Florence!  Sierra and I took a trip to Portland to celebrate Florence's 2nd birthday.

The kids started begging to put up decorations at the beginning of the month.  I made them wait until after Thanksgiving.

It will be a couple of weeks before we get our real tree, so for now they are very excited about this one.

We missed the Downtown Corvallis parade because Sierra was sick, but Thing 2 had a crazy night out.

School germs are such a bummer.  Sierra ended up having a fever the week before Thanksgiving that lasted 9 days.  She also had a sore throat, cough and runny nose.  The fever was pretty high and lasted and lasted.  I took her in after about 5 days of high fever (between 103 and 104 with Tylenol and ibuprofen) but we were sent home because it was just another virus.  I rarely take the kids to the Dr because I'm pretty anti-antibiotic and for the most part unless there's something super scary and abnormal going on, there really isn't much that can be done for a virus.  And 90 percent of the time it's just a stinking virus.  A high fever for that many days without some signs of improvement paired with a sore throat made me worry about strep.  Luckily she's only had that once in her life, the only time she's been on amoxicillin.  We've been blessed with straight and healthy Eustachian tubes and have never had an ear infection in this house.  I also have also done lymph massage on the kids glands around their ears when they are sick and maybe that's part of the reason?  Jaxon ended up getting sick on Thanksgiving but didn't have much of a fever at all.  It's so weird how their little bodies manifest the same germ differently!  He did end up getting a horrid croupy cough and between the two of them being sick, Jess and I went for several weeks with very little sleep which meant we got sick too.  We still made it to some turkey day feasts, but didn't stay for long.

Sierra and I took an overnight trip to Portland to celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday.  Sierra loves to take trips and loves her little cousin as well as her Aunts and Uncles that she doesn't see very often.  Jaxon stayed at home with Jess.  I left him partly because he still takes naps and the party was at his nap time and partly because I need a break from him sometimes.  He's a good sweet boy, but he's with me every minute of every day and it's good for both of us to have some time apart.  I don't get to spend as much time with Sierra now that she is in school all day, so it was also a good chance to have some mother daughter time.  That does include her sleeping on top of me for the whole night in my sisters bed.  We're talking some "close" one on one time :)  

Christmas is right around the corner.  It's hard to believe that it's here already.  We'll see how far into December we can make it before getting our tree :)

October

Isn't he the sweetest thing?!  He's just the perfect mix! He's a crazy monster truck driving and sweet dolly caring boy all at the same time. 

Yay for warm October sunshine and a GG that lives in town and has sidewalks :)

Go Packers!  They are hard core like their daddy!

A day off of school, so mommy runs "PE" class.

Sugar is actually useful!  She treed some coons!

Three naughty but adorable nearly grown coon babes and their mama came to our house to eat our chickens.  I won't talk about how the story ended. 

Jaxon was not sure about the pumpkin guts for the second year in a row.

When I told him to try with his hands this was the look I got.

And then there's my Sierra......

She actually liked the taste of raw pumpkin guts.

The carving was hard for Jaxy, so he drew on his pumpkin.

He was happy to not have to deal with the insides anymore.

All done!

Princess Jasmine

A Princess and a Super Hero.  I'm such a lucky mama!

We've enjoyed some fall sunshine, are getting into the routine of first grade, and had a fun Halloween.  I'm never ready for the rains to return.  Never.  When it gets dark and rainy and cold it is so hard to get out of bed.  And when I do get out of bed, all I think about is crawling back into it.  But I have two little "motivators" that keep me going.... and going...... and going.

We're still getting peppers and tomatoes from the garden but this was a rough year.  Our well started giving us problems early in the summer and we were not able to water much.  We put in a new lawn and needed to keep that watered, so our garden got what was left.  And it wasn't much.  The tomatoes and peppers did okay but the strawberries and corn were pitiful.  We had a nice crop of grapes and black raspberries again, which are favorites in our house.  We also got some regular raspberries this year because we fenced that part of the garden and the deer aren't eating them anymore.   We have about 6 trees in the field, mostly apple, that have suffered from not being in a place where we can water them regularly.  We hope that someday we'll have a nice little orchard.

Sierra is enjoying school for the most part.  She's very worried about breaking rules and getting into trouble at school even though that's never happened.  So we've had lots of talks about being "corrected" which is part of learning verses getting into "trouble".  She loves PE and music.  She's doing excellent in reading and is also enjoying math.  She comes home and wants to practice math so she makes her own workbooks.  They are mostly working on single digit addition and subtraction right now, but she likes to come home and work on triple digit addition.  It makes her feel so good that she is really getting it.  I'm volunteering for 3 hours a week in her class again this year while my Mom and Dad watch Jaxon.  She counts down to the days that I'll be there.  I'm doing a lot more office work this year than working with the kids.  But I go where I'm needed and get to have lunch with Sierra before I leave.

Jaxon's still extremely into cars and monster trucks but he also goes through phases of carrying babies around.  He's very gentle.  He talks to them, feeds them, and puts them to sleep.  He's always telling me to be quiet because his babies are sleeping.  He's growing like crazy.  Sometimes I wonder how long it will be before he catches up to Sierra.  His feet are just 2 sizes below hers.  He is so active and so picky that it worries me that he only seems to grow up and never out.  But he is healthy and strong.  We stopped taking him to the bathroom before we go to bed this month and he is making it through the night dry.  We haven't had any accidents at all.  Whew.

Halloween was spread out through a couple of days this year.  Philomath didn't have school the Friday before Halloween, so they had their Halloween party on Thursday and the city of Philomath also had a trick-or-treat time after school where the businesses handed out candy.  Sierra had fun at both.  The next day we took the kids to the Corvallis downtown trick-or-treat but it was really rainy, so we didn't last very long.  On the actual day of Halloween we took the kids to the Elementary school party and then to my Grandmas.  It was pouring so Jaxon ate some candy while Sierra talked Jesse into taking her to a few stops around my Grandma's neighborhood.  She loves to go to my Grandma's for Halloween because she gets trick or treaters and Sierra loves to hand out candy.  It was a busy couple of days but we all enjoyed it (except the pouring rain part).  The kids don't eat much candy so now I'll have some candy to stick in their Easter eggs when the time comes.  It works every year!  I just toss out the weird eyeball chocolates cause that's kinda creepy for Easter.  Ha.

Here comes the rain..... so it may be Spring before you hear from me again.... ;)