stuff

We have too much STUFF. !!!!

 

Everyone talks about the "mommy brain" one gets when they quit a paying job to work at home for the family.  Well, mine has arrived.  It's actually been here awhile. 

 

My "mommy brain" symptoms are:  brain mush. 

 

I swear when I am having a conversation with anyone the words in my mind get stuck in a gridlock.  The lights are on but no one is home kind of a thing.  It sucks and it's frustrating when I can't get the words out of my mouth.

 

To compound the situation I have a five year who won't stop talking for anything.  A three year old who copies EXACTLY EVERYTHING his older brother does...including all the talking AND then we have ALL this stuff. 

 

It's all noise to me. 

 

I already have a hard time formulating clear and concise thoughts and then when they get lost in translation it is beyond frustrating. 

 

I can't keep a clean house. 

I can't keep a quiet house. 

 I can't keep on top of the clutter. 

 I can't dismantle the piles of toys fast enough.

The dam to stop the "stuff" from coming into the house is beyond broken.

 

I feel like a one legged man in an ass kicking competition. 

 

I cried.  Or at least I tried to do something that resembled a cry but nothing came out and then I felt silly for (trying) to cry over stuff because crying wouldn't make the stuff go away.  So, I picked myself up off the floor and opened a bottle wine. 

 

No, the bottle of wine won't make the stuff go away either however, now I just won't care about the "stuff" until the effects of the wine wear off.  And, if I milk the bottle long enough....

 

Perhaps, while drinking the wine and with the "I don't care attitude" maybe I should continue to clean and de-clutter.  Maybe I should set a goal of 100 things to either: donate, sell/trade, or just trash. 

 

100 things in ten days.  Anyone on board? 

 

Let's open a bottle of wine, clear the air, space and counters, and then in turn maybe my brain will feel a bit de-cluttered and ready to be used again.

a celebration

So I mentioned it briefly before but we held a joint birthday party for thing-one and thing-two a weekend or two ago.  The theme was airplanes.  I didn't really have an idea on what I wanted the theme to be so I asked Bug and he said he wanted an airplane party.  Now, the Daddy-O and I are not ones to go broke trying to throw an event but I do like to decorate and play into the theme as much as possible without spending much. 

 

The invitations I always design myself with some help for ideas from the Internet land. 

 I did all the design work on Microsoft PowerPoint.  I prefer Publisher but I don't have access to that program anymore.  I purchased the airplane image file from Etsy.  A lot of my fonts come from Dafont.com which is free.  Awesome!  I had three invitations printed to a sheet of card stock.  Each invitation was personalised in the upper right corner.  Once they were printed I cut each one out, put a perforated line next to the words "boarding pass / ticket to party and then I rounded all of the corners so each invite would look like an airplane ticket.

 

I used my Silhouette Cameo to print out an airplane and cloud image so I could make my own garland. 

 

I went lame on the cakes.  I always want to do more then I ever do but with three young kids it's hard.  Plus, we all had a bad case of allergies that week because of the back yard overhaul.

 

Here are the birthday boys:

Bug who is five now

 

And Squish will be three very soon

 

Here is picture of me and my fam minus a few peeps.

 

The pinata fun: 

 

Some birthday singing: 

 

And of course....gift opening: 

 

Considering we were all sick and I ended up losing my voice that afternoon the day turned out great.  The boys had so much fun. 

 

week :: eighteen

Hello Blog Land:  Our little Annie girl is eighteen weeks, or four months and three days, however you want to view it.

 

This past week had a little more pep in it then usual....we headed to the lake for a 48 hour-ish retreat.

 

 

Dear little lake...we have missed you and we are so happy to be back. 

 

By my standards the water was freezing but the boys didn't care.  As soon as we arrived they wanted in the water.  I took two boat rides before I decided even that was too cold.  The weather was perfect.  I ended up wearing a sweater and some comfy mom sweat pants most, or all, of the time.  Hey, I was there to chill-lax not dress to impress. 

 

Here is Annie's first time at the lake and on the boat:

 

 

 

 

During the drive home we stopped in Marana for a bite to eat.  The kids saw this tree and wanted to climb around and act like monkeys.  I am not one to say "no" to much to the boys just needing to be boys so I decided to let them play while they yelled..."Mom, take a picture of this."

 

 

Just as soon as I took this last shot...Bug fell out of the tree.  He was barely off the ground but the tears and hoot and hollering that proceeded you would of thought he fell off of a roof.  

 

week :: eighteen

 

Annie is still just a happy little girl.  I don't know that I have mentioned her growling before.  It's the cutest and funniest thing but she just growls.  When a conversation is being held in a room she now likes to coo and baby talk a whole bunch and loudly. 

 

The moment I had been waiting for happened last night...

 

She started giggling a whole bunch at her brothers being silly.  It was so precious.  I sure hope this admiration that the boys have for her and her for them continues on in life.

Annie had her four month check-up today.  The doctor said that development wise Annie is that of a six month old.  Looks like another one received the gift of the Daddy-O's brains.

Her current stats are:
Weight: 13.1 lbs  23rd percentile
Height: 24.5"  48th percentile
Head: 41cm  59th percentile

week :: seventeen

The second most asked question I get since Annie arrived in our lives is...

 

"What's it like having three kids? 

 

My answer is always this:

 

"I haven't really noticed much of a change and maybe it's only because Annie isn't mobile yet.  Plus, both boys are just so smitten with her that they seem to be really understanding and forgiving that I need to give more of myself to her right now."

 

That is the short truth.

 

 

The long truth is this:

 

We are late for everything: leaving the house, arriving at places, eating meals. 

In my eyes the house is almost always dirty.

The dust is thicker. 

The piles of stuff to put away are bigger.

The messes are messier.

The dog hair balls are invading the house.

If it wasn't for breastfeeding I would never be able to sit down and put my feet up.

The clean clothes linger longer in the laundry basket.

Me time has been changed to the hours of 5:30am to 7am.

Peace and quite time is also between those same hours.

You are never alone in the shower, on the pot, or on the phone.

 

Please don't mistake any of the above as complaints.  It is just how our life is happening right now.  It is not the forever but just a blimp in it.  It isn't enough to make me decide that three kids are enough.  Most days I enjoy the chaos but I am human and from time-to-time I do miss being able to sit down and relax knowing the whole house is clean, the laundry is all put away and it will stay that way for at least an hour.  Maybe two.

 

A snapshot of our current life:

Yup, these three with those faces pretty much sums it all up. 

 

 

So what does Annie look like at seventeen weeks: 

 

She is still just a happy baby who loves to eat and loves to put anything in her mouth.  Including my elbow right now.  She is rolling all over the place and holds her head up really well.  I suspect she will be a young crawler. 

 

I had her down to just two feedings a night but something happened and she is now eating more.  Maybe I am just more tired and I don't count correctly.  Who knows.  I just feed her on demand and on demand to me is anything that is either a cry or a noise that sounds like it could be a cry or even if she thinks about crying.  I just feed her.

 

 

something quick....

...and something cute:

Since Annie was born I get asked a lot "which of the boys does she most look like?"  I decided to do some research:

Bug at three months:

Squish at five months: 

 

Annie at three months:

 

I wish I had a younger picture of Squish but about a year ago I plugged the cable for my laptop into the external hard drive, on accident, and it fried the external hard drive.  All of my pictures from May 2011 through May 2012 are not accessible for the foreseeable future.  I never ever stored my pictures in just one location.  I used to have a work computer at home and I kept all of those photos on there as my primary location but when I quit that job I deleted everything off of there and never backed up those photos to another source. Leason learned----a very hard, sad way!

 

 

week :: sixteen

It is 1:30am and all through the house you'll hear a sniffle, sneeze, hack and crying.  After a week of re-vamping our backyard to its former glory and dealing with the excessive amounts of air poisoning....um, I mean, air pollution from our dry climate we all, well except for Annie, have allergies, BAD.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

 

It sucks.  I haven't been able to get much sleep since Tuesday when it first struck me in the throat and ears.  Squish isn't doing well at night.  I think his average is an hours' worth of sleep before he wakes up crying and crazed.  It's awesome.  Thank goodness for good coffee shops on just about every street corner.

 

Well, after doubling the budget our back yard looks amazing again.  It's our own little in town oasis.  It's a place we like to be again.  Thanks to grub worms, hot summers, and destructive kids our back yard fell into a horrible state.  With the birthday party today the Daddy-O decided to put lots of love and money into it again.  I will post pictures just as soon as I get some good ones.

 

 

week :: sixteen

 

Our little Annie is a mover and shaker now.  Just this week she rolled over from back to belly and now she just rolls and rolls.  She is liking this new sense of freedom.  No more leaving her unattended on an elevated surface. 

 

She has also found her hands and feet and seems to have really great eye-to hand-to mouth control.  She has been gaining this control over her movements for the last few weeks but it seems just this week it was so noticeably mastered.  I know I have mentioned it before how much she doesn't like her car seat so Santa gave her one of those strips of toys that go across the handle of the car seat for entertainment.  Now she can play with it all by herself.  It's really cute to watch her slap the ones that make noise and pull the other to hear music.  I think because of this she now seems to be dealing with her car seat better. 

 

Have I mentioned her growling before?  I don't think I have been able to capture it on video yet but it is just adorable.  She does it has part of her baby babble.

 

This week with all the back yard renovations she finally secured her spot under our new Pink Lady apple tree.

 

 

When Squishy was born we planted his placenta under another apple tree we have and now it was time for Annie to get her tree.  Squishy was all fascinated by the placenta and asked a lot of questions about it.  At one point he even asked to smell the container it had been stored in.  We declined that request.  He is such a goof ball.

 

Annie is just a happy chunky baby.  Don't get me wrong...she can have some moments from time-to-time but all in all she is just happy.  And her smile...is just so infectious.  I am so happy that the Daddy-O and I went for number three and received our girl.  She is just a true blessing to all of our lives. 

and just like that....

I am hoping to delay week sixteen by only a day because I wanted to make this post independent and special.

 

 

So....and just like that we went from this....

 

(Bug at a few weeks old-February 2009)

 

To this...

(Bug at 5-his choice in clothes)

 

My first born little man turned five last week.  We celebrated his birth-day with dinner and cake with a few of his favorite peeps....his Grammy, Granddad, Papa and Grandma.  We will have a joint airplane party for both Bug and Squish this weekend.

 

 

A few weeks ago Bug mastered his pedal bike on his first try but unfortunately he was really too big for that bike so we bought him a bigger boy bike.

 

As you can see he was pretty excited and after a few adjustments on the new bike he was off and riding well.

 

 



week :: fourteen & fifteen

Oops....I am week behind.  Last week, I and along with 600 basting pins, buried ourselves into Squishy's quilt. 

 

 

I had to take over and completely reorganise the dinning room to make it happen.  I may have used four hundred extra pins to make it happen since I have my new fancy walking foot but after the first messy go-around I wanted to make sure that it would turn out right this second time.

 

I really did bury myself into this for him.  I want to give it to him for this third birthday which is right around the corner.  So all last week and weekend I spent basting and sewing.  I mended the spot where he cut it with my pinking shears and I hand stitched on my heart tag.  All that is left is the binding.

 

week :: fourteen  

 

During week fourteen Annie had her first ride in the RV.  We had to do some business/pleasure stuff in Phoenix over night so rather then strap her in the car seat and hear her scream and cry the whole time we decided to RV it.  It's not a cheap way to roll but with three kids and a dog it just might be the best way.

 

 

Annie is getting to be such a big girl wanting to sit up all the time so I decided to bring in the Bumbo for her.

 

 

During this week she also became familiar with the whitetails, axis and blackbuck in our garage butcher shop.

 

 

 

All the while Squish learned how to sing "Up on the housetop, click, click, click
Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick" while playing with his whitetail hoofs.

 

 

What? That's not normal at your house!

 

 

week :: fifteen  

 

 

 

We were finally able to confirm a little chuckle from this wee one.  I was rough housing with the boys Sunday night and there it was...a few times.  I don't know what set it off because I tried in vein to get her to do it again but she wouldn't give it up.

 

Little Miss is also in her bouncer thing-y now.

 

Extra dose of cuteness for the week: