Food! And more...

"Egg Noodle" Mac & Cheese!

 Starting out today.... Some of my favorite meals! Yippee! The first is a Low-Carb "Egg noodle" Mac & cheese. Great, not so quick, meal that my entire family LOVES!  We have actually had these about 1-2 times each week for the passed month... It really is that big of a hit for us. Basically, it is eggs, cheese, Lil' Smokies and cream. Plus a few dashes of nutmeg and a few more dashes of chili powder! Yum! Makes it oh so delicious! Even my kids gobble this meal down. It used to be that if we said Mac & Cheese, it meant the stuff out of the blue box... Yeah, you know the kind I meal! My oldest was so bad about it that he would not eat any type of Mac & Cheese unless it was "Character shaped" and out of a blue box! Until "we" (my sister) got him to eat "Spokane Noodles" (or Elbow Macaroni, because that is all they make in Spokane, WA. Or so he was told! LOL) . From then on it was OK to eat "Spokane Noodles" but only when he picked them out at the store because we FINALLY got some delivered to our store! Essentially, I stopped buying the special kinda because it was all they would eat and I would like for my kids to develop taste buds at some point! Now, as the oldest gets, well, older, he has started to try new things and in turn, his brothers follow in his foot steps! He tried this meal first (loved it) and then the 6 year old tried it (loved it) followed by the 4 year old who still has the jury out! The last time we had this meal (last night) I got my 4 year old to try just a few small bites, to decide if tonight was the night he was going to start liking it. Nope! He ate a hot dog and a hot dog bun (separately) and that was dinner (Dessert was Grape Jell-o). What got me started on not really giving the kiddos a chance to "pick" the meal for the evening was when my 7 year old asked if he could have some of Grandma's "Chicken" (it was pork, but we told him it was chicken). This was amazing to me. This child has only wanted to eat boxed Mac & Cheese, cottage cheese, cheese, boxed Salisbury Steak and a few other random things. He tried it, and loved it! Since then, not a meal has gone by where he didn't eat exactly what we did. And he didn't complain.

Pork and Asparagus (Yum!)

My son keeps telling me that he wants to try more and more new things because I really can cook (to his surprise!) Most of the time he prefers my Mother and I's "diet" food to the food he is eating. For example, we were having breakfast for dinner and I had made a low carb Dutch Baby Pancake(oven baked pancake) for my mother and I to eat and the kiddos and my Hubby were having regular old fashioned pancakes. Well, he wanted part of the Dutch Baby and after trying both decided that he really didn't like the "normal" pancakes. We also no longer buy "sugared" maple syrup anymore. There really is no point in having 2 different kinds of syrup in the house when it doesn't hurt the boys to have just a little less sugar for breakfast! This kiddo just never stops amazing me and I am sure that the end of that is nowhere in sight. He is a very bright boy. He even has requested that he get $2 extra on Tuesdays at school so that he can get a second helping of tacos at lunch time. Since there are only a few weeks left of school, why not! This is their last year at a "Brick & Mortar" School. Might as well let them make the best of it, right?


In other news for me...

We bought a printer to go with our nifty Internet capabilities! Woo-hoo! This is actually helpful because now I can just print my sister's Baby Shower invitations from home, rather than drive into town and pay to print at Kinko's! We also ended up picking up a really neat printer too! It has wireless printing, or eprint, so that we do not have to be hardwired into it to print from it. Another cool part to that is that we can email information from our phones (such as photos) to the printer! Well, the rest of my family can, my phone is pretty lame and doesn't send the picture all the way through! (Bummer!)

I tried to get a photo of the printer to load so that I could show everyone, but it doesn't seem to want to show up! So, it is an HP Officejet 4622 series if you want to see what it looks like! (for those who don't know or don't live here! LOL)

I managed today to purchase my outfit for my Sister's Baby Shower. I am very pleased with it. Since the shower isn't until July, I feel accomplished in having one more thing done! Also, I will be able to nurse the baby easily an still look good while doing so! I tried on 2 of the same thing but the green, yellow and blue just looked best on me. I also picked up a new tank that looks great on me! I never would have thought to try on anything with horizontal stripes because normally they make the person wearing them look 20x their regular size, but both the outfit I got AND my new shirt have horizontal stripes and they look great on me.

I also picked up a couple more pieces of material today for a couple more projects. Along with yet another ball of yarn! I have been crocheting something for awhile now and had been debating on how to do the trim. I could have used something that I already had at home, but this just about jumped off the shelf and screamed, "Use me for that! Use me!" So, I bought it! The fabric I found is my new favorite! It has Owls all over it! I keep gravitating towards the Owl water-proof material used to make cloth diapers too. I have no idea what it is about Owls and baby print that has me so obsessed, but I love it! If I could get my hands on many different kinds of Owl printed fabrics, I'd be a Mama/Auntie in heaven! I would seriously dress my 6 month old is all Owl clothing if I thought I could actually afford to buy all the material from the craft store! This stuff is so cute, I can hardly stand it! Now, if I could only win the lotto, I could buy the fabrics and then maybe grow a craftier side and make a bunch of Owl baby gear! LOL! For now, I stick to what I got! I have a few small projects to complete before my Sister finds out the baby's gender in 2 weeks. And then it is all out "gender specific" projects! Some of the things I am making for her and her baby I will be making the "testers" for myself and my baby!

Little Man is 6 months old now!

Speaking of my Little Man! He has decided that this week should be the week to cut 2 more new teeth! His top 2 front teeth started to break through this week and with that comes drool and both him and I have head colds as well! I notice this time around, that when he was cutting his bottom 2 teeth, him and I both got sick then too. Same type of thing, feels and sounds like a head cold. Stuffed up nose and sore throat with a tiny cough to go with it. Hopefully, his teeth will come fast and him and I will both get better. This type of cold is the type that causes you to e extra tired and with 4 little boys, that is an issue!

In addition to everything else today and this week, my Hubby started mowing the lawn! Yippee! I say started, because our ride on mower was broken until yesterday when our neighbor fixed it and got it running again. He was unable to finish because the belt for the mower blades broke! Literally shredded and came off in chunks! Yuck! Not a pretty picture. So, my Mother stopped in at Baxter's Auto Parts in town while we were in that area. They said they would have the part in 1 hour. So, we went shopping. Came back in 1.5 hours and still no part. Left, and went to another store, this time across town. And when we came back, still no part. Found our way to another store and then back to Baxter's and 4 hours later, part was ready! When we got home I took the boys to play at a friends house so that they could swim and jump on the trampoline and I could visit with their Mommy. Also so Hubby could finish mowing the lawn. Well, the part we were in town so long waiting for... Too long... Can't be used! Gotta get a new one! So, Lawn... Not mowed all the way! (sigh) Hopefully tomorrow it can get finished. We will have to wait and see.

That is all for now. Hopefully I can make it back in here to fill everyone in on more "Me Details" sooner than I did from the last post. I will try to start posting a little something even if it is literally a little something! For now... Enjoy your week! 10.5 more days of school left for the little ones! Yikes!

~TTFN

Recent Funny Moments! (Long)

To start things off... We bought the baby a new (to us) high chair. I was browsing Craig's List and found this high chair for $10! Awesome deal! Specially since all we had for Little Man was a bouncy chair and a Bumbo. Now, the Bumbo works great and I love, love, love the tray with it. But you are only supposed to use it at ground level and on a flat surface. Well, that is a long way down to the floor to sit and feed a baby at! So, High Chair time it was! And I am super happy with it. However, the little booger does not like to sit in it for long enough to get to eat in it. He wont even sit in it for Dad and I to eat dinner! He is spoiled I think!

Beware of this post... I feel it is going to be "picture heavy" since my last one was "picture lacking"! LOL

So first off this week. I was driving into town and off the side of the road I noticed something rather crazy. I had to do a double take because this is something I have never seen in my entire life growing up in Central Oregon. I looked out the window to look at this thing that caught my eye and I was in shock! It was a Wild Turkey! Live, wild turkey. Just walking down the highway! It was the funniest thing I have seen, at random, on that highway in a long time! So, that was funny #1!

Tanner, just after getting his hair cut! Yippee!

Funny #2: I am sure that my 3rd son is going to be completely angry with me when he gets older for sharing this, but it is going to happen. I was sitting on my bed in the late hours of the night nursing the baby the other night when my 4 year old gets out of bed and asks to go potty. Of course, I say yes and he walks out of the bedroom. Well, he turned to the right (our bathroom is to the left of our room) and just as I was getting ready to say something, he comes walking back down the hall. So I kept my mouth shut! Bad move mama... Bad move! He stopped just before the bedroom door and started peeing on the wall! The sound of him peeing was met with me yelling at the top of my lungs "OH! NO NO NO! TANNER WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!!" He pops his head around the corner and says "What?" So I repeated again... Calmer this time... "What are you doing? Go to the bathroom." His 4 year old fashioned come back... "I am!"... LMAO... The entire encounter had my Husband and Mother both in the hall trying to find out why I was yelling at the 4 year old when everyone else was trying to go to sleep. My Mother took Tanner to the bathroom to finish going potty while my Husband cleaned up the puddle that was forming in the hall and I calmed the baby back to sleep/nursing (I managed to startle him awake by yelling almost in his ear. Poor baby). My Mother brought Tanner back to bed and he was out within seconds of his head hitting the pillow again. That was, by far, one of the funniest moments I have had with any of  my kids! The next morning, he did not remember any of what had happened.

6 year old after his hair cut! (Little brother in the background)

On to my 6 year old...

He has been on a behavior card since February at school. He was acting out and the teacher was having a really hard time gaining control of him during the day. So, we agreed to do this card. It worked great for my oldest last year at school so I had high hopes it would do the same for the 6 year old. Well, he did good for awhile and then went back to a lot of the old "naughty" behavior. It is now getting closer to the end of the school year and field trips are starting up. He really wants to go! But, he had been bringing home some really bad reports with 3-4 negative marks per day! Terrible reports. So, I told him that I was not going to send him on any of the trips if he could not act correctly during the day before the trips. This coming Friday he gets to go to see baby chickens and all sorts of other things on a farm! And he is super excited for that because of his Aunts chickens. He is officially the chicken whiz due to his Aunt having 3 chickens. (I don't know where kids get some of this stuff sometimes) In any case, he has been informed that he has to act better at school in order to be allowed to go. He has had 3 days at school so far and.... drum roll please...... he has only brought home ONE negative mark for the entire 3 days and even that wasn't such a terrible thing! Monday and Tuesday he had terrific days! All "smiles" all day, both days! (the reports are designed so that he is either graded, per half hour, by a smiling, a straight mouthed or a frowning face, depending on his behavior) But today he brought home one single frown on his report. I was able to hear from his teacher that she had talked to him and that he says he is not going to let it happen again. So, as long as he brings home one more good report, he gets to go on Friday to the farm! And then at the beginning of June the class is going to the new swimming pool and they are walking there... Yuck! and Yikes! This is a Kindergarten class... walking over a mile, maybe 2, to a swimming pool and then back to school... not my boy! LOL. I spoke to his teacher about this as well and for every one's safety I am going to drive him to the pool and drop him off with his teacher. This way he also knows that I can come back and pick him up if he gets out of line as well. This may not be as easy as it sounds since I am dropping him off at the pool at 9 and then the baby has a doctor appointment at 9:50! But, his teacher has my phone number and she knows where I will be. All in all... He is turning things around for himself! I am so proud of him. Sadly, he will only be in that school for about 5 more weeks and then it wont really matter as much.

Oldest son after his hair cut!

My oldest, he finally let me cut his hair! (gasp!) He kept telling me that he wanted to grow his hair out so that he could put it into a ponytail like the guy on his video game does. So, I let him since it was cooler weather anyways so it didn't much matter to me. Weather warmed up though and we used our normal "ploy" to get him to cut his hair, "If you don't let Mom do it, Aunt Marcy will shave you bald when you see her next!" And he is in the hair cutting chair and ready for a cut! LOL I even told him he would feel much better having shorter hair since the sun was coming out more. He now tells me I was correct. (Gee, ya think?)  It was rather interesting to cut all 3 of the older boys' hair and my Husbands (no picture of his hair cut since he hates pictures of him... but scroll down and see the one I was able to sneak in... he he he...) all of their hair has a slightly different coloring to it. There is a dirty dishwater blonde, a light pale brown and a light brown for the kids and Hubby has about the shade of hair that would be the two brownish colors mixed together. (The baby has mama's dark brown hair, for now) We did the hair cuts outside and left the hair for the birds and they have so far made off with most of it!

We skipped our day trip, Nature Adventure, this last weekend because Daddy was home and off work. So, I opted for the kids to spend some time with their Dad. That seems to have helped them since they have all been missing him. This coming weekend/Monday (Holiday, no school) my Mother and I are planning on taking the kids out and about for the day. It should be fun... although, I do not have anything specific planned yet. I will have to update on that at another time.

I got my BzzKit on Monday and wore my Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heels Insoles for the first time ever on Tuesday! They KILLED the balls of my feet, but the arch support was great! I have a bunch of coupons if anyone is interested. I may try them again in the future but right now they are not for me. I think once I lose more weight it will be easier to get around in heels but for now... ouch! I also feel that if you are going to wear them you should have smaller feet than I do! I am a size 10 and the insoles hit my feet funny so that I was constantly walking on the part where insert meets shoe and it it was I think made my feet hurt more. It could have been the heels I picked to wear as well, but either way, not a comfy foot day for me. I may have a better review for them in the future, but as of right now, 3-4 stars out of 5!

I picked up the photos of the baby last week as well and I am hoping to be able to put together a few different things with the disk pictures for a few different family members. However, I have to finish all my Baby Shower gifts for my sister before that happens and I really did not help myself by finding a new site online that had a bunch of "fast to create" patterns on it. Now I have about 15 more things I really want to make for my sister and her baby. It is now to the point that I need to decide what to finish now and what to wait to finish to give to her after her shower and when the little one is born and there is also Christmas and other "events" after the baby is here where a gift from Auntie would be great!

In my hunt for free and/or cheap cloth diapers I found The Honest Company. They have a "Free Trial" on their diapers for $4.95 (the cost of shipping). Below you can see photos of what I got in my package. They allow you to choose boy, girl or mixed prints when selecting your package (I chose boy, duh) and then you could also choose to get the "essentials" package as well. This included Hand soap, body wash & shampoo and some other "soap like" products 5 in all. Although I have no issues with Jessica Alba, I feel she doesn't have the best product as far as "bang for the buck" goes. I will be posting pictures of the baby in these diapers this summer since I got them the size above what he is in now and the fact that they are printed makes me want to have them on him in "diaper only" weather!

For all who may be interested, The Mom, The Wife, The Low-Carber and The Learning Coach now has a Facebook page as well! Check it out and tap the "LIKE" button if you feel up to it, here! I set up the Facebook page in hopes of getting more people interested in my blog here. I like to see people caring about what I have to say. Plus, when 500 people have hit that like button I can get myself entered to win some really nice and some really useful cloth diapers! I really think I could do the cloth diaper thing for my last baby. We need to save money and what better way to do that than to not have to buy diapers? The contest I was going to enter before seeing the "500 likes minimum" would have given me a variety of 30 cloth diapers, cloth wipes, a wet bag and a few other things that would be great when cloth diapering! Sadly, no likes, no Facebook page, it kind of put a damper on things! Now, Facebook page and 5 likes, as of today at least! LOL.

The picture of Hubby I mentioned above!
Little Man was craving Daddy time and was not
into anyone else trying to get in on it! See the look?

Now I need to get off my computer and head on to crocheting some more so that I can maybe have one more thing for my sister completed in time! Knitting and sewing are also still on my To Do List as well. But they will have to wait for a time I feel more awake! The thing I am crocheting at the moment, I could do in my sleep! Not that I will try that. I also have a few other things I would like to type out on here but I am starting to feel my eyes slam shut and my fingers slow down! As always, Thank you for reading and taking the time out of your life to read about mine!


~TTFN

A not so short, short little bit by me....

Everything is listed today in bold, italic and underlined "topics" so that you can pick and choose what you read!

Sorry in advance for the lack of photos. I will try to not leave them out again. I love photos and hope others enjoy them when I post them as well.

ENJOY!

My Diet: I have noticed the last several week/months that my diet seems to be on a flat line. As in, I am not losing a pound from week to week. I think I need to get this part of me under better control. I was "Journaling" on my computer for awhile (I figure it could make for an interesting read one day) but I seemed to have stopped that once I started this. (Here's hoping for my reader's sake's that I never start a new blog without telling them, I may disappear here and be lost in new blog land! Yikes! LOL) I was keeping track of exactly what I ate, how many carbs were in each and every meal and every part of that meal. Such as; if I ate a salad I listed every single thing I put into it and that items carb count and then added it up!

I know that not many people would want to read the lists of things I consume on a day to day, week to week or even month to month basis. So, I do not plan on listing my food intake here, but I need to do something to get myself back to losing rather than being stuck. Or even worse, gaining! Ugh. I have lost around 35+ pounds since I had my baby almost 6 months ago (slow down time, slow down!). Only about 17 of that is from this diet though. The rest was all the "pregnancy" weight. I gained well over that during my pregnancy so it feels good to be below my pre-pregnancy weight. 

Deliveries of the package kind, not the baby kind: I have been waiting and waiting for my BzzKit from BzzAgent to arrive so I can test out the super cool Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel Insoles. My mother went and picked up the mail today and brought back a package. Sadly, it was not my BzzKit. But thankfully, it was another package we were waiting for! My Husband's Aunt recently went to Florida and offered to buy our family T-shirts while she was there. (She really is one o the neatest Aunties in the world! I love her to pieces.)She sent me a bright pink shirt that I absolutely love since pink is my favorite color. and the hubby and all 4 boys each got a shirt as well. The baby however got 2! LOL. He will have to grow into them but that is OK. It is the first "way too big to fit" thing he has gotten. I will post photos after I get them de-tagged and washed! One of them says "LIFEGUARD" on it and is red... too cute. Another is neon orange. I completely love them!

Online browsing, cloth diapers: I spent a lot of time today looking into cloth diapers. I guess simply looking for see if I could find any super cheap ones or even any companies that are giving away free cloth diaper samples or things like that and I entered a few contests to try to win some of them. I would love to do this. Specially after seeing all the super cute ones my sister has gotten and the fact that they have gotten super easy to do from back in the day when they were all the "fold your own" type. I love the All-in-One kind that you basically slap the thing on the kiddo and go. But I think I would prefer the pocket style. I am not sure since I do not own any. I even posted a craigslist ad as well in hopes that someone may donate to myself and my sister. And I even stated there that I do not care if they are pink! I will for sure put a boy in pink. I have no issue with that. (My 6 year old is the one who hates the color pink for boys and I have no idea why.) I tend to stray far from dresses on my baby boys, but pink is alright! I know how hard it is to afford diapers when 3 to 4 adults are working to make ends meet but now that only 1 person has a job, diapers will be even harder to afford. I would like to take as much stress off my family as possible and I wouldn't mind using the cloth diapers on little man. Also, I know this is something my sister will be using and she is getting all my boys' old clothes no matter what she is having. And to be honest, I will probably use any older looking items I get and leave the newer looking stuff for my sister that I get. But, I am not as "crafty" as she is and I do not think I could make my own cloth diapers like she can/does.

Plants: I started a "garden" inside last year. it consisted of a couple types of flowers, tomatoes, bell peppers and parsley. Well, all of the plants were taken outside except the parsley. I believe I have posted photos of it here recently. Now the plant is too tall to take photos of the entire thing! I would say that the entire plant stands roughly 7-8 inches tall and has started to sprout off of the other parts of the plant. I will attempt to keep better record of the plants growth as it was my first attempt at planting anything other than pre-grown flowers bought at the store! Even those never lasted long! This baby is growing though and just in the last month! Maybe it got jealous of the huge Avocado tree growing next to it (which appears to be waiting for the parsley to catch up!)

Well, that  is all for tonight. I am pretty tired and think that I can hold off until tomorrow to type a bit more! As always, I hope everyone out there is happy safe and healthy! 

Until next time....

~TTFN

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mamas out there

So, it is Mother's Day and I got woken up by my 4 year old, 6 year old and 5 month old (the 7 year old was still in bed). My 6 year old gave me my gift in bed. He made me a hand-made card and a bookmark with his school picture on it as the head and then a paper cut out body with magnets to hold the bookmark to the pages of the book. It is awesome! I received a bracelet (hand-made) from my 7 year old once he woke up. My Mother gave me a bath set that is Margarita scented and made by SkinnyGirl. And My husband gave me the newest Sookie Stackhouse novel by Charlaine Harris titled Deadlocked. I am only a page into it due to feeling exhausted! But I absolutely LOVE her books! I own all 12 books, including Deadlocked, and the last 4 of them are in hard back.

There is a funny story behind how I first started reading The Sookie Stackhouse novels and how I  managed to start reading them in order! I ran across a book that had just the lips of a vampire on the front, and being fascinated with vampires, I decided to buy it and read it. This was Dead Until Dark. It was a pretty good book. With the exception of the fact that she killed off most of the characters in the book. (I wont say who just in case you haven't read the books yet. Or watched the television series, True Blood on HBO) Once I finished the book there was a little bit of the next book, Living Dead In Dallas, in the back of it. So, of course, I just had to have that book too. And that is what kept me reading the series of books. I had recently lost my job at that point and reading was relaxing. I ended up reading each of the following 6 books, in order, over the next week. Yes, that's correct. In just one week I purchased and completely read all of Books 3 through 8. Then it was time to wait for book 9, Dead and Gone.This was in May of 2009. I purchased that book, read it and then had another year to wait for Dead In The Family and another year to wait for Dead Reckoning. Now, here I sit with Deadlocked and I am almost sad to read it. Specially since it very well could be coming to a close. I read on Charlaine Harris' website that she is only contracted to do 13 books on Sookie. This does not include any extra stories such as the ones in Sookie Stackhouse: The Complete Stories A Touch Of Dead. In any case, the stories are about a telepathic girl who dates vampires, werewolves, shape shifters and is, only slightly, a fairy! All those "creatures" mixed together, with the occasional appearance of a troll or elf, make for a great read! I applaud Charlaine for all her hard work on these books.

Picture A

The reason it has taken so long for me to get back on here and type up a post is because we had a rather busy week. I ended up going to town every day last week, Monday through Friday and Saturday too. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all due to helping out my mother and making sure she could get to her job. Then Thursday it was to help my Mother to get home from her job and we ended up picking up the materials for my Husband to build us a free standing deck. Well, we purchased the materials for him to build it. Friday morning the lumber was delivered to our house around 11am. Home Depot officially has my vote for best customer care award! My 4 year old was there with us when we were purchasing the lumber and the woman who helped us was wonderful. (See Picture A) She ended up giving him a Home Depot apron, a hat, a small tape measure, a Home Depot pencil, an LED flashlight AND let him pick any kind of candy he wanted off the candy rack (he picked out not only the biggest thing, but the most expensive), he chose a bag of Flipz pretzels (Yum! Too bad I can't eat those too LOL) He left being a very happy boy! She also taught him to say "Never Go To Lowe's!" and told him to kick and scream if we ever took him there. So now, whenever we ask him, "What do you not do?" he says, "Never go to Lowe's". It is sort of cute, however we had spent most of our time that day pricing lumber at Home Depot and at Lowe's, so he had been to both. Also, every day during the week (except Friday) I picked my boys up from school to avoid my 6 year old getting int too much trouble on the bus. Well, one of those days it was very very hot outside and I was trying to keep myself, the 4 year old and the baby all cooled off. We did this by letting the baby experience grass for the first time! He was slightly amused... until he fell over, then, not so much! See Picture B below.

Picture B

Thursday night we measured and marked off the area we wanted the deck built on. (The baby got sat down on the grass and did not like it one bit, at least not that time. See Picture C) Friday, I met my Mother and Husband with the 4 year old and 5 month old in tow at Fred Meyer where we bought 4 sling chairs, a glass topped table and a Chat Set (2 swivel sling chairs and a small side table). Later Friday afternoon/evening we all spent our time "relocating" our lawn. My Husband had dug out the area where the deck was going and had all of our grass to the point where we could move it to another spot. (By hand that was not an easy thing to do) We completed that and on Saturday, My Mother and I took all 4 boys on another "Nature Adventure". This time they got to feed Peacocks! Awesome birds. I really wished one would have fluffed up its feathers for the boys to see, But they did not, sadly. Only one had really pretty feathers anyhow. We found those lovely birds at Petersen's Rock Garden and Museum. (If you click here you can get a little bit more information from roadside america's website on Petersen's Rock Garden) I hope my pictures I took there turn out. However, I notice from looking online... People tend to take the exact same photos I took. And at the same angles too! (See Picture D to see the house that has had a lot of pictures of it taken over the years that thee is now a picture of My boys standing in front of! LOL) While there I was able to get more "into" the picture taking since my Mother held the baby. (Picture E and F) Well, she offered to put on the "baby backpack" as we call it, and tote him round. That meant Mommy got to chase kiddos down and that was just fine! We all had a blast!

Picture C

After the stop at Petersen's Rock Garden we went over to Tumalo State Park and had our picnic lunch and the boys enjoyed feed some of their crackers to a very demanding goose! My Mother threw 1 single tiny cracker at the goose and it was over from there. This thing would not stop coming back. I finally got my boys to understand that they could not feed the bird anymore or it would just keep returning. By this point it was hissing at them any time they would even move so it was a good thing they stopped. The boys then ran around and played a game with each other. You know, shooting, chasing, typical boy stuff! (Picture G is the boys playing at this park) I nursed the baby and then I needed to find a restroom. So to the car we went and off to the grocery store we went. (We needed to pick up some food before heading home too) Because my boys were so good all day, my Mother and I bought them each a donut. You would have thought they were in heaven. The 2 oldest, no dummies here, ate their donuts really fast. The 4 year old however... He took the chocolate icing off with his finger, then licked the donut clean and then ate the "bread" part last. He also fell asleep about half way through his donut and was out like a light until we stopped to pick up the mail on our way home. Poor little guy was all tuckered out!

Picture D

Picture E

Picture F

Picture G

Once home we got the groceries put away and then the kids were all off in different directions. The 4 year old was playing outside while watching Daddy put together the tables and chairs and the 6 year old earned himself some computer time and the 7 year old was also on his computer while the baby and I set off to the bedroom to nap and eat! And that pretty much brings us to today!

Picture H

I enjoyed myself this last week, regardless of how tired I was and still am. I also got my first shipment of many still to arrive! I had ordered more Whey Protein Powder from About Time since we use it in almost all of our baking. (Picture H) They had a trial offer of smaller packets of different flavors and I ordered the Birthday Cake and Cinnamon Swirl flavors in that and then I ordered one of the bigger jars of vanilla flavored powder. I also ordered my 2 older boys' school "Spring" photos. They just now came home with their class photos, I am sure it will be a bit before we get the Spring Photos back. I was supposed to pick up the recently taken photos of the baby yesterday. However, with being so busy I forgot! I will be picking those up tomorrow for sure!

Picture I

Picture J

Tonight, We ate dinner on our new deck while sitting at our new table! And those are the chairs too! Ha ha... (Picture I and J) As far as eating outside goes, it is something my entire family enjoys around this time of year. The weather is warming up, we are having highs in the 70's and 80's during the day which means that around dinner time it is still decently warm out. The main reason for buying this furniture was so that we can get our entire family up to the table at the same time and eat outside rather than inside where it can typically be stuffy and uncomfortable for any or all of us. I think that the set is pretty as well and couldn't be happier! The framework in the background of Picture I is the frame (or legs) of the gazebo that we purchased last year to have out in our yard to have a shady place to sit in the summer. Once the deck is stained and all set up the way we would like for it to be we will move the gazebo up onto the deck, attach it and the furniture will go under it! The deck is pretty, the chairs and table are pretty... I am happy with it! And my Mother seems to be as well. And that is what counts! Now, I am so very tired. I feel it is time to lay down and put on a sappy movie... The Vow is on my "To Watch" list. Maybe that is the way to go! Happy Mother's Day to all the Mama's! I hope you enjoyed yours as much as I did mine! And a super special Happy Mother's Day to my sister and my mother... Sister: Next year your little one will be here and you will know the joys of being a Mother as I have found them and as our Mom has. I love you and I am so incredibly happy for you! Just over a month and a half away from the baby shower... yikes! I may need to step away from my book and go into super knit and super crochet mode! Mother: Thank you for all you do! I truly hope you had a great day relaxing as much as possible in a house full of boys! LOL! I love you more than anything! I will be back to update everyone on everything again! Thank you for reading and taking the time out of your life... To read about mine!

~TTFN!

Sunday/Monday were busy... And other fun info!

Picture A

On Sunday, my Mother and I took my 4 boy on a "Nature Adventure"! At first, they did not like the idea of not being able to take ANY electronics in the car with them. My kids are way too high tech! LOL. Once we got on the road they found that things can be more interesting if you actually take in your environment instead of letting it fly by you while you have your nose in a game. We got up that morning, ate breakfast and had showers and got on our way. My husband had worked the night shift the previous night so getting the kids out of the house was a bonus for him. He got to sleep in a silent house! Lucky him. After the kiddos got passed the fact that they could not have any electronics we found our way to Sheep Bridge. Not as impressive as it was when I was last there and could remember it. We ended up only stopping to use a campground potty and to let the boys run off some steam there. They ran back and forth between the "road" and a picnic table. They had a blast with that. Back in the car we got and drove a few miles down the road to South Twin Lake. Once there, we did not park or exit the vehicle. We found there that they are now charging for day use. This is new to our family. If it is a yearly payment, we may consider giving them our business. If it is a daily due, they may have lost us. We usually go to the lakes a lot during the summer, that one in particular, and if they are going to charge us then we simply can not afford it. After that disappointment we drove up to North Twin Lake to see if the "parking fee" was required there as well and... We were in luck! No fee required at that lake. Not for day use at least. Since we were there, we got out and let the boys explore for a bit. (Picture A) The boys did great here until they started throwing someone else's firewood into the lake. That is when this mom decided to say we were don there and start walking to the car. This got their attention and made them realize that Mama was not fooling around with the misbehaving stuff!

Picture B

After getting back into the car and getting the boys to calm down we drove a little ways down the road to Fall River Campground. (see Picture B) There we walked down to a bridge where the boys got to look down at the water and see that people often toss coins into the river and use it as a wishing well. They found that to be very interesting and spent a bit of time looking into the water and finding different types of coin on the bottom of the river. They also found a larger chunk of "Witch Hair" and decided to toss that into the water to watch float down stream. (Picture C) All in all, we had a pretty good day. After the river and lunch at a picnic table we loaded back into the van and drove down to The Fish Hatchery. While there the boys spent $1.50 on fish food and fed all the different sizes of fish. from the tiny sardine sized fish to the ones that are almost as big as the baby! This was the stop that the 4 year old requested at the beginning of the day. He just had to go to the fish place. I remember also going there as a child. We even bought some of the food there and after feeding the fish at the hatchery would bring leftovers to my guppies who loved that stuff.

Picture C

Once the Fish Hatchery trip was over, my Mother and I decided we were getting tired and that it may be time to head home for the day. We left the house at 9:30 A.M. and at that time it was 1:30 P.M. We used the restroom at the hatchery and loaded up once more. The boys had began to act as though we could do these kinds of trips once a week (and that is the plan now) so we felt a treat was in order. Instead of turning to go home, we drove down to Thousand Trails and took the boys the the little grocery store there and let them pick out an ice cream each. Logan, my oldest, picked out Vanilla DIBS. Riley, the 6 year old, chose an ice cream SNICKERS bar and Tanner, the 4 year old, decided to follow in his mothers footsteps as a child and got the classic, ice cream sandwich! Yum! It was a great day all together. The boys had ice cream in their bellies and they were all happy little campers. We came home, Dad was still sleep and slept like a log while we were away, and Logan returned to his computer while Riley watched him play games and Tanner went to the bedroom for a nap. (He did this without too must of a fight)  This left me with some time to catch up on "games" and getting all of my pictures from the day onto my computer so that I could share them here! I have found that since I started my blog I tend to have my memory card inserted into my computer more than it is in my phone. I have it in my phone while out and about and then when we get home I usually will turn the phone off, remove the card, place it in the computer and off I go with getting all my photos onto the computer. I feel a blog without pictures can become boring after awhile. Speaking of pictures from the other day, my mother got some great shots of all 4 boys by themselves while we were at the river eating lunch. After she sends them my way I will share them here. Her phone was almost out of battery yesterday from taking so many photos that she wanted to wait until we got back home. Soon enough she will send them. She is a woman of her word! (And I love her for it!)

In other news...

I am still awaiting my BzzKit for the Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel insoles BzzCampaign. I am super excited to do this campaign. It is my first campaign and I have a thing for heels! I love to wear them but they hurt my feet! I have pretty high hopes for this product. I want to be able to show off my "killer legs" LOL. (I have no idea if they are that great, all I know is what I am told. Ha ha...) It has only been 4 days since I signed up for this campaign and i am impatient. I want this product really bad! But, they say to wait 14 days before "searching" for the shipment. We shall see how long it takes. In the meantime, I will sit back and wait to see if any more BzzCampaigns come my way. I hope so, because who doesn't love to try out new products and state their opinion? I know I love to! Keep looking forward to the Dr. Scholl's For Her post!

Picture D

I have to say, all my children have their own little "ticks" or things that make them unique. The Baby's latest thing is how obsessed he is with the strap to his changing table. If he is crying and I can't get him to stop, 9 times out of ten all I have to do is put him on his changing table and hand him the end of the strap to play with. (Picture D) It really is sort of cute. And since it calms him down almost instantly, it is a little relaxing as well! LOL He has also started to stick out his tongue while watching me eat my dinner. (Picture E) This is from a few nights ago when he decided he had to be held while I ate dinner. (This being held thing is not something I consider to be "cute" at all) However, the tongue was popping in and out of his mouth the entire meal. Sometimes he would just let it hang out. Which is how I got the picture. I think it may be, in part, due to teething. his top 2 teeth have been working on coming in for a couple weeks now. He has also managed to rub his bottom lip raw on the inside with his 2 bottom teeth because he sucks on his lip. All of his little baby habits really are cute. I am just thankful he has decided to start sleeping through "most" the night. Granted, he is a breastfed baby so I am sore by the time he decides to wake up between 4 and 5 am to eat! LOL.

Picture E

That brings us to today! Since the Husband had to be to work at the butt crack of dawn, I got to get up and take the kiddos to school. And that means up and ready to leave for everyone by no later than 7:45 A.M. but that wasn't such a big deal. My oldest even woke me up today. He came into my room shortly after the alarm went off and told me it was time to wake up his brother. Alright, the 7 year old's internal clock is set to school time. Just in time for the school year to almost be over with too! LOL He has always been pretty good at getting himself up and going. When he first started school, he was always in bed first and always awake first. Most of the time he was up and dressed before I was. But back to the day at hand. We got up and dressed and showered and fed. Finally followed with loaded into the car and on our way. The boys got to school with about 5 minutes to spare to get to class. Now it was time for my Mother, 4 year old, 5 month old and myself to head to town for a fairly busy morning. We went straight to the coffee shop (Starbucks, of course) and I ordered a Venti Sugar Free Mocha Breve Latte instead of my regular Carmel one and I was not impressed. Tomorrow is another day however and I shall order my normal drink and be happy with a caffeinated beverage to keep me going that also tastes super duper yummy! I went into my OB-GYN's office today for my 10 days off blood pressure medication blood pressure check and my BP was pretty great, for me, 118/80. I normally have a pretty high BP but when I had my youngest son I ended up having postpartum pre-eclampsia. Typically, women only get Pre-E during pregnancy and the best cure for it is to deliver the baby. Well, I had already done that part. This is what caused my entire family to panic. How could I have been saved if the "cure" was to deliver the baby that I already delivered? Lots of BP medications! I was on 4 different types while in the hospital and when they sent me home, they sent me with 2 of them. I took one once a day every day for 3 months and another twice a day for 4 months (roughly). Now the hope is that my BP can stay in check. How do I manage that without medicine? I breathe and attempt to ignore those things that bother me. I even have to ignore a lot of what other people are saying so that I don't snap at them. But, when I do this, it tends to start an argument. So, I will listen to everything... But I am going to stop responding. Hopefully this doesn't cause any sort of issue when it comes to the safety of anyone and everyone. I am to return to the office again in 1 month to see how my BP is then. If it is still in the pretty good range then, no more medicine! That would be nice! But if it is up the Doctor will decide how to adjust my medication levels to keep me on track. Hopefully, I will be able to stay well at the same time. I ended up having a pretty bad head cold and my Primary Care Doctor (a nurse practitioner) gave me a medicine that she did not check to see if it was compatible with my BP medication and caused me to have an extremely painful 3 day migraine! That sucked!

Tomorrow should be a rather "easy" day to done with. I will be taking the kiddos to school again and then taking my Mother to pick up her car at the hospital (where Hubby works) and then I get to entertain the 4 year old and the 5 month old until my appointment. (Therapy, oh joy) I was supposed to take the time to look into a couple websites and a conference call line for women with postpartum depression, I just didn't have the time. which I will let the therapist know and I am sure she will be alright with my slacking as long as I promise to look into them before our next, and last, visit. One of them I am not sure I will be doing however. It was nice of her to find the information for me on the websites and chat groups and all but one of the sites costs $45 just to be able to discuss how you feel. I can tell everyone here all that for free! Why waste money on a place to vent when I have a blog (and Facebook!) After my appointment I will meet back up with my Mother and leave her car for Hubs to have a way home. I believe we are going to be hitting a few stores tomorrow, but I could be wrong. Those may be waiting until Wednesday or later. My Mother has a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon and I may take the 4 year old and 5 month old to check out the new church next to the dentist called "The Door". However, it will be close enough to time for the big boys to be getting out of school that I can zip over there (also next door to my Mothers dentist) and pick them up instead of letting them get into trouble on the bus... Again. If they had a pretty good day at school we will head over to the library (again, also next door, but technically across the street) so they can each pick out a movie or two and a book. My boys love the library and I think that is awesome and just how it should be. Then home for the family and Dinner time. Tonight was spicy cheese stuffed burgers on a bed of lettuce topped with ranch, mustard and "Chipotle Madness" BBQ sauce (YUM!)... This sort of feels like our fall back meal. When we don't know what to cook, we cook burgers and put them on top of lettuce and call it a meal. Not bad since it is quick and painless with the Foreman grill. Hmmmm..... What to eat, what to eat. I will have to update everyone when I know!

Sleeping Wyatt after our fun filled Sunday.
(He just so happens to also be asleep as I finish up this post)

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read about my busy days! I do enjoy sharing with everyone. Even my readers in Germany and Russia! You guys are great! Thank you for returning to read the way you do. I think my boys have the right idea....

~TTFN

Been a busy Mama!

I know I haven't posted in a few days but it was sort of a busy week/weekend...

This was last summer while #4 was still in his womb!
My how they change.

I spent the weekend keeping the kiddos calm and relaxed (for the most part) so that they were not disturbing their Dad. He started his job Friday night and was asleep all day long to be able to go to work all night. The boys and I made the most of our "alone time" together. They had Root Beer Floats for dinner one night and to top that off they also got to have cookies with their floats. That was the highlight for them.

During the days we would spend the majority of the time just being quite and not waking up Dad. My oldest spent most of his time playing computer games or playing on some sort of an electronic toy. The 6 year old spent a good chunk of his time playing with Lego's! He enjoyed the time away from little brother (the 4 year old) since he always knocks over his big brothers creations. Now that little brother is home again, the Lego's have found their way back into hiding... in other words, his box on the end of his bed! LOL! I am surprised that my husband was able to work all nights, sleep all days for 3 full days/nights and then still manage to sleep an entire night to be awake in the morning. I would not have been able to sleep that first night. But I guess it just shows that I am getting used to being sleep deprived! LOL.

On another note: I am a BzzAgent! I mentioned this before in a different post. Well, after almost convincing myself I was NEVER going to get on a campaign, I checked my e-mail today and there was the invite! I get to take part in the Dr. Scholl's For Her BzzCampaign! Yippy! I am excited. Heels have always hurt my feet and now I have the chance to wear my heels and dress like a girl! Woohoo!!!  I will be letting all of you know how well I enjoy them once I have then in my hot little hands (or on my feet rather) and rockin' my high heels again! I am one of those women who is a "closet fashioner" (if that makes sense) . I completely enjoy getting all dressed up and girly looking. I have several pairs of high heels, yet I never wear them because they hurt my feet. And who wants to get all dressed up and then be in pain? I know, I know... No pain, no gain... Well, I say forget that! I want to be pain free and all pretty at the same time. However, I have no clue where I am going to go all pretty and girly looking. But I am going to dress up, feel good and look great! And my feet will thank me for it! Can not wait! Ah! *End side note!*

I know this is also off subject of my "normal" topics, but I feel it should be out here. Anyways, I am glad that I am not on unemployment at this time. They are making it crazy to just claim a week of benefits. You have to claim either online or by phone and then you have to record (by text or voice recording) where it is you have applied for work at and what the out come was. At least that is my understanding. When I was on unemployment they just had you call in, do your thing and hope and pray you were honest! Of course, I was in a program, so I was being honest. It took me well over 2 years to find a job. I worked that job for roughly 4 months and then I found out I was pregnant and with the flick of a pen, I no longer had a job! And once my hubby tried putting me on his insurance during said pregnancy, they fired him as well! (I have not nice feelings toward that place now) I will not say what place of employment that was though. I am happy now to be a stay at home Mommy to my boys and I am so excited for next school year. I will get to have nice kids again. LOL. Anyways, I have noticed that 9 times out of 10 that unemployment pays better than actually working. some people will earn twice the amount they were. Where others will make half the earnings. But the other thing I have noticed and what brought this thought to my mind. Was celebrities help out the "down and out" type of people most of the time. At least that is what I notice. But these people all look as though they haven't really had it all that bad. The one family that came to my mind was recently on the Ellen DeGeneres show. They made $500-600 every 2 weeks. That is more than my own husband got on unemployment. He only made around $450 or less for every 2 weeks. This family got a car, $10k and because the Dad did a "dance dare" he also got a $100 gift card. Now to me, the gift card was an alright prize for the dance dare, go Ellen for giving those braver than me people a little something. But Whoa! $10,000 and a new Ford Escape (coolest new car around with that wave your foot to open the back hatch thingy) just for being "down and out"? Oh... My... Word! **love you Ellen, come visit me please!** LOL. I would have a heart attack if Ellen actually showed up here. Not only do I love her, but I think the shock of a celebrity giving 2 plops about me and my family would do me in. Then again, never going to happen... So no need to dwell on my chance to meet one of the funniest, bravest women I have ever laid eyes on.

Just finished nursing, waiting for brothers at the park!
He is not amused. LOL

Now, I have come to a point this evening where I feel that if I continue to write, nothing will make sense anymore. So I leave you all with my "broke lady" rant on celebrities and how they help the "down and not as out as they seem", while the rest of us "simple folk" pull up the rear! .....sigh.... 'Til next time....
~TTFN!