Summer Time in Central Oregon! Woo hoo!

All 4 boys Chillin' on the couch, watchin' TV!

Summer is here and my boys are finally out of the Brick and Mortar School system! They "retired"(as I like to call it) from school at the same time as my Oldest Son's Teacher! She was an awesome Teacher, She was My First and Second Grade Teacher and now she also taught my oldest child Second Grade! I was so Happy that he was going to have her as a Teacher this last year. She did a great job Teaching me and I knew that he would have just as much fun with her, and he did! That boy is so much like me when it comes to some schooling things it is actually funny! We can both do Math like it was a Sixth Sense. It is sad to see her go, but at least she taught my son before leaving. And I got to see her again. I was/am very close to my Elementary School Teachers. It was very Hard for me to call her by her first name. When she would call to discuss my Son and would say her First Name instead of Mrs. ....... I had to take a minute and go, "Oh, Yeah, You!" to myself! LOL. On the other hand, it was perfect timing for her to retire at the same time that I decided to take my kids out of the "traditional" school system. However, it had me wondering at the same time, How many Teachers can my oldest son get to retire?! LOL. Granted, as far as I know, His Kindergarten Teacher is still working. But, his First Grade Teacher AND Second Grade Teacher BOTH retired after Teaching him! What does that say about my child? LOL I say, it says he had "old" Teachers! He he. Either way, she was a great Teacher for well over 20 years and now she can enjoy her retirement!

For our Summer fun we have a lot of different things planned. For one, My Sister's Baby Shower is July 7th, we will be going to Vancouver to stay in the same Hotel as my Sister and her other Half so that he can watch the 2 middle boys in the Hotel while we go to our Cousins house for the Shower. At the end of the last week of June my oldest Son will be going to stay with my sister in Spokane until the Shower when he will come home with us. He gets to attend my sister's second gender scan for her baby. The one last week was inconclusive. They caught a quick look at what the tech thought to be "boy parts"! I feel bad for that. I know, a baby is a baby and we are all thrilled for my Sister and her other half because they have wanted a baby for awhile now. But this would be boy 5 for our side and boy2 for her other half's side. Either way, Their little bundle will some day be in the outfit you see on my little guy! It is, what we are calling, the Lumber Jack (or Jill) outfit! The "onsie" is a long sleeved button up plaid shirt, much like what you can find for grown men! The pants are corduroy, and a funky olive green, but cute! And it is a full out onsie style shirt, size 6 months! We figured, put some sort of flowery something or pink in "her" hair and it could look girly! This coming from the Mother of 4 boys who insisted on wearing over-all's for the longest time after about 2 years old! LOL. I think that if I had had any girls, they'd end up tom boys! LOL But, we shall never know now! Any who, back to the "Summer Fun"...

I took on the Pool Cleaning this year and so far, I kinda want to scream! We seriously need to get a cover over that thing so that we (the me part of that) don't have to keep on scooping bugs (gnats) out of the pool, 15 times a day! But, hopefully with using the pool vacuum and a few other added "cleaning tools" I can keep the pool clean and warm and comfy all Summer long! And the kiddos all love to swim, so that will help with some of their being "occupied" this Summer. A few other things "in the works" are, a driving trip to visit some of the "local" dams. Also, we intend to go to Lake Billy Chinook or more importantly, The Cove Palisades (for more info on The Cove, follow the link)!!! My Mom used to take my Sister and I there all the time when I was a baby! I have only been back there a handful of times since I "grew up". That trip will be one of those, get the kids to bed super duper early and then be ready to leave the house at 6 AM to get there around 7:30-8 in the morning and spend all day, packing Breakfast and Lunch as well as snacks and then coming home for Dinner that night! I am extra excited about that one, if you can't tell by the details! LOL Another option in to "travel" the Cascade Lakes Highway again, do some Hiking, picnic by the lake, swim. All that fun stuff! Some of the Lake trips I hope my Hubby will be able to attend. It sorta feels like he will be missing out this Summer as far as "Adventures" with our boys go. We also talked about going to Smith Rock Park, that is a steep climb if I remember correctly. My Mother said she did it with me strapped to her back, so I guess I will be able to do it too, if we go! That is one of my least favorite trip ideas, I never really had a ton of fun there as a kid. One of my favorite places to go hiking is Benham Falls (the link actually takes you to a site for the Falls themselves, but you get the jest. LOL, you can hike to the falls too from Lava Lands Visitors Center at the base of Lava Butte) I took my 2 oldest there with my Hubby and a Friend and we hiked for awhile! I was pregnant with #3 and the other 2 were 2 and 3.5(almost 4) and they had a blast! Of course, we were hot and had some water with us and ended up getting a few scraps and cuts from tumbling over roots and such, but it was a fun experience with my boys! But those are just a few of our "Nature Adventures" I think we can look forward to this Summer. Otherwise, we will be home by the pool(s) (The big 48" tall pool and the tiny waiting pool for the kiddos that we got last year).

The only thing I said was: 

"Let me get a Picture of you 3." 

And do you see the looks I got? LOL

My kiddos continue to keep "hamming it up" any time they are out and about and know that I am wanting to snap some cute photos. For the most part, except for a few days here and there, we picked up the 2 oldest boys from school for the last few weeks of their "stay". One of those days we walked up the hill from the dentist's office to the school with the baby and he was enjoying us being early! His cute little "Tot Goggles" are what I think makes this photo extra neat! He looks so laid back and relaxed in his stylish shades, but then he is sticking his tongue out which makes it look like "Hey, get that thing out my face Mom!" or... "Yum, Phone, eat!" LOL I swear, each time he sees my phone, the tongue comes out and the hands fly up! I partially blame this on the guy at the Doctor's office who was talking to the other woman at the counter while I made another appointment and he handed over his phone while saying, "It's ok, I have kids and Grandkids, He can't hurt it any more than they do!" OH MY GOODNESS!!! This was no cheap phone either! This guy willingly handed over his expensive smart phone and basically said "Go for it! Break it! I don't care!" to a 6 month old! YIKES! Mr. Not Very Bright Award has been taken for the year! LOL. In any case, since I had to literally RIP the phone out of his hands to get him to give it back to Mr. Not Very Bright so that I could help Mr. Gimpy out to the car (LOL this was when my oldest was on crutches, he had gone to my appointment with me too), the baby almost attacks phones now. It is almost frightening how fast he lunges for a cell phone!

The boys are all excited to be on Summer Vacation now. I even have my ^ year old set up to do "Summer Camp" through his online school for next year. He was super excited when I told him he had the opportunity to do it. Starting Monday at 9 AM he will be on the computer, Monday through Friday, for 1 hour in his Summer Camp Class. He is starting with the Twisty Tales Camp! I think he will really enjoy it. The "camps" are split by grade level and allow the kids to sort of pick the "class" they want. He picked Twisty Tales, Dinosaurs and Science Explorers for his Summer Camp Classes! They are different each week and in the middle of it all he will be taking 2 weeks off from it, thankfully we have the baby shower in the middle of the 2 weeks off! LOL. The first Camp starts at 9 AM and another is at 10 AM, Depending on the Camp and the week, the time changes as well. My oldest has decided NOT to take part in the Summer Camp thing this year. Which is fine, he would have to skip one of the weeks anyways so that he could go to his Aunt's house and not have to worry too much about anything but helping out his Aunt and spending time with her and his Uncle for what may be the last time, for a while at least. I am not so sure she is going to want my rug-rats running around and having to take care of them as well as her own new little one. He may change his mind once his little brother does it a few times, we shall see. He has different camp choices and at different times for his grade though. He could do Water Safety, Dinosaurs or Boys Book Club. But he said he doesn't want to read this Summer, odd! He loves to read! Silly Kid! Only time will tell. He might see his brother having fun next week and decide that he too wants in on the experience. When they all start to get older I may look more into other actual Summer Camp options. But for now, online works awesome!

Showing off his top 2 teeth in a giggle!
(came in third and fourth)

Showing off his bottom 2 teeth!
(came in first and second)

If I haven't mentioned it before, the baby has been cutting teeth and drooling like a super leaky faucet! I do not remember my other boys "leaking" this much! His pillow he sleeps on his soaking by the time we get to his "middle of the night feeding" and during any day time naps. I almost feel like I need to wring the thing out! He is constantly drooling! It is insane! I am sure they did the drooling thing, maybe I just wasn't as observant! LOL. This IS the first time I have been home with my baby at this age and wasn't so tired from working that I just wanted to sleep. I have always had to go back to work and do the whole working full time thing to support my kiddos before now. Hubby has that end covered now. (The working thing)

At the park on 6/14/12

Maybe it is just me but I think he is growing up so fast! Granted, he is "small for his age" according to the doctor's office, but he is advancing and is always so alert, when awake of course. He has even started to sit up, instead of lean forward. See him showing off in the photo taken at the park? He was enjoying the grass. He soon after this decided he wanted to plunge forward and EAT the grass, which caused him to roll over to his belly. Either way, he was actually enjoying the grass, this was a first. He normally cringes away from the grass.

Now that I have basically filled your minds with my life and my boys' lives, I shall say Good Night! Or Good Morning, depending on when you are reading! I feel tomorrow will be another pool cleaning and outside day. After my 7 year old decided to vomit in the car today (thankfully most of it was caught by blankets and such on the floor of the back seat) I finally made it to the store to buy Sunscreen for the boys so that they will be able to play outside and not get sun burnt as the 7 year old did the other day when we played outside for the majority of the day so that Dad could sleep. Hopefully I can get more color on my legs! LOL We shall see! They may be underwater in the pool! I will update... Hopefully sooner, rather than later!

~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

A 5 months old's adventures in Photographs!

Today was one of those days that went pleasantly well. LOL. Started out by getting out of bed and showering... no set back there. Decided I would curl my hair so that maybe I could get into a photo or two with the baby... burned my thumb on first curling attempt. Second curling attempt... burnt forehead! Said eff it, unplugged curling iron, ran brush through hair, walked out of bathroom with sore thumb and forehead in tow (uh, Duh! LOL). The burns alone made me have one of those "This Day Is Gonna Suck!" kind of feelings. Well, I know you are wondering... How did this day go? Here it is!

Mr. Serious... He tries not to be photogenic! Ha ha!

After the curling iron flub up I got my boys to the bus stop, came back home, got the baby ready to go have professional pictures taken and then got going in time to make it to the appointment on time. We ended up with plenty of time to spare because we left early enough to get my Husband to his appointment and then drive back across town (the long route) and get my Starbucks, then we found an amazing parking spot! Woo hoo! I keep saying "we" because my cousin was with me for the picture taking process today. What a great thing to take family to do when you have them over for a visit right? (That part gets better, tomorrow she is taking me into the Social Security office so I can ask them some questions) We ended up having a bunch of fun with my little baby boy. Who, I can hardly believe is 5 months old already. Feels like yesterday when my sweet little man was born! We got some great poses in that I fell in love with. I am so thrilled that I only walked away from there with buying one of all but one pose. I also only spent $7.99! Go me go! I never spend that little on photos! Not professional ones at least! LOL. Because I am a member of their "club" I receive a free 8x10. Because Mother's day is coming up, I got to choose a free 16x20!!! And last but not least, for my 4 year old's birthday promotion and again for being part of their club, I am getting a collage that has 3 of the poses on it, for free! I am super excited about these photos! I can not wait to share some of them here with everyone! In the long run of the picture taking the baby started to get upset. Understandably so when you hear how many different pictures were snapped of him. How many times that bright light flashed in his face. And how many different times he had to be moved around! (suspense getting to you yet?) So, the amount of times my little guy had to deal with all that? 42. Yes, indeed. 42 times! 42 photos of little man! He was a trooper though. We got some great photos. Excellent memories. And not to mention, I held back and did not over spend! Again I say, Go Me Go! I went to that studio with $47 in my wallet and left with $39! Not bad! Not bad at all. It turned out to be a pretty great day after all!

Tomorrow after the Social Security office my Mom and cousin are heading to see my sister and spend the weekend and part of next week with her and then they are bringing my 4 year old home! Yippee! I have missed him terribly but I have also come to realize, he is "The Loud One". Every family has one, he is mine. However, I also notice it is easier to take care of one less child no matter which one of my wonderful boys goes to visit my sister for any length of time. My oldest is always the easiest to handle, electronic of any kind and he is all good. #2... Just let him run in circles and blow off steam and he is usually good to go. My third, Anything goes. You could give that child a cardboard box and a stick, he'd be happy as a clam! (Assuming all clams are happy!) And for the baby? Answer: a mom, a pillow and a shirt that reveals "lunch" rather quickly!

But as of late, he also needs something to chew on! He is getting ready to cut his top 2 teeth as well. He already has his 2 bottom teeth.Yes, He was trying to eat my phone. But it got us a great photo!
 He had those come in at 4 days before 4 months and then at 4 months and 2 or 3 days old. Now, at 5 months old he is working on 2 more! He is my last baby... He needs to pump his breaks and slow it down a bit on the growing up thing. Other than saying Mommy first, he he he... I really would like at least one of my babies to say Mommy before anything else. Just a thought. That is all.

During all the teeth "gaining" the baby is doing, the 7 year old lost another one! He was so excited about it the night it was "wiggly". Then it fell out and all that excitement stopped. Now it was wait for the money time. Which makes me want to ask a question of you lovely folks reading this. When you were growing up, when the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa were all still real to you (no, they do not exists, if you believe they do please Google the words "mental" and "help" together, thank you!), how much did the Tooth Fairy leave you? Maybe my Tooth Fairy was cheap, just means my boys' original Tooth Fairy is too! But I can only remember getting a nickle or dime... IF I was lucky enough. My husband informs me that he would get $0.50 to $1.00 per tooth! I am not complaining about my Tooth Fairy one bit. I love her! (Yes mom... That means you! LOL) I just want to get a little more insight into why someone would give a young child, kindergarten to 2nd grade ages, more than a nickle or dime for loosing a tooth. This type of thing seems to be a type of "right of passage" in my book. Why pay a kid a huge amount? I am sure that the older they get and as soon as they start to figure out that these "creatures" are not real they will also start to notice that they want to tell Dad (gives $0.25 per tooth) that they lost a tooth instead of Mom (gives $0.05 per tooth). And that all makes sense. Wouldn't you go for the bigger bucks as opposed to the "change"? I guess money has different importance to different people and that is what sets the tone for that type of "giving".

On another note! While I was out and about this last weekend my parsley plant decided it would be a good time to start growing! This got me excited! I started growing my parsley last spring from a starter kit where I had also attempted to grow tomato, bell pepper and a couple of other veggies. The other plants were moved outside and promptly died! The sprouts off of this plant kept coming up only 2 at a time and would grow, die and then grow new. It was sort of taxing on me by making me thing I had no resemblance of a "green thumb". My sister and several other family members can grow plants like they are weeds! But weeds stay clear of me for fear of death! I have only ever had one other type of plant thrive under my care and that is an aspen tree.I bought my Mother a set of Aspens for Mothers day one year, they were around 2 feet tall then. The trees now tower over my mothers single story home. I hope that the parsley will continue to grow and thrive and that I can maybe start another small garden and get some home grown veggies in our home.

That is it for tonight as my eyes are getting droopy and my back is screaming at me to go to bed! I hope everyone enjoyed my random rantings! Look forward to more from me on babies, crafts, plants, homeschooling, photos and much much more. Feel free to comment your little hearts out on any of the above (or below) topics and as usual...

~TTFN!