Dogwood Trees

Soooo...Aiden had a 100 day project for school, due tomorrow! Yes, we have reached the 100th day of school (well, they haven't--recall their very late start)!

The project was to glue, draw...or whatever...100 things on a piece of paper. So, I got creative with their letter of the week...D. What can we glue that starts with a D? I could only think of "dog"...hmmm....

"Dogwood tree"!!! HA!!! Brilliant. I planned an awesome tree with 100 dog faces and pinto beans for the ears...the best dogwood tree ever!

I told Aiden, "This will be the best project in your class!"

Aiden: "Not the best one Mom."

Me: "Oh really? What have the other kids done?"

Aiden: "Someone glued 100 noodles to the paper."

....

Need I say more? Yes, tragic hit right to my Mommy center...in the middle of my heart. Oh well, I'll try again next time!

I was also listening to all of the clips on my phone. You know the Nutcracker that Aiden attended with Mimi, Sunny, Santana, Paula, Emma, and me? You know the one where he was the sole boy because of a sick little Connor? Well, on the way into town, I was in the backseat with my little guy. It was a car full of women talking about the last Nutcracker they went to...and then little Aiden's voice (oblivious to the girly talk) comes in loud and clear with a ton of excitement....

"Hey, isn't that a rocket ship up there? Hey, Mommy that's a....jet!!! It's a plane!!! It's...it's...it's a ROCKETSHIP!!! Mommy, it's a rocketship!!! I just see it!"

If only I could upload his little voice..it was so cute!

Leave it to Aiden to place a smile on your face!

Lydia's Two!

Miss Lydia turned two this past week--on the 20th!

I dressed her in frilly princess clothes, and she accessorized with her brothers items around the house!

I enjoyed her ALL DAY LONG!!!

Her aunts came by and gave her a crown, skirt, jewelry, and shoes!

Then Mimi marched in--literally--with even more beautiful clothes! She then marched back out...all the way down the driveway to her car, saluting us dozens of times! The boys were in heaven with her silliness!

The boys labored over the princess!

And she gave us priceless expressions for every gift! Her favorite happened to be a book I got her...a blank book for her to draw in! She gasped and said, "My book!" She adores her brothers and has taken to drawing because of them!

She fed Daddy cake...because she's not the biggest fan!

And hugged her Dora goodnight at the end of a long day!

She is a touch of heaven to us. At two...

Lydia loves baby dolls and even went to the extent of picking out a Birthday present for herself today--it just so happened to be a "Happy Birthday" singing Dora the Explorer (which she doesn't watch!). But as soon as she held it in the shopping cart, she stroked Dora's bangs and said, "priddy"!

She is a fan of shoes...especially high heels! Hers...or mine, it's all the same to her!

She knows when we are talking about her, and responds appropriately! As I gave her a bath tonight, I told her, "You are so beautiful Lydia!" to which she replied, "I are bootifull!"

She seems to prefer Lydia over Liddy! If I tell her "Thank you Liddy", she responds "Thank you Lydia!"

She loves necklaces and bracelets....and makeup--lots of makeup, and purses!

Her favorite food is yogurt, but she can down 2 full pieces of lemon pepper fish! Her favorite morning food is butter toast and hot cocoa....which she rarely drinks, but has to have to be just like me.

She loves her brothers and wears their hats, batman belts, and masks when they are at school...along with her heels, necklaces, and dresses!

She is fighting naps, and I am giving in to the fight peacefully...you do that after 5!

She is CONSTANTLY eating something...mostly Cheetos and yogurt!

And she is simply perfect, a breath of fresh air to the long hard days we often face.

I love you Miss Lydia...two too fast!

Sickies, Crawling, and Milk!

So today I asked, in a bit of selfishness and self pity, "Why do moms work 100% of the time and feel only 50% accomplished...if that?"

Selfish? Kinda.

But the feelings are there at times, along with the weariness, fatigue, and dark baggy eyes!

Mind you, this came after my work week was coming to a close, and I was severely sleep deprived...night work does that to a mother who can't stop working, even on a hard day!

But the payoff is great.

The boys approached me Friday night as I was finishing the dishes and laundry before heading into work and said, "Mom, I can tell you've been doing a lot of work around here!"

Me: "Thank you, how can you tell?"

Connor: "Because Daddy told me you have!"

I took care of a little guy the past 2 nights post a heart surgery. He was so sick his first night post op, but his second night was fabulous. He giggled as hard as his sore chest would allow him to, his cheeks flushed with redness, and he buried his head into his blankets as I approached him on my second night. We laughed and played for a moment before beginning our night, and he hugged me so tight this morning as I left work, stating "Why do you have to leave?" I wonder if he thought I slept at all that night!!!

My little Lydia is obsessed with me...mocks my every move and sneaks hugs dozens of times through the day.

And I have a husband who tells me he can't wait to see my beautiful face when I leave to go of to work--with my confidence these days, it helps to hear I am beautiful to him!

Maya Ruth came down with an awful UTI this past week. She had fevers upwards of 103 degrees for 5 days with vomiting, chills, and crankiness galore. She went to the doctors and was cathed...not pleasant...and confirmed to have a positive UTI culture. So, in the next week and a half we will be looking into a renal ultrasound and VCUG. Poor baby. Chances are, everything is perfectly fine...she's just a little girl susceptible to nasty bacteria. (Let's hope) She is doing better...not thrilled to be receiving her third round of antibiotics in her first 7 months of life, but doing better.

On a lighter note, she wants to move SOOOO bad, but she is determined that crawling does not take place on your hands and knees but on your bum feet and head. Maya lays on her back, arches her back so that her head and feet are on the floor and pushes off with her feet while her little head slides along the carpet. When her bum touches down, she gives herself a little boost and does it all over again! You are one of a kind girl...just when we thought we were use to all the silly things children do...we had a 5th child, and she proved us wrong!

So, tonight Daddy was playing a game with the boys...

Where does_____ come from?

The "blank" was full of objects, such as steak, pork, wood...etc.

Here's a sample of the game:

Daddy: "Where does pork come from?"

Aiden: "A porcupine." and Connor: "A pig!"

Daddy: "Where does steak come from?"

Aiden: "A dinosaur." and Connor: "A cow!"

Daddy: "Where does milk come from?"

........

Daddy: "A cow, a goat, a cat, a dog, a mommy."

Aiden: (Ever so serious and thrilled to be correct while pointing at me) "A Crystal!!!"

Closing out the Twenties!

Well, he's commenced his last year in his twenties, and I hope it was a decent commencement in his eyes...now here's to the beginning of the end!

29 years old...and what better way to be 29 than to 5 beautiful children. Aiden woke me last night, having thrown up at 2am. Maya woke me this morning with a fever of 102 degrees, but Lydia and Connor were perfectly healthy! In a few short hours, Aiden was fine...eating cake, pizza, candy, and everything he set his eyes on.

I thought I had done a great thing when I bought a chocolate cake that matched his Birthday gifts perfectly. When Daddy cut into it, I said, with my "gross" face at it's best, "What is that white stuff?"

Daddy: "You didn't buy a Bavarian cream filled cake did you?"

Me: "NO!!!" (as I rushed to the cake box to exam the description which read...

1/4 chocolate cake

Butter cream icing with Bavarian cream filling.

Grrrr....it should have read 1/4 chocolate cake with Bavarian cream filling. I felt so deceived, and needless to say, I didn't have a single bite! I DON'T LIKE PUDDING!!! I think Daddy was disappointed too.

Connor wrote "happy birthday", Aiden drew Daddy, and Lydia made a few yellow marks!

Maya ate pizza!

He sure did contemplate how to blow out all those candles!

And he blew out each and every one...better than I though he would!

The kids were delightfully surprised to get a party snack bag on Daddy's Birthday! I think Daddy needs to start making lists of what he wants for his Birthday....it's getting too hard to shop for him :)

Until the big three... O....

adios!

Ring in The New Year!

Well, I am ashamed, and I'm not ashamed all at once to say that no one in this house rang in the new year. Steve is on a stretch of 7 twelve hour shifts in a row--by the time he gets home, he has enough time to shower, eat a quick dinner and go to bed. I'm a mother who only sleeps half of my week at night...and I don't make up for the other half during the day, so there was no midnight eyes here! (Well, if you call staying up to 11:22pm close enough I did it, but it was only because I couldn't figure out a computer program I was working with.) The kiddos have never spent a New Years up with us....that's probably because since we have had kids, well, we don't stay up on New Years! HA!!! But we rang in the new year with ice cream cones...all of us did!

Maya is loving food, and when she had finished sucking away on this cone, she started squealing, but it wasn't a hunger squeal...it was rather painful to hear. I assumed that the ice cold vanilla cone had hurt her hands pretty bad, so I warmed a rag and help it snug against her hands and she instantly calmed...she then sucked the warm water out of the rag (yes, the rag was clean!).

Miss Lydia was imitating her big brother--guess who?! If their head is on the table, hers is, if they want a snack, she does...she loves her brothers!

If you guessed Aiden...you know us well! Silly guy! Today he came to me and was spinning a batman toy as fast as he could, he said, "Mom, who's this?"

Me: "Um, Batman?"

Aiden: "No Mom, who is he pretending to be?"

Me: "I don't know."

Aiden: (sounding out the word, as a hint mind you...) "Ssss....Ahh...N....ic It's Sonic!" (the game and cartoon character)

Me: (laughing hysterically at his "hint") Ya think?

And there's the leader of the pack. We went to use his Hasting gift card today...I splurged a little and made up the difference to get him a series of Star Wars books, and to replace the one book he had puked on from his other Star Wars series when he was sick the day of the Nutcracker. When I asked him if he would like me to buy it so it would replace his dirty one, he looked at me with disbelief, hesitated, looked around for a moment, got a little nervous look in his eye, fidgeted with his hands and sweetly--and quietly--said, "yes!". I guess his sweet humility and innocence made me want to help him even more, so he got another set of star wars books...he loves reading!!! In gratitude, he asked me what I would like him to do for me tonight. I smiled and told him it would be nice to have help with the dishes, unloading them.

Me: "Can you go into the kitchen and started organizing them and I will put them away?"

Connor: "Sure...do I sort them by color?"

Me: "Um, no honey..."

Connor: "Oh, I get it, I sort them into darks, mediums and whites..." (ever so seriously spoken)

Me: (giggling) "No, not like that either...never mind, I'll go do it, it won't take long anyhow, you can play!"

Connor: "Well, then maybe I organize all your plates, and then all my bowls..."

Whew...he finally got it all on his own!

I overheard him and Aiden talking tonight about their toys and Connor said how it was perfect that there was three since there are three boys in the family. Aiden said, "But Connor, Baby Shane is died..." Connor said, "I know Aiden, so we only need two right now, but one day soon, we will need three". Sweet boys...

Now, Miss Lydia came to Maya yesterday with this doll (Lydia's) and a doll that is the exact image (Maya's new doll). She looked at both dolls and sweetly gave the new and whole doll to little Maya. After doing so, she ran off to the kitchen and came back, handing me the doll and a pair of scissors, saying "Fi??" for "fix" of course. My heart broke, she has wanted it fixed for quite some time, and now that her sisters is whole, she really wants it fixed.

So, I fixed it for her and gave it to her this morning, she looked in awe at her baby...

Inspected the flaw and the subsequent repair...

And hugged the babe so tight...so happy to see her whole again.

Her sweet happiness humbled me...

And made me long for that day, when all will be whole again...