BLOG: MIA

Hello Friends and Family!  Well, where has the time gone?!  My last post was October 15th.... It's March 19th...  I hate that I let this thing fall off the face of the Earth again!

A lot of things were happening when I left Poop and Hiccups last... My sweet Annie dog had just had a little incident that left her unable to use her back legs.  :(  The vet so graciously offered to keep her free of charge for as long as it took to get her back together.  He really believes that she will be able to use her legs again, with time and healing!  After Annie's accident, I wrote a long, long post about this sweet dog - almost a little obituary for her.... Well, she's still very much alive and I have that post just saved in the dashboard of my blog.  Something about that unpublished post has kept me away from the blog.

Almost a week ago, I got to attend the Women in Ag conference in Marshall and listened to Jolene Brown speak and share stories and humor of life on the farm.  She said you always need to find the humor in things!  I scribbled on my little note pad "Write more.  BLOG!"  I knew I HAD to get back to this.  Finding the humor in the craziness that is life is so important and I'm going to forget it all if I don't get back to sharing these stories! 

So.  Here I am!  Hopefully I can take the time to sit down and share the funny stories of our crazy, beautiful life!

Now, let's see if I can remember some stories that I've missed.....

Here are a few nuggets I found thanks to the always available Facebook...

"Just picked up a small brown crumb-looking item off the living room floor and smelled it to make sure it wasn't poop.... Sometimes you just can't trust Charlie! ‪#‎tmi‬ ‪#‎momproblems‬ ‪#‎poophappens "

"Seth called and said he finally found a good use for the chain link fence. I knew exactly what I was going to find back there.... the bottle calf. I actually enjoy it and it's a great experience for the kids! Wyatt wants to bring it in the house.... :| "  - This was an interesting little moment in time.  We had a bottle calf in our backyard.  We all enjoyed the experience until it became clear that the calf was only pooping on the deck or the sidewalk... And it was starting to scratch the deck.  It has since been relocated to the comfort of the barn.

"What is this "tax refund" everyone speaks of.....? ‪#‎farmlife "

"Lovely little family night in the barn. Then Wyatt says 'I didn't know you could throw hay so far, Dad!' 'Hey, Mom, guess what I have...? Hay in my pockets...!' "

"Mom, I love you." "I love you, too, Wyatt...!" "But I don't like the girls in my class because they're too girly..."

"Our Valentine's Day tradition.... heart-shaped meatloaf...  I hope my boys remember this forever and end up wanting their wives to do this for them because that's what their mom always did.... "

"My kids haven't officially been weighed in for their 4 and 2 year check-ups.... (I know, I'm slacking...) but I feel like they're huge! According to our scale, Wyatt and Charlie weigh in at 42 and 36 pounds, respectively... Wyatt wears a 4 snuggly... Charlie wears a 2 or 3.... These boys are so awesome. They make me smile and melt my heart every single day.... They also infuriate me nearly every day.... but hey, such is life. And I cannot imagine it without them. ‪#‎proudmomma‬ ‪#‎sappymomma‬ All that's missing here is an adorable photo.... I'll share one soon"

"Ummmm, yikes..? Just found this in Wyatt's take home folder from school.... I'm a little surprised I didn't get pulled aside and asked about this. In case you can't see it - "It's a firepit hospital... it burns people". ‪#‎creepythingskidssay "

"'Uh-Oh!! Hey Mommmma! Sponge-sposby's on!!!'  Spongebobby isn't allowed in the Tyre House. Charlie knows the rules..."

"Hello! My name is Lindsey and I'm turning 30 in a few days. I went to Vegas and all I bought was this big drink and insoles for my high arches.... ‪#‎imgettingold‬ ‪#‎gobigorgohome‬ ‪#‎vegas "

"'Hey mom... can I have some juice..?'  'What kind of juice do you want..?'  'Whatever kind of juice that makes poop come out.'  Hahahah. Maybe he's a little bound up... ‪#‎fouryearolds "

"My good ol' husband is working today - he says it's the first day of the year, you have to do what you're going to do all year. If that's the case, I'll be cleaning the house and picking up toys while diffusing petty toy sharing arguments all year. I guess that'll do... :)  ‪#‎happynewyear "

"Little moments that make our hearts so happy... Tonight we were about to pray at dinner and Wyatt asked if he could say his prayer first - of course! "Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed. All my exes live in Texas. Texas is the place I really love to be." Nothing like singing a little song to wrap it up. This boy..... "

"Wyatt is full of it this morning. The other day I gave him a carrot and told him it was good for his eyes so he needed to eat it. Last night, we had cooked carrots out of our roast - of which he wasn't so much a fan. This morning he came right up to me and said "Coooooked carrots, aren't good for your eyes.... NOT cooked carrots, are......." He also told me he wanted me to start growing his baby sister in my belly. I told him to go tell his daddy.  Haha!"

Well I think that about wraps it up!  I'll try to do better...... :) ‬

M says Mmmm

I stay at home with my boys, so I'd like to be able to say that I spend a great deal of time sitting down teaching the boys letters and numbers and all sorts of beneficial information.

Guess what... I don't.  The way life seems to work is I spend the day trying to keep the house from becoming one large stock pile of dirty dishes, laundry and toys - I feed these two boys literally all day long - I try to separate the wrestling matches that are already happening (I had NO idea that a 3 year old and 1 year old would already wrestle...?!) - I do read books and plays toys for as long as I can stand - I attempt to keep caught up on books for the farm, house and church - I try to get a workout at some point - I try to stay sane. 

Where am I going with this...?  Amazingly enough, I did manage to teach Wyatt his letter sounds at, what I consider, a really impressive age - just over two years old. 

Guess what... That's a lie.  I wish I could say that I taught Wyatt his letter sounds.  Unfortunately, I owe all credit to this magnificent little movie that we received from the mother of one of my best college friends.

 

 

Leap Frog Letter Factory.  This is amazing.  Wyatt was always so intrigued by the movie and I never paid much attention to it but would hear it in the background. Then, to my surprise, one day I was changing his diaper and he pointed to the word sign above his changing table and started making these noises.  I thought, 'What in the world is this kid talking about!?'  Until I realized, he was pointing at a "C" and saying "kuh, kuh". 

 

This movie is spectacular.  I would recommend it to all of you mothers out there.  It'll teach your kids the letters and their sounds in no time.  I really think Wyatt picked them up in just around a week...  Then you can tell all of your friends what a spectacularly attentive mother you are and that you taught your kid their letters and sounds in a matter of days.

 

Buy it.  It's on sale at Amazon right now. Leap Frog Letter Factory. Buy it.

Oh hey.... It's been almost a month...

I never said I would be a die hard blogger.  I really just wanted to share my stories with friends and family.  I know there have been many stories to share because some days have been plum crazy.  Crazy.  But I guess there really hasn't been much notable for a while.

Yes, Charlie had a "month day" sometime in there....
Yes, Charlie had some poop explosions sometime in there....
Yes, Wyatt said some of the darnedest things sometime in there....

All pretty normal occurrences I guess.

Probably the most notable out of the last month was our family vacation to SAN DIEGO!  It was absolutely wonderful and we had an amazing time.

Last year, we went to San Diego when I was pregnant with Charlie.  That was the first time for all of us.  My parents had rented a house on the beach and invited family to join.  Last year I said, this is great, but we probably won't come back next year because I will have a little Charlie and that's just too much.  My parents made similar arrangements to get a house on the beach and asked if we would come and I said, no, I said we wouldn't be coming last year so I'm sticking to it!

And then we said yes.  Because it's a beach house in San Diego. 

So I suppose that is some of the reason I was absent from posting.  Because when you go on vacation with two kids and your husband, it takes you 7 weeks to get ready.  Not really.  But it did take quite a lot of time and planning and shopping and packing. 

We were perfectly organized when travel time came.  We had four bags to check which I think is completely reasonable for being gone from Monday to Friday with three kids and a carseat.  And a stroller.  Nothing got lost!  The kids were wonderful on the flight.  No one had any issues. 

San Diego time was fun.  Because Wyatt usually wakes up at 6:30 at home... so of course that meant he woke up at 4:30 in San Diego.  But we made do and our kids didn't have any meltdowns.  If they did, I have blocked them from my memories.

We had some family from Texas in San Diego also and getting together with all of them and those kids was wonderful!  S'mores on the beach...?!  Definitely a memory.

Our plans were to leave on the 8:25 flight Friday morning.  After a quick discussion and several calls to the airline, we decided not to leave until Saturday morning, 7 am.  What would that matter?  We were up at the crack of dawn with kids anyway so we would be ready and we would get back into KC around noon.  Wonderful.

Of course, that day we had to wake our kids up.  Of course, the 7 am plane had mechanical issues and wasn't leaving the gate.  Then we boarded a new plane about 45 minutes later and began to taxi away from the gate.  A few minutes later we pulled right back into the gate and, of course, that plane had mechanical issues and wasn't going anywhere.  So then around 9 am we got on another plane and amazingly enough were able to leave on that one.  All of this with our two little ones.

I usually like to have an adult beverage on a plane... A little treat for me.  When we planned a 7 am flight I figured I would just have a juice or Diet Coke since it was so early.  By the 9 am flight I was more than ready for an ice cold beer.  Bonus:  With all of our flight trouble, we weren't charged for any beverages. 

Home, sweet home.  Just a few hours late.  We were blessed with landing into a lovely 70 degree day in Kansas City.  Which is really hard to believe in late July.  Loved it.  And goodness I was happy to be home.  San Diego was beautiful.  The house was beautiful.  The company was amazing.  I will treasure it forever.  But I was SO pleased to be able to put Charlie down on our carpet at home and not worry about him picking up who knows what or slicing his head open on that ridiculously sharp table in the living room!

Thank you SO MUCH, Mom and Dad, for making this a possibility for us.  I won't ever forget it.

*Pictures to follow in additional post.  :)