Some favorite things....

Needing to write down some things the kids do right now so I don't forget them....

• Levi calls Addison "ya-ya"
• Addison calls Isaac "doo-doo"
• Levi will stay "momma's the princess-- I'm the KING!!"
• Levi will ask "where'd daddy go?" when I say "daddy's at work" he'll reply "Oh, daddy's at jaaaiiil"
• Addison told me the other day that daddy uses "handicuppers" at work to keep people at jail.
• The big kids both wear their swimsuits at home most everyday

Well, I know there were more things I wanted to write down, but I forgot them for now. :) I'll have to be sure to write them down when I think of them again.

Last moments of 29....

So, I've been spending the last few moments of my evening thinking about my life as a 20-something and about how those moments are QUICKLY coming to a close. I don't think it bothers me, but at the same time I've spent much more time thinking about it than I've thought about any birthday I think! Just wanted to jot down a few special moments from my 20's:

• When I turned 20 I had been dating Matt Thayer for about 6 months
• Married Matt Thayer at age 21
• Graduated from Northwestern College, age 21
• Purchased our first home, age 22
• Went on 2 mission trips to Mexico
• Traveled to Cozumel, age 24
• Adopted our first child, age 25
• Quit working to be a stay-at-home mom, age 26
• Got pregnant with our first boy, age 27
• Levi was born, age 27
  
• Got pregnant with our second boy, age 28
• Isaac was born, age 29

Those are just very small tidbits of all that occurred in my 20's.... Of course more exciting wonderful things happened than just those, but it's all I can write tonight!

Next, I just wanted to write about my day-- I assume 10 years from now my life will be a little different, so I thought I'd jot down all the little normal things of my life, day to day;

Addison climbed in our bed this morning- around 3 am and slept, mostly on Matt's side of the bed the whole night. Isaac woke up at 4 am for a bottle and then all the kids slept in today! I didn't get up till just after 7 and snuck over to get a shower.

We got ready for church, Addison was watching Scooby Doo while getting ready. At church I sat in the nursery with the kids as soon as we walked in the door-- I'm not able to keep all three of them under control to stay in the foyer to visit with people. :) When Gen Richter arrived to take the nursery for the morning Levi threw a tantrum about me leaving. I took him and Addison into the church service with me-- I think it's one of the first times in almost a year that Levi has come into church. He sat VERY well and made me feel like he's going to "get it" one of these days! Matt is leading worship at our church-- has been for a few months. After church we eat at potluck and then go home.

None of the kids napped today-- and Matt went to work at the jail at 2 pm. I nursed Isaac shortly after noon today-- might be the last time of my life to nurse a baby....

At 2:30 Addison decided to make "Christmas Cookies"-- (she took ritz crackers, put peanut butter on them and then used sprinkles on top);

I got out markers for the kids to color with-- Levi colored his hands and took all the tops off the markers and then threw them all on the floor, while Isaac sat and licked each one. I took the kids out to play on the swingset, but within 5 minutes a storm came in, so we went inside.

I made a cheese pizza for supper-- Addison's part of the pizza couldn't have sauce on it-- only cheese. Isaac had his first taste of pizza-- and seemed to like it. Levi dumped my entire glass of milk all over the kitchen floor.

All 3 kids got in the bath tub-- Levi seems to have possibly roseola and Isaac has a terrible diaper rash. Got everyone out of the tub and got Isaac's diaper on. Levi was determined to wear underwear, so brought me a pair of Addison's flowery undies, wore them about 15 minutes before wetting on the couch....

We watched a couple episodes of Caillou and then put Isaac to bed. Brought Levi to his room and read "I went walking" and "Goodnight Baby Bop". After reading we sing Jesus Loves Me (at which point Levi runs out of his room thinking he'll get out of going to bed) and then we sing Everybody Ought to Know [who Jesus is]. He lays down on the floor and I run out of the room while he screams, and I shut the door-- with the duct taped child lock on it, so he can't get out.

Addison comes to my room and watches Scooby Doo and won't go to her own bed to go to sleep tonight. Some nights she will, some nights she won't. She needs a measuring cup of cereal and a sippy cup of COLD water and goes to sleep.

In the mean time, Isaac is still crying, I bring in a bottle to him, and get to watch as he drifts off to sleep. What a sweet baby he is. Now the house is silent, it's 8:32 pm and all I have left to do for the night is to carry Addison over to her room and put her to bed. I already checked on Levi-- he's asleep right behind the door with his lights on-- I find him in strange places every night, and usually all the lights are on.

What will the next 10 years bring?! I'm sure I couldn't imagine what these 10 years would bring and here I am at the end of it!! Strange to think my kids will be 14, 12 and 10..... Very, very strange!

Happy Birthday

On Levi's 2nd birthday we sang Happy Birthday and Levi got SUPER embarrassed. He hid his face-- turned all red and he hid his head in Ruth's shirt.... I thought this was just a fluke and ignored it....

2 weeks later we were at a Thayer Family function and at the end they were celebrating April birthdays and sang Happy Birthday again-- when it was over Levi SCREAMED and took off running down the hall-- crashed at the end of the hall and then I picked him up and he hid himself in my shirt for awhile.... Again, fluke?!

This past week we were at church and there was a man there-- it was his birthday, so everyone sang Happy Birthday to him-- this man was on the opposite side of the room-- no one paying attention to Levi. The singing got done and he let out a HORRID scream-- which of course everyone heard. Ugh.

Crabby Patties

I've been working on some "life skills" with Addison lately-- such as folding washcloths.... Whenever I have a load of towels I'll have her work on doing all the washcloths. Before she can fold any of them she has to create a "grill" and then sets up her work station and creates the "crabby patties"-- okay, I can admit, she's a SpongeBob fan. :) So she folds each washcloth and serves up each one as a "crabby patty" and kisses each one when they're ready.

Everybody ought to know...

We listen to a "Sunday School" song CD in our van when we're driving around. On this CD is the song "Everybody Ought to Know who Jesus is"....... Addison has gotten VERY good at singing along with most of the songs on the CD.

Yesterday on the way to church (Easter Sunday AND Levi's 2nd birthday) the CD was playing on this song came on. If you know anything about a 2 year old you know they all can say the word NO. So, this song came on and Levi would chime in ONLY on the word "NO" or "KNOW" whichever! So the song is playing away and he'll yell out NO-- and then at the end he'll say "is"... super cute. Hopefully I can tape him doing it one day. :)

"Everybody ought to KNOW, Everybody ought to KNOW, Everybody ought KNOW, who Jesus IS"

Grandma....

Grandma did pass away last evening. Addison & I went to the nursing home to hug my dad, etc... after she was gone. We went into Grandma's room when our pastor came to speak with the family. After we got in the car I started to cry and Addison wanted to know why I was crying, I just said I was said because I'll miss Grandma now that she's gone to be in Heaven.... Addison just said "she's not in Heaven mom, she's still laying in bed."Top:Christmas 2009-- Grandma with her children
Middle: Christmas 2009-- Grandma with some of her grandchildren
Bottom: Christmas 2009-- Grandma with some of her great-grandchildren

Can I say failure?!

So, obviously I need to go to bed-- it's past 9:30-- Isaac will probably be awake in about 2 hours, Matt will be home from work by then too...... needless to say-- I'll be woken up AT LEAST twice tonight, and that's a positive outlook. :)

I was just looking through random people's blogs and I found that I have failed as a mother! :) TONS of blogs (I just clicked the button that said "next blog" at the top) are about people's children, and I will admit-- all of these bloggers only had one child and all of these only children were under age 1...... but still, these parents go through month by month posting pictures and little ditties about what their kids is doing each month. And Megan, I know you're good at this too.....

I, for one, cannot tell you anything BIG about Isaac's 6 months of life. I can tell you he's 6 months, weighs over 18 pounds, laughs very heartily and loves to eat-- and that he bite me (while he was nursing) tonight....... Other than that, all these beautiful little lists that these wonderful parents can make about their children-- I can't do it.

Hope my kids will forgive me for it. Luckily I never did it for the first born-- so the 3rd born can't tell me that he was left out! ;) I can admit though that Addison had 3 photo albums complete of her by 3 months...... Isaac doesn't even have an album at 6 months-- I mean, there are pictures to put in, but I don't have a book to put them in yet!

Good night!

Death

My Grandma Pickard has been failing in health for the past year.... last summer she wasn't doing well and they thought she would pass away before the summer was over. She's held on this long-- and really was doing pretty well over the last few months, however the end of February she went to the hospital and spent at least a week there-- and was then released to the nursing home. She's retaining fluids, has heart failure, kidney failure, etc.... her body is shutting down. She's on a lot of pain meds and they have stopped with her other medications, so it's seems to be a waiting game right now.

I've been trying to find the right words to talk to Addison about Grandma dying. I didn't want to tell her that she's "sick" or "old" because little kids can sometimes get the wrong idea and associate these words with anyone who we say is "sick" or "old".... My mom and sister suggested I just tell Addison that Grandma is getting ready to go to Heaven and live with Jesus there. Tonight while driving home from church (in the dark), I decided it was time to talk to her about it-- so I just said "Addison did you know that Grandma Pickard is getting ready to go to Heaven and live with Jesus".... she said "Yeah, so she's dying?" I was shocked she put that together so fast. After that her concerns were "who's going to live at her house", "who else is going to die right now" (we just had Matt's uncle die a couple weeks ago).....

It's very interesting to speak with a 4 year old about death-- and to see all the pieces getting put together for them. To have 2 funerals in a matter of weeks (I assume) seems a little confusing too-- but she has asked some of the most amazing questions about death: where do we go when we die, won't we miss the person who dies, how do we get to Heaven, etc....

Chores

I thought it might be fun to start a "chore chart" for Addison this week.... was a very simple design-- 7 days and 4 chores per day. The chores weren't very interesting ones (change your underwear, brush your teeth, brush your hair and make your bed)..... so day 1 she completed all the chores very excitedly. That night before bed she changed her underwear about 20 times hoping she could get more stickers on the chart. I told her that once all the squares had stickers (7 days) that we'd bring her out to the local ice cream store. So day 2 she excitedly got up and got things done. At nap time she got the chart down, and put stickers in ALL the remaining squares and then VERY seriously wants to know if it's time to go get ice cream. I told her no, and that I must not have explained it very well and she said "dad will have to explain it, he has a better voice anyway."

Milk

On the way to church tonight Addison made comment about Isaac eating sweet potatoes..... which reminded me that I forgot to bring food (oatmeal & applesauce, sweet potatoes or pears) along to feed him. I said "shoot I forgot to bring food with for him".... Addison VERY seriously said, "don't worry mom you can feed him milk"; I said yes, she was right about that-- so that was good. She continued on "mom, you didn't forget food, you can feed him milk from your tummy, so that's good". :) Then she said "how did the milk get in your tummy?" It was like after all this time it was the first time she had ever thought about how the milk got there!

Pictures

This week I was putting up new pictures of the kids in the living room. I told Addison that we needed to take down the picture of her & Levi (Levi is only 6 months in the picture)... She started looking at another picture of Levi and said (kinda sad voice) "We're going to take down the picture of Levi cause we don't like him anymore?"