Little Friends

I took these pictures about a month ago but am just now getting to share them.
This is the daily dream of little boys.
If I let them, every day they are outside exploring, climbing, "hunting," imagining and making a new adventure.

This day, for some reason, I had no baby and instead had a little boy that I babysat for last year. Nater Mater asks to see M almost every day.
If I say no that it's not possible, he begins to cry and asks for J and S.
Change is hard, so I try to set up play dates for him to see the little guy.
Even small children make special friends.
These two have a special little bond.
This day, I told them that I could take them to the hay bales that are lined up row upon row in front of our property.
They are an invariable wonderland of adventure

Our nimble and oh-so-tame kittens-now-almost-cats bound after them and spring up onto the sides up the bales much to little boy's delight.

Good Lookin' can jump from bale to bale with relative ease; spanning the sometimes wide gaps that were left this year.
His skinny legs propel him from bale to bale in a surprisingly graceful action for one so un-coordinated.
He gloats that he is "big" and the "little boys" have to be helped across.

They are fine.
After just a few short minutes on top of the terrifyingly high bales they would much rather plant their feet on the firm ground to play hide and seek. They are forever searching and running in the tall grass between the huge bales.

Friends are important to even little people and i want to help my children create healthy friendships even when small.

There is nothing quite like the love of a friend.

Little Brother's Graduation Day

This time last week the 4 kids and I made a 9 hour car trip up to the Midwest to see my youngest brother graduate from High School.
I have to say I'm getting pretty good at this whole road-tripping with kids thing.
I'm not so good at going grocery shopping with 4 kids, but put me in a car with them by myself for 9 hours straight and they seem to do pretty good.

My parents came back to the States this year so that Matthew could attend his last year of school at the school my dad used to Administrate.
It was so odd being back and see all these Seniors that I had known as toddlers when I graduated from HS.
I counted about 4 or 5 of them that I had been their regular babysitter before I graduated.
We won't mention that none of them were potty-trained at the time and I remember all but 2 of them being born.
As they walked across the stage oh so grown up, I had these nostalgic memories of pudgy little toddlers with big blue eyes and blond bouncing curls running after bugs in the yard or another one sitting in front of the television singing along with Thomas the Train and Barney.
I AM OLD.

Uncle Matthew as he is affectionately called around here holds a special place in my heart.
I can remember praying for several years before he was born that my mom would have another baby.
I loved babies and toddlers and I wanted a younger sibling.
Yes, I had one already but when you and he are only a year apart, it doesn't really count.
I wanted a little younger brother.
When I was 14, my parents had him.
He was planned and that's a whole 'nother story. ; )
I loved having him in the house!
I had my own baby doll to dress up and carry around.
Poor kid.
I was heartbroken and missed him deeply when my parents moved to Mexico.
I was 18 and going off to college and he was 4 and followed me everywhere.

We also celebrated my mom's 60th birthday that weekend.
My parents really are young for as many kids and grand kids as they have. ; )

It was incredibly special to have 2 of my dad's 3 surviving siblings drive their 9 hour trip from Colorado. I hadn't seen my aunt Lois in several years and it was so fun to introduce my children to all of them. I have so many fond memories of them growing up and it was important to me to get to have my children meet them as well.

Graduation Day was teary. At least I was teary.
The speaker didn't help.
If everyone I knew could have heard this graduation message, there would be no doubt that this school was purposeful in equipping these kids to meet and make an impact on the world.
He was their Administrator and has a heart for the gospel, missions and equipping those kids to make a difference when they left High School.
My brother was so blessed to get to spend his last year under those teachers and staff.

We saw several of my cousins and aunts and uncles and I loved being back around family and the friends I had grown up with.

We left daddy at home doing this:

Well, they weren't born yet when we left, but none-the-less he had to work and couldn't come.

We came home to triplets and it's been bottles and extra milking and late night feedings and early morning feedings. I finally got the suitcase out of the van on Friday, but it's still in our bedroom un-opened. Children and goats are sorta' taking up all my time.

Happy Graduation Uncle Matthew!
We love you!

Birthday Week Galore

Two birthdays two years and two days apart with children of the same gender present it's own unique set of fun and challenges.
All 4 of my children were born on major small town celebration weekends.
Precious Jewel's birthday falls on the weekend that our little town holds it's annual Christmas Parade, Downtown lighting and Christmas Home Tours. It takes up pretty much the entire weekend and makes it difficult to plan for a birthday party.
Why not the week before?
Thanksgiving.
The week after?
The last week of school and then everyone heads out for Christmas Vacation.

Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin' were both born the weekend of our town's Spring Craft Festival.
Up until two years ago, Mr. Smiles thought the weekend-long celebration was in honor of him.
It sorta' burst their bubbles when they realized that even if they hadn't been born that weekend, there would still have been some sort of Festival.
It also presents challenges in the planning arena.

Labor Day weekend was the weekend our last little munchkin was born.
In fact, our Dr. graciously offered to up the C-section by 2 days so he could still go boating with his family.
Wasn't that nice?

Doing a Dual Birthday party with two boys of very different personalities and tastes presents a unique challenge and a bit of skillful manipulation on my part every year.

Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin' celebrated their first party together the day Good Lookin' came home from the hospital on Mr. Smiles 2nd birthday. Both were too little to care.
The next birthday we did a combined Thomas Party for the 2 boys. Once again, still young enough that they didn't care what I picked.
The year after they wanted very different themes and I scratched my head as to how to pull that one off.
Lightning McQueen and Rescue Heroes.
A divided table with a whole lot of colored streamers worked well.
For Mr Smiles 5th and Good Lookin's 3rd we tried 2 separate parties on back-to-back weekends.
People came to one and not the other.
That didn't fly to well.
Last year Good Lookin' (my introvert) just wanted 1 friend and to have his party at Grandmama's house.
Easy Peasy.
Mr Smiles (my ever-so-outgoing extrovert) wanted EVERY CHILD in our church to come.
(Fortunately we go to a small church).
20+ kids and parents in attendance left me with a sugar and noise induced headache but very happy that he was happy. He LOVED it.
That brings us to this year.
Both boys asked for STAR WARS
YES! The same theme!!

I had also just recently stumbled across another mom's blog where she had just done a STAR WARS party for her triplets.
She had this AWESOME idea for party favors that didn't break the bank. Pool Noodles turned Light Sabers.
I totally went for it!

The week snuck up on me a whole lot faster than I was ready for and I had no cake planned.
I like to decorate my kid's cakes. I'm not a decorator and have never taken a class, but it's a lot of fun.
Once again, I waded into the mom world of facebook and begged off more ideas. I can't link to the person's facebook page for you to see the original inspiration, but it was pretty cool.
The boy's first reaction: "I thought you said they'd be fighting each other."
Ummmm...no.

The light sabers: A HUGE SUCCESS
There was some pretty serious yelling, hollering, running around and dueling taking place in our front yard and in the paths Luke had mowed through our trees.

Luke and his dad waded out into the yard with all the boys and went crazy.
I had never seen his dad have quite so much with all the pool noodles and short little people running around.
The boys loved it.

I also forgot candles and they each ended up with one bright pink one to blow out.
They were so light-sabered-up that they didn't notice a bit. Whew!!!

The pandemonium of present time wasn't as bad as it has been in years past partly due to some of the little party goers escaping back out the front door to continue their duels.

Have you all seen these BAY BLADES?
I'm not sure I'm even spelling them right.
Both boys were given them by a little friend for their birthdays.
I guess there is a cartoon that goes with them that the boys will never see since we have all cable and satellite shut off to our house, but they LOVE the toys.
They are nothing more that glorified TOPS.
Every single boy eventually ended up back in the kitchen and for a full 30-40 minutes battled it out with their little metal tops dinging and clanging each other out of their plastic arena.
Needless to say, it was a successful birthday weekend.

Of Kites and Friends

Yesterday was Kite Flying Day at our local airport. We've tried to go for about 3 years now and it simply hasn't worked out. Well, this year I was determined to take the kids and had their kites all set out and ready to go (I bought cheap plastic kites at the Dollar Store and they've always worked well for us), when Luke checked his phone and found a surprise message.
Our dear friends who stood with us in our wedding were in town and wanted to stop by for a visit! We hadn't seen then since I was pregnant with Nater Mater and I was jumping up and down and Luke was grinning from ear to ear. YES! COME!
So, we took the kids out to the field next to our house (and away from all power lines) and flew our kites until they got to our house.

Even 2 1/2 year old Nater Mater could do it once we showed him how and we got it up in the air for him. He was sooo excited to see "Mater fwying!"

Our friends and their absolutely precious family.

The sun was kinda' bright. : )

All the kids had their own kites, but 2 we discovered didn't have the strings. You get what you pay for, but they did fine sharing.

At one point Mr Smiles got his snagged in a tree. Fortunately is was in the lowest branches or his kite would have been done for.

Nater Mater running through the trees to tell us Mr. Smiles kite was "stuck momma. It stuck."

I'm not a huge fan or Barbie, but I thought this was a pretty cool shot.

I am in love with Spring

And this is what we did after our friends arrived. Nater Mater loved their little guy who is about a year younger and he LOVED being swung upside down by his feet by Mr. H. The girls spent their time in Precious Jewel's room trying on the 101 Princess Dresses that she no longer wears. I've thought about giving them all away or selling them, but we have enough little girls over that still love to wear them that I've kept them and probably will give them to Precious Jewel's daughter some day if she has one.
All in all, it was a wonderful Spring Day.