A little to the right, mom

Ethan has always been a sucker for a good back rub.  He takes after his mom like that.  Jared knows he can get me to stay up really super late if he just keeps rubbing my back.  Ethan is the same way.  You can get him to stop a temper tantrum by rubbing his tummy or arm or really anything.  Just start rubbing and he starts calming.  It's like a magic button.  I recently discovered that this trick works at bedtime too.  He could be chatting your ear off as he's climbing in bed, but start rubbing his back and within a few words he's slowed to a babble, then stopped altogether.  Within a minute his eyes are fluttering to stay open.  It's some kind of natural phenomenon really.  All I do is rub his back for a "minute" (he can't tell time yet and so a minute can be as long as I feel like rubbing for and is usually in direct correlation to how ornery he's been that day) and then have him flip so I can rub his tummy.  Just as long as both sides get rubbed, you won't hear a word of complaint about putting him to bed.  

Yesterday Ethan was being a pickle to his siblings all afternoon.  Pick, pick, pick, aggravate here, aggravate there, stir up some trouble over there and here and see how upset he can get everyone around him.  Needless to say, his siblings complied with his pot-stirring plans.  It's a phase, I'm sure, but I'm not too fond of it.  My mild-mannered, sweet talk'n, snuggle lov'n sweetie pie has...left.  I'm excited for his return.  Until then, I keep reminding myself that it's just a phase.  So by dinner time last night, my patience was more than thin.  It was gone.  That boy needed to be in bed quickly.  For my sake and his own.  So he had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before daddy got home and then was tucked in by dad- who did not rub his back because he'd been naughty to mommy. He was asleep within minutes anyway.  Ethan's in that awkward stage where he really needs a nap in the afternoon, but if he gets one, he's up till 10 pm.  I find that idea HORRIBLE.  My mommy patience is wearing thin by 6 and any kids up past 9 will receive the full brunt of ZERO patience.  It's best for us all if the children are making their way to their beds between 7 and 9.  So Ethan can't get a nap.  But every day around 4 pm I find myself doubting that choice.  As I was yesterday.  The answer was to put that boy to bed fast.  

Around 3 am last night, Ethan comes tip-toeing in my room.  I usually sleep pretty lightly and woke right up.

Me: "Ethan, what do you need?"

Ethan: "Mommy, I really need a back rub.  I didn't get my back rub.  I can't sleep."  (He's been asleep for hours).  "Can you pleeeeease rub my back?" 

Who could say no to such pure sweetness???  No one, I tell you.  So I drug my poor sleepy body out of bed and down the hall to watch Ethan's eyes flutter closed while I rubbed his back.  I was pretty sure he was completely asleep and started to pull the blankets up when he promptly, and with quite surprising alertness, flipped over eagerly and said, "Tummy too!".  I just about burst out laughing at 3 am!  2 minutes later, he was out like a light.  

I understand, sometimes you just need a back rub. 

The Christmas Dinner that wasn't

Our family was sharing a particularly nasty stomach flu at Christmas time.  The children were praying for Jared and Owen that they would feel better by Christmas (so it wouldn't interfere with presents).  And I was praying that I wouldn't get sick until after all my Christmas work was done.  Since that wasn't finished until about 2 am on Christmas morning, I was blessed to not get sick until late Christmas morning (after presents).  The kids and I both got what we had been asking for :)
Since I was sick on Christmas Day, we decided to hold off on making our big Christmas dinner.  We figured we'd get to it in a couple days.  But then Owen got sick again. So we waited a few more days. Then Coleson and Ethan got sick.  So we waited a few more days.  Then Jared got sick all over again.  So we waited some more.  THEN I got sick again this past Sunday!! &%$@#  This stomach bug is the pits!! We've been rotating this for all of Christmas break. We can't seem to shake it. Anyway, yesterday afternoon I was feeling better, so I called Jared to see how he was feeling and if he was up to our belated belated belated Christmas dinner. He was. So I threw it all together.  Fortunately it wasn't too hard because we'd made a few dishes already when we thought we'd felt up to eating it, but turned out we didn't.  So those were waiting in the freezer.  I made up some rolls and put the ham in the oven.  Voila!
We finally sat down to our very belated Christmas dinner. I didn't feel like making it fancy like usual with our pretty Christmas plates and table ware. But everything was yummy.  Jared asked me if it was worth the wait.  I don't know, by then it was just kind of like, "let's just eat this food so we can get it out of the fridge".  Not the usually mouth-watering anticipation.
While we were chatting and eating, Owen started to choke.  Fortunately he could breath enough to cough, it was just a matter of him working out whatever had gone down the wrong pipe.  I pulled him out of his high chair to comfort him because he was scared.  And then what happened??  He threw up all over me.  Nice.  I really didn't mind too much.  I knew it wasn't because he was sick (that's gross) or gagging himself (that's aggravating).  It was because he really needed it out.  I just looked at Jared and said, "we were destined to have someone throw up at this meal. It just HAD to happen".  A nice Christmas dinner just wasn't meant to be for us this year.  Oh well. What can you do? We'll try again next year.

Carrots anyone?

Coleson is a carrot freak.  He loves 'em- as pictured here.  He's always asking if I have any whole carrots in the fridge- which I don't often enough.  He's not interested in those baby carrots like most people like, the ones you can easily drench in ranch dipping and have a fairly equal carrot to ranch ratio.  No... he wants whole carrots.  No ranch.  I'm expecting him to turn orange any day now.  Actually, that reminds me, he WAS orange for a while when he was a baby.  I rushed him to the doctor when he was around 7 months old because he had a distinct orange tint and some family members were very concerned.  Turned out I got a pat on the back from our pediatrician, because he was turning orange from eating so many carrots and squash.  I wonder if you turn red from eating tomatoes or green from eating peas?

Gospel 101

So today at lunch the kids started talking about eternal life and eternal happiness.  I decided to keep quiet and see where it went.  They talked about being happy and how long you can be happy.  I was so proud when Katelyn interjected that Ethan would be happy forever because he could get resurrected and be happy in heaven forever.  Then everyone else joined in agreement that eternal happiness was much better.  As I sat quietly listening, I was so proud of them.

common sense, people

So yesterday was kindergarten round up for Katelyn.  Oh was she excited.  It was a Wednesday night, right during cub scouts, so of course I had to take all the little kids with me.  When they had round up for the boys, we met in the cafeteria and you filled out your forms while you sat at a table and then handed them in on your way out the door.  This time they had it set up to "stream line" the process.  Ha!!  There was a check in table that you had to wait in line to sign in and get some forms.  Then we had to go get a LONG line to the office to get on another list and some more forms.  Since I had a baby and a toddler that were more than ready for bed and Katie who really wanted to go explore the school- you can guess how much fun that line was.  Katie and Ethan got into it about running off to play in the gym.  Then all eyes were on me as they were arguing and Owen was crying for me to please take him home and put him to bed. Please mom.  I just wanted to stomp out at that point.  And the kicker was that the parent who was at the front of the line was just chatting up a storm with the secretary so the line was going NO WHERE.  Fantastic.  I mustered all my mommy patience and we made it the stink'n 20 minutes it took get through that line.  Oh then, it was on to the next line.  Thankfully it went a lot faster.  By the time it was over I wanted to scream.  But instead I left.  Stream line my foot.

Strawberries Galore!

Friday I overheard some ladies talking about a strawberry sale over at Marsh and decided I had to have some strawberries for making some jam.  The strawberries were not that great (to be expected since it's winter), but they were fine with enough sugar and cooked into jam.   Then Teresa texted me Saturday morning that Meijer was having an even better sale (10/$10) and I definitely wanted in on that deal.  So she got me 11 more pounds.  So in total I had 19 pounds of strawberries to process.  Since Coleson had ISTEP Monday morning, I let him have the rest of the day off from school.  And that meant we had time to make jam.  We started with the plucking.  Katie and Ethan were big helpers too.  They took care of handing berries to us.  And then they disposed of the stems we plucked.

I bought these new pluckers on Amazon a few weeks ago and was excited to try them out.  They're pretty awesome.  Usually after that many berries, my fingers would be sore from stem plucking, but not with this baby. 


Katie also doubled as the photographer so I got to be in some of the pictures.  She had a cold coming on so she didn't get to help too up close with the berries.  But she and Ethan did eat quite a lot of them. 


After the plucking and cleaning it was on to cooking the jam.  I started rotating batches on the stove- there were 6 batches in all-  while Katie and Ethan entertained Owen.  They did a pretty good job of it because he was just laughing like crazy at his silly siblings.

 

This is one CUTE baby!!!  Can you see his big smile under there?

When I went to get more sugar in the food storage room, I found that the sugar was hard as a rock.  I set Hunter to work breaking up the rocks.  You know, it's all about finding the right job for the right kid.  Hunter usually doesn't really care for helping in our projects- he loses interest and wanders off.  But this sugar job kept his attention and then some.  He spent more than an hour hunched over the bucket chopping.  It was one of his textile things- the grains of sugar had him mesmerized.   But by bedtime he had that entire 5 gallon bucket back to usual fine sugar.  And I'd kept him busy for all that time.  It was the right job for him.


Tuesday a snow storm blew in and we spent all of Tuesday afternoon snuggled at home making jam.  As the batches were coming off the stove and cooling the kids were SO excited to get some.  They were licking spoons and bowls.  I had to make sure everything was staying sterile that still needed to be.  Fresh jam is even better with fresh warm bread so I made 6 loaves of bread too. The bread is just a way to get the jam to your mouth.  My kids are funny that way.  Give them a pile of candy or the choice of homemade bread and jam- and 9 times out of 10 they'd pick the bread and jam.  I made an actual dinner Tuesday night, but shouldn't have bothered because everyone filled up on bread and jam.  But that's the reason I made it, because they love it so much.  Ethan was so worried about missing the jam that he didn't want to take his nap so he got his pillow and blanket and waited on the kitchen floor. 

All in all we made 15 pints of strawberry jam out of 5 batches (the 6th batch we ate out of the pan before it even made it to jars :).  It's been a yummy week.

Suspicious night noises

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, not to Owen, but to the sound of whispers and little feet in the hall way.  I sleep on the side of the bed that looks directly down the hallway (since I sleep much lighter than Jared) so that way I can just sit up and see right down the hall.  Just for reasons like this.  After my eyes adjusted I could see Katie and Ethan hunched over and tip-toeing down the hall with their pillows and whispering to each other.  I looked at my watch.  4 am.  Weird.  Usually Katie and Ethan sleep like rocks until 7 am.  I can go in their rooms and check on them in the middle of the night, put clothes away, move their blankets around and they usually don't even stir- until 7 am.  So really strange that they're up at 4.  And even more strange that they're carrying their pillows away from their bedrooms.   I laid there and thought before acting.  I knew they had built a fort out of pillows yesterday afternoon.  And there had been some talk about how fun it would be to sleep in it.  Wouldn't it be cute if they were headed down there to cuddle up and fall asleep together??  That would be precious.  But was that a chance I was willing to take?  What if they went down there and ended up wrestling and waking up all the way and then wouldn't go back to sleep at all and then I had to get up and stay up with them just to keep them quiet so the rest of the house could sleep?  Not a chance I was willing to take.  So I tip-toeed down the hall after them to walk out to the living room and find them piling their blankets and pillows on the couch to have a sleep over.  It looked like they'd been at it for a while.  I must not have been sleeping so lightly after all.  Katelyn insisted that Ethan had wanted her to go wake him up.  And he did look like a very excited accomplice.  None-the-less, I shewed them off to their beds.  Katie also insisted that she simply wasn't tired anymore- which is pretty unlike her.  She needs her sleep.  But I didn't want to argue about it anymore, so I let her read books with her light on and door closed as long as she stayed quiet.  About 10 minutes later she got up and turned her light off and went back to bed- where she stayed until 8:30- just to make up for lost time.  Ethan slept late too.  Those sleepovers can be a beast.