Freddy

We are now an elf on the shelf family. Freddy is our newest member of the family. If you have never heard of this, first of all where have you been??? and second of all..check it out! You buy either a boy or girl elf which comes with a book that explains the tradition of the elf and the reasoning behind owning one. Basically you tell your kids they have to come up with a name for your elf and they are not supposed to touch him. I am not sure why no touching..but anyway....then in the story it says that your elf watches you all day long and then when you go to bed at night he flies back to the north pole to report back to santa on whether you have been good or bad that day. For the record I didn't buy this elf so that I could doop my kids into being good...because it doesn't work.  If I am being completely honest I love the idea that as the parents we get to be creative and place him in a new location every night and the kids are supposed to try and find him each morning. Pinterest has many creative ideas of what to do with your elf but I am going to try and come up with my own ideas as long as I can.

This is where I put him last night. I am not sure where I came up with this idea. The kids had put this plastic snake on our brick months ago. I think that adds a nice touch to rock climbing Freddy.
Stay tuned for Freddy's latest shenanigans!!

Thursday confession session

~ I really wish I would blog the events of each day. There is always something I could be documenting of my treasured life. However, I have a hard time sitting down to do it. I would rather play Mahjong on my kindle.

~ Brad always calls me an old lady because I like to get up early and drink my coffee and play Mahjong and solitaire.

~ The real reason I like to get up early is because I like to trick myself into thinking that I was in control of when I woke up. In reality my kids are in their rooms playing at 5:30 every morning and I sit and pretend they are still sleeping.

~ Almost every day I have an internal battle with myself to eat real food, fruits, vegetables, even sandwhiches. If I could function normally and not feel like crap or be 500 lbs I would eat candy and drink pop all day, every day.

~ My kids eat peanut butter toast almost every morning. They don't complain, that is what they ask for. It is nice knowing I can whip that up quickly without worry.

~ I thought I would love having a couple hours to myself every tuesday and thursday while Lydia is in preschool. In reality, I really don't like quiet that much. I usually end up getting groceries and that takes up most of the time.

~ Today I took Leo on a walk and he decided he had to take a dump right across the street from mcdonalds. It is not technically on the sidewalk but pretty darn close. People better watch their step. This is the first time he has ever pooped on a walk or run before.

~ I am wearing a hat today because I haven't washed my hair in two days.

~ I hate taking showers now that I have 3 other people to worry about keeping clean. Mostly it is the brushing out my thick wet hair afterwards that is annoying.

~ I am listening to the twilight soundtrack as I type.

~ I am NOT going to the midnight showing of the last installment of the twilight series. gasp! I did go to the other 3 though.

~ I am probably going to go see if friday night with my mom at an acceptable hour.

~ I would have put up my christmas decorations by now if I didn't have to go out to the shop and get them myself.

~ I have gone black friday shopping for as long as I can remember...like when Target opened bright and early at 7 am. It is all about nostalgia for me.

~ I hate that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

End of October

We have been busy as a family enjoying the usual fall/October festivities that lead up to Halloween.

We carved pumpkins purchased from fred meyer this year. We just couldn't squeeze in the time or money to go to the patch. Most of the fun comes anyway once you are home and get to design your own pumpkin. Somehow I usually end up doing most of the work of gutting them. However, this year I told them they had to do most of it on their own and I would help towards the end. My job was to separate the seeds. I always roast seeds for a yummy snack. This year I tried a new recipe. I usually add salt and some spice but this year I wanted them sweet so I did cinnamon and sugar.

Lydia and I ended up getting to go to Hunter Farms with her preschool class this year. Laila and Landon were pretty jealous because their school doesn't do that as a field trip. Lydia had a great time running around with her little friends and screaming when the loose chickens came towards her.

My cousin Jon, his wife Amber and son Kynan were in Olympia this week for a few days visiting Amber's grandparents. They live in Missoula, Montana so it has been awhile since we last saw them. We intended to meet at Charlies Safari but when we showed up it was closed to the public. They had some special party happening. We ended up at Chuckee cheese which probably was for the best. On a monday night, there was basically two other families. It was awesome!!

Halloween ended up much better than I thought it would. We have had pooring rain for days and it was not looking like it would change. Luckily, we had rain free trick or treating up until the last couple houses where it lightly rained on us. As you can see Landon was an army soldier, Lydia a bunny and Laila was Merida from the movie Brave. Originally, Landon was going to be spider man and Lydia was also going to be Merida. Unfortunately, we bought the costumes from costco in early September and we let them wear them around the house and Landon and Lydia just wore them out. Landon's is fixable, just coming apart at the seams. Lydia's dress is not as easily fixable. Her dress got caught on our fence and tore the first sheer layer.  Anyway, I think their costumes suit them perfectly. The kids had a great time and ended up with just enough candy to gorge themselves for a day and half and then life can go back to normal. :)

apple juice

We are so lucky to have friends with an amazing home with their property full of apple and pear trees. Brad has been lifelong friends with the family so he has been picking their apples and pears to make juice all his life. None of the kids live at home anymore and the parents are too busy to deal with all of their bounty alone,  so we are always asked if we want to come get our fill. Not only do we get to make juice but we get to talk to the neighbors llamas, alpacas and horses. What kids don't want to "hang" out with farm animals?? We get to feed them scraps and whole apples out of our hands.

This year we have been so busy with fall soccer and other things. We were asked weeks ago if we wanted to come do apples but never had time. Kenan was home for 2 days before heading back to San Fransisco so we made the time last night to go over after Brad got off work and do what we could before dark. There are still a lot of apples that will go to waste. Depending on weather, etc. we may try and do apples one more time.  Here are a few pics of our fun.....

cold continues

It is now day 5 of being completely stuffed up. It seems like every fall I get this same cold. I was pretty lucky last year and that was about all the sickness I had. I am definitely over the zero energy and aches. After dropping Laila and Landon off at school Lydia and I went to the drive thru at mcdonalds so I could get myself orange Juice. Yes, getting out of the car to walk into the grocery store for a full jug would have been too much for me. I envision the rest of the day going something like this; laundry, increase piles of used tissue, put in dvd after dvd,  and be too distracted with my own misery to realize the gingers are pooring glue on my bed...oh wait that happened yesterday when Brad got called out to work.

While Landon was at school today Lydia wanted to do "homework". She sees Laila and Landon doing school work all the time now so she has decided she needs her own. This seemed like a good time to get out the dry erase book and pens. She had fun tracing letters. She has just started to trace her own name at school so she is kind of fascinated by it all for now.

Wet weekend

I have had a yucky cold since last Thursday so the only time I got out of the house this weekend was for Laila's soccer game. The rain has finally hit so it was a wet one. The girls finally got a taste for what real soccer is about here in Washington. We had been spoiled with such an amazing beginning to fall. The girls won 3-2. It is amazing how much each girl has improved since the beginning of the season just a month ago.

It was our turn to bring snack for after the game. I let Laila have a little fun after school on friday putting stickers on the girls snack bags.

Laila playing goalie. She loves it. However, she needs to work on being more aggressive. She let one get by her because she didn't want to get down in the mud. I "nicely" yelled to her that she can't be afraid to get a little dirty. The next play she was on the ground:)

check out the dirty legs..haha

Landon had it made in the pop up tent fully enclosed. Meanwhile Lydia is dancing in the rain being her crazy self.

A ball from the game next to ours went on the field and Brad quickly went out to grab it and ended up flat on his back:) I shouldn't have laughed as hard as I did because not two minutes later I was talking to a parent and walking backwards and tripped over Lydia who was playing behind me. I didn't fall flat on my back but I had a wet butt the rest of the game.

I love watching my girl play. I am starting to worry though that I am becoming one of THOSE parents. Ya know the kind that stands up the whole game....can't keep her mouth shut....?? yikes.

Quick shopping trip

This morning Lydia and I dropped Laila and Landon off at school and headed to Olympia. I wanted to check out the new TJ Maxx that opened in Olympia. I had never been to one but have heard a lot of great things. The store didn't open until 9:30 so Lydia and I went over to Target basically across the street to waste some time. I could waste hours in Target but we only needed a half hour today. I needed to pick up 3 more 8x10's for the kids' school pictures this year. I also have been wanting to find some cute shoe size boxes to put all of our dvds in. I am tired of all the plastic cases that take up too much room and never have the right dvds in them anyway. I am going to buy some paper dvd sleeves and put them all in alphabetical order. I am not super excited about the ones I bought today but they were a good price and do the trick.

They are clear with black floral print. Hard to see with bad pictures taken from my phone.


After Target we went to TJ maxx. I found some cute clothes for the kids but nothing they needed. I didn't realize it was such a small store. There weren't as many options as I was envisioning. It reminded me of Ross actually. I ended up only buying Lydia a cute shirt with ballerinas on it that she "had to have." We had about an hour left at this point until we needed to head back to get Landon from school. We went over to petco and got Laila a new glo fish and some fish food. The kids got a really awesome fish tank last christmas and each got their own fish. Laila's died not too long after we first brought them home. She was upset when hers died but not enough so that we never replaced it. I think she will be excited when she comes home from school this afternoon. Petco didn't take very long so we went to Barnes and noble right next door. I love to stop there and look at all of their childrens books. I especially like to go there during different seasons and holidays. Today I wanted to try and find a fun new halloween book. There were so many to choose from but Lydia and I decided on The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything

I think this will be a fun one. I am excited to read it to the kids before bed tonight. Last year my mom bought them Room on the broom.

This is actually one of my favorite books to read to them. I highly recommend this one for all ages.


We were about to check out and this caught my eye

We have a few fall decorations but nothing for Halloween. I am not into goblin, vampire, mummy, etc. decor so I loved how simple and cute this is. I think it works well in a home with young children. :)

Since we were at Barnes and Noble Lydia and I just had to get something from Starbucks for the drive back. Lydia had cocoa which she dumped all over herself on the way home. Yay for wearing brown pants! I had my very first ever pumpkin spice latte. I needed to taste for myself what all the hype is about. I thought it was pretty good but nothing that my hubby has to worry about us going broke for.

8 and 6

Monday afternoon Laila and Landon had their yearly checkups. They are both up to date on their immunizations so it was nice knowing all they needed were their yearly flu shots. It is nice being able to do both of their checkups together each year. I think it relieves some nerves when they are not doing the tests alone. However, I know soon it won't be appropriate for them to be in the same room.

Laila is 4 ft 2 inches tall and weighs 57lbs. That puts her in the 50th percentile for height and weight. I was a little surprised by this. I have always thought she was on the taller side and people have been commenting lately that she looks much older than she is which I hate of course. Landon is 3 ft 9 or 10 I can't remember  now. He weighs 53 lbs. This puts him in the 49th percentile for height and 75th for weight. Last year they commented on how he was a little heavy for his height even though he didn't look it. This year they didn't say a thing. He is just a well built little boy.

They both passed their hearing and vision tests beautifully. Landon messed around a little with his hearing test. At first he just kept going back and forth between raising his hands instead of really listening. Luckily our nurse is very sweet and patient. When the nurse got done doing her part she said "ok have them take their clothes off down to their underwear"...Landon said, "but I'm not wearing underwear." That's my boy! Apparently he decided not to put on any underwear that morning. This is not the first time this has happened. I guess I need to be checking from now on. When the doctor came in they answered all his questions about how they are liking school and if they take their vitamins. Landon even complemented Dr. Karpel on his tie. Dr. Karpel is pretty serious and I have never seen him laugh but he got quite the kick out of that. He said he isn't used to getting complements from his patients on his clothes. :)

This year I chose to do the flu mist for Laila and Landon. They are old enough to follow directions and sniff when told to. They were so relieved. As my kids have become older they have become worse at receiving shots so it was a relief for me as well. Poor Lydia got her flu shot though. We weren't sure she could sniff the mist up correctly. I didn't want to waste the mist and then have to pay for that and a shot. She ended up getting poked twice. I underestimated how strong she is and she flinched at the last second on the first arm and the needle grazed her arm. Laila woke up this morning with a sore throat and a headache. It is possible that it is side effects of the mist. They told me before hand that they see more side effects with the mist than with the shot. However, nothing serious.

Applesauce

This morning after dropping Laila and Landon off at school, Lydia and I walked a few blocks down to Jays farm stand. I decided I wanted to make applesauce in the crock pot to fill my house with that delicious apple cinnamon smell. I love being able to walk down and get apples for 69 cents a pound and not have to worry about picking apples without any blemishes.

Lydia is the perfect age to go on walks/adventures with. Unfortunately, she has always been miss independent and won't hold my hand at all.

She insisted on bringing a backpack with snacks and her baby. Half way through the walk she took her coat off to wrap around her baby. It was a cold morning too!

    I don't have anything fancy to cut and core my apples so I spent awhile preparing them for the crock pot.

                                            My house may not be clean but it will smell heavenly.

new way to do cocoa

I found these the other day at the store.  They are just like the little marshmallows that come in the little packets. However, now I can put in as many marshmallows as I want!

Ta da!!

back pack emergency kits

This year my mom decided my kids needed to have their own emergency kits at shool with them. They are now prepared for anything. Lydia even has one but since she has no backpack we just keep it in the car with us. I took some pictures to show what they look like.

My mom got each of them a lunch bag from Lands End to keep everything in. It is the perfect size. Lydia and Laila have pink and Landon has a blue one.

Inside there are emergency blankets and a dust mask.

A first aid kit with bandaids and antibacterial cream.

some food and water. We will see how long this lasts in their kits before they have an emergency at school..like being really really hungry:)

not pictured is hand sanitizer and a whistle.

UGH

My kids are trying to kill me!!! Ok, not literally murder me but they are sure seeing if I can have a stroke before I reach 30. I am being a tad dramatic but the anxiety and feelings of frustration are fresh. This week hasn't been the best but definitely one for the books, hence the reason I am blogging. I think my blood started boiling once school started actually. I think every start of a new school year takes a little while to readjust but that better happen quick because I am not sure how many more meltdowns I can handle from each of my 3 beautiful children. Most of the recent happenings around the house have been no big deal just a lot of little issues adding up. Everyone is just a little cranky! However, 3 things happened to make this week memorable.

On tuesday I had my first mops meeting of the year. I was excited to see my friends and be able to go with all 3 of my children safely in school, surely unable to interrupt my mommy time. I always put my phone on silent so that I don't interrupt anyone speaking that day or coming up for a prayer. From now on I may be putting my phone on the table so I can check it a few times. Anyway, around 10:20 Pam, one of the ladies who works on the church came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder and said, "hi Liz, your husband needs you to call him right now...it's uhhh..kind of an emergency." My heart starts pounding and suddenly can't hear anything else. I am in my own world now. I quickly grab my phone and head outside. Luckily, Brad answers right away. He says, "I need you to go get Landon and take him to the ER....or umm the doctor...not sure which one...." Of course I need more info so I ask why and he says. "Landon ate a mushroom outside, it might be poisonous and they are on the phone with poison control right now." I pretty much say ok bye and run/walk back to my table and grab my purse. I THINK I said " Landon ate a mushroom can you pray for him?" I don't think I am alone on this as a parent but when you hear there is potential for your child to be in danger and don't know all of the information your mind goes to everything bad first. I am not sure how I made it to mt.view safely. I was speeding, talking to the pediatrician and crying all at the same time. I wanted to know what their opinion was before I even saw Landon. My pediatrician said he I'm sure it is not a lethal mushroom but I want you to bring the mushroom into us and we will go from there. Looking back now I am sure I walked into mt. view looking a bit crazed but I went to the office and saw my lil boy sitting there downing water. The nurse said poison control was pretty sure it wasn't a lethal one based on the description but that it could make him pretty sick. They really didn't seem that worried whatsoever. I started feeling like an idiot for crying but decided I wanted to see what the pediatrician had to say still. We were quick in and out of the doctors office. The pediatrician didn't know what kind the mushroom was either but said he could tell me it wasn't lethal. They just told me to be on my way and watch for vomiting and lethargy. On the drive home Landon fell asleep in the car, which never happens early in the day like that. Luckily, I think he was worn out from all the concern surrounding him. Landon never got sick. We have decided that he must not have eaten as much as originally thought.

Yesterday Landon came home with an oops card. An oops card is sent home when a child does something after being warned. It stated that Landon was tackling his friends. :) I just had to sign it and send it back to school. Obviously Landon's first offense wasn't a huge one. Brad and I had to sit him down and explain to him that it is unacceptable to get in trouble at school. I tried all day to think of a unique consequence but came up blank. Hopefully this will be the last of the oops cards.

We walk everyday to pick Laila up from school. We live to ridiculously close to not but it is also inconvenient with a 3 year old who thinks she's the boss. I am always highly stressed because at any given moment she will drop to her knees because she doesn't want to hold my hand. Most often, right in the cross walk. Why does everything happen in the cross walk??? Today Lydia brought along two strawberry shortcake dolls and two little pet shop cats. The walk there was pretty uneventful until the dreaded crosswalk on the way back. Today Lydia decided to sit down on the sidewalk the second I stepped out into the cross walk with Laila and Landon while 5 cars waited for us. I had to literally grab her arm and carry her across. Half way through she drops a little pet shop cat. Oh no, that was just one pet shop cat that mom just picked up. Now she realized she left the other one on the sidewalk. She tries to run back for it, while Laila starts wailing because it is HER toy. In my deranged Ogre voice I say " we are not getting it...leave it!!" We finally make it across the street with now 10 cars waiting for us when Laila says "oh no the dolls dress!" Before I can even open my mouth she has ran back into the cross walk to get it. It was one of those embarrassing moments when you feel like everyone has just witnessed one of your worst mommy moments. I felt like I might as well have been walking around naked. Anyway, I hate crosswalks!!

After all the anxiety felt on any given day with 3 kids, it is nothing compared to the love and pride I feel for them. That must be why when I browse the kids section on pinterest and see all the cute baby things I day dream about what it would be like to have another. 

"Falling" behind

I have such a hard time keeping up with my blog lately. I used to think that my kids were demanding of time as toddlers but now that my kids are older and in school they are busy busy. I am driving all over and the house has NOT gotten any cleaner yet. :) Therefore, the last thing I want to do when I have time is sit down and try to write coherently and intelligently. That said, I still want to document this life that keeps flying by and who cares if all I can muster up are a few pictures now and then.

I now have a 2nd grader who turned 8 on the 16th and a kindergartner that turned 6 on the 7th.

Lydia also started preschool. It is different this time with her because she is one of the younger ones in the class and much younger than Laila and Landon when they started. Laila and Landon were just turning 4 and Lydia has only been 3 since May. She is doing great which I had no doubts about.

We decided to put Laila in fall soccer this year. Actually we gave her the option to do dance for her 3rd year or soccer. Surprisingly she chose soccer. She is on the U9 soccer team which is all girls. She and her friend Hannah are the only 2nd graders, the rest are in 3rd grade. We have had two games so far one at home and one in Elma. Laila is finally learning the different positions and making a lot of progress since summer soccer.

We were able to get enough sponsors so that no one had to pay out of pocket for the uniforms. We also were able to order a team bag, goalie jersey and gloves. We are hoping to get a little more to get a tent for those yucky rainy days. We then would be able to put the names of the sponsors on the tent rather than on their jerseys.

The girls voted on their color of uniforms and their name. Almost everyone wanted blue. I never would have guessed that when they had pretty much any color available. They also voted on their name being Speedy Cheetahs. Trust me when I say it could have been much worse. Luckily, Brad decided before hand that we wouldn't put their name on their uniforms yet. The idea is that these girls will all play together for years to come. We will see if the Speedy Cheetah name endures:)

proof of summer

It always feels like it takes so long for summer to actually arrive here and then it goes away far too soon and we sometimes forget by next spring that we ever had a summer. Here's the proof. We saw it top off on some thermometers at 92.

working on my summer bucket list

I lost my summer bucket list that I made at the beginning of summer but I think I have done about half the things I wanted to do. I know one of the main things I wanted to do we are failing at. I wanted to get all 3 kids riding their bikes without training wheels. This would have required actually getting out and trying which we have not done. Here is what we have done so far off my list...

* went camping

* went swimming( kind of cheating putting this on the list since my parents live on a lake..but we have gone above and beyond I think. :) swimming almost every day above 75 degrees.

* redid the girls closet. Laila used to have all of her clothes in the closet with Lydia's in an armoire. I decided to put both girls clothes in one closet and use the armoire for their american girl stuff/ other doll stuff. This meant that we had to raise the bar and add another one. They each have a side of the closet with their shirts, sweater, jackets on top and their pants, skirts on bottom.

* today I made raspberry jam and have raspberry fruit leather in the oven right now.

I am leaving for San Diego on Wednesday to meet my nephew Finn. This will be the longest I have ever been away from my children. I am worried but know it will go all too fast anyway. Soon after I get back I will be getting ready for back to school. My parents are both teachers and will be headed back to their classrooms to get ready. I cannot believe I am sending my boy to kindergarten and my baby to preschool this year. I need to start planning what I want to get done with the last bit of summer when I get home.

Here fishy fishy

This summer, any day over over 75 degrees we have spent at my parents house on Spencer lake. My kids have always showed interest in fishing but this year was the first time they have sat for longer than 20 minutes and actually are using real bate. The last 2 days they have been catching little fish left and right. They have been catching sun fish, perch and small bass. Between Laila and Landon they caught about 30 today. Unfortunately, none of these fish are keepers. This actually works out quite perfectly for them. They are able to pull them in themselves and Laila is starting to unhook them and throw them back in herself. They get so excited each time they get one. I have had so much fun watching them fish and see their excitement over and over. Below are some pictures of our day.

Tomorrow morning Brad and I are going to wake them up bright and early(I am thinking 6 am...we'll see if I can get Brad out of bed) to go fish for bigger fish that we could keep. My dad says he has seen some really big bass under their dock but they are out in the early morning. I hope we get a big one!