Baseball

This past fall Gabriel once again played baseball.  While I was at almost all of his games, I sadly can't tell you how the season went.  I refrain from naming names, but as I looked back on the pictures from the baseball season, I noticed the following two faces showed up more than Gabriel and his team.  :-)

I wonder what mom was doing most of the time?  Perhaps chasing two other little kids around? Perhaps.  

Here is one of the only pictures I took of Gabriel.  He's number 9 in the middle of the field.

Until next time,

Angie

We be looming....

The boys continue to love those tiny little rubber bands that can be magically transformed into a creative and stylin bracelet.  While the boys see the wonder in what they can be, I see that they cover our floor, are strewn about our counters and are hiding in every corner and crack in our home.  In fact, I've even found them on the floor in my office at work.  How in the world it got there, I have no idea.  I guess I'll file that away in the same folder as "How did my kitchen broom end up on the roof?"

And while I've picked up more rubber bands in the last few weeks than I ever imaged I'd do in an entire lifetime, I've come to view those tiny little things with a bit more appreciation and a lot more enjoyment.   My boys have come to love learning how to create new styles of bracelets and it has been fun watching them listen attentively to instruction and think critically in how to "fix" a mistake they just made.  And that doesn't even include the joy in seeing them peel off the bands to admire their beautifully, hand-made, finished product.  I can't help but see the true life lessons they are learning.  Try, fail, try again, succeed, be proud and try again on something new.

In a world filled with way too much technology, a game at every finger-tip, I'm excited to see them spend time using their hands to create, to build and to be proud of what tangible product they have as a result. If you ask me, I think we could use more of this today.

Until next time,
Angie

Christmas Memories...

It seems in the blink of an eye Christmas comes and goes.  This year was no different but while the time went quickly, there were no shortage of memories created.

Below are some of my favorite memories from Christmas 2013....

Isabelle "helping" mommy make sugar cookies (don't worry no cookies were contaminated in the making process)

There finger looking good Mommy!

The boy's annual ornament making.... Gabriel made Raven's ornaments while Michael perfected his Cowboy ones!

Michael enjoys making Christmas decorations.  Here he is at another holiday party creating a masterpiece!

The annual  Santa photo...

At first Belle wasn't sure about Jolly Old Saint Nick, but when we brought out the candy...

She was sold!

Fun times with the cousins!!!!  

Isabelle's fascination with our Christmas trees...

Getting to spend the holidays with Great Grandpa Ray...

Christmas eve notes to Santa begging him to leave gifts and promising to be better next year...

 And funny Christmas requests for Santa....

I'm hoping that Diamond Ring Michael wanted was for mom. :-)

Christmas morning magic...

The kids were ecstatic to receive a Rainbow loom. There was some serious looming going on, from all three kids!  While I now despise all those tiny rubber bands that end up all over our floor, all three kids love the gift.  And I guess its worth having rubber bands all over.  

And finally, some of the best Christmas memories, were not captured in photos, but molded into our hearts to last forever.

Merry Christmas to all...

Until next time,

Angie

Why didn't I look there...

My broom has been missing since November 5.  Yes, it has been well over a month and half that my broom has been missing.  I've retraced my steps, I've looked everywhere.

Seriously, I've looked all over my house, under beds, behind dressers, in my closets, in the boy's room (dare I say how desperate I was), I even looked at the local park shelter (thinking maybe in one of my brainless days, I took it to the park). All to no avail.

I should add a disclaimer that although I've been broomless for the past 48 plus days, I have swept my floors in that time with something I like to call "the crappy broom" And that leads me to explain why I felt talking about my broom was important enough to share on this blog.  See I have an amazing broom.  Well, I guess I should say, I did have an amazing broom.

We have tile or wood floors in our entire house, except for about 200 feet of carpet in our living room.  And when we first looked at our house to buy it, I thought I would love it.  I thought this will be great, instead of the dust going into the carpet, I can easily sweep it up.  And that no is where I have my complaints.  Who has time to sweep up dust bunnies, when their are fights to break up, laundry coming out of my ears and food to make.  Always some meal to make.

But I digress, back to my broom.  With the limited time I do spend sweeping our floors, I was given a rubber ended broom that is fabulous.  It picks up hairballs, dust bunnies, dirt, sand, glass, you name it.  Anything that ends up on our floor can be nicely swept up with our magic broom.  Therefore, you can understand my concern when it disappeared.

As Thanksgiving came and went and my search continued, I expanded my search, calling out my mom and dad.  Perhaps they had borrowed the broom when they were here earlier in November.  Nope, they didn't have it.  And my search continued.  While the boys wrote their Christmas letters to Santa and begged for the latest Samsung Galaxy S4 phone, an I Pad, and I Phone and every other electronic device, I secretly asked Santa for another amazing broom (that's after knowing my first wish of them to behave and get along was not realistic).

As the days before Christmas dwindled down, I was temped to go to the nearest hardware store or home depot store and search for another broom.  But instead I decided our resources were short and the ones we did have should be used for the kids.  My need for a nice broom could wait.

On Christmas morning the kids ripped through their gifts in a matter of minutes and went on about their day playing with all their toys.  Later in the afternoon the neighbor boy came over to show the boys his new remote control helicopter (similar to the one Gabriel had gotten but had already broken).  The boys decided to play in the backyard even though I told them I thought it wasn't the best idea, given it could easily fly over the fence into another person's yard or worse, the road behind our house.  But, as most comments I say, my suggestion was promptly disregarded and play in the backyard they did.

Less than two minutes later the boys came charging into the house, "MOM THE HELICOPTER IS STUCK ON THE ROOF!!"  "MOM, CAN YOU HELP GET IT DOWN FOR US!"  Shaking my head and wondering why I even say anything, I said, "You'll have to wait for Dad to get home, I"m not going on the roof today."  To the boys' luck Dad just happened to walk in the house 10 minutes later.  "Hi Mom, I'm home!"  "Dad, the boys flew Harlan's helicopter on the roof, you'll have to get it!"  "Hello to you mom too!"

Thankfully I have the best hubby in the world and moments later he was getting the big ladder out of the garage and putting it up in the backyard to get it down.   I went on about my business picking up the mess that was left behind after the gift ripping.  Dad successfully got down the helicopter and walked through the door announcing, "Mom- guess what I found on the roof?"  Thinking he was just being silly, I, with sarcasm responded, "Let me guess, a helicopter!"

Dad smiled, with his arms behind his back and said, "No- Mom, I found your broom!"  It was on the roof!"

"What?" I said, "How in the world did my broom end up on the roof?"  Immediately I knew the answer but thought I'd give the boys a chance to be honest and cough up the truth. "Boys, did you throw my broom on the roof?"  Acting like I had asked them to scrub the toilets for a week straight, they immediately denied having any involvement in the act. "Mom, why would we even touch your broom?"  We don't like to do work."  I guess they were being kind of honest.  Hoping to lead the witness into a confessions, I continued my interrogation, "Perhaps you used the broom to try and get a ball off the roof?"  Still shaking their heads NO NO NO, we didn't do anything.  I knew I was not going to get anywhere with them.  I decided to instead give up and just thank Santa.  Perhaps he forgot to drop the broom off under the tree and instead left it on the roof as he flew to the next person's house.  I'll choose to believe that story.

While my Christmas wish list was fulfilled, I also learned a lesson.  The next time something goes missing, one of the first places I'm going to look is on the roof.

Then I won't have to ask myself, "Why didn't I look there?"

Until next time,
Angie

Big brother and his little sister...

If I've said it one, I've said it a million times.  Michael is such a wonderful big brother!  All of us see it.  Especially his little sister.  Every morning, upon first spotting Michael, she races up to him, arms wide open and shouts "My call"  It doesn't matter if he's facing her or not, if he's standing up, sitting down, lying down.  You name it, the moment Isabelle's eyes meet Michael, she's full steam ahead charging to express her love through a big hug.

It's so precious.  As much as Isabelle loves Michael, it is definitely a two way street. 

The other night as I was preparing dinner, Gabriel and Dad were gone.  In the other room, were Michael and Isabelle and while normally the noise is our house is at the level most 747's produce as they take off, for a while it was quiet.  That's usually mom's sign to start checking for what trouble is a brewing.

I peeked around the corner, wondering what act I was going to catch them in.

 Instead, I saw this...

With few words actually being spoken, the language between them was flowing like a river.  

The language of love between a big brother and his little sister.

Until next time,
Angie

Oh Christmas Tree...

Last year, one of the items on Michael's Christmas list was having a Christmas Tree in he and Gabriel's room.  While I was able to get one for less than $20 on Black Friday, I decided we could make Michael's wish come true.

This year the boys were thrilled again that they get to have a Christmas tree in their room. The boys picked the colored lights and help decorate the ornaments in the places they want them to rest.  They lie in bed and admire them I know, because each night they ask me about the origins of where they came from.

"Mom- did you and Megan make these ornaments?"  Can you make them with us?  Sadly I can't remember how they were made.
Mom- my favorite ornament on our tree is the NFL one.

It's clear they love having the tree as much as I love watching them enjoy it.  I love sneaking into their room while they are fast asleep and seeing the glow of the tree's lights shine on their walls.  The sense of peace in their room is so inviting, it makes me want to curl up on their floor and just enjoy the moment.

I love so many things about Christmas and getting the boys a tree for their room gave me yet another reason to my already long list of why I love this holiday so much.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Until next time,
Angie

It's not Christmas break without a trip to Urgent Care

Sadly, this title is true and less than 24 hours after the boys began their two-week break from school, Gabriel was sitting in the local urgent care waiting for his leg to be stitched back together.

See it all started with our wonderful family tradition of holiday baking.  It is one of my favorite times of the year.  We get together with Dad's family and spent an entire day baking goodies and enjoying each others company.  With the love of baking I have, it is, in my mind, it almost like spending a full day at the spa.

So this past Saturday, was our baking day.  While there are some family members that relish in the act of baking, others prefer to be taste testers and want to stay as far away from any baking duties as possible (ahem Dad).  With 8 kids (9 and younger), we usually delegate the dads and Papa to enjoy some good old kid action at the nearby park, at least until the rest of us can make some major headway with the baking.

And that's when it happened. After finally rounding up the herd and getting ready to leave the house, we joked with Jarrett saying, "Now make sure you give us the full 2 hours, and don't start the timer until you actually get to the park."  Less than 75 minutes into our no-kid baking time, Nolan's phone rang to share the news they were all returning.  Gabriel had fallen at the skate park area and had hit his leg.  Uncle Jeremy shared that Gabriel had cut it pretty bad and that we'd probably have to take him to the ER.

As Nolan shared the news, I secretly hoped it was just a bad scrape.  Gabriel has gotten some pretty good cuts and scrapes in the past.  Between his entire leg getting road rash from a nasty bike fall

to splitting his chin open as he fell in our backyard,

 I was hoping it looked worse than it really was.

After getting the news I waited outside for Dad and Gabriel to return, like the nurses in one of my old favorite TV shows, " ER" wait outside for the ambulance to come with the injured patient.  Finally Dad and crew pulled up and when I first saw Gabriel he was smiling.  His cousins and brother riding in the same car had done a great job distracting him.

I carried him into the house and asked him to show me his injury.  As he pulled off a tissue he had put on it to stop the bleeding, I looked into his leg which seems to have been ripped in several ways and was a lot deeper gash that I ever expected to see.  As Gabriel recounted the story, I started to realize that no band-aid we had was going to do the trick in fixing this ouwie.  Gabriel said he had been on his scooter and fell down not hitting his leg on the cement but on the actual scooter.  Later Uncle Jeremy looked at the scooter and found a sharp metal piece that had been broken with Gabriel skin chunks clearly attached to the metal.

With a quick survey from the other adults present, the decision was made to take him to urgent care.  Dad and Nana went with him, while the rest of us stayed back to keep the baking going.  Although I wish I had gone along with him, (I did feel guilty for not being there with him), I knew he was in good hands and that he'd be fine.  Dad kept me posted via text how things were going...

Me:  How's he doing?
Dad:  He's fine, We're just getting seen now.

several minutes later
Me:  Now what's going on?  What did the doctor say?
Dad:  Should we order pizza?  (I knew when I got Dad's note, things must be going really well)
Me:  Fine.  Now, how is he doing?
Dad:  They're cleaning it now.  He'll need stitches.
Me:  Bummer, how many?  Is he doing okay?
Dad: 7 stitches.  He was freaked out by the numbing shots, but did well for the actual stitches.  He's watching football now.  They're cleaning it again and then we'll be home.

And soon enough Dad, Nana and Gabriel were back home to re-join in the festivities.  While Gabriel seemed very excited to share how brave he was, the truth was we were proud of him for how brave he was.  I can honestly say, looking at his leg ripped open, I don't think I could have held my composure as well as he did.

So now we are into day three of Christmas break and I'm doing my best to keep the activity for his leg limited.  For a boy who can't get enough running, playing or tossing of a ball, it is brutal to keep him out of playing neighborhood football in the street with the neighborhood kids. While he's promised me a million times he won't fall down or scrape his leg that has the stitches in, I'm not so convinced another accident couldn't happen, so we've been spending a lot of time watching TV and Christmas movies.  Personally, I love it.

While I hope the rest of our Christmas break is uneventful, I'm already gearing up for how to bring up the in depth discussion of how those stitches have to be cut out.  While it shouldn't hurt, he's VERY protective of his injury and wants no one to come within 6 inches of touching it.  I guess I might just save that conversation for when were actually sitting in the doctors office moments before they come in to take them out.

Gabriel's stitches.  I think the doctor did a pretty good job getting all the pieces that were open in different directions pieced back together.  

And here's Gabriel telling me, "Mom, I told you it hurt REALLY bad."

Until next time,
Angie