Wordless Wednesday!

Cody with his sombrero!

Austin with his Sombrero!

Wild man hair, after nap!

Birthday Cake I made for the boys!

Worms!

The Big fish Cody caught in Mt. Shasta!

Look at what I found!

Wordless Wednesday-Food Edition



1st attemp at making homemade calzone's with HM dough!





What happens when you put too much in a blender!



Making Seafood Chowder, cooking the veggies!

The final product, Seafood Chowder!

Homemade pickles from cucumbers in our garden!



Future Pumpkin Pie!



Homemade Apple Pie!

I was invaded by lil people And we are Mobile now!

This morning everytime I turned around the kiddos seemed to multiply!! haha!!  Ok so in reality there were 3 here when I woke up (mine) and then another showed up and then another and another and pretty soon my living room was full of lil monkies who needed breakfast and some outside time!!! I was feeling a lil crazy and my OCD was really having issues, so got everyone up to the table and food out and then it was silent ;-0    Well for a minute or two!! haha  Then it was outside time for the big kids and not long before nap time for the babies!! Thank goodness for front yards and nap time (don't know how I would survive without them!!)
Ok so the Fun is really beginning! Dylan is starting to really move around and get into things! 2 times today, he managed to get into the cords for the computer! He will get up on his knees and then onto his toes for some "toe pushups" and then lunge forward! Or he will kinda wiggle/army crawl towards his Prize!! We have given him his own remote (minus batteries) to chase down and its so funny to watch him go for it!

Look at Me!

This is so exciting for me, since neither one of the older 2 ever did this!! Cody didn't learn to scoot til about 11m and Austin rolled some and then scooted til he learned to walk. I think it is because they refused to play on their tummy's and Dylan spends a lot of time on his playing!
 He figured out how to get around the living room and headed down the hall after me while I was getting the boys into bed. That is until he got mad and started crying!!  He is getting better each day, and it won't be long and he'll be going mock II!! haha

Wordless Wednesday

Thought I would give a try at this wordless wednesday, Lil Brother really enjoyed himself at the Ca State Fair with Mommy and Grandma last week!

Watching the goat show!

Playing by the show box at our pens!

Gotta have his picture taken with the Golden Bear!

Trying on hats!

Helping Grandma milk!

It's waayy too hot for this hat Mommy!

One tired lil man!

Busy, busy!

We have been so busy lately, it is insane! The boys have been doing swimming lessons for the past 3weeks, and this is the last week. They are doing great! I can't believe how much of a difference it has made. The only problem was I had to choose the session that was during dinner time so I didn't have to take the daycare kids too. So now I've been having to sit down and plan my dinner menu a little bit different than normal. Everything has to either go in the slow cooker or in the oven so when we get home dinner is ready or will take minimal effort to get it on the table. I normally plan my dinner menu out for the week on Sat morning and then make a grocery list. I find if I don't, then dinner is hard to figure out or we're more likely to eat out or order pizza.
Last week I was so proud, every nite I had something ready when we got home from lessons!

Mon-Steak in the oven-Melt in your mouth, rice, cauliflower
Tues-Pulled Pork with sourdough bread and beans
Wed-Biscuits w/beef & veggie soup over
Thurs-Slow cooker stuffed meatloaf, homemade applesauce, sourdough bread
Fri-Chicken cooked with stewed tomatoes/olives/corn/black beans and in tortillas w/cheese

*Most nights, we also have a green salad with dinner*

All dinners turned out great and it was so nice to have something ready to go! So this week's menu:

Mon- Spaghetti-Didn't get it going early enough, so we had waffles :-)
Tues- Stroganof with crunchy noodles
Wed-Whole chicken w/veggies
Thurs-Stuffed noodles w/spinach & mushrooms
Fri-we will be head outta town-leftovers!

 Since I'm trying to get back into the habit of making a menu, I will try to post one on here each week to help motivate me!! We will be at the State Fair Friday though next Wed, so I will skip next week. Good luck to anyone else making a menu!

Kids and technology!

This was one of those priceless moments that shows how different my older 2 boys are!
Thursday night at Walmart Austin went in to the bathroom to poop and was sitting there when the toilet automatically flushed on him. He looks down at the water then back up and says "Wait, I didn't poop yet!" Just like, "what the heck, how rude"! It was too funny and totally in character for him!
Now Cody on the other hand, would freak out and we would have to put something over the sensor so he would even go potty! Even now, he gets upset if the toilet flushes on him!
They may be brothers and alike in so many ways, but this just shows how different they really are!!

Craftiness

Ok so I have been reading all the different blogs of the families who participated in the week long Flats and Hand Washing challenge. I really wish that I would have heard about it so that I could participate too! However I'm so excited because when we go camping or up to our family cabin, I can do cloth and wash them w/out a washer!! Something else is I'm so impressed with all the different ideas everyone has come up with to use for diapers and covers! I've come up with some of my own ideas for the diapers I made or things I'm using as flat folds!
Now I have read about someone who came up with their own idea for a wrap for easy babywearing! So instead of paying an insane amount of money, I could make one for free with 3 tshirts and a piece of yarn!!
I love being able to create/sew things for my family/friends! Home made means so much more and its so great to see poeple using things I've created!  I've recently started sewing burp cloths/wash cloths/nursing covers/boppy covers/wraps that I've been going to craft shows selling and having homemade baby things for my friends and their babies! And its even better to upcycle things and find new uses for things!!

My new obsession!

Ok so I have been cloth diapering our youngest for about 3m now and am still enjoying it!! No more having to buy diapers at $40/box. I wanted to use cloth with my middle child, but just couldn't get over the amount of up front money to buy what I needed. However a friend mentioned that she was making diapers and I thought, "I can do that!" so here we are and things are going great! The longer I use them, the more obsessed I become!! haha I am finding all types of blogs to read and websites to go to. Finding out that my idea to use hooded towels and recieving blankets is something common to other cding Mommas! So far, I've used old flannel my mom had from making dad a new shirt for xmas every year since they got married (30+) and old tshirts and made myself a bunch of prefolds. The only money I've spent is to buy 4 size M Motherease covers and 2 size 1 thristies duo wraps to start with and now I've purchased 6 more thirsties duo wraps size 2 and I love them! I would have only purchased the thristies had I known how much better I would like them! Now I'm getting creative about other things to use. All extra recieving blankets have gone into the diaper stash along with extra hooded towels and a few extra burp cloths to use as doublers for nites. I'm trying to decide what to do about the wool soakers. I would really like to find a good pattern to upcycle one I think, I just need to ask family/friends if anyone has an old wool sweater. I've also recently been turned onto the idea of fleece from one of the blogs I'm following and I know I've got old fleece pj's that could be upcycled! 
So I'm very happy with my switch to cloth and wish I would have done it sooner! And I can't wait to get my clothes line up so I can hang all the cute diapers/covers in the summer sun!!!

Summer might finally be arriving!

So this is the first wk of summer vacation for the kids and yesterday was another nasty rainy day and I found myself wondering when summer would end and school would begin again!!  However today is just beautiful outside and looks like it will be for awhile, so now maybe we can get on with enjoying summer time!! 
Next wk is our county fair, which we will be at helping my Mom show her goats. I used to show and was in 4-H and so far it looks like my oldest is going to follow in my footsteps. He loves the animals and enjoys helping with chores, so as he gets older we shall see. So this wk is busy gettting ready, we have to clip the goats (and since we've had so much cold and rain make sure we have blankets for everyone), organize the show box and things we will take with us and make sure all the decorations are ready to go! Every year, my Mom likes to make decorations for each pen and our heard sign that match the fair theme. This year its "A slice of Heaven in 2011".  So I'm crossing my fingers the good weather holds out for next wk!

June and RAIN?

So here we are in June and its raining outside with thunder storms this afternoon, again! Wait, I thought we lived where it was suppposed to be 110 by now? I think I will just be glad that the lakes are getting full and my plants are getting watered for free!
So why is it that freshly washed windows attract children and just seem to yell "put your grubby lil fingers all over me", "blow raspberries on me"! I guess there are more important things to worry about than clean windows! haha Good thing people who come over here know that we live here and the house has the lived in feeling! Nobody would mistake our house for a museam! haha

Ready, Set, Go!

OK, so I'm new to the whole Blog thing. I've been reading the tales of other Moms and what their daily lives are like and finding out my crazy life isn't so different than others are!
So I am going to start sharing my daily trials of having 3 boys! Cody (AKA Codeman)  is the oldest at 4.5yrs, then Austin (AKA Boogie Boy) is the middle at 2.5yrs (their bdays are 8days shy of 2yrs apart). Then there is Lil Brother, Dylan who is almost 6m! We have 3 dogs, 2 cats, a bunch of ducks and chickens and a fish tank of goldfish! We live about 1.6 miles from my parents house where I grew up in beautiful Northern Ca! My brother and Sis In Law live close by too (as do a lot of my rather large family). We spend a lot of time with my family and thankfully my family loves my Husband and he loves them (His insane Mother is a book on its own, so for now we'll just leave it alone!)
We enjoy being outdoors and have discovered that on days when we can be outside, the kids are totally different than on yucky rainy days like today when we have to be indoors :-(   However I am one of those Mom's who believes in rubber boots, rain coats and hot showers when they come back in from playing in the rain/puddles!! Makes everyone's lives more enjoyable to let them out into the mud for awhile! And this seems to be the year for never ending rain! As I'm sitting her, I can't believe tomorrow is June 1st and its 45 outside and pouring rain blowing sideways! We should be in shorts and hot, not freezing!
We are currently working on leveling our front yard so we can put in a lawn, the big swing set and climber from the Elem school (they built a gym and took them out). Our place is a work in progress! And since Life seems to happen, it is a never ending, slow process :-)  But like a friend once told me, we have 30yrs to get it done!!
Well my Me time (aka nap time) is over so I will try this again tomorrow!