Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful that God steps in even before we know that we need Him to.  There was a situation here yesterday involving a nephew and my Howler monkey that required calling 911.  Earlier in the morning my darling husband had called me to chat about something I e-mailed him about that I was upset about.  Prior to him calling our cell phone was in the diaper bag, in a pocket, in the living room.  It took easily several minutes for me to walk from the kitchen to the living room to prod the phone from the pocket of the bag and answer it.  When our call was complete I laid the phone on the kitchen counter.  Exactly where it needed to be when I was standing in the middle of my kitchen with my poor bleeding nephew needing to call 911 in a time efficient manner.  I regret the events that happened yesterday more than I can find words to say but I am so thankful that God knew ahead of time that I would need that phone and caused events to line up in a way that the phone was exactly WHERE I needed it WHEN I needed it.  Because truly, only God could have lined that up.  I rarely get phone calls and KOJ and I mostly e-mail back and forth during the days, esp that early in the morning.  So I just praise God that He's there in the little things.  He is faithful.

For the record my nephew is ok.  He got his first stitches and has to be seen for a potential sprained shoulder this morning but he is otherwise ok.  And I'm thankful for that too. 

And I'm thankful for my Squirrel monkey.  He helped hold pressure to one of nephews cuts so I could use my hand to call my sister and let her know what was going on.  He didn't even bat an eye and he just steps right up.  I'm so thankful that God gave me such an amazing first born son.

What are you thankful for today?

A lesson about whining and dragging my feet and the story of the curls

Hello Tuesday!  Sorry I'm late. lol  I was busy this morning, taking the monkeys (and princess too of course) to the library and then the fountains in front of City Hall for some water play.  They of course enjoyed both activities.

I recently had a revelation that I don't think I've ever had before (though it's possible I have and it has simply completely escaped my mind at this point in time).  I wrote before about how housekeeping has always been a challenge for me.  I think I've figured out partly why.  Woot!  The thing is that I don't wanna.  I don't wanna clear the table for the millionth time, I don't wanna wash and dry and fold the laundry for the billionth time, I don't wanna wash the pots and pans I used to make supper cause my feet hurt and I'm tired and I'd rather sit and sulk and moan and whine about the work to be done.  But I've found a new attitude and I completely attribute that to God because truly it's not of my own selfish, lazy, human self.  Why waste time moaning and dragging my feet?  If I just do the task I'm dreading it takes a few minutes at most and then I can spend time reading my favorite blogs, taking the kids for a walk, watching a movie, reading with the monkeys, or WHATEVER, guilt free, because my work is already done.  Not only that but I can do these things with a peaceful home that is clean.  My laziness hasn't made me a very happy person.  It also hasn't caused me to be content in any way.  Maybe, just maybe, I can find some contentment in the hum drum routine of being the mama of three monkeys and a princess if I just stop acting like one of the monkeys when I ask them to help empty the dishwasher or dryer.  And that is my lesson for the day.  Get on in there and get some stuff done.  Truly, you will find peace.

And so curls.  You all may have noticed in the past pictures I've posted that Howler monkey had a head full of the most gorgeous blond curls EVER.  I LOVED his curls.  Here's a refresher picture:

So this past weekend KOJ asked me to cut his hair.  We invested in our own set of electric clippers because hair cuts are expensive for 5 people!  So anyway, I had gone and gotten my hair cut on Friday night so hair cuts were on the mind Saturday morning I suppose.  So I trimmed KOJ's hair up all nice.  Then it was Squirrel moneky's turn.  His hair is super thick and was pretty shaggy long.  So I trimmed it right up and it looks great (hold yer horses I'll post pics in a minute).  Next thing I know Spider monkey's yelling "My turn, my turn!" I've never done his hair with the clippers before, I've always done it by hand with the scissors but I decided to go ahead and use the clippers and it turned out great.  Now back to Howler and the curls.  I LOVED his curls and when they are just the right length and with a special curl spray in them they look amazing and healthy and cute.  But Howler was resembling a shaggy dog more than a monkey and so I knew it was time for a cut.  Now I stopped cutting his hair myself the last time I did hair cuts because it never looked right when I did it.  So I took him to the salon.  It turned out great.  I took him back again this time.  I guess I didn't express well enough that I LIKE the curls.  That I wanted the curls to still exist.  Because next thing I know I walk out with this handsome kid:

But I was kinda sad - ok no, I was super sad.  I missed this adorable kid:

It's hardly the same child.  Only as the days have gone on it is the same child.  Same personality, same tantrums, same loveable, hugable, snuggly boy.  And now a pic of all three handsome monkeys with their haircuts:

Spider and Howler

Spider, Howler, and Squirrel monkey - they adore each other truly.

Also I will be WAY more clear the next time I take Howler in for a hair cut.  After his curls grow back.  WAY more clear.  And for good measure so that she's not left out of the hair discussion, Princess with a pony tail:

And my fave pic of her from this weekend's fun family time:

Give away WINNERS, Muffin tin Monday, and a give away on another blog

I'm so excited to announce the winners of my first ever give away!  Ok so I did it super scientific like.  I wrote each entrant on a slip of paper and put them in a bowl.  Then I had each monkey pick a winner.  Worked out great.  And without further ado our winners today are: Melanie, Frenchie, and Twila!  Congratulations ladies and thanks to everyone for entering.  Please contact me with an e-mail where I can reach you to give you the code for your free e-book.

Now, I know I said I wasn't going to do Muffin tin Monday in yesterday's post.  But I was thinking about it and realized that it didn't have to be lunch!  I realized I could do any meal.  Even breakfast!  So I did.

I served: zucchini bread, banana slices, plain yogurt with honey and a few sprinkles, pureed strawberries to mix with the yogurt, and applesauce with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.  Yum.

Be sure to check out the other yummy Muffin Tin Meals today.

And last but not least I wanted to let my readers know about this fantastic home school planner give away going on at one of my favorite blogs Confessions of a homeschooler.  Check it out, leave a comment or two following the guidelines to be entered to win.  I'm telling you, if I don't win it, I'm going to buy it, it is exactly what I've been looking for in a planner for the coming year.

I hope you all have a blessed Monday and one more congrats to our winners!  If you won please leave a comment with an e-mail address to contact you at.

31 Days to Clean - give away within

First let me mention Muffin Tin Mondays.  I LOVE them.  I enjoy doing them and will come back to doing them in the fall when we start school back up.  Our days are so crazy right now that I just haven't had the concentration to plan for them and I'm going on a MTM hiatus for summer break.  Instead on Monday I will be posting about a new project I'm embarking on.

31 Days to Clean was written by Sara Mae another blogging mommy.  You can get more info here at 31 days to clean.  It is meant to help women get inspired and get a handle on their cleaning.  Having a Martha house the Mary way is the tagline.  This appeals to me.  I lean toward the Mary side of life.  But when I get into a Martha mood I'm extremely Martha.  Maybe I should explain who Mary and Martha are.  They are two sisters in the bible.  Jesus came to visit with them and their brother Lazarus.  Mary sat at Jesus' feet and soaked in his presence and words of instruction while Martha was trying to be a hostess who had a clean home, perfect food, etc.  This book tries to help us home makers have a Mary heart - seeking out how we can glorify and even worship God with having a clean home.

So here comes the fun.  The book was initially written with the Martha challenges being more of a deep cleaning throughout the house (which I haven't done yet, I'll admit).  But the author has released a new set of Martha Challenges to be done that are more about creating a routine for daily upkeep of the house.  More exciting is that she needed a focus group to test these out and give her the ins and outs of how they worked for us and I get to be in the focus group!  Now blogging about the journey or the book even isn't required but since I have a blog and as a gift to me for being in the focus group I get to give a special code to THREE people to download their own copy of this e-book.  So leave a comment and I'll choose three random people to receive a code for a free copy of this book.  You can earn an extra entry by sharing this give away on facebook and commenting here that you did.  Give away ends Monday, June 6th at noon EST so that the winners still have the opportunity to start the challenge this week.

I will be beginning the new challenges for the focus group TOMORROW!  The challenges run from Monday through Saturday taking Sunday off as a day of rest.  I will blog for the next few Mondays about the previous weeks progress.  It is my understanding that along with the new Martha Challenges I'm supposed to go through the book reading and completing the initial Mary challenges and so that is what I plan to do.  If you're joining the June 31 days to Clean challenge please feel free to link up in my comments on any Monday post in June.

Shoes to fill

Sometimes my kids do something that is both hilarious and so tear inspiring and heart melting all at the same time.  Spider monkey did something just like this last Saturday.  I looked up to see this:

Those are KOJ's baseball pants.  They were clean and had been folded and left on the arm of the couch because someone in the house is TERRIBLE at actually putting the clean laundry away (not me! Said with an air of innocence we all know is a lie. hahaha)  I cracked up because as he turned and walked away his bare bum was showing through the zipper in the back.  But he managed to cover it up before I was ready to snap a pic.

I laughed and told him that I just LOVE him.  He wandered off.  He wandered back.  I looked down and saw:

Ok it's kinda dark but maybe if you look closely you'll see that he went and put on KOJ's cleats.  Have I mentioned how much this child wants to play baseball?  How much he wants to be JUST like daddy?  To fill Daddy's super sized shoes?  Well he does.  All of that.  I share this last picture in hopes that ya'll can ignore the mess around him and focus on the precious child who just wants to fill his daddy's shoes (and baseball pants)

It must be that his daddy is an awesome guy for him to so badly want to step into his shoes.  I hope you all have a great Saturday - do something as a family.  I know I plan to let KOJ further inspire the children while I do something cool - like take a nap or something.

Our Memorial Day

This post is going to have a TON of pictures.  Just so you know.  In case you hate pictures.  Then you can leave now.  Otherwise let's move on.  So on Memorial Day we mostly relaxed, did a bit of cleaning, I did some grocery shopping, KOJ and the two youngest boys did some napping, I did some potato salad making (it turned out great by the way) and Squirrel did some pool filling in the back yard.  But I wanted to do something more fun and memorable for the holiday.  So when the boys woke up from their naps we got them into their swim trunks and when the Veggie Tales movie they turned on was over we got Princess up and put her in her totally adorable swim suit.  And we loaded them up in the van:

I will now take a moment to mention that Spider is still rear facing at 2.5 because it is safest and he still has room in that seat.

Then we went and used some coupons to get them special drinks from McD's (the frozen strawberry lemonade):

Then we had them take off their shirts and sandals so they could go run around in the fountains!  The older two boys had NO problems with this. 

Spider though was quite tentative.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and you can clearly see his slow progress into the fountains.

Princess wasn't sure what to think.  She looked at the water.

Then she looked at us:

Spider is getting closer:

Princess stands up to get a better look:

Then she sees the camera and decides to be an adorable ham:

She was dancing and jabbering in that picture there.  Hard to tell I'm sure.  Oh now look and see here.

He came running up to me while I was videoing Princess and shouts "mama I got wet!"  "Great job baby!" hahaha, he's hilarious.  This next picture is my favorite of the boys from the day:

Proof that princess did in fact get into the water (and that her brothers adore her!)

And we all went home mostly happy (spider objected to leaving but it was well past 6pm and we hadn't eaten dinner yet).  The kids had a ton of fun and from what I hear it was a LOT less crowded than the public pool that had 950 people flood through it from 1pm-8pm.  Glad we went to the fountains instead.

And the season has begun

So it's a bit late but here it is anyway.  My biggest monkey has started little league this year.  He had his first game last week on Tuesday and his other game that week was rained out so he had his 2nd game this past Tuesday.  He did well, needing the tee at his first at bat both games but hitting from the coach pitch on his 2nd at bat at each game.  He's so cute in his uniform too.  Check him out:

I LOVE this picture:

Playing catcher.  The boy in white behind the fence there is Spider monkey.  He wants so desperately to play real ball too.  Poor kid has a few years still because of how his birthday falls.

He looks so cool in the catcher's helmet:

Sissy practiced her mad standing skills and I cut off Howler's head in this pic (oops) and didn't get any decent pics of him at the game.

And this was our first t-ball game experience.  He seems to enjoy it and it's cute watching them all play baseball.  We do need to work on his running to base skills as he currently more like saunters and as he gets older that just isn't going to cut it. hahaha, but for now they're mostly learning how to hit and which direction to run.  So far he's done well with that.