Our 3 littles...

With a new baby and my oldest being 5 I'm seeing first hand how fleeting the baby days are. The saying, "babies don't keep" is painfully true. So I'm not only holding on tight to every little moment with Aurelia, but also each small interaction with Malakai and Desmond. They are growing so fast, too fast, and I want to make sure to remember all of it before I'm longing for these days, no matter how hard they seem (and are).

Aurelia is already 2 months old. It blows my mind that it's possible that we've been a family of 5 for 9 weeks. It seems like she just got here. Malakai is in his 3rd month of school, something that also seems impossible. Desmond just turned 3 last month and keeps us all very busy each day. Watching the 3 of them interact with each other is by far the best part of each day. The boys are sweet + gentle with "baby sister" and ask for her all morning until she's awake, then they clamor to see her and be the first one to make her smile.

Aurelia is cooing and gurgling and just making the best baby noises. She started smiling at 5 weeks old and I swear she's going to bless us with a giggle any day now. She's impossibly ticklish, but she just wiggles and grunts in response for now. She is growing like crazy and the number 1 compliment she gets these days is in reference to her sweet chubby cheeks and her little dimples. Her eyes are a bright blue but we would be pretty shocked if they stayed that way. The boys have Ben's hazel eyes (although Des' have a little green in them like Mima) and since her hair color already favors daddy's, I'm guessing her eyes will be the same. Only time will tell. 

Malakai is reading like crazy these days. He devours any book you give him almost immediately. The words he is able to read and the concepts he understands surprise me often. Ben + I are sad to see the days of spelling things to keep secrets in front of the kids go by, but we know Malakai is much too smart for us to get away with that anymore. I got to visit his class for their fall party on October 30th and I loved being a "fly on the wall" so to speak. Watching him interact with his friends and work on activities throughout the afternoon was such a joy. He loves school so much that he can hardly wait to get to his homework and he will make more "school work" for himself regularly. He's constantly writing letters to people and drawing pictures. He loves learning, but we do have to be careful he doesn't get too much of a good thing because he will get frustrated if he doesn't get it right or do it how he wants it done sometimes. 

Desmond is our imaginative little buddy. He is the best at playing pretend and making friends with strangers. He is talking all the time and any willing participant is a perfect playmate. He loves to make forts or pile blankets into "cars" to drive or  "airplanes" to fly. He loved being an astronaut with Malakai for Halloween and continues to play with his costume. Like Malakai he will quote movies and shows and recite books easily. If you aren't familiar with what he's been reading or watching lately his dialogue can be pretty confusing. Three has proved to be the hardest age in this household for the 2nd time around. Desmond has learned how to be defiant and throw a master tantrum, but boy can that kid snuggle!

These three are keeping us on our toes and the days are flying by faster than ever before. Sadly Malakai had a reoccurring double ear infection recently and we are waiting to hear back from insurance on whether they will authorize his getting tubes to prevent having the doozy of a winter we did last year. If they won't authorize it we may have to wait to see if he gets another infection with his next cold (because sickness is inevitable with kids of this age) and perhaps they will then see a need. We are hoping that won't be the case, so we can avoid him having to endure more pain or any hearing loss. 

Other than that and the boys having a mild cold earlier we've been able to stay fairly healthy so far this fall. I'm so thankful that Aurelia hasn't yet gotten sick but I'm sure we won't make it through the season unscathed. I can honestly attribute much of our healthy days to essential oils. I felt a cold (sore throat) coming on and used some On Guard/Shield/Thieves oil right away and felt better the same day. The boys' colds were relatively short lived and Desmond fared better than he ever has, as he's susceptible to breathing issues when he has any type of respiratory symptoms with a cold. I'm honestly so thankful to Amy for getting us started with eo's. If you have any questions about using essential oils, she's a wonderful resource...find here HERE.

So there's our little update, hopefully I'll be back to post sooner rather than later but only time (and my kiddos) will tell. 

illness + injury

I feel like a broken record, I even said this to my Bible study group recently when requesting prayer for my sick family, again. We are entering month 4 of illness in our home. I don't share on social media to get extra attention or to throw a pity party. Sometimes I'm actually embarrassed to admit that we are sick again (or is it still?) but I do, because every time I'm covered in prayer and encouraged by a community of friends, family + even strangers. We've endured countless doctor's office visits, pharmacy pick ups and a 3 day emergency hospital stay. Just when things start to look up, someone else comes down with something. Here we are again.

I'm thankful and so happy to be able to say that last Friday when Des had an ear check, he is over his ear infections (he had one, that turned into two really bad infections while on the first round of medicine). I'm also hesitant, but hopeful in saying that I think Malakai is over his recurring infections. (he had 4 in a row, and tried 5 different medicines that all failed). He has an ENT appointment this Thursday morning, so we will know for sure, but he's been acting more himself and not complaining of any pain for the last week or so. These things outweigh that bad day that we had today...

Last week I was told I have another sinus infection (I've had symptoms that won't quit since January, was treated once in February but never felt better- then recently got much worse). I saw another Dr. in my primary physician's office who prescribed me a stronger antibiotic for another sinus infection. Today is day 3 on meds and I had a very bad reaction. Debilitating headache and nausea all morning that resulted in "losing my breakfast" in the kitchen sink just before lunch (right after Des fell and bit his tongue REALLY badly, it looks like he has a hole in it). Thankfully Ben could come home on his lunch break, get Des down for a nap so I could rest and then he preoccupied Malakai while working from home the rest of the afternoon (he is our Superman). I've been nauseated with the same bad headache all afternoon and just as I went to crawl into bed my sciatica (that I'm waiting on a referral to have treated) took a turn for the worse and I nearly fell over. 

I'm not looking for pity (but I will gladly take prayers). I post all of this because the purpose of my blog is to share with my readers and to document our lives so we can look back on it all one day. Life isn't always pretty, and lately for us it's been rather ugly. I'm not whining or complaining, but merely documenting so when things are good I can see what God brought us out of. Because despite the back to back illnesses and injuries and a hospitalization I know it could be worse and I also know that it's going to get better. 

I'm clinging to God's promises to bless us and I'm focusing on the joy in each moment. The fact that almost any time I ask Desmond to snuggle me, he replies with an excited "okay!", when Malakai loves to color pictures/mail/surprises for anyone and everyone, laughing til I'm crying at the things Kai has said over the past year when I came across Ben's "Kai Thoughts" Instagram, smiling at Desmond's growing vocabulary and constant need to narrate our day, all the sweet innocent questions they both ask constantly, the sweet baby kicking around in my belly, loved ones who check in with is because we've been quarantined in our house for months (thanks for not being offended that I haven't contacted you in weeks...), everyone who covers us in healing prayer, the moments when we can feel those prayers doing their work and know that this too shall pass. 

So I do apologize if I sound like a broken record...It's just a season, one with more challenges than others, but soon we'll be on the other side and be blessed by the suffering that taught us how to better embrace joy. 

Back to School…at Home.

We took a pretty long break from homeschooling around here. It was a bit unofficial, and we did still do educational activities nearly daily, but I needed time to get ready for the holidays. I handmade most of the gifts that we gave so a lot of my "free" time was dedicated to that process.

Prior to the break I had been planning lessons on a weekly basis, and sometimes Sunday night would roll around and I'd realize I wasn't ready for Monday so I'd scramble or do what I could until I could print off some of the supplies. I do all our lessons with what I have on hand, plus printables from the curriculum we use.  If I ever need a school/craft supply I know I can likely find it at my mother-in-law's house. If all else fails, the dollar store is an excellent resource as well. 

At the end of our break, just a few days before Ben went back to work, I decided to take a different approach to planning. I didn't like having to scramble to prepare something every single week, so I prepared all of January in one sitting. Taking notes on activities we would do each week, incorporating memory verses from the Wednesday night Kid Life program at our church, and printing what I needed took me about 90 minutes.

As I'm planning I take some of the content ideas from the 2 year old curriculum (shapes, colors, nursery rhymes, motor skills) to make sure Des is learning a few new things and Malakai doesn't mind the review. The the rest comes from the 4 year old curriculum (letters, numbers, science concepts, and more). Sometimes the higher level stuff interests Desmond and sometimes he'd rather play. While the site we use offers Bible lessons, I don't use them anymore due to the lessons the boys are getting at church. I don't want to bombard them with memory verses and stories, so I partner with what they are learning at Kid Life and occasionally add a character trait or new manners from the curriculum.

This month they've learned how to be attentive and forgive, about New Year, all the month's of the year, the difference between a square and a rectangle, the colors red and black, we reinforced last month's lesson about the seasons as we talked about the months of the year, they practiced both gross and fine motor skills as they solidified shape and letter concepts, Kai perfected writing g's and q's, and so much more.

{green glitter glued G's}

Another thing we changed after the holidays is the location of our "classroom". We recently rearranged so the boys could share a room and the other room because the "play room" which is now a perfect place to do many of our lessons. There is a LOT more space and Desmond can keep himself busy with toys if what we are doing doesn't hold his interest. Previously we were doing calendar time and math in our living room in the front of the house, which is usually blocked by a baby gate. This meant that Desmond would get bored and get into things he shouldn't, not matter how cleaned up it was. So I much prefer our current arrangement.

Lately Malakai and I have been discussing going to Kindergarten. It is not our plan to homeschool past PreK. I have the technical ability (for those of you who may not know, I'm a licensed K-5 teacher) but I don't feel like it's the best fit for our family. Perhaps this will change down the road, and thankfully I can always decide to homeschool later on if needs change. Kai is pretty excited to go to school when he once was hesitant. He didn't want anyone else to be his teacher, which I found to be pretty flattering. Still, we prayed about it and we just know that Kai is supposed to go to a local public school for Kindergarten. We read books and talked about what it would be like and now he's quite looking forward to it. We have an open house in a few weeks already, I don't know if I can even stand it!

All this to say, that halfway through the month we got sick and half of our lessons didn't happen the way I planned. I'm so thankful that Kai is such a little sponge, I know he's already more than ready for Kindergarten and just love to watch him learn and grow while he's at home. On to another month of learning at home with my boys!

snow + ice

Now that it has all melted, I'll commemorate the "arctic blast" of 2013. Let me preface for my readers that aren't so familiar with the Pacific Northwest, we don't get a lot of snow in the valley. In Eugene, Oregon we're only an hour away from the snowy mountains and that's where we go to experience large amounts of snow. Our usual winter is very wet and when we get snow it is still very wet and usually February or even March. Imagine our surprise when we were having temperatures in the teens and then woke up to a few inches of snow last Friday, dry + powdery made-for-tv type snow. Instead of melting by 10am, it just kept snowing. It snowed at our house nonstop for over 12 hours. It was glorious!

It was a blast to play in. If you follow Ben or myself on Instagram or Facebook you might have seen some slow motion videos Ben captured that day. If not, they're work a look!

We had a cozy morning watching the snow drift down like a fairytale while Ben made waffles (yes, I'm  a blessed wife) and sipped our hot coffees and snuggled the boys close. Desmond loved watching it come down, Kai was surprised but asked to go back to bed after we showed him it had snowed. Not the reaction we were expecting, but he warmed up quickly.

Just before lunch we ventured outside to play. It was about 17 degrees out, getting the boys layered took just about forever for about 15 minutes of play time. It was worth it though. 

Later that afternoon we bundled up again and decided to take a walk down to the park. It has snowed so much more that we sank into snow and didn't touch the ground, which was so surreal in our own neighborhood. 

Des in the snow around 11am, and again around 4pm…quite a bit deeper!

I laughed as I watched kids running down the street with snowboards, a total first for me. There is a big hill at the park so they were taking advantage. 

Ben + Des headed straight for the teeter totters and then all 3 of them tried out swinging in the snow. We were only there for about 5 minutes because it had taken so long to get there in the cold, it was getting dark, and a bunch of cold wind was blowing. We trekked home for hot cocoa and dinner.

The next day it was no longer snowing but the temperatures had fallen below 0 so everything stayed pretty well preserved. We went out to the park again, taking the wagon this time. 

 

It was interesting to see the difference between the night before and that morning. I took this shot of the same area of field next to the park…

My little dare-devils tried to play on the slide and climb the icy equipment until we distracted them with the deep snow and attempting to build a snowman. At one point Desmond started crawling around in the snow and laughing hysterically

The snow was too powdery to build a snowman at that point, which was just fine as the boys got cold enough to come in fairly quickly. In fact, I began to suspect that they just wanted to play outside so they could have hot cocoa when they came back in. 

We spent most of Sunday inside, but Ben + Kai played out front together during Desmond's nap. Kai had a blast throwing the snow at a tree and watching it stick. He also helped daddy shovel the snow from the side walk. 

Tuesday I made an attempt to take the boys in the snow on my own. Yep, it was still here. It was like it had snowed the day before, not 3 days ago. We just kept getting freezing weather that preserved it. It took 45 minutes for me to get them and myself suited up for the 20 degree chill. We kicked around out back and then attempted a snowman, but Des kicked it down. We tried again, but he was more of a snow-mound. It's hard to pack powdery snow. Kai gave him a big eye that looked like a patch so we decided he was a pirate. Then we went in of cocoa, naturally. 

The rest of the week we just observed the snow from inside. Enjoying it's bright glow and watching the birds eat the berries off the trees out back. Last night it "warmed" up and the rain finally came, turning the snow into quite the ugly mess outside. It's incredible how quickly snow disappears when it rains. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our winter wonderland, thanks Alaska, for sharing your weather. 

Mrs. P's Homeschool Preschool- week 1

Last week I started homeschooling my boys. To answer the most often asked question- I don't know if I'll continue to homeschool them into grade school years. At this point, that is not my plan, but I'm keeping myself open to God's calling on the subject. For now, I'm putting my degree to work  and throughly enjoying it. Thankfully, my boys love it even more.

side note: for those who don't know, I have a BA in Elementary and Early Childhood Education and was licensed to teach K-5 in the State of Oregon. I started on my M.Ed when I got pregnant with Malakai + decided to stay home full time. 

I felt like I had all the time in the world when I started really planning (not just pinning) at the end of July. We had no big plans for the entire month of August and I figured I'd start school when everyone else did after Labor Day. I planned my brains out, was going to start on August 19th at one point to have the curriculum line up with holidays and then decided I was overdoing it and pushed it back to September, and then finally landed on this past week. I don't know what I was so worried about, I think I just really wanted to get it right and I was a teensy afraid of ending our summer too quickly. Thankfully, preschool is short and flexible...especially when homeschooling. 

I had originally drafted a schedule with school work interspersed throughout the day Monday-Wednesday and Fridays. Then I kept whittling it down further and further until it was flexible enough to just do calendar time and memory verses some days (like Thursdays when the boys spend their mornings at Grandma + Grandpa's house...I know, I'm spoiled). After doing it for a week I'm happy with how it turned out and glad that I planned extras because Malakai has been asking for "more schoolwork" every day. 

We are basing our lessons on curriculum from ABC Jesus Loves Me and then I'm throwing my own thing in and taking some of their stuff out (like the letter books and all the DVD's). I'll throw in some basics I taught in Kindergarten like gluing, cutting, sitting quietly and grab some ideas Pinterest as well. I am mostly using the 4 year old curriculum with both boys, but throwing in colors, shapes, and manners from the 2 year old curriculum as well. Desmond is loving school time, his favorite part is getting stickers.

We start our day after breakfast, often still in PJ's and go into the front of our house where I've set up an are for "Number wall" which is when we update our calendar (people, run to Target and grab up all their adorable classroom supplies from the $1 section), talk about and practice the number, shape, and color of the week. We also update the weather and sometimes do our memory verse before going back into the family room.

Next we practice our memory verse, sing a song or two, review the Bible Story and possibly do a craft to go along with it. 

We take a break for play but all this week Malakai has wanted to do more school work so I'd give him a letter writing worksheet or have him paint or color something. 

Then we'd practice letters, shapes and colors with worksheets, activities, stories, etc. I'd save most of the "desk work" for when Desmond is napping and Malakai is done with quiet time in his room.

{singing "Deep and Wide" and Kai reading the Bible to Desmond}

Once a week we do a focused gross motor skill, a focused small motor skill and a visual perception exercise. All of these ideas so far are from the ABC Jesus Loves Me curriculum. For gross motor we played a game outside after nap time called "put out the fire" where I drew flames and a ladder. The boys had to hop up the ladder to dump water on the fire. They wanted to play over and over again. Later that day when Ben got home they wanted him to play, I came to get them for dinner and they had all the neighborhood kids (all much older) playing with them, it was a big hit.

{playing "put out the fire"}

We also get a lot of books at the library. The curriculum has a book of the week, so we get those for the 2 year and 4 year curriculum, plus whatever the boys want to pick out. 

On Mondays I introduce the new subjects for the week, Tuesdays we do activities to reinforce, and by Wednesday I let the boys run the show to see if they can identify them. Then Thursday afternoon and Fridays are for review, catch-up, play dates or other outings. 

With how well it has gone, I wish I had started doing preschool earlier. Having structured activities has really helped my kiddos to not get stir crazy or too wild. It helps me to structure my day a bit more and while we are surely busy, they are more preoccupied for me to step away for a moment during play time or while they are coloring/writing to start a load of dishes or laundry. I know that the school year always starts off with a high and can get pretty dismal as the kids get used to the routine, and even bored with it, but I'm hopeful that my boys will continue to like homeschooling and we'll enjoy it for the rest of our school year. 

every July

Every summer July passes us by in a whirlwind of events. I find myself thinking once we get past a certain event, things will calm down...but they never do. This month we went to the coast for Independence Day, celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary, we had a handful of informal get togethers and playdates, Ben was promoted at work and had his 1st vacation in 2 years, Kai turned 4 and we had a party to celebrate, Ben's company celebrated a big anniversary so we've attended several celebratory gatherings (BBQ, formal dinner, baseball game), I chopped my hair shorter than ever, we visited a camp at Triangle Lake and Ben got to wake board after missing out last summer, we took the boys to a "Touch-a-Truck" event, Kai had his 1st dentist appointment, and we attended a rehearsal and wedding for my cousin at which Kai was the ring-bearer.

{last night at my cousin Valeena's sunset wedding}

There hasn't been much space between events to blog about what we've been up to in much detail. I'll do my best to break some of it down and post some pictures. Maybe. But the best place to keep track of our goings-on and see pictures we take is on Instagram. You can find me at ShanLeAnn, Ben at bensonpeculiar, and he also posts Malakai's quotes and things at KaiThoughts.  I rarely use the DSLR anymore, but do want to remedy that if things ever slow down enough. 

So, is it just us or is July crazy busy for the rest of you as well? I suspect it's easy to fill up with events when you're an Oregonian with only 8-12 weeks of relatively dry and warm weather. 

Happy summer, hope you're enjoying it as much as we are!

I love being 4!

A few days ago we started counting how many more "sleeps" until Malakai's 4th Birthday. It was an easy way to put it in to terms he could understand and he enjoyed talking about how his birthday was getting closer each time we went to bed and woke up.

Last night Ben + I put streamers over his doorway to surprise him when he woke this morning. For my own amusement I made this little sign.

{4-year-old in progress. Do not disturb until 7.16 @7:20am}

 I also put a happy birthday sign across the hall that he'd see when he came out. When he woke up I stood in the hallway to watch his reaction. He poked his head around the corner, looked at me with a smile and said "what is this?". Once I explained it was a surprise for his birthday, he kept saying "I love my surprise!" He also said "I love being 4" and my personal favorite "Can I be 4 all the time?"

We headed out as soon as we could for our traditional birthday breakfast at the Original Pancake House. We started going for each of the boy's birthdays on Kai's 2nd birthday. It was a fun way to commemorate the day, start a tradition, and include daddy in the fun when it was a workday. 

The best part is having pictures of the same scenes but just a year later. Like Malakai and his straw. Last year it was a bit of a new thing to get a cup with a straw at a restaurant. This year he was a pro. 

It was apparent this year how engrained our tradition has become. Malakai sat down, looked at the menu and then promptly addressed our waitress "excuse me, I would like pancakes with a candle in a strawberry please." We are not restaurant goers, the boys get to get out to eat maybe 5 times a year, maximum. 

The boys enjoy coloring while we wait. They are pretty good at waiting on their food. 

{Malakai wrote out the alphabet twice on the back of his sheet after eating}

The best part is watching him get the birthday stack and blow out the candle after we sing...

The excitement I captured when he was 2 will probably always be my favorite. That picture is still my desktop background on my laptop. Pure joy. 

I'm also quite surprised at how little he has seemed to change from 3 years old to 4 years old. I think he did most of his growing in his legs this past year. He and Des are both quite "leggy" these days. 

We went on a handful of adventures after breakfast (see photos on Instagram!). We stopped at Skinner's Butte Park, then Eugene Public Library- after which Kai claimed to be very tired, so we headed home and after lunch let Kai veg out in front of a show while Des napped, then we took him outside to finger paint and he played with the neighbor boys. Once Desmond was up we walked over to the park near our house, after some play time we came home and read library books for over an hour. Everyone was really worn out so we let Kai pick a movie to watch, he picked Mary Poppins and we watched half before and half after dinner. Then we sang happy birthday and ate green cake in the shape of a 4. Baths, stories, bedtime and the day quickly came to a close. 

While Malakai finger painted outside I did ask him a few questions as sort of a "yearly interview". Lately he's not really into answering questions. His favorite reply is "nothing"...which I don't find all that amusing. I'll ask him what he did in Sunday school, what he wants to eat, etc and if he's not in the mood that's the answer I get. That, or he'll answer with whatever is around him...which is how this interview turned out...

Malakai, on your 4th birthday {interviewed by mama, while sitting under a tree + finger-painting}

What is your name? Malakai 

How old are you? 4

What is your favorite thing to do? (several "nothings") paint. 

What do you want to be when you grow up? painter. (he's such a stinker. later he said "I don't want to grow up."

What is your favorite food? pancakes.

Who do you like to spend time with? Charlie + Jacob (the neighbor boys, he was facing their house at the time...see what I mean?)

What do you do really well? (he had moved on from painting and was hitting the ground with a stick) bamming bees and spiders. 

What makes you laugh? When someone tickles me, like you or daddy. 

What is the best time of day? rest time, when I get to play.

What are you afraid of? stinky breath trees (I have no idea)

Who is your best friend? Charlie and Jacob. (these kids are 6 and 8 years old and he rarely plays with them, haha.)

What do you like to do with your family? play chalk.

What do you love to learn about? Trees and stuff. 

Where do you like to go? The restaurant to eat pancakes. 

What is your favorite book? Jake and The Pirates (a book from Grandma Debbie)

If you had one wish, what would it be? a tree to be big and giant. 

So, in retrospect, I should have asked these over breakfast when he wasn't so tired. Still, his answers are a funny snapshot and for me that's the point. Now here are a couple more things about Malakai according to mama...

Favorite colors: green and brown, in that order. 

He loves to play at the park, with puzzles, and listen to music. His favorites are the Jake and the Neverland Pirates soundtrack and Owl City. 

He picked his birthday party theme this year- "Rockin' Birthday! with guitars."

He likes to watch a handful of different shows: Special Agent Oso and Fireman Sam top the list lately. If we had more seasons of Jake, he'd be all over that. 

He loves to eat cheese pizza and hamburgers. 

He enjoys a lot of books. We checked out "Blue hat, Green hat" by Sandra Boynton today and he laughed hysterically, even after a dozen or so readings in a row. 

He loves to help with dishes, laundry, washing the car, watering plants. Anything that he gets to work on with daddy. 

He loves to wear shorts and T-shirts. He isn't very fond of pants and refuses to wear any shirts with a collar or buttons, even polos. He can dress himself well, but sometimes gets too grumpy and asks for help. 

He has a list of morning routines that he loves to follow, but he'll often ask if it's okay that his bed is a little messy. It's a twin size and quite tall so he has a hard time making it totally straight, I don't mind it at all. 

He adores Nate from down the street and is more gentle with his baby brother Luke than he ever has been with is own brother. He also loves playing with Justice, Titus, Liam, Kylan, and Jacob. He is also quite sweet with Jacob's sister Kacie, who is the same age as Desmond...brothers. Most of his playmates are within a year of his age but he also really loves to play with the big kids (under our supervision of course). He has a great memory and often talks about his friends Henry and cousin Caleb who he has only played with a handful of times recently (Henry he grew up with until about 2 years old). 

Malakai knows all about letters, reads handful of sight words and is getting better at sounding out new words all the time. He is pretty eager to read, but also gets frustrated easily. He hates to be in the sun for very long and always has to wear his sunglasses or he squints like crazy. He used to be shy about playing in water but can now swim with the help of a life jacket, but he does tread water and can swim the entire length of my parents in ground pool repeatedly. 

I can't believe our boy is already 4 and I have one short year until he's off to Kindergarten. He's growing up all too fast, but I couldn't be more proud of the boy he's becoming.

Malakai: the ring-bearer

Malakai is going to be a ring bearer next month for the 2nd time. The first time was for my sister-in-law, Kristi's,  wedding back in September. It was interesting, to say the least. I don't recall if I've blogged about it specifically, but I do know I've mentioned Malakai's aversion to clothing. Recently, that has changed some, but I'll get to that later.

So prior to Kristi + Nick's wedding my mother-in-law did a fantastic job prepping him for the big day. Months before hand she talked it up. She made his vest for the big day and his wearing it was our main concern. Not only because it was a piece of clothing (because that alone, was enough to stress him out) but it was a piece of clothing different than T-shirts and shorts.

Now, I do take some responsibility for his attitude toward clothes, I did let him frolic around our house in just his undies for a very long time. I mean...doesn't everyone wish they could do that? I digress. So, when it was time to get dressed, it became a fight. It did get easier as he understood that if he wanted to go   that he'd have to get dressed. He was still picky about what it was that he wore. T-shirts and shorts and occasionally jeans. 

We spent so much time focusing on getting him to wear the vest, that we did forget about the dress pants and button-up shirt. The day before the wedding we were preparing to leave our house for the rehearsal and dinner when Malakai threw the most epic fit about wearing a polo shirt ("buttons!"). He got himself so worked up that he was irretrievable. Then, the puked. He was that upset about it. So, we let him wear whatever he wanted that day and knew to be really careful about how we approached him on the wedding day. We were all a part of the wedding and couldn't risk getting vomited on before walking down the aisle.

After a lot of running around (literally), some tears, and a lot of angry birds graham crackers this is what Malakai wore...

{why yes, that is a yellow Avengers T-shirt underneath his vest}

see, he wore the vest. The rest of the outfit, not so much.

Things have gotten better since then and it got even easier after I made him a list of daily routines, that he started to call his "projects", 3rd on the list is to get dressed.

 He doesn't ask me "where are we going" or "who's coming over" when it's time to put clothes on. He just does it, a lot of the time by himself.

{look mama, it's red, your FAVORITE!}

However, when my cousin Valeena asked me if Kai could be the ring bearer in her wedding next month I was apprehensive. Not because I didn't think he could complete the task, but because I wasn't sure what she'd want him to wear. I warned her about last time and that I'd totally understand if she'd want to back down, but she didn't. So, for this wedding he is going to wear a white T-shirt (hallelujah!), dress pants, shoes, and suspenders- all in brown. I have the shoes, the rest we'll have to work on. I do however have blue suspenders. I can't recall if they were Ben's when he was little, or perhaps my younger brother Cody's. Either way, I decided to warm him up to the idea of them and he blew me away with how curious and almost excited he was about trying something new...

How precious is he in that funky little outfit. My husband threw out the word "hipster", which Kai immediately repeated over and over again. whoops.

So here's hoping we can get him to wear the whole outfit this time around. And hey- anyone have recommendations on where to get the rest of his outfit?... especially brown suspenders?

oh yeah, potty training...

It's totally not my thing to talk about my kids and their potty training (learning, etc...whatever you want to call it). I don't particularly enjoy facebook status updates about other peoples' kids and what they've done in the toilet...so I don't share about mine.

However, I do want to talk about the process a bit for sake of keeping record (as that is the primary reason I blog) and for those wondering what it's like for others. Especially in difficult situations like ours.

A tiny bit of back story- Malakai showed interest in going potty at 18 months. (Desmond is doing the same). Unfortunately he had a hernia and we had to quit until after his surgery to correct it 5 months later. We tried again after he turned 2 but he just wasn't interested, and our pediatrician advised us that if he wasn't able to stay dry through nap time, that he wasn't physically ready anyhow. She also said that if he didn't care about being clean, we'd also be wasting our time. 2 strikes against us, so we waited.

Once Kai turned 3 we tried several times but backed off once it became a power struggle, and it always did. We did charts with stickers and treats for using the toilet. None of it lasted for more than a week. He filled up a chart with stickers for using the toilet while still in pull-ups but it went nowhere after that.

Then we went straight to underwear a few times and he did better, but the power struggle would still come into play. Another big issue is that he wouldn't want to stop playing to go potty. We tried reminders and songs and setting timers and none of it helped for long enough to matter.

I listened to an MP3 audio at the height of my frustration a couple months ago, by Love and Logic. It was only $5 and I highly recommend it. Way quicker than reading a whole book and more realistic and helpful than any blogger who promises you can train your kiddo in a weekend.

I learned to back off, use empathy when he had accidents, and let him be in control of the process. I took deep breaths through some really frustrating accidents and setbacks and loved him no matter how badly I wanted to stop spending money on pull-ups... and he did it. He owned it and is doing so great. When he did have accidents during that time we'd just simply say "what a bummer, you can help me clean that up and we can try again." or "that's too bad, maybe you aren't quite ready for underwear yet, and that's okay." Those phrases seemed to motivate him more, especially when the alternative was having to wear pull-ups during the day (he didn't always care about wearing pull-ups but finally grew to prefer underwear).

He still needs an occasional reminder or incentive, but 90% of the time he manages it himself with no problems. For incentives, I don't mean a treat or a sticker, but just simple things like "I'll get out the markers after you take a potty break!" or let's pause your show and you can finish after you go potty." Works way better than chocolate chips for us.

Next is tackling staying dry overnight. He's in pull-ups at night, even though he wants to be in underwear, because I know he's not physically ready. I let him know that he can get up to go potty any time after bed and that once he wakes up with a dry pull-up in the morning he can wear underwear the next night.

So, if you find yourself in a rut with potty training, back off...let go of control and let your kiddo show you what he/she is capable of!

brothers and playmates

Over the past couple weeks Desmond has made leaps and bounds developmentally. It's like he morphed into a toddler overnight. Not only does he act bigger, but he looks bigger. Walking around with confidence, doing big boy stuff. It is killing Ben + I that he's not a baby anymore (and no, that doesn't mean it's time for another one!).

Desmond has now mastered climbing on the couch and in the same day he walked across the couch and straight onto the end table. YIKES!

One of the best parts of watching Desmond grow up is his ability to play with Malakai. Until very recently they could play near each other, but rarely with each other. When Kai did try to play with Des, it didn't usually turn out so well for the little guy.

On Sundays after church services we feed the boys lunch in the nursery so that when they fall asleep on the drive home we don't have to wake them to feed them. We've done this since Kai was a baby. This past weekend it was just the boys and I as Ben had a meeting. Once they finished eating they played
while I cleaned up.

Kai climbed onto a rocking horse and then said he had to find one for Desmond. He grabbed the other from an adjoining room and pulled it next to his. For the next 10 minutes they were singing "ride, ride, ride, riiiiiiide!" while giggling and rocking on the horses side-by-side:

 {killer smiles}

Later that evening Kai asked to play with his spider-man car. When I brought it in I expected to have to put it away within a few minutes because he tends to get too rowdy with big toys. Instead, while he was sitting on it Desmond came up behind him and started pushing. They were both laughing so hard and spent quite some time going back and forth in the living room.

I love watching them create a bond as playmates. Malakai has finally grasped the concept of taking care of (rather than destroying) his little brother. On Monday when Des was fussing in his crib (because I was moving laundry and he's obsessed with following me into the garage), Kai sat next to him and said "It's okay, I'm here." Melt.My.Heart.

Malakai's 1st Eye Exam

The more time passes and the more behind I get on posting certain events, the more reluctant I am to post current events...which means I get even further behind. SO at the risk of things being all out of order (ugh), I'm posting about something that happened TODAY. I haven't done this in forever, I think I might like it.

This morning Malakai and I dropped Desmond off with Grandma Debbie and headed to the eye doctor. I talked it up all morning, practiced a few things, and reminded him of the episode on Sesame Street when the little girl goes to the eye doctor. He was actually kind of excited about the whole thing by the time we got there.

He greeted the receptionist and was thrilled that they had toys. He even picked them up without being asked well before we were called back. I was wondering if I somehow had the wrong child with me.

Ben met us there, and they started with a few preliminary tests. This included the dreaded "air puff". Ben and I both have issues with this one. He cannot keep his eyes open to save his life and I will flinch without fail. I know it's coming but I have an uncontrollable reaction, it's terrible because the HAVE to continue doing it. Malakai got through the 1st eye with one try. The 2nd was a bit more challenging because he knew what was coming, but he did well. Afterward though he told the assistant "Don't do that again, it hurt my eye." I love his growing vocabulary and ability to express himself.

He did so well through all three of the 1st tests that I got a little emotional sitting there, realizing he's growing up. I'm going to be a puddle on the floor in 2 years when he goes off to Kindergarten. Somebody hold me.

Then we walked down the hall for a few other tests, just looking at cards with shapes and such to see what he could point out as they got smaller. He's not even a little bit colorblind and was happy to show off his knowledge of shapes. He refused to wear an eye patch or funny glasses though, even with the mention of "Jake and the Pirates".

Next Dr. M came in for a more in-depth exam and we could tell why were were having to pay big bucks (thank God for HSA) to be there. She was an expert at working with preschoolers and instead of pushing Kai to wear a patch or one sided glasses she let daddy cover one eye and then the other to get the same result.

We learned that at this age, all children are far sighted. Also, Malakai is slightly less far sighted than his peers, which isn't a problem. He does have astigmatism on one side and one eye performs slightly different from the other, but neither indicate a need for correction or vision therapy. Ben + I breathed a sigh of relief as Ben had to undergo pretty intense vision therapy at a young age and still wears a contact in one eye.

Afterwards Kai was pretty stoked that he got to come to work with me. He tore my office apart a couple times, but put it all back together by himself. He followed me around as I prepped the classes for Sunday. We had a blast together and I think I may take him to work with me more often if he so chooses. However, I think he enjoys his trips to Grandma's even more than hanging out with me on the job.

Somehow I was thinking today would be a lot more difficult, and am so thankful for how pleasant it turned out.

and then he was 3...

Today my sweet Malakai is 3 years old! We had a ton of fun celebrating him this past weekend with family and friends. This morning we'll take him out for our traditional birthday breakfast.

Happy Birthday to our smart, strong-willed, energetic, and loving first born!

and for nostalgia sake, here is my first post after he was born. and HERE is the story of his birth from Ben's perspective.

Indoor fun

Oregon summer weather is always a toss up. We've had a lot of wet and overcast days lately, but I don't mind it much.

Today I decided to sort through some pins and actually try a new activity with Kai. Lately we've been coloring with crayons or the aqua doodle, doing puzzles, building towers, and watching an undisclosed amount of PBS Kids.

I remembered some things I pinned for homemade finger paints and homemade cloud dough. I gave Kai a choice and he wanted to make dough. The recipe I had called for 8 cups flour and 1 cup baby oil. We did NOT need that much, so we made it with 2 cups flour and 1/4 cup baby oil. I just love it when I can make something fun with things I already have on hand.

I found a wire whisk to be the best tool for mixing all the lumps out and distributing the oil evenly through the flour. Kai helped mix and we tried not to worry about the mess (Des was napping so he wasn't around to crawl through it). It took 2 minutes to make and now Kai is busy making "castles" in his big bowl of "cloud dough".

What pinterest successes have you had lately? I have had quite a few fails recently so I was pretty happy that this actually worked.

Kai's first prayer

For a long time now Ben + I have been saying prayers with Malakai just before bed. Lately it has consisted of myself or Ben saying a simple prayer and if Kai was in the mood he'd repeat it line by line. Sometimes he'd just say amen at the end, other times he's just not in the mood to say anything at all.

Tonight I went to say a quick prayer with him as Desmond was crying for me in the next room (Ben was trying to soothe him but he wanted me). I started with "Dear God" and when I paused to see if Kai was going to repeat it he whispered,  "Thank you for my Jesus". My voice caught in my throat, I was obviously flooded with emotion. I affirmed what he said and asked "what else?" and he said "and God made everything." I told him "that's right!" and we said amen and I scooted out of the room to Desmond.

What a sweet little surprise to hear Kai say his first independent prayer.

"Thank you for my Jesus. 

God made everything.

Amen."

By the way, "God made everything" is the bottom line in the Sunday school curriculum we're teaching age 2-5's. I'm just thrilled that Kai is really picking up on what he's being taught and that what we teach him at home is sticking too.

SHHH!

Malakai has this obnoxious habit of "shushing" people. I think it has a lot to do with testing boundaries and how his actions affect others. Of course he learned it from us when we ask him to be quiet when Des is asleep, but the way he does it is much more abrupt and comes across as rude. It's not our favorite...

That being said, if I hadn't captured him shushing me the other day, I wouldn't have had this striking comparison...

{click photo for larger version}

I just happened to be going through baby photos of Kai when he was 8 months (Desmond's current age) to compare him with his brother, but when I saw this funny picture I immediately thought of the one I took the other day. It's amazing to me that he used to be that baby...

Thankful on a Thursday

This week I'm thankful for...

1061. All the hard work that went into our backyard makeover {now we just wait for the grass to grow!}

1062. The kiddos staying healthy despite both Ben + I being sick.

1063. Regaining my voice after almost a week of struggling to talk.

1064. The love and support of an amazing man.

1065. Our successful trip to Portland. So many things could have derailed the whole thing, but everything went smoothly.

1066. A fantastic boss and co- workers. I love my job!

1067. My busy boys. Des is such a speedy crawler now, he has taken to following Kai everywhere. Kai LOVES it.

1068. Getting some fun crafty supplies in the mail.

1069. Morning coffee ala French press.

1070. God's word with me wherever I go. 

{YouVersion Bible app}

Now on to a VERY busy weekend!

what we've been up to...

Memorial Day weekend was quite the whirlwind of events for us.

Friday night we drove up to Portland for our first long car ride with both Malakai + Desmond. It could not have gone any better. Kai drew on his aqua doodle pad nearly the whole way up. I was pleasantly surprised that we never had to pull out the ipod for last resort video games! Desmond napped a big chunk of the ride and then woke up happy and watched Malakai for a while. He was pretty fussy the last 20 minutes, but nothing unbearable.

{I-5 NB}

After we settled in at Lindsey + Adam's place she and I left the boys to hang out (aka Ben got to do bedtime for both kiddos and he ROCKED it!). We went to downtown Portland for Carina's 30th birthday party at The Barrel Room. It was a lot of fun and I was so excited to be out with friends, I can't remember the last time I did something like that!

{Linds + Elvis, China Town, Carina + her fiancee Reid}

{Carina on the piano, me + Lindsey, Carina + I, Carina + her cake}

Unfortunately almost as soon as we got there my voice started to get scratchy and with the increased volume once the band started playing I was straining to talk loud enough to have a conversation with anyone. Linds and I were the last to go and got back around 12:30am. I found Ben in the guest bed passed out with Kai sprawled across the bed next to him. He moved Kai to his cot and we passed out until Des woke up at 5:30am, when my amazing husband woke up with him and let Malakai and I sleep in til nearly 7am. That's when I woke up with a very hoarse voice.

{Des + Linds}

We had breakfast with Linds + Adam before packing up to head home. We stopped to stretch Malakai's legs and have some lunch on the way down. Kai slept the whole way and Des fell asleep about halfway down after a bit of a meltdown that we had to pull over for. I drove so that Ben could catch up on sleep as well.

{Bridgeport Village}

When we got back to town, there was a whole crew at our place to greet us because it was phase 2 of our lawn replacement. Ben's parents had gifted us with a new lawn for Christmas and the weekend before they had tilled up and raked out all the old grass to prepare for trenching, laying pipe for sprinklers, filling said trenches, calibrating sprinklers, evening out the land, spreading base mix, grass seed and the like and then waiting for it to all grow. My brother, his friend, Ben, his brother and their dad all worked from 2:30 (when we got back) til around 6pm that day.

Sunday I had a rare day off of work, but I was sick so I didn't really get to enjoy it. My voice was even worse- I could barely talk. Ben and his dad got started in on the lawn again that afternoon and into the evening while the boys and I hung out around the house.

Monday rolled around and I had arranged for Ben's mom to watch the boys so I could get some things done, including rest! Ben, his dad, and his brother were back at the yard for the whole day. I ran a few errands and took my time, but when I got home to nap I couldn't sleep. I did a few things around the house before picking up the boys and having lunch with them and their grandma. Even though I didn't get the rest I was hoping for it was still a nice break.

{trenching for new sprinklers}

Once the boys were down for nap I still couldn't sleep and was now coughing. After they woke up we played in the house and checked out the new sprinkler system a bit. Ben + I were both so exhausted (he was sick too!) that we ordered in for dinner and took it easy.

Yesterday we both went into the doctor. Ben seems to have another case of bronchitis and possibly asthma? I don't know if I agree with the doctor's theory, especially since her remedy was a $40+ inhaler. Oy! My diagnosis is viral laryngitis, the advice- wait it out. My voice is coming back a bit but my throat is painful and my cough is worse. I still sound like a frog man.

Today I went to work- I don't want to fall behind and honestly it's easier to be there while being sick than to be home with my 2 energetic boys. It's better for them to have some time with Mima who is healthy enough to keep up with them.

As for our yard, it's a lovely field of dirt and grass seed for now, but over the next few weeks we should be getting some lovely new grass sprouting up!

I'm super behind on my photo blog, but I have some catch up to do at home and at work before that gets updated. It'll get done soon though...I hope!