Interview with Faith

Yes...these were her real answers!


1. What is something mom always says to you? I love you!
2. What makes mom happy? Doing good things
3. What makes mom sad? Doing bad things, like Jensen throwing his hot dog onto the floor.
4. How does your mom make you laugh? Tickles me
5. What was your mom like as a child? Played Barbies
6. How old is your mom? 30
7. How tall is your mom? 33 inches
8. What is her favorite thing to do? Spend time with me and Jensen and Jacob and dad
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? goes on dates
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? a Superstar-a star that is really good at playing the guitar and singing
11. What is your mom really good at? Cooking Mac and cheese
12. What is your mom not very good at? Climbing Trees
13. What does your mom do for a job? Teach
14.What is your mom's favorite food? Lasagna
15.What makes you proud of your mom? When you do what I want you to do
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Hannah Montana
17. What do you and your mom do together? Make cookies
18. How are you and your mom the same? We both have brown hair
19. How are you and your mom different? We talk different
20. How do you know your mom loves you? She cuddles with me
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? That he loves you
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? Where ever I want to go

Happy First Birthday Isabella

Another sweet, sweet baby who pulled at our hearts this past year. Isabella was born weighing 1 lb. 2 oz a year ago. A miracle in the works!!!! I grew up as "family" with Isabella's dad and have spent many, many days praying for this beautiful baby girl!

Happy First Birthday Maddie Grace

Those of you who haven't read about Madison Grace yet, take a moment to read about hr and her sweet family here http://allredbabygirl.blogspot.com/. This past weekend she celebrated her first Birthday!!! Way to go Maddie we are so proud of you and are blessed to be considered part of your journey. We love reading about you and your family.

I worked with Katie, Maddie's mom, when I taught in Royal City. Katie is an AMAZING person and has blessed the lives of so many people!

She's Baaack..."Koupon Kelly"

Look what I got today for a grand total of...(drum roll, please) TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTEEN CENTS!!!!

Can't even by a latte for that price!

This morning was a perfect day to be out and about on foot. Dropped Faith off at Preschool and then Jensen, Jacob and I parked downtown for some on-foot errand running. Put the new Sit and Stand Stroller to use with stops at The Dollar Tree, The County Building, The UPS Store, Albertsons, Jerrols and back to the Dollar Tree.

BTW...speaking of deals. I scored the Sit-and-Stand for $30.00 at Target right before Jacob was born. They are usually 130.00 so I was THRILLED!!! Always wanted one, but not for full-price!

Jacob Had the Hiccups...

Jacob frequently has the hiccups...always has, even when I was pregnant with him. Faith loves the song "Hannah Has the Hiccups" and sings it to him all the time. Here is the version she made for her baby brother.

"Jacob has the hiccups.
Hic, hic, hic, hic, hic, hic.
All that hic, hic, hicing, makes Jacob feel quite sick.
His sissy (usually it says Mommy) doesn't worry.
She knows just what to do.
To scare away the hiccups, she simply whisper (usually it says yells) BOO!"

So sweet she is with him. Always offering to help hold him, give him his daily bottle, bring diapers, wipes, protect him, etc. But her favorite thing is to sing to him and tell him stories. She always has been quite the little "Mommy!"

Smiley Boy

Right Mom?

When she was two it was "Not yet." At age four, it's "Right Mom?" So cute. Everything Faith says (and she sure says a lot) ends with, "right mom?" Love that girl and everything about her!!!

Another Use for a Not-So-Common Product

If you read my previous pictureless entry, you know that today I'm running on four hours of INTERRUPTED sleep. I really tend to make the best out of any situation. As I'm awake, albeit groggy, but awake at 4:00am, I was doing my best to thank God that I have these three precious children to be up with.

Yes...all three children are currently sleeping at the same time. Yes, it is after 5:00pm, meaning bedtime tonight will be a real challenge, but I'm not complaining.

Why am I not complaining that bedtime will be a real treat tonight? Because they are ALL sleeping. At. The. Same. Time. Here is how our day has gone.

By 10:00am Faith and Jensen had both had more than one time out. All three kids were crying at the same time and I was on the verge of tears. Instead of loosing my cool (okay...I did loose it just a tiny bit, but I'm entitled, right?) I decided a change of pace was needed. I loaded all three up for an outing consisting of Happy Meals (and free Iced Vanilla Coffee for me...coupon), a drive through the car wash, a trip to KIttitas to drop off some Pampered Chef goodies, and a walk through the dollar tree. Faith chose a "beautiful" jewelry set and Jensen a Spiderman gun/launcher thingy...how at two he already understands guns is beyond me.

By the time we got home they were in better spirits and ready for nap time. I'm peacefully feeding the baby and reading him the 3rd Twilight book. Maybe not his choice of literature, but I'm making an attempt here. I was enjoying my moment with Jacob when I hear, "Poopy. Sock. Pooy. Sock" Which actually sounded more like "Poody. Gawk. Poody. Gawk." I look up to see Jensen walking across the cream colored carpet with "Pood" covered "Gawks." How this happened, I have no idea, BUT there was a Hansel and Gretel trail of poop to be followed back to the source. Good thing, because the smell wasn't enough to lead me to the mess. I track the trail of poop across the cream colored living room carpet, up the hallway, through the baby's room (cream carpet) and into Faith and Jensen's room (cream carpet) straight to the area where the rocking horse is located. Upon fist inspection, one might assume that the rocking horse had a bit of an "accident" on the carpet.

Much to my dismay, it wasn't the horse. My darling son had poop up his back, up his front and all over his socks (still unclear how that happened), there was a large area of poop near the rear of the inanimate horse, as well as "track marks" from the rockers on the horse, where he had been ridden through the poop. I'm assuming the horse would have prefered to have made the mess himself, versus being riden through it.

Jensen received a bath and I cleaned up the mess all the while trying to convince myself that it was not indeed poop that I was seeing and smelling. Clearly people, I knew it was poop, but I was trying to prevent vomiting...it was THAT bad!!!!

I got out my handy Dyson carpet spot remover, sprayed the "spots" (used loosely...better describe as large areas) and began to read the directions. All the while the baby is SCREAMING. "Blot with absorbent white cloth from the outside in." Jacob's screaming is becoming louder which spikes my hormones and emotions and I begin to sweat profusely and shake (always do when my "babies" are in distress). Frantically I start to look around for the above said cloth, panic and do what any good breastfeeding mom does. Reach down my shirt, grab my breast pads, and blot away. There you have it, sleep deprivation at it's best and a new use for Breast Pads!

It's a darn good thing Jensen wasn't where he was supposed to be, in his bed, during this time. Then the mess would have been confined to his bed. Resulting in a simple change of sheets, washing of the clothes and bath for him. Darn good thing he was up out of bed.

Time Change

As I blog about this, my two dear eldest children have been awake for exactly 5 hours and 34 minutes. Yes...they woke up at 5:00am per the new time change or for all of you brains 4:00am "old" time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we supposed to sleep in an extra hour. So, with our usual 6:00am wake up, shouldn't they have slept until 7:00am?

Here's a replay of our night/early morning. Joe is out of town at a fly fishing show with his friend and coworker Johnny. I had Erinn and JT (Johnny's wife and almost two year old) over for dinner.

7:15 Faith fell asleep on the couch.
8:30 JT and Erinn leave.
8:45 Jensen into bed (really late for him).
9:00 put a Pull-Up on the still sleeping Faith and carry her to my bed as I was not going to try to hoist my 44lb 5 year old to her top bunk. Get baby ready for bed. Feed baby. Change baby's poopy diaper. Feed baby. Change baby's poopy diaper. Feed baby. Change baby's poopy diaper and put baby down for the night at 10:45pm.
10:45 pm Clean up the house, make the guest bed, do a little blog stalking.
11:30 hop into a soaking wet bed...Faith had apparently soaked through her pull-up. Wake Faith up to change all of her clothes and strip the sheets off of my bed.
12:00am By this point, it's almost midnight so we slept with no sheets on the bed (cozy).
2:00am baby wakes to be fed.
3:00am baby wakes to be fed.
3:35am Faith has a bad dream (and is screaming) that a dinosaur ate her...could be a problem since the theme at preschool for the upcoming two weeks is DINOSAURS!
3:55am baby wakes to eat.
4:00 Jensen crawls in bed with Faith and I and is wide awake. As is Faith, whom as been poked and prodded by baby brother.
4:30am, put Jensen back in his bed with two binkies, his blanket, and a HUGE cup of warm milk. ALWAYS WORKS IN OUR HOUSE!
5:00am Jensen is back in my room wide awake and Faith is still awake, too. At this point, I give up and put on a movie in my room hoping to catch some more sleep. No such luck...they are now hungry and ready to play for the day.

For the record...for the baby's entire life, he has typically only woken up 1-2 times at night. Was there a full-moon last night????

Oh how I pray they all take naps today. At. The. Same. Time.

Hawaiian Luau-Starwars-Horsey Party

No pictures for this one. Just the lastest theme Faith has come up with for her 5th Birthday Party. BTW...she's been planing her party since last year. We've gone through all sorts of ideas, but this was surely the most creative. Hopefully we come up with a new one between now and then, because I'm not sure how I could pull this one off.

Birth Announcements

Since I'm on a posting roll here, I thought I'd post a picture of Jacob's birth announcements. I LOVE how they turned out!

The Bow and the Ewow

The objects of Jensen's affection these days are his Bow and "Ewow." They are currently outside toys after he shot Faith in the head...He LOVES his bow and "Ewow" and had a great shot, too. According to his dad he's a real natural with great aim and form. Whatever that means. His bow and "ewow" have been known to go to bed with him. In the middle of the night, once, he was whimpering in his sleep, "Bow, bow, my bow."

Isn't he just the cutest little guy? Note the Dora Rollerskates in the picture...and the yogurt smeared all over his shirt. I believe that was the day he ate five "blue" (vanilla) yogurts. Apparently he was just as excited about my good grocery deals as I was. :)

Thankful Thursday

Thankful for many things today, but today am going to emphasize our amazing family, friends and community. Love, love, love all three of those. We have three of the most precious children ever (may be biased, but it's my blog). Faith and Jensen are so sweet with the new baby and Jacob is just a little cuddle bug.

Our families support us in all we do with visits, emails, phone calls and advice. My mom has been here for two weeks from Arizona and the kids have loved having her here to visit...and I haven't exactly minded her doing all of my laundry. Thanks Mom! Today Faith and Jensen are up painting pottery at Interactive Toys in Cle Elum with one brave Grandma and her dear friend Adrianne!

Thankful for Ellensburg and the great community it is. Can I share that I've cooked dinner no more than five times since Jacob has been born. What a wonderful gift this has been for our family and it came at exactly the right time. When I came home from the hospital (with a bit of hitch in my giddy-up), hormonal and to a houseful of vomiting children, I was feel a bit "down" to say the least. I sat down few hours later to check my emails and to my surprise my dear friend Cori had set up meals for us, every other night, for and entire MONTH. At that point I broke down in tears of gratitude. PLUS, I must add, that other dear friends, coworkers, etc. also showed up with food during this month, adding to dates that were already spoken for! Thank you EVERYONE who has done this for our family. What a blessing to focus more on our children and becoming a family of five then meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter

Yesterday, my mom asked where "Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter" was and I remembered that I never shared the story of Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter...and YES that was the given name of our 1.35 goldfish. Last spring my sister (Sarah) took Faith into the pet store to pick out a Beta fish, while we were walking around the Farmers Market. After about 45 minutes of "Tantie" (Faith's name for Sarah when she was learning to talk) patiently letting Faith inspect each of the 7 Beta's attempting to determine which one she'd like to take home, Faith looked up at her and with her cute little wrinkled nose, and pig-tail adorned head, and said "Tantie, can I get a REAL fish?" as she glanced longingly at the tank full of THOUSANDS of gold fish. Of coarse Auntie obliged, but we were all a little surprised that she would choose an ordinary goldfish over a Beta...quite frankly I'm glad she just didn't request the real objects of her desire on that day rats, guinea pigs, and Komodo Dragons. I'm pretty sure Sarah would have consented and we'd currently be housing the city zoo.

After another 10 minutes, and 27 cents (tax included) later. Faith was the proud owner of a goldfish in a plastic bag. Her thinking it's the exact one she choose, but luckily the gal at the pet store must have had lots of experience in children "choosing" fish because she dramatically dipped the net into the tank, asked again which one Faith wanted, swatted at a few pretending to miss the chosen one, and then frantically shouting "I got her! I got her!" Producing a fish that looked nothing like the chosen one, but Faith had no clue. The remainder of the money spent came from the bowl purchased at the Dollar Tree.

Anyways, rambling now, fast forward, fast forward. Faith named the fish Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter. She WAS a well loved member of our family and always called by her full given name, but not because she was in trouble (as when my children are called by their full given names), but because Faith insisted. She was a perfect pet. Not a lot of work and entertained Faith who loved to stare at her bowl and talk to her.

That was until Jenszilla discovered his love of Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter. Faith was less then thrilled to share her chair in front of the fish bowl, but eventually decided two loving fish owners may be better than just one. Jensen, however, was content with speaking with Ariel for only the first day.

I came home from work and asked Joe (the parenting father that day) why our house smelled like fish and what the filmy stuff on the floor was. Well...he explained the following story. Apparently, Joe was working on the computer, Faith was playing in the bathroom sink, and Jensen was "parenting" Ariel when he decided he'd really like to be more "hands-on" with Ariel...resulting in her untimely death and a MORTIFIED Faith. To calm her down, Joe finally promised Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner and a proper burial for Ariel.

In the mean-time, Ariel rested in her empty bowl, on our back deck waiting for her burial (and me to arrive home). Faith was making a special "box" for Ariel, complete with holes so she could breath and was practicing her final prayers for her fish. Jensen had a different idea to lay Ariel in her resting place. As a very distraught Faith watched from the other side of the French Doors, Jensen reached into the smelly fish bowl, removed the rigid, stinky fish, flopped her on the deck, produced a Sh%$-eating grin for Faith's benefit, and began to reenact the episode of "I Love Lucy" where they are stomping the grapes, until there was nothing' left of Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter except some...juice.

So that my friends, is the very long story of Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter, but I'm glad it's documented now.

R.I.P Ariel Sarah Fishy Rotter...you are missed by some, but not the one whom washed your stinky bowl...

As a side note, Faith called my sister "Tantie." Jesen calls her "Teetee." So we're thinking that keeping with the vowel changing, Jacob is either going to call her "Titie" or "Tootie!"