Life

Rylee stated matter-of-factly in the car yesterday that if we get another baby boy, we would have to move the carseats all around in the van. How very true I replied.

Tonight as I tucked her in to bed, she jabbered on like she does every night, trying to get all her words out for the day.

Rylee: “Mom, what if I had 300 babies when I grow up?”

Me: “Wow, that would be a lot of babies.”

Rylee: “You’d have to come help me take care of all the kids.”

Me: “Yes I would, you would need lots of help.”

Rylee: “There would be kids everywhere, we’d have to take everything out of the house and just make room for all of them. We’d have kids in the kitchen, in the cupboards, in every room. We could sort them by age.”

Me (highly amused now, but just smiling-careful not to laugh): “It would be pretty crazy wouldn’t it?”

Rylee: “Yeah, but fun.”

That’s how I feel about our four-kid-life. It’s crazy and at the moment a lot feels uncertain and scary but it’s amazing at the same time. I’m glad Rylee understands one of our core family values. Life. Life in every form is a gift. Life in the form of babies is one we highly regard around here. They are a treasure beyond words.

For all of you wondering if this is my subtle way of telling you something, you can stop wondering, definitely not. But don’t be surprised when I do…

Nourishing

I love hearing big words out of little mouths…

Rylee (on the way home from an egg run to the grocery store): “Mom, look McDonald’s is still open.”

Me: “Yes, they are open all night long.”

Rylee: “When do the people sleep? Do they eat there?”

Me: “Different people work different times, and yes they get free food when they work.”

Rylee: “We don’t eat there much because it’s not nourishing.”

Me: “That’s right, it would make us sick to eat there every day.”

Rylee: “You make lots of nourishing things for me. Your mom must have taught you about nourishing. She taught you all the things that nourish me. You know lots about nourishing.”

Me: “I try to, that’s my job. Yes, Nana taught me lots of good things. She taught me lots about nourishing.”

Sweet little girl. Glad to be the one who nourishes her heart and body.

Heard for the first time

Recent quotes from Kyler

“Happy Birdday Daddy” (on Daddy’s birthday…thanks for teaching him that Caleb)

“Yeah…Kenna” (on the way to the going away party for our fav baby-sitter)

“Hi Rat Man” (when the Pest Control guy came by to check on the traps under the house)

“Monker Moose: (his favorite monster truck from the show we saw at the fair pictured below)

“hot rod” (the name for any cool car)

“hot gog” (see picture below for interpretation)

Boogers

Caleb: “Mom, can I look up your nose?”

Me: “Sure.”

Caleb: “Ewww Mom, there’s a booger way up there, use your finger to get it out!”

Me: “No, I like to use kleenex.”

Caleb: “I love to get boogers with my fingers and wipe them all over the wall.”

Lovely. Boys. A kind of their own.

A Little Olympic Fever

So Caleb and I were watching a bit of the Olympics tonight and after watching some of the Chinese gymnasts on the uneven bars, Caleb says “Dad, can you do that?”  Of course I said, “no way.”  Then he says “wow, I think you have to be superman to do that!”  Immediately following that routine, NBC goes to commerical break and there is this interesting Bud Light commercial involving a woman drinking a Bud Light that now comes with “x-ray vision”.  WIth this ability she is able to see the muscular construction worker as if he was not wearing a shirt.  Then a rotund fella walks in front of the muscular guy and of course the woman sees more of him than she bargained for.  Caleb says “Dad, why are those guys not wearing clothes?  They’re not being respectable”  As I was happy to see the commercial come to a close, we were then greeted with an ad involving hundreds of sumo wrestlers.  Thinking I was going to get a similar comment from Caleb he said nothing until they all left the ground and gracefully began to fly.  “How are those guys flying Daddy?”  By the way, watching hundreds of sumo wrestlers (in your typical sumo garb) taking flight is quite entertaining.  Two more reasons to limit our kiddos TV watching to shows like Curious George.

-Chris

Caleb on “God”

We are reading a bedtime story tonight about Peter and John healing the man crippled from birth.

Caleb: “How can Peter heal when he’s not God?”

Me (thinking, great question): “God fills him up with power and it is God’s power that heals the man through Peter.”

Caleb: “Yup, God’s filling me up right now”

Me (anticipating ‘love’ or ‘kindness’): “With what?”

Caleb: “Gas”.

Me (now trying not to laugh): “Gas?”

Caleb: “Yes, God’s filling me up with gas right now”

We have some more teaching to do obviously…..

Everyday Beauty

In an effort to continue embracing this life that God’s given me and choose gratitude, I am making a mental effort to note the things in my days that are beauty to me…today.

At 3AM I woke Christopher up to help with Kyler as I had just put Audrey back to bed-I didn’t find out until the morning that he had been up till 2AM working on our broken dishwasher. He didn’t complain one bit, just got up and rocked Kyler back to sleep. Beauty is his gorgeous, long, bed head hair peppered with gray, super messy and super handsome.

This morning at the park, Kyler-ever wanting to be a big boy-had a face full of satisfaction as he swung on the big swing instead of the baby one. Beauty is the delight in his huge brown eyes.

As I snuggled Caleb in bed at naptime today, he was trying to describe what the M & M candy in his mouth tasted like:

“Mom, it tastes so good, it tastes like…I just don’t know. It tastes like sweet and crunchy and yummy. I just don’t know how it tastes. It’s like….(long pause)….it tastes just like you mama.”

Beauty is that to a four year old that I’ve struggled so much to parent the last couple weeks, M & M’s taste like me, how wonderful is that?

When I picked Rylee up from VBS today, she scooped Audrey out of my arms and sat down on the floor in the classroom holding her. In an instant, the chaos of the room calmed and every little girl who’d been running in different directions sat down in a perfect circle around Rylee, 6 of them, and delighted in every detail that is Audrey-hands, fingers, hair fuzz, nose, her pink outfit. Beauty is the intoxicating nature of a new baby and it is the treasure of a sister for my firstborn.

Although our dishwasher now needs replacing and our fridge went out this week also so we have a free fridge from a friend in our driveway where all our food is currently being stored-beauty is the way God always provides for us in the most amazing ways.

-Karissa

Totally TWO!

I am feeling quite fragmented tonight, having Caleb and Christopher gone camping since Sunday and Rylee at my mom’s for a sleepover this evening. It is strange how simple life with only two kids seems when once I thought two kids was surely going to send me to the crazy house…..I suppose now the only difference is that this IS the crazy house and I’ve learned to adore it.

Kyler turns 2 on Sunday. Here is our conversation that took place on the deck tonight:

(Kyler holding a football)
Me: “Kyler, what kind of ball is that?”
Kyler: “Mine, mine ball.”

(Kyler kicks the ball and gets his new green ball)
Me: “Kyler, is that a green ball?”
Kyler: “No, mine…mine.”

(He loses the green ball and picks up Maggie’s fetch ball)
Me: “Who’s ball is that? Is it Maggie’s?” (knowing he’s just mastered saying our dog’s name)
Kyler: “No-mine, no Maggie, mine.”

(I’m getting quite amused and he finds a bright pink ball)
Me: “Is that Rylee’s ball?”
Kyler: “No, mine.”

I thought I’d get him on the last one since every pink or purple thing he sees he quickly deems as belonging to “Lylee”-his name for his sister-but not tonight. Tonight Kyler enjoyed life alone where he did not need to defend his domain or try to keep up with anyone, everything belonged to him. It was fun for a couple hours but my heart aches for us to all be together again, soon.

Karissa

Binkie laughs

We recently traded in our old Mam (Sassy) brand binkies for Gerber Nuk ones that are made without BPA as we’ve read too many reports and stories and articles about it’s questionable safety lately.  I explained to the kids what BPA was and why it was bad.  I gave one old BPA-laden binkie to Rylee for her baby.  Today this is what I heard on that note:

Caleb – “Yay! I found the BPA binkie”

Rylee – “Mama, Kyler took my baby’s binkie earlier and it has BPP in it, he might be sick.” (I assured her he would be just fine, thinking it will take much more than BPA binkie to bring that boy down)

My mother (slightly confused and not in-the-know about our recent binkie change) – “Rylee said Kyler can’t have this binkie (he’s sucking on it as she talks), something about it having BPP?”

So we are doing our best to raise earth-aware, eco-friendly, green children, even if they are a little foggy still on all the details and acronyms.

Karissa

 

A Surprise Visit

A few days ago, Karissa’s sister had her baby shower.  We can’t wait to meet this little one!  Karissa got a call from her mother saying that things were not ready at the house and that she could really use her help to get things set before the shower.  After throwing it into high gear as only a mother of four can, Karissa, Rylee, and Audrey piled in the car and headed down quite early to the shower.  Little did Karissa know that the house was all set and that her mother had fibbed just a bit to hide the fact that Karissa’s other sister Stephanie was home on a whirlwind surprise visit from college for the shower.  It was a great gift for Danielle and the rest of the family.  We didn’t think we were going to get to see her until July sometime.

On Monday, Stephanie came over to spend the day with our little crew.  It was a nice day so they decided to break out the sidewalk chalk that Caleb got from his Auntie in Alabama (Thanks Auntie Carissa!).  At one point during the bedlam, Caleb poured several different colors of sidewalk paint into one jar to make some brownish goo and said “I think it looks like poop…or melted ice cream.”  I am pretty sure that we have never eaten any ice cream that looked like poop, but you know, it’s fun to say poop whenever you get the chance.

-Chris