Elias chose to have a sleepover for his birthday party this year. It was his very first. 

He started his night out with pizza and a movie.

Then, everyone came in to decorate their own small cakes. Two things you should take note of here:  1) There are six boys in this picture including one three year old, three six year olds, one seven year old and one ten year old. All wanting to use frosting and sprinkles at the same time. AND I was babysitting a 10 month old who REALLY wanted a bottle right now (Matt was holding him, so I could capture the moment). It was five minutes of total chaos fun. 2) Elias apparently used his shirt as his napkin while he ate his pizza. Please know that it was clean before we started this whole birthday party thing.

Here is Elias in his greasy sweatshirt with his cake all decorated. Here also is Malachi’s tuft of hair in the bottom right corner. (please take your focus to the cake)

Ah, all six candles blown out at once, followed by, “Malachi…you’re not supposed to help me.” (hear the whine in the voice)

Opening present number one…spiderman boxing gloves!

Present number two:  Popcorn, candy, soda and a movie rental gift card. The mother of the one who gave him this knew about Elias’ “unhealthy birthday” plans and wanted to add to the fun. Thanks, Kami. :)

And the rest of the evening and the following morning were spent playing Play Station 2. 

Oh, and also having conversations that only boys can appreciate (“Hey, wonder what would happen if you TOOTED so loud that you flew up in the air and then landed on the cat next door…”)

Ahhhh the joy. Well, I’m off to see what I can do with that greasy sweatshirt…and the sprinkles all over the kitchen…and the cat next door…

The real reason my kids LOVE to help me cook…

For years now, my boys have enjoyed their friends, Zack, Taylor and Cody.

Great kids, these friends. Polite, undemanding, quiet, everything you could want in friends for your kids.

You can see pictures of them here:

Here you can see Zack, Taylor and Cody with my four boys.

Here they all are building a snowman.

And, here’s one of my favorites at Asa’s birthday party.

What? Their pictures are not showing up on your computer? Huh. Maybe something’s wrong with your computer. 

Or, maybe you can’t see them because they are IMAGINARY friends!

Like my kids don’t have enough companionship with each other and all of their REAL friends! Nope, we have to have imaginary companions.

Now, for the most part, I don’t have a problem with Zack, Taylor and Cody. If my boys ask if Z, T, and C can come over for dinner (just as I’m pulling dinner out of the oven), I’m happy to say, “Sure! I have plenty.” If they want to invite them for a sleepover, “No problem, as long as they clean up after themselves and are gone by 10:00 tomorrow morning.” Can they go with us to the library? “Sure, as long as they buckle up.”

But recently, we’ve encountered a few issues. 

Yesterday, I heard noise coming from upstairs, which started out loud and then escalated into FRANTIC! So, I went running, only to discover Elias on a pretend cell phone making a pretend phone call to Taylor (who is of course, also pretend) and Justus was freaking out because he really needed to get ahold of Zack and calling Taylor to get ahold of Zack wouldn’t work because, according to Justus, Zack and Taylor are NOT brothers. But according to Elias, they certainly are brothers! (you have GOT to be kidding me!)

Today, the same loud to FRANTIC noise happened and I jogged (I did not run this time) up to see what was going on. Apparently, Taylor and Cody were about to have a wrestling match and Justus and Elias completely disagreed about the outcome of the match. Completely disagreed, I’m telling you.

Wow. So, having imaginary friends is one thing, but when they are shared among brothers I’m just not sure about all of the logistics. 

I’m thinking about grounding Zack, Taylor and Cody for a while. Because all three of them were throwing snow balls at my van last week and that is uncalled for. (Hey, if they can make it up, so can I.) 

We have been getting such a kick out of Malachi for the past few months. Ever since he started learning to say his “r” sound, he has been putting it into words whether it has an “r” sound in it or not. For instance, the word look comes out like lerk. So, when he wants me to see something, he’ll say, “Oh, lerk, Mama!” He also asks me to read him a berk (and it’s really funny when he wants to “lerk at a berk”!). 

When I ask him where his blanket is, he’ll tell me that he “purt it over there”. Sometimes he helps his brothers and Daddy bring in some “word” to burn in the fire. 

If you ask him how he’s doing, he’ll tell you that he’s “gurd”. 

It’s so cute and fun, and when he starts saying it correctly, I’ll be a little sad. However, it won’t be so cute when he’s 12, so eventually I guess I’ll be okay with him saying it right. In the meantime, whenever I get the chance, I’ll ask him questions about how he’s doing and how he’s liking something so that I can hear him tell me how gurd it is. 

Take a gurd lerk at this sweet three year old reading his berk!

What cute things do/did your kids say?! 

Today the boys lined up chairs and other varieties of furniture and threw blankets over them in order to make tents. I could not believe how long they played in them. They even had their reading/rest time in the tent. So, I took advantage of the opportunity to snap some shots of them in the tent.

Here’s the tent that took up half the living room.

I caught Elias and Asa’s feet sticking out…I’m sure they aren’t kicking each other.

Asa grabbed a new book he got for Christmas for quiet time.

I’m pretty sure he’s totally faking, but Justus is so cute here “sleeping” in the tent!

Elias:  also faking, also cute.

Well, we traveled well over one thousand miles in the last six days and now we’re home. 

We went to Kansas to be with my family for Christmas this year, but on the way, we made a quick stop in Iowa (what?)  I know, Iowa isn’t on the way to Kansas, but we had a VERY good reason for going. Matt’s brother and his wife recently adopted a baby boy. They live in Los Angeles, but they were in IL for Christmas, so we HAD to go see him (um, I mean them). 

His name is Seth and he’s almost three months old now and he is such a sweet baby! Our boys loved making him smile and taking turns holding him. I had a hard time sharing him and could hardly hand him over when it was time for us to leave again.

And THAT is why there are no pictures of him to put on this blog. I was so excited to get my hands on him that I left my camera in the van and then, once I did have my hands on him, I couldn’t give him up, and I didn’t ever send Matt out to get the camera. So silly! But, my sister-in-law took plenty of pictures on her camera, so she’ll send them when she gets home. 

We left Iowa and traveled on to Kansas where we spent the next few days with my dad and his new wife, her kids and my brother and his family. It was our first Christmas with our “new family” and it was very nice. I enjoyed getting to know them all better and I am so thankful that my dad now has someone so wonderful to spend the rest of his life with. 

While we were there I was able to go through some of my mom’s things to see what I would like to bring home with me. I brought back her everyday dishes that I have always loved, some of her cast iron cookware and a variety of other kitchen things. I’m so happy to have these precious memories of her in my kitchen.

We had a loud and crazy time opening gifts on Christmas morning with seven kids ages 10 and under! Here’s a few shots of our kids. (I really did not do a good job of preserving our memories this year…I’ll treasure them all in my heart)

Hope you and your families all had a blessed time together!

This morning the kids and I made a list of friends and neighbors we wanted to make treats for and a list of treats we wanted to make. Of course they wanted to make about 42 different kinds of goodies and take them to 86 different families, so I had to moderate the lists a little. I don’t have THAT much butter on hand!

We first decided to make some simple sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles. (notice I used the word simple…what about cooking with four boys is simple?)

So, we’re mixing and measuring and spilling and “taking turns” and Justus, who loves to cook and helps me any chance he gets, says to his brothers, “I’m the professional here. I’ll show you what to do.” (it was said in love of course)  Asa, who’s older, didn’t take it in love and thought it was really a mean thing to say. Malachi (who’s still TWO…for two more days)  in the meantime was crawling on the countertops through the spilled flour and sugar getting it all over his clothes and licking the sugar off his hands. Elias sat patiently for a while until he realized that he hadn’t had a turn stirring or pouring for a while. (“What am I, chopped liver?” is his favorite thing to say when he feels an injustice has been done to him.)  Then we started smashing the cookies down with a glass and sprinkling red and green sugar on and Justus got to go first and that wasn’t fair because he wasn’t being nice about calling himself a professional so he shouldn’t get to go first. And then when it was Malachi’s turn, he took a whole fist full of red sprinkles instead of just a sprinkling, but wanted to keep it in his fist and not let me help him so he kept his fist full of red sugar for a while before I could pry it open and help him sprinkle his cookies. (deep breath)

SO, we did finally get the simple cookies in the oven and they turned out fine and they are yummy (we all got to do quality control).

I’m sure that when we load up the van and the boys knock on the door of Mr. Bob and Ms. Barb and we see how delighted they are to see my boys with their treats, the kitchen scene won’t really matter. Nothing is really very simple with kids, but what do we expect? I’d rather have a crazy Christmas cooking experience with my kids so that they learn to serve and give, than to send them away and do it simply on my own. Although I do have to say that after one pan was put into the oven, they got to go play and I finished up the rest on my own. I figured that they had experienced enough service and giving for one recipe. And besides, I hadn’t had a turn yet. (what am I, chopped liver?)

Four chefs (including one professional and one chopped liver) take 1

Take 6

Take 23

Okay, we’re off to make Cranberry Orange Bread…prayers please! :)

I’ve been in denial for several months now that Malachi’s birthday was coming up. My baby CAN’T be three. And yet, on Dec. 20th he certainly will be three. (but since I’m in denial, I can still say that he’s only two, for three more days – so there.)

We’ll be traveling on his birthday and so we hosted our church small group last night and turned it into a sort of birthday party. At least we sang and had cake (which is enough when your three – BUT HE’S NOT THREE YET – don’t forget).

Here’s a few pictures of the “party”!

Malachi should be happy that I actually put three candles on the cake
since every part of me wanted to put only two. :)

Here he is spitting on the cake…I mean blowing out the candles.

Got ’em all. (Everyone is applauding.)

Here’s some of the kids eating cake.

Here’s more of the kids eating cake.

There was quite a bit of cake on the floor by the time it was all said and done, but I didn’t take pictures of that for you. It was loud, it was fun, it was Malachi’s third birthday party….but he’s still TWO! (so there)