Choose to be happy

I'm not a fan of online classes, but I did end up taking a couple of courses in college at DSU over the Internet. One in particular was a Literature class and we were required to keep a blog for the duration of the course. I can't remember the specific assignment, but I will always remember my post for a certain week - choosing to be happy. I was struck at that time by all of the negative and unhappy people around me. I like to think of myself as a generally happy person and I hope that is how others see me. So, I described my theory in life of being happy because you choose to be happy. I told my fellow online classmates that I strongly believed in waking up in the morning and telling yourself to be happy and then simply making that happen. My belief in this still exists, but I think I lost it along the way for a little while. I'm not sure what made me find it tonight, but I have found my old belief and I am going to stick it in my pocket and take it with me! I will slow down and stop stressing and in turn try to teach a 9, 3, and 1 year old that choosing to be happy no matter what is the secret to REALLY enjoying life.

So, tomorrow I will choose to be happy - welcome back Robyn!!

Plus how could I not wake up happy when I get to see these awesome little people every day?!

          

Days Remembered

There are certain dates that have meaning for all of us. With a little help from someone very important, I have come to realize and accept that even those we do add meaning to specific dates, they are really little more than another day on the calendar unless you make something of them.

Three weeks ago happened to be one of these dates, my dad's birthday. This year he would have been 51 years old. I always knew the day would come when things would start to fade (I'm sure many small things started to years ago), and I had always feared that some of these dates that I had always tried so hard to pay close attention to would sometime fade as well. My mom ended up reminding me of it this year, which was perfect, but I still felt guilt for actually forgetting.

After the most supportive and understanding person I know reminded me that I really shouldn't be worrying so much about these dates and that it is OK to be busy with life and not dwelling on the past at all times, I made a plan to make it up to myself for not remembering. After Sunday School, I headed to the grocery store and bought one of the biggest pumpkins I could find. The kids and I brought it home and they each chose a different color and finger painted their names along with each of their hand prints. Last, Mason started putting Grandpa Steven's name on the pumpkin, but ended up needing a little help from Mom as it wasn't quite as easy as he thought it would be :) So, we got our pumpkin all painted and let it dry while the whole household took a much needed nap.

Yes the little ones are in their undies...finger painting is much easier to clean up this way ;)

Mommy helping write Grandpa Steven's name on the pumpkin while Koryn and Mason add the final touches.

The end result was absolutely perfect in my eye - a little messy, but still containing all the important part, which is exactly how our family usually is! We lugged the huge symbol of our love out to the cemetary and visited Grandpa Steven.

Another thing that I knew in the back of my mind would eventually come were questions. The kids have started asking more and more about Grandpa Steven and to be honest, I am more than happy to answer! I promised myself that my kids would always know who he was even though they will never able to meet him in person, and that is one thing I will not forget!

'Lazy' Monday Night

What do we do on a Monday night when Daddy has just left for who knows how long and we have nothing better to do?! We put clip on earrings, play jewlery, and read a book (in between cooking supper, bathtime, sweeping up billions of those lovely flies, and doing a little bit of fall decorating!)

 

 

 

Guess who's 3?!

That's right, another year has passed and our little girl has now turned 3! What an amazing three years it has been. She has definitely shown us what a girl can be...happy, sad, excited, snuggly, independent, and so much more all in the same breath! She really is a joy and, as much as I have a feeling we may have it in for us in the years to come, I cannot wait to see what the future holds for our bright ray of sunshine!

Yep, our little girl requested a "choo choo train cake".

Trap Shooting

This summer, Mason's choice of sport happened to be something new for us. As much as many of you would shame me for doing it I ended up successfully talking him out of playing baseball so that it would leave us a little more time to enjoy the summer rather than running around to practice 2 or 3 nights a week and then games another 1 or 2 nights a week. My rule has always been that he (and the little kids in the future) can only do 1 sport per season. He brought home the paper for trap shooting and was really interested in it, so I figured we could give it a chance since it was just one night a week and no commitments on going to any sort of meets if we didn't want to. Well, as we suspected, he thoroughly loved learning the proper way to use a gun in a safe environment and shooting the clay pigeons as much as possible! He even got in a couple of fun rounds at home with his uncle and dad when they were around long enough to throw the clay pigeons for him!
Last night happened to be the "end of the year party" if you will for the trap shooting club. The guy that heads it up really wanted Mason to be there so we rushed from work out there to grill out and then get a round of shooting in. Mason also received 2 trophies for the season. He received 1st place for Match #1, which would be the best score out of the whole state of shooters in his age bracket from June-July. He also received 3rd place for Math #2, which went from July-August. You can see he was pretty proud in his picture below! He really didn't know where he was going to put the trophies since his trophy case "has no room" as he told me last night. Maybe that will be Grandpa Myron's next project for us ;)

Taking it in

Well, I think I have been MIA for quite some time as far as this blog goes. On the other hand, I have been very present in the day-to-days of the life that has grown to be our "norm." This blog has been in the back of my mind for a while now and simply cannot put off any longer getting back to trying to record these things that have been happening with us!

When I think of what has been taking up so much of our time, it may not be anything really special to anyone else but us (except Mason that is, who "hates" having to go home all the time!) Mr. Mason has proven a challenge for me to keep busy as the school year ended over a month ago. He has attended a football camp and a wrestling camp and has a couple more coming up. He takes advantage of anytime that he can snatch with his cousin and when he can't hang out with her, he keeps himself busy going to the pool or hanging out with his best buddy. I have come to the realization that I  absolutely do not give this kid enough credit. An amazing kid with a big heart is the only way I can explain him!

Koryn is getting to be such a little cutie, with quite an attitude if you can believe it! There is no escaping her little charm that she puts on her daddy and I and she knows it. Her favs right now: babies (dolls), necklaces, pierced ears, barbies, tractors, puzzles, and even  temporary tattoos. Quite a combinations, huh? She knows what she wants and she has no problem getting it either. As much as that may be a little bit of a problem right now, I can only hope that she keeps that ambition as she grows up.

Jarrik is our little bruiser. He is a brute, and there is no mistaking it. He has grown past the point of us running to him and wondering what is wrong when he screams out (most of the time that is.) I say this because most of the time when this happens he is mad at his sister for taking something away and he in turn takes her down like a true wrestling, literally. I'm sure his brother will help him grow into that roll, or maybe he will be helping Mason :)

As I sit taking all of this in every day, I have to smile. As crazy as our life gets, it is still awesome. I wouldn't have it any other way. As I write this I am vowing to myself to really TAKE IT ALL IN a little more and not worry so much about the little things.

-On a side note...I promise I will put pictures on here soon!

Work out time

During wrestling season, we have started a routine of having Mason do sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping-jacks every night. He started out with I believe 25 of each and then it was supposed to go up by 5 each night. Well, this week we are preparing for districts so I guess Dad has decided to up the anty. Mason has been doing 25 more each night and as of last night he was up to 300 of each. I know...it is alot, but he does very well with it and has a system down of doing them in sets of 25 each.

I have been trying to eat right and have begun somewhat of a work out routine for the past 4 weeks. The last couple of nights, I have decided to do Mason's work out with him. Don't get carried away, I have no been able to actually make it through his whole work out, but I have been trying. Last night I did 7 sets with him, but he is so fast that I only get 15 sit-ups done to his 25!! If you have ever been in our house, you know how tiny the living room is. Craig moved some furniture around the other day, but it pretty much just gave it a different layout and didn't actually provide any extra room. While Mason and I decided to get going on our work out, Craig was sitting on the couch (yes, just sitting there watching us and not participating!), Jarrik was crawling around trying to figure out what was going on, and Miss Koryn decided to join in!! This was alot of commotion going on in our small living room! Here is a video of Koryn's workout....

Mama Jones

Why is it that I still feel like I am in school every time I go to write a new blog post? I get very excited to update everyone on what has been going on with us, but then we I look at the post screen I get stuck on the title (which is what would always happen to me in high school and even in college.) This frustrates me to no end because I let it get to me and eventually navigate away from the page and forget about the post all together, hence the reason why I have not posted much lately!

Playing with Bubba's remote-control Monster truck only after he left the house and she got a chance to get to it!

Most of my posts seem to focus on mainly one child at a time. Mind you, this is not on purpose! It just so happens that when the majority of these things happen, it is while the other 2 are off making trouble, fighting with each other, or else out of the house for various reasons. The apple of her daddy's eye (sometimes maybe the thorn in his side) Koryn is at that age where almost every moment is worth a picture, video camera, or just simply writing it down to remember how cute or funny it was. She has a lingo all her own, I call it Koryn language, and she is pretty darn good at verbalizing anything and everything she might need.
The other day we were leaving day care and this is the conversation we had when walking to the car:
Koryn: That's Yanye's (Layne's) Daddy
Me: What's Layne's Daddy's name?
Koryn: Brian
Me: What's your daddy's name?
Koryn: Craig
Me: What's your mommy's name?
Koryn: Mama Jones!
I laughed out loud thinking how cute this was! I have never heard her say that to me before, so I have no clue where she got it, but I guess I have become Mama Jones somewhere along the way!

My little chef!

Koryn has always had a fascination with the moon. I don't know where this came from or how it started, but everytime we would get in the car at night, she would immediately ask where the moon was. She has now begun to ask where it is every time we go outside, day or night. So, I play along with her game and sometimes I make stories up. If it is the middle of the day I will tell her that the moon is sleeping or that he is hiding. The other day it was cloudy and she asked where it was so I told her that he was mad and didn't want to come out. She proceeded to talk about why he was mad quite a bit of the way home. Her daddy and her have some stories of their own about the moon. One night Craig brought her home and she came in the door spouting off something. I wasn't sure exactly what she was saying, so I asked her to repeat it. "My daddy's gonna rope the moon!" Yet another moment that I don't want to ever forget!

Not the normal "1st Christmas"

I have neglected to post anything for quite some time now, and I apologize for that. I have really been meaning to get to it, but it just never seems to get done!
As most of you know, Jarrik's first Christmas was definitely a memorable one for us. As he was progressively getting sicker and I was pushing the nebulizer and Motrin in order to keep the low grade fever down, the nurse at Sanford advised us that we should get him to the emergency room as soon as we could. So, our Christmas night was spent in the emergency room, and later in Pediatrics at Avera. After much poking, prodding, swabbing, X-raying, and waiting, we found out that Jarrik had RSV and strep throat. The ER doctor told us that they would need to keep him over night for "observation." So, I went up to the Pediatric unit thinking it wasn't going to be so bad. How wrong I was. They had to give him an IV (which they tried 3 times at and was not pretty!) and he had to be on oxygen and IV antibiotics. When the doctor came in on his rounds the next morning, he said "Our goal is to have you home by New Years." Mind you, that would have been 5 days away at that point. I laughed and thought he was just joking. Wrong again. Thank goodness my friend who works as a respiratory nurse at Avera. If she wouldn't have been there, I don't think I would have understood what was going on to the extent. Since Jarrik had to be on oxygen, he would have to be in the hospital for 24 hours AFTER they took him off of the oxygen. I was defeated when I heard that. By that time, I was there by myself at night time since Craig was home with the other 2 kids and it was pointless to waste gas on coming down for an hour or 2 and then going back again. In the end, we ended up staying 3 nights and 2 days. It was long enough in my book.

Night #1

Trying to rest in the hospital crib.

Feeling a little better the next day.

After Grandma Nita and Grandpa Lonnie showed up he was the happiest little guy on the planet!

No more oxygen tube!!

 Mr. Jarrik is still not 100% as RSV can hang on for quite a while. We are still doing nebulizers and trying to get him breathing better.

He's Crawling!

 It's official...Mr. J Man is crawling! He has been scooting and army crawling for a few weeks now, but last night he did the real thing. He only goes a little ways while crawling and then reverts back to the army crawl because it gets him to where he needs to be quicker. Thanks to Mason's wonderful photography skills, we caught it on camera!

And so it begins...

As of this past weekend, our family has officially begun Christmas. Having such large families that live so close together has always been such a blessing to us. We very often get to spend time with not only our immediate family, but more often than that our extended family. The holidays do tend to be a bit of a struggle as we try to make it to all of the holiday celebrations. It has usually worked out pretty well, even when we attend 2 celebrations in one day. I have been getting a little nervous as to how it is going to go this year with 3 children (2 of which need to take a daily nap or things get pretty ugly!) I distinctly remember one Christmas when we were still living in Madison and how absolutely packed our car was when we left the very last celebration of the holiday season to go back. We literally could not see out of the back windows and poor little Mason had to sit with all the boxes and hope they did not fall on him! Just goes to show how lucky we are to have such wonderful family to shower us with so many gifts.

This holiday season started out with my family a week before the actual holiday. Although not everyone was able to make it, it was still a great day! We made it home in time for bedtime, but had to get a little playing in with all of our new stuff!

Jarrik playing with his cool "bug chain"

Of course she had to get some baby accessories!

"Skidoo" snowmobile Wii game

Mason and Dad playing with his new remote control car. Even though Dad was cursing uncle Kelly's name, I think he liked the toy just as much as Mase.

And Koryn running away, scared of the remote control car...

 This week also marks the beginning of the long awaited wrestling season. The first practice was last night and when Mason woke up this morning he was already complaining about how sore he was! I can't wait to watch him in action this year and see how much more he has advanced. I only hope I look back at this years from now and can still say that he is excited about the sport. Sometimes I think that I love it a little more than he might, but always hope that he will keep interest in it as he does so well!

Blessings

My life has always seemed to throw me extreme highs and sometimes extreme lows. There are the in-between times, but I think everyone can agree with the fact that the highs and lows stand out the most. It never ceases to amaze me that when I seem to have hit one of those extreme lows, something really great happens. I guess there is only one person thank for that :) along with my great family and friends of course. Today was one of those day. Just when I thought I didn't know what I was going to do, something great came along and reminded me to just look around me at all of my blessings.
Here are a few photos of the recent blessings that we have hanging in our house (courtesy of my talented sister-in-law!)


No frame yet, but you get the idea.




Our "Blessings"




Wall collage in dining room.



Playing

It has been quite a while since my last post and to be honest, there is no good reason for that. We have been in a pretty good routine every night with not many extracurricular events going on right now. We get home, make supper, take baths, and sit down to watch alittle bit of TV before everyone falls asleep. All in all, very normal! I'm afraid this will all change very soon as the holiday season is fast approaching and with it comes many more events. After that will be the long awaited wrestling season which will take up too much of our time!
Koryn and Jarrik are generally pretty good at playing by themselves and playing with each other. When we add Mason to the bunch, however, it isn't quite as kosher. Mason and Koryn just love to pester each other and it usually ends up with Koryn screaming (which she is currently doing in the background). One particular night as I was making supper, I caught the following pictures of Jarrik and Koryn entertaining themselves.

Jarrik loves to play the game of putting a blanket over his head. This scares Mommy a little bit, but it is so funny to watch him too! He gets the blanket over his head and then he lays there and kicks and gigles until he gets the blanket off of his head. (Simple game huh?)

 This is the face I get to see when the blanket comes off! He just thinks it is so funny!

 Koryn thought that she would make a bed for her brother and herself on the living room floor. She is pretty anal about her blankets being nicely laid over the top of her.

Peek-a-boo!

Who could not love this girl?!

This is Koryn's "ROAR" face! She likes to say "ROAR" and try to scare me, which I in turn do to her.

BOO!

Well, I know I am a couple days late but I just haven't found a time where I could sit down and write this blog post. I've said it before, but better late than never!

A baby bear with a brown nose, a little ghost, and Tony Hawk

As with almost everything, Halloween got to be quite a busy day for us. We did take the advantage of going to Grandma Nita's on Sunday night to show her our costumes so that we wouldn't have to travel down there when we actually went out Trick-or-Treating. Mason has his annual "Halloween Parade" at school that I went up to watch. Tony Hawk and I picked up the little kids and quickly got them dressed so we could go and take a picture at the local photography studio with their spooky background. Then came visiting Grandma's, eating pizza, and accumulating TONS of candy! One nice thing about living is such a small community is that the people really treat everyone so well. Each home we stopped at either had a pretty good sized ziploc bag full of candy, or else they gave at least 2 handfuls of candy to each kid. This proved to be a little bit of a challenge as our little ghost (who said BOO! to everyone) insisted on carrying her own trick-or-treat bag that ended up being almost heavier than her. We traveled around to the few houses in Lake City and then headed to a couple of friends at Roy Lake. Needless to say, we will have candy around our house for quite a while!

Roller coaster costume for the costume party

The muni in Lake City has an annual costume party which I have dressed up for only a couple of times since we moved back here. Well, my co-worker had a pretty good costume idea this year so I agreed to dress up with her. Cardboard, PVC pipe, LOTS of duct tape, and bungie cords made a pretty neat roller coaster costume. We definitely had a good time, but we only got second place (a big baby and his nanny beat us out for first!)

Loud noises and an old soul

It seems I am constantly trying to think of witty little titles for my blog posts. Unfortunately, I come up with lots of post ideas but somehow never find the time to sit down and write what was on my mind!

The other night I was doing my regular routine of trying to cram as many tasks into the small amount of time that we have when we get home at the end of the day. Among other things, I decided to make some baby food for Jarrik as I thought he was probably getting sick of the squash that he had been eating for quite sometime. Making my own baby food is something that was passed down from my mother. She made all of our baby food and I found many reasons that this would be a better way to go than buying the baby food from the grocery store, i.e. no preservatives and I know what I am cooking which doesn't haven't anything added to it except for some water. Anyway, I got the blender out and started blending some green beans up. Everything was fine for a little bit as I watched Jarrik's eyes get huge and then all of a sudden he made the horribly cute baby face that tells you they are scared and not liking the loud noise! It is awful to say that it was cute as he was screaming, but you know that face....just take a look.

The green beans got made and put into their ice cube tray for freezing. Maybe I should wait for Daddy to get home next time so there is someone to comfort him while I make more loud noises.

When it comes to music, I am not too picky. I really do like to listen to most everything, but find that I am a pretty old soul with  my first preference. I know there are a few that know of my music listening style, but to most this may be a surprise. It might also make you think I am a geek and never want to listen to the radio in my vehicle with me!

As we were on the way to some unknown destination at this time, one of my favorite songs came on the radio. I love to listen to older country so the song happened to be "Ya'll Come Back Saloon" by the Oak Ridge Boys. I know what you are thinking...loser!! Anyway, I was just singing along to the song (with it turned up rather loud I might add) and all of a sudden I look over and Mason who is just quietly sitting there kind of moving his head to the beat of the music. A little smile comes to my face as he sometimes hates the music I listen to, choosing to listen to Hip-Hop or Rock over what I like most of the time. Then I look in the backseat and Koryn is sitting there dancing along too! This almost makes a tear come to my eye...love those 2! I might add that the other day on our way to town, I was surfing through the radio stations and passed up a Johnny Cash song when Mason says, "No, Mom go back. That was Johnny Cash!" Ha I have taught him well!

"Neighborhood hangout"

I have recently become a fairly avid reader. It's amazing that this came about after I had given birth to my third child! You would think that in the midst of all the craziness of our lives I wouldn't have time to read a book. But, I find that this brings me a little bit of quietness from the almost constant loud while I am feeding Jarrik or right before I go to bed. In the newest book that I am reading The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson, I found a passage about the woman's children that struck me. She speaks of her home being the "neighborhood hangout" when her children were younger. Most of her children's friends would come to her house to hangout after school, before events, etc and she loved this since she was able to know just where her kids were and what they were doing, but also because the other kids felt safe there. As I read this, I found that this is something that I have always wanted. Mason is already at the age of inviting friends over. Sometimes I feel a little bad that he doesn't get to have friends over more often, but when we live out in the country and have 2 other small children in the house, it gets to be a little hairy sometimes! Our doors will always be open to anyone that wants to "hangout", whether it is my kids' friends or our friends.

Mason and a couple friends at his 8th birhtday.

Dressed up in hippy gear and a Jimmy Hendrix (thank you Holly!) for Homecoming.

First Moments

With an 8 year old, a 2 year old, and a 5 month old our house is full of first moments. Being the oldest means that Mason gets to take us through everything for the first time. Recently, those firsts have included tackle football, not telling Mom where he is after school, and of course being annoyed with almost everything that I say. Being a 3rd grader brings lots of firsts in learning, also. It never ceases to amaze me what these kids are expected to learn at such a young age! In practicing for spelling tests, I have almost had to second guess whether I knew the correct spelling of some of the words. Today he ventured to the library after school and checked out "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." While he is pretty inteligent, I think this book is even a little beyond his reading level. I did tell him that we could read it together, but maybe he will surprise me just as he did when he read almost the whole book of Jonah out of the Bible on his own (yes, this is one of the shortest books in the Bible.)

Koryn is full of funny little firsts. I posted a while ago about potty training. We just recently started this sersiously. We have been going for about 2 weeks now and we are definately seeing progress! She is pretty good about keeping her pull-up dry and going in the potty! She is also at the stage where almost everything that comes out of her mouth is hilarious! The other night she looked out the window of the car and discovered that the moon was out. This must have been amazing to her because she gasped and said "MOM, the moon!" and kept on with this for about 5 miles.

Jarrik is the sweetest little guy in the world and is just getting big too fast! He has had lots of firsts that have gone unspoken of for a while. He waited until he was about 4 months old to roll over, and since then has maybe done it once. Laying and kicking while he turns himself in a circle is just much more interesting apparently. He is now eating cereal and vegetables. Daddy made a comment while watching me feed him rice cereal, "Don't feed him rice. Summo wrestlers eat that stuff and Jarrik is big enough!"

Lazy Nights

This post is coming just a couple of days short from when I had intended to write it...There are not many times when this title pertains to this families life. However, the beginning of the week found us spending a Monday night doing everything except our usual rushing around the house. I couldn't help but think how it could have been very different had our sports buff been allowed to participate it 2 sports this fall. Mean old Mom made him choose between soccer and football because both would have been too much for us to handle.
So, we started this last week of September out on a pretty good foot. Among the things that were accomplished on our lazy night were: getting dishes done that had been there for far too long, supper and baths at an unusual early hour, giggles, potty in the "big girl potty", and of course, some pictures while we were just hanging out. Enjoy!

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday Koryn!



My pretty little girl!

Saturday, September 17th marked Koryn's 2nd birthday! What a fun filled 2 years she has brought us already! She is a little girl of many different personalities...even on her birthday she proved that. As we were getting dressed on Saturday morning, I said "Happy Birthday Koryn!" and started singing 'Happy Birthday to you..." Well, let me tell you she DID NOT like this at all! She yelled at me and said "NO!" Hopefully she will learn to love her birthday in years to come, otherwise she is going to have a long road ahead of her.

Holding up the fingers and saying "Two!"

Finally, by the end of the day she was accepting that it was her birthday. She did let me sing to her and she even let me show her how to hold up to fingers and say that she is 2. What a cute little peanut!


Tired out after the party.

We ended up having her birthday party on Sunday so that Daddy would be able to be there. She was definately more into the birthday by the second day! I think she started to understand that birthdays mean eating cake and ice cream and making as big a mess out of it as she wants, presents, and lots of people that love us!! She had a great time opening her presents, although after each one she thought it was time to be done and play with that toy. As we were taking a bath before bedtime, we did our ritual of singing as we rinse off the soap. We sang 'Happy Birthday', among others, and Koryn's version was 'Happy, Happy, Happy!' As you can see from the picture above, it must have been a long day for Dad too!

A very happy birthday to my sweet little girl!!!