Buddies

For all the fighting they do, I do think they actually are really good friends!  They just don't want us to catch on to that fact for some reason.  But I love 'em all, fighting or not!

Getting ready to go to church!

Taking turns(!) riding and driving the tractor

Preston sharing his toys and his room with Ashten

Preston is very patient with Ashten when he's eating and she's crawling and pulling up under the table and on his chair.

Logan loves his sister Ashten

Brotherly love!

Ashten, Ashten, what do you see?

I see Ashten looking at me!

Fall fun in October

We the chance to go to a couple of different fall festivals this month.  I love fall, what with all the fun, fall festivals and family time and all (how many f's can I get in this sentence?)!

The first one was at Chris' school. They had a lot of booths handing out free stuff and a couple of big, blow-up things for the kids. They go to meet Clifford (although Preston was too scared to go stand by him), Logan won a cake in the cake walk, and they got to go down the blow-up slide. It was a fun family day!

 

Then, this past weekend, we went to a festival at the boys' school.  They had horse carriage rides, pumpking decorating, dancing and face painting.  It was a fun night!

Crazy hair day

Last week at Brayden and Logan's school, it was spirit week.  They had some fun days (pajama day, twin day), but I think the boys' favorite was crazy hair day.  There's not as much you can do with crazy hair on a boy, I guess I could add some spray-on color, but oh, what a mess!  I just wet their hair and then put a whole handful of gel in it and stuck it straight up.  Then I sprayed it with a ton of hairspray.  It held all day pretty well!

Ashten - 7 months

Hi guys - I'm seven months old today!  Can you believe how big I'm getting?  I know my mom can't, she tells me all the time to stop growing up so fast.  I am doing all sorts of new things, but I know my mom already wrote about most of them.  However, since that time, I have also started pulling up to standing!  I know, I'm a little overacheiver, but what can I say, I gotta keep up with those brothers of mine! 



Happy 7 months Ashten - love you so much!

A good report

Last week we had Brayden and Logan's parent-teacher conferences.  They went really well, better than I even expected that they would.  This is the first year that Chris was able to go along with me to the boy's conference.  I guess that's the downside of him teaching in the same district that the boys go to school in, the P/T conferenes are at the same time.  But this year, the boys' school did them Tuesday and Thursday and Chris' school did them Wednesday and Thursday.  Yay!!  It was nice to have him there.  Being a teacher himself, he is good at asking the right questions and picking out the things the teacher is saying. 

Logan's teacher gave him nothing but a good report.  The only thing she said he could work on was putting his finger under each word he is reading instead of on it - minor detail.  She said he is one of the top in the class in terms of reading and math, and even writing.  We are so proud of him.  It is hard for us to not compare Brayden and Logan and to just let Logan be his own person sometimes.  He is doing a great job though, a little shining star in the kindergarten classroom.  He is a good helper and even reads to some of the other kids in the class sometimes when it's reading time.

Brayden's teacher's exact words were "he is such a joy to have in my class".  She said Brayden is doing well at writing stories (using correct punctuation and descriptive words) and changing his voice to his audience.  He is also really good at reading and comprehending what he is reading.  The part that made me the most happy though was when she told us that he is very compassionate and friendly with every kid in the class, even the special ed kids!  That made me so proud. 

Way to go boys!!

What do we do around here all day?

I hate when people ask what I do all day.  I might not have a lot to show for myself at the end of a day, but I am more than busy all day long.  Some people must assume that all stay-at-home moms do is sit around all day in their pajamas, eating junk food and watching TV while their kids just play nice and sweetly on the floor in front of them.  Haha!  Couldn't be further from the truth. 

I have started a new cleaning routine.  My old one was getting, well....old.  I would basically just put off cleaning until we had someone coming over or until it got so dirty I just couldn't stand it anymore.  And then it would take half the day to clean the whole house at once and it was stressful and a huge job and I hated it, so I would just put it off longer.  Plus, then my house was basically in a state of dirty all the time, which is just gross!  So, I made a schedule and I do one little cleaning job each day.  Something like vacuum, or scrub the bathrooms, or sweep and mop all the upstairs floors.  It sure makes it a lot less daunting and I usually don't procrastinate on it since I know I just do my one job and then I'm done for the day.  My house isn't all freshly cleaned all at the same time, but it's definitely cleaner than it was and there's not really a need to have it all clean in one day since it just gets messy like 10 minutes after I clean it anyway.

But other than that, I've started trying to do coupons more and save more money at the grocery store and on things we need but don't like to pay for (like deoderant and toilet paper and stuff).  I have done really good in the last month, saving at least 50% on my grocery bill each week!!  But that takes time to research all the sales and find coupons to match.  I follow a few blogs who do most of the work for me, but still!! 

And of course, there's these two (and the other two after school).  I am finding it is very hard to find a balance between doing enough stuff outside of the house to keep Preston stimulated and not bored and being home for all of Ashten's naps.  I try to do one or two days a week doing something out and about and the rest of the week trying to stay home around Ashten's naps.  It is hard though.  Although, Preston wants to start doing preschool at home, so that will help keep him busy while Ashten is taking her morning nap.  It has been so nice here lately, we've been playing outside a lot and going for walks.  I will definitely miss the outside time once the winter comes and it's too cold or snowy to be outside.  I'm not really a go-outside-when-it's-cold-enough-that-you-have-to-wear-a-coat kind of person.  Once Brayden and Logan get home from school in the afternoons, we are busy with playing, homework, snacks and making dinner, so that time usually just flies by!

Oh how I love my job as a stay-at-home mom.....wouldn't rather be doing anything else in the whole world!

Darn it!  I missed my blogiversary!  It was yesterday.  Happy 2 years to me!

Ashten's new milestones

I don't think I ever blogged about all Ashten has been learning to do lately.  Just in September alone, she learned to sit up by herself,

started eating solids,

and learned to crawl.

Logan likes legos

The boys have really been playing a lot of Legos lately (go figure, since Ashten just learned to crawl).  But Logan especially is really into them.  If all 3 boys are playing Legos, it's usually because Logan thought of the idea first and got them all playing with them.  And, the best thing?.....they hardly ever fight when playing Legos together!  It keeps them occupied for hours.

Brayden reading

Brayden has turned into quite the reader lately.  I think he is at a point where he can read and understand a little bit bigger of a book and he is enjoying it.  I checked out a Hardy Boys book from the library for him and he really likes it.  He enjoys chapter books, I think he feels a little bigger reading them as compared to one-story, younger books.  Last week they had to complete 300 minutes of reading in one week for a read-a-thon type thing at school, combining time read at home and time read at school.  Brayden, however, read 300 minutes just at home.  I'm so proud of him!!

Preston's many faces

After doing one of these for Ashten, I had to follow suite with Preston as well. I'm going to have to do one for Brayden and Logan too, but they are a little harder since they are gone most of the day at school.

And my favorite.....

Ashten's many faces

I realized the other day that I hadn't taken many pictures lately.  Just crazy busy around here!  So I got out my camera when we were outside.  Looking back at the pictures, it made me laugh how Ashten had a different facial expression in almost every one.  Here's just a sampling....

And my favorite one.....

Such a pretty girl!

Picnic in the kitchen

The other day I was multitasking (I know - shocking!!, huh?) and this particular day I was trying to mop the kitchen/dining room while also making lunch and feeding Preston.  Don't quite know what I was thinking, except that I wanted to get the mopping crossed off of my to-do list for the day because I HATE mopping a lot.

So, I come up with this great idea.  I will sweep and mop the dining room and then we'll eat a "picnic" on a blanket on the kitchen floor (after which I shook out the blanket and swept and mopped the kitchen).  Preston totally loved the idea, just something out of the ordinary was so fun for him. In fact, it was so fun that we ended up doing it a few more days after that, until he spilled his milk all over the floor and we went back to eating at the table like civilized human beings!

Chores and allowance

As of today, we are officially doing chores and allowances.  The boys have always had chores around here, but they were sporadic at best and I think it frustrated them that they never knew when we were going to call on them to help us out around the house.  Although every night we ask them to clean up all their toys and that frustrates them a lot too, even though it isn't a surprise.  I mean seriously, an all out, screaming, crying fit occurs from at least one of them when we say it's time to clean up.  It is so frustrating!  But I digress...

So anyway, we've had this chore chart for a few years now and we have used it mostly as a potty training chart or a chart for things that should be done anyway but they need a sticker as an incentive (brush teeth, make bed, don't hit your brother, etc).

The bottom three lines are things that the boys have to do as part of the family and they will not recieve an allowance based on those things.  The 2 upper chores are voluntary, although strongly suggested (you know how that goes!), and they will earn 10 cents for each star they have under those two categories at the end of the week.  I put one of my least favorite jobs up there for the boys to do - unload dishes.  It gets them a star and I don't have to do it!

I think part of the reason I have waited so long to institute an allowance is because I didn't know how to go about it.  I didn't want them to think that any chore they did they would get money for, because chores are part of being part of a family and the job should be done to help out and not because they are getting paid.  But I also didn't just want to hand them money without any responsibility attached to it or they would think money just comes no matter if they work for it or not.  Hence the few chores they have to do because that's their job in the family and the couple of extra chores they do to help out and earn a little money.  I am sure we will be learning as we go, but this is a good start.