Boys, Boys, & More Boys!

I sure love my boys.  We've been going through the colds at our house, but I think we've finally got them all behind us for this round anyway.  If we keep on having a cold winter, we may have a few more go arounds.  Mostly this post is just pictures, so enjoy.

 One of our boys' favorite places to go is GT Automotive...I know, crazy, right.  They are really good there too.  It must have something to do with the cool fish aquarium and the free popcorn...and I'm usually able to rustle up a couple of quarters for the vending machine.

 This was Jaron's first time there that we actually let him out of the car sear and he loved the fish.  He had climbed up on the table all by himself and Morgan got to him just in time before he crashed, he spent the majority of the time perched up there looking at fish and making faces.

 They do pretty well cleaning up all their messes too, but I have a theory that when a mom takes four little boys to get an oil change, somehow they are able to do the fastest oil change ever so the craziness will leave the office sooner, just a theory though.  :)  The next couple pictures and the videos at the end are for my Aunt Diana.  She painstakingly knit this awesome robe for Logan when he was a baby...since then all the boys have shared it, it was quite the project.  Anyway, it's been in storage for a while, but I just found it so I had to put it on.

 It made our Bear seem like a royal tot just prancing around the kitchen.  Thanks Diana!

 Logan is getting to be such a responsible boy, but he silliness never takes a back seat.  I came upstairs one day after getting after another son to clean up and I was frustrated and just plain grumpy and I walked up to see Logan in Jaron's booster seat.

 I don't know why, but it made my day and I thought it was the funniest thing ever (yes, sleep deprivation will do that to you).  Of course, I love my new phone because it's always on me, therefore, I always have my camera on me.

 I've been doing baby books for all the kids, just the first year, after that, everything is in our blog book journal, scrapbook, whatever you want to call it.  I noticed that all the other kids had some sort of bath time pictures, but Bear was seriously lacking...that's what happens when you're bathing 4 kids at the same time...so, I took advantage of a Jaron only bath night.

 This boy is walking full time now and has been for the past week.  That puts him walking earlier than any of the boys at 11 months.  (all the others started walking the week of their first birthday).  It's really hard to get him to sit down in the bathtub...or anywhere else for that matter.  He must be standing or held at all times.  :)

 Logas was outside playing in the snow one day and Jaron and Tragon were watching him out the window, I think Damon was at a friends house.

 I decided to go outside with Logan for a little while  and it was fun to stomp around in the snow for a bit.  It was kind of crunchy snow...nothing like what we had today...holy cow, 10 inches on our driveway!...anyway, he loves being outside, but he decided that he hates winter and can't wait until the snow is gone.

 Last week for family night we were going to go get a shake at JCW's for our activity and refreshment, but the boys were being atrocious, so we canceled it and told them if they worked really hard the next week on obedience, reverence, and respect that we could go the following week for FHE.

 Morgan had a campout on Friday night and on Saturday morning I asked the boys to help me clean up before he got home and wouldn't you know it, they did, with little to now complaining.  I was really impressed and they had done really well that whole week too.

 So, we decided to have our activity/refreshment early.  It worked out pretty nice.  We went after Morgan got home and it killed some time during that awkward afternoon time when you don't really know what you want to do, or have time to do a whole lot before you need to start getting dinner ready.  :)

 The boys loved it and had a blast.  I told them next time we filled up our jar with coins we could go again.

 Jaron wasn't feeling too well, he's had the worst cough, but he loved the Butterfinger shake!

 Logan is my ice cream eater, he loves it.  Damon is okay with it and Tragon will sometimes eat it, but overall, I think they all had fun.

 Jaron was being extra cuddly that evening and lovin' on daddy.

 Bad glad from the window though, so the pictures aren't as good as I had hoped, but oh well.

I sure love all my boys for lots of different reasons, they are so fun.  Tragon is really making progress on potty training, no accidents today and he actually told me two or three times that he had to go.  I still try to ask him throughout the day, but I'm trying to put that more in his hands and just be okay with cleaning up the accidents when they happen, which are less frequent, but I think it will still be a while before I can say he's officially potty trained.

Damon has been really helpful lately with Jaron, they have a lot of fun together.  He's really good with younger kids...unless it's Tragon...he has such a good heart, if only I could infuse it with confidence and a little more logic so we could tackle his tantrums.  

Until next time...

Picture Dump

 We had some friends over for the day this past week and I'm pretty sure I wasn't meant to have twins.  We had a lot of fun, but the last hour of babysitting was getting pretty tough.  I had one baby clinging on either leg, with one boy potty training and needing to go and kids in general getting hungry and wanting a snack.  Whew.

 It was fun though and we made it and had lots of fun.  We had a little girl over too that is right in between Damon and Tragon's age.  It was kind of fun to have another girl in the house and she held her own among the boys.

 These two were pals though, they had to take turns in the high chair, but they were really good about sharing.  :)

 Jaron loves to feed himself now.

 Sometimes we have to get out two or three spoons to make it work though.

 He has quite the death grip on those spoons when you try to take them away..there is a video on the last post.

 We started taking pictures and videos of the kid's tantrums.  It's been semi-productive.

 Usually when they see themselves on the video they start to calm down...or get worse...only "semi" productive.  At least it's more fun than getting mad and frustrated at the tantrums.

 Tragon was having a bad one, and of course that puts the other boys on their best behavior.  Logan and Damon were being especially cheery and wanting to take pictures too.

 So, I couldn't help it.

 Logan is turning into even more of a ham.

 If you pull the camera out, he'll actually start posing and telling me which pictures he thinks will look the cutest.

 He is such a silly boy.

 This is the boys watching the tantrum.  I think Tragon did eventually calm down.

Potty training is going okay.  As long as I remind/make him go every hour or two and after meals then we can avoid accidents, but when I leave it to him, there's always a mess.  Just the other day I asked him if he was ready to try and go poo poo and he screamed NO!  So, I said, okay we'll just try again later....and about 5 minutes later he's screaming while standing in the ottoman (we were all in the bedroom playing Mariokart) that he has to poo....yeah, too late.  Ugh, I hate cleaning poo from underwear!

We're going to hang in there though.  Most the time if I can't be on constant watch or we go somewhere, I just slip a pull up or diaper on over the underwear, so he can still feel it when he pees, but it doesn't make the mess down his legs or on his pants.

Jaron is almost walking full time, we're almost done with formula, and for the most part he's a pretty happy kid right now and loves to play with his brothers.

Damon really loves his legos.  I think we play legos every day and he's pretty creative with what limited supply he has.  We still have the bigger Duplo legos, I'm not really for the teeny tiny legos to be all over the place for Jaron to eat.  Damon's also really helpful with the dishwasher and keeping Jaron entertained while I shower or take care of something.

Logan loves school and is doing really well.  He is a super ready and likes to read too, that's a bonus.  He's already getting excited to be in 1st grade next year and get to eat lunch at school and have 2 recesses.  :)  He loves to "be in charge" of Jaron while I'm trying to work on something, or shower, or whatever and as long as the TV isn't on, he does really well at it.

They all love watching Power Rangers right now.  Did you know that there are about a dozen different Power Ranger series....yeah, the favorite right now is Power Rangers Turbo because the Megazord is made up of lots of cars....yes, sad that I know that, but I live in a household of boys and I like to know what they like.

Anyway, life is good right now and we are truly blessed with all we have.  We're doing pretty good on most of our goals, but we still need to do a little bit more tweaking.  :)  Until next time....