A Tizzy

Every once in awhile, I think maybe this hooligan or that hooligan isn't getting much blog-attention. I think Tirzah is due for a little one on one. She's definitely no wallflower, but she does still sometimes get sandwiched by her brothers and their attention hogging selves.

Tirzah's hair deserves a blog post all it's own if you ask me. The poor child has two different cowlicks...one smack in the front and one in the back. The one in the front makes her hair want to part on one side of her head, while the one in the back says "heck no" and wants it to part on the other side. It often leads to problems looking like this:

I know people probably assume I don't brush her hair. If you only knew the hours I have spent wetting those cowlicks down and trying to figure out how to part that hair. It's got character, that's for sure.

The other day we were in Walmart looking for a few things, bug spray included. Tirzah picked up a bottle of spray, and noticed that there were people on the bottle instead of bugs. She says, shocked and offended: "Is this HUMAN spray?!" (I think she thought it was people repellant. I could use some of that sometimes...but unfortunately not the case.)

She loves to be silly. She was all for it when Mamoo brought Bugles for a snack, and showed her how they make great claws. With her history for putting brothers in their place, the last thing she needs is extra claws. ;) We love this girls feisty attitude, wild hair, and the sweet side that is hiding under there somewhere. ;)

Spring Sessions

I haven't been doing as many sessions since, ya know, waddling gets in the way. But I have been able to do a few recently and as always really enjoyed it.

I've been shooting this little cutie since she was a baby. She's grown into such an adorable kiddo, and is getting to be quite a pro at giving me a good smile. :) It's always fun to catch up with her family! Her mama and I are both expecting our second baby girls...although I'm a little jealous of her due date which is coming up soon! ;) We were probably a sight wandering around the park together with all our props, dragging our husbands who were doing some serious allergy suffering. Poor guys. ;)

I brought one of my antique cameras to use as a prop for this session, and it was a big hit. I'll have to remember that for future bribing of kiddos during sessions. It's a little "Aha, lady putting a camera in my face, who has the camera NOW?" Levels the playing field a little. ;) Although this particular kiddo doesn't need any bribing...she took it easy on the preggo with the camera.

Springtime is probably one of my favorite times to do sessions. So much color, and none of the sticky Summer humidity yet to deal with. Everyone is just so happy to be outside that you kind of just have to show up with your camera and you're sure to get a good smile or two.

Easter Peeps

Not the edible kind, although I love those...and I can occasionally be overheard saying I wanna eat these guys up, but pretty festive anyway. I mean, who doesn't want to gobble up a giant baby wearing a tie?

We had a pretty awesome Easter. Other than THE obvious reason for the holiday which is enough reason for a good day, we got to spend time hanging out with family and doing all kinds of egg-related activity (dyeing and hunting and eating) and wearing new shoes, etc. It was a great ending to our Spring Break week. I'm sad to see it go, but grateful for the chance we had to spend some great time together doing fun new things. 

Now if anyone knows of a way to deal with 3 children with a Monday morning Easter candy hangover, let me know. I need to remember it for this time next year. ;)

Bowling and Briars

So as you may have read, we are enjoying some Spring Break this week around these parts. It's been so much fun...just taking some time to spend intentional time with the kiddos and do a different fun thing every day. (I'm trying to make sure I do a different free or extremely cheap thing every day, I should say. So far so good on that. We went bowling yesterday and it cost us exactly $3.25. Today we went geocaching, which was technically free, although I did buy an app for us to use in the future. But I figured I'd definitely be getting my money's worth out of that $10 app. I plan on sending Billy and the kids out into the woods...a lot. Hehe.)

We have been bowling once before, but it was probably two years ago and Jericho was much less of a terrorist. This time around all 3 kiddos got to bowl. It was a lot of fun for the older two, and Jericho lasted about one and quarter games before he lost it. Ok, to be honest he had lost it before we got in the door, but he lost interest in bowling. He entertained himself between turns by stealing balls from other lanes (literally...he stole a ball from the lane next to us and ran with it), trying to run down the gutters, climb into the ball return, etc. Ironically, he was also the only one of the three kids who got a strike. (And it wasn't a bouncing off the bumpers strike...it was legit. I guess being a 40 pound 2 year old has it's perks.)

Yesterday we went geocaching. We had been once before with some good friends from church, but this was the first time we attempted it on our own. (Thanks for the intro, Kirsten!) I think this is definitely an activity we will do more of in the future. The kiddos got pretty good at spotting the boxes, and Jericho got really good at falling into briars. It was fun to let them wander around and run and play, and find a few "buried treasures" along the way. It was a great activity for my little hoarders...they absolutely love collecting random junk and definitely have plenty to trade. We came home with things I'm sure I will want to throw away in about 3 minutes. We also came home exhausted and filthy...which is the best way to end a day outside with kiddos if you ask me.

I think today we might stick to a plain old playground. I have creative activity exhaustion today, as well as a chiropractors appointment that I will have to take all the kids to with me, so I think that will be enough exciting activity for the day. Tomorrow we are off to an egg hunt where I'm sure we will end up with enough candy to make up for all the walking I've done the last few days.

Hooligans on Spring Break

I dont recall taking "Spring Break" when I was being homeschooled. (I'm sure my mom will fuss at me for forgetting if she did give us a spring break.) School doesn't typically take us that long each day, really only about 2 hours max at this point, so it's not like we need a break from it. But with all that's going on, as in me growing a fourth human while trying to keep 3 other ones alive, I decided I wanted a break. The kids were all for it, even though Tirzah especially loves school work.

We don't have anything too crazy planned. Billy is obviously still working long hours every day. Me and the kiddos are going to try and do something different and fun each day, though. Even if it's something small. (Like today, we went to a local mall that was having a free petting zoo and then to a park to run wild and take some pictures.)

The kiddos have been to this park before, but I'd never attempted taking the three of them myself. It went pretty well. I just had to embrace the grass stains and dirt smudges and literally look the other way when for about the 100th time Jericho rolled down a hill by accident. (He is fairly indestructible, so as heartless as it sounds it was for my own sanity. He just gets right up and keeps on going.)

Merrick was in heaven, climbing rocks (that he called a "mountain") and looking at fish in the pond, and hiding in plants and bushes, etc. He told me several times it was "the best day he ever had". As a mom, when you realize you nailed it and whatever you planned was a success, it's heart melting to hear your kiddos tell you how much fun they're having. Tirzah had a blast looking at flowers and butterflies, and told me "I was the realest mommy she'd ever had". I'm not sure what that means, but from the look on her face I'm assuming it was a complement of the highest degree. Jericho never says much, haha, but if a dirty face is any indication of a good time he was all over it.

We even had a stranger offer to take a picture of all four (five) of us. It was a little odd, but hey, I don't have many pictures of me and the kiddos, mostly because I don't like documenting that I'm always wearing gym clothes and never wearing makeup. ;) Jericho looks about as concerned as I was...but I am glad that we have a little documentation of the start of our spring break adventures. I'm planning to take as much advantage of this time with the three of them as I can...since as I start the 3rd trimester you never know how much time we will have before there will be a fourth hooligan making trips like these a little more complicated. Happy Spring Break, y'all!

The Struggle is Real

I think I've posted a lot about being tired recently. I've even erased this several times because I don't want to sound like I'm looking for sympathy or whining. I'm not. When I sit down today to write this is just what came out. And as the kids fight upstairs while they are supposed to be cleaning, as my back aches for the best possible reason -carrying the weight of this sweet baby-, as the budget seems to get tighter every month instead of having some room to breath...I just keep finding myself in this tired, weary place. Maybe pregnancy is just making me more honest than I usually am, and I'm not so great at hiding the tired. It's not without its moments of joy and relaxation, but I think "tired" would be a good blanket label for how I've felt for a long time. 

It's not so much the tired that can be fixed with a good nights sleep, or a vacation. (Which I don't think we've had -without kids- since before there were kids. Sure we've taken a weekend here or there, but other than the 3 day cruise while I was pregnant with Jericho it's kind of been full speed ahead.) 6.5 wonderfully exhausting years that have been spent doing what I love to do, but that doing can leave a person stripped bare and realizing exactly where you are the weakest.

For me, I'm finding that I can only ignore my own soul for so long, and that soul needs stillness and rest. I catch myself searching for the stillness in the few hours after the kids are sleeping when I ignore that I need to be sleeping, in the minutes I send them outside and let them run wild and tell myself I don't care if the neighbors think they are loud, in the moments when I finally have a minute to sit down, in the moments when I think Billy has finally gotten that big breakthrough at work. Trying desperately to fill a gaping hole through the middle of everything with a handful of the wrong materials. It's never going to work. I just can't seem to remember that.

I know people joke all the time, saying "the struggle is real", but it really is real. We ignore it so much, cover it up in silliness and busy-ness and this cause or that, ignore it with self-centeredness or excuses. But it's still there. "It" being that nagging feeling that no matter what we do, its not enough to make us happy, its not meeting the needs we have, its too small to fill that hole we step around every day in the middle of the floor, that if we happen to acknowledge we just might fall in or the bottom might fall out. And where would it end? Where would we land? I know for me, the joy, the stillness, the rest, comes when I remember that I put the hole there myself, and it doesn't have to be there. God is the one trying to fill it, but I swat His hand away and tell him there's no problem here...this piddly few minutes I have should fix it. Carry on. Nevermind that He sees how futile the things I'm throwing into that hole are. 

I had one of those moments of stillness the other morning. I was praying for something that I just have to have or that hole might swallow me, I'll be so exhausted I'll just throw up my hands and say "forget it", and I felt God whispering straight to my heart that I already had in Him this exact thing I was begging for. My prayer was perfectly answered, simply because I let Him fill up what I can't fill myself. The peace that washed over me was something I hadn't felt in a long time. It's something that I could feel a lot more often if I just stopped struggling. Because as real as the struggle is, it's something that I insist on every day that I look away from Him.

Nesting is a Funny Word.

Billy and I have been having a great time getting the "nursery" ready for Amaryllis. I say "nursery" because it's really a little walk through on the way to our room, but how much space will one little lady need? I think it'll be just perfect. Currently JHawk is residing in there, since he's still in a crib. (He realized how to get out the other day, but hasn't done it again since. I'm hoping he has short term memory loss and it won't happen again until I can get his room ready for him. He will be in his own room, and it's all set up for him, but I HAVE to figure out a way to keep him in his room. He has snuck out of the house before, so I want to be sure this can't happen before I move him. The room he is currently in he'd have to go through my room to get out, because the door from the hall sticks and only Billy and I can open it.)

There have been several big projects we've worked on for the nursery. The first was an old window frame (I love these!) that we found out in the shed at the new place (and our landlord said help yourself). We painted it and cleaned it up and put her initials on it. I plan on putting pictures of her on it as well when she's born. Cannot wait to see her sweet face!

We've had this older dresser for some time now, and it kind of was a junk collector. I knew we'd need it eventually for someone, so I didn't sell it like I do with most things I think I don't need. ;) We painted it, put on some new handles since it was missing several, and it's all ready to be filled up with little tiny ruffly girly stuff. In case you haven't already noticed, we are doing her nursery in pink, gold and mint green. Kind of a random color scheme, but I liked all three so why not?

We also had all the kiddos "songs" framed (they've each had a song we played for them in-utero...usually it was just a popular song we liked while I was pregnant, but for Amaryllis, as you know, there is actually a song we named her from). I found some really cheap frames I repainted with some gold spray paint.

The other day we picked up a cute sheet for her crib (a friend gave us their old one, which is in better shape than the one we have...Jericho is hard on a crib) that matches the colors in the nursery perfectly, and got a curtain for the window. I have a few other little things I'm on the hunt for to finish it all up, but am really excited and can't wait for her to be sleeping in here...hurry up July! We have an important person to meet.

Walk Like a Hooligan

The kids love taking walks in the evenings. At our old house, it was a little more tricky to go for a walk, since we had to cross a rather busy street to even get to a safe sidewalk. We did still go for walks, as I'm sure you know from the many pictures of hooligans walking with capes/costumes on, but it was always a little stressful. Our new neighborhood involves no crossing of busy streets, but it's also quieter so everyone can hear my loud children strolling around.

This time of year is pretty awesome for walking (and running!), it's gorgeous outside and a great temperature. And there are lots of flowers for the kids to fight over...I mean, pick. Tirzah loves picking flowers, and Merrick loves picking flowers before she can get to them as a means of picking on her. It's loads of fun for all involved as you can imagine. (But really, they don't do this the entire time we are walking. Occasionally they fall in ditches, run into parked cars, trip and fall in front of the stroller and get run over, fall out of the stroller, etc.)

All antics aside, I love walking with them too. It's always a good "walk off some dinner" activity, and a good way for us all just to chat and listen and learn about what's going on around us. They always ask lots of questions, and it's fun to listen to the way that they think. These walks are even more fun for me when Billy is there, and I don't have sole responsibility of pushing the stroller up and down all the local hills. I took my camera last time we were out and finally was able to get a few pictures of all the Spring color.

Usually, now that we are in a safer neighborhood, the older two like to walk on their own. (Although they do take breaks now and then and hop on the stroller) Jericho is a little jealous, and likes to yell "out me!" sporadically while we are walking. "Out me" is Jericho for let me out of this thing. Kind of like "fart me", which is what he says when, ya know. He's working on sentences, people. I'm so proud. ;) They may be a little mixed up and/or incomplete (and inappropriate), but we are working on it.

I'm so grateful for the quiet time in the evenings with them. (We are sad we didn't get to walk tonight, since it was cold and rainy...but looking forward to lots more of our Spring walk-a-thon.) Our days can be crazy and busy and stressful, and we usually don't see a lot of "Da-da", or even get to eat dinner together. But I also think it's kind of fitting that our "family time" is spent doing something where none of us are sitting still (cuz most of us in this family can't sit still), as opposed to a family evening meal. Maybe one day we will take up a hobby that involves less falling in ditches, though.

Menageries and Potty Training

--I guess that title will make sense eventually. Sometimes when I start a post I'm really not even sure.-- Recently I had signed up to take the kids to the local zoo. (Looking back on it, I'm really not sure what I was thinking. I mean, I take them everywhere mostly by myself, but a trip to the zoo was uncharted territory even for me. Especially at 6 months pregnant. I'm not exactly fast on my feet should a kiddo jump into the tiger cage, ya know. I was also having flashbacks to that time we took Merrick to an aquarium at about Jericho's age. It was a nightmare, and he was on a leash, and I had reinforcements. haha.) It was a good deal through one of the local homeschool groups, though, and I hate for the kiddos to miss out on everything fun just because I'm doing the wobble, or the waddle whichever, these days. So I said, "self, suck it up. you're going to the zoo and you're going to like it."

On the other half of the title, I had decided to potty train Jericho this week. I had been thinking he was "ready" for a while now, but just hadn't taken the plunge because honestly sometimes it's easier to just deal with changing a diaper than be diaper-free with the chance that someone will pee all over themselves. But I was having these visions of having just a few months diaper free, for the first time in 6 years. It sounded pretty awesome if I could pull it off. I buy the cheapest diapers I can find, but still...it adds up financially after awhile, especially when your kid wears size 73 diapers and only like 2 come in a box. ;) Ok, not that bad...but J-Hawk definitely has more junk in the trunk than the other two Barron children before him, both of whom never graduated from a size 3 diaper.

I say this with my fingers crossed and while knocking on wood, he's done fabulously. After about the first day he's been pretty much accident free, even overnight and during naps. I guess the non-speaking caveman act he puts on is just to keep us fooled? Kid really does know what's going on. ;) So I think it's safe to say, after managing a day trip to the zoo with not a single accident (on no nap and lots of juice/water/excitement), Jericho is potty trained and I'm on diaper vacay until Lady A is born. Sidenote: 3 Day Potty Training. DO IT. It's worked on all 3 of my kids, who were all potty trained -through no credit to myself because I can't even make them get off my coffee table while I'm writing this- completely, including sleeping accident free, in about 3 days each. (It does typically take longer to get, ahem, number 2 figured out. It seems to freak kids out at first to use the toilet for that, but they get that quickly after.) I do have to remind him to go...but he'll get the hang of that eventually, too.

Now, back to the zoo. (I just felt the need to also throw in there one of the reasons I was so terrified of the zoo. We were going there with no diapers.) It went surprisingly well, since Jericho did so well, and since there were tons of other kids there being just as bad as mine were. ;) We saw lots of cool animals, tried to climb into their cages, tried to feed them things they shouldn't eat, tried to mimic every. animal. sound. for the entire trip home, etc. (That's what you do at a zoo, right?) We even went on this fun "sky safari", which is pretty much a ski lift over the animal pens. In hindsight, it sounds like a horrible idea and I'm not sure why I did that either. Three children and a pregnant lady (who just made the cutoff...3rd trimester and we woulda been out of luck. Although I'm not sure what's going to happen in the 10 minutes you're over the animal cages. Labor and delivery? Well, in my case, maybe. Jericho's labor was pretty fast.) flying over rhinos and giraffes and lions. But I think I just wanted a good excuse to sit down for a few minutes. And Jericho was a little concerned about where exactly that thing was taking us and where the ground was going...so he was a little angel who did not wiggle the whole time. I almost begged the operator to let me take a second loop.

We started to get a little warm towards the end of the zoo loop, but for the most part they kept the complaining to a minimum. I seriously need to invest in some warm weather clothing, however...especially if I'm going to be out in the sun pushing over 100 pounds of kid in a stroller. But by that point we had seen most of the "fun animals", the kiddos weren't too interested in 45 species of deer. Who knew there were that many kids of horned things with long legs? I managed to get out of the park without them noticing the gift shop, which is also a major win for the day. We do wish that Billy could have gone with us, but we had a great time. We made some fun memories together, no one got eaten by a wild animal, and no one peed in their pants. I think that's about all you can ask for in terms of a good day around here. ;)