Giving Up

Found on my iPhone

The Friday evening that their dad and I fell in a tired heap (on the edge of getting colds), and the little people managed to entertain themselves without incident, while we rested.

Family

 Noah with a cinnamon roll.

Heaven.

 Noah with a little sword play.

Complete with slicing sword sounds.

 Utter cuteness, his name is Jacob.

We'll spoil him later.

 Maybe a little daddy napping for the new again father.

 Don't let the smile fool you, NOT a fan of the huge bucket of water spilling out at the water park.

 Yes, a big fan of cousins sledding him around on a blanket.

 Everyone a big fan of Aunt Brian getting donuts.

 And Noah gets a little more mentoring.

And a very serious lesson.

I'm Not Convinced

That a bigger house is entirely necessary.

Sunday Afternoon

My Mother's Day Gift

There was napping.

Or at least pretending to nap.

But there was actual napping.

Long overdue weekend napping.

The Saturday Outing: Five Under Five

No, no, no. Not me with five under five. I left, and I had a lovely afternoon thank you.

It was a Stuber kid inning with...um there are five kids.

Nanny-turned-mommy Jenny brought her little one and her husband, who's moving quickly back there to get out of the camera shot, and they spent the afternoon with the munchkins. These boys of mine are going to think that birthdays last until Christmas with all of the gifts that keep sliding in. Thank you Jenny.

I love it when only-child children come over. The just sit and laugh at us. Emily did the same thing the last time she stopped by.

And why is it that every time someone new comes by to help they are able to get this to happen? It is frustrating I tell you, they fight this with me to the bitter bedtime every weekend.

So uncomfortable looking.

Thank you for not stringing up the Jayhawks Jenny and crew.

They know not what land they live in.

And thank you for the strangely encouraging comment that this seems harder now than when everyone was younger. In so many ways I agree.

The Saturday Outing: East to the Kings

East West To the Kings

I am a moron.

We met up with the Kings on Saturday to pick out some Pumpkins.

And take those, um, contemplative pumpkin pictures.


Share a meal, where we behaved pretty darn well if I do say so myself.


Then we headed to a park to show Emily that throwing gravel around is as fun as anything else.

She was all about the gravel throwing, but she smartly held back a little to watch my children sprint for the water and start exclaiming they wanted to go swimming.

Instead we just mucked around in the wet sand.

And then I gave up on my camera in the presence of the King camera, which they used to attempt to get a family picture of the Stubers. I bet you can guess who didn't want to participate.

And on the way home, I got an hour of quiet.

An hour of full quiet.

The Saturday Outing: Poor Nancy and Jim

With this open invitation and all and the weather being a million plus degrees, we hopped over to our friends' Jim and Nancy's for a dip Saturday.

And then Nancy brought out the box of X-Men, and swimming was over--at least for the little people. I think Patric and I actually got to take a bit of a dip for a minute.

But the true beauty is the fact that it just plum tuckers them out.

Well. Not Alida apparently.

It did get me thinking. Perhaps if I dyed one of the girls' hair a different color, we could tell them apart a bit better?

Oh Alida

I know I'm not supposed to say this, but why can't you be more like your brothers?

Quiet And Why We Don't Necessarily Endorse It

Alida's favorite new pajamas. She fights getting out of these every time she wears them.

We've flat out given up trying to get the boys to nap on the weekends. If you walk into daycare on any given day of the week during nap time, you'll find them sleeping so hard there is drool soaking their cots and fabric prints so deep on their faces they look like scars. If you try to peek in on a boy napping at our house on the weekend, you'll likely find him on top of his nightstand getting ready to leap but not before screaming at his brother to put down the Iron Man because he was, you know, going to play with that right after his acrobatics.

So we gave up. Now we demand quiet and turn on a movie. If that doesn't work, they are turned outside to work it out for themselves.

Saturday we watched a movie. Elaine refused to nap as well. So the intimate group of five (he got the joy of a weekend home last weekend) of us hunkered in the living room to watch a movie while Alida snored upstairs. (She's had a bit of a nose thing going on lately.) Eventually Benjamin disappears, but he's quiet. So we watch our movie for the few more minutes we know we'll have quiet, too tired to investigate where he went off to. All we know is he is being quiet, and that is the only rule at the moment.

Eventually Benjamin reappears at the bottom of the stairs with a smile. I could have sworn I heard a toddler mouth-breathing somewhere in the stairwell, but really I hear kids all the time in my head. It is hard to differentiate the truth from my mental illness at this point. But here she comes, Alida peaks around the corner with a giant smile.

"I got my sister up from her nap," Benjamin announces with a flourish of hands presenting this darling child now standing in our quiet living room.

"Ben. How did Alida get out of her crib?"

"I got my sister up from her nap!"

Oh bother.

The Saturday Outing: Get There Early

The secret to a successful Saturday outing?

Get out of the house early and bring grandma and grandpa if you can.

We toted the stroller thinking the GIRLS would perhaps need a break.

These two wouldn't get out.

There was room at the zoo to ride and be carried everywhere.

But the weather was perfect.

Alida continues her fascination with all things fowl.
Certainly she is not my daughter.



I'd say the girls walked and the boys rode, but mostly the boys rode and the girls were carried.

Alida lingers chasing birds when she isn't carried

And when we were through at the zoo and driving away at 11:30 traffic was backed up out of the place to the city streets. We were off for hamburgers and nap refusal.

The Saturday Outing: Party Down

Here we are as we arrived to Emily's party. We were a bit concerned at the beginning.

But then there was food. Party food, which went over very well.

And we asked for more.

And there were cupcakes.

Lots of cupcakes.

And Granny E. was there to adore us and send us home with a gift we are very much looking forward to writing about in the future.

And a big empty room to run back and forth and scream in.

And then we helped Emily open her gifts.

And the hostess had an adorable moment of either bashfulness or tiredness at the unveiling of the biggest cupcake of them all.

And we were having such a good time, we just hung around all during the break down of the party and stayed underfoot because we are polite like that.

And Nicholas helped Emily pack up her toys. We didn't find anything on him when we got home, so we think we gave her back everything, although Ben would have snuck out with her new guitar given the chance.

And we played with balloons.

Lots of balloons.

And the sure sign of a good party was a quiet ride home. I don't think the boys even made it a block.