Yes, I Stink at Blogging. Happy Easter

I've had a fantastic week of Spring Break with Steve-o this past week, and by fantastic I mean, I didn't do anything. Most importantly, I haven't worked even one. tiny. bit.
Glorious.

I know I've been a bad blogger. Seems like these days are getting away from me, between 3 busy boys, spring sunshine, and a growing business, I don't have much time for blogging anymore. I'll try to get on here more often for some random bits of goodness though.

Yesterday we're picked strawberries so today I'm home making jam from them while Steve takes the older two boys to an Easter Egg Hunt. I'm not too sure how wise it is to be making jam out of mushy, staining red berries with The Cyclone (#3) at my heels but we'll see how it goes.

Making jam is super easy - I posted a tutorial/recipe on it last year - go check it out and make some today. Super easy, not a lot of "stuff" needed, and just a handful of ingredients. :)

Happy Easter!

MLK JR. Owen-ism

Getting in the car after school on Thursday:

Me: How was school today?
Owen: Good.
Owen: Guess what we learned about?
Me: What?
Owen: Martin Luther King Jr.
Me: Oh yeah? What about him?
Owen: (whispers) He had a DREAM.
Me: He sure did. Do you know what his dream was about?
Owen: (thinking) I forgot. But we don't have school ta-morrow because Martin Luther King had a DREAM.

Happy New Year!

I was thinking about resolutions and new year's and stuff and it got me wondering what you're yearly M.O. is when it comes to New Year's.  So here's some polls for you.  Feel free to expound in the comments if you like. :)

Our Christmas Card....

It went out late, so I didn't want to post it and "spoil" the surprise....but probably everyone has got it by now and/or they're over it anyway.
Here's our Christmas Card from this year:

here's the back....I'm not sure why it's showing up blue on here....obviously, in real life the colors are just like the front. :)

I'm sure my parents were appropriately appalled by the front, but we thought it was funny and an honest portrayal of this time in our lives. 3 boys under age 6??? Smiling nicely for the camera?? Yeah, right.
True. Life.

Just keep'n it real, peeps......keep'n it real. :)

IN Case you Missed them......

Maybe not as amusing as last year's family picture post, but in case you missed it on Facebook or the other blog, and with the assumption that you even care to see them, you can head over to the biz blog and see our family pictures from this year.
I didn't put the one we used on the front of our Christmas card on there though, so you can be surprised by it when you get it in the mail (or see it on the blog on Christmas, whichever comes first).
:)

Because He's Just That Good

I know that girl in the top row, far right was trying to out-sing AJ, but I think we can all agree that he was TOTALLY CARRYING THE WHOLE PERFORMANCE.

Just a forewarning: The last part of "Happy Birthday Jesus" was....enhanced by the teacher suggesting that they "sing loudly for the people"....and by enhanced I mean: IT MIGHT MAKE YOUR EARS BLEED.

First, Pause the music player on the right, and then enjoy a little bit of
The Candy Cane Song and Happy Birthday Jesus:



With a final performance of Jingle Bells:

Merry Christmakkuh!

Turn up your volume, let my blog sit open while you work and play because I've posted a Christmas Music Treat for your listening pleasure. It's eclectic people (hence the name "An Eclectic Christmakkuh") and if you don't absolutely LOVE it - you're off your rocker. There's something for everyone - from Bing Crosby to Josh Groban to Smashing Pumpkins to the Vienna Boys Choir to Celtic Woman to Lennon to Veggie Tales.....Holiday music you'll want to play over and over.

Because let's face it.....When it comes to music?

We all know that I have impeccable taste.

Enjoy.

I've Got Christmas on the Brain Again

And I saw this video this morning and found it inspiring. Sometimes it's hard to turn away from the traditional American ideals of what Christmas should be, but when I see videos like this it encourages me.

Trick or Treat!

I've posted a few additional pics of the boys on the biz blog, if you haven't seen those in the last few days.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Independence Day!

From me and my crew to you and yours!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my dad, and to my wonderful husband (who is an amazing father to our 3 boys), and to all the other dad's out there! Hope your day is special!

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. ~Bill Cosby

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." ~Harmon Killebrew


He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland

A Lovely Mom's Day for Me

Yesterday was a fantabulous mom's day for me - one of the most enjoyable I've had yet. Started off with hubby letting me sleep in until 10 am (a rare treat indeed!) and then he made me an omelet for breakfast.
Got the kids dressed and then we went bowling. Owen and I almost won, but were thwarted in the end by Team AJ-Daddy. Then we ran a few errands, did a little shopping and headed home....where the power had gone out and we had no lights and no air conditioning. So we picked up Casey and headed out again. Steak was on the menu for dinner, but cooking in a hot house didn't sound too fun so we took the kids to McDonald's and decided to save steak for today.
My new cell phone was my Mom's Day gift, but Steve also gave me the practical, tongue-in-cheek gift of a set of knives because I'm always lamenting the fact that we have NO sharp kitchen knives in our house. :) the boys had also painted me some pictures that morning while I was sleeping so they gave me those as well.
We wound up the day when AJ agreed to let me take his 4 yr old big boy pictures so I headed downtown with him & Casey to do his photo shoot, while Steve stayed home with the other two and got them in bed. AJ did great, and was perfectly amiable and very well behaved, as long as I agreed to take him to Target afterwards and buy him a toy for a reward. And hey, I'm not opposed to bribery when it comes to taking pictures.

Thanks to my hubby and my boys for a great mom's day! I love you guys!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

I love you!

And a happy Mother's Day to all the other mom's out there!


"It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it."

Life is the fruit she longs to hand you,
Ripe on a plate.
And while you live,
Relentlessly she understands you.
~Phyllis McGinley

Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. ~Oprah Winfrey

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

The Week In Review

Ok, let's see....Spring Break Started off with a bang on Good Friday, and Steve-0 and I launched into full-fledged spring cleaning the house on Thursday night.
In one 24-hour period we spring cleaned the entire house. It sucked, but it needed to be done. Now I don't have to worry about Tyler catching the Ebola virus from our floors.

Friday afternoon Steve's parents rolled in to town (much to the boys delight) to visit for a few days. I was just glad that the boys were crawling into bed with someone else at 3 am. Steve said it felt good to be able to actually roll over in bed. A night without being smacked in the face with a small fist is rare indeed. If you don't understand, you've never slept alongside small children.

Saturday we went to the coolest Easter Egg Hunt ever, hosted by Clint's Dad and mom. Wish I had thought to take some pictures, but I was unaware of the cool factor seeing as how I was depraved as a child and never participated in an egg hunt. *sob* I know. The HORROR.
Anyway, this was the coolest Easter Egg Hunt ever. Let's just say the boys walked away with a more than fair amount of cash and prizes. Steve and I got $17, a paring knife, a phallic balloon animal, 27 mosquito bites (steve), and minor sunburn.

Easter Sunday after church we all went to the park and had a great afternoon. It was a beautiful warm sunny day with perfect weather, but not-so-perfect kite flying conditions (although grandpa surely tried). The boys played with their new Easter basket toys from grandma and grandpa (frisbees, velcro ball, boomerangs, bubbles, etc). We had a picnic, explored the river, played with new toys, tried to fly a kite, played on the playground, and then went to Two Scoops for gelato. Yum.

Good Deed Tuesday.....I slacked. I thought about it, but with family in town and spring break-itis creeping upon me, I didn't do anything. I know. --->hangs head in shame<-----
Rather, we were on the receiving end, when we were good deed tuesday'd by steve's mom and dad, who filled up our pantry and fridge with food which was awesome. Because well, we think food is a good and necessary substance to survival. Our fridge is bursting at the seams. I think after Steve unloaded groceries I actually heard the refrigerator burp and say thank you.

So, that was the recap of our week.....Here's a few pics of our Easter Sunday picnic.
Hope you all had a great week. :)

Valentine Indifference

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day.

*collective gasp from audience*

I know.
No flowers. No chocolate. No cards. No gifts. No dinner. No nothing.
But it's not because we're scrooges, or on the verge of divorce, or have no romance remaining remaining in our love life (well, maybe that last one is slightly true - come ON, we do have 3 kids under age 5).

It all started back in 2000.....
Actually, it's pretty simple. Ever since before we were married, as sophmores in college, we've both coached sports. And every SINGLE FREAKING year Steve had a basketball game ON Valentine's day. I was indignant, totally bummed, slightly pissed of the first year. "WHAT?! You have a basketball game? It's VALENTINE'S Day!" and then I'd try to get him to cancel it and tell his players and the other team and the other parents that I'm sorry I just can't make it since it's Valentine's Day and my fiance wants me to take her to dinner and buy her a gift.

Well, that didn't happen so much. I was bummed, but then it happened again the next year. This time I was incredulous, but got over it a little quicker. "What?! AGAIN?! Sure, why not?"

And then it happened again the next year.

And the next.

Apparently "the people" who plan basketball schedules don't pay any attention to consumer-driven-artificial-holidays because this had definitely become a pattern. So...it was just never a big deal.
In the 7 years we've been married, Steve has NOT had a basketball game on Valentine's Day 2 of those years. This is the 2nd. But now it's too late. We're over it. It's lovely. A nice sentiment. We love each other. This morning I even said "happy valentine's day" to him while he was in the shower. And we chuckled over it. But we're not doing anything. Not really. Although I DID actually make him a really yummy dinner for tonight....but that's about it. We'll eat dinner as a family, maybe take the boys on a bike ride, put the kids to bed, and chill out together for the night.
Valentine's Day? What's all the fuss about? Are we missing something??

Happy V Day

Link for grandparents and fam to download if you want them: Valentine Cards

Rewind!

Ready? Let's go back a week or two, shall we? We'll head back to Ohio....an inch or two of snow left on the ground and some minor sledding for the boys....
Here's Owen enjoying a push from Steve-o:

Whoops! Sleds and snow are a slippery combination!
Things got hairy for a minute there....no worries. He recovered quite nicely.
Whenever AJ was outside, he was eating snow about 95% of the time. He really really likes snow.
A lot.
I guess it's tasty.
And yes, i told him to avoid the yellow snow.
But when he wasn't eating snow, he was sledding.
On to Michigan then!
Christmas Day.....and fun times with the entire side of my family.
Here's my niece Abby, posing for me.
And showing me her beautiful new jewelry....
And with my sister Shari....(Abby was in a picture-taking mood that day)
And my nephew Kendrick - the smiley-est kid I know. Next to Tyler. :)
Abby's big-girl makeup....
Which she thought would look good on me...
And A.J.....
Even the dogs got presents....
Johnathan got his own camera, as did A.J.....see? runs in the family....
My dad and Kenny.....
My mom with Tyler...
My brother Rob, attempting to stay out of the way of the barrage of children and toys....his preggo wife Amanda trying not to doze off on the couch above him....
Nephew Robby playing with his new MP3 player....
A new train for Owen...
Tyler chilling with his Uncle Joel, who was checking out his new phone....

And then we were off to the hotel/water park.
As mentioned before, Robby was the first brave soul to head down the slide....


But AJ thought it looked cool too.....
So he got Steve-o to go with him. About 35 times. In a row. Steve-o says it is QUITE possible (hypothetically of course) to be very sore the day after water sliding.


A few days later....a Christmas stand-by: Gingerbread houses. The kids all did one together.





Yes, it's rubber-banded together. It was rather gooey and structurally unsound until the frosting dried...
While we waited for the icing to dry, Amanda took a nap...because apparently pregnant women need a lot of extra rest. **rolling eyes** I know...she's such a wimp. I'm so glad I wasn't such a pansy about sleeping, eating, and whining the entire time I was pregnant - aren't you?
My mom stayed inside with Tyler and Owen (who wanted to play video games on the computer), and dad came outside to take pictures and help. Steve and my brother were out on a "man-date" to the movies and a hockey game so it was just me and the kidlets.
The snow wasn't very good packing snow, so a snowman was out of the question. We built a snowfort instead.

Snow-forts are a crucial childhood snow structure. They're necessary to defend yourself from evil siblings and snowball-wielding neighbors. And Yeti's.

Cooper was on the lookout for Yeti's.

Did I mention that Cooper LOVED the snow??



Robby sneakily enlisted my help in making a kick-butt snow fort and promptly threw snowballs at me when my back was turned. Traitor.






This was a highly superior snow fort. AJ called it the snow castle. it had an upper level and a lower level. The lower level was reinforced with ice-snowbricks and also boasted a dug-out cave for extra protection. To the right of the photo was AJ's snow fort. On the back there was an escape slide for a quick exit if things would go wrong...

Unfortunately things DID go wrong. For me.
Too bad there was no escape for the photographer/snow fort engineer. The ratty traitors. They turned on me.



Every last one of them.....


Even the cute "pwincess", whom I valiantly defended against the Yeti's.


punks.



Hmmmm....what else??

Oh yes.....Did i mention that Tyler is sitting now?

The end.