Big Night Out

Happy Spring Break for Joel!! We kicked off his break with a big night out. His school sponsored a "Spring Fling", a semi-formal for students and faculty. Since he had been busy preparing for finals I literally had only seen him for an hour or two every day for two weeks. It was super nice to finally have him all to myself! Plus it is always fun to get all dressed up. It was a wonderful night of great food and company, and lots of dancing (YEAY!). Of course, all the guys kept disappearing at intervals to watch basketball.

My wonderful mom drove up from WV just to watch the 4 kids for our big night out (God bless her!). She barely survived. After working with Josie on a bottle for 2 weeks, we left fairly certain the bottle would not be a problem. However our night ended with a phone call that she had not eaten in 5 hours and I believe my mom was stretched pretty thin. Turns out Josie will only take a bottle from Joel. But thank you mom for handling it all for us!!

The rest of Joel's spring break went by in a whirlwind: a friend stopping by on her drive cross country, a 2000 piece puzzle that ended up with only 1999 pieces, a cold passed around the 6 members of our family, a trip to WV for the boys to go fishing, and then plop...here we are with Joel back in school. Now it is Asher's spring break and I have found it quite hard keeping up with life with all 4 kids at home. So please forgive me for those phone calls and emails not returned. I am doing my best to pull my head out the sand!

Day by Day

Sorry about the lack in blogging! I have nothing really exciting to talk about (guess that is what happens when you leave Hawaii!) but thought I could catch you all up on our daily lives through photos.

Asher continues to swim with his swim team, growing in skill and confidence. It has been a source of real joy for our family. Twice he has even placed second overall in a back stroke race!

My days consist of playing with Josie and Jesse at home while the other 2 are at school. I must admit that Josie does consume most of my attention and Jesse has been a real trooper. He has always been amazing at playing by himself. However he is reaching that hard age-where tantrums reign and he has been the hard one to adjust to at the moment (not the baby)! I have finally been cleared to exercise so my IPOD running list has been used again and that time alone has done wonders to my patience at home with the 4 kids.

Who needs patience to enjoy this?! Josie started smiling around 5 weeks but you had to really work hard to get one...now they come frequently and freely. She is sleeping a 7 - 8 hour stretch just about every night now...do you hear the angels singing?!

Asher got a new haircut. Yes, I know you are looking at this picture and saying "what haircut?", but we really did get a lot cut off in the back. Joel and I are in disagreement...I like this style while he likes the old look. I may win since I am the one that takes him to the barber :).

The kids after a "Daddy day". Why do they never do this after a day with me?!?!?!

Joel enjoying his sweet Josie.

Anna is the best sister! She loves holding Josie and singing to her. She once even got Josie to sleep for me by singing to her for 15 minutes while I was making dinner! She has been super helpful.

and now that I am cleared for exercise, Joel and I are starting P90X next week. The kids are enjoying the pull up bar...not sure Joel and I will be "enjoying it" but that will be for another post another day.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

There are many places a woman with kids in tow dreads going...for me there are 2 places:

1)The post office
2)The grocery store

I was the main grocery shopper pre-Josie. This was not an errand I ever enjoyed as I always had at least 1 kid with me. Racing through the isles as fast as you can is always interrupted with at least 1 trip to the other side of the store for a potty break, 50 "no" you can't have that chocolate cereal or oreo cookies or potato chips or ice cream (wait that means Joel was with me too), break downs at the check out counter because they can't have a treat, smashed produce, knocking boxes off the shelves, the disappearing kid trick, and 1 exhausted mommy. For the past 6 weeks Joel has taken over this errand as I have dreaded taking Josie and Jesse together. However last week I puffed up my chest and decided "This is it. I can handle getting these 5 items with the 2 of them." Joel jokingly tells me if he doesn't hear from me in 2 hours, he is calling 911. I placed Jesse inside the cart, and Josie, asleep in her car seat, placed in the seat portion of the cart. Jesse is rearranging all my items and trying to reach for things on the shelves but I am booking it (before Josie wakes up) trying to move before he can reach anything. I am DONE-woo hoo- Feeling so proud because I have been successful and can't wait to brag to my doubting husband. Still racing around a corner, heading to the check out counter, I hit something and come to a dead stop. I can't see what it is as Josie's car seat covers my frontal vision. I peer around her to see...NO WAY...I hit a guy in a wheel chair, shaking his hand from my cart smashing it! I start apologizing profusely but he quickly moves on waving me off. Maybe he was as embarrassed as me? I felt terrible but then just started laughing hysterically. How do these things happen to me?

So yesterday, I had to go grocery shopping. A BIG trip. I left Jesse with a friend and only took Josie. We were successful...no major accidents. I was still racing trying to keep an eye on what lay ahead. I was only stopped by a nice woman asking me a million questions about Josie. I am sorry to all those grocery store chit chatters our there, but couldn't she see I was in a hurry?! She just prolonged the torture and increased the chance that Josie would wake up before I was done. But it is done and I can enjoy 7 pleasant days until the next grocery store run.